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# SDLCQ and String/Field Theory CorrespondencesBased on work with S. Pinsky, O. Lunin, and J.R. Hiller.

## 1 Introduction

The conjecture that certain field theories admit concrete realizations as string theories on particular backgrounds has caused a lot of excitement in the last years. Originally, the so-called Maldacena conjecture  assured that the $`𝒩=4`$ supersymmetric Yang-Mills (SYM) theory in 3+1 dimensions is equivalent to Type IIB string theory on an $`AdS_5\times S^5`$ background. Meanwhile, other string/field theory correspondences have been conjectured. Attempts to rigorously test these conjectures have met with limited success, because our understanding of both sides of the correspondences is usually insufficient. The main obstacle is that at the point of correspondence, we require two conditions to hold which are mutually exclusive. Namely, we want a situation where the curvature of the considered space-time is small in order to be able to use the supergravity approximation to string theory. One also desires the corresponding field theory to be in a small coupling regime. So far it has been impossible to find such a scenario. We present a way out of this dilemma by relaxing the second requirement and performing a non-perturbative calculation on the field theory side. To create a manageable situation, we chose a special string/field theory correspondence in order to apply the non-perturbative method, namely SDLCQ, at its optimal working point.

SDLCQ, or Supersymmetric Discretized Light-Cone Quantization, is a non-perturbative method for solving bound-state problems that has been shown to have excellent convergence properties, in particular in low dimensions. Therefore, we are looking for a (preferably) two-dimensional field theory, which is conjectured to be equivalent to a string theory. It turns out that the Yang-Mills theory with 16 supercharges in two dimensions  has its corresponding string theory partner in a system of D1-branes in Type IIB string theory decoupling from gravity . Since both systems have separately been studied in the literature already, this systems is an optimal candidate to study the string/field theory correspondence.

The next step is to find an observable that can be computed relatively easy on both sides of the correspondence. It turns out that the correlation function of a gauge invariant operator is a well-behaved object in this sense. We chose the stress-energy tensor $`T^{\mu \nu }`$ as this operator and will construct this observable in the supergravity approximation to string theory and perform a non-perturbative SDLCQ calculation of this correlator on the field theory side.

## 2 Correlation functions from supergravity

It is instructive to take a closer look on the expected properties of $`𝒩=(8,8)`$ SYM, before we proceed to technical details on the string theory side. In the extreme ultra-violet (UV) this theory is conformally free and has a central charge $`c_{UV}=N_c^2`$. Perturbation theory in turn will be valid for small effective couplings $`g=g_{YM}\sqrt{N_c}x`$, where $`x`$ is a space coordinate. For large distances, in the far infra-red (IR), the theory becomes a conformal $`\sigma `$-model with target space $`(R^8)^{N_c}/S_{N_c}`$. The central charge is $`c_{IR}=N_c`$. It is a bit more involved to show that here perturbation theory breaks down when $`x\sqrt{N_c}/g_{YM}`$, see e.g. Ref. .

The intermediate region, $`1/g_{YM}\sqrt{N_c}<x<\sqrt{N_c}/g_{YM}`$, where no perturbative field theoretical description is possible, is fortunately exactly the region which is accessible to string theory; or rather, to the supergravity (SUGRA) approximation to Type IIB string theory on a special background. It is that of the near horizon geometry of a D1-brane in the string frame, which has the metric

$`ds^2`$ $`=`$ $`\alpha ^{}\widehat{g}_{YM}\left({\displaystyle \frac{U^3}{g_s^2}}dx_{}^2+{\displaystyle \frac{dU^2}{U^3}}+Ud\mathrm{\Omega }_{8p}^2\right)`$
$`e^\varphi `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi g_{YM}^2}{U^3}}\widehat{g}_{YM}.`$ (1)
where we defined $`\widehat{g}_{YM}8\pi ^{3/2}g_{YM}\sqrt{N_c}`$. In the description of the computation of the two-point function we follow Ref. . The correlator has been derived in Ref. , being itself a generalization of Refs. .

First, we need to know the action of the diagonal fluctuations around this background to the quadratic order. We would like to use the analogue of Ref.  for our background, Eq. (2), which is not (yet) available in the literature. However, we can identify some diagonal fluctuating degrees of freedom by following the work on black hole absorption cross-sections . One can show that the fluctuations parameterized like

$`ds^2`$ $`=`$ $`\left(1+f(x^0,U)+g(x^0,U)\right)g_{00}(dx^0)^2`$
$`+\left(1+5f(x^0,U)+g(x^0,U)\right)g_{11}(dx^1)^2`$
$`+\left(1+f(x^0,U)+g(x^0,U)\right)g_{UU}dU^2`$
$`+\left(1+f(x^0,U){\displaystyle \frac{5}{7}}g(x^0,U)\right)g_{\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega }}d\mathrm{\Omega }_7^2`$
$`e^\varphi `$ $`=`$ $`\left(1+3f(x^0,U)g(x^0,U)\right)e^{\varphi _0},`$ (2)
satisfy the following equations of motion

$`f^{\prime \prime }(U)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{7}{U}}f^{}(U)+{\displaystyle \frac{g_s^2k^2}{U^6}}f(U)`$ (3)
$`g^{\prime \prime }(U)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{7}{U}}g^{}(U)+{\displaystyle \frac{72}{U^2}}g(U)+{\displaystyle \frac{g_s^2k^2}{U^6}}g(U).`$
Without loss of generality we have assumed here that these fluctuation vary only along the $`x^0`$ direction of the world volume coordinates, and behave like a plane wave. One can interpret a D1-brane as a black hole in nine dimensions. The fields $`f(U)`$ and $`g(U)`$ are then the minimal and the fixed scalars in this black hole geometry. In ten dimensions, however, we see that they are really part of the gravitational fluctuation. Consequently, we expect that they are associated with the stress-energy tensor in the operator field correspondence of Refs. . In the case of the correspondence between $`𝒩=4`$ SYM field theory and string theory on an $`AdS_5\times S^5`$ background, the superconformal symmetry allows for the identification of operators and fields in short multiplets . In the present case of a D1-brane, we do not have superconformal invariance and this technique is not applicable. Actually, we expect all fields of the theory consistent with the symmetry of a given operator to mix. The large distance behavior should then be dominated by the contribution with the longest range. The field $`f(k^0,U)`$ appears to be the one with the longest range since it is the lightest field.

Eq. (3) for $`f(U)`$ can be solved explicitly

$$f(U)=U^3K_{3/2}\left(\frac{\widehat{g}_{YM}}{2U^2}k\right),$$
(4)
where $`K_{3/2}(x)`$ is a modified Bessel function. If we take $`f(U)`$ to be the analogue of the minimally coupled scalar, we can construct the flux factor

$``$ $`=`$ $`\underset{U_0\mathrm{}}{lim}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\kappa _{10}^2}}\sqrt{g}g^{UU}e^{2(\varphi \varphi _{\mathrm{}})}`$ (5)
$`\times _U\mathrm{log}(f(U))|_{U=U_0}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{NU_0^2k^2}{2g_{YM}^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{N^{3/2}k^3}{4g_{YM}}}+\mathrm{}`$
up to a numerical coefficient of order one which we have suppressed. We see that the leading non-analytic contribution in $`k^2`$ is due to the $`k^3`$ term. Fourier transforming the latter yields

$$𝒪(x)𝒪(0)=\frac{N^{\frac{3}{2}}}{g_{YM}x^5}.$$
(6)
This is in line with the discussion at the beginning of this section. We expect to deviate from the trivial ($`1/x^4`$) scaling behavior of the correlator at $`x_1=1/g_{YM}\sqrt{N_c}`$ and $`x_2=\sqrt{N_c}/g_{YM}`$. This yields the phase diagram in Fig. 1. It is interesting to note that the entire $`N_c`$ hierarchy is consistent in the sense of Zamolodchikov’s c-theorem, which assures that the central charges obey $`c(x)>c(y)`$, whenever $`x<y`$ .

## 3 The correlator from SDLCQ

Discretized Light-Cone Quantization (DLCQ) preserves supersymmetry at every stage of the calculation if the supercharge rather than the Hamiltonian is diagonalized . The framework of supersymmetric DLCQ (SDLCQ) allows one to use the advantages of light-cone quantization (e.g. a simpler vacuum) together with the excellent renormalization properties guaranteed by supersymmetry. Using SDLCQ, we can reproduce the SUGRA scaling relation, Eq. (6), fix the numerical coefficient, and calculate the cross-over behavior at $`1/g_{YM}\sqrt{N_c}<x<\sqrt{N_c}/g_{YM}`$. To exclude subtleties, nota bene issues of zero modes, we checked our results against the free fermion and the ’t Hooft model and found consistent results.

The technique of (S)DLCQ was reviewed in Ref. , so we can be brief here. The basic idea of light-cone quantization is to parameterize space-time using light-cone coordinates

$$x^\pm \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(x^0\pm x^1\right),$$
(7)
and to quantize the theory making $`x^+`$ play the role of time. In the discrete light-cone approach, we require the momentum $`p_{}=p^+`$ along the $`x^{}`$ direction to take on discrete values in units of $`p^+/K`$ where $`p^+`$ is the conserved total momentum of the system. The integer $`K`$ is the so-called harmonic resolution, and plays the role of a discretization parameter. One can think of this discretization as a consequence of compactifying the $`x^{}`$ coordinate on a circle with a period $`2L=2\pi K/p^+`$. The advantage of discretizing on the light cone is the fact that the dimension of the Hilbert space becomes finite. Therefore, the Hamiltonian is a finite-dimensional matrix, and its dynamics can be solved explicitly. In SDLCQ one makes the DLCQ approximation to the supercharges $`Q^i`$. Surprisingly, also the discrete representations of $`Q_i`$ satisfy the supersymmetry algebra. Therefore SDLCQ enjoys the improved renormalization properties of supersymmetric theories. To recover the continuum result, $`K`$ has to go to infinity. Incidentally, what one finds is that SDLCQ usually converges faster than the naive DLCQ towards the continuum limit.

Let us now return to the problem at hand. We would like to compute a general expression for the correlator of the form $`F(x^{},x^+)=𝒪(x^{},x^+)𝒪(0,0)`$. In DLCQ one fixes the total momentum in the $`x^{}`$ direction, and it is natural to compute the Fourier transform and express it in a spectrally decomposed form

$`\stackrel{~}{F}(P_{},x^+)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2L}}𝒪(P_{},x^+)𝒪(P_{},0)`$ (8)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2L}}0|𝒪(P_{})|ne^{iP_+^nx^+}`$
$`\times n|𝒪(P_{},0)|0.`$
The form of the correlation function in position space is then recovered by Fourier transforming with respect to $`P_{}=K\pi /L`$. We can continue to Euclidean space by taking $`r=\sqrt{2x^+x^{}}`$ to be real. The result for the correlator of the stress-energy tensor is

$`F(x^{},x^+)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}\left|{\displaystyle \frac{L}{\pi }}n|T^{++}(K)|0\right|^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{x^+}{x^{}}}\right)^2`$ (9)
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{M_n^4}{8\pi ^2K^3}}K_4\left(M_n\sqrt{2x^+x^{}}\right),`$
where $`M_i`$ is a mass eigenvalue and $`K_4(x)`$ is the modified Bessel function of order 4. Note that this quantity depends on the harmonic resolution $`K`$, but involves no other unphysical quantities. In particular, the expression is independent of the box length $`L`$.

