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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Bose-Einstein Correlations (BEC) of identical bosons, produced in multihadron final states of high energy particle interactions, have been analysed for some 40 years . Many BEC analyses utilised pairs of identical charged pions produced in multihadron final states where the emitter has often been assumed to be a sphere with a Gaussian distribution. The experimental results have been then subjected to a Coulomb correction to account for the repulsive force between the equally charged particles. The kinematic variable frequently used, and still in use today, is defined by

$$Q=\sqrt{(q_1q_2)^2},$$

where $`q_1`$ and $`q_2`$ are the four momenta of the two identical hadrons. In the limit of $`Q0`$ the two identical bosons are occupying the same lowest energy ground state defined in their centre of mass system. To observe the effect of the BEC the experimental $`Q`$ distribution is divided by a corresponding reference sample distribution which is selected so as to be, as much as possible, identical to the data sample in all its features but void of Bose-Einstein statistics effects. The distribution of this ratio is in general described by the expression

$$C_2(Q)=1+\lambda e^{Q^2r^2},$$
(1)
where $`r`$ measures the average distance between the two boson when they are predominantly in an s-wave. This $`r`$ value, extracted from $`C_2(Q)`$ as $`Q`$ approaches zero, is taken to represent the dimension of the hadron emitter. The factor $`\lambda `$ in Eq. 1, which can vary between $`0\lambda 1`$, is the strength of the effect which depends on the chaoticity of the emitter and on the purity of the measured data sample. In $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilations $`r`$ was found to be within the range of 0.7 to 1.0 fm (see e.g. Ref. ), essentially independent of the centre of mass energy $`\sqrt{s_{ee}}`$.

In recent years the BEC analyses in $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilations have been extended in several directions. Among them, the search for the so called higher order BEC namely, of three or more genuine identical hadrons correlations; the search for deviation from an ideal spherical emitter and to studies aimed to determine whether the correlation dimension is a function of the hadron mass.

In Ref.  it was first pointed out that in $`e^+e^{}Z^0hadrons`$ the measured dimension $`r`$ values are a decreasing function of the hadron mass $`m`$ (see Fig. 1). This observation was first deduced from the measured $`r`$ values obtained from BEC analyses of identical $`\pi ^\pm \pi ^\pm `$ and $`K^\pm K^\pm `$ boson-pairs. That indeed $`dr(m)/dm<0`$ was significantly strengthened by the recent emitter size measurements  of the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}`$ pairs. These last measurements utilised a method proposed in Ref.  where the mixture of S=0 and S=1 spin states can be determined for the hyperon-pair as a function of their centre of mass (CM) energy. The onset of the Pauli exclusion principle, as the CM kinetic energy decreases to zero and the s-wave of the systems dominates, determines the $`r(m_\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ value which was found to be of the order of 0.15 fm.

Whereas the experimental findings that $`r(m_\pi )`$ is somewhat larger than $`r(m_K)`$, but still equal within errors, may still be consistent with the string fragmentation model, although in its basic form it expects $`r(m)`$ to increase with $`m`$ , the much smaller value obtained for $`r(m_\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ poses a challenge to the model . At the same time however, it was shown in Ref.  that by applying the Heisenberg uncertainty relations, one can derive an expression for $`r(m)`$ which decreases as $`m`$ increases, namely:

$$r(m)=\frac{c\sqrt{\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta }t}}{\sqrt{m}}.$$
(2)
Taking for $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ the value $`10^{24}`$ sec to represent the time scale of the strong interactions sector, independent of the hadron mass, one obtains the continuous thin line in Fig. 1 which follows rather well the trend of the $`r`$ values measured in the LEP1 data. A fit of Eq. 2 to the data yields for $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ the value $`(1.2\pm 0.3)\times 10^{24}`$ sec. The continuous thick line in Fig. 1, which is almost identical to the one obtained from the uncertainty relations, was derived from the virial theorem assuming Local Parton Hadron Duality  using a general QCD potential .

The effective range of the two-pion sources was also estimated in 2-dimensional BEC analyses, in heavy-ion collisions  and in the hadronic Z0 decays , as a function of the transverse mass $`m_T`$ of the pion-pair, defined as

$$m_T=0.5\times \left(\sqrt{m^2+p_{1,T}^2}+\sqrt{m^2+p_{2,T}^2}\right).$$
(3)
Here $`p_{1,T}`$ and $`p_{2,T}`$ are the transverse momentum of the two identical bosons in the longitudinal centre of mass system (LCMS) . As can be seen e.g. in Fig. 2, the results of these studies show also a decrease of the longitudinal range $`r_z(r_{||})`$ of the $`\pi \pi `$ system as $`m_T`$ increases. Moreover, the behaviour of $`r_z^\pi (m_T)`$ follows very closely the dependence of $`r(m)`$ which is a function of the hadron mass itself.

These findings pose the obvious question why the values of $`r(m)`$ and $`r_z^\pi (m_T)`$ essentially coincide when $`m=m_T(\pi )`$. Also of interest is the question whether both or one of the two quantities, $`m`$ and $`m_T`$, are the basic variables on which the hadron emitter dimension depends on and thus should play an integral part in any model describing multi-hadron production.

In the quest to understand the interrelation between $`r(m)`$ and $`r_z^\pi (m_T)`$ we explore in Section 2 the possibility that the dependence of $`r_z`$ on $`m_T`$ can also be described in terms of the Heisenberg uncertainty relations. Next in Section 3 we turn to another phenomenon related to the Bose statistics namely the Bose-Einstein Condensation. Here we show that at a fixed very low temperature the dependence of the interatomic atomic separation on the mass of the condensates atoms is proportional to $`1/\sqrt{m_{atom}}`$. Finally a summary is presented in Section 4.

## 2 The longitudinal dimension dependence on mT

Most of the BEC analyses were carried out under the assumption that the emitter size is a Gaussian sphere. The possibility that the space-time extend of the particle emission region deviates from a sphere and in fact is characterised by more than one dimension has been recently proposed . In particular the Lund group developed for the BEC a model based on a quantum mechanical interpretation of the string fragmentation probability . In this model the correlation length in the longitudinal string direction should be larger than the corresponding range in the transverse direction.

The experimental analyses, most of which were carried out with identical charged pions, have utilised the longitudinal centre of mass system. This coordinate system is defined for each pair of identical pions as the system in which the sum of the pion-pair momenta $`\stackrel{}{p}_1+\stackrel{}{p}_2`$, referred to as the ’out’ axis, is perpendicular to the ’thrust’ (or jet) direction defined as the z-axis. The momentum difference of the pion-pair $`\stackrel{}{Q}`$ is then resolved into the longitudinal direction $`Q_zQ_{||}`$ parallel to the thrust axis, $`Q_{out}`$ is collinear with the pair momentum sum and the third axis $`Q_{side}`$, is perpendicular to $`Q_z`$ and $`Q_{out}`$. In this system the projections of the total momentum of the particle-pair onto the longitudinal and side directions are equal to zero. In particular $`p_{1,z}=p_{2,z}`$, where the index 1 and 2 refer to the first and second pion, so that $`Q_z=p_{1,z}p_{2,z}=2p_{1,z}=2p_z`$. The difference in the emission time of the pions couples to the energy difference between the particles only in the $`Q_{out}`$ direction. In a 2-dimensional analysis one defines the transverse component of Q by the relation

$$Q_T^2=Q_{out}^2+Q_{side}^2.$$

Thus the correlation function, which is fitted to the data, is of the form

$$C_2(Q_z,Q_T)=1+\lambda e^{(r_z^2Q_z^2+r_T^2Q_T^2)},$$
(4)
where $`r_z`$, estimated from Eq. 4 as $`Q_z`$ approaches zero, is the longitudinal geometrical radius and $`r_T`$ is a mixture of the transverse radius and the emission time. The experimental findings, both in heavy ion collisions  and in $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilations , verified the theoretical expectations that $`r_T/r_z`$ is significantly smaller than one.

In the frame work of the azimuthally symmetric sources of pair of identical bosons  another variable of the emission function is considered namely, the transverse mass $`m_T`$ defined by Eq. 3. Preliminary results of DELPHI  concerning the dependence of $`r_z^\pi (m_T)`$ on $`m_T`$, measured for identical charged pion pairs present in the hadronic Z0 decays, is shown in Fig. 2. As can be seen, $`r_z^\pi (m_T)`$ decreases with $`m_T`$ in a very similar way to the decrease of $`r(m)`$ as the mass $`m`$ increases. In fact the continuous line in the figure, which is drawn according to Eq. 2 replacing $`r(m)`$ by $`r_z^\pi (m_T)`$ and $`m`$ by $`m_T`$, describes well the $`r_z`$ measurements using for $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ the value $`2.1\times 10^{24}`$ sec. That this is the case is not surprising once one realises that $`\mathrm{\Delta }r_z`$, the longitudinal distance and $`\mathrm{\Delta }p_z`$, the difference in the longitudinal momentum of the two hadrons in the LCMS, are conjugate observables which obey the uncertainty principle

$$\mathrm{\Delta }p_z\mathrm{\Delta }r_z=\mathrm{}c,$$
(5)
Here $`\mathrm{\Delta }p_z`$ is measured in GeV, $`\mathrm{\Delta }r_zr_z`$ is given in fermi units and $`\mathrm{}c=0.197`$ GeV fm. In the LCMS one has

$$\mathrm{\Delta }p_zr_z=2\mu v_zr_z=p_zr_z=\mathrm{}c$$

where $`\mu =m/2`$ is the reduced mass of the two identical hadrons of mass $`m`$ and the longitudinal velocity $`v_z`$ of these hadrons. Thus

$$r_z=\frac{\mathrm{}c}{p_z}.$$
(6)
Simultaneously we also utilise the uncertainty relation expressed in terms of energy and time

$$\mathrm{\Delta }E\mathrm{\Delta }t=\mathrm{},$$
(7)
where the energy is given in GeV and $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ in seconds. In as much that the total energy $`E`$ of the two-hadron system is determined essentially only by their mass and their kinetic energy, i.e. the potential energy can be neglected, and since in the LCMS $`|p_{1,z}|=|p_{2,z}|`$, one has

$$E=\underset{i=1}{\overset{2}{}}\sqrt{m^2+p_{i,x}^2+p_{i,y}^2+p_{i,z}^2}=\underset{i=1}{\overset{2}{}}\sqrt{m_{i,T}^2+p_z^2},$$
(8)
where $`m_{1,T}`$ and $`m_{2,T}`$ are the transverse mass of the first and second hadron. As $`Q_z`$ decreases the longitudinal momentum $`p_z`$ vanishes so that we can, once $`0p_z^2<m_{i,T}^2`$, expand the hadron energy $`E`$ in terms of $`p_z^2/m_{i,T}^2`$ and retain only the two first terms,

$$E=\underset{i=1}{\overset{2}{}}m_{i,T}\sqrt{1+\frac{p_z^2}{m_{i,T}^2}}\underset{i=1}{\overset{2}{}}m_{i,T}+\underset{i=1}{\overset{2}{}}\frac{p_z^2}{2m_{i,T}}.$$
(9)
Next we order the identical bosons so that $`m_{1,T}m_{2,T}`$ and define

$$\delta m_T=\frac{m_{1,T}m_{2,T}}{2}0,$$

while

$$m_T=\frac{m_{1,T}+m_{2,T}}{2}.$$

Inserting these relations into Eq. 9 one gets, after few algebraic steps, that

$$E=2m_T+\frac{m_Tp_z^2}{m_T^2(\delta m_T)^2}.$$
(10)
As $`m_T^2`$ is larger than $`(\delta m_T)^2`$, we finally get

$$E2m_T+\frac{p_z^2}{m_T}.$$
(11)
Since 2$`m_T`$ is not a function of $`p_z`$ it may be considered to stay fixed as $`Q_z0`$, so that one has

$$\mathrm{\Delta }E\mathrm{\Delta }t=\frac{p_z^2}{m_T}\mathrm{\Delta }t=\mathrm{}.$$
(12)
Combining Eqs. 6 and 12 one obtains

$$r_z(m_T)\frac{c\sqrt{\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta }t}}{\sqrt{m_T}}.$$
(13)
This last equation is identical to the one derived in  for the dependence of emitter dimension on the boson mass when $`r(m)`$ and $`m`$ are replaced by $`r_z(m_T)`$ and $`m_T`$. A fit of Eq. 13 to the data shown in Fig. 2 yields $`\mathrm{\Delta }t=(2.1\pm 0.4)\times 10^{24}`$ sec so that $`r_z^\pi (m_T)=0.354/\sqrt{m_T(GeV)}`$ fm. This value is compatible with the value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }t=(1.2\pm 0.3)\times 10^{24}`$ sec obtained in  for $`r(m)`$ when one also takes into account the relatively wide spread of the 1-dimensional $`\pi \pi `$ BEC analyses results for $`r(m)`$ obtained by the four LEP1 experiments (see e.g. Ref. ). In heavy-ion collisions of S + Pb, at an energy of 200 GeV per nucleon, the longitudinal range $`r_z^\pi (m_T)`$ was also observed to be inversely proportional to the square root of $`m_T`$  namely, $`r_z^\pi (m_T)2/\sqrt{m_T(GeV)}`$ fm. The ratio between the proportionality factor of 2.0 and 0.354 may well be accounted for by the difference in the extend of the heavy ion target as compared to that of the $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation leading to hadronic Z0 decays.

