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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

To the black hole in general relativity, we can assign an entropy called the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy. There have been many attempts to understand the origin of this black hole entropy. In particular, there are some attempts which are based on the central charge in conformal field theory. Note that the density of states can be calculated from the central charge by using the Cardy formula  in conformal field theory. For example, in the framework of superstring theory, it has been shown that the black hole entropy can be calculated from the central charge of the effective superconformal theory for D-branes .

On the other hand, Strominger  has used the Brown-Henneaux central charge instead of usual central charges. In the case of the (2+1) dimensional gravity with a negative cosmological constant $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=1/l^2`$, Brown and Henneaux  have shown that the asymptotic symmetry of an asymptotically $`AdS_3`$ spacetime is the conformal group in 2 dimensions rather than the $`AdS_3`$ group, $`SO(2,2)`$. Moreover, they have shown that this symmetry is canonically realized by the Poisson bracket algebra of the generators (or the Dirac bracket algebra of the charges) with a central extension. The central charge becomes

$$c=\frac{3l}{2G}.$$
(1.1)
By combining this central charge with the Cardy formula, Strominger has shown that the resultant entropy agrees with the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy of the BTZ black hole . Nevertheless, there remain some open questions in this approach . In particular, the physical meaning of the Brown-Henneaux central charge is not clear from the original derivation.

Brown-Henneaux’s central charge was also obtained by some approaches. Bañados and co-workers  used the Chern-Simons formulation of the (2+1) dimensional gravity. See Refs.  in the context of AdS/CFT correspondence .

Natsuume, Okamura and Sato  have generalized the Brown-Henneaux central charge to include a conformal scalar field and applied Strominger’s approach to the MZ black hole . However, since they have obtained the same charge and central charge as the case of the pure gravity, the density of states from the Cardy formula does not agree with the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy. (The functional form does agree but the over-all numerical factor does not.) Thus, they have considered that the Cardy formula gives the “maximum possible entropy” for a given mass. See also Ref.  for the extension to various theories.

Since the Brown-Henneaux central charge is based on the asymptotic symmetry at infinity in (2+1) dimensions, Carlip  has generalized to the symmetry near the black hole horizon in any dimensions. This symmetry contains a natural Virasoro subalgebra and the resulting central charge reproduces the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy by the Cardy formula. (However, since the generator of Ref.  is not “differentiable” , it has been proposed by Soloviev  to use a modified Poisson bracket which is applicable to the “non-differentiable” functionals.) Similar conclusion was obtained by Solodukhin  with effective 2-dimensional theories for the spherically symmetric metrics in higher dimensions. Moreover, Carlip  has calculated the prefactor of the Cardy formula and the logarithmic correction to the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy.

In this paper, we rederive the Brown-Henneaux commutation relation and central charge in terms of the path integral formulation since it was originally obtained by the canonical formulation. In view of the equivalence of these two approaches to quantum theory, we must obtain the same result within the path integral. The anomalous commutators have been obtained also by using the path integral formulation in various gauge theories . The central charge arises from the quantum anomaly which is understood as the Jacobian factor of the path integral measure in usual case . However, the Brown-Henneaux central charge is classical one because it exists at the level of the Poisson bracket. We thus want to clarify the origin of this central charge in the path integral. Moreover, we want to answer the question if the Brown-Henneaux central charge is concerned with the degrees of freedom contained in the system as usual central charges. We also hope that this path integral derivation would be useful for exploring the relation between Strominger’s approach and Gibbons-Hawking’s approach . This is because the topological consideration is an advantage of the path integral calculation.

One might think that the path integral would be irrelevant to the classical quantity. However, the classical quantity still exists after the quantization as the zeroth order term in $`\mathrm{}`$. In order to calculate the whole (classical and quantum) central charge by the path integral, we need the derivation of its classical part within the framework of the path integral. Although the quantum part is difficult to calculate, its origin in terms of the path integral is quite clear. We thus ignore the quantum part and concentrate on the classical one.

To derive the commutation relation, we must first identify the charge. Since the original derivation was based on the Regge-Teitelboim method , the charge was obtained indirectly by integrating its variation. This process seems to be ad hoc in more general situations. Thus, we extract the charge from the variation of the action, directly. We then use two transformations to obtain the Ward-Takahashi identity. One is the asymptotic symmetry and the other is its leading part. If we use the asymptotic symmetry, we find that the central charge arises from the transformation law of the charge itself. Thus, we can see it as a classical central charge. On the other hand, if we use its leading transformation, we find that the central charge arises due to the change of the boundary condition of the path integral. This contrasts with the usual quantum central charge which arises due to the change of the measure of the path integral.

The paper is organized as follows. In Sec. 2, we summarize the variation and transformation property of the action. In Sec. 3, we review the asymptotically $`AdS_3`$ spacetime and calculate some basic quantities. In Sec. 4, we identify the Brown-Henneaux charge and derive its transformation law. In Sec. 5, we combine all the results to obtain the commutation relation. In Sec. 6, we give another derivation where the origin of the central charge is more interesting. In Sec. 7, we discuss the implications of our result.

## 2 Variation of Action

We consider the (2+1)-dimensional gravity with a negative cosmological constant $`\mathrm{\Lambda }<0`$. We assume that the boundary of the spacetime is only at infinity $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\mathrm{}}`$ whose unit normal vector is $`u^a`$. We thus begin with the Hilbert action with the surface term ,

$$S=\frac{1}{16\pi G}_M\sqrt{g}\left(R2\mathrm{\Lambda }\right)d^3x+\frac{1}{8\pi G}_\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\mathrm{}}\sqrt{\gamma }\mathrm{\Theta }d^2x,$$
(2.1)
where $`\gamma _{ab}`$ is the induced metric on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\mathrm{}}`$ defined by

$$\gamma _{ab}g_{ab}u_au_b,$$
(2.2)
and $`\mathrm{\Theta }^{ab}`$ is the extrinsic curvature of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\mathrm{}}`$ defined by

$$\mathrm{\Theta }^{ab}=\gamma ^{ac}_cu^b,\mathrm{\Theta }=g_{ab}\mathrm{\Theta }^{ab}=\gamma ^{ab}_au_b.$$
(2.3)
As is well known, the variation of this action with the condition $`\delta g_{ab}=0`$ at $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\mathrm{}}`$ contains no surface terms and thus we can obtain Einstein equation. However, if we take a generic variation of this action, we obtain that

$$\delta S=\frac{1}{16\pi G}_M\sqrt{g}\stackrel{~}{G}^{ab}\delta g_{ab}d^3x\frac{1}{16\pi G}_\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\mathrm{}}\sqrt{\gamma }\mathrm{\Pi }^{ab}\delta \gamma _{ab}d^2x,$$
(2.4)
where

$`\stackrel{~}{G}^{ab}`$ $`=`$ $`R^{ab}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g^{ab}R+\mathrm{\Lambda }g^{ab},`$ (2.5)
$`\mathrm{\Pi }^{ab}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Theta }^{ab}\mathrm{\Theta }\gamma ^{ab}.`$ (2.6)
(Note that $`\sqrt{\gamma }\mathrm{\Pi }^{ab}`$ has the same form as the canonical momentum in ADM formulation.)

Next, we consider the coordinate transformation which is generated by a vector $`\zeta ^a`$, namely,

$$\delta _\zeta g_{ab}=\mathrm{\pounds }_\zeta g_{ab}=_a\zeta _b+_b\zeta _a.$$
(2.7)
By using Eq. (2.4), we find that

$$\delta _\zeta S=\frac{1}{8\pi G}_M\sqrt{g}\stackrel{~}{G}^{ab}_a\zeta _bd^3x\frac{1}{8\pi G}_\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\mathrm{}}\sqrt{\gamma }\mathrm{\Pi }^{ab}_a\zeta _bd^2x,$$
(2.8)
where we have used

$$\mathrm{\Pi }^{ab}\delta \gamma _{ab}=\mathrm{\Pi }^{ab}\delta g_{ab},$$
(2.9)
since $`\mathrm{\Pi }^{ab}u_a=0`$. We then decompose $`\zeta ^a`$ into $`\stackrel{~}{\zeta }^a`$ and $`\widehat{\zeta }^a`$, where

$`\stackrel{~}{\zeta }^a`$ $``$ $`\gamma _b^a\zeta ^b=\zeta ^a\eta u^a,`$ (2.10)
$`\widehat{\zeta }^a`$ $``$ $`\eta u^a,`$ (2.11)
$`\eta `$ $`=`$ $`\zeta ^au_a.`$ (2.12)
Note that $`\stackrel{~}{\zeta }^a`$ is tangential to the boundary $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\mathrm{}}`$ since $`\stackrel{~}{\zeta }^au_a=0`$ and $`\widehat{\zeta }^a`$ is normal to the boundary because $`\widehat{\zeta }^a`$ is proportional to the normal vector $`u^a`$. The tangential part becomes

$$\mathrm{\Pi }^{ab}_a\stackrel{~}{\zeta }_b=\mathrm{\Pi }^{cd}\gamma _c^a\gamma _d^b_a\stackrel{~}{\zeta }_b=\mathrm{\Pi }^{cd}𝒟_c\stackrel{~}{\zeta }_d,$$
(2.13)
where $`𝒟_a`$ is the covariant derivative associated with $`\gamma _{ab}`$. On the other hand, the normal part becomes

$$\mathrm{\Pi }^{ab}_a\widehat{\zeta }_b=\eta \mathrm{\Pi }^{ab}_au_b=\eta \mathrm{\Pi }^{ab}\mathrm{\Theta }_{ab}=\eta \left(\mathrm{\Theta }^{ab}\mathrm{\Theta }_{ab}\mathrm{\Theta }^2\right).$$
(2.14)
Therefore, one finds that

$`\delta _\zeta S`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi G}}{\displaystyle _M}\sqrt{g}\stackrel{~}{G}^{ab}_a\zeta _bd^3x`$ (2.15)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi G}}{\displaystyle _\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\mathrm{}}}\sqrt{\gamma }\left[\mathrm{\Pi }^{ab}𝒟_a\stackrel{~}{\zeta }_b+\eta \left(\mathrm{\Theta }^{ab}\mathrm{\Theta }_{ab}\mathrm{\Theta }^2\right)\right]d^2x.`$
## 3 Asymptotically $`AdS_3`$ Spacetime

From now on, we consider the asymptotically $`AdS_3`$ spacetime which is defined by the boundary condition,

$`g_{tt}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{r^2}{l^2}}+𝒪(1),`$
$`g_{tr}`$ $`=`$ $`𝒪(1/r^3),`$
$`g_{t\varphi }`$ $`=`$ $`𝒪(1),`$ (3.1)
$`g_{rr}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{l^2}{r^2}}+𝒪(1/r^4),`$
$`g_{r\varphi }`$ $`=`$ $`𝒪(1/r^3),`$
$`g_{\varphi \varphi }`$ $`=`$ $`r^2+𝒪(1).`$
We treat the boundary $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\mathrm{}}`$ as the $`r=r_{}`$ surface and then take the limit $`r_{}\mathrm{}`$.

Brown and Henneaux  have shown that the asymptotic symmetry, namely the coordinate transformation which preserves the asymptotic boundary condition (3.1), becomes

$`\xi ^t`$ $`=`$ $`lT(t,\varphi )+{\displaystyle \frac{l^3}{r^2}}\overline{T}(t,\varphi )+𝒪(1/r^4),`$
$`\xi ^r`$ $`=`$ $`rR(t,\varphi )+{\displaystyle \frac{l^2}{r}}\overline{R}(t,\varphi )+𝒪(1/r^3),`$ (3.2)
$`\xi ^\varphi `$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Phi }(t,\varphi )+{\displaystyle \frac{l^2}{r^2}}\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}(t,\varphi )+𝒪(1/r^4),`$
where they satisfy

$`l_tT(t,\varphi )`$ $`=`$ $`_\varphi \mathrm{\Phi }(t,\varphi )=R(t,\varphi ),`$
$`l_t\mathrm{\Phi }(t,\varphi )`$ $`=`$ $`_\varphi T(t,\varphi ),`$ (3.3)
$`\overline{T}(t,\varphi )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{l}{2}}_tR(t,\varphi ),`$
$`\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}(t,\varphi )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_\varphi R(t,\varphi ),`$
but $`\overline{R}(t,\varphi )`$ is arbitrary, and this is the conformal group in 2 dimensions. This fact can be understood easily by means of conformal infinity by Penrose . Briefly, since the induced metric on the boundary $`r=r_{}\mathrm{}`$ is formally written as

$$\mathrm{}\times \left(dt^2+l^2d\varphi ^2\right),$$
(3.4)
the conformal transformation on the $`(t,\varphi )`$ plane leaves this induced metric “invariant”,

$$\mathrm{}\times e^{\rho (t,\varphi )}\left(dt^2+l^2d\varphi ^2\right)=\mathrm{}\times \left(dt^2+l^2d\varphi ^2\right).$$
(3.5)
We write the next leading terms of the metric as

$`g_{tt}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{r^2}{l^2}}+e_{tt}+𝒪(1/r^2),`$
$`g_{tr}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{l^3}{r^3}}e_{tr}+𝒪(1/r^5),`$
$`g_{t\varphi }`$ $`=`$ $`e_{t\varphi }+𝒪(1/r^2),`$ (3.6)
$`g_{rr}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{l^2}{r^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{l^4}{r^4}}e_{rr}+𝒪(1/r^6),`$
$`g_{r\varphi }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{l^3}{r^3}}e_{r\varphi }+𝒪(1/r^5),`$
$`g_{\varphi \varphi }`$ $`=`$ $`r^2+l^2e_{\varphi \varphi }+𝒪(1/r^2),`$
where $`e_{ab}`$ depend only on $`(t,\varphi )`$. Then, one can obtain the expressions for some basic quantities,

