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# The three-point correlation function for spin-2 fields

## 1 Introduction

Can the three-point correlation function (3PCF) of a spin-2 field be a useful probe of non-Gaussian signals in cosmology? Most previous work has focused on the 3PCF or its Fourier transform, the bispectrum, of scalar quantities such as the galaxy number density and temperature anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). An exciting development is the recent detection of the 3PCF of the cosmic shear field by Bernardeau, Mellier & Van Waerbeke (2002a; also see Bernardeau, Van Waerbeke & Mellier 2002b), which provides new constraints on structure formation models beyond those provided by two-point statistics. For the CMB, the bispectrum of the temperature anisotropies is a promising way of probing primordial non-Gaussian perturbations (e.g., Verde et al. 2000; Komatsu et al. 2002). The 3PCF of the CMB polarization might open a new, complementary window for this in that it can separately measure the non-Gaussian signals arising from primordial scalar, vector and tensor perturbations.

A spin-2 field has two components on the sky, hence its 3PCF in general has $`2^3=8`$ components. One may ask: how many of these components are non-zero? Do all components carry useful information about the $`B`$\- and $`E`$-modes of the spin-2 field111A two-dimensional spin-2 field can be separated into an $`E`$-mode derivable from a scalar potential and a pseudoscalar $`B`$-mode (Kamionkowski, Kosowski & Stebbins 1997; Zaldarriaga & Seljak 1997; Hu & White 1997 for the CMB polarization and Stebbins 1996; Kamionkowski et al. 1998; Crittenden et al. 2001; Schneider et al. 2002 for the cosmic shear).? Recently, Schneider & Lombardi (2002; hereafter SL02) and Zaldarriaga & Scoccimarro (2002; hereafter ZS02) investigated these questions. The purpose of this Letter is to clarify these issues using geometrical arguments and measurements from ray-tracing simulations of the cosmic shear. We will pay particular attention to the problem of how the eight 3PCFs are related to the $`E`$\- and $`B`$-modes.

## 2 The 3PCF of Spin-2 Fields

The two components of a spin-2 field depend on the choice of the coordinate system. Suppose we have the shear components, $`\gamma _1`$ and $`\gamma _2`$ on the sky, for given Cartesian coordinates222 We use the notations of weak lensing for the spin-2 field, $`\gamma _i`$; our discussion can be applied to the CMB polarization if one replaces $`\gamma _1`$ and $`\gamma _2`$ with the Stokes parameters $`Q`$ and $`U`$, respectively.. A rotation of the coordinate system by $`\phi `$ (in the anticlockwise direction in our convention) transforms the shear fields as $`\gamma _1^{}+i\gamma _2^{}=(\gamma _1+i\gamma _2)e^{i2\phi }`$.

For the two-point correlation function (2PCF), the problem of the coordinate dependence of the shear field has been well studied in the literature (e.g., Bartelmann & Schneider 2001). For a given pair of points, $`𝐗_1`$ and $`𝐗_2`$, separated by a fixed angle $`\theta `$, we can define two components of the 2PCF which are invariant under coordinate rotations: $`\xi _+(\theta )=\gamma _+(𝐗_1)\gamma _+(𝐗_2)`$ and $`\xi _\times (\theta )=\gamma _\times (𝐗_1)\gamma _\times (𝐗_2)`$. Here $`\gamma _+(𝐗_i)`$ and $`\gamma _\times (𝐗_i)`$ are the shear components defined by projecting the shear along the direction $`\phi `$ connecting the two points: $`\gamma _+(𝐗_i)+i\gamma _\times (𝐗_i)=\left[\gamma _1(𝐗_i)+i\gamma _2(𝐗_i)\right]e^{2i\phi }`$. The other possible component, $`\gamma _+\gamma _\times `$, vanishes because of parity invariance.

SL02 and ZS02 investigated possible eight components of the shear 3PCF based on the $`+/\times `$ decomposition of the shear field. We will closely follow these authors in setting up the geometry of the 3PCF. In contrast to the 2PCF, there is no unique choice of a reference direction to define the $`+/\times `$ decompositions for the shear fields at the vertices of a triangle. The ‘center of mass’, $`𝐨`$, of a triangle is one possible fiducial choice: $`𝐨(1/3)_{i=1}^3𝐗_i`$. Figure 1 shows a sketch of the triangle we use to define the shear 3PCFs. The solid and dashed lines at each vertex show the positive directions of the $`+`$ and $`\times `$ components, respectively. We also define the interior angle $`\psi `$ between $`𝐱_1`$ and $`𝐱_2`$. The projection operator to compute the $`+`$ or $`\times `$ components at each vertex is written as:

$`𝐏_+(𝐗_i)`$ $`=`$ $`(\theta _{i1}^2\theta _{i2}^2,2\theta _{i1}\theta _{i2})/\theta _i^2,`$
$`𝐏_\times (𝐗_i)`$ $`=`$ $`(2\theta _{i1}\theta _{2i},\theta _{i1}^2\theta _{i2}^2)/\theta _i^2,`$ (1)
where $`𝜽`$$`{}_{i}{}^{}𝐗_i𝐨`$. Using these projections, we obtain at each vertex $`\gamma _+=P_{+1}\gamma _1+P_{+2}\gamma _2`$ and $`\gamma _\times =P_{\times 1}\gamma _1+P_{\times 2}\gamma _2`$. These transform under parity as $`\gamma _+\gamma _+`$ and $`\gamma _\times \gamma _\times `$. In terms of $`\gamma _+`$ and $`\gamma _\times `$ we define the eight components of the shear 3PCF for a given triangle as a function of $`x_1`$, $`x_2`$ and $`\psi `$:

$$\zeta _{\mu \nu \tau }(x_1,x_2,\psi )\gamma _\mu (𝐗_1)\gamma _\nu (𝐗_2)\gamma _\tau (𝐗_3),$$
(2)
where $`\mu ,\nu ,\tau =+`$ or $`\times `$ and $`\mathrm{}`$ denotes the ensemble average. The 3PCF defined above is invariant under triangle rotations with respect to the center $`𝐨`$ as pointed out in SL02. Hence it is fully characterized by the three variables $`x_1,x_2,\psi `$, just like the 3PCF of a scalar field (note that if we had used the Cartesian components of the shear, we would need four variables to specify it as it is not invariant under rotation).

For a pure $`E`$-mode, based on the properties of $`\gamma _+`$ and $`\gamma _\times `$ under parity transformations described above, we divide the eight shear 3PCFs into two groups:

Parity-even functions: $`\zeta _{+++},\zeta _{+\times \times },\zeta _{\times +\times },\zeta _{\times \times +}`$
Parity-odd functions: $`\zeta _{\times \times \times },\zeta _{\times ++},\zeta _{+\times +},\zeta _{++\times }.`$ (3)
Weak lensing only produces the $`E`$-mode, while source galaxy clustering, intrinsic alignments and observational systematics induce both $`E`$ and $`B`$modes in general (Crittenden et al. 2001; Schneider et al. 2002)333Multiple lensing deflections generally induce the $`B`$-mode, but Jain, Seljak & White (2000) showed that the induced $`B`$-mode is much smaller than the lensing $`E`$-mode using ray-tracing simulations.. For the CMB polarization, although primordial scalar perturbations generate only the $`E`$-mode, vector and tensor perturbations can induce both modes (e.g., Kamionkowski et al. 1997).

A question posed by SL02 and ZS02 is whether all eight 3PCFs could have contributions from lensing. We examine this question with geometrical considerations and show results from simulations in the next section. The parity transformation for a triangle can be taken to be a mirror transformation as sketched in Figure 1, which shows the parity transformation with respect to the side vector $`𝐱_1`$ as one example. It corresponds to the change $`\psi 2\pi \psi `$ in our parameters. Figure 1 illustrates the transformation for $`\zeta _{++\times }`$. From statistical homogeneity and symmetry, the amplitude of the 3PCF depends only on the distances between the center and each vertex. Hence, the absolute amplitudes of $`\zeta _{++\times }`$ for the two triangles shown should be the same. But the sign of $`\gamma _\times `$ at the vertex $`3^{}`$ changes under this parity transformation. For the eight 3PCFs in equation (3), we can say in general:

$`\text{Parity-even: }\zeta _{\mu \nu \tau }(x_1,x_2,\psi )=\zeta _{\mu \nu \tau }(x_1,x_2,2\pi \psi ),`$
$`\text{Parity-odd: }\zeta _{\mu \nu \tau }(x_1,x_2,\psi )=\zeta _{\mu \nu \tau }(x_1,x_2,2\pi \psi ).`$ (4)
Next, we consider an isosceles triangle with $`x_1=x_2`$. In this case, the $`\gamma _\times `$ at vertex $`3`$ and $`3^{}`$ in Figure 1 are statistically identical (viewed from the center of the triangle, they should have equal contributions when averaged over a matter distribution). We thus have the additional symmetries for the two parity-odd 3PCFs:

$`\zeta _{++\times }(x_1,x_1,\psi )`$ $`=`$ $`\zeta _{++\times }(x_1,x_1,2\pi \psi ),`$
$`\zeta _{\times \times \times }(x_1,x_1,\psi )`$ $`=`$ $`\zeta _{\times \times \times }(x_1,x_1,2\pi \psi ).`$ (5)
The properties described in equations (4) and (5) lead to

$$\text{Isosceles Triangles: }\zeta _{++\times }=0,\zeta _{\times \times \times }=0.$$
(6)
Note that this argument does not lead to the vanishing of the other two parity-odd functions, in which the $`\times `$ component is at a vertex bounded by unequal sides. For equilateral triangles however all four parity-odd functions vanish:

$$\mathrm{Equilateral}\mathrm{Triangles}:\zeta _{\mathrm{parity}\mathrm{odd}}=0.$$
(7)
We argue that for a generic triangle with all sides unequal, the differences in side lengths break the symmetry that is expressed in equation (5). In other words, the fact that gravitation has a scale dependence allows parity-odd 3PCFs to be non-zero for a triangle with unequal sides. These conclusions are consistent with those of SL02.

## 3 Predictions from ray tracing simulations

To demonstrate the properties of the shear 3PCFs more precisely, we employ ray-tracing simulations of the cosmic shear performed by Jain et al. (2000). We use the SCDM model ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{m0}}=1`$, $`h=0.5`$ and $`\sigma _8=0.6`$), with source redshift $`z_s=1`$ and area $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{sky}}=7.68`$ degree2 (see Jain et al. 2000 for more details). We followed Barriga & Gaztañaga (2002) for the algorithm to calculate the 3PCF. Lists of neighbors are used to find the three vertices from the cell-based data as well as to calculate the projection operators for each vertex. The error bars shown in the following figures are computed from 9 different realizations (see Takada & Jain 2002c for more details).

Figure 2 shows the results for the shear 3PCFs for isosceles triangles against the interior angle $`\psi `$ between the two equal sides $`x_1=x_2=0.^{}97`$ (see Figure 1). The shear 3PCF is computed from the simulated data by averaging the estimator over all triplets with given triangle configuration. For the bin size we used $`\mathrm{\Delta }x=0.^{}08`$ for the side lengths and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\psi =\pi /20`$ for the interior angle. The upper panel shows the four parity-even 3PCFs, while the lower panel shows the parity-odd functions. As expected, $`\zeta _{+++}`$ appears to have the greatest lensing contributions, and, in particular, peaks for equilateral triangles with $`\psi =\pi /3`$. The other three modes have smaller amplitude than $`\zeta _{+++}`$, and two of them are the same because of symmetric triangle and shear configurations. Interestingly, the features of these curves match the theoretical curves shown in Figure 3 of ZS02 ($`\varphi `$ in their figures corresponds to $`\pi \psi `$ in our figure). Their results were presented with arbitrary normalization of the y-axis, so we can only compare the configuration dependence. Thus these small-scale complex features are basically captured by the tangential shear patterns around a single halo.

From the lower panel in Figure 2, it is clear that two of the parity-odd 3PCFs are non-zero, but the others vanish, as stated in equation (6). This result clarifies that the parity-odd 3PCFs in general do carry lensing information and vanish only for special triangle configurations. For isosceles triangles, the two vanishing parity-odd functions can be used to discriminate systematics from the $`E`$-mode. For $`\psi =\pi /3`$, the triangle is equilateral, and all the parity-odd 3PCFs vanish as stated in equation (7).

