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# Collisionless and hydrodynamic excitations of trapped boson-fermion mixtures

## I Introduction

Shortly after the achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation of dilute, magnetically trapped alkali atoms, the investigation of collective excitations in these systems has become a very active research field (see  for a recent theoretical review). The high accuracy of frequency measurements and the sensitivity of collective phenomena to interaction effects makes them good candidates to unravel the dynamical correlation of the many-body system. So far, experimental results have been obtained for low-lying collective modes of a trapped condensate in a wide temperature regime, including breathing modes , surface modes , and the scissors mode . These experiments have in turn stimulated a considerable amount of theoretical work.

Recently the quantum degenerate regime has also been reached in a magnetically trapped Fermi gas , and in a mixture of Bose and Fermi particles . The latter system is in particular interesting since it serves as one typical example in which the intermingled particles obey different statistics. Up to date the static property , the phase diagram and phase separation , stability conditions  and collective excitations  of trapped boson-fermion mixtures have been theoretically investigated. In a recent experiment, the collapse of a degenerated Fermi gas caused by the strong attractive interaction with a Bose-Einstein condensate has been observed in an atomic mixture of 40K$`^{87}`$Rb , and measurements of collective excitations might be available soon also in such systems.

The purpose of the present paper is to study the collective excitations of magnetically trapped boson-fermion binary mixtures in two different regimes: a collisionless regime where the collision rate is small compared with the frequencies of particle motion in the trap and a hydrodynamic (collisional) regime in which collisions are sufficiently strong to ensure local thermodynamic equilibrium. From the experimental point of view the temperature $`T`$ of all the realized boson-fermion mixtures is around the Fermi temperature $`T_F`$ (more precisely, $`T0.2T_F`$ ), and the systems are possibly in or close to the hydrodynamic regime, since the sympathetic cooling technique used in the experiments usually requires a large boson-fermion interaction strength so that the frequent collisions between fermions and bosons can foster the local thermal equilibrium and ensure efficient thermalization of the fermionic component to reach the quantum degeneracy. Of course, as far as the strongly degenerate regime (where $`TT_F`$) is concerned, the collisions are rare because of Fermi statistic, and the systems will be finally in the collisionless regime.

Several theoretical analysis have already been presented for the collective excitations of a spherically trapped boson-fermion mixture. The collisionless modes are considered by a sum-rule approach  or in the random-phase approximation . The collisional collective oscillations are discussed by Minguzzi and Tosi , however, limited to the surface modes at weak fermion-boson coupling. On the other hand, the homogeneous boson-fermion mixtures have also been analytically studied . The repulsion between the Bogoliubov phonon mode and zero-sound mode  (or Anderson mode ), is predicted when the degenerated Fermi gas is in the normal collisionless limit (or in the superfluid phase).

In this paper, we shall analyze systematically the collisionless and hydrodynamic monopole and quadrupole modes in the presence of spherical as well as cylindrically symmetric traps . We discuss in some detail the behavior of those modes against boson-fermion coupling at different boson-boson interaction strength. In the spherical traps, we find that the monopole frequency coincides in the collisionless regime and in the hydrodynamic one, suggesting that it might be undamped in all collisional regimes. In contrast, for the quadrupole mode the frequency differs dramatically in these two limits. In particular, in the hydrodynamic regime the quadrupole oscillations with equal bosonic and fermionic amplitudes are found to generate an exact eigenstate of the system, resembling the Kohn mode for the dipole excitation. Analytic solutions valid at weak and medium fermion-boson coupling are also deduced and discussed.

The content of the paper is as follows. In the next section we derive equations of the low-energy collective excitation of a boson-fermion mixture in the Thomas-Fermi approximation by means of a scaling ansatz. In Sec. III we first briefly describe the parameters and the numerical procedure employed in the present calculation. We then turn to detailed discussion of the results obtained by analyzing the dependence of the mode frequencies on the boson-fermion coupling and boson-boson interaction strength, the ground-state density distributions, and the mixing between bosonic and fermionic collective oscillations. The last section is devoted to summary and conclusions.

## II Formulation

We consider a dilute spin-polarized boson-fermion mixture trapped in a cylindrically symmetric harmonic oscillator potential at low temperature. In the semi-classical Thomas-Fermi approximation, the normal Fermi gas evolves according to the Boltzmann-Vlasov kinetic equation  (see the Eq. (3) below). In the collisionless regime, the collisions are rare and we can safely neglect the collision term ($`I_{coll}`$) that accounts for the damping of collective modes. On the opposite of the hydrodynamic regime, the collision term dominates and we resort to the Euler equation of motion , which can be deduced from Boltzmann-Vlasov kinetic equation under the assumption of local equilibrium for fermions . For the bosonic part, we shall apply the same Stringari’s hydrodynamic formulation  in both regimes, since the dynamics of the condensate is less affected by the collisions .

### A collisionless regime

According to the Stringari’s hydrodynamic description , the low-energy dynamics of the trapped bosonic atoms is determined by the equations,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{n_b}{t}}+\left(𝐯_bn_b\right)`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (1)
$`m_b{\displaystyle \frac{𝐯_b}{t}}+\left(V_{ho}^b+g_{bb}n_b+g_{bf}n_f+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}m_b𝐯_b^2\right)`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (2)
where $`V_{ho}^b\left(𝐫\right)=\frac{1}{2}m_b\left(\omega _b^2\rho ^2+\omega _{zb}^2z^2\right)`$ is the cylindrical symmetric confining potential, and $`n_b(𝐫,t)`$, $`n_f(𝐫,t)`$ and $`𝐯_b(𝐫,t)`$ are the boson, fermion density and velocity field, respectively. The mean-field term $`g_{bf}n_f(𝐫,t)`$ is included to take into account the effect of boson-fermion interaction . The boson-boson and boson-fermion interaction strength for the pseudopotentials, $`g_{bb}`$ and $`g_{bf}`$, are related to the $`s`$-wave scattering lengths $`a_{bb}`$ and $`a_{bf}`$ through $`g_{bb}=4\pi \mathrm{}^2a_{bb}/m_b`$, $`g_{bf}=2\pi \mathrm{}^2a_{bf}/m_{bf}`$ where $`m_{bf}=m_bm_f/\left(m_b+m_f\right)`$ is the reduced boson-fermion mass. In Eq. (2), we have already neglected the quantum kinetic energy pressure term $`\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m_b\sqrt{n_b}}^2\sqrt{n_b}`$ in the spirit of the Thomas-Fermi approximation .

For the fermionic part in the collisionless regime, in order to take into account the effects of the boson-fermion interactions, we consider the mean-field description based on the Boltzmann-Vlasov kinetic equation  without the collisional term ($`I_{coll}`$),

$$\frac{f}{t}+𝐯_f\frac{f}{𝐫}\frac{1}{m_f}\frac{V_{ho}^f}{𝐫}\frac{f}{𝐯_f}\frac{g_{bf}}{m_f}\frac{n_b}{𝐫}\frac{f}{𝐯_f}=0,$$
(3)
where $`f(𝐫,𝐯_f,t)`$ is the single particle phase space distribution function for fermions, $`n_f(𝐫,t)=d^3𝐯_ff(𝐫,𝐯_f,t)`$ and $`V_{ho}^f\left(𝐫\right)=\frac{1}{2}m_f\left(\omega _f^2\rho ^2+\omega _{zf}^2z^2\right)`$ is the confining potential. The last term in the left hand side of Eq. (3) is a Hartree-Fock mean-field term, also known as the Vlasov contribution. The fermion-fermion interaction has been neglected as the polarized system is considered .

Without the boson-fermion interaction ($`g_{bf}=0`$), both the Eqs. (2) and (3) admit the simple scaling solution, i.e.,

$`n_b(𝐫,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{_jb_j\left(t\right)}}n_b^0\left({\displaystyle \frac{r_i}{b_i(t)}}\right),`$ (4)
$`v_{bi}(𝐫,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{b_i(t)}}{\displaystyle \frac{db_i(t)}{dt}}r_i,`$ (5)
for bosons  and

$`f(𝐫,𝐯_f,t)`$ $`=`$ $`f_0({\displaystyle \frac{r_i}{\gamma _i(t)}},\stackrel{~}{𝐯}_f(𝐫,t)),`$ (6)
$`\stackrel{~}{𝐯}_{fi}(𝐫,t)`$ $`=`$ $`\gamma _i(t)v_{fi}{\displaystyle \frac{d\gamma _i(t)}{dt}}r_i,`$ (7)
for fermions . Here $`n_b^0`$ and $`f_0`$ are the equilibrium distributions. The dependence on time $`t`$ is entirely contained the six scaling parameters, $`b_i\left(t\right)`$ and $`\gamma _i(t)`$, where $`i=x,`$ $`y,`$and $`z`$. By substituting this solution into Eqs. (2) and (3), it is easily to show that, the scaling parameters obey the coupled differential equations ,

$`\ddot{b}_i(t)+\omega _{ib}^2(t)b_i(t){\displaystyle \frac{\omega _{ib}^2(0)}{b_i(t)_jb_j\left(t\right)}}`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (8)
$`\ddot{\gamma }_i(t)+\omega _{if}^2(t)\gamma _i(t){\displaystyle \frac{\omega _{if}^2(0)}{\gamma _i^3(t)}}`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (9)
Solutions of Eqs. (8) and (9) determine the evolution of both the boson and fermion density. In particular, the eigenfrequencies of small oscillations with $`\omega _i(t)=\omega _i(0)`$ are the resonance frequencies of the collective density (shape) oscillations under the weak perturbation of the external field. After linearizing around the equilibrium values $`b_i=1`$ and $`\gamma _i=1`$, one finds, in the case of the spherical harmonic traps, the result: $`\omega _{Mb}=\sqrt{5}\omega _b`$, $`\omega _{Qb}=\sqrt{2}\omega _b`$ and $`\omega _{Mf}=2\omega _f`$, $`\omega _{Qf}=2\omega _f`$ for the frequencies of the monopole and quadrupole oscillations, respectively, which is already well known in the literatures.

In the presence of the boson-fermion interaction ($`g_{bf}0`$), however, the simple scaling solution is no longer satisfied at every position $`𝐫`$ after the substitution. A useful approximation, in the first order of $`g_{bf}`$, is to assume the scaling form of the solution as a priori, and fulfill it on average by integrating over the spatial coordinates. The same strategy has been recently used by Guery-Odelin  to investigate the effect of the interaction on the collective oscillation of a classical gas in the collisionless regime and by Menotti et al. to study the expansion of an interacting Fermi gas . In the latter, the authors showed that the frequencies of the monopole and quadrupole modes for isotropic traps deduced in this approximation coincide with the result derived earlier by using the sum-rule approach. Of course, the assumption of the scaling ansatz is only meaningful for the small value of $`\left|g_{bf}\right|`$. It will apparently break down for a large and positive $`g_{bf}`$, at which the phase separation occurs.

