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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The noncommutative geometry was formulated originally on noncommutative analogs of Euclidean spaces, without a distinguished notion of a physical time; a survey can be found in the books -. The Euclidean field theories on a noncommutative sphere (and also plane and cylinder) have been investigated in refs. .

However, from the point of view of physical applications, it is desirable to consider models with a physical time. The noncommutative analog of a Minkowski plane was originally introduced in  and investigated in the context of noncommutative geometry in . In this approach, the space-time coordinates satisfy non-trivial commutation relations:

$$[\widehat{x}_\mu ,\widehat{x}_\nu ]=\mathrm{i}\theta _{\mu \nu },$$
(1.1)
were $`\theta _{\mu \nu }`$ is a constant anti-symmetric tensor, in a suitable representation. Recently, it was found that (1.1) follows naturally as a particular low-energy limit of string theories -, with $`\theta _{\mu \nu }`$ directly related to a constant antisymmetric background field $`B_{\mu \nu }`$ in the presence of a D-brane. The explicit presence of the constant $`\theta _{\mu \nu }`$ in (1.1) violates Lorentz invariance (if the dimension of space-time is greater than two).

Later, it was found that in such noncommutative Minkowski spaces, the ultraviolate divergences of quantum field theory (QFT) persist ,. Moreover, if the time is noncommutative, such field theories violate unitarity and causality -.

On the contrary, models on a noncommutative space but with a commutative time do not encounter such difficulties. Similarly, no principal problems arise in quantum mechanics defined on noncommutative spaces with a standard (commutative) time evolution. Some phenomenological consequences within such an approach for the Lamb shift have been recently calculated (see  and refs. therein).

Recently it was discussed that the effective noncommutative field theories, in particular noncommutative Chern-Simons theory, can serve as a natural description for the (fractional) quantum Hall effect . This may shed more light on the Wigner crystal-quantum Hall fluid phase transition. Then the noncommutative Aharonov-Bohm, being a 2+1 dimensional effect on the noncommutative plane (or punctured plane), is of great importance. In fact the Aharonov-Bohm phase is the phase which appears in front of the wave-function of two charged particles upon their exchange (for a review, see ). Here we try to study this problem, both semi-classically (and in first order in $`\theta `$, where $`\theta `$ is the dimensionful scale of the tensor $`\theta _{\mu \nu }`$) and analytically.

The noncommutative models specified by (1.1) can be realized in terms of a $``$-product: the commutative algebra $`𝒜_0`$ of functions with the usual product $`(fg)(x)=f(x)g(x)`$ is replaced by the $``$-product Moyal algebra:

$`(fg)(x)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{i}}{2}}\theta _{\mu \nu }_{x_\mu }_{y_\nu }\right\}f(x)g(y)|_{x=y}`$ (1.2)
$`=`$ $`f(x)g(x)+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{i}}{2}}\{f,g\}(x)+𝓞\left(\theta ^2\right),`$
where $`\{f,g\}=\theta _{\mu \nu }(_\mu f)(_\nu g)`$ is the Poisson bracket associated with $`\theta _{\mu \nu }`$. Such associative $``$-products have been proved to exist as a formal power series for any Poisson bracket $`\{f,g\}=\theta _{\mu \nu }(x)(_\mu f)(_\nu g)`$, with a most general $`x`$-dependent $`\theta _{\mu \nu }(x)`$ . However, in general, the problems of the summability and unitarizability (realization in terms of operators in a Hilbert space) remain open.

The point is that the formal power series expansion (1.2) does not take into account the global topological properties and/or boundary conditions which are essential for the operator realization. Here, we shall analyze four simple cases: the plane $`\mathrm{I}\mathrm{R}^2`$, the cylinder $`C=\mathrm{I}\mathrm{R}\times S^1`$, the torus $`T^2=S^1\times S^1`$ and the punctured plane $`\mathrm{I}\mathrm{R}_0^2=\mathrm{I}\mathrm{R}^2\{0\}`$. They all are related to the same Poisson bracket $`\{f,g\}`$ generated from the elementary bracket $`\{x_1,x_2\}=1`$.

In section 2, we investigate the Aharonov-Bohm effect, first on the whole NC-plane and then on a punctured plane, together with a non-trivial problem of implementation of the gauge invariance. The punctured plane is topologically equivalent to the cylinder, but geometrically different from it. The next two sections 3 and 4 are devoted to the Casimir energies for a scalar field theory on a noncommutative cylinder and torus, respectively. The usual Casimir effect concerns the vacuum energy between two plates (lines, in our 2D setting). However, it is a delicate problem to introduce well-defined lines in noncommutative spaces with Dirichlet or Neumann boundary conditions. We shall not discuss such noncommutative effects in the present paper. Section 5 contains conclusions and discussion.

## 2 Aharonov-Bohm effect on a noncommutative plane

The Aharonov-Bohm effect concerns the shift of the interference pattern in the double-slit experiment, due to the presence of a thin long solenoid placed just between the two slits . Although the magnetic field $`B`$ is present only inside the solenoid, the corresponding Schroedinger equation depends explicitly on the magnetic potential $`A`$ (non-vanishing outside the solenoid). Therefore, the wave function depends on $`A`$ and consequently the interference pattern shifts. However, due to the gauge invariance, the shift in the phase of the particles propagator, $`\delta \varphi _0`$, is gauge invariant itself and can be expressed in non-local terms of $`B`$. In the quasi-classical approximation, $`\delta \varphi _0=\frac{e}{2\pi \mathrm{}c}\mathrm{\Phi }`$, where $`\mathrm{\Phi }=B\pi \rho ^2`$ is the magnetic flux through the solenoid of radius $`\rho `$. This effect has been confirmed experimentally .

In this section, first we present the quasi-classical approach to the Aharonov-Bohm effect on a NC-plane for a thin, but of finite radius, solenoid. In particular, we give the modifications to the phase shift, $`\delta \varphi _0`$, due to noncommutativity up to the first order in $`\theta `$. A short version of this part was reported previously in . Then in the next subsection using the algebraic method, we analyze the effect for an infinitesimally thin solenoid, on a punctured NC-plane, for all orders in $`\theta `$.

### 2.1 Path integral approach and quasi-classical approximation

In this section, we shall first describe the Moyal $``$-product on a two dimensional plane $`\mathrm{I}\mathrm{R}^2`$. On $`\mathrm{I}\mathrm{R}^2`$, a Poisson bracket can be generated from the elementary bracket

$$\{x_1,x_2\}=1.$$
(2.1)
The commutative algebra $`𝒜_0`$ of functions on $`\mathrm{I}\mathrm{R}^2`$ is formed by functions of the form:

$$f(x)=\frac{1}{2\pi }d^2k\stackrel{~}{f}(k)\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}kx},kx=k_1x_1+k_2x_2.$$
(2.2)
Then, the Moyal product can be expressed as

$$(fg)(x)=\frac{1}{(2\pi )^2}d^2k_1d^2k_2\stackrel{~}{f}(k_1)\stackrel{~}{g}(k_2)\mathrm{e}^{\frac{\mathrm{i}}{2}\theta _{\mu \nu }k_1^\mu k_2^\nu }\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}(k_1+k_2)x},$$
(2.3)
where $`\theta _{\mu \nu }=\theta ϵ_{\mu \nu },\theta `$-constant, $`ϵ_{\mu \nu }`$-anti-symmetric. This defines the corresponding noncommutative algebra of functions $`𝒜`$ on $`\mathrm{I}\mathrm{R}^2`$.

In $`𝒜`$, we can introduce the scalar product as:

$`(f,g)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^2x\overline{f}(x)g(x)}={\displaystyle d^2x\overline{f}(x)g(x)}`$ (2.4)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^2k\overline{\stackrel{~}{f}}(k)\stackrel{~}{g}(k)}.`$ (2.5)
Here, we have used the well-known fact that in the integrals containing as integrand a $``$-product of two functions, their $``$-product can be replaced by a standard one.

Alternatively, one can start from an operator algebra generated by the hermitian operators $`\widehat{x}_1`$ and $`\widehat{x}_2`$, satisfying the commutation relation

$$[\widehat{x}_1,\widehat{x}_2]=\mathrm{i}\theta .$$
(2.6)
The corresponding noncommutative algebra $`𝒜`$ can be given as the algebra of operators of the form

$$f(\widehat{x})=\frac{1}{2\pi }d^2k\stackrel{~}{f}(k)\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}k\widehat{x}},k\widehat{x}=k_1\widehat{x}_1+k_2\widehat{x}_2.$$
(2.7)
It can be seen easily that the product in the operator algebra (2.7) possesses an expansion in powers of $`\theta `$, exactly corresponding to the Moyal product.

The Hilbert space $``$ of quantum mechanics on a noncommutative plane is formed by the normalizable functions $`\mathrm{\Psi }(x)𝒜`$, with finite norm. The wave function is an element from $``$, normalized to unity. We should remind that in the noncommutative case, the usual physical meaning of wave functions as probability amplitudes fails, and wave functions are just symbols . The operators $`P_i`$ and $`Q_i`$ acting in $``$ and satisfying Heisenberg canonical commutation relations are defined by:

$$P_i\mathrm{\Psi }(x)=\mathrm{i}_i\mathrm{\Psi }(x),X_i\mathrm{\Psi }(x)=x_i\mathrm{\Psi }(x).$$
(2.8)
The problem of a particle moving in an external magnetic field on a noncommutative plane is specified by the Hamiltonian:

$$H=\frac{1}{2}(P_i+A_i)_{}^2=\frac{1}{2}(P_i+A_i)(P_i+A_i).$$
(2.9)
We now define the noncommutative analog of gauge transformations by ***In the present paper, our exponentials are defined by the Taylor series with the $``$-product, i.e. $`\mathrm{e}^{i\lambda (x)}=1+i\lambda \frac{1}{2}\lambda \lambda +\mathrm{}`$.:

$`\mathrm{\Psi }(x)`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\lambda (x)}\mathrm{\Psi }(x),\lambda (x)real`$ (2.10)
$`A_i(x)`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\lambda (x)}A_i(x)\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\lambda (x)}\mathrm{ie}^{\mathrm{i}\lambda (x)}(_i\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\lambda (x)}).`$ (2.11)
We point out the non-Abelian character of (2.10), due to the noncommutativity of the plane. Consequently, the field strength is given by a non-Abelian formula, too:

$$F(x)=ϵ_{ij}(_iA_j(x)+A_i(x)A_j(x)).$$
(2.12)
One can easily see that

$$P_i+A_i\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\lambda (x)}(P_i+A_i)\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\lambda (x)},$$
(2.13)
just like in a usual commutative case. Hence, the transition amplitude $`(\mathrm{\Psi }_f,\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}Ht}\mathrm{\Psi }_i)`$ is gauge invariant:

$$(\mathrm{\Psi }_f,\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}Ht}\mathrm{\Psi }_i)(\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\lambda }\mathrm{\Psi }_f,\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\lambda }\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}Ht}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\lambda }\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\lambda }\mathrm{\Psi }_i)=(\mathrm{\Psi }_f,\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}Ht}\mathrm{\Psi }_i).$$
(2.14)
In quantum mechanics, the exponents of the operators (e.g., $`\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}Ht}`$) often do not correspond to local operators. However, they can be conveniently represented by bi-local kernels. This is true in the noncommutative frame, also. It can be easily seen that to any operator $`K=K(P_i,X_i)=K(\mathrm{i}_i,x_i)`$, cf. (2.8), we can assign a kernel (a bi-local symbol) $`𝒦(x,y)𝒜𝒜`$, defined by:

$$𝒦(x,y)=\frac{1}{2\pi }d^2q(K\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}qx})\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}qy}$$
(2.15)
(we omit the symbol $``$ for the direct product). The action of $`K`$ in terms of the kernel is

$$(K\mathrm{\Phi })(x)=d^2y𝒦(x,y)\mathrm{\Phi }(y)=d^2y𝒦(x,y)\mathrm{\Phi }(y).$$
(2.16)
where we have used the fact that the $``$-product in the quadratic terms under the integral can be removed. Thus, the matrix elements of $`K`$ are given as

$$(\mathrm{\Psi },K\mathrm{\Phi })=d^2xd^2y\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}(x)𝒦(x,y)\mathrm{\Phi }(y).$$
(2.17)
For a product of two operators, one can use the standard formula for the kernel composition

$`(𝒢𝒦)(x,y)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^2z𝒢(x,z)𝒦(z,y)}`$ (2.18)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle d^2z𝒢(x,z)𝒦(z,y)}.`$ (2.19)
Alternatively, one can use the formula

$$(𝒢𝒦)(x,y)=\frac{d^2q}{2\pi }(G\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}qx})\overline{(K^{}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}qy})}.$$
(2.20)
The proof of (2.20) is straightforward.

The kernel corresponding to the operator $`\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}Ht}`$ will be denoted by $`𝒦_t(x,y)`$ and called propagator:

$$𝒦_t(x,y)=\frac{d^2q}{2\pi }(\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}Ht}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}qx})\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}qy}.$$
(2.21)
From the product formula (2.18) and the identity $`\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}Ht_1}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}Ht_2}=\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}H(t_1+t_2)}`$, the usual composition law follows:

$$𝒦_{t_1+t_2}(x,y)=d^2z𝒦_{t_1}(x,z)𝒦_{t_2}(z,y).$$

Iterating this formula $`N`$ times and taking the limit $`N\mathrm{}`$, by standard arguments we arrive at the path integral representation of the propagator:

$$𝒦_t(x,y)=\underset{N\mathrm{}}{lim}d^2x_{N1}\mathrm{}d^2x_1𝒦_ϵ(x,x_{N1})\mathrm{}𝒦_ϵ(x_2,x_1)𝒦_ϵ(x_1,y),$$
(2.22)
with $`ϵ=t/N`$. We stress that, due to the iterative procedure used to derive (2.22), there is no need to use $``$-product between the $`𝒦_ϵ`$’s, since in each step the $``$-product can be removed (see (2.16)).

The formula for the gauge transformation of the propagator follows directly from eq. (2.13). In fact, (2.13) implies:

$$\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}Ht}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\lambda }\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}Ht}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\lambda }$$
(2.23)
(as operators), so that

$`𝒦_t(x,y)`$ $``$ $`(\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\lambda }\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}Ht}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\lambda })(x,y)`$ (2.24)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑q(\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\lambda }\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}Ht}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}qx})\overline{\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\lambda }\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}qy}}}`$ (2.25)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑q\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\lambda (x)}(\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}Ht}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}qx})\overline{\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\lambda (y)}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}qy}}}`$ (2.26)
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\lambda (x)}𝒦_t(x,y)\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\lambda (y)}.`$ (2.27)
This is exactly the expected formula (here, the $``$-product cannot be omitted).

