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# On Second Order Superhorizon Perturbations in Multi-Field Inflationary Models

## 1 Introduction

It has been customary to say that an adiabatic, gaussian, almost scale invariant perturbation is a generic prediction of inflation. In the past few years though it has been realised that if more than one degrees of freedom are allowed to be relevant during inflation - i.e more dynamic scalar fields - then isocurvature perturbations can arise, possibly correlated with the adiabatic ones, leading to a far richer phenomenology. For example simple statements about single field inflation such as the conservation of the superhorizon curvature perturbation $``$ do not hold in multifield models . Therefore the need for more accurate modeling of the inflationary era has arisen and is actively pursued at the moment.

So far almost all studies of inflationary perturbations have been performed using only linear perturbation theory. The smallness of the fluctuations in the temperature of the CMB certainly justify this approach. But given the accuracy of the forthcoming data it would be worth trying to go beyond this approximation and see if we can extract more information about our models by studying nonlinear effects during inflation. Nonlinearities are always there since gravity is a nonlinear theory. They would induce non gaussianities in the fluctuations of the cosmic microwave background which could be potentially observable by the PLANCK sattelite due for launch in 2007. The level of nongaussianity in standard single field models of inflation has been estimated in the past (e.g  \- ref.  discusses deviations from gaussianity within linear theory but from a non vacuum initial state). It turns out that such a signal will not be detectable even by PLANCK .

Multiple scalar fields seem to have a better chance of producing an observable nongaussian signal  the detection of which could provide evidence that more than one degrees of freedom were relevant during inflation. Current limits from WMAP on the deviation of the CMB from gaussianity come in the form of an allowed range for a widely used non-linearity parameter $`f_{NL}`$ related to a $`\chi ^2`$ type of non gaussianity. The authors of  find $`58<f_{NL}<134`$ (95% C.L.). It would be interesting to see if multiple fields can generate observable non gaussianity within this limit which would be observable in the future. In this paper an attempt is made to formulate a method for the calculation, to the lowest order, of the nonlinear evolution of the perturbations generated from a generic multifield inflationary model. This is done by extending the usual perturbation theory to second order. A future paper will address the issue from a different perspective .

## 2 Perturbations and gauge invariance at second order

Cosmological perturbation theory is a rather arcane subject. The reason is that in a general perturbed spacetime there is no privileged coordinate system with respect to which one can define perturbations. So perturbations can change when we change the coordinates. The study of general relativistic perturbations was pioneered in  and studied by many authors since (see e.g  for a comprehensive review). Let us briefly recall a more formal presentation of what is usually meant when one talks of perturbations in general relativity . One considers a five dimensional space composed of the background spacetime $`_0`$ and, stacked above it, perturbed spacetimes $`_ϵ`$ parametrized by the parameter $`ϵ`$. We implicitly assume some sort of differentiable structure on this 5-D space such that these perturbed spacetimes can be considered “close” to $`_0`$. On these spacetimes live tensor fields $`T`$. One then defines a vector field $`X`$, the integral curves of which are used for identifying points on $`_ϵ`$ with points on the background $`_0`$. The choice of $`X`$ is completely arbitrary and is called a choice of gauge. In general, any tensor $`T`$ can be expanded as a taylor series

$$T_0+\delta _XT=\varphi _{Xϵ}^{}(T_ϵ)=T_0+ϵ\mathrm{\pounds }_XT_0+\frac{1}{2}ϵ^2\mathrm{\pounds }_X\mathrm{\pounds }_XT_0+\mathrm{},$$
(1)
or, calling the various terms the perturbations at various orders,

$$\varphi _{Xϵ}^{}(T_ϵ)=T_0+\delta T^{(1)}+\delta T^{(2)}+\mathrm{},$$
(2)
where $`\varphi _{Xϵ}^{}`$ is the pullback along $`X`$ on the background manifold $`_0`$ of a tensor that lives on a perturbed spacetime $`_ϵ`$ parameter distance $`ϵ`$ away from the background. Hence the vector field $`X`$ alows us to define perturbations in a meaningful way. The choice of another vector field $`Y=(1,Y^\mu )`$ defines a different gauge and one finds that perturbations differ when defined in different gauges:

$$\delta _YT\delta _XT=ϵ\mathrm{\pounds }_{\xi ^{(1)}}T_0+\frac{1}{2}ϵ^2\mathrm{\pounds }_{\xi ^{(1)}}^2T_0+ϵ^2\mathrm{\pounds }_{\xi ^{(1)}}\delta _X^{(1)}T+\frac{1}{2}ϵ^2\mathrm{\pounds }_{\xi ^{(2)}}T_0+\mathrm{},$$
(3)
where $`\delta _X^{(1)}Tϵ\mathrm{\pounds }_XT_0`$ is the linear perturbation of $`T`$ in the “$`X`$ gauge” and $`\xi ^{(1)}YX`$, $`\xi ^{(2)}[X,Y]`$ are vector fields which lie on $`_0`$ and are independent of each other. Hence, by a suitable choice of $`\xi ^{(1)}`$ and $`\xi ^{(2)}`$, a gauge condition can be imposed order by order.

Expansion (3) also suggests a strategy for identifying gauge invariant quantities at second order. Observe that the first and fourth terms on th r.h.s of (3) are essentially the same (the transformations they define have the same functional form). This means that any linear combination $`f(\delta T^{(1)})`$ of first order variables which is gauge invariant to first order will also be gauge invariant w.r.t that part of the second order transformation which corresponds to the $`\frac{1}{2}ϵ^2\mathrm{\pounds }_{\xi ^{(2)}}T_0`$ term in (3). The remaining terms, $`\frac{1}{2}ϵ^2\mathrm{\pounds }_{\xi ^{(1)}}^2T_0+ϵ^2\mathrm{\pounds }_{\xi ^{(1)}}\delta _X^{(1)}T`$, are all composed of products of first order quantities. So in seeking gauge invariant combinations at second order we must look for appropriate quadratic terms of first order quantities that will cancel these quadratic terms in (3). If this can be done in a unique way then the form of a gauge invariant quantity at first order will dictate its form at second order.

We will now give an explicit example of the construction of a second order gauge invariant variable corresponding to the well known first order gauge invariant quantity (first introduced in , see also )

$$=\psi +\frac{}{\phi _0^{}}\delta \phi .$$
(4)
In general every quantity will be expanded in orders like in (2). For example

$`g_{\mu \nu }`$ $`=`$ $`g_{\mu \nu }^{(0)}+\delta g_{\mu \nu }^{(1)}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\delta g_{\mu \nu }^{(2)}+\mathrm{}`$
$`\phi `$ $`=`$ $`\phi ^{(0)}+\delta \phi ^{(1)}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\delta \phi ^{(2)}+\mathrm{}`$ (5)
e.t.c. In particular, writing the general perturbed metric element as

$$ds^2=a^2[(1+2\varphi )d\tau ^22B_idx^id\tau [(12\psi )\gamma _{ij}+2E_{ij}]dx^idx^j]$$
(6)
we have

$`g_{00}`$ $`=`$ $`a(\tau )^2\left(1+2\varphi ^{(1)}+\varphi ^{(2)}+\mathrm{}\right)`$ (7)
$`g_{0i}`$ $`=`$ $`a(\tau )^2\left(B_i^{(1)}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}B_i^{(2)}+\mathrm{}\right)`$ (8)
$`g_{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`a(\tau )^2\left[\left(12\psi ^{(1)}\psi ^{(2)}+\mathrm{}\right)\delta _{ij}+2E_{ij}^{(1)}+E_{ij}^{(2)}+\mathrm{}\right].`$ (9)
Then, from eqn. (3) one can calculate the formulae for the gauge transformations of the relevant quantities. For an extensive account of second order gauge transformations, explicit formulae and some specific examples the reader can see  and references therein.

In general, formulae for perturbations at second order can be complicated and calculations rather tedious. In this paper we will make a number of simplifying assumptions. We will ignore vectors (hence spatially indexed quantities are given by derivatives of scalars) and, mainly, we will drop terms containing more than one spatial gradients. They are expected to be unimportant on scales longer than the hubble radious. Although there is no rigorous justification for the latter approximation it is expected to capture the main affects on superhorizon scales . Within such an approach, initial conditions at horizon crossing can be set by linear theory. Then, the long wavelength equations can be used to calculate the nonlinearities induced during the superhorizon evolution. The authors of  adopted such a procedure and showed that it is possible for significant nongaussianities to be generated in the adiabatic mode from the long wavelength evolution in multifield inflationary models. Their calculation ignored metric perturbations which are included here (see next section).

With these approximations in mind we have the following formulae for a gauge transformation: At first order

$`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_{(1)}`$ $`=`$ $`\varphi _{(1)}+\xi _{(1)}^{0}{}_{}{}^{}+\xi _{(1)}^0,`$ (10)
$`\stackrel{~}{B}_{(1)i}`$ $`=`$ $`B_{(1)i}_i\xi _{(1)}^0+\xi _{i(1)}^{},`$ (11)
$`\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{(1)}`$ $`=`$ $`\psi _{(1)}\xi _{(1)}^0,`$ (12)
$`\stackrel{~}{E}_{(1)ij}`$ $`=`$ $`E(1)_{ij},`$ (13)
$`\stackrel{~}{\delta }\phi _{(1)}`$ $`=`$ $`\delta \phi _{(1)}+\phi ^{}\xi _{(1)}^0,`$ (14)
and at second order

$`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_{(2)}=\varphi _{(2)}+\xi _{(2)}^{0}{}_{}{}^{}+\xi _{(2)}^0`$ $`+`$ $`\xi _{(1)}^0\left[2\left(\varphi _{(1)}^{}+2\varphi _{(1)}\right)+\xi _{(1)}^{0}{}_{}{}^{\prime \prime }+5\xi _{(1)}^{0}{}_{}{}^{}+\left(^{}+2^2\right)\xi _{(1)}^0\right]`$ (15)
$`+`$ $`2\xi _{(1)}^{0}{}_{}{}^{}\left(2\varphi _{(1)}+\xi _{(1)}^{0}{}_{}{}^{}\right),`$
$`\stackrel{~}{B}_{(2)i}`$ $`=`$ $`B_{(2)i}4\varphi _{(1)}_i\xi _{(1)}^0+\xi _{(1)}^0\left[2\left(B_{i}^{(1)}{}_{}{}^{}+2B_i^{(1)}\right)_i\xi _{(1)}^{0}{}_{}{}^{}+\xi _{i}^{(1)}{}_{}{}^{\prime \prime }4\left(_i\xi _{(1)}^0\xi _{i}^{(1)}{}_{}{}^{}\right)\right]`$ (16)
$`+`$ $`\xi _{(1)}^{0}{}_{}{}^{}\left(2B_i^{(1)}3_i\xi _{(1)}^0+\xi _{i(1)}^{}{}_{}{}^{}\right)+\xi _{(1)}^{j}{}_{}{}^{}\left(4\psi _{(1)}\delta _{ij}+2E_{(1)ij}\right)_i\xi _{(2)}^0+\xi _{i(2)}^{},`$
$$\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{(2)}=\psi _{(2)}\xi _{(2)}^0+\xi _{(1)}^0\left[2\left(\psi _{(1)}^{}+2\psi _{(1)}\right)\left(^{}+2^2\right)\xi _{(1)}^0\xi _{(1)}^{0}{}_{}{}^{}\right],$$
(17)
$$\stackrel{~}{E}_{(2)ij}=E_{(2)ij}+2\xi _{(1)}^0\left(E_{(1)ij}^{}+2E_{(1)ij}\right)$$
(18)
$$\stackrel{~}{\delta }\phi _{(2)}=\delta \phi _{(2)}+\phi ^{}\xi _{(2)}^0+\xi _{(1)}^0\left(\phi ^{\prime \prime }\xi _{(1)}^0+\phi ^{}\xi _{(1)}^{0}{}_{}{}^{}+2\delta \phi _{(1)}^{}\right).$$
(19)
Note that, as mentioned before, the part of the transformations in (15) - (19) containing the vector field $`\xi _{(2)}`$ is exactly the same as the first order case, eqn’s (10) - (14). From the above we see that the variable (4) at second order transforms like

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{\phi _0^{}}}\delta \stackrel{~}{\phi }^{(2)}+\stackrel{~}{\psi }^{(2)}={\displaystyle \frac{}{\phi _0^{}}}\delta \phi ^{(2)}+\psi ^{(2)}`$ $`+`$ $`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\phi _0^{\prime \prime }}{\phi _0^{}}}\left(^{}+2^2\right)\right](\xi _{(1)}^0)^2`$ (20)
$`+`$ $`2\left({\displaystyle \frac{}{\phi _0^{}}}\delta \phi _{(1)}^{}+\psi _{(1)}^{}+2\psi _{(1)}\right)\xi _{(1)}^0`$
As expected the transformation contains only products of first order quantities. Therefore we seek to construct a gauge invariant quantity at second order by adding a quadratic combination of first order quantities that will transform appropriately. By inspection we see that it must contain $`\psi `$, $`\delta \phi ^{}`$ and $`\psi ^{}`$ and it must not contain $`\delta \phi `$. So we must have

$$\left(A\psi +C\psi ^{}+D\delta \phi ^{}\right)\left(E\psi +G\psi ^{}+H\delta \phi ^{}\right).$$
(21)
Noting that

$`\psi ^{}\psi ^{}^{}\xi ^0\xi _{}^{0}{}_{}{}^{}`$ (22)
$`\delta \phi ^{}\delta \phi ^{}+\phi _0^{\prime \prime }\xi ^0+\phi _0^{}\xi _{}^{0}{}_{}{}^{}`$ (23)
and that we must not have terms involving $`\xi _{}^{0}{}_{}{}^{}`$ we see that we have 2 options. We either set

$`D=C{\displaystyle \frac{}{\phi _0^{}}}`$ (24)
$`H=G{\displaystyle \frac{}{\phi _0^{}}}`$ (25)
which eliminates the terms involving $`\xi _{}^{0}{}_{}{}^{}`$ in the transformation or take

$`D=H={\displaystyle \frac{4\pi }{m_p^2}}\phi _0^{}`$ (26)
$`C=G=^2^{}.`$ (27)
and use the background equations of motion. In both cases we are forced to consider $`A=E`$, $`C=G`$ and $`D=H`$ and we end up with the same variable

$`_{(2)}`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\psi _{(2)}+{\displaystyle \frac{}{\phi _0^{}}}\delta \phi _{(2)}\right]`$ (28)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\left[\psi _{(1)}^{}+2\psi _{(1)}+\frac{}{\phi _0^{}}\delta _{(1)}\phi ^{}\right]^2}{^{}+2^2\frac{\phi _0^{\prime \prime }}{\phi _0^{}}}}`$
which is invariant under the transformations (17) and (19).

