text:
# Complex Hyperbolic Triangle GroupsSupported by N.S.F. Research Grant DMS-0072706.

## 1. Introduction

A basic problem in geometry is the deformation problem. One starts with a finitely generated group $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, a Lie group $`G_1`$, and a larger Lie group $`G_2G_1`$. Given a discrete embedding $`\rho _0:\mathrm{\Gamma }G_1`$ one asks if $`\rho _0`$ fits inside a family $`\rho _t:\mathrm{\Gamma }G_2`$ of discrete embeddings. Here discrete embedding means an injective homomorphism onto a discrete set.

A nice setting for the deformation problem is the case when $`G_1`$ and $`G_2`$ are isometry groups of rank one symmetric spaces, $`X_1`$ and $`X_2`$, and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is isomorphic to a lattice in $`G_1`$. If $`X_1=𝑯^2`$, the hyperbolic plane, and $`X_2=𝑯^3`$, hyperbolic $`3`$-space, then we are dealing with the classic and well-developed theory of quasifuchsian groups.

The $`(p,q,r)`$-reflection triangle group is possibly the simplest kind of lattice in Isom$`(𝑯^2)`$. This group is generated by reflections in the sides of a geodesic triangle having angles $`\pi /p`$, $`\pi /q`$, $`\pi /r`$ (subject to the inequality $`1/p+1/q+1/r<1`$.) We allow the possibility that some of the integers are infinite. For instance, the $`(2,3,\mathrm{})`$-reflection triangle group is commensurable to the classical modular group.

The reflection triangle groups are rigid in Isom$`(𝑯^3)`$, in the sense that any two discrete embeddings of the same group are conjugate. We are going to replace $`𝑯^3`$ by $`𝑪𝑯^2`$, the complex hyperbolic plane. In this case, we get nontrivial deformations. These deformations provide an attractive problem, because they furnish some of the simplest interesting examples in the still mysterious subject of complex hyperbolic deformations. While some progress has been made in understanding these examples, there is still a lot unknown about them.

In §2 we will give a rapid introduction to complex hyperbolic geometry. In §3 we will explain how to generate some complex hyperbolic triangle groups. In §4 we will survey some results about these groups and in §5 we will present a more complete conjectural picture. In §6 we will indicate some of the techniques we used in proving our results.

## 2. The complex hyperbolic plane

The book  is an excellent general reference for complex hyperbolic geometry. Here are some of the basics.

$`𝑪^{2,1}`$ is a copy of the vector space $`𝑪^3`$ equipped with the Hermitian form

$$U,V=u_3\overline{v}_3+\underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}u_j\overline{v}_j.$$
(1)
Here $`U=(u_1,u_2,u_3)`$ and $`V=(v_1,v_2,v_3)`$. A vector $`V`$ is called negative, null, or positive depending (in the obvious way) on the sign of $`V,V`$. We denote the set of negative, null, and positive vectors, by $`N_{}`$, $`N_0`$ and $`N_+`$ respectively.

$`𝑪^2`$ includes in complex projective space $`𝑪𝑷^2`$ as the affine patch of vectors with nonzero last coordinate. Let $`[]:𝑪^{2,1}\{0\}𝑪𝑷^2`$ be the projectivization whose formula, expressed in the affine patch, is

$$[(v_1,v_2,v_3)]=(v_1/v_3,v_2/v_3).$$
(2)
The complex hyperbolic plane, $`𝑪𝑯^2`$, is the projective image of the set of negative vectors in $`𝑪^{2,1}`$. That is, $`𝑪𝑯^2=[N_{}]`$. The ideal boundary of $`𝑪𝑯^2`$ is the unit sphere $`S^3=[N_0]`$. If $`[X],[Y]𝑪𝑯^n`$ the complex hyperbolic distance $`\varrho ([X],[Y])`$ satisfies

$$\varrho ([X],[Y])=2\mathrm{cosh}^1\sqrt{\delta (X,Y)};\delta (X,Y)=\frac{X,YY,X}{X,XY,Y}.$$
(3)
Here $`X`$ and $`Y`$ are arbitrary lifts of $`[X]`$ and $`[Y]`$. See . The distance we defined is induced by an invariant Riemannian metric of sectional curvature pinched between $`1`$ and $`4`$. This Riemannian metric is the real part of a Kähler metric.

$`SU(2,1)`$ is the Lie group of $`,`$ preserving complex linear transformations. $`PU(2,1)`$ is the projectivization of $`SU(2,1)`$ and acts isometrically on $`𝑪𝑯^2`$. The map $`SU(2,1)PU(2,1)`$ is a $`3`$-to-$`1`$ Lie group homomorphism. The group of holomorphic isometries of $`𝑪𝑯^2`$ is exactly $`PU(2,1)`$. The full group of isometries of $`𝑪𝑯^2`$ is generated by $`PU(2,1)`$ and by the antiholomorphic map $`(z_1,z_2,z_3)(\overline{z}_1,\overline{z}_2,\overline{z}_3)`$.

An element of $`PU(2,1)`$ is called elliptic if it has a fixed point in $`𝑪𝑯^2`$. It is called hyperbolic (or loxodromic) if there is some $`ϵ>0`$ such that every point in $`𝑪𝑯^2`$ is moved at least $`ϵ`$ by the isometry. An element which is neither elliptic nor hyperbolic is called parabolic.

$`𝑪𝑯^2`$ has two different kinds of totally geodesic subspaces, real slices and complex slices. Every real slice is isometric to $`𝑪𝑯^2𝑹^2`$ and every complex slice is isometric to $`𝑪𝑯^2𝑪^1`$. The ideal boundaries of real and complex slices are called, respectively, $`𝑹`$-circles and $`𝑪`$-circles. The complex slices naturally implement the Poincaré model of the hyperbolic plane and the real slices naturally model the Klein model. It is a beautiful feature of the complex hyperbolic plane that it contains both models of the hyperbolic plane.

## 3. Reflection triangle groups

There are two kinds of reflections in Isom$`(𝑪𝑯^2)`$. A real reflection is an anti-holomorphic isometry conjugate to the map $`(z,w)(\overline{z},\overline{w})`$. The fixed point set of a real reflection is a real slice. We shall not have much to say about the explicit computation of real reflections, but rather will concentrate on the complex reflections.

A complex reflection is a holomorphic isometry conjugate to the involution $`(z,w)(z,w)`$. The fixed point set of a complex reflection is a complex slice. There is a simple formula for the general complex reflection: Let $`CN_+`$. Given any $`U𝑪^{2,1}`$ define

$$I_C(U)=U+\frac{2U,C}{C,C}C.$$
(4)
$`I_C`$ is a complex reflection.

We also have the formula

$$UV=(\overline{u_3v_2u_2v_3},\overline{u_1v_3u_3v_1},\overline{u_1v_2u_2v_1}).$$
(5)
This vector is such that $`U,UV=V,UV=0`$. See \[8, p. 45\].

Equations 4 and 5 can be used in tandem to rapidly generate triangle groups defined by complex reflections. One picks three vectors $`V_1,V_2,V_2N_{}`$. Next, we let $`C_j=V_{j1}V_{j+1}`$. Indices are taken mod $`3`$. Finally, we let $`I_j=I_{C_j}`$. The complex reflection $`I_j`$ fixes the complex line determined by the points $`[V_{j1}]`$ and $`[V_{j+1}]`$. This, the group $`I_1,I_2,I_3`$ is a complex-reflection triangle group determined by the triangle with vertices $`[V_1]`$, $`[V_2]`$, $`[V_3]`$.

Here is a quick dimension count for the space of $`(p,q,r)`$-triangle groups generated by complex reflections. We can normalize so that $`[V_1]=0`$. The stabilizer of $`0`$ in $`PU(2,1)`$ acts transitively on the unit tangent space at $`0`$. We can therefore normalize so that $`[V_2]=(s,0)`$ where $`s(0,1)`$. Finally, the isometries $`(z,w)(z,\mathrm{exp}(i\theta )w)`$ stabilize both $`[V_1]`$ and $`[V_2]`$. Applying a suitable isometry we arrange that $`[V_3]=(t+iu,v)`$ where $`t,u,v(0,1)`$. We cannot make any further normalizations, so the space of triangles in $`𝑪𝑯^2`$ mod isometry is $`4`$-real dimensional. Each of the three angles $`(p,q,r)`$ puts $`1`$ real constraint on the triangle. For instance, the $`p`$-angle places the constraint that $`(I_1I_2)^p`$ is the identity. Since $`43=1`$, we see heuristically that the space of $`(p,q,r)`$-complex reflection triangle groups is $`1`$-real dimensional.

The argument we just gave can be made rigorous, and extends to the case when some of the integers are infinite. (In this case the corresponding vectors are null rather than negative.) In the $`(\mathrm{},\mathrm{},\mathrm{})`$-case, the parameter is the angular invariant $`\mathrm{arg}(V_1,V_2V_2,V_3V_3,V_1)`$. Compare .

This $`1`$-dimensionality of the deformation space makes the $`(p,q,r)`$-triangle groups an especially attractive problem to study. Indeed, there is a completely canonical path of deformations. The starting point for the path of deformations is the case when the vectors have entirely real entries. (That is, $`u=0`$.) In this case, the three complex reflections stabilize the real slice $`𝑹^2𝑪𝑯^2`$.

## 4. Some results

To obtain a deformation of the $`(p,q,r)`$-reflection triangle group we choose a slice, either real or complex, and a triple of reflections, either real or complex, which restrict to the reflections in the sides of a $`(p,q,r)`$-geodesic triangle in the slice. A priori there are $`4`$ possibilities, given that the slice and the reflection types can be either real or complex. These choices lead to different outcomes.

If we start with complex reflections stabilizing a complex slice, the group has order $`2`$, because the reflections will all stabilize the same slice.

A more interesting case involving complex slices is given by:

###### Theorem 4.1

 $`\rho _0:\mathrm{\Gamma }`$Isom$`(𝐂𝐇^2)`$ stabilizes a complex slice and acts on this slice with compact quotient then any nearby representation $`\rho _t`$ also stabilizes a complex slice.

Goldman’s theorem applies to any co-compact lattice $`\rho _0(\mathrm{\Gamma })`$. In the case of triangle groups, which are rigid in $`𝑯^2`$, it says that any nearby representation is conjugate the original. In contrast:

###### Theorem 4.2

 There is a $`1`$-parameter family $`\rho _t(\mathrm{\Gamma }(2,3,\mathrm{}))`$ of discrete faithful representations of the modular group having the property that $`\rho _0`$ stabilizes a real slice and $`\rho _1`$ stabilizes a complex slice. For every parameter the generators are real reflections.

Thus, in the case of non-cocompact triangle groups, two of the remaining $`3`$ cases can be connected. In their paper, Falbel and Koseleff claim that their technique works for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(p,q,\mathrm{})`$ when $`\mathrm{max}(p,q)=4`$. For higher values of $`p`$ and $`q`$ it is not known what happens.

The remaining case occurs when we start with complex reflections stabilizing a real slice. This is the case we discussed in the previous section. Henceforth we restrict our attention to this case.

Goldman and Parker introduced this topic and studied the case of the ideal triangle group $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mathrm{},\mathrm{},\mathrm{})`$. They found that there is a $`1`$-real parameter family of non-conjugate representations, $`\{\rho _t`$, $`t(\mathrm{},\mathrm{})\}`$. Once again $`\rho _0`$ stabilizes a real slice. Paraphrasing their more precise formulation:

###### Theorem 4.3

 There are symmetric neighborhoods $`IJ`$ of $`0`$ such that $`\rho _t`$ is discrete and faithful if $`tI`$ and not both discrete and faithful if $`tJ`$.

$`J`$ consists of the parameter values $`t`$ such that the element $`\rho _t(I_1I_2I_3)`$ is not an elliptic element. For $`tJ`$, this element is elliptic. If it has finite order then the representation is not faithful; if it has infinite order then the representation is not discrete. The (very slightly) smaller interval $`I`$ is the interval for which their proof works. They conjectured that $`\rho _t`$ should be discrete and faithful iff $`tJ`$.

We proved the Goldman-Parker conjecture, and sharpened it a bit.

###### Theorem 4.4

 $`\rho _t`$ is discrete and faithful if and only if $`tJ`$. Furthermore, $`\rho _t`$ is indiscrete if $`tJ`$.