$`\mathrm{\Pi }_t^t`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{l}}+{\displaystyle \frac{l}{r^2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}e_{rr}+e_{\varphi \varphi }\right)+𝒪(1/r^4),`$
$`\mathrm{\Pi }_\varphi ^t`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{l}{r^2}}e_{t\varphi }+𝒪(1/r^4),`$
$`\mathrm{\Pi }_t^\varphi `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r^2l}}e_{t\varphi }+𝒪(1/r^4),`$ (3.7)
$`\mathrm{\Pi }_\varphi ^\varphi `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{l}}+{\displaystyle \frac{l}{r^2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}e_{rr}e_{tt}\right)+𝒪(1/r^4),`$
$`\mathrm{\Theta }^{ab}\mathrm{\Theta }_{ab}\mathrm{\Theta }^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{l^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{2}{r^2}}\left(e_{tt}e_{rr}e_{\varphi \varphi }\right)+𝒪(1/r^4).`$
Note that the transformation law for $`e_{ab}`$ is

$`\delta _\xi e_{rr}`$ $`=`$ $`lT_te_{rr}+\mathrm{\Phi }_\varphi e_{rr}2e_{rr}R4\overline{R},`$
$`\delta _\xi e_{\varphi \varphi }`$ $`=`$ $`lT_te_{\varphi \varphi }+\mathrm{\Phi }_\varphi e_{\varphi \varphi }+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{l}}e_{t\varphi }_\varphi T+2e_{\varphi \varphi }_\varphi \mathrm{\Phi }+2\overline{R}+2_\varphi \overline{\mathrm{\Phi }},`$ (3.8)
$`\delta _\xi e_{t\varphi }`$ $`=`$ $`lT_te_{t\varphi }+\mathrm{\Phi }_\varphi e_{t\varphi }+e_{tt}l_\varphi T+e_{t\varphi }_\varphi \mathrm{\Phi }`$
$`+e_{t\varphi }l_tT+l^2e_{\varphi \varphi }_t\mathrm{\Phi }l_\varphi \overline{T}+l^2_t\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }},`$
and so on.

Furthermore, the equations of motion $`\stackrel{~}{G}_{ab}=0`$ say that

$`{\displaystyle \frac{l^2}{2}}_te_{rr}+l^2_te_{\varphi \varphi }`$ $`=`$ $`_\varphi e_{t\varphi },`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_\varphi e_{rr}+_\varphi e_{tt}`$ $`=`$ $`_te_{t\varphi },`$ (3.9)
$`e_{tt}e_{rr}e_{\varphi \varphi }`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$
These equations arise from the $`tr`$-, $`r\varphi `$\- and $`rr`$-components. The other components become trivial up to this order.

## 4 Current and Charge

We can obtain the Brown-Henneaux charge  from the tensor $`\mathrm{\Pi }^{ab}`$,

$$J[\xi ]=\frac{1}{8\pi G}\underset{r_{}\mathrm{}}{lim}_{r=r_{}}𝑑\varphi \sqrt{\sigma }\left(\mathrm{\Pi }_b^a\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_b^a\right)\stackrel{~}{\xi }^bn_a,$$
(4.1)
where $`n^a`$ is the unit normal vector of the time slice and $`\sigma _{ab}`$ is the induced metric on the boundary $`r=r_{}`$ of the time slice. The hat means that it is evaluated by $`AdS_3`$ spacetime so that the charge becomes zero in $`AdS_3`$ spacetime. This is similar to the charge defined by Brown and York  in the context of the quasilocal energy,

$$J_{BY}[\xi ]=\frac{1}{8\pi G}\underset{r_{}\mathrm{}}{lim}_{r=r_{}}𝑑\varphi \sqrt{\sigma }\left(\mathrm{\Pi }^{ab}\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}^{ab}\right)\stackrel{~}{\xi }_bn_a.$$
(4.2)
However, these are different because $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_b^a\stackrel{~}{\xi }^b\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}^{ab}\stackrel{~}{\xi }_b`$ in the subtraction term.

By using the expansions (3.6) and (3.2), this becomes

$`J[\xi ]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi G}}\underset{r_{}\mathrm{}}{lim}{\displaystyle \frac{r_{}^2}{l}}{\displaystyle _{r=r_{}}}𝑑\varphi \left(\mathrm{\Pi }_b^t\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_b^t\right)\stackrel{~}{\xi }^b`$ (4.3)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi G}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\varphi \left\{\left[\frac{1}{2}\left(e_{rr}+1\right)+e_{\varphi \varphi }\right]lT+e_{t\varphi }\mathrm{\Phi }\right\}},`$
for the asymptotic symmetry of the asymptotically $`AdS_3`$ spacetime. In fact, one can check that, by using the same expansions, the Brown-Henneaux charge also becomes this expression.

The current for the transformation is considered as

$$j^a[\xi ]=\frac{1}{8\pi G}\left(\mathrm{\Pi }_b^a\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_b^a\right)\stackrel{~}{\xi }^b|_{r=r_{}},$$
(4.4)
and the charge is then written as

$$J[\xi ]=\underset{r_{}\mathrm{}}{lim}_{r=r_{}}𝑑\varphi \sqrt{\sigma }j^a[\xi ]n_a.$$
(4.5)
By using equations of motion (3.9), one can find that the charge is actually conserved,

$$_tJ[\xi ]=0,$$
(4.6)
where we have used the condition (3.3) for $`\xi ^a`$.

The charge for the Lie bracket of two vectors becomes

$`J\left[[\xi _1,\xi _2]\right]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi G}}{\displaystyle }d\varphi \{[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(e_{rr}+1)+e_{\varphi \varphi }]`$ (4.7)
$`\times \left(l^2T_1_tT_2+l\mathrm{\Phi }_1_\varphi T_2l^2T_2_tT_1l\mathrm{\Phi }_2_\varphi T_1\right)`$
$`+e_{t\varphi }(lT_1_t\mathrm{\Phi }_2+\mathrm{\Phi }_1_\varphi \mathrm{\Phi }_2lT_2_t\mathrm{\Phi }_1\mathrm{\Phi }_2_\varphi \mathrm{\Phi }_1)\}.`$
On the other hand, by using Eqs. (3.8) and (3.3), one can obtain that

$`\delta _{\xi _2}J[\xi _1]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi G}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\varphi \left\{\left[\frac{1}{2}\left(\delta _{\xi _2}e_{rr}\right)+\left(\delta _{\xi _2}e_{\varphi \varphi }\right)\right]lT_1+\left(\delta _{\xi _2}e_{t\varphi }\right)\mathrm{\Phi }_1\right\}}`$ (4.8)
$`=`$ $`J\left[[\xi _1,\xi _2]\right]+K[\xi _1,\xi _2]+\mathrm{},`$
where $`K[\xi _1,\xi _2]`$ is the Brown-Henneaux central charge ,

$`K[\xi _1,\xi _2]`$ $`=`$ $`\left(J[\xi _1]\text{at }g_{ab}=\widehat{g}_{ab}+\mathrm{\pounds }_{\xi _2}\widehat{g}_{ab}\right)`$ (4.9)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi G}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\varphi \left[T_1\left(_\varphi +_\varphi ^3\right)+\mathrm{\Phi }_1\left(l_t+l^3_t^3\right)\right]l\mathrm{\Phi }_2},`$
and “$`\mathrm{}`$” means the terms which vanish by using the equations of motion (3.9). Note that there are the central term in the transformation law of the charge itself, which is explicitly derived from our definition of the charge without using the Dirac bracket algebra. However, we must supply the commutator by using the path integral in order to identify it as the central charge. This is because other contributions might arise from somewhere. Indeed, in Sec. 6, we will see that there is another possible source of the classical central charge.

## 5 Commutation Relation

To derive the commutation relation of two charges, we begin with the path integral,

$$J[\xi _1]=_B𝑑\mu J[\xi _1]e^{iS},$$
(5.1)
where $`d\mu `$ and $`B`$ denote the measure and boundary condition of the path integral, respectively. We first replace the integration variable $`g_{ab}`$ everywhere in Eq. (5.1) with $`\stackrel{~}{g}_{ab}`$. This step is mathematically trivial, similar to the replacement

$$f(x)𝑑xf(y)𝑑y.$$
(5.2)
We recognize this new integration variable as the transformed metric by the infinitesimal asymptotic symmetry transformation $`\xi _2`$,

$$\stackrel{~}{g}_{ab}g_{ab}+\delta _{\xi _2}g_{ab}.$$
(5.3)
We then find that

$`J[\xi _1]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{\stackrel{~}{B}}}𝑑\stackrel{~}{\mu }\stackrel{~}{J}[\xi _1]e^{i\stackrel{~}{S}}`$ (5.4)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _B}𝑑\mu \left(J[\xi _1]+\delta _{\xi _2}J[\xi _1]\right)\left(1+i\delta _{\xi _2}S\right)e^{iS}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _B}𝑑\mu \left(J[\xi _1]+\delta _{\xi _2}J[\xi _1]+iJ[\xi _1]\delta _{\xi _2}S\right)e^{iS}`$
$`=`$ $`J[\xi _1]+\delta _{\xi _2}J[\xi _1]+i\mathrm{T}^{}J[\xi _1]\delta _{\xi _2}S,`$
where we have used the fact that the boundary condition is invariant under the asymptotic symmetry, $`\stackrel{~}{B}=B`$. We also assumed that the measure of the path integral is invariant under this transformation, $`d\stackrel{~}{\mu }=d\mu `$, since we want to see the classical central charge. Therefore, we can obtain the Ward-Takahashi identity

$$\delta _{\xi _2}J[\xi _1]=i\mathrm{T}^{}J[\xi _1]\delta _{\xi _2}S.$$
(5.5)
By using Eq. (2.15), we can evaluate the right-hand side of this identity. However, the result becomes infinite in the limit of $`r=r_{}\mathrm{}`$. In order to get a finite result, it is usual to subtract a functional $`S_0`$ of the boundary data $`\gamma _{ab}`$ from the action. In this case, we choose so that

$$\delta _\xi S_0=\frac{1}{8\pi G}_\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\mathrm{}}\sqrt{\gamma }\left[\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_b^a𝒟_a\stackrel{~}{\xi }^b+\eta \left(\widehat{\mathrm{\Theta }}^{ab}\widehat{\mathrm{\Theta }}_{ab}\widehat{\mathrm{\Theta }}^2\right)\right]d^2x,$$
(5.6)
where the hats again mean that they are evaluated by $`AdS_3`$ spacetime. For notational simplicity, we write $`SS_0`$ as $`S`$ anew.

Then, one finds that

$`\delta _{\xi _2}S`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi G}}\underset{r_{}\mathrm{}}{lim}{\displaystyle _{r=r_{}}}𝑑t𝑑\varphi \sqrt{\gamma }\left(\mathrm{\Pi }_b^a\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_b^a\right)𝒟_a\stackrel{~}{\xi }_2^b+\mathrm{}`$ (5.7)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi G}}\underset{r_{}\mathrm{}}{lim}{\displaystyle \frac{r_{}^2}{l}}{\displaystyle _{r=r_{}}}𝑑t𝑑\varphi 𝒟_a\left[\left(\mathrm{\Pi }_b^a\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_b^a\right)\stackrel{~}{\xi }_2^b\right]+\mathrm{}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi G}}\underset{r_{}\mathrm{}}{lim}{\displaystyle \frac{r_{}^2}{l}}{\displaystyle _{r=r_{}}}𝑑t𝑑\varphi _t\left[\left(\mathrm{\Pi }_b^t\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_b^t\right)\stackrel{~}{\xi }_2^b\right]+\mathrm{}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑t_tJ[\xi _2]}+\mathrm{},`$
where “$`\mathrm{}`$” again means the terms which vanish by using the equations of motion (3.9). Note that

$`\left(\mathrm{\Theta }^{ab}\mathrm{\Theta }_{ab}\mathrm{\Theta }^2\right)\left(\widehat{\mathrm{\Theta }}^{ab}\widehat{\mathrm{\Theta }}_{ab}\widehat{\mathrm{\Theta }}^2\right)`$ $`=`$ $`𝒪(1/r^4),`$
$`𝒟_a\left(\mathrm{\Pi }_b^a\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_b^a\right)`$ $`=`$ $`𝒪(1/r^4),`$
by the equations of motion.

Then, the right-hand side of the identity (5.5) is

$`\mathrm{T}^{}J[\xi _1]\delta _{\xi _2}S`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{T}^{}J[\xi _1]{\displaystyle 𝑑t_tJ[\xi _2]}+\mathrm{}`$ (5.8)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑t_t\mathrm{T}^{}J[\xi _1]J[\xi _2]+\mathrm{}}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑t_t\mathrm{T}J[\xi _1]J[\xi _2]+\mathrm{}}`$
$`=`$ $`[J[\xi _1],J[\xi _2]]+\mathrm{},`$
where we have simply identified the T-product as the T-product after extracting the time derivative by the standard Bjorken-Johnson-Low argument .

