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# Contents

## 1 Introduction

The study of open p-adic string theory  has revealed that this theory possesses many nonperturbative features that are common to open string field theory; yet p-adic string theory is a very simple model whose solutions, in some cases, can be found analytically. Besides its perturbative vacuum, it has a true vacuum in which there is no solution to the linearized equations of motion111Anharmonic oscillations in the true vacuum were found in ., a situation that is believed to happen in open string field theory, where the open string excitations should disappear once the D-brane condenses . P-adic string theory also possesses solitonic lump solutions  that can be interpreted as lower dimensional D-branes. This theory is thus a nice model for open string tachyon condensation.

An interesting question is whether one could extend these p-adic models to study the condensation of closed string tachyons as well. Closed p-adic string amplitudes have been studied in , and a closed p-adic Lagrangian was derived in . This Lagrangian, however, looks exactly like an open p-adic Lagrangian, only with a different tachyon mass. And if one takes this model seriously, one would have to give an interpretation for the closed string “D-branes” of any dimension, that exist in this theory. Other difficulties related to closed strings were pointed out in . In particular it was shown that one-loop diagrams of open p-adic string theory do not possess any pole that could correspond to massless closed strings.

However, in  Brekke and Freund presented a very interesting mixed Lagrangian of both open and closed p-adic tachyons, that was derived from the p-adic $`n`$-point amplitudes for open and closed tachyons. Surprisingly, we haven’t found any study of this Lagrangian in subsequent literature. It is the object of this paper to study this open and closed p-adic theory.

Although the pure open and pure closed p-adic string theories behave similarly, we will see that the two fields have in fact very distinct dynamics in the mixed theory. We will exhibit the fundamental differences between both fields and show how this leads us to interpret the lumps of the closed tachyon as lower dimensional spacetimes. In particular, we will see that this picture is coherent since we cannot have D-branes with more worldvolume dimensions than the dimension of spacetime. We further support our claims by studying the fluctuations of closed string lumps. All fluctuations are strictly normalizable, which means that all excitations are confined to the worldvolume of the lump. Far away from the core of the lump, the closed string tachyon is in its true vacuum, and one can check that the linearized equations of motion do not admit any solutions. The fluctuation spectrum is equidistant, strongly suggesting that the full theory around these lumps should be described by some sort of lower-dimensional noncritical string theory. We are tempted to speculate that similar lumps should exist in ordinary string theories, in which case one would get localization to lower dimensions of all physics including the gravity.

Another domain of application of open-closed p-adic string theory is to study the effect of static or decaying D-branes on the ambient spacetime. Again, the ambient spacetime in this theory is fully specified by the closed string tachyon background. Of particular interest are the time dependent solutions , which have recently attracted a lot of attention and whose physics has not yet been fully understood. One of the most pressing problems is that the approximations of the open cubic string field theory considered so far  failed to reproduce the results obtained by conformal field theory arguments. Instead of the open string tachyon relaxing in the true vacuum, the authors found oscillations with ever growing amplitude. It is not clear whether this is caused by the omission of closed strings, by the crude approximation taking into account the tachyon field only, or whether it reflects just a wrong choice of variables.

One possibility is that the string field theory calculations can be reconciled with CFT by taking into account that at finite string coupling the rolling open string tachyon dissipates its energy into closed strings . We study this process in our theory, but are unable to reach definite conclusions. One of the reasons is that in the interacting theory of closed and open strings it is impossible to separate the total conserved energy into open and closed string parts.

####

This paper is structured as follows: First, in Section 2, we study the vacuum structure of the open-closed p-adic theory. In Section 3, we study lumps of both the open and closed fields, and we discuss how this leads us into our interpretation of closed lumps as lower dimensional spacetimes. Section 4 is devoted to a study of the back-reaction of open lumps on the flat space background. In Section 5 we extend those results to rolling solutions. Finally, Section 6 is devoted to discussions and conclusions.

## 2 Open-closed p-adic string theory and its vacuum structure

The full action for the coupled p-adic open and closed strings was calculated in  by requiring that it reproduces correctly all the $`n`$-point p-adic tachyon amplitudes involving both open and closed tachyons. It is given by $`S=d^Dx`$, where the Lagrangian is

$``$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2g^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{p^2}{p1}}\varphi p^{\mathrm{}/2}\varphi {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2h^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{p^4}{p^21}}\psi p^{\mathrm{}/4}\psi `$ (2.1)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{h^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{p^4}{p^41}}\psi ^{p^2+1}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{g^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{p^2}{p^21}}\psi ^{p(p1)/2}\left(\varphi ^{p+1}1\right),`$
where $`\varphi `$ and $`\psi `$ are respectively the open and closed tachyons, $`\mathrm{}=_t^2+^2`$ is the $`D`$-dimensional d’Alembertian, and $`g`$ and $`h`$ are respectively the open and closed string coupling constants222We are using units in which $`\alpha ^{}=\frac{1}{2}`$.. The dimension $`D`$ of spacetime can be chosen arbitrarily in this model. Note that in order to derive this Lagrangian, $`p`$ was assumed in  to be a prime integer greater than two. But the Lagrangian itself makes sense for any integer $`p`$ greater than one. In fact, it even makes sense in the limit $`p1`$.

Let us look first at the vacuum structure of the theory. The potential is

$`V`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{h^2}}[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{p^4}{p^21}}\psi ^2{\displaystyle \frac{p^4}{p^41}}\psi ^{p^2+1}`$ (2.2)
$`+\lambda ^2({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{p^2}{p1}}\varphi ^2{\displaystyle \frac{p^2}{p^21}}\psi ^{p(p1)/2}(\varphi ^{p+1}1))].`$
We have introduced here a parameter $`\lambda =h/g`$, which governs the interaction between the open and closed string sectors333One may wish to rescale the fields as $`\widehat{\varphi }=\varphi /g`$ and $`\widehat{\psi }=\psi /h`$ so that the kinetic terms are independent of the coupling constants. We find this quite inconvenient since this would make the position of the perturbative vacuum $`(\varphi ,\psi )=(1,1)`$ coupling constant dependent as well as the profile of some other classical solutions. Of course all physical results are independent of the chosen normalization.. In real string theory $`hg^2`$ up to some numerical proportionality factor. We assume this to be the case also in p-adic string theory, though we shall leave the proportionality factor undetermined. We thus find that $`\lambda g`$ has the interpretation of the open string coupling constant.

The stationary points of the potential are given by the equations

$`\psi \left(1\psi ^{p^21}\lambda ^2{\displaystyle \frac{p1}{2p}}\psi ^{\frac{p(p1)}{2}2}\left(\varphi ^{p+1}1\right)\right)=0`$ (2.3)
$`\varphi \left(1\varphi ^{p1}\psi ^{\frac{p(p1)}{2}}\right)=0`$ (2.4)
which have the following interesting solutions:

* For all $`p`$ there is a local maximum solution $`\varphi =\psi =1`$, this is the perturbative vacuum for both sectors. We may interpret it as a D-brane filling all of our flat spacetime.
* For $`p>2`$ there is always a local minimum solution with $`\varphi =\psi =0`$, which is supposed to be the true open and closed string vacuum. For $`p=2`$ this vacuum gets shifted by the interaction to $`\varphi =0,\psi =\frac{\lambda ^2}{4}+O(\lambda ^8)`$.
* A third interesting solution is the saddle point $`\varphi =0,\psi =1+\frac{\lambda ^2}{2p(p+1)}+O(\lambda ^4)`$. It is in fact a local minimum in the $`\varphi `$ direction and a local maximum in the $`\psi `$ direction. And it is thus interpreted as being a perturbative flat closed string background with no D-brane.

The positions of these three extrema are shown in Figure 1 for the case $`p=2`$ and $`\lambda =1`$.

Finally let us note that there is a couple of saddle-point solutions, which come from infinity as the coupling $`\lambda `$ is turned on. We won’t be interested in these solutions here.

From this extrema analysis, we can already make an attempt to interpret the true vacuum of $`\psi `$ as being a configuration in which there is no spacetime. Indeed, we note that there is no solution in the vicinity of $`\psi =0`$ and $`\varphi =1`$, which could be a true vacuum for the closed string and a perturbative vacuum for the open string. This is very natural from the physical point of view, since such a solution would represent a D-brane living outside spacetime. We will thus adopt this interpretation, and address it further in Section 3.

