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# Spin-resolved off-specular neutron scattering from magnetic domain walls using the polarized ³𝐻𝑒 gas spin filter

## Abstract

We report on the use of the polarized 3He gas filter and neutron resonant enhancement techniques for the measurement of spin-polarized diffuse neutron scattering due to ferromagnetic domains. A CoO/Co exchange biased bilayer was grown on a Ti/Cu/$`Al_2O_3`$ neutron resonator template. The system is cooled in an applied magnetic field of $`H_a=2000`$ Oe through the Néel temperature of the antiferromagnet to 10 K where the applied magnetic field is swept as to measure the magnetic hysteresis loop. After the second magnetization reversal at the coercive field $`H_{c2}=+230`$ Oe, the system is supposed to approach the original magnetic configuration. In order to prove that this is not the case for our exchange biased bilayer, we have measured four off-specular maps I$`++`$, I$`+`$, I$`+`$, I$``$ at $`H_a+370`$ Oe, where the Co magnetic spins were mostly reversed. They show a striking behavior in the total reflection region: while the nonspin-flip scattering exhibits no diffuse reflectivity, the spin-flip scattering shows strong diffuse scattering at incident angles which satisfy the resonance conditions. Moreover the spin-flip off-specular part of the reflectivity is asymmetric. The I$`+`$ intensity occurs at higher exit angles than the specularly reflected neutrons, and the I$`+`$ intensity is shifted to lower angles. Their intensities are noticeably different and there is a splitting of the resonance positions for the up and down neutron spins ($`\alpha _n^+\alpha _n^{}`$) . Additionally, a strong influence of the stray fields from magnetic domains to the resonance splitting is observed.

spin-resolved neutron reflectivity, off-specular scattering,3He neutron spin filter, neutron resonator, exchange bias

The exchange bias (EB) phenomenon is associated with an exchange coupling between a ferromagnetic (F) and an antiferromagnetic (AF) layer across their common interface, resulting in an unidirectional magnetic anisotropy and a shift of the magnetic hysteresis by an exchange bias field $`H_{EB}`$ nogu . A remarkable effect related to the exchange bias is the asymmetry of the magnetization reversal, which is best revealed by neutron scattering fitz ; gier ; lee ; radu1 . The first magnetization reversal after field cooling is dominated by domain wall movement, whereas all subsequent reversals proceed essentially by rotation of the magnetization. In the present work we report on neutron off-specular diffuse scattering experiments performed at applied magnetic fields close to the second coercive field $`H_{c2}`$ supplementing the previous results at fields near the first coercive field $`H_{c1}`$ radu1 .

The polarized 3He gas spin filter was recently used for the first time nick  in a reflectivity experiment to measure diffuse scattering from thin magnetic films. The device itself is a cylindrical cell of 100 mm in length and 50 mm in diameter, filled with 0.5 bar 3He gas. After filling, the neutron polarization $`P_n=P_pP_{{}_{}{}^{3}He}`$ (where the $`P_n`$ is the measured neutron polarization, $`P_p`$ is the polarization of the polarizer and the $`P_{{}_{}{}^{3}He}`$ is the polarization of the analyzer) was 65 % and it decayed to about 59 % in 24 hours. The transmission of the neutrons through the filter cell fran  is spin dependent with the following cross-sections: $`\sigma _{}`$=5 bn and $`\sigma _{}`$=16500 bn. In order to record the scattered intensities corresponding to all four neutron scattering cross-sections (I$`++`$, I$`+`$, I$`+`$, I$``$), the experimental set-up includes, in addition, two Mezei spin flippers placed upstream and downstream of the sample nick . The advantage of using the 3He spin analyzer is that it is possible to register the spin-resolved diffuse scattering for a broad range of exit angles, and simultaneously it is free of additional spin-flip or small angle scattering, as it may occur for broad angle supermirror analyzers. However, there are drawbacks as well, namely that the cell absorption is not negligible and the flipping ratio seemed to be lower as compared to the case of the supermirror. In the present experiment these difficulties, especially the reduced neutron transmission, were successfully compensated by using an enhancement technique provided by the sample design as a neutron resonator ri ; ir .

Recently (Nov-2002), the neutron polarization of the 3He spin-filter reached an outstanding value of 94% rhe3  with a neutron transmission of about 40%. Therefore the spin-flip ratio became comparable to the one provided by the supermirror. The experiment we report here was, however, performed on Sept-2001 when the 3He did not have such high value of polarization.

The neutron resonances in thin films can be generated in two different ways: one way is in the total reflection region of a neutron resonator (bound states) and the other way is in a single film just above its critical angle for total reflection (quasi bound states), i. e. in the region of the Kissing fringes. In both cases the neutron density in the system is enhanced ri ; ir  for definite incident neutron energies and one uses this phenomenon to increase the sensitivity to magnetic and nonmagnetic inhomogeneities and to non-collinear magnetic spin arrangements at the interface. As long as the observed effect takes place in the total reflection region, the scattered intensity is essentially the same as the incident intensity.

In the present experiments we used the neutron resonator to study the scattering from ferromagnetic domains in a CoO(25Å)/Co(200Å) exchange biased bilayer. The bilayer was grown on a Ti(2000 Å)/Cu(1000 Å)/Al2O3 neutron resonator template. The enhancement of the neutron density takes place in the Ti ($`\rho _{\mathrm{Ti}}=1.94610^6`$ Å-2) layer. The neutron scattering-length density $`\rho `$ is defined as $`\rho =Nb_{coh}`$, $`N`$ is the density of the scattering nuclei and $`b_{coh}`$ is its coherent scattering length. The tail of the resonance enhanced neutron wave function extends over the CoO/Co interface providing an increased sensitivity to its magnetic properties. An important contribution to the increased sensitivity is the total-reflection region itself, provided by the Cu ($`\rho _{\mathrm{Cu}}=6.5510^6`$ Å-2) reflector layer.

The system is cooled in an in-plane applied magnetic field of $`H_a^{FC}=+2000`$ Oe through the Néel temperature of the ferromagnet to 10 K, where the applied magnetic field $`H_a`$ is swept as to measure the magnetic hysteresis loop. After the second magnetization reversal ($`H_{c2}=+230`$ Oe), the system is supposed to approach the original magnetic configuration. In order to prove that this is not the case for our exchange biased bilayer, we have measured four off-specular neutron reflectivity maps I$`++`$, I$`+`$, I$`+`$, I$``$ \[Fig. 1\] at $`H_a+370`$ Oe, where the magnetic spins were mostly reversed back to the direction of the applied field. In Ref. radu1  the off-specular scattering (rocking curves at $`\alpha _{\mathrm{in}}+\alpha _{\mathrm{out}}=`$constant) in the I$`+`$ map was used to follow the development of the magnetic domains at the CoO/Co interface before and after the first magnetization reversal to saturation and back to the remanence. In the present report we show measurements of the magnetic state of the EB system close but after the second magnetization reversal. The experiments were performed at the EVA reflectometer of the Institut Laue-Langevin (Grenoble, France) EVAref  with a neutron wavelength of 5.5 Å using a 1D position sensitive detector (PSD).

@push

The polarized neutron scattering scattering maps (Fig. 1) show a striking behavior in the total reflection region: while the nonspin-flip scattering shows weak diffuse reflectivity , the spin-flip scattering exhibits strong diffuse scattering at incident angles which satisfy the resonance conditions ri ; ir . Each resonance in such a system has different enhancement factors, decreasing from low orders (low $`\alpha _{in}`$) to higher order (high $`\alpha _{in}`$). One can easily observe in the I$`+`$ map that the off-specular spikes are stronger in intensity for a large enhancement factor ri . The I$`+`$ map shows a weaker intensity in the off-specular scattering signal, which is an effect of the different optical potential for (+) and (-) states, where the (+) state ($`\rho _{Co}^+=6.310^6`$ Å-2) denotes the parallel orientation of the Co spins to the polarization direction and (-) state ($`\rho _{\mathrm{Co}}^{}=1.7810^6`$ Å-2) denotes the antiparallel alignment of the Co spins in respect to the polarization direction. The enhancement factor for a (-) state is smaller than for (+) state. This is caused by the transmission coefficient from vacuum through the top layers (CoO and Co) to the resonant layer (Ti). For the (-) states the transmission coefficient is higher than for the (+) state and this affects strongly the enhancement factor for the (+) and (-) state resonances in the Ti layer.

The off-specular scattering is caused by the refraction on domain walls rhe3 . Assuming the domain walls to be perpendicular to the sample surface, the spikes will disappear and the off-specular intensity would be concentrated at their respective ends distinctly separated from the specular ridge rhe3 . In order to explain a continuous spike we have to assume that the domains walls are continuously distributed. Furthermore, the orientation of the domain walls must spread from perpendicular to parallel to the sample surface. In a first approximation, the domain walls could be considered as the magnetic roughness at the CoO/Co interface.

Another striking effect in Fig. 1 is the splitting of the position ($`\alpha _{in}`$) of the resonances by $`0.68`$ mrad ($`=.039^{}`$) . The magnitude of the splitting is too strong to be caused by the small applied field of $`H_a=370`$ Oe. The observed splitting requires an effective field of $`1100`$ Oe \[see Ref felcher ; korneev \]. On the other hand, under the same experimental conditions of temperature and field, and before the first reversal takes place, i.e. no magnetic domains are created so far, we observe only a small splitting, which is consistent with an applied field of 370 Oe (not shown). Therefore, we need to assume that an additional stray field acts on the incoming neutrons and consequently on those which are inside of the spacer layer (Ti). With this assumption the value of the splitting becomes feasible. The stray fields will not cause a spin-flip signal as they feature a slow gradient, but they will change the incoming and exit energies for the spin-flipped neutrons. Thus, we suggest that the stray fields from the magnetic domains are adding up to the applied field and the resulting Zeeman effect is the reason for the splitting we observed.

The additional field generated by the stray fields and the distribution of domain walls we observed leads us to the assumption that the interfacial magnetic domains are ferromagnetic and that their magnetization vector is oriented perpendicular to the sample plane. The other possible case when the orientation of the magnetic domains were in-plane and perpendicular to the applied field would not cause the required stray fields for the splitting nor the type of domain walls necessary for generating the above described off-specular intensity distribution (spikes).

In conclusion we have used a polarized 3He gas filter and neutron resonant enhancement techniques for the measurement of spin-polarized diffuse neutron scattering from ferromagnetic domain walls of an exchange biased CoO/Co bilayer. After the first reversal domains are created at the CoO/Co interface, which remain further on. We have shown that the magnetization of those domains points perpendicular to the interface and that their domain wall(s) is continuously distributed from perpendicular to parallel to the interface. We believe that the enhancement of off-specular scattering by using neutron resonators opens a new direction towards small angle neutron scattering (SANS) studies of magnetic and nonmagnetic thin films. The sensitivity to clusters, porous media, interface spin misalignment, magnetic domain walls, vortices, and inhomogeneities is under these conditions remarkably high.

This work is supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), SFB 491.


