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# Matrix Supermultiplet of 𝑁=2, 𝐷=4 Supersymmetry and Supersymmetric 3-brane

## 1 Introduction

Supersymmetric 3-brane gives a remarkable pattern of a theory where the partial breaking of global supersymmetry *(PBGS)* in four spacetime dimensions is occurred . The bosonic part of the corresponding action amounts to the “static gauge” form of the Nambu–Goto action which can be derived, for example, from the nonlinear realization of $`D=6`$ relativistic symmetry in the coset space $`ISO(1,5)/SO(1,3)\times SO(2)`$ . The supersymmetric generalization of this approach is elaborated in ref. . There the coset space $`ISO(1,5)/SO(1,3)\times SO(2)`$ is supposed to be embedded into the supersymmetric one $`G/H`$ involving the superbrane worldvolume coordinates $`z=\{x,\theta ,\overline{\theta }\}`$ along with the set of the Goldstone superfields $`\{\varphi (z)`$, $`\overline{\varphi }(z)`$, $`\psi _\alpha (z)`$, $`\overline{\psi }_{\dot{\alpha }}(z)`$, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_a(z)`$, $`\mathrm{\Xi }(z)\}`$ associated with the generators of spontaneously broken symmetries $`\{Z=P_4iP_5`$, $`S_\alpha `$, $`\overline{S}_{\dot{\alpha }}`$, $`K_a`$, $`T\}`$. The main advantage of this approach is that it allows one to find the action in terms of the Goldstone superfields on the base of the standard method of the nonlinear realization of supersymmetry in the coset superspace $`G/H`$ . In the case of the $`N=2N=1`$, $`D=4`$ *PBGS* pattern it gives the superfield action of the supersymmetric 3-brane propagating in the six-dimensional Minkowski spacetime. The component form of this action exactly coincides with the Green–Schwarz covariant action for the supermembrane obtained in ref. . Note, that the final expression of the superfield action depends only on the scalar Goldstone superfields $`\varphi `$, $`\overline{\varphi }`$ and their covariant derivatives. The superfields $`\psi _\alpha (z)`$, $`\overline{\psi }_{\dot{\alpha }}(z)`$, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_a(z)`$, $`\mathrm{\Xi }(z)`$ are not involved due to the covariant constraints imposed on the corresponding Cartan forms. Nevertheless, this action is not very convenient for applications since the superfields $`\varphi `$, $`\overline{\varphi }`$ themselves have to be constrained by the nonlinear conditions $`\overline{}_{\dot{\alpha }}\varphi =_\alpha \overline{\varphi }=0`$, where $`_\alpha `$, $`\overline{}_{\dot{\alpha }}`$ are the spinor covariant derivatives of the nonlinear realization. This makes the corresponding variation procedure rather complicated since these objects themselves depend nonlinearly on $`\varphi `$, $`\overline{\varphi }`$. The situation gets worse even more because so far we do not know exactly a full non-perturbative *PBGS* action of the super-3-brane derived from the nonlinear realization. Today it is specified only up to the fourth order in the superfields $`\varphi `$, $`\overline{\varphi }`$ .

Fortunately, there exists another approach which significantly simplifies these computation problems. In contrast to the previous approach to the system under consideration this one is based on the linear realization of supersymmetry . It strongly resembles the *PBGS* theory of the supersymmetric $`D3`$-brane (see, e.g. ), where the hidden supersymmetry is described by the $`N=2`$, $`D=4`$ vector supermultiplet. It turns out that in the case of the supersymmetric 3-brane the corresponding Goldstone supermultiplet can be described by the $`N=2`$ tensor supermultiplet constrained by the suitable nilpotence conditions . Solving them we get the south for action in terms of the *linear* $`N=1`$ Goldstone superfield. It was shown in ref.  that this action can be equivalently transformed into the chiral Goldstone superfield action  with the help of a chiral–linear superfield duality transformation. This fact, indeed, radically simplifies the computation problems since in this case we should vary only the unconstrained superfield of the linear realization $`\varphi (x+2i\theta \overline{\theta },\theta )`$. At last, the obvious advantage of this approach as compared with the aforementioned one is that it provides the possibility to get a full non-perturbative form action of the super-3-brane.

Nevertheless, there is a problem which remains unsolved even in the framework of this approach. Actually, from the papers  we know how to construct the Lagrangian density of the super-3-brane in terms of the *linear* $`N=1`$ Goldstone superfield and how to transform it with the help of the duality transformations into the final form action depending on the *chiral* Goldstone superfield $`\varphi `$. However, implementing such a procedure we inevitably lose a straightforward contact between the Lagrangian and its transformation law with respect to the $`N=2`$, $`D=4`$ supersymmetry. Precisely, we do not know today how explicitly it transforms with respect to the variation of $`\varphi `$?

In this article we are going to show that there exists a simple answer to this question. In fact, the required transformation law can be derived from the new infinite-dimensional matrix $`N=2`$ supermultiplet which incorporates both the chiral Goldstone multiplet $`\varphi `$ and the Lagrangian density $``$ as its independent scalar $`N=1`$ components.

## 2 Extended vector $`N=2`$, $`D=4`$ supermultiplet

Let us begin with the central charge extension of the $`N=2`$, $`D=4`$ Poincaré superalgebra

$`\{Q_\alpha ,\overline{Q}_{\dot{\alpha }}\}`$ $`=`$ $`2P_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }},\{S_\alpha ,\overline{S}_{\dot{\alpha }}\}=2P_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }},`$ (1)
$`\{Q_\alpha ,S_\beta \}`$ $`=`$ $`2\epsilon _{\alpha \beta }Z,\{\overline{Q}_{\dot{\alpha }},\overline{S}_{\dot{\beta }}\}=2\epsilon _{\dot{\alpha }\dot{\beta }}\overline{Z},`$
where the other (anti)commutators are supposed to vanish. In what follows the $`N=2`$ superspace notations for the generators will be used

$`P_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}=i_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }},Q_\alpha =_\alpha ^{(\theta )}+i\overline{\theta }^{\dot{\alpha }}_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }},\overline{Q}_{\dot{\alpha }}=\overline{}_{\dot{\alpha }}^{(\theta )}i\theta ^\alpha _{\alpha \dot{\alpha }},`$ (2)
$`S_\alpha =_\alpha ^{(\omega )}i\overline{\omega }^{\dot{\alpha }}_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}+2i\theta _\alpha Z,\overline{S}_{\dot{\alpha }}=\overline{}_{\dot{\alpha }}^{(\omega )}+i\omega ^\alpha _{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}2i\overline{\theta }_{\dot{\alpha }}\overline{Z}.`$
Now let us consider the $`N=2`$, $`D=4`$ chiral Goldstone superfield

$$W(x,\theta ,\omega )=\varphi \omega ^\alpha W_\alpha \frac{1}{4}\omega ^2\overline{D}^2\overline{\varphi }i\omega ^\alpha \overline{\omega }^{\dot{\alpha }}_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}\varphi +\frac{i}{2}\omega ^2\overline{\omega }_{\dot{\alpha }}^{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}W_\alpha \frac{1}{8}\omega ^2\overline{\omega }^2^{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}\varphi ,$$
(3)
which obeys Bianchi identities

$$D^{(\omega )}{}_{}{}^{2}W\overline{D}{}_{}{}^{2}\overline{W}=0,D^{(\omega )\alpha }D_\alpha W+\overline{D}_{\dot{\alpha }}^{(\omega )}\overline{D}^{\dot{\alpha }}\overline{W}=0,$$
(4)
and possesses the following transformation laws

$$\delta W=c(\eta ^\alpha S_\alpha +\overline{\eta }_{\dot{\alpha }}\overline{S}^{\dot{\alpha }})W,ZW=1$$
(5)
with respect to the central charge and the second supersymmetry transformations. Here the standard conventions for the $`N=1`$ spinor covariant derivatives are assumed111The conjugation conditions are as follows
$$(_\alpha )^{}=\overline{}_{\dot{\alpha }},(_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }})^{}=_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }},(D_\alpha )^{}=\overline{D}_{\dot{\alpha }},(D_\alpha \overline{D}_{\dot{\alpha }})^{}=\overline{D}_{\dot{\alpha }}D_\alpha ,(D^\alpha D_\alpha )^{}=\overline{D}_{\dot{\alpha }}\overline{D}^{\dot{\alpha }}.$$

$$D_\alpha =_\alpha ^{(\theta )}i\overline{\theta }^{\dot{\alpha }}_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }},\overline{D}_{\dot{\alpha }}=\overline{}_{\dot{\alpha }}^{(\theta )}+i\theta ^\alpha _{\alpha \dot{\alpha }},D_\alpha ^{(\omega )}=D_\alpha _{\theta =\omega }.$$

From the Eqs. (3), (5) it follows that the chiral $`N=1`$ superfields $`\varphi `$, $`W_\alpha `$ transform as

$`\delta \varphi `$ $`=`$ $`f+\eta ^\alpha W_\alpha ,f=c2i\eta ^\alpha \theta _\alpha ,`$ (6)
$`\delta W_\alpha `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\overline{D}^2\overline{\varphi }\eta _\alpha 2i_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}\varphi \overline{\eta }^{\dot{\alpha }},`$
where $`W_\alpha `$ is supposed to be constrained by the reality condition

$$D^\alpha W_\alpha +\overline{D}_{\dot{\alpha }}\overline{W}^{\dot{\alpha }}=0.$$
(7)
From Eqs. (6) we see that owing to the presence of the inhomogeneous term in the r.h.s. (5) the lowest component of the vector supermultiplet $`\varphi `$ acquires the pure shift term $`f`$ in its transformation law. This implies that the superfield $`D_\alpha \varphi `$ is shifted on the term proportional to $`\eta _\alpha `$ under the action of the $`S`$-supersymmetry transformations. Hence, this superfield can be treated as the Goldstone fermion of spontaneously broken $`N=2`$ supersymmetry keeping the $`N=1`$ supersymmetry unbroken. This is the typical pattern of *PBGS* theory in which the corresponding “longwavelength” effective action is appeared. In the most cases these actions can be derived straightforwardly from covariant constraints imposed on the supermultiplets incorporating a proper Goldstone multiplet (see, e.g.  and refs. therein). In our case, however, this approach becomes inapplicable because the corresponding linear representation of the $`N=2`$, $`D=4`$ supersymmetry is unknown. Let us try to improve this situation.

To do this we, first, should solve the constraint (7) in terms of $`N=1`$ gauge real prepotential $``$

$$W_\alpha =\frac{i}{4}\overline{D}^2D_\alpha ,\overline{W}_{\dot{\alpha }}=(W_\alpha )^{}=\frac{i}{4}D^2\overline{D}_{\dot{\alpha }},$$
(8)
and then introduce the “extended” vector $`N=2`$ supermultiplet

$`\delta `$ $`=`$ $`f\overline{\varphi }+\overline{f}\varphi +\eta ^\alpha Z_\alpha +\overline{\eta }_{\dot{\alpha }}\overline{Z}^{\dot{\alpha }},`$ (9)
$`\delta Z_\alpha `$ $`=`$ $`\overline{f}W_\alpha {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\eta _\alpha \overline{D}^2\overline{F}\overline{\eta }^{\dot{\alpha }}\overline{D}_{\dot{\alpha }}D_\alpha ,`$ (10)
$`\delta F`$ $`=`$ $`f\varphi +\eta ^\alpha \mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha ,`$ (11)
$`\delta \mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha `$ $`=`$ $`fW_\alpha {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\eta _\alpha \overline{D}^22i\overline{\eta }^{\dot{\alpha }}_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}F,`$ (12)
where the auxiliary chiral $`N=1`$ superfields $`F`$, $`Z_\alpha `$, $`\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha `$ are involved to provide the closure of the transformations (9)–(12) off-shell. The key point of our investigation is that the transformations (9)–(12) allow the complex Bianchi identity

$$D^\alpha \mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha +\overline{D}_{\dot{\alpha }}\overline{Z}^{\dot{\alpha }}=0.$$
(13)
Keeping into account (13) one can easily find out that the transformations (9)–(12), considered together with (6), are closed off-shell

$$[\delta _1,\delta _2]\{,F,Z_\alpha ,\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha \}=2i(\eta _1^\alpha \overline{\eta }_2^{\dot{\alpha }}\eta _2^\alpha \overline{\eta }_1^{\dot{\alpha }})_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}\{,F,Z_\alpha ,\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha \}.$$
(14)
The next step is to realize that, apart from the global $`N=2`$ supersymmetry, there exist the local $`N=2`$ supertransformations

$$\delta F=M,\delta \mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha =\mathrm{\Omega }_\alpha ,\delta Z_\alpha =\mathrm{\Sigma }_\alpha ,\delta =N+\overline{N},$$
(15)
which preserve this supermultiplet. To prove this we should identify the superfield parameters $`\{M`$, $`N`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\alpha `$, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_\alpha \}`$ with components of a “complexificated” $`N=2`$ vector supermultiplet