The group $`L=\rho _s(\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mathrm{},\mathrm{},\mathrm{}))`$, when $`sJ`$ is especially beautiful. We call this group the last ideal triangle group. (There are really two groups, one for each endpoint of $`J`$, but these are conjugate.) This group seems central in the study of complex hyperbolic deformations of the modular group. For instance, Falbel and Parker recently discovered that $`L`$ arises as the endpoint of a certain family of deformations of the modular group, using real reflections. See  for details.

Recall that $`L`$, like all discrete groups, has a limit set $`\mathrm{\Omega }(L)S^3`$ and a domain of discontinuity $`\mathrm{\Delta }(L)=S^3\mathrm{\Omega }(L)`$. The quotient $`\mathrm{\Delta }(L)/L`$ is a $`3`$-dimensional orbifold, commonly called the orbifold at infinity.

###### Theorem 4.5

 $`\mathrm{\Delta }(L)/L`$ is commensurable to the Whitehead link complement.

The Whitehead link complement is a classic example of a finite volume hyperbolic $`3`$-manifold. The surprise in the above result is that a real hyperbolic $`3`$-manifold makes its appearance in the context of complex hyperbolic geometry.

One might wonder about analogues of Theorem 4.4 for other triangle groups. Below we will conjecture that the space of discrete embeddings is a certain interval. In his thesis , Justin Wyss-Gallifent studied some special cases of this question. He made a very interesting discovery concerning the $`(4,4,\mathrm{})`$ triangle group:

###### Theorem 4.6

 Let $`S`$ be the set of parameters $`t`$ for which the representation $`\rho _t(\mathrm{\Gamma }(4,4,\mathrm{}))`$ is discrete (but not necessarily injective). Then $`S`$ contains isolated points and, in particular, is not an interval.

There seems to be an interval $`J`$ of discrete embeddings and, outside of $`J`$, an extra countable sequence $`\{t_j\}`$ of parameters for which $`\rho _{t_j}`$ is discrete but not an embedding. This sequence accumulates on the endpoints of $`J`$.

Motivated by  I wanted to produce a discrete complex hyperbolic group whose orbifold at infinity was a closed hyperbolic $`3`$-manifold. The extra representations found by Wyss-Gallifent seemed like a good place to start. Unfortunately, there is a cusp built into the representations of the $`(4,4,\mathrm{})`$ triangle groups.

Instead, I considered the $`(4,4,4)`$-groups, and found that the extra discrete deformations exist. $`\rho _t(\mathrm{\Gamma }(4,4,4))`$ seems to be discrete embedding iff all the elements of the form $`\rho _t(I_iI_jI_iI_k)`$ are not elliptic. Here $`i,j,k`$ are meant to be distinct. (For all these parameters, the element $`\rho _t(I_iI_jI_k)`$ is still a loxodromic element.) There is a countable collection $`t_5,t_6,\mathrm{}`$ of parameters such that $`\rho _{t_j}(I_iI_jI_iI_k)`$ has order $`j`$. All these representations seem discrete. For ease of notation we set $`\rho _j=\rho _{t_j}`$.

For $`j=5,6,7,8,12`$ we can show by arithmetic means that $`\rho _j`$ is discrete. The representation $`\rho _5`$ was too complicated for me to analyze and $`\rho _6`$ has a cusp. The simplest remaining candidate is $`\rho _7`$.

###### Theorem 4.7

 $`G=\rho _7(\mathrm{\Gamma }(4,4,4))`$ is a discrete group. The orbifold at infinity $`\mathrm{\Delta }(G)/G`$ is a closed hyperbolic $`3`$-orbifold.

In the standard terminology, $`\mathrm{\Delta }(G)/G`$ is the orbifold obtained by labelling the braid $`(AB)^{15}(AB^2)^3`$ with a $`2`$. Here $`A`$ and $`B`$ are the standard generators of the $`3`$-strand braid group.

A spherical CR structure on a $`3`$-manifold is a system of coordinate charts into $`S^3`$ whose transition functions are restrictions of complex projective transformations. Kamishima and Tsuboi  produced examples of spherical CR structures on Seifert fibered $`3`$-manifolds, but our example in theorem 4.7 gives the only known spherical CR structure on a closed hyperbolic $`3`$-manifold. We think that Theorem 4.7 holds for all $`j=8,9,10\mathrm{}`$.

Concerning the specific topic of triangle groups generated by complex reflections, I think that not much else is known. Recently a lot of progress has been made in understanding triangle groups generated by real reflections. See  and . There has been a lot of other great work done recently on complex hyperbolic discrete groups, for instance , , , , . Also see the references in Goldman’s book \[f8\].

## 5. A conjectural picture

We will consider the $`1`$-parameter family $`\rho _t(p,q,r)`$ of representations of the $`(p,q,r)`$-reflection triangle group, using complex reflections. We arrange that $`\rho _0`$ stabilizes a real slice. We choose our integers so that $`pqr`$. We let $`I_p`$, $`I_q`$, $`I_r`$ be the generators of the reflection triangle group. The notation is such that $`I_p`$ is the reflection in the side of the triangle opposite $`p`$, etc. Define

$$W_A=I_pI_rI_qI_r;W_B=I_pI_qI_r.$$
(6)
###### Conjecture 5.1

The set of $`t`$ for which $`\rho _t(p,q,r)`$ is a discrete embedding is the closed interval consisting of the parameters $`t`$ for which neither $`\rho _t(W_A)`$ nor $`\rho _t(W_B)`$ is elliptic.

We call the interval of Conjecture 5.1 the critical interval.

We say that the triple $`(p,q,r)`$ has type $`A`$ if the endpoints of the critical interval correspond to the representations when $`W_A`$ is a parabolic element. In other words, $`W_A`$ becomes elliptic before $`W_B`$. We say otherwise that $`(p,q,r)`$ has type $`B`$.

###### Conjecture 5.2

The triple $`(p,q,r)`$ has type A if $`p<10`$ and type B if $`p>13`$.

The situation is rather complicated when $`p\{10,11,12,13\}`$. Our Java applet  lets the user probe these cases by hand, though the roundoff error makes a few cases ambiguous. The extra deformation, which was the subject of Theorem 4.7, seems part of a more general pattern.

###### Conjecture 5.3

If $`(p,q,r)`$ has type A then there is a countable collection of parameters $`t_1,t_2,t_3\mathrm{}`$ for which $`\rho _{t_j}(p,q,r)`$ is infinite and discrete but not injective. If $`(p,q,r)`$ has type B then all infinite discrete representations $`\rho _t(p,q,r)`$ are embeddings and covered by Conjecture 5.1.

The proviso about the infinite image arises because there always exists an extremely degenerate representation of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(p,q,r)`$ onto $`𝒁/2`$. The generators are all mapped to the same complex reflection.

In summary, there seems to be a critical interval $`I`$, such the representations $`\rho _t(p,q,r)`$ are discrete embeddings iff $`tI`$. Depending on the endpoints of $`I`$, there are either no additional discrete representations, or a countable collection of extra discrete representations.

It is interesting to see what happens as $`t`$ moves to the boundary of $`I`$ from within $`I`$. We observed a certain kind of monotonicity to the way the representation varies. Let $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ be the abstract $`(p,q,r)`$ triangle group. For any word $`W\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, let $`W_t=\rho _t(W)`$. We will concentrate on the case when $`W`$ is an infinite word. For $`tI`$, the element $`W_t`$ is (conjecturally) either a parabolic or loxodromic. Let $`\lambda (W_t)`$ be the translation length of $`W_t`$.

###### Conjecture 5.4

As $`t`$ increases monotonically from $`0`$ to $`I`$, the quantity $`\lambda (W_t)`$ decreases monotonically for all infinite words $`W`$.

Conjecture 5.4 is closely related to some conjectures of Hanna Sandler  about the behavior of the trace function in the ideal triangle case. I think that there is some fascinating algebra hiding behind the triangle groups$``$in the form of the behavior of the trace function—but so far it is unreachable.

## 6. Some techniques of proof

If $`G`$Isom$`(X)`$, one can try to show that $`G`$ is discrete by constructing a fundamental domain for $`G`$. One looks for a set $`FX`$ such that the orbit $`G(F)`$ tiles $`X`$. This means that the translates of $`F`$ only intersect $`F`$ in its boundary. The Poincaré theorem \[B, §9.6\] gives a general method for establishing the tiling property of $`F`$ based on how certain elements of $`G`$ act on $`F`$.

When $`X=𝑯^n`$, one typically builds fundamental domains out of polyhedra bounded by totally geodesic codimension-$`1`$ faces. When $`X=𝑪𝑯^n`$, the situation is complicated by the absence of totally geodesic codimension-$`1`$ subspaces. The most natural replacement is the bisector. A bisector is the set of points in $`𝑪𝑯^n`$ equidistant between two given points. Mostow  used bisectors in his analysis of some exceptional non-arithmetic lattices in Isom$`(𝑪𝑯^2)`$, and Goldman studied them extensively in . (See Goldman’s book for additional references on papers which use bisectors to construct fundamental domains.)

My point of view is that there does not seem to be a “best” kind surface to use in constructing fundamental domains in complex hyperbolic space. Rather, I think that one should be ready to fabricate new kinds of surfaces to fit the problem at hand. It seems that computer experimentation often reveals a good choice of surface to use. In what follows I will give a quick tour of constructive techniques.

Consider first the deformations $`G_t=\rho _t(\mathrm{},\mathrm{},\mathrm{})`$ of the ideal triangle group, introduced in . According to  these groups are discrete for $`t[0,\tau ]`$. Here $`\tau `$ is the critical parameter where the product of the generators is parabolic. It is convenient to introduce the Clifford torus. Thinking of $`𝑪𝑯^2`$ as the open unit ball in $`𝑪^2`$, the Clifford torus is the subset $`T=\{|z|=|w|\}S^3`$. Amazingly $`T`$ has $`3`$ foliations by $`𝑪`$-circles: The horizontal foliation consists of $`𝑪`$-circles of the form $`\{(z,w)|z=z_0\}`$. The vertical foliation consists of $`𝑪`$-circles of the form $`\{(z,w)|w=w_0\}`$. The diagonal foliation consists of $`𝑪`$-circles having the form $`\{(z,w)|z=\lambda _0w\}`$.

Recall that $`G_t`$ is generated by $`3`$ complex reflections. Each of these reflections fixes a complex slice and hence the bounding $`𝑪`$-circle. One can normalize so that the three fixed $`𝑪`$-circles lie on the Clifford torus, one in each of the foliations. Passing to an index $`2`$ subgroup, we can consider a group generated by $`4`$ complex reflections: Two of these reflections, $`H_1`$ and $`H_2`$, fix horizontal $`𝑪`$-circles $`h_1`$ and $`h_2`$ and the other two, $`V_1`$ and $`V_2`$, fix vertical $`𝑪`$-circles $`v_1`$ and $`v_2`$.

The ideal boundary of a bisector is called a spinal sphere. This is an embedded $`2`$-sphere which is foliated by $`𝑪`$-circles (and also by $`𝑹`$-circles.) We can find a configuration of $`4`$-spinal spheres $`S(1,v)`$, $`S(2,v)`$, $`S(1,h)`$ and $`S(2,h)`$. Here $`S(j,v)`$ contains $`v_j`$ as part of its foliation and $`S(j,h)`$ contains $`h_j`$ as part of its foliation. The map $`H_j`$ stabilizes $`S(j,h)`$ and interchanges the two components of $`S^3S(j,h)`$. Analogous statements apply to the $`V`$s.

The two spheres $`S(h,j)`$ are contained in the closure of one component of $`S^3T`$ and the two spheres $`S(v,j)`$ are contained in the closure of the other. When the parameter $`t`$ is close to $`0`$ these spinal spheres are all disjoint from each other, excepting tangencies, and form a kind of necklace of spheres. Given the way the elements $`H_j`$ and $`V_j`$ act on our necklace of spheres, we see that we are dealing with the usual picture associated to a Schottky group. In this case the discreteness of the group is obvious.

As the parameter increases, the two spinal spheres $`S(v,1)`$ and $`S(v,2)`$ collide. Likewise, $`S(h,1)`$ and $`S(h,2)`$ collide. Unfortunately, the collision parameter occurs before the critical parameter. For parameters larger than this collision parameter, we throw out the spinal spheres and look at the action of $`G`$ on the Clifford torus itself. (This is not the point of view taken in  but it is equivalent to what they did.)

Let $`H`$ be the subgroup generated by the reflections $`H_1`$ and $`H_2`$. One finds that the orbit $`H(T)`$ consists of translates of $`T`$ which are disjoint from each other except for forced tangencies. Even though $`H`$ is an infinite group, most of the elements in $`H`$ move $`T`$ well off itself, and one only needs to take care in checking a short finite list of words in $`H`$. Once we know how $`H`$ acts on $`T`$ we invoke a variant of the ping-pong lemma to get the discreteness.

