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# INSTANTON ALGEBRAS AND QUANTUM 4-SPHERES

## 1 Introduction

Recently there has been an intense activity on noncommutative  and quantum $`4`$-spheres  and instanton bundles over them.

In this paper, by generalizing the methods presented in , we search for quantum instantons. Paralleling the classical situation , by this we just mean a complex rank $`2`$ bundle, i.e. we require that the $`0`$th Chern-Connes class vanishes, on some ‘four dimensional space’ and with not trivial characteristic classes. Weakening the assumptions made in , we do not require from the beginning that the $`1`$th Chern-Connes class of the bundle vanishes as well.

As we shall see, the spaces on which the instanton bundle are defined are not prescribed from the beginning but rather come a posteriori. We could say that first comes the bundle and then the space on which the bundle is defined. While our procedure is completely general and could be used to produce other quantum spaces, in this paper the resulting spaces will be quantum $`4`$-sphere $`S_q^4`$, with $`q`$. The quantum instantons will be described by self-adjoint idempotents $`e\mathrm{Mat}_4(A_q)`$, with $`A_q`$ the noncommutative algebra of functions associated with (in fact, defining) the spheres $`S_q^4`$. These spheres and instantons interpolate between analogous objects recently found in  (for $`q`$ such that $`|q|=1`$) and  (for $`q`$).

We shall also clarify some issues related to the vanishing of the $`1`$th Chern-Connes class and the use of a $`2`$th Chern-Connes class as a ‘volume form’. It turns out that the first Chern-Connes class $`ch_1(e)`$ does vanish if and only if the deformation parameter $`q`$ is such that $`|q|=1`$. In contrast, the second Chern-Connes class $`ch_2(e)`$ does not vanish for any values of $`q`$. The couple $`(ch_1(e),ch_2(e))`$ defines a cycle in the reduced $`(b,B)`$ bicomplex of cyclic homology and $`ch_2(e)`$ is closed, that is $`bch_2(e)=0`$, if and only if $`q`$ is such that $`|q|=1`$. It is only in the latter cases that the class $`ch_2(e)`$ is ‘$`q`$-antisymmetric’ and can be used as a volume form .

In the final section we shall make some remarks on alternative definitions of spheres.

## 2 The instanton projections

Consider first the free -algebra with unity $`F=[[𝕀,\alpha _j,\beta _j,\alpha _j^{},\beta _j^{}:j=1,2,3]]`$ generated by elements $`\alpha _j,\beta _j`$ and their adjoints $`\alpha _j^{},\beta _j^{}`$. Then, take the following self-adjoint element $`e=e^{}`$ in the algebra $`\mathrm{Mat}_4(F)\mathrm{Mat}_4()F`$,

$$e=\left(\begin{array}{cc}Q_1& Q_2\\ Q_2^{}& Q_3\end{array}\right).$$
(1)
Each of the $`Q_j`$’s is assumed to be a $`2\times 2`$ matrix of ‘generalized quaternions’ that is,

$$Q_j=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\alpha _j& \beta _j\\ q\beta _j^{}& \pi \alpha _j^{}\end{array}\right),j=1,2,3,$$
(2)
and $`q`$ and $`\pi `$ are complex parameters for the time being. Being $`e`$ self-adjoint also requires $`Q_1=Q_1^{},Q_3=Q_3^{}`$ , from which it follows that the parameter $`\pi `$ must, in fact, be real, that $`\alpha _1=\alpha _1^{}`$ and $`\alpha _3=\alpha _3^{}`$, and that $`\beta _1=\beta _3=0`$ (unless $`q=1`$ which, for simplicity, we shall not consider here).

The next requirement we make is that $`e`$ be of rank $`2`$. This we implement by requiring that its $`0`$th Chern-Connes class $`ch_0(e)`$ vanish (see later for the definition of $`ch_0`$),

$$ch_0(e)=\left(e\frac{1}{2}\right)=0.$$
(3)
As a consequence we get that

$$(1+\pi )(\alpha _1+\alpha _3)=2,$$
(4)
which says that $`\pi 1`$ and relates $`\alpha _3`$ with $`\alpha _1`$. Summing up (and denoting $`\alpha _1`$ by $`t`$, $`\alpha _2`$ by $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta _2`$ by $`\beta `$) up to now we have that

$`Q_1=\left(\begin{array}{cc}t& 0\\ 0& \pi t\end{array}\right),Q_3=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\frac{2}{1+\pi }t& 0\\ 0& \pi (\frac{2}{1+\pi }t)\end{array}\right),`$ (9)
$`Q_2=Q=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\alpha & \beta \\ q\beta ^{}& \pi \alpha ^{}\end{array}\right),Q_2^{}=Q^{}=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\alpha ^{}& \overline{q}\beta \\ \beta ^{}& \pi \alpha \end{array}\right),`$ (14)
with $`t=t^{}`$ (remember that $`1+\pi 0`$).

Finally we require that $`e`$ is idempotent as well, that is $`e^2=e`$.
One of the consequences is that

$`\left(\begin{array}{cc}t& 0\\ 0& \pi t\end{array}\right)Q+Q\left(\begin{array}{cc}\frac{2}{1+\pi }t& 0\\ 0& \pi (\frac{2}{1+\pi }t)\end{array}\right)=Q.`$ (19)
From the diagonal elements it follows that

$$t\alpha \alpha t=\frac{\pi 1}{\pi +1}\alpha ,t\alpha ^{}\alpha ^{}t=\frac{1\pi }{(\pi +1)\pi }\alpha ^{},$$
(20)
the consistency of which requires that $`t`$ commutes with $`\alpha `$ and $`\alpha ^{}`$. Excluding the case $`\alpha =0`$ we also get that $`\pi =1`$. Then, the off-diagonal elements in (19) imply that $`t`$ commutes with $`\beta `$ and $`\beta ^{}`$ as well.

From $`e^2=e`$ it also follows that

$`QQ^{}+\left(\begin{array}{cc}t& 0\\ 0& t\end{array}\right)^2\left(\begin{array}{cc}t& 0\\ 0& t\end{array}\right)=0,`$ (25)
$`Q^{}Q+\left(\begin{array}{cc}t& 0\\ 0& t\end{array}\right)^2\left(\begin{array}{cc}t& 0\\ 0& t\end{array}\right)=0.`$ (30)
These constraints require that

$`\beta \alpha =\overline{q}\alpha \beta ,\beta ^{}\alpha =q\alpha \beta ^{},`$ (31)
$`\alpha ^{}\alpha +|q|^2\beta ^{}\beta +t^2t=0,\alpha \alpha ^{}+\beta \beta ^{}+t^2t=0,`$ (32)
$`\alpha ^{}\alpha +|q|^2\beta \beta ^{}+t^2t=0,\alpha \alpha ^{}+\beta ^{}\beta +t^2t=0.`$ (33)
Equations (32) and (33) in turn imply that

$$(|q|^21)(\beta \beta ^{}\beta ^{}\beta )=0.$$
(34)
Then, if $`|q|^21`$, it follows that $`\beta `$ must commute with $`\beta ^{}`$. On the other hand, if $`|q|^2=1`$, from equations (32) and (33) it follows directly that $`\beta \beta ^{}=\beta ^{}\beta `$ (and also $`\alpha ^{}\alpha =\alpha \alpha ^{}`$ in this case).

## 3 The algebra of the quantum spheres $`S_q^4`$

By slightly changing notations again, i.e. denote $`t=\frac{1}{2}(𝕀z)`$ and replace $`\alpha \frac{1}{2}\alpha ,\beta \frac{1}{2}\beta `$, the construction of the previous section amounts to the following. With $`q\{0\}`$, we consider first the free -algebra with unity $`F_q=[[𝕀,\alpha ,\beta ,z,\alpha ^{},\beta ^{},z^{}]]`$ generated by three elements $`\alpha ,\beta `$ and $`z`$ (and their adjoints $`\alpha ^{},\beta ^{},z^{}`$). Then, we take the following element $`e`$ in the algebra $`\mathrm{Mat}_4(F_q)\mathrm{Mat}_4()F_q`$ ,

$$e=\frac{1}{2}\left(\begin{array}{c}𝕀+z,0,\alpha ,\beta \\ 0,𝕀+z,q\beta ^{},\alpha ^{}\\ \alpha ^{},\overline{q}\beta ,𝕀z,0\\ \beta ^{},\alpha ,0,𝕀z\end{array}\right).$$
(35)
By construction $`e`$ is self-adjoint, that is $`e=e^{}`$. The algebra $`A_q`$ of the quantum 4-sphere $`S_q^4`$ is thus the quotient of the free -algebra $`F_q`$ which results by requiring that $`e`$ is idempotent as well, that is $`e^2=e`$. This is equivalent to the requirement that the generators satisfy the relations

$`z=z^{},z\alpha =\alpha z,z\beta =\beta z,`$ (36)
$`\beta \alpha =\overline{q}\alpha \beta ,\beta ^{}\alpha =q\alpha \beta ^{},\beta \beta ^{}=\beta ^{}\beta ,`$
$`\alpha ^{}\alpha +|q|^2\beta ^{}\beta +z^2=𝕀,\alpha \alpha ^{}+\beta \beta ^{}+z^2=𝕀.`$
Thus the algebra $`A_q`$ we are looking for is the unital -algebra generated by the elements $`\alpha ,\beta `$ and $`z`$ satisfying the relations (36). Here the deformation parameter $`q`$ could be restricted so that $`|q|(0,1]`$; for $`q`$, such that $`|q|>1`$, the transformation $`q1/q`$, $`\alpha \alpha ^{}`$, $`\beta q\beta `$ and $`zz`$ yields an isomorphic sphere.
By restricting to $`q=\mathrm{exp}(2\pi i\theta )`$ we get the sphere $`S_\theta ^4`$ introduced in ; while for $`q`$ the present $`S_q^4`$ is the same as the one introduced in .

