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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The Chern-Simons theories have been considered in mathematics and physics literature extensively. From the physics side they shed light on the planar physics -physics in two spatial directions- and in particular quantum Hall effect and superconductivity, for a review see e.g. . From the mathematical point of view, being a topological theory, it has been used to give a ”physical” interpretation to topological invariants of knot theory and Jones polynomials .

The pure Chern-Simons theory is described by the action:

$$S_{\mathrm{CS}}=\frac{1}{4\pi \nu }_Mϵ^{\mu \nu \alpha }\mathrm{Tr}\left(A_\mu _\nu A_\alpha +\frac{2i}{3}A_\mu A_\nu A_\alpha \right),$$
(1.1)
where $`M`$ is (an oriented) 3-manifold and $`A_\mu `$ are the connections corresponding to a simple compact gauge group $`G`$. As we can see from the action the metric of the manifold $`M`$ is not appearing in (1.1). The factor $`\frac{1}{\nu }`$ (the Chern-Simons coupling) is usually called the ”level” of the Chern-Simons theory and the gauge invariance of the action under finite gauge transformations implies that is should be quantized, i.e. $`\frac{1}{\nu }`$  which is a reflection of a general mathematical fact that the group of continuous maps $`MG`$ is not connected. In the homotopical classification of such maps one meets the fact that $`\mathrm{\Pi }_3(G)=`$ for any simple compact group $`G`$.

As a field theory one can study action (1.1). The classical equations of motion are $`F_{\mu \nu }=_{[\nu }A_{\mu ]}iA_{[\mu }A_{\nu ]}=0`$, the classical paths are flat connections. In fact it turns out that the partition function of this theory can be expressed in terms of moduli parameters of the flat connections .

The Yang-Mills-Chern-Simons theory is obtained by adding the usual Yang-Mills action to $`S_{\mathrm{CS}}`$:

$$S=\frac{4\pi }{g^2}_M\mathrm{Tr}\left(F_{\mu \nu }F^{\mu \nu }\right)+\frac{1}{4\pi \nu }_Mϵ^{\mu \nu \alpha }\mathrm{Tr}\left(A_\mu _\nu A_\alpha +\frac{2i}{3}A_\mu A_\nu A_\alpha \right),$$

where $`F_{\mu \nu }`$ is the field strength. The pure Chern-Simons theory is then recovered at the strong coupling limit of the Yang-Mills part ($`g\mathrm{}`$) while keeping the $`\nu `$ (or the Chern-Simons coupling) fixed. The Chern-Simons term in the Yang-Mills-Chern-Simons theory can be interpreted as a (topological) mass term for the Yang-Mills part with effective mass $`m=\frac{1}{(2\pi g)^2\nu }`$ . However, in order to perform the usual field theory calculations one needs to fix the gauge symmetry. Although the gauge fixing terms do depend on the metric chosen on $`M`$, the full quantum theory (the partition function) remains topological . Perturbative loop calculations have been performed for both pure Chern-Simons  and for Yang-Mills-Chern-Simons . Their results indicate that the Chern-Simons level for $`SU(N)`$ gauge theory is renormalized as:

$$\frac{1}{\nu _{\mathrm{ren}}}=\frac{1}{\nu _{\mathrm{class}}}+N.$$
(1.2)
Moreover it has been shown that this one loop result does not receive any further corrections from the higher loops . In fact this exact result has been proved using the BRST (ward identity) and also the vector supersymmetry of Chern-Simons theory . This is remarkable because it assures the level quantization to all loops order.

The field theories on the noncommutative spaces (in particular noncommutative Moyal plane and noncommutative tori) has been considered a few years ago, e.g. see . However, before a new re-motivation from string theory , it was not studied extensively. Generally the noncommutative version of a given field theory is obtained by replacing the usual product of the functions (fields) by the Moyal $``$-product, namely

$`f(x)g(x)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{exp}({\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\theta ^{\mu \nu }{\displaystyle \frac{}{\xi ^\mu }}{\displaystyle \frac{}{\zeta ^\nu }})f(x+\xi )g(x+\zeta )_{\xi =\zeta =0}`$ (1.3)
$`=`$ $`f(x)\mathrm{exp}({\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\theta ^{\mu \nu }\stackrel{}{_\mu }\stackrel{}{_\nu })g(x),`$ (1.4)
where $`\theta ^{\mu \nu }`$ is a constant anti-symmetric tensor. The Moyal bracket is then defined as

$$\{f,g\}=fggf.$$
(1.5)
It is easily seen that $`\{x^\mu ,x^\nu \}=i\theta ^{\mu \nu }`$. For a review on noncommutative field theories and some helpful identities on $``$-product see . In particular one can construct noncommutative version of the $`U(N)`$ gauge theories, which give rise to the noncommutative deformed version of the usual gauge symmetry . We should remember that so far only the noncommutative $`U(N)`$ theory have been considered perturbatively in the existing literature.

The noncommutative extension of the Chern-Simons (NCCS) theories have also been considered . Physically the noncommutative ($`U(1)`$) Chern-Simons theory seems to serve a natural description for the Wigner crystal-quantum Hall fluid phase transition . In the context of quantum Hall effect, the parameter $`\nu `$ (inverse of the ”Chern-Simons level”) appears to be the filling fraction for quantum Hall states. Performing the quantization in the matrix (discrete) description of noncommutative ($`U(1)`$) Chern-Simons , it has been shown that the factor $`\nu `$ is basically related to the statistics of the particles described by NCCS action. More precisely upon exchange of any two particles in the corresponding $`n`$ particle state, we obtain a factor of $`\mathrm{exp}(\frac{i\pi }{\nu })`$:

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(1,2,\mathrm{},i,\mathrm{},j,\mathrm{},n)=\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{i\pi }{\nu }\right)\mathrm{\Psi }(1,2,\mathrm{},j,\mathrm{},i,\mathrm{},n),$$
(1.6)
where $`\mathrm{\Psi }(1,2,..,i,\mathrm{},j,\mathrm{},n)`$ is an $`n`$ particle state. Therefore the NCCS particles are in general anyonic, if $`\nu ^1`$ is an arbitrary real number . We note that all the noncommutative Chern-Simons theories with their coupling $`\frac{1}{\nu }`$ differing by an even integer, describe the same statistics.

In this work, we study the behaviour of the ($`U(1)`$ and $`U(N)`$) Chern-Simons theories on $`_\theta ^2\times `$, $`_\theta ^2`$ being the noncommutative Moyal plane, under both infinitesimal and finite gauge transformations. We show that the partition function (quantum theory) is invariant under the gauge transformations, provided that $`\frac{1}{\nu }`$ is an integer. In the usual Chern-Simons terminology this means that we again face the level quantization. From the noncommutative Chern-Simons particles point of view, this means that NCCS describes only fermions or bosons, and not anyons.

The paper is organized as follows. In section 2, we briefly review the results of  on the perturbative analysis of NCCS theories. In section 3, which contains our main result, we study the invariance of NCCS action for arbitrary (finite) gauge transformations and show that the full quantum action is invariant, if the level is quantized. The last section is devoted to discussions and open questions.

## 2 Noncommutative Chern-Simons theories:
perturbative analysis

In this section we review the results of loop calculations for noncommutative Chern-Simons theories . The action for the noncommutative extension of Chern-Simons theory is

$$S_{\mathrm{NCCS}}=\frac{1}{4\pi \nu }_Mϵ^{\mu \nu \alpha }\mathrm{Tr}\left(A_\mu _\nu A_\alpha +\frac{2i}{3}A_\mu A_\nu A_\alpha \right),$$
(2.1)
where $``$-product is defined in (1.3), $`A_\mu `$ take values in $`U(N)`$ algebra (unitary $`N\times N`$ matrices) and $`\mathrm{Tr}`$ is basically trace over the $`U(N)`$ indices. Here we consider the base manifold $`M`$ which can be separated into a two dimensional (noncommutative ) subspace times $``$ or $`S^1`$ and further we assume that we can define the $``$-product introduced earlier (1.3), i.e. we consider the noncommutative plane, noncommutative cylinder  and noncommutative torus. However, we should remind ourselves that for the case of torus, depending on the fact that the noncommutativity per unit volume is rational or irrational, one can realize two completely different cases. For the rational noncommutative torus, our gauge theory (noncommutative Chern-Simons ) can be mapped into a commutative theory with a non-trivial background flux while it is not possible for the irrational noncommutative torus . Here we do not consider the torus case in detail and will only make some remarks passing at the end of section 3 and 4.

The action (2.1) is invariant under infinitesimal gauge transformations:

$$A_\mu A_\mu ^{}=A_\mu +_\mu \lambda +i(\lambda A_\mu A_\mu \lambda ),\lambda U(N).$$
(2.2)
However, the case of finite gauge transformations should be studied separately and this we will do in the next section.

Analogous to the commutative case, one can define the noncommutative Yang-Mills-Chern-Simons theory by adding the noncommutative Yang-Mills action to (2.1) . The perturbative loop calculations have also been done for both pure NCCS  and for noncommutative Yang-Mills-Chern-Simons . The pure Chern-Simons action at one loop level can once again be recovered by sending the gauge coupling to infinity.

The key observation in performing the noncommutative loop calculations in general, is that the $``$-product (and hence the Moyal bracket) in the Fourier modes take a simple form, namely

$$\{\mathrm{e}^{ikx},\mathrm{e}^{ipx}\}=2i\mathrm{sin}(\frac{1}{2}k\theta p)\mathrm{e}^{i(k+p)x},k\theta p=k_\mu \theta ^{\mu \nu }p_\nu ,$$

and therefore the loop integrals in general can be decomposed in two parts, one which contains the $`\theta `$ factor ($`\mathrm{e}^{ik\theta p}`$), the non-planar part, and one which do not depend on $`\theta `$, the planar part . At one loop level the non-planar parts are (UV) finite while they show an IR divergence. This is known as IR/UV mixing which is a peculiar feature of noncommutative field theories .

For the gauge theories however, the divergent part of the loop integrals, compared to the commutative counter-part, contains an extra factor of $`4\mathrm{sin}^2(\frac{1}{2}k\theta p)=2(1+\mathrm{cos}(k\theta p))`$. The loop integrals lead to the usual (commutative ) $`\beta `$-function equation but the $`C_2(G)`$ (quadratic Casimir of the gauge group) is now replaced by $`2\times C_2(G)`$  which for NC$`U(N)`$ that is $`2N`$.

For the noncommutative Chern-Simons theory (as a limit of noncommutative Yang-Mills-Chern-Simons ) the loop calculations have been performed and shown that  ***Actually the results of  differ with ours in the factor of 2. That is related to the improper normalization they use.

$$\frac{1}{\nu _{\mathrm{ren}}}=\frac{1}{\nu _{\mathrm{class}}}+2\times N.$$
(2.3)
The novel point shown explicitly in  is that all the non-planar diagrams vanish in the pure Chern-Simons limit, i.e. we are not going to find any further IR divergence due to these terms. However, if we just start with the pure Chern-Simons we will persist with the IR divergences coming from non-planar diagrams . This can be understood by noting that the Chern-Simons term introduces a topological mass term in the Yang-Mills action , and this mass term serves as a natural IR regulator, which, even in the pure Chern-Simons limit, tames the IR divergences of non-planar diagrams. Presumably the eq.(2.3), although being a one loop result, holds for all loop orders, similar to the commutative case . In fact this is expected because we can again recognize the BRST and vector supersymmetry in this case .

The eq.(2.3) is also remarkable noting the statistics of the noncommutative Chern-Simons particles : the quantum corrections to $`\frac{1}{\nu }`$ are not going to change the statistics of these particles, this is in fact what is expected from a well-defined quantum theory.

The other important property of the action (2.1) is that it is independent of the choice of metric on $`M`$ (note that metric is not involved in $``$-product). However, in order to be treated as a topological field theory one should guarantee that this property remains at the level of the quantum partition function. On the other hand to perform the path integral we should fix the gauge. Adding the gauge fixing and ghost terms to the action spoils the metric independence, and hence the topological nature of the theory becomes questionable . In the usual commutative Chern-Simons theories this is overcome recalling the BRST symmetry of the full gauge fixed action and the fact that the gauge fixing and the ghost part of the action can be expressed as commutator of BRST charge with a local function of the fields . This argument also holds for the noncommutative case. The existence of the BRST symmetry have been shown in . Also there it has been shown that the metric dependent (gauge fixing) part of the action is a BRST exact form Besides the action, in the path integral there is also the measure, which is the same for a commutative theory and its noncommutative counter-part . However, as has been discussed in  the measure is metric independent.. This guarantees the metric independence of the noncommutative Chern-Simons at quantum level. Hence, the noncommutative Chern-Simons can be treated as a topological field theory.