$`\delta M=\eta ^\alpha \mathrm{\Omega }_\alpha ,\delta \mathrm{\Omega }_\alpha ={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\overline{D}^2\overline{N}\eta _\alpha 2i_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}M\overline{\eta }^{\dot{\alpha }},`$ (16)
$`\delta N=\eta ^\alpha \mathrm{\Sigma }_\alpha ,\delta \mathrm{\Sigma }_\alpha ={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\overline{D}^2\overline{M}\eta _\alpha 2i_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}N\overline{\eta }^{\dot{\alpha }},`$
restricted by the condition

$$D^\alpha \mathrm{\Omega }_\alpha +\overline{D}_{\dot{\alpha }}\overline{\mathrm{\Sigma }}^{\dot{\alpha }}=0.$$
(17)
Having at our disposal these parameters one can easily verify that the redefined superfields

$$^{}=+N+\overline{N},F^{}=F+M,\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha ^{}=\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha +\mathrm{\Omega }_\alpha ,Z_\alpha ^{}=Z_\alpha +\mathrm{\Sigma }_\alpha $$
(18)
have the same transformation laws as $`\{`$, $`F`$, $`Z_\alpha `$, $`\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha \}`$.

Now we see, that all these ingredients gathered together indicate that the set of the $`N=1`$ superfields $`\{\varphi `$, $``$, $`F`$, $`Z_\alpha `$, $`\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha \}`$ actually can be considered as a new off-shell gauge supermultiplet of the $`N=2`$, $`D=4`$ supersymmetry. Note that it appears only in the framework of the *PBGS* theory. It does not exist beyond this theory due to the vanishing of the $`f`$-dependent terms in the r.h.s. of the Eqs. (6), (9)–(12). It is also very important to understand that all the subsidiary degrees of freedom $`F`$, $`\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha `$, $`Z_\alpha `$ as well as those describing the superspin-0 representation of $``$ can be finally transformed away owing to the gauge symmetry (15), (18). Therefore, on the mass-shell we have the same content of the superfields as that of the vector $`N=2`$ supermultiplet. Nevertheless, there is an essential difference between them. In contrast to the vector $`N=2`$ supermultiplet the new one includes both the physical superfields $`\varphi `$ and $``$ among its components. As we will see in the next section this significantly simplifies the process of constructing of the corresponding effective action.

## 3 Recursive equation

In order to do this we follow the standard prescription of refs.  and introduce the recursive equation

$$=\varphi \overline{\varphi }+\frac{1}{16}\frac{(D^\alpha \varphi )(D_\alpha \varphi )(\overline{D}_{\dot{\alpha }}\overline{\varphi })(\overline{D}^{\dot{\alpha }}\overline{\varphi })}{1\frac{i}{4}D^\alpha W_\alpha +\frac{A}{4}},A=2(^{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}\varphi )(_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}\varphi )\frac{1}{4}(D^2\varphi )(\overline{D}^2\overline{\varphi }).$$
(19)
Eq. (19) completely fixes the gauge freedom of the extended vector supermultiplet, however, the global $`N=2`$ supersymmetry remains unbroken. To prove this we have to come back to the equations (6), (9)–(12). Analyzing them we observe that the transformations (11), (12) admit quite simple nonlinear solutions

$$F=\frac{1}{2}\varphi ^2,$$
(20)
$$\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha =\varphi W_\alpha .$$
(21)
Varying these expressions in accordance with (6) we recover the transformation laws (11), (12) and the further constraints

$``$ $`=`$ $`\varphi \overline{\varphi }{\displaystyle \frac{i}{4}}(W^\alpha D_\alpha Z^\alpha D_\alpha \varphi ),`$ (22)
$`Z_\alpha `$ $`=`$ $`\overline{\varphi }W_\alpha {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\overline{D}^{\dot{\alpha }})_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}\overline{\varphi }{\displaystyle \frac{i}{4}}(\overline{D}^{\dot{\alpha }}\overline{\varphi })D_\alpha \overline{D}_{\dot{\alpha }}.`$ (23)
Note, that when deriving these “second–class” constraints (22), (23) the Bianchi identity (13) must be taken into account. At the first sight these constraints manifestly contradict the condition of chirality of the superfield $`Z_\alpha `$, which was postulated in the previous section. In addition, the equation (22) does not seem to be real as it should be. However, these discrepancies can be removed simultaneously by the making use of the “nilpotence” conditions following from the recursive equation (19)

$$(\varphi \overline{\varphi })D_\alpha \varphi =(\varphi \overline{\varphi })\overline{D}_{\dot{\alpha }}\overline{\varphi }=0.$$
(24)
Let us emphasize that these conditions serve as the crucial step towards the recursive equation (19). Really, as it follows from (24) the explicit solution of the Eq. (21), (23) can be written as

$$Z_\alpha =\frac{i}{8}\overline{D}^2D_\alpha V,\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha =\frac{i}{8}\overline{D}^2D_\alpha \overline{V},$$
(25)
where

$$V=2\overline{\varphi }\varphi \overline{\varphi }^2.$$
(26)
It is easy to see now that for the given $`Z_\alpha `$ the recursive equation (22) is reduced to its “canonical” form (19). So, we have proved the covariance of the conditions (19), (22), (23) with respect to $`N=2`$, $`D=4`$ supersymmetry. The explicit solution of the Eq. (19) will be obtained in the section 5. Here, however, it is instructive to pay our attention to the following remarkable fact resulting from our considerations.

## 4 Infinite-dimensional matrix $`N=2`$ supermultiplet

Looking at the Eqs. (26), one cannot pass over a very unexpected interpretation of this solution. No matter whether there are composite solutions for the components of the extended vector supermultiplet or not, in fact, we always have the possibility to avoid the presence of the fermion superfields in the supermultiplet we have just constructed. To do this one should, firstly, incorporate the general $`N=1`$ superfield $`V`$ into the content of the supermultiplet. Then, demanding the closure of the corresponding bracket $`N=2`$ transformations off-shell we arrive at the transformation law

$$\delta V=2\overline{f}+2f\overline{F}\frac{i}{8}\eta ^\alpha \overline{D}^2D_\alpha G+\frac{i}{8}\overline{\eta }_{\dot{\alpha }}D^2\overline{D}^{\dot{\alpha }}H,$$
(27)
where

$$G=2\varphi ^2\frac{4}{3}\varphi ^3\overline{\varphi },H=4\varphi \overline{\varphi }3\varphi ^2\overline{\varphi }^2.$$
(28)
Repeating this process step by step we end up with the following infinite-dimensional matrix $`N=1`$ superfield

$$V_{mn}=V_{nm}^{}=\frac{2^{m+n2}}{m!n!}\left(mn\varphi ^{m1}\overline{\varphi }^{n1}+(1mn)\varphi ^m\overline{\varphi }^n\right),m,n0.$$
(29)
One can check that this superfield transforms as follows

$`\delta V_{mn}`$ $`=`$ $`2fV_{m1,n}+2\overline{f}V_{m,n1}{\displaystyle \frac{i}{8}}\eta ^\alpha \overline{D}^2D_\alpha V_{m,n+1}+{\displaystyle \frac{i}{8}}\overline{\eta }_{\dot{\alpha }}D^2\overline{D}^{\dot{\alpha }}V_{m+1,n},`$ (30)
$`\delta V_{0n}`$ $`=`$ $`2\overline{f}V_{0n1}+{\displaystyle \frac{i}{8}}\overline{\eta }_{\dot{\alpha }}D^2\overline{D}^{\dot{\alpha }}V_{1n},`$
when $`\varphi `$ and $``$ are varied in accordance with Eqs. (6), (9), (25), (26). Moreover, examining the transformation laws (30) we reveal that they are closed off-shell (just in accordance with the superalgebra (1)) for all the components $`V_{mn}`$ treating as new *independent* $`N=1`$ superfields when the corresponding matrix elements are normalized as follows

$$\left(\begin{array}{ccccc}V_{00}& V_{01}& V_{02}& & \mathrm{}\\ V_{10}& V_{11}& V_{12}& V_{13}& \\ V_{20}& V_{21}& V_{22}& & \\ & V_{31}& & & \\ \mathrm{}& & & & \mathrm{}\end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{ccccc}1/4& \overline{\varphi }/2& \overline{F}& & \mathrm{}\\ \varphi /2& & \overline{V}& \overline{G}& \\ F& V& H& & \\ & G& & & \\ \mathrm{}& & & & \mathrm{}\end{array}\right),$$
(31)
with $`V_{n0}`$ being chiral. Thus, beginning with either the finite-dimensional $`N=2`$ vector supermultiplet (6) or its extended analog (9)–(12) collecting both the *bosonic* and *fermionic* components we necessarily finish with the infinite-dimensional $`N=2`$ matrix supermultiplet $`V_{mn}`$ composed of the *bosonic* components only. It is obvious, that by the definition $`V_{mn}`$ proves to be infinite-reducible and can be “truncated” by the spinor covariant derivatives up to the vector $`N=2`$ supermultiplet (6). Its advantage, however, is that it immediately leads to the extended vector $`N=2`$ supermultiplet which gives the algorithmic procedure of constructing the “canonical” form of the recursive equation (19). Otherwise, it may be merely guessed. Hence, regarding the super-3-brane itself, we have proved the existence of some new fundamental representation of the *PBGS* theory which the effective Lagrangian density along with the corresponding chiral Goldstone superfield belongs to.

Notice, that earlier a very resembling procedure was demonstrated in the framework of $`N=4`$, $`D=4`$ *PBGS* theory . There the $`N=2`$, $`D=4`$ Born–Infeld superfield Lagrangian density was revealed among the components of an infinite-dimensional off-shell supermultiplet providing *PBGS*. Just as $`V_{mn}`$ this supermultiplet encompasses the infinite set of the worldvolume superfields obeying an infinite set of covariant constraints. In contrast to our case these constraints are solved there only iteratively.

