text:
# I Introduction

## I Introduction

By starting with the Green-Schwarz action for type IIB superstring and considering its path integral in the Schild gauge Ishibashi et al.  proposed a matrix model action,

$$S=\alpha \left(\frac{1}{4}Tr([A_\mu ,A_\nu ]^2)+\frac{1}{2}Tr(\overline{\psi }\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu [A_\mu ,\psi ])\right)+\beta N.$$
(1)
$`\psi `$ is a ten-dimensional Majorana-Weyl spinor field, and $`A_\mu `$ and $`\psi `$ are $`N\times N`$ Hermitian matrices. The action in Eq. 1 after dropping the term proportional to $`N`$ \[chemical potential term\] constitutes a large-N reduced model of the ten-dimensional super Yang-Mills theory. By noting that $`N`$ in Eq. 1 is a dynamical variable Fayyazuddin et al.  proposed a slightly general form of Eq. 1, viz

$$S=\alpha \left(\frac{1}{4}Tr(Y^1[A_\mu ,A_\nu ]^2)+\frac{1}{2}Tr(\overline{\psi }\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu [A_\mu ,\psi ])\right)+\beta TrY,$$
(2)
We note that $`N`$ in the last term in Eq. 1 is the $`N\times N`$ identity matrix, i.e. $`TrI=N`$. The positive definite Hermitian matrix $`Y^{ij}`$ in Eq. 2 is a dynamical variable with its origin in the $`\sqrt{g}`$ appearing in the Schild action

$$S_{_{\mathrm{Schild}}}=d^2\sigma \left(\alpha \sqrt{g}(\frac{1}{4}\{X_\mu ,X_\nu \}_{_{PB}}^2\frac{i}{2}\overline{\psi }\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu \{X_\mu ,\psi \}_{_{PB}})+\beta \sqrt{g}\right),$$
(3)
in the notation of .

The modification suggested in  is attractive, for among other things the bosonic part of the classical action Eq. 2 coincides with the Non-Abelian Born-Infeld action after the solution classical equation of motion for the $`Y`$-field is substituted back into Eq. 2. We note that the equation of motion for the $`Y`$-field is

$$\frac{\alpha }{4}\left(Y^1[A_\mu ,A_\nu ]^2Y^1\right)_{ij}+\beta \delta _{ij}=0,$$
(4)
and its solution is

$$Y=\frac{1}{2}\sqrt{\frac{\alpha }{\beta }}\sqrt{[A_\mu ,A_\nu ]^2}.$$
(5)
The matrix $`Y^{ab}`$ plays the role of the dynamical variable, the elements of $`Y`$ can fluctuate while it matrix size is fixed. In contrast the matrix size in the model of  is considered as a dynamical variable so that the partition function includes the summation over the matrix size. This summation process is expected to recover the integration over $`\sqrt{g}`$ \[as mentioned earlier\], however a proof is not clear.

Earlier Banks et al.  proposed/conjectured the matrix model description of M-theory***The first paper to give the N=4 and N=16 SUSY gauge quantum mechanics was . The N=16 is the precursor to the M(atrix) theory. I thank M.B.Halpern for pointing reference  out to me.. Essentially this M(atrix) theory, as it has been dubbed, is the large $`N`$ limit of maximally supersymmetric quantum mechanics of $`U(N)`$ matrices. Some of the standard wisdom about M-theory and related topics can be found in Ref. .

Our motivations in the form of comments and questions for constructing a model based on topological/algebraic arguments that has relation to F-theory and Matrix Model IIB and conjectures regarding the construction of a model in which the notions of spacetime and noncommutative spacetime arise out of some underlying topological/algebraic structure are given in .

This paper is organized as follows. The next section contains the actual construction of the desired Topological Matrix Model. In section three we comment on the relation of the Topological Matrix Model to F-theory and Matrix Model IIB. Comments regarding the possible origin of the chemical potential term in Eq. 1 are given in section four. Conclusions are contained in section five.

Recently there has been a lot of interest in Topological Yang-Mills theory in higher dimensions consequently overlap is expected among various works. The work of S. Hirano and M. Kato  has overlap with oursWe thank M. Kato for pointing out their work to us. The detailed work of C. Hofman and J-S. Park  is also worth citing in this respect. In a forthcoming article we would like to setup an exact comparison between our work and that in .

## II Topological Matrix Model

With the motivations outlined in  in mind we assume for the purposes of this paper that we have a noncommutative spacetime Noncommutativity of spacetime can be considered as a first step towards the realization of Quantum Mach Principle \[QMP\] . QMP could simply be stated as: If there is no field/matter there should be no space-time. The coordinates of this noncommutative spacetime are taken to be $`N\times N`$ matrices $`X^\mu `$. The index $`\mu `$ takes values from 0 to $`D1`$, where $`D`$ is the dimension of spacetime. The value of $`D`$ will be fixed in the context of relating the topological matrix model to F-theory and type IIB matrix model, see sections three and four. To be particular we take the matrices $`X^\mu `$ to represent “instantons” so that we are naturally led to choose the self-dual equation 15 as our gauge-choice. The spacetime is subject to arbitrary deformations $`X^\mu X^\mu +\mathrm{\Delta }X^\mu `$. We define the measure

$$|\mathrm{\Delta }X|^2=\mathrm{Tr}[\eta _{\mu \nu }\delta X^\mu \delta X^\nu ]$$
(6)
$`\eta _{\mu \nu }`$ is the Minkowski metric with signature $`(D1,1)`$. In keeping with the ADHM description of instantons we take the matrices $`X^\mu `$ to lie in the adjoint representation of the $`U(N)`$ group. We note that our fundamental degrees of freedom are D-instantons. The instantons are fuzzy, are the coordinates of noncommutative spacetime and are represented by matrices. Since $`X^\mu `$ are subject to arbitrary deformations, see Eq. 11, the construction of the model in the present paper is that of topological field theory. The measure in Eq. 6 is by definition fuzzy since $`X^\mu `$ are subject to arbitrary deformations, Eq. 11. The fuzziness of the measure ties in nicely with the noncommutativity of spacetime and the QMP .

