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# Observational Constraints on Inflation Models with Nonminimal Scalar Field

## Introduction

The inflation has been recognized as the strong mechanism which can provide the origin of the large scale structure generation and the evolution in the universe. Therefore it is possible to probe the early universe by using the observation of the large scale structures. Especially, the observed anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) in the large angular scale are very important to constrain the inflation models which are usually based on the model scalar fields or the generalized version of the gravity theories. Since the first detection of the CMBR temperature anisotropies by COBE (1992), several theories of structure formation have been investigated, and owing to the advances in the observational techniques these theories have been tested with increasing precision. A host of new data including the recent results from Boomerang Bernardis , MAXIMA-I and the near future experiments like MAP (2001), Planck surveyor (2007) will map the CMBR in more detail and consequently can provide stronger constraints on the inflation models.

Recently, the importance of the generalized gravity theories in the early universe has increased, and these theories arise from the attempts to quantize the gravity or as the low-energy limit of the unified theories. So, many inflation models have been investigated based on the generalized gravity theories Starobinsky ; Spokoiny .

In this work, we will investigate the constraints on the inflation model based on the nonminimall coupled scalar field with a self interaction. The chaotic inflation model is usually based on the minimally coupled scalar field with self coupling. However, this model has some fine tuning problem with $`\lambda `$ which must be unreasonably small in order to be consistent with the observed quadrupole anisotropy. The new chaotic inflationary scenario was proposed based on the nonminimally coupled scalar field with a strong coupling assumption Fakir-Unruh  in which the severe constraint on $`\lambda `$ can be relaxed by introducing a large value of $`\xi `$. Most of works on this model have been done either using the scalar-type structures SBB ; Fakir-Unruh ; Makino-Sasaki , or the tensor-type structures Komatsu-Futamase . We use both the scalar- and the tensort-type structure, and derive the constraints on the coupling constants and the expansion rate during the inflation era comparing with the four-year COBE DMR data.

## Non-minimally coupled Scalar Field

The Lagrangian for the generalized gravity theory is given by

$$=\sqrt{g}\left[\frac{1}{2}f(\varphi ,R)\frac{1}{2}\omega (\varphi )\varphi ^{;c}\varphi _{,c}V(\varphi )\right].$$
(1)
The non-minimally coupled scalar field is one case with $`f=(\kappa ^2\xi \varphi ^2)R`$, thus $`Ff_{,R}=\kappa ^2\xi \varphi ^2`$, and $`\omega =1`$ where $`\kappa ^28\pi m_{pl}^2`$. We consider a self-coupling $`V=\frac{1}{4}\lambda \varphi ^4`$.

We assume the slow-rolls ($`|\ddot{\varphi }/\dot{\varphi }|H\dot{a}/a`$ and $`|\dot{\varphi }/\varphi |H`$), the potential-dominance ($`\frac{1}{2}(16\xi )\dot{\varphi }^2V`$), and the strong-coupling ($`|\kappa ^2\xi \varphi ^2|1`$) conditions, and then obtain the following background solutions, Fakir-Unruh ; Makino-Sasaki ; Komatsu-Futamase :

$$H=H_i+\frac{\lambda }{3\kappa ^2\xi (16\xi )}\left(tt_i\right),\varphi =\sqrt{12\frac{\xi }{\lambda }}H,$$
(2)
where we consider $`\xi <0`$ case Barvinsky . In the regime $`H_i`$ term dominates $`H`$ we have a near exponentially expanding period $`ae^{H_it}`$ which can provide a possible inflation scenario, Fakir-Unruh .

Using our previous work in which we have investigated the quantum generation and the classical evolution of the scalar- and tensor-type structures in the generalized gravity theories, we derive the general power spectra based on vacuum expectation values in Eq. (16) of GGT-scalar  and Eq. (32) of GGT-GW  in the large scale limit

$$𝒫_{\widehat{\phi }_{\delta \varphi }}^{1/2}=\frac{H}{|\dot{\varphi }|}𝒫_{\delta \widehat{\varphi }_\phi }^{1/2}=\frac{H^2}{2\pi |\dot{\varphi }|}\frac{1}{\sqrt{16\xi }}\left|c_2(k)c_1(k)\right|,$$
(3)
$$𝒫_{\widehat{C}_{\alpha \beta }}^{1/2}=\frac{\kappa H}{\sqrt{2}\pi }\frac{1}{\sqrt{1\kappa ^2\xi \varphi ^2}}\sqrt{\frac{1}{2}\underset{\mathrm{}}{}\left|c_\mathrm{}2(k)c_\mathrm{}1(k)\right|^2},$$
(4)
where $`\mathrm{}`$ represents the two polarization states of the gravitational wave. We find these results reproduce the minimally coupled scalar field case in the limit of $`\xi =0`$, Stewart-Lyth . $`c_i(k)`$ and $`c_\mathrm{}i(k)`$ are constrained by the quantization conditions: $`|c_2|^2|c_1|^2=1`$, and $`|c_\mathrm{}2|^2|c_\mathrm{}1|^2=1`$. We see that the power spectra generally depend on the scale $`k`$ through the vacuum choices which fix $`c_i`$ and $`c_\mathrm{}i`$. If we choose the simplest vacuum states $`c_2=1`$ and $`c_\mathrm{}2=1`$ the power spectra become independent of $`k`$, thus are scale invariant.

Eq. (2), Eqs. (3), and (4) give:

$$𝒫_{\widehat{\phi }_{\delta \varphi }}^{1/2}=\left(\frac{H_i}{m_{pl}}\right)^2\sqrt{\frac{12\xi (16\xi )}{\lambda }}\left|c_2c_1\right|,$$
(5)
$$𝒫_{\widehat{C}_{\alpha \beta }}^{1/2}=\frac{1}{2\pi }\sqrt{\frac{\lambda }{6\xi ^2}}\sqrt{\frac{1}{2}\underset{\mathrm{}}{}\left|c_\mathrm{}2c_\mathrm{}1\right|^2}.$$
(6)
Using our previous results that $`\phi _{\delta \varphi }`$ and $`C_{\alpha \beta }`$ are conserved independently of changing gravity theory, changing potential, and changing equation of state in the large scale, we can identify the power spectra based on the vacuum expectation values during the inflation with the classical ones based on the spatial averaging. So, the Eq. (5), (6) are valid even in the matter dominated era in the large scale. Consequently the classical power spectra during the matter dominated era are

$$𝒫_{\phi _{\delta \varphi }}^{1/2}=\left(\frac{H_i}{m_{pl}}\right)^2\sqrt{\frac{12\xi (16\xi )}{\lambda }},$$
(7)
$$𝒫_{C_{\alpha \beta }}^{1/2}=\frac{1}{2\pi }\sqrt{\frac{\lambda }{6\xi ^2}}.$$
(8)
Comparing these power spectra with the observed data of the quadrupole anisotropy in the CMBR temperature we can derive important constraints on the inflation model parameters. For example, the observed values of $`a_2^2`$ are related with the power spectra GGT-scalar ; GGT-GW , and consequently constrain $`H_i`$ and $`\lambda /\xi ^2`$.

For the scale independent Zel’dovich spectra in Eqs. (7,8) the quadrupole anisotropy is given by

$$a_2^2=a_2^2_S+a_2^2_T=\frac{\pi }{75}𝒫_{\phi _{\delta \varphi }}+7.74\frac{1}{5}\frac{3}{32}𝒫_{C_{\alpha \beta }}.$$
(9)
The four-year COBE-DMR data give COBE :

$$Q_{\mathrm{rms}\mathrm{PS}}=18\pm 1.6\mu K,T_0=2.725\pm 0.020K,a_2^2=\frac{4\pi }{5}\left(\frac{Q_{\mathrm{rms}\mathrm{PS}}}{T_0}\right)^21.1\times 10^{10}.$$
(10)
We consider a case with $`|\xi |1`$. The ratio of two types of the structures is given by

$$r_2a_2^2_T/a_2^2_S=3.46𝒫_{𝒞_{\alpha \beta }}/𝒫_{\phi _{\delta \varphi }}.$$
(11)
The additional constraints can be obtained by using the e-folding number $`N_k`$ for the successful inflation. $`N_k`$ is the number of e-folds since the scale $`k`$ exists the horizon and reachs the large scale limit before the end of the latest inflation and is defined by

$$N_{t_k}^{t_e}H𝑑t\frac{H^2}{2\dot{H}}(t_k),$$
(12)
where $`t_e`$ is the ending epoch of the latest inflation, and $`t_k`$ is the epoch when the perturbation with the scale $`k`$ exits the horizon and reaches the large scale.

Using $`N_k60`$ gives following constraints:

$$r_2=3.46\frac{3}{N_k^2}0.0029,\frac{\lambda }{\xi ^2}5.2\times 10^{10},\frac{H(t_k)}{m_{pl}}\sqrt{75a_2^2/N_k}1.2\times 10^5.$$
(13)
These results show the strong constraint. Also, we derive the spectral indices of the scalar and tensor type structures

$$n_S1=2/N_k0.033,n_T0.$$
(14)
Therefore our results give the nearly scale independent spectra which are consistent with current observations.

## Discussion

We derive several constraints including the ratio of the parameters and the expansion rates during the inflation era. Futhermore, using the condition of the successful inflation with enough e-folds we obtain the strong constraints on the gravitational wave contribution to the quadrupole temperature anisotropy of the CMBR. The gravitational wave contributon turns out to be negligible compared with the scalar-type contribution. Therefore any future observational data which show the excessive amount of the gravitational wave contribution may exclude the possibility of this model.

Our results also apply to the case of induced gravity in which $`f=ϵ\varphi ^2R`$, $`\omega =1`$, and $`V=\frac{1}{4}\lambda (\varphi ^2v^2)^2`$. Assuming that $`\varphi ^2v^2`$, our nonminimally-coupled scalar field with strong coupling and $`V=\frac{1}{4}\lambda \varphi ^4`$ becomes exactly the induced gravity case. By replacing $`\xi ϵ`$ and $`\xi \kappa ^2v^2`$, our analyses and results apply to the inflation based on induced gravity.


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# Higgs production in hadron collisions: soft and virtual QCD corrections at NNLO **footnote *This work was supported in part by the EU Fourth Framework Programme “Training and Mobility of Researchers”, Network “Quantum Chromodynamics and the Deep Structure of Elementary Particles”, contract FMRX–CT98–0194 (DG 12 – MIHT).

## 1 Introduction

The Higgs boson  is a fundamental ingredient of the Standard Model (SM), but it has not yet been observed.

Direct searches at LEP imply a lower limit of $`M_H>112.3`$ GeV (at $`95\%`$ CL)  on the mass $`M_H`$ of the SM Higgs boson. Global SM fits to electroweak precision measurements favour a light Higgs ($`M_H<200`$ GeV) . The combination of the preliminary Higgs boson search results of the four LEP experiments  shows an excess of candidates, which may indicate the production of a SM Higgs boson with a mass near 115 GeV. The final analysis of the LEP data is expected soon, but it is unlikely that it can substantially change these results.

After the end of the LEP physics programme, the search for the Higgs boson will be carried out at hadron colliders. Depending on the luminosity delivered to the CDF and D0 detectors during the forthcoming Run II, the Tevatron experiments can yield evidence for a Higgs boson with $`M_H<180`$ GeV and may be able to discover (at the $`5\sigma `$ level) a Higgs boson with $`M_H<130`$ GeV . At the LHC, the SM Higgs boson can be discovered over the full mass range up to $`M_H1`$ TeV after a few years of running .

The dominant mechanism for SM Higgs boson production at hadron colliders is gluon–gluon fusion through a heavy-quark (top-quark) loop . At the Tevatron, this production mechanism leads to about $`65\%`$ of the total cross section for producing a Higgs boson in the mass range $`M_H=100`$-200 GeV . At the LHC , $`gg`$ fusion exceeds all the other production channels by a factor decreasing from 8 to 5 when $`M_H`$ increases from 100 to 200 GeV. When $`M_H`$ approaches 1 TeV, $`gg`$ fusion still provides about $`50\%`$ of the total production cross section.

QCD radiative corrections at next-to-leading order (NLO) to $`gg`$-fusion were computed and found to be large . Since approximate evaluations  of higher-order terms suggest that their effect can still be sizeable, the evaluation of the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) corrections is highly desirable.

In this paper, we perform a first step towards the complete NNLO calculation. We use the recently evaluated  two-loop amplitude for the process $`ggH`$ and the soft-gluon factorization formulae  for the bremsstrahlung subprocesses $`ggHg`$ and $`ggHgg,Hq\overline{q}`$, and we compute the soft and virtual contributions to the NNLO partonic cross section. We also discuss all-order resummation of soft-gluon contributions to next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic (NNLL) accuracy.

We use the approximation $`M_tM_H`$, where $`M_t`$ is the mass of the top quark. The results of the NLO calculation in Ref.  show that this is a good numerical approximation  of the full NLO correction, provided the exact dependence on $`M_H/M_t`$ is included in the leading-order (LO) term. We can thus assume that the limit $`M_tM_H`$ continues to be a good numerical approximation at NNLO.

