text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Recently the fate of unstable D-brane systems has been well understood. D-brane anti-D-brane systems in type II superstring theory, non-BPS D-branes in type II, and bosonic D-branes decay to lower dimensional D-branes or the vacuum. Their behavior is analyzed by the potential of a tachyon field in low energy effective actions or in string field theories. The process is explained by the tachyon condensation. The instability is caused by a tachyonic mode of strings which end on unstable branes or one unstable brane.

It is natural to think that if there are branes of various dimensions in a B field and tachyonic modes of strings ending on these branes, the system is unstable and decays to a stable system, a BPS bound state. The stability of Dp-Dp’ system with B field is discussed in . That conjecture is partially verified in a very small region of moduli of a B field : for a D0-D2-brane system in a large B field by using 1/B expansion in string amplitudes , for a D0-D2-brane system in a large B field by using 1/B expansion in boundary string field theory , and for a D0-D6-brane system in a B field in the region near the BPS loci by using a low energy effective action on a D0-brane .

We do not have a formalism which describes the fate of unstable systems composed of branes of various dimensions in a generic B field. We will search for a clue for understanding the mechanism. We consider an unstable system which consists of N coincident D6-branes in a B field and lower dimensional D-branes localized on them. If we turn on a B field on D6-branes, there appear dissolved lower dimensional D-branes with charges $`_2B`$ (D4-branes), $`_4BB`$ (D2-branes), or $`_6BBB`$ (D0-branes) as the Chern-Simons-like term of low energy effective action has the form, $`i\mu _p_{p+1}\text{tr}(\mathrm{exp}(2\pi \alpha ^{}F_2+B_2)\mathrm{\Sigma }_qC_q)`$ . Consequently N D6-branes will acquire D4-brane charges, D2-brane charges, and D0-brane charges. Dp-D(p+2)-brane bound state is D(p+2)-brane with a constant flux, in which a Dp-brane delocalizes and dissolves in a D(p+2)-brane. Therefore, the final state will be a BPS bound state, made of D6-branes with dissolved lower dimensional branes. The D0-Dp bound states are discussed recently in .

We will investigate these bound states by using torons , which are topologically stable constant flux solutions with a twisted boundary condition of p+1 dimensional U(N) super Yang-Mills theory  on $`T^p`$ . We find the condition for topological stability in section 3. N coincident D6-branes with diagonal elements of U(N) constant fluxes are T-dual to N D3-branes at angles . We obtain the BPS conditions by using this correspondence in section 2. We calculate brane charges, energy of the bound state, and energy of the system consists of N D6-branes and of localized lower dimensional D-branes on them in a diagonal basis of U(N) in section 4. In section 5 we construct 1/8 BPS and 7/8 SUSY breaking, 1/4 BPS and 3/4 SUSY breaking, and 1/2 BPS solutions spanned by diagonal elements of U(N) fluxes. Super symmetric torons in four dimensions were used to discuss black holes in . These solutions have lower energies than the localized brane systems. The BPS states consist of N coincident D6-branes in which lower dimensional branes are dissolved. We interpret that D0-D2-D6-brane systems in a B field ,in which the D0-branes and the D2-branes are localized on the D6-branes, will decay to the BPS solutions with the aid of the D-brane charge conservation. Energies of D0-D2-D6-brane systems in a B field is bigger than those of the BPS states. We prove that D0-D6-brane systems in a B field can not decay to the BPS solutions in the appendix.

## 2 1/8, 1/4, and 1/2 BPS States of N D6 Systems with Constant Fluxes

There are stable D8, D6, D4, D2, and D0-branes in type IIA super string theory. In the closed string decoupling limit, D-brane effective action is a Dirac-Born-Infeld action, which is Yang-Mills theory in the $`\alpha ^{}0`$ limit. We consider N coincident D6-branes, which are described by the U(N) super Yang-Mills theory. Bound states of N coincident Dp-branes and lower dimensional branes are described by torons  in the super Yang-Mills theory on $`T^p`$ . Torons are classically stable static constant fluxes $`F`$ with a twisted boundary condition. We will seek for a class of solutions, which is 1/8, 1/4, and 1/2 BPS and is spanned by diagonal elements of U(N) constant fluxes. U(1) part of this solution can be identified with the U(1) part of the field strength plus the NS-NS B field, because these two fields are connected by gauge transformation and the DBI lagrangian has the form $`\sqrt{det(1+B+2\pi \alpha ^{}F)}`$ turned on a B field. We write $`=B+2\pi \alpha ^{}F`$ in the following. We put an ansatz,

$$_{\mu \nu }=_{\mu \nu }^av^a,$$

$$v^1=diag(10\mathrm{}0),v^2=diag(010\mathrm{}0),\mathrm{},v^N=diag(0\mathrm{}01),$$

$$_{\mu \nu }^a=\left(\begin{array}{ccccccc}0& 0& 0& 0& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& _{12}^a& 0& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& _{12}^a& 0& 0& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& 0& _{34}^a& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& _{34}^a& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& 0& 0& 0& _{56}^a\\ 0& 0& 0& 0& 0& _{56}^a& 0\end{array}\right).$$
(1)
We use the $`2\pi \alpha ^{}=1`$ convention.

Now, let us turn to the string picture. Because gauge fields of the anzats on the coincident D6-branes have a diagonal part only, a string end on only one of them. We name each D6-brane $`\text{D}^a`$-brane, where $`a`$ runs from 1 to N. On D-branes Neumann boundary conditions of open string is modified when we turn on a gauge field. Of course, both a field strength $`F`$ and a NS-NS B field act on the boundary condition in a similar way,

$$_\sigma X_\mu +_{\mu \nu }^ai_\tau X_\nu =0.$$

This is a boundary condition of an open string ending on the $`\text{D}^a`$-brane. Putting the ansatz, we obtain

$`_\sigma X_1+_{12}^ai_\tau X_2=0`$
$`_\sigma X_3+_{34}^ai_\tau X_4=0`$
$`_\sigma X_5+_{56}^ai_\tau X_6=0.`$
If we apply T-duality in the 2, 4, and 6 directions, Dirichlet conditions turn into Neumann conditions. N coincident D6-branes turn into D3-branes at angles.

$`_\sigma (X_1^{}+_{12}^aX_2^{})=0`$
$`_\sigma (X_3^{}+_{34}^aX_4^{})=0`$
$`_\sigma (X_5^{}+_{56}^aX_6^{})=0.`$
This means that the brane directions satisfy

$`X_2^{}=_{12}^aX_1^{}`$
$`X_4^{}=_{34}^aX_3^{}`$
$`X_6^{}=_{56}^aX_5^{}.`$
In other words, the $`a`$-th brane is obtained by rotating a D3-brane extending (1,3,5). Rotate counterclockwise in the (1,2) plane by $`\varphi _1^a=\mathrm{tan}^1(_{12}^a)`$, in the (3,4) plane by $`\varphi _2^a=\mathrm{tan}^1(_{34}^a)`$, in the (5,6) plane by $`\varphi _3^a=\mathrm{tan}^1(_{56}^a)`$.

First of all, let us consider two D3-branes at angle. Let both initially be extended in the (1,3,5)-directions, and rotate one of them by an angle $`\varphi _1`$ in the (1,2) plane, and so on. The existence of a D-brane breaks 1/2 SUSY. Originally unbroken super charges are

$$Q_\alpha +\beta ^{}\stackrel{~}{Q}_\alpha ,$$
(2)
where $`\beta ^{}`$ is $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^9\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{\Gamma }^8\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{\Gamma }^7\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{\Gamma }^6\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{\Gamma }^4\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{\Gamma }^2\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ for a (1,3,5)-brane. $``$ denotes Dirichlet direction of a D-brane. After the rotation, unbroken super charges are given by

$$Q_\alpha +\rho ^1\beta ^{}\rho \stackrel{~}{Q}_\alpha ,$$

$$\rho =\mathrm{exp}(i\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=1}^3\varphi _is_i),s_i=i/4[\mathrm{\Gamma }^{2i1},\mathrm{\Gamma }^{2i}.]$$

These two sets of the charges coincide with each other if

$$(\beta ^{})^1\rho ^1\beta ^{}\rho =1,$$

which is equivalent to

$$\rho ^2=1.$$

Operator $`s_a`$ has two eigenvalues, 1/2 and $``$1/2. There are eight sets of eigenvalues $`(s_1,s_2,s_3)`$ for generic states. 1/8 BPS condition corresponds to surviving two sets of eigenvalues in eight sets, because 16 superchages (2) correspond to 1/2 and two of eight eigenvalue sets correspond to 1/4. The 1/8 BPS condition for angles and surviving sets of eigenvalues are given by

| state | condition |
| --- | --- |
| $`(+1/2,+1/2,+1/2)`$ | $`\varphi _1+\varphi _2+\varphi _3=0(\text{mod 2}\pi )`$ |
| $`(1/2,1/2,1/2)`$ |  |
| $`(+1/2,+1/2,1/2)`$ | $`\varphi _1+\varphi _2\varphi _3=0(\text{mod 2}\pi )`$ |
| $`(1/2,1/2,+1/2)`$ |  |
| $`(+1/2,1/2,+1/2)`$ | $`\varphi _1\varphi _2+\varphi _3=0(\text{mod 2}\pi )`$ |
| $`(1/2,+1/2,1/2)`$ |  |
| $`(1/2,+1/2,+1/2)`$ | $`\varphi _1+\varphi _2+\varphi _3=0(\text{mod 2}\pi )`$ |
| $`(+1/2,1/2,1/2)`$ |  |

Let us go on to the case of N D3-branes at angles. We will consider only D3-branes which are T-dual to D6-branes with diagonal elements of U(N) constant fluxes. We can identify these D3-branes with $`(\varphi _1^a,\varphi _2^a,\varphi _3^a)`$, where $`a`$ runs from 1 to N. Unbroken super charges of $`D^1`$-brane and those of $`D^a`$-brane coincide with each other if

$$(\rho _a)^2=1,\rho _a=\mathrm{exp}(i\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=1}^3(\varphi _i^a\varphi _i^1)s_i)(a=2,3,\mathrm{},N)$$

The condition for co-existence of $`D^a`$-brane and $`D^b`$-brane is satisfied automatically under the above conditions, as $`\mathrm{exp}(2i\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=1}^3(\varphi _i^a\varphi _i^b)s_i)=(\rho _a)^2(\rho _b)^2.`$ In order to keep 1/8 super charges, two sets of eigenvalues need survive.

