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# The Bogoliubov Theory of a BEC in Particle Representation

## I  Introduction

Experimental realization of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in trapped alkali atoms triggered feverish activity in cold atom physics nobel . Recent development of experimental techniques in trapping and cooling of dilute atomic gases allows for preparation, manipulation and control of a condensate in various states and various trapping potentials. For instance, excitation of a condensate to vortex and solitonic states became possible vor-sol-exp . Cold atoms are also becoming a convenient toy system to study solid state physics. For example, cold atoms trapped in an optical lattice potential undergo quantum phase transition to Mott insulator phase when the barrier between minima of the lattice potential is increased Hansch ; Kasevich .

Theoretical description of a many body system is a challenge to physicists. At low temperature our understanding of BEC is usually based on a mean field approximation within the Gross-Pitaievskii equation (GPE) GPE . GPE provides satisfactory experimental predictions when depletion of a condensate, induced by interactions between atoms, is negligible. In order to describe these quantum fluctuations around the condensate in a systematic way one can use the Bogoliubov theory of BEC. The key idea of the original Bogoliubov theory BT  is the $`U(1)`$ symmetry breaking approach where the atomic field operator is assumed to have a nonzero expectation value. This coherent state necessarily involves superposition of states with different numbers of atoms, an assumption very far from experimental reality.

A number-conserving Bogoliubov theory has been introduced in gardiner ; castin . While taking into account a finite number of atoms in a condensate, this theory represents eigenstates of the Bogoliubov Hamiltonian as Fock states with well defined numbers of Bogoliubov quasiparticles in all Bogoliubov modes. In this quasiparticle representation it is possible, and even pleasant, to calculate a single particle density matrix. However, higher order correlators are increasingly more painfull to get. For all practical purposes in the quasiparticle representation the multiparticle correlations remain hidden. The single particle density function carries very limited information about a many-body system, as is best illustrated by an example considered by Javanainen and Yoo java . They simulated a measurement of atom density distribution in an atomic Fock state $`|N,N`$ (it is a model counterpart of an experiment with interference of two separate BECs interference ). With two counter-propagating plane waves as the two modes in the Fock state the single particle density function gives uniform density distribution. However, sampling of the many-body probability density shows that each realization of the experiment reveals an interference pattern. Only after averaging over many realizations one gets the uniform density distribution predicted from the single particle density function.

It seems thus crucial to understand the structure of a condensate multiparticle wavefunction especially when the number of non-condensed atoms becomes considerable and may play a significant role in an outcome of a measurement. In this paper we derive an expression for Bogoliubov eigenstates in particle representation i.e. as superpositions over Fock states with well defined numbers of particles (atoms) in a condensate and non-condensate single particle states. For example, the state without any quasiparticles (Bogoliubov vacuum) has a pair-correlated form

$$\left(\widehat{a}_0^{}\widehat{a}_0^{}+\underset{m>0}{}\lambda _m\widehat{a}_m^{}\widehat{a}_m^{}\right)^{\frac{N}{2}}|0,$$

where the index $`m`$ runs over a basis of modes $`\varphi _m(x)`$ orthogonal to the condensate wavefunction $`\varphi _0(x)`$. This pair-correlated ansatz has been proposed in a review by Leggett rmp , but (except for a homogeneous condensate rmp ) the eigenvalues $`\lambda _m`$ and the eigenmodes $`\varphi _m`$ remain unknown. In this paper we construct a simple relationship between these eigenmodes/eigenvalues and the elementary Bogoliubov excitations of the system for a general inhomogeneous condensate which is of current experimental interest. The pair correlated vacuum state is a foundation on which one can build the theory of BEC entirely in terms of $`N`$-particle wavefunctions.

The paper is organized as follows. In Section II we briefly summarize the number-conserving Bogoliubov theory introduced by Castin and Dum castin  for a system with a finite number of particles. In Section III we derive the particle representation of the Bogoliubov eigenstates. In Sections IV,V,VI we illustrate the particle representation with a series of examples: a double well, a triple well, and a condensate in a harmonic potential. We conclude in Section VII.

## II  Bogoliubov theory with a finite number of particles

The original Bogoliubov theory (BT) BT  was build around the concept of spontaneous symmetry breaking: the field annihilation operator $`\widehat{\psi }`$ acquires a large nonzero expectation value, $`\widehat{\psi }(\stackrel{}{x})=\varphi _0(\stackrel{}{x})`$. This nonzero mean is sometimes regarded as a symptom of Bose-Einstein condensation. The original BT is build by expansion in small quantum fluctuations around this large mean, $`\widehat{\psi }(\stackrel{}{x})=\varphi _0(\stackrel{}{x})+\delta \widehat{\psi }(\stackrel{}{x})`$. This method has to be used with a lot of care. For example, careful application of the BT leads to the divergence of the quantum fluctuations that is interpreted as a quantum phase spreading of the condensate lew96 . In the original spontaneous symmetry breaking approach the condensate state is not a stationary state because for $`\widehat{\psi }(\stackrel{}{x})0`$ the number of particles is not well defined and states with different numbers of atoms have different energies. A self-consistent version of the Bogoliubov theory, which explicitly takes into account that there is a well defined number of atoms in a trap, was put forward in Ref. gardiner  and independently by Castin and Dum castin . In the present section we briefly summarize the latter results.

In the formalism of Ref. castin  it is assumed that most atoms are condensed, i.e. they occupy the same condensate wavefunction $`\varphi _0(\stackrel{}{x})`$. To the leading order the state of the system is a Fock state

$$|\varphi _0:N,$$
(1)
with all $`N`$ atoms in the condensate wavefunction $`\varphi _0`$. In this Fock state

$$\varphi _0:N|\widehat{\psi }|\varphi _0:N=0,$$
(2)
as expected for any state with a well defined number of atoms. Fluctuations around such a perfect condensate are calculated with the help of an expansion

$$\widehat{\psi }(\stackrel{}{x})=\widehat{a}_0\varphi _0(\stackrel{}{x})+\delta \widehat{\psi }(\stackrel{}{x}).$$
(3)
Here $`\widehat{a}_0`$ annihilates atoms in the condensate wavefunction $`\varphi _0`$ while the fluctuation operator $`\delta \widehat{\psi }`$ annihilates in all modes orthogonal to the condensate. To make sure that the $`\varphi _0`$ in Eq.(3) is indeed the condensate wavefunction it is further assumed that there is no coherence between the condensed and non-condensed parts,

$$\widehat{a}_0^{}\delta \widehat{\psi }=0.$$
(4)
This constraint ensures that $`\varphi _0`$ is an eigenstate of the one-body density operator.

Perturbative expansion. — The theory is build by expansion in powers of the “small” $`\delta \widehat{\psi }`$. This operator is “small” when density of depleted (non-condensed) atoms is small as compared to density of the condensate, $`\delta \widehat{\psi }^{}(\stackrel{}{x})\delta \widehat{\psi }(\stackrel{}{x})N|\varphi _0(\stackrel{}{x})|^2`$.

In dimensionless units a Hamiltonian for $`N`$ interacting atoms in a trapping potential $`V(\stackrel{}{x})`$ is

$$H=𝑑\stackrel{}{x}\left[\frac{1}{2}\widehat{\psi }^{}\widehat{\psi }+V(\stackrel{}{x})\widehat{\psi }^{}\widehat{\psi }+\frac{g}{2}\widehat{\psi }^{}\widehat{\psi }^{}\widehat{\psi }\widehat{\psi }\right],$$
(5)
where $`g`$ is proportional to the $`s`$-wave scattering length. The Hamiltonian (5) is expanded in powers of $`\delta \widehat{\psi }`$.

To zero order in $`\delta \widehat{\psi }`$ the $`\varphi _0`$ satisfies a stationary GPE

$$\frac{1}{2}^2\varphi _0+V(\stackrel{}{x})\varphi _0+Ng_0|\varphi _0|^2\varphi _0=\mu \varphi _0.$$
(6)
For a $`\varphi _0`$ that solves the GPE the first order term in the expansion of the Hamiltonian (5) in powers of $`\delta \widehat{\psi }`$ is zero. For small depletion (small number of atoms depleted from the condensate wavefunction) and $`N1`$ the second order term can be approximately expressed in terms of a number-conserving operator

$$\widehat{\mathrm{\Lambda }}(\stackrel{}{x})=\frac{1}{N^{1/2}}a_0^{}\delta \widehat{\psi }(\stackrel{}{x}).$$
(7)
As an example of this approximation take a term

$`2g\delta \widehat{\psi }^{}\varphi _0^{}\widehat{a}_0^{}\varphi _0\widehat{a}_0\delta \widehat{\psi }=`$
$`2gN|\varphi _0|^2{\displaystyle \frac{\delta \widehat{\psi }^{}\widehat{a}_0^{}\widehat{a}_0\delta \widehat{\psi }}{N}}=`$
$`2gN|\varphi _0|^2\widehat{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^{}\widehat{\mathrm{\Lambda }}2gN|\varphi _0|^2{\displaystyle \frac{\delta \widehat{\psi }^{}\delta \widehat{\psi }}{N}}`$
$`2gN|\varphi _0|^2\widehat{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^{}\widehat{\mathrm{\Lambda }}.`$ (8)
The last approximate equality is justified for small depletion.

After all such approximations the second order term in the expansion of the Hamiltonian becomes

$`H_2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle d^3\stackrel{}{x}(\mathrm{\Lambda }^{},\mathrm{\Lambda })\left(\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{\Lambda }\\ \mathrm{\Lambda }^{}\end{array}\right)},`$ (11)
where

$$=\left(\begin{array}{cc}H_{GP}+gN\widehat{Q}|\varphi _0|^2\widehat{Q}& gN\widehat{Q}\varphi _0^2\widehat{Q}^{}\\ gN\widehat{Q}^{}\varphi _0^2\widehat{Q}& \left[H_{GP}gN\widehat{Q}|\varphi _0|^2\widehat{Q}\right]^{}\end{array}\right),$$
(12)
and

$$H_{GP}=\frac{1}{2}^2+V(\stackrel{}{x})+Ng_0|\varphi _0|^2.$$
(13)
Here $`\widehat{Q}`$ is a projection operator on the subspace orthogonal to $`\varphi _0`$,

$$\widehat{Q}=1\varphi _0\varphi _0|.$$
(14)
Bogoliubov modes. — In order to diagonalize $``$ one can first solve the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}^2U_m+V(\stackrel{}{x})U_m+2g|\varphi _0|^2U_m+g\varphi _0^2V_m=`$
$`\mu U_m+\omega _mU_m,`$ (15)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}^2V_m+V(\stackrel{}{x})V_m+2g|\varphi _0|^2V_m+g(\varphi _0^{})^2U_m=`$
$`\mu V_m\omega _mV_m.`$ (16)
The eigenmodes of $``$ are

$`u_m=\widehat{Q}U_m,v_m=\widehat{Q}V_m.`$ (17)
This projection is necessary because the operator $``$ in Eq.(12) is different from the differential operator in Eq.(15). $`H_2`$ is diagonalized by a Bogoliubov transformation

$$\widehat{\mathrm{\Lambda }}(\stackrel{}{x})=\underset{m}{}\widehat{b}_mu_m(\stackrel{}{x})+\widehat{b}_m^{}v_m^{}(\stackrel{}{x}).$$
(18)
Given the normalization conditions

$$u_m|u_m^{}v_m|v_m^{}=\delta _{mm^{}},$$
(19)
$`\widehat{b}_m`$’s satisfy bosonic commutation relations

$$[\widehat{b}_m,\widehat{b}_m^{}^{}]=\delta _{mm^{}}\mathrm{and}[\widehat{b}_m,\widehat{b}_m^{}]=0.$$
(20)
These commutation relations are valid in the present order of the expansion i.e. for small depletion. The $`\widehat{b}_m^{}`$ ($`\widehat{b}_m`$) operators create (annihilate) quasiparticles. The diagonalized $`H_2`$ is a sum over harmonic oscillators

$$H_\mathrm{B}=\underset{m}{}\omega _m\widehat{b}_m^{}\widehat{b}_m.$$
(21)
Equations (20,21) define the BT in the quasiparticle representation.

The Bogoliubov vacuum is an eigenstate of $`H_\mathrm{B}`$ without any quasiparticles

$$\widehat{b}_m|0_b=0,\text{for all}m.$$
(22)
In Section III we derive the particle representation of $`|0_b`$ state and other Bogoliubov eigenstates (i.e. the states that are a result of action of the creation operators $`\widehat{b}_m^{}`$ on the Bogoliubov vacuum).

## III  Bogoliubov eigenstates in particle representation

For small depletion the approximate Hamiltonian is a sum of harmonic oscillators, see Eq.(21). The eigenstate of the Hamiltonian (21) without any quasiparticles is the Bogoliubov vacuum, compare Eq.(22). The formal solution for $`|0_b`$ in the quasiparticle representation is not suitable for any analysis of the structure of the eigenstate like e.g. comparison with exact diagonalization for model systems. In the following we give an expression for the Bogoliubov eigenstates in the particle representation. It allows one to investigate how atoms are depleted from the condensate wavefunction when strength of interaction between particles increases.

