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# The heat kernel coefficients for the dielectric cylinder

## 1 Introduction

The vacuum energy of the electromagnetic field in the presence of a dielectric body is a topic of considerable interest since Schwingers attempt to explain sonoluminescence. Although this seems unlikely to be possible, mainly due to different time scales involved, open questions connected with the renormalization remain.

The divergent part of the vacuum energy can be expressed in terms of the corresponding heat kernel coefficients. By means of the renormalization procedure the divergent part must be subtracted from the ground state energy and added as counter term to the classical energy of the background. This general procedure does not work straightforwardly for a dielectric body. The point is that there is no classical energy which may be associated with it. Note that there are no electric or magnetic fields present, instead there is merely the ability of the body to get polarized upon application of an electromagnetic field. One may overcome this problem by introducing formally the necessary terms for a classical energy and put zero the coefficients in front of them. This is similar to semiclassical gravity where one assumes the coefficients in front of the terms quadratic in curvature to be sufficiently small. But there is one more problem associated with the vacuum energy of a dielectric body. As the field is massless, there is no normalization condition to get a unique ground state energy as long as the heat kernel coefficient $`a_2`$ is nonzero because it comes with the logarithmic divergence, see  for a detailed explanation.

In  the heat kernel coefficients for a generic smooth dielectric background and for a dielectric ball have been calculated. The coefficient $`a_2`$ turned out to be nonzero in general. For small deviation of the dielectricity $`\epsilon `$ from unity (resp. from its value at spatial infinity) $`a_2`$ is zero to first order in $`(\epsilon 1)`$ and nonzero starting from second order, $`(\epsilon 1)^2`$, which is called dilute approximation. For the dielectric ball it is zero in second order in addition. In this way, for a more singular background configuration ($`\epsilon (r)=\epsilon \mathrm{\Theta }(Rr)`$ has a jump) the singularity is slightly weaker. It is this zero of $`a_2`$ to order $`(\epsilon 1)^2`$ which allowed to get a unique result for the vacuum energy of the dielectric ball in dilute approximation,

$$_0^{\mathrm{ball}}=\frac{23}{1536\pi }\frac{(\epsilon 1)^2}{R}+O\left((\epsilon 1)^3\right),$$
(1)
which was obtained in by Casimir-Polder summation in , by a perturbative setup in  and by mode summation in .

In the present paper we consider a dielectric cylinder and calculate the heat kernel coefficients $`a_n`$ for $`n2`$. This problem is technically more involved than the corresponding calculation for the ball. Although the Jost function of the corresponding scattering problem which we use is expressed in terms of Bessel functions the photon polarizations do not separate and there is an additional dependence on the axial momentum.

The vacuum energy of a dielectric cylinder had been calculated in  in dilute approximation by summing the Casimir-Polder potentials and it turned out to be zero,

$$_0^{\mathrm{cyl}}=O\left((\epsilon 1)^3\right).$$
(2)
In the present paper we show that the corresponding $`a_2`$ is zero in this (dilute) approximation and conclude that the vacuum energy in dilute order is zero irrespectively of the method by which it is calculated.

In this paper we use units with $`\mathrm{}=c=1`$.

## 2 Basic formulas

In order to regularize the vacuum energy of the electromagnetic field we use the zeta functional regularization and express the energy in terms of the corresponding zeta function,

$$_0(s)=\frac{\mu ^2}{2}\zeta \left(s\frac{1}{2}\right).$$
(3)
In the presence of the dielectric cylinder the spectrum of the electromagnetic field is completely continuous and we use the representation of the regularized ground state energy derived in  for a spherically symmetric background which was in  rewritten for a cylindrically symmetric background. After dropping the Minkowski space contribution we obtain

$$\zeta (s)=\frac{\mathrm{sin}(\pi s)}{\pi }\underset{l=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{dk_z}{\pi }\underset{k_z}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}𝑑k(k^2k_z^2)^s\frac{}{k}\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Delta }_l(k,k_z).$$
(4)
Here, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_l(k,k_z)`$ is the Jost function for the scattering of electromagnetic waves off the cylinder with radius $`R`$ on the imaginary axis. It is given by

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_l(k,k_z)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{\Delta }_l^{\mathrm{}}}}\{\mathrm{\Delta }_l^{TM}(k,k_z)\mathrm{\Delta }_l^{TE}(k,k_z)`$
$`+l^2(k^2k_z^2)k_z^2(1\alpha ^2)^2c_2^2\left[I_l(qR)K_l(kR)\right]^2\}`$
with

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_l^{TM}(k,k_z)`$ $`=`$ $`\mu _1kI_l^{}(qR)K_l(kR)\mu _2qI_l(qR)K_l^{}(kR),`$
$`\mathrm{\Delta }_l^{TE}(k,k_z)`$ $`=`$ $`\epsilon _1kI_l^{}(qR)K_l(kR)\epsilon _2qI_l(qR)K_l^{}(kR),`$
$`\mathrm{\Delta }_l^{\mathrm{}}(k,k_z)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}e^{2(qk)}qk(\epsilon _1k+\epsilon _2q)(\mu _1k+\mu _2q),`$ (6)
and the notations $`q=\sqrt{\alpha ^2k^2+k_z^2(1\alpha ^2)}`$, $`\alpha c_2/c_1`$; and the speeds of light inside and outside are $`c_i=1/\sqrt{\epsilon _i\mu _i}`$ ($`i=1,2`$). This formula can be found in textbooks on classical electrodynamics, see also .

The heat kernel coefficients are known to be defined by the residues of the zeta function at the corresponding points $`s`$,

$$a_n=(4\pi )^{3/2}\text{Res}_{s=\frac{3}{2}n}\mathrm{\Gamma }(s)\zeta (s).$$
(7)
These residua result from large all, the momentum $`k`$, the axial momentum $`k_z`$ and the orbital momentum $`l`$. To factorize the orbital momentum dependence for the terms with $`l0`$ we use the uniform asymptotic expansion of the Bessel functions . Being inserted into Eq. (2) it gives raise to the expansion

$$\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Delta }_l(lk,lk_z)\underset{i=1,0,1,\mathrm{}}{}\frac{D_i(k,k_z)}{l^i}$$
(8)
for $`k,l\mathrm{}`$. Substituting the latter into (4) previously changing the variables $`klk`$ and $`k_zlk_z`$ so that $`k`$ and $`k_z`$ were fixed, we split the zeta function into parts according to

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }(s)\zeta _{cyl}(s)=\stackrel{~}{A}(s)+\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}\left\{A_1(s)+A_0(s)+A_1(s)+A_2(s)+A_3(s)+\mathrm{}\right\}.$$
(9)
Here $`\stackrel{~}{A}(s)`$ results from $`l=0`$

$$\stackrel{~}{A}(s)=\frac{R^{2s1}}{c_2^{2s}\mathrm{\Gamma }(1s)}\underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{dk_z}{\pi }\underset{k_z}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}𝑑k(k^2k_z^2)^s\frac{}{k}\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Delta }_0(k,k_z),$$
(10)
and below we will use the asymptotic expansion of the Bessel functions for large argument in it. The $`A_i(s)`$’s are generated by the expansion (8)

$$A_i(s)=\frac{R^{2s1}\zeta _R(2s1+i)}{c_2^{2s}\mathrm{\Gamma }(1s)}\underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{dk_z}{\pi }\underset{k_z}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}𝑑k(k^2k_z^2)^s\frac{}{k}\mathrm{ln}D_i(k,k_z).$$
(11)
For the heat kernel coefficients up to $`a_2`$ it is sufficient to include $`i`$ up to $`3`$. The summation over $`l`$ (from 1 to $`\mathrm{}`$) was carried out in $`A_i(s)`$ and resulted in the Riemann zeta function.

The expressions for the $`D_i`$ are simple for $`i=1`$ and $`i=0`$, but sufficiently involved for $`i=1,2,3`$ to be banned into the appendix. Here we note

$`D_1`$ $`=`$ $`2\left(qk+\sqrt{1+q^2}\sqrt{1+k^2}+\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{q}{k}}{\displaystyle \frac{1+\sqrt{1+q^2}}{1+\sqrt{1+k^2}}}\right),`$ (12)
$`D_0`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{ln}\{[\mu _1{\displaystyle \frac{k}{q}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1+q^2}{1+k^2}}\right)^{1/4}+\mu _2{\displaystyle \frac{q}{k}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1+k^2}{1+q^2}}\right)^{1/4}]\times [\mu _i\epsilon _i]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{(k^2k_z^2)(1\alpha ^2)^2k_z^2}{c_2^2k^2q^2\sqrt{1+q^2}\sqrt{1+k^2}}}\}+\mathrm{ln}\{{\displaystyle \frac{qk}{(\epsilon _1k+\epsilon _2q)(\mu k+\mu _2q)}}\}.`$
In the next section the functions $`A_i(i=1,\mathrm{..3})`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{A}(s)`$ are considered one after another in order to find their residues contributing to the heat-kernel coefficients.

## 3 Calculation of the heat-kernel coefficients

In this section we give a detailed calculation of the heat-kernel coefficient $`a_2`$. The results of the analogous calculations for the junior coefficients $`a_n`$ with $`n<2`$ are listed in the end of the section.

We start from $`A_1(s)`$, where it is easy to carry out the integration explicitly

$$A_1(s)=\frac{R^{2s1}\zeta (2s2)}{c_2^{2s}\pi }(\alpha ^{2s}1)\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(s1)}{12s}.$$
(13)
We are interested in the residue of $`A_1(s)`$ at the point $`s=1/2`$. As $`A_1`$ has no pole at this point, the residue equals zero. So, this term of the expansion (9) doesn’t contribute to $`a_2`$.

The term $`A_0(s)`$ is more complicated. To simplify the integration we make the change of variables $`kk,k_zk\eta `$. It gives

$`A_0(s)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\zeta (2s1)}{\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{R^{2s1}}{c_2^{2s}\mathrm{\Gamma }(1s)}}`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}}𝑑\eta (1\eta ^2)^s{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}𝑑kk^{2s+1}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{}{k}}{\displaystyle \frac{\eta }{k}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{\eta }}\right]D_0(k,\eta ).`$
The function

$`D_0(k,\eta )`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{ln}\{[\mu _1\left({\displaystyle \frac{1+\gamma ^2k^2}{1+k^2}}\right)^{1/4}+\mu _2\gamma ^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{1+k^2}{1+\gamma ^2k^2}}\right)^{1/4}]\times [\mu _i\epsilon _i]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{(1\eta ^2)(1\alpha ^2)^2\eta ^2}{c_2^2\sqrt{1+\gamma ^2k^2}\sqrt{1+k^2}}}\}+\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\gamma (\epsilon _1+\epsilon _2\gamma )(\mu _1+\mu _2\gamma )}},`$
with $`\gamma =\sqrt{\alpha ^2+(1\alpha ^2)\eta ^2}`$, has the following asymptotics at zero and infinity,

$`D_0(k,\eta )|_{k0}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{(\mu _1+\gamma ^2\mu _2)(\epsilon _1+\gamma ^2\epsilon _2)+(1\eta ^2)\eta ^2(1\alpha ^2)^2c_2^2}{\gamma (\epsilon _1+\epsilon _2\gamma )(\mu _1+\mu _2\gamma )}}`$
$`+𝒪(k^2),`$
$`D_0(k,\eta )|_k\mathrm{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(1\alpha ^2)^2\eta ^2(1\eta ^2)}{2c_2^2\gamma ^2(\mu _1+\mu _2\gamma )(\epsilon _1+\epsilon _2\gamma )}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{k^2}}+𝒪\left(k^3\right).`$
Therefore the integral over $`k`$ in $`A_0`$ converges in the range $`1/2<s<1/2`$. Adding and subtracting from the integrand its asymptotics at $`k\mathrm{}`$ we obtain the analytic continuation into the vicinity of the point $`s=1/2`$