Finally, by using Eq. (4.8) and the equations of motion (3.9), we can obtain the commutation relation,

$$[J[\xi _1],J[\xi _2]]=iJ\left[[\xi _1,\xi _2]\right]+iK[\xi _1,\xi _2].$$
(5.9)
This is consistent with the result of Brown and Henneaux  if we identify the Dirac bracket as the commutator,

$$\{A,B\}_{\mathrm{D}.\mathrm{B}.}\frac{1}{i}[A,B].$$
(5.10)
Note that the classical central charge comes from the transformation law of the charge (4.8) rather than the Jacobian factor of the path integral measure. This is analogous to the central charge in $`N=2`$ supersymmetric theory .

## 6 Another Derivation

We can derive this central charge in another way  if we use only the leading part of the asymptotic symmetry,

$`\xi ^t`$ $`=`$ $`lT(t,\varphi ),`$
$`\xi ^r`$ $`=`$ $`rR(t,\varphi ),`$ (6.1)
$`\xi ^\varphi `$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Phi }(t,\varphi ),`$
where $`T,R,\mathrm{\Phi }`$ again satisfy the condition (3.3). This transformation is not the asymptotic symmetry since it breaks the boundary conditions for $`g_{tr}`$ and $`g_{r\varphi }`$,

$`\mathrm{\pounds }_\xi g_{tr}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{l^2}{r}}_tR+𝒪(1/r^3),`$
$`\mathrm{\pounds }_\xi g_{r\varphi }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{l^2}{r}}_\varphi R+𝒪(1/r^3).`$
Note that

$$J[\xi ^{}]=J[\xi ],J\left[[\xi _1^{},\xi _2^{}]\right]=J\left[[\xi _1,\xi _2]\right],$$
(6.2)
and

$$\delta _\xi ^{}S=\delta _\xi S,$$
(6.3)
since the non-leading parts do not contribute to these quantities. On the other hand, we have

$$\delta _{\xi _2^{}}J[\xi _1^{}]=J\left[[\xi _1^{},\xi _2^{}]\right]+K^{}[\xi _1^{},\xi _2^{}]+\mathrm{},$$
(6.4)
where

$$K^{}[\xi _1^{},\xi _2^{}]=\frac{1}{8\pi G}𝑑\varphi \left[T_1_\varphi +\mathrm{\Phi }_1l_t\right]l\mathrm{\Phi }_2.$$
(6.5)
This is not a non-trivial central charge since we can eliminate this term by adding a constant to the charge. (Actually, it can be achieved by choosing the $`M=J=0`$ BTZ black hole as the background rather than $`AdS_3`$ spacetime .) This is the interesting aspect of this leading transformation (6.1). Since the remaining quantities in the Ward-Takahashi identity (5.5) are equal, one might think that one could obtain the commutator without the non-trivial central charge,

$$[J[\xi _1],J[\xi _2]]\stackrel{\mathrm{?}\mathrm{?}}{=}iJ\left[[\xi _1,\xi _2]\right]+iK^{}[\xi _1^{},\xi _2^{}],$$
(6.6)
if we use this leading transformation (6.1). However, this is not correct. Since the leading transformation breaks the boundary condition of the path integral $`B`$, we cannot obtain the Ward-Takahashi identity (5.5). Instead, the Ward-Takahashi identity is supplemented with an additional term due to the change of the boundary condition $`B`$, namely,

$$\delta _{\xi _2^{}}J[\xi _1^{}]=i\mathrm{T}^{}J[\xi _1^{}]\delta _{\xi _2^{}}S\mathrm{\Delta }[\xi _1^{},\xi _2^{}],$$
(6.7)
where

$$\mathrm{\Delta }[\xi _1^{},\xi _2^{}]\left(_{B+\delta _{\xi _2^{}}B}_B\right)d\mu J[\xi _1^{}]e^{iS},$$
(6.8)
and the boundary condition $`B+\delta _{\xi _2^{}}B`$ denotes that the transformed metric $`g_{ab}+\delta _{\xi _2^{}}g_{ab}`$ must satisfy the asymptotically $`AdS_3`$ condition (3.1). Repeating the derivation as above, we find that

$$[J[\xi _1^{}],J[\xi _2^{}]]=iJ\left[[\xi _1^{},\xi _2^{}]\right]+iK^{}[\xi _1^{},\xi _2^{}]+i\mathrm{\Delta }[\xi _1^{},\xi _2^{}].$$
(6.9)
In order to evaluate $`\mathrm{\Delta }[\xi _1^{},\xi _2^{}]`$, we perform the infinitesimal change of the integration variable corresponding to the inverse transformation of $`\xi _2^{}`$ in the first integral and that of $`\xi _2`$ in the second integral, similar to the calculations in Eq. (5.4). The integrals then become

$`{\displaystyle _{B+\delta _{\xi _2^{}}B}}𝑑\mu J[\xi _1^{}]e^{iS}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _B}𝑑\mu \left(J[\xi _1^{}]iJ[\xi _1^{}]\delta _{\xi _2^{}}S\delta _{\xi _2^{}}J[\xi _1^{}]\right)e^{iS},`$ (6.10)
$`{\displaystyle _B}𝑑\mu J[\xi _1^{}]e^{iS}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _B}𝑑\mu \left(J[\xi _1^{}]iJ[\xi _1^{}]\delta _{\xi _2}S\delta _{\xi _2}J[\xi _1^{}]\right)e^{iS}.`$ (6.11)
Note that the boundary condition of both of the path integral become the same. By using Eqs. (4.8) and (6.4), we can obtain that

$`\mathrm{\Delta }[\xi _1^{},\xi _2^{}]`$ $`=`$ $`\delta _{\xi _2}J[\xi _1^{}]\delta _{\xi _2^{}}J[\xi _1^{}]`$ (6.12)
$`=`$ $`K[\xi _1,\xi _2]K^{}[\xi _1^{},\xi _2^{}].`$
Thus, we can again obtain the Brown-Henneaux commutation relation,

$$[J[\xi _1^{}],J[\xi _2^{}]]=iJ\left[[\xi _1^{},\xi _2^{}]\right]+iK[\xi _1,\xi _2],$$
(6.13)
by using the equations of motion.

Therefore, the non-trivial part of the central charge arises from the fact that the boundary condition of the path integral $`B`$ is not invariant under the leading transformation $`\xi ^{}`$. This phenomenon is in contrast to the usual quantum case where the anomaly arises from the fact that the measure of the path integral $`d\mu `$ is not invariant under the relevant transformation.

## 7 Discussion

We have reproduced the Brown-Henneaux commutation relation in the context of the path integral. The origin of the central charge is not the Jacobian factor of the path integral measure as the quantum anomaly. If we use the asymptotic symmetry to derive the Ward-Takahashi identity, it arises from the transformation law of the charge. Thus, it can be considered as a classical anomaly even though the path integral formulation has been used to obtain the commutator of two charges. This is similar to the central charge in $`N=2`$ supersymmetric theory. In order to apply to the black hole entropy, we want to relate this central charge with some ignorance. It would be considered as follows. We could see the tensor $`\mathrm{\Pi }^{ab}`$ as a tensor in 2 dimensions on the boundary $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\mathrm{}}`$ since it can be obtained as the conjugate variable to the induced metric $`\gamma _{ab}`$ on the boundary. The charge $`J[\xi ]`$ is made from this tensor and boundary value of $`\xi `$. In this sense, the charge is a quantity on the 2-dimensional boundary. However, the transformation $`\xi `$ is in the 3-dimensional spacetime. This transformation consists of the 2-dimensional transformation with some additional terms. Especially, $`\overline{T}`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}`$ terms, which are required to maintain the boundary condition, give rise to the central charge. This gap corresponds to the ignorance due to the limit $`r_{}\mathrm{}`$.

Alternatively, in order to derive the Ward-Takahashi identity, we can use the leading part of the asymptotic symmetry. Then, we can find that the central charge arises from the fact that the boundary condition of the path integral is not invariant under the leading transformation. This is in contrast to the quantum central charge which arises from the fact that the measure of the path integral is not invariant under the relevant transformation. From this picture, we could see that the Brown-Henneaux central charge does not count the degrees of freedom in the system. Moreover, we could understand other classical central charges, such as in $`N=2`$ supersymmetric theory, as above in the path integral formulation. Our analysis also suggests the possibility that the classical central charge may arise in more general theories if the boundary condition of the path integral is non-trivial.

Finally, one of the advantage of the present analysis is that the charge is identified directly and it is thus easy to apply to more general situations. The past approaches were based on the Regge-Teitelboim method where the charge $`J[\xi ]`$ was derived from its variation $`\delta J[\xi ]`$. However, in more general cases , it is not straightforward to do this integration. On the other hand, since the present analysis can identify the charge directly, it would be straightforward to apply in such cases. The other advantage of the present analysis would be the topological consideration. We hope that we could relate Strominger’s approach to Gibbons-Hawking’s approach  by using this path integral derivation.

## Acknowledgments

The author thanks K. Fujikawa for introducing him to this subject and helpful discussions. The author also thanks Y. Shibusa for comments and discussions.


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# Irreversibility in asymptotic manipulations of entanglement

## Abstract

We show that the process of entanglement distillation is irreversible by showing that the entanglement cost of a bound entangled state is finite. Such irreversibility remains even if extra pure entanglement is loaned to assist the distillation process.

The appearance of irreversibility in physical processes can be regarded as one of the most fundamental and studied problems in the history of Physics. In the context of Quantum Information, it has been pointed out that an irreversible loss of entanglement might be present in the process of entanglement distillation . That is, the amount of pure entanglement that can be distilled out of $`N`$ copies of some state $`\rho `$ might be strictly smaller than the one needed to create those copies if only local operations and classical communication (LOCC) are allowed and in the asymptotic limit ($`N\mathrm{}`$). Although when $`\rho `$ represents a pure state this process is known to be reversible , it is generally believed that for mixed states this is not the case . This last statement has not been proved so far . In this Letter we prove it, i.e. we show, by means of an example, that the process of entanglement distillation is inherently irreversible. We will also extend this result to a broader context set by catalytic local operations and classical communication (LOCCc) , where pure entanglement —to be subsequently returned— is loaned to assist the distillation process.

Perhaps, the strongest indication that we have so far of the irreversibility of entanglement distillation is given by the existence of so–called bound entangled states . Those are states from which no entanglement can be distilled but for which, in order to create a single copy, entanglement is required. Notice that, in spite of being very suggestive, this indication is not conclusive. It does not rule out the possibility that, in order to create a larger number of copies, the amount of entanglement needed per copy vanishes in the asymptotic limit. Although this seems unlikely, it has not been disproved so far. On the other hand, it is also not clear yet whether bound entangled states can be activated, and ultimately distilled, with the help of some borrowed pure entanglement. This would still leave an open door for some form of catalytic reversibility.

In the present work we will show that the bound entangled state with positive partial transposition (PPT) introduced in Ref.  has a non–vanishing entanglement cost in the asymptotic limit. We will also show that no more pure entanglement can be distilled from PPT states, than just the amount that may have been used in order to assist the distillation process. In this way, the irreversibility of the asymptotic manipulation of entanglement in the context of LOCC —and also in that of LOCCc— will immediately follow.

Let us formulate more precisely the problem. We consider two parties located in spatially separated regions and possessing $`N`$ copies of the state $`\rho `$. Let us consider a transformation $`\rho ^N\rho _N`$ which fulfills

$$\underset{N\mathrm{}}{lim}D(\rho _N^{},|\mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{\Psi }|^M)0,$$
(1)
for some integer $`M`$ depending on $`N`$, where $`|\mathrm{\Psi }(|0,1|1,0)/\sqrt{2}`$ is the two–qubit singlet state and $`D`$ is a properly chosen distance measure . The entanglement of distillation $`E_D(\rho )`$ is defined as the maximal asymptotic ratio $`M/N`$ with respect to all possible transformations which consist of LOCC . On the other hand, let us assume now that the parties possess $`M`$ two–qubit singlet states and they are able to transform them into the state $`\rho _M`$ fulfilling

$$\underset{M\mathrm{}}{lim}D(\rho _M,\rho ^N)0,$$
(2)
for some integer $`N`$. The entanglement cost $`E_C(\rho )`$ is defined as the minimal asymptotic ratio $`M/N`$ also with respect to all LOCC . The distillation process of a state $`\rho `$ is irreversible if $`E_D(\rho )<E_C(\rho )`$.

Let us consider a density operator $`\rho `$ acting on $`H_AH_B`$ and let us call $`P`$ the projector onto the range of $`\rho `$. Then, we have that the entanglement cost of $`\rho `$ can be bounded below as follows:

Theorem 1: If $`e,f|P^N|e,f\alpha ^N`$ for all normalized product vectors $`|e,f(H_A)^N(H_B)^N`$ then $`E_C(\rho )\mathrm{log}_2\alpha `$.

