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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

In type II superstring theory in flat, ten-dimensional non-compact spacetime, all massive strings are generally expected to be unstable quantum mechanically by a decay into lighter particles. Massive strings are the key ingredient of string theory and crucial for the consistency of the theory. Despite many years of study of string theory, very little is known about the way a massive string decays.

Earlier calculations of decay properties are in , and more recent studies can be found in . A calculation for states with maximum angular momentum in the open string theory was given in . An inclusive decay rate was computed in . A more recent calculation for open and closed superstring theory for generic  states (which have angular momentum much less than the maximum value) is done in .

For small string coupling, the dominant elementary process is the decay into two particles. If these particles are massive, then each of them will subsequently decay into two ligther particles, and the process ends when only massless particles remain.

Here we shall explicitly compute the rate for the decay of the massive string states of maximal angular momentum into two particles. This will be done for the closed (type IIA or IIB) superstring theory in flat ten-dimensional spacetime. We will consider all cases: when these particles are both massive, when one of them is massless, and when both of them are massless.

A general formula for the decay can be obtained from a one-loop calculation of the mass-shift. The inverse lifetime $`𝒯^1`$ of a massive state of mass $`M`$ is then given by

$$𝒯^1=\mathrm{\Gamma }=\frac{\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Delta }M^2}{2M}.$$
(1.1)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }M^2`$ represent the radiative correction to the mass, to be expressed as a loop expansion. At one loop, it receives a contribution from the two-particle intermediate states, and thus $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is the lifetime for decaying into two particles.

One can obtain the one-loop expression for $`\mathrm{\Delta }M^2`$ starting from the zero and one loop expressions for the four graviton amplitudes. This was derived in  and we will briefly review this computation in the next Section 2 . We get an integral expression in terms of theta functions. \[In  a computation of the lifetime was also attempted; however the algorithm employed in this first investigation was not sufficiently accurate and we find now a different and more precise result\].

One finds that $`\mathrm{\Delta }M^2`$ is formally expressed as a divergent integral of a positive quantity: its imaginary part can be computed by analytic continuation in $`M^2`$, starting from $`M^2<0`$ where the integral is convergent. By a systematic expansion of the integrand the calculation then reduces to a sum of integrals of the form

$$I(\alpha ,\omega )=𝑑ss^\alpha e^{sM^2\omega },$$
(1.2)
where each term has a multiplicity depending on $`\alpha `$ and $`\omega `$. The imaginary part is computed by a standard formula:

$$\mathrm{Im}I(\alpha ,\omega )=\frac{\pi (M^2\omega )^{\alpha 1}}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\alpha )}.$$
(1.3)
One finds that this is precisely the expression for the one loop mass-shift in $`\varphi ^3`$ field theory, and that $`\omega `$ is determined by the masses $`M_1`$ and $`M_2`$ of the decay products, whereas $`\alpha `$ is related to their orbital angular momentum, which is necessary to compensate the mismatch of $`J`$,$`J_1`$ and $`J_2`$. This is reviewed in Section 3.

The difficult task is to compute the multiplicity of $`I(\alpha ,\omega )`$, due to the large multiplicity of the decay products. We have found a very efficient algorithm for doing that, generalizing the well known saddle-point technique for computing the multiplicity (i.e. entropy) of the string states. The generalities are presented in Section 4. The computation of the imaginary part is presented in Section 5.

In Section 6 we make a numerical analysis of our formulae. This analysis is very fast and accurate. We have made in particular a nontrivial check: $`\mathrm{\Delta }M^2`$ can be expressed in two formally equivalent ways in terms of two different theta functions, which lead to a very different rearrangement of terms in the expansion and to different saddle point analyses. We find nevertheless identical results, summarized in a three dimensional plot, see figures 1 and 4.

We find that $`\mathrm{Im}(\mathrm{\Delta }M^2)`$ can be written as a sum over the contributions of different channels, according to the masses $`M_1,M_2`$ of the particles of the decay product. It turns out that most of these processes are exponentially suppressed, except for a line in the space $`M_1,M_2`$, where the decay rate has a power-like dependence on the coupling. This is a surprise, since we do not see any special reason why, given two masses in a three-state vertex, there should be a selection rule for the third. It is likely that that feature results from the interplay among the decay products entropy and centrifugal barrier and phase space effects 111We thank Daniele Amati for a discussion on that point. .

The other surprise is that we find that the lifetime of the excited state of maximal angular momentum for decaying into two particles grows with the first power of its mass $`M`$. This is computed in Section 7.

A final remark: at tree level the whole closed string decay can be described as a sequence of successive two-body decays. If the decay products are narrow resonances – particles with a lifetime much larger than the inverse of their mass – then the lifetime of the first decay is the lifetime of the massive state $`toutcourt`$, like for instance the lifetime of a $`K`$-meson is set by its decay into $`\pi `$-mesons, despite the $`\pi `$-meson being also unstable.

## 2 The Mass Shift

Here we review the derivation of the one-loop expression for $`\mathrm{\Delta }M^2`$ given in  by factorizing the one-loop four graviton amplitude obtained by  in closed superstring theory (type IIA and type IIB give the same result):

$$A_1=R^4\frac{d^2\tau }{(\mathrm{Im}\tau )^2}\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}\frac{d^2z_i}{\mathrm{Im}\tau }e^{2_{i<j}^3k_i.k_j\chi (z_{ij})}$$
(2.1)
where

$$\chi (z)=\mathrm{log}\left|\frac{\theta _1(z|\tau )}{\theta _1^{^{}}(0|\tau )}\right|^22\pi \frac{(\mathrm{Im}z)^2}{\mathrm{Im}\tau }$$
(2.2)
and $`R^4`$ is a kinematical factor containing the graviton polarizations. We also set $`\alpha ^{}M^2=4N`$, and choose units where $`\alpha ^{}=4`$, so that in what follows we can set $`M^2=N`$.

The amplitude $`A_1`$ has a double pole for $`SN`$ ($`S=2k_1.k_2`$ ) due to the propagator of a massive string state with $`M^2=N`$, produced by the collision of the two incoming gravitons, and another similar propagator coupled to the two outgoing gravitons. The residue of the double pole is proportional to $`\mathrm{\Delta }M^2`$, the (1-loop) mass shift of the massive state, $`M^2M^2+\mathrm{\Delta }M^2`$. One has

$$A_1G_{in}\frac{1}{SN}\mathrm{\Delta }M^2\frac{1}{SN}G_{out}.$$

To get $`\mathrm{\Delta }M^2`$, one divides the double pole residue of $`A_1`$ by the single pole residue of $`A_0`$, the tree level four graviton amplitude :

$$A_0G_{in}\frac{1}{SN}G_{out}.$$

The poles of $`A_1`$ occur as singularities of the integrand in (2.1) for $`z_{12},z_{34}0`$. The integrand behaves as $`|z_{12}|^{2S}|z_{34}|^{2S}F(z_{12},z_{34},z)`$, with $`z=\frac{1}{2}(z_1+z_2)`$. One has to look at the terms in the expansion of $`F`$ that behave as $`|z_{12}|^{2N2}|z_{34}|^{2N2}`$. Further, in order to select the state of maximal angular momentum $`J=2N+2`$, one looks for the maximal power of $`\mathrm{cos}\theta `$ – the angle between the space-momenta of the ingoing and outgoing gravitons in the c.m. frame – both in the residues of $`A_1`$ and $`A_0`$. In this way one obtains

$`\mathrm{\Delta }M^2`$ $`=`$ $`c{\displaystyle \frac{dsd\tau _1}{s^2}\frac{d^2z}{s}e^{\frac{4N\pi ^2y^2}{s}}\left|\frac{\pi \theta _1(z|\tau )}{\theta _1^{}(0|\tau )}\right|^{4N}s^{2N}}`$ (2.3)
$`\times {\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{N!^2}{l!^2(Nl1)!^2}}|{\displaystyle \frac{s}{\pi ^2}}_z^2\mathrm{log}\theta _1(z|\tau )+1|^{2l},`$
where $`s=\pi \mathrm{Im}(\tau )`$ and $`c`$ is a numerical constant, independent of $`N`$. In  the normalization was checked by evaluating the contribution to $`\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Delta }M^2`$ from the decay rate of the excited state into two massless states, and finding agreement with the explicit computation of the decay into two gravitons.

## 3 Field Theory

Let us first consider the case of $`\varphi ^3`$ field theory. Consider the one-loop correction to the propagator of a particle of mass $`M`$, due to the contribution of particles of masses $`M_1`$, $`M_2`$ running in the loop. With a convenient parametrization, the Feynman diagram has the following form

$$\mathrm{\Delta }M^2=\underset{M_1,M_2,l_0}{}P_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑ss^{\beta (l_0)}_0^1𝑑\eta e^{4Ws},$$
(3.1)
with

$$W(\eta )=M^2\eta (1\eta )\eta M_1^2(1\eta )M_2^2.$$

Here $`\beta (l_0)=D/21+l_0`$ ($`D=`$ spacetime dimension), and the polynomial $`P=P(M,M_1,M_2,l_0)`$ takes into account in particular the multiplicity of the decay products, $`l_0`$ being related to their orbital angular momentum needed for matching the angular momentum of the decaying state.

The IR region is $`t=\mathrm{}`$. This integral is convergent below the threshold for particle production. Above the threshold, the integral is defined as usual by analytic continuation, which gives rise to an imaginary part.

The threshold appears when $`W(\eta )`$ changes sign and becomes positive. The maximum of $`W(\eta )`$ is at $`\eta =\eta _0`$, with

$$\eta _0=\frac{M^2M_1^2+M_2^2}{2M^2},$$

where

$$W(\eta _0)=\frac{1}{4M^2}\left(M^2(M_1+M_2)^2\right)\left(M^2(M_1M_2)^2\right)=\stackrel{}{p}^{2}.$$

Hence $`W(\eta _0)>0`$ for $`M^2>(M_1+M_2)^2`$.

For future use we define

$$\omega \frac{4W(\eta _0)}{M^2}=12(\sigma _1+\sigma _2)+(\sigma _1\sigma _2)^2,\sigma _{1,2}=\frac{M_{1,2}^2}{M^2}.$$
(3.2)
Since $`4W=M^2\omega 4M^2(\eta \eta _0)^2`$, for large $`M^2`$, we can evaluate the integral over $`\eta `$ by performing a Gaussian integration around the maximum at $`\eta =\eta _0`$. Ignoring constant factors, we get

$$_0^1𝑑\eta e^{4Ws}\frac{1}{\sqrt{M^2s}}e^{s\omega M^2}.$$
(3.3)
We then evaluate the imaginary part of $`\mathrm{\Delta }M^2`$ by analytic continuation from $`M^2\omega <0`$ to $`M^2\omega >0`$ by means of the formula seen in eqs. (1.2) and (1.3). The final result is symmetric in $`M_1M_2`$.

In the case of string theory, we will obtain $`\mathrm{\Delta }M^2`$ expressed in two different (but equivalent) ways, as discussed in section 4. For comparison with the string theory expression studied in detail in appendix A, we set $`M^2=N`$ and make the change of variable $`\eta =\frac{\pi }{s}y`$ to get

$$\mathrm{\Delta }M^2=\underset{M_1,M_2,l_0}{}P_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑ss^{\beta (l_0)1}e^{4sM_2^2}_0^{\frac{s}{\pi }}𝑑ye^{\frac{4N\pi ^2y^2}{s}+4\pi y(NM_1^2+M_2^2)}.$$
(3.4)
In order to compare with the string theory expression studied in section 5, we make another change of variable : $`\eta =\frac{\pi }{s}y+\frac{1}{2}`$, getting the field theory expression

$`\mathrm{\Delta }M^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{M_1,M_2,l_0}{}}P{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑ss^{\beta (l_0)1}e^{[N2(M_1^2+M_2^2)]s}`$ (3.5)
$`\times `$ $`{\displaystyle _{\frac{s}{2\pi }}^{\frac{s}{2\pi }}}𝑑ye^{\frac{4N\pi ^2y^2}{s}4\pi y(M_1^2M_2^2)}.`$
## 4 General Method

Consider the formula for the one-loop string diagram eq. (2.3), which is expressed in terms of $`\theta _1(z|\tau )`$.

