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BOOK REVIEW ** quant-ph/0101019 January 2001.

Quantum Evolution

by Johnjoe McFadden

reviewed by Matthew J. Donald

The Cavendish Laboratory, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HE,

Great Britain.

e-mail: matthew.donald@phy.cam.ac.uk

web site: http://www.poco.phy.cam.ac.uk/~mjd1014

J. McFadden, Quantum Evolution: Life in the Multiverse (HarperCollins, 2000), 338 pp, ISBN 0-00-255948-X, 0-00-655128-9. A web site with a detailed summary of the book can be found at http://www.geneticengineering.org/evolution/mcfadden.html

In “Quantum Evolution”, Johnjoe McFadden makes far-reaching claims for the importance of quantum physics in the solution of problems in biological science. In this review, I shall discuss the relevance of unitary wavefunction dynamics to biological systems, analyse the inverse quantum Zeno effect, and argue that McFadden’s use of quantum theory is deeply flawed.

In the first half of his book, McFadden both discusses the biological problems he is interested in solving and gives an introduction to quantum theory. This part of the book is excellent popular science. It is well-written, competent, and fun.

As far as the biology is concerned, McFadden, who is a molecular microbiologist, has very specific, and often controversial, opinions. Nevertheless, he does refer to a wide range of alternative points of view. He certainly managed to convince me that I had swallowed too easily the prevailing dogma (as found, for example, in chapter 1 of Albert et al. 1989) about the earliest (“prebiotic”) stage in biological evolution during which the first self-replicating molecules appeared. McFadden argues that this stage seems to have happened quite fast in terms of the age of the Earth (perhaps within 100 million years) but that none of the proposed mechanisms, of which he discusses several, give anything like a complete and plausible picture of how to go from the early Earth’s chemistry to the first cell. Rescuing the prevailing dogma would require a suitable sequence of laboratory experiments, or, at the very least, plausible computer simulations. Unfortunately, while 100 million years is quite short in the age of the Earth, it is rather long in the laboratory.

When McFadden moves on to describe quantum mechanics and its interpretations, I feel that his touch becomes rather less sure. However it is hardly surprising that I can tell that he is out of his primary field and into mine, and the outlines of his presentation still strike me as reasonable. Unfortunately it is the details which matter when he attempts to apply quantum theory. He is not sufficiently explicit about what is going on at the level of the quantum state. In my opinion, this eventually leads him hopelessly astray.

As well as the appearance of self-replication, McFadden is interested in the possibility of “adaptive” or “directed” mutation. This is the claim, reviewed by Lenski and Mittler (1993), that there is some evidence that, in some bacteria, some mutations will tend to appear more frequently in circumstances when they are advantageous than when they are biologically neutral. McFadden also sketches a version of the idea that free will is a quantum phenomenon. In all three cases, the technical core of McFadden’s proposals involves the quantum dynamics of molecular systems.

The analysis of quantum dynamics is not entirely straightforward. According to the traditional account, the wavefunctions of quantum systems change in two quite different ways. Sometimes there is abrupt, indeterministic, change – “wavefunction collapse” – described by the “projection postulate” in which, with a probability given by a squared transition amplitude, the wavefunction is replaced by some eigenfunction of a “measurement operator”. At all other times, the wavefunction changes according to a Schrödinger equation, so that the dynamics is defined by a unitary group of the form $`U(t)=\mathrm{exp}(itH)`$ with $`H`$ a self-adjoint Hamiltonian operator.

More modern accounts invoke decoherence theory (Giulini et al. 1996) in order to justify the assumption that there is always some sufficiently large scale on which the dynamics is unitary. In particular, decoherence theory encourages us to treat “measurements” as physical processes governed by appropriate global Schrödinger equations and to interpret the abrupt changes as merely the way in which changes in one part of the global quantum system would appear to another part.

Although decoherence theory does leave open crucial conceptual problems in the interpretation of quantum theory, it suggests that those problems are not primarily matters of dynamics. The Schrödinger equations which apply in biological situations are precisely those of conventional quantum chemistry and are defined ultimately by the electromagnetic interactions between electrons and nuclei in a fixed background classical gravitational field. Certainly if, as he claims, McFadden’s ideas are compatible with the many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory, then we should also be able to analyse his work in terms of global unitary non-relativistic electromagnetic quantum dynamics. In general, however, subsystems of a system with unitary dynamics will not themselves have unitary (reversible) dynamics unless they are effectively isolated from their surroundings. Moreover, subsystems of a system in a pure (wavefunction) state will not necessarily themselves occupy pure states. Indeed, any account of local states entirely in terms of product wavefunctions, even if it is possible at a single instant, will disregard important issues of thermal physics which are particularly relevant to the apparent dynamics of biological systems.

Consider then McFadden’s proposals about the process by which self-replicating proteins appear. (McFadden does mention that according to the prevailing dogma self-replication in RNA arose before self-replication in proteins, but he argues that RNA is completely implausible as a prebiotic chemical.) Assume that the early Earth produces a sea of amino acids which can link into peptides a few of which are self-replicating. According to McFadden, the chance of a random peptide being self-replicating is far too small for this process to be a plausible source of life in the framework of classical biochemistry. He claims that, instead, we must invoke what he calls the “inverse quantum Zeno effect”. (Thorough introductions to quantum Zeno effects are given in chapter 8 of Namiki, Pascazio, and Nakazato 1997 and in section 3.3.1 of Giulini et al. 1996.)

The idea of the inverse quantum Zeno effect goes back to von Neumann (1932, section V.2). For a mathematician, it is some version of the theorem proved in the appendix which shows that, up to analytical niceties, if the projection postulate is true, and if we can choose our measurements at will, then, by using the right dense sequences of measurements, we can turn some given pure state $`|\mathrm{\Phi }><\mathrm{\Phi }|`$ into any other pure state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }><\mathrm{\Psi }|`$ regardless of the physical Hamiltonian.

In order to prove this, we first need to use some form of the mathematically-simple existence lemma (A.1) which states that there exists a bounded self-adjoint Hamiltonian $`K`$ such that $`\mathrm{exp}(iK)\mathrm{\Phi }=\mathrm{\Psi }`$. However, the problem with such an existence lemma is that $`K`$ is totally artificial. It is a purely mathematical adjunct required to reduce to the theorem for the standard Zeno effect in which we have $`\mathrm{\Psi }=\mathrm{\Phi }`$.

The crucial fact on which the inverse Zeno effect depends, is that, for any pair of unitary propagators $`U(t)`$ and $`V(t)`$ defined by suitable Hamiltonians,

$$|<\mathrm{\Phi }|U(1/N)V(1/N)|\mathrm{\Phi }>|^2=1O(1/N^2).$$
$`(1)`$
In theorem A.2, this fact appears as (A.3) with $`V(t)=e^{itK}`$.

(1) is an extension of the principle that unitary change in quantum theory begins slowly. Indeed, using $`N\times (1/N^2)=1/N`$, the idea is that if we can interrupt a change sufficiently often then we can gradually alter it in any given direction. To make use of this, however, we actually do have to have large numbers of interruptions applied within a bounded time. It should also be noted that the interruptions, or projections, constructed in the proof are strongly dependent, through lemma A.1, on the initial and final wavefunctions.

Decoherence theory tells us that the projection postulate can be viewed as a phenomenological aspect of a unitary dynamics at a large scale. For a preliminary version of how this works at a mathematical level, we can use another existence lemma similar to lemma A.1. What lemma A.4 means in words is that the projection postulate can always be modelled as the restriction of a unitary dynamics on a large space to density matrix (or mixed state) dynamics on a pair of smaller spaces.

Once again, however, the Hamiltonian $`L`$ in lemma A.4 is totally artificial. For each of the $`N`$ projections $`P_n^N`$ in theorem A.2 we need to have access to an auxiliary space. We also require that the time $`s`$ for which the corresponding map $`\mathrm{exp}(isL)`$ should apply should satisfy $`s1/N`$ and that the dynamics should be switched off at the end of that brief period. The famous experiments of Itano et al. (1990) involved not only a series of brief interactions with auxiliary spaces of photon states, but also a system in which there was an essentially thermodynamical reason for rapid relaxation onto the projected state. Thus there were very specific constraints on the form of the physical dynamics and on the projections.

As a physical example of the inverse quantum Zeno effect, McFadden considers three polarizing lenses. Adjust lenses 1 and 2 to block light entirely. Then insert lens 3 between lenses 1 and 2. With lens 3 turned to a suitable angle, some light will pass through the entire sequence.

The simple analysis in the appendix is not entirely relevant to this case, because our observations of light intensity involve the average, macroscopic, behaviour of many photons. Nevertheless, this is an excellent example. It shows that the Zeno effect is not magic. We are dealing here with a situation in which it possible to understand why the projection postulate should be a reasonable model of the interaction between the measured property of the light and the lens. The measurements involved are genuine and identifiable physical processes. Nevertheless, the required sequence of measurements has to be carefully constructed and adjusted. The light polarization to which the effect is applied is a particularly simple and easily controlled property. Moreover, when the experiment is performed, one sees, in the inefficiency of light transmission through a real lens, the difference between the mathematical ideal and what is possible in practice.

There are many ways in which evolution has become very good at careful construction and adjustment, but this was certainly not true at the prebiotic stage. As a mechanism for producing desirable peptides on a lifeless planet, my opinion is that the inverse Zeno effect has no plausibility. I would only change that opinion if I was presented with a detailed model, at the level of the quantum states of all the particles involved. The essential difficulty is to explain why the actual molecular dynamics should have the slightest resemblance to what is merely a theoretically possible dynamics.