In the approximation specified above, we substitute the scaling ansatz Eq. (5) into Stringari’s hydrodynamic equations. By setting $`R_i=r_i/b_i(t)`$, one finds,

$`\ddot{b}_i(t)R_i+\omega _{ib}^2(t)b_i(t)R_i+{\displaystyle \frac{g_{bb}}{m_b}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{b_i(t)_jb_j\left(t\right)}}{\displaystyle \frac{n_b^0\left(𝐑\right)}{R_i}}`$ (10)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{g_{bf}}{m_b}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{b_i(t)_j\gamma _j\left(t\right)}}{\displaystyle \frac{n_f^0(\frac{b_i\left(t\right)}{\gamma _i\left(t\right)}R_i)}{R_i}}=0,`$ (11)
which reduces to the following form in equilibrium state,

$$\omega _{ib}^2(t)R_i+\frac{g_{bb}}{m_b}\frac{n_b^0\left(𝐑\right)}{R_i}+\frac{g_{bf}}{m_b}\frac{n_f^0(𝐑)}{R_i}=0.$$
(12)
The equations for the scaling parameters $`b_i(t)`$ can be obtained by multiplying Eq. (11) by $`R_in_b^0\left(R_i\right)`$ on both sides and integrating over the spatial coordinates. Making use of the equilibrium properties of the density distribution (12), after some straightforward algebra one finds,

$`\ddot{b}_i(t)+\omega _{ib}^2(t)b_i(t){\displaystyle \frac{\omega _{ib}^2(0)}{b_i(t)_jb_j\left(t\right)}}`$ (13)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{g_{bf}}{m_bN_bR_i^2_b}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{b_i_jb_j}}{\displaystyle d^3𝐑\frac{n_f^0(𝐑)}{R_i}R_in_b^0(\frac{\gamma _i}{b_i}R_i)}`$ (14)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{g_{bf}}{m_bN_bR_i^2_b}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{b_i_jb_j}}{\displaystyle d^3𝐑\frac{n_f^0(𝐑)}{R_i}R_in_b^0(𝐑)}=0,`$ (15)
where $`R_i^2_b=\frac{1}{N_b}d^3𝐑n_b^0(𝐑)R_i^2`$ is the average size of bosons along the $`i`$-axis. The last two terms in Eq. (15), linear in $`g_{bf}`$, account for the effects of boson-fermion interaction.

Analogous procedure can also be applied for the fermionic part . The equations for the scaling parameters $`\gamma _i(t)`$ are finally found to take the form,

$`\ddot{\gamma }_i(t)+\omega _{if}^2(t)\gamma _i(t){\displaystyle \frac{\omega _{if}^2(0)}{\gamma _i^3(t)}}`$ (16)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{g_{bf}}{m_fN_fR_i^2_f}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\gamma _i_j\gamma _j}}{\displaystyle d^3𝐑\frac{n_b^0(𝐑)}{R_i}R_in_f^0(\frac{b_i}{\gamma _i}R_i)}`$ (17)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{g_{bf}}{m_fN_fR_i^2_f}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\gamma _i^3}}{\displaystyle d^3𝐑\frac{n_b^0(𝐑)}{R_i}R_in_f^0(𝐑)}=0,`$ (18)
where $`R_i^2_f=\frac{1}{N_f}d^3𝐑n_f^0(𝐑)R_i^2`$.

The coupled set of differential equations (15) and (18) is a generalization of Eqs. (8) and (9) in the presence of the boson-fermion coupling. It determines the dynamics of boson-fermion mixtures in the collisionless regime as far as the assumption of the simple scaling solution is valid. We shall only be interested in the small oscillation around the equilibrium state ($`b_i,\gamma _i1`$) and apply it to study the behavior of monopole and quadrupole modes against boson-fermion coupling. In this case, one can simplify the set of differential equations by expanding

$`n_b^0({\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _i}{b_i}}R_i)`$ $``$ $`n_b^0(𝐑)+{\displaystyle _j}{\displaystyle \frac{n_b^0(𝐑)}{R_j}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _j}{b_j}}1\right)R_j,`$ (19)
$`n_f^0({\displaystyle \frac{b_i}{\gamma _i}}R_i)`$ $``$ $`n_f^0(𝐑)+{\displaystyle _j}{\displaystyle \frac{n_f^0(𝐑)}{R_j}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{b_j}{\gamma _j}}1\right)R_j,`$ (20)
to obtain

$`\ddot{b}_i(t)+\omega _{ib}^2(t)b_i(t){\displaystyle \frac{\omega _{ib}^2(0)}{b_i(t)_jb_j\left(t\right)}}`$ (21)
$`+{\displaystyle _k}{\displaystyle \frac{\omega _{ib}^2(0)B_{ik}}{b_i_jb_j}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _k}{b_k}}1\right)=0,`$ (22)
and

$`\ddot{\gamma }_i(t)+\omega _{if}^2(t)\gamma _i(t){\displaystyle \frac{\omega _{if}^2(0)}{\gamma _i^3(t)}}+\omega _{if}^2(0)F_i\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{\gamma _i_j\gamma _j}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\gamma _i^3}}\right)`$ (23)
$`+{\displaystyle _k}{\displaystyle \frac{\omega _{if}^2(0)D_{ik}}{\gamma _i_j\gamma _j}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{b_k}{\gamma _k}}1\right)=0,`$ (24)
where

$`B_{ik}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g_{bf}}{m_b\omega _{ib}^2(0)N_bR_i^2_b}}{\displaystyle d^3𝐑\frac{n_f^0(𝐑)}{R_i}R_iR_k\frac{n_b^0(𝐑)}{R_k}},`$
$`F_i`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g_{bf}}{m_f\omega _{if}^2(0)N_fR_i^2_f}}{\displaystyle d^3𝐑\frac{n_b^0(𝐑)}{R_i}R_in_f^0(𝐑)},`$
$`D_{ik}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g_{bf}}{m_f\omega _{if}^2(0)N_fR_i^2_f}}{\displaystyle d^3𝐑\frac{n_b^0(𝐑)}{R_i}R_iR_k\frac{n_f^0(𝐑)}{R_k}},`$
are the dimensionless parameters proportional to $`g_{bf}`$. In the case of a cylindrical trap, those parameters can be reduced to $`B_{\alpha \beta }`$, $`F_\alpha `$, and $`D_{\alpha \beta }`$ ($`\alpha ,\beta =\rho `$ or $`z`$) in terms of the cylindrical coordinates, whose expressions are given in Appendix.

By linearizing Eqs. (22) and (24) around $`b_i,\gamma _i=1`$, for each component in $`\rho `$ or $`z`$ coordinate one gets a separated equation and thus obtains four coupled equations. The dispersion relation for the frequency of the monopole and quadrupole modes can be determined by the condition for existence of nontrivial solutions, that is,

$$det\omega ^2𝐀_c=0,$$
(25)
where the matrix

$`𝐀_c=\left[\begin{array}{cccc}(4B_{\rho \rho })\omega _b^2& (1B_{\rho z})\omega _b^2& B_{\rho \rho }\omega _b^2& B_{\rho z}\omega _b^2\\ (2B_{z\rho })\omega _{zb}^2& (3B_{zz})\omega _{zb}^2& B_{z\rho }\omega _{zb}^2& B_{zz}\omega _{zb}^2\\ D_{\rho \rho }\omega _f^2& D_{\rho z}\omega _f^2& (4D_{\rho \rho })\omega _f^2& (F_\rho +D_{\rho z})\omega _f^2\\ D_{z\rho }\omega _{zf}^2& D_{zz}\omega _{zf}^2& (2F_z+D_{z\rho })\omega _{zf}^2& (4+F_zD_{zz})\omega _{zf}^2\end{array}\right].`$

For each frequency of modes, the corresponding nontrivial solution, denoted by ($`A_{b1}`$,$`A_{b2}`$,$`A_{f1}`$,$`A_{f2}`$), gives the amplitude of the small density oscillations. As the system is composed of two kinds of particle, one would expect an emergence of two type of collective oscillations for each multipole. We thus define the mixing angle

$$\theta =\mathrm{arcsin}\left(\sqrt{\frac{A_{b1}^2+A_{b2}^2}{A_{b1}^2+A_{b2}^2+A_{f1}^2+A_{f2}^2}}\right),$$
(26)
to characterize the degree of mixing between bosonic and fermionic collective motions. As a limiting case, $`\theta =\pi /2`$ or $`0`$ corresponds to the purely (decoupled) bosonic or fermionic oscillations, respectively.

In the special case of spherical traps, the monopole and quadrupole modes are decoupled. As shown in the Appendix, the dimensionless parameters $`B_{\alpha \beta }`$ ($`F_\alpha `$, $`D_{\alpha \beta }`$) can further be reduced to a single value $`B`$ ($`F,D`$),

$`B`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g_{bf}}{m_b\omega _b^2N_br^2_b}}{\displaystyle 4\pi r^2𝑑r\frac{dn_f^0(r)}{dr}r^2\frac{dn_b^0(r)}{dr}},`$ (27)
$`F`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g_{bf}}{m_f\omega _f^2N_fr^2_f}}{\displaystyle 4\pi r^2𝑑r\frac{dn_b^0(r)}{dr}rn_f^0(r)},`$ (28)
$`D`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g_{bf}}{m_f\omega _f^2N_fr^2_f}}{\displaystyle 4\pi r^2𝑑r\frac{dn_b^0(r)}{dr}r^2\frac{dn_f^0(r)}{dr}}.`$ (29)
Accordingly, the dispersion relation (25) for the frequency of modes takes the following simple form,

$`\omega _M^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\{[(5B)\omega _b^2+(4FD)\omega _f^2]`$ (31)
$`\pm ([(5B)\omega _b^2(4FD)\omega _f^2]^2+4BD\omega _b^2\omega _f^2)^{1/2}\},`$
$`\omega _Q^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{5}}\{[(5B)\omega _b^2+(10+5FD)\omega _f^2]`$ (33)
$`\pm ([(5B)\omega _b^2(10+5FD)\omega _f^2]^2+4BD\omega _b^2\omega _f^2)^{1/2}\},`$
where the suffix $`M`$, $`Q`$ denote monopole and quadrupole modes, respectively.

### B hydrodynamic regime

In the hydrodynamic regime, one assumes that local equilibrium has been established for the ground-state density profiles and it is maintained during dynamic fluctuations of the particle densities. A useful description of the dynamics of the Fermi gas in this regime is based on the Euler equation of motion ,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{n_f}{t}}+\left(𝐯_fn_f\right)`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (34)
$`m_f{\displaystyle \frac{v_{fi}}{t}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n_f}}{\displaystyle \frac{P(𝐫,t)}{r_i}}+m_f{\displaystyle _j}v_{fj}{\displaystyle \frac{v_{fi}}{r_j}}+{\displaystyle \frac{}{r_i}}\left(V_{ho}^f+g_{bf}n_b\right)`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (35)
where the pressure $`P(𝐫,t)=\frac{2}{5}\frac{\mathrm{}^2\left(6\pi ^2\right)^{2/3}}{2m_f}n_f^{5/3}(𝐫,t)`$ in the local density approximation . Without the boson-fermion interaction ($`g_{bf}=0`$), Eq. (35) still admits a simple scaling solution , i.e.,

$`n_f(𝐫,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{_j\gamma _j\left(t\right)}}n_f^0\left({\displaystyle \frac{r_i}{\gamma _i(t)}}\right),`$ (36)
$`v_{fi}(𝐫,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\gamma _i(t)}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\gamma _i(t)}{dt}}r_i,`$ (37)
which leads the following equations for the scaling parameters $`\gamma _i(t)`$:

$$\ddot{\gamma }_i(t)+\omega _{if}^2(t)\gamma _i(t)\frac{\omega _{if}^2(0)}{\gamma _i(t)\left[_j\gamma _j\left(t\right)\right]^{2/3}}=0.$$
(38)
In the presence of a nonzero $`g_{bf}`$, one may still expect the validity of such scaling ansatz in the weakly coupled limit, although there is no verification by the other method (Note that the sum-rule approach is only applicable in the collisionless regime). Along the same line as in the previous subsection, after substituting the scaling ansatz (37) into equation (35) and taking the moment with respect to $`r_i^2`$, one ultimately finds the differential equations satisfied by $`\gamma _i(t)`$,

$`\ddot{\gamma }_i(t)+\omega _{if}^2(t)\gamma _i(t){\displaystyle \frac{\omega _{if}^2(0)}{\gamma _i(t)\left[_j\gamma _j\left(t\right)\right]^{2/3}}}`$ (39)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{g_{bf}}{m_fN_fR_i^2_f}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\gamma _i_j\gamma _j}}{\displaystyle d^3𝐑\frac{n_b^0(𝐑)}{R_i}R_in_f^0(\frac{b_i}{\gamma _i}R_i)}`$ (40)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{g_{bf}}{m_fN_fR_i^2_f}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\gamma _i\left[_j\gamma _j\right]^{2/3}}}{\displaystyle d^3𝐑\frac{n_b^0(𝐑)}{R_i}R_in_f^0(𝐑)}=0,`$ (41)
which differ from Eqs. (18) for the collisionless regime.