When $`q=1`$ the algebra of the sphere $`S_q^4`$ is commutative and coincides with the algebra of continuous functions on the $`4`$ dimensional sphere $`S^4`$. Thus $`S_q^4`$ provides a deformation of the classical sphere $`S^4`$.

The algebra $`A_q`$ can be made into a $`C^{}`$-algebra in the usual way. For $`aF_q`$ one defines $`a`$ as the supremum, over all representations $`\pi `$ of $`F_q`$ in $`B(H)`$ that are admissible, in the sense that the operators $`\pi (\alpha ),\pi (\beta ),\pi (z)`$ satisfy the relations (36), of the operator norms $`\pi (a)`$. Then $`𝒥:=\{aF_q:|a|=0\}`$ is a two-sided ideal and one obtains a $`C^{}`$-norm on $`F_q/𝒥`$. The completion of this quotient algebra defines a $`C^{}`$-algebra, which we shall denote by the same symbol $`A_q`$.

By using relations (36) it can be seen that the elements $`a_{kmn\mathrm{}}`$, with $`k`$ and $`m,n,\mathrm{}`$ non negative integers, of the form

$$a_{kmn\mathrm{}}=\{\begin{array}{cc}\alpha ^k\beta ^m\beta ^nz^{\mathrm{}}\text{for}k=0,1,2\mathrm{}\hfill & \\ \alpha ^k\beta ^m\beta ^nz^{\mathrm{}}\text{for}k=1,2\mathrm{}.\hfill & \end{array}$$
(37)
provides a linear basis for $`A_q`$.

We note that for the generic situation when $`0<|q|<1`$ any character $`\chi `$, besides

$$\chi (\alpha ^{})=\overline{\chi (\alpha )},\chi (\beta ^{})=\overline{\chi (\beta )},\chi (z^{})=\chi (z),$$
(38)
has to satisfy the equations

$$\chi (\beta )=0\mathrm{and}|\chi (\alpha )|^2+(\chi (z))^2=1.$$

Thus the space of all (nonzero) characters, which can be thought of as the space of ‘classical points’ of $`S_q^4`$, is homeomorphic to the $`2`$-dimensional sphere $`S^2`$.

Next, we describe infinite dimensional irreducible representations of the algebra $`A_q`$ (for $`0<|q|<1`$) in $`B(H)`$, the algebra of bounded operators on a Hilbert space $`H`$. Let $`\{\psi _n,n=0,1,2,\mathrm{}\}`$ be an orthonormal basis for the Hilbert space $`H`$. With $`\zeta ,|\zeta |1`$, we get two families of representations $`\pi _{\zeta ,\pm }:A_qB(H)`$ given by

$$\begin{array}{cc}\pi _{\zeta ,\pm }(z)\psi _n=\pi _{\zeta ,\pm }(z^{})\psi _n=\pm \sqrt{1|\zeta |^2}\psi _n,\hfill & \\ \pi _{\zeta ,\pm }(\alpha )\psi _n=\zeta \sqrt{1|q|^{2(n+1)}}\psi _{n+1},\hfill & \pi _{\zeta ,\pm }(\alpha ^{})\psi _n=\overline{\zeta }\sqrt{1|q|^{2n}}\psi _{n1},\hfill \\ \pi _{\zeta ,\pm }(\beta )\psi _n=\zeta \overline{q}^n\psi _n,\hfill & \pi _{\zeta ,\pm }(\beta ^{})\psi _n=\overline{\zeta }q^n\psi _n,\hfill \end{array}$$
(39)
In fact, for $`\zeta `$ such that $`|\zeta |=1`$, the two representations $`\pi _{\zeta ,+}`$ and $`\pi _{\zeta ,}`$ are identical so that the representations are parametrized by points on a classical sphere $`S^2`$, similarly to what happens for one dimensional representations (characters) as described before.

## 4 Chern-Connes classes

The self-adjoint idempotent $`e`$ given by (35) is clearly an element in the matrix algebra $`\mathrm{Mat}_4(A_q)\mathrm{Mat}_4()A_q`$. It naturally acts on the right free $`A_q`$-module $`A_q^4=A_q^4`$, and one gets as its range a projective module of finite type which may be thought of as the module of ‘sections of a vector bundle over $`S_q^4`$ ’. The module $`eA_q^4`$ is a deformation of the classical instanton bundle over $`S^4`$: for $`q=1`$, the module $`eA_q^4`$ is the module of sections of the complex rank two, instanton bundle over $`S^4`$ .

We compute now the Chern-Connes Character of the module $`eA_q^4`$ for a generic value of the deformation parameter $`q`$. If $``$ is the projection on the commutant of $`4\times 4`$ matrices (a partial trace), up to normalization the component of the (reduced) Chern-Connes Character are given by the formulæ

$$ch_n(e)=\left(e\frac{1}{2}\right)\underset{2n}{\underset{}{e\mathrm{}e}},$$
(40)
and they are elements of the tensor product

$$A_q\underset{2n}{\underset{}{\overline{A_q}\mathrm{}\overline{A_q}}},$$
(41)
where $`\overline{A_q}=A_q/𝕀`$ is the quotient of the algebra $`A_q`$ by the scalar multiples of the unit $`𝕀`$.
The crucial property of the components $`\mathrm{ch}_n(e)`$ is that they define a cycle in the $`(b,B)`$ bicomplex of cyclic homology ,

$$B\mathrm{ch}_n(e)=b\mathrm{ch}_{n+1}(e).$$
(42)
The operator $`b`$ is defined by

$$b(a_0a_1\mathrm{}a_m)=\underset{j=0}{\overset{m1}{}}(1)^ja_0\mathrm{}a_ja_{j+1}\mathrm{}a_m+(1)^ma_ma_0a_1\mathrm{}a_{m1}$$
(43)
while the operator $`B`$ is written as

$$B=B_0A,$$
(44)
where

$`B_0(a_0a_1\mathrm{}a_m)=𝕀a_0a_1\mathrm{}a_m`$ (45)
$`A(a_0a_1\mathrm{}a_m)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{m+1}}{\displaystyle \underset{j=0}{\overset{m}{}}}(1)^{mj}a_ja_{j+1}\mathrm{}a_{j1},`$ (46)
with the obvious cyclic identification $`m+1=0`$. To be precise, in formulæ (43), (45) and (46), all elements in the tensor products but the first one should be taken modulo complex multiples of the unit $`𝕀`$, that is one has to project onto $`\overline{A_q}=A_q/𝕀`$.

The fact that $`ch_0(e)=0`$ has been imposed from the very beginning and was one of the conditions that lead to the projections (35). As already remarked, this could be interpreted as saying that the idempotent and the corresponding module (the ‘vector bundle’) has complex rank equal to $`2`$.

Next one finds,

$`ch_1(e)`$ $`=`$ $`\left(e{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\right)ee`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8}}(1|q|^2)\{z(\beta \beta ^{}\beta ^{}\beta )`$
$`+\beta ^{}(z\beta \beta z)+\beta (\beta ^{}zz\beta ^{})\}.`$
It is straightforward to check that

$$bch_1(e)=0=Bch_0(e)$$
(48)
Furthermore, we have the following

###### Proposition 1

Given the projections (35) its first Chern-Connes class vanishes, $`ch_1(e)=0`$, if and only if the deformation parameter $`q`$ is such that $`|q|=1`$.

This result matches the analogous one found in .

