text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Much is known about the irrationality and transcendence of classical arithmetical constants such as $`\pi ,e,`$ and $`\zeta (n)`$ for $`n2.`$ There are general methods which in many cases establish irrationality or transcendence of such numbers. In contrast, almost nothing is known concerning the question of whether arithmetical constants are normal numbers to a fixed base, say $`b=2`$. It is unknown whether any algebraic number is normal to any integer base $`b2.`$ Even very weak assertions in the direction of normality are unresolved. For example, it is not known whether $`\sqrt{2}`$ has arbitrarily long blocks of zeros appearing in its binary expansion, i.e. whether $`lim\; inf_n\mathrm{}\{\{2^n\sqrt{2}\}\}=0`$.

Recently Bailey and Crandall  formulated “Hypothesis $`A`$”, which provides a hypothetical general principle to explain the (conjectured) normality to base $`2`$ of certain arithmetical constants such as $`\pi `$ and $`\mathrm{log}2.`$

### Hypothesis A.

Given a positive integer $`b2`$ and a rational function $`R(x)=\frac{p(x)}{q(x)}(x),`$ such that $`\mathrm{deg}(p(x))<\mathrm{deg}(q(x))`$, and $`q(x)`$ has no nonnegative integer roots, define $`\theta =_{n=0}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{p(n)}{q(n)}b^n.`$ If $`y_0=0`$ and

$`y_{n+1}=by_n+{\displaystyle \frac{p(n)}{q(n)}}(mod1),`$ (1.1)
then the sequence $`\{y_n:n1\}`$ either has finitely many limit points or is uniformly distributed $`(mod1).`$

This hypothesis concerns the behavior of a particular orbit of the discrete dynamical system (1.1). Assuming “Hypothesis A,” Bailey and Crandall deduced that the number $`\theta `$ either is rational or else is a normal number to base $`b`$; these correspond to the two possible behaviors of the sequence $`\{y_n:n1\}`$ allowed by “Hypothesis A”, see Theorem 4.1 below. Proving “Hypothesis A” appears intractable, but it seems useful in collecting a number of disparate phenomona together under a single principle. A formulation in terms of dynamical systems is natural, because the property of normality is itself expressable in terms of dynamics of an orbit of another dynamical system, the $`b`$-transformation, see §2. The basic mechanism rendering “Hypothesis A” useful is a relation between particular orbits of these two different dynamical systems.

This paper provides some complements to the results of Bailey and Crandall. It shows that the relation between particular orbits of two discrete dynamical systems underlying “Hypothesis A” is valid very generally, in that it applies to expansions of real numbers of the form, $`\theta =_{n=1}^{\mathrm{}}ϵ_nb^n,`$ with $`ϵ_n`$ arbitrary real numbers with $`ϵ_n0`$ as $`n\mathrm{},`$ see Theorem 3.1. Every real number has such an expansion, and “Hypothesis A” is not true in such generality. Thus in order to be valid “Hypothesis A” must be restricted to apply only to expansions of some special form. Bailey and Crandall do this, formulating “Hypothesis A” only for a countable class of arithmetical constants which in the sequel we call BBP-numbers. It does not seem clear what should be the “optimal” class of arithmetical constants for which “Hypothesis A” might be valid. The remainder of the paper discusses various mathematical topics relevant to this issue. We relate $`BBP`$ numbers to the theory of $`G`$-functions and characterize the subclass of $`BBP`$-numbers which are “special values” of $`G`$-functions. We also compare “Hypothesis A” to a conjecture of Furstenberg in ergodic theory, and this suggests some further questions to pursue.

We now summarize the contents of the paper in more detail. In §2 and §3 we give the dynamical connection underlying “Hypothesis A.” In §2 we review radix expansions to an integer base $`b2`$ treated as a discrete dynamical system acting on the interval $`[0,1].`$ The radix expansion of a real number $`\theta `$ is described by an orbit of a dynamical system, the $`b`$-transformation $`T_b(x)=bx(mod1),`$ studied by Renyi  and Parry . For a given number $`\theta `$ its $`b`$-expansion can be computed from the iterates of this system

$$x_{n+1}=bx_n(mod1),$$

with initial condition $`x_0=\theta (mod1).`$ The $`b`$-expansion of a real number $`\theta [0,1]`$ is

$$\theta =\underset{j=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}d_jb^j,$$

in which the $`j`$-th digit $`d_j:=bx_{j1}.`$ In §3 we suppose the given real number $`\theta `$ is expressed as

$`\theta ={\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}ϵ_nb^n,`$ (1.2)
in which $`ϵ_n`$ is any sequence of real numbers with $`ϵ_n0`$ as $`n\mathrm{}`$. To this one can associate a perturbed $`b`$-expansion associated to the perturbed $`b`$-transformation

$`y_{n+1}=by_n+ϵ_n(mod1),`$ (1.3)
starting with an initial condition $`y_0[0,1).`$ The recurrence (1.3) is an infinite sequence of maps which change at each iteration. Associated to this recurrence is the perturbed $`b`$-expansion

$$y_0+\theta =\underset{j=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\stackrel{~}{d_j}b^j,$$

in which the $`j`$-th digit $`\stackrel{~}{d_j}:=by_j+ϵ_{j+1}.`$ Choosing the initial condition $`y_0=0`$ gives a perturbed $`b`$-expansion of $`\theta `$. The mechanism underlying the approach of Bailey and Crandall is that the the $`b`$-expansion of $`\theta `$ and the perturbed $`b`$-expansion of $`\theta `$ are strongly correlated in the following sense: The orbit $`\{y_n:n0\}`$ of the perturbed $`b`$-transformation with initial condition $`y_0=0`$ asymptotically approaches the orbit $`\{x_n:n0\}`$ associated to the $`b`$-transformation with initial condition $`x_0=\theta .`$ (Theorem 3.1) In particular, the orbits $`\{x_n:n0\}`$ and the orbit $`\{y_n:n0\}`$ have the same set of limit points, and one is uniformly distributed (mod 1) if and only if the other is. This implies that the perturbed $`b`$-expansion of $`\theta `$, although different from the $`b`$-expansion of $`\theta `$, must have similar statistics, in various senses. This connection is quite general, since every real number $`\theta `$ has representations of the form (1.2).

In §4 we consider the particular class of arithmetical constants treated in Bailey and Crandall , consisting of the countable set of $`\theta `$ given by an expansion (1.2) with $`b2`$ an integer and $`ϵ_n=\frac{p(n)}{q(n)}`$ where $`p(x),q(x)(x)`$, with $`q(n)0`$ for all $`n0.`$ We call such numbers BBP-numbers, and call the associated formula

$$\theta =\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{p(n)}{q(n)}b^n,$$

a BBP-expansion to base $`b`$ of $`\theta .`$ These numbers are named after Bailey, Borwein and Plouffe , who demonstrated the usefulness of such representations (when $`\mathrm{deg}(p(x))<\mathrm{deg}(q(x))`$) in computing base $`b`$ radix expansions of such numbers. We consider $`BPP`$-numbers having the additional restriction $`\mathrm{deg}(p(x))<\mathrm{deg}(q(x)),`$ for this condition is necessary and sufficient for $`ϵ_n0`$ as $`n\mathrm{},`$ so that the results of §3 apply. The number-theoretic character of $`BPP`$-numbers is that they are special values (at rational points) of functions satisfying a homogeneous linear differential equation with integer polynomial coefficients. We derive the result of Bailey and Crandall that “Hypothesis A” implies that such $`\theta `$ either are rational or are normal numbers to base $`b`$ (Theorem 4.1.) This result makes it of interest to find criteria to determine when $`BBP`$-numbers are irrational, which we consider next.

In §5 we relate $`BBP`$-numbers to the theory of $`G`$-functions, and characterize the subclass of $`BBP`$-numbers which are “special values” of $`G`$-functions. The subject of $`G`$-functions has been extensively developed in recent years, see , , , and the special values of such functions can often be proved to be irrational, see , ,. We observe that $`BBP`$-numbers satisfy all but one of the properties required to be a special value of a $`G`$-function defined over the base field $``$. We then show that a $`BBP`$-expansion to base $`b`$ corresponds to a special value of a $`G`$-series at $`z=\frac{1}{b}`$ if and only if the denominator polynomial $`q(x)`$ (in lowest terms) factors into linear factors over the rationals.(Theorem 5.2.) We show that if all the roots of $`q(x)`$ are distinct, then such special values are either rational or transcendental, using Baker’s results on linear forms in logarithms, in Theorem 5.3, a result also obtained in Adikhari, Saradha, Shorey and Tijdeman . We summarize other known results on irrationality or transcendence of special values of $`G`$-functions of the type in Theorem 5.2. It is interesting to observe that every one of the many examples given in  is a special value of a $`G`$-function. Many other interesting examples of such constants were known earlier, for example in 1975 D. H. Lehmer \[26, p. 139\] observed that

$$\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{1}{(n+1)(2n+1)(4n+1)}=\frac{\pi }{3}.$$

In §6 we compare “Hypothesis A” with a conjecture of Furstenberg in ergodic theory, which concerning measures that are ergodic for the joint action of two multiplicatively independent $`b`$-transformations. Both conjectures have similar conclusions, though there seems to be no direct relation between their hypotheses. Bailey and Crandall have found examples of arithmetical constants which have the property of being $`BBP`$-numbers to two multiplicatively independent bases. This suggests that one should look for further conditions under which the two conjectures are more directly related.

In §7 we make concluding remarks. We describe an empirical taxonomy of various classes of arithmetical constants, and formulate some alternative classes of arithmetical constants as candidates for inclusion in “Hypothesis A.”