The dependence of the transverse dimension, $`r_T^\pi `$, on the two-pion transverse mass $`m_T`$ has also been measured in the hadronic Z0 decays . Here again the transverse range was found to decrease as $`m_T`$ increases. However unlike $`r_z`$ which is a geometrical quantity, $`r_T`$ is a mixture of the transverse radius and the emission time so that an application of the uncertainty relations is not straightforward.

## 3 Interatomic separation in Bose Condensates

When bosonic atoms are cooled down, below a critical temperature $`T_B`$, the atomic wave-packets overlap and the equal identity of the particles becomes significant. At this temperature, these atoms undergo a quantum mechanical phase transition and form a Bose-Einstein (BE) condensate, a coherent cloud of atoms all occupying the same quantum mechanical state. This phenomenon, first predicted by A. Einstein in 1924/5, is a consequence of quantum statistics . Detailed theoretical aspects of the Bose-Einstein condensation can be found in Ref.  and its up to date experimental situation is described in Ref. . Concise summaries, aimed in particular to the non-expert, both of the experimental situation and the theoretical background, can be found in Refs. . To form Bose condensates one cools down, below the critical temperature $`T_B`$, extremely dilute gases so that the formation time of molecules and clusters in three-body collisions is slowed down to seconds or even minutes to prevent the creation of more familiar transitions into liquid or even solid states.

The existence of BE Condensation was first demonstrated in 1995 by three groups  in cooling down rubidium, sodium and lithium. Typical temperatures where BE condensates occur are in the range of 500 nK to 2 $`\mu `$K with atom densities between $`10^{14}`$ and $`10^{15}`$ cm-3. The largest sodium condensate has about 20 million atoms whereas hydrogen condensate can reach even one billion atoms.

Let us consider a dilute homogeneous ideal gas of $`N`$ identical bosonic atoms of spin zero, confined in a volume $`V`$. These atoms occupy energy levels $`ϵ`$, handled here as a continuous variable, which are distributed according to the Bose-Einstein statistics. We further set the ground state to be $`ϵ_0=0`$. If $`N_0`$ is the number of atoms in this ground state and $`N_{ex}`$ is the number of atoms in the excited states then $`N=N_0+N_{ex}`$. For a homogeneous ideal gas of identical bosonic atoms it can be shown  that at a low temperature $`T`$ one has

$$N_{ex}=2.612V\left(\frac{2\pi mkT}{h^2}\right)^{3/2},$$
(14)
where $`V`$ is the volume occupied by the atoms of mass $`m`$. Since $`T_B`$ is defined as the temperature where almost all bosons are still in excited states, we can, to a good approximation, equate $`N`$ with $`N_{ex}`$. That is

$$N=2.612V\left(\frac{2\pi mkT_B}{h^2}\right)^{3/2},$$
(15)
For $`T<T_B`$ one obtains from Eqs. 14 and 15 that the number of atoms $`N_0`$ which are in the condensate state is,

$$N_0=NN_{ex}=N\left[1\left(\frac{T}{T_B}\right)^{3/2}\right],$$
(16)
where $`T`$ is the temperature of the atoms lying at the excited energy states above the condensate energy level $`ϵ_0=0`$. The atomic density of the Bose gas at very low temperatures, $`T/T_B<<1`$ where $`NN_0`$, is then given by

$$\rho =\frac{N}{V}=2.612\left(\frac{2\pi mkT}{h^2}\right)^{3/2},$$
(17)
where $`k`$ is the Boltzmann constant and $`\rho `$, the atomic density, has the dimension of L-3. From this follows that $`\rho ^{1/3}`$ is the average interatomic separation in the Bose condensate. At the same time the thermal de Broglie wave length is equal to

$$\lambda _{dB}=\left(\frac{h^2}{2\pi mkT}\right)^{1/2}.$$
(18)
Combining Eqs. 17 and 18 one has for the state of a Bose condensate the relation

$$\rho \lambda _{dB}^32.612.$$
(19)
Thus the average interatomic distance in a Bose condensate, $`d_{BE}`$, is equal to

$$d_{BE}\rho ^{1/3}\lambda _{dB}/1.378.$$
(20)
Next we consider two different bosonic gases, having atoms with masses $`m_1`$ and $`m_2`$, which are cooled down to the same very low temperature $`T_0`$, below the critical temperature $`T_B`$ of each of them. In this case we will produce two Bose condensates with interatomic distances

$$d_{BE}(m_i)\frac{\sqrt{2\pi }}{1.378}\left(\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{m_ikT_0}\right)^{1/2};i=1,2.$$
(21)
From this follows that when two condensates are at the same fixed temperature $`T_0`$ one has

$$\frac{d_{BE}(m_1)}{d_{BE}(m_2)}=\sqrt{\frac{m_2}{m_1}},$$
(22)
which is also the expectation of Eq. 2 for the dimension dependence on the mass of the hadron produced in high energy reactions provided $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ is fixed. Finally it is interesting to note that in as much that one is justified to replace in Eq. 21, at a very low temperature, $`kT_0`$ by $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ and use the uncertainty relation $`\mathrm{\Delta }E=\mathrm{}/\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ one derives the expression for $`r(m)`$ as given by Eq. 2 multiplied by the factor $`\sqrt{2\pi }/1.378`$.

In relating the condensates with the production of hadrons in high energy reactions one should however keep in mind that the interatomic separation proportionality to $`1/\sqrt{m}`$ does not necessarily imply that this should also be so for hadrons produced in high energy reactions. Common to both systems is their bosonic nature which allow all hadrons (atoms) to occupy the same lowest energy state. In addition the condensates are taken to be in a thermal equilibrium state. Among the various models proposed for the production of hadrons in high energy $`e^+e^{}`$ and Nucleon-Nucleon reactions some attempts have also been made to explore the application of a statistical thermal-like model . However, whether this approach will eventually prevail is at present questionable. Finally the condensates are taken to be in a coherent state. In the case of the of hadrons one is able to measure $`r`$ via BEC only if the chaoticity factor $`\lambda `$ in Eq. 1 is different from zero i.e., only if the source is not 100$`\%`$ coherent. However so far there is no evidence for a dependence of $`r`$ on $`\lambda `$ apart from that introduced by the correlated errors between $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda `$ produced by fitting Eq. 1 to the data.

## 4 Summary

It is shown that the longitudinal range of the two-pion emitter size obtained from 2-dimensional BEC analyses of the hadronic Z0 decays as a function of the transverse mass, is well described by the expectation of the Heisenberg uncertainty relations using a constant value for $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ of the order of $`10^{24}`$ seconds. As a consequence it is not surprising that $`r_z^\pi (m_T)`$ has essentially the same behaviour as the one observed experimentally for $`r(m)`$ which is a function of the hadron mass itself. In both cases the range, in fm, is equal to $`(0.20.4)/\sqrt{m_T}`$. This kind of dependence on the transverse mass is also seen in heavy-ion collisions where it was found that $`r_z^\pi 2/\sqrt{m_T}`$.

It is interesting to note that the interatomic separation of atoms in different Bose condensates, having the same fixed temperature, is proportional to $`1/\sqrt{m}`$, where here $`m`$ is the atom mass. This behaviour is the same as found for the range between identical hadron-pair produced in high energy reactions when the time scale $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ is fixed. This similarity can be traced back to the close connection between the de Broglie wave length, applied to the bosonic atoms in condensates, and the Heisenberg uncertainty relations, used here to connect in high energy reactions the range between identical hadrons to their mass.

### Acknowledgements

We would like to thank T. Csörgő, E. Levin, B. Reznik and E.K.G. Sarkisyan for many helpful discussions. In particular our thanks are due to I. Cohen for her continuous help in this work and her diligent proof reading of the manuscript.


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# Dynamical charge susceptibility in layered cuprates: the influence of screened inter-site Coulomb repulsion

## I Introduction

The phenomenon of high-temperature superconductivity can not be completely understood without clarification of ’pseudogap’ features seen by many experimental techniques in the normal state of underdoped cuprates. There are few informative reviews and papers devoted to this problem( see for example ). One of the most reasonable point of view is that a pseudogap in the density of states shows up due to an instability in two-dimensional copper-oxygen planes. The important question to answer is what is the physical origin of this possible instability in layered cuprates. In a series of works Di Castro and co-workers(see for example ) in a frame of the phenomenological quantum critical point (QCP) hypotethis have suggested to explain the pseudogap as a result of the formation of the incommensurate charge density wave (ICDW). In recent paper the pseudogap phenomena has been considered in a context of a new hidden order parameter with orbital antiferromagnetism (special case of d-wave wave order parameter)  . Constructing the integral equation for the extended charge density waves instability in a frame t-J Hamiltonian proposed by Anderson  it is easy to prove that for $`q=(\pi ,\pi )`$ the order parameter for charge instability indeed has a d-wave symmetry. However, the order parameter is imaginary and, therefore, is not a usual charge density waves. This reminds the old problem of the itinerant currents studied many years ago in semiconductors .

Perhaps, the most convincing evidence about the instability in layered cuprates can be obtained directly within the analysis of the dynamical charge and spin susceptibilities. In contrast to the spin susceptibility the role played by the instabilities in the charge channel with respect to the pairing and pseudogap formation are not clear. Moreover, the form of the charge susceptibility beyond RPA scheme was much less investigated. In particular, there are no agreement about its analytical form if the effect of strong electron correlations is taken into account (for example, compare the results in Refs. . Therefore, the theoretical investigation in this direction becomes very actual.

Here, using the singlet-correlated band model ( and references therein) which under simplified assumption about energy dispersion and screened Coulomb repulsion is equivalent to the $`tJ`$ model  using the projecting Hubbard-like operators  we derive the expression for the dynamical charge susceptibility beyond RPA-scheme. We analyze the obtained expression numerically and find that the charge susceptibility shows a peak at Q =($`\pi `$, $`\pi `$) similarly to a spin susceptibility only if one takes into account the strong enough inter-site Coulomb repulsion. Investigating the denominator of the charge susceptibility we have found the possible dispersion curve of CDW-like excitations $`\omega _q`$, for optimally doped cuprates.

## II Model Hamiltonian and Background

The Hamiltonian in the singlet-correlated band model in terms of Hubbard-type projecting operators, $`\mathrm{\Psi }_i^{\alpha ,\beta }=|i,\alpha ><i,\beta |`$ reads as

$$H=t_{ij}\mathrm{\Psi }_i^{pd,\sigma }\mathrm{\Psi }_j^{\sigma ,dp}+J_{ij}[(S_iS_j)\frac{n_in_j}{4}]+G_{ij}\delta _i\delta _j$$
(1)
where $`t_{ij}`$ is a hopping integral and $`J_{ij}`$ is the superexchange constant of the copper spins, $`\sigma =\pm 1/2`$. Symbol $`pd`$-corresponds to a Zhang-Rice singlet where one hole is placed on copper and second distributed on neighboring oxygen sites  and carrying spin states, respectively. $`g_{ij}`$ is a screened inter-site Coulomb repulsion of the doped holes. $`1+\delta _i=\mathrm{\Psi }_i^{\sigma \sigma }+2\mathrm{\Psi }_i^{pd,dp}`$ is equation that determines the chemical potential. The $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ operators obey the specific commutation relation and on-site multiplication rules of Hubbard-like operators which can be found somewhere . The spin and density operators are expressed by projecting operators as follows

$`S_i^+`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_i^,,S_i^{}=\mathrm{\Psi }_i^,,S_i^z={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\mathrm{\Psi }_i^,\mathrm{\Psi }_i^,),`$ (2)
$`\delta _i`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_i^{pd,dp}\mathrm{\Psi }_i^{0,0}.`$ (3)
Let us now make some preliminary discussion about the nature of density wave formation in a frame of our model. We are going to study the objects which can be described by the following operators

$`\eta _q={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle A(𝐤,𝐪,\omega )[\mathrm{\Psi }_{k+q}^{pd,}\mathrm{\Psi }_k^{,pd}+\mathrm{\Psi }_{k+q}^{pd,}\mathrm{\Psi }_k^{,pd}]},`$ (4)
$`\xi _q={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle B(𝐤,𝐪,\omega )[\mathrm{\Psi }_k^{,pd}\mathrm{\Psi }_{k+q}^{pd,}\mathrm{\Psi }_k^{,pd}\mathrm{\Psi }_{k+q}^{pd,}]},`$ (5)
where $`A(𝐤,𝐪,\omega )`$ and $`B(𝐤,𝐪,\omega )`$ are charge- and spin-excitation amplitudes, respectively. The frequencies of the harmonic motion of these objects can be found in a usual manner

$`i{\displaystyle \frac{\eta _q}{t}}=[\eta _q,H]=\omega _q^c\eta _q,i{\displaystyle \frac{\xi _q}{t}}=[\xi _q,H]=\omega _q^s\xi _q.`$ (6)
Real part of $`\eta _q`$ corresponds to usual charge density waves (CDW) order parameter whereas its imaginary part is responsible for the charge current (JC) formation . The latter also looks very similar to the proposed earlier flux phase  and orbital antiferromagnetism . Real part of $`\xi _q`$ represents the well-known spin density waves (SDW) and its imaginary quantity closely related to the so-called spin current (JS) formation . Symmetry aspects of these interesting problem has been discussed very recently by Nayak  and therefore we do not touch this problem here. One could immediately see from (3) and (4) that the equations for the frequency determination of the real and imaginary parts looks very similar and seem to be a good starting point to study both the collective charge and the spin excitations in layered cuprates.

