text:
# Bulk Inversion Asymmetry effects on the band structure of zincblende heterostructures in an 8-band Effective Mass Approximation model

## I Introduction

In recent years, interest in developing spin-sensitive devices (spintronics) Wolf (2000); Gawel (2000); Das Sarma et al. (2000); Heinrich (2000) has fueled renewed investigations into spin phenomena in semiconductors. The aim is to control not only the spatial degrees of freedom of the electron, but also the spin degree of freedom. Useful spintronic devices can be devised if such control is achieved. A number of such devices have already been proposed Datta and Das (1990); Fiederling et al. (1999); Morinaga and Shiiki (1999); Ting and Cartoixà (2002). If a full understanding of the operation of spintronic devices is desired, a thorough knowledge of the band structure including all spin details will be needed. In particular, detailed knowledge of heterostructure bands is required when studying, and perhaps tailoring, time evolution and transport phenomena of spin ensembles.

Most of the standard implementations of the Effective Mass Approximation (EMA) for III-V heterostructures do not take into account the bulk inversion asymmetry Dresselhaus (1955) (BIA) present in zincblendes Magri and Zunger (2000); Tronc and Kitaev (2001). The BIA lifts Kramers degeneracy and, therefore, a potentially important source of spin splitting in the bands is not included. There have been several proposed modifications to EMA to account for BIA and its associated spin splittings, ranging from 2-band Eppenga and Schuurmans (1988) to 14-band Rössler (1984) and 16-band Cardona et al. (1988) models. Also, Zhu and Chang Zhu and Chang (1994) started from an 8-band model to generate perturbatively a 2-band Hamiltonian for electrons and a 4-band Hamiltonian for holes, and they performed their calculations of inversion asymmetry effects in that reduced basis set. Rössler, Winkler et al. Winkler and Rössler (1993); Wissinger et al. (1998) have used an 8-band model solved with a quadrature method that included BIA to study AlxGa1-xAs/GaAs quantum wells, where the spin splitting is much smaller than the one shown here. In this work, we study the symmetry properties of the heterostructure Hamiltonian and verify that the 8-band model can account for both the BIA and Rashba Bychkov and Rashba (1984) effects on the spin splitting.

We present a Finite Difference Method (FDM) implementation of a compact 8-band EMA method capable of reproducing the $`D_{2d}`$ and $`C_{2v}`$ symmetry of  grown quantum wells and superlattices. We have used this method to study the relative contribution of structural inversion asymmetry (SIA) vs. BIA on the spin splitting in the conduction subbands. Our study has allowed us to put into perspective the apparently contradictory statements of Lommer et al. Lommer et al. (1988), stating that BIA (SIA) dominates the splitting in large (narrow) gap materials, and Cardona et al. Cardona et al. (1988), listing a proportionality constant for the $`k^3`$ splitting Dresselhaus (1955) that becomes roughly larger with smaller bandgap (see Table 1). The FDM allows for arbitrary external fields and the description of tunneling phenomena with only a few changes Liu et al. (1996), while maintaining numerical efficiency.

Section II describes how the 8-band bulk Hamiltonian yields the EMA equations and the method for their solution. In Secs. III and IV the effects of bulk inversion asymmetry in symmetric and asymmetric quantum wells are explored, taking as example the band structure of AlSb/GaSb/AlSb and AlSb/InAs/GaSb/AlSb quantum wells. Finally, the results are summarized in Sec. V.

## II EMA Hamiltonian with BIA

For the calculation of the heterostructure bands, the Effective Mass Approximation (EMA) Bastard (1986) based on an 8-band $`𝐤𝐩`$ formalism is used. There are several published 8-band $`𝐤𝐩`$ Hamiltonians Kane (1957); Pidgeon and Brown (1966); Bir and Pikus (1974), each including a more or less detailed set of effects. Here we take the Hamiltonian constructed by Trebin et al. Trebin et al. (1979) as a starting point. This Hamiltonian is constructed by means of an invariant expansion Pikus (1961a, b); Bir and Pikus (1974) and, when applied correctly, guarantees the inclusion of all matrix elements compatible with the $`T_d`$ symmetry group of the zincblendes up to the desired order in the electron wavevector $`𝐤`$.

For completeness, Appendix A reproduces the full 8-band $`𝐤𝐩`$ Hamiltonian from Ref. Trebin et al., 1979. Note that, due to the way that it has been constructed, this Hamiltonian takes into account all the effects of the spin-orbit interaction in the matrix elements up to $`k^2`$, and in particular the second order $`sp`$ coupling via remote $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_5`$ states Kane (1966) responsible for most of the contribution to the spin splitting in the conduction band. Strain and coupled strain/spin-orbit effects are also properly described by this method. Note that Appendix A corrects two typographical errors present in Ref. Trebin et al., 1979.

The 8-band Luttinger parameters $`\gamma _i`$ appearing in Table 5 are the true Luttinger parameters Luttinger (1956) $`\gamma _{iL}`$ with the conduction band contribution subtracted because its effects are treated exactly. They are related by Pidgeon and Brown (1966)

$`\gamma _1`$ $`=\gamma _{1L}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{E_P}{E_g}}`$
$`\gamma _2`$ $`=\gamma _{2L}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}{\displaystyle \frac{E_P}{E_g}}`$ (1)
$`\gamma _3`$ $`=\gamma _{3L}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}{\displaystyle \frac{E_P}{E_g}},`$
where $`E_g`$ is the energy gap of the compound, and $`E_P`$ has been defined as

$$E_P\frac{2m_eP^2}{\mathrm{}^2},$$
(2)
with $`m_e`$ being the free electron mass and $`P`$ the irreducible momentum matrix element.

Table 2 shows the numerical values used in the calculations for the parameters of a number of materials. $`B`$ and $`C`$ are parameters describing the BIA effects. As shown below, $`B`$ is mainly related to the conduction band $`k^3`$ splitting while $`C`$ is the coefficient for the linear $`k`$ splitting in the valence band. No magnetic field effects will be included. For structures grown along the  direction, $`C_2`$, $`C_4`$ and $`C_5^{}`$ will not be needed because there is no shear stress. Finally, the effect of remote bands on the conduction effective mass will be neglected. This amounts to setting the $`A^{}`$ parameter to zero.

### II.1 Analytical expressions for the bands close to the zone center

Starting from the full Hamiltonian shown in Appendix A, analytical expressions for the bands near the zone center can be found. These are useful for finding measurable quantities such as effective masses and intraband splittings as a function of the model parameters. These expressions can also be useful when relating the parameters of the model to the parameters used in other families of $`𝐤𝐩`$ Hamiltonians. The effective masses as a function of the parameters can be found, for example, in Ref. Enderlein et al., 1998.

Along , the dispersion relation to lowest order in $`k`$ for the heavy hole (HH) band is

$$E_{HH}\left(𝐤\right)=E_v+Ck_x,$$
(3)
while for the light hole (LH) band

$$E_{LH}\left(𝐤\right)=E_vCk_x,$$
(4)
where $`E_v`$ is the energy at the zone center. Note that each band along  is still doubly degenerate as required by the $`T_d`$ symmetry. In this case $`C`$ describes a linear splitting between the heavy and light holes. As a consequence of BIA the top of the valence band lies slightly away from $`k=0`$. This has been experimentally observed Pidgeon and Groves (1969); Mathur and Jain (1979).

Figure 1 shows the effect of the inclusion of the parameter $`C`$ in the HH and LH bands along  calculated from the numerical diagonalization of Eq. (26). Clearly, the effect is not appreciable at normal scales of k and energy. As shown in the inset, we need to look very close to the zone center to observe the effect of $`C`$. Note the very small value of the energies involved. Away from the zone center the bands with BIA effects recover the usual behavior except for some additional splitting present.

Along the  direction, the energy of the electrons in the CB as a function of the wavevector $`𝐤`$ is, up to third order,

$$E_{CB}\left(𝐤\right)=E_g+\frac{\mathrm{}^2k^2}{2m_em_{CB}^{}}\pm \frac{1}{2}\gamma _ck^3,$$
(5)
with $`m_{CB}^{}`$ being the conduction band effective mass, and the $`k^3`$ splitting coefficient Cardona et al. (1988) $`\gamma _c`$ given, in terms of the model parameters, by

$$\gamma _c=\frac{P}{3}\frac{2BE_g\mathrm{\Delta }_{SO}\sqrt{3}CP\left(E_g+\mathrm{\Delta }_{SO}\right)}{E_g^2\left(E_g+\mathrm{\Delta }_{SO}\right)}$$
(6)
It is easy to show that the contribution to $`\gamma _c`$ of the part containing $`C`$ is only about 4% for InSb and InAs. That contribution goes down to about 0.3% for GaAs and AlAs, and it drops to a mere 0.03% for GaSb. Therefore, it is a good approximation to consider that all the splitting in the conduction band is due to the nonvanishing bulk inversion parameter $`B`$. Then, if $`C`$ is neglected, the result of Eppenga et al. Eppenga et al. (1987) for the expression of $`\gamma _c`$ is recovered. Note that, in order to turn off BIA effects, both parameters $`B`$ and $`C`$ need to be set to zero.

As in the  case, the inclusion of $`C`$ changes the characteristics of the bands very close to the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ point. Again, it provides them with a small linear component. But, in contrast to the  case, here the HH and LH bands are not doubly degenerate. The linear splittings $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{LH\text{ [110]}}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{HH\text{ [110]}}`$ turn out to be the same for both HH and LH bands, and are given by

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{HH\text{ [110]}}=\mathrm{\Delta }_{LH\text{ [110]}}=\sqrt{3}Ck.$$
(7)
This result is slightly different from the one indicated in Eq. (7.5) of Ref. Cardona et al., 1988. A numerical diagonalization of the Hamiltonian has been performed to check the validity of Eq. (7). The discrepancy arises because the splittings in Ref. Cardona et al., 1988 are valid in the region where the quadratic (effective mass) splitting predominates, while the result obtained here is valid in the region where the linear splitting dominates.

The SO band also presents $`k^3`$ splitting $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{SO\text{ [110]}}`$, proportional to the B parameter only:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{SO\text{ [110]}}=\frac{2BP}{3\left(E_g+\mathrm{\Delta }_{SO}\right)}k^3.$$
(8)
Along , in the region where the linear splitting dominates, the heavy hole (HH) band has the dispersion relation

$$E_{HH}\left(𝐤\right)=E_v\pm \sqrt{2}Ck\frac{\mathrm{}^2k^2}{2m_e}\left(\gamma _{1L}2\gamma _{3L}\right)+O(k^4),$$
(9)
while for the light holes

$$E_{LH}\left(𝐤\right)=E_v\frac{\mathrm{}^2k^2}{2m_e}\left(\gamma _{1L}+2\gamma _{3L}\right)+O(k^4).$$
(10)
The light hole, conduction and split-off bands are degenerate along the  direction, as can also be deduced by group theory arguments Dresselhaus (1955). The linear splitting obtained for the heavy holes agrees with the result of Cardona et al. Cardona et al. (1988).

### II.2 Bulk bands and spin behavior

An example of bulk bands computed using the Hamiltonian with the full symmetry can be seen in Fig. 2.a), which shows the band structure of GaSb along the  direction. For this direction, all bands are spin split except at the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ point. Plot b) shows the energy splitting of the CB states as a function of $`k`$. Close to the zone center, the splitting follows the behavior described in Eq. (5), with $`\gamma _c`$ taken to be the experimental value. In this case, it is seen that the usual 2-band Hamiltonian model \[see Eq. (11) below\] can describe the $`k^3`$ splitting with good accuracy up to $`2.5\%`$ of the zone boundary.

This $`k^3`$ splitting Dresselhaus (1955) can also be predicted by the methods described in Refs. Pikus, 1961a, b. Going up to order 3 in the combinations of components of $`𝐤`$ and constructing an invariant 2-band Hamiltonian for the conduction band, it is found that the Hamiltonian will include the following term breaking the spin degeneracy Silva et al. (1994):

$$H_{k^3}=\gamma _c\left[\sigma _xk_x\left(k_y^2k_z^2\right)+\text{cyclic permutations}\right].$$
(11)
The two band Hamiltonian in Eq. (11) also predicts the direction where the split spins will be pointing. For example, it is easily seen from the previous equation that if $`𝐤=(1,\delta ,0)`$, with $`\delta `$ a positive infinitesimal, the spin will point along the $`\pm y`$ direction. Similarly, symmetry requires the spin to point along $`(1,1,0)`$ or $`(1,1,0)`$ for $`𝐤`$ along the  direction. This is indeed obtained in the numerical diagonalization of the Hamiltonian including the BIA effects, as seen in Fig. 3. That figure shows a circular sweep in $`𝐤`$ space with $`k_z=0`$. The arrows represent the direction towards which the spin of the lowest conduction subband states is pointing. The horizontal axis represents $`k_x`$, while the vertical axis indicates the $`k_y`$ component of the state. The states belonging to the $`100`$ directions are spin degenerate; therefore, no spin direction is given for them in Fig. 3.

### II.3 Interface conditions and Hermiticity in the FDM

In Appendix C we describe the Finite Difference Method (FDM) we use to find the heterostructure bands and eigenstates. This method transforms the EMA set of coupled ordinary differential equations into the eigenvalue problem shown in Eq. (37).

The hermiticity of the discretized Hamiltonian operator in Eq. (37) is ensured if $`𝐇_{i,i+1}^{}=𝐇_{i+1,i}`$. Since the $`𝐇^{(j)}`$’s are themselves Hermitian, an inspection of Eqs. (38)-(40) shows that this is indeed the case. It is also clearly seen that the introduction of quantum well or superlattice boundary conditions (BCs) doesn’t affect the Hermiticity of the Hamiltonian.