We note that the integrand can be expanded in a sum of terms of the form

$$T(m_1,m_2)=s^{2N+(m_1+m_2)3}e^{\frac{4N\pi ^2y^2}{s}}Q_{m_1}\overline{Q}_{m_2}$$
(4.1)
where

$$Q_m=(\frac{\pi \theta _1(z|\tau )}{\theta _1^{}(0|\tau )})^{2N}(\frac{1}{\pi ^2}_z^2\mathrm{log}\theta _1(z|\tau ))^m$$
(4.2)
can be further expanded in powers of $`q^2=e^{i2\pi \tau }`$ and in a Laurent series in $`p=e^{2i\pi z}`$, which is symmetric under $`pp^1`$. After the integration over $`\mathrm{Re}(\tau )`$ and $`\mathrm{Re}(z)`$ (ensuring $`L_0=\overline{L}_0`$ on the states), we get a sum of terms like

$$s^{2N+(m_1+m_2)3}e^{\frac{4N\pi ^2y^2}{s}}e^{4\stackrel{~}{k}s}e^{4\stackrel{~}{j}\pi y},$$
(4.3)
with $`y=\mathrm{Im}z`$, $`s=\pi \mathrm{Im}(\tau )`$.

By comparing with eq. (3.4) we see that $`2N(m_1+m_2)2`$ corresponds to $`l_0`$, $`\stackrel{~}{k}`$ to $`M_2^2`$, and $`\stackrel{~}{j}`$ to $`M^2M_1^2+M_2^2`$ . We can thus determine $`P(M,M_1,M_2,l_0)`$.

We will actually compute $`\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Delta }M^2`$ at fixed $`M_{1,2}`$ summing over $`l_0`$, that is summing over every possible angular momentum and multiplicity of the decay products.

It is also useful to make a shift $`zz+\tau /2`$ and to re-express the string one-loop diagram in the form

$`\mathrm{\Delta }M^2`$ $`=`$ $`c{\displaystyle \frac{dsd\tau _1}{s^2}\frac{d^2z}{s}e^{\frac{4N\pi ^2y^2}{s}}e^{Ns}\left|\frac{\pi \theta _4(z|\tau )}{e^{i\pi \tau /4}\theta _1^{}(0|\tau )}\right|^{4N}s^{2N}}`$ (4.4)
$`\times {\displaystyle \underset{l=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{N!^2}{l!^2(Nl1)!^2}}|{\displaystyle \frac{s}{\pi ^2}}_z^2\mathrm{log}\theta _4(z|\tau )+1|^{2l}.`$
Now we can expand the integrand of eq.(4.4) in a sum of terms of the form

$$T^{}(m_1,m_2)=4^{2N}s^{2N+(m_1+m_2)3}e^{Ns}e^{\frac{4N\pi ^2y^2}{s}}Q_{m_1}^{}\overline{Q}_{m_2}^{},$$
(4.5)
where now:

$$Q_m^{}=(\frac{2\pi \theta _4(z|\tau )}{q^{1/4}\theta _1^{}(0|\tau )})^{2N}\left(\frac{1}{\pi ^2}_z^2\mathrm{log}\theta _4(z|\tau )\right)^m.$$
(4.6)
Note that the new $`Q_m^{}`$ has integer power expansions in $`q`$ and $`p`$. By looking at the terms $`|q|^{2k}=e^{2ks}`$ and $`|p|^{2j}=e^{4j\pi y}`$ (after integrating over $`\mathrm{Re}(\tau )`$ and $`\mathrm{Re}(z)`$) and comparing with eq. (3.5) we now identify $`k=M_1^2+M_2^2`$ and $`j=M_1^2M_2^2`$.

The two forms of $`\mathrm{\Delta }M^2`$, eq. (2.3) and eq. (4.4) are equivalent. However, the final expressions that we will obtain using as starting points eq. (2.3) and eq. (4.4) and computing integrals by saddle-point approximation will involve very different expansions. Therefore it will be a nontrivial check to verify that indeed one gets the same result.

## 5 Calculation of the imaginary part of $`M^2`$

Here we evaluate $`\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Delta }M^2`$ using the string loop expression (4.4), written in terms of $`\theta _4`$.

It should be remembered that the result for $`\mathrm{\Delta }M^2`$ does not change if we replace $`\theta _4`$ by $`\theta _1`$, $`\theta _2`$ or $`\theta _3`$, since they differ by a shift of $`z`$ and a factor that compensate the change from $`e^{\frac{4N\pi ^2y^2}{s}}`$. In appendix A we repeat the analysis with $`\mathrm{\Delta }M^2`$ expressed in terms of $`\theta _1`$, eq. (2.3).

We expand the binomial $`(\frac{s}{\pi ^2}_z^2\mathrm{log}\theta _4(z|\tau )+1)^l`$ and using the formula

$$\underset{l=\mathrm{max}(m_1,m_2)}{\overset{N1}{}}\frac{1}{(lm_1)!(lm_2)!(Nl1)!^2}=\frac{(2Nm_1m_22)!}{(Nm_11)!^2(Nm_21)!^2}$$

we get (with $`\tau =\tau _1+is/\pi `$ and $`z=x+iy`$)

$`\mathrm{\Delta }M^2`$ $`=`$ $`c{\displaystyle 𝑑s𝑑\tau _1𝑑y𝑑x}`$ (5.1)
$`\times `$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{m_1,m_2}{}}T^{}(m_1,m_2){\displaystyle \frac{(2Nm_1m_22)!N!^2}{m_1!(Nm_11)!^2m_2!(Nm_21)!^2}}`$
with $`T^{}(m_1,m_2)`$ expressed in terms of $`Q_{m_{1,2}}^{}`$ as in eq.(4.5). Now we expand

$$Q_m^{}=\underset{k,j}{}c_{kj}(N,m)q^kp^j,$$
(5.2)
with

$$c_{kj}(N,m)=\frac{1}{(2\pi )^2}\frac{dq}{q}\frac{dp}{p}q^kp^jQ_m^{},$$
(5.3)
and similarly for the complex conjugate. From the explicit expressions for the $`\theta _4`$ function given in sect. 6, one can see that the sum over $`k`$ contains only positive integer values of $`k`$, whereas the sum over $`j`$ contains both positive and negative powers of $`j`$, with the property $`c_{kj}=c_{k(j)}`$.

Let us now consider the integrals over $`\tau _1`$ and $`x`$. Since the imaginary part of $`\mathrm{\Delta }M^2`$ comes from the divergence of the integral at $`s\mathrm{}`$, we can replace the integral over the fundamental domain by an integral over the full strip. In addition, we note that $`\theta _4\theta _3`$ by a shift $`\tau _1\tau _1+1`$. Given that the original integral gives the same result for $`\theta _3`$ and $`\theta _4`$, we can extend the integration region in $`\tau _1`$ to the interval $`(1,1)`$. Then

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle _1^1}𝑑\tau _1{\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑xQ_{m_1}^{}\overline{Q}_{m_2}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k,j}{}}(q\overline{q})^k(p\overline{p})^jc_{kj}(N,m_1)\overline{c}_{kj}(N,m_2)`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k,j}{}}e^{2ks4\pi jy}c_{kj}(N,m_1)\overline{c}_{kj}(N,m_2)`$
The integration over $`y`$ is performed by saddle point as in eq. (3.3). Then we consider the integral over $`s`$, and use the general formula (1.3) for computing the imaginary part. We obtain

$`\mathrm{Im}(\mathrm{\Delta }M^2)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4^{2N}}{\sqrt{N}}}{\displaystyle \underset{j,k}{}}(N\omega )^{2N+\frac{3}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{m_1,m_2=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{m_1,m_2=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{(2Nm_1m_22)!}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(2Nm_1m_2+\frac{5}{2})}}`$ (5.4)
$`\times `$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{N!^2c_{kj}(N,m_1)\overline{c}_{kj}(N,m_2)(N\omega )^{m_1m_2}}{m_1!(Nm_11)!^2m_2!(Nm_21)!^2}}`$
Here

$$\omega (\rho ,\sigma )12\sigma +\rho ^2,$$

and

$$\sigma \frac{k}{N},\rho \frac{j}{N}.$$
(5.5)
We remind that by comparing with field theory we see that the integers $`k,j`$ are related to the masses $`M_1,M_2`$ of the decay product (cf. eq. (3.2) ):

$$k=M_1^2+M_2^2,j=M_1^2M_2^2.$$
(5.6)
Here we consider large values of $`N`$ with fixed $`\sigma `$ and $`\rho `$. Other cases will be discussed in appendix B and C.

It will be clear from the calculation below that the main contribution in the sum over $`m_1,m_2`$ comes from the region where $`2Nm_1m_2`$ is large. Therefore we can approximate

$$\frac{(2Nm_1m_22)!}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(2Nm_1m_2+\frac{5}{2})}N^{7/2}(2\frac{m_1}{N}\frac{m_2}{N})^{7/2}.$$
(5.7)
Moreover, in the large $`N`$ limit, the sum over $`m_{1,2}`$ is dominated by a sharp maximum; away from the maximum the terms are exponentially suppressed like $`e^{cN}`$. We will see that on the maximum $`r(\rho ,\sigma )(2(m_1+m_2)/N)^{7/2}`$ is a finite function of $`j/N,k/N`$.

Therefore, we can write

$$\mathrm{Im}(\mathrm{\Delta }M^2)4^{2N}N^{2N1/2}\underset{j,k}{}\omega ^{2N+\frac{3}{2}}r(\rho ,\sigma )|L(j,k)|^2,$$
(5.8)
where

$$L(j,k)=\frac{dq}{q}\frac{dp}{p}q^kp^j\left(\frac{2\pi \theta _4(z|\tau )}{q^{1/4}\theta _1^{}(0|\tau )}\right)^{2N}H(q,p;j,k),$$
(5.9)
and in turn

$$H(q,p;j,k)=\underset{m=0}{\overset{N1}{}}\frac{(N1)!}{m!(Nm1)!^2}\left(\frac{\frac{1}{\pi ^2}_z^2\mathrm{log}\theta _4(z|\tau )}{N\omega }\right)^m.$$
(5.10)
## 6  Numerical evaluation of $`\mathrm{Im}(\mathrm{\Delta }M^2)`$

We now determine the functions appearing in (5.8). We will make use of the formulas in terms of $`q=e^{i\pi \tau _1s}`$ and $`p=e^{i2\pi z}`$:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi \theta _4(z|\tau )}{q^{1/4}\theta _1^{}(0|\tau )}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{(1pq^{2n1})(1p^1q^{2n1})}{(1q^{2n})^2}}`$ (6.1)
$``$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}f(q,p)\right].`$
By expanding the logarithms in the above definition of $`f(q,p)`$, and interchanging the two infinite sums, we obtain

$$f(q,p)=2\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{q^n(p^n+p^n2q^n)}{n(1q^{2n})}.$$
(6.2)
Further:

$$\frac{1}{\pi ^2}_z^2\mathrm{log}\theta _4(z|\tau )=4\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{q^{2n1}\left[(p+p^1)(1+q^{4n2})4q^{2n1}\right]}{(1pq^{2n1})^2(1p^1q^{2n1})^2}g(q,p)$$
(6.3)
Define

$$v\frac{g(q,p)}{\omega (\rho ,\sigma )}.$$

Now we use the formula (5.10) for $`H=H(q,p,j,k)`$ :

$$H=\underset{m=0}{\overset{n}{}}\frac{n!}{m!(nm)!^2}(\frac{v}{n+1})^m=(\frac{v}{n+1})^n\frac{1}{2\pi i}\frac{dt}{t^{n+1}}e^{(n+1)t}(t+\frac{1}{v})^n.$$
(6.4)
with $`n=N1`$. For large $`N`$, the integral over $`t`$ can be computed by a saddle point evaluation. We get

$$H(v,N)N^{N+1/2}\mathrm{exp}\left[Nh(v)\right],$$
(6.5)
where

$$h(v)=\mathrm{log}v+\mathrm{log}\frac{\sqrt{1+4v}+1}{\sqrt{1+4v}1}+\frac{1}{2v}(\sqrt{1+4v}1).$$
(6.6)
We have checked that this formula provides a very accurate representation for the sum in (5.10) already for $`N`$ larger than 10.