$`A_0(s)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\zeta (2s1)}{\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{R^{2s1}}{c_2^{2s}\mathrm{\Gamma }(1s)}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}}𝑑\eta (1\eta ^2)^s`$
$`\times \{{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{dk}{k^{2s1}}}[{\displaystyle \frac{}{k}}{\displaystyle \frac{\eta }{k}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{\eta }}][D_0(k,\eta ){\displaystyle \frac{\eta ^2(1\eta ^2)(1\alpha ^2)^2}{2c_2^2\gamma ^2(\mu _1+\mu _2\gamma )(\epsilon _1+\epsilon _2\gamma )}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(k+1)^2}}].`$
$`.{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[(2s+1)+\eta {\displaystyle \frac{}{\eta }}]\mathrm{\Gamma }(2s+1)\mathrm{\Gamma }(2s+1){\displaystyle \frac{\eta ^2(1\eta ^2)(1\alpha ^2)^2}{c_2^2\gamma ^2(\mu _1+\mu _2\gamma )(\epsilon _1+\epsilon _2\gamma )}}\}.`$
The first integral is now analytical around $`s=1/2`$, the second one contains the pole. But this pole is canceled by the Riemann zeta function $`\zeta (2s1)`$ which equals zero at $`s=1/2`$. As a result we have

$$\underset{s1/2}{res}A_0^{sing}(s)=0.$$
(15)
Analyzing now the asymptotics of $`D_1(s)`$ at zero and at infinity,

$$.D_1|_{k0}\frac{1}{2}(\gamma ^21)k^2+𝒪(k^4),.D_1|_k\mathrm{}\frac{\mathrm{\Theta }_1}{k}+𝒪(k^3),$$

where

$$\mathrm{\Theta }_1=\frac{1}{4}\left\{3\frac{3}{\gamma }+2\frac{\epsilon _2\epsilon _1}{\epsilon _1+\epsilon _2\gamma }+\frac{\mu _2\mu _1}{\mu _1+\mu _2\gamma }\right\},$$

one comes to the conclusion that the integral over $`k`$ in

$$A_1(s)=\frac{\zeta (2s)}{\pi }\frac{R^{2s1}}{c_2^{2s}\mathrm{\Gamma }(1s)}\underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}𝑑\eta (1\eta ^2)^s\underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}𝑑kk^{2s+1}\left[\frac{}{k}\frac{\eta }{k}\frac{}{\eta }\right]D_1(k,\eta ),$$
(16)
converges in the strip $`0<s<3/2`$. The analytic continuation to the point $`s=1/2`$ is the following

$`A_1(s)`$ $`=`$ $`\zeta (2s){\displaystyle \frac{c_2^{2s}R^{2s1}}{\pi \mathrm{\Gamma }(1s)}}`$
$`\times \{{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\eta }{(1\eta ^2)^s}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}dkk^{2s+1}\{{\displaystyle \frac{}{k}}{\displaystyle \frac{\eta }{k}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{\eta }}\}[D_1(k,\eta ){\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Theta }_1(\eta )}{\sqrt{k^2+1}}}]`$
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }(s){\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\eta }{(1\eta ^2)^s}}[\mathrm{\Gamma }(s+3/2)+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(s+1/2)}{2}}\eta {\displaystyle \frac{}{\eta }}]\mathrm{\Theta }_1(\eta )\}.`$
Here the asymptotics of $`D_1(k,\eta )`$ for $`k\mathrm{}`$ was added and subtracted. Both terms in (3) are analytic around $`s=1/2`$. Therefore $`\underset{s1/2}{res}A_1^{sing}(s)=0`$.

Similar arguments for $`A_2(s)`$, where the integral with respect to $`k`$ exists at $`1/2<s<3/2`$, give

$`\underset{s1/2}{res}A_2(s)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{R^2}{32}}{\displaystyle \frac{c_2}{\pi ^{3/2}}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\eta }{\sqrt{1\eta ^2}}}`$
$`\times [{\displaystyle \frac{3\mu _2^2\gamma ^4\mu _2^2\gamma ^24\gamma ^2\mu _1\mu _2+3\mu _1^2\gamma ^2\mu _1^2}{\gamma ^2(\mu _1+\mu _2)^2}}+(\mu \epsilon )].`$
The next term in (9) we have to consider is $`A_3(s)`$. The integrals in $`A_3(s)`$ converge at $`s=1/2`$, while the Riemann zeta function has a pole at this point. Thus

$$\underset{s1/2}{res}A_3(s)=\frac{R^2c_2}{\pi ^{3/2}}\underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}𝑑\eta \sqrt{1\eta ^2}\underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}𝑑kk^2\left[\frac{}{k}\frac{\eta }{k}\frac{}{\eta }\right]D_3.$$
(19)
Now we are left with the term $`\stackrel{~}{A}(s)`$ in Eq. (10).

$$\stackrel{~}{A}(s)=\frac{R^{2s1}}{c_2^{2s}\pi \mathrm{\Gamma }(1s)}\underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}𝑑\eta (1\eta ^2)^s\underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}𝑑kk^{2s+1}\left[\frac{}{k}\frac{\eta }{k}\frac{}{\eta }\right]\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Delta }_0(k,\eta ).$$
(20)
The asymptotic behavior of $`\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Delta }_0(k,\eta )`$ at $`k=0`$ and $`k=\mathrm{}`$ is the following

$`\mathrm{ln}\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}(k,\eta )|_{k=0}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{4\epsilon _2\mu _2\gamma ^3}{(\epsilon _1+\epsilon _2\gamma )(\mu _1+\mu _2\gamma )}}+2(1\gamma )k+𝒪(k^2),`$
$`\mathrm{ln}\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}(k,\eta )|_{k=\mathrm{}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8}}{\displaystyle \frac{\epsilon _1\gamma 3\epsilon _1+3\epsilon _2\gamma ^2+\epsilon _2\gamma }{(\epsilon _1+\epsilon _2\gamma )\gamma }}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{k}}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{3\epsilon _2^2\gamma ^4+4\epsilon _1\epsilon _2\gamma ^2+\epsilon _2^2\gamma ^2+\epsilon _1^2\gamma ^23\epsilon _1^2}{16\gamma ^2(\epsilon _1+\epsilon _2\gamma )^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{k^2}}`$
$`+\{\epsilon _i\mu _i\}+𝒪(k^3).`$
The integrals over $`k`$ for the first an the second terms in the square brackets of (20) exist correspondingly in the ranges $`0<s<1`$ and $`0<s<1/2`$. We divide the integration with respect to $`k`$ in two parts $`_0^{\mathrm{}}=_0^1+_1^{\mathrm{}}`$, where the first one is regular at $`s=1/2`$, and the second one diverges in the upper bound. Keeping in mind that only the singular part gives contribution to the residue we omit the term convergent at $`s=1/2`$ . To obtain the analytic continuation to the point $`s=1/2`$ one should add and subtract from $`\mathrm{ln}\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}(k,\eta )`$ two terms of its expansion in infinity. After that it is easy to find the residue

$`\underset{s1/2}{res}\stackrel{~}{A}(s)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{c_2R^2}{16\pi ^{3/2}}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\eta }{\sqrt{1\eta ^2}}}`$
$`\times [{\displaystyle \frac{3\mu _2^2\gamma ^4\mu _2^2\gamma ^24\gamma ^2\mu _1\mu _2+3\mu _1^2\gamma ^2\mu _1^2}{\gamma ^2(\mu _1+\mu _2\gamma )^2}}+(\mu \epsilon )],`$
which up to the multiplier $`1/2`$ coincides with (3)

Summing up we see that only the functions $`A_2,A_3`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ have nonzero residues in $`s=\frac{1}{2}`$. But as the residues of $`A_2`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ are mutually canceled in (9), the heat-kernel coefficient $`a_2`$ is totally defined by the contribution from $`A_3`$. The integration over $`\eta `$ and $`k`$ in terms of elementary functions seems impossible in (19). For $`\mu _i=1`$ simplifications occur, but still we are able to analyze the behavior of the coefficient $`a_2`$ as a function of the velocities if light only numerically (see Fig.1).

In the limit of small differences of the velocities of light (dilute dielectric cylinder) one might expand $`\underset{s1/2}{res}A_3(s)`$ in powers of $`c_1c_2`$. The expansion starts from the third order

$$\underset{s1/2}{res}\zeta _{cyl}(s)=\frac{9}{1408}\frac{R^2}{\sqrt{\pi }c_2^2}(c_1c_2)^3+\mathrm{}.$$
(23)
The heat kernel coefficient $`a_2`$ is

$$a_2=\frac{\pi }{R^2c_2^2}\frac{9}{88}(c_1c_2)^3+\mathrm{}.$$
(24)
The heat-kernel coefficients with $`n<2`$ are obtained in the same way. For arbitrary velocities of light inside and outside the cylinder one gets

$`a_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi R^2}{c_2^3}}(1\alpha ^3),`$
$`a_{1/2}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi ^{3/2}R}{c_2^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{(1\alpha ^2)^2}{(\mu _1+\mu _2)(\epsilon _1+\epsilon _2)}},`$
$`a_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{3c_2}}(1\alpha ){\displaystyle \frac{8}{c_2}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{dk}{k}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}}𝑑\eta {\displaystyle \frac{\eta }{\sqrt{1\eta ^2}}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{\eta }}D_1(k,\eta ),`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{c_2}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\eta \eta }{\sqrt{1\eta ^2}}}`$
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{}{\eta }}\mathrm{ln}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{4\gamma ^4\epsilon _2\mu _2}{(\mu _1+\mu _2\gamma ^2)(\epsilon _1+\epsilon _2\gamma ^2)+(1\eta ^2)\eta ^2(1\alpha ^2)^2c_2^2}}\right],`$
$`a_{3/2}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3\pi ^{3/2}}{8R}}{\displaystyle \frac{\epsilon _1^2\mu _1^24\epsilon _1\mu _1\epsilon _2\mu _2+\epsilon _2^2\mu _2^2+\epsilon _1^2\mu _2^2+\epsilon _2^2\mu _1^2}{(\epsilon _1+\epsilon _2)^2(\mu _1+\mu _2)^2}}.`$
## 4 Conclusions

In the preceding sections we calculated the heat kernel coefficients $`a_n`$ with $`n2`$ of the electromagnetic field in the background of a dielectric cylinder for different speeds of light inside and outside. The coefficient $`a_2`$ vanishes in the dilute order.

The result of a non vanishing $`a_2`$ beyond the dilute order, obtained in  for a dielectric ball and here by Eq. (24) for a cylinder implies an yet unsolved problem. On the one hand side the vacuum energy of the electromagnetic field in the background of a dielectric body is a physical quantity and at least in principle measurable. On the other hand side even after removing the ultraviolet divergences by hand, it is not uniquely defined due to the arbitrariness resulting from the logarithmic divergence. The only explanation which seems meaningful states that the problem itself is ill defined. The setup of a material body characterized by a position dependent $`\epsilon (\stackrel{}{x})`$, a step-like $`\epsilon (r)=\epsilon \mathrm{\Theta }(Rr)`$ for instance, is clearly an idealization. Another example for an idealization are conductor boundary conditions (plane mirrors or a infinitely thin spherical shell for example) delivering a uniquely defined vacuum energy.

So this idealization does not work for a dielectric body. This is surprising in view of the whole area of electromagnetic phenomena like scattering of waves not connected with vacuum energy where it works well. In order to attack this problem one has probably to take some microscopic model for the dielectric body, a lattice of harmonic oscillators for instance and to calculate the vacuum energy in that background beyond the dilute approximation. Then one had to investigate a limiting procedure to turn to the continuous dielectric body. One should expect that a dependence of the vacuum energy on some parameter like lattice spacing or plasma frequency remains resulting in the corresponding logarithmic term connected with $`a_2`$. There are recent attempts to do so, see .

