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# QCD at high energy (experiments) Talk presented at the 31ˢᵗ International Conference on High Energy Physics, Amsterdam, 24-31 July 2002.

## 1 Introduction

Experimentation over the last three decades has established quantum chromodynamics (QCD) as the theory that describes the interactions of quarks and gluons. The phenomenology of QCD is rich, a consequence of the gluon self-interactions. These interactions cause the strong coupling, $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}(\mu )`$, to fall with increasing momentum scale, $`\mu `$. When $`\mu `$ is large, $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}(\mu )`$ is small and perturbative QCD (pQCD) can be used to give an excellent description of hadronic phenomena. Conversely, as $`\mu `$ falls and $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}(\mu )`$ grows, higher-order diagrams become increasingly important. When $`\mu `$ is comparable to the masses of initial or final state hadrons, the effects of confinement begin to become important. In this kinematic regime, non-perturbative models must be employed to obtain insight into the dynamics of the process under consideration.

A complete and quantitative understanding of QCD over the full kinematic range is required before it can be claimed that the Standard Model (SM) is understood. For some processes, for example jet production in $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation, inclusive deep inelastic lepton-nucleon scattering and inclusive jet production in $`p\overline{p}`$ and $`ep`$ scattering, the QCD description is precise enough at next-to-leading order (NLO) for quantitative information, such as the value of $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$, to be extracted from the data. The description of other processes is, at best, qualitative. Examples include multijet and heavy quark production in $`p\overline{p}`$ and $`ep`$ scattering. My purpose in this brief contribution is to review the data on hard processes, i.e. those for which $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}(\mu )`$ is ‘small’, and by comparing the data to the pQCD predictions establish where quantitative information can be extracted and where progress is required for the development of a full, quantitative understanding of QCD.

## 2 Measurement of colour factors and $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$

Electron-positron annihilation to hadrons at high energy is well suited to the measurement of the parameters of QCD since the initial state contains no hadrons. Four-jet production in $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation is of particular interest since at leading order (LO) the cross section is proportional to $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}^2`$. An illustrative subset of Feynman diagrams contributing at LO is shown in figure 1. Note that the gluon self interaction (figure 1c) contributes at LO. The ‘multiplicity’ of the various colour configurations allowed by the theory is coded in the colour factors $`C_F`$, $`C_A`$, and $`T_R`$ as indicated. The angular momentum of the initial states that may contribute are determined by the vector nature of the electroweak interaction. Hence, angular correlations amongst the final state jets may be used to disentangle the various diagrams.

The LEP experiments ALEPH and OPAL have each made a simultaneous fit to the four-jet rate and the distributions of the angular correlations to determine simultaneously the colour factors and $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}(M_Z)`$, where $`M_Z`$ is the mass of the $`Z`$ boson . The results are summarised in figure 2.

The DELPHI collaboration has also presented such an analysis based on a smaller data sample . Four-jet production in $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation is able to determine the colour factors with a precision of $`20\%`$. Additional constraints may be obtained from the ratio of the multiplicity of gluon-induced jets to that of quark-induced jets. This has been done by DELPHI, the result is shown in figure 3 .

Further constraints may be obtained from the analysis of the evolution of the means of event shape variables with energy. This has been done using a renormalisation group invariant analysis by DELPHI . The results are plotted in figure 3. JADE data has been used in a power correction fit to event shape variables yielding $`C_A=2.84\pm 0.24`$ and $`C_F=1.29\pm 0.18`$ . Overall, the data is consistent with the QCD prediction and verify that $`\mathrm{SU}(3)_{\mathrm{colour}}`$ is the gauge group underlying QCD.

Exploiting the exquisite sensitivity of the four-jet rate to $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$, ALEPH has set the colour factors to the values predicted by QCD and used the four-jet rate to make a precise determination of $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}(M_Z)`$ . The four-jet rate as a function of a jet separation parameter is used together with an $`O(\alpha _\mathrm{S}^3)`$ calculation that includes a resummation of the large logarithms at next-to-leading order accuracy. The value of $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}(M_Z)`$ obtained is:

$`\alpha _\mathrm{S}(M_Z)`$ $`=`$ $`0.1170\pm 0.0001\pm 0.0013,`$
where the first error is the statistical uncertainty and the second error contains both the experimental systematic and the theoretical uncertainties. This is a determination of $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$ with a precision $`1\%`$, a remarkable achievement.

The distribution of event-shape variables, such as thrust, have long been used in the study of $`e^+e^{}\mathrm{hadrons}`$ to determine $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$. QCD calculations at $`O(\alpha _\mathrm{S}^2)`$ matched to resummations of the leading logarithms at NLL accuracy have been used to fit event shape distributions by each of the LEP collaborations at each centre-of-mass (cms) energy . For ICHEP2002, the LEP collaborations have updated these results to ensure a uniform treatment of the data. The measurements of the individual experiments at each cms energy have been combined by the LEP QCD working group, the results are shown in figure 4. The data clearly exhibit the expected running of the strong coupling. The value of $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$ obtained by combining all the data at each cms energy is $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}(M_Z)=0.1198\pm 0.0048`$. This result represents the last major update on the value of $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$ from event shapes at LEP. A similar analysis has been performed using JADE data for cms energies in the range 14 GeV to 44 GeV . These results are also plotted in figure 4. The value of $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$ obtained by combining all the JADE data is $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}(M_Z)=0.1194_{0.0068}^{+0.0082}`$.

The ZEUS collaboration has measured the inclusive jet cross section and used it to verify the running of $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$ and to determine $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}(M_Z)`$ . Jets were reconstructed in the Breit frame. The Breit frame is defined such that the current (virtual photon or $`Z`$ boson) is collinear with the initial state quark, the momentum of the quark being reversed by the collision (see figure 5).

The advantage of this choice is that the transverse energy of the jets in the current region of the Breit frame, $`E_{T,\mathrm{jet}}^\mathrm{B}`$, arises from gluon radiation. The measured differential cross section $`d\sigma /dE_{T,\mathrm{jet}}^\mathrm{B}`$ is shown in figure 6 in bins of the virtuality of the exchanged boson, $`Q^2`$. The excellent description of the data afforded by NLO QCD allows a fit for $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$ to be made. The result, using $`E_{T,\mathrm{jet}}^\mathrm{B}`$ as the scale, is shown in figure 4. The data exhibit the expected running and are well described by the NLO QCD calculation. Combining the results for $`\mu =M_Z`$ yields $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}=0.1212\pm 0.0017(\mathrm{stat}.)_{0.0031}^{+0.0023}(\mathrm{sys}.)_{0.0027}^{+0.0028}(\mathrm{theory})`$. This result is in good agreement with the world average and other determinations of $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$ presented at this conference (see figure 7).

CDF has measured the cross section for inclusive jet production in $`p\overline{p}`$ collisions, $`d\sigma /dE_{T,\mathrm{jet}}`$, with $`E_{T,\mathrm{jet}}`$ measured in the laboratory frame . For $`E_{T,\mathrm{jet}}250`$ GeV NLO QCD may be used with standard parton density functions (PDFs) to give a good description of the data. With the PDFs available when the data was published the data for $`E_{T,\mathrm{jet}}250`$ GeV was in excess of the NLO QCD expectation . The data for $`E_{T,\mathrm{jet}}250`$ GeV have been fitted to extract $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$ using $`\mu =E_{T,\mathrm{jet}}`$. The results are shown in figure 4. A value of $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}(M_Z)=0.1178\pm 0.0001(\mathrm{stat}.)_{0.0095}^{+0.0081}(\mathrm{sys}.)_{0.0075}^{+0.0092}(\mathrm{theory})`$ is obtained by combining all these results. The level of agreement between the inclusive jet data and NLO QCD is discussed in more detail in section 3.5.

The measurements of $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}(M_Z)`$ reported at this conference are shown in figure 7.

The new measurements, which have been obtained using a wide variety of independent processes and techniques, are consistent both with one-another and with the world average . The most precise of the new measurements is that obtained from the 4-jet rate in $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation by the ALEPH collaboration. Taking the weighted mean of all the new measurements, on the assumption that the errors are uncorrelated, yields the result $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}(M_Z)=0.1183\pm 0.0009`$. The precision of this result is striking and motivates a more careful analysis to update the world average.

## 3 Proton and photon structure

### 3.1 Deep inelastic $`ep`$ scattering

The generic Feynman diagram for lepton-proton deep inelastic scattering (DIS) is shown in figure 8. At HERA the incoming lepton is either an electron or a positron. $`Q^2`$ is the virtuality of the exchanged boson squared and the fraction of the four-momentum of the proton carried by the struck quark is $`x`$. The double differential cross section for the neutral current (NC) process $`e^\pm pe^\pm X`$ may be written

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d^2\sigma _{e^\pm p}^{\mathrm{NC}}}{dxdQ^2}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi \alpha ^2}{xQ^4}}`$ (1)
$`\left[Y_+F_2^{\mathrm{NC}}Y_{}xF_3^{\mathrm{NC}}y^2F_L^{\mathrm{NC}}\right],`$
where $`\alpha `$ denotes the fine structure constant, $`Y_\pm =1\pm (1y)^2`$ and $`y=Q^2/xs`$. $`F_L^{\mathrm{NC}}`$, the longitudinal structure function, is zero at LO in QCD, whereas the structure functions $`F_2^{\mathrm{NC}}`$ and $`xF_3^{\mathrm{NC}}`$ can be expressed as products of electroweak couplings and PDFs as follows:

$`F_2^{\mathrm{NC}}`$ $`=`$ $`x\mathrm{\Sigma }_f\left[A_f\left(q_f+\overline{q}_f\right)\right];`$
$`xF_3^{\mathrm{NC}}`$ $`=`$ $`x\mathrm{\Sigma }_f\left[B_f\left(q_f\overline{q}_f\right)\right];`$
where $`xq_f(x,Q^2)`$ are the quark and $`x\overline{q}(x,Q^2)`$ the anti-quark PDFs, the functions $`A_f`$ and $`B_f`$ contain the electroweak couplings and $`f`$ runs over the five quark flavours $`u,\mathrm{},b`$. $`F_2^{\mathrm{NC}}`$ may be corrected for the $`Z`$-exchange contribution to yield $`F_2^{\mathrm{em}}`$ \- the purely electromagnetic contribution to $`F_2^{\mathrm{NC}}`$.

The double differential cross section for the charged current (CC) process $`e^\pm p\nu _e(\overline{\nu }_e)X`$ may be written

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d^2\sigma _{e^\pm p}^{\mathrm{CC}}}{dxdQ^2}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{G_F^2}{4\pi x}}{\displaystyle \frac{M_W^4}{\left(Q^2+M_W^2\right)^2}}`$ (2)
$`\left[Y_+F_2^{\mathrm{CC}}Y_{}xF_3^{\mathrm{CC}}y^2F_L^{\mathrm{CC}}\right],`$
where $`G_F`$ is the Fermi constant and $`M_W`$ the mass of the $`W`$ boson. At LO, $`F_L^{\mathrm{CC}}=0`$ and $`F_2^{\mathrm{CC}}`$ and $`xF_3^{\mathrm{CC}}`$ can be written in terms of the quark PDFs, for example:

$`F_{2,e^+p}^{\mathrm{CC}}`$ $`=`$ $`x\left[d+s+\overline{u}+\overline{c}\right];`$
$`xF_{3,e^+p}^{\mathrm{CC}}`$ $`=`$ $`x\left[d+s\overline{u}\overline{c}\right].`$
The expressions for $`e^{}p`$ CC DIS may be obtained by replacing quark densities with anti-quark densities and vice versa. The following paragraphs review recent progress in the measurement and interpretation of neutral and charged current deep inelastic scattering.

