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# In-plane upper critical field anisotropy in Sr2RuO4 and CeIrIn5

## Abstract

Experiments on tetragonal Sr2RuO4 and CeIrIn5 indicate the presence of superconductivity with a multi-component superconducting order parameter. Such an order parameter should exhibit an in-plane anisotropy in the upper critical field near the superconducting transition temperature that does not occur for single-component superconductors. Here, this anisotropy is determined from microscopic calculations for arbitrary gap functions. It is shown that this anisotropy is generally not small and, in some cases, independent of impurity scattering. Furthermore, this anisotropy is calculated for many detailed microscopic models of Sr2RuO4. For these models this anisotropy is found to be large, which is in sharp contrast to the small anisotropy observed experimentally. However, an accidental cancellation of the anisotropy for gaps on different Fermi surface sheets can lead to a result that is consistent with experiment.

One of the central issues in the field of unconventional superconductivity is the identification of the order parameter symmetry. This issue can usually only be addressed by determinations of the phase of the order parameter (such as through Josephson junction experiments ). However, in the case that the Cooper pair wave functions have more than one complex degree of freedom, other experimental signatures can reveal the pairing symmetry. In this paper one of these signatures, the upper critical field anisotropy for fields in the basal plane, is explored for tetragonal superconductors. This anisotropy was established by Gor’kov on phenomenological grounds . Such an anisotropy, for which $`dH_{c2}/dT|_{T=T_c}`$ is not equal for the magnetic field applied along the $`(1,0,0)`$ (along the crystallographic $`𝐚`$ axis) and the $`(1,1,0)`$ directions, cannot occur for superconducing order parameters that have only one complex degree of freedom (for example conventional $`s`$-wave superconductors or $`d_{x^2y^2}`$-wave superconductors). Consequently, this provides a clear test of the pairing symmetry. For tetragonal materials, there exist two possible pairing states that exhibit this property. One is the spin triplet $`E_u`$ representation which can be described a gap function of the form (note that this is not the most general form) $`𝐝(𝐤)=\widehat{z}[\eta _1f_x(𝐤)+\eta _2f_y(𝐤)]`$, where in the simplest case (for a cylindrical Fermi surface) $`f_x(𝐤)=k_x`$ and $`f_y(𝐤)=k_y`$. Such a gap function is believed to describe the pairing state in Sr2RuO4 (see below). The other pairing state is the spin-singlet $`E_g`$ representation which can be described by a gap function of the form $`\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐤)=\eta _1f_{xz}(𝐤)+\eta _2f_{yz}(𝐤)`$, where $`f_{xz}(𝐤)=k_xk_z`$ and $`f_{yz}(𝐤)=k_yk_z`$ in the simplest case. In this article, the anisotropy is determined within microscopic theories with arbitrary gap functions. It is shown that the anisotropy is generally not small and consequently easily observable. Furthermore, it is shown that for the $`E_g`$ representation and for some theories for the $`E_u`$ representation, this anisotropy is impurity independent. Application of these results to Sr2RuO4 and CeIrIn5 are discussed and detailed calculations for Sr2RuO4 are also presented. Prior to discussing the anisotropy, an overview of the superconductivity in Sr2RuO4 and CeIrIn5 is given.

The oxide Sr2RuO4 has a structure similar to high $`T_c`$ materials and was observed to be superconducting by Maeno et al. in 1994 . It has been established that this superconductor is not a conventional $`s`$-wave superconductor: NQR measurements show no indication of a Hebel-Slichter peak  in $`1/T_1T`$, and $`T_c`$ is strongly suppressed below the maximum value of 1.5 K by non-magnetic impurities . More recent experiments indicate an $`E_u`$ odd parity gap function of the form $`𝐝(𝐤)=\widehat{z}[\eta _1f_x(𝐤)+\eta _2f_y(𝐤)]`$. The Knight shift measurements of Ishida et al.  reveal that the spin susceptibility is unchanged upon entering the superconducting state; this is consistent with $`p`$-wave superconductivity (as predicted by Rice and Sigrist  and Baskaran ). Furthermore, these measurements were conducted with the applied field in the basal plane. Since the orientation of the gap function (that is $`𝐝`$) is orthogonal to the spin projection of the Cooper pair , these measurements are consistent with the gap function aligned along the $`\widehat{z}`$ direction. The $`\mu `$SR experiments of Luke et. al. have revealed spontaneous fields in the Meissner state . This indicates that the superconducting order parameter must have more than one component . This leads naturally to the conclusion that the superconducting gap function has the form $`𝐝(𝐤)=\widehat{z}(f_x\pm if_y)`$. This conclusion is consistent with measurements of the field distribution of the vortex lattice , Josephson tunnelling experiments , and point-contact measurements . One immediate consequence of such a gap function is that the resulting low energy excitation spectrum is gapless in the clean limit. However, recent experiments indicate this is not the case. Specific heat measurements , NQR measurements , and cavity penetration depth measurements  all indicate the presence of nodes in the superconducting gap function. This has prompted a recent series of proposals that the gap function has the form $`𝐝(𝐤)=\widehat{z}[\eta _1f_x(𝐤)+\eta _2f_y(𝐤)]`$ where $`f_x(𝐤_0)=f_y(𝐤_0)=0`$ for a set of points $`𝐤_0`$ that form a line on the Fermi surface  or are very anisotropic . These gap functions are all formally of the same $`E_u`$ symmetry. The fact that these theories all have the same symmetry implies that there exist experimental signatures that will be common to all of them. In particular, the upper critical field anisotropy discussed above should exist. Recently, such an anisotropy has been observed by Mao et al.. It was determined that $`1H_{c2}^{(100)}/H_{c2}^{(110)}=0.03`$ at a temperature of $`0.35K`$ ($`T_c/5`$), $`1H_{c2}^{(100)}/H_{c2}^{(110)}`$ was observed to change sign as $`TT_c`$, and appears to remain small for $`T`$ near $`T_c`$. In this paper, the anisotropy near $`T_c`$ will be calculated for a variety of models.

Very recently, it has been reported that $`\mu `$SR experiments of Heffner et. al. have revealed spontaneous fields in the Meissner state of tetragonal CeIrIn5 . Just as in the case for Sr2RuO4 above, this indicates that the superconducting order parameter must have more than one component . This leads naturally to the conclusion that the superconducting gap function is either of $`E_u`$ symmetry of of $`E_g`$ symmetry. Consequently, both pairing symmetries are considered in this article.

The free energy for the $`E_u`$ and $`E_g`$ representations of $`D_{4h}`$ is given by

$`f=`$ $`\alpha |\stackrel{}{\eta }|^2+\beta _1|\stackrel{}{\eta }|^4/2+\beta _2(\eta _1\eta _2^{}\eta _2\eta _1^{})^2/2`$ (1)
$`+\beta _3|\eta _1|^2|\eta _2|^2+\kappa _1|D_x\eta _1|^2+|D_y\eta _2|^2`$ (2)
$`+\kappa _2(|D_y\eta _1|^2+|D_x\eta _2|^2)`$ (3)
$`+\kappa _5(|D_z\eta _1|^2+|D_z\eta _2|^2)`$ (4)
$`+\kappa _3[(D_x\eta _1)(D_y\eta _2)^{}+h.c.]`$ (5)
$`+\kappa _4[(D_y\eta _1)(D_x\eta _2)^{}+h.c.]+h^2/(8\pi ).`$ (6)
where $`D_j=_j\frac{2ie}{\mathrm{}c}A_j`$, $`𝐡=\times 𝐀`$, and $`𝐀`$ is the vector potential. The stable homogeneous solutions are easily determined . There are three phases: (a) $`\stackrel{}{\eta }=(1,i)/\sqrt{2}`$ ($`\beta _2>0`$ and $`\beta _2>\beta _3/2`$), (b) $`\stackrel{}{\eta }=(1,0)`$ ($`\beta _3>0`$ and $`\beta _2<\beta _3/2`$), and (c) $`\stackrel{}{\eta }=(1,1)/\sqrt{2}`$ ($`\beta _3<0`$ and $`\beta _2<0`$). The weak-coupling approximation predicts that phase (a) is stable since this phase minimizes the number of nodes in the order parameter \[note that in exceptional circumstances phase (a) may be degenerate with phase (b) and (c) in the weak-coupling limit, for example in the theory of Ref.  for $`|\nu |=1`$\].

For an external magnetic field applied in the basal plane, the upper critical field can be determined and is found to be

$$H_{c2}(\theta )=\frac{\alpha hc}{e\sqrt{2\kappa _5}\sqrt{\kappa _2+\kappa _1\sqrt{(\kappa _1\kappa _2)^2\mathrm{cos}^2(2\theta )+(\kappa _3+\kappa _4)^2\mathrm{sin}^2(2\theta )}}}$$
(7)
where $`\theta `$ is the angle between the magnetic field and the crystallographic $`𝐚`$ axis. From the above expression, the ratio of $`H_{c2}`$ for the field along the $`(1,0,0)`$ direction to that for the field along the $`(1,1,0)`$ direction is given by $`H_{c2}^{(1,1,0)}/H_{c2}^{(1,0,0)}=\sqrt{(\kappa _1+\kappa _2|\kappa _3+\kappa _4|)/2min(\kappa _2,\kappa _1)}`$ where $`min(\kappa _2,\kappa _1)`$ means the minimum of $`\kappa _1`$ and $`\kappa _2`$. Note that Sigrist has also determined an additional anisotropy that occurs due to spin-orbit coupling . This additional anisotropy introduces a correction to Eq. 7 that vanishes as $`TT_c`$, so it is not considered here.

Here, this anisotropy is determined in the weak-coupling approximation. This approximation is reasonable for Sr2RuO4 since $`T_c/T_F10^4`$, however it is not clear whether or not this approximation is valid for CeIrIn5. Using a gap function of the form $`𝐝(𝐤)=\widehat{z}[\eta _1f_x(𝐤)+\eta _2f_y(𝐤)]`$ for the $`E_u`$ representation and introducing isotropic impurity scattering within a $`T`$-matrix approximation yields (the details will be given in a later publication)

$`\kappa _1=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi N(0)}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{n0}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(\omega _n+\mathrm{\Gamma })^3}}[f_x^2v_x^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }}{\omega _n}}f_xv_x^2]`$ (8)
$`\kappa _2=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi N(0)}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{n0}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(\omega _n+\mathrm{\Gamma })^3}}f_x^2v_y^2`$ (9)
$`\kappa _3=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi N(0)}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{n0}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(\omega _n+\mathrm{\Gamma })^3}}\times `$ (10)
$`[f_xf_yv_xv_y+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }}{\omega _n}}f_xv_x^2]`$ (11)
$`\kappa _4=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi N(0)}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{n0}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(\omega _n+\mathrm{\Gamma })^3}}f_xf_yv_xv_y`$ (12)
$`\kappa _5=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi N(0)}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{n0}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(\omega _n+\mathrm{\Gamma })^3}}f_x^2v_z^2`$ (13)
where $`\omega _n=(2n+1)\pi T`$, $`N(0)`$ is the density of states at the Fermi surface, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1/\tau _N`$ is half of the scattering rate, $`v_i`$ are the components of the Fermi velocity, and the brackets $``$ denote an average over the Fermi surface. It has also been assumed that $`f_x^2+f_y^2=1`$. The terms proportional to $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ in $`\kappa _1`$ and $`\kappa _3`$ are vertex corrections (which have the same form as those that arise in the calculation of current-current correlation functions). In the clean limit, this gives

$$\frac{H_{c2}^{(1,1,0)}}{H_{c2}^{(1,0,0)}}=\sqrt{\frac{f_x^2v_x^2+f_y^2v_x^22|f_xf_yv_xv_y|}{2min(f_x^2v_y^2,f_x^2v_x^2)}}.$$
(14)
For $`\kappa _2<\kappa _1`$ and $`\kappa _3+\kappa _4>0`$, this ratio is independent of the impurity concentration. The requirement that $`\kappa _2<\kappa _1`$ implies for the field along $`(1,0,0)`$ that $`(\eta _1,\eta _2)=\eta (𝐫)(1,0)`$ \[for $`\kappa _2>\kappa _1`$ $`(\eta _1,\eta _2)=\eta (𝐫)(0,1)`$\] while the requirement that $`\kappa _3+\kappa _4>0`$ implies that for the field along the $`(1,1,0)`$ direction that $`(\eta _1,\eta _2)=\eta (𝐫)(1,1)`$ \[if $`\kappa _3+\kappa _4<0`$ then $`(\eta _1,\eta _2)=\eta (𝐫)(1,1)`$\]. Note that as the magnetic field is decreased, there will exist a second order phase transition due to a change in the order parameter structure . For example, for the field along $`(1,0,0)`$ and for $`\kappa _2<\kappa _1`$ there will be a second order transition with decreasing field where the component $`(\eta _1,\eta _2)(0,1)0`$. Such a transition reduces the number of nodes in the gap structure which is why it occurs.