## Acknowledgments

The work was supported by the Heisenberg-Landau Program and Russian Foundation for Basic Research (Grant No. 00-01-00300)

## Appendix A

In this appendix we give a list of functions entering the expansion (8). They are written in terms of the variables $`k`$ and $`\eta `$ with making use of the notations $`t_1=1/\sqrt{1+\gamma ^2k^2},t_2=1/\sqrt{1+k^2},\gamma =\sqrt{\alpha ^2+(1\alpha ^2)\eta ^2}`$ and

$`D_1(k,\eta )`$ $`=`$ $`_1,`$
$`D_2(k,\eta )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_1^2+_2,`$
$`D_3(k,\eta )`$ $`=`$ $`_3_1\times _2,`$ (25)
where

$`_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{}}\{{\displaystyle \frac{(1t_1^2)(1t_2^2)}{t_1^2t_2^2}}[\epsilon _1\mu _1{\displaystyle \frac{t_1(1t_2^2)}{t_2(1t_1^2)}}({\displaystyle \frac{5}{12}}t_2^3{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}t_2{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}t_1+{\displaystyle \frac{7}{12}}t_1^3)`$ (26)
$`+(\epsilon _1\mu _2+\epsilon _2\mu _1)\left({\displaystyle \frac{t_2^3}{12}}+{\displaystyle \frac{t_2}{4}}{\displaystyle \frac{t_1}{4}}+{\displaystyle \frac{t_1^3}{12}}\right)`$
$`+\epsilon _2\mu _2{\displaystyle \frac{t_2(1t_1^2)}{t_1(1t_2^2)}}({\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}t_2{\displaystyle \frac{7}{12}}t_2^3+{\displaystyle \frac{t_1}{4}}{\displaystyle \frac{5}{12}}t_1^3)]`$
$`+\epsilon _2\mu _2(1\eta ^2)\eta ^2(1\alpha ^2)^2t_1t_2({\displaystyle \frac{5}{12}}t_2^3{\displaystyle \frac{t_2}{4}}+{\displaystyle \frac{t_1}{4}}{\displaystyle \frac{5}{12}}t_1^3)\},`$
$`_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{}}\{{\displaystyle \frac{(1t_1^2)(1t_2^2)}{t_1^2t_2^2}}[\epsilon _1\mu _1{\displaystyle \frac{t_1(1t_2^2)}{t_2(1t_1^2)}}({\displaystyle \frac{3}{16}}t_1t_2{\displaystyle \frac{5}{16}}t_1t_2^3{\displaystyle \frac{41}{48}}t_2^4`$ (27)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{7}{48}}t_1^3t_2+{\displaystyle \frac{35}{144}}t_1^3t_2^3+{\displaystyle \frac{5}{32}}t_2^2+{\displaystyle \frac{205}{288}}t_2^6+{\displaystyle \frac{13}{16}}t_1^4{\displaystyle \frac{203}{288}}t_1^6{\displaystyle \frac{3}{32}}t_1^2)`$
$`+(\epsilon _1\mu _2+\epsilon _2\mu _1)({\displaystyle \frac{1}{16}}t_1t_2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{48}}t_1t_2^3+{\displaystyle \frac{11}{48}}t_2^4+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{48}}t_1^3t_2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{144}}t_1^3t_2^3`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{32}}t_2^2{\displaystyle \frac{35}{288}}t_2^6+{\displaystyle \frac{11}{48}}t_1^4{\displaystyle \frac{35}{288}}t_1^6{\displaystyle \frac{3}{32}}t_1^2)`$
$`+\epsilon _2\mu _2{\displaystyle \frac{t_2(1t_1^2)}{t_1(1t_2^2)}}({\displaystyle \frac{3}{16}}t_1t_2{\displaystyle \frac{7}{48}}t1t_2^3+{\displaystyle \frac{13}{16}}t_2^4{\displaystyle \frac{5}{16}}t_1^3t_2+{\displaystyle \frac{35}{144}}t_1^3t_2^3`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{32}}t_2^2{\displaystyle \frac{203}{288}}t_2^6{\displaystyle \frac{41}{48}}t_1^4+{\displaystyle \frac{205}{288}}t_1^6+{\displaystyle \frac{5}{32}}t_1^2)]`$
$`+\epsilon _2\mu _2(1\eta ^2)\eta ^2(1\alpha ^2)^2t_1t_2({\displaystyle \frac{1}{16}}t_1t_2+{\displaystyle \frac{5}{48}}t_1t_2^2{\displaystyle \frac{41}{48}}t_2^4`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{5}{48}}t_1^3t_2{\displaystyle \frac{25}{144}}t_1^3t_2^3+{\displaystyle \frac{5}{32}}t_2^2+{\displaystyle \frac{205}{288}}t_2^6{\displaystyle \frac{41}{48}}t_1^4+{\displaystyle \frac{205}{288}}t_1^6`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{5}{32}}t_1^2)\},`$
$`_3`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{}}\{{\displaystyle \frac{(1t_1^2)(1t_2^2)}{t_1^2t_2^2}}[\epsilon _1\mu _1{\displaystyle \frac{t_1(1t_2^2)}{t_2(1t_1^2)}}({\displaystyle \frac{5}{128}}t_1t_2^2+{\displaystyle \frac{41}{64}}t_1t_2^4`$ (28)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{205}{384}}t_1t_2^6+{\displaystyle \frac{203}{1152}}t_1^6t_2{\displaystyle \frac{1015}{3456}}t_1^6t_2^3{\displaystyle \frac{13}{64}}t_1^4t_2+{\displaystyle \frac{65}{192}}t_1^4t_2^3`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1435}{3456}}t_1^3t_2^6+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{128}}t_1^2t_2{\displaystyle \frac{5}{128}}t_1^2t_2^3{\displaystyle \frac{21}{128}}t_2^3+{\displaystyle \frac{3671}{1920}}t_2^5`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{4543}{1152}}t_2^7+{\displaystyle \frac{22715}{10368}}t_2^9+{\displaystyle \frac{35}{384}}t_1^3t_2^2{\displaystyle \frac{287}{576}}t_1^3t_2^4+{\displaystyle \frac{21385}{10368}}t_1^9`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{15}{128}}t_1^3{\displaystyle \frac{469}{128}}t_1^7+{\displaystyle \frac{1103}{640}}t_1^5)`$
$`+(\epsilon _1\mu _2+\epsilon _2\mu _1)({\displaystyle \frac{3}{128}}t_1t_2^2{\displaystyle \frac{11}{192}}t_1t_2^4+{\displaystyle \frac{35}{1152}}t_1t_2^6{\displaystyle \frac{35}{1152}}t_1^6t_2`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{35}{3456}}t_1^6t_2^3+{\displaystyle \frac{11}{192}}t_1^4t_2{\displaystyle \frac{11}{576}}t_1^4t_2^3{\displaystyle \frac{35}{3456}}t_1^3t_2^6{\displaystyle \frac{3}{128}}t_1^2t_2`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{128}}t_1^2t_2^3+{\displaystyle \frac{9}{128}}t_2^3{\displaystyle \frac{293}{640}}t_2^5+{\displaystyle \frac{789}{1152}}t_2^7{\displaystyle \frac{3115}{10368}}t_2^9{\displaystyle \frac{1}{128}}t_1^3t_2^2`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{11}{576}}t_1^3t_2^4+{\displaystyle \frac{3115}{10368}}t_1^9{\displaystyle \frac{9}{128}}t_1^3{\displaystyle \frac{787}{1152}}t_1^7+{\displaystyle \frac{293}{640}}t_1^5)`$
$`+\epsilon _2\mu _2{\displaystyle \frac{t_2(1t_1^2)}{t_1(1t_2^2)}}({\displaystyle \frac{3}{128}}t_1t_2^2+{\displaystyle \frac{13}{64}}t_1t_2^4{\displaystyle \frac{203}{1152}}t_1t_2^6+{\displaystyle \frac{205}{384}}t_1^6t_2`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1435}{3456}}t_1^6t_2^3{\displaystyle \frac{41}{64}}t_1^4t_2+{\displaystyle \frac{287}{576}}t_1^4t_2^3+{\displaystyle \frac{1015}{3456}}t_1^3t_2^6+{\displaystyle \frac{15}{128}}t_1^2t_2`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{35}{384}}t_1^2t_2^3+{\displaystyle \frac{15}{128}}t_2^3{\displaystyle \frac{1103}{640}}t_2^5+{\displaystyle \frac{469}{128}}t_2^7{\displaystyle \frac{21385}{10368}}t_2^9+{\displaystyle \frac{5}{128}}t_1^3t_2^2`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{65}{192}}t_1^3t_2^4{\displaystyle \frac{22715}{10368}}t_1^9+{\displaystyle \frac{21}{128}}t_1^3+{\displaystyle \frac{4543}{1152}}t_1^7{\displaystyle \frac{3671}{1920}}t_1^5)]`$
$`+(1\eta ^2)\eta ^2(1\alpha ^2)^2\epsilon _2\mu _2t_1t_2({\displaystyle \frac{5}{128}}t_1t_2^2{\displaystyle \frac{41}{192}}t_1t_2^4+{\displaystyle \frac{205}{1152}}t_1t_2^6`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{205}{1152}}t_1^6t_2+{\displaystyle \frac{1025}{3456}}t_1^6t_2^3+{\displaystyle \frac{41}{192}}t_1^4t_2{\displaystyle \frac{205}{576}}t_1^4t_2^3{\displaystyle \frac{1025}{3456}}t_1^3t_2^6`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{5}{128}}t_1^2t_2+{\displaystyle \frac{25}{384}}t_1^2t_2^3{\displaystyle \frac{21}{128}}t_2^3+{\displaystyle \frac{3671}{1920}}t_2^5{\displaystyle \frac{4543}{1152}}t_2^7+{\displaystyle \frac{22715}{10368}}t_2^9`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{25}{384}}t_1^3t_2^2+{\displaystyle \frac{205}{576}}t_1^3t_2^4{\displaystyle \frac{22715}{10368}}t_1^9+{\displaystyle \frac{21}{128}}t_1^3+{\displaystyle \frac{4543}{1152}}t_1^7`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{3671}{1920}}t_1^5)\},`$
and the denominator is

$``$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(1t_1^2)(1t_2^2)}{t_1^2t_2^2}}\left[\epsilon _1\mu _1{\displaystyle \frac{t_1(1t_2^2)}{t_2(1t_1^2)}}+(\epsilon _1\mu _2+\epsilon _2\mu _1)+\epsilon _2\mu _2{\displaystyle \frac{t_2(1t_1^2)}{t_1(1t_2^2)}}\right]`$ (29)
$`+(1\eta ^2)\eta ^2(1\alpha ^2)^2\epsilon _2\mu _2t_1t_2.`$


format: text

text:
# Flux front penetration in disordered superconductors

## Abstract

We investigate flux front penetration in a disordered type II superconductor by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of interacting vortices and find scaling laws for the front position and the density profile. The scaling can be understood performing a coarse graining of the system and writing a disordered non-linear diffusion equation. Integrating numerically the equation, we observe a crossover from flat to fractal front penetration as the system parameters are varied. The value of the fractal dimension indicates that the invasion process is described by gradient percolation.

74.60.Ge 05.45-a 47.55.Mh

The magnetization properties of type II superconductors have been studied for many years, but the interest in this problem has been renewed with the discovery of high temperature superconductors . The magnetization process is usually described in terms of the Bean model  and its generalizations: flux lines enter into the sample and, due to the presence of quenched disorder, give rise to a steady flux gradient. While the Bean model provides a consistent picture of average magnetization properties, such as the hysteresis loop and thermal relaxation effects , it does not account for local fluctuations in time and space. It has been recently observed that flux line dynamics is intermittent, taking place in avalanches , and flux fronts are not smooth . In particular, it has been shown that the flux front crosses over from flat to fractal as a function of material parameters and applied field .

A widely used modeling strategy to describe the fluctuations around the Bean state consists in molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of interacting flux lines, pinned by quenched random impurities . With this approach it has been possible to reproduce flux profiles , hysteresis , avalanches  and plastic flow . One of the aims of these studies  is to establish precise connections between the microscopic models and the macroscopic behavior, captured for instance by generalized Bean models. A different approach treats the problem at mesoscopic scale, describing the evolution of interacting coarse-grained units , supposed to represent the system at an intermediate scale. While these models give a faithful representation of several features of the problem, the connection with the underlying microscopic dynamics remains unexplored.