There exist in the literature several proposals on what are the correct quantities to match at the interface between two materials Eppenga et al. (1987); Yamanaka et al. (1994); Foreman (1997); Chuang and Chang (1997). Most of them require the continuity of the envelope function and a quantity that has the general form:

$$\left[𝐀_z+𝐁\right]𝐅$$
(12)
where the matrices $`𝐀`$ and $`𝐁`$ take different values depending on the author. Using the finite difference formulae Eqs. (34)-(35), the continuity of Eq. (12) can be written in a form similar to Eq. (36):

$$𝐇_{2,1}𝐅_1+𝐇_{2,2}𝐅_2+𝐇_{2,3}𝐅_3=0$$
(13)
where the subindexes $`i,j`$ are referred to the mesh points in Fig. 4 and the $`𝐇_{i,j}`$ are given by

$`𝐇_{2,1}`$ $`=+i{\displaystyle \frac{𝐀^L𝐀^R}{4\mathrm{\Delta }z}}`$
$`𝐇_{2,2}`$ $`=𝐁^L𝐁^R`$
$`𝐇_{2,3}`$ $`=i{\displaystyle \frac{𝐀^L𝐀^R}{4\mathrm{\Delta }z}},`$ (14)
with $`L`$ ($`R`$) meaning the material at the left (right) of the interface. Isolating $`𝐅_2`$ from Eq. (13) and plugging it into the corresponding equations for the $`𝐅_i`$’s, one obtains

$$𝐇_{1,0}𝐅_0+\left(𝐇_{1,1}𝐇_{1,2}𝐇_{2,2}^1𝐇_{2,1}\right)𝐅_1$$

$$𝐇_{1,2}𝐇_{2,2}^1𝐇_{2,3}𝐅_3=E𝐅_1$$
(15)
$$𝐇_{3,2}𝐇_{2,2}^1𝐇_{2,1}𝐅_1+\left(𝐇_{3,3}𝐇_{3,2}𝐇_{2,2}^1𝐇_{2,3}\right)𝐅_3+$$

$$𝐇_{3,4}𝐅_4=E𝐅_4$$
(16)
Now, in order to preserve the Hermiticity of the discretized Hamiltonian, one should have

$$𝐇_{2,3}^{}=𝐇_{3,2}𝐇_{2,1}^{}=𝐇_{1,2}.$$
(17)
However, looking at Eqs. (14) and Eqs. (38)-(40), one sees that the requirements in Eq. (17) are not satisfied by the discretized version of the interface conditions. From this it must be concluded that the enforcement of interface conditions of the form (12) is not possible if the Hermiticity of the Hamiltonian is to be preserved, and that Eqs. (38)-(40) must be used instead for all mesh points.

### II.4 Symmetry group of the discretized Hamiltonian

For the rest of this article, we will refer to “symmetric” and “asymmetric” heterostructures, mainly quantum wells (QWs). Here, “symmetric” will be taken to mean that the sequence of materials and their respective thicknesses are left unchanged under the inversion operation (i.e., they are macroscopically symmetric). Thus, an AlSb/InAs/AlSb QW is called symmetric, while an AlSb/InAs/GaSb/AlSb QW is called asymmetric. This definition is made in order to avoid confusion with the microscopic symmetry –that is, the symmetry group– of the QW. All asymmetric  heterostructures made from zincblendes are described by the $`C_{2v}`$ point group. On the other hand, symmetric  QWs can belong to either the $`C_{2v}`$ or the $`D_{2d}`$ symmetry groups depending on an interplay of characteristics such as the parity of the number of monolayers, the existence of a common atom in the constituents Wang et al. (1999) or the presence of a supplementary half-layer Vogl .

The symmetry group of the discretized Hamiltonian in Eq. (37) can be found by verifying that all operations $`g`$ of the $`T_d`$ point group satisfy the relationship Bir and Pikus (1974)

$$D^1(g)𝐇(𝐤_{})D(g)=𝐇(g^1𝐤_{}),$$
(18)
where $`D(g)`$ is the representation of the $`g`$ operator in the basis of the discretized Hamiltonian $`𝐇(𝐤_{})`$, and $`𝐤_{}=(k_x,k_y)`$. This tedious procedure can be done with the help of computer software, such as Mathematica Wolfram Research Inc. (1999), which automates algebraic manipulations. It is seen that the EMA Hamiltonian corresponding to symmetric structures transforms according to $`D_{2d}`$, while for asymmetric structures it transforms according to $`C_{2v}`$. This is in contrast to the majority of EMA implementations, which lack the inclusion of bulk inversion asymmetry effects and reproduce an approximate $`D_{4h}`$ symmetry Tronc and Kitaev (2001) for symmetric structures.

Tables 3 and 4 show the requirements that the underlying symmetry of the atom arrangement imposes on the spin degeneracy of the energy levels and the direction where the spins are pointing in case the levels are not degenerate. Note that, for a structure with $`D_{2v}`$ symmetry (i.e., BIA effects only) the bands along  must be split Eppenga and Schuurmans (1988) even though there is no splitting along  for bulk zincblendes.

Although the $`𝐤𝐩`$ method is not designed taking into account the interface characteristics of no-common-atom (NCA) heterostructures, it is possible in some situations to modify the simulated structure to obtain at least the right symmetry effects. Figure 5.a) shows a NCA quantum well. The way that the boundaries of the layers are set up, the well would be symmetric and, therefore, the Hamiltonian would have $`D_{2d}`$ symmetry instead of the $`C_{2v}`$ corresponding to the asymmetric interface bonds. However, the material boundaries in the $`𝐤𝐩`$ method are arbitrary to half a monolayer. As seen in Fig. 5.b), a simple rearrangement of the material boundaries reproduces the asymmetry in the bonds and allows us to take into account, at least qualitatively, the effects of the lower symmetry.

The only case that cannot be modeled through these rearrangements is when a common atom structure, such as an AlAs/GaAs/AlAs QW, has $`C_{2v}`$ symmetry due to the well having an odd number of monolayers. In that case, even though the species participating at the bond at the interface are the same, there is an asymmetry in the bond orientation, which the present EMA method cannot take into account.

With the control that the proposed model allows over the symmetry of the Hamiltonian, it is possible to use the EMA in studies of the spin splitting appearing in heterostructures. Thus one can delineate the role of bulk inversion asymmetry vs. structure inversion asymmetry, layer asymmetry vs. interface asymmetry, etc. This model also provides a straightforward and easy to implement tool for studying reduced symmetry effects, such as the presence of optical anisotropy Krebs and Voisin (1996); Magri and Ossicini (2001), and the mixing of heavy hole and light hole states at the zone center Magri and Zunger (2000); Ivchenko et al. (1996) in QWs and superlattices. Some of these works have followed the alternative approach of introducing interface parameters to describe the lowering of symmetry respect to the standard EMA formalism Ivchenko et al. (1996); Krebs and Voisin (1996); Vervoort et al. (1997). In these cases interface asymmetry effects are well described, but BIA is not accounted for.

## III Bulk Inversion Asymmetry Effects on symmetric Quantum Wells

In this section, the methods described in Sec. II will be used to calculate the electronic properties of a symmetric quantum well. In particular, focus will fall on AlSb/GaSb/AlSb quantum wells. However, some of the results derived are a consequence of the underlying symmetry of the structure rather than the constituents themselves. Therefore, these particular results will illustrate general considerations.

### III.1 SQWs without BIA terms

Figure 6 shows the band structures along the  and the  directions of a common atom AlSb/GaSb/AlSb symmetric quantum well (SQW) grown along the  direction and with a well thickness of 8 monolayers (24.4 Å). Since no inversion asymmetry affects are included, the bands show Kramers degeneracy throughout the Brillouin zone and the quantization axes of the spins are not unambiguously defined.

The labels E1, HH1, LH1 and HH2 shown in the plots correspond to the first electron, first heavy hole, first light hole and second heavy hole states in the QW respectively. They refer to the main bulk state contribution at $`𝐤=0`$. For a well without BIA terms and in the zone center, the heavy holes decouple from the rest of the bands, and the HH$`n`$ states have only bulk heavy hole components. This is in contrast to the E$`n`$ (LH$`n`$) bands, which have small bulk light hole (electron) and split off contributions even at the zone center due to the loss of translational symmetry along  caused by the well potential.

### III.2 SQWs with BIA terms

Figure 7 shows the same band structures as in Fig. 6, but with BIA terms included. As predicted by group theory (cf. Table 3), the bands are split along both directions except at the zone center. This is the major difference with most of the EMA models in the literature.

With the inclusion of BIA terms, the heavy hole states couple with the light holes by means of remote states through a perturbative mixed spin orbit and $`𝐤𝐩`$ interaction parametrized by $`C`$ Cardona et al. (1988). Thus, the HH$`n`$ states lose their pure bulk heavy hole character and, in particular, the HHeven (HHodd) mix with the LHodd (LHevenMagri and Zunger (2000). However, looking at the wavefunction for the HH1 state of the structure in Fig. 7, it can be seen that the contribution from bulk components other than the HH to the probability density is about 8 orders of magnitude less than the heavy hole contribution.

Figure 8 shows the linear behavior and the isotropy of the conduction subband spin splitting close to the zone center. Plot a) shows the dependence of the spin splitting in the CB along the  line. It is seen that the splitting is linear close to the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ point, with a proportionality coefficient of $`\alpha _{BIA}=22\times 10^{10}`$ eV$``$cm, where the splitting is

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{BIA}=2\alpha _{BIA}k.$$
(19)
Although there is an isotropic linear spin splitting, this must not be confused with the Rashba splitting Bychkov and Rashba (1984). Bychkov and Rashba introduced a splitting coefficient $`\alpha _R`$ in the context of asymmetric quantum wells. The splitting studied there is derived from a model Hamiltonian that describes only structural inversion asymmetry (SIA) effects, but not bulk inversion asymmetry. As a consequence, the spin directions that they predict don’t apply to the SQW situation (cf. Sec. IV).

The computed $`\alpha _{BIA}`$ for this structure is about half of some of the highest predicted Rashba coefficients for asymmetric structures Cartoixà et al. (2001, 2002) where only SIA contributions are taken into account. This shows that BIA effects need to be carefully studied before neglecting them in a calculation.

A model Hamiltonian for spins in the conduction subbands of SQWs in the same spirit as the Rashba Hamiltonian Bychkov and Rashba (1984) was obtained by de Andrada e Silva Silva (1992)

$$H=\alpha _{BIA}\left(\sigma _xk_x\sigma _yk_y\right),$$
(20)
where $`\sigma `$ are the Pauli matrices, $`\alpha _{BIA}=F_s;k_x,k_y\left|\gamma _c_z^2\right|F_s;k_x,k_y`$ and $`|F_s;k_x,k_y`$ is the envelope function corresponding to the electron traveling in the plane with wavevector $`k_x,k_y`$.

The behavior of the spins when BIA terms are included is very interesting. Figure 9 shows the spin directions of the eigenstates of the lowest conduction subband from our calculations. The spin directions are shown for a circular sweep in the $`k_xk_y`$ plane keeping $`k=0.01`$ Å. The directions of the spins agree with what would be predicted from Eq. (20). The spins at a given point in the $`k_xk_y`$ plane point in opposite directions for the two subbands. Note that in a given subband, although the $`x`$ and $`y`$ axes are equivalent, in one of the axes the spin points outward while in the other it points inward. The explanation lies in the way that the $`x`$ and $`y`$ axes are connected and in the fact that spinors don’t change sign under inversion. For a QW with $`D_{2d}`$ symmetry, the $`x`$ and $`y`$ axes are equivalent through a reflection by the plane containing the  and  directions. The reflection by this plane can be thought of as a rotation of 180 along the \[$`\overline{1}`$10\] direction followed by an inversion. Starting with a state with $`k_y`$ component only $`|k_y,_{\widehat{y}}`$ (spin pointing outward), the rotation will send it to $`|k_x,_{\widehat{x}}`$ (still outward). Then, the inversion will flip $`𝐤`$, but not the spin, sending the state to $`|k_x,_{\widehat{x}}`$ (spin pointing inward).

## IV Bulk Inversion Asymmetry Effects on asymmetric Quantum Wells

In this section the structure under study will be an AlSb/InAs/GaSb/AlSb asymmetric quantum well (AQW) grown along the  direction compliant with a GaSb substrate. The thickness of the InAs and GaSb layers is 8 monolayers (ML) each, with a monolayer thickness of 3.048 Å.

### IV.1 AQWs without BIA terms

Figure 10 shows the band structure along the  and the  directions of the AQW without the inclusion of BIA terms. The structural inversion asymmetry (SIA) reduces the symmetry group from $`D_{4h}`$ to $`C_{2v}`$, and a spin splitting appears between the conduction subbands. The splitting due to SIA effects is usually modeled using a Hamiltonian first introduced by Bychkov and Rashba Bychkov and Rashba (1984):

$$H_R=\alpha _R\left(𝝈\times 𝐤\right)𝝂,$$
(21)
where $`\alpha _R`$ is the Rashba coefficient, $`𝝈`$ is a vector composed of the Pauli matrices and $`𝝂`$ is the axis of symmetry of the structure. This Hamiltonian is valid for describing the SIA contributions close to the zone center. It predicts a linear and isotropic splitting

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_R=2\alpha _Rk,$$
(22)
where $`k`$ is the magnitude of the electron wavevector. It also predicts that the spins will point tangentially to the circles of constant $`k`$ in the $`k_xk_y`$ plane, which is verified by numerical calculations (see Fig. 11).