## 3 The invariance of noncommutative Chern-Simons
under finite gauge transformations

In this section we would like to address another feature of noncommutative Chern-Simons theories on the $`_\theta ^2\times `$. As we have discussed the noncommutative Chern-Simons action (2.1) is invariant under small gauge transformations. However, it is also important to study its behaviour under finite noncommutative gauge transformations defined by

$$A_\mu A_\mu ^g=g^1A_\mu g+ig^1_\mu g,$$
(3.1)
where $`g`$ is valued in NC$`U(N)`$ group: $`g`$ is an $`N\times N`$ matrix satisfying

$$g^{}g=gg^{}=\mathrm{𝟏}.$$
(3.2)
One can show that

$`g`$ $`=`$ $`(\mathrm{e})^{i\lambda }1+i\lambda {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\lambda \lambda {\displaystyle \frac{i}{3!}}\lambda \lambda \lambda +\mathrm{},`$ (3.3)
$`g^{}`$ $`=`$ $`g^1=(\mathrm{e})^{i\lambda },`$ (3.4)
with $`\lambda `$ being a $`N\times N`$ matrix, solves (3.2). We recall that, according to definition of $`NCU(N)`$ algebras $`g^1dg`$ should be a member of the algebra of the compact operators on $`_\theta ^2\times `$ . In addition, we also impose the boundary condition

$$g__x\mathrm{}\mathrm{𝟏}.$$
(3.5)
Under the above gauge transformations the action (2.1) transforms as $`SS+\delta _gS`$, where

$$4\pi \nu \delta _gS=ϵ^{\mu \nu \alpha }\left[_\mu \mathrm{Tr}(_\nu gg^1A_\alpha )\frac{i}{3}\mathrm{Tr}(g^1_\mu gg^1_\nu gg^1_\alpha g)\right].$$
(3.6)
The first term in the above is a total derivative and vanishes due to boundary conditions, while the second term is a non-trivial one, usually called the ”winding number” of the group. For the usual compact groups, this winding number is an integer. However, for the noncommutative case one should redo the corresponding computations, and this is what we do in the following. In order to show how the method works, let us first consider the NC$`U(1)`$ case, and then we will generalize it to NC$`U(N)`$. The NC$`U(1)`$ winding number

In this case $`g`$ is just a function (without matrix indices), but we should remember that in general it is $`\theta `$ dependent. First taking derivatives of (3.2) we find two very useful identities:

$$_\mu g^1g=g^1_\mu g,$$
(3.7)
and

$$\frac{i}{4}_{[\mu }g^1_{\nu ]}g=\frac{\delta }{\delta \theta ^{\mu \nu }}g^1g+g^1\frac{\delta }{\delta \theta ^{\mu \nu }}g.$$
(3.8)
The identity (3.8) is obtained by taking the derivative of (3.2) with respect to $`\theta _{\mu \nu }`$. Using the identity (3.7) we find

$$g^1_\mu gg^1_\nu g=_\mu g^1_\nu g.$$

Then we use the identity (3.8), and again (3.7). Recalling the boundary condition (3.5) we can drop the total derivative term and we remain with

$$ϵ^{\mu \nu \alpha }(g^1_\mu gg^1_\nu gg^1_\alpha g)=4iϵ^{\mu \nu \alpha }\frac{\delta }{\delta \theta ^{\mu \nu }}\left(g^1_\alpha g\right).$$

If we parameterize the $``$ part by $`t`$ and the $`_\theta ^2`$ by $`x,y`$, we have

$$\delta _gS=\frac{i}{2\pi \nu }ϵ^{ij}\frac{\delta }{\delta \theta ^{ij}}𝑑x𝑑y𝑑t\left(g^1_tg\right),$$
(3.9)
where $`i,j=1,2`$. Now, noting the representation of $`g`$, (3.3), one can prove that

$$g^1_\alpha g=i_\alpha \lambda +\{B_\alpha ,\lambda \},$$
(3.10)
where $`B_\alpha `$ is a function which essentially is made out of $`\lambda `$ and $`_\alpha \lambda `$. Inserting the above in (3.9), the second term in (3.10) which is a Moyal bracket vanishes upon integrating over $`x,y`$. Then the integration over $`t`$ can be easily performed and we find

$$\delta _gS=\frac{1}{2\pi \nu }ϵ^{ij}\frac{\delta }{\delta \theta ^{ij}}𝑑x𝑑y\lambda |_{t=\mathrm{}}^{t=+\mathrm{}}.$$
(3.11)
To evaluate the $`x,y`$ integration it is more convenient to use the operatorial language developed in :

$$𝑑x𝑑y\pi ϵ_{ij}\theta ^{ij}\mathrm{`}\mathrm{`}\mathrm{tr}\mathrm{"},$$

where $`\mathrm{`}\mathrm{`}\mathrm{tr}\mathrm{"}`$ is the trace over the Hilbert space of corresponding harmonic oscillator basis and any function $`\lambda `$ can be expanded in terms of harmonic oscillator states

$$\lambda (t)=a_{mn}(t)nm.$$

The boundary conditions (3.5) is satisfied if

$$a_{mn}(t\mathrm{})=\delta _{m,n}2\pi K_n,K_n.$$
(3.12)
Now, we have all the ingredients, inserting these all in (3.9)

$`\delta _gS`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi \nu }}ϵ^{ij}\pi ϵ_{ij}2\pi K`$ (3.13)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi K}{\nu }},K.`$ (3.14)
However, in order to have a well-defined quantum theory $`\delta _gS`$ should be an integer multiple of $`2\pi `$, i.e.

$$\frac{1}{\nu }.$$
(3.15)
So, we see that in the noncommutative case, the level of the Chern-Simons should be quantized.

The NC$`U(N)`$ winding number

All the above steps, before (3.10) work all the same for the NC$`U(N)`$ case. However, the (3.10) can be replaced with another identity:

$$\mathrm{Tr}(g^1_\alpha g)=i\mathrm{Tr}_\alpha \lambda +\{B_\alpha ^a,\lambda ^a\},$$
(3.16)
where a stands for the $`U(N)`$ group indices. Hence, again upon plugging back (3.16) in the (3.9), we face the level quantization.

So, we have shown that the winding number for the noncommutative plane case is non-zero and leads to level quantization. This result have also been observed using another calculational method . We note that our result and also our arguments heavily rely on non-zero $`\theta `$, furthermore the limit $`\theta 0`$ is not a smooth one. In particular for the NC$`U(1)`$ case again we need the level quantization.

It would be very interesting if we can generalize the general result of commutative case, namely $`\mathrm{\Pi }_3(G)=`$ for any compact group $`G`$, to the noncommutative case in more mathematical language .

For the noncommutative torus case of course, we should note that, since again there are some gauge transformations that are not smoothly connected to $`\mathrm{𝟏}`$, and as it has been discussed in , the winding number will still be an integer and hence in the torus case again we require the level quantization condition. We will discuss the torus case later in the next section.

## 4 Discussions and remarks

In this work we have studied some aspects of noncommutative Chern-Simons theories. First we discussed and reviewed the perturbative loop calculations. We discussed that we do not face the IR/UV mixing (the non-planar diagrams vanish), if we start with the noncommutative Yang-Mills-Chern-Simons and then after performing the loop calculations send the gauge coupling to infinity to obtain the pure noncommutative Chern-Simons action. We should recall that this limit is well-defined because (similar to the commutative case) we expect the quantum corrections on the Chern-Simons coupling $`\frac{1}{\nu }`$ to appear only at one loop level, and the one loop result (2.3) remain to all higher order loops. However, starting from the pure Chern-Simons we still find the non-planar IR divergences . The (2.3) is remarkable remembering the statistics of the noncommutative Chern-Simons particles (1.6) . Altogether it seems that for the NC$`U(1)`$ case, values of $`\frac{1}{\nu }`$ differing by an even integer are physically equivalent. Studying the behaviour of the noncommutative Chern-Simons under finite gauge transformations we have proved its invariance up to some integer multiple of the Chern-Simons coupling, and hence in order the noncommutative Chern-Simons theory to make sense at quantum level the coupling (level of Chern-Simons theory) should be quantized. We would like to stress that our proof and hence our result for NC$`U(1)`$ case does not hold in the $`\theta ^{\mu \nu }=0`$ limit, i.e. the $`\theta 0`$ is not a smooth limit.

Here we have mainly discussed the Chern-Simons model on noncommutative plane. For the rational noncommutative torus case because there is a finite dimensional representation for the coordinates and generators of translations , namely for $`\mathrm{\Theta }=\frac{P}{Q}`$ we have a $`Q\times Q`$ representation, the arguments should be revised. However, we can still make some statements about the rational noncommutative torus case. Using the Morita equivalence, one can map $`NCU(1)`$ Chern-Simons into a $`U(Q)`$ Chern-Simons theory on a usual commutative torus but with a non-zero magnetic flux on the torus , i.e. we should add some terms linear in the gauge field to the Chern-Simons action. In other words, the classical equations of motion will not be the flat connections anymore. Instead we have to deal with the connections of constant curvature. The moduli space of these connections have also been studied well and we expect that it is possible to work out the precise form of the partition function for this case. We postpone this to future work .

In the noncommutative case there is a possible extension for the Chern-Simons theory. In general since we have another two form in our problem, namely $`\theta _{\mu \nu }^1=\omega _{\mu \nu }`$, we can add the term like

$$\mathrm{Tr}\left(ϵ^{\mu \nu \alpha }\omega _{\mu \nu }A_\alpha \right)$$

to the Chern-Simons action, where $`\omega _{\mu \nu }`$ defines a constant 2-form which in a sense measures the noncommutativity of the space. We note that in 3 dimensions $`\theta ^{\mu \nu }`$ has a zero eigenvalue, and so by $`\theta _{\mu \nu }^1`$, we mean the inverse of $`\theta `$ in the noncommutative $`2\times 2`$ block. So the extended action reads as

$$S=\frac{1}{4\pi \nu }ϵ^{\mu \nu \alpha }\mathrm{Tr}\left(A_\mu _\nu A_\alpha +\frac{2i}{3}A_\mu A_\nu A_\alpha \right)+\frac{i\gamma }{4\pi }\mathrm{Tr}\left(ϵ^{\mu \nu \alpha }\omega _{\mu \nu }A_\alpha \right),$$
(4.1)
where $`\gamma `$ is a dimensionless parameter, which is related to the unit of monopole charge. We also note that the gauge invariance of this action now implies that $`\frac{1}{\nu }+\gamma `$. The possibility of having this additional term (which has no analog in the commutative case) has the significant effect of changing the equations of motion for the connection from the zero curvature to a constant curvature (proportional to $`\omega `$).

We also discussed that the noncommutative Chern-Simons theory can be treated as a topological field theory. Then the next step to explore these theories is to find their partition function, and also the Wilson loops. It would also be interesting to consider the theory on the other noncommutative manifolds, such as noncommutative sphere$`\times `$ or $`\mathrm{\Sigma }\times `$, with $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ being a noncommutative surface of arbitrary genus. However, our discussions in this work depend crucially on the definition of the $``$-product, (1.3), and the fact that $`\theta `$ is a constant.

If one can work out the partition function for noncommutative Chern-Simons theories, besides the mathematical interests, this can be very interesting physically in the context of quantum Hall effect .

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank A. Mukherjee for long discussions and comments and also for his collaboration at early stages of this work. I am grateful to R. Hernandez, M. Schnabl, M. Blau, George Thompson and especially to L. Susskind and T. Krajewski for fruitful discussions and comments.


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# Untitled Document

Condition on the symmetry-breaking solution of the Schwinger-Dyson Equation

G. Cheng

CCAST (World Laboratory), P.O. Box 8730, Beijing 100080, China

and

Fundamental Physics Center, Univ. of Sci. and Tech. of China,

Heifei, Anhui, 230026, P.R. China

T.K. Kuo

Physics Department, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907

Abstract

> We derive a condition for a non-trivial solution of the Schwinger-Dyson equation to be accompanied by a Goldstone bound state. It implies that, for quenched planar QED, although chiral symmetry breaking occurs when there is a cutoff, the continuum limit fails to exist.

Mailing address.

I. Introduction

Dynamical chiral symmetry breaking1 (DCSB) has been extremely useful in a wide variety of topics in physics, from the success of low energy theorems in current algebra, to the construction of composite models of the Higgs boson. There are two aspects in the mechanism of DCSB, the mass generation of fermions and the existence of the Goldstone boson.2 More concretely, chiral symmetry breaking occurs when the self-consistent Schwinger-Dyson (SD) equation for the fermion mass develops a non-trivial solution as the coupling constant reaches a critical value.3 In addition, for the same coupling constant, there must also exist a bound state solution of the Bethe-Salpeter (BS) equation, with vanishing 4-momenta, corresponding to the massless pseudoscalar Goldstone boson. When both of these conditions are met, the self-energy solution shall be called a symmetry-breaking solution. We should also mention that T. Maskawa and H. Nakajima4 had proposed an equivalent condition for the existence of the symmetry-breaking solution. Their condition is that the self-energy solution has to satisfy the Ward-Takahashi identity.

For definiteness, we will concentrate on QED in the massless, quenched planar approximation5, which is a well-known model in the study of DCSB. It is simple enough for a detailed study on its properties, yet it is also rich in structure which suggests general physical features in other models. Thus, with the incorporation of running coupling constant, it can be easily extended to QCD in the large N approximation.6 In addition, results gleaned from studies of this model have been used in the construction of realistic models in the context of technicolor7, $`t\overline{t}`$ condensation8, etc.

In the study of the quenched planar QED, an important question concerns the cutoff. Thus, Maskawa and Nakajima established the existence of a critical coupling constant $`\alpha _c`$ in the solution of the SD equation with a cutoff, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. When $`\alpha >\alpha _c`$, a nontrivial solution of the SD equation emerges which signals the advent of chiral symmetry breaking. A natural question is whether there exists a limit, $`\alpha _c(\mathrm{})=lim_\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{}\alpha _c(\mathrm{\Lambda })`$, corresponding to the existence of a spontaneously broken phase in the continuum limit.3 That such an ultraviolet fixed point exists is often accepted without close examinations. In this work we will study this important question in detail. To this end we consider the BS equation with the quantum numbers $`\mathrm{}^P=0^{}`$ and vanishing 4-momentum. The mass in the fermion propagator contained in the BS equation is identified with the self-mass of the non-trivial solution of the SD-equation. A symmetry-breaking solution of the SD equation must be one which is associated with a pseudoscalar bound state solution of the BS equation.

It can be established that the bound state wave function is related to the self-energy function. Thus, the normalization condition of the bound state wave function is converted into one for the self-energy function. In this way, we find a necessary and sufficient condition for the non-trivial solution of the SD equation to be symmetry-breaking. When we apply this result to the quench planar QED, we find that the critical point does not have a limit. Thus, the ultraviolet fixed point can not exist in quenched planar QED in the continuum limit, although DCSB is established in the case with a cutoff.

