text:
# I. Introduction

## I. Introduction

The question of whether or not the universe had a beginning is, of course, by no means an easy question. When you ask a scientist a question that is not easy, he never gives just one answer, but instead gives a succession of answers. In this case, I would like to offer two levels of answers.

At the first level, I would argue that the answer to the question is yes, the universe had a beginning in the event that is usually referred to as the big bang.

I think that at least 99.9 percent of the people working in scientific cosmology today believe that the universe evolved from a hot dense state, exactly as Sandra Faber spoke about earlier. This theory is strongly supported by the direct observation of the expansion of the universe via the redshift of the light from distant galaxies, by the measurement of the abundances of the light chemical elements, and by the now very precise measurements of both the spectrum and the very small nonuniformities of the cosmic microwave background radiation. Thus, most scientists (including me) believe that the universe as we know it began in a “big bang” some 11 to 16 billion years ago .

However, as Sandra has already emphasized, there is another level to the question of beginning. When cosmologists say that they are persuaded that the big bang theory is valid, they are using a rather precisely defined and restricted interpretation of the term “big bang.” As it is used by scientists the term refers only to the expansion of the universe from an initially hot dense state. But it says nothing about whether the universe really began there, or whether there was something else that preceded what we call the big bang.

So, beyond the standard big bang, there is now a very significant body of research concerning the possibility of cosmic inflation . Today I want to talk about inflation, and in particular I want to talk about a very likely ramification called eternal inflation. As you will see, the theory of inflation does not give a clear answer to the question of whether the universe had a beginning, but it does provide at least a context for discussing this question.

To begin, I would like to highlight the distinction between the questions that the standard big bang theory answers and the questions that inflation is intended to answer.

The standard big bang theory is, of course, a very significant scientific theory. It describes how the early universe expanded and cooled from an initially very hot dense state. It describes how the light chemical elements that we observe today were synthesized during the first 200 seconds or so of this expansion period. And finally, although work in this area is still in progress, it seems to describe very well how the matter in the universe eventually congealed to form the stars, galaxies, and clusters that we observe in the universe today.

There is, however, a key issue that the standard big bang theory does not discuss at all: it does not tell us what banged, why it banged, or what happened before it banged. Despite its name, the big bang theory does not describe the bang at all. It is really only the theory of the aftermath of a bang.

So, in particular, the standard big bang theory does not address the question of what caused the expansion; rather, the expansion of the universe is incorporated into the equations of the theory as an assumption about the initial state—the state of the universe when the theory begins its description.

Similarly, the standard big bang theory says nothing about where the matter in the universe came from. In the standard big bang theory all the matter that we see here, now, was already there, then. The matter was just very compressed, and in a form that is somewhat different from its present state. The theory describes how the matter evolved from one form to another as the universe evolved, but the theory does not address the question of how the matter originated.

While inflation does not go so far as to actually describe the ultimate origin of the universe, it does attempt to provide a theory of the bang: a theory of what it was that set the universe into expansion, and at the same time supplied essentially all of the matter that we observe in the universe today.

## II. How Does Inflation Work?

I will begin by giving a quick rundown of how inflation works. Some of these issues were already discussed by Sandra Faber, who I thought gave an excellent description. For completeness, however, I will start my explanation at the beginning, but I will try to go more quickly when discussing points that Sandra has already explained.

The key idea—the underlying physics—that makes inflation possible is the fact that most modern particle theories predict that there should exist a state of matter that turns gravity on its head, creating a gravitational repulsion. This state can only be reached at energies well beyond those that we can probe experimentally, but the theoretical arguments for the existence of the state are rather persuasive. It is not merely the prediction of some specific theory, but it is the generic prediction for a wide class of plausible theories. Thus, gravity does not always have to be attractive.***The possibility of repulsive gravity arises because, according to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, gravitational fields are produced not just by energy or mass densities, but also by pressures. The direction of the field caused by pressure is what you would probably guess: a positive pressure—the kind that we normally see—produces an attractive gravitational field. But the peculiar state of matter that I’m talking about produces a negative pressure, which you might also call a suction. It is in fact a very large negative pressure, resulting in a repulsive gravitational field which is stronger than the attractive field produced by the mass density of the matter. The result is a net gravitational repulsion, which is the driving force behind inflation.

The gravitational repulsion caused by this peculiar kind of material is the secret behind inflation. Inflation is the proposition that the early universe contained at least a small patch that was filled with this peculiar repulsive-gravity material.The name for this peculiar gravitationally repulsive state is not well-established. Sandra Faber referred to it as a vacuum with a finite energy density, and sometimes as a false vacuum. In my own technical articles I call it a false vacuum, although I have to explain that for most inflationary models this usage stretches the meaning for which the phrase had previously been used in particle physics. In this article I will refer to it as a repulsive-gravity material. It may seem strange to see the words “vacuum” and “material” used to describe the same thing, but keep in mind that this stuff is strange. The word “vacuum” is used to emphasize that it is different from ordinary matter, while I am calling it a material to emphasize that it is different from an ordinary vacuum! There are a variety of theories about how this might have happened, based on ideas ranging from chaotic initial conditions to the creation of the universe as a quantum tunneling event. Despite the ambiguity of this aspect of the theory, there are two things to keep in mind. First, the probability of finding a region filled with this repulsive-gravity material need not be large. I will come back to this point later, and argue that it is only necessary that the probability is nonzero. Second, the resulting predictions do not depend on how the initial patch was formed. Once the patch exists, inflation takes over and produces a universe that ends up inevitably looking very much like the one that we live in.

The initial patch can be incredibly small. It need be only about one-billionth the size of a single proton. Once the patch exists it starts to rapidly expand because of its internal gravitational repulsion. The expansion is exponential, which means it is characterized by a doubling time, which for a typical inflationary theory might be in the neighborhood of $`10^{37}`$ seconds. So every $`10^{37}`$ seconds the diameter of the patch doubles, and then it doubles again and again during each $`10^{37}`$-second interval. The success of the description requires about a hundred of these doublings, but there could have been many more. In the course of this expansion, the patch went from being a tiny speck to a size at least as large as a marble.

So the patch of repulsive-gravity material expanded by a huge factor. Whenever a normal material expands its density goes down, but this material behaves completely differently. As it expands, the density remains constant. That means that the total amount of mass contained in the region increased during inflation by a colossal factor.

The increase in mass probably seems strange at first, because it sounds like a gross violation of the principle of energy conservation. Mass and energy are equivalent, so we are claiming that the energy of the matter within the patch increased by a colossal factor. The reason this is possible is that the conservation of energy has a sort of a loophole, which physicists have known at least since the 1930s , but haven’t talked about very much. Energy is always conserved; there are no loopholes to that basic statement. However, we normally think of energies as always being positive. If that were true, then the large amount of energy that we see in the universe could not possibly have gotten here unless the universe started with a lot of energy. However, this is the loophole: energies are not always positive. In particular, the energy of a gravitational field is negative. This statement, that the energy of a gravitational field is negative, is true both in the context of the Newtonian theory of gravity and also in the more sophisticated context of general relativity.

So, during inflation, total energy is conserved. As more and more positive energy (or mass) appears as the patch expands at constant density, more and more negative energy is simultaneously appearing in the gravitational field that fills the region. The total energy is constant, and it remains incredibly small because the negative contribution of gravity cancels the enormous positive energy of the matter. The total energy, in fact, could very plausibly be zero. It is quite possible that there is a perfect cancellation between the negative energy of gravity and the positive energy of everything else.

For the theory to be successful, there has to be a mechanism to end the period of inflation—the period of accelerated expansion—because the universe is not undergoing inflation today.Actually there is strong evidence that the expansion of the universe is accelerating in the present era, and the mechanism for this acceleration is believed to be very similar to that of inflation. This acceleration, however, is much slower than the acceleration that inflationary models propose for the early universe, so in any case the rapid acceleration of the early universe must have come to an end. Inflation ends because the repulsive-gravity material is fundamentally unstable. So it doesn’t survive forever, but instead decays like a radioactive substance. Like traditional forms of radioactive decay, it decays exponentially, which means that the decay is characterized by a half-life. During any period of one half-life, on average half of the repulsive-gravity material will “decay” into normal attractive-gravity material.

In the process of decaying, the repulsive-gravity material releases the energy that has been locked up within itself. That energy evolves to become a hot soup of ordinary particles. Initially the decay produces a relatively small number of high-energy particles, but these particles start to scatter off of each other. Eventually the energy becomes what we call thermalized, which means that it produces an equilibrium gas of hot particles—a hot primordial soup—which is exactly the initial condition that had always been assumed in the context of the standard big bang theory.

Thus, inflation is an add-on to the standard big bang theory. Inflation supplies the beginning to which the standard big bang theory then becomes the continuation.

## III. Evidence for Inflation

So far I have tried to describe how inflation works, but now I would like to explain the reasons why many scientists—including certainly myself—believe that inflation really is the way that our observed universe began. There are six reasons that I will discuss, starting with some very general ideas and then moving to more specific ones.

The first reason is the obvious statement that the universe contains a tremendous amount of mass. It contains about $`10^{90}`$ particles within the visible region of the universe. I believe that most non-scientists are somewhat puzzled to hear anyone make a fuss over this fact, since they think, “Of course the universe is big—it’s the whole universe!” However, to a theoretical cosmologist who is hoping to build a theory to explain the origin of the universe, this number seems like it could be an important clue. Any successful theory of the origin of the universe must somehow lead to the result that it contains at least $`10^{90}`$ particles. The fundamental theory on which the calculation is based, however, presumably does not contain any numbers nearly so large. Calculations can of course lead to factors of 2 or $`\pi `$, but it would take very many factors of 2 or $`\pi `$ to reach $`10^{90}`$. Inflation, however, leads to exponential expansion, and that seems to be the easiest way to start with only small numbers and finish with a very large one. With inflation the problem of explaining why there are $`10^{90}`$ or more particles is reduced to explaining why there were 100 or more doubling times of inflation.§§§Since the volume is proportional to the cube of the diameter, during 100 doublings the volume increases by a factor of $`\left(2^{100}\right)^3=2^{300}2\times 10^{90}`$. The number 100 is modest enough so that it can presumably arise from parameters of the underlying particle physics and/or geometric factors, so inflation seems like just the right kind of theory to explain a very large universe.

