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# 1 Scaling of the planar density of vortex intersection points with a given space-time plane (left panel), and scaling of the vortex crossing points (right panel). Open symbols: 12⁴ lattice; full symbols: 16⁴ lattice;

UNITU-THEP-03/2001 January 30, 2001

Center vortex properties in the Laplace-center gauge

of SU(2) Yang-Mills theory

K. Langfeld, H. Reinhardta and A. Schäfkeb

Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Tübingen

D–72076 Tübingen, Germany

## Abstract

Resorting to the the Laplace center gauge (LCG) and to the Maximal-center gauge (MCG), respectively, confining vortices are defined by center projection in either case. Vortex properties are investigated in the continuum limit of $`SU(2)`$ lattice gauge theory. The vortex (area) density and the density of vortex crossing points are investigated. In the case of MCG, both densities are physical quantities in the continuum limit. By contrast, in the LCG the piercing as well as the crossing points lie dense in the continuum limit. In both cases, an approximate treatment by means of a weakly interacting vortex gas is not appropriate.

> a Supported in part by DFG under contract Re 856/4–1.
>
> b Supported by Graduiertenkolleg Hadronen und Kerne.

Introduction. It was already proposed in the late seventies that the essence of quark confinement can be most easily grasped in certain gauges where topological degrees of freedom act as confiners. Color magnetic monopoles - and vortices  are considered as candidates for such relevant infrared degrees of freedom.

The vortex picture of confinement received a recent boost when the maximal center gauge was introduced and when the vortices were identified by so-called center projection .

Let $`U_\mu (x)`$ denote the link variables of the $`SU(2)`$ lattice gauge field theory. The maximum center gauge fixing is defined by maximizing the functional

$`S_{\mathrm{MCG}}\left[U^\mathrm{\Omega }\right]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{x,\mu }{}}\left[\text{tr}U_\mu ^\mathrm{\Omega }\left(x\right)\right]^2\text{max},`$
$`U_\mu ^\mathrm{\Omega }(x)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Omega }(x)U_\mu (x)\mathrm{\Omega }^{}(x+\mu )`$ (1)
with respect to all gauge transformations $`\mathrm{\Omega }(x)`$. This fixes the gauge upto center gauge transformations $`\mathrm{\Omega }(x)=Z(x),Z(x)_2,x`$. Center projection, which amounts to replace each fundamental link by its nearest center element, provides a well defined (but gauge dependent) prescription for extracting the center vortex content of a field configuration: in the center projected theory plaquettes equal to a non-trivial center element represent center vortices and are referred to as P-vortices. Numerical simulations provide evidence, that P-vortices identified after center projection in the maximal center gauge are relevant infrared degrees of freedom in the following respects:

1. Calculation of the Wilson loop from the P-vortices provides the full string tension
2. The area density of the P-vortices shows the proper scaling behavior
3. When the P-vortices are removed from the lattice configurations chiral symmetry is restored .

Unfortunately, in the maximal center gauge fixing one encounters a “practical” Gribov problem: the numerical algorithms fail to find the global maximum of the gauge fixing functional equation (S0.Ex1). If one performs random gauge transformations $`N_{\mathrm{copy}}`$ times before employing the maximum finding algorithm while monitoring the maximum value of $`S_{\mathrm{fix}}`$, one finds that the string tension calculated from center projected configurations significantly depends on $`N_{\mathrm{copy}}`$ , at least for small lattice sizes. A recent investigation shows that this spurious dependence is lessened if the lattice size is chosen larger than the average vortex size . The practical Gribov problem naturally appears in variational gauges and, in particular, is also inherent in the maximal abelian gauge .

To circumvent the (practical) Gribov problem, the Laplace version  of the center gauge was introduced in . In this case, the numerical task boils down to the calculation of the two eigenvectors of a lattice matrix. Present days algorithms and computational power allow for an unambiguous gauge fixing for the lattice sizes under considerations.

In this letter, we investigate whether one can attribute continuum physics to the vortices in Laplace center gauge. For this purpose, we study properties such as vortex area density, density of vortex crossings and vortex cluster size distribution and contrast these results with the ones obtained from vortex configurations obtained in maximal center gauge.

Laplace center versus maximal center gauge fixing.

In order to make the letter self-contained we briefly review the Laplace version  of the center gauge  which is defined as follows: one finds the two lowest eigenvectors $`\varphi _a^{(1)}(x),\varphi _a^{(2)}(x)`$ of the adjoint covariant Laplacian

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_{x,y}^{ab}\left[\widehat{U}\right]=2a\delta _{x,y}\delta ^{ab}{\displaystyle \underset{\pm \widehat{\mu }}{}}\widehat{U}_\mu ^{ab}(x)\delta _{x\pm \widehat{\mu },y},`$ (2)
where $`a`$ denotes the lattice spacing. Since $`\widehat{U}_\mu (x)`$ is center blind the eigenvectors of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\left[\widehat{U}\right]`$ remain unchanged under center gauge transformations. Note also, that the adjoint link $`\widehat{U}_\mu (x)`$ is a real symmetric $`3\times 3`$ (adjoint) color matrix, so that at fixed $`x`$ the eigenvectors $`\varphi (x)`$ of eq. (2) have 3 real components $`\varphi _{a=1,2,3}(x)`$ and thus form an ordinary 3-dimensional vector $`\stackrel{}{\varphi }(x)`$ in (adjoint) color space.

In a first step the gauge freedom is exploited to rotate the lowest eigenvector $`\stackrel{}{\varphi }^{(1)}(x)`$ parallel to the 3-axis. This fixes the gauge up to abelian gauge rotations around the 3-axis in color space and defines the so-called Laplace abelian gauge. Obviously this abelian gauge is ill-defined at those points $`x`$ in space, where $`\varphi ^{(1)}(x)=0`$, which defines the positions of magnetic monopoles. In a second step the residual $`U(1)/_2`$ gauge freedom is fixed by gauge rotating the next to lowest eigenvector $`\stackrel{}{\varphi }^{(2)}`$ into the $`13`$ plane. This is equivalent to rotating the component $`\stackrel{}{\varphi }_{}^{(2)}`$ of $`\stackrel{}{\varphi }^{(2)}`$, which is orthogonal to the 3-axis, parallel to the 1-axis. Obviously this gauge fixing procedure is ill-defined, when $`\stackrel{}{\varphi }^{(1)}(x)`$ and $`\stackrel{}{\varphi }^{(2)}(x)`$ are parallel, so that (after Laplace abelian gauge fixing) $`\stackrel{}{\varphi }_{}^{(2)}(x)=0`$. The latter condition involves two constraints, so that these gauge singularities have co-dimension $`2`$. They form (closed) lines in $`D=3`$ and sheets in $`D=4`$ and hence represent vortex singularities. Indeed, one can show by going around the vortex singularities (where $`\stackrel{}{\varphi }_{}^{(2)}(x)=0`$) that the holonomy in the fundamental representation acquires a non-trivial center element, see also . This justifies to call these gauge singularities center vortices.

Unfortunately the solutions of the equations $`\stackrel{}{\varphi }^{(1)}(x)=0`$ and $`\stackrel{}{\varphi }_{}^{(2)}(x)=0`$ (which define the positions of magnetic monopoles and vortices) are ambiguously defined in the lattice formulation due to the finite discretization of space-time. In the lattice case, a practical approach to identify the center vortices is to use center projection on top of Laplace center gauge fixing. In this way one avoids the Gribov problem of the maximal center gauge fixing, but keeps the simplicity of the identification of the vortex content of the center projection. One should stress however, that a priori the positions and properties of the resulting center vortices need not to coincide with those defined by the gauge singularities occurring for parallel color vectors $`\stackrel{}{\varphi }^{(1)}(x)`$ and $`\stackrel{}{\varphi }^{(2)}(x)`$. It is the aim of the present paper to study the properties of center vortices arising after center projection on top of Laplace center gauge fixing and to compare them with those arising after center projection in the maximal center gauge.

Vortex properties – comparison of gauges.

Here, we will compare the properties of the vortices arising from the Laplace center gauge (LCG) with those obtained in maximal center gauge (MCG). In the latter case, we check for the practical Gribov problem by using two different methods to implement the MCG: firstly, we use a naive over-relaxation method (100 sweeps) with no further effort to find the global maximum of the gauge fixing condition. The extracted data in the figures below are labeled max. Secondly, we firstly implement the LCG and adopt the over-relaxation method afterwards (label lap-max). Different numerical data in either case correspond to different Gribov copies in configuration space. We stress that we here do not attempt to contribute to the ongoing discussion on the practical Gribov problem (see  and ). Rather than, we are interested in the gross features of the vortex properties arising in MCG and LCG, respectively. It will turn out below that the scaling behavior (and therefore their relevance for the continuum limit) is different, and that this difference largely exceeds the effect by Gribov noise.