Finally, note that the Lagrangian (2.1) differs from the one in  by a constant term. Indeed, the authors of  chose to set the value of the potential to zero at the local maximum (perturbative vacuum) $`\varphi =\psi =1`$. We don’t make this choice here; in fact, for all $`p2`$, the potential (2.2) is zero at the local minimum $`\varphi =\psi =0`$.

## 3 Lower-dimensional spacetimes and double lumps

In this section, we will argue that lumps of the closed tachyon $`\psi `$ represent flat spacetime extended along the lump’s worldvolume only. Those are therefore spacetimes of lower dimensions.

####

Let us first write the equations of motion derived from (2.1)

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill p^{\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{}}\psi & =& \psi ^{p^2}+\lambda ^2\frac{p1}{2p}\psi ^{\frac{p(p1)}{2}1}\left(\varphi ^{p+1}1\right)\hfill \\ \multicolumn{3}{c}{}\\ \hfill p^{\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{}}\varphi & =& \varphi ^p\psi ^{\frac{p(p1)}{2}}.\hfill \end{array}$$

For finite $`\lambda `$, these equations are very hard to solve analytically. We will therefore start our discussion by setting $`\lambda =0`$. Recall that $`\lambda `$ is proportional to the string coupling. In the limit $`\lambda =0`$ the first equation in (3) determines a classical closed string background, the second equation then tells the field $`\varphi `$ how to propagate in that background. The back-reaction is neglected in this limit. For fields depending only on the $`d`$ spatial coordinates $`x`$ the equations then take the form

$`p^{\frac{1}{4}_x^2}\psi `$ $`=`$ $`\psi ^{p^2}`$ (3.1)
$`p^{\frac{1}{2}_x^2}\varphi `$ $`=`$ $`\varphi ^p\psi ^{\frac{p(p1)}{2}}.`$ (3.2)
Let us shortly describe the case when $`\psi `$ sits on its unstable vacuum. If we set $`\psi =1`$, the equation (3.1) is trivially satisfied, and equation (3.2) becomes exactly the static equation of motion of open p-adic string theory, which we know admits Gaussian lump solutions . We thus interpret these solutions as lower dimensional D-branes living in flat spacetime. By flat spacetime we mean more precisely that the closed string tachyon is in its perturbative vacuum.

We now want to consider nontrivial static configurations of $`\psi `$. We readily see that (3.1) looks very much like the static equation of motion of purely open p-adic string theory. And therefore we know that it must have lump solutions. Indeed, using the identity

$$e^{a^2}e^{bx^2}=(14ab)^{\frac{d}{2}}e^{\frac{b}{14ab}x^2}$$
(3.3)
we find the codimension-$`d`$ lump solution

$$\psi _0(x)=p^{\frac{d}{p^21}}e^{\frac{p^21}{p^2\mathrm{log}p}x^2}.$$
(3.4)
Far from the center of the lump $`x=0`$ the closed tachyon $`\psi _0(x)`$ rapidly approaches its true vacuum $`\psi =0`$. Assuming that $`\varphi _0(x)`$ has finite asymptotic value and its derivatives vanish asymptotically, it is obvious from equation (3.2) that the open string tachyon itself must approach its true vacuum. It follows then, that if we are going to find any D-brane in this background, its dimensionality has to be smaller or equal to that of the closed tachyon lump.

In fact, such solutions can be easily found. Plugging (3.4) in (3.2) and using a Gaussian ansatz we find for example

$$\varphi _0(x)=p^{\frac{d(p+2)}{2(p^21)}}e^{\frac{p^21}{2p^2\mathrm{log}p}x^2}.$$
(3.5)
This corresponds to a D-brane filling out our $`Dd`$ dimensional spacetime. Lower dimensional D-branes can be also easily found, but higher dimensional ones do not exist for the reasons explained above. Since both lumps (3.4) and (3.5) are sitting on top of each other we call this solution a double lump.

To test our interpretation of the double lump further, let us study the spectrum of fluctuations around it. For fluctuating closed and open string tachyon field we write

$`\psi (\stackrel{}{y},\stackrel{}{x})`$ $`=`$ $`\psi _0(\stackrel{}{x})+\delta \psi (\stackrel{}{y},\stackrel{}{x}),`$
$`\varphi (\stackrel{}{y},\stackrel{}{x})`$ $`=`$ $`\varphi _0(\stackrel{}{x})+\delta \varphi (\stackrel{}{y},\stackrel{}{x}),`$ (3.6)
where $`\stackrel{}{x}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{y}`$ are the transverse and parallel coordinates to the lump respectively. The part of the action quadratic in the fluctuations is then

$$S_f=\frac{1}{2h^2}\frac{p^2}{p1}d^{Dd}y𝑑x^d(\delta \psi ,\delta \varphi )\left(\begin{array}{cc}K_{\psi \psi }& K_{\psi \varphi }\\ K_{\varphi \psi }& K_{\varphi \varphi }\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}\delta \psi \\ \delta \varphi \end{array}\right).$$
(3.7)
Here

$`K_{\psi \psi }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{p^2}{p+1}}p^{\frac{1}{4}(\mathrm{}_y+\mathrm{}_x)}{\displaystyle \frac{p^4}{p+1}}\psi _0^{p^21}+O(\lambda ^2),`$
$`K_{\psi \varphi }=K_{\varphi \psi }`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda ^2{\displaystyle \frac{p(p1)}{2}}\psi _0^{\frac{p(p1)}{2}1}\varphi _0^p,`$
$`K_{\varphi \varphi }`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda ^2p^{\frac{1}{2}(\mathrm{}_y+\mathrm{}_x)}\lambda ^2p\psi _0^{\frac{p(p1)}{2}}\varphi _0^{p1}.`$ (3.8)
Following  we shall decompose the fluctuations as

$`\delta \psi (\stackrel{}{y},\stackrel{}{x})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n_1,\mathrm{},n_d=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}u_\stackrel{}{n}(\stackrel{}{y})H_{n_1}(\alpha x_1)\mathrm{}H_{n_d}(\alpha x_d)\psi _0(\stackrel{}{x}),`$
$`\delta \varphi (\stackrel{}{y},\stackrel{}{x})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n_1,\mathrm{},n_d=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}v_\stackrel{}{n}(\stackrel{}{y})H_{n_1}(\beta x_1)\mathrm{}H_{n_d}(\beta x_d)\varphi _0(\stackrel{}{x}),`$ (3.9)
where $`H_n(\xi )`$ are the Hermite polynomials, normalized in such a way as to obey the orthogonality condition

$$_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\xi \mathrm{exp}(\xi ^2)H_m(\xi )H_n(\xi )=\pi ^{\frac{1}{2}}2^nn!\delta _{mn}.$$
(3.10)
Using the identity

$$H_n(\xi )=n!\frac{dz}{2\pi i}z^{n1}e^{z^2+2z\xi },$$
(3.11)
it is quite easy to derive a generalization of the formula (3.3), which for $`d=1`$ reads

$`e^{a^2}H_n(\alpha x)e^{bx^2}=`$ (3.12)
$`=(14ab)^{\frac{1}{2}}\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{4a\alpha ^2}{14ab}}\right)^{\frac{n}{2}}H_n\left({\displaystyle \frac{\alpha x}{\sqrt{(14ab)(14ab+4a\alpha ^2)}}}\right)e^{\frac{b}{14ab}x^2}.`$
Plugging the decomposition (3) into the action (3.7) and integrating over $`x`$, we end up with an action for the modes $`u_\stackrel{}{n}(y)`$ and $`v_\stackrel{}{n}(y)`$

$$S_f=\frac{1}{2h^2}\frac{p^2}{p1}d^{Dd}y\underset{\stackrel{}{n},\stackrel{}{m}=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}(u_\stackrel{}{n},v_\stackrel{}{n})\left(\begin{array}{cc}K_{\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{m}}^{uu}& K_{\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{m}}^{uv}\\ K_{\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{m}}^{vu}& K_{\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{m}}^{vv}\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}u_\stackrel{}{m}\\ v_\stackrel{}{m}\end{array}\right).$$
(3.13)
To find the spectrum of fluctuations we have to look at the zero modes of the kinetic term. Note that from (3) we have

$$det\left(\begin{array}{cc}K_{\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{m}}^{uu}& K_{\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{m}}^{uv}\\ K_{\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{m}}^{vu}& K_{\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{m}}^{vv}\end{array}\right)=det\left(K_{\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{m}}^{uu}\right)det\left(K_{\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{m}}^{vv}\right)+O(\lambda ^2),$$
(3.14)
since to lowest order in $`\lambda ^2`$ the determinant receives contributions only from the two blocks on the diagonal. Therefore to lowest order the mass spectrum is given by the zeros of the two determinants of $`K_{\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{m}}^{uu}`$ and $`K_{\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{m}}^{vv}`$, and is not affected by the presence of the terms which mix the two kinds of excitations.