For the $`E_g`$ representation using $`\mathrm{\Psi }(𝐤)=(\eta _1f_{xz}+\eta _2f_{yz})`$ gives

$`\kappa _1=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi N(0)}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{n0}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(\omega _n+\mathrm{\Gamma })^3}}f_{xz}^2v_x^2`$ (15)
$`\kappa _2=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi N(0)}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{n0}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(\omega _n+\mathrm{\Gamma })^3}}f_{xz}^2v_y^2`$ (16)
$`\kappa _3=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi N(0)}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{n0}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(\omega _n+\mathrm{\Gamma })^3}}\times `$ (17)
$`[f_{xz}f_{yz}v_xv_y`$ (18)
$`\kappa _4=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi N(0)}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{n0}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(\omega _n+\mathrm{\Gamma })^3}}f_{xz}f_{yz}v_xv_y`$ (19)
$`\kappa _5=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi N(0)}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{n0}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(\omega _n+\mathrm{\Gamma })^3}}f_{xz}^2v_z^2`$ (20)
The main difference with the $`E_u`$ representation is that no vertex corrections appear. For an arbitrary impurity concentration this gives

$$\frac{H_{c2}^{(1,1,0)}}{H_{c2}^{(1,0,0)}}=\sqrt{\frac{f_{xz}^2v_x^2+f_{yz}^2v_x^22|f_{xz}f_{yz}v_xv_y|}{2min(f_{xz}^2v_y^2,f_{xz}^2v_x^2)}}.$$
(21)
This ration is independent of the impurity concentration. These results (and the more detailed calculations below) indicate that the anisotropy is not generally small and should therefore be easily detected. It would be of interest to look for this anisotropy in CeIrIn5.

It is informative to determine the anisotropy for existing microscopic theories in the clean limit. Since no such theories for CeIrIn5 exist to date, the remainder of the analysis concentrates on Sr2RuO4. To do this the electronic dispersion must be given as must the form of the gap function. Initially, consider theories that for simplicity use a cylindrical Fermi surface . For a gap function with nodes in the basal plane $`(f_x,f_y)=[(k_x^2k_y^2)k_x,(k_x^2k_y^2)k_y]`$ , $`H_{c2}^{(1,1,0)}/H_{c2}^{(1,0,0)}=0.58`$. For an anisotropic but fully gapped gap function: $`(f_x,f_y)=[\mathrm{sin}(k_x),\mathrm{sin}(k_y)]`$ with $`k_F=0.9\pi `$ , $`H_{c2}^{(1,1,0)}/H_{c2}^{(1,0,0)}=0.53`$. These estimates indicate that the anisotropy should be easily observable if the gap contains nodes in the basal plane or is very anisotropic (these possibilities might be expected due to the recent experiments that indicate nodes in the gap ). This in contrast to the experimental results of Mao et al. . A more careful investigation below indicates that the anisotropy can accidentally be hidden, even for theories with nodes in the plane.

To consider more realistic models, a tight binding approach is used to describe the electronic dispersion near the Fermi surface. Local-density approximation band-structure calculations reveal that the density of states near the Fermi surface is due mainly to the four Ru $`4d`$ electrons in the $`t_{2g}`$ orbitals . There is a strong hybridization of these orbitals with the O $`2p`$ orbitals giving rise to antibonding $`\pi ^{}`$ bands. The resulting bands have three quasi-2D Fermi surface sheets labelled $`\alpha `$, $`\beta `$ and $`\gamma `$ (see Fig. 1). To model these Fermi surface sheets, the following tight-binding dispersions are used:

$`ϵ_\gamma =`$ $`ϵ_\gamma ^02t_\gamma (\mathrm{cos}k_x+\mathrm{cos}k_y)4\stackrel{~}{t}_\gamma \mathrm{cos}k_x\mathrm{cos}k_y`$ (22)
$`ϵ_{\alpha ,\beta }=`$ $`ϵ_{\alpha ,\beta }^0t_{\alpha ,\beta }(\mathrm{cos}k_x+\mathrm{cos}k_y)\pm \sqrt{t_{\alpha ,\beta }^2(\mathrm{cos}k_x\mathrm{cos}k_y)^2+16\stackrel{~}{t}_{\alpha ,\beta }^2\mathrm{sin}^2k_x\mathrm{sin}^2k_y}`$ (23)
In following tight binding values are used: $`(ϵ_\gamma ^0,t_\gamma ,\stackrel{~}{t}_\gamma )=(0.4,0.4,0.12)`$ for the $`\gamma `$ sheet and the values $`(ϵ_{\alpha ,\beta }^0,t_{\alpha ,\beta },\stackrel{~}{t}_{\alpha ,\beta })=(0.3,0.25,0.0375)`$ for the $`\{\alpha ,\beta \}`$ sheets . Table 1 shows the anisotropy ratio for gap functions found in various theories for Sr2RuO4.

Note that for the $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ bands the gap functions with $`v_x`$ replaced by $`\mathrm{sin}k_x`$ were not included (as they were for the $`\gamma `$ band) . This is due to quasi one-dimensional nature of the $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ sheets. In particular, $`v_{x,\alpha }\mathrm{sin}k_x[1+sgn(\mathrm{cos}k_x\mathrm{cos}k_y)]/2\mathrm{sin}k_x`$ in the one-dimensional limit. It is $`v_x`$, not $`\mathrm{sin}k_x`$, which would be the gap function for a one-dimensional nearest neighbor pairing interaction. This is supported by the calculations of Kuroki et al.  where the $`(f_x,f_y)=(v_x,v_y)`$ basis functions on the $`\alpha `$ sheet of Ref.  gives a good approximation to the crib-shaped gap function found in this reference \[the $`(f_x,f_y)=(\mathrm{sin}k_x,\mathrm{sin}k_y)`$ basis functions gives a qualitatively different gap function, with gap maxima along the $`(1,1,0)`$ momentum direction\]. A point of interest is that $`H_{c2}^{100}/H_{c2}^{110}<1`$ for the all the $`\gamma `$ sheet gap functions and $`H_{c2}^{100}/H_{c2}^{110}>1`$ for all the $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ sheet gap functions. Consequently, the upper critical anisotropy can cancel between these sheets of the Fermi surface. For example, using the gap function $`f_x=v_x`$ and taking the magnitude of this gap function on the $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ surfaces to be the same ($`c_\alpha =c_\beta `$) the gap magnitude ratio $`c_\gamma /c_\alpha =6.7`$ will lead to zero upper critical field anisotropy (where the experimentally measured ratios $`N_\gamma (0):N_\beta (0):N_\alpha (0)=1.334:0.914:0.216`$ and $`v_{F,\gamma }^2:v_{F,\beta }^2:v_{F,\alpha }^2=2.6:6.8:7.8`$ were used ). The same can be done for gap functions with line nodes: for $`f_x=v_y\mathrm{sin}k_x\mathrm{sin}k_y`$, $`c_\gamma /c_\alpha =1.7`$ and for $`f_x=(\mathrm{cos}k_x\mathrm{cos}k_y)v_x`$, $`c_\gamma /c_\alpha =55`$. These estimates imply that for such an accidental cancellation to occur the maximum gap on the $`\gamma `$ Fermi surface sheet must be larger than that on the $`\{\alpha ,\beta \}`$ sheets. Note that in principle all the gap functions listed in Table 1 can appear simultaneously in the pairing state of Sr2RuO4 since they are all of the same symmetry.

The in-plane anisotropy in the upper critical field near $`T_c`$ has been calculated for microscopic models of the $`E_g`$ and $`E_u`$ pairing symmetries of the tetragonal point group. It has been shown that this anisotropy should be easily observable and may be present in CeIrIn5. Also it is shown that for $`E_g`$ gap functions and for some $`E_u`$ gap functions, this anisotropy is independent of impurity scattering. For Sr2RuO4, it is shown that an accidental cancellation of this anisotropy can occur if the $`\gamma `$ sheet of the Fermi surface is largely responsible for the superconductivity.

I wish to thank V. Barzykin, L.P. Gor’kov, R.B. Joynt, Y. Maeno, M. Sigrist, and L. Taillefer for informative discussions.


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# 2d manifold-independent spinfoam theory

## 1 Introduction

In this paper we study the quantization of the two-dimensional (2d) topological field theory characterized by the action

$$S[\omega ,B]=Tr[BF],$$
(1)
where $`\omega `$ is an $`SU(2)`$ connection field, $`F`$ its field strength two-form, and $`B`$ a scalar field in the adjoint representation of $`SU(2)`$. The theory is the 2d version of BF theory , and can be seen as the $`e0`$ limit ($`e`$ being the coupling constant) of 2d Yang Mills theory . We shall consider this theory on manifolds of arbitrary topology, without and with boundaries, as well as in a context which allows us to sum over manifold topologies.

We utilize different quantization strategies, and discuss their relation. (For a beautiful introduction to many of the ideas in this area and a detailed annotated bibliography, see .) First, we utilize canonical quantization, and exhibit the loop basis  and the spin network basis . Next, we consider a path integral quantization defined in terms of a triangulation of the 2d manifold, and the spinfoam formalism . We show equivalence with canonical quantization and we show that this technique allows the theory to be defined on rather arbitrary manifolds without and with boundaries. Finally, we recover the theory from the Feynman expansion of an auxiliary field theory over a group manifold.

The two dimensional system we consider has been studied in a variety of ways, and several of the techniques used below are known. See in particular , the book , and complete references therein. The last technique, namely the auxiliary field theory over a group, on the other hand is quite recent. This technique derives from the 2d matrix model approaches to 2d quantum gravity developed in the context of “zero dimensional” string theory ; the idea was nontrivially extended to 3d by Boulatov  and to 4d by Ooguri , then to the Barrett Crane model  in , and to rather arbitrary diffeomorphism-invariant but non-topological theories in . The main interest of this technique is that it provides a natural prescription for summing over topologies. Using this technique, we can define and compute the theory’s transition amplitudes in a fully manifold-independent fashion.

These transition amplitudes capture the full physical and gauge invariant content of the theory. In this diff-invariant context, they play a role somewhat analogous to the role that the Wightman functions play for a quantum field theory over a background. As for the Wightman functions , one can reconstruct the canonical structure of the theory from them, using the $`C^{}`$ algebraic Gelfand-Naimark-Segal (GNS) construction. In addition, we show that these transition amplitudes are given by the $`n`$-point functions of the auxiliary field theory.

A technical result of this paper is the definition and the computation of these manifold-independent transition amplitudes for the theory (1). These turn out to be strictly related to the matrix models ones – the precise relation is detailed in the Appendix. The motivation for this exercise, on the other hand, is to investigate and illustrate the different quantization techniques and their relations, in view of the physical 4d theory. The auxiliary field theory technique finds its full motivation in the context of (4d) diff-invariant but non-topologically invariant theories such as general relativity. In this context, it provides the prescription for a sum over triangulations which restores the triangulation independence of the transition amplitudes . In the simpler context studied here, triangulation independence is already guaranteed by topological invariance, and the auxiliary field theory technique is used only to define the sum over topologies. In spite of this simplification, the study of the 2d context shed considerable light on several issues emerged in the physically important 4d context, particularly on the general structure of a diffeomorphism invariant quantum field theory . We think that the structures and techniques developed here will play a role in the non-topological, but still diff-invariant, context of physical quantum gravity.

## 2 Classical theory

Consider the action (1) defined over a given two-dimensional manifold $``$. Introducing coordinates $`x^a`$, $`a=1,2`$ on $``$ and a basis of (anti-hermitian) matrices $`\tau _i`$ in $`su(2)`$, the action is written in terms of the components of the fields as

$$S=B^iF_{12}^i𝑑x^1𝑑x^2$$
(2)
(sum over repeated indices is understood.) The field equations are

$`dB`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (3)
$`F`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (4)
where $`d`$ is the $`\omega `$-covariant exterior differential. Apparently, there are two local gauge invariances in the action: the conventional Yang-Mills-like local $`SU(2)`$ transformations generated by a Lee algebra valued scalar field $`\lambda `$

$`\delta _\lambda \omega =d\lambda ,`$ (5)
$`\delta _\lambda B=[B,\lambda ],`$ (6)
and the active diffeomorphisms generated by a vector field $`v`$

$`\delta _v\omega =L_v\omega ,`$ (7)
$`\delta _vB=L_vB,`$ (8)
$`L_v`$ being the Lie derivative. However, on shell a diffeomorphism generated by $`v`$ is the same transformation as an $`SU(2)`$ transformation generated by the field

$$\lambda ^i=v^a\omega _a^i,$$
(9)
as can be easily checked by writing these equations in components and using the equations of motion. Therefore in this theory the diffeomorphisms (acting on the space of solutions) can be considered as a subgroup of the $`SU(2)`$ gauge transformations. Solutions are given by flat connections and (covariantly) constant $`B`$ fields. Locally, therefore, there is no gauge-invariant degree of freedom.