Calculating the commutators using the simplest Hubbard1 decoupling scheme (for details see the next section) one can find that $`A(𝐤,𝐪,\omega )`$ and $`B(𝐤,𝐪,\omega )`$ can be taken in a usual form:

$`A(𝐤,𝐪,\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\omega _q^cϵ_{k+q}+ϵ_k}},`$ (7)
$`B(𝐤,𝐪,\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\omega _q^sϵ_{k+q}+ϵ_k}},`$ (8)
and frequencies are determined by the relations

$$1=\frac{1}{2}\frac{t_{k+q}n_{k+q}t_kn_k}{\omega _q^cϵ_{k+q}+ϵ_k}(\frac{J_q}{4}g_q)\frac{n_kn_{k+q}}{\omega _q^cϵ_{k+q}+ϵ_k}$$
(9)
$$1=\frac{t_{k+q}n_{k+q}t_kn_k}{\omega _q^sϵ_{k+q}+ϵ_k}\frac{1}{2}J_q\frac{n_{k+q}n_k}{\omega _q^sϵ_{k+q}+ϵ_k}$$
(10)
where $`n_k=\mathrm{\Psi }_k^{pd,\sigma }\mathrm{\Psi }_k^{\sigma ,pd}`$ is a partion number, $`ϵ_k=P_{pd}t_k`$ is an energy dispersion of the itinerant carriers, $`P_{pd}=\frac{1+\delta }{2}`$ is Hubbard-type bandwidth narrowing factor. The Fourier transform of the integrals $`t_k`$, $`J_q`$, and $`g_q`$ are determined by the usual expressions

$`t_k`$ $`=`$ $`2t_1(\mathrm{cos}k_x+\mathrm{cos}k_y)+4t_2\mathrm{cos}k_x\mathrm{cos}k_y+\mathrm{}`$ (11)
$`J_q`$ $`=`$ $`2J_1(\mathrm{cos}q_x+\mathrm{cos}q_y)+4J_2\mathrm{cos}q_x\mathrm{cos}q_y+\mathrm{}`$ (12)
$`G_q`$ $`=`$ $`2G_1(\mathrm{cos}q_x+\mathrm{cos}q_y)+4G_2\mathrm{cos}q_x\mathrm{cos}q_y+\mathrm{}`$ (13)
where $`t_1`$($`J_1`$, $`g_1`$), $`t_2`$($`J_2`$, $`g_2`$), and $`t_3`$ refer to the first, second, and third neighbors respectively. For simplicity we put the lattice constant equals unity. The choice of parameters for the hopping integrals is determined by the right Fermi surface topology and presence of Van-Hove singularity in the vicinity of the Fermi level as observed in the experiment . This satisfies at $`t_1`$ = 72 meV, $`t_2`$ = 0, and $`t_3`$ = 12 meV. The screened Coulomb repulsion of the doped holes and superexchange integral between nearest copper spins were taken as $`G_1`$ = 70 meV and $`J_1`$ = 135 meV in agreement with first principles calculation and inelastic neutron scattering experiments  respectively.

Regarding Eqs. (9) and (10) we would like to remark two important features. Both equations determine the conditions of the instability of the system with respect to mentioned types of charge and spin instabilities. In other words Eqs. (9) and (10) determine the divergences of charge and spin susceptibilities in the normal state. In contrast to the usual RPA-type of expression the first terms in (9) and (10) proportional to the hopping integral result from the strong electron correlation effects due to no double on-site occupancy constraint. It reflects the existence of very large on-site Coulomb repulsion leading to a renormalization and enhancement of the susceptibilities (or in other words the presence of strong electron correlation). This non-Fermi liquid correction was firstly deduced by Hubbard and Jain for the spin susceptibility. The second remark is that as one can see from Eqs. (9) and (10) the screened inter-site Coulomb repulsion plays no role for the determining of spin dispersion in contrast to charge one. Therefore it becomes clear that the equations for charge and spin collective excitation are quite different in presence of inter-site Coulomb interaction than it was widely implied. However, our present approach is quite preliminary and in order to see the difference between charge and spin collective excitations more in details we will calculate dynamical charge susceptibility and compare its form with spin counterpart obtained earlier.

## III Dynamical charge susceptibility. Improved decoupling scheme for the equation of motions

We start from the definition of the Fourier transform of the amplitude of the density operator

$`e_q=\mathrm{\Psi }_q^{pd,pd}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}e_{kq}`$ (14)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2N}}{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}(\mathrm{\Psi }_k^{pd,}\mathrm{\Psi }_{k+q}^{,pd}+\mathrm{\Psi }_{k+q}^{pd,}\mathrm{\Psi }_k^{,pd})`$ (15)
where the Fourier transform defined as

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_k^{pd,}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{N}}\underset{k}{}\mathrm{\Psi }_j^{pd,}e^{i\mathrm{𝐪𝐑}_𝐣}.$$
(16)
In the next step we derive the equation of motion for the two retarded Green’s functions

$$\omega _q^ce_q|e_q_\omega =\frac{i}{2\pi }[\mathrm{\Psi }_q^{pd,pd},\mathrm{\Psi }_q^{pd,pd}]+[\mathrm{\Psi }_q^{pd,pd},H]|e_q_\omega .$$
(17)
and

$$\omega _q^ce_{kq}|e_q_\omega =\frac{i}{2\pi }[e_{kq},e_q]+[e_{kq}H]|e_q_\omega .$$
(18)
We calculate the commutators using the on-site representation of the operators. For example for the kinetic part of the Hamiltonian $`H_t`$, it has a form

$`[\mathrm{\Psi }_i^{pd,}\mathrm{\Psi }_j^{,pd},H_t]=`$ (19)
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_i^{pd,}{\displaystyle \underset{l}{}}t_{jl}\{\mathrm{\Psi }_j^,\mathrm{\Psi }_l^{,pd}+(\mathrm{\Psi }_j^,+\mathrm{\Psi }_j^{pd,pd})\mathrm{\Psi }_l^{,pd}]`$ (20)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{l}{}}t_{lj}\{\mathrm{\Psi }_l^{pd,}\mathrm{\Psi }_i^,+\mathrm{\Psi }_l^{pd,}(\mathrm{\Psi }_i^,+\mathrm{\Psi }_i^{pd,pd})\}\mathrm{\Psi }_j^{pd}.`$ (21)
This exact result leads, however, to the appearance of Green’s function of higher order. Therefore we made the decoupling in the few steps. First, using the equation for the determining of the chemical potential and definitions of the density and spin operators determined in previous section one can find

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_j^{}+\mathrm{\Psi }_j^{pdpd}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1+\delta }{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{e_j}{2}}+s_j^z`$ (22)
$`\mathrm{\Psi }_j^{}+\mathrm{\Psi }_j^{pdpd}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1+\delta }{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{e_j}{2}}s_j^z`$ (23)
where $`\delta `$ is an average number of the doped holes per one unit cell and $`e_i`$ its modulation. The next step is to differ the cases $`i=j`$ and $`ij`$. In latter the right hand side of (19) can be approximated within the usual approximation technique

$`{\displaystyle \underset{l}{}}`$ $`t_{jl}`$ $`\{\mathrm{\Psi }_j^,\mathrm{\Psi }_i^{pd,}\mathrm{\Psi }_l^{,pd}+{\displaystyle \frac{1+\delta }{2}}\mathrm{\Psi }_i^{pd,}\mathrm{\Psi }_l^{pd,}`$ (24)
$`+`$ $`({\displaystyle \frac{e_j}{2}}+s_j^z)\mathrm{\Psi }_i^{pd,}\mathrm{\Psi }_l^{,pd}\}{\displaystyle }_lt_{lj}\{\mathrm{\Psi }_l^{pd,}\mathrm{\Psi }_j^{,pd}\mathrm{\Psi }_i^,`$ (25)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1+\delta }{2}}\mathrm{\Psi }_l^{pd,}\mathrm{\Psi }_j^{pd,}+({\displaystyle \frac{e_i}{2}}+s_i^z)\mathrm{\Psi }_l^{pd,}\mathrm{\Psi }_j^{,pd}\}.`$ (26)
where $`s_i^z`$ is zero in the paramagnetic phase.

As for the case $`i=j`$ it can be calculated exactly as

$`[\mathrm{\Psi }_i^{pd,pd},H_t]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{l}{}}t_{il}(\mathrm{\Psi }_i^{pd,}\mathrm{\Psi }_l^{,pd}+\mathrm{\Psi }_i^{pd,}\mathrm{\Psi }_l^{,pd})`$ (27)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{l}{}}t_{li}(\mathrm{\Psi }_l^{pd,}\mathrm{\Psi }_i^{,pd}+\mathrm{\Psi }_l^{pd,}\mathrm{\Psi }_i^{,pd})`$ (28)
Using the Fourier transformation (16) we can write the commutator (19) in the equation of motion as follows

$`[e_{kq},H_t]=P_d(t_kt_{k+q})e_{kq}`$ (29)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4N}}{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}[t_{k+q}(n_{k+q}^{}+n_{k+q}^{})t_k(n_k^{}+n_k^{})]e_q`$ (30)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2P_{pd}}{2N}}{\displaystyle \underset{k^{}}{}}(t_k^{}t_{k^{}+q})e_{k^{}q}.`$ (31)
The last term in (29) still leads to the high order Green’s function but hopefully it can be reduced to the old one with the help of (27), which yields

$$\frac{\omega _q}{2}e_q|e_q=\underset{k}{}(t_kt_{k+q})e_{k^{}q}|e_q.$$
(32)
Turning to the superexchange and Coulomb screening parts of the Hamiltonian, $`H_J`$ and $`H_c`$, we notice that operator $`\mathrm{\Psi }_i^{pd,pd}`$ commutes with these terms of the Hamiltonian and therefore $`i=j`$ case does not contribute to the equation of motion. This is in contrast to the spin susceptibility where the additional non-commutation of spin operator $`S_q^+`$ led to the fact that ordinary Hubbard1 decoupling scheme is not enough and additional consideration is required . Strictly speaking it means that although spin and charge degrees of freedom are still coupled as in the case of the usual Fermi-liquid, however, the simple relations of RPA-approximation of the usual Fermi liquid approach do not hold.