Proof: We will use the results of Ref.  where it is shown that

$$E_C(\rho )=\underset{N\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{E_f(\rho ^N)}{N},$$
(3)
where the limit exists. The entanglement of formation $`E_f`$ can be determined by considering decompositions of the form

$$\rho ^N=\underset{i}{}p_i|\mathrm{\Psi }_i\mathrm{\Psi }_i|,$$
(4)
and minimizing the quantity $`_ip_iE(\mathrm{\Psi }_i)`$ with respect to all possible decompositions. Here, $`E`$ denotes the entropy of entanglement . Writing the Schmidt decomposition $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_i=_kc_{i,k}|e_{i,k},f_{i,k}`$ we have that

$$|c_{i,k}|^2e_{i,k},f_{i,k}|P^N|e_{i,k},f_{i,k}\alpha ^N,$$
(5)
where the first inequality is a consequence of the fact that $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_i\mathrm{\Psi }_i|P^N`$, since all the vectors $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_i`$ must be in the range of $`\rho ^N`$. Given the fact that $`_k|c_{i,k}|^2=1`$ we have that $`E(\mathrm{\Psi }_i)N\mathrm{log}_2(\alpha )`$ for all $`i`$ and therefore $`_ip_iE(\mathrm{\Psi }_i)N\mathrm{log}_2(\alpha )`$ for all decompositions. $`\mathrm{}`$

Let us consider the bound entangled state $`\rho _b`$ introduced in Ref. , where $`H_A=H_B=\mathrm{I}\mathrm{C}^3`$. It is defined as $`\rho _bP_b/4`$, where $`P_b`$ is a projector operator onto the orthogonal complement to the subspace spanned by the following vectors:

$`|0`$ $``$ $`(|0+|1),`$ (6)
$`(|0+|1)`$ $``$ $`|2,`$ (7)
$`|2`$ $``$ $`(|1+|2),`$ (8)
$`(|1+|2)`$ $``$ $`|0,`$ (9)
$`(|0|1+|2)`$ $``$ $`(|0|1+|2).`$ (10)
This state has a positive partial transposition, and therefore it is not distillable ($`E_D(\rho _b)=0`$) . Later on we will elaborate on this result. Our goal for the time being is to show that $`E_C(\rho _b)>0`$.

We will use the following properties of the operator $`P_b`$:

$`1𝐥+P_b`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}|a_k,b_ka_k,b_k|,`$ (12)
$`\alpha _1`$ $``$ $`\underset{|e,f0}{sup}e,f|P_b|e,f<1.`$ (13)
The first equation indicates that the operator $`1𝐥+P_b`$ is separable. This can be proven by showing that the projector operators $`P_11𝐥|a_0,a_0a_0,a_0|`$ and $`P_2P_b+|a_0,a_0a_0,a_0|`$ are both separable, where $`|a_0=(|0|1+|2)/\sqrt{3}`$. First, choosing $`|a_1`$ and $`|a_2`$ in such a way that $`\{|a_k\}_{k=0}^2`$ forms an orthonormal basis one immediately sees that the range of $`P_1`$ is spanned by the mutually orthogonal product vectors $`|a_{k_1},a_{k_2}`$ where $`k_1,k_2=0,1,2`$ except for $`k_1=k_2=0`$ and therefore $`P_1`$ is separable. Analogously, the range of $`P_2`$ is spanned by the following mutually orthogonal product vectors

$`|0`$ $``$ $`(|0|1),`$ (14)
$`(|0|1)`$ $``$ $`|2,`$ (15)
$`|2`$ $``$ $`(|1|2),`$ (16)
$`(|1|2)`$ $``$ $`|0,`$ (17)
$`|1`$ $``$ $`|1.`$ (18)
The second equation is a direct consequence of the fact that the range of $`P_b`$ contains no product vectors and that $`e,f|P_b|e,f`$ is a continuous function of $`|e,f`$ defined on a compact set so that it reaches its supremum .

We will now show that for any normalized product vector $`|e^N,f^N`$ where $`|e^N,|f^N(\mathrm{I}\mathrm{C}^3)^N`$,

$$e^N,f^N|P_b^N|e^N,f^N<\beta ^N,$$
(19)
where $`\beta (1+\alpha _1)/2<1`$. Then, the above theorem readily implies that the entanglement cost $`E_C`$ of the bound entangled state $`\rho _b=P_b/4`$ (and of any mixed state with the same support $`P_b`$) is finite. We will use induction over the number of copies $`N`$ to show that Eq. (19) holds. First, for $`N=1`$ it is true because of Eq. (13) and $`\alpha _1<\beta `$. Now, let us assume that it is true for a given $`N`$. Then, for any product vector $`|e^{N+1},f^{N+1}(\mathrm{I}\mathrm{C}^3)^{N+1}(\mathrm{I}\mathrm{C}^3)^{N+1}`$ we have

$$e^{N+1},f^{N+1}|(1𝐥+P)[1𝐥\frac{1}{\beta ^N}P^N]|e^{N+1},f^{N+1}0.$$
(20)
The reason is that using (12) and defining $`|e_k^Na_k|e^{N+1}`$ and $`|f_k^Nb_k|f^{N+1}`$ we can write the lhs of this equation as

$$\underset{k}{}e_k^N,f_k^N|\left[1𝐥\frac{1}{\beta ^N}P^N\right]|e_k^N,f_k^N,$$
(21)
where all the terms in the sum are positive according to the induction hypothesis (19). Now, we can write

$$(1𝐥+P)\left[1𝐥\frac{1}{\beta ^N}P^N\right]1𝐥+P1𝐥\frac{2}{\beta ^N}P^{N+1}.$$
(22)
Substituting this expression in Eq. (20) we arrive at

$`e^{N+1},f^{N+1}|P^{N+1}|e^{N+1},f^{N+1}`$ (23)
$``$ $`\beta ^N{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(1+e^{N+1},f^{N+1}|P1𝐥|e^{N+1},f^{N+1})`$ (24)
$``$ $`\beta ^{N+1},`$ (25)
as we wanted to prove.

The very same techniques can be applied to obtain lower bounds for the entanglement cost $`E_C`$ also for more general mixed states. Notice that the relevant ingredients we have used are Eqs. (12) and (13), and that both conditions are only concerned with the support of the state $`\rho _b`$. Therefore, for any projector $`P`$ satisfying Eqs. (12) and (13), we get a non-trivial bound for the entanglement cost of any state supported on it .

We move now to consider the distillability of the PPT state $`\rho _b`$ and the extension of the irreversibility result to catalytic (i.e. LOCCc-based) distillation. In  it was shown that inseparable states $`\sigma _b`$ with PPT can not be distilled into two-qubit singlet states $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ using LOCC. The original proof relies on the fact that singlet states have a negative partial transposition (NPT), and LOCC cannot transform a PPT state into a NPT state. Notice, however, that if the parties initially share, in addition to the $`N`$ copies of the state $`\sigma _b`$, $`L`$ two-qubit singlet states $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$, then the original argument cannot be applied, because $`\sigma _b^N|\mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{\Psi }|^L`$ is a NPT state for any $`L1`$. And, then, maybe the transformation

$$\sigma _b^N|\mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{\Psi }|^L|\mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{\Psi }|^{M+L}$$
(26)
is asymptotically possible with some finite ratio $`M/N`$, in what would be a LOCCc distillation. Thus, our previous results for the state $`\rho _b`$ do not yet exclude the possibility that in the large $`N`$ limit the equivalence

$$\rho _b^N|\mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{\Psi }|^L|\mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{\Psi }|^{M+L}$$
(27)
under LOCC holds, i.e., that the distillation of $`\rho _b`$ can be turned into a reversible process using entanglement catalysis.

The following, general result on bound entanglement readily implies that $`\rho _b`$ is not distillable even with LOCCc, thereby providing an example of asymptotic irreversibility also in a broader sense than that of LOCC.

Theorem 2: Given $`N`$ copies of a PTT state $`\sigma _b`$ and $`N^{}`$ copies of some other state $`\sigma `$, the number of singlets that can be asymptotically distilled from them are, at most, the number of singlets required to create $`\sigma ^N^{}`$:

$$E_D(\sigma _b^N\sigma ^N^{})N^{}E_C(\sigma ),$$
(28)
which in particular means that

$`E_D(\sigma _b\sigma )E_C(\sigma );E_D(\sigma _b)=0.`$ (29)
Proof: Consider the upper bound on distillability given by the logarithmic negativity $`E_𝒩(\rho )\mathrm{log}_2\rho ^{T_B}_1`$ , where $`T_B`$ stands for partial transposition and $`A_1\text{tr}\sqrt{A^{}A}`$ is the trace norm of $`A`$. $`E_𝒩`$ is an additive function which vanishes for PPT states and is $`1`$ for singlet states. Therefore, for general $`N,L`$ we have

$$E_𝒩(\sigma _b^N|\mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{\Psi }|^L)=L,$$
(30)
which implies that at most $`L`$ single states can be distilled from $`\sigma _b^N|\mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{\Psi }|^L`$. Setting $`LN^{}E_C(\sigma )`$, and observing that such number of singlets is sufficient to create $`\sigma ^N^{}`$ locally, so that no more singlets can be distilled from $`\sigma _b^N\sigma ^N^{}`$ than from $`\sigma _b^N|\mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{\Psi }|^L`$, we obtain Eq. (28). $`\mathrm{}`$

Thus, an optimal LOCC transformation of the form of Eq. (26) has $`M=L`$, and pure entanglement does not help at distilling PPT states for LOCCc transformations . On the other hand it is easy to see that the entanglement cost of creating a mixed and a pure state is additive, so that

$$E_C(\sigma _b^N|\mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{\Psi }|^L)=NE_C(\rho )+L.$$
(31)
Then, when considering both the upper bound on distillability of Eq. (30) and the entanglement cost of Eq.(31), both applied to the PPT state $`\rho _b`$ for which we have proved that $`E_C(\rho _b)>0`$, we readily conclude that also the asymptotic LOCCc manipulation of entanglement is irreversible.

Summarizing, we have shown that the asymptotic entanglement cost $`E_C`$ for locally preparing a given bound entangled state $`\rho _b`$ is finite. Since no pure-state entanglement can be distilled from the state $`\rho _b`$ even in the asymptotic limit \[i.e. $`E_D(\rho _b)=0`$\], this result implies that the asymptotic interconversion, by means of LOCC, between pure- and mixed-state entanglement is in general not a reversible process. We have finally proved that such an irreversibility also occurs for asymptotic LOCCc transformations.

The authors acknowledge discussions with Jens Eisert, Paweł Horodecki, Maciej Lewenstein and Martin B. Plenio on the topic. This work was supported by the Austrian Science Foundation under the SFB “control and measurement of coherent quantum systems” (Project 11), the European Community under the TMR network ERB–FMRX–CT96–0087, project EQUIP (contract IST-1999-11053), and contract HPMF-CT-1999-00200, the European Science Foundation, and the Institute for Quantum Information GmbH. We thank the Erwin Schrödinger Institute for hosting us during the quantum information program, where some of the ideas of this work were developed.


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# Bound States in Curved Quantum Layers

## 1 Introduction

Relations between the geometry of a region $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ in $`^n`$, boundary conditions at $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, and spectral properties of the corresponding Laplacian are one of the vintage problems of mathematical physics. Recent years brought new motivations and focused attention to aspects of the problem which attracted little attention earlier.

A strong impetus comes from mesoscopic physics, where new experimental techniques make it possible to fabricate semiconductor systems which can be regarded with a reasonable degree of accuracy as waveguides, resonators, etc., for effectively free quantum particles. Often potential barriers at their boundaries can be modeled as a hard wall, in which case it is natural to identify the system Hamiltonian – up to a constant which is usually unimportant – with the Dirichlet Laplacian, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_D^\mathrm{\Omega }`$, defined as the Friedrichs extension – *cf.* Section 3.3. Moreover, the mentioned solid-state physics advances inspired new insights into the classical physics, because analogous problems involving Dirichlet Laplacian arise also in flat electromagnetic waveguides. For more information about the physical background see \[DE, LCM\] and references therein.

On the mathematical side a new interesting effect is the binding due to the curvature, supposed to be nonzero and asymptotically vanishing, of an infinitely stretched tubular region in $`^n`$, $`n=2,3`$. Such “trapped modes” may be generated by other local perturbations of a straight tube as well – see, *e.g.*, \[BGRS\] – but in the bent-tube case they are of a purely quantum origin because there are no classical closed trajectories, apart of a zero measure set of initial conditions in the phase space.

More generally, quantum motion in the vicinity of a manifold with a potential constraint or Dirichlet condition were studied long time ago \[JK, dC1, dC2, T\] in formal attempts to justify quantization on submanifolds. For a thin neighbourhood one excludes the transverse part of the Hamiltonian which gives rise to normal oscillations and the Hamiltonian is replaced by a tangential operator on the submanifold with the energy appropriately renormalized. Interest to this problem has been renewed recently when time evolution around a compact $`n`$-dimensional manifold in $`^{n+m}`$ was treated in a rigorous way and compared with the corresponding classical dynamics \[FH\]. The confinement was realized by a harmonic potential transverse to the manifold and the thin-neighborhood limit was performed by means of a dilation procedure followed by averaging in the normal direction. If the normal bundle is trivial, which is the case, *e.g.*, for manifolds of codimension one, the resulting tangential Hamiltonian contains two terms; the first is proportional to the Laplace-Beltrami operator on the constraint manifold and the second is an effective potential which depends not only on the intrinsic quantities, but also on the external curvature of the constraint manifold. Notice also that if $`^{n+m}`$ is replaced by a manifold of the same dimension, the effective potential depends also on the curvature of this ambient space \[M\].

The said potential is important also in the situation when the width of the “fat manifold” is finite and fixed. This was first noticed for bent planar Dirichlet strips in the paper \[EŠ\] which was followed by numerous studies on which the existence conditions and properties of the geometrically induced discrete spectrum were further investigated – see, in particular, \[GJ, DE, RB\], the first two papers also for a generalization to curved tubes in $`^3`$. On the other hand, much less is known about other possible generalizations of this problem to higher dimensions starting from the physically interesting case of curved layers in $`^3`$.