Eqs. (15) and (41) can be linearized around the equilibrium state and combined to yield the determinant,

$$det\omega ^2𝐀_h=0,$$
(42)
$`𝐀_h=\left[\begin{array}{cccc}(4B_{\rho \rho })\omega _b^2& (1B_{\rho z})\omega _b^2& B_{\rho \rho }\omega _b^2& B_{\rho z}\omega _b^2\\ (2B_{z\rho })\omega _{zb}^2& (3B_{zz})\omega _{zb}^2& B_{z\rho }\omega _{zb}^2& B_{zz}\omega _{zb}^2\\ D_{\rho \rho }\omega _f^2& D_{\rho z}\omega _f^2& (\frac{10}{3}\frac{2F_\rho }{3}D_{\rho \rho })\omega _f^2& (\frac{2}{3}\frac{F_\rho }{3}D_{\rho z})\omega _f^2\\ D_{z\rho }\omega _{zf}^2& D_{zz}\omega _{zf}^2& (\frac{4}{3}\frac{2F_z}{3}D_{z\rho })\omega _{zf}^2& (\frac{8}{3}\frac{F_z}{3}D_{zz})\omega _{zf}^2\end{array}\right],`$

which gives rise to the dispersion relation in the hydrodynamic regime.

Finally, the frequency of the monopole and quadrupole modes for the spherical traps is obtained by rewriting $`B_{\alpha \beta }`$ ($`F_\alpha `$, $`D_{\alpha \beta }`$) in terms of $`B`$ ($`F,D`$),

$`\omega _M^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\{[(5B)\omega _b^2+(4FD)\omega _f^2]`$ (44)
$`\pm ([(5B)\omega _b^2(4FD)\omega _f^2]^2+4BD\omega _b^2\omega _f^2)^{1/2}\},`$
$`\omega _Q^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{5}}\{[(5B)\omega _b^2+(5D)\omega _f^2]`$ (46)
$`\pm ([(5B)\omega _b^2(5D)\omega _f^2]^2+4BD\omega _b^2\omega _f^2)^{1/2}\}.`$
Eqs. (31) and (44) explicitly show that the frequency of monopole oscillations coincides in the collisionless and hydrodynamic regime. This fact is a reminiscent of properties of a classical gas confined in an isotropic traps ($`\omega _x=\omega _y=\omega _z=\omega _0`$) , in which the monopole oscillation of frequency $`\omega =2\omega _0`$ is an exact undamped solution of the full Boltzmann equation. Analogously, in the boson-fermion mixtures the monopole excitation might also be undamped in all collisional regimes from the collisionless to the hydrodynamic one.

At the end of this section, we briefly mention the whole process of the numerical calculations that consists of three stages. First, one has to find the equilibrium ground-state densities at low temperature, which approximately satisfy the following coupled equations in the Thomas-Fermi approximation ,

$`V_{ho}^b(\rho ,z)+g_{bb}n_b^0(\rho ,z)+g_{bf}n_f^0(\rho ,z)`$ $`=`$ $`\mu _b,`$ (47)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m_f}}\left(6\pi ^2n_f^0(\rho ,z)\right)^{2/3}+V_{ho}^f(\rho ,z)+g_{bf}n_b^0(\rho ,z)`$ $`=`$ $`\mu _f,`$ (48)
where $`\mu _{b,f}`$ is the chemical potential. Then one computes the dimensionless parameters $`B_{\alpha \beta }`$, $`F_\alpha `$, and $`D_{\alpha \beta }`$ ($`\alpha ,\beta =\rho `$ or $`z`$), and finally, one solves the Eqs. (25) and (42) (in the case of spherical traps, one explicitly uses Eqs. (31), (33) and (46)) to obtain the frequency of the monopole and quadrupole modes. The mixing angle for each mode is also simultaneously calculated.

## III Result

In this work, we have performed a numerical calculation for $`N_b=N_f=10^6`$, where the number of bosons and fermions is large enough to ensure the validity of the Thomas-Fermi approximation, i.e., $`N_ba_{bb}/a_{}^b1`$ and $`N_f1`$ . We take the harmonic oscillator length $`a_{}^b=\sqrt{\frac{\mathrm{}}{m_b\omega _b}}`$ and $`\mathrm{}\omega _b`$ as units, and define the scaled dimensionless variables: the coordinates $`\stackrel{~}{\rho }=\rho /a_{}^b`$, $`\stackrel{~}{z}=z/a_{}^b`$, boson/fermion densities $`\stackrel{~}{n}_{b,f}^0=n_{b,f}^0\left(a_{}^b\right)^3`$, interactions strength $`\stackrel{~}{g}_{bb}=g_{bb}/\left[\mathrm{}\omega _b\left(a_{}^b\right)^3\right]=4\pi a_{bb}/a_{}^b`$, and chemical potentials $`\stackrel{~}{\mu }_{b,f}=\mu _{b,f}/\left(\mathrm{}\omega _b\right)`$. We also introduce the quantities $`\alpha =m_f/m_b`$, $`\beta =`$ $`\omega _f/\omega _b`$, $`\lambda =\omega _{zb}/\omega _b=\omega _{zf}/\omega _f`$, and $`\kappa =g_{bf}/g_{bb}`$ to parameterize the different mass of the two components, anisotropy of traps, and boson-fermion coupling relative to the boson-boson interaction. The constraint $`\alpha \beta ^2=1`$ is always satisfied since in experiments both bosons and fermions experience the same trapping potential. In the scaled units, the coupled Thomas-Fermi equations (48) take the form,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(\stackrel{~}{\rho }^2+\lambda ^2\stackrel{~}{z}^2\right)+\stackrel{~}{g}_{bb}n_b^0+\kappa \stackrel{~}{g}_{bb}n_f^0`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{\mu }_b,`$ (49)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\alpha }}\left(6\pi ^2n_f^0\right)^{2/3}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(\stackrel{~}{\rho }^2+\lambda ^2\stackrel{~}{z}^2\right)+\kappa \stackrel{~}{g}_{bb}n_b^0`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{\mu }_f.`$ (50)
It is convenient to obtain the solutions to Eq. (50) by iterative insertion of one density distribution in the other equation and numerically searching for the chemical potential $`\stackrel{~}{\mu }_b`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\mu }_f`$ yielding the desired number of particles.

We shall investigate the behavior of monopole and quadrupole modes against boson-fermion coupling $`\kappa `$ for three typical values of $`\stackrel{~}{g}_{bb}`$ . First of all, we consider the relevant parameters for a boson-fermion mixture composed of 40K (fermion) and 87Rb (boson), which has been recent realized by the LENS group . In order to emphasize the interplay of collective modes of bosons and fermions due to the nonzero $`g_{bf}`$ (the degree of mixing will be maximum if theirs bare mode frequencies are close to each other), we will consider the same mass ($`m_b=m_f=m`$) and trapping frequency ($`\omega _b=\omega _f=\omega _0`$) for bosons and fermions in most cases, although the realistic mass of 87Rb is about two times larger than that of 40K. As in the experiment, we take the radial harmonic frequency of $`\omega _b=2\pi \times 216`$ s-1 for 87Rb and the boson-boson $`s`$-wave scattering length of $`a_{bb}=110a_0=5.9`$ nm, which gives the rescaled interaction strength $`\stackrel{~}{g}_{bb}=0.1`$. In the ground state the fermions have a much broader distribution than bosons because of the Pauli principle and the bosons are completely immersed in the Fermi sea . Secondly, as an opposite limit, we consider the case in which the fermions and boson have approximately the same radius and significantly overlap with each other. Within the Thomas-Fermi approximation, at $`\kappa =0`$, the radius of the Bose condensate and zero-temperature Fermi gas in the scaled units are given by $`r_b=(15N_b\stackrel{~}{g}_{bb}/4\pi )^{1/5}`$ and $`r_f=(48N_f)^{1/6}`$, respectively. Equating these two numbers we get the constraint: $`\stackrel{~}{g}_{bb}=2.11`$. Finally, we take $`\stackrel{~}{g}_{bb}=0.5`$ for the intermediate regime. It should be note that in experiments the interaction strength $`\stackrel{~}{g}_{bb}`$ can be controlled by using Feshbach resonances .

In the section IIIA, we briefly estimate the criterion for establishing the hydrodynamic regime. In the next sections IIIB and IIIC, we analyze the collective modes in the collisionless and hydrodynamic regime for a spherical trap. The results for a cylindrically symmetric trap will be presented in section IIID.

### A the criterion to establish the hydrodynamic regime

A hydrodynamic regime is established in the low temperature alkali vapor when the inequality

$$\omega \tau 1$$
(51)
holds, where $`\tau `$ being the collision time for incoherent scattering of fermions against the condensate and $`\omega `$ being on the scale of the trap frequency ($`\omega \omega _f`$) for the low-lying modes. At low temperature, the dominate collision procedure comes from the scattering between a fermion and a condensate boson, which generates another fermion and a Bogoliubov quasiparticle. In this procedure, the mean velocity of the condensate boson is negligible relative to that of the fermions. A naive estimate for the collision time can thus be written as

$$\tau ^1n_b\left(4\pi a_{bf}^2\right)v_F\left(\frac{T}{T_F}\right)^2,$$
(52)
where $`n_b\left(4\pi a_{bf}^2\right)v_F`$ is the classical collisional frequency and the factor $`\left(\frac{T}{T_F}\right)^2`$ results from the Pauli blocking. By setting $`n_b=N_b/(4\pi r_b^3/3)`$ and taking $`v_F=\sqrt{2\mu _F/m_f}`$ for a spherical trap, we approximately have

$$\frac{1}{\omega _f\tau }3\times 2^{1/2}\times 6^{1/6}\times \left(\frac{4\pi }{15\stackrel{~}{g}_{bb}}\right)^{3/5}N_b^{2/5}N_f^{1/6}\stackrel{~}{a}_{bf}^2\left(\frac{T}{T_F}\right)^2,$$
(53)
where $`\stackrel{~}{a}_{bf}=a_{bf}/a_{ho}`$ is the s-wave boson-fermion scattering length in the scaled units.

For illustrative purposes we again consider the boson-fermion mixture of 40K and 87Rb studied by the LENS group. From the known values of the 40K-87Rb scattering length $`a_{bf}=300a_0`$, and $`\stackrel{~}{g}_{bb}=0.1`$, we have

$$\frac{1}{\omega _f\tau }29\times \left(\frac{T}{T_F}\right)^2,$$
(54)
for $`N_b=N_f=10^6`$. As anticipated earlier in the introduction, the temperature of order $`T0.5T_F`$ would suffice to verify the inequality (51) with $`\omega \omega _f`$, and therefore to reach the hydrodynamic regime.