### 3.2 Determination of PDFs and $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$

Figure 9 shows $`F_2^{\mathrm{em}}`$ as a function of $`Q^2`$ for several values of $`x`$ . For $`x0.1`$ the data show little dependence on the scale $`Q^2`$. At lower $`x`$ values the data show a clear rise with $`Q^2`$. For $`Q^2`$ sufficiently large, the DGLAP formalism may be used to calculate the evolution of $`F_2^{\mathrm{em}}`$ with $`Q^2`$ by solving the evolution equation :

$$\frac{dF_2^{\mathrm{em}}}{d\mathrm{ln}Q^2}=\frac{\alpha _\mathrm{S}}{2\pi }\left[\left(P_{qq}F_2^{\mathrm{em}}\right)+\left(P_{qg}xG\right)\right],$$
(3)
where $`xG(x,Q^2)`$ is the gluon PDF, $`P_{qq}`$ and $`P_{qg}`$ are the quark and gluon splitting functions and the symbol $``$ represents a convolution integral. Equation 3 may be used to fit the data for both the PDFs and $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$. NLO DGLAP fits are now routinely performed by experimental and theoretical groups . Over the past year or so particular emphasis has been placed on a full treatment of the correlated experimental systematic uncertainties. Both the ZEUS and the H1 collaborations have performed such fits. As an example, figure 9 shows the ZEUS NLO QCD fit together with the full error band which includes the contributions of the statistical, the correlated and the uncorrelated systematic uncertainties. The fit describes the data well. The error band has the tendency to grow as $`x`$ falls (for example at $`Q^2=100`$ GeV2 the fractional error at $`x=0.08`$ is $`1\%`$ while at $`x=0.008`$ it is $`2.5\%`$).

Figure 10a shows the quark PDFs that result from the ZEUS and H1 fits evaluated at $`Q^2=\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}000}`$ GeV2 as a function of $`x`$. The sea quark PDF, $`x\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ ($`=2x\overline{u}+2x\overline{d}+xs+x\overline{s}+xc+x\overline{c}+xb+x\overline{b}`$), extracted in the two analyses agree well within errors. The valence quark PDFs show reasonable agreement, but differ by between 5% and 10%. The ZEUS and H1 analyses differ in the choice of data used as input to the fit, the parameterisation chosen for the PDFs at the starting scale and the treatment of charm and beauty quarks close to threshold. When the differences between the analyses are taken into account the level of agreement between the PDFs seems reasonable. It is interesting to note that, within a particular analysis, the $`u`$-valence PDF is known with a precision of $`3\%`$, the $`d`$-valence PDF is known to $`10\%`$ while the sea-quark PDF is known to $`510\%`$. The gluon PDF contributes to DIS only at NLO. Therefore, the fits exhibit a strong correlation between $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$ and the parameters of $`xG`$. Figure 10b shows the gluon PDF obtained by the ZEUS and H1 collaborations at several values of $`Q^2`$ as a function of $`x`$. The agreement between the analyses is reasonable, taking into account the different choices made in setting up the fits. The gluon density exhibits a strong rise towards low $`x`$. The values of $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$ extracted by the collaborations from these fits are: $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}(M_Z)=0.1150\pm 0.0053`$ (H1) ;. $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}(M_Z)=0.1166\pm 0.0052`$ (ZEUS) . The errors quoted include statistical, uncorrelated and correlated contributions to the systematic uncertainty as well as theoretical and model errors. Space does not permit a full description of the error analysis. The CTEQ and MRST groups have also performed such analyses and have obtained the following values: $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}(M_Z)=0.1165\pm 0.0065`$ (CTEQ) ; $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}(M_Z)=0.1190\pm 0.0036`$ (MRST) . The error quoted by the MRST group takes account of experimental and theoretical uncertainties. The experimental contribution is determined by allowing a change in the fit $`\chi ^2`$ of 20, while the theoretical error is estimated by varying the theoretical treatment to include an approximate treatment of next-to-NLO terms, resummation of $`\mathrm{ln}(1/x)`$ or $`\mathrm{ln}(1x)`$ terms. The CTEQ group quotes only the experimental uncertainty on $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$, arguing that the strong correlation between $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$ and the functional form of $`xG`$ makes this method of determining $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$ uncompetitive. The experimental uncertainty is determined by allowing a $`\chi ^2`$ change of 100. This, comparatively large, value is determined by a careful study of the variation of fit parameters allowed by the data. Overall, the values of $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$ obtained from NLO QCD fits are in good agreement. The precision of the data and of the theoretical analysis has now reached a stage where details of model and theoretical assumptions can be verified.

### 3.3 Search for low $`x`$, low $`Q^2`$ limit of validity of DGLAP evolution

The analysis of the data presented above depends on the assumption that $`Q^2`$ ‘is large enough’ for the DGLAP formalism to be applied. A large $`Q^2`$ is required so that the partons may be treated as independent non-interacting particles and so that $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}(Q)`$ is sufficiently small to allow QCD at NLO to be applied. The $`x`$ values to which the fit is sensitive should be sufficiently large that terms proportional to powers of $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}\mathrm{ln}(1/x)`$ are not important. It is therefore of interest to investigate the extent to which the DGLAP formalism describes the data at low $`Q^2`$ and low $`x`$.

One approach to this is to parameterise $`F_2^{\mathrm{em}}`$ at a particular $`Q^2`$ as a power of $`x`$ as follows:

$`F_2^{\mathrm{em}}=cx^\lambda ,`$
where $`c`$ and $`\lambda `$ are positive parameters. Neighbouring data points at a particular $`Q^2`$ may be combined to estimate the slope parameter $`\lambda `$. This has been done by the H1 collaboration and the results are shown in figure 11 . For $`x10^2`$ the contribution of the valence quarks to $`F_2^{\mathrm{em}}`$ is large and the ansatz $`F_2^{\mathrm{em}}x^\lambda `$ does not hold. However, for $`x10^2`$ the data is well described by a single value of $`\lambda `$, independent of $`x`$ over the range of $`x`$ to which the experiment is sensitive. Hence, at each value of $`Q^2`$, $`F_2^{\mathrm{em}}`$ may be characterised by a particular value of $`\lambda `$. The dependence of $`\lambda `$ on $`Q^2`$ is shown in figure 12 . For $`Q^24`$ GeV2, where the DGLAP formalism gives a good description of the data, the dependence of $`\lambda `$ on $`Q^2`$ is, to a good approximation, linear. However, for $`Q^21`$ GeV2 the data lie above the extrapolation of this linear dependence.

It is intriguing to note that while no significant dependence of $`\lambda `$ on $`x`$ for $`x10^2`$ has been observed, there is a change in the dependence of $`\lambda `$ on $`Q^2`$ at $`Q^21`$ GeV2. The explanation for this change of behaviour is the subject of intense theoretical speculation.

### 3.4 Deep inelastic scattering at high $`Q^2`$

Figure 13 shows the differential cross section for NC and CC $`e^\pm p`$ scattering at high $`Q^2`$ . The NC cross section falls by 3–4 orders of magnitude between $`Q^2=200`$ GeV2 and $`Q^2=\mathrm{2\hspace{0.17em}000}`$ GeV2, exhibiting the $`1/Q^4`$ dependence of the dominant single-photon exchange contribution. For $`Q^2\mathrm{5\hspace{0.17em}000}`$ GeV2 the $`e^{}p`$ NC DIS cross section lies above that for $`e^+p`$ NC DIS reflecting the fact that the $`\gamma Z`$ interference contribution is constructive in the case of $`e^{}p`$ scattering and destructive for $`e^+p`$. The $`e^{}p`$ CC DIS cross section is always larger than that for $`e^+p`$ CC DIS because the $`u`$-quark density, which gives the dominant contribution, is larger than that of the $`d`$-quark and, in the case of $`e^+p`$ CC DIS, the $`d`$-quark contribution is suppressed by $`(1y)^2`$ (see equation 4). The SM, evaluated using standard PDFs evolved in the DGLAP formalism, gives a good description of the data. This motivates the use of NC and CC data at high $`Q^2`$ to study proton structure at high $`Q^2`$ and high $`x`$.

In order to exhibit the dependence of the DIS cross sections upon the structure functions it is convenient to divide out the dependence on the electroweak couplings and the boson propagator. The scaled cross sections, referred to as reduced cross sections, for NC and CC DIS are defined as follows:

$`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }_{e^\pm p}^{\mathrm{NC}}`$ $`=`$ $`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi \alpha ^2}{xQ^4}}\right]^1{\displaystyle \frac{d^2\sigma _{e^\pm p}^{\mathrm{NC}}}{dxdQ^2}};`$
$`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }_{e^\pm p}^{\mathrm{CC}}`$ $`=`$ $`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{G_F^2}{4\pi x}}{\displaystyle \frac{M_W^4}{\left(Q^2+M_W^2\right)^2}}\right]^1{\displaystyle \frac{d^2\sigma _{e^\pm p}^{\mathrm{CC}}}{dxdQ^2}}.`$
Figure 14 shows $`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }_{e^\pm p}^{\mathrm{NC}}`$ as a function of $`Q^2`$ for several values of $`x`$. The photon propagator dependence having been removed, $`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }^{\mathrm{NC}}`$ depends only weakly on $`Q^2`$. As described above, the effect of $`Z`$-boson exchange is to cause $`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }_{e^{}p}^{\mathrm{NC}}`$ to lie above $`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }_{e^+p}^{\mathrm{NC}}`$ for $`Q^2\mathrm{5\hspace{0.17em}000}`$ GeV2.

The difference between $`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }_{e^{}p}^{\mathrm{NC}}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }_{e^+p}^{\mathrm{NC}}`$ can be used to determine $`xF_3^{\mathrm{NC}}`$ (see equation 1). This has been done by the H1 and ZEUS collaborations and the final results for pre-upgrade HERA running are shown in figure 15 . Since $`xF_3^{\mathrm{NC}}\mathrm{\Sigma }_q(q\overline{q})`$, $`xF_3^{\mathrm{NC}}`$ gives a measure of the valence quark PDF. The data are well described by the SM expression evaluated with standard PDFs. The large data sets that will be provided in the near future at HERA will allow a precise determination of $`xF_3^{\mathrm{NC}}`$ to be made yielding an important constraint on the valence quark PDFs.

At LO in $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$, $`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }_{e^\pm p}^{\mathrm{CC}}`$ can be written

$$\stackrel{~}{\sigma }_{e^+p}^{\mathrm{CC}}=d+s+(1y)^2\left(\overline{u}+\overline{c}\right).$$
(4)
The expression for $`e^{}p`$ CC DIS may be obtained by replacing $`u`$-type quark densities with $`d`$-type quark densities and vice versa. A measurement of the CC cross section at high $`x`$ can therefore be used to constrain the valence $`u`$\- ($`e^{}p`$) and valence $`d`$-quark ($`e^+p`$) PDFs. Figure 16 shows $`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }_{e^\pm p}^{\mathrm{CC}}`$ as a function of $`x`$ at several values of $`Q^2`$. The data are well described by the SM. Also shown, are the contributions of the $`u`$-type quarks in $`e^{}p`$ CC DIS and the $`d`$-type quarks in $`e^+p`$. The statistical precision of the data is not yet sufficient to allow a precise determination of the $`u`$\- and $`d`$-quark PDFs. The large data sets expected to be obtained at HERA II will allow precise measurements of the $`e^\pm p`$ CC DIS cross sections to be made. This will yield important constraints on the $`u`$\- and $`d`$-quark PDFs.

### 3.5 Impact of D0 inclusive jet data

Last year the D0 collaboration published their measurement of the inclusive jet double differential cross section as a function of jet transverse energy, $`E_{T,\mathrm{jet}}`$, in bins of jet pseudorapidity, $`\eta =\mathrm{ln}[\mathrm{tan}(\theta _{\mathrm{jet}}/2)]`$, where $`\theta _{\mathrm{jet}}`$ is the polar angle of the jet in the D0 laboratory frame . The data, shown in figure 17, are well described by QCD at NLO over the full range of $`E_{T,\mathrm{jet}}`$ and $`\eta `$.

The CTEQ and MRST groups have used the data in fits to determine the proton PDFs . The importance of this data in constraining the gluon PDF can be judged from figure 18 where $`xG`$ is plotted as a function of $`x`$ for two values of the scale $`Q`$. The new result (labelled CTEQ6) is compared to the result of a fit that did not include this data (CTEQ5) . The gluon density obtained in the new fits is much harder than that obtained previously. It is important to note that the new PDFs, containing the enhanced gluon density at high $`x`$, give a good description of both the CDF and the D0 jet data, including the data at high transverse energy ($`E_{T,\mathrm{jet}}250`$ GeV) in the central region ($`|\eta |<0.5`$) which were in excess of QCD at NLO evaluated with older PDFs.