The momentum operator $`T^{++}(x)`$ of two-dimensional $`𝒩=8`$ SYM is given by

$`T^{++}(x)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{tr}[(_{}X^I)^2`$ (10)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(iu^\alpha _{}u^\alpha i(_{}u^\alpha )u^\alpha )],`$
with $`I,\alpha =1\mathrm{}8`$. $`X`$ and $`u`$ are the physical adjoint scalars and fermions, respectively . When discretized, these operators have the mode expansions

$`X_{i,j}^I`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{4\pi }}}{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{n}}}`$
$`\left[a_{ij}^I(n)e^{i\pi nx^{}/L}+a_{ji}^I(n)e^{i\pi nx^{}/L}\right],`$
$`u_{i,j}^\alpha `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{4L}}}{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}`$
$`\left[b_{ij}^\alpha (n)e^{i\pi nx^{}/L}+b_{ji}^\alpha (n)e^{i\pi nx^{}/L}\right].`$
The matrix element $`(L/\pi )0|T^{++}(K)|i`$ can be substituted directly to give an explicit expression for the two-point function. We see immediately that the correlator has the correct small-$`r`$ behavior, for in that limit, it asymptotes to

$$\left(\frac{x^{}}{x^+}\right)^2F(x^{},x^+)=\frac{N_c^2(2n_b+n_f)}{4\pi ^2r^4}\left(1\frac{1}{K}\right),$$

which we expect for the theory of $`n_b(n_f)`$ free bosons (fermions) at large $`K`$.

On the other hand, the contribution to the correlator from strictly massless states is given by

$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{x^{}}{x^+}}\right)^2F(x^{},x^+)={\displaystyle \frac{6}{K^3\pi ^2r^4}}`$ (13)
$`\times {\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}|{\displaystyle \frac{L}{\pi }}0|T^{++}(K)|i|_{M_i=0}^2.`$
It is important to notice that this $`1/r^4`$ behavior at large $`r`$ is not the one we are looking for at large $`r`$. First of all, we do not expect any massless physical bound state in this theory, and, additionally, it has the wrong $`N_c`$ dependence. Relative to the $`1/r^4`$ behavior at small $`r`$, the $`1/r^4`$ behavior at large $`r`$ that we expect is down by a factor of $`1/N_c`$. This behavior is suppressed because we are performing a large-$`N_c`$ calculation. All we can hope is to see the transition from the $`1/r^4`$ behavior at small $`r`$ to the region where the correlator behaves like $`1/r^5`$.

## 4 Symmetries and Numerics

In principle, we can now calculate the correlator numerically by evaluating Eq. (9). However, it turns out that even for very modest harmonic resolutions, we face a tremendous numerical task. At $`K=2,3,4`$, the dimension of the associated Fock space is $`256,1632,`$ and $`29056`$, respectively. The usual procedure is to diagonalize the Hamiltonian $`P^{}`$ and then to evaluate the projection of each eigenfunction on the fundamental state $`T^{++}(K)|0`$. Since we are only interested in states which have nonzero value of such projection, we are able to significantly reduced our numerical efforts.

In the continuum limit, the result does not depend on which of the eight supercharges $`Q_\alpha ^{}`$ one chooses. In DLCQ, however, the situation is a bit subtler: while the spectrum of $`(Q_\alpha ^{})^2`$ is the same for all $`\alpha `$, the wave functions depend on the choice of supercharge . This dependence is an artifact of the discretization and disappears in the continuum limit. What happens if we just pick one supercharge, say $`Q_1^{}`$? Since the state $`T^{++}(K)|0`$ is a singlet under R–symmetry acting on the “flavor” index of $`Q_\alpha ^{}`$, the correlator (9) does not depend on the choice of $`\alpha `$ even at finite resolution!

We can exploit this fact to simplify our calculations. Consider an operator $`S`$ commuting with both $`P^{}`$ and $`T^{++}(K)`$, and such that $`S|0=s_0|0`$. Then the Hamiltonian and $`S`$ can be diagonalized simultaneously. We assume in the sequel that the set of states $`|i`$ is a result of such a diagonalization. In this case, only states satisfying the condition $`S|i=s_0|i`$ contribute to the sum in (9), and we only need to diagonalize $`P^{}`$ in this sector, which reduces the size of the problem immensely. We can deduce from the structure of the state $`T^{++}(K)|0`$ that any transformation of the form

$`a_{ij}^I(k)f(I)a_{ij}^{P[I]}(k),f(I)=\pm 1`$
$`b_{ij}^\alpha (k)g(\alpha )b_{ij}^{Q[\alpha ]}(k),g(\alpha )=\pm 1`$ (14)
given arbitrary permutations $`P`$ and $`Q`$ of the $`8`$ flavor indices, commutes with $`T^{++}(K)`$. The vacuum will then be an eigenstate of this transformation with eigenvalue $`1`$. The requirement for $`P^{}=(Q_1^{})^2`$ to be invariant under $`S`$ imposes some restrictions on the permutations. In fact, we will require that $`Q_1^{}`$ be invariant under $`S`$, in order to guarantee that $`P^{}`$ is invariant.

The form of the supercharge from  is

$`Q_\alpha ^{}={\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}[\mathrm{}]b_\alpha ^{}(k_3)a_I(k_1)a_I(k_2)+\mathrm{}`$ (15)
$`+(\beta _I\beta _J^T\beta _J\beta _I^T)_{\alpha \beta }[..]b_\beta ^{}(k_3)a_I(k_1)a_J(k_2)+\mathrm{}.`$
Here the $`\beta _I`$ are $`8\times 8`$ real matrices satisfying $`\{\beta _I,\beta _J^T\}=2\delta _{IJ}`$. We use the special representation for these matrices given in Ref. .

Let us consider the expression for $`Q_1^{}`$, Eq. (15). The first part of the supercharge does not include $`\beta `$ matrices, and is therefore invariant under the transformation, Eq. (14), as long as $`g(1)=1`$ and $`Q[1]=1`$. We will consider only such transformations. The crucial observation for the analysis of the symmetries of the $`\beta `$ terms is that in the representation of the $`\beta `$ matrices we have chosen, the expression $`_{IJ}^\alpha =\left(\beta _I\beta _J^T\beta _J\beta _I^T\right)_{1\alpha }`$ may take only the values $`\pm 2`$ or zero. Besides, for any pair $`(I,J)`$ there is only one (or no) value of $`\alpha `$ corresponding to nonzero $``$. Using this information, we may represent $``$ in a compact form. With the definition

$$\mu _{IJ}=\{\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \alpha ,& _{IJ}^\alpha =2\hfill \\ \hfill \alpha ,& _{IJ}^\alpha =2\hfill \\ \hfill 0,& _{IJ}^\alpha =0\text{ for all }\alpha \hfill \end{array},$$
(16)
together with the special choice of $`\beta `$ matrices we get the following expression for $`\mu `$

$$\mu =\left(\begin{array}{cccccccc}\hfill 0& \hfill 5& \hfill 7& \hfill 2& \hfill 6& \hfill 3& \hfill 4& \hfill 8\\ \hfill 5& \hfill 0& \hfill 3& \hfill 6& \hfill 2& \hfill 7& \hfill 8& \hfill 4\\ \hfill 7& \hfill 3& \hfill 0& \hfill 8& \hfill 4& \hfill 5& \hfill 6& \hfill 2\\ \hfill 2& \hfill 6& \hfill 8& \hfill 0& \hfill 5& \hfill 4& \hfill 3& \hfill 7\\ \hfill 6& \hfill 2& \hfill 4& \hfill 5& \hfill 0& \hfill 8& \hfill 7& \hfill 3\\ \hfill 3& \hfill 7& \hfill 5& \hfill 4& \hfill 8& \hfill 0& \hfill 2& \hfill 6\\ \hfill 4& \hfill 8& \hfill 6& \hfill 3& \hfill 7& \hfill 2& \hfill 0& \hfill 5\\ \hfill 8& \hfill 4& \hfill 2& \hfill 7& \hfill 3& \hfill 6& \hfill 5& \hfill 0\end{array}\right).$$

The next step is to look for a subset of the transformations, Eq. (14), which satisfy the conditions $`g(1)=1`$ and $`Q[1]=1`$ and leave the matrix $`\mu `$ invariant. This invariance implies that

$$Q[\mu _{P[I]P[J]}]=g(\mu _{IJ})f(I)f(J)\mu _{IJ}.$$
(17)
The subset of transformations we are looking for forms a subgroup $`R`$ of the permutation group $`S_8\times S_8`$. Consequently, we will search for the elements of $`R`$ that square to one. Products of such elements generate the whole group in the case of $`S_8\times S_8`$. We will show later that this remains true for $`R`$. Not all of the $`Z_2`$ symmetries satisfying (17) are independent. In particular, if $`a`$ and $`b`$ are two such symmetries then $`aba`$ is also a valid $`Z_2`$ symmetry. By going systematically through the different possibilities, we have found that there are $`7`$ independent $`Z_2`$ symmetries in the group $`R`$. They are listed in Table 1. We explicitly constructed all the symmetries of the type, Eq. (14), which satisfy Eq. (17) using Mathematica. It turns out that the group of such transformations has $`168`$ elements, and we have shown that all of them can be generated from the seven $`Z_2`$ symmetries mentioned above.

In our numerical algorithm we implemented the $`Z_2`$ symmetries as follows. We can group the Fock states in classes and treat the whole class as a new state, because all states relevant for the correlator are singlets under the symmetry group $`R`$. as an example consider the simplest non-trivial singlet

$$|1=\frac{1}{8}\underset{I=1}{\overset{8}{}}\text{tr}\left(a^{}(1,I)a^{}(K1,I)\right)|0.$$
(18)
Hence, if we encounter the state $`a^{}(1,1)a^{}(K1,1)|0`$ while constructing the basis, we will replace it by the class representative; in this case, by the state $`|1`$. Such a procedure significantly decreases the size of the basis, while keeping all the information necessary for calculating the correlator. In summary, this use of the discrete flavor symmetry of the problem reduces the size of the Fock space by orders of magnitude.

In addition to these simplifications, one can further improve on the numerical efficiency by using Lanczos diagonalization techniques. Namely, we substitute the explicit diagonalization with an efficient approximation. The idea is to use a symmetry preserving (Lanczos) algorithm. If we start with a normalized vector $`|u_1`$ proportional to the fundamental state $`T^{++}(K)|0`$, the Lanczos recursion will produce a tridiagonal representation of the Hamiltonian $`H_{LC}=2P^+P^{}`$. Due to orthogonality of $`\{|u_i\}`$, only the (1,1) element of the tridiagonal matrix, $`\widehat{H}_{1,1}`$, will contribute to the correlator. We exponentiate by diagonalizing $`\widehat{H}_{LC}\stackrel{}{v}_i=\lambda _i\stackrel{}{v}_i`$ with eigenvalues $`\lambda _i`$ and get

$$F(P^+,x^+)=\frac{|N_0|^2}{2L}\left(\frac{\pi }{L}\right)^2\underset{j=1}{\overset{N_L}{}}|(v_j)_1|^2e^{i\frac{\lambda _jL}{2K\pi }x^+}.$$

Finally, we Fourier transform to obtain

$`F(x^{},x^+)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi ^2K^3}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{x^+}{x^{}}}\right)^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{|N_0|^2}}`$
$`\times {\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{N_L}{}}}|(v_j)_1|^2\lambda _j^2K_4(\sqrt{2x^+x^{}\lambda _i}),`$
which is equivalent to Eq. (9). This algorithm is correct only if the number of Lanczos iterations $`N_L`$ runs up to the rank of of original matrix. But in praxi already a basis of about 20 vectors covers all leading contribution to correlator .

## 5 Results

To evaluate the expression for the correlator $`(r)`$, we have to calculate the mass spectrum and insert it into Eq. (9). In the $`𝒩=(8,8)`$ supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory the contribution of massless states becomes a problem. These states exist in the SDLCQ calculation, but are unphysical. It has be shown that theses states are not normalizable and that the number of partons in these states is even (odd) for $`K`$ even (odd) . Because the correlator is only sensitive to two particle contributions, the curves $`(r)`$ are different for even and odd $`K`$. Unfortunately, the unphysical states yield also the typical $`1/r^4`$ behavior, but have a wrong $`N_c`$ dependence. The regular $`1/r^4`$ contribution is down by $`1/N_c`$, so we cannot see this contribution at large $`r`$, because we are working in the large $`N_c`$ limit.