The second reason is the Hubble expansion itself—the fact that the universe is observed to be in a state of uniform expansion. An ordinary explosion, like TNT or an atomic bomb, does not lead to expansion that is nearly uniform enough to match the expansion pattern of the universe. But the gravitational repulsion of inflationary models produces exactly the uniform expansion that was first observed by Edwin Hubble in the 1920s and 30s.

Third, inflation is the only theory that we know of that can explain the homogeneity and isotropy of the universe—that is, the uniformity of the universe. This uniformity is observed most clearly by looking at the cosmic microwave background radiation, which we view as the afterglow of the heat of the big bang. The intensity of this radiation is described by an effective temperature, and it is observed to have the same temperature in every direction to an accuracy of about one part in a hundred thousand, after we correct for our own motion through the cosmic background radiation. In other words, this radiation is incredibly smooth. As an analogy we can imagine a marble that has been ground so smoothly that its radius is uniform to one part in a hundred thousand. The marble would then be round to an accuracy of about a quarter of the wavelength of visible light, about as precise as the best optical lenses that can be manufactured with present-day technology.

In the standard big bang theory there is no explanation whatever for this uniformity. In fact, one can even show that within the context of the standard big bang theory, no explanation for this uniformity is possible. To see this, we need to understand a little about how this cosmic background radiation originated. During the first approximately 300,000 years of the history of the universe, the universe was hot enough so that the matter was in the form of a plasma—that is, the electrons were separated from the atoms. Such a plasma is very opaque to photons, which are constantly scattered by their interactions with the free electrons. Although the photons move of course at the speed of light, they change directions so rapidly that they essentially go nowhere. During the first 300,000 years of the history of the universe, the photons were essentially pinned to the matter.

But after 300,000 years, according to calculations, the universe cooled enough so that the plasma neutralized. The free electrons combined with the atomic nuclei to form a neutral gas of hydrogen and some helium, which is very, very transparent to photons. From then on these photons have traveled in straight lines. So, just as I see an image of you when I observe the photons coming from your face, when we look at the cosmic background radiation today we are seeing an image of the universe at 300,000 years after the big bang. Thus, the uniformity of this radiation implies that the temperature must have been uniform throughout this whole region by 300,000 years after the big bang.

To think about whether the temperature of the observed universe could have equilibrated by this early time, we could try to imagine fancifully that the universe was populated by little purple creatures, whose sole purpose in life was to make the temperature as uniform as possible. We could imagine that each purple creature was equipped with a little furnace, a little refrigerator, and a cell phone so that they could communicate with each other. The communication, however, turns out to be an insurmountable problem. A simple calculation shows that in order for them to achieve a uniform temperature by 300,000 years, they would need to be able to communicate at about a hundred times the speed of light. But nothing known to physics allows communication faster than light, so even with dedicated purple creatures we could not explain the uniformity of the cosmic background radiation.

So in the standard version of the big bang theory, before inflation is introduced, one simply has to hypothesize that the universe started out uniform. The initial uniformity would then be preserved, since the laws of physics are by assumption the same everywhere. This approach allows one to accommodate the uniformity of the universe, but it is not an explanation.

Inflation gets around this problem in a very simple way. In inflationary theories the universe evolves from a very tiny initial patch. While this patch was very small, there was plenty of time for it to become uniform by the same mechanism by which a slice of pizza sitting on the table cools to room temperature: things tend to come to a uniform temperature. Once this uniformity is established on the scale of the very tiny patch, inflation can take over and magnify the patch to become large enough to encompass everything that we observe. Thus, inflation provides a very natural explanation for the uniformity of the universe.

Reason number four is known as the flatness problem. It is concerned with the closeness of the mass density of our universe to what cosmologists call the critical density. The critical density is best defined as that density which would cause the universe to be spatially flat. To understand what this means, one must understand that, according to general relativity, the geometry of space is determined by the matter that it contains. If the mass density of the universe is very high, the space will curve back on itself to form a closed universe, the three-dimensional analogue of the two-dimensional surface of a sphere. The sum of the angles in a triangle would exceed 180, and parallel lines would meet if they are extended. If the mass density is very low, the space would curve in the opposite way, forming an open universe. The sum of the angles in a triangle would then be less than 180, and parallel lines would diverge if they were extended. But with just the right mass density (for a given expansion rate) the spatial geometry will be exactly Euclidean, just like what we all learned in high school—180 in every triangle, and parallel lines remain parallel no matter how far they are extended. This borderline case is the critical density.To clear up a possible source of confusion, I mention that the critical density has often been described in the semi-popular literature as the borderline between eternal expansion and eventual collapse. If Einstein’s cosmological constant is zero, as most of us thought a few years ago, then this definition is equivalent to the one given above. Recent evidence, however, suggests that the cosmological constant may be nonzero, in which case the two definitions are not equivalent. In that case, the one given in the text agrees with the definition used in the technical literature, and is also the definition that is relevant to the current discussion.

Cosmologists use the Greek letter $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ (Omega) to denote the ratio of the average mass density of the universe to the critical density:

$$\mathrm{\Omega }\frac{\text{actual mass density}}{\text{critical mass density}}.$$

Today there is growing evidence that $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is equal to one to within about 10% , but the issue is not completely settled. For purposes of this discussion, therefore, I will begin with the uncontroversial statement that $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ lies somewhere in the interval between 0.1 and 2.

You would probably not expect that much could be concluded from such an noncommittal starting point, but in fact it tells us a lot. When one looks at the equations describing the evolution of the universe, it turns out that $`\mathrm{\Omega }=1`$ is an unstable equilibrium point, like a pencil balanced on its tip. If the pencil is started exactly vertical and stationary, the laws of Newtonian mechanics imply that it will remain vertical forever. But if it is not absolutely vertical, it will rapidly start to fall in whichever direction it is leaning. Similarly, if $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ began exactly equal to 1, it would remain 1 forever. But any deviation from 1 will grow rapidly as the universe evolves. Thus, for $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ to be anywhere in the ballpark of 1 today, it must have started extraordinarily close to 1. For example, if we extrapolate backwards to 1 second after the big bang, $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ must have been 1 to an accuracy of 15 decimal places . While 1 second may sound like an extraordinarily early time at which to be discussing an 11- to 16-billion-year-old universe, cosmologists have pretty much confidence in the extrapolation. The nucleosynthesis processes, which are successfully tested by present measurements of the abundances of the light chemical elements, where already beginning at 1 second after the big bang.

In fact, particle theorists like myself are attempting to push the history of the universe back to what we call the Planck time, about $`10^{43}`$ seconds, which is the era when quantum gravity effects are believed to have been important. Since our understanding of quantum gravity is still very primitive, we generally make no attempt to discuss the history of the universe at earlier times. But if we attempt to extrapolate the history of the universe back to the Planck time without invoking inflation, we find that $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ at the Planck time must have been equal to 1 to an accuracy of 58 decimal places.

Without inflation, there is no explanation for the initial value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. The big bang theory is equally self-consistent for any initial value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, so one has no a priori reason to prefer one value over another. But if the theory is to agree with observation, one must posit an initial value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ that is extraordinarily close to 1.

With inflation, on the other hand, during the brief inflationary era the evolution of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ behaves completely differently. Instead of being driven away from 1, during inflation $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is driven very strongly towards 1. So with inflation you could assume that $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ started out as 1, 2, 10, $`10^3`$, or $`10^6`$. It doesn’t matter. As long as there was enough inflation, then $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ would have been driven to 1 to the extraordinary accuracy that is needed.

The fifth reason for believing the inflationary description is the absence of magnetic monopoles. Grand unified particle theories, which unify all the known particle interactions with the exception of gravity, predict that there should be stable particles that have a net magnetic charge. That is, these particles would have a net north pole or a net south pole, which is very different from an ordinary bar magnet which always has both a north pole and a south pole. These magnetic monopoles are, according to our theories, extraordinarily heavy particles, weighing about $`10^{16}`$ times as much as a proton. In the traditional big bang theory, without inflation, they would have been copiously produced in the early universe. If one assumes a conventional cosmology with typical grand unified theories, one concludes that the mass density of magnetic monopoles would dominate all other contributions by an absurdly large factor of about $`10^{12}`$ . Observationally, however, we don’t see any sign of these monopoles.

Cosmic inflation provides a simple explanation for what happened to the monopoles: in inflationary models, they can easily be diluted to a negligible density. As long as inflation happens during or after the era of monopole production, the density of monopoles is reduced effectively to zero by the enormous expansion associated with inflation.

The sixth and final reason that I would like to discuss for believing that the universe underwent inflation is the prediction that the theory makes for the detailed structure of the cosmic background radiation. That is, inflation makes very definite predictions not only for the uniformity that we see around us, but it also predicts that there should be small deviations from that uniformity due to quantum uncertainties. The magnitude of these deviations depends on the details of the underlying particle theory, so inflation will not be able to predict the magnitude until we really understand the particle physics of very high energies. However, the shape of the spectrum of these nonuniformities—i.e., the way that the intensity varies with wavelength—depends only slightly on the details of the particle physics. For typical particle theories, inflationary models predict something very close to what is called the Harrison-Zel’dovich, or scale-invariant spectrum. These nonuniformities are viewed as the seeds for the formation of structure in the universe, but they can also be seen directly in the nonuniformities of the cosmic background radiation, at the level of about one part in 100,000. Fig. 1 shows a graph of the recent data from the Boomerang experiment, plotted against a theoretical curve derived for an inflationary model .

## IV. Eternal Inflation: Mechanisms

Having discussed the mechanisms and the motivation for inflation itself, I now wish to move on the main issue that I want to stress in this article—eternal inflation, the questions that it can answer, and the questions that it raises.

Before going on, I should clarify that the different topics that I am discussing have various levels of certainty. The standard big bang theory, as far as cosmologists are concerned, appears to be essentially certain to all but a few of us. Inflation seems to be by far the most plausible way that the big bang could have started, but it is not so well established as the big bang itself. I should also admit that inflation is vague. It is not really a theory, but a class of theories, so there is a significant amount of flexibility in describing its predictions. Eternal inflation, which I am about to describe, seems to me to be an almost unavoidable consequence of inflation. This point, however, is somewhat controversial. In particular, I believe that the following speaker, Neil Turok, will argue either that eternal inflation does not happen, or that it is in any case not relevant to understanding the properties of the observable universe. I, however, will argue that eternal inflation does happen, and is relevant.