| state | condition |
| --- | --- |
| $`(+1/2,+1/2,+1/2)`$ | $`(\varphi _1^{(2)}\varphi _1^{(1)})+(\varphi _2^{(2)}\varphi _2^{(1)})+(\varphi _3^{(2)}\varphi _3^{(1)})`$ |
| $`(1/2,1/2,1/2)`$ | $`=(\varphi _1^{(3)}\varphi _1^{(1)})+(\varphi _2^{(3)}\varphi _2^{(1)})+(\varphi _3^{(3)}\varphi _3^{(1)})`$ |
|  | $`=\mathrm{}`$ |
|  | $`=(\varphi _1^{(N)}\varphi _1^{(1)})+(\varphi _2^{(N)}\varphi _2^{(1)})+(\varphi _3^{(N)}\varphi _3^{(1)})`$ |
|  | $`=0(\text{mod 2}\pi )`$ |
| $`(+1/2,+1/2,1/2)`$ | $`(\varphi _1^{(2)}\varphi _1^{(1)})+(\varphi _2^{(2)}\varphi _2^{(1)})(\varphi _3^{(2)}\varphi _3^{(1)})`$ |
| $`(1/2,1/2,+1/2)`$ | $`=(\varphi _1^{(3)}\varphi _1^{(1)})+(\varphi _2^{(3)}\varphi _2^{(1)})(\varphi _3^{(3)}\varphi _3^{(1)})`$ |
|  | $`=\mathrm{}`$ |
|  | $`=(\varphi _1^{(N)}\varphi _1^{(1)})+(\varphi _2^{(N)}\varphi _2^{(1)})(\varphi _3^{(N)}\varphi _3^{(1)})`$ |
|  | $`=0(\text{mod 2}\pi )`$ |
| $`(+1/2,1/2,+1/2)`$ | $`(\varphi _1^{(2)}\varphi _1^{(1)})(\varphi _2^{(2)}\varphi _2^{(1)})+(\varphi _3^{(2)}\varphi _3^{(1)})`$ |
| $`(1/2,+1/2,1/2)`$ | $`=(\varphi _1^{(3)}\varphi _1^{(1)})(\varphi _2^{(3)}\varphi _2^{(1)})+(\varphi _3^{(3)}\varphi _3^{(1)})`$ |
|  | $`=\mathrm{}`$ |
|  | $`=(\varphi _1^{(N)}\varphi _1^{(1)})(\varphi _2^{(N)}\varphi _2^{(1)})+(\varphi _3^{(N)}\varphi _3^{(1)})`$ |
|  | $`=0(\text{mod 2}\pi )`$ |
| $`(1/2,+1/2,+1/2)`$ | $`(\varphi _1^{(2)}\varphi _1^{(1)})+(\varphi _2^{(2)}\varphi _2^{(1)})+(\varphi _3^{(2)}\varphi _3^{(1)})`$ |
| $`(+1/2,1/2,1/2)`$ | $`=(\varphi _1^{(3)}\varphi _1^{(1)})+(\varphi _2^{(3)}\varphi _2^{(1)})+(\varphi _3^{(3)}\varphi _3^{(1)})`$ |
|  | $`=\mathrm{}`$ |
|  | $`=(\varphi _1^{(N)}\varphi _1^{(1)})+(\varphi _2^{(N)}\varphi _2^{(1)})+(\varphi _3^{(N)}\varphi _3^{(1)})`$ |
|  | $`=0(\text{mod 2}\pi )`$ |

Finally, we obtain the 1/8 BPS condition for the configuration of N D3 branes at angles,

$`\varphi _1^{(1)}+\varphi _2^{(1)}+\varphi _3^{(1)}=\varphi _1^{(2)}+\varphi _2^{(2)}+\varphi _3^{(2)}=\mathrm{}=\varphi _1^{(N)}+\varphi _2^{(N)}+\varphi _3^{(N)}(\text{mod 2}\pi )`$ (6)
or
$`\varphi _1^{(1)}+\varphi _2^{(1)}\varphi _3^{(1)}=\varphi _1^{(2)}+\varphi _2^{(2)}\varphi _3^{(2)}=\mathrm{}=\varphi _1^{(N)}+\varphi _2^{(N)}\varphi _3^{(N)}(\text{mod 2}\pi )`$
or
$`\varphi _1^{(1)}\varphi _2^{(1)}+\varphi _3^{(1)}=\varphi _1^{(2)}\varphi _2^{(2)}+\varphi _3^{(2)}=\mathrm{}=\varphi _1^{(N)}\varphi _2^{(N)}+\varphi _3^{(N)}(\text{mod 2}\pi )`$
or
$`\varphi _1^{(1)}+\varphi _2^{(1)}+\varphi _3^{(1)}=\varphi _1^{(2)}+\varphi _2^{(2)}+\varphi _3^{(2)}=\mathrm{}=\varphi _1^{(N)}+\varphi _2^{(N)}+\varphi _3^{(N)}(\text{mod 2}\pi ).`$
Similarly we obtain 1/4 BPS condition and 1/2 BPS condition. 1/4 BPS condition is

$`\varphi _1^1=\varphi _1^2=\mathrm{}=\varphi _1^N,\varphi _2^1\varphi _3^1=\varphi _2^2\varphi _3^2=\mathrm{}=\varphi _2^N\varphi _3^N(\text{mod 2}\pi )`$ (8)
or
$`\varphi _1^1=\varphi _1^2=\mathrm{}=\varphi _1^N,\varphi _2^1+\varphi _3^1=\varphi _2^2+\varphi _3^2=\mathrm{}=\varphi _2^N+\varphi _3^N(\text{mod 2}\pi ).`$
1/2 BPS condition is

$$\varphi _1^1=\varphi _1^2=\mathrm{}=\varphi _1^N,\varphi _2^1=\varphi _2^2=\mathrm{}=\varphi _2^N,\varphi _3^1=\varphi _3^2=\mathrm{}=\varphi _3^N(\text{mod 2}\pi ).$$
(9)
## 3 Torons, Condition of Stability, Twisted Boundary Condition

We will investigate topologically stable solutions of U(N) super Yang-Mills theory on $`T^6`$, called torons. We are interested only in diagonal elements of U(N) constant field strength, for which an equation of motion is satisfied trivially. A condition of topological stability for a constant flux $``$ is

$$\frac{\delta }{\delta _{\mu \nu }^a}(d^6\text{tr}(_{\mu \nu }^{\mu \nu })\lambda (\frac{1}{3!(2\pi )^3}d^6x\text{tr}()n))=0,$$
(10)
where $`\lambda `$ is a lagrange multiplier, to be determined. $`n`$ is an instanton number, which is a D0-brane charge in the string point of view. We set a D6-brane tension one and also set a D6-brane world volume one. The action has a local minimum as a functional of $`=F+B`$ when a B field is turned on. Equation (10) leads to

$$_{12}^a=\lambda \frac{1}{2(2\pi )^3}_{34}^a_{56}^a$$

$$_{34}^a=\lambda \frac{1}{2(2\pi )^3}_{56}^a_{12}^a$$

$$_{56}^a=\lambda \frac{1}{2(2\pi )^3}_{12}^a_{34}^a$$

where we do not sum over $`a`$. The stability condition reduces to

$$(_{12}^a)^2=(_{34}^a)^2=(_{56}^a)^2,$$
(11)
for each $`a`$. A boundary condition for a constant gauge field $`F`$ needs a twist, which is a boundary gauge transformation . On the other hand, a B field does not need a boundary twist because it is a potential field and a boundary condition of constant B is trivial. We denote short-hand notation for functions defined on a wall of $`T^6`$:

$$f(x_1=0)f(x_1=0,x_2,x_3,x_4,x_5,x_6),$$
(12)
etc. The gauge field obeys a following boundary condition,

$$A_\nu (x_\mu =1)=\mathrm{\Omega }_\mu (A_\nu i\frac{}{x_\nu })\mathrm{\Omega }_\mu ^1(x_\mu =0).$$

For the ansatz (1), boundary twists of $`2i1`$ and $`2i`$ directions are

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_{2i1}=\mathrm{exp}(iF_{2i\mathrm{1\hspace{0.33em}2}i}x_{2i}),\mathrm{\Omega }_{2i}=1,$$

where $`i`$ runs from 1 to 3. We do not sum over $`i`$. These twists need to satisfy the cocycle condition ,

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_\mu (x_\nu =1)\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu (x_\mu =0)=\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu (x_\mu =1)\mathrm{\Omega }_\mu (x_\nu =0)Z,$$

where $`Z`$ is a center of U(N), that is $`\mathrm{exp}(i\theta ).`$ The above condition reduces to a flux quantization condition:

$$\mathrm{exp}(iF_{2i\mathrm{1\hspace{0.33em}2}i}^1)=\mathrm{exp}(iF_{2i\mathrm{1\hspace{0.33em}2}i}^2)=\mathrm{}=\mathrm{exp}(iF_{2i\mathrm{1\hspace{0.33em}2}i}^N)=\mathrm{exp}(i\theta ),$$
(13)
for each $`i`$. These boundary twists suit to solutions which we will construct later. Then, a boundary condition for gauge potential $`A`$ is

$`A_{2i1}(x_\mu =1)`$ $`=`$ $`A_{2i1}(x_\mu =0)`$
$`A_{2i}(x_{2i1}=1)`$ $`=`$ $`A_{2i}(x_{2i1}=0)+iF_{2i\mathrm{1\hspace{0.33em}2}i}`$
$`A_{2i}(x_\mu =1)`$ $`=`$ $`A_{2i}(x_\mu =0),\text{ where }\mu 2i1.`$
With the above boundary condition, a gauge potential whose strength is constant is

$$A_{2i1}=0,A_{2i}=iF_{2i\mathrm{1\hspace{0.33em}2}i}x_{2i1}.$$

Its strength has the form of the ansatz (1).

## 4 Brane Charge, Energy of Bound States, Energy of Localized states

Because there are N D6-branes, D6-brane charge is N. The lower dimensional brane charges can be read off by the Chern-Simons-like term of the string effective action,

$$i\mu _p_{p+1}\text{tr}(\mathrm{exp}(F_2+B_2)\mathrm{\Sigma }_qC_q).$$

Then, a D4-charge is

$$\frac{1}{2\pi }_2\text{tr}().$$

In $`v^a`$ basis, it is

$$\begin{array}{cc}(3,4,5,6)\text{ D4 charge }& \frac{1}{2\pi }\mathrm{\Sigma }_{a=1}^N_{12}^a\\ (1,2,5,6)\text{ D4 charge }& \frac{1}{2\pi }\mathrm{\Sigma }_{a=1}^N_{34}^a\\ (1,2,3,4)\text{ D4 charge }& \frac{1}{2\pi }\mathrm{\Sigma }_{a=1}^N_{56}^a.\end{array}$$
(14)
These are charges of a U(1) B-field. A D2-brane charge is

$$\frac{1}{2(2\pi )^2}_4\text{tr}().$$

Then, it is explicitly,

$$\begin{array}{cc}(1,2)\text{ D2 charge }& \frac{1}{(2\pi )^2}\mathrm{\Sigma }_{a=1}^N_{34}^a_{56}^a\\ (3,4)\text{ D2 charge }& \frac{1}{(2\pi )^2}\mathrm{\Sigma }_{a=1}^N_{56}^a_{12}^a\\ (5,6)\text{ D2 charge }& \frac{1}{(2\pi )^2}\mathrm{\Sigma }_{a=1}^N_{12}^a_{34}^a.\end{array}$$
(15)
A D0-brane charge is

$$\frac{1}{3!(2\pi )^3}_6\text{tr}(),$$

that is

$$\frac{1}{(2\pi )^3}\mathrm{\Sigma }_{a=1}^N_{12}^a_{34}^a_{56}^a.$$
(16)
Now, we can understand physical meaning of the BPS condition and the stability condition (11). We can rewrite the 1/8 BPS condition (6) in terms of the gauge fields,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{_{12}^1+_{34}^1+_{56}^1_{12}^1_{34}^1_{56}^1}{1(_{12}^1_{34}^1+_{34}^1_{56}^1+_{56}^1_{12}^1)}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{_{12}^2+_{34}^2+_{56}^2_{12}^2_{34}^2_{56}^2}{1(_{12}^2_{34}^2+_{34}^2_{56}^2+_{56}^2_{12}^2)}}`$ (17)
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{_{12}^N+_{34}^N+_{56}^N_{12}^N_{34}^N_{56}^N}{1(_{12}^N_{34}^N+_{34}^N_{56}^N+_{56}^N_{12}^N)}}.`$
This is the necessary condition for (6). This relates the lower dimensional brane charges of one D6-brane to those of other D6-branes. 1/4 BPS conditions (8)(8) are

