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# A real-space description of the glass transition based on heterogeneities and entropy barriers

## Abstract

An alternative scenario for the glass transition based on the cooperative nature of nucleation processes and the role of entropic effects is presented. The new ingredient is to relate the dissipation during the relaxation process to the release of strain energy driven by the nucleation of progressively larger cooperative spatial regions. Using an equiprobability hypothesis for the transition between different metastable configurations, we obtain a relation between the free energy dissipation rate and the size of the largest cooperative regions. This leads to a new phenomenological relation between the largest relaxation time in the supercooled liquid phase and the effective temperature. This differs from the classical Adam-Gibbs relation in that predicts no divergence of the primary relaxation time at the Kauzmann temperature but a crossover from fragile to strong behavior.

Introduction. After many decades of efforts, a complete and unifying description of the glass transition problem is still not available. The standard approaches to the glass transition have been largely based on hydrodynamic (such as MCT ) or thermodynamic entropic theories like that proposed by Adam, Gibbs and Di Marzio (hereafter referred to as AGM) nearly 50 years ago . Surprisingly, still nowadays the ideal AGM theory remains not accepted nor disproved. A salient outcome of the AGM theory is the prediction of the existence of a second-order phase transition driven by the collapse of the configurational entropy (also called complexity). It is known that an unambiguous definition of the complexity is possible only in the framework of mean-field theories where phase space splits into ergodic components of infinite lifetime. Recent approaches to the glass transition problem from the perspective of disordered systems have, to a large extent, validated this mean-field scenario . Nevertheless, a complete understanding of the glass transition must go beyond mean field by including nucleation processes into any valuable theory. This poses the question about how the mean-field picture for the glass transition is modified in the presence of real-space effects. In this paper we propose an alternative scenario for the glass transition where spatial effects such as heterogeneities play a crucial role in the theoretical description of the glassy state being also the necessary ingredient to validate and reinforce some aspects of entropic mean-field approaches. We present a phenomenological real-space description of nucleation processes of cooperative nature in the spirit of the AGM theory. This should complement other approaches such as mode-coupling theory . The main outcome of our analysis is that the standard relation between the relaxation time and the complexity originally proposed in the AGM theory is modified and the primary relaxation time does not depend directly on the complexity but on the so called effective temperature (to be defined later). This predicts a crossover from fragile to strong behavior and a saturation (and not a divergence) of the effective barrier or primary relaxation time at the Kauzmann temperature.

A phenomenological description of heterogeneities in glasses. One of the most intriguing features in glasses is the existence of heterogeneous structures . Experimentally these manifest as some set of atoms which have a dynamics manifestly slow when compared to the rest. Although experiments or numerical simulations in this field are very recent, heterogeneities are a direct manifestation of the cooperative nature of nucleation processes . The basic idea in our approach is to assume that nucleation processes take place everywhere inside the glass when some structures of size $`s`$ are built up by a cooperative mechanism. To built these structures the $`s`$ atoms of the cooperative region must coherently move to occupy certain positions which enable that region to release some strain energy. Each of these moves constitutes an elementary activated process, for instance, the exchange between two neighboring particles. Therefore, the heterogeneities observed in the experiments are transient frozen structures which eventually nucleate in time scales larger than the observational time. When a droplet of liquid nucleates it changes to a new locally disordered structure. The local structure of the glass is always that of a liquid and there is no coarsening of a given pattern whatsoever . In our scenario the time to activate a region of size $`s`$ is,

$$\frac{\tau (s)}{\tau _0}\left(\frac{\tau ^{}}{\tau _0}\right)^s=\mathrm{exp}(\frac{Bs}{T})$$
(1)
where $`\tau ^{}=\tau _0\mathrm{exp}(B/T)`$ is the activated time to activate one atom, $`\tau _0`$ being a microscopic time and $`B`$ the corresponding energy barrier. Let us introduce the quantity $`n_s(t)`$ as the number of cooperative regions (we will refer to them as domains) of size $`s`$ at time $`t`$. Experimentally it is well known that time correlations in the glass state are stretched but decay faster than any power law. According to (1) this means that the distribution $`n_s`$ must abruptly fall down beyond a cuttof size $`s^{}`$ in such a way that long time nucleations occur with a negligible probability. Consequently, $`n_s(t)`$ for $`s>s^{}`$ must be nearly zero. This approach is similar in spirit to the mosaic theory developed by Xia and Wolynes  who also considered the existence of a cutoff size $`s^{}`$. The existence of this cutoff is tightly related to the cooperative character of the dynamics itself eq.(1) and can be illustrated within a simple domain aggregation model. We note that the model we present here is oversimplified, our aim being only to stress the relation between cooperativeness and the presence of a cutoff size. Let us imagine a liquid that is quenched to a temperature $`T_f`$ where equilibration cannot be achieved within the time scale of the experiment. Let us think about the molecules inside the glass as grouped into non-overlapping domains of different sizes $`s`$. After nucleating, domains of a given size $`s`$ destabilize breaking into smaller domains. In the simplest scenario the aggregation and breaking of domains occurs inside a bath of particles. We assume that, after nucleation of a domain of size $`s`$, domains can gain or loose one particle with respective probabilities $`g_s,l_s`$ with $`g_s+l_s=p_s`$. $`p_s`$ is the probability that a nucleation occurs which we take proportional to $`1/\tau (s)`$ where $`\tau (s)`$ is given by eq.(1) with $`B=\tau _0=1`$ and $`T=T_f`$. For sake of simplicity we take $`g_s=gp_s,l_s=lp_s`$ with $`g+l=1`$. Consequently, the balance equations involve the following “chemical reactions”: $`𝒟_s𝒟_{s1}+p`$ with rate $`l_s`$ and $`𝒟_s+p𝒟_{s+1}`$ with rate $`g_s`$, where $`𝒟_s`$ denotes a domain of size $`s`$ and $`p`$ a single particle of the bath. The balance equations read ($`s2`$),

$$\frac{dn_s(t)}{dt}=l_{s+1}n_{s+1}(t)+g_{s1}n_{s1}(t)p_sn_s(t).$$
(2)
This set of equations must be supplemented with the dynamical equation for the “bath” of particles which is deduced from mass conservation $`_{s=1}^{\mathrm{}}sn_s(t)=\mathrm{const}`$. In this simple model there are three parameters $`g,l`$ and $`\beta =1/T_f`$ entering the equations. By appropriately rescaling the time only two of them ($`\beta ,g/l`$) are free parameters. Although all possible values of $`g,l`$ are possible the interesting regime is obtained for $`g/l`$ small. Physically this means that, during the nucleation, domains have more probability to loose particles than to capture them. This is a very reasonable assumption: just before the nucleation takes place the domain is in an unstable configuration and loosing a particle seems a more probable event. We numerically solved (2) by numerically integrating them using a second order Euler algorithm. In the left panel of figure 1 we show the time evolution for $`n_s(t)`$. At any time it displays a well defined time dependent cutoff value $`s^{}(t)`$ above which the $`n_s(t)`$ drops to zero very fast. From the knowledge of $`n_s(t)`$, assuming independent exponential relaxations for the different domains, we can also obtain the two-time correlation function,

$$C(t,t+t^{})=\underset{s1}{}sn_s(t^{})\mathrm{exp}(t/\tau (s))$$
(3)
where $`t`$ denotes the time after the quenching and $`\tau (s)`$ is given by expression (1). The correlations can be excellently fitted by a stretched exponential law with a $`t`$-dependent stretching exponent $`\beta _s`$, $`C_t(t^{})=\mathrm{exp}((t^{}/\tau (t))^{\beta _s(t)}`$. In the right panel of figure 1 we show the corresponding correlation functions as well as the best fits. Note that the average relaxation time $`\tau _{av}=_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑t^{}C_t(t^{})`$ does not necessarily scale like $`t`$. A careful examination of the time dependence of the distribution $`n_s(t)`$, reveals that it scales like $`n_s(t)=(1/s^{})\widehat{n}(s/s^{})`$ with $`t=\mathrm{exp}(\beta s^{})`$, $`s^{}(t)`$ being the time dependent cutoff size. Consequently, relaxation to equilibrium is driven by the growth of the largest domain of size $`s^{}(t)`$. When a glass is relaxing to equilibrium, the average release of energy to the thermal bath is done by nucleation of the largest domains of size $`s^{}`$, meaning that the advance motion of the front of $`n_s(t)`$ located at $`s=s^{}`$ is the leading source of energy dissipation. Nucleation processes involving regions of size smaller than $`s^{}`$ always occur but do not yield a net energy current flow to the thermal bath. Metastable equilibrium is reached when the cutoff size $`s^{}`$ saturates to a finite value and the net energy flow between the glass and the bath vanishes.

Let us now focus our attention in the energy dissipation rate in this relaxation process. This is given by typical free energy variation of the relaxing domains of size $`s^{}(t)`$ multiplied by their number $`N_s^{}(t)=Vn_s^{}(t)=(V/s^{})\widehat{n}(1)`$, divided by their typical nucleation time $`t=\mathrm{exp}(B\beta s^{})`$,

$$\frac{1}{V}\frac{F}{t}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }F^{}N_s^{}(t)}{Vt}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }F^{}}{s^{}t}.$$
(4)
Now, the crucial difference between nucleation processes in glasses and other systems is the fact that nucleation in a glass occurs between metastable liquid drops . The typical release of energy $`\mathrm{\Delta }F^{}`$ released after nucleating a metastable liquid drop of size $`s^{}`$ into another drop does not scale with its surface (like in coarsening systems) nor its volume (like in standard liquid-solid nucleations) but is finite and independent of $`s^{}`$ yielding,

$$\frac{1}{V}\frac{F}{t}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_F}{s^{}t}.$$
(5)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }_F`$ is the average free energy change . The growth of $`s^{}`$ as a function of time is $`s^{}(t)T\mathrm{log}(t)`$ and stops when $`n_s(t=t_{\mathrm{eq}})`$ reaches the stationary distribution. In principle the value of the equilibration time $`t_{\mathrm{eq}}`$ depends on the particular model under consideration. From a microscopic theory this time can be deduced only from the hydrodynamic equations. We see below how we can circumvent the hydrodynamic description by relating the relaxation time of the supercooled liquid to the complexity.

The fluctuation formula. One of the main problems in the theory of glasses is to define the complexity $`S_c`$. In the original AGM theory, $`S_c`$ was defined as the configurational part of the entropy obtained by disregarding the kinetic part of the energy. Here we consider a different dynamical definition adapted from concepts developed in spin-glass theory . The key concept in our definition is the concept of conformation or basin: a basin includes those configurations which do not release an extensive (proportional to $`s`$) strain energy to the thermal bath after nucleating a region of size $`s`$. Let us consider a relaxing liquid quenched to $`T_f`$. We define $`S_c(t,F)`$ as the logarithm of the total number of basins with free energy $`F`$ which can release strain energy to the thermal bath after nucleating regions of size $`s^{}`$ at time $`t`$. In other words, because $`s^{}`$ is the maximum size of nucleating regions at time $`t`$, $`S_c(t,F)`$ counts the number of still not visited conformations at time $`t`$. In this scenario regions of size $`s`$ which have already nucleated once (i.e. $`s<s^{}`$) have already released their strain energy while regions which have not yet nucleated ($`s>s^{}`$) still contain some strain energy. Nucleations which do not lead to a new release of strain energy do not yield new conformations.

Each of these conformations at time $`t`$ may contain different possible configurations $`𝒞`$ which do not contribute to the complexity but contribute to the free energy of the conformation $``$, $`F_{}(t,T_f)=T_f\mathrm{log}(_𝒞\mathrm{exp}(E(𝒞)/T_f)`$ where time dependent expectation values of a given observable $`A_{}(t,T_f)`$ are defined as follows: $`A_{}(t,T_f)=_𝒞A(𝒞)\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{(E(𝒞)F_{}(t,T_f))}{T_f}\right)`$.