As pointed out earlier it is tempting to go even beyond the noncommutative spacetime. This would imply defining the “measure” over some topological space and recovering the measure over Minkowski space in Eq. 6 by some suitable reduction procedure. However for the purposes of this paper we adhere to the measure defined in Eq. 6.

We now turn to give the Topological Matrix Model \[TMM\]. As is well-known  we can classify topological field theories into two categories:

* Topological Models with no explicit metric dependence. Known examples in this category include three-dimensional Chern-Simons theory and 2+1 gravity.
* Topological models where a metric may be present but varying the background metric does not change the theory i.e. the theory is independent of the metric. This class of theories is called cohomological topological field theories \[CTFT\]. The metric enters CTFT through BRST gauge fixing and thus the metric is introduced as a gauge artifact. One of the consequences of the metric being a gauge artifact is that the energy momentum tensor in CTFT is BRST trivial. One can see this by noting that the energy momentum tensor \[by definition\] is given by the variation of the Lagrangian with respect to the metric

$`T_{\mu \nu }={\displaystyle \frac{2}{\sqrt{g}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta L}{\delta g^{\mu \nu }}}`$and since the gauged-fixed action with its Faddeev-Popov term can be written as $`\{Q,F\}`$ for some field F, the energy momentum tensor can be written as

$`T_{\mu \nu }=\{Q,F_{\mu \nu }\}.`$

One procedure of constructing cohomological theories is to postulate a gauge transformation under which the original action is invariant. The original action is taken to be zero or a pure topological quantity. One then gets a Gauge-Fixed \[GF\] action written as a BRST variation.

We now start with zero action in the usual manner

$$L=0$$
(7)
and construct a cohomological model. We recall that when considering Topological Yang-Mills symmetry one considers the infinitesimal transformations :

$`\delta A_\mu =D_\mu \epsilon +\epsilon _\mu ,`$ (8)
where $`A=A_\mu dx^\mu `$ is the Yang-Mills field and $`D_\mu `$ is the covariant derivative

$`D_\mu _\mu +[A_\mu ,],`$ (9)
$`\epsilon `$ is the usual Yang Mills local parameter and $`\epsilon _\mu `$ is a new local 1-form infinitesimal parameter. The action of $`\delta `$ on the field-strength i.e. the two-form $`F=dA+AA`$ is

$`\delta F_{\mu \nu }=D_{[\mu }\epsilon _{\nu ]}[\epsilon ,F_{\mu \nu }].`$ (10)
In lieu of the discussion at the beginning of this section and keeping in mind Eq. 8 we subject the non-commutative coordinates to arbitrary deformations and assume that

$`\delta X^\mu =\epsilon ^\mu ,`$ (11)
where $`\epsilon ^\mu `$ are $`N\times N`$ matrices. As pointed out earlier the subjection of $`X^\mu `$ to arbitrary deformations implies that we are dealing with a topological field theory.

The zero action 7 is assumed to be invariant under the gauge transformation

$$\delta _1X_\mu =\psi _\mu .$$
(12)
Next we choose a gauge so that $`[X_\mu ,X_\nu ]`$ is self-dual ,

$`\lambda [X_\mu ,X_\nu ]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}S_{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }[X^\alpha ,X^\beta ],`$ (13)
$`F_{\mu \nu }`$ $``$ $`i[X_\mu ,X_\nu ],`$ (14)
$`\lambda F_{\mu \nu }`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}S_{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }F^{\alpha \beta }.`$ (15)
in view of the motivations explained earlier. We note that $`\lambda `$ is the “eigenvalue” in the self-dual equation . The choice of the gauge in Eq. 15 is nothing but the fixing of the underlying topological symmetry. We recall that underlying symmetry is topological in the sense that $`X^\mu `$ are subject to arbitrary deformations, see Eq. 11. There has been a lot of interest in “instanton” equation, especially recently, . To this end we refer the reader to ref. .

Applying the quantization procedure to the zero action subject to Eqs. 7 and keeping in mind the full BRST transformation laws including Eq. 12, viz,

$`\delta _1X_\mu `$ $`=`$ $`\psi _\mu ,`$ (16)
$`\delta _1\chi _{\mu \nu }`$ $`=`$ $`iB_{\mu \nu },`$ (17)
$`\delta _1B_{\mu \nu }`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (18)
$`\delta _1\psi _\mu `$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (19)
we may write the gauge fixed action with Faddeev-Popov \[FP\]

$$L_{_{\mathrm{GF}+\mathrm{FP}}}^1=\mathrm{Tr}(\frac{1}{4}B^{\mu \nu }[\lambda F_{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{2}S_{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }F^{\alpha \beta }]\chi _{\mu \nu }[X^{[\mu },\psi ^{\nu ]}]+\frac{1}{8}aB^{\mu \nu }B_{\mu \nu }))$$
(20)
where $`\chi _{\mu \nu }`$ and $`\psi _\mu `$ are the FP ghostfields, $`B_{\mu \nu }`$ is a self-dual auxiliary field, and $`a`$ is a parameter which takes on in general a different value for each component. For example $`a=a_{09}`$ when $`\mu =0`$ and $`\nu =9`$ in Eq. 20.

We have used the subscript 1 for the BRST variation $`\delta `$ to emphasize that we are carrying the quantization \[i.e. gauge-fixing procedure\] at the first stage, in anticipation that due to hidden symmetry of the gauge-fixed action Eq. 20 we need to repeat the gauge-fixing procedure.

We can write the action in Eq. 20 as a BRST variation using the BRST transformation laws given in Eq. 19,

$$L_{_{\mathrm{GF}+\mathrm{FP}}}^1=\frac{i}{4}\mathrm{Tr}\left(\delta _1(\chi ^{\mu \nu }[\lambda F_{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{2}S_{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }F^{\alpha \beta }+\frac{1}{2}aB_{\mu \nu }])\right).$$
(21)
As a check we explicitly act with $`\delta _1`$ in Eq. 21 and using Eq. 19 we arrive at Eq. 20.