By eternal inflation, I mean simply that once inflation starts, it never ends . The term “future-eternal” would be more precise, because I am not claiming that it is eternal into the past—I will discuss that issue at the end of the talk.

The mechanism that leads to eternal inflation is rather straightforward to understand. Recall that we expect inflation to end because the repulsive-gravity material is unstable, so it decays like a radioactive substance. As with familiar radioactive materials, the decay of the repulsive-gravity material is generally exponential: during any period of one half-life, on average half of it will decay. This case is nonetheless very different from familiar radioactive decays, however, because the repulsive-gravity material is also expanding exponentially. That’s what inflation is all about. Furthermore, it turns out that in essentially all models, the expansion is much faster than the decay. The doubling-time for the inflation is much shorter than the half-life of the decay. Thus, if one waits for one half-life of the decay, half of the material would on average convert to ordinary matter. But meanwhile the part that remains would have undergone many doublings, so it would be much larger than the region was at the start. Even though the material is decaying, the volume of the repulsive-gravity material would actually grow with time, rather than decrease. The volume of the repulsive-gravity material would continue to grow, without limit and without end. Meanwhile pieces of the repulsive-gravity material decay, producing a never-ending succession of what I call pocket universes.

In Fig. 2 I show a schematic illustration of how this works. The top row shows a region of repulsive-gravity material, shown very schematically as a horizontal bar. After a certain length of time, a little less than a half-life, the situation looks like the second bar, in which about a third of the region has decayed. The energy released by that decay produces a pocket universe. The pocket universe will inflate to become huge, so to its residents the pocket universe would look like a complete universe. But I will call it a pocket universe because there is not just one, but an infinite number of them.

On the second bar, in addition to the pocket universe, we have two regions of repulsive-gravity material. On the diagram I have not tried to show the expansion, because if I did I would quickly run out of room on the page. So you are expected to remember on your own that each bar is actually bigger than the previous bar, but is drawn on a different scale so that it looks like it is the same size. To discuss a definite example, let us assume that each bar represents three times the volume of the previous bar. In that case, each region of repulsive-gravity material on the second bar is just as big as the entire bar on the top line.

The process can then repeat. If we wait the same length of time again, the situation will be as illustrated on the third bar of the diagram, which represents a region that is 3 times larger than the second bar, and 9 times larger than the top bar. For each region of repulsive-gravity material on the second bar, about a third of the region decays and becomes a pocket universe, leaving regions of repulsive-gravity material in between. Those regions of repulsive-gravity material are again just as big as the one we started with on the top bar. The process goes on literally forever, producing pocket universes and regions of repulsive-gravity material between them, ad infinitum. The universe on the very large scale acquires a fractal structure.

The illustration of Fig. 2 is of course oversimplified in a number of ways: it is one-dimensional instead of three-dimensional, and the decays are shown as if they were very systematic, while in fact they are random. But the qualitative nature of the evolution is nonetheless accurate: eternal inflation really leads to a fractal structure of the universe, and once inflation begins, an infinite number of pocket universes are produced.

## V. Eternal Inflation: Implications

The pocket universes other than our own are believed to be completely unobservable, so one can question whether it makes any scientific sense to talk about them. I would argue that it is valid science, because we are pursuing the consequences of a theory for which we already have other evidence. Of course the theory of inflation has to rest on the evidence that we can observe, but once we are persuaded by these observations, then I think that we should also believe the other implications, even if they involve statements that cannot be directly confirmed.

If one accepts the existence of the other pocket universes, then one can still question whether they have any relevance to the pursuit of science. I will argue that, even though these other universes are unobservable, their existence nonetheless has consequences for the way that we evaluate theories and extract consequences from them.

One question for which eternal inflation has relevance is the question of the ultimate beginning of the universe—what can be learn about it, and how can we learn it? In the following talk, Neil Turok will describe his work with Stephen Hawking  and others on the origin of the universe as a quantum event. He will argue that hypotheses about the form of the initial wave function lead to statistical consequences for our universe that can in principle be directly tested. However, if eternal inflation is a valid description of the universe (as I think it is), then I would expect that all such hypotheses about the ultimate beginning of the universe would become totally divorced from any observable consequences. Since our own pocket universe would be equally likely to lie anywhere on the infinite tree of universes produced by eternal inflation, we would expect to find ourselves arbitrarily far from the beginning. The infinite inflating network would presumably approach some kind of a steady state, losing all memory of how it started, so the statistical predictions for our universe would be determined by the properties of this steady state configuration, independent of hypotheses about the ultimate beginning. In my opinion theories of the ultimate origin would remain intellectually interesting, and with an improved understanding of the fundamental laws of physics, such theories might even eventually become compelling. But I expect that any detailed consequences of such a theory would be completely washed out by the eternal evolution of the universe. Thus, there would be no way of relating the properties of the ultimate origin to anything that we might observe in today’s universe.

Although I believe that the inflating network would approach a steady state, I should admit that attempts to pursue this idea quantitatively have run into several technical problems. First, the evolution of eternally inflating universes leads to physics that we do not understand. In particular, quantum fluctuations tend to drive the repulsive-gravity material to higher and higher energy densities, where the poorly understood effects of quantum gravity become more and more important . Second, even if we impose enough assumptions so that the evolution of the eternally inflating universe can be described, we still do not know how to define probabilities on the infinite set of pocket universes that is produced . The problem is akin to asking what fraction of the integers are odd . Most people would presumably say that the answer is 1/2, since the integers alternate between odd and even. However, the ambiguity of the answer can be seen if one imagines other orderings for the integers. One could, if one wished, order the integers as 1,3, 2, 5,7, 4, 9,11, 6 , …, always writing two odd integers followed by one even integer. This list includes each integer exactly once, but from this list one would conclude that 2/3 of the integers are odd. Thus, the answer seems to depend on the ordering. For eternally inflating universes, however, there is no natural ordering to the regions of spacetime that comprise the entire universe. There are well-founded proposals for defining probabilities , but at least in my opinion there is no definitive and compelling argument.

A second implication of eternal inflation is that the probability for inflation to start—the question of how likely it is for an initial speck of repulsive-gravity material to form—becomes essentially irrelevant. Inflation only needs to begin once, in all of eternity. As long as the probability is nonzero, it does not seem relevant, and perhaps it is not even meaningful, to ask if the probability is large or small. If it is possible, then it will eventually happen, and when it does it produces literally an infinite number of universes. Unless one has in mind some competing process, which could also produce an infinite number of universes (or at least an infinite space-time volume), then the probability for inflation to start has no significance.

The third and final implication of eternal inflation that I would like to discuss pertains to the comparison of theories. I would argue that once one accepts eternal inflation as a logical possibility, then there is no contest in comparing an eternally inflating version of inflation with any theory that is not eternal.

Consider the analogy of going into the woods and finding some rare species of rabbit that has never before been seen. You could either assume that the rabbit was created by a unique cosmic event involving the improbable collision of a huge number of molecules, or you could assume that the rabbit was the result of the normal process of rabbit reproduction, even though there are no visible candidates for the rabbit’s parents. I think we would all consider the latter possibility to be far more plausible. Once we become convinced that universes can eternally reproduce, then the situation becomes very similar, and the same logic should apply. It seems far more plausible that our universe was the result of universe reproduction than that it was created by a unique cosmic event.

## VI. Did the Universe Have a Beginning?

Finally, I would like to discuss the central topic of this session, the question of whether or not the universe had a beginning.

The name eternal inflation, as I pointed out earlier, could be phrased more accurately as future-eternal inflation. Everything that has been said so far implies only that inflation, once started, continues indefinitely into the future. It is more difficult to determine what can be said about the distant past.

For the explicit constructions of eternally inflating models, the answer is clear. Such models start with a state in which there are no pocket universes at all, just pure repulsive-gravity material filling space. So there is definitely a beginning to the models that we know how to construct.

In 1993 Borde and Vilenkin  proved a theorem which showed under fairly plausible assumptions that every eternally inflating model would have to start with an initial singularity, and hence must have a beginning. In 1997, however, they  noted that one of their assumed conditions, although valid at the classical level, was violated by quantum fluctuations that could be significant in eternally inflating models. They concluded that their earlier proof would not apply to such cases, so the door was open for the construction of models without a beginning. They noted, however, that no such models had been found.

At the present time, I think it is fair to say that it is an open question whether or not eternally inflating universes can avoid having a beginning. In my own opinion, it looks like eternally inflating models necessarily have a beginning. I believe this for two reasons. The first is the fact that, as hard as physicists have worked to try to construct an alternative, so far all the models that we construct have a beginning; they are eternal into the future, but not into the past. The second reason is that the technical assumption questioned in the 1997 Borde-Vilenkin paper does not seem important enough to me to change the conclusion, even though it does undercut the proof. Specifically, we could imagine approximating the laws of physics in a way that would make them consistent with the assumptions of the earlier Borde-Vilenkin paper, and eternally inflating models would still exist. Although those modifications would be unrealistic, they would not drastically change the behavior of eternally inflating models, so it seems unlikely that they would change the answer to the question of whether these models require a beginning.

So, as is often the case when one attempts to discuss scientifically a deep question, the answer is inconclusive. It looks to me that probably the universe had a beginning, but I would not want to place a large bet on the issue.

## Acknowledgments

This work is supported in part by funds provided by the U.S. Department of Energy (D.O.E.) under cooperative research agreement #DF-FC02-94ER40818.


format: text

text:
# Absolute Neutrino Mass Determination

## I Introduction

An ongoing experimental effort of high importance is the determination of the neutrino mass eigenvalues. The absolute scale of neutrino masses, a crucial datum for reconstructing physics beyond the Standard Model, is unknown. Presently, upper bounds on the absolute neutrino mass are provided by the tritium decay end-point spectral measurement, by cosmology, and by zero-neutrino double beta decay ($`0\nu \beta \beta `$).