The hadronic cross section for Higgs boson production is obtained by convoluting the perturbative partonic cross sections with the parton distributions of the colliding hadrons. Besides the partonic cross sections, the other key ingredients of the NNLO calculation are the NNLO parton distributions. Even though their NNLO evolution kernels are not fully available, some of their Mellin moments have been computed  and, from these, approximated kernels have been constructed . Recently, the new MRST  sets of distributions became availableWe thank J. Stirling for providing us with the new set of distributions., including the (approximated) NNLO densities, which allows an evaluation of the hadronic cross section to (almost full) NNLO accuracy.

We use our NNLO result for the partonic cross sections and the MRST parton distributions at NNLO to compute the Higgs boson production cross section at the LHC. In this paper, we do not present numerical results for Run II at the Tevatron. Inclusive production of Higgs boson through gluon–gluon fusion is phenomenologically less relevant at the Tevatron: it is not regarded as a main discovery channel, because of the large QCD background .

The paper is organized as follows. In Sect. 2 we define the soft-virtual approximation for the cross section and present our result for the corresponding NNLO coefficient. In Sect. 3 we discuss soft-gluon resummation for Higgs production at NNLL accuracy, and we also consider the dominant contributions of collinear origin. In Sect. 4 we present the quantitative effect of the computed NNLO corrections for SM Higgs boson production at the LHC. Finally, in Sect. 5 we present our conclusions and we comment on Higgs boson production beyond the SM.

## 2 QCD cross section at NNLO

We consider the collision of two hadrons $`h_1`$ and $`h_2`$ with centre-of-mass energy $`\sqrt{s}`$. The inclusive cross section for the production of the SM Higgs boson can be written as

$`\sigma (s,M_H^2)=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{a,b}{}}{\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑x_1𝑑x_1f_{a/h_1}(x_1,\mu _F^2)f_{b/h_2}(x_2,\mu _F^2){\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑z\delta \left(z{\displaystyle \frac{\tau }{x_1x_2}}\right)`$
$`\sigma _0zG_{ab}(z;\alpha _\mathrm{S}(\mu _R^2),M_H^2/\mu _R^2;M_H^2/\mu _F^2),`$ (1)
where $`\tau =M_H^2/s`$, and $`\mu _F`$ and $`\mu _R`$ are factorization and renormalization scales, respectively. The parton densities of the colliding hadrons are denoted by $`f_{a/h}(x,\mu _F^2)`$ and the subscript $`a`$ labels the type of massless partons ($`a=g,q_f,\overline{q}_f`$, with $`N_f`$ different flavours of light quarks). We use parton densities as defined in the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ factorization scheme.

From Eq. (2) the cross section $`\widehat{\sigma }_{ab}`$ for the partonic subprocess $`abH+X`$ at the centre-of-mass energy $`\widehat{s}=x_1x_2s=M_H^2/z`$ is

$$\widehat{\sigma }_{ab}(\widehat{s},M_H^2)=\frac{1}{\widehat{s}}\sigma _0M_H^2G_{ab}(z)=\sigma _0zG_{ab}(z),$$
(2)
where the term $`1/\widehat{s}`$ corresponds to the flux factor and leads to an overall $`z`$ factor. The Born-level cross section $`\sigma _0`$ and the hard coefficient function $`G_{ab}`$ arise from the phase-space integral of the matrix elements squared.

The incoming partons $`a,b`$ couple to the Higgs boson through heavy-quark loops and, therefore, $`\sigma _0`$ and $`G_{ab}`$ also depend on the masses $`M_Q`$ of the heavy quarks. The Born-level contribution $`\sigma _0`$ is

$$\sigma _0=\frac{G_F}{288\pi \sqrt{2}}|\underset{Q}{}A_Q\left(\frac{4M_Q^2}{M_H^2}\right)|^2,$$
(3)
where $`G_F=1.16639\times 10^5`$ GeV<sup>-2</sup> is the Fermi constant, and the amplitude $`A_Q`$ is given by

$`A_Q(x)`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}x\left[1+(1x)f(x)\right],`$
$`f(x)`$ $`=\{\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{arcsin}^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{x}}},\hfill & x1\hfill \\ {\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\left[\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{1+\sqrt{1x}}{1\sqrt{1x}}}i\pi \right]^2,\hfill & x<1\hfill \end{array}.`$ (6)
In the following we limit ourselves to considering the case of a single heavy quark, the top quark, and $`N_f=5`$ light-quark flavours. We always use $`M_t`$ ($`M_t=176`$ GeV) to denote the on-shell pole mass of the top quark.

The coefficient function $`G_{ab}`$ in Eq. (2) is computable in QCD perturbation theory according to the expansion

$`G_{ab}(z;\alpha _\mathrm{S}(\mu _R^2),M_H^2/\mu _R^2;M_H^2/\mu _F^2)`$ $`=\alpha _\mathrm{S}^2(\mu _R^2){\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _\mathrm{S}(\mu _R^2)}{\pi }}\right)^nG_{ab}^{(n)}(z;M_H^2/\mu _R^2;M_H^2/\mu _F^2)`$
$`=\alpha _\mathrm{S}^2(\mu _R^2)G_{ab}^{(0)}(z)+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _\mathrm{S}^3(\mu _R^2)}{\pi }}G_{ab}^{(1)}(z;{\displaystyle \frac{M_H^2}{\mu _R^2}};{\displaystyle \frac{M_H^2}{\mu _F^2}})`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _\mathrm{S}^4(\mu _R^2)}{\pi ^2}}G_{ab}^{(2)}(z;{\displaystyle \frac{M_H^2}{\mu _R^2}};{\displaystyle \frac{M_H^2}{\mu _F^2}})+𝒪(\alpha _\mathrm{S}^5),`$ (7)
where the (scale-independent) LO contribution is

$$G_{ab}^{(0)}(z)=\delta _{ag}\delta _{bg}\delta (1z).$$
(8)
The NLO coefficients $`G_{ab}^{(1)}`$ are known. Their calculation with the exact dependence on $`M_t`$ was performed in Ref. . In the large-$`M_t`$ limit (i.e. neglecting corrections that vanish when $`M_H/M_t0`$) the result is

$`G_{gg}^{(1)}(z;M_H^2/\mu _R^2;`$ $`M_H^2/\mu _F^2)=\delta (1z)({\displaystyle \frac{11}{2}}+6\zeta (2)+{\displaystyle \frac{332N_f}{6}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\mu _R^2}{\mu _F^2}})+12𝒟_1`$
$`+6𝒟_0\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{M_H^2}{\mu _F^2}}+P_{gg}^{\mathrm{reg}}(z)\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{(1z)^2M_H^2}{z\mu _F^2}}6{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{ln}z}{1z}}{\displaystyle \frac{11}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{(1z)^3}{z}},`$ (9)
$$G_{gq}^{(1)}(z;M_H^2/\mu _R^2;M_H^2/\mu _F^2)=\frac{1}{2}P_{gq}(z)\mathrm{ln}\frac{(1z)^2M_H^2}{z\mu _F^2}+\frac{2}{3}z\frac{(1z)^2}{z},$$
(10)
$$G_{q\overline{q}}^{(1)}(z;M_H^2/\mu _R^2;M_H^2/\mu _F^2)=\frac{32}{27}\frac{(1z)^3}{z},G_{qq}^{(1)}(z;M_H^2/\mu _R^2;M_H^2/\mu _F^2)=0,$$
(11)
where $`\zeta (n)`$ is the Riemann zeta-function ($`\zeta (2)=\pi ^2/6=1.645\mathrm{}`$, $`\zeta (3)=1.202\mathrm{}`$), and we have defined

$$𝒟_i(z)\left[\frac{\mathrm{ln}^i(1z)}{1z}\right]_+.$$
(12)
The kernels $`P_{ab}(z)`$ are the LO Altarelli–Parisi splitting functions for real emission,

$$P_{gg}^{\mathrm{reg}}(z)=6\left[\frac{1}{z}2+z(1z)\right],P_{gq}(z)=\frac{4}{3}\frac{1+(1z)^2}{z},$$
(13)
and, more precisely, $`P_{gg}^{\mathrm{reg}}(z)`$ is the regular part (i.e. after subtracting the $`1/(1z)`$ soft singularity) of $`P_{gg}(z)`$.

In Eqs. (2)–(11) we can identify three kinds of contributions:

* Soft and virtual corrections, which involve only the $`gg`$ channel and give rise to the $`\delta (1z)`$ and $`𝒟_i`$ terms in Eq. (2). These are the most singular terms when $`z1`$.
* Purely-collinear logarithmic contributions, which are controlled by the regular part of the Altarelli–Parisi splitting kernels (see Eqs. (2), (10)). The argument of the collinear logarithm corresponds to the maximum value $`(q_{T\mathrm{max}}^2(1z)^2M_H^2/z)`$ of the transverse momentum $`q_T`$ of the Higgs boson. These contributions give the next-to-dominant singular terms when $`z1`$.
* Hard contributions, which are present in all partonic channels and lead to finite corrections in the limit $`z1`$ .

The terms proportional to the distributions $`𝒟_i(z)`$ and $`\delta (1z)`$ can be used to define what we call the soft-virtual (SV) approximation. In this approximation only the $`gg`$ channel contributes and we have

$`G_{ab}^{(1)\mathrm{SV}}(z;M_H^2/\mu _R^2;M_H^2/\mu _F^2)`$ $`=\delta _{ag}\delta _{bg}[\delta (1z)({\displaystyle \frac{11}{2}}+6\zeta (2)+{\displaystyle \frac{332N_f}{6}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\mu _R^2}{\mu _F^2}})`$
$`+\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}6}𝒟_0\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{M_H^2}{\mu _F^2}}+12𝒟_1].`$ (14)
The SV terms are certainly the dominant contributions to the cross section in the kinematic region near threshold $`(\tau =M_H^2/s1)`$. At fixed $`s`$, this means that the SV terms certainly dominate in the case of heavy Higgs bosons. However, these terms can give the dominant effect even long before the threshold region in the hadronic cross section is actually approached. This is a consequence of the fact that the partonic cross section $`\widehat{\sigma }(\widehat{s},M_H^2)`$ has to be convoluted with the parton densities, and the QCD evolution of the latter sizeably reduces the energy that is available in the partonic hard-scattering subprocess. Thus, the partonic cross section $`\widehat{\sigma }(\widehat{s},M_H^2)`$ (or the coefficient function $`G(z)`$) in the factorization formula (2) is typically evaluated much closer to threshold than the hadronic cross section. In other words, the parton densities are large at small $`x`$ and are strongly suppressed at large $`x`$ (typically, when $`x1`$, $`f(x,\mu ^2)(1x)^\eta `$ with $`\eta >3`$ and $`\eta >6`$ for valence quarks and sea-quarks or gluons, respectively); after integration over them, the dominant value of the square of the partonic centre-of-mass energy $`\widehat{s}=x_1x_2s`$ is therefore substantially smaller than the corresponding hadronic value $`s`$. Note, also, that this effect is enhanced, in gluon-dominated processes, by the stronger suppression of the gluon density at large $`x`$. In the case of Higgs boson production at the LHC, these features were emphasized in Ref. , where the authors pointed out that the SV approximation gives a good numerical approximation (see also Sect. 4) of the complete NLO corrections down to low values ($`M_H100`$ GeV) of the Higgs boson mass.

The NNLO coefficients $`G_{ab}^{(2)}`$ are not yet known. Their computation, including their exact dependence on $`M_t`$, is certainly very difficult, since it requires the evaluation of three-loop Feynman diagrams.

The computation is certainly more feasible in the large-$`M_t`$ limit, where one can exploit the effective-lagrangian approach introduced in Ref.  and developed up to $`𝒪(\alpha _\mathrm{S}^4)`$ in Refs. . Using this approach, the contribution of the heavy-quark loop is embodied by an effective vertex, thus reducing by one the number of loop integrals to be explicitly carried out.

Within the effective-lagrangian formalism, an important step has recently been performed by Harlander , who has evaluated the two-loop amplitude for the process $`ggH`$ by using dimensional regularization in $`d=42ϵ`$ space-time dimensions. The two-loop amplitude has poles of the type $`1/ϵ^n`$ with $`n=4,3,2,1`$. The coefficients of the poles of order $`n=4,3,2`$ had been predicted in Ref. . The agreement  with this prediction is a non-trivial check of Harlander’s result.

To compute the NNLO cross section, the two-loop amplitude for the process $`ggH`$ has to be combined with the phase-space integrals of the squares of the one-loop matrix element for the process $`ggHg`$ and of the tree-level matrix elements for the processes $`ggHgg`$ and $`ggHq\overline{q}`$. We have computed these matrix elements in the limit where the final-state partons are soft, by using the one-loop and tree-level factorization formulae derived in Refs.  and Refs. , respectively. Then, we have carried out the phase-space integrals by using the technique of Ref. . The result contains $`ϵ`$-poles and finite terms. The $`ϵ`$-poles (including the single pole $`1/ϵ`$) exactly cancel those in the two-loop amplitude , thus providing a non-trivial cross-check of our and Harlander’s results. The remaining finite terms give the complete soft and virtual contributions to the NNLO cross section.

