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# Cluster formation in the LMC

## 1. References

Braun, J. M., Bomans, D.J., Will, J-M, & de Boer, K.S., 1997, A&A, 328, 167 Elmegreen B.G., 2002, astro-ph/0207114
de Oliveira M.R, Dottori H., & Bica E., 1998, MNRAS, 295, 921
de Oliveira M.R., Dutra C.M., Bica E., & Dottori H., 2000, A&AS, 146, 57
Leon S., Bergond G., & Vallenari A., 1999, A&A, 344, 450
Mizuno N, Yamaguchi, R., Mizuno, A., Rubio, M., Abe, R., Saito, H., Onishi, T., Yonekura, Y.,Yamaguchi, N., Ogawa, H., Fukui, Y., 2001,PASJ, 53, 971
Vallenari A., Bettoni D., & Chiosi C., 1998, A&A, 331, 506
Yamaguchi R., Mizuno N., Onishi T., Mizuno A., & Fukui Y., 2001, PASJ, 53, 959
Vallenari A., Bomans, D.J., & de Boer, K.S., 1993, A&A, 268, 137


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# Spin wave theory for antiferromagnetic XXZ spin model on a triangle lattice in the presence of an external magnetic field

## 1. Introduction

Quantum spin systems in low dimensions continue to be an interesting subject. Quantum fluctuation generally destroys the long range order in one dimensionbethe , and plays an important role in two dimension anderson . In this paper, we study the ground state of spin-$`S`$ antiferromagnetic quantum XXZ model on a triangle lattice in the presence of an external in-plane magnetic field.

Our main focus is on the effect of the magnetic field to the quantum fluctuation. It is well known that a spin system becomes polarized at a very high field (above a threshold), which suppresses the quantum fluctuation. It is, however, less clear if the magnetic field enhances or suppresses the quantum fluctuation at intermediate field strength. The latter problem may be important to systems near the boundary of a quantum solid (ordered phase) to quantum liquid (disorder phase) transition. Our interest on this problem is partially motivated by the recent experiments on $`Cs_2CuCl_4`$. That system coldea1  is a quasi 2-dimensional $`S=1/2`$ frustrated Heisenberg antiferromagnet with a weak anisotropy favoring spins aligned in the basal plane, likely due to the Dzyaloshinskii- Moriya interaction d-m . Coldea et al. coldea2 ; coldea3  have used neutron scattering to study the ground state and the dynamics of the system in high magnetic field. Among the observations, these authors found that the system undergoes phase transitions from a spin solid to a spin liquid to a spin fully polarized states as the in-plane magnetic field increases. Their experiment has raised an interesting theoretical question of the effect of the field on the quantum fluctuation and on the possible field driven quantum spin liquid. The basal plane of $`Cs_2CuCl_4`$ consists of a triangle lattice with the spin-spin coupling much stronger along one direction than along other two directions. There have been some theoretical works attempting to address some of the issues relevant to the experiments bocquet ; chung ; shen . Here we shall consider a simplified model to study the field effect on the quantum spin fluctuation. For simplicity, in our model we shall neglect the lattice anisotropy in the real systems, and assume the spin couplings are the same between all the pairs of the nearest neighboring sites. We shall use XXZ model to describe the anisotropy in spin space, which distinguishes the in-plane field from the perpendicular field.

We apply spin-wave theory mattis  to study the leading order correction to the sublattice magnetization due to the quantum fluctuation. The spin wave theory or equivalent theories have been applied to a number of systems, including the antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model in a triangle lattice yoshioka  and the quantum XY model mit . We calculate the ground state energy and the sublattice magnetization as functions of the magnetic field, and find that the quantum fluctuation measured by the reduction of the sublattice magnetization is enhanced as the field increases at the intermediate field strength and in the anisotropic case. The possible implication to the field driven quantum phase transition will be discussed.

This paper is organized as follows. In section 2, we introduce the model Hamiltonian. Section 3 describes the application of the spin wave theory to the present model. The results for the ground state energy and the sublattice magnetization are presented in section 4. In the final section, we summarize our results and discuss their possible implications to the field driven quantum spin liquid.

## 2. Model Hamiltonian

We consider spin-$`S`$ antiferromagnetic XXZ model on a triangular lattice of $`3N`$ sites in the x-z plane in the presence of an external magnetic field $`h`$ along the z-axis. The lattice constant is set to be 1. The Hamiltonian can be written as follows:

$`H={\displaystyle \underset{i,\delta }{}}(S_i^xS_{i+\delta }^x+S_i^zS_{i+\delta }^z+wS_i^yS_{i+\delta }^y)Sh{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}S_i^z.`$ (1)
In the above equation, $`S_i^\mu `$ is the $`\mu `$ component of the spin-S operator on site $`i`$, and $`\delta `$ denotes the three nearest-neighbor bond vectors (see Fig.1) given by, $`\delta _\alpha =(1,0)`$, $`\delta _\beta =(1/2,\sqrt{3}/2)`$, and $`\delta _\gamma =(1/2,\sqrt{3}/2)`$. $`hS`$ is the strength of the magnetic field, and $`h`$ will be considered to be order of unity for the purpose of analyzing the spin wave theory, so that the magnetic field contribution to the energy is of the same order as the leading order spin-spin interaction energy. $`w`$ is a parameter describing the anisotropy of the model, and $`0w1`$. The model is reduced to the Heisenberg model at $`w=1`$, and to the XY model at $`w=0`$. Note that the mdoel with $`w>1`$ belongs to a different universal class and will not be discussed here.

## 3. Spin-wave theory

We apply the spin wave theory to study this model mattis . This requires a proper choice of the classical state upon which the spin wave represents minimum quantum fluctuations. Since $`w1`$, we choose quantization axes within the $`xz`$ plane, and consider the spin quantizations in three sublattices as indicated in Fig. 1. Namely, the spins in sublattice $`A`$ are aligned along the z-axis and the spins in sublattices $`B`$ and $`C`$ are aligned along the $`\theta `$ and $`\theta `$ directions respectively, where $`\theta `$ is determined variationally. Such a quantization is consistent with the expected three sublattice classical ground state.

We introduce three boson annihilation operators $`a,b,c`$ and their corresponding creation operators by means of the Holstein-Primakoff transformation holstein  to represent spins on sublattices $`A`$, $`B`$, and $`C`$, respectively. They are given by $`S_i^z^{}=Sn_i`$, $`S_i^+=\sqrt{2Sn_i}d_i`$, and $`S_i^{}=d_i^{}\sqrt{2Sn_i}`$, where $`d=a,b,c`$ for the site $`iA,B,C`$ respectively. $`n_i=d_i^{}d_i`$, and $`z^{}`$ is the corresponding spin quantization axis, and $`S_i^\pm =S_i^x^{}\pm iS_i^y^{}`$. We apply the standard spin wave theory and write the Hamiltonian in terms of large $`S`$-expansion. The leading order term is proportional to $`S^2`$, which is the energy of the classical ground state given by

$`E_{cl}=NS^2[6\mathrm{cos}\theta +3\mathrm{cos}2\theta h(1+2\mathrm{cos}\theta )].`$ (2)
The angle $`\theta `$ is determined variationally by $`dE_{cl}/d\theta =0`$, from which we find

$`\mathrm{cos}\theta =\{\begin{array}{cc}(h3)/6,hh_c=9& \\ & \\ 1,hh_c& \end{array}`$ (6)
Note that the value of $`\theta `$ is independent of the spin anisotropic parameter $`w`$ for the $`y`$-component of the spin does not play any role in the classical limit. At zero field, we obtain $`\theta =120^o`$, recovering the well known result. The case of $`\theta =0`$ ($`hh_c`$) corresponds to the ferromagnetic phase where all the spins are fully polarized along the field direction. We see that as the field increases, $`\theta `$ decreases from $`120^o`$ to $`0`$, and the classical antiferromagnetic ground state is gradually transformed into a ferromagnetic state.