We have verified that the simulation results are in agreement with the 1-halo term predictions of the halo model. The solid curves in Figure 2 show the halo model predictions that follow the real space halo formalism developed in Takada & Jain (2002b). The calculations are based on adapting equation (52) from this paper by replacing $`\kappa _m`$ with the relevant shear component for a halo of given mass. A detailed comparison of analytical and simulation results for different models will be presented in Takada & Jain (2002c).

The features shown above for isosceles triangles are explored for a triangle with three unequal sides in Figure 3, in which $`x_1=x_2/2=0.^{}97`$. This figure is plotted over the range $`\psi =[0,2\pi ]`$ to explicitly show the parity-even (upper panel) and odd (lower panel) properties of the shear 3PCFs. Note that the parity transformation is equivalent to the change $`\psi 2\pi \psi `$ in our parameters. As noted in ZS02, the amplitude of the 3PCF is suppressed for elongated triangles because of cancellations in the signals by the vector-like property of the shear. The figure reveals that all the parity-odd 3PCFs are non-zero and in fact all the eight 3PCFs have roughly comparable amplitude. Note that $`\zeta _{\times \times \times }`$ and $`\zeta _{+\times +}`$ vanish at $`\psi /\pi =0.42`$, as the triangle becomes an isosceles triangle with $`x_2=x_3`$, and therefore the 3PCFs are consistent with the result in Figure 2.

By rotating the simulated shear field at each position by $`45`$ degrees, we can investigate the 3PCF of a pure $`B`$-mode map (Kaiser 1992). Since this procedure transforms $`\gamma _+\gamma _\times `$ and $`\gamma _\times \gamma _+`$, we find $`\zeta _{+++}^E\zeta _{\times \times \times }^B`$ and so on. Hence, $`\zeta _{\times \times \times }^B`$ carries most of the $`B`$-mode signal for triangles that are close to equilateral. Further the symmetry properties of the 3PCFs under $`\psi 2\pi \psi `$ (shown in Figure 3) are reversed for the $`B`$-mode; for example, $`\zeta _{\times \times \times }^B(\psi )=\zeta _{\times \times \times }^B(2\pi \psi )`$. Therefore, we should keep in mind that for a general spin-2 field which includes both $`E`$ and $`B`$ modes, the property $`\zeta (\psi )=\pm \zeta (2\pi \psi )`$ can no longer be expected. The measurements of $`\zeta `$ thus has to be done for the full range $`\psi =[0,2\pi ]`$ (unlike the case for the 3PCF of a scalar quantity like the density field or the CMB temperature fluctuations field).

The upper panel of Figure 4 shows the results for the shear 3PCF for equilateral triangles against the side length. For the measurements from simulated data, we used triangles with each side length in the range $`[r\mathrm{\Delta }r,r+\mathrm{\Delta }r]`$, with bin size $`\mathrm{\Delta }r=0^{}.325`$ kept fixed. Since all the parity-odd 3PCFs vanish for an equilateral triangle, the results for $`\zeta _{+++}`$ and $`\zeta _{+\times \times }(=\zeta _{\times +\times }=\zeta _{+\times \times })`$ are shown. We also show the halo model predictions for the 1-halo terms of $`\zeta _{+++}`$ and $`\zeta _{+\times \times }`$ by the solid and dashed curves, respectively. It is again apparent that the halo model predictions are in good agreement with the simulation results.

To estimate the signal-to-noise ($`S/N`$) for measuring the shear 3PCFs from an actual survey, we need to account for the noise arising from the large intrinsic ellipticities of source galaxies. The lower panel of Figure 4 shows the 3PCFs measured from simulated shear maps including the noise contamination. We assume that the intrinsic ellipticities have random orientations with a Gaussian distribution for the amplitudes with rms $`\sigma _ϵ=0.3`$. The galaxies are taken to be randomly distributed with number density $`n_{\mathrm{gal}}38`$ arcmin-2. One can see that $`\zeta _{+++}`$ can be detected from a survey with area of order 10 square degrees, provided the errors are dominated by statistical errors. The other 3PCFs are more difficult to measure for equilateral triangles. Here we also show $`\zeta _{\times \times \times }`$ which is expected to be zero for an $`E`$-mode signal, so the error bars on it show the accuracy with which the $`B`$-mode can be constrained. These results in part verify the detection of the shear 3PCF by Bernardeau et al. (2002a) from the cosmic shear survey of Van Waerbeke et al. (2001), although they used a different estimator of the shear 3PCF. The $`S/N`$ for one particular triangle configuration with size $`r`$ scales roughly as $`S/N\zeta _\gamma (\sigma _ϵ/\sqrt{n_{\mathrm{gal}}})^3\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{survey}}^{1/2}r^2(\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{ln}r)^{3/2}`$, where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{survey}}`$ is the survey area. By combining information from triangles with different configurations and from the different 3PCFs, we can improve the $`S/N`$ (however, to interpret the measured 3PCFs one must estimate how correlated neighboring bins are, as discussed below). Note further that we have used the SCDM model with $`\zeta _{+++}=24\times 10^6`$ for $`r=15^{}`$; the $`S/N`$ for the concordance $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM model is lower because the signal is smaller, e.g. $`\zeta _{+++}=48\times 10^7`$ (Takada & Jain 2002c). This rough analysis leads us to conclude that future surveys with area $`100`$ degree2 should provide measurements of the 3PCFs with $`S/N`$ well over 10 in each bin if systematic errors are eliminated.

## 4 Discussion

We have investigated the 3PCF of the cosmic shear field. We measured the eight components of the shear 3PCF from ray-tracing simulations and checked our results using analytical calculations based on the halo model. Figures 2 and 3 show that in general all eight components are non-zero, have comparable amplitude, and have a complex configuration dependence. These results verify the analysis of SL02 who analyzed the 3PCFs based on their transformations under parity and rotations.

The 3PCFs show non-Gaussian signatures induced by non-linear gravitational clustering. In constraining models from measurements of the shear 3PCFs, it will be necessary to develop an optimal way to combine the eight 3PCFs. To do this, we will need explicit relations showing how the shear 3PCFs are related to the lensing $`E`$-mode, in analogy with two-point statistics (Crittenden et al. 2001; Schneider et al. 1998, 2002). This problem is more easily formulated in Fourier space. If we use the Cartesian components of the shear to define the 3PCFs, then simple relations exist between the bispectra of the shear 3PCFs, $`\stackrel{~}{\zeta }_{ijk}`$ and the bispectrum of the convergence, $`B_\kappa `$:

$$\stackrel{~}{\zeta }_{ijk}(𝐥_1,𝐥_2,𝐥_3)=B_\kappa (𝐥_1,𝐥_2,𝐥_3)u_i(𝐥_1)u_j(𝐥_2)u_k(𝐥_3),$$
(8)
where $`i,j,k=1,2`$ and $`u_i(𝐥)=(\mathrm{cos2}\phi _𝐥,\mathrm{sin2}\phi _𝐥)`$ for the $`E`$-mode. This equation shows that the shear 3PCFs can be related to a single 3PCF for the $`E`$-mode field. For example we can obtain the convergence bispectrum using the eight measured shear bispectra as:

$$B_\kappa (𝐥_1,𝐥_2,𝐥_3)=\underset{i,j,k}{}u_i(𝐥_1)u_j(𝐥_2)u_k(𝐥_3)\stackrel{~}{\zeta }_{ijk}(𝐥_1,𝐥_2,𝐥_3).$$
(9)
However in real space it is still unclear how best to use the eight 3PCFs measured over a limited range of scales to get an optimal estimator of the $`E`$-mode 3PCF. Another question we have not considered is how strongly the shear 3PCFs are correlated for different triangle configurations, since lensing fields at arcminute scales are highly non-Gaussian (e.g. Takada & Jain 2002a).

Realistic data has noise which includes both $`E/B`$ modes, as would contributions from intrinsic ellipticity correlations, nonlinear lensing effects and systematic errors. We have shown that two or all four parity-odd 3PCFs vanish for isosceles or equilateral triangles, respectively (see Figures 2 and 4). For general triangles, Figure 3 shows that the 3PCFs of $`E`$-mode shear fields have specific symmetry properties under the change $`\psi 2\pi \psi `$, where $`\psi `$ is the interior angle of the triangle shown in Figure 1. These properties can be used to find $`B`$-mode contributions (whose symmetry properties are reversed) as a function of scale and configuration. Thus the origin of the $`B`$-mode contribution can be identified more precisely than is possible with two-point statistics. An example of an explicit test for $`B`$ modes is to measure combinations such as $`\zeta _{++\times }(x_1,x_2,\psi )+\zeta _{++\times }(x_1,x_2,2\pi \psi )`$. This should be zero for all the functions that are parity-odd for a pure $`E`$ mode, as given in equation (3).

The results presented above can also be applied to the $`Q`$ and $`U`$ Stokes parameters of the CMB polarization. The results we have shown imply that the eight 3PCFs constructed from combinations of $`Q/U`$, e.g. $`UQQ`$, have non-vanishing signals if the CMB polarization field is non-Gaussian. The 3PCFs have the advantage that it can discriminate the non-Gaussianity arising from the $`E`$\- and $`B`$-modes. However, since the polarization signal is small compared to the CMB temperature fluctuations, this will be a great challenge.

We are grateful to G. Bernstein, L. Hui, M. Jarvis, P. Schneider, R. Scoccimarro, A. Stebbins, A. Szalay and M. Tegmark for helpful discussions. This work is supported by NASA grants NAG5-10923, NAG5-10924 and a Keck foundation grant.


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# Spacetime Dependent Lagrangians and the Vacuum Expectation Value of the Higgs field

## Abstract

The spacetime dependent lagrangian formalism of references \[1-2\] is used to obtain a classical solution of Yang-Mills theory. This is then used to obtain an estimate of the vacuum expectation value of the Higgs field , viz. $`\varphi _a=A/e`$, where $`A`$ is a constant and $`e`$ is the Yang-Mills coupling (related to the usual electric charge). The solution can also accommodate non-commuting coordinates on the boundary of the theory which may be used to construct $`D`$brane actions.

PACS: 11.15.-q , 11.27.+d , 11.10.Ef

The spacetimetime dependent lagrangian formalism \[1-2\] gives an alternative way to deal with electromagnetic duality , weak-strong duality  and electro- gravity duality . Here this method will be used to obtain an estimate of the vacuum expectation value of the Higgs field in terms of the electric charge $`e`$ and a constant. The motivation of the present work comes from Ref.\[2b\] where an analogue of the Bogomolny bound has been obtained for the Barriola-Vilenkin  gravitational monopole. We will also show that the ’t Hooft ansatz for obtaining the ”t Hooft-Polyakov monopole solution is sufficiently general to lead to other solutions containing coordinates near the boundary that do not commute. Moreover, we will show that the ’t Hooft ansatz for the gauge field is sufficient to yield a solution for the Higgs field for $`r\mathrm{}`$ without the necessity of any further ansatz for $`\varphi `$. We first briefly review the relevant material of .

Let the lagrangian $`L^{}`$ be a function of fields $`\eta _\rho `$, their derivatives $`\eta _{\rho ,\nu }`$ and the spacetime coordinates $`x_\nu `$, i.e. $`L^{}=L^{}(\eta _\rho ,\eta _{\rho ,\nu },x_\nu )`$. Variational principle  yields :

$$𝑑V\left(_\eta L^{}_\mu _{_\mu \eta }L^{}\right)=0$$
$`(1)`$
Assuming a separation of variables : $`L^{}(\eta _\sigma ,\eta _{\sigma ,\nu },..x_\nu )=L(\eta _\sigma ,\eta _{\sigma ,\nu })\mathrm{\Lambda }(x_\nu )`$
($`\mathrm{\Lambda }(x_\nu )`$ is the $`x_\nu `$ dependent part and is a finite non-vanishing function) gives

$$𝑑V\left(_\eta (L\mathrm{\Lambda })_\mu _{_\mu \eta }(L\mathrm{\Lambda })\right)=0$$
$`(2)`$
We will be confined to classical solutions of theories where the fields do not couple to gravity. Then $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is not dynamical and is a finite, non-vanishing function of $`x_\nu `$ multiplying the primitive lagrangian $`L`$. It is like an external field and equations of motion for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ meaningless. Duality invariance is related to finiteness of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. When equations of motion are duality invariant, finiteness of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ on the spatial boundary at infinity leads to new solutions for the fields. Poincare invariance and duality invariance is achieved through same behaviour of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. The finite behaviour of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ on the boundary encodes the exotic solutions of the theory within the boundary. In this way we are reminded of the holographic principle.

