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# REFERENCES

THE THERMODYNAMICAL ARROW OF TIME: REINTERPRETING THE BOLTZMANN-SCHUETZ ARGUMENT

Milan M. Ćirković

Astronomical Observatory Belgrade

Volgina 7, 11160 Belgrade

Serbia and Montenegro

arioch@eunet.yu

Received April 25, 2002; revised October 27, 2002

Abstract. The recent surge of interest in the origin of the temporal asymmetry of thermodynamical systems (including the accessible part of the universe itself) put forward two possible explanatory approaches to this age-old problem. Hereby we show that there is a third possible alternative, based on the generalization of the classical (“Boltzmann-Schuetz”) anthropic fluctuation picture of the origin of the perceived entropy gradient. This alternative (which we dub the Acausal-Anthropic approach) is based on accepting Boltzmann’s statistical measure at its face value, and accomodating it within the quantum cosmological concept of the multiverse. We argue that conventional objections raised against the Boltzmann-Schuetz view are less forceful and serious than it is usually assumed. A fortiori, they are incapable of rendering the generalized theory untenable. On the contrary, this analysis highlights some of the other advantages of the multiverse approach to the thermodynamical arrow of time.

Keywords: entropy; arrow of time; anthropic principle; philosophy of cosmology

If the doors of perception were cleansed,

everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.

William Blake, “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” (1793)

1. INTRODUCTION: THE NATURE OF THERMODYNAMICAL EXPLANANDUM

The problem of the time-asymmetry of thermodynamics—already more than a century old in its modern form!—is the following. In our experience, systems increase in entropy in the forward direction of time. The underlying dynamical laws, which are taken to govern thermodynamic systems, however, are symmetric in time: statistical mechanics predicts that entropy is overwhelmingly likely to increase in both temporal directions. So where does the asymmetry of thermodynamics and of our experience generally come from? It was, of course, the great Ludwig Boltzmann who—prompted by Loschmidt, Culverwell and Burbury (joined later by Zermelo)—asked that deep question, contingent on his statistical explanation of thermodynamical phenomena; in his words, “is the apparent irreversibility of all known natural processes consistent with the idea that all natural events are possible without restriction?”$`^{(\text{1})}`$

During the last decade we have been witnessing a renaissance of interest in the problem of thermodynamical asymmetry of the world around us among physicists and philosophers alike (e.g., Refs. 2-7). In two recent remarkably clear and interesting papers, Australian philosopher of science Huw Price attempted to show that there are two competing projects for the explanation of the perceived thermodynamical asymmetry, which he labels Causal-General and Acausal-Particular approaches.(8,9) Furthermore, his intention was to show the superiority of the Acausal-Particular approach, which is in accordance with other pieces of his atemporal worldview, which he also presented in his recent brilliant monograph on the subject of temporal asymmetries (Ref. 3). The answer Price advocates relies on a low-entropy initial boundary condition: if the initial state of the universe is one of extremely low entropy, then Boltzmannian statistical considerations yield an overwhelmingly likely entropy increase towards the future throughout the history of the universe. Price contrasts this account—a version of what he calls the Acausal-Particular approach—with those theories that derive thermodynamic asymmetry from some underlying asymmetric causal or dynamical mechanism operating at all times (like the quantum-mechanical state reduction in quantum theories with dynamical reduction), what he calls Causal-General views (cf. Ref. 5). Causal-General views necessarily contradict Boltzmann’s attitude toward the time-reversal asymmetry: “This one-sidedness lies uniquely and solely in the initial conditions.” To Price’s mind, these two kinds of account are the only serious contenders to explain the time-asymmetry of thermodynamics.

In this paper, we would like to show that this account (implicitly accepted by other recent writers on the topic) is biased and lacking some important ingredients. While the desire for clarification of the common explanatory task is highly commendable, it is important that the taxonomy is kept both maximally comprehensive and just. The suggested taxonomy fails in one important respect: it fails to notice an alternative to both the Causal-General and Acausal-Particular views. Therefore, we would like here to point out that from Price’s Acausal-Particular approach bifurcates another option which deserves a separate mention in reviewing the ways toward the explanation of thermodynamical asymmetry. This third approach differs markedly from the other two in its conception of what needs to be done to solve the puzzle. In proposing this, we follow the lead of Price himself who, introducing his two proposals, points out that (Ref. 9, sec. 1.1)

> So far as I know, the distinction between these two approaches has not been drawn explicitly by other writers. Without it, it is not easy to appreciate the possibility that many familiar attempts to explain the time-asymmetry of thermodynamics might be not mistaken so much as misconceived—addressed to the wrong problem, in looking for time-asymmetry in the wrong place.

We shall see that, unfortunately, “those who use the sword will be killed by the sword”, and that there are several instances in which Price’s own favorite proposal is misconceived, for exactly the same reason: searching for a solution to the puzzle in the wrong place.

The second goal of the present note is to demonstrate that the classical arguments (accepted unquestioningly by Zeh, Price, Albert and other contemporary authors) against the classical Boltzmann-Schuetz anthropic fluctuation picture are much less forceful than it was hitherto assumed. This serves an important role in bringing the atypical initial cosmological conditions within the domain of physical explanation.

2. ACAUSAL-ANTHROPIC APPROACH

Our first motivation is a full and faithful acceptance of Price’s account of the nature of the explanatory task ahead (Ref. 8, section 2.2):

> First of all, let’s assume that basic explanatory questions are of the form: ’Given that C, why E rather than F?’ The thought here is that we never explain things in isolation. We always take something as already given, and seek to explain the target phenomena in the light of that. C represents this background, and E the target phenomenon. (C might comprise accepted laws, as well as ’boundary conditions’ being treated as ’given’ and unproblematic for the purposes at hand.)

We should, naturally, seek to make C maximally comprehensive. Obviously, our existence as observers is part of the necessary background. Should it not be included in C? (“It is very much in the spirit of scientific inquiry to welcome any theory which widens the range of applicability of science.”—Ref. 10, p. 74) In most practical physical applications it is irrelevant, at least in the first approximation (and therefore is usually omitted, although reasons for the omission are seldom explicated). Our existence as observers hardly impacts on the explanatory project for, say, matter-enhanced neutrino oscillations or fractional Hall effect. However, in the cosmological context, leaving observers out of the picture does not lead to happy consequences, as was first shown by Dicke and Carter in 1960s and 1970s. The debate between Dirac and Dicke on the nature of explanatory projects for the “large number coincidences” is especially instructive in this respect, since several parallels with the projects for explaining thermodynamical asymmetry can be drawn. The reader may recall that the famous “Dirac’s hypothesis” (or the “large-number hypothesis”) to explain the ubiquitous dimensionless number 1040, came from a bold suggestion that all these numerical coincidences are in fact exact equations related to the age of the universe.(11) In other words, the relevant number is large because the universe is old.

From this profound and simple (but wrong!) idea, Dirac and later investigators (e.g., Ref. 12) have deduced a wealth of extremely interesting and challenging empirical predictions, the most famous being the decrease in the Newtonian gravitational constant $`G`$ during cosmological evolution. Using the completely opposite approach, Dicke(13) has suggested that large number coincidences are observed only because any conceivably different values to such dimensionless quantities would be incompatible with our existence as intelligent observers (and consequently the relationships are only approximate). Consequently, the two explanatory projects, Dirac’s and Dicke’s, found themselves in the open arena of physical investigations.

Not only has subsequent empirical evidence disproved Dirac’s ideas; notably, the decreasing $`G`$ has been spectacularly falsified by experiments with the Viking space probes, as well as in the binary pulsar experiments,(14,15) but more important is the fact that the subsequent developments show Dirac’s general approach to be rather sterile in comparison to Dicke’s. What we are really interested in here is a comparison of explanatory approaches. We can schematically compare the view of the large-numbers explanandum in this case:

Dirac: “objective” coincidences (no properties of observers included in C);

Dicke: “observed” coincidences (properties of observers included in C).

The outcome of that particular duel should warn us against dogmatism when cosmological theories are the subject of inquiry.111 In spite of the fact that Dirac himself emphasized the “optimistic” nature of his explanation in comparison: “On Dicke’s assumption habitable planets could exist only for a limited period of time. With my assumption they could exist indefinitely in the future and life need never end.”(16) This goes some steps toward addressing vulgar objections still heard in some quarters that anthropic explanations are anthropocentric or even “cozy” (e.g., Ref. 17).

With this in mind, we propose a novel approach to the explanation of thermodynamical asymmetry, one which could be labeled (for the reasons explained below) the Acausal-Anthropic approach. It represents a Dicke-like approach applied to the specific problem of thermodynamical asymmetry and the nature (entropy-wise) of the cosmological initial conditions. To understand what this proposal encompasses, perhaps the best way is to use Price’s “parsing” the natural phenomena for the different approaches (Ref. 8, §2.3; Ref. 9, §3.1-3.2). Applied to the Acausal-Anthropic approach, it may look like this:

Symmetric boundary conditions—entropy high in the past

Symmetric default condition—entropy likely to be high (always)

\+ Asymmetric observational selection effect

\_____________________________________________________

Observed asymmetry

This should be compared with similar parsing schemes for the Causal-General:

Asymmetric boundary condition—entropy low in the past

\+ Asymmetric law-like tendency—entropy constrained to increase

\_____________________________________________________

Observed asymmetry

and Acausal-Particular views(8):

Asymmetric boundary condition—entropy low in the past

\+ Symmetric default condition—entropy likely to be high, ceteris paribus

\_____________________________________________________

Observed asymmetry.