As the next step, we shall calculate the short-time propagator $`𝒦_ϵ(x,y)`$ entering (2.22) to the first orders in $`ϵ`$ and $`\theta `$. Using

$`𝒦_ϵ(x,y)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d^2p}{2\pi }[1\frac{\mathrm{i}ϵ}{2}(P_i+A_i)^2+\mathrm{}]\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}px}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}py}}`$ (2.28)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d^2p}{2\pi }[\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}px}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}py}\frac{\mathrm{i}ϵ}{2}(P_i+A_i)\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}px}\overline{(P_i+A_i)\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}py}}+\mathrm{}]}`$ (2.29)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d^2p}{2\pi }[\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}px}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}py}\frac{\mathrm{i}ϵ}{2}(p_i\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}px}+A_i(x)\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}px})\overline{(p_i\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}py}+A_i(y)\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}py})}+\mathrm{}]}`$ (2.30)
we write this in the form:

$$𝒦_ϵ(x,y)=\frac{d^2p}{2\pi }\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}p(xy)\mathrm{i}ϵH_e(p,\overline{x})},\overline{x}=\frac{1}{2}(x+y),$$
(2.31)
where the effective Hamiltonian, $`H_e`$, is given as:

$$H_e\frac{1}{2}(\mathrm{\Pi }_i+A_i(\overline{x}))^2,\mathrm{\Pi }_i=p_i\frac{1}{2}\theta _{jk}(_jA_i(\overline{x}))p_k.$$
(2.32)
The symbol $``$ means equality in the first order in $`ϵ`$ and $`\theta `$. Performing the $`d^2p`$ integration, we obtain the effective Lagrangian:

$$\frac{1}{2}V_iV_iV_iA_i(\overline{x})V_i=v_i+\frac{1}{2}\theta _{jk}_jA_i(\overline{x})v_k.$$
(2.33)
The formula for $`𝒦_ϵ(x,y)`$ then reads: $`𝒦_ϵ(x,y)\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}{\scriptscriptstyle 𝑑t(\overline{x}(t),\dot{\overline{x}}(t))}},`$ where the effective action is calculated for a linear path, starting at $`x_i(0)=x_i`$ and terminating at $`x_i(ϵ)=y_i`$, i.e., $`v_i=(y_ix_i)/ϵ`$ and $`A_i(\overline{x})=A_i(\frac{x+y}{2})`$. Up to terms linear in $`\theta `$, the Lagrangian, with all physical constants included, becomes:

$$=\frac{m}{2}\stackrel{}{v}^2\frac{e}{c}\stackrel{}{v}\stackrel{}{A}\frac{em}{4\mathrm{}c}\stackrel{}{\theta }\left[v_i(\stackrel{}{v}\times \stackrel{}{}A_i)\frac{e}{mc}v_i(\stackrel{}{A}\times \stackrel{}{}A_i)\right],$$
(2.34)
where $`\stackrel{}{\theta }=\theta \widehat{z}`$ and $`\widehat{z}`$ is the unit vector normal to the $`(x_1,x_2)`$ plane and the cross product is the usual three dimensional one. Thus, the total shift of phase for the Aharonov-Bohm effect, including the contribution due to noncommutativity, will be:

$$\delta \varphi _{total}=\delta \varphi _0+\delta \varphi _\theta ^{NC},$$
(2.35)
where $`\delta \varphi _0=\frac{e}{\mathrm{}c}𝑑\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{A}=\frac{e}{\mathrm{}c}\stackrel{}{B}𝑑\stackrel{}{S}=\frac{e}{\mathrm{}c}\mathrm{\Phi }`$ ($`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ being the magnetic flux through the surface bounded by the closed path) is the usual (commutative) phase shift and

$$\delta \varphi _\theta ^{NC}=\frac{em}{4\mathrm{}^2c}\stackrel{}{\theta }𝑑x_i\left[(\stackrel{}{v}\times \stackrel{}{}A_i)\frac{e}{mc}(\stackrel{}{A}\times \stackrel{}{}A_i)\right]$$
(2.36)
represents the noncommutative corrections. For a finite-radius solenoid, the vector potential $`\stackrel{}{A}`$ entering (2.34)-(2.36) is given by:

$$\stackrel{}{A}=\frac{1}{2}B\frac{\rho ^2}{r}\stackrel{}{n},r>\rho ,$$
(2.37)
where $`B`$ is the constant magnetic field inside the solenoid, $`\rho `$ is the radius of the solenoid and $`\stackrel{}{n}`$ is the unit vector orthogonal to $`\stackrel{}{r}`$.

The expression for the correction $`\delta \varphi _\theta ^{NC}`$ to the usual Aharonov-Bohm phase due to noncommutativity can be explicitly obtained from (2.36) and (2.37). In an analogous way as in the usual Aharonov-Bohm case , the calculation can be done by taking the closed classical path (what is valid according to the experimental setup), which starts from the source and reaches the point on the screen by passing through one of the two slits and returns to the source point through the other slit.

### 2.2 Exact treatment of the Aharonov-Bohm effect on a punctured plane

In the following, we describe the noncommutative version of this quantum mechanical problem on a punctured plane $`\mathrm{I}\mathrm{R}_0^2`$, specified by the following Hamiltonian:

$$\widehat{H}=\frac{1}{2}(\mathrm{i}_j+A_j^s)^2,A_j^s=\mu ϵ_{jk}\frac{x_k}{r^2},$$
(2.38)
with $`x=(x_1,x_2)\mathrm{I}\mathrm{R}_0^2`$ and $`r^2=x_1^2+x_2^2`$; $`A_j^s`$ represents the magnetic field generated by a thin solenoid located at the origin, perpendicular to the plane. The Hamiltonian itself acts on a suitable domain in the Hilbert space $`=L^2(\mathrm{I}\mathrm{R}^2,d^2x)`$ with the scalar product

$$(\mathrm{\Psi },\mathrm{\Phi })=d^2x\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}(x)\mathrm{\Phi }(x).$$
(2.39)
It is worth noting that the punctured plane is a relevant one in the physical situations. The reason is that, in the case of the solenoid (and also in the exchange phase problem in the anyonic system ), the location of the thin solenoid (and the anyonic magnetic flux) should be excluded from the physically available space.

In order to define a noncommutative generalization of the configuration space $`\mathrm{I}\mathrm{R}_0^2`$, one can not start with an ad hoc Poisson structure generated by:

$$\{x_1,x_2\}_0=1,(x_1,x_2)\mathrm{I}\mathrm{R}_0^2,$$
(2.40)
since the Darboux pair $`(x_1,x_2)`$ does not take into account the topological properties of $`\mathrm{I}\mathrm{R}_0^2`$.

Therefore, we map $`\mathrm{I}\mathrm{R}_0^2`$ on a cylinder $`C=\mathrm{I}\mathrm{R}\times S^1`$: $`\eta =\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{ln}(x_i^2/\rho ^2)`$, $`\varphi =\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{arctan}(x_1/x_2)`$ ($`\rho `$ is a constant of the dimension \[length\] which will be put equal to 1 below). The cylinder (as a $`E(2)`$ co-adjoint orbit) possesses the natural Poisson bracket given by $`\{\eta ,\varphi \}=1`$, or equivalently by

$$\{\eta ,U\}=iU,\eta \mathrm{I}\mathrm{R},U=\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\varphi }S^1.$$
(2.41)
This generates the Poisson structure in the space of periodic functions in the polar angle $`\varphi `$. In what follows, we shall use this Poisson structure and not the one given by (2.40).

Let us rewrite first the commutative version of our problem in the variables $`\{\eta ,\varphi \}=1`$. Expanding the wave functions as

$$\mathrm{\Psi }=\underset{kZZ}{}a_k(\eta )\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}k\varphi },\mathrm{\Phi }=\underset{kZZ}{}b_k(\eta )\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}k\varphi },$$
(2.42)
the scalar product in $`=L^2(\mathrm{I}\mathrm{R}_0^2,\mathrm{e}^{2\eta }d\eta d\varphi )`$ reads:

$$(\mathrm{\Psi },\mathrm{\Phi })=𝑑\eta 𝑑\varphi \mathrm{e}^{2\eta }\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}(\eta ,\varphi )\mathrm{\Phi }(\eta ,\varphi )=2\pi \underset{k}{}_{\mathrm{I}\mathrm{R}}𝑑\eta \mathrm{e}^{2\eta }\overline{a}_k(\eta )b_k(\eta ).$$
(2.43)
The Hamiltonian in the new variables can be rewritten as:

$$\widehat{H}=\frac{1}{2}p_\eta ^2+\frac{1}{2}(p_\varphi +A_\varphi ^s)^2\frac{1}{8}\mathrm{e}^{2\eta },A_\varphi ^s=\mu \mathrm{e}^\eta ,$$
(2.44)
in terms of the self-adjoint first order operators

$$p_\varphi =\mathrm{ie}^\eta _\varphi ,p_\eta =\mathrm{ie}^\eta (_\eta +1/2).$$
(2.45)
The noncommutative version is obtained via quantization of the Poisson structure (2.41). The operator realization of (2.41), determined by the commutation relations:

$$[\widehat{\eta },\widehat{U}]=\xi \widehat{U},\widehat{\eta }=\mathrm{i}\xi _\varphi ,\widehat{U}=\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\varphi },$$
(2.46)
can be achieved in an auxiliary Hilbert space $`=L^2(S^1,d\varphi )`$; the dimensionless parameter $`\xi `$ is related to the parameters $`\theta `$ and $`\rho `$ by $`\xi =\theta /\rho ^2`$. The derivative $`_\varphi `$ is specified by assuming $`\widehat{\eta }f_n(\varphi )=\xi nf_n(\varphi )`$, where $`f_n(\varphi )=(2\pi )^{1/2}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}n\varphi },nZZ`$.

The wave functions will be operators of the form

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(\widehat{\eta },\widehat{U})=\underset{kZZ}{}a_k(\widehat{\eta })\widehat{U}^k,$$
(2.47)
acting in $``$ as: $`\mathrm{\Psi }(\widehat{\eta },\widehat{U})f_n(\varphi )=_ka_k(n\xi )f_{n+k}(\varphi )`$. For the operators (2.47), we define the scalar product as follows:

$$(\mathrm{\Psi },\mathrm{\Phi })=2\pi \xi \mathrm{Tr}[\mathrm{e}^{2\widehat{\eta }}\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}\mathrm{\Phi }],$$
(2.48)
where the $`\mathrm{Tr}`$ and the bar are the trace and the hermitian conjugation in $``$, respectively. Inserting here the expansion (2.47) for $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ and analogously for $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$, with $`b_k(\widehat{\eta })`$, we obtain:

$$(\mathrm{\Psi },\mathrm{\Phi })=2\pi \xi \underset{k}{}\underset{n}{}\mathrm{e}^{2\xi n}\overline{a}_k(n\xi )b_k(n\xi ).$$
(2.49)
Thus, in the noncommutative case, the integral is replaced by its Riemann sum.

Our next task is to define a noncommutative analog of the Hamiltonian (2.44), i.e., we need noncommutative analogs $`\widehat{p}_\varphi `$ and $`\widehat{p}_\eta `$ of the operators (2.45). The operators $`\widehat{p}_\varphi `$ and $`\widehat{p}_\eta `$ are defined by

$`\widehat{p}_\varphi \mathrm{\Psi }`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{i}\widehat{}_\varphi \mathrm{\Psi }(\widehat{\eta },\widehat{U})={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\xi }}[\widehat{\eta },\mathrm{\Psi }(\widehat{\eta },\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\varphi })]=\mathrm{i}(_\varphi \mathrm{\Psi })(\widehat{\eta },\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\varphi }),`$ (2.50)
$`\widehat{p}_\eta \mathrm{\Psi }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{i}}{4\mathrm{sinh}(\xi /2)}}[\mathrm{e}^{\xi /2}\widehat{U}\mathrm{\Psi }(\widehat{\eta },\widehat{U})\widehat{\overline{U}}\mathrm{e}^{\xi /2}\widehat{\overline{U}}\mathrm{\Psi }(\widehat{\eta },\widehat{U})\widehat{U}]`$ (2.51)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{i}}{4\mathrm{sinh}(\xi /2)}}[\mathrm{e}^{\xi /2}\mathrm{\Psi }(\widehat{\eta }\xi ,\widehat{U})\mathrm{e}^{\xi /2}\mathrm{\Psi }(\widehat{\eta }+\xi ,\widehat{U})].`$
It is readily seen that the operator $`\widehat{p}_\varphi `$ is self-adjoint with respect to (2.49). As for the operator $`\widehat{p}_\eta `$, it is a first order difference operator (in accordance with the spectrum of $`\widehat{\eta }`$) such that $`\widehat{p}_\eta `$ is self-adjoint with respect to (2.49). Moreover, in the limit $`\xi 0`$, we obtain $`\widehat{p}_\eta \mathrm{i}(_\eta +\frac{1}{2})`$.

The noncommutative analog of the Hamiltonian is then given as

$$\widehat{H}\mathrm{\Psi }=\frac{1}{2}\widehat{p}_\eta ^2\mathrm{\Psi }+\frac{1}{2}(\widehat{p}_\varphi +\widehat{A}_\varphi ^s)^2\mathrm{\Psi }\frac{1}{8}\mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{e}^{2\widehat{\eta }},$$
(2.52)
with $`\widehat{A}_\varphi ^s\mathrm{\Psi }=\mu \mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{e}^\eta `$ representing the solenoid magnetic field. Explicitly,

$$\widehat{H}\mathrm{\Psi }(\widehat{\eta })=\frac{1}{2}\frac{\mathrm{\Psi }(\widehat{\eta }+2\xi )2\mathrm{\Psi }(\widehat{\eta })+\mathrm{\Psi }(\widehat{\eta }2\xi )}{(4\mathrm{sinh}(\xi /2))^2}\mathrm{e}^{2\widehat{\eta }}+\frac{1}{2}(\mathrm{i}_\varphi +\mu )^2\mathrm{\Psi }(\widehat{\eta })\mathrm{e}^{2\widehat{\eta }},$$

where we have suppressed the explicit $`U=\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\varphi }`$ dependence of $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$. We note that the appearance of the factor $`\mathrm{e}^{2\widehat{\eta }}`$ on the right-hand side is essential, as it cancels with the weight factor $`\mathrm{e}^{2\widehat{\eta }}`$ in the scalar product. Inserting the mode expansion (2.47) into the Schroedinger equation $`\widehat{H}\widehat{\psi }=E\widehat{\psi }`$, we obtain a difference equation for the spectral coefficients $`a_k(n\xi )`$:

$$\frac{1}{2}\frac{[a_k(n\xi +2\xi )2a_k(n\xi )+a_k(n\xi 2\xi )]}{(4\mathrm{sinh}(\xi /2))^2}+\frac{1}{2}(\mu +k)^2a_k(n\xi )=Ea_k(n\xi )\mathrm{e}^{2n\xi }.$$
(2.53)
Its solution can be easily obtained in terms of $`q`$-Bessel functions, with $`q=\mathrm{e}^\xi `$.