$`\widehat{b}`$’s in terms of $`a`$’s. — Using the expansion in Eq.(18) and the orthogonality relations in Eq.(19) we can express $`\widehat{b}`$’s in terms of $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Lambda }}`$,

$$\widehat{b}_m=u_m|\widehat{\mathrm{\Lambda }}v_m|\widehat{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^{}.$$

With definitions

$`\widehat{u}_mu_m|\delta \widehat{\psi },`$
$`\widehat{v}_m^{}v_m|\delta \widehat{\psi }^{}.`$ (23)
and Eq.(7) we get the nonlinear Bogoliubov transformation

$$\widehat{b}_m=\frac{1}{N^{1/2}}\left(\widehat{a}_0^{}\widehat{u}_m\widehat{a}_0\widehat{v}_m^{}\right).$$
(24)
$`\widehat{a}_0`$ annihilates particles in the condensate, while $`\widehat{u}_m`$ and $`\widehat{v}_m`$ annihilate in the modes $`u_m(\stackrel{}{x})`$ and $`v_m(\stackrel{}{x})`$ which by construction are orthogonal to the condensate wavefunction $`\varphi _0(\stackrel{}{x})`$.

We note that the right hand side of the Bogoliubov transformation (24) between quasiparticles and particles is nonlinear in particle operators. This nonlinearity is necessary to conserve the total number of atoms. We will effectively invert this nonlinear transformation when the total number of particles $`N`$ is even.

The finite $`N`$ Bogoliubov vacuum $`|\mathrm{𝟎}_𝐛:𝐍`$. — To write $`|0_b`$ in particle representation we need a particle operator $`\widehat{d}^{}`$ that commutes with all quasiparticle annihilation operators $`\widehat{b}_m`$,

$$[\widehat{b}_m,\widehat{d}^{}]=0,\text{ for all}m.$$
(25)
It turns out that a two particle operator of the form

$$\widehat{d}=\widehat{a}_0\widehat{a}_0+\underset{k,l0}{}Z_{kl}\widehat{\stackrel{~}{a}}_k\widehat{\stackrel{~}{a}}_l$$
(26)
is the smallest particle number solution of Eqs.(25). The double summation in the definition of $`\widehat{d}`$ in Eq.(26) runs over an orthonormal basis $`\{\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_1(\stackrel{}{x}),\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_2(\stackrel{}{x}),\mathrm{}\}`$ in the subspace orthogonal to the condensate wavefunction $`\varphi _0(\stackrel{}{x})`$. With the vanishing commutator in Eq.(25) and for an even number of atoms $`N`$ we can write down Bogoliubov vacuum in the form

$$|0_b:N(\widehat{d}^{})^{\frac{N}{2}}|0,$$
(27)
which is annihilated by every $`\widehat{b}_m`$, $`\widehat{b}_m|0_b:N=0`$. This particle representation of $`|0_b`$ has a finite and well defined number of particles $`N`$.

Excited states of the Hamiltonian (21) are created from $`|0_b:N`$ by application of the quasiparticle creation operators

$$\widehat{b}_m^{}=\frac{1}{N^{1/2}}\left(\widehat{a}_0\widehat{u}_m^{}\widehat{a}_0^{}\widehat{v}_m\right).$$
(28)
Equation (27) gives particle representation of the Bogoliubov vacuum for even $`N`$. For an odd N there is no $`N`$-particle state annihilated by $`\widehat{b}_m`$’s in Eq. (24). This is easy to check for $`N=1`$. The ground state of the Bogoliubov Hamiltonian is not annihilated by $`\widehat{b}_m`$’s. This is a direct consequence of the fact that $`\widehat{b}_m`$’s are only approximate bosonic operators: the bosonic commutation relations (20) are fulfilled only approximately when depletion is small. For large $`N`$ there is no significant difference between $`N`$ and $`N+1`$ so one may apply the results of an even particle system to an odd one. In the following we will illustrate this problem with an exactly solvable example.

Solution for the matrix $`𝐙`$. — To get an explicit $`|0_b:N`$ we must solve the condition (25) with respect to $`Z_{kl}`$

$`0=[\widehat{b}_m,\widehat{d}^{}]=`$ (29)
$`[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N^{1/2}}}\left(\widehat{a}_0^{}\widehat{u}_m\widehat{a}_0\widehat{v}_m^{}\right),\widehat{a}_0^{}\widehat{a}_0^{}+{\displaystyle \underset{k,l0}{}}Z_{kl}\widehat{\stackrel{~}{a}}_k^{}\widehat{\stackrel{~}{a}}_l^{}]=`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{a}_0^{}}{N^{1/2}}}\left\{2\widehat{v}_m^{}+{\displaystyle \underset{k,l0}{}}Z_{kl}\left([\widehat{u}_m,\widehat{\stackrel{~}{a}}_k^{}]\widehat{\stackrel{~}{a}}_l^{}+[\widehat{u}_m,\widehat{\stackrel{~}{a}}_l^{}]\widehat{\stackrel{~}{a}}_k^{}\right)\right\}.`$
It is convenient to define matrices $`U`$ and $`V`$,

$`[\widehat{u}_m,\widehat{\stackrel{~}{a}}_k^{}]=u_m|\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_kU_{mk},`$ (30)
$`\widehat{v}_m^{}V_{mk}\widehat{\stackrel{~}{a}}_k^{}.`$ (31)
Using the completeness of the basis $`\{\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_1,\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_2,\mathrm{}\}`$ we rewrite the last line of Eq.(29) as a matrix equation

$$V=UZ.$$
(32)
When $`u_m`$’s make a complete basis in the subspace orthogonal to $`\varphi _0`$, then $`U_{mk}`$ is an invertible matrix, and we get

$$Z=U^1V.$$
(33)
The choice of the actual basis $`\{\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_1,\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_2,\mathrm{}\}`$ is in principle arbitrary.

Diagonalization of $`𝐙`$. — We note that the matrix $`Z`$ introduced in Eq.(26) is symmetric

$$Z=Z^T.$$
(34)
Under an additional assumption that $`Z`$ is real,

$$Z=Z^{},$$
(35)
the matrix $`Z`$ can be diagonalized in an orthonormal eigenbasis $`\{\varphi _1,\varphi _2,\mathrm{}\}`$ with real eigenvalues $`\lambda _k`$, and annihilation operators $`\{\widehat{a}_1,\widehat{a}_2,\mathrm{}\}`$,

$$\widehat{d}=\widehat{a}_0^2+\underset{k0}{}\lambda _k\widehat{a}_k^2.$$
(36)
The diagonal $`\widehat{d}`$ gives the finite-$`N`$ Bogoliubov vacuum in particle representation in the form, see Eq.(27),

$`|0_b:N`$ $``$ $`(\widehat{d}^{})^{\frac{N}{2}}|0`$ (37)
$`{\displaystyle \underset{n_0,n_1,\mathrm{}=0}{\overset{N/2}{}}}`$ $`\delta _{N,2n_0+\mathrm{}+2n_M}{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{(2n_0)!\mathrm{}(2n_M)!}}{n_0!\mathrm{}n_M!}}\times `$
$`\lambda _1^{n_1}\mathrm{}\lambda _M^{n_M}|2n_0,\mathrm{},2n_M.`$
Here for the sake of convenience we truncate to $`M`$ Bogoliubov modes. The ket $`|2n_0,2n_1,\mathrm{},2n_M`$ is a Fock state with $`2n_0,2n_1,\mathrm{},2n_M`$ particles in the eigenbasis $`\{\varphi _0,\varphi _1,\mathrm{},\varphi _M\}`$. When necessary the particle representation (37) can be translated into an $`N`$-particle wavefunction.

As we can see in Eq.(37), every eigenmode can be occupied only by an even number of particles. Particles are depleted from the condensate in pairs ($`2n_1+\mathrm{}+2n_M`$ is even), and every non-condensate eigenmode $`\varphi _k`$ can be occupied only by an even number of atoms.

Single particle density matrix.— The eigenstates $`\{\varphi _0,\varphi _1,\mathrm{}\}`$ of the matrix $`Z`$ turn out to be also eigenstates of the single particle density matrix,

$`\rho ^{(1)}(x,y)0_b:N|\widehat{\psi }^{}(x)\widehat{\psi }(y)|0_b:N=`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}0_b:N|\widehat{a}_k^{}\widehat{a}_k|0_b:N\varphi _k^{}(x)\varphi _k(y)`$ (38)
Off-diagonal elements vanish thanks to the even occupation numbers in the state (37). Eq.(38) provides a familiar interpretation of the eigenmodes $`\{\varphi _0,\varphi _1,\mathrm{}\}`$.

The next Section opens our series of examples.

## IV  Double Well

Let us put $`N`$ atoms in a double well potential. In the tight binding approximation, when we restrict only to the Hilbert space spanned by the ground states in each well, this system is described by a boson Hubbard model

$$H_{2\mathrm{W}}=\mathrm{\Omega }\left(\widehat{c}_1^{}\widehat{c}_2+\widehat{c}_2^{}\widehat{c}_1\right)+\frac{1}{2}\underset{j=1,2}{}\widehat{n}_j(\widehat{n}_j1).$$
(39)
Here $`\widehat{n}_j=\widehat{c}_j^{}\widehat{c}_j`$ for $`j=1,2`$ is an operator of the number of atoms in the $`j`$-th well. The $`\widehat{n}_j(\widehat{n}_j1)`$ terms describe repulsive interactions between atoms in each well. The first term in the Hamiltonian is responsible for tunneling between different wells. All units were rescaled so that the only dimensionless parameter is the tunneling rate $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$.

On the level of the GPE this system is described by a condensate wavefunction which is a vector of two complex amplitudes,

$$\varphi _0=(\varphi _{0,1},\varphi _{0,2}),$$
(40)
one amplitude for each well. Solution of the GPE for the ground state results in a symmetric state

$$\varphi _0=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(1,1).$$
(41)
Atoms in this condensate are annihilated by

$$\widehat{a}_0=\frac{\widehat{c}_1+\widehat{c}_2}{\sqrt{2}}.$$
(42)
The only mode orthogonal to $`\varphi _0`$ is

$$\varphi _1=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(1,1),$$
(43)
with an annihilation operator

$$\widehat{a}_1=\frac{\widehat{c}_1\widehat{c}_2}{\sqrt{2}}.$$
(44)
The double well system has been studied theoretically Javanainen  and its multiwell generalizations were a subject of recent experiments Kasevich . The ground state properties of this system are well known. In the regime of $`\mathrm{\Omega }N`$ the ground state is a quasi-coherent state

$$\left(\widehat{c}_1^{}+\widehat{c}_2^{}\right)^N|0\left(\widehat{a}_0^{}\right)^N|0,$$
(45)
where all $`N`$ atoms are in the same condensate wavefunction (41) and the number of depleted atoms $`N_1=\widehat{a}_1^{}\widehat{a}_1`$ is zero.

In the Mott insulator regime of $`N\mathrm{\Omega }1`$ the ground state is a Mott insulator,

$$\left(\widehat{c}_1^{}\right)^{\frac{N}{2}}\left(\widehat{c}_2^{}\right)^{\frac{N}{2}}|0.$$
(46)
This state is very far from the condensate (45), it has a huge fraction of depleted atoms $`\frac{\widehat{c}_1^{}\widehat{c}_1}{N}=\frac{1}{2}`$. One half of all atoms are depleted from the condensate wavefunction (41) predicted by the GPE.

Quasiparticle representation. — The Hubbard model (39) has been studied in the framework of the BT only very recently 2WBog . The Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations are

$`\mathrm{\Omega }(u_2u_1)+{\displaystyle \frac{N}{2}}(u_1+v_1)=+\omega u_1,`$
$`\mathrm{\Omega }(u_1u_2)+{\displaystyle \frac{N}{2}}(u_2+v_2)=+\omega u_2,`$
$`\mathrm{\Omega }(v_2v_1)+{\displaystyle \frac{N}{2}}(v_1+u_1)=\omega v_1,`$
$`\mathrm{\Omega }(v_1v_2)+{\displaystyle \frac{N}{2}}(v_2+u_2)=\omega v_2,`$ (47)
The index $`j=1,2`$ in $`u_j`$ and $`v_j`$ numbers a well. These equations give only one Bogoliubov mode orthogonal to the condensate $`\varphi _0`$

$`u={\displaystyle \frac{X}{\sqrt{X^21}}}\varphi _1,v={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{X^21}}}\varphi _1,`$ (48)
where

$$X=\left(1+\frac{4\mathrm{\Omega }}{N}\right)+\sqrt{\left(1+\frac{4\mathrm{\Omega }}{N}\right)^21}.$$
(49)
In the quasiparticle representation the number of depleted atoms in the Bogoliubov vacuum state is approximately given by castin

$`dN`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑x\delta \widehat{\psi }^{}\delta \widehat{\psi }}{\displaystyle 𝑑x\delta \widehat{\psi }^{}\widehat{a}_0\frac{1}{N}\widehat{a}_0^{}\delta \widehat{\psi }}`$ (50)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑x\widehat{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^{}\widehat{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}=v|v={\displaystyle \frac{1}{X^21}}.`$ (51)
The approximate equality is justified when the depletion is small and $`N1`$. This $`dN`$ is plotted with a dashed line in Fig.1. When $`\mathrm{\Omega }0`$, then the $`dN`$ diverges like $`dN\mathrm{\Omega }^{1/2}`$. As $`N`$ is finite, the divergence in $`dN`$ is unphysical. The divergence of $`dN`$ is not present when we calculate depletion directly from the Bogoliubov state in the particle representation.