We can use this information about the unphysical states, however, to determine when our approximation breaks down. It is the region where the unphysical massless states dominate the correlator sum. Unfortunately, this is also the region where we expect the true large-$`r`$ behavior to dominate the correlator, if only the extra states were absent. In Fig. 2(a) for even resolution, the region where the correlator starts to behave like $`1/r^4`$ at large $`r`$ is clearly visible. In Fig. 2(b) we see that for even resolution the effect of the massless state on the derivative is felt at smaller values of $`r`$ where the even resolution curves start to turn up. Another estimate of where this approximation breaks down, that gives consistent values, is the set of points where the even and odd resolution derivative curves cross. We do not expect these curves to cross on general grounds, based on work in , where we considered a number of other theories. Our calculation is consistent in the sense that this breakdown occurs at larger and larger $`r`$ as $`K`$ grows.

We expect to approach the line $`d(r)/dr=1`$ line signaling the cross-over from the trivial $`1/r^4`$ behavior to the characteristic $`1/r^5`$ behavior of the supergravity correlator, Eq. (6). Indeed, the derivative curves in Fig. 2(b) are approaching $`1`$ as we increase the resolution and appear to be about $`8590\%`$ of this value before the approximation breaks down. There is, however, no indication of convergence yet; therefore, we cannot claim a numerical proof of the Maldacena conjecture. A safe signature of equivalence of the field and string theories would be if the derivative curve would flatten out at $`1`$ before the approximation breaks down.

## 6 Conclusions

In this note we reported on progress in an attempt to rigorously test the conjectured equivalence of two-dimensional $`𝒩=(8,8)`$ supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory and a system of $`D1`$-branes in string theory. Within a well-defined non-perturbative calculation, we obtained results that are within 10-15% of results expected from the Maldacena conjecture. The results are still not conclusive, but they definitely point in right direction. Compared to previous work , we included orders of magnitude more states in our calculation and thus greatly improved the testing conditions. We remark that improvements of the code and the numerical method are possible and under way. During the calculation we noticed that contributions to the correlator come from only a small number of terms. An analytic understanding of this phenomenon would greatly accelerate calculations. We point out that in principle we could study the proper $`1/r`$ behavior at large $`r`$ by computing $`1/N_c`$ corrections, but this interesting calculation would mean a huge numerical effort.

## 7 Outlook

It remains a challenge to rigorously test the conjectured string/field theory correspondences. Although the so-called Maldacena conjecture maybe the most exciting one, because it promises insight into full four-dimensional Yang-Mills theories in the strong coupling regime, there are other interesting scenarios. For instance, it was conjectured that the supergravity solutions corresponding to $`p+1`$ SYM theories are black $`p`$-brane solutions, see e.g. Ref. . Consequently, there are interesting testing scenarios also in three-dimensional spacetime. Numerically, of course, things get the more difficult, the more dimensions are involved. On the way to the full four-dimensional problem, it may be worthwhile to present our latest results on correlation functions in three dimensions, see also . Fig. 3 shows the correlator for $`𝒩=1`$ SYM(2+1) as a function of the distance $`r`$: it is converging well with the transverse cut-off $`T`$. To put things in perspective, we note that the largest Hamiltonian matrix involved in this calculations requires to set up a Fock basis of approximately two million states. This is by a factor 100 more than we used in the test of the Maldacena conjecture described in this article, which itself was already substantially better than the first feasibility study .

We hope to proceed on this way and to be able to present interesting results soon.

## Acknowledgements

It is a pleasure to thank the organizers for the opportunity to speak at this ’historic’ workshop and for the hospitality during the symposium. The excellent working conditions during the workshop are gratefully acknowledged, which allowed for discussions leading to the project, Ref. .


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# Photometric study of the double cluster ℎ & 𝜒 PerseiBased on observations obtained with the Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope operated on the island of La Palma by the Isaac Newton Group, in the Spanish Observatorio Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias.

## 1 Introduction

Photometric studies of open clusters are extremely useful to determine the physical properties of star members. Even though modern spectroscopic techniques allow the observation of large numbers of stars in a relatively short time, the stellar population of most clusters is still too vast for an in-depth study. Among photometric systems, the $`uvby`$H$`\beta `$ system is the most appropriate for the study of early-type stars, since it has been designed to provide accurate measurements of their intrinsic properties.

This is the first in a series of papers dedicated to the study of the B-star population of Galactic open clusters. B-type stars are sufficiently bright to allow very accurate narrow-band photometry and at the same time numerous enough to provide a statistically significant population (unlike the brighter but very rare O-type star).

The double cluster $`h`$ & $`\chi `$ Persei is one of the richest young open clusters accessible from the Northern hemisphere, and therefore it is well documented in the literature. An extensive photographic study was carried out by Oosterhoff (1937); MK spectral types for cluster members were determined by Bidelman (1943), Johnson & Morgan (1955), Schild (1965, 1966, 1967) and others; optical photometry in various systems was carried out by Johnson and Morgan (1955), Wildey (1964), Schild (1965), Crawford et al. (1970b), Waelkens et al. (1990), and others; infrared photometry was obtained by Mendoza (1967) and Tapia et al. (1984). A study of the membership probability of 3086 stars brighter than B=15.5 magnitudes within an area of 50 $`arcmin`$ radius centered on $`h`$ & $`\chi `$ Persei was carried out by Muminov (1983) on the basis of proper motion and photometric ($`V(`$B-V$`)`$; $`V(`$U-V$`)`$; $`(`$U-B$`)(`$B-V$`)`$) criteria. There is no general agreement on the distance moduli and the ages of both clusters. Crawford et al. (1970b) conclude, on the base of $`uvby\beta `$ photometry, that both clusters have nearly the same age and distance, the distance modulus being $`11.4\pm 0.4`$ mag. Balona & Shobbrook (1984), however, correct this value for evolutionary effects and adopt a distance modulus of 11.16 for both clusters. On the other hand, Tapia et al. (1984) find confirmation of a previous suggestion by Schild (1967) that $`h`$ Persei is younger and closer than $`\chi `$ Persei, with distance moduli of 11.7 and 12.0, respectively. Doom et al. (1985) show that in the OB association Per OB1 the low mass stars formed first, the most massive stars being $`(1020)`$ $`Myr`$ younger than the low mass ones. In an attempt to improve these values, we present in this paper deep $`uvby\beta `$ photometry of the double open cluster $`h`$ & $`\chi `$ Persei. Given the nearness of these clusters, our magnitude limit (V=16.5) allows us to reach early-F main sequence stars. This is $`3\mathrm{mag}`$ deeper than the previous study by Crawford et al. (1970b) and allows us a very accurate fit to the Zero Age Main Sequence (ZAMS) and hence precise determination of the astrophysical parameters of the clusters.

## 2 Observations

Observations of the central region of $`h`$ & $`\chi `$ Persei were obtained at the 1-m Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope (JKT), located at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos, La Palma, Spain on the nights of 10–22 December 1997. The telescope was equipped with the 1024 x 1024 TEK 4 chip CCD and the four Strömgren $`uvby`$ and the narrow and wide H$`\beta `$ filters. Pixel size was $`0\stackrel{}{.}331`$ in such a way that the whole field covered by each frame was $`5\stackrel{}{.}6`$ x $`5\stackrel{}{.}6`$. Even though both clusters are actually more extended than the area covered by our frames ($`18\mathrm{}`$ across considering the outermost regions), our images are centered on the central region of both clusters, where member star density is much higher.

We took two frames covering the whole of the central region of each cluster (central coordinates are displayed in Table 1). Figures 1(a)-1(b) show plots of the observed fields in $`h`$ & $`\chi `$ Persei respectively. The dot sizes are indicative of the relative instrumental $`y`$ magnitude. Each cluster was observed using three different exposure times in each filter (Table 1), so that the widest range of magnitudes possible was observed with good signal-to-noise ratio. Standard stars were observed in the clusters $`h`$ & $`\chi `$ Persei, NGC 6910, NGC 2169 and NGC 1039 using the intermediate exposure time.

Throughout this paper the numbering system used will be that of Oosterhoff (1937). For those stars that were not observed by Oosterhoff (1937), a new system has been adopted. New stars in $`h`$ Persei are listed after a “4” prefix, while new stars in $`\chi `$ Persei are listed starting with a “7” prefix. Coordinates in each frame for these newly catalogued stars are given in Tables 23 and 4.

It is worth noting that our sample is representative of the star population, except in the sense that it contains almost exclusively main-sequence stars (and some giants of the earlier spectral types). Most of the brightest member stars are far away from the central region. This has no bearing on the determination of the main cluster parameters (such as reddening and distance), but can influence the study of the system age. For this reason, we have supplemented our data with observations of a number of members brighter than $`V=11`$ taken from Johnson & Morgan (1955) and Crawford et al. (1970b) in Section 4.3.

## 3 Reduction Procedure

The reduction of all frames was carried out using the IRAF routines for the bias and flat-field corrections. The photometry was obtained by PSF fitting using the DAOPHOT package (Stetson 1987) provided by IRAF. The atmospheric extinction corrections were performed using the RANBO2 program, which implements the method described by Manfroid (1993). It has been shown that the choice of standard stars for the transformation is a critical issue in $`uvby\beta `$ photometry. Transformations made only with unreddened stars introduce large systematic errors when applied to reddened stars, even if the colour range of the standards brackets that of the programme stars (Manfroid & Sterken 1987; Crawford 1994). Our data cover a very wide range of spectral types and hence a wide range of intrinsic colours. Moreover, during this campaign several clusters with different interstellar reddenings were observed.

In order to cover the whole range of programme stars, we selected our standard stars in the same clusters under investigation. A preliminary list of standard stars was built by selecting a number of non-variable non-peculiar candidate stars in $`h`$ & $`\chi `$ Persei, NGC 2169, NGC 6910 and NGC 1039, observed with the same Kitt Peak telescopes and instrumentation used to define the $`uvby`$ Crawford & Barnes (1970a) and H$`\beta `$ Crawford & Mander (1966) standard systems, so that there is no doubt that the photometric values are in the standard systems. Since the original observations of $`h`$ & $`\chi `$ Persei by Crawford et al. (1970b) do not include $`V`$ values, we used values given by Johnson & Morgan (1955), which were also taken with the same instrumentation, for the $`V`$ transformation.

The list of adopted standard stars and their photometric data to be used in the transformations are given in Tables 5 and 6.

The following $`uvby`$ transformation equations from the instrumental to the standard system together with the standard errors on the coefficients are obtained using the equations by Crawford & Barnes (1970a), where the coefficients have been computed following the procedure described in detail by Grønbech et al. (1976):

$`V=`$ $`11.269`$ $`+`$ $`0.091(by)+y_\mathrm{i}`$
$`\pm 0.003`$ $`\pm 0.007`$
$`(by)=`$ $`0.636`$ $`+`$ $`1.070(by)_\mathrm{i}`$
$`\pm 0.008`$ $`\pm 0.008`$
$`m_1=`$ $`0.523`$ $`+`$ $`1.009m_{1\mathrm{i}}`$ $``$ $`0.206(by)`$
$`\pm 0.008`$ $`\pm 0.015`$ $`\pm 0.009`$
$`c_1=`$ $`0.543`$ $`+`$ $`1.019c_{1\mathrm{i}}`$ $`+`$ $`0.257(by)`$
$`\pm 0.004`$ $`\pm 0.004`$ $`\pm 0.007`$
where the index “i” stands for instrumental magnitudes.

The transformed values for the 41 standard stars are given in Tables 7 and 8, together with their precision and deviation with respect to the published standard values. Table 9 shows the mean catalogue minus transformed values for the standard stars and their standard deviations, which constitute a measure of the accuracy of the transformation. From the mean differences between catalogue and transformed values, it is clear that there is not a significant offset between our photometry and the standard system. Since the individual differences for a few stars seem to be rather large, an attempt was made to improve the transformation by removing these stars from the standard list. We find however that the transformation coefficients and their precision do not improve significantly.

The H$`\beta `$ instrumental system and transformation equations were computed following the procedure described in detail by Crawford & Mander (1966). The transformation coefficients are $`a=3.514`$ and $`b=1.059`$. Transformed values and their differences with respect to the mean catalogue values are given in Tables 7 and 8. The mean difference is $`0.003`$ with a standard deviation $`0.031`$, which, as in the case of the $`uvby`$ transformation, indicates that there is no significant offset with respect to the standard system.