Next we move to the second stage of gauge-fixing. Since $`\psi ^\mu `$ has a ghost-symmetry this can be parameterized by the ghost field $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$, namely $`\delta _2\psi _\mu =[X_\mu ,\mathrm{\Phi }]`$. Moreover the action given above, see Eqs. 2021 possesses a hidden symmetry, $`\delta _2\psi _\mu =[X_\mu ,\mathrm{\Phi }]`$, and $`\delta _2B_{\mu \nu }=ie[\mathrm{\Phi },\chi _{\mu \nu }]`$ where $`e`$ is a constant. We must thus continue the quantization procedure by fixing this symmetry. To this end introduce a set of fields $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$, $`\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}`$ and $`\eta `$. Keeping these points in mind the set of BRST transformations reads

$`\delta _2X_\mu `$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (22)
$`\delta _2\chi _{\mu \nu }`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (23)
$`\delta _2B_{\mu \nu }`$ $`=`$ $`ie[\mathrm{\Phi },\chi _{\mu \nu }],`$ (24)
$`\delta _2\psi _\mu `$ $`=`$ $`[X_\mu ,\mathrm{\Phi }],`$ (25)
$`\delta _1\mathrm{\Phi }`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (26)
$`\delta _2\mathrm{\Phi }`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (27)
$`\delta _1\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (28)
$`\delta _2\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}`$ $`=`$ $`2\eta ,`$ (29)
$`\delta _1\eta `$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (30)
$`\delta _2\eta `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}e[\mathrm{\Phi },\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}].`$ (31)
We have used the subscript 2 for the BRST variation $`\delta `$ to emphasize that we are carrying the quantization \[i.e. gauge-fixing procedure\] at the second stage.

The gauge-fixed action subject to the BRST rules in Eq. 31 can be written as,

$$L_{_{\mathrm{GF}+\mathrm{FP}}}^2=\mathrm{Tr}\left([\delta _1+\delta _2](\frac{1}{2}\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}[X_\mu ,\psi ^\mu ]+\frac{1}{2}se\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}[\mathrm{\Phi },\eta ]+\frac{i}{4}\chi ^{\mu \nu }B_{\mu \nu })\right).$$
(32)
where $`s`$ is some parameter.

Carrying out explicitly the action of the BRST variation $`\delta _1+\delta _2`$ in Eq. 32 we have,

$`L_{_{\mathrm{GF}+\mathrm{FP}}}^2`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{Tr}(\eta [X_\mu ,\psi ^\mu ]{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}[\psi _\mu ,\psi ^\mu ]`$ (36)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[X_\mu ,\mathrm{\Phi }][X^\mu ,\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}]+se\mathrm{\Phi }[\eta ,\eta ]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}se^2[\mathrm{\Phi },\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}]^2`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}B^{\mu \nu }B_{\mu \nu }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}e\mathrm{\Phi }[\chi ^{\mu \nu },\chi _{\mu \nu }]).`$
We note that the field $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is unaffected by the BRST variation $`\delta _1+\delta _2`$. This implies that the action Eq. 36 is not unique for we can add to it a BRST variation of some fields that give a total contribution of zero, for example we can add to the action some arbitrary collection of the $`\varphi `$ field which is unaffected by the BRST variation.

The full action is the sum of the two actions Eqs. 20, 36, viz,

$$L_{_{\mathrm{GF}+\mathrm{FP}}}=L_{_{\mathrm{GF}+\mathrm{FP}}}^1+L_{_{\mathrm{GF}+\mathrm{FP}}}^2.$$
(37)
In anticipation of comparison of TMM to other models, we now choose the value of $`D`$ to be 10. This choice is also guided by the observation that the special properties of $`\gamma `$ matrices in eight-dimensions don’t recur in higher dimensions . We thus choose the self-dual equation of Eq. 15

$`\lambda [X_\mu ,X_\nu ]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}S_{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }[X^\alpha ,X^\beta ]`$ (38)
to be valid in $`D=10`$ and define the totally antisymmetric tensor $`S_{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }`$ , namely§§§Here we use $`\xi `$ rather than $`\eta `$ of ref.  for the constant spinor to avoid confusion with the $`\eta `$ already introduced in this note.,

$$S^{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }=\xi ^T\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }\xi .$$
(39)
We demand that $`\xi ^T\xi =1`$ . $`\xi `$ is a constant spinor, and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }`$ is the totally antisymmetric product of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ matrices for $`SO(9,1)`$ spinor representation. Since we want to impose the “unique” conditions  arising from the octonionic structure, we decompose $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu `$ of D=10 in terms of $`\gamma ^i`$ of eight-dimensional $`SO(8)`$ such that

$`F_{0i}`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (40)
$`F_{9i}`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (41)
$`F_{09}`$ $`=`$ $`0,i=1,2,\mathrm{}.,8,`$ (42)
and the conditions given in Eq. 3.39 of  hold. Under these conditions $`\lambda =1`$ in Eq. 38. The breakdown of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu `$ in terms of $`\gamma ^i`$ and the values of antisymmetric tensor which ensures conditions given in Eq. 42 and in Eq. 3.39 of  are as follows:

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }^0`$ $`=`$ $`i\sigma _21,`$ (43)
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }^9`$ $`=`$ $`\sigma _1\gamma ^9,`$ (44)
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }^i`$ $`=`$ $`\sigma _1\gamma ^i,`$ (45)
$`S^{0ijk}`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (46)
$`S^{9ijk}`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (47)
$`S^{09ij}`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (48)
$`S^{ijkl}`$ $`=`$ $`\xi ^T\gamma ^{ijkl}\xi ,i=1,2,\mathrm{}.,8.`$ (49)
Keeping in mind the information outlined the total gauge-fixed action Eq. 37 can be written after integrating over the auxiliary field $`B_{ij}`$ as

$`L_{_{\mathrm{GF}+\mathrm{FP}}}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{Tr}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}F_{ij}F^{ij}+a{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}F_{ij}S^{ijkl}F_{kl}`$ (54)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8}}F_{ij}S^{ijkl}F_{kl}\chi _{ij}[X^{[i},\psi ^{j]}]`$
$`\eta [X_i,\psi ^i]{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}[\psi _i,\psi ^i]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[X_i,\mathrm{\Phi }][X^i,\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}]+se\mathrm{\Phi }[\eta ,\eta ]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}se^2[\mathrm{\Phi },\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}]^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}e\mathrm{\Phi }[\chi ^{ij},\chi _{ij}]).`$
The set of bosonic fields in Eq. 54 is $`(X^i,\mathrm{\Phi },\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }})`$ where the fermionic set is $`(\psi ^i,\chi ^{ij},\eta )`$. The action in Eq. 54 is now in the form to be compared to the supersymmetric reduced model.