## 3 Hamiltonian analysis

Assume now that $``$ has the topology $`S_1\times R`$, and let $`x^a=(t,\varphi )`$, where $`t`$ is a non-compact coordinate along $`R`$ and $`\varphi [0,2\pi ]`$ is a periodic coordinate on $`S_1`$. We can then write the action (2) as

$$S=𝑑t𝑑\varphi (B^i_t\omega _\varphi ^i\omega _t^iDB^i),$$
(10)
where $`D`$ is the covariant derivative of the connection $`A^i=\omega _\varphi ^i`$ on the 1d manifold $`S_1`$. From this we read out the canonical structure of the theory: the canonical fields are $`A^i(\varphi )`$ and $`B^i(\varphi )`$, with Poisson brackets $`\{A^i(\varphi ),B^j(\varphi ^{})\}=\delta ^{ij}\delta (\varphi ,\varphi ^{})`$, and there is the single first class constraint which generates (fixed time) $`SU(2)`$ gauge transformations

$$C^i=DB^i.$$
(11)
This confirms that the $`SU(2)`$ transformations exhaust the gauge invariances of the theory. The extended phase space on which this constraint is defined is the infinite dimensional space of the initial data $`(A^i(\varphi ),B^i(\varphi ))`$. The space of the gauge orbits is finite dimensional. In fact, it is two dimensional. It can be coordinatized by the two gauge invariant quantities

$`T`$ $`=`$ $`TrU[A]=TrPe^{_{S_1}A},`$ (12)
$`L`$ $`=`$ $`B^i(0)B^i(0),`$ (13)
where $`0`$ is an arbitrary point, since $`B^i(\varphi )B^i(\varphi )`$ is constant in $`\varphi `$. The two quantities $`T`$ and $`L`$ commute with the constraint and form a complete system of gauge invariant observables. The physical states of the theory are therefore characterized by these two quantities. All relevant information follows from this. For instance: given two set of initial data $`(A_{in}^i(\varphi ),B_{in}^i(\varphi ))`$ and $`(A_{out}^i(\varphi ),B_{out}^i(\varphi ))`$, can the first evolve into the second? The answer is yes if and only if $`T[A_{in}^i,B_{in}]=T[A_{out}^i,B_{out}]`$ and $`L[A_{in}^i,B_{in}]=L[A_{out}^i,B_{out}]`$, and in this case the trajectory between the two in the coordinate time $`t`$ is given by any arbitrary one parameter family of gauge transformations, parametrized by $`t`$, taking the $`in`$ fields into the $`out`$ fields.

## 4 Canonical quantization

We begin to construct the quantum theory by quantizing the unconstrained hamiltonian theory and imposing the quantum constraint à la Dirac. The space of the unconstrained quantum states is formed by functionals of the connection $`\mathrm{\Psi }[A]`$. The $`B`$ field is represented by the functional derivative operator $`B(\varphi )=i\mathrm{}\delta /\delta A(\varphi )`$, which gives the right commutation relations. The constraint is the generator of gauge transformations on the argument of the quantum state, and therefore the states that solve the Dirac constraint are the states of the form

$$\mathrm{\Psi }[A]=f(TrU[A])=\psi (U[A]).$$
(14)
Therefore a physical state is given by a function $`\psi `$ over $`SU(2)`$, depending only on the trace of its argument – that is, invariant under the adjoint action of the group over itself: $`\psi (U)=\psi (VUV^1)`$. Such functions are denoted “class functions”. There is a natural invariant scalar product on these states, which is

$$\mathrm{\Psi },\mathrm{\Psi }^{}=𝑑U\overline{\psi (U)}\psi ^{}(U).$$
(15)
where $`dU`$ is the Haar measure on $`SU(2)`$. Throughout the paper, we denote $``$ the Hilbert space of the square integrable functions over $`SU(2)`$. Then the physical Hilbert space is

$$_{ph}=\frac{}{SU(2)}=\frac{L_2[SU(2)]}{SU(2)},$$
(16)
where the $`SU(2)`$ in the denominator is the adjoint action of the group over itself. The gauge invariant observables $`T`$ and $`L`$ are well defined on $``$. The first gives

$$T\psi (U)=Tr(U)\psi (U);$$
(17)
and a straightforward calculation shows that the second gives

$$L\psi (U)=\mathrm{}^2C\psi (U),$$
(18)
where $`C`$ is the $`SU(2)`$ Casimir operator. The essential condition on the physical scalar product on the solution of the constraint equation is that the physical operators be self-adjoint. They are, and therefore the scalar product we have defined is the physically correct one. Since the Casimir of $`SU(2)`$ has eigenvalues $`j(j+1)`$, with half integer $`j`$, we obtain immediately a first result from the quantum theory: the observable $`L`$ is quantized, with eigenvalues

$$L_j=\mathrm{}^2j(j+1).$$
(19)
A natural basis can be obtained by diagonalizing $`L`$. Since the Casimir operator is diagonal over the irreducible representations, we define

$$\psi _j(U)=Tr_jUTr[R^{(j)}(U)],$$
(20)
where $`R^{(j)}(U)`$ is the matrix representing $`U`$ in the representation $`j`$. Using the well known relation

$$𝑑U\overline{R_{ab}^{(j)}(U)}R_{cd}^{(k)}(U)=\frac{1}{2j+1}\delta ^{jk}\delta _{ac}\delta _{bd},$$
(21)
we have immediately that the $`\psi _j`$ form an orthonormal basis, which we denote $`|j`$. Therefore

$$U|j=Tr_jU$$
(22)
We have thus $`j|j^{}=\delta _{jj^{}}`$. The action of $`T`$ on this basis can be obtained directly from standard Clebsch Gordon technology. The normalized (generalized) eigenstates $`|T`$ of the $`T`$ operator form a continuos orthonormal basis, and thus we have

$$T^{}|T=\delta (T,T^{}).$$
(23)
A useful set of operators to consider is the one corresponding to the classical observables

$$T_j=Tr_jU[A].$$
(24)
These are clearly diagonal in the $`U`$ representation and

$$T_j|0=|j.$$
(25)
Although this model is very simple, it has remarkable analogies with the the loop quantization of general relativity. In loop quantum gravity as well, indeed, we have states functionals of the connection that can be written as functions of the holonomies $`U`$ of the connection. While in loop quantum gravity one must consider holonomies along different loops, here there is essentially only one loop: the one that wraps around $`S_1`$. Thus, this theory can be seen as a sort of “single loop” loop quantum gravity. Indeed, (22) is an elementary loop transform. Better, the basis $`|j`$ that we have introduced is precisely the “spin network basis” , in this simplified case of a single loop. The $`T`$ operator is then analogous to the quantum gravity loop operator, and the operator $`L`$ is analogous to the area operator, which is also given in terms of the Casimir of $`SU(2)`$, and which is diagonalized by the spin network basis . The quantization of $`L`$ is thus the 2d analog of the quantization of the area.

## 5 Discretization

Let us now consider a completely different path for quantization. We start with the covariant theory, triangulate the manifold $``$ and consider a lattice gauge theory that discretizes our theory. In general, the discretization introduced in going to the lattice kills the degrees of freedom below a certain scale; however, since the theory we are considering has no local degrees of freedom, we expect nothing to be really lost in the discretization. As we shall see, this will indeed turn out to be the case. In addition, the discretization allows us to get rid of the restriction to the simple $`S_1\times R`$ topology, and consider arbitrary topologies with an arbitrary number of boundaries.

Let us therefore fix a triangulation $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ of $``$. A triangulation in two dimensions is formed by triangles, edges, and points. A triangle is bounded by three edges and an edge by two (not necessarily distinct) points. An edge bounds precisely two triangles and a point bounds an arbitrary number of edges. It is more convenient to use the dual $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{}`$ of a triangulation $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, which is formed by trivalent vertices, links and faces (or plaquettes) with an arbitrary number of sides. We discretize the connection by replacing it with a group element $`U_l`$ for every link $`l`$ of $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{}`$. We discretize the field $`B`$ by replacing it with a Lie algebra valued variable $`B_f`$ for every face $`f`$. Finally, we approximate the action (1) as a sum over the faces

$$S[B_fU_l]=\underset{f}{}Tr[B_fU_f],$$
(26)
where $`U_f=U_{f_1}\mathrm{}U_{f_n}`$ when $`f_1\mathrm{}f_n`$ are the links around the face $`f`$. To first order in the area of the plaquettes we have $`Tr[B_fU_f]Tr[B(1+F)]=Tr[BF]`$. We then consider the quantum theory defined by the partition function

$$Z_{}=𝑑B_f𝑑U_le^{\frac{i}{\mathrm{}}S[B_fU_l]}.$$
(27)
The subscript $``$ indicates the manifold: we will indeed check shortly that $`Z_{}`$ depends on the manifold but not the triangulation. The integral over $`B_f`$ can be performed explicitly , giving

$$Z_{}=𝑑U_l\underset{f}{}\delta (U_f)=𝑑U_l\underset{f}{}\delta (U_{f_1}\mathrm{}U_{f_n}),$$
(28)
where $`\mathrm{}`$ and $`2\pi `$ coefficients have been absorbed in a redefinition of the measure $`dB_f`$. We can then expand the delta function over $`SU(2)`$, using a well known representation of it

$$Z_{}=𝑑U_l\underset{f}{}\underset{j}{}(2j+1)Tr_jU_f.$$
(29)
Equation (29) can be rearranged as

$$Z_{}=\underset{j_f}{}𝑑U_l\underset{f}{}(2j_f+1)Tr_{j_f}U_f.$$
(30)
where $`j_f`$ is an assignment of a spin $`j`$ to every face $`f`$, and the sum is over all such assignments.

These two steps have replaced the integrals over the continuous variables $`B_f`$ (one per face) with sums over the discrete index $`j_f`$ (one per face). To understand how this may have happened, consider the following analogy. Let $`\pi <x<\pi `$ and consider a space $`S`$ of sufficiently regular functions over this interval. Consider the integral

$$\delta (x)=\frac{1}{2\pi }_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑pe^{ipx}.$$
(31)
It converges to a well defined distribution over $`L`$: the delta function on the origin. However, on this restricted interval the same delta function can be obtained with a discrete sum as

$$\delta (x)=\frac{1}{2\pi }\underset{n}{}e^{inx}.$$
(32)
In a sense, the values $`p=n`$ of $`p`$ are “sufficient” for the integral. Similarly, the “quantized” values $`j`$ in (30) are sufficient to give the same delta function over the group as the one defined by the $`B`$ integral in (27).

The remaining integrals in (30) can be performed because each link $`l`$ always bounds precisely two faces, and therefore each integration variable $`U_l`$ enters in precisely two traces. Using (21), we conclude that the representation must be the same for every two adjacent faces, which is to say for all faces. Therefore the sum over $`j_f`$ reduces to a single sum over $`j`$. From equation (21), each integral (that is, each link) contributes a factor $`1/(2j+1)`$, and a bunch of delta functions that end up contracted among themselves. A moment of reflection on the pattern of the indices in the integrals will convince the reader that after all the integrals have been performed, there remains one trace for each (trivalent) vertex in $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{}`$. Each such trace gives a contribution $`(2j+1)`$ to the integral. Putting all together we obtain

$$Z_{}=\underset{j}{}\underset{f}{}(2j+1)\underset{l}{}1/(2j+1)\underset{v}{}(2j+1)=\underset{j}{}(2j+1)^{FL+V},$$
(33)
where $`F,L,V`$ are the numbers of faces links and vertices in $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{}`$. The quantity $`\chi =FL+V`$ is a topological invariant, that is, for a fixed manifold is triangulation independent. In fact, it is the Euler characteristic $`\chi ()`$ of $``$. For a compact oriented surface of genus $`g`$, the Euler characteristic is $`\chi =22g`$. Thus

$$Z_{}=\underset{j}{}(2j+1)^{\chi ()}=\underset{j}{}(2j+1)^{22g()},$$
(34)
which converges for $`g>1`$, namely for all Riemann manifolds except for the sphere ($`g`$=0) and the torus ($`g=1`$). For non-orientable surfaces, the Euler characteristic and the genus are linked by $`\chi =2g`$ and the partition function converges for $`g>2`$, namely for all surfaces but the projective plane $`RP^2`$ ($`g=1,\chi =1`$) and Klein’s bottle $`K`$ ($`g=2,\chi =0`$). As we will see in a moment, this divergence is harmless and physical quantities are all well defined.