The leading order quantum fluctuation to the classical solution is proportional to $`S`$, and it is given by,

$`H_{FL}=3S{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{k}}{}}D_\stackrel{}{k}^{}_\stackrel{}{k}D_\stackrel{}{k}+E_{FL}^0(h),`$ (7)
where

$`E_{FL}^0(h)=\{\begin{array}{cc}9NS/2,hh_c& \\ & \\ 3NS(h/23),hh_c& \end{array}`$ (11)
In Eq. (4), the sum is over the reduced Brillouin zone, and $`D_\stackrel{}{k}^{}=(A_\stackrel{}{k}^{},\stackrel{~}{A}_\stackrel{}{k})`$, $`A_\stackrel{}{k}^{}=(a_\stackrel{}{k}^{},b_\stackrel{}{k}^{},c_\stackrel{}{k}^{})`$, and $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ is the transpose of $`A`$. $``$ is a 6 $`\times `$ 6 matrix, and can be written in terms of an idendity matrix $``$ and the Pauli matrix $`\sigma _x`$ as

$`=(M_0+M_+)+\sigma _xM_{}`$ (12)
where $`M_0`$ is a 3 $`\times `$ 3 diagonal matrix, whose matrix elements are given by $`(M_0)_{11}=\frac{h}{6}\mathrm{cos}\theta `$, and $`(M_0)_{22}=(M_0)_{33}=\frac{1}{6}(h\mathrm{cos}\theta 3\mathrm{cos}\theta 3\mathrm{cos}2\theta )`$, and

$`M_\pm =\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& (\mathrm{cos}\theta \pm w)\gamma _\stackrel{}{k}& (\mathrm{cos}\theta \pm w)\gamma _\stackrel{}{k}^{}\\ (\mathrm{cos}\theta \pm w)\gamma _\stackrel{}{k}^{}& 0& (\mathrm{cos}2\theta \pm w)\gamma _\stackrel{}{k}\\ (\mathrm{cos}\theta \pm w)\gamma _\stackrel{}{k}& (\mathrm{cos}2\theta \pm w)\gamma _\stackrel{}{k}^{}& 0\end{array}\right)`$ (16)
In the above equations, $`\gamma _\stackrel{}{k}=(1/12)_\delta \mathrm{exp}(i\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{\delta })`$, where the sum of $`\delta `$ runs over $`\{\delta _\alpha ,\delta _\beta ,\delta _\gamma \}`$. The off diagonal matrices $`M_\pm `$ represents the interaction among the three sublattices. The $`\theta `$ term in the matrix elements arises from the $`x`$\- and $`z`$\- components of the spin fluctuation and the $`w`$ term arises from the $`y`$\- component of the spin fluctuation.

$`H_{FL}`$ can be diagonalized by using the Bogoliubov transformation. We introduce three bosonic operators $`\alpha _{n,\stackrel{}{k}}`$ with $`n=1,2,3`$, and vector operators $`𝒜_\stackrel{}{k}^{}=(\alpha _{1,\stackrel{}{k}}^{},\alpha _{2,\stackrel{}{k}}^{},\alpha _{3,\stackrel{}{k}}^{})`$. and $`𝒟_\stackrel{}{k}^{}=(𝒜_\stackrel{}{k}^{},\stackrel{~}{𝒜}_\stackrel{}{k})`$. They are related to the original Holstein-Primikoff boson operators, $`D_\stackrel{}{k}`$, by a Bogoliubov transformation $`U`$, and that $`H_{FL}`$ is diagonalized in terms of these new boson operators,

$`D_\stackrel{}{k}=U𝒟_\stackrel{}{k}`$ (17)
$`H_{FL}=2S{\displaystyle \underset{n,\stackrel{}{k}}{}}\omega _{n,\stackrel{}{k}}(\alpha _{n,\stackrel{}{k}}^{}\alpha _{n,\stackrel{}{k}}+1/2)+E_{FL}^0(h)`$ (18)
where $`\omega _{n,\stackrel{}{k}}`$ (n = 1, 2, 3) are the energy dispersions of the three spin wave excitations (magnon modes) in the spin ordered ground state.

In general, the Bogoliubov transformation can be carried out hence the magnon dispersions can be calculated numerically. This will be discussed in the following section. In the ferromagnetic phase, $`hh_c`$, we have analytical results,

$`\omega _{n,\stackrel{}{k}}=\sqrt{[3+{\displaystyle \frac{h}{2}}+3(1+w)T_{n,\stackrel{}{k}}]^2[3(1w)T_{n,\stackrel{}{k}}]^2}`$
where $`T_{n,\stackrel{}{k}}=\gamma _\stackrel{}{k}\xi ^n+\gamma _\stackrel{}{k}^{}\xi ^{2n}`$, with $`\xi =\mathrm{exp}(i2\pi /3)`$. Note that $`1/4T_{n,\stackrel{}{k}}1/2`$. This result is in agreement with the previous work guillou .

## 4. Results

In this section, we present the results for the ground state energy and the sublattice magnetization of the antiferromagnetic XXZ model obtained from the spin wave theory described in the previous section.

### 4.1. Ground state energy

In this subsection, we discuss the ground state energy up to the leading order quantum fluctuation, namely to the order of $`S`$ in the large $`S`$-expansions. The ground state energy per bond (there are total $`9N`$ bonds in the lattice) is given by

$`ϵ_0=ϵ_{cl}+ϵ_{fl}`$ (19)
where $`ϵ_{cl}`$ and $`ϵ_{fl}`$ are the classical and the fluctuation energies, respectively. From Eq. (2), $`ϵ_{cl}`$ is given by,

$`ϵ_{cl}`$ $`=`$ $`\{\begin{array}{cc}(\frac{1}{2}+\frac{h^2}{54})S^2,\hfill & hh_C\hfill \\ (1\frac{h}{3})S^2,\hfill & hh_C\hfill \end{array}`$ (22)
To obtain $`ϵ_{fl}`$, we include the zero point energy of the bosons in Eq. (9), which leads to

$`ϵ_{fl}`$ $`=`$ $`\{\begin{array}{cc}(\frac{1}{2}+\frac{1}{9N}\underset{n,\stackrel{}{k}}{}\omega _{n,\stackrel{}{k}})S,\hfill & hh_C\hfill \\ ((\frac{h}{6}1)+\frac{1}{9N}\underset{n,\stackrel{}{k}}{}\omega _{n,\stackrel{}{k}})S,\hfill & hh_C\hfill \end{array}`$ (25)
We have solved the Bogoliubov transfromation problem numerically to diagonalize $`H_{FL}`$ and to calculate the dispersions $`\omega _{n,\stackrel{}{k}}`$ and the energy $`ϵ_0`$. In Fig. 2(a), we plot the energy of the classical ground state as a function of the magnetic field $`h`$. The energy decreases monotonically as $`h`$ increases, and is linear in $`h`$ in the ferromagnetic state with $`hh_C`$. In Fig. 2(b), we show the quantum correction to the ground state energy as functions of $`h`$ for several values of $`w`$. Firstly, we note that the quantum correction to the energy is very small in comparison with the classical energy even for $`S=1/2`$. This indicates that the spin wave theory is a good approximation for the present model. At $`h=0`$, the quantum correction is largest in the Heisenberg model ($`w=1`$) and smallest in the XY model ($`w=0`$). This is consistent with the intuition that the $`y`$ component of the spin would increase the quantum fluctuation. As $`h`$ increases, however, the magnitude of the quantum fluctuation as a function of $`w`$ reverses the order as we can see from Fig. 2(b). This becomes apparent at $`h=h_C`$, where the quantum correction to the energy in the Heisenberg model vanishes, while that in the XY model reaches the maximum. It is interesting to note that the magnetic field enhances the quantum fluctuation in certain parameter region of the mdoel, a point we will come back for further discussion in the next subsection. It is also interesting to note that the leading order quantum fluctuation remains finite in the general case even in the ferromagnetic phase. The Heisenberg limit of the model is only a special case where the leading order quantum fluctuation vanishes. The latter can be understood by examining the matrices in $`H_{FL}`$. At $`hh_C`$, and $`w=1`$, we have $`M_{}=0`$, so that boson annihilation operators $`(a,b,c)`$ do not mix with their creation operators $`(a^{},b^{},c^{})`$, hence the system is similar to the ferromagnetic Heisenberg model and has zero quantum fluctuation.

## 4.2. Sublattice magnetization

We now move to our main interest to discuss the quantum corrections to the sublattice magnetization. The magnetization in sublattice $`L=\{A,B,C\}`$ is defined as the average spin component within the same sublattice along its quantization axis,

$`S_L^z^{}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}{\displaystyle \underset{iL}{}}S_i^z^{}=S\mathrm{\Delta }S_L`$ (26)
where $`S`$ is the classical value of the spin, and the second term, $`\mathrm{\Delta }S_L=(1/N)\underset{iL}{}d_i^{}d_i`$, is the reduction from the classical spin value due to the quantum fluctuation, and $`Q`$ is the expectation value of operator $`Q`$ in the ground state. $`\mathrm{\Delta }S_L`$ can be calculated from the Bogoliubov transformation matrix $`U`$,

$`\mathrm{\Delta }S_L`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{k}}{}}|U_{l4}|^2+|U_{l5}|^2+|U_{l6}|^2`$ (27)
where $`l=\{1,2,3\}`$ for $`L=\{A,B,C\}`$ respectively, and $`U`$ is obtained in the diagonalization of $`H_{FL}`$. The results are shown in Fig. 3 for $`\mathrm{\Delta }S_A`$ and in Fig. 4 for $`\mathrm{\Delta }S_B`$ for functions of the field $`h`$ for several values of $`w`$. By symmetry, $`\mathrm{\Delta }S_C=\mathrm{\Delta }S_B`$.