This is the question we address in the present paper. While the strategy will be the same as in the work mentioned above, using suitable curvilinear coordinates to transform the Laplacian, the two-dimensional character of the underlying manifold bring new features. To characterize them briefly, recall that in the simplest $`(1+1)`$-case the effective potential is $`\frac{1}{4}\kappa ^2`$, where $`\kappa `$ is the curvature, which is negative whenever the curvature is nonzero. In case of a layer, $`n=2`$ and $`m=1`$, which we consider here, the (leading term of the) effective potential is given by $`\frac{1}{4}(k_1k_2)^2`$ – see the derivation of (3.12) – where $`k_1,k_2`$ are the principal curvatures of the surface. This expression may vanish also if the surface is locally spherical, $`k_1=k_2`$, but the last relation cannot be valid everywhere at a non-compact surface unless the latter is a plane, $`k_1=k_2=0`$. Thus the effective potential has again an attractive component, which now combines with a more complicated tangential operator – the surface Laplace-Beltrami – since in distinction to a curve the surface cannot be fully rectified. This makes the layer case richer and more interesting.

## 2 Survey of the Paper

The ultimate objective of this work is to set a list of sufficient conditions to guarantee the existence of curvature-induced bound states. We restrict ourselves naturally to non-compact layers only, since the spectrum of the Dirichlet Laplacian in a bounded region of $`^n`$ is always discrete \[Dav, Chap. 6\].

The layer configuration space $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ itself is properly defined in Section 3 as a tubular neighbourhood of width $`d`$ built over a surface $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ embedded in $`^3`$ which is diffeomorphic to $`^2`$. To make it more visual, we can understand $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ as a part of $`^3`$ between a pair of parallel surfaces. From technical reasons we suppose from the beginning that the surface admits at least one *pole* from which we can parametrize the surface globally by geodesic polar coordinates. We stress already here that the existence of a pole in $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is a strong geometric assumption and that there may be no poles in general \[GM\]. We introduce first quantities describing the layer geometry and formulate some basic assumptions. In the subsequent part, the Dirichlet Laplacian, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_D^\mathrm{\Omega }`$, is expressed in terms of the couple $`q=(q^1,q^2)`$ of the surface (called also longitudinal) coordinates together with the normal (transverse) coordinate $`u`$.

In Section 4, we estimate the threshold of the essential spectrum of the Hamiltonian under the assumption $`\mathrm{\Sigma }0`$ that the reference surface is *asymptotically planar* in the sense that its Gauss and mean curvatures vanish at large distances. We find that this part of spectrum is bounded from below by $`\kappa _1^2:=\left(\frac{\pi }{d}\right)^2`$, which is the lowest transverse-mode energy.

Section 5 is dedicated to the analysis of the discrete part of the spectrum. We find here three sufficient conditions and illustrate them on examples. Since these results leave open the existence question for thick layers of positive total Gauss curvature, we present in Section 6 an alternative method, which covers the case of asymptotically planar layers that are cylindrically symmetric. Finally, we conclude in Section 7 by an example of a layer which has no bound states; the reference surface here is not asymptotically planar.

To state here the main results of the paper we need to mention some assumptions which will be discussed in more detail below: $`\mathrm{\Sigma }1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }2`$ means respectively the integrability of the Gauss curvature $`K`$ and the square of $`_gM`$, where $`M`$ is the mean curvature, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }1`$ requires the layer half-width to be less than the minimum normal curvature radius of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. The integral (total) curvatures corresponding to $`K`$ and $`M`$ are defined in (3.3).

###### Theorem 2.1.

Let $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ be a $`C^2`$-smooth complete simply connected non-compact surface with a pole embedded in $`^3`$. Let the layer $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ built over the surface be not self-intersecting. If the surface is not a plane but it is asymptotically planar, then any of the conditions

* $`\mathrm{\Sigma }1`$ and the *total Gauss curvature is non-positive*
* $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is $`C^3`$-smooth and the layer is *sufficiently thin*
* $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is $`C^3`$-smooth, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }1`$, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }2`$, and the *total mean curvature is infinite*
* $`\mathrm{\Sigma }1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is *cylindrically symmetric*

is sufficient for the Laplace operator $`\mathrm{\Delta }_D^\mathrm{\Omega }`$ to have at least one isolated eigenvalue of finite multiplicity below $`inf\sigma _{\mathrm{ess}}(\mathrm{\Delta }_D^\mathrm{\Omega })`$ for all the layer half-widths satisfying $`\mathrm{\Omega }1`$.

While this theorem covers various wide classes of layers, the list is not exhaustive. For instance, it remains to be clarified whether one can include also thick layers without cylindrical symmetry built over surfaces with strictly positive total Gauss curvature which, however, do not satisfy the assumption $`\mathrm{\Sigma }2`$. Another open question is whether one can replace $`\mathrm{\Sigma }1`$ by an assumption including the existence of the total Gauss curvature only, defined in the principal value sense. Finally, it is desirable to find existence results also for layers over more general surfaces which do not possess poles or are not diffeomorphic to $`^2`$.

Properties of the obtained curvature-induced bound states will be discussed elsewhere. Let us just mention that in analogy to bent strips \[DE\] one can perform the Birman-Schwinger analysis for slightly curved planar layers (weak-coupling regime) which yields the first term in the asymptotic expansion for the gap between the eigenvalue and the threshold of the essential spectrum. We also remark that the weak coupling analysis of bent “fat” manifolds is similar to that of a local one-sided deformation of a straight strip \[BGRS\] or planar layer \[BEGK\].

We use the standard component notation of the tensor analysis, the range of indices being $`1,2`$ for Greek and $`1,2,3`$ for Latin. The indices are associated with the above mentioned coordinates by $`(1,2,3)(q^1,q^2,u)(s,\vartheta ,u)`$. The partial derivatives are denoted by *commas*, however, we use also the *dot* notation for the derivatives w.r.t. $`s`$.

## 3 Preliminaries

Let $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ be a $`C^2`$-smooth surface in $`^3`$ which has at least one *pole*, *i.e.*, a point $`o\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ such that the exponential mapping, $`\mathrm{exp}_o:\text{T}_o\mathrm{\Sigma }\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, is a diffeomorphism. The existence of a pole in $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is a nontrivial assumption which has important topological consequences. In particular, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is necessarily diffeomorphic to $`^2`$ and as such it is simply connected and non-compact. Using the *geodesic polar coordinates* we can parametrize the surface (with exception of the pole $`o`$) by a unique patch $`p:\mathrm{\Sigma }_0^3`$, where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_0:=(0,\mathrm{})\times S^1`$. The tangent vectors $`p_{,\mu }:=p/q^\mu `$ are linearly independent and their cross-product defines a unit normal field $`n`$ on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$.

Put $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0:=\mathrm{\Sigma }_0\times (a,a)`$. We define a *layer* $`\mathrm{\Omega }:=(\mathrm{\Omega }_0)`$ of width $`d=2a>0`$ over the surface $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ by virtue of the mapping $`:\mathrm{\Omega }_0^3`$ which acts as (*cf.* \[Sp3, Prob. 12 of Chap. 3\])

$$(q,u):=p(q)+un(q).$$
(3.1)
### 3.1 The Surface Geometry

The induced surface metric in the geodesic polar coordinates has the diagonal form, $`(g_{\mu \nu })=diag(1,r^2)`$, where $`r^2g:=det(g_{\mu \nu })`$ is the square of the Jacobian of the exponential mapping which satisfies the classical Jacobi equation

$$\ddot{r}(s,\vartheta )+K(s,\vartheta )r(s,\vartheta )=0\text{with}r(0,\vartheta )=0,\dot{r}(0,\vartheta )=1.$$
(3.2)
The *Gauss curvature* $`K`$, together with the *mean curvature* $`M`$, can be determined via the Weingarten tensor $`h_\mu ^\nu `$*cf.* \[Kli, Prop. 3.5.5\].

By means of the invariant surface element, $`d\mathrm{\Sigma }:=g^{\frac{1}{2}}d^2q`$, we may introduce some global quantities characterizing $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, namely the *total Gauss curvature* $`𝒦`$ and the *total mean curvature* $``$ which are defined, respectively, by the integrals

$$𝒦:=_\mathrm{\Sigma }K𝑑\mathrm{\Sigma }\text{and}^2:=_\mathrm{\Sigma }M^2𝑑\mathrm{\Sigma }.$$
(3.3)
The latter always exists (it may be $`+\mathrm{}`$), while the former is well defined provided

$`\mathrm{\Sigma }1`$$`KL^1(\mathrm{\Sigma }_0,d\mathrm{\Sigma })`$

If this condition is not satisfied, one can understand the above integral as the principal-value defined through the area restricted by the geodesic circle $`p(s,)`$ of radius $`s\mathrm{}`$. Assuming $`𝒦`$ to be finite, an integration of (3.2) yields the following useful estimate

$$C>0s(0,\mathrm{}):_0^{2\pi }r(s,\vartheta )d\vartheta Cs.$$
(3.4)
The norm and the inner product in the Hilbert space $`L^2(\mathrm{\Sigma }_0,d\mathrm{\Sigma })`$ will be indicated by the subscript “$`g`$”.

### 3.2 The Layer Geometry

It is clear from the definition (3.1) that the metric tensor of the layer (as a manifold with boundary in $`^3`$) has the block form

$$(G_{ij})=\left(\begin{array}{cc}(G_{\mu \nu })& 0\\ 0& 1\end{array}\right)\text{with}G_{\nu \mu }=(\delta _\nu ^\sigma uh_\nu ^\sigma )(\delta _\sigma ^\rho uh_\sigma ^\rho )g_{\rho \mu }.$$
(3.5)
This formula is well suited for calculation of the determinant, $`G:=det(G_{ij})`$, because the eigenvalues of the matrix of the Weingarten map are the *principal curvatures* $`k_1,k_2`$, and $`K=k_1k_2`$, $`M=\frac{1}{2}(k_1+k_2)`$. Hence

$$G=g\left[(1uk_1)(1uk_2)\right]^2=g(12Mu+Ku^2)^2.$$
(3.6)
In particular, this expression defines through $`d\mathrm{\Omega }:=G^{\frac{1}{2}}d^2qdu`$ the volume element of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$.

Henceforth, we shall assume

$`\mathrm{\Omega }0`$$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is not self-intersecting*i.e.*, $``$ is injective.

We have to require also that $``$ is a diffeomorphism. In view of the regularity assumptions imposed on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ and the inverse function theorem, it is equivalent to assuming that $`12Mu+Ku^2`$ does not vanish on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$, which can be guaranteed by imposing a restriction on the layer thickness:

$`\mathrm{\Omega }1`$$`a<\rho _m:=\left(\mathrm{max}\{k_1_{\mathrm{}},k_2_{\mathrm{}}\}\right)^1`$

The number $`\rho _m`$ is naturally interpreted as the *minimal normal curvature radius* of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ (for planar surfaces one can put $`\rho _m:=\mathrm{}`$). It follows from (3.5) that $`C_{}12Mu+Ku^2C_+`$ holds with $`C_\pm :=\left(1\pm a\rho _m^1\right)^2`$. The lower bound explains why we assume $`\mathrm{\Omega }1`$ (together with $`\mathrm{\Omega }0`$) to get the global diffeomorphism. On the other hand, the supremum norms in the definition of $`\rho _m`$ are necessarily finite since a meaningful layer must have a non-zero width. Another consequence of the considerations is that under the assumption $`\mathrm{\Omega }1`$, $`G_{\mu \nu }`$ can be immediately estimated by the surface metric,

$$C_{}g_{\mu \nu }G_{\mu \nu }C_+g_{\mu \nu }\text{with}0<C_{}1C_+<4.$$
(3.7)
###### Remark.

We stress the following which will be supposed through all the paper but will not be always referred to hereafter:

We consider surfaces which can be parametrized by means of the geodesic polar coordinates. This requires the existence of at least one pole.

Since $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is assumed to be of class $`C^2`$, the surface curvatures $`K,M`$ are $`C^0`$ and as such bounded locally.

Moreover, since we assume layers with non-zero widths, the principal curvatures have to be bounded uniformly on all $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_0`$ due to $`\mathrm{\Omega }1`$. By virtue of the relation between $`k_1,k_2`$ and $`K,M`$, the same is true for the latter.

### 3.3 The Hamiltonian

After these geometric preliminaries let us define the Hamiltonian of our model. We consider a nonrelativistic spinless particle confined to $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ which is free within it and suppose that the boundary of the layer is a hard wall, *i.e.*, the wavefunctions satisfy the Dirichlet boundary condition there. For the sake of simplicity we set Planck’s constant $`\mathrm{}=1`$ and the mass of the particle $`m=\frac{1}{2}`$. Then the Hamiltonian can be identified with the Dirichlet Laplacian $`\mathrm{\Delta }_D^\mathrm{\Omega }`$ on $`L^2(\mathrm{\Omega })`$, which is defined for an open set $`\mathrm{\Omega }^3`$ as the Friedrichs extension of the free Laplacian with the domain defined initially on $`C_0^{\mathrm{}}(\mathrm{\Omega })`$*cf.* \[RS4, Sec. XIII.15\] or \[Dav, Chap. 6\]. The domain of the closure of the corresponding quadratic form is the Sobolev space $`W_0^{1,2}(\mathrm{\Omega })`$.