The basic idea of the Acausal-Anthropic approach is that, having already received from (quantum) cosmology a useful notion of the multiverse, we could as well employ it in order to account for the prima facie extremely improbable choice of (local) initial conditions. In other words, we imagine that everything that exists, for which we shall use the term multiverse,222 Not to be confused with the multiverse of quantum mechanics (“Everett’s multiverse” = the totality of wavefunction branches). Here we refer to the multiverse of quantum cosmology (“Linde’s multiverse” = set of different cosmological domains, possibly causally and/or topologically disconnected from ours). This distinction does not preclude the relationship between the two, however. But that relationship belongs to the quantum-cosmological domain and is certainly beyond the scope of the present manuscript. represents a “Grand Stage” for the unfolding of—among other things—the thermodynamical histories of chunks of matter. Entropy in the multiverse is high almost everywhere and at all times (“almost” here meaning “everywhere minus a possible subset of small or zero measure”). In other words, the multiverse is, formally speaking, in the state of “heat death”, as envisaged by classical thermodynamics.(18,19) Our cosmological domain (“the universe”) represents a natural fluctuation—presumably of small or zero measure; but the anthropic selection effect answers the question “why do we find ourselves on an upward slope of such a fluctuation?” Hence what needs explaining is not that there are such fluctuations (this is entailed by Boltzmann’s statistical measure); nor the fact that the local initial conditions are of extremely low probability (this results from a distribution over all domains); but the fact that we happen to live in such an atypical region of the “grand total” which is almost always in equilibrium. And that is to be explained by showing why the observed entropy gradient is necessary for our existence as intelligent observers.333 Note that we employ the term “acausal” here in the same sense as Price does: the absence of law-like reason explaining a particular feature of the physical world. This usage has nothing to do with Lorentz invariance, superluminal motions and the like! It has been recognized for quite some time in the philosophy of physics that there are two rather different meanings attached to the notion of “causality”. Causality as a geometrical relation between events on the spacetime manifold is different from causality as an order relation between stages of a developing physical process. In accordance with Horwitz, Arshansky, and Elitzur,(67) we may call the former spacetime causality and the latter process causality. The Anthropic-Acausal approach described here is acausal in the sense of process causality, not in the sense of spacetime causality.

From the point of view of the present Acausal-Anthropic approach, Boltzmann (and his assisstant Dr. Shuetz to whom he gave credit for the original idea; see Ref. 20) was on the right track in proposing what came to be known as the “anthropic fluctuation” picture.(21) The idea was to explain the local thermodynamical disequilibrium by appealing to the size of the universe and the conditions necessary for our existence. Remember the famous words of the Viennese master(20):

> If we assume the universe great enough, we can make the probability of one relatively small part being in any given state (however far from the state of thermal equilibrium), as great as we please. We can also make the probability great that, though the whole universe is in thermal equilibrium, our world is in its present state. It may be said that the world is so far from thermal equilibrium that we cannot imagine the improbability of such a state. But can we imagine, on the other side, how small a part of the whole universe this world is? Assuming the universe great enough, the probability that such a small part of it as our world should be in its present state, is no longer small.

In other words, in the Boltzmann-Schuetz view the world in general is in the state of maximal entropy (“heat death”). We exist within a fluctuation of low entropy (without reason, i.e. acausally!), which makes our existence possible. Thus, any acausal version of the explanatory project on even vaguely “Boltzmannian” grounds has to include the anthropic selection effect. Boltzmann and Schuetz thus, in our present view, were on the right track, and could not have done better under the circumstances. What they did lack was the input of modern cosmology, exemplified by the multiverse concept.444Boltzmann understood the difficulties of his position quite well; there are several examples of his regarding his cosmological thoughts as remote speculations. If we summon such help, we may truly inherit the Boltzmannian project of setting up the explanatory proposal for the observed entropy asymmetry.

How many domains are required in order to account for the observed thermodynamical asymmetry? While the exact answer is difficult to conceive, we may follow the lead of Penrose and use the Bekenstein-Hawking formula(22,23) to estimate the lower limit on the size of ensemble of domains in which we expect to find one similar to ours on purely probabilistic grounds. Obviously, the celebrated Boltzmann formula $`S=\mathrm{ln}W`$ (in “natural” $`k=1`$ units we shall use in the entire discussion) suggests that the required number is $`N_{\mathrm{min}}\mathrm{exp}S_{\mathrm{max}}`$, where $`S_{\mathrm{max}}`$ is the entropy of the state of maximal probability of the matter in our domain (what would be traditionally called the entropy of the “heat death” state). However, our domain is limited by our particle horizon at present, and will be almost certainly limited(24,25) by an event horizon, due to the contribution $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ of the vacuum energy density (“cosmological constant”). Numerically, the difference between the two in the realistic case is not very large in cosmological terms ($``$1 Gpc), so we will not make a big error in attributing the state of low entropy to those currently invisible (but visible to our descendants!) parts of our domain between the particle and the event horizon. Thus, we need to account for the entropy of matter of cosmological density $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ (predominantly in CDM or similar particles, with $``$15-20% of baryons). On the assumption that our domain is globally flat, with no net electric charge and no net angular momentum, we obtain:

$$\begin{array}{c}N_{\mathrm{min}}\frac{\mathrm{exp}S_{\mathrm{max}}}{\mathrm{exp}S_0}=\frac{1}{\mathrm{exp}S_0}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{c^3}{G\mathrm{}}\frac{A}{4}\right)=\frac{1}{\mathrm{exp}S_0}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{4\pi G}{\mathrm{}c}m^2\right)\hfill \\ =\frac{1}{\mathrm{exp}S_0}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{\pi }{G\mathrm{}c}H_0^4\mathrm{\Omega }_m^2R_h^6\right),\hfill \end{array}$$
(1)
where $`H_0`$ is the present-day Hubble constant, and $`R_h`$ the size of the horizon. Using the case of an event horizon which is fixed by the magnitude of the cosmological constant only (e.g., Ref. 26),

$$R_h=\frac{c}{H_0\sqrt{\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }}},$$
(2)
we obtain the following remarkable expression (for the flat $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m+\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=1`$ universe):

$$N_{\mathrm{min}}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{\pi c^5}{G\mathrm{}}\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_m^2}{\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }^3}\frac{1}{H_0^2}S_0\right)=\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{\pi c^5}{G\mathrm{}}\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_m^2}{\left(1\mathrm{\Omega }_m\right)^3}\frac{1}{H_0^2}S_0\right].$$
(3)
We notice the appearance of all major constants of nature (including the “silent” Boltzmann constant, which is omitted since we are working in “natural” units!) in this formula, with the exception of the elementary charge, which is reasonable since we are dealing with the standard electrically neutral universe. In addition, the total entropy of our cosmological domain, $`S_0`$, appears and it represents, in a sense, the outcome of all and every process which has actually taken place since the beginning of time!

How big is the realistic entropy $`S_0`$? The conventional answer is simple: the entropy is by far dominated by the photons of the cosmic microwave background, whose specific entropy (“entropy-per-baryon”) is a well-known dimensionless number (e.g., Ref. 21):

$$s_{CMB}=\left(\frac{n_\gamma }{n_B}\right)_010^8,$$
(4)
where $`n_\gamma `$ and $`n_B`$ are number densities of photons and baryons respectively. Taking the standard estimate that the total number of baryons within horizon is $``$1080-81, we may be certain that $`S_0`$ is not larger than 1090 (in natural units as well).

The common numerical values of the cosmological parameters $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ ($``$ 0.3) and $`H_0`$ ($``$ 60 km s-1 Mpc$`{}_{}{}^{1})`$ inserted in (3) give us a stupendous double exponential

$$N_{\mathrm{min}}\mathrm{exp}(1.9\times 10^{121}).(!!!)$$
(5)
At least that many domains in the multiverse are needed to account for the observed asymmetry in this manner.(27) (This is easily generalized to the case of charged or rotating universe characterized by some other set of parameters, but their exact values make almost no difference when numbers of such magnitude are involved.) This is the price one must pay for embedding the atypical initial conditions into a wider manifold (see below, §4). Of course, the total number of domains may be infinite, in which case the conclusions of Ellis and Brundrit(28) will apply, and any worry about the “specialty” of our initial conditions is immediately discarded. On the truly global scale—i.e. in the multiverse—there is no thermodynamical asymmetry, no arrow of time.

Note that the end result of both this and the two proposals Price describes—given by the parsing schemes above—is the same: it is an observed asymmetry. However, the attribute seems superfluous in both Acausal-Particular and (especially) Causal-General approaches. It has no function at all in either approach. Only in the anthropic approach advocated here it does receive a proper place in the core of the perceived explanandum. Is “observed” in this context the same as “objective” or it is not? By equivocating on this, Price attaches a strongly realist (indeed, essentialist) character to the two approaches he favors. Boltzmann and Schuetz, on the contrary,adopt more cautious stance and employ the attribute “observed” in its true and literal meaning (i.e. observed by intelligent observers possessing specific capacities, epistemic and otherwise).