$`_{12}^{(1)}=_{12}^{(2)}=\mathrm{}=_{12}^{(N)},{\displaystyle \frac{_{34}^{(1)}_{56}^{(1)}}{1+_{34}^{(1)}_{56}^{(1)}}}={\displaystyle \frac{_{34}^{(2)}_{56}^{(2)}}{1+_{34}^{(2)}_{56}^{(2)}}}=\mathrm{}={\displaystyle \frac{_{34}^{(N)}_{56}^{(N)}}{1+_{34}^{(N)}_{56}^{(N)}}}`$
or
$`_{12}^{(1)}=_{12}^{(2)}=\mathrm{}=_{12}^{(N)},{\displaystyle \frac{_{34}^{(1)}+_{56}^{(1)}}{1_{34}^{(1)}_{56}^{(1)}}}={\displaystyle \frac{_{34}^{(2)}+_{56}^{(2)}}{1_{34}^{(2)}_{56}^{(2)}}}=\mathrm{}={\displaystyle \frac{_{34}^{(N)}+_{56}^{(N)}}{1_{34}^{(N)}_{56}^{(N)}}}.`$
1/2 BPS condition (9) is

$$_{12}^{(1)}=_{12}^{(2)}=\mathrm{}=_{12}^{(N)},_{34}^{(1)}=_{34}^{(2)}=\mathrm{}=_{34}^{(N)},_{56}^{(1)}=_{56}^{(2)}=\mathrm{}=_{56}^{(N)}.$$

The BPS condition relates the gauge fields on two or more branes. Whereas the stability condition relates the gauge fields of a single brane.

To compare this system with localized brane system, let us calculate the DBI energy . We know that for accurate energy, we have to calculate DBI energy without Yang-Mills energy . As we are dealing with only the diagonal part of U(N) Yang-Mills theory, the DBI action is essentially abelian,

$`E`$ $`=`$ $`\text{tr}\sqrt{det(1+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi }})}`$ (19)
$`=`$ $`\text{tr}\sqrt{(1+(_{12})^2)(1+(_{34})^2)(1+(_{56})^2)}`$
$`=`$ $`\text{tr}(\mathrm{\Sigma }_{a=1}^N(1+(_{12}^a)^2+(_{34}^a)^2+(_{56}^a)^2+(_{12}^a)^2(_{34}^a)^2+(_{34}^a)^2(_{56}^a)^2+(_{56}^a)^2(_{12}^a)^2`$
$`+`$ $`(_{12}^a)^2(_{45}^a)^2(_{56}^a)^2)v^a))^{1/2}`$
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{a=1}^N(1+(_{12}^a)^2+(_{34}^a)^2+(_{56}^a)^2+(_{12}^a)^2(_{34}^a)^2+(_{34}^a)^2(_{56}^a)^2+(_{56}^a)^2(_{12}^a)^2`$
$`+`$ $`(_{12}^a)^2(_{45}^a)^2(_{56}^a)^2)^{1/2}.`$
We have used the $`v^a`$ basis and the Taylor expansion.

Next, let us calculate energy of the state in which lower dimensional branes are localized on N coincident D6-branes. The energy of each brane is absolute value of charge times brane tension times world volume. Then, energy of the localized state $`E_{local}`$ is

$`E_{local}`$ $`=`$ $`N`$ (20)
$`+`$ $`|\mathrm{\Sigma }_{a=1}^N_{12}^a|+|\mathrm{\Sigma }_{a=1}^N_{34}^a|+|\mathrm{\Sigma }_{a=1}^N_{56}^a|`$
$`+`$ $`|\mathrm{\Sigma }_{a=1}^N_{12}^a_{34}^a|+|\mathrm{\Sigma }_{a=1}^N_{34}^a_{56}^a|+|\mathrm{\Sigma }_{a=1}^N_{56}^a_{12}^a|`$
$`+`$ $`|\mathrm{\Sigma }_{a=1}^N_{12}^a_{34}^a_{56}^a|.`$
## 5 Solutions and Their Physical Meaning

We construct 1/8 BPS and 7/8 SUSY breaking solutions which are topologically stable and are spanned by diagonal elements of U(N) constant field strengths. We also set a condition that solutions do not satisfy 1/4 nor 1/2 BPS conditions (8) (8) (9).

Under the condition of topological stability (11) and BPS condition (6)we find <sup>2</sup><sup>2</sup>2We also find solutions which consist of $`(_{12}^{(1)},_{34}^{(1)},_{56}^{(1)})=(2\pi /3M,2\pi /3M,2\pi /3M)`$ and $`(_{12}^{(i)},_{34}^{(i)},_{56}^{(i)})=(2\pi M,2\pi M,2\pi M)\text{ or }(2\pi M,2\pi M,2\pi M)\text{ or }(2\pi M,2\pi M,2\pi M)`$, where $`i`$ runs 2 to $`N`$. This and (21) are a complete system under the condition of topological stability (11) and BPS condition (6). The solutions have the same property as (21).

$`(_{12}^{(1)},_{34}^{(1)},_{56}^{(1)})`$ $`=`$ $`(2\pi M,2\pi M,2\pi M)`$
$`(_{12}^{(2)},_{34}^{(2)},_{56}^{(2)})`$ $`=`$ $`(2\pi M,2\pi M,2\pi M)`$
$`(_{12}^{(3)},_{34}^{(3)},_{56}^{(3)})`$ $`=`$ $`(2\pi M,2\pi M,2\pi M)`$
$`(_{12}^{(i)},_{34}^{(i)},_{56}^{(i)})`$ $`=`$ $`(2\pi M,2\pi M,2\pi M)\text{ or }(2\pi M,2\pi M,2\pi M)`$ (21)
$`\text{or }(2\pi M,2\pi M,2\pi M),`$
in case of (6),

$`(_{12}^{(1)},_{34}^{(1)},_{56}^{(1)})`$ $`=`$ $`(2\pi M,2\pi M,2\pi M)`$
$`(_{12}^{(2)},_{34}^{(2)},_{56}^{(2)})`$ $`=`$ $`(2\pi M,2\pi M,2\pi M)`$
$`(_{12}^{(3)},_{34}^{(3)},_{56}^{(3)})`$ $`=`$ $`(2\pi M,2\pi M,2\pi M)`$
$`(_{12}^{(i)},_{34}^{(i)},_{56}^{(i)})`$ $`=`$ $`(2\pi M,2\pi M,2\pi M)\text{ or }(2\pi M,2\pi M,2\pi M)`$ (22)
$`\text{or }(2\pi M,2\pi M,2\pi M),`$
where $`i`$ runs from 4 to N. M is a moduli parameter. It is integral because of the flux quantization condition (13). It is proportional to N because of the charge quantization of lower dimensional branes. We will explicitly find all the charges later. There is no solution in case of $`N<3`$. There is freedom to permute $`a`$ of $`^{(a)}`$. Solutions of the BPS conditions (6) (6) are the permutation of $`(_{12},_{34},_{56})`$ of $`(\text{22})`$. From now on, we will investigate only (21) case for simplicity. U(1) parts of these solutions proportional to $`diag(1,1,\mathrm{},1)`$ are

$`B_{12}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}2\pi M(1+\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=4}^N\sigma _{12}^i)`$
$`B_{34}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}2\pi M(1+\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=4}^N\sigma _{34}^i)`$
$`B_{56}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}2\pi M(1+\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=4}^N\sigma _{56}^i),`$
where $`\sigma _{12}^i`$ is a sign of $`_{12}^{(i)}`$, which is a coefficient of M and so on. Charges of lower dimensional branes are

|  | charges of the BPS solution | ’charges from the B field’ |
| --- | --- | --- |
| D4 (3456) | $`M(1+\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=4}^N\sigma _{12}^i)`$ | $`M(1+\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=4}^N\sigma _{12}^i)`$ |
| D4 (1256) | $`M(1+\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=4}^N\sigma _{34}^i)`$ | $`M(1+\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=4}^N\sigma _{34}^i)`$ |
| D4 (1234) | $`M(1+\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=4}^N\sigma _{56}^i)`$ | $`M(1+\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=4}^N\sigma _{56}^i)`$ |
| D2 (12) | $`M^2(1+\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=4}^N\sigma _{34}^i\sigma _{56}^i)`$ | $`\frac{1}{N}M^2(1+\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=4}^N\sigma _{34}^i)(1+\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=4}^N\sigma _{56}^i)`$ |
| D2 (34) | $`M^2(1+\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=4}^N\sigma _{12}^i\sigma _{56}^i)`$ | $`\frac{1}{N}M^2(1+\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=4}^N\sigma _{12}^i)(1+\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=4}^N\sigma _{56}^i)`$ |
| D2 (56) | $`M^2(1+\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=4}^N\sigma _{12}^i\sigma _{34}^i)`$ | $`\frac{1}{N}M^2(1+\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=4}^N\sigma _{12}^i)(1+\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=4}^N\sigma _{34}^i)`$ |
| D0 | $`M^3(3+\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=4}^N\sigma _{12}^i\sigma _{34}^i\sigma _{56}^i)`$ | $`\frac{1}{N^2}M^3(1+\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=4}^N\sigma _{12}^i)(1+\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=4}^N\sigma _{34}^i)(1+\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=4}^N\sigma _{56}^i)`$ |

The ’charges from the B field’ are charges from a B field substituted for $``$ in (14) (15) (16). What it means will be explained later.