## 6 Boundaries

The calculation in the previous section is not very meaningful by itself, since the sourceless partition function $`Z_{}`$ is either to be normalized to one or infinite. We have performed it only as a preliminary step to compute something more interesting. To get to something more interesting we have to have states in the theory and transition amplitudes.

A diffeomorphism invariant field theory has the following general structure. Let the manifold $``$ have boundary $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, formed by $`n`$ connected components $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_i`$ with $`i=1,\mathrm{},n`$. Figure 1 illustrates, as an example, a manifold with genus one and a two component boundary. (Unconstrained) initial data $`A_i`$ can be associated to each connected component $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_i`$ of the boundary. The path integral of the bulk variables at fixed boundary values gives the transition amplitudes $`Z_n[A_i]`$. To make the notation lighter we do not explicitly indicate the manifold dependence of these quantities, but it is important to remember that they do depend on the topology of the spacetime manifold that interpolates between the boundaries (unlikely the transition function of the next sections, which do not). In particular, $`Z_1[A]`$ defines the “Hartle-Hawking” vacuum state state , and $`Z_2[A_{out},A_{in}]`$ defines the propagator. This propagator defines the projection operators $`P`$ that projects the space of the unconstrained states $`\psi (A)`$ into the physical Hilbert space,

$$P\psi (A)=𝑑A^{}Z_2[A,A^{}]\psi (A^{})$$
(35)
and defines the physical scalar product of the theory

$$\psi |\psi ^{}=𝑑A𝑑A^{}\overline{\psi (A)}Z_2[A,A^{}]\psi ^{}(A^{}).$$
(36)
Therefore $`Z_1[A]`$ picks a preferred state in the Hilbert space, $`Z_2[A_{out},A_{in}]`$ maps the Hilbert space associated to the $`in`$ boundary to the Hilbert space associated to the $`out`$ boundary, $`Z_3[A_1,A_2,A_3]`$ gives a three legs transition amplitude, and so on.

The amplitudes $`Z_n[A_i]`$ are related to each other as follows. Assume the two manifolds $`_1`$ and $`_2`$ can be glued along a common boundary $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_j`$ obtaining a manifold $``$. The transition amplitudes of $``$ can be obtained from the ones of $`_1`$ and $`_2`$ by integrating on the common initial data $`A_j`$ on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_j`$.

More formally, this relation can be expressed as follows . There is a category $`M`$ whose objects are collections of circles, and whose maps are 2d manifolds having these circles as boundaries. The diffeomorphism invariant field theory is then a representation of this category, that is, a functor from $`M`$ to the category $`H`$ of the Hilbert spaces (whose maps are linear maps between Hilbert spaces).

In the case we are considering, all boundary connected components are isomorphic isomorphic to $`S_1`$, and therefore there is a single fundamental Hilbert $``$ space in the game (The Hilbert space associated to $`n`$ circles is the symmetric tensor product of $`n`$ copies of $``$). Also, using the discretized definition of the path integral, all integrals are well defined. The dual triangulation $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{}`$ of $``$ induces a triangulation of each boundary component. We can always assume that this triangulation is made by a single segment, and denote the associated group element as $`U_i`$. Boundary values are therefore group elements $`U_i`$, which we can immediately identify as the holonomy of the connection around the boundary. All integration measures are given by the Haar measure. Let us compute the amplitudes $`Z_n[U_i]`$.

The Hartle-Hawking amplitude $`Z_1[U]`$ of a hemisphere can be computed immediately from (28). Inserting the boundary value and discretizing the manifold with a single face, we have immediately

$$Z_1[U]=\underset{j}{}(2j+1)Tr_jU=\delta (U).$$
(37)
Thus, the Hartle Hawking state $`|HH`$ is the delta function on the group.

Next, consider a manifold with the topology of a cylinder. Again, we can discretize the cylinder with a single face, bounded by the two boundaries of the manifold and by an internal link joining the two boundaries. In (28), we have then a single integral and a single trace

$`Z_2[U_{out},U_{in}]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑V\delta (U_{in}^1VU_{out}V^1)}`$ (38)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}(2j+1){\displaystyle 𝑑UTr[R^{(j)}(U_{in}^1UU_{out}U^1)]}.`$
Using (21) again, this gives

$$Z_2[U_{out},U_{in}]=\underset{j}{}Tr_jU_{out}Tr_jU_{in}.$$
(39)
This is precisely the projector on the class functions over the group

$`{\displaystyle 𝑑U^{}Z_2[U,U^{}]\psi (U)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑U^{}𝑑V\delta (U^1VU^{}V^1)\psi ^{}(U^{})}`$ (40)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑V\psi ^{}(VUV^1)}.`$
If $`\psi `$ and $`\psi ^{}`$ are class functions

$$\psi |\psi ^{}=𝑑U\overline{\psi (U)}\psi ^{}(U).$$
(41)
That is, we recover (16), the same physical Hilbert space $`_{ph}`$ as in the canonical theory.

In the basis $`|j`$

$$Z_n(j_i)𝑑U_iZ_n(U_i)Tr[R^{(j)}(U_i)],$$
(42)
the Hartle Hawking state is

$$Z_1(j)=\psi _{HH}(j)=j|HH=2j+1,$$
(43)
and the propagator

$$Z_2(j,j^{})=j|j^{}=\delta _{jj^{}}.$$
(44)
The higher transition amplitudes, as well as the transition amplitudes for manifolds with an arbitrary number of holes, can be computed in a similar fashion using the discretization of the manifold. A shortcut can e taken using the functorial properties of the transition amplitudes. For instance, let us glue a hemisphere to a cylinder, obtaining a hemisphere. Correspondingly, we should obtain a Hartle Hawking state by propagating a Hartle Hawking state $`\psi _{HH}(j)=_jZ_2(j,j^{})\psi _{HH}(j)`$. In coordinate space

$$𝑑U^{}Z_2(U,U^{})Z_1(U^{})=Z_1(U);$$
(45)
explicitly

$$𝑑V𝑑U^{}\delta (UVU^{}V^1)\delta (U^{})=\delta (U).$$
(46)
Let us now cut out a disk from a cylinder. We obtain a manifold with three boundaries. The corresponding amplitude $`Z_3(j,j^{},j\mathrm{"})`$ must satisfy

$$Z_2(j,j^{})=\underset{j\mathrm{"}}{}Z_3(j,j^{},j\mathrm{"})Z_1(j\mathrm{"}),$$
(47)
and we have immediately

$$Z_3(j,j^{},j\mathrm{"})=\frac{1}{2j+1}\delta _{j,j^{},j\mathrm{"}}$$
(48)
where $`\delta _{j,j^{},j\mathrm{"}}`$ is one if $`j=j^{}=j\mathrm{"}`$, and zero otherwise. And, similarly, we obtain

$$Z_n(j_i)=\frac{1}{(2j+1)^{n2}}\delta _{j_i}$$
(49)
where $`\delta _{j_i}`$ is one if all $`j_i`$ are the same and zero otherwise. In term of boundary group elements, one gets:

$$Z_n(U_i)=dV_i\delta \left(\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}V_i^1U_iV_i\right)=dV_2..dV_n\delta (U_1V_2^1U_2V_2..V_n^1U_nV_n)$$
(50)
, that is the delta function on the product of the conjugacy classes of the boundary holonomies.

Then we can deduce the higher genus case by gluing some punctures together. For example, considering $`Z_3`$ and identifying two punctures together, one gets the partition function for the punctured torus $`Z_1^{(g=1)}`$, and so on.

This way, we get the partition function for an orientable (compact) surface of genus $`g`$

$$Z^{(g)}=\underset{a=1}{\overset{g}{}}dC_adD_a\delta \left(\underset{i}{}C_aD_aC_a^1D_a^1\right),$$
(51)
where the group elements $`C_i,D_i`$ are associated to the $`2g`$ non-trivial loops/cycles of the surface. Then one immediately recovers equation (34)

$$Z^{(g)}=\underset{j}{}(2j+1)^{22g}.$$

Let us point out that taking the cylinder or two-punctured sphere, we can get both the torus or Klein’s bottle by gluing the two ends together, which implies that the two surfaces have the same partition function. Indeed they have the Euler characteristic $`\chi =0`$.

Similarly, we can start with a manifold of genus $`g`$ and cut out a disk. By the gluing technique, we immediately get:

$$Z_1^{(g)}(U)=\underset{a=1}{\overset{g}{}}dC_adD_a𝑑V\delta \left(VUV^1\underset{a}{}C_aD_aC_a^1D_a^1\right),$$
(52)
which leads to

$$Z_1^{(g)}(j)=(2j+1)^{12g},$$
(53)
And we finally get easily the general expression for the amplitude of a genus $`g`$ manifold with $`n`$ disk removed, and therefore $`n`$ boundary components

$$Z_n^{(g)}(U_i)=\underset{a=1}{\overset{g}{}}dC_adD_a\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}dV_i\delta \left(\underset{i}{}V_iU_iV_i^1\underset{a}{}C_aD_aC_a^1D_a^1\right)$$
(54)
$$Z_n^{(g)}(j_i)=(2j+1)^{22gn}\delta _{j_i}$$
(55)
Notice that all these transition functions are finite.

The above discussion illustrates in detail the relation with canonical quantization. In particular, notice that the propagator associated to the cylinder is precisely the projector on the solutions of the quantum constraint. Notice that this is precisely the structure in the formal functional quantization of general relativity in Hawking’s approach. Notice also that, as it is always the case in diffeomorphism invariant theories,
— the matrix elements of the physical scalar product,
— the projector on the physical states and
— the evolution operator in coordinate time
are all identified.

The difference between a topological field theory and a field theory which is diffeomorphism invariant, but is not topological, is only in the number of the degrees of freedom involved. In other words, the general structure that we expect is the same, but the Hilbert space associated to a boundary has a much richer structure. Furthermore, if we define the theory by means of a discretization, we do not expect triangulation independence, because a fixed triangulation cuts off the number of degrees of freedom.

The quantization we have discussed reproduces, in simplified form, the state-sum definition of $`BF`$ theory in 3d and 4d, as in the models developed by Ponzano and Regge and by Turaev and Viro, and by Turaev, Ooguri, Crane and Yetter . The analog for general relativity is given by the state sum formulations of Barret and Crane  and their variants , where, however, one looses triangulation invariance. Notice in particular the sum over assignments of representations to faces in equation (30). This sum corresponds to the state sum of these models. Here, of course, the “Clebsch Gordon” condition on the links are simplified by the fact that only two faces join at a link and therefore the representation of the two faces must be same, thus collapsing the sum over arbitrary colorings to a sum over a single $`j`$.

## 7 Auxiliary field theory

We now come to a main part of the paper. Following the ideas in  we define an auxiliary field theory on a group manifold, whose Feynman graph expansion gives the above 2d $`BF`$ theory.

Let $`g_i`$, for $`i=1,2`$ be in $`SU(2)`$; we change notation for the group elements for consistency with the conventions in this area and also to emphasize the different role that group elements assume now. Consider a real scalar field $`\mathrm{\Phi }(g_1,g_2)`$ on $`SU(2)\times SU(2)`$, having the following two properties. Symmetry

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(g_1,g_2)=\mathrm{\Phi }(g_2,g_1),$$
(56)
and right $`SU(2)`$ invariance

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(g_1,g_2)=\mathrm{\Phi }(g_1g,g_2g),gSU(2).$$
(57)
These two symmetries can also be expressed by writing the field as

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(g_1,g_2)=_{SU(2)}𝑑g\left(\mathrm{\Psi }(g_1g,g_2g)+\mathrm{\Psi }(g_2g,g_1g)\right),$$
(58)
where $`\mathrm{\Psi }(g_1,g_2)`$ is an arbitrary field on $`SU(2)\times SU(2)`$. The field theory is defined by the nonlocal action

$`S`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{SU(2)\times SU(2)}}𝑑g_1𝑑g_2\mathrm{\Phi }^2(g_1,g_2)`$ (59)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda }{3!}}{\displaystyle _{SU(2)\times SU(2)\times SU(2)}}𝑑g_1𝑑g_2𝑑g_3\mathrm{\Phi }(g_1,g_2)\mathrm{\Phi }(g_2,g_3)\mathrm{\Phi }(g_3,g_1).`$
Notice that in each of the two terms each integration variable is shared by precisely two fields. The structure of the two terms, “kinetic” and “potential”, can be represented as in Figure 2, where the circles represent the fields and the lines represent their shared arguments which are integrated over.