### IV.2 AQWs with BIA terms

The band structure for the asymmetric quantum well (AQW) under study with BIA effects is shown in Fig. 12. The effects of inversion asymmetry are highly anisotropic in bulk Dresselhaus (1955), and this reflects on the directional dependence of the bands. Comparing with Fig. 10, it is seen that the BIA effects are necessary to obtain accurate bands in the  direction. In particular, note that the LH1 splitting along  is much smaller when BIA effects are included. However, we should point out that the LH1 splitting, with BIA, along \[$`\overline{1}`$10\] becomes much larger due to the inequivalency of the  and \[$`\overline{1}`$10\] under the $`C_{2v}`$ point group.

The inclusion of the Hamiltonian (20) keeps the analysis of the combined BIA and SIA effects quite simple. For a  structure, the SIA and BIA contributions to the splitting can be described by a Hamiltonian $`H_{\text{IA}}`$ made from the addition of Eq. (20) and Eq. (21):

$$\begin{array}{c}H_{\text{IA}}=\alpha _{\text{BIA}}\left(\sigma _xk_x\sigma _yk_y\right)+\alpha _R\left(\sigma _xk_y\sigma _yk_x\right)=\hfill \\ \hfill \sigma _x\left(\alpha _Rk_y+\alpha _{\text{BIA}}k_x\right)\sigma _y\left(\alpha _{\text{BIA}}k_y+\alpha _Rk_x\right),\end{array}$$
(23)
where $`\alpha _{\text{BIA}}`$ ($`\alpha _R`$) is the coefficient describing BIA (SIA) effects. From here, making an analogy with the Zeeman splitting, it is easy to find that the splitting in the conduction band (CB) close to the zone center will be

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{\text{IA}}=2k\sqrt{\alpha _R^2+2\alpha _R\alpha _{\text{BIA}}\mathrm{sin}2\theta +\alpha _{\text{BIA}}^2},$$
(24)
where $`\theta `$ is the in-plane polar angle.

A full 8-band numerical calculation of the splitting along a circle in the $`k_xk_y`$ plane and the 2-band prediction from expression (24) are shown in Fig. 13. The values from the analytic expression show very good agreement with the numerical results from our 8-band implementation. The numerical results are fitted with $`\alpha _{\text{SIA}}=40.3\times 10^{10}`$ eV$``$cm and $`\alpha _{\text{BIA}}=15.0\times 10^{10}`$ eV$``$cm. This way the BIA effects are quantified, and it must be concluded that they need to be taken into account for an accurate description of the bands. This is clearly so in the  direction, where the contributions are added linearly, but it is also true in a lesser degree in the  direction, where the contributions are added quadratically. This also has a clear effect on the theory of extraction of the Rashba coefficient from Shubnikov-de Haas measurements in two-dimensional electron gases (2DEGs), where BIA effects have been usually neglected Luo et al. (1988, 1990); Schäpers et al. (1998).

For a quantum well where the 2-band model is valid, the BIA splitting coefficient for the CB can be estimated with Eppenga and Schuurmans (1988)

$$\alpha _{\text{BIA}}\frac{\gamma _{cW}}{L_W^2},$$
(25)
where $`\gamma _{cW}`$ and $`L_W^2`$ are the $`k^3`$ splitting coefficient of the CB and the thickness of the layer where the electrons are confined respectively. This estimate will become more accurate as the well becomes thicker. From this expression and Eq. (6) it is readily seen that BIA effects will be considerable when the material in the well layer has a low bandgap and high spin-orbit interaction, such as InAs, GaSb and InSb (cf. Table 1) and in a narrow well. So, it has been seen that, a priori, it is not possible to consider only SIA effects for an asymmetric structure even if the constituents are low bandgap materials. The statement of Lommer et al. Lommer et al. (1988) about BIA (SIA) effects dominating in large (narrow) gap systems must be understood as referring to the dependence on the gap of the prefactors $`\gamma _c`$ and the part of $`\alpha _R`$ not proportional to the expectation value of the electric field. But other factors such as the well width or an applied bias Majewsi and Vogl (2002) can change the relative contributions.

Finally, the electron spins are also affected by the inclusion of BIA terms. In Fig. 14 the spins of the lowest conduction subband are shown for states lying on a circle in the $`k_xk_y`$ plane of radius $`k=0.01`$ Å. The direction of the spins has changed respect to the case without BIA terms (see Fig. 11). As it can be deduced from Eq. (23), it corresponds to the vector sum of the spins in Fig. 11 and the spins in Fig. 14, each one weighted by their corresponding splitting coefficients $`\alpha `$’s.

## V Conclusion

We have presented an implementation of an 8-band Finite Difference Effective Mass Approximation (EMA) method for calculating band structures. This implementation is faithful to the $`T_d`$ microscopic symmetry of bulk zincblendes. We show that this allows the heterostructure Hamiltonian to reproduce the $`D_{2d}`$ or the $`C_{2v}`$ point group symmetry of  grown zincblende heterostructures. As a consequence, all symmetry effects close to the zone center, including the spin splitting of the subbands, are correctly described. A simple expression for the $`k^3`$ splitting coefficient $`\gamma _c`$ is given in terms of the $`𝐤𝐩`$ parameters. We find an extra contribution to $`\gamma _c`$ that can amount to a few percent of its value. When the method is applied to symmetric heterostructures, linear splittings in $`k`$ are predicted as a consequence of the reduced symmetry. This is not the case for standard EMA implementations. The bands of asymmetric heterostructures are also studied and described in the context of the BIA model Hamiltonian for heterostructures. It is seen that, in the case studied, the SIA and BIA contributions to the spin splitting are of the same order of magnitude ($`\alpha _R=40.3\times 10^{10}`$ eV$``$cm and $`\alpha _{\text{BIA}}=15.0\times 10^{10}`$ eV$``$cm respectively) even though the well is composed by narrow gap materials. Therefore, an accurate description of the bands will require the inclusion of both effects.

###### Acknowledgements.

The authors would like to thank D. L. Smith and J. N. Schulman for helpful discussions. This work has been supported by a subcontract with HRL, LLC in conjunction with the Office of Naval Research under contract No. MDA972-01-C-0002. A part of the work described in this paper was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, and was sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Spins in Semiconductors (SpinS) program.

## Appendix A Explicit form of the 8-band $`𝐤𝐩`$ Hamiltonian

The 8-band $`𝐤𝐩`$ Hamiltonian derived by Trebin et al. Trebin et al., 1979 has been constructed using the theory of invariants Bir and Pikus (1974), and thus it correctly describes the $`T_d`$ symmetry of bulk zincblendes. In particular, it includes terms breaking the spin degeneracy of the bands at a general point in the Brillouin zone, making it ideal for the study of inversion asymmetry effects. It also accounts for the effects of strain and an external magnetic field.

Although the Hamiltonian is explicitly shown in Ref. Trebin et al., 1979, it is rewritten here for completeness and to correct two typographical errors. In order to minimize the probability of introducing hard-to-detect errors in the definition of the matrix elements, the Hamiltonian was first entered in Mathematica Wolfram Research Inc. (1999). From there, the appropriate C code for each matrix element was generated automatically with the instruction `CForm`. This method also has the advantage that it allows the algebraic operation of the Hamiltonian to find analytical forms for the dispersion relation very near the zone center (cf. Sec. II.1).

The 8-band $`𝐤𝐩`$ Hamiltonian will be expressed in the basis $`\{|\mathrm{\Gamma }_6,+\frac{1}{2}`$, $`|\mathrm{\Gamma }_6,\frac{1}{2}`$, $`|\mathrm{\Gamma }_8,+\frac{3}{2}`$, $`|\mathrm{\Gamma }_8,+\frac{1}{2}`$, $`|\mathrm{\Gamma }_8,\frac{1}{2}`$, $`|\mathrm{\Gamma }_8,\frac{3}{2}`$, $`|\mathrm{\Gamma }_7,+\frac{1}{2}`$, $`|\mathrm{\Gamma }_7,\frac{1}{2}\}`$. It can be written in a block diagonal form

$$H=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}H^{cc}& H^{cv}& H^{cs}\\ H^{vc}& H^{vv}& H^{vs}\\ H^{sc}& H^{sv}& H^{ss}\end{array}\right),$$
(26)
where, of course, $`\left(H^{\alpha \beta }\right)^{}=H^{\beta \alpha }`$, $`c`$ refers to the two conduction band (CB) states, $`v`$ to the four heavy hole (HH) and light hole (LH) states and $`s`$ to the two spin-orbit split off (SO) states.

The constituent blocks of the Hamiltonian are shown in Table 5. The phases of the wavefunctions and the prefactors in Table 5 are chosen in a way that all the parameters are real. The $`𝝈`$ and the $`𝝆`$ matrices are the Pauli matrices; the $`T`$ matrices are given by

$`T_x`$ $`=\frac{1}{3\sqrt{2}}\left(\begin{array}{cccc}\sqrt{3}& 0& 1& 0\\ 0& 1& 0& \sqrt{3}\end{array}\right)`$ $`T_y`$ $`=\frac{i}{3\sqrt{2}}\left(\begin{array}{cccc}\sqrt{3}& 0& 1& 0\\ 0& 1& 0& \sqrt{3}\end{array}\right)`$ $`T_z`$ $`=\frac{\sqrt{2}}{3}\left(\begin{array}{cccc}0& 1& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 1& 0\end{array}\right)`$
$`T_{xx}`$ $`=\frac{1}{3\sqrt{2}}\left(\begin{array}{cccc}0& 1& 0& \sqrt{3}\\ \sqrt{3}& 0& 1& 0\end{array}\right)`$ $`T_{yy}`$ $`=\frac{1}{3\sqrt{2}}\left(\begin{array}{cccc}0& 1& 0& \sqrt{3}\\ \sqrt{3}& 0& 1& 0\end{array}\right)`$ $`T_{zz}`$ $`=\frac{\sqrt{2}}{3}\left(\begin{array}{cccc}0& 1& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 1& 0\end{array}\right)`$
$`T_{yz}`$ $`=\frac{i}{2\sqrt{6}}\left(\begin{array}{cccc}1& 0& \sqrt{3}& 0\\ 0& \sqrt{3}& 0& 1\end{array}\right)`$ $`T_{zx}`$ $`=\frac{1}{2\sqrt{6}}\left(\begin{array}{cccc}1& 0& \sqrt{3}& 0\\ 0& \sqrt{3}& 0& 1\end{array}\right)`$ $`T_{xy}`$ $`=\frac{i}{\sqrt{6}}\left(\begin{array}{cccc}0& 0& 0& 1\\ 1& 0& 0& 0\end{array}\right).`$ (27)
The matrices $`U`$ are simply given by $`U_i=T_i^{}`$.

Note that a typographical error in the matrix $`T_{xx}`$ in Table I of the original article by Trebin et al. Trebin et al. (1979) has been corrected here. The last equation in the group (A3) of Ref. Trebin et al., 1979 must also be corrected:

$$X_{12}=i\left(X_2^{(2)}X_2^{(2)}\right)/2$$
(28)
## Appendix B Basis state labels in the KDWS tables

There is another remark about a point that can lead to confusion. Koster et al. Koster et al. (1963) have developed a set of tables (KDWS tables) for the Clebsch-Gordan coefficients for point groups that are very helpful when constructing explicit subspace-invariant matrices or when checking the symmetry properties of the Hamiltonian. However, in their Table 83 the values they show can be used as displayed for the $`O`$ point group, but for $`T_d`$ the values should be taken according to the lookup table for the basis state labels shown in Table 6.

## Appendix C Finite Difference Method solution of the Effective Mass Approximation equations

In this appendix we describe the computational method used to find the heterostructure bands and eigenstates. Following the Effective Mass Approximation (EMA) theory Bastard (1986), the 8 band $`𝐤𝐩`$ Hamiltonian of Eq. (26) is transformed into a set of eight linear, second order, ordinary differential equations. The appropriate boundary conditions are enforced and the equations are solved by means of a finite difference scheme.

### C.1 EMA Hamiltonian

Starting from the usual Luttinger and Kohn (1955); Bastard (1981, 1982) expansion of the wavefunction $`\mathrm{\Psi }_𝐤_{}\left(𝐫\right)`$ as a linear combination of zone center Bloch states $`u_{n0}`$ modulated by a position dependent envelope $`F_n(z)`$ ($`n`$ is the band index):

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_𝐤_{}\left(𝐫\right)=\underset{n}{}e^{i𝐤_{}𝐫}F_n(z)u_{n0}\left(𝐫\right),$$
(29)
the EMA prescription states that if $`\mathrm{\Psi }_𝐤_{}\left(𝐫\right)`$ is the solution of

$$\left[H(𝐤_{},k_z;z)+U\left(z\right)\right]\mathrm{\Psi }_𝐤_{}\left(𝐫\right)=E\mathrm{\Psi }_𝐤_{}\left(𝐫\right),$$
(30)
then $`F_n(z)`$ will be the solution to

$$\left[H(𝐤_{},i_z;z)+U\left(z\right)\right]𝐅(z)=E𝐅(z),$$
(31)
where $`𝐤_{}=k_x\widehat{x}+k_y\widehat{y}`$ is the electron wavevector in the $`k_xk_y`$ plane, $`U\left(z\right)`$ is an external potential that varies only in $`z`$ (the change of material as a function of $`z`$ is included in $`H(𝐤_{},i_z;z)`$) and $`𝐅(z)`$ is a multicomponent vector constructed from the different $`F_n(z)`$’s. In an 8-band theory, $`𝐅`$ would have 8 components, each one multiplying the conduction band (CB), heavy hole (HH), light hole (LH) and split off (SO) basis states.