A natural way to investigate this operator is to pass to the coordinates $`(q,u)`$ in which it acquires the Laplace-Beltrami form ($`G_{ij}G^{jk}:=\delta _i^k`$)

$$H:=G^{\frac{1}{2}}_iG^{\frac{1}{2}}G^{ij}_j\text{on}L^2(\mathrm{\Omega }_0,G^{\frac{1}{2}}d^2qdu).$$
(3.8)
This coordinate change is nothing else than the unitary transformation

$$U:L^2(\mathrm{\Omega })L^2(\mathrm{\Omega }_0,d\mathrm{\Omega }):\{\psi U\psi :=\psi \}$$

which relates the two operators by $`H=U(\mathrm{\Delta }_D^\mathrm{\Omega })U^1`$. If $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is not $`C^3`$-smooth, the operator $`H`$ has to be understood in the form sense

$$Q[\psi ]:=H^{\frac{1}{2}}\psi _G^2=(\psi _{,i},G^{ij}\psi _{,j})_G,DomQ=W_0^{1,2}(\mathrm{\Omega }_0,d\mathrm{\Omega }).$$
(3.9)
Here the subscript “$`G`$” indicates the norm and the inner product in the Hilbert space of (3.8). Employing the block form (3.5) of $`G_{ij}`$, we can split $`H`$ into a sum of two parts, $`H=H_1+H_2`$, given by

$`H_1`$ $`:=`$ $`G^{\frac{1}{2}}_\mu G^{\frac{1}{2}}G^{\mu \nu }_\nu =_\mu G^{\mu \nu }_\nu 2F_{,\mu }G^{\mu \nu }_\nu `$ (3.10)
$`H_2`$ $`:=`$ $`G^{\frac{1}{2}}_3G^{\frac{1}{2}}_3=_3^22{\displaystyle \frac{KuM}{12Mu+Ku^2}}_3,`$ (3.11)
where we have introduced $`F:=\mathrm{ln}G^{\frac{1}{4}}`$ and expressed $`F_{,3}`$ explicitly for $`H_2`$ .

At the same time, it is useful to have an alternative form of the Hamiltonian which has the factor $`12Mu+Ku^2`$ removed from the weight $`G^{\frac{1}{2}}`$ of the inner product. It is obtained by another unitary transformation,

$$\widehat{U}:L^2(\mathrm{\Omega }_0,d\mathrm{\Omega })L^2(\mathrm{\Omega }_0,d\mathrm{\Sigma }du):\{\psi \widehat{U}\psi :=(12Mu+Ku^2)^{\frac{1}{2}}\psi \},$$

which leads to the unitarily equivalent operator $`\widehat{H}:=\widehat{U}H\widehat{U}^1`$. This operator makes sense if we impose a stronger regularity assumption on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, namely that the latter is piecewise $`C^4`$-smooth (or $`C^3`$ if $`\widehat{H}`$ is considered in the form sense). The operator $`\widehat{H}`$ can be rewritten by means of an effective potential $`V`$ using $`J:=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{ln}(12Mu+Ku^2)`$ as follows

$$\widehat{H}=g^{\frac{1}{2}}_ig^{\frac{1}{2}}G^{ij}_j+V,V=g^{\frac{1}{2}}(g^{\frac{1}{2}}G^{ij}J_{,j})_{,i}+J_{,i}G^{ij}J_{,j}$$

and again, employing the particular form of $`G_{ij}`$, the operator $`\widehat{H}`$ can be split into a sum, $`\widehat{H}_1+\widehat{H}_2`$. The first operator is defined by the part of $`\widehat{H}`$ where one sums over the Greek indices and

$$\widehat{H}_2=_3^2+V_2,V_2=\frac{KM^2}{(12Mu+Ku^2)^2}.$$

To motivate the considerations of the following sections let us look at this transformed operator from a heuristic point if view. While the operator $`\widehat{H}_1+V_2`$ depends on all the three coordinates, in thin layers ($`a\rho _m`$) its leading term depends up to an error $`𝒪(a\rho _m^1)`$ on the longitudinal coordinates $`q`$ only. One can estimate the former in the form sense by means of (3.7) and use the fact that $`C_\pm =1+𝒪(a\rho _m^1)`$. The transverse coordinate $`u`$ is isolated in $`\widehat{H}_2V_2=_3^2`$, so up to higher-order terms in $`a`$ the Hamiltonian decouples into a sum of the operators

$$H_q:=g^{\frac{1}{2}}_\mu g^{\frac{1}{2}}g^{\mu \nu }_\nu +KM^2\text{and}H_u:=_3^2,$$
(3.12)
the first one being the Laplace-Beltrami operator of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, except for the additional potential $`KM^2`$ which can be rewritten by means of the principal curvatures as $`\frac{1}{4}(k_1k_2)^2`$. This is the attractive interaction mentioned in the introduction. Let us remark that similar Laplace-Beltrami operators penalized by a quadratic function of the curvature lead on compact surfaces to interesting isoperimetric problems \[H, HL, EHL, F\].

In what follows we shall use the family of eigenfunctions $`\{\chi _n\}_{n=1}^{\mathrm{}}`$ of the transverse operator $`(_3^2)_D`$ which is given by

$$\chi _n:=\{\begin{array}{cc}\sqrt{\frac{2}{d}}\mathrm{cos}\kappa _nu\hfill & \text{if }n\text{ is odd},\hfill \\ \sqrt{\frac{2}{d}}\mathrm{sin}\kappa _nu\hfill & \text{if }n\text{ is even}.\hfill \end{array}$$

Here $`\kappa _n^2:=(\kappa _1n)^2`$ with $`\kappa _1:=\pi /d`$ are the corresponding eigenvalues.

## 4 Essential Spectrum

The essential spectrum of a planar layer ($`K,M0`$) is clearly $`[\kappa _1^2,\mathrm{})`$. By a bracketing argument \[DEK, Sec. 3.1\] and using an appropriate Weyl sequence, it is easy to see that the same remains true if $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is obtained by a compactly supported deformation of a planar layer. In this section we will prove the inclusion $`\sigma _{\mathrm{ess}}(\mathrm{\Delta }_D^\mathrm{\Omega })[\kappa _1^2,\mathrm{})`$ under the assumption that the surface $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is *asymptotically planar* in the sense

$`\mathrm{\Sigma }0`$$`K,M0`$ as $`s\mathrm{}`$

###### Theorem 4.1.

Suppose *$`\mathrm{\Omega }0`$*, *$`\mathrm{\Omega }1`$* and assume that the surface is asymptotically planar *$`\mathrm{\Sigma }0`$*. Then

$$inf\sigma _{\mathrm{ess}}(\mathrm{\Delta }_D^\mathrm{\Omega })\kappa _1^2.$$

###### Proof:.

We divide the layer $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ into an exterior and interior part by putting $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{ext}}:=(\mathrm{\Omega }_{0,s_0})`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{int}}:=\mathrm{\Omega }\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}_{\mathrm{ext}}`$, respectively, where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{0,s_0}:=\mathrm{\Sigma }_{0,s_0}\times (a,a)`$, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{0,s_0}:=(s_0,\mathrm{})\times S^1`$ for some $`s_0>0`$. Imposing the Neumann boundary condition at the common boundary of the two parts, $`s=s_0`$, we arrive at the decoupled Hamiltonian $`H^N=H_{\mathrm{int}}^NH_{\mathrm{ext}}^N`$. More precisely, it is obtained as the operator associated with the quadratic form $`Q^N`$ acting as (3.9), however with the domain $`DomQ^N:=DomQ_{\mathrm{int}}^NDomQ_{\mathrm{ext}}^N`$ where

$$DomQ_\omega ^N:=\{\psi W^{1,2}(\mathrm{\Omega }_\omega ,d\mathrm{\Omega })|\psi (,\pm a)=0\},\omega \{\mathrm{int},\mathrm{ext}\}.$$

Since $`HH^N`$ and the spectrum of $`H_{\mathrm{int}}^N`$ is purely discrete \[Dav, Chap. 7\], the minimax principle gives the estimate $`inf\sigma _{\mathrm{ess}}(H)inf\sigma _{\mathrm{ess}}(H_{\mathrm{ext}}^N)inf\sigma (H_{\mathrm{ext}}^N)`$. Hence it is sufficient to find a lower bound on $`H_{\mathrm{ext}}^N`$. However, by virtue of (3.9) and (3.5), we have for all $`\psi DomQ_{\mathrm{ext}}^N`$:

$`Q_{\mathrm{ext}}^N[\psi ]`$ $``$ $`\psi _{,3}_{G,\mathrm{ext}}^2\underset{\mathrm{\Omega }_{0,s_0}}{inf}\{12Mu+Ku^2\}\psi _{,3}_{L^2(\mathrm{\Omega }_0,d\mathrm{\Sigma }du),\mathrm{ext}}^2`$
$``$ $`\left(1\underset{\mathrm{\Sigma }_{0,s_0}}{sup}\{2a|M|+a^2|K|\}\right)\kappa _1^2\psi _{L^2(\mathrm{\Omega }_0,d\mathrm{\Sigma }du),\mathrm{ext}}^2`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1sup_{\mathrm{\Sigma }_{0,s_0}}\{2a|M|+a^2|K|\}}{1+sup_{\mathrm{\Sigma }_{0,s_0}}\{2a|M|+a^2|K|\}}}\kappa _1^2\psi _{G,\mathrm{ext}}^2`$
$`=:`$ $`\left(1+ϵ(s_0)\right)\kappa _1^2\psi _{G,\mathrm{ext}}^2,`$
where $`ϵ`$ denotes a function which goes to zero as $`s_0\mathrm{}`$ due to $`\mathrm{\Sigma }0`$. The subscript “$`\mathrm{ext}`$” indicates the restriction of the norm to the exterior part. In the second line we have used $`(_3^2)_D\kappa _1^2`$. The claim then easily follows by the fact that $`s_0`$ can be chosen arbitrarily large. ∎

###### Remark.

This threshold estimate is sufficient for the subsequent investigation of the discrete spectrum which is our goal in this paper. In order to show that all energies above $`\kappa _1^2`$ belong to the spectrum, one has to construct an appropriate Weyl sequence to check the opposite conclusion $`\sigma _{\mathrm{ess}}(\mathrm{\Delta }_D^\mathrm{\Omega })[\kappa _1^2,\mathrm{})`$. This can be done under an assumption stronger than $`\mathrm{\Sigma }0`$ which involves derivatives of the Weingarten tensor as well.

## 5 Discrete Spectrum

The aim of this section is to prove three different conditions sufficient for the Hamiltonian to have a non-empty spectrum below $`\kappa _1^2`$. Since we have shown that the essential spectrum does not start below this value for the layers built over asymptotically planar surfaces, the conditions yields immediately the existence of curvature-induced bound states. All the proofs here are based on the variational idea of finding a trial function $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ from the form domain of $`H`$ such that

$$\stackrel{~}{Q}[\mathrm{\Psi }]:=Q[\mathrm{\Psi }]\kappa _1^2\mathrm{\Psi }_G^2<0.$$

It is convenient to split $`Q`$ into two parts, $`Q=Q_1+Q_2`$, which are associated with $`H_1`$ and $`H_2`$ of (3.10) and (3.11), respectively.

A powerful method in these situation is to construct a trial function by deforming the transverse-threshold resonance wavefunction separately in the central and tail regions. The idea goes back to Goldstone and Jaffe \[GJ\], see also \[DE, Thm. 2.1\]\[RB\] and \[DEK, Sec. 3.2\].

###### Theorem 5.1.

Assume *$`\mathrm{\Omega }0`$*, *$`\mathrm{\Omega }1`$*, *$`\mathrm{\Sigma }1`$*, and suppose that $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is not planar. If the surface has a non-positive total Gauss curvature, *i.e.*, $`𝒦0`$, then

$$inf\sigma (\mathrm{\Delta }_D^\mathrm{\Omega })<\kappa _1^2.$$

###### Proof:.

We begin the construction of $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ by considering a radially symmetric function $`\psi (s,\vartheta ,u):=\phi (s)\chi _1(u)`$ where $`\phi `$ is arbitrary for a moment. Employing the explicit form (3.11) of $`H_2`$ we get immediately

$$Q_2[\psi ]\kappa _1^2\psi _G^2=(\phi ,K\phi )_g,$$
(5.1)
while the “longitudinal kinetic part” $`Q_1(\psi )`$ can be estimated by virtue of (3.7) and (3.4) as

$$Q_1[\psi ]C_1_0^{\mathrm{}}|\dot{\phi }(s)|^2s𝑑s.$$
(5.2)
The r.h.s. of this inequality depends on the surface geometry through the constant $`C_1:=(C_+/C_{})^2C`$ only. To make this integral arbitrarily small we replace $`\phi `$ by the family $`\{\phi _\sigma :\sigma (0,1]\}`$ of elements which are equal to $`1`$ on a compact set, $`ss_0`$, for some $`s_0>0`$, and outside they are given by scaled Macdonald functions \[AS, Sec. 9.6\]:

$$\phi _\sigma (s):=\mathrm{min}\{1,\frac{K_0(\sigma s)}{K_0(\sigma s_0)}\}.$$

Since $`K_0`$ is strictly decreasing, the corresponding $`\psi _\sigma :=\phi _\sigma \chi _1`$ will not be smooth at $`s=s_0`$ but it remains continuous, hence it is an admissible trial function as an element of $`DomQ`$. Using the properties of the Macdonald function \[AS, Sec. 9.6\] and \[GR, 5.54\], it is now easy to verify that for $`\sigma s_0`$ small enough

$$C_2>0:_0^{\mathrm{}}|\dot{\phi }_\sigma (s)|^2sds<\frac{C_2}{|\mathrm{ln}\sigma s_0|}$$
(5.3)
and therefore $`Q_1[\psi _\sigma ]0+`$ as $`\sigma 0+`$. On the other hand, since we assume $`\mathrm{\Sigma }1`$ and $`|\phi _\sigma |1`$ together with $`\phi _\sigma 1`$ pointwise as $`\sigma 0+`$, we get by the dominated convergence theorem that (5.1) (after the replacement $`\psi \psi _\sigma `$) converges to $`𝒦`$. Thus, by choosing $`\sigma `$ small enough, $`\stackrel{~}{Q}[\psi _\sigma ]`$ can be made strictly negative if the total Gauss curvature is strictly negative too.