## 3 Einstein equations for scalar fields at second order

Consider the perturbed line element

$$ds^2=a^2[(1+2\varphi )d\tau ^22B_idx^id\tau [(12\psi )\gamma _{ij}+2E_{ij}]dx^idx^j].$$
(29)
Here it is understood that all quantities appearing are to be expanded as in (5). By inserting (29) into the Einstein equations with the relevant energy momentum tensor and keeping only linear order terms, one arrives at the well known equations of linear perturbation theory which can be symbolically represented as

$$𝒟\delta ^{(1)}g=0.$$
(30)
Here $`𝒟`$ is a set of linear differential operators and $`\delta ^{(1)}g`$ represents the perturbation variables. At second order there are two types of terms. The $`\delta ^{(2)}g`$’s and terms quadratic in the $`\delta ^{(1)}g`$’s. The later are supposed to be known from the solution of the first order problem. The form of the equations at second order will then be

$$𝒟\delta ^{(2)}g=𝒥[(\delta g)^2].$$
(31)
with $`𝒟`$ the same operator as in (30) and $`𝒥`$ a source term quadratic in the perturbations. Since the solution to the homogeneous equation $`𝒟\delta g=0`$ is known then we can consider the source terms $`𝒥[(\delta g)^2]𝒥[(\delta ^{(1)}g)^2]`$ as known functions to second order. The solution of (31) will then have the form

$$\delta ^{(2)}g(y)=𝒟^1(yx)𝒥dx,$$
(32)
with $`𝒟^1(yx)`$ the appropriate set of Green’s functions, i.e the second order perturbations will be determined entirely by the $`𝒥`$’s. If $`\delta ^{(1)}g`$ is taken to be a gaussian random field, then (32) shows that $`\delta ^{(2)}g`$ is given by the square of a gaussian random field ($`𝒥`$ is quadratic in first order perturbations) and is non-gaussian.

### 3.1 Gravity sector

In the longitudinal gauge, the linear perturbation of the Einstein tensor has the well known form (ignoring second order gradients)

$`\delta _LG^0_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{a^2}}\left[3(\varphi +\psi ^{})\right],`$ (33)
$`\delta _LG^0_i`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{a^2}}_i\left(\varphi +\psi ^{}\right),`$ (34)
$`\delta _LG^i_j`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{a^2}}\left((2^{}+^2)\varphi +\varphi ^{}+\psi ^{\prime \prime }+2\psi ^{}\right)\delta _j^i`$ (35)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a^2}}\left[E_{ij}^{\prime \prime }+2E_{ij}^{}\right],`$
where the subscript ’L’ stands for the linear part. $`E_{ij}`$ is a transverse traceless tensor (there are no vectors and we ignore the scalar part since it is second order in spatial derivatives). For the matter sector we will take a system of scalar fields $`\phi ^A`$ with the lagrangian

$$=\frac{1}{2}G_{AB}^\mu \phi ^A_\mu \phi ^BV(\phi )$$
(36)
which corresponds to an energy momentum tensor

$$T_{\mu \nu }=G_{AB}_\mu \phi ^A_\nu \phi ^Bg_{\mu \nu }\left[\frac{1}{2}G_{AB}_\lambda \phi ^A^\lambda \phi ^BV(\phi )\right].$$
(37)
Here, $`V(\phi ^A)`$ is an arbitrary scalar potential. The fields $`\phi ^A`$ can be considered as coordinates on a field manifold with a symmetric metric $`G_{AB}`$111The Lagrangian (36) is analogous to the lagrangian for a point particle in curved space which moves under the influence of a potential V. Here we have 4 parameters - the 4 spacetime coordinates - instead of one in the case of the point particle.. The background equations of motion for the scalar fields derived from (36) are

$$\frac{1}{\sqrt{g}}_\mu \left(\sqrt{g}g^{\mu \nu }_\nu \phi ^A\right)+g^{\mu \nu }_\mu \phi ^B_\nu \phi ^C\mathrm{\Gamma }_{BC}^A+G^{AF}V_{,F}=0$$
(38)
or

$$\phi ^A{}_{}{}^{\prime \prime }+2\phi ^A{}_{}{}^{}+\phi ^B{}_{}{}^{}\phi _{}^{C}{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{BC}^{A}+a^2G^{AF}V_{,F}=0,$$
(39)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{BC}^A`$ is the symmetric metric connection formed from $`G_{AB}`$

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{BC}^A=\frac{1}{2}G^{AD}\left(G_{BD,C}+G_{CD,B}G_{BC,D}\right),$$
(40)
and the linear perturbation of the energy momentum tensor is

$`\delta _LT^0_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a^2}}\left[({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}G_{AB,C}\delta \phi ^C\varphi G_{AB})\phi ^A{}_{}{}^{}\phi _{}^{B}{}_{}{}^{}+G_{AB}\phi ^B{}_{}{}^{}\delta \phi ^A{}_{}{}^{}+a^2V_{,C}\delta \phi ^C\right],`$ (41)
$`\delta _LT^0_i`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a^2}}G_{AB}\phi ^A{}_{}{}^{}_{i}^{}\delta \phi ^B,`$ (42)
$`\delta _LT^i_j`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^i_j}{a^2}}\left[({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}G_{AB,C}\delta \phi ^C\varphi G_{AB})\phi ^A{}_{}{}^{}\phi _{}^{B}{}_{}{}^{}+G_{AB}\phi ^B{}_{}{}^{}\delta \phi ^A{}_{}{}^{}a^2V_{,C}\delta \phi ^C\right].`$ (43)
A perturbation $`\stackrel{}{\delta \phi }`$ will be a tanjent vector on the field manifold. Given a basis $`\widehat{𝐞}_A`$ in field space we have

$$\stackrel{}{\delta \phi }=\delta \phi ^A\widehat{𝐞}_A.$$
(44)
If the field manifold is flat there is a prefered basis, say $`\{\widehat{𝐞}_1,\widehat{𝐞}_2,\mathrm{}\}`$ which makes the kinetic term in the lagrangian canonical. Even in the flat case, a basis {$`\widehat{𝐞}_A`$} can in general depend on the coordinates in field space. We will use such a basis below. Then, $`G_{AB}=\widehat{𝐞}_A\widehat{𝐞}_B\delta _{AB}`$. Here, $``$ denotes a product in field space. If we expand $`\varphi `$, $`\psi `$ and $`\delta \phi ^A`$ as in (5) then $`\delta _L`$ is a linear operator acting at each order respectively.

At second order we will also have terms from the quadratic perturbation of the Einstein tensor and the energy momentum tensor which we denote by $`\delta _2G^\mu _\nu `$ and $`\delta _2T^\mu _\nu `$. Then at second order the Einstein equations become

$`\delta _LG^0{}_{0}{}^{}[\varphi _{(2)},\psi _{(2)}]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{8\pi }{m_p^2}}\delta _LT^0{}_{0}{}^{}[\varphi _{(2)},\psi _{(2)},\delta \phi _{(2)}^A]{\displaystyle \frac{2}{a^2}}A`$ (45)
$`\delta _LG^0{}_{i}{}^{}[\varphi _{(2)},\psi _{(2)}]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{8\pi }{m_p^2}}\delta _LT^0{}_{i}{}^{}[\varphi _{(2)},\psi _{(2)},\delta \phi _{(2)}^A]{\displaystyle \frac{2}{a^2}}B_i`$ (46)
$`\delta _LG^i{}_{j}{}^{}[\varphi _{(2)},\psi _{(2)}]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{8\pi }{m_p^2}}\delta _LT^i{}_{j}{}^{}[\varphi _{(2)},\psi _{(2)},\delta \phi _{(2)}^A]{\displaystyle \frac{2}{a^2}}C^i_j`$ (47)
where

$`A`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{a^2}{2}}(\delta _2G^0{}_{0}{}^{}{\displaystyle \frac{8\pi }{m_p^2}}\delta _2T^0{}_{0}{}^{})`$ (48)
$`B_i`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{a^2}{2}}(\delta _2G^0{}_{i}{}^{}{\displaystyle \frac{8\pi }{m_p^2}}\delta _2T^0{}_{i}{}^{})`$ (49)
$`C^i_j`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{a^2}{2}}(\delta _2G^i{}_{j}{}^{}{\displaystyle \frac{8\pi }{m_p^2}}\delta _2T^i{}_{j}{}^{}).`$ (50)
where, say, $`\delta _2G^0_0`$ is the quadratic perturbation of the Einstein tensor. To this order it will contain quadratic products of $`\psi _{(1)}`$ and $`\delta \phi _{(1)}^A`$ which are considered known from the solution of the linear problem. (Please note that $`B_i`$ here is different from the shift $`B_i`$ of (11) - we are in the longitudinal gauge, and C has nothing to do with the C of the previous section). From (34), (42) and (46) we get that

$$\left(\varphi +\psi ^{}\right)=\frac{4\pi }{m_p^2}G_{AB}\phi ^A{}_{}{}^{}\delta \phi ^B^2(_iB_i).$$
(51)
From (35), (43) and (47) we have

$$\delta _LG^{(2)i}{}_{i}{}^{}=\frac{8\pi }{m_p^2}\delta _LT^{(2)i}{}_{i}{}^{}\frac{2}{a^2}C$$
(52)
or

$`(2^{}+^2)\varphi +\varphi ^{}`$ $`+`$ $`\psi ^{\prime \prime }+2\psi ^{}={\displaystyle \frac{4\pi }{m_p^2}}[({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}G_{AB,C}\delta \phi ^C\varphi G_{AB})\phi ^A{}_{}{}^{}\phi _{}^{B}^{}`$ (53)
$`+`$ $`G_{AB}\phi ^B{}_{}{}^{}\delta \phi ^A{}_{}{}^{}a^2V_{,C}\delta \phi ^C]{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}C.`$
where $`C=C^i_i`$. Now use the background relation

$$G_{AB}\phi ^A{}_{}{}^{}\phi _{}^{B}{}_{}{}^{}=\frac{m_p^2}{4\pi }(^2^{})$$
(54)
and (53) becomes

$`\left(\varphi +\psi ^{}\right)^{}`$ $`+`$ $`2(\varphi +\psi ^{})={\displaystyle \frac{4\pi }{m_p^2}}[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}G_{AB,C}\delta \phi ^C\phi ^A{}_{}{}^{}\phi _{}^{B}^{}`$ (55)
$`+`$ $`G_{AB}\phi ^B{}_{}{}^{}\delta \phi ^A{}_{}{}^{}a^2V_{,C}\delta \phi ^C]{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}C.`$
Note that $`\varphi `$ and $`\psi `$ appear only through the combination

$$\psi ^{}+\varphi \delta .$$
(56)
Hence, the long wavelength sector of Einstein’s equations does not contain information for the values of $`\varphi `$ and $`\psi `$ separately. All the terms containing the difference $`\varphi \psi `$ are dropped under the long wavelength approximation. In linear theory it is known that $`\varphi =\psi `$ in the case of vanishing anisotropic stress . This need not be the case at second order. Yet, a non vanishing value of $`\varphi \psi `$ should not matter dynamically since it does not enter the equations explicitly. It only appears as an initial condition for $`\delta `$ provided by the short wavelength part of the system. But then, from equations (15) and (17) we see that we can set $`\varphi \psi =0`$ via a second order gauge transformation ($`\xi _{(1)}^\mu =0`$) by choosing

$$\xi _{(2)}^{0}{}_{}{}^{}+2\xi _{(2)}^0=\psi _{(2)}\varphi _{(2)},$$
(57)
and keep $`g_{0i}=0`$ with

$$\xi _{i(2)}^{}=_i\xi _{(2)}^0.$$
(58)
Of course $`E_{(2)ij}`$ will be redefined via (18). Using (51) and the background equation of motion (39) we obtain in this gauge from (55) a constraint at long wavelengths for the quadratic parts

$$\left(B_i\right)^{}+2B_i=\frac{1}{3}_iC$$
(59)
Combining (45) and (47) we obtain an equation of motion for the gravitational potential at second order

$$\psi ^{\prime \prime }+6\psi ^{}+2\left(^{}+2^2\right)\psi =\frac{8\pi }{m_p^2}a^2V_{,C}\delta \phi ^C+A\frac{1}{3}C.$$
(60)
### 3.2 Matter sector