At some new collision parameter, the translates of the Clifford torus collide with each other. Again, the collision parameter occurs before the critical parameter. This is where the work in  comes in. I define a new kind of surface called a hybrid cone. A hybrid cone is a certain surface foliated by arcs of $`𝑹`$-circles. These arcs make the pattern of a fan: Each arc has one endpoint on the arc of a $`𝑪`$-circle and the other endpoint at a single point common to all the arcs. I cut out two triangular patches on the Clifford torus and replace each patch by a union of three hybrid cones. Each triangular patch is bounded by three arcs of $`𝑪`$-circles; so that the hybrid cones are formed by connecting these exposed arcs to auxilliary points using arcs of $`𝑹`$-circles. In short, I put some dents into the Clifford torus to make it fit better with its $`H`$-translates, and the I apply the ping-pong lemma to the dented torus.

I also use hybrid cones in , to construct a natural fundamental domain in the domain of discontinuity $`\mathrm{\Delta }(L)`$ for the last ideal triangle group $`L`$. In this case, the surfaces fit together to make three topological spheres, each tangent to the other two along arcs of $`𝑹`$-circles. The existence of this fundamental domain lets me compute explicitly that $`\mathrm{\Delta }(L)/L`$ is commensurable to the Whitehead link complement.

Falbel and Zocca  introduce related surfaces called $`𝑪`$-spheres, which are foliated by $`𝑪`$-circles. These surfaces seem especially well adapted to groups generated by real reflections. See  and . Indeed, Falbel and Parker construct a different fundamental domain for $`L`$ using $`𝑪`$-spheres. See .

To prove Theorem 4.7 in  I introduce another method of constructing fundamental domains. My proof revolves around the construction of a simplicial complex $`Z𝑪^{2,1}`$. The vertices of $`Z`$ are canonical lifts to $`𝑪^{2,1}`$ of fixed points of certain elements of the group $`G=\rho _7(\mathrm{\Gamma }(4,4,4))`$. The tetrahedra of $`Z`$ are Euclidean convex hulls of various $`4`$-element subsets of the vertices. Comprised of infinitely many tetrahedra, $`Z`$ is invariant under the element $`I_2I_1I_3`$. Modulo this element $`Z`$ has only finitely many tetrahedra.

Recall that $`[]`$ is the projectivization map. Let $`[Z_0]=[Z]S^3`$. I deduce the topology of the orbifold at infinity by studying the topology of $`[Z_0]`$. To show that my analysis of the topology at infinity is correct, I show that one component $`F`$ of $`𝑪𝑯^2[Z]`$ has the tiling property: The $`G`$-orbit of $`F`$ tiles $`𝑪𝑯^2`$. Now, $`Z`$ is an essentially combinatorial object, and it not too hard to analyze the combinatorics and topology of $`Z`$ in the abstract. The hard part is showing that the map $`Z[Z]`$ is an embedding. Assuming the embedding, the combinatorics and topology of $`Z`$ are reproduced faithfully in $`[Z]`$, and I invoke a variant of the Poincaré theorem.

After making some easy estimates, my main task boils down to showing that the projectivization map $`[]`$ is injective on all pairs of tetrahedra within a large but finite portion of $`Z`$. Roughly, I need to check about $`1.3`$ million tetrahedra. The sheer number of checks forces us to bring in the computer. I develop a technique for proving, with rigorous machine-aided computation, that $`[]`$ is injective on a given pair of tetrahedra.

A novel feature of my work is the use of computer experimentation and computer-aided proofs. This feature is also a drawback, because it only allows for the analysis of examples one at a time. To make this analysis automatic I would like to see a kind of marriage of complex hyperbolic geometry and computation. On the other hand, I would greatly prefer to see some theoretical advances in discreteness-proving which would eliminate the computer entirely.


format: text

text:
# Screening and antiscreening in anisotropic QED and QCD plasmas

## I Introduction

One of the important problems in non-equilibrium QED and QCD is to study how such systems approach equilibrium. In principle one should solve the Schwinger-Dyson equation to do this at a purely quantum level, but it is impossible to do this without significant approximations sd . For many practical purposes one can use transport equations to study equilibration of QED and QCD plasmas with particle collisions taken into account. For details we refer the reader to the extensive reviews in the literature tr1 ; tr2 . However the scattering kernel in these transport equations can suffer from severe infrared divergences due to ultra-soft photons or gluons exchanged in $`t`$-channel.

It is well known that the collective modes in the QED plasma screen the long-ranged Coulomb force kap ; leBellac . The screened potential then has a Yukawa form in the medium:

$$V(r)\frac{e^{m_Dr}}{r},$$
(1)
where $`m_D`$ is the Debye screening mass. As a result the infrared behaviour of the exchanged gauge bosons is improved. This Debye screening effect can be generalized to non-equilibrium QCD systems deb  and used in the transport equations describing quark-gluon plasmas deb1 . However for magnetic interactions the infrared problems persist. In the case of QED in equilibrium the magnetic screening mass vanishes not just at one-loop level but to all orders in perturbation theory BIP . It also has been argued that in QCD the magnetic screening mass should be of the order of $`g^2T`$, and cannot be computed perturbatively leBellac .

The situation is quite different in non-equilibrium systems, at least if they are anisotropic. Recently the closed-time-path-integral formalism was used to derive the magnetic screening mass at one-loop level fred . This showed that the magnetic screening mass in QED is non-zero if the plasma has an anisotropic single-particle momentum distribution, i.e. it depends on the direction of the momentum. This would suggest that there is no natural infrared problem in such a system. More recently, however, Romatschke and Strickland RS  have used the Hard Thermal Loop (HTL) approach to show how nonzero magnetic screening effects can arise in anistopic plasmas. Their work shows that there can be antiscreening, in the sense of negative screening masses, as well as screening. This feature of out-of-equilibrium systems has also been noted by Arnold et al. AMY . It reflects the instabilities of these systems which have been studied by Mrowczynski mro ; RM . (For a review of these ideas, see Ref. ALM .) The instability of these systems implies that, even though some components of the magnetic interactions are screened, a simple perturbative treatment is still not adequate.

It is well known that the polarization tensor of a gauge boson derived from the HTL approach at leading order can also be obtained from a transport equation HTL ; tr2 . The equivalence of the two approaches has also been generalized to the case of anisotropic but homogeneous systems mt . In this paper we use the transport-equation approach to derive the same expression for the magnetic screening mass as was found in fred . The advantages of this approach are that the physical picture is more transparent and its classical character is emphasized. We present the general form of the propagator of a gauge boson in an anisotropic medium. This propagator is central to the scattering kernel of the transport equations deb1 . The structure of this propagator agrees with that obtained by Romatschke and Strickland RS  who assumed a more restricted functional form for the anisotropic distribution of particles in the plasma. A minor technical difference from Ref. RS  is that we work in Lorentz gauge rather than the temporal axial gauge, but we have checked that our results are equivalent to theirs.

The propagator is more complicated than in the equilibrium case, since it depends on the the orientations of the field momentum and polarization relative to the axes of the anisotropy of the system. As a result the screening or antiscreening of a transverse magnetic field can itself be very anisotropic. Under some fairly general assumptions about the form of the anistropy, which are likely to cover most cases of physical interest, including those studied in Ref. RS , we are able to derive conditions on the appearance of screening or antiscreening in particular orientations.

The paper is organized as follows. In section II we present the derivation of the polarization tensors in terms of the non-equilibrium distribution function from transport equations. In section III we discuss the screening of static fields and, in particular, the form of the static polarization tensor for systems with cylindrical symmetry. We summarize our results and their implications in section IV.

## II Derivation of the polarization tensor from transport equations

The polarization tensor at one-loop level for a gauge boson in a plasma can be derived from classical transport equations HTL  even if the system is out of equilibrium mt . As a simple example, consider first the case of a gas of electrons interacting with a weak, space-time dependent electromagnetic field. The single-particle distribution function $`f(𝐱,𝐩,t)`$ obeys the Boltzmann equation,

$$\frac{f(𝐱,𝐩,t)}{t}+𝐯_xf(𝐱,𝐩,t)+𝐅(𝐱,t)_pf(𝐱,𝐩,t)=0,$$
(2)
where $`𝐯=𝐩/E(𝐩)`$ is the velocity of a particle with momentum p and

$$𝐅(𝐱,t)=e[𝐄(𝐱,t)+𝐯\times 𝐁(𝐱,t)],$$
(3)
in terms of the electric field E and the magnetic field B.

We assume that on the distance- and time-scales of interest the plasma is close to homogeneous and so we can expand $`f(𝐱,𝐩)`$ around an unperturbed distribution function $`f_0(𝐩)`$ as follows:

$$f(𝐱,𝐩,t)=f_0(𝐩)+f_1(𝐱,𝐩,t).$$
(4)
This expansion is similar to the one which is usually used in the derivation of the transport coefficient except that $`f_0(𝐩)`$ does not need to be the equilibrium Fermi-Dirac distribution. The transport equation (2) to first order in $`f_1`$ and the electromagnetic fields is

$$\frac{f_1}{t}+𝐯_xf_1=𝐅_pf_0.$$
(5)
Solving this for $`f_1`$ yields

$`f_1(𝐱,𝐩,t)`$ $`=`$ $`e_pf_0(𝐩){\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^t}𝑑t^{}[𝐄(t^{},𝐱𝐯(tt^{}))+𝐯\times 𝐁(t^{},𝐱𝐯(tt^{}))]`$ (6)
$`=`$ $`e_pf_0(𝐩){\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\tau [𝐄(t\tau ,𝐱\tau 𝐯)+𝐯\times 𝐁(t\tau ,𝐱\tau 𝐯)].`$
The induced current density is given by

$$j_\mu ^{ind}(𝐱,t)=e\frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^3}v_\mu f_1(𝐱,𝐩,t),$$
(7)
where $`v^\mu =p^\mu /E(𝐩)=(\mathrm{𝟏},𝐯)`$. Using the above expression for $`f_1(𝐱,𝐩,t)`$, we find that the induced current can be expressed in terms of the fields as

$$j_\mu ^{ind}(x)=e^2\frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^3}v_\mu _pf_0(𝐩)_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\tau [𝐄(t\tau ,𝐱\tau 𝐯)+𝐯\times 𝐁(t\tau ,𝐱\tau 𝐯)].$$
(8)
Taking the Fourier transform of this we get

$$j_\mu ^{ind}(k)=ie^2\frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^3}v_\mu \frac{_pf_0(𝐩)}{vk+iϵ}[𝐄(k)+𝐯\times 𝐁(k)].$$
(9)
To get this result we have regulated the $`\tau `$ integral by inserting a factor of $`e^{ϵ\tau }`$ with $`ϵ0^+`$ and we have used the fact that the Fourier transform of $`_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\tau e^{ϵ\tau }f(xv\tau )`$ is given by $`if(k)/vk+iϵ`$. For isotropic systems, the gradient $`_pf_0(𝐩)`$ is proportional to p. The second term in Eq. (9) vanishes in such cases and so there is no response of the plasma to a magnetic field.

The Fourier components of the the fields can be expressed in terms of the electromagnetic potential $`A^\mu (k)`$ as

$`𝐁(k)=i𝐤\times 𝐀(k),`$
$`𝐄(k)=i𝐤A_0(k)+ik_0𝐀(k).`$ (10)
This allows us to express the current in the form

$`j_\mu ^{ind}(k)`$ $`=`$ $`ie^2{\displaystyle \frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^3}v_\mu \frac{_pf_0(𝐩)}{vk+iϵ}\left[i𝐤A_0(k)+ik_0𝐀(k)+i(𝐯𝐀(k))𝐤i(𝐯𝐤)𝐀(k)\right]}`$ (11)
$`=`$ $`e^2{\displaystyle \frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^3}v_\mu \left[\frac{𝐤_pf_0}{vk+iϵ}vA(k)_pf_0𝐀(k)\right]}.`$
We can introduce a polarization tensor, defined in terms of the induced current by

$$j_\mu ^{ind}(k)=\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mu \nu }(k)A^\nu (k).$$
(12)
The polarization tensor obtained from the induced current is of course only the matter part, arising from the gas of electrons. The full tensor also includes a vacuum part which can be calculated using the standard field-theoretic methods. After some algebra we get from Eq. (11) the matter polarization tensor in the Lorentz gauge,

$`\mathrm{\Pi }^{00}(k)`$ $`=`$ $`e^2{\displaystyle \frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^3}\left[\frac{𝐤_pf_0(𝐩)}{k_0𝐤𝐯+iϵ}\right]},`$
$`\mathrm{\Pi }^{0i}(k)`$ $`=`$ $`e^2{\displaystyle \frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^3}\left[\frac{𝐤_pf_0(𝐩)}{k_0𝐤𝐯+iϵ}\right]v_i},`$
$`\mathrm{\Pi }^{ij}(k)`$ $`=`$ $`e^2{\displaystyle \frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^3}\left[\frac{f_0(𝐩)}{E(𝐩)}(\delta _{ij}v_iv_j)\frac{𝐤_pf_0(𝐩)}{k_0𝐤𝐯+iϵ}v_iv_j\right]}.`$ (13)
If the particles are massless (or the typical energies are high enough that we may neglect their masses), the velocity v may be replaced by the unit vector $`\widehat{𝐩}`$ and the energy $`E(𝐩)`$ by $`|𝐩|`$.

