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# Knots, von Neumann Signatures, and Grope CobordismPartially supported by an NSF-grant and the Max-Planck Gesellschaft.

## 1. Introduction

A lot of fascinating mathematics has been created when successful tools are transferred from one research area to another. We shall describe two instances of such transfers, both into knot theory. The first transfer realizes commutator calculus of group theory by embedded versions in 3- and 4-space, and produces many interesting geometric equivalence relations on knots, called grope cobordism in 3-space and grope concordance in 4-space. It turns out that in 3-space these new equivalence relations give a geometric interpretation (Theorem 2) of Vassiliev’s finite type invariants  and that the Kontsevich integral  calculates the new theory over $``$ (Theorem 3).

In 4-space the new equivalence relations factor naturally through knot concordance, and in fact they organize all known concordance invariants in a wonderful manner (Theorem 5). They also point the way to new concordance invariants (Theorem 6) and these are constructed using a second transfer, from the spectral theory of self-adjoint operators and von Neumann’s continuous dimension .

### 1.1. A geometric interpretation of group commutators

To explain the first transfer into knot theory, recall that every knot bounds a Seifert surface (embedded in 3-space), but only the trivial knot bounds an embedded disk. Thus all of knot theory is created by the difference between a surface and a disk. The new idea is to filter this difference by introducing a concept into knot theory which is the analogue of iterated commutators in group theory. Commutators arise because a continuous map $`\varphi :S^1X`$ extends to a map of a surface if and only if $`\varphi `$ represents a commutator in the fundamental group $`\pi _1X`$. Iterated commutators can similarly be expressed by gluing together several surfaces. Namely, there are certain finite 2-complexes (built out of iterated surface stages) called gropes by Cannon , with the following defining property: $`\varphi :S^1X`$ represents an element in the $`k`$-th term of the lower central series of $`\pi _1X`$ if and only if it extends to a continuous map of a grope of class $`k`$. Similarly, there are symmetric gropes which geometrically implement the derived series of $`\pi _1X`$, see Figures 1 and 2

Gropes, therefore, are not quite manifolds but the singularities that arise are of a very simple type, so that these 2-complexes are in some sense the next easiest thing after surfaces. Two sentences on the history of the use of gropes in mathematics are in place, compare \[11, Sec.2.11\]. Their inventor Stan’ko worked in high-dimensional topology, and so did Edwards and Cannon who developed gropes further. Bob Edwards suggested their relevance for topological 4-manifolds, where they were used extensively, see  or . It is this application that seems to have created a certain ”Angst“ of studying gropes, so we should point out that the only really difficult part in that application is the use of infinite constructions, i.e. when the class of the grope goes to infinity.

One purpose of this note is to convince the reader that (finite) gropes are a very simple, and extremely powerful tool in low-dimensional topology. The point is that once one can describe iterated commutators in $`\pi _1X`$ by maps of gropes, one might as well study embedded gropes in 3-space (respectively 4-space) in order to organize knots up to isotopy (respectively up to concordance). In Section 2. we shall explain joint work with Jim Conant on how gropes embedded in 3-space lead to a geometric interpretation of Vassiliev’s knot invariants  and of the Kontsevich integral .

### 1.2. von Neumann signatures and knot concordance

In Section 3. we study symmetric gropes embedded in 4-space, and explain how they lead to a geometric framework for all known knot concordance invariants and beyond. More precisely, we explain our joint work with Tim Cochran and Kent Orr , where we define new concordance invariants by inductively constructing representations into certain solvable groups $`G`$, and associating a hermitian form over the group ring $`G`$ to the knot $`K`$, which is derived from the intersection form of a certain $`4`$-manifold with fundamental group $`G`$ and whose boundary is obtained by $`0`$-surgery on $`K`$. This intersection form represents an element in the Cappell-Shaneson $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$-group  of $`G`$ and we detect it via the second transfer from a different area of mathematics: The standard way to detect elements in Witt groups like the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$-group above is to construct unitary representations of $`G`$, and then consider the corresponding (twisted) signature of the resulting hermitian form over $``$. It turns out that the solvable groups $`G`$ we construct do not have any interesting finite dimensional representations, basically because they are “too big” (e.g. not finitely generated), a property that is intrinsic to the groups $`G`$ in question because they are “universal solvable” in the sense that many $`4`$-manifold groups (with the right boundary) must map to $`G`$, extending the given map of the knot group.

However, every group $`G`$ has a fundamental unitary representation given by $`\mathrm{}^2G`$, the Hilbert space of square summable sequences of group elements with complex coefficients. The resulting (weak) completion of $`G`$ is the group von Neumann algebra $`𝒩G`$. It is of type $`II_1`$ because the map $`a_gga_1`$ extends from $`G`$ to give a finite faithful trace on $`𝒩G`$.

The punchline is that hermitian forms over the completion $`𝒩G`$ are much easier to understand than over $`G`$ because they are diagonalizable (by functional calculus of self-adjoint operators). Here one really uses the von Neumann algebra, rather than the $`C^{}`$-algebra completion of $`G`$ because the functional calculus must be applied to the characteristic functions of the positive (respectively negative) real numbers, which are bounded but not continuous.

The subspace on which the hermitian form is positive (respectively negative) definite has a continuous dimension, which is the positive real number given by the trace of the projection onto that subspace. As a consequence, one can associate to every hermitian form over $`𝒩G`$ a real valued invariant, the von Neumann signature. In  we use this invariant to construct our new knot concordance invariants, and a survey of this work can be found in Section 3. It is not only related to embedded gropes in 4-space but also to the existence of towers of Whitney disks in 4-space. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to explain this aspect of the theory, but see \[6, Thm.8.12\].

### 1.3. Noncommutative Alexander modules

In Section 3. we shall hint at how the interesting representations to our solvable groups are obtained. But it is well worth pointing out that the methods developed for studying knot concordance have much simpler counterparts in 3-space, i.e. if one is only interested in isotopy invariants.

A typical list of knot invariants that might find its way into a text book or survey talk on classical knot theory, would contain the Alexander polynomial, (twisted) signatures, (twisted) Arf invariants, and maybe knot determinants. It turns out that all of these invariants can be computed from the homology of the infinite cyclic covering of the knot complement, and are in this sense “commutative” invariants.

Instead of the maximal abelian quotient one can use other solvable quotient groups of the knot group to obtain “noncommutative” knot invariants. The canonical candidates are the quotient groups $`G_n`$ of the derived series $`G^{(n)}`$ of the knot group (compare Section 3. for the definition). One can thus define the higher order Alexander modules of a knot $`K`$ to be the $`G_{n+1}`$-modules

$$𝒜_n(K):=H_1(S^3K;G_{n+1}).$$

The indexing is chosen so that $`𝒜_0`$ is the classical Alexander module. For $`n1`$ these modules are best studied by introducing further algebraic tools as follows. By a result of Strebel the groups $`G_n`$ are torsionfree. Therefore, the group ring $`G_n`$ satisfies the Ore condition and has a well defined (skew) quotient field. This field is in fact the quotient field of a (skew) polynomial ring $`𝕂_n[t^{\pm 1}]`$, with $`𝕂_n`$ the quotient field of $`[G^{(1)}/G^{(n)}]`$ and $`G_1=t`$. Thus one is exactly in the context of \[6, Sec.2\] and one can define explicit noncommutative isotopy invariants of knots. For example, let $`d_n(K)`$ be the dimension (over the field $`𝕂_{n+1}`$) of the rational Alexander module

$$𝒜_n(K)_{G_{n+1}}𝕂_{n+1}[t^{\pm 1}].$$

It is shown in \[6, Prop.2.11\] that these dimensions are finite with the degree of the usual Alexander polynomial being $`d_0(K)`$. Moreover, Cochran  has proven the following non-triviality result for these dimensions.

###### Theorem

If $`K`$ is a nontrivial knot then for $`n1`$ one has

$$d_0(K)d_1(K)+1d_2(K)+1\mathrm{}d_n(K)+12\text{genus of }K.$$

Moreover, there are examples where these numbers are strictly increasing up to any given $`n`$.