In a first step, we analyzed the vortex area density (figure 1).

While in the case of the MCG, the numerical data are consistent with a physical vortex area density, the numerical data in the case of the LCG indicate that the points where vortices pierce a 2-dimensional hyperplane of the lattice lie dense in the continuum limit.

To be precise, let $`F^2`$ be the set of points where the LCG vortices pierce a given 2-dimensional hypersurface. A $`ϵ`$-cover of $`F`$ is a union of non-empty subsets $`V_i`$ with maximal extension $`|V_i|=sup\{|xy|:x,yV_i\}`$ less than $`ϵ`$ which cover $`F`$, i.e. $`F_iV_i`$. The minimal number of subsets which is required for the $`ϵ`$-cover of all piercing points, i.e. $`F`$, is denoted by $`N_ϵ`$. For sufficiently small $`ϵ`$ one finds that

$$N_ϵϵ^d.$$
(3)
with $`d`$ being the Hausdorff dimension. In practice, we choose $`ϵ=a(\beta )`$ ($`a`$ lattice spacing) and investigate the dependence of $`N_ϵ`$ on $`ϵ`$, i.e. $`a`$, by varying $`\beta `$. One finds

$$N_ϵ=\rho 𝒱_2=\kappa \frac{𝒱_2}{a^2};\text{ }\kappa :=\rho a^2,$$
(4)
where $`𝒱_2`$ (fixed) is the physical volume of the 2-dimensional hypersurface. Hence, the scaling of the vortex area density in units of the lattice spacing, i.e. $`\kappa `$, is related to the Hausdorff dimension. The numerical data for $`\kappa `$ (see figure 1) are well fitted within the scaling window $`\beta [2.1,2.5]`$ by

$`\kappa `$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left\{A\beta +B\right\}ϵ^{2d}`$
$`A`$ $`=`$ $`2.25\pm 0.02,\text{ }B=\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}3.30}\pm 0.05,`$
(only statistical errors are presented). Assuming that 1-loop scaling is appropriate for the above range of $`\beta `$, i.e.

$$ϵa(\beta )\mathrm{exp}\left\{\frac{3\pi ^2}{11}\beta \right\},$$

the Hausdorff dimension can be phrased in terms of the coefficient $`A`$, i.e.

$$d=\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}2}\frac{11}{3\pi ^2}A,\text{ }d=\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1.16}\pm 0.01.$$
(5)
The points where the P-vortices of the LCG pierce the 2-dimensional hypersurface almost form 1-dimensional structures. This should be compared with the P-vortices of the MCG which have a vanishing Hausdorff dimension since $`\rho `$ is independent of $`a(\beta )`$.

It was already observed in  that the density of the points where LCG vortices pierce the hyperplane lack an interpretation as isolated points in the continuum limit. Rather than disqualifying this density as pure lattice artefact , our finding that the density scales according $`1/a(\beta )`$ suggests the physical interpretation that, in the continuum limit, the LCG vortex material exists in a condensed phase.

An analogous analysis can be performed for the density of crossing points of P-vortices where vortex lines intersect each other in a given spatial hypercube. Now, the set of points $`F`$ is part of the $`^3`$, and the subsets $`V_i`$ may be viewed as balls of radius $`ϵ`$. In the case of the MCG, the numerical data for the density of intersection points is well fitted by ($`16^4`$ lattice, $`\beta [2.1,2.5]`$)

$`\rho _{\mathrm{den}}^{\mathrm{max}}a^3`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left\{A_{\mathrm{max}}\beta +B_{\mathrm{max}}\right\},`$
$`A_{\mathrm{max}}`$ $`=`$ $`8.079\pm 0.026,\text{ }B_{\mathrm{max}}=\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}13.96}\pm 0.06.`$
These results yield the Hausdorff dimension

$$d_{\mathrm{den}}^{\mathrm{max}}=\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}3}\frac{11}{3\pi ^2}A_{\mathrm{max}},\text{ }d_{\mathrm{den}}^{\mathrm{max}}=\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}0.00}\pm 0.01.$$
(6)
When this analysis is repeated for the case of the LCG, we find

$`A_{\mathrm{lap}}`$ $`=`$ $`7.079\pm 0.05,\text{ }B_{\mathrm{lap}}=\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}11.64}\pm 0.11,`$ (7)
$`d_{\mathrm{den}}^{\mathrm{lap}}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}0.37}\pm 0.02.`$
While the crossing points in the MCG indeed form isolated points in three dimensions with a physical density (cf. detailed discussion below), the corresponding points of the LCG lie dense with a Hausdorff dimension being significantly different from zero.

Random thin vortex model.

In order to interpret information carried by the density of P-vortex crossing points (as defined in the previous section), it is instructive to compare the numerical results obtained for P-vortices in MCG and in LCG with the predictions of a model of randomly distributed thin vortices. It should be stressed that the thin random vortex ensembles considered in the following are conceptually distinct from effective infrared models describing random surfaces of thick vortices such as have recently been employed  to describe infrared properties of the Yang-Mills ensemble. In the latter vortex model, spatial correlations, such as the crossing point density, are only defined on scales coarser than the vortex thickness.

Let us consider a 3-dimensional slice through the 4-dimensional lattice universe. In this 3-dimensional hypercube vortices appear as closed loops on the dual lattice. Let $`a`$ be the lattice spacing, $`N_S`$ be the total number of sites and $`N_L`$ be the number of links occupied by vortices. The vortex area density in units of the lattice spacing, i.e. $`\rho a^2`$, is related to the probability that a single vortex goes through a plaquette and is given by

$`\rho a^2=p={\displaystyle \frac{N_L}{3N_S}}.`$ (8)
Due to the $`_2`$ Bianchi identity (which ensures, that the vortex loops are closed) the number of links occupied by vortices and attached to a single site is even. For a dilute vortex gas, we neglect the constraint imposed by the Bianchi identity, and approximate the probability that two vortices intersect at a given site of the dual lattice by

$`p_{\mathrm{cross}}p^2=\rho ^2a^4.`$ (9)
Let $`N_{\mathrm{cross}}`$ be the number of sites, where two vortices cross, i.e. $`N_{\mathrm{cross}}=p_{\mathrm{cross}}N_S`$. Then the density of sites, where two vortices cross, is given by

$$\rho _{\mathrm{cross}}=\frac{N_{\mathrm{cross}}}{V}=\frac{p_{\mathrm{cross}}}{a^3}\rho ^2a.$$
(10)
It has been shown that for the P-vortices obtained after center projection in maximal center gauge the vortex (area) density $`\rho `$ is a physical quantity and thus independent of the lattice spacing. This is also seen in fig. 1, which shows that the density $`\rho a^2`$ of P-vortices arising from MCG fixing scales like $`a^2`$. For fixed vortex (area) density $`\rho `$, the random thin vortex model yields a vanishing density of crossing points when we approach the continuum limit $`a0`$. This is expected since in the continuum two lines generically do not intersect.

By contrast, our lattice simulations show that the density $`\rho _{\mathrm{cross}}`$ for the P-vortices in MCG is a physical quantity independent of $`a`$ (see fig. 1 right panel) and non-vanishing. Thus, in the continuum limit the P-vortex ensemble in MCG possesses information which cannot be described in terms of the random thin vortex model.

In the case of the P-vortices of the LCG, neither the vortex area density $`\rho `$ nor the density of crossing points $`\rho _{\mathrm{cross}}`$ is independent of the lattice spacing $`a`$. In fact, both quantities diverge like $`1/a`$ in the continuum limit $`a0`$ (see figure 1). Note, however, that this behavior is consistent with a random thin vortex model: if we consider a random thin vortex model with area density $`\rho 1/a`$, eq. (10) indeed implies that $`\rho _{\mathrm{cross}}1/a`$.

To summarize we find, that both the P-vortex (area) density $`\rho `$ and the density of P-vortex crossing points are physical quantities (in the sense that they show proper renormalization group scaling) in the MCG and unphysical ones in the LCG, respectively. In the case of MCG, the behavior of $`\rho `$ and $`\rho _{\mathrm{cross}}`$ cannot be understood on the basis of a random thin vortex model with a fixed density as sole input. In the case of LCG, the ratio of $`\rho `$ and $`\rho _{\mathrm{cross}}`$ is compatible with the prediction of a random thin vortex model.

Vortex cluster properties.