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# Cohomology and Decomposition of Tensor Product Representations of 𝑆𝐿(2,𝐑)

## 1 Introduction

The representation theory of $`SL(2,𝐑)`$ was developed in the references listed in . Since $`SL(2,𝐑)`$ is non-compact, its unitary irreducible representations are infinite-dimensional and fall into several classes: the principal discrete series, the principal continuous series and the exceptional series. There is also a series of finite-dimensional representations which are non-unitary. For a recent example of the application of both these unitary and non-unitary representations in physics, see .

While an exhaustive analysis of the decomposition of tensor products between unitary (infinite dimensional) representations was carried out by the authors listed in reference , they did not address the coupling of unitary and non-unitary representations.

In this paper we analyze the decomposition of tensor products between infinite dimensional (unitary) and finite dimensional (non-unitary) representations of $`SL(2,𝐑)`$. We show that in the cases where these tensor products are not completely reducible, there exists a cohomological reduction of the product representation with respect to a nilpotent operator constructed from the Casimir. On this cohomology, the product representations become completely reducible. Using classical results on indefinite inner product spaces, we derive explicit decomposition formulae for the tensor products.

While several authors have discussed aspects of the decomposition of tensor products of finite-dimensional and infinite-dimensional representations of Lie groups , to our knowledge the methods and results of the current paper are new.

## 2 Representations of $`SL(2,𝐑)`$

In this section we summarize some basic facts regarding the representation theory of $`SL(2,𝐑)`$ (see  and ).

The commutation relations of the $`SL(2,𝐑)`$ Lie algebra are

$$[L_1,L_2]=iL_0,[L_2,L_0]=iL_1,[L_0,L_1]=iL_2.$$

Given a representation of $`SL(2,𝐑)`$, we can define ladder operators

$`L_{}`$ $``$ $`L_1+iL_2,`$
$`L_+`$ $``$ $`L_1iL_2`$ (1)
satisfying

$$[L_+,L_{}]=2L_0,[L_0,L_\pm ]=L_\pm .$$

The operator $`L_{}`$ ($`L_+`$) increases (decreases) the $`L_0`$ eigenvalue $`m`$ (called the weight) by one unit. A state annihilated by $`L_+`$ is conventionally called highest weight and a state annihilated by $`L_{}`$ lowest weight. Representations of $`SL(2,𝐑)`$ are constructed by starting from some eigenstate of $`L_0`$ and repeatedly acting on it with $`L_\pm `$. The chain of states obtained in this way does not necessarily terminate on a highest or lowest weight state.

The Casimir operator is

$`𝐋^2`$ $`=`$ $`L_1^2L_2^2+L_0^2`$ (2)
$`=`$ $`L_{}L_++L_0(L_01)`$
$`=`$ $`L_+L_{}+L_0(L_0+1).`$
The unitary irreducible representations of $`SL(2,𝐑)`$ are all infinite-dimensional and are labelled by the parameter $`h`$ defined through

$$𝐋^2=h(h1),$$

as well as by the parameter $`ϵ\{0,\frac{1}{2}\}`$ which determines whether the spectrum of $`L_0`$ is integral or half-integral.

The following unitary irreducible representations exist:

The “principal continuous series” $`𝒞_h^ϵ`$: Here $`𝐋^2<\frac{1}{4}`$ and we can write $`h=\frac{1}{2}+i\lambda `$ where $`0<\lambda 𝐑`$. There is neither a lowest weight nor a highest weight state, and the weights are $`m=ϵ+n`$ for $`n𝐙`$.

The “supplementary (or exceptional) continuous series” $`𝒮_h`$: Here $`\frac{1}{4}<𝐋^2<0`$ and $`0<h<\frac{1}{2}`$ is real. There is neither a lowest nor a highest weight state. Only the case $`ϵ=0`$ occurs and the weights are $`m𝐙`$.

The “discrete series” $`𝒟_h^\pm `$: Here $`\frac{1}{4}𝐋^2`$ and $`2h𝐍`$. The highest weight representation $`𝒟_h^+`$ has weights $`h+n`$ for integer $`n0`$ and the lowest weight representation $`𝒟_h^{}`$ has weights $`hn`$ for integer $`n0`$.

In addition to the unitary representations, there exists a series of finite-dimensional representations $`𝒟_h`$. They are characterized by $`h=0,\frac{1}{2},1,\mathrm{}`$, and the weights are $`h,h+1,\mathrm{},h`$. These representations are not unitary with respect to any positive definite inner product, but, as we shall see below, they are (pseudo-) unitary with respect to an indefinite inner product on the state space.

We start by analyzing the coupling of the discrete series $`𝒟_h^+`$ with the finite-dimensional representations $`𝒟_h`$ (the analysis for $`𝒟_h^+`$ is entirely analogous and will not be presented here).

## 3 The discrete series $`𝒟_h^+`$

The highest weight representation $`𝒟_h^+`$ in the discrete series is generated from the highest weight state $`\varphi _h^{(h)}`$ satisfying $`L_+\varphi _h^{(h)}=0`$, where $`h\frac{1}{2},1,\frac{3}{2},\mathrm{}`$, by repeatedly applying $`L_{}`$. The ladder of states

$$\varphi _h^{(h)}\stackrel{L_{}}{}\varphi _{h+1}^{(h)}\stackrel{L_{}}{}\varphi _{h+2}^{(h)}\stackrel{L_{}}{}\mathrm{}$$
(3)
does not terminate. Taking $`e_h^{(h)}\varphi _h^{(h)}`$ to have unit normalization, the normalized basis

$$e_{h+k}^{(j)}\frac{1}{\sqrt{k!(2h)(2h+1)\mathrm{}(2h+k1)}}\varphi _{h+k}^{(h)}$$
(4)
satisfies

$$e_{h+k}^{(h)}|e_{h+m}^{(h)}=\delta _{km},$$
(5)
and

$`L_{}e_m^{(h)}`$ $`=`$ $`\left\{(h+m+1)(h+m)\right\}^{\frac{1}{2}}e_{m+1}^{(h)},m=h,h+1,\mathrm{}`$ (6)
and

$`L_+e_{m+1}^{(h)}`$ $`=`$ $`\left\{(h+m+1)(h+m)\right\}^{\frac{1}{2}}e_m^{(h)},m=h,h+1,\mathrm{}`$ (7)
The representations $`𝒟_h^{}`$ may be similarly constructed from a lowest weight state annihilated by $`L_{}`$.

## 4 The finite-dimensional series $`𝒟_h`$

These representation $`𝒟_h`$, where $`h0,\frac{1}{2},1,\frac{3}{2},\mathrm{}`$, may be generated from a highest weight state $`\varphi _h^{(h)}`$, where $`h\{0,\frac{1}{2},1,\frac{3}{2},\mathrm{}\}`$. The sequence of basis vectors

$$\varphi _h^{(h)}\stackrel{L_{}}{}\varphi _{h+1}^{(h)}\stackrel{L_{}}{}\mathrm{}\stackrel{L_{}}{}\varphi _h^{(h)}$$
(8)
is finite.

These representations can be made (pseudo-) unitary by choosing an indefinite inner product on the state space. To understand this, note that in a (pseudo-) unitary representation, the ladder operator $`L_+`$ is adjoint to $`L_{}`$, so that we can write the inner product of the state $`\varphi _{h+k}^{(h)}`$ with itself as follows

$$\varphi _{h+k}^{(h)}|\varphi _{h+k}^{(h)}=(L_{})^k\varphi _h^{(h)}|(L_{})^k\varphi _h^{(h)}=\varphi _h^{(h)}|(L_+)^k(L_{})^k\varphi _h^{(h)}.$$

Commuting the $`L_+`$ operators to the right, this becomes

$$\varphi _{h+k}^{(h)}|\varphi _{h+k}^{(h)}=k!(2h)(2h+1)\mathrm{}(2h+k1)\varphi _h^{(h)}|\varphi _h^{(h)}.$$
(9)
Since $`h<0`$, we see that squared norms of the sequence of states in (8) have alternating signs, implying that the inner product is indefinite. The normalized states

$$e_{h+k}^{(j)}\frac{1}{i^k\sqrt{k!|2h||2h+1|\mathrm{}|2h+k1|}}\varphi _{h+k}^{(h)}$$
(10)
have indefinite inner product

$$e_{h+k}^{(h)}|e_{h+m}^{(h)}=()^k\delta _{km},$$
(11)
and the action of $`L_\pm `$ on this basis is given by

$`L_{}e_m^{(h)}`$ $`=`$ $`i\left\{\left(h+m+1\right)\left|h+m\right|\right\}^{\frac{1}{2}}e_{m+1}^{(h)}m=h,h+1,\mathrm{},h`$ (12)
$`=`$ $`\left\{(h+m+1)(h+m)\right\}^{\frac{1}{2}}e_{m+1}^{(h)},(1)^{\frac{1}{2}}+i`$
and

$`L_+e_{m+1}^{(h)}`$ $`=`$ $`i\left\{(h+m+1)|h+m|\right\}^{\frac{1}{2}}e_m^{(h)}m+1=h,h+1,\mathrm{},h`$ (13)
$`=`$ $`\left\{(h+m+1)(h+m)\right\}^{\frac{1}{2}}e_m^{(h)},(1)^{\frac{1}{2}}+i.`$
These formulae are the continuation to negative $`h`$ of the corresponding formulae (6) and (7) for the discrete series.

## 5 Tensoring $`𝒟_{\frac{1}{2}}^+`$ and $`𝒟_{\frac{1}{2}}`$

We now start our study of the coupling of the finite-dimensional representations of $`SL(2,𝐑)`$ with the discrete series.

As a warmup example, we study the product of the $`h=\frac{1}{2}`$ discrete series representation with the $`h=\frac{1}{2}`$ finite-dimensional representation. The product representation will turn out to be reducible but not completely reducible (the representation matrices are not fully decomposable), and to contain null (zero norm) states. We will identify a natural cohomological reduction procedure that makes the product decomposable and eliminates the null states. In this particular example, after applying the reduction, the product of the two representations will give the trivial representation. Schematically, indicating the cohomological reduction by an arrow, we have

$$𝒟_{\frac{1}{2}}^+𝒟_{\frac{1}{2}}𝒟_0\mathrm{𝟏}.$$

To start our analysis, note that there is a highest weight state in the product state space given by

$$|0e_{\frac{1}{2}}^{(\frac{1}{2})}e_{\frac{1}{2}}^{(\frac{1}{2})}.$$

This state is annihilated by $`L_+L_+^{(\frac{1}{2})}+L_+^{(\frac{1}{2})}`$ and satisfies

$$𝐋^2|0=0,$$

like the trivial representation. However, in contrast with the trivial representation, $`L_{}|0`$ is not zero. Still, one can verify that $`(L_{})^k|0`$ has zero norm with respect to the indefinite inner product on the product space for $`k=1,2,3,\mathrm{}`$. Concretely

$$L_{}^n|0=\sqrt{n}(n1)!|n,$$

where the states

$`|n`$ $``$ $`\sqrt{n}\left(e_{n+\frac{1}{2}}^{(\frac{1}{2})}e_{\frac{1}{2}}^{(\frac{1}{2})}+ie_{n\frac{1}{2}}^{(\frac{1}{2})}e_{\frac{1}{2}}^{(\frac{1}{2})}\right)`$ (14)
are null.