We first discuss the Heisenberg limit of $`w=1`$. At $`h=0`$, we find $`\mathrm{\Delta }S_L0.26`$ for all the three sublattices. This result is the same as that reported early using a Schwinger boson mean field theory by Yoshioka yoshioka . As $`h`$ increases, both $`\mathrm{\Delta }S_A`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }S_B`$ decrease, but $`\mathrm{\Delta }S_A`$ drops much faster as we can see in the figure. For $`hh_C=9`$, the ground state in ferromagnetic, and we find $`\mathrm{\Delta }S_A=\mathrm{\Delta }S_B=0`$ as a result of the zero quantum fluctuation in this case as we discussed in the previous subsection.

We now turn to discuss the XY limit of the model with $`w=0`$. At $`h=0`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }S_A=\mathrm{\Delta }S_B0.05`$, which is much smaller than the value in the Heisenberg model ($`0.26`$), but is comparable to the value of $`0.06`$ reported in the square lattice XY model mit . As $`h`$ increases from $`0`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }S_A`$ decreases to zero while $`\mathrm{\Delta }S_B`$ increases to reach a maximum at $`h=3`$. Figs 3 and 4 also show that $`\mathrm{\Delta }S_L`$ is symmetric with respect to the value of $`h=3`$ in the region $`0h6`$. In the XY limit, the quantum fluctuation arising from the $`y`$-component of spin is absent. The off-diagonal matrices $`M_\pm `$ in $`H_{FL}`$ are given by for $`hh_C`$,

$`M_\pm =\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& \frac{h3}{6}\gamma _\stackrel{}{k}& \frac{h3}{6}\gamma _\stackrel{}{k}^{}\\ \frac{h3}{6}\gamma _\stackrel{}{k}^{}& 0& [\frac{(h3)^2}{18}1]\gamma _\stackrel{}{k}\\ \frac{h3}{6}\gamma _\stackrel{}{k}& [\frac{(h3)^2}{18}1]\gamma _\stackrel{}{k}^{}& 0\end{array}\right)`$ (31)
At $`h=3`$, there is no finite matrix element between the sublattice $`A`$ and sublattices $`B`$ or $`C`$. Therefore, the triangle lattice is decomposed into a honeycomb lattice consisting of sublattices $`B`$ and $`C`$ and $`N`$ isolated spins of sublattice $`A`$. Consequently, the spins in $`A`$ are all parallel to the field with $`\mathrm{\Delta }S_A=0`$, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }S_B`$ is the same as the result in a honeycomb lattice in the absence of external fields. The form of $`M_\pm `$ also indicate a symmetry with resepct to $`h=3`$, although the rigorous mathematics involves more delicated analyses since the matrices contain elements with both even and odd functions of $`h3`$.

As shown clearly in the figures, there are sharp peaks for both $`\mathrm{\Delta }S_A`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }S_B`$ at $`h=h_c`$ except for $`w=1`$. The peak height increases as $`w`$ decreases, and is the largest for $`w=0`$. Part of this feature found in our calculations may be understood by examining the ferromagnetic phase for $`hh_C`$. In this phase, we have $`\mathrm{\Delta }S_A=\mathrm{\Delta }S_B=\mathrm{\Delta }S`$, which is given by

$`\mathrm{\Delta }S`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6N}}{\displaystyle \underset{n,\stackrel{}{k}}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{3+\frac{h}{2}+3(1+w)T_{n,\stackrel{}{k}}}{\omega _{n,\stackrel{}{k}}}}`$ (32)
From this expression, we see that $`\mathrm{\Delta }S`$ decreases as $`h`$ further increases as we can see from the figures. $`(\mathrm{\Delta }S/h)_{hh_C+0^+}\mathrm{}`$, so that the slopes of $`\mathrm{\Delta }S`$ divergent. This explains the singularities of $`\mathrm{\Delta }S`$ found in our numerical calculation shown in the figures.

The most interesting result we can learn from these calculations is the possible field enhanced quantum fluctuations in certain quantum spin systems. This is somewhat in contrary to the general intuition since the field is expected to partially polarize the spins hence to suppress the quantum fluctuation. Our calculations and analyses demonstrate that this intuitive argument may break down in certain parameter region. This finding should have important implications for the magnetic field driven quantum phase transition from a spin solid to a spin liquid. In the spin wave theory, $`\mathrm{\Delta }S`$ is a measure of the quantum fluctuation. If $`\mathrm{\Delta }S=S`$, the sublatitce magnetization vanishes, indicating the melt-down of a quantum solid.

## 5. Discussions and Summary

We have applied the spin wave theory to study quantum XXZ model on a triangle lattice in the presence of an in-plane magnetic field. Our model includes the Heisenberg model at one limit and the XY model at the other limit. We have calculated the ground state energy and the sublattice magnetization as functions of the external field and the anisotropy of the spin coupling. We have found that the field may enhance or suppress the quantum fluctuation and the reduction of the sublattice magnetization, depending on the spin anisotropy and the field strength. At the intermediate field and in the anisotropic case, the field enhances the quantum fluctuation. The reduction of the sublattice magnetization in the model we have studied is still too small to destroy the spin long range order even for the smallest spin system with $`S=1/2`$. This is because the model we studied here is still quite far from the solid-liquid boundary in the absence of the field. Nevertheless, the qualitative effect of the field on the quantum fluctuation we have found is interesting, and it may have important implications for systems near the solid-liquid phase boundary. Near that boundary, the external magnetic field may well drive a quantum solid to a quantum liquid due to the increase of the quantum fluctuation. In quasi 2-dimensional triangle lattice of $`Cs_2CuCl_4`$, the in-plane spin-spin couplings are strongly anisotropic, and the coupling along one direction is about three times as large as those along the other two directions. The spin system is between one and two dimensions, and the system in the absence of field has a long range order but is closer to the spin liquid boundary. In that type of systems, an enhanced quantum fluctuation may easily destroy the long range order. We speculate that the in-plane field induced phase transition coldea3  to the quantum liquid state observed in $`Cs_2CuCl_4`$ could be due to the increase of the quantum fluctuation. More detailed calculations on more realistic model would be interesting to carry out to see if such a conjecture is relevant to the experiment.

We would like to thank D. A. Tennant, R. Coldea for discussions on their experiments. We also wish to thank S. Q. Shen for many useful discussions on this subject, especially in the early stage of the work. This work is in part supported by Chinese Academy of Sicences, and by the US DOE grant DE/FG03-01EG45687.


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# Cosmological Parameters are Dressed

## I Effective Cosmological Models

To begin with let us recall a central result in connection with the averaging problem. It has recently been shown that a set of ‘generalized Friedmann equations’, which also incorporate structure inhomogeneities, govern the effective cosmological evolution buchert:grgdust . ‘Effective’ means that the homogeneous–isotropic variables of the FLRW model are replaced by their Riemannian volume averages on some given spatial domain. In relativistic cosmology the generalized Friedmann equations, restricted here to the simplest matter model ‘irrotational dust’ (more general matter models are discussed in buchert:grgfluid ), read:

$`6H__0^216\pi G\varrho __02\mathrm{\Lambda }+__0=𝒬__0^K;`$ (1)
$`V__0^{2/3}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}\left(__0V__0^{2/3}\right)+V__0^2{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}\left(𝒬__0^KV__0^2\right)=\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}0},`$ (2)
where we have defined, on the averaging domain $`_0`$, the regional Hubble parameter as $`1/3`$ of the spatially averaged rate of expansion $`\theta `$:

$$3H__0:=\theta __0=\frac{1}{V__0}__0\theta 𝑑\mu _g=\frac{\frac{d}{dt}V__0}{V__0}.$$
(3)
$`V__0=__0𝑑\mu _g`$ is the volume of the domain of averaging, $`d\mu _g`$ the Riemannian volume element associated with the $`3`$metric $`g_{ab}`$ of the hypersurface, $``$ is the intrinsic scalar curvature, $`\varrho __0:=M__0V__0^1`$ is the average matter density, where $`M__0=const.`$, and $`\frac{d}{dt}`$ denotes the time–derivative in a comoving frame. (Note that the zero–subscript indicates that the averaging domain has the original non–averaged geometry; we shall later also refer to the corresponding smoothed–out domain.)

The explicit source term $`𝒬__0^K`$, the kinematical backreaction, appearing in the above equations quantifies the deviations of the average model from the standard FLRW model. It is composed of two positive–definite fluctuation terms (see: buchert:grgdust ): first, shear fluctuations that tend to mimic the presence of a (kinematical) dark matter component decelerating the expansion and, second, expansion amplitude fluctuations that tend to mimic a time–dependent positive cosmological term, an accelerating component (‘quintessence’).

Eq. (2) shows that the averaged scalar curvature is coupled to the ‘backreaction’ dynamically, which is not the case in the corresponding Newtonian set of equations buchert:average . For $`𝒬__0^K=0`$ the set of generalized Friedmann equations is closed, and we have from Eq. (2) $`__0V__0^{2/3}`$ in agreement with the evolution of the spatially constant curvature in the standard model.