Details of our calculation will be presented elsewhere . In this paper we limit ourselves to presenting the final result. We obtain the following soft and virtual contributions to the NNLO coefficient function $`G_{gg}^{(2)}`$:

$`G_{gg}`$ $`{}_{}{}^{(2)\mathrm{SV}}(z;M_H^2/\mu _R^2,M_H^2/\mu _F^2)=\delta (1z)[{\displaystyle \frac{11399}{144}}+{\displaystyle \frac{133}{2}}\zeta (2){\displaystyle \frac{9}{20}}\zeta (2)^2{\displaystyle \frac{165}{4}}\zeta (3)`$
$`+\left({\displaystyle \frac{19}{8}}+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}N_f\right)\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{M_H^2}{M_t^2}}+N_f\left({\displaystyle \frac{1189}{144}}{\displaystyle \frac{5}{3}}\zeta (2)+{\displaystyle \frac{5}{6}}\zeta (3)\right)`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\left(332N_f\right)^2}{48}}\mathrm{ln}^2{\displaystyle \frac{\mu _F^2}{\mu _R^2}}18\zeta (2)\mathrm{ln}^2{\displaystyle \frac{M_H^2}{\mu _F^2}}`$
$`+\left({\displaystyle \frac{169}{4}}+{\displaystyle \frac{171}{2}}\zeta (3){\displaystyle \frac{19}{6}}N_f+\left(332N_f\right)\zeta (2)\right)\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{M_H^2}{\mu _F^2}}`$
$`+({\displaystyle \frac{465}{8}}+{\displaystyle \frac{13}{3}}N_f{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}(332N_f)\zeta (2))\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{M_H^2}{\mu _R^2}}]`$
$`+𝒟_0[{\displaystyle \frac{101}{3}}+33\zeta (2)+{\displaystyle \frac{351}{2}}\zeta (3)+N_f({\displaystyle \frac{14}{9}}2\zeta (2))+({\displaystyle \frac{165}{4}}{\displaystyle \frac{5}{2}}N_f)\mathrm{ln}^2{\displaystyle \frac{M_H^2}{\mu _F^2}}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}(332N_f)\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{M_H^2}{\mu _F^2}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{M_H^2}{\mu _R^2}}+({\displaystyle \frac{133}{2}}45\zeta (2){\displaystyle \frac{5}{3}}N_f)\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{M_H^2}{\mu _F^2}}]`$
$`+𝒟_1\left[13390\zeta (2){\displaystyle \frac{10}{3}}N_f+36\mathrm{ln}^2{\displaystyle \frac{M_H^2}{\mu _F^2}}+\left(332N_f\right)\left(2\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{M_H^2}{\mu _F^2}}3\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{M_H^2}{\mu _R^2}}\right)\right]`$
$`+𝒟_2\left[33+2N_f+108\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{M_H^2}{\mu _F^2}}\right]`$
$`+72𝒟_3.`$ (15)
Note that our result in Eq. (2) gives the complete soft contributions (all the terms proportional to the distributions $`𝒟_i(z)`$) to the NNLO coefficient functions $`G_{ab}^{(2)}(z)`$. It also gives the complete virtual contribution (the term proportional to $`\delta (1z)`$) to the $`gg`$ channel. The expression in Eq. (2) is an approximation of the exact NNLO calculation in the sense that it differs from $`G_{ab}^{(2)}(z)`$ by terms that are less singular when $`z1`$. More precisely, in the large-$`z`$ limit we have (see Sect. (3))

$`G_{gg}^{(2)}(z)G_{gg}^{(2)\mathrm{SV}}(z)=𝒪(\mathrm{ln}^3(1z)),`$ (16)
$`G_{gq}^{(2)}(z)=𝒪(\mathrm{ln}^3(1z)),`$ (17)
$`G_{q\overline{q}}^{(2)}(z)\delta (1z)+𝒪((1z)\mathrm{ln}^2(1z)),G_{qq}^{(2)}(z)=𝒪((1z)\mathrm{ln}^2(1z)).`$ (18)
Note also that, unlike the NLO term $`G_{ab}^{(1)}(z)`$, the NNLO coefficient function $`G_{ab}^{(2)}(z)`$ is not independent of $`M_t`$ in the large-$`M_t`$ limit. The virtual contribution in Eq. (2) contains a term, proportional to $`\mathrm{ln}M_H^2/M_t^2`$, that derives from the integration of the heavy-quark degrees of freedom in the effective lagrangian .

Our result in Eq. (2) can be useful as a non-trivial check of a future complete calculation at NNLO. It can also be used to extend the accuracy of the soft-gluon resummation formalism to NNLL order (see Sect. 3).

As previously discussed, the SV approximation turns out to be a good numerical approximation of the full NLO correction for Higgs boson production at the LHC. Thus, the NNLO-SV result in Eq. (2) can also be exploited to obtain an approximate numerical estimate of the complete NNLO correction (see Sect. 4).

## 3 Soft-gluon resummation at NNLL accuracy

The soft (and virtual) contributions $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}^2\alpha _\mathrm{S}^n𝒟_m(z)`$ (with $`m2n1`$) to the coefficient function $`G_{gg}(z)`$ can be summed to all orders in QCD perturbation theory. Using the soft-gluon resummation formulae that are known at present, we can check the coefficients of some of the soft contributions presented in Eq. (2). The remaining coefficients can then be used to extend the accuracy of the resummation formulae to NNLL order. Both points are discussed in this section.

The formalism to systematically perform soft-gluon resummation for processes initiated by $`q\overline{q}`$ annihilation and $`gg`$ fusion was set up in Refs. . Soft-gluon resummation has to be carried out in the Mellin (or $`N`$-moment) space. The $`N`$-moments $`G_N`$ of the coefficient function $`G(z)`$ are defined by

$$G_N_0^1𝑑zz^{N1}G(z).$$
(19)
In $`N`$-moment space the soft (or threshold) region $`z1`$ corresponds to the limit $`N\mathrm{}`$, and the distributions $`𝒟_m(z)`$ lead to logarithmic contributions, $`𝒟_m(z)\mathrm{ln}^{m+1}N`$. The singular contributions in the large-$`N`$ limit can be organized in the following all-order resummation formula:

$$G_{gg,N}=\overline{C}_{gg}(\alpha _\mathrm{S}(\mu _R^2),M_H^2/\mu _R^2;M_H^2/\mu _F^2)\mathrm{\Delta }_N^H(\alpha _\mathrm{S}(\mu _R^2),M_H^2/\mu _R^2;M_H^2/\mu _F^2)+𝒪(1/N).$$
(20)
The radiative factor $`\mathrm{\Delta }_N^H`$ embodies all the large contributions $`\mathrm{ln}N`$ due to soft radiation. The function $`\overline{C}_{gg}(\alpha _\mathrm{S})`$ contains all the terms that are constant in the large-$`N`$ limit and has a perturbative expansion analogous to Eq. (2):

$`\overline{C}_{gg}(\alpha _\mathrm{S}(\mu _R^2),`$ $`M_H^2/\mu _R^2;M_H^2/\mu _F^2)=`$
$`=\alpha _\mathrm{S}^2(\mu _R^2)\left[1+{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _\mathrm{S}(\mu _R^2)}{\pi }}\right)^n\overline{C}_{gg}^{(n)}(M_H^2/\mu _R^2;M_H^2/\mu _F^2)\right].`$ (21)
These constant terms are due to virtual contributions, and the perturbative coefficients $`\overline{C}_{gg}^{(n)}`$ are thus directly related to the coefficients of the contribution proportional to $`\delta (1z)`$ in $`G_{gg}^{(n)}(z)`$. The term $`𝒪(1/N)`$ on the right-hand side of Eq. (20) denotes all the contributions that are suppressed by some power of $`1/N`$ (modulo $`\mathrm{ln}N`$ enhancement) when $`N\mathrm{}`$.

The radiative factor $`\mathrm{\Delta }_N^H`$ for Higgs boson production has the following general expression :

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_N^H(\alpha _\mathrm{S}(\mu _R^2),M_H^2/\mu _R^2;M_H^2/\mu _F^2)`$ $`=\left[\mathrm{\Delta }_N^g(\alpha _\mathrm{S}(\mu _R^2),M_H^2/\mu _R^2;M_H^2/\mu _F^2)\right]^2`$
$`\mathrm{\Delta }_N^{(\mathrm{int})H}(\alpha _\mathrm{S}(\mu _R^2),M_H^2/\mu _R^2).`$ (22)
Each term $`\mathrm{\Delta }_N^g`$ embodies the effect of soft-gluon radiation emitted collinearly to the initial-state partons and depends on both the factorization scheme and the factorization scale $`\mu _F`$. In the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ factorization scheme we have the exponentiated result

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_N^a(\alpha _\mathrm{S}(\mu _R^2),M_H^2/\mu _R^2;M_H^2/\mu _F^2)=\mathrm{exp}\left\{_0^1𝑑z\frac{z^{N1}1}{1z}_{\mu _F^2}^{(1z)^2M_H^2}\frac{dq^2}{q^2}A_a(\alpha _\mathrm{S}(q^2))\right\},$$
(23)
where $`A_a(\alpha _\mathrm{S})`$ is a perturbative function

$`A_a(\alpha _\mathrm{S})={\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s}{\pi }}A_a^{(1)}+\left({\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s}{\pi }}\right)^2A_a^{(2)}+\left({\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s}{\pi }}\right)^3A_a^{(3)}+𝒪(\alpha _\mathrm{S}^4).`$ (24)
The factor $`\mathrm{\Delta }_N^{(\mathrm{int})}`$ is independent of the factorization scale and scheme and contains the contribution of soft-gluon emission at large angles with respect to the direction of the colliding gluons. It can also be written in exponentiated form as

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_N^{(\mathrm{int})H}(\alpha _\mathrm{S}(\mu _R^2),M_H^2/\mu _R^2)=\mathrm{exp}\left\{_0^1𝑑z\frac{z^{N1}1}{1z}D_H(\alpha _\mathrm{S}((1z)^2M_H^2))\right\},$$
(25)
where the function $`D_H(\alpha _\mathrm{S})`$ for Higgs production has the following perturbative expansion:

$`D_H(\alpha _\mathrm{S})=\left({\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _\mathrm{S}}{\pi }}\right)^2D_H^{(2)}+𝒪(\alpha _\mathrm{S}^3).`$ (26)
The coefficients $`A^{(1)}`$ and $`A^{(2)}`$ fully control soft-gluon resummation up to next-to-leading logarithmic (NLL) accuracy . In the case of a generic incoming parton $`a`$, they are given by

$`A_a^{(1)}=C_a,A_a^{(2)}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}C_aK,`$ (27)
where $`C_a=C_F=4/3`$ if $`a=q,\overline{q}`$ and $`C_a=C_A=3`$ if $`a=g`$, while the coefficient $`K`$ is the same both for quarks and for gluons  and it is given by

$`K=C_A\left({\displaystyle \frac{67}{18}}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2}{6}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{5}{9}}N_f.`$ (28)
Expanding the resummation formula (20) up to $`𝒪(\alpha _\mathrm{S}^3)`$ and transforming the result back to $`z`$-space, it is straightforward to check that we correctly obtain the soft contributions, $`𝒟_0(z)`$ and $`𝒟_1(z)`$, to $`G_{ab}^{(1)\mathrm{SV}}(z)`$ in Eq. (2). By comparison with the virtual term in Eq. (2), we can also extract the coefficient $`\overline{C}_{gg}^{(1)}`$ in Eq. (3):

$`\overline{C}_{gg}^{(1)}(M_H^2/\mu _R^2;M_H^2/\mu _F^2)={\displaystyle \frac{11}{2}}+6\zeta (2)+{\displaystyle \frac{332N_f}{6}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\mu _R^2}{\mu _F^2}}.`$ (29)
Then, we can expand the resummation formula (20) up to $`𝒪(\alpha _\mathrm{S}^4)`$, and we can compare the result with our NNLO soft-virtual calculation in Eq. (2). It is straightforward to check that the knowledge of $`A_g^{(1)},A_g^{(2)}`$ and $`\overline{C}_{gg}^{(1)}`$ predicts the coefficients of $`𝒟_3(z),𝒟_2(z)`$ and $`𝒟_1(z)`$ in $`G_{gg}^{(2)\mathrm{SV}}(z)`$, and that the prediction fully agrees with our result in Eq. (2).