Finally,

$$ch_2(e)=\left(e\frac{1}{2}\right)eeee$$
(49)
is the sum of five terms

$$ch_2(e)=\frac{1}{32}\left(zc_z+\alpha c_\alpha +\alpha ^{}c_\alpha ^{}+\beta c_\beta +\beta ^{}c_\beta ^{}\right),$$
(50)
with

$`c_z`$ $`=`$ $`(1|q|^4)(\beta \beta ^{}\beta \beta ^{}\beta ^{}\beta \beta ^{}\beta )`$
$`+`$ $`(1|q|^2)\{zz(\beta \beta ^{}\beta ^{}\beta )+(\beta zz\beta ^{}\beta ^{}zz\beta )`$
$`+(\beta \beta ^{}\beta ^{}\beta )zz+z(\beta \beta ^{}\beta ^{}\beta )z`$
$`z(\beta z\beta ^{}\beta ^{}z\beta )(\beta z\beta ^{}\beta ^{}z\beta )z\}`$
$`+`$ $`(\alpha \alpha ^{}|q|^2\alpha ^{}\alpha )(\beta \beta ^{}\beta ^{}\beta )`$
$`+(\beta \beta ^{}\beta ^{}\beta )(\alpha \alpha ^{}|q|^2\alpha ^{}\alpha )`$
$`+`$ $`(\beta \alpha \overline{q}\alpha \beta )(\alpha ^{}\beta ^{}q\beta ^{}\alpha ^{})`$
$`+(\alpha ^{}\beta ^{}q\beta ^{}\alpha ^{})(\beta \alpha \overline{q}\alpha \beta )`$
$`+`$ $`(\alpha ^{}\beta \overline{q}\beta \alpha ^{})(q\alpha \beta ^{}\beta ^{}\alpha )`$
$`+(q\alpha \beta ^{}\beta ^{}\alpha )(\alpha ^{}\beta \overline{q}\beta \alpha ^{});`$
$`c_\alpha `$ $`=`$ $`(z\alpha ^{}\alpha ^{}z)(\beta ^{}\beta \beta \beta ^{})`$
$`+|q|^2(\beta ^{}\beta \beta \beta ^{})(z\alpha ^{}\alpha ^{}z)`$
$`+`$ $`\overline{q}(z\beta \beta z)(\alpha ^{}\beta ^{}q\beta ^{}\alpha ^{})`$
$`+(\alpha ^{}\beta ^{}q\beta ^{}\alpha ^{})(z\beta \beta z)`$
$`+`$ $`q(\beta ^{}zz\beta ^{})(\alpha ^{}\beta \overline{q}\beta \alpha ^{})`$
$`+(\alpha ^{}\beta \overline{q}\beta \alpha ^{})(\beta ^{}zz\beta ^{});`$
$`c_\alpha ^{}`$ $`=`$ $`|q|^2(z\alpha \alpha z)(\beta \beta ^{}\beta ^{}\beta )`$
$`+(\beta \beta ^{}\beta ^{}\beta )(z\alpha \alpha z)`$
$`+`$ $`(\beta ^{}zz\beta ^{})(\beta \alpha \overline{q}\alpha \beta )`$
$`+q(\beta \alpha \overline{q}\alpha \beta )(\beta ^{}zz\beta ^{})`$
$`+`$ $`(z\beta \beta z)(\beta ^{}\alpha q\alpha \beta ^{})`$
$`+\overline{q}(\beta ^{}\alpha q\alpha \beta ^{})(z\beta \beta z);`$
$`c_\beta `$ $`=`$ $`(1|q|^4)\left[(\beta ^{}zz\beta ^{})\beta \beta ^{}+\beta ^{}\beta (\beta ^{}zz\beta ^{})\right]`$
$`+`$ $`(1|q|^2)\{\beta ^{}zzzz\beta ^{}zz`$
$`+zz\beta ^{}zzzz\beta ^{}\}`$
$`+`$ $`(\beta ^{}zz\beta ^{})(\alpha \alpha ^{}|q|^2\alpha ^{}\alpha )`$
$`+(\alpha \alpha ^{}|q|^2\alpha ^{}\alpha )(\beta ^{}zz\beta ^{})`$
$`+`$ $`(\alpha zz\alpha )(\alpha ^{}\beta ^{}q\beta ^{}\alpha ^{})`$
$`+\overline{q}(\alpha ^{}\beta ^{}q\beta ^{}\alpha ^{})(\alpha zz\alpha )`$
$`+`$ $`(\beta ^{}\alpha q\alpha \beta ^{})(\alpha ^{}zz\alpha ^{})`$
$`+\overline{q}(\alpha ^{}zz\alpha ^{})(\beta ^{}\alpha q\alpha \beta ^{});`$
$`c_\beta ^{}`$ $`=`$ $`(1|q|^4)\left[(z\beta \beta z)\beta ^{}\beta +\beta \beta ^{}(z\beta \beta z)\right]`$
$`+`$ $`(1|q|^2)\{\beta zzz+z\beta zz`$
$`zz\beta z+zzz\beta \}`$
$`+`$ $`(z\beta \beta z)(\alpha \alpha ^{}|q|^2\alpha ^{}\alpha )`$
$`+(\alpha \alpha ^{}|q|^2\alpha ^{}\alpha )(z\beta \beta z)`$
$`+`$ $`q(z\alpha ^{}\alpha ^{}z)(\beta \alpha \overline{q}\alpha \beta )`$
$`+(\beta \alpha \overline{q}\alpha \beta )(z\alpha ^{}\alpha ^{}z)`$
$`+`$ $`q(\alpha ^{}\beta \overline{q}\beta \alpha ^{})(z\alpha \alpha z)`$
$`+(z\alpha \alpha z)(\alpha ^{}\beta \overline{q}\beta \alpha ^{}).`$
By using the relations (36) for our algebra, and remembering that we need to project on $`\overline{A_q}`$ in all terms of the tensor product but the first one, a long (one needs to compute 750 terms) but straightforward computation gives

$`bch_2(e)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{16}}(1|q|^2)\{𝕀z(\beta \beta ^{}\beta ^{}\beta )`$ (56)
$`+𝕀\beta (\beta ^{}zz\beta ^{})+𝕀\beta ^{}(z\beta \beta z)\}`$
and this is exactly equal to $`Bch_1(e)`$.
Again as in , we shall have the following

###### Proposition 2

Given the projection in (35), the cycle $`ch_2(e)`$ is closed, i.e. $`bch_2(e)=0`$, if and only if the deformation parameter $`q`$ is such that $`|q|=1`$. Then, the resulting class $`ch_2(e)`$ is ‘$`q`$-antisymmetric’ and can be used as a ‘volume form’.

## 5 Final remarks

In the present paper, we have searched for a general algebra $`A`$ for which the element $`e\mathrm{Mat}_4(A)`$ is an hermitian rank $`2`$ projection of the form (1). As a result we have obtained a family of quantum 4-spheres $`S_q^4`$, $`q`$, which turn out to be a suspension of a family of quantum 3-spheres $`S_q^3`$. In the two special cases $`q`$ and $`|q|=1`$, we obtain the two families found in  and , respectively. Moreover, our instanton projections $`e`$ also specialize at the same time to the projections presented therein. This explains in which sense these two special families are related by analytic continuation of the deformation parameter.

While this work was being completed, there has been the papers  and its generalization , where other families $`S_{q,\theta }^4`$, $`q,\theta `$ and $`S_{p,q,s}^4`$, $`|p|=1,q,s`$ of noncommutative $`4`$-spheres have been introduced. In the appropriate limits (when $`|q|=1`$) they exactly reduce to the quantum $`4`$-sphere $`S_\theta ^4`$ of . However, the projections defined therein do not specialize correspondingly to those of .

Provided that we could perform the polar decomposition $`\beta =|\beta |\mathrm{phase}(\beta )`$ of $`\beta `$, the change of variables $`q^{}|q|,e^{2i\theta }\overline{q}/|q|,\alpha ^{}\alpha ,\beta ^{}|q||\beta |`$ and $`Uz\mathrm{phase}(\beta )`$, seems to suggest that the family $`S_{q,\theta }^4`$ (and then $`S_{p,q,s}^4`$) should not be too much different from our $`S_q^4`$. This is, however, not the case and these families are not equivalent as it is clear e.g. from the fact that the related spaces of characters are different.

We also remark that the form of the projections $`e`$ in  (and in ) is different from ours. The same holds for $`e^{}`$ of  but $`e^{}`$, being independent of $`\mathrm{phase}(\beta )`$, is clearly even nonequivalent. In fact $`e^{}`$, rather than on a noncommutative $`4`$-sphere, lives on a $`3`$-sphere and thus, not surprisingly, corresponds to some trivial bundle (with vanishing $`ch_k(e)`$, $`k=0,1,2`$). (The same observations apply to $`\stackrel{~}{e}`$ in ).


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# Boundary Conditions, the Critical Conductance Distribution, and One–Parameter Scaling

## I Introduction

More than fourty years after its discovery by Anderson  the disorder–induced metal–insulator transition is still the subject of strong theoretical as well as experimental research . One of the major achievements in the long history of the Anderson metal–insulator transition (MIT) is the renormalization group theory, which has also become known as one–parameter scaling theory . Its basic assumption is that close to the transition the change of the dimensionless conductance $`g`$ with the sample size $`L`$ depends only on the conductance itself and not separately on energy, disorder, the size of the sample, its shape, the elastic mean free path $`l_\mathrm{e}`$, etc.. Many predictions, like the lower critical dimension, or the critical behavior  were successfully based on this theory, as well as an enormous amount of numerical work that aimed at the direct calculation of the scaling function $`\beta (g)=d\mathrm{ln}g/d\mathrm{ln}L`$. Another important consequence of the one parameter scaling theory is the prediction of a universal conductance distribution $`P^{}(g)`$ exactly at the MIT . Earlier numerical work on the three dimensional Anderson model seemed to confirm the universality of the conductance distribution . The dependence on the universality class was stressed in .

Recently, however, some doubts have been cast on whether the conductance distribution is universal within the same universality class. Two different numerical studies reported two different forms of $`P^{}(g)`$ for the same system , and it was found that the difference originates in the use of different boundary conditions (BCs) .

The idea that $`P^{}(g)`$ might depend on the BCs appears indeed very natural after the discovery that spectral statistics, and in particular the energy level spacing distribution $`P(s)`$ exactly at the MIT, do depend on the BCs . Samples with periodic boundary conditions show a much stronger level repulsion than samples with hard walls (Dirichlet boundary conditions).