II. Schwinger-Dyson and Bethe-Salpeter Equations

¿From the Goldstone theorem, it is well-known that a massless boson appears whenever a generator of a global continuous symmetry group is broken spontaneously. The quantum number of this particle corresponds to that of the operator of the current which is broken. For massless quenched QED, the broken current is the electromagnetic axial current so that the Goldstone particle is a pseudoscalar boson. We associate this to the bound state solution of the BS-equation, in which the fermion mass will be identified with the dynamically generated mass from the SD equation. This approach has a number of advantages in quenched planar QED. First, in the ladder approximation, unitarity in elastic scattering is restored and the problem of abnormal states is alleviated.9 Second, the approximation in the SD and BS equations are self-consistent. Last, but not least, the requirement that the Goldstone boson accompany the fermion mass generation in ladder QED is satisfied automatically when the condition for a symmetry-breaking solution is met. In the following our discussions will be in this framework and we will deduce the condition for the SD self-energy solution to be symmetry-breaking.

The renormalized fermion propagator will be written as

$$S_f^1(p)=\gamma p\alpha (p^2)\beta (p^2)$$
$`(1)`$
The SD equation for the fermion self-energy is:

$$S_f^1(p)=S_f^{01}(p)+\frac{ie^2}{(2\pi )^4}d^4qD^{\mu \nu }(pq)\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu (p,q)S_f(q)\gamma _\nu $$
$`(2)`$
In the quenched planar approximation, we have

$$D^{\mu \nu }(pq)\frac{1}{(pq)^2}\left[g^{\mu \nu }+(1\xi )\frac{(pq)^\mu (pq)^\nu }{(pq)^2}\right]$$
$`(3)`$
and

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu (p,q)\gamma _\mu ,$$
$`(4)`$
where $`\xi `$ is a gauge parameter, with $`\xi =0`$ and $`\xi =1`$ corresponding to the Landau and Feynman gauges, respectively. Substituting Eqs.(3),(4) and (1) into (2), after the Wick rotation and taking trace on both sides, we obtain:

$$\beta (p^2)=\frac{e^2}{(2\pi )^4}d^4q\frac{4(1\xi )}{(pq)^2}\frac{\beta (q^2)}{q^2\alpha ^2(q^2)+\beta ^2(q^2)}$$
$`(5)`$
Similarly, with the multiplication of $`\gamma p`$, we have:

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \alpha (p^2)& =& 1+\frac{e^2}{(2\pi )^4}\frac{1}{p^2}d^4q\frac{1}{(pq)^2}\times \frac{\alpha (q^2)}{q^2\alpha ^2(q^2)+\beta ^2(q^2)}\times \hfill \\ & & \\ & & \times \left[2pq+(1\xi )\left\{\frac{2[p(pq)][q(pq)]}{(pq)^2}pq\right\}\right].\hfill \end{array}$$
$`(6)`$
Eqs.(5) and (6) determine the self-energy of the fermion in massless quenched QED. The trivial solution, $`\beta (p^2)=0`$ and $`\alpha (p^2)`$ = finite ( = 1, in the Landau gauge), corresponds to that of the symmetric vacuum. But it is certainly true that not all of the nontrivial solutions signal spontaneous symmetry breaking. The criterion that a nontrivial $`\beta (p^2)`$ does trigger DCSB is that there must be an accompanying Goldstone boson. That is to say, there must be a bound state solution of the BS equation, with the appropriate quantum numbers and at the same coupling constant.

For a bound state composed of the fermion anti-fermion pair $`(A`$ and $`\overline{B}`$), in the ladder approximation in QED, the wave function is determined by:10

$$S_f^{A^1}(\frac{k}{2}+p)\chi _k(p)[S_f^{B^1}(\frac{k}{2}p)=\frac{ie^2}{(2\pi )^4}d^4qD^{\mu \nu }(pq)\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu ^A(p,q)\chi _k(q)\gamma _v^B$$
$`(7)`$
$$\begin{array}{ccc}& & [(\frac{k}{2}+p)\gamma \alpha (p^2)\beta (p^2)]\chi _k(p)[(\frac{k}{2}p)\gamma \alpha (p^2)+\beta (p^2)]\hfill \\ & =& \frac{ie^2}{(2\pi )^4}d^4qD^{\mu \nu }(pq)\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu (p,q)\chi _k(q)\gamma _v\hfill \end{array}$$
$`(8)`$
Taking the same approximation as in the case of the SD equation and putting Eqs. (3) and (4) into Eq. (18), the BS equation reads:

$$\begin{array}{ccc}& & [(\frac{k}{2}+p)\gamma \alpha (p^2)\beta (p^2)]\chi _k(p)[(\frac{k}{2}p)\gamma \alpha (p)+\beta (p^2)]=\hfill \\ & & =\frac{ie^2}{(2\pi )^4}d^4q\frac{1}{(pq)^2}[g^{\mu \nu }+(1\xi )\frac{(pq)^\mu (pq)^\nu }{(pq)^2}]\gamma _\mu \chi _k(q)\gamma _\nu \hfill \end{array}$$
$`(9)`$
This is the form of the BS equation in quenched planar QED.

Since the Goldstone state has $`\mathrm{}^P=0^{}`$ and vanishing mass, the wave function $`\chi _k(p)`$ is spherically symmetric. Taking $`k=0`$, we write

$$\chi _k(p)=\chi _0^P(p^2)\times \gamma _5$$
$`(10)`$
Substituting Eq.(10) into Eq.(9) and taking trace after Wick rotation, we obtain the BS equation for the Goldstone boson:

$$\left[\alpha ^2(p^2)p^2+\beta ^2(p^2)\right]\chi _0^P(p^2)=\frac{e^2}{(2\pi )^4}d^4q\frac{4(1\xi )}{(pq)^2}\chi _0^P(q^2)$$
$`(11)`$
III. Condition for a symmetry-breaking solution of the SD equation

For any physical bound state, the wave function must satisfy a normalization condition. For the Goldstone boson wave function, Eq.(11), there were several approaches with equivalent results.11 We shall quote the normalization condition in the following form,12 which is valid for a fermion-antifermion system in ladder QED,

$$\begin{array}{ccc}& & d^4qT_r\{\overline{\chi }_k(q)[(\frac{k}{2}+q)\gamma \alpha (q^2)\beta (q^2)]\chi _k(q)\times \hfill \\ & & \times [(\frac{k}{2}q)\gamma \alpha (q^2)+\beta (q^2)]\}=\lambda \frac{dM_B}{d\lambda }\hfill \end{array}$$
$`(12)`$
Here, $`M_B`$ is the mass of the bound state and $`\lambda `$ is the coupling constant, $`\lambda =\alpha /4\pi `$.

For a bound state with vanishing mass, vanishing total angular momentum and negative parity, eq.(12) become:

$$d^4q[\alpha ^2(q^2)q^2+\beta ^2(q^2)]|\chi _0^P(q^2)|^2=finite$$
$`(13)`$
This is the condition for $`\chi `$ to be the wave function of a physical Goldstone boson which accompanies the non-trivial solution of the SD equation.

Due to the spherical symmetry, we can integrate Eqs.(11), (13),(5), and (6) with respect to the angular variables in the 4-dimensional Euclidean space. They are then simplified into the following set of equations:

$$[p^2\alpha ^2(p^2)+\beta ^2(p^2)]\chi _0^P(p^2)=\frac{\alpha }{4\pi ^3}_ϵ^\mathrm{\Lambda }𝑑q^2K_\beta (p^2,q^2)q^2\chi _0^P(q^2)$$
$`(14)`$
$$_ϵ^\mathrm{\Lambda }𝑑q^2q^2[\alpha ^2(q^2)q^2+\beta ^2(q^2)]|\chi _0^P(q^2)|^2=finite$$
$`(15)`$
$$\beta (p^2)=\frac{\alpha }{4\pi ^3}_ϵ^\mathrm{\Lambda }𝑑q^2K_\beta (p^2,q^2)\frac{q^2\beta (q^2)}{q^2\alpha ^2(q^2)+\beta ^2(q^2)}$$
$`(16)`$
$$\alpha (p^2)=1+\frac{\alpha }{4\pi ^3}_ϵ^\mathrm{\Lambda }𝑑q^2K_\alpha (p^2,q^2)\frac{q^2\alpha (q^2)}{q^2\alpha ^2(q^2)+\beta ^2(q^2)}$$
$`(17)`$
The wave function $`\chi _0^P(p^2)`$ is determined by Eq.(14), with the normalization condition Eq.(15). Eqs.(16) and (17), which determine the self-energy functions $`\alpha (p^2)`$ and $`\beta (p^2)`$, have been written with explicit ultraviolet and infrared cutoffs. The continuum limit corresponds to $`\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{}`$ and $`ϵ0`$. In these equations, we have also defined $`\alpha =e^2/4\pi `$. Lastly, the kernels $`K_\alpha `$ and $`K_\beta `$ are given by:

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill K_\alpha (p^2,q^2)& =& \frac{2\pi }{p^2}_o^\pi d\omega \mathrm{sin}^2\omega \frac{1}{(pq)^2}\times \hfill \\ & & \\ & \times & \left[2pq+(1\xi )\left(\frac{2p(pq)q(pq)}{(pq)^2}pq\right)\right],\hfill \end{array}$$
$`(18)`$
$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill K_\beta (p^2,q^2)& =& 2\pi _o^\pi 𝑑\omega \mathrm{sin}^2\omega \frac{4(1\xi )}{(pq)^2}\hfill \\ & =& (3+\xi )\pi ^2\left[\frac{\theta (p^2q^2)}{p^2}+\frac{\theta (q^2p^2)}{q^2}\right].\hfill \end{array}$$
$`(19)`$
If we introduce the function

$$\psi (p^2)=[p^2\alpha (p^2)+\beta ^2(p^2)]\chi _0^P(p^2)$$
$`(20)`$
then eq.(14) becomes:

$$\psi (p^2)=\frac{\alpha }{4\pi ^3}_ϵ^\mathrm{\Lambda }𝑑q^2K_\beta (p^2,q^2)\frac{q^2\psi (q^2)}{q^2\alpha ^2(q^2)+\beta ^2(q^2)}.$$
$`(21)`$
Also the normalization condition reads:

$$_ϵ^\mathrm{\Lambda }𝑑q^2\frac{q^2}{q^2\alpha ^2(q^2)+\beta ^2(q^2)}|\psi (q^2)|^2=finite.$$
$`(22)`$
In order for spontaneous symmetry breaking to occur, Eq.(16) must have a non-trivial solution, $`\beta (p^2)0`$. However, this is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition. For $`\beta (p^2)`$ to be symmetry-breaking, it must satisfy an additional normalization condition. For clarity of presentation, we now state this result in the form of the following theorem.

Theorem: The necessary and sufficient condition for a non-vanishing solution $`\beta (p^2)`$ of Eq.(16) to be symmetry-breaking is that it must satisfy, together with the solution $`\alpha (p^2)`$ of Eq.(17), the condition:

$$_ϵ^\mathrm{\Lambda }𝑑q^2\frac{q^2}{q^2\alpha ^2(q^2)+\beta ^2(q^2)}|\beta (q^2)|^2=finite.$$
$`(23)`$
Proof: If, for some coupling constant $`\alpha =\alpha _i`$, there are non-vanishing solutions of Eqs.(16) and (17), $`\alpha (p^2)`$ and $`\beta (p^2)`$, which satisfy the condition Eq.(23), then we have a solution of Eq.(21), with

$$\psi (p^2)=c\beta (p^2)$$
$`(24)`$
for an arbitrary constant $`c`$. It also satisfies Eq.(22) and is thus a bound state solution. This proves that Eq.(23) is a sufficient condition. To show that it is also necessary, we need to make sure that the Goldstone boson wave function is nondegenerate, so that the solution in Eq.(24) is unique. The nondegeneracy of the Goldstone mode follows from the fact that it comes from the breaking of the generator of an abelian group.1 This unique solution must satisfy the normalization condition Eq.(15), which, in turn, implies Eq.(22). This means that for $`\beta (p^2)`$ to be symmetry-breaking, it must satisfy Eq.(23).

IV. An Application

The results obtained above will now be applied to QED in the quenched planar approximation. In the Landau gauge, $`\xi =0`$. Then Eq. (18) yields(13) $`K_\alpha =0`$ and $`\alpha (p^2)=1`$. This is a property of the quenched planar approximation so that there is no wave function renormalization, $`Z_2=1`$, implying $`Z_1=1`$, from $`Z_1=Z_2`$. also, in the quenched approximation there are no photon self-energy and coupling constant renormalizations, $`Z_3=1`$. Thus, within this model, renormalization does not arise. It is obviously interesting and important to address this problem. However, it is beyond the scope of the present work.