The liquid character of the glass phase implies that basins with identical free energy $`F_{}(t,T_f)`$ have reproducible physical properties (i.e., independent of $``$). Note that the free energy and the expectation value of any observable $`A`$ evaluated at a given conformation $``$ depend on both $`T_f`$ and the quenching time $`t`$. The dependence on $`t`$ directly appears through the set of configurations $`𝒞`$ contained in $``$. In particular, for large enough times, basins with very high free energy only contain configurations which have been explored several times, hence they do not contribute to the complexity. Contrarily, conformations with very low free energy contain configurations which have still not been reached, hence they contribute to the complexity. This leads to a dynamical complexity $`S_c(t,F)`$ which has a t-dependent cutoff value $`F^{}`$ such that the number of conformations or basins with $`F_{}(t,T_f)>F^{}`$ vanishes. Moreover, the complexity is a monotonous increasing function of the free energy since the number of possible conformations which decrease the energy $`N_s^{}(t)=(V/s^{})\widehat{n}(1)`$ is larger when nucleating regions are smaller. In the asymptotic large $`t`$ limit it takes the form,

$$S_c(t,F<F^{})=\widehat{S_c}(F,T_f);S_c(t,F>F^{})\mathrm{}$$
(6)
Now we can introduce the fluctuation formula and see how the present scenario substantially differs from the classical one by AGM. At time $`t`$ after the quenching, nucleation processes inside the glass occur between cooperative regions with a disordered local structure and no characteristic pattern grows with time. This amounts to say that nucleations must be entropically driven meaning that some sort of equiprobability hypothesis for visiting conformations holds. While this is an assumption, its validity must be founded on principles similar to those which justify the equiprobability hypothesis in Boltzmann-Gibbs equilibrium theory. Therefore, the probability to jump from the free energy level $`F^{}`$ to another conformation with free energy $`F`$ is always proportional to the number of configurations with final free energy $`F`$,

$$𝒲_{F^{}F}\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }(F)}{\mathrm{\Omega }(F^{})}\mathrm{exp}(\widehat{S_c}(F,T_f)\widehat{S_c}(F^{},T_f)).$$
(7)
Substituting (6) in (7) and denoting $`\delta F=FF^{}`$ we obtain for the transition probability,

$$𝒲_{\delta F}\mathrm{exp}\left(\beta _{\mathrm{eff}}(F^{})\delta F\right)\theta (\delta F)$$
(8)
where we have defined the effective temperature $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}(F^{})=1/\beta _{\mathrm{eff}}(F^{})`$ with $`\beta _{\mathrm{eff}}(F^{})=\left(\frac{\widehat{S_c}(F,T_f)}{F}\right)_{F=F^{}}`$ being the density of complexity with free energy $`F^{}`$. This formula establishes the probability of free energy jumps in the aging state. Fluctuations to conformations or basins which increase the free energy are forbidden, simply because they have already nucleated in the past. While fluctuations to very low free energy conformations are entropically suppressed due to the monotonous increasing property of $`\widehat{S_c}(F,T_f)`$. In the off-equilibrium state the average rate variation of the free energy at time $`t`$ is then given by,

$$\frac{1}{V}\frac{F}{t}\frac{_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}x𝒲_x𝑑x}{t_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝒲_x𝑑x}=\frac{1}{\beta _{\mathrm{eff}}(F^{})t}.$$
(9)
We can now establish the connection between equation (5) and the present one. Consistency requires that $`s^{}=\mathrm{\Delta }_F\beta _{\mathrm{eff}}(F^{})`$, i.e. the size of the largest nucleating regions $`s^{}`$ is directly proportional to the inverse effective temperature $`\beta _{\mathrm{eff}}(F^{})`$ evaluated at the time-dependent free energy $`F^{}`$. After equilibrating at time $`t_{\mathrm{eq}}`$, $`F^{}`$ converges to $`F_{\mathrm{eq}}`$ and $`s^{}`$ has saturated to a value $`s^{}(t_{\mathrm{eq}})`$ which determines the new phenomenological relation,

$$\tau _\alpha =\tau _0\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{Bs^{}(t_{\mathrm{eq}})}{T_f}\right)=\tau _0\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{B\mathrm{\Delta }_F\beta _{\mathrm{eff}}(F_{\mathrm{eq}})}{T_f}\right).$$
(10)
We can now compare our prediction with the standard AGM scenario . In that scenario the number of different conformations at time $`t`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_t`$ corresponds to all possible combinations obtained from the two possibilities (nucleated and not yet nucleated) for the largest nucleating regions $`n_s^{}(t)`$. This number is given by $`\mathrm{\Omega }_t=2^{\frac{V}{s^{}}}`$ yielding for the complexity, $`S_c(t)=\mathrm{log}(\mathrm{\Omega }_t)=V(\mathrm{log}(2)/s^{})`$ which relates the size of the cooperative region to the complexity. Using eq.(1) and taking $`t=t_{\mathrm{eq}}`$ this yields the famous Adams-Gibbs relation $`\tau _\alpha =\mathrm{exp}(B\mathrm{log}(2)V/T_fS_c)`$. The strong assumption contained in the AGM relation is to suppose that, in the off-equilibrium regime during the relaxation, the glass explores nucleated and not nucleated conformations with the same probability. But this cannot be true if free energy jumps are biased towards lower free energy conformations. Actually, according to AGM, the size of the cooperative region increases with time and diverges at the Kauzmann temperature $`T_K`$ while in our theory it saturates to a finite value.

One more consequence of the fluctuation formula (8) concerns the fluctuation-dissipation ratio (FDR) and its one-step character . After quenching to $`T_f`$ a possible way to quantify violation of FDR is to measure the average value of any observable $`A`$ after a perturbation field $`h_A`$ conjugated to the observable $`A`$ is applied to the system. Due to the disordered structure of the cooperative regions, if the perturbation equally weights all conformations, the entropically driven assumption implies that states with free energy $`F`$ are sampled with a probability proportional to their number. In the presence of a field $`h_A`$ the complexity must be a function of three variables, $`\widehat{S_c}(F,T_f,A)`$. We can simply obtain the average change in the expectation value $`<A(t)>`$ after switching on the perturbation field $`h_A`$ at time $`t_w`$. In the linear response regime  the Onsager regression principle implies for the transition probabilities $`𝒲_{\delta F,\delta A=AA_0}=𝒲_{\delta F}\mathrm{exp}(\widehat{S_c}(F,T_f,A)\widehat{S_c}(F,T_f,A_0))=𝒲_{\delta F}\mathrm{exp}(\frac{\widehat{S_c}(F,A)}{A})_{A_0}`$. Using the relation $`(\frac{\widehat{S_c}(F,A)}{A})_{A_0}=\beta _{\mathrm{eff}}(F)h_A`$ and expanding for $`h_A`$ small we finally get the famous violation FDT expression, $`\frac{<A>(t)}{h_A(t_w)}=\beta _{\mathrm{eff}}(F^{})(<A(t)(A(t)A(t_w))>_{h_A=0}`$. Note that the description of the violation of FDT in terms of a single time scale $`t`$ is consequence of the asymmetric shape (i.e. $`𝒲_{\delta F>0}=0`$) of (8).

Main implications of the present scenario. It can be proven  that $`\beta _{\mathrm{eff}}(F)1/T_K`$ where $`\widehat{S_c}(T_K)=0`$ at $`T_K`$. This implies an asymptotic crossover for all fragile liquids to strong behavior. A strong glass is a fragile one which has exhausted all its complexity and the effective barrier has saturated to its maximum value $`\beta _{\mathrm{eff}}=1/T_K`$. Instead fragile glasses have high excess complexity and still big variation of $`\beta _{\mathrm{eff}}`$ along the supercooled line. The non-trivial temperature dependence of the activation barrier in (10) through the non-universal quantity $`\beta _{\mathrm{eff}}`$ explains why it is so difficult to find a unique empirical law that properly describes the viscosity anomaly of all glasses. The prediction that $`s^{}`$ saturates to a finite value $`s^{}=\mathrm{\Delta }_F/T_K`$ at $`T_K`$ is not easy to check experimentally due to the difficulty to cover one order of magnitude in the effective barrier. Yet some experimental results suggest a crossover from fragile to strong behavior. The present scenario could be also checked doing numerical aging experiments. According to (10) the $`t`$ dependent effective temperature $`\beta _{\mathrm{eff}}(t)`$ (measured through FDT-violations or the formula 8) should be given by $`\beta _{\mathrm{eff}}(t)(T_f/B\mathrm{\Delta }_F)\mathrm{log}(t/\tau _0)`$ if $`\tau _\alpha (t)t`$ and both $`\tau _0`$ and $`B\mathrm{\Delta }_F`$ are nearly $`t`$ and $`T_f`$ independent. This relation should hold for all $`T_f`$ and $`t`$ predicting a value for the activation barrier and the cooperative size . The experimental confirmation of a saturation of the heterogeneity sizes for not too fragile glasses and the crossover from fragile to strong behavior is probably not out of reach and would be a check of the validity of the present theory.

Acknowledgments. We wish to thank suggestions by C. Cabrillo, G. Parisi, F. Sciortino and G. Tarjus. F.R. is supported by the MEC in Spain, project PB97-0971.


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# Reconstruction of the potential from 𝐼-function. key words: inverse scattering, 𝐼-function, spectral function, scattering data Math subject classification: 34R30

## 1 Introduction

Let $`q(x)L_{1,1}:=\{q:q=\overline{q},_0^{\mathrm{}}(1+x)|q(x)|𝑑x<\mathrm{}\}`$ and $`\mathrm{}u:=u^{\prime \prime }+q(x)u`$ be the selfadjoint operator defined in $`L^2(0,\mathrm{})`$ by the boundary condition $`u(0)=0`$. Let $`\rho (\lambda )`$ be its (uniquely defined) spectral function and

$$𝒮:=\left\{S(k),k_j,s_j,1jJ\right\}$$
$`(1.1)`$
be its scattering data.

Here $`k_j>0,k_j^2`$ are the negative eigenvalues of $`l`$, $`J`$ is the number of these eigenvalues, $`s_j>0`$ are the norming constants,

$$s_j:=f_j(x)^2,=_{L^2(0,\mathrm{})},f_j(x):=f(x,ik_j),$$

$`f(x,k)`$ is the unique solution of the problem

$$(lk^2)f(x,k)=0,x>0;f(x,k)=e^{ikx}+o(1)\text{ as }x+\mathrm{}.$$

Let $`f(k):=f(0,k)`$. Then $`S(k):=\frac{f(k)}{f(k)}`$.

It is known  that:

$$d\rho (\lambda )=\{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{\sqrt{\lambda }d\lambda }{\pi |f(\sqrt{\lambda })|^2},\lambda >0\hfill & \\ _{j=1}^Jc_j\delta (\lambda +k_j^2)d\lambda ,\lambda <0,\hfill & \end{array}$$
$`(1.2)`$
where $`c_j:=\phi (x,ik_j)^2`$, the function $`\phi (x,k)`$ is the unique solution to the problem:

$$(lk^2)\phi =0,x>0;\phi (0,k)=0,\phi ^{}(0,k)=1.$$
$`(1.3)`$
The function $`f(x,k)`$ is an analytic function of $`k`$ in $`_+:=\{k:k,\text{ Im }k>0\}`$, and $`\phi (x,k)`$ is an entire function of $`k`$. The numbers $`ik_j,1jJ`$, are simple zeros of $`f(k)`$ and $`f(k)`$ has no other zeros in $`_+`$, but it may have a simple zero at $`k=0`$.

Define the I-function by the formula

$$I(k):=\frac{f^{}(0,k)}{f(k)}.$$
$`(1.4)`$
This function is of interest in applications and in mathematics: in applications this function is an impedance function (a ratio of a component of the electric field and a component of the magnetic field), and in mathematics it is the Weyl function.

Recall that the Weyl function $`m(k)`$ is defined as such a function of $`k_+`$ that

$$W(x,k):=\theta (x,k)+m(k)\phi (x,k)L^2(0,\mathrm{}),\text{ Im }k>0.$$
$`(1.5)`$
Here $`\phi (x,k)`$ was defined above and $`\theta (x,k)`$ is the solution to the problem

$$(lk^2)\theta =0,\theta (0,k)=1,\theta ^{}(0,k)=0.$$
$`(1.6)`$
If $`qL_{1,1}`$, then $`W(x,k)=c(k)f(x,k),c(k)0`$. Therefore $`I(k)=\frac{W^{}(0,k)}{W(k)}=m(k)`$ as claimed.

The basic results of this paper are the methods and formulas for finding $`𝒮(k)`$ and $`\rho (\lambda )`$ from $`I(k)`$ and $`I(k)`$ from either $`𝒮(k)`$ or $`\rho (\lambda )`$.

Let us describe the results in more detail. Suppose $`𝒮(k)`$ is known. Then, as we prove, $`f(k)`$ is uniquely and analytically determined by solving the Riemann problem:

$$f(k)=S(k)f(k).$$
$`(1.7)`$
This problem is solved in section 3, see formula (3.2).

If $`f(k)`$ is found, one finds $`I(k),`$ and therefore $`f^{}(0,k),`$ by solving the following problem:

$$\frac{f^{}(0,k)}{f(k)}\frac{f^{}(0,k)}{f(k)}=\frac{2ik}{|f(k)|^2},$$
$`(1.8)`$
which is an immediate consequence of the Wronskian formula:

$$f^{}(0,k)f(k)f^{}(0,k)f(k)=2ik.$$
$`(1.9)`$
Problem (1.8) is solved in section 3, see formulas (3.9) and (3.12).

If $`\rho (\lambda )`$ is given, then $`I(k)`$ is uniquely determined as follows: one determines $`|f(k)|`$ and then analytically, $`f(k)`$, since $`\rho (k)`$ determines explicitly the numbers $`k_j`$ and $`J`$, where $`1jJ`$. The function $`f(k)`$ is determined analytically if its modulus on the real axis and its zeros $`ik_j,1jJ,`$ are known. If $`f(k)`$ is found then $`f^{}(0,k)`$ can be found from the Riemann problem (1.9). Alternatively, $`I(k)`$ can be found as the solution of (1.8), which is a Riemann-type problem, the problem of finding a section-meromorphic function with finitely many known simple poles, located at the points $`ik_j,1jJ,`$ and known residues at these poles, from its jump across the contour, the real axis in our case. In fact, one can solve (1.8) for $`I(k)`$ if the modulus of $`f(k),`$ the numbers $`k_j,1jJ,`$ and the residues (1.10) of the function $`I(k)`$ at its simple poles $`ik_j`$ are known.