### 3.6 Remark on the precision of PDFs

NLO QCD fits to data are able to determine the quark PDFs with a precision of 5–10% and the gluon PDF with a precision of 10–15%. Progress is being made towards calculations of many of the cross sections used in the fits at next-to-NLO (NNLO). PDFs extracted from a fit using a partial NNLO calculation have recently become available . A consistent analysis at NNLO combined with the large data sets soon to become available from HERA and the Tevatron will allow a significant reduction in the PDF uncertainties to be obtained before the LHC era begins.

### 3.7 Photon structure

The LEP collaborations have updated their measurements of the photon structure functions and contributed new measurements at the highest LEP energies . Figure 19 shows a compilation of all measurements of the photon structure function $`F_2^\gamma `$. The data are reproduced to within $`20\%`$ by the NLO QCD calculation using various parameterisations of $`F_2^\gamma `$. Motivated by this level of agreement, the value of $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$ has been extracted from a fit to the data with the result $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}(M_Z)=0.1198\pm 0.0054`$ . The result is in good agreement with the world average and other recent results (see figure 7). It will be important to establish the insensitivity of the result to the form of the parameterisation of the gluon density if the result is to be included in a future world average $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}(M_Z)`$.

## 4 Deep inelastic diffraction

The sample of NC DIS events observed by the H1 and ZEUS collaborations contains an intriguing diffractive subsample. Events in this subsample are characterised by the presence of a proton in the final state at small $`|t|`$ where $`\sqrt{|t|}`$ is the four-momentum transfer between the incoming and outgoing proton. The subsample is large, acounting for $`10\%`$ of all NC DIS events. Figure 20 shows a schematic Feynman diagram for deep inelastic diffraction.

The incoming proton scatters through a small angle, emerging from the collision with an energy $`(1x_{IP})E_p`$ (where $`E_p`$ is the proton beam energy) and a transverse momentum kick of $`\sqrt{|t|}`$. The four-momentum lost by the proton is carried into the deep inelastic scatter by a colourless partonic state often referred to as the Pomeron. The electroweak current then picks out a parton, generating a hadronic system $`X`$, of mass $`M_X`$, which may be observed in the detector. Note that the hadronic excitation produced in the deep-inelastic scatter is not colour connected to the scattered proton. As a result, diffractive deep inelastic scattering events are characterised by an absense of hadronic energy flow between the proton and the hadronic system $`X`$.

Two methods have been used to select such events. The most direct method is to tag the scattered proton. In this case the cross section can be measured as a function of $`t`$. The most recent measurement from the ZEUS collaboration is shown in figure 21 . The cross section exhibits the exponentially falling behaviour typical of diffractive processes. A fit to the data of the form $`d\sigma /dt\mathrm{exp}(b|t|)`$ yields $`b=7.8\pm 0.5_{0.6}^{+0.9}`$ GeV2.

The second method used to select diffractive events exploits the lack of hadronic activity in the forward (proton) direction. This selection is referred to as the large rapidity-gap selection. It is not possible with the large rapidity-gap selection to distinguish between events in which the proton scatters elastically from those in which a low mass excitation is produced at the proton vertex making it necessary to estimate the size of such a dissociative contribution and make an appropriate correction to the data.

Substantial experimental and theoretical progress has been made in recent years. An important theoretical development was the proof that at a particular $`x_{IP}`$ and $`t`$, the cross section for the inclusive diffractive process $`epeXp`$ may be written in the form :

$`\sigma ^{\mathrm{D}(4)}`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_f\left[q_f^{\mathrm{Diff}}(x_{IP},t;\beta ,Q^2)\sigma _f(\beta ,Q^2)\right],`$
where $`q_f^{\mathrm{Diff}}(x_{IP},t;\beta ,Q^2)`$ are diffractive parton densities, $`\sigma _f(\beta ,Q^2)`$ is the hard $`eq`$ deep inelastic scattering cross section and the sum runs over all active flavours $`f`$. A consequence of this is that a determination of the diffractive cross section at fixed $`x_{IP}`$ and $`t`$ as a function of $`\beta `$ and $`Q^2`$ may be used in a NLO DGLAP analysis to determine the diffractive PDFs. The H1 collaboration has exploited the fact that the data are consistent with the hypothesis of Regge factorisation to carry out such an analysis . A reduced diffractive cross section was defined in analogy to $`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }_{e^\pm p}^{\mathrm{NC}}`$ as follows:

$`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }^{\mathrm{D}(4)}`$ $`=`$ $`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi \alpha ^2}{\beta Q^4}}\right]^1{\displaystyle \frac{d^4\sigma }{dx_{IP}dtd\beta Q^2}}.`$
Regge factorisation implies that the diffractive parton densities do not vary in shape with $`x_{IP}`$ so that $`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }^{\mathrm{D}(4)}`$ factorises into a convolution of the “Pomeron flux” $`f_{IP}(x_{IP},t)`$ and a hard scattering cross section $`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }(\beta ,Q^2)`$ as follows:

$`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }^{\mathrm{D}(4)}`$ $`=`$ $`f_{IP}(x_{IP},t)\stackrel{~}{\sigma }(\beta ,Q^2).`$
Integration of $`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }^{\mathrm{D}(4)}`$ over $`t`$ yields:

$`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }^{\mathrm{D}(3)}`$ $`=`$ $`f_{IP}\left(x_{IP}\right)\times \stackrel{~}{\sigma }(\beta ,Q^2).`$
Figure 22 shows the H1 measurement of $`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }^{\mathrm{D}(3)}/f_{IP}\left(x_{IP}\right)`$ plotted as a function of $`Q^2`$ for several values of $`\beta `$. For $`\beta <0.6`$ the data rise with $`Q^2`$ indicating that the diffractive PDFs are dominated by gluons. The H1 collaboration has performed a NLO DGLAP fit the result of which is also shown in figure 22 and gives a good description of the data.

The diffractive PDFs extracted from the fit are shown in figure 23. Noting that the sum of the quark PDFs ($`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$) is plotted on an expanded scale, it is clear that the diffractive gluon PDF is much larger than that of the quarks.

An important property of the PDFs of the proton is that they are universal. In order to investigate to what extent the diffractive PDFs are universal the H1 collaboration has calculated the diffractive dijet rate and the cross section for diffractive $`D^{}`$ production. The results of these calculations are compared to the H1 measurements in figure 24. With the current precision of the data, and of the diffractive PDFs, the calculation gives a reasonable description of the data and therefore lends support to the notion that the diffractive PDFs are universal.

An alternative approach to the interpretation of diffractive DIS is to build a model of the interaction. This is usually done in the framework of a dipole model in which the interaction between the virtual photon and the proton is assumed to arise from the exchange of a Pomeron between the proton and a colour dipole parton system (see figure 25) . The colour dipole system arises as a vacuum fluctuation in the wave function of the virtual photon, at lowest order a $`q\overline{q}`$ pair, at NLO a colour dipole $`q\overline{q}g`$ state. The exchanged Pomeron is modelled as a collection of gluons in a colour singlet state. The simplest (lowest order) configuration is a pair of gluons. Parameters governing the functional form of the parameterisation of the cross section were determined in fits to data on inclusive diffraction in DIS.

The ZEUS collaboration has measured the differential cross section $`d\sigma /dM_X`$ . The data is shown at fixed photon-proton cms energy ($`W`$) as a function of $`Q^2`$ for several values of $`M_X`$ together with the predictions of the colour dipole model in figure 26. The data rise as $`Q^2`$ falls, reaching a plateau for $`Q^21`$ GeV2. The colour dipole model gives a good description of the data. The $`q\overline{q}g`$ contribution dominates, particularly at low $`Q^2`$.

## 5 Jet production: an example

Substantial progress has been made in the measurement of a variety of inclusive jet topologies both at HERA and at the Tevatron. At the same time, theoretical progress in the development of codes to calculate at fixed order has also been made. It is not possible to make a complete survey of all the important contributions in the space available. QCD at NLO is often able to describe the qualititative features of the data. However, it is often not possible to obtain quantitative information, such as measurements of $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$ or parton densities. The reason for this is either that the data or the theory (or both) is too imprecise. The complementarity of the precision achieved in jet measurements and in the theoretical predictions at LEP is striking and has led to precise determinations of such quantities as $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$. I have chosen to discuss the photoproduction of dijets below as an example of the need to strive for a similar complementarity in experimental and theoretical precision in hadron induced processes. Dijet photoproduction is particularly exciting because it offers sensitivity to photon and proton PDFs, especially at high $`x`$, and sensitivity to $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$.

The LO Feynman diagrams contributing to dijet photoproduction are shown in figure 27. At leading order, the direct process occurs through photon-gluon fusion. Two diagrams contribute, at LO, to the resolved process (figures 27b and c). The $`qg`$ scattering diagram, in which a gluon is exchanged, gives the dominant contribution to the resolved process. Both ZEUS and H1 have presented measurements of the cross sections for dijet photoproduction and have shown that these measurements are well described by NLO QCD .

If the two jet transverse energies ($`E_{T,1}`$ and $`E_{T,2}`$) and the jet pseudo-rapidities ($`\eta _1`$ and $`\eta _2`$) are measured, the fraction of the momentum of the photon ($`x_\gamma ^{\mathrm{Obs}}`$) and the fraction of the proton momentum ($`x_p^{\mathrm{Obs}}`$) entering the collision can be estimated from the following formulæ:

$`x_\gamma ^{\mathrm{Obs}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{E_{T,1}\mathrm{exp}\left(\eta _1\right)+E_{T,2}\mathrm{exp}\left(\eta _2\right)}{2yE_e}};`$
$`x_p^{\mathrm{Obs}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{E_{T,1}\mathrm{exp}\left(\eta _1\right)+E_{T,2}\mathrm{exp}\left(\eta _2\right)}{2yE_e}}.`$
A cut on $`x_\gamma ^{\mathrm{Obs}}`$ can be used to obtain a sample enriched in resolved or direct events. A measurement of the dijet photoproduction cross section as a function of $`x_\gamma ^{\mathrm{Obs}}`$ ($`x_p^{\mathrm{Obs}}`$) is sensitive to the photon (proton) PDFs.

H1 has measured the dijet photoproduction cross section for $`E_{T,1}>25,E_{T,2}>15`$ GeV and $`0.5<\eta _{1,2}<2.5`$. The measurement is compared to the predictions of QCD at NLO in figure 28 for two ranges of $`E_{T,\mathrm{max}}`$ ($`=E_{T,1}+E_{T,2}`$). For $`x_\gamma ^{\mathrm{Obs}}<0.8`$ the data are well described by the calculation. The theoretical and experimental uncertainties are presented in the figure. It is interesting to note that the experimental statistical and systematic errors are of comparable size and are somewhat smaller than the QCD scale uncertainty.

ZEUS has also measured the dijet photoproduction cross section using the following selection: $`E_{T,1}>14,E_{T,2}>12`$ GeV and $`1<\eta _{1,2}<2.4`$. The measurement is compared to the NLO QCD prediction in figure 29 as a function of $`x_\gamma ^{\mathrm{Obs}}`$ in bins of $`E_{T,1}`$. The figure indicates that the data falls less steeply with $`E_{T,1}`$ than the NLO QCD calculation. Again, the experimental statistical and systematic errors are of comparable size and, in the lower $`E_{T,1}`$ bins, are smaller than the theoretical uncertainty.

The apparent discrepancy in the extent to which NLO QCD describes the data is resolved by considering the dependence of the cross section on the cut on $`E_{T,2}`$. Consider the H1 measurement in the bin $`25<E_{T,\mathrm{max}}<35`$ GeV and the ZEUS measurement in the bin $`25<E_{T,1}<35`$ GeV. The cross section for $`E_{T,1}>25`$ GeV is plotted as a function of the cut on $`E_{T,2}`$ ($`E_T^{\mathrm{jet2},\mathrm{cut}}`$) in figure 30. Also shown are the results obtained using the leading-log shower Monte Carlo HERWIG and a NLO QCD calculation . The HERWIG Monte Carlo, which has been normalised to the data, gives a good description of the shape of the cross section. The NLO QCD calculation, on the other hand, gives a good description of the size of the cross section but is unable to describe the shape. Note that the theoretical uncertainty is large and increases as $`E_T^{\mathrm{jet2},\mathrm{cut}}`$ falls. The difference in the level of agreement of the ZEUS and H1 data with the calculation can now be explained by noting the position of the cut applied on $`E_{T,2}`$. As shown in the figure, the H1 collaboration have chosen a value of $`E_T^{\mathrm{jet2},\mathrm{cut}}`$ in a region in which NLO QCD is close to the data, while the ZEUS collaboration cuts in a region where the NLO QCD prediction lies significantly above the data.