We construct 1/4 BPS and 3/4 SUSY breaking solutions which are topologically stable and are spanned by diagonal elements of U(N) constant field strengths. We also set the condition that solutions do not satisfy the 1/2 BPS conditions (9). Under the condition of topological stability (11) and BPS condition (8) (8) we find

in case of (8),

$`_{12}^{(1)}=_{12}^{(2)}=\mathrm{}=_{12}^{(N)}=2\pi M`$
$`(_{34}^{(1)},_{56}^{(1)})=(_{34}^{(2)},_{56}^{(2)})=\mathrm{}=(_{34}^{(k)},_{56}^{(k)})=(2\pi M,2\pi M)`$
$`(_{34}^{(k+1)},_{56}^{(k+1)})=(_{34}^{(k+2)},_{56}^{(k+2)})=\mathrm{}=(_{34}^{(N)},_{56}^{(N)})=(2\pi M,2\pi M),`$ (23)
where $`k`$ runs from 1 to N$``$1, in case of (8),

$`_{12}^{(1)}=_{12}^{(2)}=\mathrm{}=_{12}^{(N)}=2\pi M`$
$`(_{34}^{(1)},_{56}^{(1)})=(_{34}^{(2)},_{56}^{(2)})=\mathrm{}=(_{34}^{(k)},_{56}^{(k)})=(2\pi M,2\pi M)`$
$`(_{34}^{(k+1)},_{56}^{(k+1)})=(_{34}^{(k+2)},_{56}^{(k+2)})=\mathrm{}=(_{34}^{(N)},_{56}^{(N)})=(2\pi M,2\pi M),`$ (24)
where $`k`$ runs from 1 to N$``$1. M is the moduli parameter which is integral and proportional to N. There is no solution in case of $`N<2`$. There are freedom to change the permutation of $`a`$ of $`_{\mu \nu }^{(a)}`$. There are also freedom to change the permutation of $`(_{12},_{34},_{56})`$. From now on, we will investigate only (23) case for simplicity. The U(1) parts of these solutions proportional to $`diag(1,1,\mathrm{},1)`$ are

$`B_{12}=2\pi M`$
$`B_{34}={\displaystyle \frac{2kN}{N}}2\pi M`$
$`B_{56}={\displaystyle \frac{N2k}{N}}2\pi M.`$
Charges of lower dimensional branes are

|  | charges of the BPS solution | ’charges from the B field’ |
| --- | --- | --- |
| D4 (3456) | $`NM`$ | $`NM`$ |
| D4 (1256) | $`(2kN)M`$ | $`(2kN)M`$ |
| D4 (1234) | $`(N2k)M`$ | $`(N2k)M`$ |
| D2 (12) | $`NM^2`$ | $`\frac{(N2k)^2}{N}M^2`$ |
| D2 (34) | $`(N2k)M^2`$ | $`(N2k)M^2`$ |
| D2 (56) | $`(2kN)M^2`$ | $`(2kN)M^2`$ |
| D0 | $`NM^3`$ | $`\frac{(N2k)^2}{N}M^3`$. |

1/2 BPS solutions which are topologically stable and are spanned by diagonal elements of U(N) constant field strengths are

$`_{12}^{(1)}=_{12}^{(2)}=\mathrm{}=_{12}^{(N)}=2\pi M`$
$`_{12}^{(1)}=_{12}^{(2)}=\mathrm{}=_{12}^{(N)}=\pm 2\pi M`$
$`_{12}^{(1)}=_{12}^{(2)}=\mathrm{}=_{12}^{(N)}=\pm 2\pi M.`$ (25)
U(1) parts of these solutions proportional to $`diag(1,1,\mathrm{},1)`$ are

$`B_{12}`$ $`=`$ $`2\pi M=_{12}^a`$
$`B_{34}`$ $`=`$ $`\pm 2\pi M=_{34}^a`$
$`B_{56}`$ $`=`$ $`\pm 2\pi M=_{56}^a.`$
These solutions imply that the 1/2 BPS states are simply N coincident D6-branes in a B field.

Where do these bound states come from? Let us consider a state decaying to the BPS solutions in this paper. The BPS final state is composed of N coincident D6-branes in which lower dimensional branes have dissolved. On the other hand, the initial state is made of unstable localized lower dimensional D-branes on N coincident D6-branes in a B field. The mechanism for the decay is not clear, but D-brane charges must be conserved in this process. For simplicity, consider an initial state without localized D4-branes. In D6-branes $`B_{12}`$ equals $`2\pi /N`$ times (3456) D4-brane charge. $`B_{34}`$ and $`B_{56}`$ satisfy the same relation. Then, the B field in the initial state equals that in the final BPS state. The ’charges from the B field’ are equivalent to the lower dimensional brane charges induced on D6-branes in the initial states by turning on a B field. Can localized D0-D6-brane systems with a B field decay to these states? The answer is No. The reason is as follows. We suppose that this process can occur. Localized D0-D6-brane systems with a B field is unstable when it is strong. This state would decays to a stable BPS one. D2-brane and D4-brane charges of localized D0-D6-brane systems in a B field are induced solely by the B field. D2-brane charge conservation imply that D2-brane charges of the BPS state and D2-brane ’charges coming from the B field’ must coincide. But those charges do not coincide in any BPS states. We prove this fact in the appendix. The interpretation consistent with charge conservation is that D0-D2-D6-brane systems in a B field decay to these 1/8 or 1/4 BPS states. The initial D0-D2-D6 system in a B field is unstable. There are three kind of strings which connect two branes; D0-D2, D0-D6, D2-D6 strings. If we turn on a B field, D0-D2 string and D2-D6 string are always tachyonic, while D0-D6 strings may or may not be tachyonic, depending on the B field. The D0-D2 string makes the D0-brane dissolve in the D2-brane and the D2-D6 string makes this dissolve in the D6-brane. Consequently, final states are the BPS solutions.

Now, let us calculate energy of this BPS system, and compare it with the energy of the state in which D0, D2, and D4-branes are localized on D6-branes. From now on, we use $`2\pi \sqrt{\alpha ^{}}=1`$ convention. That is, a ratio of tensions of branes of different dimensions equals one. The energy of the U(N) BPS system is

$$E_{BPS}=N\sqrt{1+3M^2+3M^4+M^6}.$$
(26)
This is universal. The coefficient 3 in front of $`M^2`$ and $`M^4`$ originates from three directions in (1,2), (3,4) and (5,6). This is independent of the number of unbroken super symmetry generators, and is depend only on moduli parameter M. Next, let us calculate energy of the localized system. For simplicity, we will consider the 1/8 BPS 7/8 SUSY breaking U(3) solution.

$$E_{local}=3+3|M|+3M^2+3|M|^3.$$
(27)
Then,

$$E_{local}^2E_{BPS}^2(N=3)=18|M|^5+36|M|^3+18|M|>0,$$
(28)
which implies that these solutions are bound states. What about the possibility that the initial state is D0-D2-D6-brane system in a B field ? Energy of this system is

$$E_{D0D2D6}=3\sqrt{det_6(1+B)}+\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=1}^3|q_2^i|\sqrt{det_2(1+B^i)}+|q_0|.$$
(29)
The $`i`$ denotes the $`(2i1,2i)`$ direction. $`q_2^i`$ and $`q_0`$ are D2-brane charges of $`(2i1,2i)`$ directions and D0-brane charges respectively. $`det_6`$ and $`det_2`$ are a determinant of a D6-brane world volume and one of a D2-brane world volume. The D6-branes and the D2-branes are in a B field. From the charge conservation law we obtain

D2 : $`M^2=q_2^i+1/3M^2`$
D0 : $`3M^3=q_0+1/9M^3+3M.`$
The left hand side is the charges of the final state. Hence the right hand side is charges of the initial state, and they consist of localized D-brane charges and induced brane charges in the higher dimensional D-branes due to the non-vanishing B field. From the above relation, $`q_2^i=4/3M^2`$ and $`q_0=28/9M^33M.`$ From this (29) becomes

$$E_{D0D2D6}=(3+13/3M^2)\sqrt{1+1/9M^2}+(3+28/9M^2)|M|.$$
(30)
Comparing the energy of the initial state with that of the final state, we find,

$$E_{D0D2D6}^2E_{BPS}^2=224/81M^6+40/3M^2+|M|\sqrt{1+1/9M^2}(728/27M^4+134/3M^2+18)>0.$$

This implies that the initial state decay to the final one.

The solutions which we have obtained are stable. The stability is guaranteed by topology, super symmetry, and energy.

## 6 Conclusion

We have constructed BPS solutions spanned by diagonal elements of U(N) constant field strengths in 6+1 dimensional U(N) super Yang-Mills theory on $`T^6`$. These solutions correspond to stable D0-D2-D4-D6-brane bound states. Stability is guaranteed by energy, super symmetry, and topology. Unstable D0-D2-D6-brane systems in which D0-branes and D2-branes are localized in a B field would decay to these BPS solutions. This scenario is consistent with brane charge conservation. These solutions should serve as a clue to understand the fate of unstable brane systems. Localized D0-D6-brane systems in a B field can not decay to these simple solutions. The meaning of this fact is not clear. If we drop the condition of topological stability and only impose the BPS condition on a gauge fields, we might be able to construct solutions to which D0-D6-brane systems in a B field decay. It is interesting to examine a solution spanned by off-diagonal parts of U(N) constant fluxes as well.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank specially H. Itoyama not only for useful discussions but also for encouraging me. We also would like to thank Y. Hosotani, T. Matsuo, K. Murakami, N. Ohta, T. Suyama, and A. Tsuchiya for useful discussions.

Appendix

In this appendix, we will prove that D0-D6-brane systems in a B field can not decay to the BPS D0-D2-D4-D6 bound states found in this paper. As we commented in section 5, we only need to prove that D2-brane charge of the BPS solution and ’D2-brane charge from the B field’ do not coincide with each other. We will search solutions whose D2-brane charges of $``$ and of B coincide. One can see that the 1/4 BPS solutions do not satisfy the above condition apparently,

$`\text{(12) D2-brane charge: }NM^2{\displaystyle \frac{(N2k)^2}{N}}M^2\text{ ( under the condition (}\text{8}\text{) )},`$
$`\text{(12) D2-brane charge: }NM^2{\displaystyle \frac{(N+2k)^2}{N}}M^2\text{ ( under the condition (}\text{8}\text{) )}.`$
Let us go on to the 1/8 BPS solutions. First we analyze the case under the BPS condition (6). One of the conditions that the D2-brane charges of $``$ and B coincide is

$$M^2(1+\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=4}^N\sigma _{12}^i\sigma _{34}^i)=\frac{1}{N}M^2(1+\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=4}^N\sigma _{12}^i)(1+\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=4}^N\sigma _{34}^i)\text{( (56) D2-brane )},$$

where

$$(\sigma _{12}^i,\sigma _{34}^i)=(1,1),(1,1),(1,1).$$

We denote the number of $`(1,1)`$ by $`a`$, the number of $`(1,1)`$ by $`b`$. Then the number of $`(1,1)`$ is $`N3ab`$. The above condition casts in a simple form,

$$(a+1)(b+1)=0,$$

which can not be satisfied. Under the condition (6) the charges of $``$ and B are different. Under the condition (6) a (5 6) D2-brane charge is the same as under (6), and the condition for the charge conservation is,

$$M^2(1+\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=4}^N\sigma _{12}^i\sigma _{34}^i)=\frac{1}{N}M^2(1+\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=4}^N\sigma _{12}^i)(1+\mathrm{\Sigma }_{i=4}^N\sigma _{34}^i)\text{( (56) D2-brane )},$$

where

$$(\sigma _{12}^i,\sigma _{34}^i)=(1,1),(1,1),(1,1).$$

This is just the same as in the case (6). The proof is completed.


format: text

text:
# Scintillation measurements of the millisecond pulsar PSR J0030+0451 and pulsar space velocities

## 1 Introduction

PSR J0030+0451 was independently discovered by the Arecibo Drift Scan Search (Somer (2000)) and the Bologna sub-millisecond pulsar survey (D’Amico (2000)). It was the first millisecond pulsar (MSP) discovered with the Northern Cross radiotelescope and it appeared to be strongly scintillating at $`\lambda =70`$ cm. Follow-up observations performed at Parkes with the 21 cm multibeam receiver confirmed the pulse period $`P4.865`$ ms, the dispersion measure ($`\mathrm{DM})4.33`$ pc cm-3 and showed the pulsar is not in a binary system. Updated ephemeris from the ongoing monitoring were used for the data analysis of our scintillation observations.