On the other hand, the bulk $`𝐤𝐩`$ Hamiltonian can be expanded into its polynomial form for $`k_z`$ in the following manner:

$$𝐇\left(𝐤\right)=𝐇^{(2)}k_z^2+𝐇^{(1)}\left(𝐤_{}\right)k_z+𝐇^{(0)}\left(𝐤_{}\right)$$
(32)
Putting together Eq. (31) and Eq. (32), we must solve the following system of coupled differential equations to obtain the energies and eigenstates of the system:

$$\begin{array}{c}\left[𝐇^{(2)}_z^2i𝐇^{(1)}\left(𝐤_{}\right)_z+𝐇^{(0)}\left(𝐤_{}\right)+U(z)\right]𝐅(z)=\hfill \\ \hfill E𝐅(z).\end{array}$$
(33)
### C.2 The Finite Difference Method

There are several methods to solve numerically the system of coupled ordinary differential equations given by Eq. (33), such as the transfer-matrix method Kane (1969); Chuang (1991), the finite element method Nakamura et al. (1991), the basis expansion method Bauer and Ando (1988), etc. In this study, the finite difference method (FDM) has been employed because of its conceptual simplicity, the ease of introduction of arbitrary fields, its ability to describe tunneling phenomena with only a few changes Liu et al. (1996) and its numerical stability with respect to the transfer-matrix method, which requires the truncation of growing exponential states Ko and Inkson (1988).

In the finite difference method, the differential operators are first written in a Hermitian form and then substituted by their finite difference approximations over a discrete mesh (see Fig. 15) with $`N`$ points. Following Chuang and Chang Chuang and Chang (1997), the following discretization scheme is used:

$$\begin{array}{c}𝐇^{(2)}(z)_z^2f|_{z_i}_z\left(𝐇^{(2)}(z)_zf\right)|_{z_i}\frac{𝐇^{(2)}(z_{i+1})+𝐇^{(2)}(z_i)}{2(\mathrm{\Delta }z)^2}f(z_{i+1})\hfill \\ \hfill \frac{𝐇^{(2)}(z_{i+1})+2𝐇^{(2)}(z_i)+𝐇^{(2)}(z_{i1})}{2(\mathrm{\Delta }z)^2}f(z_i)+\frac{𝐇^{(2)}(z_{i1})+𝐇^{(2)}(z_i)}{2(\mathrm{\Delta }z)^2}f(z_{i1})\end{array}$$
(34)
$$\begin{array}{c}i𝐇^{(1)}(z)_zf|_{z_i}\frac{i}{2}\left[𝐇^{(1)}(z)_zf+_z𝐇^{(1)}(z)f\right]|_{z_i}\hfill \\ \hfill i\frac{𝐇^{(1)}(z_{i+1})+𝐇^{(1)}(z_i)}{4\mathrm{\Delta }z}f(z_{i+1})+i\frac{𝐇^{(1)}(z_{i1})+𝐇^{(1)}(z_i)}{4\mathrm{\Delta }z}f(z_{i1})\end{array}$$
(35)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }z`$ is the separation between the mesh points, and $`z_i`$ is the position of the $`i`$-th mesh point.

Now, the application of the above equations to Eq. (33) yields the following system of $`N`$ algebraic equations:

$$𝐇_{i,i1}𝐅_{i1}+𝐇_{i,i}𝐅_i+𝐇_{i,i+1}𝐅_{i+1}=E𝐅_i$$
(36)
where $`𝐅_i`$ is the eight-vector containing the envelope function components corresponding to the $`i`$-th mesh point. This eigenproblem can be written in matrix form to better appreciate its sparse structure:

$$\left(\begin{array}{ccccccc}𝐇_{0,0}& 𝐇_{0,1}& \mathrm{𝟎}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& 𝐇_{0,1}\\ 𝐇_{1,0}& 𝐇_{1,1}& 𝐇_{1,2}& \mathrm{𝟎}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{𝟎}\\ \mathrm{𝟎}& 𝐇_{2,1}& 𝐇_{2,2}& 𝐇_{2,3}& \mathrm{𝟎}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{𝟎}\\ \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}\\ \mathrm{𝟎}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{𝟎}& 𝐇_{N2,N3}& 𝐇_{N2,N2}& 𝐇_{N2,N1}\\ 𝐇_{N1,N}& \mathrm{𝟎}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{𝟎}& 𝐇_{N1,N2}& 𝐇_{N1,N1}\end{array}\right)𝐅=E𝐅$$
(37)
where $`𝐅`$ is a column vector composed of the different $`𝐅_i`$’s.

The resulting discretized $`8\times 8`$ Hamiltonian matrices will be valid for both inner and interface mesh points without further modification:

$`𝐇_{i,i}`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{𝐇_{i+1}^{(2)}+2𝐇_i^{(2)}+𝐇_{i1}^{(2)}}{2(\mathrm{\Delta }z)^2}}+𝐇_i^{(0)}+U_i`$ (38)
$`𝐇_{i,i+1}`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{𝐇_{i+1}^{(2)}+𝐇_i^{(2)}}{2(\mathrm{\Delta }z)^2}}i{\displaystyle \frac{𝐇_{i+1}^{(1)}+𝐇_i^{(1)}}{4\mathrm{\Delta }z}}`$ (39)
$`𝐇_{i,i1}`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{𝐇_{i1}^{(2)}+𝐇_i^{(2)}}{2(\mathrm{\Delta }z)^2}}+i{\displaystyle \frac{𝐇_{i1}^{(1)}+𝐇_i^{(1)}}{4\mathrm{\Delta }z}}`$ (40)
$`𝐇_{0,1}`$ and $`𝐇_{N1,N}`$ in Eq. (37) express the boundary conditions (BCs) of the problem. When studying a quantum well, the BCs are that the wavefunction must vanish far from the well region. This is accomplished by setting the barrier region wide enough, and requesting

$$𝐅_1=𝐅_N=0$$
(41)
which translates into

$$𝐇_{0,1}=𝐇_{N1,N}=\mathrm{𝟎}$$
(42)
When finding the energies and states of a superlattice, the Bloch BCs apply, and the envelope function is requested to have the supercell periodicity $`d`$, modulated by a phase:

$`𝐅_N`$ $`=e^{iqd}𝐅_0`$ $`𝐇_{N1,N}`$ $`=e^{iqd}𝐇_{N2,N1}`$ (43)
$`𝐅_1`$ $`=e^{iqd}𝐅_{N1}`$ $`𝐇_{0,1}`$ $`=e^{iqd}𝐇_{1,0}`$ (44)
where $`q`$ is the electron wavevector along the $`z`$ direction, and it has been assumed that the same material is at mesh points 0 and $`N1`$.


format: text

text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Recently there has been some reexamination of 2d superconformal field theory with boundaries , elaborating the superconformal boundary conditions frequently used  for the study of D-branes . The setting was non-linear $`\sigma `$-models with $`N=1`$ or $`N=2`$ worldsheet superconformal symmetry. The analysis was versed in the language of the target space: fields represent coordinates on the target space or sections of vector bundles over it, and coupling constants encodes its geometric feature. This is appropriate for relating the boundary conditions to the geometry of D-branes .

The worldsheet origin of boundary suggests an orthogonal viewpoint. Boundary conditions that have to be imposed reflect the modification made to the original theory to consistently accommodate an abrupt end to the space on which it is defined. A fundamental and universal classification of boundary conditions ought to be made solely in worldsheet language without being tied to a particular action formalism. Boundary conformal field theory starts with a choice of boundary conditions imposed between the left and right moving chiral fields. This is most precisely stated in the boundary state formalism. The only constraint seemed to be consistency with the chiral algebra, so they are classified by their outer automorphism group. Those differing by an inner automorphism are mapped into each by symmetries generated by the chiral currents themselves. For a particular type of actions such as non-linear $`\sigma `$-model, one can make contact with the target space point of view by substituting the concrete realization of the chiral fields into the abstract boundary conditions.

However, the above procedure still does not contain a derivation of the boundary condition itself as the necessary consequence of a boundary. If one doubts the need for such an understanding, consider the following outer automorphism of the Virasoro algebra:***I am grateful to V. Kac for pointing out this automorphism.

$$L_mL_m$$
(1.1)
There are two problems with using this automorphism to define a boundary condition, such as

$$(L_m+\stackrel{~}{L}_m)|)=0$$
(1.2)
for a boundary state $`|)`$. First, algebraic consistency dictates that this automorphism must also flip the sign of the central charge. This is not permissible because in a CFT the central charge is unlike any other element of the Lie algebra — it is just a number, and it has to be the same for the left and right movers. Another problem, which persists even when the central charge vanishes, is that this boundary condition is not local. On a space-like boundary parameterized by $`\sigma [0,2\pi )`$, It relates the left and right moving stress tensors by

$$T(\sigma )+\stackrel{~}{T}(\sigma )$$
(1.3)
As we shall see in §2, this does not follow from the presence of a boundary.

We can eliminate this problematic automorphism by considering only those leaving the central charge invariant and further require that they have an appropriate local origin in terms of the stress tensor. This makes clear that a derivation of boundary conditions from worldsheet geometry would be desirable. Unfortunately, it is not clear how this could be done for general chiral algebras. Unlike the Virasoro algebra, they seem to represent “internal” degree of freedom mostly independent of the geometry of the worldsheet. However, as will be shown in the paper, boundary conditions for $`N=1`$ and $`N=2`$ superconformal algebra (SCA) do have purely worldsheet interpretation, if one is willing to complement the ordinary worldsheet (the even part) with an *odd* part parameterized by Grassmann “coordinates.”

Central to this paper is therefore the use of superspace to describe the action of superconformal symmetries. Worldsheet superspace has long been used in string theory , often for writing down Lagrangians with manifest rigid supersymmetry in terms of superfields . Due to the different motivation and purpose of the present work, 2d $`N=1`$ and $`2`$ superspace is developed ab initio in this paper without reference to any Lagrangian or fundamental field. As a consequence issues such as auxiliary fields and off-shell closure is not relevant. Here the Grassmann coordinates are introduced solely as organizational labels for the representations of the singular operator production expansion (sOPE) algebra of the superconformal currents. How they transform under superconformal symmetry is then inferred from the algebra, i.e. superspace emerges as a *derived* construct. This philosophy differs significantly from that underlying previous works that aimed to combine superspace and superconformal symmetry, where the starting point had been the definition of a superdifferential. For $`N=1`$ case, the resulting superspace agrees with . For $`N=2`$ the present results look superficially different from . Both the compact and noncompact versions of $`N=2`$ SCA make appearance here, classified and differentiated by nonequivalent reality conditions of the superspace. This has not been noted before, but after a field redefinition the compact case does agree with those earlier results on the transformation properties of superconformal tensors.

The technical advantage of this superspace approach is that it allows a systematic and geometric derivation for the boundary conditions. The analysis of pure conformal symmetry can be applied to the superconformal symmetries after the appropriate adaptation. At its most essential, a boundary occupies an one dimensional curve on the even part of the superworldsheet. Those conformal symmetries that perturb it in the transverse direction are broken . If the boundary also occupies the whole odd part of the superworldsheet, all supersymmetries are broken. The more interesting case is when the boundary has finite codimension in the odd part as well. It shall be shown in this work that such superboundary can be consistently defined and classified geometrically. They preserve half of the worldsheet supersymmetries. The corresponding boundary conditions for the SCA can also be inferred from geometry, modulo central terms. The latter can then be fixed easily by algebraic arguments. For $`N=0`$ and $`1`$ the standard boundary conditions are recovered. For $`N=2`$ SCA, in addition to the well-known A and B types of boundary conditions I also find two infinite classes of new ones. They appear for closed boundaries (e.g. boundary state or one-loop diagram of open string) and have to do with the topology of the superworldsheet.

Although this paper is concerned with boundary on the string worldsheet and more generally 2d (super)conformal field theory, the idea of using superspace geometry to to classify and derive boundary conditions can be applied to other cases. Boundaries and spacetime defects in supergravity theory and the target space of superstring have recently become an area of intensive research. It would be interesting to see whether the types of analysis presented here would be applicable to them.

The paper is organized as follows. In section 1,the boundary condition of Virasoro algebra is derived from the boundary geometry as a warm-up for the superconformal case. In section 2 $`N=1`$ superconformal symmetry is considered. In section 3 I proceed to $`N=2`$ superconformal symmetry and find novel boundary states arising from nontrivial superworldsheet topology. In section 4 the novel boundary states are realized in a free theory. While this paper is worldsheet oriented, these concrete solutions can be related to and used for D-branes in $`N=2`$ compactification  and $`N=2`$ string theories .

## 2 Boundary Conditions for $`N=0`$

What follows can be thought as an elaboration of the argument in section 1 of . It is intended as a warm up drill in which the essential steps needed later for the superconformal cases are run through in a context with little subtlety.

