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# Creation of effective magnetic fields in optical lattices: The Hofstadter butterfly for cold neutral atoms

## I Introduction

The recent experimental progress in manipulating and controlling trapped neutral atoms in optical lattices by quantum optical means bloch02 ; bloch0201  allows for a number of novel applications in a variety of different fields like quantum information processing brennen99 ; fermi ; jaksch99 ; jaksch00 ; qineu ; spinchain , atom interferometry spinchain , and atomic and molecular physics atommol ; atommol1 ; atommol2 . One of the most important features in all of these applications is the large degree of control by quantum optical techniques over the structure and the parameters of the Hamiltonian describing the atomic system. This control allows to realize and deploy a number of lattice Hamiltonians Molmer1 ; Vidal ; spinchain  which are frequently used as toy models for strongly correlated condensed matter systems and therefore theoretically very well studied. However, many of the most interesting effects in strongly correlated 2D systems appear if an external magnetic field is applied 2dmagn . Apart from rotating an atomic cloud bosereview , as assumed for example in the study of Laughlin states with bosonic atoms in Ref. paredes , there seems to be at present no obvious way of implementing lattice Hamiltonians resembling the effects of magnetic fields with neutral atoms.

In this paper we propose a 2D setup for neutral atoms which allows to engineer terms in single-band Hubbard Hamiltonians corresponding to an external magnetic field. An optical lattice provides the discrete periodic spatial structure and we will use lasers instead of a magnetic field to induce a phase for particles hopping around a closed path in the lattice resembling an effective magnetic field. We will show that the strength of this effective magnetic field can be varied by laser parameters and be made arbitrarily large, a situation first theoretically investigated by Hofstadter Hofstadter  for electrons. The studies by Hofstadter predicted the emergence of fractal energy bands $`ϵ`$ that resemble the shape of a butterfly when plotted against the parameter $`\alpha =ABe/2\pi \mathrm{}`$, where $`A`$ is the area of one of the elementary cells of the lattice, $`B`$ is the strength of the magnetic field, and $`e`$ is the charge of the particles (cf. Fig 1). The phase $`2\pi \alpha `$ is gained by the wave function of a particle due to the magnetic field when it hops around a plaquette of the lattice. As shown by Hofstadter the nature of the energy bands depends crucially on the parameter $`\alpha `$. If $`\alpha =p/r`$ with $`p,r`$ integers, i.e. $`\alpha `$ is a rational number, the energy spectrum splits into a finite number of exactly $`r`$ bands whereas if $`\alpha `$ is irrational the energy spectrum breaks up in infinitely many bands and thus the fractal structure shown in Fig. 1 emerges (for a detailed discussion on the properties of the Hofstadter butterfly see Hofstadter ).

Fractal energy band structures are believed to play an important role for a number of effects like the quantum Hall effect induced by magnetic fields in strongly correlated electron systems 2dmagn ; qhall . Therefore it is desirable to study the Hofstadter butterfly experimentally under well defined conditions. However, it turns out that the area of the elementary cells in metals where fractal energy bands could possibly be seen is so small that huge magnetic fields would be required to obtain values of $`\alpha `$ which are on the order of $`1`$ Hofstadter . Also in more sophisticated superlattice setups with larger area $`A`$ it is experimentally very difficult to obtain direct clear experimental evidence of the Hofstadter butterfly hofexp .

We will consider a 2D system of ultracold atoms trapped in one layer in the $`xy`$ plane of a three dimensional optical lattice. The atoms are in the lowest motional band which can be achieved e.g. by loading the optical lattice from a Bose-Einstein condensate bloch02 ; jaksch98 . Hopping along the $`z`$ direction is turned off completely by the lattice potential. Different columns of the lattice trap atoms in internal states $`|g`$ ($`|e`$) (denoted in Fig. 2a by open (closed) circles) bloch0201 ; jaksch99 . In addition the optical lattice is either accelerated along the $`x`$-axis or an inhomogeneous static electric field is applied and two Raman lasers driving transitions between the states $`|g`$ and $`|e`$ induce hopping along the $`x`$-axis while hopping along the $`y`$-axis is controlled by the depth of the optical lattice along this direction. This setup corresponds to applying a magnetic field with a parameter $`\alpha =q\lambda /4\pi `$ where $`q`$ is the wave number of the Raman lasers along the $`y`$ direction and $`\lambda `$ the wave length of the lasers creating the optical lattice. We also note that the atomic setup we are going to describe here can be used for a large number of other purposes. It is straightforward to add terms to the system that correspond to an external electric field. Also the atoms will interact with each other via collisional contact interactions jaksch99  and off site interactions can be engineered by dipolar Rydberg interactions jaksch00 . Therefore the setup presented here can be used for a number of studies related to the behavior of charged particles in a 2D configuration subject to magnetic and electric fields and also to study strongly interacting and thus strongly correlated systems. Furthermore it might be possible to extend this model to different geometries of optical lattices.

In this work we will concentrate on a possible setup required to implement the effective magnetic field in an optical lattice. We will discuss in detail the laser setup which leads to an effective magnetic flux through the optical lattice, and calculate the corresponding matrix elements in Sec. II. We also show that it is possible to reach each point within the Hofstadter butterfly apart from a negligibly small region around $`\alpha =0`$ with the proposed setup. In Sec. III we suggest one possibility of measuring some of the basic properties of the Hofstadter butterfly and discuss the limitations on the resolution for measuring the energy bands. We also give a brief account of the interaction effects. Finally we conclude with a short outlook on how the present setup could be extended in Sec. IV. While the focus of the present work is the derivation of the single-particle terms in the Hubbard Hamiltonian mimicking a strong magnetic field, we see as one of the main motivations the extension of strongly correlated many-atom systems in strong (effective) magnetic fields.

## II Setup and model

In this section we discuss the experimental setup required to produce a Hofstadter butterfly for neutral atoms. We first present the optical lattice setup, then introduce an additional acceleration or static electric field and finally describe in detail the additional lasers required for our purpose.

### II.1 Optical lattice

We consider a three dimensional optical lattice created by standing wave laser fields which generate a potential for the atomic motion of the form (we use $`\mathrm{}=1`$ throughout the paper)

$$V(\stackrel{}{x})=V_{0x}\mathrm{sin}^2(kx)+V_{0y}\mathrm{sin}^2(ky)+V_{0z}\mathrm{sin}^2(kz),$$
(1)
with $`k=2\pi /\lambda `$ the wave-vector of the light and spatial coordinate $`𝐱=\{x,y,z\}`$. The recoil energy is given by $`E_R=k^2/2M`$ with $`M`$ the mass of the atoms. We assume the lattice to trap atoms in two different internal hyperfine states $`|e`$ and $`|g`$ and the depth of the lattice in $`x`$\- and $`z`$-direction to be so large that hopping in these directions due to kinetic energy is prohibited jaksch98 . Furthermore we assume that adjusting the polarization of the lasers which confine the particles in the $`x`$-direction allows to place the potential wells trapping atoms in the different internal states at distances $`\lambda /4`$ with respect to each other jaksch99 ; brennen99 ; bloch0201  as shown in Fig. 1a. Therefore the resulting 2D lattice has a lattice constant (disregarding the internal state) in $`x`$-direction of $`a_x=\lambda /4`$ and in $`y`$-direction of $`a_y=\lambda /2`$. We restrict our analysis to one layer of the optical lattice in the $`xy`$ plane since in the following there will neither be hopping nor interactions between different layers. The dynamics of bosonic atoms occupying the lowest Bloch band of this optical lattice is well described by the Bose-Hubbard model (BHM) jaksch98

$`H_{\mathrm{latt}}={\displaystyle \underset{n,m}{}}J^y(a_{n,m}^{}a_{n,m1}+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.)`$
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{n\text{even},m}{}}\omega _{eg}a_{n,m}^{}a_{n,m}+{\displaystyle \underset{n,m}{}}U_na_{n,m}^{}a_{n,m}^{}a_{n,m}a_{n,m}`$
$`+U_x{\displaystyle \underset{n,m}{}}a_{n,m}^{}a_{n+1,m}^{}a_{n+1,m}a_{n,m},`$ (2)
where $`J^y`$ is the hopping matrix element for particles to tunnel between adjacent sites along the $`y`$-direction. The energy difference between the two hyperfine states is $`\omega _{eg}>0`$ and the operators $`a_{n,m}`$ ($`a_{n,m}^{}`$) are bosonic destruction (creation) operators for atoms in the lowest motional band located at the site which is centered at $`𝐱_{n,m}=\{x_n,y_m\}`$, where $`x_n=n\lambda /4`$ and $`y_m=m\lambda /2`$. The corresponding mode functions are the localized Wannier functions $`w(𝐱𝐱_{n,m})`$ jaksch98  found by suitable superpositions of the Bloch functions for the lowest Bloch band of the lattice. Since in $`x`$-direction the separation between two neighboring atoms is half the original lattice constant $`\lambda /2`$ the overlap of the mode functions of particles in adjacent lattice sites might lead to significant nearest neighbor interactions described by $`U_x`$ whereas we neglect any other offsite interactions jaksch98 . The parameter $`U_n`$ describes the onsite interaction between two particles occupying the same site. This onsite interaction may depend on the column index $`n`$ because of different internal states with different scattering lengths occupying different columns. Since for even \[odd\] $`n`$ the operator $`a_{n,m}`$ describes atoms in internal states $`|e`$, \[$`|g`$\] and the Wannier functions for sites which are separated by multiples of the original lattice constant $`\lambda /2`$ are orthogonal to each other we find the commutation relations $`[a_{n,m},a_{n^{},m^{}}^{}]=\delta _{n,n^{}}\delta _{m,m^{}}`$ with $`\delta _{n,n^{}}`$ the Kronecker delta. The details of the derivation of the above Hamiltonian can be found in jaksch98  where also the definitions for the parameters $`U`$, $`U_x`$, and $`J^y`$ are given.

### II.2 Acceleration or static electric field

In addition to the above setup we assume an energy offset of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ between two adjacent sites in $`x`$-direction as shown in Fig. 2b. This can be done by accelerating the optical lattice along the $`x`$-axis with a constant acceleration $`a_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ leading to an additional potential energy term for one atom of $`H_{\mathrm{acc}}=Ma_{\mathrm{acc}}x`$. Alternatively, if both of the internal atomic states $`|e`$ and $`|g`$ have the same static polarizability $`\mu `$ an inhomogeneous static electric field of the form $`E(x)=\delta Ex`$ can be applied to the optical lattice yielding a potential energy term $`H_{\mathrm{acc}}=\mu \delta Ex`$. We keep this additional potential energy small compared to the optical lattice potential and treat $`H_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ as a perturbation. In second quantization this yields $`H_{\mathrm{acc}}=\mathrm{\Delta }_{n,m}na_{n,m}^{}a_{n,m}`$ where $`\mathrm{\Delta }=\mu \delta E\lambda /4`$ in the case of an inhomogeneous electric field and $`\mathrm{\Delta }=Ma_{\mathrm{acc}}\lambda /4`$ if the lattice is accelerated. The condition for this perturbative treatment to be valid is $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _x`$ with $`\nu _x=\sqrt{4E_RV_{0x}}`$ the trapping frequency of the optical lattice in the $`x`$-direction.