Particle representation. — The operator $`\widehat{b}`$ for the Bogoliubov mode (48) is

$`\widehat{b}=u|\mathrm{\Lambda }v|\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}={\displaystyle \frac{X\widehat{a}_0^{}\widehat{a}_1+\widehat{a}_1^{}\widehat{a}_0}{\sqrt{N(X^21)}}}.`$ (52)
We look for a two-atom annihilation operator $`\widehat{d}\widehat{a}_0^2+\lambda _1\widehat{a}_1^2`$ such that $`\widehat{b}`$ commutes with $`\widehat{d}^{}`$, $`[\widehat{b},\widehat{d}^{}]=0`$. The solution is

$$\widehat{d}\widehat{a}_0^2\frac{\widehat{a}_1^2}{X}.$$
(53)
This operator defines the Bogoliubov vacuum in the particle representation

$$|0_b:N\left(\widehat{d}^{}\right)^{\frac{N}{2}}|0.$$
(54)
The number of depleted atoms in this state,

$$dN=0_b:N|\widehat{a}_1^{}\widehat{a}_1|0_b:N$$
(55)
is plotted with a dotted line in Fig.1. It compares surprisingly well with $`dN`$ in the exact ground state (solid line) even in the Mott insulator regime ($`N\mathrm{\Omega }1`$). In contrast, in the insulator regime the standard Bogoliubov theory (dashed line) gives an unphysically divergent $`dN`$.

In Fig. 2 we compare the Bogoliubov eigenstates with the exact ones in both weak and strong tunneling regimes. We find surprising agreement between both solutions that is present even in the Mott insulator regime. To see how the Bogoliubov vacuum smoothly interpolates between the quasi-coherent state (45) for large $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ (large $`X`$), and the Mott insulator (46) for small $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ ($`X1`$) it is convenient to rewrite Eq.(53) as a product of annihilation operators in two in general non-orthogonal modes,

$$d\left(\widehat{a}_0+\frac{\widehat{a}_1}{\sqrt{X}}\right)\left(\widehat{a}_0\frac{\widehat{a}_1}{\sqrt{X}}\right).$$
(56)
With this $`d`$ the Bogoliubov vacuum becomes a quasi-Fock state

$$|0_b:N\left(\widehat{a}_0^{}+\frac{\widehat{a}_1^{}}{\sqrt{X}}\right)^{\frac{N}{2}}\left(\widehat{a}_0^{}\frac{\widehat{a}_1^{}}{\sqrt{X}}\right)^{\frac{N}{2}}|0.$$
(57)
The two modes become the same for large $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ (large $`X`$), and they become orthogonal for $`\mathrm{\Omega }0`$ ($`X1`$). This quasi-Fock representation may be useful in any case when one can approximately truncate the Hilbert space to only one Bogoliubov mode. For the double well this truncation is exact.

In Fig. 3 we compare the first excited state of the double well system with the Bogoliubov eigenstate with one quasiparticle $`\widehat{b}^{}|0_b:N`$ for two values of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, one in the Mott insulator and the other in the superfluid regime. Like for the ground state we find surprisingly good agreement between the two states even in the Mott regime.

The surprising agreement between the Bogoliubov eigenstates and the exact eigenstates that we found even in the Mott insulator regime is rather an exception than a rule, as we show for a triple well system.

## V  Periodic Triple Well

The Bogoliubov theory applied to the double well potential turns out to be surprisingly good. In the present example it does not work so well and we can investigate how the Bogoliubov approximation stops working with increasing depletion from the condensate. The periodic triple well system is described by a boson Hubbard Hamiltonian

$$H_{3\mathrm{W}}=\mathrm{\Omega }\underset{i,j}{}\widehat{c}_i^{}\widehat{c}_j+\frac{1}{2}\underset{j=1}{\overset{3}{}}\widehat{n}_j(\widehat{n}_j1).$$
(58)
We proceed similarly as for the double well. The ground state of the GPE is

$$\varphi _0=\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}(1,1,1)$$
(59)
and it is associated with an annihilation operator $`\widehat{a}_0`$. There are two modes orthogonal to $`\varphi _0`$

$`\varphi _+={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}}(1,e^{+\frac{2\pi i}{3}},e^{\frac{2\pi i}{3}}),`$
$`\varphi _{}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}}(1,e^{\frac{2\pi i}{3}},e^{+\frac{2\pi i}{3}})`$ (60)
with annihilation operators $`\widehat{a}_+`$ and $`\widehat{a}_{}`$ respectively. The Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations give two Bogoliubov modes, let us call them $`+`$ and $``$, with

$`u_\pm ={\displaystyle \frac{X\varphi _\pm }{\sqrt{X^21}}},v_\pm ={\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _\pm }{\sqrt{X^21}}},`$
where

$$X=\left(1+\frac{9\mathrm{\Omega }}{N}\right)+\sqrt{\left(1+\frac{9\mathrm{\Omega }}{N}\right)^21}.$$

These modes give

$`\widehat{b}_\pm ={\displaystyle \frac{X\widehat{a}_0^{}\widehat{a}_\pm +\widehat{a}_0\widehat{a}_{}^{}}{\sqrt{N(X^21)}}}.`$ (62)
The operators $`\widehat{b}_\pm `$ commute with a $`\widehat{d}^{}`$ such that

$$\widehat{d}=\widehat{a}_0\widehat{a}_0\frac{2}{X}\widehat{a}_+\widehat{a}_{},$$
(63)
which can be easily diagonalized by operators

$`\widehat{a}_1={\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{a}_++\widehat{a}_{}}{\sqrt{2}}},\widehat{a}_2={\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{a}_+\widehat{a}_{}}{\sqrt{2}}},`$ (64)
with eigenvalues

$$\lambda _1=\lambda _2=\frac{1}{X}.$$
(65)
In the Bogoliubov theory only pairs of atoms are depleted from a condensate wavefunction. Recently, in exact stochastic calculations Carusotto and Castin carusotto  also observed such a pairwise depletion from a condensate in a harmonic trap. In Fig. 4a we show the structure of a Bogoliubov vacuum together with the exact ground state of the triple well system which confirms the predicted pairwise depletion. However, with decreasing tunneling rate $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, that makes the interaction between atoms relatively stronger, the exact ground state looses the pairwise structure expected in the linear Bogoliubov theory, see Fig. 4b. This is a clear signature of a breakdown of the linearized Bogoliubov theory.

In Fig. 5 we show an exact ground state for an odd number of particles. Again like for even $`N`$ particles are depleted in pairs. Although we were not able to find any simple form for the Bogoliubov ground state with odd $`N`$, this example suggest that, especially for large $`N`$, accurate predictions can be extrapolated from even $`N`$.

## VI  Bose-Einstein condensate in a harmonic trap

In the previous two exactly solvable examples the construction of the finite $`N`$ Bogoliubov vacuum was relatively easy because there were only one or two Bogoliubov modes. In this Section we analyze the finite $`N`$ Bogoliubov vacuum for ground and solitonic states of a condensate in a 1D harmonic trap

$$V(x)=\frac{1}{2}x^2.$$
(66)
The solitonic state is the first excited antisymmetric state of the GPE vor-sol-exp .

We constructed the Bogoliubov vacuum in particle representation in the following steps. To begin with we found the relevant stationary state $`\varphi _0`$ of the GPE in a harmonic potential: the ground state or the solitonic state. Then we diagonalized the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations (15) for a given background $`\varphi _0`$ and projected the obtained modes on the subspace orthogonal to the condensate wavefunction like in Eq.(17). In this way we obtained the $`u_j`$ and $`v_j`$ modes of the number-conserving Bogoliubov theory. In the next step we constructed matrices $`U`$ and $`V`$ like in Eqs.(30,31). In order to construct such matrices we had to choose a basis in the subspace orthogonal to the condensate wavefunction $`\varphi _0`$. To make the matrices finite we had to truncate the number of Bogoliubov modes to a finite $`M`$. We got fast convergence of results with increasing $`M`$ for a basis constructed out of the $`u_j`$ modes,

$`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_1u_1,`$
$`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_2u_2\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_1\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_1|u_2,\mathrm{}.`$ (67)
Finally, we solved Eq. (32) with respect to $`Z`$ and then diagonalized the obtained $`Z`$ matrix. The eigenvalues were ordered with decreasing modulus, $`|\lambda _1|>|\lambda _2|>\mathrm{}>|\lambda _M|`$. As is clear from the state (37), even a small decrease of $`|\lambda _k|`$ from one mode to the next results in a substantial drop in the average number of atoms occupying this mode.

In Fig. 6 we plot the spectrum of the $`Z`$ matrix, corresponding to the ground state of the condensate in a harmonic trap for two different interaction strengths $`gN`$. With increasing $`gN`$ more and more modes have significant contribution to the condensate eigenstate. Because pairs of atoms are depleted from the condensate, the single particle eigenmodes $`\varphi _k`$ are allowed to be both even and odd as shown in Fig. 7. Note that $`\varphi _j`$ are also eigenmodes of the single particle density matrix, see Eq.(38).

For a condensate in a solitonic state, in the spectrum of the $`Z`$ matrix (Fig. 8) the dominant eigenvalue $`\lambda _1`$ is positive (contrary to other eigenvalues) and the corresponding anomalous mode is localized in the soliton notch dks , see Fig. 9. The anomalous mode $`\varphi _1(x)`$ is a (nearly) zero mode related to translational motion of the dark soliton with respect to the condensate.

## VII  Conclusion

In the present paper we have constructed the Bogoliubov eigenstates in the particle representation. The particle representation gives much more intuitive insight into physical processes that are responsible for depletion of a condensate. Comparison of the derived eigenstates with exact solutions for model systems reveals that as far as a number of depleted atoms is small the Bogoliubov eigenstates match well exact eigenstates. In the Bogoliubov theory the condensate is depleted by pairs of atoms. However, when strength of the interaction between atoms increases the linear Bogoliubov theory breaks down and the condensate starts being depleted by odd numbers of particles.

We have applied our approach to analyze structure of a realistic condensate in the ground and solitonic states of a harmonic trap. Having calculated eigenstates in the particle representation one can in principle extract any information about a system and simulate results of any measurement. Examples of such realistic applications will be given in our future publication next .

## Acknowledgments

Support of KBN under projects 2 P03B 092 23 (J.D.), and 5 P03B 088 21 (K.S.) is acknowledged.


text:
# Nonlocal Effects on D-branes in Plane-Wave Backgrounds

## 1 Introduction

The restrictions imposed by the conditions of Lorentz invariance and locality play central roles in our understanding of the formal properties of quantum field theories. However, in string theory neither of these conditions appears to be fundamental. Thus, it is interesting to consider simple situations where they are relaxed. In particular, we will examine the properties of D-branes in certain plane-wave backgrounds with strong 3-form fields. As we will show in detail, the low energy effective theory describing the fluctuations of these D-branes is a non-local, Lorentz violating dipole theory -.

Typical interaction terms in the Lagrangian of this field theory are of the form $`\varphi _1(\stackrel{}{x})\varphi _2(\stackrel{}{x}+\stackrel{}{L}_1)\varphi _3(x+\stackrel{}{L}_1+\stackrel{}{L}_2)\mathrm{}d^4\stackrel{}{x}`$ where $`\varphi _i`$ are fields and the $`\stackrel{}{L}_i`$ are fixed world-volume vectors. Roughly speaking, the non-locally coupled fields $`\varphi _i`$ correspond to stretched open strings with end-points that are separated by $`\stackrel{}{L}_i`$ and with angular momentum along planes transverse to the brane. These strings are stabilized by the presence of strong 3-form fluxes with legs aligned along the dipole vectors as well as the plane of rotation .

An exciting application of string theory with strong 3-form field strengths is the $`AdS_3/CFT_2`$ correspondence . Unfortunately, progress had been limited by the fact that string theory in $`AdS`$ backgrounds with RR field strengths are difficult to analyze exactly. However, the authors of  have shown that a particularly tractable limit of the $`AdS/CFT`$ correspondence can be obtained by taking the Penrose limit of type-IIB string theory on $`AdS_5\times S^5`$ to obtain a plane-wave background. They were able to precisely match the properties of a certain subsector of $`𝒩=4`$ Super-Yang-Mills CFT (operators with large R-charge) with the exact results of - for strings in plane-wave backgrounds.

Similarly, one can consider the Penrose limits of $`AdS_3\times S^3\times T^4`$ . As IIB has two three-form field strengths, $`H^1`$ (NSNS) and $`H^2`$ (RR), one finds a pair of models which are related by S-duality. The Penrose limit of the theory with $`H^1`$ flux is

$`ds^2`$ $`=`$ $`dx^+dx^{}+\mu x^ix^i(dx^+)^2dx^adx^adx^idx^i,`$ (1)
$`H^1`$ $`=`$ $`\mu dx^+(dx^6dx^7+dx^8dx^9),`$ (2)
$`e^\varphi `$ $`=`$ $`g_s,`$ (3)
where $`ds^2`$ is the interval in string frame, $`x^\pm =x^0\pm x^1`$, the $`x^a`$ are coordinates on $`T^4`$ with $`a=2,\mathrm{},5`$ and $`i=6,\mathrm{},9`$. The Penrose limit of the S-dual configuration is

$`ds^2`$ $`=`$ $`dx^+dx^{}+\mu x^ix^i(dx^+)^2dx^adx^adx^idx^i,`$ (4)
$`H^2`$ $`=`$ $`\mu dx^+(dx^6dx^7+dx^8dx^9),`$ (5)
$`e^\varphi `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{g_s}}.`$ (6)
Exact results for the spectrum of both models were obtained in . Further, open strings and D-branes in these and other plane-wave backgrounds have been studied in -.