In the next subsections, we shall consider the behavior of the collective modes against the boson-fermion interaction strength, rather than the temperature. It should be reminded that for a fixed temperature, our results for the hydrodynamic regime (or the collisionless regime ) are only valid at $`\left|g_{bf}\right|g_{bf}^c`$ (or $`\left|g_{bf}\right|g_{bf}^c`$), where $`g_{bf}^c`$ can be roughly determined from Eq. (53).

### B collisionless modes in a spherical trap

Figures 1 and 2, respectively, show the frequencies and mixing angles of the monopole and quadrupole modes as a function of $`\kappa `$ for the case in which the bosons and fermions have the same mass ($`m_b=m_f=m`$) and trapping frequency ($`\omega _b=\omega _f=\omega _0`$). As we have anticipated in the last section, there are two types of collective oscillations for each multipole. For clarity, we plot the lower and higher frequency modes by the solid and dashed lines, respectively.

The collisionless collective modes for the weak boson-boson interaction has been investigated earlier by a sum-rule approach in Ref. . As shown in the figures 1a and 2a, the result for $`\stackrel{~}{g}_{bb}=0.1`$ agrees well with that obtained by the sum-rule approach in the whole regime of $`\kappa `$ if we use the same parameters (see, for example, the figures 2a and 2b in Ref. ). This excellent agreement in some sense justifies our assumption of the scaling form of solutions to Eqs. (2) and (3). We believe the same is true in the hydrodynamic regime.

The most remarkable feature in figures 1 and 2 is the existence of a specific value $`\kappa _c0`$ , at which the collective oscillation of each mode becomes purely bosonic or fermionic. $`\kappa _c`$ coincides with the critical values of phase separation for the strong boson-boson interaction and becomes unity for the weak or medium boson-boson interaction. The existence of $`\kappa _c`$ can be readily understood from the distribution of boson and fermion densities. As shown by Mølmer , for a positive boson-fermion interaction, the fermions are squeezed out the center. As $`\kappa `$ increases, they will eventually form a shell-like distribution around the surface of bosons for $`\kappa 1`$ and will be completely pushed away from the center at a critical value where the phase separation occurs. For the weak or medium boson-boson interaction, as shown in the figure 3a, precisely at $`\kappa =1`$ the fermions experience a constant potential in the region occupied by bosons and therefore uniformly distributed there. As a result, the parameters $`B`$ and $`D`$ defined in Eqs. (29) will vanish and consequently the bosonic and fermion part in the determinant (25) will be completely decoupled. Therefore the collective oscillation of modes will be purely bosonic or fermionic. Analogous mechanics works for the case of strong boson-boson interaction, where $`B`$ and $`D`$ will be zero at the critical value of phase separation that is smaller than unity. Note, however, that in this case our assumption of the scaling ansatz will apparently break down once $`\kappa >\kappa _c`$, and the phase separation will lead to a decoupling of the collective modes.

An immediate application of the above observation is that we can derive an analytic expression for the frequency of each mode in the weak or moderately strong boson-boson interaction in which $`\kappa _c=1`$. As illustrated in figure 3b, for small values of $`\kappa `$, the $`B`$, $`F`$, and $`D`$ can be well approximated by $`b_0\kappa (1\kappa )`$, $`f_0\kappa `$, and $`d_0\kappa (1\kappa )`$, respectively, where $`b_0=\left(dB/d\kappa \right)_{\kappa =0},`$ $`f_0=\left(dF/d\kappa \right)_{\kappa =0},`$ and $`d_0=\left(dD/d\kappa \right)_{\kappa =0}`$. The form of $`B`$ and $`D`$ follows the fact that they have to vanish at both $`\kappa =0`$ and $`\kappa =1`$. In the Thomas-Fermi approximation, one may obtain,

$`b_0`$ $`=`$ $`+{\displaystyle \frac{224}{\pi }}\left({\displaystyle \frac{N_f}{N_b}}\right)x^5{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}}y^6\left(1x^2y^2\right)^{1/2}𝑑y,`$ (55)
$`f_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{256}{3\pi }}x^5{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}}y^4\left(1x^2y^2\right)^{3/2}𝑑y,`$ (56)
$`d_0`$ $`=`$ $`+{\displaystyle \frac{256}{\pi }}x^7{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}}y^6\left(1x^2y^2\right)^{1/2}𝑑y,`$ (57)
where $`x=\frac{r_b}{r_f}=\left(\frac{m_f\omega _f}{m_b\omega _b}\right)^{1/2}(15N_b\stackrel{~}{g}_{bb}/4\pi )^{1/5}/(48N_f)^{1/6}1`$ is the ratio of the radius of the Bose condensate and zero-temperature Fermi gas. The frequencies obtained by combining Eqs. (31), (33) and (57) are plotted in figures 1 and 2 by thin lines. We find that it is in a good agreement with the full numerical calculations for a wide regime of $`\kappa `$.

Below we discuss the behavior of the frequencies $`\omega _\alpha `$ of each mode by defining three regions of $`\kappa `$: (I) $`\kappa <0`$, (II) $`0\kappa <\kappa _c`$, and (III) $`\kappa _c\kappa `$.

(a) Monopole. For a noninteracting boson-fermion system the low-lying monopole mode is the fermionic oscillation with frequency $`\omega _M^L=2\omega _0`$, while the higher mode is the bosonic one with $`\omega _M^H=\sqrt{5}\omega _0`$ in the Thomas-Fermi approximation. Around $`\kappa =0`$, one may obtain $`\omega _M^L2\omega _0\left(1\frac{d_0+f_0}{8}\kappa \right)`$ and $`\omega _M^H\sqrt{5}\omega _0\left(1\frac{b_0}{10}\kappa \right)`$. The essential features of the monopole mode as a function of $`\kappa `$ can be summarized as follows. (i) The curve for the high-lying bosonic mode seems like a parabola. Indeed, the frequency for the bosonic mode is always found to be degenerate at $`\kappa =0`$ and $`\kappa =\kappa _c`$. In region II, the frequency varies slowly against $`\kappa `$ and is slightly smaller than the value of $`\sqrt{5}\omega _0`$ in the noninteracting limit. Here, the boson density distribution expands slightly compared with that of the noninteracting boson-fermion system due to the weakly repulsive boson-fermion interaction and simultaneously the bosons experience a weaker effective confinement. In the region I and III, the situation is quite different: the bosons are heavily compressed by either the attractive or strong repulsive boson-fermion interaction. This strong confinement leads to a steep rise of frequency with increasing $`\left|\kappa \right|`$. (ii) The behavior of the frequency for low-lying fermionic mode against $`\kappa `$ is more complicated. As the boson-boson interaction strength $`\stackrel{~}{g}_{bb}`$ increases, the sign of the derivative of the curve at $`\kappa =0`$ changes from positive to negative. At $`\stackrel{~}{g}_{bb}=2.11`$ a large dip appears in the region II. On the other hand, at a large negative values of $`\kappa `$, as pointed out by Miyakawa et al. , we find a sharp decrease of the frequency towards the instability point of the ground state. (iii) Finally, at large values of $`\left|\kappa \right|`$ the mixing angle for both the low-lying and high-lying modes becomes close to $`\pi /4`$, suggesting that the bosons and fermions are highly correlated in the collective oscillations. The degree of mixing is enhanced as one increases $`\stackrel{~}{g}_{bb}`$.

(b) Quadrupole. For the quadrupole excitation (figure 2), the lower and higher energy mode becomes bosonic and fermionic oscillation, respectively. To the first order of $`\kappa `$ the frequencies of the lower and the higher quadrupole modes are given by $`\omega _Q^L\sqrt{2}\omega _0\left(1\frac{b_0}{10}\kappa \right)`$ and $`\omega _Q^H2\omega _0\left(1+\frac{5f_0d_0}{20}\kappa \right)`$. For those modes, similar mechanisms as for the monopole mode are still at work concerning the dependence on $`\kappa `$. However, the role of the boson-fermion interaction is much reduced compared with the monopole case as seen by the factor $`1/5`$ in Eq. (33), which reflects that the quadrupole oscillation has 5 different components . In addition, the behavior of the high-lying fermionic mode is somewhat simpler. The frequency is always decreases around $`\kappa =0`$ as $`\kappa `$ increases.

### C hydrodynamic modes in a spherical trap

In section II, we have analytically showed that in a spherical trap the frequency of monopole oscillations coincides in the collisionless and hydrodynamic regime. Here we find a dramatic difference for the quadrupole mode. In the figure 4, we plot the frequencies and mixing angles of the quadrupole modes in the hydrodynamic regime against $`\kappa `$. The parameters are the same as that in figures 1 and 2. Compared with the result for the quadrupole mode in the collisionless regime (figure 2), an interesting feature emerges: The frequency of the low-lying mode (high-lying mode) is always fixed to $`\sqrt{2}\omega _0`$ in the region I and III (region II), independently of the value of $`\kappa `$, and the corresponding mixing angle is exactly $`\pi /4`$ even around $`\kappa =0`$. This strongly suggests that in this case the collective oscillation with equal bosonic and fermionic amplitudes generates an exact eigenstate of the system, regardless of the boson-fermion interaction. It resembles the Kohn mode in the isotropic harmonic traps. Indeed, the behavior of the frequencies shown in figure 4 is quite similar to that of a dipole mode in the collisionless limit (see, for example, the figure 2c in Ref). The above feature can also be explained explicitly from Eq. (46). For the case considered here, $`\omega _b=\omega _f=\omega _0`$, we have $`\omega _Q=\sqrt{2}\omega _0\left\{1\left[(B+D)\pm \left|B+D\right|\right]/10\right\}^{1/2}`$, and thus one branch of $`\omega _Q`$ will always be $`\sqrt{2}\omega _0`$.

The strong mixing of the bosonic and fermionic oscillation stated above in fact arises from the “on resonance” condition, that is, the frequency of the bosonic and fermionic quadrupole modes in hydrodynamic regime is degenerate in the noninteracting limit of $`\kappa =0`$. As shown in figure 5, once one moves away from the “on resonance” condition by changing $`m_f/m_b`$, the degree of mixing will be much reduced.

### D a cylindrically symmetric trap

In this subsection, we consider a cylindrical trap that is more relevant to the experiment. Figures 6 and 7, respectively, display the frequencies of each mode for a cigar-shaped ($`\lambda =0.5`$) and disk-shaped ($`\lambda =2.0`$) trap in the collisionless (thick lines) and hydrodynamic (thin lines) regime. As the monopole and quadrupole modes are coupled away from $`\lambda =1`$, we denote the two higher and two lower modes as quasi-monopole and quasi-quadrupole ones, respectively. In the literature, the former one is also called as transverse breathing mode in the limit of $`\lambda 0`$. As one may expect, in the cylindrical trap the frequency of quasi-monopole mode in the collisionless and hydrodynamic regime is no longer degenerate.

(a) a cigar-shaped trap. For the quasi-monopole excitation (figure 6a), the lower and higher energy mode in both regimes are fermionic and bosonic oscillations. In region I and III, the frequencies for the high-lying mode in the collisionless and hydrodynamic regime are almost the same and they only differ sightly in region II. In contrast, for the low-lying mode the frequencies in two regimes have significant differences. In particular, as $`\kappa `$ decreases towards the instability point of the ground state, the frequency in the collisionless regime rises up steeply, while the one in the hydrodynamic regime shows a sharp decrease. For the quasi-quadrupole excitation (figure 6b), on the other hand, the frequencies for each mode bears a lot of similarity as that in the spherical case. We thus don’t discuss them further.