Given its galactic coordinates $`l113^{}`$, $`b57^{}`$ and DM, the Taylor & Cordes (1993) electron distribution model gives a distance $`D=0.230`$ kpc. Timing observations of PSR J0030+0451were carried out by Lommen et al. (2000) using the Arecibo radiotelescope. Among the derived parameters, they report $`\dot{P}(1.0\pm 0.2)\times 10^{20}`$ s s-1, and an upper limit on the pulsar proper motion of $`\mu (60÷70)`$ mas yr-1. The so called “Shklovskii effect” could affect the intrinsic $`\dot{P}`$ by

$$\dot{P}_s/P1.1\times 10^{22}V_{}^2D_{\mathrm{kpc}}^1\text{ s}^1,$$
(1)
where $`V_{}`$ is the pulsar transverse velocity in km s-1 and $`D_{\mathrm{kpc}}`$ its distance in kpc (Shklovskii (1970); Camilo et al. (1994)). This puts an upper limit to the proper motion of $`\mu 60`$ mas yr-1.

MSPs have an observed mean transverse velocity of $`85\pm 13`$ km s-1, a factor $`4`$ lower than that of ordinary pulsars, with those in binary systems having about twice the velocity of the isolated ones (Toscano et al. 1999b ; Johnston et al. (1998); Nicastro & Johnston (1995)). Improving this statistical sample is particularly important in the light of neutron star birth scenarios. PSR J0030+0451’s distance, its peculiar position in the Local Interstellar Medium (LISM) (see Toscano et al. 1999a ) and its strong flux variations make this MSP a good target for scintillation studies.

The correlation between pulsar proper motions ($`V_{\mathrm{pm}}`$) and scintillation speeds ($`V_{\mathrm{iss}}`$) was investigated in the past by several authors (e.g. Harrison & Lyne (1993); Gupta (1995)) showing the latter is a good estimate of the pulsar transverse velocity. Here we revisit the analysis on a sample of 77 objects, including PSR J0030+0451 and 16 more MSPs, for which proper motion (13 are high confidence upper limits) and scintillation measuremnts exist. The analysis was performed both using the whole sample and the MSPs subsample only.

## 2 Observations and data analysis

During 1999, three observations of PSR J0030+0451 were performed with the 64m Parkes radiotelescope at a central frequency of 436 MHz. The total bandwidth was 32 MHz subdivided into 256 filter channels, each of width 125 kHz. The filterbanks are sampled continuously at a fixed rate of 0.05 ms; the output from each channel is one-bit digitized and written to magnetic tape for off-line analysis.

The first observation was performed on 1999 July 24 and lasted 7000 s. The integrated pulsar signal was relatively strong, but unfortunately the observation time was short compared to the diffractive scintillation time and only part of the scintles are visible in the frequency-time dynamic spectrum. Since this MSP has a northern declination, the longest observation time from Parkes is about 5.5 hours, and that was the duration of two more observations performed on October 15 and 16. In both cases the pulsar signal was weaker than in the first observation though we were able to detect a number of scintles in the dynamic spectra.

During the analysis, pulse profiles are formed at the apparent pulsar period over short sections in time and for each of the 256 filter channels. Subintegration times were 60 s for the first observation and 120 s for the other two. The signal-to-noise ratios in each subintegration for each frequency channel is then calculated. The first 16 channels were not considered in the analysis because of their malfunctioning; a few other channels that had bad response or in which strong interferences were present, were overwritten by an average of the signal-to-noise ratios in adjacent channels. No smoothing operation was made on the dynamic spectra but in all the observations a sum along the frequency and time axes was performed in order to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. Figure 1 shows a dynamic spectrum of PSR J0030+0451.

To obtain the scintillation bandwidth and decorrelation time-scale we performed a two-dimensional autocorrelation analysis on the dynamical spectra, following the method described by Cordes (1986). The scintillation bandwidth, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _d`$, and the decorrelation time-scale, $`t_d`$, were obtained by fitting a Gaussian function to the zero lag in frequency and time respectively (details on the data analysis and description of the software used can be found in Nigro (2000)). Similar results were obtained with a 2-dimensional gaussian fit.

## 3 Results and discussion

Scintillation velocities ($`V_{\mathrm{iss}}`$) can be estimated using the equation (Gupta et al. (1994))

$$V_{\mathrm{iss}}=3.85\times 10^4\frac{\sqrt{\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _dD_{\mathrm{kpc}}x}}{\nu _{\mathrm{GHz}}t_d}\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1,$$
(2)
while the line-of-sight-averaged electron density fluctuations can be estimated by (Cordes et al. (1985); Cordes (1986))

$$\overline{C_N^2}=0.002\nu _{\mathrm{GHz}}^{11/3}D_{\mathrm{kpc}}^{11/6}\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _d^{5/6}\mathrm{m}^{20/3},$$
(3)
where $`C_N^2`$ is the amplitude of the (density fluctuations) power spectrum, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _d`$ is the decorrelation bandwidth in MHz, $`t_d`$ the characteristic time-scale in s, $`D_{\mathrm{kpc}}`$ the distance in kpc, $`\nu _{\mathrm{GHz}}`$ the observation frequency in GHz and $`xD_o/D_p`$ is the scaling factor that accounts for an asymmetrically located scattering screen, whith $`D_o`$ and $`D_p`$ the distances observer–screen and screen–pulsar, respectively. Apart (identifiable) peculiar cases, assuming $`x=1`$ and a thin screen model (Scheuer (1968)) gives good agreements between $`V_{\mathrm{pm}}`$ and $`V_{\mathrm{iss}}`$ (see below).

Table 1 lists the scintillation parameters of the three observations. Column 2 to 5 give observation time, transverse Earth velocity toward the pulsar, decorrelation bandwidth, characteristic time-scale, scintillation velocity and the measure of the turbulence along the line of sight. The statistical error on $`V_{\mathrm{iss}}`$ is a combination of two quantities: the uncertainties on $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _d`$ and $`t_d`$ from the gaussian fitting, and the empirical error of the scintillation measurements given by Bhat et al. (1998) as

$$\sigma =\left[f_d\left(\frac{B_{obs}t_{obs}}{\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _dt_d}\right)\right]^{0.5},$$
(4)
where $`\sigma `$ is the fractional error, $`B_{obs}`$ and $`t_{obs}`$ are the observation bandwidth and time respectively, and $`f_d`$ is the filling fraction for number of scintles which here is assumed to be 0.5. This estimate uncertainty is far larger than that from the fit and that due to the dynamic spectra discretization, so these two latter are assumed to be negligible.

The scintillation velocity is a combination of (projected on the plane of the sky perpendicular to the direction of the pulsar) the pulsar velocity $`V_{\mathrm{pm}}`$, ISM irregularities velocity $`\sigma _{V_{\mathrm{ISM}}}`$ (assumed to be $`10`$ km s-1) and Earth orbital velocity $`V_{}`$ (varying from 0 to $`30`$ km s-1). In the case of a binary system, the pulsar’s orbital velocity should also be considered. For pulsars with high values of $`V_{\mathrm{iss}}`$, $`\sigma _{V_{\mathrm{ISM}}}`$ and $`V_{}`$ give a negligible contribution to the estimate of the transverse velocity (see e.g. Gupta et al. (1994)). For PSR J0030+0451 the values of $`V_{\mathrm{iss}}`$ are similar to $`\sigma _{V_{\mathrm{ISM}}}`$ and in two, out of three cases, it is $`V_{\mathrm{iss}}<V_{}`$. Therefore these velocities contribute significantly to the uncertainty. A possible way to consider these systematics is by

$$\sigma _V_{}=\sigma _{V_{\mathrm{iss}}}+\frac{\sqrt{\sigma _{V_{\mathrm{ISM}}}^2+V_{}^2}}{2}.$$
(5)
However, to better estimate the velocity $`V_{}`$ of the pulsar and the related uncertainty, a more reliable way would be performing a campaign of measurements preferably when the contribution of $`V_{}`$ is minimum ($`5`$ km s-1). In addition, having several measurements would allow to assume $`\overline{V_{\mathrm{ISM}}}=0`$. We have planned to do so. Neverthless our measurements clearly indicate PSR J0030+0451 is a slowly moving object.

### 3.1 LISM

The average amplitude of the electron density power spectrum value $`\mathrm{log}\overline{C_N^2}=3.33`$ we found for PSR J0030+0451 is somewhat greater than $`3.5`$, the average value for the whole pulsar sample with distances $`1`$ kpc, i.e. out of the LISM (Cordes (1986)). This estimate adds to that of other $`50`$ pulsars with DM $`35`$ pc cm-3 (20 by Bhat et al. (1998) and 31 by Johnston et al. (1998)). Most of these pulsars are localized within the LISM and have high $`\overline{C_N^2}`$ values, confirming the existence of local enhanced scattering. The overall picture shows clearly that the LISM is highly turbulent compared to the outer regions. Bhat et al. (1998) developed a model which they claim can fit the $`\overline{C_N^2}`$ observed in their pulsar sample. It is interesting to check their model against PSR J0030+0451 results since it is located in the quadrant where no other MSPs are known (Toscano et al. 1999a ).

The expected decorrelation bandwidth value, given by

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _{d,t}11\nu _{\mathrm{GHz}}^{22/5}D_{\mathrm{kpc}}^{11/5}=7.2\mathrm{MHz},$$
(6)
is not too different from the mean measured value $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _d=5.6`$ MHz. We computed the so called “anomaly parameter” (defined as $`A_{\mathrm{dm}}=(\nu _{d_1}/\nu _{d_2})_{\mathrm{obs}}/(\nu _{d_1}/\nu _{d_2})_{\mathrm{exp}}`$, see Bhat et al. (1998)) for PSR J0030+0451 with respect to PSR J1133+16 and PSR J1929+10, from the Bhat et al. (1998) sample, and PSR J1744$``$1134 and J2124$``$3358 (both MSPs) from the Johnston et al. (1998) sample, as they all have similar distances and, more importantly, DMs within $`1`$ pc cm-3. The low values of $`A_{\mathrm{dm}}`$ we obtain (1.4, 2.4, 1.60 and 1.34 respectively) do not confirm the decay trend shown in Figure 7 of Bhat et al. (1998). An asymmetry in the distribution of electrons in the LISM (as suggested by Toscano et al. 1999a ) or a non-Kolmogorov density spectrum could explain the discrepancy. This is also shown in Fig. 2 where we plot $`A_{\mathrm{dm}}`$ vs DM for 35 PSRs (16 MSPs) with DM $`<35`$ pc cm-3. This sample includes 32 objects from Johnston et al. (1998) and the 3 MSPs: PSR J0030+0451, J1012+5307 and B1257+12. The plot was made by averaging the $`A_{\mathrm{dm}}`$ of pulsars with DM differences less than 3 pc cm-3 and increasing the DM by that of the pulsars instead of a fixed step of 1 pc cm-3 (as is done by Bhat et al. (1998)). Error bars are inversely proportional to the number of pulsar products averaged. The three very high peaks at DMs 10, 21 and 32 pc cm-3 are due to the large discrepancies between the expected decorrelation bandwidths and the measured ones for PSRs J1730$``$2304, J1825$``$0935 and J2129$``$5718, respectively. The estimators Bhat et al. (1998) use to define the best model for the local scattering structure are in our case $`ϵ_A(\mathrm{DM})=0.119`$ and $`ϵ_b=0.275`$, confirming the inhomogeneity of the LISM.