Equation (60) holds for an arbitrary number of scalar fields in an arbitrary parametrisation of the field manifold. To express the $`\frac{8\pi }{m_p^2}a^2V_{,C}\delta \phi ^C`$ term on the r.h.s it will be useful to use a basis in the scalar field space which is ‘adapted’ to the background field trajectory, perturbations of which we wish to study. Such an idea was put forward in  in order to separate the entropy and adiabatic perturbations. Here we would like to give a more geometrical flavour which can be applied to an arbitrary number of fields and a noncanonical kinetic term. For simplicity we study a two field example with a diagonal metric. Some results for three fields are given in appendix B. A similar approach utilising a coordinate free language was described in

Consider equation (51). It is a constraint equation which relates the evolution of the gravitational (metric) perturbations to the perturbations in the scalar fields. In general all the fields will be linked to the gravitational perturbations. But equation (51) holds for any choice of coordinates on the field manifold. Therefore if we choose a set of coordinates adapted to the background trajectory, i.e a set of field coordinates of which only one varies along the background trajectory and at the same time make $`G_{AB}=\delta _{AB}`$ on the trajectory, then the linear term on the r.h.s of (51) will contain only the perturbation of that field since the time derivatives of the rest will be zero. Call $`\sigma `$ the coordinate that varies along the background trajectory. It will define a basis vector

$$\widehat{𝐞}_\sigma =\frac{}{\sigma }=\frac{1}{\sigma ^{}}\frac{d}{d\tau }$$
(61)
tangent to the background curve. Call the rest (N-1) coordinates $`s_i`$. Since we want the $`s_i`$’s to remain constant as we move along the trajectory we demand

$$𝐝s_i,\widehat{𝐞}_\sigma =0,i.e\widehat{𝐞}_{s_i}\widehat{𝐞}_\sigma =0.$$
(62)
We must also impose

$$𝐝s_i,\widehat{𝐞}_{s_j}=\delta _{ij},i.e\widehat{𝐞}_{s_i}\widehat{𝐞}_{s_j}=\delta _{ij}.$$
(63)
The background equations of motion in these coordinates read

$$\sigma ^{\prime \prime }+2\sigma ^{}+\sigma ^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\sigma \sigma }^{\sigma }+a^2G^{\sigma F}V_{,F}=0$$
(64)
and

$$\sigma ^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\sigma \sigma }^{s_i}+a^2G^{s_iF}V_{,F}=0.$$
(65)
The choices above mean that $`G_{\widehat{A}\widehat{B}}=\delta _{\widehat{A}\widehat{B}}`$ on the background trajectory in the $`\widehat{𝐞}_\sigma ,\widehat{𝐞}_{s_i}`$ basis. We also observe the following: the change of $`\widehat{𝐞}_\sigma `$ along the background trajectory - on which only $`\sigma `$ varies - will be

$$\frac{\widehat{𝐞}_\sigma }{\sigma }𝒟_{\widehat{𝐞}_\sigma }\widehat{𝐞}_\sigma =\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\sigma \sigma }^{\widehat{A}}\widehat{𝐞}_{\widehat{A}}.$$
(66)
where $`𝒟`$ is the covariant derivative operator in field space. Since $`\widehat{𝐞}_\sigma `$ is taken to be a vector of unit length its variation along the trajectory will be a vector normal to it, i.e a linear combination of the $`\widehat{𝐞}_{s_i}`$’s only. Therefore $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\sigma \sigma }^\sigma =0`$. So the background equations of motion become

$$\sigma ^{\prime \prime }+2\sigma ^{}+a^2\delta ^{\sigma F}V_{,F}=0$$
(67)
and

$$\sigma ^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\sigma \sigma }^{s_i}+a^2\delta ^{s_iF}V_{,F}=0.$$
(68)
Along the trajectory we will have

$$\widehat{𝐞}_\sigma =\mathrm{\Lambda }^A{}_{\sigma }{}^{}\widehat{𝐞}_{A}^{}$$
(69)
with

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }^A{}_{\sigma }{}^{}=\frac{\phi ^A}{\sigma }=\frac{\phi ^A^{}}{\sigma ^{}}$$
(70)
We want $`\widehat{𝐞}_\sigma `$ to be a unit vector so

$$1=\widehat{𝐞}_\sigma \widehat{𝐞}_\sigma =G_{\sigma \sigma }=\mathrm{\Lambda }^A{}_{\sigma }{}^{}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}^{B}{}_{\sigma }{}^{}G_{AB}^{}$$
(71)
from which we get that $`\sigma ^{}=\sqrt{\phi ^A{}_{}{}^{}\phi _{}^{B}{}_{}{}^{}G_{AB}^{}}`$ and hence

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }^A{}_{\sigma }{}^{}=\frac{\phi ^A^{}}{\sqrt{\phi ^B{}_{}{}^{}\phi _{}^{C}{}_{}{}^{}G_{BC}^{}}}$$
(72)
The coefficients $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^A{}_{s_i}{}^{}\phi ^A/s_i`$ which give the $`\widehat{𝐞}_{s_i}\mathrm{`}s`$ in terms of the original vectors

$$\widehat{𝐞}_{s_i}=\mathrm{\Lambda }^A{}_{s_i}{}^{}\widehat{𝐞}_{A}^{}$$
(73)
should be chosen such that $`\widehat{𝐞}_\sigma \widehat{𝐞}_{s_i}=0`$ and $`\widehat{𝐞}_{s_i}\widehat{𝐞}_{s_j}=\delta _{ij}`$, or

$$G_{AB}\mathrm{\Lambda }^A{}_{\sigma }{}^{}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}^{B}{}_{s_i}{}^{}=0,G_{AB}\mathrm{\Lambda }^A{}_{s_i}{}^{}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}^{B}{}_{s_j}{}^{}=\delta _{ij}.$$
(74)
For $`N3`$ there are less equations in (74) than the number of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^A_{s_i}`$’s needed to define the $`N1`$ entropy vectors as we will now show. One has $`\frac{N(N1)}{2}+N1=\frac{N(N+1)}{2}1`$ relations from (74) and one needs $`N(N1)`$ functions to determine the $`\widehat{𝐞}_{s_i}`$’s in terms of the $`\widehat{𝐞}_A`$’s. So we are left with $`1+\frac{N(N3)}{2}`$ undetermined functions. In three dimensions this is 1 which corresponds to our freedom to rotate the two isocurvature directions in a plane normal to $`\widehat{𝐞}_\sigma `$.

In practice it is staightforward to apply a Gram-Schmidt orthogonalization procedure to constuct a new orthonormal basis as follows222Many thanks to Christopher Gordon for a stimulating discussion on this: We already know $`\widehat{𝐞}_\sigma `$ from eqns (69) and (72). Pick any other N-1 vectors from the original basis $`\widehat{𝐞}_A=\frac{}{\phi ^A}`$ which are not parallel to $`\widehat{𝐞}_\sigma `$ (as will be the case in general). Then one has N linearly independent vectors. By applying the Gram-Schmidt procedure we can construct N-1 orthonormal vectors which are also normal to $`\widehat{𝐞}_\sigma `$ (see figure 1). These define the N-1 isocurvature (entropy) directions.333For an application of a Gram-Schmidt orthogonalisation to assisted inflation models see  What one ends up with is a relation between $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^A_{s_i}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^A_\sigma `$

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }^A{}_{s_i}{}^{}=f^A(\mathrm{\Lambda }^B{}_{\sigma }{}^{}).$$
(75)
The only thing that still needs to be specified in order for this new coordinate system to be defined in a region around the trajectory are derivatives w.r.t the $`s_i`$’s. They will be determined by demanding that the isocurvature part of the basis, $`\widehat{𝐞}_{s_i}/s_i`$, commutes with $`\widehat{𝐞}_\sigma `$

$$[\widehat{𝐞}_{s_i},\widehat{𝐞}_\sigma ]=0.$$
(76)
By acting the above commutator on the functions $`\phi ^A`$ we get

$$\frac{}{s_i}\mathrm{\Lambda }^A{}_{\sigma }{}^{}=\frac{1}{\sigma ^{}}\frac{}{\tau }\mathrm{\Lambda }^A{}_{s_i}{}^{}=\frac{1}{\sigma ^{}}\frac{f^A}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_\sigma ^B}\frac{}{\tau }\mathrm{\Lambda }^B{}_{\sigma }{}^{},$$
(77)
with $`f^A`$ defined in (75). The derivatives $`_{s_i}\mathrm{\Lambda }^A_{s_j}`$ are of course defined via (77) and (75). Equation (77) can be used to compute any derivative in the isocurvature directions.

Let us now focus for simplicity on a system with two fields and a diagonal metric

$$G_{AB}=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\alpha & 0\\ 0& \beta \end{array}\right).$$
(78)
We take $`s=0`$ on the trajectory and we write (72) as

$`\mathrm{\Lambda }^1{}_{\sigma }{}^{}=U(s){\displaystyle \frac{\phi ^1^{}}{\sqrt{\alpha (\phi ^1^{})^2+\beta (\phi ^2^{})^2}}}`$ (79)
$`\mathrm{\Lambda }^2{}_{\sigma }{}^{}=W(s){\displaystyle \frac{\phi ^2^{}}{\sqrt{\alpha (\phi ^1^{})^2+\beta (\phi ^2^{})^2}}},`$ (80)
where we have parametrised the dependence on $`s`$ by the functions $`U(s)`$ and $`W(s)`$. On the trajectory $`U(0)=W(0)=1`$. We take the unnormalised vector normal to the velocity to be

$$\stackrel{~}{\widehat{𝐞}}_s=\widehat{𝐞}_2(\widehat{𝐞}_\sigma \widehat{𝐞}_2)\widehat{𝐞}_\sigma =(1\beta (\mathrm{\Lambda }^1{}_{\sigma }{}^{})^2)\widehat{𝐞}_2\beta \mathrm{\Lambda }^2{}_{\sigma }{}^{}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}^{1}{}_{\sigma }{}^{}\widehat{𝐞}_{1}^{}.$$
(81)
Therefore, the isocurvature basis vector is

$$\widehat{𝐞}_s=\sqrt{\frac{\beta }{\alpha }}\mathrm{\Lambda }^2{}_{\sigma }{}^{}\widehat{𝐞}_{1}^{}+\sqrt{\frac{\alpha }{\beta }}\mathrm{\Lambda }^1{}_{\sigma }{}^{}\widehat{𝐞}_{2}^{},$$
(82)
from which we read off the transformation coefficients in the $`s`$ direction

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }^1{}_{s}{}^{}=\sqrt{\frac{\beta }{\alpha }}\mathrm{\Lambda }^2{}_{\sigma }{}^{},\mathrm{\Lambda }^2{}_{s}{}^{}=\sqrt{\frac{\alpha }{\beta }}\mathrm{\Lambda }^1{}_{\sigma }{}^{}.$$
(83)
The metric in these new coordinates reads

$$G_{\sigma \sigma }=G_{ss}=\alpha (\mathrm{\Lambda }^1{}_{\sigma }{}^{})^2+\beta (\mathrm{\Lambda }^2{}_{\sigma }{}^{})^2,$$
(84)
$$G_{s\sigma }=0,$$
(85)
which reduces to unit diagonal on the background trajectory, $`s=0`$, as expected.

In order to specify the new coordinate system completely, we need to know the functions $`U`$ and $`W`$ appearing in (79) and (80), or, equivalently, to be able to calculate a derivative of arbitrary order with respect to $`s`$ on the background trajectory, i.e at $`s=0`$. This can be achieved via (77) which in this case reads

$$\frac{dU}{ds}=W\frac{1}{\phi _{}^{1}{}_{}{}^{}}\frac{}{\tau }\left(\sqrt{\frac{\beta }{\alpha }}\frac{\phi _{}^{2}{}_{}{}^{}}{\sigma ^{}}\right)$$
(86)
and

$$\frac{dW}{ds}=U\frac{1}{\phi _{}^{2}{}_{}{}^{}}\frac{}{\tau }\left(\sqrt{\frac{\alpha }{\beta }}\frac{\phi _{}^{1}{}_{}{}^{}}{\sigma ^{}}\right).$$
(87)
With these, any derivative in the $`\sigma ,s`$ coordinates can be calculated in terms of functions of $`\tau `$, known along the background trajectory.