In this paper we will study the interactions of the low energy effective theory of the D-brane excitations. We will show that $`N`$ D3-brane probes of the plane-wave background (1)-(3) are exactly described at low energies by a nonlocal $`U(N)`$ dipole gauge theory  with a lightlike dipole vector $`\stackrel{}{L}`$ proportional to $`\mu `$.

A more complicated problem is the description of $`N`$ D3-brane probes of the pp-wave background (4)-(6), which has RR flux. It is related to the S-dual description of the lightlike dipole theory. We attack this problem by first studying the S-dual description of a $`U(1)`$ lightlike dipole theory and then guessing the generalization of that result to a $`U(N)`$ gauge group. We find that in any finite order of string perturbation theory the interactions of the D3-brane probes of the pp-wave background (4)-(6) are local. Yet our result suggests that summing the local interactions to all orders in perturbation theory exhibits an intrinsic nonlocality with a characteristic length proportional to the string coupling constant, $`g_s`$.

The paper is organized as follows. In section 2 we review the definition and salient features of dipole theories. In section 3 we identify the lightlike dipole theory as the low energy description of D3-branes in the pp-wave background (1)-(3). In section 4 we analyze the S-dual of the $`U(1)`$ lightlike dipole theories and conjecture an extension of the result to $`U(N)`$, We conclude in section 5 with a list of possible extensions of our work.

## 2 Definition of dipole theories and their salient features

The dipole field theories that we will work with in this paper are nonlocal field theories that are deformations of $`𝒩=4`$ SYM. The Lagrangian of $`𝒩=4`$ SYM is

$`_{𝒩=4}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{g^2}}\text{tr}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}F_{\mu \nu }F^{\mu \nu }+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{I=1}{\overset{6}{}}}D_\mu \mathrm{\Phi }^ID^\mu \mathrm{\Phi }^I+i{\displaystyle \underset{a=1}{\overset{4}{}}}\overline{\psi }_a^{\dot{\alpha }}\sigma _{}^{\mu \alpha }{}_{\dot{\alpha }}{}^{}D_\mu \psi _\alpha ^a\right\}`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{g^2}}\text{tr}\left\{{\displaystyle \underset{I<J}{}}[\mathrm{\Phi }^I,\mathrm{\Phi }^J]^2+ϵ^{\alpha \beta }{\displaystyle \underset{I,a,b}{}}\gamma _{ab}^I\mathrm{\Phi }^I\psi _\alpha ^a\psi _\beta ^b+ϵ_{\dot{\alpha }\dot{\beta }}{\displaystyle \underset{I,a,b}{}}\gamma ^{Iab}\mathrm{\Phi }^I\overline{\psi }_a^{\dot{\alpha }}\overline{\psi }_b^{\dot{\beta }}\right\},`$
$`D_\mu \mathrm{\Phi }^I`$ $``$ $`_\mu \mathrm{\Phi }^I+i[A_\mu ,\mathrm{\Phi }^I].`$ (7)
Here $`\mathrm{\Phi }^I`$ ($`I=1\mathrm{}6`$) are adjoint scalar fields of $`U(N)`$ which transform as a vector of the R-symmetry group $`Spin(6)`$. The $`\psi _\alpha ^a`$ ($`a=1\mathrm{}4`$) are adjoint Weyl fermions in the $`\mathrm{𝟒}`$ of $`Spin(6)`$. Their complex conjugate fields $`\overline{\psi }_a^{\dot{\alpha }}`$ transform in the complex conjugate representation $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟒}}`$ of $`Spin(6)`$. $`\gamma ^{Iab}`$ are the Clebsch-Gordan coefficients of $`Spin(6)`$ and $`\sigma _{}^{\mu \alpha }{}_{\dot{\alpha }}{}^{}`$ are Pauli matrices.

The dipole theories are obtained from $`𝒩=4`$ SYM by the following steps (see  for more details):

1. Define the complex linear combinations of the 6 scalar fields of (7):

$$Z_k\mathrm{\Phi }_{2k1}+i\mathrm{\Phi }_{2k},\overline{Z}_k\mathrm{\Phi }_{2k1}i\mathrm{\Phi }_{2k},k=1,2,3,$$

and assign a constant space-time 4-vector $`\stackrel{}{L}_k`$ to each scalar field $`Z_k`$.
2. Modify the covariant derivatives of the scalar fields so that $`D_\mu Z_k`$ at the space-time point $`x`$ will be:

$$D_\mu Z_k(x)_\mu Z_k(x)iA_\mu (x\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{}{L}_k)Z_k(x)+iZ_k(x)A_\mu (x+\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{}{L}_k).$$
(8)
Note that the fields $`Z_k`$ are $`N\times N`$ matrices in the adjoint representation of $`U(N)`$. Thus, equation (8) implies that the quanta of the fields $`Z_k`$ are dipoles whose ends are at $`x\pm \frac{1}{2}\stackrel{}{L}_k`$. The gauge transformation of the scalar fields is

$$Z_k(x)\mathrm{\Omega }^1(x\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{}{L}_k)Z_k(x)\mathrm{\Omega }(x+\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{}{L}_k),$$

where $`\mathrm{\Omega }(x)U(N)`$ is the gauge group element.
3. In order to preserve $`U(N)`$ gauge invariance we have to modify the definition of the commutators in (7) to:

$$[Z_k,Z_l]_{(x)}Z_k(x\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{}{L}_l)Z_l(x+\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{}{L}_k)Z_l(x\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{}{L}_k)Z_k(x+\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{}{L}_l).$$
4. We also need to modify the interactions of the fermions with the scalars so as to be gauge invariant. This can be done by assigning to the fermions their own dipole-vectors. To find the appropriate assignment we need to correlate the dipole-vector of the various fields with their $`Spin(6)=SU(4)`$ R-symmetry charges, as follows. The parameters $`\stackrel{}{L}_k`$ that define the dipole theory can be combined into a single linear map $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}:su(4)^{3,1}`$ from the Lie algebra of the R-symmetry group to a spacetime 4-vector. Using the inner product on $`su(4)`$, $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ can be represented as an $`su(4)`$-valued spacetime 4-vector. In the representation $`\mathrm{𝟔}`$ of $`su(4)`$ we can take $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ to be

$$\mathrm{{\rm Y}}\stackrel{\mathrm{𝟔}}{}\left(\begin{array}{cccccc}\hfill 0& \hfill \stackrel{}{L}_1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0\\ \hfill \stackrel{}{L}_1& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0\\ \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill \stackrel{}{L}_2& \hfill 0& \hfill 0\\ \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill \stackrel{}{L}_2& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0\\ \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill \stackrel{}{L}_3\\ \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill 0& \hfill \stackrel{}{L}_3& \hfill 0\end{array}\right).$$
(9)
Now we can define the interactions of the fermions. We need to write $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ in the representation $`\mathrm{𝟒}`$ of $`su(4)`$ and find a basis of this representation where $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ is diagonal. It will then have the following form:

$$\mathrm{{\rm Y}}\stackrel{\mathrm{𝟒}}{}\left(\begin{array}{cccc}\stackrel{}{\lambda }_1& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& \stackrel{}{\lambda }_2& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& \stackrel{}{\lambda }_3& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& \stackrel{}{\lambda }_4\end{array}\right),$$

with the definitions

$`\stackrel{}{\lambda }_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\stackrel{}{L}_1+\stackrel{}{L}_2+\stackrel{}{L}_3),`$
$`\stackrel{}{\lambda }_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\stackrel{}{L}_1\stackrel{}{L}_2\stackrel{}{L}_3),`$
$`\stackrel{}{\lambda }_3`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\stackrel{}{L}_1+\stackrel{}{L}_2\stackrel{}{L}_3),`$
$`\stackrel{}{\lambda }_4`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\stackrel{}{L}_1\stackrel{}{L}_2+\stackrel{}{L}_3).`$ (10)
The Weyl fermions $`\psi _\alpha ^a`$ ($`a=1\mathrm{}4`$) of (7), which are in the $`\mathrm{𝟒}`$ of $`su(4)`$, should be assigned the dipole vectors $`\stackrel{}{\lambda }^a`$ and their complex conjugate fields should be assigned $`(\stackrel{}{\lambda }^a)`$. To get a gauge invariant Lagrangian we need to replace all the commutators of a scalar and a fermion with:

$$[Z_k,\psi ^a]_{(x)}Z_k(x\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{}{\lambda }_a)\psi (x+\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{}{L}_k)\psi (x\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{}{L}_k)Z_k(x+\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{}{\lambda }_a).$$
5. Since the gauge bosons have vanishing dipole vectors, preserving any supersymmetry requires that some of the fermions have vanishing dipole vectors . In particular, to preserve $`𝒩=2`$ we may choose $`\stackrel{}{\lambda }_1=\stackrel{}{\lambda }_2=\stackrel{}{L}_2=\stackrel{}{L}_3=\stackrel{}{L}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{\lambda }_3=\stackrel{}{\lambda }_4=\stackrel{}{L}_1=0`$.

These rules can be recast as a redefinition of the product of two fields. The modified product of any two fields $`\mathrm{\Xi }_1(x),\mathrm{\Xi }_2(x)`$ (scalar, fermionic or gauge) is defined in a way somewhat reminiscent of noncommutative geometry :

$$(\mathrm{\Xi }_1\mathrm{\Xi }_2)_{(x)}e^{\frac{i}{2}\mathrm{{\rm Y}}^\mu ,\widehat{R}_1\frac{}{z_\mu }\frac{i}{2}\mathrm{{\rm Y}}^\mu ,\widehat{R}_2\frac{}{y_\mu }}\left(\mathrm{\Xi }_1(y)\mathrm{\Xi }_2(z)\right)|_{y=z=x},$$
(11)
where $`\widehat{R}_i`$ ($`i=1,2`$) is the ($`su(4)`$-valued) R-symmetry charge operator acting on $`\mathrm{\Xi }_i`$ and $`,`$ is the Killing form on $`su(4)`$ (see  for more details).

Special cases of dipole theories have been discussed in  and various aspects of the theories have been explored in -.

### Lightlike dipole-vectors

Define the linear vector space $`W^{3,1}`$ to be the image of the map $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}:su(4)^{3,1}`$ defined in (9). In terms of the fundamental dipole vectors that were introduced in (9):

$$W=\text{Span}\{\stackrel{}{L}_1,\stackrel{}{L}_2,\stackrel{}{L}_3\}.$$

We will define the dipole theory to be lightlike if $`W`$ is 1-dimensional and null, i.e.

$$\stackrel{}{L}_i\stackrel{}{L}_j=0,i,j=1,2,3.$$

As we shall see in section 4, lightlike dipole theories are easier to analyze than the generic dipole theories. This is similar to Yang-Mills theory on a noncommutative space that simplifies when the noncommutativity parameter is lightlike . Lightlike deformation parameters have also been used in the context of the noncommutative $`(2,0)`$-theory -.

## 3 Lightlike dipole theories and NSNS plane-wave backgrounds

In this section we will show that the low energy effective actions describing appropriately oriented D3-branes in a plane-wave background with a strong lightlike NSNS 3-form flux are lightlike dipole theories. The orientation of the D3-branes must be such that, in the notation of (1)-(3), the $`+,`$ directions are longitudinal and the $`x^i`$ ($`i=6\mathrm{}9`$) directions are transverse.

### 3.1 Geometric engineering of dipole-theories

To obtain a lightlike dipole theory we consider a background in which probe D3 branes have a small timelike dipole vector and then we perform a large boost. For simplicity, assume that all the dipole vectors which are encoded in $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ are in the $`x^1`$ direction. In this case $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ reduces to a single element in the Lie algebra $`su(4)`$ which, in the representation $`\mathrm{𝟔}`$, we can write as a $`6\times 6`$ antisymmetric matrix $`2\pi \alpha ^{}\widehat{Q}`$.