We next choose the value of $`D`$ to be 9, so that we are starting with $`SO(8,1)`$. In order to exploit the “instanton” equation in 7 Euclidean dimension  we consider $`SO(8,1)`$ broken into $`SO(1,1)SO(7)`$. Further the subgroup of $`SO(7)`$ which respects the octonion structure is $`G_2`$. The gauge conditions in this case are obtained by replacing 9 by 8 in Eq. 42, letting $`i`$ run from 1 to 7, and deleting the terms with subscript 8 in the appropriate equations as explained in ref. , obtaining the set of seven equations . We note that under these conditions $`\lambda =1`$ in Eq. 38.

When the value of $`D`$ is set to 8, in a like manner we start with $`SO(7,1)`$ and consider $`SO(7,1)`$ broken into $`SO(1,1)SO(6)`$. The relevant subgroup in this case of $`SO(6)`$ is $`SU(3)U(1)/Z_3`$ . The gauge conditions in this case are obtained by replacing 8 by 7 , letting $`i`$ run from 1 to 6 and deleting the terms with subscript 7 in the appropriate equations as explained in ref. , obtaining the set of seven equations . Of course under these conditions $`\lambda =1`$ in Eq. 38. We note that there are two subgroups of $`SO(6)`$ which allow an invariant construction of the fourth rank tensor $`S_{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }`$ namely $`SO(4)SO(2)`$ and $`SU(3)U(1)/Z_3`$ . The choice $`SO(4)SO(2)`$ corresponds to the case where the six dimensional manifold is a direct product of a four dimensional and a two dimensional manifold. The second subgroup $`SU(3)U(1)/Z_3`$ is the holonomy group of six dimensional Kahler manifolds.

## III Relationship between TMM & other String Models

In this section we look at the relationship between TMM and other string theories. In particular we want to see the relationship between TMM and F-Theory , TMM and matrix model of M-theory and TMM and the matrix model of type IIB string theory.

If one were to ask for a model, based on D-dimensional Yang-Mills type, to be written on purely intuitive ground, the action

$$S=\alpha \left(\frac{1}{4}Tr([A_\mu ,A_\nu ]^2)\right),$$
(55)
would come to mind, where $`A_\mu `$ is the Yang-Mills field. Further insistence on incorporating supersymmetry would lead us to the modified action

$$S_{_{SRM}}=\alpha \left(\frac{1}{4}Tr([A_\mu ,A_\nu ]^2)+\frac{1}{2}Tr(\overline{\psi }\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu [A_\mu ,\psi ])\right),$$
(56)
where $`\psi `$ is a ten-dimensional Majorana-Weyl spinor field. Eq. 56 is nothing but the action for supersymmetric reduced model  and is the same as the action in Eq. 1 without the $`\beta N`$ term. The action in Eq. 56 is called supersymmetric reduced model \[SRM\]. The ten dimensional Super Yang-Mills action i.e. SRM of Eq. 56 can be rewritten in terms of octonions of eight-dimensional space as

$`S_{_{SRM}}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{Tr}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}([A_i,A_j]^2)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}([A_i,A_0+A_9][A^i,A^0A^9])`$ (60)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8}}([A_0+A_9,A_0A_9]^2)`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\lambda _a^L(2[A^{[8},\lambda __R^{a]}]+c_{abc}[A^{[b},\lambda __R^{c]}])\lambda __L^8[A_i,\lambda __R^i]`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(A_0A_9)[\lambda _i^R,\lambda __R^i]{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(A_0+A_9)[\lambda __L^8,\lambda __L^8]{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(A_0+A_9)[\lambda _a^L,\lambda _a^L])`$
where the indices $`i,j=1,\mathrm{}..,8`$ and $`a,b,c=1,\mathrm{},7`$ . We note that the $`L,R`$ appearing as subscript or superscript denote the chirality of the $`SO(8)`$ chiral spinors $`\lambda `$. We have written the action of SRM in the form displayed in Eq. 60 to facilitate comparison with the TMM of the previous section. To the same end we have dropped the coupling $`\alpha `$. It is straightforward to see that the action of Eq. 60 is the same as the action of TMM in $`D=10`$ viz Eq. 54, if one lets

$`X^i`$ $``$ $`A^i,`$ (61)
$`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ $``$ $`A_0+A_9,`$ (62)
$`\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}`$ $``$ $`A_0A_9,`$ (63)
$`\psi ^i`$ $``$ $`\lambda __R^i,`$ (64)
$`2\chi ^{8a}`$ $``$ $`\lambda __L^a,`$ (65)
$`\eta `$ $``$ $`\lambda __L^8,`$ (66)
except for the term $`\mathrm{Tr}(a\frac{1}{4}F_{ij}S^{ijkl}F_{kl}\frac{1}{8}F_{ij}S^{ijkl}F_{kl})`$The simplest gauge choice is to take $`a=0`$. The trace of $`F_{ij}S^{ijkl}F_{kl}`$ for finite $`N`$ vanishes due to Jacobi-identity and the cyclic property of trace. In large N limit this term may survive and could play a role in the dynamics of the matrix model. We do not understand the implications of this term on the dynamics of the matrix model..

In order to make connection of the TMM with F-Theory we note that F-Theory is formulated in 12 dimensions  and is supposed to be the underlying theory of type IIB strings. More precisely F-Theory is defined only through the compactifications on elliptically fibered complex manifolds. For the purposes of this paper we compare the TMM with F-theory in a naive manner ignoring for the moment the task of compactifying TMM according to complicated compactification schemes, such as, for example compactification on $`K_3`$ orbifold and $`T^4/Z_2`$.