The comparisonWe can also extract the virtual coefficient $`\overline{C}_{gg}^{(2)}`$ in Eq. (3). at $`𝒪(\alpha _\mathrm{S}^4)`$ and our calculation of the $`𝒟_0`$-term in Eq. (2) also allows us to extract the (so far unknown) coefficient $`D_H^{(2)}`$ that controls soft-gluon resummation at NNLL order. We obtain

$`D_H^{(2)}=C_A^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{101}{27}}+{\displaystyle \frac{11}{3}}\zeta (2)+{\displaystyle \frac{7}{2}}\zeta (3)\right)+C_AN_f\left({\displaystyle \frac{14}{27}}{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}\zeta (2)\right).`$ (30)
Note that the corresponding NNLL coefficient for the Drell–Yan process  differs from $`D_H^{(2)}`$ by the simple replacement of colour factors $`C_FC_A`$. This could have straightforwardly been predicted from the general structure of the soft-factorization formulae at $`𝒪(\alpha _\mathrm{S}^2)`$ (see Sect. 5 of Ref.  and the Appendix of Ref. ). The exact expression of the remaining NNLL coefficient $`A_g^{(3)}`$ is still unknown, but an approximate numerical estimate can be found in Ref. .

The integrals over $`z`$ and $`q^2`$ in Eqs. (23) and (25) can be carried out to any required logarithmic accuracy (see Refs. ) and used for phenomenological analyses. Quantitative studies of soft-gluon resummation effects for Higgs boson production are left to future investigations.

### 3.1 Collinear-improved resummation

In Ref.  Krämer, Laenen and Spira (KLS) exploited the resummation formalism to obtain approximate expressions for the NNLO corrections to Higgs boson production. Their resummation formula is a simplified version of Eq. (20) that includes only the first-order coefficients (the coefficients $`A^{(1)},\overline{C}^{(1)}`$ and the first-order coefficient $`\beta _0`$ in the expression of the running coupling $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}(q^2)`$). Therefore, the NNLO expressions obtained in Ref.  correctly predict only the coefficients of the contributions $`𝒟_3`$ and $`𝒟_2`$ to the soft and virtual coefficient function $`G_{gg}^{(2)\mathrm{SV}}`$ in Eq. (2).

KLS also pointed out  that the resummation formalism can be extended to include subdominant contributions in the large-$`z`$ limit. These contributions are the terms proportional to powers of $`\mathrm{ln}(1z)`$ that appear in $`G_{gg}(z)`$ (see, e.g., Eq. (2)). In $`N`$-moment space, they lead to contributions of the type $`\frac{1}{N}\mathrm{ln}^kN`$, which are usually (and consistently) neglected within the soft and virtual approximation (i.e. in the limit $`N\mathrm{}`$).

We agree with KLS that the highest power<sup>§</sup><sup>§</sup>§As for lower powers, KLS acknowledge  that their result is not complete. of $`\mathrm{ln}(1z)`$ at the $`n`$-th perturbative order, namely, $`\mathrm{ln}^{2n1}(1z)`$ in $`G_{gg}^{(n)}(z)`$ (or, equivalently, the term $`\frac{1}{N}\mathrm{ln}^{2n1}N`$ in $`G_{gg,N}^{(n)}`$), can correctly and consistently be implemented in the all-order resummation formula (20). The key observation  is that these terms have a collinear origin. They arise from the transverse-momentum evolution of initial-state collinear radiation up to the maximum value of $`q_T`$ permitted by kinematics. In the large-$`z`$ limit, the maximum value is $`q_{T\mathrm{max}}^2(1z)^2M_H^2`$, which is very different from the typical hard scale $`M_H^2`$ of the process. The large transverse-momentum region $`(1z)^2M_H^2<q_T^2<M_H^2`$ is thus responsible for the leading $`\mathrm{ln}(1z)`$-enhancement. The resummation formalism correctly embodies the transverse-momentum evolution of soft radiation up to the kinematical limit $`(1z)^2M_H^2`$ (see Eq. (23)). Therefore, the leading collinear enhancement can be taken into account by supplementing the integrand in Eq. (23) with the regular (i.e. non-soft) part of the Altarelli–Parisi splitting function (see Eq. (13)). Both for the $`q\overline{q}`$ annihilation (Drell–Yan process) and $`gg`$ fusion (Higgs production) channels, we can simply perform the following replacement on the right-hand side of Eq. (23):

$`{\displaystyle \frac{z^{N1}1}{1z}}A_a^{(1)}`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{z^{N1}1}{1z}}A_a^{(1)}+z^{N1}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}P_{aa}^{\mathrm{reg}}(z)=`$
$`=\left[{\displaystyle \frac{z^{N1}1}{1z}}z^{N1}\right]A_a^{(1)}+𝒪(1/N^2).`$ (31)
Having performed the replacement of Eq. (3.1) in $`\mathrm{\Delta }_N^a`$, we can insert its ensuing collinear-improved expression in Eq. (20). The resummed expression for the $`N`$ moments of the coefficient function $`G_{gg,N}`$ can then be expanded in powers of $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$ in the large-$`N`$ limit by consistently computing and keeping all the terms of the type $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}^2\alpha _\mathrm{S}^n\frac{1}{N}\mathrm{ln}^{2n1}N`$. Transforming the result back to $`z`$-space, this procedure gives the soft and virtual contributions to $`G_{gg}^{(n)}(z)`$ plus its leading subdominant correction (the contribution proportional to $`\mathrm{ln}^{2n1}(1z)`$) when $`z1`$.

We name soft-virtual-collinear (SVC) approximation this improved version of the SV expressions in Eqs. (2) and (2). We find

$$G_{gg}^{(1)\mathrm{SVC}}(z;M_H^2/\mu _R^2;M_H^2/\mu _F^2)=G_{gg}^{(1)\mathrm{SV}}(z;M_H^2/\mu _R^2;M_H^2/\mu _F^2)12\mathrm{ln}(1z),$$
(32)
$$G_{gg}^{(2)\mathrm{SVC}}(z;M_H^2/\mu _R^2;M_H^2/\mu _F^2)=G_{gg}^{(2)\mathrm{SV}}(z;M_H^2/\mu _R^2;M_H^2/\mu _F^2)72\mathrm{ln}^3(1z).$$
(33)
The coefficient of $`\mathrm{ln}(1z)`$ in Eq. (32) correctly reproduces that obtained by the exact NLO expression in Eq. (2). The coefficient of $`\mathrm{ln}^3(1z)`$ in Eq. (33) agrees with that computed in Ref. .

The numerical study of Ref.  shows that the effect of the contribution $`\mathrm{ln}(1z)`$ at NLO is not small (see also Sect. 4), in particular at low values of the Higgs boson mass. Therefore, in our estimate (Sect. 4) of the NNLO corrections to Higgs boson production at the LHC, we consider both the SV approximation in Eq. (2) and the SVC approximation in Eq. (33). In the $`gg`$ partonic channel we thus neglect NNLO of the type

$$G_{gg}^{(2)}(z)G_{gg}^{(2)\mathrm{SVC}}(z)=𝒪(\mathrm{ln}^2(1z)),$$
(34)
Note, however, that the coefficient function of the $`gq`$ channel still contains contributions proportional to $`\mathrm{ln}(1z)`$ at NLO (see Eq. (10)) and to $`\mathrm{ln}^3(1z)`$ at NNLO (see Eq. (17)). We do not consider the latter. At low values of the Higgs boson mass their effect is small, because the parton density luminosity of the $`gq`$ channel is smaller than that of the $`gg`$ channel. The effect increases by increasing the Higgs boson mass.

## 4 Numerical results at the LHC

In this section we study the phenomenological impact of the higher-order QCD corrections on the production of the SM Higgs boson at the LHC, i.e. proton–proton collisions at $`\sqrt{s}=14`$ TeV. We recall that we include the exact dependence on $`M_t`$ in the Born-level cross section $`\sigma _0`$ (see Eq. (3)), while the coefficient function $`G_{ab}(z)`$ is evaluated in the large-$`M_t`$ approximation. At NLO  this is a very good numerical approximation when $`M_H2M_t`$, and it is still accurate to better than $`10\%`$ when $`M_H<1`$ TeV.

Unless otherwise stated, cross sections are computed using the new MRST2000  sets of parton distributions, with densities and coupling constant evaluated at each corresponding order, i.e. using LO distributions and 1-loop $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$ for the LO cross section, and so forth. The corresponding values of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}^{(5)}`$ ($`\alpha _\mathrm{S}(M_Z)`$) are $`0.132`$ (0.1253), $`0.22`$ (0.1175) and $`0.187`$ GeV (0.1161), at 1-loop, 2-loop and 3-loop order, respectively. In the NNLO case we use the ‘central’ set of MRST2000, obtained from a global fit of data (deep inelastic scattering, Drell–Yan production and jet $`E_T`$ distribution) by using the approximate NNLO evolution kernels presented in Ref. . The result we refer to as NNLO-SV (SVC) corresponds to the sum of the LO and exact NLO (including the $`qg`$ and $`q\overline{q}`$ channels) contributions plus the SV (SVC) corrections at NNLO, given in Eq. (2) (Eq. (33)). The LO and NLO results obtained by using the CTEQ5 distributions  are very similar to the ones computed with the MRST2000 sets (the differences are smaller than the uncertainties arising, for instance, from scale dependence). Therefore, we will not show those results Larger deviations (for instance, the NLO cross section increases by $`10\%`$ for $`M_H=100200`$ GeV) appear when comparing to the GRV98 distributions , where both the gluon distribution and the value of $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}(M_Z)`$ are different from those of MRST2000 and CTEQ5..

The comparison between different sets of parton distributions, however, cannot be regarded as a way to quantitatively estimate the uncertainty on the parton distributions. The theoretical and experimental errors that affect present determinations of the parton distributions are typically larger  than the differences between the parton distribution sets provided by different groups . In the case of Higgs boson production at the LHC, the study of the CTEQ Collaboration  recommends an uncertainty of about $`\pm 10\%`$ on the corresponding gluon–gluon and quark–gluon parton luminosities.

We begin the presentation of our results by showing in Fig. 1 the scale dependence of the cross section for the production of a Higgs boson with $`M_H=115`$ GeV. The scale dependence is analysed by varying the factorization and renormalization scales by a factor of 4 up and down from the default value $`M_H`$. The plot on the left corresponds to the simultaneous variation of both scales, $`\mu _F=\mu _R=\chi M_H`$, whereas the plots in the centre and on the right correspond, respectively, to the results of the independent variation of the factorization or renormalization scale, keeping the other scale fixed at the default value.

As expected from the QCD running of $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$, the cross sections typically decrease when $`\mu _R`$ increases around the characteristic hard scale $`M_H`$. In the case of variations of $`\mu _F`$, we observe the opposite behaviour. In fact, the cross sections are mainly sensitive to partons with momentum fraction $`x10^2`$, and in this $`x`$-range scaling violation of the parton densities is (moderately) positive. As a result, the scale dependence is mostly driven by the renormalization scale, because the lowest-order contribution to the process is proportional to $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}^2`$, a (relatively) high power of $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$.

Figure 1 shows that the scale dependence is reduced when higher-order corrections are included and, in the case of the factorization-scale dependence, a maximum appears at NNLO-SV and NNLO-SVC, showing the improved stability of the result. Also note that there is an increase in the scale dependence when going from NNLO-SV to NNLO-SVC. This is due to the fact that the dominant collinear terms included in the SVC approximation give a sizeable contribution and are scale-independent (see Eqs. (32) and (33)), so their effect cannot be compensated by scale variations. Similar results are obtained for higher masses, with a reduction in the scale dependence when approaching high mass values.

The impact of higher-order corrections is usually studied by computing $`K`$-factors, defined as the ratio of the cross section evaluated at each corresponding order over the LO result. The $`K`$-factors are shown in Fig. 2 where the bands account for the ‘theoretical uncertainty’ due to the scale dependence, quantified by using the minimum and maximum values of the cross sections when the scales $`\mu _R`$ and $`\mu _F`$ are varied (simultaneously and independently, as in Fig. 1) in the range $`0.5\chi ,\chi _R,\chi _F2`$. The LO result that normalizes the $`K`$-factors is computed at the default scale $`M_H`$ in all cases.

The plot on the left-hand side of Fig. 2 shows the uncertainty at LO and compares the exact NLO result with the NLO-SV and NLO-SVC approximations. In the case of light Higgs production, the NLO-SV approximation tends to underestimate the exact result by about $`15`$ to $`20\%`$, whereas the NLO-SVC approximation only slightly overestimates it, showing the numerical importance of the term $`\mathrm{ln}(1z)`$ added in the SVC approximation. Nevertheless, all the results agree within the theoretical bands: this confirms the validity of the large-$`z`$ approximation to estimate higher-order corrections, and, in particular, allows us to assume that a similar situation occurs at NNLO. As expected, the agreement between the three results improves for larger masses.

The right-hand side of Fig. 2 shows the SV and SVC results at NNLO. Again, the SVC band sits higher than the SV one, the ratio of the corresponding cross sections being almost the same as the one at NLO, as shown in the inset plot. The contribution from non-leading terms $`\mathrm{ln}^k(1z)`$, with $`k<3`$ (which are not under control within the SVC approximation), is not included, but it is expected to be numerically less importantWe have tried to add a term $`\mathrm{ln}^2(1z)`$ with a coefficient as large as that of the term $`\mathrm{ln}^3(1z)`$, finding only a small (about $`5\%`$) modification..