In other words, a symbolic way of roughly representing the relationship of the present approach to the Boltzmann-Schuetz hypothesis is the following scheme:

Acausal-Anthropic approach = (Boltzmann measure + anthropic selection effect) +

\+ the multiverse =

= Boltzmann-Schuetz picture + the multiverse.

(It is necessary to qualify this as “roughly”, since the cosmological data of the XX century has been fully taken into account in the present approach, data which Boltzmann was, naturally, completely ignorant about.) The multiverse or world ensemble has by now become quite a familiar term to cosmologists, as well as to at least some philosophers. Thus, Bostrom cogently writes:(29)

> …The meaningfulness of the \[world\] ensemble hypothesis is not much in question. Only those subscribing to a very strict verificationist theory of meaning would deny that it is possible that the world might contain a large set of causally fairly disconnected spacetime regions with varying physical parameters. And even the most hardcore verificationist would be willing to consider at least those ensemble theories according to which other universes are in principle physically accessible from our own universe. (Such ensemble theories have been proposed, although they represent only a special case of the general idea.)

The anthropic selection effect is nothing particularly new either. It was the great French physicist, mathematician and philosopher Henry Poincaré who first noted that the functioning of an intelligent mind would have been impossible in an entropy-decreasing universe.(30) Later it was elaborated by Norbert Wiener in his celebrated Cybernetics (Ref. 31, p. 35):

> Indeed, it is a very interesting intellectual experiment to make the fantasy of an intelligent being whose time should run the other way to our own. To such a being, all communication with us would be impossible. Any signal he might send would reach us with a logical stream of consequents from his point of view, antecedents from ours. These antecedents would already be in our experience, and would have served to us as the natural explanation of his signal, without presupposing an intelligent being to have sent it. If he drew us a square, we should see the remains of his figure as its precursors, and it would seem to be the curious crystallization—always perfectly explainable—of these remains. Its meaning would seem to be as fortuitous as the faces we read into mountains and cliffs. The drawing of the square would appear to us as a catastrophe—sudden indeed, but explainable by natural laws—by which that square would cease to exist. Our counterpart would have exactly similar ideas concerning us. Within any world with which we can communicate, the direction of time is uniform.

What the father of modern computer science had in mind, is that the existence of an entropy gradient of particular size in a sufficiently large region of space is a necessary precondition for the cognitive operations of intelligent life as we know it. In order to immediately preempt any misgivings about the alleged anthropocentrism which undeservedly follow practically any anthropic argument, it should be explicitly stated that this property does not have any particular association with homo sapiens (except the trivial and temporary one that we are the only certain example of intelligent observers known so far; that circumstance is likely to change soon, as a result of either SETI or AI efforts).

Of course, the premiss that intelligent observers select particular entropic behavior (and thus entail a temporal asymmetry) should not be taken for granted—and here we come to the crux of the explanatory task ahead. Instead of searching for strange, hitherto never seen time-asymmetric microprocesses (as in the Causal-General approach), or attempt to find a new law applying to global singularities (as in the Acausal-Particular approach), here we would like to investigate and ascertain why intelligent observers are dependent on the entropy gradient to function. This, obviously, brings explanatory tasks into the realm of information theory, but also to the disciplines like complexity theory, cognitive sciences, and neurosciences. But this does not mean these are not physical questions! An awareness that the link between information theory and various physical theories is the centre piece of any attempt at understanding nature has been rapidly growing over several decades. Since the brilliant book by Brillouen(32), physicists are gradually getting accustomed to the idea, (e.g., Refs. 33-35), and this struck cord with philosophers too (for a particularly nice example, see Ref. 36). On the other hand, the working philosophy of computationalism has become established as the basis of the bulk of cognitive sciences(37). In all quarters one may nowadays hear scholarly debates on “physical reductionism”, “monism”, “physicalism” and many other labels which pertain to essentially the same thing: that cognition (and the various phenomena associated with it, including the apparent temporal asymmetry) is, in principle, explicable in physical terms. That we are still far from such an explanation, is certainly unnecessary to elaborate upon. Thus, the project suggested here is neither non-physical nor easy!555 As an aside, let us note that the issue of the psychological arrow of time has been lightly and casually dismissed by most writers of the temporal (a)symmetry as a (matter-of-course) consequence of the thermodynamical arrow (e.g. Ref. 38). This uncritical behavior has been criticized in the influential paper of John Earman(39), and we might add only that, given the contemporary state of the issue, the critique has been too mild! There is no single piece of hard evidence produced so far that the psychological arrow can be reduced in such way to the thermodynamical one; one of the priority tasks within the proposed Acausal-Anthropic approach would be to clarify this difficult issue from the point of view of the information theory and cognitive sciences.

We notice that this still represents the one-asymmetry approach, a sort of a cousin to the Acausal-Particular approach. However, the asymmetry is located at a different place from the one in the Acausal-Particular approach favored by Price. Very roughly speaking, we need information theory and cognitive science rather than quantum gravity or even the “Theory of Everything”—which presumably, although Price remains silent on the issue, determines the nature of the initial low-entropy conditions necessary for operation of the Acausal-Particular mechanism. The fact that we seem to know more about the former than about the latter (especially since quantum cosmology, through its multiverse theories, demonstrates that the true “Theory of Everything” may not exist at all; cf. Refs. 40-42) is another advantage of the Acausal-Anthropic approach.

A possible objection against this explanatory project may be formulated as follows. How did the multiverse come into being? If it came into being by, say, a particular form of spontaneous symmetry breaking, would not that count as manifestly unidirectional process in time? In other words, it may look as if the concept of the multiverse itself presumes an arrow of time.666 Special thanks are due to one of the anonymous referees for bringing the author’s attention to this interesting point. This certainly contradicts what we have said about Boltzmann’s statistical measure and the totality of cosmological domains being in perpetual thermodynamic equilibrium. Two recourses are available for defense of the Acausal-Anthropic approach, both belonging to the core of quantum cosmology (and the accompanying ontology) and each being worthy a lengthy discourse in its own right. First, we may argue that the multiverse, being the grand stage for everything that happens, holds a privileged position and is not further explicable. So, any theory pertaining to explain the multiverse itself would be superfluous, since the multiverse is a “brute fact”. This would be the most straightforward generalization of the original Boltzmann-Schuetz idea (cf. Chapter 2 of Ref. 43). A more interesting defensive strategy would be to argue that the critique actually restricts a range of possible multiverses to those which are, in Linde’s terms “eternal, self-reproducing fractals.” Its eternal nature obviates the need for explaining its origination, and its self-reproducing feature enables what philosophers call “explanatory self-subsumption.” If the principle necessarily has the feature it speaks of, then it necessarily will apply to itself (cf. Ref. 44). Individual domains—“universes”—are created and destroyed (for instance, through return to the Planck space-time foam upon recollapse), but the multiverse itself stays completely time-reversible. Of course, further elaboration of these ideas is certainly necessary, but the objection does not seem to be fatal at the moment.

So, what are the additional benefits of this project, beyond a novel look at the explanandum of thermodynamical asymmetry? We have already seen some of them: dropping the ceteris paribus clause, for instance. We are now free to state that entropy is always high in by far the predominant part of everything that exists. Thus we avoid “a surprising consequence of the one-asymmetry view:”(9) the fact that Boltzmann’s statistics—being based upon temporally symmetric probabilities—implies high entropy in the past as well as in the future. And we avoid it in a natural and simple manner, which Boltzmann has endorsed himself!

However, the greatest advantage comes from the possibility of connecting to cosmology, and especially contemporary currents in quantum cosmology. This is achieved without much further effort which the Acausal-Particular approach necessitates. From Bruno, who argued for innumerable worlds by using a specific form of the principle of plenitude, to Hume and his “innumerable worlds botched and bungled,” to Linde, Vilenkin and other modern cosmologists, as well as some respected contemporary philosophers,(43,45) people by and large did not take this issue lightly and casually. There are several different approaches which all lead to the conclusion that what we perceive as our cosmological domain is just a minuscule fraction of everything that exists (cf. Refs. 40, 46).