It would be nice if we could truncate the ladder of states generated by $`L_{}`$ as soon as we reach a null state. The proper way of doing this is by noticing that the Casimir operator $`Q𝐋^2`$ is nilpotent. Therefore calculating its cohomology defines a natural reduction procedure on the state space. The physicist will notice the analogy of this construction with BRST reduction, where $`Q`$ is analogous to a BRST operator (see appendix A)

To see that $`𝐋^2`$ is nilpotent, note that in terms of the basis consisting of $`|n`$ and the additional null states

$`|\stackrel{~}{n}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\sqrt{n}}}\left(e_{n+\frac{1}{2}}^{(\frac{1}{2})}e_{\frac{1}{2}}^{(\frac{1}{2})}+ie_{n\frac{1}{2}}^{(\frac{1}{2})}e_{\frac{1}{2}}^{(\frac{1}{2})}\right),`$ (15)
it is not hard to calculate

$$𝐋^2|\stackrel{~}{n}=|n,𝐋^2|n=0,$$

leading to the matrix representation

$$𝐋^2=\left(\begin{array}{cccc}0& & & \\ & \begin{array}{cc}\hfill 0& \hfill 1\\ \hfill 0& \hfill 0\end{array}\text{ }& & \\ & & \begin{array}{cc}\hfill 0& \hfill 1\\ \hfill 0& \hfill 0\end{array}\text{ }& \\ & & & \mathrm{}\end{array}\right).$$
(16)
In this basis, the inner product is represented by the matrix

$$G\left(\begin{array}{cccc}1& & & \\ & \begin{array}{cc}& \hfill 1\\ \hfill 1& \end{array}\text{ }& & \\ & & \begin{array}{cc}& \hfill 1\\ \hfill 1& \end{array}\text{ }& \\ & & & \mathrm{}\end{array}\right)$$

It is easily checked that $`(𝐋^2)^2=0`$ and that $`𝐋^2`$ is hermitian with respect to the inner product $`G`$, as follows from

$$𝐋^2=(𝐋^2)^{}=G(𝐋^2)^+G,$$

where the dagger denotes the adjoint with respect to the indefinite inner product $`|`$ on the state space and the $`+`$ sign denotes the usual conjugate matrix.

The set of states $`\{|n\}`$ defined above forms an $`𝐋^2=0`$ subspace which is closed under $`SL(2,𝐑)`$, but does not fall into any of the representations considered in section 2 unless we can get rid of the null states

$$\{|1,|2,|3,\mathrm{}\}.$$

In addition, since the complementary set $`|\stackrel{~}{n}`$ is not closed under $`SL(2,𝐑)`$, the full product representation is non-decomposable.

The following procedure gets rid of these pathologies in the product. We construct the cohomology $`\mathrm{ker}Q/\mathrm{im}Q`$ with respect to the operator $`Q=𝐋^2`$. The cohomology consists of the single class $`[|0]`$, and is a one-dimensional, positive definite Hilbert space. Since the generators $`L_i`$ all commute with $`Q`$, they can consistently be reduced to the cohomology. The induced operators $`[L_+]`$, $`[L_{}]`$ and $`[L_0]`$ on the quotient space are defined as (54)

$$[L_i][|\varphi ]=[L_i|\varphi ],|\varphi \mathrm{ker}Q.$$

and are indeed zero on the quotient space, corresponding to the trivial representation of $`SL(2,𝐑)`$.

## 6 General product representations

We now generalize the method of section 5 to the analysis of a general product representation of a member of the discrete series and a member of the finite-dimensional series.

In appendix C we prove the result, important in what follows, that the Casimir operator $`𝐋^2`$ can be decomposed into Jordan blocks of dimension at most two (appendix B discusses properties of operators on indefinite inner product spaces). Since the one and two-dimensional Jordan blocks of $`𝐋^2`$ are of the forms $`\left(\lambda _i\right)`$ and

$$\left(\begin{array}{cc}\lambda _i& 1\\ 0& \lambda _i\end{array}\right),$$
(17)
we can build a nilpotent cohomology operator in the product space of two arbitrary representations in terms of $`𝐋^2`$ as the orthogonal direct sum

$$Q=Q_{\lambda _1}Q_{\lambda _2}\mathrm{},$$
(18)
where $`Q_{\lambda _i}`$ is defined on the principal vector subspace $`V_{\lambda _i}`$ belonging to the eigenvalue $`\lambda _i`$ of $`𝐋^2`$ by

$$Q_{\lambda _i}=𝐋^2|_{V_{\lambda _i}}\lambda _i.$$
(19)
Since $`Q_{\lambda _i}`$ consists of one- and two-dimensional blocks of the forms $`\left(0\right)`$ and

$$\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& 1\\ 0& 0\end{array}\right),$$
(20)
$`Q`$ is nilpotent and is a valid cohomology operator.

Taking the cohomology of $`Q`$ discards any Jordan blocks of dimension two in the decomposition of $`𝐋^2`$, so that all principal vectors of the reduced $`[𝐋^2]`$ will be eigenvectors. Equivalently, $`[𝐋^2]`$ can be decomposed into Jordan blocks of dimension $`1`$.

Let us see how $`Q`$ affects the analysis of a general product representation. As in the example of section 5, negative $`h`$ representations may be present in the product in the form

$$\varphi _h^{(h)}\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{\stackrel{L_{}}{}}{\underset{L_+}{\overset{}{}}}\varphi _{h+1}^{(h)}\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{\stackrel{L_{}}{}}{\underset{L_+}{\overset{}{}}}\mathrm{}\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{\stackrel{L_{}}{}}{\underset{L_+}{\overset{}{}}}\varphi _h^{(h)}\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{\stackrel{L_{}}{}}{\underset{L_+}{\overset{}{}}}\overline{)\begin{array}{c}\varphi _{h+1}^{(h)}\\ \stackrel{~}{\varphi }_{h+1}^{(h)}\end{array}}\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{\stackrel{L_{}}{}}{\underset{L_+}{\overset{}{}}}\overline{)\begin{array}{c}\varphi _{h+2}^{(h)}\\ \stackrel{~}{\varphi }_{h+2}^{(h)}\end{array}}\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{\stackrel{L_{}}{}}{\underset{L_+}{\overset{}{}}}\mathrm{}$$
(21)
The boxes represent two-dimensional subspaces spanned by null vectors $`\varphi _{h+n}^{(h)}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_{h+n}^{(h)}`$ on which $`𝐋^2`$ has the Jordan normal form (17) and $`Q`$ has the form (20). We see that just as in the example of section 5, the ladder of states generated from the highest weight $`\varphi _h^{(h)}`$ consists of null states for $`m>h`$.

Because of the additional states to the right of $`\varphi _h^{(h)}`$, this representation is not in the original class of irreducible positive or negative spin representations that we started out with. In other words, the the original class of irreducible representations is not closed under multiplication, unless we can get rid of the extra states.

Taking the cohomology with respect to $`Q`$ discards the boxed subspaces in the above diagram, and on the cohomology classes the representation has the familiar form

$$[\varphi _h^{(h)}]\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{\stackrel{L_{}}{}}{\underset{L_+}{\overset{}{}}}[\varphi _{h+1}^{(h)}]\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{\stackrel{L_{}}{}}{\underset{L_+}{\overset{}{}}}\mathrm{}\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{\stackrel{L_{}}{}}{\underset{L_+}{\overset{}{}}}[\varphi _h^{(h)}].$$

Henceforth, when we analyze product representations, it will always be assumed that we are working in the cohomology with respect to the associated operator $`Q`$. This amounts to a redefinition of the product as the tensor product followed by the cohomological (BRST) reduction.

## 7 Characters

The analysis of the decomposition of product representations may be greatly simplified by reformulating it as an algebraic problem in terms of characters.

We would like the expression for the character of a representation to be invariant under the above BRST reduction to the cohomology of $`Q`$. Since the discarded Jordan subspaces have zero metric signature, a definition for the character of a group element $`U`$ that will ignore these blocks is

$$\chi (U)=\underset{n}{}\mathrm{sig}(V_{\lambda _n})\lambda _n$$
(22)
where $`V_{\lambda _n}`$ is the principal vector subspace corresponding to the eigenvalue $`\lambda _n`$ of $`U`$ and $`\mathrm{sig}()`$ denotes the signature. Since the signature of a subspace is invariant under unitary transformations $`V`$ , this gives a basis invariant expression invariant under conjugation $`UVUV^1`$.

At this point we just warn the reader that this definition needs modification in the infinite-dimensional case, where characters may only exist in the distributional sense. We will discuss this issue in more detail below.

Using the following properties of the signature

$`\mathrm{sig}(VW)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{sig}V\mathrm{sig}W,`$ (23)
$`\mathrm{sig}(VW)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{sig}V+\mathrm{sig}W,`$ (24)
it follows that the characters satisfy the following important algebraic properties

$`\chi (U_1U_2)`$ $`=`$ $`\chi (U_1)\chi (U_2),`$ (25)
$`\chi (U_1U_2)`$ $`=`$ $`\chi (U_1)+\chi (U_2),`$ (26)
(where the right hand side of the first formula may be invalid in certain infinite-dimensional cases when the product of the distributions $`\chi (U_1)`$ and $`\chi (U_2)`$ may be undefined). These are exactly the properties that make the characters useful for analyzing the decomposition of a product representation into a direct sum of irreducible representations. The first property ensures that the character of a product representation is simply the product of the characters of the individual representations. In other words,

$$\chi ^{R_1R_2}=\chi ^{R_1}\chi ^{R_2}.$$

The second property then ensures that if $`R_1R_2=_in_iR_i`$, then

$$\chi ^{R_1R_2}=\underset{i}{}n_i\chi ^{R_i},$$

where the weight $`n_i`$ denotes the degeneracy of the representation $`R_i`$ in the product. In the indefinite metric case, the weight $`n_i`$ will be negative if the inner product on $`R_i`$ is of opposite sign to the usual conventions as in (5), or equivalently, if the lowest weight state has negative norm squared. This is due to the inclusion of the signature in the definition (22) above.

We now discuss some issues specific to infinite-dimensional representations. Note that the definition (22) presupposes that the spectrum of the representation matrix $`U`$ is discrete and that the sum in (22) converges. For our infinite-dimensional representations, this will not be true. However, in this case, one can still define the characters of suitable smeared versions of the operators $`U`$ (see ). The characters become distributions defined on the group manifold.

The group $`SL(2,𝐑)`$ has three distinct families of conjugacy classes. These are the elliptic elements $``$, indexed by the continuous parameter $`\theta `$, of which a typical element is given by $`e^{i\theta L_0}`$, and two families $`_\pm `$ of hyperbolic elements, each indexed by a continuous parameter $`\sigma `$ and with typical element given by $`\pm e^{i\sigma L_1}`$.