## 4 Results

### 4.1 Membership and Reddening

We have obtained $`uvby\beta `$ CCD photometry for more than 350 stars in the fields of $`h`$ & $`\chi `$ Persei. The magnitude limit $`V16.5`$ allows us to identify 214 stars that were not catalogued by Oosterhoff (1937). Even though all of them are listed in Tables 2, 3 and 4 some of them are so faint that the number of counts was not enough to reach a good signal-to-noise ratio in all the filters. Therefore these stars are discarded from our sample.

To assess the membership of a star, we look at its position in the $`V(by)`$ and $`Vc_1`$ diagrams. We find that in both diagrams the vast majority of the stars fall along a very well defined main sequence. Inspection of these photometric diagrams reveals that a number of stars do not fit well the main sequence loci in both diagrams. Those objects are considered as non-members unless they are catalogued as Be stars (see Figures 2, 3, 4 and 5). Indeed Be stars have colours differing from those of non-emission B stars due to additional reddening caused by the circumstellar envelope and tend to have redder $`(by)`$ and lower $`c_1`$ values than normal B stars (Fabregat et al. 1996). In addition, the M4.5Iab supergiant star RS Per (2417) is considered to be a cluster member.

There is a smaller number of stars whose position is displaced with respect to the main sequence in only one of these diagrams. For these stars we calculate the free reddening indices \[$`m_1`$\], \[$`c_1`$\] and \[$`ub`$\]:

$$[m_1]=m_1+0.32(by)$$
(1)
$$[c_1]=c_10.20(by)$$
(2)
$$[ub]=[c_1]+2[m_1]$$
(3)
and use the $`\beta [ub]`$ diagram to roughly evaluate their spectral classification (See Figure 6). We find that stars 867, 969, 1084 and 1138 in $`h`$ Persei and stars 2376, 7029 and 7081 in $`\chi `$ Persei have spectral types not corresponding to their photometric positions. We consider these objects as non-members. As the $`c_1`$ index is less affected by extinction than the $`(by)`$ colour, the $`Vc_1`$ diagram provides a more secure diagnostic than the $`V(by)`$ diagram. Therefore, stars whose position only deviates from the main sequence in the $`V(by)`$ plane could be affected by differential extinction. In $`\chi `$ Persei, the only case is star 2370. Since Muminov (1980) gives it a relatively low membership probability ($`0.38`$), we have excluded this star from further analysis. In $`h`$ Persei, we have stars $`911`$, $`1072`$ and $`1257`$. The membership probability is low for 911 and 1257 (0.15 and 0.36 respectively according to Muminov 1980). So we consider them as likely non-members of the cluster. Star 1072, on the other hand, has much higher probability, 0.78 (Muminov 1980), and we consider it a cluster member. Other stars, 2185, 2140 and 2311 in $`\chi `$ Persei have positions in the $`Vc_1`$ diagram deviating sligthly towards brighter $`V`$. The membership probability is high for 2185 and 2140 (0.76 and 0.98 respectively in Muminov 1980). We consider 2185 and 2140 as members. The case for 2311 is not so clear, but since it is likely to be an eclipsing binary (Krzesiński & Pigulski 1997), we will not use it for the determination of the cluster parameters, though it may well be a member (Vrancken et al. 2000). A similar situation occurs with the stars 859, 869, 926 and 1000. In $`h`$ Persei we consider as non-member the star 859, because of its low membership probability (0.07; Muminov 1980), and as members stars 869, 926 and 1000 because of their higher probabilities ($`0.74`$, $`0.60`$ and $`0.99`$ respectively; Muminov 1980). In Tables 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19 we present the resulting values for $`V,(by),m_1,c_1`$ and $`\beta `$ and their precisions, together with the number of observations for member stars of $`h`$ & $`\chi `$ Persei respectively. In Table 20 and Table 21, we list the stars identified as non-members in the fields of $`h`$ & $`\chi `$ Persei respectively together with their photometric data. Finally in Table 22 and Table 23, we give the photometric data for Be star members of $`h`$ & $`\chi `$ Persei respectively.

From the list of member stars we select those falling in the range of B-type stars in the V-(b-y) and V-$`c_1`$ diagrams. From this subset we remove all Be stars and all early B stars which deviate strongly from the ZAMS. We also exclude stars 869, 926, 976, 1000, 1072, 2140 and 2185 because, in spite of appearing as likely members in the photometric diagrams, they have positions deviating slightly from the average loci of stars with the same spectral type. For all the remaining B stars we calculate individual reddenings .We follow the procedure described by Crawford et al. (1970b): we use the observed $`c_1`$ to predict the first approximation to $`(by)_0`$ with the expresion $`(by)_0=0.116+0.097c_1`$. Then we calculate $`E(by)=(by)(by)_0`$ and use $`E(c_1)=0.2E(by)`$ to correct $`c_1`$ for reddening $`c_0=c_1E(c_1)`$. The intrinsic color $`(by)_0`$ is now calculated by replacing $`c_1`$ by $`c_0`$ in the above equation for $`(by)_0`$. Three iterations are enough to reach convergence in the process.

The final average values of reddening are $`E(by)=0.44\pm 0.02`$ for $`h`$ Persei and $`E(by)=0.39\pm 0.05`$ for $`\chi `$ Persei. These values are consistent, within the errors, with both clusters having the same reddening in their central region.

In the $`E(by)`$$`V`$ diagrams (see Figure 7 and Figure 8) we notice that the scatter of individual reddenings is quite small in both clusters, confirming the result obtained by Crawford et al. (1970b) of homogeneous reddening across the central region. With the aid of these values we calculate the intrinsic colours and magnitudes of the candidate members of both clusters, listed in Tables 24, 25, 26 and 27.

Since none of the stars in the sample, except RS Per, is in a late evolutionary state (all stars earlier than B3 deviate from the main sequence, but none seems to have a luminosity class higher than III), we have added to our colour-magnitude plots all the stars brighter than $`V=11`$ taken from Johnson & Morgan (1955) and Crawford et al. (1970b), which, as shown in Section 3, are on the same system as our observations. Values of $`V`$ (Johnson & Morgan 1955), $`(by)`$, $`c_1`$, individual $`E(by)`$, position in the clusters (Crawford et al. 1970b) and spectral type (Schild 1965; Slettebak 1968) are given in Table 15. A few of these stars are inside the area covered by our observations but were saturated in some of our frames.

As we can see from the values of individual reddening, the $`h`$ Persei stars outside the inner $`5.6`$ $`arcmin`$ have reddenings lower that the average calculated for the inner $`5.6`$ $`arcmin`$, and therefore they lie to the left of the rest of the members in the $`V(by)`$ diagram. This is due to the fact that the $`(by)`$ colour is more affected by reddening than the $`c_1`$ index. Their position in the $`Vc_1`$ diagram agrees well with the rest of the cluster, because this index is very little affected by reddening.

In $`\chi `$ Persei three stars outside the central region have reddenings higher than the average for the central region, and therefore they lie to the right of the rest of the stars in the $`V(by)`$ plane. Once more their position in the $`Vc_1`$ diagram is compatible with the rest of the cluster. We conclude that the analysis of the $`Vc_1`$ diagram yields much firmer results than the analysis of the $`V(by)`$ diagram, as the actual position of each star in the latter is modified by the difference between its individual reddening and the average value for the central region.

### 4.2 Spectral Classification

Given the paucity of spectroscopic studies of cluster members, we decided to estimate the spectral types for all members observed by us. Since our objects cover a wide range of spectral types, we use different procedures depending on the intrinsic photometric values. Following Napiwotzki et al. (1993), we select stars with $`(by)_00.00`$ (corresponding to $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}9500`$K) and use the temperature calibration based on the dereddened \[$`ub`$\] index, given by Napiwotzki et al. (1993):

$$\mathrm{\Theta }\frac{5040\mathrm{K}}{T_{\mathrm{eff}}}=0.1692+0.2828[ub][ub]^2$$
(4)
Once the temperature of the star is known, we derive an approximate value for the gravity $`\mathrm{log}g`$ by means of the grids of Moon & Dworetsky (1985). For the hottest stars ($`T_{\mathrm{eff}}20000\mathrm{K}`$), only a rough estimate of $`\mathrm{log}g`$ is derived from the theoretical grids of Lester et al. (1986).

For stars with $`0.00(by)_00.04`$ (corresponding to $`8500\mathrm{K}T_{\mathrm{eff}}9500`$K), we use the parameters

$$a_0=1.36(by)_0+0.36m_0+0.18c_00.2448$$
(5)
and

$$r^{}=0.35c_10.07(by)(\beta 2.565)$$
(6)
to derive both $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ and $`\mathrm{log}g`$ from the grids of Moon & Dworetsky (1985).

Finally, for stars with $`(by)_00.04`$, we derive $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ and $`\mathrm{log}g`$ directly from $`c_0`$ and $`\beta `$ by using the grids of Moon & Dworetsky (1985).

As a last step, we derive approximate spectral types by correlating the estimated $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ and $`\mathrm{log}g`$ with the average values for each spectral type from Kontizas & Theodossiou (1980) and Allen (1973). The estimated spectral types are listed in Tables 24, 25, 26 and 27. The validity of this approximation is confirmed by the fact that, for all the stars which have a spectroscopic spectral classification, our estimate is consistent with the spectroscopic determination with an uncertainty of $`\pm 1`$ subtype. The only exception is the star 1116, for which we give a spectral type B2, while a spectral type B0.5V is given by Schild (1965). We note that, based on Geneva photometry, Waelkens et al. (1990) found that none of the stars classified as B0.5 in $`h`$ Persei seems to be any hotter than other stars classified as B1 or B1.5, showing that the spectral classification of some stars is uncertain.

For the vast majority of the stars in the sample, we derive gravities compatible with their being main-sequence objects. Among the F and late A stars the scatter in the derived gravities is rather larger than among B-type stars, probably reflecting the larger errors associated with fainter magnitudes. For almost all of the stars at the low temperature end, we derive low gravities ($`\mathrm{log}g3.6`$). Among the stars later than F0, only 7097 (F4), 7108 (F2) and 7091 (F2) give $`\mathrm{log}g3.7`$. The situation completely reverses for the hot stars. On the whole A0-F0 range, only star 856 (A7) has a value of $`\mathrm{log}g`$ that stands out as being particularly lower than that of all other stars. Among B stars, where the gravity determination is probably more reliable, a few stars have $`\mathrm{log}g3.5`$, and could be evolved. These are 1198 (B9), 1020 (B8), 1179 (B6) and 1232 (B3). From their atmospheric parameter calculations, Vrancken et al. (2000) find that B1 and B1.5 stars classified as main-sequence have gravities corresponding to higher luminosities. In particular, they find $`\mathrm{log}g=3.4`$ for the star 2311 (B2III), for which we obtain $`\mathrm{log}g3.5`$. This would imply that also the star 2255 (B2) and the star 2246 (B1), for which we estimate a similar gravity, are giants.

### 4.3 Distance Modulus Determination

We have estimated the distance modulus to $`h`$ & $`\chi `$ Persei by using both:(a) the $`\beta `$ index calibration of Balona & Shobbrook (1984) and (b) by fitting the observed $`V_0`$.vs.$`(by)_0`$ and $`V_0`$.vs.$`c_0`$ ZAMS to the mean calibrations of Perry et al. (1987).

(a) Since the Balona & Shobbrook calibration is only valid for B-type stars, we select only those stars that we used for the reddening determination, calculate their intrinsic photometric indices adopting the average reddening for each cluster, and derive $`M_V`$ from $`c_0`$ and $`\beta `$. For each star, we obtain the distance modulus $`V_0M_V`$, and finally we calculate the distance modulus for each cluster as the average of its members. The values obtained are listed in Tables 28 and 29.