### II.3 Additional lasers

Finally, we want to induce hopping along the $`x`$-direction by two additional lasers driving Raman transitions between the states $`|g`$ and $`|e`$. Each of them consists of two running plane waves chosen to give space dependent Rabi frequencies of the form

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_{1,2}=\mathrm{\Omega }e^{\pm iqy},$$
(3)
with $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ the magnitude of the Rabi frequencies, and detunings $`\pm \mathrm{\Delta }`$. We choose the parameters $`\mathrm{\Omega }>0`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }>0`$, and $`q>0`$. As discussed in detail in Appendix A this can always be achieved by superimposing two running wave laser beams incident in the $`xy`$-plane for $`q>(\mathrm{\Delta }+\omega _{eg})/c`$ with $`c`$ the speed of light. We assume the lasers not to excite any higher lying motional Bloch bands and also no transitions with detunings of the order of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, i.e., $`\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _x`$. Then the lasers $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{1(2)}`$ will only drive transitions $`n1n`$ if $`n`$ is even (odd) and we can neglect any influence of the nonresonant transitions. We find the following Hamiltonian describing the effect of the additional lasers

$`H_{\mathrm{las}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{m,n}{}}(\gamma _{n,m}a_{n,m}^{}a_{n1,m}+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.)`$ (4)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }{\displaystyle \underset{n,m}{}}na_{n,m}^{}a_{n,m},`$
where we have neglected all other terms due to being nonresonant and defined matrix elements $`\gamma _n`$ for even $`n`$

$$\gamma _{n,m}=\frac{1}{2}d^3x𝐰^{}(𝐱𝐱_{n,m})\mathrm{\Omega }_1𝐰(𝐱𝐱_{n1,m}),$$
(5)
and for odd $`n`$

$$\gamma _{n,m}=\frac{1}{2}d^3x𝐰^{}(𝐱𝐱_{n,m})\mathrm{\Omega }_2^{}𝐰(𝐱𝐱_{n1,m}).$$
(6)
For an optical lattice potential of the form Eq. (1) the Wannier functions can be written as a product of three normalized Wannier functions, i.e. $`𝐰(𝐱)=w(x)w(y)w(z)`$ jaksch98 , and we can write

$$\gamma _{n,m}=\frac{1}{2}e^{2\pi i\alpha m}\mathrm{\Gamma }_y(\alpha )\mathrm{\Gamma }_x,$$
(7)
where we have defined the matrix elements

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_x`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑xw^{}(x)w(x\lambda /4)},`$
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_y(\alpha )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑yw^{}(y)\mathrm{cos}(4\alpha \pi y/\lambda )w(y)},`$ (8)
and $`\alpha =q\lambda /4\pi `$. The values of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_x`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_y(\alpha )`$ as a function of the depth of the optical lattice $`V_0`$ are shown in Fig. 3. Both matrix elements are sufficiently large so that the above inequality $`\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _x`$ can be fulfilled if we want to achieve hopping amplitudes $`J^x=\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Gamma }_x\mathrm{\Gamma }_y/2J^y`$ of the order of kHz. We simplify $`H_{\mathrm{las}}`$ to find

$`H_{\mathrm{las}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{m,n}{}}(J^xe^{2\pi i\alpha m}a_{n,m}^{}a_{n1,m}+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.)`$ (9)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }{\displaystyle \underset{n,m}{}}na_{n,m}^{}a_{n,m}.`$
### II.4 Total Hamiltonian

The total Hamiltonian describing the configuration shown in Fig. 2 is given by $`H=H_{\mathrm{latt}}+H_{\mathrm{acc}}+H_{\mathrm{las}}`$ and we will for simplicity assume $`J^x=J^y=J`$. In this work we will mainly consider small filling factors of the optical lattice $`\overline{n}1`$ with $`\overline{n}`$ the average number of particles per lattice site and thus only look at one particle effects neglecting the interaction terms $`U_n`$ and $`U_x`$. Then the Hamiltonian can be written as

$$H(\alpha )=J\underset{n,m}{}(e^{2\pi i\alpha m}a_{n,m}^{}a_{n+1,m}+a_{n,m}^{}a_{n,m+1}+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.).$$
(10)
This Hamiltonian $`H(\alpha )`$ is equivalent to the Hamiltonian for electrons with charge $`e`$ moving on a lattice in an external magnetic field $`B=2\pi \alpha /Ae`$ Hofstadter , where $`A=a_xa_y`$ is the area of one elementary cell. In the remainder of this paper we will study the properties of $`H`$ for neutral atoms in optical lattices and in particular show that it can be used to study the whole of the Hofstadter butterfly shown in Fig. 1. We note that we have chosen the detunings of the additional lasers $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{1,2}`$ to exactly cancel the term $`H_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ arising from the acceleration or electric field. If these two terms did not cancel the remaining terms resemble a homogeneous electric field.

## III Discussion

In this section we show how to detect basic properties of the fractal energy spectrum in an experiment. We also briefly discuss the effects of fluctuations in the laser parameters, of finite system sizes, and interactions between the atoms.

### III.1 Measurement

One way of experimentally identifying the number of energy bands in the case of rational $`\alpha `$ is to measure the time evolution of the particle density $`\overline{n}(y,t)`$ in the lattice. We assume the lattice to be loaded from a Bose-Einstein condensate bloch02  neglect any interaction between the atoms and consider only a single atom. The initial wave function of the system is assumed to be

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }(t=0)=\frac{1}{𝒩}\underset{n,m}{}a_{n,m}^{}|\text{vac},$$
(11)
with $`|\text{vac}`$ the vacuum state and $`𝒩`$ a normalization constant. We then turn on the additional lasers to simulate a magnetic field and find the density of particles given by

$$\overline{n}(y,t)=\mathrm{\Psi }(t)|a_{n,m}^{}a_{n,m}|\mathrm{\Psi }(t),$$
(12)
to be independent of $`x`$. If we choose $`\alpha =1/r`$ a periodic interference pattern emerges in the time evolution of $`|\mathrm{\Psi }(t)`$. Different paths for hopping around in the lattice interfere with periodic phase relations (cf. Fig. 4a). The periodicity of interference pattern is determined by $`r`$ and repeats itself after exactly $`r`$ lattice sites as can be seen in Fig. 4a for $`\alpha =1/6`$. The periodicity is destroyed for values of $`\alpha `$ which are irrational. An example can be seen in Fig. 4b where a value of $`\alpha =1/2\pi `$ is chosen which differs by about $`5\%`$ from $`\alpha =1/6`$. This little change in $`\alpha `$ is sufficient to considerably alter the density of particles in the lattice and to destroy any periodicity.

### III.2 Parameter fluctuations

As discussed by Hofstadter Hofstadter  the maximum number of energy bands shown in Fig. 1, which can in principle be distinguished in an experiment, depends on the fluctuations in the parameter $`\alpha `$. In our case these fluctuations are determined by the frequency stability of the lasers and will thus not be significant. In an experiment with neutral atoms the resolution of the energy bands will rather be determined by the size of the whole sample, i.e. by the number $`2L/\lambda `$ where $`L`$ is the size of the whole sample, and by the spatial resolution in measuring interference patterns as described in Sec. III.1.

### III.3 Interaction effects

For large filling $`\overline{n}1`$ the interaction terms in the Hamiltonian Eq. 2, especially the onsite interactions become significant and cannot be neglected. We postpone a detailed study of these effects to a further publication and only include a graph of how the ground state in an optical lattice with a superimposed 2D harmonic trap of trapping frequency $`\omega _T`$

$$V(x,y)=\frac{M\omega _T^2}{2}\left(x^2+y^2\right)$$
(13)
looks like in the presence of the effective magnetic field. We use mean field theory in the form of the Gutzwiller ansatz (as described in jaksch98 ), and numerically solve for the ground state of the system for finite $`U_n=U`$ . In Fig. 5 we plot the particle number fluctuations $`\sigma _{n,m}^2=(\widehat{n}_{n,m}^2\widehat{n}_{n,m}^2)/\widehat{n}_{n,m}`$ with $`\widehat{n}_{n,m}=a_{n,m}^{}a_{n,m}`$ and the modulus of the superfluid parameter $`\varphi _{n,m}=a_{n,m}`$. The effective magnetic field alters these properties of the ground state significantly in comparison to the case of $`\alpha =0`$. The effective magnetic field leads to a decrease of the particle number fluctuations and the superfluid density in the center of the trap which is typical for the onset of a Mott-insulating phase even for $`U<U_c`$ with $`U_c`$ the critical interaction strength for the transition to the Mott insulator. A similar behavior has already been found in monien . In addition we find from the numerics that interference effects lead to point like increase/decraese in $`|\varphi |`$ and $`\sigma `$ in several of the lattice sites.

## IV Conclusions

In conclusion we have shown that quantum optical techniques allow to implement Hamiltonians often used to model charged particles subject to an external magnetic field in a lattice. We have shown that all of the physically interesting parameter regime can be explored by this setup and proposed one method to measure some of the most striking features of the fractal energy bands of the Hofstadter butterfly.

The setup we have investigated possesses a lot of possibilities for further extensions towards quantum simulations of strongly correlated systems of charged particles like interacting electrons moving on a lattice subject to electric and magnetic fields. The major difference and at the same time one of the most attractive features of the atomic system is a large degree of control that can be exerted by quantum optical means. In comparison to condensed matter systems the Hamiltonian describing the system is very well known and the parameters appearing can be controlled and varied over a much wider range than is usually the case for strongly correlated systems. Also, the time scale over which these parameters can be changed is short in comparison to decoherence time scales in the system. This allows to study coherent dynamical effects that are not easily accessible in most condensed matter systems. The detailed investigation of such aspects lies beyond the scope of this paper and will be dealt with in future publications.

###### Acknowledgements.

P.Z. thanks D. Feder for discussions. This work is supported in part by the Austrian Science Foundation and EU Networks.

