text:
# Deformation of dark solitons in inhomogeneous Bose-Einstein condensates

## 1 Introduction

The intrinsic similarities between the Gross-Pitaevskii equation describing the zero-temperature mean-field dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) and the cubic nonlinear Schrodinger equation (NLSE) of nonlinear optical systems implies the existence of common fundamental phenomena, independent of the origin of the nonlinearity. For example, experiments on BEC’s have recently led to the observation of four-wave mixing of matter waves , and both bright  and dark  matter wave solitons. Solitons are, strictly speaking, shape-preserving one-dimensional excitations supported in nonlinear media, where the effect of dispersion is balanced by the interatomic interactions. Three-dimensional analogs of solitons, so-called solitary waves, do exist, but are more prone to instabilities than their one-dimensional counterparts . In the context of nonlinear optics, solitons propagate in the effectively one-dimensional (1D) medium of homogeneous optical fibers. Bright solitons find applications in optical communications , whereas potential applications of the less exploited dark solitons include the formation of zero cross-talk optical junctions . In the case of atomic BEC’s, 1D geometries have been recently engineered by suitable combination of optical and magnetic traps , and also on microchips .

The one-dimensional Gross-Pitaevskii Equation (GPE) describing trapped atomic BEC’s is given by

$`i\mathrm{}{\displaystyle \frac{\psi }{t}}={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m}}{\displaystyle \frac{^2}{x^2}}\psi +V_{\mathrm{ext}}\psi +g|\psi |^2\psi \mu \psi .`$ (1)
Here $`\psi `$ corresponds to the macroscopic order parameter of the system, $`V_{\mathrm{ext}}`$ is the necessary external confining potential and $`m`$ is the atomic mass. The effective 1D interaction coefficient $`g`$ arises by assuming an axially symmetric elongated three-dimensional system and integrating out the transverse ground state wavefunctions. This leads to $`g=2\mathrm{}^2a/(ml_{}^2)`$, where $`l_{}`$ is the transverse harmonic oscillator length and $`a`$ is the s-wave scattering length. The validity of a purely 1D description of a quasi-1D system has been considered elsewhere . Also, $`\mu =gn`$ corresponds to the chemical potential of the system, with the condensate density denoted by $`n`$. In the absence of an external potential (i.e. $`V_{\mathrm{ext}}=0`$), Eq. (1) becomes exactly integrable and supports dark solitary wave solutions . On a uniform background density $`n`$, a dark soliton with speed $`v`$ and position $`(xvt)`$ has the analytical form,

$`\psi (x,t)=\sqrt{n}e^{i(\mu /\mathrm{})t}\left(\beta \mathrm{tanh}\left[\beta {\displaystyle \frac{\left(xvt\right)}{\xi }}\right]+i\left({\displaystyle \frac{v}{c}}\right)\right).`$ (2)
Here $`\beta =\sqrt{1\left(\frac{v}{c}\right)^2}`$, and the soliton speed $`v`$ is intimately dependent on both the soliton depth $`n_d`$ (with respect to the background density), and the total phase slip $`S`$ across the centre. It is given by $`v=\sqrt{nn_d}=c\mathrm{cos}(S/2)`$, the limiting value being set by the Bogoliubov speed of sound $`c=\sqrt{\mu /m}`$. A stationary soliton features a $`\pi `$ phase slip and a maximal depth $`n_d=n`$, while a soliton with speed $`c`$ is effectively indistinguishable from the background fluid. The healing length $`\xi =\mathrm{}/\sqrt{\mu m}`$ characterises the width of the soliton.

In the case of nonlinear optics, an equation analogous to the homogeneous version of Eq. (1) arises for nonlinear media with $`\chi ^{(3)}`$ susceptibilities, for which $`\psi `$ would correspond to the electric field amplitude. Imperfections in $`\chi ^{(3)}`$ crystals are unavoidable, and lead, in general, to perturbations of the susceptibility. This essentially introduces modifications to Eq. (1), which arise, for example, due to transiting, saturable or competing nonlinearities . Any deviation from the homogeneous form of Eq. (1) breaks its integrability and induces instability in the soliton. As a result, the soliton emits radiation and can subsequently decay. The rate of energy loss of the soliton due to modified nonlinearities has been shown to be proportional to the local acceleration squared . In the case of atomic BEC’s, the integrability of Eq. (1) is broken due to the external confining potential $`V_{\mathrm{ext}}0`$ within which experiments are performed. In addition to the effects of transverse degrees of freedom , the integrability of the system is broken by the applied longitudinal potential which induces the soliton to radiate sound .

If the change in the background potential is weak, then, to first order, the soliton dynamics are similar to those of an effective particle of constant (negative) mass . In general, however, the sound emission leads to a change in the soliton effective mass, and hence a change in its subsequent trajectory . To monitor this change, one can apply a perturbative approach , which will be valid as long as the potential does not vary significantly over the size of the soliton. However, if the density changes over a prolonged region, leading to continuous sound emission, then the total emitted energy can be a significant fraction of the initial soliton energy, and, consequently, the net change in the soliton dynamics can be significant. In previous work we have quantified the amount of sound emission and the stability of dark solitons in quasi-1D BEC’s, suggesting how this can be both controlled and measured experimentally in realistic traps . In this paper we discuss in more detail the dynamics of solitons incident on various inhomogeneities, with the aim to highlight the importance of the apparent deformation that a soliton undergoes when incident on a potential gradient. This deformation is a direct consequence of the sound energy trapped within the soliton region, as the soliton propagates on the background density gradient. The rate of emission of sound energy by the soliton will be shown to be proportional to the square of the deformation parameter, identified as the displacement of the observed soliton centre of mass (i.e. including local sound energy within the soliton region) from the soliton (density) minimum. We will further show that the acceleration of a soliton through the fluid is directly proportional to the soliton deformation parameter, thus simultaneously confirming the validity of an acceleration squared sound emission law for various potentials.

This paper is structured as follows: Sec. 2 discusses the dynamics of dark solitons incident on potential steps of variable length and height. This analysis reveals the dissipative nature of the soliton motion and, in particular, highlights the significant proportion of the soliton energy that can be radiated as sound. In this section, we further quantify the sound emission as a function of the step geometry. The scattering of a soliton by a barrier of finite width contains a number of subtle features which are discussed in Sec. 2.2. The appearance of soliton deformation becomes more apparent when considering the case of a constant background density gradient, which can be provided by a linear ramp (Sec. 3). To discuss the deformation in more detail, and to give results which are directly relevant to atomic BEC experiments, Sec. 4 focuses on a soliton oscillating in a double gaussian trap. This enables us to probe a large range of background density gradients, and thus show that the rate of sound emission can be parametrised in terms of the square of the induced soliton deformation. Finally, Sec. 5 contains some concluding remarks.

## 2 Dark Soliton incident on a potential step

Consider initially a dark soliton on a homogeneous background incident on a potential step, as shown schematically in Fig. 1(a). For an effectively infinitely long step of constant (finite) height, this situation corresponds to soliton propagation between two homogeneous regions of different background density. This is similar to bright soliton propagation at the interface between two nonlinear dielectric media of different refractive indices, arising in the context of nonlinear optics. This has been discussed within the effective (or equivalent) particle theory, which treats the bright soliton as a particle of fixed effective mass moving in an effective potential created by the interface between the two media . Such an approach ignores radiative effects, which have however been included, to lowest order, in a perturbative treatment .

A soliton incident on a step of finite length can represent the presence of impurities, or optically-engineered barriers. Huang et al.  have predicted that a dark soliton interacting with a steplike potential emits radiation, and in the case where the step is downward, the soliton is prone to fission into multiple solitons. Frantzeskakis et al  recently considered the interaction of a dark soliton with an impurity (without explicitly discussing sound generation), whereas a subsequent paper  addressed the possibility to trap solitons in time-dependent potentials. Soliton-impurity interactions have also been discussed in , where the expected sound emission could not be observed due to computational constraints.

To study such systems in more detail, we consider a potential of the form,

$$V(x)=\{\begin{array}{c}0\\ V_0\end{array}\mathrm{for}\begin{array}{cc}& \hfill x0,xL\\ & \hfill 0<x<L\end{array}$$
(3)
where $`V_0`$ is the height and $`L`$ the length of the step. In our subsequent numerical analysis, we employ dimensionless units, with distance and velocity measured in terms of the healing length $`\xi `$ and the speed of sound $`c`$ respectively. In addition the asymptotic number density $`n_0`$ is rescaled to unity. The initial state is taken as the product $`\psi (x,0)=\sqrt{n(x)}\psi _s(x,0)`$, with the soliton centred on a locally flat background density. Here $`n(x)`$ is the time-independent background density obtained by imaginary time propagation of the GPE, and $`\psi _s(x,0)`$ corresponds to the homogeneous analytic soliton solution of Eq. (2).

### 2.1 Infinitely long step

Consider initially the case of a very long $`(L\mathrm{})`$ positive $`(V_0>0)`$ step, as illustrated in Fig. 1(a). This can be thought of as a transition between two different homogeneous regions. To understand the ensuing soliton dynamics it is important to note that the time-independent background density consists of the usual Thomas-Fermi solution, $`n(x)=n_0(x)V(x)`$, plus a tanh-like smoothing of the boundary region resulting from fluid healing. A positive step therefore induces a lower background density in the second region (II). The different regimes of the dynamics of a dark soliton incident on such a boundary are summarized in Fig. 1. In particular, Fig. 1(b) shows characteristic paths of a dark soliton with fixed initial speed incident on steps of different heights $`V_0`$ (cases (i)-(iv), in order of increasing $`V_0`$). Although this figure is based on a particular initial soliton speed, the qualitative behaviour analysed here is characteristic of the general crossover between the two regions.