Let us now concentrate on the function $`\beta (p^2)`$, with $`\alpha (p^2)=1`$ and using Eq. (19), Eq. (16) reads:

$$\beta (p^2)=\frac{3\alpha }{4\pi }_ϵ^\mathrm{\Lambda }𝑑q^2\left[\frac{\theta (p^2q^2)}{p^2}+\frac{\theta (q^2p^2)}{q^2}\right]\frac{q^2\beta (q^2)}{q^2+\beta ^2(q^2)}$$
$`(25)`$
Even for this simplified equation, one does not have an analytic solution. However, for the purpose of determining the points of phase transition, we can make use of the bifurcation theory. It states that nontrivial solutions of nonlinear equations such as Eq.(25) branch off from the trivial solution at critical values of the coupling constant, $`\alpha =\alpha _i`$. Such bifurcation points correspond to phase transition points and can be found by linearization. That is, taking Frechet derivative or, equivalently, making an expansion around $`\beta =0`$. The Frechet derivative of Eq.(25) is

$$d\beta (p^2)=\frac{3\alpha }{4\pi }_ϵ^\mathrm{\Lambda }\left[\frac{\theta (p^2q^2)}{p^2}+\frac{\theta (q^2p^2)}{q^2}\right]𝑑\beta (q^2).$$
$`(26)`$
To look for branch points of Eq.(25), there are two useful theorems in bifurcation theory. 1. For $`\alpha _i`$ to be a critical point of Eq.(25), it must be an eigenvalue of Eq.(26). 2. If the operator of the Frechet derivative is compact and if $`\alpha _i0`$ is one of its eigenvalues with odd multiplicity, then $`\alpha _i`$ is a branch point of Eq.(25). Thus, to find the bifurcation points of Eq.(25), one need only to solve the eigenvalue problem of Eq.(25), for which general solutions were studied by a number of authors. In particular, converting it into a differential equation, Kondo et al.14 found the solution:

$$\beta (p^2)=\{\begin{array}{ccc}Ap^{1+2\sigma }+Bp^{12\sigma },\hfill & 0<\lambda <\lambda _c,& \hfill (27)\\ p^1(C+D\mathrm{}np^2),\hfill & \lambda =\lambda _c& \hfill (28)\\ Ep^{1+i2\rho }+Fp^{1i2\rho },\hfill & \lambda _c<\lambda & \hfill (29)\end{array}$$

where

$$\sigma =\frac{1}{2}\sqrt{1\frac{\lambda }{\lambda _c}},\rho =\frac{1}{2}\sqrt{\frac{\lambda }{\lambda _c}1},\lambda =\frac{\alpha }{4\pi },\alpha _c=\frac{\pi }{3},$$

They will have to satisfy boundary conditions at $`p^2=ϵ`$ and $`p^2=\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, which are determined by the integral equation, Eq.(25). These conditions determine the coefficients $`A,B,\mathrm{}`$ up to a multiplicative constant together with the constraints:

$$\left[(\frac{1}{2}+\sigma )^2(\frac{1}{2}\sigma )^2(\frac{ϵ}{\mathrm{\Lambda }})^{2\sigma }\right]/\left[1(\frac{ϵ}{\mathrm{\Lambda }})^{2\sigma }\right]=0,0<\lambda <\lambda _c;$$
$`(30)`$
$$\frac{1}{4}\left\{1+\frac{4}{[\mathrm{}n(\mathrm{\Lambda }/ϵ)]}\right\}=0,\lambda =\lambda _c;$$
$`(31)`$
$$\left(\left\{n\pi +arctan\left[\rho /(\rho ^2\frac{1}{4})\right]\right\}/\rho \right)=\mathrm{}n\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{ϵ},\lambda _c<\lambda .$$
$`(32)`$
In the physically interesting situation, when $`ϵ/\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is small it is seen that Eqs.(30) and (31) can never be satisfied. However, Eq.(32) has a sequence of solutions, $`\lambda =\lambda _i`$. They are dependent on $`ϵ\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. Also it can be shown that these solutions are nondegenerate. Thus, for quenched planar QED with given $`ϵ`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, the solutions $`\lambda =\lambda _i`$ signal the onset of dynamical symmetry breaking.

But this conclusion is not valid in the continuum limit, $`ϵ0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{}`$. Here, one needs to examine the normalization condition, Eq.(23), that the solution $`\beta (p^2)`$ must satisfy. A straightforward calculation shows that the solutions obtained above do not satisfy Eq.(23), when $`ϵ0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{}`$. We conclude that actually there does not exist a value of $`\lambda `$ for which quenched planar QED, in the continuum limit, undergoes dynamical symmetry breaking.

V. Conclusions

Nontrivial solutions of the self-energy SD equation have long been associated with dynamical symmetry breaking. However, true DCSB also requires the existence of the Goldstone boson. We will take this to mean that the non-trivial solution of the SD equation must be associated with a solution of the BS equation which has appropriate quantum numbers and zero 4-momentum. In this case, the solution of the SD equation will be called symmetry-breaking, which is the condition for the occurrence of DCSB.

In this work, we studied in detail the symmetry-breaking solution of the SD equation in quenched planar QED. Chiral symmetry breaking occurs when a nontrivial solution of SD equation is associated with a $`\mathrm{}^P=0^{}`$ Goldstone bound state solution of the BS equation. It turns out that the self-energy function of the SD equation is related to the bound state wave function of the BS equation. Thus, the normalization condition on the bound state wave function turns into a constraint equation on the self-energy function through Eq.(20). We applied this constraint to the known solutions of quenched planar QED, and found that, although DCSB occurs when cutoffs are present, the continuum limit does not exist.

In the study of dynamical symmetry breaking, it is important to have a criterion for establishing whether a nontrivial solution of the SD equation does signal symmetry breaking. We have found an explicit condition for quenched planar QED. We are now investigating the problem for other models and it should be useful in the general study of phase transitions, such as was done using the bifurcation theory.15 We hope to present these results in the future.

Acknowledgements

G.C. would like to express his sincere thanks to Profs. M.L. Yan, Z.X. Zhang, G.D. Zhao, H.A. Peng and Y.P. Kuang for their interest and fruitful discussions. G.C. is supported in part by the National Science Foundation and the NDSTPR Foundation in China. T.K. is supported by a DOE grant, DE-FG02-91ER40681.

References

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8. V.A. Miransky, M. Tanabashi, and K. Yamawaki, Mod. Phys. Lett. A4, 1043 (1989); Phys. Lett. B221, 177 (1989); W.J. Marciano, Phys. Rev. Lett. 62, 2793 (1989); W.A. Bardeen, C.T. Hill, and M. Lindner, Phys. Rev. D41, 1647 (1990).
9. G. Cheng, Comm. Theor. Phys. 15, 219 (1991); 15, 303 (1991); G. Cheng and L.Y. Li, Comm. Theor. Phys. 15, 451 (1991); M.J. Levine and J. Wright, Phys. Rev. 154, 1433 (1967); 157, 1416 (1967).
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13. See, for instance, R. Fukuda and T. Kugo, Nucl. Phys. B117, 250 (1976); D. Curtis and M. Pennington, Phys. Rev. D48, 4933 (1993).
14. K. Kondo, J. Mino, and K. Yamawaki, Phys. Rev. D39, 2430 (1989).
15. G. Cheng and T.K. Kuo, J. Math. Phys. 35, 6270 (1994); 35, 6693 (1994).


text:
# Singularities of pairs via jet schemes

## Introduction

Let $`X`$ be a smooth complex variety and $`Y`$ a closed subscheme of $`X`$. The study of the singularities of the pair $`(X,Y)`$ is a topic which received a lot of atention, due mainly to applications to the classification of higher dimensional algebraic varieties. Our main goal in this paper is to propose a new point of view in this study, based on the properties of the jet schemes of $`Y`$.

For an arbitrary scheme $`W`$, the $`m`$th jet scheme $`W_m`$ parametrizes morphisms $`\mathrm{Spec}[t]/(t^{m+1})W`$. Our main result is the following theorem.

###### Theorem 0.1.

If $`X`$ is a smooth variety, $`YX`$ a closed subscheme, and $`q>0`$ a rational number, then:

1. The pair $`(X,qY)`$ is log canonical if and only if $`dimY_m(m+1)(dimXq)`$, for all $`m`$.
2. The pair $`(X,qY)`$ is Kawamata log terminal if and only if $`dimY_m<(m+1)(dimXq)`$, for all $`m`$.

In fact, it is enough to check the conditions in Theorem 0.1 for one value of $`m`$, depending on a log resolution of $`(X,Y)`$ (see Theorem 3.1 for the precise statement). As a consequence of the above result, we obtain a formula for the log canonical threshold.

###### Corollary 0.2.

If $`X`$ is a smooth variety and $`YX`$ is a closed subscheme, then the log canonical threshold of the pair $`(X,Y)`$ is given by

$$c(X,Y)=dimX\underset{m0}{sup}\frac{dimY_m}{m+1}.$$

In the same spirit with the previous remark, the above supremum can be obtained for specific values of $`m`$. A similar formula holds for the log canonical threshold around a closed subset $`ZX`$. Note that as a consequence of the above formula, the log canonical threshold depends only on $`Y`$ and $`dimX`$, but not on the particular ambient variety or the embedding.

We apply Corollary 0.2 to give simpler proofs of some results on the log canonical threshold proved by Demailly and Kollár in \[DK\] using analytic techniques. For example, we use a semicontinuity statement about the dimension of the jet schemes to deduce the semicontinuity of the log canonical threshold.

The main technique we use in the proof of Theorem 0.1 is motivic integration, technique due to Kontsevich, Batyrev, and Denef and Loeser. The idea is similar to the one used in our previous paper \[Mu\]. Here is a brief description of the idea of the proof.

Let $`X_{\mathrm{}}=proj\; lim_mX_m`$ be the space of arcs of $`X`$. A $``$-valued point of $`X_{\mathrm{}}`$ corresponds to a morphism $`\mathrm{Spec}[[t]]X`$. Let $`F_Y:X_{\mathrm{}}\{\mathrm{}\}`$ be the function such that for an arc $`\gamma `$ over $`xX`$ which corresponds to a morphism $`\stackrel{~}{\gamma }:𝒪_{X,x}[[t]]`$, we have $`F_Y(\gamma )=\mathrm{ord}(\stackrel{~}{\gamma }(_{Y,x}))`$. For a suitable function $`f:`$, the motivic integral of $`fF_Y`$ on $`X_{\mathrm{}}`$ encodes the information about the dimension of $`Y_m`$, for all $`m`$.

On the other hand, if we take a log resolution $`\pi :X^{}X`$, then by the change of variable formula of Batyrev (\[Ba\]) and Denef and Loeser (\[DL\]), this integral can be expressed as the integral on $`X_{\mathrm{}}^{}`$ of $`fF_{\pi ^1(Y)}+F_W`$. Here $`F_{\pi ^1(Y)}`$ and $`F_W`$ are the functions associated as above with the effective divisors $`\pi ^1(Y)`$ and $`W`$, where $`W`$ is the relative canonical divisor of $`\pi `$. Since both $`W`$ and $`\pi ^1(Y)`$ are divisors with simple normal crossings, this last integral can be explicitely computed by a formula involving the coefficients of $`W`$ and $`\pi ^1(Y)`$. By an inspection of the monomials which enter in the expression of the two integrals we deduce the equivalence in Theorem 0.1.

The paper is organized as follows. In the first section we review the definitions of log canonical and Kawamata log terminal pairs. In the algebraic context the usual setting in the literature is that of a pair $`(X,Y)`$, where $`Y`$ is a divisor on $`X`$. Therefore we give the extension to the case of pairs of arbitrary codimension, making reference for the case of divisors to Kollár (\[Kol\]). Note, however, that we will always stick to the case of a smooth ambient variety, as our main results are valid only in this context.

The second section contains an overview of the basic definitions and notions related to jet schemes and motivic integration. We give also some further properties of jet schemes. In particular, we prove a semicontinuity result about the dimensions of the jet schemes.

The third section is the heart of the paper. It gives the proof of Theorem 0.1 along the lines described above. In the last section we show how Corollary 0.2 can be used to prove properties of the log canonical threshold. For example, the canonical isomorphism $`(Y\times Y^{})_mY_m\times Y_m^{}`$ implies that $`c(X\times X^{},Y\times Y^{})=c(X,Y)+c(X^{}.Y^{})`$. This can be used to prove the inequality in \[DK\]: $`c_z(X,Y_1Y_2)c_z(X,Y_1)+c_z(X,Y_2)`$, for every $`zY_1Y_2`$. Another application is to the semicontinuity theorem in \[DK\] for log canonical thresholds. We conclude with a concrete example: we use the formula in Corollary 0.2 to compute the log canonical threshold of monomial ideals, recovering in this way a result from \[AGV\] (see also \[Ho\] for a proof via multiplier ideals).

### 0.1. Acknowledgements

I am grateful to David Eisenbud and Edward Frenkel for introducing me to jet schemes and for their generous help and support. I am indebted to Lawrence Ein for pointing out an incomplete argument in a previous version of this paper.

## 1. Log terminal and log canonical pairs

All schemes are of finite type over $``$. A variety is a reduced, irreducible scheme. We use the theory of singularities of pairs for which our main reference is \[Kol\]. However, as we work with pairs of arbitrary codimension, we review in this section some extensions to this setting of the definitions we need. For an analytic approach to singularities of pairs of arbitrary codimension, see \[DK\].

We consider pairs $`(X,Y)`$, where $`X`$ is a smooth variety and $`YX`$ is a closed subscheme with $`YX`$. A log resolution of $`(X,Y)`$ is a proper, birational morphism $`\pi :X^{}X`$ such that $`X^{}`$ is smooth, $`\pi ^1(Y)=D`$ is an effective divisor and the union $`DEx(\pi )`$ has simple normal crossings. Here $`Ex(\pi )`$ denotes the exceptional locus of $`\pi `$. The results in \[Hi\] show that log resolutions exist (in fact, one can assume in addition that $`\pi `$ is an isomorphism over $`XY`$.)

For an arbitrary proper, birational morphism $`\pi :X^{}X`$, with $`X^{}`$ and $`X`$ smooth, the relative canonical divisor $`K_{X^{}/X}`$ is the unique effective divisor supported on $`Ex(\pi )`$ such that $`𝒪_X^{}(K_{X^{}/X})\omega _X^{}\pi ^{}(\omega _X^1)`$.