For $`h`$ Persei, we find an average $`V_0M_V=11.4\pm 0.5`$, where the uncertainty represents only the standard deviation of the individual measurements and does not include the errors derived from the uncertainty in the photometric indices or the calibration itself. When these are taken into account, the determinations for all individual stars are compatible with the average value, but for the possible exception of star 880.

The average value for $`\chi `$ Persei is $`V_0M_V=12.1\pm 0.2`$. There are several stars that deviate considerably from the cluster mean, namely 2296, 2091 and 2251, some of which have very large uncertainties in $`M_V`$. Removing these stars does not significantly change the average value for $`V_0M_V`$.

(b) Fitting the theoretical ZAMS is not only intrinsically more accurate, but also makes use of all the stars in the sample. This is important, because when the A and F stars are well fit to the ZAMS, it can be seen (Figures 9, 10, 11 and 12) that all early B stars deviate significantly from the ZAMS.

We fit individually data from both clusters and derive best fit distance moduli of $`V_0M_V=11.56\pm 0.20`$ for $`\chi `$ Persei and $`V_0M_V=11.66\pm 0.20`$ for $`h`$ Persei (the error indicates the uncertainty in positioning the theoretical ZAMS and its identification as a lower envelope). We see that the two values are, within the errors, identical, and that the values derived by using the Balona & Shobbrook calibration, with their larger errors, are compatible with them. We therefore come to the conclusion that both clusters are indeed at the same distance.

As a further test, we plot in Figures 13 and 14 the combined $`V_0`$ – $`(by)_0`$ and $`V_0`$ – $`c_0`$ diagrams for stars in both clusters. Points in these diagrams represent average values for the photometric index, taken over an interval of 0.5 mag, displaced by the individual distance modulus found for each cluster. It is obvious that both clusters fit the same ZAMS, confirming that the distance modulus are basically identical.

### 4.4 Age determination

(a) We first derive the age of both clusters on the basis of the data of our sample. It is well known that a number of giant stars in $`h`$ & $`\chi `$ Persei have rotational velocities considerably higher than the average for field stars of the same spectral type and also that some of these are Be stars (Slettebak 1968; Waelkens et al. 1990; Denoyelle et al. 1994). Such stars can occupy positions in the photometric diagrams that differ considerably from those of non-peculiar stars of the same spectral type. For this reason, no Be stars have been included in our plots. Similarly, three supergiants binaries and four possible binary candidates in the clusters observed by Abt & Levy (1973) have also been excluded.

By comparing Figures 13 and 14, it is obvious that the dispersion in the location of evolved stars in the $`M_V(by)_0`$ diagram is an artifact introduced by differential reddening, since it disappears completely in the $`M_Vc_0`$ diagram. This again confirms that the latter must be preferred as the reference colour-magnitude plot.

Also plotted in Figures 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 are isochrones computed with the evolutionary models of Schaller et al. (1992) for a log age of 7.00, 7.15 and 7.30 respectively (Meynet et al. 1993). The metallicities adopted are X=0.68, Y=0.30 and Z=0.020 (Schaller et al. 1992). The isochrones have been transformed from the LogT-LogL plane to the $`uvby`$ system after Torrejón (1996). The data clearly show that the main-sequence turnoff in $`h`$ Persei occurs at a later spectral type than in $`\chi `$ Persei, which indicates that, contrary to previous speculations, $`h`$ Persei is actually older than $`\chi `$ Persei.

In spite of this it is clear from Figure 10 that the brightest stars in $`h`$ Persei are substantially younger than the rest of the cluster, with some of them falling on the $`\mathrm{log}t=7.0`$ isochrone. This effect cannot be due to the fact that some of the stars are fast rotators. In Figures 9, 10, 11 and 12 stars with high rotational velocities have been identified (1133 in $`h`$ Persei and 2296 and 2299 in $`\chi `$ Persei, Slettebak 1968). Most of the stars falling on the $`\mathrm{log}t=7.0`$ isochrone have low measured rotational velocities. Morever Meynet & Maeder (2000) have shown that a $`\mathrm{log}t=7.3`$ isochrone for high rotational velocity stars is almost identical to a $`\mathrm{log}t=7.2`$ isochrone without rotation and therefore a variation in $`\mathrm{log}t`$ of 0.3 dex is too high to be explained by high rotation alone.

(b) In order to verify our conclusions, we have included data for a few stars brighter than $`V=11`$ taken from the literature, (see discussion in Section $`4.1`$). For consistency, their unreddened photometric values have been calculated with the average reddening obtained for the central region of both clusters, since we have already shown that this has little bearing on the $`M_Vc_0`$ diagram.

Inclusion of brighter stars in the H-R diagram of $`h`$ Persei corroborates our original finding. All the earliest stars are consistent with $`\mathrm{log}t=7.0`$ or even younger, with the brightest supergiant stars even suggesting $`\mathrm{log}t=6.8`$ (See Figure 10).

This two-branch age distribution, with most stars being compatible with $`\mathrm{log}t=7.3`$ and all the massive stars indicating $`\mathrm{log}t=7.0`$ or younger is clearly not due to the presence of binaries or high rotational velocity stars.

The presence of stars with high rotation results in an apparent age dispersion (Meynet & Maeder 2000) and not in the separation into two branches. We note that massive stars from both the central region and the outskirts of the cluster display this effect without any obvious age separation, i.e., the younger age of massive stars does not seem to be related to their spatial distribution.

A similar situation can be observed in $`\chi `$ Persei (see Figure 12). Two of the brightest stars seem to be younger than the rest of the cluster and fit the $`\mathrm{log}t=7.0`$ isochrone. In this case, however, dispersion due to effects such as rotation cannot be ruled out, specially since not all bright stars seem younger than the bulk of the cluster.

## 5 Discussion

We find that the reddening and distance moduli to $`h`$ & $`\chi `$ Persei are consistent with both clusters being placed at the same distance. However, the later main-sequence turnoff of $`h`$ Persei indicates that this cluster is older than $`\chi `$ Persei, as far as a single age determination is meaningful. From isochrone fitting, we find that the bulk of stars in $`h`$ Persei fit an age of $`\mathrm{log}t=7.30`$, while in $`\chi `$ Persei no star seems to be old enough to lie on the $`\mathrm{log}t=7.30`$ isochrone. However, all the earliest stars in $`h`$ Persei deviate clearly and strongly from the rest of the cluster with some stars falling along the $`\mathrm{log}t=7.0`$ isochrone and the brightest objects being even younger (probably as young as $``$ $`logt=6.8`$.

Almost all the stars in $`\chi `$ Persei are consistent with $`\mathrm{log}t=7.107.15`$, though two of the brightest stars could be slightly younger ($`\mathrm{log}t=7.00`$). The low age of the few brightest members of $`h`$ Persei is the reason why previous authors attributed a younger age to $`h`$ Persei than to $`\chi `$ Persei (Tapia et al. 1984; Schild 1967). On the other hand, the age of most stars in $`\chi `$ Persei corresponds approximately to the average between the two branches in $`h`$ Persei, which explains why other authors have given the same age for both clusters (Crawford et al. 1970b). The presence of at least two branches in the H-R diagram for $`h`$ Persei strongly suggests two star formation epochs, the younger one corresponding to the more massive stars.

Since the age of the bulk of $`\chi `$ Persei does not correspond to any of the two isochrone fits in $`h`$ Persei (which we find to be at the same distance), the evidence points to several stages of star formation in the region.

This effect can be observed both when we consider only the stars covered by our observations (which are all relatively close to the main sequence) and also when the brighter members taken from the literature (in a later evolutionary stage and not necessarily belonging to the central region) are included. Since we have excluded any star that could be suspect of binarity or any pecularities, and the $`M_Vc_0`$ is not significatively affected by reddening, we may conclude that the age spread is real.

Our distance determination is consistent with some of the higher values found in literature (except those which give a different and larger distance to $`\chi `$ Persei). We derive our distance by fitting the ZAMS to stars much fainter than in previous work. As indicated by Vrancken et al. (2000), the lower distance moduli measured by Crawford et al. (1970b) and Balona & Shobbrook (1984) are due to their use of only the brightest stars. As can be seen in our HR diagrams, all stars earlier than $``$ B3 deviate considerably from the ZAMS. This is again in agreement with the results of Vrancken et al. (2000), who find that all the stars in their sample of B1 and B2 stars are giants, even though some of them were previously classified as main-sequence.

From our data, we find no new Be stars in $`h`$ & $`\chi `$ Persei. This is not the last word on this issue, because many catalogued Be stars do actually show a $`\beta `$ index that does not indicate emission in our data. Since our census of B stars in the areas observed is complete, we can calculate the fraction of Be stars with respect to total number of B stars. In $`h`$ Per, we find 3 Be stars among 74 B stars, which means an abundance $`N_{\mathrm{Be}}/N_{\mathrm{B}+\mathrm{Be}}`$ (supergiants excluded) of 4%. In $`\chi `$ Persei, we find 6 Be stars out of 53 B stars, representing an abundance of 11%. Given the scatter in ages in $`h`$ Per and the small number of Be stars, we cannot derive any conclusions about the effect of cluster age on Be abundance.

## 6 Conclusions

We derive reddening and distance values consistent with the idea that $`h`$ Persei and $`\chi `$ Persei are placed at the same distance. From the ZAMS fitting, we derive an approximate distance modulus $`V_0M_V=11.6\pm 0.2`$ for both clusters. The ages of the two clusters seem to be, however, different. There is evidence for two massive star populations in $`h`$ Persei, fitting the $`\mathrm{log}t=7.0`$ and $`\mathrm{log}t=7.3`$ isochrones, with the more massive stars being younger. The age spread in $`\chi `$ Persei is, on the other hand, negligible, with all stars fitting the $`\mathrm{log}t=7.107.15`$ isochrone. We interpret these data as favouring the idea that both clusters belong to a single star forming region in which at least three different star formation stages have taken place.

## Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Spanish CAT panel for allocating observing time to this project. AM would like to thank Dr. J. Fabregat for his help with the observations and Dr. J. M. Torrejón for making available the theoretical isochrones transformed to the $`M_V/c_0`$ and $`M_V/(by)_0`$ spaces.


text:
# Magnetization Plateaus of SrCu2(BO3)2 from a Chern-Simons Theory

\[

## Abstract

The antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model on the frustrated Shastry-Sutherland lattice is studied by a mapping onto spinless fermions carrying one quantum of statistical flux. Using a mean-field approximation these fermions populate the bands of a generalized Hofstadter problem. Their filling leads to the magnetization curve. For SrCu2(BO3)2 we reproduce plateaus at 1/3 and 1/4 of the saturation moment and predict a new one at 1/2. Gaussian fluctuations of the gauge field are shown to be massive at these plateau values.

\]

Two-dimensional (2D) quantum spin systems that do not order magnetically at zero temperature are currently a subject of great theoretical and experimental interest. The recently discovered compound SrCu2(BO3)2 is an antiferromagnet (AF) with localized spins $`S=\frac{1}{2}`$, a gap above the ground state and the unique property that its magnetization curve has plateaus at $`1/3`$, $`1/4`$, and $`1/8`$ of the full saturation moment. The spin system may be described by a 2D Heisenberg model on a square lattice with exchange constant $`J^{}`$ and additional diagonal bonds $`J`$ on half of the square plaquettes (see inset of Fig. 1).

This lattice was studied many years ago by Shastry and Sutherland who noted that there is an exact eigenstate which is obtained by putting singlets on all diagonal $`J`$ bonds. This eigenstate is the ground state for a wide interval of $`J^{}/J`$. For $`J^{}/J`$ smaller than $`0.7`$, the system has dimer long-range order and for larger $`J^{}`$ it has conventional Néel long-range AF order. There may be additional phases in between such as a plaquette singlet phase but they are apparently not realized in SrCu2(BO3)2 where $`J^{}/J`$ is estimated to be smaller than $`0.65`$. This dimer ground state explains the spin gap as seen in experiments. However the existence of plateaus has no immediate explanation since the simplicity of the ground state does not extend to the excited states of this peculiar lattice. In this Letter we use a mean-field approximation to a Chern-Simons (CS) field-theoretic approach to quantum magnets suggested some time ago  and we obtain an excellent quantitative fit of the magnetization curve (see Fig. (1)) for realistic values of the exchange constants. As we discuss, this may be evidence for unconventional character of the plateau ground states.