###### Corollary

If one of the inequalities in the above theorem is strict then $`K`$ is not fibered. Furthermore, $`0`$-surgery on $`K`$ cross the circle is not a symplectic 4-manifold.

The first statement is clear: For fibered knots the degree of the Alexander polynomial $`d_0(K)`$ equals twice the genus of the knot $`K`$. The second statement follows from a result of Kronheimer  who showed that this equality also holds if the above $`4`$-manifold is symplectic.

Recently, Harvey  has studied similar invariants for arbitrary $`3`$-manifolds and has proven generalizations of the above results: There are lower bounds for the Thurston norm of a homology class, analogous to $`d_i(K)`$, that are better than McMullen’s lower bound, which is the analogy of $`d_0(K)`$. As a consequence, she gets new algebraic obstructions to a $`4`$-manifold of the form $`M^3\times S^1`$ admitting a symplectic structure.

Just like in the classical case $`n=0`$, there is more structure on the rational Alexander modules. By \[6, Thm.2.13\] there are higher order Blanchfield forms which are hermitian and non-singular in an appropriate sense, compare \[5, Prop.12.2\]. It would be very interesting to know whether the $`n`$-th order Blanchfield form determines the von Neumann $`\eta `$-invariant associated to the $`G_{n+1}`$-cover. So far, these $`\eta `$-invariants are very mysterious real numbers canonically associated to a knot.

Only in the bottom case $`n=0`$ do we understand this $`\eta `$-invariant well: The $`L^2`$-index theorem implies that the von Neumann $`\eta `$-invariant corresponding to the $``$-cover is the von Neumann signature of a certain $`4`$-manifold with fundamental group $``$. Moreover, this signature is the integral, over the circle, of all (Levine-Tristram) twisted signatures of the knot \[7, Prop.5.1\] (and is thus a concordance invariant). For $`n1`$ there is in general no such $`4`$-manifold available and the corresponding $`\eta `$-invariants are not concordance invariants.

## 2. Grope cobordism in 3-space

We first give a more precise treatment of the first transfer from group theory to knot theory hinted at in the introduction. Recall that the fundamental group consists of continuous maps of the circle $`S^1`$ into some target space $`X`$, modulo homotopy (i.e. $`1`$-parameter families of continuous maps). Quite analogously, classical knot theory studies smooth embeddings of a circle into $`S^3`$, modulo isotopy (i.e. $`1`$-parameter families of embeddings). To explain the transfer, we recall that a continuous map $`\varphi :S^1X`$ represents the trivial element in the fundamental group $`\pi _1X`$ if and only if it extends to a map of the disk, $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }:D^2X`$. Moreover, $`\varphi `$ represents a commutator in $`\pi _1X`$ if and only if it extends to a map of a surface (i.e. of a compact oriented 2-manifold with boundary $`S^1`$). The first statement has a straightforward analogy in knot theory: $`K:S^1S^3`$ is trivial if and only if it extends to an embedding of the disk into $`S^3`$. However, every knot “is a commutator” in the sense that it bounds a Seifert surface, i.e. an embedded surface in $`S^3`$.

Recall from the introduction that gropes are finite 2-complexes defined by the following property: $`\varphi :S^1X`$ represents an element in the $`k`$-th term $`\pi _1X_k`$ of the lower central series of $`\pi _1X`$ if and only if it extends to a continuous map of a grope of class $`k`$. Here $`G_k`$ is defined inductively for a group $`G`$ by the iterated commutators

$$G_2:=[G,G]\text{ and }G_k:=[G,G_{k1}]\text{ for }k>2.$$

Accordingly, a grope of class 2 is just a surface, and one can obtain a grope of class $`k`$ by attaching gropes of class $`(k1)`$ to $`g`$ disjointly embedded curves in the bottom surface. Here $`g`$ is the genus of the bottom surface and the curves are assumed to span one half of its homology. This gives gropes of class $`k`$ with one boundary circle as on the left of Figure 1 It’s not the most general way to get gropes because of re-bracketing issues, and we refer to \[9, Sec.2.1\] for details. The boundary of a grope is by definition just the boundary of the bottom surface, compare Figure 1

###### Definition 1

Two (smooth oriented) knots in $`S^3`$ are grope cobordant of class $`k`$, if there is an embedded grope of class $`k`$ in $`S^3`$ (the grope cobordism) such that its boundary consists exactly of the given knots.

An embedding of a grope is best defined via the obvious $`3`$-dimensional local model. Since every grope has a 1-dimensional spine, embedded gropes can then be isotoped into the neighborhood of a 1-complex. As a consequence, embedded gropes abound in 3-space! It is important to point out that if two knots $`K_i`$ cobounds a grope then $`K_1`$ and $`K_2`$ might very well be linked in a nontrivial way. Thus it is a much stronger condition on $`K`$ to assume that it is the boundary of an embedded grope than to say that it cobounds a grope with the unknot. For example, if $`K`$ bounds an embedded grope of class $`3`$ in $`S^3`$ then the Alexander polynomial vanishes. Together with Stavros Garoufalidis, we recently showed  that the 2-loop term of the Kontsevich integral detects many counterexamples to the converse of this statement.

In joint work with Jim Conant , we show that grope cobordism defines equivalence relations on knots, one for every class $`k`$. Moreover, Theorem 2 below implies that the resulting quotients are in fact finitely generated abelian groups (under the connected sum operation). For the smallest values $`k=2,3,4`$ and 5, these groups are isomorphic to

$$\{0\},/2,\text{ and }\times /2$$

and they are detected by the first two Vassiliev invariants \[10, Thm.4.2\].

The following theorem is formulated in terms of clasper surgery which was introduced independently by Habiro  and Goussarov , as a geometric answer to finite type invariants a lá Vassiliev . We cannot explain the definitions here but see \[9, Thm.1 and 3\]. We should say that the notion of a capped grope is well known in 4 dimensions, see \[11, Sec.2\]. In our context, it means that all circles at the “tips” of the grope bound disjointly embedded disks in 3-space which are only allowed to intersect the bottom surface of the grope.

###### Theorem 2

Two knots $`K_0`$ and $`K_1`$ are grope cobordant of class $`k`$ if and only if $`K_1`$ can be obtained from $`K_0`$ by a finite sequence of clasper surgeries of grope degree $`k`$ (as defined below).

Moreover, two knots are capped grope cobordant of class $`k`$ if and only if they have the same finite type invariants of Vassiliev degree $`<k`$.

As a consequence of this result, the invariants associated to grope cobordism are highly nontrivial as well as manageable. For example, we prove the following result in \[10, Thm.1.1\]:

###### Theorem 3

The (logarithm of the) Kontsevich integral (with values in $`_{<k}^g`$), graded by the new grope degree $`k`$, is an obstruction to finding a grope cobordism of class $`k`$ between two knots. Moreover, this invariant is rationally faithful and surjective.

Here $`_{<k}^g`$ is one of the usual algebras of Feynman diagrams known from the theory of finite type invariants, but graded by the grope degree. More precisely, $`_{<k}^g`$ is the $``$-vector space generated by connected uni-trivalent graphs of grope degree $`i,1<i<k`$, with at least one univalent vertex and a cyclic ordering at each trivalent vertex. The relations are the usual IHX and AS relations. The grope degree is the Vassiliev degree (i.e. half the number of vertices) plus the first Betti number of the graph. Observe that both relations preserve this new degree.

Read backwards, our results give an interpretation of the Kontsevich integral in terms of the geometrically defined equivalence relations of grope cobordism.