## Appendix A Laser configuration

We describe the configuration for realizing $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1`$, the realization of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_2`$ is then straightforward if lasers with sufficiently different frequencies to avoid interferences between $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_2`$ are used. Two running laser waves with Rabi frequencies $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{e(g)}`$ and corresponding laser frequencies $`\omega _{e(g)}`$ for driving the transitions $`|e|r`$ ($`|g|r`$) with a large detuning $`\delta _r`$ are superimposed. We adiabatically eliminate the auxiliary internal level $`|r`$ and the resulting Rabi frequency for the Raman transition between $`|e`$ and $`|g`$ is then given by

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_1=\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_e\mathrm{\Omega }_g}{2\delta _r}e^{i(𝐤_e𝐤_g)𝐱}$$
(14)
where $`𝐤_{e(g)}=k_{e(g)}\{\mathrm{cos}(\varphi _{e(g)}),\pm \mathrm{sin}(\varphi _{e(g)}),0\}`$ is the wave vector of the laser $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{e(g)}`$. Both lasers are assumed to be incident in the $`xy`$ plane at angles $`\varphi _e`$ and $`\varphi _g`$, respectively. If a $`z`$ component of the wave vectors is avoided the experiment can be done in several identically prepared planes of the lattice simultaneously which enhances the measurement signal. For a given $`q=k_e\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _e)+k_g\mathrm{sin}(\varphi _g)`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{}=(\mathrm{\Delta }+\omega _{eg})/c=k_gk_e`$ fulfilling the requirement that $`k_e\mathrm{cos}(\varphi _e)k_g\mathrm{cos}(\varphi _g)=0`$ we find

$$\mathrm{cos}\varphi _e=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }}{2q(k_g\mathrm{\Delta }^{})},\mathrm{cos}\varphi _g=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }}{2qk_g},$$
(15)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\sqrt{(q^2\mathrm{\Delta }^2)(4k_g^2q^24k_g\mathrm{\Delta }^{}+\mathrm{\Delta }^2)}`$. These solutions are only physically meaningful for $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{}<q<\sqrt{4k_g(k_g\mathrm{\Delta }^{})+\mathrm{\Delta }^2}`$. Since $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{}1/\lambda `$ the resulting limitations on possible values of $`q`$ do not constrain possible values of $`\alpha `$ severely. Only a negligibly small range of values of $`\alpha 0`$ will not be realizable due to these constraints. We note that if we allow the lasers to have a $`z`$-component of their wave vector any value of $`\alpha `$ is possible.


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# Cosmic Evolution Impressions on Lensing Maps

## 1. Introduction

A lensed image contains information about the positions of the lens and source object, and about the lens itself (e.g. its refractive index). In the cosmological context the mass inhomogeneities in the universe act as gravitational lenses to source objects far away. The dominant cosmological picture today describes a universe that is expanding and has growing density perturbations. The exact characterization and quantification of these phenomena are essential pursuits of observational Cosmology, and their description by a theoretical model is a major objective for cosmologists.

Weak gravitational lensing studies can contribute to this enterprise because lensing maps depend on the evolution of the large-scale structure and on the geometrical properties of the universe (the cosmological expansion).

In this section I briefly review some of the formalism of cosmic expansion and structure formation, and point how these two aspects of cosmic evolution are captured by weak gravitational lensing maps.

### 1.1. Cosmological Geometry

In a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker model, assuming isotropy and homogeneity, the geometry of the universe can be described by the metric

$$d\tau ^2=dt^2a^2(t)\left[dr^2+f_K^2(r)d\varphi ^2\right],$$
(1)
where $`t`$, $`r`$ and $`\varphi `$ are the comoving coordinates, and $`f_K`$ is the curvature-dependent comoving angular distance ($`=r`$ for a flat universe, $`=\mathrm{sinh}r`$ for open, and $`=\mathrm{sin}r`$ for closed). The expansion factor $`a(t)`$ is determined by the equation

$$\dot{a}^2\frac{8\pi G}{3}\rho a^2=k,$$
(2)
in a universe of curvature $`k`$ ($`=0,1,1`$ in the case that it is flat, open, or closed, respectively), and of density $`\rho `$. In terms of the density parameters $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_r`$, for a cosmological constant, matter, and radiation, respectively,

$$\rho =\frac{3H_o^2}{8\pi G}\left(\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }+\mathrm{\Omega }_ma^3+\mathrm{\Omega }_ra^4\right).$$
(3)
It is also useful to define the Hubble parameter

$`H`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{a}}{a}},`$ (4)
$`H(a)`$ $`=`$ $`H_o\left[\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }(1a^2)+\mathrm{\Omega }_m(a^3a^2)+a^2\right]^{1/2},`$ (5)
and to remember the relation $`a=1/(z+1)`$.

In a quintessence model the cosmological constant is substituted by a dark energy component, which has negative pressure, i.e. a negative $`w_Q`$ in its equation of state $`p_Q=w_Q\rho _Q`$. In the case in which $`w_Q`$ is constant the Hubble expansion rate is them

$$H(a)=H_o\left[\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }(a^{3(w_Q+1)}a^2)+\mathrm{\Omega }_m(a^3a^2)+a^2\right]^{1/2},$$
(6)
which reduces to the cosmological constant case \[equation (5)\] when $`w_Q=1`$.

### 1.2. Density Perturbations

The current standard explanation for the existence of a large-scale structure in the matter distribution in the universe is that initial small fluctuations in a remote past evolved (grew) due to gravitational attraction. That is the gravitational instability scenario. The origin and characteristics of the initial inhomogeneities is subject of great interest for Cosmology and fundamental Physics, but will not be discussed here.

The matter distribution can be described by the density contrast $`\delta =\rho /\overline{\rho }1`$, where $`\overline{\rho }`$ is the average density, and its evolution in the linear regime is given by

$$\ddot{\delta }+2\frac{\dot{a}}{a}\dot{\delta }=4\pi G\overline{\rho }\delta $$
(7)
The growing mode solution for this equation can be factored into spatial and temporal functions

$$\delta (𝐱,t)=D(t)\delta (𝐱,t_o),$$
(8)
where the growth function is

$$D(a)\frac{\dot{a}}{a}_0^a\frac{1}{\dot{a}}𝑑a$$
(9)
which can be approximated, apart from a normalization factor, by (Carroll, Press & Turner 1992; Lahav et al. 1991)

$`D(a)a{\displaystyle \frac{5}{2}}\mathrm{\Omega }_m(a)\left\{\mathrm{\Omega }_m^{4/7}(a)\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }(a)\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}+\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_m(a)}{2}}\right)\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }}{70}}(a)\right)\right]\right\}^1,`$ (10)
$$\mathrm{\Omega }_m(a)=\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_m}{a^3}\left(\frac{H_0}{H}\right)^2,$$
(11)
$$\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }(a)=\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }\left(\frac{H_0}{H}\right)^2.$$
(12)
The growth function must be normalized such that $`D(a=1)=1`$. For an Einstein-de Sitter Universe there is no suppression of gravitational clustering, and the growth function reduces to the scale factor, $`D(a)=a`$.

For a quintessence model (Ma et al. 1999) $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m(a)=\mathrm{\Omega }_m/[\mathrm{\Omega }_m+(1\mathrm{\Omega }_m)a^{3w_Q}]`$, and the growth factor can be approximated by (apart from a normalization factor)

$`D_Q(a)`$ $``$ $`(w_Q)^ta{\displaystyle \frac{5}{2}}\mathrm{\Omega }_m(a)`$
$`\times `$ $`\left\{\mathrm{\Omega }_m^{4/7}(a)1+\mathrm{\Omega }_m(a)+\left[1+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_m(a)}{2}}\right]\left[1+{\displaystyle \frac{1\mathrm{\Omega }_m(a)}{70}}\right]\right\}^1,`$
$$t=(0.255+0.305w_Q+\frac{0.0027}{w_Q})[1\mathrm{\Omega }_m(a)](0.366+0.266w_Q\frac{0.07}{w_Q})\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Omega }_m(a).$$
(14)
I use the expressions (1.2.) and (10), properly normalized, to plot the curves in Figure 1 that show the linear growth factor for several cosmological models. Note that the effect of a quintessence description for the dark energy component is equivalent to an intermediate suppression of growth between a flat universe with cosmological constant and an open universe.

The power spectrum of the matter density perturbation is a powerful statistical descriptor of the large-scale structure of the universe. From linear theory (which is valid at the largest scales) the power can be written as

$$P(k,a)=Ak^nT^2(k)D^2(a),$$
(15)
where $`A`$ is a normalization, $`n`$ is the initial power spectrum index, and $`T(k)`$ is the transfer function, which modifies a initial power-law spectrum of density perturbations, building in information about the energy components of the universe. However, linear theory becomes a bad approximation when $`\delta (𝐱,t)1`$, which happens at small scales at late stages of the evolution of the density fields. The non-linear evolution causes the power spectrum at large wavenumber $`k`$ to be underestimated by linear theory. The corrected calculation of the density field evolution in the non-linear regime requires the use of N-body simulations. From that one can obtain approximations for the non-linear power spectrum using prescriptions such the ones developed by Hamilton et al. (1991), and Scranton & Dodelson (2000). See figure 2 for plots of the non-linear power spectrum of quintessence models with various equation-of-state coefficients, and of an open universe, with no dark energy.

### 1.3. Weak Lensing Dependence on Cosmological Evolution

The distortion matrix from which the shear and the convergence fields are defined is explicitly dependent on the cosmic evolution from the redshift of the source $`z_s`$ until today ($`z=0`$)

$$𝒜_{ij}(𝜽,z_s)=2_0^{z_s}g(z,z_s)_i_j\mathrm{\Phi }(𝜽,z)dz.$$
(16)
This expression integrates the evolution in the geometry of the universe, which is encoded in the factor $`g`$, and the evolution of the gravitational potential $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$.

For the convergence this dependence is represented thought the comoving distance

$$w(a)=_a^1\frac{da^{}}{a^2H(a^{})/H_0},$$
(17)
in the expression

$$\kappa (𝜽,z_s)=\frac{3H_o^2}{2}\mathrm{\Omega }_m_0^{w_s}\frac{g(w^{},w_s)}{a(w^{})}\delta (𝜽,w^{})𝑑w^{},$$
(18)
where

$$g(w^{},w)=\frac{f_K(w^{})f_K(ww^{})}{f_K(w)}.$$
(19)
Figure 3 shows the geometrical weighting of the density fluctuations for a source at a redshift $`z`$ given by the factor $`g/a`$ at equation (18). The maximum contribution for lensing comes from structures with redshifts close to half of the source redshift. Quintessence models have an intermediate weighting between a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM and a OCDM model, and the farther the source the more significant is the difference between the models.

## 2. Lens Evolution

In this section I use a set of statistics to characterize the evolution of the matter density field, or more properly, the evolution of lens-planes. I analyze the projected density contrast field of boxes of 100 $`h^1Mpc`$ of side that evolve in time. The simulations use $`128^3`$ dark-matter particles (no baryonic matter) in two models, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM and OCDM.