To generalize this result to QCD, one should replace the space-time derivatives in Eq. (2) by covariant derivatives. However, so long as $`gA_\mu ^a`$ is small, we can neglect the higher-order terms that this introduces. We can then describe the QCD plasma by equations with the same form as Eq. (2). The resulting contibutions to the gluon polarisation tensor have same forms as for the photon except for a trivial factor which counts the relevant degrees of freedom. In QCD case one simply needs to replace $`f(𝐩)`$ in the expression (13) for the polarization tensor by a sum of quark, antiquark and gluon terms BIP , $`2N_f(f_q(𝐩)+f_{\overline{q}}(𝐩))+2N_cf_g(𝐩)`$. The factor of 2 before $`N_f`$ is due to the spin degree of freedom.

## III Screening of static fields in an anisotropic plasma

The long-distance behaviour of the static potential is governed by the low-momentum behaviour of the static photon propagator. In the static limit, $`k_0=0`$, the polarization tensor Eq. (13) depends the direction of k only. Denoting the static tensor by $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}^{\mu \nu }(\widehat{𝐤})`$, we find that its components take the forms

$`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}^{00}(\widehat{𝐤})`$ $`=`$ $`e^2{\displaystyle \frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^3}|𝐩|\left[\frac{\widehat{𝐤}_pf_0(𝐩)}{\widehat{𝐤}𝐩iϵ}\right]},`$ (14)
$`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}^{0i}(\widehat{𝐤})`$ $`=`$ $`e^2{\displaystyle \frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^3}|𝐩|\left[\frac{\widehat{𝐤}_pf_0(𝐩)}{\widehat{𝐤}𝐩iϵ}\right]\widehat{p}_i},`$ (15)
$`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}^{ij}(\widehat{𝐤})`$ $`=`$ $`e^2{\displaystyle \frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^3}\left[\frac{f_0(𝐩)}{|𝐩|}(\delta _{ij}\widehat{p}_i\widehat{p}_j)+|𝐩|\frac{\widehat{𝐤}_pf_0(𝐩)}{\widehat{𝐤}𝐩iϵ}\widehat{p}_i\widehat{p}_j\right]},`$ (16)
in a plasma of massless particles.

In the familiar case of isotropic matter, the static polarisation tensor takes the form kap ; leBellac

$$\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}^{\mu \nu }=\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_LL^{\mu \nu }+\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_TT^{\mu \nu },$$
(17)
where, in the rest frame of the matter, $`L^{\mu \nu }=\delta _{\mu 0}\delta _{\nu 0}`$ and $`T^{\mu \nu }=g^{\mu \nu }+k^\mu k^\nu /k^2L^{\mu \nu }`$. For comparison with the results for anisotropic matter, we note that the corresponding propagator can be written

$$D^{00}(0,𝐤)=\frac{1}{|𝐤|^2+m_D^2},D^{ij}(0,𝐤)=\frac{1}{|𝐤|^2+m_g^2}T^{ij}+\alpha \frac{\widehat{k}_i\widehat{k}_j}{|𝐤|^2},$$
(18)
where $`\alpha `$ is the gauge-fixing parameter ($`\alpha =1`$ in Feynman gauge) and the Debye screening mass is, at the order to which we are working, $`m_D^2=\mathrm{Re}\left[\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{00}\right]=\mathrm{Re}\left[\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_L\right]`$. Similarly, the magnetic screening mass is

$$m_g^2=\frac{1}{2}T_{ij}\mathrm{Re}\left[\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}^{ij}\right]=\mathrm{Re}\left[\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_T\right],$$
(19)
but this vanishes in isotropic matter as discussed above.

In anisotropic matter, the polarization tensor cannot be reduced to just two screening masses since it contains, in general, off-diagonal elements and it depends on the direction of the momentum carried by the field and on the direction of polarization vector. To examine this in more detail we make some specific assumptions about the form of the momentum distribution $`f_0(𝐩)`$, which we believe should be appropriate in the context of a relativistic heavy-ion collision. For matter near the collision axis, we assume that the system is symmetric about this axis. We therefore consider a cylindrically symmetric form for $`f_0(𝐩)`$. Also, if we work in the local rest-frame of the matter, there is no net flow and we can assume that the distribution is symmetric under reflections,

$$f_0(𝐩)=f_0(𝐩).$$
(20)
In this case, as we shall see, the mixed space-time components of the tensor are purely imaginary. This means that we can still define a Debye mass as above, although this mass now depends on direction. If we use Eq. (19) to define an averaged magnetic mass from the space components of the static tensor (16), then we find that it reproduces the result for the screening mass given in Ref. fred  using the more complicated closed-time-path-integral method,

$$m_g^2(\widehat{𝐤})=\frac{e^2}{2}\frac{d^3p}{(2\pi )^3}\left[[1+(\widehat{𝐩}\widehat{𝐤})^2]\frac{f(𝐩)}{|𝐩|}+[1(\widehat{𝐩}\widehat{𝐤})^2]\frac{\widehat{𝐤}_𝐩f(𝐩)}{\widehat{𝐤}\widehat{𝐩}}\right].$$
(21)
Note that the derivation of (21) in fred  does not rely on the particular form of the distribution assumed here.

Without loss of generality, we can choose the $`z`$-axis along our axis of symmetry and the momentum of the field to lie in the $`xz`$-plane. We can then express k in the form

$$𝐤=k_\rho \widehat{𝐱}+k_z\widehat{𝐳},$$
(22)
with $`k_\rho ,k_z0`$. In terms of integrals over the longitudinal and radial components of p and the angle $`\varphi `$ between p and k in the $`xy`$-plane, the components of the static polarization tensor can be written

$`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}^{00}(\widehat{𝐤})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{(2\pi )^3}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑p_z{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}p_\rho 𝑑p_\rho {\displaystyle _0^{2\pi }}𝑑\varphi \sqrt{p_\rho ^2+p_z^2}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{k_\rho \frac{f_0}{p_\rho }\mathrm{cos}\varphi +k_z\frac{f_0}{p_z}}{p_\rho k_\rho \mathrm{cos}\varphi +p_zk_ziϵ}}\right],`$
$`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}^{0x}(\widehat{𝐤})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{(2\pi )^3}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑p_z{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}p_\rho 𝑑p_\rho {\displaystyle _0^{2\pi }}𝑑\varphi \left[{\displaystyle \frac{k_\rho \frac{f_0}{p_\rho }\mathrm{cos}\varphi +k_z\frac{f_0}{p_z}}{p_\rho k_\rho \mathrm{cos}\varphi +p_zk_ziϵ}}p_\rho \mathrm{cos}\varphi \right],`$
$`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}^{0z}(\widehat{𝐤})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{(2\pi )^3}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑p_z{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}p_\rho 𝑑p_\rho {\displaystyle _0^{2\pi }}𝑑\varphi \left[{\displaystyle \frac{k_\rho \frac{f_0}{p_\rho }\mathrm{cos}\varphi +k_z\frac{f_0}{p_z}}{p_\rho k_\rho \mathrm{cos}\varphi +p_zk_ziϵ}}p_z\right],`$
$`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}^{xx}(\widehat{𝐤})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{(2\pi )^3}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}dp_z{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}p_\rho dp_\rho {\displaystyle _0^{2\pi }}d\varphi {\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{p_\rho ^2+p_z^2}}}[{\displaystyle \frac{(p_z^2+p_\rho ^2\mathrm{sin}^2\varphi )f_0}{p_\rho ^2+p_z^2}}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{k_\rho \frac{f_0}{p_\rho }\mathrm{cos}\varphi +k_z\frac{f_0}{p_z}}{p_\rho k_\rho \mathrm{cos}\varphi +p_zk_ziϵ}}p_\rho ^2\mathrm{cos}^2\varphi ],`$
$`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}^{yy}(\widehat{𝐤})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{(2\pi )^3}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}dp_z{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}p_\rho dp_\rho {\displaystyle _0^{2\pi }}d\varphi {\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{p_\rho ^2+p_z^2}}}[{\displaystyle \frac{(p_z^2+p_\rho ^2\mathrm{cos}^2\varphi )f_0}{p_\rho ^2+p_z^2}}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{k_\rho \frac{f_0}{p_\rho }\mathrm{cos}\varphi +k_z\frac{f_0}{p_z}}{p_\rho k_\rho \mathrm{cos}\varphi +p_zk_ziϵ}}p_\rho ^2\mathrm{sin}^2\varphi ],`$
$`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}^{zz}(\widehat{𝐤})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{(2\pi )^3}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}dp_z{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}p_\rho dp_\rho {\displaystyle _0^{2\pi }}d\varphi {\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{p_\rho ^2+p_z^2}}}[{\displaystyle \frac{p_\rho ^2f_0}{p_\rho ^2+p_z^2}}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{k_\rho \frac{f_0}{p_\rho }\mathrm{cos}\varphi +k_z\frac{f_0}{p_z}}{p_\rho k_\rho \mathrm{cos}\varphi +p_zk_ziϵ}}p_z^2],`$
$`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}^{xz}(\widehat{𝐤})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{(2\pi )^3}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑p_z{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}p_\rho 𝑑p_\rho {\displaystyle _0^{2\pi }}𝑑\varphi {\displaystyle \frac{p_\rho p_z}{\sqrt{p_\rho ^2+p_z^2}}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{k_\rho \frac{f_0}{p_\rho }\mathrm{cos}\varphi +k_z\frac{f_0}{p_z}}{p_\rho k_\rho \mathrm{cos}\varphi +p_zk_ziϵ}}\mathrm{cos}\varphi \right],`$ (23)
The expressions for the $`0y`$, $`xy`$ and $`yz`$ components have been omitted because their integrands are odd functions of $`\varphi `$ and so they integrate to zero.