Instead of giving such an explanation, McFadden, both in his book and in a published paper (McFadden and Al-Khalili 1999) on adaptive mutation, provides a much vaguer picture of molecular systems as sometimes being isolated and sometimes decoherent, and he suggests that when the systems he considers come out of isolation, suitable measurements will drive them towards desirable biological goals. This picture has much in common with the idea of a quantum computer. As such of course we can return to the necessity for experiments. Here the primitiveness of our artificial quantum computers and the difficulty that we have in building them, seems to me to be fairly good evidence that the sort of multi-atom wavefunction control which would be required to make McFadden’s ideas work is unlikely to have occurred by chance.

At the prebiotic stage, McFadden wants to consider a soup of as many as 20 varieties of amino acid with different side chains as being isolated “inside tiny structures: perhaps in the pores of a rock or within a chemically generated oil or protein droplet”. Amino acid residues vary in volume from 60 Å3 for glycine to 228 Å3 for tryptophan. They vary in structure by as many as seventeen atoms and they vary in pH and in all sorts of other reactivities (Creighton 1983). I find it inconceivable that in a peptide in a drop of warm wet fluid we could exchange a tryptophan residue for a glycine residue without the state of every molecule in the drop rapidly being affected. After all, the change of volume in the peptide would provide room for more than five water molecules.

In their analysis of adaptive mutation, McFadden and Al-Khalili consider an entire bacterial cell as an isolated unit with a possible mutation resulting in a protein in which an arginine residue is replaced by a histidine residue. In comparison to other residue pairs, arginine and histidine are fairly similar. They are both bases, and they differ in volume by only about 2/3rds of a water molecule. Nevertheless, their structures are still substantially different, with arginine containing one more nitrogen and five more hydrogen atoms.

McFadden and Al-Khalili produce the following equation to describe the wavefunction of a cell in this situation:

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }_{cell}>=\alpha |\mathrm{\Phi }_{nottun.}>|C>|Arg>+\beta |\mathrm{\Phi }_{tun.}>|T>|His>.$$
$`(2)`$
Here $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is supposed to denote the wavefunction of a proton on a gene which can tunnel between two possible positions. $`|C>`$ and $`|T>`$ denote corresponding wavefunctions of a daughter DNA strand following replication and $`|Arg>`$ and $`|His>`$ denote the wild-type and mutant form of the protein.

At best, equation (2) can be considered as schematic, ignoring as it does all the other particles which will be affected by the processes of DNA replication and transcription and protein synthesis. Indeed, as they refer to different numbers of particles, neither “$`|C>`$” and “$`|T>`$” nor “$`|Arg>`$” and “$`|His>`$” can even be considered to belong to the same Hilbert spaces. This is not just poor notation; except in special circumstances like superconductivity, the more particles are involved in a situation, the less plausible coherence becomes. As I shall discuss further below, there is no justification for the assignment of a pure state over an extended period to a system like a bacterial cell. This difficulty will extend even to quite small parts of the cell, including single proteins and nucleic acids with their complicated internal thermal mobilities (McMammon and Harvey 1987). It will certainly extend to the groups of molecules necessarily involved in the two components of equation (2). As a general rule, coherence is destroyed at least as easily as the most minute quantities of heat are passed. In a fluid system, heat is rapidly exchanged not only between the translational degrees of freedom of separate molecules but also between internal rotational and vibrational degrees of freedom.

McFadden and Al-Khalili suppose that, in the absence of a substrate on which the cell can grow, the coherence expressed by equation (2) can persist over times (1 – 100 s) of biological significance. They attempt to justify this claim by refering to measurements of NMR $`T_1`$ spin-lattice relaxation times for protons in biological systems. This is an error not only because equation (2) involves far more extensive state changes than the motion of a single proton, but also because it is much easier for heat to pass between position degrees of freedom than to or from nuclear spins. They then suppose that if the cell is provided with a substrate for which the mutated protein “His” is adaptive, the probability of the second term in the wavefunction will somehow be enhanced. They appear to claim that this will happen simply because, in the presence of an adaptive substrate, the decoherence time will decrease. Unfortunately, because “His” is the mutated and rarer form of the protein, we should assume in normal circumstances that $`|\beta |<|\alpha |`$ and that, for short times $`t`$, at least in the simplest model, $`|\beta |^2\mathrm{sin}^2\lambda t\lambda ^2t^2`$. This makes mutation analogous to decay of a quantum energy level. But the normal idea is that “observation”, or at least the standard quantum Zeno effect, should slow down decay (albeit, usually to an imperceptibly small extent) rather than speed it up. Thus McFadden and Al-Khalili really do require something like the inverse quantum Zeno effect with its precisely adjusted interactions. Although such interactions might exist in principle at a mathematical level, I see no reason to believe that biological components can provide them; either spontaneously, or by natural evolution, or by human construction.

Quantum theory is undoubtedly important for the complete understanding of the dynamics of biological systems for reasons which go somewhat beyond the relevance of quantum chemistry in all detailed studies of molecular interactions. In particular, some electron transfer systems, such as those involved in photosynthesis, can only be properly described by a detailed quantum-statistical-mechanical analysis (DeVault 1984, Kilin 2000). Photosynthesis itself demonstrates that it is possible for biological systems to evolve to capture individual photons. The resulting systems are wonderfully complex and it seems that they could only have arisen after a long history of refinement of membrane-bound electron transfer systems (Albert et al. 1989, chapter 7). Even so, excitation of an electron on one molecule, and transfer of that electron to a succession of different molecules involves the ordinary building blocks of biology; collisions between specific molecules in the right environmental conditions. The execution of an arbitrary sequence of mimics of the projection postulate would require an entirely different level of wavefunction control.

Ogryzko (1997) also attempts to explain adaptive mutation in quantum mechanical terms. His suggestion is that some kind of environment-dependent measurement process is involved. Like McFadden and Al-Khalili, Ogryzko attempts to extend a physical theory, appropriate for some simple systems, way beyond its normal domain of application. Here too, my opinion is that the proposal has no plausibility, and challenge Ogryzko to produce an analysis which is explicit about the form of his “measurement operators”.

McFadden mentions the anthropic principle as an alternative way of dealing with the apparent improbability of the first step in the evolution of life. The argument here is that an event of any non-zero probability, however low, will occur somewhere within the “multiverse” of many-worlds theory. Thus we might observe a past in which a self-replicator came into being in a random sequence of peptide linkages, and we inevitably will observe such a past, if it is the only way to explain our existence as observers. McFadden rejects this argument, both because he “would dearly like to believe that we are not alone in the universe”, and because, as he points out, the argument fails to explain the crucial issue, which is how self-replicators can have plausibly arisen within such an early period of the Earth’s existence. If the only way that observers could exist was through an extremely unlikely quantum event followed by biological evolution, then we would expect our universe to have lots of planets; so that it would be very big (which it may well be), and/or very old (which it probably is not). We would also expect that, when the quantum event happened, it would happen at a typical time within the life of the planet on which it happened, as long as there was still time for the required subsequent evolution. As the expected main sequence life of the Sun is around ten billion years, while evolution has occured within four billion years, we would therefore expect to see geological evidence of a several billion year period during which the Earth was lifeless. On the other hand, if we were prepared to make the argument using self-replicators from space, then we would expect our observed universe to have lived for far more star lifetimes than it apparently has.

In the final chapter of his book, McFadden turns his attention to the brain. Here he suggests that the neural electromagnetic field might be the seat of consciousness. Personally, I fail to understand why he, or anyone else, should believe that such a spatially-extended field can solve the problem of the unity of consciousness in any way that a spatially-extended pattern of neural firings cannot. He confuses the quasi-classical electro-magnetic field with the wave function of the quantization of that field. He also speaks of single photon events in the circumstances of voltage-gated ion channel opening in which there is no reason to suppose that the state moves between eigenstates of a photon number operator.

In my opinion, the most fundamental mistake in McFadden’s work is the assumption that unitary wavefunction dynamics can provide an accurate description of the behaviour of systems such as entire cells over significant time periods. The dynamics implied by this assumption is incorrect under any interpretation of quantum mechanics. An interpretation in which a cell did have a wavefunction at all times would require extremely frequent wavefunction collapse, contradicting unitarity.

Detailed arguments against mistakes of this kind usually involve models of the effect of scattering processes on quantum states (Joos and Zeh 1985, Giulini et al. 1996 Section 3.2, Tegmark 2000). Defence against such arguments require analysis of lengthscales and timescales, of the details of interactions, and of the type of quantum system within which coherence is claimed (Hagan, Hameroff, and Tuszynski 2000). At the micron scale of a bacterial cell, coherence is only observed in very special systems such as lasing light and superconducting electrons. In the first case, we have self-reinforcement (or “amplification”) of the macroscopic quantum properties, and in the second, we have a multiply-occupied ground state isolated by an energy gap. In both cases, as in the case of light polarization considered earlier, the macroscopic nature of the situation is neutralized by macroscopic uniformity and by the simplicity of the interactions of certain degrees of freedom.

Careful isolation and state preparation are the hallmarks of experimental science and can be found in most cases for which the projection postulate provides a good model of the ultimate observations. A fascinating recent example comes from the diffraction of fullerene molecules (Arndt et al. 1999). In this case, coherence is observed in the centre-of-mass of hot complex molecules. State preparation is by careful collimation. Isolation, both from internal and external influence, is for a short flight in an evacuated chamber. Controlled state preparation for a system as complex as a bacterial cell is essentially impossible, while in order to produce the required isolation over the required period, the cell would have to be placed in a vacuum which would be fatal to it.

On the other hand, there are also examples in which entirely natural systems do exhibit unitary wavefunction dynamics over indefinite periods. For example, there can be no doubt that it is appropriate to assign a stationary pure state to the core electrons of an atom inside a biological system. Here the isolation is due to the large quantity of energy which would have to be supplied in order to free the electrons. The state preparation is thermodynamical. The nucleus would have been unable to trap the electrons had they not lost energy to the electromagnetic field.