We can now derive equations for the gravitational potential and the isocurvature perturbation at second order. The first term on the r.h.s of (60) is written in the $`\sigma ,s`$ coordinates

$$\frac{8\pi }{m_p^2}a^2V_C\delta \phi ^C=\frac{8\pi }{m_p^2}a^2V_{,s}\delta s+\frac{8\pi }{m_p^2}a^2V_{,\sigma }\delta \sigma .$$
(88)
From (67)

$$a^2V_{,\sigma }\delta \sigma =\left(\frac{\sigma ^{\prime \prime }}{\sigma ^{}}+2\right)\sigma ^{}\delta \sigma ,$$
(89)
and from (51)

$$\sigma ^{}\delta \sigma =\frac{m_p^2}{4\pi }\left(\psi +\psi ^{}\right)+\frac{m_p^2}{4\pi }^2\left(_iB_i\right).$$
(90)
So from (60) we can get an equation for the gravitational potential to second order

$`\psi ^{\prime \prime }+2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\sigma ^{\prime \prime }}{\sigma ^{}}}\right)\psi ^{}`$ $`+`$ $`2\left(^{}{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma ^{\prime \prime }}{\sigma ^{}}}\right)\psi ={\displaystyle \frac{8\pi }{m_p^2}}\left(\sigma ^{}\right)^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\sigma \sigma }^s\delta s`$ (91)
$`+`$ $`AF^{}2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\sigma ^{\prime \prime }}{\sigma ^{}}}+3\right)F,`$
with

$$F^2_iB_i.$$
(92)
and we have used that on long wavelengths we have from (59)

$$F^{}+2F=\frac{1}{3}C.$$
(93)
We also need an equation for the entropy perturbation $`\delta s`$. We can get it by perturbing (38) expressed in the $`\sigma ,s`$ coordinates:

$`\delta s^{\prime \prime }`$ $`+`$ $`2\delta s^{}2\psi (\sigma ^{})^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\sigma \sigma }^s+2\sigma ^{}(\delta \sigma ^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }^s{}_{\sigma \sigma }{}^{}+\delta s^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }^s{}_{s\sigma }{}^{})`$ (94)
$`+`$ $`(\sigma ^{})^2(\delta s\mathrm{\Gamma }^s{}_{\sigma \sigma ,s}{}^{}+\delta \sigma \mathrm{\Gamma }^s{}_{\sigma \sigma ,\sigma }{}^{})+a^2G^{s\widehat{F}}{}_{,\widehat{C}}{}^{}\delta \phi ^{\widehat{C}}V_{,\widehat{F}}+a^2V_{,s\widehat{C}}\delta \phi ^{\widehat{C}}=J^s.`$
Expressing $`\delta \sigma `$ and $`\delta \sigma ^{}`$ in terms of $`\psi `$ and $`\psi ^{}`$ we finally get

$$\delta s^{\prime \prime }+2\delta s^{}+\left[a^2V_{ss}6\left(\sigma ^{}\right)^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\sigma \sigma }^s+\left(\sigma ^{}\right)^2_s\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\sigma \sigma }^s\right]=J^s.$$
(95)
The $`J^s`$ term appearing on the r.h.s of (95) is a second order source and it is calculated in the appendix. Equations (91) and (95) are generalisations to second order and a diagonal but otherwise arbitrary field metric of the equations for the evolution of long wavelength curvature and isocurvature perturbations given in . The above procedure could of course be applied to an arbitrary number of fields and the most general metric.

A nice result proved in  is that when the background trajectory is straight in field space then isocurvature perturbations do not source the adiabatic one or, equivalently, the gravitational potential perturbation. This is true only if the metric is flat, $`G_{AB}=\delta _{AB}`$. If the field space has a nontrivial metric then the equivalent statement would be that this decoupling occurs if the background fields follow a geodesic in field space. By geodesics we mean the curves that the background fields would follow if there was no potential term in the lagrangian (36). We will now prove this for the two field case but the argument can be generalised in a straightforward manner. The geodesic equation in field space would read

$$\phi ^A{}_{}{}^{\prime \prime }+2\phi ^A{}_{}{}^{}+\phi ^B{}_{}{}^{}\phi _{}^{C}{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{}^{A}{}_{BC}{}^{}=0.$$
(96)
In the $`\sigma ,s`$ coordinates these equations read

$`\sigma ^{\prime \prime }+2\sigma ^{}`$ $`=`$ $`0`$
$`(\sigma ^{})^2\mathrm{\Gamma }^s_{\sigma \sigma }`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (97)
Hence, such trajectories correspond to $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^s{}_{\sigma \sigma }{}^{}=0`$ and from (91) we see that, indeed, the isocurvature perturbations do not source the metric perturbation 444$`\mathrm{\Gamma }^s_{\sigma \sigma }`$ measures the rate of change of the $`\widehat{𝐞}_\sigma `$ vector along the trajectory in the direction of $`s`$. Hence it is true that a trajectory that bends generates a coupling between isocurvature and adiabatic perturbations as suggested in .. In contrast, for a “straight” trajectory $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^s{}_{\sigma \sigma }{}^{}0`$. Indeed

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }^s_{\sigma \sigma }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}G^{s\widehat{F}}\left(2G_{\widehat{F}\sigma ,\sigma }G_{\sigma \sigma ,\widehat{F}}\right)`$ (98)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(2G_{s\sigma ,\sigma }G_{\sigma \sigma ,s}\right)`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}G_{\sigma \sigma ,s}`$
where we have used that, by construction, $`G_{\widehat{A}\widehat{B}}=\delta _{\widehat{A}\widehat{B}}`$ along the trajectory. Now $`G_{\sigma \sigma }=\mathrm{\Lambda }^A{}_{\sigma }{}^{}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}^{B}{}_{\sigma }{}^{}G_{AB}^{}`$ so

$`G_{\sigma \sigma ,s}`$ $`=`$ $`2\mathrm{\Lambda }^A{}_{\sigma }{}^{}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}^{B}{}_{\sigma ,s}{}^{}G_{AB}^{}+\mathrm{\Lambda }^A{}_{\sigma }{}^{}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}^{B}{}_{\sigma }{}^{}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}^{C}{}_{s}{}^{}G_{AB,C}^{}`$ (99)
$`=`$ $`2G_{AB}\mathrm{\Lambda }^A{}_{\sigma }{}^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sigma ^{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{\tau }}\mathrm{\Lambda }^B{}_{s}{}^{}+\mathrm{\Lambda }^A{}_{\sigma }{}^{}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}^{B}{}_{\sigma }{}^{}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{}^{C}{}_{s}{}^{}G_{AB,C}^{}`$
from eq (77). In general the r.h.s of (99) will be different from zero. Hence $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^s{}_{\sigma \sigma }{}^{}0`$ and isocurvature perturbations can source the adiabatic one.

We conclude that nontrivial kinetic terms can lead to nontrivial couplings between the adiabatic and the isocurvature perturbations which may not be supressed on superhorizon scales, in contrast to what happens in models with flat field metrics 555A particular example for a two field model with a non flat metric where such a conclusion is reached was studied in . Such scalar Lagrangians appear in the effective actions of various candidate fundamental theories. Therefore it would be worth studying wether the interplay of isocurvature and adiabatic perturbations in such models has any interesting phenomenological consequences. Of course, non linear evolution will couple the two types of perturbations anyway.

### 3.3 Superhorizon Gauge Invariant Variables

Having found solutions to the perturbation equations at second order in a particular gauge, we can always construct gauge invariant quantities in terms of the new field coordinates $`\sigma `$ and $`s_i`$. At first order the gauge invariant curvature perurbation $``$ is can be written as

$$_{(1)}=\left[\psi _{(1)}+\frac{}{\sigma ^{}}\delta \sigma _{(1)}\right]$$
(100)
Since $`s^{}=0`$, $`\delta s_i`$ is gauge invariant at first order. At second order, according to eqn. (19)

$$\stackrel{~}{\delta }s=\delta s+2\xi _{(1)}^0\delta s_{i}^{}{}_{(1)}{}^{}$$
(101)
so a corresponding gauge invariant quantity is easily seen to be

$$\delta s_{i}^{}{}_{}{}^{(g.i)}=\delta s_i2\frac{\delta \sigma _{(1)}}{\sigma ^{}}\delta s_{i}^{}{}_{(1)}{}^{}.$$
(102)
Similarly we can construct a gauge invariant curvature perturbation at second order similar to (28)

$`_{(2)}`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\psi _{(2)}+{\displaystyle \frac{}{\sigma ^{}}}\delta \sigma _{(2)}\right]`$ (103)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\left[\psi _{(1)}^{}+2\psi _{(1)}+\frac{}{\sigma ^{}}\delta _{(1)}\sigma ^{}\right]^2}{^{}+2^2\frac{\sigma ^{\prime \prime }}{\sigma ^{}}}}.`$
The variables (102) and (103) are second order gauge invariant variables (at least on superhorizon scales) which can be used to study isocurvature and adiabatic perurbations in the mild nonlinear regime.

## 4 Summary

We have touched upon the issue of studying second order perturbations in multifield inflationary models and defined gauge invariant variables - equations (102) and (103) - on supehorizon scales also to second order. The latter can be constructed given the solution to lowest non linear order in a given gauge. We have presented a more geometrical method for the splitting of isocurvature and adiabatic perturbations and applied it to a two field model with a diagonal but otherwise arbitrary metric. We showed that in this case naive “straight” trajectories do not lead to the decoupling of adiabatic from isocurvature perturbations. We identified the type of curves for which this happens. A perturbative approach by which one can study the nonlinear evolution of perturbations in such models to second order was suggested. The resulting equations have the same form as the first order linear ones but with new terms appearing on the right hand side. These new terms are quadratic in the first order perturbations and therefore they can be considered as known “sources” from the solution of the first order problem. Such a formalism can be used to calculate the amount of nongaussianity produced in such models by treating the perturbations as gaussian stochastic fields when they become superhorizon and then study their non linear evolution from that point. The resulting non gaussianity will be of the $`\chi ^2`$ type since we are considering quadratic products of gaussian fields. We have implicitly assumed a smoothing on scales larger than the horizon and dropped second order spatial gradients. Although straightforward to calculate, the resulting source terms, in principle known, are quite complicated. We will return to the issue of calculating non linear evolution in multifield inflationary models with a different approach in a future publication .

Acknowledgements: Many thanks to Carsten van de Bruck and Christopher Gordon for useful discussions and comments, Marco Bruni for bringing to my attention other works related to second order perturbation theory, and especially Paul Shellard for discussions and generous support.

## Appendix A Second order sources

In this appendix we give formulae nessecary for the calculation of the terms A, C, F, $`J^s`$ defined in the text. These are the terms containing products of first order perturbations.

We write the metric as

$$g_{\mu \nu }=g_{\mu \nu }^B+h_{\mu \nu }.$$
(104)
where $`h_{0i}=0`$. Indices will be raised and lowered with the background metric. Then the perturbation of the contravariant metric tensor will be

$$g^{\mu \nu }=g^{(B)\mu \nu }h^{\mu \nu }+h^\mu {}_{\alpha }{}^{}h_{}^{\alpha \nu }$$
(105)
and in particular

$`g^{00}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a^4}}h_{00}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a^6}}h_{00}h_{00}`$ (106)
$`g^{0i}`$ $`=`$ $`0`$ (107)
$`g^{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta _{ij}}{a^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a^4}}h_{ij}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a^6}}h_{ik}h_{kj}.`$ (108)
The perturbation of the metric determinant is

$$\sqrt{g}=a^4(1+\frac{1}{2}h+\frac{1}{8}h^2\frac{1}{4}h^\alpha {}_{\beta }{}^{}h_{}^{\beta }{}_{\alpha }{}^{}).$$
(109)
The perturbation of the Riemann tensor to first and second order can be found to be ( p:965)

$$R_{\mu \nu }^{(1)}=\frac{1}{2}(h_{|\mu \nu }h_{\mu \nu |\alpha }{}_{}{}^{\alpha }+h_{\alpha \mu |\nu }{}_{}{}^{\alpha }+h_{\alpha \nu |\mu }{}_{}{}^{\alpha })$$
(110)
and

$`R_{\mu \nu }^{(2)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}h_{\alpha \beta |\mu }h^{\alpha \beta }{}_{|\nu }{}^{}+h^{\alpha \beta }(h_{\alpha \beta |\mu \nu }+h_{\mu \nu |\alpha \beta }h_{\alpha \mu |\nu \beta }h_{\alpha \nu |\mu \beta })`$ (111)
$`+`$ $`h_\nu {}_{}{}^{\alpha |\beta }(h_{\alpha \mu |\beta }h_{\beta \mu |\alpha })\left(h^{\alpha \beta }{}_{|\beta }{}^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}h^{|\alpha }\right)(h_{\alpha \mu |\nu }+h_{\alpha \nu |\mu }h_{\mu \nu |\alpha })].`$
where a vertical bar denotes a covariant derivative w.r.t. the background. Then

$$R^{(1)\mu }{}_{\nu }{}^{}=g^{(B)\mu \alpha }R^{(1)}{}_{\alpha \nu }{}^{}h^{\mu \alpha }R^{(B)}_{\alpha \nu }$$
(112)
and

$$R^{(2)\mu }{}_{\nu }{}^{}=g^{(B)\mu \alpha }R_{\alpha \nu }^{(2)}h^{\mu \alpha }R_{(1)\alpha \nu }+h^\mu {}_{\lambda }{}^{}h_{}^{\lambda \alpha }R_{\alpha \nu }^{(B)}.$$
(113)
Using the following perturbed metric tensor (longitudinal gauge)

$$h_{00}=2a^2\psi $$
(114)
$$h_{ij}=2a^2\psi \delta _{ij}2a^2E_{ij}$$
(115)
$$h=4\psi $$
(116)
we get, after a rather tedious calculation

$$R^{(2)0}{}_{0}{}^{}=\frac{2}{a^2}[6\psi ^{}\psi 6(^{}+2^2)\psi ^2E_{kl}(E_{kl}^{}+2^2E_{kl})+\frac{1}{2}E_{kl}^{}E_{kl}^{}],$$
(117)
$$R^{(2)0}{}_{i}{}^{}=\frac{2}{a^2}[_i\psi (\psi ^{}4\psi )+2E_{kl}(_iE_{kl}^{}_lE_{ki}^{})+E_{kl}^{}_iE_{kl}+2E_{il}_l\psi ^{}2_l\psi E_{il}^{}],$$
(118)
$`R^{(2)i}_j`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4}{a^2}}[\psi (\psi ^{}(^{}+2^2)\psi )\delta _{ij}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\psi ^{})^2\delta _{ij}`$ (119)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}E_{ij}\left(\psi ^{\prime \prime }+2\psi ^{}+2(4^{}+9^2)\psi \right)`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}E_{ik}^{}E_{kj}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}E_{kl}^{}E_{kl}\delta _{ij}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}(^{}+2^2)E_{ik}E_{kj}].`$
The Einstein tensor will be

$$G^{(2)0}{}_{0}{}^{}=\frac{1}{2}(R^{(2)0}{}_{0}{}^{}R^{(2)l}{}_{l}{}^{})$$
(120)
$$G^{(2)0}{}_{i}{}^{}=R^{(2)0}_i$$
(121)
$$G^{(2)i}{}_{j}{}^{}=R^{(2)i}{}_{j}{}^{}\frac{1}{2}\delta ^i{}_{j}{}^{}(R^{(2)0}{}_{0}{}^{}R^{(2)i}{}_{i}{}^{}),$$
(122)
so we find