## 5 Lagrangian density

A closed form of the Lagrangian density for the supersymmetric 3-brane can be established uniquely from the recursive equation (19) rewritten preliminary in the following more convenient form

$$L=\frac{1}{16}\frac{(D\varphi )^2(\overline{D}\overline{\varphi })^2}{1\frac{1}{16}D^\alpha \overline{D}^2D_\alpha L+\frac{A}{2}},L\varphi \overline{\varphi }.$$
(32)
This equation can be solved exactly since the numerator of (32) contains the maximal number of the Grassmann spinors $`D_\alpha \varphi `$, $`\overline{D}_{\dot{\alpha }}\overline{\varphi }`$. Therefore in the denominator we should leave only the terms which do not include these spinors. Thus we get the following “effective” equation

$$XD^\alpha \overline{D}^2D_\alpha L=\frac{1}{16}\frac{\left(D^\beta \overline{D}^2D_\beta (D\varphi )^2(\overline{D}\overline{\varphi })^2\right)_{eff}}{1+\frac{A}{2}\frac{X}{16}},$$
(33)
where

$`\left(D^\beta \overline{D}^2D_\beta (D\varphi )^2(\overline{D}\overline{\varphi })^2\right)_{eff}`$ $`=`$ $`(D^2\varphi )^2(\overline{D}^2\overline{\varphi })^2+64(^{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}\varphi )(_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}\varphi )(^{\sigma \dot{\sigma }}\overline{\varphi })(_{\sigma \dot{\sigma }}\overline{\varphi })+`$ (34)
$`+`$ $`16(D^2\varphi )(\overline{D}^2\overline{\varphi })(^{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}\varphi )(_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}\overline{\varphi })`$
Solving (33) and choosing the solution with the nonsingular behaviour in the limit $`\varphi =0`$

$$X=8\left(1+\frac{A}{2}\sqrt{1+A+B}\right),$$
(35)
$$B=(^{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}\varphi )(_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}\overline{\varphi })(^{\sigma \dot{\sigma }}\varphi )(_{\sigma \dot{\sigma }}\overline{\varphi })(^{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}\varphi )(_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}\varphi )(^{\sigma \dot{\sigma }}\overline{\varphi })(_{\sigma \dot{\sigma }}\overline{\varphi }),$$

we finally find the following expression for the Lagrangian density

$$=\varphi \overline{\varphi }+\frac{1}{8}\frac{(D^\alpha \varphi )(D_\alpha \varphi )(\overline{D}_{\dot{\alpha }}\overline{\varphi })(\overline{D}^{\dot{\alpha }}\overline{\varphi })}{1+\frac{A}{2}+\sqrt{1+A+B}}.$$
(36)
This is the canonical form of the Lagrangian density for the super-3-brane obtained in a framework of another approach in refs. . Note that the corresponding action

$$S=d^4xd^4\theta ,$$
(37)
is manifestly invariant with respect to the unbroken supersymmetry transformations while under the broken one it is shifted in accordance with Wess–Zumino theory on the surface term $`d^4xd^4\theta (f\overline{\varphi }+\overline{f}\varphi +\eta ^\alpha Z_\alpha +\overline{\eta }_{\dot{\alpha }}\overline{Z}^{\dot{\alpha }}).`$

## 6 Conclusions

Thus, we have shown that the most natural way of description of the supersymmetric 3-brane is achieved when both the chiral Goldstone $`N=1`$ superfield and the Lagrangian density are embedded into the infinite-dimensional matrix $`N=2`$ supermultiplet $`V_{mn}`$ restricted by the conditions (19), (29). It is proved that he latter appears in the framework of *PBGS* theory and solves ultimately the problem of constructing of the supersymmetric 3-brane action in its closed form.

Nevertheless, many problems remain outside this work. One of them is the problem of connection of this approach with the nonlinear realization of the $`N=2`$, $`D=4`$ supersymmetry in the superspace . Having ensured such a connection we will have an opportunity to test the general principle of the Nambu–Goldstone theories: the uniqueness of the Goldstone interaction arising in models with various mechanisms of spontaneous breaking of supersymmetry. As to the system considered here it would be desirable to understand how the chiral Goldstone multiplet of the linear realization $`\varphi `$ is interlinked with that of the nonlinear realization , and how a universal closed form action of this realization looks like?

Related question is whether this approach will allow us to solve a problem of spontaneous breaking of $`D=6`$ Lorentz symmetry in target space. From the general reasons we know that the part of this symmetry related to the transverse directions should be realized nonlinearly, in Goldstone mode fashion . Unfortunately, up to now we do not know how the corresponding Goldstone worldvolume superfields are involved into the residual *PBGS* action.

At last, there is the most intrigue question: whether the *PBGS* theory we have considered here can be promoted to the case of $`AdS_6`$ background, as it has been done, for example, for the $`N=1`$, $`D=4`$ supermembrane in ref. ?

We hope to answer these questions in future.

We are grateful to E. Ivanov, S. Krivonos, A. Pashnev and B. Zupnik for kind hospitality at Bogoliubov Laboratory of Theoretical Physics, JINR, where this work has begun.


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# CONSTRAINT SATISFACTION BY SURVEY PROPAGATION

## I Introduction

In this paper we suggest a new theoretical framework for the so called “Survey Propagation” (SP) equations that are at the root of both the analysis and the algorithms used in ref. MEPAZE ; MZ\_pre ; nosotros ; Coloring  to solve the random 3-Sat and q-Coloring problems. In the more general context of constraint satisfaction problems we propose a slightly different way of deriving the equations which we hope can shed some light on the potentialities of the algorithms and which makes clear the differences with other well known iterative probabilistic algorithms. This line of approach, also discussed in GP  for the satisfiability problem, is developed here systematically through the addition of an extra state for the variables which allows to take care of the clustered structure of the space of solutions. Within clusters a variable can be either “frozen” to some value – that is, the variable takes always the same value for all solutions (satisfying assignments) within the cluster – or it may be “unfrozen” – that is it fluctuates from solution to solution within the cluster. As we shall discuss, scope of the SP equations is to properly describe the cluster to cluster fluctuations by associating to unfrozen variables an extra state to be added to those belonging to the original definition of the problem. The overall algorithmic strategy is iterative and decomposable in two elementary steps: First, the marginal probabilities of frozen variables are evaluated by the SP message-passing procedure; Second – the so called decimation step – using such information some variables are fixed and the problem is simplified. While the first step is unavoidable if one is interested in marginal probabilities, the second step is just dictated by simplicity and we expect that there could exist other ways of efficiently using the information provided by the marginals.

Throughout the paper, a detailed comparison with a similar message-passing procedure, Belief Propagation, which does not make assumptions about the structure of the solution space will also be given.

The structure of the paper is as follows. In Sec. II, we provide the general formalism, namely the definitions of Constraint Satisfaction Problems, Factor Graphs and Cavities, with concrete reference to the cases of Coloring and Satisfiability. In Sec. III, we introduce the warnings and the local fields whose histograms will provide the so called Belief Propagation equations. Finally in Sec. IV, clusters are introduced and the SP equations are derived. Explicit equations are given for both 3-col and 3-sat and the decimation procedure is discussed.

## II Generalities

### II.1 Constraint satisfaction problems

We consider a constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) which is defined on a set of discrete variables $`\stackrel{}{x}=\left(x_i\right)_{iI}`$ with $`I=\{1,\mathrm{},n\}`$. Each variable $`x_i`$ can be in $`q`$ possible states (the generalization to the case where the number of states is $`i`$ dependent is straightforward), so $`\stackrel{}{x}X=\{1,\mathrm{},q\}^n`$. The vector $`\stackrel{}{x}`$ is called a configuration. These variables are subject to a set of constraints $`\{C_a\}_{aA}`$. Each $`C_a`$ depends on $`\stackrel{}{x}`$ only through a subset $`(x_i)_{iI(a)}`$ of variables. It is defined as a mapping $`C_a:\{1,\mathrm{},q\}^{|I(a)|}\{0,1\}`$, where the value $`C_a=0`$ zero corresponds to a satisfied constraint, and $`C_a=1`$ to an unsatisfied constraint. It is useful to introduce, for every $`iI`$, the subset $`A(i)A`$ of indices of all constraints involving $`x_i`$. The index sets $`I`$ and $`A`$ are chosen disjoint, so that their elements uniquely determine a single variable or constraint.

We define the cost function

$$C[\stackrel{}{x}]=\underset{aA}{}C_a[\left(x_i\right)_{iI(a)}]$$
(1)
which counts the number of unsatisfied constraints. Our goal is to simultaneously satisfy all constraints, i.e. to find a configuration $`\stackrel{}{s}X`$ with $`C[\stackrel{}{s}]=0`$. We thus introduce the subset $`S_CX`$ of solutions to our CSP instance as

$$S_C=\{\stackrel{}{s}|\stackrel{}{s}X,C[\stackrel{}{s}]=0\}.$$
(2)
The algorithm aims at finding one solution $`\stackrel{}{s}S_C`$. We concentrate a priori onto instances $`C[\stackrel{}{x}]`$ which possess a non-empty solution set $`S_C`$.

### II.2 Factor graph

We use the factor-graph factor\_graph  representation for a CSP:

###### Definition II.1

For any instance of the CSP problem, we define its factor graph as a bipartite undirected graph $`G=(V,E)`$, having two types of nodes:

* variable nodes $`iI`$ and
* function nodes $`aA`$.

Edges connect only different node types; the edge $`(i,a)`$ belongs to the graph if and only if the constraint $`C_a`$ involves the variable $`x_i`$, i.e. if $`aA\left(i\right)`$ or equivalently $`iI\left(a\right)`$. More formally, we define $`V=AI`$ and $`E=\left\{(i,a)\right|iI,aA(i)\}=\left\{(i,a)\right|aA,iI(a)\}`$.

In figures, we always represent variable nodes by circles, whereas function nodes are drawn as squares. This notation will help to distinguish between the different origins of the two node types.

### II.3 Cavities

Given a CSP and its factor graph, we will use the cavity graphs obtained by removing a variable:

###### Definition II.2

Given a factor graph $`G`$ and one variable node $`iI`$, we define the cavity graph $`G^{(i)}`$ by deleting from $`G`$ all function nodes $`aA(i)`$ which are adjacent to $`i`$, and the edges incident to these function nodes.

The cavity graph $`G^{(i)}`$ defines a new CSP, where the cost function is

$$C^{(i)}=C\underset{aA(i)}{}C_a=\underset{bA(i)}{}C_b.$$
(3)
Note that in this new problem the variable $`x_i`$ is isolated, it can take any value without violating a constraint. The solution set $`S^{(i)}`$ for the cavity problem $`G^{(i)}`$ is larger than the original one, since some constraints have been removed.

### II.4 Two examples: Satisfiability and Coloring

Although the algorithm can in principle be written for arbitrary CSP, we shall present two specific examples, satisfiability and coloring.

In the satisfiability problem a constraint $`C_a`$ is a clause, which is unsatisfied by only one assignment of the variables $`(x_i)_{iI(a)}`$. In the random 3-SAT problem each clause involves three variables ($`|I(a)|=3`$), the indices of which are chosen randomly with uniform distribution in $`I`$. For a given $`a`$ and $`I(a)`$, there are eight different types of constraints $`C_a`$, corresponding to the combinations of possible negations of literals in one clause, see Fig. 1. In random 3-SAT the type of clauses is chosen with uniform distribution among these eight types.

In the $`q`$-coloring problem one is given an original undirected graph. The problem is to color the vertices, using $`q`$ colors, so that two vertices connected by an edge have different colors. There is one constraint associated with each edge of the original graph, and the factor-graph appears as a decoration of the original graph (see Fig.2), where function nodes have been added on each original edge. There is only one type of function node. In the random $`q`$-col problem, the original graph is a random $`𝒢(n,\frac{c}{n})`$ graph.

We will be particularly interested in the behavior of the algorithm for large $`n`$. Note that both $`K`$-SAT and $`q`$-col are problems where $`|A(i)|`$ have a Poisson limit distribution with finite mean when $`n\mathrm{}`$, i.e. $`|A(i)|`$ is typically much smaller than $`n`$. Moreover, the structure of the factor graph is locally tree-like. This will guide us in the definition of the algorithm below, and it is presumably an important ingredient for the algorithm to work.

## III Belief propagation

### III.1 Warnings and fields

Given a CSP and a configuration $`\stackrel{}{x}X`$, we define the following three quantities associated with $`\stackrel{}{x}`$, cf. MZ\_pre ; nosotros :

###### Definition III.1

For a given edge $`ai`$ of the factor graph, with $`iI`$ and $`aA\left(i\right)`$, we define a warning as the $`q`$-component vector $`\stackrel{}{u}_{ai}(\stackrel{}{x})\{0,1\}^q`$ with components:

$$u_{ai}^p(\stackrel{}{x})=C_a\left[(x_j)_{jI(a)}|x_ip\right],p=1,\mathrm{},q,$$

So $`u_{ai}^p(\stackrel{}{x})`$ is the value of constraint $`C_a`$ in the configuration obtained from $`\stackrel{}{x}`$, by substituting $`p`$ in the place of $`x_i`$.

###### Definition III.2

For a given edge $`ai`$ of the factor graph, with $`iI`$ and $`aA\left(i\right)`$, we define a cavity field as the $`q`$-component vector $`\stackrel{}{h}_{ia}(\stackrel{}{x})\{0,1\}^q`$ with components:

$$h_{ia}^p(\stackrel{}{x})=\underset{bA(i)a}{\mathrm{max}}u_{bi}^p(\stackrel{}{x})$$

###### Definition III.3

For a given node $`iI`$, we define the local field as the $`q`$-dimensional vector $`\stackrel{}{h}_i(\stackrel{}{x})\{0,1\}^q`$ with components:

$$h_i^p(\stackrel{}{x})=\underset{aA(i)}{\mathrm{max}}u_{ai}^p(\stackrel{}{x}).$$

The warning $`\stackrel{}{u}_{ai}(\stackrel{}{x})`$ is understood as a message sent from constraint $`a`$ to variable $`i`$ saying: $`x_i`$ cannot be in any of the states $`p`$ where $`u_{ai}^p(\stackrel{}{x})=1`$, without violating constraint $`a`$. Note that we do not need the value of $`x_i`$ for computing $`\stackrel{}{u}_{ai}`$. In fact, the warning depends explicitly only on $`(x_j)_{jI(a)i}`$.