Starting from the pure dimer state, the first excited state can be constructed by first breaking a singlet bond into a triplet state. Due to the exchange $`J^{}`$, such a state will move and we expect a dispersive band of triplets as low-lying states at least for strong $`J^{}`$.

However due to the peculiar triangular coupling between the diagonal bonds, the hopping of the triplet is forbidden at low orders in perturbation theory. As a consequence, the triplet band is very flat, a striking fact observed by neutron scattering experiments. Since the triplets are very massive particles, it is natural to expect that they can crystallize at finite density, and it has been proposed that the plateaus are Wigner crystals of triplets. There exists a spin model which is derived from the Shastry-Sutherland Hamiltonian for which the plateaus are demonstrated to originate from such ordered states. However in this model there are plateaus at $`1/4`$, $`1/2`$ and $`3/4`$ and the overall shape of the magnetization curve is not in agreement with experiments. A closely related physical picture is obtained by describing the magnetized triplets by hard-core bosons. Then the repulsion may favor charge-density wave states that are amongst known insulating phases of the lattice Bose gas.

We take a different approach here, mapping the spin problem onto a hard-core boson problem and then solving the hard core constraint exactly by a further mapping onto spinless fermions coupled to a CS gauge field. Within a mean-field approximation the spin excitation gap that produces the observed magnetization plateaus arises from some of the Landau level gaps in the integer quantum Hall effect for the fermions on a lattice.

The Hamiltonian for the AF Heisenberg model on the Shastry-Sutherland lattice is:

$$H=\underset{i,j}{}J_{ij}\stackrel{}{S}_i\stackrel{}{S}_jB\underset{i}{}S_i^z,$$
(1)
where $`\stackrel{}{S}_i`$ are spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ operators, the exchange couplings $`J_{ij}`$ are equal to $`J^{}`$ when $`i,j`$ are nearest-neighbors on the square lattice and equal to J when $`i,j`$ are related by a diagonal bond ($`J,J^{}>0`$) and the external magnetic field $`B`$ is applied along the z-axis. We then map the spin operators to hard-core boson operators :

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`H_{xy}+H_z,`$ (2)
$`H_{xy}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{i,j}{}}J_{ij}\left(b_i^{}b_j+b_j^{}b_i\right),`$ (3)
$`H_z`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i,j}{}}J_{ij}^z(n_i1/2)(n_j1/2)B{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}\left(n_i1/2\right),`$ (4)
where $`n_iS_i^z+1/2`$ is the occupation number of site $`i`$. The bosons are then treated as fermions with an attached flux tube carrying one flux quantum of fictitious magnetic field. This can be formulated as an exact mapping between the spin problem and spinless fermions interacting with a statistical CS gauge field. In a mean-field treatment the flux tubes are smeared out into a uniform background magnetic field. The flux per square plaquette $`\varphi `$ is then tied to the density of fermions and thus to the magnetization of the spin system :

$$\frac{\varphi }{2\pi }=n=(S^z+\frac{1}{2})=M+\frac{1}{2}$$
(5)
It is important to note that the real magnetic field $`B`$ applied to the spins acts as a chemical potential for the fermions as seen from Eq. (4) but does not contribute to the statistical flux. We treat the Ising term $`H_z`$ in Eq.(4) by a simple mean-field decoupling so it becomes a simple function of the magnetization. The kinetic energy term $`H_{xy}`$ leads to a Hofstadter problem for fermions hopping on the Shastry-Sutherland lattice. We use a flux attachment choice leading to flux $`\varphi /2`$ on each triangular plaquette. The one-body problem from $`H_{xy}`$ can be straightforwardly analyzed for rational values $`\varphi =2\pi (p/q)`$.

Fixing the magnetization $`M`$ gives us the flux and the number of fermions through Eq.(5). For this value of $`\varphi `$ we compute the band spectrum of $`H_{xy}`$ and fill the bands with the available fermions. The energy of the filled bands leads to a first contribution $`E_{xy}(M)`$. We then add the contribution from the Ising interaction $`H_z`$ to obtain the total energy $`E(M)`$. The magnetization is obtained as a function of $`B`$ by minimizing $`E(M)BM`$. The Hofstadter diagram for $`J=J^{}`$ is given in Fig. 2 where the lowest curve marks the Fermi level (highest occupied state) and the upper one marks the lowest unoccupied level. Jumps of the Fermi energy as a function of $`M`$ leads to discontinuity of the slope of the function $`E(M)`$. These jumps corresponds to plateaus in the magnetization curve. The structure of the Hofstadter butterfly thus reflects itself in the appearance of plateaus. The effects of geometry are encoded in the Hofstadter spectrum, whose complexity arises from the diffraction of the cyclotron orbits by the lattice.

When $`J`$ is set to zero, the model reduces to the square lattice which has Néel long-range order. The wavefunctions obtained in the spatially uniform CS mean-field approximation certainly do not encompass this physics. However the magnetization curve obtained from this approach is qualitatively similar to that of the ordered system : it is featureless all the way to full saturation (see the $`J=0`$ curve in Fig. 3). If we consider the case of the triangular lattice, the uniform mean-field leads to curve (a) in Fig. 4. In addition to the zero-field gap found by Yang, Warman and Girvin, there are many plateaus in (a). This is unrealistic : the triangular lattice spin system is known to be long-range ordered and hence gapless and its magnetization process shows only a single plateau at $`M/M_{sat}=1/3`$. There is a way to improve these results by allowing the mean-field to have a three-sublattice structure: one introduces three fermion densities $`n_A,n_B,n_C`$ and numerically searches for a self-consistent solution where the flux $`\varphi _\alpha `$ matches the density $`n_\alpha `$ on each sublattice. For $`M=0`$ we find that the self-consistent solution remains uniform. However, for non-zero magnetization the translation symmetry is broken. This non-uniform mean-field solution leads to a magnetization curve shown in Fig. 4 which is much closer to the truth albeit the zero-field ground state remains unrealistic (Néel long-ranged order is absent). The $`1/3`$ plateau has a semiclassical origin : It is easily understood in the Ising limit $`J^z>>J`$ limit and survives up to the isotropic point $`J^z=J`$. Our calculation reproduces these features and we find the three sublattice magnetizations $`n_A=n_B=0.922`$ and $`n_C=0.155`$.

We have explored the magnetization process of the Shastry-Sutherland lattice as a function of the ratio $`J/J^{}`$. The curves $`M(B)`$ are drawn in Fig. 3. For small $`J`$ we are close to the square lattice result, i.e. a smooth curve. Increasing $`J`$ we observe plateaus developing, the more complex structure being in the regime $`J/J^{}23`$.

For very large $`J`$ the curves are again simple. There remain only two plateaus at $`0`$ and $`1/2`$. The plateau at zero field is due to the fact that for large $`J`$ the tight-binding bands separates into two groups with very small dispersion and there is essentially a huge gap in the Hofstadter spectrum that does not depend much upon flux. For $`J^{}=0`$ and an appropriate choice of gauge our wavefunction exactly reproduces the dimer limit. In the intermediate regime, the curve depends on the details of the spectrum. The plateaus have a finite domain of stability which is given in Fig. 5.

To reproduce the qualitative shape of the experimental magnetization curve for SrCu2(BO3)2 we find that $`J^{}=29.5`$K and $`J=74`$K, the resulting fit is shown in Fig. 1. While the zero-field gap is not well reproduced, we find 13K instead of 34K, the field strengths at which the plateaus occur and the roundings close to the plateaus are in very good agreement with the experiment. The values of $`J,J^{}`$ are reasonably close to the recent estimates from neutron scattering data $`J^{}=43`$K and $`J=71`$K. These values are not precisely known since there is some amount of three-dimensional dispersion of the low-lying triplet that should be taken into account. We predict prominent plateaus at $`1/3`$ and $`1/2`$ and nothing else until full saturation. Note also that at $`1/4`$ there is in fact an avoided plateau : the value of $`J^{}/J`$ is just outside the range of stability of the $`1/4`$ plateau on Fig. 5. The result of CS mean-field theory is quite different from the semiclassical analysis of the effective Bose gas and from the exactly soluble spin model.

As can be seen in Fig. 5 the spin gap (plateau at $`M/M_{\mathrm{sat}}=0`$) opens at $`J/J^{}=0`$ in this approach instead of opening at the correct critical coupling $`J/J^{}1.5`$. This feature comes from the fact that the Néel state of the square-lattice antiferromagnet is not correctly described in the uniform mean-field approximation, as mentioned above in the case of the triangular-lattice antiferromagnet. This is corrected by computing non-uniform solutions of the mean-field CS approach with two-sublattices.

From the good fit in Fig. 1 we deduce that the CS mean-field theory works better for magnetized than unmagnetized states. This is because the initial mapping to hard core bosons selects out a preferred spin quantization axis which, together with the mean-field treatment of the Ising term, obscures the SU(2) symmetry in the underlying spin problem. The Zeeman energy reduces the SU(2) to the U(1) symmetry associated with conservation of $`S^z`$, which in the language of the fermions is simply particle number conservation. We note that the physical magnetic field breaks T symmetry in the orbital part of a Hubbard model description of the system but has no effect in a pure spin model description other than to introduce a Zeeman term. However our mean field solution does break T symmetry. The increased size of the ‘magnetic’ unit cell (due to the CS flux) gives an integer number of particles per unit cell as required for the existence of a gap even though there is no translation symmetry breaking in the spin density.

It is important to check whether the plateau states are robust to fluctuations beyond mean-field. Following an idea of Fradkin  Yang et al. showed that Gaussian fluctuations of the CS gauge field are massive provided that the TKNN integer describing the quantized Hall coefficient of the fermions on the frustrated lattice differs from the continuum value of unity. We have computed the TKNN integers by following the evolution of gaps from the square lattice case where the TKNNs are given by a Diophantine equation. None of the plateaus is suppressed by fluctuations since we find $`\sigma =3`$, $`2`$ and $`1`$ respectively for the plateaus at $`\frac{1}{4}`$, $`\frac{1}{3}`$ and $`\frac{1}{2}`$ (see Fig. 2). At $`M/M_{sat}=0`$ we have $`\sigma =1`$ (resp $`0`$) for $`J/J^{}<\sqrt{(}2)`$ (resp $`J/J^{}>\sqrt{(}2)`$).

A consequence of these non-trivial quantized Hall coefficients for the fermions is that the spin state is chiral and exhibits a ‘spin quantum Hall effect’. Whether this new physics is actually occurring in SrCu2(BO3)2 or is an unrealistic feature of our mean field approximation remains to be seen. One test of our model is the prediction of a strong plateau in the magnetization beginning at 60T, a field which is within reach of modern pulsed magnets.

The authors are grateful to L. Balents, E. S. Fradkin, M. Kohmoto, S. Sachdev, G. Semenoff, K. Totsuka and K. Ueda for useful discussions. SMG is supported by NSF DMR-0087133 and the ITP at UCSB under PHY94-07194.