For low steps heights (Fig. 1b(i)) the soliton, initially in region (I), is able to pass over the boundary, and emits a burst of counter-propagating sound pulses. This sound serves to remove excess phase from the soliton as it is forced to adapt to the new ambient density. The radiation travels at the speed of sound and disperses over time. Once the soliton has fully traversed the barrier and entered the second homogeneous region, it propagates with reduced (but constant) speed, due to the lower ambient density and hence reduced speed of sound. The emission of sound tends to slightly increase the speed of the soliton, but this is only a minor effect compared to the decrease in the soliton speed due to the lower background density. Increasing the step height results in the soliton becoming “refracted” to a greater extent. This ultimately leads to reflection, when the kinetic energy becomes insufficient to ascend the potential (Fig. 1b(ii)), with the amount of ‘penetration’ into the second region decreasing with increasing step height (Fig. 1b(iii)). Assuming, as a first approximation, that both energy and depth of the soliton remain conserved, the threshold for transmission would be $`V_0=v^2`$, i.e., when the soliton with depth ($`1v^2`$) can just transmit into the far region with density ($`1V_0`$). However, the process of sound emission tends to reduce the soliton depth and increase its speed. This leads to the appearance of a regime in which the soliton can be transmitted even though the corresponding constant mass particle would be reflected (see next section). In this case sound is still radiated by the soliton as it ascends and descends the bump. Finally, in the limit of collision with a hard wall ($`V_0\mathrm{}`$, i.e. soliton incident on a region of zero density), the soliton reflects elastically without breaking up or decaying, irrespective of the incident speed (Fig. 1b(iv)). Note that the soliton reverses direction before its centre of mass actually reaches the boundary. This is analogous to the head-on collision of two solitons whereby momentum can be exchanged without the centres having crossed, and leads to the idea that the soliton undergoes a virtual collision with its corresponding mirror image . The fact that the macroscopic wavefunction tends to zero at the wall implies a singularity in the macroscopic phase, allowing the soliton to reset its phase such that incoming and outgoing speeds are the same, which corresponds to elastic reflection.

The analogy to refraction of light at an optical interface leads to the question of whether there is a critical step height where the soliton becomes permanently trapped at the boundary. We find a critical regime where the soliton becomes ‘quasi-trapped’ at the boundary (Fig. 1b(ii)), but that, within our resolution, the ultimate fate of the soliton is to either transmit or reflect . However, the soliton can indeed become almost stationary at the boundary for a relatively long time, during which it makes a significant passage into the classically forbidden region. For example, for a soliton with initial speed $`0.5c`$ and a carefully selected step height $`V_0=0.2666\mu `$, we have observed quasi-trapping for times of $`1500(\xi /c)`$ and the density minimum extending $`7\xi `$ into the far region, before returning to the first region. Two separate bursts of sound radiation are observed as the soliton passes on and off the step. A closer inspection also reveals small-scale sound emission in the intervening time.

In the regime $`V_0<0`$, i.e., when the soliton travels to a higher density region, we find similar results. Here the soliton is always transmitted, sound is emitted, and the soliton speed increases due to the increased speed of sound. We fail to observe the disintegration of the incident soliton into multiple solitons predicted by Huang et al . In fact, we find that the soliton structure is unbreakable by the potential step, and conclude that the main decay channel is through sound emission.

The soliton energy can be calculated by integrating the energy functional,

$`\epsilon (\psi )={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m}}\left|\psi \right|^2+V_{\mathrm{ext}}\left|\psi \right|^2+{\displaystyle \frac{g}{2}}\left|\psi \right|^4,`$ (4)
across the soliton region (say $`x_s\pm 5\xi )`$  and subtracting the corresponding contribution of the background fluid. This procedure cannot discriminate between soliton and sound energy present in the interval, and this will be shown to be intimately linked to the apparent soliton deformation. The total emitted sound energy is shown in Fig. 1(c) as a function of step height, with the four characteristic cases of Fig. 1(b) highlighted. Its form is a result of the interplay between the magnitude of the density gradient experienced by the soliton and the reduced density in the second region, which tends to suppress sound transmission. For low step heights, the soliton has sufficient energy to transmit into region (II), emitting a single burst of sound energy as it passes onto the step. Subseqeuntly the soliton remains in region (II), and the energy loss is determined by comparing the energy within the ‘soliton region’ in regions (II) and the initial soliton energy. As the step height increases, so do the depth and gradient of the background density perturbation, leading to an initial increase in sound emission. At $`V_00.28\mu `$ (dotted line in Fig. 1(c)), the soliton no longer has enough energy to be transmitted, and thus eventually returns to region (I), after spending a finite time on, or near, the interface between the two regions. In this case, the final soliton energy is measured once the soliton has fully returned to region (I). Hence, in this regime of quasi-trapping/reflection, the soliton emits two bursts of sound: one as it ascends the boundary, and another as is passes back off the boundary. This leads to a sudden increase (roughly doubling) of the emitted sound energy, as evident in Fig. 1(c). The total sound emission initially increases further beyond this point, until the density gradient experienced by the soliton saturates. However the depth of the density inhomogeneity continues to increase, thus suppressing sound propagation into the second region and leading to a net reduction in the sound emission. It is important to note that the total energy released can be considerable: for the case (iii) in Fig. 1, approximately $`22\%`$ of the soliton energy is converted into sound.

### 2.2 Step of finite length

To perform a more detailed study of the dissipative soliton dynamics, we now consider a dark soliton incident on a step of finite length $`L`$, as illustrated in Fig. 2(a). The important parameter determining whether a soliton is transmitted at a barrier is the ‘effective’ density seen by the moving soliton due to fluid healing in the vicinity of the step (solid line in Fig. 2(a)). For sufficiently narrow steps, fluid healing prohibits the density from reaching the Thomas-Fermi value, $`n(x)=n_0(x)V(x)`$. The minimum density $`n_{\mathrm{min}}`$ to which the fluid actually heals can be used to define an effective potential of height $`V_{\mathrm{eff}}=(1n_{\mathrm{min}})`$. Fig. 2(b) maps the effective potential for steps of variable length and height. This suggests that for small enough step widths, the soliton may see an effective step height much lower than the actual potential, thus enabling the soliton to tunnel through barriers for which a classical particle would undergo elastic reflection. Assuming no dissipation, then, to leading order, the requirement for transmission would be that $`V_{\mathrm{eff}}<v^2`$. Thus, for a soliton with incident speed $`v=0.5c`$, the $`V_{\mathrm{eff}}=0.25\mu `$ contour of Fig. 2(b) represents, to first order, the critical region between transmission and reflection. The actual crossover between reflection and transmission is shown by the solid line in Fig. 2(b), which clearly shows the deviation resulting from the inhomogeneity-induced emission of sound from the soliton.

Fig. 2(c) shows the corresponding total sound emitted from the soliton, the magnitude of which is intimately related to the above-mentioned effective potential. Maximum sound emission occurs in the region of reflective quasi-trapping where the soliton is subject to its greatest acceleration/deformation. The line of maximum sound emission, defined by $`V_0=V_0^m(L)`$, is highlighted by the dashed line in Fig. 2(c). Note that $`V_0^m(L)`$ decreases with increasing length, and essentially saturates to the value of $`V_0^m(L)0.6\mu `$ for $`L5\xi `$. The maximum sound energy released in Fig. 2(c) is approximately $`0.27\mu `$, which corresponds to $`32`$$`\%`$ of the initial soliton energy. The sound emission tails off in the opposite limiting cases of $`V_0,LEq.(4)_00`$ and $`V_0,L_0\mathrm{}`$. To visualize the behaviour more clearly, Fig. 2(d)-(e) plot, respectively, the total emitted sound energy (i.e. both forward and backward sound pulses) as a function of step height $`V_0`$ (for various fixed step widths $`L`$) and as a function of $`L`$ (for various fixed $`V_0`$).

Fig. 2(d) shows that, for fixed $`L`$, the total emitted sound increases abruptly with increasing step height, reaches a maximum at the point of reflective quasi-trapping, and decreases more slowly as $`V_0\mathrm{}`$, similar to the behaviour encountered in the last section. Note that the variation of the emitted energy with step height is smooth and does not feature the discontinuity apparent in Fig. 1(c) for an infinitely long step. This can be understood as follows: for a soliton transmitting over an infinitely long step, a single burst of energy is emitted before the soliton reaches its steady state on the step, whereas a soliton which is ultimately reflected interacts twice with the boundary, thus emitting two sound pulses. In the case of a finite length step, this distinction does not arise. For transmission, the soliton must ascend and descend the step before reaching its steady state on the far side of the step (where its final energy is to be computed). This clearly involves two bursts of energy being radiated. However, the case of reflection also features two bursts, occuring when the soliton ascends and descends the first boundary. Since the background fluid is symmetric around the centre of the step (as regions (I) and (II) have the same potentials), the net amount of sound emission in the two limiting cases of soliton marginally transmitting, or just reflecting, will be the same, and hence the discontinuity will be absent here.

To understand in more detail the features of Fig. 2(d), it is instructive to consider the effective potential experienced by the soliton in each of the three limiting cases, namely (i) transmission ($`V_0V_0^m(L)`$), (ii) reflection with maximum energy emission (occuring at $`V=V_0^m(L)`$), and (iii) reflection with sound emission ($`V_0V_0^m(L)`$), but still far from the $`V_0\mathrm{}`$ limit. These are shown in figures ((a)-(c)), respectively. Different lines in each of these figures correspond to different step widths ($`L=\xi `$, $`2\xi `$, $`5\xi `$ and $`10\xi `$). (Note that the step heights in Fig. 3(b) differ from line to line.) For a constant step width $`L`$, the density depression becomes more pronounced with increasing step height (this can be visualized, e.g. by looking at the change of the solid line corresponding to $`L=\xi `$ from (a)-(c)). Fig. 3(a) shows the case of soliton transmission over the entire step ($`V_0=0.25\mu `$). Note that the particular soliton under consideration, with initial speed $`0.5c`$ and depth $`0.75n_0`$, can probe, to first order, densities down to $`0.75n_0`$ before being forced to change direction. Such a soliton can therefore just transmit in this case. In this limit of transmission, maximum sound emission occurs when the soliton traverses the steepest background density gradient for the longest time. Clearly this occurs for maximum step width $`L=10\xi `$ (dot-dashed line). Fig. 3(c) shows the other extreme case, when the soliton is completely reflected, as a result of experiencing a very high potential ($`V_0=2\mu `$). In the case of a sufficiently long step, e.g. $`L=10\xi `$ (dot-dashed line) in Fig. 3(c), the fluid heals fully to the Thomas-Fermi limit, thus reaching zero density. The soliton effectively sees a hard wall and becomes reflected without any sound emission (see corresponding dot-dashed line in Fig. 2(d) at $`V_0=2\mu `$). However, as the step width is decreased, the reflected soliton can emit increasing amounts of sound energy. This is because the finite density at the step now enables sound propagation into the second region, despite the fact that the soliton is reflected. Note that, despite appearing to do so, the dotted line of Fig. 3(c) does not reach zero density (see Fig. 3(e) showing enlarged version of Fig. 3(c) near $`n=0`$). This explains why there is some (albeit limited) sound emission for $`L=5\xi `$ (dotted line) at $`V_0=2\mu `$ in Fig. 2(d).