As was shown in , a $`U(N)`$ dipole theory with dipole vectors along $`x^1`$ described by $`2\pi \alpha ^{}\widehat{Q}`$ arises as the low-energy effective action of $`N`$ D3-brane probes in the string theory background,

$`ds^2`$ $`=`$ $`dt^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{1+\stackrel{}{x}^{}\widehat{Q}^{}\widehat{Q}\stackrel{}{x}}}(dx^1)^2(dx^2)^2(dx^3)^2d\stackrel{}{x}^{}d\stackrel{}{x}+{\displaystyle \frac{(d\stackrel{}{x}^{}\widehat{Q}\stackrel{}{x})^2}{1+\stackrel{}{x}^{}\widehat{Q}^{}\widehat{Q}\stackrel{}{x}}}`$
$`B`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\stackrel{}{x}^{}\widehat{Q}\stackrel{}{x}}{1+\stackrel{}{x}^{}\widehat{Q}^{}\widehat{Q}\stackrel{}{x}}}dx^1,e^{2(\varphi \varphi _0)}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{1+\stackrel{}{x}^{}\widehat{Q}^{}\widehat{Q}\stackrel{}{x}}},`$
where $`\stackrel{}{x}=(x^4,\mathrm{},x^9)`$. We can obtain a theory with a lightlike dipole vector by infinitely boosting this background along $`x^1`$. As the dipole vector prior to the boost has a magnitude set by $`2\pi \alpha ^{}\widehat{Q}`$, we must simultaneously scale $`\widehat{Q}0`$ to obtain a lightlike dipole vector which has finite components in this limit. Thus, let

$$x^1=\gamma (x_{}^{1}{}_{}{}^{}+vt^{}),t=\gamma (t^{}+vx_{}^{1}{}_{}{}^{}),\gamma \frac{1}{\sqrt{1v^2}}$$

and take $`v1`$ while keeping

$$\gamma \widehat{Q}Q=\text{finite}.$$

Defining $`x^\pm t^{}\pm x_{}^{1}{}_{}{}^{}`$ we find the background

$`ds^2`$ $`=`$ $`dx^+dx^{}+(\stackrel{}{x}^{}Q^{}Q\stackrel{}{x})(dx^+)^2(dx^2)^2(dx^3)^2d\stackrel{}{x}^{}d\stackrel{}{x}`$
$`B`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}d\stackrel{}{x}^{}Q\stackrel{}{x}dx^+,e^\varphi =g_s.`$ (12)
In order to preserve $`𝒩=2`$ supersymmetry, we take

$$2\pi \alpha ^{}Q=\left(\begin{array}{cccccc}0& 0& 0& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& L^{}& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& L^{}& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& 0& 0& L^{}\\ 0& 0& 0& 0& L^{}& 0\end{array}\right).$$
(13)
Concretely, we note that the dipole vectors for the fields in this background are of the form $`\stackrel{}{L}=\pm (L^{},L^{},0,0)`$. If we define

$$\mu \frac{L^{}}{2\pi \alpha ^{}},$$
(14)
we see that this background (12) is exactly the NSNS plane-wave of equation (1)-(3),

$`ds^2`$ $`=`$ $`dx^+dx^{}+\mu x^ix^i(dx^+)^2dx^adx^adx^idx^i,`$
$`H^1`$ $`=`$ $`\mu dx^+(dx^6dx^7+dx^8dx^9),`$
$`e^\varphi `$ $`=`$ $`g_s,`$ (15)
where again $`a=2,\mathrm{},5`$ and $`i=6,\mathrm{},9`$.

Note that $`L^{}`$, the characteristic length scale of nonlocality, can be made arbitrarily big by a coordinate transformation that rescales $`x^+`$. It is therefore obvious that the excited open string states decouple from the low energy lightlike dipole theory. Furthermore, since the lightlike dipole theory is a limit of a dipole theory with spacelike dipole vectors and since the latter can be constructed as a certain limit of compactified noncommutative $`𝒩=4`$ Super Yang-Mills theory , it follows that the lightlike dipole theory is unitary.

### 3.2 Lightcone string theory in the NSNS background

Using the exact results of  (extended by  to the open string case) for string theory in the NSNS plane-wave background (15), we will show directly that the open string interactions are modified by the phases one would expect for a lightlike dipole deformation.

In order to facilitate future comparisons to the RR case, we consider the plane wave background in the GS formalism. First, we define the complex worldsheet scalar fields

$$Z_1X_6+iX_7,Z_2X_8+iX_9.$$

In order to simplify the analysis of the interactions in lightcone gauge, it is conventional to fix $`X^+=p^+\tau `$ and additionally require that the string length be $`\mathrm{}=2\pi \alpha ^{}p^+`$. Just as in , we will find it useful to split our fermions into positive and negative chirality fermions with respect to $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{6789}`$. We use $`S`$ to denote the positive chirality fermions. As the negative chirality fermions and the scalars $`X^a`$, $`a=2,\mathrm{},5`$ remain free and massless, we will ignore them. The resulting action in lightcone gauge is then given by,

$$S=\frac{1}{2\pi \alpha ^{}}𝑑\tau _0^{2\pi \alpha ^{}p^+}𝑑\sigma \left[\frac{1}{2}\underset{k=1}{\overset{2}{}}\left(|\dot{Z}_k|^2|Z_k^{}+i\mu Z_k|^2\right)+i\overline{S}\left(\sigma ^0_0+\sigma ^1(_1\mu \mathrm{\Gamma }^{67})\right)S\right]$$
(16)
There exists a field redefinition that, locally in $`\sigma `$, transforms this action into that of a free string. This transformation is

$$\stackrel{~}{Z}_k(\sigma )e^{i\mu \sigma }Z_k(\sigma ),\stackrel{~}{S}(\sigma )e^{\mu \mathrm{\Gamma }^{67}\sigma }S(\sigma ).$$
(17)
In terms of the new fields the action is simply

$$S=\frac{1}{2\pi \alpha ^{}}𝑑\tau _0^{2\pi \alpha ^{}p^+}𝑑\sigma \left[\frac{1}{2}\underset{k=1}{\overset{2}{}}\left(|\dot{\stackrel{~}{Z}}_k|^2|\stackrel{~}{Z}_k^{}|^2\right)+i\overline{\stackrel{~}{S}}\left(\sigma ^0_0+\sigma ^1_1\right)\stackrel{~}{S}\right]$$
(18)
Note that the transformation (17) can change the boundary conditions of various fields. For closed strings, the transformed fields no longer satisfy periodic boundary conditions and the closed string spectrum in the plane-wave background differs from that of the free string. However, the spectrum of open strings with Dirichlet boundary conditions is unaltered. Instead, the interactions are modified in an interesting way as we will discuss presently.

### 3.3 Lightlike dipole-theories on D-branes in a plane-wave background

Consider a D1-brane that is extended in the $`x^+`$, $`x^{}`$ directions. The extension of the discussion to D3-branes is straightforward. The open string excitations are described in lightcone gauge by the action (16) with the boundary conditions

$$Z_k(0)=Z_k(2\pi \alpha ^{}p^+)=0,0=S_L(0)S_R(0)=S_L(2\pi \alpha ^{}p^+)S_R(2\pi \alpha ^{}p^+).$$

As the transformation (17) does not affect these boundary conditions, the spectrum of Dirichlet-Dirichlet open strings ending on a D1-brane in this NSNS plane-wave background is the same as the flat space spectrum. The interactions, however, receive extra phases that precisely reproduce the interactions described in section 2.

Consider, for example, a tree level diagram that describes the scattering of open string states with vertex operators $`V_1^{(in)},\mathrm{},V_{n_i}^{(in)}`$ into open string states with vertex operators $`V_1^{(out)},\mathrm{},V_{n_f}^{(out)}`$ (see Figure 1). When written in terms of $`\stackrel{~}{Z}_k`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{S}`$, these vertex operators should have the same form as the usual free Dirichlet-Dirichlet open string vertex operators. In fact, one might naively guess that as $`\stackrel{~}{Z}_k=e^{i\mu \sigma }Z_k`$ the relation should be

$$V_j^{(in)}(Z_k(\sigma ),\mathrm{})=\stackrel{~}{V}_j^{(in)}(e^{i\mu \sigma }Z_k(\sigma ),\mathrm{}),$$
(19)
where $`\stackrel{~}{V}_j^{(in)}`$ is the free string vertex operator that corresponds to the free string state with the same labels. This, of course, would give us the same amplitudes as in the free string case. However, note that if we let $`p_j^{+,(in)}`$ be the lightcone momentum of the $`j^{th}`$ incoming string state, the parameter $`\sigma `$ for that state is in the range

$$2\pi \alpha ^{}\underset{k=1}{\overset{j1}{}}p_k^{+,(in)}\sigma 2\pi \alpha ^{}\underset{k=1}{\overset{j}{}}p_k^{+,(in)},$$

which means that the prescription (19) for defining the vertex operator contains phase factors which depend on the position of the insertion of the operator along the string. This cannot be correct.

We can solve this problem by replacing $`\sigma `$ with $`\sigma ^{}=\sigma 2\pi \alpha ^{}_{k=1}^{j1}p_k^{+,(in)}`$ (which is the distance from the beginning of the $`j^{th}`$ string) so

$`0`$ $`\sigma ^{}`$ $`2\pi \alpha ^{}p_j^{+,(in)}`$ (20)
$`V_j^{(in)}(Z_k(\sigma ),\mathrm{})`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{V}_j^{(in)}(e^{i\mu \sigma ^{}}Z_k(\sigma ),\mathrm{}).`$ (21)
This modification leads to overall phase shifts in the vertex operators as compared to the theory in flat space. To calculate them, we just need to know the $`Z_k`$ and $`S`$ dependence of the vertex operators. More formally, on the worldsheet there is a global $`U(1)`$ symmetry which acts on the $`Z_k`$ by $`Z_ke^{i\theta }Z_k`$ (and analogously on the fermions, which we neglect for simplicity). A general vertex operator will transform under this $`U(1)`$ as $`V^{(j)}e^{iq^{(j)}\theta }V^{(j)}`$. Noting that $`\mu =\frac{L^{}}{2\pi \alpha ^{}}`$, it is easy to see that the definitions (21) and (19) differ by the phase,

$$\mathrm{exp}\left\{i\underset{l=1}{\overset{j1}{}}q^{(j)}L^{}p_l^{+,(in)}\right\}.$$

If we let $`p_r^{+,(out)}`$ be the lightcone momentum of the $`r^{th}`$ outgoing string state, momentum conservation requires $`p^+=_{j=1}^{n_i}p_j^{+,(in)}=_{r=1}^{n_f}p_r^{+,(in)}`$ and we see that the overall phase for the entire amplitude is

$$\mathrm{exp}\left\{i\underset{j=1}{\overset{n_i}{}}\underset{l=1}{\overset{j1}{}}q^{j,(in)}L^{}p_l^{+,(in)}i\underset{r=1}{\overset{n_f}{}}\underset{s=1}{\overset{r1}{}}q^{r,(out)}L^{}p_s^{+,(out)}\right\}.$$

It is not hard to see that this is exactly the same phase as the one we get by Fourier expanding the Super Yang-Mills action of a D-brane and replacing every product with the modified $``$-product (11).

## 4 Proposal for the S-dual theory

In this section we will present our proposal for the S-dual of the lightlike dipole theories. We will begin with an analysis of a dipole theory with a $`U(1)`$ gauge group and a single fermion (known as dipole QED ) and then proceed to present our conjecture about a dipole theory with an $`SU(N)`$ or $`U(N)`$ gauge group.

The field contents of $`U(1)`$ dipole QED (without any supersymmetry) is:

| $`A_\mu `$ | the $`U(1)`$ gauge field, |
| --- | --- |
| $`\psi `$ | a Dirac fermion with dipole vector $`\stackrel{}{L}`$. |

The Lagrangian is

$``$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4g^2}}F_{\mu \nu }F^{\mu \nu }+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2g^2}}\overline{\psi }\gamma ^\mu D_\mu \psi ,D_\mu \psi _\mu \psi i[A_\mu (x+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\stackrel{}{L})A_\mu (x{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\stackrel{}{L})]\psi .`$
Here $`\stackrel{}{L}`$ is the constant dipole-vector and we assume that it is spacelike or null.

As shown in , the Feynman rules of this theory are identical to those of ordinary QED, with the following modification of the interaction vertex,

$$ig\gamma ^\mu ig\gamma ^\mu \times 2i\mathrm{sin}\frac{pL}{2},$$
(23)
where $`p`$ is the outgoing momentum of the photon. In particular, this means that the photon self-energy at one-loop just gets an extra factor of

$$2i\mathrm{sin}\frac{pL}{2}\times 2i\mathrm{sin}\frac{pL}{2}=4\mathrm{sin}^2\frac{pL}{2}$$
(24)
as compared to the QED result. This suggests that the $`U(1)`$ theory is IR free, just like ordinary QED. Thus, our application of S-duality in the $`U(1)`$ case will be somewhat formal, and should be considered simply as a motivation for the conjecture in the $`U(N)`$ case.

To find the S-dual description we will adopt the standard method of using a Lagrange multiplier for the field strength.<sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1A similar method was used in  to study S-duality for Super Yang-Mills theory on a noncommutative $`R^{3,1}`$. We treat $`F_{\mu \nu }`$ as an independent field subject to the Bianchi identity $`ϵ^{\mu \nu \tau \rho }_\nu F_{\tau \rho }=0`$ which we implement with a Lagrange multiplier. Of course, this method requires that the gauge field $`A_\mu `$ does not appear explicitly in the Lagrangian. Unlike in ordinary QED, here we can eliminate $`A_\mu `$ by performing a redefinition of variables

$$\psi ^{(inv)}(x)e^{\frac{i}{2}_1^1L^\mu A_\mu (x+\frac{s}{2}\stackrel{}{L})𝑑s}\psi (x),$$
(25)
so that $`\psi ^{(inv)}`$ is a $`U(1)`$-neutral field. This is the analog of the Seiberg-Witten map  for dipole theories. Just as in that case, this transformation results in a theory with ordinary gauge symmetry perturbed by an infinite number of irrelevant interactions. In particular, since

$$D_\mu \psi (x)=e^{\frac{i}{2}_1^1L^\nu A_\nu (x+\frac{s}{2}\stackrel{}{L})𝑑s}\left[_\mu \psi ^{(inv)}(x)+\frac{i}{2}\psi ^{(inv)}(x)_1^1L^\nu F_{\mu \nu }(x+\frac{s}{2}\stackrel{}{L})𝑑s\right],$$

we can define

$$D_{}^{F}{}_{\mu }{}^{}\psi ^{(inv)}(x)_\mu \psi ^{(inv)}(x)+\frac{i}{2}\psi ^{(inv)}(x)_1^1L^\nu F_{\mu \nu }(x+\frac{s}{2}\stackrel{}{L})𝑑s,$$

to get the Lagrangian

$$_1=\frac{1}{4g^2}F_{\mu \nu }F^{\mu \nu }+\frac{1}{2g^2}\overline{\psi }^{(inv)}\gamma ^\mu D_{}^{F}{}_{\mu }{}^{}\psi ^{(inv)}.$$
(26)
Thus, as promised, the explicit dependence on $`A_\mu `$ has been removed. Further, note that making the replacements $`\psi g\psi `$, and $`A_\mu gA_\mu `$ in the above Lagrangian and writing

$$_1^1𝑑sF_{\mu \nu }(x+\frac{s}{2}\stackrel{}{L})=\frac{2\mathrm{sin}\frac{i}{2}L}{\frac{i}{2}L}F_{\mu \nu }(x),$$
(27)
we see that

$$_1=\frac{1}{4}F_{\mu \nu }F^{\mu \nu }+\frac{1}{2}\overline{\psi }^{(inv)}\gamma ^\mu \left(_\mu +igL^\nu \frac{\mathrm{sin}\frac{i}{2}L}{\frac{i}{2}L}F_{\mu \nu }(x)\right)\psi ^{(inv)}$$

is just a free theory perturbed by an infinite number of higher derivative interactions with couplings of the form $`gL\times L^{2n}`$.