###### Definition 1.1.

Let $`(X,Y)`$ be a pair as above and $`q>0`$ a rational number. For a log resolution $`\pi :X^{}X`$ of $`(X,Y)`$, with $`\pi ^1(Y)=D`$, we write $`K_{X^{}/X}qD=_i\alpha _iE_i`$. The total discrepancy of $`(X,qY)`$ is defined by

(1.1)
$$\mathrm{totdiscrep}(X,qY)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{},\hfill & \text{if }\alpha _i<1\text{, for some }i\text{;}\hfill \\ \mathrm{min}_i\{0,\alpha _i\},\hfill & \text{otherwise.}\hfill \end{array}$$

The pair $`(X,qY)`$ is called Kawamata log terminal or log canonical if $`\mathrm{totdiscrep}(X,qY)>1`$ or $`\mathrm{totdiscrep}(X,qY)1`$, respectively.

###### Remark 1.2.

Since $`qDK_{X^{}/X}`$ is a divisor with simple normal crossings, it follows from Lemma 3.11 in \[Kol\], that we could have defined the total discrepancy of $`(X,qY)`$ as the total discrepancy of $`qDK_{X^{}/X}`$. In particular, $`(X,qY)`$ is Kawamata log terminal (log canonical) if and only if $`(X^{},qDK_{X^{}/X})`$ is Kawamata log terminal (log canonical).

###### Proposition 1.3.

The total discrepancy does not depend on the particular log resolution, and therefore neither do the notions of log canonical and Kawamata log terminal pairs.

###### Proof.

By the above remark, it is enough to show that if $`\pi ^{}:X^{\prime \prime }X^{}`$ is a log resolution of $`(X^{},DEx(\pi ))`$, with $`\pi _{}^{}{}_{}{}^{1}(D)=F`$, then

$$\mathrm{totdiscrep}(qDK_{X^{}/X})=\mathrm{totdiscrep}(qFK_{X^{\prime \prime }/X}).$$

This follows from the fact that $`K_{X^{\prime \prime }/X}=K_{X^{\prime \prime }/X^{}}+\pi _{}^{}{}_{}{}^{}(K_{X^{}/X})`$ and the invariance of the total discrepancy under proper birational morphisms in the case of divisors (see \[Kol\], Lemma 3.10). ∎

###### Definition 1.4.

Let $`(X,Y)`$ be a pair as above, $`ZX`$ a nonempty closed subset, and $`q>0`$ a rational number. The log canonical threshold of $`(X,qY)`$ around $`Z`$ is defined by $`c_Z(X,qY)=sup\{q^{}_+(X,qq^{}Y)\text{is log canonical in an open neighbourhood of}Z\}`$. When $`Z=X`$, we omit it from the notation.

As it is obvious that $`c_Z(X,qY)=(1/q)c(X,Y)`$, it follows that when computing log canonical thresholds, there is no loss of generality in assuming that $`q=1`$. The proposition below is the analogue of Proposition 8.5 in \[Kol\]. It shows how to compute the log canonical threshold from a log resolution.

Let $`(X,Y)`$ be a pair and $`ZX`$ a nonempty closed subset. Let $`\pi :X^{}X`$ be a log resolution of $`(X,Y)`$ which is an isomorphism over $`XY`$. We write $`\pi ^1(Y)=D=_ia_iE_i`$, with $`a_i1`$ and $`K_{X^{}/X}=_ib_iE_i`$.

###### Proposition 1.5.

( \[DK\] 1.7, \[Kol\] 8.5) With the above notation, the log canonical threshold of $`(X,Y)`$ around $`Z`$ is given by

(1.2)
$$c_Z(X,Y)=\underset{i}{\mathrm{min}}\{(b_i+1)/a_i\pi (E_i)Z\mathrm{}\}.$$

In particular, either $`c_Z(X,Y)`$ is a positive rational number, or $`c_Z(X,Y)=\mathrm{}`$.

###### Proof.

We have $`(X,qY)`$ log canonical if and only if $`b_iqa_i1`$, or equivalently $`q(b_i+1)/a_i`$, for all $`i`$. By replacing $`X`$ with the complement of the union of those images of $`E_i`$ which do not intersect $`Z`$, we get our result. ∎

###### Remark 1.6.

The log canonical threshold $`c_Z(X,Y)`$ is infinite if and only if $`ZY=\mathrm{}`$.

###### Remark 1.7.

We assumed above that for every pair $`(X,Y)`$, we have $`YX`$. We will sometimes find convenient to include also the case of the pair $`(X,X)`$, so that we make the convention $`c_Z(X,X)=0`$, for every nonempty closed subset $`ZX`$.

Though unnecessary for our needs, for the sake of completeness we mention the translation of the above notions into the language of multiplier ideals (see \[Ein\] or \[La\]). Recall that if $`\pi `$ is a log resolution of $`(X,Y)`$ such that $`\pi ^1(Y)=D`$, then the multiplier ideal of the pair $`(X,qY)`$ is defined by

(1.3)
$$I(X,q_{Y/X})=\pi _{}(𝒪_X^{}(K_{X^{}/X}[qD])),$$

where $`[qD]`$ denotes the integral part of the $``$–divisor $`qD`$.

###### Proposition 1.8.

The pair $`(X,qY)`$ is Kawamata log terminal if and only if $`I(X,q_{Y/X})=𝒪_X`$ and it is log canonical if and only if $`I(X,q^{}_{Y/X})=𝒪_X`$ for every $`q^{}<q`$ . In particular, if $`ZX`$ is a nonempty closed subset, then

(1.4)
$$c(X,Y)=sup\{q>0I(X,q_{Y/X})=𝒪_X\mathrm{around}Z\}.$$

###### Proof.

It is enough to prove the first assertion. This follows from the fact that $`I(X,q_{Y/X})=𝒪_X`$ if and only if $`K_{X^{}/X}[qD]`$ is effective or equivalently, all the coefficients in $`K_{X^{}/X}qD`$ are $`>1`$. ∎

## 2. An overview of jet schemes and motivic integration

In this section we collect the definitions and basic properties of jet schemes. We review also motivic integration on smooth varieties, technique which plays a major role in the proof of our main result in the next section.

For every scheme $`W`$ (of finite type over $``$) and every $`m`$, the jet scheme $`W_m`$ is a scheme of finite type over $``$ characterized by

(2.1)
$$\mathrm{Hom}(\mathrm{Spec}A,W_m)\mathrm{Hom}(\mathrm{Spec}A[t]/(t^{m+1}),W),$$

for every $``$–algebra $`A`$. In particular, the closed points of $`W_m`$ correspond to $`[t]/(t^{m+1})`$–valued points of $`W`$. The correspondence $`WW_m`$ is a functor. In fact, from the definition it follows that it is the right adjoint of the functor $`ZZ\times \mathrm{Spec}[t]/(t^{m+1})`$.

It is clear that we have $`W_0W`$ and $`W_1TW`$, the tangent space of $`W`$. In general, we have projections $`\varphi _m:W_mW_{m1}`$ which are induced by the projections $`A[t]/(t^{m+1})A[t]/(t^m)`$, for a $``$–algebra $`A`$. By composing these morphisms we get natural projections $`\rho _m:W_mW`$. Whenever the variety is not clear from the context, we will add a superscript: for example, $`\rho _m^W`$. The projective limit of the schemes $`W_m`$ is a scheme $`W_{\mathrm{}}`$, in general not of finite type over $``$, called the space of arcs of $`W`$. Its $``$–valued points correspond to $`[[t]]`$–valued points of $`W`$. We have canonical morphisms $`\psi _m:W_{\mathrm{}}W_m`$.

This construction is local in the sense that if $`UW`$ is an open subset, then $`U_m\rho _m^1(U)`$, for all $`m`$. More generally, if $`f:W^{}W`$ is an étale morphism, then $`W_m^{}W_m\times _WW^{}`$.

We can therefore reduce the description of $`W_m`$ to the case when $`W`$ is affine. In this case one can write down explicit equations for $`W_m`$ as follows. Suppose that $`W\mathrm{Spec}[X_i;iI]`$ is defined by a system of polynomials $`(f_\alpha )_\alpha `$. Consider the ring $`R_m=[X_i,X_i^{},\mathrm{}X_i^{(m)};iI]`$ and $`D`$ the unique $``$–derivation of $`R_m`$ such that $`D(X_i^{(j)})=X_i^{(j+1)}`$ for all $`i`$ and $`j`$, where $`X_i^{(0)}=X_i`$ and $`X_i^{(m+1)}=0`$. For a polynomial $`f[X_i;iI]`$, we put $`f^{(j)}=D^j(f)`$. With this notation, $`W_m\mathrm{Spec}R_m`$ is defined by $`(f_\alpha ,f_\alpha ^{},\mathrm{},f_\alpha ^{(m)})_\alpha `$. In follows from this description that if $`W^{}W`$ is a closed subscheme of $`W`$, then the induced morphism $`W_m^{}W_m`$ is also a closed immersion.

If $`W`$ is a smooth variety of dimension $`n`$, then the morphisms $`\varphi _m`$ are locally trivial with fiber $`𝔸^n`$. In particular, $`W_m`$ is a smooth variety of dimension $`(m+1)n`$.

We discuss some more properties of jet schemes which we will apply in the last section to deduce corresponding properties of the log canonical threshold.

###### Proposition 2.1.

For every two schemes $`W`$ and $`Z`$ and every $`m`$, there is a natural isomorphism $`(W\times Z)_mW_m\times Z_m`$.

###### Proof.

The assertion follows from the fact that the functor $`WW_m`$ has a left adjoint, and therefore it commutes with direct products. ∎

For every scheme $`W`$ and every $`m1`$ there is a natural “action”:

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_m:𝐀^1\times W_mW_m$$

over $`W`$ defined at the level of $`A`$-valued points as follows. For an algebra $`A`$, an $`A`$-valued point in $`𝐀^1\times W_m`$ consists of a pair $`(a,f)`$, for some $`aA`$ and a morphism $`f:\mathrm{Spec}A[t]/(t^{m+1})W`$. $`\mathrm{\Phi }_m(a,f)`$ is the composition $`fg_a`$, where $`g_a`$ is induced by the $`A`$-algebra homomorphism $`A[t]/(t^{m+1})A[t]/(t^{m+1})`$ which maps $`t`$ to $`at`$.

It is clear that these “actions” are compatible with the projection $`\varphi _m`$. The restriction of $`\mathrm{\Phi }_m`$ to $`^{}\times W_m`$ induces an action of the torus on $`W_m`$. On the other hand, note that $`\mathrm{\Phi }_m(\{0\}\times W_m)`$ is the image of the “zero section” $`\sigma _m`$ of $`\rho _m`$. This is defined by composition with the scheme morphism induced by the inclusion $`AA[t]/(t^{m+1})`$. It is clear that $`W_m\sigma _m(W)`$ is $`^{}`$-invariant. With this notation, we have

###### Lemma 2.2.

For every $`wW`$, the fiber $`\rho _m^1(w)`$ is the cone over the (possibly empty) projective scheme $`(\rho _m^1(w)\{\sigma _m(w)\})/^{}`$.

###### Proof.

By restricting to an open neighbourhood of $`w`$, we may assume that $`W𝐀^N`$ and that $`w=0`$ is the origin. We have an embedding $`W_m𝐀^{(m+1)N}`$ which induces an embedding $`\rho _m^1(0)𝐀^{mN}`$ such that $`\sigma _m(0)`$ corresponds to the origin. The action of $`^{}`$ on $`\rho _m^1(0)\{0\}`$ extends to an action on $`𝐀^{mN}=\mathrm{Spec}[X_i^{},\mathrm{},X_i^{(m)};i]`$ induced by $`\lambda X_i^{(j)}=\lambda ^jX_i^{(j)}`$. Therefore $`\rho _m^1(0)\{0\}/^{}`$ is a subscheme of a weighted projective space, hence it is projective, and $`\rho _m^1(w)`$ is the cone over it. ∎

Our next goal is the proof of the following semicontinuity result. For a scheme $`\pi :𝒲S`$ over $`S`$ and a closed point $`sS`$, we denote the fiber of $`\pi `$ over $`s`$ by $`𝒲_s`$.

###### Proposition 2.3.

Let $`\pi :𝒲S`$ be a family of schemes and $`\tau :S𝒲`$ a section of $`\pi `$. For every $`m1`$, the function

$$f(s)=dim(\rho _m^{𝒲_s})^1(\tau (s))$$

is upper semicontinuous on the set of closed points of $`S`$.

The key to the proof of Proposition 2.3 is to use a relative version of the jet schemes. Suppose we work over a fixed scheme $`S`$. If $`𝒲S`$ is a scheme over $`S`$, then the $`m`$th relative jet scheme $`(𝒲/S)_m`$ is characterized by

$$\mathrm{Hom}_S(𝒵\times \mathrm{Spec}[t]/(t^{m+1}),𝒲)\mathrm{Hom}_S(𝒵,(𝒲/S)_m),$$

for every scheme $`𝒵`$ over $`S`$. Therefore the functor $`𝒲(𝒲/S)_m`$ is the right adjoint of the functor $`𝒵𝒵\times \mathrm{Spec}[t]/(t^{m+1})`$ between schemes over $`S`$.

The existence of $`(𝒲/S)_m`$ can be settled as in the absolute case by giving local equations. More precisely, since the construction is local on $`𝒲`$, we may assume that both $`S`$ and $`𝒲`$ are affine: $`S=\mathrm{Spec}A`$ and $`𝒲\mathrm{Spec}A[X_i;i]`$ is defined by $`(f_\alpha )_\alpha `$. Then $`(𝒲/S)_m\mathrm{Spec}A[X_i,X_i^{},\mathrm{},X_i^{(m)};i]`$ is defined by $`(f_\alpha ,f_\alpha ^{},\mathrm{},f_\alpha ^{(m)})_\alpha `$. Here $`f^{(j)}=D^j(f)`$, where $`D`$ is the unique derivation over $`A`$ of $`A[X_i,X_i^{},\mathrm{},X_i^{(m)};i]`$ such that $`D(X_i^{(p)})=X_i^{(p+1)}`$ for all $`p`$ (we put $`X_i^{(0)}=X_i`$ and $`X_i^{(m+1)}=0`$).