The characters of the discrete series representation $`𝒟_h^+`$ were obtained in : The character of the elliptic element $`e^{i\theta L_0}`$ is

$`\chi _{}^{(h)}(\theta )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^{ih\theta }}{1e^{i\theta }}}`$ (27)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^{i(h\frac{1}{2})\theta }}{2i\mathrm{sin}\frac{1}{2}\theta }}.`$
and that of the hyperbolic elements is

$`\chi __\pm ^{(h)}(\sigma )`$ $`=`$ $`\pm \chi _{}^{(h)}(\theta =i\sigma )`$ (28)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pm e^{(h\frac{1}{2})\sigma }}{2\mathrm{sinh}\frac{1}{2}\sigma }}.`$
We now compute the characters of the finite dimensional representations, which we denote by $`\chi ^{(h)}`$ for $`h0`$. Since these representations have the indefinite inner product (11), our definition (22) does not reduce to the ordinary trace, but rather weighs the eigenvalues according to the metric signature of the corresponding eigenspace. We find, for $`h<0`$

$`\chi _{}^{(h)}(\theta )`$ $`=`$ $`e^{ih\theta }(1e^{i\theta }+e^{2i\theta }\mathrm{}+()^{2h}e^{2ih\theta })`$ (31)
$`=`$ $`\{\begin{array}{cc}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{cos}\left(h\frac{1}{2}\right)\theta }{\mathrm{cos}\frac{1}{2}\theta }}\hfill & \text{if }2h\text{ even,}\hfill \\ {\displaystyle \frac{i\mathrm{sin}\left(h\frac{1}{2}\right)\theta }{\mathrm{cos}\frac{1}{2}\theta }}\hfill & \text{if }2h\text{ odd.}\hfill \end{array}`$
The characters of the hyperbolic elements are

$`\chi __\pm ^{(h)}(\sigma )`$ $`=`$ $`\pm \chi _{}^{(h)}(\theta =i\sigma )`$ (34)
$`=`$ $`\{\begin{array}{cc}{\displaystyle \frac{\pm \mathrm{cosh}\left(h\frac{1}{2}\right)\sigma }{\mathrm{cosh}\frac{1}{2}\sigma }}\hfill & \text{if }2h\text{ even,}\hfill \\ {\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sinh}\left(h\frac{1}{2}\right)\sigma }{\mathrm{cosh}\frac{1}{2}\theta }}\hfill & \text{if }2h\text{ odd.}\hfill \end{array}`$
## 8 General products of discrete and finite series representations

The analysis of the product of discrete and finite series can now be carried out by calculating the algebra of the characters. This is most easily done by expanding the characters in powers of $`e^{i\theta }`$ or $`e^\sigma `$ as in the first line of (31), performing the multiplication and collecting terms.

The following cases occur:

When $`h_1>0`$ (discrete series), $`h_2<0`$ (finite series) and $`h_1>|h_2|`$, we have for the elliptic elements

$$\chi _{}^{(h_1)}\chi _{}^{(h_2)}=\chi _{}^{(h_1+h_2)}\chi _{}^{(h_1+h_2+1)}+\mathrm{}\pm \chi _{}^{(h_1h_2)}.$$
(35)
Since we saw that the characters of the hyperbolic elements are related to those of the elliptic elements by the analytic continuation $`\chi __\pm ^{(h)}(\sigma )=\pm \chi _{}^{(h_1)}(\theta =i\sigma )`$, it trivially follows that the same relation is satisfied by the hyperbolic characters. Therefore

$$𝒟_{h_1}^+𝒟_{h_2}\underset{h=h_1+h_2}{\overset{h_1h_2}{}}()^{h_1+h_2h}D_h^+,$$
(36)
where the arrow indicates cohomological reduction with respect to the operator $`Q`$.

Note that this equation (42) weighs representations with both positive and negative signs, which contain information about the signature of the inner product on the corresponding subspaces. More precisely, one should read

$$R_1R_2R_1(R_2),$$

where $`R_2`$ denotes the representation $`R_2`$ but with opposite signature inner product.

When $`h_1>0`$ (discrete series), $`h_2<0`$ (finite series), $`h_1|h_2|`$ and $`h_1+h_2`$ is integral, then

$`\chi ^{(h_1)}\chi ^{(h_2)}`$ $`=`$ $`\chi ^{(h_1+h_2)}+\chi ^{(h_1+h_2+1)}+\mathrm{}+\chi ^{(0)}`$ (37)
$`+\chi ^{(h_1h_2+2)}\chi ^{(h_1h_2+3)}+\mathrm{}\pm \chi ^{(h_1h_2)},`$
where we have suppressed the subscript indicating elliptic/hyperbolic. It follows that

$$𝒟_{h_1}^+𝒟_{h_2}\underset{h=h_1+h_2}{\overset{0}{}}D_h+\underset{h=h_1h_2+2}{\overset{h_1h_2}{}}()^{h+h_1+h_2}D_h^+.$$
(38)
When $`h_1>0`$ (discrete series), $`h_2<0`$ (finite series), $`h_1|h_2|`$ and $`h_1+h_2`$ is half-integral, then

$`\chi ^{(h_1)}\chi ^{(h_2)}`$ $`=`$ $`\chi ^{(h_1+h_2)}+\chi ^{(h_1+h_2+1)}+\mathrm{}+\chi ^{(\frac{1}{2})}+\chi ^{(\frac{1}{2})}`$ (39)
$`\chi ^{(h_1h_2+2)}+\chi ^{(h_1h_2+3)}\mathrm{}\pm \chi ^{(h_1h_2)}.`$
It follows that

$$𝒟_{h_1}^+𝒟_{h_2}\underset{h=h_1+h_2}{\overset{\frac{1}{2}}{}}D_h+D_{\frac{1}{2}}^++\underset{h=h_1h_2+2}{\overset{h_1h_2}{}}()^{h+h_1+h_2+1}D_h^+.$$
(40)
Finally, we calculate the coupling of finite series representations among themselves. When $`h_10`$ and $`h_20`$ (both finite series representations) and $`|h_2||h_1|`$, then, again by expanding in powers of $`e`$ and collecting terms, we find

$`\chi ^{(h_1)}\chi ^{(h_2)}`$ $`=`$ $`\chi ^{(h_1+h_2)}\chi ^{(h_1+h_2+1)}+\mathrm{}\pm \chi ^{(h_1h_2)}.`$ (41)
It follows that

$$𝒟_{h_1}𝒟_{h_2}=\underset{h=h_1+h_2}{\overset{|h_1h_2|}{}}()^{h_1+h_2h}D_h.$$
(42)
In this case, no cohomological reduction is needed to obtain the right hand side. This decomposition is similar to what occurs in the representation theory of $`SU(2)`$. This is as expected, since the finite dimensional representations of $`SU(2)`$ and $`SL(2,𝐑)`$ are simply related by a rotation of two of the generators by $`i`$ (and renaming $`h=j`$). However, unlike the $`SU(2)`$ case, the equation (42) weighs representations with both positive and negative signs, which contain information about the signature of the inner product on the corresponding subspaces.

For completeness, we list the product decomposition of two discrete representations

$$𝒟_{h_1}^+𝒟_{h_2}^+=\underset{h=h_1+h_2}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}D_h^+.$$
(43)
## 9 Associativity

Let us denote by $`R_1\stackrel{~}{}R_2`$ the above cohomological reduction of $`R_1R_2`$ with respect to the operator $`Q`$. The operation $`\stackrel{~}{}`$ is not associative, as can be seen from a simple counterexample

$$𝒟_{\frac{1}{2}}^+\stackrel{~}{}(𝒟_{\frac{1}{2}}^+\stackrel{~}{}𝒟_{\frac{1}{2}})=𝒟_{\frac{1}{2}}^+\stackrel{~}{}\mathrm{𝟏}=𝒟_{\frac{1}{2}}^+,$$

where we have used (38), while

$`(𝒟_{\frac{1}{2}}^+\stackrel{~}{}𝒟_{\frac{1}{2}}^+)\stackrel{~}{}𝒟_{\frac{1}{2}}`$ $`=`$ $`(𝒟_1^+𝒟_2^+𝒟_3^+\mathrm{})\stackrel{~}{}𝒟_{\frac{1}{2}}`$
$`=`$ $`𝒟_{\frac{1}{2}}^+(𝒟_{\frac{3}{2}}^+)𝒟_{\frac{3}{2}}^+(𝒟_{\frac{5}{2}}^+)𝒟_{\frac{5}{2}}^+\mathrm{}`$
where we have used (43) and (36).

From the example it is, however, obvious that the product can be made associative if we make the identification $`R(R)0`$, where we remind the reader that $`R`$ denotes the representation $`R`$ with inner product of opposite signature. In other words, we take the quotient with respect to sums of representations of the form $`R(R)`$. The definition (22) of the characters is obviously invariant with respect to this quotient, and the reduction of $`\stackrel{~}{}`$ with respect to the quotient is associative.

## 10 Coupling of finite-dimensional and continuous series representations

We will start by investigating the decomposition of products of the form $`𝒞_h^ϵ𝒟_h^{}`$ of a principal series and a finite-dimensional series representation. Here $`h=\frac{1}{2}+is`$ for $`s>0`$ real, and $`h^{}=\frac{1}{2},1,\frac{3}{2},\mathrm{}`$.

The first case we consider is

$$𝒞_h^ϵ𝒟_{\frac{1}{2}}.$$

With respect to the (non-normalized) bases $`|f_m^h`$ for $`h=1+is,\frac{1}{2}`$, in which

$`L_{}|f_m^h`$ $`=(m+1h)|f_{m+1}^h`$
$`L_+|f_{m+1}^h`$ $`=(m+h)|f_m^h,`$
the Casimir decomposes into blocks of the form

$$L^2\left(\begin{array}{cc}h(h1)m\frac{1}{4}& (m+1h)\\ (m+h)& h(h1)+m+\frac{3}{4}\end{array}\right)$$

Diagonalizing, we find the eigenvalues of $`L^2`$ to be independent of $`m`$ and given by $`\stackrel{~}{h}(\stackrel{~}{h}1)`$ for $`\stackrel{~}{h}=h\pm \frac{1}{2}`$. In other words, multiplication by $`𝒟_{\frac{1}{2}}`$ takes us from a continuous series representation with $`h=\frac{1}{2}+is`$ to a direct sum of two representations with $`\stackrel{~}{h}=(\frac{1}{2}+is)\pm \frac{1}{2}`$.