Conversely, if $`I(k)`$ is known for all $`k>0`$, then $`k_j`$ are uniquely determined since $`k_j`$ are the (simple) poles of $`I(k)`$ in $`_+`$. The number $`J`$ of these poles is also uniquely defined. One has

$$I_j:=\text{Res }_{k=ik_j}I(k)=\frac{f^{}(0,ik_j)}{\dot{f}(ik_j)},k_j>0.$$
$`(1.10)`$
It is known (see , ) that

$$s_j=\frac{2ik_j}{\dot{f}(ik_j)f^{}(0,ik_j)},c_j=\frac{2ik_jf^{}(0,ik_j)}{\dot{f}(ik_j)},$$
$`(1.11)`$
so

$$s_j=\frac{2ik_j}{\dot{f}^2(ik_j)I_j},c_j=2ik_jI_j.$$
$`(1.12)`$
To determine $`𝒮`$, or $`\rho (\lambda )`$, it remains to determine $`f(k)`$ from $`I(k)`$.

This is done by solving a Riemann problem:

$$f(k)=\frac{k}{\text{ Im }I(k)}\frac{1}{f(k)}.$$
$`(1.13)`$
In sections 2 and 3 some analytic formulas are derived for the solutions of (1.8) and (1.13).

Recovery of the potential $`q(x)`$ from $`I(k)`$ can be considered done, if one recovers either $`𝒮`$ or $`\rho (\lambda )`$ from $`I(k)`$.

Indeed, if $`𝒮`$ is recovered, then the known procedure (see e.g. ):

$$𝒮FAq$$
$`(1.14)`$
recovers $`q(x)`$.

This procedure (the Marchenko method) is analyzed in  and , where it is proved that each step of this procedure is invertible

$$𝒮FAq.$$

The function $`F(x)`$ is defined as

$$F(x)=\underset{j=1}{\overset{J}{}}s_je^{k_jx}+\frac{1}{2\pi }_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}[1S(k)]e^{ikx}𝑑k.$$
$`(1.15)`$
The kernel $`A=A(x,y)`$ is the transformation kernel:

$$f(x,k)=e^{ikx}+_x^{\mathrm{}}A(x,y)e^{iky}𝑑y.$$
$`(1.16)`$
It is related to $`F(x)`$ by the Marchenko equation:

$$A(x,y)+F(x+y)+_x^{\mathrm{}}A(x,s)F(s+y)𝑑s=0,0xy<\mathrm{},$$
$`(1.17)`$
which is uniquely solvable for $`A(x,y)`$ if $`𝒮`$ (and therefore $`F(x)`$) comes from $`qL_{1,1}`$.

If $`A(x,y)`$ is found from (1.17), then

$$q(x)=2\frac{dA(x,x)}{dx}.$$
$`(1.18)`$
If $`\rho (\lambda )`$ is found from $`I(k)`$, then the Gelfand-Levitan procedure recovers $`q(x)`$:

$$\rho L(x,y)K(x,y)q(x).$$

Here

$$L(x,y)=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\phi _0(x,\sqrt{\lambda })\phi _0(y,\sqrt{\lambda })d[\rho (\lambda )\rho _0(\lambda )],$$
$`(1.19)`$
$`\phi _0(x,\sqrt{\lambda })=\frac{\mathrm{sin}(\sqrt{\lambda }x)}{\sqrt{\lambda }},\rho _0(\lambda )`$ is the spectral function of the operator $`\mathrm{}_0`$, that is, of operator $`\mathrm{}`$ with $`q(x)=0`$, $`d\rho _0(\lambda )=0`$ for $`\lambda <0,d\rho _0(\lambda )=\frac{\sqrt{\lambda }d\lambda }{\pi },\lambda >0`$.

The kernel $`K(x,y)`$ is uniquely determined as the solution to the Gelfand-Levitan equation:

$$K(x,y)+L(x,y)+_0^xK(x,s)L(s,y)𝑑s=0,0yx.$$
$`(1.20)`$
If $`K(x,y)`$ is found from (1.20), then

$$q(x)=2\frac{dK(x,x)}{dx}.$$
$`(1.21)`$
The kernel $`K(x,y)`$ is the transformation kernel:

$$\phi (x,k)=\phi _0(x,k)+_0^xK(x,y)\phi _0(y,k)𝑑y,k>0,$$
$`(1.21)`$
where $`\phi (x,k)`$ solves (1.3), and $`\phi _0(x,k)=\frac{\mathrm{sin}(kx)}{k}`$ solves (1.3) with $`q(x)=0`$.

It is proved in ,  that

$$\rho (\lambda )L(x,y)K(x,y)q,$$
$`(1.23)`$
for a very wide class of $`q(x)`$, namely for the real-valued $`q(x)`$ for which the equation $`(lz)u=0,\text{ Im }z>0`$, has exactly one solution $`uL^2(0,\mathrm{})`$ (the limit point at infinity case).

In  a necessary and sufficient condition is obtained for a function $`I(k)`$ to be the $`I`$-function corresponding to an operator $`l`$ with the potential $`q(x)`$ which is locally $`C^{(m)}`$-smooth and a method is outlined for the recovery of $`q`$ from $`I(k)`$.

In ,  various properties of $`I(k)`$ are studied.

The main results of this paper are:

1) it is proved that $`I(k)`$ is in one-to-one correspondence with the scattering data $`𝒮`$ and with the spectral function $`\rho (\lambda )`$.

2) formulas are given for finding $`I(k)`$ from $`𝒮`$ or from $`\rho (\lambda )`$ and vice versa ((2.11), (2.13), (2.15), (2.16), (3.2), (3.4), (3.5), (3.9), (3.12)).

## 2 Recovery of $`𝒮`$ and $`\rho `$ from $`I(k)`$.

The function $`I(k)`$ is meromorphic in $`_+`$. Its values on the real axis determine uniquely $`I(k)`$ in $`_+`$.

Given $`I(k)k>0`$, one finds its poles in $`_+`$. These poles are exactly the points $`ik_j,k_j>0`$. $`I(k)`$ may have a pole at $`k=0`$. If $`k=0`$ is a pole of $`I(k)`$, then $`|I(0)|=\mathrm{}`$ since $`f^{}(0,0)0`$. The number $`J`$ of the points $`ik_j`$ is uniquely determined by $`I(k)`$.

Let us derive a formula for finding $`f(k)`$ from $`I(k)`$. Start with formula (1.18), which we write as:

$$f(k)=\frac{k}{\text{ Im }I(k)}\frac{1}{f(k)}.$$
$`(2.1)`$
Define

$$w(k):=\underset{j=1}{\overset{J}{}}\frac{kik_j}{k+ik_j},\text{ if }f(0)0,w_1(k):=\frac{k}{k+i}w(k)\text{ if }f(0)=0,f_0(k):=\frac{f(k)}{w(k)}.$$
$`(2.2)`$
Note that $`f_0(k)`$ is analytic in $`_+`$, has no zeros in $`_+`$, and $`f_0(\mathrm{})=1`$. Also

$$\overline{w(k)}=w(k)=w^1(k),\text{ and }|w(k)|=1\text{ if }k.$$
$`(2.3)`$
Equation (2.1) can be written as

$$f_0(k)=\frac{k}{\text{ Im }I(k)}\frac{1}{f_0(k)w(k)w(k)}=g(k)f_0^1(k),$$
$`(2.4)`$
where

$$g(k):=\frac{k}{\text{ Im }I(k)}>0,k,$$
$`(2.5)`$
and the relation $`w(k)w(k)=1`$ for $`k`$ was used.

The function $`f_0^1(k)`$ is analytic in $`_{}:=\{k:,\text{ Im }k<0\}`$, does not have zeros in $`_{},`$ and $`lim_{|k|\mathrm{},k_{}}f_0^1(k)=1`$.

Therefore $`\mathrm{ln}f_0(k)`$ and $`\mathrm{ln}f_0^1(k)`$ are functions analytic in $`_+`$ and $`_{}`$, respectively, vanishing at infinity and

$$\mathrm{ln}f_0(k)=\mathrm{ln}g(k)+\mathrm{ln}f_0^1(k).$$
$`(2.6)`$
Therefore

$$\mathrm{ln}f_0(z)=\frac{1}{2\pi i}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{\mathrm{ln}g(s)ds}{sz},\text{ Im }z>0,$$
$`(2.7)`$
since (2.7) implies that the section-analytic function (2.7) satisfies (2.6), and there is exactly one such function: if there were another one, then their difference $`\mathrm{\Phi }(z)`$ would be analytic in $`_+`$ and in $`_{}`$, $`\mathrm{\Phi }(\mathrm{})=0`$ in $`_+`$ and in $`_{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_+(k)=\mathrm{\Phi }_{}(k)`$, where $`\mathrm{\Phi }_+(k)=\mathrm{\Phi }(k+i0),\mathrm{\Phi }_{}(k)=\mathrm{\Phi }(ki0),k`$. Thus $`\mathrm{\Phi }(z)`$ is analytic in $``$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }(\mathrm{})=0`$.

By the Liouville theorem, $`\mathrm{\Phi }(z)0`$. This argument is well-known (see, e.g., ), and is given to make the presentation self-contained.

Let us summarize the result:

###### Lemma 2.1.

Given $`I(k)`$, one finds $`k_j`$ and $`J`$, and then $`f(z)`$ in $`_+`$ :

$$f(z)=\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{1}{2\pi i}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{\mathrm{ln}\frac{s}{\text{ Im }I(s)}ds}{sz}\right)w(z),\text{ Im }z>0,$$
$`(2.8)`$
where $`w(z)`$ is defined in (2.2).

Note that $`g(s)=g(s)`$, since $`\text{ Im }I(s)=\text{ Im }I(s),s_{}`$, so one has:

$$_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{\mathrm{ln}g(s)}{sz}𝑑s=2_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{z\mathrm{ln}g(s)ds}{s^2z^2},\text{ Im }z>0,$$
$`(2.9)`$
and (2.8) can be written as:

$$f(z)=\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{1}{i\pi }_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{z\mathrm{ln}\frac{s}{\text{ Im }I(s)}ds}{s^2z^2}\right)w(z),\text{ Im }z>0.$$
$`(2.10)`$
To calculate $`f(k)`$, $`k>0`$, one takes $`z=k+i0`$ in (2.8) or (2.10) and uses the well-known formula:

$$\frac{1}{ski0}=P\frac{1}{sk}+i\pi \delta (sk),$$
$`(2.11)`$
where $`P\frac{1}{s}`$ is the principle value of $`\frac{1}{s}`$ and $`\delta (s)`$ is the delta-function, to get from (2.8):

$$f(k)=\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{1}{2\pi i}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{\mathrm{ln}\frac{s}{\text{ Im }I(s)}ds}{sk}+\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{ln}\frac{k}{\text{ Im }I(k)}\right)w(k),k>0.$$
$`(2.12)`$
Thus, given $`I(k)k>0`$, we recovered uniquely $`f(k)k>0,k_j`$, and $`J`$. The $`s_j`$ are found by the first formula (1.12) and (1.10). So $`𝒮`$ is recovered and $`q(x)`$ is recovered by the procedure (1.14).

Formula (2.8) holds if $`f(0)0`$ and if $`f(0)=0`$. If $`f(0)=0,`$ then one can suggest an equivalent to (2.8) formula which looks differently. Namely, if $`f(0)=0,`$ then (2.4) holds with $`g_1:=g\frac{k^2+1}{k^2}`$ in place of $`g`$ and $`f_1(k):=\frac{f(k)}{w_1(k)}`$ in place of $`f_0(k).`$ Note that $`0<|g_1(0)|<\mathrm{}`$ if $`f(0)=0`$. Indeed, $`\dot{f}(0)0`$ and, by (2.1), $`g(k)=|f(k)|^2,`$ so $`0<|g_1(0)|<\mathrm{},`$ as claimed. Formula (2.8) holds if $`f(0)=0`$ and if $`\frac{s}{\text{ Im }I(s)}`$ is replaced by $`\frac{s^2+1}{s\text{ Im }I(s)}`$ and $`w(k)`$ is replaced by $`w_1(k)`$.

Let us show now how to recover $`\rho (\lambda )`$ from $`I(k)`$. As above, one recovers $`k_j`$ and $`J`$. One has

$$|f(k)|=\left(\frac{k}{\text{ Im }I(k)}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}},k>0,$$
$`(2.13)`$
where the square root is positive and the function $`\frac{k}{\text{ Im }I(k)}>0,k>0`$.