The large data sets soon to be collected at HERA II will make a substantial reduction in the experimental error possible if the experimental collaborations can reduce the systematic uncertainty. To extract quantitative information from this beautiful data will require progress in reducing the theoretical uncertainty, perhaps through going to a next-to-NLO calculation.

## 6 Conclusions

The papers submitted to the QCD sessions at this conference amply demonstrate the breadth and depth of activity in the field. At the end of the LEP era we have a detailed understanding of the process $`e^+e^{}\mathrm{hadrons}`$. This understanding has been exploited to yield measurements of the fundamental parameters of QCD, $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$ and the colour factors at a precision of $`15\%`$ and $`20\%`$ respectively. Lepton-nucleon deep inelastic scattering has provided measurements of the partonic structure of the proton with a precision of $`5\%`$ for quarks and $`1520\%`$ for the gluons. Yet much remains to be accomplished if we are to achieve a complete, quantitative, understanding of QCD. The detailed measurements of diffraction in deep inelastic scattering present a clear challenge and highlight the need to continue the experimental and theoretical investigation of the transition from the perturbative to the non-perturbative regime.

The coming years will see HERA and the Tevatron deliver large data sets. The experimental challenge will be to ensure that the systematic uncertainties are reduced to match the statistical precision of the data. The LEP measurements of $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$ demonstrate the precision which can be achieved if theoretical uncertainties can be made at least as small as those of the experiment. At present the theoretical uncertainty on the majority of hadron-induced cross sections is large compared to the anticipated statistical precision. The ambition to develop a full, quantitative, understanding of QCD now requires a broad and sustained programme of measurement and interpretation. By energetically developing the already strong partnership between theorists, phenomenologists and experimentalists we can work confidently to achieve this ambition.

## Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the organisers for giving me the opportunity to present this review. I gratefully acknowledge the help, advice and support of my many colleagues, both experimentalists and theorists, who have freely discussed their results with me. Finally, I would like to thank O. Gonzalez, K. Nagano and A. Tapper for help in the preparation of the figures and E. Laenen for technical support at the conference and patience through-out.


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# Gravitational Radiation in 𝑫-dimensional Spacetimes

## I Introduction

One expects to finally detect gravitational waves in the forthcoming years. If this happens, and if the observed waveforms match the predicted templates, General Relativity will have pass a crucial test. Moreover, if one manages to cleanly separate gravitational waveforms, we will open a new and exciting window to the Universe, a window from which one can look directly into the heart of matter, as gravitational waves are weakly scattered by matter. A big effort has been spent in the last years trying to build gravitational wave detectors, and a new era will begin with gravitational wave astronomy schutz1 ; hughes . What makes gravitational wave astronomy attractive, the weakness with which gravitational waves are scattered by matter, is also the major source of technical difficulties when trying to develop an apparatus which interacts with them. Nevertheless, some of these highly non-trivial technical difficulties have been surmounted, and we have detectors already operating geo ; ligo ; virgo . Another effort is being dedicated by theoreticians trying to obtain accurate templates for the various physical processes that may give rise to the waves impinging on the detector. We now have a well established theory of wave generation and propagation, which started with Einstein and his quadrupole formula. The quadrupole formula expresses the energy lost to gravitational waves by a system moving at low velocities, in terms of its energy content. The quadrupole formalism is the most famous example of slow motion techniques to compute wave generation. All these techniques break Einstein’s equations non-linearity by imposing a power series in some small quantity and keeping only the lowest or the lowest few order terms. The quadrupole formalism starts from a flat background and expands the relevant quantities in $`R/\lambda `$, where $`R`$ is the size of source and $`\lambda `$ the wavelength of waves. Perturbation formalisms on the other hand, start from some non-radiative background, whose metric is known exactly, for example the Schwarzschild metric, and expand in deviations from that background metric. For a catalog of the various methods and their description we refer the reader to the review works by Thorne thorne  and Damour damour . The necessity to develop all such methods was driven of course by the lack of exact radiative solutions to Einstein’s equations (although there are some worthy exceptions, like the C-metric kinnersley ), and by the fact that even nowadays solving the full set of Einstein’s equations numerically is a monumental task, and has been done only for the more tractable physical situations. All the existing methods seem to agree with each other when it comes down to the computation of waveforms and energies radiated during physical situations, and also agree with the few available results from a fully numerical evolution of Einstein’s equations.

In this work we extend some of these results to higher dimensional spacetimes. There are several reasons why one should now try to do it. It seems impossible to formulate in four dimensions a consistent theory which unifies gravity with the other forces in nature. Thus, most efforts in this direction have considered a higher dimensional arena for our universe, one example being string theories which have recently made some remarkable achievements. Moreover, recent investigations hamed  propose the existence of extra dimensions in our Universe in order to solve the hierarchy problem, i.e., the huge difference between the electroweak and the Planck scale, $`m_{\mathrm{EW}}/M_{\mathrm{Pl}}10^{17}`$. The fields of standard model would inhabit a 4-dimensional sub-manifold, the brane, whereas the gravitational degrees of freedom would propagate throughout all dimensions. One of the most spectacular consequences of this scenario would be the production of black holes at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN bhprod  (for recent relevant work related to this topic we refer the reader to decay ; cardosolemos0 ; cardosolemos ). Now, one of the experimental signatures of black hole production will be a missing energy, perhaps a large fraction of the center of mass energy cardosolemos0 . This will happen because when the partons collide to form a black hole, some of the initial energy will be converted to gravitational waves, and due to the small amplitudes involved, there is no gravitational wave detector capable of detecting them, so they will appear as missing. Thus, the collider could in fact indirectly serve as a gravitational wave detector. This calls for the calculation of the energy given away as gravitational waves when two high energy particles collide to form a black hole, which lives in all the dimensions. The work done so far on this subject eardley ; yoshino  in higher dimensions, is mostly geometric, and generalizes a construction by Penrose to find trapped surfaces on the union of two shock waves, describing boosted Schwarzschild black holes. On the other hand, there are clues cardosolemos0 ; cardosolemos  indicating that a formalism described by Weinberg weinberg  to compute the gravitational energy radiated in the collision of two point particles, gives results correct to a order of magnitude when applied to the collision of two black holes. This formalism assumes a hard collision, i.e., a collision lasting zero seconds. It would be important to apply this formalism in higher dimensions, trying to see if there is agreement between both results. This will be one of the topics discussed in this paper. The other topic we study in this paper is the quadrupole formula in higher dimensions. Due to the difficulties in handling the wave tails in odd dimensions we concentrate our study in even dimensions.

This paper is organized as follows: In section II we linearize Einstein’s equations in a flat $`D`$-dimensional background and arrive at an inhomogeneous wave equation for the metric perturbations. The source free equations are analyzed in terms of plane waves, and then the general solution to the homogeneous equation is deduced in terms of the $`D`$-dimensional retarded Green’s function. In section III we compute the $`D`$-dimensional quadrupole formula (assuming slowly moving sources), expressing the metric and the radiated energy in terms of the time-time component of the energy-momentum tensor. We then apply the quadrupole formula to two cases: a particle in circular motion in a generic background, and a particle falling into a $`D`$-dimensional Schwarzschild black hole. In section IV we consider the hard collision between two particles, i.e., the collision takes zero seconds, and introduce a cutoff frequency necessary to have meaningful results. We then apply to the case where one of the colliding particles is a black hole. We propose that this cutoff should be related to the gravitational quasinormal frequency of the black hole, and compute some values of the scalar quasinormal frequencies for higher dimensional Schwarzschild black holes, expecting that the gravitational quasinormal frequencies will behave in the same manner. Finally, we apply this formalism to compute the generation of gravitational radiation during black hole pair creation in four and higher dimensions, a result that has never been worked out, even for $`D=4`$. In our presentation we shall mostly follow Weinberg’s weinberg  exposition.

## II Linearized $`𝑫`$-dimensional Einstein’s equations

Due to the non-linearity of Einstein’s equations, the treatment of the gravitational radiation problem is not an easy one since the energy-momentum tensor of the gravitational wave contributes to its own gravitational field. To overcome this difficulty it is a standard procedure to work only with the weak radiative solution, in the sense that the energy-momentum content of the gravitational wave is small enough in order to allow us to neglect its contribution to its own propagation. This approach is justified in practice since we expect the detected gravitational radiation to be of low intensity.

### II.1 The inhomogeneous wave equation

We begin this subsection by introducing the general background formalism (whose details can be found, e.g., in weinberg ) that will be needed in later sections. Then we obtain the linearized inhomogeneous wave equation.

Greek indices vary as $`0,1,\mathrm{},D1`$ and latin indices as $`1,\mathrm{},D1`$ and our units are such that $`c1`$. We work on a $`D`$-dimensional spacetime described by a metric $`g_{\mu \nu }`$ that approaches asymptotically the $`D`$-dimensional Minkowski metric $`\eta _{\mu \nu }=\mathrm{diag}(1,+1,\mathrm{},+1)`$, and thus we can write

$$g_{\mu \nu }=\eta _{\mu \nu }+h_{\mu \nu }\mu ,\nu =0,1,\mathrm{},D1,$$
(1)
where $`h_{\mu \nu }`$ is small, i.e., $`|h_{\mu \nu }|<<1`$, so that it represents small corrections to the flat background. The exact Einstein field equations, $`G_{\mu \nu }=8\pi 𝒢T_{\mu \nu }`$ (with $`𝒢`$ being the usual Newton constant), can then be written as

$$R_{\mu \nu }^{(1)}\frac{1}{2}\eta _{\mu \nu }R_\alpha ^{(1)\alpha }=8\pi 𝒢\tau _{\mu \nu },$$
(2)
with

$$\tau ^{\mu \nu }\eta ^{\mu \alpha }\eta ^{\nu \beta }(T_{\alpha \beta }+t_{\alpha \beta }).$$
(3)
Here $`R_{\mu \nu }^{(1)}`$ is the part of the Ricci tensor linear in $`h_{\mu \nu }`$, $`R_\alpha ^{(1)\alpha }=\eta ^{\alpha \beta }R_{\beta \alpha }^{(1)}`$, and $`\tau _{\mu \nu }`$ is the effective energy-momentum tensor, containing contributions from $`T_{\mu \nu }`$, the energy-momentum tensor of the matter source, and $`t_{\mu \nu }`$ which represents the gravitational contribution. The pseudo-tensor $`t_{\mu \nu }`$ contains the difference between the exact Ricci terms and the Ricci terms linear in $`h_{\mu \nu }`$,

$$t_{\mu \nu }=\frac{1}{8\pi 𝒢}\left[R_{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{2}g_{\mu \nu }R_\alpha ^\alpha R_{\mu \nu }^{(1)}+\frac{1}{2}\eta _{\mu \nu }R_\alpha ^{(1)\alpha }\right].$$
(4)
The Bianchi identities imply that $`\tau _{\mu \nu }`$ is locally conserved,

$$_\mu \tau ^{\mu \nu }=0.$$
(5)
Introducing the cartesian coordinates $`x^\alpha =(t,𝐱)`$ with $`𝐱=x^i`$, and considering a $`D1`$ volume $`V`$ with a boundary spacelike surface $`S`$ with dimension $`D2`$ whose unit exterior normal is $`𝐧`$, eq. (5) yields

$$\frac{d}{dt}_Vd^{D1}𝐱\tau ^{0\nu }=_Sd^{D2}𝐱n_i\tau ^{i\nu }.$$
(6)
This means that one may interpret

$$p^\nu _Vd^{D1}𝐱\tau ^{0\nu }$$
(7)
as the total energy-momentum (pseudo)vector of the system, including matter and gravitation, and $`\tau ^{i\nu }`$ as the corresponding flux. Since the matter contribution is contained in $`t^{\mu \nu }`$, the flux of gravitational radiation is

$$\mathrm{Flux}=_Sd^{D2}𝐱n_it^{i\nu }.$$
(8)
In this context of linearized general relativity, we neglect terms of order higher than the first in $`h_{\mu \nu }`$ and all the indices are raised and lowered using $`\eta ^{\mu \nu }`$. We also neglect the contribution of the gravitational energy-momentum tensor $`t_{\mu \nu }`$ (i.e., $`|t_{\mu \nu }|<<|T_{\mu \nu }|`$) since from (4) we see that $`t_{\mu \nu }`$ is of higher order in $`h_{\mu \nu }`$. Then, the conservation equations (5) yield

$$_\mu T^{\mu \nu }=0.$$
(9)
In this setting and choosing the convenient coordinate system that obeys the harmonic (also called Lorentz) gauge conditions,

$$2_\mu h_\nu ^\mu =_\nu h_\alpha ^\alpha $$
(10)
(where $`_\mu =/x^\mu `$), the first order Einstein field equations (2) yield

$$\mathrm{}h_{\mu \nu }=16\pi 𝒢S_{\mu \nu },$$
(11)
$$S_{\mu \nu }=T_{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{D2}\eta _{\mu \nu }T_\alpha ^\alpha ,$$
(12)
where $`\mathrm{}=\eta ^{\mu \nu }_\mu _\nu `$ is the $`D`$-dimensional Laplacian, and $`S_{\mu \nu }`$ will be called the modified energy-momentum tensor of the matter source. Eqs. (11) and (12) subject to (10) allow us to find the gravitational radiation produced by a matter source $`S_{\mu \nu }`$.