## 2 Radix Expansions

We consider radix expansions to an integer base $`b2`$. They are obtained by iterating the $`b`$-transformation

$`T_b(x)=bx(mod1).`$ (2.4)
Given a real number $`x_0[0,1)`$, as initial condition, we produce the sequence of remainders

$`x_{n+1}=bx_n(mod1),`$ (2.5)
with $`0x_{n+1}<1`$. That is,

$`x_{n+1}=bx_nd_{n+1}`$ (2.6)
where

$`d_{n+1}=d_{n+1}(x_0)=bx_n\{0,1,\mathrm{},b1\}`$ (2.7)
is called the $`n`$-th digit of $`\theta `$. The forward orbit of $`x_0`$ is $`𝒪^+(x_0)=\{x_n:n0\}`$ and we call $`\{x_n\}`$ the remainder sequence of the $`b`$-expansion. Iterating (2.6) $`n+1`$ times yields

$`x_{n+1}=b^{n+1}x_0d_{n+1}bd_n\mathrm{}b^nd_1.`$ (2.8)
Dividing by $`b^{n+1}`$ yields

$$x_0=\underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}d_jb^jb^{n1}x_{n+1}.$$

Letting $`n\mathrm{}`$ yields the $`b`$-expansion of $`x_0`$,

$`x_0={\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}d_j(x_0)b^j,`$ (2.9)
which is valid for $`0x_0<1`$. For $`\theta `$ we take $`x_0=\theta \theta `$ and $`d_0(\theta )=\theta `$, thus obtaining the representation

$`\theta =d_0(\theta )+{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}d_j(\theta )b^j,`$ (2.10)
which is called the b-expansion of $`theta.`$ Note that (2.8) gives

$`x_nb^nx_0(mod1)b^n\theta (mod1)`$ (2.11)
in this case.

The following property than an initial condition $`\theta `$ may have concerns the topological dynamics of the $`b`$-transformation for its iterates.

###### Definition 2.1

A real number $`\theta [0,1)`$ is digit-dense to base $`b`$ if, for every $`m1`$, every legal digit sequence of digits of length $`m`$ occurs at least once as consecutive digits in the $`b`$-expansion $`\theta =\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}d_n(\theta )\beta ^n`$.

The following property that an initial condition $`\theta `$ may have concerns the metric dynamics of the $`b`$-transformation for $`\theta .`$ It is well known that the $`b`$-transformation $`T_b`$ has the uniform measure (Lebesgue measure) on $`[0,1]`$ as its unique absolutely continuous invariant measure.

###### Definition 2.2

A real number $`\theta [0,1)`$ is normal to base $`b`$ if for every $`m1`$ every digit sequence $`d_1d_2\mathrm{}d_m\{0,1,\mathrm{},d1\}^m`$ occurs with limiting frequency $`b^m`$, as given by the invariant measure $`\mu _{Leb}`$.

Recall that

$$\mu _{Leb}(\{x_0:d_1(x_0)\mathrm{}d_n(x_0)=d_1d_2\mathrm{}d_m\})=b^m,$$

where $`\mu _{Leb}(S)`$ denotes the Lebesgue measure of $`S`$. It is well known that, for each $`b2`$, the set of $`\theta [0,1]`$ that is normal to base $`b`$ has full Lebesgue measure.

The properties of the digit expansion $`\{d_n(\theta ):n1\}`$ can be extracted from the remainder sequence $`\{x_n\}`$. The following result is well known.

###### Theorem 2.1

Given an integer base $`b2`$ and a real number $`\theta [0,1]`$.

* $`\theta `$ is digit-dense to base $`b`$ if and only if its remainder sequence $`\{x_n(\theta ):n1\}`$ to base $`b`$ is dense in $`[0,1]`$.
* $`\theta `$ is normal to base $`b`$ if and only if its remainder sequence $`\{x_n:n1\}`$ to base $`b`$ is uniformly distributed in $`[0,1]`$.
* $`\theta `$ has an eventually periodic $`b`$-expansion. if and only if its remainder sequence $`\{x_n:n1\}`$ to base $`b`$ has finitely many limit points. This condition holds if and only if $`\{x_n:n1\}`$ eventually enters a periodic orbit of the $`b`$-transformation, i.e. $`x_m=x_{m+p}`$ for some $`m`$, $`p1`$. These equivalent conditions hold if and only $`\theta `$ is rational.

### Proof.

(1). The set $`I(d_1d_2\mathrm{}d_m):=\{\theta [0,1]:d_1(\theta )\mathrm{}d_m(\theta )=d_1\mathrm{}d_m\}`$ is a half-open interval $`[a,a+b^m)`$ of length $`b^m`$, and the $`b^m`$ intervals partition $`[0,1]`$. Digit-denseness implies there exists some $`x_kI(d_1\mathrm{}d_m)`$. This holds for all $`m1`$ and generates a dense set of points.

(2). If $`\theta `$ has $`\{x_n:n1\}`$ is uniformly distributed $`(mod1)`$ then the correct frequency of points occurs in each interval $`I(d_1\mathrm{}d_m)`$, and this proves normality of $`\theta `$. For the converse, one uses the fact that $`I(d_1\mathrm{}d_m)`$ is a basis for the Borel sets in $`[0,1)`$.

(3). The key point to check is that if the limit set of $`\{x_n:n1\}`$ is finite, then this finite set forms a single periodic orbit of the $`b`$-transformation, and some $`x_n`$ lies in this orbit. We omit details, cf. Bailey and Crandall \[4, Theorem 2.8\].

### Remark.

Most of the results above generalize to the $`\beta `$-transformation $`T_\beta (x)=\beta x(mod1)`$ for a fixed real $`\beta >1;`$ these maps were studied by Parry . Associated to this map is the notion of a $`\beta `$-expansion for any real number $`\theta `$, in which the allowed digits are $`\{0,1,2,\mathrm{},\beta \}.`$ Not all digit sequences are allowed in $`\beta `$-expansions, but the set of allowed digit sequences was characterized by Parry , see Flatto et al.  for other references. One defines a number $`\theta `$ to be digit-dense to base $`\beta `$ if every allowable finite digit sequence occurs in its $`\beta `$-expansion.. There is a unique absolutely continuous invariant measure $`d\mu `$ of total mass one for the $`\beta `$-transformation, and one defines a number $`\theta `$ to be normal to base $`\beta `$ if every finite block of digits occurs in its $`\beta `$-expansion with the limiting frequency prescribed by this invariant measure. With these conventions, Theorem 2.1 remains valid for a general base $`\beta `$, except that Theorem 2.1(3) must be taken only as characterizing eventually periodic orbits of the $`\beta `$-transformation. That is, the final assertion in (3) that $`\theta `$ is rational must be dropped; it does not hold for general $`\beta .`$ For results relating normality of numbers in different real bases $`\beta `$, see Brown, Moran and Pollington .

## 3 Perturbed Radix Expansions

Let $`b2`$ be an integer, and let $`\{ϵ_n:n1\}`$ be an arbitrary sequence of real numbers satisfying

$`\underset{n\mathrm{}}{lim}ϵ_n=0.`$ (3.12)
Set

$`\theta =\theta (b,\{ϵ_n\}):={\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}ϵ_nb^n.`$ (3.13)
We can study the real number $`\theta `$ using a perturbed $`b`$-expansion associated to the sequence $`\{ϵ_n\}`$.

The perturbed $`b`$-transformation on $`[0,1)`$ is the recurrence

$`y_{n+1}=by_n+ϵ_{n+1}(mod1),`$ (3.14)
with $`0y_{n+1}<1`$ and with given initial condition $`y_0`$. That is,

$`y_{n+1}=by_n+ϵ_{n+1}\stackrel{~}{d}_{n+1},`$ (3.15)
where

$`\stackrel{~}{d}_{n+1}=by_n+ϵ_{n+1}`$ (3.16)
is the $`(n+1)`$-st digit of the expansion. The digit sequence $`\stackrel{~}{d}_n=d_n(y_0)`$ and remainder sequence $`\{y_n:n0\}`$ depend on the initial condition $`y_0`$. Since $`ϵ_n0`$, for all sufficiently large $`n`$, one has $`\stackrel{~}{d}_n\{1,0,1,\mathrm{},b1,b\}`$. Now (3.15) iterated $`n+1`$ times yields

$`y_{n+1}=ϵ_{n+1}+bϵ_n+\mathrm{}+b^nϵ_1+b^{n+1}y_0{\displaystyle \underset{j=0}{\overset{n}{}}}\stackrel{~}{d}_{nj}b^j.`$ (3.17)
Dividing by $`b^{n+1}`$ yields

$`{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}}\stackrel{~}{d}_jb^j={\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}}ϵ_jb^j+(y_0b^{n1}y_{n+1}).`$ (3.18)
Letting $`n\mathrm{}`$ yields the perturbed $`b`$-expansion

$`y_0+\theta ={\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\stackrel{~}{d}_j(y_0)b^j,`$ (3.19)
valid for $`0y_0<1`$. We write $`y_n=y_n(y_0)`$ for the remainder sequence in (3.15)

The perturbed $`b`$-expansion $`\{d_n^{}(\theta ):n1\}`$ for $`\theta `$ given by (3.13) is obtained by choosing the initial condition $`y_0=0`$, i.e. $`d_n^{}(\theta ):=\stackrel{~}{d}_n(0)`$. We also have the perturbed remainders  $`\{y_n^{}(\theta ):n1\}`$ given by $`y_n^{}(\theta )=y_n(0)`$.

The main observation of this section is that the remainders of the perturbed $`b`$-expansion of such $`\theta `$ are related to the remainders of their $`b`$-expansion.

###### Theorem 3.1

Let $`b2`$ be an integer and let $`\theta :=_{n=1}^{\mathrm{}}ϵ_nb^n`$, where $`ϵ_n`$ are real numbers with $`ϵ_n0`$ as $`n\mathrm{}`$. Let $`\{y_n^{}(\theta ):n1\}`$ denote the associated perturbed remainder sequence of $`\theta `$, and $`\{x_n(\theta ):n1\}`$ denote the remainder sequence of its $`b`$-expansion. If

$`t_n:={\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}ϵ_{n+j}b^j,`$ (3.20)
then

$`x_n(\theta )=y_n^{}(\theta )+t_n(mod1).`$ (3.21)
The orbits $`\{x_n(\theta ):n1\}`$ and $`\{y_n^{}(\theta ):n1\}`$ asymptotically approach each other on the torus $`𝕋=/`$ as $`n\mathrm{}`$.

### Proof.

Since $`y_0=0`$, formula (3.17) gives

$`y_{n+1}={\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}}b^{nj}ϵ_j(mod1).`$ (3.22)
Now

$$b^n\theta =\underset{y=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}b^{nj}ϵ_j=\underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}b^{nj}ϵ_j+t_n.$$

Thus

$`b^n\theta =y_n+t_n(mod1).`$ (3.23)
For the $`b`$-expansion, (2.11) gives $`b_n\theta x_n`$ $`(mod1)`$, and combining this with (3.23) yields (3.21).

