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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

One of the most important ideas developed in recent years has been the one that goes under the name of gauge-gravity correspondence. According to it one can either use the low-energy dynamics of branes to study the properties of the gauge theory living on them or, if one knows the properties of the gauge theory living on a brane, one can deduce its low-energy dynamics. This idea is also at the basis of the Maldacena conjecture that, by using it, has established a complete equivalence between a gauge theory ($`𝒩=4`$ super Yang-Mills ) and a superstring (supergravity) theory (type IIB string theory compactified on $`AdS_5\times S^5`$). In this paper we want to use the gauge-gravity correspondence for studying the properties of less supersymmetric and non-conformal gauge theories. We will not try to establish an exact duality between these gauge theories and some superstring theory as in the case of the Maldacena conjecture, but we will use classical supergravity solutions corresponding to fractional and wrapped branes having supersymmetric non-conformal gauge theories living on them in order to study their perturbative and nonperturbative properties. In particular we will use the expression of the gauge coupling constant and of the $`\theta `$ angle in terms of the supergravity fields in order to compute them when a consistent classical solution is found.

For both wrapped D5 and fractional D3 branes of the orbifold $`C^2/Z_2`$ the gauge coupling constant is given by:

$$\frac{1}{g_{YM}^2}=\tau _5\frac{(2\pi \alpha ^{})^2}{2}d^2\xi e^{(\varphi \varphi _0)}\sqrt{det(G_{AB}+B_{AB})},\tau _5=\frac{1}{g_s\sqrt{\alpha ^{}}(2\pi \alpha ^{})^5}$$
(1.1)
In the case of wrapped branes that we will consider in this paper we have to put $`B=0`$, while for fractional D3 branes, that for the sake of simplicity we take those of the $`Z_2`$ orbifold having only one vanishing two cycle, we get:

$$\frac{1}{g_{YM}^3}=\frac{\tau _5(2\pi \alpha ^{})^2}{2}_{𝒞_2}e^\varphi B_2=\frac{1}{4\pi g_s(2\pi \sqrt{\alpha ^{}})^2}_{𝒞_2}e^\varphi B_2$$
(1.2)
Finally the $`\theta `$ angle both in the case of fractional D3 branes and wrapped D5 branes is given by:

$$\theta _{YM}=\tau _5(2\pi \alpha ^{})^2(2\pi )^2_{𝒞_2}(C_2+C_0B_2)$$
(1.3)
The paper is organized as follows. In the next section we will consider the case of fractional branes, while in section 3 we will use wrapped branes for studying the properties of the gauge theory living on them.

## 2 Fractional branes

In this section we will consider fractional D3 and D7 branes of the orbifolds $`C^2/Z_2`$ and $`C^3/(Z_2\times Z_2)`$ in order to study the properties of respectively $`𝒩=2`$ and $`𝒩=1`$ supersymmetric gauge theories. The orbifold group acts on the directions $`x^4,\mathrm{}x^9`$ transverse to the worldvolume of the D3 brane where the gauge theory lives. In particular in the case of the first orbifold the nontrivial generator $`h`$ of $`Z_2`$ acts as 111We denote $`z_1=x^4+ix^5`$, $`z_2=x^6+ix^7`$ and $`z_3=x^8+ix^9`$ $`z_2,z_3z_2,z_3`$ while in the case of the second orbifold the three nontrivial generators act as follows on the transverse coordinates:

$`h\times 1`$ $`z_1z_1,z_2z_2,`$ $`z_3z_3`$
$`1\times h`$ $`z_1z_1,z_2z_2,`$ $`z_3z_3`$ (2.1)
$`h\times h`$ $`z_1z_1,z_2z_2,`$ $`z_3z_3`$
They are both non compact orbifolds with respectively one and three fixed points at the origin corresponding to the point $`z_2,z_3=0`$ and to the three points $`z_1,z_2=0`$, $`z_1,z_3=0`$ and $`z_2,z_3=0`$. Each fixed point corresponds to a vanishing $`2`$-cycle. Fractional Dp branes are D(p+2) branes wrapped on the vanishing two-cycle and therefore are, unlike bulk branes, stuck at the orbifold fixed point. By considering $`N`$ fractional D3 and $`M`$ ($`2M`$) fractional D7 branes of the two previous orbifolds we are able to study $`𝒩=2`$ ($`𝒩=1`$) super QCD with $`M`$ hypermultiplets. In order to do that we need to determine the classical solution corresponding to the previous brane configuration. For the case of the orbifold $`C^2/Z_2`$ the complete classical solution has been found in Ref.  222See also Refs.  and Ref.  for a review on fractional branes.. In the following we write it explicitly for a system of $`N`$ D3 fractional branes with worldvolume along the directions $`x^0,x^1,x^2,`$ and $`x^3`$ and $`M`$ D7 fractional branes containing the D3 branes and having the remaining four worldvolume directions along the orbifolded ones. The metric, the $`5`$-form field strenght, the axion and the dilaton are given by 333We denote with $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ the four directions corresponding to the worldvolume of the fractional D3 brane, with $`\mathrm{}`$ and $`m`$ those along the four orbifolded directions $`x^6,x^7,x^8`$ and $`x^9`$ and with $`i`$ and $`j`$ the directions $`x^4`$ and $`x^5`$ that are transverse to both the D3 and the D7 branes.:

$`ds^2`$ $`=`$ $`H^{1/2}\eta _{\alpha \beta }dx^\alpha dx^\beta +H^{1/2}\left(\delta _\mathrm{}mdx^{\mathrm{}}dx^m+\mathrm{e}^\varphi \delta _{ij}dx^idx^j\right),`$ (2.2)
$`\stackrel{~}{F}_{(5)}`$ $`=`$ $`d\left(H^1dx^0\mathrm{}dx^3\right)+{}_{}{}^{}d\left(H^1dx^0\mathrm{}dx^3\right),`$ (2.3)
$$\tau C_0+i\mathrm{e}^\varphi =\mathrm{i}\left(1\frac{Ng_s}{2\pi }\mathrm{log}\frac{z}{ϵ}\right),zx^4+ix^5=\rho \mathrm{e}^{i\theta }$$
(2.4)
where the warp factor $`H`$ is a function of all coordinates that are transverse to the D3 brane ($`x^4,\mathrm{}x^9`$). The twisted fields are instead given by $`B_2=\omega _2b`$, $`C_2=\omega _2c`$ where $`\omega _2`$ is the volume form corresponding to the vanishing $`2`$-cycle and

$$b\mathrm{e}^\varphi =\frac{(2\pi \sqrt{\alpha ^{}})^2}{2}\left[1+\frac{2NM}{\pi }g_s\mathrm{log}\frac{\rho }{ϵ}\right],c+C_0b=2\pi \alpha ^{}\theta g_s(2NM)$$
(2.5)
It can be seen that the previous solution has a naked singularity of the repulson type at short distances. But, on the other hand, if we probe it with a brane probe approaching the stack of branes corresponding to the classical solution from infinity, it can also be seen that the tension of the probe vanishes at a certain distance from the stack of branes that is larger than that of the naked singularity. The point where the probe brane becomes tensionless is called in the literature enhançon  and at this point the classical solution cannot be used anymore to describe the stack of fractional branes.

Inserting in eq.s (1.2) and (1.3) the classical solution we get the gauge coupling constant and the $`\theta `$ angle  :

$$\frac{1}{g_{YM}^2}=\frac{1}{8\pi g_s}+\frac{2NM}{8\pi ^2}\mathrm{log}\frac{\rho }{ϵ},\theta _{YM}=\theta (2NM)$$
(2.6)
Actually in the case of an $`𝒩=2`$ supersymmetric theory one gets in the gauge multiplet also a complex scalar field $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$. This means that, when we derive the Yang-Mills action from the Born-Infeld action we also get a contribution from the kinetic terms of the brane coordinates $`x^4`$ and $`x^5`$ that are transverse to the brane and transverse to the orbifolded ones. This implies that the complex scalar field of the gauge supermultiplet is related to the coordinate $`z`$ of supergravity through the following gauge-gravity relation $`\mathrm{\Psi }\frac{z}{2\pi \alpha ^{}}`$. This is a relation between a quantity of the gauge theory living on the fractional D3 branes and the coordinate $`z`$ of supergravity. This identification allows one to obtain the gauge theory anomalies from the supergravity background. In fact, since we know how the anomalous scale and $`U(1)`$ transformations act on $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$, from the previous gauge-gravity relation we can deduce how they act on $`z`$, namely

$$\mathrm{\Psi }s\mathrm{e}^{2i\alpha }\mathrm{\Psi }zs\mathrm{e}^{2i\alpha }z\rho s\rho ,\theta \theta +2\alpha $$
(2.7)
Those transformations do not leave unchanged the supergravity background in eq.s (2.5) and, as a consequence, they generate the anomalies of the gauge theory living on the fractional D3 branes. Acting with those transformations on eq.s (2.6) we get:

$$\frac{1}{g_{YM}^2}\frac{1}{g_{YM}^2}+\frac{2NM}{8\pi ^2}\mathrm{log}s,\theta _{YM}\theta _{YM}2\alpha (2NM)$$
(2.8)
The first equation implies that the $`\beta `$-function of $`𝒩=2`$ super QCD with $`M`$ hypermultiplets is given by:

$$\beta (g_{YM})=\frac{2NM}{16\pi ^2}g_{YM}^3$$
(2.9)
while the second one reproduces the chiral $`U(1)`$ anomaly . In particular, if we choose $`\alpha =\frac{2\pi }{2(2NM)}`$, then $`\theta _{YM}`$ is shifted by a multiple of $`2\pi `$. Since $`\theta _{YM}`$ is periodic of $`2\pi `$, this means that the subgroup $`Z_{2(2NM)}`$ is not anomalous in perfect agreement with gauge theory results.

Using eq.s (2.6) it is easy to compute the combination:

$$\tau _{YM}\frac{\theta _{YM}}{2\pi }+i\frac{4\pi }{g_{YM}^2}=i\frac{2NM}{2\pi }\mathrm{log}\frac{z}{\rho _e},\rho _e=ϵ\mathrm{e}^{\pi /(2NM)g_s}$$
(2.10)
where $`\rho _ϵ`$ is called in the literature the enhançon radius and corresponds in the gauge theory to the dimensional scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ generated by dimensional transmutation. Eq. (2.10) reproduces the perturbative moduli space of $`𝒩=2`$ super QCD, but not the instanton corrections. This corresponds to the fact that the classical solution is reliable for large distances in supergravity corresponding to short distances in the gauge theory, while it cannot be used below the enhançon radius where nonperturbative physics is expected to show up. This means that in order to study nonperturbative effects in the gauge theory we need to find a classical solution free from enhançons and naked singularities. This will be done in the next section. Before doing that let us first extend the previous results to $`𝒩=1`$ super QCD that can be obtained as a particular case of the general one studied in Ref. . In this case only the asymptotic behaviour for large distances of the classical solution has been explicitly obtained and this is sufficient for computing the gauge coupling constant and the $`\theta `$ angle of $`𝒩=1`$ super QCD. As explained in Ref. , together with $`N`$ fractional D3 branes of the same type, one must also consider two kinds of $`M`$ fractional D7 branes in order to avoid gauge anomalies and one gets the following expressions for the gauge coupling constant and the $`\theta `$ angle ( $`z_i=\rho _i\mathrm{e}^{i\theta _i}`$:

$$\frac{1}{g_{YM}^2}=\frac{1}{16\pi g_s}+\frac{1}{8\pi ^2}\left(N\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}\mathrm{log}\frac{\rho _i}{ϵ}M\mathrm{log}\frac{\rho _1}{ϵ}\right),\theta _{YM}=N\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}\theta _i+M\theta _1$$
(2.11)
As explained in Ref.  the anomalous scale and $`U(1)`$ transformations act on $`z_i`$ as $`z_is\mathrm{e}^{i2\alpha /3}z_i`$. This implies that the gauge parameters are transformed as follows:

$$\frac{1}{g_{YM}^2}\frac{1}{g_{YM}^2}+\frac{3NM}{8\pi ^2}\mathrm{log}s,\theta _{YM}\theta _{YM}2\alpha (N\frac{M}{3})$$
(2.12)
that reproduce the anomalies of $`𝒩=1`$ super QCD. The differences between the anomalies in the $`𝒩=2`$ (eq.(2.8)) and $`𝒩=1`$ (eq.(2.12)) super QCD can be easily understood in terms of the different structure of the two orbifold considered. If we consider the two gauge coupling constants there is a factor $`\frac{3}{2}`$ between the contributions coming from the pure gauge part, while the contribution of the matter is the same. The factor $`3`$ is a consequence of the fact that the orbifold $`C^3/(Z_2\times Z_2)`$ has three sectors, while the factor $`\frac{1}{2}`$ follows from an additional factor $`\frac{1}{2}`$ in the orbifold projection for the orbifold $`C^3/(z_2\times Z_2)`$ with respect to the orbifold $`C^2/Z_2`$. This explains the factor $`\frac{3}{2}`$ in the gauge field contribution to the $`\beta `$-function. The matter part is the same because in the orbifold $`C^2/Z_2`$ we have only one kind of fractional branes, while in the other orbifold, in order to cancel the gauge anomaly , we need two kinds of fractional branes. This factor $`2`$ cancels the factor $`\frac{1}{2}`$ coming from the orbifold projection. Similar considerations can also be used to relate the two chiral anomalies.

In conclusion, by using the fractional branes we have reproduced the one-loop perturbative behaviour of both $`𝒩=1`$ and $`𝒩=2`$ super QCD, but, because of the enhançon and naked singularities we are not able to enter the nonperturbative region in the gauge theory corresponding to short distances in supergravity. In order to do this we must find a classical solution free of singularities. That is why in the next section we turn to wrapped branes.