We can now easily find the S-dual theory by treating $`F_{\mu \nu }`$ as an independent variable and adding a Lagrange multiplier to the Lagrangian (26),

$$_2=\frac{1}{4g^2}F_{\mu \nu }F^{\mu \nu }+\frac{1}{2g^2}\overline{\psi }^{(inv)}\gamma ^\mu D_{}^{F}{}_{\mu }{}^{}\psi ^{(inv)}+\frac{1}{8\pi }\stackrel{~}{A}_\mu ϵ^{\mu \nu \tau \rho }_\nu F_{\tau \rho }.$$

Except for the kinetic term, $`F_{\mu \nu }`$ appears linearly in $`_2`$. Thus, we can integrate it out to get,

$$^{}=\frac{1}{4g_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}\left(\stackrel{~}{F}_{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{\pi g_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}ϵ_{\mu \nu \tau \rho }L^\tau _1^1\stackrel{~}{J}^\rho (x+\frac{s}{2}\stackrel{}{L})𝑑s\right)^2+\frac{1}{2g_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}\overline{\stackrel{~}{\psi }}\gamma ^\mu _\mu \stackrel{~}{\psi }.$$
(28)
where we have defined

$$g^{}=\frac{4\pi }{g},\stackrel{~}{\psi }\frac{4\pi }{g^2}\psi ,\stackrel{~}{J}_\mu i\overline{\stackrel{~}{\psi }}\gamma _\mu \stackrel{~}{\psi }.$$
(29)
If we make a further redefinition of the fields,

$$\widehat{\psi }\frac{1}{g^{}}\stackrel{~}{\psi },\widehat{F}\frac{1}{g^{}}\stackrel{~}{F},\widehat{L}^\tau \frac{1}{g_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}L^\tau ,$$
(30)
we see that (28) can be rewritten as

$$^{}=\frac{1}{4}\left(\widehat{F}_{\mu \nu }\frac{g^{}\widehat{L}^\tau }{\pi }ϵ_{\mu \nu \tau \rho }_1^1\widehat{J}^\rho (x+\frac{s}{2}g_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\widehat{L})𝑑s\right)^2+\frac{1}{2}\overline{\widehat{\psi }}\gamma ^\mu _\mu \widehat{\psi }.$$
(31)
If we add minimally coupled scalars to the QED Lagrangian (LABEL:QEDLag), with the same dipole vector $`\stackrel{}{L}`$, the expression of the S-dual $`^{}`$ becomes more complicated because the interactions are quadratic in the gauge field. The dual Lagrangian simplifies for a lightlike dipole vector. To see this, we will fix the QED lightcone gauge $`A_{}=0`$. In this gauge the redefinition (25) becomes simply $`\psi ^{(inv)}(x)\psi (x)`$. Following the same steps that led to (28) with minimally coupled scalars added we find that the dual Lagrangian can be obtained from the QED Lagrangian by the substitution

$$gg^{},F_{\mu \nu }(x)F_{\mu \nu }^{}(x)F_{\mu \nu }(x)\frac{\widehat{L}^\tau }{\pi }ϵ_{\mu \nu \tau \rho }_1^1\widehat{J}^\rho (x+\frac{s}{2}g_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\widehat{L})𝑑s,$$
(32)
where $`\widehat{J}^\rho `$ is the $`U(1)`$ current including the contribution of the scalars.

We see that the S-dual theory actually looks local order by order in $`g^{}`$, and only appears non-local if we sum all orders in $`g^{}`$. In particular, the scale of non-locality in this description is $`g_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\widehat{L}`$. We can gain a clue as to the origin of the non-locality by rewriting (32) using (27)

$$F_{\mu \nu }^{}(x)=F_{\mu \nu }(x)\frac{\widehat{L}^\tau }{\pi }ϵ_{\mu \nu \tau \rho }\frac{2\mathrm{sin}\frac{i}{2}g_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\widehat{L}}{\frac{i}{2}g_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\widehat{L}}\widehat{J}^\rho (x).$$
(33)
Notice that only even powers of $`g_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}`$ enter in the Taylor series expansion of $`\frac{\mathrm{sin}\frac{i}{2}g_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\widehat{L}}{\frac{i}{2}g_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\widehat{L}}.`$ It would be interesting to understand this behavior directly by studying string interactions in the S-dual RR plane wave background (4)-(6). Note that when the NSNS background (1)-(3) is transformed into the RR background (4)-(6) using S-duality, the Regge slope $`\stackrel{~}{\alpha }^{}`$ of (4)-(6) is given in terms of the Regge slope $`\alpha ^{}`$ of (1)-(3) by $`\stackrel{~}{\alpha }^{}=g_s\alpha ^{}`$. Using (14) and the definition of $`\widehat{L}`$ in (30) we see that $`\widehat{L}=2\pi \stackrel{~}{\alpha }^{}\mu `$ and so is finite in the RR background.

In order to extend the discussion to $`N`$ D3-brane probes we need to know the S-dual description of the dipole theory that is obtained as a deformation of $`𝒩=4`$ Super Yang-Mills theory with gauge group $`U(N)`$. Since the gauge fields that correspond to the $`U(1)`$ center are IR free we can ignore them and consider only the $`SU(N)`$ dipole theory. It is natural to conjecture that the dual of the lightlike $`SU(N)`$ dipole theory is given by a prescription similar to (32)

$`F_{\mu \nu }(x)`$ $``$ $`F_{\mu \nu }(x){\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}ϵ_{\mu \nu \tau \rho }{\displaystyle _1^1}𝑑s\left\{{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{3}{}}}\widehat{L}_k^\tau \widehat{J}_k^\rho (x+{\displaystyle \frac{s}{2}}g_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\widehat{L}_k)+{\displaystyle \underset{a=1}{\overset{4}{}}}\widehat{\lambda }_a^\tau \widehat{J}_a^\rho (x+{\displaystyle \frac{s}{2}}g_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\widehat{\lambda }_a)\right\},`$
$`\widehat{J}_k^\mu `$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(i\overline{Z}_kD^\mu Z_kiD^\mu \overline{Z}_kZ_kiZ_kD^\mu \overline{Z}_k+iD^\mu Z_k\overline{Z}_k),`$
$`\widehat{J}_a^\mu `$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\sigma _{}^{\mu \alpha }{}_{\dot{\alpha }}{}^{}\psi _\alpha ^a\overline{\psi }_a^{\dot{\alpha }}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\sigma _{}^{\mu \alpha }{}_{\dot{\alpha }}{}^{}\overline{\psi }_a^{\dot{\alpha }}\psi _\alpha ^\alpha `$ (34)
Here we used the notation of section 2 and we defined the rescaled dipole vectors of the bosons and fermions similarly to (30),

$$\widehat{L}_k^\tau \frac{1}{g_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}L_k^\tau ,\widehat{\lambda }_a^\tau \frac{1}{g_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}\lambda _a^\tau .$$

The Lie algebra valued $`\widehat{J}_k^\mu `$ and $`\widehat{J}_a^\mu `$ are the individual contributions of the scalars and fermions to the $`su(N)`$ current. In (34) each contribution to the current enters with a coefficient that is proportional to the dipole vector of the corresponding field. We assume that the dipole vectors $`\widehat{L}_k`$ and $`\widehat{\lambda }_a`$ are all lightlike and pointing in the same direction. We also assume that (34) is written in the gauge $`A_{}=0`$. In this case all the residual gauge transformations are independent of $`x^{}`$ and (34) is gauge invariant.

We do not know what should be the modification to the potential of the scalar fields and the Yukawa coupling of the scalars and fermions. It is possible that those interactions are still given by the $``$-product modification (11) with the unrescaled dipole vectors $`L_k`$ and $`\lambda _a`$ (which are now of order $`g_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}`$). Although the scalars and fermions are not expected to transform as dipoles under the “dual” gauge fields (since they are electric but not magnetic dipoles), in the $`A_{}=0`$ gauge the interactions are gauge invariant even after the modification (11).

## 5 Conclusion and discussion

In this paper we have argued that particular D-brane probes of plane-wave backgrounds are described by nonlocal field theories. In the case of an NSNS background we have identified the field theory as a lightlike dipole theory and we have verified the statement by an explicit lightcone string computation. In the case of an RR 3-form field strength background we have provided an indirect argument, using S-duality, for the nonlocality of the effective theory on D3-brane probes. This is a more complicated theory and we have conjectured the form of its Lagrangian in (32). The nonlocality scale is proportional to $`g_s`$ and it is obvious from (32) that one has to sum up contributions from all orders of string perturbation theory in order to exhibit the nonlocal nature of the interactions. It would be interesting to verify this directly from the solvable plane-wave string theory.<sup>2</sup><sup>2</sup>2Work in progress. Note that, since the nonlocal interactions are in the lightlike direction, we can make the characteristic scale arbitrarily big by a coordinate transformation that rescales $`x^\pm `$. The excited string states can therefore decouple safely and, as the field theoretic S-duality suggests, the effective nonlocal field theory can be unitary.

It is interesting to extend these ideas to pp-wave backgrounds with other RR fluxes. For that purpose we adopt the following somewhat heuristic point of view. The dipole theories that we have described in section 2 have a correlation between R-symmetry charge and electric flux. In the D3-brane language, every state with $`Spin(6)`$ transverse angular momentum also behaves as a fundamental string of finite extent. The length of the string is proportional to its angular momentum and the proportionality constants are the dipole vectors $`\stackrel{}{L}_k`$. In the S-dual nonlocal theories that describe D3-brane probes in pp-waves with a 3-form RR flux every state with $`Spin(6)`$ transverse angular momentum also behaves as a D1-brane of finite extent. We can extend this line of thought to other RR-backgrounds. For example, in a background with a 5-form RR field strength $`F_{+1234}=F_{+5678}`$ (where we use lightcone coordinates $`+,,1\mathrm{}8`$ as in ) and a D5-brane in directions $`+,,1235`$ we should find that open string states attached to the D5-brane that have, say, angular momentum in the $`78`$ plane also behave as a D3-brane that is spread in directions $`+,,56`$ and has a finite volume that is proportional to the angular momentum. This statement is, admittedly, obscure and it would be interesting to elucidate such a theory further.

Another possible application of the ideas presented in this paper is to M(atrix)-theory . The M(atrix)-theory Hamiltonian for M-theory is the 0+1D supersymmetric Yang-Mills quantum mechanics -. The standard derivation of weakly coupled type-IIA string theory from M(atrix)-theory - requires understanding of the strong coupling limit of 1+1D $`𝒩=8`$ Super Yang-Mills theory. Dipole theories naturally appear as M(atrix) models of Melvin spaces  (see also ). The relevant M(atrix) models are dipole theories that are deformations of 1+1D $`𝒩=8`$ Super Yang-Mills theory. Therefore understanding the strong coupling limit of dipole theories could prove beneficial for deriving a weakly coupled string theory descriptions of Melvin spaces. (A string theory description for Melvin backgrounds has been given in  but it has a dilaton that is not bounded.) Perhaps nonlocal worldsheet theories will play a role in such a description. (See - for other ideas regarding nonlocal worldsheet theories.)

We would also like to mention another new kind of nonlocal theory that appears on D3-brane probes in certain backgrounds with strong NSNS flux -. It is a very intriguing nonlocal field theory that is not translationally invariant and is described as a gauge theory on a noncommutative space with a varying noncommutativity parameter.

###### Acknowledgments.

It is a pleasure to thank Allan Adams, Aaron Bergman, Keshav Dasgupta, Jaume Gomis, Shahin Sheikh-Jabbari, Anatoly Konechny, Eliezer Rabinovici and Mukund Rangamani for helpful discussions. The work of OJG was supported in part by the Director, Office of Science, Office of High Energy and Nuclear Physics, of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract DE-AC03-76SF00098, and in part by the NSF under grant PHY-0098840.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

In the recent development of the string theory, the D-branes become the crucial objects. Among other things, they are used for the investigation of the string duality and $`AdS/CFT`$ correspondence. However, it is known that there are tadpoles in the configurations only with D-branes and we have to introduce the orientifolds in order to cancel the tadpoles. Thus, it is also important to investigate the orientifolds.

The most famous example is the type I string theory, which can be regarded as the type IIB string theory with (1+9) dimensional orientifold plane. This theory is defined on unoriented worldsheets with and without boundary. Although we know well the orientifolds in the flat space, we have little knowledge about the orientifolds in the curved backgrounds. Only in the case of rational conformal field theory, the orientifolds have been investigated  and their geometrical pictures are given recently .