In this letter, we investigate the invasion of magnetic flux into a disordered superconductor, a problem that has recently been the object of intense experimental research . We first analyze the problem by MD simulations, in analogy with Ref. , and obtain scaling laws relating the front position and the flux profile to the pinning strength. In order to understand these results, we perform a coarse-graining of the equation of motion and obtain a non-linear diffusion equation for the flux line density. In the absence of pinning, the equation reduces to the model discussed in Refs. . This model has been analytically  solved to provide expressions for the initial dynamics of the front that are in agreement with our MD simulations. We show that when quenched disorder is included in the diffusion equation, the flux front roughens and is eventually pinned. Varying the parameters of the model (applied field, disorder, interaction strength), the fluctuations of the front display a crossover from flat to fractal that is consistent with experimental observations . The value of the fractal dimension suggests that the strong disorder limit is described by percolation.

In an infinitely long cylinder, flux lines can be modeled as a set of interacting particles performing an overdamped motion in a random pinning landscape . The equation of motion for each flux line $`i`$ can be written as

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }\stackrel{}{v}_i=\underset{j}{}\stackrel{}{J}(\stackrel{}{r}_i\stackrel{}{r}_j)+\underset{p}{}\stackrel{}{G}[(\stackrel{}{R}_p\stackrel{}{r}_i)/l]+\eta (\stackrel{}{r}_i,t),$$
(1)
where the effective viscosity can be expressed in terms of material parameters $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\mathrm{\Phi }_0H_{c2}/\rho _nc^2`$. Here, $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$ is the magnetic quantum flux, $`c`$ is the speed of light, $`\rho _n`$ is the resistivity of the normal phase and $`H_{c2}`$ is the upper critical field. The first term on the right hand side represents the vortex-vortex interaction and it is given by $`\stackrel{}{J}(\stackrel{}{r})[\mathrm{\Phi }_0^2/(8\pi \lambda ^3)]K_1(|\stackrel{}{r}|/\lambda )\widehat{r}`$ where the function $`K_1`$ is a Bessel function decaying exponentially for $`|\stackrel{}{r}|>\lambda `$ and $`\lambda `$ is the London penetration length . The second term on the right hand side accounts for the interaction between pinning centers, modeled as localized traps, and flux lines. Here, $`\stackrel{}{G}`$ is the force due to a pinning center located at $`\stackrel{}{R}_p`$, $`l`$ is the range of the wells (typically $`l\lambda `$), and $`p=1,\mathrm{},N_p`$ ($`N_p`$ is the total number of pinning centers). While Refs.  employed parabolic traps, we decided to avoid discontinuities in the force and used instead $`\stackrel{}{G}(\stackrel{}{x})=f_0\stackrel{}{x}(|\stackrel{}{x}|1)^2`$, for $`|\stackrel{}{x}|<1`$ and zero otherwise. Finally, we add to the model an uncorrelated thermal noise term $`\eta `$, with zero mean and variance $`\eta ^2=k_bT/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. Although in the present simulations we restrict ourselves to the case $`T=0`$ (see Ref.  for the implementation of thermal noise in MD simulations), we will discuss the effect of temperature in the coarse grained description of the dynamics.

We perform MD simulations based on Eq. (1) and analyze the flux front propagation for different values of the pinning strength $`f_0`$. We use $`N=5000`$ flux lines in a system of size $`(L_x=800\lambda ,L_y=100\lambda `$ ), with $`N_p=800000`$ Poisson distributed pinning centers of width $`l=\lambda /2`$, corresponding to a density of $`n_0=10/\lambda ^2`$. The injection of magnetic flux into the sample is implemented similarly to Ref. , concentrating at the beginning of the simulation all the flux lines in a small strip, parallel to the $`y`$ direction, of length $`L^{}=10^2\lambda `$ and imposing periodic boundary conditions in both directions. The front position $`x_p`$ is identified as the $`x`$ coordinate of the most advanced particle in the system at different times. In Fig. 1 we show that $`x_p`$ grows initially with time as $`t^{1/3}`$ and eventually saturates to a value $`\xi _p`$ which increases as the strength of the pinning centers $`f_0`$ is decreased. The data collapse shown in the inset of Fig. 1 indicates that the front pinning length $`\xi _p`$ scales as $`f_0^{1/2}`$. When the front saturates, we measure the density profiles  which can be collapsed using the scaling form $`\rho (x)=f_0^{1/2}F(xf_0^{1/2})`$ (see Fig. 2). In addition, we vary the density of pinning centers, using $`n_0\lambda ^2=2.5,5,7.5,10`$, and find that similar scaling collapses hold if $`f_0`$ is replaced by $`f_0\sqrt{n_0}`$.

In order to understand these results, we perform a coarse graining of Eq. (1), starting from the Fokker-Plank equation for the probability distribution of the flux line coordinates $`P(\stackrel{}{r}_1,\mathrm{}.,\stackrel{}{r}_N,t)`$

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }\frac{P}{t}=\underset{i}{}\stackrel{}{}_i(\stackrel{}{f}_iP+k_BT\stackrel{}{}_iP),$$
(2)
where $`\stackrel{}{f}_i`$ is the force on the particle $`i`$ given by Eq. (1). Next, we introduce the single particle density $`\rho (\stackrel{}{r},t)_i\delta ^2(\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}_i)`$, where the average is done over the distribution $`P(\stackrel{}{r}_1,\mathrm{}.,\stackrel{}{r}_N,t)`$. The evolution of $`\rho `$ can be directly obtained from Eq. (2) and is given by

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }{\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{t}}`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{}{}({\displaystyle }d^2r^{}\stackrel{}{J}(\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}^{})\rho ^{(2)}(\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r}^{},t)`$ (4)
$`{\displaystyle \underset{p}{}}\stackrel{}{G}[(\stackrel{}{R}_p\stackrel{}{r})/l]\rho (\stackrel{}{r},t))+k_BT^2\rho ,`$
where $`\rho ^{(2)}(\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r}^{},t)`$ is the two-point density, whose evolution depend on the three-point density and so on. The simplest truncation scheme involves the approximation $`\rho ^{(2)}(\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r}^{},t)\rho (\stackrel{}{r},t)\rho (\stackrel{}{r}^{},t)`$. We then coarse grain the equation considering length scales larger than $`\lambda `$. This can be done expanding $`\stackrel{}{J}`$ in Fourier space, keeping only the lowest order term in $`\stackrel{}{q}`$, and retransforming back in real space. The result reads

$$d^2r^{}\stackrel{}{J}(\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}^{})\rho (\stackrel{}{r}^{},t)a\stackrel{}{}\rho (\stackrel{}{r},t),$$
(5)
where $`ad^2r\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{J}(\stackrel{}{r})/2=\mathrm{\Phi }_0^2/4`$.

The coarse graining of the disorder term is more subtle. A straightforward elimination of short wavelength modes would give rise, as in the previous case, to a random force $`\stackrel{}{F}_c(\stackrel{}{r})=g\stackrel{}{}n`$, where $`n`$ is the coarse grained version of the microscopic density of pinning centers $`\widehat{n}(\stackrel{}{r})_p\delta ^2(\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{R}_p)`$ and $`gf_0`$ . This method can not be applied for short-range attractive pinning forces as the one we are investigating. In this case, short wavelength modes yield a macroscopic contribution to pinning that can not be neglected. Consider for instance the flow between two coarse grained regions: short-range microscopic pinning forces give rise to a macroscopic force that should always oppose the motion, while the random force derived above could in principle point in the direction of the flow. In other words, $`F_c(\stackrel{}{r})`$ should be considered as a friction force  whose direction is always opposed to the driving force $`\stackrel{}{F}_d`$ (in our case $`\stackrel{}{F}_d=a\stackrel{}{}\rho `$) and whose absolute value is given by $`|g\stackrel{}{}n|`$ for $`|\stackrel{}{F}_d|>|g\stackrel{}{}n|`$ and to $`|\stackrel{}{F}_d|`$ otherwise .

Collecting all the terms, we finally obtain a disordered non-linear diffusion equation for the density of flux lines

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }\frac{\rho }{t}=\stackrel{}{}(a\rho \stackrel{}{}\rho \rho \stackrel{}{F}_c)+k_BT^2\rho .$$
(6)
The boundary conditions representing our MD simulations correspond to a constant number of flux lines $`ML_y`$ injected into the system, so that the total density is conserved $`𝑑x𝑑y\rho (x,y,t)=ML_y`$. With these boundary conditions, the $`T=0`$ behavior depends on a single effective coupling constant $`g_0g\sqrt{n_0}/(aM)`$ as can be shown rescaling Eq. (6) and the conservation law as

$$\rho =\stackrel{~}{\rho }/Mt=\stackrel{~}{t}/(\mathrm{\Gamma }aM^2)n=\stackrel{~}{n}\sqrt{n_0}.$$
(7)
In the limit $`g_0=0`$ and $`T=0`$, Eq. (6) has been solved by Bryskin and Dorogotsev  using similarity methods and the solution reads $`\rho (x,y,t)=t^{1/3}h(x/t^{1/3})`$, where $`h(u)=(1u^2)/6`$ for $`u<1`$ and vanishes for $`u1`$ . Notice that we recover here the $`t^{1/3}`$ behavior observed in MD at early times for the front position . When disorder is present ($`g_0>0`$), we expect the front to deform and eventually encounter a strong pinning region where it stops. The scaling of the front position $`\xi _p`$ with $`f_0`$ observed in MD simulations can be explained, noticing that the front will be pinned when the force due to the density gradient is equal to the friction force of the order of $`f_0\sqrt{n_0}`$. The gradient force can be estimated as $`a\rho \rho _0/\xi _p`$, where the density at the boundary is given by $`\rho _0M/\xi _p`$. Thus we obtain that $`\xi _p(Ma/f_0\sqrt{n_0})^{1/2}=g_0^{1/2}`$ in agreement with MD simulations.

In order to confirm the validity of these considerations, we discretize Eq. (6) on a tilted square lattice and integrate the equations numerically using a finite volume technique with an upwind scheme to avoid numerical instabilities. At the beginning of the simulation, all flux lines are concentrated at the boundary of the sample (i.e. $`x=0`$) and in each site of the lattice we define an uncorrelated Gaussian pinning center density $`n`$, with mean $`n_0`$ and variance $`\sqrt{n_0}`$, thus defining a local random friction force. As flux lines enter into the sample, we identify the flux front using a burning algorithm and compute its average position $`x_p`$. In the initial stage, $`x_p`$ grows as $`t^{1/3}`$ up to a crossover length scaling as $`\xi _pg_0^{1/2}`$, in agreement with MD simulations (see Fig. 3). In addition, we measure the density profiles and find that they rescale with $`g_0`$ in the same way as in MD simulations.

The numerical integration of the diffusion equation allows for a direct analysis of the fluctuations in the front as a function of different internal parameters. Measuring the width $`W`$ of the fronts as a function of time for different values of $`g_0`$, we find that in the initial stage $`W`$ grows as a power law $`t^\beta `$ where $`\beta 0.35`$ until it saturates to a value that decreases with $`g_0`$. Thus the front crosses over from flat to fractal as it enters into the material. In principle we can control the strength of the fluctuations and the associated characteristic length $`\xi ^{}`$ by tuning $`g_0`$, which directly reflects experimentally measurable parameters.

In order to compare the model with experiments, we have to implement appropriate boundary conditions. In Refs.  the external field was ramped at constant rate, which corresponds to a constant increase of the boundary density: $`\rho (0,y,t)=ht`$ . Integrating the equation with this boundary condition, we observe that for strong disorder the flux front roughens displaying substantial overhangs (see the inset of Fig. 4 ). Here the box counting method is applied to estimate the fractal dimension of the front: we divide the lattice in boxes of size $`b`$ and count the number of occupied boxes $`N(b)`$, which decays as $`b^{D_f}`$, where $`D_f`$ is the fractal dimension. Fig. 4 shows that for $`b<\xi ^{}`$ the data are well fitted by a power law with exponent $`D_f=4/3`$, which coincides with the fractal dimension of the perimeter of the percolation cluster. For $`b>\xi ^{}`$ the fractal dimension crosses over to $`D_f=1`$, corresponding to a flat front. The observed behavior is reminiscent of gradient percolation , a model in which the concentration of occupied sites $`p`$ decreases with the distance from the sample boundary. The invaded area is compact, but its perimeter is fractal (with $`D_f=4/3`$) up to a length scale $`\xi ^{}`$ which depends on the concentration gradient.