As in the absolute case, we have canonical projections $`\rho _m:(𝒲/S)_m𝒲`$. We have also a “zero section” $`\sigma _m:𝒲(𝒲/S)_m`$.

The following lemma follows immediately from the functorial definition of relative jet schemes.

###### Lemma 2.4.

For every scheme morphism $`S^{}S`$, if $`𝒲^{}𝒲\times _SS^{}`$, then we have a canonical isomorphism $`(𝒲^{}/S^{})_m(𝒲/S)\times _SS^{}`$, for every $`m`$. In particular, for every closed point $`sS`$, the fiber of $`(𝒲/S)_m`$ over $`s`$ is isomorphic with $`(𝒲_s)_m`$.

Over every closed point $`sS`$, the projection $`\rho _m`$ and the “zero section” $`\sigma _m`$ are the ones we defined in the absolute case. On the other hand, the actions of $`^{}`$ on each fiber globalize to an action on $`(𝒲/S)_m`$ such that $`(𝒲/S)_m\sigma _m(𝒲)`$ is invariant. After these preparations we can give the proof of Proposition 2.3.

###### Proof of Proposition 2.3.

Consider the projection $`(𝒲/S)_m\sigma _m(𝒲)𝒲`$ and let $`𝒵`$ be the inverse image by this morphism of $`\tau (S)`$. We have a natural action of $`^{}`$ on $`𝒵`$ and the quotient by this action is a scheme $`\overline{𝒵}`$ which is proper over $`S`$. The properness follows from the fact that it is locally projective, an assertion which is just the globalization of Lemma 2.2 and can be proved in the same way.

But for every closed point $`sS`$ we have $`f(s)=dim\overline{𝒵}_s+1`$ (or $`f(s)=0`$ if $`\overline{𝒵}_s=\mathrm{}`$) and our assertion follows from the semicontinuity of the dimension of the fibers of a proper morphism. ∎

We review now the basic facts about motivic integration on smooth varieties. This technique was developed by Kontsevich \[Kon\], Batyrev \[Ba\] and Denef and Loeser \[DL\]. There are several possible extensions (see \[DL\] for the general treatment), but we use only Hodge realizations of motivic integrals on the space of arcs of a smooth variety. For a nice introduction to these ideas we refer to Craw \[Cr\].

Suppose from now on that $`X`$ is a smooth variety of dimension $`n`$. On $`X_{\mathrm{}}`$ the theory provides an algebra of functions $``$ and a finitely additive measure on $``$ with values in the Laurent power series ring in $`u^1`$ and $`v^1`$:

$$\mu :S=[[u^1,v^1]][u,v].$$

On $`S`$ we consider the topology defined by the descending sequence of subgroups $`\{_{i+jl}u^iv^j\}_l`$.

We will be interested in the subalgebra $`𝒞yl`$ of $``$ consisting of cylinders of the form: $`\psi _m^1(C)`$, for some $`m1`$ and some constructible subset $`CX_m`$. The measure of such a cylinder is given by $`\mu (\psi _m^1(C))=E(C;u,v)(uv)^{(m+1)n}`$, where $`E(C;u,v)`$ is the Hodge-Deligne polynomial of $`C`$. What is important for us is that if $`CX_m`$ is a locally closed subset, then $`E(C;u,v)`$ is a polynomial of degree $`2(dimC)`$ and the term of degree $`2(dimC)`$ is $`l(C)(uv)^{dimC}`$, where $`l(C)`$ is the number of irreducible components of $`C`$ of maximal dimension.

Besides the cylinders, some sets of measure zero appear in the definition of measurable functions. If $`TX_{\mathrm{}}`$ is such that there is a sequence of cylinders $`W_r𝒞yl`$ with $`TW_r`$ for all $`r`$ and $`\mu (W_r)0`$, then $`T`$ and $`\mu (T)=0`$.

A function $`F:X_{\mathrm{}}\{\mathrm{}\}`$ is called measurable if $`F^1(s)`$ for every $`s\{\mathrm{}\}`$ and if $`\mu (F^1(\mathrm{}))=0`$. If the sum $`_s\mu (F^1(s))(uv)^s`$ is convergent in $`S`$, then $`F`$ is caled integrable, and the sum is called the motivic integral of $`F`$ and denoted by $`_X_{\mathrm{}}e^F`$.

Every subscheme $`YX`$ defines a function $`F_Y`$ on $`X_{\mathrm{}}`$, as follows. If $`\gamma X_{\mathrm{}}`$ is an arc over $`xX`$, then it can be identified with a ring homomorphism $`\stackrel{~}{\gamma }:𝒪_{X,x}[[t]]`$. We define $`F_Y(\gamma ):=\mathrm{ord}(\stackrel{~}{\gamma }(_{Y,x}))`$. It follows from this definition that

$$F_Y^1(s)=\psi _{s1}^1(Y_{s1})\psi _s^1(Y_s),$$

for every integer $`s0`$ and $`F_Y^1(\mathrm{})=Y_{\mathrm{}}`$. Here we make the convention $`Y_1=Y`$ and $`\psi _1=\psi _0`$. It follows that $`F_Y^1(s)𝒞yl`$ for every $`s0`$. Moreover, the following lemma shows that if $`YX`$, then $`F_Y^1(\mathrm{})`$ and $`\mu (F_Y^1(\mathrm{}))=0`$. Therefore $`F_Y`$ is measurable.

###### Lemma 2.5.

(\[Mu\], 3.7) If $`DX`$ is a divisor and $`xX`$ is a point such that $`\mathrm{mult}_xD=a`$, then

(2.2)
$$dim(\rho _m^D)^1(x)nm[m/a],$$

where $`[y]`$ denotes the integral part of $`y`$. In particular, for every closed subscheme $`Y`$ of $`X`$, with $`YX`$, we have $`dimY_mn(m+1)\mathrm{}`$, so that $`F_Y^1(\mathrm{})`$ and $`\mu (F_Y^1(\mathrm{}))=0`$.

One of the main results of the theory is the change of variable formula for motivic integrals.

###### Proposition 2.6.

\[ \[Ba\] 6.27, \[DL\] 3.3\] Let $`\pi :X^{}X`$ be a proper, birational morphism of smooth varieties. Let $`W=K_{X^{}/X}`$ be the relative canonical divisor and $`\pi _{\mathrm{}}:X_{\mathrm{}}^{}X_{\mathrm{}}`$ the morphism induced by $`\pi `$. For every measurable function $`F:X_{\mathrm{}}\{\mathrm{}\}`$, we have

$$_X_{\mathrm{}}e^F=_X_{\mathrm{}}^{}e^{(F\pi _{\mathrm{}}+F_W)},$$

meaning that one integral exists if and only if the other one does, and in this case they are equal.

###### Remark 2.7.

In connection with the change of variable formula, note that if $`F=F_Y`$, for some proper subscheme $`YX`$, then $`F\pi _{\mathrm{}}=F_{\pi ^1(Y)}`$.

## 3. Jet schemes of log terminal and log canonical pairs

The main goal of this section is to prove the characterization of log canonical and Kawamata log terminal pairs in terms of jet schemes. First let us fix the notation.

Consider a pair $`(X,Y)`$ with $`dimX=n`$ and fix a log resolution of this pair $`\pi :X^{}X`$ such that $`\pi `$ is an isomorphism over $`XY`$. Let $`D=\pi ^1(Y)`$ and $`W=K_{X^{}/X}`$ and write $`D=_{i=1}^ra_iE_i`$, with $`a_i1`$ for all $`i`$ and $`W=_{i=1}^rb_iE_i`$.

###### Theorem 3.1.

With the above notation, if $`q>0`$, we have the following equivalences.

1. $`(X,qY)`$ is log canonical if and only if $`dimY_m(m+1)(nq)`$, for every $`m0`$. Moreover, it is enough to have this inequality for some $`m0`$ such that $`a_i(m+1)`$ for all $`i`$.
2. $`(X,qY)`$ is Kawamata log terminal if and only if $`dimY_m<(m+1)(nq)`$, for every $`m0`$. As above, it is enough to have this inequality for some $`m`$ such that $`a_i(m+1)`$ for all $`i`$.

###### Proof.

The idea of the proof is similar to that of Theorem 3.1 in \[Mu\], so that we refer to that paper for some of the details.

With the notation in the theorem, note that we have $`(X,qY)`$ log canonical (Kawamata log terminal) if and only if $`b_i+1(>)qa_i`$, for all $`i`$. Since the case $`Y=\mathrm{}`$ is trivial (we follow the convention that $`dim(\mathrm{})=\mathrm{}`$), we assume from now on $`Y`$ nonempty.

We fix a function $`f:`$, such that for every $`s0`$,

(3.1)
$$()f(s+1)>f(s)+dimY_s+C(s+1),$$

where $`C`$ is a constant such that $`C>N(b_i+1)/a_i`$, for all $`i`$. We extend this function by defining $`f(\mathrm{})=\mathrm{}`$. For the proof of the “if” part, we will add later an extra condition of the same type on $`f`$.

We integrate over $`X_{\mathrm{}}`$ the function $`F=fF_Y`$. Computing the integral from the definition, one can see that $`_X_{\mathrm{}}e^F=S_1S_2`$, where

$$S_1=\underset{s0}{}E(Y_{s1};u,v)(uv)^{snf(s)},$$

$$S_2=\underset{s0}{}E(Y_s;u,v)(uv)^{(s+1)nf(s)}.$$

It is clear that every monomial which appears in the $`s`$th term of $`S_1`$ has degree bounded above by $`2P_1(s)`$ and below by $`2P_2(s)`$, where $`P_1(s)=dimY_{s1}snf(s)`$, and $`P_2(s)=snf(s)`$, for every $`s0`$ (recall our convention that $`Y_1=X`$). We have precisely one monomial of degree $`2P_1(s)`$, namely $`(uv)^{P_1(s)}`$ whose coefficient is $`l(Y_{s1})`$, the number of irreducible components of $`Y_{s1}`$ of maximal dimension.

Similarly, every monomial which appears in the $`s`$th term of $`S_2`$ has degree bounded above by $`2Q_1(s)`$ and below by $`2Q_2(s)`$, where

$$Q_1(s)=dimY_s(s+1)nf(s),$$

$$Q_2(s)=(s+1)nf(s).$$

There is exactly one monomial of degree $`2Q_1(s)`$, namely $`(uv)^{Q_1(s)}`$ with coefficient $`l(Y_s)`$.

From the above evaluation of the terms in $`S_1`$ and $`S_2`$ and Lemma 2.5 we see that $`F`$ is integrable. Moreover, it follows from condition $`()`$ that $`P_1(s+1)<\mathrm{min}\{P_2(s),Q_2(s)\}`$ for every $`s`$. We have also $`Q_1(s)P_1(s)`$ for every $`s`$, with equality if and only if $`s1`$ and $`dimY_s=dimY_{s1}+n`$. Lemma 2.5 implies therefore that we have strict inequality for infinitely many $`s`$. This shows that in $`_X_{\mathrm{}}e^F`$ we have monomials of degree $`2P_1(s)`$ for infinitely many values of $`s`$.

We apply now the change of variable formula in Proposition 2.6 for the morphism $`\pi `$ to get

(3.2)
$$_X_{\mathrm{}}e^F=_X_{\mathrm{}}^{}e^{(F\pi _{\mathrm{}}+F_W)}.$$

Using the fact that $`F\pi _{\mathrm{}}=fF_{\pi ^1(Y)}`$ and that $`W\pi ^1(Y)`$ has simple normal crossings, one can compute explicitely the integral. For a subset $`J\{1,\mathrm{},r\}`$ let $`E_J^{}=_{iJ}_{iJ}E_i`$. With this notation we have

$$_X_{\mathrm{}}e^F=\underset{J\{1,\mathrm{},r\}}{}S_J,\mathrm{where}$$

$$S_J=\underset{\alpha _i1,iJ}{}E(E_J^{};u,v)(uv1)^{|J|}(uv)^{n_{iJ}\alpha _i(b_i+1)f(_{iJ}\alpha _ia_i)}.$$

Every monomial in the term of $`S_J`$ corresponding to $`(\alpha _i)_{iJ}`$ has degree bounded above by $`2R_1(\alpha _i;iJ)`$ and below by $`2R_2(\alpha _i;iJ)`$, where

$$R_1(\alpha _i;iJ)=\underset{iJ}{}\alpha _i(b_i+1)f(\underset{iJ}{}\alpha _ia_i)$$

and $`R_2(\alpha _i;iJ)=R_1(\alpha _i;iJ)n`$. Note that $`R_1(\mathrm{})=f(0)`$.

Let us introduce the notation $`\tau (s)=dimY_s(s+1)(nq)`$. We see that if $`J\mathrm{}`$, then

$$R_1(\alpha _i;iJ)=P_1(\underset{iJ}{}\alpha _ia_i)\tau (\underset{iJ}{}\alpha _ia_i1)+\underset{iJ}{}\alpha _i(qa_ib_i1).$$

Moreover, property $`()`$ implies that if $`J\mathrm{}`$, then

(3.3)
$$P_1(\underset{iJ}{}\alpha _ia_i+1)<R_2(\alpha _i;iJ)<R_1(\alpha _i;iJ)<$$

$$\mathrm{min}\{P_2(\underset{iJ}{}\alpha _ia_i1),Q_2(\underset{iJ}{}\alpha _ia_i1)\},$$

and $`P_1(1)<R_2(\mathrm{})`$. This shows that the only monomial of the form $`(uv)^{P_1(s)}`$ which could appear in the part of $`S_J`$ corresponding to $`(\alpha _j)_j`$ is for $`s=_{jJ}\alpha _ja_j`$.