For the case of $`ij`$ in site representation we have

$`[\mathrm{\Psi }_i^{pd}`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_j^{pd}`$ $`,H_J]={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle }_lJ_{il}\{\mathrm{\Psi }_i^{pd}\mathrm{\Psi }_l^{}\mathrm{\Psi }_j^{pd}\mathrm{\Psi }_i^{pd}\mathrm{\Psi }_l^{}\mathrm{\Psi }_j^{pd}\}`$ (33)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{l}{}}J_{jl}\{\mathrm{\Psi }_i^{pd}\mathrm{\Psi }_j^{pd}\mathrm{\Psi }_l^{}\mathrm{\Psi }_i^{pd}\mathrm{\Psi }_j^{pd}\mathrm{\Psi }_l^{}\}.`$ (34)
whereas for the case $`i=j`$

$$[\mathrm{\Psi }_i^{pd,pd},H_J]=0$$
(35)
Restricting ourself an absence of long range spin order we can wright

$$[e_{kq},H_J]=\frac{1}{4N}J_q\{[n_k^{}+n_k^{}][n_{k+q}^{}+n_{k+q}^{}]\}e_q.$$
(36)
For the Coulomb screening part of the Hamiltonian the result reads

$$[e_{kq},H_c]=\frac{1}{2N}g_q\{[n_k^{}+n_k^{}][n_{k+q}^{}+n_{k+q}^{}]\}e_q.$$
(37)
Substituting (29,36,37) into the equation of motion (38) and taking into account the absence of the external magnetic field we get finally

$`\omega _qe_{kq}|`$ $`e_q`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi }}(n_{k+q}n_k)+P_{pd}(t_kt_{k+q}e_{kq}|e_q`$ (38)
$`+`$ $`[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}(t_{k+q}n_{k+q}t_kn_k)+(G_q{\displaystyle \frac{J_q}{4}})(n_{k+q}n_k)`$ (39)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(2P_{pd})}{2}}\omega _q]e_q|e_q`$ (40)
where $`n_k=\frac{1}{2}(n_k^{}+n_k^{})`$. Performing a sum over k we obtain the expression for the dynamical charge susceptibility in a form

$$\chi _{ch}(𝐪,\omega )=\frac{\chi _0(𝐪,\omega )}{1+(G_q\frac{J_q}{4})\chi _0(𝐪,\omega )+\chi _1(𝐪,\omega )(1\frac{P_{pd}}{2})z(𝐪,\omega )}$$
(41)
where $`\chi _l(𝐪,\omega )`$ is an ordinary Pauli-Lindhard response function

$$\chi _0(𝐪,\omega )=\frac{1}{N}\underset{k}{}\frac{n_kn_{k+q}}{\omega +i0^+ϵ_k+ϵ_{k+q}}.$$
(42)
The most interesting $`\chi _1(𝐪,\omega )`$ and $`z(𝐪,\omega )`$ terms describe the contributions due to no-double occupancy constraint and projecting nature of Hubbard operators:

$`\chi _1(𝐪,\omega )={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2N}}{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{t_kn_kt_{k+q}n_{k+q}}{\omega +i0^+ϵ_k+ϵ_{k+q}}},`$ (43)
$`z_1(𝐪,\omega )={\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{\omega +i0^+}{\omega +i0^+ϵ_k+ϵ_{k+q}}}.`$ (44)
The comparison of the obtained equation with our preliminary consideration resulting in Eq. (9) shows that important $`\frac{(2P_{pd})}{2}z(𝐪,\omega )`$ term has been appeared on the right hand side of (44). To our knowledge this term was not pointed out for the charge susceptibility so far. It acts as a frequency dependent ”molecular field” caused by the transfer hopping term of the Hamiltonian (1).

## IV Numerical results and discussion

Let us first analyze the behavior of the obtained expression for the dynamical charge susceptibility (41). In Fig. 1 we present the calculated Re $`\chi _{ch}(𝐪,0)`$ for the set of parameters described above. The peak around ($`\pi `$, $`\pi `$) reflects the nesting properties of the Fermi surface enhanced by the RPA-type of the denominator. The structure of real part of the charge susceptibility at zero frequency looks very similar to the spin counterpart. Originally it comes from the nesting properties of the Fermi surface resembles by $`\chi _0`$. However, the additional enhancement due to the denominator is quite different origin in both cases. In the spin susceptibility it results due to superexchange interaction having a maximum at ($`\pi `$, $`\pi `$). In the charge susceptibility the contribution from $`J_q`$ has a different sign and therefore should suppress the peak. On the other hand inclusion of the inter-site Coulomb screening repairs the situation and again leads to the strong commensurate peak around ($`\pi `$, $`\pi `$). As we will see later this peak is strongly dependent only on the value of inter-site Coulomb repulsion. This is quite remarkable fact if one remembers that for example the calculations of the charge and spin susceptibility in the frame of one-band Hubbard Hamiltonian with on-site $`U`$ or ordinary $`tJ`$ model show that charge susceptibility is

rather small at Q=($`\pi `$, $`\pi `$) in contrast to the spin susceptibility. This often led to the exclusion of the charge degrees of freedom from the pairing interaction. However, as it is seen here the significant contribution to the charge susceptibility comes from the inter-site screened Coulomb repulsion between doped holes. Since this interaction plays the most important role in underdoped case one would expect the significant contribution to the pairing interaction from the charge susceptibility too.

This fact is also seen from Fig. 2 where we present the imaginary part of the charge susceptibility at Q=($`\pi `$,$`\pi `$) with and without screened Coulomb repulsion $`G_1`$. Without inter-site Coulomb repulsion one sees that charge susceptibility shows no features at low energies. This indicates that superexchange mechanism itself cannot lead to any charge instabilities in the system. The situations changes drastically if one switches on the screened Coulomb repulsion between doped holes. At $`G_1`$ = 70 meV charge susceptibility shows a strong peak at $`\omega _{cf}`$ = 15 meV. This is quite comparable with typical spin fluctuation frequency, $`\omega _{sf}`$ that results from the approximate position of the

peak in Im $`\chi _s`$, $`\omega _{sf}`$ and which is also in order of 15 meV in layered cuprates. On the basis of Figs. 1 and 2 we can conclude that charge susceptibility may play an important role in the scattering mechanism and in the Cooper pairing instability correspondingly. However, such a large value of inter-site Coulomb interaction one could expect only at low doping level. Therefore, we think that the spin fluctuation scenario of superconductivity is much more robust than charge fluctuation one in high-T<sub>c</sub> cuprates. One would expect, however, a strong charge density wave like instability in underdoped cuprates since inter-site Coulomb repulsion is the most important at low doping concentration.

In order to analyze these possible instabilities in the charge subsystem we also investigate the charge susceptibility with respect to a CDW formation. The CDW frequencies range can be obtained analyzing the denominator of dynamical charge susceptibility expression (41). Therefore, we solve the equation

$$1+(G_q\frac{J_q}{4})\chi _0(𝐪,\omega )+\chi _1(𝐪,\omega )(1\frac{P_{pd}}{2})z(𝐪,\omega )=0$$
(45)
through the route of the Brillouin zone $`(0,0)(\pi ,0)(\pi ,\pi )(0,0)`$. One has to notice, however, that the solution of Eq. (45) can only be obtained at larger than 70 meV values of inter-site Coulomb repulsion. In particular, at the optimal doping, $`i.e.`$ $`p=0.16`$, the stable solution in the whole Brilloune zone was found only at G<sub>1</sub> = 150 meV. In Fig.3 we present the resulting energy dispersion of CDW frequency, $`\omega _q^{CDW}`$ at temperature T=100 K. As one can see there are three disconnected branches of the frequency curves. It happens due to the fact that instability occurs not along the whole Brllouin zone but rather at some critical wave vectors. In particular, it is clearly seen that the charge system is very unstable near the incommensurate wave vector ($`2/\pi /3`$, $`2\pi /3`$) where curve is crossing zero. This means that the possible CDW must occur at this incommensurate wave vector $`𝐐_{CDW}(2\pi /3,2\pi /3)`$. This quite a remarkable result confirms the difference between paramagnon charge fluctuations which are commensurate and real CDW order parameter having incommensurate wave vector.

## V Conclusion

In a conclusion we have obtained in a frame of singlet-correlated band model beyond RPA approximation the new analytical expression for the dynamical charge sucseptibility. We have shown that it produce a strong peak at Q = ($`\pi `$, $`\pi `$) at large enough screened Coulomb repulsion between doped holes. This may result in a significant contribution to the pairing interaction from the charge susceptibility at low doping level where Coulomb repulsion plays an important role. The analysis of the instability of the system with respect to a CDW formation shows that the system is the most unstable at the incommensurate wave vector Q$`{}_{CDW}{}^{}`$ ($`2\pi /3`$, $`2\pi /3`$).

Its pleasure to thank V. Yushankhai, D. Manske, and G. Seibold for stimulating discussions. This work is supported by the Russian Scientific Council on Superconductivity (Grant No. 98014) and partially by the Swiss National Foundation (Grant No. 7SUPJ062258). One of us (I.E.) would like to thank the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for the financial support.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

We describe superconformal algebras embedding space-time $`V_{s,t}`$ with arbitrary dimension $`D=s+t`$ and signature $`\rho =st`$ . The relation between $`R`$-symmetries and space-time signatures is elucidated . For supergravities with 32 supersymmetries, there exist theories in three distinct phases specified by the number of (128 bosonic) positive and negative metric “states”: $`(n^+,n^{})=(128,0),(64,64),(72,56)`$. This fact is closely related to the compactification of $`M,M^{}`$ and $`M^{}`$ theories on Lorentzian tori .

When dimensionally reduced to $`D=3`$, two of these phases are Minkowskian with $`\sigma `$-model $`E_{8(8)}/SO(16)`$ and $`E_{8(8)}/SO(8,8)`$; one is Euclidean with $`\sigma `$-model $`E_{8(8)}/SO^{}(16)`$. The three real forms of $`D_8`$ correspond to the superconformal algebras $`Osp(16/4,R),Osp(8,8/4,R)`$ and $`Osp(16^{}/2,2)`$ associated to real and quaternionic spinors respectively.

The paper is organized as follows:

In Sections 2 and 3, we describe symmetry and reality properties of spinors in arbitrary space-time signatures and dimensions. In Sections 4 and 5, we consider real forms of classical Lie algebras and superalgebras. In Section 6, we study extended superalgebras. Supersymmetry algebras with non-compact $`R`$-symmetries arise in the context of Euclidean theories as well as in theories with exotic (more than one times) signature. In Section 7, we show that non-compact $`R`$-symmetries arise when $`D=11`$ and $`M,M^{},M^{}`$ theories introduced by C. Hull  are compactified to lower dimensions on Lorentzian tori.

Euclidean supergravity from time-reduction  of $`M`$-theory was considered by Hull and Julia  and BPS branes in theories with more than one times were studied by Hull and Khuri . Hull’s observation is that theories on exotic space-time signatures arise by $`T`$-duality on time-direction from conventional $`M`$ theory on string theory so this can perhaps be regarded as different phases of the same non-perturbative $`M`$-theory . Irrespectively of whether it is sensible to use time-like $`T`$-duality in string theory , supergravity theories in exotic space-time dimensions certainly exist, on the basis of invariance principles due to the existence of appropriate superalgebras . $`U`$-duality also implies the existence of two new kinds of type II string theories, IIA, IIB in $`V_{9,1}`$ space-time where all bosonic $`RR`$ fields have reversed sign for the metric . A strong evidence of this reasoning is that the $`U`$-duality groups in all lower dimensions are the same, independently of the space-time signature. BPS states are classified by orbits of the $`U`$-duality group. These orbits were given in Refs.  and . Since they depend only on the $`U`$-duality group and not on the $`R`$-symmetry, it follows that the orbit classification is insensitive to the signature of space-time and is still valid for $`M^{},M^{}`$ theories.

Finally, in Section 8 we describe state counting of supergravities in exotic space-time. This is given in $`D=4`$ and $`D=3`$ dimensions, as well as in the $`D=11,10`$ original dimensions. This counting shows that there are essentially three distinct phases, in any dimension and signature where the (128) bosonic degrees of freedom fall in positive and negative norm classes $`(n^+,n^{})=(128,0),(64,64),(72,56)`$. The first two are Minkowskian phases (one time or more than one times), the latter is the Euclidean phase (no time). State counting in theories with 16 supersymmetries is also given, and again three different phases emerge.

## 2 Properties of spinors of SO($`𝐕`$)

Let $`V`$ be a real vector space of dimension $`D=s+t`$ and $`\{v_\mu \}`$ a basis of it. On $`V`$ there is a non degenerate symmetric bilinear form, which in the basis is given by the matrix

$$\eta _{\mu \nu }=\mathrm{diag}(+,\mathrm{}(s\mathrm{times})\mathrm{},+,,\mathrm{}(t\mathrm{times})\mathrm{},).$$

We consider the group Spin($`V`$), the unique double covering of the connected component of $`\mathrm{SO}(s,t)`$ and its spinor representations. A spinor representation of Spin$`(V)^{}`$ is an irreducible complex representation whose highest weights are the fundamental weights corresponding to the right extreme nodes in the Dynkin diagram. These do not descend to representations of SO$`(V)`$. A spinor-type representation is any irreducible representation that does not descend to SO$`(V)`$. A spinor representation of Spin$`(V)`$ over the reals is an irreducible representation over the reals whose complexification is a direct sum of spin representations .

Two parameters, the signature $`\rho `$ mod(8) and the dimension $`D`$ mod(8) classify the properties of the spinor representation. Through this paper we will use the following notation:

$$\rho =st=\rho _0+8n,D=s+t=D_0+8p,$$

where $`\rho _0,D_0=0,\mathrm{},7`$. We set $`m=pn,`$ so

$`s`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(D+\rho )={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\rho _0+D_0)+8n+4m,`$
$`t`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(D\rho )={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(D_0\rho _0)+4m.`$
The signature $`\rho `$ mod(8) determines if the spinor representations are of the real($``$), quaternionic ($``$) or complex ($``$) type. Also note that reality properties depend only on $`|\rho |`$ since Spin$`(s,t)`$ = Spin$`(t,s)`$.