## 3 Running coupling constant from wrapped branes

In this section we turn to the case of wrapped branes and in particular we will focus on a D5 brane wrapped on $`S^2`$ whose corresponding solution, found in Ref.  in four dimensions, was riinterpreted as a ten dimensional one corresponding to a wrapped D5 brane and used in Ref.  for describing $`𝒩=1`$ super Yang-Mills. A more detailed and pedagogical derivation of the classical solution is presented in Ref.  where the classical solution was used for determining the running coupling constant of $`𝒩=1`$ super Yang-Mills as a function of the renormalization group scale $`\mu `$. In particular, inserting the classical solution in eq.(1.1), one can determine how the gauge coupling constant depends on the distance from the branes. One gets:

$$\frac{4\pi ^2}{Ng_{YM}^2}=F(\rho )$$
(3.1)
But in order to determine the behaviour of the gauge coupling constant as a function of the renormalization scale $`\mu `$ one must also give a relation between $`\rho `$ and $`\mu `$. This was obtained in Ref.  by connecting a certain function of $`\rho `$, called in Ref.  $`a(\rho )`$, to the gaugino condensate following the suggestion of Ref. . The result was:

$$a(\rho )=\frac{2\rho }{\mathrm{sinh}2\rho }=\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }^3}{\mu ^3}.$$
(3.2)
The running coupling constant is determined once we fix the function $`F(\rho )`$ that depends on the two-cycle on which we wrap the $`5`$ brane. On the other hand it is important to stress that the gauge coupling constant depends on the renormalization scheme chosen and therefore two different choices of the two-cycle can be interpreted to correspond to two different renormalization schemes. In Ref.  the brane was wrapped on the $`S^2`$ spanned by the coordinates $`\stackrel{~}{\theta }`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\phi }`$ having chosen the other coordinates $`\psi ,\theta ^{}`$ and $`\varphi `$ at constant values 444We use the notation of Ref. .. This choice gave the following result:

$$F(\rho )=\frac{1}{4}E\left(\sqrt{\frac{Y(\rho )1}{Y(\rho )}}\right),Y(\rho )=4\rho \mathrm{coth}2\rho 1$$
(3.3)
where $`E`$ is the elliptic integral and $`F`$ behaves as $`\rho `$ for large values of $`\rho `$. In Ref. , by considering only the leading asymptotic behaviour of eq. (3.3) and by combining it with eq.(3.2), it was derived that the $`\beta `$-function of $`𝒩=1`$ super Yang-Mills was exactly the NSVZ $`\beta `$-function  plus non perturbative corrections due to fractional instantons 555An extension to the noncommutative case was done in Ref. .. This result was questioned in Ref.  where it was shown that, if one also includes the first non leading logarithmic correction, one gets an extra contribution to the $`\beta `$-function that modifies the one derived in Ref.  already at two-loop level. Then, in order to recover the correct two-loop behaviour, it was suggested in Ref.  to add in eq.(3.2) an extra function $`f(g_{YM})`$ of the coupling constant that can be fixed by requiring agreement with the correct two-loop result. Of course it turns out that $`f(g_{YM})`$ must be singular at $`g_{YM}0`$ as the transformation that is needed in going from the holomorphic to the wilsonian $`\beta `$-function . But, if we are prepared to recover the correct two-loop behaviour by simply changing the renormalization scheme, in order to obtain the NSVZ $`\beta `$-function one could change immediately the scheme of renormalization by trading the elliptic integral with just its asymptotic behaviour: $`\frac{1}{4}E(\rho )\rho `$ as was done in practice in Ref. . This way of thinking eliminates a problem that seems to appear if we perform a gauge transformation on the non-abelian gauge field of gauged supergravity. In fact, if one performs a gauge transformation in such a way that the gauge field is vanishing in the deep infrared ($`\rho =0`$), one gets a function $`F(\rho )`$ that is different from the one in eq.(3.1). One gets

$$F(\rho )=\mathrm{e}^{2h}+\frac{1}{4}(a1)^2=\rho \mathrm{tanh}\rho $$
(3.4)
that, when put in eq.(3.1), gives a Landau-pole singularity at $`\mu =\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ unlike the function in eq.(3.3) that gave a smooth behaviour at $`\rho =0`$. This is, however, not a problem if one also interprets the gauge transformation in supergravity as a change of renormalization scheme in the gauge theory.

A natural and elegant way to get directly the SNVZ $`\beta `$-function without having to change the renormalization scheme as was implicitly done in Ref. , is presented in Ref.  and is based on the proposal of choosing the same cycle used in Ref.  if one uses the solution after having performed the previous discussed gauge transformation or equivalently use the original solution and integrate on any of the two following cycles: $`\stackrel{~}{\theta }=\theta ,\stackrel{~}{\phi }=\varphi ,\psi =0`$ or $`\stackrel{~}{\theta }=\theta ,\stackrel{~}{\phi }=\varphi ,\psi =\pi `$. In both cases one gets precisely the expression in eq.(3.4. This means that the definition of the two-cycle depends on which gauge we use for the gauge field of gauged supergravity and if one takes into account these changes one gets always the same result for the gauge coupling constant of the gauge theory living on the wrapped $`5`$ brane.

In conclusion if one follows the proposal of Ref.  the two equations that determine the running gauge coupling constant of $`𝒩=1`$ super Yang-Mills as a function of the renormalization scale $`\mu `$ are the following:

$$\frac{4\pi ^2}{Ng_{YM}^2}=\rho \mathrm{tanh}\rho ;\frac{2\rho }{\mathrm{sinh}2\rho }=\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }^3}{\mu ^3}$$
(3.5)
It is easy to check that they imply the NSVZ $`\beta `$-function plus corrections due to fractional instantons. In fact from the previous two equations after some simple calculation one gets:

$$\frac{g_{YM}}{\mathrm{log}\frac{\mu }{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}\beta (g_{YM})=\frac{3Ng_{YM}^3}{16\pi ^2}\frac{1+\frac{2\rho }{\mathrm{sinh}2\rho }}{\mathrm{coth}^2\rho \frac{Ng_{YM}^2}{8\pi ^2}\frac{1}{2\mathrm{sinh}^2\rho }}$$
(3.6)
This equation is exact and should be used together with the first equation in (3.5) in order to get the $`\beta `$-function as a function of $`g_{YM}`$. It does not seem possible, however, to trade $`\rho `$ with $`g_{YM}`$ in an analytic way. It can be done in the ultraviolet where, from the first equation in (3.5), it can be seen that $`\rho `$ can be approximated with $`\rho =\frac{4\pi ^2}{Ng_{YM}^2}\mathrm{coth}\frac{4\pi ^2}{Ng_{YM}^2}`$ obtaining the following $`\beta `$-function:

$$\beta (g_{YM})=\frac{3Ng_{YM}^3}{16\pi ^2}\frac{1+\frac{4\pi ^2}{Ng_{YM}^2}\mathrm{sinh}^2\frac{4\pi ^2}{Ng_{YM}^2}}{\mathrm{coth}^2\frac{4\pi ^2}{Ng_{YM}^2}\frac{Ng_{YM}^2}{8\pi ^2}\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{sinh}^2\frac{4\pi ^2}{Ng_{YM}^2}}$$
(3.7)
that is equal to the NSVZ $`\beta `$-function plus nonperturbative corrections due to fractional instantons.

Acknowledgement We would like to thank M. Bertolini, E. Imeroni, P. Merlatti, R. Marotta, P. Olesen, F. Pezzella and F. Sannino for useful discussions and specially A. Lerda for many exchanges of views on the subject of this talk.


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# Transverse frames for Petrov type I spacetimes: a general algebraic procedure

## 1 Introduction

The most promising sources of gravitational waves, for example the merging of two black holes, are currently studied primarily using numerical methods. Using the standard tools of classical relativity to characterize the space-time in an invariant manner we can complement this numerical work, contributing to the physical interpretation of the output. There are many tools developed for analyzing exact solutions which can be applied in the context of numerical relativity. Here we will work within the Newman-Penrose formalism, on the problem of characterizing a Petrov type I spacetime. Indeed one expects that realistic gravitational wave sources will be described by a radiating spacetime of type I.

In the Newman-Penrose formalism the ten independent components of the Weyl tensor are expressed as five complex scalars which are the projection of the Weyl tensor on the null tetrad $`\{𝐥,𝐧,𝐦,\overline{𝐦}\}`$. In vacuum, all the physical information on the curvature is contained in these scalars. Rotations of the tetrad, conveniently divided into three classes, bring about transformations of these five Weyl scalars (see for example ,) that can be used to produce simplifications.

The Petrov classification of the Weyl tensor depends on the number of repeated roots of the equation $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0^{(New)}=0`$, where $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0^{(New)}`$ is obtained by a class II rotation and is expressed in terms of the initial scalars and the rotation parameter ,. When some of the roots coincide the spacetime is said to be of special type. A pure plane gravitational wave is Petrov type N (four coincident roots) and in this case the tetrad can be chosen to have $`\mathrm{\Psi }_4`$ (or $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0`$) as the only non-zero Weyl scalar. The scalar $`\mathrm{\Psi }_2`$ represents a Coulomb-type tidal field. In a type D spacetime (two distinct repeated roots) such as Schwarzschild or Kerr a tetrad can be found such that $`\mathrm{\Psi }_2`$ is the only non-zero scalar. For Petrov type II spacetimes (three distinct roots, one of which is repeated) a frame can be found where $`\mathrm{\Psi }_4`$ (or $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0`$) and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_2`$ are the only non-zero scalars. In  a series of explicit algorithms for putting the Weyl scalars into these standard forms, allowing for all the possible initial non-zero components that one can have for each special Petrov type, is presented.

The most general spacetime is Petrov type I, in which $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0^{(New)}=0`$ has four distinct roots, and here the physical meaning of the Weyl scalars can be highlighted if one chooses the tetrad so that the scalars appear in one of the standard forms :

$$\{0,\mathrm{\Psi }_1,\mathrm{\Psi }_2,\mathrm{\Psi }_3,0\}$$
(1)
$$\{\mathrm{\Psi }_0,0,\mathrm{\Psi }_2,0,\mathrm{\Psi }_4\}.$$
(2)
The first case is the easier to achieve, at least in principle, but the second case is physically more interesting in the light of the physical interpretation of the Weyl scalars  outlined above. Since $`\mathrm{\Psi }_1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_3`$ represent longitudinal “gauge fields” they can conveniently be put to zero, with $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_4`$ representing transverse degrees of freedom, and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_2`$ a Coulomb-type field. In the following, we call a tetrad in which the scalars take the form (2) a transverse frame, and we shall denote the Weyl scalars in this tetrad as $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0^{}`$, $`\mathrm{\Psi }_2^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_4^{}`$ .

If the spacetime is radiative the dominant Petrov type in the wave zone will be N (Peeling-Off Theorem ), and one expects $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_4^{}`$ to represent gravitational waves. If evaluated at a finite distance from the source, $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_4^{}`$ will still be transverse, but in general will include other effects. In relation to this, it is worth pointing out that a Petrov type I spacetime does not necessarily incorporate gravitational waves (for example there are stationary metrics of type I), nor does the presence of gravitational waves necessarily imply a non vanishing $`\mathrm{\Psi }_4`$ or $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0`$, as it is clear from the existence of form (1) for any type I spacetime that may include radiation.

Because of the physical interest of transverse frames we develop here an algebraic procedure for arriving at a transverse tetrad for a generic Petrov type I spacetime. We give expressions for the final rotated scalars in terms of the initial scalars, which are all assumed to be non vanishing. This is likely to happen if a completely arbitrary choice of the initial tetrad frame is made. The cases in which some of the initial scalars are zero in Petrov type I are dealt with in .

Section 2 is the main body of the letter, containing the details of the procedure. Section 3 consists of conclusions and discussion. The final expressions for the scalars that we obtain after performing the transformations are shown in the Appendix.

## 2 The Procedure

The problem for a given type I spacetime is how to arrive at a transverse frame $`\{\mathrm{\Psi }_0,0,\mathrm{\Psi }_2,0,\mathrm{\Psi }_4\}`$ from the general case of all scalars non-zero. To do this we will use class I and class II transformations, which are  :

| $`\mathrm{𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐬}𝐈`$ |  | $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0\mathrm{\Psi }_0`$ |
| --- | --- | --- |
|  |  | $`\mathrm{\Psi }_1\mathrm{\Psi }_1+a^{}\mathrm{\Psi }_0`$ |
|  |  | $`\mathrm{\Psi }_2\mathrm{\Psi }_2+2a^{}\mathrm{\Psi }_1+(a^{})^2\mathrm{\Psi }_0`$ |
|  |  | $`\mathrm{\Psi }_3\mathrm{\Psi }_3+3a^{}\mathrm{\Psi }_2+3(a^{})^2\mathrm{\Psi }_1+(a^{})^3\mathrm{\Psi }_0`$ |
|  |  | $`\mathrm{\Psi }_4\mathrm{\Psi }_4+4a^{}\mathrm{\Psi }_3+6(a^{})^2\mathrm{\Psi }_2+4(a^{})^3\mathrm{\Psi }_1+(a^{})^4\mathrm{\Psi }_0`$ |

| $`\mathrm{𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐬}\mathrm{𝐈𝐈}`$ |  | $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0\mathrm{\Psi }_0+4b\mathrm{\Psi }_1+6b^2\mathrm{\Psi }_2+4b^3\mathrm{\Psi }_3+b^4\mathrm{\Psi }_4`$ |
| --- | --- | --- |
|  |  | $`\mathrm{\Psi }_1\mathrm{\Psi }_1+3b\mathrm{\Psi }_2+3b^2\mathrm{\Psi }_3+b^3\mathrm{\Psi }_4`$ |
|  |  | $`\mathrm{\Psi }_2\mathrm{\Psi }_2+2b\mathrm{\Psi }_3+b^2\mathrm{\Psi }_4`$ |
|  |  | $`\mathrm{\Psi }_3\mathrm{\Psi }_3+b\mathrm{\Psi }_4`$ |
|  |  | $`\mathrm{\Psi }_4\mathrm{\Psi }_4`$ |

where $`a`$ and $`b`$ are complex parameters.