As is well known, the customary procedure (that we also are using) of varying the scales to estimate the theoretical uncertainty can only give a lower limit on the ‘true’ uncertainty. This is well demonstrated by Fig. 2, which shows no overlap between the LO and NLO bands. However, the NLO and NNLO bands do overlap, thus suggesting that the perturbative expansion begins to converge from NNLO. Note also that the size of the NNLO bands is smaller than that of the NLO bands: the scale dependence at NNLO is smaller than at NLO.

Considering the results obtained at NLO, it is reasonable to expect the full NNLO $`K`$-factor to lie inside the SV and SVC bands, and most probably, closer to the SVC one. In particular, for a light Higgs boson ($`M_H<200`$ GeV), this expectation would correspond to an increase of 15 to 25$`\%`$ with respect to the full NLO result, i.e. a factor of about 2.2 to 2.4 with respect to the LO result. Taking into account that the NLO result increases the LO cross section by about 90$`\%`$ our result anticipates a good convergence of the perturbative series.

In Fig. 3 we present the NNLO-SV and SVC cross sections as a function of the Higgs mass and including the corresponding uncertainty bands computed as defined above. To facilitate the comparison with other calculations and more refined predictions, we report the values of the cross sections for the production of a Higgs boson with $`M_H=115`$ GeV. The NNLO-SVC band corresponds to $`\sigma =43.51`$-58.56 pb (50.13 pb at the default scales), the NNLO-SV to $`\sigma =37.73`$-45.69 pb (41.66 pb at the default scales), whereas for the full NLO it is $`\sigma =34.14`$-48.48 pb (40.37 pb at the default scales).

Finally we want to quantify the effect of the (approximated) NNLO parton distributions in the gluonic channel. In Fig. 4 we study this effect for the NNLO-SV result at $`M_H=115`$ GeV, by plotting the cross section as a function of the scale. We use different combinations of NNLO and NLO parton distributions and coupling constant expressions. The inset plot shows the ratio $`R`$ of the different results with respect to the one obtained by using NNLO distributions and 3-loop $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$. The use of NNLO distributions and 3-loop $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$ reduces the NNLO cross section by $`10\%`$ with respect to the result that would be obtained if NLO distributions and 2 loop $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$ were used. Since the values of $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}(M_Z)`$ from MRST2000 are very similar at 2 and 3 loops and the typical scale of the process is not far from $`M_Z`$, the effect of going from 2 to 3 loops $`\alpha _\mathrm{S}`$ amounts to only $`1/3`$ of the $`10\%`$ change. The biggest effect comes from the difference in the distributions, mostly due to the decrease of the NNLO gluon density at small $`x`$ . Similar results are obtained in the SVC approximation and for different masses.

## 5 Conclusions

In this paper we have studied the QCD corrections to Higgs boson production through gluon–gluon fusion in hadronic collisions, within the framework of the large-$`M_t`$ approximation. Using a recent result for the two-loop correction to the $`ggH`$ amplitude  and the soft-factorization formulae for soft-gluon emission at $`𝒪(\alpha _\mathrm{S}^2)`$  we have evaluated the soft and virtual QCD correction to this process at NNLO (SV approximation). We have also considered  the leading $`\mathrm{ln}^3(1z)`$ contribution from the collinear region (SVC approximation). Our result for the coefficient $`G_{gg}^{(2)SV}`$ in Eq. (2) is consistent with the present knowledge of soft-gluon resummation at NLL accuracy; it also allows us to fix the NNLL coefficient $`D_H^{(2)}`$ in Eq. (26).

We have then studied the phenomenological impact of our results at the LHC by using the (approximate) NNLO set MRST2000 of parton distributions . We have shown that the exact NLO result lies in between the NLO-SV approximation and the NLO-SVC approximation, the latter being a better numerical approximation in the case of low values of the Higgs boson mass. Comparing the results in the SV and SVC approximations at NNLO for a light Higgs ($`M_H<200`$ GeV), we estimate that the NNLO correction will increase the NLO result between $`15`$ and $`25\%`$.

The results presented here are a first consistent (though approximate) estimate of QCD corrections to Higgs boson production through $`gg`$ fusion at NNLO and will eventually be a stringent check of a future full NNLO calculation.

In this paper we have only considered the production of the SM Higgs boson. The Minimal Supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model (MSSM) leads to two CP-even neutral Higgs bosons . They are produced by $`gg`$ fusion through loops of heavy quarks (top, bottom) and squarks. For small values $`(\mathrm{tan}\beta <5)`$ of the MSSM parameter $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$, the NLO QCD corrections to this production mechanism are comparable (to better than $`10\%`$)  to those for SM Higgs boson production. Therefore, the NNLO $`K`$-factors computed in this paper could also be applicable to MSSM Higgs boson production.

Note added: The calculation of the soft and virtual NNLO corrections to Higgs boson production has independently been performed in Ref.. The method used in Ref. is different from ours. The analytical results fully agree.


text:
# Bursts of Gravitational Radiation from Superconducting Cosmic Strings and the Neutrino Mass Spectrum

## Abstract

Berezinsky, Hnatyk and Vilenkin showed that superconducting cosmic strings could be central engines for cosmological gamma-ray bursts and for producing the neutrino component of ultra-high energy cosmic rays. A consequence of this mechanism would be that a detectable cusp-triggered gravitational wave burst should be released simultaneously with the $`\gamma `$-ray surge. If contemporary measurements of both $`\gamma `$ and $`\nu `$ radiation could be made for any particular source, then the cosmological time-delay between them might be useful for putting unprecedently tight bounds on the neutrino mass spectrum. Such measurements could consistently verify or rule out the model, since strictly correlated behaviour is expected for the duration of the event and for the time variability of the spectra.

Published in Physics Letters B 500 (2001) 215-221

Cosmic strings (CSs) are topological defects formed during phase transitions in the early Universe induced by spontaneous symmetry breaking at GUT-scale energies. The energy of the unbroken vacuum phase is released as GUT quanta of the gauge and scalar fields, forming the CSs. It has been suggested that ordinary CSs could be the cosmological sources of the biggest explosions in the Universe: the cosmological (classical) gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), with energies $`E_{GRBs}10^{5354}`$ erg, timescales $`10^2T_{GRBs}10^3`$s, as observed by BATSE. CSs may also be the origin of the ultra high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) with energies above the Greisen-Kuzmin-Zatsepin (GZK) cut-off: $`E_\times 10^{19}`$ eV, as well as the very high energy neutrinos observed today. Also, ordinary cosmic strings are potential sources of gravitational radiation. Emission of gravitational waves (GWs) is considered the main channel for CS loops to decay.

Turning attention to superconducting cosmic string (SCCS) loops, Babul, Paczyński and Spergel, and most recently Berezinsky, Hnatyk and Vilenkin (BHV2000), have proposed that such objects could be the central engines of most cosmological bursts of gamma-rays. In the first study, the currents are thought of as being induced in the strings by primordial magnetic fields, and the source distance scale is assumed to be $`(10^2z10^3)`$. In the second one, on the other hand, the string currents are seeded by an intergalactic magnetic field, with the GRB sources being located at distances characteristic of superclusters of galaxies, i.e., $`z5`$. In both of the models, a surface defect referred to as a cusp is the trigger of the bursts, while the electric currents are induced by oscillation of string loops in an external intergalactic magnetic field.

A further by-product of these pictures is that a beamed surge develops naturally at the place where a superconducting string loop cusp annihilates. Because of the very large Lorentz factor achieved by the contracting cusp when it is nearly at the point where it will trigger the GRB, this beamed radiation is a very interesting feature of the model. It fits quite well with the current trend among GRB workers who claim that recent observations provide strong evidence for some degree of beaming in GRBs.

Based on BATSE observations, we point out that the Berezinsky, Hnatyk and Vilenkin SCCS scenario appears to be more well-motivated than the earlier one for explaining GRBs from CSs. Thus, we shall follow its main lines here in order to demonstrate that in such a view for the central engine of GRBs, an accompanying burst of gravitational radiation should also be released. As shown in Figs. 1 and 2, the characteristics of such GW bursts make them potentially observable with the forthcoming generation of Earth-based interferometric GW observatories LIGO, VIRGO, TAMA and GEO-600, and the space-borne LISA, as well as by the resonant-mass TIGAs.

A superconducting cosmic string loop, with energy per unit length $`\mu \eta ^2`$ (where $`\eta `$ is the string symmetry-breaking scale), oscillating in a magnetic field $`B`$, behaves like an $`ac`$ generator, and an electric current $`I_0e^2Bl`$ flows in it. Here $`l\alpha ct`$, defines the string loop invariant wavelength ($`lE/\mu `$, where $`E`$ is the energy of the loop in the center-of-mass frame), and $`\alpha \kappa _gG\mu <<1`$ is a parameter determined by the gravitational back reaction.

During brief time intervals, a noticeable augmentation of the local current intensity can occur in domains quite close to the cusp location, the point at which the string speed gets closest to the velocity of light. Several cusps may appear during a single loop oscillation period. Inside a cusp domain $`\delta l_c`$ (at maximum contraction) the string shrinks by a large factor, $`l/\delta l`$, leading to a relativistic Lorentz factor $`\mathrm{\Gamma }l/\delta l`$ (in the string rest frame)111In the BHV2000 model this Lorentz factor may reach up to $`\mathrm{\Gamma }6.7\times 10^7`$. However, when the back-reaction effect of the electromagnetic radiation emitted in the process is taken into consideration the factor reduces to $`\mathrm{\Gamma }10^4`$, which is very consistent with the correspondings values inferred from BATSE observations., this condition being sustained for a timescale $`\delta t_c\delta l_c/c`$, within a physical length scale $`\delta l_c\delta l/\mathrm{\Gamma }l/\mathrm{\Gamma }^2`$. Most of the huge cusp rest energy is converted into kinetic energy. Since, in general, the string velocity is extremely high near to the cusp collapse (it spreads out inside a cone with opening angle $`\theta 1/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ oriented along the direction in which the cusp contracts), a quadrupole distribution of the local energy density is expected to develop (see Ref. for further details).

This scenario implies that a short burst of GW emission should occur in the time leading up to cusp annihilation. In this brief time scale, $`\delta t_c`$, the large asymmetric cusp shrinkage and energy reconversion mean that a powerful GW burst would be emitted. As suggested above, we expect that the GW burst and the $`\gamma `$-ray burst should have exactly the same duration, and emphasize that long bursts ($`\mathrm{\Delta }t200`$s) may also be possible. This last point may be realised if a special combination of intergalactic magnetic strengths, i.e., $`B10^7`$G, and GRB fluences, e.g., $`S10^8`$erg cm-2, is invoked. This possibility is illustrated in Table I, where several $`\gamma `$-ray fluences from particular events are combined with magnetic field strengths thought to exist around the GRB sources in the context of the SCCS cusp annihilation mechanism.

The GW characteristics (amplitude and frequency) can be estimated using the typical dynamical timescale for GRBs in this model. According to BHV2000, the $`\gamma `$-ray timescale (GRB duration) is given by

$`T_{GWs}^{GRBs}`$ $``$ $`0.24\mathrm{ms}\left({\displaystyle \frac{B}{10^8\mathrm{G}\text{[13]}}}\right)^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{10^8}}\right)^4`$ (1)
$`\times `$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{10^4\mathrm{ergcm}^2}{S}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{(1+z)^1}{[(1+z)^{1/2}1]^2}},`$
where $`S`$ is the GRB fluence in units of $`10^4`$ erg cm-2, $`B`$ is the intergalactic magnetic field in units of $`10^8`$ G, and $`z4`$ is the source redshift. This value for the redshift $`z`$ at which the SCCS is located in this model has been taken in agreement with BATSE observations of the most distant and most energetic GRBs ever detected: GRB000131 at $`z=4.5`$, Andersen et al. (VLT Team). It is also consistent with existing models for ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays and the observed shape of their spectrum.

This is a timescale that could be observed by BATSE (time resolution $`\mathrm{\Delta }t100\mu `$s) in very short GRBs from this sort of cosmological source (see Table I), were it not for its low efficiency for such bursts (see for example Trigger Number 01453, $`\mathrm{\Delta }t=0.006\pm 0.0002`$ in Table 1 in Cline, Matthey and Otwinowski). In what follows we concentrate on this kind of GRB.