The dimension-$`D`$ mod(8) determines the nature of the Spin($`V`$)-morphisms of the spinor representation $`S`$. Let $`g\mathrm{Spin}(V)`$ and let $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(g):SS`$ and $`L(g):VV`$ the spinor and vector representations of $`l\mathrm{Spin}(V)`$ respectively. Then a map $`A`$

$$A:SS\mathrm{\Lambda }^k,$$

where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^k=\mathrm{\Lambda }^k(V)`$ are the $`k`$-forms on $`V`$, is a Spin($`V`$)-morphism if

$$A(\mathrm{\Sigma }(g)s_1\mathrm{\Sigma }(g)s_2)=L^k(g)A(s_1s_2).$$

In Tables 1 and 2, reality and symmetry properties of spinors are reported.

## 3 Orthogonal, symplectic and linear spinors

We now consider morphisms

$$SS\mathrm{\Lambda }^0.$$

If a morphism of this kind exists, it is unique up to a multiplicative factor. The vector space of the spinor representation then has a bilinear form invariant under Spin($`V`$). Looking at Table 2, one can see that this morphism exists except for $`D_0=2,6`$, where instead a morphism

$$S^\pm S^{}$$

occurs.

We shall call a spinor representation orthogonal if it has a symmetric, invariant bilinear form. This happens for $`D_0=0,1,7`$ and Spin$`(V)^{}`$ (complexification of Spin($`V`$)) is then a subgroup of the complex orthogonal group $`\mathrm{SO}(n,)`$, where $`n`$ is the dimension of the spinor representation (Weyl spinors for $`D`$ even). The generators of SO$`(n,)`$ are $`n\times n`$ antisymmetric matrices. These are obtained in terms of the morphisms

$$SS\mathrm{\Lambda }^k,$$

which are antisymmetric. This gives the decomposition of the adjoint representation of $`\mathrm{SO}(n,)`$ under the subgroup $`\mathrm{Spin}(V)^{}`$. In particular, for $`k=2`$ one obtains the generators of $`\mathrm{Spin}(V)^{}`$.

A spinor representation is called symplectic if it has an antisymmetric, invariant bilinear form. This is the case for $`D_0=3,4,5`$. $`\mathrm{Spin}(V)^{}`$ is a subgroup of the symplectic group $`\mathrm{Sp}(2p,)`$, where $`2p`$ is the dimension of the spinor representation. The Lie algebra $`\mathrm{sp}(2p,)`$ is formed by all the symmetric matrices, so it is given in terms of the morphisms $`SS\mathrm{\Lambda }^k`$, which are symmetric. The generators of $`\mathrm{Spin}(V)^{}`$ correspond to $`k=2`$ and are symmetric matrices.

For $`D_0=2,6`$ one has an invariant morphism

$$B:S^+S^{}.$$

One of the representations $`S^+`$ and $`S^{}`$ is one the contragradient (or dual) of the other. The spin representations extend to representations of the linear group $`\mathrm{GL}(n,)`$, which leaves the pairing $`B`$ invariant. These spinors are called linear. Spin($`V)^{}`$ is a subgroup of the simple factor SL$`(n,)`$.

These properties depend exclusively on the dimension . When combined with the reality properties, which depend on $`\rho `$, one obtains real groups embedded in $`\mathrm{SO}(n,)`$, $`\mathrm{Sp}(2p,)`$ and $`\mathrm{GL}(n,)`$, which have an action on the space of the real spinor representation $`S^\sigma `$. The real groups contain $`\mathrm{Spin}(V)`$ as a subgroup.

We first need some general facts about real forms of simple Lie algebras . Let $`S`$ be a complex vector space of dimension $`n`$, which carries an irreducible representation of a complex Lie algebra $`𝒢`$. Let $`G`$ be the complex Lie group associated to $`𝒢`$. Let $`\sigma `$ be a conjugation or a pseudoconjugation on $`S`$ such that $`\sigma X\sigma ^1𝒢`$ for all $`X𝒢.`$ Then the map

$$XX^\sigma =\sigma X\sigma ^1$$

is a conjugation of $`𝒢`$. We shall write

$$𝒢^\sigma =\{X𝒢|X^\sigma =X\}.$$

$`𝒢^\sigma `$ is a real form of $`𝒢`$; if $`\tau =h\sigma h^1`$, with $`h𝒢`$, $`𝒢^\tau =h𝒢^\sigma h^1`$. We have $`𝒢^\sigma =𝒢^\sigma ^{}`$ if and only if $`\sigma ^{}=ϵ\sigma `$, for $`ϵ`$ a scalar with $`|ϵ|=1`$; in particular, if $`𝒢^\sigma `$ and $`𝒢^\tau `$ are conjugate by $`G`$, $`\sigma `$ and $`\tau `$ are both conjugations or both pseudoconjugations. The conjugation can also be defined on the group $`G`$, $`g\sigma g\sigma ^1`$.

## 4 Real forms of the classical Lie algebras

We describe the real forms of the classical Lie algebras from this point of view . (See also Ref. .)

#### Linear algebra, sl($`𝐒`$).

##### (a)

If $`\sigma `$ is a conjugation of $`S`$, then there is an isomorphism $`S^n`$ such that $`\sigma `$ goes over to the standard conjugation of $`^n`$. Then $`𝒢^\sigma \mathrm{sl}(n,)`$. (The conjugation acting on gl$`(n,)`$ gives the real form gl($`n,`$)).

##### (b)

If $`\sigma `$ is a pseudoconjugation and $`𝒢`$ does not leave invariant a non-degenerate bilinear form, then there is an isomorphism of $`S`$ with $`^n`$, $`n=2p`$ such that $`\sigma `$ goes over to

$$(z_1,\mathrm{},z_p,z_{p+1},\mathrm{},z_{2p})(z_{p+1}^{},\mathrm{},z_{2p}^{},z_1^{},\mathrm{},z_p^{}).$$

Then $`𝒢^\sigma \mathrm{su}^{}(2p)`$. (The pseudoconjugation acting in on gl$`(2p,)`$ gives the real form $`\mathrm{su}^{}(2p)\mathrm{so}(1,1)`$.)

To see this, it is sufficient to prove that $`𝒢^\sigma `$ does not leave invariant any non-degenerate hermitian form, so it cannot be of the type su$`(p,q)`$. Suppose that $`,`$ is a $`𝒢^\sigma `$-invariant, non-degenerate hermitian form. Define $`(s_1,s_2):=\sigma (s_1),s_2`$. Then $`(,)`$ is bilinear and $`𝒢^\sigma `$-invariant, so it is also $`𝒢`$-invariant.

##### (c)

The remaining cases, following E. Cartan’s classification of real forms of simple Lie algebras, are $`\mathrm{su}(p,q)`$, where a non-degenerate hermitian bilinear form is left invariant. They do not correspond to a conjugation or pseudoconjugation on $`S`$, the space of the fundamental representation. (The real form of gl$`(n,)`$ is in this case u$`(p,q)`$).

#### Orthogonal algebra, so($`𝐒`$).

$`𝒢`$ leaves invariant a non-degenerate, symmetric bilinear form. We will denote it by $`(,)`$.

##### (a)

If $`\sigma `$ is a conjugation preserving $`𝒢`$, one can prove that there is an isomorphism of $`S`$ with $`^n`$ such that $`(,)`$ goes to the standard form and $`𝒢^\sigma `$ to $`\mathrm{so}(p,q)`$, $`p+q=n`$. Moreover, all $`\mathrm{so}(p,q)`$ are obtained in this form.

##### (b)

If $`\sigma `$ is a pseudoconjugation preserving $`𝒢`$, $`𝒢^\sigma `$ cannot be any of the $`\mathrm{so}(p,q)`$. By Cartan’s classification, the only other possibility is that $`𝒢^\sigma \mathrm{so}^{}(2p)`$. There is an isomorphism of $`S`$ with $`^{2p}`$ such that $`\sigma `$ goes to

$$(z_1,\mathrm{},z_p,z_{p+1},\mathrm{},z_{2p})(z_{p+1}^{},\mathrm{},z_{2p}^{},z_1^{},\mathrm{},z_p^{}).$$

#### Symplectic algebra, sp($`𝐒`$).

We denote by $`(,)`$ the symplectic form on $`S`$.

##### (a)

If $`\sigma `$ is a conjugation preserving $`𝒢`$, it is clear that there is an isomorphism of $`S`$ with $`^{2p}`$, such that $`𝒢^\sigma \mathrm{sp}(2p,)`$.

##### (b)

If $`\sigma `$ is a pseudoconjugation preserving $`𝒢`$, then $`𝒢^\sigma \mathrm{usp}(p,q)`$, $`p+q=n=2m,p=2p^{},q=2q^{}`$. All the real forms $`\mathrm{usp}(p,q)`$ arise in this way. There is an isomorphism of $`S`$ with $`^{2p}`$ such that $`\sigma `$ goes to

$$(z_1,\mathrm{}z_m,z_{m+1},\mathrm{}z_n)J_mK_{p^{},q^{}}(z_1^{},\mathrm{}z_m^{},z_{m+1}^{},\mathrm{}z_n^{}),$$

where

$$J_m=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& I_{m\times m}\\ I_{m\times m}& 0\end{array}\right),K_{p^{},q^{}}=\left(\begin{array}{cccc}I_{p^{}\times p^{}}& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& I_{q^{}\times q^{}}& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& I_{p^{}\times p^{}}& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& I_{q^{}\times q^{}}\end{array}\right).$$

In Section 2 we saw that there is a conjugation on $`S`$ when the spinors are real and a pseudoconjugation when they are quaternionic  (both denoted by $`\sigma `$). We have a group, $`\mathrm{SO}(n,)`$, $`\mathrm{Sp}(2p,)`$ or $`\mathrm{GL}(n,)`$ acting on $`S`$ and containing $`\mathrm{Spin}(V)^{}`$. We note that this group is minimal in the classical group series. If the Lie algebra $`𝒢`$ of this group is stable under the conjugation

$$X\sigma X\sigma ^1,$$

then the real Lie algebra $`𝒢^\sigma `$ acts on $`S^\sigma `$ and contains the Lie algebra of $`\mathrm{Spin}(V)`$. We shall call it the Spin($`V`$) algebra.

Let $`B`$ be the space of $`\mathrm{Spin}(V)^{}`$-invariant bilinear forms on $`S`$. Since the representation on $`S`$ is irreducible, this space is at most one-dimensional. Let it be one-dimensional, let $`\sigma `$ be a conjugation or a pseudoconjugation, and let $`\psi B`$. We define a conjugation in the space $`B`$ as

$`B`$ $``$ $`B`$
$`\psi `$ $``$ $`\psi ^\sigma `$
$$\psi ^\sigma (v,u)=\psi (\sigma (v),\sigma (u))^{}.$$

It is then immediate that we can choose $`\psi B`$ such that $`\psi ^\sigma =\psi `$. Then if $`X`$ belongs to the Lie algebra preserving $`\psi `$, so does $`\sigma X\sigma ^1`$.

One can determine the real Lie algebras in each case . All the possible cases must be studied separately. All dimension and signature relations are mod(8). In the following, a relation like $`\mathrm{Spin}(V)G`$ for a group $`G`$ will mean that the image of $`\mathrm{Spin}(V)`$ under the spinor representation is in the connected component of $`G`$. The same applies for the relation $`\mathrm{Spin}(V)G`$. For $`\rho `$ = 0, 1, 7 spin algebras commute with a conjugation, for $`\rho `$ = 3, 4, 5 they commute with a pseudoconjugation. For $`\rho `$ = 2, 6 they are complex. The complete classification is reported in Table 3.

## 5  Spin$`(𝐕)`$ superalgebras

We now consider the embedding of $`\mathrm{Spin}(V)`$ in simple real superalgebras. We require in general that the odd generators be in a real spinor representation of $`\mathrm{Spin}(V)`$. In the cases $`D_0=2,6`$, $`\rho _0=0,4`$ we have to allow the two independent irreducible representations $`S^+`$ and $`S^{}`$ in the superalgebra, since the relevant morphism is

$$S^+S^{}\mathrm{\Lambda }^2.$$

The algebra is then non-chiral.

We first consider minimal superalgebras , i.e. those with the minimal even subalgebra. From the classification of simple superalgebras  one obtains the results listed in Table 4.

We note that the even part of the minimal superalgebra contains the Spin($`V`$) algebra obtained in Section 4 as a simple factor. For all quaternionic cases, $`\rho _0=3,4,5`$, a second simple factor SU(2) is present. For the linear cases there is an additional non-simple factor, SO(1,1) or U(1), as discussed in Section 4.

