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# Dark soliton states of Bose-Einstein condensates in anisotropic traps

## I introduction

Numerous experimental studies have confirmed the general validity of the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) equation  used to calculate the ground state and excitations of various Bose-Einstein condensates of trapped alkali atoms . To map the spectrum of collective (or particle-hole) excitations, mean-field linear response theories based on the Bogoliubov approximation  or its finite temperature extensions  have been developed and applied to numerous experimental configurations.

The collective excitations are physically distinct from self-consistent excited states of the trapped gas. In the latter case, the stationary condensate wavefunction itself may contain one or more nodes. Indeed, the nonlinear GP equation supports many well-known self-consistent excitations, such as vortex states , and configurations with bright and dark solitons  for attractive as well as repulsive Bose gases. These contrast quite strongly with the collective excitations, which are obtained from the linear response of the condensate to an external perturbation.

In the case of a fundamental dark (or black) soliton, the condensate density vanishes along a nodal surface and the soliton velocity is zero. Such a solution is equivalent to two condensates with a phase difference of $`\pi `$ between them, separated by a thin impenetrable barrier, and is an idealization of the nodal structures obtained recently in a two-component system . Dark optical solitons in nonlinear dielectric fibers have been actively studied  since their prediction  and experimental observation ; the recent observation of solitons in trapped Bose gases  has provided another striking manifestation of nonlinear atom optics .

The stability of stationary dark solitons (also known as standing waves or kinks) in trapped condensates has been the subject of recent investigations . These states are thermodynamically unstable, since their energies are always higher than the nodeless self-consistent ground state. In addition, they can be dynamically unstable; in more than one dimension, an extended dark soliton in an optical fiber will generally undergo a ‘snake deformation’, where transverse modulations cause the nodal plane to decay into vortices . The Bogoliubov excitation spectrum for a kink is known to contain modes with imaginary frequencies and quasiparticle amplitudes localized in the notch ; however, the origin of these imaginary eigenvalues and their explicit connection to a dynamical snake instability remain unclear.

In the present work, the properties and stability of self-consistent excited states of trapped Bose condensates are explored further. After a brief description in Sec. II of the formalism and techniques employed in the numerical calculations, the number-dependence of the energy of stationary dark solitons is obtained and discussed in Sec. III. In the Thomas-Fermi (TF) limit, corresponding to large condensates, the energy difference between the kink and nodeless ground states is found to be independent of the number of atoms. In order to better understand this result, the soliton energy is calculated perturbatively around the TF limit using a boundary-layer approach in Sec IV A. It is shown that the energy of the soliton state in the TF limit is identical to that of the ‘anomalous mode’ in the Bogoliubov spectrum. Perturbation theory in the weakly interacting limit, carried out in Sec. IV B, demonstrates that this result is particular to large condensates, however. This perturbative approach also yields significant insight into the criteria for the existence of Bogoliubov excitations with complex frequencies, discussed in Sec. IV C. The relationship between complex modes and dynamical instability of the kink is explored in Sec. V. In Sec. VI, we explore the possibility of transferring the condensate into a kink state by a field excitation. The results are summarized in Sec. VII.

## II theoretical background

At zero temperature, the dynamics of a single-component condensate are governed by the three-dimensional (3D) time-dependent GP equation:

$$i\frac{\psi (𝐫,t)}{t}=\left(\frac{1}{2}^2+V_{\mathrm{trap}}(𝐫)+V_\mathrm{H}(𝐫,t)\right)\psi (𝐫,t),$$
(1)
where the confining harmonic potential

$$V_{\mathrm{trap}}(𝐫)=\frac{1}{2}(x^2+\alpha ^2y^2+\beta ^2z^2)$$
(2)
is completely anisotropic in general; in recent experiments on solitons in a Bose condensate , the relevant parameters were $`\alpha \omega _y/\omega _x=\sqrt{2}`$ and $`\beta \omega _z/\omega _x=2`$. The Hartree (mean-field) potential is written

$$V_\mathrm{H}(𝐫,t)=4\pi \eta _0|\psi (𝐫,t)|^2;$$
(3)
choosing the condensate wavefunction $`\psi (𝐫,t)`$ to be normalized to unity yields the strength parameter $`\eta _0=aN_0/d_x`$, where $`a`$ is the atomic scattering length and $`N_0`$ is the total number of atoms. We assume a condensate composed of Na atoms, in which case $`a=52a_B2.75`$ nm in Bohr radii $`a_B`$ . The above three equations are written in reduced units, where the length scale is $`d_x=\sqrt{\mathrm{}/M\omega _x}`$, the time scale is $`T=2\pi /\omega _x`$, and the energy is given in units of $`\mathrm{}\omega _x`$, where $`\omega _x`$ is the angular trap frequency in the $`x`$ direction and $`M`$ is the atomic mass of Na.