However, this is not a true decomposition since the inner product cannot be diagonalized simultaneously with $`L^2`$. Indeed, it is a property of pseudo-hermitian operators such as $`L^2`$ that any complex eigenvalues come in conjugate pairs  and that the corresponding eigenspaces are null, and are not orthogonal but rather dual, meaning that with respect to the eigenbasis in each block the inner product takes the form

$$\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& 1\\ 1& 0\end{array}\right)$$
(44)
To denote this situation we write

$$𝒞_h^ϵ𝒟_{\frac{1}{2}}=𝒞_{h\frac{1}{2}}^ϵ\mathrm{}𝒞_{h+\frac{1}{2}}^ϵ$$
(45)
where the representations $`𝒞_{h\pm \frac{1}{2}}^ϵ`$ with $`h=\frac{1}{2}+is\pm \frac{1}{2}`$ each has degenerate (null) inner product (which explains their absence from the traditional taxonomy of section 2).

To calculate the coupling of $`𝒞_h^ϵ`$ with an arbitrary finite representation $`𝒟_h^{}`$, we note that the latter can all be built up from products of $`𝒟_{\frac{1}{2}}`$. Indeed, from (42) we obtain the recursive relations ($`h=1,\frac{3}{2}\mathrm{})`$

$$𝒟_h=𝒟_{h+\frac{1}{2}}𝒟_{\frac{1}{2}}+𝒟_{h+1}$$
(46)
modulo the identification $`R(R)0`$ discussed in the previous section. Together with (45), this allows us to obtain the decomposition of an arbitrary product. For example, using

$$𝒟_1=𝒟_{\frac{1}{2}}𝒟_{\frac{1}{2}}+𝒟_0$$

we get, for $`h=\frac{1}{2}+is`$,

$`𝒞_h^ϵ𝒟_1`$ $`=𝒞_h^ϵ𝒟_{\frac{1}{2}}𝒟_{\frac{1}{2}}+𝒞_h^ϵ`$
$`=\left(𝒞_{h+\frac{1}{2}}^ϵ\mathrm{}𝒞_{h\frac{1}{2}}^ϵ\right)𝒟_{\frac{1}{2}}+𝒞_h^ϵ`$
$`=𝒞_{h+1}^ϵ\mathrm{}𝒞_{h1}^ϵ+𝒞_h^ϵ\mathrm{}𝒞_h^ϵ+𝒞_h^ϵ`$
$`=𝒞_{h+1}^ϵ\mathrm{}𝒞_{h1}^ϵ+𝒞_h^ϵ`$
where we have used $`𝒞_h^ϵ\mathrm{}𝒞_h^ϵ=𝒞_h^ϵ𝒞_h^ϵ0`$, by diagonalization of the metric (44).

Continuing in this vein, we obtain the product decompositions

$$𝒞_{h_1}^ϵ𝒟_{h_2}=\underset{k=0}{\overset{|h_2|\frac{1}{2}}{}}c_{2|h_2|,k}\left(𝒞_{h_1+h_2+k}^ϵ\mathrm{}𝒞_{h_1h_2k}^ϵ\right)$$
(47)
for $`h_2=\frac{1}{2},\frac{3}{2},\mathrm{}`$, and

$$𝒞_{h_1}^ϵ𝒟_{h_2}=\underset{k=0}{\overset{|h_2|}{}}c_{2|h_2|,k}\left(𝒞_{h_1+h_2+k}^ϵ\mathrm{}𝒞_{h_1h_2k}^ϵ\right)+𝒞_{h_1}^ϵ$$
(48)
for $`h_2=0,1,2,\mathrm{}`$. In these formulae, the nonzero entries in the table of coefficients $`c_{ij}`$ are

$$(c_{ij})=\left(\begin{array}{ccccc}1& & & & \\ 1& & & & \\ 1& 1& & & \\ 1& 3& & & \\ 1& 5& 1& & \\ 1& 7& 9& & \\ 1& 9& 21& 1& \\ 1& 11& 37& 31& \mathrm{}\\ \mathrm{}& & & & \end{array}\right)$$

Here each entry is generated from the sum of the three entries arranged in an L-shape above it. More formally, they are generated from the recursion

$`c_{i+1,j+1}`$ $`=c_{i,j+1}+c_{i,j}+c_{i1,j}`$ (49)
$`c_{0,j}`$ $`=1`$ (50)
$`c_{2i,i}`$ $`=1`$ (51)
which reminds one of the Fibonnacci sequence. In fact, the actual Fibonnacci sequence makes an appearance in the next result:

We now consider the decomposition of products of the supplementary continuous series $`𝒮_h`$, $`0<h<\frac{1}{2}`$ with the finite representations $`𝒟_h^{}`$. In fact, the allowed range of $`h`$ is a priori $`0<h<1`$, but representations indexed by $`h`$ and $`1h`$ are isomorphic, allowing us to restrict attention to half the range. As above, tensoring with $`𝒟_{\frac{1}{2}}`$ gives a direct sum of representations $`𝒮_{h+\frac{1}{2}}`$ and $`𝒮_{h\frac{1}{2}}`$. The first of these is isomorphic to $`𝒮_{\frac{1}{2}h}`$, while the second lies outside the allowed range for unitary $`𝒮_h`$ and once again denotes a representation with degenerate inner product. Since the eigenvalues of $`L^2`$ are distinct and not conjugate, the corresponding eigenspaces are orthogonal, with the metric now taking the form

$$\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& 0\\ 0& 1\end{array}\right).$$
(52)
In contrast to the previous situation, the inner product factorizes and the representations are now independent. If, in addition to the identification $`R(R)0`$ of the previous section, we identify $`RNR`$ whenever the inner product factorizes and $`N`$ is degenerate, we get the identity

$$𝒮_h𝒟_{\frac{1}{2}}𝒮_{\frac{1}{2}h}.$$

Generating $`𝒟_n`$ by repeated tensoring with $`𝒟_{\frac{1}{2}}`$ as in (46), we can now calculate the general product decomposition

$$𝒮_h𝒟_k\mathrm{fib}_k𝒮_{r^k(h)}.$$
(53)
where $`r^krr\mathrm{}r`$ denotes $`k`$ applications of the reflection $`h\frac{1}{2}h`$ and $`\mathrm{fib}_\mathrm{k}`$ denotes the Fibonnacci sequence.

## 11 Products of two continuous series representations

The product decomposition of two continuous series representations is known and may be found in the references . Here we point out an issue that should be addressed when combining those results with the formalism of the current paper. We have from reference

$$𝒞_h^0𝒟_{\frac{1}{2}}^+=\underset{k=\frac{3}{2}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}D_k^++_{\frac{1}{2}}^{\frac{1}{2}+i\mathrm{}}𝑑h^{}𝒞_h^{}^{\frac{1}{2}}.$$

We note the curious fact that the right hand side does not depend on $`h`$. Consequently, neither could its product with the finite-dimensional series representation $`𝒟_{\frac{1}{2}}`$

$$(𝒞_h^0𝒟_{\frac{1}{2}}^+)\stackrel{~}{}𝒟_{\frac{1}{2}}.$$

On the other hand,

$$𝒞_h^0(𝒟_{\frac{1}{2}}^+\stackrel{~}{}𝒟_{\frac{1}{2}})=𝒞_h^0\mathrm{𝟏}=𝒞_h^0,$$

which does depend on $`h`$. In other words, $``$ does not associate over $`\stackrel{~}{}`$. It would be interesting to investigate whether the definition of $`\stackrel{~}{}`$ can be extended to the case where both arguments are in the continuous series, in such a way that associativity is regained. Since this question is likely to need technology beyond the scope of this paper , we defer it to future work.

## 12 Analytic continuation and $`SU(2)`$

It is easily verified that that the finite-dimensional representations of the group $`SL(2,𝐑)`$ may be related to the finite-dimensional representations of $`SU(2)`$ via the transformation $`L_{}=iJ_+`$, $`L_+=iJ_{}`$, $`L_0=J_3`$ and $`h=j`$.

When we apply this transformation to the infinite-dimensional discrete series generators of $`SL(2,𝐑)`$, we obtain an irreducible set of infinite-dimensional operators that formally satisfies the $`su(2)`$ Lie algebra. These generators cannot be exponentiated to give a representation of the full $`SU(2)`$ group, since there exists a theorem stating that any continuous irreducible representation of a compact Lie group is finite-dimensional. However, the generators can be exponentiated on a neighborhood of the identity, where they form so-called “analytic” representations of $`SU(2)`$ as defined by Segal . In  and , we studied the recoupling theory of these infinite-dimensional analytic representations of $`SU(2)`$. The results of the present paper are a straightforward adaptation of the methods used in .

In fact, the decomposition formulae (36), (38), (40), (42) and (43) correspond up to relative signs to the corresponding formulae involving the finite-dimensional (continuous) and infinite-dimensional negative spin (analytic) representations of $`SU(2)`$ studied in .

## 13 Conclusion

In this paper we analyzed the decomposition of tensor products of the infinite dimensional (unitary) and the finite dimensional (non-unitary) representations of $`SL(2,𝐑))`$. Using classical results on indefinite inner product spaces, combined with cohomological methods, we were able to derive explicit decomposition formulae, true modulo a well-defined cohomological reduction, for the tensor products.

As explained in section 11, it would be interesting to revisit the existing results on tensor products between two continuous series representations to better understand whether an associative extension of $`\stackrel{~}{}`$ can be defined.

It would also be interesting to determine whether some of these results can be generalized to other non-compact groups.

## Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the anonymous referee for contributing the idea developed in section 10. I would also like to thank prof. Antal Jevicki and the Brown University Physics department for their support.

## Appendices

## Appendix A BRST cohomology

In the BRST formalism , the analysis of physical states and operators is carried out in terms of an operator $`Q`$ that is hermitian and nilpotent. In other words,

$$Q^{}=Q,Q^2=0.$$

States are called physical if they satisfy

$$Q|\varphi =0,$$

and are regarded as equivalent if they differ by a $`Q`$-exact state. In other words,

$$|\varphi |\varphi +Q|\chi ,$$

where $`|\chi `$ is an arbitrary state. More formally, physical states are elements of the cohomology of $`Q`$, defined as the quotient vector space

$$\mathrm{ker}Q/\mathrm{im}Q$$

with elements

$$[|\varphi ]|\varphi +\mathrm{im}Q.$$

The inner product on this quotient space may be defined in terms of the original inner product by noting that all elements of $`\mathrm{im}Q`$ are orthogonal to all elements of $`\mathrm{ker}Q`$, so that the induced inner product defined on equivalence classes in the cohomology by

$$\varphi +\mathrm{im}Q|\varphi ^{}+\mathrm{im}Q\varphi |\varphi ^{},\varphi ,\varphi ^{}\mathrm{ker}Q$$

is well defined.

A hermitian operator $`A`$ is regarded as physical if $`[A,Q]=0`$. This ensures that $`A`$ leaves $`\mathrm{im}Q`$ invariant, so that the reduced operator $`[A]`$ defined on the cohomology classes by

$$[A][|\varphi ]=[A|\varphi ]$$
(54)
is well-defined.

## Appendix B Operators on indefinite inner product spaces

We review a few general facts regarding hermitian operators on indefinite inner product spaces, also known as pseudo-hermitian operators .