(b) a disk-shaped trap. In this case (figure 7), the lower and higher energy mode for both quasi-monopole and quasi-quadrupole excitations in the collisionless regime are bosonic and fermionic oscillations, respectively. The opposite is true in the hydrodynamic regime. Most interestingly, the soften of the mode frequency towards the instability point of the ground state now appears in the low-lying mode for the quasi-quadrupole excitations, rather than the monopole one.

## IV Summary and discussion

Ultracold boson-fermion mixtures of alkali atoms have recently been the subject of intensive experimental research. As an important tool to characterize the behaviour of this kind of many-body system, the investigation of collective oscillations will be of particular interest. In this paper, with the help of Thomas-Fermi approximation and a scaling solution we have studied the behavior of monopole and quadrupole excitations against the boson-fermion interaction in two limiting cases: the collisionless and hydrodynamic regime. For a spherical trap, the frequency of monopole mode is identical in both regimes, analogous to that of a classical gas, which is undamped in all collisional regimes. In contrast, the frequency of quadrupole mode differs largely in these two limits. Most interestingly, in the case of same trapping frequency for the two components ($`\omega _b=\omega _f`$) and hydrodynamic regime, the quadrupole oscillations with equal bosonic and fermionic amplitudes are found to generate an exact eigenstate of the system, regardless of the boson-fermion interaction. It indeed resembles the Kohn mode for the dipole excitation.

While we have restricted the discussion to the collisionless and hydrodynamic regime, it should be explicitly remarked from the experimental point of view that it is more interesting to investigate the crossover between these two limits , which might be realized in the experiment by changing the temperature or controlling the particle-particle interaction through Feshbach resonances. In theory, such crossover might be investigated by adding a collision term ($`I_{coll}`$) to Eq. (3).

We are aware of that the above results are based on the assumption of the simple scaling solution. Its validity has been partly justified by the good agreement between our results and that obtained by a sum-rule approach. However, in case of large boson-fermion interaction, the spectrum of lowest collective excitations might be fragmented . As a result, both the sum-rule approach and the approximation of simple scaling solution will break down. In those regions, a refined treatment is deserved.

## V Acknowledgements

We acknowledge stimulating discussions with G. Modugno, M. Modugno, F. Ferlaino, and M. Inguscio. One of us (X.-J. Liu) wishes to thank the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) for their hospitality during the early stages of this work. X.-J. Liu is supported by the CAS K.C.Wang Post-doctoral Research Award Fund, the Chinese Post-doctoral Fund and the NSF-China.

## VI Appendix

This appendix is devoted to simplify the expressions of $`B_{ik}`$, $`F_i`$, and $`D_{ik}`$ in case of cylindrical symmetric or spherical traps. For a cylindrical trap, the boson and fermion density distribution depend on $`\rho =\left(R_x^2+R_y^2\right)^{1/2}`$, $`z=R_z`$ only. By writing

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{R_x}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{R_x}{\rho }}{\displaystyle \frac{}{\rho }}=\mathrm{cos}\varphi {\displaystyle \frac{}{\rho }},`$ (58)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{R_y}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{R_y}{\rho }}{\displaystyle \frac{}{\rho }}=\mathrm{sin}\varphi {\displaystyle \frac{}{\rho }},`$ (59)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{R_z}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{}{z}},`$ ()
one has

$`B_{xx}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g_{bf}}{m_b\omega _b^2(0)N_bR_x^2_b}}{\displaystyle d^3𝐑\frac{n_f^0(𝐑)}{R_x}R_xR_x\frac{n_b^0(𝐑)}{R_x}},`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\underset{0}{\overset{2\pi }{}}𝑑\varphi \mathrm{cos}^4\varphi }{\underset{0}{\overset{2\pi }{}}𝑑\varphi \mathrm{cos}^2\varphi }}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{g_{bf}}{m_b\omega _b^2(0)N_b\rho ^2_b}}{\displaystyle \rho 𝑑\rho 𝑑z\frac{n_f^0}{\rho }\rho ^2\frac{n_b^0}{\rho }}\right]`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}B_{\rho \rho },`$
where

$`B_{\rho \rho }={\displaystyle \frac{g_{bf}}{m_b\omega _b^2(0)N_b\rho ^2_b}}{\displaystyle \rho 𝑑\rho 𝑑z\frac{n_f^0}{\rho }\rho ^2\frac{n_b^0}{\rho }}.`$

Similarly, one finds the relations:

$$\begin{array}{ccc}B_{xx}=3B_{\rho \rho }/4,\hfill & B_{xy}=B_{\rho \rho }/4,\hfill & B_{xz}=B_{\rho z},\hfill \\ B_{yx}=B_{\rho \rho }/4,\hfill & B_{yy}=3B_{\rho \rho }/4,\hfill & B_{yz}=B_{\rho z},\hfill \\ B_{zx}=B_{z\rho }/2,\hfill & B_{zy}=B_{z\rho }/2,\hfill & B_{zz}=B_{zz},\hfill \\ & & \\ F_x=F_\rho ,\hfill & F_y=F_\rho ,\hfill & F_z=F_z,\hfill \\ & & \\ D_{xx}=3D_{\rho \rho }/4,\hfill & D_{xy}=D_{\rho \rho }/4,\hfill & D_{xz}=D_{\rho z},\hfill \\ D_{yx}=B_{\rho \rho }/4,\hfill & D_{yy}=3B_{\rho \rho }/4,\hfill & D_{yz}=D_{\rho z},\hfill \\ D_{zx}=D_{z\rho }/2,\hfill & D_{zy}=D_{z\rho }/2,\hfill & D_{zz}=D_{zz},\hfill \end{array}$$
(60)
where $`B_{\alpha \beta }`$, $`F_\alpha `$, and $`D_{\alpha \beta }`$ ($`\alpha ,\beta =\rho `$ or $`z`$) take the form,

$`B_{\rho \rho }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g_{bf}}{m_b\omega _b^2(0)N_b\rho ^2_b}}{\displaystyle \rho 𝑑\rho 𝑑z\frac{n_f^0}{\rho }\rho ^2\frac{n_b^0}{\rho }},`$ (61)
$`B_{\rho z}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g_{bf}}{m_b\omega _b^2(0)N_b\rho ^2_b}}{\displaystyle \rho 𝑑\rho 𝑑z\frac{n_f^0}{\rho }\rho z\frac{n_b^0}{z}},`$ (62)
$`B_{z\rho }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g_{bf}}{m_b\omega _{zb}^2(0)N_bz^2_b}}{\displaystyle \rho 𝑑\rho 𝑑z\frac{n_f^0}{z}z\rho \frac{n_b^0}{\rho }},`$ (63)
$`B_{zz}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g_{bf}}{m_b\omega _{zb}^2(0)N_bz^2_b}}{\displaystyle \rho 𝑑\rho 𝑑z\frac{n_f^0}{z}z^2\frac{n_b^0}{z}},`$ (64)
$`F_\rho `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g_{bf}}{m_f\omega _f^2(0)N_f\rho ^2_f}}{\displaystyle \rho 𝑑\rho 𝑑z\frac{n_b^0}{\rho }\rho n_f^0},`$ (66)
$`F_z`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g_{bf}}{m_f\omega _{zf}^2(0)N_fz^2_f}}{\displaystyle \rho 𝑑\rho 𝑑z\frac{n_b^0}{z}zn_f^0},`$ (67)
$`D_{\rho \rho }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g_{bf}}{m_f\omega _f^2(0)N_f\rho ^2_f}}{\displaystyle \rho 𝑑\rho 𝑑z\frac{n_b^0}{\rho }\rho ^2\frac{n_f^0}{\rho }},`$ (69)
$`D_{\rho z}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g_{bf}}{m_f\omega _f^2(0)N_f\rho ^2_f}}{\displaystyle \rho 𝑑\rho 𝑑z\frac{n_b^0}{\rho }\rho z\frac{n_f^0}{z}},`$ (70)
$`D_{z\rho }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g_{bf}}{m_f\omega _{zf}^2(0)N_fz^2_f}}{\displaystyle \rho 𝑑\rho 𝑑z\frac{n_b^0}{z}z\rho \frac{n_f^0}{\rho }},`$ (71)
$`D_{zz}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g_{bf}}{m_f\omega _{zf}^2(0)N_fz^2_f}}{\displaystyle \rho 𝑑\rho 𝑑z\frac{n_b^0}{z}z^2\frac{n_f^0}{z}}.`$ ()
For a spherical trap, the density distribution is a function of $`r=\left(\rho ^2+z^2\right)^{1/2}`$ only. We thus define $`\rho =r\mathrm{sin}\theta `$ and $`z=r\mathrm{cos}\theta `$, where $`\theta [0,\pi ]`$. After some straightforward algebra one finds,

$$\begin{array}{cccc}B_{\rho \rho }=\frac{4}{5}B,\hfill & B_{\rho z}=\frac{1}{5}B,\hfill & B_{z\rho }=\frac{2}{5}B,\hfill & B_{zz}=\frac{3}{5}B,\hfill \\ & & & \\ & F_\rho =F,\hfill & F_z=F,\hfill & \\ & & & \\ D_{\rho \rho }=\frac{4}{5}D,\hfill & D_{\rho z}=\frac{1}{5}D,\hfill & D_{z\rho }=\frac{2}{5}D,\hfill & D_{zz}=\frac{3}{5}D,\hfill \end{array}$$
(72)
where $`B`$, $`F`$ and $`D`$ are given by Eqs. (29).

Figures Captions

Fig. 1. The frequencies (upper part) and mixing angles (lower part) of the monopole mode in the collisionless regime as a function of the boson-fermion interaction, for a spherical trap with (a) $`\stackrel{~}{g}_{bb}=0.1`$, (b) $`0.5`$ and (c) $`2.11`$. The other parameters are $`N_b=N_f=10^6`$, $`m_b=m_f=m`$ (or $`\omega _b=\omega _f=\omega _0`$). The low-lying and high-lying frequency mode are denoted by the thick solid and dashed lines, respectively. The analytic solutions obtained by combining Eqs. (31), (33) and (57) are also plotted in figures (a) and (b) by thin lines. Note that in figure (c), the result is not meaningful at $`\kappa >\kappa _c0.69`$, where the phase separation will occur.

Fig. 2. The same as in fig. 1, but for the quadrupole mode.

Fig. 3. (a) The boson (solid line) and fermion (dashed line) density distribution for a spherical trap with $`\stackrel{~}{g}_{bb}=0.5`$ and $`\kappa =1`$. In this case, the fermions experience a constant potential in the region occupied by bosons and therefore uniformly distributed there. (b) $`b=B/\kappa `$, $`f=F/\kappa `$, and $`d=D/\kappa `$ as a function the boson-fermion interaction for a spherical trap with $`\stackrel{~}{g}_{bb}=0.5`$. Note that precisely at $`\kappa =1`$, $`B=D=0.`$

Fig. 4. The same as in fig.1, but for the quadrupole mode in the hydrodynamic regime.

Fig. 5. The frequencies (upper part) and mixing angles (lower part) of the quadrupole mode in the hydrodynamic regime against the boson-fermion interaction, for a spherical trap with (a) $`m_f/m_b=0.8`$ and (b) $`m_f/m_b=1.03`$ at $`\stackrel{~}{g}_{bb}=0.5`$. Since the boson and fermion trapping frequency is not the same, the mode frequency for bosons and fermions is no longer degenerate at $`\kappa =0`$, i.e., it is out of the resonance. As a result, the degree of mixing between bosonic and fermion collective oscillations is much reduced.

