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# Shrinking of a condensed fermionic cloud in a trap approaching the BEC limit

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## Abstract

We determine the zero-temperature density profile of a cloud of fermionic atoms in a trap subject to a mutual attractive interaction, as the strength of the interaction is progressively increased. We find a significant decrease of the size of the atomic cloud as it evolves from the weak-coupling (BCS) regime of overlapping Cooper pairs to the strong-coupling (Bose-Einstein) regime of non-overlapping bound-fermion pairs. Most significantly, we find a pronounced increase of the value of the density at the center of the trap (even by an order of magnitude) when evolving between the two regimes. Our results are based on a generalized Thomas-Fermi approximation for the superfluid state, that covers continuously all coupling regimes.

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The impressive experimental realization of Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of ultracold bosonic atoms in a trap over the last few years  has prompted the expectation that also the properties of ultracold fermionic atoms in a trap could be revealed in a regime of quantum degeneracy . In addition, the possibility that the study of Fermi gases may lead to a superfluid phase analogous to the BCS state has added excitement to the field. In particular, experimental proposals are under investigation for realizing Cooper pairs with ultracold dilute fermionic atoms in a trap, either via the enhanced interaction between fermionic atoms with a tunable scattering (Feshbach) resonance  or via sympathetic cooling with a mixture of fermions and bosons .

Given these rapid experimental advances, it seems timely to explore theoretically the even more intriguing question of the *crossover* between the weak-coupling (BCS) regime of overlapping Cooper pairs and the strong-coupling (Bose-Einstein) regime of non-overlapping bound-fermion pairs for a gas of ultracold Fermi atoms in a trap, thus dealing simultaneously with two basic quantum phenomena that share the same spontaneous broken-symmetry (superfluid) behavior. In particular, novel and interesting physics may result in the intermediate-coupling regime where neither one of the two limits is fully realized.

Detection of density profiles of ultracold trapped atoms is routinely used to explore their degeneracy properties. This feature could also be explored to detect the continuous evolution from Cooper pairs to bound-fermion pairs as the strength of the attractive interaction between fermions is increased, with the expectation that the density profile shrinks upon approaching the strong-coupling regime owing to the diminished Fermi pressure. In this respect, partial results have already been obtained as a function of temperature in the broken-symmetry phase for a single coupling toward the weak-coupling side of the BCS-BEC crossover , as well as a function of coupling in the normal phase above the critical temperature .

In this paper, we calculate the density profile of a cloud of fermionic atoms in a trap subject to a mutual attractive interaction, as its strength is progressively increased from weak to strong coupling. To this end, we extend the coupled mean-field equations determining the gap function and the chemical potential for the BCS-BEC crossover problem of a homogeneous system to the case of a *spatially varying gap function* in the presence of a harmonic trap, and study in a systematic way the evolution of the density profile at zero temperature where the mean-field equations are expected to be reliable. Our approach generalizes the fermionic Thomas-Fermi (TF) approximation to the superfluid state at zero temperature for any coupling, and recovers the TF approximation for the composite bosons in the strong-coupling limit. We find a significant decrease of the size of the atomic cloud as the strong-coupling limit is approached; even more significantly, we find a pronounced increase of the value of the density at the center of the trap when evolving between the two regimes. This increase can thus be regarded as a signature of the achieved BCS-BEC crossover. Numerical calculations for the density profile, gap function, and chemical potential, as well as analytic results for the radius of the cloud and related quantities are presented.

A central issue of the BCS-BEC crossover problem is to obtain for all coupling regimes a single theory expressed in terms of fermionic variables, which recovers known results for weakly-interacting fermions (on the weak-coupling side) and for weakly interacting bosons (on the strong-coupling side), thus providing an interpolation scheme over the intermediate coupling regime. The treatment of the intermediate-coupling regime is necessarily an approximate one, because in this regime a small parameter to control the approximations is lacking. For these reasons, the interpolation via a single fermionic theory represents at present the only manageable approach to the BCS-BEC crossover. \[Effects going beyond the BCS theory in weak coupling have been included for the homogeneous case in Ref. In the present treatment of the inhomogeneous case, we shall limit to consider the crossover from BCS theory to the BEC limit, thus leaving out these additional effects.\]

The present calculations are based on a local-density approximation, whereby the fermionic chemical potential entering the BCS gap and density equations is replaced by a *local chemical potential* that adapts to the spatial position in the harmonic trap. We thus set $`\mu (𝐫)=\mu V(𝐫)`$, where $`\mu `$ is the equilibrium chemical potential and $`V(𝐫)=m\omega ^2\mathrm{r}^2/2`$ is the harmonic potential for the Fermi atoms at position $`𝐫`$ in the trap ($`m`$ being the fermionic mass and $`\omega `$ the characteristic trap frequency). Correspondingly, the gap function takes the local value $`\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐫)`$. With the replacement of $`\mu `$ by $`\mu (𝐫)`$ and of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ by $`\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐫)`$, the $`s`$-wave BCS gap equation at zero temperaturen becomes $`𝐫`$ dependent and reads in dimensionless form:

$$\frac{\pi }{k_Fa_F}=_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\stackrel{~}{E}\sqrt{\stackrel{~}{E}}\left(\frac{1}{\sqrt{(\stackrel{~}{E}\stackrel{~}{\mu }(\stackrel{~}{r}))^2+\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}(\stackrel{~}{r})^2}}\frac{1}{\stackrel{~}{E}}\right).$$
(1)
We have here introduced the dimensionless variables $`\stackrel{~}{r}=|𝐫|/R_F`$, $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}(\stackrel{~}{r})=\mathrm{\Delta }(|𝐫|)/E_F`$, and $`\stackrel{~}{\mu }(\stackrel{~}{r})=\mu (|𝐫|)/E_F=\stackrel{~}{\mu }\stackrel{~}{r}^2`$ for a spherical trap, where $`E_F=(3N)^{1/3}\omega `$ ($`\mathrm{}=1`$ throughout) is the Fermi energy for non-interacting fermions in the trap , $`R_F`$ is identified by the condition $`m\omega ^2R_F^2/2=E_F`$, and $`\stackrel{~}{\mu }=\mu /E_F`$. We have further defined the Fermi wave vector $`k_F`$ by $`E_F=k_F^2/(2m)`$.

The above equation has been obtained by considering a contact potential for the attractive fermionic interaction active between two equally populated fermionic species with different internal (“spin”) states, and then regularizing the ensuing ultraviolet divergence of the gap equation in terms of the *scattering length* $`a_F`$ of the associated fermionic two-body problem . This regularization, in fact, considerably simplifies dealing with the BCS-BEC crossover and parametrizes the interaction in terms of the measurable scattering length $`a_F`$.

Dealing with the BCS-BEC crossover requires us to supplement the gap equation by the density equation $`N=𝑑𝐫n(𝐫)=𝑑\stackrel{~}{𝐫}\stackrel{~}{n}(\stackrel{~}{𝐫})`$, yielding

$$\frac{\pi }{24}=_0^{\stackrel{~}{r}_c}𝑑\stackrel{~}{r}\stackrel{~}{r}^2_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\stackrel{~}{E}\sqrt{\stackrel{~}{E}}\left(1\frac{\stackrel{~}{E}\stackrel{~}{\mu }(\stackrel{~}{r})}{\sqrt{(\stackrel{~}{E}\stackrel{~}{\mu }(\stackrel{~}{r}))^2+\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}(\stackrel{~}{r})^2}}\right).$$
(2)
Here, $`\stackrel{~}{r}_c`$ is the *radius of the atomic cloud* defined by the condition $`\stackrel{~}{n}(\stackrel{~}{r})=0`$ for $`\stackrel{~}{r}\stackrel{~}{r}_c`$ (which, in turn, requires $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\stackrel{~}{r})=0`$ for $`\stackrel{~}{r}\stackrel{~}{r}_c`$ as a necessary condition). It can be readily verified that $`\stackrel{~}{r}_c`$ is determined by the equation $`\stackrel{~}{\mu }(\stackrel{~}{r}_c)=0`$ for $`a_F<0`$, yielding $`\stackrel{~}{r}_c=\sqrt{\stackrel{~}{\mu }}`$, and by the equation $`\stackrel{~}{\mu }_B(\stackrel{~}{r}_c)=0`$ for $`a_F>0`$, yielding $`\stackrel{~}{r}_c=\sqrt{\stackrel{~}{\mu }+(k_Fa_F)^2}`$. In the above expression, we have introduced the local *bosonic* chemical potential $`\mu _B(r)=\mu _BV_B(𝐫)`$, where $`\mu _B=2\mu +ϵ_0`$ is the equilibrium bosonic chemical potential, $`V_B(𝐫)=2V(𝐫)=m_B\omega ^2\mathrm{r}^2/2`$ is the harmonic potential for the bosonic molecules of mass $`m_B=2m`$, and $`ϵ_0=(ma_F^2)^1`$ is the molecular binding energy. Contrary to Eq. (1), Eq. (2) couples different positions in the trap, since obtaining a uniform chemical potential $`\mu `$ requires knowledge of $`\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐫)`$ and $`\mu (𝐫)`$ over the whole trap region.

The weak- and strong-coupling limits of Eqs. (1) and (2) are essentially determined by the behavior of the chemical potential $`\mu `$, which about coincides with the Fermi energy $`E_F`$ in the weak-coupling limit and with (minus half) the binding energy $`ϵ_0`$ in the strong-coupling limit. These values represent, in fact, the energy required to extract one fermion from the system in the two limits, namely, from the Fermi sea and from a bound molecule, respectively.