Furthermore, in the general model, we may define regional cosmological parameters as the following scale–dependent functionals buchert:grgdust :

$`\mathrm{\Omega }__0^M:={\displaystyle \frac{8\pi GM__0}{3V__0H__0^2}};\mathrm{\Omega }__0^\mathrm{\Lambda }:={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{3H__0^2}};\mathrm{\Omega }__0^R:={\displaystyle \frac{__0}{6H__0^2}},`$ (4)
$`\mathrm{and},\mathrm{\Omega }__0^{𝒬^K}:={\displaystyle \frac{𝒬__0^K}{6H__0^2}},`$ (5)
obeying by construction the relation:

$$\mathrm{\Omega }__0^M+\mathrm{\Omega }__0^\mathrm{\Lambda }+\mathrm{\Omega }__0^R+\mathrm{\Omega }__0^{𝒬^K}=\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1}.$$
(6)
In contrast to the standard FLRW cosmological parameters there are four players. In the FLRW case there is by definition no kinematical backreaction, $`𝒬__0^K=0`$. Hence, the ‘effective cosmology’ can be determined by a scale–dependent and regional ‘cosmic quartet’ buchert:onaverage  rather than by a global ‘cosmic triangle’ bahcall .

It is generally agreed that quantitative investigations of the (kinematical) backreaction effect point towards two results: first, the contribution of $`Q__0^K`$ to the ‘cosmic quartet’ is quantitatively small in sufficiently large expanding domains of the Universe (it may contribute significantly on cluster scales and below abundance  and may be attributed to cosmic variance on large scales); second, the dynamical influence of a non–vanishing backreaction on the other (standard) cosmological parameters can – nevertheless – be large, in other words, the values of the standard parameters found on a given hypersurface at an evolved time are, in general, not related to their initial values according to the FLRW model (for an investigation in Newtonian cosmology see: buchert:bks ).

## II Dressing Cosmological Parameters

Eq. (6) forms the basis of a discussion of cosmological parameters as they determine the theoretical model. They may not be, however, directly accessible to observations. Unlike in Newtonian cosmology, where the corresponding equations have a similar form buchert:average , it is not straightforward to compare the above relativistic average model parameters to observational data. The reason is that the volume–averages contain information on the actually present geometrical inhomogeneities within the averaging domain. In contrast, the “observer’s Universe” is described in terms of a Euclidean or constant curvature model. Consequently, the interpretation of observations within the set of the standard model parameters, if extended by the backreaction parameter or not, neglects the geometrical inhomogeneities that (through the Riemannian volume–average) are hidden in the average characteristics of the theoretical cosmology. In other words, an averaging procedure in relativistic cosmology is not complete unless we device a way to also average the geometrical inhomogeneities. Since geometrical fields are tensorial variables for which possible strategies of averaging form the subject of considerable controversy in the relativistic literature, there is some ambiguity in how such an averaging could be implemented.

We have suggested an answer to this problem in klingon , and here we wish to exploit our results for comparing the original averaged model of a surveyed region of the Universe with the geometrically smoothed–out model which governs the interpretation of the observer’s data. This turns out to be rather simple and physically clear, so that we think that explaining the details of the smoothing procedure is not mandatory in this Letter. It suffices to say that the idea of smoothing–out the geometrical inhomogeneities was implemented in klingon  (see also carfora:RG  for a preliminary attempt), by designing a smoothing flow on the basis of the geometrical scaling properties of the matter variables. Moreover, such a smoothing was implemented on a regional and Lagrangian basis, i.e., the metric and the matter variables are smoothed on a geodesic domain in such a way as to preserve its material content. Such requirements characterize in a natural way a Ricci deformation flow for the metric klingon . It is perhaps interesting to note that such a flow is extensively studied in the mathematical literature (see, e.g.: hamilton:ricciflow2 , carfora:deformation1 , carfora:deformation2 ), where the Ricci flow plays a basic role in mapping a bumpy $`3`$geometry into a homogeneous geometry.

Let us highlight some results.

According to klingon , the picture discussed in the introduction strictly depends on the ratio between two density profiles defined in the averaging domain: one is naturally associated with the actual matter content of the gravitational sources, whereas the other is the mass density corresponding to the matter content in the given region, but now thought of as averaged over a geometrically smoothed–out domain $`\overline{}`$ with homogeneous geometry:

$$\varrho __0=M__0/V__0;\varrho _\overline{}=M_\overline{}/V_\overline{}.$$
(7)
Our assumption of the regional smoothing was such that the total masses are the same, so that we infer from (7) that the average density measured with a “Friedmannian bias” is dressed by a volume effect due to the difference between the volume of a smoothed region and the actual volume of the bumpy region:

$$\varrho __0=\varrho _\overline{}(V_\overline{}/V__0).$$
(8)
A further result that explicitly involves the geometrical smoothing flows is formed by the relation between the constant regional curvature in the smoothed model (e.g., a FLRW domain) and the actual regional average curvature in the theoretical cosmology:

$$\overline{}_\overline{}=__0(V_\overline{}/V__0)^{2/3}𝒬__0^R,$$
(9)
where we have introduced a novel measure for the ‘backreaction’ of geometrical inhomogeneities capturing the deviations from the standard FLRW space section, the regional curvature backreaction: $`𝒬__0^R:=_0^{\mathrm{}}d\beta \frac{V__\beta (\beta )}{V_\overline{}}`$

$`\left[\frac{1}{3}\left((\beta )(\beta )__\beta \right)^2__\beta 2\stackrel{~}{}^{ab}(\beta )\stackrel{~}{}_{ab}(\beta )__\beta \right]`$, with $`\stackrel{~}{}_{ab}:=_{ab}\frac{1}{3}g_{ab}`$ being the trace–free part of the Ricci tensor $`_{ab}`$ in the hypersurface. $`𝒬__0^R`$, built from scalar invariants of the intrinsic curvature, appears to have a similar form as the ‘kinematical backreaction’ term (that was built from invariants of the extrinsic curvature). It features two positive–definite parts, the scalar curvature amplitude fluctuations and fluctuations in metrical anisotropies. Depending on which part dominates we obtain an under– or overestimate of the actual averaged scalar curvature, respectively. $`\beta `$ parametrizes integral curves of the smoothing flow for the metric, so that the expression above indeed refers to the explicit form of this flow. Notwithstanding, this term may be estimated by the actual curvature fluctuations, since the Ricci flow acts in a controllable way such that the maxima of the curvature inhomogeneities are monotonically decreasing during the deformation.

From Eq. (9) we can understand the physical content of geometrical averaging. It makes transparent that, in the smoothed model, the averaged scalar curvature is ‘dressed’ both by the volume effect mentioned above, and by the curvature backreaction effect itself. The volume effect is expected precisely in the form occurring in (9), if we think of comparing two regions of distinct volumes, but with the same matter content, in a constant curvature space. Whereas the backreaction term encodes the deviation of the averaged scalar curvature from a constant curvature model, e.g., a FLRW space section.

## III The Bare Quartet

The results discussed above allow us to relate the actual parameters (4) and (5) to the values of such parameters obtained as regional averages on a homogeneous geometry by the smoothing procedure. We have seen that a “Friedmannian bias” in modelling the real observed region of the Universe with a smooth matter distribution evolving in a homogeneous and isotropic geometry, inevitably ‘dresses’ the matter density $`\varrho _\overline{}`$, the Hubble parameter $`\overline{H}_\overline{}`$, and the scalar curvature $`\overline{}_\overline{}`$ with correction factors. Correspondingly, an observer with a “Friedmannian bias” would interprete his measurements in terms of the ‘dressed’ cosmological parameters:

$`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}_\overline{}^M:={\displaystyle \frac{8\pi GM_\overline{}}{3V_\overline{}\overline{H}_\overline{}^2}};\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}_\overline{}^\mathrm{\Lambda }:={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{3\overline{H}_\overline{}^2}};\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}_\overline{}^R:={\displaystyle \frac{\overline{}_\overline{}}{6\overline{H}_\overline{}^2}};`$ (10)
$`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}_\overline{}^{𝒬^K}:={\displaystyle \frac{\overline{𝒬}_\overline{}^K}{6\overline{H}_\overline{}^2}},\mathrm{obeying}\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}_\overline{}^M+\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}_\overline{}^\mathrm{\Lambda }+\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}_\overline{}^R+\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}_\overline{}^{𝒬^K}=1.`$
The latter equation follows from our assumption that the smoothing procedure requires to respect the Hamiltonian constraint of Einstein’s equations. Introducing the dimensionless parameters

$$\nu :=\frac{V_\overline{}}{V__0};\alpha :=\frac{\overline{H}_\overline{}^2}{H__0^2};\mu :=\frac{𝒬__0^R}{\overline{}_\overline{}},$$
(11)
we can formally study fractions of ‘bare’ and ‘dressed’ parameters (making sure that the denominators are non–zero, which is the case in generic situations):