In order to deal with the case $`𝒦=0`$, in analogy to \[GJ\] we construct the trial function by a small deformation of $`\psi _\sigma `$ in the central region. We set $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{\sigma ,\epsilon }:=\psi _\sigma +\epsilon \mathrm{\Theta }`$ where $`\mathrm{\Theta }(q,u):=j(q)u\chi _1(u)`$ with $`jC_0^{\mathrm{}}((0,s_0)\times S^1)`$. Since $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ is evidently a function from $`DomQ`$ as well, we can write

$$\stackrel{~}{Q}[\mathrm{\Psi }_{\sigma ,\epsilon }]=\stackrel{~}{Q}[\psi _\sigma ]+2\epsilon \stackrel{~}{Q}(\mathrm{\Theta },\psi _\sigma )+\epsilon ^2\stackrel{~}{Q}[\mathrm{\Theta }].$$
(5.4)
An explicit calculation where one employs the fact that the scaling acts out of the support of the localization function $`j`$ yields: $`\stackrel{~}{Q}(\mathrm{\Theta },\psi _\sigma )=(j,M)_g`$, which can be made non-zero by choosing $`j`$ supported on a compact where $`M`$ does not change sign. Let us stress that it is independent of $`\sigma `$, because $`\phi _\sigma =1`$ on $`suppj`$; the same is true for $`\stackrel{~}{Q}[\mathrm{\Theta }]`$. Now such a compact surely exists because it is supposed that $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is not a plane and we can take the parameter $`s_0`$ arbitrarily large. If we choose now the sign of $`\epsilon `$ in such a way that the second term on the r.h.s. of (5.4) is negative, then also the sum with the last term will be negative for sufficiently small $`\epsilon `$, and we can choose $`\sigma `$ so small that $`\stackrel{~}{Q}(\mathrm{\Psi }_{\sigma ,\epsilon })<0`$ because $`\stackrel{~}{Q}(\psi _\sigma )𝒦=0`$ as $`\sigma 0+`$ here. ∎

###### Remarks.

(a) The special choice of the Macdonald function $`K_0`$ for the mollifier $`\phi `$ is not indispensable. In analogy to \[GJ\] or \[DE, Thm. 2.1\] we need a family of suitable functions scaled exterior to $`(0,s_0)`$ in such a way that the integral (5.2) tends to zero as $`\sigma 0+`$. However, since this integral contains the extra factor $`s`$ (the relic of integration in a higher dimension) we have to be more careful about the decay properties. We have adopted for this purpose the mollifier employed in \[EV, BCEZ\], which is the most natural in a sense, because it employs the Green function kernel of the free 2-dimensional Laplacian at zero energy. Nevertheless, we would have succeeded equally if we had chosen for the scaled tail, *e.g.*, a compactly supported function similar to that of the proof of Theorem 6.2.

(b) In the case $`𝒦=0`$ we have not used the deformation proposed in \[DE\]: $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Theta }}:=\stackrel{~}{ȷ}^2(H\kappa _1^2)\psi _\sigma `$ with $`\stackrel{~}{ȷ}C_0^{\mathrm{}}((0,s_0)\times S^1\times (a,a))`$, because it requires an extra condition on the surface regularity. The analogous condition in the strip case has been forgotten in \[DE, Thm. 2.1\]. Moreover, the localization function $`j`$ used here is simpler since it is independent of $`u`$.

A class of layers to which the above theorem applies is represented by those built over *Cartan-Hadamard surfaces*, *i.e.*, geodesically complete simply connected non-compact surfaces with non-positive Gauss curvature. In view of the Cartan-Hadamard theorem \[Kli, Thm. 6.6.4\] each point is a pole and we can therefore construct infinitely many geodesic polar coordinate systems. Excluding the trivial planar case, the total Gauss curvature is always strictly negative and so all these layers possess at least one bound state provided they are asymptotically planar, $`𝒦`$ is finite, and the assumptions $`\mathrm{\Omega }0`$$`\mathrm{\Omega }1`$ are satisfied.

###### EXAMPLE 1 (Hyperbolic Paraboloid).

The simple quadric given in $`^3`$ by the equation $`z=x^2y^2`$ is an asymptotically planar surface with $`𝒦=2\pi `$.

###### EXAMPLE 2 (Monkey Saddle).

Take $`z=x^33xy^2`$. One can again check that $`\mathrm{\Sigma }0`$ holds true and the total Gauss curvature now equals $`4\pi `$.

A family of layers of the limit case $`𝒦=0`$ was investigated in \[DEK\]. We consider there compactly supported deformations of a planar layer for which the zero value of $`𝒦`$ follows at once by the Gauss-Bonnet theorem. If such a deformed plane contains at least one pole, all the spectral results are trivial consequences of the present Theorems 4.1 and 5.1. On the other hand, the results of \[DEK\] are more general in the sense that due to the compact support assumption the technique works without the requirement on the existence of a pole.

###### EXAMPLE 3 (Compactly Perturbed Plane without Poles).

Suppose that a plane with a circular hole is connected via a cylindrical tube perpendicular to it with a pierced sphere. Both interfaces can be made as smooth as needed. If the tube is sufficiently long there is only one pole $`o`$ provided the surface has a cylindrical symmetry w.r.t. the axis of the tube; it coincides with the intersection of the axis with the sphere. If we break now the symmetry by taking an ellipsoid instead of the sphere, we destroy the injectivity of the exponential mapping $`\mathrm{exp}_o`$ without creating new poles.

The Goldstone-Jaffe trick of choosing the ground state of the transverse operator as the generalized annulator of the shifted energy form $`\stackrel{~}{Q}`$ has proven its usefulness as a robust argument for demonstrating the existence of bound states. However, in the present context it reaches its limits because the above proof does not work for layers built over surfaces with positive total curvature, for instance:

###### EXAMPLE 4 (Elliptic Paraboloid).

The surfaces $`z=(x/x_0)^2+(y/y_0)^2`$ with $`x_0,y_0>0`$ are asymptotically planar but $`𝒦=2\pi >0`$. They always contain two poles given by its umbilics which coincide if it is a paraboloid of revolution.

On the other hand, due to the heuristic argument based on (3.12) one expects existence of bound states in any non-planar layer thin enough. This is indeed true. This fact together with another sufficient condition are established in the next theorem.

###### Theorem 5.2.

Assume *$`\mathrm{\Omega }0`$**$`\mathrm{\Omega }1`$*, and suppose that $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is $`C^3`$-smooth, non-planar and obeys in addition

$`\mathrm{\Sigma }2`$$`_gML^2(\mathrm{\Sigma }_0,d\mathrm{\Sigma })`$

Then $`inf\sigma (\mathrm{\Delta }_D^\mathrm{\Omega })<\kappa _1^2`$ if one of the following two conditions is satisfied:

* the layer is sufficiently thin, *i.e.*, $`d`$ is small enough,
* $`\mathrm{\Sigma }1`$ and the total mean curvature is infinite, *i.e.*, $`=\mathrm{}`$.

For brevity we have introduced here the non-component notation $`_g`$ for the covariant derivative on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$.

###### Proof:.

We use $`\mathrm{\Psi }_\sigma (s,\vartheta ,u):=\left(1+M(s,\vartheta )u\right)\psi _\sigma (s,u)`$, where $`\psi _\sigma =\phi _\sigma \chi _1`$ is the trial function defined in the first part of the proof of Theorem 5.1. Under the stated regularity assumption, $`\mathrm{\Psi }_\sigma `$ is an admissible trial function, *i.e.*, it belongs to $`DomQ`$. Using (3.7) together with Minkovski’s inequality and (3.11), we get

$`Q_1[\mathrm{\Psi }_\sigma ]`$ $`2(C_+/C_{})^2\left(\left(1+aM_{\mathrm{}}\right)^2\dot{\phi }_\sigma _g^2+a^2\phi _\sigma _gM_g^2\right)`$
$`Q_2[\mathrm{\Psi }_\sigma ]\kappa _1^2\mathrm{\Psi }_\sigma _G^2`$ $`=(\phi _\sigma ,(KM^2)\phi _\sigma )_g+{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^26}{12\kappa _1^2}}(\phi _\sigma ,KM^2\phi _\sigma )_g.`$
We start by checking the second sufficient condition. We recall that due to $`\mathrm{\Omega }1`$, $`K`$ and $`M`$ are uniformly bounded. Thus, thanks to $`\mathrm{\Sigma }2`$ and the hypotheses assumed in (b), it follows that $`\stackrel{~}{Q}[\mathrm{\Psi }_\sigma ]\mathrm{}`$ as $`\sigma 0+`$.

We pass now to the first sufficient condition. Since $`KM^2`$ is negative – *cf.* (3.12) – continuous and the surface is supposed to be non-planar, the first term at the r.h.s. of the second line is strictly negative, say $`c^2`$, for sufficiently large value of $`s_0`$ (the radius of the disc where $`\psi _\sigma =\chi _1`$). On the other hand, $`\dot{\phi }_\sigma _g`$ is estimated by (5.3), so we can choose $`\sigma `$ so small that it is less than $`c^2/3`$. Now we choose the layer half-width $`a`$ so small that the sum of the remaining terms of the estimated $`\stackrel{~}{Q}[\mathrm{\Psi }_\sigma ]`$ is less than $`c^2/3`$ as well. For this we recall that $`\kappa _1^2`$ is proportional to $`a^2`$. Hence $`\stackrel{~}{Q}[\mathrm{\Psi }_\sigma ]c^2/3<0`$ for $`\sigma ,d`$ small enough. ∎

###### Remark.

In order to obtain the first sufficient condition, one can replace $`\mathrm{\Sigma }2`$ by an assumption on the boundedness of $`_gM`$. Moreover, if we had used the compactly supported function $`\phi _n`$ from the proof of Theorem 6.2 below instead of $`\phi _\sigma `$, it would have been sufficient to assume that $`_gM`$ was bounded locally only, which is exactly the situation when $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is of class $`C^3`$. This is why $`\mathrm{\Sigma }2`$ is not included in the thin layer case of Theorem 2.1.

We believe that the hypothesis $`\mathrm{\Sigma }2`$ is technical – *cf.* Example 6. Even with it, however, the class of layers possessing bound states without any restriction on the layer thickness other than $`\mathrm{\Omega }1`$ is extended significantly. For instance, it is an easy exercise to verify that all the conditions of Theorem 5.2 (b) are fulfilled for the elliptic paraboloids and many other surfaces with a positive total Gauss curvature. Removing this technical condition is still an open question except for layers endowed with the cylindrical symmetry which we shall discuss below.

## 6 Cylindrically Symmetric Layers

Consider now layers which are invariant w.r.t. rotations around a fixed axis in $`^3`$. We may thus suppose that $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is a surface of revolution parametrized by $`p:\mathrm{\Sigma }_0^3`$,

$$p(s,\vartheta ):=(r(s)\mathrm{cos}\vartheta ,r(s)\mathrm{sin}\vartheta ,z(s)),\text{where}r,zC^2\left((0,\mathrm{})\right),r>0.$$

It will be the geodesic polar coordinate chart if we impose the following condition on the *canonical* parametrization,

$$\dot{r}^2+\dot{z}^2=1;\text{then also}\dot{r}\ddot{r}+\dot{z}\ddot{z}=0.$$
(6.1)
An explicit calculation yields the diagonal form of the Weingarten tensor, $`(h_\mu ^\nu )=diag(k_s,k_\vartheta )`$, with the principal curvatures $`k_s=\dot{r}\ddot{z}\ddot{r}\dot{z}`$ and $`k_\vartheta =\dot{z}r^1`$. In fact, it is sufficient to know the function $`sk_s(s)`$ only, since $`r,z`$ can be constructed from the relations

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill r(s)& =_0^s\mathrm{cos}b(\xi )𝑑\xi \hfill \\ \hfill z(s)& =_0^s\mathrm{sin}b(\xi )𝑑\xi \hfill \end{array}\text{with}b(s):=_0^sk_s(\xi )𝑑\xi .$$
(6.2)
Recall that by Theorem 5.1 the spectrum bottom of any layer is strictly less than the first transverse eigenvalue provided $`𝒦0`$. However, only the case $`𝒦=0`$ is relevant to the present situation of surfaces of revolution, because by the Gauss-Bonnet theorem (see also (3.2))

$$𝒦+2\pi \dot{r}(\mathrm{})=2\pi ,\text{where}\dot{r}(\mathrm{}):=\underset{s\mathrm{}}{lim}r(s),$$
(6.3)
and $`\dot{r}(\mathrm{})>1`$ is not allowed because of (6.1). Notice, on the other hand, that $`\dot{r}(\mathrm{})`$ always exists since the existence of the total Gauss curvature is supposed. Moreover, the positivity of $`r`$ requires $`𝒦2\pi `$.