Consider the Georgi-Glashow model with

$$L=[(1/4)G_a^{\mu \nu }G_{a\mu \nu }+(1/2)(D^\mu \varphi )_a(D_\mu \varphi )_aV(\varphi )]$$
$`(3a)`$
where usually one takes $`V(\varphi )=(\lambda /4)(\varphi ^a\varphi ^aa^2)^2`$. The gauge group is $`SO(3)`$,$`a,b,c`$ are $`SO(3)`$ indices, with the generators $`\tau ^a`$ satisfying $`[\tau ^a,\tau ^b]=iϵ^{abc}\tau ^c`$.Gauge fields $`W_\mu =W_\mu ^a\tau ^a`$ and the field strength is $`G_a^{\mu \nu }=^\mu W_a^\nu ^\nu W_a^\mu eϵ_{abc}W_b^\mu W_c^\nu `$, $`\stackrel{~}{G}_a^{\mu \nu }=(1/2)ϵ^{\mu \nu \rho \sigma }G_{a\rho \sigma }`$; and the matter fields $`\varphi `$ are in the adjoint representation of $`SO(3)`$. The equations of motion are

$$(D^\nu G_{a\mu \nu })_a=^\mu \varphi _aeϵ_{abc}W_b^\mu \varphi _c$$
$`(3b)`$
$$(D^\mu D_\mu \varphi )_a=_{\varphi ^a}V$$
$`(3c)`$
There are also the Bianchi identities

$$D^\mu \stackrel{~}{G}_{a\mu \nu }=0$$
$`(3d)`$
Duality invariance means that $`D^\mu G_{a\mu \nu }=0`$.The energy density is:

$$\mathrm{\Theta }_{00}=(1/2)[(E_a^i)^2+(B_a^i)^2+(D^0\varphi _a)^2+(D^i\varphi _a)^2+V(\varphi )]$$
$`(4)`$
where the non abelian electric and magnetic fields are defined respectively as: $`E_a^i=G_a^{0i}`$ and $`B_a^i=(1/2)ϵ_{jk}^iG_a^{jk}`$

The energy density $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{00}0`$ and the vacuum configuration is

$$G_a^{\mu \nu }=0;D_\mu \varphi =0;V(\varphi )=0$$
$`(5)`$
For this theory $`L^{}`$ is then

$$L^{}=L\mathrm{\Lambda }=[(1/4)G_a^{\mu \nu }G_{a\mu \nu }+(1/2)(D^\mu \varphi )_a(D_\mu \varphi )_aV(\varphi )]\mathrm{\Lambda }(x_\nu )$$
$`(6)`$
Equations of motion using $`(2)`$ are :

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }(D^\mu G_{a\mu \nu })+(^\mu \mathrm{\Lambda })G_{a\mu \nu }+\mathrm{\Lambda }eϵ_{abc}(_\nu \varphi )_b(\varphi )_c\mathrm{\Lambda }e^2ϵ_{abc}ϵ_{bc^{}d^{}}W_{\nu c^{}}\varphi _c\varphi _d^{}=0$$
$`(7a)`$
$$(D^\mu D_\mu \varphi )_a\mathrm{\Lambda }+(D_\mu \varphi )_a_\mu \mathrm{\Lambda }=(_{\varphi ^a}V)\mathrm{\Lambda }$$
$`(7b)`$
and the Bianchi identities are:

$$D^\mu \stackrel{~}{G}_{a\mu \nu }=0$$
$`(7c)`$
Requiring duality invariance (i.e.$`D^\mu G_{a\mu \nu }=0`$) gives

$$(^\mu \mathrm{\Lambda })G_{a\mu \nu }=\mathrm{\Lambda }eϵ_{abc}(D_\nu \varphi )_b(\varphi )_c$$
$`(8)`$
For $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=\mathrm{\Lambda }(r)`$ we have

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{}}=\mathrm{\Lambda }_0exp[e_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑r\left((ϵ_{abc}(D_\nu \varphi )_b\varphi _c)(^irG_{ai\nu })^1\right)]$$
$`(9)`$
where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_p`$ is the value of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ at $`r=p`$; $`a,\nu `$ are fixed; and there is a sum over indices $`i,b`$ and $`c`$. $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{}}`$ must be finite. Choose this to be the constant unity.This may be realised in various ways, the simplest being $`(D_\nu (\varphi )_b0`$, $`(\varphi )_cfinite`$, and the product $`(D_\nu \varphi )_b(\varphi )_c`$ falls off faster than $`G_{ai\nu }`$ for large $`r`$. Then a constant value for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is perfectly consistent with $`(7b)`$ and the conditions become analogous to the Higgs’ vacuum condition for the t’Hooft-Polyakov monopole solutions where the duality invariance of the equations of motion and Bianchi identities are attained at large $`r`$ by demanding $`(D_\mu \varphi )_a0`$ and $`\varphi _aa\delta _{a3}`$ at large $`r`$. Note that our results are perfectly consistent with the usual choice for the Higgs’ potential $`V(\varphi )`$ even though nothing has been assumed regarding this. Thus, the t’Hooft-Polyakov monopole solutions follow naturally in our formalism. We now discuss two other interesting possibilities.

Case I

$$\left(ϵ_{abc}(D_\nu \varphi )_b\varphi _c\right)0$$
$`(10)`$
(i.e. the duality condition $`(D^\mu G_{\nu \mu })_a=0`$) and falls off faster than $`G_{ai\nu }`$ for large $`r`$ ($`a`$ and $`\nu `$ are fixed). A solution is when

$$D_\nu \varphi =\alpha _\nu \varphi $$
$`(11)`$
where $`\alpha _\nu `$ can be any Lorentz four vector field that is consistent with all the relevant equations of motion and the minimum energy requirements. The minimum energy requirements are satisfied because it is straightforward to verify that the gauge fields $`W_a^\mu `$ do not change. This is seen by taking the cross product of $`\varphi `$ ($`\varphi `$ is a $`SO(3)`$ vector) with equation $`(11)`$. We again arrive at the well known results of Corrigan et al , viz. $`W^\mu =(1/a^2e)\varphi ^\mu \varphi +(1/a)\varphi A^\mu `$, where $`A^\mu `$ is arbitrary.

As the gauge fields $`W_a^\mu `$ do not change, so even with this solution we obtain the same gauge field solutions as before and so minimum energy requiremet is automatically satisfied. However, this new solution allows us to obtain an estimate of the vacuum expectation value of the Higgs field and to this we now proceed. Let $`\alpha _\nu =(0,\alpha _i)\alpha (r)\widehat{r}`$, where $`\widehat{r}`$ is the unit radial vector.So the Bogomolny condition is $`B_a^i=D^i\varphi _a=\alpha ^i\varphi _a`$ and the Higgs vacuum condition obtained from equation $`(7b)`$ (for $`r\mathrm{},\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is a constant , say unity) is

$$[D^i(\alpha _i\varphi )]_a=_{\varphi ^a}V=0$$
$`(12a)`$
i.e. we are at a minima of the potential $`V`$. If $`\varphi _a0`$, $`(12a)`$ implies

$$div\stackrel{}{\alpha }+\stackrel{}{\alpha }^2=0$$
$`(12b)`$
and the solution is

$$\alpha (r)=1/(cr^2r),\alpha ^i=r^i/(cr^3r^2)$$
$`(13)`$
where we take the constant $`c`$ to be negative. Let us now take the ’t Hooft ansatz for the gauge field, viz.

$$W_a^0=0;W_a^i=ϵ_{aik}r^k[1K(aer)]/(er^2)$$
$`(14)`$
where the function $`K(aer)`$ has been well studied  and goes to zero at $`r\mathrm{}`$. Then the electric field vanishes while $`G_{ajk},B_a^i`$ are

$$G_{ajk}=(1/er^2)[2ϵ_{ajk}(1K)+ϵ_{akl}r^l_jKϵ_{ajl}r^l_kK]$$

$$+(1/er^4)[2(1K)(ϵ_{akl}r^lr_jϵ_{ajl}r^lr_k)+(1K)^2(\delta _{aj}ϵ_{ckl}r^cr^lϵ_{jkl}r_ar^l)]$$
$`(15a)`$
$$B_a^i=(1/er^4)[(1K)^2r_ar^i2(1K)r^ir_a](1/er^2)[r^i_aK\delta _a^ir^m_mK]$$
$`(15b)`$
Now $`B_a^i=D^i\varphi _a=\alpha ^i\varphi _a`$.Therefore,taking $`c=A`$ so that $`A`$ is positive we have

$$\varphi _a=\frac{(1+Ar)}{(er^2)}[2(1K)r_a(1K)^2r_a+r^2_aKr_ar^m_mK]$$
$`(15c)`$
It is easily seen that $`(15c)`$ reduces to the ’t Hooft ansatz for $`\varphi _a`$ for $`A=0`$ and $`r\mathrm{}`$. Thus we have obtained an expression for $`\varphi `$ without assuming any ansatz. This had never been possible before. There is another interesting outcome.For $`r\mathrm{}`$ we have $`K0`$ and so

$$\varphi _a\frac{Ar^a}{er}+\frac{r^a}{er^2}=\frac{A}{e}\widehat{r}^a+\frac{\widehat{r}}{er}\frac{A}{e}\widehat{r}^a$$
$`(16)`$
for $`r\mathrm{}`$. But $`\varphi _a=a\delta _{a3}`$ for $`r\mathrm{}`$. Therefore $`a=A/e`$. This is the principal result of this work.

Case II

$`\alpha _\nu `$ is any Lorentz four vector field as in I but which may also carry internal symmetry indices other than $`SO(3)`$ with the generators of the symmetry satisfying some Lie algebra $`[T_P,T_Q]=if_{PQR}T_R`$. Let us take the group to be $`SU(2)`$. i.e. say, $`\alpha ^\nu =\alpha _P^\nu T_P`$; $`P,Q,R=1,2,3`$; $`T_P`$ being the generators of $`SU(2)`$. Again choosing $`\alpha ^\nu =(0,\alpha _P^iT^P)`$ with $`\stackrel{}{\alpha }_P=\alpha _P(r)\widehat{r}`$ and using the well known properties of the Pauli matrices it is easily seen that the analogue of equation $`(12)`$ is

$$div\stackrel{}{\alpha _P}=0$$
$`(17)`$
which has the solution

$$\alpha _P^i=A_P\frac{r^i}{r^3}$$
$`(18)`$
where $`A_P`$ are constants. Writing $`r_P^i=A_Pr^i=r^3\alpha _P^i`$, we can then define new coordinates

$$R^i=r_P^iT_P;[R^i,R^j]0$$
$`(19)`$
and these are non-commuting. Moreover, they carry both Lorentz and internal indices and hence are like gauge fields in some different theory. Note that transverse coordinates (i.e. transverse to the brane and lying in the bulk volume) in $`D`$ brane theories are often identified with gauge fields  and so we can construct such actions with our solutions $`(19)`$. Under these circumstances, equation $`(11)`$ should be written as

$$_\mu ^P\varphi _aeϵ_{abc}(W_\mu ^b)^P\varphi _c=\alpha _\mu ^P\varphi _a$$

where the coordinates and their differentials are now matrices and capital alphabets denote the indices of the new symmetry group. For fixed $`P`$, $`(W_\mu ^b)^P`$ may be identified with the old gauge fields $`W_\mu ^b`$.

A point to note is that we have taken the symmetry group for $`\alpha _\nu `$ to be some group other than $`SO(3)`$. This is to ensure in the simplest possible way that the fields $`(W_\mu ^b)^P`$ for fixed P may be identified with the old (i.e.unchanged) gauge fields $`W_\mu ^b`$ ($`P`$ is now a fixed index) and so the minimum energy requirements are satisfied in each sector of $`P=1,2,3`$. (This is seen by taking the cross product of $`\varphi `$ with the analogue of equation $`(11)`$ and proceeding as before).So each sector now contains a monopole. Then we have a configuration that is quite similar to ”string” of monopole solutions connecting two D-branes. Such configurations are known in the literature . The other point is that the vacuum expectation value of the Higgs field is proportional to the inverse of the coupling $`e`$; and this result has been obtained from the classical solutions. This result is similar to that obtained in Ref.\[2b\] if we are ready to identify the inverse of Newton’s gravitational constant (which is definitely the coupling constant in theories of gravity) as the vacuum expectation value of some field hitherto unknown.