For $`D=7`$ and $`\rho =3`$ there is actually a smaller superalgebra, the exceptional superalgebra $`f(4)`$ with bosonic part spin(5,2)$`\times `$su(2). The superalgebra appearing in Table 4 belongs to the classical series and its even part is so$`{}_{}{}^{}(8)\times `$su(2), so$`{}_{}{}^{}(8)`$ being the Spin$`(5,2)`$-algebra.

Keeping the same number of odd generators, the maximal simple superalgebra containing $`\mathrm{Spin}(V)`$ is an orthosymplectic algebra with $`\mathrm{Spin}(V)\mathrm{Sp}(2n,)`$, $`2n`$ being the real dimension of $`S`$. The various cases are displayed in Table 5. We note that the minimal superalgebra is not a subalgebra of the maximal one, although it is so for the bosonic parts.

## 6 Extended Superalgebras

The present analysis can be generalized to the case of $`N`$ copies of the spinor representation of spin$`(s,t)`$ algebras . By looking at the classification of classical simple superalgebras , we find extensions for all $`N`$, where the number of supersymmetries is always even if spinors are quaternionic (because of reality properties) or orthogonal (because of symmetry properties).

In Table 6 the classification is analogous to the one given in Table 4. Super-Poincaré algebras can be obtained from the simple superalgebras either by contraction Spin$`(s,t)`$ InSpin$`(s,t1)`$ or as subalgebras Spin$`(s,t)`$ InSpin$`(s1,t1)`$. It is important to observe that the $`R`$-symmetry may be non-compact for different signatures of space-time.

All these superalgebras have a space-time symmetry that commutes with the $`R`$-symmetry group. We can further extend these superalgebras to orthosymplectic superalgebras where these symmetries no longer commute. The number of fermionic generators remains unchanged. The bosonic part is simply a real symplectic algebra, which contains as a subalgebra the direct sum of the space-time and $`R`$-symmetry algebra . These extensions are reported in Table 7. These superalgebras contain by contraction or as subalgebras, all Poincaré superalgebras in any dimension with all possible “central charges”.

## 7 11D and 10D on Vs,t supergravities revisited

Theories with $`N`$ super-Poincaré supersymmetries can be obtained as subalgebras of superconformal algebras with $`2N`$ spinorial generators. This is so because a conformal spinor $`S_{s,t}`$ of the conformal group $`SO(s,t)`$ always decomposes into two Poincaré spinors of opposite dimensions:

$$S_{s,t}s_{s1,t1}^{1/2}+s_{s1,t1}^{1/2}.$$

The $`R`$-symmetry is inherited from the simple superalgebra whose odd generators contain the spin group of the conformal group. Poincaré superalgebras with at most 32 supersymmetries are obtained as subalgebras of superconformal algebras with at most 64 charges. Then the $`R`$-symmetries of these theories are read from their superconformal extension. In particular, although a super-Poincaré graviton exists with at most 32 supersymmetries, a conformal graviton multiplet exists with at most 64 supercharges .

From Table 6, we can read the $`R`$-symmetries of super-Poincaré algebras by replacing $`(D,\rho )`$ with $`D2,\rho )`$.

Let us now consider maximal supergravity theories in $`D=11(N=1)`$ and $`D=10`$, IIA, IIB. For $`D=11`$, we know that a real spinor exists for $`\rho =\pm 1`$ mod 8. This implies the existence of two more theories other than $`M`$ theory with signature (9,2) and (6,5).

These theories were introduced by C. Hull and called $`M^{}`$ and $`M^{}`$ theories . They were discovered on the basis of time-like $`T`$ duality of type IIA and IIB string theory, which requires the existence of new kinds of type II strings called IIA and IIB string theories . The strong coupling limit of IIA theory is $`M^{}`$ theory.

By dimensional reduction of $`M,M^{}`$ and $`M^{}`$ theories to $`D=10`$, new type IIA theories with signatures (10,0), (9,1), (8,2), (6,4) and (5,5) are found . Type IIA (10,0) is IIAE Euclidean supergravity, $`(9,1)^{}`$ supergravity is type IIA. In the (8,2) (6,4) supergravities, there is a single (16) dimensional complex Weyl spinor such that $`\psi _L^{}=\psi _R`$ .

In type IIB, the story is rather different: (2,0) supergravity has an $`R`$-symmetry that can be either SO(2) or SO(1,1) for $`\rho =0`$ or SO(2) = SO(2) for $`\rho =4`$ (see Table 6 for $`d=4`$). This leads to the existence of two types of type IIB theories for $`\rho =0`$, (9,1) and (5,5) signature called type IIB (SO(2)) and IIB (SO(1,1)) by C. Hull  and one theory for (7,3) signature with SO(2) $`R`$-symmetry. Their respective $`10D`$ $`\sigma `$-model is $`\frac{SL(2,R)}{SO(2)}`$ for type IIB and $`\frac{SL(2,R)}{SO(1,1)}`$ for IIB theories .

Most interestingly, in type II theories, the sign of the kinetic term in the $`RR`$ bosonic fields is reversed with respect to the $`NS`$ fields case. Lifting string theory to $`D=11M`$ theory, the above implies that in $`M^{}`$ theory the three-form part of the action has a reversed sign with respect to the $`M`$ and $`M^{}`$ theories case .

We have just seen that a non-compact $`R`$-symmetry arises in IIB theory in $`D=10`$. To find other non-compact $`R`$-symmetries, it is sufficient to compactify $`M,M^{}`$ and $`M^{}`$ theories on Lorentzian tori $`T^{(p,q)}`$. A property of $`R`$-symmetries is that they must contain, as a subgroup, the orthogonal group $`SO(p,q)`$ related to the classical moduli space of a Lorentzian torus

$$_{T^{(p,q)}}=\frac{GL(p+q,R)}{SO(p,q)}.$$

Moreover, the $`R`$-symmetries must also be a subgroup of the $`U`$-duality group $`E_{11D(11D)}`$ and be related to reality properties and dimension of space-time spinors from Table 6. This uniquely fixes the non-compact form of the $`R`$-symmetry $`H_D`$.

As illustrative examples, let us consider the $`D=5,4`$ and 3 cases for space-time of all possible signatures. For $`D=5,4,3,M,M^{}`$ and $`M^{}`$ theories we get

$$V_{(s,11s)}V_{(s^{},t^{})}\times T^{(p,q)}(s=10,9,6)(s^{}+p=s,t^{}+q=11s).$$

For $`D=5,4,3`$, the $`R`$-symmetries must be different real forms of the $`C_4,A_7`$ and $`D_8`$ Lie algebras, appropriate to spinors of $`V_{s^{},t^{}}`$, and they must contain $`SO(p,q)`$ as subgroup. The appropriate real forms can be read from Table 8 and are a consequence of Table 6.

Note that all real forms of $`C_4,A_7`$ and $`D_8`$ are a maximal subgroup of the $`U`$-duality groups $`E_{6(6)},E_{7(7)},E_{8(8)}`$. The associated moduli spaces of these theories are therefore $`E_{11D(11D)}/H_D`$, when $`H_D`$ are the appropriate real forms of the $`R`$-symmetries in Table 8.

## 8 State counting and ghosts in $`M,M^{},M^{}`$ theories and IIB theories

In this section, we count the degrees of freedom and show that in any theory, with any signature, supersymmetry implies that there are at most three distinct phases, two Minkowskian (at least one time), where all 128 bosons either are no-ghost or they split in 64+ positive norm and 64- negative norm states. The other phase is Euclidean (no time) and the states arrange in a 72+ positive norm and 56- negative norm sector. For the Euclidean theories, care is needed to give a meaning to a state and its norm since there are no truly massless particle in this case. Our analysis is made as counting scalar degrees of freedom with their kinetic term factor after all these theories are dimensionally reduced to three dimensions. In this extreme situation, there are only three possibilities, as shown in Table 8, since the 128 bosons are coordinates of the $`\sigma `$-models $`E_{8(8)}/SO(16)`$ or $`E_{8(8)}/SO(8,8)`$ for Minkowskian phases or $`E_{8(8)}/SO^{}(16)`$ for the Euclidean phase. Note that no other possibility is allowed since there are no other real forms of $`D_8`$ contained in $`E_{8(8)}`$ .

The first case has no negative norm states since $`SO(16)`$ is the maximal compact subgroup of $`E_{8(8)}`$. For the other two cases, we precisely get $`n^{}=64,56`$.

The rest of this section is devoted to showing how these states are arranged with the spin degrees of freedom when these theories are lifted to higher dimensions.

To do state counting in Minkowskian spaces with arbitrary signatures, one must use some rules, which are dictated by the underlying gauge invariance of the higher-dimensional supergravity with respect to coordinate transformations and gauge transformations of the $`p`$-form gauge potentials. For the metric part, one uses the fact that a massless graviton, in a Minkowskian space $`V_{(s,t)}`$, is associated to the coset $`SL(s+t2)/SO(s1,t1)`$. The number of positive and negative norm states is

$`n^+`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(s+t2)(s+t1)}{2}}(s1)(t1)1`$
$`n^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(s+t2)(s+t3)}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{(s1)(s2)+(t1)(t2)}{2}}.`$
Similar formulae exist for $`p`$-forms gauge fields. The above analysis does not apply for the Euclidean case $`(t=0)`$. However, in this case, one can use the rule that a positive norm $`3d`$ Euclidean vector is dual to a negative norm Euclidean scalar. By lifting this rule, using the $`KK`$ ansatz, one is led to conclude that a Euclidean graviton in $`D`$ dimensions parametrizes the coset $`SL(d2,R)/SO(D3,1)`$. Curiously, this is identical to the coset of a graviton in $`V_{D2,2}`$ Minkowski space. The reason for this is that, after compactification on $`T_{D4}`$, one gets $`4d`$ gravity in (4,0) and (2,2) space-time and they both give, upon $`S_1`$ reduction, the $`\sigma `$-model $`SL(2,R)/SO(1,1)`$, where the role of the two scalars has just been interchanged. Note that for (3,1) gravity, the $`S^1`$ reduction gives the standard $`SL(2,R)/SO(2)`$ coset. Another explanation of this rule, related to $`M^{}`$ theory, is given later. The above rules are also consistent with the fact that upon reduction on a time-like $`S^1`$, gravity gives a $`KK`$ vector with a reversed sign of the metric (and a scalar with the correct sign), while a $`p`$-form gives a $`(p1)`$ form with a wrong sign of the metric (in addition to a $`p`$-form with the original sign) .

Let us now consider $`M,M^{}`$ and $`M^{}`$ theories. On an $`11D`$ Minkowskian background, the state counting goes as follows:

$`M\mathrm{theory}128`$ $`=`$ $`44^++84^+`$
$`M^{}\mathrm{theory}128`$ $`=`$ $`64^++64^{}`$
$`44`$ $`=`$ $`36^++8^{}`$
$`84`$ $`=`$ $`28^++56^{}`$
$`M^{}\mathrm{theory}128`$ $`=`$ $`64^++64^{}`$
$`44`$ $`=`$ $`24^++20^{}`$
$`84`$ $`=`$ $`40^++44^{}`$
If we reduce $`M^{}`$ theory on $`S^1`$, we get IIA theory and the negative norm states correspond to the $`RR`$ vector and three forms. In a similar way, if we consider IIB theory, the $`NS`$ and $`RR`$ states have reversed signs of the metric and since they are equal in number, they give $`128=64_{NS}^++64_{RR}^{}`$ on a (9,1) background. For the Euclidean gravity, IIAE, the counting can be obtained by time-reduction on $`S^1`$ from $`M`$ theory and using the previous rules, the ghost counting goes as follows:

$`128`$ $`=`$ $`72^++56^{}`$
$`44`$ $`=`$ $`30^++14^{}`$
$`84`$ $`=`$ $`42+42^{}`$
Note that in type IIAE, the $`RR`$ vector and the $`NS`$ antisymmetric tensor have reversed sign, not the $`RR`$ three-form. If we instead consider $`M^{}`$ theory as a space-like $`S^1`$, we get an (8,2) theory where the $`RR`$ vector and $`RR`$ three-forms have reversed sign with respect to the IIAE theory. In the (8,2) theory, these states contribute as $`(36^{},28^+)`$ to the total $`(64^+,64^{})`$ states. If we flip the signs of these states, we get $`(36^+,28^{})`$ added to $`(36^+,28^{})`$, explaining the $`(72^+,56^{})`$ signs in the Euclidean case. In three dimensions, each phase corresponds to a different $`\sigma `$-model and there is a one-to-one correspondence. For higher dimensions, many different theories can be in the same phase. For instance in $`D=4,(64^+,64^{})`$ correspond to two $`N=8`$ supergravities with $`\sigma `$-models $`E_{7(7)}/SU(4,4)`$ and $`E_{7(7)}/SL(8,R)`$, corresponding to (3,1) signature and (2,2) signature, respectively. The $`(72^+,56^{})`$ phase corresponds to $`N=8`$ Euclidean supergravity with $`\sigma `$-model $`E_{7(7)}/SU^{}(8)`$ . The higher the dimension, the more theories correspond to the same phase.