In order to reveal the mechanism which leads to the different behavior of vortex area density $`\rho `$ and the density of crossing points $`\rho _{\mathrm{cross}}`$, in MCG and LCG, respectively, it is necessary to investigate in either case the properties of vortex clusters embedded in a 3-dimensional hypercube. One such quantity of interest is the probability distribution of the size of the vortex cluster. The numerical result for a $`16^4`$-lattice and $`\beta =2.4`$ is shown in figure 2. Small size clusters are most numerous in both cases, MCG and LCG. However, these small size clusters do not contain much vortex material as one finds by considering probability $`p(s)`$ that an elementary vortex link belongs to a cluster of size $`s`$ (percolation probability). At small temperatures, the situation that almost all the vortex material is stored in a cluster of the size of the lattice universe occurs most frequently (see figure 2) (see also ). We therefore find that the probability distributions of both cases, MCG and LCG, do not show large differences. In the case of the LCG, there is a slight enhancement of the percolation probability for maximum size clusters. This indicates that the excess of vortex material in the case of LCG is part of the huge size clusters, rather than attributed to additional small isolated vortex cluster.

Conclusions.

The Laplace-center gauge (LCG) is superior to other variational gauges since ambiguities stemming from the numerical implementation of the gauge are avoided. We have investigated properties of vortices arising by center projection after implementing the maximal center gauge (MCG) and the LCG, respectively. We have studied the density of points where vortices pierce a 2-dimensional hyperplane, and we have presented results for the density of points where the vortices intersect within a spatial hypercube.

In the case of the MCG, both densities properly scale towards the continuum limit. Since a random thin vortex model with given area density as input predicts a vanishing density of intersection points, the vortex ensemble possesses correlations not present in a weakly interacting vortex gas (cf. also ).

In the case of the LCG, the above densities diverge in the continuum limit. Given that the string tension is well reproduced  from the LCG vortex ensemble, the excess of vortex material is due to small size vortex fluctuations. Further informations are provided by the vortex cluster properties, size distribution and percolation probability. The picture of large percolating vortex clusters with enhanced UV vortex fluctuations, which cannot influence the string tension, is consistent with our numerical findings.

Acknowledgments. We thank M. Engelhardt for helpful discussions on random vortex models as well as for useful comments on the manuscript.


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# Numerical study of statistical properties of the lensing excursion angles

## 1 Introduction

Weak lensing effects on the temperature anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) have been recognized as a powerful probe of cosmology (see Mellier 1999; Bartelmann & Schneider 2001 for reviews). Dark matter distribution along the line of sight between the last scattering surface (LSS) and us deflects the light ray trajectories and induces distortions in the pattern of the CMB anisotropies. Since the gravitational lensing is directly sensitive to the matter distribution up to the LSS, lensing signatures imprinted on the CMB may provide important information about the matter distribution on large scales and at high redshifts. In this point of view, various methods have been proposed (Seljak 1996; Bernardeau 1997; 1998; Metcalf & Silk 1997; Zaldarriaga & Seljak 1998; 1999; Zaldarriaga 2000; Suginohara, Suginohara & Spergel 1998; Van Waerbeke, Bernardeau & Benabed 2000; Takada, Komatsu & Futamase 2000; Takada & Futamase 2001). These lensing signatures are generally small but are measurable with two planned satellite missions, MAP111See the MAP homepage at http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov. and Planck222See the Planck homepage at http://astro.estec.esa.nl/Planck., and can help to break some of the parameter degeneracies in the CMB (Bernardeau 1997; Metcalf & Silk 1998; Takada & Futamase 2000). The change in a separation angle of two nearby light rays caused by weak lensing (lensing excursion angle) plays a key role in studying weak lensing of the CMB, especially weak lensing effects on two-point statistics of the CMB.

The analytical prediction of the weak lensing effect on the CMB power spectrum in modern cosmological models was first developed by Seljak (1994) based on linear perturbation theory (the so-called power spectrum approach). While, in his subsequent paper, Seljak (1996) examined effects of the nonlinearity in the density through analytic fitting formulae (Peacock & Dodds, 1996), and pointed out that the nonlinearity is very important on sub-degree scales. Furthermore statistics of the lensing excursion angles due to weak lensing are frequently assumed to be Gaussian without a rigorous basis (e.g., Seljak 1996). Numerical simulations are, therefore, needed for testing the validity and limitation of the semi-analytic approach.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the statistical properties of the lensing excursion angles using ray-tracing simulations combined with large $`N`$-body simulations for the first time. Since the simulations were originally constructed for the cosmic shear statistics (Van Waerbeke et al. 2001; Hamana et al. 2001b) the maximum redshift is taken by $`z3`$, which is about a half way to the LSS. This choice may not seem to be enough for studying the weak lensing effects on the CMB. However, most of the contributions to the CMB lensing come from structures at $`z<3`$. To take an example shown by Suginohara et al. (1998), in the COBE normalized SCDM model, the structures within $`z<3`$ contribute 85% to the variance of the lensing angular excursion from the LSS (see Figure 1b of their paper). The remaining 15% will not significantly alter the basic properties of weak lensing of the CMB, and therefore we can, at least, study its essential features. It should be, however, noticed that this 15% is surely the most interesting for probing the early stage of the large-scale structure formation with weak lensing of the CMB.

The outline of this paper is as follows. Our models and method of the ray-tracing simulation are described in §2. In §3, we show the numerical resolution of our simulation and discuss its limitation. Using results of the ray-tracing simulations, we examine statistical properties of the lensing excursion angles in §4. We conclude in §5.

Throughout this paper, we work in the comoving coordinates system. The cosmological parameters are denoted with usual notations; Hubble constant, $`H_0=100h`$km/s/Mpc; the density parameter, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}`$; the cosmological constant, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$; the variance of the density fluctuation in a sphere of radius $`8h^1`$Mpc, $`\sigma _8^2`$.

## 2 Numerical methods and models

In this section, we describe methods of the $`N`$-body simulation (§2.1) and the ray-tracing simulation (§2.2), and summarize our models.

### 2.1 $`N`$-body simulation and the tiling technique

The $`N`$-body simulation data set were generated with a PM code (see Hamana et al. 2001b for a detail description). Each $`N`$-body experiment involves $`256^2\times 512`$ particles in a periodic rectangular box of size $`(L,L,2L)`$. The mesh used to compute the forces was $`256^2\times 512`$. The initial conditions are generated adopting the transfer function of Bond & Efstathiou (1984) with the shape parameter $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}h`$. We adopt three cosmological models; two flat models with and without the cosmological constant and one open model. The amplitude of the power spectrum is normalized by the cluster abundance (Eke, Cole & Frenk 1996; Kitayama & Suto 1997). In Table 1, cosmological parameters in each model are summarized.

A light-cone of the particles was extracted from each simulation during the run as explained in Hamana, Colombi & Suto (2001a). Our aim was that the light-cone covers a large redshift range, $`0z3`$, and a field of view of $`5\times 5`$ square degrees with a wide angular dynamic range. To do that, we adopted the tiling technique first proposed by White & Hu (2000). We performed $`N_{\mathrm{box}}=11`$, 12 and 13 independent simulations for SCDM, OCDM and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM, respectively, covering adjacent redshift intervals $`[z_i^{\mathrm{min}},z_i^{\mathrm{max}}]`$, $`i=1,\mathrm{},N_{\mathrm{box}}`$. The size of each simulation is chosen such that the portion of the light-cone in $`[z_i^{\mathrm{min}},z_i^{\mathrm{max}}]`$ (aligned with the third axis) fits the box-size as shown in Figure 1. This way, angular resolution is approximately conserved as a function of redshift, except close to the observer (to be discussed in §3). Finally, in order to keep large scale modes that may contribute to the weak lensing, we impose the supplementary constraint $`L80h^1`$Mpc. As a result, $`L`$ follows the sequence with redshift summarized in Table 2.