We prove now $`(1)`$. Suppose first that $`(X,qY)`$ is log canonical, so that $`b_i+1qa_i`$, for all $`i`$. Assume that for some $`m0`$, we have $`\tau (m)>0`$. It follows from the above discussion that $`(uv)^{P_1(m+1)}`$ does not appear in $`_X_{\mathrm{}}e^F`$. As we have seen, this implies $`dimY_{m+1}=dimY_m+n`$. In particular, we have $`\tau (m+1)>0`$. Continuing in this way, we deduce $`dimY_{s+1}=dimY_s+n`$ for all $`sm`$, which is impossible.

Conversely, suppose that for some fixed $`m`$ such that $`a_i(m+1)`$ for all $`i`$ we have $`\tau (m)0`$, and that $`b_j+1<ca_j`$, for some $`j`$.

We choose the function $`f`$ such that in addition to $`()`$ it satisfies the following condition. For every $`p`$, let $`𝒥_p`$ be the finite set consisting of all the pairs $`(J,(\alpha _i)_{iJ})`$ such that $`_{iJ}a_i\alpha _i=p`$. The extra condition we require for $`f`$ is that for every $`(J,(\alpha _i)_{iJ})𝒥_{m+1}`$ and every $`(J^{},(\alpha _i^{})_{iJ^{}})𝒥_p`$, with $`pm`$, we have

(3.4)
$$f(m+1)>f(p)\underset{iJ}{}\alpha _i(b_i+1)+\underset{iJ^{}}{}\alpha _i^{}(b_i+1)+n.$$

This means that $`R_1(\alpha _i;iJ)<R_2(\alpha _i^{};iJ^{})`$.

Note that from $`(\text{3.3})`$ we can deduce that if $`(J^{},(\alpha _i^{})_{iJ^{}})𝒥_p`$, with $`pm+2`$, then

(3.5)
$$P_1(m+1)>R_1(\alpha _i^{};iJ^{}).$$

On the other hand, the top degree monomials which appear in different terms of the sums $`S_J`$ (for possible different $`J`$) don’t cancel each other, as they have positive coefficients. Let $`d`$ be the highest degree of a monomial which appears in a term corresponding to some $`(J,(\alpha _i)_{iJ})𝒥_{m+1}`$. The previous remark shows that the corresponding monomial does not cancel with the other monomials which appear in terms corresponding to $`(J^{},(\alpha _i^{})_{iJ^{}})𝒥_{m+1}`$.

Obviously we have $`(\{j\},(m+1)/a_j)𝒥_{m+1}`$ and therefore our assumption that $`\tau (m)0`$ and $`b_j+1<qa_j`$ gives $`d>2P_1(m+1)`$. We also deduce from $`(\text{3.3})`$ that $`d<\mathrm{min}\{2P_2(m),2Q_2(m)\}`$.

We see from $`(\text{3.4})`$ and $`(\text{3.5})`$ that this monomial of degree $`d`$ does not cancel with other monomials in terms corresponding to $`(J^{},(\alpha _i^{})_{iJ^{}})𝒥_p`$, if $`pm+1`$. Therefore in the integral $`_X_{\mathrm{}}e^F`$ we have a monomial of degree $`d`$, with $`2P_1(m+1)<d<\mathrm{min}\{2P_2(m),2Q_2(m)\}`$, a contradiction.

The proof of $`(2)`$ is entirely similar. ∎

In order to state the formula for the log canonical threshold which follows from Theorem 3.1, we make the following definition. Consider a pair $`(X,Y)`$ as before and $`ZX`$ a nonempty closed subset. We allow also the case $`Y=X`$.

###### Definition 3.2.

With the above notation, if $`m`$, we define $`dim_ZY_m`$ to be the dimension of $`Y_m`$ along $`Y_m\rho _m^1(Z)`$ i.e. the maximum dimension of an irreducible component $`T`$ of $`Y_m`$ such that $`\rho _m(T)Z\mathrm{}`$.

###### Remark 3.3.

It follows from our discussion of jet schemes in the previous section that for every irreducible component $`T`$ of $`Y_m`$, the image $`\rho _m(T)`$ is closed in $`Y`$ (and therefore in $`X`$). Indeed, since $`T`$ must be invariant with respect to the “action” of $`𝐀^1`$ on $`Y_m`$, it follows that $`\rho _m(T)=(\sigma _m^Y)^1(T)`$.

Therefore there is an open neighbourhood $`U`$ of $`Z`$ such that for every irreducible component $`T`$ of $`Y_m`$ with $`\rho _m(T)Z=\mathrm{}`$, $`U`$ does not intersect $`\rho _m(T)`$. For every such $`U`$, we have $`dim_ZY_m=dim(YU)_m`$.

In the corollary below, we keep the previous notation for a log resolution of the pair $`(X,Y)`$.

###### Corollary 3.4.

For every pair $`(X,Y)`$ and $`ZX`$ as above,

$$c_Z(X,Y)=n\underset{m0}{sup}\frac{dim_ZY_m}{m+1}.$$

Moreover, if $`m0`$ is such that $`a_i(m+1)`$, for all $`i`$ such that $`\pi (E_i)Z\mathrm{}`$, then

$$c_Z(X,Y)=n\frac{dim_ZY_m}{m+1}.$$

###### Proof.

Note first that the formula is trivial when $`Y=X`$, since in this case for every $`m1`$, we know that $`Y_m=X_m`$ is a smooth variety of dimension $`(m+1)dimX`$. Suppose from now on that $`YX`$.

For a fixed $`m`$, we can find an open neighbourhood $`U`$ of $`Z`$ such that $`dim_ZY_m=dim(YU)_m`$ and $`c_Z(X,Y)=c(U,YU)`$. Therefore, in order to prove the second assertion of the corollary we may assume $`Z=X`$, in which case the formula follows from Theorem 3.1.

In order to prove the first assertion, it remains to be proved that $`c_Z(X,Y)n(dim_ZY_m)/(m+1)`$, for every $`m`$. We reduce again to the case when $`Z=X`$, when we conclude by applying Theorem 3.1. ∎

###### Corollary 3.5.

If $`(X,Y)`$ is a pair and $`Z`$ a nonempty closed subset of $`X`$, then $`c_Z(X,Y)`$ depends only on $`Y`$, $`dimX`$ and the closed subset $`YZY`$, but not on the particular ambient variety $`X`$ or the embedding $`YX`$.

###### Proof.

The statement is a consequence of the formula in Corollary 3.4. ∎

We give now a version of the formula in Corollary 3.4 involving only the fibers of $`\rho _m^Y`$ over $`YZ`$. The drawback is that in this case, the supremum which appears in the formula can not be obtained, in general, for a specific integer.

###### Corollary 3.6.

If $`(X,Y)`$ is a pair and $`ZX`$ a closed subset as before, then

$$c_Z(X,Y)=dimX\underset{m0}{sup}\frac{dim(\rho _m^Y)^1(YZ)}{m+1}.$$

###### Proof.

Since the cases $`Y=X`$ and $`YZ=\mathrm{}`$ are trivial, we may assume that we are in neither of them. We obviously have $`dim(\rho _m^Y)^1(ZY)dim_ZY_m`$, for every $`m`$, so that the formula in Corollary 3.4 gives

$$c_Z(X,Y)dimX\underset{m0}{sup}\frac{dim(\rho _m^Y)^1(ZY)}{m+1}.$$

On the other hand, the formula giving the lower bound for the dimension of the fibers of a morphism implies that

$$dim_ZY_mdimY+dim(\rho _m^Y)^1(YZ).$$

Note that by Corollary 3.4, there is a positive integer $`N`$ such that $`c_Z(X,Y)=dimX\frac{dim_ZY_m}{m+1}`$ if $`N|(m+1)`$. Therefore we deduce

$$c_Z(X,Y)dimX\frac{dimY}{m+1}\frac{dim(\rho _m^Y)^1(YZ)}{m+1},$$

for every $`m`$, such that $`N|(m+1)`$. This implies that for every $`p1`$,

$$c_Z(X,Y)dimX\frac{dimY}{pN}\underset{m0}{sup}\frac{dim(\rho _m^Y)^1(YZ)}{m+1},$$

so that in fact

$$c_Z(X,Y)dimX\underset{m0}{sup}\frac{dim(\rho _m^Y)^1(YZ)}{m+1},$$

which completes the proof of the corollary. ∎

We end this section with the following

###### Example 3.7.

Consider the case of a cusp:

$$Y=Z(u^2v^3)X=𝔸^2.$$

$`Y`$ is a curve and $`Y_{\mathrm{sing}}=\{0\}`$, so that $`dimY_m=dim(\rho _m^Y)^1(0)`$.

In order to describe $`(\rho _m^Y)^1(0)`$, note that it consists of ring homomorphisms

$$\varphi :[u,v]/(u^2v^3)[t]/(t^{m+1})$$

such that $`\mathrm{ord}(\varphi (u))`$, $`\mathrm{ord}(\varphi (v))1`$. If $`m>5`$, this implies that $`\varphi (u)=t^3f`$ and $`\varphi (v)=t^2g`$, such that the classes $`\overline{f}`$, $`\overline{g}`$ of $`f`$ and $`g`$ in $`[t]/(t^{m5})`$ satisfy $`\overline{f}^2\overline{g}^3=0`$. In this way we get an isomorphism $`(\rho _m^Y)^1(0)Y_{m6}\times 𝔸^7`$, so that $`dimY_m=dimY_{m6}+7`$. This easily gives $`\mathrm{sup}_m\{(dimY_m)/(m+1)\}=7/6`$, so that $`c(𝔸^2,Y)=5/6`$.

## 4. The log canonical threshold via jets

In this section we apply Corollary 3.4 to deduce properties of the log canonical threshold which appear in the analytic context in \[DK\]. In the codimension one case, some of these properties are proved also in \[Kol\] using log resolutions. We believe that our treatment, using properties of the jet schemes, simplifies many of the proofs.

In this section, when we consider pairs $`(X,Y)`$ we allow also the case $`Y=X`$. Recall that we follow the convention that $`dim(\mathrm{})=\mathrm{}`$.

###### Proposition 4.1.

( \[DK\] 1.4) If $`X`$ is a smooth variety, $`Y^{}`$, $`Y^{\prime \prime }`$ are two closed subschemes such that $`Y^{}Y^{\prime \prime }`$ and $`ZX`$ is a nonempty closed subset, then $`c_Z(X,Y^{})c_Z(X,Y^{\prime \prime })`$.

###### Proof.

Since $`Y^{}`$ is a subscheme of $`Y^{\prime \prime }`$, it follows that $`Y_m^{}`$ is a subscheme of $`Y_m^{\prime \prime }`$, so that $`dim_ZY_m^{}dim_ZY_m^{\prime \prime }`$ for every $`m`$. The assertion now follows from Corollary 3.4. ∎

###### Proposition 4.2.

( \[DK\] 1.4) For every pair $`(X,Y)`$ and every nonempty closed subset $`ZX`$, we have $`c_Z(X,Y)\mathrm{codim}_Z(Y,X)`$, where $`\mathrm{codim}_Z(X,Y)`$ denotes the smallest codimension of an irreducible component of $`Y`$ meeting $`Z`$.

###### Proof.

Using Corollary 3.4, we have

$$c_Z(X,Y)=dimX\underset{m0}{sup}\frac{dim_ZY_m}{m+1}$$

$$dimXdim_ZY_0=\mathrm{codim}_Z(Y,X).$$

For a pair $`(X,Y)`$ and a point $`xX`$, we define $`\mathrm{mult}_xY`$ as follows. If $`𝒪_{X,x}`$ is the local ring of $`X`$ at $`x`$, with maximal ideal $`\underset{¯}{m}_{X,x}`$, and if $`_{Y,x}𝒪_{X,x}`$ is the ideal of $`Y`$ at $`x`$, then $`\mathrm{mult}_xY`$ is the largest $`q`$ such that $`I_{Y,x}\underset{¯}{m}_{X,x}^q`$. Note that if $`Y`$ is a divisor, then this is the same with the Hilbert-Samuel multiplicity, but in general the two notions are different.

###### Proposition 4.3.

( \[DK\] 1.4, \[Kol\] 8.10) Let $`(X,Y)`$ be a pair and $`ZX`$ a nonempty closed subset. If $`q`$ is the smallest $`p`$ such that $`\mathrm{mult}_xYp`$ for every $`xZ`$, then

(4.1)
$$1/qc_Z(X,Y)(dimX)/q.$$

###### Proof.

The cases $`Y=X`$ (when $`q=\mathrm{}`$) and $`YZ=\mathrm{}`$ (when $`q=0`$) are trivial, so that we may suppose that we are in neither of them.

There is $`yZ`$ such that $`\mathrm{mult}_yY=q`$. If $`\rho _{q1}:X_{q1}X`$ is the canonical projection, then $`\rho _{q1}^1(y)Y_{q1}`$. Indeed, every local morphism $`𝒪_{X,y}[t]/(t^q)`$ factors through $`I_{Y,y}`$, as $`I_{Y,y}\underset{¯}{m}_{X,y}^q`$.

This gives $`dim_ZY_{q1}dim\rho _{q1}^1(y)=(q1)dimX`$. Corollary 3.4 implies that $`c_Z(X,Y)dimX(1/q)(q1)dimX=(dimX)/q`$.