## 3. Grope concordance

We now turn to the 4-dimensional aspects of the theory. It may look like the end of the story to realize that any knot with trivial Arf invariant bounds a grope of arbitrary big class embedded in $`D^4`$, \[10, Prop.3.8\]. However, group theory has more to offer than the lower central series. Recall that the derived series of a group $`G`$ is defined inductively by the iterated commutators

$$G^{(1)}:=[G,G]\text{ and }G^{(h)}:=[G^{(h1)},G^{(h1)}]\text{ for }h>1.$$

Accordingly, we may define symmetric gropes with their complexity now measured by height, satisfying the following defining property: A continuous map $`\varphi :S^1X`$ represents an element in $`\pi _1X^{(h)}`$ if and only if it extends to a continuous map of a symmetric grope of height $`h`$. Thus a symmetric grope of height 1 is just a surface, and a symmetric grope of height $`h`$ is obtained from a bottom surface by attaching symmetric gropes of height $`(h1)`$ to a full symplectic basis of curves. This defines symmetric gropes of height $`h`$ with one boundary circle as in Figure 2

Note that a symmetric grope of height $`h`$ is also a grope of class $`2^h`$, just like in group theory. But conversely, not every grope is symmetric. It should also be clear from Figure 2 how one defines symmetric gropes with half-integer height (even though there is no group theoretic analogue).

In the following definition we attempt to distinguish the terms “cobordant” and “concordant” in the sense that the latter refers to 4 dimensions, whereas the former was used in dimension 3, see Definition 1. Historically, these terms were used interchangeably, but we hope not to create any confusion with our new distinction.

###### Definition 4

Two oriented knots in $`S^3`$ are grope concordant of height $`h\frac{1}{2}`$, if there is an embedded symmetric grope of height $`h`$ in $`S^3\times [0,1]`$ such that its boundary consists exactly of the given knots $`K_i:S^1S^3\times \{i\}`$.

Observe that since an annulus is a symmetric grope of arbitrary height we indeed get a filtration of the knot concordance group. This group is defined by identifying two knots which cobound an embedded annulus in $`S^3\times [0,1]`$, where there are two theories depending on whether the embedding is smooth or just topological (and locally flat). For grope concordance the smaller topological knot concordance group is the more natural setting: a locally flat topological embedding of a grope (defined by the obvious local model at the singular points) can be perturbed to become smooth. This perturbation might introduce many self-intersection points in the surface stages of the grope. However, these new singularities are arbitrarily small and thus they can be removed at the expense of increasing the genus of the surface stage in question but without changing the height of the grope.

In joint work with Tim Cochran and Kent Orr , we showed that all known knot concordance invariants fit beautifully into the scheme of grope concordance! In particular, all known invariants turned out to already be invariants of grope concordance of height $`3.5`$:

###### Theorem 5

Consider two knots $`K_i`$ in $`S^3`$. Then

1. $`K_i`$ have the same Arf invariant if and only if they are grope concordant of height $`1.5`$ (or class 3).
2. $`K_i`$ are algebraically concordant in the sense of Levine  (i.e. all twisted signatures and twisted Arf invariants agree) if and only if they are grope concordant of height $`2.5`$.
3. If $`K_i`$ are grope concordant of height $`3.5`$ then they have the same Casson-Gordon invariants .

The third statement includes the generalizations of Casson-Gordon invariants by Gilmer, Kirk-Livingston, and Letsche. In  we prove an even stronger version of the third part of Theorem 5. Namely, we give a weaker condition for a knot $`K`$ to have vanishing Casson-Gordon invariants: it suffices that $`K`$ is $`(1.5)`$-solvable. All the obstruction theory in  is based on the definition of $`(h)`$-solvable knots, $`h\frac{1}{2}`$, which we shall not give here. Suffice it to say that this definition is closer to the algebraic topology of $`4`$-manifolds than grope concordance. In \[6, Thm.8.11\] we show that a knot which bounds an embedded grope of height $`(h+2)`$ in $`D^4`$ is $`(h)`$-solvable.

It should come as no surprise that the invariants which detect grope concordance have to do with solvable quotients of the knot group. In fact, the above invariants are all obtained by studying the Witt class of the intersection form of a certain $`4`$-manifold $`M^4`$ whose boundary is obtained by $`0`$-surgery on the knot. The different cases are distinguished by the fundamental group $`\pi _1M`$, namely

1. $`\pi _1M`$ is trivial for the Arf invariant,
2. $`\pi _1M`$ is infinite cyclic for algebraic concordance, and
3. $`\pi _1M`$ is a dihedral group for Casson-Gordon invariants.

So the previously known concordance invariants stopped at solvable groups which are extensions of abelian by abelian groups. To proceed further in the understanding of grope (and knot) concordance, one must be able to handle more complicated solvable groups. A program for that purpose was developed in  by giving an elaborate boot strap argument to construct inductively representations of knot groups into certain universal solvable groups. On the way, we introduced Blanchfield duality pairings in solvable covers of the knot complement by using noncommutative localizations of the group rings in question.

The main idea of the boot strap is that a particular choice of “vanishing” of the previous invariant defines the map into the next solvable group (and hence the next invariant). In terms of gropes this can be expressed quite nicely as follows: pick a grope concordance of height $`h`$ and use it to construct a certain $`4`$-manifold whose intersection form gives an obstruction to being able to extend that grope to height $`h.5`$. There is an obvious technical problem in such an approach, already present in : to show that there is no grope concordance of height $`h.5`$, one needs to prove non-triviality of the obstruction for all possible gropes of height $`h`$. One way around this problem is to construct examples where the grope concordances of small height are in some sense unique. This was done successfully in  for the level above Casson-Gordon invariants, and in  we even obtain the following infinite generation result. Let $`𝒢_h`$ be the graded quotient groups of knots, grope concordant of height $`h`$ to the unknot, modulo grope concordance of height $`h.5`$. Then the results of Levine and Casson-Gordon show that $`𝒢_2`$ and $`𝒢_3`$ are not finitely generated.

###### Theorem 6

$`𝒢_4`$ is not finitely generated.

The easiest example of a non-slice knot with vanishing Casson-Gordon invariants is given in \[6, Fig.6.5\]. As explained in the introduction, the last step in the proof of Theorem 6 is to show that the intersection form of the $`4`$-manifold in question is nontrivial in a certain Witt group. Our new tool is the von Neumann signature which has the additional bonus that it takes values in $``$, which is not finitely generated as an abelian group. This fact makes the above result tractable. We cannot review any aspect of the von Neumann signature here, but see \[6, Sec.5\].

Last but not least, it should be mentioned that we now know that for every $`h`$ the groups $`𝒢_h`$ are nontrivial. This work in progress  uses as the main additional input the Cheeger-Gromov estimate for von Neumann $`\eta `$-invariants  in order to get around the technical problem mentioned above. It is very likely that non of the groups $`𝒢_h,h,h2,`$ are finitely generated.


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# Spectrum of 𝒩=1 massive super Yang–Mills theory with fundamental matter in 1+1 dimensions

## I Introduction

At this point there is no direct evidence for supersymmetry. Nevertheless supersymmetry is such a beautiful symmetry and provides such elegant solutions to a host of theoretical problems TPISUSY  that many believe that it must be present in nature. It is a pressing experimental issue to see if nature takes advantage of this elegant option. Of course, we already know that supersymmetry is rather badly broken, since we do not see any superpartners for the particles of the standard model. It is assumed that all of the superpartners are in fact very heavy and that we will see them as we go to higher energies in accelerators. It is therefore extremely interesting to investigate what the properties of supersymmetric bound states might look like. There are indications that some unusual things can happen in a theory with supersymmetry Hiller:2002cu ; Hiller:2002pj .

We present here the solution of an $`𝒩=1`$ super Yang–Mills (SYM) theory with fundamental matter in 1+1 dimensions. We also add a Chern–Simons (CS) term to give the adjoint matter a mass. There are several motivations to look at (1+1)-dimensional models. ’t Hooft thooft  showed long ago that two-dimensional models can be powerful laboratories for the study of the bound-state problem. These models remain popular to this day because they are easy to solve and share many properties with their four-dimensional cousins, most notably stable bound states. Supersymmetric two-dimensional models are particularly attractive, since they are also super-renormalizable. Given that the dynamics of the gauge field is responsible for the strong interaction and for the formation of bound states, it comes as no surprise that a great deal of effort has gone into the investigation of bound states of pure glue in supersymmetric models lpreview ; alp2 . Extensive study of the meson spectrum of non-supersymmetric theories has been done (see bpp98  for a review). Recently an initial study addressed some of these states in the context of supersymmetric models Lunin:2001im . In addition to these reasons for studying (1+1)-dimensional models, we are also interested in investigating them as the first step toward solving (2+1)-dimensional models. A (2+1)-dimensional model can be much more realistic, since it includes some transverse dynamics.