In experiments on flux penetration in Tl2Ba2CuO6+x thin films with controlled anisotropy, $`D_f`$ was found to change continuously from $`D_f1.5`$ to $`D_f1`$ as the degree of anisotropy and the applied field was varied . It would be interesting to check if the observed continuous variation of the fractal dimension can be explained by a crossover from a percolation process at short length scales to a flat invasion at large length scales, with a crossover length depending for instance on the degree of anisotropy.

In conclusion, we have analyzed flux front penetration in disordered type II superconductors, establishing connections between microscopic flux line dynamics and a mesoscopic non-linear diffusion equation. This equation allows to interpret the results of MD simulations and provides a useful framework to analyze experiments.

This work has been supported by CNPq and FUNCAP. We thank A. Baldassarri, K. Behnia, M. C. Miguel, S. Sarti, A. Scala and A. Vespignani for useful discussions. S. Z. wishes to thank for hospitality the physics department of UFC where this work has been initiated.


text:
# Polarization observables in the reaction 𝒑𝒏→𝒅ϕ

## I Introduction

Data on elementary reactions with neutrons are scare since either they must be extracted, with some efforts and even mostly with some model dependent assumptions, from reactions on nuclei, or a tagged neutron beam (cf. ) is used. The spectator technique  represents one example how one can use a deuteron target to isolate quasi-free reactions at the neutron. It is based on the idea to measure the spectator proton ($`p_{\mathrm{sp}}`$) at fixed (or slightly varying) beam energy in the meson ($`M`$) production reactions $`pddMp_{\mathrm{sp}}`$ thus exploiting the internal momentum spread of the neutron inside the deuteron ($`d`$). In such a way one gets access to quasi-free reactions $`pndM`$ if, in experiments with the deuteron target at rest, the spectator proton has momenta in the order of 50 $`\mathrm{}`$ 150 MeV/c.

An experimental investigation of the threshold-near (pseudo)scalar and vector meson production at the neutron becomes therefore feasible. Indeed, at COSY the ANKE spectrometer set-up can be used, in particular, for studying the $`a_0`$, $`\omega `$ and $`\varphi `$ production with the internal beam at a ”neutron target” . This offers the possibility to enlarge the data base on hadronic reactions and to address special issues. For instance, there is already a large body of data which can be used for a systematic study of the OZI rule violation via $`\omega `$ and $`\varphi `$ production in $`\pi N`$ and $`pp`$ reactions (cf.  for a reanalysis) and in $`\overline{p}p`$ annihilation (cf.  for theoretical analyzes) as well. OZI rule violations are of interest with respect to possible hints to a significant $`s\overline{s}`$ admixture in the proton, as supported by the pion-nucleon $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ term  and interpretations of the lepton deep-inelastic scattering data . Besides the impact on hadron phenomenology the origin of the OZI rule has also a link to QCD .

In the reactions $`ppppM`$ or $`pnpnM`$ the final state interaction among the outgoing nucleons plays a role. Therefore, the meson production process is a convolution of the ”pure production process” and the final state interaction. In the case of the reaction $`pndM`$ one has one well defined final state of the nucleons and may better constrain the elementary production amplitude.

Finally, we mention that in the reactions $`ppppM`$, $`pnpnM`$ and $`pndM`$ the conservation laws and symmetry principles determine a different dynamics near threshold, which needs to be investigated to allow a firm understanding of the reactions and the systematics of the OZI rule violation.

Given this motivation, in  the reaction $`pndV`$ with $`V=\omega ,\varphi `$ has been studied in some detail. ($`pndS`$ with $`S=a_0^+,\eta ,\eta ^{}`$ is considered in .) In  the cross sections and angular distributions are elaborated as a function of the excess energy within a two-step model. The same observables are evaluated in  within the framework of a boson exchange model with emphasis on the ratio of cross sections $`\sigma _{pnd\varphi }/\sigma _{pnd\omega }`$ being of direct relevance for the OZI rule violation.

Since at COSY the proton beam is polarized and also polarized targets are envisaged, we extend the previous studies  to make a prediction of polarization observables in the reaction $`pnd\varphi `$. The set-up of the ANKE experiment at COSY can directly identify the $`\varphi `$ via its $`K^+K^{}`$ decay channel. We present the asymmetry, tensor analyzing power, and proton-phi spin-spin correlations. In doing so we use our previous one-boson exchange model  with parameters adjusted to available threshold-near data on $`\varphi `$ production in $`pp`$ and $`\pi p`$ reactions and combine this with our previous studies  employing a solution of the deuteron wave function within the Bethe-Salpeter (BS) formalism. In this way we derive a completely covariant approach with correct treatment of the off-shell effects in the $`\pi N\varphi N`$ subprocess amplitudes.

Extensions to $`pnd\omega `$ and even to $`pddVp_{sp}`$ are much more involved and, therefore, relegated to separate work.

Our paper is organized as follows. In section 2 we present the theoretical framework and elaborate the basic equations. The numerical results and their discussion are presented in section 3. The summary can be found in section 4.

## II The model

The invariant differential cross section of the reaction $`pnd\varphi `$ reads

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma }{dt}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{16\pi s(s4m^2)}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}{\displaystyle \underset{s_1,s_2}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{_\varphi ,_d}{}}|T_{s_1s_2}^{_\varphi _d}(s,t)|^2,`$ (1)
where $`s`$ is the square of the total energy of the colliding particles p and n in the center of mass, $`t`$ is the square of the transfered 4-momentum, $`m`$ is the nucleonic mass, $`s_1,s_2,_\varphi `$ and $`_d`$ denote the spin projections on a given quantization axis, and $`T`$ stands for the invariant amplitude. The general form of $`T`$ may be written in the form (cf. Fig. 1) $`T_{s_1s_2}^{_\varphi _d}(s,t)=d,_d|\widehat{G}_\mu \xi __\varphi ^\mu |1,2,`$ where $`\xi __\varphi ^\mu `$ is the polarization 4-vector of the $`\varphi `$ meson. The scattering operator $`\widehat{G}`$ represents a 4-vector in Minkowski space, a vector in the vector space of mesons and a $`1616`$ component object in the spinor space of nucleons. The deuteron is described as a $`16`$ component BS amplitude $`\mathrm{\Phi }(1,2)`$ which is defined as a matrix element of a time ordered product of two nucleon fields $`\psi (x)`$ by $`\mathrm{\Phi }^{\alpha \beta }(1,2)=d|𝒯\left(\psi ^\alpha (1)\psi ^\beta (2)\right)|0`$ and satisfies the BS equation. By defining another scattering operator via $`\widehat{O}=\widehat{G}_\mu \xi __\varphi ^\mu `$ the invariant amplitude reads

$`T_{s_1s_2}^{_\varphi _D}(s,t)=i{\displaystyle \frac{d^4p}{(2\pi )^4}\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}__d^{\alpha b}(1^{},2^{})\widehat{O}_{\alpha \beta }^{bc}(12;1^{}2^{},_\varphi )u_{s_1}^c(1)u_{s_2}^\beta (2)},`$ (2)
where $`\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}__d^{\alpha b}(1^{},2^{})`$ is the conjugate BS amplitude in the momentum space, $`p`$ is the relative 4-momentum of the nucleons in the deuteron, and $`u(1)`$ and $`u(2)`$ denote the Dirac spinors for the incident nucleons. Summation over spin indices $`\alpha ,\beta ,b,c=1\mathrm{}4`$ occurring pairwise is supposed. The operator $`\widehat{O}_{\alpha \beta }^{bc}(12;1^{}2^{},_\varphi )`$ is a scattering operator describing the $`\varphi `$ meson production in the final state. This operator acts in the spinor space of protons and neutrons separately; the upper (Latin) and lower (Greek) spinor indices refer to protons and neutrons, respectively. The first indices, $`b`$ and $`\alpha `$, form an outer product of two columns, whereas the second ones, $`c`$ and $`\beta `$, form an outer product of two rows. To specify explicitly the spinor structure we decompose the operator $`\widehat{O}`$ in each of its indices over the corresponding complete set of Dirac spinors, i.e,

$`\widehat{O}_{\alpha \beta }^{bc}(12;1^{}2^{},_\varphi )={\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2m)^4}}{\displaystyle \underset{r,r^{},\rho ,\rho ^{}=1}{\overset{4}{}}}A_{rr^{},\rho \rho ^{}}^_\varphi (12;1^{}2^{})u_r^{}^b(1^{})\overline{u}_r^c(1)\overline{u}_\rho ^\beta (2)u_\rho ^{}^\alpha (2^{}),`$ (3)
where the coefficients $`A_{rr^{},\rho \rho ^{}}^_\varphi (12;1^{}2^{})`$ may be found by using the completeness and orthogonality of the Dirac spinors, $`\overline{u}_r(𝐩)u_r^{}(𝐩)=2\epsilon _rm\delta _{rr^{}}`$, yielding

$`A_{rr^{},\rho \rho ^{}}^_\varphi (12;1^{}2^{})=\epsilon _r\epsilon _r^{}\epsilon _\rho \epsilon _\rho ^{}\overline{u}_r^{}^b(1^{})\overline{u}_\rho ^{}^\alpha (2^{})\widehat{O}_{\alpha \beta }^{bc}(12;1^{}2^{},_\varphi )u_r^c(1)u_\rho ^\beta (2),`$ (4)
where $`\epsilon _r=+1`$ for $`r=1,2`$ and $`\epsilon _r=1`$ for $`r=3,4`$. Substituting (3) into (2) one obtains

$`T_{s_1s_2}^{_\varphi _d}(s,t)={\displaystyle \frac{i}{(2m)^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^4p}{(2\pi )^4}\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}__D^{\alpha b}(1^{},2^{})\underset{r,r^{}=1}{\overset{2}{}}A_{s_1s_2,rr^{}}^_\varphi (12;1^{}2^{})u_r^{}^\alpha (2^{})u_r^b(1^{})}`$ (5)
$`={\displaystyle \frac{i}{(2m)^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{r,r^{}=1}{\overset{2}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^4p}{(2\pi )^4}\left(u_r^{}^\alpha (2^{})\right)^T\gamma _c^{\alpha \alpha ^{}}\left(\gamma _c^{\alpha ^{}\alpha ^{\prime \prime }}\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}__d^{\alpha ^{\prime \prime }b}(1^{},2^{})\right)A_{s_1s_2,rr^{}}^_\varphi (12;1^{}2^{})u_r^b(1^{})}`$ (6)
$`={\displaystyle \frac{i}{(2m)^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{rr^{}=1}{\overset{2}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^4p}{(2\pi )^4}A_{s_1s_2,rr^{}}^_\varphi (12;1^{}2^{})\overline{v}_r^{}(2^{})\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}__d(1^{},2^{})u_r(1^{})},`$ (7)
where $`\gamma _c`$ is the charge conjugation matrix, $`\overline{v}_r(2^{})(u_r(2^{}))^T\gamma _c`$, and the new BS amplitude $`\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}__d(1^{},2^{})\gamma _c\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}__d(1^{},2^{})`$ now is a $`44`$ matrix and represents the solution of the BS equation written also in matrix form.