Although this accounts for the qualitative features of the lines in Fig. 2(d), it still does not explain why the maximum emitted energy for narrow steps (e.g. solid line in Fig. 2(d) at $`V_0=V_0^m(L=\xi )1.4\mu `$) is larger than the maximum emitted energy for longer steps (e.g. dashed line of same figure). To explain this, we must examine the background density profile for each of the lengths considered (i.e. $`L=\xi `$, $`2\xi `$, $`5\xi `$ and $`10\xi `$) at the step height which corresponds to maximum sound emission. As evident from Figs. 2(c)-(d), this critical barrier height $`V_0=V_0^m`$ depends also on the step width (i.e. $`V_0=V_0^m(L)`$). Therefore, to interpret the increase in the maximum emitted energy for narrower steps, we must compare the effective background densities for different widths $`L`$ at their corresponding heights $`V_0=V_0^m(L)`$. This is illustrated in Fig. 3(b). To first approximation, in all these cases (i.e. all $`L`$), the soliton probes the step region down to a density of approximately ($`1v^2`$) (corresponding to $`0.75n_0`$ for the soliton under consideration), before being reflected. Consequently, the soliton is approximately limited to the $`x<0`$ region. Therefore, the key parameter controlling the amount of sound radiation is the gradient of the background density probed by the soliton (which clearly depends on the step width). To see this gradient clearer, Fig. 3(d) plots an enlarged version of the effective potentials of Fig. 3(b) in the region $`2\xi <x<0`$. Hence, at the point of maximum emission for each $`L`$, it is actually the narrower step (solid line) which has the steepest gradient. As a result, the maximum sound emission occurs for narrower steps. We have hence accounted for the entire behaviour of the emitted sound energy as a function of step height.

From the above analysis, one can also understand the features of Fig. 2(e) showing the dependence of emitted energy on step width. For small $`V_0`$ (e.g. $`V_0=0.25\mu `$, dot-dashed line) the soliton is transmitted, releasing maximum sound for longest steps, with the amount saturating for $`L\mathrm{}`$. Increasing $`V_0`$ (e.g. $`V_0=0.5\mu `$, dotted line) leads to larger density gradients and hence more sound emission as $`L\mathrm{}`$. The peak emitted energy at $`L2.7\xi `$ is due to a maximum time spent on the step in the regime of reflective quasi-trapping. Increasing $`V_0`$ further leads to the gradual suppression of sound transmission and hence a reduced total sound emission in the limit $`L\mathrm{}`$. Note that as $`V_0`$ is increased, the phenomenon of quasi-trapping appears at smaller $`L`$, leading to a shift of the peak emission to the left. The maximum sound emission occurs for large $`V_0`$ (and small enough $`L`$) since then the density gradient experienced by the soliton is maximised. This trend appears to be maintained with indefinite increase in $`V_0`$, although it requires smaller step widths, which will ultimately become unphysical. When $`V_0>\mu `$, the soliton undergoes elastic reflection with no sound emission, provided the step width $`L`$ is sufficiently long to allow for complete fluid healing to the imposed potential $`V_0`$. This explains the tailing off of the sound energy for $`V_0=2\mu `$ (solid line) to zero as $`L>5\xi `$.

Our analysis so far has been based on a soliton of fixed initial speed, and this has enabled us to map the entire dependence of emitted sound energy on $`L`$ and $`V_0`$ for a particular soliton speed. We shall now briefly comment on the dependence of the emitted energy on initial soliton speed. Fig. 4 shows the energy radiated by a soliton incident on a finite potential step of fixed length $`L=5\xi `$ and variable height $`V_0`$, for various initial soliton speeds, with the energies scaled in terms of the initial soliton energies. In the regime of transmission over the step (i.e. leftmost part of the figure), the slowest soliton emits the most sound energy. This can be attributed to the fact that, although all three solitons experience the same density gradient, the slowest soliton (solid line) spends the longest time at the step, thereby leading to the greatest time-integrated sound emission. However, the slowest soliton features the deepest density profile. Its passage into the step region is therefore most restricted, causing it to be the first to both reflect and reach the point of saturation of the sound emission (i.e. $`V_0=V_0^m(L)`$). Thus, increasing initial soliton speed leads to a general shift of the emission curves to higher potentials. Faster solitons can pass a greater distance into the step region, probing higher density gradients, and so have higher peak sound emission. However, the energy of an unperturbed soliton on a homogeneous background is given by ,

$`E_{\mathrm{sol}}={\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}\mathrm{}cn\left[1\left({\displaystyle \frac{v}{c}}\right)^2\right]^{3/2}`$ (5)
and hence, faster solitons have lower energies. This means that, in addition to radiating more energy, faster solitons radiate a higher fraction of their total energy. For example, a soliton with initial speed $`v=0.7c`$ can radiate as much as $`65\%`$ of its initial energy. In all cases the sound emission eventually tends to zero as the step height $`V_0`$ becomes much greater than the chemical potential, although faster solitons still emit more energy in the limit of high barriers.

We note that for effectively finite step sizes the soliton undergoes considerable physical deformation as it interacts with the barrier, due to the continuous sound emission. In particular the soliton profile becomes asymmetrically distorted from its equilibrium state, which signifies a deviation of the centre of mass from the density minimum. A detailed quantitative study of the deformation is limited by the rapid change of the soliton profile when it is incident on the barrier. To illustrate these effects more clearly, we therefore turn our attention to linear ramps, for which the soliton, once on the ramp, experiences a constant force.

## 3 Soliton under uniform acceleration

A linear potential provides a simple way of imparting a controlled and constant force to the soliton. As the soliton ascends the ramp, its depth stays (approximately) constant while the ambient density constantly decreases. At the point where the node of the soliton touches zero density, the soliton reverses direction, and begins to descend the ramp. We observe continuous sound emission from the soliton while it is on the ramp. This causes small deviations from the corresponding classical trajectory, as shown in Fig. 5.

Shapshots of the perturbed soliton and the corresponding sound density, for a soliton (i) ascending up the ramp, (ii) at the stationary point, and (iii) during descent are shown in Fig. 6. The sound density (Fig. 6(b)) consists of a higher density in front of the soliton and a lower density behind it, the fore and aft pulses being spatially compressed and extended depending on the relative motion of the soliton and sound through the fluid. Note that, at the stationary point, where there is no relative motion between soliton and sound field, the fore and aft density pulses have equal (but opposite) amplitudes. The asymmetrically emitted sound within the soliton region leads to an apparent deformation of the soliton profile. This deformation can be visualised by comparing the renormalised soliton (i.e. soliton profile minus background density) to a corresponding unperturbed soliton of the same speed and position (Fig. 6(c)). This deformation leads to a shift of the soliton centre of mass $`\overline{x}`$ from the density minimum $`x_s`$ , where the soliton centre of mass is defined as

$`\overline{x}={\displaystyle \frac{_\mathrm{s}x\left(|\psi |^2n\right)dx}{_\mathrm{s}\left(|\psi |^2n\right)dx}}.`$ (6)
and the ‘soliton region’ $`\mathrm{S}`$ is taken to be ($`x_s\pm 5\xi )`$. For a soliton on a ramp, this yields a constant shift of the centre of mass from the soliton density minimum , indicating a link between soliton deformation and acceleration.

The exception to this link arises when the whole fluid itself is accelerated. The fluid motion then also accelerates the soliton, from the viewpoint of a stationary observer, but the soliton is not accelerated with respect to the background fluid. This could be achieved, for example, by displacing the confining potential such that the whole system (background fluid plus soliton) move together. Such motion does not induce a deformation of the soliton profile and therefore does not lead to sound emission. From now on, when referring to acceleration we therefore mean acceleration with respect to the background fluid.

The power radiated by the soliton while on a ramp is shown in Fig. 7(a), as a function of the deformation parameter $`(\overline{x}x_s)`$, for various initial soliton speeds. This suggests a behaviour of the form

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}E_\mathrm{s}}{\mathrm{d}t}}=\kappa (\overline{x}x_s)^\alpha `$ (7)
where the value of $`\kappa `$ is expected to depend, at least, on the initial soliton speed and the gradient of the local density. Fig. 7(b) plots the same information on a logarithmic scale, thereby confirming the above behaviour. From this we determine, to very good approximation, the value $`\alpha =2`$. Fig. 7(c) shows, on logarithmic scale, the relation between the deformation parameter and the soliton acceleration, for the case of a soliton ascending a ramp. This points to a direct proportionality between the two quantities, which is consistent with an acceleration-squared law for emitted power .

## 4 Soliton oscillating in a gaussian trap

The relation between emitted power and soliton deformation can be put on firmer ground by considering the case of an oscillating soliton, since such a case includes a wide range of soliton speeds and background densities. The most lucid example is that of a symmetrical trap formed by two gaussian-shaped potentials,

$$V=V_0\left[\mathrm{exp}\left\{\frac{(xx_0)^2}{w^2}\right\}+\mathrm{exp}\left\{\frac{(x+x_0)^2}{w^2}\right\}\right],$$
(8)
within which the soliton is initially trapped, as illustrated in Fig. 8. Here $`V_0`$ is the amplitude of the gaussians, $`x_0`$ the distance of the centres from the origin, and $`w`$ the gaussian width. To monitor the effect of sound emission (without allowing for reabsorption of sound to complicate matters ) we assume that the height of the gaussian bump is low enough ($`V_0\mu `$), such that the emitted sound escapes the system. To avoid reabsorption of sound, one would need to embed this double gaussian trap in a weaker (harmonic) outer trap. Then, as the soliton oscillates in the (inner) double gaussian trap, it emits counter-propagating sound waves which, for sufficiently low $`V_0`$, ‘escape’ to the outer trap and do not re-interact with the soliton (within the timescales of interest). This results in a drastic change in the soliton amplitude and frequency.