#### Worldsheet

The 2d worldsheet is parametrized by coordinates $`z`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{z}`$. The field theory has conformal symmetry, realized projectively on the Hilbert space of the theory because of the conformal anomaly. Denote as usual $`T`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{T}`$ the decoupled left and right moving stress tensor. The Lie algebra of conformal symmetry can be inferred from their sOPE (eq. 5.9). The operators of the theory are classified into highest weight representations of T, each of which is characterized by a conformal weight $`h`$ and a chiral primary field V satisfying the following sOPE:

$$T(z)\mathrm{}V(w)=\frac{hV(w)}{(zw)^2}+\frac{V(w)}{zw}.$$
(2.1)
Infinitesimal conformal transformations are parameterized by two functions $`ϵ(z)`$ $`\stackrel{~}{ϵ}(\stackrel{~}{z})`$ and the corresponding charge is*** The convention for contour integration is counterclockwise for $`z`$ and clockwise for $`\stackrel{~}{z}`$.

$$\frac{1}{2\pi ı}\left(𝑑zϵ(z)T(z)+𝑑\stackrel{~}{z}\stackrel{~}{ϵ}(\stackrel{~}{z})\stackrel{~}{T}(\stackrel{~}{z})\right)$$
(2.2)
Therefore a chiral primary field $`V`$ with conformal weight $`h`$ with respect to $`T`$ varies as

$$\delta V=ı(ϵV+hϵV)$$
(2.3)
Recall that a tensor field $`𝖵`$ on a manifold, which may consist of several components, is defined with respect to a group acting on that manifold. It transform generically under an infinitesimal group element $`ϵ`$ by

$$\delta _ϵ𝖵=\delta _ϵX^\mu \frac{}{X^\mu }𝖵+\mathrm{\Lambda }_ϵ^{[\mathrm{\Delta }]}𝖵$$
(2.4)
Here $`\delta _ϵ`$ alone represents the action of the group on the coordinate of the manifold and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_ϵ^\mathrm{\Delta }`$ represent action of the group on the tensor. $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ denote properties that distinguish different tensor fields. Hence a chiral primary field of weight $`h`$ with respect to $`T`$ is a tensor field for conformal transformation with

$$\delta _ϵz=ıϵ(z),\mathrm{\Lambda }_ϵ^{[h]}=ıhϵ(z)$$
(2.5)
Therefore we recovers the spacetime action of a conformal transformation

$$\delta z=ıϵ,\delta \stackrel{~}{z}=ı\stackrel{~}{ϵ}.$$
(2.6)
Usually conformal transformation is simply *defined* as such. The procedure here of deriving it from the sOPE of between currents and tensor fields may seem circuitous, but it guarantees the correct result once an sOPE algebra is given. It is well suited for the superconformal cases where geometric intuition is elusive.

#### Compatible reparameterization

Given (eq. 2.6), one can ask what kind of coordinate redefinition

$$z^{}=f(z,\stackrel{~}{z}),\stackrel{~}{z}^{}=f^{}(z,\stackrel{~}{z}).$$
(2.7)
leaves the form of the variation invariant, i.e.

$$\delta z^{}=ϵ^{}(z),\delta z^{}=\stackrel{~}{ϵ}^{}(\stackrel{~}{z}).$$
(2.8)
for some $`ϵ^{}`$. This gives an automorphism of the sOPE algebra realizable as a reparameterization of the worldsheet. They are important for the classification of boundary conditions and, in conjunction with reality condition, superconformal field theories. The solution for $`f`$ is clearly that $`f`$ should only depend on $`z`$, and $`f`$ on $`\stackrel{~}{z}`$. Hence they are “almost” conformal transformations themselves. To remove the qualifier “almost” we have to take into account the reality condition.

#### Reality condition

Up to this point I have not really specified the signature of the worldsheet metric. The previous equations are signature independent. The effect of the latter shows up in the *reality condition*. If the worldsheet is Euclidean, $`z`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{z}`$ are complex and related by

$$z^{}=\stackrel{~}{z}.$$
(2.9)
For a Lorentzian worldsheet, $`z`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{z}`$ are both real and unrelated. For studying field theory in the operator formalism it is necessary that the worldsheet is Lorentzian, and henceforth in this note only this case will be considered.

Generally the reality condition on a Lorentzian worldsheet is $`z^{}=g(z)`$ Under reparameterization $`z^{}=f(z)`$, $`g`$ transforms as

$$g(z)g^{}(z^{})=f^{}gf^{(1)}(z^{})$$
(2.10)
where $`f^{(1)}`$ denote the inverse function of $`f`$. In the literature, one often uses the exponentiated and Wick-rotated notation in which $`t`$ is replaced by $`\tau =ıt`$ and the coordinate $`z=\mathrm{exp}(ı\sigma _L)=\mathrm{exp}(\tau +ı\sigma )`$, with $`\sigma `$ the compactified spatial direction of the worldsheet. The cylindrical worldsheet is mapped into a two punctured complex plane compactified at infinity. To avoid confusion I shall continue to use $`\stackrel{~}{z}`$ to denote the right moving coordinate and the superscript  to denote conjugation in the Lorentzian sense with the appropriate analytic continuation. The reality condition in this convention becomes

$$z^{}=1/z$$
(2.11)
Unless specified otherwise, I shall follow this convention in the rest of this work. This is especially convenient for performing contour integration with the sOPE’s but introduces some complication for the boundary and reality conditions.

Conformal transformation should of course respect the reality condition, which leads to the reality conditions for $`ϵ`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{ϵ}`$:

$$(ϵ(z))^{}=z^2ϵ(z),(\stackrel{~}{ϵ}(\stackrel{~}{z}))^{}=\stackrel{~}{z}^2\stackrel{~}{ϵ}(\stackrel{~}{z})$$
(2.12)
The reparameterization consider earlier should also leave the reality condition invariant. This leads to the reality condition on $`f`$. It still best to state it in terms of the unexponentiated, un-Wick-rotated coordinates: $`f(\sigma _L)`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{f}(\sigma _R)`$ are both real. In this paper, reparameterizations compatible with infinitesimal (super)conformal transformations and a chosen reality condition are called *reparameterization automorphisms*. They obviously form a group. They are important for classifying boundary conditions. It is also clear that transition functions between different patches of the (super)worldsheet must be elements of this group. Note that in the present case they are just the usual conformal transformations. They are generated by (eq. 2.2) subjected to the appropriate reality conditions on $`ϵ`$ plus the Hermiticity of $`T`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{T}`$. It means that they are in fact inner automorphisms. For the superconformal cases this will no longer be true.

#### Boundary condition

Now consider a boundary on the Lorentzian worldsheet. Locally the boundary can be any one of three types: time-like, space-like, and null. The last type is located at a fixed value of say $`z`$ but have no restriction locally for $`\stackrel{~}{z}`$. It leads to intriguing pathologies and is rarely used in the literature. Henceforth I shall require the boundary to be nowhere null. Thus they are globally either time-like or space-like. Analytically this can be seen as follows. A boundary condition that is nowhere null can be written as

$$\stackrel{~}{z}=k(z).$$
(2.13)
Then a reparameterization automorphism acts on $`k`$ by

$$kk^{}=\stackrel{~}{f}kf^{(1)}$$
(2.14)
Equivalence classes of $`k`$ with respect to this classifies the boundary condition. A time-like boundary can always be brought to be the positive real axis.

$$\stackrel{~}{z}=z0$$
(2.15)
and space-like boundary to

$$z\stackrel{~}{z}=1.$$
(2.16)
The conformal transformations leaving these equation invariant are respectively

$$ϵ=\stackrel{~}{ϵ}|^{z=\overline{z}}$$
(2.17)
and

$$\overline{z}ϵ=z\stackrel{~}{ϵ}|^{|z|=1}$$
(2.18)
What does this imply for the currents and charges in the theory that generates these symmetries? Consider first an arbitrary symmetry of the worldsheet that leaves invariant a boundary of the space on which the theory is defined.For a local quantum field theory, features of the space on which it is defined is immune from quantum fluctuation, so a boundary and the symmetries preserving it should manifest themselves up to quantum anomalies. Furthermore, quantum anomaly can be computed locally in the bulk. Therefore a boundary preserving symmetry is realized in the theory if and only if the same symmetry exist in the absence of the boundary, and with the same cocycle if the realization is projective.

The manner in which it is realized depend on the type of the boundary. If the boundary is space-like, it represents a state in the QFT, It is not a state in the proper Hilbert space because it would generically have infinite norm, but this is not a relevant issue here. while if it is time-like, the boundary modifies the theory itself. In the language of string theory, it is a boundary state in the close string theory versus an open string theory in its own right. Suppose the symmetry is generated by some charge $`Q`$ constructed from some conserved current $`j_\mu `$ as usual by $`Q=d^{D1}xJ_0`$. If the boundary is space-like and represented by some boundary state $`|)`$, the latter should be invariant under the charge:

$$Q|)=0$$
(2.19)
If the boundary is time-like, the charge $`Q`$ remains a constant of motion. It follows that the boundary contribution to $`\dot{Q}`$ vanishes:

$$_\mathrm{\Sigma }𝑑AJ=0$$
(2.20)
This is a constraint on the open string theory stipulating that no net flux of $`Q`$ charge leak through the boundary.

Now apply this to conformal symmetries, where

$$j_z=ϵT,j_{\overline{z}}=\stackrel{~}{ϵ}\stackrel{~}{T}.$$
(2.21)
Substituting this with (eq. 2.17) in (eq. 2.2), one finds after factoring out the arbitrary $`ϵ`$ that

$$T\stackrel{~}{T}=0|^{\sigma =0}$$
(2.22)
for the open string theory and

$$(T\frac{\stackrel{~}{z}^2}{z^2}\stackrel{~}{T})|)=0$$
(2.23)
for the boundary state. Since

$$T=\underset{n}{}L_mz^{m2},\stackrel{~}{T}=\underset{n}{}\stackrel{~}{L}_m\stackrel{~}{z}^{m2}.$$
(2.24)
the last equation means

$$(L_m\stackrel{~}{L}_m)|)=0.$$
(2.25)
To be precise, the above procedure gives only the correct boundary condition modulo central terms. It is easy to verify algebraically that that no correction is needed in this case. In fact these are the usual boundary conditions for CFT.

Of course one can think of other boundary conditions. A priori, the only algebraic constraint is that the relation between the left and right moving chiral fields are consistent with their algebra, therefore boundary conditions are corresponds to automorphism of the symmetry algebra that preserves the central charge and appropriate Hermiticity condition. For Virasoro algebra that just leaves the inner automorphisms, those generated by $`L_m`$ themselves and corresponding to conformal transformations. On the other hand, the above analysis has shown that the boundary condition on the stress tensor, following strictly the requirement of preserving the geometric boundary, is (eq. 2.22) or (eq. 2.25) for time-like or space-like boundaries, after the boundary is brought to canonical forms by a conformal transformation. Therefore the other possible boundary conditions just correspond to boundaries that have not been brought to one of the two canonical forms. Had there been an automorphisms that do not have some origin from geometry (e.g. a boundary or a crosscap), their interpretation in boundary CFT would have been suspect.

When a bigger chiral algebra is known for a CFT, one should likewise consider boundary conditions for them as well . However, these symmetries in general acts on “internal” degrees of freedom rather than worldsheet. In the language of (eq. 2.4), they only shows up in $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_ϵ^{[\mathrm{\Delta }]}`$. The method developed above relies on $`\delta _ϵX^\mu `$ and thus cannot be used to give a geometric derivation of their boundary conditions. However, for superconformal symmetries this is possible by enlarging the notion of worldsheet, and for these cases the systematic approach of this work displays its power. It is amusing to note that the very notion of superspace will be derived ab initio from the sOPE algebra of the (super)currents rather than conjured out of the void. Even here one may take the view that the worldsheet coordinate $`z`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{z}`$ was reconstructed from the Virasoro algebra.

## 3 Boundary Conditions for $`N=1`$

#### $`N=1`$ superworldsheet

The $`N=1`$ superconformal algebra is the simplest extension to Virasoro algebra with an interpretation purely in terms of superworldsheet geometry. Consider the left moving part. The $`N=1`$ superconformal algebra (SCA) complements $`T`$ with a superpartner $`G`$ and their sOPE’s is given in the appendix. From this one may determine the multiplet structure of irreducible tensor fields and their sOPE’s with $`T`$ and $`G`$. There is just one kind, again characterized by a conformal weight $`h`$ but now consists of two components fields. They can be combined into a *superfield* as $`𝖵=V^{}+\theta V^{}`$ by introducing a Grassmann variable $`\theta `$. For the time being it is merely an nilpotent label.

$`V^{}`$ and $`V^{}`$ are both chiral primary fields of $`T`$ with conformal weight $`h`$ and $`h+1/2`$ respectively. Their sOPE’s with $`G`$ are

$`G(z)\mathrm{}V^{}(w)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{V^{}}{zw}},`$
$`G(z)\mathrm{}V^{}(w)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2hV^{}}{(zw)^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{V^{}}{zw}}`$ (3.1)
Infinitesimal $`N=1`$ superconformal transformations are generated by

$$\frac{1}{2\pi ı}\left(𝑑zϵ(z)T(z)+𝑑za(z)G(z)\right).$$
(3.2)
where $`a`$ is the Grassmann valued parameters for supersymmetry. By contour integration of the OPE (eq. 3), one finds that

$`\delta 𝖵`$ $`=`$ $`ı[ϵ+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}ϵ\theta _\theta +hϵ]𝖵`$ (3.3)
$`+`$ $`ı[a\theta +a_\theta 2ha\theta ]𝖵.`$
From this I deduce the action of the superconformal transformation on the superspace coordinate:

$$\delta z=ı(ϵa\theta ),\delta \theta =ı(\frac{1}{2}ϵ\theta +a),$$
(3.4)
and $`\theta `$ now emerges as a coordinate on a *superworldsheet*. One then does the same for the right movers, introducing $`\stackrel{~}{\theta }`$ in the process. The superworldsheet is therefore make up of an even part parameterized by $`z`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{z}`$ and an odd part parameterized by $`\theta `$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\theta }`$. To be precise, the latter is fibered over the former. The transition function are elements of the reparameterization automorphism discussed below.