### 8.1 Theories with 16 supersymmetries

The previous analysis can be extended to any theory with a lower number of supersymmetries. Here we just consider theories with 16 supersymmetries. In $`D=10`$ the (1,0) algebra can be constructed for signatures (9,1) and (5,5). This algebra admits both a supergravity and a Yang–Mills theory whose Lagrangians are identical to the standard (9,1) Lagrangians since their space-time is related by mod 8 periodicity. No other signatures are possible for real Weyl fermions.

By compactification on Lorentzian tori, one can get several theories in lower dimensions. In particular, descending to $`D=4`$, one gets $`N=4`$ supergravities and $`N=4`$ superconformal Yang–Mills theories with space-time, with signature (3,1) (2,2) and (4,0) . The relevant superalgebras are $`SU(2,2/4),SU(2,2/2,2)`$ for a (3,1) signature (corresponding to super Yang–Mills on $`T_6`$ and $`T_{2,4}`$ respectively), $`SL(4/4)`$ for a (2,2) signature (corresponding to super- Yang–Mills on $`T_{(3,3)}`$) and $`SU^{}(4/4)`$ for a (4,0) signature (corresponding to super-Yang–Mills on $`T_{5,1}`$). In $`D=4`$ the moduli space of (1,0) supergravity on the corresponding tori are:

$`(3,1)\times (6,0)`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{SO(6,6)}{SU(4)\times SU(4)}}\times {\displaystyle \frac{SU(1,1)}{U(1)}}`$
$`(3,1)\times (2,4)`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{SO(6,6)}{SU(2,2)\times SU(2,2)}}\times {\displaystyle \frac{SU(1,1)}{U(1)}}`$
$`(4,0)\times (5,1)`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{SO(6,6)}{SU^{}(4)\times SU^{}(4)}}\times {\displaystyle \frac{SU(1,1)}{SO(1,1)}}`$
$`(2,2)\times (3,3)`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{SO(6,6)}{SL(4,R)\times SL(4,R)}}\times {\displaystyle \frac{SU(1,1)}{SO(1,1)}}`$
Further reducing to $`D=3`$, we get three $`\sigma `$-models:

$$\frac{SO(8,8)}{SO(8)\times SO(8)},\frac{SO(8,8)}{SO(4,4)\times SO(4,4)},\frac{SO(8,8)}{SO^{}(8)\times SO^{}(8)}.$$

This again leads to three phases for the 64 (bosonic) degrees of freedom. In the Minkowskian phases, either $`n^{}=0(n^+=64)`$ or $`n^{}=32(n^+=32)`$. In the Euclidean phase ,$`n^{}=24(n^+=40)`$. Lifting the theory to $`D=10`$, the graviton has $`35=23^++12^{}`$ degrees of freedom, the antisymmetric tensor $`28=16^++12^{}`$, and the dilaton $`1^+`$. The graviton states span the $`\sigma `$-model $`SL(8,R)/SO(6,2)`$. The positive and negative norm states fall, as usual, in the representation of the maximal compact subgroup $`U(4)`$.

Acknowledgements

Part of this report is based on collaborations with R. D’Auria, M.A. Lledó and R. Varadarajan. Enlightening conversations with Y. Oz, A. van Proeyen and R. Stora are also acknowledged. This work has been supported in part by the European Commission RTN network HPRN-CT-2000-00131 (Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, INFN) and by the D.O.E. grant DE-FG03-91ER40662, Task C.


text:
# Normal ordering solution to quantum dissipation and its induced decoherence

## I Introduction

The quantum dissipation of a single mode harmonic oscillator coupled to a reservoir with an extremely large number of degrees of freedom has been intensely studied  in the past decades with various methods, such as master-equation approach, Langevin approach. By using the Markovian master-equation approach, the effect of dissipation on a macroscopic superposition of two coherent states of a harmonic oscillator was studied . It shows that the superposition of the system will be transformed into a classical mixture state due to the effects of the environment , which is called decoherence process. The rate of the decoherence is proportional to the distance between the two states, which has been demonstrated in cavity QED experiment . The wave function structure of a single mode boson system plus a bath of many bosons is studied for both factorization case  and partial factorization case . It shows that when the Brownian motion effect is ignored in certain conditions the total wave function of the total system can be written in a form of a product of the bath and system components. Based on the result  , we have studied the decoherence process of excitons in an idealized quantum well placed in a lossy cavity . The result shows that the coherence of excitonic superposition is reduced in an oscillating form due to the dissipation of the optical cavity. In references , by solving the Heisenberg equations, the state vector of a driven-damped oscillator system evolved from an initial coherent state has also solved explicitly.

As far as our knowledge is concerned, the dynamic evolution of a damped oscillator system is only investigated by implementing the Heisenberg-Schrödinger picture transformation (HSPT) . Can we solve the Schrödinger equation directly and get the state vector of a damped harmonic oscillator system without HSPT? To answer this question, in this paper, we firstly apply normal ordering technique (NOT) to study the time evolution of a damped harmonic oscillator. The explicit form of the state vector of the total system evolved from an initially factorized coherent state is calculated. Besides, as one of the applications, we will devote ourselves to studying the decoherence behavior of the quantum dissipating system. For zero temperature case, the decoherence time of a superposition of two coherent states due to dissipation is given in a explicit form which agrees with the previous results . The effect of finite temperature of the reservoir on the decoherence rate is also investigated.

This paper is organized as following: in section II, we develop the normal ordering technique to solve the dynamic evolution of a damped harmonic oscillator under certain initial condition. In section III, the decoherence of a superposition state of the single mode boson system is investigated. In subsection A, the decoherence process of the system in the case of zero temperature is studied for an factorized initial state. We find that, the decoherence occurs in a time scale which is sensitive to the distance of the initial superposed states. The temperature effect on the coherence evolution of a damped oscillator is investigated in subsection B by using NOT.

## II Normal Ordering Technique

The normal ordering technique  is firstly introduced to study the dynamic evolution of a driven oscillator as well as that of two weakly coupled oscillators without dissipation. In this section we adopt the spirit of NOT to study the dissipation process of a single-mode boson system coupled with a reservoir.

We consider a harmonic oscillator coupled to a reservoir which involves a large collection of systems with many degrees of freedom, that is a damped oscillator. The reservoir is modeled as a harmonic oscillator bath, which in practice can be the modes of the radiation or the quantized modes of elastic vibrations (phonons) in a solid. The Hamiltonian for the system plus bath can be described as

$$H=\mathrm{}\omega a^{}a+\mathrm{}\underset{j}{}\omega _jb_j^{}b_j+\mathrm{}\underset{j}{}(g_ja^{}b_j+H.c.),$$
(1)
where $`a(a^{})`$ denotes the annihilation (creation) operator of the harmonic oscillator with frequency $`\omega `$, and $`b_j(b_j^{})`$ is the annihilation (creation) operator for the mode of the bath with frequency $`\omega _j`$, which obey the boson commutation relations $`[b_j,b_j^{}]=\delta _{j,j^{^{}}}`$. $`g_j`$ denotes coupling constant between the harmonic oscillator with frequency $`\omega `$ and the oscillator mode of the reservoir with frequency $`\omega _j`$. The model described in eq.(1) can be exactly solved as long as the coupling constant $`g_j`$ and the spectrum density of the bath are specified explicitly . Here we adopt the spirit of the normal ordering method to study the dynamic evolution of a single mode oscillator with dissipation.

The state vector of the whole system obeys the Schrödinger equation which has a solution of the form $`|\psi (t)=U(t)|\psi (0)`$, where the time-evolution operator $`U(t)`$ satisfies $`i\mathrm{}_tU(t)=HU(t)`$, with the initial condition $`U(0)=1`$. We assume that evolution operator has its normal order form $`U(t)=U^{(n)}(t)`$. Since the normal form of any operator is unique, one can establish the one-to-one corresponding relationship between the normal ordered evolution operator $`U^{(n)}(t)`$ and an ordinary function $`\overline{U}^{(n)}(t)`$, with $`\overline{U}^{(n)}(t)=\alpha ,\left\{\beta _j\right\}\left|U^{(n)}(t)\right|\left\{\beta _j\right\},\alpha `$, where $`|\left\{\beta _j\right\}=|\beta _1|\beta _2\mathrm{}|\beta _{\mathrm{}}`$. Such a corresponding relation defines a map $`\mathrm{}^1`$ ,

$$\mathrm{}^1:U^{(n)}(t)\overline{U}^{(n)}(t)=\alpha ,\left\{\beta _j\right\}\left|U^{(n)}(t)\right|\left\{\beta _j\right\},\alpha .$$
(2)
We may also define the inverse transformation $`\mathrm{}`$ ,

$$\mathrm{}:\overline{U}^{(n)}(t)U^{(n)}(t)=U(t).$$
(3)
One can write the Schrödinger equation in the normal ordering form. With the operator $`\mathrm{}^1`$, one can further take diagonal coherent state matrix elements of both sides of the normal ordered Schrödinger equation and get a c-number equation of $`\overline{U}^{(n)}`$,

$`i_t\overline{U}^{(n)}`$ $`=`$ $`[\omega \alpha ^{}(\alpha +{\displaystyle \frac{}{\alpha ^{}}})+{\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}\omega _j\beta _j^{}(\beta _j+{\displaystyle \frac{}{\beta _j^{}}})+{\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}g_j`$ (5)
$`\times \alpha ^{}(\beta _j+{\displaystyle \frac{}{\beta _j^{}}})+{\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}g_j^{}\beta _j^{}(\alpha +{\displaystyle \frac{}{\alpha ^{}}})]\overline{U}^{(n)}.`$
Now we need to solve the equation for $`\overline{U}^{(n)}(t)`$ with the initial condition $`\overline{U}^{(n)}(0)=1`$.

We let

$$\overline{U}^{(n)}=\mathrm{exp}[A\alpha ^{}\alpha +\underset{j}{}B_j\beta _j^{}\beta _j+\underset{j,j^{}}{}^{}B_{j,j^{^{}}}\beta _j^{}\beta _j^{^{}}+\underset{j}{}C_j\beta _j^{}\alpha +\underset{j}{}D_j\alpha ^{}\beta _j],$$
(6)
Where the prime in $`^{}`$ denotes sum over index $`\mathrm{`}\mathrm{`}j\mathrm{"}`$ and $`\mathrm{`}\mathrm{`}j^{^{}}\mathrm{"}`$ with the condition $`jj^{^{}}`$. Substituting eq.(5) into eq.(4), we get the coupled equations for the time-dependent coefficients

$$\dot{B}_j=i\omega _j(1+B_j),$$
(7)
$$\dot{C}_j=i\omega _jC_jig_j^{}(1+A),$$
(7)
$$\dot{D}_j=i\omega D_jig_j(1+B_j)i\underset{j^{}}{}^{}g_j^{^{}}B_{j^{^{}},j},$$
(8)
$$\dot{A}=i\omega (1+A)i\underset{j}{}g_jC_j,$$
(9)
$$\dot{B}_{j,j^{^{}}}=i\omega _jB_{j,j^{^{}}}ig_j^{}D_j^{^{}},$$
(10)
with the initial condition $`A(0)=B_{j,j^{^{}}}(0)=C_j(0)=D_j(0)=0`$. The solution of eqs.(6) is easily obtained by using Wigner-Weisskopf approximation ,

$`A(t)=u(t)1,`$ $`B_j=e^{i\omega _jt}1,`$ ()
$`C_j(t)=u_j(t),`$ $`D_j(t)=v_j(t),`$ ()
$`B_{j,j^{^{}}}(t)`$ $`=`$ $`v_{j,j^{^{}}}(t),`$ ()
where, for the bath with the frequency spectrum distribution $`\rho (\omega )`$

$$u(t)=e^{i\stackrel{~}{\omega }t}e^{\gamma t/2},$$
(11)
$$u_j(t)=g_j^{}e^{i\omega _jt}\frac{e^{i(\omega _j\stackrel{~}{\omega })t}e^{\gamma t/2}1}{\omega _j\stackrel{~}{\omega }+i\gamma /2},$$
(12)
$$v_j(t)=g_je^{i\omega _jt}\frac{e^{i(\omega _j\stackrel{~}{\omega })t}e^{\gamma t/2}1}{\omega _j\stackrel{~}{\omega }+i\gamma /2},$$
(13)
$$v_{j,j^{^{}}}(t)=\frac{g_j^{}g_j^{^{}}e^{i\omega _jt}}{\omega _j^{^{}}\stackrel{~}{\omega }+i\gamma /2}\left(\frac{e^{i(\omega _j\stackrel{~}{\omega })t}e^{\gamma t/2}1}{\omega _j\stackrel{~}{\omega }+i\gamma /2}\frac{e^{i(\omega _j\omega _j^{^{}})t}1}{\omega _j\omega _j^{^{}}}\right),$$
(14)
here, $`\gamma =2\pi \rho (\omega )\left|g(\omega )\right|^2`$ is the damping constant of the oscillator induced by the coupling to the environment, and $`\stackrel{~}{\omega }=\omega +\mathrm{\Delta }\omega `$ is the renormalized physical frequency , with $`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega `$ is the lamb frequency shift

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\omega =P_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\omega _j\frac{\rho (\omega _j)\left|g(\omega _j)\right|^2}{\omega _j\omega },$$
(15)
where “$`P`$” denotes the Cauthy principle part.