The ground and self-consistent excited states of Bose-Einstein condensates are obtained by direct solution of the GP equation in imaginary time ($`\tau =it`$). At each imaginary time step, the chemical potential $`\mu H/N_0`$ (where $`H`$ is the GP operator on the right side of Eq. (1)\] is readjusted in order to preserve the norm of the wavefunction. Self-consistent excitations may be found numerically by relaxation of the GP equation toward equilibrium, subject either to special initial conditions (spatial variations of phase or amplitude ) or applied constraints (such as orthogonality to the ground state).

The initial wavefunction for the imaginary time propagation is a Gaussian $`\psi (𝐫,0)=f(𝐫)\mathrm{exp}\{\frac{1}{/}2(x^2+\alpha ^2y^2+\beta ^2z^2)\}`$ for small numbers of atoms $`N_010^5`$. For larger $`N_0`$ the kinetic energy contribution to the total energy becomes negligible, and the initial state is chosen to be proportional to the Thomas-Fermi (TF) expression $`f(𝐫)\sqrt{(\mu _{\mathrm{TF}}V_{\mathrm{trap}})/4\pi \eta _0}\mathrm{\Theta }(\mu _{\mathrm{TF}}V_{\mathrm{trap}})`$. The TF chemical potential is $`\mu _{\mathrm{TF}}=\frac{1}{/}2(15\alpha \beta \eta _0)^{2/5}`$ in units of $`\mathrm{}\omega _x`$ and $`\mathrm{\Theta }(x)`$ is unity when $`x`$ is positive and zero otherwise. The choice of initial state has no influence on the final result, but can improve the time required for numerical convergence. All stationary states without circulation can be classified by their reflection symmetry in the $`\widehat{x}`$, $`\widehat{y}`$, and $`\widehat{z}`$ directions. For convenience, wavefunctions that are odd under a reflection in one spatial direction $`\alpha =x,y,z`$ are labelled $`p_\alpha `$ and are referred to as ‘p-wave’. Similarly, the ‘d-wave’ states $`d_{\alpha \beta }`$, with $`\alpha ,\beta =x,y,z`$, have odd reflection symmetry in two directions $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$. In order to obtain p-wave or d-wave states, one may choose $`f(𝐫)x,y,z`$ or $`f(𝐫)xy,xz,yz`$, respectively. Since the nonlinear Hamiltonian (1) commutes with the parity operators, however, perhaps the simplest strategy is to block diagonalize the GP operator according to parity in each direction, and solve for the lowest energy state in each of the eight parity manifolds. For higher lying stationary configurations, the solution must be explicitly orthogonalized to lower-energy states during the imaginary time propagation.

We propagate the 3D time-dependent GP equation using three distinct techniques: a variable stepsize Runge-Kutta (RK) method , second-order differencing (SOD) , and real-space product formula (RSPF) . In the SOD and RK methods, the time propagation results from one or at most a few matrix-vector multiplies of the Hamiltonian onto a previously computed vector. The RSPF employs a split-operator approach which partitions the action of the kinetic energy matrix into a succession of $`2\times 2`$ matrix operations on a known vector. It should be noted that all of these time propagators are efficiently implemented on distributed-memory massively parallel computers.

The treatment of the kinetic energy operator forms the main difference in the implementation of the propagation techniques. The SOD and RSPF methods discretize the kinetic energy operator using the simplest three-point, central finite difference (FD) formula for the second derivative operator. In the RK method, the spatial wavefunction is expanded in a discrete variable representation (DVR)  based on Gauss-Hermite quadrature. The DVR has the advantage, shared also by the FD method, that the matrix elements of all local operators are diagonal and equal to their value on the spatial grid. The DVR kinetic energy operator is dense in each dimension compared with the FD approach; however, it also provides a much more accurate representation of the derivatives than does the simple FD approximation. All of the methods scale formally with the number of spatial grid points, although the prefactor is different for each. Grids of the order of 2003 points are used in the SOD and RSPF, while the DVR approach employs approximately 100 functions in each spatial direction.

## III stationary states

Using the diffusion form of Eq. (1) for the condensate wavefunction, the GP equation relaxes to the stationary state of interest. The chemical potential $`\mu `$ and free energy per particle $`E\mu \frac{1}{/}2V_\mathrm{H}/N_0`$ may be obtained as a function of the number of atoms, and the results are summarized in Tables I and II. The values of the chemical potential for the ground state agree to three significant figures with those reported earlier . The probability densities in the $`z=0`$ plane for $`p_x`$ and $`d_{xy}`$ dark soliton condensates with $`N_0=2^{10}=1024`$ are shown in Fig. 1. The line nodes, which are clearly visible as depressions in the condensate density, widen near the surface as the condensate density decreases and the healing length diverges.