For the other inequality we use Lemma 2.5. This shows that for every $`xX`$ and every $`m`$, we have $`dim(\rho _m^1(x)Y_m)mdimX[m/\mathrm{mult}_xY]`$. Since $`\mathrm{mult}_xYq`$ for every $`xZ`$, the same is true on an open neighbourhood $`U`$ of $`Z`$. We deduce

$$dim(UY)_mdimY+mdimX[m/q],$$

for every $`m`$, and an easy computation gives $`dim(YU)_m/(m+1)dimX1/q`$. Corollary 3.4 implies $`c_Z(X,Y)c(U,UY)1/q`$. ∎

###### Proposition 4.4.

( \[DK\] 2.7) If $`(X^{},Y^{})`$ and $`(X^{\prime \prime },Y^{\prime \prime })`$ are two pairs and $`Z^{}X^{}`$, $`Z^{\prime \prime }X^{\prime \prime }`$ are two nonempty closed subsets, then

(4.2)
$$c_{Z^{}\times Z^{\prime \prime }}(X^{}\times X^{\prime \prime },Y^{}\times Y^{\prime \prime })=c_Z^{}(X^{},Y^{})+c_{Z^{\prime \prime }}(X^{\prime \prime },Y^{\prime \prime }).$$

###### Proof.

Proposition 2.1 gives a canonical isomorphism $`(Y^{}\times Y^{\prime \prime })_mY_m^{}\times Y_m^{\prime \prime }`$, for every $`m`$. Therefore we have $`dim_{Z^{}\times Z^{\prime \prime }}(Y^{}\times Y^{\prime \prime })_m=dim_Z^{}Y_m^{}+dim_{Z^{\prime \prime }}Y_m^{\prime \prime }`$. We pick $`m`$ such that $`a_i^{}`$, $`a_j^{\prime \prime }`$, $`a_k(m+1)`$ for all $`i`$, $`j`$ and $`k`$, where $`a_i^{}`$, $`a_j^{\prime \prime }`$ and $`a_k`$ are the coefficients appearing in log resolutions of $`(X^{},Y^{})`$, $`(X^{\prime \prime },Y^{\prime \prime })`$ and $`(X^{}\times X^{\prime \prime },Y^{}\times Y^{\prime \prime })`$. We conclude by applying the second assertion in Corollary 3.4. ∎

###### Proposition 4.5.

( \[DK\] 2.2) Let $`(X,Y)`$ be a pair. If $`HX`$ is a smooth irreducible divisor and $`ZH`$ is a nonempty closed subset, then

(4.3)
$$c_Z(X,Y)c_Z(H,YH).$$

###### Proof.

Let $`U`$ be an open neighbourhood of $`Z`$ in $`X`$ such that $`c_Z(H,HY)=c(UH,UHY)`$. Since $`c_Z(X,Y)c_{UH}(U,UY)`$, by restricting everything to $`U`$, we may assume that $`Z=H`$.

From the local description of the jet schemes, it follows that since $`HY`$ is defined locally in $`Y`$ be one equation, we have $`(HY)_m`$ defined locally in $`Y_m`$ by $`m+1`$ equations, for every $`m`$. Moreover, if $`\rho _m:X_mX`$ is the canonical projection, then for every irreducible component $`T`$ of $`Y_m`$ such that $`\rho _m(T)H\mathrm{}`$, we have $`T(YH)_m\mathrm{}`$.

Indeed, it follows from our discussion in Section 2 that if $`\sigma _m^Y:YY_m`$ is the “zero section”, then $`\sigma _m^Y(\rho _m(T))T`$. Moreover, since the “zero section” is functorial, we have $`\sigma _m^Y(YH)(YH)_m`$, and we deduce that $`(YH)_mT`$ contains $`\sigma _m^Y(\rho _m(T)H)`$.

It follows that $`dim_HY_mdim(YH)+m+1`$, so that

$$\underset{m0}{sup}\frac{dim_HY_m}{m+1}\underset{m0}{sup}\frac{dim(YH)_m}{m+1}+1.$$

Applying Corollary 3.4, we deduce the inequality in the proposition. ∎

###### Corollary 4.6.

The statement of Proposition 4.5 remains true if we replace $`H`$ with a smooth variety of arbitrary codimension.

###### Proof.

If we cover $`X`$ with open subsets $`U_i`$, then we obviously have $`c_Z(X,Y)=inf_i\{c_{ZU_i}(U_i,YU_i)\}`$ and a similar relation for the restrictions to $`H`$. Since $`H`$ is smooth, it is locally a complete intersection, so that we can find an open cover of $`X`$ such that on each subset $`U_i`$, $`HU_i`$ is an intersection of smooth divisors. It is therefore enough to apply Proposition 4.5 inductively on each of these open subsets. ∎

This corollary can be used to deduce a formula for the log canonical threshold of an intersection $`Y^{}Y^{\prime \prime }`$ in terms of the dimensions of the jet schemes of $`Y^{}`$ and $`Y^{\prime \prime }`$. We give below the case when the closed subset $`ZX`$ is a point, when the formula has a particularly nice form.

###### Proposition 4.7.

( \[DK\] 2.9) If $`X`$ is a smooth variety, $`Y^{}`$, $`Y^{\prime \prime }`$ two proper closed subschemes and $`zY^{}Y^{\prime \prime }`$ a point, then:

(4.4)
$$c_z(X,Y^{})+c_z(X,Y^{\prime \prime })c_z(X,Y^{}Y^{\prime \prime }).$$

###### Proof.

Consider the following cartesian diagram:

$$\begin{array}{ccc}Y^{}Y^{\prime \prime }& & X\\ & & \mathrm{\Delta }& & \\ Y^{}\times Y^{\prime \prime }& & X\times X\end{array}$$

where the horizontal maps are the natural embeddings and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the diagonal embedding. Applying Corollary 4.6 to the embedding $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, the pair $`(X\times X,Y^{}\times Y^{\prime \prime })`$, and the closed subset $`\{(z,z)\}\mathrm{\Delta }(X)`$, we deduce

$$c_{(z,z)}(X\times X,Y^{}\times Y^{\prime \prime })c_z(X,Y^{}Y^{\prime \prime }).$$

On the other hand, Proposition 4.4 implies

$$c_{(z,z)}(X\times X,Y^{}\times Y^{\prime \prime })=c_z(X,Y^{})+c_z(X,Y^{\prime \prime }),$$

and these two relations prove the proposition. ∎

We use now Corollary 3.4 and Proposition 2.3 to prove a result of Demailly and Kollár ( \[DK\]) about the semicontinuity of the log canonical threshold. We first need a preliminary result. For the notation concerning the coefficients of the divisors in a log resolution, see the beginning of the previous section.

###### Lemma 4.8.

Let $`\pi :𝒳S`$ be a smooth morphism and $`𝒴𝒳`$ a closed subscheme. It is possible to find log resolutions for each fiber $`(𝒳_s,𝒴_s)`$ such that the coeficients $`a_i`$, $`b_i`$ which appear in all these resolutions form a finite set.

###### Proof.

We make induction on $`dimS`$. It is enough to find a locally closed cover of $`S`$ such that the restriction of $`\pi `$ over each member of the cover has the desired property. Therefore we may assume that $`S`$ is a smooth variety and it is enough to find a nonempty open subset $`U`$ of $`S`$ over which the restriction of $`\pi `$ has this property. By a theorem of Nagata, we can embed $`𝒳`$ as an open subscheme in a scheme $`𝒳^{}`$ proper over $`S`$. By replacing $`𝒳`$ with $`𝒳^{}`$ and $`𝒴`$ by its closure in $`mathcalX^{}`$, we may assume that $`\pi `$ is proper. After restricting to an open subset of $`S`$, we may assume that $`\pi `$ is also smooth.

Let $`\pi ^{}:\stackrel{~}{𝒳}𝒳`$ be a log resolution for the pair $`(𝒳,𝒴)`$. It is easy to see that after further restricting over an open subset of $`S`$ we can assume that for every $`sS`$, the restriction to the fiber $`\pi _s:\stackrel{~}{𝒳}_s𝒳_s`$ is a log resolution of $`(𝒳_s,𝒴_s)`$, in which case the assertion is obvious. ∎

We can give now the proof of the semicontinuity result.

###### Theorem 4.9.

( \[DK\] 3.1) Let $`\pi :𝒳S`$ be a smooth morphism, $`𝒴𝒳`$ a closed subscheme, and $`\tau :S𝒴`$ a section of $`\pi |_𝒴`$. The function defined by

$$f(s)=c_{\tau (s)}(𝒳_s,𝒴_s),$$

for every closed point $`sS`$, is lower semicontinuous.

###### Proof.

Lemma 4.8 and Proposition 1.5 show that the set $`\{c_{\tau (s)}(𝒳,𝒴)|sS\}`$ is finite. Moreover, it follows from Lemma 4.8 and Corollary 3.4 that we can find $`N1`$ such that for every $`sS`$ and every $`m`$ with $`N|(m+1)`$, we have

$$c_{\tau (s)}(𝒳_s,𝒴_s)=dim𝒳_s\frac{dim_{\tau (s)}(𝒴_s)_m}{m+1}.$$

Fix $`s_0S`$. Since there are only finitely many log canonical thresholds to consider, it is enough to show that for every $`ϵ>0`$, there is an open neighbourhood $`U`$ of $`s_0`$ such that $`c_{\tau (s)}(𝒳_s,𝒴_s)c_{\tau (s_0)}(𝒳_{s_0},𝒴_{s_0})ϵ`$, for every $`sU`$. Since $`\pi `$ is flat, by restricting to an open neighbourhood of $`s_0`$ we may assume that $`dim𝒳_s`$ is constant on $`S`$.

Therefore it is enough to find $`m`$ with $`N|(m+1)`$ and $`U`$ such that

$$dim_{\tau (s)}(𝒴_s)_m/(m+1)dim_{\tau (s_0)}(𝒴_{s_0})_m/(m+1)+ϵ,$$

for all $`sU`$. We fix $`m`$ such that $`N|(m+1)`$ and $`dim𝒳_s/(m+1)ϵ`$ for all $`s`$. Using Proposition 2.3, we choose an open neighbourhood $`U`$ of $`s_0`$ such that

$$dim(\rho _m^{𝒴_s})^1(\tau (s))dim(\rho _m^{𝒴_{s_0}})^1(\tau (s_0)),$$

for all $`sU`$. The following inequalities show that $`U`$ satisfies our requirement:

$$dim_{\tau (s)}(𝒴_s)_m/(m+1)dim(\rho _m^{𝒴_s})^1(\tau (s))/(m+1)+dim𝒳_s/(m+1)$$

$$dim(\rho _m^{𝒴_{s_0}})^1(\tau (s_0))/(m+1)+ϵdim_{\tau (s_0)}(𝒴_{s_0})_m/(m+1)+ϵ.$$

We conclude by showing how the formula in Corollary 3.4 can be used to explicitely compute the log canonical threshold. We consider the case of monomial ideals and derive a formula from \[AGV\] (see also \[Ho\] for a formula in this context for all the multiplier ideals).

Let us fix the notation. $`X=𝐀^n`$ is the affine space and $`Y=V(I)`$, where $`IR=k[X_1,\mathrm{},X_n]`$ is a monomial ideal such that $`(0)IR`$. For $`𝐚^n`$, we use the notation $`X^𝐚=_iX_i^{a_i}`$. The vector $`(1,\mathrm{},1)^n`$ is denoted by $`𝐞`$. The Newton polytope of $`I`$, denoted by $`P_I`$, is the convex hull (in $`^n`$) of the set $`\{𝐚^n|X^𝐚I\}`$.

###### Proposition 4.10.

(\[AGV\], \[Ho\]) With the above notation, the log canonical threshold of the pair $`(X,Y)`$ is given by

$$c(X,Y)=sup\{r>0|𝐞rP_I\}.$$

###### Proof.

We will use the formula in Corollary 3.4, so that we estimate first $`dimY_m`$, for every $`m1`$. Note that $`Y_m`$ can be covered by the locally closed subsets $`Z_{a_1,\mathrm{},a_n}`$, with $`0a_im+1`$ for all $`i`$, where $`Z_{a_1,\mathrm{},a_n}`$ is the set of ring homomorphisms $`\varphi :R/Ik[t]/(t^{m+1})`$, with $`\mathrm{ord}(\varphi (X_i))=a_i`$, for every $`i`$. We put $`\mathrm{ord}(\varphi (X_i))=m+1`$ if $`\varphi (X_i)=0`$.

It is clear that if $`Z_{a_1,\mathrm{},a_n}\mathrm{}`$, then $`dimZ_{a_1,\mathrm{},a_n}=(m+1)n_ia_i`$. On the other hand, $`Z_{a_1,\mathrm{},a_n}\mathrm{}`$ if and only if for every $`𝐛^n`$ such that $`X^𝐛I`$, we have $`_ia_ib_i(m+1)`$.

Let $`P_I^{}`$ be the polar polyhedron of $`P_I`$, defined by

$$P_I^{}=\{𝐮^n|\underset{i}{}u_iv_i1,\mathrm{for}\mathrm{all}𝐯P_I\}.$$

We see that $`Z_{a_1,\mathrm{},a_n}\mathrm{}`$ if and only if $`(a_1/(m+1),\mathrm{},a_n/(m+1))P_I^{}`$.

From the above discussion, we deduce that

$$\frac{dimX_m}{m+1}=n\frac{1}{(m+1)}\underset{𝐚}{inf}\underset{i}{}a_i,$$

where the infimum is taken over all $`𝐚^n(m+1)P_I^{}`$ such that $`a_im+1`$ for all $`i`$. The formula in Corollary 3.4 gives

$$c(X,Y)=\underset{𝐚}{inf}\underset{i}{}a_i,$$

the infimum being taken over all $`𝐚P_I^{}^n[0,1]^n`$.

We clearly have $`P_I^{}_+^n`$. Note that if $`𝐚P_I^{}`$ and $`𝐚^{}`$ is defined by $`a_i^{}=\mathrm{min}\{a_i,1\}`$ for all $`i`$, then $`𝐚^{}P_I^{}`$. We deduce that $`c(X,Y)=inf_{𝐚P_I^{}}_ia_i`$. In order to complete the proof it is enough to note that $`𝐞rP_I`$ if and only if for every $`𝐚P_I^{}`$ we have $`_ia_ir`$ (this comes from the fact that $`P_I`$ is the polar polyhedron of $`P_I^{}`$. ∎