One can use the general relativity (GR) quadrupole formula to make an estimate of the characteristic GW amplitude: the dimensionless space-time strain ($`h`$), generated by the non-spherical dynamics of the cusp kinetic energy, is related to the distance of the CS ($`D`$) by $`h_{ij}=\frac{2G}{c^4D}\frac{d^2Q_{ij}}{dt^2}`$, where $`Q_{ij}`$ is the second moment of the mass distribution (quadrupole mass-tensor) in the transverse traceless (TT) gauge and is given by $`Q_{ij}\rho (x_ix_j1/3x^2)d^3x`$, with $`\rho `$ being the mass-energy density of the source. This expression can be rewritten as

$$h=\frac{2G}{c^4}\frac{E_{NonSym}}{D_L},$$
(2)
where $`D_L`$ is the luminosity distance defined by $`D_L=r_z(1+z)`$, with $`z`$ being the source redshift (inferred from the spectrum of the GRB host), and $`r_z`$ is the comoving distance given by $`r_z=2\frac{c}{H_0}(1[1+z]^{1/2})`$. Here $`H_0`$ is the present-day value of the Hubble constant. For the case which we are studying, we can approximate the non-symmetric part of the kinetic energy of the annihilating cusp as $`E_{NonSym}M_c\left(\frac{dl}{dt}\right)^2`$, where $`M_c\mu \delta l_c\mu c\delta t_c`$ is the total mass of the cusp. At the time when the gamma-ray outburst occurs, we can express the time derivative of the cusp characteristic linear dimension as $`\left(\frac{\delta l}{\delta t}\right)^2\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\delta l_c}{\delta t_c}\right)^2\mathrm{\Gamma }^2c^2`$, with $`\delta t\delta t_c`$, as discussed by BHV2000. We also identify the GW pulse duration as $`\delta t_cT_{GWs}^{GRBs}`$, given by Eq.(1). Using these expressions, we can write $`E_{NonSym}\mu c^3\mathrm{\Gamma }^2\delta t_c`$, and Eq.(2) becomes

$`h\left[{\displaystyle \frac{G}{cD_L}}\right]\mu \mathrm{\Gamma }^2T_{GWB}^{GRBs}`$ $``$ $`1.9\times 10^{22}\mathrm{\Gamma }^2\left(T_{GWB}^{GRBs}\right)\times `$
$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{10^{28}\mathrm{cm}}{D_L}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu }{(10^{16}\mathrm{GeV})^2}}\right),`$
where we have used as the GUT symmetry breaking scale for the SCCS: $`\eta 10^{16}`$GeV, and have assumed that the source is at a distance equal to the Hubble radius. Consistently with current observations, and following BHV2000, we will consider sources at low $`z5`$ for which $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=300`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=10^3`$ are plausible Lorentz factors according to BATSE observations and the fireball model. Recall that high $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ values are needed in order for the fireball to avoid overproduction of electron-positron pairs. From Eq.(3) we then have $`h_{6.7\mathrm{ms}}^{\mathrm{\Gamma }=300}9.4\times 10^{21}\mathrm{Hz}^{1/2}`$, $`h_{2.4\mathrm{ms}}^{\mathrm{\Gamma }=300}2.1\times 10^{21}\mathrm{Hz}^{1/2}`$ and $`h_{0.32\mathrm{ms}}^{\mathrm{\Gamma }=10^3}1.5\times 10^{21}\mathrm{Hz}^{1/2}`$, for the burst duration and Lorentz factor, as indicated.

The maximum frequency of the GW burst in the reference frame of the loop can be approximated as $`f_{GW}t_{dyn}^1`$, with $`t_{dyn}T_{GWs}^{GRBs}`$ being the dynamical timescale for annihilation of the cusp. This then implies $`hf_{GW}^{3/2}`$ and so we can write

$$f_{GW}(T_{GWs}^{GRBs})^1\left(\frac{\delta l_c}{c}\right)^1150,420,3200\mathrm{Hz},$$
(4)
for GRBs with the durations given in Table I. Such frequencies fall just within the range of highest sensitivity for the LIGO (I,II), VIRGO and GEO-600 interferometers, and for the Brazilian Mário Schönberg and Dutch Mini-GRAIL TIGAs, as shown in Figure 1. Thus, in the high frequency regime, the bursts may be detectable for higher $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and much lower $`\eta `$, for a given $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$, than is the case at lower frequencies.

For the very low GW frequency band $`10^410^0`$ Hz, the LISA antenna could observe these signals even for extremely low GUT energy scales but large $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ factors, as shown in Figure 2 (of course, it could also observe the GW pulses for higher $`\eta `$ and lower $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$).

In the context of the BHV2000 SCCS model for GRBs it is also possible for an outburst of ultra high energy cosmic rays to be released simultaneously with the GRB surge. Assuming that a packet of such particles comes in the form of a neutrino burst, we can estimate the neutrino time-of-flight delay with respect to both the GRB and GW signals. This measurement can provide an indication of the neutrino mass eigenstates. Next we make a rough estimate of the overall characteristics of such a $`\nu `$-spectrum, and use it to constrain the predicted time lag. (A more consistent calculation of the actual UHECR spectrum in this picture, in the light of their detectability by the AUGER experiment, is now under way.)

Topological defects or unstable relic particles produce ultra high energy photons at a rate $`\dot{n}_p=\dot{n}_{p,0}(t/t_0)^m`$, where $`m=0,3,4`$ for decaying particles, ordinary CSs and necklaces, and SCCS, respectively. In the GRB fireball picture, the detected $`\gamma `$-rays are produced via synchroton radiation coming from ultrarelativistic electrons boosted by internal shocks in an expanding relativistic blast wave (wind) consisting of electron-positron pairs, some baryons and a huge number of photons. The typical synchroton frequency is constrained by the characteristic energy of the accelerated electrons and also by the intensity of the magnetic field in the emitting region. Since the electron synchroton cooling time is short compared with the wind expansion time, electrons lose their energy radiatively. The standard energy of the observed synchroton photons (see Refs. for a more complete review of this mechanism) is $`E_\gamma ^b=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{}\gamma _e^2eB}{m_ec}`$ which is then given by

$`E_\gamma ^b`$ $``$ $`45\mathrm{M}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}\xi _B^{1/2}\xi _e^{3/2}\left({\displaystyle \frac{L_\gamma }{10^{54}\mathrm{ergs}^1}}\right)^{1/2}\left({\displaystyle \frac{10^3}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}\right)^2`$ (5)
$`\times `$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{0.25\mathrm{ms}}{\mathrm{\Delta }t}}\right),`$
where $`L_\gamma =10^{54}`$ ergs-1 is the power released in the most energetic GRBs observed by BATSE. This $`L_\gamma `$ may imply Lorentz expansion factors $`\mathrm{\Gamma }10^3`$, and we assume this in the following. $`\mathrm{\Delta }t=0.25\mathrm{ms}`$ is the inferred timescale for the shorter $`\gamma `$-ray bursts from the BHV2000 SCCSs, $`\xi _B`$ is the fraction of the energy carried by the magnetic field: $`4\pi r_d^2c\mathrm{\Gamma }^2B^2=8\pi \xi _BL`$, where $`L`$ is the total wind luminosity, and $`\xi _e`$ is the luminosity fraction carried away by electrons. No theory is available to provide specific values for $`\xi _B`$ and $`\xi _e`$. However, for values near to equipartition, the break energy $`E_\nu ^b`$ for photons in this model is in agreement with the observed one for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }10^3`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }t=0.25`$ ms, as discussed below. More precisely, the hardness of the GRB spectra, which extend up to 18 GeV, constrains the wind to have Lorentz factor $`\mathrm{\Gamma }10^3`$, while the observed variability of the GRB flux on a timescale $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ 1ms implies that the internal collisions occur at a distance from the center of $`r_d\mathrm{\Gamma }^2\mathrm{\Delta }t`$, due to variability of the central engine on the same timescale. Since most of the BATSE observed GRBs show variability with $`\mathrm{\Delta }t10`$ ms and there is rapid variability with $`\mathrm{\Delta }t1`$ ms, the implied characteristic size of the emitting region is $`r_{em}10^7`$ cm which means that it must be a compact domain. The SCCS loop cusp clearly satisfies this constraint.

In the acceleration region, protons (the fireball baryon load) are also expected to be shocked. Their photo-meson interaction with observed $`\gamma `$-burst photons should produce a surge of neutrinos almost simultaneously with the GRB via the decay $`p+_\gamma ^{n_0}\pi ^+\mu ^++\nu _\mu e^++\nu _e+\overline{\nu }_\mu +\nu _\mu `$. The neutrino spectrum for a fireball driven explosion is expected to follow the observed $`\gamma `$-ray spectrum, which is approximately a broken power-law $`\frac{dN_\gamma }{dE_\gamma }E_\gamma ^\beta `$, with $`\beta 1`$ for low energies and $`\beta 2`$ for high energies as compared with the observed break energy $`E_\gamma ^\beta 45`$ MeV, where $`\beta `$ changes. The interaction of protons from the surrounding medium, accelerated to a power-law distribution $`\frac{dN_p}{dE_p}E_p^2`$, with the fireball photons, leads to a broken power-law neutrino spectrum $`\frac{dN_\nu }{dE_\nu }E_\nu ^\beta `$, with $`\beta =1`$ for $`E_\nu <E_\nu ^b`$, and $`\beta =2`$ for $`E_\nu >E_\nu ^b`$. Thus the neutrino break energy $`E_\nu ^b`$ is fixed by the threshold energy of photons from photo-production interacting with the dominant $`45`$ MeV fireball photons (in our case), and is

$`E_\nu ^b1.3\times 10^{15}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }}{10^3}}\right)^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{45\mathrm{MeV}}{E_\gamma ^b}}\right)\mathrm{eV}.`$ (6)
Thus, for $`\nu `$s produced with the above energy a further Fermi cycle in the ultrarelativistic blast wave may amplify the UHECR energy by a factor of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^2`$ which, for the case of protons, may push them over the GZK limit ($`\nu `$s do not have a GZK cut-off). The part of the total fireball luminosity that escapes as the $`\nu `$-flux is determined by the efficiency of pion production. The energy fraction lost via pion production by protons producing $`\nu `$s above the break energy is essentially independent of the energy and can be expressed as

$`f_\pi `$ $`=`$ $`0.23\left({\displaystyle \frac{L_\gamma }{10^{54}\mathrm{ergs}^1}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{45\mathrm{MeV}}{E_\gamma ^b}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{10^3}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}\right)^4`$ (7)
$`\times `$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{0.25\mathrm{ms}}{\mathrm{\Delta }t}}\right).`$
Thus, an important part of the total wind energy is given to these very high energy $`\nu `$s.

The time-of-flight delay of the $`\nu `$s with respect to the GWs (and the GRB) may be computed by using the spectrum (Eq.6) and Table II, above. This gives

$`\mathrm{\Delta }T_\nu ^{GWsGRBs}`$ $``$ $`1.545\mathrm{s}`$
$`\times `$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{D}{3\mathrm{Gpc}}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_\nu ^2}{100\mathrm{eV}^2}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{100\mathrm{GeV}^2}{\mathrm{E}_\nu ^2}}\right).`$
This equation was originally derived as a way of estimating the time-of-flight lag between massive neutrinos and massless ones, which should travel at the speed of light. However, it can also be applied to the problem which we are studying here, since we assume that the GWs propagate at the velocity of light, as in GR. It turns out that the detection of such a neutrino pulse with a delay of approximately 1.5 seconds (for $`E_\nu 10^{10}`$eV) after the GRB and GW outbursts from the same source on the sky would make it possible to impose tighter bounds on the neutrino mass spectrum, since the source distance may be estimated from its redshift and the GWs detected. Of course, there are some uncertainties involved in the derivation of Eq.(Bursts of Gravitational Radiation from Superconducting Cosmic Strings and the Neutrino Mass Spectrum). However, it is foreseeable that if atomic clocks were installed in both the GW and $`\nu `$ observatories, a very precise measurement of the arrival times might be obtained, making this determination a plausible one in the near future.

To summarize, since the $`\nu `$-spectrum ranges over fourteen orders of magnitude (MeV $`\nu `$s from SN1987A, above GZK $`\nu `$s detected by AGASA, Fly’s Eye, etc., see Table II), and the $`\nu `$-energy can be measured directly at the detector, the detection of any species of neutrino in near spatial and temporal coincidence with observed GW + GRB signals might yield a very accurate estimate of the time-delay between them. Through the analysis of such a time lag, one may verify or rule out the BHV2000 SCCS model, and also clarify the value of the GW propagation velocity which is a quantity of great interest for descriminating between different relativistic theories of gravity.

Acknowledgements: We are indebted to Prof. John C. Miller (SISSA and OXFORD) for his patience in reviewing our paper and for his important suggestions for making this manuscript comprehensible. HJMC thanks the Centro Latino-Americano de Física (Rio de Janeiro) and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento e Pesquisa (CNPq, Brazil) for financial support. DMG also thanks CNPq for a Graduate Scholarship.


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# Anti-de Sitter no-hair, AdS/CFT and the brane-world

## I Introduction

The recent progress of M/String theory suggests a new picture that our universe is described by a domain wall in a higher dimensional spacetime. The simplest and comprehensive model have been proposed by Randall and Sundrum . Therein our universe is realised as the three-brane (four-dimensional Minkowski spacetime) embedded in the five-dimensional anti-de Sitter (AdS) bulk spacetime.

The brane has the fine-tuned non-zero tension to cancel the bulk cosmological constant. One might expect that the brane inherits the gravity from the higher-dimensional bulk spacetime. We can, however, check that the gravity is indeed localised on the brane; namely the usual Newton law of gravitation is realised at least on the low energy scales . There is also the exact cosmological solution based on the brane-world scenario, which is given by the domain wall motion in the five-dimensional Schwarzshild–AdS spacetime . The warped compactification is also used in the holographic renormalisation. In the same sense as Witten suggested, the brane-world contains the aspect of the AdS/CFT correspondence , in which the bulk graviton is identical to CFT with the cut-off on the brane .