The two constants $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$, which entered our fluctuation ansatz were arbitrary. For a convenient choice

$`\alpha `$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{p^41}{p^2\mathrm{log}p}}},`$
$`\beta `$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{p^41}{2p^2\mathrm{log}p}}},`$ (3.15)
we find that the matrices $`K_{\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{m}}^{uu}`$ and $`K_{\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{m}}^{vv}`$ become diagonal in the mode space

$`K_{\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{m}}^{uu}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{p^2}{p+1}}\left({\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{d}{}}}p^{\frac{p^2+1}{p^21}}\sqrt{\pi {\displaystyle \frac{p^2\mathrm{log}p}{p^41}}}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}^{n_i}n_i!\right)\left(p^{2{\scriptscriptstyle n_i}\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{}_y}p^2\right)\delta _{\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{m}},`$
$`K_{\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{m}}^{vv}`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda ^2\left({\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{d}{}}}p^{\frac{p^2+p+1}{p^21}}\sqrt{\pi {\displaystyle \frac{2p^2\mathrm{log}p}{p^41}}}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}^{n_i}n_i!\right)\left(p^{2{\scriptscriptstyle n_i}\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{}_y}p\right)\delta _{\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{m}}.`$ (3.16)
With the help of the approximate factorization (3.14) we find that the spectrum of fluctuations naturally splits into two series

$`m_{\delta \psi }^2`$ $`=`$ $`8(N1)+O(\lambda ^2),`$
$`m_{\delta \varphi }^2`$ $`=`$ $`4N2+O(\lambda ^2),`$ (3.17)
where $`N=n_1+\mathrm{}+n_d`$ is the total oscillation number. It strongly resembles the spectrum of string theory. At zero level $`(N=0)`$ we have two tachyons with $`m^2`$ equal to $`2`$ or $`8`$. These are the open and closed string tachyon respectively. Then there are $`d`$ massless modes, which for small but finite $`\lambda `$ are just the Goldstone modes translating both lumps simultaneously in the transverse directions. There is obviously no Goldstone mode which could be associated with the open string spectrum and which would make the D-brane leave the spacetime it sits in. The higher level states in the spectrum have the same spacing as for the open or closed string.

All the fluctuation modes can be viewed as fields propagating on our closed tachyon lump. These lumps look in all respects as spacetimes of lower dimensions, whose dynamics is governed by some noncritical string theory. The fact that we cannot put on these closed lumps open lumps of higher dimension, and that the excitation modes of the open lumps we can put in cannot escape in the transverse direction, is only confirming our interpretation.

The statement that the fluctuations of the background are confined to the lump is tantamount to the fact that $`\delta \varphi (y,x)`$ are normalizable in the $`x`$ direction. Further support to our claim that none of the modes of the p-adic closed string propagates outside the closed tachyon lump, comes from numerical study444 To solve (3) numerically, we use iterations of the convolution formulae (see  and ), starting with the solution at zero coupling (3.4) and (3.5). For lumps, however, the iteration method by itself is not convergent. But we can fix this by rescaling the solutions at each step: $`\varphi (x)\alpha \varphi (x)`$ and $`\psi (x)\beta \psi (x)`$, where $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ can be determined from the integral over $`x`$ of the equations of motion (3). of the double lump solution at finite coupling $`\lambda `$.

It is clear on our numerical solution in Fig. 2 for $`p=2`$ and $`\lambda =1/2`$ that both fields approach their true vacuum very fast. This is unlike the case of back-reaction of a static D-brane in the perturbative closed string vacuum $`\psi =1`$, which causes spatial oscillations of the closed string tachyon far away from the lump as we will show in Section 4.

## 4 Back-reaction of static D-branes

In this section we shall study how static open string lumps backreact on the closed string tachyonic background. Later in section 5 we will generalize these results to decaying time dependent lumps. In general finding an exact solution to the full equations of motion of a realistic open-closed string field theory is a rather hard problem. In p-adic string theory the full equations of motion (3) are much simpler, but still too complicated to admit a simple analytic solution for finite values of $`\lambda `$, which is proportional to the string coupling $`g`$. We shall start by writing a perturbative expansion for the open and closed tachyon fields

$`\psi `$ $`=`$ $`\psi _0+\lambda ^2\psi _1+O(\lambda ^4),`$ (4.1)
$`\varphi `$ $`=`$ $`\varphi _0+\lambda ^2\varphi _1+O(\lambda ^4).`$ (4.2)
As our starting point we take a solution describing a codimension-$`d`$ D-brane in a flat background

$`\psi _0(x,y)`$ $`=`$ $`1,`$ (4.3)
$`\varphi _0(x,y)`$ $`=`$ $`p^{\frac{d}{2(p1)}}e^{\frac{1}{2\mathrm{log}p}\frac{p1}{p}x^2}`$ (4.4)
and we will look for the first order correction $`\psi _1`$ describing the back-reaction. Here $`x`$ is the $`d`$-dimensional transverse coordinate to the D-brane and $`y`$ is the coordinate along its worldvolume. To find $`\varphi _0(x,y)`$ we have made use of the identity (3.3). The equation for $`\psi _1`$ looks as

$$p^{\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{}}\psi _1=p^2\psi _1+\frac{p1}{2p}\left(\varphi _0^{p+1}1\right).$$
(4.5)
Solutions to the homogeneous part of this equation are plane waves $`e^{ikx}`$ with

$$k^2=8+\frac{4}{\mathrm{log}p}2\pi in$$
(4.6)
parametrized by an arbitrary integer $`n`$. These values of $`k^2`$ appear of course also as poles in the Green’s function, they give us the particle content of the theory. The lowest mode has mass squared $`m^2=8`$ and is the closed string tachyon. The higher modes have complex mass squared and are a bit mysterious. One can argue that in the adelic theory  these particles disappear and the true closed string spectrum appears. The only fact we will need, which is true for either theory is that the only particle with mass $`m`$ lying on (or very close to) the imaginary axis is the tachyon.

Since the unperturbed lumps are spherically symmetric in the transverse dimension, we concentrate now only on spherically symmetric solutions of the homogeneous part of the equation. The solutions can be readily found in terms of the Bessel functions, one of them being

$$\psi _{1homog.}r^{\frac{d2}{2}}J_{\frac{d2}{2}}\left(\sqrt{8}r\right).$$
(4.7)
A second solution can be obtained by changing the Bessel function $`J_\nu `$ into $`Y_\nu `$, it is singular at the origin for $`d>1`$ however. To find a particular solution of (4.5) we first get rid of the constant part by writing

$$\psi _1(x)=\frac{1}{2p(p+1)}+\stackrel{~}{\psi }_1(x)$$
(4.8)
and pass to the Fourier transform

$$\stackrel{~}{\psi }_1(x)=d^dke^{ikx}\stackrel{~}{\psi }_1(k).$$
(4.9)
Now the equation (4.5) takes the form

$$p^{\frac{1}{4}k^2}\stackrel{~}{\psi }_1(k)=p^2\stackrel{~}{\psi }_1(k)+\frac{p1}{2p}\left(\frac{p^{\frac{2p}{p1}}\mathrm{log}p}{2\pi (p^21)}\right)^{\frac{d}{2}}e^{\frac{p\mathrm{log}p}{2(p^21)}k^2}$$
(4.10)
and therefore a particular solution is given by

$$\stackrel{~}{\psi }_1(x)=\frac{p1}{2p}\left(\frac{p^{\frac{2p}{p1}}\mathrm{log}p}{2\pi (p^21)}\right)^{\frac{d}{2}}d^dke^{ikx}\frac{1}{p^{\frac{1}{4}k^2}p^2}p^{\frac{p}{2(p^21)}k^2}.$$
(4.11)
While this integral is divergent on a codimension one hypersurface $`k^2=8`$, it can be assigned a principal value. Passing to the spherical coordinates, the integral can be rewritten as