The goal of this section is to show that in the present special case of symmetric layers $`inf\sigma (\mathrm{\Delta }_D^\mathrm{\Omega })<\kappa _1^2`$ holds true also for all admissible strictly positive values of $`𝒦`$, irrespective of the layer thickness. Our argument requires to exclude here the extreme case $`𝒦=0`$ for which the result is already known, without any symmetry assumption. Hereafter we will therefore assume that $`0\dot{r}(\mathrm{})<1`$. It follows that there exist $`0<\delta ^{}<\frac{1}{2}`$ and $`s_0>0`$ such that for all $`ss_0`$ one has $`\delta ^{}\dot{r}(s)1\delta ^{}`$. Using now the explicit dependence of $`k_\vartheta `$ on $`r,\dot{z}`$ and (6.1), we obtain the essential ingredients of our strategy:

###### Lemma 6.1.

Assume $`𝒦>0`$. There exist $`\delta >0`$ and $`s_0>0`$ such that

$$ss_0:\frac{\delta }{r(s)}|k_\vartheta (s)|\frac{1}{r(s)}\text{and}k_\vartheta (s)\text{does not change sign}.$$

In particular, employing (3.4), it follows that $`k_\vartheta `$ is not integrable in $`L^1(^+)`$. On the other hand, the meridian curvature $`k_s`$ is integrable under the assumption $`\mathrm{\Sigma }1`$, which is seen by the regularity properties imposed on $`p`$ and the following estimate

$$\mathrm{}>_0^{\mathrm{}}|K(s)|r(s)𝑑s_{s_0}^{\mathrm{}}|k_s(s)k_\vartheta (s)|r(s)𝑑s\delta _{s_0}^{\mathrm{}}|k_s(s)|𝑑s.$$

This is the essence of what we are going to use in our method. Even if $`M`$ may decay at infinity it is not negligible in the integral sense there. However, $`K`$ is supposed to be integrable and it will enable us to eliminate the unpleasant contribution of the corresponding total curvature – *cf.* (5.1) – by going to large distances by means of a family of trial functions supported there.

###### Theorem 6.2.

Assume *$`\mathrm{\Omega }0`$*, *$`\mathrm{\Omega }1`$*, *$`\mathrm{\Sigma }1`$*, and suppose that $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is a surface of revolution. Then $`inf\sigma (\mathrm{\Delta }_D^\mathrm{\Omega })<\kappa _1^2.`$

###### Proof:.

Since the result for $`𝒦=0`$ is included in Theorem 5.1, we suppose $`𝒦>0`$ in the following. We use $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{n,\epsilon }(s,u):=(\phi _n(s)+\epsilon \varphi _n(s)u)\chi _1(u)`$, where $`\epsilon `$ will be specified later and $`\phi _n,\varphi _n`$ are functions “localized at infinity” as $`n\mathrm{}`$. They are defined in the following way: Consider three sequences $`b_1,b_2,b_3:`$ such that $`0<b_1<b_2<b_3`$ and $`b_1(n)\mathrm{}`$ as $`n\mathrm{}`$. We set

$$\phi _n(s):=\frac{\mathrm{ln}(s/b_i)}{\mathrm{ln}(b_j/b_i)},(i,j)\{(1,2),(3,2)\},\text{and}\varphi _n(s):=\frac{\phi _n(s)}{s}$$

if $`\mathrm{min}\{b_i,b_j\}<s\mathrm{max}\{b_i,b_j\}`$, and assume that $`\phi _n,\varphi _n`$ are zero elsewhere. Defined in this way the functions are not smooth at the matching points, however, $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{n,\epsilon }`$ still belongs to $`DomQ`$ because they are continuous and of a compact support for each $`n`$. Next we note that they are positive and uniformly bounded (the maximum of $`\varphi _n`$ is even decreasing as $`n\mathrm{}`$).

Using (3.7) and (3.4) we can estimate the longitudinal kinetic parts of $`\stackrel{~}{Q}`$*cf.* also (5.2) – by one-dimensional integrals

$$Q_1[\phi _n\chi _1]C_1_0^{\mathrm{}}\dot{\phi }_n(s)^2s𝑑s,Q_1[\varphi _nu\chi _1]\frac{d^2}{2}C_1_0^{\mathrm{}}\dot{\varphi }_n(s)^2s𝑑s,$$

and an explicit calculation yields that both converge to zero as $`n\mathrm{}`$ if we demand, in addition, that $`b_2/b_1`$ and $`b_3/b_2`$ tend to infinity as $`n\mathrm{}`$. The same is true for the mixed term $`Q_1(\phi _n\chi _1,\varphi _nu\chi _1)`$ by the Schwarz inequality. On the other hand, an explicit integration w.r.t. $`u`$ for the rest of $`\stackrel{~}{Q}`$ yields

$$\begin{array}{c}Q_2[\mathrm{\Psi }_{n,\epsilon }]\kappa _1^2\mathrm{\Psi }_{n,\epsilon }_G\hfill \\ \hfill =(\phi _n,K\phi _n)_g2\epsilon (\phi _n,M\varphi _n)_g+\epsilon ^2\left[\varphi _n_g^2+\frac{\pi ^26}{3\kappa _1^2}(\varphi _n,K\varphi _n)_g\right].\end{array}$$

For large $`n`$ the contribution of the Gauss curvature will be negligible because of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }1`$ and the facts that $`\phi _n`$ and $`\varphi _n`$ are uniformly bounded and the infimum of their support tends to infinity as $`n\mathrm{}`$. Summing up the results, we arrive at

$$\underset{n\mathrm{}}{lim}\stackrel{~}{Q}[\mathrm{\Psi }_{n,\epsilon }]=\underset{n\mathrm{}}{lim}\left[\epsilon ^2\varphi _n_g^22\epsilon (\phi _n,M\varphi _n)_g\right]$$
(6.4)
if the limit on the r.h.s. exists.

We put $`\epsilon \epsilon _n:=(\phi _n,M\varphi _n)_g^1`$ which will be seen in a moment as a reasonable choice because the integral tends to infinity as $`n\mathrm{}`$ for particular choices of $`b_j`$; $`\epsilon _n`$ is thus well-defined for $`n`$ large enough. Then the problem turns to comparing the number $`2`$ to the limit

$$\underset{n\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{(\varphi _n,\varphi _n)_g}{(\phi _n,M\varphi _n)_g^2}.$$

In the special case of cylindrically symmetric surfaces when one has the information about the explicit behaviour of $`M`$ at infinity, it is an easy matter. Indeed, since $`k_s`$ is integrable in $`L^1(^+)`$ and $`\varphi _n`$ is chosen in a way to eliminate the weight $`r`$ with help of (3.4), the meridian curvature does not contribute in the denominator, while in view of Lemma 6.1, $`k_\vartheta r`$ can be replaced by a constant value near infinity. Using in addition (3.4) in the numerator, one is therefore seeking the zero limit of

$$\frac{_0^{\mathrm{}}\varphi _n(s)^2s𝑑s}{\left(_0^{\mathrm{}}\phi _n(s)\varphi _n(s)𝑑s\right)^2}=\frac{1}{_0^{\mathrm{}}\varphi _n(s)^2s𝑑s}=\frac{3}{\mathrm{ln}(b_3/b_1)}.$$

One can choose, for instance, $`n2`$: $`b_1(n):=n`$, $`b_2(n):=n^2`$, $`b_3(n):=n^3`$, which fulfill also the other properties earlier required about these sequences. We conclude by $`\stackrel{~}{Q}[\mathrm{\Psi }_{n,\epsilon }]2`$ as $`n\mathrm{}`$ so we can find a finite $`n_0`$ for which the form will be negative. ∎

###### Remark.

Notice that (6.4) is a general result. We have not supposed anything of the surface symmetry when deriving this relation.

###### EXAMPLE 5 (Hyperboloid of Revolution).

Consider one of the two sheets of the hyperboloid given by the equation $`x^2+y^2(z/z_0)^2=1`$. It is an asymptotically planar surface of revolution and via the parameter $`z_0>0`$ we can get arbitrary value of the total Gauss curvature between $`0`$ and $`2\pi `$.

###### EXAMPLE 6 (Surface with Non Square Integrable $`_gM`$).

Let us construct an asymptotically planar surface of revolution which satisfies $`\mathrm{\Sigma }1`$ but contradicts $`\mathrm{\Sigma }2`$. We define $`k_s(s):=s^2\mathrm{sin}s^2`$ and use (6.2) to get the functions $`r,z`$ and in this way the map $`p`$. One can easily check that there is a $`c`$ such that $`r(s)cs`$ for all $`s^+`$. Therefore $`k_\vartheta =\dot{z}r^10`$ as $`s\mathrm{}`$ because $`|\dot{z}|=|\mathrm{sin}b(s)|1`$; the same limit holds, of course, for $`k_s`$. Since $`K,M`$ are expressed by means of the principal curvatures, it follows that the surface is asymptotically planar $`\mathrm{\Sigma }0`$. At the same time, $`|K|r=|k_s\dot{z}||k_s|`$ is integrable in $`L^1(^+)`$ which gives $`\mathrm{\Sigma }1`$. On the other hand, while it is true that $`\dot{k}_\vartheta =k_sr^1\mathrm{cos}br^2\mathrm{sin}b\mathrm{cos}b`$ belongs to $`L^2(^+,r(s)ds)`$, the same does not hold for $`\dot{k}_s`$ by its definition. Hence, $`_gM=(\dot{M},0)`$ does not fulfil $`\mathrm{\Sigma }2`$. We note that an explicit calculation together with (6.3) yields $`𝒦=2\pi \left(1\mathrm{cos}\sqrt{\frac{\pi }{2}}\right)1.38\pi `$ in this example.

###### Remark.

(*Partial Wave Decomposition*). An alternative approach is to decompose $`\mathrm{\Delta }_D^\mathrm{\Omega }`$ with respect to angular momentum subspaces to investigate the spectral properties of layers endowed with the cylindrical symmetry. The obtained series of partial-wave Hamiltonians have similar form as the pure strip Hamiltonian – *cf.* \[EŠ, DE\] – except for an additional centrifugal term and different operator domain for the lowest wave. This, however, makes the spectral analysis of layers more complicated than a direct use of the non-decomposed Hamiltonian $`H`$. At the same time, it gives an insight into the choice of the trial function in the proof of Theorem 6.2 which has to be supported in the region where the influence of the centrifugal term is negligible.

## 7 A Layer without Bound States

Consider a semi-cylinder of radius $`R`$ closed by a hemisphere; the total Gauss curvature is $`2\pi `$. Since the mean curvature of the cylindrical part is constant, $`M=(2R)^1>0`$, such a surface is not asymptotically planar. We shall demonstrate that the Hamiltonian $`H:=\mathrm{\Delta }_D^\mathrm{\Omega }`$ of the corresponding layer $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ built over this surface does not possess bound states for any $`a<R`$.

Imposing the Neumann or Dirichlet boundary condition on the segment of connection of the hemispherical and cylindrical layer, we get the bounds $`H_{\mathrm{𝑠𝑝ℎ}}^NH_{\mathrm{𝑐𝑦𝑙}}^NHH_{\mathrm{𝑠𝑝ℎ}}^DH_{\mathrm{𝑐𝑦𝑙}}^D`$. The spectrum of the hemispherical-segment Hamiltonians is purely discrete. By the minimax principle only the cylindrical part of the estimating operators contributes to the essential spectrum, while a possible eigenvalue of $`H`$ below the essential spectrum is squeezed between the corresponding eigenvalues of $`H_{\mathrm{𝑠𝑝ℎ}}^N`$ and $`H_{\mathrm{𝑠𝑝ℎ}}^D`$. In particular, for our purpose it is sufficient to show that $`inf\sigma (H_{\mathrm{𝑠𝑝ℎ}}^N)>inf\sigma _{\mathrm{ess}}(H_{\mathrm{𝑐𝑦𝑙}}^D)`$. The spectral analysis of these operators becomes trivial if they are expressed in the spherical or cylindrical coordinates, respectively.

Due to the mirror symmetry, the ground state energy of $`H_{\mathrm{𝑠𝑝ℎ}}^N`$ is the same as the lowest eigenvalue of the entire spherical layer which is $`\kappa _1^2`$. On the other hand, $`\sigma (H_{\mathrm{𝑐𝑦𝑙}}^j)=\sigma _{\mathrm{ess}}(H_{\mathrm{𝑐𝑦𝑙}}^j)=[ϵ_1,\mathrm{})`$ for both the conditions $`j\{N,D\}`$, where the threshold $`ϵ_1`$ is given by the first eigenvalue of the radial operator $`_r^2(4r^2)^1`$ on $`L^2(^+)`$. Since the latter is less than $`_r^2(4(R+a)^2)^1`$, the Rayleigh principle yields $`ϵ_1<\kappa _1^2`$. It is now easy to conclude that the spectrum of the unified layer satisfies

$$\sigma (H)=\sigma _{\mathrm{ess}}(H)=[ϵ_1,\mathrm{}).$$
(7.1)
###### Remark.

The above example shows that without the condition $`\mathrm{\Sigma }0`$, or at least without $`M0`$ at the infinity, one cannot guarantee the existence of bound states. Notice that the reference surface is not $`C^2`$-smooth in this counter-example and thus it does not belong to the class of manifolds considered from the beginning. Nevertheless, one can construct a sequence of domains which converges in an appropriate sense to the hemispherical layer and, at the same time, they can be connected to the cylindrical part in a sufficiently smooth way. It follows then from \[RT, Thm. 1.5\] that the spectral result (7.1) remains preserved for the domains sufficiently close to the limiting layer.

### Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank for private communications to Mark S. Ashbaugh, and to Wolfgang T. Meyer who suggested Example 3. The work has been done during the visits of P. E. and D. K. to Centre de Physique Théorique, Marseille-Luminy, and P. D. to the Nuclear Physics Institute, AS CR; the authors express their gratitude to the hosts. The work has been partially supported by the Grant AS A 1048101 and the CAS-CNRS Exchange Agreement 7919.