Since $`ϵ_n0`$ as $`n\mathrm{}`$, we have $`t_n0`$ as $`n\mathrm{}`$. Thus $`|x_n(\theta )y_n^{}(\theta )|0\text{on}𝕋`$ as $`n\mathrm{}.`$ Note that on $`𝕋=/`$ the points $`ϵ`$ and $`1ϵ`$ are close.

###### Lemma 3.2

Let $`\{x_n:n1\}`$ and $`\{y_n:n1\}`$ be any two sequences in $`[0,1]`$ with $`x_n=y_n+\delta _n`$ $`(mod1)`$ with $`\delta _n0`$ as $`n\mathrm{}`$.

* The sequences $`\{x_n:n1\}`$ and $`\{y_n:n1\}`$ have the same sets of limit points, provided the endpoints 0 and 1 are identified.
* The sequence $`\{x_n:n1\}`$ is uniformly distributed $`(mod1)`$ if and only if $`\{y_n:n1\}`$ is uniformly distributed $`(mod1)`$.

### Proof.

(1) This is clear since $`x_{n_j}\psi `$ implies $`y_{n_j}\psi `$ and vice-versa, except at the endpoints $`\psi =0`$ or 1, which, by convention, we identify as the same point.

(2) This is well known, see Kuipers and Niederreiter \[25, Theorem 1.2, p. 3\].

One can compare the $`b`$-expansion $`\{d_n(\theta ):n1\}`$ and the perturbed $`b`$-expansion $`\{d_n^{}(\theta ):n1\}`$ of such $`\theta `$. We have

$`d_n(\theta )`$ $`=`$ $`bx_{n1}`$
$`d_n^{}(\theta )`$ $`=`$ $`b_{n1}+ϵ_n=b(x_{n1}+t_{n1}(mod1))+ϵ_n.`$
Since $`t_n0`$ and $`ϵ_n0`$ as $`n\mathrm{}`$, one expects that “most” digit values of the two expansions will agree<sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1This is an unproved heuristic statement. It is an open problem to prove that a natural density one proportion of all $`n`$ have $`d_n(\theta )=d_n^{}(\theta )`$., i.e. $`d_n(\theta )=d_n^{}(\theta )`$ for “most” sufficiently large values of $`n`$. However there is still room for there to be infinitely many $`n`$ where $`d_n(\theta )d_n^{}(\theta )`$.

We next consider perturbed $`b`$-expansions having a finite number of limit points, and show that they correspond to rational $`\theta `$.

###### Theorem 3.3

Let $`b2`$ be an integer and let $`\theta =_{n=1}^{\mathrm{}}ϵ_nb^n`$ with $`ϵ_n`$ a sequence of real numbers with $`ϵ_n0`$ as $`n\mathrm{}`$. The following conditions are equivalent.

* $`\theta `$.
* The remainders $`\{y_n^{}(\theta ):n1\}`$ of the perturbed $`b`$-expansion of $`\theta `$ have finitely many limit points in $`[0,1]`$.
* The orbit $`\{y_n^{}(\theta ):n1\}`$ of the perturbed $`b`$-transformation asymptotically approaches a periodic orbit $`\{x_k:0kp\}`$ of the $`b`$-transformation, with $`T_b(x_k)=x_{k+1}`$ and $`T_b(x_p)=x_0`$ and for $`0jp1`$, such that

$`y_n=x_j+\delta _n(mod1)\text{if}nj(modp)`$ (3.24)
with $`\delta _n0`$ as $`n\mathrm{}`$.

### Proof.

(i)$``$(ii). By Theorem 2.1 if $`\theta `$ the remainders $`\{x_n(\theta ):n1\}`$ of the $`b`$-transformation have finitely many limit points. By Theorem 3.1 and Lemma 3.2 we conclude that $`\{y_n^{}(\theta ):n1\}`$ has the same set of limit points.

(ii)$``$(iii). By Theorem 3.1 and Lemma 3.2 the limit points of $`\{y_n^{}(\theta ):n1\}`$ are the same as $`\{x_n(\theta ):n1\}`$. By Theorem 2.1 such limit points must form a periodic orbit of the $`b`$-transformation.

(iii)$``$(i). The values $`\{y_n^{}(\theta ):n1\}`$ have limit points the periodic orbit $`\{x_j:1jn\}`$ of $`T_b`$. By Theorem 2.1, it follows that $`\theta `$.

### Remarks.

(1). Any real number $`\theta `$ has some perturbed $`b`$-expansion satisfying the hypotheses of Theorem 3.1, so in a sense these expansions are completely general. It follows from Theorem 3.3 that Hypothesis A cannot be valid for all such $`\theta `$, since there exist irrational $`\theta `$ that are not normal numbers.

(2). The rationality criterion of Theorem 3.3 is not directly testable computationally, unless all $`ϵ_n=0`$ for $`nn_0`$; the latter case essentially is the same as that of a $`b`$-transformation. When infinitely many $`ϵ_n0`$, then the points $`\{y_n^{}(\theta ):n1\}`$ stay outside the periodic orbit for infinitely many values of $`n`$, and the role of the $`\{ϵ_n\}`$ is to compensate for the expanding nature of the map $`T(x)=bx`$ $`(mod1)`$ by providing negative feedback to push the iterates closer and closer to the periodic orbit.

(3). Theorem 3.1 does not extend to $`\beta `$-expansions for non-integer $`\beta .`$ One can consider

$`\theta =\theta (\beta ,\{ϵ_n\}):={\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}ϵ_n\beta ^n.`$ (3.25)
and define an associated perturbed $`\beta `$-transformation in the obvious way. However when $`\beta `$ is not an integer the analogue of Theorem 3.1 fails to hold, since (3.23) is no longer valid. In particular, Theorem 3.1 does not extend to rational $`\beta =\frac{b}{a}>1,`$ with $`a>1.`$

## 4 BBP-Numbers and Hypothesis A

We consider expansions of the following special form.

###### Definition 4.1

A BBP-number to base $`b`$ is a real number $`\theta `$ with a representation

$`\theta ={\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{p(n)}{q(n)}}b^n,`$ (4.26)
in which $`b2`$ is an integer and $`p(x)`$, $`q(x)[x]`$ are relatively prime polynomials, with $`q(n)0`$ for each $`n_0`$. We call (4.26) a BBP-expansion to base $`b`$.

Bailey, Borwein and Plouffe \[5, p. 904\] introduced this class of numbers, proving that for them the $`d`$-th digit is computable<sup>2</sup><sup>2</sup>2Bailey, Borwein and Plouffe use the convention that “computing the d-th digit” means computing is an approximation to $`b^d\theta (mod1)`$ that is guaranteed to be within a specified distance to it $`(mod1)`$. Usually this determines the $`d`$-th digit, but it may not, near the endpoints of the digit interval. in time at most $`O(d\mathrm{log}^{O(1)}d)`$ using space at most $`O(\mathrm{log}^{O(1)}d)`$, which is the complexity class $`SC^{}`$, a subclass of $`SC`$, see \[24, p. 127\].

We mainly consider $`BBP`$-numbers that satisfy the extra condition

$`\mathrm{deg}(q(x))>\mathrm{deg}(p(x)).`$ (4.27)
This condition guarantees that $`ϵ_n=\frac{p(n)}{q(n)}0`$ as $`n\mathrm{}`$, which allows Theorem 3.1 to be applicable. We now formulate two hypotheses, whose conclusions are in terms of topological dynamics and metric dynamics, respectively. The second of these is “Hypothesis A” of Bailey and Crandall .

### Weak Dichotomy Hypothesis.

Let there be given a perturbed $`b`$-transformation with $`ϵ_n=\frac{p(n)}{q(n)}`$ with $`p(x)`$, $`q(x)[x]`$ and $`\mathrm{deg}(q(x))>\mathrm{deg}(p(x))`$. Then the orbit $`\{y_n:n1\}`$ for $`\theta (b,\{ϵ_n\})`$ either has finitely many limit points or else is dense in $`[0,1]`$.

### Strong Dichotomy Hypothesis

Let there be given a perturbed $`b`$-transformation with $`ϵ_n=\frac{p(n)}{q(n)}`$ with $`p(x)`$, $`q(x)[x]`$ and $`\mathrm{deg}(q(x))>\mathrm{deg}(p(x))`$. Then the orbit $`\{y_n:n1\}`$ for $`\theta (b,\{ϵ_n\})`$ either has finitely many limit points or is uniformly distributed on $`[0,1].`$ Equivalently, in measure theoretic terms, the measures $`\mu _N=\frac{1}{N}_{k=1}^N\delta _{y_k}`$ converge in the vague topology as $`N\mathrm{}`$ to a limit measure $`\mu `$, which is an invariant measure for the $`b`$-transformation, and which is either a measure supported on a finite set or else is Lebesgue measure on $`[0,1].`$

Bailey and Crandall  essentially established the following result.

###### Theorem 4.1

Let $`\theta `$ be a BBP-number to base $`b`$ whose associated BBP expansion satisfies

$`\mathrm{deg}(q(x))>\mathrm{deg}(p(x)).`$ (4.28)
Then the following conditional results hold.

(1) The Weak Dichotomy Hypothesis implies that $`\theta `$ is either rational or digit-dense to base $`b`$.

(2) The Strong Dichotomy Hypothesis implies that $`\theta `$ is either rational or a normal number to base $`b`$.

### Proof.

The condition (4.28) guarantees that $`ϵ_n=\frac{p(n)}{q(n)}0`$ as $`n\mathrm{}`$. Thus Theorem 3.1 applies to the $`BBP`$-number

$$\theta =\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{p(n)}{q(n)}b^n.$$

(1) By the Weak Dichotomy Hypothesis the limit set of $`\{y_n^{}(\theta ):n1\}`$ is dense in $`[0,1]`$. Now Lemma 3.2 (1) implies that $`b`$-expansion remainders $`\{x_n(\theta ):n1\}`$ are dense in $`[0,1]`$. Theorem 2.1 (1) then shows that $`\theta `$ is digit-dense.

(2) By the Strong Dichotomy Hypothesis $`\{y_n^{}(\theta ):n1\}`$ is uniformly distributed in $`[0,1]`$. Now Lemma 3.2 (2) implies that $`\{x_n(\theta ):n1\}`$ is uniformly distributed in $`[0,1]`$. Now $`\theta `$ is normal to base $`b`$ by Theorem 2.1 (2).