For further evaluations of the amplitude (7) one needs to specify an explicit form of the operator $`\widehat{O}`$. Following , and taking into account only the meson-exchange contribution from one-boson exchange diagrams with internal meson conversion, the operator $`\widehat{O}`$ may be represented by four truncated diagrams as depicted in Fig. 2. (The contributions of the nucleonic currents are found to be negligibly small  and, therefore, can be omitted for many purposes.) Consequently, having computed the operator $`\widehat{O}`$ by using the effective interaction Lagrangians for the $`\pi NN`$, $`\rho NN`$, $`\varphi \rho \pi `$ vertices and monopole form factors for dressing the vertices as in , it is straightforward to obtain the coefficients $`A_{rr^{},\rho \rho ^{}}^_\varphi (12;1^{}2^{})`$ in (4). If all particles were on mass shell, $`A_{rr^{},\rho \rho ^{}}^_\varphi (12;1^{}2^{})`$ exactly coincides with the amplitude of the elementary process $`1+21^{}+2^{}+\varphi `$. However, in general case this amplitude corresponds to a virtual process of vector meson production with two off-shell nucleons in the final state.

Since our numerical solution  of the BS equation has been obtained in the deuteron’s center of mass, all further calculations will be performed in this system. First, as depicted in Fig. 1, we introduce the relevant kinematical variables as follows: $`p_{1,2}`$ are the 4-momenta of incoming nucleons, $`p_{1,2}^{}`$ stand for the 4-momenta of the internal (off-shell) nucleons in the deuteron with $`p=(p_1^{}p_2^{})/2`$; $`\xi __d`$ denotes the polarization 4-vector of the deuteron. In this notation the BS amplitudes in the deuteron’s rest system are of the form

$`\mathrm{\Psi }__d^{S^{++}}(p_1^{},p_2^{})=𝒩(\widehat{k}_1+m){\displaystyle \frac{1+\gamma _0}{2}}\widehat{\xi }__d(\widehat{k}_2m)\varphi _S(p_0,|𝐩|),`$ (8)
$`\mathrm{\Psi }__d^{D^{++}}(p_1^{},p_2^{})={\displaystyle \frac{𝒩}{\sqrt{2}}}(\widehat{k}_1+m){\displaystyle \frac{1+\gamma _0}{2}}\left(\widehat{\xi }__d+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2|𝐩|^2}}(\widehat{k}_1\widehat{k}_2)(p\xi _M)\right)(\widehat{k}_2m)\varphi _D(p_0,|𝐩|),`$ (9)
where $`\widehat{}`$ means contraction with Dirac matrices, and $`k_{1,2}`$ are on-shell 4-vectors related to the off-shell vectors $`p_{1,2}^{}`$ as follows

$$k_1=(E_p,𝒑),k_2=(E_p,𝒑),p_1^{}=(p_{10}^{},𝒑),p_2^{}=(p_{20}^{},𝒑),E_p=\sqrt{𝒑^2+m^2},$$
(10)
and $`\varphi _{S,D}(p_0,|𝐩|)`$ are the partial scalar amplitudes, related to the corresponding partial vertices as

$$\varphi _{S,D}(p_0,|𝐩|)=\frac{G_{S,D}(p_0,|𝐩|)}{\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}M_dE_p\right)^2p_0^2}.$$
(11)
$`M_d`$ is the deuteron mass, and the normalization factor is $`𝒩=\left\{\sqrt{8\pi }2E(E+m)\right\}^1`$. To be explicit let us recall the components of the polarization 4-vector of a vector particle with 4-momentum $`p=(E,𝐩)`$, polarization index $`=\pm 1,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}`$ and mass $`M`$ as

$`\xi _{}=({\displaystyle \frac{𝒑𝝃_{}}{M}},𝝃_{}+𝒑{\displaystyle \frac{𝒑𝝃_{}}{M(E+M)}}),`$ (12)
where $`𝝃_{}`$ is the polarization 3-vector for the particle at rest with $`𝝃_{+1}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(1,i,0)`$, $`𝝃_1=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(1,i,0)`$, $`𝝃_0=(0,0,1)`$ and the above Dirac spinors, normalized as $`\overline{u}(p)u(p)=2m`$ and $`\overline{v}(p)v(p)=2m`$, read

$`u(𝒑,s)=\sqrt{m+ϵ}\left(\begin{array}{c}\chi _s\\ \frac{𝝈𝒑}{m+ϵ}\chi _s\end{array}\right),v(𝒑,s)=\sqrt{m+ϵ}\left(\begin{array}{c}\frac{𝝈𝒑}{m+ϵ}\stackrel{~}{\chi }_s\\ \stackrel{~}{\chi }_s\end{array}\right),`$ (17)
where $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_si\sigma _y\chi _s`$, and $`\chi _s`$ denotes the usual two-dimensional Pauli spinor. In general, the BS amplitude consists on eight partial components. In (8) we take into account only the most important ones, namely the $`S`$ and $`D`$ partial amplitudes. The other six amplitudes may become important at high transferred momenta , hence for the present near-threshold process they may be safely disregarded. Substituting (8-17) into (7) one obtains after some algebra

$`T_{s_1s_2}^{_\varphi _d}(s,t)={\displaystyle \frac{i}{\sqrt{8\pi }}}\sqrt{|_D|+1}`$ (18)
$`\times {\displaystyle \underset{r,r^{}}{}}{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \frac{d^4p}{2E_p(2\pi )^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{G_SG_D\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}{\left(\frac{1}{2}M_dE_p\right)^2p_0^2}}A_{s_1s_2,rr^{}}^_\varphi (𝒑_1𝒑_2,𝒑_1^{}𝒑_2^{})\delta _{r+r^{},_d}`$ (19)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{3i}{\sqrt{16\pi }}}{\displaystyle \underset{r,r^{}}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^4p}{2E_p(2\pi )^4}\frac{G_D}{\left(\frac{1}{2}M_dE_p\right)^2p_0^2}A_{s_1s_2,rr^{}}^_\varphi (𝒑_1𝒑_2,𝒑_1^{}𝒑_2^{})\stackrel{~}{\chi }_r^{}^+(𝝈𝒏)\chi _r(𝒏𝝃__D^{})}.`$ (20)
where here and below the sums over $`r,r^{}`$ run from 1 to 2. By closing the integration contour in the upper hemisphere and picking up the residuum at $`p_0=M_d/2E_p`$ and introducing the notion of the deuteron $`S`$ and $`D`$ wave functions as

$`u_S(p)={\displaystyle \frac{G_S(p_0,|𝒑|)}{4\pi \sqrt{2M_d}(2E_pM_d)}},u_D(p)={\displaystyle \frac{G_D(p_0,|𝒑|)}{4\pi \sqrt{2M_d}(2E_pM_d)}}`$ (21)
with $`2d|𝒑||𝒑|^2(u_S^2+u_D^2)\pi `$, the final expression for the amplitude may be written as

$`T_{s_1s_2}^{_\varphi _d}(s,t)=\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{M_d}{4\pi }}}{\displaystyle \underset{rr^{}}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3𝒑}{E_p(2\pi )^2}A_{s_1s_2,rr^{}}^_\varphi (𝒑_1,𝒑_2;𝒑,𝒑)}`$ (22)
$`\times \left\{\sqrt{|_d|+1}\left[u_S(p){\displaystyle \frac{u_D(p)}{\sqrt{2}}}\right]\delta _{r+r^{},_d}3{\displaystyle \frac{u_D(p)}{\sqrt{2}}}\left(𝝃__d^{}𝒏\right)\stackrel{~}{\chi }_r^{}^+(𝝈𝒏)\chi _r\right\},`$ (23)
where $`𝒏`$ is a unit vector parallel to $`𝒑`$.

## III Discussion of results

In our evaluation of the above equations we use, for describing the deuteron wave function , the numerical solution of the BS equation in ladder approximation obtained with a realistic one-boson exchange interaction which includes $`\pi ,\sigma ,\omega ,\delta ,\rho `$ and $`\eta `$ exchanges. The effective parameters used in the ladder approximation have been fixed in such a way to obtain a good description of the $`NN`$ elastic scattering data and the static properties of the deuteron . Independent of this set of parameters related to deuteron properties, the effective coupling constants and the attributed cut-off factors are taken from the recent analysis . In all subsequent numerical calculations, the set B from  is used. For this parameter set the meson exchange term is by far dominating. In Fig. 3 the total cross section near the threshold is depicted. The shape of our cross section is rather similar to the one computed in . However, there is a difference in the absolute values by roughly a factor of $`2/3`$. This difference is in the same order of magnitude as the difference of the previously often used cross section $`\sigma =0.26`$ $`\mu `$b deduced from  and the published value $`\sigma =0.19`$ $`\mu `$b  for the reaction $`pppp\varphi `$ at an excess energy of 83 MeV.

Refs.  show that several sets of parameters equally well describe the $`pppp\varphi `$ data. These sets differ not only by absolute values of parameters but also by the relative contributions of meson current and the nucleon current terms. Since in case of the $`pnd\varphi `$ processes the isospin transition corresponds to $`\mathrm{\Delta }I=0`$ the meson-exchange diagrams are enhanced by a factor of three in comparison with the nucleon current terms. This means that (i) the contributions of the nucleon current are suppressed by about one order of magnitude in comparison with the meson current, and (ii) the behavior of the cross section and angular distribution in the process $`pnd\varphi `$ is expected to follow essentially the behavior of the dominating meson-exchange current contribution in the elementary processes $`pnpn\varphi `$. The occurrence of the deuteron wave function will only modify this behavior. This is clearly seen in Fig. 4, where the behavior of the angular distribution is very similar to the distribution found in  for the reaction $`pnpn\varphi `$. At the threshold the distribution is fairly flat, while with increasing excess energy some forward-backward peaking becomes visible. This feature depends upon the parameter set used. For instance, if we were using the set C of , then a slight suppression of the cross section would be expected in the forward-backward directions as predicted for the elementary cross section . This sensitivity of the predicted angular distribution has been pointed out in  as a tool to constrain further the parameters, if precise data become available.

Let us now discuss the polarization observables. Near the threshold, in the final state one has: $`I_f=0`$, $`L_f=0,2`$, $`J_f^\pi =J_\varphi ^\pi +J_D^\pi =0^{},1^{},2^{}`$, where $`I`$, $`L`$ and $`J^\pi `$ are the total isospin, total radial angular momentum, angular momentum and parity, respectively. Thus from symmetry constraints, in the initial state the allowed configurations are $`I_i=0`$, $`L_i=1,3,5\mathrm{}`$ and total spin $`S_i=0`$. The conservation law implies $`L_i=1`$, so that $`J_i^\pi =1^{}`$. From these transitions in $`|T_{s_1s_2}^{_\varphi _d}(s,t)|^2`$ one may form different combinations of spin observables, which near the threshold behave quite differently. If one considers, for example, the cross section averaged over all final projections $``$ at different initial spin projections, then the beam-target asymmetry, defined here as

$`𝒜={\displaystyle \frac{\sigma (s_p+s_n=1)+\sigma (s_p+s_n=1)\sigma (s_p+s_n=0)}{\sigma (s_p+s_n=1)+\sigma (s_p+s_n=1)+\sigma (s_p+s_n=0)}},`$ (24)
is predicted to be $`1`$ near threshold and to increase with increasing energy. This is in contrast with the asymmetry defined for the elementary process $`pppp\varphi `$ which is $`+1`$, as predicted in , and decreases with increasing energy. The energy dependence of the asymmetry (24) is depicted in Fig. 5.

Another interesting polarization observable is the tensor analyzing power, which may be defined either for the final deuteron or for the final meson. For instance, the deuteron tensor analyzing power is defined by the cross section averaged over all spins but the deuteron,

$`T_{20}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma (_d=1)+\sigma (_d=1)2\sigma (_d=0)}{\sigma (_d=1)+\sigma (_d=1)+\sigma (_d=0)}}.`$ (25)
It is seen from (25) that in line with the above discussed selection rules, $`\sigma (_d=0)\sigma (_d=\pm 1)`$ and the deuteron tensor analyzing power is predicted to be almost constant, $`T_{20}1/\sqrt{2}`$, in a large region of the energy excess. This prediction is illustrated in Fig. 6.