### 2.2 Ray-tracing simulation

Let us first summarize basic equations of the multiple lens-plane algorithm which are directly relevant to this paper (see e.g. Schneider, Ehlers & Falco 1992 and Jain, Seljak & White 2000 for details). We shall denote the comoving Cartesian coordinate system as $`(x_1,x_2,y)`$ with $`y`$ being the third axis and the origin being at the observer point. Since the field of view we consider is small ($`5\times 5`$ square degrees), the radial comoving distance (we shall denote it by $`\chi `$) can be approximated to $`y`$. In the standard multiple-lens plane algorithm, the distance between source and observer is divided into $`N`$ intervals separated by comoving distance $`\mathrm{\Delta }y`$. The matter content in each interval is projected onto lens planes perpendicular to $`y`$-axis. The projected density contrast of $`i`$-th plane is defined by,

$`\delta _i^{\mathrm{proj}}(x_1,x_2)={\displaystyle _{y_{i1}}^{y_i}}𝑑y\delta (x_1,x_2,y),`$ (1)
where $`\delta =\rho /\overline{\rho }1`$, $`y_i`$ denotes $`y`$-position of $`i`$-th lens plane. The two-dimensional deflection potential of $`i`$-th lens plane is related to the projected density contrast via the two-dimensional Poisson equation by

$`^2\mathrm{\Psi }^i(x_1,x_2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{8\pi G\overline{\rho }}{3c^2}}\delta _i^{\mathrm{proj}}(x_1,x_2)`$ (2)
$`=`$ $`3\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}\left({\displaystyle \frac{H_0}{c}}\right)^2\delta _i^{\mathrm{proj}}(x_1,x_2)`$
The light ray position on $`n`$-th lens plane of a ray with image positions $`𝜽^1`$ are computed using the multiple lens-plane equation,

$`𝜽^n=𝜽^1{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{n1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{f(\chi _n\chi _i)}{a(\chi _i)f(\chi _n)}}_{}\mathrm{\Psi }^i,`$ (3)
where $`f(\chi )`$ denotes the comoving angular diameter distance, defined as $`f(\chi )=K^{1/2}\mathrm{sin}K^{1/2}\chi `$, $`\chi `$, $`(K)^{1/2}\mathrm{sinh}(K)^{1/2}\chi `$ for $`K>0`$, $`K=0`$, $`K<0`$, respectively, where $`K`$ is the curvature which can be expressed as $`K=(H_0/c)^2(\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{m}+\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda 1)`$, and $`\mathbf{}_{}`$ denotes either $`/x_1`$ or $`/x_2`$. Note that the spatial position $`𝒙^i`$ on $`i`$-th plane is related to the angular position by $`𝒙^i=f(\chi _i)𝜽^i`$. The evolution equation of the Jacobian matrix, which describes deformation of an infinitesimal light ray bundle, is written by

$`𝑨_n=𝑰{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{n1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{f(\chi _i)f(\chi _n\chi _i)}{a(\chi _i)f(\chi _n)}}𝑼_i𝑨_i,`$ (4)
where $`𝑰`$ denotes the identity matrix, and $`𝑼_i`$ is the, so-called, optical tidal matrix defined by

$`𝑼_i=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{\Psi }_{,11}^i& \mathrm{\Psi }_{,12}^i\\ \mathrm{\Psi }_{,21}^i& \mathrm{\Psi }_{,22}^i\end{array}\right),`$ (7)
with commas denoting the differentiation with respect to $`𝒙`$. It should be noticed that the first and second derivatives of $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ in equations (3) and (4) must be evaluated at ray positions computed by the lens equation (3). The Jacobian matrix is usually decomposed into,

$`𝑨=\left(\begin{array}{cc}1\kappa \gamma _1& \gamma _2\omega \\ \gamma _2+\omega & 1\kappa +\gamma _1\end{array}\right),`$ (10)
where $`\kappa `$ represents convergence, $`|\gamma |=(\gamma _1^2+\gamma _2^2)^{1/2}`$ is the amplitude of shear of light ray bundle, and $`\omega `$ is a net rotation of the beam.

We adopt a fixed interval between lens planes by $`\mathrm{\Delta }y=80h^1`$Mpc (for this choice, the long side length of simulation boxes are chosen so that they are multiples of $`80h^1`$Mpc). The procedure to trace light rays through $`N`$-body data with the multiple lens-plane algorithm can be described as follows: (i) computing the projected density contrast, $`\delta _i^{\mathrm{proj}}`$ from particle distribution in $`N`$-body data. (ii) computing the two-dimensional deflection potential, $`\mathrm{\Psi }^i`$ via Poisson equation (2) and evaluating the first and second derivatives of it. (iii) evaluating the distance combination for each lens plane and performing the summation in equations (3) and (4). In the rest of this section, we describe each step in some detail.

(i) A simulation particle located at $`y`$-coordinate between $`y_{i1}`$ and $`y_i`$ is projected onto the $`i`$-th lens plane at $`y_i`$. This projection is done in parallel to the third axis, and thus the particle’s $`(x_1,x_2)`$ positions are not changed. Since the $`N`$-body data is periodic in $`𝒙`$ directions333$`N`$-body simulation data is not periodic in $`y`$ direction, because we used the light-cone output., the projected particle distributions are also periodic. The projected density field is computed on a $`512^2`$ square lattice from the projected particle distribution, using the triangular shaped cloud (TSC) assignment scheme (Hockney & Eastwood, 1988). In this step, the most important point is the choice of both the smoothing scheme and the grid size. Our main consideration when choosing them was to maintain the resolution provided by the $`N`$-body simulation and at the same time to remove shot noise due to discreteness in $`N`$-body simulations by a relevant smoothing. We tested the smoothing scale by varying the size of grids, $`256^2`$, $`512^2`$ and $`1024^2`$. In the case of $`1024^2`$ lattice, we found a white-noise contribution to the power spectrum of the lensing convergence at small scales, which is a typical signature of the discreteness effect (Jain et al. 2000). However, the discreteness effect was smoothed sufficiently well in both $`256^2`$ and $`512^2`$ lattice cases, so the white-noise contribution was not detected for those cases. On the other hand, we also found that the small scale power was damped significantly for the $`256^2`$ case, which indicates too much smoothing. We also tested another smoothing scheme, cloud-in-cell (Hockney & Eastwood, 1988), with the same three grid sizes. In these cases, we found a non-negligible white-noise contribution. We, therefore, decided to adopt TSC with $`512^2`$ lattice.

(ii) Poisson equation (2) is solved to compute $`\mathrm{\Psi }^i`$ using the fast Fourier transform method with the periodic boundary condition. The first and second derivatives of $`\mathrm{\Psi }^i`$ are evaluated on the lattice points using the usual finite difference method (see Appendix A of Premadi, Martel & Matzner 1998 for explicit expressions).

(iii) $`512^2`$ rays are traced backward from the observer point. The initial ray directions are set on $`512^2`$ grids, which correspond to pixels of angular size $`5\mathrm{°}/5120.59`$ arcmin. For each ray, we first computed ray positions on all lens planes in an iterative manner, using the lens equation (3). The first and second derivatives of $`\mathrm{\Psi }^i`$ on a ray position are linearly interpolated from four nearest grids on which they were pre-computed (step (ii)). Finally, the summation in equation (4) is performed. The light ray positions and four components of the Jacobian matrix on desired source planes are stored. Exact values of the source redshifts used in this paper are summarized in Table 3.

We performed 40 realizations of the underlying density field for each cosmological model by random shifts of the simulation boxes in the $`(x_1,x_2)`$ directions using periodic boundary condition. Note that lens planes coming from the same box are shifted in the same way to maintain the clustering of matter in the box. It is important to note that the 40 realizations are not rigorously independent because they come from the same set of the simulation boxes. It is expected that the cosmic variance can not be correctly included because of this lack of independence, but this does not change our results because on angular scales of our interest (below 100 arcmin) it is very small.

## 3 Numerical resolution

The angular resolution of the ray-tracing simulation is basically limited by the spatial resolution of the $`N`$-body simulations. Since we used PM $`N`$-body code, the spatial resolution is simply $`r_{\mathrm{res}}L/256`$. This can be converted into the angular scale using the angular diameter distance relation, $`r_{\mathrm{res}}=f(\chi )\theta _{\mathrm{res}}`$. The bottom panel of Figure 2 shows such angular scales computed for three cosmological models. Thanks to the tiling technique, $`\theta _{\mathrm{res}}`$ is almost constant ($`\theta _{\mathrm{res}}1.5`$) at redshifts higher than 0.2. It increases as $`\theta _{\mathrm{res}}\chi ^1`$ at $`z0.2`$, because of the constraint on the minimum box size. The impact of this worse resolution on a measurement depends on the quantity one wants to examine. Roughly speaking, quantities which come from solving the lens equation (3) are more influenced by the worse resolution than ones related to the Jacobian matrix obtained via equation (4).