In this work we show with a numerical analysis of the conductance distribution at the critical point that $`P^{}(g)`$ does indeed depend on the BCs applied perpendicular to the transport direction. Choosing the appropriate boundary conditions, we can reproduce both the results of refs. and . In particular, the average critical conductance $`g_c`$ depends on the BCs. This alone already implies a dependence of $`\beta (g)`$ on the BCs since $`g_c`$ is defined as $`\beta (g_c)=0`$. We confirm the BC–dependence of $`\beta (g)`$ analytically by reinvestigating its form in the metallic regime with the help of a $`1/g`$ expansion. Much to our surprise we find that earlier analyses overlooked the effect of the BCs by approximating a sum over diffusion modes by an integral. Evaluating the sum more carefully, we not only find a dependence on the BCs, but also a so far unkonwn $`\mathrm{ln}(l_\mathrm{e}/L)/g`$ term in $`\beta (g)`$ in three dimensions that makes $`\beta (g)`$ non–universal in the metallic regime.

## II Numerical investigation at the Anderson transition

The model studied is the three dimensional tight binding Anderson Hamiltonian with diagonal disorder on a simple cubic lattice,

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}e_i|ii|+u{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{<ij>}{\mathrm{bulk}}}{}}|ij|`$ (2)
$`+u{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{<ij>}{\sigma _y,\sigma _z}}{}}c(\mathrm{e}^{2\pi \mathrm{i}\varphi }|ij|+h.c.).`$
The $`e_i`$ are distributed uniformly and independently between $`w/2`$ and $`w/2`$. The notation $`<ij>`$ means next nearest neighbors, $`u`$ is the hopping matrix element which we set equal to unity in the following, and $`w`$ is the disorder parameter. The last sum in eq.(2) links corresponding sites on opposite sides of the cubic sample perpendicular to the $`y`$ and $`z`$ directions, assuming that transport occurs in the $`x`$–direction. Hopping between these boundary sites arises when the system is closed to a ring ($`c=1`$) and includes a phase factor $`\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i2}\pi \varphi }`$, where $`\varphi `$ is the magnetic flux in units of $`h/e`$ inclosed by the ring. Hard wall (Dirichlet) BCs correspond to $`c=0`$. The model (2) shows a MIT at the critical disorder $`w_c16.5`$ .

The numerical calculation of the conductances uses a standard Green’s function recursion technique  that yields the transmission matrix $`t`$ of the sample. The latter is connected to the two–probe conductance of the sample by the Landauer–Büttiker formula

$$g=\mathrm{tr}tt^+,$$
(3)
where $`g=G/(e^2/h)`$ denotes the conductance $`G`$ in units of the inverse of the von Klitzing constant $`h/e^2`$. Whether the two–probe conductance formula or the four–probe conductance formula is used, is quite irrelevant at the metal insulator transition, since the bulk resistance always dominates largely over the contact resistance . All conductances were calculated at energy $`E0`$. The number of conductances used for each BC and system size ranged between $`10^5`$ for $`L=6`$ and $`L=8`$ to $`210^3`$ for $`L=16`$. All system sizes $`L`$ are measured in units of the lattice constant.

Our main numerical result is shown in Fig.1, where we have plotted the distributions of the logarithm of the conductance at the transition for periodic and hard wall (HW) BCs, and different system sizes. For the same BC the distribution is almost independent of the system size, as is to be expected from the criticality of the ensemble at $`w_c=16.5`$. But the distributions are clearly very different for the two BCs. The maximum of the distribution is considerably more pronounced for periodic BCs than for hard walls. A more detailed statistical analysis is presented in table I and for the average values $`\mathrm{ln}g`$ in figure 2.

The average is always over the disorder ensemble. Fig.2 shows that the average logarithmic conductance still depends slightly on the system size in the regime investigated. But the difference between periodic and hard wall BCs does not diminish with increasing $`L`$, and the dependence on $`L`$ decreases for larger $`L`$. Where we have used the same system sizes as in Refs. our values for all quantities calculated ($`g`$, $`\mathrm{ln}g`$, and the standard deviations of $`g`$ and $`\mathrm{ln}g`$) coincide within one percent with the values given in these references. For comparison with  $`g`$ should be multiplied with a factor $`2`$, since we consider only one spin direction. Thus, the discrepancy between  and  can indeed be explained by the influence of the BCs (see also ).

Our result has important implications for the scaling theory of the metal–insulator transition, since it shows that the scaling function $`\beta (g)`$ must depend on the BCs. The conductance that enters in this equation has to be understood as an average conductance , and the critical conductance is given by $`\beta (g_c)=0`$. According to our results $`g_c`$ depends on the BCs, $`g_c=0.413`$ for periodic BCs and $`g_c=0.348`$ for hard walls at $`L=16`$ (see table I), and therefore the $`\beta (g)`$ curves must at least be shifted as a function of the BCs. In the next section we show by re–examining the weak localization corrections to the conductance that also in the metallic regime $`\beta (g)`$ depends on the BCs.

## III Metallic regime

It is well known that already in metallic regime $`g1`$ the quantum interference of diffusing electrons reduces the conductance compared to the classical value $`g=\sigma L`$, where $`\sigma `$ is bulk conductivity. The weak localization correction $`\delta g`$ is given by a sum over diffusion modes as

$$\delta g=2\underset{𝐪}{}\frac{\mathrm{e}^{D𝐪^2\tau _\mathrm{e}}}{𝐪^2L^2}.$$
(4)
The sum is limited to the diffusive regime where $`D𝐪^21/\tau _\mathrm{e}`$. This limitation is taken into account by the exponential cut-off; $`\tau _\mathrm{e}`$ is the elastic collision time, $`D=v_\mathrm{F}^2\tau _\mathrm{e}/3`$ denotes the diffusion coefficient and $`v_\mathrm{F}`$ the Fermi velocity. The sum (4) depends on the BCs via the quantization condition for the diffusion modes $`𝐪`$. For the transport direction the wave vector is quantized according to $`q_x=n_x\pi /L`$, $`n_x=1,2,\mathrm{}`$. Periodic boundary conditions in the $`y`$-direction imply $`q_y=n_y2\pi /L`$, $`n_y=\pm 1,\pm 2,\mathrm{}`$ and correspondingly for the $`z`$-direction. Hard wall BCs on the other hand lead to $`q_y=n_y\pi /L`$, $`n_y=0,1,2,\mathrm{}`$ and $`q_z=n_z\pi /L`$, $`n_z=0,1,2,\mathrm{}`$. Consequently we have

$$\delta g=\frac{2}{\pi ^2}S_{BC}(y)$$
(5)
where the index $`BC`$ stands for a boundary condition and

$`S_P(y)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{n_x>0}{n_y,n_z0}}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{exp}\left[\pi ^2(n_x^2+4n_y^2+4n_z^2)y\right]}{n_x^2+4n_y^2+4n_z^2}},`$ (6)
$`S_{HW}(y)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{n_x>0}{n_y,n_z0}}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{exp}\left[\pi ^2(n_x^2+n_y^2+n_z^2)y\right]}{n_x^2+n_y^2+n_z^2}}.`$ (7)
The argument $`y`$ is defined as

$$y=\frac{D\tau _e}{L^2}=\frac{1}{3}\left(\frac{l_\mathrm{e}}{L}\right)^2.$$
(8)
Previous analyses in the literature proceeded by approximating the sum by an integral , whereupon all dependence on the boundary conditions is lost. While this is a good approximation for $`g\mathrm{}`$, important corrections of the order $`(\mathrm{ln}g)/g`$ arise for finite $`g`$, which we are going to derive now, assuming that to this order no further diagrams beyond the diffuson approximation contribute. In  it was shown by field theoretical methods combined with a renormalization group approach that the diffuson approximation gives the leading perturbative contribution to the small energy behavior of the spectral correlation function to order $`1/g^2`$.
In order to proceed it is convenient to differentiate $`S_{BC}(y)`$. The derivatives for both PBCs and HW BCs can be written with the help of the function

$$F(y)=\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\mathrm{e}^{\pi ^2n^2y}$$
(9)
as

$`_yS_P(y)`$ $`=`$ $`\pi ^2F(y)(2F(4y))^2,`$ (10)
$`_yS_{HW}(y)`$ $`=`$ $`\pi ^2F(y)(1+F(y))^2.`$ (11)
The function $`F(y)`$ is related to the complete elliptic integrals $`KK(k)`$ and $`K^{}K(k^{})`$ with $`k^{}=\sqrt{1k^2}`$ by

$$\frac{1}{2}\left(\left(\frac{2K}{\pi }\right)^{1/2}1\right)=\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\mathrm{e}^{\pi n^2K^{}/K}.$$
(12)
Since we are interested in $`y1`$, we need $`K^{}/K1`$ and therefore $`k1`$ ($`k^{}1`$). For small values of $`k^{}`$ the elliptic integrals behave like

$$K=\mathrm{ln}\frac{4}{k^{}}+𝒪(k^2)\text{}K^{}=\frac{\pi }{2}+𝒪(k^2),$$
(13)
and we therefore obtain

$$F(y)\frac{1}{2}\left(\left(\frac{1}{\pi y}\right)^{1/2}1\right).$$
(14)
Inserting this into eqs.(10), (11) and integrating with respect to $`y`$ yields