Currently there are several numerical approaches to solving field theories. For QCD-like theories, lattice gauge theory is probably the most popular approach, since the lattice approximation does not break the most important symmetry, gauge symmetry. Similarly for supersymmetric theories, supersymmetric discrete light-cone quantization (SDLCQ) bpp98 ; sakai ; lpreview ; alp98a  is probably the most powerful approach since the discretization does not break the most important symmetry, supersymmetry LatticeSUSY . In this paper we consider supersymmetric theories and follow this latter approach. To simplify the calculation we will consider only the large-$`N_c`$ limit thooft , which has proven to be a powerful approximation for bound-state calculations. While baryons can be constructed in this limit WittBar , they have an infinite number of partons, and thus practical calculations for such states are complicated.

Throughout this paper we use the word “meson” to indicate the group structure of the state. Namely, we define a meson as a bound state whose wave function can be written as a linear combination of parton chains, each chain starting and ending with a creation operator in the fundamental representation. In supersymmetric theories, the states defined this way can have either bosonic or fermionic statistics.

Previously we saw that the lightest bound states in $`𝒩=1`$ supersymmetric theories are very interesting Hiller:2002cu ; Hiller:2002pj . In SYM theories in 1+1 and 2+1 dimensions, the lightest bound states in the spectrum are massless Bogomol’nyi–Prasad–Sommerfield (BPS) bound states lpreview . These states are exactly massless at all couplings. When we add a CS term to the (1+1)-dimensional SYM theory, which gives a mass to the constituents, we find approximate BPS states. The masses of these states are approximately independent of the coupling, and at strong coupling these states are the lightest bound states in the theory Hiller:2002cu . In (2+1)-dimensional SYM-CS theory we also find that at strong coupling there are anomalously light bound states Hiller:2002pj . In both 2+1 and 1+1 dimensions, these interesting states appear because of the exact BPS symmetry in the underlying SYM theory. We have also looked at the lightest bound states of SYM-CS theory with fundamental matter Hiller:2003qe . Again we see that the lightest bound states are significantly lighter than one would have naively expected. We found that the lightest state is nearly massless and well below threshold.

We will see that this model has a number of interesting bound states in addition to the lowest mass state that we studied previously Hiller:2003qe . The bound states separate into two bands, a low-mass band and a high-mass band. Interestingly the low mass permits two solutions for bound states. The preferred solution has an unusual oscillatory convergence. Some of the states in the low-mass band are very light and well below threshold. The upper band has the standard linear convergence. In both bands, some of the states are nearly pure quark-gluon states, and some are nearly pure squark and gluons. Some have structure functions that are very sharply peaked at small longitudinal momentum fractions, and some have several of these properties.

Throughout this paper we completely ignore the zero-mode problem zm5 ; thorn ; however, it is clear that considerable progress on this issue could be made following our earlier work on the zero modes of the two-dimensional supersymmetric model with only adjoint fields alptzm .

The paper has the following organization. In Sec. II.1 we consider three-dimensional supersymmetric QCD (SQCD) with a CS term and dimensionally reduce it to 1+1 dimensions. We perform the light-cone quantization of the resulting theory by applying canonical commutation relations at fixed $`x^+(x^0+x^1)/\sqrt{2}`$ and choosing the light-cone gauge ($`A^+=0`$) for the vector field. After solving the constraint equations, we obtain a model containing four dynamical fields. We construct the supercharge for this dimensionally reduced theory. In Sec. II.2 we discuss the structure of the lighter meson bound states in the large-$`N_c`$ approximation. In Sec. II.3 we discuss the addition of a CS term to the supercharge CSSYM1+1 ; dunne ; witten2 . We explain that, in the context of this model, this is equivalent to adding a mass to the partons in the adjoint representation. In Sec. III we discuss the bound-state solutions that we find, including the mass spectrum, structure functions and the numerical convergence of the various bound states. In Sec. IV we discuss our results and the future directions that are indicated by this research.

## II Supersymmetric systems with fundamental matter

### II.1 Construction of the supercharge

We consider the supersymmetric models in two dimensions which can be obtained as the result of dimensional reduction of SQCD2+1. Our starting point is the three-dimensional action

$`S`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle }d^3x\text{tr}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}F_{\mu \nu }F^{\mu \nu }+{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu D_\mu \mathrm{\Lambda }+D_\mu \xi ^{}D^\mu \xi +i\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}D_\mu \mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu \mathrm{\Psi }`$ (1)
$`g[\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}\mathrm{\Lambda }\xi +\xi ^{}\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\mathrm{\Psi }]).`$
This action describes a system of a gauge field $`A_\mu `$, representing gluons, and its superpartner $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, representing gluinos, both taking values in the adjoint representation of $`SU(N_c)`$, and two complex fields, a scalar $`\xi `$ representing squarks and a Dirac fermion $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ representing quarks, transforming according to the fundamental representation of the same group. In matrix notation the covariant derivatives are given by

$$D_\mu \mathrm{\Lambda }=_\mu \mathrm{\Lambda }+ig[A_\mu ,\mathrm{\Lambda }],D_\mu \xi =_\mu \xi +igA_\mu \xi ,D_\mu \mathrm{\Psi }=_\mu \mathrm{\Psi }+igA_\mu \mathrm{\Psi }.$$
(2)
The action (1) is invariant under the following supersymmetry transformations, which are parameterized by a two-component Majorana fermion $`\epsilon `$:

$`\delta A_\mu ={\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\overline{\epsilon }\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu \mathrm{\Lambda },\delta \mathrm{\Lambda }={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}F_{\mu \nu }\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\mu \nu }\epsilon ,`$
$`\delta \xi ={\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\overline{\epsilon }\mathrm{\Psi },\delta \mathrm{\Psi }={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu \epsilon D_\mu \xi .`$ (3)
Using standard techniques one can construct the Noether current corresponding to these transformations as

$`\overline{\epsilon }q^\mu `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{4}}\overline{\epsilon }\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\alpha \beta }\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu \text{tr}\left(\mathrm{\Lambda }F_{\alpha \beta }\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}D^\mu \xi ^{}\overline{\epsilon }\mathrm{\Psi }+{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\xi ^{}\overline{\epsilon }\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\mu \nu }D_\nu \mathrm{\Psi }`$ (4)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}\epsilon D^\mu \xi +{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}D_\nu \overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\mu \nu }\epsilon \xi .`$
We will consider the reduction of this system to two dimensions, which means that the field configurations are assumed to be independent of the transverse coordinate $`x^2`$. In the resulting two-dimensional system we will implement light-cone quantization, where the initial conditions as well as canonical commutation relations are imposed on a light-like surface $`x^+=\text{const}`$. In particular, we construct the supercharge by integrating the current (4) over the light-like surface to obtain

$`\overline{\epsilon }Q`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle }dx^{}dx^2({\displaystyle \frac{i}{4}}\overline{\epsilon }\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\alpha \beta }\mathrm{\Gamma }^+\text{tr}\left(\mathrm{\Lambda }F_{\alpha \beta }\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}D_{}\xi ^{}\overline{\epsilon }\mathrm{\Psi }+{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\xi ^{}\overline{\epsilon }\mathrm{\Gamma }^{+\nu }D_\nu \mathrm{\Psi }`$ (5)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}\epsilon D^+\xi +{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}D_\nu \overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}\mathrm{\Gamma }^{+\nu }\epsilon \xi ).`$
Since all fields are assumed to be independent of $`x^2`$, the integration over this coordinate gives just a constant factor, which we absorb by a field redefinition.