The lensing excursion angle plays a crucial role on studies of the weak lensing effects on the CMB and is defined by the difference in deflection angles between nearby two light rays. Each light ray trajectory is computed by the lens equation. As the expression, eq. (3), indicated, the distance combination $`f(\chi _n\chi _i)/f(\chi _n)`$ acts as a weight function. The top panel of Figure 2 shows this distance combination as a function of the lens redshift for two cases, $`z_s=1`$ and 3, and clearly indicates that lensing deflections due to structures at low redshifts are more weighted than those by high redshift structures. It can be, therefore, expected that the worse angular resolution at low redshifts has a significant impact on the effective accuracy of the light ray trajectory. In order to check it, we compute the variance in the lensing excursion angles of the two nearby light rays which would be observed with a separation $`\theta `$ if there was no lensing. The deflection angle of a light ray is simply the difference between its angular position in the first lens plane and that in the source plane, i.e., $`𝜶=𝜽^1𝜽^n`$. The lensing excursion angle between nearby rays $`A`$ and $`B`$ is simply $`\delta 𝜶=𝜶^A𝜶^B`$, and their intrinsic separation is $`\theta =|𝜽^{n,A}𝜽^{n,B}|`$. In Figure 3, the results are plotted together with the semi-analytic predictions by the power spectrum approach (Seljak 1994; 1996). The measurements agrees very well with the nonlinear semi-analytic prediction at scales larger than 10 arcmin. Below that scale, the measurements are depressed reflecting the effective resolution limit. We may, therefore, conclude that the angular range, where our analysis related to the lensing excursion angle is reliable, is between 10 arcmin and 2 degree.

Although we are not dealing with statistics of the lensing convergence in this paper, it is instructive to compare the effective resolution of the lensing convergence with that of the lensing excursion angle. The lensing convergence is computed by solving the evolution equation of the Jacobian matrix, eq. (4). The distance combination appearing in this equation is $`f(\chi _i)f(\chi _n\chi _i)/f(\chi _n)`$, and is shown in the middle panel in Figure 2. This distance combination has a peak at intermediate redshift depending on the source redshift. Therefore, the worse resolution at low redshift lens planes has only small impact on the effective resolution of lensing signals, $`\kappa `$ and $`\gamma `$, except for cases of very low source redshifts ($`z_s0.5`$). Figure 4 shows that the two-point correlation function of the lensing convergence defined by $`C_\kappa (\theta )=\kappa (\varphi )\kappa (\varphi +\theta )`$ compared with the semi-analytic prediction (Bartelmann & Schneider 2001). The measurements agree well with the predictions down to about 2 arcmin. Therefore, the effective resolution of the lensing convergence is found to be much better than that of the lensing excursion angle.

## 4 Statistical properties of lensing lensing excursion angles

Figure 5 shows the probability distribution function (PDF) of the lensing excursion angles normalized by its intrinsic separation. Since the vector field $`𝜹𝜶(\mathit{\varphi })`$ has no special direction, we take both two components, $`\delta \alpha _1`$ and $`\delta \alpha _2`$, to compute the PDFs. It is clearly shown in Figure 5 that the PDFs consist of two contributions: A Gaussian distribution at inner part, and the exponential tail at the outer part. The inner part of the PDFs are fitted reasonably well by a Gaussian distribution with the $`\sigma `$ computed from the PDFs (root-mean-square computed from the PDFs was used for $`\sigma `$). We should here noticed that the measured standard deviation agrees very well with the semi-analytical prediction as shown in Figure 3.

The fact that the PDFs consist of two contributions suggests that there are two different processes that make the lensing excursion angle. One, which makes Gaussian distribution, might be secular small (random) deflections due to linear density fluctuations along each light ray path. This is explained by the fact that the lensing deflection angles, which are due to Gaussian random fluctuations (such as the linearly evolved density fluctuation field), are Gaussian random field. As the light ray travels longer distance, the ray can undergo more fluctuations. Therefore the width of Gaussian distribution increases as the source redshift becomes higher. The other, which makes the exponential tail, might be a single (or possibly multiple) coherent scatter by a nonlinear structure such as a galaxy or a cluster of galaxies444Computations of a lensing optical depth of strong lensing events by a galaxy or a clusters of galaxies as well as a small probability of finding multiple imaged QSOs in a QSO catalog tell us that light rays which undergo strong lensing more than twice times are very rare (e.g., Chiba & Futamase 1999; Hattori, Kneib & Makino 1999, Hamana, Martel & Futamase 2000).. As the separation of a light ray pair decreases, smaller scale, strongly nonlinear structures can contribute to a coherent scatter. Therefore the exponential tail becomes more prominent for a small separation case than a larger one as shown in Figure 5.

Does the exponential tail make a significant influence on studies of weak lensing effects on the CMB ? As far as the weak lensing effects on the CMB power spectrum concerned, it has no effect, because the crucial assumption that the lensing excursion angle is (in a statistical sense) much smaller than the intrinsic separation is true even in the presence of the exponential tail. This can not be directly demonstrated by our simulations as the light rays are not followed up to LSS, but can be proved by the semi-analytic prediction which tells that the root-mean-square of the lensing excursion angle is much smaller than the intrinsic separation angle. The validity of the semi-analytic prediction was supported by our numerical simulation (Figure 3).

Figure 6 shows the Kurtosis of the PDF of $`\delta \alpha `$ defined by $`\delta \alpha ^4/\delta \alpha ^2^23`$. The Kurtosis decreases as the source redshift becomes higher. On scales larger than 10 arcmin (below that, the lensing effects on the CMB will be hardly detected) the Kurtosis less than unity at $`z_s=3`$, and thus, at the LSS, it must be smaller than that. It can be, therefore, said that the exponential tail or, more generally, the non-Gaussian nature in the PDF is very unlikely to have a significant effect on the weak lensing of the CMB.

## 5 Summary

We performed ray-tracing simulation combined with sets of large $`N`$-body simulations. The use of the tiling technique enable us to explore a wide angular dynamic range with the efficient PM $`N`$-body code. The angular resolution is limited by the spatial resolution that $`N`$-body simulations have. Since the minimum box size is constrained to keep large scale modes that may contribute to the weak lensing, the angular resolution of the low redshift boxes becomes worse. We found that the tiling technique particularly suits for study of the cosmic shear statistics, because the worse angular resolution does not make a serious impact on an effective angular resolution of the lensing convergence and shear. On the other hand, this worse resolution make a stronger effect on the effective resolution of the lensing excursion angles. One possible solution to improve the resolution is to use a higher resolution simulation such like P3M code for a few lowest redshift boxes.

We have numerically examined statistical properties of the lensing excursion angles. We found that the variance in the lensing excursion angles predicted by the power spectrum approach is in good agreement with our numerical results. We found that the PDF of the lensing excursion angles is not simply Gaussian but has an exponential tail. However, it can be safely concluded that the exponential tail, or more generally non-Gaussian nature in the PDF has no significant effects on the weak lensing of the CMB. These results demonstrate a validity of using the power spectrum approach to compute lensing effects on the CMB. Furthermore our results support the validity of a simple numerical simulation method to obtain a lensed CMB map in which both the lensing displace filed and the CMB temperature map are generated assuming the Gaussian statistics and the lensed CMB map is obtained by a mapping (e.g., Takada & Futamase 2001).

## Acknowledgments

We acknowledge that the $`N`$-body simulations in this work were performed by S. Colombi, we thank him for his collaboration and for useful comments. We would like to thank M. Takada for fruitful discussions and an anonymous referee for a detailed report that have contributed to improvement of the manuscript. This research was supported in part by the Direction de la Recherche du Ministère Français de la Recherche. The computational means (CRAY-98) to do the $`N`$-body simulations were made available to us thanks to the scientific council of the Institut du Développement et des Ressources en Informatique Scientifique (IDRIS). Numerical computation in this work was partly carried out at IAP at the TERAPIX data center and on MAGIQUE (SGI-02K).


text:
# Renormalon Analysis of Heavy-Light Exclusive 𝐵 Decays

## I Introduction

The weak decays of $`B`$ mesons into hadronic final states are important for an understanding of the CKM sector of the standard model, and particularly for the study of CP violation. These decays involve a mixture of calculable weak physics, perturbative QCD, and nonperturbative QCD. It is the latter component which contains the bulk of the theoretical difficulty, and it is primarily contained in the evaluation of low energy matrix elements of quark operators.

A common assumption used to simplify the nonperturbative component of hadronic decays is factorization, which specifies that the hadronic matrix element of a four-quark operator be factored into two matrix elements of simple currents. For example,

$$\pi ^{}D^+|(\overline{c}b)_{VA}(\overline{d}u)_{VA}|\overline{B}\pi ^{}|(\overline{d}u)_{VA}|0D^+|(\overline{c}b)_{VA}|\overline{B}.$$
(1)
This prescription (which, following the authors of , we refer to as ‘naive factorization’) considerably simplifies matters because the factored structures on the right hand side may be parameterized in terms of decay constants and form factors. It amounts, however, to ignoring corrections which connect the $`(\pi ^{})`$ to the $`(\overline{B}D^+)`$ system. Since these corrections are responsible for final-state rescattering and strong interaction phase shifts, leaving them out ignores important physics. Also, the left hand side of (1) is renormalization scale dependent, while the right-hand side is not — a clear indication that relevant physics is being lost.