Figure 4 shows the evolution of the two-dimensional power spectrum of the lenses, and illustrates the growth of structure in the matter density field. It is possible to note that small-scale structures (represented by large $`k`$) have a stronger increase than large-scale structures (small $`k`$), as is expected from non-linear evolution. The difference between $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM and OCDM is more notable at large redshifts, because the simulations were normalized to the cluster abundance today.

The growth of structure in time can be also appreciated by the increase of the field variance, skewness, and kurtosis - see Figure 5. These two last quantities quantify the growth of non-Gaussianities in the density field, which in this case is originally Gaussian, due to non-linear evolution. The same information can be obtained from the PDF (figure 6).

The last aspect of the density field to be analyzed is its morphology. I use the second (contour length) and third (genus) Minkowski functionals parameterized by the first functional (fractional area) to characterize the morphology of the lens-planes. Figure 7 shows that up to a redshift z=5 there is little change in these two functionals. The third functional is not symmetric in relation to the midpoint along the axes of the plot, which again shows the non-Gaussianity of the density field. Both models are almost indistinguishable from one another under this statistics. The meaning of these observations is that in both models the non-trivial morphology, i.e. the morphology distinct from that of a Gaussian field, emerges at earlier times than z=5, and that in the late universe the morphology of the LSS as described by the Minkowski functionals evolves little if the functionals are parameterized by the fractional area, making them independent of the PDF.

## 3. Redshift Dependence of Lensing Measures

I generated simulated convergence maps using the multiple-plan lens method (see Guimarães, 2002 for more details) for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM and OCDM. I used the Hydra N-body code (Couchman, Thomas & Pearce, 1995) to evolve 1283 particles from a redshift $`z=50`$ to $`z=0`$, simulating the large-scale mass distribution in the two models. For the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3,\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$) simulation I adopt a cluster normalization equivalent to $`\sigma _8=0.9`$, and a simulation box of 141.3 $`h^1Mpc`$. For the OCDM ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3,\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$) simulation I adopt a cluster normalization equivalent to $`\sigma _8=0.84`$, and a simulation box of 128 $`h^1Mpc`$. A Hubble parameter $`h=0.7`$ was used in both simulations.

Another examined model mimics an universe with the geometry of the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM model but no structure evolution. In this toy-model the structre at any redshift has the same statistical properties that today.

Figure 8 shows a realization of the convergence map for both models with a source plane at three redshifts. The redshift dependence is very clear, but the differentiation between $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM and OCDM is less evident. A quantitative characterization of the models requires the use of several statistics applied to many realizations of the lensing maps. I calculate as a function of source redshift the following statistics for the convergence: the angular power spectrum, the rms (root mean square), the skewness ($`S=\kappa ^3/\sigma _\kappa ^3`$), the kurtosis $`(K=(\kappa ^4/\sigma _\kappa ^4)3`$), the probability distribution function, and the Minkowski functionals. The results shown in the figures are the result of 20 realizations of the convergence map for each model, and for each redshift. The variance of the measures are shown only for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM and serves as a reference for maps of same size of other models. The sizes of the used maps are (side of square), 4.6 for $`z=0.7`$, 3.5 for $`z=1`$, 2.5 for $`z=1.5`$, 2.2 for $`z=2`$, and 1.8 for $`z=3`$.

Figure 9 shows the results for the angular power spectrum of the convergence field. There is an overall increase of the spectrum amplitude as the redshift of the source increases. This is also reflected in the rms plot (Figure 10), since the field variance is proportional to the convergence angular power spectrum. The same figure shows a decreasing skewness and kurtosis for larger redshifts. These two statistics can be considered measures of the non-Gaussianity of the field since for a Gaussian field they are zero.

A power law fit to the rms results yield the following redshift dependence for the shear variance

$$\gamma ^2=\kappa ^2z^\alpha ,$$
(20)
where $`\alpha =1.34\pm 0.08`$ for OCDM, and $`\alpha =1.5\pm 0.1`$ for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM. This later result coincides with the value obtained by Jain & Seljak (1997), $`\alpha =1.52`$, but is lower than the value obtained by Barber (2002), $`\alpha =2.07\pm 0.04`$.

Departures from Gaussianity can also be observed in the probability distribution function of the lensing maps – figure 11. I plot the PDF for the Gaussianized $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM maps to show more clearly the non-Gaussianity of the maps. The convergence fields were Gaussianized by expanding them in Fourier modes, and reconstructing the fields with the same mode amplitudes, but random mode phases.

Figure 12 shows the results for the second and third Minkowski functionals (contour length and topological genus, respectively), parameterized by the first functional (fractional area). I choose not to present the first Minkowski functional because it does not carry any extra information in relation to the PDF. The parameterization by the fractional area $`A`$ instead of the map threshold $`\nu =\kappa /\sigma _\kappa `$ is aimed to further decouple the information contained in the Minkowski functionals from the PDF. The results for the Gaussianized fields compared with the original field results show that the third functional $`G(A)`$ puts in evidence the non-Gaussianity of the maps much more clearly than the second functional $`C(A)`$. Note that the third functional does not show a clear redshift dependence under the conditions examined.

## 4. Conclusion

In this paper I have made predictions for the redshift evolution of statistical measures of weak lensing maps. These predictions show a relatively small difference between OCDM and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM models with adiabatic Gaussian initial conditions, and will thus also hold in quintessence models in similar conditions. Given the robustness of the results in redshift dependence within the class of models tested, I propose the study of the redshift dependence of weak gravitational lensing as a test for the stability of our current paradigm for the formation of galactic structure by gravitational instability in a theory with a primordial scale invariant spectrum of Gaussian perturbations.

This work concentrates on the convergence field, which can be seen as a weighted projection of the density contrast field until the source. The characteristics of the lensing map will them be dependent not only on the density field, but on how it is weighted. I show how these two components relate to the cosmic evolution, and what are the resulting lensing properties for two cosmological models.

The differentiation of the lens-planes is small for the two models considered when the spectrum of matter fluctuations is normalized to match the abundance of rich clusters today. However the lensing geometrical factor, the term $`g/a`$, is clearly distinct between the two models, allowing the clear differentiation of the models by a power spectrum analysis, or by one-point statistics. It is to be expected, therefore, that for quintessence models these statistics will assume values intermediate between what was obtained for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM and OCDM, because the geometrical factor is intermediate.

It would be very useful if the most popular N-body codes, for example Hydra (which was used here), could incorporate quintessence models. That would allow a direct calculation of lensing measures in this model.

The morphological analysis of the maps indicates some evolution of the second Minkowski functional (equal) for both models, and no distinguishable evolution of the third functional (genus) in the redshift range explored. The third functional is a better indicator of the departure from Gaussianity than the second functional. Because the third Minkowski functional depends weakly on the redshift of the source it is a specially recommended statistic to evaluate Gaussianity in surveys that have a poor redshift determination of the sources.

## References

Barber A.J., 2002, astro-ph/0108273

Bun E.F., White M. 1997, ApJ, 480, 6

Carroll S.M., Press W.H., Turner E.L. 1992, ARA&A, 30, 499

Couchman H.M.P., Thomas P.A., Pearce F.R. 1995, ApJ, 452, 797

Guimarães A.C.C. 2002, MNRAS, 337, 631

Hamilton A.J.S., Kumar P., Lu E., Matthews A. 1991, ApJ, 374, L1

Jain B., Seljak U., White S. 2000, ApJ, 530, 547

Ma C.-P., Caldwell R.R., Bode P., Wang L. 1999, ApJ, 521, L1

Scranton R., Dodelson S. 2000, preprint (astro-ph/0003034)


text:
# Nonlocal action for long-distance modifications of gravity theory

## 1. Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to suggest the class of nonlocal actions for covariantly consistent infrared modifications of Einstein theory discussed in . The modified equations of motion were suggested to have the form of Einstein equations

$`M_P^2\left(1+(L^2\mathrm{})\right)\left(R_{\mu \nu }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g_{\mu \nu }R\right)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}T_{\mu \nu }`$ (1.1)
with ”nonlocal” inverse gravitational constant or Planck mass, $`M_P^2(\mathrm{})=M_P^2\left(1+(L^2\mathrm{})\right)`$, being some function of the dimensionless combination of the covariant d’Alembertian $`\mathrm{}=g^{\alpha \beta }_\alpha _\beta `$ and the additional scale $`L`$ – the length at which infrared modification becomes important, $`1/\sqrt{\mathrm{}}L`$. If the function of this dimensionless combination $`z=L^2\mathrm{}`$ satisfies the conditions

$`(z)0,z1`$
$`(z)(0)1,z0,`$ (1.2)
then the long-distance modification is inessential for processes varying in spacetime faster than $`1/L`$ and is large for slower phenomena at wavelengthes $`L`$ and larger. This opens the prospects for resolving the cosmological constant problem, provided one identifies the scale $`L`$ with the horizon size of the present Universe $`L1/H_010^{28}cm`$. Indeed, equations (1.2) then interpolate between the Planck scale of the gravitational coupling constant $`G_P=16\pi /M_P^2`$ for local matter sources of size $`L`$ and the long distance gravitational constant $`G_{LD}=16\pi /M_P^2(1+(0))G_P`$ with which the sources nearly homogeneous at the horizon scale $`L`$ are gravitating. Therefore, the vacuum energy $``$, $`T_{\mu \nu }=g_{\mu \nu }`$, of TeV or even Planckian scale (necessarily arising in all conceivable models with spontaneously broken SUSY or in quantum gravity) will not generate a catastrophically big spacetime curvature incompatible with the tiny observable $`H_0^2`$. This mechanism is drastically different from the old suggestions of supersymmetric cancellation of $``$ , because it relies on the fact that the nearly homogeneous vacuum energy gravitates very little, rather than it is itself very small111The idea of the scale dependent Newton’s constant was also suggested in  within curved-brane models, though it was not explicitly formulated in terms of a nonlocal form factor.. It will generate the curvature $`H^2G_{LD}G_P/(0)`$ which can be very small due to large $`(0)`$.

Various aspects of this idea have been discussed in much detail in . One formal difficulty with this construction was particularly emphasized by the authors of . Point is that for any nontrivial form factor $`(L^2\mathrm{})`$ the left hand side of (1.1) does not satisfy the Bianchi identity and, therefore, cannot be generated by generally covariant action. The equations (1.1) are generally covariant, but cannot be represented as a metric variational derivative of the diffeomorphism invariant action. Obviously, this makes the situation unsatisfactory because of a missing off-shell extension of the theory, problems with its quantization, etc.