It is important to be aware that not all results that are valid for positive definite spaces are valid when the inner product is not positive definite. For example, not all pseudo-hermitian operators are diagonalizable. A good counterexample is precisely the operator $`Q=𝐉^2`$ above. In addition, not all eigenvalues are necessarily real. In particular, a pseudo-hermitian operator may have complex eigenvalues that come in conjugate pairs.

For our purposes, we will restrict consideration to pseudo-hermitian operators with real eigenvalues, of which $`𝐋^2`$ will be the relevant example. The domain of such an operator $`A`$ can always be decomposed into a direct sum of pairwise orthogonal subspaces, in each of which we can choose a basis such that $`A`$ has the so-called Jordan normal block form

$$\left(\begin{array}{cccc}\lambda & 1& & \\ & \lambda & 1& \\ & & \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}\\ & & & \lambda \end{array}\right)$$
(55)
and the inner product has the form

$$\pm \left(\begin{array}{cccc}& & & 1\\ & & 1& \\ & \mathrm{}& & \\ 1& & & \end{array}\right).$$
(56)
Notice that only the first vector in the subspace is an eigenvector of $`A`$ with eigenvalue $`\lambda `$. If the Jordan block has dimension larger than $`1`$, this eigenvector is null. The vectors $`v`$ in this subspace are called principal vectors belonging to the eigenvalue $`\lambda `$ and satisfy

$$(A\lambda )^mv=0$$

for some integer $`m1`$. The sequence of vectors $`v_i`$ spanning this subspace satisfying

$$Av_i=\lambda v_i+v_{i1}$$

is called a Jordan chain.

## Appendix C Jordan decomposition of $`𝐋^2`$

In this appendix we prove that, in an arbitrary highest weight representation, $`𝐋^2`$ can be decomposed into Jordan blocks of dimension at most two.

First, note that, since $`𝐋^2`$ commutes with $`L_0`$, we can decompose $`𝐋^2`$ into Jordan blocks in each eigenspace of $`L_z`$. Consider such a Jordan block on a subspace $`V_m`$ consisting of principal vectors of $`𝐋^2`$ belonging to an eigenvalue $`h(h1)`$ and with $`L_0`$ eigenvalue $`m`$. Taking any vector $`v`$ in $`V_i`$, by applying $`L_+`$ to it repeatedly we will eventually obtain zero, since by assumption our representation is highest weight, so that the spectrum of weights of $`L_0`$ is bounded from below. This procedure gives a highest weight state $`L_+^kv`$, and we can use (2) to obtain $`h(h1)`$ in terms of the $`L_0`$ eigenvalue $`mk`$ of this highest weight state. Since $`m`$ is integer or half-integer, the possible values of $`h`$ are also integer or half-integer, either positive or negative. In the following, we shall take the positive solution $`h>0`$.

Now consider the sequence of subspaces

$$V_m\stackrel{L_+}{}V_{m1}\stackrel{L_+}{}V_{m2}\stackrel{L_+}{}\mathrm{}.$$

Since $`𝐋^2`$ commutes with $`L_+`$, we see that $`𝐋^2`$ takes each of the subspaces $`V_i`$ to itself. Furthermore, as long as $`i\{h+1,h\}`$, $`L_+`$ cannot change the dimension of these subspaces since that would imply that $`\mathrm{ker}L_{}`$ is not empty, so there would be highest weight states at values of $`i`$ inconsistent with $`j`$. In other words, the dimensions of the above sequence of spaces $`V_i`$ can at most jump at $`i\{h+1,h\}`$. As a corollary, taking into account the fact that the spectrum of $`L_0`$ is bounded from below, the above sequence terminates at either $`i=h+1`$ or $`i=h`$.

Furthermore, $`𝐋^2`$ consists of a single Jordan block on each of the subspaces $`V_i`$. By assumption, this is true for the first element $`V_m`$ of the sequence. In general, assume that $`𝐋^2`$ consists of a single Jordan block on $`V_i`$ and consider $`V_{i1}`$. Since from (2) we have that $`L_{}V_{i1}=L_{}L_+V_i=(𝐋^2+L_0(L_01)V_i`$, we see that $`L_{}V_{i1}V_i`$. Now if $`𝐋^2`$ were to consist of more than one Jordan block on $`V_{i1}`$, each of these blocks would contain an eigenvector of $`𝐋^2`$. Since $`L_{}`$ commutes with $`𝐋^2`$, all these eigenvectors will be taken by $`L_{}`$ to eigenvectors in $`V_i`$, of which there is only one by assumption. Therefore $`L_{}`$ is not one to one, its kernel on $`V_{i1}`$ is nontrivial, and there is a highest weight state in $`V_{i1}`$, which is inconsistent with $`j`$ unless $`i\{h+1,h\}`$. This proves the assertion when $`i\{h+1,h\}`$.

Now consider the case $`i=h`$. The case $`i=h+1`$ is similar. Suppose again that $`𝐋^2`$ consisted of more than one Jordan block, and therefore more than one eigenvector, on $`V_{h1}`$. This would imply, by the above argument, that the operator $`L_{}`$ had nontrivial kernel on $`V_{h1}`$. Choose $`\stackrel{~}{v}_{h1}V_h`$ such that $`L_{}\stackrel{~}{v}_{h1}=0`$. Since $`V_{h1}=L_+V_h`$, there is a $`\stackrel{~}{v}_hV_h`$ such that $`\stackrel{~}{v}_{h1}=L_+\stackrel{~}{v}_h`$. Then $`0=L_{}L_+\stackrel{~}{v}_h=(𝐋^2+L_0(L_01))\stackrel{~}{v}_h`$, which implies that $`\stackrel{~}{v}_h`$ is an eigenvector of $`𝐋^2`$ and therefore is proportional to the unique eigenvector $`v_h`$ in $`V_h`$. Now note that $`L_{}v_{h1}`$ cannot be zero for more than one eigenvector in $`V_{h1}`$, because if that were the case, then by the above argument there would be more than one linearly independent eigenvector of $`𝐋^2`$ in $`V_h`$. Therefore we can find a $`v_{h1}`$ such that $`L_{}v_{h1}=v_h`$. Then $`L_+L_{}v_{h1}=(𝐋^2+L_0(L_0+1))v_{h1}=\left[h(h1)+(h1)h\right]v_{h1}=0`$, or $`L_+v_h=0`$. But we had $`0\stackrel{~}{v}_{h1}=L_+\stackrel{~}{v}_h`$, and $`\stackrel{~}{v}_hv_h`$, which is a contradiction. This proves the assertion when $`i=h`$.

We have proved that $`𝐋^2`$ consists of a single Jordan block on each $`V_i`$. This means that each $`V_i`$ contains one and only one eigenvector. Consequently, since elements in the kernel of $`L_+`$ are automatically eigenvectors, the dimension of the $`V_i`$ can be reduced by at most one at each of the two transition points $`V_h\stackrel{L_+}{}V_{h1}`$ and $`V_{h+1}\stackrel{L_+}{}V_h`$. Since the sequence terminates at either $`V_h`$ or $`V_{h+1}`$, the initial space $`V_m`$ can be at most two-dimensional. This completes the proof that the Jordan blocks of $`𝐋^2`$ are at most two-dimensional.


text:
# Exact Calculation of Ring Diagrams and the Off-shell Effect on the Equation of State

## I Introduction

The thermodynamic properties of a system are fully characterized by its thermodynamic potential, with which one can derive all the thermodynamic functions such as pressure, energy density and entropy density from the well-known thermodynamic relations. With finite temperate field theory, the partition function can be calculated perturbatively for weakly coupling systems such as high temperature phase of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). However, the normal perturbation method can not describe the collective effect which is now believed to play a very important role in understanding the quark-gluon plasma (QGP)possibly formed in relativistic heavy ion collisions. It is therefore necessary to perform resummation to include all high-order contributions in the equation of state of the system in hot and dense medium. In a quasi-particle description, the in-medium effect is reflected in a temperature and density dependent mass only. This effective mass is used to explain the difference between the lattice calculation of the equation of state of QGP and the corresponding Stefan-Boltzmann limit: the particle mass goes up with increasing temperature and then cancels partly the high temperature effect. However, the in-medium effect changes not only the particle mass but also its width. Most discussions concerning thermal width are focused on its relation to particle decay, while how it contributes to equation of state is still unclear. To study the off-shell effect on the equation of state is the main goal of this paper.

Ring diagrams are usually considered in the calculation of partition functions to avoid infrared divergences and in the quark models to form mesons at RPA level. Normally the ring diagrams are calculated only for static mode, namely in the frequency sum only the term with $`n=0`$ is considered. We will calculate the thermodynamic potential with ring diagrams exactly and investigate the off-shell contribution to the equation of state. We first perform in general case the contour integration instead of the frequency sum in the ring diagrams, and derive the thermodynamic potential which contains the contributions from the quasi-particle with temperature dependent mass determined by the pole equation and from the scattering phase shift between the retarded and advanced particle self energy due to off-shell effect. To illustrate the quasi-particle and off-shell contributions to the equation of state related to the study of QGP, we apply our formulas to the popular models, the $`\varphi ^4`$ and $`\varphi ^3`$ theory.

## II Formulas

The thermodynamic potential of a system with ring diagrams can be written as

$$\mathrm{\Omega }=\mathrm{\Omega }_0+\mathrm{\Omega }_1+\mathrm{\Omega }_{ring},$$
(1)
where

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_0=\frac{1}{\beta }\frac{d^3𝐤}{(2\pi )^3}\mathrm{ln}\left(1e^{\beta E_0}\right)$$
(2)
is the free particle contribution with $`E_0=\sqrt{m^2+k^2}`$ being the particle energy and $`\beta =1/T`$ the inverse temperature, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{ring}`$ is defined in Fig.(1). To make the calculation definite we consider in the following meson ring diagrams only. However, the method can be straightly extended to fermions. A shaded circle in Fig.(1) means the particle self-energy $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$. To use the standard definition of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{ring}`$ we have separated $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1`$ with only one self energy on the ring from $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{ring}`$. After the summation over the rings with different number of shaded circles, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{ring}`$ can be expressed as

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_{ring}=\frac{1}{2}\frac{d^3𝐤}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{1}{\beta }\underset{n}{}\left[\mathrm{ln}\left(1+A(i\omega _n,𝐤)\right)A(i\omega _n,𝐤)\right],$$
(3)
where $`\omega _n=2\pi n/\beta `$ with $`n=0,\pm 1,\pm 2,\mathrm{}`$ are the Matsubara frequencies of meson field, and the function $`A(i\omega _n,𝐤)`$ is related to the self-energy $`\mathrm{\Pi }(i\omega _n,𝐤)`$,

$$A(i\omega _n,𝐤)=\frac{\mathrm{\Pi }(i\omega _n,𝐤)}{(i\omega _n)^2+E_0^2}.$$
(4)
By using analytic conjugation and the residue theorem, the frequency summation in $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{ring}`$ can be changed into an integration along the contours $`C_1`$ and $`C_2`$ in the complex energy plane, see Fig.(2). Taking into account the general property for the self-energy with complex energy

$$\mathrm{\Pi }(z,𝐤)=\mathrm{\Pi }(z,𝐤)$$
(5)
and the asymptotic behavior

$`\underset{|z|\mathrm{}}{lim}|z^2A(z,𝐤)|<\mathrm{},`$ (6)
$`\underset{|z|\mathrm{}}{lim}|z^2\mathrm{ln}\left(1+A(z,𝐤)\right)|<\mathrm{},`$ (7)
the frequency summation is finally written as an integration along the positive real axis,

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{ring}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi i}}{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \frac{d^3𝐤}{(2\pi )^3}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}d\omega (1+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{e^{\beta \omega }1}})\times `$ (8)
$`\left(\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{1+A_R(\omega ,𝐤)}{1+A_A(\omega ,𝐤)}}\left(A_R(\omega ,𝐤)A_A(\omega ,𝐤)\right)\right),`$ (9)
where the retarded and advanced functions $`A_R`$ and $`A_A`$ are defined by

$`A_R(\omega ,𝐤)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Pi }_R(\omega ,𝐤)}{(\omega +i\eta )^2E_0^2}},`$ (10)
$`A_A(\omega ,𝐤)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Pi }_A(\omega ,𝐤)}{(\omega i\eta )^2E_0^2}},`$ (11)
with the retarded and advanced self-energies $`\mathrm{\Pi }_R(\omega ,𝐤)=\mathrm{\Pi }(\omega +i\eta ,𝐤)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Pi }_A(\omega ,𝐤)=\mathrm{\Pi }(\omega i\eta ,𝐤)`$ and $`\eta `$ being an infinitesimal positive constant .