Recently it was argued that, for certain $`B`$ decays to heavy-light final states $`\overline{B}HL`$, the strong interactions which break factorization are hard in the heavy quark limit , and can therefore be calculated perturbatively. This proposal has been explicitly verified to two-loop order . This idea allows one to include perturbative corrections missing in (1) without introducing any new nonperturbative parameters. It thus provides a remarkably attractive means to study rescattering and strong phases in two-body hadronic decays. A generalization of this idea has also been proposed for decays to two light mesons , but in this article we will restrict our attention to final states with one heavy meson $`(D,D^{})`$ and one light meson $`(\pi ,\rho )`$.

A potential problem with this proposal is that it is valid only in the strict heavy quark limit ***Following the authors of , we assume that the physical $`b`$ quark mass is not so large that Sudakov form factors modify the power counting.. It receives power corrections of the form $`(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}/m_b)^n`$ from a variety of sources: examples are hard spectator interactions, non-factorizable soft and collinear gluon exchange, and transverse momenta of quarks in the light meson. Unlike power corrections in inclusive $`B`$ decays, there is as yet no systematic way to compute these corrections for exclusive decays. By naive power counting one expects such corrections at $`𝒪(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}/m_b)`$, but situations are known where the naively expected corrections vanish. For instance, in the zero recoil $`BD`$ transition matrix element in Heavy Quark Effective Theory the leading $`1/m_b`$ corrections vanish . Therefore rather than relying on the naive expectation, one would like to calculate the power corrections directly.

In the absence of a general theory of power corrections, we aim to determine at least the order at which power corrections enter. This may be done by carrying out a renormalon analysis, which involves calculating a subset of Feynman graphs at each order in perturbation theory. It exploits the fact that the perturbative series in quantum field theory is asymptotic, and permits one to extract from the large-order behavior of the theory information about the scaling behavior of nonperturbative power corrections. In this paper, we use renormalons to assess the parametric size of a subset of power corrections to the separation (1) for the class of $`\overline{B}HL`$ decays discussed in .

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: in Section II we review the theoretical framework of renormalon analyses. In Section III we discuss the phenomenological context and motivation of our study. In Section IV we describe the renormalon calculation and give the result. Section V contains our conclusions.

## II Renormalons

A typical amplitude in QCD perturbation theory may be expressed in the general form

$$R(\alpha _s)=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}R_n\alpha _s^{n+1}.$$
(2)
Normally one only calculates a few terms in this series. However, one may ask about the general behavior of this series at large orders in perturbation theory. It has been argued  that quantum field theories of phenomenological interest have large order coefficients of the form

$$R_n\stackrel{n\mathrm{}}{}a^nn!n^b$$
(3)
for some constants $`a`$ and $`b`$. Clearly, such a series is factorially divergent. It might appear that, as a result, a sum for the series cannot be defined. However, one may define the Borel sum $`\stackrel{~}{R}`$ in the following way. Perform a Borel transformation on the series:

$$R(\alpha _s)=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}R_n\alpha _s^{n+1}B[R](t)=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{R_n}{n!}t^n.$$
(4)
This series in terms of the Borel parameter $`t`$ is convergent and may be explicitly summed. One may then perform an inverse Borel transformation to obtain the Borel sum

$$\stackrel{~}{R}=_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑te^{t/\alpha _s}B[R](t).$$
(5)
The original series $`R`$ and the Borel sum $`\stackrel{~}{R}`$ have the same series expansion.

In some cases, the transformed series $`B[R](t)`$ has poles along the positive real axis . When these poles are encountered in the inverse Borel transformation (5), one is forced to deform the integration contour either above or below the real axis. Nothing specifies which choice to make, yet the result of the integration depends on the choice. As a result, the Borel sum acquires an ambiguity. For a simple pole located at $`t_0>0`$, the ambiguity is

$`\delta \stackrel{~}{R}`$ $``$ $`e^{t_0/\alpha _s(\mu )}`$ (6)
$``$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}}{\mu }}\right)^{2\beta _0t_0}=\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}}{\mu }}\right)^{2u_0}`$ (7)
where we have defined $`u_0=\beta _0t_0>0`$. The ambiguity has the form of a nonperturbative power correction. For physical quantities, which cannot be ambiguous, there must be present power corrections to remove this ambiguity. Note that for $`\mu >\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}`$ it is the pole nearest the origin which gives the leading power correction. This simple sketch illustrates how the large-order perturbative behavior of the theory reveals something about the nonperturbative sector of the theory .

In general, this approach only permits one to determine the order of the power corrections and not their coefficients or analytic form. Furthermore, while a pole at $`u_0`$ in the Borel plane definitely indicates the presence of power corrections $`(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}/m_b)^{2u_0}`$, the absence of a pole does not necessarily imply the absence of power corrections of that order. The absence of a pole is, rather, suggestive that power corrections of the corresponding order are absent . The renormalon technique has been applied in a variety of contexts where a general theory of power corrections has not been available . In Section IV we study power corrections to factorization in this way.

In practice one cannot sum the entire perturbative series (2) to obtain an exact expression for the Borel transformed amplitude (4). Instead, one sums a subset of the Feynman diagrams at each order, implicitly taking the resulting analytic structure to be characteristic of the full result. Typically, all-orders contributions are obtained by inserting into graphs ‘bubble chain’ propagators of the kind shown in Figure 1. One may take the formal limit $`N_f\mathrm{}`$ with $`\alpha _sN_f`$ fixed, in which case the set of graphs with a single ‘bubble chain’ insertion are dominant . This ‘bubble chain’ propagator, which we denote by a dashed gluon line, has the form

$$D_{\mu \nu }(k)=\frac{i}{k^2}\left(g_{\mu \nu }+\frac{k_\mu k_\nu }{k^2}\right)\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}(\beta _0N_f\alpha _s)^n(\mathrm{ln}(k^2/\mu ^2)+C)^n.$$
(8)
The factors in the sum arise from the fermion loops depicted in Figure 1. These loops have been renormalized in an MS-like scheme, and $`C`$ is a scheme dependent constant. In the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ scheme, $`C=5/3`$. We discuss renormalization of amplitudes containing the renormalon propagator in more detail in Section IV. The Borel transform of this propagator with respect to $`\alpha _sN_f`$ is

$`B[D_{\mu \nu }(k)](u)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\alpha _sN_f}}{\displaystyle \frac{i}{k^2}}\left(g_{\mu \nu }+{\displaystyle \frac{k_\mu k_\nu }{k^2}}\right){\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{(u)^n}{n!}}(\mathrm{ln}(k^2/\mu ^2)+C)^n`$ (9)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\alpha _sN_f}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu ^2}{e^C}}\right)^u{\displaystyle \frac{i}{(k^2)^{2+u}}}(k_\mu k_\nu k^2g_{\mu \nu }).`$ (10)
The limit $`u0`$ of this expression, equivalent to retaining only the first term in the expansion depicted in Figure 1, reduces to the usual gluon propagator as expected. For Feynman graphs in which the $`\alpha _s`$ dependence arises only from gluon exchange, the Borel transformed graph is obtained by replacing the gluon propagator by this renormalon propagator.

## III Factorization and Two-Body Hadronic $`B`$ Decays

We work in an effective theory where the weak bosons and top quark have been integrated out. The relevant part of the effective Hamiltonian, valid below $`M_W`$, is

$$_{eff}=\frac{G_F}{\sqrt{2}}V_{ud}^{}V_{cb}(C_1𝒪_1+C_8𝒪_8)$$
(11)
where the singlet and octet operators are, respectively,

$`𝒪_1`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{c}\gamma _\mu (1\gamma _5)b\overline{d}\gamma ^\mu (1\gamma _5)u,`$ (12)
$`𝒪_8`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{c}\gamma _\mu (1\gamma _5)T^ab\overline{d}\gamma ^\mu (1\gamma _5)T^au.`$ (13)
The running of the Wilson coefficients $`C_i`$ has been calculated at next-to-leading order .

The computation of any Feynman amplitude in this theory involves evaluating matrix elements of the operators $`𝒪_{1,8}`$. In general such matrix elements contain both hard and soft physics. One would like to disentangle these energy scales; the hard physics could be calculated directly and the soft physics parameterized by form factors and decay constants. Though it is not obvious that the physics can be disentangled in this way, it has been argued  that in certain situations it is possible to do so.