In this paper we suggest to circumvent this problem by the following simple observation. Point is that the infrared regime, which is crucial for the resolution of the cosmological constant problem, implies not only the long-wavelength but also the weak field approximation. This means that the equation (1.1) is literally valid only as a first term of the perturbation expansion in powers of the curvature. Therefore, the left hand side of (1.1) should be modified by higher than linear terms in the curvature, and the modified nonlocal action $`S_{NL}[g]`$ should be found from the variational equation

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta S_{NL}[g]}{\delta g_{\mu \nu }(x)}}=M_P^2g^{1/2}\left(1+(L^2\mathrm{})\right)\left(R^{\mu \nu }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g^{\mu \nu }R\right)+\mathrm{O}[R_{\mu \nu }^2].`$ (1.3)
Flexibility in higher orders of the curvature allows one to guarantee the integrability of this equation and to construct the nonlocal action as a generally covariant (but nonlocal) curvature expansion. Here we explicitly present this construction along the lines of covariant curvature expansion developed in  a number of years ago. As a starting point we consider a special nonlocal form of the Einstein-Hilbert action revealing its basic property – the absence of a linear in metric perturbation part (on flat-space background), which is apparently the classical analogue of a tadpole elimination technique in non-SUSY string models . Then we introduce a needed long-distance modification by a simple replacement of the nonlocal form factor in the curvature-squared term of the obtained action. The paper is accomplished by a discussion of the nature of nonlocalities in quantum-gravitational and brane-induced models of . In particular, the fact that curvature expansion for the action begins with the quadratic order is revisited from the viewpoint of the running gravitational coupling constant. Finally, the issue of acausality of nonlocal effective equations, raised in , is reconsidered and a possible generalization to asymptotically deSitter spacetimes is briefly discussed.

## 2. Nonlocal form of the Einstein action

For simplicity, we start with the Euclidean (positive-signature) asymptotically-flat spacetime in $`d`$ dimensions. The action of Einstein theory

$`S_E[g]=M_P^2{\displaystyle 𝑑xg^{1/2}R(g)}2M_P^2{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}}d^{d1}\sigma \left(g^{(d1)}\right)^{1/2}\left(KK_0\right)`$ (2.1)
includes the bulk integral of the $`d`$-dimensional scalar curvature and the surface integral over spacetime infinity, $`|x|\mathrm{}`$, with induced metric $`g^{d1}`$. The latter is usually called the Gibbons-Hawking action which in the covariant form contains the trace of the extrinsic curvature of the boundary $`K`$ (with the subtraction of the flat space background $`K_0`$). This surface term guarantees the consistency of the variational problem for this action which yields as a metric variational derivative the Einstein tensor

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta S_E[g]}{\delta g_{\mu \nu }(x)}}=M_P^2g^{1/2}\left(R^{\mu \nu }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g^{\mu \nu }R\right).`$ (2.2)
The action is local and manifestly covariant, but it contains together with the spacetime metric auxiliary structures – as a part of boundary conditions it involves at spacetime infinity the vector field normal to the boundary and the corresponding extrinsic curvature. As we will now see these structures can be identically excluded from the action without loosing covariance, but by the price of locality – the local action will be transformed to the manifestly nonlocal form which will serve as a hint for constructing covariant long-distance modifications.

Another property of the action (2.1) is that it is explicitly linear in the curvature. However, this linearity is in essence misleading, because the variational derivative (2.2) is also linear in curvature and, therefore, it is at least linear in metric perturbation on flat-space background $`R_{\mu \nu }h_{\mu \nu }`$. Thus the flat-space perturbation theory for the Einstein action should start with the quadratic order, $`\mathrm{O}[h_{\mu \nu }^2]\mathrm{O}[R_{\mu \nu }^2]`$. This is a well known fact from the theory of free massless spin-2 field. Our goal is to make this $`h_{\mu \nu }`$-expansion manifestly covariant, that is to convert it to the covariant (but generally nonlocal) expansion in powers of the curvature. A systematic way to do this is to use the technique of covariant perturbation theory of . This technique begins with the derivation of the expression for the metric perturbation in terms of the curvature and in our context looks as follows.

Expand the Ricci curvature in metric perturbations on flat-space background

$`R_{\mu \nu }={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{}h_{\mu \nu }+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_\mu \left(^\lambda h_{\nu \lambda }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_\nu h\right)`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_\nu \left(^\lambda h_{\mu \lambda }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_\mu h\right)+\mathrm{O}[h_{\mu \nu }^2]`$ (2.3)
and solve it by iterations as a nonlocal expansion in powers of the curvature. This expansion starts with the following terms

$`h_{\mu \nu }={\displaystyle \frac{2}{\mathrm{}}}R_{\mu \nu }+_\mu f_\nu +_\nu f_\mu +\mathrm{O}[R_{\mu \nu }^2].`$ (2.4)
Here $`1/\mathrm{}`$ acting on $`R_{\mu \nu }`$ denotes the action of the Green’s function $`G_{\mu \nu }^{\alpha \beta }(x,y)`$ of the covariant metric-dependent d’Alembertian $`\mathrm{}\delta _{\mu \nu }^{\alpha \beta }g^{\lambda \sigma }_\lambda _\sigma \delta _{\mu \nu }^{\alpha \beta }`$ on the space of symmetric second-rank tensors with natural zero boundary conditions at infinity

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{}}}R_{\mu \nu }(x){\displaystyle \frac{\delta _{\mu \nu }^{\alpha \beta }}{\mathrm{}}}R_{\alpha \beta }(x)={\displaystyle 𝑑yG_{\mu \nu }^{\alpha \beta }(x,y)R_{\alpha \beta }(y)},`$ (2.5)
$`\mathrm{}_xG_{\mu \nu }^{\alpha \beta }(x,y)=\delta _{\mu \nu }^{\alpha \beta }\delta (x,y),G_{\mu \nu }^{\alpha \beta }(x,y)|_{|x|\mathrm{}}=0`$. In what follows we will not specify the tensor structure of the Green’s functions of $`\mathrm{}`$ implicitly assuming that it is always determined by the nature of the quantity acted upon by $`1/\mathrm{}`$.

The term $`_\mu f_\nu +_\nu f_\mu `$ in (2.4) reflects the gauge ambiguity in the solution of (2.3) for $`h_{\mu \nu }`$ (originating from the harmonic-gauge terms in the right-hand side of (2.3)), but its explicit form is not important for our purposes here222The only important property of this term is that this is a gauge transformation with some gauge parameter $`f_\mu ^\nu h_{\mu \nu }_\mu h/2+\mathrm{O}[h_{\mu \nu }^2]`$. Explicit gauge fixing procedure for the equation (2.3) becomes important in higher orders of curvature expansion and it is presented in much detail in ..

Now restrict ourselves with the approximation quadratic in $`R_{\mu \nu }`$ (or equivalently, $`h_{\mu \nu }`$) and integrate the variational equation (2.2) for $`S_E[g]`$. Since the variational derivative is at least linear in $`h_{\mu \nu }`$, $`\delta S_E/\delta g_{\mu \nu }h_{\alpha \beta }`$, the quadratic part of the action in view of this equation is given by the integral

$`S_E[g]={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑xh_{\mu \nu }(x)\frac{\delta S_E[g]}{\delta g_{\mu \nu }(x)}}+\mathrm{O}[R_{\mu \nu }^3].`$ (2.6)
Substituting (2.2) and (2.4) and integrating by parts one finds that the contribution of the gauge parameters $`f_\mu `$ vanishes in view of the Bianchi identity for the Einstein tensor, and the final result reads

$`S_E[g]=M_P^2{\displaystyle 𝑑xg^{1/2}\left\{\left(R^{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{2}g^{\mu \nu }R\right)\frac{1}{\mathrm{}}R_{\mu \nu }+\mathrm{O}[R_{\mu \nu }^3]\right\}}.`$ (2.7)
This is the covariant nonlocal form of the local Einstein action which was originally observed in our previous papers on braneworld scenarios with two repulsive branes . This nonlocal incarnation of (2.1) explicitly features: i) the absence of linear in curvature term and ii) the absence of auxiliary structures associated with spacetime infinity. Before we go over to the construction of long-distance modifications of the theory, let us briefly dwell on higher-order curvature terms. This, in particular, will clarify the role played by the Gibbons-Hawking action in the subtraction of the linear term.

In asymptotically-flat (Euclidean) spacetime with the asymptotic behavior of the metric

$`g_{\mu \nu }=\delta _{\mu \nu }+h_{\mu \nu },h_{\mu \nu }=\mathrm{O}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{|x|^{d2}}}\right),|x|\mathrm{},`$ (2.8)
the noncovariant form of the Gibbons-Hawking term in Cartesian coordinates reads as

$`S_{\mathrm{GH}}[g]2M_P^2{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}}d^{d1}\sigma \left(g^{(d1)}\right)^{1/2}\left(KK_0\right)`$
$`=M_P^2{\displaystyle \underset{|x|\mathrm{}}{}}𝑑\sigma ^\mu \left(^\nu h_{\mu \nu }_\mu h\right).`$ (2.9)
This surface integral can be transformed to the bulk integral of the integrand $`^\mu \left(^\nu h_{\mu \nu }_\mu h\right)`$ – the linear in $`h_{\mu \nu }`$ part of the scalar curvature. From the viewpoint of the metric in the interior of spacetime this is a topological invariant depending only on the asymptotic behavior $`g_{\mu \nu }^{\mathrm{}}=\delta _{mu\nu }+h_{\mu \nu }(x)|_{|x|\mathrm{}}`$. Similarly to the above procedure this integral can be covariantly expanded in powers of the curvature. Up to cubic terms inclusive this expansion reads333Validity of this result can be checked either by the direct $`h_{\mu \nu }`$-expansion of the right-hand side or by systematically expanding $`h_{\mu \nu }`$ on the left hand side as covariant series in the curvature, starting with (2.4) .

$`{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\sigma ^\mu \left(^\nu h_{\mu \nu }_\mu h\right)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle }dxg^{1/2}\{R(R^{\mu \nu }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g^{\mu \nu }R){\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{}}}R_{\mu \nu }`$ (2.10)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}R\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{}}}R^{\mu \nu }\right){\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{}}}R_{\mu \nu }R^{\mu \nu }\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{}}}R_{\mu \nu }\right){\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{}}}R`$
$`+\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{}}}R^{\alpha \beta }\right)\left(_\alpha {\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{}}}R\right)_\beta {\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{}}}R`$
$`2\left(^\mu {\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{}}}R^{\nu \alpha }\right)\left(_\nu {\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{}}}R_{\mu \alpha }\right){\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{}}}R`$
$`2\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{}}}R^{\mu \nu }\right)\left(_\mu {\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{}}}R^{\alpha \beta }\right)_\nu {\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{}}}R_{\alpha \beta }+\mathrm{O}[R_{\mu \nu }^4]\}.`$
As we see, when substituting to (2.1) its linear term cancels the Ricci scalar part, the quadratic terms reproduce those of (2.7) and the cubic terms recover $`\mathrm{O}[R_{\mu \nu }^3]`$. Obviously, this type of expansion can be extended to arbitrary order in curvature.