Starting from the general situation in which all the five scalars are different from zero, it is not easy to obtain a transverse frame by directly carrying out the two types of rotations. To do this we would need to solve the resulting system of equations for $`a`$ and $`b`$ :

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_1+b\mathrm{\Psi }_0+3a(\mathrm{\Psi }_2+2b\mathrm{\Psi }_1+b^2\mathrm{\Psi }_0)`$ (3)
$`+3a^2(\mathrm{\Psi }_3+3b\mathrm{\Psi }_2+3b^2\mathrm{\Psi }_1+b^3\mathrm{\Psi }_0)`$
$`+a^3(\mathrm{\Psi }_4+4b\mathrm{\Psi }_3+6b^2\mathrm{\Psi }_2+4b^3\mathrm{\Psi }_1+b^4\mathrm{\Psi }_0)=0`$
$`\mathrm{\Psi }_{3}^{}{}_{}{}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_3+3b\mathrm{\Psi }_2+3b^2\mathrm{\Psi }_1+b^3\mathrm{\Psi }_0`$ (4)
$`+a(\mathrm{\Psi }_4+4b\mathrm{\Psi }_3+6b^2\mathrm{\Psi }_2+4b^3\mathrm{\Psi }_1+b^4\mathrm{\Psi }_0)=0`$
Here a class I transformation with parameter $`b`$ has been followed by a class II transformation with parameter $`a`$. The difficulty is that the degree of the above equations is too high for the problem to be solved by a direct approach. In order to get around this, we perform preliminary rotations on the original scalars to put $`\mathrm{\Psi }_4=0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0=0`$, arriving at the standard form (1). This simplifies the system considerably because $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0`$ is the coefficient of $`b^4`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_4`$ is the coefficient of $`a^4`$ in the transformation equation for the $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$’s. So these preliminary rotations ensure that the final equations to be solved are only third order.

In total we perform four rotations:

$`\mathrm{\Psi }\stackrel{ClassI}{\text{ }}\mathrm{\Psi }^{}\stackrel{ClassII}{\text{ }}\mathrm{\Psi }^{\prime \prime }\stackrel{ClassI}{\text{ }}\stackrel{ClassII}{\text{ }}\mathrm{\Psi }^{}`$

where we require:

$`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ $`=\{\mathrm{\Psi }_0,\mathrm{\Psi }_1,\mathrm{\Psi }_2,\mathrm{\Psi }_3,\mathrm{\Psi }_4\},`$
$`\mathrm{\Psi }^{}`$ $`=\{\mathrm{\Psi }_0^{},\mathrm{\Psi }_1^{},\mathrm{\Psi }_2^{},\mathrm{\Psi }_3^{},0\},`$
$`\mathrm{\Psi }^{\prime \prime }`$ $`=\{0,\mathrm{\Psi }_1^{\prime \prime },\mathrm{\Psi }_2^{\prime \prime },\mathrm{\Psi }_3^{\prime \prime },0\},`$
$`\mathrm{\Psi }^{}`$ $`=\{\mathrm{\Psi }_0^{},0,\mathrm{\Psi }_2^{},0,\mathrm{\Psi }_4^{}\}.`$
In order to get $`\mathrm{\Psi }_4^{}=0`$, we apply a class I rotation, with parameter $`b`$, to the original scalars. The expression for $`\mathrm{\Psi }_4^{}`$ is a fourth order polynomial involving all the original scalars. This can be solved by Maple. Substituting one of the solutions for $`b`$ into the rotation equations, we obtain expressions for the rotated scalars in terms of the original ones. These turn out to be extremely long and must be manipulated before they can be used in the further calculations.

The next step is to set $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0^{\prime \prime }`$ equal to zero. We apply a class II rotation to the scalars $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{}`$ (under which $`\mathrm{\Psi }_4^{\prime \prime }=\mathrm{\Psi }_4^{}`$ remains zero) and require $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0^{\prime \prime }=0`$. This means solving a third order polynomial equation in $`a`$. Choosing one of the solutions for $`a`$, we get the resulting non-zero scalars ($`\mathrm{\Psi }_1^{\prime \prime },\mathrm{\Psi }_2^{\prime \prime },\mathrm{\Psi }_3^{\prime \prime }`$) in terms of the old ones.

Finally we rotate twice more, first class I (with parameter $`g`$) and then class II (with parameter $`f`$). Since in our starting frame $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0^{\prime \prime }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_4^{\prime \prime }`$ are zero, the resulting equations for the new $`\mathrm{\Psi }_1^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_3^{}`$ are as follows:

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_1^{\prime \prime }+3f(\mathrm{\Psi }_2^{\prime \prime }+2g\mathrm{\Psi }_1^{\prime \prime })+3f^2(\mathrm{\Psi }_3^{\prime \prime }+3g\mathrm{\Psi }_2^{\prime \prime }+3g^2\mathrm{\Psi }_1^{\prime \prime })`$ (6)
$`+f^3(4g\mathrm{\Psi }_3^{\prime \prime }+6g^2\mathrm{\Psi }_2^{\prime \prime }+4g^3\mathrm{\Psi }_1^{\prime \prime })=0`$
$`\mathrm{\Psi }_{3}^{}{}_{}{}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_3^{\prime \prime }+3g\mathrm{\Psi }_2^{\prime \prime }+3g^2\mathrm{\Psi }_1^{\prime \prime }+f(4g\mathrm{\Psi }_3^{\prime \prime }+6g^2\mathrm{\Psi }_1^{\prime \prime }+4g^3\mathrm{\Psi }_1^{\prime \prime })=0`$ (7)
In this frame, the equations are only third order in both parameters and the system is straightforward to solve. The solution is formally simple. For example the possible solutions include  :

$`g=\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Psi }_3^{\prime \prime }}{\mathrm{\Psi }_1^{\prime \prime }}}},f=1/g`$ (8)
However, the full expressions of the above quantities, in terms of the original scalars $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$, are too long even to be displayed. To make them more manageable, we implement the Maple command optimize. This telescopes the expressions by assigning to each sub-expression a name: $`t_1,t_2,\mathrm{}`$, etc and builds up a chain of definitions relating these new objects. This greatly simplifies the implementation of these expressions in computer language.

The final expressions for the scalars and all the definitions required for their compact expression are reported in the Appendix. Here, for the sake of brevity, we report only the last line for each scalar:

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_0^{}`$ $`=`$ $`2t_{140}/t_{143}+3/2t_{132}t_{140}(\mathrm{\Psi }_2+t_{91}+t_{92}+t_{149}+2t_{143}t_{140})`$
$`1/2(12t_{79}+12t_{82}+4t_{86}+3t_{143}t_{160})/t_{155}`$
$`+1/16t_{167}(4t_{143}t_{87}+6t_{142}t_{160}+4t_{155}t_{140})/t_{97}`$
$`\mathrm{\Psi }_2^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_2+t_{80}+t_{82}+t_{136}+2t_{145}t_{142}`$
$`(12t_{87}+12t_{89}+4t_{93}+3t_{145}t_{152})/t_{145}`$
$`+1/4t_{132}t_{142}(4t_{145}t_{94}+6t_{144}t_{152}+4t_{145}t_{144}t_{142})`$
$`\mathrm{\Psi }_4^{}`$ $`=`$ $`4t_{143}t_{87}+6t_{142}(\mathrm{\Psi }_2+t_{91}+t_{92}+2t_{134}t_{87})+4t_{143}t_{142}t_{140}`$
where the t’s are temporary objects created by Maple, built from the original scalars.

## 3 Conclusions

The transverse frame that we arrive at after our four rotations is not unique, as there is a two-fold infinity of tetrads satisfying $`\mathrm{\Psi }_1`$=$`\mathrm{\Psi }_3`$=0. This arbitrariness corresponds to the extra freedom that one has of performing a further rotation of class III, depending on two real parameters, in order to completely fix the tetrad .

The expressions for $`\mathrm{\Psi }_2`$, $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_4`$ we obtain are quite complicated (see the Appendix). Partly they depend on the specific root of the polynomial one chooses at each step of the procedure (2). We have not investigated here wheater one particular path in this general scheme may bring about more manageable expressions for the scalars. In any practical case one will have to substitute the expression for the initial Weyl scalars in terms of the given metric and its derivative and these will be the expressions that one will want to simplify.

Nevertheless our results are completely general and can be used to put any Petrov type I spacetime into the transverse frame in the case when the initial scalars are all non vanishing. This is useful whenever one wants to investigate the physical properties of a Petrov Type I spacetime using curvature variables. A good example is the full non-linear numerical treatment of a perturbed black hole. In this case the transverse frame is the best way to highlight the perturbations affecting the curvature field, which in the unperturbed case is represented by $`\mathrm{\Psi }_2`$ only.

More generally, it is of interest and potential value that our optimized expressions can in principle be applied to any numerically computed spacetime in which one produces numerical values for the initial scalars.

## Acknowledgments

We thank Denis Pollney for useful suggestions, and Ray D’Inverno and Philippos Papadopoulos for discussions during the initial stages of this work. VR thanks the ICG in Portsmouth for support during her visit. FW is supported by a DTA grant from EPSRC. MB is partly supported by the EU programme ‘Improving the Human Research Potential and the Socio–Economic Knowledge Base’ (Research Training Network Contract HPRN–CT–2000–00137).

## 4 Appendix

Final expression for the rotated scalar $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{}`$:

$`t1`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{(}6),`$
$`t2`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_1^2,`$
$`t3`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_4\mathrm{\Psi }_2,`$
$`t8`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_2^2,`$
$`t9`$ $`=`$ $`t8\mathrm{\Psi }_2,`$
$`t11`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{(}3),`$
$`t12`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_4^2,`$
$`t13`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0^2,`$
$`t16`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_4t13,`$
$`t19`$ $`=`$ $`t8^2,`$
$`t25`$ $`=`$ $`t2^2,`$
$`t32`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{(}\mathrm{\Psi }_4(t12t13\mathrm{\Psi }_0+18t16t881\mathrm{\Psi }_0t1954t3\mathrm{\Psi }_0t2+`$
$`+`$ $`27\mathrm{\Psi }_4t25+54t2t9)),`$
$`t36`$ $`=`$ $`(27t3\mathrm{\Psi }_0+27\mathrm{\Psi }_4t2+27t9+3t11t32)^{1/3},`$
$`t37`$ $`=`$ $`t2t36,`$
$`t39`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_2\mathrm{\Psi }_0,`$
$`t40`$ $`=`$ $`t39t36,`$
$`t42`$ $`=`$ $`t36^2,`$
$`t48`$ $`=`$ $`1/t36,`$
$`t50`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{(}(6t376t40+t42\mathrm{\Psi }_0+3t16+9\mathrm{\Psi }_0t8)t48),`$
$`t77`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{(}(72t37t5072t39t36t506t50t42\mathrm{\Psi }_0`$
$`+`$ $`18t50\mathrm{\Psi }_4t1354t50\mathrm{\Psi }_0t872t2\mathrm{\Psi }_1t1t36+`$
$`+`$ $`108\mathrm{\Psi }_1t1t40)t48/t50),`$
$`t78`$ $`=`$ $`t1t50+t77,`$
$`t79`$ $`=`$ $`1/6t78\mathrm{\Psi }_2,`$
$`t81`$ $`=`$ $`1/36t78^2,`$
$`t82`$ $`=`$ $`t81\mathrm{\Psi }_1,`$
$`t86`$ $`=`$ $`1/6t81t78\mathrm{\Psi }_0,`$
$`t87`$ $`=`$ $`3t79+3t82+t86,`$
$`t88`$ $`=`$ $`1/6t78\mathrm{\Psi }_0,`$
$`t89`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_1+t88,`$
$`t90`$ $`=`$ $`1/6t78\mathrm{\Psi }_1,`$
$`t91`$ $`=`$ $`2t90,`$
$`t92`$ $`=`$ $`t81\mathrm{\Psi }_0,`$
$`t93`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_2+t91+t92,`$
$`t94`$ $`=`$ $`t89t93,`$
$`t97`$ $`=`$ $`t87^2,`$
$`t100`$ $`=`$ $`t93^2,`$
$`t101`$ $`=`$ $`t100t93,`$
$`t103`$ $`=`$ $`t89^2,`$
$`t117`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{(}64t103t89t8736t103t100108t94t87\mathrm{\Psi }_0+`$
$`+`$ $`27t13t97+54\mathrm{\Psi }_0t101),`$
$`t122`$ $`=`$ $`(54t94t8727\mathrm{\Psi }_0t9727t101+3t11t117t87)^(1/3),`$
$`t123`$ $`=`$ $`1/t122,`$
$`t132`$ $`=`$ $`1/t87,`$
$`t134`$ $`=`$ $`2t89t123+(1/6t122+3/2t100t1231/2\mathrm{\Psi }_2t901/2t92)t132,`$
$`t137`$ $`=`$ $`t134^2,`$
$`t140`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_1+t88+3t134t93+3t137t87,`$
$`t142`$ $`=`$ $`t87/t140,`$
$`t143`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{(}t142),`$
$`t149`$ $`=`$ $`2t134t87,`$
$`t155`$ $`=`$ $`t143t142,`$
$`t160`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_2+t91+t92+t149,`$
$`t167`$ $`=`$ $`t140^2,`$
$`t178`$ $`=`$ $`2t140/t143+3/2t132t140(\mathrm{\Psi }_2+t91+t92+t149+2t143t140)`$
$`+`$ $`1/2(12t79+12t82+4t86+3t143t160)/t155`$
$`+`$ $`1/16t167(4t143t87+6t142t160+4t155t140)/t97`$
Optimized expression for the rotated scalar $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{2}^{}{}_{}{}^{}`$ :