$`S_P`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{\pi }}{4\sqrt{y}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{5}{8}}\pi \mathrm{ln}y2\pi ^{3/2}\sqrt{y}+{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2}{2}}y\alpha _P`$ (15)
$`S_{HW}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{\pi }}{4\sqrt{y}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8}}\pi \mathrm{ln}y+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\pi ^{3/2}\sqrt{y}+{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2}{8}}y\alpha _{HW}.`$ (16)
whereas, replacing the sum (4) by an integral, one would have found

$$S=\frac{\sqrt{\pi }}{4\sqrt{y}}\alpha .$$
(17)
where $`\alpha `$ is an integration constant resulting from the cut-off at small $`q1/L`$. Thus, the leading term for small $`y`$, $`\sqrt{\pi /y}/4`$, is the same for both boundary conditions. The integration constants $`\alpha _P`$ and $`\alpha _{HW}`$ can be evaluated numerically, by subtracting from the exactly calculated sums the analytical formulae (15) and (16) without the constants. At the same time this serves as a sensitive check for the correctness of these formulae. For small $`y`$ the differences converge to

$$\alpha _P6.1509\text{}\alpha _{HW}2.3280.$$
(18)
We have evaluated the sum numerically down to values $`y=10^6`$, where in particular the logarithmic term with the prefactors given above could be clearly verified.
With Eqs.(15) and (16) the conductance as a function of the dimensionless length $`\stackrel{~}{L}L/l_\mathrm{e}`$ takes the form

$$g=(\stackrel{~}{\sigma }A)\stackrel{~}{L}a\mathrm{ln}\stackrel{~}{L}+b+𝒪(1/\stackrel{~}{L})$$
(19)
for both periodic and hard wall BCs. The dimensionless bulk conductivity $`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }`$ is defined as $`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }=\sigma l_\mathrm{e}h/e^2`$, and the constant $`A=\sqrt{3}/(2\pi ^{3/2})`$ is the same for both BCs. The coefficients $`a`$ and $`b`$ on the other hand do depend on the boundary conditions; their values are given in table II. Note that in the traditional approach the coefficient $`a`$ vanishes!

Quite surprisingly $`a<0`$ for PBCs, which means that the conductance increases even slightly faster than linearly with the system size. This looks as if there was anti–localization, but it should be noted that the leading behavior due to weak localization is still the usual decrease of the (bulk–)conductivity, i.e. the leading term is linear in the system size and with the expected negative sign. The fact that $`a<0`$ only for PBCs suggests a simple physical explanation for the logarithmic term: Closing the sample to a double torus by imposing PBCs allows for additional paths that interfere constructively and lead to enhanced localization for small system sizes compared to the HW case. When increasing the system size these additional localizing paths quickly stop contributing and the conductance therefore increases more rapidly than what would be expected just from the volume part of the weak localization.

We are now in the position to explore the consequences of the BC dependent weak localization corrections for the scaling function $`\beta (g)`$. Inserting (19) into the definition

$$\beta (g)\frac{d\mathrm{ln}g}{d\mathrm{ln}\stackrel{~}{L}}$$
(20)
yields

$$\beta (g)=1+\frac{1}{g}\left(a\mathrm{ln}\stackrel{~}{L}ba+𝒪(1/\stackrel{~}{L})\right).$$
(21)
It remains to reexpress $`\stackrel{~}{L}`$ by $`g`$. To this end we invert $`g(\stackrel{~}{L})`$ from (19) to order $`1/g`$,

$$\stackrel{~}{L}=\frac{1}{\stackrel{~}{\sigma }A}\left(g+a\mathrm{ln}ga\mathrm{ln}(\stackrel{~}{\sigma }A)+b\right),$$
(22)
and insert it in (21). We obtain the final result

$$\beta (g)=1\frac{1}{g}\left(b+a(1+\mathrm{ln}(\stackrel{~}{\sigma }A))a\mathrm{ln}g\right)+𝒪(1/g^2).$$
(23)
It is now obvious that the scaling function does indeed depend on the BCs via the coefficients $`a`$ and $`b`$, and the dependence arises at order $`(\mathrm{ln}g)/g`$. Furthermore, $`\beta (g)`$ depends to order $`1/g`$ as well on the material dependent dimensionless bulk conductivity $`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }`$, and is therefore non–universal! Again, the non–universality vanishes for $`g\mathrm{}`$ (equivalently, on the metallic side of the transition: $`L\mathrm{}`$), but is important if one is interested in $`\beta (g)`$ at finite values of $`g`$. Since HW BCs lead to smaller values of $`\beta (g)`$ at intermediate values of $`g`$ than PBCs but to a smaller critical conductance, there should be a point where the two curves cross, which would imply that in that point the change of $`g`$ with the system size is independent of the BCs. Due to the dependence of $`\beta (g)`$ on $`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }`$, this point is not expected to be universal, though.

The most interesting question is of course, whether also the slope of $`\beta (g)`$ at $`g=g_c`$ is changed by the BCs and/or $`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }`$, as this slope determines the critical exponent $`\nu `$ defined by $`\xi (w)|gg_c|^\nu `$ according to $`\beta (g)=\frac{1}{\nu }(gg_c)/g_c`$. This question arises actually already from the dependence of spectral statistics on the BCs, since the scaling function can be determined also from purely spectral statistics . Very recently it has been argued that within the same universality class $`\nu `$ does at least not depend on the shape of the sample . Since the critical spectral statistics does depend on the shape of the sample much in the same way as on the BCs  (indeed, all that has been said above about the dependence on the BCs translates one to one to a dependence on the shape of the sample), one might suspect that $`\nu `$ is also independent of the BCs. On the other hand, considering the qualitative behavior of the two scaling curves a critical exponent independent of the BCs would appear rather as coincidence. However, so far it is an open question and definitly deserves attention .

With the dependence of the critical conductance distribution on the BCs, an experimental test of the correctness of the one–parameter scaling picture seems within reach. Even though an accurate absolute measurement of the critical exponent is rather difficult , one might hope to detect a change with the BCs. To this end it is not even necessary to open and close the sample. Rather one can investigate the difference between periodic and anti–periodic boundary conditions. At least in one direction anti–periodic BCs, i.e. a phase factor $`1`$ between two opposite sides of the sample, can be easily produced by closing the sample to a ring and introducing half a magentic flux quantum ($`\varphi =1/2`$ in (2)). Note that for $`\varphi =1/2`$ the system still belongs to the orthogonal universality class, since the Hamiltonian has a real representation. This situation has been termed “false time reversal symmetry breaking” . An experimental search of a change of the scaling function in the metallic regime upon inclusion of half a flux quantum would be as well a most welcome contribution to the long-lasting debate on the limits of validity of one–parameter scaling.

In summary, we have shown that the conductance distribution at the Anderson Metal–Insulator transition depends on the boundary conditions applied in the directions transverse to the transport. Furthermore, in the metallic regime the dependence of a change of the conductance with the system size does not depend solely on the conductance itself but as well on the boundary conditions and the dimensionless bulk conductivity. As a consequence the scaling function $`\beta (g)`$ that describes the change of conductance when the size of the sample is changed is not entirely universal but depends on the boundary conditions and the amount of disorder in the sample from the metallic regime up to the metal insulator transition.

Acknowledgements: D.B. gratefully acknowledges useful discussions with B.L. Altshuler, P.A. Braun and Y.V. Fyodorov, and G.M. would like to thank B. Shapiro, A. Kamenev, V. Kravtsov, and V. Yudson. This work was supported by the Sonderforschungsbereich 237 “Unordnung und große Fluktuationen”. Numerical calculations were performed partly at the John von Neumann institute for supercomputing in Jülich and at the computer center IDRIS at Orsay (France).


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The Standard Model of electroweak interactions (SM) so far withstood all experimental challenges and is tested as a quantum field theory at the 0.1% level . However, the mechanism of mass generation in the SM predicts the existence of a Higgs boson which, so far, has eluded direct observation. Direct searches at LEP2 give a (preliminary) 95% confidence-level lower bound on the mass of the SM Higgs boson of $`M_H>113.5`$ GeV . Indirect information on the mass of the Higgs boson can be extracted from the $`M_H`$ dependence of radiative corrections to the W boson mass. With the present knowledge of the W boson and top quark masses, and the electromagnetic coupling constant, $`\alpha (M_Z^2)`$, the SM Higgs boson mass can be indirectly constrained to $`M_H=77_{39}^{+69}`$ GeV  by a global fit to all electroweak precision data. Future more precise measurements of the W boson and top quark masses are expected to considerably improve the present indirect bound on $`M_H`$: with a precision of 30 MeV for the W boson mass, $`M_W`$, and 2 GeV for the top quark mass which are target values for Run II of the Tevatron , $`M_H`$ can be predicted with an uncertainty of about $`30\%`$. In addition, the confrontation of a precisely measured W boson mass with the indirect SM prediction from a global fit to all electroweak precision data, $`M_W=80.385\pm 0.022`$ GeV , will provide a stringent test of the SM. A detailed discussion of the prospects for the precision measurement of $`M_W`$, and of the (leptonic) effective weak mixing angle, $`\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _{eff}^l`$, at Run II and the LHC is given in Refs.  and , respectively.