In analogy to the homogeneous case , *analytic* results can be obtained from the coupled equations (1) and (2) both in the weak- and strong-coupling limits, defined, in the order, by the conditions $`\stackrel{~}{\mu }(\stackrel{~}{r})>0`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}(\stackrel{~}{r})\stackrel{~}{\mu }(\stackrel{~}{r})`$, and $`\stackrel{~}{\mu }(\stackrel{~}{r})<0`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}(\stackrel{~}{r})|\stackrel{~}{\mu }(\stackrel{~}{r})|`$ (for $`0\stackrel{~}{r}\stackrel{~}{r}_c`$). In weak coupling, one obtains $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}(\stackrel{~}{r})=(8\stackrel{~}{\mu }(\stackrel{~}{r})/e^2)\mathrm{exp}\left\{\pi /(2k_F|a_F|\sqrt{\stackrel{~}{\mu }(\stackrel{~}{r})})\right\}`$ with the typical essential singularity behavior as $`k_F|a_F|0`$, and the associated density profile $`\stackrel{~}{n}(\stackrel{~}{r})=(8N/\pi ^2)\left(1\stackrel{~}{r}^2\right)^{3/2}`$ which is the standard result within the TF approximation for non-interacting fermions. For the radius of the atomic cloud one gets correspondingly $`r_c=R_F`$. In strong coupling, one obtains instead $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}(\stackrel{~}{r})^2=2(ϵ_0/E_F)\stackrel{~}{\mu }_B(\stackrel{~}{r})`$ with the associated bosonic density $`n_B(r)=n(r)/2=(m_B/4\pi a_B)\mu _B(r)`$ in terms of the original variables, where $`a_B=2a_F`$ identifies the bosonic scattering length. The TF result for bosons  is thus properly recovered by our calculation in the strong-coupling limit, with a residual bosonic interaction $`U_0=4\pi a_B/m_B`$ that matches previuos estimates for the homogeneous case. \[A more sophisticated theory for the homogeneous case  has shown that the correct value for the bosonic scattering length $`a_B`$ is smaller by about a factor of 3 than the value $`2a_F`$. Owing to the very slow dependence of the size of the Thomas-Fermi density profile on $`a_B`$ in strong coupling (see below), this difference makes practically no change in this quantity.\] Using eventually the expression of $`\mu _B`$ for bosons in a trap , one gets the value $`\stackrel{~}{r}_c=\sqrt{\stackrel{~}{\mu }_B/2}=0.69(k_Fa_F)^{1/5}`$ showing a nontrivial dependence of $`\stackrel{~}{r}_c`$ on the coupling parameter in the strong-coupling limit.

Recovering from Eqs. (1) and (2) the TF results both for non-interacting fermions (in the weak-coupling-limit) and for weakly-interacting bosons (in the strong-coupling limit) should not be surprising, since these equations can also be obtained by generalizing the TF procedure for fermions to the superfluid state. To this end, one introduces an energy functional $`E[n(𝐫),\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐫)]`$ that depends on the local variables $`n(𝐫)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐫)`$, such that minimizing $`E[n(𝐫),\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐫)]`$ with respect to variations of $`\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐫)`$ and $`n(𝐫)`$ (subject to the constraint $`N=𝑑𝐫n(𝐫)`$) leads to Eqs. (1) and (2), respectively. Within the present approach, this functional is given by the expression

$`E[n(𝐫),\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐫)]={\displaystyle }d𝐫\{n(𝐫)V(𝐫){\displaystyle \frac{m}{4\pi a_F}}\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐫)^2`$ (3)
$`+{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \frac{d𝐤}{(2\pi )^3}}[ϵ_𝐤{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_𝐤(ϵ_𝐤\lambda )+\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐫)^2}{\sqrt{(ϵ_𝐤\lambda )^2+\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐫)^2}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐫)^2}{2ϵ_𝐤}}]\}`$ (4)
where $`ϵ_𝐤=k^2/(2m)`$ and $`\lambda `$ is here an implicit function of $`n(𝐫)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐫)`$ via the equation

$$n(𝐫)=\frac{d𝐤}{(2\pi )^3}\left[1\frac{ϵ_𝐤\lambda }{\sqrt{(ϵ_𝐤\lambda )^2+\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐫)^2}}\right].$$
(5)
In particular, in the strong-coupling limit (whereby $`n(𝐫)\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐫)^2`$) the functional (4) reduces to

$$E[n(𝐫)]=𝑑𝐫\left[\frac{U_0}{8}n(𝐫)^2+\left(V(𝐫)\frac{ϵ_0}{2}\right)n(𝐫)\right]$$
(6)
from which the bosonic TF expression for $`n_\mathrm{B}(𝐫)`$ can be obtained by minimizing with respect to $`n(𝐫)`$ and taking the constraint into account. \[The absence of the kinetic energy term in the bosonic TF approximation results in the present approach by the neglecting of the center-of-mass motion of the pairs in the expression (4) for the energy.\] This results implements at the level of the TF approximation the density functional theory for superconductors described in Ref. .

The rescaled equations (1) and (2) depend *only* on the dimensionless coupling parameter $`(k_Fa_F)^1`$ and not on the total number of particles $`N`$. This is due to the fact that, as expected, the kinetic energy is not properly taken into account in the present local-density treatment that reduces to the TF approximation for fermions in weak coupling and for bosons in strong coupling. What is missing in our equations is the presence of the length scale of the harmonic trap, which for a bosonic molecule equals $`a_{\mathrm{osc}}^B=(m_B\omega )^{1/2}`$ and to which there would be associated the $`N`$-dependent dimensionless ratio $`R_F/a_{\mathrm{osc}}^B=2.402N^{1/6}`$. The physical lower bound $`r_c=a_{\mathrm{osc}}^B`$, however, can never be reached in practice, since it would correspond to the condition $`(k_Fa_F)^1=12.5N^{5/6}`$, yielding the totally unrealistic value $`a_F10^3a_0`$ ($`a_0`$ being the Bohr radius) in the case of a fermionic atom like $`{}_{}{}^{40}K`$ for $`N10^6`$ and a typical trap value $`\omega 10^3s^1`$.

By a similar token, it can be shown that the local-density approximation for the trapped Fermi gas holds provided $`k_FR_F1`$ (such that the energy quantization in the trap is irrelevant with respect to $`E_F`$) and $`\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐫=0)/\omega 1`$ (such that the pairs are well contained within the trap). When $`N10^6`$, $`k_FR_F10^2`$ while $`\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐫=0)/\omega 10`$ already for the weak-coupling value $`(k_Fa_F)^1=2`$.

Figure 1 shows the density profile $`\stackrel{~}{n}(\stackrel{~}{r})`$ along the radial coordinate (in units of $`R_F`$) for several values of the coupling parameter $`(k_Fa_F)^1`$. The TF profiles for non-interacting fermions as well as for interacting point-like bosons (with $`(k_Fa_F)^1=5`$) are also shown for comparison. Note from the figure that the non-interacting fermion density profile is recovered in weak coupling and the interacting point-like boson density profile is recovered in strong coupling, respectively. Note also the shrinking of the size of the atomic cloud as it evolves from the weak-coupling to the strong-coupling regime, the critical radius $`\stackrel{~}{r}_c`$ being reduced by about a factor of $`2`$ across the crossover region. Correspondingly, the density at the center of the trap increases significantly (by about a factor of $`6`$ for the coupling values shown in the figure).

Figure 2 shows the radius $`\stackrel{~}{r}_c`$ of the atomic cloud (full line) vs the coupling parameter, as determined by entering the numerical values of the chemical potential (obtained from the solution of Eqs. (1) and (2)) into the analytic expressions of $`\stackrel{~}{r}_c`$ reported previously. Three distinct regions of the coupling parameter are identified from this plot: (i) A weak-coupling region for $`(k_Fa_F)^11`$ where $`\stackrel{~}{r}_c`$ is almost coupling-independent and equal to $`1`$; (ii) An intermediate-coupling region for $`1(k_Fa_F)^11`$ where $`\stackrel{~}{r}_c`$ rapidly decreases for increasing coupling, being reduced by about $`35\%`$ when $`(k_Fa_F)^1=1`$; (iii) A strong-coupling region for $`1(k_Fa_F)^1`$ where $`\stackrel{~}{r}_c`$ coincides with the analytic expression of the bosonic TF theory (dashed line). For completeness, we also show in the inset the value of the density $`\stackrel{~}{n}(\stackrel{~}{r}=0)`$ at the center of the trap vs the coupling parameter (full line). Following a flat behavior in the weak-coupling regime, a quite rapid increase of $`\stackrel{~}{n}(\stackrel{~}{r}=0)`$ occurs in the intermediate-coupling regime, approaching eventually the power-law dependence $`\stackrel{~}{n}(\stackrel{~}{r}=0)(k_Fa_F)^{3/5}`$ obtained analytically in the strong-coupling regime (dashed line).

The chemical potential is finally shown in Fig. 3 (full line) vs the coupling parameter. The behavior of the chemical potential obtained from the expression $`\mu =(\mu _Bϵ_0)/2`$ in strong coupling (with the value of $`\mu _B`$ for bosons in a trap ) is also shown for comparison (dashed line).

In the inset, the gap parameter $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}(\stackrel{~}{r}=0)`$ at the center of the trap (full line) is shown vs the coupling parameter and compared with its strong-coupling approximation (dashed line) (the value for the three-dimensional homogeneous case  (dashed-dotted line) is also shown). Note the marked difference between the trapped and homogeneous cases, with the value for the trapped case increasing much faster than for the homogeneous case as the coupling increases. Specifically, in strong coupling the analytical arguments discussed above yield $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}(\stackrel{~}{r})=(2\sqrt{2}/k_Fa_F)\sqrt{0.476(k_Fa_F)^{2/5}\stackrel{~}{r}^2}`$, producing the value $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}(0)=1.951(k_Fa_F)^{4/5}`$ at the center of the trap; for the homogeneous case, on the other hand, $`\mathrm{\Delta }/E_F=1.303(k_Fa_F)^{1/2}`$.

As the data of Figs. 1-3 for the various physical quantities $`n(r)`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }(r)`$, $`r_c`$, and $`\mu `$ show, the BCS-BEC crossover takes place in practice over the rather narrow range $`1(k_Fa_F)^11`$ of the coupling parameter. This remark suggests that it would be especially interesting to explore experimentally this intermediate-coupling region, where deviations from the purely fermionic and bosonic behaviors occur.

In conclusion, we have shown that the density profile for superfluid fermionic atoms in a trap, exhibits an interesting shrinking of the size of the atomic cloud as the strength of the attraction increases. This behavior should permit one to decide whether the superfluid behavior is either of the BCS type with strongly overlapping Cooper pairs or of the BEC type with non-overlapping bound-fermion pairs.