### II.2 The plane wave solutions

In vacuum, the linearized equations for the gravitational field are $`R_{\mu \nu }^{(1)}=0`$ or, equivalently, the homogeneous equations $`\mathrm{}h_{\mu \nu }=0`$, subjected to the harmonic gauge conditions (10). The solutions of these equations, the plane wave solutions, are important since the general solutions of the inhomogeneous equations (10) and (11) approach the plane wave solutions at large distances from the source. Setting $`k_\alpha =(\omega ,𝐤)`$ with $`\omega `$ and $`𝐤`$ being respectively the frequency and wave vector, the plane wave solutions can be written as a linear superposition of solutions of the kind

$$h_{\mu \nu }(t,𝐱)=e_{\mu \nu }e^{ik_\alpha x^\alpha }+e_{\mu \nu }^{}e^{ik_\alpha x^\alpha },$$
(13)
where $`e_{\mu \nu }=e_{\nu \mu }`$ is called the polarization tensor and  means the complex conjugate. These solutions satisfy eq. (11) with $`S_{\mu \nu }=0`$ if $`k_\alpha k^\alpha =0`$, and obey the harmonic gauge conditions (10) if $`2k_\mu e_\nu ^\mu =k_\nu e_\mu ^\mu `$.

An important issue that must be addressed is the number of different polarizations that a gravitational wave in $`D`$ dimensions can have. The polarization tensor $`e_{\mu \nu }`$, being symmetric, has in general $`D(D+1)/2`$ independent components. However, these components are subjected to the $`D`$ harmonic gauge conditions that reduce by $`D`$ the number of independent components. In addition, under the infinitesimal change of coordinates $`x^\mu =x^\mu +\xi ^\mu (x)`$, the polarization tensor transforms into $`e_{\mu \nu }^{}=e_{\mu \nu }_\nu \xi _\mu _\mu \xi _\nu `$. Now, $`e_{\mu \nu }^{}`$ and $`e_{\mu \nu }`$ describe the same physical system for arbitrary values of the $`D`$ parameters $`\xi ^\mu (x)`$. Therefore, the number of independent components of $`e_{\mu \nu }`$, i.e., the number of polarization states of a gravitational wave in $`D`$ dimensions is $`D(D+1)/2DD=D(D3)/2`$. From this computation we can also see that gravitational waves are present only when $`D>3`$. Therefore, from now on we assume $`\mathrm{D}>3`$ whenever we refer to $`D`$. In what concerns the helicity of the gravitational waves, for arbitrary $`D`$ the gravitons are always spin $`2`$ particles.

To end this subsection on gravitational plane wave solutions, we present the average gravitational energy-momentum tensor of a plane wave, a quantity that will be needed later. Notice that in vacuum, since the matter contribution is zero ($`T_{\mu \nu }=0`$), we cannot neglect the contribution of the gravitational energy-momentum tensor $`t_{\mu \nu }`$. From eq. (4), and neglecting terms of order higher than $`h^2`$, the gravitational energy-momentum tensor of a plane wave is given by

$$t_{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{8\pi 𝒢}\left[R_{\mu \nu }^{(2)}\frac{1}{2}\eta _{\mu \nu }R_\alpha ^{(2)\alpha }\right],$$
(14)
and through a straightforward calculation (see e.g. weinberg  for details) we get the average gravitational energy-momentum tensor of a plane wave,

$$t_{\mu \nu }=\frac{k_\mu k_\nu }{16\pi 𝒢}\left[e^{\alpha \beta }e_{\alpha \beta }^{}\frac{1}{2}|e_\alpha ^\alpha |^2\right].$$
(15)
### II.3 The $`𝑫`$-dimensional retarded Green’s function

The general solution to the inhomogeneous differential equation (11) may be found in the usual way in terms of a Green’s function as

$$h_{\mu \nu }(t,𝐱)=16\pi 𝒢𝑑t^{}d^{D1}𝐱^{}S_{\mu \nu }(t^{},𝐱^{})G(tt^{},𝐱𝐱^{})+\mathrm{homogeneous}\mathrm{solutions},$$
(16)
where the Green’s function $`G(tt^{},𝐱𝐱^{})`$ satisfies

$$\eta ^{\mu \nu }_\mu _\nu G(tt^{},𝐱𝐱^{})=\delta (tt^{})\delta (𝐱𝐱^{}),$$
(17)
where $`\delta (z)`$ is the Dirac delta function. In the momentum representation this reads

$$G(t,𝐱)=\frac{1}{(2\pi )^D}d^{D1}𝐤e^{i𝐤𝐱}𝑑\omega \frac{e^{i\omega t}}{\omega ^2k^2},$$
(18)
where $`k^2=k_1^2+k_2^2+\mathrm{}+k_{D1}^2`$. To evaluate this, it is convenient to perform the $`k`$-integral by using spherical coordinates in the ($`D1`$)-dimensional $`k`$-space. The required transformation, along with some useful formulas which shall be used later on, is given in Appendix A. The result for the retarded Green’s function in those spherical coordinates is

$$G^{\mathrm{ret}}(t,𝐱)=\frac{\mathrm{\Theta }(t)}{(2\pi )^{(D1)/2}}\times \frac{1}{r^{(D3)/2}}k^{(D3)/2}J_{(D3)/2}(kr)\mathrm{sin}(kt)𝑑k,$$
(19)
where $`r^2=x_1^2+x_2^2+\mathrm{}+x_{D1}^2`$, and $`\mathrm{\Theta }(t)`$ is the Heaviside function defined as

$$\mathrm{\Theta }(t)=\{\begin{array}{cc}1\hfill & \text{if }t>0\hfill \\ 0\hfill & \text{if }t<0.\hfill \end{array}$$
(20)
The function $`J_{(\mathrm{D}3)/2}(kr)`$ is a Bessel function watson ; stegun . The structure of the retarded Green’s function will depend on the parity of $`D`$, as we shall see. This dependence on the parity, which implies major differences between even and odd spacetime dimensions, is connected to the structure of the Bessel function. For even $`D`$, the index of the Bessel function is semi-integer and then the Bessel function is expressible in terms of elementary functions, while for odd $`D`$ this does not happen. A concise explanation of the difference between retarded Green’s function in even and odd $`D`$, and the physical consequences that entails is presented in courant  (see also hadamard ; barrow ; galtsov ). A complete derivation of the Green’s function in higher dimensional spaces may be found in Hassani hassani . The result is

$$G^{\mathrm{ret}}(t,𝐱)=\frac{1}{4\pi }\left[\frac{}{2\pi rr}\right]^{(D4)/2}\left[\frac{\delta (tr)}{r}\right],D\mathrm{even}.$$
(21)
$$G^{\mathrm{ret}}(t,𝐱)=\frac{\mathrm{\Theta }(t)}{2\pi }\left[\frac{}{2\pi rr}\right]^{(D3)/2}\left[\frac{1}{\sqrt{t^2r^2}}\right],D\mathrm{odd}.$$
(22)
It is sometimes convenient to work with the Fourier transform (in the time coordinate) of the Green’s function. One finds hassani  an analytical result independent of the parity of $`D`$

$$G^{\mathrm{ret}}(\omega ,𝐱)=\frac{i^D\pi }{2(2\pi )^{(D1)/2}}\left(\frac{\omega }{r}\right)^{(D3)/2}H_{(D3)/2}^1(\omega r),$$
(23)
where $`H_\nu ^1(z)`$ is a modified Bessel function stegun ; watson . Of course, the different structure of the Green’s function for different $`D`$ is again embodied in these Bessel functions. Equations (21) and (23), are one of the most important results we shall use in this paper. For $`D=4`$ (21) obviously reproduce well known results hassani . Now, one sees from eq. (21) that although there are delta function derivatives on the even-$`D`$ Green’s function, the localization of the Green’s function on the light cone is preserved. However, eq. (22) tells us that the retarded Green’s function for odd dimensions is non-zero inside the light cone. The consequence, as has been emphasized by different authors courant ; galtsov ; kazinski , is that for odd $`D`$ the Huygens principle does not hold: the fact that the retarded Green’s function support extends to the interior of the light cone implies the appearance of radiative tails in (16). In other words, we still have a propagation phenomenum for the wave equation in odd dimensional spacetimes, in so far as a localized initial state requires a certain time to reach a point in space. Huygens principle no longer holds, because the effect of the initial state is not sharply limited in time: once the signal has reached a point in space, it persists there indefinitely as a reverberation.

This fact coupled to the analytic structure of the Green’s function in odd dimensions make it hard to get a grip on radiation generation in odd dimensional spacetimes. Therefore, from now on we shall focus on even dimensions, for which the retarded Green’s function is given by eq. (21).

### II.4 The even $`𝑫`$-dimensional retarded solution in the wave zone

The retarded solution for the metric perturbation $`h_{\mu \nu }`$, obtained by using the retarded Green’s function (21) and discarding the homogeneous solution in (16) will be given by

$$h_{\mu \nu }(t,𝐱)=16\pi 𝒢𝑑t^{}d^{D1}𝐱^{}S_{\mu \nu }(t^{},𝐱^{})G^{\mathrm{ret}}(tt^{},𝐱𝐱^{}),$$
(24)
with $`G^{\mathrm{ret}}(tt^{},𝐱𝐱^{})`$ as in eq. (21). For $`D=4`$ for example one has

$$G^{\mathrm{ret}}(t,𝐱)=\frac{1}{4\pi }\frac{\delta (tr)}{r},D=4,$$
(25)
which is the well known result. For $`D=6`$, we have

$$G^{\mathrm{ret}}(t,𝐱)=\frac{1}{8\pi ^2}\left(\frac{\delta ^{}(tr)}{r^2}+\frac{\delta (tr)}{r^3}\right),D=6,$$
(26)
where the $`\delta ^{}(tr)`$ means derivative of the Dirac delta function with respect to its argument. For $`D=8`$, we have

$$G^{\mathrm{ret}}(t,𝐱)=\frac{1}{16\pi ^3}\left(\frac{\delta ^{\prime \prime }(tr)}{r^3}+3\frac{\delta ^{}(tr)}{r^4}+3\frac{\delta (tr)}{r^5}\right),D=8.$$
(27)
We see that in general even-$`D`$ dimensions the Green’s function consists of inverse integer powers in r, spanning all values between $`\frac{1}{r^{(D2)/2}}`$ and $`\frac{1}{r^{D3}}`$, including these ones. Now, the retarded solution is given by eq. (24) as a product of the Green’s function times the modified energy-momentum tensor $`S_{\mu \nu }`$. The net result of having derivatives on the delta functions is to transfer these derivatives to the energy-momentum tensor as time derivatives (this can be seen by integrating (24) by parts in the $`t`$-integral).

A close inspection then shows that the retarded field possesses a kind of peeling property in that it consists of terms with different fall off at infinity. Explicitly, this means that the retarded field will consist of a sum of terms possessing all integer inverse powers in $`r`$ between $`\frac{D2}{2}`$ and $`D3`$. The term that dies off more quickly at infinity is the $`\frac{1}{r^{D3}}`$, typically a static term, since it comes from the Laplacian. As a matter of fact this term was already observed in the higher dimensional black hole by Tangherlini tangherlini  (see also Myers and Perry myersperry ). We will see that the term falling more slowly, the one that goes like $`\frac{1}{r^{(D2)/2}}`$, gives rise to gravitational radiation. It is well defined, in the sense that the power crossing sufficiently large hyperspheres with different radius is the same, because the volume element goes as $`r^{D2}`$ and the energy as $`|h|^2\frac{1}{r^{D2}}`$.