In order to measure $`M_W`$ with high precision in a hadron collider environment it is necessary to fully control higher order QCD and electroweak radiative corrections to the W and Z production processes. The status of the QCD corrections to W and Z boson production at hadron colliders is reviewed in Refs. . Here we discuss the electroweak $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ corrections to $`pp{}_{}{}^{^{()}}W^\pm l^\pm \nu _l`$ and $`pp{}_{}{}^{^{()}}\gamma ^{},Zl^+l^{}`$ ($`l=e,\mu `$) as presented in detail in Refs.  and .

## 2 Electroweak $`𝓞\mathbf{(}𝜶\mathbf{)}`$ Corrections to $`𝒑𝒑{}_{}{}^{^{\mathbf{(}\mathbf{}\mathbf{)}}}\mathbf{}𝑾^\mathbf{\pm }\mathbf{}𝒍^\mathbf{\pm }𝝂`$

The full electroweak $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ corrections to resonant W boson production in a general four-fermion process were calculated in Ref.  with special emphasis on obtaining a gauge invariant decomposition into a photonic and non-photonic part. It was shown that the cross section for resonant W boson production via the Drell-Yan mechanism at parton level, $`q_i\overline{q}_i^{}f\overline{f}^{}(\gamma )`$, can be written in the following form :

$`d\widehat{\sigma }^{(0+1)}`$ $`=`$ $`d\widehat{\sigma }^{(0)}[1+2e(\stackrel{~}{F}_{weak}^{initial}(\widehat{s}=M_W^2)+\stackrel{~}{F}_{weak}^{final}(\widehat{s}=M_W^2))]`$ (1)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{a=initial,final,}{interf.}}{}}[d\widehat{\sigma }^{(0)}F_{QED}^a(\widehat{s},\widehat{t})+d\widehat{\sigma }_{23}^a],`$
where the Born cross section, $`d\widehat{\sigma }^{(0)}`$, is of Breit-Wigner form, and $`\widehat{s}`$ and $`\widehat{t}`$ are the usual Mandelstam variables in the parton center of mass frame. The (modified) weak corrections and the virtual and soft photon emission from the initial and final state fermions (as well as their interference) are described by the form factors $`\stackrel{~}{F}_{weak}^a`$ and $`F_{QED}^a`$, respectively. The IR finite contribution $`d\widehat{\sigma }_{23}^a`$ describes real photon radiation away from soft singularities. Mass singularities of the form $`\mathrm{ln}(\widehat{s}/m_f^2)`$ arise when the photon is emitted collinear with a charged fermion and the resulting singularity is regularized by retaining a finite fermion mass ($`m_f`$). $`F_{QED}^{initial}`$ and $`d\widehat{\sigma }_{23}^{initial}`$ still include quark-mass singularities which need to be extracted and absorbed into the parton distribution functions (PDFs). The absorption of the quark-mass singularities into the PDFs can be done in complete analogy to gluon emission in QCD, thereby introducing a QED factorization scheme dependence. Explicit expressions for the W production cross section in the QED DIS and $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ scheme are provided in Ref. . So far, in the extraction of the PDFs from data as well as in the PDF evolution, QED corrections are not taken into account. The latter result in a modified scale dependence of the PDFs, which is expected to have a negligible effect on the observable cross sections . The numerical evaluation of the cross section is done with the parton level Monte Carlo program WGRAD 111WGRAD is available from the authors., and results have been obtained for a variety of interesting W boson observables at the Tevatron  and the LHC .

In the past, fits to the distribution of the transverse mass of the final-state lepton neutrino system, $`M_T(l\nu )`$, have provided the most accurate measurements of $`M_W`$ . Photonic initial state and initial-final state interference corrections were found to have only a small effect on the $`M_T`$ distribution, and weak corrections uniformly reduce the cross section by about $`1\%`$. However, final-state photon radiation significantly distorts the shape of the $`M_T`$ distribution, and thus considerably affects the extracted value of $`M_W`$. In the electron case, when taking into account realistic lepton identification requirements to simulate the detector acceptance, the electroweak radiative corrections are strongly reduced because electron and photon momenta are combined for small opening angles between the two particles. This eliminates the mass singular terms associated with final state radiation. The ratio of the full $`𝒪(\alpha ^3)`$ and lowest order differential cross section as a function of $`M_T(l\nu )`$ with and without lepton identification requirements taken into account is shown in Fig. 1.

A previous approximate calculation  took only the real photonic corrections properly into account while the effect of soft and virtual virtual photonic corrections were estimated from the inclusive $`Wl\nu (\gamma )`$ width. Weak corrections were ignored in Ref. . Comparing the W mass shifts obtained using the calculations of Refs.  and , one finds that the proper treatment of virtual and soft corrections and the inclusion of weak corrections induces an additional shift of $`𝒪`$(10 MeV) in the extracted W boson mass.

## 3 Electroweak $`𝓞\mathbf{(}𝜶\mathbf{)}`$ Corrections to $`𝒑𝒑{}_{}{}^{^{\mathbf{(}\mathbf{}\mathbf{)}}}\mathbf{}𝜸^{\mathbf{}}\mathbf{,}𝒁\mathbf{}𝒍^\mathbf{+}𝒍^{\mathbf{}}`$

Neutral-current Drell-Yan production is interesting for several reasons:

1. Future precise measurements of the W boson mass at hadron colliders depend on a precise knowledge of the Z boson production process. When compared to the values measured at LEP, the measured Z boson mass and width help to determine the energy scale and resolution of the electromagnetic calorimeter.
2. Ratios of W and Z boson observables may yield a more precise measurement of $`M_W`$ than the traditional technique of fitting the $`M_T`$ distribution .
3. The forward-backward asymmetry in the vicinity of the Z resonance can be used to measure the (leptonic) effective weak mixing angle . Studying the forward-backward asymmetry above the Z resonance probes the $`\gamma ,Z`$ interference at the highest available energies.
4. Finally, at large di-lepton invariant masses, $`m(l^+l^{})`$, deviations from the SM prediction could indicate the presence of new physics, such as new heavy gauge bosons $`Z^{}`$ or extra spatial dimensions.

It is therefore important to determine the electroweak corrections for this process.

The electroweak $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ corrections to neutral-current Drell-Yan processes naturally decompose into QED and weak contributions, i.e. they build gauge invariant subsets and thus can be discussed separately. The observable next-to-leading order (NLO) cross section is obtained by convoluting the parton cross section with the quark distribution functions $`q(x,Q^2)`$ ($`\widehat{s}=x_1x_2S`$

$$\mathrm{d}\sigma (S)=_0^1𝑑x_1𝑑x_2q(x_1,Q^2)\overline{q}(x_2,Q^2)[\mathrm{d}\widehat{\sigma }^{(0+1)}(\widehat{s},\widehat{t})+\mathrm{d}\widehat{\sigma }_{\mathrm{QED}}(\mu _{\mathrm{QED}}^2,\widehat{s},\widehat{t})],$$
(2)
where $`\mathrm{d}\widehat{\sigma }^{(0+1)}`$ comprises the NLO cross section including weak corrections, and $`\mathrm{d}\widehat{\sigma }_{\mathrm{QED}}`$ describes the QED part, i.e. virtual corrections and real photon emission off the quarks and charged leptons. The PDFs depend on the QCD renormalization and factorization scales which we choose to be equal; the common scale is denoted by $`Q^2`$. The radiation of collinear photons off quarks requires the factorization of the arising mass singularities into the PDFs which introduces a dependence on the QED factorization scale, $`\mu _{QED}`$. The treatment of mass singularities is universal and thus the same as in the $`W`$ case. The QED $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ corrections to $`pp{}_{}{}^{^{()}}\gamma ^{},Zl^+l^{}`$ ($`l=e,\mu `$) have been calculated and implemented in the parton level Monte Carlo program ZGRAD 222ZGRAD is available from the authors. and their impact on the di-lepton invariant mass spectrum, the lepton transverse momentum distribution, and on the forward-backward asymmetry, $`A_{\mathrm{FB}}`$, has been studied. In addition, the prospects for a precision measurement of $`\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _{eff}^l`$ extracted from $`A_{\mathrm{FB}}`$ at the Z resonance at the LHC were investigated.

In Fig. 2 we show the effect of the QED corrections on the invariant mass distribution of the final state lepton pair. Similar to the transverse mass distribution in the charged-current Drell-Yan process, final-state photon radiation strongly affects the shape of the $`m(l^+l^{})`$ distribution. When lepton identification requirements are taken into account, the large contributions from mass singular logarithms largely cancel in the electron case. As in the charged-current Drell-Yan process, initial-final state interference is negligible, and the impact of initial-state radiation is small after factorizing the collinear singularities into the PDFs.

The difference in the extracted Z boson mass when comparing the approximate calculation of Ref.  with the full calculation of the $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ QED corrections is of $`𝒪`$(10 MeV). Since the detector response is calibrated using Z boson observables, the shift in the Z boson mass is expected to slightly modify the W mass extracted from experiment.

For precision physics away from the Z resonance, the (non-universal) weak corrections must also be included. These corrections become important at large values of the di-lepton invariant mass due to the presence of large Sudakov-like electroweak logarithms of the form $`\mathrm{ln}(m(l^+l^{})/M_V)`$, $`V=W,Z`$, which eventually may be resummed . A calculation of the non-universal weak corrections in $`pp{}_{}{}^{^{()}}\gamma ^{},Zl^+l^{}`$ is currently in progress . In the implementation of the weak corrections we closely follow Ref. , in particular for the treatment of higher-order corrections, which are important for a precise description of the Z resonance.