In the last section we argued that the deformation of the soliton is intimately linked with the continuous sound emission, and gave evidence to suggest that the power emitted by the soliton can be parametrised by the square of the soliton deformation. However, the coefficient $`\kappa `$ in Eq. (7) will not, in general, be a constant depending simply on initial soliton speed, due to the changing background density gradient in the trap. We therefore anticipate $`\kappa `$ to depend on the position of the soliton in the trap (and hence become a function of the local background speed and density) in a non-trivial manner.

Fig. 9 considers the long term dynamics of a soliton with initial speed $`0.3c`$ oscillating in a double gaussian trap. The radiation from the oscillating soliton leads to an ‘anti-damping’ effect , whereby the soliton oscillates progressively faster and with greater amplitude (see Fig. 9(a) for $`t<4000\xi /c`$). This leads to an initial decrease in the oscillation period (Fig. 9(b)) , and a significant deviation from the corresponding energy-conserving trajectory (dashed line in Fig. 9(a)). However, as the soliton begins to probe the outer regions of the trap, where the potential gradient tails off, the period increases. Eventually, at $`t6500`$ the soliton has lost sufficient energy to escape the trap .

The periodic deformation of the soliton as it oscillates in the trap is shown in Fig. 9(c). The deformation is clearly zero when the soliton passes through the minimum of the trap, where the background density is effectively homogeneous, and becomes maximum at the extremum of each oscillation. The energy of the soliton (Fig. 9(d)) decreases in periodic steps, due to the periodic sound emission shown in Fig. 9(e), with both of these (shown by solid lines) determined numerically from Eq. (4). The peak periodic values of both sound emission rate (Fig. 9(e)) and soliton deformation (Fig. 9(c)) initially increase in time as the soliton probes further and further into the double gaussian trap, where the background density gradient becomes higher. Later in the evolution, the peaks begin to decrease in amplitude and develop intermediate dips as the soliton probes the outer, essentially harmonic regions of the trap where the potential tails off and the density gradient decreases. Also plotted in Fig. 9(e) is the power emission predicted by Eq. (7) (dotted line) with $`\alpha =2`$ and a suitably chosen value of $`\kappa `$, such that the initial peak emission rates match. The agreement is found to be very good, particularly at early times, when the soliton is localised within the central region of the trap. However, the non-uniformly increasing background density gradient in the trap under consideration causes a degraded agreement at later times. We attribute this to the deviation of the coefficient $`\kappa `$ in Eq. (7) from the effectively constant value assumed here.

To investigate the validity of Eq. (7) in more detail, we next investigate the two ‘limiting’ regimes of soliton motion arising in Fig. 9. These correspond to (i) the case of a soliton oscillating near the centre of the double gaussian trap (for which the density gradient increases monotonically as one moves away from the trap centre, roughly $`t<2000(\xi /c)`$ in Fig. 9), and (ii) the limit of a soliton oscillating essentially all the way to the edges of the trap, and thus probing both the initial monotonic increase of the background density to its maximum value, and its subsequent decrease (corresponding roughly to $`t>4000(\xi /c)`$ in Fig. 9). To look into these effects more clearly, we investigate respectively the cases of a slower and a faster soliton, compared to the initial soliton speed of Fig. 9. This will also display more clearly the two competing mechanisms contributing to the change in the soliton oscillation frequency evident in Fig. 9(a).

Fig. 10 considers a soliton with slow initial speed, $`v=0.2c`$, oscillating in a double gaussian trap with the same parameters as in Fig. 9. In particular, Fig. 10(a) shows the deviation of the soliton oscillations from the corresponding non-dissipative predictions, with the soliton oscillating faster than the non-dissipative case, as a result of sound emission. The resulting soliton deformation is illustrated in Fig. 10(b). Finally, Fig. 10(c) compares the measured energy loss from Eq. (4) (solid line) to the prediction of Eq. (7) (dotted line), yielding remarkable agreement.

The opposite regime of a sufficiently fast soliton probing the entire structure of the double gaussian trap is shown in Fig. 11. In this regime, the soliton experiences more complicated dynamics due to the tailing off of the gaussian potential. Firstly we see that, contrary to the case of a slow soliton (Fig. 10(a)), the fast soliton (Fig. 11(a)) oscillates slower than the corresponding non-dissipative trajectory. Furthermore, the deformation parameter $`(\overline{x}x_s)`$ plotted in Fig. 11(b) now develops intermediate dips at the extrema of each oscillation. Both of these effects are due to the nature of the changing background density in the double gaussian trap. Although this gradient initially increases with increasing deviation from the trap centre, it subsequently reaches a maximum and then starts decreasing again, such that the soliton period increases drastically as it spends more and more time at the edges of the trap. This also explains the intermediate dips in the rate of sound emission shown in Fig. 11(c). Fig. 11(b) further compares the deformation parameter to the local soliton acceleration computed numerically. This yields an exact proportionality, confirming our earlier claim of Sec. 3. Fig. 11(c) compares the rate of sound emission in time as computed from Eq. (4) (solid line), to the prediction of Eq. (7) based on a constant coefficient $`\kappa `$ (dotted line). Although the intermediate dip is correctly accounted for by Eq. (7), the incorrect assumption of a constant $`\kappa `$ leads to a slight overestimate of the peak energy emission, with the discrepancy increasing as the soliton probes the very edge of the trap. These two results are further compared to an analytical prediction for sound emission from an unstable dark soliton (on a homogeneous background) derived within the context of nonlinear optics . The applicability of this theory to inhomogeneous systems has been discussed in . This theory predicts that the breakdown of integrability of the cubic NLSE leads to a rate of energy loss

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}E_\mathrm{s}}{\mathrm{d}t}}=L_\mathrm{s}(v,n)\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}v}{\mathrm{d}t}}\right)^2,`$ (9)
where

$`L_\mathrm{s}(v,n)={\displaystyle \frac{c}{c^2v^2}}`$ $`[{\displaystyle \frac{2c^2}{n}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{N_\mathrm{s}}{v}}\right)^2`$
$`+2v\left({\displaystyle \frac{N_\mathrm{s}}{v}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{S_\mathrm{s}}{v}}\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{n}{2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{S_\mathrm{s}}{v}}\right)^2].`$
Here $`n`$ is the local background density, $`S_\mathrm{s}`$ the total phase slip across the moving soliton, and $`N_\mathrm{s}=\left(n|\psi |^2\right)dz`$ is the number of particles displaced by the soliton.

The prediction of Eqs. (9)-(10) shown by the open circles in Fig. 11(c) indeed yields near perfect agreement with the energy functional calculations of Eq. (4). The peaks in power emission are now correctly accounted for, due to the constantly adjusting proportionality coefficient $`L_\mathrm{s}(v,n)`$ of Eq. (9). Since Fig. 11(b) proves an exact proportionality between acceleration and deformation parameter, we conclude that the inadequacy of Eq. (7) in the limit of solitons probing the edge of the trap is due to the oversimplified assumption of a constant coefficient of proportionality $`\kappa `$. Assigning a slightly varying $`\kappa `$ which depends on the local $`n`$ and $`v`$ in a manner similar to the dependence of $`L_\mathrm{s}`$ on these parameters will clearly remedy this apparent inaccuracy of Eq. (7). Nonetheless, it is remarkable that even the oversimplified assumption of a constant $`\kappa `$ yields reasonable values for the rate of sound emission.

## 5 Discussion

We have examined soliton dynamics and sound emission due to various forms of background density perturbations in one dimension and have quantified the sound emission in terms of the step geometry. We have shown that a dark soliton incident upon a potential step can emit a significant fraction of its energy. For example, a soliton with initial speed $`v=0.7c`$ can emit more than $`60\%`$ of its energy in its interaction with the step.

By considering smoother density inhomogeneities, we have shown that the gradient of the background density results in a deformation of the soliton profile, in the sense that the soliton centre of mass on an inhomogeneous background deviates from the soliton density minimum. The reason for this ‘mismatch’ is clear: As the soliton propagates through the inhomogeneous region, it is induced to emit counter-propagating waves (with positive and negative amplitudes with respect to the background density), each of which moves with the local speed of sound. However, the relative motion of the emitted sound waves to the soliton minimum depends on the direction of motion of the soliton. This means that the sound wave moving in the soliton direction with speed $`(cv)`$ is more compressed than the one moving in the opposite direction at speed ($`c+v`$). We note that, strictly speaking, one cannot distinguish between soliton and sound energy trapped within the soliton region, and this would also be true for any experimental measurement of the soliton profile. Hence, the soliton profile essentially includes the amount of emitted sound which has not yet escaped the soliton region and this leads to the apparent deformation of the soliton. This deformation was shown to be directly proportional to the acceleration of the soliton through the fluid (determined as the acceleration of the density minimum). More importantly we have shown that the energy emitted by the soliton due to background inhomogeneities can be parametrised in terms of the square of both this deformation parameter and, hence, of the acceleration. The coefficient of proportionality is, to reasonable approximation constant, depending on initial soliton speed and background density gradient. However, a more accurate determination would require the calculation of its value at each position, since, in general, it will depend on the local soliton speed and background density.

We acknowledge financial support from the UK EPSRC.

## References


format: text

text:
# Topological entropy and Burau representation

## 1. Introduction

Let $`f`$ be an orientation-preserving homeomorphism of the disk $`D^2`$ and $`Pint\left(D^2\right)`$, a finite invariant subset of $`n`$ points. $`f`$ induces a homeomorphism $`f_P`$ on $`D_P=D^2P`$ and $`f_P`$ induces an automorphism $`f_P\mathrm{}`$ on $`\pi _1(D_P)F_n`$, the free group with $`n`$ generators. If $`h(f)`$ is the *topological entropy*  of $`f`$ and $`GR(f_P\mathrm{})`$ is the *growth rate* of $`f_P\mathrm{}`$ on $`\pi _1(D_P)`$, Bowen  has shown that

(1)
$$h(f)\mathrm{ln}(GR(f_P\mathrm{})).$$

The problem is that in general, it is very hard to compute $`GR(f_P\mathrm{})`$.