However the high variability of the observed decorrelation bandwidth in PSR J0030+0451 by a factor $`5`$ is rather unusual. This is not caused by refractive scintillation because the dynamic spectra show no frequency drift. Instead it likely originates from anisotropies in the density or the magnetic field structure of the LISM. Further and more sensitive observations are required to put any strong constraint on the proposed model for the LISM by Bhat et al. (1998).

### 3.2 Transverse velocity

The scintillation parameters allow us to derive a reliable estimate of the transverse velocity of PSR J0030+0451. We will show that the correlation between $`V_{\mathrm{iss}}`$ and $`V_{\mathrm{pm}}`$ is very high and a relation $`V_{\mathrm{iss}}V_{\mathrm{pm}}`$ can in general be assumed (see also Gupta (1995)). As already mentioned, in spite of an average high flux density measured during the first observation, because of its short duration compared to $`t_d`$, the $`V_{\mathrm{iss}}`$ estimate is affected by a relatively large error. Further, the data of the second and third observation have lower statistical significance, so they can provide only upper limits (see also Tab. 1). This suggests to give similar weights to the three observations in the calculation of $`\overline{V_{\mathrm{iss}}}`$. Hence we have determined a mean velocity of $`\overline{V_{}}9\pm 6`$ km s-1 ($`1\sigma `$ error). This number makes PSR J0030+0451 the pulsar with the smallest transverse velocity so far measured. Its position in the $`V_{\mathrm{pm}}`$ vs. $`V_{\mathrm{iss}}`$ scatter plot is quite isolated in the bottom left corner well in agreement with a correlation $`V_{\mathrm{pm}}V_{\mathrm{iss}}`$ (see Fig. 3).

If we assume that the $`\dot{P}=(1\pm 0.2)\times 10^{20}`$ reported by Lommen et al. (2000) is all due to the Shklovskii effect, we obtain an upper limit to the transverse speed $`V_{}<65`$ km s-1. Now assuming $`\overline{V_{}}=9`$ km s-1, the derived contribution to the spin-down rate is $`\dot{P}_s<2\times 10^{22}`$ s s-1. This means that the Shklovskii effect introduces an error of only $`2\%`$ on $`\dot{P}=\dot{P}_i+\dot{P}_s`$, lower than the $`20\%`$ so far obtained by the timing data fit. Hence we can assume the measured spin-down rate is the intrinsic one: $`\dot{P}_i=(1.0\pm 0.2)\times 10^{20}`$ s s-1 (Lommen et al. (2000)). However, using a $`3\sigma `$ upper limit $`\overline{V_{}}27`$ km s-1, we obtain a $`\dot{P}_s`$ comparable to the $`\dot{P}`$ error estimate. We then conclude that $`\dot{P}_i(0.8÷1)\times 10^{20}`$ s s-1, giving a surface magnetic field $`B(2÷2.2)\times 10^8`$ G and a characteristic age $`\tau (8÷10)\times 10^9`$ years.

This pulsar was also detected in the soft X-ray band (Becker et al. (2000)). Its X-ray luminosity (0.1–2.4 keV) is $`L_x(1÷2)\times 10^{30}(d/0.23\mathrm{kpc})^2`$ erg s-1. Using the inferred rotational energy loss rate $`\dot{E}=(2.7÷3.4)\times 10^{33}`$ erg s-1 we obtain a relatively narrow X-ray efficiency range $`\eta =L_x/\dot{E}`$ $`(0.3÷0.7)\times 10^3(d/0.23\mathrm{kpc})^2`$. This is in good agreement with the proposed law $`L_x/\dot{E}10^3`$ (Becker & Trümper (1997)) and points toward a magnetospheric origin for the high energy radiation, in spite the inferred rotational energy loss rate and pulse period would put PSR J0030+0451 in the class of MSPs for which the X-ray emission is believed to be mostly thermal (Kawai & Saito (1999)). Becker et al. (2000), from the observed X-ray pulse profile (very similar to the radio one) and the large pulsed fraction ($`69\pm 18\%`$) also suggest a non-thermal origin of the X-ray emission. Thanks to the Chandra and XMM-Newton X-ray satellites, a good quality X-ray spectrum should soon be able to give a definitive answer in this respect.

PSR J0030+0451 is the 8th isolated MSP detected for which a transverse velocity is available. Using for PSR J0030+0451 $`V_{\mathrm{pm}}=32`$ km s-1 (i.e. $`65/2`$), the $`\overline{V_{\mathrm{pm}}}`$ for 7 MSPs (we exclude PSR J1730$``$2304) is $`58\pm 6`$ km s-1 (for 5 MSPs $`\overline{V_{\mathrm{iss}}}45`$ km s-1). This, even if at low statistical significance, is nearly a factor 2 lower than the $`96\pm 9`$ km s-1 found for 18 binary MSPs (for 12 MSPs $`\overline{V_{\mathrm{iss}}}113`$ km s-1) (Johnston et al. (1998); Toscano et al. 1999b ).

## 4 $`V_{\mathrm{pm}}`$$`V_{\mathrm{iss}}`$ correlation

Gupta (1995) made a comparison between proper motion and scintillation velocity for 59 pulsars using the Taylor & Cordes (1993) model to calculate their distances and a new formula to calculate the ISS velocities (Gupta et al. (1994)). The comparison showed a good correlation between $`V_{\mathrm{pm}}`$ and $`V_{\mathrm{iss}}`$. The correlation coefficient he found is $`r=0.42`$. It becomes 0.47 if pulsars for which only upper limits were available are excluded from the sample. A least square fit gave a slope of $`1.1\pm 0.13`$.

We updated the $`V_{\mathrm{pm}}`$$`V_{\mathrm{iss}}`$ diagram

1. adding the proper motion and scintillation speeds of 16 MSPs (Toscano et al. 1999b ; Lange et al. (2000); Johnston et al. (1998); Gothoskar & Gupta (2000); Lorimer et al. (1995); this paper) and of the relativistic pulsar B1534+12 (Stairs et al. (1998)),
2. using 14 revised proper motion estimates (Fomalont et al. (1997); Fomalont et al. (1999)),
3. using revised values of $`V_{\mathrm{iss}}`$ for 22 pulsars (Bhat et al. (1999); Lumiella (2000)), plus PSR B1259$``$63 (McClure-Griffiths et al. (1998)).

The $`V_{\mathrm{pm}}`$ vs. $`V_{\mathrm{iss}}`$ values for 77 pulsars are shown in the scatter plot of Fig. 3 and listed in Tab. 2, (MSPs are listed at the bottom of the Table). The uncertainties on $`V_{\mathrm{iss}}`$ were computed according to Bhat el al. (1998) except for PSR B1257+12 and B1534+12 for which we gave a 20% error. For the uncertainties on $`V_{\mathrm{pm}}`$ we took into account the proper motion errors only. We know that uncertainties in the distance from the Taylor & Cordes model are on average $`30\%`$ but we do not include this source of error. Only in a few cases do distances come from parallax measurements.

For PSR J0030+0451 we adopted a (low statistical significance) proper motion value of $`V_{\mathrm{pm}}=32\pm 32`$ km s-1 (from the Shklovskii upper limit) and $`V_{\mathrm{iss}}=9\pm 6`$ km s-1 (that is the average of the values of Tab. 1). The object at the top of the plot is PSR J2225+6535. Toscano et al. (1999a) gave for PSR J1730$``$2304 a lower limit of $`V_{\mathrm{pm}}51`$ km s-1 and an upper limit of $`V_{\mathrm{pm}}107`$ km s-1 from the Shklovskii effect. We averaged these value and used the estimate of $`79\pm 28`$ km s-1. For the relativistic pulsar PSR B1534+12 we used the inferred distance $`D=1.1`$ kpc obtained by Stairs et al. (1998) assuming the validity of general relativity theory.

A correlation analysis gives for the total sample a coefficient $`r=75\%`$, much higher than the value obtained by Gupta (1995). Further statistical analysis, using a rank Spearman test, gives a correlation coefficient $`r_s=79\%`$ at an extremely significance level of $`1\times 10^{17}`$ (the lower the value the higher the confidence of the result (Press et al. (1992))). A least squares fit with a linear law gives a slope of $`0.81\pm 0.21`$. Changing the axes of the scatter plot (therefore taking into account the $`V_{\mathrm{pm}}`$ error values) we obtain a slope of $`0.71\pm 0.20`$. Excluding the 14 points with upper limits on $`V_{\mathrm{pm}}`$, we obtain $`r=78\%`$ and $`r_s=80\%`$ at a significance level of $`1\times 10^{15}`$ and a slope of $`0.88\pm 0.24`$. Exchanging the axes of the plot the least squares fit gives an angular coefficient of $`0.70\pm 0.25`$. So we may estimate the slope of a straight line that fits the points taking into account the errors in both axis as $`m0.90\pm 0.21`$ for the whole sample, and $`m0.82\pm 0.25`$ excluding the upper limits.

### 4.1 MSP correlation

PSRs J1603$``$7202 and J2051$``$0827 are the MSPs for which $`V_{\mathrm{iss}}`$ differs significantly from $`V_{\mathrm{pm}}`$. To have $`V_{\mathrm{pm}}V_{\mathrm{iss}}`$ the scaling factor should be $`x3.0`$ and $`x7.1`$, respectively. These values suggest the presence of a scattering medium near the neutron star. This result is in agreement with the theory that the binary system containing PSR J1603$``$7202 evolved through a phase with critical unstable mass-transfer and most likely hosts a CO–WD companion rather than a He–WD companion (Tauris & Savonije (1999)). Binary systems like this are believed to be surrounded by an envelope that slowly expands giving rise to the mass transfer (van den Heuvel (1994)). This envelope is thought to be the main cause of scintillation. For the eclipsing binary pulsar PSR J2051$``$0827, the scintillation parameters vary significantly with orbital phase (Stappers et al. (1996); Johnston et al. (1998)). It is likely that the wind blown from the companion star is contributing to the scintillation parameters. In these cases, because the screen is so close to the pulsar, the measured scintillation velocity is effectively the velocity of the screen (see e.g. equation 3 in Britton et al. 1998). In both cases, the wind could easily have a velocity of $``$100 km s-1. One possible test of this idea would be to perform VLBI observations of these two pulsars to resolve (or not) the scattering disk; such an observation would give a direct measurement of the screen distance.

We performed a correlation analysis between $`V_{\mathrm{pm}}`$ and $`V_{\mathrm{iss}}`$ for the sub-sample of 16 MSPs plus PSR B1534+12. Figure 4 shows the scatter plot. A simple correlation analysis gives a coefficient $`r=60\%`$. A rank Spearman test gives a correlation coefficient $`r_s=67\%`$ at a significance level of $`3\times 10^3`$. A least squares fit with a linear law gives a slope of $`0.57`$. Exchanging the axis of the scatter plot the least squares fit gives a slope of $`0.47`$. Excluding the two above mentioned MSPs from the analysis, the correlation coefficient becomes $`r=87\%`$ and $`r_s`$ = 91% at a much higher significance level of $`3\times 10^6`$. A least squares fit with a linear law gives a slope of $`1.1`$. Exchanging the axis of the plot the slope becomes $`0.5`$. So we estimate the slope of the linear fit to be $`m1.1`$ for the whole sample, and $`m1.6`$ excluding PSR J1603$``$7202 and J2051$``$0827.