In this paper, we consider the Liouville field theory on an unoriented surface as the simple example of non-rational case. Liouville field theory is also interesting because it appears in several important systems. This theory was much investigated about ten years ago because of the relation with the two dimensional quantum gravity. It is known that the Liouville field theory is dual to the $`SL(2,)/U(1)`$ WZW model, which appears in superstring theory as an interesting solvable case. In addition, the $`AdS_3`$ string theory is resemble to the Liouville field theory, thus it is important in a sense of the $`AdS/CFT`$ correspondence.

The Liouville field theory with boundary is studied in  and we will follow their analysis. First we obtain the solutions of the one point function by making use of the crossing symmetry on the two point function. Then we determine the precise form by considering the one loop partition function. The D-branes in the $`AdS_3`$ space are much investigated  in the similar manner. The orientifold of the $`AdS_3`$ space is also constructed in , however the constraint is too weak and we cannot determine the precise form of the one point functions111 The one point function can be determined up to overall factor with the help of the geometric interpretation .. It is a better point that we can determine the exact form in the Liouville field theory case.

The organization of this paper is as follows. In section 2, we review the Liouville field theory on a sphere and summarize our notations. In section 3, the one point function on a $`^2`$ is examined. We obtain the constraints from the crossing symmetry of the two point functions and then we solve these constraints. In section 4, we consider the modular bootstrap and the precise form of the one point function is determined. The conclusion and discussions are given in section 5 and the several useful formulae are summarized in appendix A.

## 2 Liouville Field Theory

The Liouville Field Theory is defined by the action

$$S=\frac{1}{4\pi }d^2x\sqrt{g}[g^{\mu \nu }_\mu \varphi _\nu \varphi +QR\varphi +4\pi \mu e^{2b\varphi }],$$
(2.1)
where $`g`$ is the metric and $`R`$ is the scalar curvature. The quantity $`Q=b+1/b`$ is called as the background charge and $`\mu `$ is called as the cosmological constant. By setting $`\mu =0`$, the stress tensors are given by

$$T(z)=(\varphi )^2+Q^2\varphi ,\overline{T}(\overline{z})=(\overline{}\varphi )^2+Q\overline{}^2\varphi ,$$
(2.2)
and the central charge of the theory is $`c=1+6Q^2`$. The primary fields are defined as $`V_\alpha =\mathrm{exp}(2\alpha \varphi (x))`$ with the conformal weights $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\alpha =\alpha (Q\alpha )`$. The normalizable states correspond to the operators with $`\alpha =Q/2+iP`$, where we restrict $`P0`$ since the operators $`V_\alpha `$ and $`V_{Q\alpha }`$ are related by so called reflection relations .

We can investigate the conformal field theory by considering the correlation functions of the fields. In principle, the multi-point correlation functions can be calculated from the information of the two point functions and three point functions:

$`V_\alpha (x)V_\alpha (y)={\displaystyle \frac{D(\alpha )}{|xy|^{4\mathrm{\Delta }_\alpha }}},`$
$`V_{\alpha _1}(x_1)V_{\alpha _2}(x_2)V_{\alpha _3}(x_3)={\displaystyle \frac{C(\alpha _1,\alpha _2,\alpha _3)}{|x_1x_2|^{2\mathrm{\Delta }_{12}}|x_2x_3|^{2\mathrm{\Delta }_{23}}|x_3x_1|^{2\mathrm{\Delta }_{31}}}},`$ (2.3)
where we use

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_{12}=\mathrm{\Delta }_{\alpha _1}+\mathrm{\Delta }_{\alpha _2}\mathrm{\Delta }_{\alpha _3},\mathrm{\Delta }_{23}=\mathrm{\Delta }_{\alpha _2}+\mathrm{\Delta }_{\alpha _3}\mathrm{\Delta }_{\alpha _1},\mathrm{\Delta }_{31}=\mathrm{\Delta }_{\alpha _3}+\mathrm{\Delta }_{\alpha _1}\mathrm{\Delta }_{\alpha _2}.`$ (2.4)
These quantities can be obtained by using the following technique. Among the general states, there are special states which are degenerate

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_{m,n}=e^{\left((1m)\frac{1}{b}+(1n)b\right)\varphi },$$
(2.5)
and they satisfy some differential equations. The simplest one is given for $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{1,2}=V_{b/2}`$ as

$$\left(\frac{1}{b^2}^2+T(z)\right)V_{\frac{b}{2}}=0.$$
(2.6)
When considering the operator product expansions including the degenerate states, these differential equations restrict the number of primary fields. For the above example $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{1,2}=V_{b/2}`$, we find

$$V_{\frac{b}{2}}V_\alpha C_+V_{\alpha \frac{b}{2}}+C_{}V_{\alpha +\frac{b}{2}},$$
(2.7)
where the coefficients can be calculated as $`C_+=1`$ and

$$C_{}=\mu \pi \frac{\gamma (2b\alpha 1b^2)}{\gamma (b^2)\gamma (2b\alpha )},\gamma (x)=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(x)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(1x)}.$$
(2.8)
Using this operator product expansion, we can evaluate the three point function including this field in two ways. Equating two quantities, we obtain the constraint and the solution is given by

$$D(\alpha )=\frac{1}{b^2}(\pi \mu \gamma (b^2))^{(Q2\alpha )/b}\frac{\gamma (2b\alpha b^2)}{\gamma (2\frac{2\alpha }{b}+\frac{1}{b^2})}.$$
(2.9)
The constraint does not determine the unique solution, however there is a quite strong constraint that the quantities obtained should be related by the duality $`b1/b`$. This duality should be understood by also replacing the cosmological constant $`\mu `$ with $`\stackrel{~}{\mu }`$ satisfying

$$\pi \stackrel{~}{\mu }\gamma \left(\frac{1}{b^2}\right)=\left(\pi \mu \gamma (b^2)\right)^{1/b^2}.$$
(2.10)
The general three point functions can be evaluated in the similar way and their explicit forms are obtained in .

## 3 One Point Function on a $`^2`$

For the oriented surface with boundary, there are several constraints of the theory which are called as the sewing constraints , and for the unoriented surface, there are three types of additional constraints . In this section, we use the constraint related to the one point functions on the $`^2`$ and in the next section we see the other two types of constraints from Möbius strip and Klein bottle amplitudes.

The one point function on a $`^2`$ can be calculated by using the mirror technique. In the case of the one point function on a disk, we can use the upper half plane by conformal mapping from the disk. Then, we can map from the upper half plane to the whole plane by using the involution $`I(z)=\overline{z}`$. There is a fixed line $`Imz=0`$, which corresponds to the boundary. In the case of the one point function on a $`^2`$, we can also use the upper half plane, however we should use other involution $`I(z)=1/\overline{z}`$ and there is no boundary. By using these mirror techniques, the one point function on a $`^2`$ can be written as

$$V_\alpha (z,\overline{z}){}_{^2}{}^{}=\frac{U(\alpha )}{|1+z\overline{z}|^{2\mathrm{\Delta }_\alpha }},$$
(3.1)
where the $`z`$ dependence is determined by the conformal symmetry.

In order to determine the coefficient $`U(\alpha )`$, we use the two point function including the degenerate field $`V_{b/2}`$ just like the bulk case as

$$V_{\frac{b}{2}}(z,\overline{z})V_\alpha (w,\overline{w}){}_{^2}{}^{}.$$
(3.2)
When two points $`z`$ and $`w`$ are close, it is natural to use the OPE (2.7) and we can write as

$`V_{\frac{b}{2}}(z,\overline{z})V_\alpha (w,\overline{w}){}_{^2}{}^{}={\displaystyle \frac{|1+w\overline{w}|^{2\mathrm{\Delta }_\alpha 2\mathrm{\Delta }_{b/2}}}{|1+z\overline{w}|^{4\mathrm{\Delta }_\alpha }}}\times `$
$`\times \left(C_+(\alpha )U\left(\alpha {\displaystyle \frac{b}{2}}\right)_+(\eta )+C_{}(\alpha )U\left(\alpha +{\displaystyle \frac{b}{2}}\right)_{}(\eta )\right),`$ (3.3)
where we define the cross ratio as

$$\eta =\frac{|zw|^2}{(1+z\overline{z})(1+w\overline{w})}.$$
(3.4)
Since this correlation function includes the degenerate field $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{1,2}=V_{b/2}`$ which satisfies (2.6), the conformal blocks $`_\pm `$ also satisfy the differential equation and they can be obtained by solving the differential equation. These solutions are expressed by the hypergeometric functions as

$`_+(\eta )`$ $`=\eta ^{b\alpha }(1\eta )^{b\alpha }F(1+2b\alpha 2b^2,2b\alpha ,2b\alpha b^2;\eta ),`$
$`_{}(\eta )`$ $`=\eta ^{1b\alpha +b^2}(1\eta )^{b\alpha }F(1+b^2,b^2,22b\alpha +b^2;\eta ).`$ (3.5)
Some properties of the hypergeometric functions are summarized in appendix A.

We should notice that the involution $`I`$ acts to the field as

$$I:V_\alpha (z,\overline{z})ϵ_\alpha V_\alpha (\frac{1}{\overline{z}},\frac{1}{z}),$$
(3.6)
where the phase factor should be $`ϵ_\alpha =\pm 1`$ since the product of two involutions is the identity. In the rational conformal field theory case, the label of fields takes a discrete number, therefore we can choose an arbitrary sign for the different fields as long as they are consistent with the OPE. On the other hand, the label of fields in our case takes the continuous value. Thus we can see that the consistency of OPE implies $`ϵ=+1`$. By using this fact, we find

$$V_\alpha (z,\overline{z})\mathrm{}=V_\alpha (\frac{1}{\overline{z}},\frac{1}{z})\mathrm{},$$
(3.7)
and this equation gives constraint to the one point function .

The following two point function can be calculated in the similar way as

$`V_{\frac{b}{2}}(z,\overline{z})V_\alpha ({\displaystyle \frac{1}{\overline{w}}},{\displaystyle \frac{1}{w}}){}_{^2}{}^{}={\displaystyle \frac{|1+w\overline{w}|^{2\mathrm{\Delta }_\alpha 2\mathrm{\Delta }_{b/2}}}{|1+z\overline{w}|^{4\mathrm{\Delta }_\alpha }}}\times `$
$`\times \left(C_+(\alpha )U\left(\alpha {\displaystyle \frac{b}{2}}\right)_+(1\eta )+C_{}(\alpha )U\left(\alpha +{\displaystyle \frac{b}{2}}\right)_{}(1\eta )\right).`$ (3.8)
Using the properties of the hypergeometric functions in appendix A, we obtain

$`_+(1\eta )`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(2b\alpha b^2)\mathrm{\Gamma }(12b\alpha +b^2)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+b^2)\mathrm{\Gamma }(b^2)}}_+(\eta )+`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(2b\alpha b^2)\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+2b\alpha b^2)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+2b\alpha 2b^2)\mathrm{\Gamma }(2\alpha b)}}_{}(\eta ),`$
$`_{}(1\eta )`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(22b\alpha +b^2)\mathrm{\Gamma }(12b\alpha +b^2)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(12b\alpha )\mathrm{\Gamma }(22\alpha b+2b^2)}}_+(\eta )+`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(22b\alpha +b^2)\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+2b\alpha b^2)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+b^2)\mathrm{\Gamma }(b^2)}}_{}(\eta ).`$ (3.9)
Now we can compare two quantities (3.3) and (3.8) by using (3.7). Then the following constraints are obtained as

$`U\left(\alpha {\displaystyle \frac{b}{2}}\right)`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(2b\alpha b^2)\mathrm{\Gamma }(12b\alpha +b^2)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+b^2)\mathrm{\Gamma }(b^2)}}U\left(\alpha {\displaystyle \frac{b}{2}}\right)`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi \mu }{\gamma (b^2)}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(12b\alpha +b^2)\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+2b\alpha b^2)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(2b\alpha )\mathrm{\Gamma }(22b\alpha +2b^2)}}U\left(\alpha +{\displaystyle \frac{b}{2}}\right),`$
$`U\left(\alpha +{\displaystyle \frac{b}{2}}\right)`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(22b\alpha +b^2)\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+2b\alpha b^2)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+b^2)\mathrm{\Gamma }(b^2)}}U\left(\alpha +{\displaystyle \frac{b}{2}}\right)`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma (b^2)}{\pi \mu }}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(22b\alpha +b^2)\mathrm{\Gamma }(2b\alpha b^2)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(12b\alpha )\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+2b\alpha 2b^2)}}U\left(\alpha {\displaystyle \frac{b}{2}}\right).`$ (3.10)
These constraints can be solved and the solutions are of the forms as

$`U(\alpha )={\displaystyle \frac{2}{b}}(\pi \mu \gamma (b^2))^{(Q2\alpha )/2b}\mathrm{\Gamma }(2b\alpha b^2)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left({\displaystyle \frac{2\alpha }{b}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{b^2}}1\right)f(\alpha ).`$ (3.11)
The function $`f(\alpha )`$ is given by the linear combination of the following two functions as

$$\mathrm{cos}\left(\left(b+\frac{1}{b}\right)\pi \left(\alpha \frac{Q}{2}\right)\right),\mathrm{cos}\left(\left(b\frac{1}{b}\right)\pi \left(\alpha \frac{Q}{2}\right)\right),$$
(3.12)
where we have used the duality $`b1/b`$ in order to restrict the form of the solutions. We should notice that these solutions satisfy the reflection relation

$$U(\alpha )=U(Q\alpha )D(\alpha ),$$
(3.13)
where $`D(\alpha )`$ is the coefficient of the two point function (2.9). Although we cannot determine the coefficients at this level, they can be fixed by considering the Möbius strip amplitude as we will see in the next section.