If we look at the bosonic content of TMM we can interpret the emergence of $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}`$ as two “extra coordinates”. We see that besides the 10 dimensional spacetime we have to contend with two “extra dimensions” $`\mathrm{\Phi }+\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}`$. More precisely in addition to the eight transverse coordinates $`X^i`$ \[$`i=1,2,\mathrm{}8.`$\] we have the light-cone coordinates $`X^0`$ and $`X^9`$ and two extra transverse coordinates $`\mathrm{\Phi }+\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}`$. If we write the contribution of these 12 coordinates to explicitly show the signature we have $`(1,1)`$, $`(8,0)`$ and (1,1) coming from $`X^0`$ and $`X^9`$, $`X^i`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }+\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}`$ respectively. Thus the TMM has 10+2 spacetime dimensions. The lightcone TMM seems to correspond to lightcone F-theory with 9+1=10 transverse coordinates.

It is known  that if we compactify F-theory on (1,1) space we will obtain type IIB string theory. Thus if we compactify the (1,1) space i.e. $`(\mathrm{\Phi }+\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }},\mathrm{\Phi }\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }})`$ we will obtain a matrix description of the light-cone type IIB theory. Thus a matrix description of the light-cone type IIB theory can be taken to be the SRM on $`T^{1,1}`$ torus with $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}`$ directions compactified.

We now turn to the cases of D=9 and D=8. Let us begin with the $`D=9`$ case, where we start with the 9 dimensional spacetime. Taking into account the two extra dimensions \[see discussion above\], the TMM has 9+2 spacetime dimensions. If we compactify $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}`$ directions to obtain the $`T^{1,1}`$ torus, we may write $`R^{9,2}R^{8,1}\times T^{1,1}`$. Now in M-theory $`R^{10,1}R^{9,1}\times S^1`$ . If we compactify $`R^{9,1}`$ on two torus $`T^2`$, we obtain $`R^{10,1}(R^{7,1}\times S^1)\times T^2`$. At this point we recall that the ‘fundamental’ excitations of M-theory ala Banks et al. are 0-branes. In the present model the basic objects are ‘instantons’ \[-1-branes\]. We conjecture/expect that the TMM model compactified on two-torus, namely, $`R^{9,2}R^{8,1}\times T^{1,1}`$ is equivalent to M-theory $`R^{10,1}(R^{7,1}\times S^1)\times T^2`$. For the case of the 8 dimensional spacetime, when we compactify our theory on two-torus we can write $`R^{8,2}R^{7,1}\times T^{1,1}`$. We may obtain this case by compactifying its higher dimensional counterparts. In the above compactification schemes we have used the simple conventional logic. However as pointed out in  the conventional logic leads one to expect that if M-theory is compactified on a two-torus, then since 11-2=9 one should obtain a 9 dimensional theory, but one finds that if the area of the torus is shrunk to zero the result is 10 dimensional IIB string theory. It would be interesting to examine if we can manufacture an extra dimension for the above case of $`R^{8,2}R^{7,1}\times T^{1,1}`$.

Finally we comment on the question: What can one say in the context of TMM about the emergence of commutative spacetime and general coordinate transformations? We can write

$`X^i`$ $``$ $`X^i+\delta X^i,`$ (67)
$`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{\Phi }+\delta \mathrm{\Phi },`$ (68)
$`\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}`$ $``$ $`\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}+\delta \overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}`$ (69)
for the transformations of the bosonic fields. Since $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is unchanged under the transformations, as mentioned earlier, see Eq. 31, we can ignore the transformation relation of $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ in Eq. 69. The machinery of recovering the commutative spacetime of the observed world from the noncommutative one is not built in the present topological model. Thus for the present we assume a background in which the matrices are commuting and replace quantities in Eq. 69 by their commuting counterparts \[i.e $`X^ix^i`$, $`\delta X^ig^i(x^i,\varphi ,\overline{\varphi })`$ $`\mathrm{\Phi }\varphi `$, $`\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}\overline{\varphi }`$, $`\delta \overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}g^{\overline{\varphi }}(x^i,\varphi ,\overline{\varphi })`$ where the background fields $`x^i`$, $`\varphi `$ and $`\overline{\varphi }`$ are all mutually commuting\] then Eq. 69 takes the form of the general coordinate transformations.

The topological model may be considered as a preliminary first step in an attempt to:

* Formulate a theory underlying the several known string theories.
* Construct a theory which has background independence built into it.
* Understand the true vacuum of string theory.
* Formulate a theory in which spacetime is a derived concept. It is conjectured that the primordial vacuum has a topological structure without a metric. The metric is expected to arise by quantum topological fluctuation.
* Attempt to understand: The details of how the electroweak vacuum can be accounted for in terms of the true string vacuum.

It could be useful to examine the following questions in an attempt to formulate a fundamental unified theory of strings:

* Can we understand Matrix Models in terms of Knots?
* Is there a Generalized Uncertainty Principle in the context of strings?
* What formalism of strings is best suited to identify and describe the true vacuum of string theory?

## IV The Chemical Potential term

We note that the action given in Eq. 56 does not contain the chemical potential term. In this section we want to address the question: How does one account for the the chemical potential term, $`\beta N`$ term in Eq. 1? We now give some brief comments/conjectures regarding the origin of the chemical potential term in Eq. 1. To this end we recall that this term may be traced back to the $`\sqrt{g}`$ appearing in the Schild action.

* The term $`\sqrt{g}d^2\sigma `$ appearing in Schild action is nothing but the area term. The question thus arises if we can consider this term as arising from the area preserving diffeomorphisms of F and M theories. Indeed it has been recently claimed by Sugawara  that his F theory and M theory can be formulated as gauge theories of area preserving diffeomorphisms algebra. We note that the M-theory of Sugawara  is 1-brane formulation rather than the 0-brane formulation of Banks et al.  and the F-theory of Sugawara  is 1-brane formulation rather than the -1-brane formulation of Ishibashi et al. . Assuming that the reverse of Sugawara’s suggestion is true, we can regard the area term as arising from those diffeomorphisms of F and M theories which preserve the area.
* In view of formulating a generalized uncertainity principle for string theories and keeping in mind the work of Yoneya we may regard the area term to be connected with the generalized uncertainty principle.
* It is well-known from the context of cohomological topological field theories  that the action is not unique in the sense that we can add to it a BRST variation of some arbitrary collection of fields. We may regard the $`\beta N`$ term \[Eq. 1\] as representing that set of $`[X^\mu ,X^\nu ]`$ which are proportional to the identity.
* The chemical potential term could arise from a term which comes from the BRST breaking.