Since MSPs have low speeds, a rigorous analysis should take properly into consideration systematical uncertainties due to the Earth orbital velocity and the ISM irregular motion. In spite of that the resulting $`V_{\mathrm{pm}}`$$`V_{\mathrm{iss}}`$ correlation is excellent. This demonstrates that averaging several observations spread over an Earth orbit is (in general) sufficient to wash out systematics.

## 5 Conclusions

We presented observational and derived parameters for the diffractive scintillation of the recently discovered PSR J0030+0451. Our results for this source show that:

* its decorrelation bandwidth is highly variable;
* the Kolmogorov coefficient $`\mathrm{log}\overline{C_N^2}=3.33`$ along its line of sight is somewhat higher than the average for pulsars out of the LISM where it is $`\mathrm{log}\overline{C_N^2}=3.5`$. The enhanced turbulence and strong changes in $`\nu _d`$ support the findings of Bhat et al. (1998) about the LISM, but seems to not be in agreement with their proposed model for the electron distribution;
* it is unlikely its $`V_{}`$ exceeds 30 km s-1;
* as a consequence of this, the contribution of $`V_{}`$ to the observed spin-down rate through the Shklovskii effect is negligible and suggests the derived parameters $`B`$, $`\tau `$ and $`\dot{E}`$ are not affected by spurious effects. In particular $`\dot{E}=(2.7÷3.4)\times 10^{33}`$ erg s-1 and the observed X-ray luminosity are fully compatible with an X-ray efficiency factor $`\eta =1\times 10^3`$. However the low observed $`L_x`$ suggests this pulsar is somehow in between the two proposed classes of X-ray emitting pulsars (thermal polar caps and magnetospheric emission). Only high quality X-ray spectral data will allow to discriminate between these two emission mechanisms. The X-ray new generation observatories XMM-Newton and Chandra can provide these data.

To obtain accurate estimates of the scintillation parameters, very long observation times and large bandwidths are needed. Because of its high sensitivity and site location in the North, the Indian Giant Metre Radio Telescope (GMRT) is the most appropriate instrument for PSR J0030+0451 scintillation studies. For minimizing systematical errors, the observations must preferably be carried out at epochs when the projected Earth transverse orbital speed is low. Within a few years we should also be able to have an accurate timing measurement of $`V_{\mathrm{pm}}`$, although our results already show that PSR J0030+0451 is one of the slowest pulsars (with known $`V_{}`$).

The pulsar sample for which proper motion and scintillation speeds are available was revised with new values for ordinary pulsars and 17 (recycled) millisecond pulsars. We performed several different correlation analysis on the resulting sample of 77 objects and found:

* assuming the very simple model with the scattering screen placed midway between the Earth and the pulsar, the overall $`V_{\mathrm{pm}}`$$`V_{\mathrm{iss}}`$ correlation is $`r80\%`$; this value is much higher than the one reported by Gupta (1995);
* MSPs show a good correlation $`r_s65\%`$ that becomes $`88\%`$ if two anomolous PSRs (J1603$``$7202 and J2051$``$0827), for which local enhanced electron densities were reported, are excluded. This confirms that interstellar scintillation parameters can be used as a probe of enhanced electron densities along the line of sight to PSRs;
* we confirm that multi-epoch scintillation observations wash out systematics and give reliable estimates of the pulsar transverse velocity.

###### Acknowledgements.

F.N. wish to thank IRA-CNR for technical support. The Australia Telescope is funded by the Commonwealth of Australia for operation as a National Facility managed by the CSIRO.


text:
# STUDYING HADRONIC STRUCTURE OF THE PHOTON IN LATTICE QCD

## Abstract

We show that the matrix element of a local quark-gluon operator in the photon state, $`\gamma (k\lambda )|\widehat{O}|\gamma (k\lambda )`$, can be calculated in lattice QCD. The result is generalized to other quantities involving space-like photons, including the transition form factor $`\gamma \gamma ^{}\pi ^0`$ and the virtual-photon-nucleon Compton amplitude $`\gamma ^{}N|\gamma ^{}N`$ which can be used to define the generalized Drell-Hearn-Gerasimov and Bjorken sum rules.

preprint: UMD PP#01-007
DOE/ER/40762-214

Ever since the 1960’s, it has been well known that the photon is not just a point-like particle; rather, it has a complicated hadronic structure. Similarity of the photon-nucleon scattering cross section to that of meson-nucleon scattering has led to the so-called vector dominance model of photon-hadron interactions . In recent years, the photon structure has been explored extensively in $`e^+e^{}`$ and $`ep`$ collider experiments . For instance, in the certain kinematic region, $`e^+e^{}`$ scattering is effectively the real and deeply-virtual photon collision, from which the partonic structure of the real photon can be extracted. Indeed, the unpolarized quark and gluon distributions in the photon has been phenomenologically determined to a reasonable accuracy , and future data from the polarized HERA and $`e^+e^{}`$ colliders can constrain the polarized distributions as well .

Given the large amount of experimental data available to describe the hadronic properties of the photon, it is appropriate to ask how they can be understood from the fundamental theory— quantum chromodynamics (QCD). To the authors’ knowledge, the answer is still open. Part of the reason is that the photon is not an eigenstate of QCD; the standard lattice QCD method used in calculating the matrix elements of the nucleon and pion does not apply . As we shall explain, the QCD matrix elements in the photon state are time-dependent correlations which are notoriously difficult to access through the Euclidean space . However, we will show in this paper that they can be extracted from the Euclidean correlation functions on a lattice. In particular, the moments of polarized (unpolarized) quark and gluon distributions of the photon can be calculated in Monte Carlo simulations just like for those of the nucleon. Generalizing our finding, we show that a number of processes involving space-like virtual photons, such as transition $`\gamma \gamma ^{}\pi `$  and the virtual-photon-nucleon forward Compton scattering $`\gamma ^{}N\gamma ^{}N`$, can be studied in lattice QCD. The amplitude for the latter process is the key for generalizing the well-known Drell-Hearn-Gerasimov and Bjorken sum rules for the spin-dependent structure function of the nucleon .

We start with a simple but instructive discussion about what is meant by the hadronic or QCD structure of the photon. If $`\widehat{O}(0)`$ is a quark-gluon operator at the spacetime point 0, its matrix element in the photon state can be defined from the standard Lehmann-Symanzik-Zimmermann (LSZ) reduction formula,

$$\gamma (k\lambda ^{})|\widehat{O}(0)|\gamma (k\lambda )=\underset{k^\mu k^\mu }{lim}d^4xd^4ye^{ik^{}(yx)}k^20|Tϵ^{}(\lambda ^{})A(x)\widehat{O}(0)ϵ(\lambda )A(y)|0k^2,$$
(1)
where $`k^\mu `$ is the on-shell ($`k^2=0`$) photon momentum, $`\lambda `$ and $`\lambda ^{}`$ are the photon helicities, and $`k^\mu `$ on the right-hand side is taken to be on-shell after cancelling the photon poles. The normalization for the photon states are taken to be covariant, i.e., $`\gamma (k^{}\lambda ^{})|\gamma (k\lambda )=2k^0(2\pi )^3\delta (\stackrel{}{k}^{}\stackrel{}{k})\delta _{\lambda \lambda ^{}}`$. The renormalization constant $`Z_3=1+𝒪(\alpha _{\mathrm{em}})`$ has been omitted for simplicity. Evaluating the electromagnetic part of the Green’s function in the lowest-order perturbation theory (this is allowed because of the small electromagnetic coupling), we find

$$\gamma (k\lambda ^{})|\widehat{O}(0)|\gamma (k\lambda )=e^2d^4xd^4ye^{ik(yx)}ϵ^\mu (\lambda ^{})0|TJ_\mu (x)\widehat{O}(0)J_\nu (y)|0ϵ^\nu (\lambda ),$$
(2)
where $`e`$ is the renormalized electric charge unit and $`J^\mu `$ is the electromagnetic current operator of the quarks. According to the above equation, the matrix element of interest is a Minkowski-space correlation function in QCD. This is in contrast to an analogous nucleon matrix element, $`p|\widehat{O}|p`$, which has no explicit reference to the Minkowski time.

One can remove the explicit time dependence by deriving a Lehmann representation of Eq. (2): separating different time-orderings, inserting complete sets of hadronic states, and integrating out the spacetime coordinates $`x`$ and $`y`$. The result can be shown as the time-independent perturbation diagrams in Fig. 1. Diagrams a) to f) represent contributions from six possible time-orderings. Diagrams g) to i) are the vacuum contributions which must be subtracted. As an example, the diagram a) corresponds to the following time-independent matrix element,

$$\gamma (k\lambda ^{})|\widehat{O}(0)|\gamma (k\lambda )_{\mathrm{Fig}.1\mathrm{a}}=e^2\underset{nn^{}}{}\frac{0|ϵ^{}(\lambda ^{})J(\stackrel{}{k})|n^{}n^{}|\widehat{O}(0)|nn|ϵ(\lambda )J(\stackrel{}{k})|0}{(\omega E_n)(\omega E_n^{})},$$
(3)
where $`|n`$ are the eigenstates of $`H_{\mathrm{QCD}}`$ with momentum $`\stackrel{}{k}`$, and $`\omega =|\stackrel{}{k}|`$ is the on-shell photon energy. The contributions from the other diagrams can be expressed similarly using the rules from time-independent perturbative theory.

Though hardly new, the Lehmann representation helps us in understanding the physical origin of the vector dominance. With certain probability, the photon is a superposition of a set of hadron states with the photon quantum numbers. The lowest-lying such states are $`\pi \pi `$ scattering states in the $`p`$-wave. A strong resonance in this channel is the $`\rho `$ meson. The vector dominance then refers to the dominance of the $`\rho `$ resonance in the above hadron-state summations, although other hadron states can and do contribute. It is interesting to note from Fig. 1 that the hadronic part of the photon wave function does not consist of just the pure hadron states; it contains also the components that are the mixtures of one or more resolved photons and hadrons.

The above discussion makes it clear that the hadronic structure of the photon is qualitatively different from that of ordinary hadrons, at least in the context of QCD. The photon matrix elements contain explicit sums over the complete set of QCD eigenstates as well as the contributions from different time-orderings. Because the time-dependent correlation functions are generically difficult to study in the Euclidean space, there are no general rules to calculate them in lattice QCD. One might be tempted to use the electromagnetic current $`J^\mu `$ as a photon interpolating field to extract the matrix element of interest from $`0|J_\mu (y)\widehat{O}(0)J_\nu (x)|0`$ at large positive $`x_4,y_4`$. The actual outcome is a matrix element between the threshold two-$`\pi `$ states, or the $`\rho `$ if it were stable.