The present tritium decay upper bound on each  of the three neutrino mass eigenstates is 2.3 eV (95 % C.L.) . An upper bound from cosmological structure formation is more stringent but also more model-dependent. For three degenerate neutrino masses, the constraint on the individual neutrino mass eigenstates is $`m_j<1.8`$ eV for large $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$, and $`m_j<0.6`$ eV for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m0.3`$ ; $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ is the matter fraction of the closure density. The present $`0\nu \beta \beta `$ upper limit on the $`ee`$ element $`m_{ee}`$ of the flavor-basis Majorana neutrino mass matrix is 0.27 eV . Fortunately for $`0\nu \beta \beta `$ searches, models which generate small neutrino masses overwhelmingly favor Majorana neutrinos over Dirac neutrinos  (but see  for a small Dirac masses generated by brane-bulk interactions).

To determine an absolute neutrino mass below 1 eV is a true experimental challenge. The three approaches just mentioned have the potential to accomplish the task. Anticipated improvements in these approaches are
(i) larger versions of the tritium end-point distortion measurements;
(ii) the comparison of more-precisely determined early-Universe temperature perturbations (MAP  and PLANCK  experiments) to the present-day large-scale structure distributions of matter (to be measured by SDSS  and 2dF ); and
(iii) larger $`0\nu \beta \beta `$ experiments (GENIUS and EXO are proposed).
In addition there is a fourth possibility:
(iv) the extreme-energy cosmic-ray experiments (AGASA , HiRes , Auger , Telescope Array , EUSO/OWL ) in the context of the recently emphasized Z-burst model .
Still another approach to neutrino mass determination, measuring the arrival-time profile of neutrinos from supernovae, seems not quite capable of breaking the sub-eV barrier .

The Z-burst and cosmic structure measurements are sensitive to the heavier neutrino masses (and the cosmological neutrino background), while the tritium and $`0\nu \beta \beta `$ experiments are sensitive to different linear combinations of whichever masses are coupled to $`\nu _e`$. Neutrino oscillation interpretations of solar, atmospheric, and LSND data produce nonzero values for neutrino mass-squared differences, and so relate all neutrino masses. Accordingly, the expectations of the four approaches listed above to absolute neutrino mass determination are related. Any positive finding in one approach requires concordance in the other three. It is the purpose of this work to reveal the relations among the reaches of the four approaches.

We begin with a discussion of the neutrino mass-relations inferred from oscillation interpretations of recent data. We will conservatively consider a three-neutrino Universe, omitting the uncorroborated data from the LSND experiment; in the future, the miniBooNE experiment at Fermilab will rule on the validity of the LSND measurement. Specifically, we label the mass eigenstates as $`m_3>m_2>m_1`$, and denote the mass-squared differences as

$$m_3^2=m_1^2+\delta m_{\mathrm{atm}}^2,\mathrm{and}m_2^2=m_1^2+\delta m_{\mathrm{sun}}^2$$
(1)
with $`\delta m_{\mathrm{atm}}^2`$ and $`\delta m_{\mathrm{sun}}^2`$ positive. Oscillations are directly sensitive to these nonzero neutrino mass–squared differences. The alternative splitting (“inverted hierarchy”) with two heavy states and a single light state is discussed briefly in the conclusions section; it is disfavored according to a recent analysis  of the neutrino spectrum from SN1987A, unless the mixing element $`U_{e1}`$ is large.

The solar and atmospheric neutrino oscillation interpretations, and the nonobservation of short-baseline $`\nu _e`$ disappearance in the CHOOZ experiment, provide valuable information on the $`\delta m^2`$’s and mixing angles. The most recent global data-analysis in a three neutrino framework yields the following favored regions :***It has become customary to express a mixing angle sensitive to matter effects, such as the solar angle, as $`\mathrm{tan}\theta `$ rather than $`\mathrm{sin}2\theta `$ to account for the octant of the “dark side”, $`\pi /4<\theta \pi /2`$.

* Solar neutrino data favor $`\nu _e\nu _{\mathit{}}`$ oscillations within the
large mixing-angle (LMA) MSW solution:
$`\delta m_{\mathrm{sun}}^2=3\times 10^5`$ eV2, with a 90% C.L. of $`(110)\times 10^5`$ eV;
$`\mathrm{tan}^2\theta _{\mathrm{sun}}=0.5`$, with a 90% C.L. of (0.2-0.6).
Also allowed at 90 % C.L. is a small region in the
LOW-QVO (quasi-vacuum oscillation) regime:
$`\delta m_{\mathrm{sun}}^2=10^7`$ eV2,
$`\mathrm{tan}^2\theta _{\mathrm{sun}}=(0.60.8)`$.
The small mixing-angle (SMA) MSW solution at
$`\delta m_{\mathrm{sun}}^2=(49)10^5`$ eV2,
$`\mathrm{tan}^2\theta _{\mathrm{sun}}=(0.21)10^3`$
is disfavored at 90 % C.L. but viable at 95 % C.L.
* Atmospheric neutrino data are explained by maximal $`\nu _\mu \nu _\tau `$ oscillations with:
$`\delta m_{\mathrm{atm}}^2=3\times 10^3`$ eV2, and a 90% C.L. of $`(1.65)\times 10^3\mathrm{eV}^2`$;
$`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{\mathrm{atm}}>0.85`$.

It should be stressed also that at larger C.L. the large-angle solution for solar neutrinos can extend over nearly the entire region from $`\delta m_{\mathrm{sun}}^2=10^{10}`$ eV2 up to $`\delta m_{\mathrm{sun}}^2=10^3`$ eV2. Also, data from Supernova1987A have recently been re-analyzed in the context of the various solar neutrino solutions. The result is that the LOW-QVO solutions are disfavored at $`4\sigma `$ compared to the SMA and LMA solutions  over most of the supernova parameter space.

The mass-squared differences inferred from solar and atmospheric measurements imply lower bounds on the masses $`m_3`$ and $`m_2`$. The atmospheric bound is $`m_3\sqrt{\delta m_{\mathrm{atm}}^2}0.05`$ eV, which is encouraging for mass-sensitive experiments. The relation among the three masses enforced by the oscillation interpretation of solar and atmospheric data is plotted is Fig. 1. Also shown in the figure are the present tritium and cosmological upper bounds on absolute neutrino mass. The mass-squared differences inferred from data show a definite hierarchy: $`\delta m_{\mathrm{sun}}^2\delta m_{\mathrm{atm}}^2`$ by probably a factor of 30 or more. As seen in Fig. 1, this may or may not imply a mass hierarchy. If $`m_1\sqrt{\delta m_{\mathrm{atm}}^2}0.05\mathrm{eV}`$, then all three neutrino masses are nearly degenerate, while if m1

<

δmatm20.05eV

<

subscript𝑚1𝛿subscriptsuperscript𝑚2atmsimilar-to0.05eVm_{1}\mathrel{\vbox{\hbox{$<$}\nointerlineskip\hbox{$\sim$}}}\sqrt{\delta m^{2}_{\rm atm}}\sim 0.05\,{\rm eV}, then the three masses are not degenerate. The degenerate possibility has been preferred in cold+hot dark-matter models to account for observed large-scale structures. However, the need for the hot component is mitigated by the cosmological constant introduced to explain high red-shift Type Ia supernovae observations.

If $`m_1\sqrt{\delta m_{\mathrm{sun}}^2}0.003\mathrm{eV}`$, then the two lightest neutrino masses $`m_1`$ and $`m_2`$ are nearly degenerate. With the exception of a futuristic 10 ton version of GENIUS, the reach of the four approaches considered in this work does not extend down to as low as 0.003 eV. Accordingly, in what follows we take $`m_1`$ and $`m_2`$ to be degenerate.

We return to the four approaches to absolute neutrino-mass determination. Because the relevance of extreme-energy cosmic rays (EECRs) to neutrino mass determination via the Z-burst model is the least known of the approaches, and because data already exist which in the context of the model implicate an absolute neutrino mass (in the range 0.1 to 1.0 eV), we consider the Z-burst approach first. The model is speculative. However, if it is validated as the explanation of EECR puzzles, the payoff is big. Not only is the absolute mass of the neutrino revealed, but also the existence of the cosmic neutrino background (CNB) liberated one second after the Big Bang.

## II The Z-burst model for EECR’s

It was expected that the EECR primaries would be protons from outside the galaxy, produced in Nature’s most extreme environments such as the tori or radio hot spots of active galactic nuclei (AGN). Indeed, cosmic ray data show a spectral flattening just below $`10^{19}`$ eV which can be interpreted as a new extragalactic component overtaking the lower energy galactic component; the energy of the break correlates well with the onset of a Larmor radius for protons too large to be contained by the Galactic magnetic field. It was further expected that the extragalactic spectrum would reveal an end at the Greisen-Kuzmin-Zatsepin (GZK) cutoff energy of $`E_{\mathrm{GZK}}5\times 10^{19}`$ eV. The origin of the GZK cutoff is the degradation of nucleon energy by the resonant scattering process $`N+\gamma _{2.7K}\mathrm{\Delta }^{}N+\pi `$ when the nucleon is above the resonant threshold $`E_{\mathrm{GZK}}`$ for $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{}`$ production. The concomitant energy-loss factor is $`(0.8)^{D/6\mathrm{M}\mathrm{p}\mathrm{c}}`$ for a nucleon traversing a distance $`D`$. Since no AGN-like sources are known to exist within 100 Mpc of earth, the energy requirement for a proton arriving at earth with a super-GZK energy is unrealistically high. Nevertheless, to date more than twenty events with energies at and above $`10^{20}`$ eV have been observed .
The spectral break just below $`10^{19}`$ eV and the super-GZK events from the AGASA experiment are displayed in Fig. 2.

Several solutions have been proposed for the origin of these EECRs, ranging from unseen Zevatron accelerators (1 ZeV $`=10^{21}`$ eV) and decaying supermassive particles and topological defects in the Galactic vicinity, to exotic primaries, exotic new interactions, and even exotic breakdown of conventional physical laws . A rather conservative and economical scenario involves cosmic ray neutrinos scattering resonantly on the cosmic neutrino background (CNB) predicted by Standard Cosmology, to produce Z-bosons . These Z-bosons in turn decay to produce a highly boosted “Z-burst”, containing on average twenty photons and two nucleons above $`E_{\mathrm{GZK}}`$ (see Fig. 3). The photons and nucleons from Z-bursts produced within 50 to 100 Mpc of earth can reach earth with enough energy to initiate the air-showers observed at $`10^{20}`$ eV.