Let us discuss now the issue of gauge invariance. In the commutative case, the gauge transformations

$`\mathrm{\Psi }(x)`$ $``$ $`\omega (x)\mathrm{\Psi }(x),\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}(x)\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}(x)\overline{\omega }(x)`$
$`A_j(x)`$ $``$ $`A_j(x)\mathrm{i}\omega (x)_j\overline{\omega }(x)`$ (2.54)
are generated by an $`x`$-dependent phase factor $`\omega (x)=\overline{\omega }^1(x)`$. This leads to the covariance of a momentum operator

$$p_j=\mathrm{i}_j+A_j\omega (x)(\mathrm{i}_j+A_j)\overline{\omega }(x)=\omega (x)p_j\overline{\omega }(x),$$
(2.55)
and guarantees the gauge invariance of the Hamiltonian matrix elements. On $`\mathrm{I}\mathrm{R}_0^2`$, the gauge field consists in general of two pieces:

$$A_j(x)=A_j^s(x)+A_j^r(x),$$
(2.56)
where the singular (solenoid) part $`A_j^s(x)`$ is given in (2.38) and $`A_j^r(x)`$ represents a magnetic field regular on the whole plane $`\mathrm{I}\mathrm{R}^2`$. Any gauge transformation on $`\mathrm{I}\mathrm{R}_0^2`$ is a composition of a singular gauge transformation $`\omega _\kappa (x)=\mathrm{e}^{2\pi \mathrm{i}\kappa \varphi },\kappa ZZ`$ and a regular one, $`\omega _\lambda (x)=\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\lambda (x)}`$, with $`\lambda (x)=\overline{\lambda }(x)`$ regular on $`\mathrm{I}\mathrm{R}^2`$. The singular gauge transformation shifts the solenoid magnetic flux from $`\mu `$ to $`\mu +\kappa `$, whereas $`\omega _\lambda (x)`$ changes $`A_j^r(x)`$ to $`A_j^r(x)+_j\lambda (x)`$.

These topological aspects of the gauge transformations should not be violated in the noncommutative case. The gauge transformation of the wave function $`\mathrm{\Psi }(\widehat{x})`$ reads:

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(\widehat{x})\omega (\widehat{x})\mathrm{\Psi }(\widehat{x}),\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}(\widehat{x})\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}(\widehat{x})\overline{\omega }(\widehat{x}),$$
(2.57)
where $`\omega (\widehat{x})=\overline{\omega }^1(\widehat{x})`$ is a unitary operator in $``$. We stress that now the order of factors in (2.57) is important. Let us now put

$$\widehat{P}_j=\widehat{p}_j+A_j(\widehat{x}),\widehat{p}_j=(\widehat{p}_\eta ,\widehat{p}_\varphi ),$$
(2.58)
with $`\widehat{p}_\eta `$ and $`\widehat{p}_\varphi `$ given in (2.50). The covariance of $`\widehat{P}_j`$, $`\widehat{P}_j\omega (\widehat{x})\widehat{P}_j\overline{\omega }(\widehat{x})`$ is guaranteed provided the gauge field $`A_j(\widehat{x})`$ transforms as:

$$A_j(\widehat{x})\omega (\widehat{x})A_j(\widehat{x})\overline{\omega }(\widehat{x})\omega (\widehat{x})[\widehat{p}_j,\overline{\omega }(\widehat{x})].$$
(2.59)
We point out that $`A_j(\widehat{x})=a_j(\widehat{x})\mathrm{e}^{\widehat{\eta }}`$ is an operator multiplying $`\mathrm{\Psi }(\widehat{x})`$ from the left by $`a_j(\widehat{x})`$ and simultaneously from the right by $`\mathrm{e}^{\widehat{\eta }}`$:

$$A_j(\widehat{x})\mathrm{\Psi }(\widehat{x})=a_j(\widehat{x})\mathrm{\Psi }(\widehat{x})\mathrm{e}^{\widehat{\eta }}.$$
(2.60)
Again, ordering matters, and only with this ordering, (2.60) represents a self-adjoint operator. The gauge potential $`A_j(\widehat{x})`$ can be separated into a regular part $`A_j^r(\widehat{x})`$ and the singular solenoid part given by:

$$A_\eta ^s(\widehat{x})\mathrm{\Psi }(\widehat{x})=0,A_\varphi ^s(\widehat{x})\mathrm{\Psi }(\widehat{x})=\mu \mathrm{\Psi }(\widehat{x})e^{2\widehat{\eta }}.$$
(2.61)
The transformations are again a composition of a regular gauge transformation $`\omega _\lambda (\widehat{x})`$, changing $`A_j^r(\widehat{x})`$, and a singular one $`\omega _\kappa (\widehat{x})=\mathrm{e}^{2\pi \mathrm{i}\kappa \varphi },\kappa ZZ`$. Using eqs. (2.59)-(2.61), it follows straightforwardly that under $`\omega _\kappa (\widehat{x})`$ the solenoid magnetic flux $`\mu `$ changes to $`\mu +\kappa `$. The gauge invariance of all Hamiltonian matrix elements is obviously guaranteed. We would like to stress the non-Abelian form of the transformation law (2.59). Consequently, the field strength $`B(\widehat{x})`$ is given by a non-Abelian formula, too:

$$B(\widehat{x})=ϵ_{ij}([\widehat{p}_i,A_j(\widehat{x})]+A_i(\widehat{x})A_j(\widehat{x})).$$
(2.62)
It can be easily seen that the field strength transforms covariantly: $`B(\widehat{x})\omega (\widehat{x})B(\widehat{x})\overline{\omega }(\widehat{x})`$.

## 3 Casimir energy on a noncommutative cylinder

In this section we calculate the vacuum energy in the free scalar field theory in a (2+1)-dimensional noncommutative space-time with two noncommutative space coordinates and commutative time, one coordinate being compactified on a circle. In other words, we consider field theories on a noncommutative space-like cylinder and with commutative time. As we have already mentioned, the commutativity of time guarantees that the unitarity condition in NC-QFT is satisfied .

### 3.1 Field theory on a noncommutative cylinder

The points on a commutative cylinder $`C=\{(\varphi ,x)[0,2\pi ]\times \mathrm{I}\mathrm{R};\varphi =0`$ and $`\varphi =2\pi `$ identified$`\}=S^1\times \mathrm{I}\mathrm{R}`$ can be specified through a real parameter $`x\mathrm{I}\mathrm{R}`$ and two complex parameters $`x_\pm =\rho \mathrm{e}^{\pm \mathrm{i}\varphi }`$, where $`\rho `$ is basically the cylinder radius and the $`x_\pm `$ in the commutative case are not independent and both correspond to one coordinate, $`\varphi `$. The fields on $`C\times \mathrm{I}\mathrm{R}`$ possess the following expansion:

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(t,x,\varphi )=\underset{k=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{d\omega dp}{(2\pi )^2}\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}(\omega ,k,p)\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}(px+k\varphi \omega t)}.$$
(3.1)
On a cylinder, the corresponding commutator relations (2.6) can not be realized in terms of self-adjoint operators on $`L^2(S^1,d\varphi )`$. It is known that the problem has to be formulated not via a Heisenberg-like relation (2.6), but in the corresponding exponential Weyl form, or as $`E(2)`$ Lie algebra relations. Thus, in the noncommutative case, the parameters $`x,x_\pm `$ are replaced (see also ) by the operators $`\widehat{x},\widehat{x}_\pm `$, satisfying the commutation relations

$$[\widehat{x},\widehat{x}_\pm ]=\pm \lambda \widehat{x}_\pm ,[\widehat{x}_+,\widehat{x}_{}]=0,$$
(3.2)
and the same constraint equation as in the commutative case: $`\widehat{x}_+\widehat{x}_{}=\rho ^2`$. The dimensionful (with the dimension of length) parameter $`\lambda `$ is an analog of the tensor $`\theta `$ in the case of the Heisenberg-like commutation relation in the flat Minkowski space. However, in the present case, the actual parameter of the noncommutativity is the dimensionless parameter $`\xi =\lambda /\rho `$.

In analogy with the commutative case, we take the fields to be operators in $`=L^2(S^1,d\varphi )`$, with the operator Fourier expansion as

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(t,\widehat{x},\widehat{\varphi })=\underset{k=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}_{\pi /\lambda }^{+\pi /\lambda }\frac{dp}{2\pi }_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{d\omega }{2\pi }\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}(\omega ,k,p)\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}(p\widehat{x}+k\widehat{\varphi })\mathrm{i}\omega t}.$$
(3.3)
For simplicity, we consider a real scalar field theory which corresponds to the condition $`\mathrm{\Phi }^{}(t,\widehat{x},\widehat{\varphi })=\mathrm{\Phi }(t,\widehat{x},\widehat{\varphi })`$. It is important to note that since the spectrum of $`\widehat{x}`$ is discrete: $`x=\lambda n`$, $`nZZ`$, the integration over $`dp`$ goes only over a finite interval $`[\pi /\lambda ,+\pi /\lambda ]`$. We point out that the operator Fourier expansion (3.3) is invertible:

$$\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}(\omega ,k,p)=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑t\frac{1}{2\pi }\mathrm{Tr}\left[\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}k\widehat{\varphi }+\mathrm{i}\omega t}\mathrm{\Phi }(t,\widehat{x},\widehat{\varphi })\right].$$
(3.4)
Then, straightforwardly from the above formula, it follows that

$$\frac{1}{2\pi }\mathrm{Tr}[\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}k^{}\widehat{\varphi }\mathrm{i}p^{}\widehat{x}}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}k\widehat{\varphi }+\mathrm{i}p\widehat{x}}]=\delta _{k^{}k}\delta ^{(S)}(\lambda p^{}\lambda p),$$
(3.5)
where $`\delta ^{(S)}(\phi )`$ denotes the $`\delta `$-function on a circle. The usual inverse Fourier transform of $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}(\omega ,k,p)`$ yields an analog of the Weyl symbol $`\mathrm{\Phi }(t,n\lambda ,\varphi )`$ on the cylinder:

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(t,n\lambda ,\varphi )=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑t\underset{k=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}_{\pi /\lambda }^{+\pi /\lambda }\frac{dp}{2\pi }\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}(\omega ,k,p)\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}(k\varphi +\lambda np\omega t)}.$$
(3.6)
The star-product for the fields $`\mathrm{\Phi }(t,n\lambda ,\varphi )`$ has a form which is very close to that appearing in the noncommutative plane:

$`\mathrm{\Phi }_1(t,n\lambda ,\varphi )\mathrm{\Phi }_2(t,n\lambda ,\varphi )`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{e}^{\frac{\mathrm{i}\lambda }{2}\left(\frac{}{y_1}\frac{}{\phi _2}\frac{}{y_2}\frac{}{\phi _1}\right)}`$ (3.7)
$`\times `$ $`\mathrm{\Phi }_1(t,n\lambda +y_1,\varphi +\phi _1)\mathrm{\Phi }_2(t,n\lambda +y_2,\varphi +\phi _2)|_{\stackrel{y_1=y_2=0}{\phi _1=\phi _2=0}},`$
where $`y_1,y_2,\phi _1,\phi _2`$ are auxiliary continuous variables.

The free action for the scalar fields on the noncommutative space $`C_{(NC)}\times \mathrm{I}\mathrm{R}`$ has the following form (cf. ):

$`S_0^{(NCcyl)}[\widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }}]`$ $`=`$ $`\pi \lambda \rho \mathrm{Tr}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑t\left\{\left(_t\widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }}\right)^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\lambda ^2}}[\widehat{x}_+,\widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }}][\widehat{x}_{},\widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }}]+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\lambda ^2}}[\widehat{x},\widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }}]^2m^2\widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }}^2\right\}`$ (3.8)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda \rho }{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{n=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}dt{\displaystyle _\pi ^\pi }d\varphi [\left(_t\mathrm{\Phi }(t,n,\varphi )\right)^2\left(\delta _x\mathrm{\Phi }(t,n,\varphi )\right)^2`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\rho ^2}}\left(_\varphi \mathrm{\Phi }(t,n,\varphi )\right)^2m^2\mathrm{\Phi }^2(t,n,\varphi )].`$
In the last expression, we have used the Weyl symbols (3.6) and the lattice derivative

$$\delta _x\mathrm{\Phi }(t,n,\varphi )=\frac{1}{\lambda }\left[\mathrm{\Phi }(t,n+1,\varphi )\mathrm{\Phi }(t,n,\varphi )\right]$$

(we have simplified the notation for the field: $`\mathrm{\Phi }(t,n\lambda ,\varphi )\mathrm{\Phi }(t,n,\varphi )`$). As usual for the Weyl symbol, the $``$-product disappears from the trace for a product of any two operators. In the case of a field theory on a flat space, this leads to the free action which formally looks as the one on the commutative space. In the case of cylinder, we have the trace of noncommutativity even in the free action: it reveals itself in the appearance of the discrete derivatives. We stress that this is an intrinsic property of field theories on noncommutative manifolds with compact space-like dimensions.

### 3.2 Vacuum energy of the quantum scalar fields on $`C_{(NC)}\times \mathrm{I}\mathrm{R}`$

In what follows, for simplicity, we consider the massless case, $`m=0`$.