$`t1`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{(}6),`$
$`t2`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_1^2,`$
$`t3`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_4\mathrm{\Psi }_2,`$
$`t8`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_2^2,`$
$`t9`$ $`=`$ $`t8\mathrm{\Psi }_2,`$
$`t11`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{(}3),`$
$`t12`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_4^2,`$
$`t13`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0^2,`$
$`t16`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_4t13,`$
$`t19`$ $`=`$ $`t8^2,`$
$`t25`$ $`=`$ $`t2^2,`$
$`t32`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{(}\mathrm{\Psi }_4(t12t13\mathrm{\Psi }_0+18t16t881\mathrm{\Psi }_0t19+`$
$``$ $`54t3\mathrm{\Psi }_0t2+27\mathrm{\Psi }_4t25+54t2t9)),`$
$`t36`$ $`=`$ $`(27t3\mathrm{\Psi }_0+27\mathrm{\Psi }_4t2+27t9+3t11t32)^{1/3},`$
$`t37`$ $`=`$ $`t2t36,`$
$`t39`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_2\mathrm{\Psi }_0,`$
$`t40`$ $`=`$ $`t39t36,`$
$`t42`$ $`=`$ $`t36^2,`$
$`t48`$ $`=`$ $`1/t36,`$
$`t50`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{(}(6t376t40+t42\mathrm{\Psi }_0+3t16+9\mathrm{\Psi }_0t8)t48),`$
$`t77`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{(}(72t37t5072t39t36t506t50t42\mathrm{\Psi }_0+`$
$``$ $`18t50\mathrm{\Psi }_4t1354t50\mathrm{\Psi }_0t872t2\mathrm{\Psi }_1t1t36+`$
$`+`$ $`108\mathrm{\Psi }_1t1t40)t48/t50),`$
$`t78`$ $`=`$ $`t1t50+t77,`$
$`t79`$ $`=`$ $`1/6t78\mathrm{\Psi }_1,`$
$`t80`$ $`=`$ $`2t79,`$
$`t81`$ $`=`$ $`1/36t78^2,`$
$`t82`$ $`=`$ $`t81\mathrm{\Psi }_0,`$
$`t83`$ $`=`$ $`1/6t78\mathrm{\Psi }_0,`$
$`t84`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_1+t83,`$
$`t85`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_2+t80+t82,`$
$`t86`$ $`=`$ $`t84t85,`$
$`t87`$ $`=`$ $`1/6t78\mathrm{\Psi }_2,`$
$`t89`$ $`=`$ $`t81\mathrm{\Psi }_1,`$
$`t93`$ $`=`$ $`1/6t81t78\mathrm{\Psi }_0,`$
$`t94`$ $`=`$ $`3t87+3t89+t93,`$
$`t97`$ $`=`$ $`t94^2,`$
$`t100`$ $`=`$ $`t85^2,`$
$`t101`$ $`=`$ $`t100t85,`$
$`t103`$ $`=`$ $`t84^2,`$
$`t117`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{(}64t103t84t9436t103t100108t86t94\mathrm{\Psi }_0+`$
$`+`$ $`27t13t97+54\mathrm{\Psi }_0t101),`$
$`t122`$ $`=`$ $`(54t86t9427\mathrm{\Psi }_0t9727t101+3t11t117t94)^{1/3},`$
$`t123`$ $`=`$ $`1/t122,`$
$`t132`$ $`=`$ $`1/t94,`$
$`t134`$ $`=`$ $`2t84t123+(1/6t122+3/2t100t1231/2\mathrm{\Psi }_2t791/2t82)t132,`$
$`t136`$ $`=`$ $`2t134t94,`$
$`t139`$ $`=`$ $`t134^2,`$
$`t142`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_1+t83+3t134t85+3t139t94,`$
$`t144`$ $`=`$ $`t94/t142,`$
$`t145`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{(}t144),`$
$`t152`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_2+t80+t82+t136,`$
$`t168`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_2+t80+t82+t136+2t145t142`$
$`+`$ $`(12t87+12t89+4t93+3t145t152)/t145+`$
$`+`$ $`1/4t132t142(4t145t94+6t144t152+4t145t144t142)`$
Optimized expression for the rotated scalar $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{4}^{}{}_{}{}^{}`$ :

$`t1`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{(}6),`$
$`t2`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_1^2,`$
$`t3`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_4\mathrm{\Psi }_2,`$
$`t8`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_2^2,`$
$`t9`$ $`=`$ $`t8\mathrm{\Psi }_2,`$
$`t11`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{(}3),`$
$`t12`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_4^2,`$
$`t13`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0^2,`$
$`t16`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_4t13,`$
$`t19`$ $`=`$ $`t8^2,`$
$`t25`$ $`=`$ $`t2^2,`$
$`t32`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{(}\mathrm{\Psi }_4(t12t13\mathrm{\Psi }_0+18t16t881\mathrm{\Psi }_0t19+`$
$``$ $`54t3\mathrm{\Psi }_0t2+27\mathrm{\Psi }_4t25+54t2t9)),`$
$`t36`$ $`=`$ $`(27t3\mathrm{\Psi }_0+27\mathrm{\Psi }_4t2+27t9+3t11t32)^{1/3},`$
$`t37`$ $`=`$ $`t2t36,`$
$`t39`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_2\mathrm{\Psi }_0,`$
$`t40`$ $`=`$ $`t39t36,`$
$`t42`$ $`=`$ $`t36^2,`$
$`t48`$ $`=`$ $`1/t36,`$
$`t50`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{(}(6t376t40+t42\mathrm{\Psi }_0+3t16+9\mathrm{\Psi }_0t8)t48),`$
$`t77`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{(}(72t37t5072t39t36t506t50t42\mathrm{\Psi }_0+`$
$``$ $`18t50\mathrm{\Psi }_4t1354t50\mathrm{\Psi }_0t872t2\mathrm{\Psi }_1t1t36+`$
$`+`$ $`108\mathrm{\Psi }_1t1t40)t48/t50),`$
$`t78`$ $`=`$ $`t1t50+t77,`$
$`t79`$ $`=`$ $`1/6t78\mathrm{\Psi }_1,`$
$`t80`$ $`=`$ $`2t79,`$
$`t81`$ $`=`$ $`1/36t78^2,`$
$`t82`$ $`=`$ $`t81\mathrm{\Psi }_0,`$
$`t83`$ $`=`$ $`1/6t78\mathrm{\Psi }_0,`$
$`t84`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_1+t83,`$
$`t85`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_2+t80+t82,`$
$`t86`$ $`=`$ $`t84t85,`$
$`t87`$ $`=`$ $`1/6t78\mathrm{\Psi }_2,`$
$`t89`$ $`=`$ $`t81\mathrm{\Psi }_1,`$
$`t93`$ $`=`$ $`1/6t81t78\mathrm{\Psi }_0,`$
$`t94`$ $`=`$ $`3t87+3t89+t93,`$
$`t97`$ $`=`$ $`t94^2,`$
$`t100`$ $`=`$ $`t85^2,`$
$`t101`$ $`=`$ $`t100t85,`$
$`t103`$ $`=`$ $`t84^2,`$
$`t117`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{(}64t103t84t9436t103t100108t86t94\mathrm{\Psi }_0+`$
$`+`$ $`27t13t97+54\mathrm{\Psi }_0t101),`$
$`t122`$ $`=`$ $`(54t86t9427\mathrm{\Psi }_0t9727t101+3t11t117t94)^{1/3},`$
$`t123`$ $`=`$ $`1/t122,`$
$`t132`$ $`=`$ $`1/t94,`$
$`t134`$ $`=`$ $`2t84t123+(1/6t122+3/2t100t1231/2\mathrm{\Psi }_2t791/2t82)t132,`$
$`t136`$ $`=`$ $`2t134t94,`$
$`t139`$ $`=`$ $`t134^2,`$
$`t142`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_1+t83+3t134t85+3t139t94,`$
$`t144`$ $`=`$ $`t94/t142,`$
$`t145`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{(}t144),`$
$`t152`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_2+t80+t82+t136,`$
$`t168`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_2+t80+t82+t136+2t145t142`$
$`+`$ $`(12t87+12t89+4t93+3t145t152)/t145+`$
$`+`$ $`1/4t132t142(4t145t94+6t144t152+4t145t144t142)`$
## References


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Ever since the formulation of Quantum Chromodynamics and the realization that only gauge-invariant operators are the observables, there have been attempts to reformulate the theory itself not in terms of the Yang–Mills potentials but rather in terms of some gauge-invariant variables. However, usually it is difficult to incorporate matter in such approaches as it couples not to gauge-invariant variables but to the gauge potentials $`A_\mu `$.

The simplest but typical matter is the probe source, or the Wilson loop. It is given by a path-ordered exponent of $`A_\mu `$, and it is difficult to present it in terms of any gauge-invariant variables. At some point it has been suggested that Wilson loops themselves are the only reasonable gauge-invariant variables, and the theory should be reformulated in terms of loop dynamics . Because Wilson loops are non-local objects there have been no decisive success on this way, despite enormous efforts taken in twenty years.

Recently, it became clear that it is not only possible to reformulate exactly the YM theory (together with the Wilson loop) in terms of local gauge-invariant variables, but that the resulting theory is beautiful and suggestive. It reminds quantum gravity theory, where the metric and curvature refer to the dual YM space (below I specify what precisely does it mean). It becomes possible to discuss the long-standing but still unresolved questions like the mass generation and the area behaviour of the Wilson loop directly in a gauge-invariant, i.e. objective way. Also, the common belief is that, at least at large number of colours $`N`$, the YM theory is equivalent to some version of string theory. String theory is formulated in terms of gauge-invariant although non-local variables. Recent attempts to justify this equivalence from the string side have been described by A. Polyakov . If one wishes to derive string theory directly from the YM Lagrangian, the first step is to rewrite the theory in terms of gauge-invariant variables. I shall show below that the YM theory possesses an exciting new symmetry mixing states with different spins, which makes the equivalence with string theory rather likely.

## 2 First order formalism

### 2.1 Four dimensions

An economic way to introduce gauge-invariant variables is via the so-called first order formalism. The $`4d`$ YM partition function can be identically rewritten with the help of an additional Gaussian integration over dual field strength variables :

$`Z_{4\mathrm{d}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle DA_\mu \mathrm{exp}d^4x\left(\frac{1}{2g_4^2}\text{Tr}F_{\mu \nu }F_{\mu \nu }\right)}`$ (1)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle DA_\mu DG_{\mu \nu }\mathrm{exp}d^4x\left(\frac{g_4^2}{2}\text{Tr}G_{\mu \nu }G_{\mu \nu }+\frac{i}{2}ϵ^{\alpha \beta \mu \nu }\text{Tr}G_{\alpha \beta }F_{\mu \nu }\right)}`$
where $`F_{\mu \nu }=_\mu A_\nu _\nu A_\mu i[A_\mu A_\nu ]`$ is the standard Yang–Mills field strength and $`ϵ^{\alpha \beta \mu \nu }`$ is the antisymmetric tensor. To be specific, the gauge group is $`SU(N)`$ with $`N^21`$ generators $`t^a`$, $`\text{Tr}t^at^b=\delta ^{ab}/2`$. Eq. (1) is called the 1st order formalism.

Both terms in eq. (1) are invariant under $`(N^21)`$-function gauge transformation,

$$\{\begin{array}{ccc}\delta A_\mu & =& [D_\mu \alpha ],\\ \delta G_{\mu \nu }& =& [G_{\mu \nu }\alpha ]\end{array}$$
(2)
where $`D_\mu =_\mu iA_\mu ^at^a`$ is the Yang–Mills covariant derivative, $`[D_\mu D_\nu ]=iF_{\mu \nu }`$.

Owing to the Bianchi identity, $`ϵ^{\mu \nu \rho \sigma }[D_\nu F_{\rho \sigma }]=0`$, the second (mixed) term in eq. (1) is, in addition, invariant under the $`4(N^21)`$-function ‘dual’ gauge transformation,

$$\{\begin{array}{ccc}\delta A_\mu & =& 0,\\ \delta G_{\mu \nu }& =& [D_\mu \beta _\nu ][D_\nu \beta _\mu ].\end{array}$$
(3)
Taking a particular combination of the functions in eqs. (2,3),

$$\alpha =v^\mu A_\mu ,\beta _\mu =v^\lambda G_{\lambda \mu },$$
(4)
leads to the 4-function transformation

$$\delta G_{\mu \nu }=G_{\lambda \nu }_\mu v^\lambda G_{\mu \lambda }_\nu v^\lambda _\lambda G_{\mu \nu }v^\lambda ,$$
(5)
being the known variation of a (covariant) tensor under infinitesimal general coordinate transformation, $`x^\mu x^\mu +v^\mu (x)`$, also called the diffeomorphism. Therefore, the ‘mixed’ term is diffeomorphism-invariant, and is known as BF gravity 222With our notations it would be more appropriate to call it ‘GF gravity’ but we follow the tradition.. It defines a topological field theory of the Schwarz type . Moreover, it is invariant not under four but as much as $`4(N^21)`$ local transformations; four diffeomorphisms are but their small subset. We shall see later on that the additional local transformations mix up fields with different spins.