Bailey, Borwein and Plouffe  and Bailey and Crandall  give many examples of $`BBP`$-numbers satisfying (4.27) where the associated real number $`\theta `$ is known to be irrational. For example for various $`b`$ one can obtain $`\pi `$, $`\mathrm{log}2`$, $`\zeta (3)`$ etc. They also observe that $`\zeta (5)`$ is a $`BBP`$-number, to base $`b=2^{60}`$, but it remains an open problem to decide if $`\zeta (5)`$ is irrational. All the examples they give of $`BBP`$-numbers are actually of a special form: they are “special values” of $`G`$-functions defined over $``$, as we discuss next.

## 5 Special Values of G-Functions

The notion of $`G`$-function was introduced by Siegel  in 1929.

###### Definition 5.1

A power series

$`f(z)={\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}a_nz^n`$ (5.29)
defines a $`G`$-series over the base field $``$ if the following conditions hold.

(i) Rational coefficients condition. All $`a_n`$ so we may write $`a_n=\frac{p_n}{q_n}`$, with $`p_n,q_n`$ with $`(p_n,q_n)=1`$ and $`q_n1`$.

(ii) Local analyticity condition. The power series $`f(z)`$ has positive radius of convergence $`r_{\mathrm{}}`$, and for each prime $`p`$ the $`p`$-adic function $`f_p(z):=_{n=0}^{\mathrm{}}a_nz^n`$ viewing $`a_n_p`$ has positive radius of convergence $`r_p`$ in $`_p`$, where $`_p=\widehat{\overline{_p}}`$ is the completion of the algebraic closure of $`_p.`$

(iii) Linear differential equation condition. The power series $`f(z)`$ formally satisfies a homogeneous linear differential equation in $`D=\frac{d}{dz}`$ with coefficients in the polynomial ring $`[z]`$.

(iv) Growth condition. There is a constant $`C<\mathrm{}`$ such that

$`g_n:=\mathrm{lcm}(q_1,q_2,\mathrm{},q_n)<C^n`$ (5.30)
for all $`n1`$.

There is an extensive theory of $`G`$-functions, see Bombieri , André  and Dwork, Geroth and Sullivan . For the general definition of a $`G`$-function over an algebraic number field $`K`$ see André \[2, p. 14\], or Dwork et al. . $`G`$-functions have an important role in arithmetic algebraic geometry, where it is conjectured that $`G`$-functions are exactly the set of solutions over $`\overline{}[z]`$ of a geometric differential equation over $`\overline{},`$ as defined in Andre \[2, p. 2\]. In any case it is known that the (minimal) homogeneous linear differential equation satisfied by a $`G`$-series is of a very restricted kind: it must have regular singular points, and these must all have rational exponents, by a result of Katz, cf. Bombieri \[7, p. 46\] and Bombieri and Sperber . (The growth condition (iv) plays a crucial role in obtaining this result.) It follows that a $`G`$-series analytically continues to a multi-valued function on $`^1()`$ minus a finite number of singular points, cf. \[14, p. xiv\]. We call this multi-valued function a $`G`$-function.

It is known that the set $`𝒢_K`$ of $`G`$-series defined over a number field $`K`$ form a ring over $`K`$, under addition and multiplication, which is also closed under the Hadamard product

$`fg(z)={\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}a_nb_nz^n,`$ (5.31)
see \[2, Theorem D, p. 14\].

###### Definition 5.2

A special value of a $`G`$-function defined over $`K`$ is a value $`f(b)`$, where $`bK`$, which is obtained by analytically continuation along some path from 0 to $`b`$ that avoids singular points.

Siegel  introduced $`G`$-functions and observed that irrationality results could be proved for their “special values”, but did not give any details. Bombieri  developed the theory of $`G`$-functions and gave explicit irrationality criteria in specific cases (his Theorem 6) for points close to the center of the circle of convergence of the $`G`$-series, as a by-product of very general results.

It is easy to show that each $`BBP`$-number is a special value of a power series on $``$ that satisfies conditions (i)–(iii) of a $`G`$-series. They do not always satisfy the growth condition (iv), however, and in a subsequent result we give necessary and sufficient conditions for the condition (iv) to hold.

###### Theorem 5.1

Let $`R(x)=\frac{p(x)}{q(x)}(x)`$ with $`p(x)`$, $`q(x)[x]`$ with $`(p(x),q(x))=1`$ and with $`q(n)0`$ for all $`n0`$, and set

$`f(z)={\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{p(n)}{q(n)}}z^n.`$ (5.32)
Let $`f_p(z)`$ be the $`p`$-adic power series obtained by interpreting $`\frac{p(n)}{q(n)}_p`$. Then the power series $`f(z)`$ satisfies a homogeneous linear differential equation in $`\frac{d}{dz}`$ with coefficients in $`[z]`$, and $`f(z)`$ has positive radius of convergence in $``$ and $`f_p(z)`$ has a positive radius of convergence in $`_p=\widehat{\overline{}_p}`$ for all primes $`p`$.

### Proof.

For the first assertion, let $`p(x)=_{j=0}^la_jx^j`$ and $`q(x)=_{j=0}^mb_jx^j.`$ Then the operator

$`D:={\displaystyle \frac{d^{l+1}}{dz^{l+1}}}(1z)^{l+1}({\displaystyle \underset{j=0}{\overset{m}{}}}b_j(z{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dz}})^j)[z,{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dz}}]`$ (5.33)
has the property that

$`Df(z)=0.`$ (5.34)
Indeed one has

$$q(z\frac{d}{dz})f(z)=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}p(n)z^n=\underset{j=0}{\overset{l}{}}a_j^{}(\frac{1}{1z})^{j+1},$$

where $`a_j^{}`$ are defined by the polynomial identity

$$\underset{j=0}{\overset{l}{}}a_jx^j=\underset{j=0}{\overset{l}{}}a_j^{}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{x}{j}\right).$$

Multiplying this rational function by $`(1z)^{l+1}`$ yields a polynomial of degree $`l`$ in $`z`$, which is annihilated by $`\frac{d^{l+1}}{dz^{l+1}},`$ and this verifies (5.34).

For the second assertion, the power series expansion of $`f(z)`$ clearly has radius of convergence $`1`$ in $``$. It is easy to establish that the the $`p`$-adic series $`f_p(z)`$ has a positive radius of convergence on some $`p`$-adic disk around zero since $`|q(n)|cn^d`$ cannot contain more than $`cd\mathrm{log}n`$ factors of $`p`$.

We now give necessary and sufficient conditions for a power series arising from a $`BBP`$-number to be a $`G`$-series.

###### Theorem 5.2

Let $`R(x)=\frac{p(x)}{q(x)}(x)`$ with $`p(x)`$, $`q(x)[x]`$ with $`(p(x),q(x))=1`$ and with $`q(n)0`$ for all $`n0`$, and set $`f(z)=_{n=0}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{p(n)}{q(n)}z^n.`$ Then the power-series $`f(z)`$ is a $`G`$-series $`(`$necessarily defined over $`)`$ if and only if $`q(x)`$ factors into linear factors in $`[x]`$.

### Proof.

Suppose first that $`q(x)`$ factors into linear factors over $``$, say

$$q(x)=A\underset{j=1}{\overset{r}{}}L_j(x)$$

with $`L_j(x)=l_jx+m_j`$ with $`l_j,m_j`$ with $`(l_j,m_j)=1`$. To show $`f(z)`$ is a $`G`$-series, by Theorem 5.1 it suffices to we check the growth condition (iv). Now

$`\mathrm{lcm}(q_1,q_2,\mathrm{},q_n)`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{lcm}(q(1),q(2),\mathrm{},q(n))`$ (5.35)
$``$ $`|A|{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{r}{}}}\mathrm{lcm}(L_j(1),\mathrm{},L_j(n))`$
where $`L_j(n)=l_jx+m_j`$. It is well-known that

$`\mathrm{log}(\mathrm{lcm}[1,2,\mathrm{},m])`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\{p,j:p^jm\}}{}}\mathrm{log}p`$ (5.36)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{m}{}}}\mathrm{\Lambda }(n)=m+O(m)`$
by the prime number theorem. This yields

$`\mathrm{lcm}[1,2,\mathrm{},m]=e^{m(1+o(1))}`$ (5.37)
as $`m\mathrm{}`$. This gives a bound

$`\mathrm{lcm}(L_j(1),\mathrm{},L_j(n))`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{lcm}(1,2,\mathrm{},|l_j|n+|m_j|)`$
$``$ $`e^{(|l_j|n+|m_j|)(1+o(1))}.`$
Substituting this in (5.35) implies condition (iv).

For the opposite direction, we will show that if $`q(x)`$ does not factor into linear factors over $``$ then condition (iv) does not hold. Nagell  showed that if $`q(x)[x]`$ is an irreducible polynomial of degree $`d2`$, then there is a positive constant $`c(d)`$ with the property that for any $`ϵ>0`$ there is a positive constant $`C(ϵ)`$ such that

$`\mathrm{lcm}(q(1),q(2),\mathrm{},q(n))>C(ϵ)n^{(c(d)ϵ)n}`$ (5.38)
holds for all $`n1`$. One can prove this result with $`c(d)=\frac{d1}{d^2}`$. Such a lower bound applies to any denominator $`q(x)`$ that does not split into linear factors over $``$. To complete the argument one must bound the possible cancellation between the numerators $`p(n)`$, and denominators $`q(n)`$. If $`(p(x),q(x))=1`$ over $`[x]`$, then

$`{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}}\mathrm{gcd}(p(j),q(j))C^n,`$ (5.39)
for a finite constant $`C=C(p(x),q(x)).`$ This follows since

$$\mathrm{gcd}(p(n),q(n))C$$

holds for all $`n`$, for a suitable $`C`$. To see this, factor $`p(x)=(x\alpha _i)`$ and $`q(x)=(x\beta _j)`$, with $`\alpha _i\beta _j`$ for all $`i,j`$. Then one has, over the number field $`K`$ spanned by these roots,

$`\mathrm{ideal}\mathrm{gcd}((n\alpha _i),(n\beta _j))|(\alpha _i\beta _j).`$ (5.40)
Taking a norm from $`K/`$ of the product of all these ideals gives the desired constant $`C`$.