We are indebted to M. Inguscio and G. Modugno for discussions.


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# Reply to “Comment on “Some implications of the quantum nature of laser fields for quantum computations””

## I Introduction

In a recent comment comment , Itano claims that my conclusions in a couple of recent papers pra ; prl  are “invalid” because I use an “inappropriate model” (which he calls a reverse micromaser model) to describe the interaction between an atom in free space and a quantized laser pulse. He also argues that for such a situation the decoherence rate is simply that given by spontaneous emission (presumably, as computed in the absence of the external field). I address these two points in what follows.

## II Errors arising from the quantum nature of the laser pulse

Itano’s first claim is, I think, highly exaggerated. It is not like I am actually claiming to see micromaser dynamics, such as collapses or revivals, in free space; at most, I’m just using “micromaser” dynamics for the duration of one Rabi oscillation. And I am not trying to get “exact” results to within precise numerical factors; the purpose of my calculation (in Section 2 of pra ), besides serving to motivate the rest of the paper, is just to derive approximate expressions for the order of magnitude, and the scaling, of the effects I am interested in.

Moreover, these effects—specifically, the fact that there will, unavoidably, be entanglement in energy between the atom and the field in the case of a $`\pi /2`$ pulse, and the fact that the quantum field will exhibit fluctuations in both phase and amplitude—are so basic that they have to be present in any sensible treatment; they do not depend, in any essential way, on the most distinctive feature of micromaser, or Jaynes-Cummings, dynamics—namely, the fact that any emitted photon “hangs around” the atom and can be reabsorbed at any time.

It seems to me that Itano needs to decide whether he is questioning the validity of the precise numerical factors I derive, or the whole scaling laws and order of magnitude estimates. If the former, of course, I never claimed that kind of precision in the first place. If the latter, he is simply wrong, as one can show from a very simple calculation based on the recent model developed by Silberfarb and Deutsch silberfarb  to analyze the interaction of a quantized laser pulse with an atom in free space. Their basic result, namely, their equation (19) (reproduced below)

$$\frac{d\widehat{\rho }}{dt}=\frac{i}{\mathrm{}}[H_{\text{coh}},\widehat{\rho }]\frac{\kappa }{2}\{\widehat{\sigma }_+\widehat{\sigma }_{},\widehat{\rho }\}+\kappa \widehat{\sigma }_{}\widehat{\rho }\widehat{\sigma }_+$$
(1)
is essentially equivalent to the Mollow model which Itano favors in his Comment: after a unitary transformation, the atom is driven by a classical field, and interacts with a set of quantized vacuum modes. The only two things that Silberfarb and Deutsch have added to this picture are: first, they have already explicitly made the Markov approximation (equivalent to the Weisskopf-Wigner treatment of spontaneous emission), so that an emitted photon has no chance of coming back to the atom (which means that one could not expect to recover Jaynes-Cummings-type dynamics from this model, exactly, in any limit); and, second, they have only included those vacuum modes that can be considered to be traveling with the incident field in the first place (that is, the modes that are initially “occupied,” before the unitary transformation), which is why equation (1) has a modified “atomic decay rate” $`\kappa `$, which differs from the total vacuum spontaneous emission rate $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ by what is, essentially, a geometrical factor (more on this below).

It is a trivial matter to integrate Eq. (1), for instance, for a $`\pi `$ pulse, that is, for a time $`T=\pi /2g\alpha `$ (see silberfarb  for notation). Assuming an atom initially in the ground state $`|b`$, I get, for the probability to find it in the excited state $`|a`$ at the time $`t`$,

$$\rho _{aa}(T)=1\frac{3\pi }{8}\frac{\kappa }{2g\alpha }$$
(2)
that is to say, a “failure probability,” $`p`$, of $`3\pi \kappa /16g\alpha `$ for this operation (a bit flip). Substituting values from silberfarb , and using $`T=\pi /2g\alpha `$, this becomes

$$p=\frac{3\pi ^2}{32}\frac{\mathrm{}\omega }{IAT}=0.93\frac{\mathrm{}\omega }{PT}=\frac{0.93}{\overline{n}}$$
(3)
where $`I`$ is the intensity, $`A`$ the mode cross-section, $`P=IA`$ the power, and $`\overline{n}=PT/\mathrm{}\omega `$ the average number of photons in the pulse. This is to be compared with the value $`p=0.62/\overline{n}`$ which I estimated in pra , from an effective single mode approach, and which I attributed, in that picture, to (quantum) amplitude fluctuations in the laser field.

Of course, other “gates” yield different results, which also depend on the initial atomic state. For instance, for a $`\pi /2`$ pulse (Hadamard transform), starting from the ground state, integration of (1) yields a (surprisingly low) failure probability of the order of $`0.04/\overline{n}`$, but starting from the excited state this becomes instead $`0.43/\overline{n}`$. In pra , I simply argued that $`0.25/\overline{n}`$ could be a reasonable estimate of the error probability due to the intrinsic phase fluctuations in a coherent state, and worked from there. Clearly, if all of the above is any indication, I am unlikely to have missed the mark in any significant way.

Note, in particular, that all of the above results display, when expressed in terms of the mode area, the paradoxical behavior that Itano points out in his Comment, namely, “the odd consequence that one can decrease the effective decoherence of the atomic system by increasing the cross-sectional area of the laser beam, keeping the intensity at the position of the atom fixed, no matter how distant the outer parts of the beam are from the atom, since doing so increases $`n`$.” In the previous version of this reply, I dismissed this effect a little too casually. Now I think there is a very simple explanation, in this particular picture.

In the “effective single mode” picture, of course, what happens as one increases the area is just that the number of photons increases and the field accordingly becomes more classical, but there is a certain nonlocality to this interpretation which, as Itano points out, makes it somewhat unappealing. In the framework of the Silberfarb-Deutsch model, on the other hand, the quantum nature of the field is contained only in the vacuum modes responsible for the decay rate $`\kappa =\mathrm{\Gamma }\sigma _{\text{eff}}/A`$, and what happens as the beam becomes wider is simply that its direction of propagation becomes better and better defined, and the fraction of vacuum modes associated with it becomes smaller and smaller, relative to the total number of vacuum modes available to the atom. In other words, the probability for the atom to emit spontaneously along the beam direction goes down, by a simple geometric factor, just because the “acceptance angle” goes down. Hence, the decoherence associated with the laser field really does go down as the beam becomes wider; equivalently, the field really does become more “classical” in this limit.

Of course, since the total number of vacuum modes available to the atom is always the same, one could also say that, as the cross-section of the beam increases, the decoherence associated with the laser field becomes a smaller and smaller fraction of the total decoherence, due to field quantization, experienced by the atom. I explore this in the next Section.

## III Total error probability arising from field quantization (including empty modes)

The observation at the end of the previous Section naturally leads into the second part of Itano’s argument, namely, his claim that the laser field does not really introduce any decoherence beyond that already present from spontaneous emission. This cannot be literally true, if by spontaneous emission is really meant the decay in the absence of any external field; as van Enk and Kimble vanenk2  have pointed out already, one cannot really ignore the interplay between the “classical” field and its quantized “vacuum” modes.

Nonetheless, it does seem natural to expect that the spontaneous emission rate in empty space will, in effect, set the order of magnitude of the ultimate decoherence rate due to the quantum nature of the electromagnetic field (see the Appendix for more thoughts along these lines). In any case, in the framework of the present model—that is, under the Markov approximation and as long as we are only interested in the state of the atom—this total decoherence is easily calculated: one only has to replace $`\kappa `$ by $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ in Eq. (1), in order to include all the vacuum modes, and not only those associated with the laser field.

When this is done, one finds, for instance, for a $`\pi `$ pulse a total error probability of $`3\pi \mathrm{\Gamma }/16g\alpha `$. Since the only difference between $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and $`\kappa `$ is the geometrical factor $`A/\sigma _{\text{eff}}`$, this means that Eq. (3) becomes

$$p=\frac{3\pi ^2}{32}\frac{\mathrm{}\omega }{I\sigma _{\text{eff}}T}==\frac{0.93}{\overline{n}^{}}$$
(4)
where $`\sigma _{\text{eff}}=3\pi /2k^2`$ is the cross section for scattering out of the paraxial modes, and $`\overline{n}^{}`$ is the number of photons in the volume $`\sigma _{\text{eff}}cT`$. Note that, since the beam cannot really be focused to less than a wavelength, one will always have $`A>\sigma _{\text{eff}}`$, and hence the total number of photons in the pulse, $`\overline{n}`$, is always greater than $`\overline{n}^{}`$. Thus, if one needs to keep the error probability per logical operation below a certain tolerance level $`ϵ`$, the constraint $`\overline{n}^{}>1/ϵ`$ always implies $`\overline{n}>1/ϵ`$, which is my original result. Thus, if anything, one could argue that my estimates of a minimum energy requirement are, for this kind of situation, overly conservative (more on this below, in the next Section vanenk ).

The advantage of the result (4) is that it includes, for the case of an atom in free space manipulated by a laser pulse, all the decoherence effects arising from the quantum nature of the field (not just the laser field, but also all the unoccupied vacuum modes), and it shows explicitly that it is the number of photons within the volume $`V=\sigma _{\text{eff}}cT`$ that counts. More precisely, one can show, also from the above equations, that what is needed is a minimum energy density, in the vicinity of the atom, of the order of $`\mathrm{}/ϵT`$ per wavelength cubed. Obviously, while this does not contradict my earlier claims that the minimum number of photons in the pulse must be $`1/ϵ`$, it does extend them and makes them more precise.

## IV Discussion

In conclusion, contrary to Itano’s claims, it appears that my earlier estimates pra ; prl  for the minimum energy requirements for quantum computation are not “invalid,” only too conservative; specifically, for the case of atoms being manipulated by paraxial laser pulses, the actual energy requirements will typically be larger (perhaps even much larger, if $`A\sigma _{\text{eff}}`$) than what I have calculated.