In the first order formalism (1), the YM potential $`A_\mu `$ enters linearly and quadratically. Therefore, on can now perform the Gaussian integration over $`A_\mu `$: the quadratic form for $`A_\mu `$ is, generally, non-degenerate and contains no derivatives. Thus, one has just a product of Gaussian integrals at each point, and it is not too difficult to perform the $`A_\mu `$ integration explicitly . The point is to write the result in a nice way such that, for example, the diffeo-invariance is explicit. This has been done in Ref. , however the result there is more than one page long, and the invariance under $`4(N^21)`$-function transformation (3) has been neither revealed nor discussed. It has been achieved in a compact way in Ref.  which we review in the next section.

### 2.2 Three dimensions

We shall be also interested in the $`3d`$ YM theory: it is also believed to possess the area law for large Wilson loops and an exponential decrease of correlators of small Wilson loops at large separations. The theory is super-renormalizable; the mass gaps and string tension are proportional to the gauge coupling $`g_3^2`$ (having the dimension of mass) in the appropriate power.

In the $`3d`$ case one can also use the Gaussian trick to rewrite the partition function in the first order formalism. In this case the dual field strength is a 3-vector, call it $`G_i^a`$ (the Latin indices go from 1 to 3).

$`Z_{3\mathrm{d}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle DA_i^a\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{1}{4g_3^2}d^3xF_{ij}^a(A)F_{ij}^a(A)\right)}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle DG_i^aDA_i^a\mathrm{exp}d^3x\left[\frac{g_3^2}{2}G_i^aG_i^a+\frac{i}{2}ϵ^{ijk}F_{ij}^a(A)G_k^a\right]}.`$ (6)
As in the $`4d`$ case, the Bianchi identity, $`ϵ^{ijk}D_i^{ab}F_{jk}^b=0`$, ensures that the second (mixed) term in eq. (6) is invariant under local $`(N^21)`$-function dual gauge transformation

$$\{\begin{array}{ccc}\delta A_i^a& =& 0,\\ \delta G_i^a& =& D_i^{ab}(A)\beta ^b\end{array}.$$
(7)
Again, the invariance under ordinary gauge transformation together with the dual one guarantees that, if one integrates out the YM potentials $`A_i`$, the resulting action will be invariant under local $`(N^21)`$-function transformations, three of which are the diffeomorphisms. For $`SU(2)`$ that is the only invariance but at $`N>2`$ the invariance is much wider than that of the general relativity.

## 3 Yang–Mills theory as quantum gravity with ‘æther’

In this section we give the results of integrating out the YM potential $`A_\mu `$ from the first-order formalism’s eqs. (1,6). The goal is to obtain the result in terms of gauge-invariant combinations of the dual field strength $`G_{\mu \nu },G_i`$ and to see that the second (mixed) term has the claimed large local invariance.

### 3.1 Three dimensions, $`SU(2)`$

We start with the simplest case of the $`SU(2)`$ gauge group in $`3d`$. In this case one can identify the dual field strength $`G_i^a=e_i^a`$ with a covariant dreibein . Integrating out $`A_i^a`$ in eq. (6) one obtains, identically

$$Z_{3\mathrm{d}}=Dg_{ij}g^{\frac{5}{4}}\mathrm{exp}d^3x\left[\frac{g_3^2}{2}g_{ii}+\frac{i}{2}\sqrt{g}R(g)\right].$$
(8)
where $`g_{ij}=e_i^ae_j^a`$ is the covariant metric tensor of the dual space constructed, as we see, from the dual field strength. Knowing the metric $`g_{ij}`$ one can build the Christoffel symbol $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{jk}^i`$, the Riemann tensor $`R_{jkl}^i`$, the Ricci tensor $`R_{ij}`$ and finally the scalar curvature $`R`$ according to the general formulae of differential geometry, see e.g. ; $`g`$ is the determinant of $`g_{ij}`$.

The second term in the action (8) is the familiar Einstein–Hilbert action in $`3d`$; notice that it comes with a purely imaginary ‘Newton constant’. The fact that the second term is invariant under the diffeomorphisms of the dual space is the consequence of the invariance of the mixed term in the first order formalism under dual gauge transformations. The first term in the action, $`g_{ii}`$, is just a rewriting of the first term from eq. (6); it is not invariant under dual gauge transformations and hence it is not invariant under diffeomorphisms. We call it the ‘æther term’ as it reminds the coupling of gravity to matter with the stress-energy tensor $`T^{ij}=\delta ^{ij}`$ which is isotropic and homogeneous but makes one system of coordinates preferable. It is this æther term which distinguishes the YM theory from pure Einstein gravity. In $`3d`$ Einstein’s gravity is a non-propagating topological field theory .

There are many alternative ways how to parametrize a curved space; defining the metric $`g_{ij}`$ is only one of them, and not the best in this case. One can define a curved $`d`$-dimensional space by (locally) embedding it into a flat $`D=d(d+1)/2`$-dimensional space. In this case, the flat space is $`6d`$. 6 functions $`w^\alpha (x^1,x^2,x^3),\alpha =1\mathrm{}6,`$ called the external coordinates define the embedding of a generic $`3d`$ curved manifold into a flat $`6d`$ space. The metric is induced by this embedding:

$$g_{ij}=_iw^\alpha _jw^\alpha .$$
(9)
All differential geometry’s quantities including the scalar curvature $`R`$ can be expressed through the six functions $`w^\alpha (x)`$ . Invariance under diffeomorphisms is invariance under the re-parametrization: $`w^\alpha (x)w^\alpha (x)`$. In terms of the external coordinates the YM partition function takes the form

$`Z_{3\mathrm{d}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle Dw^\alpha (x)\text{det}(_i_jw^\alpha )g(w)^{\frac{5}{4}}}`$ (10)
$``$ $`\mathrm{exp}{\displaystyle d^3x\left[\frac{g_3^2}{2}_iw^\alpha _iw^\alpha +\frac{i}{2}\sqrt{g(w)}R(w)\right]},`$
so that the æther term becomes just the kinetic energy of 6 massless and gauge-invariant fields; however the curvature term brings in the interaction.

In the original formulation of the $`SU(2)`$ YM theory in $`3d`$ there were 9 degrees of freedom (dof’s) in the gauge potentials $`A_i^a`$ out of which 3 were gauge transformations. The remarkable achievement of eqs. (8,10) is that the partition function is presented in terms of exactly 6 gauge-invariant variables: $`g_{ij}`$ or $`w^\alpha `$. Averages of Wilson loops, since they are gauge-invariant, can be also presented in terms of the gauge-invariant parametrization of the dual space. It turns out  that Wilson loops become, in the ‘gravity’ formulation, parallel transporters in the curved dual space!

### 3.2 Three dimensions, general $`SU(N)`$

In the $`3d`$ $`SU(N)`$ YM theory there are $`3(N^21)`$ dof’s in the original formulation via the gauge potentials $`A_i^a`$, out of which $`N^21`$ are gauge transformations, therefore, the number of gauge-invariant dof’s is $`2(N^21)`$.

As in the $`SU(2)`$ case, we wish to integrate out the YM potentials $`A_i^a`$ and express the result in terms of gauge-invariant combinations of the dual field strength $`G_i^a`$. In the $`SU(2)`$ case the $`23=6`$ gauge-invariant variables are quadratic combinations, $`g_{ij}=G_i^aG_j^a`$; the metric tensor can be decomposed into spin 0 (1 dof) and spin 2 (5 dof’s) fields, $`1+5=6`$.

For $`SU(3)`$ one needs $`28=16`$ gauge-invariant dof’s; these are the 6 components of the metric tensor $`g_{ij}`$, plus 10 components of spin 1 (3 dof’s) and spin 3 (7 dof’s) fields, put together into a symmetric rank-3 tensor $`h_{ijk}=\frac{1}{3}\text{Tr}\{G_iG_jG_k\}`$ where $`G_i=G_i^at^a`$ and $`\{\}`$ means full symmetrization. In $`SU(2)`$ $`h_{ijk}`$ is automatically zero. In $`SU(4)`$ one would need a rank-4 symmetric combination of $`G_i`$’s which is automatically zero in $`SU(3)`$, and so on .

The general pattern is that for the $`SU(N)`$ gauge group one adds new spin $`N`$ and spin $`N2`$ fields to the ‘previous’ fields of the $`SU(N1)`$ group. All in all, one has for the $`SU(N)`$ two copies of spin $`2,3\mathrm{}N2`$ and one copy of the ‘edge’ spins 0, 1, $`N1`$ and $`N`$; they sum up into the needed $`2(N^21)`$ dof’s . In the usual formulation, one gets $`2(N^21)`$ dof’s just because there is a colour index which runs up to $`N^21`$, however the presence of a colour index implies the quantity is not gauge-invariant. If one wishes to pass to gauge-invariant variables, it is inevitable that the ‘coloured’ dof’s are ‘squeezed’ into higher and higher spin fields.

The invariance of the second term in the first-order-formalism action (6) under $`(N^21)`$-function dual gauge transformation (7) translates into $`(N^21)`$-function local symmetry which mixes fields with different spins . This exciting new symmetry can be paralleled to that of supergravity where one can locally mix up spin 2 and spin $`3/2`$. However, in our case only boson fields are mixed by symmetry and one can mix up the whole tower of spins up to $`J=N`$. The transformation is non-linear, though, so there is no contradiction with the Coleman–Mandula theorem.

After integrating out $`A_i^a`$, the second term reminds the Einstein–Hilbert action but contains not only the metric tensor $`g_{ij}`$ but also higher spin fields $`h_{ijk}\mathrm{}`$. Since $`SU(2)`$ is a subgroup of any Lie group, this part of the action is diffeomorphism-invariant but for $`N>2`$ it is in addition invariant under other local transformations mixing fields with different spins . At $`N\mathrm{}`$ an infinite tower of spins are related by symmetry transformation. Since it is the kind of symmetry known in string theory, and some kind of string is expected to be equivalent to the Yang–Mills theory in the large $`N`$ limit, it is tempting to use this formalism as a starting point for deriving a string from the local field YM theory. The æther term $`g_3^2Ng_{ii}`$ breaks this symmetry. Therefore, one expects that the role of this term is to lift the degeneracy of the otherwise massless fields and to provide the string with a finite slope $`\alpha ^{}=(g_3^2N)^2`$.

### 3.3 Four dimensions, $`SU(2)`$

In $`4d`$ the dual field strength is an antisymmetric tensor, not a vector, so to construct the metric tensor one has to be more industrious. The needed metric tensor can be constructed as

$$g_{\mu \nu }=\frac{1}{6}ϵ^{abc}\frac{ϵ^{\alpha \beta \rho \sigma }}{2\sqrt{g}}G_{\mu \alpha }^aG_{\rho \sigma }^bG_{\beta \nu }^c.$$
(11)
However, it is not a convenient variable. A more suitable choice is to present the dual field strength in eq. (1) as

$$G_{\mu \nu }^a=d_i^aT_{\mu \nu }^i=d_i^a\eta _{AB}^ie_\mu ^Ae_\nu ^B,$$
(12)
where $`\eta _{AB}^i`$ is the ’t Hooft symbol projecting the $`(1,0)+(0,1)`$ representation of the Lorentz $`SO(4)`$ group into the irreducible $`(1,0)`$ part. $`e_\mu ^A`$ can be called the tetrad, and the metric tensor is, as usually, $`g_{\mu \nu }=e_\mu ^Ae_\nu ^A`$. There are 16 dof’s in the tetrad, however three rotations under one of the $`SO(3)`$ subgroups of the $`SO(4)`$ Lorentz group does not enter into the combination (12), therefore, the antisymmetric tensor $`T_{\mu \nu }^i`$ carries 13 dof’s.

The $`3\times 3`$ tensor $`d_i^a`$ can be called the triad; it is subject to the normalization constraint $`\text{det}d_i^a=1`$ and therefore contains 8 dof’s. In fact, the combination (12) is invariant under simultaneous $`SO(3)`$ rotations of $`T^i`$ and $`d_i`$, therefore the r.h.s. of eq. (12) contains $`13+83=18`$ dof’s, as does the l.h.s. Thus, eq. (12) is a complete parametrization of $`G_{\mu \nu }^a`$.

It is now clear how to organize the 15 gauge-invariant variables made of $`G_{\mu \nu }^a`$. These are the 5 dof’s contained in a symmetric $`3\times 3`$ tensor

$$h_{ij}=d_i^ad_j^a,\text{det}h=1,$$
(13)
and 13 dof’s of $`T_{\alpha \beta }^i`$. However, $`h_{ij}`$ and $`T_{\alpha \beta }^i`$ will always enter contracted in $`i,j`$ (as it follows from eq. (12)), so that the dof’s associated with the simultaneous $`SO(3)`$ rotation will drop out. In other words, one can choose $`h_{ij}`$ to be diagonal and containing only 2 dof’s. Together with the 13 dof’s of $`T_{\mu \nu }^i`$ they comprise the needed 15 gauge-invariant degrees of freedom.