A brief historical aside seems due at the end of this section. The Acausal-Anthropic view in the modern (post-Boltzmann) sense was first formulated by Clutton-Brock(47). As the story often goes, this highly unorthodox contribution was published in an astronomical journal of rather modest circulation and went almost unnoticed. Clutton-Brock explicitly considered the distribution of the initial entropy-per-baryon over the set of existing worlds, and concluded that only a relatively narrow range of this quantity permits the formation of the complex structures we perceive and, presumably, the formation of life itself.777 It should be noted that Clutton-Brock was not dogmatic on this; in Ref. 48 he proposes a version of the Gold model close to the one Price favors.  The importance of his results has, however, been slightly obscured by some unnecessary assumptions, as well as by confusion over the two types of the multiverse that have been proposed (see footnote 2). Similar analysis for the parameter $`Q`$, describing the amplitude of cosmic microwave background fluctuations, has been given only recently by Tegmark and Rees(49), who discuss the anthropic selection effects plausibly underlying the magnitude of the anisotropies of the early universe, as detected recently with COBE. This point is directly related to the problem of low initial entropy, since these authors correctly identify the amplitude of these fluctuations in microwave background radiation with the amplitude of gravitational potential fluctuations in the early universe when they enter the horizon. The observed fact that this number is of the order of $`Q`$ 10-5 cannot be derived from known physical theories, and—as Tegmark and Rees emphasize at the very beginning of their paper—one may either wait for some future fundamental theory from which $`Q`$could be computed or take the option (supported independently by various inflationary scenarios) that it is effectively a random number drawn from some wide distribution whose observed values will be constrained by the anthropic selection. What they persuasively demonstrate in the rest of their paper is that such constraints are effective in keeping the expected observed value in the approximate interval $`10^6Q10^4`$.

3. IS BOLTZMANN-SCHUETZ INTRINSICALLY UNTENABLE?

What problems may the Acausal-Anthropic view face? There are two objections to the Boltzmann-Schuetz version of this view, both of which have surfaced from time to time in the literature. We shall denote each by using the names of the two famous 20th century physicists who elucidated them. Before we investigate their status, two issues should be kept in mind.

(I) Strictly speaking, the Acausal-Anthropic view we propose does not need to answer these objections, since the multiverse is not necessarily the same topologically connected entity to which these objection refer. However, we shall show the weakness of these arguments even against the classical Boltzmann-Schuetz picture, in order to re-display the one-sidedness of Price’s account, who almost casually dismisses this proposition.888 Telling is his locution that anthropic selection suggested by Boltzmann makes “this option less unappealing than it initially seems.” (Ref. 9, §3.4—underlined by M. M. Ć.)  An important motivation for doing this is that we are still very much in the dark about the detailed physical nature of the multiverse (and in particular, the issue of its causal structure). But, obviously, if we weaken the arguments against the “one- domain” anthropic picture (i.e. the classical Boltzmann-Schuetz view), the multiverse view may just benefit.

(II) Any reasonable defense of the Boltzmann-Schuetz picture must be qualified, since the progress of modern cosmology has made obsolete practically all ideas about the universe on the largest scales which were current at the end of the 19th century.999This point is probably the content of Price’s remark (Ref. 8, §1) that “this strategy \[Boltzmann-Schuetz\], never entirely satisfactory, seems to have been decisively overturned by recent work in cosmology.” Thus, this theory is certainly indefensible when set against the objection that the empirically established age of (our) universe is much shorter than the timescale required for large entropy fluctuations. Many other—mainly astrophysical— objections, related to inhomogeneities in the distribution of matter, the universal photon heat bath, entropy production in stars and black holes, quantum properties of matter, the existence of horizons, etc., could also be stated if the Boltzmann-Schuetz picture is to be taken literally nowadays. After all, that is the main reason why we have adjoined the multiverse concept to this picture in presenting the Acausal-Anthropic view above. In contrast, in the rest of this section we shall question the intrinsic tenability of the Boltzmann-Schuetz picture, without entering too much into the empirical considerations stemming from perceived astrophysics. The point is to show that the classical objections are significantly overrated, and that by embedding this picture into contemporary multiverse theories we can gain much more than we can lose. In other words, the death of the anthropic-fluctuation picture has been somewhat prematurely proclaimed.

That said, let us consider the argument Price and other critics put forward against the Boltzmann-Shuetz view. We have:

1. Feynman’s argument (FA): why is the size of low-entropy fluctuation so much larger than is necessary for the emergence of intelligent observers on Earth?(50)

2. von Weizsäcker’s argument (vWA): How could we believe the information of a low entropy past, when a smaller (and eo ipso likelier) fluctuation is sufficient to produce such (false or misleading) evidence?(51)

Let us consider FA first. There is an obvious way out (first hinted at by Schelling in the early 19th century!): simply deny the antecedent—namely the assertion that less (low entropy) space is required for the emergence of intelligent observers than we perceive. This assertion is by no means obvious, since we still know too little about the physical and chemical preconditions for the origin of life, not to mention intelligence. Suppose, for instance, that the conventional Oparin-Haldane (“warm little pond”) hypothesis for the origin of life (e.g., Ref. 52) is unsupported or wrong (as many researchers have claimed; e.g., Refs. 53-55). The most serious scientific alternative to the received view is the panspermia hypothesis: the view that life was formed at some other place in the universe and has been brought to Earth via either terrestrial encounters with interstellar dust, clouds or comets or even the intentional action of an advanced galactic civilization(56-58). It is immediately clear that the size requirements of these two views (Oparin-Haldane vs. panspermia) are significantly different. If the a priori probability of a spontaneous assembly of complex molecules necessary for the creation of life is of the order of 10$`^{\text{}3000}`$ (or even less, as has been suggested in the references critical of the received view), then we are entitled to insist on a much larger spatiotemporal volume than the conventional “warm little pond” on a single planet. Such a larger volume is necessary even if we know, for instance, of only one single isolated human observer in his cubicle somewhere on Earth.

An FA proponent could retort that panspermia is a highly speculative idea. Of course, it certainly is to a degree because science lacks the universal yardstick of “speculativeness”. The received view is also quite speculative.101010 And the Gold-type recollapsing universe suggested by Price in the context of his favorite Acausal-Particular approach is far more so. But another point is central here. Not wishing to enter into a biological discussion about which of these options is more likely to account for the totality of empirical data, it seems clear that we should not presume any one of them to be correct when evaluating proposals for the origin of the entropy gradient—and that is exactly what FA does. It puts the explanatory cart in front of the horse.

Weakness of FA is graphically manifested if we try to cast it into a somewhat more rigorous form. Let us consider a causal chain of $`n`$ events e1, e2, …, en leading to the emergence of intelligent life capable of reading Feynman and Price:

$$e_1e_2\mathrm{}e_n=\mathrm{existence}\mathrm{of}\mathrm{sophisticated}\mathrm{int}.\mathrm{obs}.\mathrm{onEarth},$$
(6)
(for the sake of the argument, we shall assume that $`n`$ is a finite natural number, and that there is a well-defined first member of the sequence). Examples of links in this chain are the formation of oxygen in the primitive Earth’s atmosphere, or the synthesis of 12C in stars through the triple-$`\alpha `$ reaction.(55,59) Now, we can, in principle, assign a volume V(e$`{}_{i}{}^{})`$ to all links in the chain as

V(e$`{}_{i}{}^{})`$ minimal spatial volume necessary for ei to occur,

which is intuitively clear (one cannot expect galaxy formation to occur within 3.6 m3, etc.). FA can therefore be translated as a statement

$$(i)V(e_i)(R_H)^3,$$
(7)
where (R$`{}_{H}{}^{})^3`$ is any prototype of the representative part of the observable universe, which may be visualized as a cube with sides equal to the Hubble radius (or less, depending on our assessment of the high-redshift astrophysical data). Is (7) the truth so self-evident that anybody (with Boltzmann and Schuetz) who doubts it may be casually dismissed as “ridiculous”? Not likely. What is max\[V(e$`{}_{i}{}^{})`$\]? Not so obvious either. As Barrow and Tipler(21) correctly note, if the process of cosmological structure formation is a necessary part of the causal chain (6), we have every reason to believe the contrary proposition, namely (e.g., Ref. 60)

$$(j)V(e_j)(R_H)^3.$$
(8)
Of course, this is part of the modern, evolutionist view; in the time of Boltzmann and Schuetz, everything was considerably easier, since the Hubble expansion and consequent developments were more than thirty years in the future. Nowadays, one may justifiably ask whether RH in (7) and (8) should be temporally indexed, so that it pertains to the relevant cosmological scale at epoch of ei. This makes FA even less persuasive: if some perturbation, phase transition, or any other part of the quantum cosmological lore is truly necessary for our emergence as intelligent beings, then we have every right to conclude that the entire observable universe is an “all or nothing” matter.(40)

Another way to visualize this option is to imagine that there is a minimum spatial volume (or “cell”) which is necessary in order for intelligence to arise at a single point within such volume. Each point in spacetime is either within a cell or it is not. If you are within a cell, then you perceive stars, galaxies, etc.—the entire familiar low-entropy universe. If you are not, then you perceive something of high entropy, presumably lots of black holes—but you cannot be there. How big is the volume of the smallest cell? Feynman estimates it to be much smaller than the observed universe (essentially the Hubble sphere); still there is no argument except crude intuition to that effect.

Price himself testifies that vWA is not an overwhelmingly persuasive objection: when treating globally symmetric cosmologies (à la Gold) he explicitly dismisses vWA—and in a footnote at that, obviously not deeming it necessary to invoke an elaborate explanation. The same issue happens in his discourse on the epistemology of the relationship between randomness and high entropy (footnotes 6 and 7 in Ref. 9): “Again, I am ignoring von Weizsäcker’s sceptical difficulties about inference to the past.” Remarks such as this provoke a simple question which one is fully entitled to ask of Price: can von Weizsäcker’s view be ignored or not, in the final analysis? Because, if it is not ignored when disputing the anthropic approach to the explanatory project (and thus, indirectly, disputing what we have called the Acausal-Anthropic approach), and simultaneously it is conveniently ignored in the elaboration of the Acausal-Particular approach, then it seems clear that we are operating a double standard.