$`G^{(2)0}_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a^2}}[6\psi \left((^{}+2^2)\psi \right)+3(\psi ^{})^2`$ (123)
$``$ $`E_{kl}(5E_{kl}^{}+({\displaystyle \frac{9}{2}}^2^{})E_{kl})+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}E_{kl}^{}E_{kl}^{}],`$
$`G^{(2)0}_i`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{a^2}}[_i\psi (\psi ^{}4\psi )+2E_{kl}(_iE_{kl}^{}_lE_{ki}^{})`$ (124)
$`+`$ $`E_{kl}^{}_iE_{kl}+2E_{il}_l\psi ^{}2_l\psi E_{il}^{}],`$
$`G^{(2)i}_j`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{a^2}}[2\psi (4\psi ^{}+2(^{}+2^2)\psi )\delta _{ij}+(\psi ^{})^2\delta _{ij}`$ (125)
$`+`$ $`2E_{ki}^{}E_{kj}E_{kl}^{}E_{kl}\delta _{ij}+(^{}+2^2)E_{ki}E_{kj}`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(^22^{})E_{kl}E_{kl}\delta _{ij}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}E_{kl}^{}E_{kl}^{}\delta _{ij}`$
$``$ $`2E_{ij}(\psi ^{\prime \prime }+2\psi ^{}+2(4^{}+9^2)\psi )].`$
For the energy momentum tensor

$$T_{\mu \nu }=G_{AB}_\mu \phi ^A_\nu \phi ^Bg_{\mu \nu }\left[\frac{1}{2}G_{AB}_\lambda \phi ^A^\lambda \phi ^BV(\phi )\right].$$
(126)
the second order perturbation for two fields is given by

$`T^{(2)0}_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a^2}}[\left(\delta \sigma ^{}\right)^22\sigma ^{}\left(\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\sigma \sigma }^s\right)^{}\delta s\delta \sigma \left(\sigma ^{}\right)^2_s\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\sigma \sigma }^s\delta s^2`$ (127)
$`+`$ $`2\psi ^2\left(\sigma ^{}\right)^2+2\left(\sigma ^{}\right)^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\sigma \sigma }^s\psi \delta s2\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\sigma \sigma }^s\sigma ^{}\delta s\delta \sigma ^{}2\sigma ^{}\psi \delta \sigma ^{}]`$
$`+`$ $`V_{ss}\delta s^2+2V_{s\sigma }\delta s\delta \sigma +V_{\sigma \sigma }\delta \sigma ^2`$
$$T^{(2)0}{}_{i}{}^{}=\frac{1}{a^2}[\delta s^{}_i\delta s+(\delta \sigma ^{}2\sigma ^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\sigma \sigma }^s\delta s2\psi \sigma ^{})_i\delta \sigma ],$$
(128)
$`T^{(2)i}_j`$ $`=`$ $`\delta _j^i{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a^2}}[\left(\delta \sigma ^{}\right)^22\sigma ^{}\left(\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\sigma \sigma }^s\right)^{}\delta s\delta \sigma \left(\sigma ^{}\right)^2_s\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\sigma \sigma }^s\delta s^2`$ (129)
$`+`$ $`2\psi ^2\left(\sigma ^{}\right)^2+2\left(\sigma ^{}\right)^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\sigma \sigma }^s\psi \delta s2\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\sigma \sigma }^s\sigma ^{}\delta s\delta \sigma ^{}2\sigma ^{}\psi \delta \sigma ^{}]`$
$`+`$ $`\delta _j^i\left[V_{ss}\delta s^2+2V_{s\sigma }\delta s\delta \sigma +V_{\sigma \sigma }\delta \sigma ^2\right]`$
where we have obviously dropped second order spatial derivatives. We also need to compute the quadratic part of the wave equation for the system of scalar fields

$$\frac{1}{\sqrt{g}}_\mu \left(\sqrt{g}g^{\mu \nu }_\nu \phi ^A\right)+g^{\mu \nu }_\mu \phi ^B_\nu \phi ^C\mathrm{\Gamma }_{BC}^A+G^{AF}V_{,F}=0.$$
(130)
Up to second order spatial gradients we get

$`J^s`$ $`=`$ $`4{\displaystyle \frac{d}{d\tau }}\left(a^2\psi \delta s^{}\right)+4a^2\left(\sigma ^{}\right)^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\sigma \sigma }^s\left(\psi ^2+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\sigma \sigma }^s\psi \delta s\right)`$ (131)
$`+`$ $`a^2\sigma ^{}\left(\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\sigma \sigma }^s\right)^{}\left[3\psi \delta \sigma +2{\displaystyle \frac{\delta \sigma \delta \sigma ^{}}{\sigma ^{}}}+2{\displaystyle \frac{\delta \sigma \delta s^{}}{\sigma ^{}}}+4\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\sigma \sigma }^s\delta s\delta \sigma \right]`$
$`+`$ $`a^2_s\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\sigma \sigma }^s\left[2\delta s^23\left(\sigma ^{}\right)^2\psi \delta s+2\sigma ^{}\delta s\delta \sigma ^{}+2\sigma ^{}\delta s\delta s^{}\right]`$
$`+`$ $`a^2\left(\sigma ^{}\right)^2\delta \sigma \left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sigma ^{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{d\tau }}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sigma ^{}}}\left(\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\sigma \sigma }^s\right)^{}\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sigma ^{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{d\tau }}\left(_s\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\sigma \sigma }^s\right)\right]`$
$``$ $`2a^4\psi (V_{ss}\delta s+V_{s\sigma }\delta \sigma )+a^4(V_{sss}\delta s^2+2V_{ss\sigma }\delta s\delta \sigma +V_{s\sigma \sigma }\delta \sigma ^2)]`$
$`+`$ $`a^2\left(\sigma ^{}\right)^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\sigma \sigma }^sE_{ij}E_{ij}.`$
With these formulae we can compute all the second order terms defined in the text.

## Appendix B Isocurvature-adiabatic split with three fields

In this appendix we present the isocurvature-adiabatic split for three fields $`\phi ^1,\phi ^2,\phi ^3`$ with an arbitrary metric $`G_{AB}`$. This should illustrate the general case. Now we will have two isocurvature directions. Take the set $`\{\widehat{𝐞}_\sigma ,\widehat{𝐞}_2,\widehat{𝐞}_3\}`$ as the starting point for constructing the orthonormal vectors. Form $`\widehat{𝐞}_{s_2}`$ which lies in the plane spanned by $`\widehat{𝐞}_\sigma `$ and $`\widehat{𝐞}_2`$. First form the unnormalised

$$\stackrel{~}{\widehat{𝐞}}_{s_2}=\widehat{𝐞}_2(\widehat{𝐞}_2\widehat{𝐞}_\sigma )\widehat{𝐞}_\sigma $$
(132)
One finds

$$\stackrel{~}{\widehat{𝐞}}_{s_2}=\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^A{}_{s_2}{}^{}\widehat{𝐞}_{A}^{}$$
(133)
with

$`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^2_{s_2}`$ $`=`$ $`1\mathrm{\Lambda }_{2\sigma }\mathrm{\Lambda }^2{}_{\sigma }{}^{}=\mathrm{\Lambda }_{1\sigma }\mathrm{\Lambda }^1{}_{\sigma }{}^{}+\mathrm{\Lambda }_{3\sigma }\mathrm{\Lambda }^3_\sigma `$
$`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^1_{s_2}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{2\sigma }\mathrm{\Lambda }^1_\sigma `$
$`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^3_{s_2}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{2\sigma }\mathrm{\Lambda }^3{}_{\sigma }{}^{},`$ (134)
where

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }_{A\sigma }G_{AB}\mathrm{\Lambda }^B{}_{\sigma }{}^{}.$$
(135)
Then

$$\widehat{𝐞}_{s_2}=\frac{\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^A_{s_2}}{\sqrt{\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^B{}_{s_2}{}^{}\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_{Bs_2}^{}}}\widehat{𝐞}_A.$$
(136)
So, we have

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }^A{}_{s_2}{}^{}=\frac{\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^A_{s_2}}{\sqrt{\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^B{}_{s_2}{}^{}\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_{Bs_2}^{}}}.$$
(137)
Repeating the procedure we form

$$\stackrel{~}{\widehat{𝐞}}_{s_3}=\widehat{𝐞}_3(\widehat{𝐞}_3\widehat{𝐞}_\sigma )\widehat{𝐞}_\sigma (\widehat{𝐞}_3\widehat{𝐞}_{s_2})\widehat{𝐞}_{s_2}$$
(138)
to get

$`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^1_{s_3}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{3\sigma }\mathrm{\Lambda }^1{}_{\sigma }{}^{}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{3s_2}\mathrm{\Lambda }^1_{s_2}`$
$`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^2_{s_3}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{3\sigma }\mathrm{\Lambda }^2{}_{\sigma }{}^{}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{3s_2}\mathrm{\Lambda }^2_{s_2}`$
$`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^3_{s_3}`$ $`=`$ $`1\mathrm{\Lambda }_{3\sigma }\mathrm{\Lambda }^3{}_{\sigma }{}^{}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{3s_2}\mathrm{\Lambda }^3{}_{s_2}{}^{}.`$ (139)
So we have

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }^A{}_{s_3}{}^{}=\frac{\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^A_{s_3}}{\sqrt{\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^B{}_{s_3}{}^{}\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_{Bs_3}^{}}}.$$
(140)
As before, we demand for the $`\widehat{𝐞}_{s_i}`$‘s

$$[\widehat{𝐞}_{s_i},\widehat{𝐞}_\sigma ]=0$$
(141)
from which we get by acting on $`\phi ^A`$

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sigma ^{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{\tau }}\mathrm{\Lambda }^A{}_{s_2}{}^{}={\displaystyle \frac{}{s_2}}\mathrm{\Lambda }^A_\sigma `$ (142)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sigma ^{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{\tau }}\mathrm{\Lambda }^A{}_{s_3}{}^{}={\displaystyle \frac{}{s_3}}\mathrm{\Lambda }^A{}_{\sigma }{}^{}.`$ (143)
Knowing the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ coefficients we can calculate the metric $`G_{\widehat{A}\widehat{B}}`$ in the new basis, where the index $`\widehat{A}`$ runs over $`\{\sigma ,s_1,s_2\}`$. Using equations (142) and (143) we can then calculate any partial derivative of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^A_\sigma `$ in terms of time derivatives along the background trajectory. Hence we can calculate the connection and perturbations of arbitrary order in the new $`\{\widehat{𝐞}_\sigma ,\widehat{𝐞}_{s_1},\widehat{𝐞}_{s_2}\}`$ basis.


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# Non-Abelian Horizontal Symmetry and Anomalous 𝑈(1) Symmetry for the Supersymmetric Flavor Problem

## Abstract

It is shown that using non-abelian horizontal gauge symmetry and anomalous $`U(1)_A`$ symmetry in grand unified theories (GUTs), realistic quark and lepton mass matrices including large neutrino mixings can be obtained, while the differences among the scalar fermion masses are sufficiently small for suppression of various flavor changing neutral current (FCNC) processes, especially in $`E_6`$ GUT. Combining the Higgs sector, in which doublet-triplet splitting is realized, a complete $`E_6\times SU(3)_H`$ GUT, in which three generations are unified into a single multiplet, $`\mathrm{\Psi }(\mathrm{𝟐𝟕},\mathrm{𝟑})`$, is obtained.

preprint:   hep-ph/0212141 KUNS-1816

Two fundamental features, that have not yet been understood, of the standard model (SM) are the hierarchical structure of the Yukawa couplings and the replication of quarks and leptons. GUT provides a description of the unification of one family of quarks and leptons, but offers no understanding their generations. Introducing a horizontal symmetry is a natural way to distinguish these generations and to realize the hierarchical structure of the Yukawa couplings. Such an approach has been studied in the literature, with abelian horizontal symmetry abel ; TGUT ; BM , non-abelian horizontal symmetry nonabel , and discrete symmetry. Once supersymmetry (SUSY) is introduced to stabilize the weak scale, it is, in many cases, necessary that the first and second generation scalar fermion (sfermion) masses be nearly identical to suppress the FCNC processes. In SUSY theories, one of the most important problems is to satisfy the above two antithetical aspects of flavor physics (SUSY flavor problem). It is quite interesting that by introducing one of the various kinds of horizontal symmetries, this SUSY flavor problem can potentially be solved Sabel ; Snonabel ; Sdiscrete . Anomalous $`U(1)_A`$ gauge symmetry U(1) , an abelian horizontal symmetry, whose anomaly is cancelled by the Green-Schwarz mechanism GS , can accomplish this, though the artificial structure of Yukawa matrices must be assumed Sabel . A non-abelian horizontal symmetry may be more interesting, because it is obvious that this type of symmetry results in the degeneracy of sfermion masses, though it is not easy to obtain realistic quark and lepton mass matrices in a simple way, keeping the suppression of the FCNC processes Snonabel . In this paper, we show that using both such symmetries, the SUSY flavor problem is naturally solved, in particular, in the GUT scenario proposed in Refs. TGUT ; BM ; Unif ; MY .