The energy of the neutrino annihilating at the peak of the Z-pole is

$$E_{\nu _j}^R=\frac{M_Z^2}{2m_j}=4(eV/m_j)\mathrm{ZeV}.$$
(2)
The resonant-energy width is narrow, reflecting the narrow width of the Z-boson: at FWHM $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_R/E_R\mathrm{\Gamma }_Z/M_Z=3\%`$. The mean energies of the $`2`$ baryons and $`20`$ photons produced in the Z decay are easily estimated. Distributing the Z-burst energy among the mean multiplicity of 30 secondaries in Z-decay , one has

$$E_p\frac{E_R}{30}1.3\left(\frac{\mathrm{eV}}{m_j}\right)\times 10^{20}\mathrm{eV}.$$
(3)
The photon energy is further reduced by an additional factor of 2 to account for their origin in two-body $`\pi ^0`$ decay:

$$E_\gamma \frac{E_R}{60}0.7\left(\frac{\mathrm{eV}}{m_j}\right)\times 10^{20}\mathrm{eV}.$$
(4)
Even allowing for energy fluctuations about mean values, it is clear that in the Z-burst model the relevant neutrino mass cannot exceed $`1`$ eV. On the other hand, the neutrino mass cannot be too light of the predicted primary energies will exceed the observed event energies.Also, the neutrino mass cannot be too small without pushing the primary neutrino flux to unattractively higher energies. In this way, one obtains a rough lower limit on the neutrino mass of $`0.1`$ eV for the Z-burst model, when allowance is made for an order of magnitude energy-loss for those secondaries traversing 50 to 100 Mpc.

The necessary conditions for the viability of this model are a sufficient flux of neutrinos at

>

1021

>

absentsuperscript1021\mathrel{\vbox{\hbox{$>$}\nointerlineskip\hbox{$\sim$}}}10^{21} eV and a neutrino mass scale of the order $`0.11`$ eV . The first condition seems challenging , while the second is quite natural in view of the recent oscillation data (see Fig. 1).

It is worth remarking that the cosmic fluxes of the three neutrino mass-eigenstates are virtually guaranteed to be nearly equal as a result of the $`\nu _\mu \nu _\tau `$ near-maximal mixing observed in atmospheric data. This comes about as follows: For extragalactic neutrinos produced in $`\pi ^\pm `$ decay, the original flavor ratio $`\nu _e:\nu _\mu :\nu _\tau 1:2:0`$ oscillates to $`1:1:1`$; for more exotic neutrino production from, e.g., string cusps, a flavor-neutral ratio of $`1:1:1`$ may be expected at the source. For both cases, an equal population of flavor states results for the cosmic flux. It then follows from unitarity of the mixing matrix that there is also an equal population of mass states in the flux. The mass basis is the more relevant basis for annihilation on the nonrelativistic relic neutrinos; it is also the more physical basis when it is realized that flavor states traveling cosmic distances (the flux) or existing for cosmic ages (the CNB) will have decohered into mass states.  An equal population of mass states is also expected among the thermally produced CNB. The equal population of mass states in flux and CNB has interesting consequences. It follows that the relative Z-burst rate at each of the three resonant energies is given by the total neutrino flux value $`F_\nu (E^R)`$ at each resonant energy. If the neutrinos are mass degenerate, then a further consequence is that the Z-burst rate at $`E_R`$ is three times what it would be without degeneracy. This ameliorates slightly the formidable flux requirement.

The viability of the Z-burst model is enhanced if the CNB neutrinos cluster in our matter-rich vicinity of the universe. The main constraints on clustering are two-fold. For very large scales, the Universe is too young to have experienced significant infall of matter. For smaller scales, the Pauli blocking of identical neutrinos sets a limit on density enhancement. As a crude estimate of Pauli blocking, one may use the zero temperature Fermi gas as a model of the gravitationally bound neutrinos. Requiring that the Fermi momentum of the neutrinos does not exceed mass times the virial velocity $`\sigma \sqrt{MG/L}`$ within the cluster of mass $`M`$ and size $`L`$, one gets

nνj54cm3

<

103(mjeV)3(σ200km/s)3.

<

subscript𝑛subscript𝜈𝑗54superscriptcm3superscript103superscriptsubscript𝑚𝑗eV3superscript𝜎200kms3\frac{n_{\nu_{j}}}{54\,{\rm cm}^{-3}}\mathrel{\vbox{\hbox{$<$}\nointerlineskip\hbox{$\sim$}}}10^{3}\left(\frac{m_{j}}{{\rm eV}}\right)^{3}\left(\frac{\sigma}{200{\rm km/s}}\right)^{3}\,. (5)
The virial velocity within our Galactic halo is a couple hundred km/sec. Thus it appears that Pauli blocking allows significant clustering on the scale of our Galactic halo only if mj

>

0.5

>

subscript𝑚𝑗0.5m_{j}\mathrel{\vbox{\hbox{$>$}\nointerlineskip\hbox{$\sim$}}}0.5 eV. An indicator of the neutrino mass sufficient to allow a 100-fold increase in the Galactic halo density of the CNB is shown on Fig. 4.

For rich clusters of galaxies, the virial velocities are a thousand km/s or more. Thus, Pauli blocking does not exclude significant clustering on scales of tens of Mpc for mj

>

0.1

>

subscript𝑚𝑗0.1m_{j}\mathrel{\vbox{\hbox{$>$}\nointerlineskip\hbox{$\sim$}}}0.1 eV. However, on these large scales, the infall of matter integrated to the present time is probably insufficient to effect significant clustering.

## III Tritium decay end-point limits

In tritium decay, the larger the mass states comprising $`\overline{\nu }_e`$, the smaller is the Q-value of the decay. The manifestation of neutrino mass is a reduction of phase space for the produced electron at the high energy end of its spectrum. An expansion of the decay rate formula about $`m_{\nu _e}`$ leads to the end point sensitive factor

$$m_{\nu _e}^2\underset{j}{}|U_{ej}|^2m_j^2,$$
(6)
where the sum is over mass states which can kinematically alter the end-point spectrum. If the neutrino masses are nearly degenerate, then unitarity of $`U`$ leads immediately to a bound on $`\sqrt{m_{\nu _e}^2}=m_3`$. The design of larger tritium decay experiments to reduce the present 2.3 eV $`m_{\nu _e}`$ bound are under discussion; direct mass limits as low as 0.4 eV, or even 0.2 eV, may be possible in this type of experiment.

## IV CMB/LSS cosmological limits

According to Big Bang cosmology, the masses of nonrelativistic neutrinos are related to the neutrino fraction of closure density by $`_jm_j=40\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu h_{65}^2`$ eV, where $`h_{65}`$ is the present Hubble parameter in units of 65 km/s/Mpc. As knowledge of large-scale structure (LSS) formation has evolved, so have the theoretically preferred values for the hot dark matter (HDM) component, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu `$. In fact, the values have declined. In the once popular HDM cosmology, one had $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu 1`$ and $`m_\nu 10`$ eV for each of the mass-degenerate neutrinos. In the cold-hot CHDM cosmology, the cold matter was dominant and one had $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu 0.3`$ and $`m_\nu 4`$ eV for each neutrino mass. In the currently favored $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$DM cosmology, there is scant room left for the neutrino component. An analysis relating the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature fluctuations and the present-day LSS provides the limit. The power spectrum of early-Universe density perturbations, fossilized in the observed CMB fluctuations at the recombination epoch $`z_r1100`$, is processed by gravitational instabilities. However, the free-streaming relativistic neutrinos suppress the growth of fluctuations on scales below the horizon (approximately the Hubble size $`c/H(z)`$) until they become nonrelativistic at $`zm_j/3T_01000(m_j/\mathrm{eV})`$. The result of simulation is a neutrino component constrained as $`_jm_j<5.5`$ eV for all values of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$; and $`m_j<0.6(0.9)`$ eV for each of three degenerate neutrinos and for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3(0.4)`$, all at 95 % C.L. .

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) should measure the power spectrum of the LSS to $`1\%`$ accuracy. Combining this with the CMB measurements expected from the MAP satellite, one can infer neutrino mass down to

$$m_\nu 0.33\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_mh_{65}^2}{0.3}\frac{3}{\mathrm{N}}\right)^{0.8}\mathrm{eV}.$$
(7)
Here N is the number of degenerate neutrinos. The effect of a single neutrino state on the CMB anisotropy in $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$DM models has also been discussed . A sensitivity for MAP to 2 eV neutrinos with temperature data alone, and to 0.5 eV with polarization data included is estimated; for the PLANCK satellite a sensitivity to 0.5 eV with temperature data alone and to 0.25 eV with polarization data included is claimed.

Some caution is warranted in the cosmological approach to neutrino mass, in that the many cosmological parameters may conspire in various combinations to yield nearly identical CMB and LSS data. An assortment of very detailed data may be needed to resolve the possible “cosmic ambiguities”.

## V Neutrinoless double beta decay

Neutrinoless double beta decay ($`0\nu \beta \beta `$) proceeds via the nuclear reaction $`{}_{Z}{}^{A}X{}_{Z+2}{}^{A}X+2e^{}`$. The rate is a sensitive tool for the measurement of the absolute mass-scale for Majorana neutrinos . The observable measured in the amplitude of $`0\nu \beta \beta `$ decay is the $`ee`$ element of the neutrino mass-matrix in the flavor basis. Expressed in terms of the mass eigenvalues and neutrino mixing-matrix elements, it is

$$m_{ee}=|\underset{i}{}U_{ei}^2m_i|.$$
(8)
A reach as low as $`m_{ee}0.01`$ eV seems possible with proposed double beta decay projects such as the 1 ton version of GENIUS  and EXO . This provides a substantial improvement over the current bound, $`m_{ee}<0.27`$ eV. In the far future, another order of magnitude in reach is available to the 10 ton version of GENIUS, should it be funded and commissioned.