In general, with $`k_\rho 0`$ and $`k_z0`$, we can define $`\gamma =k_z/k_\rho `$ and carry out the integration over $`\varphi `$ to get

$`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}^{00}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑p_z{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑p_\rho {\displaystyle \frac{p_\rho }{\sqrt{p_z^2+p_\rho ^2}}}f_0`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{2\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑p_z{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑p_\rho {\displaystyle \frac{p_z}{\sqrt{p_z^2+p_\rho ^2}}}\left[p_\rho {\displaystyle \frac{f_0}{p_z}}p_z{\displaystyle \frac{f_0}{p_\rho }}\right]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{2\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑p_z{\displaystyle _0^{\gamma p_z}}𝑑p_\rho {\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{p_z^2+p_\rho ^2}}{p_z}}\left[p_\rho {\displaystyle \frac{f_0}{p_z}}p_z{\displaystyle \frac{f_0}{p_\rho }}\right]{\displaystyle \frac{k_zp_z}{\sqrt{k_z^2p_z^2k_\rho ^2p_\rho ^2}}},`$
$`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}^{0z}`$ $`=`$ $`i{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{2\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑p_z{\displaystyle _{\gamma p_z}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑p_\rho \left[p_\rho {\displaystyle \frac{f_0}{p_z}}p_z{\displaystyle \frac{f_0}{p_\rho }}\right]{\displaystyle \frac{k_zp_z}{\sqrt{k_\rho ^2p_\rho ^2k_z^2p_z^2}}},`$
$`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}^{0x}`$ $`=`$ $`\gamma \overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{0z},`$
$`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}^{xx}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{2\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑p_z{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑p_\rho {\displaystyle \frac{\gamma ^2p_z}{\sqrt{p_z^2+p_\rho ^2}}}\left[p_\rho {\displaystyle \frac{f_0}{p_z}}p_z{\displaystyle \frac{f_0}{p_\rho }}\right]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{2\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑p_z{\displaystyle _0^{\gamma p_z}}𝑑p_\rho {\displaystyle \frac{\gamma ^2p_z}{\sqrt{p_z^2+p_\rho ^2}}}\left[p_\rho {\displaystyle \frac{f_0}{p_z}}p_z{\displaystyle \frac{f_0}{p_\rho }}\right]{\displaystyle \frac{k_zp_z}{\sqrt{k_z^2p_z^2k_\rho ^2p_\rho ^2}}},`$
$`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}^{yy}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{2\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑p_z{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑p_\rho {\displaystyle \frac{\gamma ^2p_z}{\sqrt{p_z^2+p_\rho ^2}}}\left[p_\rho {\displaystyle \frac{f_0}{p_z}}p_z{\displaystyle \frac{f_0}{p_\rho }}\right]`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{2\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑p_z{\displaystyle _0^{\gamma p_z}}𝑑p_\rho {\displaystyle \frac{\gamma ^2p_z}{\sqrt{p_z^2+p_\rho ^2}}}\left[p_\rho {\displaystyle \frac{f_0}{p_z}}p_z{\displaystyle \frac{f_0}{p_\rho }}\right]{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{k_z^2p_z^2k_\rho ^2p_\rho ^2}}{k_zp_z}},`$
$`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{zz}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{2\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑p_z{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑p_\rho {\displaystyle \frac{p_z}{\sqrt{p_z^2+p_\rho ^2}}}\left[p_\rho {\displaystyle \frac{f_0}{p_z}}p_z{\displaystyle \frac{f_0}{p_\rho }}\right]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{2\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑p_z{\displaystyle _0^{\gamma p_z}}𝑑p_\rho {\displaystyle \frac{p_z}{\sqrt{p_z^2+p_\rho ^2}}}\left[p_\rho {\displaystyle \frac{f_0}{p_z}}p_z{\displaystyle \frac{f_0}{p_\rho }}\right]{\displaystyle \frac{k_zp_z}{\sqrt{k_z^2p_z^2k_\rho ^2p_\rho ^2}}}`$
$`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}^{xz}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{2\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑p_z{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑p_\rho {\displaystyle \frac{\gamma p_z}{\sqrt{p_z^2+p_\rho ^2}}}\left[p_\rho {\displaystyle \frac{f_0}{p_z}}p_z{\displaystyle \frac{f_0}{p_\rho }}\right]`$ (24)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{2\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑p_z{\displaystyle _0^{\gamma p_z}}𝑑p_\rho {\displaystyle \frac{\gamma p_z}{\sqrt{p_z^2+p_\rho ^2}}}\left[p_\rho {\displaystyle \frac{f_0}{p_z}}p_z{\displaystyle \frac{f_0}{p_\rho }}\right]{\displaystyle \frac{k_zp_z}{\sqrt{k_z^2p_z^2k_\rho ^2p_\rho ^2}}}.`$
Note that if the distribution function satisfies the reflection condition (20) then the time-time and space-space components in the static polarization tensor are real and the mixed space-time components elements are purely imaginary. (This can be seen by making the change of variables $`p_zp_z`$, $`\varphi \varphi +\pi `$ in (23)).

The elements of this tensor do not have definite signs and so there can be antiscreening in some directions as well as screening in others. Also, the appearance of a nonzero space-time component means that in general the Debye screening of electric fields cannot be separated from the effects on magentic fields. The structure of this tensor agrees with that obtained by Romatschke and Strickland RS  in the temporal axial gauge. However the Lorentz gauge used here is more convenient for handling static electric fields.

For our chosen form of distribution, the spatial part of static polarization tensor is real and symmetric. Hence the tensor $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}^{ij}`$ has three real, orthogonal eigenvectors. The condition that the polarization tensor be transverse reduces to

$$k_i\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}^{ij}=0,$$
(25)
in the static limit. This shows that k is an eigenvector with zero eigenvalue. By inspection of Eq. (23) we see that the $`y`$-direction, perpendicular to the plane containing k and the collision axis, is also an eigenvector. Hence three unit eigenvectors for the static tensor are

$$\widehat{𝐞}_1=\widehat{𝐤},\widehat{𝐞}_2=\widehat{𝐲},\widehat{𝐞}_3=\widehat{𝐤}\times \widehat{𝐲}.$$
(26)
We denote the corresponding eigenvalues of the spatial part of the tensor by $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_1=0`$, $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_2`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_3`$. In the coordinate system defined by these axes the spatial part of the tensor is diagonal. Also we find that $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}^{01}=\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}^{02}=0.`$ The corresponding static propagator for the gauge boson has the non-zero elements

$`\left(\begin{array}{cc}D^{00}(0,𝐤),& D^{03}(0,𝐤)\\ D^{30}(0,𝐤),& D^{33}(0,𝐤)\end{array}\right)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{(|𝐤|^2+\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_+)(|𝐤|^2+\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{})}}\left(\begin{array}{cc}|𝐤|^2+\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_3,& \overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}^{03}\\ \overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}^{03},& |𝐤|^2+\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}^{00}\end{array}\right),`$ (31)
$`D^{11}(0,𝐤)={\displaystyle \frac{1+\alpha }{|𝐤|^2}},D^{22}(0,𝐤)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{|𝐤|^2+\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_2(𝐤)}}.`$ (32)
Here we have introduced the two eigenvalues $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_\pm `$ of the full tensor in the time-3 subspace. These are given by

$$\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_\pm =\frac{1}{2}(\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{00}\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_3)\pm \frac{1}{2}\sqrt{(\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{00}+\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_3)^2+4|\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{03}|^2}.$$
(33)
These results show that the screening or antiscreening of static electromagnetic fields in an anisotropic plasma can depend on both the orientation of k, the momentum carried by the field, and the orientation of the field itself. It is worth considering two special cases. First, when the momentum carried by the field is perpendicular to the collision axis ($`k_z=0`$ and hence $`\widehat{𝐞}_3=\widehat{𝐳}`$) we have

$$\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_1=\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_2=0,\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_3=\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}^{zz},\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{03}=0.$$
(34)
In this case fields in the $`y`$-direction are unscreened. In contrast when the momentum carried by the field lies along the axis ($`k_\rho =0`$ and hence $`\widehat{𝐞}_3=\widehat{𝐱}`$) we have

$$\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_1=0,\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_2=\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_3=\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}^{xx},\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{03}=0.$$
(35)
In this case the screening masses for the transverse components of the field are degenerate. For both of these special directions of the momentum, there is no mixed time-3 component and so $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{00}`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_3`$ are both eigenvalues.

In general there can be antiscreening as well as screening of electromagnetic fields in an anisotropic plasma. As discussed in Ref. RS , this reflects the fact that such as system is not in equilibrium and hence is unstable. The instability of a particular mode depends on the detailed form of the momentum distibution $`f_0(𝐩)`$. It is not possible to draw general conclusions about the pattern of screening masses except in cases where the combination of derivatives

$$p_\rho \frac{f_0}{p_z}p_z\frac{f_0}{p_\rho }$$
(36)
has the same sign for all momenta. This covers many smooth anisotropic distributions, including the examples studied in Ref. RS . A negative value for this combination corresponds to an oblate momentum distribution with $`p_z^2<\frac{1}{2}p_\rho ^2`$, and a positive value to a prolate distribution. If the combination of derivatives has a definite sign, the integrals in $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_2=\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{yy}`$ can be rewritten in a form which shows that they too have the same sign. For an oblate distribution we get $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_2<0`$, indicating antiscreening while for a prolate one we get $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_2>0`$ and screening.

In the oblate case we also find that $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{00}\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_3`$ can be written in a form which shows that it is negative definite. This implies that $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_+>0`$ and hence there is always screening for one component of the field. In addition, at $`k_z=0`$ we find that $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{00}+\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_3`$ is negative and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_3`$ is positive, and hence $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{}=\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_3`$ is positive. Since at $`k_\rho =0`$ we have $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{}=\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_3=\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_2<0`$, this implies that $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{}`$ must change from antiscreening to screening as the orientation of k moves away from the collision axis.

For prolate distributions, in contrast, the sign of $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{00}\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_3`$ is not determined and so it is not possible to make such definite statements about $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_\pm `$. Nonetheless the nonderivative term in $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{00}`$ (which is responsible for the usual Debye screening) is always negative and so $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{00}`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{00}\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_3`$ remain negative unless the distribution is strongly prolate. Hence we expect the eigenvalue $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_+`$ to correspond to screening for all except the the most extreme prolate anisotropies. At $`k_z=0`$ we again find that $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{}=\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_3`$, but now this must be negative. At $`k_\rho =0`$ we have $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_3=\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_2>0`$ and so both $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_+`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{}`$ are positive for orientations of k close to the axes of distributions that are not too strongly polate. However, as the deformation increases, $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{00}`$ becomes less negative and so the range of orientations for which $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{}`$ is positive shrinks. For strong enough deformations, $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_{}`$ can become negative for all orientations.

The existence of at least one unstable component of the field, for some orientations of k, agrees with the general results of Ref. ALM . All of the general features of $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_2`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Pi }}_\pm `$ discussed above can be seen in the numerical examples studied in Section V of Ref. RS , and also in the analyses of ideally planar or linear distributions in Ref. ALM .

## IV Conclusion

In this paper we have used a transport-theory approach to derive the polarization tensor of a gauge boson in a plasma which is out of thermal equilibrium. We find that the magnetic screening mass at lowest order is non-zero as long as the single-particle distribution function is anisotropic, in contrast to the more familiar case of a plasma in equilibrium. This confirms results previously found using a closed-time-path-integral approach.

The full propagator for static magnetic fields in such a medium has a complicated tensor structure and its eigenvalues need not be positive. There can thus be antiscreening rather than screening for some components of the field. We have considered in detail the case of a plasma with a cylindrically symmetric momentum distribution. Such a distribution is expected to be relevant to relativistic heavy-ion collisions before thermal equilibrium has been reached, where the axis of collision can provide a symmetry axis for the anisotropy. In this case the spatial part of the static polarization tensor is real and has three orthogonal principal axes: $`\widehat{𝐤}`$, lying along the direction the momentum carried by the gauge boson, $`\widehat{𝐲}`$, orthogonal to the plane of k and the collision axis, and $`\widehat{𝐤}\times \widehat{𝐲}`$. The last two of these have nonzero screening in general. In additional there can be an imaginary off-diagonal component mixing the $`\widehat{𝐤}\times \widehat{𝐲}`$ and time directions. In the special case where the momentum k is perpendicular to the collision axis, there is no screening for the component in the $`y`$-direction.

We have also been able to derive various conditions on the signs of two of the eigenvalues of the tensor, under the assumption that $`p_\rho \frac{f_0}{p_z}p_z\frac{f_0}{p_\rho }`$ has a definite sign. In particular we find that fields in the $`y`$-direction are screened if the anisotropy is prolate, but antiscreened if it is oblate. We also find that there is one component which is always screened unless the distribution is extremely prolate.

These differences in the screening of interactions in different directions could have important effects in the equilibration of the matter produced in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. Although only the screening or antiscreening of static fields has been examined in detail here, it will also be very interesting to explore dynamical aspects, such as damping rates and unstable modes, in these anisotropic systems RS ; mro ; RM ; ALM .

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank Fred Cooper and Emil Mottola for useful discussions. MCB and CWK acknowledge support from the UK EPSRC. This research is also supported by the Department of Energy, under contract W-7405-ENG-36.


text:
# Ferromagnetism in a dilute magnetic semiconductor — Generalized RKKY interaction and spin-wave excitations

## I Introduction

The discovery of ferromagnetism in Mn-doped III-V semiconductors such as p-type In1-xMnxAs, and Ga1-xMnxAs, with a highest transition temperature ($`T_c`$) of 110K for Mn concentration $`x=0.053`$, has led to considerable interest in these dilute magnetic semiconductors (DMS). The successful search for ferromagnetic ordering above room temperature in Ga1-xMnxN, with a highest reported $`T_c`$ value of 940K, has added a new dimension to the interest.

Besides their potential applications in semiconductor devices such as optical isolators, magnetic sensors, non-volatile memories seamlessly integrated into semiconductor circuits etc., and possibilities in photonics and high power electronics, attention has also been focussed on the fundamental mechanism and nature of the ferromagnetic state, and the possibility of studying new magnetic cooperative phenomena such as spin-dependent tunneling, magnetoresistance, spin-dependent light emission etc. in semiconductor heterostructures arising from the new (spin) degrees of freedom.