Fig. 6. The frequencies of each mode as a function of $`\kappa `$ for a cigar-shaped trap with $`\lambda =0.5`$. (a) quasi-monopole and (b) quasi-quadrupole. The results in the collisionless and hydrodynamic regime, respectively, are displayed by the thick and thin lines. The other parameters are $`N_b=N_f=10^6`$, $`m_b=m_f=m`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{g}_{bb}=0.5`$.

Fig. 7. The same as in fig. 6, but for a disk-shaped trap with $`\lambda =2.0`$.


format: text

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# Back reaction of the neutrino field in an Einstein universe

## 1 Introduction

The discovery of the Cosmic Background radiation (CMB)  revived the theory of the hot origin of the universe (the big-bang model). The CMB was originally a prediction of the theory of Gamow and his collaborators which was worked out in the late 1940’s in the context of investigating the origin of the natural abundance of elements. The most refined analysis along this line predicted a cosmic background radiation at a temperature about $`5`$ K (for a concise recent review of the subject see ref. ) . However, since the Gamow model started with the universe at the times when the temperature was about $`10^{12}`$ K, the new interest in the origin of the universe sought much earlier times at much higher temperatures. In the light of the absence of a full quantum theory of gravity, the works dealing with the state of the universe at very early times had to consider the quantized matter fields in the classical background of the universe as described by the theory of general relativity. Matter fields were brought into connection with spacetime curvature through the calculation of the vacuum expectation value of the energy-momentum tensor $`<0|T_{\mu \nu }|0>`$ \[3-7\]. In these works and the similar ones that followed, quantum gravity and matter are truncated at the one loop level. For free matter fields, there are no higher loop processes anyway. The contribution from graviton is of zeroth order in G. As the loop expansion is an expansion in h  , the theory truncated at the one loop level contains all terms of the complete theory of order h and is, in that sense, the first order quantum correction to general relativity .

The motivations for studying the vacuum expectation value of the energy- momentum tensor stems from the fact that $`T_{\mu \nu }`$ is a local quantity that can be defined at a specific spacetime point, contrary to the particle concept which is global. The energy-momentum tensor also acts as a source of gravity in the Einstein field equations, therefore $`<0|T_{\mu \nu }|0>`$ plays an important role in any attempt to model a self-consistent dynamics involving the classical gravitational field coupled to the quantized matter fields. So, once $`<0|T_{\mu \nu }|0>`$ is calculated in a specified background geometry, we can substitute it on the RHS of the Einstein field equations and demand self consistency, i.e.

$$R_{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{2}g_{\mu \nu }R+g_{\mu \nu }\mathrm{\Lambda }=8\pi <0|T_{\mu \nu }|0>,$$
(1)
where $`R_{\mu \nu }`$ is the Ricci tensor, $`g_{\mu \nu }`$ is the metric tensor, $`R`$ is the scalar curvature, and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is the so-called cosmological constant.

The solution of (1) will determine the development of the spacetime in presence of the given matter field, for which the vacuum state $`|0>`$ can be unambiguously defined. This is known as the ”back reaction problem”. It is interesting to perform the calculation of $`<0|T_{\mu \nu }|0>`$ in Friedman-Robertson-Walker (FRW) models because the real universe is, more or less, a sophisticated form of the Friedman models. However the time-dependence of the spacetime metric generally creates unsolvable fundamental problems. One such a problem was the definition of vacuum in a time-dependent background ; a time-dependent background is eligible for producing particles continuously, therefore, pure vacuum states in the Minkowskian sense do not exist. Also an investigation into the thermodynamics of a time-dependent systems lacks the proper definition of thermal equilibrium, which is a basic necessity for studying finite-temperature field theory in curved backgrounds..

The static Einstein universe stands the above two fundamental challenges. First, being static, the Einstein universe leaves no ambiguity in defining the vacuum both locally and globally. The same feature also allows for thermal equilibrium to be defined unambiguously. Furthermore, the Einstein static metric is conformal to all Robertson-Walker metrics, and this property enabled Kennedy  to show that the thermal Green functions for the static Einstein universe and the time-dependent Robertson-Walker universe are conformally related, hence deducing a (1-1) correspondence between the vacuum and the many particle states of both universes. So that, under the equilibrium condition, the thermodynamics of quantum fields in an Einstein universe of radius $`a`$ is equivalent to that of an instantaneously static Friedman-Roberson-Walker universe of equal radius . This means that the results obtained in FRW universe would be qualitatively the same as those obtained in an Einstein universe.

Although not a realistic cosmological model, the Einstein universe remains to be a useful theoretical tool to achieve better understanding of the interplay of spacetime curvature and of quantum field theoretic effects. The recent findings of Plunien et al.  that finite temperatures can enhance the pure vacuum effect by several orders of magnitude, can be used to explain the behavior of the system during the Casimir (vacuum) regime. Since this means that the finite temperature corrections will surely enhance the positive vacuum energy density of closed system causing it to behave, thermodynamically, as being controlled by the vacuum energy.

Recently  (hereafter will be referred to as I) we have investigated the back reaction effects of the conformally coupled massless scalar field and the photon field at finite temperatures in the background of the Einstein static universe. In each case we found a relationship between the temperature of the system and the radius of the Einstein universe. This relation exhibit a minimum radius below which no self-consistent solution for the Einstein field equations can be found. A maximum temperature is also spotted marking the transition from the vacuum dominated state to the radiation dominated state.

Motivated by the above findings, and in order to complete the picture of the back reaction of the spinor fields at finite temperatures in the Einstein universe, we will investigate in this paper the case of the neutrino field and will deduce the relationship between the temperature and the radius, and will consequently find the minimum radius and the maximum temperature. Upon the availability of all results we will compare the contributions of all the three fields, the scalar, neutrino and the photon fields. Some interesting results will be discussed.

We will also consider the variation of the cosmological constant with the temperature of the Einstein universe in presence of the neutrino field, and then will compile the results for the massless scalar field, the neutrino field, and the photon field for comparison. The analysis shows that the smallness of the present value of the cosmological constant is understandable in the context of the behavior of massless quantum fields in this universe if they will play the role of energy -momentum source. Also, we notice that the contribution from the scalar field is higher, by an order of magnitude, than the contributions of the other fields. Throughout this paper we will use the natural units in which $`G=c=k=`$h  $`=1.`$

## 2 Basic Formalism

The Einstein static universe is one solution of the modified Einstein field equations

$$R_{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{2}g_{\mu \nu }R+g_{\mu \nu }\mathrm{\Lambda }=8\pi T_{\mu \nu }$$
(2)
The metric of the Einstein static universe is given by

$$ds^2=dt^2a^2\left[d\chi ^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\chi \left(d\theta ^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta d\varphi ^2\right)\right],$$
(3)
where $`a`$ is the radius of the spatial part of the universe $`S^3`$ and, $`0\chi \pi `$, $`0\theta \pi `$, and $`0\varphi 2\pi `$.

We consider an Einstein static universe being filled with massless neutrino gas in thermal equilibrium at temperature $`T`$. The total energy density of the system can be written as

$$<T_{00}>_{tot}=<T_{00}>_T+<T_{00}>_0,$$
(4)
where $`<T_{00}>_0`$ is the zero-temperature vacuum energy density and $`<T_{00}>_T`$is the corrections for finite temperatures, which can be calculated using the mode sum

$$<T_{00}>_T=\frac{1}{V}\underset{n}{}\frac{d_nϵ_n}{\mathrm{exp}\beta ϵ_n+1},$$
(5)
where $`ϵ_n`$ and $`d_n`$ are the eigen energies and degeneracies of the $`n`$th state, and $`V`$=$`2\pi ^2a^3`$ is the volume of the spatial section of the Einstein universe.

The back reaction of the field on the background spacetime can be studied by substituting for $`<T_{\mu \nu }>_{tot}`$ on the RHS of the Einstein field equation (1), i.e.,

$$R_{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{2}g_{\mu \nu }R+g_{\mu \nu }\mathrm{\Lambda }=8\pi <T_{\mu \nu }>_{tot}.$$
(6)
All the Einstein field equations for the system are satisfied due to the symmetry of the Einstein universe which is topologically described by $`TS^3`$, and also due to the structure of $`<T_{\mu \nu }>`$ in this geometry which is diagonal and traceless, and is given by (see ,p.186 )

$$<T_\mu ^\nu >=<T_0^0>diag(1,1/3,1/3,1/3),$$
(7)
Since we are interested in the energy density, we will consider $`T_{00}`$ only. In order to eliminate $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ from (6) we multiply both sides with $`g_{\mu \nu }`$ and sum over $`\mu `$ and $`\nu `$, then using the fact that $`T_\mu ^\mu =0`$ for massless fields, and for the Einstein universe $`R_{00}=0`$ , $`g_{00}=1`$ ,and $`R=\frac{6}{a^2}`$, we get

$$\frac{6}{a^2}=32\pi <T_{00}>_{tot}.$$
(8)
Note that in the general case conformal anomalies do appear in the expression for $`<T_\mu ^\mu >`$ , but because of the high symmetry enjoyed by the Einstein universe these anomalies do not appear and $`<T_\mu ^\mu >`$ is found to be traceless for massless particles.

## 3 THE VACUUM ENERGY AND BACK REACTION

The solution of the Dirac equation in an Einstein universe has been considered by Schrodinger  and more recently by Unruh . The eigen energies are found to be

$$ϵ_n=\frac{1}{a}(n+\frac{1}{2}),$$
(9)
with degeneracy, for the four-component neutrino

$$d_n=4n(n+1),$$
(10)
The zero-temperature vacuum energy density of the neutrino field in the background of an Einstein universe is given by

$$<T_{00}>_0=\frac{17}{960\pi ^2a^4}.$$
(11)
Neutrinos obey Fermi-Dirac statistics. Thus the total energy density of the system at finite temperature can be written, in terms of the mode-sum in Eq. (5), as

$$<T_{00}>_{tot}=\frac{1}{\pi ^2a^4}\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{n(n+1/2)(n+1)}{\mathrm{exp}(n+1/2)/Ta+1}+\frac{17}{960\pi ^2a^4}$$
(12)
In the low-temperature limit the result reduce to

$$\underset{\xi 0}{lim}<T_{00}>_{tot}=\frac{17}{960\pi ^2a^4}.$$
(13)
Substituting this in Eq. (8) we get

$$a_{0\nu }=\left(\frac{17}{180\pi }\right)^{1/2}l_p.$$
(14)
This is the minimum radius for an Einstein static universe filled with massless neutrinos at finite temperatures. Note that $`a_{0\nu }`$ here is less than one Planckian length $`l_p`$, this goes beyond the range of validity of the quasi-classical approximation adopted in the present work. But fortunately, the region of validity of the approach can be extended if one takes the number of fields large enough (see for instance Ref. ).

In the high temperature (or large radius) limit the result is

$$\underset{\xi \mathrm{}}{lim}<T_{00}>_{tot}=\frac{7}{60}\pi ^2T^4\frac{T^2}{24a^2},$$
(15)
where $`\xi =Ta`$.

The back-reaction of the field can be studied if we substitute Eq. (12) in Eq. (8), where this time we obtain

$$a^2=\frac{16}{3\pi }\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{n(n+1/2)(n+1)}{\mathrm{exp}(n+1/2)/Ta+1}+\frac{17}{180\pi }.$$
(16)
The solutions for this equation are depicted in Fig. 1, where we see that the behavior is qualitatively the same as that encountered in the conformally coupled scalar field case and the photon case in I. Again, two regimes are recognized: one corresponding to small values of $`\xi `$ where the temperature rises sharply reaching a maximum at $`T_{max}1.076T_p=1.52\times 10^{32}`$ K at a radius $`a_t0.204l_p=3.2\times 10^{34}`$ cm. Since this regime is controlled by the vacuum energy (the Casimir energy), therefore we prefer to call it the ”Casimir regime”. The second regime is what we call the ”Planck regime”, which correspond to large values of $`\xi `$, and in which the temperature asymptotically approaches zero for very large values of $`a`$.