For masses in the interesting range

>

0.01

>

absent0.01\mathrel{\vbox{\hbox{$>$}\nointerlineskip\hbox{$\sim$}}}0.01 eV, the two light mass eigenstates are nearly degenerate and so the approximation $`m_1=m_2`$ is justified. Furthermore, the restrictive CHOOZ bound , $`|U_{e3}|^2<0.025`$ in the three neutrino model (for $`\delta m_{\mathrm{atm}}^210^3eV^2`$), allows two further simplifications. The first is that the contribution of the third mass eigenstate is nearly decoupled from $`m_{ee}`$ and so $`U_{e3}^2m_3`$ may be neglected in the $`0\nu \beta \beta `$ formula. The second is that the two-neutrino mixing approximation is valid, i.e. $`U_{e1}e^{i\varphi _1}\mathrm{cos}\theta _{\mathrm{sun}}`$ and $`U_{e2}e^{i\varphi _2}\mathrm{sin}\theta _{\mathrm{sun}}`$. We label by $`\varphi _{12}`$ the relative phase between $`U_{e1}^2m_1`$ and $`U_{e2}^2m_2`$. Then, employing the above approximations, we arrive at a very simplified expression for $`m_{ee}`$:

$$m_{ee}^2=\left[1\mathrm{sin}^2(2\theta _{\mathrm{sun}})\mathrm{sin}^2\left(\frac{\varphi _{12}}{2}\right)\right]m_1^2.$$
(9)
The two CP-conserving values of $`\varphi _{12}`$ are 0 and $`\pi `$. These same two values give maximal constructive and destructive interference of the two dominant terms in eq. (8), which leads to upper and lower bounds for the observable $`m_{ee}`$ in terms of a fixed value of $`m_1`$:

$$\mathrm{cos}(2\theta _{\mathrm{sun}})m_1m_{ee}m_1,\mathrm{for}\mathrm{fixed}m_1.$$
(10)
The upper bound becomes an equality, $`m_{ee}=m_1`$, for any of the solar solutions if $`\varphi _{12}=0`$, and for the small-angle SMA solution ($`\mathrm{cos}(2\theta _{\mathrm{sun}})1`$) with any $`\varphi _{12}`$. The lower bound depends on Nature’s value of the mixing angle in the LMA and LOW-QVO solutions.§§§ Were $`\theta _{\mathrm{sun}}`$ truly maximal at $`\pi /4`$, the dominant terms in $`m_{ee}`$ could cancel, leaving $`m_{ee}`$ beyond the reach of foreseeable $`0\nu \beta \beta `$ experiments. Truly maximal mixing is not favored by fits to the data, nor by any theory. A consequence of eq. (10) is that for a given measurement of $`m_{ee}`$, the corresponding inference of $`m_1`$ is uncertain over the range $`[m_{ee},m_{ee}\mathrm{cos}(2\theta _{\mathrm{sun}})]`$ due to the unknown phase difference $`\varphi _{12}`$.

Knowing the value of $`\theta _{\mathrm{sun}}`$ better will improve the estimate of the inherent uncertainty in $`m_1`$. For the LMA solar solution, the forthcoming Kamland experiment should reduce the error in the mixing angle $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{\mathrm{sun}}`$ to $`\pm 0.1`$ . However, it is unlikely that the inherent uncertainty in $`m_1`$ can be reduced beyond $`(\mathrm{cos}2\theta _{\mathrm{sun}})^1`$, since there is no known way to measure the Majorana phase difference $`\varphi _{12}`$. Ultimately, the inferences made for $`m_{ee}`$ from a positive $`0\nu \beta \beta `$ result will also depend on the uncertainty in the charged-current nuclear matrix element. Currently this uncertainty is a factor of 2 to 3. We ignore it in what follows.

A quantitative discussion of the reach of $`0\nu \beta \beta `$ is presented in the next section.

## VI Correlations among approaches

It is evident that the puzzle of absolute scale of neutrino masses connects very different branches of physics, ranging from the sub-eV scale of $`0\nu \beta \beta `$ and end-point tritium decay, to the ZeV scale of EECRs, to the matter fluctuations of the primordial Universe. As mentioned in the introduction, the Z-burst and cosmic structure measurements are sensitive to the heavier neutrino masses, while the tritium and $`0\nu \beta \beta `$ experiments are sensitive to linear combinations of masses (presumably the lighter ones) most coupled to $`\nu _e`$. The heavier and lighter masses are related by the $`\delta m^2`$’s inferred from oscillation experiments, which in turn correlates the possible findings of the four approaches to absolute neutrino-mass determination. One way to display the correlations among the approaches is to show the overlap of their respective reaches on a mass plot. This is done in Fig. 4, where we take $`0\nu \beta \beta `$ as representative of the effort to measure the lighter neutrino masses, and the Z-burst model as representative for $`m_3`$ measurement. The complementary limits from tritium decay and cosmology were already presented in the $`m_3m_1`$ plane of Fig. 1.

Shown in Fig. 4 is the $`0\nu \beta \beta `$-observable $`m_{ee}`$ predicted for each solar solution, as a function of the heaviest neutrino mass $`m_3`$, or, alternatively the Z-burst resonance energy $`E_R=4(\mathrm{eV}/m_3)`$ ZeV. This mass-correlated plot is possible because fixing $`m_3`$ fixes $`m_1`$ and $`m_2`$, as given by eqn. (1). According to eqn. (9), for each solar solution there results a band of allowed $`m_{ee}`$, reflecting the uncertainties in the relative Majorana phase difference $`\varphi _{12}`$. The exception is the SMA solution, for which the band collapses to a unique relation between $`E_R`$ and $`m_{ee}`$, independent of $`\varphi _{12}`$. For the large-mixing solutions, the allowed $`m_{ee}`$ varies by a factor of 4 between $`\pi _{12}=0`$ and $`\pi _{12}=\pi `$ for LMA, and a factor of $``$ 10 for LOW-QVO.

Also shown on the Figure are the recent Heidelberg-Moscow (HM) bound on $`m_{ee}`$, and the expected GENIUS/EXO sensitivity to $`m_{ee}`$. The portion of the band for each solar model below the HM bound is the viable region. The portion of each band above the GENIUS/EXO line will be probed by these experiments. Some implications for $`m_3`$ and $`E_R`$ are evident. For example, for the SMA or $`\varphi _{12}=0`$ solutions, $`m_3`$ is bounded from above by 0.27 eV, and $`E_R`$ is bounded from below by 15 ZeV due to the HM exclusion; $`m_3`$ is also bounded from below by $`\sqrt{\delta m_{\mathrm{atm}}^2}0.05`$ eV and $`E_R`$ from above by 80 ZeV. As $`\varphi _{12}`$ increases from zero to $`\pi `$, the $`0\nu \beta \beta `$ upper bound on $`m_3`$ increases to 1 eV and 3 eV, respectively, for the 90% C.L. LMA and LOW solutions; the $`0\nu \beta \beta `$ lower bound on the Z-burst energy decreases to 4 ZeV and 1 ZeV for these same LMA and LOW solutions, respectively.

On may turn the correlation between $`0\nu \beta \beta `$ and the Z-burst model around. As an example, if the Z-burst energy $`E_R`$ is fixed, e.g. by assuming a factor 100 CNB density increase in the Galactic halo due to clustering, one has $`m_30.5`$ eV and $`E_R8`$ ZeV, and a resulting lower bound on $`m_{ee}`$ of 0.1 eV and 0.04 eV in the LMA and LOW models at 90% C.L., respectively. As can be seen in Fig. 4, these values of $`m_{ee}`$ lie within the reach of the 1 ton GENIUS and the EXO proposals. Therefore, if the GENIUS/EXO experiments fail to see $`0\nu \beta \beta `$, then either neutrinos are Dirac particles, neutrino clustering in our Galactic halo is insignificant, or the Z-burst hypothesis is wrong. A more complete list of correlated inferences is now given.

If $`0\nu \beta \beta `$ were to measure a value of $`m_{ee}`$ above 0.01 eV, then the implications for the Z-burst model are:

* The absolute mass $`m_3`$ and therefore the Z-burst energy $`E_R`$ will be determined with an accuracy factor of $`(\mathrm{cos}2\theta _{\mathrm{sun}})^1`$, which is unity for the SMA solution but $`410`$ at present for large-mixing solutions.
* If $`m_1`$ is shown to exceed $`0.05`$ eV, then the three neutrino masses are near-degenerate, and the absolute rate of Z-bursts is increased by three, independent of the resonant neutrino flux.
* Depending on what absolute mass scale is discovered, a factor of 100 (for $`m_30.5`$ eV) to $`10^3`$ (for $`m_31`$ eV) may be gained in the Z-burst rate due to clustering in the Galactic halo.
* The neutrino is definitely a Majorana particle, and so a factor of two more is gained in the Z-burst rate relative to the Dirac neutrino case; this is because the two active helicity states of the relativistic CNB depolarize upon cooling to populate all spin states (two active and two sterile states for Dirac neutrinos, but only the original two active states for Majoranas) .

If $`0\nu \beta \beta `$ will not be observed with $`m_{ee}`$ as low as $`0.01`$ eV,
then either:

* The absolute mass $`m_3`$ is determined to be $`m_3\sqrt{\delta m_{\mathrm{atm}}^2}0.5`$ eV; and no halo clustering and no mass-degeneracy enhance the Z-burst model.

or:

* neutrinos are Dirac particles.

Conversely, if the Z-burst model turns out to be the correct explanation of EECRs, then it is probable that neutrinos possess one or more masses in the range $`m_\nu (0.11)`$ eV. Reference to Fig. 1 reveals that mass-degenerate neutrino models are then likely. Some consequences are:

* A value of $`m_{ee}>0.01`$ eV results, and thus a signal of $`0\nu \beta \beta `$ in the GENIUS/EXO experiments is predicted, assuming the neutrinos are Majorana particles.
* Neutrino mass is sufficiently large to affect the CMB/LSS power spectrum.