We now study the perturbative Feynman expansion of the theory. Because of the symmetries of the field, care should be taken in inverting the kinetic term on the subspace of the symmetric fields only. On this subspace the kinetic term is indeed diagonal, and it is therefore straightforward to see that the propagator $`P`$ and the vertex $`V`$ can be written as

$$P(g_1,g_2;g_1^{},g_2^{})=𝑑g\left(\delta (g_1g,g_1^{})\delta (g_2g,g_2^{})+\delta (g_1g,g_2^{})\delta (g_2g,g_1^{})\right)$$
(60)
and

$$V(g_1,g_2;g_1^{},g_2^{};g\mathrm{"}_1,g\mathrm{"}_2)=\delta (g_1,g_2^{})\delta (g_1^{},g\mathrm{"}_2)\delta (g\mathrm{"}_1,g_2)$$
(61)
By representing a delta function with a line, with the two end points representing the two arguments, and the group integration as two dots, we can represent the propagator and the vertex as in Figure 3.

Consider the Feynman graph expansion of the the partition function

$$Z=e^F=𝑑\mathrm{\Phi }e^{S[\mathrm{\Phi }]},$$
(62)
The partition function $`Z`$ is the sum of the amplitudes of all closed Feynman graphs. The “Free energy” $`F`$ is the given by the connected graphs. Consider a connected Feynman graph of order $`V`$, that is with $`V`$ vertices. It will have $`E=\frac{3}{2}V`$ propagators. Because of the sum in (60), which symmetrizes the arguments of the two deltas, the amplitude of the graph is the sum of $`2^E`$ terms. Each of these terms can be represented by replacing the propagator in Figure 3 with one or the other of the terms in the sum, in each of the $`E`$ propagators. Consider one of these terms, as for example in Figure 4.

Notice that the corresponding graphical representation is formed by a graph on which closed lines run along propagators and through vertices. We denote “face” one of these closed lines, and say that it is bounded by the “edges” formed by the propagators along which the line runs. The collection $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ of faces, links and vertices with their boundary relations, defines a two-complex, characterized by the fact that each vertex is three-valent (it bounds three edges) and each edge is bi-valent (it bounds two faces). We denote a two complex with trivalent vertices and bivalent edges as a 2d two-complex. The Feynman amplitude of the 2d two-complex $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is just given by a multiple integral of $`2E+3V`$ delta functions. Each integration variable enters in two delta functions. The pattern in which these are enchained is simply given by the closed lines around the faces. In other words, there is a closed sequence of deltas for each face. By integrating away all the variables at the end points of the propagators, we have then easily that the amplitude of the two-complex is

$$A_\mathrm{\Gamma }=𝑑g_e\underset{f}{}\delta (g_{f1}\mathrm{}g_{fn})$$
(63)
where $`f1,\mathrm{},fn`$ are the edges that bound the face $`f`$.

Now, consider a 2d manifold $``$ with a triangulation $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. Notice that the dual triangulation $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{}`$ is precisely a 2d two-complex $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. Furthermore, note that if $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is the dual of a triangulation of $``$, then the amplitude (63) is precisely the partition function of BF theory on $``$, given above in equation (28). That is

$$Z_{}=A_\mathrm{\Delta }^{}$$
(64)
if $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is a triangulation of $``$. This is a key result.

The dual of a triangulation of a two-manifold is a 2d two complex. In two dimensions, the converse is true as well. Namely each 2d two-complex is the dual of the triangulation of a 2d manifold . The same is not true in higher dimensions, where one is lead to consider arbitrary two-complexes as generalized manifolds, but such complications are absent in 2d.

Just to get a feeling of the relation between Feynman graphs and 2d manifolds, consider the example of a simple graph formed by two vertices connected by three propagators. In expanding the symmetrization in the propagators, we obtain $`2^3`$ terms. Let us analyze first the one in which none of the lines crosses in a planar representation, as in Figure 5a. It is immediate to see that this is the dual of a simple triangulation of a sphere obtained by gluing two triangles along their perimeter. Indeed, the two-complex has three faces, and the triangulation has therefore three (bivalent) vertices. The Euler number is $`\chi (\mathrm{\Gamma })=FE+V=33+2=2`$ and the genus is zero. Next, consider the term in which there is a crossing in each propagator, as in Figure 5b. Following the line, we see that this two complex has a simple face: the corresponding triangulation has a single vertex, and a moment of reflection shows that it triangulates a torus. Indeed, the Euler number is $`\chi (\mathrm{\Gamma })=13+2=0`$ and the genus is one. Finally, consider the case in which only one propagator has a crossing (Figure 5c). In this case there are two faces. The corresponding manifold is $`RP^2`$, the non orientable manifold obtained from a disk by identifying opposite points on the perimeter. The Euler number is $`\chi (\mathrm{\Gamma })=23+2=1`$.

We can then immediately perform the integrals in (63) as we did in the previous sections, obtaining

$$A_\mathrm{\Gamma }=\lambda ^V(2j+1)^{\chi (\mathrm{\Gamma })}$$
(65)
Now, let $`N(V,\chi )`$ be the number of 2d two-complexes with Euler number $`\chi `$ obtained by expanding all graphs with $`V`$ vertices. This number is clearly finite and its determination is, in principle, a well defined combinatorial problem. The sum $`Z`$ over the connected Feynman diagrams gives

$$Z=\underset{\chi }{}N_\chi \underset{j}{}(2j+1)^\chi ,$$
(66)
where the weight factor $`N_\chi `$ is given by

$$N_\chi =\underset{V}{}N(V,\chi )\lambda ^V.$$
(67)
This defines a version of the topological field theory in which a sum over the manifold topologies is naturally implemented. The resulting theory does not depend on any fixed underlying manifold structure. The different spacetime manifold topologies are generated as Feynman graphs of the auxiliary theory. The auxiliary field theory fixes a well defined prescription for the sum over these topologies. The possibility of transitions through disconnected spacetime manifolds (for instance, two circles going into two circles via two cylinders) is taken into account by the standard field combinatorics of the connected/disconnected (reducible/irreducible) graphs. In the appendix, we discuss the precise relation between this theory and the matrix models. As shown in the appendix, the transition amplitudes between states of color $`j`$ are essentially the transition amplitudes of a matrix model with $`N=2j+1`$ dimensional matrices . For the discussion of their finiteness, see for instance .

## 8 Transition amplitudes

Once more, the physical content of the theory is not in its sourceless partition function but in its transition amplitudes, which can be obtained by inserting field operators in the path integral, coupling a source and taking derivatives with respect to the source, or computing the partition functions with fixed boundary conditions on the fields on spacetime boundaries. Remarkably, the transition amplitudes of the topological theory, obtained by defining the theory on a manifold with boundaries, are directly connected to the $`n`$-point functions of the auxiliary theory, obtained by inserting fields in the path integral.

The easiest way to see this, is to fix the gauge in the auxiliary field. Notice indeed that because of the invariance (58), we can consider the quantity

$$\psi (g)=\mathrm{\Phi }(1,g),$$
(68)
or, equivalently

$$\psi (g_2g_1^1)=\mathrm{\Phi }(g_1,g_2),$$
(69)
which has the same information as the field. We thus define the $`n`$-point functions of the auxiliary field theory as

$$W(g^{(1)},\mathrm{},g^{(n)})=Z^1[D\mathrm{\Phi }]\psi (g^{(1)})\mathrm{}\psi (g^{(n)})e^{S[\mathrm{\Phi }]}.$$
(70)
The momentum space version of the transition functions are

$$W_{j_1\mathrm{}j_n}=Z^1[D\mathrm{\Phi }]\mathrm{\Phi }_{j_1}\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Phi }_{j_n}e^{S[\mathrm{\Phi }]},$$
(71)
where

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_j=𝑑g_1𝑑g_2Tr_j(g_2g_1^1)\mathrm{\Phi }(g_1,g_2).$$
(72)
One could consider the more general observables

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_j^{(\alpha )}=𝑑g_1𝑑g_2Tr_j\left((g_2g_1^1)^\alpha \right)\mathrm{\Phi }(g_1,g_2),$$
(73)
however $`Tr_j(g^\alpha )`$ is simply a linear combinaison of traces $`Tr_k(g)`$ with $`k`$ ranging from 0 to $`\alpha j`$ (due to the decomposition into irreducible representations of the representation $`jj..j`$).

Consider an irreducible Feynman graph in the perturbative expansion of $`W(g^{(1)},\mathrm{},g^{(n)})`$. A moment of reflection, will convince the reader that this is given by the same graphs as before, with the difference that now $`n`$ propagator lines are open. The group element $`g^i`$ is associated to the $`i`$-th open propagator line, and in expanding the enchainment of the deltas, the two individual lines of the propagator get connected to each other through $`g^i`$. This can be represented by a circle formed by a single line, colored with $`g^i`$. Now, this is precisely the representation of a dual triangulation of a manifold with $`n`$ boundaries, colored with group elements $`g^1,\mathrm{},g^n`$. Therefore the Feynman expansion of the $`n`$-points function is the sum of the transition amplitudes of the topological theory, computed on manifolds with $`n`$ boundaries, and summed over all topologies of the interpolating spacetime manifold.

Going to momentum space, we have then immediately, for the irreducible $`n`$-point function $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{j_1\mathrm{}j_n}`$

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{j_1\mathrm{}j_n}=\underset{\chi }{}N_{\chi ,n}(2j+1)^{\chi n}\delta (j_i)$$
(74)
where

$$N_{\chi ,n}=\underset{m}{}N(m,\chi ,n)\lambda ^m,$$
(75)
where $`N(m,\chi ,n)`$ is the number of irreducible (that is, connected) 2d two-complexes with $`n`$ boundaries, $`m`$ vertices and Euler number $`\chi `$. The relation between the transition amplitudes and their irreducible part can be obtained by standard methods: we define the generating functional of the connected graphs as a function of a source class function $`J(g)`$ with components $`J_j`$.

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }[J]=\underset{n}{}\underset{j_1\mathrm{}j_n}{}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{j_1\mathrm{}j_n}J^{j_1}\mathrm{}J^{j_n}$$
(76)
and the generating functional of the transition amplitudes

$$W[J]=\underset{n}{}\underset{j_1\mathrm{}j_n}{}W_{j_1\mathrm{}j_n}J^{j_1}\mathrm{}J^{j_n}.$$
(77)
And we have

$$W[J]=e^{\mathrm{\Gamma }[J]}=Z^1𝑑\mathrm{\Phi }e^{S[\mathrm{\Phi }]+J\mathrm{\Phi }},$$
(78)
where

$$J\mathrm{\Phi }=\underset{j}{}\mathrm{\Phi }_jJ^j=𝑑g_1𝑑g_2\mathrm{\Phi }(g_1,g_2)J(g_2g_1^1).$$
(79)
Notice that the divergence due to the sphere and the torus in $`Z`$ does not affect the transition functions, since it is always divided out by the $`Z^1`$ factor in $`(\text{70})`$; equivalently, closed disconnected Feynman diagrams do not contribute to the transition amplitudes.

We have thus obtained the explicit form of all the transition amplitudes, in a form that is independent from the topology of the underlying spacetime manifold. Rather, these can be viewed as the transition amplitudes computed by summing over all topologies of the interpolating spacetime manifold. The prescription for the relative weights is implicitly fixed by the auxiliary field theory. These transition amplitudes can be directly computed as the $`n`$-point functions of the auxiliary field theory. The sum defining transition amplitudes can be viewed as a sum over the colored 2d two-complexes.

A $`n`$-dimensional analog of (59) is obtained by taking a field which is a function of $`n`$ group elements, and a potential term of order $`\frac{1}{2}n(n1)`$ having the structure (see Figure 2) of an $`n`$ dimensional simplex. The expansion of the Feynman graphs generates then $`n`$d two-complexes. The dual of an $`n`$ dimensional triangulation is an $`n`$d two-complex. This construction provides a manifold independent definition on $`BF`$ theory in $`n`$ dimensions.

What is particularly remarkable is that the constraint that reduced 4d $`BF`$ theory to general relativity can be obtained in the auxiliary field theory simply by requiring an additional invariance of the field under a subgroup for the field over the group . The 4d sum is therefore over colored 4d two-complexes. These are complexes in which each edge bounds four faces and each vertex bounds ten edges. The representations associated to the faces can vary freely provided that Clebsch-Gordon conditions are respected at the edges. Edges carry the additional degree of freedom given by the intertwiner between the representations associated to the adjacent faces. Such colored two complexes are denoted spinfoams and transition amplitudes can therefore be expressed as sums over spinfoams, hence the denomination spinfoam models.