## 3. Long-distance modification of the Einstein action

Long distance modification of the Einstein action that would generate (1.3) as the left-hand side of the gravitational equations of motion now can be simply obtained from the nonlocal form of the Einstein action (2.7). It is just enough to make the following replacement in the quadratic part of (2.7)

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1+(L^2\mathrm{})}{\mathrm{}}}.`$ (3.1)
Indeed, the subsequent variation of the Ricci tensor, $`\delta _gR_{\mu \nu }=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{}\delta g_{\mu \nu }+_\mu f_\nu +_\nu f_\mu `$, in

$`\delta _g{\displaystyle 𝑑xg^{1/2}\left(R^{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{2}g^{\mu \nu }R\right)\frac{1+(L^2\mathrm{})}{\mathrm{}}R_{\mu \nu }}=`$
$`2{\displaystyle 𝑑xg^{1/2}\left(R^{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{2}g^{\mu \nu }R\right)\frac{1+(L^2\mathrm{})}{\mathrm{}}\delta _gR_{\mu \nu }}+\mathrm{O}[R_{\mu \nu }^2]`$ (3.2)
and integration by parts ”cancel” the denominator of (3.1), whereas the contribution of gauge parameters $`f_\mu `$ vanishes, as above, in view of the Bianchi identity. All commutators of covariant derivatives with the $`\mathrm{}`$ in the form factor (3.1) give rise to the curvature-squared order which is beyond our control. This recovers the Einstein tensor term of (1.3) with the needed ”nonlocal” Planckian mass $`M_P^2\left(1+(L^2\mathrm{})\right)`$.

The result of the replacement (3.1) can be rewritten so that the contribution of $`1`$ in the numerator of the new form factor is again represented in the usual local form of the Einstein action (2.1). Then, the long-distance modification takes the form of the additional nonlocal term

$`S_{NL}[g_{\mu \nu }]`$ $`=`$ $`S_E[g_{\mu \nu }]`$ (3.3)
$`M_P^2{\displaystyle 𝑑xg^{1/2}\left\{\left(R^{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{2}g^{\mu \nu }R\right)\frac{(L^2\mathrm{})}{\mathrm{}}R_{\mu \nu }+\mathrm{O}[R_{\mu \nu }^3]\right\}}.`$
This term is not unique though, because it is defined by a given form factor $`(L^2\mathrm{})`$ only in quadratic order, while we do not have good principles to fix its higher-order terms thus far.

This action is manifestly generally covariant. Therefore, its variational derivative (the left hand side of the modified Einstein equations) exactly satisfies the Bianchi identity,

$`_\mu {\displaystyle \frac{\delta S_{NL}[g_{\mu \nu }]}{\delta g_{\mu \nu }(x)}}=`$
$`M_P^2g^{1/2}_\mu \left[\left(1+(L^2\mathrm{})\right)\left(R_{\mu \nu }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g_{\mu \nu }R\right)+\mathrm{O}[R_{\mu \nu }^2]\right]=0,`$ (3.4)
and thus does not suffer from the concerns of . The commutator of the covariant derivative with the form factor $`\left(1+(L^2\mathrm{})\right)`$ gives rise to curvature squared terms and cancels against $`\mathrm{O}[R_{\mu \nu }^2]`$.

## 4. Discussion: running coupling constants and nonlocality vs acausality

One of the main mechanisms for nonlocalities of the above type is the contribution of graviton and matter loops to the quantum effective action. In quantum theory the concept of a nonlocal form factor replacing a coupling constant is not new. In fact this concept underlies the notion of the running coupling constants and sheds new light on the cosmological constant problem also from the viewpoint of the renormalization theory.

For simplicity, consider QED or Yang-Mills theory in the quadratic order in gauge field strength $`F_{\mu \nu }^2`$. The transition from classical to quantum effective action, $`SS_{\mathrm{eff}}`$, boils down to the replacement of the local invariant by

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{g^2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑xF_{\mu \nu }^2}{\displaystyle 𝑑xF_{\mu \nu }g_{\mathrm{eff}}^2(\mathrm{})F^{\mu \nu }}.`$ (4.1)
Here the effective coupling constant $`g_{\mathrm{eff}}^2(\mathrm{})`$ is actually a nonlocal form factor playing the role of $`(L^2\mathrm{})`$ above. It is given in terms of the renormalized running coupling $`g_R^2(\mu ^2)`$ and the beta-function $`\beta `$ and reads, say in the one-loop approximation, as

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{g_{\mathrm{eff}}^2(\mathrm{})}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{g_R^2(\mu ^2)}}+\beta \mathrm{ln}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}}{\mu ^2}}\right),`$ (4.2)
where $`\mu ^2`$ is an auxiliary dimensional parameter. The form factor $`1/g_{\mathrm{eff}}^2(\mathrm{})`$ is independent of this parameter in virtue of the renormalization group equation for $`g_R^2(\mu ^2)`$. Actually, this serves as a basis for the folklore statement that $`\mu ^2`$ determines the energy scale of the problem – quantum effects reduce to the classical effects with the bare coupling constant $`g`$ replaced by the running one $`g_R(\mu ^2)`$ at $`\mu ^2=\mathrm{}`$ (this formal substitution in the Euclidean domain of the form factor (4.2) annihilates its nonlocal logarithmic part and, thus, serves as a qualitative justification for such an interpretation). Vicy versa, the knowledge of $`g_R(\mu ^2)`$ as a solution of the RG equation allows one to recover the corresponding nonlocal part of the effective action.

This concept, though being extremely fruitful in context of gauge field theory, fails when applied to the gravitational theory in the sector of the cosmological and Einstein-Hilbert terms444When applied to formally renormalizable (albeit non-unitary) curvature-squared gravitational models  or models with generalized renormalization group for infinite number of charges .. Indeed, naive replacement of ultralocal cosmological and gravitational coupling constants by nonlocal form factors

$`{\displaystyle 𝑑xg^{1/2}\left(\mathrm{\Lambda }M_P^2R\right)}{\displaystyle 𝑑xg^{1/2}\left(\mathrm{\Lambda }(\mathrm{})M_P^2(\mathrm{})R\right)}`$ (4.3)
is meaningless because the action of the covariant d’Alembertian on the right hand side always picks up its zero mode, and both form factors reduce to its numerical values in far infrared, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }(0)`$, $`M_P^2(0)`$. This happens because the argument of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }(\mathrm{})`$ has nothing to act upon but 1 (or $`g^{1/2}`$), and with $`M_P^2(\mathrm{})R`$ the same happens after integration by parts . Therefore, even if one has solutions of renormalization group equations $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_R(\mu ^2)`$, $`(M_P^2)_R(\mu ^2)`$, like those obtained in , one cannot automatically recover the corresponding pieces of effective action or the corresponding nonlocal correlation functions.

The construction of Sects. 2 and 3 above suggests that the running coupling constant “delocalization” of $`M_P^2`$ should be done in the (already nonlocal) representation of the Einstein action (2.7). It is important that its curvature expansion begins with the quadratic order. Therefore, it explicitly allows one to insert the nonlocal form factor $`M_P^2(\mathrm{})`$ between two curvatures so that no integration by parts would result in its degeneration to a trivial constant. It would be interesting to see how a similar mechanism works for the nonlocal cosmological “constant” $`\mathrm{\Lambda }(\mathrm{})`$.555On dimensional grounds one should expect that a quadratic action modelling the cosmological term would read as $`\mathrm{\Lambda }𝑑xg^{1/2}R^{\mu \nu }(1/\mathrm{}^2)R_{\mu \nu }`$ – the structure modifying (2.7) by one extra power of $`\mathrm{}`$ in the denominator. This structure (also suggested in  and discussed within the renormalization group theory) appears in two-brane models  and as a covariant completion of the mass term in models of massive gravitons  and numerous discussions of the van Damm-Veltman-Zakharov discontinuity . Nontrivial mechanisms of its generation due to infrared asymptotics of the effective action, or late-time asymptotics of the corresponding heat kernel, are discussed in .

Nonlocalities of the type (3.3) also arise in a certain class of braneworld models . They cannot appear in models of the Randall-Sundrum type with strictly localized zero modes, because in these models nontrivial form factors basically arise in the transverse-traceless sector of the action (as kernels of nonlocal quadratic forms in Weyl tensor ). In contrast to these models, the nonlocal part of (3.3) is not quadratic in the Weyl tensor, $`𝑑xg^{1/2}W_{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }^2𝑑xg^{1/2}(R_{\mu \nu }^2\frac{1}{3}R^2)`$ (with the insertion of a nonlocal form factor between the curvatures). Rather, (3.3) includes the structure $`𝑑xg^{1/2}(R_{\mu \nu }^2\frac{1}{2}R^2)`$ which contains the conformal sector. It is this sector which is responsible for the potential resolution of the cosmological constant problem. It becomes dynamical in models with metastable graviton like the Gregory-Rubakov-Sibiryakov model  or Dvali-Gabadaze-Porrati model (DGP) . In particular, for the (4+1)-dimensional DGP model the (Euclidean) form factor $`(L^2\mathrm{})`$ is singular at $`\mathrm{}0`$ and has the form

$`M_P^2(L^2\mathrm{})={\displaystyle \frac{M^3}{\sqrt{\mathrm{}}}},M^3={\displaystyle \frac{M_P^2}{L}},`$ (4.4)
where $`M10^{21}M_P100`$ MeV is a mass scale of the bulk gravity as opposed to the Planckian scale of the Einstein term on the brane $`M_P10^{19}`$ GeV.

Both form factors (4.2) and (4.4) are unambiguously defined only in the Euclidean space where the d’Alembertian $`\mathrm{}`$ is negative semi-definite. This raises the problem of their continuation to the physical spacetime where the issues of causality and unitarity become important. The principles of this continuation depend on the physical origin of nonlocality in $`(L^2\mathrm{})`$. Depending on whether it has a quantum nature like in (4.2) or brane induced nature like in (4.4) these principles can range from the usual Wick rotation to such currently developing paradigms as holographic dS/CFT-conjecture , the concept of time as a holographically generated dimension, etc. . Let us first discuss nonlocal form factors of quantum nature.

Scattering problems for in-out matrix elements of quantum field $`\widehat{\phi }`$, $`<out|\widehat{\phi }|in>`$, in spacetime with asymptotically-flat past and future imply a usual Wick rotation. The expectation-value problem or the problem for in-in mean value of the quantum field, $`\varphi =<in|\widehat{\phi }|in>`$, is more complicated and incorporates the Schwinger-Keldysh diagrammatic technique . In this technique the effective equations for $`\varphi `$ cannot be obtained as variational derivatives of some action functional666In the general case they can be obtained by varying a special two-field functional with respect to one field, the both fields subsequently being set coincident and equal to the mean field in question .. So for this problem the action as a source of effective equations does not exist at all. However, there exists a special case of the quantum initial data in the form of the Poincare-invariant in-vacuum in asymptotic past, $`|in>=|in,vac>`$. Effective equations for $`\varphi `$ in this vacuum can be obtained by the following procedure . Calculate the Euclidean effective action in asymptotically-flat spacetime, take its variational derivative containing the nonlocal form factors which are uniquely specified by zero boundary conditions at Euclidean infinity. Then formally go over to the Lorentzian spacetime signature with the retardation prescription for all nonlocal form factors. These retarded boundary conditions uniquely specify the nonlocal effective equations and guarantee their causality. This procedure was proven in  and also put forward in a recent paper  as the basis of the covariant nonlocal model of MOND theory .