We expect the above approaches to the determination of the origin of the chemical potential term to be interelated or equivalent.

## V Conclusions

In conclusion we have obtained a simple Topological Matrix Model. By construction TMM has a strong semblance to the SRM. It can be related to the F-theory and type IIB matrix model. This is not surprising since it is known or expected that some topological model is most likely to provide an underlying theory of strings. By construction and by direct comparison \[Eqs. 60 & 54\] TMM can be regarded to be quite similar to the topologically twisted form of the supersymmetric reduced model.

## Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank H. Kawai, K. Hagiwara and N. Ishibashi for several discussions and M. Kato for explaining his work. The work of the author is supported by JSPS fellowship of the Japanese Ministry of Education, Science and Culture \[MONBUSHO\].
Note Added:

We note that topological theories underlying quantum mechanics on instanton moduli spaces in matrix context are first discussed in a recent \[interesting\] paper by S. Gukov . This was pointed out to me by S. Gukov after the submission of this work and I thank him for this.


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# Factored Notation for Interval I/O Report DCS-264-IR, Department of Computer Science, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.

## 1 Introduction

Once upon a time, it was a matter of professional ethics among computers never to write a meaningless decimal. Since then computers have become machines and thereby lost any form of ethics, professional or otherwise. The human computers of yore were helped in their ethical behaviour by the fact that it took effort to write spurious decimals. Now the situation is reversed: the lazy way is to use the default precision of the I/O library function. As a result it is common to see fifteen decimals, all but three of which are meaningless.

Of course interval arithmetic is not guilty of such negligence. After all, the very raison d’être of the subject is to be explicit about the precision of computed results. Yet, even interval arithmetic is plagued by phoney decimals, albeit in a more subtle way. Just as conventional computation often needs more care in the presentation of computational results, the most obvious interval notation with default precision needs improvement.

As a bounded interval has two bounds, say, $`l`$ and $`u`$, the most straightforward notation is something like $`[l,u]`$. Written like this, it may not be immediately obvious what is wrong with writing it that way. But when confronted with a real-life consequence111 As can be found on page 122 of . , such as the statement that an unknown real $`x`$ belongs to

$`[+0.6180339887498946804,+0.6180339887498950136],`$ (1)
it becomes clear that this is not a practical notation.

This problem has been primarily addressed by Schulte, Zelov, Walster, and Chiriaev , who refer to the $`[l,u]`$ notation as the “conventional one”, and observe:

> With conventional interval output, it is often difficult to determine the relative sharpness of interval results, $`\mathrm{}`$ This is especially true when large amounts of interval data need to be examined.

### 1.1 The scanning problem

To start with, the notation exemplified by (1) requires one to scan both bounds to find the leftmost different digit. Only then does one have an idea of the width of the interval. In casting about for alternative notations, we note that an interval has more potentially useful attributes than the lower bound $`l`$ and the upper bound $`u`$. We could use the centre $`c`$, the radius $`r`$, or the diameter $`d`$. Any two independent attributes could be paired to give a notation for intervals. Of course, several such combinations are awkward. A reasonable alternative to pairing $`l`$ and $`u`$ is to combine $`c`$ with $`r`$. But then, in writing the pairs, we should drop the suggestive “\[” and “\]”. Thus we get $`c,r`$. In this notation, for example, the interval (1) becomes:

$`0.6180339887498948470,0.0000000000000001666.`$ (2)
The advantages of the $`c,r`$ notation include solving the problem of having to scan for the leftmost differing digit. Also, it shows at a glance the width of the interval. While this is an improvement over (1), it is still awkward that instead of a long string of repeated digits, one now has a long string of zeros.

#### Factored notation as solution to the scanning problem

Now the problem with (1) is repeated occurrence of characters, much like the repeated occurrence of $`a`$ in the expression $`ab+ac`$. This analogous problem is solved by factoring, so that one gets $`a(b+c)`$. Consider now string concatenation as an infix multiplicative operation. That suggests “factoring” in (1) the longest initial sequence of common digits, so that

$$x[0.6180339887498946804,0.6180339887498950136]$$

becomes

$`x0.61803398874989[46804,50136]`$ (3)
We call this the factored notation. It solves the scanning problem in a more compact way than the $`c,r`$ notation.

### 1.2 The problem of useless digits

By solving the scanning problem, factored notation brings out the other problem: does one, in (3) for example, really want to know the width of an interval in a relative precision of $`10^5`$? One should keep in mind that relaxing the relative precision in the width does not detract from the $`10^{14}`$ relative precision in $`x`$ itself. If it is supremely important to preserve all the information that is available about $`x`$, then one should indeed preserve all the digits inside the brackets. But usually one does not want to keep all information: what matters is how much information the human reader can absorb in whatever limited time is available. By giving too much information about the width of the interval, it is usually the case that less information about $`x`$ is actually transferred. So one should present an approximation to the available information about $`x`$ that can be represented with fewer digits.

Now approximation is an ambiguous concept. Here we mean it in the sense of giving less information, under the constraint that what information remains truly is information, that is, a true statement. In this paper we assume that the purpose of using intervals at all is to obtain from a computation a true statement about the real-valued components of a solution. We assume that these statements say that a certain real belongs to an interval and that this interval is interpreted as a set of reals. However wide the interval $`I`$ is, there is nothing approximate about the statement $`xI`$ as such. Each bound, though a mere machine number, is also an unambiguously defined real. So $`I`$ is an unambiguously defined set. The relation $``$ either holds or does not hold.