I have no problem with that, nor can I really say that I am surprised. My estimates are explicitly based on the assumption that the only quantum noise affecting the qubit is in the quantum fluctuations carried by what I call the “control system” itself: thus, in the case of a laser pulse, the quantum field fluctuations associated with the modes that make up that pulse. In practice, an atom in free space will be coupled to many more quantized, empty, modes, and will become entangled with them, and hence experience decoherence, because of the possibility of spontaneous emission into those modes. It goes without saying that such additional decoherence can only make matters worse.

To put it another way, it is implicitly assumed in my calculations that, in order to get close to the lower bound, one should have near-optimal coupling between the qubit and the control field, such as one might obtain in a microcavity. Conversely, for any suboptimal coupling, such as that of an atom to a paraxial beam, I am only estimating a fraction of the total decoherence due to field quantization. But that’s all right. I never claimed that I was trying to estimate the whole decoherence rate, only the decoherence that may be attributed to the interaction with the quantized control system. This represents an absolute floor below which one cannot drop, no matter how hard one works to minimize other decoherence sources (for instance, in the case of an atom, by confining it to a microcavity).

In short, I would claim that all my results, as expressed in the form of inequalities, are (order-of-magnitude) correct, and that I have calculated, in my various publications pra ; prl , precisely what I said I was going to calculate.

Having said this, I should add that, when one looks beyond order of magnitude estimates and starts paying attention to the actual numerical coefficients, one does find differences between the various models, and it would be interesting to understand better the reasons for these discrepancies; personally, one thing that all this has left me wondering is whether it is possible to ascertain really the roles played by amplitude and phase fluctuations, separately, within a proper, fully quantized, multimode treatment of the laser interaction with the atom. These are interesting questions for which I would like to have an answer, even if they do not ultimately affect the main conclusions of my work.

###### Acknowledgements.

I am actually grateful to Wayne Itano, for forcing me to think hard about all these things. I have not communicated directly with A. Silberfarb and I. H. Deutsch, but I am grateful to them, too, for the very opportune posting of their paper (and for explicitly stating in it that my conclusions were correct!).

*

## Appendix A The minimum energy constraint from spontaneous emission

In this appendix I provide what I think is the simplest (model-independent) derivation of a minimum energy constraint based on spontaneous emission, and show that it holds even for far-detuned Raman transitions.

Let the spontaneous emission rate be $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, and hence assume that atomic state purity (alternatively, information) is disappearing at this rate. Let the time needed to perform a logical operation on the atomic qubit be $`T`$. Then, if $`ϵ`$ is the tolerable error rate (for instance, the fault-tolerant error-correction threshold), we clearly require

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }T<ϵ$$
(5)
which means that one needs to apply a sufficiently strong field to the atom, since $`T`$ will be inversely proportional to the Rabi frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }_R`$. Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that $`T=\pi /\mathrm{\Omega }_R`$. Then (5) can be rewritten as

$$\frac{\pi ^2\mathrm{\Gamma }}{\mathrm{\Omega }_R^2T}<ϵ$$
(6)
or, using standard expressions for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_R`$,

$$\frac{\pi ^2}{4\pi ϵ_0}\frac{4\omega ^3d_{ab}^2}{3\mathrm{}c^3}\left(\frac{d_{ab}E_0}{\mathrm{}}\right)^2<ϵT$$
(7)
(where $`d_{ab}`$ is the atomic dipole moment and $`E_0`$ the field amplitude). Now use $`\omega =2\pi c/\lambda `$ and note that the e.m. field’s energy density is $`\frac{1}{2}ϵ_0E_0^2`$. One gets the constraint

$$\frac{1}{2}ϵ_0E_0^2(\sigma _{\text{eff}}cT)>\frac{\pi ^2}{4}\frac{\mathrm{}\omega }{ϵ}$$
(8)
where $`\sigma _{\text{eff}}=3\pi /2k^2`$ is the effective cross-section for scattering out of the paraxial modes, as in the text. In words, the number of photons within a volume $`V`$ of cross-sectional area $`\sigma _{\text{eff}}`$ and length $`cT`$ (the length of the pulse) has to be greater than $`1/ϵ`$. This is (in order of magnitude) the same as the result (4) derived in the text.

Equation (8) also holds for the case, treated in pra , of a transition driven by detuned Raman lasers. In that case, it can be argued that the atom only spends a time of the order of $`1/\mathrm{\Delta }`$ in the excited (intermediate) state, and hence the loss of purity due to spontaneous emission would be limited to $`\mathrm{\Gamma }/\mathrm{\Delta }`$, regardless of $`T`$; but, for large detuning, one has also an effective two-photon Rabi frequency of the order of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_R^2/\mathrm{\Delta }`$, so by combining $`\mathrm{\Gamma }/\mathrm{\Delta }<ϵ`$ with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_R^2T/\mathrm{\Delta }=\pi `$, and eliminating $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, one immediately obtains Eq. (6), and the rest proceeds as above.


text:
# Comment on “Freezing by heating in a driven mesoscopic system”

In a recent Letter Helbing et al.Helbing  found a fascinating fluctuation-induced ordering, which they dubbed ”freezing by heating”, in a nonequilibrium model system of particles confined to a 2d narrow strip and driven to move in opposite directions: counter flowing chains of particles jam up and crystallize when sufficiently large noise is introduced into the system. In this Comment we point out that this kind of fluctuation-induced ordering is not an intrinsically nonequilibrium effect, and that it can be expected to occur in a variety of equilibrium systems, with reentrant order appearing as a function of temperature. We argue that this is a consequence of a familiar Helfrich-like interaction that had been used to understand a variety of phenomena ranging from the lamellar phase of fluctuating membranes to magnetization curves of a vortex liquid state of type II superconductors.

We demonstrate the mechanism behind reentrant melting with an equilibrium model of 2d colloids subjected to a 1d periodic potential, that received considerable attention recently due to the experimental discovery of isothermal melting that is reentrant as a function of strength of the periodic potential (produced by two interfering laser beams) Wei , the so-called reentrant “laser-induced melting” (RLIM).LIFclark

Since at all $`T`$ the orientational symmetry and translational symmetry along $`y`$ are explicitly broken by the 1d periodic potential with troughs running along $`x`$ and spacing $`a=2\pi /q`$, the only remaining feature distinguishing a crystal from the modulated liquid is the spontaneous translational order along the troughs, characterized by quasi-long ranged $`u_x`$ phonon correlations and a finite shear modulus $`\mu _{xy}`$.

The mechanism behind RLIM can be understood as followsRFN . Just above melting temperature $`T_m(V_q)`$, the dominant effect of increasing a weak periodic potential $`V_q`$ is to suppress thermal fluctuations, thereby leading to LIFLIFclark . In contrast, for large $`V_q`$, the suppression of the out-of-trough $`u_y`$ fluctuations has the dominant effect of reducing the inter-row interactions, thereby decoupling the particles in the neighboring rows, reducing the effective shear modulus $`\mu _{xy}(T,V_q)`$, and leading to RLIM.Wei

Since it is clearly the ratio $`T/V_q`$ that determines the extent of the fluctuation-driven inter-row interaction, it follows that at large fixed $`V_q`$ increasing $`T`$ will increase the inter-row interaction and the modulus $`\mu _{xy}(T,V_q)`$. Because $`T_m`$ is typically a monotonically increasing function of the shear modulusRFN  thermal enhancement of shear modulus implies an equilibrium analog of the “freezing by heating” transition discovered by Helbing, et al.Helbing .

Above qualitative argument can be formalized by an explicit calculation. Although $`T`$ dependence of both the bulk and the shear moduli maybe important and can be studied in full detailRFN , in order to illustrate the effect, it is sufficient to focus on the effective shear modulus $`\mu _{xy}(T,V_q)`$. Clearly this modulus is proportional to the interaction potential between nearest particles in adjacent rows, typically of Debye-screened form $`U_De^{(a+u_y)/\xi }`$ (though only its short-range nature is important), where $`\xi `$ is the the screening length. Since phonon fluctuations $`u_y`$ transverse to the troughs are “optical” (i.e., “massive”, as opposed to the acoustic $`u_x`$ phonon) we can average over fast $`u_y`$ fluctuations obtaining an effective shear modulus $`\mu _{xy}(T,V_q)\mu _0e^{u_y^2/2\xi ^2}\mu _0e^{T/V_q}`$ that clearly increases with $`T`$.comment  We can then compute $`u_x^2T/\mu _{xy}(T,V_q)Te^{T/V_q}/\mu _0`$ and use Lindemann criterion $`u_x^2=d^2`$ to estimate $`T_m(V_q)`$. This clearly gives two roots for $`T_m`$, with the lower corresponding to the conventional melting and the upper to the freezing by heating (see figure). At sufficiently high $`T`$, we expect above elastic calculation to become inaccurate and for the fluctuation enhancement of $`\mu _{xy}(T,V_q)`$ to saturate, leading to re-melting into a modulated liquid.

While extending above analysis to the nonequilibrium case studied by Helbing, et al.Helbing  remains an interesting and challenging problem, we believe that fluctuation-driven reentrant freezing mechanism described above is also at play in their system.

Support by the NSF MRSEC DMR-0213918 and the Packard Foundation (LR).


text:
# Spin-gap phase in the extended 𝑡-𝐽 chain

## 1 Introduction

Strong electronic correlations are widely believed to be crucial for the understanding of the anomalous properties of high-temperature superconductors. A popular approach in this context is the use of the $`tJ`$ model, with holes moving in an antiferromagnetic (AF) spin background. (Here $`t`$ and $`J`$ are the nearest-neighbor hopping amplitude and the AF exchange interaction, respectively.) In recent years, the measurements of angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) in Sr2CuO2Cl2WSM  indicate that it is necessary to include a next-nearest-neighbor hopping term to explain the ARPES data, which leads to the “extended” $`tJ`$ model. Subsequent efforts have concentrated on the effects of the extra hopping terms on various properties of planar and ladder systems, such as stripe stabilityTGT , competition between stripes and pairingWS , spin-charge separation in two dimensionsMED , and spin gap evolution in two-leg laddersPCR . Currently, it is well-established that a positive value of the next-nearest-neighbor hopping $`t^{}`$ enhances hole pairing, while the opposite occurs for $`t^{}`$ negativeWS .