The remarkable aspect of this formalism, when applied to gravitational theories, is that a spinfoam admits an interpretation as a discretized 4-geometry, and therefore the sum over spin foams turns out to be a well defined version of the Misner-Hawking sum of geometries . In particular, it turns out that one of the Casimirs of the representation associated to the face represents the area of the face, thus giving a metric interpretation to the coloring. This can happen because, as we have seen the Casimir is quadratic in the $`B`$ field. The constraint that reduces $`BF`$ theory to general relativity forces the $`B`$ field to be the product of two tetrad fields, and thus the Casimir is a product of four tetrads associated to a face, and a straightforward calculation shows that it is the square of the area of the face. Furthermore, the boundary Hilbert space turns out to be precisely the Hilbert space of loop quantum gravity, thus providing a precise link with the canonical formalism. The hope is that the auxiliary field theory technique could allow us to define and compute 3-geometry to 3-geometry transition amplitudes as sums over spinfoams, where the sum takes into account the full sum over topologies. As we have seen this hope is realized at least in the very simple context of the 2d topological theory.

## 9 Canonical and algebraic structure

Since the spacetime boundary can be composed by an arbitrary number of circles, a generic state of the system is the symmetric tensor product of an arbitrary number of copies of $``$. That is, it is the Fock space $``$ over $``$.

$$=\underset{n=0,\mathrm{}}{}\left(_1_s\mathrm{}_s_n\right),$$
(80)
where all $`_i`$’s are isomorphic to $``$. A basis in $``$ is given by the vectors $`|j_1\mathrm{}j_n`$, where $`n`$ is arbitrary and the set is ordered. The vacuum state $`|O`$ (not to be confused with the $`|j=0`$ state in $``$), that is, a normalized vector of the $`n=0`$ term in (80), represents the absence of any boundary.

What are the physical operators on this Hilbert space and to which physical observables do they correspond? Recall that we identified only two observables in the canonical analysis of the classical theory, $`T`$ and $`L`$. However, that result was under the assumption that the physical state is defined on a boundary formed by a single component. If the boundary has $`n`$ components, there must be $`n`$ different values $`T_1,\mathrm{},T_n`$ and $`L_1,\mathrm{},L_n`$ of these observables, representing the trace of the holonomy of the connection and the length of the (constant) $`B`$ field in each of the components. In other words, the classical phase space becomes the disjoint collection of an infinite set of components, labelled by the number of circles $`n`$. In each of these, the observables can be taken to be $`T_1,\mathrm{},T_n`$ and $`L_1,\mathrm{},L_n`$. It is also convenient to define an observable $`N`$ that takes the value $`n`$ on the $`n`$-th phase space component. The operator $`N`$ and all the $`T_i`$’s are simultaneously diagonalized, by the basis $`|j_1\mathrm{}j_n`$.

We now introduce the additional operator $`\mathrm{T}_j`$, which increases $`n`$ by one:

$$\mathrm{T}_j|j_1\mathrm{}j_n=|j_1\mathrm{}j_n,j.$$
(81)
Intuitively, this operator can be understood as follows. When measuring the holonomy on a boundary with $`n`$ circles, we have to specify on which circle we are measuring it. There are therefore $`n`$ distinct holonomy operators acting on $`|j_1\mathrm{}j_n`$, each acting on a different $`j_i`$. But this is not sufficient, since we can also measure the holonomy of a next extra circle opening up, and $`\mathrm{T}_j`$ is related to this operation.

Observable quantities of the theory are the transition functions $`W_{j_1\mathrm{}j_n}`$. These have a straightforward physical interpretation as follows. We can arbitrarily divide the $`n`$ indices $`j_1,\mathrm{},j_n`$ into two families: the $`in`$ ones $`|j_1^{in}\mathrm{}j_{n_{in}}^{in}`$ and the $`out`$ ones $`|j_1^{out}\mathrm{}j_{n_{out}}^{out}`$. Then $`W_{j_1\mathrm{}j_n}`$ is the probability amplitude to find the system in the $`|j_1^{out}\mathrm{}j_{n_{out}}^{out}`$ state after having found it in the $`|j_1^{in}\mathrm{}j_{n_{in}}^{in}`$.

Notice that we can write

$$|j_1\mathrm{}j_n=T_{j_1}\mathrm{}T_{j_n}|O$$
(82)
and

$$W_{j_1\mathrm{}j_n}=0|T_{j_1}\mathrm{}T_{j_n}|O$$
(83)
The $`W_{j_1\mathrm{}j_n}`$ functions, and their coordinate space transform $`W(g^{(1)},\mathrm{},g^{(n)})`$, are therefore the vacuum expectation values of products of $`T_j`$ operators.

Conversely, assume that the $`W(g^{(1)},\mathrm{},g^{(n)})`$, functions are given to us. Then we can reconstruct the quantum theory from them, in the spirit of Wightman. To do that, consider a linear $``$ space of sufficiently regular “test” functions $`f(g^{(1)},\mathrm{},g^{(n)})`$. We can promote $``$ to a $`C^{}`$ algebra by defining the adjoint $`f^{}(g^{(1)},\mathrm{},g^{(n)})=\overline{f(g^{(n)},\mathrm{},g^{(1)})}`$, the norm $`|f|=`$ $`sup[f(g^{(1)},\mathrm{},g^{(n)})]`$, the product $`(fh)(g^{(1)},\mathrm{},g^{(n+m)})=f(g^{(1)},\mathrm{},g^{(n)})`$ $`h(g^{(n+1)},\mathrm{},g^{(n+m)})`$. The $`W(g^{(1)},\mathrm{},g^{(n)})`$ functions define a positive linear functional $`W`$ on $``$ by

$$W(f)=\underset{n}{}𝑑g^{(1)}\mathrm{}𝑑g^{(n)}W(g^{(1)},\mathrm{},g^{(n)})f(g^{(1)},\mathrm{},g^{(n)})$$
(84)
We can thus run the GNS construction and obtain an Hilbert space, an algebra of operators and a vacuum state such that $`W`$ is the vacuum expectation value of the operators in the algebra. We can reconstruct in this way the hamiltonian structure defined above. Therefore the hamiltonian structure of the theory can be reconstructed from the transition amplitudes, in the spirit of Wightman.

Notice that the pre-Hilbert scalar product $`(f,h)=W(f^{}h)`$ that the GNS construction is degenerate, because of the $`gg^{}gg^{}^1`$ invariance under conjugation of the two point function and therefore $``$ is projected to $`_{ph}`$, which is formed by class functions only. For instance, the function $`f(g)=f^{ab}R_{ab}(g)`$, with $`Trf=0`$, has zero norm and is projected out of $`L_{ph}`$ in the GNS construction of the Hilbert space. $`_{ph}`$ is then spanned by the basis $`f^{j_1\mathrm{}j_n}`$ of the components of the class functions $`f`$, and

$$W(f)=W_{j_1\mathrm{}j_n}f^{j_1\mathrm{}j_n}.$$
(85)
In conclusion, the $`W_{j_1\mathrm{}j_n}`$ functions are gauge invariant, capture the full content of the theory and correspond to physical observables with a clear interpretation: they are therefore a natural set of objects in terms of which to deal with the theory and its physical content. Analogous objects for 4d quantum gravity exist and will be described elsewhere.

## 10 Conclusions and perspectives

We have studied the quantization of a simple diffeomorphism invariant theory using several techniques, which turn out to be nicely consistent. The auxiliary field theory method provides a prescription for a manifold-independent definitions of the theory, and a way to compute manifold-independent transition amplitudes. These can be understood as sums over different spacetime topologies. They capture the physical content of the theory, and represent physical observable quantities .

The interest of this auxiliary field theory technique is that it extends to quantum gravity. Indeed, there is an auxiliary field theory formulations of quantum gravity . In this case, the Feynman graph sum provides a genuine sum over triangulations, which erases the triangulation dependence of the non-topological theory. Furthermore, the Hilbert space $`_{ph}`$ associated to a boundary component turns out to be precisely the Hilbert space of loop quantum gravity. In particular, the $`W`$ functions of quantum gravity capture its full diff-invariant physical content, and we expect that they could be obtained as the $`n`$-point functions of an auxiliary field theory such as the one defined in . Thus, a beautifully overall covariant and canonical coherent picture of nonperturbative quantum gravity seems to be emerging.

A word of caution should be added, regarding the general use of the auxiliary field theory and the possibility of computing transition amplitudes in this path integral form. As we have seen, the two point function is the projector on the solutions of the canonical constraints. The projector should have zero eigenvalues. These correspond to the unphysical gauge degrees of freedom, which should be projected out. As well known, gauge degrees of freedom may give divergences in the path integral, essentially due to the integration over the infinite volume of the gauge group. These may be cured; in the theory in this paper, care has been taken in inverting the propagator on the physical subspace only, thus getting rid of an infinity. In a more complicated case, getting rid of those infinities might not be as simple and zeros of the projector might appear as divergences. This issue might be harder to deal with if the potential term alters the invariances of the kinetic term.

Finally, it would be important to study the auxiliary field theory formulation and the algebraic structure in the case of an arbitrary group in which irreducible representations are not conjugate to themselves. This might affect the past/future structure of the transition amplitudes, and the star relation in the $`C^{}`$ algebra.

————————

This work was partially supported by NSF Grant PHY-9900791 and by the Andrew Mellon predoctoral felloship.

## Appendix: Relation with the matrix models

Let us expand the field in mode components, using the Peter-Weyl theorem, as follows

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(g_1,g_2)=\varphi _{j_1j_2}^{a_1b_1a_2b_2}\overline{R_{a_1b_1}^{j_1}(g_1)}R_{a_2b_2}^{j_2}(g_2).$$
(86)
The symmetry property (57) of the field implies

$`\mathrm{\Phi }(g_1,g_2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑g\varphi (g_1g,g_2g)}`$ (87)
$`=`$ $`\varphi _{j_1j_2}^{a_1b_1a_2b_2}\overline{R_{a_1c_1}^{j_1}(g_1)}R_{a_2c_i}^{j_2}(g_2){\displaystyle 𝑑g\overline{R_{c_1b_1}^{j_1}(g)}R_{c_2b_2}^{j_2}(g)}.`$ (88)
Using (21), we can write

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(g_1,g_2)=\sqrt{2j+1}\varphi _j^{a_1a_2}\overline{R_{a_1c}^j(g)}R_{a_2c}^j(g)$$
(89)
where we have defined

$$\varphi _j^{a_1a_2}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2j+1}}\varphi _{jj_2}^{a_1b_1a_2b_2}\delta _{b_1b_2}\delta ^{jj_2}.$$
(90)
The symmetry property (56) imples $`\varphi _j^{a_1a_2}=\overline{\varphi _j^{a_2a_1}}`$. Writing the action (59) in terms of these modes, we obtain for the kinetic term

$$\mathrm{\Phi }^2(g_1,g_2)𝑑g_1𝑑g_2=\varphi _j^{a_1a_2}\varphi _j^{a_1a_2},$$
(91)
and for the potential term

$$\frac{\lambda }{3!}\varphi (g_1,g_2)\varphi (g_2,g_3)\varphi (g_3,g_1)𝑑g_1𝑑g_2𝑑g_3=\frac{\lambda }{3!}\frac{1}{\sqrt{2j+1}}\varphi _j^{ab}\varphi _j^{bc}\varphi _j^{ca}$$
(92)
The action is a sum over $`j`$ of terms $`S_j`$. For each of these terms, we define an hermitian matrix $`M`$, of dimension $`N=2j+1`$ by $`M_{ab}=\varphi _j^{ab}`$. Then each term takes the form

$$S_j=\frac{1}{2}Tr(M^2)+\frac{\lambda }{3!}\frac{1}{\sqrt{N}}Tr(M^3)$$
(93)
which is a standard form for the matrix models action . Therefore our theory is formed by a collection of non interacting matrix models, one per representation.

When calculating the Feynman diagrams from the above model, the propagators (corresponding to the edges of the dual triangulations) don’t give any weight, the vertices give each a weight $`N^{1/2}`$ and the loops in the diagrams (corresponding to faces of the dual triangulation) give the weight $`N`$ (size of the matrices), so that the total weight of a diagrams is

$$𝒲=\lambda ^VN^{F\frac{1}{2}V}$$
(94)
Using $`2E=3V`$, we find that the exponent is $`F\frac{1}{2}V=FE+V`$, the Euler characteristic of the manifold triangulated by the (dual of the) Feynman diagram. Notice also that, if one scales the variables $`\varphi _j^{ab}`$ or $`M_a^b`$ by a factor $`\alpha `$, the propagators gets a factor $`\alpha ^2`$ and the vertices a factor $`\alpha ^3`$, so the overall factor will be $`\alpha ^{3V2E}=1`$ and does not affect the total weight.


text:
# Quantum Theory of a Nematic Fermi Fluid.