Computational results of the form $`xI`$ are made possible by correct rounding and by methods such as Interval Newton  or Interval Constraints  that take into account errors from all sources. Suppose that the $`I`$ in $`xI`$ is the raw computational result: an interval with binary floating-point numbers as bounds. For output, we need to represent it as a pair of decimal numerals in factored notation. In general, rounding is necessary in the transition between binary and decimal and care has to be taken to ensure that the rounding is outward.

Of course we want to keep the resulting interval as small as possible: the smaller, the more information about $`x`$. However, it may be that in the chosen output language for the interval (decimal numerals), the description of $`I`$ requires many numerals, in factored notation. Then we may prefer instead an output $`xI^{}`$, with $`II^{}`$, such that $`I^{}`$ has a simple representation. In that sense $`I^{}`$ is an approximation to $`I`$. But there is nothing approximate about the truth value of $`II^{}`$, and hence of $`xI^{}`$.

This suggests a sequence of intervals

$`II_1I_2I_3\mathrm{}`$ (4)
where each following interval requires fewer decimal digits than the one before.

As an illustration consider the interval that, in $`[l,u]`$ notation would appear as

$$[5.1268427635136,5.1268472635136].$$

In the example the sequence $`I,I_1,I_2,I_3,\mathrm{}`$, in factored notation, is as shown in Figure 1.

## 2 Semantics of decimal numerals

We need decimal numerals to denote the bounds in an interval. Now, what exactly is meant by a given numeral? There seem to be two interpretations.

The first interpretation is appropriate in the context of physical measurements, where the convention is used that, in the absence of explicit qualification, all digits are significant. For example, when $`y=0.123`$ is given as outcome of an experiment, the implication is that the fourth and later decimals may have any value. That is, no more is implied than $`0.1230\mathrm{}y0.1239\mathrm{}`$ where $`\mathrm{}`$ indicates infinite repetition of the preceding decimal.

This first interpretation has drastic consequences when we consider $`y^2`$, which cannot be given as $`0.015129`$, because the last three digits are likely to be incorrect as the next digit after the ones given in $`0.123`$ is not known.

One way of expressing this interpretation of $`y=0.123`$ is to say that $`y`$ belongs to a certain interval. It is natural to express this interval as $`[a,b]`$. But how to write $`a`$ and $`b`$? If we write $`[0.123,0.124]`$, then these numerals need to be interpretated in a different way.

Hence the second interpretation of a decimal numeral: the one that implies infinitely many zeros after the last decimal.

Thus, $`x=0.d_1\mathrm{}d_k`$ means either

$$0.d_1\mathrm{}d_k0\mathrm{}x0.d_1\mathrm{}d_k9\mathrm{}$$

or

$$x=0.d_1\mathrm{}d_k0\mathrm{}$$

The first interpretation we call physics convention. It can be regarded as a restricted interval notation; one where only intervals can be denoted in which the bounds differ by one unit in the last decimal.

To implement our chosen semantics of intervals in general, we need to write decimals in the bounds. But for these the physics convention is not satisfactory; we need the latter interpretation: bounds of intervals, in so far as they exist, are reals, not sets of reals. We call this the point convention.

## 3 How many digits for interval bounds?

According to Shannon’s theory of information, observations can reduce the amount of uncertainty about the value of an unknown quantity. The amount of information yielded by an observation is the decrease (if any) in the amount of uncertainty. Shannon argues that the amount of uncertainty is appropriately measured by the entropy of the probability distribution over the possible values. For a uniform distribution on a finite number of values, this reduces to the logarithm of the number of possible values. For an unknown real $`x`$ that belongs to an interval we assume a uniform distribution over the interval and we take for the uncertainty the logarithm of the width of the interval.

The amount of information gained by resolving the choice between two equally probable alternatives is called the $`b`$inary uit of information, or, the bit. This is widely used. Strictly analogously, but less widely used, is the $`d`$ecimal unit of information, or, the dit.

Before we look at intervals, let us evaluate, from an information-theoretic point of view, numerals interpreted according to the physics convention. There $`x=0.123`$ means $`x[0.123,0.124]`$ with $`\mathrm{log}_{10}0.001=3`$ as measure of uncertainty. Add one decimal, and the measure of uncertainty is reduced to $`4`$. The information yielded is one dit. At the same time, $`0.123`$ leaves as uncertainty which the next more precise numeral is:

$$0.1230\text{ or }0.1231\text{ or }\mathrm{}\text{ or }0.1239.$$

These are ten possibilities, which are reduced to one by supplying the fourth decimal. Thus we see a perfect match between the expense (one dit) of adding a digit and the yield of information (one dit). Such a good match is rarely the case with interval notation.

In (4) we described how one can save on decimals while maintaining inclusion by widening the interval. To judge whether it is worthwhile to display all available decimals, let us determine the amount of information contained in the last decimal in each of the bounds for an interval.

Suppose all available decimals are as given in

$$x5.12684[27635136,72635136].$$

Let us consider the amount of information about $`x`$ that is communicated by the successive digits within the brackets, starting with the second digit. If we only had one digit between the brackets, then we would write $`x5.12684[2,8]`$, with an uncertainty in $`x`$ equal to $`\mathrm{log}_{10}6\times 10^6=6+\mathrm{log}_{10}6`$. The next digit gives $`x5.12684[27,73]`$, with an uncertainty of $`\mathrm{log}_{10}46\times 10^7=6+\mathrm{log}_{10}4.6`$. The decrease in uncertainty, that is the information, given by the last digit inside the brackets is $`\mathrm{log}_{10}6\mathrm{log}_{10}4.6`$, which is considerably less than $`1`$.

Jumping to the final digit now: without it we have for the uncertainty in

$$x5.12684[27635136,72635136]$$

an amount in dits equal to $`\mathrm{log}_{10}4.5000000\times 10^6`$. If we had to do without that last digit, then all we can say is

$$x5.12684[2763513,7263514]$$

with an uncertainty equal to $`\mathrm{log}_{10}4.500001\times 10^6`$.