$$S_{d2}_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑kk^{d1}_0^\pi 𝑑\theta (\mathrm{sin}\theta )^{d2}e^{ikr\mathrm{cos}\theta }\frac{1}{p^{\frac{1}{4}k^2}p^2}p^{\frac{p}{2(p^21)}k^2},$$
(4.12)
where $`S_{d2}`$ is the volume of a $`d2`$ dimensional sphere. The integral over the angular variable is

$$_0^\pi 𝑑\theta (\mathrm{sin}\theta )^{d2}e^{ikr\mathrm{cos}\theta }=\sqrt{\pi }\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{d1}{2}\right)\left(\frac{2}{kr}\right)^{\frac{d2}{2}}J_{\frac{d2}{2}}(kr),$$
(4.13)
the expression (4.12) now becomes

$$S_{d2}\sqrt{\pi }\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{d1}{2}\right)\left(\frac{2}{r}\right)^{\frac{d2}{2}}_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑kk^{\frac{d}{2}}J_{\frac{d2}{2}}(kr)\frac{1}{p^{\frac{1}{4}k^2}p^2}p^{\frac{p}{2(p^21)}k^2}.$$
(4.14)
To study the large $`r`$ behavior, we use the relation between the Bessel functions $`J_\nu (z)`$, $`Y_\nu (z)`$ and the Hankel functions $`H_\nu ^{(1,2)}`$

$`J_\nu (z)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(H_\nu ^{(1)}+H_\nu ^{(2)}\right),`$ (4.15)
$`Y_\nu (z)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2i}}\left(H_\nu ^{(1)}H_\nu ^{(2)}\right).`$ (4.16)
Splitting the integral (4.14) into two parts containing the Hankel functions $`H_\nu ^{(1)}`$ and $`H_\nu ^{(2)}`$, we add a small semi-circle contour to each of the principal value integrals, such that in both cases the integration will be along a single contour, bypassing the pole at $`k=\sqrt{8}`$ from above or below respectively. These contours can then be further deformed to straight lines going from the origin to infinity in a small finite angle to the real axis, requiring only that the contours do not cross any of the other complex poles. The integrals along these two lines are finite and regular and one can take a limit $`r\mathrm{}`$ in both of them separately. Using the known asymptotic behavior of the Hankel functions, both integrals exhibit an exponential decay for large $`r`$. Therefore the only exponentially unsuppressed contribution comes from the two small semi-circles around the pole. Evaluating these half-residua we find

$$S_{d2}\sqrt{\pi }\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{d1}{2}\right)\left(\frac{2}{r}\right)^{\frac{d2}{2}}Y_{\frac{d2}{2}}(\sqrt{8}r)\frac{(\pi )8^{\frac{d}{4}}}{\sqrt{2}p^2\mathrm{log}p}p^{\frac{4p}{(p^21)}}.$$
(4.17)
Finally the most general spherically symmetric solution to (4.5) behaves for large $`r`$ as

$$\psi _1(r)\frac{1}{2p(p+1)}+Ar^{\frac{d2}{2}}Y_{\frac{d2}{2}}(\sqrt{8}r)+Br^{\frac{d2}{2}}J_{\frac{d2}{2}}(\sqrt{8}r),$$
(4.18)
where

$$A=\frac{\pi }{\sqrt{8}}\left(\frac{\sqrt{8}p^{\frac{2p}{p1}}\mathrm{log}p}{(p^21)}\right)^{\frac{d}{2}}\frac{p1}{p^3\mathrm{log}p}p^{\frac{4p}{(p^21)}}$$
(4.19)
and $`B`$ is an arbitrary constant. Note that the constant part in (4.18) accounts for the fact, that in the true open string vacuum with $`\varphi =0`$, the value of the closed string tachyon $`\psi `$ in its perturbative vacuum is shifted precisely by this constant times $`\lambda ^2`$ plus higher order corrections.

Now one may ask whether there are some natural boundary conditions on the field $`\psi (x)`$, which would fix the value of the parameter $`B`$ and produce thus a unique answer for the perturbed background. For large $`r`$ both the particular and the homogeneous solutions exhibit the same kind of oscillations, they differ only in the relative phase and by an arbitrary constant scale factor for the amplitude. There is no way how one could fix uniquely this parameter. The physical reason is that this ambiguity reflects the genuine instability of the tachyonic background.

## 5 Time dependent solutions

We shall now turn our attention to the time dependent solutions of the coupled equations of motion (3). Physically this is equivalent to the study of closed strings emission from decaying D-branes . We will be interested here in those solutions in which both open and closed tachyon fields were in their perturbative vacua in the infinite past. We will refer to those solutions as half-S-branes . As in  we are led to the following ansatz:

$`\varphi (t)`$ $`=`$ $`1{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}a_ne^{\alpha nt},`$
$`\psi (t)`$ $`=`$ $`1{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}b_ne^{\beta nt},`$ (5.1)
assuming that $`\alpha ,\beta >0`$. The expansion in exponentials is very natural from the point of view of string field theory . One might expect at first, that $`\alpha =\sqrt{2}`$ and $`a_10`$ describes open string tachyon condensation, whereas $`\beta =\sqrt{8}`$ and $`b_10`$ describes closed string tachyon condensation. Closer inspection reveals that indeed this is true to the zeroth order in the coupling $`\lambda `$. At higher orders one has to take $`\alpha =\beta `$ and further equal to one of the two possible values

$`\alpha _1`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{8}+{\displaystyle \frac{p^21}{4\sqrt{2}p^3(1+p+p^2)\mathrm{log}p}}\lambda ^2+O(\lambda ^4),`$
$`\alpha _2`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{2}{\displaystyle \frac{(p^21)(1+p\sqrt{p})}{4\sqrt{2}p^{\frac{3}{2}}(1+p+p^2)\mathrm{log}p}}\lambda ^2+O(\lambda ^4).`$ (5.2)
What might be more surprising is, that $`a_1`$ and $`b_1`$ cannot be chosen arbitrarily, their ratio $`x=b_1/a_1`$ has to be fixed to one of the values

$`x_1`$ $`=`$ $`2(1+p+p^2)+{\displaystyle \frac{p^21}{p^31}}\lambda ^2+O(\lambda ^4),`$
$`x_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{p^21}{2(p^3p^{\frac{3}{2}})}}\lambda ^2+O(\lambda ^4)`$ (5.3)
respectively, depending on our choice of $`\alpha `$. The authors of  found a one parameter family of solutions which corresponds to translations in time. It has one parameter less than the Sen’s solutions , due to the fact that we require our tachyon to be in its unstable vacuum in the far past.

For the two tachyon fields $`\varphi (t)`$ and $`\psi (t)`$ one would expect a two parameter family of solutions, but the solutions described by the ansatz (5) have only one free parameter. Although it may look like we have two discrete choices for $`b_1/a_1`$ corresponding to either open or closed tachyon condensation, numerical investigation reveals that the two processes are mixed together.

Solving recursively for the coefficients $`a_n,b_n`$ with the initial conditions corresponding to the rolling of the open string tachyon, we find the time evolution of both fields $`\varphi (t)`$ and $`\psi (t)`$, which we plot in the $`\varphi ,\psi `$ plane in Fig. 3. Although at very early times the open string tachyon changes much faster than the closed one, by the time the open string tachyon reaches zero, the closed one is also quite close to zero, suggesting that actually both tachyons condense. Following the evolution further on, beyond what is shown in Fig. 3, we find the wild oscillations familiar from , whose significance is not yet entirely understood.