## 4 Crosscap State and Modular Bootstrap

It is convenient to introduce the boundary states and the crosscap state for considering the Liouville field theory on the annulus, Möbius strip and Klein bottle. First, let us review the analysis of the boundary states . The Virasoro character of the general non-degenerate representation $`\alpha =Q/2+iP`$ is given by

$$\chi _P(\tau )=\text{Tr}__P(q^{L_0\frac{c}{24}})=\frac{q^{P^2}}{\eta (\tau )},$$
(4.1)
where the eta function $`\eta (\tau )`$ is defined in appendix A. The modular transformation can be written as

$$\chi _P\left(\frac{1}{\tau }\right)=\sqrt{2}𝑑P^{}\chi _P^{}(\tau )e^{4\pi iPP^{}}.$$
(4.2)
For the degenerate state $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{m,n}`$, the character is

$`\chi _{m,n}(\tau )`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{q^{\frac{1}{4}\left(\frac{m}{b}+nb\right)^2}q^{\frac{1}{4}\left(\frac{m}{b}nb\right)^2}}{\eta (\tau )}},`$ (4.3)
which transforms under the modular transformation as

$`\chi _{m,n}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{\tau }}\right)`$ $`=\sqrt{2}{\displaystyle 𝑑P\chi _P(\tau )\left(\mathrm{cosh}\left(2\pi P\left(\frac{m}{b}+nb\right)\right)\mathrm{cosh}\left(2\pi P\left(\frac{m}{b}nb\right)\right)\right)}`$
$`=2\sqrt{2}{\displaystyle 𝑑P\chi _P(\tau )\mathrm{sinh}\left(\frac{2\pi mP}{b}\right)\mathrm{sinh}(2\pi nbP)}.`$ (4.4)
The boundary states are described in terms of the Ishibashi states  which satisfy

$${}_{I}{}^{}P|q^{\frac{1}{2}\left(L_0+\overline{L_0}\frac{c}{12}\right)}|P^{}{}_{I}{}^{}=\delta _{P,P^{}}\chi _P(\tau ).$$
(4.5)
The general boundary states can be written by the linear combination of the Ishibashi states. The coefficients correspond to the one point functions since they can be calculated by the overlaps between the boundary states and closed string states.

The one point function on a pseudosphere was obtained in  and the corresponding boundary states are labeled by $`(m,n)`$ as

$${}_{C}{}^{}m,n|=dP\mathrm{\Psi }_{m,n}(P){}_{I}{}^{}P|.$$
(4.6)
The boundary state $`|1,1_C`$ can be interpreted as a basic state and the wave function $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{1,1}(P)`$ is

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{1,1}(P)=\frac{2^{3/4}2\pi iP}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(12ibP)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(1\frac{2iP}{b}\right)}(\pi \mu \gamma (b^2))^{iP/b}.$$
(4.7)
The other wave functions $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{m,n}`$ are expressed in this basis as

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{m,n}(P)=\mathrm{\Psi }_{1,1}(P)\frac{\mathrm{sinh}\left(\frac{2\pi mP}{b}\right)\mathrm{sinh}(2\pi nbP)}{\mathrm{sinh}(\frac{2\pi P}{b})\mathrm{sinh}(2\pi bP)}.$$
(4.8)
There are the other kind of boundary states which correspond to the one point functions on the disk . The wave functions can be labeled by a continuous number $`s`$ and they are given by

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_s(P)=\frac{2^{1/4}\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+2ibP)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(1+\frac{2iP}{b}\right)\mathrm{cos}(2\pi sP)}{2i\pi P}(\pi \mu \gamma (b^2))^{iP/b}.$$
(4.9)
The normalization of wave functions is determined by using the basic boundary states.

Next, we construct the crosscap state. For the Möbius strip amplitudes, it is convenient to introduce the following characters  as

$$\widehat{\chi }_\alpha (q)=e^{\pi i(\mathrm{\Delta }_\alpha \frac{c}{24})}\chi _\alpha (\sqrt{q}).$$
(4.10)
The modular transformation of the Möbius strip can be performed by so called $`P`$ matrix ($`P=\sqrt{T}ST^2S\sqrt{T}`$). This matrix transforms $`\tau 1/(4\tau )`$ and for the character of the non-degenerate representation it can be given by

$$\frac{e^{2\pi i\left(\frac{1}{4\tau }\right)P^2}}{\eta \left(\frac{1}{4\tau }\right)}=𝑑P^{}e^{2\pi iPP^{}}\frac{e^{2\pi i\tau P_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}}{\eta (\tau )},$$
(4.11)
and for the character of the degenerate representation it can be written as222In the previous version, there was a sign mistake in the second term of the first equation. I am grateful to S. Hirano and Y. Nakayama for pointing out this error.

$`{\displaystyle \frac{e^{2\pi i\left(\frac{1}{4\tau }\right)\frac{1}{4}\left(\frac{m}{b}+nb\right)^2}(1)^{mn}e^{2\pi i\left(\frac{1}{4\tau }\right)\frac{1}{4}\left(\frac{m}{b}nb\right)^2}}{\eta \left(\frac{1}{4\tau }\right)}}=`$
$`={\displaystyle 𝑑P\frac{e^{2\pi i\tau P^2}}{\eta (\tau )}\left(\mathrm{cosh}\left(\pi P\left(\frac{m}{b}+nb\right)\right)(1)^{mn}\mathrm{cosh}\left(\pi P\left(\frac{m}{b}nb\right)\right)\right)}.`$ (4.12)
In the case of crosscap state, the Ishibashi states are defined by

$`{}_{I}{}^{}C,P|q^{\frac{1}{2}\left(L_0+\overline{L}_0\frac{c}{12}\right)}|C,P^{}{}_{I}{}^{}=\delta _{P,P^{}}\chi _P(\tau ),`$
$`{}_{I}{}^{}B,P|q^{\frac{1}{2}\left(L_0+\overline{L}_0\frac{c}{12}\right)}|C,P^{}{}_{I}{}^{}=\delta _{P,P^{}}\widehat{\chi }_P(\tau ).`$ (4.13)
In this basis, the crosscap state is represented as

$${}_{C}{}^{}C|=dP\mathrm{\Psi }_C(P){}_{I}{}^{}C,P|,$$
(4.14)
where $`\mathrm{\Psi }_C(P)`$ is the wave function corresponding to the crosscap state.

In order to determine the wave function $`\mathrm{\Psi }_C(P)`$, we use the character of the identity representation $`(m,n)=(1,1)`$. The modular transformation is given in (4.12) and it can be interpreted as

$$\widehat{\chi }_{1,1}\left(\frac{1}{\tau }\right)=𝑑P\widehat{\chi }_P(\tau )\mathrm{\Psi }_{1,1}(P)\mathrm{\Psi }_C(P).$$
(4.15)
This equation determines the wave function including the normalization factor as

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_C(P)`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{2^{3/4}\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+2ibP)\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+\frac{2iP}{b})}{2i\pi P}}(\pi \mu \gamma (b^2))^{iP/b}\times `$
$`\times \left(\mathrm{cosh}\left(\pi P\left(b+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{b}}\right)\right)+\mathrm{cosh}\left(\pi P\left(b{\displaystyle \frac{1}{b}}\right)\right)\right).`$ (4.16)
This also determines the precise form of the one point function on the $`^2`$ (3.12).

Because we obtain the precise form of the crosscap state, we can calculate the other partition functions straightforwardly. The overlaps between the boundary states $`|m,n_C`$ (4.6) and the crosscap state $`|C_C`$ are given by

$`Z_{m,n}(\tau )`$ $`={\displaystyle 𝑑P\widehat{\chi }_P(\tau )\mathrm{\Psi }_{m,n}(P)\mathrm{\Psi }_C(P)}`$
$`=2{\displaystyle 𝑑P\widehat{\chi }_P(\tau )\frac{\mathrm{sinh}\left(\frac{2\pi mP}{b}\right)\mathrm{sinh}(2\pi nbP)\mathrm{cosh}\left(\frac{\pi P}{b}\right)\mathrm{cosh}(\pi bP)}{\mathrm{sinh}\left(\frac{2\pi P}{b}\right)\mathrm{sinh}(2\pi bP)}}.`$ (4.17)
By using the formula

$$\frac{\mathrm{sinh}(2\pi nbP)\mathrm{cosh}(\pi bP)}{\mathrm{sinh}(2\pi bP)}=\underset{l=0,1,\mathrm{}}{\overset{n1}{}}\mathrm{cosh}(\pi bP(2l+1)),$$
(4.18)
we find

$$Z_{m,n}(\tau )=\underset{k=0,1,\mathrm{}}{\overset{m1}{}}\underset{l=0,1,\mathrm{}}{\overset{n1}{}}\widehat{\chi }_{2k+1,2l+1}\left(\frac{1}{\tau }\right).$$
(4.19)
We should note that the coefficient of the character of the identity representation is less than one, which means that the crosscap state we have constructed is the irreducible one.

The other type of the Möbius strip amplitudes correspond to the overlaps between the boundary states parametrized by $`s`$ and the crosscap state as

$`Z_s(\tau )`$ $`={\displaystyle 𝑑P\widehat{\chi }_P(\tau )\mathrm{\Psi }_s(P)\mathrm{\Psi }_C(P)}`$
$`={\displaystyle 𝑑P𝑑P^{}\widehat{\chi }_P^{}\left(\frac{1}{\tau }\right)e^{2\pi iPP^{}}\mathrm{\Psi }_s(P)\mathrm{\Psi }_C(P)}`$
$`={\displaystyle 𝑑P^{}\widehat{\chi }_P^{}\left(\frac{1}{\tau }\right)\rho (P^{})},`$ (4.20)
where $`\rho (P^{})`$ is the density of states. The last one is the Klein bottle amplitude, which is given by

$`Z(\tau )`$ $`={\displaystyle 𝑑P\chi _P(\tau )\mathrm{\Psi }_C(P)\mathrm{\Psi }_C(P)}`$
$`={\displaystyle 𝑑P𝑑P^{}\chi _P^{}\left(\frac{1}{\tau }\right)e^{4\pi iPP^{}}\mathrm{\Psi }_C(P)\mathrm{\Psi }_C(P)}`$
$`={\displaystyle 𝑑P^{}\chi _P^{}\left(\frac{1}{\tau }\right)\rho (P^{})}.`$ (4.21)
In the case of the boundary states, the density of states can be calculated by the other method and we can compare them. It is interesting to compare these densities of states with the ones obtained by other methods if we could also in the case of crosscap state.

## 5 Conclusion

Liouville field theory on an unoriented surface is investigated. The basic information is given by the one point function on a $`^2`$. Since it is difficult to calculate in general, we use the trick which was developed for the bulk three point function  and for the one point function on a disk  and on a pseudosphere . The degenerate states satisfy some differential equations, and hence the two point functions including these states are calculable. By assuming the crossing symmetry, we obtain the constraint for the general one point function (3.10). Although there are plenty of solutions of the constraint, we can choose one of them (4.16) by making use of the modular bootstrap.

Since Liouville field theory is a typical example of the non-rational conformal field theory, the application to the other backgrounds, e.g., $`AdS_3`$ spaces , might be done by using the methods we have used. Apart from the solvable property, Liouville field theory is interesting because it can be embedded into the full superstring theory. For that purpose, we should extend our analysis to the supersymmetric case like . If we can apply to the consistent superstring theory, the orientifolds in a non-trivial background can be constructed and we may see interesting phenomena in the system with the non-trivial orientifolds.

### Acknowledgement

We would like to thank K. Hosomichi for useful discussions.

## Appendix A Several Useful Formulae

The hypergeometric functions have the following properties under the reparametrizations

$`F(a,b,c;\eta )`$ $`=(1\eta )^{cab}F(ca,cb,c;\eta ),`$ (A.1)
$`F(a,b,c;1\eta )`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(c)\mathrm{\Gamma }(cab)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(ca)\mathrm{\Gamma }(cb)}}F(a,b,1c+a+b;\eta )`$
$`+\eta ^{cab}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(c)\mathrm{\Gamma }(a+bc)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(a)\mathrm{\Gamma }(b)}}F(ca,cb,1+cab;\eta ).`$ (A.2)
We often use the following formulae for Gamma function as

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+z)=z\mathrm{\Gamma }(z),`$ (A.3)
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }(1z)\mathrm{\Gamma }(z)={\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{\mathrm{sin}(\pi z)}},`$ (A.4)
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+ix)\mathrm{\Gamma }(1ix)={\displaystyle \frac{\pi x}{\mathrm{sinh}(\pi x)}},`$ (A.5)
where $`z`$ is an arbitrary complex number and $`x`$ is a real number.

The Dedekind eta function is defined by

$$\eta (\tau )=q^{\frac{1}{24}}\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}(1q^n),$$
(A.6)
where $`q=\mathrm{exp}(2\pi i\tau )`$ and its modular transformation is given by

$$\eta (\tau +1)=e^{\pi i/12}\eta (\tau ),\eta \left(\frac{1}{\tau }\right)=\sqrt{i\tau }\eta (\tau ).$$
(A.7)