#### Compatible reparameterization

Consider the reparameterization

$$z^{}=f(z),\theta ^{}=𝐟(z)\theta $$
(3.5)
that leaves (eq. 3.4) invariant. In fact I have already used it to eliminate $`\overline{z}`$ dependence and mixing with $`\stackrel{~}{\theta }`$. Solving now for

$$\delta z^{}=ϵ^{}a^{}\theta ^{},\delta \theta ^{}=\frac{1}{2}\frac{ϵ^{}}{f}+a^{}$$
(3.6)
one obtains $`𝐟=\sqrt{f}\widehat{𝐟}`$ with

$$\widehat{𝐟}=\pm 1$$
(3.7)
Here the $`\sqrt{f}`$ factor merely reflects that $`\theta `$ is really a conformal tensor of weight $`1/2`$.

#### Reality condition

If the $`V^{}`$ is a real field, we expect the other components of the same multiplet is also real in an irreducible multiplet. This necessitates a reality condition on $`\theta `$. It can only be of the form

$$\theta ^{}=𝐠(z)\theta .$$
(3.8)
which also has to be be invariant under (eq. 3.4). This leads to $`ϵ^{}=z^2ϵ`$ as before and also

$$a^{}=𝐠a.$$
(3.9)
$`𝐠`$ has to satisfy $`𝐠=\sqrt{g}\widehat{𝐠}=\widehat{𝐠}/z`$ with: $`\widehat{𝐠}=\pm 1`$. Reality conditions are equivalent if and only if they are related by a compatible reparameterization $`(f,𝐟)`$ through

$$𝐠𝐟^{}\mathrm{𝐠𝐟}^1.$$
(3.10)
It is easy to see that $`f(z)=1/z`$ will flip the sign of $`\widehat{𝐠}`$. Hence there is only one type of reality condition and one can set $`\widehat{𝐠}=1`$.

It also follows that the full reparameterization automorphism group, $`(f,𝐟)`$ that leaves $`(g,𝐠)`$ invariant, consists of conformal transformation plus conformal transformations combined with flipping the sign of odd elements. The two correspond to the two choices of sign for $`\widehat{𝐟}`$. The ones with $`\widehat{𝐟}=1`$ are disconnected from the identity and not generated by $`T`$. This choice corresponds to an outer automorphism of the $`N=1`$ SCA. A transition function for the fiber of odd space over the even space has the same choice. The topological classes they allow are the spin structures on the bosonic worldsheet. The analysis of the $`N=1`$ SCA for the right movers is exactly the same.

#### Boundary condition

Now let us add a boundary to the worldsheet superspace parameterized by $`z,\theta `$ and $`\stackrel{~}{z},\stackrel{~}{\theta }`$. The boundary must have a locus on the even part of the worldsheet. Again, it can be brought into either positive real axis (eq. 2.15) or the unit circle (eq. 2.16). Requiring these equations to be invariant under the superconformal transformations (eq. 3.4) one finds what infinitesimal transformation leaves the boundary invariant. To avoid repetition I will concentrate on the case of space-like boundary at $`\stackrel{~}{z}z=1`$. The other cases are entirely analogous and easily related to this one.

Substituting (eq. 3.4) and its right mover counterparts in (eq. 2.16), one finds the conditions for the infinitesimal parameter on the boundary. In addition to (eq. 2.18), there is also

$$\stackrel{~}{z}a\theta =z\stackrel{~}{a}\stackrel{~}{\theta }.$$
(3.11)
If this has to hold for arbitrary $`\theta `$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\theta }`$, the only solution is $`a=\stackrel{~}{a}=0`$, i.e. this boundary breaks all superconformal transformation. The only boundary condition is (eq. 2.25). However, (eq. 3.11) can have nontrivial solutions for $`a`$ if we consider a boundary which does not span the whole odd part of the superworldsheet, but instead is localized along a “superline” defined by

$$\stackrel{~}{\theta }=𝐤(\sigma )\theta .$$
(3.12)
This is the most general conditions that can be imposed on the odd part of the superworldsheet. (Eq. 3.11) then has the solution

$$\stackrel{~}{z}a+z𝐤\stackrel{~}{a}=0.$$
(3.13)
For consistency, one also has to require (eq. 3.12) to be invariant under such supersymmetric transformation. A straightforward calculation leads to the constraint $`𝐤=ıe^{ı\sigma }\widehat{𝐤}`$ with

$$\widehat{𝐤}=\pm 1.$$
(3.14)
Again the $`ıe^{ı\sigma }`$ phase reflects the tensor nature of $`\theta `$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\theta }`$. The more important information lies in $`\widehat{𝐤}`$. At first sight, the two choices of signs seems equivalent. Under a reparameterization automorphism $`(f,𝐟)`$ that leave fixed the bosonic boundary,

$$𝐤\stackrel{~}{𝐟}\mathrm{𝐤𝐟}^1$$
(3.15)
Hence one can flips the sign of $`\widehat{𝐤}`$ by $`𝐟=1`$ with trivial $`f`$, $`\stackrel{~}{f}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{𝐟}`$. However, doing so would upset the boundary conditions else where. Consider a worldsheet with more than one boundaries . It is not possible to flips the sign of $`𝐤`$ for one without affecting all the other. This essentially has to do with the above mentioned fact that reparameterization automorphisms with $`𝐟=1`$ is disconnected from identity. Therefore these two possibilities for $`𝐤`$ correspond to two different types of boundaries.

Corresponding to them, one has

$$e^{\sigma /2}a\pm ıe^{\sigma /2}\stackrel{~}{a}=0.$$
(3.16)
on the boundary, leading to the equation

$$G_m\pm ı\stackrel{~}{G}_m|)=0$$
(3.17)
This is the well-known boundary condition for the supercurrent used for D-branes in Type II string theory. The above analysis shows that it corresponds to having a boundary in superspace defined by

$$e^{ı\sigma /2}\stackrel{~}{\theta }=\pm ıe^{ı\sigma /2}\theta $$
(3.18)
along with the more usual bosonic boundary. It also shows how limited the possibility is. Any other space-like boundary one can define is related to this one by a superconformal transformation. For an annulus worldsheet with two boundaries, the relative choice of signs on each translates to the choice of NS or R type of twisted $`N=1`$ algebra for open string theory and the possibility of inserting a G-parity operator in the close string/boundary state picture.

## 4 Boundary Conditions for $`N=2`$

#### Multiplet structure

Compared to $`N=1`$ SCA, $`N=2`$ SCA has two supercurrents $`G^\pm `$ instead of one, and has an affine $`U(1)`$ current $`J`$ in addition. Their sOPE’s are given in the appendix. From this and the Jacobi identity it is a straightforward but tedious exercise to show that it has exactly three families of irreducible tensor multiplets. The more generic family is characterized by two numbers, $`h`$, and $`\lambda `$ and consists of four fields, which we denote as $`V^{}`$, $`V^{}`$, $`V^+`$, $`V^{}`$ respectively. We shall call it the *long multiplet*. Their sOPE’s with the $`N=2`$ supercurrents are

$`G^+(z)\mathrm{}V^{}(w)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{V^+(w)}{zw}},`$
$`G^{}(z)\mathrm{}V^{}(w)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{V^{}(w)}{zw}},`$
$`G^+(z)\mathrm{}V^+(w)`$ $`=`$ $`G^{}(z)\mathrm{}V^{}(w)=0,`$
$`G^+(z)\mathrm{}V^{}(w)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{h(1+\lambda )V^{}(w)}{(zw)^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\frac{1}{2}(1+\lambda )V^{}}{zw}}+{\displaystyle \frac{V^{}(w)}{zw}},`$
$`G^{}(z)\mathrm{}V^+(w)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{h(1\lambda )V^{}(w)}{(zw)^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\frac{1}{2}(1\lambda )V^{}(w)}{zw}}{\displaystyle \frac{V^{}(w)}{zw}},`$
$`G^+(z)\mathrm{}V^{}(w)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(h+1/2)(1+\lambda )V^+(w)}{(zw)^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\frac{1}{2}(1+\lambda )V^+(w)}{zw}},`$
$`G^{}(z)\mathrm{}V^{}(w)`$ $`=`$ $`+{\displaystyle \frac{(h+1/2)(1\lambda )V^{}(w)}{(zw)^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\frac{1}{2}(1\lambda )V^{}(w)}{zw}},`$
$`V^{}`$, and $`V^\pm `$ are primary with respect to both with (weight, charge) being $`(h,2h\lambda )`$, $`(h+1/2,2h\lambda \pm 1)`$ respectively.*** $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is primary with respect to a affine $`U(1)`$ current $`J`$ with charge $`q`$ if its sOPE with $`J`$ is
$$J(z)\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Phi }(w)=\frac{q\mathrm{\Phi }(w)}{zw}.$$
As for $`V^{}`$, it is primary  also contained explicit transformation properties of tensor components. There the top component is *not* primary with respect to $`T`$. It is related to the convention here by $`V^{}+(\lambda /2)V^{}`$. with respect to $`T`$ with conformal weight $`h+1`$ but has the following OPE with $`J`$:

$$J(z)\mathrm{}V^{}(w)=\frac{h(1\lambda ^2)V^{}(w)}{(zw)^2}+\frac{2h\lambda V^{}(w)}{zw}$$
(4.2)
Note that $`q=2h\lambda `$ is the $`U(1)`$ charge of $`V^{}`$ and what is often called the charge of the whole multiplet. When $`\lambda =\pm 1`$ the long multiplet becomes reducible into two shorter types of multiplets. For our purpose the long multiplet is sufficient.

#### $`N=2`$ superworldsheet

Without further ado let us turn a long multiplet into a superfield

$$𝖵=V^{}+\theta ^+V^{}+\theta ^{}V^++\theta ^+\theta ^{}V^{}$$
(4.3)
by introducing two Grassmann variables $`\theta ^\pm `$. Now consider an infinitesimal $`N=2`$ superconformal transformation generated by

$$\frac{1}{2\pi ı}\left(𝑑zϵ(z)T(z)+𝑑z\xi (z)J(z)+𝑑za^+(z)G^{}(z)+𝑑za^{}(z)G^+(z)\right).$$
(4.4)
Here $`ϵ`$ and $`\xi `$ are ordinary $``$ valued while $`a^\pm `$ are Grassmann valued. By performing contour integration with the above OPE’s, one find that

$`\delta 𝖵`$ $`=`$ $`ı[ϵ+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}ϵ(\theta ^+_{\theta ^+}+\theta ^{}_\theta ^{})+hϵ]V`$
$`+`$ $`ı[\xi (\theta ^+_{\theta ^+}+\theta ^{}_\theta ^{})+2h\lambda \xi +h(1\lambda ^2)\xi \theta ^+\theta ^{}]V`$
$`+`$ $`ı[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(1\lambda )a^+\theta ^{}+a^+_{\theta ^+}+(1\lambda )a^+({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\theta ^+\theta ^{}_{\theta _+}+h\theta ^+)]V`$
$`+`$ $`ı[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(1+\lambda )a^{}\theta ^++a^{}_\theta ^{}(1+\lambda )a^{}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\theta ^+\theta ^{}_\theta _{}+h\theta ^{})]V.`$
A novel aspect of $`N=2`$ SCA is that the derivation part of the variation contain dependence on $`\lambda `$. One can split it into two pieces as $`\lambda =\gamma +\stackrel{˘}{\lambda }`$ with some arbitrary number $`\gamma `$, and treats it as an universal piece for any tensor types. It is clear that it should close by itself in accordance with $`N=2`$ algebra for arbitrary $`\gamma `$. Then the action of $`N=2`$ SCA on superspace is:

$`\delta z`$ $`=`$ $`ı(ϵ{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(a^+\theta ^{}+a^{}\theta ^+)+{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma }{2}}(a^+\theta ^{}a^{}\theta ^+)),`$
$`\delta \theta ^\pm `$ $`=`$ $`ı(\pm \xi \theta ^\pm +a^\pm \pm {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}a^\pm \theta ^+\theta ^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\gamma a^\pm \theta ^+\theta ^{})`$ (4.6)
We can write it more compactly by grouping $`\theta ^\pm `$ into a column vector $`\theta `$ and $`a^\pm `$ into $`a`$:

$$a=\left(\begin{array}{cc}a^+\hfill & \\ a^{}\hfill & \end{array}\right),\theta =\left(\begin{array}{cc}\theta ^+\hfill & \\ \theta ^{}\hfill & \end{array}\right).$$
(4.7)
Then (eq. 4) becomes

$`\delta z`$ $`=`$ $`ı[ϵ+{\displaystyle \frac{\theta ^{}}{2}}(\sigma ^1+ı\gamma \sigma ^2)a],`$
$`\delta \theta `$ $`=`$ $`ı[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}ϵ\theta \xi \sigma ^3\theta +a+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\theta \theta ^{}(\sigma ^1+ı\gamma \sigma ^2)a]`$ (4.8)
The $`N=2`$ superworldsheet has a bigger odd part, parameterized by $`\theta ^\pm `$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\theta }^\pm `$. It is fibered over the even part. Note that so far $`\gamma `$ is an arbitrary parameter labelling $`N=2`$ superspace. Below it will be shown that different values of $`\gamma `$ are in fact equivalent and can be set to zero.