The double-exchange model, involving the interaction $`J\stackrel{}{S}_i.\stackrel{}{\sigma }_i`$ between the magnetic impurity spin $`\stackrel{}{S}_i`$ and the electron spin $`\stackrel{}{\sigma }_i`$, has been the starting point in nearly all theoretical studies, and we first review the emerging physical picture and the different approaches employed.

Long range ferromagnetic interaction between the $`S=5/2`$ Mn++ ions is mediated, in the mean-field (Zener model) picture, by a uniform itinerant-carrier spin polarization, which is caused, in turn, by an effective uniform magnetic field, resulting from site-averaging (virtual crystal approximation) of the local impurity fields. In the weak-field limit ($`xJS<<ϵ_\mathrm{F}`$), the carrier spin polarization is proportional to the Pauli susceptibility $`\chi _\mathrm{P}`$, and the transition temperature ($`T_cxJ^2\chi _\mathrm{P}`$) is therefore proportional to the Mn concentration $`x`$, $`J^2`$, the carrier effective mass $`m^{}`$, and $`N(ϵ_\mathrm{F})p^{1/3}`$, where $`p`$ is the hole concentration. In DMS, $`p`$ is a only a small fraction ($`f`$) of $`x`$ due to large compensation by As antisite defects. Therefore, the Fermi energy $`ϵ_\mathrm{F}Wp^{2/3}`$ itself is quite small compared to the bandwidth $`W`$, and hence the weak-field limit is valid only for $`x<<(W/JS)^3f^2`$. Valence band spin splitting comparable in size to the Fermi energy has been confirmed experimentally.

Dynamical correlations in the ordered state have been studied within a path-integral formulation in which the itinerant carriers are integrated out and the effective action for the impurity spins is expanded up to quadratic order (non-interacting spin-wave approximation). In contrast to the MF results, the spin stiffness (and hence $`T_c`$) is independent of $`J`$ and inversely proportional to $`m`$. Other approaches incorporating dynamics include the dynamical mean field theory, in which the local charge and spin fluctuations are included but long-range spin-wave excitations are neglected, and a RPA-level spin-fluctuation approach in which Mn disorder is treated within the coherent potential approximation (CPA).

While the positional disorder of Mn ions is not taken into account in the virtual crystal approximation (VCA), several recent works highlight the importance of disorder, both positional and electronic. Stability of the collinear ferromagnetic state has been investigated with randomly distributed Mn ions, and noncollinear ordering is suggested to be common to these semiconductor systems. Competing (AF) interactions leading to frustration has already been evidenced by spin-glass behavior in II-VI DMS. The presence of large compensation due to As antisite defects implies substantial electronic disorder as well, and the sensitivity of $`T_\mathrm{C}`$, magnetization $`M`$, transport and spin-wave spectrum to disorder has been investigated. Monte Carlo simulations have also been used to study disorder effects on magnetic ordering, and dynamical and transport properties; the background fermions determine the spin interactions and hence the nature of the spin ordering, which in turn affects the fermionic states. Ab-Initio methods have also been recently employed.

An alternative mechanism for the ferromagnetic coupling between impurity spins involves the hole-mediated RKKY interaction. The RKKY theory has been extended for various dimensionality structures, including effect of potential scattering through carrier mean-free path, indicating enhancement of ferromagnetic interaction by disorder in low dimensions. Exchange and correlation has been shown to slightly enhance $`T_\mathrm{C}`$ within the RKKY theory. Spin-wave dispersion in the RKKY picture has been compared with the result of spin-wave theory in which a uniform impurity-induced polarization has been assumed (VCA), resulting in a Zeeman splitting $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ in the carrier bands. It was shown that the RKKY-level dispersion is incorrect except when $`\mathrm{\Delta }<<E_\mathrm{F}`$.

The traditional RKKY approach is based on linear response in the weak-field limit ($`J<<ϵ_\mathrm{F}`$), which is not quite valid for the DMS. In this paper, we present a generalized RKKY approach which takes into account the spatial variation of the impurity-induced carrier spin polarization beyond linear response theory \[section II\]. In the generalized RKKY picture, the local magnetic field $`\stackrel{}{B}_j=J\stackrel{}{S}_j`$ of a magnetic impurity at site $`j`$ polarizes the electrons locally, and the mobile band electrons spread this magnetic polarization in a characteristic manner: $`\stackrel{}{m}_i=\chi _{ij}(B)\stackrel{}{B}_j`$, where $`\chi _{ij}(B)`$ represents the generalized magnetic response. The spin $`\stackrel{}{S}_i`$ of another magnetic impurity placed at site $`i`$ couples to this local electronic magnetization, resulting in an effective generalized RKKY spin coupling $`J^2\chi _{ij}(J)\stackrel{}{S}_i.\stackrel{}{S}_j`$.

We find several interesting competing processes which limit the growth of spin couplings. As the RKKY response involves a particle-hole process, it vanishes for a filled (valence) band and grows with increasing hole concentration $`p`$. While the spin coupling is therefore expected to strengthen with $`p`$, a competing process involving the length scale sets in, which limits the growth of the spin coupling and therefore of the ferromagnetic transition temperature $`T_c`$. The Fermi wavelength $`\lambda _\mathrm{F}=2\pi /k_\mathrm{F}`$, which sets the RKKY oscillation length scale, decreases with hole doping, and therefore the spin coupling between two magnetic impurities at a fixed separation goes through a maximum as a function of hole concentration \[section III\].

We find a similar optimization in the spin coupling as a function of the impurity field strength $`B`$. By going beyond linear response theory, and examining the generalized RKKY response for a fixed hole concentration, we find that the RKKY oscillation becomes more rapid with increasing polarizing field. Therefore, for a fixed separation between two impurity spins, the spin coupling initially increases like $`J^2`$ as expected, but then crosses over and eventually changes sign, resulting in frustration \[section III\]. The non-linear magnetic response thus brings out another limitation in the ferromagnetic spin coupling.

In order to determine the extent to which the magnetization response of a single impurity determines the macroscopic magnetic properties of the DMS, we have also considered a finite concentration of magnetic impurities distributed on a finite-size lattice \[section IV\]. Using a novel Hubbard-$`U`$ representation for the magnetic impurities in a DMS, we have studied the collective magnetic response in the ferromagnetic state within a mean-field-plus-spin-fluctuation (MF+SF) approach. Treating the disorder aspects of the Mn-impurity system exactly, and electron correlation effects within the random phase approximation (RPA), our numerical analysis yields the spin stiffness from the low-lying collective (spin-wave) excitations \[section VI\], which have a fundamental bearing on the ferromagnetic transition temperature $`T_c`$. Our approach also allows for a quantitative study of the stability/instability of the Hartree-Fock (mean-field) ferromagnetic state \[section V\], highlighting the presence of competing interactions. The Anderson Hamiltonian, with a hybridization term $`V_{\mathrm{pd}}`$ between band fermions and the magnetic impurity orbital, has also been recently studied to obtain the ferromagnetic coupling between two magnetic impurities.

## II Magnetic impurity in a host

We consider a single-band spin-fermion lattice model

$$H=\underset{𝐤,\sigma }{}ϵ_𝐤a_{𝐤,\sigma }^{}a_{𝐤,\sigma }\underset{i}{}J_i\stackrel{}{S}_i.\stackrel{}{\sigma }_i,$$
(1)
with a double-exchange interaction between the magnetic impurity spin $`\stackrel{}{S}_i`$ and the electron spin $`\stackrel{}{\sigma }_i`$ at the impurity site $`i`$. The host (valence band) dispersion $`ϵ_𝐤`$ is taken to be parabolic for small $`k`$ (top of the band at $`k=0`$), the $`k^2`$ coefficient determining the inverse carrier mass $`m^{}`$. As the added holes go in long-wavelength states, the small-$`k`$ particle-hole processes near the Fermi energy are dominant, and therefore other details of the energy band are expected to be relatively unimportant.

### A Host Green’s function

We consider an isotropic energy-band dispersion

$$ϵ_k=\frac{W}{2}\mathrm{cos}ka$$
(2)
in three dimensions, with the wavevector magnitude extending upto $`\pi /a`$. This dispersion incorporates the desired features, and yields a finite bandwidth without introducing sharp cutoffs. We choose length and energy units such that the lattice spacing $`a=1`$ and the bandwidth $`W=1`$. The advanced Green’s function for the host is obtained as

$`g_{ij}(\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}{\displaystyle \underset{𝐤}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{e^{i𝐤.(𝐫_i𝐫_j)}}{\omega ϵ_𝐤i\eta }}`$ (3)
$`g_r(\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^\pi }\beta (k)𝑑k{\displaystyle _0^\pi }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{sin}\theta d\theta {\displaystyle \frac{e^{ikr\mathrm{cos}\theta }}{\omega ϵ_ki\eta }}`$ (4)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^\pi }\beta (k)𝑑k{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\omega ϵ_ki\eta }}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}kr}{kr}}`$ (5)
Here $`\beta (k)`$ is a $`k`$-space density of states, and for simplicity we choose a symmetric form

$`\beta (k)`$ $`=`$ $`ak^2bk^4(0k\pi /2)`$ (6)
$`=`$ $`a(k\pi )^2b(k\pi )^4(\pi /2k\pi ),`$ (7)
so that the usual three-dimensional $`k^2`$ form is recovered for states near both the lower and upper band edges at $`k=\pi `$ and $`k=0`$, respectively. We choose $`b=2a/\pi ^2`$, so that $`\beta (k)`$ is smooth at $`k=\pi /2`$ (the slope $`d\beta /dk=0`$), and an overal normalization $`a=120/7\pi ^3`$ so that the sum over states in the band $`_0^\pi \beta (k)𝑑k=1`$.

The above choice yields a symmetric band with a nearly semi-elliptical density of states, as seen in Fig. 1, showing the real and imaginary parts of the local host Green’s function $`g_0(\omega )`$. Near the band edges, the real-part magnitude has a finite maximum and the imaginary-part has a square-root behaviour, as expected for the three-dimensional system. The band filling is shown in Fig. 2 as a function of the Fermi energy.

### B Magnetic response

We consider the impurity spin in the classical limit ($`J_i\stackrel{}{S}_iJ_i\stackrel{}{S}_i=B_i\widehat{z}`$), and examine the magnetic response of electrons in a nearly filled band due to the magnetic coupling $`_i\stackrel{}{\sigma }_i.\stackrel{}{B}_i`$, for an arbitrary strength of the impurity-induced local magnetic field $`\stackrel{}{B}_i`$.

For a single magnetic impurity at site $`j`$, the electronic Green’s function $`G`$ is exactly obtained in terms of the host Green’s function $`g`$ as

$$G_{ii}^\sigma (\omega )=g_{ii}(\omega )+g_{ij}(\omega )\left[\frac{\sigma B_j}{1+\sigma B_jg_0(\omega )}\right]g_{ji}(\omega ),$$
(8)
where $`g_0g_{jj}`$ is the local host Green’s function. The resulting local magnetization $`m_i`$ at site $`i`$ is then obtained as

$$m_i=_{\mathrm{}}^{\omega _\mathrm{F}}\frac{d\omega }{\pi }\mathrm{Im}[G_{ii}^{}(\omega )G_{ii}^{}(\omega )],$$
(9)
where

$$G_{ii}^{}(\omega )G_{ii}^{}(\omega )=g_{ij}(\omega )\mathrm{\Delta }T_jg_{ji}(\omega ),$$
(10)
in terms of the $`T`$-matrix difference

$$\mathrm{\Delta }T_jT_j^{}T_j^{}=\left[\frac{2B_j}{1B_j^2g_0^2(\omega )}\right].$$
(11)
Defining a field-dependent generalized magnetic response function $`\chi _{ij}(B)`$ through the relation

$$m_i=\chi _{ij}(B)B_j,$$
(12)
Eqs. (6), (7), (8) yield

$$\chi _{ij}(B)=_{\mathrm{}}^{\omega _\mathrm{F}}\frac{d\omega }{\pi }\mathrm{Im}\left[g_{ij}(\omega )\left(\frac{2}{1B^2g_0^2(\omega )}\right)g_{ji}(\omega )\right].$$
(13)
## III Effective spin couplings

Another impurity spin $`\stackrel{}{S}_i`$ placed at site $`i`$ will couple with the local magnetization $`m_i`$ produced by the local field of the spin $`\stackrel{}{S}_j`$ at site $`j`$, resulting in an effective interaction between the two spins given by

$$H_{\mathrm{spin}}(J)=J_iJ_j\chi _{ij}(B=JS)\stackrel{}{S}_i.\stackrel{}{S}_j.$$
(14)
### A Weak-coupling limit: RKKY interaction

When the $`B^2`$ term in Eq. (10) can be neglected (valid for $`B<<W`$), one obtains a linear response

$$m_i=\chi _{ij}B_j,$$
(15)
where the magnetic susceptibility $`\chi _{ij}`$

$`\chi _{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`2{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\omega }{\pi }}\mathrm{Im}[g_{ij}(\omega )g_{ji}(\omega )]`$ (16)
$`=`$ $`4{\displaystyle \underset{ϵ_l<ϵ_\mathrm{F}}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{ϵ_m>ϵ_\mathrm{F}}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _l^i\varphi _l^j\varphi _m^j\varphi _m^i}{ϵ_mϵ_l}},`$ (17)
yields the standard oscillating RKKY interaction

$$H_{\mathrm{RKKY}}=J_iJ_j\chi _{ij}\stackrel{}{S}_i.\stackrel{}{S}_j.$$
(18)
The behaviour of $`\chi _{ij}`$, as a function of the separation $`r`$ betwen the two sites $`i`$ and $`j`$, shows that the oscillation becomes more rapid with doping (Fig. 3), as expected from the decreasing Fermi wavelength $`\lambda _\mathrm{F}=2\pi /k_\mathrm{F}`$. Qualitatively similar results were obtained for a parabolic energy dispersion $`ϵ_𝐤k^2`$ with a finite bandwidth cutoff.