To find $`c_j`$ (see formula (1.2)) one uses second formula (1.12) and formula (1.10). If $`\rho (\lambda )`$ is found, then $`q(x)`$ is found by the Gelfand-Levitan method (1.23).

## 3 Recovery of $`I(k)`$ from $`𝒮`$ or $`\rho `$.

Let us first explain how to calculate $`I(k)`$ given $`𝒮`$.

Assume $`𝒮`$ is given. Then $`f(k)`$ can be recovered analytically as follows.

Write (1.7), using (2.3), as

$$f_0(k)=S(k)w^2(k)f_0(k),f(0)0.$$
$`(3.1)`$
The function $`f_0(k)`$ is analytic and has no zeros in $`_+`$, and $`f_0(\mathrm{})=1`$, and $`f_0(k)`$ has similar properties in $`_{}`$. Therefore one solves analytically the Riemann problem (3.1) and gets:

$$f(z)=\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{1}{2\pi i}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{\mathrm{ln}\frac{S(t)}{w^2(t)}dt}{tz}\right)w(z),\text{ Im }z>0.$$
$`(3.2)`$
Note that the index $`\text{ind}_{}\frac{S(k)}{w^2(k)}=0`$ if $`f(0)0`$, so $`f(z)`$ is uniquely defined by formula (3.2). As in section 2, one calculates $`f(k)`$ for $`k>0`$ by taking $`z=k+i0`$ in (3.2) and using (2.11).

Formula (3.2) holds also when $`f(0)=0`$. In this case $`\text{ind}_{}\frac{S(k)}{w^2(k)}=1,`$ and $`\text{ind}_{}S_1(k)=0,`$ where $`S_1(k):=S(k)\frac{ki}{k+i}.`$ To see that formula (3.2) holds in the case $`f(0)=0,`$ one can use the above argument and the following formula: $`\frac{1}{2\pi i}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{\mathrm{log}\frac{sit}{s+it}}{sz}𝑑s=log\frac{z}{z+it},`$ which holds if $`t>0`$ and $`\text{ Im }z>0.`$

Alternatively, if $`f(0)=0`$, then one replaces in formula (3.1) $`f_0(k)`$ by $`f_1:=\frac{f(k)}{w_1(k)},`$ where $`w_1`$ is defined in (2.2), and $`S(k)`$ by $`S_1(k):=S(k)\frac{ki}{k+i}.`$ Formula (3.2) in this case takes the form:

$$f(z)=\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{1}{2\pi i}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{\mathrm{ln}\frac{S_1(t)}{w^2(t)}dt}{tz}\right)w_1(z),\text{ Im }z>0,$$
$`(3.2^{})`$
equivalent to (3.2).

Since $`f(k)`$ is found, to recover $`I(k)`$ one can use formula (1.8):

$$I(k)=I(k)+\frac{2ik}{|f(k)|^2}.$$
$`(3.3)`$
The function $`I(k)`$ is meromorphic in $`_+`$. Let us subtract from $`I(k)`$ its principal parts at the poles and get a holomorphic in $`_+`$ function $`𝒥(k)`$ defined as:

$$𝒥(k):=I(k)ik\underset{j=0}{\overset{J}{}}\frac{I_j}{kik_j},$$
$`(3.4)`$
where $`k_0:=0`$ and the term with $`j=0`$ is included only if $`f(0)=0`$. The numbers $`I_j,j>0`$ are calculated by the first formula (1.12) if $`𝒮`$ and $`f(k)`$ are known. The number $`I_0=\frac{f^{}(0,0)}{\dot{f}(0)}`$. This number can be calculated if one knows how to calculate $`f^{}(0,0)`$.

One has, differentiating (1.16):

$$f^{}(0,k)=ikA(0,0)+_0^{\mathrm{}}A_x(0,y)e^{iky}𝑑y.$$

The number $`A(0,0)`$ can be calculated:

$`f(k)=1+{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}A(0,y)e^{iky}𝑑y=1+A(0,y){\displaystyle \frac{e^{iky}}{ik}}|_0^{\mathrm{}}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{ik}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}A_y(0,y)e^{iky}𝑑y=1{\displaystyle \frac{A(0,0)}{ik}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{ik}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}A_y(0,y)e^{iky}𝑑y.`$
Thus

$$A(0,0)=\underset{k\mathrm{}}{lim}[ik(f(k)1)]$$
$`(3.5)`$
To calculate $`f^{}(0,0)`$, we divide the Wronskian formula (1.9) by $`k`$ and let $`k0`$. This yields:

$$f^{}(0,0)=\frac{i}{\dot{f}(0)},$$
$`(3.6)`$
so that the residue of $`I(k)`$ at $`k=0`$, when $`f(0)=0`$, is:

$$I_0=\frac{f^{}(0,0)}{\dot{f}(0)}=\frac{i}{[\dot{f}(0)]^2}.$$
$`(3.7)`$
Existence of $`\dot{f}(0)`$ for $`qL_{1,1}`$ is proved in .

The function $`𝒥(k)`$ solves the following Riemann problem:

$$𝒥(k)=𝒥(k)+\frac{2ik}{|f(k)|^2}2ik\underset{j=0}{\overset{J}{}}I_j\left(\frac{1}{kik_j}+\frac{1}{k+ik_j}\right),k,$$
$`(3.8)`$
and $`𝒥(k)`$ is analytic in $`_+`$, $`𝒥(\mathrm{})=0`$, while $`𝒥(k)`$ has similar properties in $`_{}`$. Thus (3.8) implies

$$𝒥(z)=\frac{1}{\pi }v.p._{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{dt}{tz}\left[t\left(|f(t)|^21\right)+i\underset{j=0}{\overset{J}{}}I_jt(t^2+k_j^2)^1\right],\text{ Im }z>0,$$
$`(3.9)`$
and taking $`z=k+i0,k>0`$, one can calculate $`𝒥(k)`$ for $`k>0`$ using formula (2.11).

If $`𝒥(k)`$ is found for all $`k>0`$, then $`I(k)`$ is calculated by formula (3.4).

Therefore $`𝒮`$ determines $`I(k)`$ uniquely and analytically, since $`𝒮`$ determines $`k_j`$, $`J,`$ $`I_j,`$ and $`𝒥(k)`$ uniquely.

Let us explain how to calculate $`I(k)`$ given $`\rho (\lambda )`$.

If $`\rho (\lambda )`$ is given, then (see formula (1.2)), the function $`|f(k)|`$ is known for all $`k>0`$, and the numbers $`k>0`$, and the numbers $`k_j`$, $`J`$ and $`c_j`$ are known.

Therefore the function $`f(z)`$ can be calculated analytically. Indeed, $`|f_0(k)|=|f(k)|`$ if $`k`$, where $`f_0(k)=\frac{f(k)}{w(k)}`$. The function $`f_0(z)`$ is analytic and has no zeros in $`_+`$, and $`f_0(\mathrm{})=1`$. Therefore $`\mathrm{ln}f_0(z)`$ is analytic in $`_+`$ and vanishes at infinity. So it can be recovered by the Schwarz formula:

$$\mathrm{ln}f_0(z)=\frac{1}{i\pi }_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{\mathrm{ln}|f_0(t)|}{tz}𝑑t,\text{ Im }z>0,$$
$`(3.10)`$
which constructs an analytic function in $`_+`$ given its real part on the real axis. Since $`|f_0(t)|=|f(t)|`$, one gets

$$f(z)=w(z)\mathrm{exp}\left\{\frac{1}{i\pi }_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{\mathrm{ln}|f(t)|dt}{tz}\right\},\text{ Im }z>0.$$
$`(3.11)`$
Taking $`z=k+i0,k>0,`$ in (3.11), and using (2.14) yields $`f(k)`$ for $`k>0`$. One calculates the numbers $`I_j`$ by the second formula (1.12).

If $`k_j,J,I_j`$ and $`f(k)`$ are known, then one calculates $`𝒥(z)`$ by formula (3.9), and $`𝒥(k)`$ for all $`k>0`$ by taking $`z=k+i0`$ in (3.9) and using (2.11). If $`𝒥(k)`$ is known then $`I(k)`$ is calculated by formula (3.4).

This completes the description of the formulas for finding $`I(k)`$ given $`𝒮`$ or $`\rho (\lambda )`$.

In conclusion let us make a remark concerning numerical aspects of finding $`k_j`$ given $`I(k)`$.

Since $`I(k)=\overline{I(k)}`$ for $`k`$, the knowledge of $`I(k)`$ for $`k>0`$ yields the values of $`I(k)`$ for all $`k`$. The function $`I(k)`$ is meromorphic in $`_+`$ and is of the form (see formula (3.4)):

$$I(k)=ik+\underset{j=0}{\overset{J}{}}\frac{I_j}{kik_j}+𝒥(k),$$
$`(3.12)`$
where $`𝒥(k)`$ is analytic in $`_+`$ and is $`o\left(\frac{1}{|k|}\right)`$ as $`|k|\mathrm{}`$, $`k_+`$. Therefore the numbers $`J`$, $`I_j`$ and $`ik_j`$ can be calculated if $`I(k)`$ is known for all $`k>0`$. A method for calculating $`J`$, $`I_j`$ and $`k_j`$ can be based on the formula:

$$\frac{1}{2\pi i}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}e^{ikt}\left[I(k)ik\right]𝑑k=\frac{I_0}{2}+\underset{j=1}{\overset{J}{}}I_je^{k_jt},t>0.$$
$`(3.13)`$
The behavior of $`I(k)`$ as $`k+\mathrm{}`$ one can obtain from the formulas:

$$f^{}(0,k)=ikA(0,0)+\stackrel{~}{A}_1(k),\stackrel{~}{A}_1(k):=_0^{\mathrm{}}A_x(0,y)e^{iky}𝑑y$$

$$f(k)=1+\stackrel{~}{A}(k),\stackrel{~}{A}(k)=_0^{\mathrm{}}A(0,y)e^{iky}𝑑y.$$

The functions $`A(y):=A(0,y)`$ and $`A_1(y):=A_x(0,y)`$ belong to $`L^1(0,\mathrm{})`$. Thus

$$I(k)=\frac{f^{}(0,k)}{f(k)}=[ikA(0,0)+\stackrel{~}{A}_1][1+\stackrel{~}{(}k)]^1=ikA(0,0)ik\stackrel{~}{A}+\mathrm{}=ik+o(1)$$
$`(3.14)`$
where the dots stand for the terms of higher order of smallness as $`k+\mathrm{}`$. The important point is: the constant term $`A(0,0)`$ is cancelled in the asymptotics since

$$ik\stackrel{~}{A}=A(0,0)+o(1),\text{ as }k+\mathrm{},$$
$`(3.15)`$
as follows from the calculation preceding formula (3.5).


text:
# Zero temperature black holes in semiclassical gravity

## Acknowledgments

P. R. A. would like to thank G. Cook, W. Kerr and O. Zaslavskii for helpful conversations. This work was supported in part by National Science Foundation Grant No. PHY-9734834 at Montana State University and Nos. PHY-9800971 and PHY-0070981 at Wake Forest University.


text:
# Automorphisms and ideals of the Weyl algebra

## 1. Introduction and statement of results

The main aim of this paper is to give a simple description of the space $``$ of isomorphism classes of (non-zero) right ideals in the complex Weyl algebra $`A_1`$, and of the action on $``$ of the automorphism group of $`A_1`$. We begin by reviewing the corresponding (relatively trivial) results for the commutative algebra $`A_0=[x,y]`$ .

We call two non-zero ideals in $`A_0`$ isomorphic if they are isomorphic as $`A_0`$-modules; equivalently, ideals $`I`$ and $`J`$ are isomorphic if we have $`pI=qJ`$ for some $`p,qA_0`$ . Using the fact that reflexive ideals in $`A_0`$ are principal, it is easy to show that each isomorphism class contains a unique ideal of finite codimension. The ideals of a fixed codimension $`n`$ form a well-studied space, the Hilbert scheme $`\text{Hilb}_n(𝔸^2)`$ of $`n`$-points in the affine plane. Alternatively, we can think of this space as the space of isomorphism classes of $`n`$-dimensional cyclic representations of $`A_0`$ : to an ideal $`I`$ we assign the natural representation of $`A_0`$ on the quotient space $`V=A_0/I`$ . A representation of $`A_0`$ on $`V`$ is nothing but a pair of commuting endomorphisms of $`V`$ (corresponding to the action of the generators $`x`$ and $`y`$ of $`A_0`$); choosing a basis for $`V`$, we find that $`I`$ is represented by a pair of commuting matrices $`(X,Y)`$ , uniquely determined up to simultaneous conjugation. Now let $`\sigma `$ be an automorphism of $`A_0`$ : it induces an isomorphism (of rings) $`\widehat{\sigma }:A_0/IA_0/\sigma (I)`$ . If we use $`\widehat{\sigma }`$ to identify these two spaces, and choose a basis, we find that the pair of matrices corresponding to $`\sigma (I)`$ is just $`(\sigma ^1(X),\sigma ^1(Y))`$ (the notation means that we take the polynomials $`\sigma ^1(x),\sigma ^1(y)A_0`$ and substitute $`(X,Y)`$ for $`(x,y)`$). To summarize:

1. The space of isomorphism classes of ideals breaks up into the disjoint union of the Hilbert schemes $`\text{Hilb}_n(𝔸^2)`$ .
2. A point of $`\text{Hilb}_n(𝔸^2)`$ can be identified with a conjugacy class of pairs $`(X,Y)`$ of commuting $`n\times n`$ matrices (possessing a cyclic vector).
3. The formula for the action of an automorphism $`\sigma `$ on the pair of matrices $`(X,Y)`$ is the same as the formula for the action of $`\sigma ^1`$ on the generators $`(x,y)`$ of $`A_0`$ .