### Remarks.

(1) It is an interesting open question to determine what is the largest value of $`c(d)`$ allowed in (5.38). One can prove that it cannot be larger than $`d1`$.

(2) There are many more $`G`$-functions defined over $``$ than those given in Theorem 5.2. The set of $`G`$-functions defined over $``$ is closed under multiplication, so that $`(\mathrm{log}(1z))^2)`$ is a $`G`$-function, but its power series coefficients around $`z=0`$ are not given by a rational function. Also, for rational $`a,b,c`$ the Gaussian hypergeometric function

$${}_{2}{}^{}F_{1}^{}(a,b,c,z)=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{(a)_n(b)_n}{(c)_nn!}z^n,$$

is a $`G`$-function which is not of the above kind for “generic” $`a,b,c,`$ see André .

According to the results of §4, the conclusion of “Hypothesis A” is really a statement about irrational $`BBP`$-numbers. There is a good deal known about the irrationality or transcendence of the special values of the $`G`$-series covered in Theorem 5.2, a topic which we now address.

###### Theorem 5.3

Let $`R(x)=\frac{p(x)}{q(x)}(x)`$ with $`p(x)`$, $`q(x)[x]`$ with $`(p(x),q(x))=1`$ and with $`q(n)0`$ for all $`n0`$, and set

$$f(z)=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{p(n)}{q(n)}z^n.$$

If $`q(z)`$ factors into distinct linear factors over $``$, then for each rational $`r`$ in the open disk of convergence of $`q(z)`$ around $`z=0`$ the special value $`f(r)`$ is either rational or transcendental. Furthermore there is an effective algorithm to decide whether $`f(r)`$ is rational or transcendental.

### Proof.

We only sketch the details, since a similar result has been obtained by Adhikari, Saradha, Shorey and Tijdeman , see also Tijdeman \[38, Theorem 6\].

By expanding $`R(x)`$ in partial fractions, under the hypothesis that $`q(x)`$ splits in linear factors over $``$ one obtains an expansion of the form

$$R(x)=p_0(x)+\underset{j=1}{\overset{s}{}}\frac{c_j}{xr_j},$$

in which $`p_0(x)[x]`$, and each $`c_j,r_j`$. In fact $`r_j_0`$, so all denominators $`q(n)0.`$ Now if $`r_j=\frac{p_j}{q_j}`$ then one has a decomposition,

$$\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{1}{nr_j}z^j=p_j(z)+\underset{k=1}{\overset{q_j}{}}\beta _{j,k}\mathrm{log}(1\mathrm{exp}(\frac{2\pi ik}{q_j})z),$$

in which $`p_j(z)`$ is a polynomial with rational coefficients, while the coefficients $`\beta _j`$ are effectively computable algebraic numbers in the field $`(exp(\frac{2\pi i}{q_j})).`$ It follows from this that one can express the function $`f(z)`$ as a finite sum of terms of the form $`\frac{a_j}{(1z)^j}`$ with rational coefficients plus a finite sum of terms of the form $`\beta _{j,k}\mathrm{log}(1\alpha _jz)`$, with $`\beta _j,\alpha _j`$ effectively computable algebraic numbers. The non-logarithmic terms all combine to give a rational function $`R_0(z)`$ with coefficients in $``$. Given a rational $`r`$ with $`0<|r|<1`$, it follows that $`f(r)`$ is a finite sum of linear forms in logarithms with algebraic coefficients, evaluated at algebraic points. Using Baker’s transcendence result on linear forms in logarithms (Baker \[6, Theorem 2.1\]), $`f(r)`$ is transcendental if and only if the sum of all the logarithmic terms above is nonzero. There is also an effective decision procedure to tell whether this sum is zero or not. If the logarithmic terms do sum to zero, then the remaining rational function terms sum up to the rational number $`f(r)=R_0(r).`$

The case where $`q(x)`$ factors into linear factors over $``$ but has repeated factors is not covered in the result above. This case includes the polylogarithm $`\mathrm{Li}_k(z)=_{n=1}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{z^n}{n^k}`$ of order $`k`$, for each $`k2`$. Various results are known concerning the irrationality of such numbers. For example, $`\mathrm{Li}_k(\frac{1}{b})`$ is irrational for all sufficiently large integers $`b`$, see Bombieri . In fact it is known that the set of numbers $`1,\mathrm{Li}_1(\frac{p}{q}),\mathrm{},\mathrm{Li}_n(\frac{p}{q})`$, with $`\mathrm{Li}_1(z)=\mathrm{log}(1z)`$, are linearly independent over the rationals whenever $`|p|1`$ and $`|q|(4n)^{n(n1)}|p|^n,`$ according to Nikishin . For polylogarithms one has $`\mathrm{Li}_k(1)=\zeta (k)`$, also on the boundary of the disk of convergence. It is not known whether $`\zeta (k)`$ is irrational for odd $`k5`$, although a very recent result of T. Rivoal  shows that an infinite number of $`\zeta (k)`$ for odd $`k`$ must be irrational.

## 6 Invariant Measures and Furstenberg’s Conjecture

It is well known that for single expanding dynamical system, such as the $`b`$-transformation $`T_b`$ , there always exist chaotic orbits exhibiting a wide range of pathology. For example, there exist uncountably many $`\theta [0,1]`$ whose $`2`$-transformation iterates $`\{x_n\}`$ satisfy

$$\frac{1}{25}<x_n<\frac{24}{25}\text{for all}n0,$$

see Pollington . One can obtain ergodic invariant measures of $`T_b`$ supported on the closure of suitable orbits, which for example may form Cantor sets of measure zero.

If one considers instead two $`b`$-transformations, say $`T_{b_1}`$ and $`T_{b_2},`$ with multiplicatively independent values, i.e. which generate a non-lacunary commutative semigroup $`𝒮=T_{b_1},T_{b_2}`$, then the set of ergodic invariant measures for the whole semigroup is apparently of an extremely restricted form. Furstenberg has proposed the following conjecture, suggested as an outgrowth of his work on topological dynamics, cf. Furstenberg \[18, Sect. IV\]. It is explicitly stated in Margulis \[27, Conjecture 4\].

### Furstenberg’s Conjecture.

Let $`a,b2`$ be multiplicatively independent integers. The only Borel measures on $`[0,1]`$ that are simultaneously invariant ergodic measures for $`T_a(x)=ax`$ $`(mod1)`$ and $`T_b(x)=bx`$ $`(mod1)`$ are Lebesgue measure and measures supported on finite sets which are periodic orbits of both $`T_a`$ and $`T_b`$.

Various results concerning this conjecture appear in Rudolph , Parry , Host  and Johnson . In particular, if there is any exceptional invariant measure violating the conjecture, it must have entropy zero with respect to Lebesgue measure.

Furstenberg’s conjecture involves some ingredients similar to “Conjecture A”, and its conclusion involves a dichotomy similar to that in “Conjecture A.” This makes it natural to ask if there is any relation between the two conjectures. At present none is known, in either direction.

One may look for $`BBP`$-numbers $`\theta `$ which have properties similar to that expressed in the hypothesis of Furstenberg’s conjecture , i.e. which possess $`BBP`$-expansions to two multiplicatively independent bases. It is known that there exist irrational $`BBP`$-numbers $`\theta =_{n=1}^{\mathrm{}}R(n)b^n`$ which do possess $`BBP`$-expressions to two multiplicatively independent bases. For example, Bailey and Crandall  observe that $`\theta =\mathrm{log}2`$ has this property, on taking

$$b=2\text{and}R(x)=\frac{1}{x},$$

and

$$b=3^2\text{and}R(x)=\frac{6}{2x1},$$

see \[4, eqn (4), and (10)\]. They also observe that $`\theta =\pi ^2`$ has this property, as it possesses $`BBP`$-expansions to bases $`b=2`$ and $`b=3^4`$, the latter one found by Broadhurst \[11, eqn. (212), p. 35\].

Question. Do all $`BBP`$-numbers which are special values of $`G`$-functions have $`BBP`$-expansions in two multiplicatively independent bases?

To make tighter a possible connection between the two conjectures, one can ask for which numbers does the following weaker version of “Hypothesis A” hold.

Invariant Measure Hypothesis Every BBP-number to base $`b`$ has $`b`$-transformation iterates $`\{x_n\}`$ that are asymptotically distributed according to a limiting measure on $`[0,1].`$

It would be interesting to find extra hypotheses on a class of arithmetical constants under which a precise connection can be established between “Hypothesis A” and Furstenberg’s conjecture.

## 7 Concluding Remarks

Many of the examples of arithmetical constants arise as special values of $`G`$-functions defined over the rationals, or at least “special values” of functions satisfying linear differential equations with polynomial coefficients in $`[x]`$. Based on the known results, one may empirically group these constants into three classes, of apparantly increasing order of difficulty of establishing irrationality or transcendence results.

(1). special values of $`G`$-functions $`f(\frac{p}{q})`$ defined over the rationals, with $`\frac{p}{q}`$ inside the disk of convergence of the $`G`$-series.

(2). “singular values” $`f(1)`$ of such a $`G`$-function, which are values taken at a singular point of the associated (minimal order) linear differential equation, on the boundary of the disk of convergence of a $`G`$-series, at which the $`G`$-expansion converges absolutely.

(3). “renormalized singular values,” which are the constant terms in an asymptotic expansion of a $`G`$-function around a singular point.

In this hierarchy, an arithmetical constant may occur as more than one type. For example, $`\frac{\pi ^2}{6}=\zeta (2)=\mathrm{Li}_2(1)`$ occurs as a number of type (2), but it is also realized as a number of type (1), which falls in the class of constants considered in this paper. It is a nontrivial problem to determine what is the lowest level in the hierarchy a given constant belongs.

Various constants of types (1) and (2) appear in the renormalization of massive Feynman diagrams, see Broadhurst  and Groote, Körner and Pivovarov , who cite $`\mathrm{Li}_4(\frac{1}{2})`$ as such a constant. Multiple zeta values and polylogarithms give many examples of type (2), see Borwein et al. , . Many of the most interesting arithmetical constants naturally arise as constants of type (2) and (3). For examples, the values $`\zeta (k)=\mathrm{Li}_k(1)`$ appear as constants of type (2), while Euler’s constant appears as a type (3) “renormalized” value at $`z=1`$ of $`\mathrm{Li}_1(z)`$. The problem of showing the linear independence of all odd zeta values $`\zeta (2n+1)`$ over the rationals has recently been of great interest from connections with various conjectures in arithmetical algebraic geometry, see Goncharov . Many other examples of type (2) and (3) constants appear in Lehmer  and Flajolet and Salvy . I am not aware of any irrationality or transcendence results proved for a constant of type (3).