Beyond these various special systems, it is possible that wavefunction dynamics may be found at the level of the entire universe. Otherwise, we are always entitled to require detailed and specific models and explanations of why entropy and temperature are not relevant parameters in the observed behaviour. Biological systems, in particular, are fundamentally warm and wet. Of course cells are precisely structured at the level of the compartments into which they divide their various functions. However, at the molecular level within those compartments, or on the membranes which bound them, heat not only keeps life moving, but also provides energy to overcome activation barriers and dissipation to maintain irreversibility. Rotating and vibrating, molecules roll and rock from collision to collision until, when they find the right partners and the right enzyme, they find a free energy gradient down which they can fall (Harold 1986). The partners are transformed and their successors wander off for new adventures.

A correct quantum theoretical analysis of biological systems has to take account of the local free energy gradients which drive them. This implies that our descriptions of most of the degrees of freedom relevant to the functioning of biological systems should involve mixed states and chance. In many ways this simplifies the description of the dynamical processes involved; classical biochemistry provides a precise picture of the typical dynamics. Nevertheless, at some point, we need to investigate the fundamental meaning of quantum theoretical chances and descriptions. This brings us back to the crucial open conceptual questions of decoherence theory. My own opinion (Donald 1990, 1999) is that the study of biological systems may be no less important in answering these questions than is the study of quantum theory for a complete understanding of the observed dynamics of biological systems.

Acknowledgement The genesis of this review was a question on the newsgroup sci.physics.research from Des Grenfell. It is a pleasure to thank him and other contributors to the ensuing thread; including Charles Francis, Greg Egan, Tim, “fuzzy thinking”, “toady” (Jim), and “trex”, for introducing me to the book, for their suggestions, and for their comments on a preliminary version of this review. I should also like to thank the moderators of the newsgroup for the work they do in keeping sci.physics.research an interesting venue for discussion.

Appendix

lemma A.1 Let $``$ be a Hilbert space $``$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi },\mathrm{\Psi }`$ with $`\mathrm{\Phi }=\mathrm{\Psi }=1`$.

Then there exists a bounded self-adjoint operator $`K`$ on $``$ such that $`e^{iK}\mathrm{\Phi }=\mathrm{\Psi }`$.

proof Define $`\delta [0,2\pi )`$ by $`<\mathrm{\Phi }|\mathrm{\Psi }>=e^{i\delta }|<\mathrm{\Phi }|\mathrm{\Psi }>|`$ with $`\delta =0`$ if $`<\mathrm{\Phi }|\mathrm{\Psi }>=0`$.

If $`|<\mathrm{\Phi }|\mathrm{\Psi }>|=1`$ then $`\mathrm{\Psi }=e^{i\delta }\mathrm{\Phi }`$, so choose $`K=\delta `$.

Otherwise $`|<\mathrm{\Phi }|\mathrm{\Psi }>|<1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{}={\displaystyle \frac{e^{i\delta }\mathrm{\Psi }|<\mathrm{\Phi }|\mathrm{\Psi }>|\mathrm{\Phi }}{\sqrt{1|<\mathrm{\Phi }|\mathrm{\Psi }>|^2}}}`$ satisfies $`<\mathrm{\Phi }|\mathrm{\Phi }_{}>=0`$ and $`<\mathrm{\Phi }_{}|\mathrm{\Phi }_{}>=1`$.

Set $`\mathrm{sin}\theta =\sqrt{1|<\mathrm{\Phi }|\mathrm{\Psi }>|^2}`$ with $`0\theta \frac{\pi }{2}`$. Then $`\mathrm{cos}\theta =|<\mathrm{\Phi }|\mathrm{\Psi }>|`$ and so $`e^{i\delta }\mathrm{\Psi }=\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{cos}\theta +\mathrm{\Phi }_{}\mathrm{sin}\theta `$.

Now let $`K^{}=i\theta |\mathrm{\Phi }><\mathrm{\Phi }_{}|+i\theta |\mathrm{\Phi }_{}><\mathrm{\Phi }|`$ and $`K=K^{}+\delta `$.

$`iK^{}=\theta |\mathrm{\Phi }><\mathrm{\Phi }_{}|+\theta |\mathrm{\Phi }_{}><\mathrm{\Phi }|`$ and $`(iK^{})^2=\theta ^2(|\mathrm{\Phi }><\mathrm{\Phi }|+|\mathrm{\Phi }_{}><\mathrm{\Phi }_{}|)`$.

Thus $`(iK^{})^{2N}=(1)^N\theta ^{2N}(|\mathrm{\Phi }><\mathrm{\Phi }|+|\mathrm{\Phi }_{}><\mathrm{\Phi }_{}|)`$

and $`(iK^{})^{2N+1}=(1)^N\theta ^{2N+1}(|\mathrm{\Phi }><\mathrm{\Phi }_{}|+|\mathrm{\Phi }_{}><\mathrm{\Phi }|)`$ and so

$$\begin{array}{c}\text{ }e^{iK^{}}\mathrm{\Phi }=\underset{N0}{}\frac{(iK^{})^N}{N!}\mathrm{\Phi }=\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{cos}\theta +\mathrm{\Phi }_{}\mathrm{sin}\theta =e^{i\delta }\mathrm{\Psi }.\text{ }\text{ }\hfill \end{array}$$

theorem A.2 Let $`H`$ be a self-adjoint operator on a Hilbert space $``$. Let $`Q_m`$ be the spectral projection of $`H`$ for the interval $`[m,m]`$. Suppose $`\mathrm{\Phi },\mathrm{\Psi }_{m=1}^{\mathrm{}}Q_m`$ are normalized. Write $`U(t)=e^{itH}`$.

Then there exist sequences $`(P_n^N)_{n=1}^N`$ of projections such that,

$$\begin{array}{c}\text{ }|\mathrm{\Psi }_N><\mathrm{\Psi }_N||\mathrm{\Psi }><\mathrm{\Psi }|\text{ as }N\mathrm{}\text{ }\hfill \\ \text{ }\text{ where }\mathrm{\Psi }_N=P_N^NU(1/N)P_{N1}^NU(1/N)\mathrm{}U(1/N)P_2^NU(1/N)P_1^NU(1/N)\mathrm{\Phi }.\text{ }\hfill \end{array}$$

proof Let $`K`$ be the bounded self-adjoint operator constructed in lemma A.1 with $`e^{iK}\mathrm{\Phi }=\mathrm{\Psi }`$. Note that we can choose $`M`$ such that $`\mathrm{\Phi },\mathrm{\Psi }Q_M`$, and then, from the proof of lemma A.1, for all $`t`$, $`e^{itK}\mathrm{\Phi }Q_M`$.

Define $`P_n^N=e^{inK/N}|\mathrm{\Phi }><\mathrm{\Phi }|e^{inK/N}`$.

As $`\mathrm{\Psi }=1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_N1`$, to prove that $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_N><\mathrm{\Psi }_N||\mathrm{\Psi }><\mathrm{\Psi }|`$, it is sufficient to prove that $`|<\mathrm{\Psi }|\mathrm{\Psi }_N>|^21`$ or that $`\mathrm{log}|<\mathrm{\Psi }|\mathrm{\Psi }_N>|^20`$.

$$|<\mathrm{\Psi }|\mathrm{\Psi }_N>|^2=\underset{n=1}{\overset{N}{}}|<\mathrm{\Phi }|e^{inK/N}e^{iH/N}e^{i(n1)K/N}|\mathrm{\Phi }>|^2.$$

Let $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_n>=e^{inK/N}|\mathrm{\Phi }>`$ and

$$a_n(t)=|<\mathrm{\Phi }_n|e^{itH}e^{itK}|\mathrm{\Phi }_n>|^2=<\mathrm{\Phi }_n|e^{itK}e^{itH}|\mathrm{\Phi }_n><\mathrm{\Phi }_n|e^{itH}e^{itK}|\mathrm{\Phi }_n>.$$

$`a_n(t)`$ is infinitely continuously differentiable. $`a_n(0)=1`$,

$$\begin{array}{c}\text{ }a_n^{}(t)=i(<\mathrm{\Phi }_n|e^{itK}(HK)e^{itH}|\mathrm{\Phi }_n><\mathrm{\Phi }_n|e^{itH}e^{itK}|\mathrm{\Phi }_n>\text{ }\hfill \\ \text{ }+<\mathrm{\Phi }_n|e^{itK}e^{itH}|\mathrm{\Phi }_n><\mathrm{\Phi }_n|e^{itH}(KH)e^{itK}|\mathrm{\Phi }_n>),\text{ }\hfill \end{array}$$

$`a_n^{}(0)=0`$,

$$\begin{array}{c}\text{ }a_n^{\prime \prime }(t)=(<\mathrm{\Phi }_n|e^{itK}(H^22KH+K^2)e^{itH}|\mathrm{\Phi }_n><\mathrm{\Phi }_n|e^{itH}e^{itK}|\mathrm{\Phi }_n>\text{ }\hfill \\ \text{ }+2<\mathrm{\Phi }_n|e^{itK}(HK)e^{itH}|\mathrm{\Phi }_n><\mathrm{\Phi }_n|e^{itH}(KH)e^{itK}|\mathrm{\Phi }_n>\text{ }\hfill \\ \text{ }+<\mathrm{\Phi }_n|e^{itK}e^{itH}|\mathrm{\Phi }_n><\mathrm{\Phi }_n|e^{itH}(K^22HK+H^2)e^{itK}|\mathrm{\Phi }_n>),\text{ }\hfill \end{array}$$

and $`|a_n^{\prime \prime }(t)|4(M+K)^2`$.