In radiation problems, one is interested in finding out the field at large distances from the source, $`r>>\lambda `$, where $`\lambda `$ is the wavelength of the waves, and also much larger than the source’s dimensions $`R`$. This is defined as the wave zone. In the wave zone, one may neglect all terms in the Green’s function that decay faster than $`\frac{1}{r^{(D2)/2}}`$. So, in the wave zone, we find

$$h_{\mu \nu }(t,𝐱)=8\pi 𝒢\frac{1}{(2\pi r)^{(D2)/2}}_t^{(\frac{D4}{2})}\left[d^{D1}𝐱^{}S_{\mu \nu }(t|𝐱𝐱^{}|,𝐱^{})\right],$$
(28)
where $`_t^{(\frac{D4}{2})}`$ stands for the $`\frac{D4}{2}`$th derivative with respect to time. For $`D=4`$ eq. (28) yields the standard result weinberg :

$$h_{\mu \nu }(t,𝐱)=\frac{4𝒢}{r}d^{D1}𝐱^{}S_{\mu \nu }(t|𝐱𝐱^{}|,𝐱^{}),D=4.$$
(29)
To find the Fourier transform of the metric, one uses the representation (23) for the Green’s function. Now, in the wave zone, the Green’s function may be simplified using the asymptotic expansion for the Bessel function stegun

$$H_{(D3)/2}^1(\omega r)\sqrt{\frac{2}{\pi (\omega r)}}e^{i\left[\omega r\frac{\pi }{4}(D2)\right]},\omega r\mathrm{}.$$
(30)
This yields

$$h_{\mu \nu }(\omega ,𝐱)=\frac{8\pi 𝒢}{(2\pi r)^{(D2)/2}}\omega ^{(D4)/2}e^{i\omega r}d^{D1}𝐱^{}S_{\mu \nu }(\omega ,𝐱^{}).$$
(31)
This could also have been arrived at directly from (28), using the rule time derivative $`i\omega `$ for Fourier transforms. Equations (28) and (31) are one of the most important results derived in this paper, and will be the basis for all the subsequent section. Similar equations, but not as general as the ones presented here, were given by Chen, Li and Lin lin  in the context of gravitational radiation by a rolling tachyon.

To get the energy spectrum, we use (12) yielding

$$\frac{d^2E}{d\omega d\mathrm{\Omega }}=2𝒢\frac{\omega ^{D2}}{(2\pi )^{D4}}\left(T^{\mu \nu }(\omega ,𝐤)T_{\mu \nu }^{}(\omega ,𝐤)\frac{1}{D2}|T_\lambda ^\lambda (\omega ,𝐤)|^2\right).$$
(32)
## III The even $`𝑫`$-dimensional quadrupole formula

### III.1 Derivation of the even $`𝑫`$-dimensional quadrupole formula

When the velocities of the sources that generate the gravitational waves are small, it is sufficient to know the $`T^{00}`$ component of the gravitational energy-momentum tensor in order to have a good estimate of the energy they radiate. In this subsection, we will deduce the $`D`$-dimensional quadrupole formula and in the next subsection we will apply it to (1) a particle in circular orbit and (2) a particle in free fall into a $`D`$-dimensional Schwarzschild black hole.

We start by recalling that the Fourier transform of the energy-momentum tensor is

$$T_{\mu \nu }(\omega ,𝐤)=d^{D1}𝐱^{}e^{i𝐤𝐱^{}}𝑑te^{i\omega t}T^{\mu \nu }(t,𝐱)+\mathrm{c}.\mathrm{c}.,$$
(33)
where $`\mathrm{c}.\mathrm{c}.`$ means the complex conjugate of the preceding term. Then, the conservation equations (9) for $`T^{\mu \nu }(t,𝐱)`$ applied to eq. (33) yield $`k^\mu T_{\mu \nu }(\omega ,𝐤)=0`$. Using this last result we obtain $`T_{00}(\omega ,𝐤)=\widehat{k}^j\widehat{k}^iT_{ji}(\omega ,𝐤)`$ and $`T_{0i}(\omega ,𝐤)=\widehat{k}^jT_{ji}(\omega ,𝐤)`$, where $`\widehat{𝐤}=𝐤/\omega `$. We can then write the energy spectrum, eq. (32), as a function only of the spacelike components of $`T^{\mu \nu }(\omega ,𝐤)`$,

$$\frac{d^2E}{d\omega d\mathrm{\Omega }}=2𝒢\frac{\omega ^{D2}}{(2\pi )^{D4}}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{ij,lm}(\widehat{k})T^{ij}(\omega ,𝐤)T^{ij}(\omega ,𝐤),$$
(34)
where

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }_{ij,lm}(\widehat{k})=\delta _{il}\delta _{jm}2\widehat{k}_j\widehat{k}_m\delta _{il}+\frac{1}{D2}\left(\delta _{ij}\delta _{lm}+\widehat{k}_l\widehat{k}_m\delta _{ij}+\widehat{k}_i\widehat{k}_j\delta _{lm}\right)+\frac{D3}{D2}\widehat{k}_i\widehat{k}_j\widehat{k}_l\widehat{k}_m.$$
(35)
At this point, we make a new approximation (in addition to the wave zone approximation) and assume that $`\omega R<<1`$, where $`R`$ is the source’s radius. In other words, we assume that the internal velocities of the sources are small and thus the source’s radius is much smaller than the characteristic wavelength $`1/\omega `$ of the emitted gravitational waves. Within this approximation, one can set $`e^{i𝐤𝐱^{}}1`$ in eq. (33) (since $`R=|𝐱^{}|_{\mathrm{max}}`$). Moreover, after a straightforward calculation, one can also set in eq. (34) the approximation $`T^{ij}(\omega ,𝐤)(\omega ^2/2)D_{ij}(\omega )`$, where

$$D_{ij}(\omega )=d^{D1}𝐱x^ix^jT^{00}(\omega ,𝐱).$$
(36)
Finally, using

$`{\displaystyle 𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }_{D2}\widehat{k}_i\widehat{k}_j}={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_{D2}}{D1}}\delta _{ij},`$
$`{\displaystyle 𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }_{D2}\widehat{k}_i\widehat{k}_j\widehat{k}_l\widehat{k}_m}={\displaystyle \frac{3\mathrm{\Omega }_{D2}}{D^21}}(\delta _{ij}\delta _{lm}+\delta _{il}\delta _{jm}+\delta _{im}\delta _{jl}),`$ (37)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{D2}`$ is the $`(D2)`$-dimensional solid angle defined in (71), we obtain the $`D`$-dimensional quadrupole formula

$$\frac{dE}{d\omega }=\frac{2^{2D}\pi ^{(D5)/2}𝒢(D3)D}{\mathrm{\Gamma }[(D1)/2](D^21)(D2)}\omega ^{D+2}\left[(D1)D_{ij}^{}(\omega )D_{ij}(\omega )|D_{ii}(\omega )|^2\right],$$
(38)
where the Gamma function $`\mathrm{\Gamma }[z]`$ is defined in Appendix A. As the dimension $`D`$ grows it is seen that the rate of gravitational energy radiated increases as $`\omega ^{D+2}`$. Sometimes it will be more useful to have the time rate of emitted energy

$$\frac{dE}{dt}=\frac{2^{2D}\pi ^{(D5)/2}𝒢(D3)D}{\mathrm{\Gamma }[(D1)/2](D^21)(D2)}\left[(D1)_t^{(D+2)/2}D_{ij}^{}(t)_t^{(D+2)/2}D_{ij}(t)|_t^{(D+2)/2}D_{ii}(t)|^2\right].$$
(39)
For $`D=4`$, eq. (39) yields the well known result weinberg

$$\frac{dE}{dt}=\frac{𝒢}{5}\left[_t^3D_{ij}^{}(t)_t^3D_{ij}(t)\frac{1}{3}|_t^3D_{ii}(t)|^2\right].$$
(40)
### III.2 Applications of the quadrupole formula: test particles in a background geometry

The quadrupole formula has been used successfully in almost all kind of problems involving gravitational wave generation. By successful we mean that it agrees with other more accurate methods. Its simplicity and the fact that it gives results correct to within a few percent, makes it an invaluable tool in estimating gravitational radiation emission. We shall in the following present two important examples of the application of the quadrupole formula.

#### III.2.1 A particle in circular orbit

The radiation generated by particles in circular motion was perhaps the first situation to be considered in the analysis of gravitational wave generation. For orbits with low frequency, the quadrupole formula yields excellent results. As expected it is difficult to find in nature a system with perfect circular orbits, they will in general be elliptic. In this case the agreement is also remarkable, and one finds that the quadrupole formalism can account with precision for the increase in period of the pulsar PSR 1913$`+`$16, due to gravitational wave emission pulsar . In four dimensions the full treatment of elliptic orbital motion is discussed by Peters peters . In dimensions higher than four, it has been shown tangherlini  that there are no stable geodesic circular orbits, and so geodesic circular motion is not as interesting for higher $`D`$. For this reason, and also because we only want to put in evidence the differences that arise in gravitational wave emission as one varies the spacetime dimension $`D`$, we will just analyze the simple circular, not necessarily geodesic motion, to see whether the results are non-trivially changed as one increases $`D`$. Consider then two bodies of equal mass $`m`$ in circular orbits a distance $`l`$ apart. Suppose they revolve around the center of mass, which is at $`l/2`$ from both masses, and that they orbit with frequency $`\omega `$ in the $`xy`$ plane. A simple calculation peters ; schutzlivro  yields

$`D_{xx}={\displaystyle \frac{ml^2}{4}}\mathrm{cos}(2\omega t)+\mathrm{const},`$ (41)
$`D_{yy}=D_{xx},`$ (42)
$`D_{xy}={\displaystyle \frac{ml^2}{4}}\mathrm{sin}(2\omega t)+\mathrm{const},`$ (43)
independently of the dimension in which they are imbedded and with all other components being zero. We therefore get from eq. (39)

$$\frac{dE}{dt}=\frac{2𝒢D(D3)}{\pi ^{(D5)/2}\mathrm{\Gamma }[(D1)/2](D+1)(D2)}m^2l^4\omega ^{D+2}.$$
(44)
For $`D=4`$ one gets

$$\frac{dE}{dt}=\frac{8𝒢}{5}m^2l^4\omega ^6,$$
(45)
which agrees with known results peters ; schutzlivro . Eq. (44) is telling us that as one climbs up in dimension number $`D`$, the frequency effects gets more pronounced.