By the way, let $`f_{P1}`$ be the isomorphism induced by $`f_P`$ on the first homology group $`H_1(D_P;)`$, then

(2)
$$GR(f_P\mathrm{})R(f_{P1})$$

where $`R(f_{P1})`$ is the spectral radius of the isomorphism $`f_{P1}`$. But $`f_{P1}`$ is just a permutation and so inequality (2) is always trivial. Therefore, we cannot by this way detect a positive topological entropy.

It is a well-known fact  that the subgroup of automorphism of $`F_n`$ induced by homeomorphisms of $`D_P`$ is isomorphic to *Artin’s Braid group* $`B_n`$ 111 To be perfectly exact, this result supposed that we have fixed the star point of $`\pi _1(D_P)`$ on the boundary of $`D_P`$ !. There exists a famous representation  of $`B_n`$ in $`GL(n,[t,t^1])`$, the *Burau representation*. In this paper, we prove the following:

###### Theorem 1.

Let $`\alpha B_nAut(F_n)`$ and $`B_\alpha `$ the Burau matrix of $`\alpha `$; we have

(3)
$$GR(\alpha )sup\{R(B_\alpha (t));t,|t|=1\},$$

$`R(B_\alpha (t))`$ being the spectral radius of the matrix $`B_\alpha (t)GL(n,)`$ when evaluating at a complex number $`t`$.

###### Remark 2.

This result is not really new since it appears not explicitly as a corollary of results from David Fried in . Nevertheless, we give here a direct proof of it without any reference to ”twisted” cohomology, using only the definition of the Burau representation and Fox free differential calculus .

## 2. The Braid group and the Burau representation

### 2.1. Artin braid group

There are several ways to introduce the Braid group $`B_n`$. All this paragraph is just a short summary of what can be found in . We define $`B_n`$ in a purely algebraic way as the subgroup of *right automorphisms* $`\alpha `$ of the free group

(4)
$$F_n=x_1,x_2,\mathrm{},x_n$$

which verify:

(5) $`(x_i)\alpha `$ $`=A_ix_{\mu _i}A_i^1,1in,`$
(6) $`(x_1x_2\mathrm{}x_n)\alpha `$ $`=x_1x_2\mathrm{}x_n`$
where $`(\mu _1,\mu _2,\mathrm{},\mu _n)`$ is a permutation of $`(1,2,\mathrm{},n)`$ and $`A_i`$ is an element of $`F_n`$.

This group if of finite type with generators

(7)
$$\sigma _1,\sigma _2,\mathrm{},\sigma _{n1}$$

where:

(8)
$$\{\begin{array}{cc}(x_i)\sigma _i\hfill & =x_ix_{i+1}x_i^1,\hfill \\ (x_{i+1})\sigma _i\hfill & =x_i,\hfill \\ (x_j)\sigma _i\hfill & =x_j,ji,i+1.\hfill \end{array}$$

and relations

(9) $`\sigma _i\sigma _{i+1}\sigma _i`$ $`=\sigma _{i+1}\sigma _i\sigma _{i+1},1in2,`$
(10) $`\sigma _i\sigma _j`$ $`=\sigma _j\sigma _i,\left|ij\right|2`$
### 2.2. Free differential calculus

Let $`F_n`$ be the group ring of $`F_n`$ with integer coefficients. For $`j=1,2,\mathrm{},n`$, there exists a well-defined map:

(11)
$$\frac{}{x_j}:F_nF_n$$

called *free derivative* and verifying:

(12) $`{\displaystyle \frac{}{x_j}}(c_1+c_2)`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{}{x_j}}(c_1)+{\displaystyle \frac{}{x_j}}(c_2),c_1,c_2F_n;`$
(13) $`{\displaystyle \frac{}{x_j}}(g_1g_2)`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{}{x_j}}(g_1)+g_1{\displaystyle \frac{}{x_j}}(g_2),g_1,g_2F_n;`$
(14) $`{\displaystyle \frac{}{x_j}}(x_i)`$ $`=\delta _{i,j}1in.`$
Finally, let $`t`$ be the free group with one generator generated by $`t`$ and

(15)
$$\phi \{\begin{array}{ccc}F_n\hfill & \hfill & t\hfill \\ x_i\hfill & \hfill & t,1in\hfill \end{array}$$

$`\phi `$ extends into a morphism $`F_nt=[t,t^1]`$ that we will continue to call $`\phi `$.

### 2.3. Burau representation

Consider an element $`\alpha `$ in $`B_n`$ and define the $`n`$-square matrix $`B_\alpha =(b_{ij})`$ by:

(16)
$$b_{ij}=\phi \left(\frac{}{x_j}\left((x_i)\alpha \right)\right)[t,t^1](1i,jn)$$

It is easy to show  the following relation:

(17)
$$B_{\alpha \beta }=B_\alpha B_\beta .$$

The maps $`\alpha B_\alpha `$ from $`B_n`$ to $`GL(n,[t,t^1])`$ is the *Burau representation* of the Braid group $`B_n`$.

Let $`𝐌=([t,t^1])^n`$ and $`V_1,V_2,\mathrm{},V_n`$ denote the canonical basis of the free module $`𝐌`$. A Burau matrix $`B`$ acts (on the right) on raw vectors of $`𝐌`$.

Any Burau matrix $`B=(b_{ij})`$ satisfies

(18)
$$\underset{k}{}t^{k1}b_{kj}=t^{j1},(j).$$

Hence, the submodule $`𝐇`$ of $`𝐌`$ defined by

(19)
$$X_1+X_2+\mathrm{}+X_n=0$$

is invariant under $`B`$. The Burau representation is reducible into an $`(n1)`$-dimensional representation $`B^r`$, called the *reduced Burau representation*.

###### Remark 3.

There is an interesting relation between the Burau representation of a braid $`\alpha `$ and the Alexander polynomial, a famous invariant of links. If we close the braid $`\alpha `$ to obtain a link $`\stackrel{~}{\alpha }`$ and we let

$$L=\stackrel{~}{\alpha }m$$

where $`m`$ is the braid axis (that is a circle which surrounded all the stings of the braid), $`L`$ characterizes the link $`\stackrel{~}{\alpha }`$ in the 3-sphere $`S^3`$  and the Alexander polynomial of $`L`$ is given by (cf. ):

(20)
$$\mathrm{\Delta }(x,t)=det(B_\alpha ^r(t)xI_{n1})$$

### 2.4. Spectral properties of Burau matrices

A Burau matrix $`B=(b_{ij})`$ satisfies the following relations:

(21)
$$\underset{k}{}b_{ik}=1,(i).$$

Hence, the raw vector $`(1,t,\mathrm{},t^{n1})`$ is an eigenvector for $`B`$ with eigenvalue $`1`$. If $`P_B`$ is the characteristic polynomial of $`B`$, we have thus:

(22)
$$P_B(X)=det(XI_nB)=(X1)P_{B^r}(X).$$

Squier  has shown that the reduced Burau representation is *unitary*, in the sense that there exits a non-singular matrix $`JGL(n1,[t,t^1])`$ such that:

(23)
$$B^rJB^r=J$$

where $`B^r`$ is the transpose of the matrix obtained from $`B^r`$ by exchanging $`t`$ and $`t^1`$.

From equation (23) we deduce that

(24)
$$P_{B_\alpha ^r}(1/X)=(1/X)^{n1}(t)^eP_{B_\alpha ^r}(X),$$

where $`e`$ is the algebraic sum of exponents of $`\sigma _i`$ in expression of $`\alpha `$.

Therefore, if we let $`t`$, $`\left|t\right|=1`$ then this relation becomes:

(25)
$$P_{B_\alpha ^r}(1/X)=(1/X)^{n1}(t)^e\overline{P_{B_\alpha ^r}(X)}.$$

Hence, if $`\lambda `$ is an eigenvalue of $`B_\alpha ^r`$ then $`1/\overline{\lambda }`$ is also an eigenvalue of $`B^r`$ with the same multiplicity.

## 3. Growth rate of a finite type group automorphism

Let $`G`$ be a finite type group, $`S=\{x_1,x_2,\mathrm{},x_n\}`$ a family of generators for $`G`$ and $`L_S(g)`$ be the minimal length of $`gG`$ relatively to $`S`$, that is the minimum number of letters $`x_i`$ or $`x_i^1`$ to needed to express $`g`$. The growth rate of an automorphism $`\alpha :GG`$ is defined to be

(26)
$$GR(\alpha )=\underset{gG}{sup}\left\{\underset{p+\mathrm{}}{lim\; sup}\left(L_S((g)\alpha ^p)\right)^{1/p}\right\}.$$

It is not hard to see that $`GR(\alpha )`$ is independent of the generating system $`S`$, that $`1GR(\alpha )<+\mathrm{}`$ and that

(27)
$$GR(\alpha )=\underset{p+\mathrm{}}{lim\; sup}\left\{\underset{1in}{\mathrm{max}}\left(L_S((x_i)\alpha ^p)\right)^{1/p}\right\}.$$

Introducing the *occurrence matrix* $`A_\alpha =(a_{ij})`$ where $`a_{ij}`$ is the number of occurrence of $`x^{\pm 1}`$ in the *reduced word* $`(x_i)\alpha `$ and norm $`A_\alpha =\mathrm{max}_i(_ja_{ij})`$, equation (27) gives:

(28)
$$GR(\alpha )=\underset{p+\mathrm{}}{lim}A_{\alpha ^p}^{1/p}.$$

###### Remark 4.

If $`G=F_n`$ is the free group, $`S=\{x_1,x_2,\mathrm{},x_n\}`$ a system of free generators, $`\alpha Aut(F_n)`$ and if moreover there is are no cancellations when we iterate $`\alpha `$, then $`L_S((x_ix_j)\alpha )=L_S((x_i)\alpha )+L_S((x_j)\alpha )`$, for $`1i,jn`$. Hence, $`A_{\alpha ^p}=A_\alpha ^p`$, and $`GR(\alpha )`$ is just the spectral radius of matrix $`A_\alpha `$. In the general case, we do not know any recurrence formula for $`A_{\alpha ^p}`$.