Thus

$$a_n(t)=1+_0^ta_n^{}(u)𝑑u=1+_0^t_0^ua_n^{\prime \prime }(v)𝑑v𝑑u$$

and so $`|a_n(t)1|2t^2(M+K)^2`$. (A.3)

For $`\frac{1}{2}x1`$, $`0\mathrm{log}x={\displaystyle _x^1}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{y}}𝑑y2(1x)`$ and so, for $`N`$ sufficiently large,

$$\begin{array}{c}\text{ }02\mathrm{log}|<\mathrm{\Psi }_N|\mathrm{\Psi }>|=\underset{n=1}{\overset{N}{}}\mathrm{log}a_n(1/N)\underset{n=1}{\overset{N}{}}4(1/N)^2(M+K)^2\text{ }\hfill \\ \text{ }=4(M+K)^2/N.\text{ }\text{ }\hfill \end{array}$$

lemma A.4 Let $`P`$ be a projection on a Hilbert space $``$. Let $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ with $`\mathrm{\Phi }=1`$. Choose $`s>0`$. Suppose that $`^{}`$ is an auxiliary Hilbert space with $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0,\mathrm{\Psi }_1,\mathrm{\Psi }_2^{}`$ normalized and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_2`$ orthogonal.

Then there exists a bounded self-adjoint Hamiltonian $`L`$ on $`^{}`$ such that

$$\mathrm{exp}(isL)(\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{\Psi }_0)=P\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{\Psi }_1+(1P)\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{\Psi }_2.$$

The resulting change of state on $``$ is

$$|\mathrm{\Phi }><\mathrm{\Phi }|P|\mathrm{\Phi }><\mathrm{\Phi }|P+(1P)|\mathrm{\Phi }><\mathrm{\Phi }|(1P)$$

and on $`^{}`$ is

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }_0><\mathrm{\Psi }_0|P\mathrm{\Phi }^2|\mathrm{\Psi }_1><\mathrm{\Psi }_1|+(1P)\mathrm{\Phi }^2|\mathrm{\Psi }_2><\mathrm{\Psi }_2|.$$

proof As $`P\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{\Psi }_1+(1P)\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{\Psi }_2=1`$, this lemma is an immediate consequence of lemma A.1.

References

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http://www.quantum.univie.ac.at/research/c60/

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# Hydrodynamics of liquids of arbitrarily curved flux-lines and vortex loops

## I Introduction

The physics of vortex matter has been a very active field of research since the discovery of high-temperature superconductivity . The melting of the Abrikosov vortex lattice at a field well below the mean field upper critical line, $`H_{c2}(T)`$, is now well established both theoretically and experimentally. The nature of the resulting vortex liquid phase remains, however, unclear. Various approaches have been used to study the properties of the liquid, ranging from the mapping of the statistical mechanics of vortex lines onto that of (nonrelativistic) two-dimensional quantum bosons , to continuum hydrodynamic models . Recently, it has been proposed that the vortex liquid phase should be viewed not as a collection of well-defined directed vortex lines induced by the externally applied field, but rather as a system where closed vortex loops proliferate, with components in all directions . This picture has been substantiated by numerical work by Sudbø and collaborators . Such a vortex liquid has been described by Kiometzis et al.  and by Tešanović  by mapping it onto a system of relativistic two-dimensional quantum bosons, where the proliferation of vortex loops and overhangs in the flux-line system corresponds to particle-antiparticle creation and annihilation events in the bosons. This mapping has been developed in some detail for the case of zero external field.

In this paper we consider a vortex-line liquid in an arbitrary homogeneous external field, $`𝐇`$. The only restriction is that $`H`$ be well below the mean field upper critical line, $`H_{c2}`$, so that the London approximation applies. The liquid in general consists of both field-induced vortices (on the average aligned with the external field, but where large fluctuations leading to overhangs are not excluded) and closed vortex loops generated spontaneously by thermal fluctuations. On the basis of general considerations, the statistical mechanics of such a vortex liquid maps onto that of relativistic charged quantum bosons in $`2+1`$ dimensions coupled to a screened electromagnetic field. Our model generalizes that of Tešanović  in that it explicitly incorporates the external field $`𝐇`$ which in the boson model corresponds to a chemical potential, $`\mu _r`$, associated with the conserved charge density of the bosons. By manipulating the relativistic boson action, we then derive a hydrodynamic model for a liquid of arbitrarily curved flux-lines and closed vortex loops. We propose this model as a convenient and physically appealing starting point for studying the properties of the vortex liquid.

We consider for simplicity a clean, isotropic type-II superconductor in the mixed state. The anisotropic case is discussed in the Appendix. In the London limit, the familiar Ginzburg-Landau free energy functional can be rewritten in terms of discrete vortex degrees of freedom by parametrizing the $`i`$-th line by its position $`𝐫_i(s_i)`$, with $`s_i`$ the arclength along its curve, as

$`𝒢[\{𝐫_i(s_i)\},𝐇]`$ $`=`$ $`U_{self}+U_{int}`$ (2)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _0}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}}{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐫_i𝐇},`$
where

$$U_{self}ϵ_1\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}𝑑s_i$$
(3)
is an approximate form for the self-energy of a single vortex line, and

$$U_{int}=\frac{1}{2}\underset{ij}{}𝑑𝐫_i^{}𝑑𝐫_jV(|𝐫_i𝐫_j|),$$
(4)
with $`V(r)=(ϵ_0/r)e^{r/\stackrel{~}{\lambda }}`$, describes the screened interaction between vortex segments on different lines. Here $`ϵ_0=\varphi _0^2/(4\pi \stackrel{~}{\lambda })^2`$ and $`ϵ_1=ϵ_0\mathrm{ln}\kappa `$. Also, $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }`$ is the effective London penetration depth and $`\kappa \stackrel{~}{\lambda }/\xi `$, with $`\xi `$ the coherence length. The prime on the integral sign indicates that the interaction must be cutoff at intervortex separations of the order of $`\xi `$. The last term in Eq. (2) represents the interaction with the homogeneous external field, $`𝐇`$. A short distance cutoff $`\xi `$ has been assumed to regularize the integrals at short scales. The canonical partition function of the system is

$$𝒵(𝐇,T)=^{}𝒟\{𝐫_i(s_i)\}e^{𝒢/k_BT}.$$
(5)
The prime over the integral sign indicates that the functional integration must be performed over all flux-line configurations $`\{𝐫_i(s_i)\}`$ subject to the constraint $`𝐁=0`$ (i.e. no flux-line can start or stop within the sample). The expression for the vortex energy given in Eqs. (24) is the starting point of much theoretical work on vortex arrays. As required, the free energy is a scalar and it is therefore rotationally invariant.

A familiar approximation to the general free energy given in Eq. (2) can be obtained at low fields and temperatures, where field-induced vortex lines interact weakly and fluctuations away from the external field direction are small. In this case it is convenient to choose the $`z`$ axis in the direction of the applied field, $`𝐇=\widehat{𝐳}H_0`$ and to parametrize the vortex positions as $`𝐫_i=[𝐫_i(z),z]`$. Asuming small transverse fluctuations of the vortices and retaining only the interaction among vortex segments at the same “height” $`z`$ (to be referred to as the local approximation), one obtains

$`𝒢[\{𝐫_i(s_i)\},H_0`$ $`]{\displaystyle }_{i=1}^N{\displaystyle }dz\{{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_1}{2}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{d𝐫_i(z)}{dz}}\right]^2\mu \}`$ (7)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{ij}{}}{\displaystyle 𝑑zV(|𝐫_i(z)𝐫_j(z)|)}.`$
with $`\mu =H_0\varphi _0/(4\pi )ϵ_1`$ . Eq. (7) is clearly only appropriate to describe field-induced directed lines and it neglects the possibility of thermally-induced closed vortex loops. It is well known that the partition function of the array of directed vortex lines described by Eq. (7) maps onto the quantum mechanical partition function in the path integral formulation for a gas of two-dimensional bosons . In this mapping, the vortex lines correspond to the boson world lines, $`ϵ_1`$ is the boson mass, and $`z`$ represents the imaginary time. This boson mapping has been exploited by Nelson and collaborators to study the properties of vortex liquids and is particularly useful for the description of vortex arrays pinned by correlated disorder . The approximate vortex free energy given in Eq. (7) is invariant under a uniform tilt of the external field away from the $`z`$ direction. In the boson analogy, this translates into invariance with respect to Galileian boosts .

One of the limitations of this boson model is that it neglects the nonlocality of the intervortex interaction in the external field direction. Feigel’man and collaborators argued that this nonlocality can be incorporated in the boson formalism by mapping the vortex partition function onto the path integral of two-dimensional charged bosons  coupled to a screened gauge field that mediates the non-instantaneous interaction among the bosons . The boson action proposed by these authors suffers, however, from one crucial problem — it does not incorporate the symmetry of the original vortex free energy given in Eq. (2). More precisely, the boson analogue of a rotation of the three-dimensional space where the vortices are embedded is a Lorentz transformation of the $`2+1`$-dimensional space-time where the bosons are embedded. Since the original vortex energy is rotationally invariant, its dual boson action should be Lorentz invariant. But the model implemented by Feigel’man and collaborators lacks a definite symmetry as the field and the interaction part of the Lagrangian density are Lorentz invariant, but the approximate form used for the free-particle part is only Galileian invariant. We note that the non-Gaussian hydrodynamic model proposed recently by us  suffers from the same problem, as it was actually derived from the nonrelativistic charged boson model. This problem is in retrospect immediately apparent in the hydrodynamic formulation, where the free energy can be written in terms of the coarse-grained fields $`[\widehat{n}^H(𝐫),\widehat{𝐭}^H(𝐫)]`$ as the sum of three terms, as in Eq. (2),

$`𝒢^H[\widehat{n}^H,\widehat{𝐭}^H,H_0]=U_{self}^H+U_{int}^HNLH_0{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _0}{4\pi }},`$ (8)
with

$$U_{self}^H=NLϵ_1+\frac{1}{2}_𝐫ϵ_1\frac{|\widehat{𝐭}^H(𝐫)|^2}{\widehat{n}^H(𝐫)}$$
(9)
and