If we use the following specific representation for the Dirac matrices in three dimensions:

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }^0=\sigma _2,\mathrm{\Gamma }^1=i\sigma _1,\mathrm{\Gamma }^2=i\sigma _3,$$
(6)
the Majorana fermion $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ can be chosen to be real. It is also convenient to write the fermion fields and the supercharge in component form as

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }=(\lambda ,\stackrel{~}{\lambda })^T,\mathrm{\Psi }=(\psi ,\stackrel{~}{\psi })^T,Q=(Q^+,Q^{})^T.$$
(7)
In terms of this decomposition the superalgebra has an explicit $`(1,1)`$ form

$$\{Q^+,Q^+\}=2\sqrt{2}P^+,\{Q^{},Q^{}\}=2\sqrt{2}P^{},\{Q^+,Q^{}\}=0.$$
(8)
The SDLCQ method exploits this superalgebra by constructing $`P^{}`$ from a discrete approximation to $`Q^{}`$ sakai , rather than directly discretizing $`P^{}`$, as is done in ordinary DLCQ bpp98 .

To begin to eliminate nondynamical fields, we impose the light-cone gauge ($`A^+=0`$). Then the supercharges are given by

$`Q^+`$ $`=`$ $`2{\displaystyle 𝑑x^{}\left(\lambda _{}A^2+\frac{i}{2}_{}\xi ^{}\psi \frac{i}{2}\psi ^{}_{}\xi \frac{i}{2}\xi ^{}_{}\psi +\frac{i}{2}_{}\psi ^{}\xi \right)},`$ (9)
$`Q^{}`$ $`=`$ $`2{\displaystyle 𝑑x^{}\left(\lambda _{}A^{}+i\xi ^{}D_2\psi iD_2\psi ^{}\xi +\frac{i}{\sqrt{2}}_{}(\stackrel{~}{\psi }^{}\xi \xi ^{}\stackrel{~}{\psi })\right)}.`$
Note that apart from a total derivative these expressions involve only left-moving components of the fermions ($`\lambda `$ and $`\psi `$). In fact, in the light-cone formulation only these components are dynamical. To see this we consider the equations of motion that follow from the action (1), in light-cone gauge. Three of them serve as constraints rather than as dynamical statements; they are

$`_{}\stackrel{~}{\lambda }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{ig}{\sqrt{2}}}\left([A^2,\lambda ]+i\xi \psi ^{}i\psi \xi ^{}\right),`$ (11)
$`_{}\stackrel{~}{\psi }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{ig}{\sqrt{2}}}A^2\psi +{\displaystyle \frac{g}{\sqrt{2}}}\lambda \xi ,`$ (12)
and

$$_{}^2A^{}=gJ,$$
(13)
with

$$Ji[A^2,_{}A^2]+\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\{\lambda ,\lambda \}ih_{}\xi \xi ^{}+i\xi _{}\xi ^{}+\sqrt{2}\psi \psi ^{}.$$
(14)
Apart from the zero-mode problem zm5 , one can invert the last constraint to write the auxiliary field $`A^{}`$ in terms of physical degrees of freedom.

In order to solve the bound-state problem $`2P^+P^{}|M=M^2|M`$, we apply the methods of SDLCQ. Namely we compactify the two-dimensional theory on a light-like circle ($`L<x^{}<L`$), and impose periodic boundary conditions on all physical fields. This leads to the following mode expansions:

$`A_{ij}^2(0,x^{})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{4\pi }}}{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{k}}}\left(a_{ij}(k)e^{ik\pi x^{}/L}+a_{ji}^{}(k)e^{ik\pi x^{}/L}\right),`$ (15)
$`\lambda _{ij}(0,x^{})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2^{\frac{1}{4}}\sqrt{2L}}}{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\left(b_{ij}(k)e^{ik\pi x^{}/L}+b_{ji}^{}(k)e^{ik\pi x^{}/L}\right),`$ (16)
$`\xi _i(0,x^{})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{4\pi }}}{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{k}}}\left(c_i(k)e^{ik\pi x^{}/L}+\stackrel{~}{c}_i^{}(k)e^{ik\pi x^{}/L}\right),`$ (17)
$`\psi _i(0,x^{})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2^{\frac{1}{4}}\sqrt{2L}}}{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\left(d_i(k)e^{ik\pi x^{}/L}+\stackrel{~}{d}_i^{}(k)e^{ik\pi x^{}/L}\right).`$ (18)
We drop the zero modes of the fields; including them could lead to new and interesting effects (see alptzm , for example), but this is beyond the scope of this work.

In the light-cone formalism one treats $`x^+`$ as the time direction, thus the commutation relations between fields and their momenta are imposed on the surface $`x^+=0`$. For the system under consideration this means that

$`[A_{ij}^2(0,x^{}),_{}A_{kl}^2(0,y^{})]`$ $`=`$ $`i\left(\delta _{il}\delta _{kj}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}\delta _{ij}\delta _{kl}\right)\delta (x^{}y^{}),`$ (19)
$`\{\lambda _{ij}(0,x^{}),\lambda _{kl}(0,y^{})\}`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{2}\left(\delta _{il}\delta _{kj}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}\delta _{ij}\delta _{kl}\right)\delta (x^{}y^{}),`$ (20)
$`[\xi _i(0,x^{}),_{}\xi _j(0,y^{})]`$ $`=`$ $`i\delta _{ij}\delta (x^{}y^{}),`$ (21)
$`\{\psi _i(0,x^{}),\psi _j(0,y^{})\}`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{2}\delta _{ij}\delta (x^{}y^{}).`$ (22)
These relations can be rewritten in terms of creation and annihilation operators as

$$[a_{ij},a_{kl}^{}]=\left(\delta _{il}\delta _{kj}\frac{1}{N}\delta _{ij}\delta _{kl}\right),\{b_{ij},b_{kl}^{}\}=\left(\delta _{il}\delta _{kj}\frac{1}{N}\delta _{ij}\delta _{kl}\right),$$
(23)
$$[c_i,c_j^{}]=\delta _{ij},[\stackrel{~}{c}_i,\stackrel{~}{c}_j^{}]=\delta _{ij},\{d_i,d_j^{}\}=\delta _{ij}\{\stackrel{~}{d}_i,\stackrel{~}{d}_j^{}\}=\delta _{ij}.$$
(24)
In this paper we will discuss numerical results obtained in the large-$`N_c`$ limit, i.e. we neglect $`1/N_c`$ terms in the above expressions. Although $`1/N_c`$ corrections may have interesting consequences, they are beyond the scope of this work.

Substituting the result into the expression for the supercharge and omitting the boundary term, we get

$$Q^{}=Q_s^{}+Q_1^{}+Q_2^{}+Q_3^{}.$$
(25)
where $`Q_s^{}`$ is the supercharge of pure adjoint matter sakai . The three supercharges that govern the behavior of the fundamental matter in these states are

$`Q_1^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g}{\sqrt{2}}}{\displaystyle 𝑑x^{}\left(i\sqrt{2}\xi _{}\xi ^{}i\sqrt{2}_{}\xi \xi ^{}\right)\frac{1}{_{}}\lambda },`$ (26)
$`Q_2^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g}{\sqrt{2}}}{\displaystyle 𝑑x^{}\left(2\psi \psi ^{}\right)\frac{1}{_{}}\lambda },`$ (27)
$`Q_3^{}`$ $`=`$ $`2g{\displaystyle 𝑑x^{}\left(\xi ^{}A^2\psi +\psi ^{}A^2\xi \right)}.`$ (28)
After substituting the expansions (15-18), one gets the mode decomposition of the supercharge,

$$Q_\alpha ^{}=\frac{i2^{1/4}g\sqrt{L}}{\pi }\underset{k_1,k_2,k_3=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}q_\alpha ^{}(k_1,k_2,k_3),$$
(29)
with