The local field on variable $`i`$ summarizes all warnings sent to $`i`$ from the constraints, i.e. $`h_i^p(\stackrel{}{x})0`$ means that, given the values of all other variables $`(x_j),ji`$, the variable $`x_i`$ should not be assigned the value $`p`$, because at least one neighboring constraint would be violated.

The cavity field $`\stackrel{}{h}_{ia}(\stackrel{}{x})`$ summarizes all warnings sent to $`i`$ from the constraints different from $`a`$.

### III.2 Histograms

The elementary messages above are defined for an arbitrary configuration $`\stackrel{}{x}`$. We are eventually interested in knowing, for each variable $`i`$, the histogram of local fields for the configurations which are solutions of the CSP:

$$H_i(\stackrel{}{h})=\frac{1}{|S_C|}\underset{\stackrel{}{s}S_C}{}\delta _{\stackrel{}{h},\stackrel{}{h}_i(\stackrel{}{s})},$$
(4)
where the ($`q`$-dimensional) Kronecker-Delta is simply denoted by $`\delta `$. This histogram can also be interpreted as probability distributions $`H_i(\stackrel{}{h})=Prob(\stackrel{}{h}_i(\stackrel{}{s})=\stackrel{}{h}|\stackrel{}{s}S_C)`$ of local fields for randomly chosen solutions.

Local-field histograms contain useful information about the set $`S_C`$ of solutions, which can be exploited algorithmically in order to recursively construct one solution. If, e.g., one of the field components is non-zero for all solutions $`\stackrel{}{s}S_C`$, this particular state is forbidden to this variable. If all but one components are non-zero, the variable is “frozen” to one specific value in all solutions, i.e. it belongs to the so-called backbone, and it can be assigned right away.

Computing $`H_i(\stackrel{}{h})`$ is a difficult task, but one may compute it approximately using a message passing procedure. We first try to find a recursion relation for the related histograms of the warnings $`\stackrel{}{u}_{ai}(\stackrel{}{s})`$ over all solutions $`\stackrel{}{s}S_C`$ nosotros . Considering Fig. 3 as an example, we note that the histogram of $`\stackrel{}{u}_{ai}(\stackrel{}{s})`$ depends on the joint histogram of all the warnings $`\stackrel{}{u}_{bj}(\stackrel{}{s})`$ sent to all variables $`j\{j_1,j_2,j_3\}`$“above” function node $`a`$ (we call them the incoming warnings). The obvious problem is that this joint distribution is not known. If the $`\stackrel{}{u}_{bj}(\stackrel{}{s})`$ were independent variables, we would be able to factorize the joint histogram into the product of all individual histograms of warnings $`\stackrel{}{u}_{bj}(\stackrel{}{s})`$, and then to obtain a recursion. But in general there is no reason for them to be independent. Moreover, they cannot even be approximately independent as there are very short paths joining variables “above” variable nodes $`j`$ (the small unnamed ones in the figure) between them, variables which in turn define the $`\stackrel{}{u}_{bj}(\stackrel{}{s})`$ messages. This is where the cavity graph is useful.

For each edge $`ai`$ of the factor graph, we define the belief $`B_{ai}(\stackrel{}{u})`$ as the histogram of the warning $`\stackrel{}{u}_{ai}`$ over the configurations $`sS^{(i)}`$ which are solutions of the cavity graph problem:

$`B_{ai}(\stackrel{}{u})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{|S^{(i)}|}}{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{s}S^{(i)}}{}}\delta _{\stackrel{}{u},\stackrel{}{u}_{ai}(\stackrel{}{s})}`$ (5)
$`=`$ $`Prob\left(\stackrel{}{u}_{ai}(\stackrel{}{s})=\stackrel{}{u}|\stackrel{}{s}S^{(i)}\right),`$
where the second line refers again to the probabilistic interpretation: $`B_{ai}(\stackrel{}{u})`$ describes the probability of finding a warning $`\stackrel{}{u}`$ if a solution of the cavity graph is randomly selected.

### III.3 Belief propagation equations

Look again at Fig.3: If the factor graph $`G`$ is a tree, vertices above $`j_1,j_2`$ and $`j_3`$ become disconnected if function nodes $`b_i`$ are removed, and the various messages $`\stackrel{}{u}_{bj}`$ are uncorrelated. In this case, we can thus determine the belief $`B_{ai}`$ as a function of all the incoming beliefs (i.e. the histograms of the incoming warnings $`\{B_{bj}\}`$ with $`jI\left(a\right)i`$ and $`bA\left(j\right)a`$), and so on recursively for the full factor graph. Standard belief propagation uses this same recursion also in more general factor graphs with loops, as a means to compute approximately the local-field histograms and the beliefs (see e.g. YedFreeWei ).

In order to write the corresponding ’belief propagation’ equations explicitly, we use notations similar to those of Fig.3. Given the edge $`ai`$ connecting the function node $`a`$ to the variable $`i`$, we denote by $`J`$ the set of indices of the variable nodes “above” the function node $`a`$, i.e. $`J=I\left(a\right)i`$ (in the figure $`J=\{j_1,j_2,j_3\}`$). For each $`jJ`$, we denote by $`D_j=A\left(j\right)a`$ the set of function node “above” the variable $`j`$ (in the figure, $`D_{j_1}=\{b_1,b_2\}`$, and by $`\widehat{D}`$ the union of these sets: $`\widehat{D}=_jD_j`$). The “incoming messages”, which can be warning or beliefs, are all the messages propagated on the edges $`bj`$ with $`jJ`$ and, for each such $`j`$, $`bD_j`$.

Let us first consider a set of incoming warnings $`\{\stackrel{}{u}_{bj}\}`$. This warning set may or may not be “extensible” to a configuration $`(s_j)_{jJ}`$ satisfying all constraints $`(C_b)_{b\widehat{D}}`$. One can easily go through a bureaucratic procedure to evaluate all configurations $`(s_j)_{jJ}`$ compatible with the warning set. First compute the cavity fields III.3 component-wise: $`h_{ja}^p=\mathrm{max}_{bD_j}(u_{bj}^p)`$. For each $`jJ`$, the allowed values of $`s_j`$ are those such that $`h_{ja}^{s_j}=0`$. We denote by $`T(\{\stackrel{}{h}_{ja}\})\{1,\mathrm{},q\}^{|J|}`$ the set of allowed configurations of the $`s_j`$ variables:

$$T(\{\stackrel{}{h}_{ja}\})=\left\{(s_j)_{jI(a)i}\right|h_{ja}^{s_j}=0,jI\left(a\right)i\}$$
(6)
For each $`(s_j)`$ in $`T(\{\stackrel{}{h}_{ja}\})`$, one can determine the output warning $`\stackrel{}{u}_{ai}`$ using definition III.1.

This procedure can be embedded into the probabilistic description of solutions on the cavity graph. For doing so, we assume that incoming warnings are independent. Following the steps above, one first calculates from the incoming beliefs the distributions of cavity fields

$$H_{ja}(\stackrel{}{h})=\underset{\{\stackrel{}{u}_{bj}\}_{bD_j}}{}\delta _{\stackrel{}{h},\stackrel{}{h}_{ja}}\underset{bD_j}{}B_{bj}(\stackrel{}{u}_{bj}).$$
(7)
The new distribution of warnings $`\stackrel{}{u}_{ai}`$ is now given by an average over cavity fields,

$$B_{ai}(\stackrel{}{u})=𝒵^1\underset{\{\stackrel{}{h}_{ja}\}_{jJ}}{}\left[\underset{\stackrel{}{s}T(\{\stackrel{}{h}_{ja}\})}{}\delta _{\stackrel{}{u},\stackrel{}{u}_{ai}(\stackrel{}{s})}\right]\underset{jJ}{}B_{ja}(\stackrel{}{h}_{ja})$$
(8)
The prefactor $`𝒵^1`$ is a normalization constant. Note that each cavity-field configuration $`\{\stackrel{}{h}_{ja}\}`$ is contributing $`|T(\{\stackrel{}{h}_{ja}\})|`$ terms. As a byproduct, contradictory messages automatically do not contribute anything to (8).

The BP equations (7,8) are equivalent to the so called sum-product (or belief network, or Bayesian network) equations Gallager ; pearl . One can try to solve them by iteration, starting form some randomly chosen beliefs, and updating $`B_{ai}`$ sequentially on randomly chosen $`ai`$ edges. In some cases, the iteration converges, independently of the scheme of updating, to a unique solution. When the belief propagation equations converge, one can use the obtained beliefs in order to estimate the histogram of local fields, using:

$$H_j(\stackrel{}{h})\underset{\{\stackrel{}{u}_{bj}\}_{bA(j)}}{}\delta _{\stackrel{}{h},\stackrel{}{h}_{ja}}\underset{bA(j)}{}B_{bj}(\stackrel{}{u}_{bj}).$$
(9)
and this histogram can be used for decimation.

### III.4 An example of Belief Propagation: 3-COL

For the sake of clarity, let us work out BP on a simple example of the 3-col problem ($`q=3`$), see Fig. 4. Since function nodes are connected to two variable nodes only (constraints are edges in the original graph), there is only one variable node $`j`$ above function node $`a`$. For a given configuration of incoming warnings $`\left\{\stackrel{}{u}_{bj}\right\}`$, we can make a table of allowed states $`s_j`$, and for each of them, we can compute the outgoing warning $`\stackrel{}{u}_{ai}(s_j)`$. Note that possible warnings are $`(1,0,0)`$, $`(0,1,0)`$, $`(0,0,1)`$, since a function node can only forbid one color (which is given by the state of the other variable connected to the function node).

* Suppose that $`\stackrel{}{u}_{b_1j}=(1,0,0)`$, $`\stackrel{}{u}_{b_2j}=(0,1,0)`$, and $`\stackrel{}{u}_{b_3j}=(0,0,1)`$. Then $`h_{ja}=(1,1,1)`$, we find a contradictory message. No satisfiable configuration exists for $`s_j`$. According to the procedure given above, this configuration does not contribute.
* Suppose that incoming messages are $`\stackrel{}{u}_{b_1j}=\stackrel{}{u}_{b_2j}=(1,0,0)`$, and $`\stackrel{}{u}_{b_3j}=(0,1,0)`$. Then $`h_{ja}=(1,1,0)`$, and the only possible coloring state for $`j`$ is $`s_j=3`$. For this configuration, we thus have only one possible outgoing warning, $`\stackrel{}{u}_{ai}=(0,0,1)`$.
* If $`\stackrel{}{u}_{b_1j}=\stackrel{}{u}_{b_2j}=\stackrel{}{u}_{b_3j}=(1,0,0)`$, then $`h_{ja}=(1,0,0)`$, and there are two possible colors for $`s_j`$, namely states $`2`$ and $`3`$. For the first one we have $`u_{ai}=(0,1,0)`$, and for the second one $`u_{ai}=(0,0,1)`$. Both contribute with equal weight to $`B_{ai}`$.
* All other configurations are simple color permutations of the three cases mentioned above, and are handled analogously.

From Eqs. (7,8), we can easily deduce the equation giving the probability distribution $`B_{ai}`$ in terms of all distributions $`\{B_{b_lj};l=1,2,3\}`$. Parameterizing $`B_{ai}`$ according to the three possible messages as

$$B_{ai}(\stackrel{}{u})=\eta _{ai}^1\delta _{\stackrel{}{u},(1,0,0)}+\eta _{ai}^2\delta _{\stackrel{}{u},(0,1,0)}+\eta _{ai}^3\delta _{\stackrel{}{u},(0,0,1)},$$
(10)
we find

$$\eta _{ai}^p=\frac{_{l=1}^3(1\eta _{b_lj}^p)}{_{r=1}^q_{l=1}^3(1\eta _{b_lj}^r)}$$
(11)
This expression can be easily understood: $`\eta _{ai}^p`$ equals the probability that color $`p`$ is forbidden for node $`i`$, which means that node $`j`$ has already taken this color, $`s_j=p`$. Now, node $`j`$ can take color $`p`$ if and only if it is not forbidden by any incoming warning: The numerator in Eq. (11) simply calculates the probability that none of the incoming messages forbids color $`p`$, the denominator guarantees normalization. Note that configurations in which all variables above $`j`$ take the same color $`r`$, are counted twice, namely in the expressions for both $`pr`$. According to the general discussion given above, this is correct because we have *two* new configurations for $`s_j`$, and two corresponding messages $`\stackrel{}{u}_{ai}`$ can be sent.