$`U_{int}^H={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2n_0^2}}{\displaystyle _𝐫}{\displaystyle _𝐫^{}}`$ $`[K_t(𝐫𝐫^{})\widehat{𝐭}^H(𝐫)\widehat{𝐭}^H(𝐫^{})`$ (11)
$`+K_c(𝐫𝐫^{})\widehat{n}^H(𝐫)\widehat{n}^H(𝐫^{})].`$
Here $`K_c(𝐫)`$ is the real space compressional modulus and $`K_t(𝐫)`$ is the compressional part of the real space tilt modulus. For an isotropic superconductor, $`K_c(𝐫)=K_t(𝐫)`$. Since $`[\widehat{n}^H(𝐫),\widehat{𝐭}^H(𝐫)]`$ is a vector under rotations (proportial to the local induction $`𝐁`$ in the superconductor, with $`\widehat{n}^H(𝐫)B_z(𝐫)`$ and $`\widehat{𝐭}^H(𝐫)𝐁_{}(𝐫)`$), we see that, for $`L\mathrm{}`$, $`U_{int}^H`$ is a scalar and therefore rotationally invariant, while $`U_{self}^H`$ is not a scalar and therefore is not rotationally invariant. Note that, in contrast, both the uncharged boson model à la Nelson  and conventional Gaussian hydrodynamics  (where the field $`\widehat{n}^H(𝐫)`$ in the denominator of Eq. (9) is replaced by its equilibrium value) are consistent approximations to the free energy of directed vortex lines and respect the restricted symmetry under global rotations about the $`z`$ axis. These observations indicate that, as recently pointed out in Refs. , the proper two-dimensional boson model dual to the original three-dimensional vortex problem is a gas of relativistic charged bosons in $`2+1`$-dimensional space-time, interacting via a screened electromagnetic field.

In this paper, starting from the action of relativistic charged quantum bosons, we derive a nonlocal, nonlinear hydrodynamic model of liquids of arbitrarly curved vortex lines that properly incorporates the full rotational symmetry of the vortex energy. As discussed in Refs. , this leads to some interesting new concepts, namely, the appearence of thermally excited antivortex lines and vortex loops. It is well known that a loop gas is dual to a gas of relativistic bosons in $`2+1`$ space-time dimensions. This duality has been exploited recently by a few authors to study the properties of vortex liquids in type-II superconductors. Kleinert and collaborators  have developed a field theory of a gas of fluctuating closed vortex loops and have applied renormalization group ideas to study its phases. Tešanović has proposed a theory  which separates “field-induced” from “thermally-generated” degrees of freedom. The former correspond to directed flux-lines, while the latter correspond to closed vortex loops. A prediction of this work is the existence of a phase transition, dubbed the $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-transition, within the flux liquid phase from a low temperature liquid of lines with finite tension to a liquid phase that lacks superconducting coherence in all directions and where vortex loops proliferate yielding the vanishing of the flux-line tension. Numerical evidence for this $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-transition has recently come from the numerical simulations of Sudbø and collaborators .

In this paper, we propose a long wavelength description of a liquid of interacting field-induced vortex lines and vortex loops which treats both on equal footing. The external magnetic field is incorporated explicitly and controls the density of field-induced lines. In the dual description it enters as the chemical potential of the bosons, in analogy to the nonrelativistic boson model. The important difference here is that the chemical potential couples to the local charge density of bosons, which is the relevant conserved variable as contrasted to the particle number density. The hydrodynamic model proposed here is physically appealing model and naturally generalizes the familiar Gaussian hydrodynamics. Its ramifications and particularly its standing with respect to the aforementioned $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-transition are interesting directions for future work.

## II Derivation of the hydrodynamics of flux-lines and flux-loops from a relativistic boson analogy

In this section, we use the methods discussed in Ref.  to derive the hydrodynamic free energy of arbitrarly curved vortex lines. As usual, the vortex lines are viewed as imaginary-time world lines of $`2D`$ bosons. The need for a relativistic description is immediately apparent by considering the self-energy part of the vortex energy, given in Eq. (3), where the arclength of a curve segment can be parametrized as $`ds=\sqrt{(dz)^2+(d𝐫_{})^2}`$. Eq. (3) is formally identical to the imaginary-time action of a relativistic free particle of rest mass $`mϵ_1`$ ,

$$S=mc_{s_1}^{s_2}𝑑s=mc_{s_1}^{s_2}\sqrt{c^2(dt)^2(d𝐫_{})^2},$$
(12)
where $`s_1`$ and $`s_2`$ are two space-time events and $`c\tau z`$, with $`\tau it`$ the imaginary time. The speed of light $`c`$ does not have a counterpart in the flux-line free energy, but is explicitly kept in this section to enable us to obtain the nonrelativistic limit. The correspondence between boson and vortex variables is summarized in Table 1. One important diference between our mapping and the mapping to $`2D`$ nonrelativistic bosons discussed extensively in the literature is that here the boson mass, $`m_b`$, corresponds to the vortex line energy rather than to the titl energy per unit length. This distinction becomes important in the case of anisotropic materials, as discussed in the Appendix.

As shown below, the vortex lines can be interpreted as the world lines of relativistic spin-$`0`$, charged bosons in $`2+1`$ space-time dimensions, interacting via a screened electromagnetic interaction . By applying standard methods  of rewriting the boson Hamiltonian in the language of second quantization and transforming to coherent states, the imaginary-time path integral representation for the grand-canonical partition function of the bosons is written as

$$Z_G^{\mathrm{bos}}=_{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{\mathrm{\Phi }^{}(𝐫_{},\beta \mathrm{})=\mathrm{\Phi }^{}(𝐫_{},0)}{\mathrm{\Phi }(𝐫_{},\beta \mathrm{})=\mathrm{\Phi }(𝐫_{},0)}}𝒟\mathrm{\Phi }𝒟\mathrm{\Phi }^{}𝒟𝐚𝒟𝐀e^{𝒮_r[\mathrm{\Phi },\mathrm{\Phi }^{},𝐚,𝐀]/\mathrm{}},$$
(13)
with the action

$`𝒮_r[\mathrm{\Phi },\mathrm{\Phi }^{},𝐚,𝐀]=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^\beta \mathrm{}}d\tau {\displaystyle }d^2𝐫_{}\{{\displaystyle \frac{m_bc^2}{2}}\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{\Phi }^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2m_bc^2}}\left[(i\mathrm{}_\tau +e_ba_0+i\mu _r)\mathrm{\Phi }\right]\left[(i\mathrm{}_\tau +e_ba_0+i\mu _r)\mathrm{\Phi }^{}\right]`$ (15)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2m_b}}|(i\mathrm{}_{}+{\displaystyle \frac{e_b}{c}}𝐚_{})\mathrm{\Phi }|^2+_F[𝐚,𝐀]\},`$
where

$`_F[𝐚,𝐀]={\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi }}\left\{(\times 𝐚)^2+{\displaystyle \frac{2i}{\lambda _b}}(\times 𝐚)𝐀+(\times 𝐀)^2\right\}`$ (16)
is the free field Lagrangian density and $`(\frac{1}{c}_\tau ,_{})`$. Here, $`\mathrm{\Phi }(𝐫_{},t)`$ is a complex scalar matter field that describes bosons with positive and negative charge, with $`e_b`$ the boson charge. The world lines of bosons of opposite charge, which are antiparticles to each other, correspond to flux-lines with opposite vorticity. The constraint on the fields $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }^{}`$ comes from the permutation symmetry requirement and reflects boson statistics. The boson field $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is coupled to a massive electromagnetic field $`𝐚=(a_0,𝐚_{})`$ and the gauge field $`𝐀=(A_0,𝐀_{})`$ provides the screening. Integrating out the field $`𝐀`$ in Eqs. (15) and (16) under the gauge $`𝐚=0`$ gives a mass term $`|𝐚|^2/(8\pi \lambda _b^2)`$. Under Lorentz transformations, the field $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is a scalar and the boson action has full Lorentz invariance. The action also respects a global $`U(1)`$ symmetry, $`\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{\Phi }^{}=\mathrm{\Phi }e^{i\alpha }`$, which leads to the conserved current, $`𝐣=(j_0,𝐣_{})`$, given by

$`𝐣={\displaystyle \frac{e_b}{2m_b}}\left[\mathrm{\Phi }^{}\left(i\mathrm{}+{\displaystyle \frac{e_b}{c}}𝐚\right)\mathrm{\Phi }+\mathrm{\Phi }\left(i\mathrm{}+{\displaystyle \frac{e_b}{c}}𝐚\right)\mathrm{\Phi }^{}\right],`$ (17)
with $`𝐣=0`$. The temporal component $`j_0/c`$ of the 2+1-current is the charge density, which is the appropriate conserved quantity in a relativistic theory. Finally, we have introduced a chemical potential, $`\mu _r`$, which couples to the conserved charge density. This should be contrasted to the nonrelativistic boson model which maps onto a liquid of directed vortex lines and where the relevant conserved quantity is particle number. The quantum relativistic model naturally incorporates spontaneous creation and annihilation of particle-antiparticle pairs. The flux-line analogue of this is the creation of oriented vortex loops. It will become apparent below that the chemical potential corresponds to the external field $`𝐇`$.

In order to highlight the connection with the nonrelativistic boson model used by Nelson and collaborators, we rewrite the boson field in terms of an amplitude and a phase, $`\mathrm{\Phi }(𝐫_{},\tau )=\sqrt{\rho (𝐫_{},\tau )}\mathrm{exp}[i\theta (𝐫_{},\tau )]`$, with the result

$`𝒮_r[\rho ,\theta ,𝐚,𝐀]=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^\beta \mathrm{}}d\tau {\displaystyle }d^2𝐫_{}\{{\displaystyle \frac{m_bc^2}{2}}\rho +{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{8m_b\rho }}(\rho )^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{2m_b}}(\mathrm{}_{}\theta +{\displaystyle \frac{e_b}{c}}𝐚_{})^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{2m_bc^2}}(\mathrm{}_\tau \theta +e_ba_0+i\mu _r)^2`$ (19)
$`+_F[𝐚,𝐀]\}.`$
A boson condensate phase is signalled by a macroscopic occupation $`\rho _c`$ of the $`𝐩=0`$ momentum state, defined in terms of the average order parameter as

$$\rho _c=|\mathrm{\Phi }(𝐫_{},\tau )|^2.$$
(20)
Notice that in general $`\rho _c\rho _0\rho (𝐫_{},\tau )=|\mathrm{\Phi }(𝐫_{},\tau )|^2`$, although the two quantities are equal within the mean field approximation described below.