Note that, although the proofs of these statements are almost trivial, they all depend crucially on the first step, reducing the problem to the case of ideals of finite codimension.

Now let us turn to the Weyl algebra $`A_1`$ . We recall that $`A_1`$ is the associative algebra (over $``$) generated by two elements $`x`$ and $`y`$ subject to the single relation $`[x,y]1=0`$. In the main body of the paper we shall use the well known realization of $`A_1`$ as the algebra of ordinary differential operators with polynomial coefficients; in this Introduction we think of $`A_1`$ more abstractly, as a noncommutative version of $`A_0`$ . A fundamental difference between $`A_0`$ and $`A_1`$ is that $`A_1`$ has no finite dimensional representations (of positive dimension). Indeed, if $`X`$ and $`Y`$ are two $`n\times n`$ matrices with $`[X,Y]\text{I}=0`$ , then taking the trace, we obtain $`n=0`$ . Similarly, $`A_1`$ has no (left or right) ideals $`I`$ of finite codimension (for if it did, the quotient $`A_1/I`$ would be a finite dimensional representation). Thus, a priori, there seems no reason to expect that there should be results for $`A_1`$ similar to the ones indicated above for $`A_0`$ : nevertheless, we shall see that this is the case. To obtain such results, we have to relax somewhat the notion of a representation, as follows. For each $`n0`$ , let $`𝒞_n`$ be the space of equivalence classes (modulo simultaneous conjugation) of pairs $`(X,Y)`$ of $`n\times n`$ matrices satisfying the condition

(1.1)
$$[X,Y]\text{I}\text{has rank at most}1$$

(the mysterious “at most” takes care of the case $`n=0`$ ). We might think of $`𝒞_n`$ as the space of “approximate $`n`$-dimensional representations” of $`A_1`$. Let

$$𝒞=\underset{n0}{}𝒞_n$$

be the disjoint union of the spaces $`𝒞_n`$. In \[W2\], one of the authors constructed a bijective map

(1.2)
$$\beta :𝒞\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}$$

from $`𝒞`$ to the adelic Grassmannian that parametrizes rational solutions of the KP hierarchy. This Grassmannian arises (thinly disguised) also in the work of Cannings and Holland on ideals in $`A_1`$ . As for $`A_0`$ , two right ideals $`I`$ and $`J`$ are called isomorphic if they are isomorphic as right $`A_1`$-modules; equivalently, if we have $`pI=qJ`$ for some $`p,qA_1`$. Let $``$ denote the set of isomorphism classes of non-zero right ideals. In \[CH\], Cannings and Holland constructed (in effect) a bijective map

(1.3)
$$\alpha :\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}.$$

Set $`\omega =\alpha \beta `$ . Combining the results of \[CH\] and \[W2\], we obtain at once

###### Theorem 1.1.

The map $`\omega :𝒞`$ is bijective.

Now let $`G`$ be the group of automorphisms of $`A_1`$. The natural action of $`G`$ on $`A_1`$ induces an action on $``$ (for if $`I`$ is a right ideal of $`A_1`$ and $`\sigma G`$ , then the isomorphism class of the right ideal $`\sigma (I)`$ clearly depends only on that of $`I`$). We transfer this action to $`\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$ via the bijection $`\alpha `$, and then to $`𝒞`$ via the bijection $`\beta `$. To describe the resulting action of $`G`$ on $`𝒞`$, recall (see \[D\], \[M2\]) that $`G`$ is generated by the special automorphisms of the form

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_p(D)=e^{p(y)}De^{p(y)},\mathrm{\Psi }_q(D)=e^{q(x)}De^{q(x)},$$

where $`p`$ and $`q`$ run over all polynomials (say without constant term). The action of these automorphisms on the generators $`x`$ and $`y`$ of $`A_1`$ is given by

(1.4)
$$\mathrm{\Phi }_p(x)=xp^{}(y),\mathrm{\Phi }_p(y)=y;$$

(1.5)
$$\mathrm{\Psi }_q(x)=x,\mathrm{\Psi }_q(y)=y+q^{}(x).$$

We shall prove

###### Theorem 1.2.

The action of $`G`$ on $`𝒞`$ preserves each of the subspaces $`𝒞_n`$ . The action of the generators of $`G`$ on $`𝒞_n`$ is given by the formulae

(1.6)
$$\mathrm{\Phi }_p(X,Y)=(X+p^{}(Y),Y)$$

(1.7)
$$\mathrm{\Psi }_q(X,Y)=(X,Yq^{}(X)).$$

###### Theorem 1.3.

The action of $`G`$ on each of the spaces $`𝒞_n`$ is transitive; that is, the $`𝒞_n`$ are the orbits of the action of $`G`$ on $`𝒞`$.

Theorem 1.3 is perhaps particularly unexpected, because it is a simpler result than we have in the commutative case. Indeed, the automorphism group of $`[x,y]`$ , or, equivalently, of the affine plane $`𝔸^2`$, does not act transitively on $`\text{Hilb}_n(𝔸^2)`$ for $`n>1`$ , because any automorphism preserves the multiplicities of a collection of $`n`$ points of $`𝔸^2`$. See the last section of the paper for a further comment on this matter.

Of course, it follows at once from Theorem 1.3 that the spaces $`\beta (𝒞_n)`$ are the orbits of the action of $`G`$ on $`\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$; and that the spaces $`\omega (𝒞_n)`$ are the orbits of the action of $`G`$ on $``$ . Each of these facts has considerable independent interest. In \[W2\] the spaces $`\beta (𝒞_n)`$ were characterized as the union of all the $`n`$-dimensional open cells in $`\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$; but our present description of them as the orbits of a group action seems more straightforward. The problem of describing the orbits of $`G`$ in $``$ goes back at least to Stafford’s paper \[St2\]: it is known to be equivalent to the problem of classifying rings of differential operators on affine curves; or again, to classifying the algebras Morita equivalent to $`A_1`$ (see, for example, \[BW\], \[CH\], \[K\], \[St2\], \[W3\]). The key fact that the $`G`$-orbits in $``$ are classified by a single non-negative integer $`n`$ was first discovered in the 1994 thesis \[K\] of Kouakou: however, Kouakou’s work was not published at that time, and remained unknown to us until after we rediscovered his main result in \[BW\].

Here are a few words about our proof of Theorem 1.2. The difficulty is that the maps $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ do not respect the symmetry between $`x`$ and $`y`$ (or $`X`$ and $`Y`$), so that although the formula (1.6) is easy to check, the similar formula (1.7) is not: indeed, we shall see that the automorphisms $`\mathrm{\Phi }_p`$ act on $`\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$ as the group of KP flows, whereas we do not know any such simple description of the action of the $`\mathrm{\Phi }_q`$. To pinpoint the problem, we introduce the formal Fourier transform$`\phi `$ : it is the automorphism of $`A_1`$ whose action on the generators is given by

(1.8)
$$\phi (x)=y,\phi (y)=x.$$

We have $`\mathrm{\Psi }_p=\phi \mathrm{\Phi }_p\phi ^1`$, hence the $`\mathrm{\Phi }_p`$ and $`\phi `$ generate $`G`$ ; thus our problem is reduced to tracking how $`\phi `$ acts on $`\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$, and thence on $`𝒞`$. Although the action of $`\phi `$ on $`\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$ does not seem to have any simple description, we can write $`\phi `$ as the composition $`\phi =bc`$ of two involutory anti-automorphisms of $`A_1`$: the action of $`b`$ and $`c`$ on the generators of $`A_1`$ is defined by

(1.9)
$$b(x)=y,b(y)=x;c(x)=x,c(y)=y.$$

(If we think of $`A_1`$ as an algebra of differential operators, then $`c`$ is the formal adjoint). Using the fact that the ideals in $`A_1`$ are reflexive $`A_1`$-modules, we can extend the action of $`G`$ on $``$ to an action of the larger group $`\widehat{G}`$ of automorphisms and anti-automorphisms of $`A_1`$; we then find that the actions of $`b`$ and $`c`$ on $`\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$ correspond to known involutions. In particular, we shall see

###### Theorem 1.4.

The anti-automorphism $`b`$ acts on $`\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$ as the bispectral involution introduced in \[W1\].

Theorem 1.4 is (to us) the most difficult result in this paper: in the following Sections 2–8 we prepare the machinery for its proof, and also summarize the most essential definitions and facts that we need from the literature. The new material in these sections concerns some spaces of differential operators which we denote by $`𝒟(U,V)`$. Here $`U`$ and $`V`$ are certain linear subspaces of the space $`(z)`$ of rational functions in one variable, and $`𝒟(U,V)(z)[/z]`$ is the set of all differential operators with rational coefficients that map $`U`$ into $`V`$ (mostly $`U`$ and $`V`$ will represent points of the Grassmannian $`\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$). These spaces $`𝒟(U,V)`$ play a basic role in the paper of Cannings and Holland, but (to our knowledge) they have not so far appeared in the theory of integrable systems. In that theory, on the other hand, an essential part of the machinery involves the Baker functions$`\psi _U`$ of points $`U\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$: these functions do not appear in the work of Cannings and Holland. We bridge this gap in Section 8, which gives a description of $`𝒟(U,V)`$ in terms of the Baker functions of $`U`$ and $`V`$. Our main theorems all follow easily from this (and other facts available in the literature): the proofs are given in Sections 9 and 10. Finally, in the last section of the paper we offer a preliminary attempt to interpret our results from the perspective of algebraic groups.

In connection with Theorem 1.1, there are at least two natural questions which remain untouched in the present paper: one is to find a more direct definition of the map $`\omega `$ (without passing through the Grassmannian, where some of the symmetry is difficult to see), another is to describe explicitly its inverse. We shall address both these problems in our subsequent paper \[BW1\], where the correspondence $`\omega `$ will be constructed by cohomological methods developed recently in the framework of noncommutative algebraic geometry. The idea of such an approach goes back to the work of L. Le Bruyn \[L\]. In \[BW1\] we hope also to clarify the relationship between our stratification of $``$ and Le Bruyn’s “moduli spaces”.

With the exception of Theorem 1.2, the main results of this article were announced in \[W3\].

## 2. The group $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and the spaces $`𝒟(U,V)`$

In this section we confront the following technical problem: a point $`W`$ of $`\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$ is a (certain kind of) linear space of rational functions, but we need to consider the action on $`\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$ of the group $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ of KP flows. Loosely speaking, this action is given by multiplication by exponential functions. The most natural way to make sense of that is to work temporarily with the completion of $`W`$ in some larger function space. Because we need to consider also the action of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ on the spaces of differential operators $`𝒟(U,V)`$ it is inconvenient to use $`\text{L}^2`$ completions (as in \[W1\], \[W2\]); instead, we shall work with holomorphic functions, adapting to our circumstances a suggestion of \[ACKP\].

To begin with, we work in slightly greater generality than will be needed for the main part of the paper. Let $`𝒮`$ be the set of all linear subspaces $`V[z]`$ such that we have

(2.1)
$$\rho (z)[z]V\text{for some polynomial}\rho ;$$

and let $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ be the group of all functions of the form $`\gamma (z)=e^{p(z)}`$ , where $`p`$ is a polynomial. To define the action of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ on $`𝒮`$, we introduce the space $``$ of entire functions on $``$ , with its usual topology (uniform convergence on compact subsets), and denote by $`\overline{𝒮}`$ the set of all closed subspaces $`𝒱`$ such that we have

$$\rho (z)𝒱\text{for some polynomial}\rho .$$

If $`V𝒮`$ , let $`\overline{V}`$ be the closure of $`V`$ in $``$ ; then clearly, $`\overline{V}\overline{𝒮}`$ . If $`𝒱\overline{𝒮}`$ , we set $`𝒱^{\text{alg}}=𝒱[z]`$ ; clearly, $`𝒱^{\text{alg}}𝒮`$ . If $`\rho `$ is a polynomial of degree $`n`$ , then we have the decomposition

$$=\rho \{\text{polynomials of degree less than}n\}$$

of $``$ into a direct sum of two closed subspaces. Comparing this with the similar decomposition of $`[z]`$ , we easily find

###### Lemma 2.1.

The maps $`V\overline{V}`$ and $`𝒱𝒱^{\text{alg}}`$ define inverse bijections between $`𝒮`$ and $`\overline{𝒮}`$ .