## 4. Proof of main theorem

Let’s come back to the case where $`G=F_n`$ and $`\alpha B_n`$. Theorem 1 is a consequence of preceding considerations as we shall see now.

Let $`\omega =x_{\mu _1^{\epsilon _1}}x_{\mu _2^{\epsilon _2}}\mathrm{}x_{\mu _r^{\epsilon _r}}F_n`$ be a reduced word with $`\epsilon _k=\pm 1`$. We have

(29)
$$\frac{}{x_j}(\omega )=\underset{k=1}{\overset{r}{}}\epsilon _k\delta _{\mu _k,j}x_{\mu _1}^{\epsilon _1}x_{\mu _2}^{\epsilon _2}\mathrm{}x_{\mu _k}^{(\epsilon _k1)/2}.$$

Therefore, the number of occurrence of $`x_j^{\pm 1}`$ in $`\omega `$ is equal to the number of monomials in $`(\frac{}{x_j})(\omega )`$. Moreover, if we let

$$\phi ((\frac{}{x_j}(\omega ))=a_nt^n,$$

then the number of monomials in $`(\frac{}{x_j})(\omega )`$ is greater than $`\left|a_n\right|`$. Now, taking $`t`$, $`\left|t\right|=1`$, we have

$$\left|a_nt^n\right|\left|a_n\right|.$$

Hence, if $`\alpha B_n`$, $`A_\alpha `$ is the occurrence matrix and $`B_\alpha `$ is the Burau matrix, we get for all $`t`$, $`\left|t\right|=1`$:

$$a_{ij}\left|b_{ij}(t)\right|.$$

This shows that

$$A_{\alpha ^p}B_{\alpha ^p}(t)=B_\alpha ^p(t),$$

which concluded the proof.

###### Remark 5.

For $`t=1`$, $`B_\alpha (1)`$ is precisely the matrix of the map induced by $`\alpha `$ on the homology group $`H^1(D_P;)`$, which is just a permutation matrix. Hence $`t=1`$ will always give a trivial result.

## 5. Examples

### 5.1. Example 1

$`\alpha =\sigma _1\sigma _2^1B_3`$.

The action on $`F_3`$ is given by

(30)
$$\{\begin{array}{cc}(x_1)\alpha \hfill & =x_1x_3x_1^1\hfill \\ (x_2)\alpha \hfill & =x_1\hfill \\ (x_3)\alpha \hfill & =x_3^1x_2x_3\hfill \end{array}$$

In this example, there are no cancellations when we iterate $`\alpha `$ on each generator $`x_i`$. Hence, if $`A_{\alpha ^n}`$ is the occurrence matrix of $`\alpha ^n`$, we have

$$A_{\alpha ^n}=A_\alpha ^n.$$

Therefore, we can compute explicitly $`GR(\alpha )`$ as the spectral radius of $`A`$ and we find $`(3+\sqrt{5})/2`$. By the way, the characteristic polynomial of $`B_\alpha `$ is given by

$$P_{B_\alpha }(X)=(X1)(X^2(1tt^1)X+1)$$

For $`t=1`$, the root of biggest modulus of $`P_{B_\alpha }`$ is precisely $`(3+\sqrt{5})/2`$. In this case inequality (3) is an equality.

This is however not surprising; $`GR(\alpha ))`$ is always equal to the spectral radius of $`B_\alpha (1)`$ if $`\alpha B_3`$. Let $`\overline{D}_P`$ be the *blow-up* of the $`3`$-punctured disc (where each puncture is replaced by a circle ). The isotopy class represented by $`\alpha `$ in $`\overline{D}_P`$ is either periodic or pseudo-Anosov (in the Thurston sense ). In the first case, $`GR(\alpha )=R(B_\alpha )=1`$. In the second case, the foliation of a pseudo-Anosov map $`\varphi `$ in this class has only singularities on the boundary of $`\overline{D}_P`$. The two-fold cover of $`\overline{D}_P`$ that we shall denote $`\overline{D}_P^2`$, known as the hyperbolic involution, is a torus with $`4`$ holes (corresponding to each boundary component of $`\overline{D}_P`$). The lift $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }`$ of $`\varphi `$ induces an Anosov diffeomorphism on the torus obtained by replacing each boundary curve by a point. The matrix $`B_\alpha ^r(1)SL(2,)`$ is exactly the matrix of a linear Anosov diffeomorphism $`A`$ in this class. Hence, the entropy of $`\varphi `$ which is equal to the one of $`A`$ is equal to $`R(B_\alpha (1)`$.

### 5.2. Example 2

$`\alpha =\sigma _1\sigma _2^1\sigma _3^1B_4`$.

The action on $`F_4`$ is given by

(31)
$$\{\begin{array}{cc}(x_1)\alpha \hfill & =x_1x_4x_1^1\hfill \\ (x_2)\alpha \hfill & =x_1\hfill \\ (x_3)\alpha \hfill & =x_4^1x_2x_4\hfill \\ (x_4)\alpha \hfill & =x_4^1x_3x_4\hfill \end{array}$$

In this example, there are cancellations when we iterate $`\alpha `$ and so we are not able to compute straightforwardly $`GR(\alpha )`$. The characteristic polynomial of the Burau matrix is:

$$P_{B_\alpha }(X)=(X1)(X^3(1tt^1)X^2+(t^2t^1+1)X+t^1).$$

For $`t=1`$, we get:

$$P_{B_\alpha }(X)=(X1)^3,$$

which gives nothing. But for $`t=j=e^{2\pi i/3}`$ we obtain

$$P_{B_\alpha }(X)=X^32X^22jX+j$$

which has a root of modulus strictly greater than $`1`$. We can therefore conclude that $`h(f)>0`$ for all maps in the corresponding isotopy class. In fact, in this case this isotopy class is of pseudo-Anosov type. The growth rate $`GR(\alpha )`$ is the greatest positive root of the polynomial $`X^42X^32X+1`$ (cf. \[6, appendix A\]) which is $`\lambda =1+\sqrt{3}+\sqrt{2\sqrt{3}}`$ and we will show that this number is neither obtained by our estimate (3).

###### Lemma 6.

In Example 2, we have:

$$\lambda >\underset{\left|t\right|=1}{sup}\left\{R(B_\alpha (t))\right\}.$$

###### Proof.

Since $`tR(B_\alpha (t))`$ is a continuous function on the compact set $`\left|t\right|=1`$, if there is equality in (3) for this $`\alpha `$, there must exist a complex number $`t`$ ($`\left|t\right|=1`$) for which this bound is obtained. Hence there must exist $`t`$ ($`\left|t\right|=1`$) such that the polynomial

$$\lambda ^3X^3(1tt^1)\lambda ^2X^2+(t^2t^1+1)\lambda X+t^1)$$

has a root on the unit circle $`\left|X\right|=1`$.

But a necessary condition for a polynomial $`P=a_nX^n+\mathrm{}+a_0`$ ($`a_n0`$) to have a root on the unit circle is that $`P`$ and $`Q=\overline{a}_0X^n+\mathrm{}+\overline{a}_n`$ have a common root. To check this we compute the resultant of the two polynomials

$$\lambda ^3X^3(1tt^1)\lambda ^2X^2+(t^2t^1+1)\lambda X+t^1$$

$$tX^3+(1t+t^2)\lambda X^2(1tt^1)\lambda ^2X+\lambda ^3$$

and we verify that there is no value of $`t`$ ($`\left|t\right|=1`$) for which the resultant vanishes. ∎

### 5.3. Example 3

$`\alpha =\sigma _4\sigma _3\sigma _2\sigma _1\sigma _4\sigma _3B_5`$.

The action on $`F_5`$ is given by

(32)
$$\{\begin{array}{cc}(x_1)\alpha \hfill & =x_1x_2x_1^1\hfill \\ (x_2)\alpha \hfill & =x_1x_3x_4x_3^1x_1^1\hfill \\ (x_3)\alpha \hfill & =x_1x_3x_5x_3^1x_1^1\hfill \\ (x_4)\alpha \hfill & =x_1x_3x_1^1\hfill \\ (x_5)\alpha \hfill & =x_1\hfill \end{array}$$

This is another interesting example. Here again $`\alpha `$ represent a pseudo-Anosov class. The growth rate $`GR(\alpha )`$ is the greatest positive root of $`X^4X^3X^2X+1`$ that we shall call $`\lambda `$ (cf. \[6, appendix A\]).

By the way, we have

$$P_{B_\alpha (1)}(X)=(X1)(X^4+X^3X^2+X+1)$$

which has $`\lambda `$ as a root. Hence, in this case (3) is an equality. As in example 1, the invariant foliation of a pseudo-Anosov representative $`\varphi `$ in this class has only singularities on the boundary of $`\overline{D}_P`$. Since $`card(P)=5`$ is odd, it can be shown that the lift $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }`$ of $`\varphi `$ on the two-fold cover $`\overline{D}_P^2`$ has only singularities on the boundary and there are of even order . Hence the invariant foliation of $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }`$ is transversally orientable and, $`h(\stackrel{~}{\varphi })=R(\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_1)`$. But $`B_\alpha ^r(1)`$ is the homology matrix of $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi }`$ and so

$$\lambda =h(\stackrel{~}{\varphi })=R(\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_1)=R(B_\alpha ^r(1)).$$

This case of equality will happen each time $`card(P)`$ is odd and $`\alpha `$ represent a pseudo-Anosov class with singularities only on the boundary of $`\overline{D}_P`$.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

A major issue in the resurgence of de Sitter (dS) space physics motivated by inflation scenarii , astronomical observation , dS/CFT correspondence , and the study of a simple maximally symmetric space with non vanishing curvature, concerns the status of a “preferred” vacuum state for the associated QFT. The absence of a global time-like Killing vector field in de Sitter space (non stationary) excludes the “natural” choice characterized by the spectrum of a Hamiltonian operator unlike the Minkowski case. The presence of a maximal symmetry group does not get rid of this problem: there exists a family of inequivalent vacua which are all invariant under the dS group .

Nevertheless, thanks to this group, one can study the limit at vanishing curvature owning to the method of group contraction which allows to follow the unitary irreducible representations (hereafter UIR) in that limit. It has been shown  that the representations of the de Sitter group associated to the massive scalar field, i.e. the principal series of SO$`(1,4)`$, contract (in the zero curvature limit) toward the direct sum of two UIR’s of the Poincaré group associated respectively to positive and negative frequencies massive scalar fields, namely:

$$D_\nu 𝒫(+m)𝒫(m).$$
(1)
This result could appear as somewhat confusing since it suggests that the curvature is in some sense responsible for the emergence of negative frequency modes in QFT. This is all the more disturbing since a recent paper shows that these modes necessarily occur in the covariant quantization of the minimally coupled scalar field . Since on the level of two-point functions, the flat limit seems to work perfectly well, it has been argued that group representation contractions were not adapted for the study of QFT . Attempts have been made in replacing SO$`(1,4)`$ by the de Sitter “causal semi-group” which contracts toward the Poincaré causal semi-group . In view of the decisive role played by group theory in ordinary QFT and in defining on de Sitter space objects as mass or spin, it is really frustrating that one cannot manage group representation in the flat limit process. In this paper we propose to amend this drawback.

The Euclidean vacuum has been studied before and singled out by analyticity requirements , flat space behavior or further reasons listed in . Although the Euclidean vacuum seems to be favored, it remains sensible to use the whole vacua family; for instance as tools in order to investigate the effects of transplanckian physics . In this paper, we reconsider the flat limit through the modes. The flat limit for a mode is obtained by considering the latter on a domain which is small compared to the inverse of the curvature. This process can be applied of course at any point of spacetime with different results. The use of ambient space formalism allows to show in a very simple way that the Euclidean vacuum is the only vacuum for which the flat limit yields, in any point of spacetime, positive frequency modes. Furthermore the use of the de Sitter waves shows that the whole free QFT tends toward the flat theory when the curvature vanishes, including the de Sitter Fourier transform which becomes the ordinary Fourier transform in the limit. Some of us will show in future works that these de Sitter waves are also very well adapted to group representations and spinorial computation.

Moreover, our procedure will allow us to reconsider the significance of the result on group contractions quoted before. In this paper we argue that although Eq. (1) can hold it does not represent the only possibility. Actually, we show that the principal series of SO$`(1,4)`$ can contract toward the positive energy representation of the Poincaré group, result which is, as soon as we know, new.

The de Sitter waves and ambient space formalism are summarized in Sec. 2. The flat limit is investigated in Sec. 3. The problem of the contraction of group representations is tackled in Sec. 4. Sec. 5. is devoted to some concluding remarks.

## 2 The de sitter waves

The de Sitter space is conveniently seen as a hyperboloid embedded in a five-dimensional time oriented Minkowski space $`E_5`$:

$$M_H=\{XE_5|X^2=\eta _{\alpha \beta }X^\alpha X^\beta =H^2\},$$

where $`\eta ^{\alpha \beta }=\text{diag}(1,1,1,1,1)`$. The (pseudo-) sphere $`M_H`$ is obviously invariant under O$`(1,4)`$. We only consider the connected component of the identity SO$`{}_{\mathrm{o}}{}^{}(1,4)`$, the so-called de Sitter group. We are in particular interested in the flat limit (i.e. $`H0`$) of the massive scalar free quantum field and the behavior of the group representation in this limit.

The free massive scalar field on this spacetime is, in the Wigner sense, an elementary system whose associated unitary irreducible representation belongs to the principal series of representations of SOo(1,4). This UIR is characterized by the eigenvalue $`\nu ^2+9/4`$ of the Casimir operator $`Q_0`$ which is linked to the Laplace-Beltrami operator on $`M_H`$ through $`H^2Q_0\mathrm{}_H`$ . The contraction of that UIR has already been studied in a group theoretical context . The result is usually written in the following way: the massive representations contract toward the direct sum of the positive energy and negative energy representations of the Poincaré group. We emphasize that this result has been achieved on a purely group theoretical level through an ad hoc process of contraction. Although it is from this point of view remarkable that the irreducible representation can contract toward a reducible representation, there is no uniqueness in this choice of contraction procedure. In the framework of QFT this result played a rather misleading role in order to understand field theory on de Sitter background from our Minkowskian point of view. Actually, we will see that the negative energy plane waves do not appear when the curvature vanishes as soon as the Euclidean vacuum has been chosen.

In , the authors use a set of global modes, the de Sitter waves, solutions of the de Sitter Klein-Gordon equation, which are the formal analogue of the plane waves in Minkowski spacetime. We will see that these modes reduce to the usual plane waves when the curvature tends to zero as far as their analyticity domain has been conveniently chosen.

Let $`𝒞^+=\{\xi E_5;\xi ^2=0,\xi ^0>0\}`$ be the null upper cone of $`E_5`$. The multivalued functions defined on dS spacetime by:

$$X\left(HX\xi \right)^s,\xi 𝒞^+,X\xi \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},s,$$
(2)
are solutions of the de Sitter Klein-Gordon equation $`(\mathrm{}_H+m^2+12H^2\zeta )\varphi =0`$, where $`\zeta `$ is a positive gravitational coupling with the de Sitter background and

$$s=\frac{3}{2}i\nu \text{where}\nu =\frac{1}{2}\sqrt{4m^2H^2+48\zeta 9},$$

corresponds to the principal series of UIR (massive case). The expression defined by Eq. (2) is, as a function of $`\xi `$, homogeneous with degree $`s`$ on $`𝒞^+`$ and thus is entirely determined by specifying its values on a well chosen three dimensional submanifold (the so-called orbital basis) $`\gamma `$ of $`𝒞^+`$. These dS waves, as functions on de Sitter spacetime, are only locally defined because they are singular on specific lower dimensional subsets of $`M_H`$ and multivalued since $`\left(HX\xi \right)`$ can be negative. In order to get a singlevalued global definition, they have to be viewed as distributions which are boundary values of analytic continuations to suitable domains in the complexified de Sitter space $`M_H^{(c)}`$:

$`M_H^{(c)}`$ $`=`$ $`\{Z=X+iYE_5+iE_5;\eta _{\alpha \beta }Z^\alpha Z^\beta =H^2\}.`$
The minimal domains of analyticity which yield single-valued functions on de Sitter spacetime are the forward and backward tubes of $`M_H^{(c)}`$: $`𝒯^\pm =T^\pm M_H^{(c)}`$, where $`T^\pm =E_5iV^\pm `$ and $`V^\pm =\{XE_5;X^0\stackrel{>}{<}\sqrt{𝑿^2+(X^4)^2}\}.`$ Details are given in .

When $`Z`$ varies in $`𝒯^+`$ and $`\xi `$ lies in the positive cone $`𝒞^+`$, the functions given in Eq. (2) are globally well defined since the imaginary part of $`(Z.\xi )`$ is non positive. We define the de Sitter waves $`\varphi _\xi (X)`$ as the boundary value of the analytic continuation to the future tube of Eq. (2):

$`\varphi _\xi (X)`$ $``$ $`c_\nu \text{bv}(HZ\xi )^s=c_\nu [\theta (HX\xi )`$ (3)
$`+`$ $`\theta (HX\xi )e^{i\pi s}]|HX\xi |^s,`$
where $`\theta `$ is the Heaviside function. The real valued constant $`c_\nu `$ is determined by imposing the Hadamard condition on the two-point function. This choice of modes corresponds to the Euclidean vacuum. In terms of de Sitter waves, the two-point function reads :

$$W(z,z^{})=c_{\nu }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}_\gamma (HZ\xi )^s(HZ^{}\xi )^s^{}𝑑\sigma _\gamma (\xi ),$$

where $`Z𝒯^+`$ and $`Z^{}𝒯^{}`$. The measure $`d\sigma _\gamma (\xi )`$ on the orbital basis $`\gamma `$ is chosen to be $`m^2`$ times the natural one induced from the $`^5`$ Lebesgue measure. The calculation, similar to that of  yields:

$$c_\nu =\sqrt{\frac{H^2\left(\nu ^2+1/4\right)}{2(2\pi )^3(1+e^{2\pi \nu })m^2}}.$$

## 3 The flat limit of de sitter waves

Hereafter, we investigate the behavior of the mode $`\varphi _\xi (X)`$ under vanishing curvature. We consider a region around any point $`X_A`$ in which all the distances are small compared to $`H^1`$. With this assumption, we will prove that

$`\underset{H0}{lim}\varphi _\xi (X)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2(2\pi )^3}}}\mathrm{exp}(ikx),\text{for}X_A\xi >\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},`$
$`\underset{H0}{lim}\varphi _\xi (X)`$ $`=`$ $`0,\text{for}X_A\xi <\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}.`$ (4)
In other words, these modes do not generate negative frequency modes in the flat limit, whatever the point around which the limit is computed.

Due to the homogeneity of the de Sitter space under the de Sitter group action, one can choose a system of coordinates such that $`X_A^4=H^1`$ and $`X_A^\mu =0`$. In the neighborhood of this point, for $`H0`$, the de Sitter spacetime meets its tangent plane (the four dimensional Minkowski spacetime), and the coordinates $`X`$ of this neighborhood read:

$$\{\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill X^\mu & =& x^\mu +o(H)\hfill \\ \hfill X^4& =& H^1+o(1).\hfill \end{array}$$
(5)
For $`s\frac{3}{2}imH^1`$, $`\mathrm{exp}(i\pi s)0`$ and one obtains:

$$\underset{H0}{lim}\varphi _\xi (X)=\underset{H0}{lim}c_\nu \theta (HX\xi )|HX\xi |^s.$$

The Heaviside function yields $`\xi ^4<0`$ since $`HX\xi \xi ^4`$ and finally, for small $`H`$:

$$\varphi _\xi (X)\frac{|\xi _4|^s}{\sqrt{2(2\pi )^3}}\left(1+\frac{H\xi _\mu x^\mu }{|\xi _4|}\right)^{\frac{3}{2}imH^1}\theta \left(\xi ^4\right).$$

This limit exists only for $`|\xi _4|=1`$. As a consequence, we use the orbital basis $`\gamma =𝒞_1𝒞_2`$, where $`𝒞_1,𝒞_2`$ are defined by:

$$\xi =(\frac{\omega _𝒌}{m},\frac{𝒌}{m},1)𝒞_1,\xi =(\frac{\omega _𝒌}{m},\frac{𝒌}{m},\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1})𝒞_2,$$

with $`\omega _𝒌=\sqrt{𝒌^2+m^2}`$. Note that the induced measure on $`\gamma `$ is $`d𝒌/(m^2\omega _𝒌)`$ and therefore $`d\sigma _\gamma (\xi )=d𝒌/\omega _𝒌`$. We finally obtain Eqs. (4) according to whether $`\xi `$ belongs to $`𝒞_1`$ or $`𝒞_2`$ i.e., $`X_A\xi `$ positive or negative.

Thus, due to the analyticity condition at the origin of the $`\mathrm{exp}(i\pi s)`$ term, the negative energy modes are (exponentially) suppressed whereas the positive energy modes give the Minkowskian on-shell modes corresponding to a particle of mass $`m`$.

We insist on the fact that the result leads to positive frequency plane waves whatever the point $`X_A`$ we choose. This choice of modes, which corresponds to the Euclidean vacuum, is the only one having this property. Any Bogoliubov transformation on these modes leads to the appearance of conjugate modes $`\varphi _\xi ^{}`$ whose flat limit at some point $`X_B`$ is a negative frequency mode as soon as $`B`$ has been chosen in such a way that $`X_B\xi <0`$.

As a consequence, any vacuum different from the Euclidean vacuum would lead to physically unacceptable Minkowskian QFT. The Euclidean vacuum has therefore to be preferred with respect to the flat limit criterion.

The de Sitter waves allow to define a de Sitter Fourier transform which becomes the ordinary Fourier transform in the flat limit. In fact, one can realize the de Sitter one particle sector $`_H`$ as distributions on spacetime through this de Sitter Fourier transform: any $`\psi _H`$ can be written as:

$$\psi (X)=_{\xi \gamma }\varphi __\xi (X)\stackrel{~}{\psi }(\xi )𝑑\sigma _\gamma (\xi ),\stackrel{~}{\psi }L^2(\gamma ,d\sigma _\gamma ),$$
(6)
see  for details. Let $`X_A`$ be a point of de Sitter spacetime in the neighborhood of which we will proceed to the flat limit. The space $`_H`$ can then be decomposed into $`_H=_H^1_H^2`$ using the decomposition of the orbital basis:

$`\psi (X)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{\xi 𝒞_1}}\varphi __\xi (X)\stackrel{~}{\psi }(\xi )𝑑\sigma _\gamma (\xi )`$ (7)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle _{\xi 𝒞_2}}\varphi __\xi (X)\stackrel{~}{\psi }(\xi )𝑑\sigma _\gamma (\xi ).`$
In the limit of null curvature, the second integral of the above expression vanishes and only the positive frequency remains:

$$\underset{H0}{lim}\psi (x)=\frac{e^{ikx}}{\sqrt{2(2\pi )^3}}\stackrel{~}{\psi }(k)\frac{d𝒌}{\omega _𝒌}.$$

As a consequence, the ordinary Fourier transform is the flat limit of the de Sitter Fourier transform. Once again, one can see the significance of de Sitter waves which play in de Sitter space the role of plane waves in Minkowski space, including a good behavior with respect to the de Sitter group: one can see easily using $`\varphi _\xi (g^1X)=\varphi _{g\xi }(X)`$ that each space $`_H^i`$ is invariant under the subgroup generated by the $`M_{ab}`$ with $`0a<b3`$ (see appendix). This subgroup, isomorphic to SO$`{}_{o}{}^{}(1,3)`$, is the stabilizer of $`X_A`$.

## 4 Group contraction

The Minkowski spacetime is the flat limit of the de Sitter spacetime with respect to all the objects of QFT. In order to emphasize this fact and clarify the link between our approach and that of  we will present the concept of contractions in a slightly different manner from the usual presentation.

Let us consider a family of representations $`U^H`$ of a group $`G`$ into some spaces $`_H`$ and a representation $`U`$ of a group $`G^{}`$ into a space $``$. One wants to give a precise meaning to the assertion $`U^HU`$ for $`H0`$ (one says that the representations $`U^H`$ contract toward $`U`$).

First, we must have a bijection $`G\stackrel{i}{}G^{}`$ (which is not an homomorphism) conveying the “similarity” between the two groups. Second we need a space, equipped with a topology, in which all the representations are written. This is obtained by writing an injective map $`A_H`$ from $`_H`$ to $`E`$ where $`E`$ is a topological space containing $``$ in such a way that for any $`\varphi _H`$ the limit $`\underset{H0}{lim}A_H\varphi =h`$ exists in $`E`$ and belongs to $``$.

We say that the representations $`U^H`$ contract toward $`U`$ if:

$$\psi _H,\underset{H0}{lim}A_HU_g^H\psi =U_g^{}h=U_g^{}\underset{H0}{lim}A_H\psi ,$$
(8)
where $`g^{}`$ is the element of $`G^{}`$ identified with $`gG`$ by means of $`i`$.

Let us now return to de Sitter context. For $`x`$ in Minkowski space we define $`X`$ in de Sitter space through Eq. (5). We then can define $`A_H`$: for the de Sitter waves $`\varphi _\xi `$ we define $`A_H\varphi _\xi `$ as a function on Minkowski spacetime through:

$$\left(A_H\varphi _\xi \right)(x)=\varphi _\xi (X).$$

This definition extends linearly to $`_H`$ through Eq. (7). Then in view of Eq. (4) we have, at least in a weak sense, for any $`\psi `$ in $`_H`$:

$$\underset{H0}{lim}A_H\psi =f,$$

where $`f`$ is a positive frequency wave packet on Minkowski spacetime.

We now turn to the representations. The de Sitter and Poincaré groups are identified as explained in the appendix. Consider:

$`g`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \underset{ab}{}}\alpha _{ab}M_{ab}\right)\stackrel{i}{}g^{}=\mathrm{exp}({\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}\alpha _{0j}B_j`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{ij}{}}\alpha _{ij}R_{ij}+{\displaystyle \underset{\mu }{}}\alpha _{\mu 4}T_\mu ).`$
The representation of the de Sitter group is defined by:

$$U_g^H\psi (X)=\psi (g_H^1X),$$

where $`g_H`$ is the $`5\times 5`$ matrix defined by

$$g_H=\mathrm{exp}(\underset{a<b<4}{}\alpha _{ab}M_{ab}+H\underset{\mu }{}\alpha _{\mu 4}M_{\mu 4}),$$

and the representation of the Poincaré group is defined by:

$$U_g^{}\psi (x)=\psi (g_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{1}x).$$

One can easily see that for $`\xi 𝒞_1`$:

$$\left(H(g_H^1X)\xi \right)=\left(H(g^1x)k+o(H)+1\right).$$
(9)
Then Eq. (8) follows and the principal series of representations of the de Sitter group contract toward the positive energy representation of the Poincaré group. Once again, no negative energy can appear in this process. Nevertheless this is not in contradiction with  for which this series can contract toward another representation. In fact, in our context, the result of  can be recovered by modifying $`A_H`$ in the following way. One can define $`\stackrel{~}{A}_H`$ by $`\stackrel{~}{A}_H=A_H`$ on $`_H^1`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{A}_H=\mathrm{exp}(+i\pi s)A_H`$ on $`_H^2`$. With this operator, one obtains the result of  because the artificial exponential term cancels the natural one which is present in the definition of $`\varphi _\xi `$ thanks to the property of analyticity.

## 5 Conclusions

Recently, several papers summarized the theory of irreducible unitary representations of the de Sitter group.

A result, commonly quoted in these summaries, suggests that the appearance of negative energies for a Minkowskian observer is an unavoidable consequence of group theory. For this reason some authors claimed that the contraction procedure of group representations was not suitable in order to investigate the flat limit of dS-QFT.

We have shown that this is inexact. We also conclude that the Euclidean vacuum as to be preferred as far as one wishes to recover ordinary QFT in the flat limit.

To that end we used the formalism of de Sitter waves which turned out to be a very convenient tool, possibly as useful in de Sitter space as the plane waves in Minkowski space.

### Acknowledgments

The authors thank J. Bros, J-P. Gazeau, M. Lachièze-Rey and U. Moschella for valuables discussions and helpful criticisms.

## Appendix: Identification of de Sitter and Poincaré groups

We begin with Lie algebras. Let $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{a,b}`$ be the $`5\times 5`$ matrices whose entries $`a_{nm}`$ are defined by $`a_{nm}=\delta _{na}\delta _{mb}`$.

The following matrices are a basis of the Lie algebra so(1,4) of the Lie group SOo(1,4).

$`M_{0b}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{0b}+\mathrm{\Delta }_{b0}\text{ for }b=1,2,3,4`$
$`M_{ab}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{ab}\mathrm{\Delta }_{ba}\text{ for }0<a<b4.`$
The following matrices are a basis of the Lie algebra p(1,3) of the Poincaré group.

$`B_j`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{0j}+\mathrm{\Delta }_{j0}\text{ for }j=1,2,3`$
$`R_{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{ij}\mathrm{\Delta }_{ji}\text{ for }0<i<j3`$
$`T_\mu `$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mu 4}\text{ for }\mu =0,1,2,3.`$
The identification between the two Lie algebras is obtained through :

$`M_{0j}`$ $``$ $`B_j\text{ for }j=1,2,3`$
$`M_{ij}`$ $``$ $`R_{ij}\text{ for }0<i<j3`$
$`M_{\mu 4}`$ $``$ $`T_\mu \text{ for }\mu =0,1,2,3.`$
The identification between the groups follows, using the exponential application.