After integrating out $`A_\mu `$ from the first-order-formalism partition function (1) and expressing the result through $`T`$ and $`h`$ one obtains the $`4d`$ YM partition function in terms of gauge-invariant variables :

$`Z_{4\mathrm{d}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle DhDTe^{S_1+S_2}},`$ (14)
$`S_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g_4^2}{4}}{\displaystyle d^4xT_{\mu \nu }^ih_{ij}T_{\mu \nu }^j},`$ (15)
$`S_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{4}}{\displaystyle d^4x\sqrt{g}R_{i\mu \nu }^jT^{l\mu \nu }ϵ_{jlk}h^{ki}},`$ (16)
where $`R_{i\mu \nu }^j`$ is a ‘minor’ Riemann tensor, see Ref.  for details. We see that eq. (16) is covariant both with respect to Greek and Latin indices: it is the manifestation of the invariance of this part of the action under a 12-function local transformation following from the invariance under dual gauge transformations (3). Four of these local transformations are diffeomporphisms; the rest mix up spin 0 and spin 2 fields. It is a ‘more general relativity’ theory. However, in the particular case when $`h_{ij}=\delta _{ij}`$ the action $`S_2`$ reduces to the usual Einstein–Hilbert action, $`\sqrt{g}R`$, where $`R`$ is the standard scalar curvature made of $`g_{\mu \nu }`$.

I would like to note as an aside that one can think of making quantum gravity renormalizable in the following spirit. Start from the ‘more general relativity’ theory given by the action $`S_2`$. It is not only renormalizable but probably exactly solvable. If, for some reason, the field $`h_{ij}`$ develops spontaneously a v.e.v. $`\delta _{ij}`$ one gets, at ‘low’ energies the Einstein’s quantum gravity, but renormalizable in the ultra-violet.

## 4 Dual transformation on the lattice

The duality transformation to gauge-invariant variables can be done directly on the lattice – see Refs.  for $`3d`$ $`SU(2)`$, Ref.  for $`4d`$ $`SU(2)`$ and Ref.  for a general Lie group. In Ref.  a full circle has been performed: starting from discretizing the $`3d`$ $`SU(2)`$ YM theory by the lattice, making the duality transformation, going back to the continuum limit, one explicitly recovers the partition function (10).

## 5 Perturbation theory

One may wonder how the usual perturbation theory with explicit (colour) gluons at short distances looks like in the gauge-invariant formulation. Perturbation theory means expansion in the coupling $`g_{3,4}^2`$. The curvature term is $`O(1)`$ in the coupling, therefore in the leading order it has to vanish! In $`3d`$ it is just the ordinary scalar curvature which has to vanish; in $`4d`$ it is a somewhat more complicated action $`S_2`$. In $`3d`$, zero curvature means that the dual space is flat, which means that it is possible to parametrize it by 3 out of the general 6 external coordinates $`w^a`$. \[Three functions are just a change of variables, like going from Cartesian to spherical coordinates – it does not make a flat space curvy.\]

In the gauge-invariant language, perturbation theory is expansion around the flat dual space.

### 5.1 Where are gluons?

Let us consider the simplest case of the $`3d`$ $`SU(2)`$ theory. If the dual space is flat, the æther term is just the kinetic energy of three massless scalar fields $`w^a`$. This is exactly what should be expected: the gauge-invariant content of the pertubation theory is one transversely polarized gluon (times three colours). In $`3d`$ there is only one transverse polarization which can be described by a scalar field.

In $`4d`$ case, the gauge-invariant content of the perturbation theory are also transverse gluons, in this case there are two transverse polarizations, times three colours. It can be shown that these degrees indeed show up if one requires the curvature term $`S_2`$ to vanish .

### 5.2 Where is the Coulomb force?

To explore the potential energy of two static quarks, one has to study the Wilson loop. The presence of the Wilson loop does not allow the parametrization of the metric tensor $`g_{ij}`$ by gradients $`_iw^\alpha `$ as in eq. (9) ; a curl must be added:

$$g_{ij}=(_iw^\alpha +B_i)(_jw^\alpha +B_j),\mathrm{Curl}𝐁=𝐣,$$
(17)
where $`𝐣`$ is the current along the Wilson loop,

$$𝐣=𝑑\tau \frac{d𝐱}{d\tau }\delta (𝐱𝐱(\tau )).$$
(18)
The leading order of the perturbation theory corresponds to the flat dual space, hence only three $`w`$’s are nonzero. We thus get from the æther term the Coulomb interaction, plus transverse gluons :

$`<W>`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle Dw^a\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{g_3^2}{2}d^3x(_iw^a+B_i)^2\right]}`$ (19)
$`=`$ $`\text{det}^{\frac{3}{2}}(^2)\mathrm{exp}{\displaystyle \frac{g_3^2}{2}}{\displaystyle d^3xB_i\frac{\delta _{ik}^2_i_k}{^2}B_k}`$
$`=`$ $`\text{det}^{\frac{3}{2}}(^2)\mathrm{exp}{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐱𝑑𝐲𝐣(𝐱)\frac{g_3^2}{8\pi |𝐱𝐲|}𝐣(𝐲)},`$
which is nothing but the Coulomb interaction between segments of the Wilson loop, as it should be in perturbation theory.

## 6 A quick (but wrong) way to get confinement

The aim of rewriting the YM theory in gauge-invariant variables is to get new insights into the nonperturbative regime of the theory. One bonus can be obtained immediately by solving the classical equations. We take the simplest case of the $`3d`$ $`SU(2)`$ theory (8) and consider the usual Wilson loop as a source. Varying the action of eq. (8) with respect to the metric we get the classical Einstein’s equation modified by the presence of the æther term and the stress-energy tensor corresponding to the Wilson loop:

$$R^{ij}\frac{1}{2}Rg^{ij}\frac{ig_3^2}{\sqrt{g}}\delta _j^i=iT^{ij}.$$
(20)
The æther term breaks the general covariance, of course. This equation can be solved for a large loop lying in a plane, and one gets for the average of the Wilson loop

$$<W>=\mathrm{exp}\left(\mathrm{Area}g_3^2\delta (0)\right)$$
(21)
i.e. the area law but with an infinitely thin string, because it is a classical calculation. Quantum fluctuations are to smear out the thin string and yield a finite string tension. Nevertheless, it is amusing that in the dual formulation the first thing one gets is the area law!

## 7 Order-of-magnitude analysis

The reformulation of the YM theory in terms of gauge-invariant dual variables is quite unusual and to get some insight into the ensuing quantum theory, let us first of all analyze the order of magnitude of the fields and of their derivatives. We use the partition function (10). Fluctuations leading to the action much greater than unity are usually cut out.

Let $`a`$ be some UV cutoff, e.g. the lattice spacing. From the first (æther) term we estimate:

$$a^3g_3^2(w)^21wa^1(g_3^2a)^{\frac{1}{2}},$$
(22)
hence $`\sqrt{g}(w)^3a^3(g_3^2a)^{\frac{3}{2}}`$. The second (Einstein–Hilbert) term must be also of the order of unity (or less), otherwise the configuration of the field $`w^\alpha (x)`$ will be damped by oscillations from nearby fluctuations. We have therefore:

$$a^3R\sqrt{g}1R(g_3^2a)^{\frac{3}{2}}0(!)$$
(23)
Unlike pure quantum gravity, the æther term requires that quantum fluctuations of the metric should correspond to zero curvature $`R`$ in the limit of vanishing lattice spacing! \[A similar analysis applies to the $`4d`$ dual theory, with the only difference that the curvature has to vanish not as a power but as one-over-logarithm of the cutoff.\] Does it mean that only small fluctuations around flat space are allowed, leading to perturbation theory? Not necessarily. Non-zero values of $`R`$ are not prohibited provided $`R\sqrt{g}`$ is a full derivative. If so, large values of $`R\sqrt{g}`$ cancel between neighbour points, and the oscillating factor, $`\mathrm{exp}\left(iR\sqrt{g}\right)`$, does not damp such metrics.

An example of a non-flat metric with $`R\sqrt{g}`$ being a full derivative is the (anti) de Sitter $`S^3`$ space. It can be parametrized by 4 (out of the general 6) external coordinates $`w^A`$ lying on a sphere, $`_{A=1}^4w^Aw^A=\frac{6}{R}`$. $`R\sqrt{g}`$ becomes then the winding number of the map $`S^3S^3`$, which is a full derivative . In the next section I show that dual space of constant curvature seems to be, indeed, dynamically preferred.

## 8 Beyond perturbation theory: de Sitter dual space

Yet another parametrization of the curved dual space is obtained by expressing three external coordinates through the three other and introducing three functions $`U^\alpha =U^{1,2,3}(w^1,w^2,w^3)`$ such that

$$g_{ij}=_iw^a_jw^bG_{ab}(w),G_{ab}(w)=\delta _{ab}+\frac{U^\alpha }{w^a}\frac{U^\alpha }{w^b}.$$
(24)
\[It is similar to describing the $`2d`$ surface by a function $`z(x,y)`$\]. The æther term becomes now the Lagrangian of a generalized $`\sigma `$ model:

$$=_iw^a_iw^bG_{ab}(w).$$
(25)
In $`2+ϵ`$ dimensions integrating out frequences from $`\mu _1`$ to $`\mu _2`$ renormalizes the metric as follows :

$$\frac{dG_{ab}}{d\mathrm{ln}\frac{\mu _2}{\mu _1}}=ϵG_{ab}\frac{1}{2\pi }R_{ab}\frac{1}{8\pi ^2}R_{ac}G^{cd}R_{db}\mathrm{}$$
(26)
where $`R_{ab}`$ is the Ricci tensor built from the metric $`G_{ab}`$ (24). This renormalization-group equation means that the metric gets renormalized as one integrates out high frequences in quantum fluctuations. Putting boldly $`ϵ=1`$ one discovers that the infrared-fixed point (i.e. the zero of the r.h.s.) is the de Sitter space with curvature $`R=6\pi `$ (to one loop accuracy) or $`R=0.716\pi `$ (in 2 loops), etc. Therefore, at low momenta the theory is described by the $`O(n)\sigma `$-model with $`n=4`$, given by the partition function

$`Z`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle Dw^A\delta \left(w^2\frac{6}{R}\right)\mathrm{exp}\left(d^3x\frac{g_3^2}{2}_iw^A_iw^A\right)}`$ (27)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle D\lambda Dw^A\mathrm{exp}d^3x\left[\frac{g_3^2}{2}\left(_iw^A_iw^A+\lambda w^Aw^A\right)\frac{3\lambda g_3^2}{R}\right]}.`$
### 8.1 Spontaneous mass generation

There is a well-known mechanism of spontaneous mass generation in the $`O(n)`$ $`\sigma `$-model through the Lagrange multiplier $`\lambda `$ getting a nonzero v.e.v. Strictly speaking, the mechanism is justified at large $`n`$ but it is plausible that $`n=4`$ is large enough for this mechanism to work.

If it does, the four gauge-invariant fields $`w^A`$ obtain the mass $`m_w^2=<\lambda >g_3^4`$. This mass would be observable had we made lattice simulations in the dual formulation (10). However, lattice simulations have been so far done in the usual formulation implying that correlators of only quadratic, quartic,… combinations of the elementary $`w`$ fields could be measured. Therefore, the observed glueballs are bound states of the $`w`$ fields. From the quantum numbers, one can infer that the lightest glueballs’ masses are

$`m_{0^{++}},m_{2^{++}}`$ $`=`$ $`2m_wO\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{n}}\right),`$ (28)
$`m_{0^+},m_{1^+}`$ $`=`$ $`4m_wO\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{n}}\right),n=4,`$ (29)
since the $`0,2^{++}`$ operators can be constructed from two $`w`$ fields while the $`0,1^+`$ ones from minimally four. The correction is due to the interaction suppressed as $`1/n`$. This seems to be in qualitative agreement with the arrangement of the lightest glueballs in $`d=3`$. Indeed, according to Teper , $`m_{0^{++}}4.7\sqrt{\sigma }`$, $`m_{2^{++}}7.8\sqrt{\sigma }`$, $`m_{0^+}10\sqrt{\sigma }`$, $`m_{0^{++}}11\sqrt{\sigma }`$. Of course, one needs to compute the $`1/n`$ corrections before drawing conclusions.

### 8.2 Area law

The variables $`w^A(x)`$ have the meaning of dual gluons (but gauge-invariant!). Mass generation for dual gluons usually implies confinement. Indeed, the average of a large Wilson loop is obtained by adding the mass term into eq. (19):

$`<W>`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle Dw^A\mathrm{exp}\left\{\frac{g_3^2}{2}d^3x\left[(_iw^A+B_i)^2+m_w^2w^Aw^A\right]\right\}}`$ (30)
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{g_3^2}{2}}{\displaystyle d^3xB_i(\delta _{ik}^2\frac{_i_k}{^2+m_w^2})B_k}\right\}.`$
Recalling that $`\mathrm{Curl}𝐁=𝐣`$, (see Eqs.(17, 18)) and taking the magnetic field created by a flat circle loop of radius $`r`$ to be $`B_z=\theta (r\rho )\delta (z),B_{x,y}=0`$, we obtain

$`<W>`$ $`\stackrel{r\mathrm{}}{}`$ $`\mathrm{exp}(\sigma \mathrm{Area}),`$
$`\sigma `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{32}}g_3^2m_w.`$ (31)
Estimating $`m_w`$ from Eq. (28) as half of the average of $`0^{++}`$ and $`2^{++}`$ masses we get the string tension $`\sigma 0.3g_3^2`$ which is not so far from the lattice value $`0.335g_3^2`$ . Given our negligence of the expected $`1/n=25\%`$ corrections to all these formulae, the results for the glueball masses and the string tension are not so bad.

## 9 Conclusions

1. One can rewrite the quantum YM theory exactly in terms of gauge-invariant variables. In $`3d`$ $`SU(2)`$ these are the six coordinates $`w^{16}(x)`$ describing the embedding of the curved dual space into flat space. The theory becomes Einstein’s quantum gravity, plus the ‘æther’ term.

2. Perturbation theory corresponds to expanding about flat dual space. In the lowest order one recovers the Coulomb interaction, plus transverse gluons.