#### Compatible reparameterization

Along the same line as before, consider now reparameterization of the superspace coordinate that is compatible with infinitesimal $`N=2`$ superconformal transformations. Define

$$z^{}=f(z)+\frac{\omega }{2}\theta ^{}ı\sigma ^2\theta ,\theta ^{}=𝐟(z)\theta ,$$
(4.9)
where $`\theta `$ is a complex two-by-two matrix. This is the most general holomorphic reparametrization of superspace with “bosonic” parameters. Requiring

$`\delta z^{}`$ $`=`$ $`ı[ϵ^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ^{}}{f}}{\displaystyle \frac{\omega }{2}}\theta ^{}ı\sigma ^2\theta +{\displaystyle \frac{\theta _{}^{}{}_{}{}^{}}{2}}(\sigma ^1+ı\gamma ^{}\sigma ^2)a^{}],`$
$`\delta \theta ^{}`$ $`=`$ $`ı[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}ϵ^{}\theta ^{}\xi ^{}\sigma ^3\theta ^{}+a^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{a^{}}{f}}{\displaystyle \frac{\omega }{2}}\theta ^{}ı\sigma ^2\theta +{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\theta ^{}\theta _{}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(\sigma ^1+ı\gamma ^{}\sigma ^2){\displaystyle \frac{a^{}}{f}}]`$ (4.10)
leads to the following expression for the transformation of the parameters:

$$ϵ^{}=fϵ,a^{}=𝐟a,\xi ^{}\sigma ^3=\xi \widehat{𝐟}\sigma ^3\widehat{𝐟}^1\widehat{𝐟}\widehat{𝐟}^1ϵ$$
(4.11)
where $`\widehat{𝐟}𝐟/\sqrt{f}`$. There are a number of constraints on $`\widehat{𝐟}`$ and $`\omega `$, a minimal set of which are

$$\widehat{\omega }=0,\sigma ^3\widehat{𝐟}\sigma ^3=\pm \widehat{𝐟},\widehat{𝐟}^{}(\sigma ^1+ı\gamma ^{}\sigma ^2)\widehat{𝐟}=(\sigma ^1+ı(\gamma +\widehat{\omega })\sigma ^2),$$
(4.12)
where $`\widehat{\omega }=\omega /f`$. Corresponding to the choice of sign in the last equation, there are two families of solutions:

$$\widehat{𝐟}=e^{\varphi \sigma ^3},\gamma ^{}=\gamma +\widehat{\omega };$$
(4.13)
and

$$\widehat{𝐟}=\sigma ^1e^{\varphi \sigma ^3},\gamma ^{}=\gamma \widehat{\omega }.$$
(4.14)
Here $`\varphi `$ is an arbitrary complex number. Using $`\widehat{\omega }`$ we will set $`\gamma `$ to $`0`$ without loss of generality. This choice fixes the $`\omega `$ parameter in to $`0`$ as well.

#### Reality condition

To ensure the right number of degrees of freedom, one has to impose

$$\theta ^{}=𝐠\theta $$
(4.15)
where $`𝐠`$ is a 2-by-2 matrix satisfying the consistency condition

$$𝐠^{}𝐠=1$$
(4.16)
In addition, (eq. 4.15) has to be compatible with the conformal transformation (eq. 4). This leads to

$$a^{}=𝐠a,\xi ^{}\sigma ^3=\xi \widehat{𝐠}\sigma ^3\widehat{𝐠}^1+ϵ\widehat{\beta }\widehat{\beta }^1$$
(4.17)
where $`\widehat{𝐠}=𝐠/\sqrt{g}`$. $`\widehat{𝐠}`$ satisfies the following consistency conditions:

$$\widehat{𝐠}^{}\widehat{𝐠}=1,\sigma ^3\widehat{𝐠}\sigma ^3=\pm \widehat{𝐠},\widehat{𝐠}^{}\sigma ^1\widehat{𝐠}=\sigma ^1.$$
(4.18)
Corresponding to the choice of sign in the 2nd equation, there are two families of solutions both parameterized by a real number $`p`$

$$\widehat{𝐠}=e^{ıp\sigma ^3}.$$
(4.19)
and

$$\widehat{𝐠}=\pm \sigma ^1e^{p\sigma ^3}.$$
(4.20)
The reality condition again transform under the reparameterization $`𝐟`$ as

$$𝐠𝐟^{}\mathrm{𝐠𝐟}^1.$$
(4.21)
It is easy to see that one can always set $`p`$ to 0 (but see the caveat below) and fix the sign in (eq. 4.20). The stabilizers are

$$\widehat{𝐟}=\pm e^{\varphi \sigma ^3}\text{and}\sigma ^1\pm e^{\varphi \sigma ^3}$$
(4.22)
for $`\widehat{𝐠}=𝕀`$ and

$$\widehat{𝐟}=e^{ı\varphi \sigma ^3}\text{and}\sigma ^1e^{ı\varphi \sigma ^3}$$
(4.23)
for $`\widehat{𝐠}=\pm \sigma ^1`$.

The meaning of the reparameterization automorphism is evident. $`𝐟`$ is a function of $`z`$ taking value in a group $`𝒢`$. For $`𝐠=1`$ $`𝒢`$ is $`O(1,1)`$ while for $`\widehat{𝐠}=\sigma `$ it is $`O(2)`$. Ignore for now the topology of the worldsheet, the group of reparameterization automorphisms has the same number of components as $`𝒢`$. $`O(1,1)`$ has four while $`O(2)`$ has two. These components correspond to the various solutions in (eq. 4.22) and (eq. 4.23) and in obvious ways. They are the structure group of the Grassmann fibers. The global aspect of the compact case has been considered in .

All things considered, there are two nonequivalent reality conditions. They correspond to different $`N=2`$ SCA’s. For $`\widehat{𝐠}=1`$, the abelian group generated by $`J_0`$ is noncompact — this is known as the noncompact $`N=2`$ SCA. It is easy to see that it cannot have unitary highest weight representation. On the other hand, $`𝐠=\sigma ^1`$ gives the conventional compact $`N=2`$ SCA with an $`U(1)`$ symmetry. Most of the studies on $`N=2`$ SCA and SCFT have been on the compact version.

I should note here one caveat in the previous discussion. When, as in string theory, the worldsheet is compact in its spatial direction $`\sigma `$, $`\widehat{𝐠}`$ in (eq. 4.19) can have nontrivial winding as it takes value in $`U(1)`$. This can still be brought to the canonical form of $`\widehat{𝐠}=1`$ by using $`\widehat{𝐟}`$ with half as much winding. However when the winding number of $`\widehat{𝐠}`$ is odd, the necessary $`\widehat{𝐟}`$ is antiperiodic around $`\sigma `$. Its effect is to make $`G^\pm `$ also anti-periodic. This gives a twisted version of the $`N=2`$ mode algebra with half integer modes for the supercurrents. It is related to the $`Z_2`$ center of $`O(1,1)`$.

#### Boundary

Now introduce a boundary to the $`N=2`$ superworldsheet. Again concentrate on the case of $`z\overline{z}=1`$. Invariance of this expression under the $`N=2`$ superconformal transformation (eq. 4) leads to

$$z^1\theta ^{}\sigma ^1a+\stackrel{~}{z}^1\stackrel{~}{\theta }^{}\sigma ^1\stackrel{~}{a}=0$$
(4.24)
in addition to (eq. 2.18). If the boundary occupies the whole odd part of the superworldsheet, the only solution is that $`a=\stackrel{~}{a}=0`$, i.e. all supersymmetries are broken. In the meantime there is no constraint on the abelian symmetries generated by $`J`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{J}`$. One can also limit the boundary to a subspace of the odd parts. If a condition is imposed among $`\theta `$, the left moving $`N=2`$ SCA will be broken down to a $`N=1`$ SCA. Similarly one can do the same for the right movers. This returns us to boundary conditions of $`N=1`$ SCA solved in the last section. Here let us consider instead the condition

$$\stackrel{~}{\theta }=𝐤(\sigma )\theta $$
(4.25)
which can preserve a diagonal part of the two $`N=2`$ SCA’s.

Requiring this equation to be invariant under (eq. 4) leads to

$$\stackrel{~}{a}=𝐤ϵ,\stackrel{~}{\xi }\sigma ^3=\xi \widehat{𝐤}\sigma ^3\widehat{𝐤}^1+ız^1ϵ_\sigma \widehat{𝐤}\widehat{𝐤}^1$$
(4.26)
where $`\widehat{𝐤}=ı\mathrm{exp}(ı\sigma )𝐤`$. There are a number of constraints on $`\widehat{𝐤}`$, a minimal set of which are

$$\widehat{𝐤}^{}\sigma ^1\widehat{𝐤}=\sigma ^1,\sigma ^3\widehat{𝐤}\sigma ^3=\pm \widehat{𝐤}.$$
(4.27)
Corresponding to the choice of sign in the last equation, there are two families of solutions for $`\widehat{𝐤}`$. It can either be $`\mathrm{exp}(\alpha \sigma ^3)`$ or $`\sigma ^1\mathrm{exp}(\alpha \sigma ^3)`$ Correspondingly $`\stackrel{~}{\gamma }=\gamma `$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\gamma }=\gamma `$. Hence the boundary types allowed depend on the $`\gamma `$ value of the superspace. $`\lambda =\stackrel{~}{\lambda }=0`$ is the critical value allowing all possibilities. On top of that, the boundary has to be compatible with the reality condition, which means

$$\stackrel{~}{𝐠}𝐤=𝐤^{}𝐠.$$
(4.28)
From this we infer that $`\alpha `$ is real and imaginary respectively for noncompact and compact $`N=2`$.

A reparameterization automorphism acts on the boundary conditions as

$$𝐤\stackrel{~}{𝐟}\mathrm{𝐤𝐟}^1,$$
(4.29)
which can be used to bring $`\widehat{𝐤}`$ to $`1`$. However, as for the case of $`N=1`$, this does not mean there is only one type of boundary. Consider first the noncompact $`N=2`$. The solutions for $`𝐤`$ correspond to a map from the boundary to $`O(1,1)`$ and consists of four components:

$$\widehat{𝐤}=\pm e^{\varphi \sigma ^3},\text{or}\pm \sigma ^1e^{\varphi \sigma ^3}.$$
(4.30)
To bring them to $`1`$ one has to make use of the four components of the reparameterization automorphism for noncompact $`N=2`$. Consider a worldsheet with more than one boundaries. It is not hard to see that $`𝐤`$ can be brought to $`1`$ on all boundaries if and only if on all of them it lies in the same class. Hence they really are four distinct types of boundaries. For open string theory, the condition for the chiral fields can be deduced from (eq. 4.25) and (eq. 4.26). The four possibilities are grouped into two types. The two boundary conditions of type B are This nomenclature adheres to the convention in the literature .

$$T=\stackrel{~}{T},J=\stackrel{~}{J},G^+=\pm \stackrel{~}{G}^+,G^{}=\pm \stackrel{~}{G}^{}$$
(4.31)
and the two of type A are

$$T=\stackrel{~}{T},J=\stackrel{~}{J},G^+=\pm \stackrel{~}{G}^+,G^{}=\pm \stackrel{~}{G}^{}.$$
(4.32)
Correspondingly there are four type of boundary state. They are distinguished by their set of annihilators. For type B they are

$$(L_m\stackrel{~}{L}_m),(J_m+\stackrel{~}{J}_m),(G_m^+\pm ı\stackrel{~}{G}_m^+),(G_m^{}\pm ı\stackrel{~}{G}_m^{}).$$
(4.33)
and for type A they are

$$(L_m\stackrel{~}{L}_m),(J_m\stackrel{~}{J}_m),(G_m^+\pm ı\stackrel{~}{G}_m^{}),(G_m^{}\pm ı\stackrel{~}{G}_m^+).$$
(4.34)
For compact $`N=2`$ SCA the situation is more subtle. The solutions for $`\widehat{𝐤}`$ are

$$\widehat{𝐤}=\mathrm{exp}^{(ı\alpha \sigma ^3)}\text{or}\sigma ^1\mathrm{exp}^{(ı\alpha \sigma ^3)},$$
(4.35)
It is a map from the boundary to $`O(2)`$. When the boundary is not a loop, say the time-like trajectory traced out by a propagating open string, there are two disjoint classes corresponding to the two components of $`O(2)`$, hence two type of boundaries. They are just the type A and B above. Because a shift $`\alpha \alpha +\pi `$ changes the sign of all odd elements, the subtypes within A or B are no longer distinct. Algebraically this is because the sign changing map is an outer automorphism for the noncompact $`N=2`$ but an inner one for the compact $`N=2`$. The two types are exactly what have been classified in .§§§ Related boundary conditions were observed in the context of topological $`\sigma `$-models in an example of the A-type in  and considered for both types in .

However, when the boundary is a loop, for example corresponding to a boundary state, there are two infinite classes of solutions parameterized by an integer $`s`$. They corresponding to a map from the boundary loop to the two components of $`O(2)`$ with winding number $`s`$. Therefore there are $`2`$ possible types of boundary states. While the boundary conditions for zero winding are just those of type $`A`$ (eq. 4.34) or $`B`$ (eq. 4.33) (with the subtypes no longer distinct), the infinite series corresponding nontrivial winding are not known before. A B-type boundary states $`|B_s)`$ with winding number $`s`$ are annihilated by

$`(J_n`$ $`+`$ $`\stackrel{~}{J}_n+s{\displaystyle \frac{c}{3}}\delta _{n,0}),`$
$`(L_n`$ $``$ $`\stackrel{~}{L}_ns\stackrel{~}{J}_ns^2{\displaystyle \frac{c}{6}}\delta _{n,0}),\text{and}`$
$`(G_n^\pm `$ $`+`$ $`ı\stackrel{~}{G}_{n\pm s}^\pm ).`$ (4.36)
An A-type boundary states $`|A_s)`$ with winding number $`s`$ are annihilated by

$`(J_n`$ $``$ $`\stackrel{~}{J}_n+s{\displaystyle \frac{c}{3}}\delta _{n,0}),`$
$`(L_n`$ $``$ $`\stackrel{~}{L}_n+s\stackrel{~}{J}_ns^2{\displaystyle \frac{c}{6}}\delta _{n,0}),\text{and}`$
$`(G_n^\pm `$ $`+`$ $`ı\stackrel{~}{G}_{ns}^{}).`$ (4.37)
Everything in these equations except the terms involving the central charge are directly determined by substituting (eq. 4.25) and (eq. 4.26) in (eq. 4.4) and its right moving counterpart with $`\widehat{𝐤}=\mathrm{exp}(ıs\sigma \sigma ^3)`$ for type B and $`\widehat{𝐤}=\sigma ^1\mathrm{exp}(ıs\sigma \sigma ^3)`$ for type A. The result is consistent with the $`N=2`$ algebra without central extension. The central terms are obtained by demanding consistency with the full algebra, in particular $`\{G_m^+,G_m^{}\}`$.