In the spirit of Landau-Ginzburg mean field theory, we evaluate the partition function by the method of steepest descent. The stationarity condition gives nonlinear differential equations for the various fields. Restricting ourselves to solutions which are stationary and spatially homogeneous, the extrema conditions yield the equations,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta S_r}{\delta \rho }}={\displaystyle \frac{m_bc^2}{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{e_b^2|𝐚_{}|^2}{2m_bc^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2mc^2}}(e_ba_0+i\mu _r)^2=0,`$ (21)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta S_r}{\delta 𝐚_{}}}={\displaystyle \frac{e_b^2}{m_bc^2}}\rho 𝐚_{}+{\displaystyle \frac{𝐚_{}}{4\pi \lambda _b^2}}=0,`$ (22)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta S_r}{\delta a_0}}={\displaystyle \frac{e_b}{m_bc^2}}\rho (e_ba_0+i\mu _r)+{\displaystyle \frac{a_0}{4\pi \lambda _b^2}}=0.`$ (23)
One finds of course $`𝐚_{}=0`$, corresponding to the absence of charge current in the homogeneous state. A spatially homogeneous saddle point solution with $`|\mathrm{\Phi }|^2=\rho _00`$ exists only for $`|\mu _r|>m_bc^2`$ . The solution is given by

$`\rho _0={\displaystyle \frac{|\mu _r|m_bc^2}{4\pi \lambda _b^2e_b^2}},\mathrm{for}|\mu _r|>m_bc^2,`$ (24)
$`\rho _0=0,\mathrm{for}|\mu _r|m_bc^2.`$ (25)
Within this mean field approximation, the occupation of the zero momentum state is $`\rho _c=\rho _0`$. The free energy in the condensate phase of bosons is given by

$$F_G^c(T,\mathrm{\Omega },\mu _r)=k_BT\mathrm{ln}𝒵_G^c=\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }\frac{(m_bc^2\mu _r)^2}{8\pi \lambda _b^2e_b^2},$$
(26)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the area of the $`2D`$ boson gas. The mean charge density, $`j_0/c`$, in this mean-field approximation is

$$j_0/c=\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Omega }}\left(\frac{F_G^c}{\mu _r}\right)_{T,\mathrm{\Omega }}=\pm ie_b\rho _0,$$
(27)
where the positive (negative) sign should be chosen for $`\mu _r>0`$ ($`\mu _r<0`$). For charged bosons the chemical potential is associated with the electric charge and allows for a positive (or negative) average charge density. Antiparticles have a charge and a chemical potential opposite to that of particles.

Within mean field theory, all the charge is in the condensate phase. When fluctuations are incorporated in the theory, the mean charge density, $`\rho `$, differs from the condensate fraction, $`\rho _c`$, even at zero temperature.

The nonrelativistic limit for the action can be obtained by shifting the the chemical potential by $`m_bc^2`$,

$$\mu _r=\mu +m_bc^2,$$
(28)
where $`\mu `$ is the nonrelativistic chemical potential . The action becomes

$`𝒮_r[\rho ,\theta ,𝐚,𝐀]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^\beta \mathrm{}}d\tau {\displaystyle }d^2𝐫_{}\{{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{8m_bc^2\rho }}(_\tau \rho )^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{8m_b\rho }}(_{}\rho )^2+i\rho (\mathrm{}_\tau \theta +e_ba_0+i\mu )`$ (30)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{2m_b}}(\mathrm{}_{}\theta +{\displaystyle \frac{e_b}{c}}𝐚_{})^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{2m_bc^2}}(\mathrm{}_\tau \theta +e_ba_0+i\mu )^2+_F[𝐚,𝐀]\}.`$
The nonrelativistic boson model of Täuber and Nelson  is then recoverd by letting $`c\mathrm{}`$. In this limit the 2D bosons only interact with the scalar field $`a_0`$, and there is no magnetic interaction,

$`𝒮_{nr}[\rho ,\theta ]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^\beta \mathrm{}}d\tau {\displaystyle }d^2𝐫_{}\{i\mathrm{}\rho _\tau \theta +i\rho e_ba_0\rho \mu +{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{8m_b\rho }}(_{}\rho )^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{2m_b}}(\mathrm{}_{}\theta )^2`$ (32)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi }}\left[(\widehat{𝐳}\times _{})a_0\right]^2+{\displaystyle \frac{a_0^2}{8\pi \lambda _b^2}}\}.`$
The scalar potential $`a_0`$ mediates the instantaneous screened Coulomb interaction. By integrating it out we recover the familiar instantaneous interaction term with Fourier components $`|\rho (𝐪)|^24\pi \lambda _b^2e_b^2/2(1+q_{}^2\lambda _b^2)`$.

In order to obtain the hydrodynamic free energy, we proceed as in Ref.  and perform a Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation to eliminate the boson amplitude and phase fields in favor of familiar hydrodynamic fields. First we eliminate the phase $`\theta `$ in Eq. (19) in favor of a new vector field $`𝐏`$, with the result

$`𝒮_r^{}[\rho ,𝐏,𝐚,`$ $`𝐀]={\displaystyle }_0^\beta \mathrm{}d\tau {\displaystyle }d^2𝐫_{}\{{\displaystyle \frac{m_bc^2}{2}}\rho +{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{8m_bc^2\rho }}(_\tau \rho )^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{8m_b\rho }}(_{}\rho )^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{2m_b}}[{\displaystyle \frac{P_z^2}{c^2}}+𝐏_{}^2]`$ (34)
$`+i{\displaystyle \frac{\rho P_z}{m_bc^2}}(e_ba_0+i\mu _r)+{\displaystyle \frac{ie_b\rho }{m_bc}}𝐏_{}𝐚_{}+_F[𝐚,𝐀]+{\displaystyle \frac{\rho _0\mathrm{}^2}{m_b}}\mathrm{ln}({\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{\rho _0}})\}`$
with the constraint

$$\frac{1}{c^2}_\tau (\rho P_z)+_{}(\rho 𝐏_{})=0.$$
(35)
Notice that the field $`𝐏`$ has three components. The temporal component $`P_z`$ is related to the conserved charge density of the theory, which in turn is related to the temporal variations of the phase. The last term in Eq. (34) arises from the Jacobian of the functional integration and represents the nonlinear “ideal gas” part of the free energy. Finally, to make contact with the hydrodynamic fields used in our earlier work, we let

$$t_{bz}=\frac{\rho P_z}{m_bc},$$
(36)
$$𝐭_b=\frac{\rho 𝐏_{}}{m_b},$$
(37)
and integrate out the fields $`𝐚`$ and $`𝐀`$ to obtain an effective action

$`𝒮_r^{}[\rho ,𝐭_b]=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^\beta \mathrm{}}𝑑\tau {\displaystyle d^2𝐫_{}\left\{\frac{m_bc^2}{2}\rho +\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{8m_bc^2\rho }(_\tau \rho )^2+\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{8m_b\rho }(_{}\rho )^2+\frac{m_b}{2\rho }𝐭_b^2\frac{1}{c}\mu _rt_{bz}\right\}}`$ (39)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\mathrm{\Omega }\beta \mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{𝐪}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi \lambda _b^2e_b^2/c^2}{1+q^2\lambda _b^2}}|𝐭(𝐪)|^2`$
with the constraint

$$𝐭_b=0,$$
(40)
where $`𝐪=(q_z/c,𝐪_{})`$.

Since we are interested in the fluctuating vortices rather than in the relativistic bosons, we shall rewrite Eq. (39) in the vortex language using the “translation” Table 1. We are interested in the thermodynamic limit where periodic or free boundary conditions give the same result and $`_0^\beta \mathrm{}c𝑑\tau d^2𝐫_{}_𝐫=_0^L𝑑𝐫_{}`$, where $`L`$ is the thickness of the sample. The resulting vortex free energy is given by

$`_r[𝐭,\rho ]={\displaystyle _𝐫}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_1}{2}}\rho +{\displaystyle \frac{(k_BT)^2}{8ϵ_1\rho }}(\rho )^2+{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_1}{2\rho }}𝐭^2{\displaystyle \frac{H_0\varphi _0}{4\pi }}t_z\right\}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\mathrm{\Omega }L}}{\displaystyle \underset{𝐪}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi ϵ_0\stackrel{~}{\lambda }^2}{1+q^2\stackrel{~}{\lambda }^2}}|𝐭(𝐪)|^2`$ (41)
with the constraint given by Eq. (40) above. The fluctuating field $`𝐭`$ corresponds to the coarse-grained vortex density which determines the magnetic induction $`𝐁`$ in the material. The chemical potential, $`\mu _r`$, of the relativistic bosons corresponds to the external applied field which gives rise to a net density of field-induced lines. The physical interpretation becomes clear by discussing the mean-field saddle point solution, obtained by applying the stationarity condition to the free energy, with the result

$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{\delta _r}{\delta 𝐭_{}}}\right)_{𝐭=𝐭_0,\rho =\rho _0}=0𝐭_0=0,`$ (42)
$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{\delta _r}{\delta \rho }}\right)_{𝐭=𝐭_0,\rho =\rho _0}=0t_{z0}=\pm c\rho _0,`$ (43)
$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{\delta _r}{\delta t_z}}\right)_{𝐭=𝐭_0,\rho =\rho _0}=0H_0=\pm \left(H_{c1}+\varphi _0\rho _0\right).`$ (44)
Conversely, the equilibrium solution is given by

$`\rho _0={\displaystyle \frac{|H_0|H_{c1}}{\varphi _0}},\mathrm{for}|H_0|>H_{c1},`$ (45)
$`\rho _0=0,\mathrm{for}|H_0|H_{c1},`$ (46)
where $`H_{c1}ϵ_14\pi /\varphi _0mc^2`$. In other words, $`\rho _0`$ is a measure of the number density of directed field-induced vortices. The field $`\rho `$ is a scalar and it is defined to be always positive (for simplicity, in the following we will consider the case of $`H_0>0`$, corresponding to the $`+`$ signs in Eqs. (43) and (44). The field $`t_z`$ is proportional to the $`z`$ component of the magnetic induction. Its equilibrium value in a spatially homogeneous system is simply proportional to $`\rho _0`$ because on large scales the contribution from vortices precisely cancels that of antivortices, and $`t_{z0}=c\rho _0=cB_{z0}/\varphi _0`$. Locally, the fields $`t_z`$ and $`\rho `$ can, however, fluctuate independently, allowing for spontaneous vortex loop fluctuations, independent of the externally applied field. As will be seen more explicitely in the next section, the field $`\rho `$ mediates the renormalization of the single-vortex stiffness due to such spontaneous loop fluctuations.