After the second quantization, the fields (the Weyl symbols) $`\mathrm{\Phi }(t,n,\varphi )`$ can be presented in the usual form:

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(t,n,\varphi )=\lambda \underset{k=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}_{\pi /\lambda }^{+\pi /\lambda }\frac{dp}{2\pi }\left[\widehat{a}_{p,k}u_{p,k}(t,n,\varphi )+\widehat{a}_{p,k}^{}\overline{u}_{p,k}(t,n,\varphi )\right],$$
(3.9)
where $`\widehat{a}_{p,k}`$, $`\widehat{a}_{p,k}^{}`$ are the creation and annihilation operators, respectively, and $`u_{p,k}(t,n,\varphi )`$ are the solutions of the equation of motion corresponding to the action (3.8):

$`u_{p,k}(t,n,\varphi )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi \sqrt{2\rho \lambda \omega _{p,k}}}}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}(\lambda pn+k\varphi \omega _{p,k}t)},`$
$`\omega _{p,k}`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{k^2}{\rho ^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{\lambda ^2}}\mathrm{sin}^2{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda p}{2}}},`$ (3.10)
normalized with respect to the Klein-Gordon scalar product:

$$(u_{p,k},u_{p^{},k^{}})\mathrm{i}\lambda \rho \underset{k=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}_\pi ^\pi 𝑑\varphi \overline{u}_{p,k}(t,n,\varphi )\stackrel{}{_t}u_{p^{},k^{}}(t,n,\varphi )=\delta ^{(S)}(\lambda p\lambda p^{})\delta _{k,k^{}}.$$

The operators $`\widehat{a}_{p,k}`$, $`\widehat{a}_{p,k}^{}`$ satisfy the standard commutation relations:

$$[\widehat{a}_{p,k},\widehat{a}_{p,k}^{}]=\delta ^{(S)}(\lambda p\lambda p^{})\delta _{k,k^{}}.$$

Since the time variable is a commutative one, the energy density in this field model has the usual form:

$$T_{tt}=\frac{1}{2}\left[\left(_t\mathrm{\Phi }(t,n,\varphi )\right)^2+\left(\delta _x\mathrm{\Phi }(t,n,\varphi )\right)^2+\frac{1}{\rho ^2}\left(_\varphi \mathrm{\Phi }(t,n,\varphi )\right)^2\right].$$
(3.11)
The calculation of the vacuum expectation value gives (see , formula 2.576.2)

$`0\left|T_{tt}\right|0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2(2\pi )^2\rho }}{\displaystyle \underset{k=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle _{\pi /\lambda }^{\pi /\lambda }}{\displaystyle \frac{dp}{2\pi }}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{k^2}{\rho ^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{\lambda ^2}}\mathrm{sin}^2{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda p}{2}}}`$ (3.12)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4}{(2\pi )^3\rho \lambda ^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{8}{(2\pi )^3\rho \lambda ^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\sqrt{(k\xi /2)^2+1}𝐄\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{(k\xi /2)^2+1}}}\right),`$
where $`𝐄(x)`$ is the complete elliptic integral, and $`\xi =\frac{\lambda }{\rho }`$. This sum is obviously divergent and should be regularized (however, the power of divergence here is equal to two, while in the case of a commutative cylinder it is equal to three). The regularization can be achieved by introducing the cutoff factors $`\mathrm{exp}\left\{\epsilon \sqrt{(k\xi /2)^2+1}\right\}`$ (cf. ):

$`{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}y𝐄\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{y}}\right)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}y𝐄\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{y}}\right)\mathrm{e}^{\epsilon y}`$ (3.13)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{}{\epsilon }}{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}𝐄\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{y}}\right)\mathrm{e}^{\epsilon y},`$ (3.14)
with

$$y=\sqrt{(k\xi /2)^2+1}.$$

For small values of the parameter $`\xi 1`$, the sum can be well approximated by the corresponding integral with the correction term of the order $`𝓞\left(\xi ^2\right)`$:

$$\underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{\xi }{2}𝐄\left(\frac{1}{\sqrt{(k\xi /2)^2+1}}\right)\mathrm{e}^{\epsilon \sqrt{(k\xi /2)^2+1}}=_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑x𝐄\left(\frac{1}{\sqrt{x^2+1}}\right)\mathrm{e}^{\epsilon \sqrt{x^2+1}}\frac{\xi }{2}\mathrm{e}^\epsilon +𝓞\left(\xi ^2\right).$$
(3.15)
Now we notice that $`𝐄(1/\sqrt{x^2+1})`$ is a smooth very slowly varying function: on the half-line $`[0,\mathrm{}]`$ it monotonically increases from 1 at $`x=0`$ to $`\pi /2`$ at infinity. Thus the integral can be estimated as follows:

$$_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑x𝐄\left(\frac{1}{\sqrt{x^2+1}}\right)\mathrm{e}^{\epsilon \sqrt{x^2+1}}=c_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑x\mathrm{e}^{\epsilon \sqrt{x^2+1}}=cK_1(\epsilon ),$$

where $`c`$ is a factor of the order of unity and $`K_1(\epsilon )`$ is the modified Bessel function (see , formula 3.365.2). Finally, expanding the Bessel function, we obtain the expression for the vacuum expectation value of the energy:

$$0\left|T_{tt}\right|0=\frac{4}{(2\pi )^3\rho \lambda ^2}+\frac{2c}{\pi ^3\lambda ^3}\left[\frac{1}{\epsilon ^2}\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{ln}\frac{\epsilon }{2}\frac{1}{4}\frac{1}{2}C+𝓞\left(\epsilon ^2\right)\right].$$
(3.16)
It is seen that the second term does not depend on the cylinder radius, so that the Casimir energy density (i.e., the difference between energy densities in compactified and decompactified cases) for a noncommutative cylinder proves to be the following:

$$0\left|T_{tt}\right|00\left|T_{tt}\right|0|_\rho \mathrm{}=\frac{1}{4(\pi )^3\rho \lambda ^2}.$$
(3.17)
Thus, the Casimir energy on a noncommutative cylinder depends on the radius much slower than in the commutative case (where a simple dimensional reasoning gives $`0\left|T_{tt}\right|01/\rho ^3`$). However, we note that we have performed the above calculations for the $`\xi =\frac{\lambda }{\rho }1`$ case and consequently the Casimir energy in the noncommutative case, in the leading order, is much larger than the commutative counter-part. Also we recall the $`\lambda `$ dependence of the Casimir energy (3.17). As we see, the $`\lambda 0`$ limit is not a smooth one which is physically originating from the fact that $`\widehat{x}`$ has a discrete spectrum.

## 4 Casimir energy on a noncommutative torus

A noncommutative two-torus is defined by the operators $`\widehat{U}_i`$ which satisfy

$`\widehat{U}_i\widehat{X}_j\widehat{U}_i^1`$ $`=`$ $`\widehat{X}_j+\delta _{ij}2\pi R_j\mathrm{𝟏},i,j=1,2`$ (4.1)
$`\widehat{U}_i\widehat{U}_j`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{e}^{2\pi \mathrm{\Theta }_{ij}}\widehat{U}_j\widehat{U}_i,\mathrm{\Theta }_{ij}=\mathrm{\Theta }ϵ_{ij},`$ (4.2)
where $`\widehat{X}_i`$ are the coordinate operators and $`\mathrm{𝟏}`$ is the unity in the algebra representing these coordinates, while $`R_i`$ are the corresponding compactification radii. $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ is the noncommutativity parameter; of course, one should note that compared to the noncommutative plane case, it represents the noncommutativity in the unit volume of the torus (and hence it is dimensionless). In the following, we assume both radii to be equal and denote them by $`\rho `$, so that the volume of the torus is $`(2\pi \rho )^2`$. It is more convenient to use the “dimensionless coordinates”

$$\widehat{\alpha }_i=\frac{\widehat{X}_i}{\rho }.$$
(4.3)
Then, one can show that the eqs. (4.1) have the solutions

$$\widehat{U}_i=\mathrm{e}^{i\mathrm{\Theta }_{ij}\widehat{\alpha }_j},[\widehat{\alpha }_i,\widehat{\alpha }_j]=\frac{2\pi }{\mathrm{\Theta }}ϵ_{ij}.$$
(4.4)
In general the above solution can be represented by (infinite) matrices.

However, for rational $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$, i.e. $`\mathrm{\Theta }=\frac{M}{N}`$ where $`M`$ and $`N`$ are mutually prime integers, this algebra possesses only finite-dimensional representations . A field theory on such a torus proves to be lattice-like  and $`M`$ defines the number of windings after which one returns to the same lattice site. Though this is not essential, we put $`M=1`$, for simplicity.

Similarly to the case of the noncommutative cylinder, considered in the previous section, scalar fields on the noncommutative torus are defined via the operator Fourier transform

$$\widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }}(t,\widehat{\alpha },\widehat{\beta })=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\omega \underset{k,p=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}(\omega ,k,p)\widehat{U}_1^k\widehat{U}_2^p\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\omega t},$$
(4.5)
which again is invertible and allows to define the Weyl symbols:

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(t,x,y)=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\omega \underset{k,p=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}(\omega ,k,p)\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}(kx+py\omega t)},$$
(4.6)
and the corresponding $``$-product. We also note that in the rational $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ case, the arguments of the Weyl symbols are discrete, more precisely:

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(t,n,m)=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\omega \underset{k,p=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}(\omega ,k,p)\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\frac{2\pi }{N}(kn+pm\omega t)},n,m=0,1,\mathrm{},N1.$$

Let us now restrict the consideration to the rational case. In the rational case, the free scalar massless field action reads

$$S^{(NCT)}[\widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }}]=\frac{(2\pi \rho )^2}{2}\mathrm{Tr}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑t\left\{\left(_t\widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }}\right)^2\frac{1}{(2\pi \rho \mathrm{\Theta })^2}\left[\left(\widehat{U}_1\widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }}\widehat{U}_1^1\widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }}\right)^2+\left(\widehat{U}_2\widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }}\widehat{U}_2^1\widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }}\right)^2\right]\right\}.$$
(4.7)
The $`\mathrm{Tr}`$ in the above action is normalized as $`\mathrm{Tr}\mathbf{\hspace{0.17em}\; 1}=\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Theta }}=N`$. The operator $`\widehat{U}_1\widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }}\widehat{U}_1^1`$ shifts the argument $`n`$ of the Weyl symbol $`\mathrm{\Phi }(t,n,m)`$ by 1, and similarly $`\widehat{U}_2\widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }}\widehat{U}_2^1`$ shifts $`m`$.

Note: For the irrational case, the $`\widehat{U}_i`$ operators cannot serve as translation operators, and besides them we should define the usual momentum operators.

In terms of the Weyl symbols, the formula (4.7) for the action reads

$$S^{(NCT)}[\mathrm{\Phi }]=\frac{(2\pi \rho )^2}{2}\underset{n,m=0}{\overset{N1}{}}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑t\left\{\left(_t\mathrm{\Phi }\right)^2\frac{1}{(2\pi \rho \mathrm{\Theta })^2}\left(\delta _n\mathrm{\Phi }\right)^2\frac{1}{(2\pi \rho \mathrm{\Theta })^2}\left(\delta _m\mathrm{\Phi }\right)^2\right\},$$
(4.8)
where $`\delta _n\mathrm{\Phi }(t,n,m)=\mathrm{\Phi }(t,n+1,m)\mathrm{\Phi }(t,n,m)`$ and $`\delta _m\mathrm{\Phi }(t,n,m)=\mathrm{\Phi }(t,n,m+1)\mathrm{\Phi }(t,n,m)`$. Thus the free action on $`T_{(NC)}^2\times \mathrm{I}\mathrm{R}`$ (noncommutative torus with rational noncommutativity parameter and commutative time) is equivalent to the Hamiltonian lattice theory (see, e.g., ).

After the decomposition of the fields into the creation and annihilation operators,

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(t,n,m)=\underset{p,k=0}{\overset{N1}{}}\left[\widehat{a}_{p,k}u_{p,k}(t,n,m)+\widehat{a}_{p,k}^{}\overline{u}_{p,k}(t,n,m)\right],$$
(4.9)
where the modes

$`u_{p,k}(t,n,m)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi \rho \sqrt{2\omega _{p,k}}}}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}(2\pi /N)(pn+km)i\omega _{p,k}t},`$
$`\omega _{p,k}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{N}{\pi \rho }}\sqrt{\mathrm{sin}^2{\displaystyle \frac{\pi p}{N}}+\mathrm{sin}^2{\displaystyle \frac{\pi k}{N}}}`$
are orthonormal with respect to the scalar product

$$(u_{p,k},u_{p^{},k^{}})\mathrm{i}\left(\frac{2\pi \rho }{N}\right)^2\underset{m,n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}\overline{u}_{p,k}(t,n,m)\stackrel{}{_t}u_{p^{},k^{}}(t,n,m)=\delta _{k,k^{}}\delta _{p,p^{}},$$

we are ready to calculate the vacuum expectation $`0\left|T_{tt}\right|0`$ of the energy density. Here, $`T_{tt}`$ is given by the expression:

$$T_{tt}=\frac{1}{2}\left\{\left(_t\mathrm{\Phi }(t,n,m)\right)^2+\frac{1}{(2\pi \rho \mathrm{\Theta })^2}\left[\left(\delta _n\mathrm{\Phi }(t,n,m)\right)^2+\left(\delta _m\mathrm{\Phi }(t,n,m)\right)^2\right]\right\}.$$

Due to the finiteness of all summations, the expectation value can be easily found to be the following:

$$0\left|T_{tt}\right|0=\frac{N}{16\pi ^3\rho ^3}\underset{k,p=0}{\overset{N1}{}}\sqrt{\mathrm{sin}^2\frac{\pi p}{N}+\mathrm{sin}^2\frac{\pi k}{N}}.$$
(4.10)
For any given $`N`$ (which is, in fact, the inverse of the noncommutativity parameter) the last sum can be easily evaluated numerically. Thus, on the noncommutative torus with a rational noncommutativity parameter, the Casimir energy is finite and can be obtained without any regularization.

For the case of large $`N`$ (small noncommutativity), eq. (4.10) can be replaced with the corresponding integral:

$$0\left|T_{tt}\right|0=+\frac{N^3}{16\pi ^4\rho ^3}_0^\pi 𝑑x𝑑y\sqrt{\mathrm{sin}^2x+\mathrm{sin}^2y}+\frac{N^3}{16\pi ^3\rho ^3}.$$
(4.11)
Finally we would like to summarize our results on the noncommutative torus Casimir energy:
1) As we see from (4.11), the Casimir energy in the noncommutative torus case is cubic in $`N=\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Theta }}`$ $``$ this is the same behaviour as in the commutative case with the momentum cut-off equal to $`N`$. Also we note that the $`\mathrm{\Theta }0`$ limit (while the volume, and hence $`\rho `$, is fixed), is not a smooth one.
2) The Casimir energy is positive and hence leads to a repulsive force on the torus.
3) As it is expected, its $`\rho `$ dependence is like $`\frac{1}{\rho ^3}`$.