Another strategy for finding exact solutions to the coupled equations of motion would be using perturbation theory as in Section 4. This will eventually lead to the correct two parameter family of solutions. Let us describe first the solution where only the open string tachyon condenses. We take $`\psi _0=1`$ and

$$\varphi _0(t)=1e^{\sqrt{2}t}+\frac{1}{2(p^2+p+1)}e^{2\sqrt{2}t}+\mathrm{}$$
(5.4)
being the rolling solution in open p-adic string theory studied in . Solving for $`\psi _1`$ from (4.5) we find

$$\psi _1(t)=\frac{p^21}{2p(p^2\sqrt{p})}e^{\sqrt{2}t}+\frac{(p^21)^2(p^2+1)}{4\sqrt{2}p^3(p^31)\mathrm{log}p}te^{2\sqrt{2}t}+\underset{n=3}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}c_ne^{n\sqrt{2}t},$$
(5.5)
where $`c_n`$ are easily calculable $`p`$-dependent constants. We can of course add to (5.5) an arbitrary multiple of $`e^{2\sqrt{2}t}`$. What is a bit surprising, is the explicit appearance of the factor $`t`$ in the second term of (5.5). It stems from the fact that the closed string tachyon mass is exactly twice the mass of the open one. For special values of the initial conditions, all the terms at higher orders in $`\lambda `$ with explicit polynomial factors in $`t`$ combine into the corrected exponentials of (5). Note that those terms violate the periodicity in the imaginary time direction

$$tt+\sqrt{2}\pi i.$$
(5.6)
One might think that the wild oscillations of both open and closed tachyon fields are related to the fact that we were dealing with translationally invariant solutions, corresponding to the space-filling D-brane. It is therefore interesting to look what happens to the decay of a D0-brane, where one can imagine closed string “radiation” carrying away all the energy. One can again use the ansatz (5) with $`a_n`$ and $`b_n`$ now being functions of $`x`$. The equations for those coefficients are no longer algebraic, instead they contain factors like $`p^{\mathrm{}/2}`$. Analytically we can find the large distance behavior of the first order correction in $`\lambda `$. This is analogous to calculating the emission of gravitational waves from a non static source in general relativity.

Practically we are going to solve the equation (4.5) with $`\varphi _0(x,t)`$ being now a product of the spatial lump $`\varphi _0^{lump}(x)`$ and the rolling solution $`\varphi _0^{roll}(t)`$ of . Expanding $`\psi _1(x,t)`$ into powers of $`e^{\sqrt{2}t}`$ and solving for the leading large distance behavior of the individual coefficients as in section 4 we find

$$\psi _1(r,t)\frac{1}{2p(p+1)}+\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}A_ne^{\sqrt{2}nt}r^{\frac{d2}{2}}Y_{\frac{d2}{2}}(r\sqrt{82n^2})+B_ne^{\sqrt{2}nt}r^{\frac{d2}{2}}J_{\frac{d2}{2}}(r\sqrt{82n^2}),$$
(5.7)
where $`A_n`$ are finite calculable constants dependent on $`p`$ and $`d`$, and $`B_n`$ are again free parameters. We are getting thus true spatial oscillations (up to a power in $`r`$) for $`n=0,1`$. Terms with $`n>2`$ are superluminal radial waves with speeds ranging between $`3/\sqrt{5}1.34`$ and $`1`$ the speed of light. This should not be too surprising since we are dealing with closed string tachyon waves. One might hope, that resumming the series (5.7) one would get rid of the wild oscillations in time, but that is unfortunately beyond our capabilities to prove or disprove.

It would be interesting to have a well defined splitting of the energy between the open and closed string sector. Whereas we can confirm that the total energy is conserved for the solution shown on Fig. 3, we are unable to split it in the two sectors in any meaningful way. This problem is certainly familiar from general relativity, where one can achieve this goal under very special circumstances. In that case one can argue, that the difference between constant ADM energy and time dependent Bondi energy measures the energy emitted in the gravitational waves.555For recent application of these ideas to the study of closed string tachyon condensation, see . Both ADM and Bondi energy are defined by integrals over the metric at spatial infinity or $`^+`$ respectively. Since in p-adic string theory the closed string tachyon has different properties than the metric in general relativity, it seems hard to find any useful analogue of the Bondi energy in the p-adic string theory.

### Some other solutions

In purely open p-adic string theory, it seems very unlikely that there exist lump solutions in the time direction. In fact, it has been shown in  that, when $`p`$ is even, there can be no monotonic lump (a tachyon rolling monotonically from a value $`\varphi =b`$ towards the true vacuum until it reaches some value $`a<b`$, then rolling back to $`\varphi =b`$ monotonically).

Here, we want to show that in open-closed p-adic string theory, open tachyon lumps in time do exist as long as we allow the closed tachyon field to diverge in the far past and far future. Unfortunately we are not able to solve the equations of motion with a nonzero coupling666We can solve the equations of motion numerically when the fields at infinity converge fast enough to constant values (like in the case of the double lump). But here we will see that $`\psi (t)`$ diverges at infinity, and we are not able to construct a numerical solution., we will thus only consider $`\lambda =0`$.

The equations of motion (3) admit an interesting solution obtained by Wick-rotating the spatial lump (3.4)

$$\psi (t)=p^{\frac{1}{p^21}}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{p^21}{p^2\mathrm{log}p}t^2\right).$$
(5.8)
Plugging this into (3) and trying the ansatz $`\varphi (t)=Ae^{b^2t^2}`$, we find

$$\varphi (t)=p^{\frac{2p+1}{2(p^21)}}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{p1}{2\mathrm{log}p}t^2\right).$$
(5.9)
For this solution, the open tachyon is in its true vacuum in the far past and in the far future, and in the vicinity of its perturbative vacuum only for a short time around $`t=0`$. One might be tempted to interpret this solution as an S-brane . We should be very cautious though, because the solution requires rather special “cosmological” circumstances and moreover lacks the periodicity in imaginary time.

## 6 Discussions and conclusions

Although the relation of p-adic string theory to more conventional string theories remains rather unclear, the theory has proven to be a good toy model for studies of tachyon condensation. One of the surprising features of the closed p-adic strings is that they look very similar to the open p-adic strings. In fact, both theories contain only a tachyon with a peculiar nonlocal interaction. In the case of open strings there are known lump solutions, whose tensions and excitation spectra give them the interpretation of D-branes. We found analogous solutions in the closed string sector as well. Based on their lump-like nature and excitation spectra, we have argued that they correspond to spacetimes of lower dimensions. Outside the core of the lump, the tachyon field is in its true vacuum and one can easily check that there are indeed no propagating perturbative degrees of freedom. Further support to our claims comes from the study of possible open string lumps, i.e. D-branes, which can be put in this closed string background. Far from the core of the closed string lump, the open string tachyon has to be in its true vacuum. Therefore the D-brane dimension has to be always smaller or equal to that of the spacetime.

It is very tempting to speculate that similar closed string tachyon lumps exist in realistic nonsupersymmetric string theories. All physics including gravity would be localized on these lumps, and they would thus form a viable alternative to compactification or large extra dimensions scenarios.

The second main problem we dealt with is the dynamics of the open string tachyon condensation. The p-adic model is simple enough to allow us to solve for the backreaction of open tachyon configurations on the closed string background. In particular, we have given the analytic form of the fluctuations of the closed tachyon far away from a static or decaying D-brane. Although we hoped that a p-adic string theory including the closed string sector would have nicer time dependent solutions than pure open p-adic string theory, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Our rolling solutions, calculated in a series expansion scheme, do in fact oscillate with diverging amplitudes. One could still hope, however, that including higher orders in the coupling constant might tame these oscillations. Further investigation is needed on this issue. A slightly disappointing fact which should have been expected, is that we were not able to separate the expression for the total energy into separate open and closed sectors; such a separation would be useful to see the dissipation of the rolling tachyon’s energy into the closed modes. This is certainly reminiscent of the situation in general relativity.

## Acknowledgments

We are indebted to Barton Zwiebach for many useful discussions and early collaboration on this paper. We thank also Ian Ellwood, Ami Hanany, Yoonbai Kim, Alex Maloney and Joe Minahan for helpful conversations. This work was supported in part by DOE contract #DE-FC02-94ER40818.


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# Critical behavior of a bounded Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation

## I Introduction

Non-equilibrium phase transitions occurring in systems amenable to be described by Langevin equations including a multiplicative noise (MN) term are the subject of current intense studies. This embraces a broad variety of systems both in physics and in other disciplines. A phenomenology much richer and complex than that appearing in equilibrium systems, including counterintuitive behaviors, has been reported to appear in these, typically non-equilibrium, situations. See Review ; Sancho  for detailed introductions to this growing field, including many different realizations.