Due to the symmetry between colors, a possible solution would be $`\eta _{ai}^p=1/q`$ for all edges $`(i,a)E`$ and all colors $`p`$. Note, however, that the main intention is to use these equations in a recursive coloring algorithm. This means, some variable nodes may already be assigned a color before, which explicitly breaks the symmetry. Still, Eq. (11) is valid.

## IV Survey propagation

### IV.1 Clustering

Pitifully, the Belief Propagation dynamics is known not to converge for the random version of many combinatorial problems (including again $`3`$-sat and $`q`$-col) in the region of the parameters near the SAT/UNSAT threshold. Recently, using tools from statistical physics, it has been possible to reach some understanding of what happens in the solution space of these problems around this threshold MEPAZE ; MZ\_pre ; cavity . Well below the threshold, i.e. where the number $`|A|/n`$ of constraints per variable is relatively small, a generic problem has exponentially many solutions, which tend to form one giant cluster: For any two solutions, it is possible to find a connecting path via other solutions that requires short steps only (each pair of consecutive assignments in the path is close together in Hamming distance).

Close to the critical threshold, however, the solution space breaks up into many smaller clusters. Solutions in separate clusters are generally far apart. In addition, the cost function $`C[\stackrel{}{x}]`$ has exponentially many local minima, separated from each other by large cost “barriers”. These local cost minima are exponentially more numerous than the solution clusters, and they act as traps for local search algorithms.

According to the statistical-physics analysis (which considers the infinite size limit, $`n\mathrm{}`$), there exist exponentially many widely separated clusters of solutions. Within one such cluster of solutions, we may identify two types of variables: those which are frozen in one single state, for all configurations belonging to the cluster, and those – unfrozen – which fluctuate from solution to solution inside the cluster. Note that also the variables which are frozen within one solution cluster may change their state when we go to another cluster, there they may even be unfrozen. While in general the above distinction can only provide an approximate description of clusters, it appears from numerical experiments that in many hard random CSP, like $`K`$-sat or $`q`$-col, such type of approximation is already rather accurate.

### IV.2 The joker states

Survey propagation turns out nosotros  to be able to deal with this clustering phenomenon for large (finite) sizes $`n`$. Although the original derivation uses sophisticated statistical physics ideas, one can also develop it more directly in algorithmic terms. The main idea is that we do not work any more with individual solutions $`\stackrel{}{s}S_C`$, but with complete clusters of solutions. As already said, some variables may be frozen inside a cluster, so they retain one single value $`s_j\{1,\mathrm{},q\}`$ in our description. Other variables may take several values n the cluster. For handling these variables, one can introduce an additional joker state which we denote by a “$``$”. An even finer description, useful for general CSP, uses varieties of joker states, describing the set of values which are allowed for the variable, so that $`s_j𝒫`$, where $`𝒫`$ is the ensemble built from all subsets of $`\{1,\mathrm{},q\}`$. To each cluster one should associate exactly one generalized value of each variable. One can then generalize the constraint to this enlarged space and work out the corresponding belief propagation equations. The resulting equations are the survey propagation equations.

We shall not develop in more details this ’derivation’, since it does not give any rigorous construction, but we will directly write the equations themselves, in terms of the original variables $`\stackrel{}{x}\{1,\mathrm{},q\}^n`$, and then analyze them.

### IV.3 Generalized messages

We first need to define the generalizations of the warnings, the cavity-fields and the local field used in survey propagation. In order to lighten the notation and presentation, we shall drop the ’generalized’, and use the same notation for generalized warning as we used for warnings in the BP section. The reader should remember that in SP all the messages are ’generalized’ messages.

For a given CSP, we define the generalized warnings:

###### Definition IV.1

For a given edge $`ai`$ of the factor graph, with $`iI`$ and $`aA\left(i\right)`$, let $`S`$ be a given set of possible values for the variables $`(x_j)_{jI(a)i}`$ which are ‘above’ $`a`$. We define the warning as the $`q`$-component vector $`\stackrel{}{\widehat{u}}_{ai}(\stackrel{}{x})\{0,1\}^q`$ with components:

$$\widehat{u}_{ai}^p(S)=\underset{(x_j)S}{\mathrm{min}}C_a\left[(x_j)_{jI(a)i}|x_ip\right],p=1,\mathrm{},q,$$

(The generalized warning was called cavity-bias in MZ\_pre ). Note that the set of possible warnings is enlarged in SP: For the example of 3-col the null message $`(0,0,0)`$ is added to $`(0,0,1)`$, $`(0,1,0)`$ and $`(1,0,0)`$. As we have discussed before, the non-null messages are sent if the node “above” a function node is assigned a fixed color in the solution cluster. Correspondingly, the new message is sent if this vertex is not fixed to a single color, i.e. if it is in the joker state.

Based on these warnings, we define local and cavity fields according to Def. III.3, with the argument (a single configuration) replaced by a set $`S`$ of configurations:

$`h_i^p(S)`$ $`=`$ $`\underset{aA(i)}{\mathrm{max}}u_{ai}^p(S),`$
$`h_{ja}^p(S)`$ $`=`$ $`\underset{bA(j)a}{\mathrm{max}}u_{bj}^p(S).`$ (12)
### IV.4 Histograms

Histograms of warnings and fields are now defined as sums over clusters. The histogram of local fields is given by

$$H_i(\stackrel{}{h})=\frac{1}{n_{cl}}\underset{\alpha =1}{\overset{n_{cl}}{}}\delta _{\stackrel{}{h},\stackrel{}{h}_i(S_C^\alpha )}.$$
(13)
The histogram of the generalized warning on an edge $`ai`$ is now called the survey, denoted $`Q_{ai}(\stackrel{}{u})`$. It is defined in terms of the clusters of solutions for the cavity graph where $`i`$ has been taken away. Calling $`S_C^{\alpha ,(i)}`$ the corresponding clusters, and $`n_{cl}^{(i)}`$ their numbers, one defines:

$$Q_{ai}(\stackrel{}{u})=\frac{1}{n_{cl}^{(i)}}\underset{\alpha =1}{\overset{n_{cl}^{(i)}}{}}\delta _{\stackrel{}{u},\stackrel{}{u}_{ai}(S_C^{\alpha ,(i)})}.$$
(14)
### IV.5 Survey propagation equations

Based on these definitions, one can easily guess the generalized recurrence equations for the (approximate) probabilities $`Q_{ai}(\stackrel{}{u})`$ that implement the solutions in this enlarged configuration space. These SP equations lead to a small, yet fundamental, modification of the BP equations. The basic assumption is again, that incoming warnings are independent. But contradictory messages have to be explicitly forbidden. Having Fig. 3 in mind, and using the same notations as in sect.III.3, we use the incoming surveys (i.e. the set of surveys: $`\{Q_{bj}\}`$ with $`jI\left(a\right)i`$ and $`bA\left(j\right)a`$) to calculate the cavity-field distributions as in (7):

$$H_{ja}(\stackrel{}{h})=\underset{\{\stackrel{}{u}_{bj}\}_{bD_j}}{}\delta _{\stackrel{}{h},\stackrel{}{h}_{ja}}\underset{bA(j)a}{}Q_{bj}(\stackrel{}{u}_{bj}).$$
(15)
Remember that these fields may lead to contradictions, if and only if $`\stackrel{}{h}_{ja}=(1,1,\mathrm{},1)`$ for at least one $`j`$. We therefore introduce the set of all non-contradictory cavity field configurations,

$$_{ai}=\left\{\{\stackrel{}{h}_{ja}\}_{jI(a)i}\right|j:\stackrel{}{h}_{ja}\{0,1\}^q,\stackrel{}{h}_{ja}(1,\mathrm{},1)\}.$$
(16)
Then, for an element of $`_{ai}`$ we define again

$$T\left(\{\stackrel{}{h}_{ja}\}\right)=\left\{(s_j)_{jI(a)i}\right|h_{ja}^{s_j}=0,jI(a)i\},$$
(17)
the set of allowed configuration for the variable nodes above function node $`a`$. Now the difference to BP enters: All elements of $`T(\{\stackrel{}{h}_{ja}\})`$ naturally belong to the same cluster, i.e. they give rise to a single outgoing warning! The new warning is thus computed on the set of allowed configurations, it is given by $`\stackrel{}{u}_{ai}(T(\{\stackrel{}{h}_{ja}\}))`$. Its distribution follows immediately,

$$Q_{ai}(\stackrel{}{u})=\stackrel{~}{𝒵}^1\underset{\{\stackrel{}{h}_{ja}\}_{ai}}{}\delta _{\stackrel{}{u},\stackrel{}{u}_{ai}\left(T(\{\stackrel{}{h}_{ja}\})\right)}\underset{jI(a)i}{}H_{ja}(\stackrel{}{h}_{ja}).$$
(18)
The equations (15,18) are the SP equations. Note that Eq. (18) produces a dramatic change in the iteration of the probabilities with respect to the BP Eq. (8): Every allowed cavity-field configuration contributes only one term to the sum. Note also that contradictory messages have to be excluded explicitly by summing only over $`_{ai}`$. In belief propagation, for each configuration of input messages one takes the full collection of possible outputs, thereby introducing a bifurcation mechanism (which may easily become unstable). On the contrary, in SP the presence of multiple outputs is collapsed into the null message (which may even not be present in the belief propagation formalism as it happens for the coloring problem). A variable which receives a message having at least two zero components will be “unfrozen” in the corresponding cluster.

The SP equations (15-18) provide a closed set of equation for the surveys. Practically, this recurrence defines a map

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }:\left\{{}_{}{}^{old}Q_{ai}^{}\right\}_{aA(i)}^{i=1,\mathrm{},n}\left\{{}_{}{}^{new}Q_{ai}^{}\right\}_{aA(i)}^{i=1,\mathrm{},n}$$
(19)
and we are looking for a fixed point of this map, that will be obtained numerically by starting with some (random) initial $`\left\{Q_{ai}^0\right\}`$ and applying $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ iteratively:

$$\left\{Q_{ai}^{SP}\right\}=\underset{m\mathrm{}}{lim}\begin{array}{c}m\text{ times}\\ \stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Lambda }}\end{array}\left\{Q_{ai}^0\right\}$$
(20)
Such a fixed point will be called a “self-consistent” set of surveys.

### IV.6 An example of Survey Propagation: 3-COL

For the 3-col example, because of the additional null message, the warning distribution now reads Coloring\_algo

$$Q_{ai}^{SP}(\stackrel{}{u})=\eta _{ai}^{}\delta _{\stackrel{}{u},(0,0,0)}+\eta _{ai}^1\delta _{\stackrel{}{u},(1,0,0)}+\eta _{ai}^2\delta _{\stackrel{}{u},(0,1,0)}+\eta _{ai}^3\delta _{\stackrel{}{u},(0,0,1)},$$
(21)
and the SP equations corresponding to fig.4 are given by

$$\eta _{ai}^p=\frac{_{l=1}^3(1\eta _{b_lj}^p)_{rp}_{l=1}^3(\eta _{b_lj}^{}+\eta _{b_lj}^r)+_{l=1}^3\eta _{b_lj}^{}}{_{r=1}^q_{l=1}^3(1\eta _{b_lj}^r)_{r=1}^q_{l=1}^3(\eta _{b_lj}^{}+\eta _{b_lj}^r)+_{l=1}^3\eta _{b_lj}^{}},$$
(22)
for $`p\{1,2,3\}`$. Then $`\eta _{a1}^{}`$can be computed by normalization, i.e:

$$\eta _{ai}^{}=1\left(\eta _{ai}^1+\eta _{ai}^2+\eta _{ai}^3\right)$$
(23)
The interpretation of this equation is again straightforward, for simplicity we explain it just for color 1: Now $`\eta _{ai}^1`$ is given by the probability that $`s_j`$ is forced to take value $`1`$, i.e. by the probability that the cavity field equals $`\stackrel{}{h}_{ja}=(0,1,1)`$, conditioned to non-contradictory fields. The numerator calculates the unconditioned probability: The first term excludes $`h_{ja}^1`$ which would forbid color 1 to $`s_j`$. The second term takes out fields $`(0,h^2,0)`$ and $`(0,0,h^3)`$ where $`s_j`$ would be allowed to also take at least one other color. The last term adds again the probability of field $`(0,0,0)`$ which was subtracted twice in the second term. The denominator realizes the conditioning to non-contradictory fields, i.e. it gives the probability that $`\stackrel{}{h}_{ja}(1,1,1)`$. The counting of possible cases follows again the inclusion-exclusion principle: In the first term, we count fields that have a zero component in color $`r`$, summed over $`r`$. We have to subtract the double countings due to fields having two zero-components, and we have to add once the field $`(0,0,0)`$ which was added three times in the first term, and subtracted three times in the second one.