In the present paper, we study the deformed version of the one-dimensional ($`1`$D) $`tt^{}J`$ model (see the following). Our main results are as follows: (i) Far away from the phase separation regime ($`J/t1`$), there are two phases at low doping concentration: the Luttinger liquid (LL) for $`t^{}/t<(t^{}/t)_c`$ and the Luther-Emery (LE) liquid (spin-gap phase) for $`t^{}/t>(t^{}/t)_c`$, where $`(t^{}/t)_c>0`$. (The LE liquid is a spin-gapped state with one gapless charge mode.) (ii) The value of $`(t^{}/t)_c`$ is expected to depend on the hole concentration $`x`$ and the ratio $`J/t`$. At low hole concentration ($`x1`$), however, it is insensitive to the value of $`J/t`$ and is an increasing function of $`x`$. (iii) The spin gap is opened in the LE liquid and thus both $`2k_F`$ charge density wave (CDW) and singlet superconducting (SS) correlations are enhanced. But it is the SS one which is dominant in the LE liquid.

The rest of this paper is organized as follows: The deformed $`tt^{}J`$ model and the corresponding continuum theory are introduced in Section 2. Section 3 is devoted to the phase diagram of the $`1`$D $`tt^{}J`$ model. We study the properties of the ground state in the spin-gap phase in Section 4. The last section is the conclusions and discussions of our results.

## 2 Deformed $`tt^{}J`$ model

We start with the $`1`$D $`tt^{}J`$ model which is described by the Hamiltonian

$`H=H_h+H_J,`$
where

$`\mathrm{H}_h`$ $`=`$ $`t{\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}(\overline{c}_{j+1\alpha }^{}\overline{c}_{j\alpha }+\mathrm{H}.\mathrm{c}.)`$ (1)
$`t^{}{\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}(\overline{c}_{j+2\alpha }^{}\overline{c}_{j\alpha }+\mathrm{H}.\mathrm{c}.),`$
$`\mathrm{H}_J`$ $`=`$ $`J{\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}\left(𝑺_j𝑺_{j+1}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}n_jn_{j+1}\right).`$ (2)
Here the Hubbard operatorHub  $`\overline{c}_{j\alpha }`$ is given by

$$\overline{c}_{j\alpha }^{}=c_{j\alpha }^{}(1n_{j\alpha }),$$
(3)
where $`c_{j\alpha }`$ is the annihilation operator of electrons on the site $`j`$ with spin $`\alpha `$, and $`\alpha =,`$ correspond to spin up and down, respectively. Moreover, $`n_j=c_{j\alpha }^{}c_{j\alpha }`$ and $`𝑺_j=\frac{1}{2}c_{j\alpha }^{}(𝝈)_{\alpha \beta }c_{j\beta }`$. In the following, we shall take $`t,J>0`$. The extra factor in the Hubbard operator is to impose the no-double-occupancy condition which results from the strong Coulomb repulsion between two electrons with opposite spins on the same site. Inserting equation (3) into $`H_h`$ leads to four- and six-fermion interactions with the same strengths as the hopping amplitudes, which defies the perturbative approach.

To overcome this difficulty, Chen and Wu proposed to replace the Hubbard operator (3) by the deformed oneCW

$$\overline{c}_{j\alpha }^{}=c_{j\alpha }^{}(1\mathrm{\Delta }n_{j\alpha }),$$
(4)
with the deformation parameter $`0<\mathrm{\Delta }1`$. That is, a non-zero probability to leak into the states with double occupancy is now allowed. The deformed model has the advantage that as $`0<\mathrm{\Delta }1`$ and $`J/t1`$, all four- and six-fermion interactions can be treated as perturbations and thus a field-theoretical approach can be performed. It is hoped that both the $`tt^{}J`$ model ($`\mathrm{\Delta }=1`$) and the deformed one ($`0<\mathrm{\Delta }1`$) fall into the same universality class.

Now we would like to study the low-energy physics of the $`1`$D deformed $`tt^{}J`$ model away from the phase separation regime. This can be achieved by studying the corresponding continuum field theory. Inserting equation (4) into equations (1) and (2), expanding the electron operator around the Fermi points by

$$c_{j\alpha }\sqrt{a_0}\left[e^{ik_Fx}\psi _{L\alpha }(x)+e^{ik_Fx}\psi _{R\alpha }(x)\right],$$
(5)
where $`x=ja_0`$ with $`a_0`$ being the lattice spacing and $`k_F`$ is the Fermi momentum determined by the electron density $`n`$ via $`k_Fa_0=\frac{\pi }{2}n`$, ($`n=1`$ corresponding to the half-filling.) and then taking the continuum limit ($`a_00`$) by keeping $`ta_0`$, $`t^{}a_0`$, and $`Ja_0`$ finite, we found that the Hamiltonian describing the dynamics of $`\psi `$-fermions, up to the four-fermion interactions, is given by

$`H_\psi ={\displaystyle 𝑑x(H_c+H_s)},`$
where

$`H_c`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{2}}v_{c0}:\left(J_LJ_L+J_RJ_R\right):+\lambda _cJ_LJ_R,`$ (6)
$`H_s`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{3}}v_s:\left(𝑱_L𝑱_L+𝑱_R𝑱_R\right):+\lambda _s𝑱_L𝑱_R,`$ (7)
with

$`J_{L(R)}`$ $`=`$ $`:\psi _{L(R)\alpha }^{}\psi _{L(R)\alpha }:,`$
$`𝑱_{L(R)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}:\psi _{L(R)\alpha }^{}(𝝈)_{\alpha \beta }\psi _{L(R)\beta }:.`$ (8)
In the above, $`:\mathrm{}:`$ stands for normal ordering with respect to the Fermi points. The parameters appearing in equations (6) and (7) are defined by $`v_{c0}=v_F[1+2g_c/(\pi v_F)]`$, $`v_s=v_F[1+3g_s/(2\pi v_F)]`$, and

$`\lambda _c=4\{\mathrm{\Delta }(1\mathrm{\Delta }{\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}})[t\mathrm{cos}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi n}{2}}\right)+2t^{}\mathrm{cos}(\pi n)]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }^2}{\pi }}\mathrm{sin}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi n}{2}}\right)\left[t\mathrm{cos}(\pi n)+4t^{}\mathrm{cos}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi n}{2}}\right)\mathrm{cos}(2\pi n)\right]`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{J}{4}}\mathrm{cos}^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi n}{2}}\right)\},`$ (9)
$`\lambda _s=16\{\mathrm{\Delta }(1\mathrm{\Delta }{\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}})[t\mathrm{cos}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi n}{2}}\right)+2t^{}\mathrm{cos}(\pi n)]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }^2}{\pi }}\mathrm{sin}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi n}{2}}\right)\left[t+4t^{}\mathrm{cos}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi n}{2}}\right)\right]`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{J}{4}}\mathrm{cos}^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi n}{2}}\right)\},`$ (10)
where $`v_F=2t\left(1\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{n}{2}\right)^2\mathrm{sin}k_F\times \left[1+4\frac{t^{}}{t}\mathrm{cos}k_F\right]`$ is the Fermi velocity, and

$`g_c=2\mathrm{\Delta }\left(1\mathrm{\Delta }{\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}}\right)\left[t\mathrm{cos}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi n}{2}}\right)+2t^{}\mathrm{cos}(\pi n)\right]`$
$`+\left[t\mathrm{cos}(\pi n)+4t^{}\mathrm{cos}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi n}{2}}\right)\mathrm{cos}(2\pi n)\right]`$
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }^2}{\pi }}\mathrm{sin}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi n}{2}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{J}{4}},`$
$`g_s={\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}\{2\mathrm{\Delta }(1\mathrm{\Delta }{\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}})[t\mathrm{cos}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi n}{2}}\right)+2t^{}\mathrm{cos}(\pi n)]`$
$`+\left[t(2+\mathrm{cos}(\pi n))+4t^{}\mathrm{cos}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi n}{2}}\right)(2+\mathrm{cos}(2\pi n))\right]`$
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }^2}{\pi }}\mathrm{sin}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi n}{2}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}J\}.`$
We have set $`a_0=1`$ in the above expressions. In equations (9) and (10), the terms proportional to $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2\mathrm{sin}(\pi n/2)`$ arise from the six-fermion interactions in $`H_h`$, whereas the four-fermion interactions in $`H_h`$ contribute to those proportional to $`\mathrm{\Delta }(1\mathrm{\Delta }n/2)`$. (For the details of derivation, see Appendix A.) Note that the above equations are derived by assuming $`n1`$ and thus the Umklapp processes are irrelevant operators which can be neglected. The higher order interactions between $`\psi `$-fermions are neglected in $`H_\psi `$. This is because in the weak-coupling regime ($`\mathrm{\Delta }1`$) they are irrelevant operators in the sense of renormalization group.

Before exploring the physics contained by equations (6), (7), (9), and (10), three points have to be mentioned. First, the Umklapp processes are neglected, which changes the low-energy physics of the charge sector at half-filling drastically. Therefore, the following analysis about the charge sector cannot be extrapolated to that case. Next, the inclusion of $`t^{}`$ modifies the dispersion relation of free electrons. It is possible that there are four Fermi points instead of two upon hole or electron doping. The low-energy physics in this case will be similar to that of the two-band system. However, this will occur only when $`|t^{}/t|>0.25`$ and the doping concentration exceeds some critical value. On the other hand, the above derivation starts with the one-band assumption — equation (5). Thus, we shall apply equations (6), (7), (9), and (10) to the following situations: (i) finite doping concentrations for $`|t^{}/t|<0.25`$ and (ii) light doping for $`|t^{}/t|>0.25`$. Finally, equations (9) and (10) are valid only when $`\mathrm{\Delta }1`$ and $`J/t1`$. Since the $`1`$D $`tJ`$ model is phase separated as $`J/tO(1)`$EKL , the Hamiltonian $`H_\psi `$ describes the low-energy physics in the region far away from the place where the phase separation occurs.