In this brane-world scenario, the warped geometry is essential for the mass hierarchy problem  and the localisation of gravity . This is also preferred for the cosmological constant problem. This mechanism can be contrasted with that of the inflationary scenario, in which the rapid cosmological expansion in the early universe resolves the homogeneity, horizon and flatness problems. It is believed that an initially inhomogeneous universe evolves to a homogeneous isotropic state during the inflation. In other words, there is the so-called cosmic no-hair (baldness) conjecture, which states that all expanding universes approach at least locally the de Sitter spacetime, if there is a positive cosmological constant. The cosmic no-hair conjecture is confirmed in several cases .

Bearing the inflation in mind, one might expect that the warped geometry of the brane-world model is the general effect of the negative cosmological constant; namely, the bulk spacetime might be governed by the AdS no-hair theorem in some sense, and this is the subject we consider here. We will adopt the following geometrical approach; the brane-world is just the slicing of hypersurfaces in asymptotically AdS spacetimes. The slice or several slices are regarded as the branes where we or hidden matters are living. The extrinsic curvature determines the matter distribution including the tension on the brane. In this geometrical picture, it is important to study the general features of asymptotic structure.

This paper is organised as follows. In section II we show that the bulk geometry foliated by probe branes with positive or zero Ricci curvature approaches the standard AdS form asymptotically in the cases of the static bulk and the Euclidean bulk. Then, we consider the validity of the assumption $`R0`$, and discuss the relation to the AdS/CFT correspondence. In section III, we also show the asymptotic local structure of the conformal infinity. The features obtained there are appropriate for the mass hierarchy problem and so on.

## II No-Hair and AdS/CFT

Our strategy is as follows: First, we consider the full geometry regardless of the branes. Then, choosing slices appropriately, we may be able to identify them with the branes where we or hidden matters are living. After some cutting and pasting, this results in the brane-world model.

### A The No-Hair

First of all, we show that the bulk geometry “evolve” to the AdS spacetime. Here we consider the “evolution” of the bulk in the Euclidean case***For example, the holographic renormalisation group and the AdS/CFT correspondence are often formulated in the Euclidean spacetime which offers the regular boundary condition. In this sense, the consideration of the Euclidean bulk is significant. In general, we may expect that the consideration of the Euclidean region gives us the relevant boundary condition. and the Lorentzian static case. The discussion in this subsection is reminiscent of the Wald’s cosmic no-hair theorem for homogeneous universe with negative Ricci spatial curvature (namely, except for the Bianchi IX model) .

We assume that the bulk is foliated by the geodesic slicesWe know that this foliation can work very well locally. But, in general cases, we cannot use it globally because the focusing point occurs due to the presence of inhomogeneities.:

$`{}_{}{}^{(5)}g_{ab}^{}dx^adx^b=dy^2+g_{\mu \nu }(y,x)dx^\mu dx^\nu ,`$ (1)
where $`\{x^\mu \}=\{x^0,\mathrm{},x^3\}`$ and $`y=x^4`$ is the coordinate of the extra dimension. We have two basic equations: One is the equation for the trace of the extrinsic curvature, $`K`$;

$`\dot{K}={\displaystyle \frac{4}{\mathrm{}^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}K^2\sigma _{\mu \nu }\sigma ^{\mu \nu },`$ (2)
where the dot denotes the derivative with respect to $`y`$, and

$$\sigma _{\mu \nu }=K_{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{4}g_{\mu \nu }K$$
(3)
is the trace-free part of the extrinsic curvature. Another is the Hamiltonian constraint:

$`R{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}K^2+\sigma _{\mu \nu }\sigma ^{\mu \nu }={\displaystyle \frac{12}{\mathrm{}^2}}.`$ (4)
In the above derivations, we have assumed the five-dimensional Einstein equation for the bulk:

$`{}_{}{}^{(5)}R_{ab}^{}\frac{1}{2}{}_{}{}^{(5)}g_{ab}^{}{}_{}{}^{(5)}R={\displaystyle \frac{6}{\mathrm{}^2}}{}_{}{}^{(5)}g_{ab}^{}.`$ (5)
In the Euclidean, and the Lorentzian static casesIn the static case, $`\sigma _{0i}=0`$ for $`i=1,2,3`$., we can see that the inequality

$`\sigma _{\mu \nu }\sigma ^{\mu \nu }0`$ (6)
holds. Using Eq (2) together with the above inequality and assuming $`R0`$ and $`K>0`$ ($`y=y_0`$ chosen arbitrarily), we obtain

$`K{\displaystyle \frac{4}{\mathrm{}}}.(y+\mathrm{})`$ (7)
The Hamiltonian constraint (4) therefore implies

$`\sigma _{\mu \nu }0.(y+\mathrm{})`$ (8)
From Eqs (7) and (8), the metric of slices behaves as

$`g_{\mu \nu }(y,x)e^{(yy_0)/\mathrm{}}h_{\mu \nu }(y_0,x).(y+\mathrm{})`$ (9)
Then we naively conclude that the bulk geometry evolve toward the warped geometries like the AdS spacetime. Since the metric of the terminal hypersurface $`\{y=y_0\}`$ is not fixed in the above argument, the bulk geometry does not necessarily evolve to the exact AdS.

This theorem can be easily extended to the cases with bulk fields: Eqs (2) and (4) are modified as

$`\dot{K}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4}{\mathrm{}^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}K^2\sigma _{\mu \nu }\sigma ^{\mu \nu }`$ (11)
$`\kappa _5^2\left(T_{ab}^{(\mathrm{bulk})}\frac{1}{3}{}_{}{}^{(5)}g_{ab}^{}T^{(\mathrm{bulk})}\right)n^an^b,`$
and

$`R{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}K^2+\sigma _{\mu \nu }\sigma ^{\mu \nu }+2\kappa _5^2T_{ab}^{(\mathrm{bulk})}n^an^b={\displaystyle \frac{12}{\mathrm{}^2}},`$ (12)
where $`n=_y`$, and we have used

$`{}_{}{}^{(5)}R_{ab}^{}\frac{1}{2}{}_{}{}^{(5)}g_{ab}^{}{}_{}{}^{(5)}R={\displaystyle \frac{6}{\mathrm{}^2}}g_{ab}+\kappa _5^2T_{ab}^{(\mathrm{bulk})}.`$ (13)
If we suppose the additional conditions

$`T_{ab}^{(\mathrm{bulk})}n^an^b0`$ (14)
and

$`\left(T_{ab}^{(\mathrm{bulk})}\frac{1}{3}{}_{}{}^{(5)}g_{ab}^{}T^{(\mathrm{bulk})}\right)n^an^b0,`$ (15)
then we obtain the similar theorem. The condition Eq (14) is naively identical with the reasonable condition that the effective pressure is positive in the bulk. On the other hand, the condition Eq (15) requires the condition $`\rho P0`$ for the effective pressure $`P`$ and energy density $`\rho `$ in the bulk.

We have assumed that $`R0`$ holds to show the AdS no-hair theorem. In the next subsection, we examine this assumption in several aspects.

Finally we describes two examples for no-hair argument. (i) five-dimensional Schwarzshild-AdS spacetime: The metric is

$`ds_5^2=f(r)dt^2+f^1(r)dr^2+r^2d\mathrm{\Sigma }_k^2,`$ (16)
where $`f(r)=k\mu /r^2+(r/\mathrm{})^2`$ and $`k=0,\pm 1`$. Let us consider the foliation of $`r=\mathrm{constant}`$ hypersurfaces having the Ricci scalar:

$`R={\displaystyle \frac{6k}{r^2}}.`$ (17)
The trace of extrinsic curvature is

$`K={\displaystyle \frac{4}{\mathrm{}}}\left[1+\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}}{r}}\right)^2+\mathrm{}\right].`$ (18)
The shear becomes

$`\sigma _{tt}={\displaystyle \frac{3k}{4\mathrm{}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}}{r}}\right)^2`$ (19)
and

$`\sigma _{ij}={\displaystyle \frac{k}{4\mathrm{}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}}{r}}\right)^2\delta _{ij}.`$ (20)
Regardless of the signature of $`R`$, the geometry evolve to the AdS-like geometry.

(ii)Sol Bianchi $`\mathrm{VI}_1`$: The metric is

$`ds_5^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{r^2}{\mathrm{}^2}}dt^2+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{r^2}}dr^2`$ (22)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{}^2[r^2(e^{2z}dx^2+e^{2z}dy^2)+dz^2].`$
Let us consider the foliation of $`r=\mathrm{constant}`$ hypersurfaces having the Ricci scalar:

$`R={\displaystyle \frac{4}{\mathrm{}^2}}.`$ (23)
The trace of extrinsic curvature is

$`K=2\sqrt{3}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{}}}.`$ (24)
The Ricci scalar is negative and $`K`$ does not approach to the value $`4/\mathrm{}`$. This is a case which will not evolve to AdS-like geometry.

### B AdS/CFT and the Ricci Curvature on the Brane

To see the signature of the Ricci scalar, $`R`$, on each hypersurfaces, we use the gravitational equation on the brane. It is derived using the Gauss equation, which connects the five-dimensional Riemann tensor with that in four dimensions, and the Israel’s junction condition:

$`G_{\mu \nu }=8\pi G_4T_{\mu \nu }+\kappa _5^4\pi _{\mu \nu }E_{\mu \nu },`$ (25)
where

$`\pi _{\mu \nu }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}T_{\mu \alpha }T_\nu ^\alpha +{\displaystyle \frac{1}{12}}TT_{\mu \nu }`$ (27)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8}}g_{\mu \nu }T_{\alpha \beta }T^{\alpha \beta }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{24}}g_{\mu \nu }T^2`$
and

$`E_{\mu \nu }={}_{}{}^{(5)}C_{\mu \alpha \nu \beta }^{}n^\alpha n^\beta .`$ (28)
We set the net cosmological constant on the brane to be zero. To evaluate $`E_{\mu \nu }`$ we have to solve it globally. The trace part can be written in terms of the four-dimensional quantities:

$`R=8\pi G_4T{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa _5^4}{4}}\left(T_{\mu \nu }T^{\mu \nu }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}T^2\right)`$ (29)
On the other hand, from AdS/CFT, we can obtain the following effective equation on the brane:

$`G^{\mu \nu }=8\pi G_4T^{\mu \nu }+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{|g|}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\delta S_{\mathrm{ct}}^{(4)}}{\delta g_{\mu \nu }}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{CFT}}}{\delta g_{\mu \nu }}}\right),`$ (30)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{CFT}}`$ is the effective action of CFT living on the boundary and has the trace anomaly:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{CFT}}}{\delta g_{\mu \nu }}}g^{\mu \nu }={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^3}{16}}\sqrt{|g|}\left(R_{\mu \nu }R^{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{3}R^2\right).`$ (31)
The quantity $`S_{\mathrm{ct}}^{(4)}`$ is $`R^2`$ terms of the counter-term which makes the action finite. For our purpose, we need not to write down the explicit form (See Ref. .). What we will use is that $`\delta S_{\mathrm{ct}}/\delta g_{\mu \nu }`$ is traceless. Then, the trace part of Eq (30) is

$`R=8\pi G_4T{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{4}}\left(R_{\mu \nu }R^{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{3}R^2\right)`$ (32)
Using the Einstein equation, $`G_{\mu \nu }=8\pi G_4T_{\mu \nu }`$, approximately, we can check that Eq (29) is approximately identical with Eq (32). It is remarkable that $`\rho ^2`$ terms appeared in the cosmological solution of the brane-world can be regarded as the non-linear contribution from CFT§§§Some class of the homogeneous-isotropic cosmological solution is described by the motion of the domain wall in the five-dimensional AdS spacetime. In this case, $`E_{\mu \nu }=0`$ and the equation for the scale factor can be derived from Eq (29).. In the linear order we easily obtain the relation between the energy-momentum tensor of CFT and a part of Weyl tensor:

$`E^{\mu \nu }{\displaystyle \frac{4}{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{|g|}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{CFT}}}{\delta g_{\mu \nu }}}.`$ (33)
This has been suggested by Witten and firstly confirmed by Gubser. The elegant formulation has been done in Refs. . This is applied to the cosmology with large $`N`$ CFT . The generalised Friedmann equation has the dark-radiation term, which comes from the mass term of the five-dimensional Schwarzshild-AdS spacetime. Indeed, we can check that the entropy of the dark radiation is exactly same as the black-hole entropy . This is a realisation of the AdS/CFT in the brane-world.