The solutions in equation $`(11)`$ were hidden in ’t Hooft-Polyakov’s work. This had been overlooked before for the simple reason because at that point of time one was more concerned in obtaining solutions from the minimum (finite ) energy principles. This was perfectly justified. We have obtained the solutions from the requirement of duality invariance which is quite relevant at this point of time. However, we have also shown that the duality requirements automatically contain the minimum energy condition ($`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is also finite for $`D_\nu \varphi =0`$).

All the results have been obtained at $`r\mathrm{}`$. That is, we are at the boundary of the theory. So the finiteness of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ at the boundary encodes the duality invariance of the theory within the boundary and thus an analogue of the holographic principle  seems to be at work. On the boundary there seems to exist a different gauge field theory together with non-commuting coordinates.

In conclusion, the spacetime dependent lagrangian formalism in conjunction with the ’t Hooft-Polyakov results have yielded an expression for the vacuum expectation value of the Higgs field as $`A/e`$. This result is definitely susceptible to experiments. We have also shown that the ’t Hooft ansatz for the gauge field is sufficient to obtain an expression for the Higgs field if one uses our formalism. No additional ansatz for $`\varphi `$ is necessary. The expression obtained reduces to the ’t Hooft ansatz for the Higgs field at $`r\mathrm{}`$. Finally, we have shown that classical solutions of Yang-Mills theory also contain the germ of non-commuting coordinates residing on the boundary. The structure of these coordinates are like gauge fields and hence are relevant in constructing $`D`$-brane actions.

Electronic address : rajsekhar@vsnl.net

Electronic address : debashis@boson.bose.res.in


text:
# Connections, local subgroupoids, and a holonomy Lie groupoid of a line bundle gerbe

## 1. Introduction

On investigating the potential applications of double groupoids in homotopy theory, Brown and Spencer in 1976  developed the notion of a *connection pair* $`(\mathrm{{\rm Y}},\mathrm{Hol})`$ consisting of *the transport* $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ and *holonomy*$`\mathrm{Hol}`$’, which led to an equivalence of crossed modules with edge symmetric double groupoids with special connections. The key ‘transport law’ for $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ used in this equivalence was abstracted from a law for path connections on principal bundles due to Virsik , applied to a connection pair on the double category $`\mathrm{\Lambda }T`$ of Moore paths on a topological category $`T`$. The relation of these ideas with the connections of differential geometry has been undeveloped. However, there is now a growing interest in 2-dimensional ideas in holonomy, particularly in those areas of mathematics and mathematical physics where the theory of *gerbes* plays a prominent role (see e.g.     ). From a technical point of view, it is useful in the case where $`T`$ is a Lie groupoid to move from the double category $`\mathrm{\Lambda }T`$ as above to a smooth double groupoid. Our first step is to use the notion of the thin fundamental groupoid $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1(X)`$ of a smooth manifold $`X`$ (see e.g.  ) (§3). A major step is to construct a smooth connection pair from the data of gerbes and 2-holonomy in abelian gerbes (§4,5).

To obtain a locally Lie groupoid we use in §6 the methods of local subgroupoids and their holonomy Lie groupoids as in  . In particular, conditions are given in  for a connection pair to yield a local subgroupoid and so a locally Lie groupoid $`(𝔾,W)`$ with an associated holonomy Lie groupoid $`\mathrm{Hol}(𝔾,W)`$, via a *Globalisation Theorem* of Aof–Brown  ∗\*∗\*$``$The origin of this theorem as in the work of J. Pradines, is explained in . Brown–Mucuk  showed that it recovered as a special case (and so with a new universal property), the holonomy Lie groupoid of a foliation where $`𝔾`$ is the equivalence relation determined by the leaves of the foliation. Two important points about this construction are (i) $`\mathrm{Hol}(𝔾,W)`$ comes with a universal property, and (ii) the basic method of construction of $`\mathrm{Hol}(𝔾,W)`$ involves an algebraic framework for the intuition of ‘iteration of local procedures’, using Ehresmann’s local smooth admissible sections. It is of course this intuition which is behind holonomy constructions in differential geometry.

Thus in this note we establish:

###### Theorem 1.1.

We can associate to certain abelian gerbe data $`(𝒫,𝒜,\mathrm{Geod})`$ over a path connected manifold $`X`$, a local subgroupoid $`C(𝒫,𝒜,\mathrm{Geod})`$ . Relative to a strictly regular atlas $`𝒰(𝒫,𝒜,\mathrm{Geod})`$, there exists a holonomy Lie groupoid $`\mathrm{Hol}(𝒫,𝒜)`$ with base space $`X`$ .

The universal property satisfied by this holonomy groupoid will be investigated in later work.

## 2. Transport and holonomy in groupoids–some background

### 2.1. Connection and transport in a double category

Firstly, let $`T=(H,X,\alpha ,\beta ,,ϵ)`$ be a topological category in which $`\alpha ,\beta ,:HX`$ are the initial and final maps, respectively, $``$ denotes partial composition, and $`ϵ:XH`$ is the unit function. A double category is specified by four related category structures :

(2.1)
$$\{\begin{array}{cc}(D,H,\alpha _1,\beta _1,_1,ϵ_1),\hfill & (D,V,\alpha _2,\beta _2,_2,ϵ_2),\hfill \\ (V,X,\alpha _,\beta ,,e),\hfill & (H,X,\alpha _,\beta ,,f),\hfill \end{array}$$

of which each of the structures of the first row is compatible with the other. For more details, see for instance . The elements of $`D`$ are called *squares*, those of $`H`$ and $`V`$ *the horizontal and vertical edges*, respectively, while $`X`$ consists of *points*. A double category can be enhanced by the abstract notion of a *connection* as specified by a pair $`(\mathrm{{\rm Y}},\mathrm{Hol})`$ in which $`\mathrm{Hol}:VH`$ (the holonomy) is a functor of categories, and $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}:VD`$ (*the transport*) is a function, such that in the formalism of the governing (higher dimensional) algebraic rules  (see also   ), we have :

* The bounding edges of $`\mathrm{Hol}(a)`$ and $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(a)`$, for $`a:xy`$ in $`V`$, are described by the diagram

(2.2)
$$\begin{array}{ccc}x& \stackrel{\mathrm{Hol}(a)}{}& y\\ a& & e_y& & \\ y& \stackrel{f_y}{}& y\end{array}$$
* *The transport law* holds. That is, if $`a,bV`$ and $`ab`$ is defined, then

(2.3)
$$\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(ab)=\left[\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(a)& ϵ_2(\mathrm{Hol}(b))\\ \\ ϵ_1(b)& \mathrm{{\rm Y}}(b)\end{array}\right]$$

A notable example of this construction (following ) is *the double category of Moore paths* $`\mathrm{\Lambda }T=(\mathrm{\Lambda }H,H,\mathrm{\Lambda }X,X)`$ on the topological category $`T=(H,X)`$ . Here the squares are elements of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }H`$, the horizontal edges are $`H`$, the vertical edges are $`\mathrm{\Lambda }X`$, and the set of points is $`X`$ . Accordingly, a connection pair $`(\mathrm{{\rm Y}},\mathrm{Hol})`$ for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }T`$ consists of $`(1)`$, the transport $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}:\mathrm{\Lambda }X\mathrm{\Lambda }H`$, and $`(2)`$, the holonomy $`\mathrm{Hol}:\mathrm{\Lambda }XH`$. One aim is to realise  for double groupoids and connection pairs $`(\mathrm{{\rm Y}},\mathrm{Hol})`$ in terms of the geometric data available. In view of the growing interest in 2-dimensional structures in differential geometry  , we note the following:

###### Theorem 2.1.

   The following categories are equivalent : 1) Crossed modules of groupoids, 2) $`2`$–Groupoids, and 3) edge symmetric double groupoids with special connection.

Structures 1) and 3) have been used extensively in homotopical investigations (see the survey ) while crossed modules of Lie groups are used in , and are called Lie 2-groups.

### 2.2. The groupoid $`𝔾(P,X)`$ associated to a principal $`G`$–bundle

Let $`X`$ be a smooth connected manifold and consider a principal $`G`$–bundle $`\pi :PX`$, where $`G`$ is a Lie group. There is an associated locally trivial groupoid over $`X`$ given by

(2.4)
$$𝔾(P,X)=P\times _GPX,$$

where for $`u_1,u_2,P,gG`$, we have $`(u_1,u_2)g=(u_1g,u_2g)`$, with equivalence classes satisfying the multiplication rule $`[u_1,u_2][u_3,u_4]=[u_1g,u_4]`$, for which $`u_3=u_2g`$ in the fibre over $`\pi (u_2)=\pi (u_3)`$ . Furthermore, if $`u_0P,x_0=\pi (u_0)`$, then there are homeomorphisms and isomorphisms respectively, given by

(2.5) $`P`$ $`P\times _GP|_{x_0},u[u,u_0],`$
$`G`$ $`P\times _GP|_{x_0}^{x_0},g[u_0,gu_0],`$
(see  Ch. II). The groupoid $`𝔾(P,X)`$ (sometimes called the *Ehresmann symmetry groupoid*) will play a significant role in all that follows.

## 3. The thin path groupoid

### 3.1. Thin higher homotopy groups

Our development here follows   to which we refer for further details. Let the set of all smooth $`n`$–loops in $`X`$ be denoted by $`\mathrm{\Omega }_n^{\mathrm{}}(X,)`$, where for $`n=1`$, we shall just write $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{\mathrm{}}(X,)`$ . The product $`\mathrm{}_1\mathrm{}_2`$ of two $`n`$–loops and the inverse of an $`n`$–loop are well–defined.

###### Definition 3.1.

Two loops $`\mathrm{}_1,\mathrm{}_2`$ are called *rank–$`n`$ homotopic* or thin homotopic, denoted by $`\mathrm{}_1\stackrel{𝑛}{}\mathrm{}_2`$, if there exists an $`ϵ>0`$, and a homotopy $`H:[0,1]\times I^nX`$, satisfying :

* $`t_i[0,ϵ)(1ϵ,1]H(s,t_1,\mathrm{},t_n)=,1in`$ .
* $`s[0,ϵ)H(s,t_1,\mathrm{},t_n)=\mathrm{}_1(t_1,\mathrm{},t_n)`$ .
* $`s(1ϵ,1]H(s,t_1,\mathrm{},t_n)=\mathrm{}_2(t_1,\mathrm{},t_n)`$ .
* $`H`$ is smooth throughout its domain.
* rank $`DH_{(s,t_1,\mathrm{},t_n)}n`$, throughout its domain.

We denote by $`\pi _n^n(X,)`$ the set of equivalences classes under $`\stackrel{𝑛}{}`$ of (thin) $`n`$–loops in $`X`$ . Observe that $`\pi _n^n(X,)`$ is abelian for $`n2`$ . Also, for $`dimXn`$, we have $`\pi _n^n(X,)=\pi _n(X,)`$, and for $`dimX>n`$, the group $`\pi _n^n(X,)`$ is infinite dimensional.

### 3.2. The smooth thin path groupoid $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1(X)`$

Here we will set $`n=1`$ . For a smooth path $`\lambda \mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1(X)`$, a point $`t_0I`$ is a *sitting instant* if there exists $`ϵ>0`$ such that $`\lambda `$ is constant on $`[0,1](t_0ϵ,t_0+ϵ)`$. It is shown in  that there is always a re–parametrization of a smooth path such that it sits this way at its endpoints. In this case $`\pi _1^1(X,)=\mathrm{\Omega }^{\mathrm{}}(X,)/\stackrel{1}{}`$ . Likewise, there is the *smooth thin path groupoid* $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1(X)\mathrm{\Lambda }(X)`$ consisting of smooth paths $`\lambda :IX`$ which are constant in a neighbourhood of $`t=0,t=1`$, identified up to rank $`1`$ homotopy, with

(3.1)
$$0tϵH(s,t)=\lambda (0),1ϵt1H(s,t)=\lambda (1),$$

and with multiplication $``$ . Henceforth, relevant path spaces will be considered as smooth thin path groupoids.

### 3.3. The transport law

Following , we outline several properties of the (smooth) path connection

(3.2) $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}:\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1(X)`$ $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1𝔾(P,X),`$
$`\lambda `$ $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}^\lambda ,`$
which for $`t[0,1]`$, satisfies $`\alpha \mathrm{{\rm Y}}^\lambda (t)=\lambda (0)`$, and $`\beta \mathrm{{\rm Y}}^\lambda (t)=\lambda (t)`$ .