Thus we finally get

$$L(j,k)=N^{N+1/2}\frac{dq}{q}\frac{dp}{p}q^kp^je^{N\left[f(q,p)+h(v(q,p))\right]}.$$
(6.7)
The remaining integrals over $`q`$ and $`p`$ can also be computed by a saddle-point evaluation. Since the functions appearing in the integrand are complicated, it is more convenient to perform this calculation by a numerical evaluation.

The saddle-point evaluation of the integrals over $`q,p`$ is done numerically by first finding the extremum of the exponent in eq. (6.7). This determines

$$q_0=q_0(\rho ,\sigma ),p_0=p_0(\rho ,\sigma ).$$

We find numerically that the saddle point is obtained for $`q_0`$ and $`p_0`$ real and positive. By performing the Gaussian integration around the saddle point we get

$$|L(j,k)|^2N^{2N+12}e^{2NS_L(\rho ,\sigma )},$$
(6.8)
where

$$S_L(\rho ,\sigma )=\sigma \mathrm{log}q_0\rho \mathrm{log}p_0+\mathrm{Re}[f(q_0,p_0)+h(v(q_0,p_0))].$$
(6.9)
It is seen that the saddle is a minimum of $`S_L`$ for $`q_0,p_0`$ real, and that on it $`f`$ and $`h`$ are real.

Finally, from eq.(5.8) we obtain

$$\mathrm{Im}(\mathrm{\Delta }M^2)N^{3/2}\underset{j,k}{}\omega ^{3/2}(\rho ,\sigma )r(\rho ,\sigma )e^{2NS_0}$$
(6.10)
where

$$S_0(\rho ,\sigma )=S_L(\rho ,\sigma )+\mathrm{log}\omega (\rho ,\sigma )\mathrm{log}4.$$
(6.11)
Also, we mention that the result for (6.6) can also be obtained by evaluating the sum over $`m`$ in eq.(5.10) by looking at the maximum, found for $`m_0=N(1\frac{1}{2v}(\sqrt{1+4v}1))`$, and expanding around it (this is done in the Appendix C).

In particular, on the maximum $`(2\frac{m_1}{N}\frac{m_2}{N})=\frac{1}{v}(\sqrt{1+4v}1)`$, since the same maximum holds for $`m_{1,2}`$. Therefore we find

$$r(\rho ,\sigma )=\left(\frac{1}{v(q_0,p_0)}(\sqrt{1+4v(q_0,p_0)}1)\right)^{7/2}.$$
(6.12)
Our final formula for the rate of the decay channel to particles of masses $`M_1,M_2`$ is thus given by

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }(M_1,M_2)=\frac{1}{2\sqrt{N}}\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Delta }M^2|_{M_1,M_2}=\omega ^{3/2}r\frac{1}{N^2}e^{2NS_0},$$
(6.13)
where $`S_0`$ is a function of the ratios $`\frac{M_1}{M},\frac{M_2}{M}`$, with $`M=\sqrt{N}`$.

Note that $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(M_1,M_2)`$ represents the contributions of all decay channels involving particles with the same masses $`M_1,M_2`$ (since the multiplicity grows exponentially with the mass, for large $`M_1,M_2`$, there is an exponentially large number of particles contributing to $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(M_1,M_2)`$).

Figure 1 is a numerical plot of $`S_0`$ in function of $`M_1`$ and $`M_2`$. We see that $`S_0`$ is negative definite, except on some curve (see fig. 3) where it identically vanishes. Thus the first observation is that the rate for the decay channel to particles of generic masses $`M_1,M_2`$ is exponentially suppressed at large $`N`$.

In the Appendix A, figure 4 shows the numerical plot of $`\stackrel{~}{S}_0`$, obtained by starting with the expression (2.3) in terms of $`\theta _1`$. The two figures are identical.

Figure 2 is a plot of $`S_0(M_1)`$ for given $`M_2`$, i.e. slices of figure 1 at constant $`M_2`$. One can see that the maximum exactly passes by $`S_0=0`$. This happens for any $`M_2`$. We have checked that the factor $`\omega ^{3/2}(\rho ,\sigma )r(\rho ,\sigma )`$ in eqs.(6.10) and (6.13) is finite inside the allowed triangle, except on the boundary $`M_1+M_2=M`$ where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is anyhow suppressed.

Modulo the exponentially suppressed processes, a massive particle will decay through the special channel where $`S_0`$ vanishes. This defines a curve $`M_2=F(M_1)`$ in the space $`M_1,M_2`$, which is shown in figure 3. Such dominant channels exhibit a power-like behavior

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }(M_1,M_2)N^2.$$
(6.14)
It is remarkable that for large $`N`$ the dynamics “excludes” decays into kinematically allowed channels. In other words, we find that if the massive particle decays into a particle of mass $`M_1`$, the mass of the other particle $`M_2`$ is uniquely determined, modulo exponentially suppressed processes.

The curve $`M_2=F(M_1)`$ is well approximated by the curve

$$(\frac{M_1}{M})^a+(\frac{M_2}{M})^a=1,a0.73,$$
(6.15)
also shown in fig. 3. Although this not the true analytical formula connecting $`M_1,M_2`$ (which is extremely complicated), eq. (6.15) is useful as a book-keeping of the approximate relation between $`M_1`$ and $`M_2`$.

In the Appendices B and C we have considered the cases when one of the masses $`M_1`$ or $`M_2`$, or both, are small with respect to $`N`$. We find that the only case which is not exponentially suppressed is when $`M_2=0`$ and $`M_1^2=Nj`$ with $`j`$ finite (or $`viceversa`$). In this case

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }N^{5/2}.$$

Thus the dominant channel is for both $`M_{1,2}^2`$ of order $`N`$ along the curve $`M_2=F(M_1)`$, where the decay width is given by eq.(6.14).

## 7 Lifetime of a state with maximum angular momentum

Writing the formula (6.10) for $`\mathrm{Im}(\mathrm{\Delta }M^2)`$ in terms of $`\sigma _{1,2}=M_{1,2}^2/N`$, we obtain

$$\mathrm{Im}(\mathrm{\Delta }M^2)=N^2_𝒟𝑑\sigma _1𝑑\sigma _2\frac{1}{N^{3/2}}e^{2NS_0},$$
(7.1)
where the domain of integration is the region $`\sigma _1,\sigma _2>0`$ and $`\sqrt{\sigma _1}+\sqrt{\sigma _2}<1`$.

We have seen that $`S_0`$ is in general negative except on the curve where $`S_0`$ vanishes. Thus only a small neighborhood of this curve contributes to the integral (7.1). Let $`l`$ be a parameter along the line, $`0<l<1`$, and let $`n`$ a parameter for the orthogonal direction, where $`n=0`$ means a point on the curve. It is convenient to use $`n,l`$ as integration variables. The integration over $`l`$ is trivial, since $`S_0`$ takes the same value (i.e. equal to zero) for all $`l`$. In the vicinity of the line, we can expand $`S_0`$ in powers of $`n`$, and get a Gaussian integral over $`n`$ of the form

$$\mathrm{Im}(\mathrm{\Delta }M^2)=N^2𝑑n\frac{1}{N^{3/2}}e^{cNn^2},$$
(7.2)
where $`c`$ is a number of order 1. The Gaussian integral gives an extra factor $`N^{1/2}`$, so we get (see eq. (1.1) )

$$𝒯^1=\frac{\mathrm{Im}(\mathrm{\Delta }M^2)}{2\sqrt{N}}=\mathrm{const}.\frac{1}{\sqrt{N}}$$
(7.3)
or

$$𝒯=\mathrm{const}\alpha ^{}M.$$
(7.4)
where we have restored $`\alpha ^{}`$. Thus the lifetime of a state with maximum angular momentum in closed superstring theory is proportional to the mass.

Acknowledgements: We would like to thank D. Amati for a useful discussion. R.I. acknowledges partial support by the European network HPRN-CT-2000-00131. J.R. wishes to thank the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics for hospitality while part of this work was carried out.

## Appendix A  Alternative calculation of $`\mathrm{Im}(𝚫𝐌^\mathrm{𝟐})`$

Here we provide an alternative calculation of $`\mathrm{Im}(\mathrm{\Delta }M^2)`$ by using as starting point the formula (2.3) in terms of $`\theta _1`$.

The computation is quite similar to the one done in Sects. 5 and 6, this time using the expansion of eqs.(4.1) and (4.2). We also make use of the formulas

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi \theta _1(z|\tau )}{\theta _1^{}(0|\tau )}}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{sin}\pi z{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{(1pq^{2n})(1p^1q^{2n})}{(1q^{2n})^2}}`$ (A.1)
$``$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\stackrel{~}{f}(q,p)\right]`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi ^2}}_z^2\mathrm{log}\theta _1(z|\tau )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4}{p+p^12}}+4{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{q^{2n}[(p+p^1)(1+q^{4n})4q^{2n}]}{(1pq^{2n})^2(1p^1q^{2n})^2}}`$ (A.2)
$``$ $`\stackrel{~}{g}(q,p).`$
By expanding the logarithms in the above definition of $`\stackrel{~}{f}(q,p)`$, and interchanging the two infinite sums, we now obtain

$$\stackrel{~}{f}(q,p)=\mathrm{log}[\frac{1}{4}(p+p^12)]2\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{q^{2n}(p^n+p^n2)}{n(1q^{2n})}.$$
(A.3)
Note that $`\stackrel{~}{f}`$ can be defined modulo $`i\pi `$, that is modulo the sign inside the logarithm, since in eq.(4.4) only $`\mathrm{exp}(2\mathrm{R}\mathrm{e}\stackrel{~}{f})`$ appears.

Both $`\stackrel{~}{f}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{g}`$ are even functions of $`q`$. We get the same formulas (5.9) , (5.10), (6.5) and (6.6), with $`f\stackrel{~}{f}`$ and $`g\stackrel{~}{g}`$ and thus $`v\stackrel{~}{v}`$. Moreover, as explained in Sect. 4, the relation with the masses $`M_{1,2}`$ of the exponents $`\stackrel{~}{j},\stackrel{~}{k}`$ of the expansions $`q^{2\stackrel{~}{k}}`$, $`p^{\stackrel{~}{j}}`$ is now different. In terms of the exponents $`j,k`$ of Sect. 5 we have

$$\stackrel{~}{k}=(kj)/2,\stackrel{~}{j}=M^2j.$$

In conclusion we obtain

$$\mathrm{Im}(\mathrm{\Delta }M^2)N^{3/2}\underset{j,k}{}\omega ^{3/2}(\rho ,\sigma )\stackrel{~}{r}(\rho ,\sigma )e^{2N\stackrel{~}{S}_0(\rho ,\sigma )},$$
(A.4)
where

$`\stackrel{~}{S}_0(\rho ,\sigma )`$ $`=`$ $`(\sigma \rho )\mathrm{log}\stackrel{~}{q}_0(1\rho )\mathrm{log}\stackrel{~}{p}_0`$ (A.5)
$`+\mathrm{Re}[\stackrel{~}{f}(\stackrel{~}{q}_0,\stackrel{~}{p}_0)+h(\stackrel{~}{v}(\stackrel{~}{q}_0,\stackrel{~}{p}_0))]+\mathrm{log}\omega (\rho ,\sigma ),`$
$$\sigma \frac{M_1^2+M_2^2}{N},\rho \frac{M_1^2M_2^2}{N},$$

and the saddle point values $`\stackrel{~}{q}_0,\stackrel{~}{p}_0`$ correspond to the stationary point of $`\stackrel{~}{S}_0`$.