As we see, this procedure justifies the Euclidean setup used above and suggests straightforward appplications in the expectation-value problem of the above type. Interestingly, in this setting no contradiction arises between the nonlocal nature of the Euclidean action and causal nature of nonlocal equations of motion in Lorentzian spacetime. In this respect the situation is essentially different from the assumptions of  where acausality of equations of motion is necessarily attributed to the nonlocal action. In fact, this property requires a detailed analysis of why only the phenomena slow at the cosmological scale $`L`$ turn out to be acausal, while the phenomena generated by “small” sources $`(L)`$ are essentially causal. No such assumptions are needed in effective equations for expectation values which are fundamentally causal despite their nonlocality. These equations have interesting applications in quantum gravitational context and, in particular, show the phenomenon of the cosmological acceleration due to infrared back-reaction mechanisms .

The situation with brane induced nonlocalities and their causality status is more questionable and conceptually open. For example, the branch point of the square root in the nonlocal form factor (4.4) is apparently related to different branches of cosmological solutions including the scenario of cosmological acceleration . Therefore, in contrast to tentative models of  with finite $`(0)1`$, which only interpolate between two Einstein theories with different gravitational constants $`G_{LD}G_P/(0)G_P`$, the DGP model is anticipated to suggest the mechanism of the cosmological acceleration. This implies the replacement of the asymptotically-flat spacetime by the asymptotically-deSitter one. For small values of asymptotic curvature (as is the case of the observable horizon scale $`H_0^2/M_P^210^{120}`$) the curvature expansion used above seems plausible, although the effect of the asymptotic curvature might be in essence nonperturbative. Therefore, the above construction might have to be modified. In particular, the Gibbons-Hawking term should be replaced by its asymptotically-deSitter analogue and the expansion in powers of the curvature should be replaced by the expansion in powers of its deviation from the asymptotic value $`R_{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{d}g_{\mu \nu }R_{\mathrm{}}`$. This would introduce in the formalism as a free parameter the value of the curvature in far future, $`R_{\mathrm{}}H_0^2`$, reflecting the measure of acausality in the model. It might be related to the CFT central charge, $`c_{UV}=M_P^2/R_{\mathrm{}}10^{120}`$  – the number of holographic degrees of freedom in dS/CFT conjecture. The resulting modifications in the above construction are currently under study and will be presented elsewhere.

## Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank V.Mukhanov, S.Solodukhin and R.Woodard for helpful stimulating discussions and is grateful to G.Gabadadze for useful comments on the first draft of this paper. He is also grateful for hospitality of the Physics Department of LMU, Munich, where a part of this work has been done under the grant SFB375. This work was also supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research under the grant No 02-02-17054 and the LSS grant No 1578.2003.2.


text:
# Leptogenesis with Left-Right domain walls

## I Beyond electroweak baryogenesis

Explaining the observed baryon asymmetry of the Universe within the framework of gauge theories and the standard Big Bang cosmology remains an open problem. The combination $`B+L`$ of the baryon and lepton numbers is known to be anomalous in the Standard Model (SM). For $`T>T_{EW}`$, the temperature of the electroweak phase transition, the $`B+L`$ violation becomes unspuppressedKRS ; ArnMcl ; aaps . Thus any $`B+L`$ generated at the scales of Grand Unified Theories (GUT’s) would be erased. Further, all the known GUTs preserve $`BL`$ whose natural value should be zero. Thus the GUT solutionyoshimura ; weinBgen  of baryogenesis is unlikely to be true.

Possible mechanisms for generating observed baryon asymmetry at electroweak scale are reviewed incknrev ; trodrev ; yajbgen . The strategy is to assume a first order phase transition to ensure an epoch of non-equilibrium evolution, during which the $`B`$, $`C`$ and $`CP`$ violating effects must take place, satisfying the Sakharov criteriasakh . However with Higgs mass as large as $`115`$ GeV, the phase transition in SM would be second order, making baryogenesis unfeasible in SM.

Mechanisms in which the non-equilibrium evolution is due to the presence of topological defects, viz., domain walls mencoo , and cosmic strings sbdanduay1 ; branden1  have also been considered. Ensuring first order phase transition requires fine tuning the couplings and particle content of the model, while existence of defects relies only on topological features of the vacuum manifolds. An appealing possibiity is provided by the intermediate scale unification in the Left-Right symmetric model. Large Majorana masses for the neutrinos permit Lepton number violation and the resulting baryogenesis can be used to constrain the scale of the large mass from astrophysical data on the neutrino mass scale.

## II Domain walls and L violation in Left-Right symmetric model

The Left-Right symmetric model consists of an additional group $`SU(2)_R`$, under which the $`e_R^{}`$ possesses a partner $`\nu _R`$. A new hypercharge needed turns out to be $`BL`$ and the formula for the electric charge reads mohapbook ; Senjanovic2  $`Q=T_L^3+T_R^3+\frac{1}{2}(BL).`$ The neutrinos naturally possess majorana masses permitting unrestricted $`L`$ violation if the symmetry breaking is achieved using two Higgses $`\mathrm{\Delta }_R`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_L`$, triplets under the groups suggested by the respective subscripts. A bidoublet $`\varphi `$ is also needed and contains two copies of the SM type Higgs. The breakdown $`SU(2)_RU(1)_{BL}`$$`U(1)_Y`$ also signals breaking of the discrete symmetry $`SU(2)_LSU(2)_R`$ which gives rise to domain wallsywmmc ; lazar ; lew-rio  separating two kinds of degenerate vacuua. It also signals $`C`$ violation. $`CP`$ violation arises out of complex expectation values for the Higgs and finally the motion of the walls must be directional in order to produce a final state with $`SU(2)_L`$ unbroken. Thus the Sakharov criteria are satisfied when the $`LR`$ violating phase transition occurs.

## III Leptogenesis and baryogenesis

At least two of the Higgs expectation values in L-R model are generically complex, thus providing natural $`CP`$ violationdgko  permitting all parameters in the Higgs potential to be real. Within the thickness of the domain wall the $`CP`$ violating phase becomes position dependent. Under these circumstances a formalism exists jpt ; clijokai ; clikai , wherein the chemical potential $`\mu _L`$ created for the Lepton number can be computed as a solution of the diffusion equation

$$D_\nu \mu _L^{\prime \prime }v_w\mu _L^{}+\theta (x)\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{hf}}\mu _L=S(x).$$
(1)
Here $`D_\nu `$ is the neutrino diffusion coefficient, $`v_w`$ is the velocity of the wall, taken to be moving in the $`+x`$ direction, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{hf}}`$ is the rate of helicity flipping interactions taking place in front of the wall (hence the step function $`\theta (x)`$), and $`S`$ is the source term which contains derivatives of the position dependent complex Dirac mass. In cynr  the existence of such a position dependent phase was established on general grounds and in a few numerical examples, two of which are included in Fig. 1. Here the expectation values of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_L`$, denoted $`L`$ and that of the bidoublet denoted $`K`$ are taken to be complex while that of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_R`$, denoted $`R`$ is real.

After integration of the above equation and using inputs from the numerical solutions we find raw Lepton aymmetry expressed as a ratio to the entropy density,

$$\eta _L^{\mathrm{raw}}0.01v_w\frac{1}{g_{}}\frac{M_N^4}{T^5\mathrm{\Delta }_w}$$
(2)
with $`M_N`$ the majorana neutrino mass, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_w`$ standing for the wall width and $`g_{}`$ the effective thermodynamic degrees of freedom at the epoch with temperature $`T`$. This undergoes depletion due to $`L`$ violating processes which are in equilibrium at that epoch. However the high temperature sphalerons are efficiently converting the $`L`$ asymmetry into $`B`$ asymmetry according to the chemical potential balance in SM khlebshap , given by

$$\mathrm{\Delta }n_B=\frac{28}{79}\mathrm{\Delta }n_{BL}=\frac{28}{51}\mathrm{\Delta }n_L.$$
(3)
After these processes are all taken into account, we require $`B`$ asymmetry $`\eta _B`$ to be $`10^{d_B}`$, observed $`d_B`$ being $`11`$, leading to the following predictions. If the heaviest neutrino mass is $`1`$ eV, for example, the temperature of the $`LR`$ phase transition is predicted to be

$$T_{LR}\text{ }\stackrel{<}{}\text{ }10^{13}\mathrm{GeV}\times \left(\frac{\mathrm{eV}}{m_\nu }\right)^2\times \left(\frac{d_B}{10}\right)$$
(4)
If we are in the opposite regime, $`M_N<T_{LR}`$, the bound on the heaviest neutrino mass is

$$m_\nu <0.3\mathrm{eV}\times \left(\frac{d_B}{10}\right)$$
(5)
It is interesting that this value is compatible with, and not very far from the value implied by atmospheric neutrino observations.

Thus a hitherto unexplored mechanism exists in the Left-Right symmetric model for generation of the observed baryon asymmetry of the Universe. Further impliations and detailed discussion are contained in cynr .


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# Resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) spectra of magnesium diboride

## Abstract

Using the tight-binding linear muffin-tin orbitals method, the soft x-ray fluorescence K-emission spectra of boron in MgB2, excited close to the absorption edge, are estimated. In the calculations the angle of incidence $`\theta `$ between the direction of the incoming photon and the hexagonal axis of the specimen is $`60^\mathrm{o}`$ and $`75^\mathrm{o}`$. Comparison with experiment is possible in the former case where good agreement is found. Furthermore, another resonant feature below the Fermi energy is predicted for the larger angle. This feature can be related to the excitations to the antibonding B $`\pi `$-band in the neighbourhood of the L–H line in the Brillouin zone.

Magnesium diboride is a new kind of superconductor having a critical temperature of 39 K Akimitsu01 . Although it was earlier widely used in chemical technology, the superconducting property of this compound was not discovered until now Nagamatsu01 . At the moment, MgB2 has attracted considerable attention regarding spectroscopic investigations Vasquez01 . For instance, angle resolved photoemission from single crystals have revealed clear dispersions of the occupied valence bands Uchiyama02 . Additional information has been obtained using x-ray absorption - (XAS) and emission spectroscopy (XES) Kurmaev02 . In x-ray K-absorption a core-hole is created for the 1s level by a photon and the resulting photoelectron is escaping from the specimen. The K-emission band can be measured when the deep lying level will be filled by a valence-electron and another photon is emitted. The resonant inelastic scattering (RIXS) differs from the conventional XES in the sense that the photoelectron remains in the conduction band above the Fermi surface and it will be absorbed by the sample Kotani01 .