If, as an example, the initial state of the total system is

$$|\psi (0)=|\alpha |\left\{\beta _j\right\},$$
(16)
where $`|\left\{\beta _j\right\}=_j|\beta _j`$ denotes multimode coherent state of the bath. Then at any time $`t`$ the total system will evolve into

$$|\psi (t)=|\alpha u(t)+\underset{j}{}\beta _jv_j(t)|\left\{\beta _je^{i\omega _jt}+\alpha u_j(t)+\underset{j^{^{}}}{}^{}v_{j,j^{^{}}}(t)\beta _j^{^{}}\right\},$$
(17)
where we have used the sum rule,

$$|\alpha u(t)+\underset{j}{}\beta _jv_j(t)|^2+\underset{j}{}|\beta _je^{i\omega _jt}+\alpha u_j(t)+\underset{j^{^{}}}{}^{}v_{j,j^{^{}}}(t)\beta _j^{^{}}|^2=|\alpha |^2+\underset{j}{}|\beta _j|^2,$$
(18)
which is derived from the normalized condition $`\psi (t)|\psi (t)=1`$. We see from eq.(13), due to the bath fluctuation and the back-action of system on the bath, the state vector evolved from factorized initial state becomes fully entangled. If the Brownian effect caused by the terms $`_j\beta _jv_j(t)`$ can be ignored, the total state vector can be partially factorized . We can further consider $`T=0K`$ for the bath, that is, all the oscillator modes of the reservoir are in vacuum state initially. In cavity QED, this means that we neglect the background radiation of cavity. Then from eq.(13), the state vector can be simplified as

$$|\psi (t)=|\alpha u(t)|\left\{\alpha u_j(t)\right\},$$
(19)
and the corresponding sum rule is

$$|u(t)|^2+\underset{j}{}|u_j(t)|^2=1.$$
(20)
## III  Decoherence of superposition state of the harmonic oscillator due to dissipation

Recently the mesoscopic superposition state of the cavity mode states  has been prepared experimentally. The phase shift between two components of the superposition can be well controlled by adjusting the interaction time between atoms and the cavity mode. Then the even and odd Schrödinger cats of cavity states were prepared in the experiment, with which a new scheme for logic qubit encoding are proposed  to simplify the error correction circuits and improve the efficiency of the error correction in quantum computation. Decoherence process of the superposed cavity state was also demonstrated in the experiment. Due to the presence of dissipation in the cavity, the coherent information of Schrödinger cat state will be lost within a time scale which is sensitive to the size of the meter states.

As an application, in this section we will study the decoherence behavior of the damped oscillator described by eq.(1). Starting with eq.(11), we will calculate the decoherence factor, which is defined as the coefficients of the off-diagonal element of the reduced density operator of system, for both $`T=0K`$ and finite temperature of the heat bath.

### A Zero-temperature case

A single mode boson system coupled to a bath which is composed of a collection of many harmonic oscillators will result in the decohence process of the system, that is, a superposition state of the system will be transformed into a statistical mixture state due to the influence of the bath. If the initial state of the total system is

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }(0)=(C_1|\alpha _1+C_2|\alpha _2)|\left\{0_j\right\},$$
(21)
that is, a superposition state for the system, and all the oscillator modes of the bath are in the vacuum states $`|\left\{0_j\right\}`$ initially. Therefore from eq.(15), the state vector of the total system at time $`t`$ can be written as

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }(t)=C_1|\alpha _1u(t)|\left\{\alpha _1u_j(t)\right\}+C_2|\alpha _2u(t)|\left\{\alpha _2u_j(t)\right\},$$
(22)
where the explicit form of $`u(t)`$, $`u_j(t)`$ are given in eq.(8), and eq.(11.a), respectively. In addition, the sum rule

$$\underset{j}{}|u_j(t)|^2=1|u(t)|^2,$$
(23)
has been used in eq.(16), which is derived from the condition,

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(t)|\mathrm{\Psi }(t)=|C_1|^2+|C_2|^2+C_1C_2^{}\alpha _2|\alpha _1+C_1^{}C_2\alpha _1|\alpha _2.$$
(24)
The dynamic decoherence process can be investigated quantitatively by calculating the reduced density matrix $`Tr_R(|\mathrm{\Psi }(t)\mathrm{\Psi }(t)|)`$ of the system at any time $`t`$. Then we will get the decoherence factor, which is defined as the coefficient of the non-diagonal elements of the reduced density matrix, such as

$`F(t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}\alpha _1u_j(t)|\alpha _2u_j(t)`$ (25)
$`=`$ $`e^{(\frac{1}{2}|\alpha _1|^2\frac{1}{2}|\alpha _2|^2+\alpha _1^{}\alpha _2)_j|u_j(t)|^2}.`$ ()
By using the sum rule of eq.(17), the decoherence factor becomes

$$F(t)=e^{(\frac{1}{2}|\alpha _1|^2\frac{1}{2}|\alpha _2|^2+\alpha _1^{}\alpha _2)(1|u(t)|^2)}.$$
(26)
The characteristic time $`\tau _d`$ of the decoherence of the superposition state is determined by the short time behavior of $`|F(t)|`$, that is, the norm of the decoherence factor. Within the time scale $`\gamma t1`$, the decoherence factor can be simplified as following,

$$F(t)=e^{(\frac{1}{2}|\alpha _1|^2\frac{1}{2}|\alpha _2|^2+\alpha _1^{}\alpha _2)\gamma t}.$$
(27)
If we consider that $`\alpha _1=\alpha `$, and $`\alpha _2=\alpha e^{i\mathrm{\Delta }\phi }`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }\phi `$ is the phase shift of the initial superposed states. Then the characteristic time is determined as following,

$$\tau _d^1=2|\alpha |^2\gamma \mathrm{sin}^2\left(\mathrm{\Delta }\phi /2\right),$$
(28)
where $`|\alpha |^2`$ is the mean number of the oscillator. We can define the “distance” $`D=|\alpha _1\alpha _2|=2|\alpha |\mathrm{sin}\left(\mathrm{\Delta }\phi /2\right)`$ between the two superposed states. Substituting $`D`$ into eq.(22), we obtain that the characteristic time $`\tau _d=\frac{2\tau _p}{D^2}`$, where $`\tau _p=1/\gamma `$ is the life time of the oscillator due to its energy dissipation. Our result shows that the decoherence time is determined by both the phase difference of the meter states of initial superposition state and the mean number of the quanta of the single mode boson field for a fixed damping rate. For a special case $`\mathrm{\Delta }\phi =\pi `$, which means that the system is prepared initially in an odd and even coherent states, the norm of decoherence factor of eq.(20) becomes

$$|F(t)|=e^{2|\alpha |^2(1e^{\gamma t})},$$
(29)
as a function of time. It shows that the coherence of the oscillator will decrease in the exponential decay rule.

### B  finite temperature case

We assume that every oscillator mode of the bath is initially in thermal equilibrium state, and the single-mode boson is in a superposition of two coherent states. Then the density operator of total system at $`t=0`$ reads,

$$\rho (0)=\rho _s\rho _b,$$
(30)
with

$$\rho _s=(C_1|\alpha _1+C_2|\alpha _2)(\alpha _2|C_2^{}+\alpha _1|C_1^{}),$$
(31)
and

$$\rho _b=\underset{j}{}d^2\beta _j\frac{1}{\pi n_j}e^{|\beta _j|^2/n_j}|\beta _j\beta _j|,$$
(32)
where $`n_j`$ denotes the mean occupation of the $`j`$-th oscillator mode with frequency $`\omega _j`$ of the heat bath. From eq.(11), the decoherence factor becomes

$$F(t)=e^{(\frac{1}{2}|\alpha _1|^2\frac{1}{2}|\alpha _2|^2+\alpha _1^{}\alpha _2)(1|u(t)|^2)}\underset{j}{}f_j,$$
(33)
with

$$f_j=\frac{d^2\beta _j}{\pi n_j}e^{|\beta _j|^2/n_j}e^{(\alpha _2^{}\alpha _1^{})u^{}(t)v_j(t)\beta _jC.c.}.$$
(34)
By using the identity

$$\frac{1}{\pi }d^2\beta \mathrm{exp}(\lambda |\beta |^2+\mu \beta +\nu \beta ^{})=\frac{1}{\lambda }\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{\mu \nu }{\lambda }\right),$$
(35)
with condition $`Re\left\{\lambda \right\}>0`$ and arbitrary $`\mu `$ and $`\nu `$, we obtain $`f_j`$

$$f_j=e^{\frac{1}{4}|\alpha _2\alpha _1|^2|u(t)|^2|v_j(t)|^2n_j}.$$
(36)
Substituting $`f_j`$ of eq.(29) into eq.(26), we get

$`F(t)`$ $`=`$ $`e^{(\frac{1}{2}|\alpha _1|^2\frac{1}{2}|\alpha _2|^2+\alpha _1^{}\alpha _2)(1|u(t)|^2)}e^{\frac{1}{4}|\alpha _2\alpha _1|^2|u(t)|^2_j|v_j(t)|^2n_j}`$ (37)
$`=`$ $`e^{(\frac{1}{2}|\alpha _1|^2\frac{1}{2}|\alpha _2|^2+\alpha _1^{}\alpha _2)(1|u(t)|^2)}e^{\frac{1}{4}|\alpha _2\alpha _1|^2|u(t)|^2\overline{n}(1e^{\gamma t})},`$ ()
where we have used the relation ,

$$\underset{j}{}|v_j(t)|^2n_j=\overline{n}(1e^{\gamma t}),$$
(38)
here $`\overline{n}=\left(e^{\frac{\mathrm{}\omega }{k_BT}}1\right)^1`$, with $`k_B`$ is the Boltzmann constant and $`T`$ is the absolute temperature of heat bath. For low temperature, $`\overline{n}0`$, the decoherence factor of eq.(30) will go back eq.(20). While at high temperature, $`\overline{n}\frac{k_BT}{\mathrm{}\omega }`$, as the previous subsection, the characteristic time $`\tau _d`$ of the decoherence of the superposition state is determined by calculating the norm of the decoherence factor within the time scale $`\gamma t1`$, that is,

$$F(t)=e^{(\frac{1}{2}|\alpha _1|^2\frac{1}{2}|\alpha _2|^2+\alpha _1^{}\alpha _2)\gamma t}e^{\frac{1}{4}\frac{k_BT}{\mathrm{}\omega }|\alpha _2\alpha _1|^2\gamma t}.$$
(39)
For $`\alpha _1=\alpha `$, and $`\alpha _2=\alpha e^{i\mathrm{\Delta }\phi }`$, with $`\mathrm{\Delta }\phi `$ is the phase shift between the “meter” states of the initial superposition state. Then the decoherence time is determined as

$$\tau _d^1=2|\alpha |^2\gamma \left(1+\frac{k_BT}{2\mathrm{}\omega }\right)\mathrm{sin}^2\left(\mathrm{\Delta }\phi /2\right).$$
(40)
As the previous subsection we substitute the “distance” $`D=|\alpha _1\alpha _2|=2|\alpha |\mathrm{sin}\left(\mathrm{\Delta }\phi /2\right)`$ between the two superposed states into eq.(33) and obtain the decoherence time $`\tau _d=\frac{2\tau _p}{D^2}\frac{1}{1+\frac{k_BT}{\mathrm{}\omega }}`$. Comparing with the zero temperature case, we find that due to the finite temperature effect of bath the decoherence rate of the system becomes faster.

## IV Conclusion

The quantum dissipation process of a single-mode boson immersed in a bath of bosons is studied by using the normal ordering technique. The dynamic evolution of the total system is obtained and is used to study the decoherence behavior of the system both for the zero temperature case and for the finite temperature case. Due to the influence of the dissipation the coherence information of the system will be lost in a time scale which is dependent on the distance of the initial superposition state. For $`T0K`$, the finite temperature effect of the bath will decrease the decoherence time. One can note that the normal ordering method can be also used to study the dynamic evolution of a driven-damped oscillator system.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work is supported in part by the National Foundation of Natural Science of China. One of authors (Yu-xi Liu) is supported partially by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). He is also indebted to Professor N. Imoto for continuous encouragement in his work.