More specifically, consider a decay of the form $`\overline{B}HL`$, where $`H`$ is a heavy meson $`(H=D,D^{})`$ and $`L`$ is a light meson $`(L=\pi ,\rho )`$. We require that the topology of the decay be such that the light quark in the initial state is transferred to the heavy final state meson. In this case, and in the heavy quark limit, it is argued that ‘non-factorizable’ corrections are perturbative and may be calculated. These statements are summarized in the factorization equation

$$HL|𝒪_i|\overline{B}=F^{\overline{B}H}(m_L^2)f_L_0^1𝑑xT_i^I(x)\mathrm{\Phi }_L(x)+\mathrm{}$$
(14)
where the ellipsis denotes contributions suppressed by powers of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}/m_b`$. In this expression, the $`B`$ decay form factor $`F^{\overline{B}H}`$ and the light meson decay constant $`f_L`$ are the nonperturbative parameters present in the case of naive factorization (1). The ‘non-factorizable’ physics is contained in the convolution of the perturbatively calculable hard-scattering kernel $`T_i^I(x)`$ with the light-cone momentum distribution of the leading Fock state (quark-antiquark) of the light meson $`\mathrm{\Phi }_L(x)`$. The parameter $`x`$ is the momentum fraction of one of the quarks inside the light meson.

To leading order in $`\alpha _s`$, one finds

$$T_1^I(x)=1+𝒪(\alpha _s^2),T_8^I(x)=0+𝒪(\alpha _s).$$
(15)
Given that the light meson distribution function $`\mathrm{\Phi }_L(x)`$ is normalized to unity, naive factorization (1) is restored as the leading term in a perturbative expansion.

There are other decay topologies (penguin, annihilation) for which certain assumptions leading to (14) are invalid. However, detailed arguments show that these topologies are suppressed by powers of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}/m_b`$, and are therefore irrelevant in the heavy quark limit .

In the next section, we present the renormalon analysis of the ‘non-factorizable’ corrections. This will involve studying the large-order perturbative properties of (15) as a means of determining the order at which power corrections enter the factorization equation (14).

## IV The calculation

For a particular heavy final state $`H`$ $`(D,D^{})`$ and light final state $`L`$ $`(\pi ,\rho )`$ we must calculate the matrix elements

$$𝒪_{1,8}H(p^{})L(q)|𝒪_{1,8}|\overline{B}(p).$$
(16)
The matrix element for the singlet operator is the simplest, so we consider it first. At leading order in $`\alpha _s`$ the operator factorizes cleanly into a product of currents. The leading factorization-breaking QCD corrections are shown in Figure 2. In order to create a color singlet structure from the resulting graph, one would have to consider the light meson to be in a Fock state higher than $`(q^{}\overline{q})`$; this situation, however, is power suppressed by $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}/m_b`$ . Alternatively, one could retain the leading Fock state and consider the exchange of two gluons rather than just one; this situation is suppressed by $`\alpha _s`$ relative to the graphs in Figure 2. In our calculation, then, the singlet matrix element is simply

$`𝒪_1`$ $`=`$ $`L(q)|\overline{d}\gamma ^\mu (1\gamma _5)u|0H(p^{})|\overline{c}\gamma _\mu (1\gamma _5)b|\overline{B}(p)`$ (17)
$`=`$ $`if_L\left(J_VJ_A\right)`$ (18)
where we define two matrix elements $`J_V=H(p^{})|\overline{c}\gamma _\mu q^\mu b|\overline{B}(p)`$ and $`J_A=H(p^{})|\overline{c}\gamma _\mu q^\mu \gamma _5b|\overline{B}(p)`$.

The octet matrix element $`𝒪_8`$ has a richer structure. It vanishes at leading order, but the color structures of the graphs shown in Figure 2 are such that $`𝒪_8`$ receives perturbative corrections at all higher orders. Let us denote the individual amplitudes of the diagrams in Figure 2 as $`𝒜_i`$, and the corresponding Borel transformed amplitudes as $`B[𝒜_i]`$. Defining $`x`$ to be the momentum fraction carried by the up quark of the light meson, $`\overline{x}=1x`$ to be the momentum fraction of the down quark, and $`z=m_c/m_b`$, the individual Borel transformed amplitudes of the diagrams shown in Figure 2 may be written as

$`B[𝒜_1](u)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{if_LC_F}{2N_c}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu ^2}{e^Cm_b^2}}\right)^u\left(F_1(x,z,u)J_VF_1(x,z,u)J_A\right)`$ (19)
$`B[𝒜_2](u)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{if_LC_F}{2N_c}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu ^2}{e^Cm_b^2}}\right)^u\left(F_2(\overline{x},z,u)J_VF_2(\overline{x},z,u)J_V\right)`$ (20)
$`B[𝒜_3](u)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{if_LC_F}{2N_c}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu ^2}{e^Cm_c^2}}\right)^u\left(F_2(x,1/z,u)J_VF_2(x,1/z,u)J_A\right)`$ (21)
$`B[𝒜_4](u)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{if_LC_F}{2N_c}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu ^2}{e^Cm_c^2}}\right)^u\left(F_1(\overline{x},1/z,u)J_VF_1(\overline{x},1/z,u)J_A\right)`$ (22)
where

$`F_1(x,z,u)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(12u)\mathrm{\Gamma }(u1)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(2u)(x(1z^2))^u}}\{{\displaystyle \frac{(12u)(3u1)}{u}}f_1(x,z,u)`$ (23)
$``$ $`[1u2(1{\displaystyle \frac{1}{x(1z^2)}})]f_2(x,z,u)\}`$ (24)
and

$`F_2(x,z,u)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(22u)\mathrm{\Gamma }(u1)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(3u)(x(1z^2))^u}}\{[{\displaystyle \frac{2u+u^2}{u}}+{\displaystyle \frac{2uz}{1x(1z^2)}}]f_1(x,z,u)`$ (25)
$`+`$ $`[{\displaystyle \frac{2u}{12u}}({\displaystyle \frac{2}{x(1z^2)}}(1+u)){\displaystyle \frac{2uz}{1x(1z^2)}}]f_2(x,z,u)\}.`$ (26)
We have written our result in terms of the hypergeometric functions

$`f_1(x,z,u)`$ $``$ $`{}_{2}{}^{}F_{1}^{}(1u,u;2u;1{\displaystyle \frac{1}{x(1z^2)}})`$ (27)
$`f_2(x,z,u)`$ $``$ $`{}_{2}{}^{}F_{1}^{}(1u,1+u;2u;1{\displaystyle \frac{1}{x(1z^2)}}).`$ (28)
We have evaluated each of these graphs in $`d=4`$ dimensions, as the divergences which would normally be present are regulated by the Borel parameter $`u`$ in the renormalon propagator (9). In the limit $`u0`$, however, each of the $`B[𝒜_i](u)`$ contain both infrared and ultraviolet divergences. It was a central result of  to show that in the heavy quark limit the sum

$$B_0[𝒜](u)=\underset{i=1}{\overset{4}{}}B[𝒜_i](u)$$
(29)
is infrared finite for amplitudes of the type we are considering. This cancellation may be seen explicitly from our amplitudes (22): in the vicinity $`u0`$ we have

$`B[𝒜_1](u)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{if_LC_F}{2N_c}}J_{VA}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{u^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{u}}\left(2\mathrm{log}x(1z^2)C+\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{\mu ^2}{m_b^2}}2\right)\right]+\mathrm{}`$ (30)
$`B[𝒜_2](u)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{if_LC_F}{2N_c}}J_{VA}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{u^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{u}}\left(2\mathrm{log}\overline{x}(1z^2)+C\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{\mu ^2}{m_b^2}}1\right)\right]+\mathrm{}`$ (31)
$`B[𝒜_3](u)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{if_LC_F}{2N_c}}J_{VA}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{u^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{u}}\left(2\mathrm{log}x(11/z^2)+C\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{\mu ^2}{m_c^2}}1\right)\right]+\mathrm{}`$ (32)
$`B[𝒜_4](u)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{if_LC_F}{2N_c}}J_{VA}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{u^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{u}}\left(2\mathrm{log}\overline{x}(11/z^2)C+\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{\mu ^2}{m_c^2}}2\right)\right]+\mathrm{}`$ (33)
where the ellipses denote terms finite as $`u0`$, and we introduce the shorthand $`J_{VA}=J_VJ_A`$. The collinear divergences cancel in pairs among the even and odd numbered amplitudes, while the remaining soft divergences cancel in the manner prescribed by Bjorken’s color transparency argument .