For a fixed separation $`r/a=(1/x)^{1/3}`$, corresponding to the average Mn-Mn distance in a cubic lattice with Mn concentration $`x`$, the behaviour of $`\chi (r)`$ is shown in Fig. 4 as a function of band filling. The ferromagnetic coupling peaks at hole concentrations about $`0.6`$ times the Mn impurity concentration.

### B Generalized magnetic response

It appears that the conventional RKKY picture based on the weak-coupling limit $`(B<<W)`$ cannot provide a good description of the interaction between Mn impurities in Ga1-xMnxAs. Core-level photoemission yields $`J1`$ eV, which is comparable to the host bandwidth of $`W2`$ eV for the heavy hole band. It is therefore essential to go beyond the linear-response regime, and for $`BW`$ we find that there are additional contributions in the generalized magnetic response function $`\chi _{ij}(B)`$, which qualitatively modify the nature of the magnetic response and spin couplings.

#### 1 Impurity-state contribution

For $`\omega `$ outside the band ($`|\omega |>W/2`$), the T-matrix difference in Eq. (10) has imaginary terms of the type $`\delta (\omega \omega ^{})`$, arising from the two poles

$$1\pm Bg_0(\omega ^{})=0,$$
(19)
corresponding to a spin-$``$ impurity state at $`\omega _{}^{}`$ (below the lower band edge), and a spin-$``$ impurity state at $`\omega _{}^{}`$ (above the upper band edge). In three dimensions, $`g_0(\omega )`$ has a finite maximum at the band edges, and therefore impurity states are formed only when $`B`$ exceeds a threshold strength $`B^{}`$.

By expanding $`g_0(\omega )`$ near $`\omega _{}^{}`$, and expressing $`T_j^{}`$ as a simple pole, the impurity-induced correction is given by

$$G_{ii}^{}g_{ii}=g_{ij}T_j^{}g_{ji}=\frac{|\phi _i^{}|^2}{\omega \omega _{}^{}i\eta },$$
(20)
where the impurity-state wavefunction $`\phi _i^{}`$ is given by

$$\phi _i^{}=\frac{g_{ij}(\omega =\omega _{}^{})}{\sqrt{dg_0/d\omega |_{\omega =\omega _{}^{}}}}.$$
(21)
For any finite doping, only the spin-$``$ impurity state is occupied, and the impurity-state contribution to the local magnetization is therefore simply obtained as

$$m_i^{}=|\phi _i|^2.$$
(22)
With increasing $`B`$, the impurity-state wavefunction becomes more localized, and $`\phi _i\delta _{ij}`$ as $`B\mathrm{}`$.

#### 2 Band contribution

The other contributions to the imaginary part in Eq. (10) are from within the band ($`|\omega |<W/2`$), and involve the real (imaginary) part of $`\mathrm{\Delta }T_j(\omega )`$ and imaginary (real) part of $`g_{ij}(\omega )g_{ji}(\omega )`$.

Including both the band and impurity contributions, the generalized magnetic response $`\chi (r,B)`$ evaluated from Eq. (10) is shown in Fig. 5 for different field strengths; the lowest-field case ($`B=0.1`$) provides the RKKY response ($`B0`$), for comparison. The length scale at which the first crossover from ferromagnetic to antiferromagnetic coupling takes place is seen to decrease with increasing $`B`$. Fig. 6 shows the generalized magnetic response $`\chi (r,B)`$, for a fixed hole concentration and Mn-Mn distance. For small $`B=JS`$, the response is essentially constant (linear response), and in this regime the generalized RKKY interaction energy $`B^2\chi (r,B)`$ grows like $`J^2`$, as in the mean-field and conventional RKKY pictures. However, the sharp suppression in the generalized magnetic response for $`B/W>0.2`$ limits this growth and leads to a peak, which is seen to shift to higher $`B`$ values with decreasing Mn-Mn separation (Fig. 7). This effect

significantly increases the spin coupling in a higher Mn concentration system (such as GaMnN) beyond the factor expected from the spin response (Fig. 4).

As the effective carrier mass $`m^{}`$ scales like the inverse bandwidth $`1/W`$, the $`m^{}`$ dependence of the generalized magnetic response $`\chi (r,B)`$ can be directly deduced from Fig. 6, showing the $`B/Wm^{}`$ dependence for a fixed $`B=JS`$. The magnetic response in the (fixed) unit of $`1/B`$ is obtained by multiplying $`\chi (r,B)`$ in Fig. 6 (in unit of $`1/W`$) by $`B/W`$. This yields a linear $`m^{}`$ dependence of $`\chi (r,B)`$ (and hence the spin coupling energy and $`T_c`$) for low effective mass and then a sharp suppression with increasing $`m^{}`$. Sublinear dependence of $`T_c`$ at large $`m^{}`$ has also been reported in Monte Carlo studies.

For a nominal host bandwidth of 10eV (with 1 eV $`10^4`$ K), the peak interaction energies are about 250 K, 600 K and 1400 K for Mn concentrations of $`5\%`$, $`8\%`$, and $`12.5\%`$, and hole concentrations of $`3\%`$, $`5\%`$, and $`8\%`$, respectively \[Fig. 7\]. From this spin interaction energy $`(JS)^2\chi `$, the ferromagnetic transition temperature $`T_c`$ can be estimated within the spin-fluctuation theory. For a nearest-neighbour quantum Heisenberg model (interaction energy $`𝒥`$) on a hypercubic lattice (coordination number $`z`$), the transition temperature is given by $`T_c=T_c^{\mathrm{MF}}/f_{\mathrm{sf}}`$, somewhat lower than the mean-field value $`T_c^{\mathrm{MF}}=𝒥S(S+1)z/3`$. Here $`f_{\mathrm{sf}}=(1/N)_𝐤(1\gamma _𝐤)^11`$ is a geometrical spin-fluctuation factor, where $`\gamma _𝐤(\mathrm{cos}k_x+\mathrm{cos}k_y+\mathrm{cos}k_z)/3`$ in three dimensions.

As the effective RKKY interaction term between two spins is $`J^2\chi _{ij}\stackrel{}{S}_i.\stackrel{}{S}_j`$, we take $`𝒥=J^2\chi `$ and obtain $`T_c2J^2\chi S(S+1)`$ for $`z=6`$. Taking a realistic bandwidth of $`W=2`$eV for the heavy valence band, the peak energy in Fig. 7 translates to a peak $`T_c`$ of about 150 K and 850 K for $`5\%`$ and $`12.5\%`$ Mn concentrations, quite close to the observed highest $`T_c`$ values for Ga1-xMnxAs and Ga1-xMnxN.

## IV Hubbard-$`U`$ representation of magnetic impurities

We now consider a (purely fermionic) Hubbard-model representation for the randomly distributed magnetic impurities on a cubic lattice:

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`t{\displaystyle \underset{<ij>\sigma }{}}(\widehat{a}_{i\sigma }^{}\widehat{a}_{j\sigma }+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.)+t^{}{\displaystyle \underset{<Ij>\sigma }{}}(\widehat{a}_{I\sigma }^{}\widehat{a}_{j\sigma }+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.)`$ (23)
$`+`$ $`ϵ_d{\displaystyle \underset{I,\sigma }{}}\widehat{a}_{I\sigma }^{}\widehat{a}_{I\sigma }+U{\displaystyle \underset{I}{}}\left(\widehat{n}_In_I\right)\left(\widehat{n}_In_I\right),`$ (24)
where I refers to the impurity sites, $`ϵ_d`$ is the impurity on-site energy and $`n_I=\widehat{n}_I+\widehat{n}_I/2`$ is the spin-averaged impurity charge density. Higher spin magnetic impurities, such as the $`S=5/2`$ Mn impurities in $`\mathrm{Ga}_{1\mathrm{x}}\mathrm{Mn}_\mathrm{x}\mathrm{As}`$, can be realistically represented within a generalized Hubbard model representation involving multiple orbitals and different interaction processes (direct and exchange type, with respect to orbital indices). For simplicity, we have taken the same hopping ($`t^{}=t=1`$) between the host-host and host-impurity nearest-neighbour pairs of sites. The energy-scale origin is set so that the host on-site energy is zero, and we take the impurity level to lie at the top of the host band ($`ϵ_d=6`$). The form of the Hubbard interaction term is such that in the Hartree-Fock approximation it reduces to the double-exchange term.

### A Hartree-Fock ferromagnetic state

In the Hartree-Fock (mean-field) approximation, the interaction term reduces to a magnetic coupling of the electron to the local mean (magnetic) field $`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_I`$:

$$H_{\mathrm{int}}^{\mathrm{HF}}=\underset{I}{}\stackrel{}{\sigma }_I.\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_I,$$
(25)
where the electronic spin operator $`\stackrel{}{\sigma }_I=\mathrm{\Psi }_I^{}[\stackrel{}{\sigma }]\mathrm{\Psi }_I`$ in terms of the spinor $`\mathrm{\Psi }_I=\left(\begin{array}{c}\widehat{a}_I\hfill \\ \widehat{a}_I\hfill \end{array}\right)`$, and the mean field $`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_I`$ is self-consistently determined from the ground-state expectation value:

$$2\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_I=U\stackrel{}{\sigma }_I.$$
(26)
Thus, in the classical (Hartree-Fock) limit, the interaction term reduces to the corresponding form of the double-exchange term, with the mean field $`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_I`$ representing the impurity-induced local magnetic field $`\stackrel{}{B}_I`$.

Starting with an initial uniform mean field $`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_I=\widehat{z}\mathrm{\Delta }`$, the mean-field (MF) Hamiltonian is numerically diagonalized for a finite lattice to obtain the fermion eigenfunctions $`\varphi _{l\sigma }`$ and eigenvalues $`E_{l\sigma }`$. The spin densities $`n_{I\sigma }=_{E_{l\sigma }<E_\mathrm{F}}(\varphi _{l\sigma }^I)^2`$ yield the new local mean fields $`\mathrm{\Delta }_I=U(n_In_I)/2`$, which are then used to update

the MF Hamiltonian, and this procedure is iterated till self-consistency is achieved.

### B Stability of the HF state

The self-consistent, HF ferromagnetic state, with all local moments aligned in the same symmetry-breaking direction, does not necessarily represent a stable (lowest-energy) state. This is because the HF state really represents an energy extremum, which may correspond to a saddle point having local energy minimum and maximum along different directions in the order-parameter space. The stability of the HF state with respect to transverse perturbations in the order parameter is indicated by the maximum eigenvalue $`\lambda _{\mathrm{max}}`$ of the $`[\chi ^0(\omega =0)]`$ matrix (Eq. 24). The HF state is stable if $`U\lambda _{\mathrm{max}}=1`$, correspondng to the massless Goldstone mode, representing a rigid rotation of the ordering direction. Instability is indicated if $`U\lambda _{\mathrm{max}}>1`$, signalling a growth of transverse perturbations about the HF state, which can also be interpreted as negative-energy bosonic modes.