## 3 Phase diagram

Because of the spin-charge separation, the dynamics of the charge and spin sectors can be discussed separately. We first consider the charge sector. In terms of the bosonization formulas,

$`J_L+J_R`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\pi }}}_x\mathrm{\Phi }_c,`$
$`J_LJ_R`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\pi }}}_x\mathrm{\Theta }_c,`$ (11)
the Hamiltonian $`H_c`$ can be written as

$$H_c=\frac{v_c}{2}:\left[K_c(_x\mathrm{\Theta }_c)^2+\frac{1}{K_c}(_x\mathrm{\Phi }_c)^2\right]:,$$
(12)
where $`v_c=v_{c0}\sqrt{1[\lambda _c/(\pi v_{c0})]^2}`$ and

$$K_c=\sqrt{\frac{1\lambda _c/(\pi v_{c0})}{1+\lambda _c/(\pi v_{c0})}}.$$
(13)
Accordingly, the charge sector is gapless away from half-filling.

Next we turn into the spin sector. The relevancy of the coupling $`\lambda _s`$ in $`H_s`$ can be determined by the one-loop RG equation, which is given by

$$\frac{d\lambda _s(l)}{dl}=\frac{1}{2\pi }\lambda _s^2(l).$$
(14)
For simplicity, we have set $`v_s=1`$ in equation (14). From equation (14), we see that for $`\lambda _s(0)<0`$, $`\lambda _s`$ flows to zero and the spin excitations are gapless. On the other hand, $`\lambda _s(l\mathrm{})\mathrm{}`$ as $`\lambda _s(0)>0`$. In the latter case, the low energy physics can be elucidated by abelian bosonization. Using the bosonization formulas

$`J_L^+J_R^{}+J_L^{}J_R^+`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi ^2a_0^2}}\mathrm{cos}\left(\sqrt{8\pi }\mathrm{\Phi }_s\right),`$
$`J_L^z+J_R^z`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi }}}_x\mathrm{\Phi }_s,`$
$`J_L^zJ_R^z`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi }}}_x\mathrm{\Theta }_s,`$ (15)
where $`J_{L(R)}^\pm =J_{L(R)}^x\pm iJ_{L(R)}^y`$, the $`\lambda _s`$ term becomes

$`\lambda _s𝑱_L𝑱_R`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda _s\{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi }}[(_x\mathrm{\Phi }_s)^2(_x\mathrm{\Theta }_s)^2]`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi ^2a_0^2}}\mathrm{cos}\left(\sqrt{8\pi }\mathrm{\Phi }_s\right)\}.`$
When $`\lambda _s`$ is positive, the cosine term becomes relevant and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_s=\sqrt{\pi /2}l`$ where $`l`$ is some integer. This results in a spin gap.

To proceed, we have to use the expression of $`\lambda _s`$ (10). For given $`x>0`$, $`J/t1`$, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, we found that $`\lambda _s`$ will change its sign from $`\lambda _s<0`$ to $`\lambda _s>0`$ by increasing the value of $`t^{}/t`$, where $`x=1n`$ is the hole concentration. Although equation (10) is derived under the assumption $`\mathrm{\Delta }1`$, we shall extrapolate it to $`\mathrm{\Delta }=1`$ to get a rough estimate of the phase boundary. The critical value $`(t^{}/t)_c`$ is determined by the equation $`\lambda _s=0`$. The solution of it gives the dependence of $`(t^{}/t)_c`$ on $`x`$ and $`J/t`$, and the results are depicted in figures 1 and 2. As mentioned at the end of Sec. 2, the proper starting point to treat the $`1`$D $`tt^{}J`$ model is the two-band model instead of the one-band model we employed in this paper for $`|t^{}/t|>0.25`$ and moderate values of $`x`$. Therefore, we only consider the case with low doping concentrations in both figures. Figure 1 gives $`(t^{}/t)_c`$ as a function of $`J/t`$ at $`x=0.1`$ for $`\mathrm{\Delta }=0.1,0.4,0.7,1`$. For fixed $`x`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, $`(t^{}/t)_c`$ is a decreasing function of $`J/t`$. But in the range we considered it is, in fact, insensitive to the value of $`J/t`$ at low doping concentration except for small values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. On the other hand, for fixed $`J/t`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, the hole concentration $`x`$ has dramatic effects on $`(t^{}/t)_c`$. This can be seen in figure 2, which shows that $`(t^{}/t)_c`$ is an increasing function of $`x`$.

The above study indicates that the low-energy physics of the deformed $`1`$D $`tt^{}J`$ model is described by the LLs for $`t^{}/t<(t^{}/t)_c`$, and it becomes a LE liquid as $`t^{}/t>(t^{}/t)_c`$. In addition, figures 1 and 2 suggest that $`(t^{}/t)_c>0`$ even for $`\mathrm{\Delta }=1`$. In fact, by extrapolating equation (10) into $`\mathrm{\Delta }=1`$, we found $`(t^{}/t)_c0.32`$ as $`x0^+`$. (Note that the $`1`$D $`tJ`$ model falls into the LL phasefoot3 .) Accordingly, a positive $`t^{}`$ favors the opening of a spin gap and thus suppresses the AF ordering. Moreover, the $`J`$ term plays a minor role in determining the phase diagram at lightly doping as long as the system is far away from the region of phase separation. This can be seen by expanding equation (10) according to the power of $`x`$. Then, the dependence of $`\lambda _s`$ on $`J/t`$ starts from $`O(x^2)`$, whereas its dependence on $`t^{}/t`$ starts from $`O(1)`$.

## 4 Spin-gap phase

To further understand the properties of the ground state in the spin-gap phase, we first examine the $`2k_F`$ CDW and SS susceptibilities. The corresponding order parameters are defined by

$`O_{CDW}`$ $`=`$ $`\psi _{L\alpha }^{}\psi _{R\alpha },`$
$`O_{SS}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}ϵ_{\alpha \beta }\psi _{L\alpha }\psi _{R\beta }.`$ (16)
In terms of the bosonization formulas

$$\psi _{L(R)\alpha }=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi a_0}}\eta _\alpha \mathrm{exp}\left\{i\sqrt{4\pi }\varphi _{L(R)\alpha }\right\},$$
(17)
where $`\eta _{()}`$ are real fermions which satisfy $`\eta _{()}^2=1`$, they can be bosonized as

$`O_{CDW}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i\gamma }{\pi a_0}}\mathrm{exp}\left\{i\sqrt{2\pi }\mathrm{\Phi }_c\right\},`$
$`O_{SS}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i\gamma }{2\pi a_0}}\eta _{}\eta _{}\mathrm{exp}\left\{i\sqrt{2\pi }\mathrm{\Theta }_c\right\},`$ (18)
where $`\mathrm{\Phi }_c=(\varphi _{}+\varphi _{})/\sqrt{2}`$, $`\mathrm{\Phi }_s=(\varphi _{}\varphi _{})/\sqrt{2}`$, and $`\gamma =\mathrm{cos}(\sqrt{2\pi }\mathrm{\Phi }_s)`$. Using equation (18), we obtain the long distance behaviors of the $`2k_F`$ CDW and SS susceptibilities

$`O_{CDW}(\tau ,x)O_{CDW}^{}(0,0)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{|z|^{K_c}}},`$
$`O_{SS}(\tau ,x)O_{SS}^{}(0,0)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{|z|^{K_c^1}}},`$ (19)
where $`z=v_c\tau +ix`$. Equation (19) indicates that the dominant fluctuations are the SS for $`K_c>1`$ and the $`2k_F`$ CDW for $`K_c<1`$. To determine which one occurs in the spin-gap phase, we resort to equation (9). In terms of $`\lambda _s`$, $`\lambda _c`$ can be expressed by

$$\lambda _c=\frac{1}{4}\lambda _s\frac{4\mathrm{\Delta }^2}{\pi }\mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{\pi }{2}x\right)f(x),$$
(20)
where $`f(x)=t[1+\mathrm{cos}(\pi x)]+4t^{}\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{\pi }{2}x\right)[1\mathrm{cos}(2\pi x)]`$. Note that $`f(x)>0`$ for $`0<x<1`$ and $`t^{}>0`$. The spin-gap phase corresponds to $`\lambda _s>0`$, which results in $`\lambda _c<0`$ from equation (20). Plugging this into equation (13) gives $`K_c>1`$. Although both the SS and $`2k_F`$ CDW correlations are enhanced in the spin-gap phase compared with the free fermions, the SS one is dominant.

To seek the origin of the enhancement of the SS correlations in the spin-gap phase, we notice that the structure of $`H_s`$ (7) is identical to the continuum one for the spin-$`1/2`$ Heisenberg chain with the additional next-nearest-neighbor exchange interaction $`J^{}`$ (the $`JJ^{}`$ model)Hal . In that case, the low energy physics is described by the LL as $`J^{}/J<(J^{}/J)_c`$, where $`(J^{}/J)_c`$ denotes the critical value of $`J^{}/J`$, because a negative value of $`\lambda _s`$ flows to zero under the RG transformations. By increasing the value of $`J^{}`$ such that $`J^{}/J>(J^{}/J)_c`$ and thus $`\lambda _s`$ becomes positive, then $`\lambda _s(l\mathrm{})\mathrm{}`$ and the spin gap is openedHal . In the latter situation, the opening of the spin gap is associated with the occurrence of the spin-Peierls ordering, which breaks the symmetry of translation by one site (the Z2 symmetry) spontaneously. This comparison implies that in the presence of a positive $`t^{}`$, the spin sector of the $`tt^{}J`$ model has the tendency toward the spin-Peierls ordering without including the $`J^{}`$ term. (The spontaneous breaking of the Z2 symmetry in the spin background is restored by the hole motion in the present case. See equation (22).) On the other hand, the lowest-energy spin excitations in the spin-gap phase are also the massive spinons, which are the kink or anti-kink connecting two degenerate ground states. This observation on the spin excitation spectrum provides another evidence to support that the underlying spin background in the spin-gap phase is the spin-Peierls state. Finally, we examine the correlations of the dimerization operator:

$$ϵ(x)=𝑺_j𝑺_{j+1}𝑺_{j+1}𝑺_{j+2},$$
(21)
where $`x=ja_0`$. Then, for $`|x|\mathrm{}`$, we have

$$ϵ(x)ϵ(0)\gamma ^2\frac{\mathrm{cos}(2k_Fx)}{x^{K_c}}.$$
(22)
Since $`2k_F=\pi (1x)`$, at lightly doping ($`x1`$), the cosine term in equation (22) locally mimics the alternation that is characteristic of a dimerized spin chain (the $`JJ^{}`$ model). The corresponding spin-Peierls ordering is weakened by a power law due to the charge fluctuations.