The NLO parton differential cross section, including weak $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ and leading $`𝒪(\alpha ^2)`$ corrections, which enters eq. (2) is of the form

$$\mathrm{d}\widehat{\sigma }^{(0+1)}=\mathrm{dP}_{2\mathrm{f}}\frac{1}{12}|A_\gamma ^{(0+1)}+A_Z^{(0+1)}|^2(\widehat{s},\widehat{t})+\mathrm{d}\widehat{\sigma }_{\mathrm{box}}(\widehat{s},\widehat{t}),$$
(3)
where the sum is taken over the spin and color degrees of freedom, and $`\mathrm{dP}_{2\mathrm{f}}`$ denotes the two-particle phase space. $`\mathrm{d}\widehat{\sigma }_{\mathrm{box}}`$ describes the contribution of the box diagrams involving two massive gauge bosons. The matrix elements $`A_{\gamma ,Z}^{(0+1)}`$ comprise the Born matrix elements, the $`\gamma ,Z,\gamma Z`$ self energy insertions including a leading-log resummation of the terms involving the light fermions, and the one-loop vertex corrections. While $`A_{\gamma ,Z}^{(0+1)}`$ can be expressed in terms of effective vector and axial-vector couplings, the box contribution $`\mathrm{d}\widehat{\sigma }_{\mathrm{box}}`$ cannot be absorbed in effective couplings. However, in the Z resonance region the box diagrams can be neglected and the NLO cross section $`\mathrm{d}\widehat{\sigma }^{(0+1)}`$ of eq. (3) has a Born-like structure. The leading universal electroweak corrections, i.e. the running of the electromagnetic charge and corrections connected to $`\mathrm{\Delta }\rho `$, can be included in form of an effective Born approximation (EBA). Comparing results of the calculation which includes the full $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ corrections with those obtained using the EBA together with the pure QED corrections reveals the effects of the genuine non-universal electroweak corrections such as box diagrams.

The weak corrections to neutral-current Drell-Yan processes as described above are currently being implemented in the parton level MC program ZGRAD2 . A detailed numerical discussion of the effects of the electroweak $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ corrections on distributions in $`pp{}_{}{}^{^{()}}\gamma ^{},Zl^+l^{}(\gamma ),l=e,\mu `$ at the Tevatron and the LHC will be given in Ref. . Here we present some selected preliminary results for the di-lepton invariant mass distribution and the forward-backward asymmetry.

In Fig. 3 we show the $`\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ invariant mass distribution including the full $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ corrections normalized to the differential cross section in the EBA for large di-lepton invariant masses at the Tevatron and the LHC. Separation cuts and lepton identification requirements to simulate the detector acceptance as described in Ref.  (Tevatron) and Ref.  (LHC) are taken into account in Fig. 3. For comparison the relative corrections including the QED corrections only are also shown. As expected from the presence of large electroweak Sudakov-like logarithms, the weak corrections strongly increase in magnitude with increasing $`m(\mu ^+\mu ^{})`$, reaching about 10% at $`m(\mu ^+\mu ^{})=1`$ TeV. Both, the QED and the genuine weak corrections reduce the differential cross section. Qualitatively similar results are obtained in the $`e^+e^{}`$ case.

In Fig. 4, we show how the purely weak corrections affect the forward backward asymmetry at the LHC333For a definition of $`A_{\mathrm{FB}}`$ at the LHC, see Ref. .. To illustrate the effect of the non-universal weak corrections, we plot the difference of the forward backward asymmetry including the full $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ corrections, and the asymmetry which only takes into account QED corrections and the universal corrections which are included in the EBA. A genuine non-universal electroweak effect can be observed in the vicinity of $`m(l^+l^{})=M_W`$ and $`2M_W`$, which is due to threshold effects in the box diagrams involving two W bosons. Results qualitatively similar to those shown in Fig. 4 are also obtained for the Tevatron.

The forward backward asymmetry at the LHC is very sensitive to the rapidity coverage of the leptons assumed. In Fig. 4, we have used the lepton rapidity coverages foreseen for the ATLAS detector . For muon pairs, both muons are required to have rapidity $`|y(\mu )|<2.5`$. For $`e^+e^{}`$ pairs, the leptons are required to have $`|y_l(e)|<4.9`$, with one of them having to fulfill the more stringent requirement $`|y_t(e)|<2.5`$. In addition, the lepton pair rapidity has to be $`|y(ll)|>1`$ for both electrons and muons in the final state. This cut substantially increases the magnitude of $`A_{\mathrm{FB}}`$ at the LHC .

It is interesting to check whether the threshold effect at $`m(l^+l^{})=2M_W`$ will be observable. In the electron case, the expected statistical uncertainty in $`A_{\mathrm{FB}}`$ for $`m(e^+e^{})=2M_W\pm 5`$ GeV and 100 fb-1 at the LHC is about $`(34)\times 10^3`$ per experiment. The size of the non-universal electroweak corrections in the region are of the order of $`10^3`$. In a realistic calculation, contributions from $`W^+W^{}l^+\nu _ll^{}\overline{\nu }_l`$, $`ZZl^+l^{}\overline{\nu }\nu `$ and $`\overline{t}t`$ production to the forward backward asymmetry need to be taken into account, which could well be of the same order as the genuine weak corrections. It will thus be difficult to observe a clear signal of the threshold effects originating from the box diagrams involving two W bosons in $`A_{\mathrm{FB}}`$ at the LHC. On the other hand, given the expected statistical precision, the genuine weak corrections cannot be neglected when comparing data with the SM prediction.

## 4 Conclusions

Our results show that, for the precision obtained in previous Tevatron runs, the existing calculations for W and Z boson production are sufficient. However, for future precision measurements the full electroweak $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ corrections and probably also multiple photon radiation effects should be taken into account. The inclusion of the non-resonant contributions to W production in WGRAD is in progress  (see also Ref. ). As a first step towards a calculation of the $`𝒪(\alpha ^2)`$ QED corrections, the effects of two-photon radiation in W and Z boson production at hadron colliders have been computed in Ref. .

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the organizers of RADCOR-2000, especially H. Haber, for a delightful and inspiring conference experience, and for arranging the spectacular sunsets at Carmel beach. One of us (U.B.) is grateful to the Fermilab Theory Group, where part of this work was carried out, for its generous hospitality.


text:
# BRANCHING PROCESSES AND KOENIGS FUNCTION

## 1 Introduction

The Furry-Yule (FY) and negative binomial (NB) distributions are widely used in phenomenological studies of multiplicity distributions at high energies. Recently, several generalizations of the negative binomial distribution based on the perturbative quantum chromodynamics have appeared in the literature (see for example $`^{\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?}}`$). The aim of this note is to present another generalization $`^{\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?}}`$ of the NB and FY distributions based on simple time-homogeneous branching processes,$`^{\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?}}`$ more simple than the branching processes used in QCD. The NB and FY distributions occur in time-homogeneous branching processes with allowed transition $`12`$ and one can extend them allowing higher order transitions $`1n`$ with $`n>2`$. It may happen that these processes can be useful in the description of the hadronization stages still not fully understood in the framework of the QCD.

In section 2, we describe the distribution $`^{\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?}}`$ for the pure birth branching process with allowed higher-order transitions that can be used as an extension of the FY distribution. In section 3, the distribution for the branching process with immigration $`^\mathrm{?}`$ is presented. A discussion is given in the last section.

## 2 Distributions for general pure birth branching processes

A branching process with continuous evolution parameter $`t`$ is determined by the rates $`\alpha _n`$ for the transition (“splitting”) of one particle into $`n`$ particles with all particles subsequently evolving independently. For a pure birth branching process $`\alpha _0=0`$. The FY distribution occurs when only the $`\alpha _2`$ is not equal to zero. The probability generating function $`m(x,t)=_{n=0}^{\mathrm{}}p_n(t)x^n`$ satisfies the forward Kolmogorov equation $`^{\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?}}`$ $`\frac{m}{t}=f(x)\frac{m}{x}`$ with $`f(x)=_{n=2}^{\mathrm{}}\alpha _nx^n\alpha x`$ and $`\alpha =\alpha _n`$. The Taylor expansion of this equation leads to the following system of equations for the probabilities $`p_n`$

$$\frac{\mathrm{d}p_1}{\mathrm{d}t}=\alpha p_1,$$
(1)
and for $`n>1`$

$$\frac{\mathrm{d}p_n}{\mathrm{d}t}=\underset{j=1}{\overset{n1}{}}j\alpha _{nj+1}p_jn\alpha p_n.$$
(2)
For the case of $`N`$ initial particles with $`p_n^{(N)}(0)=\delta _{Nn}`$, the solution of this system has the following form:$`^\mathrm{?}`$

$$p_n^{(N)}=\underset{j=N}{\overset{n}{}}\pi _{jn}^{(N)}p_1^j,$$
(3)
with the coefficients $`\pi _{jn}^{(N)}`$ obeying the recursion:

$$(nj)\pi _{jn}^{(N)}=\underset{l=1}{\overset{nj}{}}(nl)b_l\pi _{j(nl)}^{(N)}.$$
(4)
Here, $`p_1=\mathrm{exp}(\alpha t)`$ and $`b_l=\alpha _{l+1}/\alpha `$. This recursion starts from $`\pi _{NN}^{(N)}=1`$ and the coefficient $`\pi _{nn}^{(N)}`$ can be found from the relation $`\pi _{nn}^{(N)}=_{j=N}^{n1}\pi _{jn}^{(N)}`$ .