We have illustrated in some detail the correlation between $`0\nu \beta \beta `$ and Z-bursts. The extension to the tritium end-point experiment and the CMB/LSS study is straightforward. At a minimum, the $`0\nu \beta \beta `$ and tritium end-point experiments will cross-check each other over a significant range of $`m_1`$ (assuming of course, that neutrinos are Majoranas). And the similarity in reach of the Z-burst and the CMB/LSS approaches allows a cross-check over a significant range of $`m_3`$; in particular, independent confirmation of the existence of the CNB is available. At a maximum, each of the four experimental approaches impacts the other three, since all three $`m_j`$’s are related by the oscillation $`\delta m^2`$’s.

## VII Discussion and conclusions

The mass-squared differences inferred from oscillation interpretations of solar and atmospheric neutrino data relate the three neutrino mass-eigenvalues $`m_3`$, $`m_2`$, and $`m_1`$. Accordingly, only the overall mass scale is devoid of information. We have considered four approaches mixing experiment and theory which have the potential to infer a neutrino mass below 1 eV. These are $`0\nu \beta \beta `$ and tritium decay end-point measurements, which in future experiments may be sensitive to the lighter masses $`m_1`$ and $`m_2`$ if they exceed 0.01 and 0.2 eV, respectively; and extreme-energy cosmic ray measurements in the context of the Z-burst model, and comparisons of cosmological measurements of CMB fluctuations and LSS distributions, which are sensitive to all neutrino masses

>

0.1

>

absent0.1\mathrel{\vbox{\hbox{$>$}\nointerlineskip\hbox{$\sim$}}}0.1 eV. Due to the mass relations implied by the oscillation data, the findings expected from each of these four approaches is correlated with the findings expected in the other three. We have presented in some detail why and how this is so. Special emphasis was placed on $`0\nu \beta \beta `$ as representative of $`m_1`$, $`m_2`$ measurements, and on the Z-burst model as representative of $`m_3`$ measurements. The gross correlations between $`0\nu \beta \beta `$ and the Z-burst model are presented in Fig. 4. More subtle inferences are itemized in the previous section. Present constraints from the tritium decay spectrum and from CMB/LSS measurements are shown in Fig. 1. Taken together, the four approaches hold the potential not only to determine the absolute neutrino mass, but also to cross-check the validity of the assumptions underlying the approaches.

Of the four approaches discussed here, the Z-burst model probably contains the most speculative assumption, namely that there exists a substantial cosmic flux of neutrinos at energy $`E_R10^{22}`$ eV. This assumption may be checked directly  in a teraton neutrino detector such as the proposed EUSO/OWL/AW orbiting experiment . The remaining assumptions in the Z-burst model seem solid, relying only on Standard Model physics, the Standard Cosmological Model, and the existence of neutrino mass. In other words, if $`F_\nu (E_R)`$ is nonzero, then Z-bursts have to occur; but the rate is proportional to the completely unknown value of $`F_\nu (E_R)`$. It was proposed long ago  that spectroscopy of all neutrino masses may be done by observing the energies ($`E_{\nu _j}^R=4(\mathrm{eV}/m_j)`$ ZeV) of absorption dips in the extreme-energy neutrino flux. This idea remains possible in principle, but in practice requires an even larger neutrino flux than that required for an observable rate of Z-bursts.

Finally, we wish to comment on what changes in this work if the neutrino masses exhibit the disfavored “inverted” spectrum. In the inverted spectrum, the two heavier states are split from one another by $`\delta m_{\mathrm{sun}}^2`$, and separated from the remaining lighter state by $`\delta m_{\mathrm{atm}}^2`$. With the inverted spectrum, the ordinate Fig. 1 becomes the near-degenerate masses of the two heavier states $`m_3`$ and $`m_2`$, while the abscissa becomes just the single lighter state $`m_1`$. More importantly, the $`\nu _e`$ state is mixed mainly with the two heavier states, and so the $`0\nu \beta \beta `$ and tritium end-point approaches to absolute mass determination become sensitive to the heavier states, as is the case with the Z-burst and CMB/LSS approaches. In the $`0\nu \beta \beta `$ section of this paper, the lighter mass $`m_1`$ in eqns. (9) and (10) is replaced with the heavier mass $`m_3`$. As a consequence, the present HM bound on $`m_{ee}`$ directly impacts the Z-burst model, and the potential of CMB/LSS measurements to infer a neutrino mass. For the degenerate case with $`m_10.05`$ eV, the situation is equivalent to the normal hierarchy. However, even in the strongly (inverse) hierarchical case, where $`m_1m_3`$, it is true that mee

>

m3cos2θsun

>

δmatm2cos2θsun

>

subscript𝑚𝑒𝑒subscript𝑚32subscript𝜃sun

>

𝛿subscriptsuperscript𝑚2atm2subscript𝜃sunm_{ee}\mathrel{\vbox{\hbox{$>$}\nointerlineskip\hbox{$\sim$}}}m_{3}\cos 2\theta_{\rm sun}\mathrel{\vbox{\hbox{$>$}\nointerlineskip\hbox{$\sim$}}}\sqrt{\delta m^{2}_{\rm atm}}\cos 2\theta_{\rm sun}, which allows a cross-check of these approaches.

With four approaches available for determination of neutrino mass below 1 eV, there is hope that the absolute neutrino mass scale will become known. The overlap in mass-reach of the four approaches, discussed in this work, will provide an important consistency check on any positive result of any one approach.

## Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the DOE grant no. DE-FG05-85ER40226.


text:
# Spin dynamics of the model 2D quantum antiferromagnet CFTD

## Abstract

The magnetic excitation spectrum in the two-dimensional (2D) $`S=1/2`$ Heisenberg antiferromagnet copper deuteroformate tetradeuterate (CFTD) has been measured for temperatures up to $`TJ/2`$, where $`J=6.31\pm 0.02`$ meV is the 2D exchange coupling. For $`TJ`$, a dispersion of the zone boundary energy is observed, which is attributed to a wavevector dependent quantum renormalization. At higher temperatures, spin-wave-like excitations persist, but are found to broaden and soften. By combining our data with numerical calculations, and with existing theoretical work, a consistent description of the behaviour of the model system is found over the whole temperature interval investigated.

While at the atomic level, magnetism is a quantum phenomenon, the collective behavior of magnets can be largely understood using classical concepts. This can even be true for antiferromagnets with low spin and spatial dimensionality, where quantum fluctuations are sizable. A famous example is the 2D quantum ($`S=1/2`$) Heisenberg antiferromagnet on a square lattice (2DQHAFSL) with nearest-neighbour interactions. Considerable effort has been devoted to this particular model because it describes the parent compounds of the high-$`T_c`$ superconducting cuprates, and also because it once was thought to have a spin fluid rather than a Néel ground state.

By now, it is well established that at zero temperature the 2DQHAFSL displays long-range order, albeit with a staggered moment reduced by quantum fluctuations . In addition, harmonic spin-wave (SW) theory, based on a classical image of the spins as coupled precessing tops, gives an excellent account of the spin dynamics up to intermediate frequencies at T=0. At finite temperatures, long-range order is destroyed by thermal fluctuations, and the system possesses short-range order only, characterized by a temperature-dependent correlation length $`\xi (T)`$. A ombination of low temperature renormalised classical theory , intermediate temperature quantum Monte Carlo (QMC)  and high-temperature methods  accounts for the experimental data for $`\xi (T)`$, covering the range $`J/5<TJ`$. Thus, a coherent picture exists for the thermodynamic properties at all temperatures for S=1/2, as well as for higher values of the spin. The remaining questions about the 2DQHAFSL concern the intermediate and low frequency spin dynamics at nonzero $`T`$, and the high frequency spin dynamics at all $`T`$. In both cases one could well expect to see more severe quantum effects because they should be more sensitive than the static properties to the non-linearities of Heisenberg’s equations for a low spin system. The present paper describes the first experiment to confront all of these questions directly over the full energy scale set by $`J`$.

Though experiments on the dynamics of the 2DQHAFSL are relatively scarce, considerable theoretical work exists. Time dependent information is contained in the dynamical structure factor $`S(Q,\omega )=𝑑\omega e^{i\omega t}_re^{iQr}S_0(0)S_r(t)`$, which is a function of wavevector $`Q`$ and energy $`\mathrm{}\omega `$, and is measured directly in neutron scattering experiments. The $`T=0`$ properties can be described by classical SW theory, but with quantities such as the SW velocity $`v_s=Z_c\sqrt{2}Ja`$, spin stiffness $`\rho _s=Z_\rho J/4`$, and susceptibility $`\chi _{}=Z_\chi /(8J)`$ renormalized by quantum corrections. Consistent values for the renormalization constants $`Z_c=1.18`$, $`Z_\rho =0.72`$ and $`Z_\chi =0.51`$ have been obtained using the SW expansion to order $`1/(2S)^2`$, and series expansion from the Ising-limit. However, these two approaches to the $`T=0`$ spin dynamics disagree in detail, in that the SW expansion predicts a constant energy at the zone boundary (ZB), whereas the Ising-limit expansion predicts a $``$7% dispersion.

On warming, scattering from thermally excited magnons, and a variation of the order parameter on a length scale set by $`\xi `$, will limit the lifetime of the excitations. Correspondingly, the inverse magnon lifetime, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, will increase, while the dispersion softens to lower energies. Various theoretical studies  and QMC calculations in the limited temperature range $`0.35J<T<0.5J`$ have addressed the dynamic structure factor of the 2DQHAFSL at finite $`T`$. Most approaches agree on the existence of well-defined excitations, but few experimental data are available to test the various quantitative predictions. Much of the experimental work on the 2DQHAFSL has focussed on La2CuO4 and Sr2CuCl2O2, both of which contain the CuO2 planes that are the building blocks of the cuprates. These materials have the drawback that their large coupling constant $`J1500`$ K makes studies on temperature and energy scales comparable to $`J`$ technically challenging. Another realization of the 2DQHAFSL is Cu(DCOO)$`{}_{2}{}^{}`$4D2O (CFTD), where the $`S=1/2`$ Cu moments are coupled through formate groups, leading to an exchange energy ($`J=73.2`$ K) which is more amenable to experiments. The correlation length $`\xi (T)`$ in CFTD has recently been measured up to temperatures of $`TJ`$ , and found to be in good agreement with theory and computations.