We use this Lemma to transfer the obvious action of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ on $`\overline{𝒮}`$ to $`𝒮`$ ; that is, if $`V𝒮`$ and $`\gamma \mathrm{\Gamma }`$ , we define

$$\gamma V=(\gamma \overline{V})^{\text{alg}}.$$

As in the Introduction, if $`U,V𝒮`$ , we write

(2.2)
$$𝒟(U,V)=\{D(z)[]:D.UV\}$$

for the set of all differential operators with rational coefficients that map $`U`$ into $`V`$ . Here $`/z`$ ; we write $`D.f`$ for the action of $`D`$ on the function $`f`$ (to avoid confusion with the composition $`Df`$ of $`D`$ with the multiplication operator $`f`$). If $`\rho `$ is a polynomial, then we clearly have

$$𝒟(\rho U,\rho V)=\rho 𝒟(U,V)\rho ^1.$$

We need to know that this is still true if we replace $`\rho `$ by an element of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ .

###### Lemma 2.2.

Let $`U,V𝒮`$ , $`D(z)[]`$ . Then

$$D.UVD.\overline{U}\overline{V}.$$

###### Proof.

The implication “$``$” is trivial. Conversely, suppose $`D.UV`$ , and choose a polynomial $`\pi `$ such that $`\pi D`$ has polynomial coefficients. Then $`\pi D.U\pi V`$ ; since $`\pi D`$ is a bounded operator on $``$ , it follows that $`\pi D.\overline{U}\overline{\pi V}=\pi \overline{V}`$ . Hence $`D.\overline{U}\overline{V}`$ , as required. ∎

###### Corollary 2.3.

Let $`U,V𝒮,\gamma \mathrm{\Gamma }`$ . Then

$$𝒟(\gamma U,\gamma V)=\gamma 𝒟(U,V)\gamma ^1.$$

###### Proof.

The corresponding result for the closures $`\overline{U},\overline{V}`$ is trivial, so the Corollary follows at once from Lemma 2.2 and the fact that the operators in $`\gamma 𝒟(U,V)\gamma ^1`$ have rational coefficients. ∎

## 3. The Cannings-Holland correspondence

For the rest of this paper we confine our attention to the spaces $`V𝒮`$ that are (in the terminology of \[CH\]) primary decomposable. The definition is as follows. First, if $`\lambda `$ , a space $`V𝒮`$ is called $`\lambda `$-primary if the polynomial $`\rho `$ in (2.1) can be chosen to be a power of $`z\lambda `$ , that is, if $`V`$ contains the ideal $`(z\lambda )^r[z]`$ for some $`r0`$ . Then $`V`$ is called primary decomposable if it is a finite intersection of $`\lambda `$-primary subspaces (for various $`\lambda `$). The action of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ on $`𝒮`$ preserves the class of primary decomposable subspaces (for it clearly preserves the class of $`\lambda `$-primary subspaces for any fixed $`\lambda `$). Primary decomposable subspaces play a fundamental role in both of the papers \[CH\] and \[W1\]: indeed, this observation was the starting point for the present work.

To formulate the results of Cannings and Holland, we think of the Weyl algebra $`A_1`$ as the ring $`[z,/z]`$ of ordinary differential operators with polynomial coefficients. If $`V𝒮`$ , we assign to it the right ideal

$$\alpha (V)=𝒟([z],V)$$

of $`A_1`$ . If $`I`$ is a right ideal in $`A_1`$, we assign to it the linear subspace $`e(I)`$ spanned by all polynomials of the form $`D.f`$ with $`DI`$, $`f[z]`$. Equivalently, we have simply

$$e(I)=\{D.1:DI\}[z].$$

The following theorem is proved in \[CH\].

###### Theorem 3.1.

The maps $`\alpha `$ and $`e`$ define inverse bijections between the set of primary decomposable subspaces of $`[z]`$ and the set of right ideals of $`A_1`$ that have non-zero intersection with $`[z]`$ .

Now, it is easy to show that every non-zero ideal in $`A_1`$ is isomorphic (as right $`A_1`$-module) to one that intersects $`[z]`$ (see \[St2\], Lemma 4.2). Further, two ideals $`I`$ and $`J`$ that intersect $`[z]`$ are isomorphic if and only if $`\pi (z)I=\rho (z)J`$ for some polynomials $`\pi `$ and $`\rho `$ . The maps $`\alpha `$ and $`e`$ commute with left multiplication by polynomials, so two primary decomposable subspaces $`U`$ and $`V`$ correspond to isomorphic ideals if and only if $`\pi (z)U=\rho (z)V`$ for some $`\pi `$ and $`\rho `$ . Thus Theorem 3.1 implies the following

###### Corollary 3.2.

The maps $`\alpha `$ and $`e`$ determine inverse bijections between the set $``$ of isomorphism classes of non-zero right ideals of $`A_1`$ and the set of classes of primary decomposable subspaces of $`[z]`$ modulo the equivalence relation

(3.1)
$$UV\pi (z)U=\rho (z)V\text{for some polynomials}\pi \text{and}\rho .$$

## 4. Duality and the action of $`\widehat{G}`$ on $``$

Let $`Q`$ denote the quotient (skew) field of $`A_1`$. We recall that a right $`A_1`$-submodule $`I`$ of $`Q`$ is called a fractional right ideal if there is some $`aA_1`$ such that $`aIA_1`$ (and hence $`aI`$ is a right ideal in the usual sense). Fractional left ideals are defined similarly. If $`I`$ is a fractional right ideal, its dual $`I^{}`$ is defined by

$$I^{}=\{qQ:qIA_1\}.$$

Clearly, $`I^{}`$ is a (fractional) left ideal; the terminology ”dual” is justified by the easy

###### Lemma 4.1.

As left $`A_1`$-module, $`I^{}`$ is isomorphic to $`\text{Hom}_{A_1}(I,A_1)`$ .

Similarly, if $`J`$ is a (fractional) left ideal, the dual right ideal is defined by

$$J^{}=\{qQ:JqA_1\}.$$

A basic property of $`A_1`$ (see \[MR\]) is that it is a hereditary Noetherian ring, which means that its ideals are projective, and hence reflexive, as $`A_1`$-modules. That gives us the important

###### Lemma 4.2.

For any right ideal $`I`$ and left ideal $`J`$, we have

$$(I^{})^{}=I,(J^{})^{}=J.$$

Using Lemma 4.2, we can extend the obvious action of $`G=\text{Aut}(A_1)`$ on $``$ to an action of the larger group $`\widehat{G}`$ of all automorphisms and anti-automorphisms of $`A_1`$. Recall from the Introduction that if $`\sigma G`$ is an automorphism of $`A_1`$, then we make $`\sigma `$ act on (the class of) the right ideal $`I`$ by

(4.1)
$$\sigma I=\sigma (I)\{\sigma (i):iI\}.$$

If now $`\sigma `$ is an anti-automorphism of $`A_1`$ and $`I`$ is a right ideal, then the set $`\sigma (I)`$ is a left ideal, so its dual is again a right ideal; we define the action of $`\sigma `$ on (the class of) $`I`$ by

(4.2)
$$\sigma I=\sigma (I)^{}\text{if }\sigma \text{ is an anti-automorphism}.$$

###### Lemma 4.3.

The formulae (4.1) and (4.2) define an action of $`\widehat{G}`$ on $``$ .

###### Proof.

Everything is trivial, except possibly to check that if $`\sigma `$ and $`\tau `$ are anti-automorphisms, and $`\theta =\sigma \tau `$ , then $`\sigma (\tau I)=\theta I`$ . For this, we need to prove that

$$\sigma [\tau (I)^{}]^{}=\sigma [\tau (I)].$$

But because of Lemma 4.2, it is equivalent to prove that

$$\sigma [\tau (I)^{}]=\sigma [\tau (I)]^{},$$

which is easy. ∎

## 5. The adelic Grassmannian

There does not seem to be any natural way of choosing representatives for the equivalence classes of primary decomposable subspaces in Corollary 3.2. However, these classes are in 1-1 correspondence with the points of the adelic Grassmannian $`\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$ introduced (for a different purpose) in \[W1\]. Let $`V=V_\lambda `$ be the intersection of the $`\lambda `$-primary subspaces $`V_\lambda `$ ; let $`k_\lambda `$ be the codimension (in $`[z]`$) of $`V_\lambda `$ , and set

(5.1)
$$m_V(z)=\underset{\lambda }{}(z\lambda )^{k_\lambda }.$$

Let $`W=m_V^1V`$ , so that $`W`$ is a linear subspace of $`(z)`$ . By definition, $`\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$ consists of all subspaces $`W(z)`$ that arise in this way. If we replace $`V`$ by $`\rho V`$ for some polynomial $`\rho `$ , then $`m_V`$ gets replaced by $`\rho m_V`$ ; hence indeed the map $`VW`$ induces a bijection from equivalence classes of primary decomposable subspaces to $`\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$. Note that the action of the group $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is compatible with the equivalence relation (3.1), and so induces an action on $`\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$. We write this action again as $`W\gamma W`$ , and think of it as scalar multiplication. If $`U`$ and $`V`$ are two points of $`\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$, we define the set of differential operators $`𝒟(U,V)`$ as before (see (2.2)).

Let us reformulate the Cannings-Holland results in terms of $`\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$. If $`W\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$, we set

$$R_W=𝒟([z],W)\{D(z)[]:D.[z]W\}.$$

Clearly, $`R_W`$ is is a fractional right ideal of $`A_1`$ (we regard $`(z)[]`$ as a subalgebra of the quotient field of $`A_1[z][]`$). Let $`\alpha (W)`$ be the isomorphism class of $`R_W`$ ; then Corollary 3.2 implies immediately

###### Theorem 5.1.

The map $`\alpha :\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$ is bijective; that is, every non-zero right ideal of $`A_1`$ is isomorphic to a unique ideal of the form $`R_W`$. We can recover $`W`$ from $`R_W`$ by the formula

(5.2)
$$W=e(R_W)\{D.1:DR_W\}.$$

It is clear that the result of Corollary 2.3 is still valid for $`U,V\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$. Applying it with $`U=[z]`$ , $`V=W`$, we find that

$$R_{\gamma W}=\gamma R_W\gamma ^1\text{for any}W\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}},\gamma \mathrm{\Gamma }.$$

In other words, setting $`\gamma (z)=e^{p(z)}`$ , we have

###### Proposition 5.2.

Under the bijection $`\alpha `$, the action of the automorphism $`\mathrm{\Phi }_p`$ on $``$ corresponds to the map $`We^{p(z)}W`$ on $`\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$.

We can also assign to each point $`W`$ of $`\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$ the fractional left ideal

$$L_W=𝒟(W,[z])\{D(z)[]:D.W[z]\}.$$

This ideal is useful for studying the action of anti-automorphisms of $`A_1`$ on $`\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$, because we have

###### Lemma 5.3.

The ideals $`R_W`$ and $`L_W`$ are dual to each other; that is, in the notation of the previous section, we have $`L_W=(R_W)^{}`$ .

###### Proof.

It is obvious that $`L_W(R_W)^{}`$ . The converse is a consequence of (5.2). Let $`wW`$ : then $`w=D.1`$ for some $`DR_W`$ , so if $`q(R_W)^{}`$ , then $`q.w=(qD).1`$ is a polynomial, since $`qDA_1`$ . Hence $`qL_W`$ . ∎

## 6. The Baker function

Associated to each point $`W`$ of $`\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$ is the Baker function $`\psi _W`$. This function plays an indispensable role, because both the bispectral involution $`b`$ on $`\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$ and the map $`\beta `$ in (1.2) are defined in term of $`\psi _W`$. In this section we review briefly the definition and the main properties of $`\psi _W`$; the reader may consult \[SW\], \[W1\] or \[W2\] for more details.

Let $`R_{}`$ be the space of rational functions that vanish at infinity, so that we have $`(z)=[z]R_{}`$ . If $`W\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$ , then the projection $`\pi _W:W[z]`$ defined by this splitting is an operator of index zero (that is, its kernel and cokernel have the same (finite) dimension); we say that $`W`$ belongs to the big cell of $`\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$ if $`\pi _W`$ is an isomorphism. It is intuitively clear that “most” spaces $`W`$ belong to the big cell, in particular, that for any $`W`$, the space $`\gamma W`$ should belong to the big cell for almost all $`\gamma \mathrm{\Gamma }`$. We need the following more precise result, which is a consequence of Lemma 8.6 in \[SW\].

###### Proposition 6.1.

For any $`W\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$, the space $`e^{xz}W`$ belongs to the big cell for all but a discrete<sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1In fact it follows from Proposition 6.2 below that this set is finite set of values of $`x`$ .

It follows that for any $`W`$ there is a unique function $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }_W(\gamma ,z)`$ (defined for almost all $`\gamma \mathrm{\Gamma },z`$) such that

> (i) $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }_W(\gamma ,z)`$ has the form $`1+O(z^1)`$ for all $`\gamma \mathrm{\Gamma }`$ ;
>
> (ii) $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }_W(\gamma ,z)\gamma ^1W`$ for all $`\gamma \mathrm{\Gamma }`$ .