However, in order to be fair toward vWA, we should not construe this double standard as a counter-argument. A true counter-argument is to analyze things further: what exactly in vWA is problematic for the Boltzmann-Schuetz picture? Of course, vWA ridicules our epistemic capacities—but that is non sequitur. Remember that Boltzmann and Schuetz arrived at their view exactly starting from a high-entropy default condition, which does not call for an explanation (as Price is entirely correct in proclaiming). They have not relied in deriving their hypothesis on any one specific piece of empirical data, in particular any empirical data telling of past conditions of the universe. Thus, their hypothesis cannot be refuted by accepting that such-and-such empirical data which tells us about a low-entropy past is either “simulated” or invalid. vWA may conflict with propositions embodying the weak anthropic principle (that the values of physical and cosmological parameters are constrained through the requirement of existence of the carbon-based life, sufficiently stable conditions, etc.), but that is only because anthropic theoreticians have not bothered to cope with the case of simulated evidence. Another issue is that “simulation” cannot be as simple as it is tacitly assumed in von Weizsäcker’s or Price’s account; the fact that we observe coherent information flow from the past to the present (as, for instance, in the Collins’ postulate of uniform thermal histories; Ref. 61) seems just a coincidence on this account. This is consequence of the fact that information-theoretical background of this possibility has not been investigated in detail so far. The status of vWA, thus, is that it shows a bizarre and unexpected side of the Boltzmann-Schuetz view, but does not reveal true contradiction or incoherency.

Also, one is prompted to ask: how exactly do we prove that “simulation” is cheaper (in entropy terms) than “reality” in all (or just most of) cases? Again, the opponent of Boltzmann-Schuetz (von Weizsäcker this time) offers just a hunch and “common sense” intuitions. The question is admittedly difficult and depends again on the information-theoretical uncertainties mentioned above. There is at least one serious study claiming the contrary, the one of Tegmark;(35) or, more precisely, it claims that in cases of an extremely high degree of symmetry (with help of Everett’s quantum theory and the environmental decoherence), the algorithmic information content of the entire observable universe may be very small, essentially the same one as in the earliest moments of its existence. In Tegmark’s view (especially appealing to cognitive scientists and information theory researchers), the whole is much simpler than its parts, and almost everything we perceive is a sort of illusion. In particular, the apparent complexity of everything around us—not just evidence of the past—is illusory (or ”simulated”)! We may find Tegmark wrong on several issues, but the lesson of his work is that our current methods (in the theory of complexity and related disciplines) are far from being entirely reliable and disputable in the matter of the entropy cost of perceived pieces of reality.

Let us note that the two arguments discussed in this section are not even strictly co-tenable. FA cannot be coherently formulated if we assume that vWA is correct (since what then is the size which matters? how can we define it, since our knowledge on the properties of life itself—not to mention the standards of measurement—is based upon simulated evidence?). Conversely, on FA it would be idle speculation to ask “what is the real nature of the universe outside of our small confines?”, as vWA would prompt us to. (One may play off one against the other, claiming that, for instance, an intelligence-bearing cell of necessary low entropy is the size of our Galaxy, and all extragalactic information is simulated. There have been similar suggestions in the older cosmological literature and in a different context, notably so-called McCrea’s uncertainties; see Ref. 62)

4. EMBEDDING THE ATYPICAL INITIAL CONDITIONS

It has been well-known for quite some time that there are three basic approaches to answering the question “Why the initial conditions of the universe were such-and-such?” The first rejects the validity of the question. It may be motivated either by positivistic refusal to discuss issues forever closed to any form of direct verification or theological reasons (all standard theistic accounts of the creation belong to this option). This rather nihilistic option should only be entertained as a truly last resort, a counsel of despair. Of the other two, one—causal—entails the idea that there is a law-like reason (presumably to be derived from the future “Theory of Everything”) for the atypical or surprising structure of the early universe. In other words, an enormous amount of information, necessary for the description of the atypical initial conditions, can be encoded in some new law(s) of nature and consequent law-like correlations of various matter and vacuum fields. The other—anthropic—option avoids giving a specific description by embedding those conditions into a sufficiently symmetric background. Again, stated in terms of information, the same long description of what we perceive as atypical initial conditions arises—as so often in physics!—from the process of symmetry breaking. The overall description is simple enough, and may be reduced (in the extreme case) to a rule similar to “All possible combinations of initial conditions exist.” That such a high degree of symmetry can indeed completely reproduce the situation in our particular domain becomes then an immediate consequence (cf. Refs. 35, 63).111111 A brief literary analogy may be helpful here. In the beautiful story of “The Library of Babel”, Jorge Luis Borges has described a world consisting of a huge library in which piles of seemingly completely random books are stored.(64) The nature and content of each book look extremely puzzling to the inhabitants of that world, most of whom have never encountered a book with a single meaningful line. Gradually, they reveal the truth: although each book per se requires lots of information to be described—“long description”—the entire content of the Library is extraordinary simple: it is completely described by the following proposition: All variations of letters and punctuation marks exist in the Library. Thus, although lost works of Plato or Tacitus are certainly located somewhere in the Library (and are presumably unique), the wealth of information they contain from a human perspective is completely lost among myriads of less and less similar copies of the supposed original, and myriads of completely worthless “chaotic” volumes. Similarly with the multiverse. A book containing perfect Socratic dialogues stands in the same relation towards the Library as a domain containing intelligent observers relates to everything that exists. Note that the number of books in the Library is, as an anonymous genius discovers in the story, still finite, although incredibly huge, and thus the number of meaningful books is not of measure zero in the entire set. Similar is the situation with the domains of the multiverse, as discussed above. In the infinite case, the number of those allowing for emergence of intelligent observers is probably of measure zero.

In a sense, the appeal of the anthropic selection effect is, figuratively speaking, to kill two birds with one stone: to set up a project for the explanation of common thermodynamical asymmetry and to obtain the cheapest possible (in both physical and epistemological terms) explanation of the initial conditions, in particular vis-à-vis cosmological fine tunings. Appeal to the multiverse enables us to “cleanse the door of perception” and overcome the narrow coffines of our specially restricted viewpoint.

Price’s suggestion (Ref. 8, §3.3) that the anthropic selection effect(s) may be necessary only for an explanation of the initial conditions of our domain—and even then it is obviously less interesting option for him, since it can be conveniently “ignored”—certainly does not do justice to the scope and ingenuity of anthropic reasoning. His preferred option, the existence of a law-like reason for low entropy is, in effect, a strange retreat from the acausal behavior of thermodynamical systems correctly emphasized at the present time. Granted that there may be interesting reasons for exploring the law-like possibility, we are still entitled to ask: why should one, after rejecting the law-like behavior of matter in the present epoch, ask for a new law-like behavior in epochs long gone—say at Planck time—to explain the very same thing? Especially if a plausible (and rather more “Boltzmannian”) anthropic alternative is at hand?

5. CONCLUSIONS

We conclude that a generalized Boltzmann-Schuetz or Acausal-Anthropic approach may be able to account for the perceived thermodynamical asymmetry at least in the same degree as the other approaches explicated in the recent literature. Neither of the two conventional arguments is really decisive and sufficient to reject the Boltzmann-Schuetz anthropic fluctuation picture. A fortiori, these are either irrelevant or insufficient to reject the Acausal-Anthropic view proposed here. (Which makes this approach largely insensitive as to the speculative issue of the exact physical nature of the domains within the multiverse.)

An enormous additional benefit comes, of course, from being able to account for other anthropic coincidences (or ’fine-tunings’) within the same conceptual framework received from the rapidly developing ideas of quantum cosmology. Further advantages include a connection with the latest thinking in quantum cosmology (incorporating the idea of the multiverse), dropping of the ceteris paribus clause in specification of the default thermodynamical condition, better accounting for thermodynamical counterfactuals and obviation of the necessity to double-deal with cosmological data. At the same time, many of the virtues of the Acausal-Particular approach are retained in the Acausal-Anthropic picture.

Future behavior of the universe is rapidly becoming a recognized and legitimate target for “everyday” scientific work, and less and less an arena for wild speculation and “grand principles.”(65) The nascent discipline of physical eschatology (e.g., Ref. 66) has already reached many interesting results, and it is highly misleading to present contemporary astrophysicists as ignorant about the subject as their colleagues in the time of Boltzmann or Haldane or Gold. According to unequivocal conclusion drawn from these empirical developments, the asymptotic final state of our cosmological domain (or “universe”) will be one of extremely diluted matter and extremely high entropy (at least as long as one keeps possible intentional actions of advanced intelligent communities out of the picture).