## I The Model

We take as our model

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{r}\mathrm{\Psi }^{}(\stackrel{}{r})ϵ(\stackrel{}{})\mathrm{\Psi }(\stackrel{}{r})}`$ (7)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{r}𝑑\stackrel{}{r}^{}F_2(\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}^{})\mathrm{Tr}[\widehat{𝐐}(\stackrel{}{r})\widehat{𝐐}(\stackrel{}{r}^{})]}.`$
Here $`ϵ(\stackrel{}{k})`$ is the single-particle energy and we have ignored all density-density interactions other than the essential ones, for present purposes, involving the quadrapolar density. The single particle energy can be linearized about the Fermi surface, but for later convenience we keep one further term in the expansion, $`ϵ(\stackrel{}{k})=v_Fq[1+a(\frac{q}{k_F})^2]`$ with $`q|\stackrel{}{k}|k_F`$. To be explicit, we take the interaction to be the Fourier transform of a simple Lorentzian, $`F_2(\stackrel{}{r})=(2\pi )^2𝑑\stackrel{}{k}e^{i\stackrel{}{q}\stackrel{}{r}}F_2/[1+\kappa F_2q^2]`$, where $`F_2`$ is the appropriate Landau parameter. Our results are not qualitatively sensitive to any of these details.

Landau parameters in a strongly correlated fluid are notoriously difficult to deduce from microscopic considerations, but can be large. In He3, for instance, $`N_FF_0`$ is found to vary from 10 to 80 as a function of pressure between 0 and 27 atmospheres. At the simplest level, one might hope to express these parameters in terms of the Fourier transform of an effective density-denisty interaction as

$$F_n=V(|\stackrel{}{q}|=0)\delta _{n,0}_0^{2\pi }\frac{d\theta }{2\pi }\mathrm{cos}(n\theta )V[2k_F\mathrm{sin}(\theta /2)].$$
(8)
Clearly, it is possible to obtain a large negative $`F_2`$ and positive (or small) $`F_0`$ and $`F_1`$ from this expression, even if $`V`$ is positive, especially if $`V`$ is peaked at a momentum transfer of order $`2k_F`$. Such structure will occur in any fluid with a large degree of local crystallinity.

To analyze the collective properties of this system, we introduce a Hubbard-Stratanovich  field $`𝐧`$ to decouple the four-fermion interaction, and then integrate out the fermions formally to obtain the effective action, $`S_{\mathrm{eff}}[𝐧]`$. Although $`𝐧`$ is also a traceless symmetric tensor, it is convenient to introduce a vectorial notation in which $`𝐧=n_1\sigma _𝐳+n_1\sigma _𝐱`$ where $`\sigma _\alpha `$ are the Paul matrices. While $`S_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ is very complicated, we can readily find the saddle-point solutions, $`\overline{𝐧}`$, which are extrema of $`S_{\mathrm{eff}}`$, and can then obtain explicit expressions for $`S_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ in powers of $`\delta 𝐧𝐧\overline{𝐧}`$. In the limit $`\kappa \mathrm{}`$, the saddle-point (Fermi liquid) approximation becomes exact, and more generally this approach can be viewed as an expansion based on the small parameter, $`1/\kappa `$.

From now on we will work with the Hubbard-Stratonovich field $`𝐧`$ rather than with the order parameter field $`𝐐`$. They are related by a Legendre transform, and symmetry constrains the form of the effective actions in similar ways. In particular, the effective action for the $`𝐧`$ field has elastic terms similar to those of Eq. 5 with new ealstic moduli $`\kappa `$ and $`\kappa ^{}`$ which are proportional to $`\stackrel{~}{\kappa }`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\kappa }^{}`$.

The saddle point equations are obtained by minimizing an expression of the form of Eq. 4, with $`\overline{𝐧}`$ replacing $`𝐐`$ and $`A=\frac{1}{2N_F}+F_2`$ where $`N_F`$ is the density of states at the Fermi surface. Clearly, the isotropic phase is stable so long as $`2N_FF_2>1`$, while the nematic phase occurs where this inequality is violated. The quartic term $`B`$ is determined by couplings that are formally irrelevant (in the renormalization group sense) at the isotropic Fermi liquid fixed point; for the explicit Hamiltonian considered above, $`B=\frac{3aN_F|F_2|^3}{8E_F^2}`$ where $`E_Fv_Fk_F`$ is the Fermi energy.

The effective action which governs the fluctuations about the saddle point can be computed to quadratic order in $`\delta 𝐧`$,

$`S_{\mathrm{eff}}[𝐧]=S_{\mathrm{eff}}[\overline{𝐧}]`$ (9)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2N_F}}{\displaystyle \underset{a,b=\pm 1}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\omega }{2\pi }\frac{d^2q}{(2\pi )^2}\delta n_a^{}_{a,b}(\stackrel{}{q},\omega ;\overline{𝐧})\delta n_b}+\mathrm{},`$ (10)
where $`_{a,b}`$ is the inverse propagator of the collective modes, and the collective mode dispersion relation, $`\omega _q`$, is determined from the solution of the implicit equation

$$\mathrm{det}[_{a,b}(\stackrel{}{q},\omega )]=0.$$
(11)
It is convenient to express $`_{a,b}`$ as the sum of a static and dynamical piece: $`_{a,b}(\stackrel{}{q},\omega )_{a,b}(\stackrel{}{q},0)+\stackrel{~}{}_{a,b}(\stackrel{}{q},\omega )`$. Symmetry strongly constrains the transverse component of $`_{a,b}(\stackrel{}{q},0)q^2`$ in the ordered phase. In other words, being essentially the static/classical deformation energy, its form is determined by the expression in Eq. 5. However, as we will see, symmetry considerations do not fully determine the dynamical piece.

## II The isotropic phase

We warm up by analyzing the fluctuation spectrum in the isotropic phase for $`2N_FF_2>1`$. By explicitly computing the fermionic response functions, with $`\delta \frac{1}{2}\frac{1}{N_FF_2}`$ and $`s\omega /v_Fq`$, we find

$`_{a,b}(\stackrel{}{q},\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`\delta _{a,b}(\kappa q^2+\delta )+\stackrel{~}{}_{a,b}(\stackrel{}{q},\omega )`$ (12)
$`\stackrel{~}{}_{a,b}(\stackrel{}{q},\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{s}{2}}{\displaystyle _0^{2\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{d\theta }{2\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{𝒫_{a,b}(\theta )}{s\mathrm{cos}(\theta \varphi )}},`$ (13)
$`𝒫_{a,b}(\theta )`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}2\mathrm{cos}^22\theta & \mathrm{sin}4\theta \\ \mathrm{sin}4\theta & 2\mathrm{sin}^22\theta \end{array}\right)`$ (16)
where $`\varphi `$ is the polar angle subtended by $`\stackrel{}{q}`$. Without loss of generality, we can set $`\varphi =0`$, in which case the two components of the pseudo-vector correspond to the longitudinal ($`n_1`$) and transverse ($`n_1`$) polarizations of the quadrupolar wave, and $`_{a,b}`$ is diagonal:

$`\stackrel{~}{}_{a,b}(\stackrel{}{q},\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`\delta _{a,b}_b(s),\mathrm{with}s\omega /v_Fq`$ (17)
$`_{\pm 1}(s)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{s}{2\sqrt{s^21}}}(1\pm (s+\sqrt{s^21})^4)`$ (18)
For $`F_2>0`$ there exist sound-like propagating modes with $`\omega _q>v_Fq`$ ( $`s>1`$), i. e. the quadrupolar analogs of zero-sound (one for each polarization). They are undamped because they lie outside of the particle-hole continuum. Closer to the nematic phase boundary, the evolution of the quadrupolar oscillations of the isotropic Fermi liquid deviates markedly from that of simple zero-sound. The dynamics clearly distinguishes the two polarizations and there are underdamped modes even when $`F_2<0`$.

## III The quantum critical regime

The difference in the dynamics of the two polarizations becomes more pronounced as the quantum critical point is approached. As $`\delta 0^+`$ and for $`\omega v_Fq`$

$`_{++}(\omega ,q)`$ $`=`$ $`\kappa q^2+\delta i{\displaystyle \frac{\omega }{v_Fq}}+\mathrm{};`$ (19)
$`_{}(\omega ,q)`$ $`=`$ $`\kappa q^2+\delta ({\displaystyle \frac{\omega }{v_Fq}})^22i({\displaystyle \frac{\omega }{v_Fq}})^3+\mathrm{}.`$ (20)
The transverse mode becomes more and more weakly damped with $`\omega _{}i\sqrt{\delta }v_Fq+v_f\sqrt{\kappa }q^2`$ while the longitudinal mode remains overdamped, $`\omega _+iq^3`$. This behavior should be compared and contrasted with the behavior of the paramagnon collective mode near the Fermi liquid to ferromagnetic Fermi liquid transition where, in the disordered phase and at the critical point, all three polarizations are identical, and indeed have dispersions similar to that of the longitudinal (“++”) quadrupolar mode. The difference arises from the fact that, unlike in the nematic, in the ferromagnet (in the absence of spin-orbit coupling), the broken symmetry is unrelated to any spatial symmetries. Nevertheless, as with the ferromagnet, a straightforward scaling analysis of the effective action implies a dynamical critical exponent $`z=3`$ at the quantum critical point. Remarkably, at the critical point, the transverse mode has higher characteristic energy ($`\omega _{}q^2\omega _+^{2/3}`$), than the overdamped critical mode; it plays no role in the critical theory, and indeed the $`\omega ^2/q^2`$ term in the inverse propagator which makes it dynamical is irrelevant for $`z=3`$ scaling, $`(\frac{\omega }{v_Fq})^2q^4`$. Moreover, $`z=3`$ also implies that interaction terms of order $`𝐧^4`$ and higher in $`S_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ are irrelevant at the quantum critical point. Thus, according to the standard lore, the critical behavior is fully captured by the gaussian theory.

## IV The nematic phase

In the ordered phase, but close to the quantum critical point, the order parameter is small. Here we can, to good approximation, ignore the dependence of the $`\stackrel{}{q}`$ and $`\omega `$ dependent terms in the effective action on the ordered moment $`_{a,b}(\stackrel{}{q},\omega ;\overline{𝐧})=_{a,b}(\stackrel{}{0},0;\overline{𝐧})+_{a,b}(\stackrel{}{q},\omega ;\mathrm{𝟎})+\mathrm{}.`$ The higher order terms are, among other things, responsible for the difference between the two Frank constants in the elastic energy of the nematic; as they complicate the normal mode analysis, and make little important qualitative difference, we will defer considering them until later. Without loss of generality, we can choose the principal axis of the nematic state to lie along $`\widehat{x}`$, so that $`\overline{𝐧}=\overline{n}\sigma _𝐳`$ (where $`\sigma _𝐳`$ is the Pauli matrix). In this case, fluctuations of the amplitude of the order parameter are associated with the $`+1`$ component of $`\delta 𝐧`$, and $`1`$ are the phase (i.e. orientational) deformations. Inside the nematic phase, as for phonons in a crystal, the longitudinal and tranverse modes are mixed unless $`\stackrel{}{q}`$ lies along a symmetry axis.

Because we have neglected the difference between Frank constants, the purely elastic energy is a sum of independent contributions from the phase and amplitude modes,

$`_{++}(\stackrel{}{q},0;\overline{𝐧})`$ $`=`$ $`2|\delta |+\kappa q^2`$ (21)
$`_{}(\stackrel{}{q},0;\overline{𝐧})`$ $`=`$ $`\kappa q^2,`$ (22)
and $`_+(\stackrel{}{q},0;\mathrm{𝟎})=0`$. However, even at this level of accuracy, the dynamics unavoidably mixes the phase and amplitude modes. Explicitly, the dynamical matrix is a function of the scaled variable $`s=\omega /v_Fq`$ and the angle, $`\varphi `$, between the principal axis of the nematic order and the wave-vector $`\stackrel{}{q}`$

$$(s,\varphi )=\frac{s}{2}\left(\begin{array}{cc}B(s)+A(s)\mathrm{cos}4\varphi & A(s)\mathrm{sin}4\varphi \\ A^{}(s)\mathrm{sin}4\varphi & B(s)A(s)\mathrm{cos}4\varphi \end{array}\right),$$
(23)
with $`B(s)=1/\sqrt{s^21}`$ and $`A(s)=B(s)(\sqrt{s^21}s)^4`$. ($`A^{}(s)`$-the complex conjugate of $`A(s)`$.) Only if $`\stackrel{}{q}`$ is along a symmetry direction, $`\varphi =0,\pm \pi /4,\pm \pi /2,`$ etc., is $``$ diagonal. That the longitudinal and transverse modes are mixed for all other propagation directions, even in the absence of terms which depend explicitly on $`\overline{𝐧}`$ is, at first sight, curious, and is a direct consequence of the fact that the nematic order parameter breaks spatial rotational symmetry, not an internal symmetry (such as spin).