One can extend the hierarchy above outside the class of $`G`$-functions. E. Bombieri observes that the power series

$$h(z)=\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{1}{n(n^2+1)}z^n$$

of $`BBP`$-type, which is not a $`G`$-series, has special value at $`z=1`$ given by

$$h(1)=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{}(\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}(i)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(i)}).$$

The value $`z=1`$ lies on the boundary of the disk of convergence of the power series for this function, and corresponds to type (2) above. Another example is

$$\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{(1)^n}{n^2+1}=\frac{2\pi }{e^\pi e^\pi }1,$$

see Flajolet and Salvy\[16, p. 18\], who give many other interesting examples.

The relevant special values of a rational power series for the approach of Bailey and Crandall to apply are $`z=\frac{1}{b}`$ for integer $`b2`$, where the disk of convergence of the associated power series has radius $`1`$. One observes that the theory of $`G`$-functions provides irrationality results for rational values $`z=\frac{a}{b}`$, without regard for whether $`a=1`$ or not. This suggests the following question.

Question. Given a rational value $`z=\frac{a}{b}`$, with $`1<|a|<|b|`$, is there an associated dynamical system (possibly higher dimensional) for which an analogue of Theorem 3.3 holds, relating the dynamics of one orbit to the $`\beta `$-expansion of $`\theta `$, with $`\beta =\frac{a}{b}.`$?

At present there seems to be no evidence that strongly favors a particular class of arithmetical constants for which “Hypothesis A” might be expected to hold. The discussions of §5 and §6 suggest that one might consider the following classes.

(1). The largest class is the set of “special values” of power series $`f(z)`$ defined over $``$ at $`z=\frac{1}{b}`$, arising from solutions of $`Df(z)=0`$ for some $`D𝒲:=[z,\frac{d}{dz}]`$, whose power-series coefficients $`a_n0`$ as $`n\mathrm{}.`$ This class includes all BBP-numbers.

(2) One could restrict to the subclass of special values $`z=\frac{1}{b}`$ of $`G`$-functions defined over the rationals. However we know of no compelling reason to restrict to special values of $`G`$-functions.

(3) The smallest class consists of a class of arithmetical constants which satisfy extra conditions analogous to the hypotheses of Furstenberg’s conjecture. These consist of those constants which are $`BBP`$-numbers to at least two multiplicatively independent bases. One might add the further restriction that they also be special values of G-functions. As noted in §6, this class includes $`\pi ^2`$ and $`\mathrm{log}2.`$

### Acknowlegments.

The author thanks E. Bombieri for helpful information concerning $`G`$-functions, and for suggesting the argument establishing (5.39) in Theorem 5.2. He thanks D. H. Bailey for references, and J. A. Reeds and the referee for helpful comments. Work on this paper was done in part during a visit to the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, Berkeley, Sept. 2000.

AT&T Labs–Research, Florham Park, NJ 07932-0971, USA
email: jcl@research.att.com


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# Magnetic Properties for the One-Dimensional Multicomponent Spin-Gap System

## I Introduction

Quantum phase transitions of one-dimensional (1D) spin systems in a magnetic field have attracted much interest recently. One of the most remarkable phenomena is the plateau formation in the magnetization process, which is caused by a field-induced spin gap. Also, the closure of the spin gap in the Haldane system and the ladder system by the magnetic field has been providing an interesting subject,  which shares common important physics with the plateau formation.

Another hot topic in 1D spin systems has been concerned with the multicomponent version of the spin model or the spin-orbital model, since it was recognized that the orbital degrees of freedom give rise to a variety of interesting phenomena. Experimentally, 1D correlated electron systems at quarter-filling, such as $`\mathrm{Na}_2\mathrm{Ti}_2\mathrm{Sb}_2\mathrm{O}`$ and $`\mathrm{NaV}_2\mathrm{O}_5`$ have been studied extensively, for which the orbital degrees of freedom play an important role. In this context, the 1D SU(4) massless spin model has been studied numerically and analytically  as the simplest spin-orbital model, and this type of analysis has been extended to a perturbed SU(4) model to study the gap formation.

According to the above studies, it may be interesting to investigate how the orbital degeneracy affects field-induced quantum phase transitions such as the plateau formation in 1D spin systems. To address this problem, in this paper, we investigate static and dynamical properties for the 1D multicomponent spin-gap system in a magnetic field. For this purpose, we employ the 1D multicomponent anisotropic Heisenberg model, which was exactly solved by Bariev et al. In particular, we focus our attention on the critical regions where the spin-gap disappears, or the magnetization plateau (or cusp) is generated in the presence of a magnetic field. To study the low-energy dynamics of the system, we further discuss the NMR relaxation rate $`1/T_1`$ around the field-induced quantum phase transitions at low temperatures.

This paper is organized as follows. In Sect.II, we exactly calculate the magnetization curve for the 1D anisotropic Heisenberg model, and determine the magnetic phase diagram. We clarify how the plateaus and cusps are generated in the magnetization curve. In Sect.III, by exploiting finite-size scaling techniques we discuss the low-temperature behavior of the NMR relaxation rate $`1/T_1`$ with the emphasis on the critical properties around plateaus and cusps. It is shown that the enhancement factor plays a significant role for $`1/T_1`$ around such critical regions. A brief summary is given in Sect.IV.

## II  Plateaus and Cusps in the Magnetization

In this section, we study the magnetization process for the anisotropic Heisenberg model with a two-band structure in 1D, which is defined by the deformed version of the SU(4) Heisenberg model,

$`_0`$ $`=`$ $`J{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{mm^{}}{}}\{c_{im}^{}c_{im^{}}c_{i+1m^{}}^{}c_{i+1m}`$ (2)
$`\mathrm{exp}[\mathrm{sign}(m^{}m)\mathrm{\Phi }]n_{im}n_{i+1m^{}}\},`$
where it is prohibited that more than one electron occupies each site. Here, $`c_{im}^{}`$ is the creation operator for electrons with spin ($`,`$) and orbital ($`1,2`$) degrees of freedom. We shall use the indices $`m=1,2,3,4`$ for these four states so that the corresponding number of electrons $`N_m`$ should satisfy, $`N_1N_2N_3N_4`$ in a magnetic field. In the isotropic case ($`\mathrm{\Phi }=0`$), the Hamiltonian (2) is reduced to the SU(4) massless Heisenberg model, whereas for any other cases it is massive for all excitations at zero magnetic field. Although the above integrable model is rather special in its appearance, we think that its characteristic behavior in a magnetic field, such as the formation of plateaus and cusps, should capture some generic properties expected for multicomponent spin-gap models in 1D.

The exact solution of the model (2) with periodic boundary conditions was obtained by Bariev et al. The Bethe equations obtained for rapidities $`\lambda _j^{(\alpha )}`$ ($`\alpha =1,2,3`$) read,

$`2\pi I_j^\alpha N\mathrm{\Theta }_1(\lambda _j^\alpha )\delta _{\alpha 1}=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{s=\pm 1}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{M_{\alpha +s}}{}}}\mathrm{\Theta }_1(\lambda _j^\alpha \lambda _i^{\alpha +s})`$ (4)
$`{\displaystyle \underset{i}{\overset{M_\alpha }{}}}\mathrm{\Theta }_2(\lambda _j^\alpha \lambda _i^\alpha ),`$
with $`M_\alpha =_{m=\alpha }^4N_m`$ ($`M_0=M_4=0`$), where $`\mathrm{\Theta }_n(\lambda )=2\mathrm{tan}^1(\mathrm{cosh}n\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{tan}\frac{\lambda }{2})`$. The quantum number $`I_j^{(\alpha )}`$ which specifies elementary excitations is subject to the constraints,

$`I_j^{(1)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(M_1+M_2)\mathrm{mod}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}1},`$ (5)
$`I_j^{(2)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(M_1M_2+M_3)\mathrm{mod}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}1},`$ (6)
$`I_j^{(3)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(M_2M_3)\mathrm{mod}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}1}.`$ (7)
In the thermodynamic limit at zero temperature, the algebraic equations (4) are converted to the linear integral equations for the distribution functions of rapidities $`\sigma _\alpha `$ and for the dressed energies $`\epsilon _\alpha `$, respectively,

$`\epsilon _\alpha (\lambda _\alpha )=`$ $`\epsilon _\alpha ^0(\lambda _\alpha )`$ (9)
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{\gamma =1}{\overset{3}{}}}{\displaystyle _{\lambda _\gamma ^0}^{+\lambda _\gamma ^0}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}\lambda _\gamma ^{}}{2\pi }}K_{\alpha \gamma }(\lambda _\alpha \lambda _\gamma ^{})\epsilon _\gamma (\lambda _\gamma ^{}),`$
$`\sigma _\alpha (\lambda _\alpha )=`$ $`\sigma _\alpha ^0(\lambda _\alpha )`$ (11)
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{\gamma =1}{\overset{3}{}}}{\displaystyle _{\lambda _\gamma ^0}^{+\lambda _\gamma ^0}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}\lambda _\gamma ^{}}{2\pi }}K_{\alpha \gamma }(\lambda _\alpha \lambda _\gamma ^{})\sigma _\gamma (\lambda _\gamma ^{}),`$
where $`K_{\alpha \gamma }=K_2\delta _{\alpha ,\gamma }+K_1(\delta _{\alpha ,\gamma +1}+\delta _{\alpha +1,\gamma })`$, and $`K_n(\lambda )=\mathrm{sinh}(n\mathrm{\Phi })/[\mathrm{cosh}(n\mathrm{\Phi })\mathrm{cos}\lambda ]`$. Here, the bare distribution function is given by

$`\sigma _\alpha ^0(\lambda _1)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi }}K_1(\lambda _1)\delta _{\alpha 1},`$ (12)
and $`\epsilon _\alpha ^0`$ will be explicitly given separately for each case. The cut-off parameters (”Fermi level” for elementary excitations) $`\lambda _\alpha ^0(0\lambda _\alpha ^0\pi )`$ are determined by minimizing the free energy for a given magnetic field, resulting in the condition, $`\epsilon _\alpha (\pm \lambda _\alpha ^0)=0`$. For zero magnetic field, they are reduced to $`\lambda _1^0=\lambda _2^0=\lambda _3^0=\pi `$. Since the dressed energies satisfy $`\epsilon _1(\pm \lambda _1^0=\pi )=\epsilon _2(\pm \lambda _2^0=\pi )=\epsilon _3(\pm \lambda _3^0=\pi )<0`$, the system has three kinds of spin-gap excitations, which are degenerate at zero magnetic field.