The interest in MN problems is enlarged even further, because of the existing mappings between them and other prototypical non-equilibrium problems Review . A well known instance is the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) equation, describing the kinetic roughening transition of generic interfaces under non-equilibrium conditions KPZ ; Barabasi ; HZ , which can be mapped onto a MN Langevin equation, by performing the so called Cole-Hopf transformation linking the interface height at each point with the activity field of the MN equation. If an interface under consideration is described by the KPZ equation and it is physically limited by a wall, i.e. if the heights cannot be larger of smaller than a certain value, then this problem, bounded KPZ, can be mapped into a multiplicative noise equation by employing the abovementioned transformation MN1 ; MN2 ; Review . The bounded KPZ equation may experience, as parameters are varied, a phase transition from a depinned phase in which the interface escapes with probability one from the wall, to a pinned phase characterized by a finite expectation value of the stationary averaged height (measured from the wall). In the MN language (i.e. after employing the Cole-Hopf transformation) the pinning-depinning transition corresponds to a critical point separating an absorbing phase in which the order parameter goes exponentially to zero (depinned phase) to an active phase in which the order parameter takes a non-vanishing average value.

Surprisingly enough, it was shown a few years ago that the introduction of “upper” or “lower” walls into a given KPZ equation (with a fixed non-linearity sign) lead to quite different phenomenologies. The origin of this can be tracked down to the fact that the KPZ equation is not invariant upon inverting the height (see MN3  or Review  for a more detailed explanation). Taking, for instance, the sign of the coefficient of the KPZ non-linearity to be positive, the introduction of an upper wall leads to a (well established by now) set of critical exponents characterizing the, so called, multiplicative noise 1 (MN1) universality class MN1 ; MN2 ; MN3 ; MN4 . On the other hand, a wall limiting negative values of the interface height (lower wall) leads to a different type of phase transition as shown by T. Hwa and one of us some years back MN3 . In what follows, and following the nomenclature introduced in Review , we will use the term MN2 to name this class.

It can be easily shown that a KPZ equation with positive non-linearity and a lower wall is completely equivalent to a KPZ with a negative non-linearity coefficient and an upper wall Review : one just have to change the sign of the height variable in the KPZ-like equation to verify this.

The MN2 class is of great importance in the context of alignment of DNA and other biological sequences. It has been argued by Hwa and collaborators, that the phase transition appearing upon changing the, so called, scoring parameter in the commonly used alignment algorithm can be mapped into the MN2 critical point Hwa . It is also related to some instances of non-equilibrium wetting Haye1 . For some other applications and physical instances within this class see Review  and references therein.

While the MN1 class has been extensively studied, specially after its connections with non-equilibrium wetting Haye1 ; Haye2 ; Lisboa  and with the problem of synchronization in extended systems were established synchro ; Review , the MN2 class remains poorly studied. Furthermore, recent numerical analysis have revealed that the preliminary critical exponent values reported in Hwa  might be far from their true asymptotic values.

Aimed at clarifying these issues it is the purpose of this paper to analyze the MN2 phase transition in one dimensional systems using: i) mean-field and field-theoretical techniques and ii) numerical (Monte Carlo) analysis of different models claimed to belong to this class.

Finally let us stress that if the wall becomes attractive, rather than simply bounding, new phenomenology might appear. This is particularly interesting in the context of synchronization Review ; synchro . This possibility will also be discussed along the paper.

## II The MN2 class

Let us consider a KPZ equation with a positive non-linearity coefficient, $`\lambda >0`$, in the presence of a lower wall,

$$_th(x,t)=a+be^{ph}+D^2h+\lambda (h)^2+\sigma \eta (x,t).$$
(1)
where $`h`$ is a height variable, $`a`$ represents a constant drift while $`be^{ph}`$ is a bounding wall. The parameter $`p>0`$ controls the wall penetrability, the limit $`p\mathrm{}`$ corresponding to a perfectly rigid (impenetrable) wall. It has been shown previously that for both the MN1 and the MN2 classes the magnitude of $`p`$ does not influence the asymptotic properties at criticality MN1 ; MN2  (its sign, however, is important, as it determines whether the wall is a lower or an upper one). The same property applies to equilibrium systems (i.e., for $`\lambda =0`$) lipowskyfisher . $`\eta `$ is a stochastic white noise with $`\eta =0`$ and $`\eta (x,t)\eta (x^{},t^{})=2\delta (tt^{})\delta (xx^{})`$, where $``$ denotes an average over the distribution of the noise.

For a fixed value of $`b`$ the interface experiences a pinning-depinning transition at some value $`a=a_c`$.

Some remarks concerning the connection of the previous equation with wetting problems follow. When $`h(x,t)`$ is viewed as the distance separating a liquid-gas interface from a solid wall, Eq. (1) can then be interpreted as a dynamic model for nonequilibrium wetting. Under this perspective $`a`$ is the chemical potential difference between the liquid and the gas phases, $`h`$ is the thickness of the wetting layer, and the wall is a rigid, physical substrate. At bulk phase coexistence, i.e. for the value of $`a=a_c`$ for which in the absence of the wall the interface does not move on average, $`h`$ diverges at all temperatures above certain wetting temperature, $`T_W`$, while for $`aa_c`$ the thickness of the liquid film can be big, but finite (pinned interface). The temperature here is controlled by the parameter $`b`$, which vanishes linearly with the mean-field wetting temperature as $`TT_W`$. Thus, on approaching coexistence for $`T>T_W`$ ($`b>0`$ at the mean-field level), $`h`$ diverges as $`h|aa_c|^{\beta _h}`$. This transition, termed complete wetting, is always continuous and the value of the $`\beta _h`$ exponent depends on the nature of the forces between the particles in the fluid phases and the wall. In this paper only short-range, exponentially decaying interactions between all the particles and the substrate (as described by Eq. (1)) are considered.

The change of variables $`n=\mathrm{exp}(h)`$ transforms Eq. (1) into the MN2 Langevin equation:

$$_tn(x,t)=^2n2\frac{(n)^2}{n}(a+1)nbn^{p+1}+n\eta ,$$
(2)
where for the sake of simplicity we have set $`\lambda =D=\sigma =1`$ and Ito calculus Ito  has been used (different coefficients for the Laplacian and the KPZ non-linear term could be reabsorbed using $`n=\mathrm{exp}(\alpha h)`$ with a proper choice of $`\alpha `$). This transformation maps the depinning from the wall $`h\mathrm{}`$ to a transition into an absorbing state $`n0`$. The physical equivalence between the cases $`\lambda >0`$ with a lower-wall ($`p>0`$), and $`\lambda <0`$ with an upper wall ($`p<0`$), reflects in the fact that the same equation is obtained using $`n=\mathrm{exp}(h)`$ and $`n=\mathrm{exp}h`$, respectively.

Observe that Eq.(2) is identical to the MN equation describing the MN1 class MN1 ; MN2 ; Review , except for the presence of an extra term $`(n)^2/n`$. This term can also be written as $`(n)(\mathrm{ln}(n))=(n)(h)`$ suggesting that the interface language is the natural one for this class. In fact, except for the factor 2 in front of $`(n)^2/n`$ Eq. (2) coincides with the Cole-Hopf transform of

$$_th(x,t)=^2h+a+be^{ph}+\eta (x,t)$$
(3)
that describes the growth of wetting layers toward their equilibrium state lipowsky  (observe that this is just the equilibrium, Edwards-Wilkinson model, in the presence of a bounding wall). Note also that the factor $`2`$ in Eq. (2) cannot be readsorbed by reparametrizing.

Finally, let us underline that in the regime where $`b<0`$ the wall becomes attractive (which might be necessary to describe some physical situations as, for instance, synchronization problems as said in the introduction) and a new term, say, $`c\mathrm{exp}(2h)`$ (equivalently $`cn^{2p+1}`$) with $`c>0`$ has to be added to stabilize the equation.

Having presented the equations defining the model, in the forthcoming sections we study the associated physics by using i) mean field approaches, ii) field theory, and iii) numerical, Monte Carlo simulations combined with scaling arguments.

## III Mean-field approaches

Mean-field approaches to Eq. (1) can be implemented with several degrees of sophistication. A crude approximation consists of ignoring the noise and spatial variations. At this level one trivially gets that the order parameter $`h`$ vanishes as $`a0`$ with an exponent $`\beta _h=0`$. When applied to Eq.(2), this approximation yields a shifted critical point at $`a_c=1`$ and the usual result for the order parameter critical exponent, $`\beta _n=1/p`$. But, as experience with other systems with multiplicative-noise dictates, neglecting completely the noise is a too crude approximation, that eliminates most of the characteristic traits of MN physics.