The hydrodynamic free energy given in Eq. (41) provides a starting point for describing the long wavelength properties of a liquid of interacting (directed) field-induced vortex lines and oriented vortex loops. It should be stressed that the distinction between directed lines and loops, while physically appealing, is strictly a single-line notion and loses much of its meaning in a continuum theory. At the level of hydrodynamics, spontaneous vortex loop fluctuations are incorporated via the field $`t_z^L=t_z\rho `$. As we will see below, one can construct an effective theory where loops are integrated out. Their role then enters as a renormalization of the vortex-line tension.

## III Correlations

It is useful to evaluate the two-point correlation function of the hydrodynamic fields appearing in the free energy of Eq. (41). This is easily done within a Gaussian approximation for the free energy, obtained by introducing fluctuations of the fields about their equilibrium values, $`\delta 𝐭=𝐭𝐭_0`$ and $`\delta \rho =\rho \rho _0`$, and expanding the free energy to quadratic order in these fluctuations. For $`\rho _0>0`$, the Gaussian free energy is given by

$`_r^G[\delta 𝐭,\delta \rho ]=F_0+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\mathrm{\Omega }L}}{\displaystyle \underset{𝐪}{}}\{`$ $`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_1}{\rho _0}}+{\displaystyle \frac{(k_BT)^2}{4ϵ_1\rho _0}}q^2\right]|\delta \rho (𝐪)|^2+\left[{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_1}{\rho _0}}+V(q)\right]|\delta 𝐭(𝐪)|^2`$ (48)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_1}{\rho _0}}[\delta t_z(𝐪)\delta \rho (𝐪)+\delta t_z(𝐪)\delta \rho (𝐪)]\},`$
where averages over the free energy $`_r^G`$ are to be evaluated with the constraint

$$i𝐪\delta 𝐭(𝐪)=0.$$
(49)
In Eq. (48), $`F_0`$ is the equilibrium value, $`V(q)=4\pi ϵ_0\stackrel{~}{\lambda }^2/(1+q^2\stackrel{~}{\lambda }^2)`$, and $`q^2=q_{}^2+q_z^2`$. It is instructive to integrate out $`\delta \rho `$ to obtain the effective free energy,

$$_r^{\mathrm{eff}}[\delta t_z,𝐭_{}]=\frac{1}{2\mathrm{\Omega }L}\underset{𝐪}{}\left\{\left[\frac{(k_BT)^2q^2/4\rho _0}{ϵ_1+(k_BT)^2q^2/4ϵ_1}+V(q)\right]|\delta t_z(𝐪)|^2+\left[\frac{ϵ_1}{\rho _0}+V(q)\right]|𝐭_{}(𝐪)|^2\right\},$$
(50)
which is written entirely in terms of fluctuations in the local induction, as at long wavelengths,

$$\delta 𝐁\varphi _0(𝐭_{},\delta t_z).$$
(51)
Finally, by separating $`𝐭_{}`$ in its components longitudinal and transverse to $`\widehat{𝐪}_{}=𝐪_{}/q_{}`$ according to

$$𝐭_{}(𝐪)=\widehat{𝐪}_{}t_{}^\mathrm{L}(𝐪)+(\widehat{z}\times \widehat{𝐪}_{})t_{}^\mathrm{T}(𝐪),$$
(52)
and using the constraint (49) to eliminate $`t_{}^\mathrm{L}`$ in favor of $`\delta t_z`$ we obtain,

$$_r^{\mathrm{eff}}[\delta t_z,𝐭_{}]=\frac{1}{2\mathrm{\Omega }L}\underset{𝐪}{}\left\{\left[\frac{ϵ_1q_z^2}{\rho _0q_{}^2}+\frac{ϵ_1}{\rho _0}\frac{(k_BT)^2q^2/4ϵ_1^2}{1+(k_BT)^2q^2/4ϵ_1^2}+V(q)\frac{q_z^2}{q_{}^2}\right]|\delta t_z(𝐪)|^2+\left[\frac{ϵ_1}{\rho _0}+V(q)\right]|t_{}^\mathrm{T}(𝐪)|^2\right\}.$$
(53)
Comparing the effective free energy of Eq. (53) to the conventional Gaussian hydrodynamic free energy  obtained neglecting relativistic effects and given by

$$^G[\delta t_z,𝐭_{}]=\frac{1}{2\mathrm{\Omega }L}\underset{𝐪}{}\left\{\left[\frac{ϵ_1q_z^2}{\rho _0q_{}^2}+V(q)\frac{q_z^2}{q_{}^2}\right]|\delta t_z(𝐪)|^2+\left[\frac{ϵ_1}{\rho _0}+V(q)\right]|t_{}^\mathrm{T}(𝐪)|^2\right\},$$
(54)
it is evident that “relativistic” effects yield short wavelength corrections to the single-vortex effective tension. Similarly, in the boson system they are responsible for corrections to the quasi-particle spectrum due to spontaneous particle-antiparticle pair creation, Again, these effects are important only at finite wavevector.

It is now straightforward to evaluate the Gaussian two-point correlation functions, with the result

$`\delta t_z(𝐪)\delta t_z(𝐪)_G={\displaystyle \frac{\rho _0k_BTq_{}^2}{\rho _0V(q)q^2+ϵ_1q_z^2+ϵ_1q_{}^2\frac{(k_BT)^2q^2/4ϵ_1^2}{1+(k_BT)^2q^2/4ϵ_1^2}}},`$ (55)
$`\delta \rho (𝐪)\delta \rho (𝐪)_G={\displaystyle \frac{\rho _0k_BTq^2}{\rho _0V(q)q^2+ϵ_1q_z^2+ϵ_1q_{}^2\frac{(k_BT)^2q^2/4ϵ_1^2}{1+(k_BT)^2q^2/4ϵ_1^2}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1+\rho _0V(q)/ϵ_1}{1+(k_BT)^2q^2/4ϵ_1^2}},`$ (56)
$`\delta t_z(𝐪)\delta \rho (𝐪)_G={\displaystyle \frac{\rho _0k_BTq_{}^2}{\rho _0V(q)q^2+ϵ_1q_z^2+ϵ_1q_{}^2\frac{(k_BT)^2q^2/4ϵ_1^2}{1+(k_BT)^2q^2/4ϵ_1^2}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{1+(k_BT)^2q^2/4ϵ_1^2}}.`$ (57)
The correlations of the in-plane part $`𝐭_{}`$ of the tilt field are given by

$$t_i(𝐪)t_j(𝐪)_G=T_T^0(𝐪)P_{ij}^T(𝐪_{})+T_L^0(𝐪)P_{ij}^L(𝐪_{}),$$
(58)
with

$$T_T^0(𝐪)=\frac{\rho _0k_BT}{ϵ_1+\rho _0V(q)},$$
(59)
and

$$T_L^0(𝐪)=\frac{q_z^2}{q_{}^2}t_z(𝐪)t_z(𝐪)_G.$$
(60)
$`P_{ij}^L(𝐪_{})=\widehat{q}_i\widehat{q}_j`$ and $`P_{ij}^T(𝐪_{})=\delta _{ij}P_{ij}^L(𝐪_{})`$ are the in-plane longitudinal and transverse projection operators respectively. To Gaussian order, the transverse part of the tilt field autocorrelator is the same as that obtained from the familiar hydrodynamics of directed lines.

The structure function, given by the autocorrelator of fluctuations in the vortex line density, $`\delta t_z`$, differs from its “non-relativistic” counterpart only at finite wave-vectors. In the hydrodynamic limit it simply reduces to the familiar result obtained using the (“non-relativistic”) hydrodynamics of directed lines,

$`\delta t_z(𝐪)\delta t_z(𝐪)_G{\displaystyle \frac{\rho _0k_BTq_{}^2}{\rho _0V(q)q^2+ϵ_1q_z^2}}.`$ (61)
When “relativistic effects” are included the two fields $`\rho `$ and $`t_z`$ are no longer independent. It is then instructive to also consider fluctuations in a new field defined as their difference as $`t_z^L=t_z\rho `$. This field fluctuates about a zero equilibrium value and vanishes identically when relativistic effects are neglected. Fluctuations in $`t_z^L`$ may be interpreted as a measure of fluctuations due to the spontaneous excitation of vortex loops. Its correlation function is given by

$`\delta t_z^L(𝐪)\delta t_z^L(𝐪)_G={\displaystyle \frac{\rho _0k_BT}{\rho _0V(q)q^2+ϵ_1q_z^2+ϵ_1q_{}^2\frac{(k_BT)^2q^2/4ϵ_1^2}{1+(k_BT)^2q^2/4ϵ_1^2}}}{\displaystyle \frac{q_z^2+\rho _0V(q)q^2/ϵ_1}{1+(k_BT)^2q^2/4ϵ_1^2}}.`$ (62)
The long wavelength limit of this correlation function is given by

$`\underset{q_z0}{lim}\underset{q_{}0}{lim}\delta t_z^L(𝐪)\delta t_z^L(𝐪)_G={\displaystyle \frac{k_BT}{ϵ_1}},`$ (63)
irrespective of the order of the limits ($`q_z0`$ first or $`q_{}0`$ first). In other words we have identified a correlation function that at long wavelengths yields the inverse single-line tension, $`ϵ_1`$. Calculating perturbative corrections to this Gaussian correlator will be a way to probe the renormalization of the single-line tension.