From now on we consider the signature of $`R`$. For simplicity, we consider the massless scalar field on the brane:

$`T_{\mu \nu }=_\mu \phi _\nu \phi \frac{1}{2}g_{\mu \nu }_\lambda \phi ^\lambda \phi `$ (34)
$`T_\mu ^\mu =^\mu \phi _\mu \phi 0`$ (35)
and

$`\pi _\mu ^\mu =\frac{1}{6}(_\mu \phi ^\mu \phi )^20.`$ (36)
In the linear order of $`T_{\mu \nu }`$ we see that $`R0`$ holds. However, $`\pi _\mu ^\mu \rho ^2`$ term dominates in the very early universe. As stated before, $`\pi _\mu ^\mu `$ is related to the trace anomaly of CFT living on the brane. This means that $`\pi _\mu ^\mu `$ is quantum effect in some sense. To check the signature of $`T_\mu ^\mu `$ and $`\pi _\mu ^\mu `$, we must consider the concrete model of the matter on the brane. This seems to be hard task in general.

We may be able to use the Witten-Yau argument , where they showed that the boundary with the positive Ricci scalar will be stable for large $`y`$(near the infinity). They discussed the fluctuation of the brane which the mass term of the fluctuation mode is proportional to the Ricci scalar on the brane. This therefore seems to justify the assumption of the positive Ricci scalar. At first glance, however, their argument on the stability seems inappropriate for the present purpose, because they does not include the higher curvature term, $`R^2`$. Fortunately, it suddenly turns out that this is not the case for four-dimensional branes. You can check that, in four-dimensions, the Witten-Yau argument does not depend on whether $`R^2`$ term is included.

One might want to consider only background geometry because the holographic argument is often concentrated on the probe brane in the fixed background. In this case, we can set $`T_{\mu \nu }=0`$, which automatically implies $`R=0`$. Thus, we can anyway conclude that a no-hair theorem described here holds at least for the empty brane case.

## III The Conformal Infinity and The No-Hair

In this section, we assume the existence of the infinity and we briefly consider the detail of the asymptotic structure of the conformal infinity. Note that we did not assume the existence in the previous section. To discuss the geometry near the infinity, we will use the so-called conformal completion formalism . We focus on the local differential geometrical structure near the infinity Apart from asymptotically flat spacetimes , the spacetimes with the cosmological constant needs the extra assumption to derive the asymptotic symmetry and the conserved energy . We will not discuss this point.. We do not impose the positive Ricci scalar condition.

Definition: This definition is straightforward one from the definition of asymptotically 4-dimensional AdS spacetimes . It should be noted, however, that this definition is rather week so that the black-string solutions are included. An $`n`$-dimensional spacetime $`(M,{}_{}{}^{(n)}g)`$ will be said to be asymptotically AdS if there exists a manifold with boundary, $`\widehat{M}`$, with the metric $`\widehat{g}`$ such that: (i) there exists a function $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ on $`M`$ such that $`\widehat{g}=\mathrm{\Omega }^2{}_{}{}^{(n)}g`$ on $`M`$; (ii) $`=\widehat{M}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }=0`$ on $``$; (iii) $`{}_{}{}^{(n)}g`$ satisfies $`{}_{}{}^{(n)}R_{ab}^{}(1/2){}_{}{}^{(n)}g_{ab}^{}{}_{}{}^{(n)}R+\mathrm{\Lambda }{}_{}{}^{(n)}g_{ab}^{}=8\pi G_nT_{ab}`$, where $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{(n1)}T_a^b`$ admits a smooth limit to $``$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is the negative cosmological constant.

After some calculations, we can see

$`\widehat{n}^\mu \widehat{n}_\mu `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{(n1)(n2)}}\mathrm{\Lambda }+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }^2}{n(n1)}}\widehat{R}+O(\mathrm{\Omega }^3)`$ (37)
$`=`$ $`\widehat{N}_0^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }^2}{n(n1)}}\widehat{R}+O(\mathrm{\Omega }^3)`$ (38)
and

$`\left(\widehat{}_a\widehat{n}_b{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n}}{}_{}{}^{(n)}g_{ab}^{}\widehat{}_c\widehat{n}^c\right)(\widehat{e}_\mu )^a(\widehat{e}_\nu )^b`$ (39)
$`=\widehat{}_\mu \widehat{n}_\nu {\displaystyle \frac{1}{n}}{}_{}{}^{(n)}\eta _{\mu \nu }^{}\widehat{}_\alpha \widehat{n}^\alpha `$ (40)
$`={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{n2}}\left(\widehat{R}_{\mu \nu }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n}}\eta _{\mu \nu }\widehat{R}\right)+O(\mathrm{\Omega }^2),`$ (41)
where $`\widehat{n}^a=\widehat{g}^{ab}\widehat{}_b\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and $`\{\widehat{e}_\mu \}`$ are the orthonormal base vectors of $`(M,\widehat{g})`$. Then we can obtain the asymptotic behavior of the expansion rate $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ and shear $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{ab}`$ (see Appendix A):

$`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ $`:=`$ $`_a\overline{n}^a`$ (42)
$`=`$ $`(n1)\widehat{N}_0{\displaystyle \frac{n+1}{2n(n1)\widehat{N}_0}}\mathrm{\Omega }^2\widehat{R}+O(\mathrm{\Omega }^3)`$ (43)
and

$`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mu \nu }`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{ab}(e_\mu )^a(e_\nu )^b`$ (44)
$`=`$ $`\left[q_{ac}^c\overline{n}_b{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n1}}q_{ab}_c\overline{n}^c\right](e_\mu )^a(e_\nu )^b`$ (45)
$`=`$ $`O(\mathrm{\Omega }^2),`$ (46)
where $`\{e_\mu \}`$ are the orthonormal base vectors of $`(M,{}_{}{}^{(n)}g)`$, $`\overline{n}^a`$ is the unit normal vectors defined by

$`\overline{n}^a={\displaystyle \frac{{}_{}{}^{(n)}g_{}^{ab}_b\mathrm{\Omega }}{(_c\mathrm{\Omega }^c\mathrm{\Omega })^{1/2}}}`$ (47)
and $`q_{ab}={}_{}{}^{(n)}g_{ab}^{}\overline{n}_a\overline{n}_b`$. From the above formulas, we can conclude that the geometry near infinity has the similar structure to that of the AdS spacetime.

Finally, we investigate on the behavior of the Weyl tensor. To do so we use the useful equation derived from the Bianchi identity;

$`\mathrm{\Omega }\widehat{}_{[a}\widehat{S}_{b]c}+\mathrm{\Omega }^2\widehat{g}_{c[a}L_{b]d}\widehat{n}^d`$ (48)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{n2}{2}}\widehat{C}_{abcd}\widehat{n}^d=\widehat{}_{[a}(\mathrm{\Omega }^1L_{b]c}),`$ (49)
where

$`S_{ab}={}_{}{}^{(n)}\widehat{R}_{ab}^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2(n1)}}\widehat{g}_{ab}{}_{}{}^{(n)}\widehat{R}`$ (50)
and

$`L_{ab}=\mathrm{\Omega }^2\left({}_{}{}^{(n)}R_{ab}^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2(n1)}}{}_{}{}^{(n)}g_{ab}^{}{}_{}{}^{(n)}R\right).`$ (51)
From Eq (49), we obtain

$`{}_{}{}^{(n)}C_{\mu \nu \lambda \rho }^{}\overline{n}^\rho =0,`$ (52)
and then

$`{}_{}{}^{(n)}E_{\mu \nu }^{}`$ $`:=`$ $`{}_{}{}^{(n)}C_{\mu \lambda \nu \rho }^{}\overline{n}^\lambda \overline{n}^\rho =0,`$ (53)
$`{}_{}{}^{(n)}B_{\mu \nu \lambda }^{}`$ $`:=`$ $`q_\mu {}_{}{}^{\rho }{}_{}{}^{(n)}C_{\rho \nu \lambda \sigma }^{}\overline{n}^\sigma =0,`$ (54)
on $``$. Note however

$`{}_{}{}^{(n)}C_{\mu \nu \lambda \rho }^{}0,`$ (55)
in general even on $``$. There is the substantial difference from the $`(n=4)`$-dimensions, in which $`{}_{}{}^{(4)}C_{\mu \nu \lambda \rho }^{}=0`$ on $``$ .

## IV Summary

In this paper, we have shown that the bulk spacetimes with negative cosmological constant naively evolve to the anti-de Sitter spacetime. However, the induced structure of the brane cannot be fixed. What we can conclude is only that the local structure on the brane will be relatively spread due to the negative cosmological constant. This statement is useful to discuss the mass hierarchy problem, the localisation of gravity and the cosmological constant problem.

In order to show the no-hair theorem, we have used the positivity condition of the Ricci scalar of probe branes. This might be justified via the Witten-Yau’s stability argument . It is stressed that the no-hair theorem is valid when we consider the foliation by empty probe branes.

## Acknowledgements

This work was inspired by K. Izawa’s talk given in the RESCEU workshop “Brane World” at Tokyo. TS would like to thank Y. Imamura, K. Izawa, Y. Mino, H. Ochiai and J. Soda for discussions. DI would like to thank H. Sato, K. Nakamura and K. Yasuno for discussions. TS’s work is partially supported by Yamada Science Foundation. DI was supported by JSPS Research, and this research was supported in part by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research Fund (No. 4318).

## A Calculations

The conformal transformation of Ricci tensors gives us

$`\mathrm{\Omega }^2\left(R_{\mu \nu }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\eta _{\mu \nu }R+\mathrm{\Lambda }\eta _{\mu \nu }\right)`$ (A1)
$`=\widehat{R}_{\mu \nu }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\eta _{\mu \nu }\widehat{R}+(n2)\mathrm{\Omega }^1\widehat{}_\mu \widehat{}_\nu \mathrm{\Omega }`$ (A2)
$`(n2)\mathrm{\Omega }^1\eta _{\mu \nu }\widehat{}_\alpha \widehat{}^\alpha \mathrm{\Omega }`$ (A3)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{(n1)(n2)}{2}}\mathrm{\Omega }^2\widehat{}_\alpha \mathrm{\Omega }\widehat{}^\alpha \mathrm{\Omega }\eta _{\mu \nu }+\mathrm{\Omega }^2\mathrm{\Lambda }\eta _{\mu \nu }.`$ (A4)
Looking at the $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$-dependence in Eq (A4), we see

$`\widehat{N}^2:=\widehat{g}_{\mu \nu }\widehat{n}^\mu \widehat{n}^\nu ={\displaystyle \frac{2\mathrm{\Lambda }}{(n1)(n2)}}+O(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ (A5)
$`\widehat{}_\mu \widehat{n}_\nu {\displaystyle \frac{1}{n}}\eta _{\mu \nu }\widehat{}_\alpha \widehat{n}^\alpha `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n2}}\mathrm{\Omega }^1\left(R_{\mu \nu }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n}}\eta _{\mu \nu }R\right)`$ (A7)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{n2}}\left(\widehat{R}_{\mu \nu }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n}}\eta _{\mu \nu }\widehat{R}\right)`$
and

$`\widehat{}_\mu \widehat{n}^\mu `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2(n1)}}\mathrm{\Omega }\widehat{R}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(n1)(n2)}}\kappa _n^2T\mathrm{\Omega }^1`$ (A9)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}}\mathrm{\Omega }^1\left[\widehat{n}_\mu \widehat{n}^\mu +{\displaystyle \frac{2}{(n1)(n2)}}\mathrm{\Lambda }\right].`$
Using the conformal rescaling, $`\mathrm{\Omega }\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}=\mathrm{\Omega }\omega `$, we obtain the following transformation:

$`\stackrel{~}{}_a\stackrel{~}{n}^a`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\omega }}\widehat{}_a\widehat{n}^a+{\displaystyle \frac{n}{\omega ^2}}\widehat{n}^a\widehat{}_a\omega `$ (A11)
$`+(n2)\mathrm{\Omega }\omega ^3\widehat{}_a\omega \widehat{}^a\omega +{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{\omega ^2}}\widehat{}_a\widehat{}^a\omega .`$
Let us choose $`\omega `$ so that $`n\omega ^1\widehat{n}^a\widehat{}_a\omega =\widehat{}_a\widehat{n}^a`$. Then we are resulted in $`\widehat{}_a\widehat{n}^a=O(\mathrm{\Omega })`$. Moreover, using of the rescaling, $`\omega =\omega _0+\mathrm{\Omega }^2f(x)`$ such that $`\widehat{n}^a\widehat{}_a\omega _0=0`$, and choosing the function $`f(x)`$ appropriately, we can show

$`\widehat{}_\mu \widehat{n}^\mu =O(\mathrm{\Omega }^2).`$ (A12)
From Eq (A4) we then see

$`\widehat{n}_\alpha \widehat{n}^\alpha +{\displaystyle \frac{2}{(n1)(n2)}}\mathrm{\Lambda }={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }^2}{n(n1)}}\widehat{R}+O(\mathrm{\Omega }^3).`$ (A13)
Since we can write $`_a\overline{n}^a`$ as

$`_a\overline{n}^a=(n1)\widehat{N}+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{\widehat{N}}}\widehat{}_a\widehat{n}^a{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{\widehat{N}^2}}\widehat{n}^a\widehat{}_a\widehat{N},`$ (A14)
we obtain Eq (43) in the text. In the same way, we can derive Eq (46).