In (i) we have introduced two abbreviations of a kind that will be used without comment from now on. By “$`O(z^1)`$” we mean “some function of $`z`$ and possibly some other variables that vanishes as $`z\mathrm{}`$ ”; and “for all $`\gamma `$” means “for all $`\gamma `$ for which the statement makes sense” (in the present case: for all $`\gamma `$ such that $`\gamma ^1W`$ belongs to the big cell). The Baker function of $`W`$ is the function

$$\psi _W(\gamma ,z)=\gamma (z)\stackrel{~}{\psi }_W(\gamma ,z).$$

We call $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }_W`$ the reduced Baker function of $`W`$. The action of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ on $`\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$ corresponds to translation in the first variable of the reduced Baker function; more precisely, if $`\eta \mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and $`W\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$, then

(6.1)
$$\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{\eta W}(\gamma ,z)=\stackrel{~}{\psi }_W(\eta ^1\gamma ,z)$$

(for both sides have the form $`1+O(z^1)`$ and belong to $`\eta \gamma ^1W`$ for all $`\gamma `$).

Proposition 6.1 shows that we can restrict $`\psi _W`$ to the $`1`$-parameter subgroup $`\{e^{xz}\}`$ of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ : the resulting function of $`x`$ and $`z`$ is called the stationary Baker function of $`W`$ ; we write it simply as $`\psi _W(x,z)`$ (rather than $`\psi _W(e^{xz},z)`$). We refer to \[W1\] for the proof of the following.

###### Proposition 6.2.

For any $`W\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$, $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }_W(x,z)`$ is a separable rational function of $`x`$ and $`z`$ that tends to $`1`$ as either $`x\mathrm{}`$ or $`z\mathrm{}`$ .

Here “separable” means that $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }_W(x,z)`$ is a sum of functions of the form $`f(x)g(z)`$ . We recall at this point that the bispectral involution $`b`$ on $`\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$ is defined by the formula

(6.2)
$$\psi _{b(W)}(x,z)=\psi _W(z,x).$$

Of course, it is not a priori clear that the right hand side of (6.2) is the Baker function of any point of $`\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$; that this is the case was the main result of \[W1\].

###### Lemma 6.3.

Let $`W\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$, and let $`\mathrm{\Theta }(x)`$ be any differential operator in $`x`$ with coefficients that are (say) analytic on some open set in $``$ . Then

$$(e^{xz}\mathrm{\Theta }(x)).\psi _W(x,z)e^{xz}W\text{for all}x.$$

After multiplication by the polynomial $`m_W`$ in (5.1), this becomes an easy exercise in the space $``$ of entire functions: we leave the details to the reader.

The following consequence of Lemma 6.3 is very useful.

###### Corollary 6.4.

Fix any $`x`$ such that the function $`\psi _W(x,z)`$ is regular at $`x`$ . Then $`e^{xz}W`$ is spanned by the functions

(6.3)
$$e^{xz}\{(/x)^i\psi _W(x,z)\},i0.$$

###### Proof.

By Lemma 6.3, the functions (6.3) all belong to $`e^{xz}W`$ . They span $`e^{xz}W`$ because the projection $`e^{xz}W[z]`$ is an isomorphism, and the $`i`$th function (6.3) has the form $`z^i+`$ (lower terms) for large $`z`$ . ∎

## 7. The algebra $`𝒲`$

Proposition 6.2 shows that for large $`x`$ and $`z`$, the function $`\psi _W`$ has a series expansion of the form

$$\psi _W(x,z)=e^{xz}\{1+\underset{i,j=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\alpha _{ij}x^jz^i\}.$$

Formally, we can write this equation as $`\psi _W=K_W.e^{xz}`$ , where $`K_W`$ denotes the formal integral operator

$$K_W=1+\underset{i,j=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\alpha _{ij}x^j_x^i$$

(from now on we write $`_x/x`$). Obviously, the operator $`K_W`$ contains exactly the same information as the function $`\psi _W(x,z)`$; however, our proof of Theorem 1.4 uses these operators in an essential way, so we shall review the necessary formalism.

We denote by $`𝒲`$ the algebra of all formal operators of the form

(7.1)
$$L(x)=\underset{i=\mathrm{}}{\overset{N}{}}\underset{j=\mathrm{}}{\overset{M}{}}\alpha _{ij}x^j_x^i$$

The (associative) multiplication on $`𝒲`$ is uniquely determined by the constraint that it should coincide with the usual one on the subalgebra $`((x^1))[_x]`$ of differential operators. The operators $`K_W`$ above are invertible elements of $`𝒲`$ . Now let $``$ be the space of formal “functions” of the form

$$f(x,z)=e^{xz}\left(\underset{i=\mathrm{}}{\overset{N}{}}\underset{j=\mathrm{}}{\overset{M}{}}\alpha _{ij}x^jz^i\right).$$

The differential operators in $`𝒲`$ act on $``$ in an obvious way, and it is easy to check that the action of $`_x`$ is invertible, so that we can define the action of $`𝒲`$ on $``$ . In this way $``$ becomes a free $`𝒲`$-module of rank 1 (as generator we can take $`e^{xz}`$).

On $`𝒲`$ we have the anti-automorphism $`b`$ defined by

$$b(x)=_x,b(_x)=x.$$

On the other hand, because of the symmetry between $`x`$ and $`z`$ in the space $``$ , the algebra $`𝒲(z)`$ of formal operators in the variable $`z`$ also acts on $``$ . If $`L(x)`$ is an operator of the form (7.1), we write $`L(z)`$ for the operator obtained from it by replacing $`x`$ by $`z`$ and $`_x`$ by $`/z`$ . We then have the following simple rule of calculation.

###### Lemma 7.1.

For any operator $`L(x)𝒲`$ , we have

$$L(x).e^{xz}=b(L)(z).e^{xz}.$$

As a special case of Lemma 7.1, we can reformulate the definition (6.2) of the bispectral involution in terms of the operator $`K_W`$.

###### Corollary 7.2.

The bispectral involution on $`\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$ is characterized by the formula

$$K_{b(W)}=b(K_W).$$

###### Remark.

In the theory of integrable systems it is customary to work with rings of formal pseudo-differential operators in the style of Schur (see \[Sch\]). Readers familiar with this formalism should note that our algebra $`𝒲`$ is smaller than the ring $`((x^1))((_x^1))`$ of formal pseudo-differential operators with coefficients in $`((x^1))`$; for example, the element $`_{i=1}^{\mathrm{}}x^i_x^i`$ of this ring does not belong to $`𝒲`$. As this example shows, the involution $`b`$ of $`𝒲`$ cannot be extended to the larger algebra: that is the main reason why we restrict our considerations to $`𝒲`$.

## 8. Characterization of $`𝒟(U,V)`$

In this section we work with the algebras $`𝒲`$ and $`𝒲(z)`$ ; we regard $`(z)[]`$ as embedded in $`𝒲(z)`$ by identifying a rational function with its Laurent expansion near $`z=\mathrm{}`$ .

###### Lemma 8.1.

Let $`U,V\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$ , $`D(z)[]`$ . Then there is a unique differential operator $`\mathrm{\Theta }(x)[_x]`$ such that

(8.1)
$$D(z).\psi _U(x,z)\mathrm{\Theta }(x).\psi _V(x,z)=e^{xz}\{O(z^1)\}.$$

Explicitly, we have $`\mathrm{\Theta }=[K_Ub(D)(x)K_V^1]_+`$ , where the subscript + means that we delete the terms involving negative powers of $`_x`$ .

###### Proof.

Note first that

$$D(z).\psi _U(x,z)=D(z)K_U(x).e^{xz}=K_U(x)D(z).e^{xz}=K_U(x)b(D)(x).e^{xz}$$

(we used the rule in Lemma 7.1 at the last step). So the formula (8.1) is equivalent to

$$[K_Ub(D)(x)\mathrm{\Theta }K_V].e^{xz}=e^{xz}\{O(z^1)\}.$$

That is true if and only if the operator acting on $`e^{xz}`$ on the left has negative order; equivalently, if the operator $`K_Ub(D)(x)K_V^1\mathrm{\Theta }`$ has negative order. If $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ is differential, this means exactly that $`\mathrm{\Theta }=[K_Ub(D)(x)K_V^1]_+`$ . Since $`K_U`$ and $`K_V`$ (and hence also $`K_V^1`$) have rational coefficients, and $`b(D)`$ has polynomial coefficients, it is clear that $`\mathrm{\Theta }(x)[_x]`$ . ∎

###### Proposition 8.2.

Let $`U,V\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$, $`D(z)[]`$ . Then the following are equivalent:
(i) $`D𝒟(U,V)`$ ;
(ii) There is a differential operator $`\mathrm{\Theta }(x)`$ such that $`D(z).\psi _U(x,z)=\mathrm{\Theta }(x).\psi _V(x,z)`$ ;
(iii) The operator $`K_Ub(D)(x)K_V^1`$ is differential.

###### Proof.

The equivalence of (ii) and (iii) follows at once from Lemma 8.1. To prove the equivalence of (i) and (ii), we have only to recycle some standard arguments (see, for example \[Kri\], \[SW\]). First, suppose that $`D.UV`$ , and let $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ be the unique differential operator such that (8.1) holds, or, equivalently, such that

(8.2)
$$(e^{xz}D(z)e^{xz}).\stackrel{~}{\psi }_U(x,z)(e^{xz}\mathrm{\Theta }(x)).\psi _V(x,z)=O(z^1).$$

By Proposition 5.2, the first term here belongs to $`e^{xz}V`$ for all $`x`$ ; by Lemma 6.3, so does the second term. Since generically $`e^{xz}V`$ contains no function of the form $`O(z^1)`$ , it follows that the expression on the left of (8.2) is zero, that is, $`D.\psi _U=\mathrm{\Theta }.\psi _V`$ . Conversely, suppose $`D.\psi _U=\mathrm{\Theta }.\psi _V`$ . Differentiating with respect to $`x`$ , we get

(8.3)
$$\{e^{xz}D(z)e^{xz}\}.\{e^{xz}(_x^i.\psi _U(x,z))\}=e^{xz}(_x^i\mathrm{\Theta }(x)).\psi _V(x,z)$$

for all $`i0`$ and for all $`x`$ . Fix any $`x`$ such that the functions $`\psi _U(x,z)`$ and $`\psi _V(x,z)`$ are regular at $`x`$ . By Lemma 6.3, the right hand side of (8.3) belongs to $`e^{xz}V`$ . By Corollary 6.4, the functions $`e^{xz}(_x^i.\psi _U(x,z))`$ on the left hand side of (8.3) span $`e^{xz}U`$ ; hence the operator $`e^{xz}D(z)e^{xz}`$ maps $`e^{xz}U`$ into $`e^{xz}V`$ . By Corollary 2.3 we then have $`D.UV`$ . ∎

We shall use Proposition 8.2 in the following form.

###### Corollary 8.3.

Let $`U,V\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$, $`D𝒲(z)`$ . Then the following are equivalent:
(i) $`D𝒟(U,V)`$ ;
(ii) the operators $`D`$ and $`K_U(z)b(D)K_V^1(z)`$ are both differential.

###### Proof.

The only thing left to see is that condition (ii) ensures that the differential operator $`D𝒲(z)`$ has rational coefficients. The argument is like that in the proof of Lemma 8.1 above: if we set $`\mathrm{\Theta }=K_U(z)b(D)K_V^1(z)`$ then we have

$$D=b(K_U)^1(z)b(\mathrm{\Theta })b(K_V)(z).$$

Because the Baker functions $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }_W`$ are rational in both variables $`x`$ and $`z`$, the operators $`b(K_W)`$, hence also $`b(K_W)^1`$, have rational coefficients; and because $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ is differential, $`b(\mathrm{\Theta })`$ has polynomial coefficients. It follows that $`D`$ has rational coefficients. ∎

## 9. The action of $`\widehat{G}`$ on the Grassmannian

As we observed in the Introduction, the action of the automorphisms $`\mathrm{\Phi }_p`$ and of the anti-automorphisms $`b`$ and $`c`$ in (1.9) correspond to known symmetries of $`\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$. We have already seen this in the case of the $`\mathrm{\Phi }_p`$ (see Proposition 5.2).

Next, we prove the crucial Theorem 1.4 from the Introduction. Using Lemma 5.3 and the definition (4.2), we see that Theorem 1.4 amounts to the following assertion.

###### Proposition 9.1.

For any $`W\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$, the right ideals $`R_{b(W)}`$ and $`b(L_W)`$ are isomorphic.

The (fractional) ideals $`R_{b(W)}`$ and $`b(L_W)`$ are contained (respectively) in the subalgebras $`(z)[]`$ and $`()[z]`$ of the quotient field $`Q`$ of $`A_1`$. Since these algebras are both canonically embedded in $`𝒲(z)`$ (by replacing rational functions by their Laurent expansions near infinity), we can prove Proposition 9.1 by calculating in the algebra $`𝒲(z)`$ (rather than in $`Q`$). We shall prove the following more precise result.