The functions that enter into the final expression (A.5) are individually very different from the ones appearing in the formula for $`S_0`$ in Sect. 6. The result is however the same, to a surprising degree of accuracy, see fig. 4.

## Appendix B  Decay into two massless particles

The decay rate of the massive particle into two massless particles (e.g. gravitons) can also be obtained from the general formula (4.4). We need to consider the special channel with $`M_1=M_2=0`$, i.e. the powers $`q^kp^j`$ in the expansion with $`k=j=0`$. This is obtained by formally setting $`g(q,p)0`$ (since it starts with $`q^1`$) and $`\frac{2\pi \theta _4(z|\tau )}{q^{1/4}\theta _1^{}(0|\tau )}1`$. For this $`k=j=0`$ term, we thus get

$$\mathrm{\Delta }M^2|_{\mathrm{massless}}=c\frac{dsd\tau _1}{s^2}\frac{d^2z}{s}e^{\frac{4N\pi ^2y^2}{s}}e^{Ns}(\frac{1}{4s})^{2N}\frac{N^2(2N2)!}{(N1)!^2}.$$
(B.1)
Computing the integrals over $`x,y`$ and $`\tau _1`$, we are left with an integral over $`s`$ whose imaginary part gives

$$\mathrm{Im}𝑑ss^{\frac{5}{2}2N}e^{Ns}\frac{1}{\sqrt{N}}e^{2N}2^{2N}$$

Hence

$$\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Delta }M^2|_{\mathrm{massless}}\sqrt{N}e^{2N(\mathrm{log}41)}.$$
(B.2)
This is exponentially decreasing for large $`N`$.

Note that this decay corresponds to the corner $`M_1=M_2=0`$ in figure 1, which is also exponentially decreasing. Indeed, the numerical value at $`M_1=M_2=0`$ of the plot is $`0.7726`$, which agrees with $`2(\mathrm{log}41)`$.

In  this result has been compared with the explicit direct computation of the decay into two gravitons, finding complete agreement.

## Appendix C  Decay into a massless and a massive particle, and remaining cases.

Another interesting special case is when the massive particle decays into a massless particle (e.g. graviton) and a massive particle. So, consider the decay $`MM_1+M_2`$ with $`M_2=0`$ and $`M_1^2=Nj`$ (we remind that $`M^2=N`$). We consider both the case when $`j`$ is a finite integer and the case $`j=cN`$ where $`c`$ can be a constant less than one or $`cN^{\lambda 1}`$ with $`\lambda <1`$. The case $`M_2=0`$ is most suitably treated by the formula (2.3) expressed in terms of $`\theta _1(z|\tau )`$, setting $`q=0`$ to isolate the term corresponding to $`M_2=0`$ in the expression (4.3). Thus (see (A.1), (A.2) )

$$\frac{\pi \theta _1(z|\tau )}{\theta _1^{^{}}(0|\tau )}\mathrm{sin}(\pi z),\frac{1}{\pi ^2}_z^2\mathrm{log}\theta _1(z|\tau )\frac{1}{\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi z)}.$$

Therefore now

$$u(p)g(q=0,p)=\frac{4}{(p^{1/2}p^{1/2})^2},$$
(C.1)
$$e^{f(q=0,p)}=\left(\frac{\pi \theta _1(z|\tau )}{\theta _1^{^{}}(0|\tau )}\right)^2=u(p)^1.$$
(C.2)
Now $`\omega =(\frac{j}{N})^2`$ thus $`\omega N=j^2/N`$ and $`\frac{g}{\omega N}=\frac{u(p)N}{j^2}`$. By following similar steps as those which led to eq.(5.4), now we obtain

$`\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Delta }M^2`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(\omega N)^{2N+\frac{3}{2}}}{\sqrt{N}}}{\displaystyle \frac{dp}{p}p^j(u(p))^N\frac{d\overline{p}}{\overline{p}}\overline{p}^j(u(\overline{p}))^N}`$ (C.3)
$`\times `$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{m_1,m_2=0}{\overset{N1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{(2Nm_1m_22)!}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(2Nm_1m_2+\frac{5}{2})}}Z_{m_1}\overline{Z}_{m_2}.`$
where

$$Z_mZ(u(p),m,j,N)\frac{N!}{m!(Nm1)!^2}(\frac{u(p)N}{j^2})^m.$$

We use a saddle point technique to sum over $`m_{1,2}`$: the dominant contribution comes from the maximum of the exponential dependence in those variables. Using the Stirling formula, we find

$$Z_m(Nm1)\sqrt{\frac{N}{m}}e^{N\mathrm{log}N}e^I,$$
(C.4)
$`I`$ $`=`$ $`Nm2N\mathrm{log}(Nm1)`$ (C.5)
$`+`$ $`m\left(\mathrm{log}m+2\mathrm{log}(Nm1)+\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{u(p)N}{j^2}}\right).`$
Imposing that the derivative in $`m`$ of the exponent vanishes, we get the equation for $`m_0`$, the maximum locus,

$$(Nm_01)^2=\frac{m_0j^2}{u(p)N},$$

which is solved to give

$$Nm_0=1\frac{j^2}{2Nu}+\sqrt{(1\frac{j^2}{2Nu})^2+\frac{j^2}{u}1}.$$
(C.6)
Let us now discuss different cases.

For $`j^2/N0`$ , eq. (C.6) gives

$$m_0N\frac{j}{\sqrt{u}}1.$$
(C.7)
On the maximum, we get

$$Z(u(p),m_0,j,N)\frac{j}{\sqrt{u}}(\frac{N}{j^2})^Nu^N\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{j}{\sqrt{u}}\right],$$

and

$$\frac{(2Nm_1m_22)!}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(2Nm_1m_2+\frac{5}{2})}j^{7/2}(\frac{1}{\sqrt{u(p)}}+\frac{1}{\sqrt{u(\overline{p})}})^{7/2}.$$

The second derivative of the exponent $`I`$ is $`1/m_02/(Nm_01)`$, which in this limit is $`2\sqrt{u}/j`$. We are left with a Gaussian integral in $`\delta m_1,\delta m_2`$ with a spread of order $`\sqrt{j}`$, which is small compared to the range of $`m`$. Hence

$$\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Delta }M^2\frac{(\omega N)^{2N+\frac{3}{2}}}{\sqrt{N}}(\frac{N}{j^2})^{2N}j^{7/2}\left|j^{3/2}\frac{dp}{p}p^j\mathrm{exp}\frac{j}{\sqrt{u}}\right|^2,$$
(C.8)
where we have neglected finite powers of $`u`$ and kept into account the range in $`m`$. We recall that $`1/\sqrt{u}=\frac{1}{2}(p^{1/2}p^{1/2})`$. The remaining integral over $`p`$ is obtained again by saddle point technique: defining $`x=p^{1/2}`$, we require the derivative in $`x`$ of the exponent to vanish, that is $`2x^1+\frac{1}{2}(1+x^2)=0`$. The solution is $`x=x_0=2+\sqrt{3}`$, discarding the other solution $`x=1/x_0`$ which would make $`Nmj/u(p)<0`$. We get

$$\frac{dp}{p}p^j\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{j}{2}(p^{1/2}p^{1/2})\right]\frac{1}{\sqrt{j}}\mathrm{exp}\left[c_0j\right],$$

where

$$c_0=2\mathrm{log}x_0+\frac{x_0^21}{2x_0}0.9.$$

Thus we finally obtain

$$\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Delta }M^2\frac{j^{3/2}}{N^2}\mathrm{exp}\left[2c_0j\right].$$
(C.9)
For large $`j`$, this rate is exponentially suppressed.

The calculation applies as well to the case of finite $`j`$. In this case, the exponential factor depending on $`j`$ is a finite number of order $`O(1)`$, so one obtains

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }N^{5/2}.$$

Now consider the case when $`N>jN^{1/2}`$. Then eq. (C.6) gives $`Nm_01\frac{j}{u}\frac{j^2}{2Nu}`$, and therefore we find the same result, up to negligible corrections.

Finally, consider the case $`j=cN`$. Then eq. (C.6) reduces to

$$Nm=\frac{1}{2}(\frac{Nc^2}{u}2)(\sqrt{1+\frac{4u}{c^2}}1),$$

and we have to evaluate

$$\frac{dp}{p}p^{cN}\mathrm{exp}\left[N\left(\mathrm{log}u2\mathrm{log}\frac{(\sqrt{1+\frac{4u}{c^2}}1)c^2}{2u}+\frac{c^2}{2u}(\sqrt{1+\frac{4u}{c^2}}1)\right)\right].$$

We note that this is a particular case of the expression of the general case (6.7) – we recognize $`\stackrel{~}{v}(q=0,p)=u(p)/c^2`$ and the expression $`N(\stackrel{~}{f}(q=0,p)+h(\stackrel{~}{v}(q=0,p))`$ in the exponent – except that in the general case $`M_2^2N`$ we have an extra Gaussian integral coming from the integration over $`q`$ (rather than setting $`q=0`$ to isolate the term corresponding to $`M_2^2=0`$). As a result, (6.7) will give an extra factor $`|1/\sqrt{N}|^2`$.

Summarizing, for $`M_2=0`$ and $`M_1^2=Nj`$ with $`1jcN`$, we get

$$\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Delta }M^2\frac{j^{3/2}}{N^2}\mathrm{exp}\left[bj\right]$$
(C.10)
where $`b>0`$ is a numerical coefficient of order 1.

The case when $`j=N`$, i.e. $`c=1`$, corresponds to the $`M_1=M_2=0`$ case treated in appendix B. It can also be recovered as follows. We need to compute the coefficient of the power $`p^N`$ in the Laurent expansion of

$$\mathrm{exp}\left[N\left(\mathrm{log}u2\mathrm{log}\frac{\sqrt{1+4u}1}{2u}+\frac{1}{2u}(\sqrt{1+4u}1)\right)\right]$$

$$=(\frac{p}{4})^N\mathrm{exp}\left[N(1+\underset{n>0}{}c_np^n)\right]$$
(C.11)
The coefficient of $`p^N`$ is $`(\frac{e}{4})^N`$. Now we have to take the modulus square of this coefficient, and take into account that the generic case eq.(C.10) has an extra factor $`|1/\sqrt{j}|^2`$ originating from the Gaussian integral around the saddle point over $`p`$. We thus obtain the correct result for $`M_1=M_2=0`$:

$$\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Delta }M^2N^{1/2}(\frac{e}{4})^{2N},$$
(C.12)
in agreement with appendix B.

Finally, we have also considered the case when $`M_2^2=n`$ is finite or small with respect to $`N`$, which is allowed for $`j>2\sqrt{nN}n`$. We find that this case is exponentially suppressed.


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# Potential Nonrelativistic QCD and Heavy Quarkonium Spectrum in Next-to-Next-to-Next-to-Leading Order Talk presented at RADCOR/LL 2002 conference, Kloster Banz, Germany, September 8-13, 2002.