As mentioned above, one of the most remarkable phenomena in 1D spin systems is the plateau formation in the magnetization, which is regarded as a quantum phase transition driven by the magnetic field. Also, the middle-field cusp singularity is another typical example of the field-induced quantum phase transition. In the following, we show that the multicomponent model (2) possesses a rich phase diagram in a magnetic field, where the magnetization has plateaus and/or cusps depending on the anisotropy as well as the Zeeman splitting. To demonstrate these things, we deal with two typical cases for which the energy splitting due to the magnetic field appears in different ways.

### A Spin-orbit multiplet case

We first assume that the Zeeman splitting is given by $`g\mu _BM_zH`$ with $`M_z=\pm 1/2,\pm \gamma /2`$, where $`\gamma `$ ranges from $`0`$ to $`1`$. The corresponding Hamiltonian is

$`_{(A)}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}h{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}[`$ $`(n_{i,1/2}n_{i,1/2})`$ (14)
$`+\gamma (n_{i,\gamma /2}n_{i,\gamma /2})],`$
where $`n_{i,\alpha }`$ denotes the particle number for electrons with $`M_z=\alpha `$. Note that the case of $`\gamma =1/3`$ corresponds to the Zeeman splitting for the spin-orbit multiplet $`J_z=\pm 3/2,\pm 1/2`$ ($`M_z=\frac{1}{3}J_z`$), while for $`\gamma =1`$, the Zeeman effect acts only on the spin sector, so that the four-fold multiplet splits into two orbitally-degenerate levels in magnetic fields. The Zeeman term (14) may be applied to more generic cases including these two important cases. For example, in some Ce compounds such as CeB6 the four-fold ground multiplet ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }_8`$ multiplet) is generated in a cubic crystalline field under strong spin-orbit coupling. In such cases, the value of $`\gamma `$ is known to depend on the strength of the crystalline filed. We thus regard $`\gamma `$ as a continuously changing parameter in the following discussions. We define the magnetization in terms of the distribution functions,

$`m_{(A)}=\left\{(N_{1/2}N_{1/2})+\gamma (N_{\gamma /2}N_{\gamma /2})\right\}/L`$ (15)
$`=12\gamma {\displaystyle _{\lambda _2^0}^{+\lambda _2^0}}\sigma _2(\lambda _2)d\lambda _2`$ (16)
$`(1\gamma )\left\{{\displaystyle _{\lambda _1^0}^{+\lambda _1^0}}\sigma _1(\lambda _1)d\lambda _1+{\displaystyle _{\lambda _3^0}^{+\lambda _3^0}}\sigma _3(\lambda _3)d\lambda _3\right\},`$ (17)
where we have set the number of electrons as $`N_1=N_{1/2},N_2=N_{\gamma /2},N_3=N_{\gamma /2}`$ and $`N_4=N_{1/2}`$, respectively. Here $`\epsilon _\alpha ^0`$ in (9) is given as

$`\left(\begin{array}{c}\epsilon _1^0\\ \epsilon _2^0\\ \epsilon _3^0\end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{sinh}\mathrm{\Phi }K_1(\lambda _1)+\frac{1}{2}(1\gamma )h\\ \gamma h\\ \frac{1}{2}(1\gamma )h\end{array}\right).`$ (24)
We have performed the calculation by iterating eq.(9) to determine the cutoff parameter $`\lambda _\gamma ^0`$ for a given magnetic field, and then have evaluated the magnetization by solving eq.(11). Let us start with the spin-orbit level scheme for the multiplet specified by the total angular momentum.

In Figs. 1(a) and (b), the magnetization curve for $`\gamma =1/3`$ is shown by choosing two different values of the anisotropy, $`\mathrm{\Phi }=1.7`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }=1.5`$. When the magnetic field is increased from zero, the magnetization starts to increase at the finite critical field with a square-root dependence. For $`\mathrm{\Phi }=1.5`$, the $`m=1/3`$ plateau appears, which is followed by two cusps in higher magnetic fields. On the other hand for $`\mathrm{\Phi }=1.7`$, two plateaus appear at $`m=1/3`$ and $`m=2/3`$, and the cusp structures are not generated. We note that the formation of plateaus in the present model is different from the standard fractional quantization discussed by Oshikawa et al., for which the plateau is stabilized by the spin-gap state that has magnetic order commensurate with the underlying lattice structure. On the other hand, in the present case, the plateau is generated when one of the multicomponent spin modes becomes massive, and the corresponding ground state is still in a disordered state which is not accompanied by the commensurate spin arrangement.

In Fig. 2, the $`h\mathrm{\Phi }`$ phase diagram is shown for the case of spin-orbit level scheme with $`\gamma =1/3`$. Note that a massless mode exists in the regions I, II and III, in which the magnetization increases continuously with the field. In the area where two of I, II and III overlap with each other, there exist two massless modes. The cusp structure appears just at the boundary where these massless regions overlap. On the other hand, the regions of (a)-(d) outside of the massless regions denote the spin-gap phases, where the magnetization exhibits plateaus quantized as (a)$`m=0`$, (b)$`m=1/3`$, (c)$`m=2/3`$, (d)$`m=1`$, respectively. Note that the $`\mathrm{\Phi }=0`$ line corresponds to the isotropic SU(4) model, which is known to have only two cusps without plateaus. The plateaus appear at $`m=1/3`$ and $`m=2/3`$ for sufficiently large $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$.

For reference, we show in Fig. 3 the $`h\gamma `$ phase diagram for $`\mathrm{\Phi }=1.5`$ to see how the scheme of the Zeeman splitting affects the magnetization curve. Recall that for the case of $`\gamma =1`$, the four-fold degenerate states split into two-fold orbitally degenerate states in a magnetic field, for which the plateau-structure is absent. If the value of the parameter $`\gamma `$ deviates from $`\gamma =1/3,1`$, the plateau appears at $`m=(1+\gamma )/2`$ in the region (c).

### B Multiplet in a crystal field

We give another example of the magnetic phase diagram by employing a slightly different level scheme for which the orbital-splitting $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ due to the crystal field exists at zero magnetic field, and these two distinct levels further split in the presence of the magnetic field $`h`$. The corresponding Hamiltonian is

$`_{(B)}={\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}h(n_{i,}n_{i,})\mathrm{\Delta }(n_{i,1}n_{i,2})\right],`$ (25)
where $`n_{}=n_1+n_2`$ and $`n_1=n_1+n_1`$. The calculation of the magnetization is performed straightforwardly in the way outlined above. For $`h2\mathrm{\Delta }`$, we set the number of electrons as $`N_1=N_1,N_2=N_1,N_3=N_2`$ and $`N_4=N_2`$, respectively. In this case, $`\epsilon _\alpha ^0`$ is given by

$`\left(\begin{array}{c}\epsilon _1^0\\ \epsilon _2^0\\ \epsilon _3^0\end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{sinh}\mathrm{\Phi }K_1(\lambda _1)+h\\ h+2\mathrm{\Delta }\\ h\end{array}\right).`$ (32)
On the other hand, for $`h2\mathrm{\Delta }`$, we set the number of electrons $`N_1=N_1,N_2=N_2,N_3=N_1`$ and $`N_4=N_2`$, for which $`\epsilon _\alpha ^0`$ reads

$`\left(\begin{array}{c}\epsilon _1^0\\ \epsilon _2^0\\ \epsilon _3^0\end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{sinh}\mathrm{\Phi }K_1(\lambda _1)+2\mathrm{\Delta }\\ h2\mathrm{\Delta }\\ 2\mathrm{\Delta }\end{array}\right).`$ (39)
In Fig. 4, we show the $`h\mathrm{\Delta }`$ phase diagram derived for the anisotropy parameter $`\mathrm{\Phi }=1.5`$. Note that the phase diagram has two different regions labeled by II. This is because both the magnetic field and the crystal field play a similar role for the formation of the spin gap.

The areas outside of the regions I, II and III are all massive with the spin gap, as mentioned above. The mechanism for the formation of plateaus and cusps is as discussed before.

As summarized above, the multicomponent spin system with the spin gap exhibits interesting features such as plateaus and cusps in the magnetization curve, depending on the anisotropy parameter.

## III NMR relaxation rate

We have so far treated the static magnetization, and have shown that the quantum phase transitions are induced by the magnetic field, which are accompanied by the plateau and cusp singularities. It is then interesting to observe how dynamical quantities behave around such field-induced quantum phase transitions. To address this problem, we here study the NMR relaxation rate $`1/T_1`$ in magnetic fields with the emphasis on the behavior around plateaus and cusps.

The NMR relaxation rate for the multicomponent Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid is given at low temperatures by

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{T_1}}`$ $`=`$ $`\underset{\omega 0}{lim}{\displaystyle \frac{2k_BT}{\mathrm{}^2\omega }}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}k}{2\pi }A^2(k)\mathrm{Im}\chi (k,\omega )}`$ (40)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha }{}}B_\alpha \mathrm{\Gamma }_\alpha (h)T^{\eta _\alpha 1},`$ (41)
where

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\alpha (h)=\left[{\displaystyle \underset{\mu }{}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{\stackrel{~}{v}_\mu }}\right)^{2x_{\alpha \mu }}\right],`$ (42)
and $`B_\alpha `$ is a constant related to the hyperfine coupling, which is assumed to be independent of the temperature and the magnetic field. The above power-law dependence in temperature is typical for correlation functions in the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid. Since we are now dealing with the multicomponent system, there are several kinds of relaxation processes, providing different critical exponents $`\eta _\alpha `$, where the index $`\alpha `$ classifies elementary excitations, e.g. $`2k_F`$-current excitation, etc. To determine $`\eta _\alpha `$, we should further incorporate the interference between different excitation modes, which are explicitly expressed as $`\eta _\alpha =_\mu 2x_{\alpha \mu }`$, where $`x_{\alpha \mu }`$ is the scaling dimension originating from the interference between $`\alpha `$ and $`\mu `$ modes. This formula can be straightforwardly obtained by analyzing the excitation spectrum in terms of finite-size scaling techniques in conformal field theory.