It is worthwhile recalling the basic features of non-abelian horizontal symmetry, and for this purpose, we consider a simple model with horizontal symmetry $`U(2)`$. If under $`U(2)`$ the three generations of quarks and leptons, $`\mathrm{\Psi }_i=(\mathrm{\Psi }_a,\mathrm{\Psi }_3)`$ ($`a=1,2`$), transform as $`\mathrm{𝟐}+\mathrm{𝟏}`$, and the Higgs field $`H`$ is a singlet, then only the Yukawa couplings for the third generation are allowed by the horizontal symmetry. This accounts for the large top Yukawa coupling. The $`U(2)`$ horizontal symmetry is broken by the two vacuum expectation values (VEVs) of the doublet $`\overline{F}^a=\delta _2^aV`$ and of the anti-symmetric tensor $`A^{ab}=ϵ^{ab}v`$ ($`ϵ^{12}=ϵ^{21}=1`$) as

$$U(2)_H\underset{V}{}U(1)_H\underset{v}{}\mathrm{nothing}.$$
(1)
The ratios of the VEVs to the cutoff, $`ϵV/\mathrm{\Lambda }ϵ^{}v/\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, yield the following hierarchical structure of the Yukawa couplings:

$$Y_{u,d,e}\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& ϵ^{}& 0\\ ϵ^{}& 0& ϵ\\ 0& ϵ& 1\end{array}\right).$$
(2)
Moreover, the $`U(2)_H`$ symmetric interaction $`d^4\theta \mathrm{\Psi }^a\mathrm{\Psi }_aZ^{}Z`$, where $`Z`$ has a non-vanishing VEV given by $`Z\theta ^2\stackrel{~}{m}`$, leads to nearly equal first and second generation sfermion masses, with

$$\stackrel{~}{m}_{u,d,e}^2\stackrel{~}{m}^2\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1& 0& 0\\ 0& 1+ϵ^2& ϵ\\ 0& ϵ& O(1)\end{array}\right),$$
(3)
where the difference between these masses, $`ϵ^2`$, results from higher dimensional interactions, like $`d^4\theta (\mathrm{\Psi }_a\overline{F}^a)^{}\mathrm{\Psi }_b\overline{F}^bZ^{}Z`$, through a non-vanishing VEV $`\overline{F}`$. These mass matrices lead to the relations $`\frac{\stackrel{~}{m}_2^2\stackrel{~}{m}_1^2}{\stackrel{~}{m}^2}\frac{m_{F2}}{m_{F3}},`$ where $`m_{Fi}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{m}_i`$ are the masses of the $`i`$-th generation fermions and the $`i`$-th generation sfermions, respectively. Unfortunately, these predictions of this simple model imply a problematic contribution to the $`ϵ_K`$ parameter in $`K`$ meson mixing and the $`\mu e\gamma `$ process. Moreover, it is obvious that hierarchical Yukawa couplings predicted by this simple model are similar for the up-quark sector, the down-quark sector, and the lepton-sector. This is inconsistent with experimental results. In particular, in neutrino sector, with this model it seems to be difficult to obtain the large neutrino mixing angles that have been measured in some recent experiments atmos ; solar . Several models in which some of these problems can be avoided have been studied in the literature Snonabel , but there is no existing formulation in which all of these problems can be avoided in a natural manner.

In this paper, we consider a new approach employing anomalous $`U(1)_A`$ gauge symmetry. We show that this gauge symmetry allows for all of these problems to be solved in a natural manner. The author and collaborators have already pointed out that employing the anomalous $`U(1)_A`$ gauge symmetry allow us to solve various problems that plague GUTs TGUT ; BM ; Unif ; MY , for example, the doublet-triplet splitting problem, proton instability, unrealistic GUT relations between quark and lepton Yukawa matrices, and unnatural gauge coupling unification. One of the most important features of the GUT scenario is that the theory can be defined once we fix the anomalous $`U(1)_A`$ charges, because generic interactions are introduced. Vacuum expectation values (VEVs) are determined by anomalous $`U(1)_A`$ charges as

$$O_i\{\begin{array}{ccc}\lambda ^{o_i}& & o_i0\hfill \\ 0& & o_i>0\hfill \end{array},$$
(4)
where the $`O_i`$ are GUT gauge singlet operators with charges $`o_i`$, and $`\lambda \mathrm{\Theta }/\mathrm{\Lambda }1`$. Here the Froggatt-Nielsen (FN) field $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ has an anomalous $`U(1)_A`$ charge of $`1`$ FN . (In this paper we choose $`\mathrm{\Lambda }2\times 10^{16}`$ GeV, which results from the natural gauge coupling unification Unif , and $`\lambda 0.22`$.) Throughout this paper, we denote all superfields and chiral operators by uppercase letters and their anomalous $`U(1)_A`$ charges by the corresponding lowercase letters. When convenient, we use units in which $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=1`$. Such a vacuum structure is naturally obtained if we introduce generic interactions even for higher-dimensional operators and if the $`F`$-flatness conditions determine the scale of the VEVs. In this paper, we show that by applying the vacuum relation (4) to the Higgs which breaks the non-abelian horizontal gauge symmetry, realistic quark and lepton mass matrices including large neutrino mixing angles can be obtained, while the FCNC processes are suppressed. In other words, we show how the FCNC processes can be suppressed by introducing non-abelian horizontal gauge symmetry into our GUT scenario, in which realistic Yukawa mass matrices have already been obtained. We should note that horizontal gauge symmetry may introduce a problem, because the non-vanishing $`D`$-term may break the degeneracy of the sfermion masses. Therefore it may necessary to include some mechanism that suppresses the $`D`$-term, as in Ref. Babu , but in this paper, we do not discuss this problem.

Let us explain the basic idea with an $`SU(5)`$ GUT model with $`SU(2)_H\times U(1)_A`$. The field content is given in Table I.

Table I. Typical values of anomalous $`U(1)_A`$ charges. The half integer charges play the same role as R-parity.

|  | $`\mathrm{\Psi }_a`$ | $`\mathrm{\Psi }_3`$ | $`T_a`$ | $`T_3`$ | $`N_a`$ | $`N_3`$ | $`H`$ | $`\overline{H}`$ | $`F_a`$ | $`\overline{F}^a`$ | $`S`$ | $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| $`SU(5)`$ | 10 | 10 | $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}`$ | $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}`$ | 1 | 1 | $`\mathrm{𝟓}`$ | $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}`$ | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| $`SU(2)_H`$ | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | $`\mathrm{𝟏}`$ | 1 | 2 | $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟐}}`$ | 1 | 1 |
| $`U(1)_A`$ | $`\frac{13}{2}`$ | $`\frac{7}{2}`$ | $`\frac{13}{2}`$ | $`\frac{11}{2}`$ | $`\frac{13}{2}`$ | $`\frac{7}{2}`$ | $`7`$ | $`7`$ | $`2`$ | $`3`$ | 5 | $`1`$ |

The superpotential for the $`S`$ field, $`W_S=\lambda ^sS(1+\lambda ^{f+\overline{f}}\overline{F}F),`$ leads to the $`SU(2)_H`$ breaking VEV $`\overline{F}F\lambda ^{(f+\overline{f})}.`$ Without loss of generality, we can take $`|\overline{F}^a|=|F_a|\delta _{a2}\lambda ^{\frac{1}{2}(f+\overline{f})},`$ using the $`SU(2)_H`$ gauge symmetry and its $`D`$-flatness condition. Then, from the relations

$$\lambda ^{\psi +\overline{f}}\mathrm{\Psi }_a\overline{F}^a\lambda ^{\psi +\mathrm{\Delta }f}\mathrm{\Psi }_2,\lambda ^{\psi +f}ϵ^{ab}\mathrm{\Psi }_aF^b\lambda ^{\psi \mathrm{\Delta }f}\mathrm{\Psi }_1,$$

where $`\mathrm{\Delta }f\frac{1}{2}(\overline{f}f)`$, it is obvious that with the effective charges defined as $`\stackrel{~}{x}_3x_3`$, $`\stackrel{~}{x}_2x+\mathrm{\Delta }f`$, and $`\stackrel{~}{x}_1x\mathrm{\Delta }f`$ for $`x=\psi ,t,n`$, the Yukawa matrices of the quarks and leptons $`Y_{u,d,e,\nu }`$ and the right-handed neutrino mass matrix $`M_{\nu R}`$ can be approximated as

$`(Y_u)_{ij}\lambda ^{\stackrel{~}{\psi }_i+\stackrel{~}{\psi }_j+h},(Y_d)_{ij}(Y_e^T)_{ij}\lambda ^{\stackrel{~}{\psi }_i+\stackrel{~}{t}_j+\overline{h}}`$ (5)
$`(Y_\nu )_{ij}\lambda ^{\stackrel{~}{t}_i+\stackrel{~}{n}_j+h},(M_{\nu R})_{ij}\lambda ^{\stackrel{~}{n}_i+\stackrel{~}{n}_j}`$ (6)
from the generic interactions $`W_{\mathrm{fermion}}=\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}^2\lambda ^hH+\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}\stackrel{~}{T}\lambda ^{\overline{h}}\overline{H}+\stackrel{~}{T}\stackrel{~}{N}\lambda ^hH+\stackrel{~}{N}\stackrel{~}{N},`$ where $`\stackrel{~}{X}\lambda ^{x+f}ϵ^{ab}X_aF_b+\lambda ^{x+\overline{f}}X_a\overline{F}^a+\lambda ^{x_3}X_3`$ for $`X=\mathrm{\Psi },T,N`$. Throughout this paper, we omit $`O(1)`$ coefficients for simplicity. Then, the neutrino mass matrix is obtained as $`(M_\nu )_{ij}=(Y_\nu )(M_{\nu R})^1(Y_\nu ^T)\frac{H^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\lambda ^{\stackrel{~}{t}_i+\stackrel{~}{t}_j+2h}\frac{H^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}.`$ In theories in which Yukawa couplings are determined by $`U(1)`$ charges, as in the above, the unitary matrices $`V_{y_P}`$ $`(y=u,d,e,\nu `$ and $`P=L,R)`$ that diagonalize these Yukawa and mass matrices as $`V_{y_L}^{}Y_yV_{y_R}=Y_y^{\mathrm{diag}}`$, the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix $`V_{CKM}V_{d_L}V_{u_L}^{}`$, and the Maki-Nakagawa-Sakata matrix $`V_{MNS}V_{e_L}V_{\nu _L}^{}`$ are roughly approximated by the matrices $`(V_{\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}})_{ij}\lambda ^{\stackrel{~}{\psi }_i\stackrel{~}{\psi }_j}`$ and $`(V_{\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}})_{ij}\lambda ^{\stackrel{~}{t}_i\stackrel{~}{t}_j}`$ as $`V_{\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}}V_{u_L}V_{d_L}V_{u_R}V_{e_R}V_{CKM}`$ and $`V_{\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}}V_{d_R}V_{e_L}V_{\nu _L}V_{MNS}`$. Using the typical charge assignment given in Table I, we obtain realistic structure of quark and lepton mass matrices, in which large neutrino mixing angles are also realized.

The sfermion mass-squared matrices are written

$$\stackrel{~}{m}_y^2=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\stackrel{~}{m}_{y_L}^2& A_y^{}\\ A_y& \stackrel{~}{m}_{y_R}^2\end{array}\right).$$
(7)
In this paper, we concentrate on mass mixings through $`\stackrel{~}{m}_{y_P}^2`$, because a reasonable assumption like SUSY breaking in the hidden sector, leads to an $`A_y`$ that is proportional to the Yukawa matrix $`Y_y`$ SW . Roughly speaking, the sfermion mass squared matrix is given by $`\stackrel{~}{m}_{y_P}^2\stackrel{~}{m}^2\mathrm{diag}(1,1,O(1))`$, and the correction $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{y_P}(\stackrel{~}{m}_{y_P}^2\stackrel{~}{m}^2)/(\stackrel{~}{m}_{y_P})^2`$ in the model described by Table I is approximately given by