In Fig. 7 another polarization observable is depicted defined by

$`W_{zz}={\displaystyle \frac{\sigma (_\varphi =+1)\sigma (_\varphi =1)}{\sigma (_\varphi =+1)+\sigma (_\varphi =1)}}|_{s_p=+1/2}`$ (26)
which characterizes the proton-meson spin-spin correlation. This quantity is predicted to vanish near the threshold for the meson exchange diagrams. A substantial deviation of $`W_{zz}`$ from zero would point to the presence of non-negligible nucleon current contributions in the $`\varphi `$ production process. In Fig. 7 it is seen that there is some weak dependence of $`W_{zz}`$ upon the energy excess. Nevertheless $`W_{zz}`$ remains very small indicating that the polarizations of the incident proton and outgoing meson are almost uncorrelated. A different situation will occur in the reaction $`pdd\varphi p_{sp}`$. In this case, if one measures also the polarization of the spectator proton, the quantity $`W_{zz}`$ is expected to strongly depend on whether the polarizations of protons are the same or have opposite directions.

Since we have $`T_{s_1s_2}^{_\varphi _d}(s,t)`$ at disposal, via (1) any other polarization observable is accessible within the our formalism and corresponding numerical code.

## IV Summary

In summary we present here a evaluation of polarization observables for the process $`pnd\varphi `$ which are accessible in forthcoming experiments. Off-shell effects in the sub-process $`\pi N\varphi N`$ can correctly be dealt with if one restricts the treatment on the by far dominating meson-exchange current. It is the beam-target asymmetry which differs drastically from the one in the reaction $`pppp\varphi `$. The tensor analyzing power is fairly insensitive to variations of the excess energy, and the proton-phi spin-spin correlation is very small.

The treatment can be extended to incorporate the $`\omega `$ meson production; work along this line is in progress.

### Acknowledgments

We are grateful to A.I. Titov for many valuable discussions. The work is supported in parts by BMBF grant 06DR921 and the Landau-Heisenberg program.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Conformal field theory (CFT)  has had immense success both in describing critical phenomena and also in its applications to string theory. Logarithmic terms in correlation functions were first observed in . It was realized that these were due to the indecomposable representations that can occur in the OPE of primary fields . Since then there has been a large amount of literature in discovering new examples and applications  as well as the general classification . It has been shown  that correlators obey all the normal properties of a conformal field theory - in particular crossing symmetry and single-valuedness. The process of constructing the full modular invariant conformal field theory from its chiral constituents is more involved than in normal CFT.

The WZNW model is of great importance in CFT. Correlation functions in such models obey differential, Knizhnik-Zamolodchikov (KZ), equations  coming from null states in the theory. The correlation functions of fundamental fields in these models have been calculated explicitly. The solutions to the KZ equations and correlation functions in the $`SU(2)_k`$ model were studied by . There is a simple Dotsenko-Fateev integral representation for solutions but these do not converge in many cases. In particular in the cases in which logarithms appear we have to be very careful when analytically continuing the solutions. The factorisation of the KZ equation and the decoupling of null vectors in the unitary $`SU(2)_k`$ models was studied in general in .

The $`SU(2)_0`$ WZNW model was studied in  in the context of describing NS-5 branes. Later $`SU(2)_0`$, and its supersymmetric extension, were studied in more detail . It was found that there were logarithmic terms in the four point correlation function of the fundamental spin $`\frac{1}{2}`$ primaries. Here we extend this to the case of spin one operators. We shall see that although there are single-valued logarithmic solutions they do not satisfy all the additional constraints coming from crossing symmetry. The $`SU(2)_0`$ model is also interesting for studies of $`OSp(4|4)_1`$ .

Recently it has suggested that the stress tensor itself might have a logarithmic partner. This was originally proposed in a $`c=0`$ CFT , which can be non-trivial if it is not required to be unitary. It was later realised that the same situation could occur for general central charge . This is due to the fact that the identity has a logarithmic partner and thus it becomes a zero norm state . In the WZNW models the stress tensor is given by the Sugawara construction and it would be interesting to see if the Kac-Moody currents also had logarithmic partners and if the new spin 2 fields could be constructed from these .

## 2 Correlation functions

The WZNW theory has affine $`SU(2)`$ left and right moving symmetries whose modes generate the Kac-Moody algebra:

$$[J_n^a,J_m^b]=if_{}^{ab}{}_{c}{}^{}J_{n+m}^c+kn\delta ^{ab}\delta _{n+m,0}$$
(1)
We have similar expressions for the $`\overline{J}_n^a`$. We introduce the following representation for the $`SL(2,R)`$ generators :

$`J^+=x^2{\displaystyle \frac{}{x}}2jx,J^{}={\displaystyle \frac{}{x}},J^3=x{\displaystyle \frac{}{x}}j`$ (2)
The stress-energy tensor in the case of the ungauged WZNW model is given in terms of the normal Sugawara construction:

$$T(z)=\frac{1}{k+2}:J^a(z)J^a(z):=\frac{1}{k+2}:\frac{1}{2}J^+J^{}+\frac{1}{2}J^{}J^++J^3J^3:$$
(3)
where : : denotes normal ordering. The modes $`L_n`$ obey the standard Virasoro algebra with central charge $`c=\frac{3k}{k+2}`$. We introduce primary fields, $`\varphi _j(x,z)`$ of the KM algebra:

$$J^a(z)\varphi _j(x,w)=\frac{1}{zw}J^a(x)\varphi _j(x,w)$$
(4)
where $`J^a(x)`$ is given by (2). The fields $`\varphi _j(x,z)`$ are also primary with respect to the Virasoro algebra with $`L_0`$ eigenvalue:

$$h=\frac{j(j+1)}{k+2}$$
(5)
Two and three point functions are determined up to a multiplicative constant. For the case of the four point correlation functions of $`SU(2)`$ primaries the form is determined by global conformal and $`SU(2)`$ transformations up to a function of the cross ratios.

$`\varphi _{j_1}(x_1,z_1)\varphi _{j_2}(x_2,z_2)\varphi _{j_3}(x_3,z_3)\varphi _{j_4}(x_4,z_4)`$ $`=`$ $`z_{43}^{h_2+h_1h_4h_3}z_{42}^{2h_2}z_{41}^{h_3+h_2h_4h_1}`$ (6)
$`z_{31}^{h_4h_1h_2h_3}x_{43}^{j_3+j_4j_1j_2}x_{42}^{2j_2}`$
$`x_{41}^{j_1+j_4j_2j_3}x_{31}^{j_1+j_2+j_3j_4}F(x,z)`$
Here the invariant cross ratios are:

$$x=\frac{x_{21}x_{43}}{x_{31}x_{42}}z=\frac{z_{21}z_{43}}{z_{31}z_{42}}$$
(7)
In a normal CFT we expect the OPE of two primary fields to take the general form:

$$\varphi _{j_1}(x_1,z_1)\varphi _{j_2}(x_2,z_2)=\underset{J}{}C(j_1,j_2,J)z_{12}^{h_1h_2+h_J}x_{12}^{j_1+j_2J}[\varphi _J(x_2,z_2)]$$
(8)
where we have denoted by $`[\varphi _J]`$ all descendent fields that can be produced from the given primary field $`\varphi _J`$. In principle given $`C(j_1,j_2,j_3)`$, we know the entire operator content of the theory and should be able to determine all higher point correlation functions using the OPE (8) and the crossing symmetries. This is called conformal bootstrap and has only so far been solved for the minimal models. We will see however that our solutions require more operators to be included in the OPE.

Correlation functions of the WZNW model satisfy a set equations known as the Knizhnik-Zamolodchikov (KZ) equations due to constraints from the null states following from (3). These are:

$$|\chi =(L_1\frac{2}{k+2}J_1^aJ_0^a)|\varphi $$
(9)
For two and three point functions this gives us no new information. However for the four point function (6) it becomes a partial differential equation for $`F(x,z)`$. In contrast to the case of  we are dealing purely with the finite dimensional representations of $`SU(2)`$. If we now use our representation (2) we find the KZ equation for four point functions is:

$$(k+2)\frac{}{z}(x,z)=\left[\frac{𝒫}{z}+\frac{𝒬}{z1}\right](x,z)$$
(10)
Explicitly these are:

$`𝒫`$ $`=`$ $`x^2(1x){\displaystyle \frac{^2}{x^2}}+((j_1j_2j_3+j_4+1)x^2+2j_1x+2j_2x(1x)){\displaystyle \frac{}{x}}`$ (11)
$`2j_2(j_1j_2j_3+j_4)x2j_1j_2`$
$`𝒬`$ $`=`$ $`(1x)^2x{\displaystyle \frac{^2}{x^2}}((j_1j_2j_3+j_4+1)(1x)^2+2j_3(1x)+2j_2x(1x)){\displaystyle \frac{}{x}}`$ (12)
$`+2j_2(j_1+j_2+j_3j_4)(1x)2j_2j_3`$
## 3 Doublet solutions

Before detailing our spin one solutions at $`k=0`$ we demonstrate that this reproduces the previous ones for the doublet ($`j=\frac{1}{2}`$) representation. We therefore put $`j_i=\frac{1}{2}`$. Then we get:

$`𝒫`$ $`=`$ $`x^2(x1){\displaystyle \frac{^2}{x^2}}+(2xx^2){\displaystyle \frac{}{x}}+(x{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}})`$ (13)
$`𝒬`$ $`=`$ $`(1x)^2x{\displaystyle \frac{^2}{x^2}}+(x^21){\displaystyle \frac{}{x}}+({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}x)`$ (14)
To reduce this partial differential equation to a set of ordinary ones for $`z`$ we impose the fact that the representations are really the irreducible $`j=\frac{1}{2}`$ ones. This leads to the ansatz:

$$(x,z)=A(z)+xB(z)$$
(15)
Substituting this into the KZ equation and separating powers of $`x`$ leads to:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{A}{z}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(k+2)}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{z(z1)}}\left[zB(z)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}A(z)\right]`$ (16)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{B}{z}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(k+2)}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{z(z1)}}\left[A(z)+2zB(z){\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}B(z)\right]`$ (17)
Now letting $`F_1=A+BF_2=A`$ we obtain the standard form .

$`{\displaystyle \frac{F_1}{z}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{k+2}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{3F_1}{2z}}+{\displaystyle \frac{F_2}{z}}{\displaystyle \frac{F_1}{2(z1)}}\right]`$ (18)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{F_2}{z}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{k+2}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{3F_2}{2(z1)}}+{\displaystyle \frac{F_1}{z1}}{\displaystyle \frac{F_2}{2z}}\right]`$ (19)
For generic $`k`$ these have linearly independent hypergeometric solutions . However for certain values of $`k`$ the solutions develop logarithmic singularities. For $`k=0`$ these have the solutions :

$`F_1^a`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}F({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}},{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}};1;z)F_2^a={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}F({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}},{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}};2;z)`$ (20)
$`F_1^b`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{4}}F({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}},{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}};2;1z)F_2^b={\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{2}}F({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}},{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}};1;1z)`$ (21)
The full correlator can be constructed from these by imposing single-valuedness and crossing symmetry and one finds that the logarithmic terms remain. For this case there is little value in using the auxiliary variable approach but for higher spin representations it allows easy calculation of the matrices $`𝒫`$ and $`𝒬`$.

## 4 Spin 1 Triplet representation

For $`j=1`$ we get:

$`𝒫`$ $`=`$ $`x^2(x1){\displaystyle \frac{^2}{x^2}}+(3x^2+4x){\displaystyle \frac{}{x}}+(4x2)`$ (22)
$`𝒬`$ $`=`$ $`(1x)^2x{\displaystyle \frac{^2}{x^2}}+(3x^22x1){\displaystyle \frac{}{x}}+(24x)`$ (23)
We now impose:

$$(x,z)=F(z)+xG(z)+x^2H(z)$$
(24)
Proceeding as before we now get three equations:

$`\kappa {\displaystyle \frac{dF}{dz}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{zG(z)+2F(z)}{z(z1)}}`$
$`\kappa {\displaystyle \frac{dG}{dz}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4F(z)+2zG(z)2G(z)4H(z)z}{z(z1)}}`$ (25)
$`\kappa {\displaystyle \frac{dH}{dz}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{6H(z)z4H(z)G(z)}{z(z1)}}`$
where $`\kappa =k2`$.

These lead to third order ODEs for $`F,G`$ and $`H`$. We calculate only the equation for $`F`$ as $`G,H`$ can be obtained easily from $`F`$.