3. The probable infrared regime of the $`SU(2)`$ theory is that the dual space becomes a $`S^3`$ sphere described at low momenta by the $`O(4)\sigma `$-model. In turn, it seems to generate spontaneously the mass for dual gluons, which gives rise to glueball masses and the area law.

4. In $`4d`$ and/or for $`SU(N)`$ gauge groups the gauge-invariant variables are also related to the metric of the dual space. The larger $`N`$, the higher spin fields are needed to accommodate the necessary number of degrees of freedom of the original YM theory. The action consists of two terms: one has a new type of local symmetry mixing fields with different spins, the other breaks this symmetry but is simple. It is tempting to use this formalism as a starting point for deriving a string from a local field theory.

## Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Victor Petrov for a collaboration and many useful discussions. I would like to thank cordially Nora Brambilla and Giovanni Prosperi for inviting me to Gargnano and for creating a wonderful atmosphere during the Confinement-5 meeting.


text:
# Classical magnetic Lifshits tails in three space dimensions: impurity potentials with slow anisotropic decay

## 1. Introduction

Random one-particle Schrödinger operators with (constant) magnetic fields have been attracting considerable attention in the physics as well as mathematics community. Physically speaking, each of these operators models a spinless quantum particle which moves in the Euclidean configuration space $`^3`$ subject to a random potential $`V_\omega :^3`$ and a constant magnetic field of strength $`B>0`$. In physical units where Planck’s constant (divided by $`2\pi `$) as well as the mass and the charge of the particle are all equal one, the corresponding Schrödinger operator is informally given by the differential expression

$$H(V_\omega ):=\frac{1}{2}\underset{j=1}{\overset{3}{}}\left(i\frac{}{x_j}+A_j\right)^2+V_\omega $$
(1)
which acts on the Hilbert space $`\mathrm{L}^2(^3)`$ of complex-valued square-integrable functions on $`^3`$. Without loss of generality one may choose co-ordinates $`x=(x_1,x_2,x_3)^3`$ such that the constant magnetic field is parallel to the $`x_3`$-axis. On account of gauge equivalence the vector potential $`A:^3^3`$ in (1) may therefore be fixed in the symmetric gauge by $`A(x):=\frac{B}{2}(x_2,x_1,0)`$. In this paper the random potential $`V_\omega `$ is supposed to be a repulsive Poissonian one for which

$$V_\omega (x):=\underset{j}{}U\left(xp_\omega (j)\right)0.$$
(2)
Here for given realization $`\omega \mathrm{\Omega }`$ of the randomness, the point $`p_\omega (j)^3`$ stands for the position of the $`j`$th impurity repelling the particle by a positive potential $`U0`$ which neither depends on $`\omega `$ nor on $`j`$. The impurities are distributed at a mean concentration $`\varrho >0`$ according to Poisson’s law such that the probability of simultaneously finding $`M_1,M_2,\mathrm{},M_K`$ impurity points in respective pairwise disjoint subsets $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_1,\mathrm{\Lambda }_2,\mathrm{},\mathrm{\Lambda }_3^3`$ is given by the product $`_{k=1}^Ke^{\varrho \left|\mathrm{\Lambda }_k\right|}\left(\varrho \left|\mathrm{\Lambda }_k\right|\right)^{M_k}/M_k!`$, where $`\left|\mathrm{\Lambda }_k\right|:=_{\mathrm{\Lambda }_k}𝑑x`$ is the volume of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_k`$.

The object of interest in this paper is the integrated density of states $`N`$ of the Schrödinger operator (1) with Poissonian random potential (2). Informally, $`N(E)`$ is just the number of energy levels per volume below a given energy $`E`$. See (4) below and  for an exact definition and general properties (in the case $`B=0`$).

Under some rather weak additional assumptions on $`U`$ (see e.g. (3) below) the almost-sure spectrum of $`H(V_\omega )`$ as well as the set of growth points of its integrated density $`N`$ are known to coincide with the half-line $`[B/2,\mathrm{}[`$. We will investigate the behaviour of $`N`$ near the bottom of this half-line. More precisely, we will determine the so-called *magnetic Lifshits tail* of $`N`$, that is, the leading low-energy fall-off of $`N(E)`$ as $`EB/2`$.

Magnetic Lifshits tails have been investigated so far mainly for two space dimensions in which two qualitatively different regimes were found . Here for long-range $`U`$ the Lifshits tails solely depend on the details of the decay of $`U`$ and coincide with the low-energy fall-off of the corresponding classical integrated density of states. For short-range $`U`$, the tails are insensitive to the details of the decay of $`U`$, but sensitive on the magnetic field strength and have therefore a quantum character. The borderline decay between such classical and quantum Lifshits tailing in two space dimensions has been shown to be Gaussian decay of $`U`$. This stands in contrast to the non-magnetic case in which algebraic decay $`lim_{|x|\mathrm{}}|x|^\alpha U(x)=g>0`$ with exponent $`\alpha =d+2`$ discriminates between classical and quantum Lifshits tails in $`d`$ space dimensions . For a recent summary, see \[13, Sec. 4.1\].

First rigorous results on magnetic Lifshits tails in three space dimensions with rapidly decaying $`U`$ are available in . The findings there especially reveal a regime of Lifshits tails with mixed classical and quantum character for an intermediate decay of $`U`$. They will be published in an accompanying paper. The purpose of this paper is to detect the regime of purely classical tails which we will prove to occur for slow (anisotropic) decay of $`U`$. In particular, we will show that classical Lifshits tails exist *at all* in three space dimensions. This might be surprising from a naive point of view, since one may be tempted to argue that the motion perpendicular to the magnetic field is confined and the particle can move freely only parallel to the field lines such that the effective dimension of the problem should be $`d=1`$. The regime of classical Lifshits tailing might therefore be expected for algebraically decaying $`U`$ with exponent $`\alpha <3(=1+2)`$. In the latter case, however, the Poissonian random potential (2) is not well-defined in three space dimensions. Thus, from this point of view, one is lead to the wrong conclusion that classical Lifshits tails do not exist in three dimensions.

## 2. Assumptions, definitions and results

Throughout this paper, we will consider non-negative impurity potentials $`U:^3[0,\mathrm{}[`$ which are integrable as well as square-integrable with respect to the three-dimensional Lebesgue measure

$$U0,U\mathrm{L}^1\left(^3\right)\mathrm{L}^2\left(^3\right).$$
(3)
In particular, this ensures that the Poissonian random potential (2) is a positive, measurable, ergodic random field on some complete probability space $`(\mathrm{\Omega },𝒜,)`$. Moreover, the operator $`H(V_\omega )`$ is $``$-almost surely essentially self-adjoint on the Schwartz space $`𝒮(^3)`$ of rapidly decreasing, arbitrarily often differentiable functions on $`^3`$. For a wealth of information on these and related questions on random Schrödinger operators, see .

As another consequence, the integrated density of states may be defined by the expectation value

$$N(E):=_\mathrm{\Omega }(d\omega )\mathrm{\Theta }\left(EH(V_\omega )\right)(x,x).$$
(4)
Here $`^3\times ^3(x,y)\mathrm{\Theta }\left(EH(V_\omega )\right)(x,y)`$ denotes the continuous integral kernel (see e.g. ) of the spectral projection $`\mathrm{\Theta }\left(EH(V_\omega )\right)`$ of $`H(V_\omega )`$ associated with the half-line $`]\mathrm{},E[`$. Due to magnetic translation invariance, the r.h.s. of (4) is independent of the chosen $`x^3`$. For a background, alternative equivalent definitions and further properties of $`N`$ in this and more general situations, see  and references therein.

Additionally to (3), we will suppose that $`U`$ has an *anisotropic* algebraic decay at infinity

$$\underset{|x|\mathrm{}}{lim}(|x_{}|^\alpha ,|x_3|^\gamma )_{2/\beta }U(x_{},x_3)=g>0,$$
(5)
where we used the notation $`c_{2/\beta }:=\left(|c_1|^{2/\beta }+|c_2|^{2/\beta }\right)^{\beta /2}`$ ($`=\mathrm{max}(|c_1|,|c_2|)`$ if $`\beta =0`$) for the $`2/\beta `$-pseudo-norm of a vector $`c=(c_1,c_2)^2`$ and $`x_{}:=(x_1,x_2)^2`$ for the co-ordinate perpendicular to the magnetic field. For all $`\beta 0`$, integrability of $`U`$ at infinity is equivalent to $`\alpha >2`$ and $`\gamma >\alpha /(\alpha 2)`$. In particular, for isotropic decay of $`U`$, which corresponds to $`\alpha =\beta =\gamma `$, integrability requires $`\alpha >3`$.

Our results on the magnetic Lifshits tails for slow anisotropic algebraic decay of $`U`$ are summarized in the following

###### Theorem 2.1.

For a positive impurity potential satisfying assumptions (3) and (5) with some $`g>0`$, $`\alpha >2`$, $`\beta >0`$ and

$$\alpha /(\alpha 2)<\gamma <3\alpha /(\alpha 2),$$
(6)
the leading low-energy fall-off of the integrated density of states $`N`$ is independent of the magnetic field strength $`B>0`$ and reads

$$\underset{E0}{lim}E^{\frac{3}{\eta 3}}\mathrm{log}N\left(\frac{B}{2}+E\right)=C.$$
(7)
Here we have introduced the two constants $`\eta :=3\alpha \gamma /\left(2\gamma +\alpha \right)`$ and

$$C:=\frac{\eta 3}{3}g^{\frac{3}{\eta 3}}\left[2\pi \varrho \frac{\beta }{\alpha \gamma }\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{\beta }{\alpha }\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{\beta }{2\gamma }\right)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{3\beta }{2\eta }\right)}\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{\eta 3}{\eta }\right)\right]^{\frac{\eta 3}{\eta }}.$$

For given value of $`\alpha (>2)`$ and $`\gamma (>\alpha /(\alpha 2))`$, the parameter $`\beta >0`$ fine tunes the degree of anisotropy of the decay of $`U`$ by selecting different pseudo-norms in (5). Thanks to equivalence of these pseudo-norms, the choice of $`\beta `$ does not effect the order of the decay of $`U`$ and hence not that of $`\mathrm{log}N`$. More precisely, $`\beta `$ does not enter the so-called *Lifshits exponent*

$$\underset{E0}{lim}\frac{\mathrm{log}\left|\mathrm{log}N\left(\frac{B}{2}+E\right)\right|}{\mathrm{log}E}=\frac{3}{\eta 3}=\frac{2\gamma +\alpha }{\alpha \gamma 2\gamma \alpha },$$
(8)
but only the Lifshits constant $`C`$. In the limit $`\beta 0`$ where $`c_{2/\beta }\mathrm{max}\{|c_1|,|c_2|\}`$, the Lifshits constant converges to $`C\left(\eta /31\right)g^{3/(\eta 3)}[6\pi \varrho \mathrm{\Gamma }(13/\eta )/\eta ]^{13/\eta }`$. The subsequent proof shows that Theorem 2.1 remains valid in this limiting case with the above value of the Lifshits constant $`C`$.

In all of the above cases, the Lifshits tails sensitively depend on the details of the decay of $`U`$ and are classical in character. Indeed, the corresponding *classical integrated density of states*

$$N_{\mathrm{cl}}(E):=\frac{\sqrt{2}}{3\pi ^2}_\mathrm{\Omega }(d\omega )\left(EV_\omega (0)\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{max}\{EV_\omega (0),0\}$$
(9)
(cf. \[9, Eq. (2.14)\]) has the same leading low-energy tail as $`N`$, that is, $`lim_{E0}\mathrm{log}N(B/2+E)/\mathrm{log}N_{\mathrm{cl}}(E)=1`$.

In the extreme anisotropic limit $`\alpha \mathrm{}`$, condition (6) turns into $`1<\gamma <3(=1+2)`$ while $`\eta 3\gamma `$ and $`C(\gamma 1)g^{1/(\gamma 1)}(2\pi \varrho \mathrm{\Gamma }\left(11/\gamma \right)/\gamma )^{11/\gamma }`$. Comparing these limiting values with results in  and \[18, Cor. 9.14\], the Lifshits tails (7) are seen to asymptotically coincide with the corresponding classical tails in one space dimension for impurities with concentration $`\pi \varrho `$ and algebraically decaying $`U`$ (with exponent $`\gamma `$). This is plausible from the long-distance tails of $`U`$ which develop in the direction parallel to the magnetic field in this limit. The quantum particle is therefore effectively confined to a one-dimensional motion. Thus the one-dimensional picture sketched at the end of the Introduction correctly captures the strongly anisotropic case $`\alpha \mathrm{}`$, but not the case where $`U`$ has *isotropic* algebraic decay, that is, the case $`\alpha =\beta =\gamma (=\eta )`$ for which Theorem 2.1 yields the following

###### Corollary 2.2.

Assume that $`lim_{|x|\mathrm{}}|x|^\alpha U(x)=g>0`$ with some $`3<\alpha <5`$. Then

$$\underset{E0}{lim}E^{\frac{3}{\alpha 3}}\mathrm{log}N\left(\frac{B}{2}+E\right)=\frac{\alpha 3}{3}g^{\frac{3}{\alpha 3}}\left[\frac{4\pi \varrho }{\alpha }\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{\alpha 3}{\alpha }\right)\right]^{\frac{\alpha 3}{\alpha }}.$$
(10)
In the isotropic case the tails (10) coincide for *all* values of $`3<\alpha <5(=d+2)`$ with the corresponding classical tails for $`B=0`$, cf. the Introduction and . This is different for anisotropic decay of $`U`$. A straightforward modification of the subsequent proof shows that (7) remains valid for $`B=0`$ if

$$\frac{\alpha }{\alpha 2}<\gamma <\{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{3\alpha }{\alpha 2}\text{if}\hfill & 2<\alpha 5,\hfill \\ \frac{\alpha }{\alpha 4}\text{if}\hfill & 5<\alpha ,\hfill \end{array}$$
(11)
(see also  and \[18, Cor. 9.14\] for the isotropic case $`\alpha =\beta =\gamma `$.) Accordingly, the validity of (7) requires $`B>0`$ in case $`\alpha >5`$. This resembles the two-dimensional situation for which the authors of  showed that quantum effects in the Lifshits tail are suppressed in the presence of a magnetic field.