Now the effect of allowing a spatially varying order parameter and taking the noise into consideration are examined. The Laplacian is discretized as

$$^2n_i=\frac{1}{2d}\underset{j}{}(n_jn_i)nn_i,$$
(4)
where the sum runs over the nearest neighbors of $`i`$ and a large system dimensionality has been assumed. Similarly, the square gradient term can be written as

$$\frac{(n)_i^2}{n_i}\frac{n^2}{n_i}2n+n_i.$$
(5)
The one-site stationary probability distribution is then readily obtained from the associated Fokker-Planck equation,

$`P_{st}(n,n)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n^2}}\mathrm{exp}{\displaystyle ^n}{\displaystyle \frac{(x)_i^22(x)_i^2/x_i(a+1)x_ibx_i^{p+1}}{x_i^2}}𝑑x_i,`$ (6)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n^{a+6}}}\mathrm{exp}\left(5{\displaystyle \frac{n}{n}}b{\displaystyle \frac{n^p}{p}}+{\displaystyle \frac{n^2}{n^2}}\right).`$
where $`n`$ and $`n^2`$ have to be calculated self-consistently. For $`a<a_c=5`$, $`P_{st}`$ is not normalizable what means that the stationary state is the absorbing phase $`n=0`$. For $`n0`$, however, the non-analyticity of $`\mathrm{exp}[n^2/n^2]`$ at $`n=0`$ again renders $`P_{st}`$ non-normalizable. As a result, there is no well-defined active phase at this mean-field level for Eq. (6). Similar problems are found if the same type of approach is applied to Eq. (1) instead of Eq. (2).

To avoid the presence of the square gradient term in Eq. (2), and the complications of its, somewhat arbitrary, discretization, we resort to a different change of variables. After $`n=\mathrm{exp}h`$,

$`_tn`$ $`=`$ $`^2n+(a+1)n+bn^{3p}+n\eta ,`$
$`P_{st}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n^{2a}}}\mathrm{exp}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{bn^{2p}}{2p}}{\displaystyle \frac{n}{n}}\right].`$ (7)
These equations are simpler than (2) and (6), but at the cost that $`n`$ is no longer an order parameter as, at the transition point $`n\mathrm{}`$ rather than going to $`0`$. Furthermore, Landau expansions only make sense when the order parameter vanishes at the critical point, making the whole approach inconsistent. One possible way to circumvent this problem is to monitor $`m1/n`$, and study $`\stackrel{~}{P}_{st}(m)dm=P_{st}(n)dn`$, but given the non-Gaussian nature of the probability distribution the substitution $`n=1/m`$ is likely to be incorrect, and there seem to be no safe way to proceed.

Summing up, non-trivial mean-field approaches detect some problems with the model under consideration, and are not able to predict a phase correct phase diagram. A sound mean-field approximation, needs therefore to be found. Notice that none of these problems occur in the case of a negative KPZ non-linearity, i.e. in the MN1 class, where a standard mean-field approximation yields qualitatively correct results (see Review ; Lisboa  and references therein).

## IV Field theoretical considerations

The Langevin equation for MN1 is known to be super-renormalizable, i.e. Feynman diagrams can be computed to all orders and resummated. This does not imply that critical exponents can be computed in all the cases, as the renormalization group flow-equation has runaway trajectories supposed to converge to a strong coupling fixed point. But at least, the correct phase diagram, including strong and weak coupling fixed points can be obtained.

For the MN2 the situation is far more complicated, as can be a priori anticipated given the failure of mean-field approaches. The extra term, $`(n)^2/n`$, being singular in $`n`$ precludes the use of perturbative expansions around $`n=0`$. Given the lack of a non-perturbative approach to the KPZ and MN strong coupling fixed points, there is not much we can add to this section, except that there is a promising attempt to tackle this and related KPZ-like problems. There is a formalism, developed by Fogedby, aimed at developing a strong coupling theory for KPZ based on a semiclassical or WKB approximation applied upon the Martin-Siggia-Rose generating functional fogedby . Its main advantage is that it does not involve expansions around classical noiseless solutions, but around classical (extremal) noisy solutions. It would be very interesting to extend these ideas to KPZ problems in the presence walls, namely, to the multiplicative noise universality classes MN1 and MN2.

## V Numerical results

Owing to the failure of standard (non-trivial) mean-field approaches and lacking so far of an alternative analytical route, numerical methods are required to glean insight into the system properties. We have carried out simulations of two surface growth models. Both of them, in the absence of walls, are known to belong to the KPZ universality class. An extra rule is then added to generate a bounding wall, as described above.

### V.1 Model 1

Our first model was introduced in krugs  and is defined as follows: the surface position at time $`t`$ above a site $`x`$ on a one-dimensional lattice of size $`L`$ is given by a continuous height variable $`h_t(x)`$. A new height configuration is then generated in a three-step process.

1. Each lattice site $`h_t(x)`$ is updated according to $`h_t^{}(x)=h_t(x)+a+\eta _t(x)`$. $`\eta _t(x)`$ is a random number uniformly distributed in  and $`a`$ is a constant drift term analogous to that of (1).
2. The configuration is changed to $`h_{t+1}(x)=\mathrm{min}[h_t^{}(x\pm 1)+\gamma ,h_t^{}(x)]`$, where $`\gamma `$ is a constant whose precise value is not essential for the final results. We have set without loss of generality $`\gamma =0.1`$ as in previous numerical analyses.
3. A hard wall at $`h=0`$ is introduced by way of the additional rule $`h_t(x)=\mathrm{min}[h_t(x),0]`$ MN3 .

Finally, periodic boundary conditions are imposed and $`h_t(x)`$ is initially set to $`0`$.

The continuum counterpart of this model is known to be a KPZ equation krugs  with $`\lambda <0`$ in the presence of an upper wall note  which, as remarked before, is equivalent to the case $`\lambda >0`$ and a lower wall, and corresponds to the MN2 class. Numerical results for this model were first presented in MN3  and seemed to be consistent with mean-field (i.e. single-site) like behavior. However, a similar problem recently studied in the context of synchronization has revealed inconsistencies probably due to insufficient statistics Review ; synchro . In this subsection improved simulation results are provided upon revisiting the analysis reported in MN3  for larger system sizes and longer sampling times. The case of an attractive wall, not included in MN3 , is also considered.

First, we take up the case of a simple (non-attractive) wall, corresponding to $`b>0`$ in Eqs. (1) and (2). Figure (1) shows how the steady order parameter $`n`$ changes with the system size $`L`$. Within the active phase, it saturates to a constant value, while in the absorbing one it bends down and decays exponentially. Our best estimate for the critical point is $`a_c=1.57433(2)`$ and from the slope of the curve we get $`\beta _n/\nu _{}0.33(2)`$ note2 . This value of $`a_c`$ corresponds to the point where a free interface (far from the wall) has zero average velocity. The time evolution of $`n`$ at the critical point for different system sizes (Figure (2)) behaves like $`n(t)t^{\theta _n}`$, with $`\theta _n=0.215(15)`$ or, equivalently, $`h(t)t^{\theta _h}`$, with $`\theta _h=0.355(15)`$. As for the exponents $`\beta `$, which govern the saturation of the order parameter within the active phase, they have been computed using the largest available system sizes ($`L=1600`$ and $`3200`$). The best fit to $`X|aa_c|^{\pm \beta _X}`$ yields $`\beta _n0.32(3)`$ (for $`n`$) the and $`\beta _h=0.52(2)`$ (for $`h`$), respectively. The error margin is typically larger here than for other exponents due to the sensitivity to the uncertainty in the determination of the critical point.

It was proved in MN1 ; MN2  that these exponents must satisfy the scaling relation $`z=\beta /(\nu _{}\theta )`$, where $`z`$ is the dynamic exponent of the KPZ equation. The exact value for $`z`$ in $`d=1`$ is $`3/2`$, thereby $`z=0.33/0.215=1.5(1)`$ in agreement with the prediction. In addition, also from MN1 ; MN2 , $`\nu _{}=1`$, and from our direct measurements we get $`(\beta _n/\nu _{})/\beta _n=0.33/0.32`$, implying $`\nu _{}1`$. In terms of $`h`$ and assuming $`\nu _{}=1`$, $`z=0.52/.355=1.5(1)`$ which, again, is compatible with $`3/2`$ within error bars.

The two alternative, but equivalent, mathematical descriptions of the MN2 class in terms of $`h`$ and $`n=\mathrm{exp}(h)`$ can be related noting that the latter is essentially the density of sites at zero hight, $`n(x,t)=\delta _{h(x,t),0}`$ Haye3 . We have verified that $`n`$ and $`\delta _{h(x,t),0}`$ exhibit the same asymptotic scaling behavior.