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }__0^M}{\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}_\overline{}^M}}=\alpha \nu ;{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }__0^\mathrm{\Lambda }}{\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}_\overline{}^\mathrm{\Lambda }}}=\alpha ;`$ (12)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }__0^R}{\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}_\overline{}^R}}=\alpha {\displaystyle \frac{__0}{\overline{}_\overline{}}}=\alpha \nu ^{2/3}(1+\mu );{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }__0^{𝒬^K}}{\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}_\overline{}^{𝒬^K}}}=\alpha {\displaystyle \frac{𝒬__0^K}{\overline{𝒬}_\overline{}^K}}.`$
The above listed relations appear to provide a formal recipee for interpreting the cosmological parameters. Let us illustrate them by considering mixed fractions of various cosmological parameters in order to eliminate, say the fraction of the Hubble parameters $`\alpha `$, and conclude on the values of the others:

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }__0^M}{\mathrm{\Omega }__0^R}=\frac{\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}_\overline{}^M}{\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}_\overline{}^R}\frac{\nu ^{1/3}}{1+\mu };\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }__0^M}{\mathrm{\Omega }__0^\mathrm{\Lambda }}=\frac{\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}_\overline{}^M}{\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}_\overline{}^\mathrm{\Lambda }}\nu .$$
(13)
Reflecting the contemporary view on the cosmological parameters, we may consider a region of the Universe on a sufficiently large scale of the order of $`1`$ Gpc/h. The (possibly also ‘dressed’) observations of the first doppler peak in the CMB fluctuations at the “Friedmannian scale” $`100`$ Mpc/h favour an approximately vanishing average curvature $`\overline{}_\overline{}0`$. Let us, for simplicity, approximate both the ‘bare’ and ‘dressed’ ‘kinematical backreaction’ parameters by zero. If, again for simplicity, we approximate also the ‘curvature backreaction’ parameter by zero, $`\mu 0`$ (in the sense that there are curvature fluctuations present, but the two positive–definite parts compensate each other), we would have an approximately vanishing average curvature also in the actual cosmological model. Then, the standard argument requires compensation of the observed matter content (including dark baryonic and possibly dark nonbaryonic matter components), obeying the commonly agreed upper bound $`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}_\overline{}^M0.3`$ with a cosmological term $`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}_\overline{}^\mathrm{\Lambda }0.7`$. For the ‘bare’ parameters we then obtain $`\mathrm{\Omega }__0^M/\mathrm{\Omega }__0^\mathrm{\Lambda }\frac{0.3}{0.7}\nu `$, which yields the estimate:

$$\mathrm{\Omega }__0^M\frac{0.3}{0.7}\nu /(1+\frac{0.3}{0.7}\nu );\mathrm{\Omega }__0^\mathrm{\Lambda }1\mathrm{\Omega }__0^M.$$
(14)
This certainly oversimplified example shows that, instead of postulating the presence of a large cosmological term, the ‘bare’ mass parameter could still acquire values close to one, if ‘undressed’, and if the volume fraction $`\nu `$ is substantially greater than 1. The second relation in Eq. (12) then shows, that the actual Hubble–parameter would be larger than the ‘dressed’ one.

A quantitative estimate that gives us an idea of the order of magnitude of the volume effect has been worked out by Hellaby hellaby:volumematching  comparing spherically symmetric with FLRW solutions. He employs “volume matching” as proposed by Ellis and Stoeger ellisstoeger  which should, however, amount to a similar effect as a comparison of the models at equal mass. He finds that the spatial averages of the density profiles as compared with the corresponding (fitted) FLRW parameters yield errors in the range $`1030`$% for realistically modelled clusters and voids.

It appears that the interpretation of relativistic cosmological parameters is far from trivial, given that we did neither touch on the issue of averaging on the observer’s light–cone in which case the discussed effect interacts with the time–evolution of the model (compare the detailed suggestion in ellisstoeger ), nor did we study the smoothing itself in a dynamical setting. As the present discussion shows, a thorough investigation of volumes of realistic cosmological slices as the “simplest” quantity would considerably enhance our theoretical background to approach observational data. As in other fields like solid state physics, where the study of surface roughening is well–developed, cosmology could face the necessity of understanding geometrical structure formation, as it was facing the necessity of understanding structure formation on a homogeneous geometry.

###### Acknowledgements.

TB would like to thank Martin Kerscher and Yasushi Suto for constructive remarks. He acknowledges hospitality by the University of Tokyo and financial support by the Research Center for the Early Universe (RESCEU, Tokyo), COE Monkasho Grant. This work is also partially supported by the Sonderforschungsbereich SFB 375 ‘Astroparticle physics’ by the German science foundation DFG, and by the Ministero dell’ Universita’ e della Ricerca Scientifica under the PRIN project ‘The Geometry of Integrable Systems’.


text:
# References

Introduction and Philosophy

The BMN correspondence  equates type IIB string theory on a plane wave background with a certain limit of $`𝒩=4`$ gauge theory at large R-charge $`J`$, where $`N`$ is taken to infinity while the quantities

$$\lambda ^{}=\frac{g_{\mathrm{YM}}^2N}{J^2},g_2=\frac{J^2}{N}$$
(1)
are held fixed. The proposal is based on a natural identification between the basis of string theory states and the basis of gauge theory operators, and between the light-cone string Hamiltonian $`P^{}`$ and the generator $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ of conformal transformation in the gauge theory via111The parameter $`\mu `$ can be introduced by performing a boost and serves merely as a bookkeeping device.

$$\frac{2}{\mu }P^{}=\mathrm{\Delta }J.$$
(2)
BMN argued, and it was subsequently confirmed to all orders in $`\lambda ^{}`$ , that this identification holds at the level of free string theory ($`g_2=0`$).

This beautiful proposal equates two operators which act on completely different spaces: the light-cone Hamiltonian $`P^{}`$ acts on the Hilbert space of string field theory, and allows for the splitting and joining of strings, while $`H\mathrm{\Delta }J`$ acts on the operators of the field theory, and in general mixes single-trace operators with double- and higher-trace operators. Light-cone string field theory in the plane wave background has been constructed in . On the field theory side, a number of impressive papers  have pushed the calculations to higher order in $`g_2`$ with the aim of showing that (2) continues to hold, thereby providing an equality between a perturbative, interacting string theory and perturbative $`𝒩=4`$ gauge theory. It is clear, however, that at finite $`g_2`$ the natural identification between single string states and single trace operators breaks down. For example, 1-string states are orthogonal to 2-string states for all $`g_2`$, but single-trace operators and double-trace operators are not. This raises the question how to formulate the BMN correspondence in the interacting string theory.

In order to prove that two operators in (2) are equal, it is sufficient to prove that they have the same eigenvalues. If they do, then there is guaranteed to exist a unitary transformation between the spaces on which the two operators act. A basis independent formulation of the BMN correspondence, therefore, is that the interacting string field theory Hamiltonian $`\frac{2}{\mu }P^{}`$ and the gauge theory operator $`H`$ must have the same eigenvalues.

While this is the minimum that we are allowed to expect from the BMN correspondence, we can hope to do better. Light-cone string field theory, as formulated in , comes with a natural choice of basis: this string basis (of single and multiple strings) is neither the BMN basis (of single and multiple traces) nor the basis of eigenstates of the light-cone Hamiltonian. But how do we identify the string basis in the gauge theory?

One guess for the string basis was made in , where it was argued that matrix elements of $`P^{}`$ between 1- and 2-string states should be equated with the coefficient of the three-point function of the corresponding BMN operators, multiplied by the difference in conformal dimension between the incoming and outgoing states. This proposal appeared to be supported by the subsequent string field theory calculation done in  (see also ). It turns out, however, that the final step of the calculation in  suffered from a minus sign error (which we will correct below), which renders the alleged confirmation of this proposal invalid.

In this paper we propose a new, specific form for the transformation between the BMN basis and the string basis, valid to all orders in $`g_2`$. This basis transformation is trivial to write down, and has the pleasing feature that it does not depend on the conformal dimensions of the operators. In fact, our choice of transformation was already identified as a natural choice in , where it was shown that all computed amplitudes in gauge theory are reproduced via a relatively simple string bit formalism . While most calculations in  were done in the BMN basis, it was pointed out that there exists a basis choice with the properties that (i) the inner product is diagonal, and (ii) the matrix elements of the supersymmetry generators $`Q`$ are at most linear in $`g_2`$ (i.e. $`Q`$ leads to only a single string splitting or joining). Here we will show that, when evaluated in this new basis, the matrix elements of the string bit Hamiltonian, which via the results of  may be identified with the gauge theory operator on the right-hand side of (2), agree precisely with the corrected answer of  for the matrix elements of the continuum string field theory Hamiltonian $`P^{}`$ appearing on the left-hand side!