The background (Tolman) temperature of the neutrino field is

$$T_{b\nu }=\left(\frac{45}{28\pi ^3a^2}\right)^{1/4}$$
(17)
At a radius of $`1.38\times 10^{28}`$ cm (the present Hubble length), we obtain a background temperature of $`23.06`$ K, and if we require the background temperature to have the same value as the average value of the neutrino background temperature of 1.94 K, the radius of the Einstein universe has to be $`1.94\times 10^{30}`$ cm. Again more than two orders of magnitude larger than the estimated value of Hubble length.

Comparing the temperature for neutrinos from Eq. (17) with Eq. (21) from I, we immediately see that the ratio of the neutrino temperature to the photon temperature is

$$\frac{T_{b\nu }}{T_{b\gamma }}=\left(\frac{4}{7}\right)^{1/4}=0.869$$
(18)
This may be compared with the standard ratio of the neutrino temperature to the photon temperature, generated in excess because of the heating of the photons by the electron positron annihilation, calculated according to the standard big bang scenario (see , p.537)

$$\frac{T_\nu }{T_\gamma }=\left(\frac{4}{11}\right)^{1/3}=0.714$$
(19)
Fig 2. compiles the temperature-radius relationships for the scalar, neutrino and photon fields, and table (1) summarizes the results of the present work and the previous ones reported in I. Note that we quote here the correct value for the Tolman temperature of the photon field $`T_{b\gamma }`$ which was mistakenly given in I as 30.267 K.

Table (1) Comparison between the parameters for the massless fields

| Field | $`a_0`$ | $`a(T_{\mathrm{max}})`$ | $`T_{\mathrm{max}}`$ | $`T_b`$ K |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Scalar | 0.059 | 0.072 | 2.218 | 31.55 |
| Neutrino | 0.173 | 0.204 | 1.076 | 23.06 |
| Photon | 0.279 | 0.340 | 1.015 | 26.53 |

## 4 The Cosmological Constant

The cosmological constant was introduced by Einstein in order to account for Mach principle and to justify the equilibrium of a static universe against its own gravitational attraction. The possibility that the universe may be expanding led Einstein to abandon the idea of a static universe and, along with it the cosmological constant. However the Einstein static universe remained to be of interest to theoreticians since it provided a useful model to achieve better understanding of the interplay of spacetime curvature and of quantum field theoretic effects. Recent years have witnessed a resurgence of interest in the possibility that a positive cosmological constant $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ may dominate the total energy density in the universe (for recent reviews see  and ). This interest stems from the recent observations of high redshift type Ia supernovae, which appear to suggest that the universe is accelerating with large fraction of the cosmological density in the form of a cosmological constant $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. At a theoretical level $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is predicted to arise out of the zero-point quantum vacuum fluctuations of the fundamental quantum fields. Using parameters arising in the electroweak theory results in a value of the vacuum energy density $`\rho _{vac}=10^6`$ GeV4 which is almost $`10^{53}`$ times larger than the current observational upper limit on $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ which is $`10^{47}`$ GeV$`{}_{}{}^{4}10^{29}`$ gm/cm3. On the other hand the QCD vacuum is expected to generate a cosmological constant of the order of $`10^3`$ GeV4 which is many orders of magnitude larger than the observed value. This is known as the old cosmological constant problem. The new cosmological constant problem is to understand why $`\rho _{vac}`$ is not only small but also, as the current observations seem to indicate, is of the same order of magnitude as the present mass density of the universe.

In what follows we are going to investigate how the value of the cosmological constant changes in the context of the presence of the massless quantum fields in the background of an Einstein universes having different temperatures (or radii) as a consequence of the back reaction effect. This investigation may be considered ”phenomenological”, in the sense that no attempt is made to derive the model from an underlaying quantum field theory in contrast to the customary approach normally adopted for such calculations.

Contracting the field equations in (6) we find that

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }=\frac{R}{4}=\frac{3}{2a^2}.$$
(20)
On the other hand the Einstein field equations reduces to

$$\frac{3}{a^2}+\mathrm{\Lambda }=8\pi \rho _{tot},$$
(21)
and

$$\frac{1}{a^2}+\mathrm{\Lambda }=\frac{8\pi \rho _{tot}}{3}$$
(22)
where $`\rho _{tot}=<T_0^0>_{tot}`$. Solving the above two equations we obtain

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }=8\pi \rho _{tot}$$
(23)
Using (20) and the results obtained in the previous section for the dependence of $`T`$ on $`a`$ we can solve for the dependence of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ on $`T`$. Fig. (3) depicts the relationship between the cosmological constant $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and the temperature for successive states of the Einstein universe under the effect of back reaction of the neutrino field at finite temperatures. It shows that the back reaction of finite-temperature quantum fields in this model provide a large value for the cosmological constant during the Casimir regime (vacuum dominated state of the universe). From the point of view of inflationary models this large value of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is needed to resolve the problem of horizon and the problem of flatness, and possibly to generate seed fluctuations for galaxy formation . On the other hand the value of the cosmological constant today, according to the a above analysis, should be very small.

Fig. (4) compiles the data for the three massless fields: the scalar, the neutrino and the photon field using the respective results for the radius temperature relationship reported in I. It is clear that the contribution of the scalar field to the cosmological constant is dominant, by an order of magnitude, over all other fields throughout the Casimir regime and most of the Planckian regime. However as we consider larger and larger spatial sections of the Einstein universe the temperature goes asymptotically to zero and the value of the cosmological constants for all the three fields approaching one another.

By presenting these results we do not claim that the cosmological constant problem is solved, but at least it may give us a glimpse of how the problem is trivially solved within the context of an Einstein static universe. Obviously the real universe is time-dependent, and a series of successive instantaneously static states of the dynamical universe lacks all the geometrodynamical effects; for example in this case particle production is one important effect that is lost.

## 5 Conclusions

The present study exhibited some features of the thermodynamical behavior of the Einstein static universe in presence of the neutrino field. In presenting the results of this investigation we stress the fact that due to the static nature of the Einstein universe, the following results are specific to the case considered and should not be taken to imply an evolving cosmological state. However, although not a realistic cosmological model, the Einstein universe provide a useful theoretical model to achieve better understanding of the interplay of spacetime curvature and of quantum field theoretic effects. The main findings of this work reinforces the results reported in I, with one additional point concerning the cosmological constant, these are

(1) The thermal development of the universe is a direct consequence of the state of its global curvature.

(2) The universe avoids the singularity at $`T=0`$ through quantum effects (the Casimir effect) because of the non-zero value of $`<T_{00}>_0`$. A non-zero expectation value of the vacuum energy density always implies a symmetry breaking event.

(3) During the Casimir regime the universe is totally controlled by vacuum. The energy content of the universe is a function of its radius. Using the conformal relation between the static Einstein universe and the closed FRW universe , this result indicates that in a FRW model there would be a continuous creation of energy out of vacuum as long as the universe is expanding, a result which was confirmed by Parker long ago . The steep, nearly vertical line in Fig. 2 suggests that the real universe started violently and had to relax later.

(4) Throughout the Casimir regime the cosmological constant $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ has a large value for all three fields, and is nearly constant, but once the universe goes to Planck regime the value of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ drops sharply. In the realistic models for a dynamical universe, a large value for the cosmological constant during the very early stages of the universe is required so as to solve - via inflation- the horizon and flatness problem . On the other hand, the value for the cosmological constant at present should be small in order to comply with observations. The results presented in this paper, though may not be directly related to a developing universe, provides us with the required behavior.

\____________________________________________

References

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\[ 8\] Birrell N D and Davies P C W (1982) Quantum Fields in Curved Space (Cambridge University Press,Cambridge, England ).

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Figure Caption

FIG 1. The temperature-radius relationship for the neutrino field in an Einstein universe.

FIG 2. Comparison beween the temperature-radius relationship for scalar, neutrino and photon fields. The dashed line is for the scalar field, the light solid line is for the neutrino field and the dark solid line is for the photon field.

FIG 3. The variation of the cosmological constant with the temperature of the universe resulting from the back reaction effect of the neutrino field.

FIG 4. Comparison between the contributions of the scalar, neutrino, and photon fields to the cosmological constant in an Einstein universe at finite temperatures. The dashed line is for the scalar field, the light solid line is for the neutrino field and the dark solid line is for the photon field.


text:
# 1 Outline

## 1 Outline

After giving a short introduction and motivation I will present the semiclassical description of D-branes in the marginally deformed $`SU\left(2\right)`$ model. The second part of the talk addresses the quantum theoretical description of the D-branes reporting results which will be derived in more detail in. I will finish with some concluding remarks.

## 2 Introduction and Motivation

Let us first discuss the exact marginal deformations in the case of closed strings. We know that a (perturbative) string vacuum corresponds to a two dimensional conformal field theory (CFT). An operator $`𝒪`$ is called marginal if it has conformal dimension $`(1,1)`$. A typical example of a marginal operator is the product of a chirally conserved current times an anti-chirally conserved current. An infinitesimal perturbation of the action by a worldsheet integral over a marginal operator preserves conformal invariance. Under certain circumstances the infinitesimal perturbation can be integrated up to a finite exact marginal deformation. This results in a one parameter family of CFTs, where two adjacent points on that line are connected by an infinitesimal marginal perturbation. Hence, exact marginal deformations yield a line in the space of string vacua and thus help to gain insight into the structure of the moduli space of string theories. The inclusion of D-branes into this picture provides information about the moduli space of string theories in the presence of D-branes. The inclusion of D-branes means that we investigate CFTs on a worldsheet with boundaries. Such a theory could also be perturbed by marginal boundary operators. Deformations resulting from such a perturbation will not be discussed in the present talk.

Our plan is to consider as an example the $`SU\left(2\right)`$ WZW model and deformations thereof. The sigma model description of this class of CFTs is discussed e.g. in.

## 3 Semiclassical Description

Before going to the deformed case let us recall the picture for symmetry preserving D-branes on $`SU\left(2\right)`$. Two useful parameterizations of an $`SU\left(2\right)`$ group element are

$`g`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}\chi +i\mathrm{sin}\chi \mathrm{cos}\vartheta \sigma ^1+i\mathrm{sin}\chi \mathrm{sin}\vartheta \mathrm{cos}\phi \sigma ^2+i\mathrm{sin}\chi \mathrm{sin}\vartheta \mathrm{sin}\phi \sigma ^3`$ (1)
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}x\mathrm{cos}\stackrel{~}{\theta }i\mathrm{sin}x\mathrm{sin}\theta \sigma ^1+i\mathrm{sin}x\mathrm{cos}\theta \sigma ^2+i\mathrm{cos}x\mathrm{sin}\stackrel{~}{\theta }\sigma ^3,`$ (2)
with the parameter ranges $`\chi =0\mathrm{}\pi `$, $`\vartheta =0\mathrm{}\pi `$, $`\phi =0\mathrm{}\pi `$ and $`x=0\mathrm{}\pi /2`$, $`\theta =\pi \mathrm{}\pi `$, $`\stackrel{~}{\theta }=\pi \mathrm{}\pi `$. The first parameterization is useful for specifying the location of the D-branes whereas in the second one the marginal deformations look simple. The corresponding target space metric is the Cartan-Killing metric

$`ds^2`$ $`=`$ $`k\alpha ^{}\left\{d\chi ^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\chi \left(d\vartheta ^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\vartheta d\phi ^2\right)\right\}`$
$`=`$ $`k\alpha ^{}\left\{dx^2+\mathrm{sin}^2xd\theta ^2+\mathrm{cos}^2xd\stackrel{~}{\theta }^2\right\},`$
leading to an $`S^3`$ geometry. The radius of this three sphere is quantized, $`k`$ .