Utilizing synchrotron radiation, resonant inelastic x-ray scattering is a promising method to probe element-specific, local momentum-resolved electronic structure of systems that are difficult to investigate using other techniques. The symmetry of the occupied and unoccupied states is coupled with the polarization and direction of the incoming and outgoing radiation. Crystal momentum conservation has been observed in many materials e.g. in hexagonal boron nitride and graphite Carlisle99 . Theoretical consideration of the RIXS within the band structure picture is given e.g. in Ma94 .

In RIXS, a photon ($`\mathrm{}\omega _q`$) comes to the sample, excites a core level ($`ϵ_a`$) electron to the conduction state ($`ϵ_c`$) and a valence electron ($`ϵ_v`$) drops to the core hole emitting a photon ($`\mathrm{}\omega _q^{}`$). The formula for the doubly differential cross section in the dipole approximation (the wave vectors of the ingoing and outgoing photons are small, $`qq^{}0`$, compared to the dimensions of the Brillouin zone of the Bloch states ($`\stackrel{}{k}`$ ) of the electrons) implemented in our x-ray spectrum program (XSPEC) Hergert  is

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d^2\sigma }{d\mathrm{\Omega }d(\mathrm{}\omega _q^{})}}`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\omega _q^{}}{\omega _q}}{\displaystyle \underset{b_c,b_v,\stackrel{}{k},m_s}{}}\left|{\displaystyle \underset{t,m_j}{}}M_{t,m_j,m_s}^{b_v,\stackrel{}{k}}M_{t,m_j,m_s}^{b_c,\stackrel{}{k}}\right|^2`$ (1)
$`\times \delta (ϵ_aϵ_c+\mathrm{}\omega _q)\delta (ϵ_aϵ_v+\mathrm{}\omega _q^{}),`$
where $`b_c`$, $`b_v`$, $`m_s`$, $`m_j`$ and $`t`$ are indexes for conduction and valence bands, spin, magnetic quantum number and an atom in the unit cell. Here $`t`$ summation includes those atoms in the unit cell which have the core state of the specified energy $`ϵ_a`$. Using the conventional LMTO notation Skriver84  the matrix element has the form Laihia98

$$M_{t,m_j,m_s}^{b,\stackrel{}{k}}=\underset{l,m}{}i^l(A_{t,l,m}^{b,\stackrel{}{k}}M_{t,l}^r+B_{t,l,m}^{b,\stackrel{}{k}}\dot{M}_{t,l}^r)M_{m_j,l,m,m_s}^a,$$
(2)
where $`l`$ and $`m`$ are angular momentum and magnetic quantum numbers of the valence and conduction states. $`M_{t,l}^r`$, $`\dot{M}_{t,l}^r`$ and $`M_{m_j,l,m,m_s}^a`$ are radial matrix element, its energy derivative and angular matrix element, respectively, having the following properties.

$$M_{t,l}^\mathrm{r}=R_t(r)r\varphi _{t,l}(r)r^2𝑑r$$
(3)
$$\dot{M}_{t,l}^\mathrm{r}=R_t(r)r\dot{\varphi }_{t,l}(r)r^2𝑑r$$
(4)
$$M_{m_j,l,m,m_\mathrm{s}}^\mathrm{a}=<j,m_j|\widehat{ϵ}\widehat{r}|l,m,m_\mathrm{s}>,$$
(5)
where $`R_t(r)`$ is the radial part of the core-level wave function and $`\varphi _{t,l}(r)`$ is that of the valence or conduction band, $`\widehat{ϵ}`$ is the polarization vector of the photon, $`j`$ refers to the total angular momentum of the core state and $`<j,m_j|`$ and $`|l,m,m_\mathrm{s}>`$ are the angular parts of the core and valence/conduction states, respectively. The angular matrix element leads to the selection rules between the initial and final electronic states in the absorption and emission of a photon in the scattering process ($`\mathrm{\Delta }l=\pm 1`$). The localized core electron state of an atom $`t`$ centered at a point $`\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{a}`$ is

$$\varphi _{t,m_j}^\mathrm{a}(\stackrel{}{r})=R_t(|\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r_\mathrm{a}}|)|j,m_j>.$$
(6)
$`A_{t,l,m}^{b\stackrel{}{k}}`$ and $`B_{t,l,m}^{b\stackrel{}{k}}`$ are coefficients which depend on the crystal structure and the potential of the investigated system. The wave function of the valence and conduction electrons has the form

$$\mathrm{\Psi }^{b\stackrel{}{k}}(\stackrel{}{r})=\underset{t,l,m}{}i^l(A_{t,l,m}^{b\stackrel{}{k}}\varphi _{tl}(r)+B_{t,l,m}^{b\stackrel{}{k}}\dot{\varphi }_{tl}(r))|l,m,m_\mathrm{s}>,$$
(7)
where $`\varphi _{tl}(r)`$ and $`\dot{\varphi }_{tl}(r)`$ are the partial wave and its energy derivative. LMTO wave functions are linearized with respect to energy at some suitable fixed energy $`E_{\nu l}`$. Because we are interested in energy eigenvalues $`E_{b\stackrel{}{k}}`$ near to $`E_{\nu l}`$ we can substitute $`B_{t,l,m}^{b\stackrel{}{k}}`$ coefficients by their approximate form $`A_{t,l,m}^{b\stackrel{}{k}}(E_{b\stackrel{}{k}}E_{\nu l})`$, which reduces the required memory in computations about a factor of two.

The electronic structure calculations were performed using the scalar-relativistic tight-binding linear muffin-tin orbital method in the atomic sphere approximation (ASA) Andersen85 . The valence states consisted of Mg 3$`s`$, 3$`p`$ and 3$`d`$ states and B 2$`s`$, 2$`p`$ and 3$`d`$ states. The hexagonal unit cell contained three atoms and three empty spheres. We used lattice parameters $`a=b=2.99`$ $`\mathrm{\AA }`$ and $`c=3.41`$ $`\mathrm{\AA }`$ corresponding to equilibrium volume in our calculations. For the exchange-correlation potential the parametrized form by Perdew and Zunger Perdew81  was used. The number of $`\stackrel{}{k}`$ points was 648 in the whole Brillouin zone.

The geometry used in the calculations is the following. The direction of the absorbed photon makes an angle $`\theta `$ with respect to the hexagonal $`c`$-axis of the MgB2 single crystal. The absorbed photon is linearly polarized and the polarization is in the plane containing the direction of the photon and the $`c`$-axis of the crystal. In this way the component of the polarization vector of the absorbed photon along the $`c`$-axis can be varied from 0 to 1 by increasing $`\theta `$ from 0o to 90o. The direction of the emitted photon is perpendicular to the direction of the absorbed photon and makes a 90$`{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{o}}\theta `$ angle with respect to the $`c`$-axis. For the emitted photon we have used two different linear polarizations. The polarization is either in the ($`a,b`$)-plane or along the direction of the absorbed photon. All our results are expressed using an energy scale where the Fermi energy is 0 eV.

Overall features of both XES and XAS of MgB2 are well produced by band structure calculations Nakamura01 . Thus RIXS experiments are also expected to be explained within the ordinary band structure picture. Because the valence hole is delocalized and the 1s core hole in boron is well screened Kokko02  it is reasonable to use ground state orbitals to obtain theoretical spectra. Due to the conservation of both energy and momentum we need detailed band structure data in order to interpret the spectra. The calculated band structure is shown in Figure 1. Since we are interested in absorption and emission of photons coupled with electronic states near to the Fermi energy, the most relevant bands are those which cross the Fermi level, i.e. bands number 3–5. Zhang et al. Zhang03  have measured RIXS spectra at different angles of incidence ($`\theta `$ = 15o, 45o, 60o with respect to the $`c`$-axis of the MgB2 crystal) and using different excitation energies (187.25 eV – 188.25 eV, Fermi energy: $`E_F`$ = 187.28 eV). They found two peaks in their spectra. The intensity of the peak just below the Fermi energy depends clearly on both direction and energy of the exciting radiation. On the other hand, the intensity of the peak at about 2 eV below the Fermi energy was considered to be unchanging.

In Figure 2 we show our results for the $`\theta =60^\mathrm{o}`$ incidence in the case of two polarizations of the emitted photon. The unpolarized emission spectrum is an average of these two extreme cases. The peak just below the Fermi energy is solely due to absorption to the band 4 and emission from the band 3. The features between $`4`$ eV and $`1.5`$ eV consist almost entirely from RIXS involving band pairs (3,5) and (4,5). By increasing angle $`\theta `$ one can measure more directly excitations to the $`\pi `$ band.

In Figure 3 we show the spectra corresponding to $`\theta =75^\mathrm{o}`$ and the polarization vector of the emitted radiation, in our calculation,

being in the $`ab`$-plane. Near the top of the valence band there appears a peak which disappears when the excitation reaches 0.4 eV above the Fermi energy. The broad structure from $`4`$ eV to $`1.5`$ eV shows not much dispersion up to excitation energies 0.4 eV above the Fermi energy. However, using excitation energies above 1 eV the intensity of the peaks increases considerably and the position of the peaks shifts about 1 eV closer to the Fermi level as the excitation energy increases. To decide what bands and what parts of the Brillouin zone are responsible for each peak in the spectrum we have calculated some of the spectra band by band. As Figure 4 shows the peak around $`2`$ eV (low excitation energies) is mainly due to transitions involving bands 4 and 5.

In the same way, the peak around $`3.5`$ eV is mainly due to transitions involving bands 3 and 5. From Figure 1 we see that both of these peaks are produced close to the L–H line in the Brillouin zone. In this region, near the Fermi energy, the constant energy surfaces of the antibonding $`\pi `$ band have a tubular form Kortus01 .

In summary, we have calculated RIXS spectra of MgB2 using Kramers-Heisenberg formula with TB-LMTO eigenvalues and eigenstates for occupied and unoccupied electronic states. The results presented show that MgB2 can be analysed and interpreted on the basis of ground state band structure calculations. In addition we predict nonlinear emission structures related with the excitation of 1s electrons to the unoccupied antibonding $`\pi `$ band in the neighbourhood of the L–H line in the Brillouin zone.

We acknowledge computer resources of CSC – Scientific Computing Ltd., Espoo, Finland. This work has been in part supported by the Academy of Finland, Grant No. 51583 (K.K. and V.K.) and the Turku University Foundation (K.K. and W.H.).

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Electronic address: kokko@utu.fi