The key observation for a lattice calculation of the photon matrix element is that the photon is an eigenstate of the combined eletromagnetic and strong interaction hamiltonian . When both interactions are present, we can use the electromagnetic potential $`A^\mu `$ as the interpolating field for photon. Thus we consider the following matrix elements in the Euclidean space,

$$0|A_\mu (y)\widehat{O}(0)A_\nu (x)|0,$$
(4)
where $`x`$ and $`y`$ are Euclidean coordinates. After Fourier-transforming the spatial coordinates and letting $`y_4`$ and $`x_4`$ be large, we have

$`M_{\mu \nu }(`$ $`y_4`$ $`,x_4,\stackrel{}{k})={\displaystyle }d^3\stackrel{}{x}e^{i\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{x}}{\displaystyle }d^3\stackrel{}{y}e^{i\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{x}}0|A_\mu (\stackrel{}{y},y_4)\widehat{O}(0)A_\nu (\stackrel{}{x},x_4)|0`$ (6)
$`{\displaystyle \underset{\lambda \lambda ^{}}{}}0|A_\mu (\stackrel{}{k})|\gamma (k\lambda ^{})e^{y_4\omega }\gamma (k\lambda ^{})|\widehat{O}(0)|\gamma (k\lambda )e^{x_4\omega }\gamma (k\lambda )|A_\nu (\stackrel{}{k})|0.`$
The summations over $`\lambda `$ and $`\lambda ^{}`$ can be selected by multiplying $`M_{\mu \nu }`$ with appropriate polarization vectors. In the second line, we have neglected the three-photon states with the same momentum which are suppressed by powers of $`\alpha _{\mathrm{em}}`$, and the hadronic states which are suppressed by an energy gap ($`2m_\pi `$ at $`\stackrel{}{k}0`$).

Before putting $`M_{\mu \nu }(y_4,x_4,\stackrel{}{k})`$ on a lattice, we integrate out the photon field in perturbation theory,

$`M_{\mu \nu }(y_4,x_4,\stackrel{}{k})`$ $`=`$ $`e^2{\displaystyle d^4wd^4ze^{i\stackrel{}{k}(\stackrel{}{w}\stackrel{}{z})}D_{\mu \rho }(\stackrel{}{k},y_4w_4)}`$ (8)
$`\times 0|T_EJ_\rho (\stackrel{}{w},w_4)\widehat{O}(0)J_\sigma (\stackrel{}{z},z_4)|0D_{\sigma \nu }(\stackrel{}{k},z_4x_4),`$
where $`D^{\mu \nu }`$ is the photon propagator in the Euclidean space and $`T_E`$ is the Euclidean time-ordering. Using the Fourier integral ($`k>0`$),

$$_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\omega \frac{e^{i\omega z}}{\omega ^2+k^2}=\frac{\pi }{k}e^{k|z|},$$
(9)
we can write

$$M_{\mu \nu }(y_4,x_4,\stackrel{}{k})𝑑w_4𝑑z_4e^{\omega |z_4x_4|}e^{\omega |y_4w_4|}0|T_EJ_\mu (\stackrel{}{k},w_4)\widehat{O}(0)J_\nu (\stackrel{}{k},z_4)|0.$$
(10)
Taking the limit $`y_4,x_4\mathrm{}`$ and comparing the result with Eq. (6), we get,

$$\gamma (k\lambda ^{})|\widehat{O}(0)|\gamma (k\lambda )=e^2𝑑w_4𝑑z_4e^{\omega (w_4z_4)}ϵ_i^{}(\lambda ^{})0|T_EJ_i(\stackrel{}{k},w_4)\widehat{O}(0)J_j(\stackrel{}{k},z_4)|0ϵ_j(\lambda ),$$
(11)
where we have restored the photon polarization in physical gauge ($`ϵ^0=0`$ and $`\stackrel{}{ϵ}\stackrel{}{k}=0`$), $`i`$ and $`j`$ sum over spatial indices, and $`J_\mu =_fe_f\overline{\psi }_f\gamma _\mu \psi _f`$ is the electromagnetic current summing over all quark flavors $`f`$. The above equation is one of the main results of this paper.

Several comments on Eq. (11) are as follows: First, the Euclidean correlation function $`0|T_EJ^\mu (\stackrel{}{k},w_4)\widehat{O}(0)J^\nu (\stackrel{}{k},z_4)|0`$ can be calculated in the standard Monte Carlo simulations. Hence, the photon matrix elements are accessible in lattice QCD just like the nucleon ones. Second, the above expression is nothing but a straightforward analytical continuation of the expression in Eq. (2). However, the process arriving at Eq. (11) makes it clear that the analytical continuation fails if there is no energy gap between the photon and hadronic states. Finally, $`0|TJ_\mu (\stackrel{}{k},w_4)\widehat{O}(0)J_\nu (\stackrel{}{k},z_4)|0`$ is what one would naively consider when using $`J^\mu `$ as a photon interpolating field. On the other hand, the correct result involves integrations over $`w_4`$ and $`z_4`$, which include not only the lowest-energy hadron state but all others with the photon quantum numbers. Finally, it is straightforward to show that the above Euclidean correlation function reproduces the Lehmann representation of the photon matrix element. In the process, one finds that if the energy of the photon exceeds that of the lowest hadronic state (the gap vanishes), Eq. (11) is divergent. Thus, we emphasize that the photon matrix element is calculable on a lattice only when there is an energy gap between the photon and hadron states.

In the remainder of the paper, we explore under what conditions the above result can be generalized. First of all, the initial and final photons can have different 3-momenta, and then the forward matrix element is generalized to form factors. Next, we introduce the hadronic structure of an off-shell photon for which $`\omega |\stackrel{}{k}|`$. The parton distributions in an off-shell photon can be extracted from experimental data just as for an on-shell photon . In QCD, the off-shell photon matrix elements are defined in terms of the same Minkowski correlation in Eq. (2). The corresponding Euclidean expression in Eq. (11) is valid only when $`0<\omega <\sqrt{4m_\pi ^2+\stackrel{}{k}^2}`$, where the upper limit refers to the hadron production threshold for a time-like photon. Finally, one can define and calculate on a lattice the hadronic matrix elements of the weak-interaction gauge bosons, off- or on-shell, by replacing in Eq. (11) the electromagnetic currents with the weak-interaction currents.

To make further progress, we explore under what conditions a Minkowski correlation can be obtained from a numerical calculation of the corresponding Euclidean correlation. Euclidean Green’s functions are generally real as they can be expressed as real integrals in the functional formulation and amenable to Monte Carlo simulations, whereas Minkowski correlations can have imaginary parts corresponding to physical intermediate states propagating infinite distances. Therefore, it is reasonable to expect that Minkowski correlations can be analytically continued and calculated in Euclidean space only when they are in kinematic domains where no physical intermediate states are allowed. In the example of the matrix elements for an off-shell photon, the condition $`\omega <\sqrt{4m_\pi ^2+\stackrel{}{k}^2}`$ ensures that the photon can never turn into a real hadron state.

Thus the transition form factor (amplitude) corresponding to $`\gamma \gamma ^{}\pi ^0`$ is calculable on a lattice, where the first photon is real and the second is space-like. In Minkowski space the amplitude can be expressed as

$$A_{\mu \nu }(P,k)=d^4ye^{iky}0|TJ_\mu (y)J_\nu (0)|\pi (P).$$
(12)
Denoting the interpolating field for the pion as $`\varphi `$, we construct the following Green’s function in the Euclidean space,

$$G_{\mu \nu }(\stackrel{}{P},x_4,k)=𝑑y_4e^{y_4\omega }0|T_EJ_\mu (\stackrel{}{k},y_4)J_\nu (0)\varphi (\stackrel{}{P},x_4)|0.$$
(13)
Taking $`x_4\mathrm{}`$ and keeping only the pion state of momentum $`\stackrel{}{P}`$, we have

$$G_{\mu \nu }(\stackrel{}{P},x_4,k)=𝑑y_4e^{y_4\omega }0|T_EJ_\mu (\stackrel{}{k},y_4)J_\nu (0)|\pi (P)e^{x_4E_P}\pi (P)|\varphi (\stackrel{}{P})|0,$$
(14)
where $`E_P=\sqrt{\stackrel{}{P}^2+m_\pi ^2}`$ is the on-shell pion energy. By working out its Lehmann representation, the Euclidean correlation function reproduces the corresponding Minkowski amplitude.

The final example involving the photons is the forward virtual-photon-nucleon Compton scattering amplitude,

$$T_{\mu \nu }(P,q)=ie^{iqx}d^4xP|TJ_\mu (x)J_\nu (0)|P,$$
(15)
where $`|P^\mu `$ is the nucleon state with momentum $`P`$. The space-like virtual photon momentum has two distinct kinematic regions, $`(P+q)^2>M_N^2`$ and $`(P+q)^2<M_N^2`$, where $`M_N`$ is the nucleon mass. In the former region, the amplitude is complex and its imaginary part corresponds to the inclusive production cross section in $`eP`$ scattering. In the other region, the Compton amplitude is real and therefore we expect it is calculable in lattice QCD. Define the four-point Euclidean correlation,

$$G_{\mu \nu }(\stackrel{}{P},y_4,z_4,\stackrel{}{q})=𝑑x_4e^{x_4\omega }0|T_E\eta (\stackrel{}{P},y_4)J_\mu (\stackrel{}{q},x_4)J_\nu (0)\overline{\eta }(\stackrel{}{P},z_4)|0,$$
(16)
where $`\eta `$ is an interpolating field for the nucleon. Take the limit $`y_4,z_4\mathrm{}`$, we have the nucleon state dominance,

$$G_{\mu \nu }(\stackrel{}{P},y_4,z_4,\stackrel{}{q})=𝑑x_4e^{x_4\omega }0|\eta (\stackrel{}{P})|Pe^{y_4E_P}P|T_EJ_\mu (\stackrel{}{q},x_4)J_\nu (0)|Pe^{z_4E_P}P|\overline{\eta }(\stackrel{}{P})|0.$$
(17)
Integrating over $`x_4`$, we find that the remaining correlation function reproduces the physical Compton amplitude in the region $`(P+q)^2<M_N^2`$.

A particularly interesting application is when $`\omega =0`$. The spin-dependent Compton amplitude as a function of $`Q^2=q^2`$ defines an integral over $`\nu `$ for the $`G_1(\nu ,Q^2)`$ structure function of the nucleon. In the limit $`Q^20`$, the amplitude can be obtained by the low-energy theorem and chiral perturbation theory and the integral defines the Drell-Hearn-Gerasimov sum rule and its generalization . In the limit $`Q^2\mathrm{}`$, the amplitude can be studied in perturbative QCD and the integral defines the Bjorken sum rule and its generalization. Our result here allows a lattice QCD calculation of the amplitude at intermediate $`Q^2`$ where there is no firm theoretical prediction available.

In conclusion, we have shown that the QCD structure of the photon can be studied on a lattice by calculating Euclidean correlation functions involving local quark-gluon operators and electromagnetic currents. Also calculable are a number of other interesting examples involving photons, such as $`\gamma \gamma ^{}\pi ^0`$ and $`\gamma ^{}N\gamma ^{}N`$. These results shall lead to more exciting interplay between lattice QCD and strong-interaction phenomenology.

###### Acknowledgements.

X. Ji thanks A. Mueller for an interesting discussion which led the subject of this paper and for his conviction that the partonic structure of the photon must be calculable in lattice QCD. This work is supported in part by funds provided by the U.S. Department of Energy (D.O.E.) under cooperative agreement DOE-FG02-93ER-40762.