$`\kappa ^3z^3(z1)^3{\displaystyle \frac{d^3F(z)}{dz^3}}+\kappa ^2z^2(z1)^2\left((83\kappa )z4\right){\displaystyle \frac{d^2F(z)}{dz^2}}`$ (26)
$`+\kappa z(z1)\left((\kappa 2)(6\kappa )z^26(\kappa 2)z+(2\kappa +4)\right){\displaystyle \frac{dF(z)}{dz}}`$
$`+\left(2z^2\kappa (\kappa +6)2z(3\kappa +8)(\kappa +2)+4(\kappa +2)^2\right)F(z)`$
In  the four point function of vector fields in the $`O(N)`$ model was given by an integral representation for general $`k`$. Our calculation is similar and has the integral representation:

$$F(z)=_{C_1}𝑑s_{C_2}𝑑t(st)^\alpha ((s1)(t1))^\beta ((sz)(tz))^\gamma (st)^\delta $$
(27)
where $`\alpha =\frac{2}{\kappa }\beta =\frac{2}{\kappa }1\gamma =\frac{2}{\kappa }\delta =\frac{2}{\kappa }`$.

However for for certain values of $`\kappa `$, or choices of contours, this fails to converge and is not a very useful form. We did not manage to solve (26) completely but did get some simple solutions at $`k=0`$ ($`\kappa =2)`$. This is based on the factorization of the above equation that occurs. We find we can rewrite the above equation as:

$`\left((z1){\displaystyle \frac{d}{dz}}+2\right)\left(z(z1){\displaystyle \frac{d}{dz}}1\right)\left((z1){\displaystyle \frac{d}{dz}}+1\right)F(z)=0`$ (28)
We can easily solve this and hence find solutions for $`F(z)`$ and thus obtain $`G,H`$ from them. Combining into a solution for $`(x,z)`$ these can be conveniently written in a basis:

$`_1(x,z)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2(z1)}}+{\displaystyle \frac{x}{z}}+{\displaystyle \frac{x^2}{2z(z1)}}`$ (29)
$`_2(x,z)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1+(z1)(\mathrm{ln}(1z)\mathrm{ln}(z))}{2(z1)^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{x(z+(z1)^2(\mathrm{ln}(1z)\mathrm{ln}(z)))}{z(z1)^2}}`$ (30)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{x^2(12z+z(z1)(\mathrm{ln}(1z)\mathrm{ln}(z)))}{2z^2(z1)^2}}`$
$`_3(x,z)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1z+\mathrm{ln}(z)}{2(z1)}}+{\displaystyle \frac{x\mathrm{ln}(z)}{z}}+{\displaystyle \frac{x^2(1z+z\mathrm{ln}(z))}{2z^2(z1)}}`$ (31)
It is easily verified that these solve the above equations (4). As we are dealing with the finite dimensional representations we wish to remove the $`x`$ dependence at the end by expanding in terms of $`x_1,x_2,x_3,x_4`$. However it is generally more convenient to do so after imposing the constraints due to crossing symmetry. We now combine these with their antiholomorphic components into the full correlator

$$G(x,\overline{x},z,\overline{z})=\underset{a,b=1}{\overset{3}{}}U_{a,b}_a(x,z)\overline{_b(x,z)}$$
(32)
To make this single-valued everywhere we find:

$`G(x,\overline{x},z,\overline{z})`$ $`=`$ $`U_{1,1}_1(x,z)\overline{_1(x,z)}+U_{1,2}\left[_1(x,z)\overline{_2(x,z)}+_2(x,z)\overline{_1(x,z)}\right]`$ (33)
$`+U_{1,3}\left[_1(x,z)\overline{_3(x,z)}+_3(x,z)\overline{_1(x,z)}\right]`$
In contrast to normal CFT this does not have a simple diagonal form. This is one well known difference in logarithmic CFT. In order to get a well defined correlator we must also impose the crossing symmetries:

$`G(x,\overline{x},z,\overline{z})=G(1x,1\overline{x},1z,1\overline{z})`$ (34)
$`G(x,\overline{x},z,\overline{z})=z^{2h}\overline{z}^{2h}x^{2j}\overline{x}^{2j}G({\displaystyle \frac{1}{x}},{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\overline{x}}},{\displaystyle \frac{1}{z}},{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\overline{z}}})`$ (35)
Under $`x,z1x,1z`$ we have :

$$_1_1_2_2_3_2+_3$$
(36)
Under $`x,z\frac{1}{x},\frac{1}{z}`$:

$$_1\frac{z^2}{x^2}_1_2\frac{z^2}{x^2}(i\pi _1+_2+_3)_3\frac{z^2}{x^2}_3$$
(37)
If we put $`U_{1,3}=2U_{1,2}`$ then our solution is invariant under (34) whereas if $`U_{1,2}=2U_{1,3}`$ then we have invariance under (35). Thus the only solution obeying both crossing symmetries is $`U_{1,2}=U_{1,3}=0`$ and so the logarithmic solutions do not contribute to the correlator. If there is some other symmetry present in a problem, besides the affine $`SU(2)_0`$ then the correlator will not be invariant under all the crossing symmetries. We comment on this later. We can now remove the $`x`$ dependence and go back to the index notation. We do this using

$`\varphi _1(x,z)=x^2\varphi _1^+(z)+x\varphi _1^0(z)+\varphi _1^{}(z)`$ (38)
with similar expressions for the antiholomorphic part. From the general form in auxiliary variables we get the following expected two and three point equations:

$$\varphi _1^a(x_1,z_1)\varphi _1^b(x_2,z_2)=A\frac{\eta _{ab}}{z_{12}^2}$$
(39)
$$\varphi _1^a(x_1,z_1)\varphi _1^b(x_2,z_2)\varphi _1^c(x_3,z_3)=\frac{Bϵ^{abc}}{z_{12}z_{13}z_{23}}$$

We can now do the same for our four point function. If $`U_{1,2}=U_{1,3}=0`$ in (33) then we have the correlator:

$`\varphi _1^{a\overline{a}}(z_1)\varphi _1^{b\overline{b}}(z_2)\varphi _1^{c\overline{c}}(z_3)\varphi _1^{d\overline{d}}(z_4)=`$ (40)
$`C\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^{ab}\delta ^{cd}}{z_{13}z_{14}z_{23}z_{24}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^{ac}\delta ^{bd}}{z_{12}z_{34}z_{14}z_{32}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^{ad}\delta ^{bc}}{z_{13}z_{12}z_{43}z_{42}}}\right]\overline{\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^{ab}\delta ^{cd}}{z_{13}z_{14}z_{23}z_{24}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^{ac}\delta ^{bd}}{z_{12}z_{34}z_{14}z_{32}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^{ad}\delta ^{bc}}{z_{13}z_{12}z_{43}z_{42}}}\right]}`$
$`A,B`$ and $`C`$ are constants which can only be obtained through the consistency of all the OPE’s. In unitary CFT we can always normalize $`A=1`$ as all null operators must decouple. In our case $`k=0`$ and even the Kac-Moody current $`J(z)`$ and the stress tensor $`T(z)`$ have vanishing two point functions, and consequently we cannot impose this if we wish to obtain a non-trivial theory. Assuming that $`C0`$ then expanding the four point function above reveals:

$`\varphi ^a(z)\varphi ^b(0){\displaystyle \frac{iϵ^{abc}Q^c}{z}}+\delta ^{ab}R(0)+\mathrm{}`$ (41)
$`Q^a(z)Q^b(0){\displaystyle \frac{1}{z^2}}`$ (42)
$`R(z)R(0){\displaystyle \frac{1}{z^4}}`$ (43)
We have also found explicit solutions for the case of $`j_1=j_3=1j_2=j_4=\frac{1}{2}`$. In this case we have only two conformal blocks. We obtain two solutions, one of which has logarithmic terms in its expansion, the other being well behaved:

$`(x,z)=`$ $`A\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{arcsin}(2z1)+2\sqrt{z(1z)}}{z1}}+x{\displaystyle \frac{(2z1)\mathrm{arcsin}(2z1)+2\sqrt{z(1z)}}{z(1z)}}\right]`$ (44)
$`+B\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{1z}}+x{\displaystyle \frac{2z1}{z(1z)}}\right]`$
Imposing the crossing symmetry $`x,z1x,1z`$ implies $`A=0`$ and we are again left with the non-logarithmic terms. As previously mentioned the OPEs for two fundamental fields were found from the four point function . By expanding the above expression one can combine our results (41) with theirs.

If we have additional global symmetries present  and fields have extra quantum numbers then it is not necessary to impose all of the crossing symmetry. Then we find that we may have logarithmic solutions:

$`B_1(x_1,z_1)B_2(x_2,z_2)B_1(x_3,z_3)B_2(x_4,z_4)=U_{1,2}[F_1(x,z)\overline{(F_2(x,z)+2F_3(x,z))}`$ (45)
$`+(F_2(x,z)+2F_3(x,z))\overline{F_1(x,z)}]`$
$`F_1^{a\overline{a}}(z_1,\overline{z_1})F_2^{b\overline{b}}(z_2,\overline{z_2})F_1^{c\overline{c}}(z_3,\overline{z_3})F_2^{d\overline{d}}(z_4,\overline{z_4})=\{\delta ^{ab}\delta ^{cd}[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{z_{12}^2z_{34}^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{ln}(\frac{z_{12}z_{34}}{z_{23}z_{14}})}{z_{23}z_{14}z_{13}z_{24}}}]`$ (46)
$`+\delta ^{ac}\delta ^{bd}[{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{ln}(\frac{z_{23}z_{14}}{z_{12}z_{34}})}{z_{12}z_{34}z_{23}z_{14}}}]\delta ^{ad}\delta ^{bc}[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{z_{23}^2z_{14}^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{ln}(\frac{z_{23}z_{14}}{z_{12}z_{34}})}{z_{12}z_{34}z_{13}z_{24}}}]\}\times c.c`$
where we have denoted bosonic fields by $`B_{1,2}`$ and fermionic ones by $`F_{1,2}`$. In (45) we have ignored the contribution of terms of the type (40) as these have already been commented on.

In the fermionic case we have the following OPE’s.

$`F_1^a(z_1)F_2^b(z_2)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ^{ab}}{z_{12}^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{iϵ^{abc}P^c(z_2)}{z_{12}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{ln}z_{12}iϵ^{abc}Q^c(z_2)}{z_{12}}}`$
$`+iϵ^{abc}R^e(z_2)+\mathrm{ln}z_{12}iϵ^{abc}S^e(z_2)+\delta ^{ab}T(z_2)+\mathrm{ln}z_{12}\delta ^{ab}t(z_2)+\mathrm{}`$
## 5 Conclusion

We have found the general solution for the four point function of the vector representation in the $`SU(2)_0`$ model. If we impose single-valuedness and all the crossing symmetries then we find that all the logarithmic terms vanish. The logarithmic terms can thus only be present if fields possess additional quantum numbers.

In contrast to irreducible representations in a general indecomposable representation there is no reason to assume that the central extensions must act diagonally. If the logarithmic partner of the stress tensor also involves a non-diagonal central charge then there seems to be no reason that a similar phenomenon could not occur in the Kac-Moody algebra. It would be interesting to see study the relation between these.

In  a connection was derived between $`SU(2)_k`$ WZNW and the minimal models (See also  where it was used to relate the quantum theory of the plateau transition to Liouville). This relates four point functions in $`SU(2)_0`$ to five point ones in the $`c=2`$ minimal model. Presumably this means much of the structure is the same. The $`c=2`$ theory is one of the best understood LCFTs  and in particular it is quasi-rational i.e fields fall into a finite number of representations of a higher spin algebra. It would also be interesting to see if the factorization properties of the KZ equation are related to those of the minimal models. We hope to study some of these questions in future work.

## 6 Acknowledgments

I would like to thank I.I. Kogan, J. Bhaseen, and Y. Ishimoto for interesting and helpful discussion. This work was funded by PPARC studentship number PPA/S/S/1998/02610.