## 1 INTRODUCTION

The theoretical study of the nonrelativistic heavy quark-antiquark system  and its application to bottomonium  and toponium  physics is of special interest because it relies entirely on the first principles of QCD. The system in principle allows for a perturbative treatment with the nonperturbative effects being well under control and with no crucial model dependence. This makes the heavy quarkonium to be an ideal place to determine the fundamental QCD parameters such as the heavy quark mass $`m_q`$ and the strong coupling constant $`\alpha _s`$. An essential progress has been made in the theoretical investigation of the nonrelativistic heavy quark dynamics based on the effective theory approach . The analytical results for the main parameters of the nonrelativistic heavy quark-antiquark system are now available up to next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) (see  for a brief review). The NNLO corrections have turned out to be so sizeable that it appears to be indispensable also to gain control over the next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order (N3LO) both in regard of phenomenological applications and in order to understand the structure and the peculiarities of the nonrelativistic expansion. The calculation of the heavy-quarkonium spectrum to $`𝒪(\alpha _s^3)`$  was the first breakthrough in the N3LO analysis. Recently, the $`𝒪(\alpha _s^3\mathrm{ln}\alpha _s)`$ corrections to the heavy-quarkonium production and annihilation rates have been also obtained . The subject of this talk is restricted mainly to the analysis of the spectrum.

In the next section we briefly introduce the basic ingredients of the nonrelativistic effective-theory formalism. In Sect. 3 the structure of the third order corrections to the heavy quarkonium ground state energy is outlined and the final result is presented. In the last section this result is applied for the phenomenological analysis of the top-antitop pair production near the threshold.

## 2 EFFECTIVE THEORY OF NONRELATIVISTIC HEAVY QUARKS

The nonrelativistic behavior of the heavy-quark-antiquark pair is governed by a complicated multiscale dynamics. In the nonrelativistic regime, where the heavy-quark velocity $`v`$ is of the order of the strong-coupling constant $`\alpha _s`$, the Coulomb effects are crucial and have to be taken into account to all orders in $`\alpha _s`$. This makes the use of the effective theory mandatory. The effective-theory approach allows us to separate the scales and to implement the expansion in $`v`$ at the level of the Lagrangian. Let us recall that the dynamics of a nonrelativistic quark-antiquark pair is characterized by four different regions and the corresponding modes : (i) the hard region (the energy and three-momentum scale like $`m_q`$); (ii) the soft region (the energy and three-momentum scale like $`m_qv`$); (iii) the potential region (the energy scales like $`m_qv^2`$, while the three-momentum scales like $`m_qv`$); and (iv) the ultrasoft region (the energy and three-momentum scale like $`m_qv^2`$). Nonrelativistic QCD (NRQCD)  is obtained by integrating out the hard modes. Subsequently integrating out the soft modes and the potential gluons results in the effective theory of potential NRQCD (pNRQCD) , which contains potential heavy quarks and ultrasoft gluons, ghosts, and light quarks as active particles. The effect of the modes that have been integrated out is two-fold: higher-dimensional operators appear in the effective Hamiltonian, corresponding to an expansion in $`v`$, and the Wilson coefficients of the operators in the effective Hamiltonian acquire corrections, which are series in $`\alpha _s`$.

The theory of pNRQCD is relevant for the description of the heavy-quarkonium system. Let us recall its basic ingredients. In pNRQCD, the (self)interactions between ultrasoft particles are described by the standard QCD Lagrangian. The interactions of the ultrasoft gluons with the heavy-quark-antiquark pair are ordered in $`v`$ by the multipole expansion. For the N3LO analysis, only the leading-order (LO) emission and absorption of ultrasoft gluons have to be considered. They are described by the chromoelectric dipole interaction. The propagation of the quark-antiquark pair in the colour-singlet and colour-octet states is described by the nonrelativistic Green function of the effective Schrödinger equation. The LO approximation for the Green function is given by the Coulomb solution, which sums up terms singular at threshold and describes the leading binding effects. The corrections due to higher-order terms in the effective Hamiltonian can be found in Rayleigh-Schrödinger time-independent perturbation theory as in standard quantum mechanics.

Let us now turn to the problem of perturbative calculations in the effective theory. Both NRQCD and pNRQCD have specific Feynman rules, which can be used for a systematic perturbative expansion. However, this is complicated because the expansion of the Lagrangian corresponds to a particular subspace of the total phase space. Thus, in a perturbative calculation within the effective theory, one has to formally impose some restrictions on the allowed values of the virtual momenta. Explicitly separating the phase space introduces additional scales to the problem, such as momentum cutoffs, and makes the approach considerably less transparent. A much more efficient and elegant method is based on the expansion by regions , which is a systematic method to expand Feynman diagrams in any limit of momenta and masses. It consists of the following steps: (i) consider various regions of a loop four-momentum $`k`$ and expand, in every region, the integrand in Taylor series with respect to the parameters that are considered to be small there; (ii) integrate the expanded integrand over the whole integration domain of the loop momenta; and (iii) put to zero any scaleless integral In step (ii), dimensional regularization, with $`d=42ϵ`$ space-time dimensions, is used to handle the divergences. In the case of the threshold expansion in $`v`$, one has to deal with the four regions and their scaling rules listed above. In principle, the threshold expansion has to be applied to the Feynman diagrams of full QCD. However, after integrating out the hard modes, which corresponds to calculating the hard-region contributions in the threshold expansion, it is possible to apply step (i) to the diagrams constructed from the NRQCD and pNRQCD Feynman rules. Equivalently, the Lagrangian of the effective theory can be employed for a perturbative calculation without explicit restrictions on the virtual momenta if dimensional regularization is used and the formal expressions derived from the Feynman rules of the effective theory are understood in the sense of the threshold expansion. In this way, one arrives at a formulation of effective theory with two crucial virtues: the absence of additional regulator scales and the automatic matching of the contributions from different scales  (see also). The second property implies that the contributions of different modes, as computed in the effective theory, can be simply added up to get the full result.

## 3 HEAVY QUARKONIUM SPECTRUM AT $`𝒪(\alpha _s^5m_q)`$

The analysis of the heavy quarkonium spectrum at $`𝒪(\alpha _s^5m_q)`$ i.e. the third order corrections to the Coulomb approximation involves two basic ingredients: the effective Hamiltonian and the retardation effect associated with the emission and absorption of dynamical ultrasoft gluons. The general form of the Hamiltonian valid up to N3LO is given in . A detailed discussion of the effects resulting from the chromoelectric dipole interaction of the heavy quark-antiquark pair to the ultrasoft gluons relevant for perturbative bound-state calculations at N3LO can be found in .

For vanishing angular momentum we can write the energy level of the principal quantum number $`n`$ as

$$E_n^{\mathrm{p}.\mathrm{t}.}=E_n^C+\delta E_n^{(1)}+\delta E_n^{(2)}+\delta E_n^{(3)}+\mathrm{},$$
(1)
where the leading order Coulomb energy is $`E_n^C=C_F^2\alpha _s^2m_q/4n^2`$. $`\delta E_n^{(k)}`$ stands for corrections of order $`\alpha _s^k`$. The first and second order corrections can be found in  for arbitrary $`n`$.

The $`𝒪\left(\alpha _s^3\right)`$ corrections to the energy levels arise from several sources: (i) matrix elements of the N3LO operators of the effective Hamiltonian between Coulomb wave functions; (ii) higher iterations of the NLO and NNLO operators of the effective Hamiltonian in time-independent perturbation theory; (iii) matrix elements of the N3LO instantaneous operators generated by the emission and absorption of ultrasoft gluons; and (iv) the retarded ultrasoft contribution.

The contributions to $`E_n^{(3)}`$ for vanishing $`\beta `$-function were computed for general $`n`$ in . The corresponding correction to the ground state energy gets contributions from all four sources and reads

$`\delta E_1^{(3)}|_{\beta (\alpha _s)=0}=E_1^C{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s^3}{\pi }}\{{\displaystyle \frac{a_1a_2+a_3}{32\pi ^2}}`$
$`+\left[{\displaystyle \frac{C_AC_F}{2}}+\left({\displaystyle \frac{19}{16}}+{\displaystyle \frac{S(S+1)}{2}}\right)C_F^2\right]a_1`$
$`+[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{36}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{ln}2}{6}}+{\displaystyle \frac{L_{\alpha _s}}{6}}]C_A^3+[{\displaystyle \frac{49}{36}}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}(\mathrm{ln}2+L_{\alpha _s})]C_A^2C_F+[{\displaystyle \frac{5}{72}}+{\displaystyle \frac{10}{3}}\mathrm{ln}2`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{37}{6}}L_{\alpha _s}+({\displaystyle \frac{85}{54}}{\displaystyle \frac{7}{6}}L_{\alpha _s})S(S+1)]C_AC_F^2`$
$`+\left[{\displaystyle \frac{50}{9}}+{\displaystyle \frac{8}{3}}\mathrm{ln}2+3L_{\alpha _s}{\displaystyle \frac{S(S+1)}{3}}\right]C_F^3`$
$`+\left[{\displaystyle \frac{32}{15}}+2\mathrm{ln}2+(1\mathrm{ln}2)S(S+1)\right]C_F^2T_F`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{49C_AC_FT_Fn_l}{36}}+\left[{\displaystyle \frac{11}{18}}{\displaystyle \frac{10}{27}}S(S+1)\right]C_F^2T_Fn_l`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}C_F^3L_1^E\},`$ (2)
where the color group invariants are $`C_F=4/3`$, $`C_A=3`$, $`T_F=1/2`$, $`n_l`$ is the number of light-quark flavors, $`S`$ is the spin quantum number and $`L_{\alpha _s}=\mathrm{ln}(C_F\alpha _s)`$. The numerical value of the QCD Bethe logarithm $`L_1^E=81.5379`$ can be found in . $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ scheme for the renormalization of $`\alpha _s(\mu )`$ is implied. The logarithmic $`\mathrm{ln}(\alpha _s)`$ part of Eq. (2) has been derived first in . The coefficient $`a_i`$ parameterizes the $`i`$-loop correction to the Coulomb potential ($`a_1=31C_A/920T_Fn_l/9,\mathrm{}`$ ). At present, only Padé estimates of the three-loop $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ coefficient $`a_3`$ are available . For the bottom and top quark case they read

$`{\displaystyle \frac{a_3}{4^3}}`$ $`=`$ $`\{\begin{array}{cc}98\hfill & \text{if }n_l=4\text{ ,}\hfill \\ 60\hfill & \text{if }n_l=5\text{ .}\hfill \end{array}`$ (3)
The third order corrections to the ground state energy proportional to the $`\beta `$-function only get contributions from (i) and (ii) and read

$`\delta E_1^{(3)}|_{\beta (\alpha _s)}=E_1^C\left({\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s}{\pi }}\right)^3\{32\beta _0^3L_\mu ^3+[40\beta _0^3`$
$`+12a_1\beta _0^2+28\beta _1\beta _0]L^2_\mu +[({\displaystyle \frac{16\pi ^2}{3}}+64\zeta (3))\beta _0^3`$
$`+10a_1\beta _0^2+(40\beta _1+{\displaystyle \frac{a_1^2}{2}}+a_2+8\pi ^2C_AC_F`$
$`+({\displaystyle \frac{21\pi ^2}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{16\pi ^2}{3}}S(S+1))C_F^2)\beta _0+3a_1\beta _1`$
$`+4\beta _2]L_\mu +(8+4\pi ^2+{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi ^4}{45}}+64\zeta (3)`$
$`8\pi ^2\zeta (3)+96\zeta (5))\beta _0^3+({\displaystyle \frac{2\pi ^2}{3}}+8\zeta (3))a_1\beta _0^2`$
$`+((8+{\displaystyle \frac{7\pi ^2}{3}}+16\zeta (3))\beta _1{\displaystyle \frac{a_1^2}{8}}+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}a_2+(6\pi ^2`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi ^4}{3}})C_AC_F+(8\pi ^2{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi ^4}{3}}+({\displaystyle \frac{4\pi ^2}{3}}+{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi ^4}{9}})`$
$`\times S(S+1))C_F^2)\beta _0+2a_1\beta _1+4\beta _2\},`$ (4)
where $`L_\mu =\mathrm{ln}(\mu /(C_F\alpha _sm_q))`$, $`\zeta (z)`$ is Riemann’s $`\zeta `$-function and $`\beta _i`$ is the $`(i+1)`$-loop coefficient of the QCD $`\beta `$ function ($`\beta _0=11C_A/12T_Fn_l/3,\mathrm{}`$). The terms proportional to $`\beta _0^3`$ in Eqs. (4) have been computed first in .