Figure 8 shows some of the eigenvalues of the $`[\chi ^0(\omega )]`$ matrix (including the minimum and maximum) for the undoped HF ferromagnetic state of an $`8^3`$ system, with a semi-ordered arrangement of 32 magnetic impurities (see section V for details). For $`\omega =0`$, the Goldstone mode ($`U\lambda _G=1`$) is seen to correspond to the lowest eigenvalue, indicating maximal instability of the ferromagnetic state. The structure of the eigenvector corresponding to the maximum eigenvalue indicates a tendency towards AF ordering of the impurity spins. The AF coupling arises from the exchange interaction $`J^{}t^2/U`$ due to the effective hopping $`t^{}`$ (associated with impurity-band formation) between impurity sites. In the absence of the hole-induced (RKKY) ferromagnetic coupling, this exchange interaction dominates and favours AF ordering of impurity spins. With hole doping, the ferromagnetic state gets stabilized, and the Goldstone mode now corresponds to the maximum eigenvalue (Fig. 9).

### C Transverse spin fluctuations

Transverse spin fluctuations are gapless, low-energy excitations in the broken-symmetry state of magnetic systems possessing continuous spin-rotational symmetry. Therefore, at low temperatures they play an important role in diverse macroscopic properties such as existence of long-range order, magnitude and temperature dependence of the order parameter, magnetic transition temperatures, spin correlations etc.

We study the time-ordered, spin-wave propagator involving the spin-lowering ($`S_i^{}`$) and spin-raising ($`S_j^+`$) operators at sites $`i`$ and $`j`$:

$$\chi _{ij}(tt^{})=i\mathrm{\Psi }_\mathrm{G}|T[S_i^{}(t)S_j^+(t^{})]|\mathrm{\Psi }_\mathrm{G}.$$
(27)
At the RPA level, the spin-wave propagator in frequency space is given by

$$[\chi ^+(\omega )]=\frac{[\chi ^0(\omega )]}{1[U][\chi ^0(\omega )]},$$
(28)
where the zeroth-order, antiparallel-spin particle-hole propagator

$`[\chi ^0(\omega )]_{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`i{\displaystyle \frac{d\omega ^{}}{2\pi }G_{ij}^{}(\omega ^{})G_{ji}^{}(\omega ^{}\omega )}`$ (29)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{E_l<E_\mathrm{F}}{\overset{E_m>E_\mathrm{F}}{}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _l^i\varphi _m^i\varphi _m^j\varphi _l^j}{E_mE_l+\omega }}+{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _l^i\varphi _m^i\varphi _m^j\varphi _l^j}{E_mE_l\omega }}\right)`$ (30)
is evaluated using the eigenvalues $`E_{l\sigma }`$ and eigenvectors $`\varphi _{l\sigma }`$ in the self-consistent, broken-symmetry state. In Eq. (23), the diagonal interaction matrix $`[U]_{ii}=U\delta _{iI}`$ has non-vanishing elements only at the magnetic impurity sites. For site-dependent interactions, it is convenient to recast Eq. (23) using simple matrix manipulations:

$$[\chi ^+(\omega )]=\frac{1}{[A(\omega )]}\frac{1}{[U]},$$
(31)
where $`[A(\omega )]=[U][U][\chi ^0(\omega )][U]`$ is a symmetric matrix, having non-vanishing matrix elements only in the reduced impurity basis:

$$[A(\omega )]_{IJ}=U(1U[\chi ^0(\omega )]_{IJ}).$$
(32)
Spin-wave modes, represented by the poles in the propagator $`[\chi ^+(\omega )]`$, are hence given by the poles of the matrix $`[A(\omega )]_{IJ}`$, as $`[U]`$ is non-singular. In terms of the eigenvalues $`\lambda _n`$ and eigenvectors $`\phi _n`$ of the $`[\chi ^0(\omega )]_{IJ}`$ matrix, the spin-wave energies $`\omega _n`$ are therefore given by

$$1U\lambda _n(\omega _n)=0.$$
(33)
## V Spin-wave energy

The spin couplings and stiffness in the ferromagnetic state can be determined from the spin-wave energies. To see how the magnitude and sign of the spin couplings depend on impurity separation, we have considered several impurity arrangements with different numbers ($`N_{\mathrm{imp}}`$) of magnetic impurities in a cubic host lattice with $`N=8^3`$ sites. These arrangements include: (i) an ordered impurity arrangement of 64 impurities ($`x=1/8`$) on a cubic superlattice with impurity separation $`2a`$, (ii) a semi-ordered arrangement of 32 impurities ($`x6\%`$), with same NN impurity separation ($`2a`$) in the z direction but greater in-plane separation ($`\sqrt{8}a`$), and (iii) a disordered arrangement of 30 impurities ($`x6\%`$) with NN separations ranging between $`2a`$ and $`3a`$.

For the undoped (insulating) state, we take $`N_{}=N`$ and $`N_{}=NN_{\mathrm{imp}}`$; all spin-$``$ impurity states (pushed up by the local mean field) are then unoccupied, resulting in local-moment formation. Hole doping is introduced by reducing $`N_{}`$, and band fillings are so chosen that the Fermi energy lies in gaps between (nearly) degenerate groups of eigenvalues.

The undoped self-consistent ferromagnetic state is found to be maximally unstable, as discussed earlier. Indeed, the self-consistent antiferromagnetic state is actually found to be stable, confirming the dominance of the AF spin couplings $`J^{}t^2/U`$. With hole doping, the ferromagnetic state is stabilized, and the spin-wave energies $`\omega _n`$ are extracted from the pole condition $`U\lambda _n(\omega _n)=1`$. Hole doping dependence of the lowest spin-wave energy $`\omega _{\mathrm{low}}`$ is shown in Fig. 10 for the ordered (i) and disordered (ii) impurity arrangements, with $`U=4`$ and $`5`$, respectively. Figure 11 shows the $`U`$-dependence of the lowest spin-wave energy for the ordered (i) and disordered (iii) arrangements, with $`N_{}=482`$ ($`p6\%`$) and $`N_{}=505`$ ($`p1.4\%`$), respectively. The optimization of the spin coupling with respect to both hole doping and interaction energy $`U`$ is qualitatively similar to that in the RKKY picture.

While the lowest spin-wave energy is softened by disorder, the highest spin-wave energy is, however, significantly enhanced, as shown in Figure 12. This enhancement of $`\omega _{\mathrm{high}}`$ is associated with localization of spin-wave states over impurity clusters in which the relatively closer spins are more strongly coupled. For the same minimum impurity separation ($`2a`$) in arrangements (i) and (ii), disorder-induced localization leads to stronger bonds between the cluster spins. Also shown (for the ordered case) is the Stoner (single-particle excitation) gap, which is roughly proportional to the MF impurity magnetization. The spin-wave branch merges with Stoner excitations at about $`8\%`$ hole concentration.

For the ordered impurity arrangement, the spin-wave energy range allows the spin couplings to be extracted, as discussed below. Assuming nearest-neighbour exchange interaction $`J`$ between the impurity spins on the superlattice, the spin-wave energies are given by

$$\omega _𝐪=JSz(1\gamma _𝐪),$$
(34)
where $`\gamma _𝐪=(\mathrm{cos}q_x+\mathrm{cos}q_y+\mathrm{cos}q_z)/3`$. The spin-wave modes on the impurity superlattice are plane waves, with wave-vector components given by $`q_\mu =n_\mu 2\pi /L`$, where $`n_\mu `$ are integers and $`L=4`$ for the 64-impurity superlattice. The wave vectors $`𝐪=(1,0,0)2\pi /L`$ etc. and $`𝐪=(2,2,2)2\pi /L`$ correspond to the lowest- and highest-energy modes, respectively. The corresponding energies $`\omega _{\mathrm{low}}=JSz/3`$ and $`\omega _{\mathrm{high}}=2JSz`$ yield a ratio $`\omega _{\mathrm{high}}/\omega _{\mathrm{low}}=6`$. We not only find the actual ratio to be quite close (about 7 for most doping cases), but the degeneracies in the spin-wave spectrum are also in close agreement, indicating that nearest-neighbour spin coupling is dominant.

## VI Conclusions

A comparitive study of a generalized RKKY approach and a MF+SF approach offers new and useful insight into the mechanism of carrier-mediated ferromagnetic ordering in a dilute magnetic semiconductor. While the MF+SF approach provides quantitative understanding of the spin couplings, competing interactions, spin-wave excitations, low-temperature spin dynamics, and the critical temperature, the generalized RKKY approach provides a qualitative understanding in terms of a simple physical picture involving the impurity-induced oscillating carrier-spin polarization, which complements the MF+SF approach. Our key finding is an optimization of the spin coupling (spin-wave energy) with respect to both hole doping and the impurity polarizing field strength ($`J`$ or $`U`$), which is in agreement with recent Monte Carlo study, and can be physically understood in terms of a competition between the increasing magnitude of the carrier-spin polarization and increasing rapidity of its oscillation. We find that the optimum (fractional) hole concentration for the spin coupling occurs at $`p/x0.6`$, and both the spin coupling energy $`J^2\chi (r,J)`$ and the spin-wave energy scale with the carrier bandwidth $`W`$, for fixed $`J/W`$ or $`U/W`$. The oscillating spin polarization also highlights the role of competing interactions in the instability of the collinear ferromagnetic state.

In this paper, we have presented the first study of spin-wave excitations in the ferromagnetic state of the DMS within a microscopic correlated lattice fermion model which treats finite impurity concentration, impurity disorder, and electron correlation on an equal footing. With regard to electron correlation, the MF+SF approach has been shown to be applicable in the full range from weak to strong coupling, and extensively used in the context of strongly correlated layered cuprate antiferromagnets which exhibit pronounced spin fluctuations. When the spin-wave energy is much smaller than the mean-field strength $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, spin dynamics is dominant at low temperatures and charge fluctuations can be ignored for $`T<<\mathrm{\Delta }`$. Incorporating the low-energy spin fluctuations about the MF state yields quantitatively correct temperature dependence of (sublattice) magnetization and reliable $`T_\mathrm{C}`$ within the renormalized spin-wave-theory (SWT). Whereas $`T_\mathrm{C}`$ pertains to global ordering, with the spin coupling energy providing the relevant energy scale for spin fluctuations, the MFT deals with local ordering, and greatly over-estimates the transition temperature ($`T_\mathrm{C}\mathrm{\Delta }`$), which really represents the moment-melting temperature.

Specifically with regard to the DMS, there is a subtle issue concerning the energy scale relevant for global ordering. Whereas for a generic ferromagnet, energy scales corresponding to the local mean field and spin coupling are identical, for the DMS, three distinct energies can be identified — the two local mean fields seen by the carrier spin ($`J`$) and impurity spin ($`J^2\chi _{ii}`$), and the coupling between impurity spins ($`J^2\chi _{ij}`$). In the weak doping limit ($`p/x0`$), the magnetic response function $`\chi (r)`$ decays slowly on the impurity-separation scale, so that $`\chi _{ij}\chi _{ii}`$, and the distinction between the two latter energy scales gets blurred. However, for a realistic fractional doping of $`p/x15\%`$, the impurity spin coupling $`J^2\chi _{ij}`$ is by far the lowest energy scale, and should therefore control the low-temperature behaviour of the magnetization $`M(T)`$. The ferromagnetic transition temperature $`T_c`$, determined within the spin-wave-theory from the spin coupling energy for a realistic (heavy) hole bandwidth, corresponds closely with the observed $`T_c`$ values in $`\mathrm{Ga}_{1\mathrm{x}}\mathrm{Mn}_\mathrm{x}\mathrm{As}`$ and $`\mathrm{Ga}_{1\mathrm{x}}\mathrm{Mn}_\mathrm{x}\mathrm{N}`$. With appropriate hole doping, transition temperature much above room temperature appears possible for $`x=1/8`$, which is within experimental limit.

The MF+SF approach also highlights the role of impurity disorder. While the low-energy spin-wave modes are significantly softened as compared to the ordered case, the high-energy spin-wave modes are clearly stiffened, indicating that a single spin-wave energy scale is not sufficient to describe the low-temperature spin dynamics in the DMS. In fact, a distribution in spin couplings, with weak and strong bonds, has been suggested to be responsible for anomalous temperature dependence of magnetization, susceptibility, specific heat etc. Using a simple model involving two spin-excitation energy scales corresponding to weakly and strongly coupled spins, the temperature dependence of magnetization is found to be in good agreement with the SQUID magnetization data for Ga1-xMnxAs.

## Acknowledgement

Helpful discussions with T. Pareek and R. C. Budhani are gratefully acknowledged.