## 5 Conclusion

In this paper, we have investigated various topological and metric aspects of the $``$-product approach to the field theories on noncommutative spaces. We have compared four simple cases: plane, cylinder, punctured plane and torus.

Although they differ in topological and metric properties, they possess the same Poisson bracket and this leads to the same formal Moyal $``$-product. We have shown that:

i) In order to take into account various global properties, we have to choose properly the relevant Darboux pair (elementary bracket) and restrict the $``$-algebra to the sub-algebra of field modes on a particular manifold. In the operator approach, this is equivalent to a unitary realization in the Hilbert space of the $``$-algebra in question.

ii) On a noncommutative punctured plane, we investigated the Aharonov-Bohm effect. This space, being topologically equivalent to a cylinder, possesses a different Riemann metric. Although the proper Darboux pair is identical to the one on cylinder, still the noncommutative generalization of the self-adjoint translation generators (with respect to the corresponding scalar product) has to be found. We defined them and, consequently, we gauged the noncommutative version of the model. The resulting model is gauge invariant, with the gauge transformations classified by a (topological) magnetic flux number: the singular finite transformations change the flux by an integer (in suitable units), whereas the regular small ones do not influence the flux. These properties, reflecting the topology, are exactly analogous to those of the commutative case. Thus, the noncommutativity of the underlying manifold does not influence the effect in question. We note that the Aharonov-Bohm phase, besides being important for 2+1 dimensional physics (e.g. quantum Hall effect), can also shed light on the noncommutative formulation of the Wilson loops.

iii) Finally, we would like to stress that on a noncommutative (punctured) plane, the notion of trajectory is lost, and there is no way to describe the change of the wave function along a given path. In other words, the functions entering the noncommutative $``$-algebra $`𝒜`$ are Weyl symbols and have no direct physical meaning. However, the propagator is a well-defined element of $`𝒜𝒜`$ and on a punctured plane possesses all the basic properties, e.g., it respects the basic topological and metric properties and the symmetry of the noncommutative version of the model we started with.

We have shown that the space noncommutativity has an essential impact on the Casimir energy: in the case of a cylinder, its dependence on the radius becomes much slower in comparison with the commutative space, while on the torus (with a rational parameter of noncommutativity) the Casimir energy proves to be finite without any regularization. Moreover, we have found that in the case of the NC-torus, the Casimir energy is positive, in contrast to the case of a usual commutative space. This can be very important in the large extra-dimensional models : The repulsive Casimir force can compensate for the attractive forces originating from the Kaluza-Klein modes and hence this can provide a stabilization of the compactification radius for extra dimensions.

We would like to point out the fact that due to the “Morita equivalence” , which is an equivalence between gauge bundles (sections of the corresponding $`C^{}`$-algebra) on various tori, the rational noncommutativity is naturally related to a non-zero magnetic flux. Therefore, it is plausible to interpret the Casimir energy we have found (4.10) as the energy stored in this constant magnetic flux (replacing the noncommutativity).

It is worth noting that in many papers (see, e.g., ) devoted to the Casimir effect in the field theories on noncommutative torus, one started from a noncommutative plane and after writing the action in terms of the Weyl symbols, compactify the coordinates to a torus. In that analysis, an interacting noncommutative $`\varphi ^3`$ in six dimensions is considered. Then the Casimir energy appears as the finite contributions to the mass of particles coming from the non-planar diagrams at one loop level . This corrections have unusual dependence on the radius of the torus (they are proportional to the radius) and may, in general, stabilize a size of the torus, considered as an extra subspace in a six-dimensional space-time with commutative usual four-dimensional subspace . Though, it seems more natural to start the quantization (noncommutative deformation) directly in the space under consideration. However, the approach in the above mentioned papers is, evidently, equivalent to the direct quantization on torus with irrational parameter of noncommutativity (in this case all the representations of the coordinate algebra are infinite-dimensional). We notice that this occurs only due to the infinite summations over (discrete) momentum variables. On the contrary, the finite summation, in the case of a rational parameter of noncommutativity, cannot change the convergence properties of the four-dimensional momentum integrals, and as a result this phenomenon disappears.

Acknowledgements The financial support of the Academy of Finland under the Project No. 163394 is greatly acknowledged. A.D.’s work was partially supported by RFBR-00-02-17679 grant and P.P.’s work by VEGA project 1/7069/20.


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# Value distribution for eigenfunctions of desymmetrized quantum maps

## 1. Introduction

In the past few years, much attention has been devoted to the behavior of eigenfunctions of classically chaotic quantum systems. One aspect of this topic concerns their value distribution and specifically their extreme values \[Be, AS, AQC, IS, HR, ABST\]. Our aim is to explore this for one of the best-studied models in quantum chaotic dynamics, the “quantized cat map” \[HB\]. This is the quantization of a hyperbolic linear map $`A`$ of the torus. For a brief background about this model, see section 2.

For each integer $`N1`$ (the inverse Planck constant) let $`U_N(A)`$ denote the quantization of $`A`$ as a unitary operator on $`_N=L^2(𝐙/N𝐙)`$. In a previous paper \[KR\] it was observed that there are quantum symmetries of $`U_N(A)`$ \- a commutative group of unitary operators which commute with $`U_N(A)`$. We called these Hecke operators, in analogy with the classical theory of modular forms. The eigenspaces of $`U_N(A)`$ thus admit an orthonormal basis consisting of eigenfunctions of all the Hecke operators, which we called Hecke eigenfunctions. These can be thought of as the eigenfunctions for the desymmetrized quantum map.

In \[KR\] we showed that the Hecke eigenfunctions become uniformly distributed as $`N\mathrm{}`$. In this note we investigate suprema and value distribution of the Hecke eigenfunctions. For general $`N`$ we obtain a nontrivial bound on the supremum norm of these Hecke eigenfunctions. For prime values of $`N`$ for which $`A`$ is diagonalizable modulo $`N`$ (the “split primes” for $`A`$), we obtain much more refined, optimal results via the modern theory of exponential sums. We show that for these values of $`N`$, the Hecke eigenfunctions are uniformly bounded and their absolute values (amplitudes) are either constant or have a semi-circle value distribution as $`N\mathrm{}`$. Moreover in the latter case different eigenfunctions become statistically independent.

Below is a detailed description of our results.

### 1.1. Suprema - general $`N`$

The trivial bound

(1)
$$\psi _{\mathrm{}}N^{1/2}$$

is a consequence of the $`L^2`$-normalization

$$\psi _2^2=\frac{1}{N}\underset{Q𝐙/N𝐙}{}|\psi (Q)|^2=1.$$

Equidistribution of the eigenfunctions \[KR\] implies that one can do better: $`\psi _{\mathrm{}}=o(N^{1/2})`$. Our first result gives a quantitative improvement on this:

###### Theorem 1.

Let $`\psi `$ be a Hecke eigenfunction, normalized by $`\psi _2=1`$. Then the supremum of $`\psi `$ satisfies

$$\psi _{\mathrm{}}_ϵN^{3/8+ϵ}$$

for all $`ϵ>0`$, the implied constant depending only on $`ϵ`$ and not on $`\psi `$.

### 1.2. The split primes

We next consider the case when $`N`$ is a prime for which $`A`$ is diagonalizable modulo $`N`$ (these constitute half the primes). In this case, the group of Hecke operators is isomorphic to the multiplicative group $`(𝐙/N𝐙)^{}`$ and the Hecke eigenfunctions correspond to eigencharacters of the group of Hecke operators, namely to Dirichlet characters $`\chi `$ modulo $`N`$. For nontrivial $`\chi `$, the corresponding eigenspace is one-dimensional, while for the trivial character $`\chi _0`$ the eigenspace is two-dimensional. For nontrivial $`\chi `$ denote by $`\psi _{\chi ,N}`$ a Hecke eigenfunction of norm 1. For simplicity, we also assume that $`A`$ is not triangular modulo $`N`$ (which holds for all but finitely many $`N`$). The suprema of the Hecke eigenfunctions in this case are given by

###### Theorem 2.

If $`N`$ is a split prime for $`A`$ such that $`A`$ is not triangular modulo $`N`$ then

1. The Hecke eigenspace corresponding to the trivial character has an orthonormal basis $`\psi _{0,N},\psi _{\mathrm{},N}`$ for which the amplitude is constant: $`|\psi _{\mathrm{},N}|=1`$ and $`|\psi _{0,N}|=\sqrt{11/N}`$.
2. For nontrivial $`\chi `$ mod $`N`$, $`\psi _{\chi ,N}_{\mathrm{}}2\sqrt{11/N}`$.

We finally turn to the question of value distribution. The issue here is only for nontrivial characters $`\chi `$. We will show that the value distribution of $`\frac{1}{2}|\psi _{\chi ,N}|`$ tends to the semi-circle measure, which is the measure $`\mu _{sc}`$ on $`[0,1]`$ such that

$$\mu _{sc}(I)=_I\frac{4}{\pi }\sqrt{1u^2}𝑑u$$

for any interval $`I[0,1]`$. This measure is the image of Haar measure on $`SU(2)`$ under the map $`g|\mathrm{tr}(g)|/2`$.

The precise result is:

###### Theorem 3.

If $`N`$ is restricted to vary only over split primes for $`A`$ then

1. For any nontrivial character $`\chi `$ modulo $`N`$, the amplitude $`|\psi _{\chi ,N}(t)|`$ has a semi-circle limit distribution as $`N\mathrm{}`$, i.e. for any subinterval $`I[0,1]`$ we have as $`N\mathrm{}`$ through split primes for $`A`$

$$\frac{1}{N}\mathrm{\#}\{tmodN:|\psi _{\chi ,N}(t)|/2I\}\mu _{sc}(I).$$
2. For $`r2`$, and any choice of distinct nontrivial characters $`\chi _1`$, $``$, $`\chi _r`$, the amplitudes $`|\psi _{\chi _1,N}|,\mathrm{},|\psi _{\chi _r,N}|`$ are statistically independent, that is for any choice of subintervals $`I_1,\mathrm{},I_r[0,1]`$ we have

$$\frac{1}{N}\mathrm{\#}\{tmodN:|\psi _{\chi _i,N}(t)|/2I_i,i=1,\mathrm{},r\}\underset{i=1}{\overset{r}{}}\mu _{sc}(I_I)$$

as $`N\mathrm{}`$ through split primes for $`A`$.

Theorem 3 is a consequence of a corresponding theorem by N. Katz \[Ka\] on the value distribution of certain exponential sums, see Section 5.

### 1.3. Comparison with Maass forms

To put our results in perspective, we briefly survey the situation in another well studied example in quantum chaology - the eigenfunctions of the hyperbolic Laplacian $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ on modular surfaces. These are the quotient $`𝐇/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ of the hyperbolic plane $`𝐇`$ by a congruence subgroup $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ of the units of a quaternion algebra (in the compact case) or of the modular group $`SL(2,𝐙)`$, see Sarnak’s survey \[AQC\]. In these cases, there is a commuting family of self-adjoint operators which commute with the Laplacian, and thus there is an orthonormal basis $`\psi _j`$, $`j=0,1,\mathrm{}`$ of $`L^2(𝐇/\mathrm{\Gamma })`$ consisting of (real-valued) eigenfunctions of the Laplacian ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\psi _j+\lambda _j\psi _j=0`$) and of all the Hecke operators. These are called Maass-Hecke forms. To compare with our result, note that the Laplace eigenvalue $`\lambda `$ scales with Planck’s constant $`h`$ like $`1/h^2`$. In the case of the cat map, the inverse Planck constant $`N`$ equals $`1/h`$.

A general bound for the eigenfunctions of the Laplacian on any compact Riemannian surface gives \[Ho\]:

$$\psi _j_{\mathrm{}}\lambda _j^{1/4}1/h^{1/2}$$

which is analogous to the trivial bound (1). Iwaniec and Sarnak \[IS\] studied the supremum of the Maass-Hecke forms, and showed that for $`L^2`$-normalized forms one has

$$\psi _j_{\mathrm{}}_ϵ\sqrt{\lambda _j}^{5/12+ϵ}1/h^{5/12+ϵ}$$

for all $`ϵ>0`$. This is analogous to our result in Theorem 1.

Unlike in the cat map case, for modular surfaces equidistribution of eigenfunctions is still open, though recent work of Sarnak \[S\] establishes this for a subsequence of eigenfunctions of “CM type” for congruence subgroups of $`SL(2,𝐙)`$, and a recent formula of Watson \[W\] confirms that it is implied by the Generalized Riemann Hypothesis for certain automorphic $`L`$-functions.

Concerning the question of value distribution for modular surfaces, numerical experiments indicate that the Hecke eigenfunctions have a locally Gaussian value distribution \[HR, AS\]. In the compact case, this means that if $`\psi `$ is an $`L^2`$-normalized cusp form with eigenvalue $`\lambda >0`$, which is an eigenfunction of all Hecke operators, then the measure of the set of $`z𝐇/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ where the amplitude $`|\psi (z)|<r`$ is asymptotic to $`\sqrt{2/\pi }_0^re^{t^2/2}𝑑t`$ as $`\lambda \mathrm{}`$. Here “measure” means the hyperbolic measure $`dxdy/y^2`$ on $`𝐇/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ normalized to have total area unity. Moreover these experiments indicate that eigenfunctions corresponding to different eigenvalues are statistically independent\[HR, AS\].

At present, we seem to be far from being able to prove such statements for modular surfaces (not to mention doing it for a generic system). Recently some progress has been made toward Gaussian value distribution: Watson \[W\] showed that the third moment $`_{𝐇/\mathrm{\Gamma }}\psi ^3`$ of the eigenfunctions vanishes as $`\lambda \mathrm{}`$ (all odd moments vanish for the Gaussian distribution), and Sarnak showed that for “CM forms”, the fourth moment agrees with the Gaussian moment, i.e. $`_{𝐇/\mathrm{\Gamma }}|\psi |^43`$ as $`\lambda \mathrm{}`$.

Acknowledgments: We thank P. Sarnak for stimulating discussions on the subject matter of this paper and N. Katz for discussions on exponential sums and for providing us with \[Ka\].