If $`\psi :[0,1][t_0,t_1][0,1]`$ is a diffeomorphism, we have the relationship

(3.3)
$$\mathrm{{\rm Y}}^\lambda \psi =\mathrm{{\rm Y}}^{\lambda \psi }_2\mathrm{{\rm Y}}^\lambda (\psi (0)),$$

which leads to $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}^\lambda (0)=\stackrel{~}{(\lambda (0))}`$ . Further, if $`\lambda ,\overline{\lambda }\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1(X)`$ satisfy $`\lambda (1)=\overline{\lambda }(0)`$, so that $`\lambda \overline{\lambda }`$ is defined and is smooth, then

(3.4)
$$\lambda =(\lambda \overline{\lambda })\psi _1,\overline{\lambda }=(\lambda \overline{\lambda })\psi _2,$$

where $`\psi _1(t)=\frac{1}{2}t`$ and $`\psi _2(t)=\frac{1}{2}t+\frac{1}{2}`$ . Given $`\lambda \overline{\lambda }\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1(X)`$, then on applying (3.3) to $`\lambda \overline{\lambda }`$, along with either $`\psi _1`$ or $`\psi _2`$, leads to an explicit statement of the transport law for this case :

(3.5)
$$\mathrm{{\rm Y}}^{\lambda \overline{\lambda }}(t)=\{\begin{array}{cc}& \mathrm{{\rm Y}}^\lambda (2t),0t\frac{1}{2},\hfill \\ & \mathrm{{\rm Y}}^{\overline{\lambda }}(2t1)_2\mathrm{{\rm Y}}^\lambda (1),\frac{1}{2}t1.\hfill \end{array}$$

In particular, we have $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}^{\lambda \overline{\lambda }}(1)=\mathrm{{\rm Y}}^{\overline{\lambda }}(1)_2\mathrm{{\rm Y}}^\lambda (1)`$, and $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}^{\lambda ^1}(1)=[\mathrm{{\rm Y}}^\lambda (1)]^1`$ .

Now suppose that $`\omega _P`$ denotes a given connection $`1`$–form on $`PX`$ . We refer to e.g.   for the usual concept of horizontal path lifting and parallel transport induced by $`\omega _P`$ (which defines a ‘simple infinitesimal connection’ in the sense of ).

###### Lemma 3.1.

  (Theorem $`7.3`$) Given a (smooth) principal $`G`$–bundle $`PX`$, a path connection $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}:\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1(X)\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1𝔾(P,X)`$ is determined uniquely by a choice of connection $`1`$–form $`\omega _P`$ . Specifically, there exists a one–to–one correspondence between $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ and $`\omega _P`$, such that for $`\gamma \mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1(X),\widehat{\gamma }=\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(\gamma )`$ and $`t_0[0,1]`$, we have

(3.6)
$$\frac{d}{dt}\widehat{\gamma }(t_0)=(R_{\widehat{\gamma }(t_0)})_{}\omega _P(\frac{d}{dt}\gamma (t_0)).$$

Thanks to thin homotopies, we can replace the topological double category of Moore paths by a double Lie groupoid. Given a smooth principal $`G`$–bundle $`PX`$ with connection $`1`$–form $`\omega _P`$, we can use $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1(X)`$ together with the data provided by $`\omega _P`$, to produce a double groupoid :

(3.7)
$$\{\begin{array}{cc}(\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1𝔾(P,X),𝔾(P,X),\alpha _1,\beta _1,_1,ϵ_1),\hfill & (\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1𝔾(P,X),\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1(X),\alpha _2,\beta _2,_2,ϵ_2),\hfill \\ (\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1(X),X,\alpha ,\beta ,,e),\hfill & (𝔾(P,X),X,\alpha ,\beta ,,e).\hfill \end{array}$$

In the context of , the existence of the connection pair $`(\mathrm{{\rm Y}},\mathrm{Hol})`$ thus specializes to $`(1)`$, the parallel transport as a smooth function on smooth groupoids $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}:\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1(X)\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1𝔾(P,X)`$ satisfying the transport law, and $`(2)`$, the holonomy $`\mathrm{Hol}:\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1(X)𝔾(P,X)`$ .

## 4. Gerbes and $`2`$–holonomy

### 4.1. Abelian gerbes

The references for this section are    . Let $`X`$ be a smooth (finite dimensional) connected manifold and let $`𝒰=\{U_i:iJ\}`$ be ‘good’ open cover of $`X`$ meaning that all $`p`$–fold ($`p1`$) intersections $`U_{i_1\mathrm{}i_p}=U_{i_1}\mathrm{}U_{i_p}`$, are contractible. The data for a line bundle ($`G=\mathrm{U}(1)`$) *gerbe* $`𝒫X`$, is given as follows :

* On each $`U_{ij}`$, there is a line bundle $`L_{ij}U_{ij}`$, satisfying $`L_{ij}L_{ij}^1`$ .
* There are trivializations $`\theta _{ijk}`$ of $`L_{ij}L_{jk}L_{ki}`$ on $`U_{ijk}`$ that satisfy the cocycle condition $`\delta \theta 1`$ on $`U_{ijkl}`$ .

The corresponding data for a connective structure on $`𝒫X`$, is given as follows :

* A $`0`$*object connection* is a covariant derivative $`_{ij}`$ on $`L_{ij}`$, such that for each $`i,j,kJ`$, it satisfies the condition :

(4.1)
$$_{ijk}\theta _{ijk}=0.$$

In terms of the corresponding $`1`$–forms $`A_{ij}A^1(U_{ij})`$, there is the equivalent relationship

(4.2)
$$\iota (A_{ij}+A_{jk}+A_{ki})=d\mathrm{log}g_{ijk},(A_{ij}=A_{ji}),$$

where $`g`$ is a C̆ech $`2`$–cocycle, $`\delta g1`$ .
* A $`1`$*connection* is defined by local $`2`$–forms $`F_iA^2(U_i)`$ such that on $`U_{ij}`$, it satisfies

(4.3)
$$F_iF_j=F_{ij}=\sigma ^{}(K(_{ij})),$$

where $`\sigma _{ij}\mathrm{\Gamma }(U_{ij},L_{ij})`$, and $`K`$ denotes the usual curvature. The latter is equivalent to the condition $`F_iF_j=F_{ij}=dA_{ij}`$ .

The abelian gerbe with its connective structure is denoted by $`(𝒫,𝒜)`$ .

### 4.2. The holonomy of $`(𝒫,𝒜`$)

Suppose that $`s:I^2X`$ is a $`2`$–loop. The pull–back gerbe $`s^{}(𝒫)`$ is then a trivial gerbe and we can choose some trivialization such that an object is given in terms of line bundles trivialized by sections $`\sigma _i`$ over $`V_i=s^1(U_i)`$, with an object connection $`_i`$ . A global $`2`$–form $`\epsilon `$ (the error $`2`$–form) is defined on $`I^2`$ by

(4.4)
$$\epsilon |V_i=s^{}(F_i)\sigma _i^{}(K(_i)).$$

The holonomy $`\mathrm{Hol}(s)`$ of $`(𝒫,𝒜)`$ around the $`2`$–loop $`s`$ is then given by

(4.5)
$$\mathrm{exp}(\iota _{I^2}\epsilon ).$$

It is independent of the choice of object and the connection on the object, and is constant on thin homotopy classes. Furthermore, $`\mathrm{Hol}`$ defines the $`2`$*holonomy* of $`(𝒫,𝒜)`$ in terms of a group homomorphism

(4.6)
$$\mathrm{Hol}:\pi _2^2(X,)\mathrm{U}(1),$$

depending on $`(𝒫,𝒜)`$ up to equivalence, and which is smooth on families of $`2`$–loops in $`\mathrm{\Omega }_2^{\mathrm{}}(X)`$ when projected to $`\pi _2^2(X,)`$ (see ).

## 5. Parallel transport and holonomy in abelian gerbes

### 5.1. Transport of the gerbe data

We have already noted the (thin) parallel transport

(5.1)
$$\mathrm{{\rm Y}}:\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1(X)\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1𝔾(P,X),$$

determined by the connection $`1`$–form $`\omega _P`$ on a principal $`G`$–bundle $`PX`$ . Now we look for the analogous functor in the case of the gerbe connection. The idea is that the gerbe data $`(𝒫,𝒜)`$ determines a groupoid on the thin loop groupoid $`L_1^1(X)\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1(X)`$ . But if we assume $`X`$ is path connected and fix a base point, as we will henceforth, then the gerbe data will readily lead us to the relevant transport groupoids over their space of objects $`\pi _1^1(X,)`$ .

Using $`(𝒫,𝒜)`$, it is shown in  that there corresponds a smooth line bundle $`L^𝒫\mathrm{\Omega }^{\mathrm{}}(X,)`$ with connection . Here one considers a quadruple of the type $`(\gamma ,F,,z)`$ where $`\gamma \mathrm{\Omega }^{\mathrm{}}(X,)`$, $`F`$ is an object for $`\gamma ^{}𝒫`$ on $`S^1`$, $``$ is an object connection in $`F`$, and $`z^{}`$ . These are defined up to a certain equivalence relation. Now consider a homotopy $`H:I^2X`$ between loops $`\gamma ,\mu `$ and let $`F,`$ denote the object and object connections respectively, for the pull–back gerbe $`H^{}(𝒫)I^2`$. The parallel transport $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ along the homotopy $`H`$ is given explicitly by :

(5.2)
$$\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(H)(\gamma ,\gamma ^{}F,\gamma ^{},1)=(\mu ,\mu ^{}F,\mu ^{},1)\mathrm{exp}(\iota _{I^2}\epsilon ).$$

Note that the smooth line bundle with connection

(5.3)
$$p:(L^𝒫,D)\mathrm{\Omega }^{\mathrm{}}(X,),$$

is representable as a principal $`\mathrm{U}(1)`$–bundle

(5.4)
$$\mathrm{U}(1)(L^𝒫,\omega _P)\mathrm{\Omega }^{\mathrm{}}(X,),$$

with connection $`1`$–form $`\omega _P`$ . Parallel transport under $`\omega _P`$ is defined along the cylindrical groupoid

(5.5)
$$(X,)=\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1\mathrm{\Omega }^{\mathrm{}}(X,)\mathrm{\Omega }^{\mathrm{}}(X,),$$

where elements of $`(X,)`$ are regarded as homotopies between loops and whose morphisms are thin homotopy classes of homotopies between loops (via based loops). At the same time (5.4) as determined by the gerbe data leads to the groupoid

(5.6)
$$𝔾(𝒫)=𝔾(𝒫,𝒜,X)=L^𝒫\times _{\mathrm{U}(1)}L^𝒫\mathrm{\Omega }^{\mathrm{}}(X,).$$

Let then $`T=(𝔾(𝒫),\mathrm{\Omega }^{\mathrm{}}(X,),\alpha ,\beta ,,e)`$ whose associated double category of paths $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1T`$ contains the horizontal and vertical groupoids $`H=𝔾(𝒫)\mathrm{\Omega }^{\mathrm{}}(X,)`$, and $`V=(X,)\mathrm{\Omega }^{\mathrm{}}(X,)`$, respectively. As a result $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1T`$ is specified by the four related groupoids :

(5.7)
$$\{\begin{array}{cc}(\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1𝔾(𝒫),𝔾(𝒫),\alpha _1,\beta _1,_1,ϵ_1),\hfill & (\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1𝔾(𝒫),(X,),\alpha _2,\beta _2,_2,ϵ_2),\hfill \\ ((X,),\mathrm{\Omega }^{\mathrm{}}(X,),\alpha _,\beta ,,e),\hfill & (𝔾(𝒫),\mathrm{\Omega }^{\mathrm{}}(X,),\alpha _,\beta ,,f).\hfill \end{array}$$

To proceed, let $`s_\gamma ,s_\mu \mathrm{\Gamma }(\mathrm{\Omega }^{\mathrm{}}(X,),L^𝒫)`$ be smooth sections and set $`g_\epsilon =\mathrm{exp}(\iota _{I^2}\epsilon )^{}`$, so that (5.2) can be expressed as $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(H)(s_\gamma )=s_\mu g_\epsilon `$ . In this way, we can reduce matters to considering the usual parallel transport in the $`\mathrm{U}(1)`$–bundle $`(L^𝒫,\omega _P)\mathrm{\Omega }^{\mathrm{}}(X,)`$ as induced by $`\omega _P`$ . Following Lemma 3.1, $`\omega _P`$ uniquely determines a smooth (thin) parallel transport

(5.8)
$$\mathrm{{\rm Y}}:(X,)\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1𝔾(𝒫),$$

via the homotopy $`H=_2`$ (horizontal structure) satisfying the transport law (3.5) . As for the holonomy, we see from (2.5) that the assignment $`g[u_0,u_0g]`$ for $`u_0L^𝒫,p(u_0)=\gamma `$, induces just as in (2.5) an isomorphism

(5.9)
$$\mathrm{U}(1)𝔾(𝒫)|_\gamma ^\gamma .$$

Since $`X`$ is (path) connected, this leads to the holonomy $`\mathrm{Hol}:(X,)\mathrm{U}(1)`$, and in the context of the double category of paths, the holonomy functor $`\mathrm{Hol}:(X,)𝔾(𝒫)`$ . It is straightforward to check that $`\mathrm{Hol}(a)`$ satisfies the relations showing that it is a bounding edge of the square $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(a)`$ . We can summarize matters as follows :

###### Proposition 5.1.

Given the $`\mathrm{U}(1)`$–gerbe data $`(𝒫,𝒜)`$ over a path–connected space $`X`$, there is an associated double groupoid of thin paths

(5.10)
$$\{\begin{array}{cc}(\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1𝔾(𝒫),𝔾(𝒫),\alpha _1,\beta _1,_1,ϵ_1),\hfill & (\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1𝔾(𝒫),(X,),\alpha _2,\beta _2,_2,ϵ_2),\hfill \\ ((X,),\mathrm{\Omega }^{\mathrm{}}(X,),\alpha _,\beta ,,e),\hfill & (𝔾(𝒫),\mathrm{\Omega }^{\mathrm{}}(X,),\alpha _,\beta ,,f),\hfill \end{array}$$

and a connection pair $`(\mathrm{{\rm Y}},\mathrm{Hol})`$ given by $`(1)`$, the transport $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}:(X,)\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1𝔾(𝒫)`$, and $`(2)`$, the holonomy $`\mathrm{Hol}:(X,)\mathrm{U}(1)`$ .