Using the approximation that $`\mathrm{log}(1+\alpha )`$ is in the order of $`\alpha `$ for small $`\alpha `$, we find that the difference is in the order of $`10^6`$ dits. This is the yield of writing the last digit in each bound. Ideally, the yield is one dit. With the physics convention for a decimal numeral, this maximum possible yield is guaranteed. As soon as we use the more flexible interval notation, we have to accept a lower yield. But accepting a yield as low as $`10^6`$ dits is most situations far from optimal.

If one insists on the maximum yield possible with interval notation, one would write $`x5.12684[2,8]`$, which is a perfectly good summary of what is known about $`x`$. One may have sympathy for those who point out that the omitted decimals represent information that was gained at some, possibly considerable, computational cost. In that case, one would add one or two decimals, as in $`x5.12684[276,727]`$. The next decimal will only add a negligible amount of information. Even though $`x5.12684[27635136,72635136]`$ might represent the investment of huge computational resources, they would be wasted, as there just is hardly any more information than in the three-decimal version.

This is then our recommendation: use the factored notation to solve the scanning problem, and as default give two or three decimals inside the brackets.

## 4 The general case

In general one may have a bound written in scientific notation; that is, with an explicit power of ten. In case both bounds are so written, we propose to normalize one mantissa and to factor out its power of ten from both bounds. In the remaining bound, the decimal point is then adjusted so that its power of ten is zero, and can therefore be omitted.

For example,

$$x[5.1268427635136\times 10^2,5.1268472635136\times 10^3]$$

becomes

$$x[0.51268427635136,5.1268472635136]\times 10^3$$

Then the above considerations apply. They apply in the strongest way when both bounds have different normalized powers of ten; then we have the situation of a wide interval so that only few decimals should be used inside the brackets; $`x[0.51,5.2]\times 10^3`$ seems plenty.

Suppose we write an interval as

$$.d_0\mathrm{}d_{n1}[e_0\mathrm{}e_k,f_0\mathrm{}f_k]$$

then we have a width of about $`10^{(n+1)}`$, neglecting the factor of $`\mathrm{log}(10)`$. A unit in the last digits $`e_k`$ and $`f_k`$ can change the width by at most $`10^{(n+1+k)}`$. Hence the width becomes about $`10^{(n+1)}(1+10^k)`$. Thus the uncertainty decreased by the last digit is about $`\mathrm{log}_{10}(1+10^k)`$, which is about $`10^k`$. Hence our opinion that $`k`$ equal to two or three is plenty.

## 5 Related work

Hansen , Hammer et al. , and Kearfott  opt for the straightforward $`[l,u]`$ notation. Hansen mostly presents bounds with few digits, but for instance on page 178 we find

$$[0.192895419,0.192895434],$$

demonstrating the problems addressed here.

The standard notation in the Numerica book  solves the scanning problem in an interesting way. It uses the idea of the $`c,r`$ notation, but writes instead $`c+[r,+r]`$. This variation has the advantage of not introducing new notation. The reason why we still prefer factored notation is clear from the $`c,r`$ example (2), which, if rewritten as $`c+[r,+r]`$ becomes

$$0.6180339887498948470+[0.0000000000000001666,+0.0000000000000001666]$$

Although it is attractive not to introduce special-purpose notation, there is so much redundancy here that the factored alternative:

$$0.61803398874989[46804,50136]$$

seems worth the new notation.

Schulte et al.  describe single-number interval I/O as remedy for the scanning problem. This notation is used in several systems listed in . Details differ between input and output. Here we sketch only the main features shared by single-number input and output. The three basic formats are $`[d]`$, $`d`$, and $`[d_1,d_2]`$, where $`d`$, $`d_1`$, and $`d_2`$ are decimal numerals. $`[d]`$ stands for the interval $`[d,d]`$. Suppose uld is the real number that is the value of the unit of the last decimal in $`d`$, then the meaning of $`d`$ in single-number interval notation is $`[duld,d+uld]`$. Finally, $`[d_1,d_2]`$ means just that; it appears that the tacit assumption is made of infinitely many zeros after the last digits of $`d_1`$ and $`d_2`$.

Single-number interval I/O can only solve the scanning problem by using the format $`d`$ (single numeral without brackets). This implies a solution to the problem of useless digits, but more drastically than one might like. For example, $`0.123[45678,56789]`$ would be rendered as $`0.1235`$. Thus the original interval is widened to $`0.123[4,6].`$ One might want to retain more information about the width of the interval. In factored notation one can choose among $`0.123[4,6]`$, $`0.123[45,57]`$, $`0.123[456,568]`$, $`\mathrm{}`$.

In his interval system clip , Hickey has a form of what is called “single-number interval I/O” in , as well as several valuable distinctions not found elsewhere. Let uld be the real number that is the value of the unit of the last decimal in $`d`$. The formats described by Hickey include `d`, `d*`, and `d...`, where `d` is a decimal numeral.

`d` denotes the smallest interval that includes $`d`$ and has binary floating numbers as bounds. `d*` denotes $`[duld,d+uld]`$. `d...` denotes $`[d,d+uld]`$. Finally, in clip, `d#` is used to denote, not an interval, but a binary floating-point number nearest $`d`$. As in , the scanning problem is solved in clip. But the problem of useless digits is solved in the same inflexible way as in .

## 6 Conclusions

Interval methods are coming of age. When interval software was experimental, it didn’t matter whether interval output was easy to read. Now that the main technical challenges have been overcome, and we at least know how to ensure that the floating-point bounds include all reals that are possible values of the variable concerned, we need to turn our attention to small, mundane matters of housekeeping, which include taking care of the convenience of users. Factored notation seems to be an advance in this respect compared to alternatives described in the literature.

One may not agree with the assumptions made here for evaluating the utility of the last decimal used in specifying an interval bound. Information theory needs a probability distribution before it can assign an amount of information to an observation. The uniform distribution assumed here is not convincing. But it need not be: the amount of information in every next decimal declines so steeply, that most other assumptions would lead one to the same conclusion about a reasonable number of decimals inside the brackets of factored notation.

## 7 Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Frédéric Goualard for helpful comments on a draft of this paper. Support from CWI, NWO, NSERC, TU Delft, and the University of Victoria is hereby gratefully acknowledged.