For the sum of the four amplitudes we find

$$B_0[𝒜](u0)=\frac{if_LC_F}{2N_c}J_{VA}\frac{6}{u}+\text{finite}.$$
(34)
This remaining divergence is ultraviolet in origin, and may be renormalized in a manner consistent with MS-like subtraction schemes. To this end, we follow the prescription of  by defining a renormalized amplitude

$$B[𝒜](u)=B_0[𝒜](u)+S_𝒜(u)$$
(35)
where $`S_𝒜(u)`$ contains a divergence which cancels that in $`B_0[𝒜](u)`$ at the origin but is finite elsewhere. This regulating function may be written as

$$S_𝒜(u)=\frac{1}{u}\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{g_n}{n!}u^n$$
(36)
where the coefficients $`g_n`$ are the expansion coefficients of another function $`G(ϵ)=_{n=0}g_nϵ^n`$ related to the amplitudes computed in $`d=42ϵ`$ dimensions. We refer the reader to the relevant literature for an explanation of this method . For the sum of amplitudes $`𝒜`$ we find

$`G(ϵ)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{if_LC_F}{2N_c}}{\displaystyle \frac{2(1+ϵ)(1+2ϵ)(3+2ϵ)\mathrm{\Gamma }(4+2ϵ)}{3\mathrm{\Gamma }(1ϵ)\mathrm{\Gamma }^2(2+ϵ)\mathrm{\Gamma }(3+ϵ)}}J_{VA}`$ (37)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{if_LC_F}{2N_c}}J_{VA}(6+23ϵ+{\displaystyle \frac{127}{6}}ϵ^2+\mathrm{}).`$ (38)
The first term in this expansion cancels the ultraviolet divergence remaining in (34); $`B[𝒜](u)`$ is infrared and ultraviolet finite.

In this notation, the Borel transform of the factorization equation (14) is

$$B[𝒪_8](u)=_0^1𝑑xB[𝒜](u)\mathrm{\Phi }_L(x).$$
(39)
Comparing to (14), we see that $`B[𝒜](u)`$ is proportional to the Borel transform of the hard scattering kernel $`T_8^I(x)`$.

### A Borel poles and power corrections

Recall from (7) that it is the pole nearest the origin on the positive real axis in the Borel plane which indicates the leading power correction. A pole at the origin would indicate an $`𝒪(1)`$ correction, but the renormalization procedure outlined in the previous section ensures that no such pole is present. We find that the first pole is located at $`u=1/2`$, corresponding to a power correction of $`𝒪(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}/m_b)`$. This is not a very surprising result, as power corrections of this order are known to be present from a variety of sources . However, in the vicinity of this pole the Borel transformed amplitude has the form

$$B[𝒪_8](u1/2)\frac{1}{u1/2}_0^1𝑑x\mathrm{\Phi }_L(x)\frac{(x\overline{x})}{x\overline{x}}J_{VA}+\mathrm{}$$
(40)
where $`\overline{x}=1x`$, and the ellipsis denotes nonsingular terms.

Before interpreting this result, we must specify the form of the light meson momentum distribution $`\mathrm{\Phi }_L(x)`$. It is customary to write it as

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_L(x)=6x(1x)\left[1+\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\alpha _n^L(\mu )C_n^{3/2}(2x1)\right]$$
(41)
where the Gegenbauer polynomials $`C_n^{3/2}(y)`$ are given by

$$C_n^{3/2}(y)=\frac{1}{n!}\frac{d^n}{dh^n}(12hy+h^2)^{3/2}|_{h=0}.$$
(42)
The distribution function $`\mathrm{\Phi }_L(x)`$ is a nonperturbative object for which the Gegenbauer moments $`\alpha _n^L(\mu )`$ are unspecified. It is known, however, that $`\alpha _n^L(\mu \mathrm{})=0`$ . For $`\mu m_b\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}`$, one may take the distribution function to have the asymptotic form $`\mathrm{\Phi }_L^0(x)=6x(1x)`$ up to power corrections of $`𝒪(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}/m_b)`$. In this case the wavefunction is symmetric under $`x1x`$, and the integration over $`x`$ in (40) vanishes, removing the pole.

More generally, note that the Gegenbauer polynomials $`C_n^{3/2}(2x1)`$ in (41) with $`n`$ even are, like $`\mathrm{\Phi }_L^0(x)`$, even under $`x1x`$, while those with $`n`$ odd are odd under the same replacement. The result of the integration (40) may then be written as

$$B[𝒪_8](u1/2)\frac{6}{u1/2}J_{VA}\left(\alpha _1^L(\mu )+\alpha _3^L(\mu )+\alpha _5^L(\mu )+\mathrm{}\right).$$
(43)
Only the asymmetric terms of $`\mathrm{\Phi }_L(x)`$ contribute to the residue. Thus the renormalon analysis indicates the presence of $`𝒪(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}/m_b)`$ factorization-breaking power corrections only for asymmetric light meson wavefunctions.

For certain final states of interest $`(L=\pi ,\rho )`$, SU(2) symmetry ensures that the wavefunction is symmetric . In these cases the pole at $`u=1/2`$ disappears, and the renormalon analysis gives no indication of factorization-breaking $`𝒪(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}/m_b)`$ corrections, suggesting that such power corrections are likely absent. This result implies that power corrections due to the ‘non-factorizable’ vertex diagrams in Figure 2 should be suppressed in $`\overline{B}D^{()+}\pi ^{}`$ and $`\overline{B}D^{()+}\rho ^{}`$ decays relative to decays into a light meson with an asymmetric distribution function, such as $`\overline{B}D^{()+}K^{}`$.

In assessing this result, one should keep in mind that there are other sources of power corrections to these decays which our analysis does not address. For example, we have not considered soft interactions with the spectator quark, annihilation diagrams, or interactions with sub-leading Fock states involving additional soft partons . Our conclusions about the vanishing $`𝒪(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}/m_b)`$ corrections in the symmetric limit apply only to the class of diagrams we have considered.

The next renormalon pole is located at $`u=1`$, corresponding to an $`𝒪(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}^2/m_b^2)`$ correction, and here there is a nonzero residue even in the case of a symmetric wavefunction $`\mathrm{\Phi }_L(x)`$. Therefore one should expect power corrections of this order for all decay modes.

## V Conclusions

In this paper we have carried out a renormalon analysis of factorization-breaking effects in $`\overline{B}`$ meson decays to certain hadronic heavy-light final states. The renormalon approach, which probes the theory at high orders in perturbation theory, allows us to learn about nonperturbative power corrections. In the low energy effective theory governing the $`\overline{B}`$ decays there are two operators, a color singlet and a color octet. The factorization-breaking corrections to the singlet operator are, however, suppressed by powers of $`\alpha _s`$ or $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}/m_b`$ relative to the octet operator; for this reason we focus our analysis on the octet.

We find that the renormalon analysis of ‘non-factorizable’ corrections to the octet matrix element indicates the presence of power corrections of $`𝒪(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}/m_b)`$. We also find that these leading power corrections are sensitive only to asymmetries in the light meson light-cone parton distribution function. Thus for a symmetric distribution function the leading renormalon pole vanishes, suggesting the absence of $`𝒪(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}/m_b)`$ ‘non-factorizable’ corrections in such cases. The next power corrections are present at $`𝒪(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}^2/m_b^2)`$.

As it is natural to expect the light meson wave function to be symmetric for certain final states $`(L=\pi ,\rho )`$, the potential vanishing of the $`𝒪(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}/m_b)`$ power corrections in the symmetric limit is an interesting result that warrants a few additional comments. First, it should be noted that a particular decay $`\overline{B}HL`$ of the type we have considered in this paper always involves a combination of the singlet and octet operator matrix elements. Our result, however, applies only to the octet matrix element — we are unable to conclude from our analysis whether the leading power corrections to the singlet matrix element vanish in an analogous way.

Second, the power corrections we can probe through the renormalon analysis are physically due to soft and collinear ‘non-factorizable’ gluon exchange, and our comments about suppression of the leading corrections should be understood as referring to these effects only. There are, however, other $`𝒪(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}/m_b)`$ corrections originating from diagrams which were not considered in our analysis. A more detailed examination of these effects would have to be undertaken to accurately assess the size of $`𝒪(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}/m_b)`$ corrections to a physical decay amplitude.

###### Acknowledgements.

We would like to thank Michael Luke for many discussions related to this project, and Christian Bauer and Pierre Savaria for their comments on the manuscript. This work is supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and by the Walter B. Sumner Foundation.