Acknowledgements. Any possible merits of this work are due to Irena Diklić, whose curiosity, tenderness and kind support have presented a constant source of inspiration and encouragement during the work on this project; its completion would be utterly impossible without her. It is superfluous to emphasize that the responsibility for any shortcomings in the present manuscript rests solely and on the author. Useful discussions on the subject with Zoran Živković, Nick Bostrom, Petar Grujić, Slobodan Popović, and Nikola Milutinović have led to the significant improvements in both the content and the presentation. In addition, the author uses this opportunity to thanks Vesna Milošević-Zdjelar, Maja Bulatović, Milan Bogosavljević, Nick Bostrom, Vladan Čelebonović and the Embassy of Netherlands in Belgrade for their kind help in obtaining some of the references. Four anonymous referees are acknowledged for suggestions useful in improving the overall quality of the manuscript. Invaluable technical help has been received from Srdjan Samurović and Alan Robertson.


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# Glass Transition in a Two-Dimensional Electron System in Silicon

## 1 Introduction

The metal-insulator transition (MIT) in two dimensions (2D) has been a subject of intensive research in recent years  but the physics behind this phenomenon is still not understood. It has been established, however, that it occurs in the regime where both Coulomb (electron-electron) interactions and disorder are strong. The competition between these two effects has been suggested  to lead to glassy dynamics (electron or Coulomb glass). Therefore, it has been proposed that the 2D MIT can be described alternatively as the melting of the Wigner glass , or the melting of the Coulomb glass . The existence of a large number of metastable states in a glass results in fluctuations of conductivity $`\sigma `$ with time (conductivity noise) so that mesoscopic samples should be more suitable for studies of glassy properties. Indeed, investigations of metallic spin glasses have shown  that mesoscopic measurements are necessary in order to provide detailed understanding of glassy ordering and dynamics. Here we report the results of transport and noise studies in mesoscopic samples, which demonstrate for the first time the existence of a glassy phase in a 2D system in semiconductor heterostructures.

## 2 Experiment

The measurements were performed on a 1 $`\mu `$m long, 90 $`\mu `$m wide rectangular n-channel Si metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) with the peak mobility of only $`0.06`$m2/Vs at 4.2 K. Other sample details have been given elsewhere . The fluctuations of current $`I`$ (i. e. $`\sigma `$) as a function of time were measured using a low-noise current preamplifier and a standard two-probe lock-in technique at $`13`$ Hz with the constant excitation voltage $`V_{exc}`$ a few $`\mu `$V. By changing the gate voltage $`V_g`$, the electron density $`n_s`$ was varied between $`3.4\times 10^{11}`$cm-2 and $`20.2\times 10^{11}`$cm-2, whereas temperature $`T`$ ranged between 0.13 K and 0.80 K. It was established that the current fluctuations were not correlated with (i. e. not due to) the fluctuations of temperature or applied voltage. In addition, another sample from the same wafer was measured in a four-terminal configuration at 0.25 K, and it was determined that the contact resistances and the contact noise were negligible.

## 3 Results

Fig. 1 (left) shows the time dependence of the relative fluctuations $`(\sigma \sigma )/\sigma `$ (where $`\mathrm{}`$ denotes averaging over time) for a fixed $`n_s`$ at different $`T`$. At the lowest $`T=0.13`$ K, fluctuations are as high as 250 $`\%`$, and drop rapidly with increasing $`T`$. A similar decrease in fluctuations was observed with increasing $`n_s`$, as discussed in more detail below.

The time-averaged conductivity $`\sigma `$ was calculated for time intervals of several hours, for all $`n_s`$ and $`T`$. Fig. 1 (right) depicts $`\sigma `$ as a function of $`T`$ at selected $`n_s`$. Similar to the behavior of various high-mobility 2D systems , the temperature coefficient of conductivity $`d\sigma /dT`$ changes sign when $`\sigma (n_s^{})=0.5e^2/h`$. Even though the corresponding density $`n_s^{}=12.9\times 10^{11}`$cm-2 is much higher due to a large amount of disorder in our samples, the effective Coulomb interaction is still comparable to that in other 2D systems ($`r_s=4.6`$, $`r_s`$ – ratio of Coulomb energy to Fermi energy). The densities $`n_s^{}`$, where $`d\sigma /dT=0`$, have been usually  identified with the critical density $`n_c`$ for the metal-insulator transition. However, a thorough analysis of $`\sigma (n_s,T)`$ at low $`n_s`$ shows  that, in our case, $`n_c=(5.0\pm 0.3)\times 10^{11}`$cm-2, which is more than a factor of two smaller than $`n_s^{}`$. The difference between $`n_c`$ and $`n_s^{}`$ in our samples is attributed to a larger amount of disorder.

The root-mean-square (rms) fluctuations $`\delta \sigma =(\sigma \sigma )^2^{1/2}`$ (calculated over the frequency bandwidth from (10 hours)-1 to (6 seconds)-1) increase with $`n_s`$, ranging between $`(10^510^2)e^2/h`$ at all $`T`$. Fig. 2 (left) shows the relative rms, $`\delta \sigma /\sigma `$, as a function of $`n_s`$ at three different $`T`$. While fluctuations seem to be independent of density at high $`n_s`$, a dramatic increase of $`\delta \sigma /\sigma `$ is observed with decreasing $`n_s`$ below $`n_g=(7.5\pm 0.3)\times 10^{11}`$cm-2. Even though an increase in $`T`$ causes a substantial reduction of $`\delta \sigma /\sigma `$, the onset of large fluctuations does not seem to depend on temperature.

The noise was studied in more detail using normalized power spectra $`S_I(f)=S(I,f)/I^2`$, most of which were obtained in the $`f=10^410^1`$ Hz bandwidth. They were found to follow the well-known power-law frequency dependence $`S_I1/f^\alpha `$ (Hooge’s law) . In all measurements, the device noise was extracted from the total measured noise by subtracting the background noise present with no current flowing, i. e. by setting $`V_{exc}=0`$. The power spectrum of the background noise was always several orders of magnitude smaller than sample noise and had no $`f`$-dependence (white noise). Fig. 2 (center) shows $`S_I`$ as a function of $`n_s`$ at $`f=3.16\times 10^4`$ Hz and $`T=0.13K`$. At high $`n_s`$, $`S_I`$ does not depend on $`n_s`$ within the scatter of data. For $`n_s<n_g`$, however, an exponential rise of $`S_I`$ by six orders of magnitude is observed with decreasing $`n_s`$. This striking increase of the slow dynamic contribution to $`\sigma `$ is consistent with the behavior of $`\delta \sigma /\sigma `$ (Fig. 2, left). In fact, since $`(\delta \sigma )^2/\sigma ^2=S_I(f)𝑑f`$, it is clear that the observed enormous increase of the relative rms as $`n_s`$ is reduced below $`n_g`$ (Fig. 2, left) reflects a dramatic slowing down of the electron dynamics. This is attributed to the freezing of the electron glass.

Fig. 2 (right) shows another striking feature of our data. The exponent $`\alpha `$, which describes the frequency dependence of the noise power $`S_I1/f^\alpha `$, exhibits a sudden jump at $`n_sn_g`$. While $`\alpha 1`$ for $`n_s>n_g`$, $`\alpha 1.8`$ for $`n_s<n_g`$; similar large exponents $`\alpha `$ have been observed in metallic spin glasses . In general, it is possible to obtain such high values of $`\alpha `$ if telegraph noise is superimposed on flicker ($`1/f`$) noise . However, our data exhibit many abrupt jumps rather than two-level switching (see Fig. 1, left).

For $`n_s<n_g`$, a rapid decrease of $`S_I`$ is also observed with increasing $`T`$ (inset to Fig. 2, center), consistent with other studies on Si MOSFETs  at higher $`T`$ ($`T=1.5,4.2`$ K). The observed $`T`$-dependence of noise disagrees with the models of thermally activated charge trapping-detrapping fluctuations , noise generated by temperature fluctuations , and in the vicinity of the Anderson transition , all of which predict an increase of noise with increasing $`T`$. Models of noise in the hopping regime  predict either a $`T`$-independent noise or a power-law decrease of noise with $`T`$. In our experiment, however, $`S_I`$ follows an exponential rather than power-law $`T`$-dependence. On the other hand, the observed $`S_I(T)`$ does agree with the behavior found in mesoscopic spin glasses .

## 4 Summary

Measurements of the time dependence of $`\sigma `$ in low-mobility Si MOSFETs have shown that, with decreasing $`n_s`$, a sudden, enormous increase in the low-frequency conductivity noise and a sudden shift of the spectral weight towards lower frequencies occur at a well-defined density $`n_g`$. In addition, a dramatic increase of noise with decreasing $`T`$ have been observed for $`n_s<n_g`$. Similar behavior in metallic spin glasses was attributed to spin glass freezing . For $`n_s<n_g`$, we have also observed long relaxation times and history dependent behavior characteristic of a glassy phase, but these effects will be described in detail elsewhere. These observations are interpreted as signatures of the freezing of the electron glass at $`n_s=n_g`$. The metal-insulator transition occurs at the density $`n_c<n_g`$ indicating the existence of a metallic electron glass, as predicted in .

The authors are grateful to IBM, Yorktown Heights for sample fabrication, and to V. Dobrosavljević and J. Jaroszyński for useful discussions. This work was supported by NSF Grant DMR-0071668 and by an NHMFL In-House Research Program grant.

## 5 Figure captions

Figure 1

Left: Relative fluctuations of $`\sigma `$ vs. time for $`n_s=3.64\times 10^{11}`$cm-2 at several different $`T`$ (lowest $`T`$ at bottom, highest $`T`$ at top). Different traces have been shifted for clarity. Right: $`<\sigma >`$ vs. $`T`$ for different $`n_s`$. The data for many other $`n_s`$ have been omitted for clarity. $`n_s^{}`$ and $`n_g`$ are marked by arrows. They were determined as explained in the main text.

Figure 2

Left: Relative rms $`\delta \sigma /<\sigma >`$ vs. $`n_s`$ at different $`T`$. $`n_c`$, $`n_g`$, and $`n_s^{}`$ are marked by arrows. Center: The normalized noise power $`S_I`$ at $`3.16\times 10^4`$ Hz vs. $`n_s`$ at $`T=0.13`$ K; inset: $`S_I`$ vs. $`T`$ for three different $`n_s(10^{11}`$cm$`{}_{}{}^{2})`$. Right: The exponent $`\alpha `$ ($`S_I1/f^\alpha `$) vs. $`n_s`$.


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# Density effects on the pion dispersion relation at finite temperature

## 1 Introduction

In recent years, the possibility to produce a locally thermalized, deconfined state of matter, whose degrees of freedom are the quarks and gluons of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the so called quark-gluon plasma (QGP), in high-energy heavy-ion collisions, has attracted a great deal of attention, both on the experimental and the theoretical aspects of the subject QM01 .

If the QGP is produced in these kind of reactions, the prevailing view portrays the evolution of such a system traversing a series of stages, the last of which consists of a large amount of hadrons strongly interacting in a finite volume, until a final freeze-out. For not too high temperatures, hadronic matter consists mainly of pions, therefore, the study of the propagation properties of pions within the above described environment represents an important ingredient for the understanding of the properties of the hadronic system at and just before freeze-out Shuryak ; Gale-Liu .

The hadronic degrees of freedom are customarily accounted for by means of effective chiral theories that incorporate the Goldstone boson nature of pions. One of such theories is chiral perturbation theory (ChPT) which has been employed to show the well known result that at leading perturbative order and at low momentum, the modification of the pion dispersion curve in a pion medium at finite temperature is just a constant, temperature dependent, increase of the pion mass Gasser . ChPT has also been used in a two-loop computation of the pion self-energy Schenk  and decay constant Toublan . A striking result obtained from such computations is that at second order, the shift in the temperature dependence of the pion mass is opposite in sign and about three times larger in magnitude than the first order shift, already at temperatures close to $`150`$ MeV. This result might signal either the breakdown of the perturbative expansion at these temperatures or the need to perform such calculations using schemes other than perturbation theory.

However, a missing ingredient in the calculations of the pion dispersion curve is the treatment of the medium’s finite density. The conceptual difficulty is related to the fact that, though it is possible to assume that the system is in (at least local) thermal equilibrium, strictly speaking the only conserved charge that can be associated to the pion system is the electric charge and thus, for an electrically neutral pion system the corresponding chemical potential vanishes. The behavior of the pion mass in the presence of an isospin chemical potential has been recently studied in Ref. Loewe . But in order to describe a situation in which the number of pions in thermal equilibrium is finite, we need to consider a chemical potential associated with the pion number, instead of its charge.

Recall that the pion number is not a conserved quantity due to either strong, weak or electromagnetic processes. Nevertheless, the characteristic time for electromagnetic and weak pion number-changing processes, is very large compared to the lifetime of the system created in relativistic heavy-ion collisions and therefore, these processes are of no relevance for the propagation properties of pions within the hadronic phase of the collision. As for the case of strong processes, it is by now accepted that they drive pion number toward chemical freeze-out at a temperature considerably higher than the thermal freeze-out temperature and therefore, that from chemical to thermal freeze-out, the pion system evolves with the pion abundance held fixed Bebie ; Braun-Munzinger . Under these circumstances, it is possible to ascribe to the pion density a chemical potential and consider the pion number as conserved Hung ; Chungsik . In this context, the role of a finite pion chemical potential into a hadronic equation of state has been recently investigated in Ref. Teaney .

Furthermore, another important ingredient in the analysis is the well know fact that in finite temperature field theories with either massless degrees of freedom or that exhibit spontaneous symmetry breaking Dolan , the perturbative expansion breaks down and thus the necessity to implement resummation techniques.

In this contribution we summarize the effects that the introduction of a finite pion chemical potential, associated to the finite pion density, has on the dispersion curve of pions at finite temperature. Starting from the linear sigma model, we use an effective Lagrangian Ayala  obtained by integrating out the heavy sigma modes and compute, in a non perturbative fashion, the pion self-energy. We find that the dispersion curve is modified with respect to the vacuum in a way described by the introduction of an index of refraction larger than one, in addition to the thermal and density increase of the pion mass. Further details can be found in Ref. AAA

## 2 Effective Lagrangian

The Lagrangian for the linear sigma model, including only meson degrees of freedom and with an explicit chiral symmetry breaking term, can be written as Lee

$`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[(\pi )^2+(\sigma )^2m_\pi ^2\pi ^2m_\sigma ^2\sigma ^2\right]\lambda ^2f_\pi \sigma (\sigma ^2+\pi ^2){\displaystyle \frac{\lambda ^2}{4}}(\sigma ^2+\pi ^2)^2,`$ (1)
where $`\pi `$ and $`\sigma `$ are the pion and sigma fields, respectively, and the coupling $`\lambda ^2`$ is

$`\lambda ^2={\displaystyle \frac{m_\sigma ^2m_\pi ^2}{2f_\pi ^2}}.`$ (2)
When interested in a given approximation scheme to build the Green’s functions of the theory at a given perturbative order, it is possible to exploit the relations that chiral symmetry imposes among them. These relations, better known as chiral Ward identities (ChWI), are a direct consequence of the fact that the divergence of the axial current may be used as an interpolating field for the pion Lee . In order to make sure that the approximation respects chiral symmetry, one needs to check that the modification of other Green’s functions respect the corresponding ChWI. For example, two of the ChWI satisfied –order by order in perturbation theory– by the functions $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\pi (P)`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\sigma (Q)`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}^{ij}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{04}^{ijkl}`$ are

$`f_\pi \mathrm{\Gamma }_{04}^{ijkl}(;0,P_1,P_2,P_3)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}^{kl}(P_1;P_2,P_3)\delta ^{ij}+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}^{lj}(P_2;P_3,P_1)\delta ^{ik}+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}^{jk}(P_3;P_1,P_2)\delta ^{il}`$
$`f_\pi \mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}^{ij}(Q;0,P)`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\mathrm{\Delta }_\sigma ^1(Q)\mathrm{\Delta }_\pi ^1(P)\right]\delta ^{ij},`$ (3)
where momentum conservation at the vertices is implied, that is $`P_1+P_2+P_3=0`$ and $`Q+P=0`$. The notation for the functional dependence of the vertices in Eqs. (3) is such that the variables before and after the semicolon refer to the four-momenta of the sigma and pion fields, respectively Lee .

In Refs. Ayala  it has been shown that in the kinematical regime where the pion momentum, the pion mass and the temperature are small compared to the sigma mass, the effective one-loop sigma propagator and one-sigma two-pion and four-pion vertices are given by

$`i\mathrm{\Delta }_\sigma ^{}(Q)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{Q^2m_\sigma ^2+6\lambda ^4f_\pi ^2^t(Q)}}.`$ (4)
$`i\mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}^{ij}(Q;P_1,P_2)=2i\lambda ^2f_\pi \delta ^{ij}\left[13\lambda ^2^t(Q)\right],`$ (5)
$`i\mathrm{\Gamma }_{04}^{ijkl}(;P_1,P_2,P_3,P_4)`$ $`=`$ $`2i\lambda ^2\{`$ (6)
$`\times `$ $`\left[13\lambda ^2^t(P_1+P_2)\right]\delta ^{ij}\delta ^{kl}`$
$`+`$ $`\left[13\lambda ^2^t(P_1+P_3)\right]\delta ^{ik}\delta ^{jl}`$
$`+`$ $`[13\lambda ^2^t(P_1+P_4)]\delta ^{il}\delta ^{jk}\},`$
where in the imaginary-time formalism of thermal field theory (TFT), the function $`^t`$ is obtained as the time-ordered analytical continuation to real energies of the function $``$ defined by

$`(Q)T{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{1}{K^2+m_\pi ^2}\frac{1}{(KQ)^2+m_\pi ^2}}.`$ (7)
Here $`Q=(\omega ,𝐪),K=(\omega _n,𝐤)`$ are Eucledian space four-vectors, namely $`Q^2=\omega ^2+q^2`$, $`K^2=\omega _n^2+k^2`$ with $`\omega =2m\pi T`$ and $`\omega _n=2n\pi T`$ ($`m`$, $`n`$ integers) being discrete boson frequencies, $`T`$ is the temperature and $`q=|𝐪|,k=|𝐤|`$.

It is easy to check that Eqs. (4), (5) and (6) satisfy the Ward identities in Eq. (3), this ensures that the approximation scheme adopted respects chiral symmetry.