$`q_1^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(k_2+k_3)}{2k_1\sqrt{k_2k_3}}}[\stackrel{~}{c}_i^{}(k_2)\stackrel{~}{c}_j(k_3)\stackrel{~}{b}_{ji}(k_1)\stackrel{~}{c}_i^{}(k_2)b_{ij}^{}(k_1)\stackrel{~}{c}_j(k_3)`$ (30)
$`+b_{ji}^{}(k_1)c_i^{}(k_2)c_j(k_3)c_i^{}(k_2)b_{ij}(k_1)c_j(k_3)]\delta _{k_3,k_1+k_2},`$
$`q_2^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{k_1}}[\stackrel{~}{d}_i^{}(k_2)b_{ij}^{}(k_1)\stackrel{~}{d}_j(k_3)+\stackrel{~}{d}_j^{}(k_3)\stackrel{~}{d}_i(k_2)b_{ij}(k_1)+`$ (31)
$`d_i^{}(k_2)b_{ij}^{}(k_1)d_j(k_3)+d_j^{}(k_3)d_i(k_2)b_{ij}(k_1)]\delta _{k_3,k_1+k_2},`$
$`q_3^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2\sqrt{k_2k_3}}}[(d_j^{}(k_1)\stackrel{~}{c}_i(k_3)a_{ij}(k_2)+\stackrel{~}{c}_i^{}(k_3)a_{ij}^{}(k_2)d_j(k_1)+`$ (32)
$`(\stackrel{~}{d}_i^{}(k_1)a_{ij}(k_2)c_j(k_3)+a_{ij}^{}(k_2)c_j^{}(k_3)\stackrel{~}{d}_i(k_1))\delta _{k_1,k_3+k_2}`$
$`(\stackrel{~}{c}_j^{}(k_3)d_i(k_1)a_{ij}(k_2)+d_i^{}(k_1)a_{ij}^{}(k_2)\stackrel{~}{c}_j(k_3)+`$
$`(c_i^{}(k_3)a_{ij}(k_2)\stackrel{~}{d}_j(k_1)+a_{ij}^{}(k_2)\stackrel{~}{d}_j^{}(k_1)c_i(k_3))\delta _{k_3,k_1+k_2}].`$
We have dropped from these expression the terms that connect the states that are closed loops of adjoint partons to the string-like meson states. These interactions are of order $`1/\sqrt{N_c}`$ and can be neglected in the large-$`N_c`$ approximation.

### II.2 Meson structure

We will consider here only meson-like states. In the large-$`N_c`$ approximation these are color-singlet states with exactly two partons in the fundamental representation. The boson bound states will have either two bosons or two fermions in the fundamental representation. In general a boson bound state will have a combination of these types of contributions. Because this theory and the numerical formalism are exactly supersymmetric, for each boson bound state there will be a degenerate bound state that is a fermion. The fermion bound state will have one fermion in the fundamental representation and one boson in the fundamental representation. In the string interpretation of these theories, such states would correspond to open strings with freely moving endpoints. In the language of QCD, the model corresponds to a system of interacting gluons and gluinos which bind dynamical (s)quarks and anti-(s)quarks. In the large-$`N_c`$ limit we will have to consider only a single (s)quark–anti-(s)quark pair. Thus the Fock space is constructed from states of the following type:

$$\overline{f}_{i_1}^{}(k_1)a_{i_1i_2}^{}(k_2)\mathrm{}b_{i_ni_{n+1}}^{}(k_{n1})\mathrm{}f_{i_p}^{}(k_n)|0.$$
(33)
Here $`\overline{f}_i^{}`$ and $`f_i^{}`$ each create one of the fundamental partons, and $`|0`$ is the vacuum annihilated by $`a_{ij}`$, $`b_{ij}`$, $`c_i`$, $`\stackrel{~}{c}_i`$, $`d_i`$, and $`\stackrel{~}{d}_i`$.

The other color-singlet bound states in this theory are states that are composed of traces of only adjoint mesons. These can be considered to be loops. At finite $`N_c`$ this theory has interactions that break these loops and insert a pair of fundamental partons, making an open-string state. This type of interaction can, of course, also form loops from open strings and break one open string into two open strings. In principle, a calculation of the spectrum of such a finite-$`N_c`$ theory is within the reach of SDLCQ. The only significant change is to include states in the basis with more than one color trace.

### II.3 Supersymmetric Chern–Simons theory

The CS term we use in this calculation is obtained by starting with a CS term in 2+1 dimensions and reducing it to 1+1 dimensions. This term has the effect of adding a mass for the adjoint partons. In this calculation we are including fundamental matter because we are interested in QCD-like meson bound states. Without a mass for the adjoint matter, this theory is known to produce very long light chains of adjoint partons. In a finite-$`N_c`$ calculation we would not have these very long chains because they would break, but in the large-$`N_c`$ approximation they do not. While SDLCQ can be used to do finite-$`N_c`$ calculations, it is much easier to add a mass to restrict the number of adjoint partons in our bound states. We choose the CS mechanism to give the adjoint partons a mass because we can do this without breaking the supersymmetry.

The Lagrangian of this theory is

$$=_{\mathrm{SQCD}}+\frac{\kappa }{2}_{\mathrm{CS}},$$
(34)
where $`_{\mathrm{SQCD}}`$ is the SQCD Lagrangian we discussed earlier, $`\kappa `$ is the CS coupling, and

$$_{\mathrm{CS}}=ϵ^{\mu \nu \lambda }\left(A_\mu _\nu A_\lambda +\frac{2i}{3}gA_\mu A_\nu A_\lambda \right)+2\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}\mathrm{\Psi }.$$
(35)
A trace of the color matrices is understood. The constraint equation (12) gains a third term of the form $`\kappa \lambda /\sqrt{2}`$ on the right-hand side, and the definition of the current in (14) now has an additional term, $`\kappa _{}A^2`$. The discrete version of the CS part of the supercharge in 1+1 dimensions is

$$Q_{CS}^{}=\left(\frac{2^{1/4}\sqrt{L}}{\sqrt{\pi }}\right)\underset{n}{}\frac{\kappa }{\sqrt{n}}\left(a_{ij}^{}(n)b_{ij}(n)+b_{ij}^{}(n)a_{ij}(n)\right).$$
(36)
It is informative to compare $`Q_{\mathrm{CS}}^{}`$ with the one term in the supercharge for $`𝒩=1`$ SYM in 2+1 dimensions hpt2001  which has an explicit dependence on the transverse momentum $`k_{}`$. This $`k_{}`$-dependent term has the form

$$Q_{}^{}=i\left(\frac{2^{1/4}\sqrt{L}}{\sqrt{\pi }}\right)\underset{n,n_{}}{}\frac{k_{}}{\sqrt{n}}\left(a_{ij}^{}(n,n_{})b_{ij}(n,n_{})b_{ij}^{}(n,n_{})a_{ij}(n,n_{})\right),$$
(37)
where $`k_{}=2\pi n_{}/L_{}`$ is the discrete transverse momentum. Notice that $`k_{}`$ and $`\kappa `$ enter the supercharge in very similar ways. Addition of a CS term has the effect of changing $`k_{}`$ to $`k_{}+i\kappa `$. Because the light-cone energy is of the form $`(k_{}^2+m^2)/k^+`$, $`k_{}`$ behaves like a mass, and therefore $`\kappa `$ also behaves in many ways like a mass for the adjoint particles.

The partons in the fundamental representation in this theory will remain massless. Of course, in a more physical theory the supersymmetry would be badly broken; the squark would acquire a large mass, and only the quarks would remain nearly massless.

## III Numerical results

This SYM-CS theory with fundamental matter has two dimensionful parameters with dimension of a mass squared, the YM coupling squared $`g^2N_c/\pi `$ and the CS coupling squared $`\kappa ^2`$. The latter is also the mass squared of the partons in the adjoint representation. All of the masses in this paper will be given in units of $`g\sqrt{N_c/\pi }`$, which will usually be suppressed. Furthermore, we are only considering meson bound states. These are states of the form shown in Eq. (33) with two fundamental partons linked by partons in the adjoint representation. Since we are working in the large-$`N_c`$ approximation, this class of states is disconnected from the other allowed class of pure adjoint matter bound states and multiparticle states. This theory also has a $`Z_2`$ symmetry kutasov93  which is very useful in labeling the states and reducing the dimension of the Fock basis that one has to consider in any one diagonalization step. For this theory the $`Z_2`$ symmetry divides the basis into states with an even or odd number of gluons.