### 5.2. Thin homotopies again

If a pair of homotopies $`H_1,H_2:I^2X`$, between a given pair of paths, are themselves homotopic via a homotopy $`Q:I^3X`$, then the parallel transport around $`H_1H_2^1`$ is expressed by

(5.11)
$$_{I^3}Q^{}B.$$

Accordingly, the parallel transport along $`H_1`$ and $`H_2`$ is the same if the latter are thin homotopic since $`Q`$ may be chosen to have rank $`2`$ everywhere. In this way we actually achieve a line bundle descending to $`\pi _1^1(X,)`$ :

(5.12)
$$p:(L^𝒫,D)\pi _1^1(X,).$$

It will be convenient to express this in terms of the principal $`\mathrm{U}(1)`$–bundle with connection $`1`$–form $`\omega _P`$,

(5.13)
$$\mathrm{U}(1)(L^𝒫,\omega _P)\pi _1^1(X,),$$

together with the groupoid

(5.14)
$$𝔾(𝒫)=𝔾(𝒫,𝒜,X)=L^𝒫\times _{\mathrm{U}(1)}L^𝒫\pi _1^1(X,).$$

Next we recall the cylindrical groupoid $`(X,)\mathrm{\Omega }^{\mathrm{}}(X,)`$ and its morphisms regarded as thin homotopy classes of homotopies constituting the vertical structure of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1T`$ . As explained in , the horizontal composition $`=`$ determines the monoidal composition of homotopies and structure defined via the composition of loops $`_1`$, as well as the corresponding composition of vertical homotopies $`H:I^2X`$ between concatenated loops $`\lambda ,\mu `$, say. The descent to $`\pi _1^1(X,)`$ induces the *thin cylindrical groupoid* $`_2^2(X,)\pi _1^1(X,)`$ . Intuitively, we can view the latter as given by

(5.15)
$$_2^2(X,)=\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1(\pi _1^1(X,))=\mathrm{\Lambda }(\mathrm{\Omega }^{\mathrm{}}(X,)/\stackrel{1}{})/\stackrel{1}{},$$

which encapsulates the $`2`$–holonomy. In order to simplify the notation, let us set $`Y=\pi _1^1(X,)`$ . Consequently under the relation $`\stackrel{1}{}`$, the double category $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1T`$ specializes to a double groupoid

(5.16)
$$\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1T=(\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1𝔾(𝒫),𝔾(𝒫),_2^2(X,),Y),$$

for which the squares are elements of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1𝔾(𝒫)`$, the horizontal edges are $`𝔾(𝒫)`$, the vertical edges are $`_2^2(X,)`$, and the set of points is $`Y=\pi _1^1(X,)`$ .

###### Proposition 5.2.

(cf ) With respect to the principal $`\mathrm{U}(1)`$–bundle $`(L^𝒫,\omega _P)\pi _1^1(X,)`$ determined by the gerbe data $`(𝒫,𝒜)`$, we have a double groupoid

(5.17)
$$\{\begin{array}{cc}(\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1𝔾(𝒫),𝔾(𝒫),\alpha _1,\beta _1,_1,ϵ_1),\hfill & (\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1𝔾(𝒫),_2^2(X,),\alpha _2,\beta _2,_2,ϵ_2),\hfill \\ (_2^2(X,),Y,\alpha _,\beta ,,e),\hfill & (𝔾(𝒫),Y,\alpha _,\beta ,,f),\hfill \end{array}$$

and a connection pair $`(\mathrm{{\rm Y}},\mathrm{Hol})`$ given by $`(1)`$, the transport $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}:_2^2(X,)\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1𝔾(𝒫)`$, and $`(2)`$, the holonomy $`\mathrm{Hol}:_2^2(X,)𝔾(𝒫)`$ . In particular, $`𝔾(𝒫)`$ and $`_2^2(X,)`$ each admit the structure of a Lie $`2`$–groupoid.

Effectively, this is a special case of Proposition 5.1 when restricted to $`Y=\pi _1^1(X,)`$ . The main point is the existence of a certain normal monoidal subgroupoid $`N(X,)`$ of $`(X,)`$  such that on factoring–out by $`\stackrel{1}{}`$, the horizontal arrows in the diagram below, represent well–defined morphisms of groupoids :

(5.18)
$$\begin{array}{ccc}(X,)& \stackrel{\stackrel{1}{}}{}& _2^2(X,)=(X,)/N(X,)\\ & & & & \\ \mathrm{\Omega }^{\mathrm{}}(X,)& \stackrel{\stackrel{1}{}}{}& Y=\mathrm{\Omega }^{\mathrm{}}(X,)/\stackrel{1}{}=\pi _1^1(X,).\end{array}$$

###### Remark 5.1.

It is shown in  that the Lie $`2`$–groupoids

(5.19)
$$𝔻_1=(_2^2(X,),H_1,V_1,Y,,id),𝔻_2=(𝔾(𝒫),H_2,V_2,Y,,id),\text{(}V_1,V_2\text{ discrete)},$$

together with their respective monoidal structures, actually reduce to Lie $`2`$–groups, and when $`X`$ is simply–connected, the gerbe data $`(𝒫,𝒜)`$ can be constructed directly from the finer $`2`$–holonomy $`\mathrm{Hol}:\pi _2^2(X,)\mathrm{U}(1)`$, and conversely.

## 6. Local subgroupoids

### 6.1. The local subgroupoid of a path connection

In this section we describe how a holonomy Lie groupoid can be associated to a $`\mathrm{U}(1)`$–gerbe using a local subgroupoid constructed from its local connective structure. To proceed, let $`X`$ be a topological space and $`\alpha ,\beta :𝔾X=\mathrm{Ob}(𝔾)`$, a topological groupoid. For an open set $`UX`$, let $`𝔾|U`$ be the full subgroupoid of $`𝔾`$ on $`U`$ . Let $`L_𝔾(U)`$ be the set of all wide subgroupoids of $`𝔾|U`$ . For $`VU`$, there is a restriction map $`L_{UV}:L_𝔾(U)L_𝔾(V)`$ sending $`HH|V`$ . Thus $`L_𝔾`$ has the structure of a presheaf on $`X`$ .

Consider the sheaf $`p_𝔾:_𝔾X`$ formed from the presheaf $`L_𝔾`$ . For $`xX`$, the stalk $`p_𝔾^1(x)`$ of $`_𝔾`$ has elements the germs $`[U,H_U]_x`$, for $`U`$ open in $`X`$ and $`xU`$ . $`H|U`$ is a wide subgroupoid of $`𝔾|U`$ and the equivalence relation $`_x`$ yielding the germ at $`x`$, is such that $`H_U_xK_V`$, where $`K_V`$ is a wide subgroupoid of $`𝔾|V`$ if and only if there exists a neighbourhood $`W`$ of $`x`$ such that $`WUV`$ and $`H_U|W=K_V|W`$ . The topology of $`_𝔾`$ is the usual sheaf topology with a sub–base of sets $`\{[U,H_U]_x:xX\}`$, for all open subsets $`U`$ of $`X`$ and wide subgroupoids $`H`$ of $`𝔾|U`$ .

###### Definition 6.1.

A *local subgroupoid* of $`𝔾`$ on the topological space $`X`$ is a continuous global section $`S`$ of the sheaf $`p_𝔾:_𝔾X`$ associated to the presheaf $`L_𝔾`$ .

Associated to a local subgroupoid are a number of technical features such as the type of ‘atlas’ with which one needs to work. For instance, there is a ‘regular atlas’ with the ‘globally adapted’ property; in the case of a Lie local subgroupoid, a ‘strictly regular atlas’, etc. For an explanation of these terms and further properties we refer to  .

Suppose we have a continuous path connection $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}:\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1(X)\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1(𝔾)`$ with the usual properties as before. We denote by $`C_\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(𝔾)`$ the set of all $`g𝔾`$ such that if $`\alpha (g)=x`$, then there exists a path $`\lambda `$ in $`X`$ such that $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(\lambda )`$ joins $`g`$ to the identity $`\mathrm{𝟏}_x`$; that is, $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(\lambda )(0)=\mathrm{𝟏}_x`$ and $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(\lambda )(1)=g`$ . We next state some essential properties of $`C_\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(𝔾)`$ following  §4 :

###### Proposition 6.1.

* $`C_\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(𝔾)`$ is a wide subgroupoid of $`𝔾`$ .
* If $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ is a path connection on $`𝔾`$ and $`𝒰`$ is an open cover of $`X`$, then $`C_\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(𝔾)`$ is generated by the family $`C_\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(𝔾|U)`$, for all $`U𝒰`$ .

### 6.2. Geodesic and path local property of the atlas

In order to define a corresponding local subgroupoid $`C_\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(𝔾,𝒰)`$, it is necessary to work with an atlas of the following type. Given an open cover $`𝒰=\{U_i:iI\}`$ for $`X`$, we assume for each $`iI`$ there is a collection of paths, denoted by $`\mathrm{geod}(U_i)`$ in $`U_i`$, whereby $`\lambda \mathrm{geod}(U_i)`$ with $`\lambda (0)=x,\lambda (1)=y`$, is called a *geodesic path* from $`x`$ to $`y`$ . Further, we assume

* If $`x,yU_i`$, then there is a unique geodesic path $`\mathrm{geod}_i(x,y)`$ from $`x`$ to $`y`$ .
* If $`x,yU_iU_j`$, then $`\mathrm{geod}_i(x,y)=\mathrm{geod}_j(x,y)`$ .
* The path connection is flat for this structure, meaning that if $`\lambda :xy`$ is any path in $`U_i`$, then $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(\lambda )(1)=\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(\mathrm{geod}_i(x,y))(1)`$ .

For such an atlas it follows from  (Proposition $`4.3`$) that there exists a local subgroupoid

(6.1)
$$C_\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(𝔾,𝒰)(x)=[U_i,C_\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(𝔾|U_i)]_x.$$

We also need to specify the conditions to ensure that (6.1) can be globally adapted. Following  (Proposition and Definition 3.5 and 4.4), the equality $`C_\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(𝔾,𝒰)|U=C_\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(𝔾|U,𝒰U)`$ holds if for any $`i,jI`$ and $`xU_iU_jU`$, there is an open set $`W`$ such that $`xWU_iU_jU`$, and $`C_\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(𝔾|U_i)|W=C_\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(𝔾|U_jU)|W`$ . Let us say that the cover $`𝒰`$ is ($`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$–)*path local for $`C_\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(𝔾,𝒰)`$* if this condition holds for all open sets $`U`$ of $`X`$ . It follows from  (Corollary 7.10) that any ($`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$–) path local atlas of the local subgroupoid $`C_\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(𝔾,𝒰)`$, is globally adapted. Next let

(6.2)
$$W(𝒰_S)=\underset{iI}{}H_i,$$

where we are given a strictly regular ($`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$–) path local atlas $`𝒰_S`$ for $`𝔾`$, and $`H_i`$ a Lie subgroupoid of $`𝔾`$ . Since such an atlas is globally adapted, it follows from  (Theorem 3.7) that there exists a locally Lie groupoid $`(\mathrm{glob}(C_\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(𝔾|U)),W(𝒰_S))`$ . Furthermore, the Globalisation Theorem of  (Theorem $`3.8`$) establishes the existence of the associated holonomy Lie groupoid $`\mathrm{Hol}(S,𝒰_S)`$ .