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# Quantum Zeno Effect in Trapped Ions

## Abstract

A ”continuous measurement” Quantum Zeno Effect (QZE) in the context of trapped ions is predicted. We describe the physical system and study its exact time evolution showing the appearance of Zeno Phenomena. New indicators for the occurrence of QZE in oscillatory systems are proposed and carefully discussed.
PACS : 03.65.Bz; 32.80.Pj; 42.50.Ct
KeyWords : Quantum Zeno Effect, Trapped Ion, Three-level systems

Over the last few years the quantum dynamics of many models describing trapped ions have been investigated. The interest on this subject follows from the fact that such physical systems permit the observation of noteworthy quantum phenomena like, for example, quantum interference in Schrodinger cat states, decoherence and quantum chaos. In this letter our attention is focused on the quantum Zeno effect (QZE). In its standard form it consists of an inhibition of the system dynamics due to a continuous measurement process. Misra and Sudarshan have in fact proved that in the limit of an infinite number of measurements performed in a fixed time interval, the system is frozen in its initial state. Sometimes it happens that an appropriately large but finite number of measurements makes the initial state abandonment easier. In these cases we speak about Inverse Zeno Effect (IZE).
Quite recently Facchi and Pascazio  have introduced a broader definition of Zeno effect which in this paper we refer to as Generalized QZE (GQZE). They consider the most general case in which an additional interaction, that may even not be a measurement interaction, is responsible for hindering the system dynamics. In order to better understand the physical meaning of GQZE, let us recall its definition more in detail. Suppose a physical system under scrutiny describable in terms of a hamiltonian model

$`H_K=H+H_{meas}\left(K\right)`$ (1)
where $`K`$ is a parameter and $`H_{meas}(K)`$ is an interaction term which may even be associated with a measurement process and such that $`H_{meas}(K=0)=0`$. By definition a GQZE occurs if, for $`K0`$, there exists a time interval $`[t_1^K,t_2^K]`$ in which the survival probability is greater than the one correspondent to $`K=0`$:

$`P^K\left(t\right)>P\left(t\right)`$ (2)
where

$`P^K\left(t\right)=\left|\psi \left(0\right)|\psi \left(t\right)\right|^2=\left|\psi \left(0\right)\left|\widehat{U}_K\right|\psi \left(0\right)\right|^2`$ (3)
($`\widehat{U}_K`$ being the time evolution operator relative to $`H_K`$) is the probability to find the system in its initial state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }(0)`$, and

$`P\left(t\right)P^{K=0}\left(t\right)`$ (4)
It is worth noting that this definition is applicable to both unstable and oscillatory systems. In these physical situations one can single out a Poincaré time, $`T_p(K)`$, finite in the latter case and infinite in the former one. To claim the occurrence of a GQZE in oscillatory systems, in accordance with ref, one must require that $`|t_1^Kt_2^K|`$ is of the same order of $`T_p(K)`$.
In this paper we show the occurrence of a GQZE in the dynamics of a laser driven trapped ion. A formally equivalent result was found by Peres in a different physical situation, while a standard QZE was brought to the light theoretically by Cook et al. and, experimentally, by Wineland et al. in the context of trapped ions.
Novel ways to characterize the appearance of Zeno Phenomena in oscillatory systems are moreover introduced and discussed in detail.
Our physical system consists of a three-level ion confined in an isotropic three dimensional Paul trap interacting with a set of laser fields appropriately directed, polarized and tuned.
In a Paul trap an inhomogeneous time dependent electric field and a quadrupolar static electric field confine a charged particle in a finite region of space wherein the ion moves subjected to an effectively three dimensional harmonic isotropic potential of frequency $`\omega _0`$ .
The hamiltonian model describing such a situation is

$`H_0=\mathrm{}\omega _0{\displaystyle \underset{j=x,y,z}{}}\widehat{a}_j^{}\widehat{a}_j+{\displaystyle \underset{i=1,3}{}}\mathrm{}\omega _i|ii|`$ (5)
where the annihilation (creation) operator $`\widehat{a}_j(\widehat{a}_{j}^{}{}_{}{}^{})`$ describes the harmonic motion of the center of mass of the trapped ion along the axes $`j`$ ($`j=x,y,z`$) and the $`i`$-th internal level and its energy are denoted by $`|i`$ and $`\mathrm{}\omega _i`$ respectively with $`i`$=1,2,3.
A transition frequency $`\omega `$ between energy levels of $`H_0`$, involving the passage of the atom from the internal state $`|i`$ to the internal one $`|j`$ together with a simultaneously motional state modification is called $`m`$th red(blue) sideband when $`\omega (\omega _j\omega _i)\omega \omega _{ij}=m\omega _0`$ is negative(positive). If $`m=0`$, that is when no bosonic transition is involved, $`\omega `$ is called carrier frequency.
Let us consider now the application on the trapped ion of a laser tuned to the first red sideband of the atomic transition 1-2 and another laser tuned to the first red sideband of the transition 2-3. The first laser is chosen of frequency $`\omega _a=\omega _{12}\omega _0`$, wave vector $`k_a`$, initial phase $`\varphi _a`$ and directed along $`x`$ and the second one, directed along $`y`$, characterized by $`\omega _b=\omega _{23}\omega _0`$, $`k_b`$, $`\varphi _b`$. The presence of the two lasers causes the appearance of a coupling between internal (electronic state) and external (center of mass) degrees of freedom of the trapped ion.
Supposing $`\omega _a,\omega _b\omega _0`$, then the most important interaction term is the dipole one which in the Schrodinger picture can be cast in the form

$`H_1^s`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{}{d}\stackrel{}{E}=`$ (6)
$`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \underset{i,j=1,3}{}}\underset{ij}{\overset{}{d}}\right|ij\left|\right)({\displaystyle \underset{l=a,b}{}}\underset{l}{\overset{}{E}}e^{i\left(k_l\widehat{x}\omega _lt+\varphi _l\right)}+(h.c.))`$
where $`\underset{a}{\overset{}{E}}`$ and $`\underset{b}{\overset{}{E}}`$ describe amplitudes and polarizations of the applied fields, $`\stackrel{}{d}`$ is the atomic dipole operator and $`\underset{ij}{\overset{}{d}}`$ is the matrix element of $`\stackrel{}{d}`$ between $`|i`$ and $`|j`$.
In the interaction picture relative to the unperturbed hamiltonian $`H_0`$, expanding all the exponential operators and recalling that $`\widehat{x}(\widehat{y})=ϵ(\widehat{a}_{x(y)}+\widehat{a}_{x(y)}^{})`$, we get

$`H_1^I=(\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }_ae^{\frac{\eta _a^2}{2}}e^{i\varphi _a}{\displaystyle \underset{j=0,\mathrm{}}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{\left(i\eta _a\right)^{2j+1}}{j!\left(j+1\right)!}}\widehat{a}_x^j\left(\widehat{a}_x^{}\right)^{j+1}\sigma _{12}+`$
$`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }_be^{\frac{\eta _b^2}{2}}e^{i\varphi _b}{\displaystyle \underset{j=0,\mathrm{}}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{\left(i\eta _b\right)^{2j+1}}{j!\left(j+1\right)!}}\widehat{a}_y^j\left(\widehat{a}_y^{}\right)^{j+1}\sigma _{23}+hc)`$ (7)
after having discarded all the anti-rotating terms (Rotating Wave Approximation).
In eq.(7) $`\mathrm{\Omega }_a=\frac{\underset{a}{\overset{}{E}}\underset{12}{\overset{}{d}}}{\mathrm{}}`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b=\frac{\underset{b}{\overset{}{E}}\underset{23}{\overset{}{d}}}{\mathrm{}}`$, $`\eta _l=k_lϵ`$ with $`l=a,b`$ and $`ϵ=\sqrt{\frac{\mathrm{}}{2M\omega _0}}`$, $`M`$ being the mass of the ion. The quantities $`\eta _a,\eta _b`$ measure the order of magnitude of the center of mass oscillation amplitudes with respect to the fields wavelengths. Finally $`\sigma _{ij}|ij|`$ is the atomic transition operator.
If $`\eta _a,\eta _b1`$ (Lamb-Dicke approximation), we are legitimated to truncate the series above up to the terms linear in $`\eta _a`$ and $`\eta _b`$, obtaining

$`H_1^I=\gamma _1a_x|21|+\gamma _2a_y|32|+(h.c.)`$ (8)
where the initial phases $`\varphi _a`$ and $`\varphi _b`$ are chosen equal to $`\frac{\pi }{2}`$ to make real the quantities $`\gamma _1=\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }_ae^{\frac{\eta _a^2}{2}}\eta _a`$ and $`\gamma _2=\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }_be^{\frac{\eta _b^2}{2}}\eta _b`$.
Implementing this hamiltonian model is certainly in the grasp of experimentalists. Generally speaking, one of the most attractive aspects of trapped ions systems is the relative easiness with which specific models describing the interaction between few level systems and few bosons may be realized, with respect to a lot of other physical situations like, for example, CQED.
In eq.(6) we have considered the sum of two laser fields and this leads to the effective hamiltonian model given by eq.(8). Increasing the number of laser fields and different choosing their frequencies, wavevectors, initial phases and amplitudes, we may realize effective hamiltonian models more and more complicated. For example, we may consider the physical situation wherein, in place of the laser 1-2 red sideband tuned previously used, we take two lasers tuned to the second 1-2 red sideband, $`\pi `$ out of phase, with the same amplitudes and directed along the axis $`x^{}`$ and $`y^{}`$ rotated of $`\frac{\pi }{4}`$ with respect to the axis $`x`$ and $`y`$. The hamiltonian model describing such a physical system may be written down as $`H_1^I=\gamma _1a_xa_y|21|+\gamma _2a_y|32|+(h.c.)`$ .
On the basis of this example it is not difficult to convince oneself that it is always possible to engineer an appropriate laser beam configuration such that the vibronic coupling in the interaction picture may be represented in terms of the following general model

$`H_1=\gamma _1\stackrel{\stackrel{}{r}}{\stackrel{}{a}}|21|+\gamma _2\stackrel{\stackrel{}{l}}{\stackrel{}{a}}|32|+(h.c.)`$ (9)
where

$`\stackrel{\stackrel{}{p}}{\stackrel{}{a}}a_x^{p_x}a_y^{p_y}a_z^{p_z}(\stackrel{}{p}=\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{l})`$ (10)
and $`\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{l}`$ are sets of three natural numbers.
This is the hamiltonian model, on which we focus from now on. It generalizes eq.(8) in the sense that more bosons and all the three vibrational modes are involved in the process. The related dynamical problem may be exactly solved for arbitrary $`\stackrel{}{r}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{l}`$.
Let us indicate the eigenstates of $`H_0`$ with

$`|\stackrel{}{n},\sigma =|n_x,n_y,n_z,\sigma `$ (11)
where $`\sigma =1,2,3`$ refers to the atomic states.
It is possible to see that in this basis the operator $`H_1`$ is diagonal in blocks which are one dimensional if $`n_ir_i<0`$, two dimensional if $`n_ir_i0andn_ir_il_i<0`$, and three dimensional if $`n_ir_il_i0`$ with $`i=x,y,z`$.
Here our attention is centered on a 3x3 representation of $`H_1`$ having the form

$`\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& \alpha & 0\\ \alpha ^{}& 0& \beta \\ 0& \beta ^{}& 0\end{array}\right)`$ (15)
in the subspace generated by $`|\stackrel{}{n},1`$, $`|\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{r},2`$, $`|\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{l},3`$.
The non vanishing matrix elements appearing above are defined as follows

$`\alpha \stackrel{}{n},1\left|\widehat{H_1}\right|\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{r},2=\gamma _1\sqrt{{\displaystyle \underset{i=x,y,z}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{n_i!}{\left(n_ir_i\right)!}}}`$ (16)
$`\beta \stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{r},2\left|\widehat{H_1}\right|\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{l},3=\gamma _2\sqrt{{\displaystyle \underset{i=x,y,z}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{\left(n_ir_i\right)!}{\left(n_ir_il_i\right)!}}}`$ (17)
The parameters $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ measure the effective strength of the couplings between the three levels and are $`\stackrel{}{n}`$-,$`\stackrel{}{r}`$\- and $`\stackrel{}{l}`$-dependent.
If $`r_i=l_i=0`$ for $`i=x,y,z`$, then the dynamical system described by the matrix (12), involves only the three electronic levels of the trapped ion. When, on the contrary, at least one of the laser is tuned to a sideband and the initial state of the center of mass is a Fock state such that $`n_ir_il_i0`$ for all $`i=x,y,z`$, then the hamiltonian matrix (12) describes the dynamics of a truly vibronic three-level system.
It is straightforward to get the following time evolutions (in the interaction picture):