The precise match between the three point functions means that, by combining the two formalisms, we can start filling in some important questions left open in  and . A major technical obstacle in continuum light-cone string field theory is that higher order contact terms are needed for closure of the supersymmetry algebra, and that their value (at order $`g_2^2`$) affects the leading order shift in the eigenvalues of $`P^{}`$. However, these contact terms are difficult to compute . The supersymmetry algebra of the bit string theory, on the other hand, is known to all orders in $`g_2`$ but only to linear order in the fermions. It appears to be a fruitful strategy, therefore, to make use of the discretized theory to fix the order $`g_2^2`$ contact terms of the continuum theory, while the known non-linear fermionic form of the continuum interaction vertex may be of direct help in deriving the complete supersymmetry generators in the string bit formalism.

Identification of the String Basis in Gauge Theory

$`𝒩=4`$ gauge theory in the BMN limit comes with a natural choice of basis, which coincides with the natural string basis when $`g_2=0`$: an $`n`$ string state corresponds to a product of $`n`$ single trace BMN operators. We call this basis the BMN basis, denoted by $`|\psi __n`$. At non-zero $`g_2`$, the inner product (defined as the overlap as computed in the free gauge theory) becomes non-diagonal in this basis. The explicit form of the inner product is conveniently expressed in terms of the string bit language of  as

$$\psi __m|\psi __n{}_{g_2}{}^{}=\left(e^{g_2\mathrm{\Sigma }}\right)_{nm},\mathrm{\Sigma }=\frac{1}{J^2}\underset{i<j}{}\mathrm{\Sigma }_{ij}$$
(3)
where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{ij}`$ is the operator which interchanges the string bits via the simple permutation $`(ij)`$. As explained in , when acting on a BMN state $`|\psi `$ with $`n`$ strings, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ effectuates a single string splitting or joining.

This meaning of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ in the gauge theory language can be made concrete as follows. Consider a long BMN string in its ground state. We can write the corresponding operator as

$$𝒪_J(\gamma )=\mathrm{Tr}(Z^J)=\underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{i_1\mathrm{}i_J}{\overline{i}_1\mathrm{}\overline{i}_j}}{}Z_{i_1\overline{i}_1}Z_{i_2\overline{i}_2}\mathrm{}Z_{i_J\overline{i}_J}\delta ^{\overline{i}_1i_{\gamma (1)}}\delta ^{\overline{i}_2i_{\gamma (2)}}\mathrm{}\delta ^{\overline{i}_Ji_{\gamma (J)}}$$
(4)
with $`\gamma =(12\mathrm{}J)`$ the cyclic permutation of $`J`$ elements. The action of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{J_1J}`$, which implements the simple permutation $`(J_1J)`$, is now defined as

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_{J_1J}𝒪_J(\gamma )=𝒪_J(\gamma (J_1J))$$
(5)
Since $`\gamma (J_1J)=(1\mathrm{}J_11J)(J_1\mathrm{}J1)`$ we have that

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_{J_1J}𝒪_J(\gamma )=\mathrm{Tr}(Z^{J_1})\mathrm{Tr}(Z^{JJ_1}),$$
(6)
showing that the simple permutation $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{J_1J}`$ indeed induces a single splitting of a single trace into a double trace operator. It is easy to generalize this result to other operators, to show that $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ can either split a string or join two strings.

The identification of (3) with the inner product of the free gauge theory was motivated in  and explicitly verified for string ground states to all order in $`g_2`$ and for two-impurity states to order $`g_2^2`$.

States with different number of strings are therefore no longer orthogonal relative to (3). In the string field theory basis $`|\stackrel{~}{\psi }__n`$, on the other hand, the inner product should be diagonal for all $`g_2`$. The simplest basis transformation that achieves this goal is

$$|\stackrel{~}{\psi }__n=(e^{g_2\mathrm{\Sigma }/2})_{{}_{n}{}^{}_m}|\psi __m.$$
(7)
This is not the most general diagonalization, however, since we still have the freedom to redefine the new basis $`|\stackrel{~}{\psi }__m`$ via an arbitrary unitary transformation . The above redefinition (7), however, has the attractive feature that it is purely combinatoric and does not depend on the dynamics of the gauge theory. Furthermore, as we will see shortly, it has the desirable property that the (linearized) supersymmetry generators and light-cone Hamiltonian acquire a simple form in the new basis. We emphasize that the only way to check the proposal (7) for identifying the string field theory basis in the gauge theory is by comparing matrix elements of $`H`$ calculated in the $`|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_n`$ basis to those of $`\frac{2}{\mu }P^{}`$ in light-cone string field theory. We show below that the proposal (7) passes this test.

In the following, we will study the consequences of this basis transformation for the specific class of two-impurity BMN states investigated in . We will denote by $`|1,p`$ the normalized state corresponding to the single trace operator $`_le^{2\pi ipl/J}\mathrm{Tr}(\varphi Z^l\psi Z^{Jl})`$, while $`|2,k,y`$ and $`|2,y`$ will denote the normalized states corresponding to the double trace operators $`_le^{2\pi ikl/J_1}\mathrm{Tr}(\varphi Z^l\psi Z^{J_1l})\mathrm{Tr}(Z^{JJ_1})`$ and $`\mathrm{Tr}(\varphi Z^{J_1})\mathrm{Tr}(\psi Z^{JJ_1})`$ respectively, where $`y=J_1/J`$. The action of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ on $`|1,p`$ reads

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }|1,p=\underset{k,y}{}C_{pky}|2,k,y+\underset{y}{}C_{py}|2,y,$$
(8)
with

$$C_{pky}=\sqrt{\frac{1y}{Jy}}\frac{\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi py)}{\pi ^2(pk/y)^2},C_{py}=\frac{\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi py)}{\sqrt{J}\pi ^2p^2}.$$
(9)
Via (7) we now introduce the corresponding two-impurity states in the string basis, which we will denote by $`|\stackrel{~}{1},p,y`$, $`|\stackrel{~}{2},k,y`$ and $`|\stackrel{~}{2},y`$, respectively. By construction, these form an orthonormal basis at finite $`g_2`$.

Interactions in the String Basis

In this section we obtain the matrix elements of the right-hand side of (2) in the string basis proposed in the previous section. For this we will employ the string bit model of , but by virtue of the established correspondence with the gauge theory amplitudes of , the following calculation can also be viewed as a direct calculation within the gauge theory.

It was shown in  that the linearized (in the fermions) interacting supercharges in the string bit model can be written in the string basis as

$$Q=Q_0+\frac{g__2}{2}[\widehat{Q}_0,\mathrm{\Sigma }],\widehat{Q}_0=Q_0^^_<Q_0^^_>,$$
(10)
where $`Q_0=Q_0^^_<+Q_0^^_>`$ is the free supercharge of the bit string theory and the superscripts indicate the projection onto the term with fermionic creation ($`<`$) or annihilation ($`>`$) operators only. These charges generate the interacting superalgebra of string theory in the plane wave background, modulo higher order terms in the fermions. Our interest is to compute the matrix elements of $`H`$ between the bosonic two-impurity states in the string basis.

The supercharge (10) truncates at linear order in $`g_2`$. As indicated in fig 1, this truncation is expected from the BMN correspondence: matrix elements of the supercharges $`Q=\text{Tr }\theta [Z,\varphi ]`$ in the gauge theory can lead (for connected diagrams, where $`Q`$ has at least one contraction with either the “in” or “out” BMN state) to at most one single string splitting or joining . For now, however, one may view (10) as a new starting point of the string bit model; in the remainder we will re-establish its equivalence with the perturbative gauge theory, by showing that, at least for the special class of two-impurity states, it leads to the same order $`g_2^2`$ mass renormalization (shift in conformal dimension) as computed in .