### 6.3. Application to abelian gerbes–Proof of Theorem 1.1

We proceed now to an application in the context of  Chapter $`5`$ to which we refer for the notions of a *torsor, a connective structure on a sheaf of groupoids* as well as other details. The application is also in the context of thin homotopies as in .

Let $`𝔾X`$ be a groupoid and $`𝒰=(U_i)_{iI}`$ be a good open covering of $`X`$ . As above, we consider full subgroupoids $`𝔾|U_i`$ as well as wide subgroupoids $`H_i`$ of the latter. We consider principal $`G`$–bundles $`P_iU_i`$, along with isomorphisms

(6.3)
$$u_{ij}:P_j|U_{ij}\stackrel{}{}P_i|U_{ij},$$

in $`𝔾|U_{ij}`$ . As previously we assume that $`G`$ is the abelian group $`\mathrm{U}(1)`$ . We consider a section $`h_{ijk}`$ (of the band $`\underset{¯}{}^{}`$) over $`U_{ijk}`$ by $`h_{ijk}=u_{ik}^1u_{ij}u_{jk}`$ where the latter is viewed as an equality in $`\mathrm{Aut}(P_k)`$, noting that this corresponds to a C̆ech $`2`$–cocycle. Let us decree the full subgroupoids $`𝔾|U_i`$ to be $`𝔾(P_i,U_i)`$ and the $`H_i`$ to be locally sectionable wide Lie subgroupoids of the latter.

Just as before let $`_𝔾X`$ be the sheaf corresponding to the presheaf $`L_𝔾`$ of wide Lie subgroupoids of $`𝔾`$ . As a sheaf of groupoids in its own right, we assume that $`_𝔾`$ is equipped with a connective structure $`\mathrm{Co}`$ (in the sense of ). Next we choose an object $`\omega _i`$ of the torsor $`\mathrm{Co}(P_i)`$, where we regard $`\omega _i`$ as simply a connection $`1`$–form on $`P_iU_i`$, and assume the geodesic–path local property (§6.2) of $`𝒰`$ relative to the $`\omega _i`$ . We denote by $`(𝒫,𝒜,\mathrm{Geod})`$ the corresponding abelian gerbe data together with this property . The next step is to apply the techniques of §3 to this situation .

To proceed, we define a $`1`$–form $`\omega _{ij}`$ on $`U_{ij}`$ by

(6.4)
$$\omega _{ij}=\omega _i(u_{ij})_{}(\omega _j).$$

Recalling $`h_{ijk}=u_{ik}^1u_{ij}u_{jk}`$, it follows that

(6.5)
$$\omega _{ij}+\omega _{jk}\omega _{ik}=\omega _i(u_{ij}u_{jk}u_{ki})_{}(\omega _i)=h_{ijk}^1dh_{ijk}.$$

This data, denoted $`(\underset{¯}{h},\underset{¯}{\omega })`$, so defines a C̆ech $`2`$–cocycle, but with coefficients in the complex of sheaves $`\underset{¯}{}^{}\stackrel{d\mathrm{log}}{}\underset{¯}{A}_{X,}^1`$ . On restriction to thin path groupoids, the object connections $`\omega _i`$ of $`\mathrm{Co}(P_i)`$ determine on each $`U_i`$ a (thin) path connection

(6.6)
$$\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1(U_i)\stackrel{\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_i}{}\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1(H_i)\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1(𝔾|U_i),$$

satisfying the local flatness property $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_i(\lambda )(1)=\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_i(\mathrm{geod}_i(x,y))(1)`$ . Also, there is an open set $`WU_{ij}`$, for which $`H_i|W=H_j|W=H_{ij}`$, and so on the overlaps $`U_{ij}`$, we have a (thin) path connection

(6.7)
$$\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1(U_{ij})\stackrel{\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_{ij}}{}\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1(H_{ij})\mathrm{\Lambda }_1^1(𝔾|U_{ij}).$$

Consider the local subgroupoid of the atlas as given by $`S(x)=[U_i,H_i]_x`$ . At the same time there is a wide subgroupoid generated by the family $`C_{\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_i}(𝔾|U_i)`$ for all $`U_i𝒰`$ . As noted earlier, this leads to a local subgroupoid $`C(𝒫,𝒜,\mathrm{Geod})`$ given by

(6.8)
$$C(𝒫,𝒜,\mathrm{Geod})(x)=[U_i,C_{\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_i}(𝔾|U_i)]_x.$$

Relative to a strictly regular path local atlas $`𝒰(𝒫,𝒜,\mathrm{Geod})`$, we apply the same considerations as before along with the globalisation  (Theorem $`3.8`$), to obtain a holonomy Lie groupoid $`\mathrm{Hol}(𝒫,𝒜)`$, thus establishing Theorem 1.1.


text:
# Ripening of Porous Media

(October 22, 2002)

## Abstract

We address the surface tension-driven dynamics of porous media in nearly saturated pore-space solutions. We linearize this dynamics in the reaction-limited regime near its fixed points – surfaces of constant mean curvature (CMC surfaces). We prove that the only stable interface for this dynamics is the plane, and estimate the time scale for a CMC surface to become unstable. We also discuss the differences between open and closed system dynamics, pointing out the unlikelihood that CMC surfaces are ever realized in these systems on any time scale.

When solid grains are suspended in a solution saturated with the molecular constituents of the grains, they undergo coarsening under the thermodynamic driving force of surface tension. During this phenomenon, known as Ostwald ripening, the free energy of the system is lowered by minimizing the contact area between the coexisting phases. Molecules dissolve from high-curvature areas of the interface, pass through the solution, and can precipitate in low-curvature surface regions. This dynamics can be very complicated and depends on many parameters such as chemical composition, induced temperature and pressure fields, and other factors.

In this Letter we study Ostwald ripening in porous media, where the fluid in the pore space is approximately saturated with the ingredients of the solid phase. An example would be a sedimentary material such as sandstone, with the water in the pore space saturated with the silica components of the rock. Another example would be crushed ice, with water vapor saturating the air in the pore space between ice grains. We identify the fixed points of dissolution-precipitation dynamics as surfaces of “Constant Mean Curvature”, (CMC surfaces), and then show quite generally that these surfaces are unstable fixed points of this dynamics.

If one suspends grains in a solution, a mean field theory due to Lifshitz-Slyozov and Wagner is successful in capturing the dynamics at late stages of the ripening process for low solid volume fraction Lifshitz and Slyozov (1961). Another example of surface tension driven ripening arises in the kinetics of foams Weaire and Hutzler (1999). Unlike these examples, in typical porous media both the solid and pore space components of the medium are connected.

We thus pursue an approach more suited to porous media. Following Békri et al. (1995) we consider the evolution of an interface $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(t)\text{x}(u(t),v(t))`$ between a porous, single component, isotropic solid and its ideal solution in the interstitial fluid. The solid is subject to a first order dissolution-precipitation reaction in a flow field of velocity $`𝐯`$. The normal velocity of the surface $`u_n(\text{x})`$ into the pore space is given by

$$u_n(\text{x})=K_f\left(1e^{\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\mu (\text{x})}{kT}}\right),$$
(1)
where $`K_f`$ is the dissolution rate, and the precipitation rate is controlled by the Boltzmann factor associated with the difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mu (\text{x})\mu _{\text{sur}}(\text{x})\mu _{\text{sol}}(\text{x})`$ between the chemical potentials of solid and dissolved molecules at the interface $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. Referred to the chemical potential $`\mu _{\text{flat}}`$ for a flat surface in equilibrium with an ideal saturated solution of concentration $`c_{\text{sat}}`$, these are given by

$`\mu _{\text{sur}}(\text{x})`$ $`=`$ $`\mu _{\text{flat}}+2\nu _m\sigma H(\text{x}),`$ (2)
$`\mu _{\text{sol}}(\text{x})`$ $`=`$ $`\mu _{\text{flat}}+kT\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{c(\text{x})}{c_{\text{sat}}}},`$ (3)
where $`\nu _m`$ is the molecular volume in the solid, $`\sigma `$ is the interfacial energy, $`c(𝐱)`$ is the concentration near the surface point $`𝐱`$, and $`H(\text{x})(1/2)(\delta S/\delta V)`$ is the mean curvature, which measures the local variation in surface area $`\delta S`$ with respect to a volume change $`\delta V`$ of the solid. Here and elsewhere we define all concentrations with respect to the concentration in the solid. For $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mu kT`$, Eq. (1) reduces to

$$u_n(\text{x})=K_f\frac{2\nu _m\sigma }{kT}\left[H(\text{x})\frac{kT}{2\nu _m\sigma }\mathrm{log}\frac{c(\text{x},t)}{c_{\text{sat}}}\right].$$
(4)
Since $`H`$ should be no larger than the inverse of a typical pore size $`L`$, $`HL^1`$, and $`\nu _m\sigma /kT`$ is usually the inverse of a molecular scale,

$$\frac{\nu _m\sigma }{kT}H,$$
(5)
we see that the linearized form of the dynamics holds for a nearly saturated solution $`cc_{\text{sat}}`$.

The transport of the concentration field $`c`$ in the solution is described by the advection-diffusion equation, with the appropriate boundary condition at the solid interface Békri et al. (1995). The velocity field satisfies the Navier-Stokes equation, with appropriate boundary conditions at infinity and at the solid surfaces inside the porous medium.

Since the full solution of these equations in a porous medium is daunting, we concentrate on two limiting cases of this problem, which we term “perfect open” and “perfect closed” systems. In a perfect open system, the velocity of the flow through the medium is considered sufficiently rapid that in effect each element of the surface is in contact with fluid whose concentration $`c`$ of the solute is fixed by a distant reservoir. This criterion can be achieved by taking the limit of small Damköhler number $`\mathrm{Da}K_f/v0`$, with $`v`$ the average velocity of flow through the system Daccord et al. (1993). Most of this study will concentrate on this limit. The other limit of a “perfect closed” system, in which $`v=0`$ and the diffusion constant $`D\mathrm{}`$, will be explored at the end of this Letter.

In the perfect open case, the concentration $`c(\text{x})`$ on the solution side of the interface has the constant value $`c_{\mathrm{}}`$, and the interface dynamics is governed only by Eq. (4), which yields

$$u_n(\text{x})=K_f\frac{2\nu _m\sigma }{kT}[H(\text{x})H_{}],$$
(6)
where $`H_{}[kT/(2\nu _m\sigma )]\mathrm{log}(c_{\mathrm{}}/c_{\text{sat}})`$.

CMC surfaces, for which $`H(𝐱)=H_{}`$ everywhere on the surface, are the fixed points of the dynamics (6). These surfaces have been studied in a variety of contexts, notably for their relationship to certain phases of block co-polymers Thomas et al. (1986). The simplest examples are a sphere of radius $`r=\frac{1}{H}`$ and a cylinder of radius $`r=\frac{1}{2H}`$.

A special case of CMC surfaces are “minimal surfaces”, for which $`H(\text{x})=0`$. These surfaces have been extensively studied in the context of analytic function theory, and many such surfaces have been discovered Nitsche (1999). For $`H_{}=0`$, Eq. (6) is the equation of motion for a manifold seeking to minimize its own surface area, a dynamics that is sometimes called “motion under mean curvature” Sethian (1999). Of particular interest in the context of porous media are the triply periodic minimal surfaces, of which the Schwartz P-surface, shown in Fig. 1(a), is a classic example. Note that both sides of the surface form connected components, as in most porous media. Anderson et al. have extended several such surfaces into CMC surfaces with $`H0`$ Anderson et al. (1990). The extension of the Schwartz P-surface to a family of CMC surfaces is shown in Fig. 2, with an example depicted in Fig. 1(b). These surfaces vary continuously from the P-surface $`(M)`$ to a simple cubic lattice of barely touching spheres at one endpoint $`(A)`$, and to a simple cubic lattice of barely touching spherical holes at the other endpoint $`(A^{})`$ (see Fig. 2). Anderson et al. also generated families corresponding to fcc, bcc, and diamond lattices of spheres, with qualitatively similar properties. Although we are aware of no reported examples of “amorphous” families of CMC surfaces, it is likely that such families exist Davidovitch et al. . Such families would be most relevant to real porous media.