## 2. Background

The full details on the cat map and its quantization can be found in \[KR\]. For the reader’s convenience we briefly recall the setup:

### 2.1. Classical dynamics

The classical dynamics are given by a hyperbolic linear map $`ASL(2,𝐙)`$ so that $`x=(\begin{array}{c}p\\ q\end{array})𝐓^2Ax`$ is a symplectic map of the torus. Given an observable $`fC^{\mathrm{}}(𝐓^2)`$, the classical evolution defined by $`A`$ is $`ffA`$, where $`(fA)(x)=f(Ax)`$.

### 2.2. Kinematics: The space of states

As the Hilbert space of states, we take distributions $`\psi (q)`$ on the line $`𝐑`$ which are periodic in both the position and the momentum representation. This restricts $`h`$, Planck’s constant, to take only inverse integer values. With $`h=1/N`$, the space of states, denoted $`_N`$, is of dimension $`N`$ and consists of periodic point-masses at the coordinates $`q=Q/N`$, $`Q𝐙`$. We identify $`_N`$ with $`L^2(𝐙/N𝐙)`$, where the inner product $`,`$ is given by

$$\varphi ,\psi =\frac{1}{N}\underset{QmodN}{}\varphi (Q)\overline{\psi }(Q).$$

### 2.3. Observables:

The basic observables are given by the operators $`T_N(n_1,n_2)`$ acting on $`\psi L^2(𝐙/N𝐙)`$ via:

(2)
$$\left(T_N(n_1,n_2)\psi \right)(Q)=e^{\frac{i\pi n_1n_2}{N}}e(\frac{n_2Q}{N})\psi (Q+n_1).$$

For any smooth classical observable $`fC^{\mathrm{}}(𝐓^2)`$ with Fourier expansion

$$f(x)=\underset{n_1,n_2𝐙}{}\widehat{f}(n_1,n_2)e(n_1p+n_2q),x=(\begin{array}{c}p\\ q\end{array})𝐓^2,$$

its quantization, $`\mathrm{Op}_N(f)`$, is given by

$$\mathrm{Op}_N(f):=\underset{n_1,n_2𝐙}{}\widehat{f}(n_1,n_2)T_N(n_1,n_2)$$

### 2.4. Dynamics:

We let $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(4,2N)SL(2,𝐙)`$ be the subgroup of matrices that are congruent to the identity matrix modulo $`4`$ (resp., $`2`$) if $`N`$ is even (resp., odd). For $`A\mathrm{\Gamma }(4,2N)`$ we can assign unitary operators $`U_N(A)`$, acting on $`L^2(𝐙/N𝐙)`$, having the following important properties:

* “Exact Egorov”: For all observables $`fC^{\mathrm{}}(𝐓^2)`$

$$U_N(A)^1\mathrm{Op}_N(f)U_N(A)=\mathrm{Op}_N(fA).$$
* The quantization depends only on $`A`$ modulo $`2N`$: if $`A,B\mathrm{\Gamma }(4,2N)`$ and $`ABmod2N`$ then

$$U_N(A)=U_N(B)$$
* The quantization is multiplicative: if $`A,B\mathrm{\Gamma }(4,2N)`$, then

(3)
$$U_N(AB)=U_N(A)U_N(B)$$

### 2.5. Hecke eigenfunctions

If $`\alpha `$ is an eigenvalue of $`A`$, form $`𝔒=𝐙[\alpha ]`$ which is an order in the real quadratic field $`K=𝐐(\alpha )`$. (Note that $`𝔒`$ is not necessarily equal to $`𝔒_K`$, the full ring of integers in $`K`$.) Let $`v=(v_1,v_2)𝔒^2`$ be a vector such that $`vA=\alpha v`$. Let $`I:=𝐙[v_1,v_2]𝔒`$. Then $`I`$ is an $`𝔒`$-ideal, and the matrix of $`\alpha `$ acting on $`I`$ by multiplication in the basis $`v_1,v_2`$ is precisely $`A`$. The choice of basis of $`I`$ gives an identification

(4)
$$\iota :I𝐙^2.$$

The action of $`𝔒`$ on the ideal $`I`$ by multiplication gives a ring homomorphism $`\iota :𝔒\mathrm{Mat}_2(𝐙)`$ with the property that the determinant of $`\iota (\beta )`$, $`\beta 𝔒`$, is given by $`𝒩(\beta )`$, where $`𝒩:𝐐(\alpha )𝐐`$ is the norm map.

Reducing the norm map modulo $`2N`$ gives a well defined map

$$𝒩_{2N}:𝔒/2N𝔒𝐙/2N𝐙,$$

and we let $`𝒞_A^\theta (2N)`$ be the elements in the kernel of this map that are congruent to $`1`$ modulo $`4𝔒`$ (resp., $`2𝔒`$) if $`N`$ is even (resp., odd).

Now, reducing $`\iota `$ modulo $`2N`$ gives a map

$$\iota _{2N}:𝒞_A^\theta (2N)SL_2(𝐙/2N𝐙).$$

Since $`𝒞_A^\theta (2N)`$ is commutative, the properties in section 2.4 imply that

$$\{U_N(\iota _{2N}(\beta )):\beta 𝒞_A^\theta \}$$

forms a family of commuting operators. Analogously with modular forms, we call these Hecke operators, and functions $`\psi _N`$ that are simultaneous eigenfunctions of all the Hecke operators are denoted Hecke eigenfunctions. Note that a Hecke eigenfunction is an eigenfunction of $`U_N(\iota _{2N}(\alpha ))=U_N(A)`$.

## 3. Proof of Theorem 1

### 3.1. Spectral expansions

We first display the intensity $`|\psi (Q)|^2`$ for $`\psi _N`$ as an expectation value of an $`N`$-dependent observable. Choose $`fC_c^{\mathrm{}}(𝐑)`$ so that $`f(0)=1`$, $`_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}f(x)𝑑x=0`$, and $`f`$ is supported in $`(1/2,1/2)`$. The function

$$G_N(x)=N\underset{k𝐙}{}f(N(xk))$$

is periodic, and its Fourier coefficients are given by

$$\widehat{G_N}(m)=\widehat{f}(\frac{m}{N}),$$

where $`\widehat{f}(y)=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}f(x)e^{2\pi ixy}𝑑x`$ is the Fourier transform of $`f`$ on the line. For $`Q𝐙/N𝐙`$, set

$$g_{N,Q}(p,q)=G_N(q\frac{Q}{N}),(p,q)𝐓^2.$$

We obtain a function on the torus which is independent of the momentum variable $`p`$, and is strongly localized in the position variable $`q`$ around $`Q/N`$.

###### Lemma 4.

Let $`Q𝐙/N𝐙`$. Then for all $`\psi _N`$

$$|\psi (Q)|^2=\mathrm{Op}_N(g_{N,Q})\psi ,\psi $$

###### Proof.

Recall that

$$\mathrm{Op}_N(g_{N,Q})=\underset{m,n𝐙}{}\widehat{g_{N,Q}}(m,n)T_N(m,n).$$

Since $`g_{N,Q}`$ is independent of $`p`$, we have $`\widehat{g_{N,Q}}(m,n)=0`$ unless $`m=0`$, in which case we have

(5)
$$\widehat{g_{N,Q}}(0,n)=e(\frac{nQ}{N})\widehat{G}_N(n)=e(\frac{nQ}{N})\widehat{f}(\frac{n}{N}).$$

Since $`T_N(0,n)\psi (Q^{})=e(nQ^{}/N)\psi (Q^{})`$, we get

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \mathrm{Op}_N(g_{N,Q})\psi (Q^{})& =\underset{m,n𝐙}{}\widehat{g_{N,Q}}(m,n)T_N(m,n)\psi (Q^{})\hfill \\ & =\underset{n𝐙}{}\widehat{g_{N,Q}}(0,n)T_N(0,n)\psi (Q^{})\hfill \\ & =\underset{n𝐙}{}\widehat{g_{N,Q}}(0,n)e(nQ^{}/N)\psi (Q^{})\hfill \\ & =g_{N,Q}(0,Q^{})\psi (Q^{})=G_N(\frac{Q^{}Q}{N})\psi (Q^{})\hfill \end{array}$$

Since the support of $`G_N(x)`$ is contained in $`(1/2N,1/2N)`$ modulo 1, and $`G_N(0)=N`$, we get

$$\mathrm{Op}_N(g_{N,Q})\psi (Q^{})=\{\begin{array}{cc}N\psi (Q)\hfill & \text{if }Q^{}=QmodN\hfill \\ 0\hfill & \text{otherwise.}\hfill \end{array}$$

Hence

$$\mathrm{Op}_N(g_{N,Q})\psi ,\psi =\frac{1}{N}\underset{Q^{}modN}{}G_N(\frac{Q^{}Q}{N})|\psi (Q^{})|^2=|\psi (Q)|^2$$

###### Lemma 5.

Let $`\psi _1,\mathrm{},\psi _N_N`$. Then for all $`Q𝐙/N𝐙`$

$$\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}|\psi _j(Q)|^8\left(\underset{n𝐙}{}|\widehat{f}(\frac{n}{N})|\left(\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}|T_N(0,n)\psi _j,\psi _j|^4\right)^{1/4}\right)^4$$

###### Proof.

For ease of notation we put

$$t_j(n)=|T_N(0,n)\psi _j,\psi _j|.$$

By the previous lemma,

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill |\psi _j(Q)|^2& =\mathrm{Op}_N(g_{N,Q})\psi _j,\psi _j\hfill \\ & \underset{n𝐙}{}|\widehat{g_{N,Q}}(0,n)|t_j(n)\hfill \\ & =\underset{n𝐙}{}|\widehat{f}(\frac{n}{N})|t_j(n)\hfill \end{array}$$

on using (5). Thus

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}|\psi _j(Q)|^8& \underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}\left(\underset{n𝐙}{}|\widehat{f}(\frac{n}{N})|t_j(n)\right)^4\hfill \\ & =\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}\underset{n_1,n_2,n_3,n_4𝐙}{}\underset{k=1}{\overset{4}{}}|\widehat{f}(\frac{n_k}{N})|t_j(n_k).\hfill \end{array}$$

Applying Cauchy-Schwartz twice we get that

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}t_j(n_1)t_j(n_2)t_j(n_3)t_j(n_4)& \sqrt{\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}t_j(n_1)^2t_j(n_2)^2}\sqrt{\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}t_j(n_3)t_j(n_4)}\hfill \\ & \underset{k=1}{\overset{4}{}}\left(\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}t_j(n_k)^4\right)^{1/4}\hfill \end{array}$$

and hence

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}|\psi _j(Q)|^8& \underset{n_1,n_2,n_3,n_4𝐙}{}\underset{k=1}{\overset{4}{}}\left(|\widehat{f}(\frac{n_k}{N})|\left(\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}t_j(n_k)^4\right)^{1/4}\right)\hfill \\ & =\left(\underset{n𝐙}{}|\widehat{f}(\frac{n}{N})|\left(\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}t_j(n)^4\right)^{1/4}\right)^4\hfill \end{array}$$

### 3.2. A counting problem

Recall that we identified the action of the matrix $`A`$ on $`𝐙^2`$ with multiplication by its eigenvalue $`\alpha `$ on the ideal $`I𝐙[\alpha ]`$. Let $`\iota :I𝐙^2`$ be the identification given in (4). We will need the following Proposition (\[KR, Proposition 11\]):

###### Proposition 6.

Fix $`\nu I`$. Then for any orthonormal basis of Hecke eigenfunctions $`\psi _j`$,

$$\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}|T_N(\iota (\nu ))\psi _j,\psi _j|^4\frac{N}{|𝒞_A^\theta (2N)|^4}\mathrm{Sol}(N,\nu )$$

where $`\mathrm{Sol}(N,\nu )`$ is the number of solutions of the equation

(6)
$$\nu (\beta _1\beta _2+\beta _3\beta _4)0modN$$

with $`\beta _1,\mathrm{},\beta _4`$ in $`𝒞_A^\theta (N)`$.

It was also shown that equation (6) has less than $`N^{2+ϵ}`$ solutions for $`\nu `$ fixed, as $`N`$ tends to infinity. However, in the current setup, we need to make the dependence on $`\nu `$ more explicit111If $`n0modN`$, then there are about $`N^4`$ solutions; it is essential to control the contribution from such terms.. Recall that $`\alpha `$ is an eigenvalue of $`A`$, and that $`𝒩:𝐐(\alpha )𝐐`$ is the norm map.

###### Lemma 7.

We have

$$\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}|T_N(0,n)\psi _j,\psi _j|^4\mathrm{gcd}(n,N)^2N^{1+ϵ}$$

###### Proof.

It is sufficient to show that equation 6 has less than

$$\mathrm{gcd}(n,N)^2N^{2+ϵ}$$

solutions. We argue as in \[KR\], section 7, except for a small twist: If $`(0,1)𝐙^2`$ corresponds to $`\omega I`$, then $`(0,n)`$ corresponds to $`\nu =n\omega `$ since the action is $`𝐙`$-linear. We may thus make $`\nu `$ Galois stable by multiplying by $`\overline{\omega }`$. Since $`\omega `$ is in $`𝐙[\alpha ]`$, the number of solutions to

$$\nu (\beta _1\beta _2+\beta _3\beta _4)0modN,\beta _i𝒞_A^\theta (N)$$

is bounded by the number of solutions of

$$n𝒩(\omega )(\beta _1\beta _2+\beta _3\beta _4)0modN,\beta _i𝒞_A^\theta (N)$$

which in turn is given by the number of solutions to

(7)
$$\beta _1\beta _2+\beta _3\beta _40mod\left(N/\mathrm{gcd}(N,n𝒩(\omega ))\right),\beta _i𝒞_A^\theta (N).$$

Let $`N^{}=N/\mathrm{gcd}(N,n𝒩(\omega ))`$. The number of solutions of equation 7 then equals the product of:

* The number of solutions to

$$\beta _1^{}\beta _2^{}+\beta _3^{}\beta _4^{}0modN^{}\beta _i^{}𝒞_A^\theta (N^{}).$$

where $`\beta _1^{},\mathrm{},\beta _4^{}`$ ranges over all elements in $`𝒞_A^\theta (N^{})`$.
* The number of elements $`(\beta _1,\beta _2,\beta _3,\beta _4)𝒞_A^\theta (N)^4`$ that reduce to the same element $`(\beta _1^{},\beta _2^{},\beta _3^{},\beta _4^{})𝒞_A^\theta (N^{})^4`$.

From proposition 14 in \[KR\], applied with $`\nu =1`$, it follows that the first term is $`(N^{})^{2+ϵ}.`$ For the second term, lemma 20 in \[KR\] gives that the cardinality of the cokernel of the reduction map $`𝒞_A^\theta (N)𝒞_A^\theta (N^{})`$ is uniformly bounded in $`N`$. Hence there are $`(𝒞_A^\theta (N)/𝒞_A^\theta (N^{}))^4`$ elements $`(\beta _1,\beta _2,\beta _3,\beta _4)`$ that reduce to $`(\beta _1^{},\beta _2^{},\beta _3^{},\beta _4^{})`$ modulo $`N^{}`$.

Finally, from lemma 8 in \[KR\] we have

$$N^{1ϵ}|𝒞_A^\theta (N)|N^{1+ϵ}$$

and thus

$$𝒞_A^\theta (N)/𝒞_A^\theta (N^{})(N/N^{})^{1+ϵ}.$$

The number of solutions is therefore bounded by

$$(N^{})^{2+ϵ}\times (N/N^{})^{4+ϵ}N^{2+ϵ}\mathrm{gcd}(n𝒩(\omega ),N)^{2+ϵ}N^{2+2ϵ}\mathrm{gcd}(n,N)^2.$$

###### Lemma 8.

For all $`ϵ>0`$,

$$\underset{n𝐙}{}|\widehat{f}(\frac{n}{N})|\mathrm{gcd}(n,N)^{1/2}_ϵN^{1+ϵ}.$$

###### Proof.

Let $`R=1/ϵ`$. Since $`f`$ is smooth and compactly supported, $`|\widehat{f}(\frac{n}{N})|1`$ for $`|n|N^{1+1/R}`$, and $`|\widehat{f}(\frac{n}{N})|\frac{1}{(n/N)^R}`$ for $`|n|N^{1+1/R}`$.

Trivially, $`\mathrm{gcd}(n,N)^{1/2}N`$, so

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \underset{|n|N^{1+1/R}}{}|\widehat{f}(\frac{n}{N})|\mathrm{gcd}(n,N)^{1/2}& \underset{|n|N^{1+1/R}}{}\frac{N}{(n/N)^R}\hfill \\ & =N^{R+1}\underset{|n|N^{1+1/R}}{}n^R\hfill \\ & \frac{N^{R+1}}{(N^{1+1/R})^{R1}}=N^{1+1/R}\hfill \end{array}$$

For the sum over small $`n`$, we have

(8)
$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \underset{|n|N^{1+1/R}}{}|\widehat{f}(\frac{n}{N})|\mathrm{gcd}(n,N)^{1/2}& \underset{|n|N^{1+1/R}}{}\mathrm{gcd}(n,N)^{1/2}\hfill \\ & N^{1/R}\underset{n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}\mathrm{gcd}(n,N)^{1/2}.\hfill \end{array}$$

We note that

(9)
$$\underset{n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}\mathrm{gcd}(n,N)^{1/2}N^{1+ϵ}.$$

Indeed,

$$\underset{n=0}{\overset{N1}{}}\mathrm{gcd}(n,N)^{1/2}=\underset{d|N}{}d^{1/2}\underset{nN,\mathrm{gcd}(n,N)=d}{}1\underset{d|N}{}d^{1/2}\frac{N}{d}=N\underset{d|N}{}d^{1/2}.$$

Now $`_{d|N}d^{1/2}`$ is bounded by the number of divisors of $`N`$, and hence is $`N^ϵ`$ for all $`ϵ>0`$.

Therefore from (8) and (9) we get

$$\underset{|n|N^{1+1/R}}{}|\widehat{f}(\frac{n}{N})|\mathrm{gcd}(n,N)^{1/2}\underset{|n|N^{1+1/R}}{}\mathrm{gcd}(n,N)^{1/2}N^{1/R+1+ϵ}.$$

### 3.3. Conclusion of the proof

Let $`\{\psi _j\}_{i=1}^N`$ be an orthonormal basis of $`_N`$ such that $`\psi _1=\psi `$, and each $`\psi _j`$ is a Hecke eigenfunction. We will then bound $`|\psi (Q)|^8`$ trivially by the sum $`_{j=1}^N|\psi _j(Q)|^8`$.

By lemma 5,

$$\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}|\psi _j(Q)|^8\left(\underset{n𝐙}{}|\widehat{f}(\frac{n}{N})|\left(\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}|T_N(0,n)\psi _j,\psi _j|^4\right)^{1/4}\right)^4$$

and from Lemma 7 we have

$$\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}|T_N(0,n)\psi _j,\psi _j|^4\mathrm{gcd}(n,N)^2N^{1+ϵ}$$

Lemma 8 then gives that

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}|\psi _j(Q)|^8& N^{1+ϵ}(\underset{n𝐙}{}|\widehat{f}(\frac{n}{N})|\mathrm{gcd}(n,N)^{1/2})^4\hfill \\ & N^{1+ϵ}\left(N^{1+ϵ}\right)^4N^{3+5ϵ}\hfill \end{array}$$

and thus

$$|\psi (Q)|N^{3/8+ϵ}$$

as required. ∎

## 4. Uniform boundedness for split primes

### 4.1. Explicit construction of Hecke eigenfunctions

Let $`N=p`$ be an odd “split” prime, i.e. a prime $`p`$ which does not divide $`(\mathrm{tr}A)^24`$ such that $`A`$ is diagonalizable modulo $`p`$. We also assume that $`A`$ is not triangular mod $`p`$, that is $`p`$ does not divide any of the off-diagonal entries of $`A`$. For such $`p`$, we give an explicit construction of the Hecke eigenfunctions (see \[DEGI\] for an alternative approach to constructing these). This construction will enable us to prove Theorems 2 and 3.

The condition above implies that $`N=p`$ is an odd prime that splits in $`K`$ and does not divide the conductor222Recall that $`𝔒`$ can be written as $`𝐙+f𝔒_K`$; the integer $`f`$ is called the conductor of $`𝔒`$. of $`𝔒`$. Since $`p`$ does not divide the conductor of $`𝔒`$, we have $`𝔒/p𝔒𝔒_K/p𝔒_K`$. Moreover, since $`p`$ splits in $`K`$, $`(𝔒_K/p𝔒_K)^\times (𝐙/p𝐙)^\times \times (𝐙/p𝐙)^\times `$, and from lemma 19 in \[KR\] we get that $`𝒞_A^\theta (p)(𝐙/p𝐙)^\times `$. On the other hand, since $`p`$ is odd, we have $`𝒞_A^\theta (2p)𝒞_A^\theta (p)`$, hence $`𝒞_A^\theta (2p)`$ is a cyclic group of order $`p1`$. Let $`\beta `$ be the generator of this group, and let $`B\mathrm{\Gamma }(4,2p)`$ be congruent to $`\iota (\beta )`$ modulo $`2p`$. The Hecke operators are then given by $`U_N(B^k)`$. Since the order of $`B`$ modulo $`p`$ is $`p1`$, $`B`$ can be diagonalized modulo $`p`$ (all elements in $`(𝐙/p𝐙)^\times `$ are $`p1`$ roots of unity.) Let $`(B_2,B_p)`$ denote the mod $`2`$ and mod $`p`$ reductions of $`B`$. Since $`B\mathrm{\Gamma }(4,2p)`$ we find that $`B_2`$ is the identity matrix, and as $`B_p`$ is diagonalizable there exists $`D,M\mathrm{\Gamma }(4,2p)`$ such that $`D\left(\begin{array}{cc}t& 0\\ 0& t^1\end{array}\right)mod2p`$ is diagonal and

$$BMDM^1mod2p$$

Because all matrices lie in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(4,2p)`$, the multiplicativity property (3) implies that $`U_N(B)=U_N(M)U_N(D)U_N(M)^1`$.

Now, $`U_N`$ is constructed as a tensor product $`U_N=_{p^k||N}U_{p^k}`$ and since $`B_2`$ is trivial, we find the action is determined by $`B_p`$. Recall from section 4 of \[KR\] that the action of diagonal matrices on $`\psi L^2(𝐙/p𝐙)`$ is given by

$$\left(U_p\left(D\right)\psi \right)(x)=\mathrm{\Lambda }_p(t)\psi (tx)$$

where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_p(t)`$ is the quadratic character of $`(𝐙/p𝐙)^\times `$. Thus, if $`\chi `$ is a character on $`(𝐙/p𝐙)^\times `$, extended to $`𝐙/p𝐙`$ by letting $`\chi (0)=0`$, we find that $`\chi `$ is an eigenfunction of $`U_p\left(D\right)`$. We also find that $`\delta (x)`$, where $`\delta (0)=1`$ and $`\delta (x)=0`$ for $`x0`$, is an eigenfunction.

If $`f`$ is an eigenfunction of $`U_p(D)`$, then $`U_p(M)f`$ is an eigenfunction of $`U_p(B)`$ since

$$U_p(B)U_p(M)f=U_p(M)U_p(D)U_p(M^1)U_p(M)f=U_p(M)U_p(D)f$$

But $`U_p(B)`$ generates the group of Hecke operators, hence any Hecke eigenfunction will either be of the form $`U_p(M)\chi `$, for $`\chi `$ nontrivial, or a linear combination of $`U_p(M)\chi _0`$ and $`U_p(M)\delta `$ for $`\chi _0`$ trivial.

### 4.2. A reduction to exponential sums

We first note that $`M`$ is not upper triangular modulo $`p`$, otherwise the same would hold for $`B`$. Since $`A`$ is a power of $`B`$ (modulo $`p`$), this would imply that $`A`$ is upper triangular modulo $`p`$, which is contrary to our assumption on $`p`$. Thus we may use the Bruhat decomposition of $`SL(2,𝐙/p𝐙)`$ to write

(10)
$$M=\left[\begin{array}{cc}1& b_1\\ 0& 1\end{array}\right]\left[\begin{array}{cc}0& 1\\ 1& 0\end{array}\right]\left[\begin{array}{cc}1& b_2\\ 0& 1\end{array}\right]\left[\begin{array}{cc}t& 0\\ 0& 1/t\end{array}\right]$$

for some $`b_1,b_2,t`$ (depending on $`p`$). From section 4 of \[KR\], we obtain that for $`\psi L^2(𝐙/p𝐙)`$,

(11)
$$(U_p(M)\psi )(x)=\mathrm{\Lambda }_p(t)\frac{e_p(r_pb_1x^2)}{\sqrt{p}}\underset{y=1}{\overset{p}{}}e_p(r_p(b_2y^2+2xy))\psi (ty)$$

where $`r_p`$ is the inverse of $`2modp`$, and $`e_p(x):=e^{2\pi ix/p}`$.

#### 4.2.1. The case $`\psi =U_p(M)\chi `$

We begin with the following lemma on exponential sums:

###### Lemma 9.

If $`r_p0modp`$ then

1. If $`\chi `$ is nontrivial and $`b_20modp`$ then

$$\left|\underset{y=1}{\overset{p}{}}e_p(r_p(b_2y^2+2xy))\chi (y)\right|2\sqrt{p}$$
2. If $`\chi =\chi _0`$ is trivial or $`b_2=0modp`$ then

$$\left|\underset{y=1}{\overset{p1}{}}e_p(r_p(b_2y^2+2xy))\chi (y)\right|=\sqrt{p}$$

###### Proof.

If $`\chi `$ is trivial or $`b_20modp`$ then we can express the sum as a classical Gauss sum, and in this case the result is well known. For $`\chi `$ nontrivial, we note that the degree of $`r_p(b_2y^2+2xy)`$ is coprime to $`p`$, hence we may apply Weil’s bound \[Weil\] on exponential sums (see \[Sch, page 45, Theorem 2G \]) to obtain

$$\left|\underset{y=1}{\overset{p}{}}e_p(r_p(b_2y^2+2xy))\chi (y)\right|2\sqrt{p}$$

Note that the bound is independent of the order of $`\chi `$! ∎

###### Corollary 10.

Let $`\psi =\sqrt{p/(p1)}U_p(M)\chi `$. Then $`\psi _2=1`$, $`|\psi |\sqrt{p/(p1)}`$ if $`\chi `$ is the trivial character, and for nontrivial characters $`\chi `$

$$\psi _{\mathrm{}}2\sqrt{p/(p1)}.$$

#### 4.2.2. The case $`f=U_p(M)\delta `$

###### Lemma 11.

Let $`\psi _{\mathrm{},p}=\sqrt{p}U_p(M)\delta `$. Then $`\psi _{\mathrm{},p}_2=1=\psi _{\mathrm{},p}_{\mathrm{}}`$.

###### Proof.

$`\psi _{\mathrm{},p}_2=1`$ since $`\delta _2^2=1/p`$ and $`U_p(M)`$ is unitary. From equation 11 we get

$$\begin{array}{c}|\psi _{\mathrm{},p}(x)|=\left|\sqrt{p}(U_p(M)\delta )(x)\right|\hfill \\ \hfill =\left|\sqrt{p}\mathrm{\Lambda }_p(t)\frac{e_p(r_pb_1x^2)}{\sqrt{p}}\underset{y=1}{\overset{p}{}}e_p(r_p(b_2y^2+2xy))\delta (ty)\right|=1\end{array}$$

since $`\delta (ty)=0`$ unless $`y=0`$. Hence $`\psi _{\mathrm{},p}_{\mathrm{}}=1`$. ∎

Theorem 2 follows immediately from Corollary 10 and Lemma 11.

## 5. Value distribution for split primes

Let $`p`$ be a split prime for our map $`A`$. We assume that $`A`$ is not triangular mod $`p`$. To prove Theorem 3, we again use (11), which says that we can write the normalized Hecke eigenfunctions $`\psi _{\chi ,p}`$ for nontrivial $`\chi `$ as

$$\psi _{\chi ,p}(x)=\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_p(t_p)e_p(r_pb_{1,p}x^2)}{\sqrt{p1}}\underset{ymodp}{}e_p(r_p(b_{2,p}y^2+2xy))\chi (y)$$

where $`r_p`$ is the inverse of $`2`$ modulo $`p`$, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_p`$ is the unique quadratic character mod $`p`$, and $`t_p`$, $`b_{1,p}`$ and $`b_{2,p}`$ come from the Bruhat decomposition (10) of the diagonalizing matrix $`M_p`$ for $`A`$.

Note that $`b_{2,p}0modp`$ for $`p`$ as in our assumptions, since otherwise from (10), we find that

$$M_p=\left[\begin{array}{cc}b_{1,p}t_p& 1/t_p\\ t_p& 0\end{array}\right]$$

and consequently the matrix $`B`$ is upper triangular:

$$B=MDM^1=\left[\begin{array}{cc}1/t_p& b_{1,p}(t_p1/t_p)\\ 0& t_p\end{array}\right].$$

Since $`A`$ is a power of $`Bmodp`$, this implies that $`A`$ is also upper triangular, contradicting our assumption on $`p`$ .

Thus we may express the absolute value of $`\psi _{\chi ,p}`$ in terms of the exponential sums

$$H_p(\chi ,R)(t)=\underset{ymodp}{}e_p(R(y^2+ty))\chi (y).$$

First define (following N. Katz) a normalization $`F_p(\chi ,R)(t)`$ of these sums as ($`R0modp`$):

$$F_p(\chi ,R)(t)=\frac{e_p(Rt^2/8)}{\sqrt{\chi (1/2)G(R,\chi )G(R,\mathrm{\Lambda }_p)}}H_p(\chi ,R)(t)$$

where $`G(R,\chi )=_{xmodp}\chi (x)e_p(Rx)`$ are Gauss sums, and $`\sqrt{}`$ denotes any choice of the square root. Then we have:

(12)
$$|\psi _{\chi ,p}(x)|=\frac{1}{\sqrt{11/p}}\left|F_p(\chi ,r_pb_{2,p})(\frac{2x}{b_{2,p}})\right|.$$

Concerning the the normalized sums $`F_p(\chi ,R)(t)`$, Katz proved the following value distribution and statistical independence theorem:

###### Theorem 12 (\[Ka\] ).

Let $`p`$ be an odd prime, $`\chi `$ be a nontrivial character mod $`p`$ and $`R0modp`$. Then

1. The normalized sums $`F_p(\chi ,R)(t)`$ are real and take values in the interval $`[2,2]`$.
2. As $`p\mathrm{}`$, the $`p`$ numbers $`\{F_p(\chi ,R)(t)/2:tmodp\}`$ become equidistributed in $`[1,1]`$ with respect to the semi-circle measure $`\frac{2}{\pi }\sqrt{1u^2}du`$.
3. For any $`r2`$, and a choice of $`r`$ distinct nontrivial characters $`\chi _1,\mathrm{},\chi _r`$, the $`p`$ vectors

$$\{(F_p(\chi _1,R)(t)/2,\mathrm{},F_p(\chi _r,R)(t)/2):tmodp\}$$

become equidistributed in $`[1,1]^r`$ with respect to the product of the semi-circle measures.

By virtue of the relation (12) between the normalized eigenfunctions $`f_\chi `$ and the normalized sums $`F_p(\chi ,R)`$, Theorem 3 is an immediate consequence of Katz’s theorem and the following general lemma:

###### Lemma 13.

Let $`\{f_p(t),t=1,\mathrm{},p\}`$ be a sequence of $`p`$ points in the interval $`[0,1]`$ which become equidistributed as $`p\mathrm{}`$ with respect to a probability measure $`\rho (x)dx`$ having a continuous density $`\rho `$. Suppose $`\{g_p(t):t=1,\mathrm{},p\}`$ is another sequence of points so that $`g_p(t)=\theta _pf_p(t)`$, with $`\theta _p=1+o(1)`$. Then $`\{g_p(t):t=1,\mathrm{},p\}`$ is also equidistributed in $`[0,1]`$ with respect to $`\rho (x)dx`$.

We leave the proof of this as a simple exercise for the reader.


text:
# Comparison of Josephson vortex flow transistors with different gate line configurations

## Abstract

We performed numerical simulations and experiments on Josephson vortex flow transistors based on parallel arrays of $`\mathrm{YBa}_2\mathrm{Cu}_3\mathrm{O}_{7\delta }`$ grain boundary junctions with a cross gate-line allowing to operate the same devices in two different modes named Josephson fluxon transistor (JFT) and Josephson fluxon-antifluxon transistor (JFAT). The simulations yield a general expression for the current gain vs. number of junctions and normalized loop inductance and predict higher current gain for the JFAT. The experiments are in good agreement with simulations and show improved coupling between gate line and junctions for the JFAT as compared to the JFT.

The availability of a superconducting transistor is expected to significantly expand the application range of superconducting electronics. This has stimulated considerable activities towards the development of three-terminal devices based on Josephson junctions from high-transition-temperature superconductors (HTS), which offer high intrinsic speed due to large products of critical current times junction resistance. Among the various types which have been investigated, the Josephson vortex flow transistor (JVFT) shows probably the most promising performance . In JVFTs the density of Josephson vortices in either a long Josephson junction or a parallel array of $`N`$ small junctions is controlled by applying a magnetic field via a control (gate) current $`I_g`$ flowing through a gate line. Hence, the critical current $`I_c`$ or the voltage $`V`$ across the junction(s), if biased at $`I_b>I_c`$, is controlled by $`I_g`$. A figure of merit is the current gain $`g=|dI_c/dI_g|_{max}`$, which is defined as the slope of the $`I_c(I_g)`$ characteristics in its steepest point. To maximize the current gain various JVFT designs have been developed which basically differ in (i) the type of Josephson junctions, i.e. either a single long junction or an array of $`N`$ short junctions, coupled via $`N`$-1 loops (ii) the junction geometry, e.g. symmetric overlap or asymmetric in-line type and (iii) the gate line geometry, in particular the relative orientation of the gate line with respect to the junction(s).

We will focus here on parallel arrays of Josephson junctions which offer more flexibility in design parameters as compared to long junction JVFTs (e.g. variation of loop inductance $`L`$ via the loop dimensions). In a standard geometry the gate line is positioned parallel to the array, as shown in Fig.1(a). We refer to this configuration as the Josephson fluxon transistor (JFT). In this design the current gain can be drastically improved by introducing an asymmetric junction geometry . Alternatively, instead of altering the bias current distribution, the gate line can be oriented perpendicularly to the junctions in the Josephson fluxon-antifluxon transistor (JFAT), shown in Fig.1(b) . The JFAT seems to show improved gain as compared to the symmetric JFT . In this letter we present a comparative study of both designs by numerical simulation and by experiment, which is intended to clarify their different behavior and which has not been understood so far.

To model both the JFT and JFAT we numerically calculated the $`I_c(I_g)`$-characteristics for both gate line geometries by using the image current model  with an algorithm as described in detail in Ref. 5. In brief, the algorithm calculates the distribution of junction currents and transverse currents in a network of $`N`$ parallel junctions coupled by $`N1`$ loops as a function of applied magnetic flux and bias current distribution in a self consistent way. We use the first Josephson equation and fluxoid quantization for each Josephson junction and each loop and current conservation at each node of the array. Solutions for the maximum total supercurrent through the network $`I_c`$ are obtained by an iteration method which is similar to the one developed for long junctions as described in . The gate line is assumed to be separated from the bottom superconducting film by a thin insulating layer, and a gate current $`I_g`$ induces an image current $`I_i=k_iI_g`$ in the superconductor. Obviously, the gain scales linearly with the coupling constant $`0k_i1`$, and for the simulated $`I_c(I_g)`$-characteristics we assume $`k_i=1`$. All simulation results presented here were obtained with the assumption of homogeneous distributions of the bias current $`I_b`$, the critical junction currents $`I_c^0`$ and the inductance $`L`$ of the loops with a fixed ratio $`w_L/h_L=2`$ of loop width $`w_L`$ and loop height $`h_L`$. To a first approximation the value of $`w_L/h_L`$ does only affect the coupling coefficient. Hence, all results regarding the scaling of $`g(N,\beta _L)`$ are not affected by the choice of $`w_L/h_L`$.

From the numerically calculated $`I_c(I_g)`$-characteristics we extract the current gain which depends on the type of gate configuration, number $`N`$ of junctions in the array and on the normalized loop inductance $`\beta _L=2\pi LI_c^0/\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$, where $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$ is the flux quantum. Figure 2 summarizes our simulation results in a plot of gain per junction $`g_{sim}/N`$ vs. $`\beta _L`$ for the JFT (open symbols) and the JFAT (solid symbols) for different values of $`N`$. For $`N5`$ the gain $`g_{sim}`$ is linear in $`N`$ for both gate line configurations. Only in the case of $`N=3`$ the gains per junction are noticeably lower. Furthermore, $`g_{sim}/N`$ increases monotonically with $`\beta _L`$ and saturates at $`g_{sim}/N=g_{\mathrm{}}`$ if $`\beta _L\beta _0`$. Finally, $`g_{sim}/N`$ is higher for the JFAT than for the corresponding JFT, except for small values $`\beta _L2.4`$ (for $`N=3`$) and $`\beta _L0.6`$ (for $`N5`$). In any case, $`g_{sim}(N,\beta _L)`$ can be very well fitted by

$$g_{sim}=Ng_{\mathrm{}}\frac{\beta _L}{\beta _L+\beta _0},$$
(1)
with the fit parameters $`g_{\mathrm{}}`$ and $`\beta _0`$ given in table I.

To compare our numerical simulation results with the experiment we fabricated JVFTs based on $`\mathrm{YBa}_2\mathrm{Cu}_3\mathrm{O}_{7\delta }`$ (YBCO) grain boundary Josephson junctions. To place the gate line directly over the junction arrays we used a three layer process, with the YBCO film as the bottom layer separated by a polyimide insulating layer from the Au film forming the gate lines. The 100 nm thick YBCO was epitaxially grown by pulsed laser deposition on a symmetric 24 SrTiO3 bicrystal and subsequently patterned using standard photolithography and Ar ion beam milling. Then, the sample was spin coated with polyimide and after a soft-bake the polyimide was photolithographically patterned and post-baked. Finally, the top 50 nm Au layer was deposited by e-beam evaporation using a lift off process to form the gate lines. All fabricated devices discussed in this paper have loop dimensions $`w_L=6\mu `$m and $`h_L=3\mu `$m, and 1-2$`\mu `$m wide junctions. Figure 3 shows a device with $`N=3`$ junctions. Our design with a cross gate configuration permits two modes of operation either as a JFT or as a JFAT. This allows direct comparison of both transistor geometries within a single device.

Figure 4 shows a direct comparison of the simulated and the measured $`I_c(I_g)`$-characteristics of the device shown in Fig.3 in both modes of operation at 77.2K. We find reasonably good agreement of the simulated and the measured $`I_c(I_g)`$ characteristics, with $`\beta _L=13.4`$ determined from the modulation depth of $`I_c`$ . Deviations are mainly caused by two aspects, which are not considered in the algorithm. Firstly, the critical current of the individual junctions is suppressed in a magnetic field, leading to reduced maximum $`I_c`$ at the side maxima of the $`I_c(I_g)`$-curves as compared to the maximum $`I_c`$ at $`I_g=0`$. Secondly, our algorithm does not include thermal fluctuations, which lead to a rounding of the measured $`I_c(I_g)`$-characteristics.

Evidently, the experimentally realized gain of the JFAT ($`g_{meas}^{JFAT}=0.643`$) is substantially higher than the gain realized in the JFT mode of operation ($`g_{meas}^{JFT}=0.386`$), which can be attributed to two effects: Firstly, a smaller period $`\mathrm{\Delta }I_g=4\pi I_c^0(1+\frac{h_L}{w_L})/(k_i\beta _L)`$ of the $`I_c(I_g)`$-curves  for the JFAT increases its gain due to improved coupling to the gate line. From the measured $`\mathrm{\Delta }I_g`$ and with $`\beta _L=13.4`$ we determine $`k_i=0.488`$ for the JFAT and $`k_i=0.326`$ for the JFT. Secondly, an asymmetric distortion of the $`I_c(I_g)`$ characteristics of the JFAT increases its gain. This can be explained by considering the JFAT as a parallel connection of two asymmetric in-line type JFTs , with $`(N1)/2`$ loops . This interpretation also explains the absence of the small intermediate $`I_c`$-maxima for the 3-junction JFAT, which are present for the 3-junction JFT \[cf. Fig.4\].

Figure 5 shows a compilation of measured gains and coupling constants for different devices measured at variable temperature. We were able to achieve gains as high as 5.5 for a device with $`N=11`$ junctions, which was operated as a JFAT. Here, only gains have been regarded, where the underlying $`I_c(I_g)`$-characteristic does not show a discontinuity, as in such a point the gain cannot be defined at all.

We note that $`g`$ increases with decreasing $`T`$ for two reasons: Firstly, we expect from our simulations that $`g`$ increases with $`\beta _L`$, which becomes larger by lowering $`T`$ due to increasing $`I_c^0`$. Secondly, the gain increases linearly with $`k_i`$, which is expected to approximately scale as $`1/\lambda _L`$ , in fairly good agreement with the data shown in the inset of Fig.5. To compare the experimental data with the simulation results shown in Fig.2 we normalize the measured gain by the number $`N`$ of junctions and by the fitted $`k_i(T)`$ and plot it vs. $`\beta _L`$ as determined from the modulation depth of $`I_c`$. The result is shown in Fig.6 for the device shown in Fig.3 with $`N=3`$.

We find reasonable agreement between the experimental data and the theoretical lines, which are plotted from eq.(1) with the values for the fitting parameters from table I. The significant scatter of the data points is not surprising, given the scatter in the data of $`k_i(T)`$ for the JFAT and the uncertainty in $`k_i(T)`$ for the JFT for $`T<70`$K \[cf. inset of Fig.5\]. The most significant deviation from the numerical simulation is found for the JFT-data which lie significantly above the theoretical result for $`10<\beta _L<25`$. The reason for this deviation has not been clarified yet.

In conclusion, our numerical simulations of the $`I_c(I_g)`$-characteristics of JVFTs based on a parallel array of junctions with two different gate line configurations predict superior behavior of the JFAT over the JFT with respect to current gain. Our experiments on JVFTs from YBCO Josephson junctions with cross gate geometry allow direct comparison of both types of JVFTs which resulted in an experimental confirmation of the numerical simulation results. The reason for the superior behavior of the JFAT is twofold: (i) the JFAT can be viewed as two parallel JFTs with asymmetric inline junction geometry which induces asymmetric $`I_c(I_g)`$-characteristics and, hence, an increase in current gain over the symmetric JFT, and (ii) the coupling between gate line and the junction array is almost a factor of two higher in the JFAT configuration. The latter effect is not included in the simulation results, but has been shown experimentally.