From (10) we thus deduce that the interacting Hamiltonian truncates at order $`g_2^2`$:

$$H=H_0+g__2H_1+g__2^2H_2$$
(11)
with222The notation in these equations is somewhat symbolic: the left-hand side in each equation is equal to the projection onto the $`\delta ^{\dot{a}\dot{b}}`$ component of the anti-commutator on the right-hand side. Furthermore, as stated above, this formula for the Hamiltonian is valid only for computing matrix elements between bosonic states; for fermionic states, the non-linear fermionic corrections to (10) will become relevant.

$$H_0=\{Q_0,Q_0\},H_1=\{Q_0,[\widehat{Q}_0,\mathrm{\Sigma }]\},H_2=\frac{1}{4}\{[\widehat{Q}_0,\mathrm{\Sigma }],[\widehat{Q}_0,\mathrm{\Sigma }]\}.$$
(12)
From these expressions, it is straightforward to compute the matrix elements between the various two-impurity states. Using that $`Q_0^^_>`$ annihilates bosonic states, we find that

$$\stackrel{~}{\psi }_2|H_1|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_1=\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{~}{\psi }_2|(H_0\mathrm{\Sigma }+\mathrm{\Sigma }H_0)|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_12\stackrel{~}{\psi }_2|Q_0^^_>\mathrm{\Sigma }Q_0^^_<|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_1.$$
(13)
Both matrix elements on the right-hand side have been computed in , with the result

$`\stackrel{~}{2},k,y|(H_0\mathrm{\Sigma }+\mathrm{\Sigma }H_0)|\stackrel{~}{1},p`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda ^{}(p^2+k^2/y^2)C_{pky},`$ (14)
$`\stackrel{~}{2},k,y|Q_0^^_>\mathrm{\Sigma }Q_0^^_<|\stackrel{~}{1},p`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda ^{}}{2}}(pk/y)C_{pky},`$ (15)
where $`C_{pky}`$ are the three point functions defined in eqn (9). Inserting the explicit expressions, we find

$$\stackrel{~}{2},k,y|H_1|\stackrel{~}{1},p=\frac{\lambda ^{}}{2}\sqrt{\frac{1y}{Jy}}\frac{\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi py)}{\pi ^2},\stackrel{~}{2},y|H_1|\stackrel{~}{1},p=\frac{\lambda ^{}}{2}\frac{1}{\sqrt{J}}\frac{\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi py)}{\pi ^2}.$$
(16)
In a similar way one can obtain the order $`g_2^2`$ matrix elements between single string states. We postpone this discussion to later, and turn now to the continuum string field theory.

Light-Cone String Field Theory

We now investigate the matrix elements of the left-hand side of (2) in the continuum string theory, in order to compare with the gauge theory results of the previous section. In light-cone string field theory the cubic interaction is conveniently represented as a state in the three-string Hilbert space. If we restrict our attention to string states which have no fermionic excitations, this state can be expressed as

$$\frac{2}{\mu }|P_1^{}=\frac{y(1y)}{2}𝒫|V.$$
(17)
Here $`|V`$ is a squeezed state in the 3-string Hilbert space,

$$|V=\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{1}{2}\underset{r,s=1}{\overset{3}{}}\underset{m,n=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}a_{m(r)}^I\overline{N}_{mn}^{(rs)}a_{n(s)}^I\delta _{IJ}\right]|0,$$
(18)
and the prefactor $`𝒫`$ is given by

$$𝒫=\underset{r=1}{\overset{3}{}}\underset{m=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{\omega _{m(r)}}{\mu \alpha _{(r)}}a_{m(r)}^Ia_{m(r)}^Jv_{IJ},$$
(19)
where $`v_{IJ}=\mathrm{diag}(1_4,1_4)`$, $`\omega _{m(r)}=\sqrt{m^2+\mu ^2\alpha _{(r)}^2}`$, and $`\alpha _{(r)}=\alpha ^{}p_{(r)}^+`$, with the convention that $`\alpha _{(r)}`$ is negative for incoming strings 1 and 2 and positive for the outgoing string 3. In order to write $`𝒫`$ in this form, we have employed a very useful factorization identity derived in . The sign error in the original version of  amounts, after tracing through some changes of basis, to replacing the $`a_m`$ by $`a_m`$ in (19), making manifest the incorrect claim that the prefactor gives the difference of energy between incoming and outgoing states.333The error can also be understood as a missing factor of $`i`$ in eqn (3.15) of , as pointed out in .

Implicit formulas for the matrix elements of $`\overline{N}`$, valid for all $`\lambda ^{}`$, were presented in . While explicit formulas for the leading terms in an expansion around $`\lambda ^{}=0`$ are known, it is very difficult to extract exact formulas for higher-order terms . At $`\lambda ^{}=0`$ the only nonzero Neumann matrices are

$`\overline{N}_{kp}^{(13)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(1)^{k+p+1}}{\sqrt{y}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}(\pi py)}{\pi (pk/y)}},`$ (20)
$`\overline{N}_{kp}^{(23)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{1y}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}(\pi p(1y))}{\pi (pk/(1y))}}.`$ (21)
Using the above formulas, it is straightforward to derive the leading $`𝒪(\lambda ^{})`$ contribution to the matrix elements

$`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\mu }}\stackrel{~}{2},k,y|P_1^{}|\stackrel{~}{1},p`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda ^{}}{2}}(1y){\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi py)}{\pi ^2}},`$ (22)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\mu }}\stackrel{~}{2},y|P_1^{}|\stackrel{~}{1},p`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda ^{}}{2}}\sqrt{y(1y)}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi py)}{\pi ^2}}.`$
This result, which corrects the one originally reported in , is in precise agreement with (16) after taking into account the factor $`\sqrt{Jy(1y)}`$ which arises because (16) is written in terms of unit normalized states while (22) is expressed in terms of continuum states satisfying $`i|j=p_i^+\delta (p_i^+p_j^+)`$.

Contact Terms and Mass Renormalization

Having established that the matrix elements of $`H`$ evaluated in the $`|\stackrel{~}{\psi }__n`$ basis agree at order $`g_2`$ with those of $`\frac{2}{\mu }P^{}`$ in the natural string field theory basis, let us now revisit the issues of contact terms and the one-loop mass renormalization of the single-string state $`|\stackrel{~}{1},p`$.

A significant advantage of the $`|\stackrel{~}{\psi }`$ basis is that the matrix elements of the supercharge (10) terminate at order $`g_2`$. Therefore the Hamiltonian terminates at order $`g_2^2`$, with the term $`H_2`$ which comes from squaring the order $`g_2`$ term in the supercharge; there is no need for all of the higher-order contact terms which seem to plague continuum light-cone string field theory. Turning this observation around gives a definite prediction for string field theory: that the only contact term surviving in the large $`\mu `$ limit is the one which comes from squaring the cubic vertex in the dynamical supercharge.

The order $`g_2^2`$ matrix element between single string states has been computed in  (see equation (71)), with the result

$`g_2^2\stackrel{~}{1},q|H_2|\stackrel{~}{1},p`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g_2^2}{4}}\stackrel{~}{1},q|[Q_0^^_>,\mathrm{\Sigma }][\mathrm{\Sigma },Q_0^^_<]|\stackrel{~}{1},p`$ (23)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g_2^2\lambda ^{}}{4}}{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}(k^2/y^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(p^2+q^2))C_{pi}C_{qi}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}{\displaystyle \frac{g_2^2\lambda ^{}}{4\pi ^2}}B_{pq}.`$
Here the sum runs over intermediate 2-string states $`i`$ of both types: $`|\stackrel{~}{2},k,y`$ and $`|\stackrel{~}{2},y`$ (and includes an integral over $`y`$). The explicit form of $`B_{pq}`$ is as given in .

To obtain the order $`g_2^2`$ mass renormalization of the state $`|\stackrel{~}{1},p`$, we should add the matrix element (23) to the iterated $`H_1`$ interaction:444Here in the second step we use that $`C_{pky}=\frac{(pk/y)^2}{(p+k/y)^2}C_{pky}`$.

$`{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{|\stackrel{~}{1},p|H_1|i|^2}{E_pE_i}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}g_2^2\lambda ^{}{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{(pk/y)^4C_{pi}^2}{p^2k^2/y^2}}`$ (24)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}g_2^2\lambda ^{}{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}(p^2k^2/y^2)C_{pi}C_{pi}`$ (25)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}{\displaystyle \frac{g_2^2\lambda ^{}}{4\pi ^2}}B_{p,p}.`$ (26)
An additional subtlety in the calculation is that the states $`|\stackrel{~}{1},p`$ and $`|\stackrel{~}{1},p`$ are degenerate at lowest order; we should check therefore whether we need to use degenerate perturbation theory. It is easy to see that

$$\underset{i}{}\frac{\stackrel{~}{1},p|H_1|ii|H_1|\stackrel{~}{1},p}{E_pE_i}=\frac{1}{4}\frac{g_2^2\lambda ^{}}{4\pi ^2}B_{p,p}$$
(27)
gives the same result as (24). The sum of the contact term $`H_2`$ and the iterated $`H_1`$ interaction is diagonal in the $`\{|\stackrel{~}{1},p,|\stackrel{~}{1},p\}`$ basis, signalling that the degeneracy remains unbroken to this order.555In fact, supersymmetry requires these two states to be exactly degenerate . The fact that we find degeneracy at this order is consistent with our observation that no additional contact terms are required for closure of the supersymmetry algebra.

Putting everything together, we find that the order $`g_2^2`$ contribution to the eigenvalue is

$$\frac{1}{4}\frac{g_2^2\lambda ^{}}{4\pi ^2}(B_{pp}B_{p,p})=\frac{g_2^2\lambda ^{}}{4\pi ^2}\left(\frac{1}{12}+\frac{35}{32\pi ^2p^2}\right).$$
(28)
This agrees precisely with the shift in anomalous dimension of the conformal eigen-operators, as reported in .