#### III.2.2 A particle falling radially into a higher dimensional Schwarzschild black hole

As yet another example of the use of the quadrupole formula eq. (39) we now calculate the energy given away as gravitational waves when a point particle, with mass $`m`$ falls into a $`D`$-dimensional Schwarzschild black hole, a metric first given in tangherlini . Historically, the case of a particle falling into a $`D=4`$ Schwarzschild black hole was one of the first to be studied zerilli ; davis  in connection with gravitational wave generation, and later served as a model calculation when one wanted to evolve Einstein’s equations fully numerically smarr ; gleiser . This process was first studied davis  by solving numerically Zerilli’s zerilli  wave equation for a particle at rest at infinity and then falling into a Schwarzschild black hole. Davis et al davis  found numerically that the amount of energy radiated to infinity as gravitational waves was $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_{\mathrm{num}}=0.01\frac{m^2}{M}`$, where $`m`$ is the mass of the particle falling in and $`M`$ is the mass of the black hole. It is found that the $`D=4`$ quadrupole formula yields quem  $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_{\mathrm{quad}}=0.019\frac{m^2}{M}`$, so it is of the order of magnitude as that given by fully relativistic numerical results. Despite the fact that the quadrupole formula fails somewhere near the black hole (the motion is not slow, and the background is certainly not flat), it looks like one can get an idea of how much radiation will be released with the help of this formula. Based on this good agreement, we shall now consider this process but for higher dimensional spacetimes. The metric for the $`D`$-dimensional Schwarzschild black hole in ($`t,r,\theta _1,\theta _2,..,\theta _{D2}`$) coordinates (see Appendix A) is

$$ds^2=\left(1\frac{16\pi 𝒢M}{(D2)\mathrm{\Omega }_{D2}}\frac{1}{r^{D3}}\right)dt^2+\left(1\frac{16\pi 𝒢M}{(D2)\mathrm{\Omega }_{D2}}\frac{1}{r^{D3}}\right)^1dr^2+r^{D2}d\mathrm{\Omega }_{D2}^2.$$
(46)
Consider a particle falling along a radial geodesic, and at rest at infinity. Then, the geodesic equations give

$$\frac{dr}{dt}\frac{16\pi 𝒢M}{(D2)\mathrm{\Omega }_{D2}}\frac{1}{r^{D3}},$$
(47)
where we make the flat space approximation $`t=\tau `$. We then have, in these coordinates, $`D_{11}=r^2`$, and all other components vanish. From (39) we get the energy radiated per second, which yields

$$\frac{dE}{dt}=\frac{2^{2D}\pi ^{(D5)/2}𝒢(D3)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }[(D1)/2](D^21)}D|_t^{(\frac{D+2}{2})}D_{11}|^2,$$
(48)
We can perform the derivatives and integrate to get the total energy radiated. There is a slight problem though, where do we stop the integration? The expression for the energy diverges at $`r=0`$ but this is no problem, as we know that as the particle approaches the horizon, the radiation will be infinitely red-shifted. Moreover, the standard picture quem  is that of a particle falling in, and in the last stages being frozen near the horizon. With this in mind we integrate from $`r=\mathrm{}`$ to some point near the horizon, say $`r=b\times r_+`$, where $`r_+`$ is the horizon radius and $`b`$ is some number larger than unit, and we get

$$\mathrm{\Delta }E=A\frac{D(D2)\pi }{2^{2D4}}\times b^{(9D^2)/2}\times \frac{m^2}{M},$$
(49)
where

$$A=\frac{(3D)^2(5D)^2(73D)^2(84D)^2(95D)^2\mathrm{}(D/2+4D^2/2)^2}{\mathrm{\Gamma }[(D1)/2]^2(D1)(D+1)(D+3)}$$
(50)
To understand the effect of both the dimension number $`D`$ and the parameter $`b`$ on the total energy radiated according to the quadrupole formula, we list in Table 1 some values $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ for different dimensions, and $`b`$ between $`1`$ and $`1.3`$.

The parameter $`b`$ is in fact a measure of our ignorance of what goes on near the black hole horizon, so if the energy radiated doesn’t vary much with $`b`$ it means that our lack of knowledge doesn’t affect the results very much. For $`D=4`$ that happens indeed. Putting $`b=1`$ gives only an energy $`2.6`$ times larger than with $`b=1.3`$, and still very close to the fully relativistic numerical result of $`0.01\frac{m^2}{M}`$. However as we increase $`D`$, the effect of $`b`$ increases dramatically. For $`D=12`$ for example, we can see that a change in $`b`$ from $`1`$ to $`1.3`$ gives a corresponding change in $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ of $`3\times 10^6`$ to $`0.0665`$. This is $`8`$ orders of magnitude lower! Since there is as yet no Regge-Wheeler-Zerilli zerilli ; regge  wavefunction for higher dimensional Schwarzschild black holes, there are no fully relativistic numerical results to compare our results with. Thus $`D=4`$ is just the perfect dimension to predict, through the quadrupole formula, the gravitational energy coming from collisions between particles and black holes, or between small and massive black holes. It is not a problem related to the quadrupole formalism, but rather one related to $`D`$. A small change in parameters translates itself, for high $`D`$, in a large variation in the final result. Thus, as the dimension $`D`$ grows, the knowledge of the cutoff radius $`b\times r_+`$ becomes essential to compute accurately the energy released.

## IV Instantaneous Collisions in Even $`𝑫`$-Dimensions

In general, whenever two bodies collide or scatter there will be gravitational energy released due to the changes in momentum involved in the process. If the collision is hard meaning that the incoming and outgoing trajectories have constant velocities, there is a method first envisaged by Weinberg weinberg ; wein1 , later explored in wein2  by Smarr to compute exactly the metric perturbation and energy released.The method is valid for arbitrary velocities (one will still be working in the linear approximation, so energies have to be low). Basically, it assumes a collision lasting for zero seconds. It was found that in this case the resulting spectra were flat, precisely what one would expect based on one’s experience with electromagnetism jackson , and so to give a meaning to the total energy, a cutoff frequency is needed. This cutoff frequency depends upon some physical cutoff in the particular problem. We shall now generalize this construction for arbitrary dimensions.

### IV.1 Derivation of the Radiation Formula in Terms of a Cutoff for a Head-on Collision

Consider therefore a system of freely moving particles with $`D`$-momenta $`P_i^\mu `$, energies $`E_i`$ and ($`D1`$)-velocities $`𝐯`$, which due to the collision change abruptly at $`t=0`$, to corresponding primed quantities. For such a system, the energy-momentum tensor is

$$T^{\mu \nu }(t,𝐯)=\frac{P_i^\mu P_i^\nu }{E_i}\delta ^{D1}(𝐱𝐯t)\mathrm{\Theta }(t)+\frac{P_{}^{}{}_{i}{}^{\mu }P_{}^{}{}_{i}{}^{\nu }}{E_i^{}}\delta ^{D1}(𝐱^{}𝐯^{}t)\mathrm{\Theta }(t),$$
(51)
from which, using eqs. (31) and (32) one can get the quantities $`h_{\mu \nu }`$ and also the radiation emitted. Let us consider the particular case in which one has a head-on collision of two particles, particle $`1`$ with mass $`m_1`$ and Lorentz factor $`\gamma _1`$, and particle $`2`$ with mass $`m=m_2`$ with Lorentz factor $`\gamma _2`$, colliding to form a particle at rest. Without loss of generality, one may orient the axis so that the motion is in the $`(x_{D1},x_D)`$ plane, and the $`x_D`$ axis is the radiation direction (see Appendix A). We then have

$`P_1=\gamma _1m_1(1,0,0,\mathrm{},v_1\mathrm{sin}\theta _1,v_1\mathrm{cos}\theta _1);P_1^{}=(E_1^{},0,0,\mathrm{},0,0)`$ (52)
$`P_2=\gamma _2m_2(1,0,0,\mathrm{},v_2\mathrm{sin}\theta _1,v_2\mathrm{cos}\theta _1);P_2^{}=(E_2^{},0,0,\mathrm{},0,0).`$ (53)
Momentum conservation leads to the additional relation $`\gamma _1m_1v_1=\gamma _2m_2v_2`$. Replacing (52) and (53) in the energy-momentum tensor (51) and using (32) we find

$$\frac{d^2E}{d\omega d\mathrm{\Omega }}=\frac{2𝒢}{(2\pi )^{D2}}\frac{D3}{D2}\frac{\gamma _1^2m_1^2v_1^2(v_1+v_2)^2\mathrm{sin}\theta _{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{4}}{(1v_1\mathrm{cos}\theta _1)^2(1+v_2\mathrm{cos}\theta _1)^2}\times \omega ^{D4}.$$
(54)
We see that the for arbitrary (even) $`D`$ the spectrum is not flat. Flatness happens only for $`D=4`$. For any $`D`$ the total energy, integrated over all frequencies would diverge so one needs a cutoff frequency which shall depend on the particular problem under consideration. Integrating (54) from $`\omega =0`$ to the cutoff frequency $`\omega _c`$ we have

$$\frac{dE}{d\mathrm{\Omega }}=\frac{2𝒢}{(2\pi )^{D2}}\frac{1}{D2}\frac{\gamma _1^2m_1^2v_1^2(v_1+v_2)^2\mathrm{sin}\theta _{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{4}}{(1v_1\mathrm{cos}\theta _1)^2(1+v_2\mathrm{cos}\theta _1)^2}\times \omega _c^{D3}.$$
(55)
Two limiting cases are of interest here, namely (i) the collision between identical particles and (ii) the collision between a light particle and a very massive one. In case (i) replacing $`m_1=m_2=m`$, $`v_1=v_2=v`$, eq. (55) gives

$$\frac{dE}{d\mathrm{\Omega }}=\frac{8𝒢}{(2\pi )^{D2}}\frac{1}{D2}\frac{\gamma ^2m^2v^4\mathrm{sin}\theta _{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{4}}{(1v^2\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _1)^2}\times \omega _c^{D3}.$$
(56)
In case (ii) considering $`m_1\gamma _1m\gamma <<m_2\gamma _2`$, $`v_1v>>v_2`$, eq. (55) yields

$$\frac{dE}{d\mathrm{\Omega }}=\frac{2𝒢}{(2\pi )^{D2}}\frac{1}{D2}\frac{\gamma ^2m^2v^4\mathrm{sin}\theta _{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{4}}{(1v\mathrm{cos}\theta _1)^2}\times \omega _c^{D3}.$$
(57)
Notice that the technique just described is expected to break down if the velocities involved are very low, since then the collision would not be instantaneous. In fact a condition for this method to work would can be stated

Indeed, one can see from eq. (55) that if $`v0`$, $`\frac{dE}{d\omega }0`$, even though we know (see Subsection (IV.1)) that $`\mathrm{\Delta }E0`$. In any case, if the velocities are small one can use the quadrupole formula instead.

### IV.2 Applications: The Cutoff Frequency when one of the Particles is a Black Hole and Radiation from Black Hole Pair Creation

#### IV.2.1 The Cutoff Frequency when one of the Head-on Colliding Particles is a Black Hole

We shall now restrict ourselves to the case (ii) of last subsection, in which at least one of the particles participating in the collision is a massive black hole, with mass $`M>>m`$ (where we have put $`m_1=m`$ and $`m_2=M`$). Formulas (55)- (57) are useless unless one is able to determine the cutoff frequency $`\omega _c`$ present in the particular problem under consideration. In the situation where one has a small particle colliding at high velocities with a black hole, it has been suggested by Smarr wein2  that the cutoff frequency should be $`\omega _c1/2M`$, presumably because the characteristic collision time is dictated by the large black hole whose radius is $`2M`$. Using this cutoff he finds

$$\mathrm{\Delta }E_{\mathrm{Smarr}}0.2\gamma ^2\frac{m^2}{M}.$$
(58)
The exact result, using a relativistic perturbation approach which reduces to the numerical integration of a second order differential equation (the Zerilli wavefunction), has been given by Cardoso and Lemos cardosolemos , as

$$\mathrm{\Delta }E_{\mathrm{exact}}=0.26\gamma ^2\frac{m^2}{M}.$$
(59)
This is equivalent to saying that $`\omega _c=\frac{0.613}{M}\frac{1}{1.63M}`$, and so it looks like the cutoff is indeed the inverse of the horizon radius. However, in the numerical work by Cardoso and Lemos, it was found that it was not the presence of an horizon that contributed to this cutoff, but the presence of a potential barrier $`V`$ outside the horizon. By decomposing the field in tensorial spherical harmonics with index $`l`$ standing for the angular quantum number, we found that for each $`l`$, the spectrum is indeed flat (as predicted by eq. (55) for $`D=4`$), until a cutoff frequency $`\omega _{c_l}`$ which was numerically equal to the lowest gravitational quasinormal frequency $`\omega _{\mathrm{QN}}`$. For $`\omega >\omega _{c_l}`$ the spectrum decays exponentially. This behavior is illustrated in Fig. 1.