$`|\stackrel{}{n},1\psi _{\stackrel{}{n},1}\left(t\right)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\left|\beta \right|^2+\left|\alpha \right|^2\mathrm{cos}\omega t}{\stackrel{~}{ϵ}^2}}|\stackrel{}{n},1i{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^{}}{\stackrel{~}{ϵ}}}\mathrm{sin}\omega t|\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{r},2+`$ (18)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^{}\beta ^{}}{\stackrel{~}{ϵ}^2}}(\mathrm{cos}\omega t1)|\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{l},3`$
$`|\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{r},2\psi _{\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{r},2}(t)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}\omega t|\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{r},2i{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{\stackrel{~}{ϵ}}}\mathrm{sin}\omega t|\stackrel{}{n},1+`$ (19)
$``$ $`i{\displaystyle \frac{\beta ^{}}{\stackrel{~}{ϵ}}}\mathrm{sin}\omega t|\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{l},3`$
$`|\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{l},3\psi _{\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{l},3}\left(t\right)={\displaystyle \frac{\alpha \beta }{\stackrel{~}{ϵ}^2}}(\mathrm{cos}\omega t1)|\stackrel{}{n},1+`$
$`i{\displaystyle \frac{\beta }{\stackrel{~}{ϵ}}}\mathrm{sin}\omega t|\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{r},2+{\displaystyle \frac{\left|\alpha \right|^2+\left|\beta \right|^2\mathrm{cos}\omega t}{\stackrel{~}{ϵ}^2}}|\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{l},3`$ (20)
where

$`\stackrel{~}{ϵ}=\sqrt{\left|\alpha \right|^2+\left|\beta \right|^2}=\left|\alpha \right|\sqrt{1+\left|\chi \right|^2}`$ (21)
$`\omega =\omega \left(\chi \right)={\displaystyle \frac{ϵ}{\mathrm{}}}={\displaystyle \frac{\left|\alpha \right|}{\mathrm{}}}\sqrt{1+\left|\chi \right|^2}`$ (22)
with

$`\chi ={\displaystyle \frac{\beta }{\alpha }}={\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _2}{\gamma _1}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=x,y,z}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{n_ir_i!}{\sqrt{n_i!\left(n_ir_il_i\right)!}}}`$ (23)
The quantity $`|\chi |`$ expresses the relative strength of the coupling between the level $`|\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{r},2`$ with $`|\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{l},3`$ and $`|\stackrel{}{n},1`$ respectively and hence, as $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$, is $`\stackrel{}{n}`$-,$`\stackrel{}{r}`$\- and $`\stackrel{}{l}`$-dependent and is determined both by laser parameters and by the initial condition.
Such a property enables to obtain larger values of $`|\chi |`$ with the same laser amplitudes only choosing different initial vibrational states, and hence allows to avoid possible difficulties related with the use of very intense laser fields.
In passing we note that starting from the initial 3D zero point energy vibrational state, the Boulder group has succeeded in generating one-dimensional Fock states up to 16 bosonic excitations.
In the limit $`|\chi |1`$, the time evolution of the state $`|\stackrel{}{n},1`$, as given by eq.(15), appears to be inhibited. This suggests us that when the coupling between levels 2 and 3 is greater than the one between 1 and 2, a GQZE occurs.
In order to demonstrate the occurrence of such an effect in our system, in accordance with ref, let us compare our hamiltonian model given by eq.(9) with that given by eq.(1) making the correspondences $`H\gamma _1\stackrel{}{a}^\stackrel{}{k}|21|+(h.c.)`$, $`\chi K\frac{\gamma _2}{\gamma _1}`$ and $`H_{meas}(K)K\gamma _1\stackrel{}{a}^\stackrel{}{l}|32|+(h.c.)`$.
Consider now the survival probability, $`P^\chi (t)`$, for different values of $`\chi `$, with $`|\stackrel{}{n},1`$ as initial state. Since the initial state is an eigenstate of $`H_0`$ we have

$`P^\chi \left(t\right)\left|\stackrel{}{n},1\left|e^{\frac{i}{\mathrm{}}H_0t}\right|\psi _{\stackrel{}{n},1}\right|^2=\left|\stackrel{}{n},1|\psi _{\stackrel{}{n},1}\right|^2`$ (24)
and therefore

$`P^\chi \left(t\right)=\left({\displaystyle \frac{\left|\chi \right|^2+\mathrm{cos}\omega t}{\left|\chi \right|^2+1}}\right)^2`$ (25)
In view of eqs.(15)-(17) the time evolution of the trapped ion within the subspace under scrutiny, is governed by a single frequency $`\omega (\chi )`$. This naturally leads to define the Poincaré-time, $`T_p(\chi )`$, of our system as the oscillation period, $`T(\chi )`$,

$`T_p\left(\chi \right)=T\left(\chi \right)={\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{\omega \left(\chi \right)}}={\displaystyle \frac{2\pi \mathrm{}}{\left|\alpha \right|\sqrt{1+\left|\chi \right|^2}}}`$ (26)
Thus $`P^\chi (0)=P^\chi (T_p(\chi ))=1`$, which simply means that after a complete $`\chi `$-dependent Rabi cycle the system is found in its initial state.
Figure 1 shows that for each value of $`|\chi |>1`$ there exists a time instant $`t_\chi `$ of the order of $`T_p(\chi )`$ such that for $`tϵ[0,t_\chi ]`$ we have $`P^\chi (t)>P(t)`$. Thus, at the light of ref, we may claim that our system manifests GQZE, under the condition previously discussed.
It is worth noting that $`P^\chi (t)`$ exhibits an absolute minimum, $`m(\chi )`$, in the time interval $`[0,T_p(\chi )]`$, which may easily be evaluated as

$$m\left(\chi \right)=\{\begin{array}{cc}0\hfill & \text{if }0\left|\chi \right|1,\hfill \\ \left(\frac{\left|\chi \right|^21}{\left|\chi \right|^2+1}\right)^2\hfill & \text{if }\left|\chi \right|>1,\hfill \end{array}$$
(27)
and occurs, for the first time, at

$$t_m\left(\chi \right)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{\mathrm{}}{\left|\alpha \right|\sqrt{1+\left|\chi \right|^2}}arccos\left(\left|\chi \right|^2\right)\hfill & \text{if }0\left|\chi \right|1,\hfill \\ \frac{\pi \mathrm{}}{\left|\alpha \right|\sqrt{1+\left|\chi \right|^2}}\hfill & \text{if }\left|\chi \right|>1,\hfill \end{array}$$
(28)
In figures 2 and 3 we plot the behaviours of $`m(\chi )`$ and $`t_m(\chi )`$ respectively.
The value of $`|\chi |`$ at which $`m(\chi )`$ begins to assume values different from zero is $`|\chi |=1`$ and corresponds to the position of the maximum exhibited by $`t_m(\chi )`$. It is interesting to note, in passing, that the non differentiability of $`t_m(\chi )`$ at $`|\chi |=1`$ originates from the coalescence of three stationary points (two minima and a maximum) of $`P^\chi (t)`$.
We wish to emphasize that, as $`|\chi |`$ grows up, the value of $`m(\chi )`$ tends toward 1 and hence $`P^\chi (t)`$ tends toward 1 uniformly with respect to $`\chi `$. Such a property, namely $`m(\chi )1`$ as $`|\chi |\mathrm{}`$, describes in a very transparent way the effectiveness of the hindering process of the initial state time evolution as a function of $`\chi `$, and provides a new way to bring to the light the occurrence of a GQZE in physical systems characterized by a finite Poincaré-time.
It should be noted that this definition is stronger than the one given by Facchi and Pascazio. This virtue proceeds from the simplicity of our physical system, which permits us to analyze in detail its dynamical properties and from the fact that we have restricted our GQZE-testing to oscillatory phenomena.
Another way to construct an indicator of the GQZE-occurrence in finite Poincaré-time systems is now proposed. Instead of considering the minimum of $`P^\chi (t)`$, we may use the mean value of the survival probability in a $`\chi `$-dependent Rabi cycle :

$`\overline{P}\left(\chi \right)={\displaystyle _0^{T\left(\chi \right)}}P^\chi \left(t\right){\displaystyle \frac{dt}{T\left(\chi \right)}}={\displaystyle \frac{\chi ^4+\frac{1}{2}}{\left(1+\chi ^2\right)^2}}`$ (29)
This quantity has a very clear physical meaning representing the probability to find the system in its initial state independently of the time instant randomly chosen in $`[0,T(\chi )]`$.
The behaviour of $`\overline{P}(\chi )`$ is plotted in fig.4 and shows the existence of a minimum at $`|\chi |=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}`$ and the asymptotic tendency to 1 when $`|\chi |`$ becomes larger and larger. This asymptotic behaviour may be reasonably taken as a clear indication that the system dynamics becomes more and more hindered ”in average”. In order to elucidate this statement, it is useful to introduce the quantity $`S(\chi ,ϵ)`$ defined as the sum of amplitudes of the time intervals included in $`[0,T_p(\chi )]`$ wherein $`P^\chi (t)<\overline{P}(\chi )ϵ`$, $`ϵ`$ being a positive arbitrarily chosen $`\chi `$-independent real quantity.
By ”average hindering” we mean the tendency of the ratio $`\frac{S(\chi ,ϵ)}{T_p(\chi )}`$ to vanish as $`\overline{P}(\chi )1`$.
Intuitively, since each $`P^\chi (t)`$ is upper-bounded by 1, if its temporal mean value, $`\overline{P}(\chi )`$, approaches this maximum, the function $`P^\chi (t)`$ tends to 1 almost anywhere.
It is interesting to note that introducing, in analogy with eq.(26), the temporal mean value of the probability $`\overline{P_2}(\chi )`$ ($`\overline{P_3}(\chi )`$) of finding the trapped ion in the level $`|\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{r},2`$ ($`|\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{l},3`$), the position of the absolute minimum of $`\overline{P}(\chi )`$ is just that in correspondence to which

$`\overline{P}\left(\chi \right)=\overline{P_2}\left(\chi \right)=\overline{P_3}\left(\chi \right)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}`$ (30)
where the last equality follows from the normalization condition $`\overline{P}(\chi )+\overline{P_2}(\chi )+\overline{P_3}(\chi )=1`$.
We wish to point out that the $`\overline{P}(\chi )`$-test is weaker than the $`m(\chi )`$-test, in the sense that when $`m(\chi )`$ grows up and approaches to 1, the parameter $`\overline{P}(\chi )`$ approaches to 1 too but not vice versa. Nevertheless introducing $`\overline{P}(\chi )`$ appears to be useful in order to bring to the light a ”global decrease” of $`P^\chi (t)`$ which is invisible when $`m(\chi )`$-test is considered.
Summarizing, in this paper we have predicted that an ion confined in a Paul trap may exhibit a QZE when it is irradiated with appropriately configured laser beams. An important point that deserves to be emphasized is that our prediction concerns a continuous measurements QZE which is different from the QZE ”á la Misra-Sudarshan” predicted by Cook and experimentally found by Wineland. The difference is that in our scheme only unitary evolutions are involved while in Cook’s experiment description projection operators are used and also the interaction with a series of short separated pulses is required. But the shorter is the distance between two pulses the more unfeasible is the series. On the contrary, a continuous interaction is simpler to realize and hence our scheme might be relatively easier to implement.
The simplicity of the dynamical problem considered in this paper has given us the possibility of proposing novel indicators for the occurrence of the QZE. We feel that such novel ways of analysing the presence of QZE might be useful for different physical contexts provided that their dynamics is characterized by a finite recurrence time.

## Acknowledgements

We wish to thank Paolo Facchi and Saverio Pascazio for reading the manuscript and for giving us many useful suggestions. The financial support from CRRNSM-Regione Sicilia is greatly acknowledged. One of the author (A.N.) is indebted to MURST and FSE for partially supporting this in the context of Programma Operativo Multiregionale 1994/99 94002311.

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# Acknowledgments

## Acknowledgments

Thanks go to D.J. Miller for continual encouragement during the project. We are grateful to K. Desch and A. Para for useful experimental advice, and to G. Kramer for discussions and the critical reading of the manuscript.