The total result for the third order correction to the ground state energy is given by the sum of Eqs. (2) and (4) Adopting the choice $`\mu _s=C_F\alpha _s(\mu _s)m_q`$ one obtains for the bottom and top system (for S=1) in numerical form

$`\delta E_1^{(3)}=\alpha _s^3E_1^C[\left(\begin{array}{c}70.590|_{n_l=4}\\ 56.732|_{n_l=5}\end{array}\right)+15.297`$ (7)
$`\times \mathrm{ln}(\alpha _s)+0.001a_3+\left(\begin{array}{c}34.229|_{n_l=4}\\ 26.654|_{n_l=5}\end{array}\right)|_{\beta _0^3}],`$ (10)
where we have separated the contributions arising from $`a_3`$ and $`\beta _0^3`$. The only unknown ingredient in our result for $`\delta E_1^{(3)}`$ is the three-loop $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ coefficient $`a_3`$ of the corrections to the static potential entering Eq. (2). Up to now there are only estimates based on Padé approximation which we will use in our analysis. However, our final result only changes marginally even for a rather large deviations of $`a_3`$ from its Padé estimate.

## 4 PHENOMENOLOGY OF $`t\overline{t}`$ THRESHOLD PRODUCTION

Let us focus on the top quark threshold production. (the bottom quark case is considered in ). The corresponding experimental data are not yet available and our goal is to present a formula which can be directly used for the top quark mass determination from the characteristics of the cross section of $`t\overline{t}`$ production near threshold . One has to distinguish the production in $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation where the final state quark-antiquark pair is produced with $`S=1`$ and in (unpolarized) $`\gamma \gamma `$ collisions where the dominant contribution is given by the $`S`$-wave zero spin final state. The nonperturbative effects in the case of the top quark are negligible, however, the effect of the top quark width has to be taken into account properly  as the relatively large width smears out the Coulomb-like resonances below the threshold. The NNLO analysis of the cross section  shows that only the ground state pole results in the well-pronounced resonance. The higher poles and continuum, however, affect the position of the resonance peak and move it to higher energy. As a consequence, the resonance energy can be written in the form

$`E_{\mathrm{res}}`$ $`=`$ $`2m_t+E_1^{\mathrm{p}.\mathrm{t}.}+\delta ^{\mathrm{\Gamma }_t}E_{\mathrm{res}}.`$ (11)
To compute the shift of the peak position due to the nonzero top quark width $`\delta ^{\mathrm{\Gamma }_t}E_{\mathrm{res}}`$ we use the result of  for the $`e^+e^{}t\overline{t}`$ and $`\gamma \gamma t\overline{t}`$ cross sections at NNLO. Numerically for both processes

$$\delta ^{\mathrm{\Gamma }_t}E_{\mathrm{res}}=100\pm 10\mathrm{MeV}.$$
(12)
This value is rather stable with respect to the variation of all input parameters of our analysis. To evaluate the perturbative contribution we use the result of the previous section up to N3LO. In Fig. 1 the perturbative ground state energy in the next-to-leading (NLO), NNLO and N3LO is plotted as a function of the renormalization scale of the strong coupling constant for $`S=1`$. One can see, that the N3LO result shows a much weaker dependence on $`\mu `$ than the NNLO one. Moreover at the scale $`\mu 15`$ GeV which is close to the physically motivated scale $`\mu _s`$, the N3LO correction vanishes and furthermore becomes independent of $`\mu `$, i.e. the N3LO curve shows a local minimum. This suggests the convergence of the series for the ground state energy in the pole mass scheme. Collecting all the contributions we obtain a universal relation between the resonance energy in $`t\overline{t}`$ threshold production in $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation or $`\gamma \gamma `$ collisions (the result shows very weak spin dependence) and the top quark pole mass

$`E_{\mathrm{res}}`$ $`=`$ $`(1.9833+0.007{\displaystyle \frac{m_t174.3\text{GeV}}{174.3\text{GeV}}}`$ (13)
$`\pm 0.0009)\times m_t,`$
where the weak nonlinear dependence of Eq. (11) on $`m_t`$ is taken into account in the second term on the right-hand side of Eq. (13). The central value is computed for $`m_t=174.3`$ GeV. The analysis of the theoretical uncertainty in Eq. (13) can be found in . Due to the very nice behavior of the perturbative expansion for the ground state energy we do not expect large higher order corrections to our result. As a consequence the top quark pole mass can be extracted from the future experimental data on $`t\overline{t}`$ threshold production with the theoretical uncertainty of $`\pm 80`$ MeV. Thus we find the N3LO corrections to stabilize the behavior of the perturbative series for the ground state energy and to be mandatory for a high precision theoretical analysis.

Acknowledgments
This work was supported in part by DFG Grant No. KN 365/1-1 and BMBF Grant No. 05 HT1GUA/4.


text:
# Non reality and non connectivity of complex polynomials

## 1. Introduction

Two polynomials $`f,g[x,y]`$ are *topologically equivalent*, and we will denote $`fg`$, if there exist homeomorphisms $`\mathrm{\Phi }:^2^2`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }:`$ such that $`g\mathrm{\Phi }=\mathrm{\Psi }f`$. They are *algebraically equivalent*, and we will denote $`fg`$, if we have $`\mathrm{\Phi }Aut^2`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }=id`$.

It is always possible to find real equations for germs of plane curves up to topological equivalence. In fact the proof is as follows: the topological type of a germ of plane curve $`(C,0)`$ is determined by the characteristic pairs of the Puiseux expansions of the irreducible branches and by the intersection multiplicities between these branches. Then we can choose the coefficients of the Puiseux expansions in $``$ (even in $``$). Now it is possible (see , appendix to chapter 1) to find a polynomial $`f[x,y]`$ (even in $`[x,y]`$) such that the germ $`(f=0,0)`$ is equivalent to the germ $`(C,0)`$.

This property has been widely used by N. A’Campo and others (see  for example) in the theory of divides. Lee Rudolph asked the question whether it is true for polynomials . We give a negative answer:

###### Theorem A.

Up to topological equivalence it is not always possible to find real equations for complex polynomials.

## 2.

We now deal with another problem. In  we proved that a family of polynomials with some constant numerical data are all topologically equivalent. More precisely for a polynomial let $`𝔪=(\mu ,\mathrm{\#}_{\mathrm{𝑎𝑓𝑓}},\lambda ,\mathrm{\#}_{\mathrm{}},\mathrm{\#})`$ be the multi-integer respectively composed of the affine Milnor number, the number of affine critical values, the Milnor number at infinity, the number of critical values at infinity, the number of critical values (with $`=_{\mathrm{𝑎𝑓𝑓}}_{\mathrm{}}`$). Then we have a global version of the Lê-Ramanujam $`\mu `$-constant theorem:

###### Theorem ().

Let $`(f_t)_{t[0,1]}`$ be a family of complex polynomials in two variables whose coefficients are polynomials in $`t`$. Suppose that the multi-integer $`𝔪(t)`$ and the degree $`\mathrm{deg}f_t`$ do not depend on $`t[0,1]`$. Then the polynomials $`f_0`$ and $`f_1`$ are topologically equivalent.

It is true that two topologically equivalent polynomials have the same multi-integers $`𝔪`$. A natural question is: can two topologically equivalent polynomials be connected by a continuous family of topologically equivalent polynomials ?

###### Theorem B.

There exist two topologically equivalent polynomials $`f_0,f_1`$ that cannot be connected by a family of equivalent polynomials. That means that for each continuous family $`(f_t)_{t[0,1]}`$ there exists a $`\tau ]0,1[`$ such that $`f_\tau `$ is not topologically equivalent to $`f_0`$.

It can be noticed that the answer is positive for algebraic equivalence. Two algebraically equivalent polynomials can be connected by algebraically equivalent polynomials since $`Aut^2`$ is connected by Jung’s theorem.

Such kinds of problems have been studied by V. Kharlamov and V. Kulikov in  for cuspidal projective curves. They give two complex conjugate projective curves that are not isotopic. The example with lowest degree has degree $`825`$. In , E. Artal, J. Carmona and L. Cogolludo give examples of projective curves $`C,C^{}`$ of degree $`6`$ that have conjugate equations in $`(\sqrt{2})`$ but the pairs $`(^2,C)`$ and $`(^2,C^{})`$ are not homeomorphic by an orientation-preserving homeomorphism.

## 3.

The method used in this note is based on the relationship between topological and algebraic equivalence: we set a family $`(f_s)_s`$ of polynomials such that $`(f_s=0)`$ is a line arrangement in $`^2`$. One of the line depends on a parameter $`s`$. There are enough lines in order that each polynomial is algebraically essentially unique. Moreover every polynomial topologically equivalent to $`f_s`$ is algebraic equivalent to a $`f_s^{}`$, where $`s^{}`$ may be different from $`s`$.

For generic parameters the polynomials are topologically equivalent all together and the function $`f_s`$ is a Morse function on $`^2f_s^1(0)`$. We choose our counter-examples with non-generic parameters, for such an example $`f_k`$ is not a Morse function on $`^2f_k^1(0)`$. The fact that non-generic parameters are finite enables us to prove the requested properties.

## 4. Non reality

Let

$$f_s(x,y)=xy(xy)(y1)(xsy).$$

Let $`k,\overline{k}`$ be the roots of $`s^2s+1`$.

###### Theorem A.

There does not exist a polynomial $`g`$ with real coefficients such that $`gf_k`$.

Let $`𝒞=\{0,1,k,\overline{k}\}`$. Then for $`s𝒞`$, $`f_s`$ verifies $`\mu =14`$, $`\mathrm{\#}_{\mathrm{𝑎𝑓𝑓}}=3`$ and $`_{\mathrm{}}=\mathrm{}`$. By the connectivity of $`𝒞`$ and the global version of the $`\mu `$-constant theorem, two polynomials $`f_s`$ and $`f_s^{}`$, with $`s,s^{}𝒞`$, are topologically equivalent.

The polynomials $`f_k`$ and $`f_{\overline{k}}`$ verify $`\mu =14`$, but $`\mathrm{\#}_{\mathrm{𝑎𝑓𝑓}}=2`$. Then such a polynomial is not topologically equivalent to a generic one $`f_s`$, $`s𝒞`$. In fact for $`s𝒞`$ there are two non-zero critical fibers with one double point for each one. For $`s=k`$ or $`s=\overline{k}`$, there is only one non-zero critical fiber with an ordinary cusp.

###### Lemma 1.

Let $`s,s^{}`$. The polynomials $`f_s`$ and $`f_s^{}`$ are algebraically equivalent if and only if $`s=s^{}`$ or $`s=1s^{}`$.

In particular the polynomials $`f_k`$ and $`f_{\overline{k}}`$ are algebraically equivalent.