Taking integration by parts for the logarithm term of (8) and using

$`A_R(\omega ,𝐤)A_A(\omega ,𝐤)=`$ (12)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2E_0}}\left(2\pi \delta (\omega E_0)\mathrm{\Pi }(\omega ,𝐤){\displaystyle \frac{4E_0}{\omega ^2E_0^2}}Im\mathrm{\Pi }_R(\omega ,𝐤)\right),`$ (13)
we have (the other $`\delta `$ function $`\delta (\omega +E_0)`$ is neglected since the integration over $`\omega `$ is along the positive real axis)

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{ring}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi i}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3𝐤}{(2\pi )^3}_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\omega \left(\omega +\frac{2}{\beta }\mathrm{ln}\left(1e^{\beta \omega }\right)\right)}`$ (17)
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{d}{d\omega }}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{1+A_R(\omega ,𝐤)}{1+A_A(\omega ,𝐤)}}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3𝐤}{(2\pi )^3}\left(1+\frac{2}{e^{\beta E_0}1}\right)\frac{\mathrm{\Pi }(E_0,𝐤)}{E_0}}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3𝐤}{(2\pi )^3}_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{d\omega }{\pi }\left(1+\frac{2}{e^{\beta \omega }1}\right)\frac{2Im\mathrm{\Pi }_R(\omega ,𝐤)}{E_0(\omega ^2E_0^2)}}.`$
From the separation of the logarithm,

$`\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{1+A_R(\omega ,𝐤)}{1+A_A(\omega ,𝐤)}}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{(\omega i\eta )^2E_0^2}{(\omega +i\eta )^2E_0^2}}`$ (19)
$`+`$ $`\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{(\omega +i\eta )^2E_0^2\mathrm{\Pi }_R(\omega ,𝐤)}{(\omega i\eta )^2E_0^2\mathrm{\Pi }_A(\omega ,𝐤)}},`$ (20)
its derivative can be expressed as a free particle part

$$\frac{d}{d\omega }\mathrm{ln}\frac{(\omega i\eta )^2E_0^2}{(\omega +i\eta )^2E_0^2}=2i\pi \delta (\omega E_0),$$
(21)
and a self-energy-dependent part

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{d\omega }}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{(\omega +i\eta )^2E_0^2\mathrm{\Pi }_R(\omega ,𝐤)}{(\omega i\eta )^2E_0^2\mathrm{\Pi }_A(\omega ,𝐤)}}`$ (22)
$`={\displaystyle \frac{d}{d\omega }}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\omega ^2E_0^2\mathrm{\Pi }(\omega ,𝐤)i(Im\mathrm{\Pi }_R(\omega ,𝐤)2\omega \eta )}{\omega ^2E_0^2\mathrm{\Pi }(\omega ,𝐤)+i(Im\mathrm{\Pi }_R(\omega ,𝐤)2\omega \eta )}}`$ (23)
$`=2i{\displaystyle \frac{d\stackrel{~}{\varphi }(\omega ,𝐤)}{d\omega }}`$ (24)
characterized by the phase shift $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }`$ resulted from the difference between the retarded and advanced self-energies.

The total phase shift can be separated into two parts, a pole part $`\varphi _0`$ which leads to the pole equation for quasiparticle and a scattering phase shift $`\varphi _s`$ defined in the region $`[\frac{\pi }{2},\frac{\pi }{2}]`$,

$`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }=\varphi _0+\varphi _s,`$ (25)
$`\varphi _0=\pi \theta (\omega ^2E_0^2\mathrm{\Pi }),`$ (26)
$`\varphi _s(\omega ,𝐤)=\mathrm{arctan}{\displaystyle \frac{Im\mathrm{\Pi }_R(\omega ,𝐤)2\omega \eta }{\omega ^2E_0^2\mathrm{\Pi }(\omega ,𝐤)}},`$ (27)
where we have made use of the property $`Im\mathrm{\Pi }_R(\omega ,𝐤)0`$, which can be observed from the relation between $`Im\mathrm{\Pi }_R(\omega ,𝐤)`$ and the decay rate

$`\omega {\displaystyle \frac{d\mathrm{\Gamma }}{d^3𝐤}}={\displaystyle \frac{Im\mathrm{\Pi }_R(\omega ,𝐤)}{(2\pi )^3(e^{\beta \omega }1)}}.`$ (28)
Substituting (21) and (22) into (17) and considering the fact that the derivative of a $`\theta `$ function is a $`\delta `$ function, we obtain

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{ring}={\displaystyle \frac{d^3𝐤}{(2\pi )^3}\left[\frac{1}{\beta }\mathrm{ln}\frac{1e^{\beta E}}{1e^{\beta E_0}}\frac{1}{e^{\beta E_0}1}\frac{\mathrm{\Pi }(E_0,𝐤)}{2E_0}\right]}`$ (29)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d^3𝐤}{(2\pi )^3}_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{d\omega }{\pi }\frac{1}{e^{\beta \omega }1}\left[\varphi _s(\omega ,𝐤)\frac{Im\mathrm{\Pi }_R(\omega ,𝐤)}{\omega ^2E_0^2}\right]},`$ (30)
where we have neglected the zero-point energy in the vacuum to avoid the ultraviolet divergence. The effective energy $`E=\sqrt{m^2+𝐤^2}`$ in (29) is related to the effective meson mass $`m^{}`$ determined through the pole equation,

$$m^2=m^2+\mathrm{\Pi }(E,𝐤).$$
(32)
The first term in the first square bracket of (29) is the contribution from quasiparticles subtracting the corresponding free particles which will later be cancelled in the total thermodynamic potential $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ by $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$, and the rest in this bracket is an extra term resulted from the free meson propagator between two self-energies(lines between shaded circles in Fig.(1) ). The second line of (29) is due to the imaginary part of the retarded self energy which is reflected in the scattering phase shift $`\varphi _s`$ and an extra term resulted also from the free meson propagators in the ring diagrams in Fig.(1). The connection between the phase of the scattering amplitude and the grand canonical potential was first made by Dashen and continued in  and .

Now we turn to considering the lowest order correction to the thermodynamic potential, namely $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1`$ in (1). Since $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1`$ differs from the second term in (3) with only a sign and a symmetry factor, it can be written as

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_1=\gamma _s\frac{d^3𝐤}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{1}{\beta }\underset{n}{}A(i\omega _n,𝐤)$$
(33)
where the factor $`\gamma _s`$ is due to the difference between the symmetry factor for self-energy and that for partition function. The value of $`\gamma _s`$ is determined by the interaction, it is $`1/4`$ for $`\varphi ^4`$ theory and $`1/6`$ for $`\varphi ^3`$ theory with the lowest order self-energy.

Putting together $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0,\mathrm{\Omega }_1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{ring}`$, the total thermodynamic potential defined through (1) is now written as

$$\mathrm{\Omega }=\mathrm{\Omega }_R+\mathrm{\Omega }_I,$$
(34)
with the $`Re\mathrm{\Pi }`$\- and $`Im\mathrm{\Pi }`$-dependent parts

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_R`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\beta }}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3𝐤}{(2\pi )^3}\mathrm{ln}(1e^{\beta E})}`$ (35)
$``$ $`({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\gamma _s){\displaystyle \frac{d^3𝐤}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{1}{e^{\beta E_0}1}\frac{\mathrm{\Pi }(E_0,𝐤)}{E_0}},`$ (36)
$`\mathrm{\Omega }_I`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d^3𝐤}{(2\pi )^3}_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{d\omega }{\pi }\frac{1}{e^{\beta \omega }1}\varphi _s(\omega ,𝐤)}`$ (37)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d^3𝐤}{(2\pi )^3}_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{d\omega }{\pi }\frac{1}{e^{\beta \omega }1}(\frac{1}{2}\gamma _s)\frac{2Im\mathrm{\Pi }_R(\omega ,𝐤)}{\omega ^2E_0^2}}.`$ (38)
It is clear to see that $`\mathrm{\Omega }_R`$ contains not only a quasi-particle part with a temperature dependent mass $`m^{}`$ hidden in the particle energy $`E`$, but also an extra term coming from the free meson propagator between two self-energies, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_I`$ arises from the off-shell effect which leads to a phase shift $`\varphi _s`$ and a similar extra term. For NJL-type interactions, there is no free propagator between two self-energies, thus the extra terms in $`\mathrm{\Omega }_R`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_I`$ disappear. In this case, the in-medium effect is simple and clear: it results in a quasi-particle with a scattering phase shift. It is also necessary to note that the quasi-particle and phase shift are introduced only from the summation of all ring diagrams. For any ring diagram with fixed number of self-energy $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$, there are no such contributions to $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$.

## III Examples

With the formulas established in the last section, we can evaluate the equation of state including resummation effect for any given self-energy. We now consider some examples to illustrate the exact calculation of ring diagrams and compare it with the usually used quasi-particle approximation. The point we will focus on is the contribution from the off-shell effect included in $`\mathrm{\Omega }_I`$.