Conclusion

We have proposed an explicit form (7) of the basis transformation that relates single and multi-trace BMN operators in the gauge theory to single and multi-string states of the dual string field theory in the plane wave background to all orders in $`g_2`$. This basis transformation is natural from the point of view of the bit string theory of : besides the fact that it diagonalizes the inner product, it has the property that the supersymmetry generators in the new basis truncate at linear order in $`g_2`$.

Our most encouraging result, however, is that the 3-point function in this basis precisely matches with the 3-string amplitude of the continuum string field theory . In itself this match does not yet prove anything, because one can always find two bases that would lead to the same 3-point function. One also needs control over the order $`g_2^2`$ contact interactions before one can honestly compare the shift in the conformal dimensions in the gauge theory with the mass renormalization in the string theory . However, we have more information than just the 3-point function: because the supersymmetry charge of the bit string model is linear in $`g_2`$, via the closure of the supersymmetry algebra we have a principle that uniquely determines the order $`g_2^2`$ contact interaction. It also tells us that any higher order contact terms are absent.

It would clearly be of interest to give a precise construction of the continuum limit of the bit string theory by taking the large $`J`$ limit while keeping $`\lambda ^{}`$ fixed. The correspondence found in this paper is an encouraging indication that this continuum limit will coincide with the continuum light-cone string theory.

Acknowledgements

It is a pleasure to thank D. Freedman, D. Gross, M. Headrick, S. Minwalla, L. Motl, R. Roiban, J. Schwarz and G. Semenoff for useful discussions. This research was supported in part by NSF grants PHY98-02484 (JP, DV, HV) and PHY99-07949 (AV), DOE grant DE-FG02-91ER40671 (MS), and an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (JP). MS and AV would also like to thank the Aspen Center for Physics for hospitality during the early stages of this work. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.


text:
# Nuclear Magnetic Relaxation Rate in the Vortex State of a Chiral 𝑝-Wave Superconductor

## Abstract

The site-selective nuclear spin-lattice relaxation rate $`T_1^1`$ is theoretically studied inside a vortex core in a chiral $`p`$-wave superconductor within the framework of the quasiclassical theory of superconductivity. It is found that $`T_1^1`$ at the vortex center depends on the sense of the chirality relative to the sense of the magnetic field. Our numerical result shows a characteristic difference in $`T_1^1`$ between the two chiral states, $`\overline{k}_x+i\overline{k}_y`$ and $`\overline{k}_xi\overline{k}_y`$ under the magnetic field.

and

Site-selective nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) method was recently revealed to be a powerful tool for experimentally investigating the electronic structure inside vortex cores in the mixed state of type-II superconductors (see Refs.  and references cited therein). The site-selective NMR at the impurity site was also proposed theoretically . The NMR technique as a probe of the electronic structure with spatial resolution is expected to reveal pairing symmetry of unconventional superconductors, because in spatially inhomogeneous systems there appear properties specific to the unconventional superconductivity.

The vortex core is one of such inhomogeneous superconducting systems. In this paper, we study the site-selective nuclear spin-lattice relaxation rate $`T_1^1`$ inside the vortex core in a chiral $`p`$-wave superconductor with an unconventional pairing  $`𝐝=\overline{𝐳}(\overline{k}_x\pm i\overline{k}_y)`$. We find that $`T_1^1(T)`$ exhibits a characteristic chirality dependence as a function of the temperature $`T`$, which might be experimentally observed as a sign of the chiral pairing state.

The system is assumed to be a two dimensional conduction layer perpendicular to the magnetic field applied along the $`z`$ axis. From now on, the notations are the same as those in Ref. . We consider the quasiclassical Green function

$$\widehat{g}(i\omega _n,𝐫,\overline{𝐤})=i\pi \left(\begin{array}{cc}g& if\\ if^{}& g\end{array}\right),$$
(1)
which is the solution of the Eilenberger equation ,

$`iv_\mathrm{F}\overline{𝐤}\widehat{g}+[i\omega _n\widehat{\tau }_3\widehat{\mathrm{\Delta }},\widehat{g}]=0.`$ (2)
From the spin-spin correlation function , we obtain the expression for $`T_1^1`$ in terms of $`\widehat{g}`$,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{T_1^1(T)}{T_1^1(T_\mathrm{c})}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4T_\mathrm{c}}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}\omega }{\mathrm{cosh}^2(\omega /2T)}}W(\omega ,\omega ),`$ (3)
$`W(\omega ,\omega ^{})=a_{11}(\omega )a_{22}(\omega ^{})a_{12}(\omega )a_{21}(\omega ^{}),`$ (4)
where the spectral function $`\widehat{a}(\omega ,𝐫,\overline{𝐤})=\left(a_{ij}\right)`$ is given as

$`\widehat{a}(\omega ,𝐫,\overline{𝐤})={\displaystyle \frac{i}{2\pi }}\widehat{\tau }_3[`$ $`\widehat{g}(i\omega _n\omega i\eta ,𝐫,\overline{𝐤})`$ (5)
$`\widehat{g}(i\omega _n\omega +i\eta ,𝐫,\overline{𝐤})],`$
the symbol $`\mathrm{}`$ represents the average over the Fermi surface, and $`\eta `$ is a small positive constant roughly representing the impurity effect.

Substituting vortex-center solution $`\widehat{g}`$  based on the so-called zero-core vortex model  into Eq. (4), we obtain analytical expressions for $`T_1^1`$ at the vortex center in the case of each chiral state, $`\overline{k}_x\pm i\overline{k}_y`$.

In Fig. 1(a), we show the result obtained by numerically integrating those expressions with isotropic Fermi surface. It is noticeable that $`T_1^1`$ of the $`\overline{k}_xi\overline{k}_y`$ state is quite different from that of the $`\overline{k}_x+i\overline{k}_y`$ state. Note that the magnetic field is applied in positive direction of the $`z`$ axis. In the $`\overline{k}_xi\overline{k}_y`$ state, $`T_1^1(T)`$ is suppressed in wide $`T`$ region. This is because the second term in Eq. (4) composed of the anomalous Green functions $`f`$ and $`f^{}`$ (or $`a_{12}`$ and $`a_{21}`$) is nonzero at the vortex center  and has minus contribution to $`T_1^1`$ in the $`\overline{k}_xi\overline{k}_y`$ state, while it is zero in the other state.

It was pointed out in Ref.  that the impurity scattering rate inside the vortex core of the $`\overline{k}_xi\overline{k}_y`$ state was one order smaller than that of the $`\overline{k}_x+i\overline{k}_y`$ state. In an actual situation, therefore, such $`T_1^1`$ as plotted in Fig. 1(b) is anticipated. Here, $`T_1^1`$ is calculated with smaller $`\eta `$ for the $`\overline{k}_xi\overline{k}_y`$ state. It is noted that $`T_1^1`$ almost vanishes in the $`\overline{k}_xi\overline{k}_y`$ state.

We note that our present result is in contrast to a corresponding theoretical result for $`T_1^1(T)`$ of Ref.  obtained in the quantum limit ($`k_\mathrm{F}\xi 1`$). In the result of Ref. , there is not such suppression of $`T_1^1(T)`$ as seen in our Fig. 1. A reasonable origin of this difference is as follows. The calculations of $`T_1^1`$ in Ref.  are in the quantum limit ($`k_\mathrm{F}\xi 1`$) where the energy spectrum (the diagonal part of $`\widehat{a}`$) inside the vortex core is quantized and it dominantly determines $`T_1^1(T)`$ as pointed out in Ref. , while we base our calculations on the quasiclassical theory relevant in the opposite limit $`k_\mathrm{F}\xi 1`$ where the vortex core spectrum is continuous and the coherence factor in Eq. (4) (especially for the off-diagonal part of $`\widehat{a}`$) determines $`T_1^1(T)`$.

The chiral superconductivity is expected to be realized in a material Sr2RuO4 . The result of this paper (Fig. 1), i.e., the chirality dependence of $`T_1^1`$, might be observed experimentally by the site-selective NMR method  in Sr2RuO4. and such observations are expected to be helpful to identify the pairing symmetry in this material. Unfortunately, it is certainly difficult to perform such a NMR experiment because the upper critical field is too small to attain the relevant resonance frequency of NMR in the case of applying the magnetic field along the $`c`$($`z`$) axis perpendicular to the conduction layers of Sr2RuO4. However, the upper critical field is larger in the case of applying the magnetic field along the conduction layers of this material, and therefore the NMR experiments might be possible by applying the magnetic field inclined to the $`c`$ axis in Sr2RuO4. To theoretically predict detailed behavior of $`T_1^1`$ for the inclined magnetic fields, further analysis will be needed. Such an analysis is left for future studies.

We thank M. Ichioka, M. Takigawa, M. Matsumoto, K. Machida, N. Schopohl, and M. Sigrist for helpful discussions.