###### Proof.

Let us suppose that $`f_s`$ and $`f_s^{}`$ are algebraically equivalent. Then we can suppose that there exists $`\mathrm{\Phi }Aut^2`$ such that $`f_s^{}=f_s\mathrm{\Phi }`$. Such a $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ must send the lines $`(x=0),(y=0)`$ to two lines, then $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is linear: $`\mathrm{\Phi }(x,y)=(ax+by,cx+dy)`$. A calculus proves that $`\mathrm{\Phi }(x,y)=(x,y)`$ or $`\mathrm{\Phi }(x,y)=(yx,y)`$ that is to say $`s=s^{}`$ or $`s=1s^{}`$. ∎

###### Lemma 2.

Fix $`s`$ and let $`f`$ be a polynomial such that $`ff_s`$. There exists $`s^{}`$ such that $`ff_s^{}`$.

Then lemma 1 implies that there are only two choices for $`s^{}`$, but $`s^{}`$ can be different from $`s`$.

###### Proof.

The curve $`f_s^1(0)`$ contains the simply connected curve $`xy(xy)(xsy)`$, then the curve $`f^1(0)`$ contains also a simply connected curve (with $`4`$ components), by the generalization of Zaĭdenberg-Lin theorem (see ) this simply connected curve is algebraically equivalent to $`xy(xy)(xs^{}y)`$. Then the polynomial $`f`$ is algebraically equivalent to $`xy(xy)(xs^{}y)P(x,y)`$. The curve $`C`$ defined by $`(P=0)`$ is homeomorphic to $``$ and admits a polynomial parameterization $`(\alpha (t),\beta (t))`$ with $`\alpha ,\beta [t]`$. Since $`C`$ does not intersect the axe $`(y=0)`$, $`\beta `$ is a constant polynomial; since $`C`$ intersects the axe $`(x=0)`$ at one point $`\alpha `$ is monomial. An equation of $`P`$ is now $`P(x,y)=y^n\lambda `$. By the irreducibility of $`C`$ and up to an homothety we get $`P(x,y)=y1`$. That is to say $`f`$ is algebraically equivalent to $`f_s^{}`$. ∎

## 5.

Let $`g[x,y]`$, if $`g(x,y)=a_{i,j}x^iy^j`$ then we denote by $`\overline{g}`$ the polynomial defined by $`\overline{g}(x,y)=\overline{a}_{i,j}x^iy^j`$. Then $`g=\overline{g}`$ if and only if all the coefficients of $`g`$ are real.

We prove theorem A. Let suppose that there exists a polynomial $`g`$ such that $`g=\overline{g}`$ and $`gf_k`$. There exists $`s`$ such that $`gf_s`$. Since $`f_k`$ has only two critical values, $`g`$ and $`f_s`$ have two critical values. Then $`s=k`$ or $`s=\overline{k}`$ ($`s=0`$ or $`s=1`$ gives a polynomial with non-isolated singularities). As $`f_kf_{\overline{k}}`$ we can choose $`s=k`$. As a consequence we have $`\mathrm{\Phi }Aut^2`$ such that $`g=f_k\mathrm{\Phi }.`$

Let $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ be $`\mathrm{\Phi }=(p,q).`$ Then $`g=pq(pq)(q1)(pkq)`$. As $`g=\overline{g}`$ we have :

$$\{p,q,pq,q1,pkq\}=\{\overline{p},\overline{q},\overline{p}\overline{q},\overline{q}1,\overline{p}\overline{k}\overline{q}\}.$$

Moreover by the configuration of the lines we have that $`q1=\overline{q}1`$. So $`q=\overline{q}`$. Hence $`q[x,y]`$. So

$$\{p,pq,pkq\}=\{\overline{p},\overline{p}\overline{q},\overline{p}\overline{k}\overline{q}\}.$$

Let suppose that $`p\overline{p}`$. Then $`p=\overline{p}q`$ or $`p=\overline{p}\overline{k}q`$. So $`p\overline{p}`$ equals $`q`$ or $`\overline{k}q`$. But $`p\overline{p}`$ has coefficients in $`i`$, which is not the case of $`q[x,y]`$ nor of $`\overline{k}q`$. Then $`p=\overline{p}`$. We have proved that $`\mathrm{\Phi }=(p,q)`$ has real coefficients. From $`g=f_k\mathrm{\Phi }`$ we get $`\overline{g}=\overline{f}_k\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}`$. So $`g=f_{\overline{k}}\mathrm{\Phi }`$. On the one hand $`f_k=g\mathrm{\Phi }^1`$ and on the other hand $`f_{\overline{k}}=g\mathrm{\Phi }^1`$. So $`f_k=f_{\overline{k}}`$, then $`k=\overline{k}`$ which is false. It ends the proof.

We could have end in the following way: $`\mathrm{\Phi }=(p,q)`$ is in $`Aut^2`$ with real coefficients, then $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$, considered as a real map, is in $`Aut^2`$ (see \[3, Theorem 2.1\] for example). Then $`f_k=g\mathrm{\Phi }^1`$ with $`g,\mathrm{\Phi }^1`$ with real coefficients, then $`f_k`$ has real coefficients which provides the contradiction.

## 6. Non connectivity

Let

$$f_s(x,y)=xy(y1)(x+y1)(xsy).$$

Let $`𝒞`$ be the roots of

$$s(s1)(s+1)(256s^4+736s^3+825s^2+736s+256)(256s^4+448s^3+789s^2+448s+256).$$

Then for $`s𝒞`$, $`f_s`$ verifies $`\mu =14`$, $`\mathrm{\#}_{\mathrm{𝑎𝑓𝑓}}=4`$ and $`_{\mathrm{}}=\mathrm{}`$. For $`s,s^{}𝒞`$, $`f_s`$ and $`f_s^{}`$ are topologically equivalent. The roots of $`256s^4+448s^3+789s^2+448s+256`$ are of the form $`\{k,\overline{k},1/k,1/\overline{k}\}.`$ The polynomials $`f_k`$ and $`f_{\overline{k}}`$ verify $`\mu =14`$, but $`\mathrm{\#}_{\mathrm{𝑎𝑓𝑓}}=3`$. Then such a polynomial is not topologically equivalent to a generic one $`f_s`$, $`s𝒞`$

###### Theorem B.

The polynomials $`f_k`$ and $`f_{\overline{k}}`$ are topologically equivalent and it is not possible to find a continuous family $`(g_t)_{t[0,1]}`$ such that $`g_0=f_k`$, $`g_1=f_{\overline{k}}`$ and $`g_tf_k`$ for all $`t[0,1]`$.

The polynomials $`f_k`$ and $`f_{\overline{k}}`$ are topologically equivalent since we have the formula $`f_{\overline{k}}(\overline{x},\overline{y})=\overline{f_k(x,y)}`$.

The two following lemmas are similar to lemmas 1 and 2.

###### Lemma 3.

The polynomials $`f_s`$ and $`f_s^{}`$ are algebraically equivalent if and only if $`s=s^{}`$ or $`s=1/s^{}`$.

###### Lemma 4.

Fix $`s`$ and let $`f`$ be a polynomial such that $`ff_s`$. Then there exists $`s^{}`$ such that $`ff_s^{}`$.

## 7.

We now prove theorem B. Let us suppose that such a family $`(g_t)`$ does exist. Then by lemma 4 for each $`t[0,1]`$ there exists $`s(t)`$ such that $`g_t`$ is algebraically equivalent to $`f_{s(t)}`$ (in fact there are two choices for $`s(t)`$). We can suppose that there exists $`\mathrm{\Phi }_tAut^2`$ such that $`f_{s(t)}=g_t\mathrm{\Phi }_t`$.

We now prove that the map $`t\mathrm{\Phi }_t`$ can be chosen continuous, that is to say the coefficients of the defining polynomials are continuous functions of $`t`$. We write $`g_t=A_tB_tG_t`$ such that $`A_0(x,y)=x`$, $`B_0(x,y)=y`$ and the maps $`tA_t`$, $`tB_t`$ are continuous. So the automorphism $`\mathrm{\Phi }_t^1`$ is defined by

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_t^1(x,y)=(A_t(x,y),B_t(x,y)).$$

By the inverse local theorem with parameter $`t`$, we have that $`t\mathrm{\Phi }_t`$ is a continuous function. Then the map $`tf_{s(t)}`$ is a continuous function, as the composition of two continuous functions. As $`s(t)`$ is a coefficient of the polynomial $`f_{s(t)}`$, the map $`ts(t)`$ is a continuous function.

As a conclusion we have a map $`ts(t)`$ which is continuous and such that $`s(0)=k`$ and $`s(1)=\overline{k}`$. It implies that there exists $`\tau ]0,1[`$ such that $`s(\tau )𝒞`$. On the one hand $`g_\tau `$ is algebraically, hence topologically, equivalent to $`f_{s(\tau )}`$; on the other hand $`g_\tau `$ is topologically equivalent to $`f_k`$ (by hypothesis). As $`s(\tau )𝒞`$, $`f_{s(\tau )}`$ and $`f_k`$ are not topologically equivalent (because $`\mathrm{\#}_{\mathrm{𝑎𝑓𝑓}}`$ are different), it provides a contradiction.

## 8.

The calculus have been done with the help of Singular, , and especially with author’s library critic described in .

This research has been done at the *Centre de Recerca Matemàtica* of Barcelona and was supported by a Marie Curie Individual Fellowship of the European Community (HPMF-CT-2001-01246).


text:
# Expansion of a dipolar condensate

## Abstract

We discuss the expansion of an initially trapped dipolar condensate. When the nominal isotropic s-wave interaction strength becomes tunable through a Feshbach resonance, anisotropic dipolar effects are shown to be detectable under current experimental conditions \[E. A. Donley et al., Nature 412, 295 (2001)\].

Atomic Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) are realized at extremely low temperatures bec ; mit ; rice , when short range atom-atom interaction can be described by a single parameter: the s-wave scattering length $`a_{\mathrm{sc}}`$. This is a valid approximation as all higher order partial wave collisions die away in a short range potential when the collision energy approaches zero. In more realistic models, however, even ground state atoms may be polarized such as in an external magnetic trap, when the direction of its spin (of the valence electron for alkali) becomes aligned. BEC with dipole-dipole interaction has attracted considerable attention in recent years yi1 ; goral1 ; santos ; yi2 ; goral2 ; pavel , and trapped fermionic dipoles have also been studied goral3 .

Despite the fact that dipolar interactions are now widely known to exist in a trapped BEC, it has not been directly detected yet. This is because the dipole interaction is much weaker than the contact interaction under most circumstances. Recently we studied the small amplitude shape oscillation of a dipolar condensate yi2 . When the s-wave scattering length $`a_{\mathrm{sc}}`$ is tuned near to zero as realizable in the 85Rb experiment cornish ; donley , we showed that the anisotropic dipolar effect becomes detectable under current experimental conditions.

The free expansion of an interacting condensate after its sudden release from the trap is now a standard diagnostic tool in BEC physics castin ; holland . It has also been extended to the case of an interacting Fermi gas menotti . In this paper, we investigate the free expansion of a dipolar condensate goral3 . Our results show that this may also lead to the experimental detection of dipolar interactions. This paper is organized as follows; First we briefly review the formulation for a dipolar BEC; we then discuss our study of its expansion with both variational and numerical methods. We will subsequently concentrate on a detailed study for situations corresponding to the 85Rb experiment donley . Then we conclude with some new results on the shape and stability of a dipolar condensate.