Now that these states are found, it is natural to look for their algebraic interpretation. The original type A and B boundary conditions were classified  by the $`Z_2`$ outer automorphism of $`N=2`$ SCA which inverts the sign of the $`U(1)`$ current:

$$LL,JJ,G^\pm G^{}.$$
(4.38)
These two new series should also correspond to families of outer automorphism. In fact there is a well-known family of transformations of $`N=2`$ SCA parameterized by a real number $`s`$. It is known as spectral flow and changes the boundary condition of $`G^\pm `$ by $`\mathrm{exp}(2\pi ıs)`$ :

$`J_n`$ $``$ $`J_n+s{\displaystyle \frac{c}{3}}\delta _{n,0};`$
$`L_n`$ $``$ $`L_n+sJ_n+s^2{\displaystyle \frac{c}{6}}\delta _{n,0};`$
$`G_n^\pm `$ $``$ $`G_{n\pm s}^\pm .`$ (4.39)
It was obtained by the adjoint action of an affine-$`U(1)`$ transformation with monodromy $`\mathrm{exp}(2\pi ıs)`$. The case of $`s=\pm 1/2`$ is important for understanding spacetime supersymmetry in $`N=2`$ compactifications of superstring. When $`s`$ is integral, it does not change the periodicity condition of $`G^\pm `$ so becomes an automorphism of the $`N=2`$ SCA. It is in fact an outer automorphism because the affine-$`U(1)`$ transformation leading to it corresponds to an element of the loop group of $`U(1)`$ disconnected from the identity.Recently the related spectral flow in and nontrivial elements of the loop group of $`SL(2,)`$ has found application in a different capacity . It is easy to see that the $`B_s`$ series of boundary states are related to this automorphism. Now, by following (eq. 4) with a conjugation automorphism, one obtains another outer automorphism:

$`G_n^\pm `$ $``$ $`G_{ns}^{};`$
$`J_n`$ $``$ $`J_ns{\displaystyle \frac{c}{3}}\delta _{n,0};`$
$`L_n`$ $``$ $`L_n+sJ_n+s^2{\displaystyle \frac{c}{6}}\delta _{n,0}.`$ (4.40)
which evidently corresponds to the $`A_s`$ series of boundary states.

This view of the nontriviality of the boundary conditions fit nicely with the above derivation of these boundary conditions from geometry of the superworldsheet. $`s`$ is the winding numbers of $`𝐤`$ in the loop group of $`O(2)`$. If one insists on unwinding it by say $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$ without introduce winding at other boundary components, one has to introduce either a Chern class for the $`U(1)`$ bundle or, as a singular limit, the insertion of integral spectral flow operators. It is also worth noting that just as mirror symmetry relates type A and B boundary conditions, so it also relates $`A_s`$ and $`B_s`$.

## 5 Free field realization

Here I give a free field realization of the two new infinite series of boundary states in (eq. 4) and (eq. 4), in terms of $`d`$ pairs of complex bosons and complex fermions with a Hermitian metric $`(𝒢_{i\overline{j}})^{}=𝒢_{\overline{i}j}𝒢_{j\overline{i}}`$:

$$[\alpha _m^i,\alpha _n^{\overline{j}}]=m𝒢^{i\overline{j}}\delta _{m+n},\{\psi _m^i,\psi _n^{\overline{j}}\}=𝒢^{i\overline{j}}\delta _{m+n},i,\overline{j}=1\mathrm{}d.$$
(5.1)
and the same for the right movers. It is sufficient to consider the sector with half integral moding for all the fermions. The compact $`N=2`$ SCA is realized as (with normal ordering)

$`G_n^+={\displaystyle \underset{p+q=n}{}}\psi _p^i\alpha _q^{\overline{i}},`$ $`G_n^{}={\displaystyle \underset{p+q=n}{}}\psi _p^{\overline{i}}\alpha _q^i,`$
$`J_n={\displaystyle \underset{p+q=n}{}}\psi _p^i\psi _q^{\overline{i}},`$ $`L_n={\displaystyle \underset{p+q=n}{}}\alpha _p^i\alpha _q^{\overline{i}}+{\displaystyle \frac{qp}{2}}\psi _p^i\psi _q^{\overline{i}}.`$ (5.2)
It is easy to verify that (eq. 4) is satisfied provided that $`|)B_s`$ is annihilated by*** In the language of D-branes, the $`R`$ matrix here for type B and later for type A encodes the geometric and gauge field configurations of a D-branes, as defined in . It also has to satisfy certain consistency condition (unitary or anti-unitarity)as discussed *ibid*.

$`(\alpha _m^i+R_{}^{i}{}_{j}{}^{}\stackrel{~}{\alpha }_m^j),`$ $`(\alpha _m^{\overline{i}}+R_{}^{\overline{i}}{}_{\overline{j}}{}^{}\stackrel{~}{\alpha }_m^{\overline{j}}),`$
$`(\psi _m^i+ıR_{}^{i}{}_{j}{}^{}\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{m+s}^j),`$ $`(\psi _m^{\overline{i}}+ıR_{}^{\overline{i}}{}_{\overline{j}}{}^{}\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{ms}^{\overline{j}}),`$ (5.3)
where $`(R_{}^{i}{}_{j}{}^{})^{}=R_{}^{\overline{i}}{}_{\overline{j}}{}^{}`$ is unitary. Their kernel is $`2^{|s|}`$ dimensional. For $`s0`$, one solution can be constructed from the $`SL(2,)\times SL(2,)`$ vacuum $`|\mathrm{}`$ as

$`|B_s)_0`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{exp}[{\displaystyle \underset{m>0}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{m}}(R_{i\overline{j}}a_m^i\stackrel{~}{a}_m^{\overline{j}}+R_{\overline{i}j}a_m^{\overline{j}}\stackrel{~}{a}_m^i)]`$ (5.4)
$`\mathrm{exp}[{\displaystyle \underset{m>0}{}}ı(R_{i\overline{j}}\psi _m^i\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{ms}^{\overline{j}}+R_{\overline{i}j}\psi _{ms}^{\overline{i}}\stackrel{~}{\psi }_m^j)]`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{k>0}{\overset{s}{}}}(\psi _{ks}^{\overline{i}}+ıR_{}^{\overline{i}}{}_{\overline{j}}{}^{}\stackrel{~}{\psi }_k^{\overline{j}})|\mathrm{}.`$
Here $`R_{\overline{i}j}=𝒢_{\overline{i}i}R_{}^{i}{}_{j}{}^{}`$, and $`R_{i\overline{j}}=𝒢_{i\overline{i}}R_{}^{\overline{i}}{}_{\overline{j}}{}^{}`$. A complete set of basis can be formed by $`|B_s)_0`$ and applying products of $`(\psi _{ks}^{\overline{i}}ıR_{}^{\overline{i}}{}_{\overline{j}}{}^{}\stackrel{~}{\psi }_k^{\overline{j}})`$ on it for $`0<k<s`$.

For $`s0`$ one solution is

$`|B_s)_0`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{exp}[{\displaystyle \underset{m>0}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{m}}(R_{i\overline{j}}a_m^i\stackrel{~}{a}_m^{\overline{j}}+R_{\overline{i}j}a_m^{\overline{j}}\stackrel{~}{a}_m^i)]`$ (5.5)
$`\mathrm{exp}[ı{\displaystyle \underset{m>0}{}}(R_{i\overline{j}}\psi _{m+s}^i\stackrel{~}{\psi }_m^{\overline{j}}+R_{\overline{i}j}\psi _m^{\overline{i}}\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{m+s}^j)]`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{k>0}{\overset{s}{}}}(\psi _k^i+ıR_{}^{i}{}_{j}{}^{}\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{k+s}^j)|\mathrm{}.`$
Applying $`(\psi _k^iıR_{}^{i}{}_{j}{}^{}\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{k+s}^j)`$ on it for $`0<k<s`$ and one can span the whole solution spaces.

$`|A_s)`$ can be obtained similarly. The solitons lies in the common kernel of

$`(\alpha _m^i+R_{}^{i}{}_{\overline{j}}{}^{}\stackrel{~}{\alpha }_m^{\overline{j}}),`$ $`(\alpha _m^{\overline{i}}+R_{}^{\overline{i}}{}_{j}{}^{}\stackrel{~}{\alpha }_m^j),`$
$`(\psi _m^i+ıR_{}^{i}{}_{\overline{j}}{}^{}\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{ms}^{\overline{j}}),`$ $`(\psi _m^{\overline{i}}+ıR_{}^{\overline{i}}{}_{j}{}^{}\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{m+s}^j),`$ (5.6)
which is again $`2^{|s|}`$ dimensional. Here $`(R_{}^{i}{}_{\overline{j}}{}^{})^{}=R_{}^{\overline{i}}{}_{j}{}^{}`$ is anti-unitary.By that I mean $`R_{}^{i}{}_{\overline{i}}{}^{}𝒢_{i\overline{j}}R_{}^{\overline{j}}{}_{j}{}^{}=𝒢_{j\overline{i}}`$. For $`s0`$ one solution is

$`|A_s)_0`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{exp}[{\displaystyle \underset{m>0}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{m}}(R_{ij}a_m^i\stackrel{~}{a}_m^j+R_{\overline{i}\overline{j}}a_m^{\overline{j}}\stackrel{~}{a}_m^{\overline{i}})]`$ (5.7)
$`\mathrm{exp}[{\displaystyle \underset{m>0}{}}ı(R_{ij}\psi _{ms}^i\stackrel{~}{\psi }_m^j+R_{\overline{i}\overline{j}}\psi _m^{\overline{i}}\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{ms}^{\overline{j}})]`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{k>0}{\overset{s}{}}}(\psi _k^i+ıR_{}^{i}{}_{\overline{j}}{}^{}\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{ks}^{\overline{j}})|\mathrm{}.`$
Applying products of $`(\psi _k^iıR_{}^{i}{}_{\overline{j}}{}^{}\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{ks}^{\overline{j}})`$ on $`|A_s)_0`$, for $`0<k<s`$ to get a basis spanning the whole kernel.

For $`s0`$ one has

$`|A_s)_0`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{exp}[{\displaystyle \underset{m>0}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{m}}(R_{ij}a_m^i\stackrel{~}{a}_m^j+R_{\overline{i}\overline{j}}a_m^{\overline{j}}\stackrel{~}{a}_m^{\overline{i}})]`$ (5.8)
$`\mathrm{exp}[{\displaystyle \underset{m>0}{}}ı(R_{ij}\psi _m^i\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{m+s}^j+R_{\overline{i}\overline{j}}\psi _{m+s}^{\overline{i}}\stackrel{~}{\psi }_m^{\overline{j}})]`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{k>0}{\overset{s}{}}}(\psi _{k+s}^{\overline{i}}+ıR_{}^{\overline{i}}{}_{j}{}^{}\stackrel{~}{\psi }_k^j)|\mathrm{}.`$
Applying $`(\psi _{k+s}^{\overline{i}}ıR_{}^{\overline{i}}{}_{j}{}^{}\stackrel{~}{\psi }_k^j)`$ on $`|A_s)_0`$ for $`0<k<s`$ to span the whole solution space.

It would be interesting to study these new types of boundary states in the context of general $`N=2`$ superconformal field theories. Another natural extension of the analysis in this paper would be to the cases of $`N=3`$ and $`N=4`$ SCA’s.

I would like to thank V. Kac for illuminating replies to my question about outer automorphisms, L. Alvarez-Gaume, I. Brunner, M.B. Halpern, C. Helfgott, and Y. Oz for discussions.

## Appendix: Summary of $`N=0,1,2`$ SCA OPE’s

The Lie algebra of the mode operators of two chiral field $`\varphi `$ and $`\psi `$ are determined by the singular part of their operator product expansion (sOPE), which is denoted in this paper by $`\varphi (z)\mathrm{}\varphi (w)`$.

### $`N=0`$

$$T(z)\mathrm{}T(w)=\frac{c/2}{(zw)^4}+\frac{T(w)}{(zw)^2}+\frac{T(w)}{zw}.$$
(5.9)
### $`N=1`$

$`G`$ is primary with conformal weight $`3/2`$. Its sOPE with itself is

$$G(z)\mathrm{}G(w)=\frac{2c/3}{(zw)^3}+\frac{2T(w)}{zw}.$$
(5.10)
### $`N=2`$

$`G^\pm `$ and $`J`$ are primary with conformal weight $`3/2`$ and $`1`$. The rest of their sOPEs are

$`G^+(z)\mathrm{}G^+(w)`$ $`=`$ $`G^{}(z)G^{}(w)=0,`$
$`G^+(z)\mathrm{}G^{}(w)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{c/3}{(zw)^3}}+{\displaystyle \frac{J(w)}{(zw)^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{J(w)/2}{zw}}+{\displaystyle \frac{T(w)}{zw}},`$
$`J(z)\mathrm{}G^\pm (w)`$ $`=`$ $`\pm {\displaystyle \frac{G^\pm (w)}{zw}},`$
$`J(z)\mathrm{}J(w)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{c/3}{(zw)^2}}.`$ (5.11)