Below 236 K, CFTD has the $`P2_1/n`$ space group with lattice parameters $`a=8.113`$ Å, $`b=8.119`$ Å, $`c=12.45`$ Å, and a monoclinic angle $`\beta =101.28^{}`$. The $`ab`$ plane contains face centred $`S=1/2`$ Cu2+ ions, forming an almost square lattice. The SW dispersion along $`a^{}`$ and $`b^{}`$ measured by neutron scattering is well described by an isotropic nearest-neighbour coupling $`J=6.31`$ meV, and a small anisotropy induced gap of $`0.38`$ meV at the zone centre. The inter-layer coupling is estimated to be less than $`10^4J`$, while a Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya term $`J_D=0.46`$ meV has been inferred from magnetization measurements. Below $`T_N=16.54`$ K the system orders three-dimensionally due to the inter-layer coupling .

Our neutron inelastic scattering experiments using the direct geometry time-of-flight (TOF) spectrometer HET at ISIS, UK. The incident energy $`E_i=25`$ meV gave an energy resolution of FWHM 1.64 meV at zero energy transfer. A 3.71 g single crystal of CFTD was aligned with the 2D planes normal to the incident beam. In the geometry used the horizontal and vertical detector banks measured scattering along the -type direction, while the diagonal banks collected data along the  directions. The measured intensities were corrected for detector efficiency, and converted to absolute units by normalising to the incoherent scattering from a vanadium standard.

Data were collected at several temperatures between 8 K and 150 K with typically 24 hours of counting per temperature. The data at 8 K (within the 3D ordered phase) provide a precise determination of the spin Hamiltonian, and allow characterization of the phonon background. For example, the band at 20 meV is probably due to the localised motion of the crystal bound water, which freezes in an anti-ferroelectric transition at 236 K $``$ 20.3 meV, while the extra scattering around 7 meV is due to acoustic phonons emerging from the (1,0,1) type reciprocal lattice points, see Fig. 1(a).

At 8 K, the magnetic signal is concentrated along a sharp SW dispersion curve. The data were analysed by taking cuts along $`Q`$ and $`\omega `$, as illustrated in Fig. 1(b), allowing the phonon contribution to be dealt with as a local background. Each cut was fitted with a parameterized model for the scattering obtained by convolving the full instrumental resolution with the linear SW theory form $`S(Q,\omega )=\frac{A}{2}\sqrt{\frac{1\gamma _Q}{1+\gamma _Q}}\delta (\omega \omega _Q)`$; $`\omega _Q=2\stackrel{~}{J}\sqrt{1\gamma _Q^2}`$; $`\gamma _Q=\frac{1}{2}(\mathrm{cos}Q_x+\mathrm{cos}Q_y)`$, multiplied by the magnetic form factor of free Cu2+ and the Bose population factor. Since the parameterization is only applied locally (the parameters $`A`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{J}`$ were allowed to vary for each cut), it imposes no constraints on the global form of $`S(Q,\omega )`$ or on the extracted dispersion, shown in Fig. 2. It is evident that along  the dispersion is well described by a uniform renormalization of the linear SW theory result. A fit gave $`J=\stackrel{~}{J}/Z_c=6.31\pm 0.02`$ meV, in good agreement with previous neutron scattering  studies and the value derived from high-temperature susceptibility . The present data can be combined with the susceptibility data to give a value of the renormalization factor $`Z_c=1.21\pm 0.05`$, within error the same as the theoretical value 1.18 .

Along  there is a pronounced dip in energy around $`(\pi ,0)`$, indicating a dispersion of $`6\pm 1`$% along the zone boundary (ZB) from $`(\pi /2,\pi /2)`$ to $`(\pi ,0)`$. Such a ZB dispersion has also been observed in Sr2Cu3O4Cl2 , where it was explained in terms of the Ising-limit expansion . Indeed, the Ising-limit expansion accounts perfectly for our data without any additional parameters (dashed line in Fig. 2). However, our data can equally well be modelled within SW theory by introducing an antiferromagnetic next-nearest-neighbour coupling of $`(0.067\pm 0.007)\times J`$, and a priori the experimental data cannot be used to discriminate between these two possibilities. To help resolve this issue we have undertaken numerical computations on finite sized systems, and do indeed find a ZB dispersion for pure nearest neighbour coupling . QMC on lattices up to $`32\times 32`$ spins and temperatures down to $`0.3J`$ extrapolate to about 6% ZB dispersion . Exact diagonalisation of an $`8\times 8`$ system display a ZB dispersion of 4.8%. Both techniques yield no ZB dispersion in the $`4\times 4`$ system, which indicate that a significant number of spins are involved in this effect. We conclude that the experimentally observed ZB dispersion is indeed an intrinsic quantum effect on the $`T=0`$ spin dynamics of the pure 2DQHAFSL model with nearest-neighbour interactions. Recently a ZB dispersion of $`13`$% (i.e. opposite sign) has been found in La2CuO4, which is attributed to higher-order spin couplings .

Above $`T_N`$, the magnetic excitation spectrum broadens, making it more difficult to distinguish from the phonon scattering. To determine the phonon scattering, the SW contribution was simulated by convolving the linear SW result with the experimental resolution. When subtracted from the 8 K data the remaining intensity is dominated by phonon scattering. This was scaled to the thermal population factor and subtracted from the remaining $`T>T_N`$ data. As this method assumes a uniformly renormalised SW dispersion, it obviously does not apply to $`Q||[1,0]`$, and hence only the $`Q||[1,1]`$ data were analysed in this way. Fig. 1(c)-(d) shows examples of data sets where the phonon contributions have been removed. The background corrected data were analysed by fitting cuts along energy to the same parameterization as for the 8 K data, but with the delta function replaced by the damped harmonic oscillator (DHO) line shape $`\delta (\omega \omega _Q)\frac{4}{\pi }\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\omega _Q\omega }{(\omega ^2\omega _Q^2)^2+4\mathrm{\Gamma }^2\omega ^2}`$. No clear trends could be found within error for the $`Q`$ dependence of the fitting parameters $`A`$, $`\stackrel{~}{J}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. In the following we therefore choose to discuss the $`Q`$ averaged values $`\overline{A}(T)`$, $`\overline{J}(T)`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}(T)`$.

The amplitude, $`\overline{A}(T)=\frac{2}{3}(\frac{\gamma e^2}{mc^2})^2Z_\chi S`$, can be used to extract the renormalization $`Z_\chi (T)`$ of the susceptibility. (The factor $`\frac{2}{3}`$ becomes $`\frac{1}{2}`$ for the horizontal banks below $`T_N`$ where the moments order almost vertically.) The temperature dependence of $`Z_\chi (T)`$ is listed in Table 1. At low $`T`$, the experimental value is in perfect agreement with the predicted value of 0.51 . At higher $`T`$, $`Z_\chi `$ appears to decrease, but no clear predictions for the $`T`$ dependence of this quantity have yet been reported.

The uniform SW renormalization of $`\omega _Q`$ found along  at 8 K justifies the use of the average $`\overline{J}(T)`$, which divided by $`J`$ gives the temperature dependent SW renormalization $`Z_c(T)`$ as shown in Fig. 3. Kaganov and Chubukov  have calculated the temperature dependence of the higher-order quantum corrections to SW theory, obtaining $`v_s(T)=v_s(0)\left(1+\frac{\zeta (3)}{4\pi }\left(\frac{T}{JS}\right)^3\right)^1`$, where $`\zeta (3)1.2021`$. This result is represented by the solid line and is in good agreement with our data. The new QMC results are indicated by triangles and are also consistent with the data.

Various calculations of the SW damping all predict a $`Q`$ dependence with a minimum at $`(\pi ,\pi )`$. Around this point, the value of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is quite dependent on the definition of the line shape. This complication is irrelevant for the experimental data, where due to the large incoherent background, the fits were restricted to $`\omega >2`$ meV $`J/3`$. The experimentally determined SW damping is shown in Fig. 3. QMC results for the damping have been reported for $`0.35<T/J<0.5`$ . We find that these overestimate the experimental values of $`\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$ by almost a factor of two. To resolve this discrepancy, we have repeated the QMC calculations . If the same maximum entropy (ME) method is used for analytic continuation of the imaginary time MC data, then the results of Ref.  are reproduced. We found, however, that it is more robust to impose the same DHO line shape as used to analyse our experimental data. When this is done the QMC values shown in Fig. 3 are obtained which are in good agreement with the experimental data. Scaling arguments have also been used to calculate the SW damping . Since this approach mainly applies to the low-energy, long-wavelength behaviour of the system which was not probed in our experiments, we believe that it is not appropriate to compare it with our data. We do note, however, that for $`T<J/2`$ the data lie above the prediction for $`Q=(\pi ,\pi )`$, and below the prediction extrapolated to $`Q=(\pi /2,\pi /2)`$. Our result for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(T)`$ differ from those extracted from NMR in Sr2CuCl2O2 . This may be becase NMR is a local probe in the low energy limit, and the result for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(T)`$ relies on a global asumption for $`S(Q,\omega )`$. In contrast, our data give a direct and asumption free measurement of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(T)`$.

Spin waves are eigenmodes with respect to antiferromagnetic order and vary on a length scale set by the correlation length $`\xi (T)`$. The most naive way to estimate the lifetime of a SW would be to divide $`\xi (T)`$  by the SW velocity $`v_s(T)`$ . In Fig. 4 the solid line is the inverse lifetime $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(T)=v_s(T)/\xi (T)`$ obtained in this way, and is seen to be in surprisingly good agreement with the data.

In summary, we have measured the excitation spectrum of CFTD, which is an excellent physical realization of the 2DQHAFSL. Combining our data and numerical calculations, the existence of a quantum induced ZB dispersion has been unambiguously established. The finite temperature behaviour has been probed up to $`T>J/2`$, where well-defined SW like excitations persist. The temperature dependence of the SW softening and damping in this strongly quantum mechanical system are remarkably well described, without any adjustable parameters, by existing theories based on a quantum renormalization of the classical system.

We gratefully acknowledge Rajiv R. P. Singh for useful discussions. This work was supported by the Danish Research Academy, the UK EPSRC and the EU through its TMR and IHP programmes. ORNL is managed for the US DOE by UT Battle, LLC, contract DE-AC05-00OR22725.