To sum up, the effect of a positive $`t^{}`$ is to enhance the spin-Peierls ordering (and suppress the AF ordering) such that the whole system behaves like a doped spin-Peierls state. The doped holes in the spin-Peierls state are inclined to form the local hole pairs due to the energetic consideration. Furthermore, the calculation of the SS correlator indicates that the other effect of a positive $`t^{}`$ is to enhance the Josephson tunneling between these local hole pairs, which results in the phase coherence between themMXA .

## 5 Conclusions and Discussions

We obtain the phase diagram of the $`1`$D $`tt^{}J`$ model by studying the deformed version of it. We found that the effects of the positive $`t^{}`$ at lightly doping are (i) to open the spin gap by enhancing the spin-Peierls ordering (and suppressing the AF ordering), and (ii) to make the hole-pair propagation become coherent and thus enhance the SS correlations. In other words, a positive $`t^{}`$ provides a mechanism for the occurrence of the $`1`$D superconductors in the one-band system with purely repulsive force.

Our findings about the effects of a positive $`t^{}`$ are reminiscent of the role of the next-nearest-neighbor exchange interaction, $`J^{}`$, played on the spin-$`1/2`$ Heisenberg chain. The existence of a spin-gap phase in the $`1`$D $`tJJ^{}`$ model at low doping concentration was indeed predicted, as long as $`J^{}/J>(J^{}/J)_c0.24`$ and $`J/t<(J/t)_p`$, where $`(J/t)_p=O(1)`$ denotes the boundary of phase separationOLR ; SL . The underlying reason is that a spin gap already exists at half-filling for $`J^{}/J>(J^{}/J)_c`$ and it is stable against the lightly hole doping. As a matter of fact, the opening of the spin gap in both the $`tt^{}J`$ and $`tJJ^{}`$ models results from the same operator. From the viewpoint of the Hubbard model, i.e. the $`tt^{}U`$ modelfoot1 , a $`J^{}`$ term in the low-energy effective Hamiltonian will be generated from the $`t^{}`$ term in the large-$`U`$ limit, where $`U>0`$ denotes the on-site interactions between electrons. However, the value of $`J^{}`$ generated by this way is given by $`J^{}/J(t^{}/t)^2`$. According to our results (figure 2), the induced $`J^{}`$ is still in the region $`J^{}/J<(J^{}/J)_c`$ at lightly doping when $`t^{}/t>(t^{}/t)_c`$. Therefore, it is less possible that the spin-gap phase we found arises from the $`J^{}`$ term induced by a positive $`t^{}`$ though the spin-gap phases in both models belong to the same universality class.

It should be mentioned that our results about the opening of the spin gap in the deformed $`tt^{}J`$ chain are also valid at half-filling, i.e. $`n=1`$. In that case, the Umklapp processes ignored in our analysis become relevant and thus a charge gap is opened, which corresponds to $`K_c=0`$. Because the Umklapp processes are composed of the spin-singlet operators, they do not affect the spin sector, especially equation (10). Therefore, there still exists $`(t^{}/t)_c>0`$ at half-filling such that there is an algebraic long range AF order with gapless spin excitations for $`t^{}/t<(t^{}/t)_c`$, whereas a spin liquid phase with the long-ranged spin-Peierls order emerges for $`t^{}/t>(t^{}/t)_c`$. (Note that at half-filling, equation (22) gives $`ϵ(x)(1)^x\gamma `$.) In this sense, the deformed $`tt^{}J`$ model at half-filling behaves like the $`JJ^{}`$ model instead of the Heisenberg chain (or the $`tt^{}J`$ chain at half-filling), which is known to be gapless in its spin sector. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, an effective $`J^{}`$ term will be generated from the $`t^{}`$ term in the strong coupling regime of the $`tt^{}U`$ model, which also contains both the Luttinger liquid and spin-gap phases. Compared with our results, it seems to suggest that in the case of half-filling the deformed $`tt^{}J`$ model may belong to the same universality class of the $`tt^{}U`$ model in the strong coupling regime, in stead of the $`tt^{}J`$ model. Whether this discrepancy at half-filling is a generical feature or not needs more work to clarify it.

The application of our analysis on the deformed $`tJ`$ type model to the usual one ($`\mathrm{\Delta }=1`$) is based on the assumption that the deformed model with $`\mathrm{\Delta }1`$ is adiabatically connected to the one with $`\mathrm{\Delta }=1`$. That is, there is no phase transition by increasing the deformation parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ from $`\mathrm{\Delta }1`$ to $`\mathrm{\Delta }=1`$. This assumption has been examined in reference CW  where the phase diagram of the $`tJ_z`$ model was studied. The phase diagram obtained by the deformed model is identical to that predicted by the numerical methods. This supports the use of the technique of the deformed Hubbard operator to study the $`tJ`$ type models. However, a recent numerical work on the $`tt^{}J`$ chain indicated that even moderate values of $`t^{}`$ results in the breakdown of the LLsEO . In addition, the low-doping phase shows similarities with the doped two-leg $`tJ`$ ladders where the Fermi surface takes the form of a hole pocket and the quantum numbers carried by the elementary excitations are the same as those of the doped holes. From the point of view of the renormalization group, the instability of the LLs found in reference EO  should result from a relevant operator generated by the $`t^{}`$ term, which mediates an attraction between the charge and spin sectors. For example, the spin-charge recombination in the two-leg ladders arises from the superexchange interaction along the rung. The operators which mix the charge and spin sectors may occur in the six-fermion interactions in the continuum theory. But these are irrelevant operators in the weak coupling regime, i.e $`\mathrm{\Delta }1`$. Nevertheless, we cannot exclude the possibility that one of the six-fermion interactions mixing the charge and spin sectors becomes relevant in the strong regime, i.e. $`\mathrm{\Delta }=1`$. This problem is intimately related to the previous one: whether a phase transition exists between $`\mathrm{\Delta }1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }=1`$ or not. This issue deserves further study. In addition, to determine the exact value of $`(t^{}/t)_c`$ at $`\mathrm{\Delta }=1`$, further numerical work is warranted.

We would like to thank the discussions with Y.C. Chen, M.F. Yang, and T.K. Lee. Y.L. L. is grateful to Global fiberoptics, Inc. for financial support. The work of Y.-W. L. is supported by the National Science Council of Taiwan under grant NSC 91-2112-M-029-012.

## Appendix A Derivation of the continuum Hamiltonian

In this appendix, we provide the details for the derivation of the continuum Hamiltonian $`H_\psi `$ from the lattice model given by equations (1) and (2). Equations (9) and (10) result from this procedure automatically.

Inserting equation (4) into equation (1) gives

$`\mathrm{H}_h=\mathrm{H}_0+\mathrm{H}_1+\mathrm{H}_2+\mathrm{H}_3+\mathrm{H}_4,`$
where

$`\mathrm{H}_0`$ $`=`$ $`t(1\mathrm{\Delta }{\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}})^2{\displaystyle \underset{j,\alpha }{}}(c_{j+1\alpha }^{}c_{j\alpha }+\mathrm{H}.\mathrm{c}.)`$ (A1)
$`t^{}(1\mathrm{\Delta }{\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}})^2{\displaystyle \underset{j,\alpha }{}}(c_{j+2\alpha }^{}c_{j\alpha }+\mathrm{H}.\mathrm{c}.),`$
and

$`\mathrm{H}_1`$ $`=`$ $`t\mathrm{\Delta }(1\mathrm{\Delta }{\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}}){\displaystyle \underset{j,\alpha }{}}[c_{j+1\alpha }^{}c_{j\alpha }(:n_{j\alpha }:+:n_{j+1\alpha }:)`$ (A2)
$`+\mathrm{H}.\mathrm{c}.],`$
$`\mathrm{H}_2`$ $`=`$ $`t\mathrm{\Delta }^2{\displaystyle \underset{j,\alpha }{}}(c_{j+1\alpha }^{}c_{j\alpha }:n_{j+1\alpha }::n_{j\alpha }:+\mathrm{H}.\mathrm{c}.),`$ (A3)
$`\mathrm{H}_3`$ $`=`$ $`t^{}\mathrm{\Delta }(1\mathrm{\Delta }{\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}}){\displaystyle \underset{j,\alpha }{}}[c_{j+2\alpha }^{}c_{j\alpha }(:n_{j\alpha }:+:n_{j+2\alpha }:)`$ (A4)
$`+\mathrm{H}.\mathrm{c}.],`$
$`\mathrm{H}_4`$ $`=`$ $`t^{}\mathrm{\Delta }^2{\displaystyle \underset{j,\alpha }{}}(c_{j+2\alpha }^{}c_{j\alpha }:n_{j+2\alpha }::n_{j\alpha }:+\mathrm{H}.\mathrm{c}.).`$ (A5)
In the above, $`:n_{j\alpha }:=n_{j\alpha }\frac{n}{2}`$ and $`n`$ is the electron density. In the following, we shall restrict to the case away from half-filling.