As in the isotropic phase, we diagonalize $`_{a,b}`$ to obtain the collective mode spectrum. An excitation is called “transverse” if for $`\stackrel{}{q}0`$ it is polarized perpendicular to the principal axis of the nematic and “longitudinal” otherwise; the corresponding eigenvalues of the inverse propagor are $`_{}`$ and $`_{}`$.

For general $`\varphi `$ and as $`s0`$, the inverse propagator for the transverse (Goldstone) mode is

$$_{}=\kappa q^2\frac{is}{2}\mathrm{sin}^22\varphi s^2\left(\mathrm{cos}4\varphi +\frac{\mathrm{sin}^24\varphi }{128|\delta |}\right)+𝒪(s^3)$$
(24)
This result is remarkable and, to our knowledge, unprecedented: Landau damping dominates the dynamics of the Goldstone boson, making it overdamped (the last term is irrelevant) over most of phase space. Formally, Eq. 24 is reminiscent of those studied in conjunction with quantum criticality in metals, or when a transverse gauge field is coupled to a Fermi liquid . In all three cases Landau damping results in a soft boson with dissipative dynamics. Naturally, the origin of the softness is different in each case; while the softness of the quantum critical propagator is the result of fine tuning to criticality, the softness of the gauge and the director-wave propagators stems, respectively, from gauge invariance and broken rotational symmetry. Nevertheless, here, as in the other two problems (and in two dimensions), Eq. 24 implies a specific heat vanishing as $`T^{2/3}`$ at low temperatures.

The angular dependent damping term in Eq. 24 is native to the nematic state; along symmetry directions, when it vanishes, a propagating (i.e.undamped as $`q0`$) mode results. For $`\varphi =0`$ and $`\frac{\pi }{2}`$ , and for $`\omega v_Fq`$

$`_{}^{0,\frac{\pi }{2}}=\kappa q^2s^2is^3+𝒪(s^4),`$ (25)
implying a dispersion according to $`\omega _q=v_F\sqrt{\kappa }q^2`$. An additional propagating mode with a soundlike spectrum $`\omega _q=\frac{v_Fq}{\sqrt{2}}`$ exists for $`\varphi =\frac{\pi }{4}`$. These longlived modes are somewhat peculiar: they are already present at the quantum critical point (with precursors even in the isotropic phase!), where indeed they propagate in all directions, although they appear as higher energy excitations which do not directly enter the critical phenomena.

These collective phenomena can be summarized pictorially:

Finally the inverse propagator of the amplitude mode is

$$_{}=2|\delta |\frac{is}{2}\mathrm{cos}^22\varphi +𝒪(s^2).$$
(26)
The apparent four fold symmetry in these expressions is, in part, inherited from the special symmetry of the two dimensional director: $`\overline{𝐧}`$ is odd under rotation by $`90^{}`$ so quantities even in $`\overline{𝐧}`$ will be four fold symmetric, even inside the nematic state. However, the precise four-fold symmetry is an artifact of our neglecting the $`\overline{𝐧}`$ dependence of the $`\stackrel{}{q}`$ and $`\omega `$ dependent terms in $``$. For instance, $`\kappa `$ should rightly be replaced by the two distinct Frank constants, $`\kappa _{}`$ and $`\kappa _{}`$ in Eq. (24), respectively, where from Eq. 5, $`\kappa _{}\kappa _{}\kappa ^{}|\overline{𝐧}|+\mathrm{}`$. At the level of the gaussian theory constructed thus far the corrections can be analized perturbatively (in $`\overline{𝐧}`$), leading neither to qualitative modifications of modes’ dispersions nor to spoiling of the fourfold symmetry (e.g. in the damping term in Eq. 24). More generally, because the nematic order does not gap any section of the Fermi surface, but only distorts its shape, the dynamical consequences of the fermionic particle-hole continuum are preserved, even far from the critical point. In other words, the characteristic scale for the frequency dependence is still $`v_Fq`$ (i.e. vanishing at long wavelengths) in the broken symmetry phase, regardless of the magnitude of the Fermi surface distortion.

Clearly, interactions among the collective modes can be treated perturbatively in $`1/\kappa `$. What the effects of these interactions are away from the critical point is presently unknown.

It is important to recall that any symmetric traceless tensor can serve as the order parameter for the nematic state. While we have chosen the deformation of the Fermi surface, alternate choices include the inverse mass tensor which defines the Drude weight of the optical conductivity, and the resistivity tensor, itself. They can be interrelated explicitly in our case (the corrections to this first order result are cubic)

$$\frac{\rho _{xx}\rho _{yy}}{\rho _{xx}+\rho _{yy}}=\frac{1}{2}\frac{m_ym_x}{m_y+m_x}=\frac{n_{11}}{E_F}+𝒪(|\overline{n}|^3)$$
(27)
where $`m_x`$ and $`m_y`$ are the effective masses of the quasiparticles in the nematic state, as determined by the spontaneous anisotropy of the Fermi surface.

## V Single particle properties

We will now consider the effect of the collective modes on the single-particle self energy. To one loop order, the imaginary part of the self-energy (the scattering rate) is given by

$`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\prime \prime }(ϵ,\stackrel{}{k})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{\sqrt{3}}}{\displaystyle \frac{(\kappa k_F^2)^{1/3}}{\kappa N_F}}\left|{\displaystyle \frac{k_xk_y}{k_F^2}}\right|^{4/3}\left|{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ}{2v_Fk_F}}\right|^{2/3}+\mathrm{}`$ (28)
where $`\stackrel{}{k}`$ lies on the Fermi surface and $`\mathrm{}`$ signifies subleading terms in powers of $`ϵ`$. The strong angular dependence of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{^{\prime \prime }}`$ is a startling consequence of the symmetry of the nematic. Along the symmetry directions, $`\stackrel{}{k}=(k_x,0)`$ and $`(0,k_y)`$, the scattering rate (at the Fermi surface) has a different energy dependence indicative of a long lived quasiparticle:

$`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\prime \prime }(ϵ)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{3N_F\kappa }}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(\kappa k_F^2)^{1/4}}}\left|{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ}{v_Fk_F}}\right|^{3/2}+\mathrm{}`$ (29)
Although perturbative, our results unambiguously signal the breakdown of Fermi liquid theory, i. e. the spectral function no longer has a quasiparticle pole over most of the Fermi surface. For fixed $`ϵ`$, the perturbation theory is arbitrarily accurate for large enough $`\kappa `$, but for fixed $`\kappa `$, perturbation theory may well break down at small $`ϵ`$. We have not determined yet whether this indicates a phase transition to a new, ordered state, e.g. a superconducting state, or the occurrence of a genuine, two dimensional non-Fermi liquid phase. With the exeption of the discrete set of symmetry related points where the quasiparticle survives collective damping, the frequency dependence of our result is identical to the comparable perturbative result for fermions coupled to (Landau damped) gauge or quantum critical fields. However, it is important to emphasize that formal resemblance among these three problems need not persist beyond the lowest order in perturbation theory.

## VI Extensions and speculations

Thus far we have considered a rotationally invariant system. Since the electron fluid is typically realized in a solid state context, it is important to consider the effects of explicit rotational symmetry breaking by the underlying lattice. These are relevant operators in the nematic phase, and their main effect is to gap out the Goldstone bosons. In the presence of such explicit symmetry breaking, the system behaves, at sufficiently low energy, like an anisotropic metal with Fermi liquid properties. However, an analysis of their effects on the quasiparticle self-energies indicates a crossover from non-Fermi liquid to Fermi liquid behavior below an energy scale $`ϵ^{}\frac{v_F\lambda ^{3/2}}{\sqrt{\kappa }}`$ where $`\lambda `$ is a dimensionless measure of the lattice induced anisotropy on the bare quasiparticle energy. In many cases, $`\lambda `$ is small so $`ϵ^{}`$ is very small.

There are many obvious and interesting generalizations of these ideas. With very little difference, we can consider the theory of the metallic hexatic, which is similarly non-Fermi liquid. Such a state would be triggered by a large, negative $`F_6`$. While at first that might sound artificial, if we view the quantum hexactic as a melted Wigner crystal, it is a natural state to consider. This may have relevance to the long-standing problem of apparently metallic states in two dimensions. In the presence of electron spin, a host of new and interesting states become possible which intertwine spin and spatial ordering. For example, one could imagine a state triggered by a large and repulsive $`F_2^a`$ (i.e. in the triplet channel) in which the nematic order parameters of the spin-up and spin-down electrons are rotated relative to each other. Finally, deeper inside the nematic phase the Fermi surface gets increasingly distorted, leading to nearly nested segments; it is thus natural to consider a further instability, triggered by “backscattering”, to a stripe ordered electronic smectic phase.

The three dimensional nematic can be analyzed similarly. Here, the director is a $`3\times 3`$ rank 2 symmetric traceless tensor. On symmetry grounds one anticipates that, since a cubic invariant is allowed in the free energy, the isotropic to nematic transition will generally be first order. We have repeated the calculation of the ground state energy (Eq. 4) in three dimensions. In contrast to two dimensions, we indeed find a cubic term which usually  favors a uniaxial nematic over a biaxial one and its sign determines whether the nematic Fermi surface is oblate or prolate. The Goldstone mode is overdamped as in 2D; its contribution to the single particle scattering rate is of the “marginal Fermi liquid” form, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\prime \prime }(ϵ)|ϵ|`$, but strongly angle dependent.

The considerations presented in this paper may serve as a starting point of a microscopic theory of a quantum Hall nematic fluid. In particular, it was proposed in ref. REFERENCES and REFERENCES that the observed large anisotropy in Landau levels $`N2`$ could be explained by a nematic fluid phase. The results that we have derived in this paper indicate that this is a very concrete possibility. Moreover, the relation between anisotropic transport and a nematic order parameter proposed on symmetry grounds in ref. REFERENCES follows clearly from the spontaneous effective mass anisotropy in the nematic state (discussed above) by means of simple Boltzmann transport arguments. A candidate grounstate wave function for a quantum Hall nematic at filling factor $`\nu =1/2`$, can be constructed in the spirit of the Jain wavefunction for the Composite Fermi Sea, as

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{CNFL}(z_i)=𝒫\underset{i>j}{}(z_iz_j)^2e^{_j\frac{|z_j|^2}{2}}\mathrm{\Psi }_{NFL},$$
(30)
where $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{NFL}`$ denotes the ground state wavefunction of the 2D nematic we have considered here, $`z_i`$ are the complex coordinates of the electrons (with the magnetic length set to 1) and $`𝒫`$ is the Landau level projection operator. However, for a subtle gapless state like this it is not clear that simple wave functions are able to fully capture the physics.

Finally, the picture of the nematic phase that emerges from our results is strikingly reminiscent of the behavior of the so-called “normal phase” of high temperature superconductors. In particular the fermion spectral function that we find in the nematic phase has a behavior that is qualitatively similar to the electron spectral function measured by ARPES in BSCCO. In fact, L. B. Ioffe and A. J. Millis have proposed a phenomenological form for the quasiparticle scattering rate with the angular dependence $`|k_xk_y|`$ and a $`|ϵ|`$ marginal Fermi liquid energy dependence. It is tempting to speculate that a possible origin of this sort of behavior may be a nematic Fermi fluid state setting in at temperatures close to the pseudogap $`T^{}`$. In fact, in Ref. REFERENCES, two of us suggested that as a strongly correlated electron system is cooled down from a high temperature isotropic fluid phase, the first stage of charge ordering should be precisely nematic phase. As stressed in ref. REFERENCES, this is a Kosterlitz-Thouless thermodynamic phase transition, which is reduced to an Ising transition in by fourfold lattice anisotropy or rounded in an orthorhombic crystal. Incidentally, spontaneous breaking of rotational symmetry in the two-dimensional Hubbard model has also been studied numerically. Recent light scattering experiments by M. Rubhausen and coworkers have found evidence of a rounded nematic transition at the charge-ordering temperature of the manganite $`Bi_{1x}Ca_xMnO_3`$.

## Acknowledgements

We wish to thank J. Zaanen, C. Nayak, S. Girvin, S. Chakravarty, J. C. Campuzano and K. Bedell for useful discussions. We were participants in the High $`T_c`$ Program at ITP-UCSB. This work was supported in part by NSF grant numbers DMR98-08685 at UCLA (SAK and VO), NSF DMR98-17941 at UIUC (EF), and PHY99-07949 at ITP-UCSB.