The symmetry preserving D-branes were described in111A semiclassical discussion of symmetry breaking branes can be found in. as conjugacy classes of a fixed group element. These are spherical branes breaking the $`SU\left(2\right)\times SU\left(2\right)`$ Kac-Moody to a diagonal $`SU\left(2\right)`$ symmetry. In terms of isometries the $`SO\left(4\right)`$ of $`S^3`$ is broken to an $`SO\left(3\right)`$ acting as rotations along the branes. Further, a topological argument let the authors of to a quantization condition on the position of the D-branes. In the parameterization (1) the position of the brane is specified by fixing the value of $`\chi `$ and the quantization condition reads

$$\chi \frac{\pi }{k}.$$
(3)
Later in the position of the D-branes was studied by probing the geometry with gravitons and it was found that (3) is quantum corrected to

$$\chi \frac{\pi \left(2j+1\right)}{k+2},j=0,\frac{1}{2},1,\mathrm{},\frac{k}{2}.$$
(4)
We will come back to this method of investigating the D-brane geometry later. In the present section we consider the large $`k`$ limit in which the quantization conditions coincide apart from the zero dimensional branes at the poles. We will not include branes at the poles into the discussion.

At first sight this picture seems counterintuitive since the two-dimensional tension-full branes wrapping contractable cycles are expected to shrink to zero volume. The mechanism responsible for stabilizing the two dimensional branes has been given in (see also for more general groups) : The quantization condition on the position of the D-brane (3) corresponds to a quantization condition on the F-flux through the D-brane.

The metric for the deformed $`SU\left(2\right)`$ model can be found in e.g.. In the coordinates (2) it reads

$$ds^2/k\alpha ^{}=dx^2+\frac{\mathrm{sin}^2xd\theta ^2+R^2\mathrm{cos}^2xd\stackrel{~}{\theta }^2}{\mathrm{cos}^2x+R^2\mathrm{sin}^2x},$$
(5)
where the deformation parameter $`R`$ takes values in $`(0,\mathrm{})`$. The value $`R=1`$ corresponds to the undeformed model. In the limit $`R\mathrm{}`$ ($`R0`$) the $`\theta `$ ($`\stackrel{~}{\theta }`$) coordinates decouple and the limiting geometries are $`SU\left(2\right)/U\left(1\right)`$ times a free boson on a circle of vanishing radius (which can be T-dualized to the real line). The geometry of $`SU\left(2\right)/U\left(1\right)`$ can be conformaly compactified to a disk. Away from $`R=1`$ the $`SU\left(2\right)\times SU\left(2\right)`$ Kac-Moody symmetry is broken to a $`U\left(1\right)\times U\left(1\right)`$ symmetry. The corresponding chirally and anti-chirally conserved currents combine to the marginal operator taking the model from a point $`R`$ to an infinitesimal close point $`R+\delta R`$. The fate of the symmetry preserving D-branes was studied in where the following rules were imposed. The D-branes should break the $`U\left(1\right)\times U\left(1\right)`$ to a residual $`U\left(1\right)`$ at generic $`R`$ and for $`R=1`$ they should be identical to the previously discussed symmetry preserving branes on $`SU\left(2\right)`$. Further an F-flux quantization condition should be satisfied. This lead to the result that the position of the D-branes expressed in the coordinates (2) does not change with $`R`$. In the remaining part of the talk we want to confirm this result by a quantum theoretical discussion.

## 4 Quantum Theoretical Description

In order to go beyond the semiclassical treatment of the previous section we should construct the boundary states for the symmetry preserving D-branes on the line of deformed models. What we will do is to give a set of boundary states on the family of deformed models and claim that a certain subset of those boundary states corresponds to the symmetry preserving D-branes. Afterwards we will justify our claim by showing that in the large $`k`$ limit the geometries are identical. In order to construct the boundary states on the deformed models an alternative description of the deformation turns out to be useful. This description was proposed in. The statement is that for arbitrary $`R`$ there is an identification

$$\text{Deformed Model}=\left(\text{pf}_k\times u\left(1\right)_{\sqrt{k}R}\right)/_k.$$
(6)
Let us briefly sketch the ingredients of this construction. First the parafermions ($`\text{pf}_k`$) posses a $`_k\times _k`$ symmetry with the currents

$$\psi _l\left(z\right)\text{and}\psi _l^{}\left(z\right)$$

whose charges are $`(l,0)`$ and $`(l,0)`$, respectively ($`l=0,\mathrm{},k1`$). One example for an OPE in $`\text{pf}_k`$ is

$$\psi _l\left(z\right)\psi _p\left(0\right)z^{lp/k}\left(\psi _{l+p}\left(0\right)+𝒪\left(z\right)\right).$$
(7)
Since moving $`\psi _l`$ once around $`\psi _p`$ yields a phase which is not necessarily $`\pm 1`$ the model is called parafermion model.

The other ingredient is a free compact boson

$$\varphi (z,\overline{z})=\varphi \left(z\right)+\overline{\varphi }\left(\overline{z}\right),\varphi \left(z\right)\varphi \left(0\right)=2\mathrm{log}z.$$

That the above model is for $`R=1`$ equivalent to the $`SU\left(2\right)`$ model has been pointed out in. The $`SU\left(2\right)`$ currents can be represented as follows,

$`J^+\left(z\right)`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{k}\psi _1\left(z\right):e^{\frac{i\varphi \left(z\right)}{\sqrt{k}}}:`$
$`J^{}\left(z\right)`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{k}\psi _1^{}\left(z\right):e^{\frac{i\varphi \left(z\right)}{\sqrt{k}}}:`$
$`J^3\left(z\right)`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{k}_z\varphi \left(z\right),`$
which can be checked by comparing the OPE’s. The right hand sides are invariant under a $`_k`$ transformation acting on the parafermions and simultaneously shifting the free boson. Thus the $`_k`$ orbifold group in (6) is a diagonal subgroup of the $`_k\times _k`$ symmetry in $`\text{pf}_k`$ combined with a discrete shift along the $`u\left(1\right)`$. The deformed models are now reached by changing the size of the circle on which the boson $`\varphi `$ lives or more generally spoken deforming the Cartan torus of the group. This can be confirmed by matching the zero mode spectrum of the orbifold (including twisted sectors) with the eigenvalues of the Laplacian (with non-trivial dilaton, see e.g.) appearing in the effective closed string action.

The construction of boundary states in the description (6) turns out to be rather simple since all the input one needs can be found in the literature. The boundary states in $`\text{pf}_k`$ have been constructed in222 For discussions of D-branes on cosets see also.  and the boundary states for a free boson on a circle are simple. A boundary state on the orbifold is obtained by tensoring these two and adding all $`_k`$ images. Our claim is that the symmetry preserving D-branes of the previous section arise by combining an A-type boundary state of $`\text{pf}_k`$ with Dirichlet-type boundary state of the free boson (with a certain position333For general positions $`x`$ the D-brane is localized on a twisted conjugacy class.). The A-type boundary state of the parafermion theory reads

$$|B_{(j,n)}^k=\underset{(j^{},n^{})}{}\frac{S_{(j,n),(j^{},n^{})}^k}{\sqrt{S_{(0,0)(j^{},n^{})}^k}}|(j^{},n^{}),$$
(8)
where the notation follows. In particular the pair $`(j,n)`$ labels the highest weight states and the $`S`$ matrix arises in modular transformations of the closed string partition function. The action of an $`l`$th order element $`\mathrm{}`$ of the orbifold group $`_k`$ follows from its action on the Ishibashi state

$$\mathrm{}|(j^{},n^{})=\mathrm{exp}\{2\pi iln^{}/k\}|(j^{},n^{}).$$
(9)
The Dirichlet-type boundary state on $`u\left(1\right)_{\sqrt{k}R}`$ reads

$$|D^{\sqrt{k}R}\left(x\right)=\underset{p}{}\frac{e^{2\pi ipx/k}}{\sqrt{\sqrt{k}R}}|(p,0)_D,$$
(10)
where the momentum number $`p`$ labels the highest weight states and $`x`$ specifies the position of the D-brane. We see that $`R`$ enters only as a normalization. The $`_k`$ action on the Ishibashi state in (10) is

$$\mathrm{}|(p,0)_D=\mathrm{exp}\{2\pi ilp/k\}|(p,0)_D.$$
(11)
The sum over the $`_k`$ images of the tensor product is non-vanishing only if the momentum number of the Dirichlet Ishibashi state coincides with $`n^{}`$ in the $`\text{pf}_k`$ Ishibashi state which is labeled by the pair $`(j^{},n^{})`$ as in (see also (8)). For a certain value for the position of the Dirichlet boundary state the boundary state on the orbifold takes the form of an $`SU\left(2\right)`$ Cardy state belonging to symmetry preserving branes on $`SU\left(2\right)`$.

It remains to show that these boundary states are indeed the ones we found in the semiclassical considerations, before. To this end, we need to derive the geometry of the D-brane given by the boundary state. The problem of deriving the geometry from a given boundary state has been analyzed in for flat target spaces and in for group manifolds. In both cases one identifies the D-brane geometry as the set of points on which the overlap between a closed string graviton state and the boundary state does not vanish (for $`k\mathrm{}`$). For our purpose the discussion in can be used in a straightforward way. As we already mentioned the boundary state in the deformed model takes the form of a symmetry preserving $`SU\left(2\right)`$ Cardy state. The other information one needs is that the form of the eigenfunctions of

$$\frac{e^{2\mathrm{\Phi }}}{\sqrt{G}}_\mu \left(e^{2\mathrm{\Phi }}\sqrt{G}G^{\mu \nu }_\nu \right)$$

does not change with $`R`$ (here $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and $`G`$ denote the dilaton and metric in the deformed model). This implies that the highest weight contribution to the closed string graviton state does not change its form under the deformation. Using this and going through the discussion of one finds that the D-branes are localized on conjugacy classes of a fixed group element. This means that the D-brane position expressed in the coordinates of the undeformed model does not change under the deformation.

## 5 Conclusions and Outlook

In the present talk we have given the semiclassical and the algebraic description for symmetry preserving D-branes along the line of exact marginal deformations of the $`SU\left(2\right)`$ WZW model. The presentation has been rather short, more details on the semiclassical description can be found in, whereas the algebraic approach will be discussed in. Ref. will contain more results than presented here including symmetry breaking branes and generalizations beyond the $`SU\left(2\right)`$ example. More examples for interesting questions in the present context concern: Flows under relevant perturbations (see e.g.), the inclusion of marginal boundary perturbations, extension to non-compact groups (see e.g.) and many others.

Acknowledgement

I thank the organizers of the conference for the kind invitation to present this talk and for creating a very pleasant and stimulating atmosphere.
This work is supported in part by the European Community’s Human Potential Programme under contracts HPRN–CT–2000–00131 Quantum Spacetime, HPRN–CT–2000–00148 Physics Across the Present Energy Frontier and HPRN–CT–2000–00152 Supersymmetry and the Early Universe, and INTAS 00-561.