One can calculate the coefficients $`\pi _{jn}^{(N)}`$ using the concept of the Koenigs function (see $`^{\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?}}`$ and the references therein). For the branching process starting from $`N`$ particles, the Koenigs function is defined as the limit:

$$K^{(N)}(x)=K^N(x)=\underset{n\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{m^N(x,nt)}{(p_1^N)^n}=\underset{j=N}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\kappa _j^{(N)}x^j=\underset{j=N}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\pi _{Nj}^{(N)}x^j.$$
(5)
The recursion (4) leads to the following recurrence for the coefficients $`\kappa _j^{(N)},N=1,2,\mathrm{};j=N+1,N+2,\mathrm{}`$ :

$$(jN)\kappa _j^{(N)}=\underset{l=1}{\overset{jN}{}}(jl)b_l\kappa _{(jl)}^{(N)}.$$
(6)
It is convenient to denote $`\kappa _{x+n}^{(x)}=t_n(x)`$, then $`t_0(x)=1`$ and the polynomials $`t_n(x)`$ are defined by the recursion:$`^\mathrm{?}`$

$$nt_n(x)=\underset{l=1}{\overset{n}{}}(x+nl)b_lt_{nl}(x).$$
(7)
The $`\kappa _j^{(N)}`$ in terms of $`t_n(x)`$ is equal to $`t_{jN}(N)`$.

The remarkable property of the Koenigs function is that it satisfies the functional Schröder equation $`K(m)=p_1K(x)`$. This can be easily obtained from the forward Kolmogorov equation $`\mathrm{d}m/\mathrm{d}t=f(m)`$. Its integration gives also the expression

$$K(x)=\mathrm{exp}\left(\alpha ^x\frac{\mathrm{d}u}{f(u)}\right).$$
(8)
It is convenient to introduce the function $`Q(x)`$, the inverse of the Koenigs function. Then, the inversion of the Schröder equation gives the functional relations $`m(x,t)=Q(p_1K(x))`$ and $`m^N(x,t)=Q^N(p_1K(x))`$. The coefficients of the Taylor expansion for $`Q^N(x)=Q_j^{(N)}x^j`$ can be found using the following relation: $`Q_j^{(N)}=\frac{N}{j}\kappa _N^{(j)}`$. One can show that this relation is equivalent to the Bürmann-Lagrange series for the inverse function (see Appendix B in $`^\mathrm{?}`$ and the references therein). In terms of $`t_n(x)`$ it gives: $`Q_j^{(N)}=\frac{N}{j}t_{jN}(j)`$. Finally, comparison of equation (3) with the Taylor expansion in $`x`$ of the $`Q^N(p_1(K(x))`$ leads to the following expression $`^\mathrm{?}`$ for the coefficients $`\pi _{jn}^{(N)}`$ in terms of $`t_n(x)`$:

$$\pi _{jn}^{(N)}=Q_j^{(N)}\kappa _n^{(j)}=\frac{N}{j}t_{jN}(j)t_{nj}(j).$$
(9)
In some cases, the functions $`K(x)`$ and $`Q(x)`$ can be found explicitly, for example:
for $`b_1=1`$

$$K(x)=\frac{x}{1x},Q(x)=\frac{x}{1+x};$$
(10)
for $`b_N=1`$

$$K(x)=\frac{x}{(1x^N)^{1/N}},Q(x)=\frac{x}{(1+x^N)^{1/N}};$$
(11)
for $`b_1+b_2=1`$

$$K(x)=\frac{x}{(1x)^{\frac{1}{1+b_2}}(1+b_2x)^{\frac{b_2}{1+b_2}}},Q(x)=\mathrm{?}.$$
(12)
In the general case, the expressions for $`Q(x)`$ and $`K(x)`$ are quite complicated.

The solution for non-critical branching processes with non-zero $`\alpha _0`$ is an infinite series in $`\mathrm{exp}(\alpha ^{}t)`$, see $`^\mathrm{?}`$.

## 3 Solution for branching processes with immigration

For the branching processes with immigration, there is an additional external source of particles appearing generally in clusters of $`j`$ particles with the differential rates $`\beta _j`$ ( $`\beta _j=b`$ ). The probability generating function for the process starting with zero particles at $`t=0`$ can be written $`^{\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?}}`$ as

$$M(x,t)=\mathrm{exp}\left(_0^tg(m(x,\tau ))d\tau \right)$$
(13)
with

$$g(x)=\underset{i=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\beta _ix^ib,$$
(14)
where $`m(x,\tau )`$ is the solution for the underlying branching process without immigration. For the underlying pure birth branching process. Equ. (13) leads to the following expression:$`^\mathrm{?}`$

$$M(x,t)=\mathrm{exp}(bt)\mathrm{exp}\left(\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}C_n(t)x^n\right)$$
(15)
with

$$C_n(t)=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\beta _i\underset{j=i}{\overset{n}{}}\pi _{jn}^{(i)}\frac{1p_1^j(t)}{j\alpha }.$$
(16)
Let us denote

$$\mathrm{exp}(\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}C_nx^n)=1+\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}V_nx^n.$$
(17)
Then, the final probability $`P_n(t)=\mathrm{exp}(bt)V_n(t)`$. The coefficients $`V_n(t)`$ can be calculated using the recursive relation:

$$nV_n=\underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}jC_jV_{nj}.$$
(18)
This relation is known in combinatorics and is used, for example, in the study of combinants.$`^{\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?},\mathrm{?}}`$ The coefficients $`C_n(t)`$ are known as the combinants of the multiplicity distribution $`P_n(t)`$. It is of interest to note the formal analogy between Equ. (17) and the exponential representation for the $`K(x)`$ (8).

The branching process with immigration leads to the NB distribution when only $`\beta _1`$, $`\alpha _2`$ and $`\alpha _0`$ are not equal to zero. The resulting distribution is the Poissonian when only $`\beta _1`$ is non-zero.

## 4 Discussion

In this note we have described explicit expressions for the probability distributions in the branching processes with the parameters equal to the differential rates $`\alpha _{i+1}`$ and $`\beta _i`$. These distributions can serve as an extension for the NB and/or FY distributions when at least one of the coefficients with $`i>1`$ is non-zero. It seems natural to assume that these parameters have no energy dependence and therefore the energy dependence is concentrated in one parameter $`p_1(t)=\mathrm{exp}(\alpha t)`$. It is of interest to note that the exponential dependence on $`t`$ corresponds to the power-law dependence on the mean multiplicity $`n`$, since $`n`$ has linear dependence on $`\mathrm{exp}(f^{}(1)t)`$.

We have applied the distribution with non-zero $`\alpha _2`$ and $`\alpha _3`$ to the e+e- multiplicity data in the paper.$`^\mathrm{?}`$ It has been assumed that a fixed number $`N`$ of sources of particle production is produced at some initial stage of the interaction. These sources develop independently of each other according to the time-homogeneous branching process, producing intermediate neutral clusters. Finally, these clusters decay into a pair of charged or neutral hadrons with probabilities $`\epsilon `$ or ($`1\epsilon `$), respectively, as in the Goulianos model.$`^\mathrm{?}`$ The data at c.m. energies $`\sqrt{s}`$ above 20 GeV are well described with $`N=7`$, with energy dependent parameter $`p_1`$ and with the parameter $`\epsilon `$ fluctuating near $`0.677`$. It has been shown that the parameter $`p_1`$ has power-law dependence on $`\sqrt{s}`$, as noted earlier.$`^\mathrm{?}`$ It has been also shown that $`\alpha _3`$ is consistent with zero, but values of the ratio $`\alpha _3/\alpha `$ of the order $`0.05`$ are not excluded at the present level of statistics. It is of interest to note that the values of $`\epsilon `$ near $`2/3`$ are consistent with zero isospin of the intermediate neutral clusters and are different from the value $`\epsilon =0.5`$ used by K. Goulianos.$`^\mathrm{?}`$

It is a challenging task to derive explicit expressions for the polynomials $`t_n(x)`$ from the recurrence (7). This can be done easily when only one of the $`b_i`$ is not equal to zero, for example, for $`b_1=1`$ the $`t_n(x)=\frac{x(x+1)\mathrm{}(x+n1)}{n!}`$.

It is of interest to look for the singularities in the complex plane of the probability generating functions for the time-homogeneous branching processes (as pursued by I. Dremin $`^\mathrm{?}`$ and E. De Wolf $`^\mathrm{?}`$). These singularities are connected with the singularities of the $`K(x)`$ and $`Q(x)`$ and, therefore, with the roots of the equation $`f(x)=0`$. For example, for the process with $`b_N=1`$, the poles are:

$$x_n=\frac{\mathrm{exp}(\frac{2\pi in}{N})}{(1p_1^N)^{1/N}}$$
(19)
($`n=1,2,\mathrm{},N`$). They form a regular polygon and move with $`t`$ to the circumference with unit radius.

## Acknowledgments

I am grateful to S. Hegyi for the opportunity to give this talk and I would like to thank the organizers of the Symposium for providing a beautiful surrounding.

## References