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}}=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}\lambda ^5& \lambda ^6& \lambda ^{3.5}\\ \lambda ^6& \lambda ^5& \lambda ^{2.5}\\ \lambda ^{3.5}& \lambda ^{2.5}& R_{\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}}\end{array}\right),\mathrm{\Delta }_{\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}}=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}\lambda ^5& \lambda ^6& \lambda ^{3.5}\\ \lambda ^6& \lambda ^5& \lambda ^{4.5}\\ \lambda ^{3.5}& \lambda ^{4.5}& R_{\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}}\end{array}\right)$$
(8)
for 10 fields and $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}`$ fields. Here $`R_{\mathrm{𝟏𝟎},\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}}O(1)`$. For example, $`(\mathrm{\Delta }_{\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}})_{12}`$ can be derived using the interaction $`d^4\theta \lambda ^{|f\overline{f}|}(T\overline{F})^{}(TF)Z^{}Z`$. Note that $`(\stackrel{~}{m}_{d2}^2\stackrel{~}{m}_{d1}^2)/\stackrel{~}{m}_d^2(m_s/m_b)^2`$, and the rather large neutrino mixing angle $`(V_{MNS})_{23}\lambda ^{0.5}`$ can be realized in the model described by Table I. The essential points are that the Yukawa hierarchy is determined by the (effective) anomalous $`U(1)_A`$ charges, while the corrections to the sfermion masses are determined by the VEVs as $`|F|=|\overline{F}|\lambda ^{(f+\overline{f})}`$. Let us concentrate on the components $`(Y_d)_{32}`$, $`(Y_e)_{23}`$ (note $`(Y_d)_{32}(Y_e)_{23}`$), and $`(Y_{d,e})_{33}`$, which are required to be of the same order to obtain large atmospheric neutrino mixing. The components $`(Y_e)_{23}`$ and $`(Y_d)_{32}`$ are obtained from the interaction $`\mathrm{\Psi }_3T_a\overline{F}^a\overline{H}`$, and actually they are suppressed by the VEV $`\overline{F}\lambda ^{\frac{1}{2}(f+\overline{f})}=\lambda ^{2.5}`$. On the other hand, the components $`(Y_{d,e})_{33}`$ are also suppressed by the factor $`\lambda ^{\psi _3+t_3+\overline{h}}\lambda ^2`$, because of the $`U(1)_A`$ symmetry. It is obvious that smaller $`(Y_{d,e})_{33}`$ (namely, smaller $`\mathrm{tan}\beta H/\overline{H}`$) allows for smaller $`(Y_e)_{23}`$ and $`(Y_d)_{32}`$, and therefore, smaller $`\overline{F}`$. This, then, leads to smaller corrections to the sfermion masses. In other words, because the negative value of the charge $`\overline{f}`$ can increase the Yukawa couplings $`(Y_e)_{23}`$ and $`(Y_d)_{32}`$ from the simply expected value $`\lambda ^{\psi _3+t+\overline{h}}=\lambda ^2`$ by a factor of $`\lambda ^{\overline{f}}=\lambda ^2`$, larger values of these Yukawa couplings can be realized by smaller VEVs of $`F`$ and $`\overline{F}`$, which lead to smaller corrections to the sfermion masses. Unfortunately, even with these smaller corrections, the FCNC processes are not suppressed for two reasons, because the neutrino mixing angles are large and because $`R_{\overline{5}}O(1)`$. The various FCNC processes constrain the mixing matrices defined by $`\delta _{y_P}V_{y_P}^{}\mathrm{\Delta }_{y_P}V_{y_P}`$ GGMS . In this model, these mixing matrices are approximated as

$$\delta _{\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}}=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}\lambda ^5& \lambda ^6& \lambda ^{3.5}\\ \lambda ^6& \lambda ^5& \lambda ^{2.5}\\ \lambda ^{3.5}& \lambda ^{2.5}& R_{\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}}\end{array}\right),\delta _{\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}}=R_{\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}}\left(\begin{array}{ccc}\lambda ^3& \lambda ^2& \lambda ^{1.5}\\ \lambda ^2& \lambda & \lambda ^{0.5}\\ \lambda ^{1.5}& \lambda ^{0.5}& 1\end{array}\right).$$
(9)
In order to suppress the contribution to $`ϵ_K`$ in $`K`$ meson mixing, scalar quark masses larger than 1 TeV are required, and in order to suppress the $`\mu e\gamma `$ process, scalar lepton masses larger than 300 GeV are required.

It is notewhorthy that in $`E_6`$ GUT with anomalous $`U(1)_A`$ symmetry, $`R_{\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}}`$ can be small enough to suppress the FCNC processes. To understand this, first note that under $`E_6SO(10)SU(5)`$, the fundamental representation $`\mathrm{𝟐𝟕}`$ is divided as

$$\mathrm{𝟐𝟕}\mathrm{𝟏𝟔}[\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}+\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}+\mathrm{𝟏}]+\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}[\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}^{}+\mathrm{𝟓}]+\mathrm{𝟏}[\mathrm{𝟏}].$$
(10)
We introduce two pairs of $`\mathrm{𝟐𝟕}`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟐𝟕}}`$ to break $`E_6`$ into $`SU(5)`$. The VEVs $`|\mathrm{\Phi }|=|\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}|\lambda ^{\frac{1}{2}(\varphi +\overline{\varphi })}`$ break $`E_6`$ into $`SO(10)`$, which is broken into $`SU(5)`$ by the VEVs $`|C|=|\overline{C}|\lambda ^{\frac{1}{2}(c+\overline{c})}`$. Because the three fundamental representation fields $`\mathrm{\Psi }_i(\mathrm{𝟐𝟕})`$ ($`i=1,2,3`$) include $`3\times (\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}+\mathrm{𝟓})+6\times \overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}`$ of $`SU(5)`$, only three of the six $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}`$ become massless. The $`3\times 6`$ mass matrix is obtained from the interactions $`W=\lambda ^{\psi _i+\psi _j+\varphi }\mathrm{\Psi }_i\mathrm{\Psi }_j\mathrm{\Phi }+\lambda ^{\psi _i+\psi _j+c}\mathrm{\Psi }_i\mathrm{\Psi }_jC`$. Note that $`\psi _3<\psi _1,\psi _2`$ because top quark has larger Yukawa couplings than the first and second generation fields. Therefore, as discussed in Ref. BM , it is natural that these three massless $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}`$ fields come from the first and second generation fields, $`\mathrm{\Psi }_1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_2`$, because the smaller charge $`\psi _3`$ results in larger masses of the $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}`$ fields from $`\mathrm{\Psi }_3`$. If the first two multiplets become the doublet $`\mathrm{\Psi }(\mathrm{𝟐𝟕},\mathrm{𝟐})`$ under $`SU(2)_H`$ in this $`E_6`$ GUT, then it is obvious that the sfermion masses for these three modes $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}`$ are equal at leading order. Then, if we fix the model by setting $`(f,\overline{f})=(2,3)`$ and $`(\psi ,\psi _3,\varphi ,\overline{\varphi },c,\overline{c})=(5,2,4,2,5,2)`$ (noting that odd R-parity is required for the matter fields $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_3`$), the massless modes become $`(\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_\mathrm{𝟏},\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_\mathrm{𝟐},\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_\mathrm{𝟏}^{}+\lambda ^\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_\mathrm{𝟑})`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }=\stackrel{~}{\psi }_1\stackrel{~}{\psi }_3+\frac{1}{2}(\varphi \overline{\varphi }c+\overline{c})=2`$. As discussed in Ref. MY , it is natural that the Higgs fields $`H`$ and $`\overline{H}`$ are included in $`\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}_𝚽`$ of $`SO(10)`$. Therefore, the $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}^{}`$ fields have no direct Yukawa couplings with $`\overline{H}`$. The massless mode $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_\mathrm{𝟏}^{}+\lambda ^\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_\mathrm{𝟑}`$ has Yukawa couplings only through the mixing with $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}_\mathrm{𝟑}`$. Then the structure of the quark and lepton Yukawa matrices becomes the same as that found in the previous $`SU(5)`$ model. The correction to the sfermion masses $`\delta \stackrel{~}{m}_{\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}}`$ can be approximated from the higher dimensional interactions as

$$\frac{\delta \stackrel{~}{m}_{\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}}^2}{\stackrel{~}{m}^2}\left(\begin{array}{ccc}\lambda ^5& \lambda ^6& \lambda ^{5.5}\\ \lambda ^6& \lambda ^5& \lambda ^{4.5}\\ \lambda ^{5.5}& \lambda ^{4.5}& \lambda ^2\end{array}\right),$$
(11)
which leads to the same $`\delta _{\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}}`$ as that in Eq. (9) if we use $`R_{\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}}=\lambda ^2`$. This decreases the lower limit of the scalar quark mass to an acceptable value, 250 GeV. Note that $`R_{\overline{5}}`$ can be obtained as $`R_{\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}}=(\delta \stackrel{~}{m}_{\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}}^2/\stackrel{~}{m}^2)_{33}\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}\mathrm{\Phi }\lambda ^{(\varphi +\overline{\varphi })}`$ from the interaction $`d^4\theta \mathrm{\Psi }^{}\mathrm{\Phi }^{}\mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{\Phi }Z^{}Z`$.

Another interesting feature of $`E_6`$ GUT with anomalous $`U(1)_A`$ symmetry is that we can extend the horizontal gauge group to $`SU(3)_H`$. In this model the three generations of quarks and leptons can be unified into a single multiplet, $`\mathrm{\Psi }(\mathrm{𝟐𝟕},\mathrm{𝟑})`$. Supposing that the horizontal gauge symmetry $`SU(3)_H`$ is broken by the VEVs of two pairs of Higgs fields $`F_i(\mathrm{𝟏},\mathrm{𝟑})`$ and $`\overline{F}_i(\mathrm{𝟏},\overline{\mathrm{𝟑}})`$ $`(i=2,3)`$ as $`|F_{ia}|=|\overline{F}_i^a|\delta _i^a\lambda ^{\frac{1}{2}(f_i+\overline{f}_i)},`$ the effective charges can be defined from the relations

$`\lambda ^{\psi +\overline{f}_i}\mathrm{\Psi }_a\overline{F}_i^a\lambda ^{\psi +\frac{1}{2}(\overline{f}_if_i)}\mathrm{\Psi }_i(i=2,3),`$ (12)
$`\lambda ^{\psi +f_2+f_3}ϵ^{abc}\mathrm{\Psi }_aF_{2b}F_{3c}\lambda ^{\psi \frac{1}{2}(\overline{f}_2f_2+\overline{f}_3f_3)}\mathrm{\Psi }_1,`$
as $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }_i\psi +\frac{1}{2}(\overline{f}_if_i),\stackrel{~}{\psi }_1\psi \frac{1}{2}(\overline{f}_2f_2+\overline{f}_3f_3).`$ Then, if we choose their charges as $`(f_3,\overline{f}_3,f_2,\overline{f}_2)=(2,2,3,2)`$ and $`\psi =4`$, this $`E_6\times SU(3)_H`$ model gives the same predictions for the mass matrices of fermions and sfermions as the previous $`E_6\times SU(2)_H`$ model. \[The model obtained by choosing $`(f_3,\overline{f}_3,f_2,\overline{f}_2)=(2,3,4,3)`$, $`\psi =13/2`$, and $`(\varphi ,\overline{\varphi },c,\overline{c})=(7,3,8,0)`$ may be more interesting, because mass matrices for quarks and leptons that are essentially the same as those in Ref. BM  are obtained if we set $`\lambda ^{1.5}=0.22`$. \]

For both models $`E_6\times SU(2)_H`$ and $`E_6\times SU(3)_H`$, if we add a Higgs sector that breaks $`E_6`$ into the gauge group of the standard model, as in Ref. MY , then we can obtain complete $`E_6\times SU(2)_H`$ and $`E_6\times SU(2)_H`$ GUT, in which the degeneracy of the sfermion masses is naturally obtained. As discussed in Refs. BM ; MY , these models yield not only realistic quark and lepton mass matrices but also natural doublet-triplet splitting. As an example, the entire Higgs content, except singlets under $`E_6`$, is listed in Table II.

Table II. Typical values of anomalous $`U(1)_A`$ charges.

|  | $`A`$ | $`A^{}`$ | $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ | $`\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}`$ | $`C`$ | $`\overline{C}`$ | $`C^{}`$ | $`\overline{C}^{}`$ |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| $`E_6`$ | 78 | 78 | 27 | $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟐𝟕}}`$ | 27 | $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟐𝟕}}`$ | 27 | $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟐𝟕}}`$ |
| $`U(1)_A`$ | $`1`$ | $`5`$ | $`4`$ | $`2`$ | $`5`$ | $`2`$ | $`9`$ | $`7`$ |
| $`Z_2`$ | $``$ | $``$ | + | + | + | + | $``$ | $``$ |

Here, all the Higgs fields are singlets under the horizontal gauge symmetry $`SU(2)_H`$ or $`SU(3)_H`$. Therefore additional fields that are not singlets under the horizontal gauge symmetry are required for anomaly cancellation, for example, a doublet for $`SU(2)_H`$ models and a $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}}`$ for $`SU(3)_H`$ models. It may be interesting to introduce non-singlet Higgs fields under the horizontal gauge symmetry. This subject will be examined in the near future.

The $`E_6\times SU(3)_H`$ GUT and $`E_6\times SU(2)_H`$ GUT give interesting predictions for the structure of sfermion masses, in addition to the predictions on $`B`$-physics which are examined in the literature Okada . Roughly speaking, all the sfermion fields have nearly equal masses, except the third generation fields included in 10 of $`SU(5)`$. More precisely, this degeneracy is lifted by $`D`$-term contributions of $`SU(3)_H`$ and $`E_6`$. Though the size of such contributions vary greatly among the models, and some of these contributions must be small in order to suppress the FCNC processes, it is important to test these GUT models with precisely measured masses of sfermions, as discussed in Ref. KMY .

N.M. is supported in part by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan.


text:
# Measurement of the RLT response function for 𝜋⁰ electroproduction at 𝑄² = 0.070 (GeV/c)2 in the 𝑁→Δ transition

## 1 Introduction

The signature of the conjectured deformation of the nucleon  is mostly saught through the isolation of resonant quadrupole amplitudes in the $`\gamma ^{}N\mathrm{\Delta }`$ transition. Such quadrupole contributions provide a sensitive probe of the internal nucleon structure and the underlying quark dynamics. Quadrupole amplitudes and the origin of deformation is attributed to different effects depending on the theoretical approach adopted. In a constituent-quark picture of the nucleon, a quadrupole resonant amplitude would point to a d-state admixture in the 3-quark wave function of the nucleon. Such a d-state component is expected as a consequence of a spin-spin tensor or color-hyperfine interaction among quarks. In dynamical models of the $`\pi N`$ system, the effect of the pionic cloud will also allow the appearance of quadrupole amplitudes.

A number of experimental programs  have been active in photo- and electro-pion production in the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ region at all the itermediate energy electromagnetic facilities. Results emerging from these programs strongly support the notion of a deformed nucleon although the magnitude and the origin of this effect is still under exploration. The principal difficulty derives from the ”contamination” of the quadrupole amplitudes from coherent processes, such as Born terms or tails of higher resonances. The isolation of the contributions of the non resonant terms has emerged as a key task in the experimental program exploring the issue of nucleon deformation. Recent reviews on this issue can be found in .