In the above formula, we have explicitly written down the factor (42) depending on the renormalized velocities $`\stackrel{~}{v}_\mu `$, which have been usually neglected in the discussion of the temperature dependence of $`1/T_1`$. However, in order to study the field-dependence of $`1/T_1`$, we should take into account this factor, since it plays a crucial role around the critical points, as will be shown momentarily. We will refer to this factor as the enhancement factor in the following discussions.

Note that if the NMR is done on the nucleus of lattice spin, the relaxation occurs through a contact interaction and thereby $`1/T_1`$ depends only on the transverse susceptibility $`\chi _{}`$. On the other hand, if it is done on other neighboring nuclei, the relaxation is through dipolar interactions, and thus $`1/T_1`$ depends not only on $`\chi _{}`$ but also on the longitudinal susceptibility $`\chi _{}`$. In order to treat generic cases, we take into account the contributions both from $`\chi _{}`$ and $`\chi _{}`$. In the following, we discuss the critical properties of $`1/T_1`$ around plateaus and cusps.

### A Around the plateau

We start our discussion with the massless regions close to the magnetization plateau. For instance, we look at the critical region beside the $`m=1/3`$ plateau in Fig. 1(a), where only one massless mode exists both in the left-hand side (III) and the right-hand side (II). In the region III, the scaling dimension $`x`$ is obtained in a standard form via finite-size scaling analysis,

$`x={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\xi _3^2}}\mathrm{\Delta }M^2+\xi _3^2\mathrm{\Delta }D^2,`$ (43)
where so-called dressed charge $`\xi _3=lim_{\lambda _3\lambda _3^0}\xi _3(\lambda _3)`$ is determined by

$`\xi _3(\lambda _3)`$ $`=`$ $`1{\displaystyle _{\lambda _3^0}^{+\lambda _3^0}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}\lambda _3^{}}{2\pi }}K_2(\lambda _3\lambda _3^{})\xi _3(\lambda _3^{}).`$ (44)
Here $`\mathrm{\Delta }M`$ ($`\mathrm{\Delta }D`$) is the quantum number which changes the number of spinons (carries the $`2k_F`$ current). For the longitudinal spin susceptibility $`\chi _{}`$ the most relevant critical exponent is given by $`\eta _{}=2x=2\xi _3^2`$ by choosing $`\mathrm{\Delta }M=0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }D=1`$, while for the transverse spin susceptibility $`\chi _{}`$, it is given by $`\eta _{}=\frac{1}{2}\xi _3^2`$ for $`\mathrm{\Delta }M=1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }D=0`$. The critical exponents in region II can be obtained via a similar analysis.

In Fig. 5, we show the computed critical exponents as a function of the magnetic field $`h`$. Note that when the critical exponents are smaller (larger) than unity, $`1/T_1`$ diverges (vanishes) with power-law dependence as the temperature decreases (see (41)). Similar behaviors can be found for the one-component spin-gap system studied by Chitra and Giamarchi. We here pay our attention to the enhancement factor $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\alpha `$ at sufficiently low temperatures. In Fig. 6, we show $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{}`$ for the most relevant sector in the transverse susceptibility as a function of the magnetic field. We note that $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{}`$ exhibit essentially the same critical behaviors. It is seen that $`1/T_1`$ is considerably enhanced in the vicinity of the plateau according to the dramatic renormalization of the velocities in the vicinity of the spin-gap phase. The enhancement of the relaxation rate is observed whenever the system is in a massless phase close to the spin-gap phase. For example, the relaxation rate is enhanced when the magnetization decreases to zero before forming the zero-field spin gap.

### B Around the cusp

Let us now observe what happens for $`1/T_1`$ around the cusp structure in the magnetization. We first look at the cusp at $`h2.1`$ in Fig. 1(b). The critical behavior in the left-hand side of the cusp is described in terms of a massless mode. Therefore, this region can be analyzed following the way done for the plateau case. We thus have the enhancement of $`1/T_1`$ near the cusp. On the other hand, on the right-hand side of the cusp, two massless modes appear which need a different treatment for their critical properties. According to the conformal field theory analysis of multicomponent cases, the scaling dimension is given by the matrix form,

$`x={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\mathrm{\Delta }𝑴^T(𝝃^1)^T(𝝃^1)\mathrm{\Delta }𝑴+\mathrm{\Delta }𝑫^T𝝃^T𝝃\mathrm{\Delta }𝑫,`$ (45)
where the quantum numbers in the vector representation are $`\mathrm{\Delta }𝑴=(\mathrm{\Delta }M_1,\mathrm{\Delta }M_2)^T`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }𝑫=(\mathrm{\Delta }D_1,\mathrm{\Delta }D_2)^T`$, which are subject to the selection rules,

$`\mathrm{\Delta }D_1={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{\Delta }M_2\mathrm{mod}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1},\mathrm{\Delta }D_2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{\Delta }M_1\mathrm{mod}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1}.`$ (46)
Here the $`2\times 2`$ dressed charge matrix $`\xi `$ has the elements $`\xi _{\alpha \beta }=\xi _{\alpha \beta }(\lambda _\beta ^0)`$ which are determined by

$`\xi _{\alpha \beta }(\lambda _\beta )`$ $`=`$ $`\delta _{\alpha \beta }`$ (48)
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{\gamma =1,2}{}}{\displaystyle _{\lambda _\gamma ^0}^{+\lambda _\gamma ^0}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}\lambda _\gamma ^{}}{2\pi }}K_{\beta \gamma }(\lambda _\beta \lambda _\gamma ^{})\xi _{\alpha \gamma }(\lambda _\gamma ^{}),`$
where $`\alpha ,\beta ,\gamma =1,2`$, and $`K_{11}(\lambda )=K_{22}(\lambda )=K_2(\lambda )`$, $`K_{12}(\lambda )=K_{21}(\lambda )=K_1(\lambda )`$.

According to ref., by properly choosing the set of quantum numbers $`(\mathrm{\Delta }M_1,\mathrm{\Delta }M_2,\mathrm{\Delta }D_1,\mathrm{\Delta }D_2)`$, we can determine the most relevant critical exponents. For $`\chi _{}`$, we set $`(0,0,1,0)`$, $`(0,0,1,1)`$ and $`(0,0,0,1)`$, because there is no change in the $`z`$-component of spin ($`\mathrm{\Delta }M_1=\mathrm{\Delta }M_2=0`$), while for $`\chi _{}`$, we set $`(1,0,0,+\frac{1}{2})`$, $`(1,1,\frac{1}{2},+\frac{1}{2})`$ and $`(0,1,\frac{1}{2},0)`$. In Fig. 7. the most relevant critical exponents obtained for $`\chi _{}`$ and $`\chi _{}`$ are shown as a function of the magnetic field. It is seen that the critical exponent $`\eta _{}`$ is smaller than $`\eta _{}`$ in a wide range of magnetic fields, which implies that $`\chi _{}`$ is dominant for the relaxation. As mentioned before, when the dipolar interactions are weak, $`A_{}`$ should be nearly zero, so that the divergent behavior in $`1/T_1`$ may be masked at low temperatures in that case. On the other hand, the divergent behavior should be always observed around the plateaus, at least either on the right or left region. Fig. 8 shows the results for the enhancement factor $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{}`$ around the cusp in the magnetization. In contrast to the case of the plateau, the enhancement of $`1/T_1`$ appears on either side of the cusp, because $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\alpha `$ is enhanced when one of the massless modes becomes massive as the magnetic field is changed. For example, in the case of $`\mathrm{\Phi }=0`$ in Fig. 2, we have several quantum phase transition points at $`h0.54,1.4,6.0`$, for which we can observe the enhancement of $`1/T_1`$ in the left-hand side of these points.

We have so far mentioned the enhancement of $`1/T_1`$ around plateaus and cusps in the magnetization. It is noted here that such enhancement of $`1/T_1`$ is induced not only by the magnetic field but also by the orbital splitting. For instance, in Fig. 4, the relaxation rate for $`h=0`$ is enhanced near the both edges of region II, when the orbital splitting $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is continuously changed.

## IV SUMMARY

We have studied the magnetization process as well as the spin dynamics through the NMR relaxation rate for the 1D multicomponent spin-gap system. By using the solvable model of Bariev et al, we have found that the plateaus and the cusps are generated in the magnetization curve. We have also studied the NMR relaxation rate $`1/T_1`$ near plateaus and cusps in the magnetization. For the critical region around the plateau, $`1/T_1`$ diverges at low temperatures at least on either side of the plateau, whereas for the critical regions around the cusp, it depends on the values of the hyperfine coupling constants whether such a divergent behavior appears or not. It has also been found that the relaxation rate at low temperatures is enhanced near the critical value of the magnetic field. This is not only the case for the multicomponent model but also for ordinary spin chain models in magnetic fields. The enhancement appears at sufficiently low temperatures, so that it may be observed in rather ideal 1D spin systems for which the long-range order due to 3D dimensionality is suppressed even at low temperatures. Also, to extract this enhancement effect from the experimental data, careful analysis of the NMR data may be needed: e.g. the power-law temperature dependence should be determined precisely to obtain the correct coefficient as a function of the magnetic field. Although such an enhancement has not been observed yet for a typical 1D spin-1/2 system CuHpCl, we hope that more detailed experiments near the critical magnetic field may reveal the enhancement effect discussed here.

Although we have studied a rather specific integrable model, some characteristic features found in this paper are expected to hold for more generic 1D multicomponent quantum spin systems. In this connection, we note here that the SU(2) $`\times `$ SU(2) deformation of the massless SU(4) model drives the system to a massive phase with spin gaps for all the excitation modes, according to recent intensive studies. We think that the characteristic features obtained in the present study can be also applied to the static and dynamical properties in this model.

## Acknowledgements

This work was partly supported by a Grant-in-Aid from the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture of Japan. A. K. and F. T. were supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. We would like to thank M. Sigrist for careful reading of the manuscript.