## IV Discussion

We have presented a long wavelength (hydrodynamic) description of a liquid of arbitrarly curved vortex line and loops that describes on the same footing both field-induced and spontaneously generated vortices. The long-wavelength model was obtained by exploiting the mapping of such a vortex liquid onto a gas of relativistic charged bosons in 2$`D`$ that was recently discussed by Tešanović  and by Sudbø and collaborators . Although our model and that of Tešanović  yield free energies that are formally very similar, the two models differ in one important respect. In Ref. , the matter field $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ that describes the relativistic quantum bosons corresponds to a fictitious vortex system of zero total vorticity. The field-induced vortices are separated out of the field $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$. In our model, in contrast, the boson field $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ corresponds to the actual flux-line system, including both field-induced and spontaneously generated vortices. The externally applied magnetic field $`𝐇`$ which yields a non-zero vorticity enters explicitely in the free energy and controls the net mean flux threading the superconductor. It corresponds to a chemical potential for the bosons which yields a non-zero average charge. Furthermore, Tešanović’s fictitious vortex loops have a short-range scalar steric repulsion which enters as a $`\mathrm{\Phi }^4`$ coupling in the action. This is in addition to the usual screened magnetic interaction and results from the singular gauge transformation which gives rise to the fictitious vortex loops. Such a steric repulsion does not exist among the actual vortex loops  and therefore it is absent in our model. In our action, vortices only interact through the long range magnetic interaction (screened by the Chern-Simons term) which is cutoff at distances $`\xi `$ to ensure a finite repulsive energy barrier at short distances.

An important property of the flux-line array which provides a direct measure of vortex correlations along the direction of the applied external field is the tilt modulus. A drawback of the hydrodynamics of directed flux-lines familiar from the literature is that it has been impossible to separate the renormalization of the single-vortex part of the tilt modulus (related to the single-line tension) from that of the compressional part. The hydrodynamic model that we present here allows us to probe the renormalization of the single-line tension through the autocorrelator of the $`t_z^L`$ field. This is an interesting direction for future work as the vanishing of the effective line tension is considered to be a signature of the $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$-transition suggested by Tešanović  and by Sudbø and collaborators .

Finally, the hydrodynamic model of directed flux-line liquids has successfully been used to evaluate the renormalization of the tilt modulus from columnar defects parallel to the external magnetic field . This type of quenched disorder suppresses the wandering of the flux-lines away from their average direction and it renders the directed line approximation appropriate. In contrast, other types of quenched disorder, namely point defects or splayed columnar defects with large splay, enhance vortex wandering, so that the resulting vortex liquid can no longer be described as a liquid of directed lines. The hydrodynamic model introduced here is particularly appropriate for studying the effect of this kind of disorder, which can be modelled by a random potential coupled to the field $`\rho `$. This is another interesting direction for future work.

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation through Grant No. DMR97-30678. It is a great pleasure to acknowledge valuable discussions with Steve Teitel. PB acknowledges the hospitality of the Physics Department of the Technical University of Munich where part of this work was completed.

APPENDIX: ANISOTROPIC SUPERCONDUCTORS

Our discussion has so far been limited to isotropic materials. High-$`T_c`$ superconductors are, however, layered materials where the anisotropy can play an important role and change substantially vortex behavior. For this reason in this section we generalize our model to include finite anisotropy. As usual, anisotropy is incorporated in the Ginzburg-Landau free energy via an anisotropic effective mass tensor which leads to different values for the penetration and coherence lengths in the $`ab`$ plane and in the $`c`$ direction .

We first consider a uniaxial superconductor in an external field $`𝐇`$ applied along the $`c`$ axis chosen as the $`z`$ direction. The energy of a single vortex line with position parametrized as $`𝐫=[𝐫_{}(z),z]`$ ($`𝐫_{}(z)`$ can be a multivalued function of $`z`$ to allow for the possibility of overhangs) wandering between points $`a`$ and $`b`$ is given by

$$\stackrel{~}{U}_{self}ϵ_1_a^b\sqrt{(dz)^2+\frac{1}{p^2}(d𝐫_{})^2},$$
(64)
where $`p=\lambda _c/\lambda _{ab}`$ is the familiar anisotropy parameter. In copper-oxide high-$`T_c`$ materials, $`p>>1`$. By comparing Eq. (64) to the action of a free relativistic particle given in Eq. (12), we see that a vortex line in a uniaxial material can be interpreted as the world line of a relativistic particle which moves in an “anisotropic space-time” with rescaled spatial coordinates, $`𝐫_{}𝐫_{}/p`$. At the single-vortex level, anisotropy effectively enhances the “relativistic” behavior, as it reduces the energy per unit length associated with transverse vortex fluctuations, as expected for a layered material. In this context, it may be tempting to interpret anisotropy as responsible for an effective reduction of the speed of light in the relativistic $`2D`$ boson problem with $`cc/p`$. This interpretation is, however, misleading as it does not carry through when interactions are included. In the interaction part of the vortex-line free energy, anisotropy does not simply lead to a rescaling of the transverse coordinates. This is apparent from the fact that the collective part of the wavevector-dependent elastic constants of a vortex lattice in a uniaxial material is not simply obtained from the corresponding elastic constants of an isotropic material with the replacement $`q_{}q_{}p`$.

In the interaction and the free field part of the boson model, the role of anisotropy is simply that of allowing for different scalar and transverse interactions among the bosons, precisely as originally proposed by Feigel’man and collaborators . Note that the aforementioned parts in our relativistic boson action are formally the same as the corresponding parts in Feigel’man’s boson action - our model differs in the free particle part only. The relativistic boson action that maps onto the free energy of interacting vortex lines and loops in a uniaxial superconductor with an external field applied along the $`c`$ axis is given by

$`\stackrel{~}{𝒮}_r[\mathrm{\Phi },\mathrm{\Phi }^{},𝐚,𝐀]={\displaystyle _0^\beta \mathrm{}}d\tau {\displaystyle }d^2𝐫_{}\{`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{mc^2}{2}}\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{\Phi }^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2m_bc^2}}\left[(i\mathrm{}_\tau +e_ba_0+i\mu _r)\mathrm{\Phi }\right]\left[(i\mathrm{}_\tau +e_ba_0+i\mu _r)\mathrm{\Phi }^{}\right]`$ (66)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{p^2}{2m_b}}|(i\mathrm{}_{}+{\displaystyle \frac{e_b}{c}}𝐚_{})\mathrm{\Phi }|^2+\stackrel{~}{}_F[𝐚,𝐀]\},`$
where

$`\stackrel{~}{}_F[𝐚,𝐀]={\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi }}\left\{p^2(_{}\times 𝐚_{})^2+\left[\widehat{𝐳}\times ({\displaystyle \frac{1}{c}}_\tau 𝐚_{}a_0)\right]^2+{\displaystyle \frac{2i}{\lambda _b}}(\times 𝐚)𝐀+(\times 𝐀)^2\right\}.`$ (67)
We stress that in this mapping the boson mass, $`m_b`$, corresponds to the vortex line energy, $`ϵ_1`$, precisely as indicated in Table 1. This is indeed the appropriate interpretation as it is made apparent by comparing the single-vortex energy given in Eq. (64) to the action of a relativistic boson, given in Eq. (12). In contrast, in all the previous literature, and particularly in the work by Nelson and coworkers, it is the tilt energy per unit length, $`\stackrel{~}{ϵ}_1=ϵ_1/p^2`$, that is interpreted as the boson mass.

Finally, by using the methods described in Section III and the translation Table 1, one can immediately obtain the hydrodynamic free energy of a liquid of arbitrarly fluctuating vortex lines and loops in a uniaxial superconductor with $`𝐇c`$. It is given by

$`\stackrel{~}{}_r[𝐭,\rho ]=`$ $`{\displaystyle _𝐫}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{(k_BT)^2}{8\stackrel{~}{ϵ}_1\rho }}(_{}\rho )^2+{\displaystyle \frac{(k_BT)^2}{8ϵ_1\rho }}(_z\rho )^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{ϵ}_1}{2\rho }}(𝐭_{})^2+{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_1}{2\rho }}(t_z)^2+{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_1}{2}}\rho \mu _rt_z\right\}`$ (69)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\mathrm{\Omega }}}{\displaystyle \underset{𝐪}{}}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi ϵ_0\stackrel{~}{\lambda }_{}^2}{1+q_z^2\stackrel{~}{\lambda }_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+q_{}^2p^2\stackrel{~}{\lambda }_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}}|𝐭_{}(𝐪)|^2+{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi ϵ_0\stackrel{~}{\lambda }_{}^2(1+q^2p^2\stackrel{~}{\lambda }_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2})}{(1+q^2\stackrel{~}{\lambda }_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2})(1+q_z^2\stackrel{~}{\lambda }_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+q_{}^2p^2\stackrel{~}{\lambda }_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2})}}|t_z(𝐪)|^2\right\}`$
with $`\stackrel{~}{ϵ}_1=ϵ_1/p^2`$ and the familiar constraint $`𝐭=0`$.