We now show that all CMC surfaces with the exception of planes are unstable fixed points of Eq.(6). Consider a surface $`\text{x}^{}(u,v)=\text{x}+ϵ(\text{x})\text{n}(\text{x})`$, whose deviation from a CMC surface $`\text{x}(u,v)\mathrm{\Gamma }_{}`$ with $`H(\text{x})=H_{}`$ is given by a (small) normal displacement $`ϵ(𝐱)`$. In Davidovitch et al.  we show that the corresponding variation $`\delta H(\text{x})=H(\text{x}^{})H_{}`$ is given to first order in $`ϵ`$ by

$`\delta H(\text{x})`$ $`=`$ $`\left[(2H_{}^2K)ϵ+_sB_sϵ+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_{s}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}ϵ\right],`$ (7)
$`B(\text{x})`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8}}\mathrm{log}\left(H_{}^2K(\text{x})\right),`$ (8)
where $`_s`$ and $`_{s}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}`$ are the surface gradient and Laplacian, respectively, and $`K(\text{x})`$ is the Gaussian curvature at x. Substituting Eq. (7) in (6), we obtain the linear dynamics near a CMC surface with mean curvature $`H_{}`$

$`{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ}{t}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2K_f\nu _m\sigma }{kT}}ϵ,`$ (9)
$``$ $``$ $`2H_{}^2K+_sB_s+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_{s}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}.`$ (10)
Recall the definition of $`H`$ and $`K`$ in terms of the local principal radii of curvature of the surface $`R_1`$ and $`R_2`$,

$$H=(R_1^1+R_2^1)/2,;K=(R_1R_2)^1.$$

Since $`2H^2K=(R_1^2+R_2^2)/20`$, uniform precipitation ($`ϵ>0`$) decreases the curvature, making the surface locally more hospitable to deposition, while dissolution ($`ϵ<0`$) increases the curvature, favoring further dissolution. This observation already suggests that the surface is likely to be unstable.

Because the term in $``$ which couples Gaussian curvature gradients with the gradient of $`ϵ`$ is non-Hermitian, it is more convenient to work with the Hermitian operator $``$ defined via the “gauge transformation”

$$e^{B(\text{x})}e^{B(\text{x})}$$
(11)
so that

$``$ $`=`$ $`V(\text{x})+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_{s}^{}{}_{}{}^{2},`$ (12)
$`V(\text{x})`$ $`=`$ $`2H_{}^2K{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[_s^2B+(_sB)^2].`$ (13)
The eigenvalues of $``$ are identical to those of $``$ Hatano and Nelson (1996), and they are bounded from above provided that $`V(\text{x})<\mathrm{}`$.

For any function $`\mathrm{\Psi }(\text{x})`$ defined on the surface, a lower bound on the maximum eigenvalue $`\omega _0`$ of $``$ (consequently $``$) can be established using the inequality

$$\omega _0\frac{_\mathrm{\Gamma }𝑑S\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}(\mathrm{\Psi })}{_\mathrm{\Gamma }𝑑S\left|\mathrm{\Psi }\right|^2},$$
(14)
where $`_\mathrm{\Gamma }𝑑S`$ is the ordinary surface integral. Using the trial function $`\mathrm{\Psi }_B(\text{x})=e^{B(\text{x})}`$, we obtain

$`\omega _0`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{_\mathrm{\Gamma }𝑑S(H_{}^2K)^{1/4}(2H_{}^2K)}{_\mathrm{\Gamma }𝑑S(H_{}^2K)^{1/4}}}`$ (15)
$`=`$ $`H_{}^2+{\displaystyle \frac{_\mathrm{\Gamma }𝑑S(H_{}^2K)^{3/4}}{_\mathrm{\Gamma }𝑑S(H_{}^2K)^{1/4}}}.`$
However, since $`H^2K=[(1/R_1)(1/R_2)]^2/4`$ is non-negative everywhere on the surface and reaches zero homogeneously on $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ only for a planar surface, we conclude that *the only marginally stable fixed point of the dynamics (6) is the plane*. There are no other surfaces of any kind, porous or non-porous, that are metastable under Ostwald ripening. This conclusion applies both to periodic and to possible amorphous CMC surfaces. For a system with a pore scale of $`L`$, we expect this instability to manifest itself on a time scale of

$$\tau _{\text{ripen}}=\frac{kTL^2}{K_f\sigma \nu _m}.$$
(16)
Note that intuitively, the instability is enhanced by an increase in the magnitude either of the mean curvature, or of the Gaussian curvature (since the latter is on average negative for a surface of large genus, such as a typical porous surface.)

For triply periodic CMC surfaces, the periodicity of the “potential” $`V(\text{x})`$ implies that the eigenmodes $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{\text{k},n}(\text{x})`$ of the operator $``$ (and of $``$) are surface Bloch functions,

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_{\text{k},n}(\text{x})`$ $`=`$ $`\omega _{\text{k},n}e^{i\text{k}\text{x}}U_{\text{k},n}(\text{x})`$ (17)
$`U_{\text{k},n}(\text{x})`$ $`=`$ $`U_{\text{k},n}(\text{x}+\text{R})`$ (18)
where $`𝐑`$ is a lattice vector, $`𝐤`$ is the crystal momentum (confined to the first Brillouin zone), and $`n`$ is a discrete label distinguishing between different branches. Standard techniques should allow determination of the spectrum of $``$ throughout the first Brillouin zone Davidovitch et al. .

As a concrete example, we have computed the positive eigenvalue $`\omega _0`$ corresponding to the $`\text{k}=\text{0}`$ eigenmode $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0(\text{x})U_{\mathrm{𝟎},0}(\text{x})`$ for the Schwartz P-surface numerically by maximizing the functional on the RHS of Eq. (14). The details of the maximization procedure will be presented elsewhere Davidovitch et al. . We obtain $`\omega _06.1`$ for a unit cell of size $`L=1`$, whereas the lower bound implied by Eq. (15) is $`\omega _02.9`$.

Since the eigenfunction of the largest eigenvalue has the same sign (precipitation or dissolution) everywhere on the surface, the unstable dynamics of Eq. (6) involves transport of solute into (or out of) the pore space from the distant reservoir. Therefore, the nature of the dynamics might be different in a closed system, where the total amount of the solid component is conserved.

In a “perfect closed” system, we further regard the surface motion as reaction limited, such that the solute concentrations near the entire surface are approximately equal to the average concentration in the pore $`\overline{c}`$. This condition is satisfied at the pore scale $`L`$ if $`DK_fL/c_{\text{sat}}`$. By integrating Eq. (4), we see that $`\overline{c}`$ must then approach a value $`c_{\text{eq}}`$ determined by

$$\mathrm{log}\frac{c_{\text{eq}}(\overline{H})}{c_{\text{sat}}}=\frac{2\nu _m\sigma \overline{H}}{kT},$$
(19)
controlled by the average mean curvature $`\overline{H}`$ of the surface, over a characteristic time scale $`\tau _{\text{pore}}=Lc_{\text{sat}}/K_f`$. For $`\tau >\tau _{\text{pore}}`$, the solute concentration $`\overline{c}`$ is “slaved” to $`c_{\text{eq}}(\overline{H})`$. Conservation of the total solid requires

$$\varphi _t=\varphi _s+\overline{c}(1\varphi _s),$$
(20)
where $`\varphi _s`$ is the solid volume fraction enclosed by the surface and $`\varphi _t`$ would be the solid volume fraction if none of the solid were dissolved. Eliminating $`\overline{c}=c_{\text{eq}}(\overline{H})`$ from Eq. (20) using Eq. (19) shows that $`\varphi _s`$ is very insensitive to the value of $`\overline{H}`$,

$$\left|\frac{d\mathrm{log}\varphi _s}{d\mathrm{log}\overline{H}}\right|\frac{2c_{\text{sat}}(1\varphi _t)}{\varphi _s(1c_{\text{sat}})^2}\frac{\nu _m\sigma \left|\overline{H}\right|}{kT}1,$$
(21)
where we have used Eq. (5). In a “perfect closed” system, we take $`\varphi _s`$ constant, which is an excellent approximation for $`\tau >\tau _{\text{pore}}`$. This dynamics is now given by Eq. (6) with the constant $`H_{}`$ replaced by $`\overline{H}`$, whose evolution with time is controlled by the constraint of constant $`\varphi _s(\varphi _tc_{\text{sat}})/(1c_{\text{sat}})`$. This is surface area minimization under the constraint that the volume contained within the surface is conserved.

Consider again periodic surfaces of the Anderson type. Figure 2(b) shows the total surface area as a function of $`\varphi _s`$ along the manifold of CMC surfaces of simple cubic structure. Although all CMC solutions represent fixed points of the dynamics, we anticipate that for a given $`\varphi _s`$, only the CMC surface with the lowest area can be stable under these dynamics, and only if the system is also required to maintain its spatial periodicity. We have confirmed this by direct simulation using Surface Evolverevo ; Davidovitch et al. . This result is an extension of the well-known stability of the minimal surface (point $`M`$ in Fig. 2) to the entire lower branch in Fig. 2(b), under periodic surface area minimization dynamics with conserved volume. A corollary of this result is that along this lower branch, $``$ has only one unstable $`\text{k}=\text{0}`$ mode Davidovitch et al. , which is disallowed by solid conservation under closed system dynamics. Thus the stable mode with the longest relaxation time $`\tau _{\text{relax}}`$ will control approach to the stable CMC surface; dimensional analysis suggests that $`\tau _{\text{relax}}\tau _{\text{ripen}}`$.

Nevertheless, for an extended system this apparent stability is compromised by the unstable hydrodynamic $`(\text{k}0)`$ modes in the eigenvalue spectrum Eq. (17), which do conserve the overall $`\varphi _s`$. It is possible for these unstable modes to be restricted to the topmost ($`n=0`$) band and to wavevectors $`k<\pi /\mathrm{}_0`$, such that transport of solute over length scales $`>\mathrm{}_0`$ is needed to activate these modes. For amorphous surfaces, the band structure picture is not appropriate, but we still expect unstable modes to appear above a characteristic length scale $`\mathrm{}_0L`$. In either case, it is natural to ask if there is a window of time over which the CMC surfaces might be observable, before the instability manifests itself.

During the time $`\tau _{\text{relax}}`$ characterizing the relaxation to the CMC surface, the diffusion length over which solid transport is possible is $`\mathrm{}_D=\sqrt{D\tau _{\text{relax}}}`$. Using the reaction-limited constraint $`DK_fL/c_{\text{sat}}`$ and $`\tau _{\text{relax}}\tau _{\text{ripen}}`$, with $`\tau _{\text{ripen}}`$ given by Eq. (16), we find

$$\frac{\mathrm{}_D}{L}\sqrt{\frac{kTL}{\sigma \nu _mc_{\text{sat}}}}1$$
(22)
where the last inequality follows from Eq. (5). Since we thus expect $`\mathrm{}_D\mathrm{}_0`$, by the time a surface relaxes on the pore scale to a CMC surface, the diffusive transport between pores will have activated the unstable dynamics, taking the system away from this surface. Thus we do not expect an intermediate-time window over which CMC surfaces would be seen foot .

Using representative values for $`K_f`$ and $`\sigma `$ for quartz in water Dove (1994), we get for $`L100`$ $`\mu `$m that $`\tau _{\text{ripen}}`$ 500 million years, a time scale over which geological systems should be regarded as open. However, a similar estimate for limestone yields a value of $`\tau _{\text{ripen}}`$ 7 years, which is quite short on geological time scales, so that these systems will correspond more closely to closed systems Plummer et al. (1978). Of course for real geological systems these processes involve complicated multicomponent equilibria, and other mechanisms such as pressure solution may dominate as well de Boer (1977). Nevertheless, there are probably geological circumstances under which surface-tension driven phenomena will be important.

We would like to thank I. Androulakis, P. Chaikin, S. Milner, and T. Witten for helpful and informative discussions. A. Herhold and R. Polizzotti advised us on the properties of real sedimentary materials. K. Brakke assisted us with questions regarding the use of the Surface Evolver software. We are grateful to F. Leyvraz for pointing out an error in our reasoning, and to M. Hastings for bringing to our attention the “gauge” transformation used in Ref. Hatano and Nelson (1996).