We present here the results pertaining to the measurement of the $`\sigma _{LT}`$ and $`\sigma _o=\sigma _T`$+$`ϵ`$$`\sigma _L`$ response functions in an H$`(e,e^{}p)\pi ^0`$ reaction at $`Q^2=0.070`$ (GeV/c)2 and at $`W`$=1155 MeV, on the rising shoulder of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ resonance. The motivation for the experiment was twofold: a) to understand the interplay between resonant and non resonant amplitudes which is best explored by following the $`W`$ dependence of the various responses and b) to commence a series of measurements at a lower $`Q^2`$ than $`Q^2=0.127`$ (GeV/c)2, a point where the database is by now quite rich as a result of measurements at Bates, Mainz and Bonn . The reason of focusing on low momentum transfer region is driven by the need to understand the pion cloud effects which are expected to dominate the E2 and C2 transition matrix elements in the low $`Q^2`$ (large distance) scale.

Spin-parity selection rules in the $`N(J^\pi =1/2^+)\mathrm{\Delta }(J^\pi =3/2^+)`$ transition, allow only magnetic dipole $`(M1)`$ and electric quadrupole $`(E2)`$ or Coulomb quadrupole $`(C2)`$ multipoles to contribute. The resonant photon absorption multipoles $`M1,E2`$, and $`C2`$ correspond to the pion production multipoles $`M_{1+}^{3/2}`$, $`E_{1+}^{3/2}`$, and $`S_{1+}^{3/2}`$, respectively, following the notation $`M_{l\pm }^I`$, $`E_{l\pm }^I`$, and $`S_{l\pm }^I`$, where $`I`$ and $`J=l\pm \frac{1}{2}`$ correspond to their isospin and orbital angular momentum respectively. The quadrupole amplitudes are typically referred to in terms of their ratio to the dominant magnetic dipole amplitude $`M_{1+}^{3/2}`$. The Coulomb quadrupole to Magnetic Dipole Ratio is defined as $`CMR=R_{SM}=Re(S_{1+}^{3/2}/M_{1+}^{3/2})`$ and the Electric quadrupole to Magnetic Dipole Ratio as $`EMR=R_{EM}=Re(E_{1+}^{3/2}/M_{1+}^{3/2})`$. In the spherical quark model of the nucleon, the $`N\mathrm{\Delta }`$ excitation is a pure $`M1`$ transition. Models of the nucleon which are in reasonable agreement with the known experimental facts  predict values of $`R_{SM}`$ in the range of -1% to -7%, at momentum transfer square $`Q^20.1`$ (GeV/c)2.

The fact that the amplitudes of interest contribute only to a very small fraction of the reaction cross section leads to the conclusion that the most sensitive responses, the ones that carry the signal of our interest, will be interference responses in which the weak quadrupole amplitudes will manifest themselves through interference with the dominant dipole amplitude. The interference of the $`C2`$ amplitude with the $`M1`$ will obviously lead to Longitudinal - Transverse (LT) type responses. The determination of the $`\sigma _{LT}`$ response was the primary target of this experiment.

## 2 Experimental method

The cross section of the H$`(e,e^{}p)\pi ^0`$ reaction is sensitive to four independent response functions:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d^5\sigma }{d\omega d\mathrm{\Omega }_ed\mathrm{\Omega }_{pq}^{cm}}}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\sigma _T+ϵ\sigma _Lv_{LT}\sigma _{LT}\mathrm{cos}\varphi _{pq}`$ (1)
$`+ϵ\sigma _{TT}\mathrm{cos}2\varphi _{pq})`$
where the kinematic factor

$`v_{LT}=\sqrt{2ϵ(1+ϵ)}`$
and $`ϵ`$ is the transverse polarization of the virtual photon, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ the virtual photon flux and $`\varphi _{pq}`$ is the proton azimuthal angle with respect to the momentum transfer direction.

In the experiment reported here we have measured the $`\sigma _{LT}`$ response function, which contains the interference term $`Re(S_{1+}^{}M_{1+})`$ in leading order , and the $`\sigma _T`$+$`ϵ`$$`\sigma _L`$ which is dominated by the $`\sigma _T`$ response and the $`M_{1+}`$ multipole . The measurement was performed using the technique of the out-of-plane detection with the OOPS spectrometers. By placing the two identical OOPS modules  symmetrically at azimuthal angles $`\varphi _{pq}=45^o`$ and $`135^o`$ with respect to the momentum transfer direction - in the so called ”half-$`\times `$ configuration” - we have the advantage of eliminating out in leading order the $`\sigma _{TT}`$ response term from the cross section because of its $`\mathrm{cos}2\varphi _{pq}`$ dependence. Thus, combining the measurements from the two OOPS spectrometers we are able to separate the $`\sigma _{LT}`$ and $`\sigma _T`$+$`ϵ`$$`\sigma _L`$ responses (eq. 2 and 3). The ALT asymmetry is also measured (eq. 4) which is proportional to the $`\sigma _{LT}`$ response and inversely proportional to $`\sigma _T`$+$`ϵ`$$`\sigma _L`$

$$\sigma _{LT}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}v_{LT}}\left[\frac{d^2\sigma }{d\mathrm{\Omega }_p^{cm}}(\varphi _{pq}=\frac{\pi }{4})\frac{d^2\sigma }{d\mathrm{\Omega }_p^{cm}}(\varphi _{pq}=\frac{3\pi }{4})\right]$$
(2)
$$\sigma _T+ϵ\sigma _L=\frac{1}{2}\left[\frac{d^2\sigma }{d\mathrm{\Omega }_p^{cm}}(\varphi _{pq}=\frac{\pi }{4})+\frac{d^2\sigma }{d\mathrm{\Omega }_p^{cm}}(\varphi _{pq}=\frac{3\pi }{4})\right]$$
(3)
$`A_{LT}=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma (\varphi _{pq}=\pi /4)d\sigma (\varphi _{pq}=3\pi /4)}{d\sigma (\varphi _{pq}=\pi /4)+d\sigma (\varphi _{pq}=3\pi /4)}}`$ (4)
$`={\displaystyle \frac{v_{LT}\sigma _{LT}}{\sqrt{2}(ϵ\sigma _L+\sigma _T)}}`$
The fact that the measurements were performed simultanously with two identical proton spectrometers enabled us to minimize the systematic errors. Minimization of the systematic errors is a key issue in this experiment since the quadrupole amplitude of interest contributes only as a very small part of the reaction cross section.

## 3 Experiment and results

The experiment was performed in the South Hall of M.I.T.-Bates Laboratory. A 0.85% duty factor, 820 MeV unpolarized pulsed electron beam was employed on a cryogenic liquid-hydrogen target. The beam average current was 5 $`\mu A`$. Protons were detected with two OOPS spectrometers . They were symmetrically positioned at $`\varphi _{pq}=45^o`$ and $`135^o`$ with respect to the momentum transfer direction for a fixed $`\theta _{pq}^{}`$=$`55^o`$ and were set at a central momentum of 428 MeV/c. The uncertainty in the determination of the central momentum was 0.1% for the proton arm and 0.15% for the electron arm. Electrons were detected with the OHIPS spectrometer  which was located at an angle of 22.9o and was set at a central momentum of 541 MeV/c. The uncertainty in the determination of the beam energy was 0.1%. The spectrometers were aligned with a precision better than 1 mm and 1 mrad, while the uncertainty in the determination of the total beam charge was 0.1%. The central invariant mass and the squared four-momentum transfer were $`W`$ = 1155 MeV and $`Q^2`$ = 0.070 GeV2/c2 respectively. A third OOPS was set to detect elastically scattered electrons and was used as a luminosity monitor throughout the experiment. It was placed in-plane at an angle of 75.8o and was set at a central momentum value of 494 MeV/c.

The OHIPS spectrometer employed two Vertical Drift Chambers for the track reconstruction. Two layers of 14 Pb-Glass detectors and a Cherenkov detector were responsible for identification of electrons from the $`\pi ^{}`$ backgound. The timing information for OHIPS derived from 3 scintillator detectors. The OOPS spectrometers used three Horizontal Drift Chambers for the track reconstruction followed by three scintillator detectors for timing and for the separation of the protons from the strong $`\pi ^+`$ background coming from the $`\gamma ^{}p\pi ^+n`$ processes on hydrogen in the target.

The data taking period was preceded by a comissioning period. Elastic scattering data for calibration purposes were taken using liquid-hydrogen and carbon targets and a 600 MeV beam. Measurements were conducted with and without sieve slits in all spectrometers. The sieve slit runs were used to determine the optical matrix elements for all spectrometers , while the runs without sieve slits were used for the elastic cross sections and normalization studies.

The ”on line” coincidence time-of-flight peak had a FWHM of 6 ns. After the time-of-flight corrections were applied to account for differences in the particle path length, particle velocities, different light-times in the scintillators and time walk effects in the scintillators, the FWHM was reduced to 2 ns. The missing mass spectrum with the peak corresponding to the reconstruction of the $`\pi ^0`$ mass was characterized by a width of 8 MeV (FWHM) and was succesfully simulated by the Monte Carlo simulation. A cut of a 5.5 ns time window on the corrected time-of-flight and of $`\pm `$10 MeV around the missing mass peak was used to select good events throughout the analysis.

The Monte Carlo program AEEXB  was used to model the experimental setup. A detailed simulation of the spectrometers involved was necessary in order to determine the coincidence phase space volume. The precise knowledge of this volume was essential for the determination of absolute cross sections.

The conventional set of three independent kinematic variables that is used to describe the cross section is the center-of-mass opening angle, the four momentum transfer squared and the invariant mass {$`\theta _{pq}^{}`$,$`Q^2`$,$`W`$}. Extraction of ALT and $`\sigma _{LT}`$ requires that the phase space of the detected protons is identical in the two OOPS spectrometers. However, due to the extended acceptances and the different convolution with the electron acceptance, the accessible range in these three variables differ for the two proton arms. For this reason, the cross sections were measured individually for the two spectrometers with their respective coincident phase space volumes {$`\theta _{pq}^{}`$,$`Q^2`$,$`W`$} matched. To facilitate comparison with theoretical predictions, we corrected our measured cross sections for finite acceptance effects using theoretical models by comparing the model cross section for point kinematics to the same model averaged over the full acceptance.

The cross sections for the forward (with respect to the beam) OOPS $`(\varphi _{pq}=\frac{\pi }{4})`$ and the backward OOPS $`(\varphi _{pq}=\frac{3\pi }{4})`$, along with the ALT space asymmetry and the responses $`\sigma _{LT}`$ and $`\sigma _T`$+$`ϵ`$$`\sigma _L`$ are summarized in Table 1. The results are compared with the recent theoretical models MAID 2000  and the Dynamical Models of DMT (Dubna - Mainz - Taipei)  and Sato-Lee . Results from these models have been widely used in comparisons with recent experimental results. We will therefore forego a summary of their physical content which is presented in the original papers and other recent experimental investigations.

In Figures 1 and 2 we present the experimental results for $`\sigma _{LT}`$ and $`\sigma _T`$+$`ϵ`$$`\sigma _L`$ along with the above mentioned model calculations . The MAID 2000 model offers consistently the best description of the data obtained so far  with a slight tendency to somewhat underpredict the strength of the measured responses. Surprisingly, the DMT calculation which had considerable success in describing data on resonance (at higher $`Q^2`$ values), is incompatible with the experimental results presented here. The Sato-Lee model calculation, which as the DMT offers an economic phenomenological description anchored in a consistent microscopic framework, similarly underpredicts the $`\sigma _{LT}`$ response with results straggling the difference between the MAID and DMT models. The idadequacy of the dynamical models but also their differences suggest that they may be capable of describing the data in a more satisfactory fashion with a re-adjustment of their phenomenological input. It is evident from both figures that data of similar or higher precison at several $`\theta _{pq}^{}`$ and $`W`$s are needed to further enhance our understanding of the dificiencies of these models.

Our earlier measurements  below the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ resonance - at $`W`$=1170 MeV, $`Q^2`$= 0.127 (GeV/c)2 and at $`\theta _{pq}^{}`$=$`61^o`$ \- exhibit a similar trend when compared with the predictions from these models. MAID 2000, which provides an excellent account of the measured responses on resonance , offers a good description of the measured responses below resonance  with a tendency to slightly underpredict them. This may be due to multipoles that are not well determined in the model and which play a relatively more important role away from the peak of the resonance. The dynamical models, DMT and Sato-Lee, clearly exhibit deficiencies off resonance. These deficiencies taken together with the behaviour of the models on top of the resonance  indicate that the dynamic of models need further refinement in order to account for the delicate interplay between non resonant and resonant amplitudes, which is manifested most sensitively at the wings of the resonance. A better understanding of the interfering amplitudes and their isolation can be facilitated through an extensive and detailed mapping of the responses primarily in terms of $`W`$ and $`\theta _{pq}^{}`$, as it is evident from figures 1 and 2, but also in terms of $`Q^2`$.

Recent measurements  at $`Q^2=0.127`$ $`(GeV/c)^2`$, on and above resonance utilizing the OOPS spectrometers are currently being analyzed and are expected to provide a more complete picture of the behaviour of the responses of the $`\pi ^0`$ electroproduction in the $`N\mathrm{\Delta }`$ transition; They are expected to elucidate further issues related to hadron deformation.

We are indebted and would like to thank Dr S.S. Kamalov, T.-S.H. Lee, L. Tiator and T. Sato for providing us with valuable suggestions on the overall program and these results in particular.