The quasinormal frequencies kokkotas  are those frequencies that correspond to only outgoing waves at infinity and only ingoing waves near the horizon. As such the gravitational quasinormal frequencies will in general have a real and an imaginary part, the latter denoting gravitational wave emission and therefore a decay in the perturbation. There have been a wealth of works dwelling on quasinormal modes on asymptotically flat spacetimes kokkotas , due to its close connection with gravitational wave emission, and also on non-asymptotically flat spacetimes, like asymptotically anti-de Sitter horowitz  or asymptotically de Sitter abdalla  spacetimes, mainly due to the AdS/CFT and dS/CFT maldacena  correspondence conjecture. We argue here that it is indeed the quasinormal frequency that dictates the cutoff, and not the horizon radius. For $`D=4`$ it so happens that the weighted average of $`\omega _{c_l}`$ is $`\frac{0.613}{M}`$, which, as we said, is quite similar to $`r_+=\frac{1}{2M}`$. The reason for the cutoff being dictated by the quasinormal frequency can be understood using some WKB intuition. The presence of a potential barrier outside the horizon means that waves with some frequencies get reflected back on the barrier while others can cross. Frequencies such that $`\omega ^2`$ is lower than the maximum barrier height $`V_{\mathrm{max}}`$ will be reflected back to infinity where they will be detected. However, frequencies $`\omega ^2`$ larger than the maximum barrier height cross the barrier and enter the black hole, thereby being absorbed and not contributing to the energy detected at infinity. So only frequencies $`\omega ^2`$ lower than this maximum barrier height are detected at infinity. It has been shown schutz2  that the gravitational quasinormal frequencies are to first order equal to the square root of the maximum barrier height. In view of this picture, and considering the physical meaning of the cutoff frequency, it seems quite natural to say that the cutoff frequency is equal to the quasinormal frequency. If the frequencies are higher than the barrier height, they don’t get reflected back to infinity. This discussion is very important to understand how the total energy varies with the number $`D`$ of dimensions. In fact, if we set $`\omega _c\frac{1}{r_+}`$, we find that the total energy radiated decreases rapidly with the dimension number, because $`r_+`$ increases rapidly with the dimension. This conflicts with recent results eardley ; yoshino , which using shock waves that describe boosted Schwarzschild black holes, and searching for apparent horizons, indicate an increase with $`D`$. So, we need the gravitational quasinormal frequencies for higher dimensional Schwarzschild black holes. To arrive at an wave equation for gravitational perturbations of higher dimensional Schwarzschild black holes, and therefore to compute its gravitational quasinormal frequencies, one needs to decompose Einstein’s equations in D-dimensional tensorial harmonics, which would lead to some quite complex expressions. It is not necessary to go that far though, because one can get an idea of how the gravitational quasinormal frequencies vary by searching for the quasinormal frequencies of scalar perturbations, and scalar quasinormal frequencies are a lot easier to find. One hopes that the scalar frequencies will behave with $`D`$ in the same manner as do the gravitational ones. Scalar perturbations in $`D`$-dimensional Schwarzschild spacetimes obey the wave equation (consult cardosolemos3  for details)

$$\frac{^2\varphi (\omega ,r)}{r_{}^2}+\left[\omega ^2V(r)\right]\varphi (\omega ,r)=0.$$
(60)
The potential $`V(r)`$ appearing in equation (60) is given by

$$V(r)=f(r)\left[\frac{a}{r^2}+\frac{(D2)(D4)f(r)}{4r^2}+\frac{(D2)f^{}(r)}{2r}\right],$$
(61)
where $`a=l(l+D3)`$ is the eigenvalue of the Laplacian on the hypersphere $`S^{D2}`$, the tortoise coordinate $`r_{}`$ is defined as $`\frac{r}{r_{}}=f(r)=\left(1\frac{16\pi 𝒢M}{(D2)\mathrm{\Omega }_{D2}}\frac{1}{r^{D3}}\right)`$, and $`f^{}(r)=\frac{df(r)}{dr}`$. We have found the quasinormal frequencies of spherically symmetric ($`l=0`$) scalar perturbations, by using a WKB approach developed by Schutz, Will and collaborators schutz2 . The results are presented in Table 2, where we also show the maximum barrier height of the potential in eq. (61), as well as the horizon radius.

The first thing worth noticing is that the real part of the scalar quasinormal frequency is to first order reasonably close to the square root of the maximum barrier height $`\sqrt{V_{\mathrm{max}}}`$, supporting the previous discussion. Furthermore, the scalar quasinormal frequency grows more rapidly than the inverse of the horizon radius $`\frac{1}{r_+}`$ as one increases $`D`$. In fact, the scalar quasinormal frequency grows with $`D`$ while the horizon radius $`r_+`$ gets smaller. Note that from pure dimensional arguments, for fixed $`D`$, $`\omega \frac{1}{r_+}`$. The statement here is that the constant of proportionality depends on the dimension $`D`$, more explicitly it grows with $`D`$, and can be found from Table 2. Assuming that the gravitational quasinormal frequencies will have the same behavior (and some very recent studies quasispectrum  relating black hole entropy and damped quasinormal frequencies seem to point that way), the total energy radiated will during high-energy collisions does indeed increase with $`D`$, as some studies eardley ; yoshino  seem to indicate.

#### IV.2.2 The gravitational energy radiated during black hole pair creation

As a new application of this instantaneous collision formalism, we will now consider the gravitational energy released during the quantum creation of pairs of black holes, a process which as far as we know has not been analyzed in the context of gravitational wave emission, even for $`D=4`$. It is well known that vacuum quantum fluctuations produce virtual electron-positron pairs. These pairs can become real schwinger  if they are pulled apart by an external electric field, in which case the energy for the pair materialization and acceleration comes from the external electric field energy. Likewise, a black hole pair can be created in the presence of an external field whenever the energy pumped into the system is enough in order to make the pair of virtual black holes real (see Dias diaslemos2  for a review on black hole pair creation). If one tries to predict the spectrum of radiation coming from pair creation, one expects of course a spectrum characteristic of accelerated masses but one also expects that this follows some kind of signal indicating pair creation. In other words, the process of pair creation itself, which involves the sudden creation of particles, must imply emission of radiation. It is this phase we shall focus on, forgetting the subsequent emission of radiation caused by the acceleration.

Pair creation is a pure quantum-mechanical process in nature, with no classical explanation. But given that the process does occur, one may ask about the spectrum and intensity of the radiation accompanying it. The sudden creation of pairs can be viewed for our purposes as an instantaneous creation of particles (i.e., the time reverse process of instantaneous collisions), the violent acceleration of particles initially at rest to some final velocity in a very short time, and the technique described at the beginning of this section applies. This is quite similar to another pure quantum-mechanical process, the beta decay. The electromagnetic radiation emitted during beta decay has been computed classically by Chang and Falkoff chang  and is also presented in Jackson jackson . The classical calculation is similar in all aspects to the one described in this section (the instantaneous collision formalism) assuming the sudden acceleration to energies $`E`$ of a charge initially at rest, and requires also a cutoff in the frequency, which has been assumed to be given by the uncertainty principle $`\omega _c\frac{E}{\mathrm{}}`$. Assuming this cutoff one finds that the agreement between the classical calculation and the quantum calculation chang  is extremely good (specially in the low frequency regime), and more important, was verified experimentally. Summarizing, formula (56) also describes the gravitational energy radiated when two black holes, each with mass $`m`$ and energy $`E`$ form through quantum pair creation. The typical pair creation time can be estimated by the uncertainty principle $`\tau _{\mathrm{creation}}\mathrm{}/E\frac{\mathrm{}}{m\gamma }`$, and thus we find the cutoff frequency as

$$\omega _c\frac{1}{\tau _{\mathrm{creation}}}\frac{m\gamma }{\mathrm{}}.$$
(62)
Here we would like to draw the reader’s attention to the fact that the units of Planck’s constant $`\mathrm{}`$ change with dimension number $`D`$: according to our convention of setting $`c=1`$ the units of $`\mathrm{}`$ are $`[M]^{\frac{D2}{D3}}`$. With this cutoff, we find the spectrum of the gravitational radiation emitted during pair creation to be given by (54) with $`m_1=m_2`$ and $`v_1=v_2`$ (we are considering the pair creation of two identical black holes):

$$\frac{d^2E}{d\omega d\mathrm{\Omega }}=\frac{8𝒢}{(2\pi )^{D2}}\frac{D3}{D2}\frac{\gamma ^2m^2v^4\mathrm{sin}\theta _{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{4}}{(1v^2\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _1)^2}\times \omega ^{D4},$$
(63)
and the total frequency integrated energy per solid angle is

$$\frac{dE}{d\mathrm{\Omega }}=\frac{8𝒢}{(2\pi )^{D2}(D2)}\frac{v^4\mathrm{sin}\theta _{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{4}}{(1v^2\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _1)^2}\times \frac{(m\gamma )^{D1}}{\mathrm{}^{D3}}.$$
(64)
For example, in four dimensions and for pairs with $`v1`$ one obtains

$$\frac{dE}{d\omega }=\frac{4𝒢}{\pi }\gamma ^2m^2,$$
(65)
and will have for the total energy radiated during production itself, using the cutoff frequency (62)

$$\mathrm{\Delta }E=\frac{4𝒢}{\pi }\frac{\gamma ^3m^3}{\mathrm{}}.$$
(66)
This could lead, under appropriate numbers of $`m`$ and $`\gamma `$ to huge quantities. Although one cannot be sure as to the cutoff frequency, and therefore the total energy (66), it is extremely likely that, as was verified experimentally in beta decay, the zero frequency limit, eq. (65), is exact.

## V Summary and discussion

We have developed the formalism to compute gravitational wave generation in higher $`D`$ dimensional spacetimes, with $`D`$ even. Several examples have been worked out, and one cannot help the feeling that our apparently four dimensional world is the best one to make predictions about the intensity of gravitational waves in concrete situations, in the sense that a small variation of parameters leads in high $`D`$ to a huge variation of the energy radiated. A lot more work is still needed if one wants to make precise predictions about gravitational wave generation in $`D`$ dimensional spacetimes. For example, it would be important to find a way to treat gravitational perturbations of higher dimensional Schwarzschild black holes. One of the examples worked out, the gravitational radiation emitted during black hole pair creation, had not been previously considered in the literature, and it seems to be a good candidate, even in $`D=4`$, to radiate intensely through gravitational waves.

## Acknowledgements

This work was partially funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT)- Portugal through project PESO/PRO/2000/4014. V.C. and Ó. D. also acknowledge finantial support from FCT through PRAXIS XXI programme. J. P. S. L. thanks Observatório Nacional do Rio de Janeiro for hospitality.

## Appendix A Spherical Coordinates in ($`𝑫1`$)-dimensions

In this appendix we list some important formulas and results used throughout this paper. We shall first present the transformation mapping a ($`D1`$) cartesian coordinates, ($`x_1,x_2,x_3,\mathrm{},x_{D1}`$) onto ($`D1`$) spherical coordinates, ($`r,\theta _1,\theta _2,\mathrm{},\theta _{D2}`$). The transformation reads

$`x_1=r\mathrm{sin}\theta _1\mathrm{sin}\theta _2\mathrm{}\mathrm{sin}\theta _{D2}`$
$`x_2=r\mathrm{sin}\theta _1\mathrm{sin}\theta _2\mathrm{}\mathrm{sin}\theta _{D3}\mathrm{cos}\theta _{D2}`$
$`:`$
$`x_i=r\mathrm{sin}\theta _1\mathrm{sin}\theta _2\mathrm{}\mathrm{sin}\theta _{Di1}\mathrm{cos}\theta _{Di}`$
$`:`$
$`x_{D1}=r\mathrm{cos}\theta _1`$
The Jacobian of this transformation is

$$J=r^{D2}\mathrm{sin}\theta _1^{D3}\mathrm{sin}\theta _2^{D4}\mathrm{}\mathrm{sin}\theta _i^{Di2}\mathrm{}\mathrm{sin}\theta _{D3},$$
(67)
and the volume element becomes

$$d^{D1}𝐱=Jdrd\theta _1d\theta _2\mathrm{}d\theta _{D2}=r^{D2}drd\mathrm{\Omega }_{D2},$$
(68)
where

$$d\mathrm{\Omega }_{D2}=\mathrm{sin}\theta _1^{D3}\mathrm{sin}\theta _2^{D4}\mathrm{}\mathrm{sin}\theta _{D3}d\theta _1d\theta _2\mathrm{}d\theta _{D2}.$$
(69)
is the element of the ($`D1`$) dimensional solid angle. Finally, using grad

$$_0^\pi \mathrm{sin}\theta ^n=\sqrt{\pi }\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }[(n+1)/2]}{\mathrm{\Gamma }[(n+2)/2]},$$
(70)
this yields

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_{D2}=\frac{2\pi ^{(D1)/2}}{\mathrm{\Gamma }[(D1)/2]}.$$
(71)
Here, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }[z]`$ is the Gamma function, whose definition and properties are listed in stegun . In this work the main properties of the Gamma function which were used are $`\mathrm{\Gamma }[z+1]=z\mathrm{\Gamma }[z]`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }[1/2]=\sqrt{\pi }`$.