Let us first consider $`\lambda \varphi ^4`$ theory. The self-energy to the leading order shown in Fig.(3a) is evaluated analytically for massless particles $`(m=0)`$

$$\mathrm{\Pi }=\lambda T^2.$$
(40)
Since the self-energy is $`\omega `$ and $`𝐤`$ independent, the in-medium correction is reflected in the shift of the particle mass only, and there is no off-shell effect. With the formulas we develop in last section, it reads

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_I=0,`$ (41)
$`\mathrm{\Omega }=\mathrm{\Omega }_R=\mathrm{\Omega }_{quasi}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3𝐤}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{\mathrm{\Pi }}{k}\frac{1}{e^{k/T}1}},`$ (42)
$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{quasi}={\displaystyle \frac{d^3𝐤}{(2\pi )^3}T\mathrm{ln}(1e^{E/T})},`$ (43)
$`E=\sqrt{m^2+k^2},m^2=\mathrm{\Pi }.`$ (44)
After integrating over the angles and scaling the momentum $`k`$ by temperature $`T`$, the quasi-particle and total thermodynamic potentials are both proportional to $`T^4`$,

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{quasi}=a(\lambda )T^4,`$ (45)
$`\mathrm{\Omega }=\left(a(\lambda ){\displaystyle \frac{\lambda }{48}}\right)T^4,`$ (46)
$`a(\lambda )={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑kk^2\mathrm{ln}\left(1e^{\sqrt{\lambda +k^2}}\right).`$ (47)
Note that such temperature scaling arises from the $`T^2`$ dependence of the effective mass $`m^{}`$. For any other temperature dependence, this scaling will be broken.

Fig.(4) shows the quasi-particle and full thermodynamic potentials scaled by the corresponding Stefan-Boltzmann limit as functions of the coupling constant $`\lambda `$. We see that both the quasi-particle and the total thermodynamics can not reach the Stefan-Boltzmann limit, and the deviation becomes more and more significant when the coupling constant increases. This phenomena is fully due to the quasi-particle mass behavior: The particles become heavy in the hot mean field and this mass transport becomes more and more strong with increasing temperature and coupling constant. If we take the coupling constant $`\lambda `$ to be about $`0.3`$, the difference between the lattice calculation of the equation of state of QGP and the corresponding Stefan-Boltzmann limit (about 15 percent) can be accounted. We are now certainly not handling QCD, but the spirit here and that used in  to fit successfully the lattice calculation are quite the same.

We introduce the so-called static-mode correction, which is obtained by taking $`n=0`$ only in the frequency sum in (3). The static mode plays an important role in some recent works as it is related to the soft degrees of freedom in an effective theory dealing with high temperature properties of QGP. Fig.(5) shows the coupling constant dependence of the static-mode and full calculations of the ring diagrams. We see that only in the small $`\lambda `$ region the static-mode calculation is a good approximation, for strong interaction the contribution from the excited modes can not be neglected.

In order to see the contribution from the off-shell effect to the equation of state, we further consider Fock diagram in $`\lambda \varphi ^3`$ theory. Its self-energy to the leading order shown in Fig.(3b) can be explicitly expressed as

$`\mathrm{\Pi }(\omega ,𝐤)`$ $`=`$ $`18\lambda ^2{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \frac{d^3𝐪}{(2\pi )^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4E_1E_2}}[(1+f(E_1)+f(E_2))`$ (51)
$`\times \left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{\omega E_1E_2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\omega +E_1+E_2}}\right)`$
$`(f(E_1)f(E_2))`$
$`\times ({\displaystyle \frac{1}{\omega E_1+E_2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\omega +E_1E_2}})],`$
where the factor $`18`$ is the symmetry factor of the $`\varphi ^3`$ theory, and $`f(z)=1/(e^{\beta z}1)`$ is the boson distribution function. The imaginary part of the retarded self-energy

$`Im\mathrm{\Pi }_R(\omega ,𝐤)`$ $`=`$ $`18\pi \lambda ^2{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \frac{d^3𝐪}{(2\pi )^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4E_1E_2}}[(1+f(E_1)+f(E_2))`$ (55)
$`\times \left(\delta (\omega E_1E_2)\delta (\omega +E_1+E_2)\right)`$
$`(f(E_1)f(E_2))`$
$`\times (\delta (\omega E_1+E_2)\delta (\omega +E_1E_2))]`$
can be simplified as

$`Im\mathrm{\Pi }_R(\omega ,𝐤)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{9\lambda ^2}{8\pi k}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑q{\displaystyle \frac{q}{E_1}}`$ (60)
$`\times [(ϵ(\omega E_1)f(E_1)+f(|\omega E_1|))`$
$`\times \theta (1x_1)\theta (1+x_1)`$
$`+(f(E_1)f(\omega +E_1))`$
$`\times \theta (1x_2)\theta (1+x_2)]`$
with

$`E_1=\sqrt{𝐪^2+m^2},E_2=\sqrt{(𝐤𝐪)^2+m^2},`$ (61)
$`x_1={\displaystyle \frac{k^2\omega ^2+2\omega E_1}{2kq}},x_2={\displaystyle \frac{k^2\omega ^22\omega E_1}{2kq}},`$ (62)
and $`ϵ(x)`$ being the sign function.

By substituting the self-energy and the imaginary part of the retarded self-energy into (35), we obtain a rather complicated expression for the thermodynamic potential, which is now impossible to get analytical result and can only be evaluated numerically. Since the coupling constant $`\lambda `$ in $`\varphi ^3`$ theory is dimensional, we scale it by a momentum cutoff $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=1GeV`$ to get a dimensionless effective coupling constant $`g=\lambda /\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. For all the calculations below, we choose the meson mass in the vacuum to be $`m=200MeV`$. In general, the self-energy $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ depends separately on the variables $`\omega ^2`$ and $`𝐤^2`$. In free space at $`T=0`$, it can only be a function of the relativistically invariant combination $`s=\omega ^2𝐤^2`$. We find, from numerical calculations, that this is also approximately true for $`T0`$, and, since it introduces large computational simplifications, we thus assume this form in the following numerical calculations.

As in $`\lambda \varphi ^4`$ theory, the summation of ring diagrams in hot medium leads to the emergence of quasiparticles with a temperature-dependent mass determined by the pole equation (32). Fig.(6) shows the temperature dependence of the effective mass $`m^{}`$ for different coupling constant $`g`$. Unlike the $`\lambda \varphi ^4`$ theory where the particles obtain mass from the hot medium, the particles in $`\lambda \varphi ^3`$ theory lose mass in the hot medium. For any given coupling constant the effective mass drops down with increasing temperature, and at a high-enough temperature the system finally reaches the limit with $`m^{}=0`$. When the system is beyond this maximum temperature $`T_m`$ determined by $`m^{}(T_m)=0`$, there is no more real mass solution for the pole equation, and it leads to an unphysical jump in thermodynamic potential (34). For the coupling constant $`g=0.5`$, the effective mass $`m^{}`$ falls quite fast and reaches zero at $`T_m=275MeV`$. We show in Fig.(7) the maximum temperature as a function of the coupling constant $`g`$. We see that the maximum temperature increases with decreasing $`g`$.

The resummation of ring diagrams in $`\lambda \varphi ^3`$ theory leads to not only an effective mass but also a scattering phase shift due to off-shell effect. Fig.(8) shows the scattering phase shift $`\varphi _s`$ as a function of the Lorentz-invariant variable $`s`$ at $`T=250MeV`$ for different coupling constant. Since $`sm^2\mathrm{\Pi }(s)<0`$ corresponding to $`m^{}/m<1`$ for the effective mass, the scattering phase shift is always in the region $`0<\varphi _s<\pi /2`$ according to the definition of $`\varphi _s`$ (25). It starts at the threshold energy $`\sqrt{s}=2m`$ for the decay process, then reaches the maximum rapidly, and then gets damped slowly, and finally disappears. Because the off-shell effect in the medium arises from the thermal motion and the interaction of particles, the scattering phase shift increases with increasing temperature and coupling constant.

The off-shell effect reflected in the imaginary part of the retarded self-energy dominates the decay process as shown in (28). For thermodynamics, the thermal motion of free particles, namely $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ is obviously the zeroth order contribution, and the effective mass and scattering phase shift result in leading order corrections. Fig.(9) shows the difference between the static-mode approximation and the full calculation of the ring diagrams for three values of coupling constant. While both $`\mathrm{\Omega }_s`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{ring}`$ increase with increasing coupling constant (note that the scales for $`g=0.1,0.3`$ and $`0.5`$ are different in Fig.(9)), the deviation of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{ring}`$ from $`\mathrm{\Omega }_s`$ is always significant, and even more important for week couplings. This is quite different from the case in $`\varphi ^4`$ theory, see Fig.(5), where the calculation with only static mode is a good approximation in the region of weak coupling. This qualitative difference is mainly from the off-shell effect in the $`\varphi ^3`$ theory. It is the off-shell effect resulted from the frequency sum over the excited modes that leads to the $`Im\mathrm{\Pi }`$-related part in $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{ring}`$, see the second line of (29). Fig.(10) indicates directly the temperature and coupling constant dependence of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_I`$ induced by the off-shell effect. To see how important the off-shell effect on the equation of state is, we plot in Fig.(11) the ratio between the thermodynamical potentials induced by the off-shell effect and by the quasi-particles on the mass-shell. Since the off-shell and quasi-particle effects are the same order correction to the thermodynamical potential, we plot the ratio $`\mathrm{\Omega }_I/(\mathrm{\Omega }_R\mathrm{\Omega }_0)`$ instead of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_I/\mathrm{\Omega }_R`$. It is interesting to note that while both $`\mathrm{\Omega }_I`$ and $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_R\mathrm{\Omega }_0)`$ get enhanced by strong coupling, the ratio is enlarged in weak coupling case. The reason is that the effective mass which dominates $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_R\mathrm{\Omega }_0)`$ changes with coupling constant faster than the change in the scattering phase shift which controls $`\mathrm{\Omega }_I`$.

## IV Conclusions

We have presented an exact calculation of ring diagrams in the frame of finite temperature field theory in imaginary time formalism. The resummation of the ring diagrams not only changes the particle mass, but also generates a scattering phase shift, both are collective effects in the hot medium. Only for the system with self-energy in the mean field approximation, the thermodynamics can be described by quasi-particles. In general case, the corrections from the effective mass and from the scattering phase shift to the equation of state are introduced at the same time. We have applied our formulas to $`\varphi ^4`$ and $`\varphi ^3`$ theories. For the former with the self-energy to the first order, the static-mode can be considered as a good approximation for weak couplings, and the enhanced mass in the hot medium leads to the phenomena that the system can not reach the Stefan-Boltzmann limit at high temperatures. For the latter with the self-energy at Fock level, the suppressed mass in the hot medium results in a maximum temperature where the particles become massless and the system starts to collapse. The off-shell effect in $`\varphi ^3`$ theory generates a scattering phase shift simultaneously when the quasi-particles are formed. The total thermodynamic potential contains a quasi-particle part and an off-shell part. The off-shell part increases with increasing temperature and coupling constant, while its contribution to the total thermodynamics is enhanced in the case of weak couplings. For the coupling constant $`g=0.1`$ the ratio of the off-shell part to the quasi-particle part reaches $`25\%`$ at high temperatures. The formulas developed here will be extended to discuss more realistic systems.

Acknowledgments: This work was supported in part by the grants NSFC19925519, 10135030 and 10105005, and the national research program G2000077407.