### III.1 Spectra

We find that the spectra of meson bound states, for both odd and even $`Z_2`$ symmetry, divides into two bands of states as we increase $`\kappa `$, a light-mass band and a heavy-mass band, as can be seen in Fig. 1(a). As $`\kappa `$ grows, a gap develops in the spectrum. This mass gap reflects in part the number of massive adjoint partons in the bound states. At very large $`\kappa `$, the low-mass band will comprise states with only fundamental partons. We will look at the bound states in both bands and consider various values of $`\kappa `$ relative to $`g\sqrt{N_c/\pi }`$. In Fig. 1(b) we see that at $`\kappa =1`$ this gap grows with the coupling. The lowest mass state remains very light even for values of $`g\sqrt{N_c/\pi }`$ up to 2. As far as we can tell, this state remains very light even at very large couplings.

In Fig. 2(a) and (b) we show the spectrum in the $`Z_2`$-even sector, with $`g\sqrt{N_c/\pi }=1`$, as a function of resolution at $`\kappa =`$0 and 1, respectively. We see that at large resolution with $`\kappa =0`$ the two bands merge. It is unclear from this figure whether the states in the lower band mix with the states in the upper band in the region where their masses overlap. An inspection of adjacent states seems to show that these states remain on smooth trajectories and do not repel, as one would expect if they were interacting. This seems to indicate that separate analysis of these two sets of states is possible. For the most part, however, we will look at the situation where $`\kappa =1`$, as shown in Fig. 2(b). In this case the two bands are well separated even at the highest accessible resolution, and, therefore, there is not a problem considering the two bands separately.

Let us first consider the bound states in the lower band. To understand the physics underlying these bound states we will look at both the spectrum and the structure functions of individual states. In this theory we have four species of partons: adjoint fermions and bosons, and fundamental fermions and bosons. Therefore, we will look at four structure functions that give the probability of finding a particular variety of parton at a particular value of longitudinal momentum fraction in a particular bound state. We need all of this information about each bound state to properly analyze this theory.

Although the procedure that we follow for identifying bound states is the standard one in DLCQ, it is worthwhile to give a brief description of that procedure here because of the unusual nature of the lower band. To identify a bound state, we start at the lowest value of the resolution $`K`$, usually $`K=3`$, and select a particular eigenvalue, usually the lowest nonzero one. We then look at the properties of this state, which we always calculate along with the mass. In principle, we can look at the entire wave function, but for higher resolution there is more data than we can efficiently handle. It is efficient to look at the average number of partons of the various types and sometimes the average momentum of some of these partons. We then move to the next higher resolution and try to identify an eigenstate that has the same or very similar properties to the state at lower resolution. We continue this through all the resolutions. This then gives us the mass squared of a particular bound state and the various properties of the state as functions of the resolution. If this history of a state as a function of the resolution makes sense, and can be extrapolated to infinite resolution, we say we have found a bound state. We then repeat the process to obtain another bound state. For the oscillatory states presented below, we actually started with the lightest state at the highest resolution and then followed the states down to low resolution. We then repeated the process with the next highest states at the highest resolution.

The lower band of this model is unique relative to all other models we have studied in SDLCQ or DLCQ. We find that there are two different ways of carrying out the above procedure to find the states in the lower band. We can follow the eigenvalues from resolution to resolution in two ways. As a result we end up with two sets of bound states, all of whose properties are very smoothly behaved as functions of the resolution. Two such states and their properties are shown in Tables 1 and 2. The masses in Table 1 are very small. We have discussed the lowest mass state in this spectrum in detail elsewhere Hiller:2003qe . The convergence as a function of the resolution is oscillatory, but clearly as we move to large resolution the convergence is very good. In Fig. 3(a) we present the spectrum as a function of $`1/K`$, and we see that the oscillations lead to good convergence that extrapolates nicely to $`K=\mathrm{}`$. These states have masses near zero. The lowest state has on average one adjoint parton; therefore, the threshold is at $`\kappa ^2`$. Thus this is a deeply bound state. In Fig. 3(b) we show the spectrum for the next highest mass bound state, and again we see very good convergence to a very light state. In fact all of the data in the lower band describe a series of oscillatory states at higher masses.

Shown in Table 2 is another way of organizing the same set of data used to analyze the oscillatory states discussed above, and all these states also converge numerically, but to infinite mass. As a function of the resolution we see almost no variation in the properties of this state. We will refer to these states as divergent states, and we will argue that they are divergent. This data and a fit to the data points are shown in Fig. 3(c), and there are no oscillations. In Fig. 3(d) we see another state of this type. It appears that the divergent states do extrapolate to an infinite mass as $`K\mathrm{}`$. The curves, however, can be fit by a variety of functions. In fact the functions $`a+b/\sqrt{K}+1/K`$ and $`a+b\mathrm{log}K+1/K`$ produce equally good fits. The fits shown are of the former form and have intercepts between 10 and 11. In Fig. 4 we put all four plots from Fig. 3 on the same graph, so that one can clearly see that at low resolution both curves involve the same data. In the DLCQ procedure a state must extrapolate nicely to $`K=\mathrm{}`$, if it is a true bound state of the theory. It is unclear from the data whether this is true for these states. Our prejudice is that this bound state diverges as $`K\mathrm{}`$.

In Fig. 5 we show similar results for the $`Z_2`$-odd sector. In Fig. 6 we again show the oscillatory and divergent fits on the same figure, but now we add a few more states to better show the interlacing of these fits to the same data. There are, of course, degenerate fermion bound states for all these states, whose properties we do not show.

The oscillatory behavior made this calculation particularly challenging numerically. We were forced to go to very high resolution, $`K=13`$, to be certain that the spectrum really converged. This was made even more difficult because we had four species of particles in the problem.

To get some insight into the behavior of the low-mass band, we recall the behavior of the two-particle continuum in DLCQ. The “mass squared” of two free partons of mass $`m`$ at resolution $`K`$ is

$$M^2=m^2K\left[\frac{1}{Kn}+\frac{1}{n}\right],$$
(38)
where one free parton has longitudinal momentum $`Kn`$ and the other has $`n`$ Gross:1997mx . In DLCQ this formula produces a band of states. It is interesting to compare the top and bottom of this band with the top and bottom of the low-mass band of bound states we have been studying. The top of the band is obtained by fixing $`n`$ at one. If we then take $`K`$ large, we find $`M^2=m^2(K+1+1/K+\mathrm{})`$. Not surprisingly, the divergent curves in Figs. 3(c) and (d), and Figs. 5(c) and (d) can be fit with a function of the form $`M^2=a+bK+c/K`$. In essence, the form of the divergent state is comparable to the shape of the top of the continuum band. Similarly the bottom of the continuum band is obtained by taking $`n=K/2`$ for $`K`$ even and $`n=(K1)/2`$ for $`K`$ odd. The bottom of the continuum band oscillates as a function of $`K`$. For $`K`$ even it is $`4m^2`$, and for $`K`$ odd it is $`4m^2(1+1/K+\mathrm{})`$. It again appears that the lowest mass states resemble the bottom of the continuum band. We would expect to see a connection between the weak-coupling bound states and the free spectrum, but this connection appears to extend to $`g^2N_c/\pi =\kappa ^2`$. Based on this argument, the divergent states actually do diverge and are not true states of the theory.

The lowest mass $`Z_2`$-even state in the low-mass band has on average one adjoint parton, which has mass 1.0, and the fundamental partons are massless. One would therefore expect the lowest bound state in the spectrum to have a mass of order 1.0. In $`𝒩=1`$ SYM-CS theory Hiller:2002cu ; Hiller:2002pj , we previously found anomalously light states at strong coupling, but all of these states were at or close to threshold. Here the lowest mass state is anomalously light, in fact nearly massless, and therefore well below threshold.