Note that the symmetry between colors leads immediately to a solution $`\eta _{ai}^{}=1`$ for all edges $`(i,a)`$ of the factor graph, i.e. only null-messages are sent. This is, however, not the correct solution in the clustered regime, the color symmetry is not valid at the level of solution clusters. In fact, the appearance of a non-trivial solution for the $`\eta _{ai}^p`$ marks the onset of clustering.

### IV.7 The $`K`$-SAT case

In the sat case, $`q=2`$, so possible $`\stackrel{}{u}`$ messages are $`(0,0)`$, $`(1,0)`$, $`(0,1)`$ and $`(1,1)`$. As any clause can be satisfied by any given variable (by choosing its value according with the negation of its corresponding literal) , the $`(1,1)`$ message will never show up. Moreover, for a given $`ai`$, which of $`(1,0)`$ or $`(0,1)`$ can appear on $`\stackrel{}{u}_{ai}`$ will be completely determined by the sign of the corresponding literal. So we can parameterize distributions $`Q_{ai}`$ with only one real number $`\eta _{ai}`$ being the probability of the nontrivial $`\stackrel{}{u}_{ai}`$ message ($`(1,0)`$ or $`(0,1)`$). The probability of $`(0,0)`$ will simply be $`1\eta _{ai}`$. The corresponding equations – which have been written and implemented in nosotros ; web  – read in the case of 3-sat:

$$\eta _{ai}=\underset{jI(a)i}{}\left[\frac{\mathrm{\Pi }_{ja}^u}{\mathrm{\Pi }_{ja}^u+\mathrm{\Pi }_{ja}^s+\mathrm{\Pi }_{ja}^0}\right],$$
(24)
where:

$`\mathrm{\Pi }_{ja}^u`$ $`=`$ $`\left[1{\displaystyle \underset{bA_a^u(j)}{}}\left(1\eta _{bj}\right)\right]{\displaystyle \underset{bA_a^s(j)}{}}\left(1\eta _{bj}\right)`$
$`\mathrm{\Pi }_{ja}^s`$ $`=`$ $`\left[1{\displaystyle \underset{bA_a^s(j)}{}}\left(1\eta _{bj}\right)\right]{\displaystyle \underset{bA_a^u(j)}{}}\left(1\eta _{bj}\right)`$
$`\mathrm{\Pi }_{ja}^0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{bA(j)a}{}}\left(1\eta _{bj}\right)`$ (25)
$`A_a^u(j)`$,$`A_a^s(j)`$ are the two sets in which $`A(j)`$ is decomposed ($`A(j)=A_a^u(j)A_a^s(j)`$) where the indexes $`s`$ (resp: $`u`$) refer to the neighbors $`b`$ for which the literals $`(b,j)`$ and $`(a,j)`$ agree (resp: disagree). This separation corresponds to the the distinction of which neighbors contribute to make variable $`j`$ satisfy or not-satisfy the clause $`a`$.

For example, the product $`_{bA_a^s(j)}\left(1\eta _{bj}\right)`$ gives the probability that no nontrivial message arrives on $`j`$ from the function nodes $`bA_a^s(j)`$ (empty products are set to $`1`$ by definition).

### IV.8 The $`q`$-COL case

We have already discussed in detail the 3-col problem, a general number $`q`$ of colors can be handled analogously. Messages $`\stackrel{}{u}_{ai}`$ are elements of $`\{0,1\}^q`$ forbidding the colors which have $`1`$ in their corresponding coordinate. We can immediately see that the possible types of $`\stackrel{}{u}_{ai}`$ message are $`(0,\mathrm{},0,1,0,\mathrm{}0)`$ (a $`1`$ on the color taken by the variable in the other end of the link), plus the additional null message $`(0,\mathrm{},0)`$ (if the neighboring variable is in the joker state). So we can parameterize $`Q_{ai}`$ by only $`q`$ real numbers.

Looking to Figure 5, suppose variable $`i`$ has color $`p`$ forbidden (i.e. the message $`\stackrel{}{u}_{ai}`$ has a $`1`$ on component $`p`$). This implies that on this configuration, variable $`j`$ is forced to take color $`p`$, that is $`\stackrel{}{h}_{ja}`$ is of the form $`(1,\mathrm{},1,0,1,\mathrm{},1)`$, with a single $`0`$ in the $`p`$-th position (“freezing” type). For all other $`h_{ja}`$ the variable $`j`$ is in the joker state and the output message will be $`(0,\mathrm{},0)`$.

### IV.9 Decimation

Once the convergence is reached in Eq. (20) (we stop when $`\mathrm{max}_{aA,iI(a)}\left|{}_{}{}^{old}Q_{ai}^{}^{new}Q_{ai}\right|`$ becomes small enough), we can use the information computed so far to find a solution to the original problem MZ\_pre ; nosotros . We can easily compute (approximately) the local-field distributions $`\left\{H_i\right\}_{iI}`$ introduced in Eq. (13) by considering all neighboring function nodes, and forbidding contradictory messages (remember that in the cavity graph we have deleted the constraints containing variable $`i`$, whereas in $`H_i`$ we have to restrict the sum to messages being “extensible” to solutions of the complete problem):

$$H_i(\stackrel{}{h})=𝒵_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{1}\underset{\{\stackrel{}{u}_{ai}\}_{aA(i)}}{}\left(1\delta _{\stackrel{}{h},(1,\mathrm{},1)}\right)\delta _{\stackrel{}{h},\stackrel{}{h}_i}\underset{aA(i)}{}Q_{ai}(\stackrel{}{u}_{ai}),$$
(26)
with $`\stackrel{}{h}_i`$ determined according to Eq. (IV.3).

The value $`H_i((1,\mathrm{},1,0,1,\mathrm{},1))`$, with a single zero entry at component $`p`$, gives now the probability of a variable $`i`$ to be frozen to a certain value $`p`$. A simple decimation procedure can be implemented: Select the most frozen variable and fix it to its most frozen value, then simplify the problem: Certain constraints may already be satisfied independently of the values of other participating variables, and can be deleted from the problem instance. Other constraints may now immediately fix single variables to one state (unit-clause resolution). Reconverge the warning distributions on the smaller subproblem.

The decimation algorithm can have three types of behaviors:

1. The algorithm is able to solve the problem fixing all, or almost all variables (some variables may be still unfixed even if the problem is already solved).
2. The surveys converge at some stage to the trivial solution concentrated on null messages, $`Q_{ai}(u)=\delta _{h,(0,\mathrm{},0)}`$ for all $`(i,a)E`$. In this case SP has nothing more to offer. Luckily, these problems are generally under-constrained and then easy to solve by other means. Note that, for $`q`$-col, the trivial solution exists always. In numerical experiments, we found that in case of existence of another solution, the latter was the correct one. In this case it is therefore reasonable to restart the iteration of the SP equations starting from a new random initial condition, even if a trivial solution was found once. Only if no non-trivial solution can be found after several restarts, the subproblem is passed to a different solver.
3. The SP algorithm does not converge at some stage, even if the initial problem was satisfiable.

On large random instances of $`3`$-sat nosotros ; MZ\_pre ; MEPAZE ; GP  or $`q`$-col Coloring\_algo , in the hard sat region, but not too close to the satisfiability threshold, numerical experiments show that the algorithm behaves as in case 2).

The generated subproblems turn out to be very simple to solve by other conventional heuristics, e.g. walksat walksat  or unmodified belief propagation.

Case 3) happens in general very close to the SAT/UNSAT transition. It is not yet clear if this problem appears due to the existence of finite loops in the original problem (which make the SP equations to be only approximate), due to the simple decimation heuristic which fixes always the most frozen variable, or due to some problems which go beyond the validity of the SP equation itself.

## V What’s next

We would like to remark two possible directions of research, among all those that may follow from the presented algorithm. One is to formalize rigorously the notions suggested in Section IV, allowing for some well defined definitions of the clusters, and a corresponding derivation of the SP equations.

Another one, of big computational relevance, is to generalize SP, which was presented in its purest form, to deal with correlations between warnings that arise from local problem structures like small loops in the factor graph, cf. YedFreeWei  for similar generalizations of BP. A second possible generalization would include diverse structures of the space of solutions, e.g. in a sense of clusters of solution clusters etc. In the language of statistical physics, this would include “more than one step of replica-symmetry breaking”.

After completing this work, we learned from G. Parisi that he has reached a similar conclusion on the interpretation of SP in the colouring problem through the addition of an extra state for the variables GP\_white .

Acknowledgment: It is a pleasure to thank R. Mulet, A. Pagnani, and F. Ricci-Tersenghi for numerous discussions. MM and MW acknowledge the hospitality of the ICTP Trieste where a part of this work was done. This work has been supported in part through the EC ’STIPCO’ network, grant No HPRN-CT-2002-00319.


text:
# LEADING ORDER PQCD HADRON PRODUCTION AND NUCLEAR MODIFICATION FACTORS AT RHIC AND THE LHC 11footnote 1 Contribution to the CERN Yellow Report on Hard Probes in Heavy Ion Collisions at the LHC. This manuscript also provides details on the background calculations for Ref. [4] and discussion on results that have been omitted there due to space limitations.

## 1 INTRODUCTION

One of the main goals of the upcoming $`p+p`$ program at $`\sqrt{s}=14`$ TeV at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN is the unambiguous discovery of the Higgs boson, predicted by the standard model of particle interactions, as well as the search for physics that reaches beyond our current understanding of the constituents of matter and the force mediators. Equally important, however, is the continuing effort to investigate the strong sector of the SM and probe experimentally some of the fundamental predictions of QCD: the deconfinement phase transition and chiral symmetry restoration. To order $`(\alpha _s^{LO})^2`$ the strong coupling constant $`\alpha _s=g_s^2/4\pi `$ reads

$`\alpha _s(Q^2,n_f)=\alpha _s^{LO}(Q^2,n_f)\left[1{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{102\frac{38}{3}n_f}{11\frac{2}{3}n_f}}\alpha _s^{LO}(Q^2,n_f)\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{Q^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}^2}}\right],`$ (1)
where the lowest order $`\alpha _s^{LO}(Q^2,n_f)=4\pi /\left(11\frac{2}{3}n_f\right)\mathrm{ln}\frac{Q^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}^2}.`$ QCD is thus “asymptotically free”, i.e. for $`n_f6`$ the running coupling, Eq. (1), approaches zero in the limit of large momentum transfer $`Q`$, - a general feature of non-Abelian gauge theories with sufficiently small number of fermions. In hot and dense matter the typical momentum scale is on the order of the temperature $`QT`$, assuming local thermal equilibrium. Large initial temperatures and energy densities can be experimentally achieved in ultra-relativistic heavy ion reactions. The $`Pb+Pb`$ program at $`\sqrt{s}_{NN}=5.5`$ TeV at the LHC is targeted at the search for the quark-gluon plasma (QGP)  and the study of its properties. The Bjorken-estimated $`T_i1`$ GeV for these conditions exceeds by a large margin the current lattice QCD results for the critical temperature $`T_c170`$ MeV. An important advantage of the LHC is that it will ultimately make small-$`x`$ physics studies in heavy ion collisions feasible (not applicable at RHIC except possibly for $`p_T<0.5`$ GeV). At very small values of $`x`$ the rapid growth of the gluon distribution in nucleons and nuclei is tamed by absorption terms that lead to a modification  of the DGLAP evolution equations and correct the small-$`x`$ unitarity problem:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{xG(x,Q^2)}{\mathrm{ln}Q^2}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{C_A\alpha _s}{\pi }}{\displaystyle _x^1}{\displaystyle \frac{dx^{}}{x^{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{x}{x^{}}}\gamma ^{gg}\left({\displaystyle \frac{x}{x^{}}}\right)x^{}G(x^{},Q^2)`$ (2)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi ^3}{N_c^21}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{C_A\alpha _s}{\pi }}\right)^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{Q^2}}{\displaystyle _x^1}{\displaystyle \frac{dx^{}}{x^{}}}(x^{})^2G^{(2)}(x^{},Q^2),`$
where $`\gamma ^{gg}`$ is the gluon splitting function and $`G^{(2)}(x,Q^2)`$ is proportional to the gluon density overlap. An opportunity to test these predictions at the LHC is provided by the $`p+Pb`$ program at $`\sqrt{s}=8.8`$ TeV since it stands the best chance of identifying initial state nuclear effects  and separating them  from the final state multi-parton interactions.

The search of novel physical effects in ultra-relativistic heavy ion reactions at the LHC can only rely on a detailed comparison between the experimental data and the projected current, or “conventional”, knowledge. This calls for detailed baseline calculations of jet and hadron production at those center of mass energies as well as an estimate of the known nuclear effects. The purpose of this manuscript is to present a lowest order (LO) analysis of inclusive hadron production up to the Tevatron energies and discuss hadron differential cross sections and composition at the LHC. This choice is dictated by the requirement of self-consistent incorporation of nuclear effects that are at present computed/parameterized to LO. It also complements next-to-leading order (NLO) calculations of jet and hadron production . Evaluation of the nuclear modification factors at the LHC in comparison to RHIC and discussion of the hadron composition is also presented. Results on Cronin and shadowing effects are given at forward (in the direction of the proton/deuteron beam) $`y=+3`$ rapidity.

## 2 HADRON PRODUCTION IN FACTORIZED PQCD

The standard factorized pQCD hadron production formalism expresses the differential hadron cross section in $`N+Nh+X`$ as a convolution of the measured parton distribution functions (PDFs) $`f_{\alpha /N}(x_\alpha ,Q_\alpha ^2)`$ for the interacting partons ($`\alpha =a,b`$), with the fragmentation function (FFs) $`D_{h/c}(z,Q_c^2)`$ for the leading scattered parton $`c`$ into a hadron of flavor $`h`$ and the parton-parton differential cross sections for the elementary sub-process $`d\sigma ^{(abcd)}/d\widehat{t}`$:

$`E_h{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma ^{NN}}{d^3p}}`$ $`=`$ $`K_{NLO}{\displaystyle \underset{abcd}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}}𝑑z_c{\displaystyle \underset{x_{a\mathrm{min}}}{\overset{1}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{x_{b\mathrm{min}}}{\overset{1}{}}}𝑑x_a𝑑x_bf_{a/p}(x_a,Q_a^2)f_{b/p}(x_b,Q_b^2)`$ (3)
$`\times D_{h/c}(z_c,Q_c^2){\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{s}}{\pi z_c^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma ^{(abcd)}}{d\widehat{t}}}\delta (\widehat{s}+\widehat{u}+\widehat{t}).`$
A list of the lowest order partonic cross sections can be found in . In Eq. (3) $`x_a,x_b`$ are the initial momentum fractions carried by the interacting partons and $`z_c=p_h/p_c`$ is the momentum fraction of the observed hadron. $`K_{NLO}`$ is a phenomenological factor that is meant to account for next-to-leading order (NLO) corrections. It is $`\sqrt{s}`$ and scale dependent and takes typical values $`14`$. One usually finds that Eq. (3) over-predicts the curvature of the inclusive hadron spectra $`|_{p_T}d\sigma ^h|`$ at transverse momenta $`p_T4`$ GeV. This can be partly corrected by the introduction of a small intrinsic (or primordial) $`k_T`$-smearing of partons, transversely to the collision axis, and generalized parton distributions $`\stackrel{~}{f}_\alpha (x,k_T,Q^2)`$ motivated by the pQCD initial state radiation. For the corresponding modification of the kinematics in (3) in addition to the $`d^2k_T^ad^2k_T^b(\mathrm{})`$ integrations see . The generalized parton distributions are often approximated as

$$\stackrel{~}{f}_\alpha (x,k_T,Q^2)f_\alpha (x,Q^2)g(k_T),g(k_T)=\frac{e^{k_T^2/k_T^2}}{\pi k_T^2},$$
(4)
where the width $`k_T^2`$ of the Gaussian enters as a phenomenological parameter.

Perturbative QCD fits to data  use different coupled choices for $`K_{NLO}`$ and $`k_T^2`$ and the extracted values are thus not directly comparable. However, similar agreement between data and theory at the level of spectral shapes and the $`\sqrt{s}`$ dependence of the corrective factors discussed above is found. In  the factorization and fragmentation scales were set to $`Q_{PDF}=p_T/2`$ and $`Q_{FF}=p_T/2z_c`$ and no $`K_{NLO}`$ factors were employed. The extracted $`k_T^2`$ decreases from $`2.7`$ GeV2 at $`\sqrt{s}50`$ GeV to $`0.75`$ GeV2 at $`\sqrt{s}2`$ TeV. Alternatively, in  no primordial $`k_T`$-smearing was used and the scales in the calculation were fixed to be $`Q_{PDF}=Q_{FF}=p_T`$. The deduced $`K_{NLO}`$ decreases from $`6`$ at $`\sqrt{s}50`$ GeV to $`1.5`$ at $`\sqrt{s}2`$ TeV.

In the fits shown in Fig. 1 we have used the GRV98 LO PDFs  and the BKK LO FFs . Proton+antiproton fragmentation has been parameterized as in , inspired from PYTHIA  results. A fixed $`k_T^2_{pp}=1.8`$ GeV2 has been employed, leading to a $`K_{NLO}`$ parameter that naturally exhibits a smaller variation with $`\sqrt{s}`$. A $`\pm 25\%`$ error band about the $`K_{NLO}`$ value, fixed by the requirement to match the moderate- and high-$`p_T`$ behavior of the data, is also shown. The fragmentation and factorization scales were fixed as in . In the lower right panel the systematic decrease of the next-to-leading order K-factor is presented. Two fits to $`K_{NLO}`$ have been used: linear $`K_{NLO}=2.79240.0999\mathrm{ln}s`$ and quadratic $`K_{NLO}=3.84440.3234\mathrm{ln}s+0.0107\mathrm{ln}^2s`$ in $`\mathrm{ln}s`$. For center of mass energies up to 1 TeV the two parameterization differ by less than 15% but this difference is seen to grow to 30%-50% at $`\sqrt{s}=510`$ TeV.

In Fig. 2 the predicted transverse momentum distribution of neutral pions and inclusive charged hadrons is shown, corresponding to the quadratic in $`\mathrm{ln}s`$ fit to $`K_{NLO}`$ for energies typical of SPS, RHIC, and the LHC. The significant hardening of the spectra with $`\sqrt{s}`$ has two important consequences for $`p+A`$ and $`A+A`$ collisions: a notably reduced sensitivity to initial state kinematic effects (smaller Cronin) and larger variation of the manifested final-state multi-parton scattering (energy loss) with $`p_T`$ . We have also investigated the effect of isospin asymmetry between $`p+p`$ and $`p+\overline{p}`$ reactions in $`\pi ^0`$ and $`h^++h^{}`$ production and found it to be small. More quantitatively, at $`\sqrt{s}=5.5`$ TeV the fractional difference $`|d\sigma ^{\overline{p}p}d\sigma ^{pp}|/d\sigma ^{pp}`$ varies from 2.5% at $`p_T=5`$ GeV to 4.8% at $`p_T=150`$ GeV. This is insignificant as compared to the projected 50% uncertainty that comes from the extrapolation of $`K_{NLO}`$ in LO calculations (see Fig. 1) or the choice of scale in NLO calculations. A recent study showed no deviation from DGLAP evolution, Eq. (2), at $`Q^2=10`$ GeV2 down to $`x=10^5`$ in $`N+N`$ reactions  The nuclear amplification effect $`A^{1/3}10`$ for a large nucleus is still insufficient to enable measurements of high initial gluon density QCD at RHIC, but will play an important role at the LHC.

### 2.1 Perturbative QCD hadron composition

The predicted hadron composition in $`p+p`$ ($`\overline{p}+p`$) reactions is plotted in the right panel of Fig. 2. The proton+kaon fraction is seen to increase systematically with $`p_T`$ ($`x_T=2p_T/\sqrt{s}`$) and is reflected in the decreasing $`\pi ^0/0.5(h^++h^{})`$. At RHIC and LHC energies this ratio becomes $`0.5`$ at $`p_T15`$ GeV and $`p_T75`$ GeV, respectively. At transverse momenta $`p_T24`$ GeV the contribution of baryons and kaons to $`h^++h^{}`$ is $`20\%`$. This is significantly smaller compared to data on $`N+N`$ reactions, with the discrepancy being amplified in central $`A+A`$. Possible explanations include: enhanced baryon production via topological gluon configurations (junctions) and its interplay with jet quenching  in $`A+A`$ , hydrodynamic transverse flow , uncertainty of the fragmentation functions $`D_{p/c}(z_c,Q^2)`$ into protons and antiprotons , and quark recombination driven by unorthodox (extracted) parton distributions inside nuclei . The approaches in Refs.  also address the centrality dependence of the baryon/meson ratios in heavy ion collisions at RHIC. In  in has been shown that similar nuclear enhancement is expected in $`\mathrm{\Lambda },\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}`$ production (as compared to kaons). The combined low-$`p_T`$ baryon enhancement and the growth of the non-pionic hadron fraction in the perturbative regime may lead to an approximately constant pion to charged hadron ratio in the full measured $`p_T`$ region at RHIC at $`\sqrt{s}_{NN}=200`$ GeV. We propose that the LHC may play a critical role in resolving the mystery of enhanced baryon production in $`A+A`$ through the significantly larger experimentally accessible $`p_T`$ range. Effects associated with baryon transport and transverse flow are not expected to extend beyond $`p_T=1015`$ GeV and may result in a detectable minimum of the baryon/meson ratio versus $`p_T`$ before a secondary subsequent rise. On the other hand, fragmentation functions (possibly enhanced at large $`z_c`$ relative to current parameterizations) are expected to exhibit a much more monotonic behavior.

## 3 NUCLEAR MODIFICATION FACTORS

Dynamical nuclear effects in $`p+A`$ and $`A+A`$ reactions are detectable through the nuclear modification ratio

$$R_{BA}(p_T)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{d\sigma ^{pA}}{dyd^2p_T}/\frac{Ad\sigma ^{pp}}{dyd^2p_T}\hfill & \mathrm{in}p+A\hfill \\ \frac{dN^{AA}(b)}{dyd^2p_T}/\frac{T_{AA}(b)d\sigma ^{pp}}{dyd^2p_T}\hfill & \mathrm{in}A+A\hfill \end{array},$$
(5)
where $`A`$ and $`T_{AA}(b)=d^2𝐫T_A(𝐫)T_B(𝐫𝐛)`$ in terms of nuclear thickness functions $`T_A(r)=𝑑z\rho _A(𝐫,z)`$ are the corresponding Glauber scaling factors  of $`d\sigma ^{pp}`$. We note that in $`R_{BA}(p_T)`$ the uncertainty associated with the $`K_{NLO}`$ factors, discussed in the previous section, drops out. The reference calculations that follow include shadowing/antishadowing/EMC-effect (here referred to as “shadowing”), the Cronin effect, and the non-Abelian energy loss of jets. The scale dependent nuclear PDFs read: $`f_{\alpha /A}(x,Q^2)=S_{\alpha /A}(x,Q^2)(Z/Af_{\alpha /p}(x,Q^2)+N/Af_{\alpha /n}(x,Q^2))`$, where we take the isospin effects on average and the EKS’98 parameterization  of the shadowing functions $`S_{\alpha /A}(x,Q^2)`$. Initial state multiple elastic scatterings have been discussed in . From  the transverse momentum distribution of partons that have undergone an average $`\chi =L/\lambda `$ incoherent interactions in the medium can be evaluated exactly for any initial flux $`dN^{(0)}(𝐩)`$:

$$dN(𝐩)=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}e^\chi \frac{\chi ^n}{n!}\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}d^2𝐪_i\frac{1}{\sigma _{el}}\frac{d\sigma _{el}}{d^2𝐪_i}dN^{(0)}(𝐩𝐪_1\mathrm{}𝐪_n).$$
(6)
Numerical estimates of (6) show that for thin media with a few semi-hard scatterings the induced transverse momentum broadening exhibits a weak logarithmic enhancement with $`p_T`$ and is proportional to $`LA^{1/3}`$. The transverse momentum transfer per unit length in cold nuclear matter is found to be $`\mu ^2/\lambda 0.05`$ GeV2/fm  from comparison to low energy $`p+A`$ data . The left top and bottom panels of Fig. 3 show the predicted Cronin+shadowing effect in $`p+Pb`$ collisions at $`\sqrt{s}=8.8`$ TeV and central $`Pb+Pb`$ at $`\sqrt{s}=5.5`$ TeV without final state medium induced energy loss. The 4% (10%) enhancement of $`R_{BA}`$ at $`p_T40`$ GeV comes from antishadowing and in not related no multiple initial state scattering. The observed difference between $`\pi ^0`$ and $`0.5(h^++h^{})`$ reflects the different $`S_\alpha (x,Q^2)`$ for quarks and gluons. Cronin effect at the LHC results in slowing down of the decrease of $`R_{BA}`$ at small $`x`$ as seen in the $`p_T0`$ limit. In contrast, at RHIC one finds $`30\%`$ enhancement in $`d+Au`$ reactions at $`\sqrt{s}=200`$ GeV and $`60\%`$ effect in central $`Au+Au`$ relative to the binary collision scaled $`p+p`$ result. At CERN-SPS energies of $`\sqrt{s}=17`$ GeV the results are most striking, with values reaching 250% in $`d+Au`$ and 400% in central $`Au+Au`$ at $`p_T4`$ GeV. For a summary of results on midrapidity Cronin effect at the LHC see .

The manifestation of multiple initial state scattering and nuclear shadowing at forward and backward rapidities $`y=\pm 3`$ in $`p+Pb`$ at the LHC (for CMS $`\eta 2.5`$) and $`d+Au`$ at RHIC (for BRAHMS $`\eta 3`$ ) has also been studied in the framework of a fixed (or slowly varying) initial parton interaction strength. At LHC energies at $`y=+3`$ (in the direction of the proton beam) the effect of the sequential projectile interactions is again small (due to the much flatter rapidity and transverse momentum distributions) and is overwhelmed by shadowing, which is found to be a factor of 2-3 times larger than the $`y=0`$ result at small $`p_T`$ few GeV and vanishes ($`R_{BA}=1`$) at $`p_T50`$ GeV. As previously emphasized, initial state gluon showering can significantly change the low-$`p_T`$ behavior of the hadronic spectra at the LHC beyond the current shadowing parameterization. At RHIC in $`d+Au`$ reactions at $`\sqrt{s}=200`$ GeV the nuclear modification ratio is qualitatively different. While near nucleus beam (backward $`y=3`$) rapidity $`R_{BA}0.91`$ at forward rapidities $`y=+3`$ the nuclear modification factor exhibits a much more dramatic $`p_T`$ dependence. At small transverse momenta $`p_T1`$ GeV hadron production is suppressed relative to the binary collision scaled $`p+p`$ result, $`R_{BA}0.8`$. The maximum Cronin enhancement $`R_{BA}^{\mathrm{max}}1.3`$ (30%) is essentially the same as at midrapidity  but slightly shifted to larger $`p_T`$. We emphasize that both the suppression and enhancement regions are an integral part of the Cronin effect  that is understood in terms of probability conservation and momentum redistribution resulting from multiple initial state scattering . At forward (in the direction of the deuteron beam) rapidities a calculation as in  demonstrates a broader Cronin enhancement region with $`R_{BA}25\%`$ at $`p_T=5`$ GeV. This is understood in terms of the significantly steeper fall-off of the hadron spectra away from midrapidity that enhances the effect of the otherwise similar transverse momentum kicks. While the discussed moderate $`p_T`$ interval lies at the very edge of BRAHMS acceptance (at $`y=+3`$) the same qualitative picture holds at $`y=+2`$.

The full solution for the medium induced gluon radiation off jets produced in a hard collisions inside the nuclear medium of length $`L`$ and computed to all orders in the correlations between the multiple scattering centers via the GLV reaction operator approach  can be written as ($`x=k^+/p^+\omega /E`$)

$`{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}x{\displaystyle \frac{dN^{(n)}}{dxd^2𝐤}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{C_R\alpha _s}{\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{L_{a=1}^{i1}\mathrm{\Delta }z_a}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\mathrm{\Delta }z_i}{\lambda _g(i)}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\left(d^2𝐪_i\left[|\overline{v}_i(𝐪_i)|^2\delta ^2(𝐪_i)\right]\right)}`$ (7)
$`\times (2𝐂_{(1,\mathrm{},n)}{\displaystyle \underset{m=1}{\overset{n}{}}}𝐁_{(m+1,\mathrm{},n)(m,\mathrm{},n)}`$
$`\times [\mathrm{cos}\left({\displaystyle \underset{k=2}{\overset{m}{}}}\omega _{(k,\mathrm{},n)}\mathrm{\Delta }z_k\right)\mathrm{cos}\left({\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{m}{}}}\omega _{(k,\mathrm{},n)}\mathrm{\Delta }z_k\right)]),`$
where $`_2^10`$ is understood. In (7) $`𝐂_{(m,\mathrm{},n)}=\frac{1}{2}_𝐤\mathrm{ln}(𝐤𝐪_m\mathrm{}𝐪_n)^2`$, $`𝐁_{(m+1,\mathrm{},n)(m,\mathrm{},n)}=𝐂_{(m+1,\mathrm{},n)}𝐂_{(m,\mathrm{},n)}`$ are the color current propagators, $`\omega _{(m,\mathrm{},n)}^1=2xE/|C_{(m,\mathrm{},n)}^2|`$ are formation times, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }z_k=z_kz_{k1}`$ are the separations of subsequent scattering centers. The momentum transfers $`𝐪_i`$ are distributed according to a normalized elastic scattering cross section $`|\overline{v}_i(𝐪_i)|^2=\sigma _{el}^1d\sigma _{el}/d^2𝐪_i`$ and the radiative spectrum can be evaluated from (7) for any initial nuclear geometry with an arbitrary subsequent dynamical evolution of the matter density. At large jet energies the lowest order correlation between the jet production point one of the scatterings that follow has been shown to dominate and lead to a quadratic mean energy loss dependence on the size of the plasma, $`\mathrm{\Delta }EL^2`$ for static media . To improve the numerical accuracy for small parton energies we include corrections to third order in opacity . The dynamical expansion of the bulk soft matter is assumed to be of Bjorken type. For a summary of results from recent non-Abelian energy loss calculations see .

In the Poisson approximation of independent gluon emission  the probability distribution $`P(ϵ,E)`$ of the fractional energy loss $`ϵ=_i\omega _i/E`$ can be obtained iteratively from the single inclusive gluon radiation spectrum $`dN(x,E)/dx`$ . If a fast parton looses $`ϵE`$ of its initial energy prior to hadronization its momentum fraction $`z_c`$ is modified to $`z_c^{}=p_h/p_c(1ϵ)=z_c/(1ϵ)`$. The observable suppressed hadron differential cross section can be computed from Eq. (3) with the substitution

$$D_{h/c}(z_c,Q^2)𝑑ϵP(ϵ,p_c)\frac{z_c^{}}{z_c}D_{h/c}(z_c^{},Q^2).$$
(8)
The nuclear modification factor $`R_{AA}(p_T)`$ at the LHC is shown on the right panel of Fig. 3 and is completely dominated by final state interactions (see left panel). It shows a significantly stronger $`p_T`$ dependence as compared to RHIC, where jet quenching was predicted to be approximately constant over the full measured moderate- to high-transverse momentum range , the result of an interplay of shadowing, Cronin effect, and radiative energy loss. The variation of $`R_{AA}`$ at the LHC is a factor of 5: from 10-20 fold suppression at $`p_T=10`$ GeV to only a factor 2-3 suppression at $`p_T=100`$ GeV. The reason for such a prominent variation is the hardening of the particle transverse momentum spectra and the insufficient balancing action of multiple initial state scatterings. In fact the prediction from Fig. 3 is that the suppression in central $`Pb+Pb`$ at $`\sqrt{s}_{NN}=5.5`$ TeV at $`p_T40`$ GeV is comparable to the factor of 4-5 suppression currently observed at RHIC.

The extrapolation of the LHC quenching calculations to small $`p_T0`$ results into suppression below participant scaling. More careful examination of the mean energy loss of partons, in particular for gluons radiating in nuclear matter at LHC densities, reveals sizable regions of phase space with $`\mathrm{\Delta }EE`$. This indicates complete absorption of jets in nuclear matter. There is experimental evidence that this regime of extreme final state densities may have been achieved at RHIC . In this case Eq. (8) has to be corrected to include the feedback of the radiated gluons into the system. This hydrodynamic-like feedback is expected to recover the $`N_{part}`$ scaling in the soft $`p_T`$ region  \- also illustrated on the right panel of Fig. 3. The effective initial gluon density derived from the rapidity densities used in Fig. 3 are $`\rho _g(RHIC)=3050`$/fm3 and $`\rho _g(LHC)=130275`$/fm3. These are one to two orders of magnitude larger than the density of cold nuclear matter and are suggestive of a deconfined QCD state - the quark-gluon plasma. Interestingly, a recent study of non-equilibrium parton transport in central $`Au+Au`$ and $`Pb+Pb`$ at $`\sqrt{s}_{NN}=200`$ GeV and $`\sqrt{s}=5.5`$ TeV has found initial parton densities corresponding to the lower bound of the intervals quoted above.

## 4 CONCLUSIONS

In summary, a lowest order pQCD analysis of single inclusive hadron production has been performed, revealing a systematic decrease with $`\sqrt{s}`$ of the contribution of the next-to-leading corrections to the differential cross sections. The predicted $`d\sigma ^h/dyd^2p_T`$ exhibits significant hardening with transverse momentum and an increased fractional contribution of kaons and protons at high $`p_T`$, the latter also being true at RHIC energies. In central $`A+A`$ reactions the nuclear modification factor $`R_{AA}(p_T)`$ at the LHC is shown to be completely dominated by final state multi-parton interactions . For comparison, at RHIC Cronin effect and nuclear shadowing also play an important role, leading to an approximately constant suppression ratio. At the SPS initial state multiple elastic scatterings dominate, resulting in a net enhancement of hadron production. At forward ($`y=+3`$) rapidities in $`d+Au`$ at RHIC the Cronin enhancement region is predicted to be broader in comparison to the $`y=0`$ case. In contrast in $`p+Pb`$ at the LHC nuclear shadowing dominates but in order to detect a sizable reduction relative to the binary collision scaled $`p+p`$ cross section measurements at close to proton rapidity ($`y_{\mathrm{max}}=9.2`$ for $`\sqrt{s}=8.8`$ TeV) are needed.

The predicted decreasing $`R_{AA}`$ with $`p_T`$ at the LHC, if confirmed, may have important experimental consequences. Comparative large-$`E_T`$ measurements of the difference in the full structure of the jet cone in $`p+p`$ and $`A+A`$ reactions may prove difficult for weak signals and large backgrounds. We emphasize that one of the easiest and most unambiguous approaches for detecting the non-Abelian jet energy loss and performing jet-tomographic analysis of the properties of the hot and dense matter created in ultra-relativistic heavy ion reactions is through the suppression pattern of leading hadrons. Therefore these measurements should enter as an important part of the experimental programs at the LHC.

Acknowledgments

Many helpful discussions with M. Gyulassy, K. Eskola, V. Kolhinen, J. W. Qiu, and J. Vary are gratefully acknowledged. This work is supported by the United States Department of Energy under Grant No. DE-FG02-87ER40371.