Attractive walls can also be simulated within this model by simply substituting $`a`$ by $`ab\delta _{h,0}`$, where $`b<0`$ and the sign convention is chosen to keep the analogy with Eq. (1). This means that wherever the interface in attached to the wall it experiences an additional (“sticky”) force pushing it against the wall. Extensive Monte Carlo simulations for $`b=0.3`$ show that the previous results, in what respect universal features, carry over without change, the only difference being that the approach to asymptotics is slower. Upon increasing the attractiveness of the wall the transients become longer. The estimate for the critical point is the same one as before (this is due to the fact that the free interface is not affected by variations of the attractiveness parameter). Again, our best estimates for the critical exponents are $`\beta _n/\nu _{}=0.32`$ and $`\theta _n=0.215`$ (see Figure (3)). For $`b=0.4`$ we still observe a second-order phase transition with a crossover to the mentioned exponents. For $`b=0.5`$ transition becomes first-order but it still occurs at $`a=a_c`$. Within the active phase all the sites are closed to the wall and the order parameter is $`1`$, but it suddenly changes to $`0`$ upon decreasing $`a`$ and hysteresis is observed for slightly subcritical values $`a`$ (the interface is pinned for up to long times). Therefore, a tricritical point must exist between $`0.4`$ and $`0.5`$. We have identified it at $`b=0.42(1)`$. The tricritical behavior has not been analyzed.

Let us stress that, contrarily to what happens for the MN1 class, where the presence of an attractive wall induces a new and rich phenomenology (including a broad region of phase coexistence and directed-percolation type of transitions Review ), the addition of “attractiveness” has a very mild effect here. Basically, it just shifts the position of the critical point and induces a first-order phase transition for very strong attractions.

### V.2 Model 2

In order to verify the robustness and eventual universality of the previous results, we have performed a second study of a different model. It is a restricted solid-on-solid (RSOS) model, a variant of the single-step model introduced in krugs , in the presence of a wall. A similar model has been recently studied in the context of synchronization transitions Ahlers , to study MN1 type of transitions. Initially the wall is located at $`h_w=0`$ and a grooved interface is placed beneath it, i.e. the interface has negative height at all the positions.

The dynamics proceeds as follows: At each time step, a site is randomly picked from a one-dimensional lattice of length $`L`$ and its height decreased two units, $`h(i)h(i)2`$, provided that $`h(i)>h(i+1)`$ and $`h(i)>h(i1)`$, i.e. provided that it is a local maximum. Should the the RSOS constraint be violated, the trial is discarded and repeated. Every $`2(L1)/[12\delta v(1L^1)]`$ steps the wall retreats one unit and, simultaneously, the interface is moved downwards by two units wherever it lies above the wall Ahlers . The difference between the wall and interface velocities, $`\delta v`$, acts as the control parameter: if $`\delta v`$ is negative, the interface eventually depins from the wall, while for $`\delta v>0`$ it remains pinned). It can be easily shown, using random walk arguments that for the chosen wall velocity the system seats at its critical point. By varying it, we have a control parameter. The possibility of computing analytically the critical point largely simplifies the numerical analysis, and makes of this an efficient discrete model.

The quantities monitored are $`\mathrm{exp}(h_wh)`$ and $`h_wh`$. We have measured the exponents $`\beta _n`$ and $`\theta _n`$ for a system of $`L=2^{20}`$ sites. Our results lead to $`\beta _n=0.325(5)`$ and $`\theta _n=0.215(5)`$, in excellent agreement with those of model 1 (Figure (4)). Once more, assuming $`\nu _{}=1`$, we get $`z1.51`$ in good agreement with the scaling laws. In addition, we have also measured the spreading exponent, $`\eta `$, that characterizes the number of pinned sites. It is computed averaging over all the runs and starting with an initial condition with a single point attached to the wall. Our best estimate is $`\eta =0.80(2)`$ (Figure (5)). Measuring the surviving probability, and therefore the exponents $`\delta `$ and $`\zeta ^{}`$, is a delicate technical point because it is hard to decide when the activity of a run has ceased. We have not tackled this problem here. Lastly, we obtain $`\theta _h=0.34(5)`$, which is again in good agreement with the value reported for our Model 1.

We have also considered different variations of the model in which the interface can penetrate the wall at some points, i.e. the wall is not perfectly rigid. None of the universal features seem to be affected by this change.

In conclusion, all these results support strongly the existence of robust universality in the MN2 class.

As a matter of consistency, we have modified the algorithm of the model to simulate a lower wall, and therefore a case expected to be in the MN1 class. We obtain the set of exponents $`\beta _n=1.69,\theta _n=1.19`$ and $`\eta =0.4`$, all of them in agreement we previously reported results and showing that the upper and lower problem belong to different universality classes Review ; MN2 ; MN4 .

### V.3 Numeric integration of stochastic differential equations

As a further test for universality, we have numerically integrated Eq. (1) using a Milshtein’s algorithm Maxi . A system size of $`L=2000`$ was considered and the time step and mesh size were set to $`\mathrm{\Delta }t=0.001`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }x=1`$, respectively. For simulation times up to $`t=10^6`$ ($`10^9`$ trials per site) our results lie far from the asymptotic regime. We do not discard numerical instabilities in the integration scheme, as it is known that results from numerical integrations may not agree with the predictions from the continuum KPZ KPZproblem . The Cole-Hopf transform is a standard way to account numerically for the integration of bounded KPZ equations and, indeed, Langevin equations with MN are by far more stable than their interface-language KPZ-like counterparts MN2 ; MN4 . Nevertheless, we have also found numerical problems when integrating (2), either when the extra term is written in logarithmic form or averaging for smoothing the gradient. All numerical attempts are unstable nearby the absorbing state, owing to the presence of the extra singular term. We leave, therefore, the numerical integration of a continuous Langevin equation, representative of the MN2 class as an open, challenging problem.

## VI Discussion

We have characterized the MN2 universality class, or analogously its bounded KPZ counterpart, which, as commented above, accommodates different physical phenomena. We have studied it from, somehow deceptive mean-field and field theoretical approaches, as well as by numerical studies. None of the analytical methods provides a satisfactory description of the phase transition present in this class. On the other hand, Monte Carlo simulations of two different discrete interface models, argued to belong to this universality class, give a firm evidence for the existence of a robust universality class. Contrarily to what previous simulations seemed to indicate MN3 , our results are not a simple extension of the ones obtained for one-site, implying that spatial correlations play an important role. Table 1 gathers the values of the critical exponents in terms of $`n`$ for the two discrete models considered in this paper. From the Monte Carlo estimates, it cannot be discarded that they adopt the rational values $`\beta _n=1/3`$ and $`\theta _n=2/9`$, which combined with the exact values derived in MN1 ; MN2 , $`\nu _{}=1`$ and $`z=3/2`$, would lead to $`\beta _n/\nu _{}=1/3`$. Note that our results do not compare well with those of the nonequilibrium wetting model reported in Haye2 . We believe this is probably due to the extremely long transients known to be present in that model. We have verified that the transition point is located at the same value of the control parameter for any value of the “attractiveness” parameter ($`b`$ in Model 1), either representing an attractive or a non attractive wall. For strong enough attractive walls, i.e. $`b`$ sufficiently negative, the transition becomes first order as in Haye2 , while if the wall is weakly attractive then it remains in the MN2 class.

The problem of reaching a satisfactory analytical understanding, and even that of obtaining sound results from numerical integrations of the continuous Langevin-equation (in either the interface or the density language) representative of this class remains an open challenge.

Summing up, even though strong evidence is provided confirming the existence of a universality class (i.e.  the corresponding critical exponents are computed with good precision in one dimension and they are universal in two different discrete models), its theoretical description in terms of Langevin equations, contrarily to what happens for the closely related MN1 class, is far from satisfactory. In particular, the Langevin equation does not seem to admit sound mean-field solutions, nor is amenable to be treated by means of standard perturbative field theoretical tools, nor it admits a stable numerical integration. Identifying the physical causes at the root of these difficulties is a challenge for future research.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

F.S. acknowledges financial support from the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, contract SFRH/BPD/5654/2001. Financial support from the Spanish MCyT (FEDER) under project BFM2001-2841, and from the AECI, are also acknowledged.