At yet stronger coupling, $`g^2N_c/\pi =10\kappa ^2`$, we find that oscillations are significantly stronger, as seen in Fig. 7, and at $`K=12`$ the curve is not totally converged. The mass squared at $`K=12`$ is 0.068, but without complete convergence we are not able to say anything precise about the variation of the bound-state mass as a function of the coupling from $`g^2N_c/\pi =\kappa ^2`$ to $`g^2N_c/\pi =10\kappa ^2`$.

### III.2 Structure functions

The two largest structure functions for the lowest mass state are shown in Fig. 8. Even though this is an exactly supersymmetric theory, nearly all the adjoint partons are gluons. About 2/3 of the wave function of this state is composed of two fundamental bosons and an adjoint parton, and about 1/3 of the wave function is made of two fundamental fermions. Within the context of the standard model, this state is primarily a bound state of two squarks and a gluon. We see that both of these distributions are peaked at small $`x`$. This reflects strong binding of the fundamental partons, allowing them to be widely separated in momentum, combined with only a small contribution to the momentum from the adjoint boson.

The average number of partons in the next lowest state is about 4.5. For this state, 90% is composed of gluons and squarks, and the structure functions are shown in Fig. 9. The squarks have a significantly wider distribution than in the lowest state. The gluons remain very sharply peaked at small $`x`$.

For the lowest state in the low-mass band with $`Z_2`$ odd, the average number of partons is slightly less that 4. Again the partons in the adjoint representation are almost entirely bosons. However, the partons in the fundamental representation are almost entirely quarks, so this is the lightest standard-model meson. This is a deeply bound state, since the gluons have mass 1 and on average there are close to two gluons per bound state. The structure functions for the gluon and quarks are shown in Fig. 10. As we have seen in all the states that we have considered, the gluons are strongly peaked at $`x`$ near zero. The quarks have a strong peak at small $`x`$ but have a significant distribution at other values of $`x`$.

### III.3 Spectra and structure functions in the upper band

While the lower mass band appears to have a very unusual behavior as a function of the resolution, the bound states in the upper band behave very similarly to the bound states found in most SDLCQ calculations. The convergence is excellent, starting from the lowest resolution, and the data is fit very well as a function of $`1/K`$ by a line with a small slope. In Fig. 11 we show that the lowest two bound states in the upper band converge to masses $`M_{\mathrm{}}^2=8.31`$ and $`M_{\mathrm{}}^2=9.03`$ at infinite resolution. We carry the calculation out to resolution $`K=13`$, but the structure functions are calculated at $`K=12`$. From the structure functions of the state at $`M_{\mathrm{}}^2=8.31`$, we find that this state is 85% quarks and gluons, so it is very much like a standard-model meson. The average number of partons is 3.98, so for the most part the bound state contains two gluons. It is very interesting that this bound state is very much like a QCD meson and is the solution of a supersymmetric field theory. The structure functions are shown in Fig. 12. While the gluons are peaked at small $`x`$, they have a much larger spread than we saw in the lower band. The fundamental fermions are very sharply peaked at small $`x`$. The structure functions of the state at $`M_{\mathrm{}}^2=9.03`$ are interesting because the state has nearly equal mixtures of all four constituents. The structure functions are shown in Fig. 13. The shapes are different, particularly for the distribution of adjoint fermions, which are spread over the region of larger $`x`$.

In Fig. 14 we see that in the $`Z_2`$-odd sector we again have an excellent linear fit. The two lowest states have masses of $`M_{\mathrm{}}^2=8.93`$ and $`M_{\mathrm{}}^2=9.60`$. The structure functions for this sector are similar to those for the $`Z_2`$-even states. The structure functions for the state with $`M_{\mathrm{}}^2=8.93`$ are shown in Fig. 15 and are very similar to the structure functions for the state with $`M_{\mathrm{}}^2=9.03`$ in the $`Z_2`$-even sector.

## IV Discussion.

In this paper we studied $`𝒩=1`$ SYM-CS theory with fundamental matter in 1+1 dimensions. The CS term was included to give masses to the adjoint partons. The calculations were performed at large $`N_c`$ in the framework of SDLCQ; namely, we compactified the light-like coordinate $`x^{}`$ on a finite circle and calculated the Hamiltonian as the square of a supercharge $`Q^{}`$, which we then diagonalized numerically. We found that the spectrum of this theory has two bands, a lower mass band and an upper mass band. With a CS term present, we found that these bands separate for $`g^2N_c/\pi =\kappa ^2`$, and we can easily study them separately.

For very massive adjoint partons, the lower mass band becomes a set of massless bound states composed of only fundamental partons. When the mass for the adjoint partons is reduced, the massless states become the states of the lower mass band. The states in the low-mass band are unusual in that their convergence is oscillatory. We show that the upper and lower bounds of the low-mass band have the same shape as the DLCQ approximation to the two-particle free spectrum, which has an oscillatory behavior for its lower bound and a growing upper bound. We argue therefore that the oscillatory behavior is a numerical remnant of the free two-particle spectrum. In previous work Hiller:2003qe  we found that at $`g^2N_c/\pi =\kappa ^2`$ the lowest mass state of this theory was anomalously low, and in fact close to zero, while threshold for this state is at $`M^2=1`$. On average this state has one massive gluon and two squarks. This is the fifth supersymmetric theory where we have found anomalously light states. In SYM in 1+1 alp2  and 2+1 Antonuccio:1999zu  dimensions, there are massless BPS states. In SYM-CS theory in 1+1 dimensions we saw that at strong coupling the lightest states are approximately BPS states whose masses are independent of the YM coupling Hiller:2002cu . In SYM-CS theories in 2+1 dimensions at strong coupling, there is again an anomalously light bound state Hiller:2002pj . The next lightest state in this band has about four partons. We carry the calculation to resolution $`K=13`$, so in principle these states could contain 13 partons. In addition, almost all of the partons in the adjoint representation are gluons rather than gluinos. Also, the content of the particles in the fundamental representation is rather pure, either squarks or quarks. Thus some of the boson bound states are rather pure combinations of quarks and glue, in spite of the fact that they are bound states of an exactly supersymmetric theory.

The bound states in the upper mass band are rather conventional SDLCQ bound states. They converge very quickly and have the conventional linear behavior in $`1/K`$. Similar to the lower mass band, most of the partons in the adjoint representation are gluons. In addition, the states are again rather pure quark or squark states. When we take the adjoint parton mass large, these are the states that have at least one adjoint parton.

We calculate the structure functions of the states in both bands for all four species of partons, and we find that most of the distributions are strongly peaked at $`x`$ near zero. This is an indication that for $`g^2N_c/\pi =\kappa ^2`$ these are strongly coupled bound states. In a weakly coupled bound state one would, on average, expect the partons to share the momentum fraction equally, and therefore the structure function would be peaked at 1/3 for a state with three partons, for example. Since several of the states we consider are almost pure quark-gluon bound states, they might not be affected by supersymmetry breaking, which would give large mass to the squarks and gluinos. It would be interesting to investigate in more detail the properties of these states and compare them with QCD.

There remains a considerable amount of work to be done on SYM-CS theories with fundamental matter. The most straightforward extension of the present work is to consider calculations in 2+1 dimensions Antonuccio:1999zu ; Haney:2000tk ; hpt2001 . The $`𝒩=1`$ theory in 2+1 dimensions is easily within our reach. Beyond that the $`𝒩=2`$ theory Antonuccio:1998mq  in 2+1 dimensions, which is the dimensional reduction of the $`𝒩=1`$ theory in 3+1 dimensions, will be very interesting. For finite $`N_c`$ we could also look at the mixing of closed-loop states and finite string-like meson states. For $`\kappa =0`$ the bound states of all these theories provide an interesting field-theoretic model for strings.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy.