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# Deformation of big pseudoholomorphic disks and application to the Hanh pseudonorm

## Abstract

We simplify proof of the theorem that close to any pseudoholomorphic disk there passes a pseudoholomorphic disk of arbitrary close size with any pre-described sufficiently close direction. We apply these results to the Kobayashi and Hanh pseudodistances. It is shown they coincide in dimensions higher than four. The result is new even in the complex case.

We aim here to prove the following statement, which was proved by another (analogous to the approach of \[NW\]) and more complicated method in \[K1\].

###### Theorem 1

. Let $`(M^{2n},J)`$ be an almost complex manifold and

$$f_0:(D_R,i)(M,J),(f_0)_{}(0)e=v_00,$$

be a pseudoholomorphic disk. Here $`e=1`$ is the unit vector at $`0`$. For every $`\epsilon >0`$ there exists a neighborhood $`𝒱_\epsilon (v_0)`$ of the vector $`v_0TM`$ such that for each $`v𝒱_\epsilon `$ there is a bit smaller pseudoholomorphic disk

$$f:(D_{R\epsilon },i)(M,J),f_{}(0)e=v.$$

The approximating curve $`f`$ can be embedded/immersed if such is the curve $`f_0`$.

This theorem was used in \[K1\] for the proof of equivalence of two definitions of Kobayashi pseudodistance $`d_M`$ in almost complex category. In the second $`d_M`$ is associated via path integration to the Kobayashi-Royden pseudonorm:

$$F_M(v)=inf\{1/r|f:(D_r,i)(M,J),f_{}(0)e=v\},vTM.$$

The above theorem assures $`F_M`$ to be upper semicontinous, implying that

$$d_M(x,y)=inf\{\gamma ^{}F_M|\gamma :[0,1]M,\gamma (0)=x,\gamma (1)=y\}.$$

is well-defined.

Moreover, since an embedded disk can always be perturbed to embedded we prove simultaneously the main properties of the Hanh pseudonorm $`S_M(v)`$, which is defined by the same formula as $`F_M`$ with an additional requirement on $`f`$ to be injective. This pseudometric generates a pseudodistance via path integration, like $`F_M`$ generates $`d_M`$, and this coincides (cf. \[K1\]) with the distance

$$h_M(x,y)=inf\underset{k=1}{\overset{m}{}}d(z_k,w_k),$$

defined via injective chains $`f_k:D_1(M^{2n},J)`$, $`k=1,\mathrm{},m`$, $`f_1(z_1)=p`$, $`f_m(w_m)=q`$ and $`f_k(w_k)=f_{k+1}(z_{k+1})`$, where $`d`$ is the Poincare metric on $`D_1`$.

Our approach to the close PH-curve existence result is similar to that of \[S\], where the linearization of the structure $`J`$ was made at a point. We linearize the structure along the disk and use the reduction of the almost complex problem to a complex one via the Green operator:

$$T_r:C^k(D_r,^n)C^{k+1}(D_r,^n),g(z)\frac{1}{2\pi i}_{D_r}\frac{g(z)}{\zeta z}𝑑\zeta d\overline{\zeta }.$$

It is continuous in the Sobolev and Hölder norms (\[V\]) and obeys the identities: $`\overline{}T_r=Id`$, $`T_r\overline{}|_{C_0^{k+1}}=Id.`$

Proof. We study at first the case, when the curve is embedded. Let $`U`$ be a neighborhood of the shrunk PH-curve $`f_0(D_{R\epsilon })`$. We can assume \[K1\] the disk is standard $`f_0(D_{R\epsilon })=D_{R\epsilon }\times \{0\}^{n1}^n`$ and the almost complex structure $`J:UEnd_{}(^n)`$, $`J^2=\mathrm{𝟏}`$, along it is the standard complex structure $`J(z)=J_0`$ for all $`zD_{R\epsilon }`$. The equation for $`f`$ to be pseudoholomorphic reads:

$$\overline{}f+q_J(f)f=0,q_J(z)=[J_0+J(z)]^1[J_0J(z)],$$

that due to the above properties is equivalent to

$$\overline{}h=0,h=[Id+T_{R\epsilon }q_J(f)](f).$$

For $`k`$, $`k>1`$, consider the map

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill \mathrm{\Phi }:& \hfill 𝒥\times C^{k+1}(D_{R\epsilon };U)& C^{k+1}(D_{R\epsilon };^n),\hfill \\ & \hfill (J,s)& [Id+T_{R\epsilon }q_J(f_0+s)](f_0+s),\hfill \end{array}$$

where $`𝒥`$ is a neighborhood of the given almost complex structure $`J`$ in $`C^k`$-topology. We consider $`U`$ as the total space of the ”normal bundle”, with the sections being denoted by $`s`$, so that every map $`fC^{k+1}(D_{R\epsilon };U)`$, that is $`C^1`$-close to $`(f_0)|_{D_{R\epsilon }}`$, has a unique representation $`f=f_0+s`$.

The map $`\mathrm{\Phi }_J=\mathrm{\Phi }(J,)`$ is $`C^k`$-smooth and satisfies: $`\mathrm{\Phi }_J(0)=f_0`$, $`\mathrm{\Phi }_J^{}(0)=Id`$. It has the Taylor decomposition (with $``$ being the $`C^{k+1}`$-norm):

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_J(s)=f_0+s+o(s).$$

Therefore $`Im\mathrm{\Phi }_J`$ contains a small neighborhood of the curve $`f_0`$.

Let $`Z=(a,v)T^n`$ and $`h_Z(z)=a+vz`$ be the holomorphic disk in $`U`$, $`zD_{R\epsilon }`$. It is close to $`f_0`$ whenever $`Z`$ is close to $`Z_0=(0,(1,0,\mathrm{},0))T^n`$. Define

$$f_Z=f_0+\mathrm{\Phi }_J^1(h_Z).$$

It is a $`J`$-holomorphic $`(R\epsilon )`$-disk, which satisfies: $`f_Zh_Z=o(|ZZ_0|)`$.

Consider the $`C^k`$-map $`\mathrm{\Psi }:^{2n}^{2n}`$, $`Z(f_Z(0),(f_Z)_{}(0)e)`$. Since the above estimate implies $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{}(Z_0)=Id`$, the map $`\mathrm{\Psi }(Z)`$ is a local $`C^k`$-diffeomorphism of a neighborhood of $`Z_0`$. In particular, for every $`Z=(a,v)`$ sufficiently close to $`Z_0`$ there exists a pair $`\stackrel{~}{Z}=(\alpha ,\zeta )`$ such that $`\mathrm{\Psi }(\stackrel{~}{Z})=Z`$.

Now the obtained map $`f=f_{\stackrel{~}{Z}}`$ is $`C^1`$-close to $`f_0`$ and so is embedded. It is also smooth due to the usual elliptic regularity (\[NW, MD, S\]). If $`f_0`$ is immersed, the reasoning is the same for the neighborhood $`U`$ obtained via $`f_0`$ by the pull-back.

In the general case for the map $`f_0:(D_{R\epsilon },i)(M,J)`$ we consider the graph $`\widehat{f}_0:(D_{R\epsilon },i)(D_{R\epsilon }\times M,\widehat{J}=i\times J)`$, which is injective and apply the part of the statement already proved. y $`\mathrm{}`$

###### Remark.

The proof implies persistence of big pseudoholomorphic disks (with an insignificant loss of size) under perturbation not only of the initial point and direction, but also of the almost complex structure $`J`$ (note the role of $`𝒥`$ above). This generalizes theorems 1.7 and 3.1.1(ii) in \[MD\] and \[S\] respectively.

The properties of the Kobayashi-Royden pseudometric for almost complex manifolds was discussed in \[K1\]. Let us consider the non-integrable version $`S_M`$ of the Hanh pseudometric. It is known (\[O\]) that it coincides with the Kobayashi-Royden pseudometric $`F_M`$ for domains $`M^n`$ of dimension $`n>2`$. We generalize this to the non-integrable case.

###### Theorem 2

. $`S_M=F_M`$ for almost complex manifolds $`(M^{2n},J)`$, $`n>2`$.

Proof. Since $`S_MF_M`$, it is enough to show that whatever small $`\epsilon >0`$ is, any pseudoholomorphic disk of radius $`R>0`$ can be approximated by an injective pseudoholomorphic disk of radius $`R\epsilon `$ with the same initial direction.

We give at first a new simple proof of the mentioned above theorem from \[O\]. Let $`M^n`$ be a domain and $`f:D_RM`$ be a holomorphic map. Denote $`f_W(z)=f(z)w_2z^2w_3z^3`$, $`zD_{R\epsilon }`$, $`W=(w_2,w_3)^{2n}`$. For small $`W`$ the map has still the image in $`M`$. Also note that $`f_W(0)=f(0)`$ and $`f_W^{}(0)=f^{}(0)`$.

By the Sard’s theorem a generic $`w_1^n`$ is outside the set

$$\left\{\frac{f(z_1)f(z_2)}{z_1^2z_2^2}\right|z_1,z_2D_{R\epsilon }\}\left\{\frac{f^{}(z)}{2z}\right|zD_{R\epsilon }\}.$$

For such a choice the map $`f_{w_2,0}`$ is injective outside the anti-diagonal $`\{z_2=z_1\}`$. Note that regularity of the origin is preserved. So, switching on $`w_3`$ being generic, we get the map $`f_{w_2,w_3}`$ to be injective everywhere.

In other words, the Sard’s theorem implies that the set of $`W=(w_2,w_3)`$ for which $`f_W`$ is not injective has measure zero and so a generic pair of small vectors $`w_2,w_3^n`$ defines the required approximating disk $`f_W(z)`$.

In the general complex case we should shift along some holomorphic vector fields. This is achieved by the graph-lift construction and a Royden’s lemma \[R\] that an embedded holomorphic disk, shrunk a bit, has a Stein neighborhood.

It is easier, however, to consider the general case of almost complex manifolds $`(M,J)`$ and to deduce the statement for integrable $`J`$ as a corollary.

Denote by $`\pi :D_{R\epsilon }\times MM`$ the projection. As in theorem 1, the graph-lift $`\widehat{f}_0:D_{R\epsilon }D_{R\epsilon }\times M`$ can be deformed to the family $`\widehat{f}_{\widehat{W}}=\widehat{f}_0+\widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }}_{\widehat{J}}^1(g_{\widehat{W}})`$, where $`g_{\widehat{W}}=\widehat{w}_0+\widehat{w}_1z\widehat{w}_2z^2\widehat{w}_3z^3`$, $`\widehat{W}=(\widehat{w}_2,\widehat{w}_3)`$, $`\widehat{w}_j^{n+1}`$ and $`\widehat{w}_0=\widehat{\phi }_0(\widehat{w}_2,\widehat{w}_3)`$, $`\widehat{w}_1=\widehat{\phi }_1(\widehat{w}_2,\widehat{w}_3)`$ are some $`C^k`$-smooth functions, close to zero, such that $`(\widehat{f}_{\widehat{W}}^\delta (0),(\widehat{f}_{\widehat{W}}^\delta )_{}(0)e)=\widehat{Z}_0=(0,(1,0,\mathrm{},0))T^{n+1}`$. We identify above $`\widehat{f}_0`$ with $`g_{\widehat{0}}`$, the first coordinate disk, and its neighborhood with a ball $`B^{n+1}`$, equipped with the structure $`\widehat{J}=i\times J`$.

Similarly to the first proof we get: $`\widehat{f}_{\widehat{W}}=g_{\widehat{W}}+\rho _{\widehat{W}}`$, where $`\rho _{\widehat{W}}=o(|\widehat{W}|)`$. Now $`\widehat{f}_{\widehat{W}}`$ is an embedding if $`\pi \widehat{f}_{\widehat{W}}(z_1)\pi \widehat{f}_{\widehat{W}}(z_2)`$ for $`z_1z_2`$ and $`\pi \widehat{f}_{\widehat{W}}(z)0`$. We consider only the first, more complicated, injectivity condition. It’s negation is equivalent to $`g_{\widehat{W}}(z_1)g_{\widehat{W}}(z_2)=[\rho _{\widehat{W}}]|_{z_1}^{z_2}+\zeta `$, $`\zeta D`$, or after the projection:

$$w_2(z_1+z_2)+w_3(z_1^2+z_1z_2+z_2^2)=w_1+\frac{\pi \rho _{\widehat{W}}(z_2)\pi \rho _{\widehat{W}}(z_1)}{z_2z_1}$$

The last equation is never satisfied for a.e. small $`W=(w_2,w_3)`$ in $`^{2n}`$. Actually for $`w_1=\pi \phi _1(\widehat{w}_2,\widehat{w}_3)`$ the r.h.s. is $`o(|W|)`$. Thus the claim follows from the Sard’s theorem, if at least one of the coefficients of $`w_2`$ and $`w_3`$ is not small. Since

$$\begin{array}{c}D\times D=\hfill \\ \hfill =\left[U_{5\delta }(z_1=z_2=0)\right]\left[D\times DU_\delta (z_1=z_2)\right]\left[D\times DU_\delta (z_1=(\frac{1}{2}\pm \frac{\sqrt{3}}{2})z_2)\right].\end{array}$$

and the regularity at $`(0,0)`$ is preserved under small perturbation we may achieve injectivity away from the anti-diagonal by the quadratic perturbation and the in its neighborhood by a cubic one. This finishes the proof. y $`\mathrm{}`$

For $`n=1`$, when almost complex structures are automatically integrable, the equality $`S_M=F_M`$ is equivalent to contractibility ($`M`$ being a disk). In the case of $``$-dimension $`n=2`$ the equality may fail to hold (however arguments of theorem 2 show that $`F_M`$ coincides with the pseudonorm $`\stackrel{~}{S}_M`$ obtained via immersed disks).

* Consider the map $`\phi _\alpha :D_1^2`$, $`z(z(\alpha z1)^2,\alpha z^2(\alpha z1))`$, $`|\alpha |>1`$. It has a unique self-intersection point $`\phi _\alpha (0)=\phi _\alpha (1/\alpha )=0`$, which is transversal: $`\phi _\alpha ^{}(0)=(1,0)`$, $`\phi _\alpha (1/\alpha )=(0,1)`$, and so non-removable. For a neighborhood $`U`$ of the image $`Im(\phi _\alpha )`$ the pseudonorms $`F_U`$ and $`S_U`$ are different.

In the product case the pseudonorms $`S_M`$ and $`F_M`$ were compared in \[J\]. It is however unclear if we can majorize $`S_McF_M`$, with a constant depending on $`M`$, or more generally, if Kobayashi and Hanh hyperbolicities ($`d_M`$ or resp. $`S_M`$ being a metric) are equivalent. Of course, the former implies the latter.

It was shown in \[KO\] that contractible tame almost complex domains are hyperbolic. In other cases the hyperbolicity may be lost.

* Consider the Reeb foliation of $`^3`$ with the standard $`T^2`$ as a leaf. This foliation propagates via parallel transports to $`^{2n}=^3\times ^{2n3}`$, $`n2`$, and there exists an almost complex structure on $`^{2n}`$ such that the new foliation is pseudoholomorphic. Every domain containing such a torus is not tame and is not hyperbolic. Note that for $`n=2`$ only a curve of genus one can be realized as a pseudoholomorphic submanifold in an almost complex $`(^{2n},J)`$ (\[Mo\]). For $`n>2`$ the sphere $`S^2`$ can be realized as a pseudoholomorphic submanifold, providing similarly a non-tame and non-hyperbolic domain in $`(^{2n},J)`$ (\[KO\]).

###### Remark.

The result of the last theorem shows that the analogy between geodesics and pseudoholomorphic disks, instructive in many respects (\[Mo\]), is however limited. Though the Nijenhuis tensor naturally plays the role of the curvature \[K2\], there are no analogs for the conjugate points in complex time curves theory.


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# Burghelea-Friedlander-Kappeler’s gluing formula for the zeta-determinant and its applications to the adiabatic decompositions of the zeta-determinant and the analytic torsion.

E-mail address : ywleemath.inha.ac.kr


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

An outstanding problem is the following: Given a classical structure find its quantum extension(s). Deformation quantization theory is an interesting approach to this problem.

In  it was shown that any symplectic manifold can be deformation-quantized. The question whether any Poisson manifold can be quantized was answered in affirmative only recently by Kontsevich . The solution presented by Kontsevich uses in a essential way ideas of perturbative string theory. Kontsevich’s construction was further clarified by Cattaneo and Felder in , where an explicit path integral formula for the star-product of functions on the Poisson manifolds was given.

Unlike the star-product on the Grassmann-even manifolds, the star-product on the supermanifolds is not sufficiently studied. For a list of papers on the subject, see . Ref.  gives a systematic analysis of the deformation of the algebra of four dimensional supercoordinates.111 For an earlier discussion of the quantum deformations of the Poincare supergroup, see . The most general deformed $`N=1`$, $`d=4`$ supercoordinate algebra which satisfies Jacobi identities and is compatible with the $`N=1`$ supersymmetry reads

$$[x^i,x^j]=i\mathrm{}\text{𝔹}^{ij}(\theta ),[x^i,\theta ^\alpha ]=i\mathrm{}\text{}^{\alpha i},\{\theta ^\alpha ,\theta ^\beta \}=0,$$
(1.1)
where 𝔹 is $`x`$-independent and is a linear function of $`\theta `$.  is independent of $`x`$ and $`\theta `$, and satisfies an equation following from the Jacobi identity.

Recently, using Berkovits’ covariant formalism for quantizing type II superstring compactified on a Calabi-Yau three-fold , Ooguri and Vafa made an interesting observation that the RR field strengths can give rise to a non-zero $`\{\theta ,\theta \}`$ anticommutator in four dimensions .222For an earlier discussion of RR backgrounds in the context of noncommutativity in string theory, see . De Boer, Grassi and van Nieuwenhuizen  generalized this observation to ten dimensional superspace using the covariant formalism . Ref. also pointed out that the gravitino yields a non-zero value for $`[x,\theta ]`$.

The purpose of this paper is to give a general path integral formula for the star-product of functions of $`x`$ and $`\theta `$. The $``$-algebra which arises from our path integral formula is of the form

$$[x^i,x^j]_{}=i\mathrm{}\text{𝔹}^{ij}(x,\theta )+O(\mathrm{}^2),$$

$$[x^i,\theta ^\alpha ]_{}=i\mathrm{}\text{}^{\alpha i}(x,\theta )+O(\mathrm{}^2),\{\theta ^\alpha ,\theta ^\beta \}_{}=i\mathrm{}\text{𝔽}^{\alpha \beta }(x,\theta )+O(\mathrm{}^2).$$
(1.2)
Using path integral methods, we will derive the associativity equations satisfied by the fields 𝔹,  and 𝔽.

As a main tool in deriving the path integral formula, we use an elegant supermanifold formalism for the Batalin-Vilkovisky(BV) quantization  introduced by Alexandrov, Kontsevich, Schwarz and Zaboronsky. This formalism was further elaborated and extended by Park.333 See also . The AKSZ method  is a method to construct solutions of the BV master equation directly, without starting from a classical action with a set of symmetries, as is done in the BV method. The classical action is then recovered a posteriori by setting the fields of non-zero ghost number to zero. In ten spacetime dimensions the classical action that we obtain from our BV-action using this method will turn out to be equivalent, for the constant background fields, to the one used in .

The star-product will be represented as a path integral of a sigma model on a superdisk. The BV-action $`S=S[𝑿,𝚯,𝝆,𝝃]`$ of the sigma model will be a functional of the superspace-valued superfields. The action $`S`$ depends on the background fields 𝔹,  and 𝔽. Imposing the supersymmetry invariance of the action, we will obtain the algebra (1.1). We will also find an explicit formula for the supersymmetric star-product of functions of $`x`$ and $`\theta `$.

The paper is organized as follows. In section 2 the path integral formula is given, the associativity equations are derived and the Feynman diagrammatics is presented. The supersymmetric backgrounds are considered in section 3 where an explicit expression for the star-product is given. A summary of our results can be found in section 4.

## 2 Path integral formula

The star-product is represented as a path integral on a superdisk with the two functions inserted on the boundary of the disk:

$$fg(x,\theta )=$$

$$_{X(\mathrm{})=x,\mathrm{\Theta }(\mathrm{})=\theta }f(X(0),\mathrm{\Theta }(0))g(X(1),\mathrm{\Theta }(1))\mathrm{e}^{\frac{i}{\mathrm{}}S[𝑿,𝚯,𝝆,𝝃]}D𝑿D𝚯D𝝆D𝝃|_{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{\mathrm{Lagrangian}}{\mathrm{submanifold}}}$$
(2.1)
where $`0`$ and $`1`$ are the points on the boundary of the disk where the functions are inserted. The path integral is computed with the condition $`X=x`$, $`\mathrm{\Theta }=\theta `$ at the point $`\mathrm{}`$ of the boundary of the disk. The path integral is taken over a Lagrangian submanifold in the field space $`\{𝑿,𝚯,𝝆,𝝃\}`$.

We first describe the fields that appear in Eq. (2.1). $`𝑿`$, $`𝚯`$, $`𝝆`$ and $`𝝃`$ are maps from the superdisk to a superspace $``$. The local coordinates of $``$ are $`X^i,\mathrm{\Theta }^\alpha ,\rho _i`$ and $`\xi _\alpha `$. For simplicity we work in the spacetime dimension $`n`$ that admits a Majorana representation. $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ is a Majorana spinor in $`n`$ dimensions. $`i`$ is a spacetime index and $`\alpha `$ is a spinorial index. The coordinates of $``$ are graded with respect to two Grassmann gradations $`\epsilon _1`$ and $`\epsilon _2`$:

$`\epsilon _1(X)=0,\epsilon _1(\mathrm{\Theta })=1,\epsilon _1(\rho )=0,\epsilon _1(\xi )=1,`$
$`\epsilon _2(X)=0,\epsilon _2(\mathrm{\Theta })=0,\epsilon _2(\rho )=1,\epsilon _2(\xi )=1.`$ (2.2)
The commutation property of functions on $``$ is given by the relation

$$fg=(1)^{\epsilon _1(f)\epsilon _1(g)+\epsilon _2(f)\epsilon _2(g)}gf.$$
(2.3)
Let $`\sigma ^\mu `$ and $`\zeta ^\mu `$ ($`\mu =1,2`$) be bosonic and fermionic coordinates of the superdisk. Then

$$𝑿=𝑿(\sigma ,\zeta ),𝚯=𝚯(\sigma ,\zeta ),𝝆=𝝆(\sigma ,\zeta ),𝝃=𝝃(\sigma ,\zeta ).$$
(2.4)
In other words we have an embedding $`\varphi `$ of the superdisk $`D`$ into the superspace $``$:

$$\varphi :D.$$
(2.5)
We now describe the action $`S`$ in Eq. (2.1). It is an integral over the superdisk $`D`$

$$S=S_0+S_{\text{int}}=_Dd^2\sigma d^2\zeta (_0+𝓗)=_Dd^2\sigma d^2\zeta $$
(2.6)
of the Lagrangian density

$``$ $`=`$ $`_0+𝓗,`$
$`_0`$ $`=`$ $`𝝆_iD𝑿^i+𝝃_\alpha D𝚯^\alpha ,`$
$`𝓗`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\text{𝔹}^{ij}(𝑿,𝚯)𝝆_i𝝆_j+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\text{𝔽}^{\alpha \beta }(𝑿,𝚯)𝝃_\alpha 𝝃_\beta +\text{}^{\alpha i}(𝑿,𝚯)𝝃_\alpha 𝝆_i.`$ (2.7)
$`D`$ in Eq. (2.7) is defined as

$$D=\zeta ^\mu \frac{}{\sigma ^\mu }.$$
(2.8)
The action $`S`$ is a Batalin-Vilkovisky (BV) action. The components of the superfields $`𝑿`$, $`𝚯`$, $`𝝆`$ and $`𝝃`$ in the expansion in $`\zeta `$,

$`𝝃`$ $`=`$ $`\xi ^{(0)}+\xi _\mu ^{(1)}\zeta ^\mu +\xi _{\mu \nu }^{(2)}\zeta ^\mu \zeta ^\nu ,`$
$`𝝆`$ $`=`$ $`\rho ^{(0)}+\rho _\mu ^{(1)}\zeta ^\mu +\rho _{\mu \nu }^{(2)}\zeta ^\mu \zeta ^\nu ,`$
$`𝚯`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Theta }^{(0)}+\mathrm{\Theta }_\mu ^{(1)}\zeta ^\mu +\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }^{(2)}\zeta ^\mu \zeta ^\nu ,`$
$`𝑿`$ $`=`$ $`X^{(0)}+X_\mu ^{(1)}\zeta ^\mu +X_{\mu \nu }^{(2)}\zeta ^\mu \zeta ^\nu ,`$ (2.9)
can be identified with the fields and antifields in the BV quantization of a classical action $`S_{cl}`$. The latter can be obtained from Eq. (2.6) setting to zero fields with non-zero ghost number. The ghost numbers of the component fields in Eq. (2.9) can be computed by assigning ghost number one to $`\zeta `$ and taking overall ghost number of the superfield to be given by the parity $`\epsilon _2`$ defined in Eq. (2.2). Thus we find

$$\mathrm{gh}(X^{(k)})=k,\mathrm{gh}(\mathrm{\Theta }^{(k)})=k,\mathrm{gh}(\rho ^{(k)})=1k,\mathrm{gh}(\xi ^{(k)})=1k,k=0,1,2.$$
(2.10)
Note that $`𝓗`$ is the most general ghost number two interaction term that can be constructed out of $`𝑿`$, $`𝚯`$, $`𝝆`$ and $`𝝃`$. Setting to zero fields with a non-zero ghost number in Eq. (2.6), we find

$`S_{cl}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle }[\rho _i^{(1)}dX^{(0)i}+\xi _\alpha ^{(0)}d\mathrm{\Theta }^{(0)\alpha }+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\text{𝔹}^{ij}(X^{(0)},\mathrm{\Theta }^{(0)})\rho _i^{(1)}\rho _j^{(1)}`$ (2.11)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\text{𝔽}^{\alpha \beta }(X^{(0)},\mathrm{\Theta }^{(0)})\xi _\alpha ^{(1)}\xi _\beta ^{(1)}+\text{}^{\alpha i}(X^{(0)},\mathrm{\Theta }^{(0)})\xi _\alpha ^{(1)}\rho _i^{(1)}],`$
where

$$\rho _i^{(1)}=\rho _{i\mu }^{(1)}d\sigma ^\mu ,\xi _\alpha ^{(1)}=\xi _{\alpha \mu }^{(1)}d\sigma ^\mu $$
(2.12)
are one forms.444Integrating out $`\rho ^{(1)}`$ in $`S_{cl}`$, we end up with an action which is, for constant background fields, equivalent to the action (without the $`GXX`$ term) used in . To be more precise, the two actions are equivalent modulo the difference in the type of spinors considered: we have type IIA spinors whereas ref. used type IIB.

In the BV quantization the action $`S`$ must satisfy the master equation :

$$(S,S)_{\text{BV}}2i\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta }S=0,$$
(2.13)
where $`(,)_{\text{BV}}`$ is the BV-bracket and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the BV-Laplacian. It can be checked that

$$\mathrm{\Delta }S=0.$$
(2.14)
Thus the master equation becomes

$$(S,S)_{\text{BV}}=0.$$
(2.15)
The associativity of the star-product follows from the Ward identity as in . Thus Eq. (2.15) implies the associativity of the star-product:

$$(S,S)_{\text{BV}}=0\text{ the star-product is associative}.$$
(2.16)
We decompose the action $`S`$ into the kinetic $`S_0`$ and the interaction $`S_{\text{int}}`$ parts as in Eq. (2.6). It is easy to show that (see ):

$$(S_0,𝑿)_{\text{BV}}=D𝝆,(S_0,𝝆)_{\text{BV}}=D𝑿,(S_0,𝚯)_{\text{BV}}=D𝝃,(S_0,𝝃)_{\text{BV}}=D𝚯.$$
(2.17)
Thus we have

$$(S_0,S_{\text{int}})_{\text{BV}}=_DD𝓗.$$
(2.18)
Since the integrand on the r.h.s. of this equation is a total derivative, the integral can be reduced to an integral over the boundary of the disk. This boundary integral vanishes due to the boundary conditions for the superfields:

$`X_\mu ^{(1)}n^\mu =0,X_{\mu \nu }^{(2)}=0,\rho ^{(0)}=0,\rho _\mu ^{(1)}t^\mu =0,`$
$`\mathrm{\Theta }_\mu ^{(1)}n^\mu =0,\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }^{(2)}=0,\xi ^{(0)}=0,\xi _\mu ^{(1)}t^\mu =0,`$ (2.19)
where $`n^\mu `$ and $`t^\mu `$ are normal and tangential vectors to the boundary of the disk.555 The components $`X^{(0)}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Theta }^{(0)}`$ satisfy the conditions: $`X^{(0)}(\mathrm{})=x`$ and $`\mathrm{\Theta }^{(0)}(\mathrm{})=\theta `$. Thus we have $`(S_0,S_{\text{int}})_{\text{BV}}=0`$. Similarly, we can show that $`(S_0,S_0)_{\text{BV}}=0`$. Thus Eq. (2.15) reduces to

$$(S_{\text{int}},S_{\text{int}})_{\text{BV}}=0.$$
(2.20)
Eq. (2.20) implies that the background fields 𝔹, 𝔽 and  satisfy certain equations. We now derive these equations. The calculations can be significantly simplified if we use the following formula which relates the BV-bracket to a bracket $`[,]`$ on the superspace $``$:

$$_D\varphi ^{}\left([f,g]\right)=(_D\varphi ^{}f,_D\varphi ^{}g)_{\text{BV}}.$$
(2.21)
Here $`\varphi ^{}f`$ and $`\varphi ^{}g`$ are pullbacks of the functions $`f`$ and $`g`$ on $``$ to the superdisk $`D`$ with respect to the map $`\varphi `$ from Eq. (2.5). The bracket $`[f,g]`$ is given by

$$[f,g]=\frac{_rf}{\rho _i}\frac{g}{X^i}\frac{f}{X^i}\frac{_lg}{\rho _i}+\frac{_rf}{\xi _\alpha }\frac{_lg}{\mathrm{\Theta }^\alpha }+\frac{_rf}{\mathrm{\Theta }^\alpha }\frac{_lg}{\xi _\alpha }.$$
(2.22)
where $`r`$ and $`l`$ denote the right and the left partial derivatives.666Eq. (2.22) follows from a general formula for the (odd) Poisson bracket on the supermanifold $``$ . Let $`z^a`$ be the local coordinates of $``$ and let $`\omega =dz^a\omega _{ab}dz^b`$ be an odd non-degenerate closed 2-form on $``$. In our case it is given by $`\omega =2(dX^id\rho _i+d\mathrm{\Theta }^\alpha d\xi _\alpha )`$. The Poisson bracket is given by $`[f,g]=\frac{_rf}{z^a}\omega ^{ab}\frac{_lg}{z^b}`$, where $`\omega ^{ab}`$ is the inverse matrix of $`\omega _{ab}`$.  Using Eq. (2.21), Eq. (2.20) is equivalent to

$$[,]=0,$$
(2.23)
where $``$ is a function on $``$:

$$=\frac{1}{2}\text{𝔹}^{ij}(X,\mathrm{\Theta })\rho _i\rho _j+\frac{1}{2}\text{𝔽}^{\alpha \beta }(X,\mathrm{\Theta })\xi _\alpha \xi _\beta +\text{}^{\alpha i}(X,\mathrm{\Theta })\xi _\alpha \rho _i.$$
(2.24)
Since $`\epsilon _1()=\epsilon _2()=0`$, we have

$$[,]=2\left(\frac{_r}{\rho _i}\frac{}{X^i}+\frac{}{\xi _\alpha }\frac{_l}{\mathrm{\Theta }^\alpha }\right).$$
(2.25)
From the equations (2.23), (2.24) and Eq. (2.25) we find

$`(\text{}^{\alpha i}_\alpha \text{𝔹}^{jk}+\text{𝔹}^{il}_l\text{𝔹}^{jk})\rho _i\rho _j\rho _k`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$
$`(\text{𝔽}^{\alpha \delta }_\delta \text{𝔽}^{\beta \gamma }+\text{}^{\alpha i}_i\text{𝔽}^{\beta \gamma })\xi _\alpha \xi _\beta \xi _\gamma `$ $`=`$ $`0,`$
$`(\text{𝔽}^{\alpha \beta }_\beta \text{𝔹}^{ij}2\text{}^{\beta i}_\beta \text{}^{\alpha j}2\text{𝔹}^{ik}_k\text{}^{\alpha j}+\text{}^{\alpha k}_k\text{𝔹}^{ij})\xi _\alpha \rho _i\rho _j`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$
$`(2\text{𝔽}^{\alpha \delta }_\delta \text{}^{\beta k}\text{}^{\delta k}_\delta \text{𝔽}^{\alpha \beta }+2\text{}^{\alpha i}_i\text{}^{\beta k}\text{𝔹}^{kj}_j\text{𝔽}^{\alpha \beta })\xi _\alpha \xi _\beta \rho _k`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (2.26)
where $`_i=/X^i`$ and $`_\alpha =_l/\mathrm{\Theta }^\alpha `$. Eq. (2.26) is a generalization of the familiar Jacobi identity for the Poisson bivector $`B^{ij}`$:

$$B^{il}_lB^{jk}+B^{jl}_lB^{ki}+B^{kl}_lB^{ij}=0.$$
(2.27)
We now explain the last ingredient of the formula (2.1): the integration over a Lagrangian submanifold in the field space $`\{𝑿,𝚯,𝝆,𝝃\}`$. A final step in the BV quantization procedure involves choosing a ghost number $`1`$ function $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$, the ”gauge fixing fermion”, of the fields. The path integral is then taken over the Lagrangian submanifold defined by the equations:

$$\mathrm{antifield}=\frac{\mathrm{\Psi }}{\text{field}}$$
(2.28)
We refer the reader to ref. for the details on how new fields, called antighosts and Lagrange multipliers together with their antifields, are added to the set of fields $`𝑿`$ and $`𝝆`$. In a very similar way, we can add antighosts and Lagrange multipliers together with their antifields to $`𝚯`$ and $`𝝃`$. This procedure results in the following operational formula for the star-product:

$`fg(x,\theta )=f(x+𝑿(0,0),\theta +𝚯(0,0))`$
$`\mathrm{e}^{\frac{i}{\mathrm{}}S_{\text{int}}[x+𝑿,\theta +𝚯,𝝆,𝝃]}g(x+𝑿(1,0),\theta +𝚯(1,0)),`$ (2.29)
where $`S_{\text{int}}`$ is given by Eq. (2.6) and Eq. (2.7).777The tadpole diagrams in Eq. (2.29) are discarded. This can be achieved by the introduction of terms linear in $`𝝆`$ and $`𝝃`$ in the action: $`_i\text{𝔹}^{ij}𝝆_j`$, $`_\alpha \text{𝔽}^{\alpha \beta }𝝃_\beta `$, $`_\alpha \text{}^{\alpha i}𝝆_i`$ and $`_i\text{}^{\alpha i}𝝃_\alpha `$. The Wick-contraction $`\mathrm{}`$ in Eq. (2.29) is done using the super-propagators:

$`𝑿^k(z_1,\zeta _1)𝝆_j(z_2,\zeta _2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i\mathrm{}}{2\pi }}\delta _j^k𝒟\varphi (z_2,z_1),`$
$`𝚯^\alpha (z_1,\zeta _1)𝝃_j(z_2,\zeta _2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i\mathrm{}}{2\pi }}\delta _j^k𝒟\varphi (z_2,z_1),`$ (2.30)
where

$$\varphi (z,w)=\frac{1}{2i}\mathrm{ln}\frac{(zw)(z\overline{w})}{(\overline{z}\overline{w})(\overline{z}w)}$$
(2.31)
and

$$𝒟=\zeta _1^\mu \frac{}{z_1^\mu }+\zeta _2^\mu \frac{}{z_2^\mu }.$$
(2.32)
Note that points $`z_1`$ and $`z_2`$ from Eq. (2.30) belong to the upper-half complex plane. A generic term in the perturbative expansion in Eq. (2.29) is of the form

$`{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle }dz_jd\zeta _j{\displaystyle }dz_j^{}d\zeta _j^{}𝑿(z_1,\zeta _1)\mathrm{}𝑿(z_N,\zeta _N)𝝆(z_{N+1},\zeta _{N+1})\mathrm{}𝝆(z_{2N},\zeta _{2N})`$
$`𝚯(z_1^{},\zeta _1^{})\mathrm{}𝚯(z_M^{},\zeta _M^{})𝝃(z_{M+1}^{},\zeta _{M+1}^{})\mathrm{}𝝃(z_{2M}^{},\zeta _{2M}^{})`$ (2.33)
times an expression involving partial derivatives of $`f(x,\theta )`$, $`g(x,\theta )`$, $`\text{𝔹}(x,\theta )`$, $`\text{𝔽}(x,\theta )`$ and $`\text{}(x,\theta )`$. Wick-contracting using Eq. (2.30) and integrating over the Grassmann variables $`\zeta `$’s in Eq. (2.33), we end up with a sum of expressions of the form

$$𝑑\varphi (z_{i_1},z_{j_1})d\varphi (z_{i_2},z_{j_2})\mathrm{}d\varphi (z_{i_N},z_{j_N})d\varphi (z_{i_1}^{},z_{j_1}^{})d\varphi (z_{i_2}^{},z_{j_2}^{})\mathrm{}d\varphi (z_{i_M}^{},z_{j_M}^{})$$
(2.34)
where $`d\varphi `$ is defined as

$$d\varphi (z,w)=dz\frac{}{z}\varphi (z,w)+dw\frac{}{w}\varphi (z,w).$$
(2.35)
## 3 A special case: supersymmetric backgrounds

The kinetic part $`S_0`$ of the action (2.6) is invariant under the following supersymmetry transformation:

$`\delta 𝚯^\alpha `$ $`=`$ $`ϵ^\alpha ,`$
$`\delta 𝑿^k`$ $`=`$ $`i\overline{ϵ}\mathrm{\Gamma }^k𝚯,`$
$`\delta 𝝃_\alpha `$ $`=`$ $`i𝝆_k\overline{ϵ}^\beta \mathrm{\Gamma }_{\beta \alpha }^k,`$
$`\delta 𝝆_k`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (3.1)
Since $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ is a Majorana spinor, the transformation (3.1) is an $`N=1`$ or $`N=2`$ supersymmetry transformation depending on the dimension $`n`$ of the spacetime. For $`n=3,4,8,9`$ it is $`N=1`$ and for $`n=2,10`$ it is $`N=2`$. Imposing the invariance of the full action (2.6) under the transformation (3.1), we find that the background fields are further constrained. We will shortly show that the associativity and supersymmetry constrain the background fields as follows:

$$\text{𝔽}=0,$$
(3.2)
𝔹 is $`X`$-independent and is linear in $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$:

$$\text{𝔹}^{ij}(\mathrm{\Theta })=B^{ij}+i\mathrm{\Theta }^\alpha [(\mathrm{\Gamma }^0\mathrm{\Gamma }^i)_{\alpha \beta }\text{}^{\beta j}(\mathrm{\Gamma }^0\mathrm{\Gamma }^j)_{\alpha \beta }\text{}^{\beta i}],$$
(3.3)
is constant and satisfies the following equation

$$\underset{\pi \mathrm{permutations}\mathrm{of}i,j,k}{}(1)^\pi \text{}^{\alpha \pi (i)}(\mathrm{\Gamma }^0\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\pi (j)})_{\alpha \beta }\text{}^{\beta \pi (k)}=0.$$
(3.4)
Thus we recover the result of  on the deformation of $`N=1`$, $`d=4`$ supercoordinate algebra. In our calculations we do not assume that the spacetime dimension is four. Thus the form of the deformed supercoordinate algebra that we get from our star-product is the same in any spacetime dimension that admits a Majorana representation.

In the supersymmetric case we consider $`x`$-independent backgrounds. The action (2.6) is supersymmetric if the background fields satisfy the following equations

$`_\gamma \text{𝔽}^{\alpha \beta }\xi _\alpha \xi _\beta `$ $`=`$ $`0,`$
$`(_\gamma \text{}^{\beta j}+i(\mathrm{\Gamma }^0\mathrm{\Gamma }^j)_{\gamma \alpha }\text{𝔽}^{\alpha \beta })\xi _\beta \rho _j`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$
$`(_\alpha \text{𝔹}^{ij}2i(\mathrm{\Gamma }^0\mathrm{\Gamma }^i)_{\alpha \beta }\text{}^{\beta j})\rho _i\rho _j`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (3.5)
The first equation in Eq. (3.5) implies that $`\text{𝔽}^{\alpha \beta }`$ does not depend on $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$. For the $`x`$-independent backgrounds and the constant 𝔽 the master equation (2.26) reduces to

$`\text{}^{\alpha i}_\alpha \text{𝔹}^{jk}\rho _i\rho _j\rho _k`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$
$`(\text{𝔽}^{\alpha \beta }_\beta \text{𝔹}^{ij}2\text{}^{\beta i}_\beta \text{}^{\alpha j})\xi _\alpha \rho _i\rho _j`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$
$`\text{𝔽}^{\alpha \delta }_\delta \text{}^{\beta k}\xi _\alpha \xi _\beta \rho _k`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (3.6)
Since $`\xi `$’s commute, the third equation in Eq. (3.6) is equivalent to

$$\text{𝔽}^{\alpha \delta }_\delta \text{}^{\beta k}+\text{𝔽}^{\beta \delta }_\delta \text{}^{\alpha k}=0.$$
(3.7)
Using the second equation from Eq. (3.5), Eq. (3.7) can be rewritten as

$$\text{𝔽}^{\alpha \gamma }(\mathrm{\Gamma }^0\mathrm{\Gamma }^k)_{\gamma \delta }\text{𝔽}^{\delta \beta }+\text{𝔽}^{\beta \gamma }(\mathrm{\Gamma }^0\mathrm{\Gamma }^k)_{\gamma \delta }\text{𝔽}^{\delta \alpha }=0.$$
(3.8)
Setting $`k=0`$ in this equation, we have

$$\text{𝔽}^{\alpha \mu }\delta _{\mu \nu }\text{𝔽}^{\nu \beta }=0.$$
(3.9)
Since the action (2.6) is hermitian, 𝔽 is purely imaginary. Furthermore, 𝔽 is symmetric: $`\text{𝔽}^{\alpha \beta }=\text{𝔽}^{\beta \alpha }`$. Thus we conclude from the above equation that 𝔽 is identically zero: $`\text{𝔽}^{\alpha \beta }=0.`$

The third equation from Eq. (3.5) leads to the expression (3.3) for 𝔹. Using the third equation from Eq. (3.5) and the fact that $`\rho `$’s anticommute, the first equation from Eq. (3.6) can written as in Eq. (3.4).

In the supersymmetric case a closed expression for the star-product can be derived from the path integral. It reads

$`fg(x,\theta )`$ $`=`$ $`f(x,\theta )\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{i\mathrm{}}{2}}\stackrel{}{}_\alpha \text{}^{\alpha i}\stackrel{}{}_i\right)\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{i\mathrm{}}{2}}\stackrel{}{}_i\text{𝔹}^{ij}\stackrel{}{}_j\right)\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{i\mathrm{}}{2}}\stackrel{}{}_i\text{}^{\alpha i}\stackrel{}{}_\alpha \right)`$ (3.10)
$`\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{12}}\text{}^{\alpha k}_\alpha \text{𝔹}^{ij}(\stackrel{}{}_i\stackrel{}{}_j\stackrel{}{}_k\stackrel{}{}_i\stackrel{}{}_k\stackrel{}{}_j)\right)g(x,\theta ).`$
The Grassmann derivatives $`\stackrel{}{}_\alpha `$ and $`\stackrel{}{}_\alpha `$ in this equation act on the Grassmann variables as follows:

$$\stackrel{}{}_1\theta ^2\theta ^1=\theta ^2,\stackrel{}{}_1\theta ^1\theta ^2=\theta ^2,\theta ^1\theta ^2\stackrel{}{}_1=\theta ^2,\theta ^2\theta ^1\stackrel{}{}_1=\theta ^2.$$
(3.11)
We sketch the path integral derivation of Eq. (3.10). Schematically, we can write the formula (2.29) as

$$f(X,\mathrm{\Theta })\mathrm{exp}\left(\text{𝔹}+\text{}\right)g(X,\mathrm{\Theta })=\underset{m,n}{}\frac{1}{m!}\frac{1}{n!}f(X,\mathrm{\Theta })\text{𝔹}^m\text{}^ng(X,\mathrm{\Theta }),$$
(3.12)
where $`\text{𝔹}=\text{𝔹}^{ij}𝝆_i𝝆_j`$ and $`\text{}=\text{}^{\alpha i}𝝃_\alpha 𝝆_i`$. Since $`\text{𝔹}^{ij}`$ and $`\text{}^{\alpha i}`$ are $`x`$-independent, the $`𝝆`$’s in 𝔹 from Eq. (3.12) can Wick-contract only with the functions $`f`$ and $`g`$. The Wick contraction of $`f`$ and $`𝝆_i`$ gives a derivative of $`f`$: $`_if`$. Furthermore, if one of the $`𝝆`$’s from 𝔹 contracts with $`f`$, then the remaining $`𝝆`$ has to contract with $`g`$ to produce a non-vanishing result. This is because $`\text{𝔹}^{ij}`$ is anti-symmetric and so $`\text{𝔹}^{ij}_i_jf`$ vanishes. We will shortly show that this type of contraction gives rise to the second exponential factor in Eq. (3.10).

The fate of $`𝝃_\alpha `$ and $`𝝆_i`$ in  can also be determined: $`𝝆`$ contracts with $`f`$ and $`𝝃`$ contracts with $`g`$, and vice versa. This type of contraction gives rise to the first and third exponential factors in Eq. (3.10). Note that if $`𝝃`$ and $`𝝆`$ contract with the same function, then the corresponding contribution vanishes since the resulting Feynman integral vanishes:

$$𝑑\varphi (a,z)d\varphi (a,z)=0,$$
(3.13)
where $`a`$ is a point on the real-axis, by the anticommutativity of the wedge product.

Since $`\text{𝔹}^{ij}`$ is linear in $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$, it can also contract with $`𝝃_\alpha `$ in . The three $`𝝆`$’s from 𝔹 and  have to contract with the functions $`f`$ and $`g`$. This type of contraction gives rise to the last exponential factor in Eq. (3.10).

We now do some combinatorics to show that three different types of contractions just described indeed exponentiate into the formula (3.10). Let us pick $`k`$ 𝔹’s and $`k`$ ’s from Eq. (3.12). There are $`m!/(k!(mk)!)`$ times $`n!/(k!(nk)!)`$ ways of doing that. There are $`k!`$ ways of contracting $`k`$ 𝔹’s with $`k`$ ’s. Combining these combinatorial factors with the factorials from Eq. (3.12) we have

$$\frac{\text{𝔹}^{mk}}{(mk)!}\frac{\text{}^{nk}}{(nk)!}\frac{(\text{}\text{𝔹})^k}{k!}.$$
(3.14)
The fact that the Grassmann partial derivatives in Eq. (3.10) act as in Eq. (3.11) comes from the following observation. Consider the correlator

$$\mathrm{}𝚯𝚯\mathrm{}𝚯(𝝃_\alpha \text{}^{\alpha i}𝝆_i)\mathrm{}$$
(3.15)
where the $`𝚯`$’s came from the Taylor expansion of $`f(\theta +𝚯)`$. In order to Wick-contract a $`𝚯`$ with $`𝝃`$, we have to bring it next to the $`𝝃`$. Thus the Wick-contraction with the $`𝝃_\alpha `$ is effectively equivalent to taking the derivative $`\stackrel{}{}_\alpha `$.

The numerical coefficients in the exponents in Eq. (3.10) can be found using the integrals

$$𝑑\varphi (z_1,0)d\varphi (z_1,1)=2\pi ^2$$
(3.16)
and

$$𝑑\varphi (z_1,0)d\varphi (z_1,1)d\varphi (z_2,z_1)d\varphi (z_2,1)=\frac{4\pi ^4}{3}.$$
(3.17)
Each of the correlators (2.33) which appear as the coefficients of $`\text{𝔹}^{ij}_if_jg`$, $`\text{}^{\alpha i}_\alpha f_ig`$ and $`\text{}^{\alpha i}_if_\alpha g`$ is proportional to the integral (3.16). The correlator which appears as the coefficient of $`\text{}^{\alpha k}_k\text{𝔹}^{ij}_if_j_\alpha g`$ is proportional to the integral (3.17). The signs in the exponents in Eq. (3.10) can be determined from the path integral as well.

Eq. (3.10) can, alternatively, be derived directly from the algebra (1.1) using the Baker-Hausdorff formula:

$$\mathrm{e}^A\mathrm{e}^B=\mathrm{e}^{A+B+\frac{1}{2}[A,B]+\frac{1}{12}([A,[A,B]]+[[A,B],B])+\mathrm{}}.$$
(3.18)
Thinking of the star-product as a matrix product and using the Baker-Hausdorff formula, we find:

$`\mathrm{e}^{i(px+\eta \theta )}\mathrm{e}^{i(\stackrel{~}{p}x+\stackrel{~}{\eta }\theta )}=`$
$`=\mathrm{exp}(i(p+\stackrel{~}{p})x+i(\eta +\stackrel{~}{\eta })\theta +{\displaystyle \frac{i\mathrm{}}{2}}(\eta _\alpha \text{}^{\alpha i}\stackrel{~}{p}_i+p_i\text{}^{\alpha i}\stackrel{~}{\eta }_\alpha )`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{i\mathrm{}}{2}}p_i\stackrel{~}{p}_j\text{𝔹}^{ij}{\displaystyle \frac{i\mathrm{}^2}{12}}\text{}^{\alpha k}_\alpha \text{𝔹}^{ij}(p_i\stackrel{~}{p}_j\stackrel{~}{p}_kp_ip_k\stackrel{~}{p}_j)).`$ (3.19)
Since

$`\mathrm{e}^{ipx}\stackrel{}{}_i=ip_i\mathrm{e}^{ipx},\stackrel{}{}_i\mathrm{e}^{i\stackrel{~}{p}x}=i\stackrel{~}{p}_i\mathrm{e}^{i\stackrel{~}{p}x},`$
$`\mathrm{e}^{i\eta \theta }\stackrel{}{}_\alpha =i\eta _\alpha \mathrm{e}^{i\eta \theta },\stackrel{}{}_\alpha \mathrm{e}^{i\stackrel{~}{\eta }\theta }=i\stackrel{~}{\eta }_\alpha \mathrm{e}^{i\stackrel{~}{\eta }\theta },`$ (3.20)
the quadratic and cubic terms in momenta in the exponent in Eq. (3.19) lead, after the substitutions

$`p_ki\stackrel{}{}_k,\stackrel{~}{p}_ki\stackrel{}{}_k,`$
$`\eta _\alpha i\stackrel{}{}_\alpha ,\stackrel{~}{\eta }_\alpha i\stackrel{}{}_\alpha ,`$ (3.21)
to the star-product Eq. (3.10).

## 4 Summary

Let us briefly summarize our results:

$``$ A path-integral formula (2.1) for the associative star-product of functions of bosonic and fermionic coordinates $`(x^i,\theta ^\alpha )`$ is proposed. $`\theta `$ is taken to be a Majorana spinor in $`n`$ spacetime dimensions.

$``$ The BV action $`S`$ (2.6) of the two-dimensional field theory depends on the background fields 𝔹, 𝔽 and  from Eq. (1.2). From the classical master equation $`(S,S)_{\text{BV}}=0`$, we derived the associativity conditions (2.26) for the background fields.

$``$ An operational formula (2.29) is given for the star-product of functions of $`x`$ and $`\theta `$ for general $`x`$\- and $`\theta `$-dependent background fields.

$``$ The condition of the supersymmetry invariance of the action (2.6) turned out to be very restrictive. The supersymmetric backgrounds are given by the equations (3.2), (3.3) and (3.4). The supersymmetry transformations (3.1) are $`N=1`$ or $`N=2`$ depending on the dimension $`n`$ of the spacetime. An explicit formula (3.10) for the supersymmetric star-product is derived from the path-integral.

Ref. gives a deformation of $`N=2`$, $`d=4`$ superspace using symplectic-Majorana spinors. It turns out that a non-vanishing anticommutator

$$\{\theta ,\theta \}0$$

is compatible with the $`N=2`$ supersymmetry. With a minor modification of our action (2.6) the case of the non-Majorana spinors can be dealt with.

## 5 Acknowledgments

The work of I.C. is supported by a Sherman Fairchild Prize Fellowship. The work of C.C. is supported in part by the DOE Grant DE-FG03-92-ER40701.


text:
# On the existence of cyclic difference sets with small parameters

## 1. Introduction

A $`(v,k,\lambda )`$ difference set is a subset $`D=\{d_1,d_2,\mathrm{},d_k\}`$ of a group $`G`$ such that each nonidentity element $`gG`$ can be represented as $`g=d_id_j^1`$ in exactly $`\lambda `$ ways. In this paper we will be concerned with cyclic difference sets, where $`G`$ will be taken to be the cyclic group $`𝐙/v𝐙`$. The order of a difference set is $`n=k\lambda `$.

Baumert  gave a complete list of parameters for cyclic difference sets with $`k100`$. Lander gave a table of possible abelian difference set parameters with $`k50`$. Kopilovich  extended the search to $`k<100`$, and Lopez and Sanchez  looked at all possible parameters for abelian difference sets with $`k150`$. Table 1 shows their open cases for cyclic difference sets, four of which we show do not exist.

In addition to settling some of these open cases, we have extended these calculations to larger values of $`k`$, using the same procedure of applying the numerous known necessary conditions. The open cases for $`k300`$ are given in Tables 2 and 3. The cases with $`\mathrm{gcd}(v,n)`$ greater than one are given separately, because of Ryser’s conjecture that no cyclic difference sets exist with $`\mathrm{gcd}(v,n)>1`$.

We will give the details of computations that excluded possible difference sets in these tables. Most of the techniques are well known, and are described briefly in Section 2. A few parameters require more effort, such as the $`(429,108,27)`$ difference set which is shown not to exist in Section 3.3.

In Section 4 we look at cyclic Hadamard difference sets, with $`v=4n1`$, $`k=2n1`$, $`\lambda =n1`$. There are three known families, and it is conjectured that no others exist.

In Section 5 we look at the Prime Power Conjecture, which states that all abelian difference sets with $`\lambda =1`$ have $`n`$ a prime power. For the cyclic case we extend earlier computations by the second author  to $`210^9`$, showing that no such difference sets exist when $`n`$ is not a prime power.

Details of the computations, such as nonexistence proofs for the hard cases of cyclic projective planes mentioned in Section 5, are not included in the paper. A web site http://www.ccrwest.org/diffsets.html, maintained by the second author, lists many known difference sets and gives nonexistence proofs.

## 2. Necessary Conditions

As in other searches (, , , ) we will go through values of $`(v,k,\lambda )`$ up to a given $`k`$, applying known necessary conditions to eliminate most parameters, and dealing with survivors on a case-by-case basis. By a simple counting argument we must have $`(v1)\lambda =k(k1)`$. We may assume $`kv/2`$, since the complement of a $`(v,k,\lambda )`$ difference set is a $`(v,vk,v2k+\lambda )`$ difference set. Some other conditions (see  for references) are:

###### Theorem 2.1.

(Schutzenberger) If $`v`$ is even, $`n`$ must be a square.

###### Theorem 2.2.

(Bruck-Chowla-Ryser) If $`v`$ is odd, the equation

$$nX^2+(1)^{(v1)/2}\lambda Y^2=Z^2$$

must have a nontrivial integer solution.

###### Theorem 2.3.

(Mann) If $`w>1`$ is a divisor of $`v`$, $`p`$ is a prime divisor of $`n`$, $`p^2`$ does not divide $`n`$, and $`p^j1(modw)`$, then no $`(v,k,\lambda )`$ difference set exists.

###### Theorem 2.4.

(Arasu ) If $`w>1`$ is a divisor of $`v`$, $`p`$ is a prime divisor of $`n`$, and

* $`\mathrm{gcd}(v,k)=1`$,
* $`n`$ is a nonsquare,
* $`\mathrm{gcd}(p,v)=1`$,
* $`p`$ is a multiplier,

then

$$wv(1)^{(v/w1)/2}$$

is a square in the ring of $`p`$-adic integers.

Baumert gives four necessary tests used for his search in , which include Theorem 2.1 and three theorems of Yamamoto . Lander gives a number of conditions in Chapter 4 of . Ones that are used to exclude possible difference sets include Theorems 4.19, 4.20, 4.27, 4.30, 4.31, 4.32, 4.33, and 4.38.

## 3. Constructing the Tables

To extend previous tables of possible cyclic difference sets, we apply the theorems of the previous section to eliminate most possible parameters. Ones that survive these tests are dealt with on a case by case basis. In this section we give methods from  for dealing with certain difficult cases, and show an example of their application.

### 3.1. Polynomial Congruences

Let $`\theta (x)`$ be the difference set polynomial

$$\theta (x)=x^{d_1}+x^{d_2}+\mathrm{}+x^{d_k},$$

and $`\zeta _v`$ be a primitive $`v`$th root of unity. Then $`D`$ is a difference set if and only if

$$\theta (\zeta _v)\theta (\overline{\zeta _v})=n.$$

In  and  a method is given for constructing or showing the nonexistence of difference sets. Define

$$\theta _w(x)\theta (x)(modf_w(x))$$

where $`f_w(x)`$ is the $`w`$th cyclotomic polynomial, and

$$\theta _{[w]}(x)\theta (x)(modx^w1).$$

The method is based on the congruences proved in :

$$w\theta _{[w]}w\theta _w\underset{\begin{array}{c}r|w\\ rw\end{array}}{}\mu (w/r)r\left(\theta _{[r]}\theta _w\right)\frac{x^w1}{x^r1}(modx^w1),$$
(1)
and

$$\theta _w\theta _{[w/p]}(modp,f_{w_1}^{p^{a1}})$$
(2)
where $`w=p^aw_1`$, with $`\mathrm{gcd}(p,w_1)=1`$.

Thus, given $`\theta _w`$ for a divisor of $`v`$ and $`\theta _{[r]}`$ for all divisors $`r`$ of $`w`$, one may compute $`\theta _{[w]}`$. To find $`\theta _w`$, we may use the equation

$$\theta (\zeta _w)\theta (\overline{\zeta _w})=n.$$

Furthermore, if $`𝔞`$ is an ideal in $`𝐐(\zeta _w)`$ for which $`𝔞\overline{𝔞}=(n)`$ with generator $`a_i\zeta _w^i`$, then if $`\theta _w(\zeta _w)𝔞`$ we have

$$\theta _w(x)=\pm x^ja_ix^i$$
(3)
by a theorem of Kronecker that any algebraic integer, all of whose conjugates have absolute value 1, must be a root of unity.

So to determine the existence of a particular $`(v,k,\lambda )`$ difference set, we may factor $`n`$ in cyclotomic fields $`𝐐(\zeta _w)`$ for $`w|v`$, and apply congruences (1) and (2) to construct $`\theta _{[w]}`$ or show that none exists. This approach was used by Howard Rumsey to prove the nonexistence of difference sets $`(441,56,7)`$ and $`(891,90,9)`$ .

### 3.2. Contracted Multipliers

The following two theorems, both proved in , are very useful:

Let

$$\theta _{[w]}(x)=b_0+b_1x+\mathrm{}b_{w1}x^{w1}.$$

The following is Lemma 3.8 of :

###### Theorem 3.1.

For every divisor $`w`$ of $`v`$, there exists integers $`b_i[0,v/w]`$ such that

$$\underset{i=0}{\overset{w1}{}}b_i=k,$$
(4)
$$\underset{i=0}{\overset{w1}{}}b_i^2=n+\lambda v/w,$$
(5)
and

$$\underset{i=0}{\overset{w1}{}}b_ib_{ij}=\lambda v/w$$
(6)
for $`j=1,\mathrm{},w1`$, where $`ij`$ is taken modulo $`w`$.

The $`b_i`$’s are the number of $`d_j`$’s in $`D`$ satisfying $`d_ji(modw)`$. These equations often are sufficient to show nonexistence of a difference set. When they are not, we may sometimes use multipliers to get further conditions.

A $`w`$-multiplier of a difference set is an integer $`t`$ prime to $`w`$ for which there is an integer $`s`$ such that

$$\theta (x^t)x^s\theta (x)(modx^w1).$$

The following is Theorem 3.2 in , and a generalization is given as Theorem 5.6 in .

###### Theorem 3.2.

Let $`D`$ be a $`(v,k,\lambda )`$ cyclic difference set with $`n=p_1^{\alpha _1}p_2^{\alpha _2}\mathrm{}p_s^{\alpha _s}`$. Let $`w`$ be a divisor of $`v`$ and $`t`$ be an integer relatively prime to $`w`$. If for $`i=1,2,\mathrm{},s`$ there is an integer $`j=j(i)`$ such that

$$p_i^jt(modw),$$

then $`t`$ is a $`w`$-multiplier of $`D`$.

If we have a $`w`$-multiplier for $`D`$, this gives us further restrictions on the $`b_i`$’s, since if $`i`$ and $`j`$ are in the same orbit of $`t`$ modulo $`w`$, then we must have $`b_i=b_j`$.

### 3.3. Using Contracted Multipliers

As an example of using these methods to eliminate a possible cyclic difference set, consider the first open case of Ryser’s conjecture, $`(429,108,27)`$.

###### Theorem 3.3.

No $`(429,108,27)`$ difference set exists.

###### Proof.

By Theorem 3.2, $`3`$ is a 143-multiplier.

The orbits of the residues modulo 143 have sizes

$$1^13^45^215^8.$$

Let

$$\theta _{[143]}(x)=c_0+c_1x+\mathrm{}c_{142}x^{142}.$$

From Theorem 3.1 we have $`c_i=k=108`$, and $`c_i^2=n+\lambda v/w=162`$, so

$$162=c_0^2+15(c_1^2+\mathrm{}+c_{29}^2)+5(c_{13}^2+c_{26}^2)+3(c_{11}^2+c_{22}^2+c_{44}^2+c_{77}^2)$$

and

$$c_ic_{i+j}=81,\mathrm{for}j=1,\mathrm{},142$$

There are $`14,896`$ solutions to the first equation, and a quick computer search shows that none of these satisfy the second.

This method still works when $`w=v`$. For example, consider a $`(303,151,75)`$ difference set. By Theorem 3.2, which for $`w=v`$ is known as the Second Multiplier Theorem, 16 is a multiplier, with three orbits of size 1 and 12 orbits of size 25. Therefore a difference set would have to be a union of one of the size-1 orbits and six of the size-25 ones. None of these 2772 possibilities form a difference set, and so no (303,151,75) difference set exists. Several other similar cases are given in Table 4.

### 3.4. Schmidt’s Test

Schmidt (, ) has shown that, under certain conditions, a root of unity times $`\theta (\zeta _v)`$ must be in a subfield of $`𝐐(\zeta _v)`$. For a prime $`q`$ and integer $`m`$ with prime factorization $`_{i=1}^tp_i^{c_i}`$, let

$$m_q=\{\begin{array}{cc}_{p_iq}p_i\hfill & \text{if }m\text{ is odd or }q=2\text{,}\hfill \\ 4_{p_i2,q}p_i\hfill & \text{otherwise.}\hfill \end{array}$$

Define $`F(m,n)=_{i=1}^tp_i^{b_i}`$ to be the minimum multiple of $`_{i=1}^tp_i`$ such that for every pair $`(i,q)`$, $`i\{1,\mathrm{},t\}`$, $`q`$ a prime divisor of $`n`$, at least one of the following conditions is satisfied:

1. $`q=p_i`$ and $`(p_i,b_i)(2,1)`$,
2. $`b_i=c_i`$,
3. $`qp_i`$ and $`q^{ord_{m_q}(q)}1(modp_i^{b_i+1})`$.

Schmidt then shows

###### Theorem 3.4.

Assume $`|X|^2=n`$ for $`X𝐙[\zeta _v]`$. Then $`X\zeta _v^j𝐙[\zeta _{F(v,n)}]`$ for some $`j`$.

When $`F(v,n)`$ is significantly less than $`v`$, this theorem gives a powerful condition on the difference set. Schmidt uses it to show

###### Theorem 3.5.

For a $`(v,k,\lambda )`$ cyclic difference set, we have

$$n\frac{F(v,n)^2}{4\phi (F(v,n))},$$

where $`\phi `$ denote’s Euler’s totient function.

Theorem 3.5 eliminates 29 difference sets with $`k300`$.

Very recently, Leung, Ma and Schmidt  have shown that no cyclic difference set exists with order $`n`$ a power of a prime $`>3`$ and $`(n,v)>1`$. This eliminates the difference set $`(505,225,100)`$. They also eliminate certain cases for powers of 3, such as $`(2691,270,27)`$.

## 4. Cyclic Hadamard Difference Sets

A cyclic Hadamard difference set is a difference set with parameters $`v=4n1`$, $`k=2n1`$, $`\lambda =n1`$. All known cyclic Hadamard difference sets are of one of the following types:

1. $`v`$ prime.
2. $`v`$ a product of twin primes.
3. $`v=2^n1`$.

It has been conjectured that no others exist. Song and Golomb  excluded all but 17 cases up to $`v=10,000`$. Kim and Song  eliminated four of those. The remaining ones are listed in Table 5, along with their current status. Six can be shown not to exist by theorems in Lander’s book .

## 5. Cyclic Projective Planes

A difference set with $`\lambda =1`$ is called a planar difference set. The Prime Power Conjecture (PPC) states that all abelian planar difference sets have order $`n`$ a prime power. In , it was shown that the PPC is true for $`n<2,000,000`$.

Since that paper, several developments have made it possible to extend those computations. Faster computers with more memory are part of it, but also 64-bit computing allow calcuations to be done in single-precision, which results in a large speedup. Using the methods of , we have shown that no cyclic planar difference sets of non-prime power order $`n`$ exist with $`n<210^9`$.

Most orders can be eliminated by various quick tests given in . There were $`605`$ orders which survived these tests, and were dealt with using a theorem of Evans and Mann  (Lander  proved a generalization for abelian groups):

###### Theorem 5.1.

Let $`D`$ be a $`(v,k,1)`$ planar cyclic difference set of order $`n=k1`$. If $`t_1`$, $`t_2`$, $`t_3`$, and $`t_4`$ are numerical multipliers such that

$$t_1t_2t_3t_4(modv),$$

then $`v`$ divides the least common multiple of $`(t_1t_2,t_1t_3)`$.

In  this theorem was used to create a hash table for differences $`t_it_j`$ less than one million, to find a collision that could be used to eliminate an order. For orders up to $`210^9`$, all but two could be eliminated with differences up to $`410^8`$. The two most difficult were $`n=40027523`$ and $`n=883007071`$. These were finally eliminated with pairs with differences $`420511455`$ and $`164204313`$, respectively.


text:
# Discriminating graviton exchange effects from other new physics scenarios in 𝑒⁺𝑒⁻ collisions

## 1 Introduction

All types of new physics (NP) scenarios are determined by non-standard dynamics involving new building blocks and forces mediated by exchange corresponding to heavy states with mass scales $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ much greater than $`M_W`$. Unambiguous confirmation of such dynamics would require the experimental discovery of the envisaged new heavy objects and the measurement of their coupling constants to ordinary quarks and leptons. While there is substantial belief that the supersymmetric partners of the Standard Model (SM) particles should be directly produced, and identified, at future proton–proton and electron–positron high energy colliders such as the LHC and the Linear Collider (LC), in the other cases the current experimental limits on the new, heavy particles are so high, of the order of several (or tens of) TeV, that one cannot expect them to be directly produced at the energies foreseen for these machines. In this situation, the new interactions can manifest themselves only by indirect, virtual, effects represented by deviations of the measured observables from the SM numerical predictions. The problem, then, is to identify from the data analysis the possible new interactions, because different NP scenarios can in principle cause similar measurable deviations, and for this purpose suitable observables must be defined.

At “low” energies (compared to the above-mentioned large mass scales) the physical effects of the new interactions are conveniently accounted for, in reactions involving the familiar quarks and leptons, by effective contact-interaction (CI) Lagrangians that provide the expansion of the relevant transition amplitudes to leading order in the small ratio $`\sqrt{s}/\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ ($`\sqrt{s}`$ being the c.m. energy).

Familiar classes of contact interactions are represented by composite models of quarks and leptons ; exchanges of very heavy $`Z^{}`$ with a few TeV mass  and of scalar and vector heavy leptoquarks ; in the SUSY context, $`R`$-parity breaking interactions mediated by sneutrino exchange ; bi-lepton boson exchanges ; anomalous gauge boson couplings (AGC) ; virtual Kaluza–Klein (KK) graviton exchange in the context of gravity propagating in large extra dimensions, exchange of gauge boson KK towers or string excitations, etc. \[??\]. Of course, this list is not exhaustive, because other kinds of contact interactions may well exist.

In this note, we briefly discuss the deviations induced by contact interactions in the electron–positron annihilation into fermion pairs at the planned Linear Collider energies . In particular, we propose a simple observable that can be used to unambiguously identify graviton KK tower exchange effects in the data, relying on its spin-two character and by “filtering” out contributions of other NP interactions.

If deviations from the SM predictions were effectively measured, the identification of the NP source could be attempted by Monte Carlo best fits of the observed effects, and this would apply also to graviton exchange . Alternatively, moments of the differential cross section folded with Legendre polynomial weights appear to be a promising technique to pin down NP effects in the case of electron–positron reactions induced at the SM level by $`s`$-channel exchanges . Here, we shall consider a suitably defined combination of integrated cross sections, the so-called “center–edge” asymmetry $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$, that allows to disentangle the graviton exchange in a very simple, and efficient, way. Specifically, in Sect. 2 we present the required kinematical details and discuss the properties of $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$, in Sect. 3 we discuss beam polarization, in Sect. 4 we evaluate the sensitivity of this observable to the characteristic mass parameter of the graviton KK tower exchange, in Sect. 5 we find the corresponding identification reaches and discuss an application to sneutrino exchange, differentiating it from KK graviton exchange and, finally, Sect. 6 is devoted to some comments and conclusive remarks.

## 2 The center–edge asymmetry $`𝑨_{\mathrm{𝐂𝐄}}`$

We consider the process (with $`fe,t`$)

$$e^++e^{}f+\overline{f},$$
(1)
and, neglecting all fermion masses with respect to $`\sqrt{s}`$, we can write the differential angular distribution for unpolarized $`e^+e^{}`$ beams in terms of $`s`$-channel $`\gamma `$ and $`Z`$ exchanges plus any contact-interaction terms in the following form :

$$\frac{\text{d}\sigma }{\text{d}z}=\frac{1}{4}\left(\frac{\text{d}\sigma _{\mathrm{LL}}}{\text{d}z}+\frac{\text{d}\sigma _{\mathrm{RR}}}{\text{d}z}+\frac{\text{d}\sigma _{\mathrm{LR}}}{\text{d}z}+\frac{\text{d}\sigma _{\mathrm{RL}}}{\text{d}z}\right).$$
(2)
Here, $`z\mathrm{cos}\theta `$, with $`\theta `$ the angle between the incoming electron and the outgoing fermion in the c.m. frame, and $`\text{d}\sigma _{\alpha \beta }/\text{d}\mathrm{cos}\theta `$ ($`\alpha ,\beta =\mathrm{L},\mathrm{R}`$) are the helicity cross sections given by:

$$\frac{\text{d}\sigma _{\alpha \beta }}{\text{d}z}=N_C\frac{\pi \alpha _{\mathrm{e}.\mathrm{m}.}^2}{2s}|_{\alpha \beta }|^2(1\pm z)^2,$$
(3)
where the two signs $`\pm `$ correspond to the $`\mathrm{LL}`$, $`\mathrm{RR}`$, and $`\mathrm{LR}`$, $`\mathrm{RL}`$, helicity configurations, respectively, and $`N_C3(1+\alpha _s/\pi )`$ represents the number of colours of the final state, including the first-order QCD correction. The helicity amplitudes $`_{\alpha \beta }`$ can be written as

$$_{\alpha \beta }=_{\alpha \beta }^{\mathrm{SM}}+\mathrm{\Delta }_{\alpha \beta }=Q_eQ_f+g_\alpha ^eg_\beta ^f\chi _Z+\mathrm{\Delta }_{\alpha \beta },$$
(4)
where: $`\chi _Z=s/(sM_Z^2+iM_Z\mathrm{\Gamma }_Z)s/(sM_Z^2)`$ represents the $`Z`$ propagator; $`g_\mathrm{L}^f=(I_{3L}^fQ_fs_W^2)/s_Wc_W`$ and $`g_\mathrm{R}^f=Q_fs_W/c_W`$ are the SM left- and right-handed fermion couplings of the $`Z`$ with $`s_W^2=1c_W^2\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _W`$; $`Q_e`$ and $`Q_f`$ are the fermion electric charges. The $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\alpha \beta }`$ functions represent the contact interaction contributions coming from TeV-scale physics.

The structure of the differential cross section (2)–(4) is particularly interesting in that it is equally valid for a wide variety of New Physics (NP) models listed in Table 1. Note that only graviton exchange induces a modified angular dependence to the differential cross section via its $`z`$-dependence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\alpha \beta }`$.

We define the generalized center–edge asymmetry $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$ as :

$$A_{\mathrm{CE}}=\frac{\sigma _{\mathrm{CE}}}{\sigma },$$
(5)
in terms of the difference between the central and edge parts of the cross section

$$\sigma _{\mathrm{CE}}=\left[_z^{}^z^{}\left(_1^z^{}+_z^{}^1\right)\right]\frac{\text{d}\sigma }{\text{d}z}\text{d}z,$$
(6)
and the total cross section

$$\sigma =_1^1\frac{\text{d}\sigma }{\text{d}z}\text{d}z,$$
(7)
and $`0<z^{}<1`$.111The center–edge asymmetry $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$ for $`W`$-pair production and fixed $`z^{}=0.5`$ has been introduced in .

In Table 1 $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\alpha \beta }`$ are compositeness scales; $`\chi _Z^{}`$ is the $`Z^{}`$ propagator defined according to $`\chi _Z`$; $`\stackrel{~}{f}_{DW}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{f}_{DB}`$ are related to $`f_{DW}`$ and $`f_{DB}`$ of ref.  by $`\stackrel{~}{f}=f/m_t^2`$ ($`f_{DW}`$ and $`f_{DB}`$ parametrize new-physics effects associated with the SU(2) and hypercharge currents, respectively); $`M_C`$ is the compactification scale; finally, $`f_G=\lambda s^2/(4\pi \alpha _{\mathrm{e}.\mathrm{m}.}M_H^4)`$ parametrizes the strength associated with massive graviton exchange with $`M_H`$ the cut-off scale in the KK graviton tower sum. Note that, compared with, e.g., the composite fermion case, the KK graviton effect is suppressed by the (larger) power $`(\sqrt{s}/M_H)^4`$, so that a lower reach on $`M_H`$ can be expected in comparison to the constraints obtainable, at the same c.m. energy, on $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$’s. The effect of the extra dimensional model  is $`s`$-independent, and the sign of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\alpha \beta }`$ is fixed.

First, let us consider graviton exchange effects. For definiteness we consider the ADD model . From Eqs. (2)–(7) and Table 1 one can derive the asymmetry $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$ for the process (1) including graviton tower exchange:

$$A_{\mathrm{CE}}=\frac{\sigma _{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{SM}}+\sigma _{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{INT}}+\sigma _{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{NP}}}{\sigma ^{\mathrm{SM}}+\sigma ^{\mathrm{INT}}+\sigma ^{\mathrm{NP}}},$$
(8)
where “SM”, “INT” and “NP” refer to “Standard Model”, “Interference” and (pure) “New Physics” contributions. Explicitly, we have

$`\sigma _{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{SM}}=`$ $`N_C{\displaystyle \frac{\pi \alpha _{\mathrm{e}.\mathrm{m}.}^2}{2s}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\left[(_{\mathrm{LL}}^{\mathrm{SM}})^2+(_{\mathrm{RR}}^{\mathrm{SM}})^2+(_{\mathrm{LR}}^{\mathrm{SM}})^2+(_{\mathrm{RL}}^{\mathrm{SM}})^2\right]{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}\left[z^{}(z_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+3)2\right],`$
$`\sigma _{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{INT}}=`$ $`N_C{\displaystyle \frac{\pi \alpha _{\mathrm{e}.\mathrm{m}.}^2}{2s}}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}f_G{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\left[_{\mathrm{LL}}^{\mathrm{SM}}+_{\mathrm{RR}}^{\mathrm{SM}}_{\mathrm{LR}}^{\mathrm{SM}}_{\mathrm{RL}}^{\mathrm{SM}}\right]\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}4}z^{}(1z_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}),`$
$`\sigma _{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{NP}}=`$ $`N_C{\displaystyle \frac{\pi \alpha _{\mathrm{e}.\mathrm{m}.}^2}{2s}}f_G^2{\displaystyle \frac{4}{5}}\left[4z_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{5}+5z^{}(1z_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2})2\right],`$ (9)
with

$`\sigma ^{\mathrm{SM}}=`$ $`N_C{\displaystyle \frac{\pi \alpha _{\mathrm{e}.\mathrm{m}.}^2}{2s}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\left[(_{\mathrm{LL}}^{\mathrm{SM}})^2+(_{\mathrm{RR}}^{\mathrm{SM}})^2+(_{\mathrm{LR}}^{\mathrm{SM}})^2+(_{\mathrm{RL}}^{\mathrm{SM}})^2\right]{\displaystyle \frac{8}{3}},`$
$`\sigma ^{\mathrm{INT}}=`$ $`0,\sigma ^{\mathrm{NP}}=N_C{\displaystyle \frac{\pi \alpha _{\mathrm{e}.\mathrm{m}.}^2}{2s}}f_G^2{\displaystyle \frac{8}{5}}.`$ (10)
Note that, at $`z^{}=0`$ and 1, $`\sigma _{\mathrm{CE}}=\sigma `$, respectively.

In the case of the SM the center–edge asymmetry $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{SM}}`$ can be obtained from Eqs. (8)–(10) taking $`f_G=0`$:

$$A_{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{SM}}=\frac{\sigma _{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{SM}}}{\sigma ^{\mathrm{SM}}}=\frac{1}{2}z^{}(z_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+3)1.$$
(11)
It is interesting to note that in Eq. (11) the helicity amplitudes in the numerator and denominator cancel and only a ratio of kinematical factors remains in the limit of neglecting external fermion masses. In addition, $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{SM}}`$ is independent of energy and of the flavour of the final-state fermions. It contains only the kinematical variable $`z^{}`$. Fig. 1 shows $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{SM}}`$ as a function of $`z^{}`$. From Eq. (11) one can determine the value of $`z^{}`$ where $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{SM}}`$ vanishes ,

$$z_0^{}=(\sqrt{2}+1)^{1/3}(\sqrt{2}1)^{1/3}=0.596,$$
(12)
corresponding to $`\theta =53.4^{}`$ (see the solid curve in Fig. 1).

Graviton exchange in the ADD model affects $`A_{CE}`$ inducing a deviation from the SM prediction:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }A_{\mathrm{CE}}=A_{\mathrm{CE}}A_{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{SM}}.$$
(13)
For $`(s/M_H^2)^21`$, it will be $`\sigma _{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{INT}}`$ which will produce the largest deviation from the expectations of the SM, since this term is of order $`(\sqrt{s}/M_H)^4`$, whereas the pure NP contribution proportional to $`f_G^2`$ in Eqs. (2) and (10) is of the much higher order $`(\sqrt{s}/M_H)^8`$. Taking into account only SM-NP interference terms, one derives:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }A_{\mathrm{CE}}f_G\frac{_{\mathrm{LL}}^{\mathrm{SM}}+_{\mathrm{RR}}^{\mathrm{SM}}_{\mathrm{LR}}^{\mathrm{SM}}_{\mathrm{RL}}^{\mathrm{SM}}}{\left[(_{\mathrm{LL}}^{\mathrm{SM}})^2+(_{\mathrm{RR}}^{\mathrm{SM}})^2+(_{\mathrm{LR}}^{\mathrm{SM}})^2+(_{\mathrm{RL}}^{\mathrm{SM}})^2\right]}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}z^{}(1z_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}).$$
(14)
For the lepton pair production process in the ADD model, the corresponding $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$ is shown in Fig. 1 for $`M_H=1`$ TeV and $`\lambda =\pm 1`$. As one can see from Fig. 1, $`\mathrm{\Delta }A_{\mathrm{CE}}=0`$ for $`z^{}=0`$ and 1. Clearly, in contrast to $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{SM}}`$, the $`\mathrm{\Delta }A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$ of Eq. (14) depends on the flavour of the final-state fermion $`f`$.

To illustrate the effect of graviton exchange on the center–edge asymmetry, we show in Fig. 2 the $`z^{}`$-distributions of the deviation $`\mathrm{\Delta }A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$, taking as examples the values of $`M_H`$ indicated in the caption. The deviation $`\mathrm{\Delta }A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$ \[including also the pure NP term in addition to the simple result of Eq. (14)\] is compared to the expected statistical uncertainties, $`\delta A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$, represented by the vertical bars and given by

$$\delta A_{\mathrm{CE}}=\sqrt{\frac{1(A_{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{SM}})^2}{ϵ_f_{\mathrm{int}}\sigma ^{\mathrm{SM}}}}.$$
(15)
Here, $`_{\mathrm{int}}`$ is the integrated luminosity, and $`ϵ_f`$ the efficiency for reconstruction of $`f\overline{f}`$ pairs. We will assume that the efficiencies of identifying the final state fermions are rather high: 100% for $`l=\mu ,\tau `$, 80% for $`f=b`$, and 60% for $`f=c`$. Fig. 2 qualitatively indicates that, for the chosen values of the c.m. energy $`\sqrt{s}`$ and $`_{\mathrm{int}}`$, the reach on $`M_H`$ will be of the order of 2.5 TeV.

Now, let us consider the conventional contact-interaction-like effects parametrized by $`z`$-independent $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\alpha \beta }`$ summarized in Table 1. Application of Eq. (5) to composite-like contact interactions is straightforward, the result can be written as:

$$A_{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{SM}+\mathrm{CI}}=\frac{\sigma _{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{SM}+\mathrm{CI}}}{\sigma ^{\mathrm{SM}+\mathrm{CI}}},$$
(16)
where

$$\sigma _{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{SM}+\mathrm{CI}}=N_C\frac{\pi \alpha _{\mathrm{e}.\mathrm{m}.}^2}{2s}\frac{1}{4}\left[(_{\mathrm{LL}})^2+(_{\mathrm{RR}})^2+(_{\mathrm{LR}})^2+(_{\mathrm{RL}})^2\right]\frac{4}{3}\left[z^{}(z_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+3)2\right],$$
(17)
and

$$\sigma ^{\mathrm{SM}+\mathrm{CI}}=N_C\frac{\pi \alpha _{\mathrm{e}.\mathrm{m}.}^2}{2s}\frac{1}{4}\left[(_{\mathrm{LL}})^2+(_{\mathrm{RR}})^2+(_{\mathrm{LR}})^2+(_{\mathrm{RL}})^2\right]\frac{8}{3}.$$
(18)
From Eqs. (16)–(18), one has

$$A_{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{SM}+\mathrm{CI}}=\frac{1}{2}z^{}(z_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+3)1.$$
(19)
This result is identical to $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{SM}}`$ defined by Eq. (11)! In other words, $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$ has the form (19) in the SM and will remain so even if contact-interaction-like effects are present. Thus, conventional contact-interaction effects, being described by current–current interactions, yield the same center–edge asymmetry as the Standard Model. The reason is simply that both these interactions are described by vector currents, as opposed to the tensor couplings of gravity. The deviation of $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$ from the SM (and SM+CI) prediction is clearly a signal of the spin-2 particle exchange. Thus, it is clear that a non-zero value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$ can provide a clean signature for graviton, or more generally, spin-2 exchange in the process $`e^+e^{}\overline{f}f`$.

## 3 Polarized beams

Let us now consider the case of longitudinally polarized beams, with $`P`$ and $`\overline{P}`$ the degrees of polarization of the electron and positron beams, respectively. The polarized differential cross section can then be written as

$$\frac{\text{d}\sigma }{\text{d}z}=\frac{D}{4}\left[(1P_{\mathrm{eff}})\left(\frac{\text{d}\sigma _{\mathrm{LL}}}{\text{d}z}+\frac{\text{d}\sigma _{\mathrm{LR}}}{\text{d}z}\right)+(1+P_{\mathrm{eff}})\left(\frac{\text{d}\sigma _{\mathrm{RR}}}{\text{d}z}+\frac{\text{d}\sigma _{\mathrm{RL}}}{\text{d}z}\right)\right],$$
(20)
where $`D=1P\overline{P}`$ and $`P_{\mathrm{eff}}=(P\overline{P})/(1P\overline{P})`$ is the effective polarization . For example, $`P_{\mathrm{eff}}=\pm 0.95`$ and $`D1.5`$ for $`P=\pm 0.8`$ and $`\overline{P}=0.6`$.

In addition, in the case of a reduced kinematical region, with cuts around the beam pipe, $`|z|z_{\mathrm{cut}}`$ ($`0<z_{\mathrm{cut}}<1`$), one can define the generalized center–edge asymmetry $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$ as above, with Eqs. (6) and (7) replaced by

$$\sigma _{\mathrm{CE}}=\left[_z^{}^z^{}\left(_{z_{\mathrm{cut}}}^z^{}+_z^{}^{z_{\mathrm{cut}}}\right)\right]\frac{\text{d}\sigma }{\text{d}z}\text{d}z,$$
(21)
and

$$\sigma =_{z_{\mathrm{cut}}}^{z_{\mathrm{cut}}}\frac{\text{d}\sigma }{\text{d}z}\text{d}z,$$
(22)
with $`0<z^{}<z_{\mathrm{cut}}`$.

Allowing for angular cuts, as discussed above, the asymmetry $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$ including graviton tower exchange can for polarized beams be expressed as given by Eq. (8), with

$`\sigma _{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{SM}}(z^{},z_{\mathrm{cut}})=`$ $`N_C{\displaystyle \frac{\pi \alpha _{\mathrm{e}.\mathrm{m}.}^2}{2s}}{\displaystyle \frac{D}{4}}\left\{(1P_{\mathrm{eff}})\left[(_{\mathrm{LL}}^{\mathrm{SM}})^2+(_{\mathrm{LR}}^{\mathrm{SM}})^2\right]+(1+P_{\mathrm{eff}})\left[(_{\mathrm{RR}}^{\mathrm{SM}})^2+(_{\mathrm{RL}}^{\mathrm{SM}})^2\right]\right\}`$
$`\times F^{\mathrm{SM}}(z^{},z_{\mathrm{cut}}),`$
$`\sigma _{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{INT}}(z^{},z_{\mathrm{cut}})=`$ $`N_C{\displaystyle \frac{\pi \alpha _{\mathrm{e}.\mathrm{m}.}^2}{2s}}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}f_G{\displaystyle \frac{D}{4}}\left[(1P_{\mathrm{eff}})\left(_{\mathrm{LL}}^{\mathrm{SM}}_{\mathrm{LR}}^{\mathrm{SM}}\right)+(1+P_{\mathrm{eff}})\left(_{\mathrm{RR}}^{\mathrm{SM}}_{\mathrm{RL}}^{\mathrm{SM}}\right)\right]`$
$`\times F^{\mathrm{INT}}(z^{},z_{\mathrm{cut}}),`$
$`\sigma _{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{NP}}(z^{},z_{\mathrm{cut}})=`$ $`N_C{\displaystyle \frac{\pi \alpha _{\mathrm{e}.\mathrm{m}.}^2}{2s}}f_G^2DF^{\mathrm{NP}}(z^{},z_{\mathrm{cut}}).`$ (23)
Here, the dependences on the parameter $`z^{}`$ and on the angular cut $`z_{\mathrm{cut}}`$, are given by

$`F^{\mathrm{SM}}(z^{},z_{\mathrm{cut}})=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}\left[2z^{}(z_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+3)z_{\mathrm{cut}}(z_{\mathrm{cut}}^2+3)\right],`$
$`F^{\mathrm{INT}}(z^{},z_{\mathrm{cut}})=`$ $`2\left[2z^{}(1z_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2})z_{\mathrm{cut}}(1z_{\mathrm{cut}}^2)\right],`$
$`F^{\mathrm{NP}}(z^{},z_{\mathrm{cut}})=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{5}}\left[8z_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{5}+10z^{}(1z_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2})4z_{\mathrm{cut}}^55z_{\mathrm{cut}}(1z_{\mathrm{cut}}^2)\right].`$ (24)
The total cross sections in the denominator of Eq. (8) can be derived from Eqs. (23) and (24):

$$\sigma ^{\mathrm{SM}}(z_{\mathrm{cut}})=\sigma _{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{SM}}(z^{}=z_{\mathrm{cut}}),\sigma ^{\mathrm{INT}}(z_{\mathrm{cut}})=\sigma _{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{INT}}(z^{}=z_{\mathrm{cut}}),\sigma ^{\mathrm{NP}}(z_{\mathrm{cut}})=\sigma _{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{NP}}(z^{}=z_{\mathrm{cut}}).$$
(25)
From Eqs. (5), (17), (18) and (20)–(24) some immediate conclusions can be drawn. First, it is clear that in the case of longitudinally polarized beams and chosen cut around the beam pipe, $`|z|z_{\mathrm{cut}}`$, the asymmetry $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$ within the SM and in any new physics scenario with $`Z^{}`$ exchanges, and also in the four-fermion contact interaction scenario, is given by

$$A_{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{SM}}=A_{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{SM}+\mathrm{CI}}=2\frac{z^{}(z_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+3)}{z_{\mathrm{cut}}(z_{\mathrm{cut}}^2+3)}1.$$
(26)
Secondly, the center–edge asymmetry (26) is identical to that for unpolarized beams, see Eqs. (11) and (19), for $`z_{\mathrm{cut}}=1`$. Third, the asymmetry (26) is independent of energy $`\sqrt{s}`$, flavour of the final-state fermion $`f`$, and of the SM and NP parameters. Moreover, there is a value $`z_0^{}`$ for which $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{SM}}`$ vanishes. One obtains $`z_0^{}=aa^1`$, where $`a=[(p+\sqrt{p^2+4})/2]^{1/3}`$, and $`p=(3z_{\mathrm{cut}}+z_{\mathrm{cut}}^3)/2`$. These zeros of $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{SM}}`$ are important, since the graviton exchange will there give the only contribution. Finally, $`\sigma ^{\mathrm{INT}}(z_{\mathrm{cut}})=0`$ at $`z_{\mathrm{cut}}=1`$, and in this limit for the angular cut the contribution to the total polarized cross section from the graviton exchange term would be of order $`f_G^2`$, i.e., of order $`(s/M_H^2)^4`$, hence negligible.

## 4 Sensitivity

In order to get some feeling for the sensitivities of the processes $`e^+e^{}\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$, $`b\overline{b}`$ and $`c\overline{c}`$ to graviton exchange effects, let us consider the statistical significance defined as

$$𝒮=\frac{|\mathrm{\Delta }A_{\mathrm{CE}}|}{\delta A_{\mathrm{CE}}},$$
(27)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$ is defined by Eq. (13). Here, $`\delta A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$ is the expected statistical uncertainty defined by Eq. (15). Fig. 3 shows the statistical significance $`𝒮`$ as a function of $`z^{}`$ for unpolarized beams for the process (1) at $`M_H=2\text{ TeV}`$, $`_{\mathrm{int}}=50\text{ fb}^1`$, $`\lambda =1`$, and $`\sqrt{s}=500\text{ GeV}`$. In the sequel, we shall put $`\lambda =1`$; our numerical results will turn out not to depend appreciably on the choice of the sign.

From Eqs. (27), (14), (15) and (11) one can derive the statistical significance for unpolarized initial beams limiting to the interference contribution (and for $`z_{\mathrm{cut}}=1`$):

$$𝒮_f=f_G𝒮_0\frac{\left|\left(_{\mathrm{LL}}^{\mathrm{SM}}_{\mathrm{LR}}^{\mathrm{SM}}\right)+\left(_{\mathrm{RR}}^{\mathrm{SM}}_{\mathrm{RL}}^{\mathrm{SM}}\right)\right|}{\sqrt{\left[(_{\mathrm{LL}}^{\mathrm{SM}})^2+(_{\mathrm{LR}}^{\mathrm{SM}})^2\right]+\left[(_{\mathrm{RR}}^{\mathrm{SM}})^2+(_{\mathrm{RL}}^{\mathrm{SM}})^2\right]}},$$
(28)
$$𝒮_0=\sqrt{\frac{3\pi \alpha _{e.m.}^2N_Cϵ_f_{\mathrm{int}}}{s}\frac{z^{}(1z^{})}{(z^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+3)(z^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+z^{}+4)}}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}(1+z^{}).$$
(29)
The extension of Eq. (28) for polarized beams is straightforward:

$$𝒮_f=f_G𝒮_0\sqrt{D}\frac{\left|(1P_{\mathrm{eff}})\left(_{\mathrm{LL}}^{\mathrm{SM}}_{\mathrm{LR}}^{\mathrm{SM}}\right)+(1+P_{\mathrm{eff}})\left(_{\mathrm{RR}}^{\mathrm{SM}}_{\mathrm{RL}}^{\mathrm{SM}}\right)\right|}{\sqrt{(1P_{\mathrm{eff}})\left[(_{\mathrm{LL}}^{\mathrm{SM}})^2+(_{\mathrm{LR}}^{\mathrm{SM}})^2\right]+(1+P_{\mathrm{eff}})\left[(_{\mathrm{RR}}^{\mathrm{SM}})^2+(_{\mathrm{RL}}^{\mathrm{SM}})^2\right]}}.$$
(30)
Note that the maximum of $`𝒮`$ occurs at $`z_{\mathrm{max}}^{}1/\sqrt{3}=0.577`$ ($`\theta 54.7^{}`$) which is very close to $`z_0^{}`$ where $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{SM}}=0`$.222Strictly, $`1/\sqrt{3}`$ would be the value of $`z^{}`$ for which $`\mathrm{\Delta }A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$ in Eq. (14) is maximal. This represents to a very good approximation the location $`z_{\mathrm{max}}^{}`$ of the maximum of the statistical significance (27). The dependence of $`𝒮`$ in the vicinity of $`z_{\mathrm{max}}^{}`$ is quite smooth as implied by the behaviour of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$ and $`\delta A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$ shown in Fig. 2. In other words, variation of $`z^{}`$ around $`z_{\mathrm{max}}^{}`$ changes the sensitivity very little. Therefore, no stringent requirements on angular resolution are needed.

The statistical significance is expressed in terms of the SM amplitudes $`_{\alpha \beta }^{\mathrm{SM}}=Q_eQ_f[1+(g_\alpha ^eg_\beta ^f/Q_eQ_f)\chi _Z]`$. The factor $`Q_eQ_f`$ is here extracted since it cancels in the ratios of Eqs. (28) and (30).

In order to clarify the dominant role of $`q\overline{q}`$-pair production over $`\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ production in searching for graviton exchange effects, as shown in Fig. 3, and also to reveal the role of polarization in such analysis, it is instructive to estimate the SM amplitudes in the limit where

$$s_W^2=0.25,M_Z^2sM_H^2.$$
(31)
With these approximations, the relations between the SM couplings can be written as

$$\frac{g_\mathrm{L}^e}{Q_e}=\frac{1}{2}\frac{g_\mathrm{L}^c}{Q_c}=\frac{1}{5}\frac{g_\mathrm{L}^b}{Q_b}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}},\frac{g_\mathrm{R}^e}{Q_e}=\frac{g_\mathrm{R}^c}{Q_c}=\frac{g_\mathrm{R}^b}{Q_b}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}},$$
(32)
and the SM amplitudes are related as ($`\chi _Z1`$)

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_{\mathrm{LL}}^{\mathrm{e}\mu }=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_{\mathrm{RR}}^{\mathrm{e}\mu }=_{\mathrm{LR}}^{\mathrm{e}\mu }=_{\mathrm{RL}}^{\mathrm{e}\mu }=Q_eQ_\mu {\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}},`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{5}}_{\mathrm{LL}}^{\mathrm{ec}}=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}_{\mathrm{RR}}^{\mathrm{ec}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_{\mathrm{LR}}^{\mathrm{ec}}=_{\mathrm{RL}}^{\mathrm{ec}}=Q_eQ_c{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}},`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}_{\mathrm{LL}}^{\mathrm{eb}}=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_{\mathrm{RR}}^{\mathrm{eb}}=_{\mathrm{LR}}^{\mathrm{eb}}=_{\mathrm{RL}}^{\mathrm{eb}}=Q_eQ_b{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}.`$ (33)
For unpolarized $`e^+e^{}`$ beams, we have:

$$𝒮_\mu :𝒮_c:𝒮_b=1:\sqrt{ϵ_c\frac{135}{23}}:\sqrt{ϵ_b\frac{135}{11}}1:1.9:3.1.$$
(34)
Comparison of the ratios (34) obtained in the adopted approximation (31) with those presented in Fig. 3 and derived from the full expression of Eq. (27) shows that this approximation is quite reasonable. With fully polarized beams, $`e_\mathrm{L}^+e_\mathrm{R}^{}`$ ($`P_{\mathrm{eff}}=1`$) and $`e_\mathrm{R}^+e_\mathrm{L}^{}`$ ($`P_{\mathrm{eff}}=1`$), we find

$$𝒮_\mu (P_{\mathrm{eff}}=0):𝒮_\mu (P_{\mathrm{eff}}=1):𝒮_\mu (P_{\mathrm{eff}}=1)=1:\sqrt{2}:\sqrt{2}=1:1.4:1.4,$$
(35)
$$𝒮_c(P_{\mathrm{eff}}=0):𝒮_c(P_{\mathrm{eff}}=1):𝒮_c(P_{\mathrm{eff}}=1)=1:\sqrt{\frac{46}{17}}:\sqrt{\frac{46}{29}}=1:1.6:1.3,$$
(36)
$$𝒮_b(P_{\mathrm{eff}}=0):𝒮_b(P_{\mathrm{eff}}=1):𝒮_b(P_{\mathrm{eff}}=1)=1:\sqrt{\frac{22}{5}}:\sqrt{\frac{22}{17}}=1:2.1:1.1.$$
(37)
Note that the $`b\overline{b}`$ channel becomes more sensitive to graviton exchange effects both for unpolarized and polarized beams and would carry large statistical weight in the analysis. The advantage of polarization is lessened by the fact that the signal behaves as $`(\sqrt{s}/M_H)^4`$ compared to, e.g., the case of four-fermion contact interactions. This high power reduces the considerable gain in sensitivity to a less dramatic 20% gain in reach on $`M_H`$ for the $`b\overline{b}`$ case, see Eq. (37).

The sign of the SM–NP interference term in the $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$ asymmetry for the process $`e^+e^{}c\overline{c}`$ is opposite to those of $`e^+e^{}\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ and $`e^+e^{}b\overline{b}`$. This sign correlation might yield additional information to identify graviton exchange effects.

## 5 Identification reach

To assess a realistic reach on the mass scale $`M_H`$ we can consider a $`\chi ^2`$-function made of the deviation of the asymmetry $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$ from its SM value. For a fixed integrated luminosity this can be done using the statistical errors as well as the systematic errors. We find that, to a very large extent, the systematic errors associated with the uncertainties expected on the luminosity measurements cancel out, and the same is true for the systematic errors induced by the uncertainty on beam polarizations. Accordingly, the errors on $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$ are largely dominated by statistics. In this estimation we assume the values $`\delta _{\mathrm{int}}/_{\mathrm{int}}=\delta P/P=\delta \overline{P}/\overline{P}=0.5\%`$. We take the beam polarization to be 80% and 60% for electrons and positrons, respectively, and employ a $`10^{}`$ angular cut around the beam pipe, i.e., $`z_{\mathrm{cut}}=0.98`$. Since most of the error is statistical in origin, we expect the bound on $`M_H`$ to scale as $`(_{\mathrm{int}}s^3)^{1/8}`$. The dependence of the reach on $`M_H`$ on $`z_{\mathrm{cut}}`$ varying in a reasonable range close to 1 is, for the chosen values of energy, luminosity and polarization, quite smooth. For example, in the range $`z_{\mathrm{cut}}=0.961`$, the bound on $`M_H`$ is found to vary by only a few percent.

In the present analysis we also take into account the radiative corrections. Among the complete $`𝒪(\alpha )`$ corrections to the process (1), the numerically largest QED corrections are the effects of initial state radiation, which in general are of major importance for new physics searches. The initial state corrections have been calculated in the flux function approach (see, e.g., ref. ). The structure of the corrected differential cross section in terms of $`z_{\mathrm{c}.\mathrm{m}.}\mathrm{cos}\theta `$ (where $`\theta `$ now refers to the final-state $`f\overline{f}`$ c.m. frame) is

$$\frac{\text{d}\sigma }{\text{d}z_{\mathrm{c}.\mathrm{m}.}}(1+z_{\mathrm{c}.\mathrm{m}.}^2)\sigma _s+2z_{\mathrm{c}.\mathrm{m}.}\sigma _a,$$
(38)
The symmetric and antisymmetric parts of the cross section are given by convolutions of the non-radiative cross section with the flux functions $`H_A^e(v)`$, with $`v`$ the energy of the emitted photon in units of the beam energy. Due to the radiative return to the $`Z`$ resonance for $`\sqrt{s}>M_Z`$ the energy spectrum of the radiated photons is peaked around $`E_\gamma /E_{\mathrm{beam}}1M_Z^2/s`$. In order to increase a possible new physics signal, events with hard photons should be removed by a cut on the photon energy, $`\mathrm{\Delta }=E_\gamma /E_{\mathrm{beam}}<1M_Z^2/s`$, with $`\mathrm{\Delta }=0.9`$. We also take into account electroweak corrections to the propagators and vertices amounting essentially to effective (momentum-dependent) coupling constants (effective Born approximation  with $`m_{\mathrm{top}}=175\text{GeV}`$ and $`m_{\mathrm{higgs}}=300\text{GeV}`$). Concerning the other QED corrections, the final state ones and the initial-final state interference, they can be checked to be numerically unimportant for the chosen kinematical cuts, in particular that on $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, using the existing codes, e.g., ZFITTER . In addition $`z_0^{}`$, the zero of $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{SM}}`$, is shifted by these corrections by a little amount from the effective Born approximation value. The box-diagram contributions, which introduce a different angular dependence, are found to be very small.

Since the form of the corrected cross section, Eq. (38), is the same as that of Eq. (2), it follows that the radiatively-corrected zero of $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{SM}}`$, $`z_0^{}`$, can again be defined by:

$$\left[_{z_0^{}}^{z_0^{}}\left(_1^{z_0^{}}+_{z_0^{}}^1\right)\right](1+z^2)\text{d}z=0,$$
(39)
and one finds the same value for $`z_0^{}`$ as given by Eq. (12). Moreover, in both the SM and SM+CI cases the radiatively corrected asymmetry $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$ is still determined by Eq. (19).

Summing over $`\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$, $`\tau ^+\tau ^{}`$, $`b\overline{b}`$ and $`c\overline{c}`$ final states (the top quark is excluded as its mass effects would alter the angular distribution (38)) one can perform a conventional $`\chi ^2`$ analysis:

$$\chi ^2=\underset{f=\mu ,\tau ,c,b}{}\frac{(\mathrm{\Delta }A_{\mathrm{CE}}^f)^2}{(\delta A_{\mathrm{CE}}^f)^2},$$
(40)
keeping $`z^{}=z_0^{}`$ fixed (recall from Fig. 3 that the sensitivities for the various final states are rather smooth in an interval around $`z_0^{}z_{\mathrm{max}}^{}`$). This leads to the $`5\sigma `$ identification reach as a function of integrated luminosity with energy $`\sqrt{s}=0.5`$, 1, 3 and 5 TeV shown in Fig. 4. The chosen range of energy corresponds to TESLA, NLC  and CLIC . Specifically, for $`\sqrt{s}=0.51`$ TeV and $`35`$ TeV machines with integrated luminosity $`1\text{ab}^1`$ the identification reach with double beam polarization is found to be $`(76)\times \sqrt{s}`$ and $`(4.54)\times \sqrt{s}`$, respectively. The effects of spin-2 graviton exchange can be distinguished from the other forms of contact-interaction-like effects considered in Table 1 for $`M_H3.5,6,13.6`$ and 20 TeV at $`\sqrt{s}=0.5`$, 1, 3 and 5 TeV, respectively.

It turns out that under the assumption of no observation of $`\mathrm{\Delta }A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$ within the expected experimental uncertainty, in which case only bounds on $`f_G`$ can be derived, the 95% CL lower limits on $`M_\mathrm{H}`$ would be represented by the values shown in Fig. 4 essentially multiplied by a factor of the order of 1.3.

Finally, we consider a scenario that would most closely mimic massive graviton exchange, namely the exchange of a scalar field in the $`s`$\- and $`t`$-channels, limiting ourselves to the production of lepton pairs. To be specific, we can concentrate on the example $`R`$-parity breaking SUSY interactions mediated by sneutrino exchange . First, we consider the $`t`$-channel $`\stackrel{~}{\nu }`$ contribution to $`e^+e^{}\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ or $`\tau ^+\tau ^{}`$. In this case the helicity cross sections are given by Eq. (3) with an additional contribution to the helicity amplitudes caused by $`\stackrel{~}{\nu }`$ exchange:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{LL}}=\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{RR}}=0,\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{LR}}=\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{RL}}=\frac{1}{2}C_{\stackrel{~}{\nu }}P_{\stackrel{~}{\nu }}^t,$$
(41)
where $`P_{\stackrel{~}{\nu }}^t=s/(tm_{\stackrel{~}{\nu }}^2)`$ and $`t=s(1z)/2`$, $`C_{\stackrel{~}{\nu }}=\lambda ^2/4\pi \alpha _{\mathrm{e}.\mathrm{m}.}`$, with $`\lambda `$ in this case the Yukawa coupling . It is clear that in the contact interaction limit, i.e. $`|t|m_{\stackrel{~}{\nu }}^2`$, these two new physics effects, graviton exchange and $`\stackrel{~}{\nu }`$ exchange, are easily separable by the previous analysis based on the asymmetry $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$. If we are not in the contact interaction limit, $`_{\mathrm{LR}}`$ and $`_{\mathrm{RL}}`$ pick up an additional $`z`$ dependence resulting in a $`z^{}`$ dependence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$ different from the one in Eq. (14) determined by graviton exchange. We find that polarization will also help to distinguish these two new physics effects. For this purpose one can define the polarized observable, the absolute center-edge left-right asymmetry:

$$\sigma A_{\mathrm{CE},\mathrm{LR}}\sigma _{\mathrm{CE},\mathrm{LR}}=\left[_{z_0^{}}^{z_0^{}}\left(_1^{z_0^{}}+_{z_0^{}}^1\right)\right]\left(\frac{\text{d}\sigma _\mathrm{L}}{\text{d}z}\frac{\text{d}\sigma _\mathrm{R}}{\text{d}z}\right)\text{d}z.$$
(42)
Here, $`z_0^{}`$ is the zero of $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}^{\mathrm{SM}}`$, see Eq. (39), and $`\text{d}\sigma _\mathrm{L}/\text{d}z`$ and $`\text{d}\sigma _\mathrm{R}/\text{d}z`$ are the differential cross sections defined by Eq. (20) with specific choices of electron and positron beam polarizations, for example $`(P,\overline{P})=(P_1,P_2)`$ and $`(P_1,P_2)`$, respectively, with $`P_1`$ and $`P_2`$ positive. The deviation from the SM prediction of the differential cross section difference involved in Eq. (42) and caused by $`\stackrel{~}{\nu }`$ exchange is given by

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{\text{d}\sigma _{\mathrm{LR}}}{\text{d}z}\left(\frac{\text{d}\sigma _\mathrm{L}}{\text{d}z}\frac{\text{d}\sigma _\mathrm{R}}{\text{d}z}\right)\left(\frac{\text{d}\sigma _\mathrm{L}^{\mathrm{SM}}}{\text{d}z}\frac{\text{d}\sigma _\mathrm{R}^{\mathrm{SM}}}{\text{d}z}\right)P_{\mathrm{eff}}(_{\mathrm{LR}}^{\mathrm{SM}}_{\mathrm{RL}}^{\mathrm{SM}})C_{\stackrel{~}{\nu }}P_{\stackrel{~}{\nu }}^t=0,$$
(43)
because $`_{\mathrm{LR}}^{\mathrm{SM}}=_{\mathrm{RL}}^{\mathrm{SM}}`$ for the process (1) with $`f=\mu ,\tau `$. Notice that this property, easily checked in the tree approximation of the SM, continues to hold also in the effective Born approximation. Accordingly, $`\sigma _{\mathrm{CE},\mathrm{LR}}`$ is unaltered by sneutrino exchange in the leptonic processes $`e^+e^{}\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ and $`e^+e^{}\tau ^+\tau ^{}`$, i.e., $`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma _{\mathrm{CE},\mathrm{LR}}^{\stackrel{~}{\nu }}=0`$, whereas it is modified by graviton exchange, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma _{\mathrm{CE},\mathrm{LR}}^G0`$. The choice of $`z_0^{}`$ as integration limits in (42) assures that the contribution of the SM as well as that of any conventional contact interaction vanish, leaving room only for graviton and sneutrino exchanges. The role of polarization is that, in the combination (42), the sneutrino contributions cancel as explicitly seen in (43), so that only the signal of the graviton exchange term can survive. One can notice that this kind of analysis is allowed also in the case of only electron beam longitudinal polarization and unpolarized positron, namely, $`P_10`$ and $`P_2=0`$. Also, the quadratic term in the differential cross sections, proportional to $`(C_{\stackrel{~}{\nu }}P_{\stackrel{~}{\nu }}^t)^2`$, cancels in Eq. (42), so that Eq. (43), linear in $`(C_{\stackrel{~}{\nu }}P_{\stackrel{~}{\nu }}^t)`$ is the exact representation of the deviation from the SM.

Concerning $`\stackrel{~}{\nu }`$ exchange in the $`s`$ channel, the polarized differential cross section (20) picks up an additional, $`z`$-independent, term:

$$\frac{\text{d}\sigma ^s}{\text{d}z}(1+P\overline{P})(C_{\stackrel{~}{\nu }}P_{\stackrel{~}{\nu }}^s)^2,$$
(44)
with $`P_{\stackrel{~}{\nu }}^ss/(sm_{\stackrel{~}{\nu }}^2)`$. Indeed, the $`s`$-channel scalar exchange diagram does not interfere with the electroweak SM amplitudes mediated by the $`\gamma `$ and $`Z`$ boson and the resulting effects are of quadratic order, $`(C_{\stackrel{~}{\nu }}P_{\stackrel{~}{\nu }}^s)^2`$. As is easily seen from Eq. (44), either the electron beam polarization or both electron and positron polarizations allow to remove the sneutrino $`s`$ channel exchange contribution to Eq. (42), i.e., $`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma _{\mathrm{CE},\mathrm{LR}}^{\stackrel{~}{\nu }}=0`$ also in this case.

Conversely, it is possible to define an observable ‘orthogonal’ to $`\sigma _{\mathrm{CE},\mathrm{LR}}`$ which is sensitive to $`\stackrel{~}{\nu }`$ exchange in the $`s`$ channel and independent of the effects of graviton exchange, contact interactions, and $`Z^{}`$ exchange. This is the double beam polarization asymmetry defined as

$$A_{\mathrm{double}}=\frac{\sigma (P_1,P_2)+\sigma (P_1,P_2)\sigma (P_1,P_2)\sigma (P_1,P_2)}{\sigma (P_1,P_2)+\sigma (P_1,P_2)+\sigma (P_1,P_2)+\sigma (P_1,P_2)}.$$
(45)
Here, $`\sigma `$ are the cross sections integrated over $`z`$ in the indicated polarization configurations. One can see immediately that for the case of the SM, contact interactions, $`Z^{}`$ exchange, $`\stackrel{~}{\nu }`$ exchange in the $`t`$ channel and for graviton exchange one obtains $`A_{\mathrm{double}}=P_1P_2`$ since these exchanges contribute to the same amplitudes, whereas $`\stackrel{~}{\nu }`$ exchange in the $`s`$ channel will force this observable to smaller values as $`\mathrm{\Delta }A_{\mathrm{double}}P_1P_2(C_{\stackrel{~}{\nu }}P_{\stackrel{~}{\nu }}^s)^2<0`$. A value of $`A_{\mathrm{double}}`$ smaller than $`P_1P_2`$ can provide a signature of scalar exchange in the $`s`$ channel.

In conclusion, we have seen that one can define a set of observables using cross sections integrated within appropriate angular limits that can discriminate among deviations from the SM prediction related either to graviton or to scalar exchange in the $`s`$ channel.

## 6 Summary and observations

We conclude with a summary of the main points and some observations. We have developed a specific approach based on an integrated observable, the center-edge asymmetry $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$, to search for and identify spin-2 graviton exchange with uniquely distinct signature. Indeed, the spin-2 graviton KK exchanges contribute to the asymmetry $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$, whereas no deviation from the SM is induced by other kinds of new physics such as the composite-like contact interactions, a heavy vector boson $`Z^{}`$, gauge boson KK excitations listed in Table 1. Both in the SM and in any new physics scenario described by effective current–current interactions, the asymmetry $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$ is identical for any value of the parameter $`z^{}`$.

Particularly convenient is the range of $`z^{}`$ values around the zero of $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$ ($`z_0^{}`$) for the SM. In this range, the sensitivity of $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$ to the graviton coupling $`f_G`$ is maximal and rather smooth in $`z^{}`$, so that one can obtain not only the discovery but the real unambiguous identification of this new physics effect. This kind of analysis based on $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$ can be applied also to the case where a cut is imposed on the full angular range covered by the experiment, and its nice distinctive features continue to hold to a very good approximation.

Initial electron and positron beam polarization appears to increase the sensitivity to graviton exchange, but their impact on the mass scale parameter $`M_\mathrm{H}`$ is not dramatic due to the large power $`(\sqrt{s}/M_\mathrm{H})^4`$ that parametrizes the graviton coupling. In particular, for an $`e^+e^{}`$ linear collider with energy $`\sqrt{s}=0.5`$, 1, 3 and 5 TeV, with integrated luminosity $`1\text{ab}^1`$, double beam polarization and a $`10^{}`$ angular cut, the $`5\sigma `$ identification reach is found to be $`M_H3.5,6,13.6`$ and 20 TeV, respectively.

Instead, initial polarization can play a key role in distinguishing graviton exchange from competing effects, such as those originating from exchange of scalar particles, for which appropriate polarization asymmetries can be defined.

An approach aiming to isolate graviton-exchange effects has recently been proposed in Ref. , based on the differential cross section convoluted with Legendre polynomials and integrated over the angular range. Alternatively, our method directly uses the integrated cross sections to construct the center-edge asymmetry $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$. It has the main advantage of a mild dependence of $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$ on the kinematical cut, systematics, and on the number of angular bins, and in particular it depends on the total luminosity and not on the statistics available in each bin. These features may lead to some improvement in the 5-$`\sigma `$ discovery reach on the mass scale $`M_H`$.

Finally, we note that an analysis based on asymmetries analogous to $`A_{\mathrm{CE}}`$ might be useful in the context of hadronic collisions, in the Drell–Yan process.

Acknowledgement

This research has been partially supported by MIUR (Italian Ministry of University and Research), by funds of the University of Trieste, and by the Research Council of Norway.