By using the above effective vertices and propagator, it is possible to construct the two-loop modification to the pion self-energy in the same kinematical regime with the result Ayala

$`\mathrm{\Pi }_2(P)=\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_\pi ^2}{2f_\pi ^2}}\right)T{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{1}{K^2+m_\pi ^2}\left\{3\left(\frac{m_\pi ^2}{2f_\pi ^2}\right)\left[9^t(0)+6^t(P+K)\right]\right\}}.`$ (8)
Equation (8) reproduces the leading order result obtained from ChPT Gasser . Furthermore, we observe that Eq. (8) can be formally obtained by means of the effective Lagrangian

$`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(_\mu \varphi \right)^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}m_\pi ^2\varphi ^2{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{4!}}\left(\varphi ^2\right)^2,`$ (9)
where $`\alpha =6(m_\pi ^2/2f_\pi ^2)`$ and the factor $`6`$ comes from considering the interaction of like-isospin pions in the vertex

$`i\mathrm{\Gamma }_4^{ijkl}=2i\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_\pi ^2}{2f_\pi ^2}}\right)\left(\delta ^{ij}\delta ^{kl}+\delta ^{ik}\delta ^{jl}+\delta ^{il}\delta ^{jk}\right).`$ (10)
Eqs. (8) and (9) mean that in the kinematical regime where the sigma mass is large compared to the pion mass, the momentum and the temperature, the linear sigma model Lagrangian reduces to a $`\varphi ^4`$ Lagrangian for effective like-isospin pions with an effective coupling given by $`\alpha `$. In essence, the theory thus constructed and summarized by the effective Lagrangian in Eq. (9) can be thought of a theory for the effective coupling $`\alpha `$. By restricting ourselves to the above kinematical regime, we will proceed on working with the Lagrangian given by Eq. (9).

## 3 Non-perturbative pion self-energy

It is well know that quantum field theories at finite temperature present certain subtleties such as the breakdown of the perturbative expansion Kapusta . This breakdown becomes manifest in two important cases: the appearance of infrared divergences in theories with massless degrees of freedom, and the compensation of powers of the coupling constant with powers of $`T`$ for large temperatures. In both situations, the resummation of certain classes of diagrams represents an important improvement for the study of the physical properties of such theories. Even for cases where neither there is a massless degree of freedom, nor the temperature is extremely large, it is important to consider a resummation scheme, particularly for the case of theories with spontaneous symmetry breaking near critical behavior.

In order to consider the above mentioned general situation and with the purpose of studying the pion dispersion curve at finite density and temperature, let us formally consider the Schwinger-Dyson equation for the pion self-energy

$`\mathrm{\Pi }(P)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{2}}T{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{1}{K^2+m_\pi ^2+\mathrm{\Pi }}}`$ (11)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^2}{6}}T^2{\displaystyle \underset{n_1,n_2}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k_1}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{d^3k_2}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{1}{K_1^2+m_\pi ^2+\mathrm{\Pi }}}`$
$`\times `$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{K_2^2+m_\pi ^2+\mathrm{\Pi }}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(K_1+K_2P)^2+m_\pi ^2+\mathrm{\Pi }}},`$
where for internal lines, we make the substitution $`i\omega i\omega +\mu `$. Notice that since the interaction Lagrangian contains only a quartic term, there is no need to dress the vertices in the above equation.

Equation (11) represents an integral equation for the function $`\mathrm{\Pi }(P)`$, which, needless to say, is very difficult to be solved exactly. In order to find an approximate solution let us write

$`\mathrm{\Pi }(P)\mathrm{\Pi }_0+\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Pi }}(P)`$ (12)
and consider $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Pi }}(P)\mathrm{\Pi }_0`$. As we will see, such assumption is justified given that in our approximation, $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Pi }}𝒪(\alpha ^2)`$. Keeping only the lowest order contribution in $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Pi }}`$, we find

$`\mathrm{\Pi }_0{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{2}}T{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{1}{K^2+m_\pi ^2+\mathrm{\Pi }_0}},`$ (13)
$`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Pi }}(P)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^2}{6}}T^2{\displaystyle \underset{n_1,n_2}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k_1}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{d^3k_2}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{1}{K_1^2+m_\pi ^2+\mathrm{\Pi }_0}}`$
$`\times `$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{K_2^2+m_\pi ^2+\mathrm{\Pi }_0}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(K_1+K_2P)^2+m_\pi ^2+\mathrm{\Pi }_0}}.`$
Equation (13) represents a self consistent equation for the (momentum independent) constant $`\mathrm{\Pi }_0`$. This is the well known resummation for the superdaisy diagrams which constitute the dominant contribution in the large-$`N`$ expansion Dolan  of the Lagrangian in Eq. (9). On the other hand, Eq. (LABEL:pitilde) represents a first approximation to the momentum dependent piece of $`\mathrm{\Pi }(P)`$.

Figure 1 shows the behavior of the quantity $`\sqrt{m_\pi ^2+\mathrm{\Pi }_0}`$ as a function of $`(a)`$ the temperature $`T`$ for different values of the chemical potential $`\mu `$ and $`(b)`$ as a function of $`\mu `$ for different values of $`T`$. In both cases, $`\sqrt{m_\pi ^2+\mathrm{\Pi }_0}`$ grows monotonically with both $`T`$ and $`\mu `$.

The pion dispersion relation is given as the solution to

$`p_0^2\left[p^2+m_\pi ^2+\mathrm{\Pi }_0+\text{R}\text{e}\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Pi }}^r(p_0,p)\right]=0`$ (15)
for positive $`p_0`$. In Eq.(15), $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Pi }}^r`$ denotes the retarded version of $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Pi }}`$ upon analytical continuation to Minkowski space. The left panel of Fig. 2 shows plots of $`p_0`$ as a function of $`p`$ for different values of $`\mu `$ and a temperature $`T=120`$ MeV. As can be seen from this figure, $`\mathrm{\Pi }(p_0,p=0)`$ contributes to the increase of the pion mass. Also, for large $`p`$, the dispersion curves approach the light cone, always from within the causal region $`p_0^2>p^2`$.

We also notice that the dispersion curves can be parametrized by a function of the form

$`p_0=\sqrt{n^1(T,\mu )p^2+M^2(T,\mu )}.`$ (16)
This is shown in the right panel of Fig. 2 where the dots represent the computed values of the dispersion relation and the continuous curves the fits. We thus observe that the presence of a finite chemical potential has two dramatic effects on the behavior of the pion dispersion curve compared to the case where only the temperature is considered: first, there is a significant increase in the pion mass and second, the index of refraction parameter $`n`$ becomes larger than unity.

## 4 Summary and conclusions

In this paper we have considered the effects of a finite pion density on the pion dispersion curve at finite temperature. The finite density is described in terms of a finite pion chemical potential. We have argued that such description is important during the hadronic phase of a collision of heavy nuclei at high energies between chemical and thermal freeze-out when the strong pion-number changing processes have driven the pion number to a fixed value.

In order to consider a general scenario that takes into account resummation effects, we have presented an approximate solution to the Schwinger-Dyson equation for the momentum-dependent pion self-energy, writing this as $`\mathrm{\Pi }(P)\mathrm{\Pi }_0+\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Pi }}(P)`$ and considering $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Pi }}(P)\mathrm{\Pi }_0`$, which is justified given that in our approximation, $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Pi }}𝒪(\alpha ^2)`$, whereas the perturbative expansion of $`\mathrm{\Pi }_0`$ starts at $`𝒪(\alpha )`$.

The pion dispersion relation thus obtained at finite density and temperature deviates from the vacuum dispersion relation and can be described in terms of a density and temperature dependent mass and an index of refraction, also temperature, density as well as momentum dependent. This index of refraction is larger than unity for all values of the momentum. Similar results have been obtained in Ref. Pisarski  using also a linear sigma model without the introduction of a finite chemical potential but rather as a consequence of the loss of Lorentz invariance when a particle travels in a medium at finite temperature. We note however that our result is more general than that of the former reference where the computation of the pion dispersion relation was carried from the onset in the weak coupling regime, that is to say, $`\lambda ^21`$, whereas our approach is valid for arbitrary values of $`\lambda ^2`$ Ayala .

Recall that one of the most salient features resulting from the analyses of collisions of heavy nuclei at SPS energies is the low mass dilepton spectra which shows an increase around the free $`\rho `$ peak. Such behavior has been explained in terms of possible in-medium modifications of the $`\rho `$ with either a shift toward lower values of its mass or an increase in its width Rapp . Given that the $`\rho `$ meson couples strongly to the two pion channel, any possible in-medium modifications of the pion propagation properties should translate into induced modifications of the $`\rho `$ meson properties and should therefore be properly accounted for in a self-consistent manner in these kind of analyses. In particular, the increase of the pion mass with density modifies the phase space for the production and decay of $`\rho `$’s in equilibrium and consequently it affects the production of $`e^+e^{}`$ pairs. This matters will be the subject of a future work progress .

## Acknowledgments

Support for this work has been received in part by DGAPA-UNAM under PAPIIT grant number IN108001 and CONACyT under grant numbers 35792-E and 32279-E.