###### Proposition 9.2.

For any $`W\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$, we have

$$R_{b(W)}=K_W(z)b(L_W).$$

###### Proof.

In the proof all operators are supposed to be in the variable $`z`$ : we omit $`z`$ from the notation. Applying Corollary 8.3 with $`U=[z]`$ , $`V=b(W)`$ , we get that

(9.1)
$$DR_{b(W)}D\text{and}b(D)(K_{b(W)})^1\text{are differential}.$$

Also, $`DK_Wb(L_W)`$ if and only if $`b(D)b(K_W)^1L_W`$ , so applying Corollary 8.3 again with $`U=W`$ , $`V=[z]`$ , we get

(9.2)
$$DK_Wb(L_W)b(D)b(K_W)^1\text{and}K_W[(K_W)^1D]\text{are differential}.$$

But in view of Corollary 7.2, the conditions (9.1) and (9.2) coincide; hence the Proposition. ∎

To end this section, we identify the action of the formal adjoint $`c`$ on $`\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$. Because the group $`\widehat{G}`$ is generated by the automorphisms $`\mathrm{\Phi }_p`$ and the anti-automorphism $`b`$ , this result is actually surplus to our needs; however, it seems of some interest in its own right.

###### Proposition 9.3.

The action of $`c`$ on $`\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$ is given by $`c(W)=W^{}`$, where (as in \[W2\]) $`W^{}`$ denotes the annihilator of $`W`$ with respect to the symmetric bilinear form

$$f,g=\text{res}_{\mathrm{}}f(z)g(z)dz$$

on $`(z)`$ .

###### Proof.

According to the definitions, we have to show that $`R_W^{}`$ is isomorphic to $`c(L_W)`$ . In fact these two right ideals coincide, for we have (denoting the formal adjoint of an operator $`D`$ by $`D^{}`$)

$`DR_W^{}`$ $``$ $`DfW^{}\text{for all}f[z]`$
$``$ $`D.f,g=0\text{for all}f[z],gW`$
$``$ $`f,D^{}.g=0\text{for all}f[z],gW`$
$``$ $`D^{}g[z]\text{for all}gW`$
$``$ $`D^{}L_W`$
$``$ $`D(L_W)^{}c(L_W).`$
## 10. Proof of Theorems 1.2 and 1.3

It is now easy to see how the action of $`\widehat{G}`$ on $`\text{Gr}^{\text{ad}}`$ transfers to $`𝒞`$ . First, the formula (1.6) for the action of $`\mathrm{\Phi }_p`$ is just the basic fact (see \[W2\]) that the Calogero-Moser flows and the KP flows correspond under $`\beta `$ . Indeed, according to the definition<sup>2</sup><sup>2</sup>2After the change of notation $`XX^t,ZY^t`$ . in \[W2\], $`\beta `$ maps (the conjugacy class of) a pair of matrices $`(X,Y)`$ to the point $`W`$ with reduced Baker function

(10.1)
$$\stackrel{~}{\psi }_W(\gamma ,z)=det\left\{\text{I}(p^{}(Y)X)^1(z\text{I}Y)^1\right\},$$

where $`\gamma (z)=e^{p(z)}\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ . If now $`q(z)`$ is any polynomial with zero constant term, and we set $`\eta (z)=e^{q(z)}`$, then the formula (6.1) shows that $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{\eta W}`$ is obtained by replacing $`X`$ by $`X+q^{}(Y)`$ in the formula (10.1); that is, we have

$$\beta (X+q^{}(Y),Y)=e^{q(z)}W,$$

which is what the formula (1.6) states (after restoring the notation $`p`$ for $`q`$).

On the other hand, the bispectral involution $`b`$ corresponds under $`\beta `$ to the map $`(X,Y)(Y^t,X^t)`$ on pairs of matrices. So the formula (1.7) follows from (1.6) and the fact that $`\mathrm{\Psi }_q=b\mathrm{\Phi }_qb`$ . That completes the proof of Theorem 1.2.

For the proof of Theorem 1.3, we choose as base-point in $`𝒞_n`$ the pair $`(X_0,Y_0)`$ given by

$$X_0=\underset{r=1}{\overset{n1}{}}rE_{r+1,r},Y_0=\underset{r=1}{\overset{n1}{}}E_{r,r+1}$$

(as usual, $`E_{i,j}`$ denotes the matrix with $`(i,j)`$-entry $`1`$ and zeros elsewhere). We shall prove something a little more precise than Theorem 1.3: namely, we shall show that any given point $`(X,Y)𝒞_n`$ can be moved to the base-point by applying at most three of the automorphisms $`\mathrm{\Phi }_p`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_q`$ (in fact two are enough unless $`X`$ and $`Y`$ are both non-diagonalizable).

###### Lemma 10.1.

Let $`𝛌=\{\lambda _1,\mathrm{},\lambda _n\}`$ be any collection of $`n`$ complex numbers. Then there is a unique polynomial $`p(z)`$ of degree $`n`$ and with zero constant term such that the set of eigenvalues of the matrix $`X_0+p^{}(Y_0)`$ is $`𝛌`$ .

###### Proof.

According to \[Mac\] (Ch. 1, Sect. 2, Example 8), $`det\{X_0+p^{}(Y_0)\}`$ is equal to $`n!`$ times the coefficient of $`z^n`$ in the series $`\mathrm{exp}\{p(z)\}`$ . The lemma follows easily from this. ∎

###### Lemma 10.2.

Let $`(X,Y)𝒞_n`$ , and suppose that $`X`$ is diagonalizable. Then there are unique polynomials $`p`$ and $`q`$ of degree $`n`$ and with zero constant term such that

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_q\mathrm{\Phi }_p(X_0,Y_0)=(X,Y).$$

###### Proof.

We may assume that $`X=\text{diag}(x_1,\mathrm{},x_n)`$ is diagonal and that $`Y`$ is a Calogero-Moser matrix, that is, the off-diagonal entries of $`Y`$ are given by

$$Y_{ij}=(x_ix_j)^1\text{for}ij$$

(cf. \[W2\], (1.14): the $`x_i`$ are necessarily distinct). By Lemma 10.1, there is a unique $`p`$ such that $`X_1=X_0+p^{}(Y_0)`$ has the same eigenvalues as $`X`$; then $`(X_1,Y_0)`$ is conjugate to a pair $`(X,Y_1)`$ with $`Y_1`$ another Calogero-Moser matrix. Thus $`Y`$ and $`Y_1`$ differ only in their diagonal entries. From the non-vanishing of the Vandermonde determinant $`det(x_i^j)`$ , we find that there is a unique polynomial $`q`$ as in the Lemma such that $`Y=Y_1q^{}(X)`$. The Lemma follows. ∎

###### Lemma 10.3.

Let $`(X,Y)𝒞_n`$ . Then there is a polynomial $`r`$ such that $`X+r^{}(Y)`$ is diagonalizable.

###### Proof.

This follows from Shiota’s lemma (see \[W2\], Lemma 5.6). ∎

Proof of Theorem 1.3. The Theorem now follows at once from Lemmas 10.2 and 10.3.

## 11. $`G`$ as an algebraic group

Nakajima (see \[N\], \[W2\]) has found that the Hilbert scheme $`\text{Hilb}_n(𝔸^2)`$ is a hyperkähler manifold, and that after changing the complex structure to a different one in the hyperkähler family, we obtain the space $`𝒞_n`$ . It is difficult to resist the feeling that this deformation of complex structure from $`\text{Hilb}_n(𝔸^2)`$ to $`𝒞_n`$ is related to the deformation of algebras from $`A_0`$ to $`A_1`$ (via the algebras $`A_\lambda `$ with commutation relation $`[x,y]=\lambda `$). It would be interesting to understand this analogy more precisely; here we just want to point out that considering the action of the group $`G`$ on $`𝒞_n`$ might lead to a new perspective on Nakajima’s result.

So far we have considered $`G`$ simply as an abstract (discrete) group. However, the fact that it acts transitively on the affine algebraic varieties $`𝒞_n`$ suggests that we should try to view $`G`$ as an algebraic group in such a way that its action on $`𝒞_n`$ is algebraic. Further, from the formulae (1.6), (1.7), it is clear that the action of $`G`$ preserves the natural holomorphic symplectic structure on the spaces $`𝒞_n`$ (see \[W2\], p. 9): thus $`𝒞_n`$ should be a coadjoint orbit of $`G`$ (or possibly of some central extension of $`G`$). The fact that these orbits are hyperkähler could then perhaps be compared to Kronheimer’s result that the coadjoint orbits of finite dimensional complex semisimple groups have hyperkähler structures (see \[Kr\], \[Ko\], \[B\]). As N. Hitchin has pointed out to us, the phemonenon that the transitive action of $`G`$ on $`𝒞_n`$ becomes intransitive on $`\text{Hilb}_n(𝔸^2)`$ then falls into perspective, since it is just what happens in Kronheimer’s case.

Let us recall first that $`G`$ can be identified with the group $`G_0`$ of unimodular<sup>3</sup><sup>3</sup>3that is, with Jacobian determinant 1 automorphisms of the commutative algebra $`A_0[x,y]`$ . Indeed, it is well known (see \[J\]) that $`G_0`$ is generated by the automorphisms $`\mathrm{\Phi }_p`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_q`$ defined by the formulae (1.4) and (1.5); furthermore (see \[M2\]) the relations between these are the same in $`G_0`$ as in $`G`$ , so that as abstract groups we may identify $`G_0`$ and $`G`$ . The group $`G_0`$ is a prototype example in Shafarevich’s theory of infinite dimensional algebraic groups (see \[Sh\]). The key idea is that we give $`G_0`$ a structure of infinite dimensional algebraic variety by regarding it as the union of the finite dimensional subvarieties $`G^{(d)}`$ of automorphisms of degree at most $`d`$ : here the “degree” of an automorphism $`\sigma `$ is defined to be the largest of the degrees of the polynomials

$$\sigma (x),\sigma (y);\sigma ^1(x),\sigma ^1(y).$$

This idea works equally well for the group $`G`$ of automorphisms of $`A_1`$ : let us denote the resulting algebraic group by $`G_1`$ . We claim that the algebraic groups $`G_1`$ and $`G_0`$ are not isomorphic. Indeed, Shafarevich shows in \[Sh\] that the Lie algebra of $`G_0`$ (considered as an algebra of derivations of $`A_0`$) is the algebra of all (polynomial) vector fields with zero divergence on $`𝔸^2`$ ; that is, it is isomorphic to $`A_0/`$ , where $`A_0`$ is made into a Lie algebra via the canonical Poisson bracket. A similar calculation for $`G_1`$ shows that its Lie algebra is the full algebra of derivations of $`A_1`$ , so it is isomorphic to $`A_1/`$ . Since their Lie algebras are not isomorphic, the algebraic groups $`G_0`$ and $`G_1`$ are not isomorphic. Thus as we deform $`A_0`$ to $`A_1`$ , the complex structure on the space of ideals deforms from $`\text{Hilb}_n(𝔸^2)`$ to $`𝒞_n`$ , and the automorphism group deforms from $`G_0`$ to $`G_1`$ . Certainly, $`G_0`$ acts algebraically on $`\text{Hilb}_n(𝔸^2)`$, so it is very natural to expect at this point that $`G_1`$ should act algebraically on $`𝒞_n`$ ; however, that is not the case. In fact the group $`G_1`$ has no non-trivial finite dimensional homogeneous spaces; for if it did, we should obtain a non-trivial homomorphism from $`A_1/`$ to the Lie algebra of vector fields on a finite dimensional variety, and it is known that this cannot happen (see \[HM\], \[St1\]). In a similar way, we have convinced ourselves that for $`n>1`$ the action of $`G_0`$ on $`𝒞_n`$ is not algebraic (despite an implied belief to the contrary in \[A\]).

These are discouraging facts; however, there is yet a third structure of algebraic group on $`G`$ that does seem to answer our purpose: namely, we can identify $`G`$ with a group of automorphisms of the free associative algebra $`A=x,y`$ . The abelianization map $`AA_0`$ induces a natural homomorphism from $`\text{Aut}(A)`$ to $`\text{Aut}(A_0)`$, and it is known that this homomorphism is bijective (see \[Cz\], \[M1\]). Denoting now by $`𝒢`$ the subgroup of “unimodular” (that is, preserving the commutator $`xyyx`$) automorphisms of $`A`$ , we obtain bijective maps of algebraic groups $`𝒢G_0`$ and $`𝒢G_1`$ . We claim that neither of these maps is an isomorphism; in fact the induced maps of Lie algebras are not injective. Thus $`G_0`$ and $`G_1`$ should be thought of as distinct quotient groups of $`𝒢`$ .

It seems to us that $`𝒢`$ does indeed act algebraically on the varieties $`𝒞_n`$ . We think that these varieties deserve further study from this point of view<sup>4</sup><sup>4</sup>4After reading an earlier version of the present paper, V. Ginzburg (see \[G\]) has shown that $`𝒞_n`$ can indeed be identified with a coadjoint orbit of a central extension of $`𝒢`$.