###### Remark 2.3.

Following , Corollary 2.2 possesses a natural (and straightforward) extension to impurity potentials $`U`$ with (slow) regular isotropic $`(F,\alpha )`$-decay in the sense that there exists some $`3<\alpha <5`$ such that $`lim_{|x|\mathrm{}}F\left(1/U(x)\right)=1`$ for some positive function $`F`$ which is regularly varying (at infinity) with index $`1/\alpha `$, cf. \[10, Def. 3.5\]. Denoting by $`f^\mathrm{\#}`$ the de Bruijn conjugate \[1, p. 29\] of the function $`tf(t):=\left[t^{1/\alpha }F(t)\right]^{3\alpha /(3\alpha )}`$, the corresponding Lifshits tails read

$$\underset{E0}{lim}\frac{\mathrm{log}N\left(\frac{B}{2}+E\right)}{E^{\frac{3}{3\alpha }}f^\mathrm{\#}\left(E^{\frac{3}{3\alpha }}\right)}=\frac{\alpha 3}{3}\left[\frac{4\pi \varrho }{\alpha }\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{\alpha 3}{\alpha }\right)\right]^{\frac{\alpha 3}{\alpha }}.$$

This extension constitutes the analogue of \[10, Thm. 3.8\] in three space dimensions.

## 3. Proof

The strategy of our proof of the classical Lifshits tails in Theorem 2.1 goes back to  and has been adopted to the magnetic setting in . Instead of the leading low-energy fall-off of $`N`$, we will investigate the behaviour of its (shifted) Laplace transform

$$\stackrel{~}{N}(t):=_0^{\mathrm{}}N\left(dE+\frac{B}{2}\right)e^{tE},t>0,$$

for long “times” $`t`$. De Bruijn’s Tauberian theorem \[1, Thm. 4.12.9\] (see also \[18, Thm. 9.7\] or \[10, App. B\]) ensures that (7) is equivalent to

$`\underset{t\mathrm{}}{lim}t^{\frac{3}{\eta }}\mathrm{log}\stackrel{~}{N}(t)`$ $`=2\pi \varrho g^{\frac{3}{\eta }}{\displaystyle \frac{\beta \eta }{3\alpha \gamma }}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{\beta }{\alpha }\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{\beta }{2\gamma }\right)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{3\beta }{2\eta }\right)}}\mathrm{\Gamma }\left({\displaystyle \frac{\eta 3}{\eta }}\right)`$ (12)
$`=\varrho {\displaystyle _^3}𝑑x\left(1e^{u(x)}\right).`$
Here the last equality results from an elementary (but somewhat lengthy) calculation of the last integral which is defined in terms of the function $`u:^3[0,\mathrm{}[`$ given by

$$u(x):=g\left(|x_{}|^{\frac{2\alpha }{\beta }}+|x_3|^{\frac{2\gamma }{\beta }}\right)^{\frac{\beta }{2}}=\frac{g}{(|x_{}|^\alpha ,|x_3|^\gamma )_{2/\beta }}.$$
(13)
In order to determine the long-time behaviour of $`\stackrel{~}{N}`$ we use the following upper and lower bounds. They are a straightforward extension of the ones in \[2, Basic Inequalities 3.1\] for two to three space dimensions, see also \[20, Prop. 5.3\].

###### Proposition 3.1.

Let $`\psi 𝒮(^3)`$ be normalized according to the standard scalar product $`\psi ,\psi =1`$ on $`\mathrm{L}^2(^3)`$. Moreover assume that $`\psi `$ is real-valued and centred in the sense that $`_^3𝑑x|\psi (x)|^2x=0`$. Then the sandwiching estimate

$$\begin{array}{c}\frac{1}{\sqrt{(2\pi t)^3}}\mathrm{exp}\left[t\psi ,H(0)\psi \varrho _^3𝑑x\left(1e^{t_^3𝑑y|\psi (xy)|^2U(y)}\right)\right]\hfill \\ \hfill e^{tB/2}\stackrel{~}{N}(t)\frac{B}{4\pi \sqrt{2\pi t}\mathrm{sinh}(tB/2)}\mathrm{exp}\left[\varrho _^3𝑑x\left(1e^{tU(x)}\right)\right]\end{array}$$
(14)
holds for all values of the magnetic field strength $`B0`$.

In the next two subsections we will show that, after choosing the variational state-vector $`\psi `$ properly, the bounds (14) asymptotically coincide in the situation of Theorem 2.1. This will complete our proof of (12) and hence of Theorem 2.1. Note that the exponential factor in the upper bound coincides up to a factor of $`\sqrt{(2\pi t)^3}`$ with the (unshifted) Laplace transform of $`N_{\mathrm{cl}}`$. Therefore, (12), and hence (7), is indeed a classical asymptotics.

### 3.1. Asymptotic evaluation of the upper bound

The upper bound in (14) implies

$$\underset{t\mathrm{}}{lim\; sup}t^{\frac{3}{\eta }}\mathrm{log}\stackrel{~}{N}(t)\varrho \underset{t\mathrm{}}{lim\; inf}t^{\frac{3}{\eta }}_^3𝑑x\left(1e^{tU(x)}\right).$$

Using the substitution $`(x_{},x_3)(t^{\frac{1}{\alpha }}x_{},t^{\frac{1}{\gamma }}x_3)`$ and subsequently employing Fatou’s lemma together with the pointwise convergence $`lim_t\mathrm{}tU(t^{\frac{1}{\alpha }}x_{},t^{\frac{1}{\gamma }}x_3)=u(x)`$ valid for all $`x0`$, we thus conclude that

$$\underset{t\mathrm{}}{lim\; sup}t^{\frac{3}{\eta }}\mathrm{log}\stackrel{~}{N}(t)\varrho _^3𝑑x\left(1e^{u(x)}\right).$$
(15)
### 3.2. Asymptotic evaluation of the lower bound

We choose the variational state-vector in our lower bound (14) as follows

$$\psi (x):=\sqrt{\frac{B}{2\pi }}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{B}{4}|x_{}|^2\right)\frac{1}{\sqrt{t^\sigma }}\phi \left(\frac{x_3}{t^\sigma }\right),t>0.$$
(16)
It is the time-dependent product of the centred Gaussian in the lowest Landau-level eigenspace and some real-valued, centred, arbitrarily often differentiable, compactly supported $`\phi 𝒞_c^{\mathrm{}}()`$ scaled by $`t^\sigma `$. We will pick $`\sigma >0`$ later at our convenience. To ensure normalization of $`\psi `$ we further assume $`\phi `$ to be normalized with respect the the standard scalar product $`\phi ,\phi =1`$ on $`\mathrm{L}^2()`$. Accordingly, the first term in the exponent on the l.h.s. in (14) equals

$$t\psi ,H(0)\psi =\frac{tB}{2}+t^{12\sigma }\phi ,H_3(0)\phi $$

where $`H_3(0):=\frac{1}{2}\frac{^2}{x_3^2}`$. Using the substitution $`(x_{},x_3)(t^{\frac{1}{\alpha }}x_{},t^{\frac{1}{\gamma }}x_3)`$, the second term in the exponent on the l.h.s. in (14) may be expressed in terms of the one-parameter family $`\left\{\delta _t\right\}_{t>0}`$ of probability densities on $`^3`$ given by

$$\delta _t\left(x\right):=t^{\frac{2}{\alpha }+\frac{1}{\gamma }}\left|\psi (t^{\frac{1}{\alpha }}x_{},t^{\frac{1}{\gamma }}x_3)\right|^2.$$
(17)
We thus arrive at

$$\begin{array}{c}\underset{t\mathrm{}}{lim\; inf}t^{\frac{3}{\eta }}\mathrm{log}\stackrel{~}{N}(t)\underset{t\mathrm{}}{lim\; sup}t^{12\sigma \frac{2}{\alpha }\frac{1}{\gamma }}\phi ,H_3(0)\phi \hfill \\ \hfill \varrho \underset{t\mathrm{}}{lim\; sup}_^3𝑑x\left[1\mathrm{exp}\left(t_^3𝑑y\delta _t\left(xy\right)U(t^{\frac{1}{\alpha }}y_{},t^{\frac{1}{\gamma }}y_3)\right)\right].\end{array}$$
(18)
Since $`0<1\frac{2}{\alpha }\frac{1}{\gamma }<\frac{2}{\gamma }`$ by assumption, we may pick $`\sigma >0`$ such that

$$1\frac{2}{\alpha }\frac{1}{\gamma }<2\sigma <\frac{2}{\gamma }.$$

Therefore the first term in the r.h.s. of (18) vanishes. Thanks to Lemma 3.2 below the second term my be handled with the help of the dominated convergence theorem. Altogether, we thus conclude

$$\underset{t\mathrm{}}{lim\; inf}t^{\frac{3}{\eta }}\mathrm{log}\stackrel{~}{N}(t)\varrho _^3𝑑x\left(1e^{u(x)}\right),$$

which, together with (15), completes the proof of (12).

### 3.3. Auxiliary lemma

###### Lemma 3.2.

Let $`0\sigma <1/\gamma `$. Then

$$\underset{t\mathrm{}}{lim\; sup}t_^3𝑑y\delta _t\left(xy\right)U(t^{\frac{1}{\alpha }}y_{},t^{\frac{1}{\gamma }}y_3)u(x)$$
(19)
for all $`x0`$.

###### Proof.

We pick $`0<\epsilon <1`$ and split the convolution in the l.h.s. of (19) into two integrals with domains of integration inside and outside the ball $`B_{\epsilon |x|}^{(x)}`$ centred at $`x`$ with radius $`\epsilon |x|`$. Using the fact that the $`\delta _t`$ is a probability density, the first part is estimated as follows

$$t_{B_{\epsilon |x|}^{(x)}}𝑑y\delta _t\left(xy\right)U(t^{\frac{1}{\alpha }}y_{},t^{\frac{1}{\gamma }}y_3)\underset{yB_{\epsilon |x|}^{(x)}}{\text{ess sup}}tU(t^{\frac{1}{\alpha }}y_{},t^{\frac{1}{\gamma }}y_3).$$
(20)
Since $`|y|(1\epsilon )|x|>0`$, we may further estimate the r.h.s. with the help of the inequality

$$tU(t^{\frac{1}{\alpha }}y_{},t^{\frac{1}{\gamma }}y_3)(1\epsilon )tu(t^{\frac{1}{\alpha }}y_{},t^{\frac{1}{\gamma }}y_3)=(1\epsilon )u(y),$$
(21)
valid for sufficiently large $`t>0`$ by assumption (5) on $`U`$ and the definition (13) for $`u`$. To estimate the second part we employ the inequality

$`t{\displaystyle _{^3B_{\epsilon |x|}^{(x)}}}𝑑y\delta _t\left(xy\right)U(t^{\frac{1}{\alpha }}y_{},t^{\frac{1}{\gamma }}y_3)`$ $`t\underset{yB_{\epsilon |x|}^{(x)}}{sup}\delta _t\left(xy\right){\displaystyle _^3}𝑑zU(t^{\frac{1}{\alpha }}z_{},t^{\frac{1}{\gamma }}z_3)`$
$`=t^{1\frac{3}{\eta }}\underset{yB_{\epsilon |x|}^{(0)}}{sup}\delta _t\left(y\right){\displaystyle _^3}𝑑zU\left(z\right).`$ (22)
The upper limit of the r.h.s. vanishes since

$$\underset{t\mathrm{}}{lim\; sup}t^{1\frac{3}{\eta }}\underset{yB_{\epsilon |x|}^{(0)}}{sup}\delta _t\left(y\right)=0.$$
(23)
For a proof of this assertion we distinguish two cases. In the first case, where $`|y_3|\epsilon |x|/\sqrt{2}(>0)`$, we have $`\phi \left(t^{\frac{1}{\gamma }\sigma }y_3\right)=0`$ and hence $`\delta _t(y)=0`$ for sufficiently large $`t`$, since $`\text{supp}\phi `$ is compact and $`t^{\frac{1}{\gamma }\sigma }`$ grows unboundedly. In the second case, where $`yB_{\epsilon |x|}^{(0)}`$ and $`|y_3|<\epsilon |x|/\sqrt{2}`$ such that $`|y_{}|\epsilon |x|/\sqrt{2}`$, the supremum in (23) decreases exponentially fast in time $`t`$ thanks to the Gaussian decay of $`|\psi (y)|^2`$ in the $`y_{}`$-direction, cf. (16). Altogether (20)–(23) implies

$$\underset{t\mathrm{}}{lim\; sup}t_^3𝑑y\delta _t\left(xy\right)U(t^{\frac{1}{\alpha }}y_{},t^{\frac{1}{\gamma }}y_3)(1\epsilon )\underset{yB_{\epsilon |x|}^{(x)}}{sup}u(y).$$
(24)
Taking the limit $`\epsilon 0`$, the r.h.s. converges to $`u(x)`$ for all $`x0`$ since $`u`$ is continuous on $`^3\{0\}`$. ∎

## Acknowledgement

It is a pleasure to thank Hajo Leschke and Georgi Raikov for helpful and stimulating discussions. This work was partially supported by the SFB 237 *Unordnung und grosse Fluktuationen*.