We first consider $`\mathrm{H}_1`$. Using equation (5), one may find the following operator product expansion (OPE) for $`\alpha =,`$

$`c_{j+1\alpha }^{}c_{j\alpha }/a_0`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}(k_Fa_0)}{\pi a_0}}+e^{ik_Fa_0}J_{L\alpha }+e^{ik_Fa_0}J_{R\alpha }`$ (A6)
$`+(e^{2ik_Fx}e^{ik_Fa_0}\psi _{L\alpha }^{}\psi _{R\alpha }+\mathrm{H}.c.).`$
Furthermore, in terms of the $`\psi `$-fermions, the density operator for spin $`\alpha `$, $`:n_{j\alpha }:`$, can be written as

$$:n_{j\alpha }:a_0[J_{L\alpha }+J_{R\alpha }+(e^{2ik_Fx}\psi _{L\alpha }^{}\psi _{R\alpha }+\mathrm{H}.c.)],$$
(A7)
where $`J_{L(R)\alpha }=:\psi _{L(R)\alpha }^{}\psi _{L(R)\alpha }:`$. With the help of equations (A6) and (A7) and neglecting the constant term, $`\mathrm{H}_1`$ becomes

$`\mathrm{H}_1`$ $`=`$ $`8ta_0\mathrm{\Delta }(1\mathrm{\Delta }{\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}})\mathrm{cos}(k_Fa_0){\displaystyle }dx(J_LJ_L+J_RJ_R`$
$`+J_LJ_R:\psi _{L\alpha }^{}\psi _{L\beta }\psi _{R\beta }^{}\psi _{R\alpha }:).`$
In terms of the identity

$$J_L^zJ_L^z=\frac{1}{3}𝑱_L𝑱_L,$$
(A8)
we obtain

$$J_LJ_L=\frac{1}{4}J_LJ_LJ_L^zJ_L^z=\frac{1}{4}J_LJ_L\frac{1}{3}𝑱_L𝑱_L.$$
(A9)
In addition, we have

$$:\psi _{L\alpha }^{}\psi _{L\beta }\psi _{R\beta }^{}\psi _{R\alpha }:=\frac{1}{2}J_LJ_R+2𝑱_L𝑱_R.$$
(A10)
Inserting equations (A9) and (A10) into $`\mathrm{H}_1`$ gives

$`\mathrm{H}_1=2ta_0\mathrm{\Delta }(1\mathrm{\Delta }{\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}})\mathrm{cos}({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{2}}n){\displaystyle }dx\{(:J_LJ_L:+:J_RJ_R:`$
$`+2J_LJ_R){\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}(:𝑱_L𝑱_L:+:𝑱_R𝑱_R:+6𝑱_L𝑱_R)\}.`$ (A11)
The same procedure is applied to $`\mathrm{H}_3`$ except that $`t`$ and $`a_0`$ are replaced by $`t^{}`$ and $`2a_0`$, respectively. Accordingly, we have

$`\mathrm{H}_3=4t^{}a_0\mathrm{\Delta }(1\mathrm{\Delta }{\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}})\mathrm{cos}(\pi n){\displaystyle }dx\{(:J_LJ_L:+:J_RJ_R:`$
$`+2J_LJ_R){\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}(:𝑱_L𝑱_L:+:𝑱_R𝑱_R:+6𝑱_L𝑱_R)\}.`$ (A12)
Next we investigate $`\mathrm{H}_2`$. To proceed, we need the following OPE’s:

$`J_{L\alpha }(z)\psi _{L\beta }(0)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta _{\alpha \beta }}{2\pi z}}\psi _{L\alpha }(0),`$ (A13)
$`J_{L\alpha }(z)\psi _{L\beta }^{}(0)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta _{\alpha \beta }}{2\pi z}}\psi _{L\alpha }^{}(0).`$
Then, using equations (A7) and (A13), we obtain for $`\alpha =,`$

$`:n_{j+1\alpha }::n_{j\alpha }:/a_0^2`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{2\mathrm{sin}(k_Fa_0)}{\pi a_0}}\{{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}(k_Fa_0)}{2\pi a_0}}+\mathrm{cos}(k_Fa_0)(J_{L\alpha }+J_{R\alpha })`$
$`+(e^{2ik_Fx}e^{ik_Fa_0}\psi _{L\alpha }^{}\psi _{R\alpha }+\mathrm{H}.\mathrm{c}.)\}+:J_{L\alpha }J_{L\alpha }:`$
$`+:J_{R\alpha }J_{R\alpha }:+4\mathrm{sin}^2(k_Fa_0)J_{L\alpha }J_{R\alpha }.`$ (A14)
In equation (A14), the $`2nk_F`$ terms with $`n>1`$ are neglected. By using equations (A6) and (A14) and neglecting a constant term, $`\mathrm{H}_2`$ becomes

$`\mathrm{H}_2={\displaystyle \frac{8ta_0\mathrm{\Delta }^2\mathrm{sin}(k_Fa_0)}{\pi }}{\displaystyle }dx\{\mathrm{cos}^2(k_Fa_0)(J_LJ_L+J_RJ_R`$
$`+J_LJ_R){\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}(:J_{L\alpha }J_{L\alpha }:+:J_{R\alpha }J_{R\alpha }:):\psi _{L\alpha }^{}\psi _{L\beta }\psi _{R\beta }^{}\psi _{R\alpha }:\}.`$
With the help of equations (A9), (A10), and the identity

$`:J_{L\alpha }J_{L\alpha }:+:J_{R\alpha }J_{R\alpha }:`$ (A15)
$`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(:J_LJ_L:+:J_RJ_R:)+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}(:𝑱_L𝑱_L:+:𝑱_R𝑱_R:),`$
we arrive at

$`\mathrm{H}_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{ta_0\mathrm{\Delta }^2\mathrm{sin}(\pi n/2)\mathrm{cos}(\pi n)}{\pi }}{\displaystyle }dx(:J_LJ_L:+:J_RJ_R:`$ (A16)
$`+4J_LJ_R){\displaystyle \frac{4ta_0\mathrm{\Delta }^2\mathrm{sin}(\pi n/2)}{3\pi }}{\displaystyle }dx\{[2+\mathrm{cos}(\pi n)]`$
$`\times (:𝑱_L𝑱_L:+:𝑱_R𝑱_R:)+12𝑱_L𝑱_R\}.`$
With the same procedure, $`\mathrm{H}_4`$ becomes

$`\mathrm{H}_4`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2t^{}a_0\mathrm{\Delta }^2\mathrm{sin}(\pi n)\mathrm{cos}(2\pi n)}{\pi }}{\displaystyle }dx(:J_LJ_L:+:J_RJ_R:`$ (A17)
$`+4J_LJ_R){\displaystyle \frac{8t^{}a_0\mathrm{\Delta }^2\mathrm{sin}(\pi n)}{3\pi }}{\displaystyle }dx\{[2+\mathrm{cos}(2\pi n)]`$
$`\times (:𝑱_L𝑱_L:+:𝑱_R𝑱_R:)+12𝑱_L𝑱_R\}.`$
Finally, we turn into $`\mathrm{H}_J`$. First, we have

$`:n_{j+1}::n_j:/a_0^2`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{2\mathrm{sin}(k_Fa_0)}{\pi a_0}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}(k_Fa_0)}{\pi a_0}}+\mathrm{cos}(k_Fa_0)(J_L+J_R)\right]`$
$`+:J_LJ_L:+:J_RJ_R:+2J_LJ_R2\mathrm{cos}(2k_Fa_0)`$
$`\times :\psi _{L\alpha }^{}\psi _{L\beta }\psi _{R\beta }^{}\psi _{R\alpha }:`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{2\mathrm{sin}(k_Fa_0)}{\pi a_0}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}(k_Fa_0)}{\pi a_0}}+\mathrm{cos}(k_Fa_0)(J_L+J_R)\right]`$
$`+:J_LJ_L:+:J_RJ_R:+[2\mathrm{cos}(2k_Fa_0)]J_LJ_R`$
$`4\mathrm{cos}(2k_Fa_0)𝑱_L𝑱_R,`$ (A18)
Next, in terms of the $`\psi `$-fermions, the spin operator can be written as

$$𝑺_ja_0[𝑱_L+𝑱_R+(e^{2ik_Fx}𝒎+\mathrm{H}.c.)],$$
(A19)
where $`𝒎=\frac{1}{2}\psi _{L\alpha }^{}(𝝈)_{\alpha \beta }\psi _{R\beta }`$. Using the OPE’s

$`𝒎(x+a_0)𝒎^{}(x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{8\pi a_0}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi a_0}}+i(J_L+J_R)\right]`$ (A20)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}𝑱_L𝑱_R{\displaystyle \frac{3}{8}}J_LJ_R,`$
$`𝒎^{}(x+a_0)𝒎(x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{8\pi a_0}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi a_0}}i(J_L+J_R)\right]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}𝑱_L𝑱_R{\displaystyle \frac{3}{8}}J_LJ_R,`$
we obtain

$`𝑺_{j+1}𝑺_j/a_0^2`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4\pi ^2a_0^2}}+:𝑱_L𝑱_L:+:𝑱_R𝑱_R:+2𝑱_L𝑱_R`$
$`+e^{2ik_Fa_0}𝒎(x+a_0)𝒎^{}(x)+e^{2ik_Fa_0}𝒎^{}(x+a_0)𝒎(x)`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{3\mathrm{sin}(k_Fa_0)}{2\pi a_0}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}(k_Fa_0)}{\pi a_0}}+\mathrm{cos}(k_Fa_0)(J_L+J_R)\right]`$
$`+:𝑱_L𝑱_L:+:𝑱_R𝑱_R:+[2+\mathrm{cos}(2k_Fa_0)]𝑱_L𝑱_R`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}\mathrm{cos}(2k_Fa_0)J_LJ_R.`$ (A21)
Again, the $`2nk_F`$ terms with $`n>1`$ in equations (A18) and (A21) are neglected. With the help of equations (A18) and (A21), we get

$`\mathrm{H}_J=Ja_0{\displaystyle }dx\{:𝑱_L𝑱_L:+:𝑱_R𝑱_R:+4\mathrm{cos}^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{2}}n\right)`$
$`\times 𝑱_L𝑱_R\}{\displaystyle \frac{Ja_0}{4}}{\displaystyle }dx\{:J_LJ_L:+:J_RJ_R:+4\mathrm{cos}^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{2}}n\right)`$
$`\times J_LJ_R\}.`$ (A22)
By collecting equations (A11), (A12), (A16), (A17), and (A22), we obtain the continuum Hamiltonian $`H_\psi `$ with the expressions (9) and (10).