For simplicity, we study a trapped dipolar BEC assuming all atomic dipole moments are equal and aligned along the z-axis. The atom-atom interaction is then simplified to be

$`V(\stackrel{}{R})=g_0\delta (\stackrel{}{R})+g_2{\displaystyle \frac{13\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _R}{R^3}}`$ (1)
where $`\stackrel{}{R}=\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}^{}`$, $`\theta _R`$ is the polar angle of $`\stackrel{}{R}`$, $`g_0=4\pi \mathrm{}^2a_{\mathrm{sc}}/M`$ representing the contact interaction, and in atomic units $`g_2=\alpha ^2(0)^2`$ ($`\alpha (0)`$ atomic polarizability) or $`\mu ^2`$ ($`\mu `$ magnetic dipole moment). The corresponding Gross-Pitaevskii equation (in adimensional form) is then

$`i\dot{\psi }(\stackrel{}{r})`$ $`=`$ $`[{\displaystyle \frac{^2}{2}}+V_{\mathrm{ext}}(\stackrel{}{r})+\sqrt{(2\pi )^3}P_0|\psi (\stackrel{}{r})|^2`$ (2)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}\sqrt{2\pi }P_2{\displaystyle }d\stackrel{}{r}^{}{\displaystyle \frac{13\mathrm{cos}^2\theta }{R^3}}|\psi (\stackrel{}{r}^{})|^2]\psi (\stackrel{}{r}),`$
where $`\psi (\stackrel{}{r})`$ is the condensate wave function (normalized to $`1`$) and a cylindrical symmetric harmonic trap in dimensionless unit $`V_{\mathrm{ext}}(\stackrel{}{r})=(x^2+y^2+\lambda ^2z^2)/2`$, with an aspect ratio $`\lambda `$. The length unit is $`a_{}=\sqrt{\mathrm{}/M\omega _{}}`$ and energies are measured in units of $`\mathrm{}\omega _{}`$ ($`\omega _{}`$ is the radial frequency of the trap). $`P_0=\sqrt{2\pi }Na_{\mathrm{sc}}/a_{}`$ measures the contact interaction strength while $`P_2=\sqrt{2\pi }Ng_2/(3\mathrm{}\omega _{}a_{}^3)`$ denotes the strength of the dipole-dipole interaction. The ground state wave function of a dipolar condensate can be found by replacing the lhs of Eq. (2) with $`\mu \psi `$, where $`\mu `$ is the chemical potential.

To proceed with the study of the condensate free expansion; we can solve the Eq. (2) numerically. We initialize the wave function to the self-consistently solved ground state in the presence of the trap $`V_{\mathrm{ext}}`$, then find the time evolved wavefunction from the Eq. (2) by employing a self-adaptive Runge-Kutta method without the $`V_{\mathrm{ext}}`$. In practice, this becomes an expansive calculation as we we have to use a rather large spatial grid to accommodate the ever-expanding wave function and to obtain sufficient accuracy. We find that it is necessary to check the accuracy of solutions repeatedly on different sized grids.

Alternatively, the variational approach as developed earlier yi2  can be used. In this case, we assume that the wave function always takes the form of a Gaussian, and transform the Equation (2) into the following equations for variational parameters

$`\ddot{q}_r+q_r`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{q_r^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{q_r^3q_z}}[P_2f(\kappa )P_0],`$ (3)
$`\ddot{q}_z+\lambda ^2q_z`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{q_z^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{q_r^2q_z^2}}[P_2g(\kappa )P_0],`$ (4)
which in fact represent the radial and axial condensate widths of the expanding condensate as $`q_r=\sqrt{x^2/2}=\sqrt{y^2/2}`$ and $`q_z=\sqrt{z^2/2}`$. $`\kappa =q_r/q_z`$ is the condensate aspect ratio, generally different from the trap aspect ratio $`\lambda `$, and $`f(\kappa )=[4\kappa ^47\kappa ^2+2+9\kappa ^4H(\kappa )]/2(\kappa ^21)^2`$, $`g(\kappa )=[2\kappa ^4+10\kappa ^2+19\kappa ^2H(\kappa )]/(\kappa ^21)^2`$ with $`H(\kappa )=\mathrm{tanh}^1\sqrt{1\kappa ^2}/\sqrt{1\kappa ^2}`$. The kinetic and interaction energy per atom can then be expressed in terms of condensate widths according to

$`E_{\mathrm{kin}}`$ $`=`$ $`E_{\mathrm{kin}}^{(r)}+E_{\mathrm{kin}}^{(z)}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{q_r^2}}+\dot{q_r}^2)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{q_z^2}}+\dot{q_z}^2),`$
$`E_{\mathrm{int}}`$ $`=`$ $`E_{\mathrm{sc}}+E_{\mathrm{dd}}`$ (5)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{P_0}{2q_r^2q_z}}+P_2{\displaystyle \frac{2\kappa ^2+13\kappa ^2H(\kappa )}{2q_r^2q_z(\kappa ^21)}}.`$
The validity of the variational solution has been checked thoroughly for the frequencies of condensate small amplitude shape oscillations santos ; yi2 . We have checked over a wide range of parameters before concluding that it is also justified for use in the free expansion problem. This enabled us tremendous freedom in exploring the expansion dynamics without resorting to the time consuming numerical solutions. Figure 1 shows the time dependence of condensate widths and energy components assuming $`\lambda =2`$ and $`P_0=P_2=10`$. We see that the variational approach indeed gives a very good approximation to the numerical calculations. This result is also confirmed for $`\lambda `$ from $`0.1`$ to $`3`$.

The time dependent behavior of the energy components is rather interesting. As shown in Fig. 2, irrespective of the initial signs of the overall dipole interaction energy, it always approaches zero asymptotically during the expansion. In the early stages, however, its behavior depends on trap geometry due to the anisotropic nature of the interaction. For small $`\lambda `$, the initial dipole-dipole interaction energy is negative; during the expansion, it always gains energy from the kinetic energy and approaches zero monotonically. For large $`\lambda `$ when the initial dipole-dipole interaction energy is positive, the condensate first releases its interaction energy until $`E_{\mathrm{dd}}`$ becomes negative, then gains energy and finally approaches zero.

The effects of dipolar interaction on the kinetic energies are rather simple. We find that, independent of $`\lambda `$, the dipolar interaction always decreases $`E_{\mathrm{kin}}^{(r)}`$ while increases $`E_{\mathrm{kin}}^{(z)}`$ with time, i.e., the dipole-dipole interaction causes the transfer of radial kinetic energy into the axial direction. This phenomenon is observed even when $`P_00`$. This result contradicts intuition, because along the z-axis, the dipole-dipole interaction is attractive, one would expect that the $`E_{\mathrm{kin}}^{(z)}`$ would decrease with time because the atoms are being slowed down due to the dipolar attraction. To resolve this puzzle, we note that the kinetic energy along radial or axial directions each has two parts: one from the gradient of the wave function ($`1/2q_r^2`$) which decreases with time, and the other from the expanding gas ($`\dot{q}^2/2`$) which increases with time. This observed phenomena shows that in the radial direction the increase of the kinetic energy due to $`\dot{q}_r^2/2`$ cannot compensate for the decrease due to $`1/2q_r^2`$. Similarly, we can understand the net increase of kinetic energy along the axial direction.

For the remainder of this paper, we will focus our studies on 85Rb condensate as in the JILA experiment cornish ; donley , where the tuning of the scattering length has been demonstrated in a remarkable fashion utilizing the Feshbach resonance. In this case, the magnetic dipole moment of the trapped state $`|F=2,M_F=2`$ is $`\mu =2\mu _B/3`$ ($`\mu _B`$ is the Bohr magneton). We adopt the radial frequency $`\omega _{}=2\pi \times 17.35`$ (Hz) as from the experiment cornish ; donley  and assume that the asymmetric parameter $`\lambda `$ can be adjusted. The resulting dipolar interaction strength is $`P_2=5.0\times 10^6N`$.

The release energy $`E_{\mathrm{rel}}=E_{\mathrm{kin}}+E_{\mathrm{int}}`$ is the total energy of the condensate after switching off the trapping potential. It’s values can be strongly affected by the atom-atom interaction. For non-interacting atoms, the release energy per atom $`E_{\mathrm{rel}}^0=(1+\lambda /2)/2`$, is independent of the atom number. For interacting atoms, it depends on the total number of atoms since both $`P_0`$ and $`P_2`$ are proportional to $`N`$. If the interaction is repulsive, the release energy per atom always increases with $`N`$. For attractive interaction, the release energy always decreases (increases) with $`N`$ if $`N`$ is above (below) some critical value. Depending on the geometry of the trapping potential, the overall dipole-dipole interaction can be either repulsive or attractive, and the release energy also shows different behaviors for different trapping potentials.

In the upper panel of Fig. 3, we present the atom number dependence of the release energy for $`\lambda =3`$. Since the dipole-dipole interaction is predominately repulsive in this case, the release energy increases with $`N`$. In the lower panel for $`\lambda =6.8/17.35`$, when $`P_0=0`$ (solid line), the release energy decreases with $`N`$. We find that this behavior holds even for a very small positive scattering length as shown in Fig. 3. As one might have expected, only for very small values of the s-wave scattering length, are the effects of dipole-dipole interaction important.

The dipolar interaction can also change the condensate aspect ratio. To quantify this effect, we use the relative difference of the (ground state) condensate aspect ratio

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_\kappa ={\displaystyle \frac{|\kappa (P_20)\kappa (P_2=0)|}{\kappa (P_2=0)}}.`$ (6)
In Fig. 4 (a), we plot the numerical results of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\kappa (P_0=0,P_2)`$ for various values of $`\lambda `$. We see that the relative differences can become as high as 30% for a wide range of trap aspect ratio $`\lambda `$. An experimental measurement of these differences will represent a direct detection of dipolar effects, although the following technical difficulty remains; The condensates produced in current 85Rb experiments donley  contain rather small number of atoms that a in-situ direct optical imaging is very challenging. The free expansion as discussed in this paper, leads to larger condensate sizes as shown in Fig. 1, thus allowing for easier imaging of condensate aspect ratios. We find that the condensate aspect ratio changes during the expansion and eventually approaches a constant value, which we call the asymptotical aspect ratio. Not surprisingly, this asymptotical aspect ratio also depends on the dipole-dipole interaction. In Fig. 4 (b), we present the $`\lambda `$ dependence of the relative change of the asymptotical condensate ratios for various values of $`N`$. We see that for carefully chosen parameters $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\kappa (P_0=0,P_2)`$ can become large enough to be observed experimentally.

Finally, as already studied extensively before, the partially attractive nature of the dipole-dipole interaction can destabilize the condensate ground state in traps with small values of $`\lambda `$ ($`<5.2`$) yi1 ; santos . The stability coefficient $`k=N_{cr}|a_{\mathrm{sc}}|/a_{\mathrm{ho}}`$ (with $`a_{\mathrm{ho}}=\sqrt{\mathrm{}/m\overline{\omega }}`$ and $`\overline{\omega }=(\omega _x\omega _y\omega _z)^{1/3}`$) is frequently used to measure the stability of a condensate gammal . In Fig. 5, we plot the $`\lambda `$ dependence of $`k`$ for various scattering lengths as obtained from variational study. We see that for a small negative scattering length, the dipole-dipole interaction changes the $`k`$ value dramatically, another signature for directly detecting the dipolar interaction.

In conclusion, we have studied the free expansion of a dipolar condensate. We have shown that the weak dipole-dipole interaction may become detectable through several observations, of which the measurement of the condensate aspect ratio after an expansion period seems the most promising. We also discussed briefly the effects of the dipolar interaction on destabilizing the condensate when the nominal s-wave scattering is tuned close to zero, a situation close to the recent experimental measurement of $`k`$ in 85Rb condensates roberts .

We thank Dr. Raman for insightful discussions. This work is supported by the NSF grant No. PHYS-0140073.