If the GP equation is relaxed subject to orthogonality constraints with previous solutions, many additional stationary states may be found. The first s-wave excited state, with $`f(𝐫)=1`$ and constrained to be orthogonal to the ground state, has an ellipsoidal nodal surface centered about zero. The excited state with $`f(𝐫)=2x^21`$ and constrained to be orthogonal to the ground state, has two nodal surfaces which intersect the $`x`$ axis.

The numerical calculations indicate that the average energy per particle for a black soliton is independent of both geometry and particle number in the TF limit; this is in contrast with the energy per particle of an isolated vortex in a cylindrical trap, for example, which varies as $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_v(5/2R^2)\mathrm{ln}(R/\xi )`$ where $`R=(15\eta _0)^{1/5}`$ and $`\xi 1/R`$ are respectively the mean TF radius and the healing length in units of $`d_x`$ . For large $`N_0`$, the energy differences (both in the chemical potential and free energy) between the $`p_x`$ and ground states converge to a constant value of approximately $`0.7`$ in units of $`\mathrm{}\omega _x`$. The energy differences of the $`p_y`$ and $`p_z`$ states are simply scaled by $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$, respectively; i.e. the soliton energy is $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_s0.7`$ in units of $`\mathrm{}\omega _y`$ and $`\mathrm{}\omega _z`$. Similarly, the energies of the $`d_{\alpha \beta }`$ states are approximately $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_s0.7(\alpha +\beta )`$.

The energy of the black soliton relative to the ground state is close to the energy $`\mathrm{}\omega /\sqrt{2}`$ of the ‘anomalous mode’ in the Bogoliubov spectrum of a one-dimensional p-wave state in the TF limit . This excitation has positive energy but negative norm (or vice versa), and has been associated with the oscillation of a dark soliton in the trapped condensate at frequency $`\omega /\sqrt{2}`$ . In nonlinear systems, however, there is no direct relationship between the energy differences among self-consistent states and the collective excitations from these states; for example, the precession frequency (or anomalous mode) for an isolated vortex in a cylindrical TF condensate is not $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_v/\mathrm{}`$, but rather $`\frac{3}{/}5\mathrm{\Delta }E_v/\mathrm{}`$ . Indeed, as shown below, the energy of a black soliton displaced from the trap center is always smaller than $`\mathrm{}\omega /\sqrt{2}`$.

## IV Perturbative analysis

### A Thomas-Fermi limit

The soliton energy may be calculated using a boundary layer correction to the TF wavefunction . The $`p_x`$ state requires a plane of nodes at $`x_0=0`$, but in principle $`x_0`$ can take any value since an oscillating dark soliton becomes black at its classical turning point . The condensate density will have the TF form everywhere except in a small region near $`x_0`$, where the kinetic energy drives the wavefunction to zero.

In order to define a suitable perturbation parameter, it is convenient to further rescale the static GP equation (1), where the left side becomes $`\stackrel{~}{\mu }\psi (\stackrel{}{r})`$, as follows: $`\{x,y,z\}=R\{\stackrel{~}{x},\stackrel{~}{y}/\alpha ,\stackrel{~}{z}/\beta \}`$, $`\stackrel{~}{\mu }=\mu /\mathrm{}\omega _x=R^2/2`$, $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }_0=\eta _0\alpha \beta /R^5`$, and $`\psi ^2=\stackrel{~}{\psi }^2\alpha \beta /R^3`$. Now, the normalization of the wavefunction takes the form $`4\pi \stackrel{~}{\eta }_0=d^3\stackrel{~}{r}\stackrel{~}{\psi }^2`$. For a condensate in the TF limit with a soliton normal to the $`x`$-axis, one may neglect the kinetic energy contributions except in the $`x`$-direction. The rescaled GP equation then effectively has cylindrical symmetry:

$$\left[\frac{ϵ}{2}\frac{^2}{x^2}+\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{~}{r}^2+\stackrel{~}{\psi }^2\frac{1}{2}\right]\stackrel{~}{\psi }=0,$$
(4)
where $`ϵ=R^4`$ is small in the TF limit, and $`\stackrel{~}{r}^2=\stackrel{~}{x}^2+\stackrel{~}{y}^2+\stackrel{~}{z}^2=\stackrel{~}{x}^2+\stackrel{~}{\rho }^2`$.

In the outer (slowly-varying) region, one expands $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{\mathrm{out}}=\chi _0+ϵ\chi _1+\mathrm{}`$. The TF result is recovered to zeroth order in $`ϵ`$: $`\chi _0=\pm \sqrt{(1\stackrel{~}{r}^2)/2}`$. Of course, this solution is inconsistent with the boundary condition $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }(\stackrel{~}{x}=\stackrel{~}{x}_0)=0`$, implying the existence of a boundary layer near $`\stackrel{~}{x}\stackrel{~}{x}_0`$. In this region, the outer solution is asymptotically $`\chi _0\pm \sqrt{(1\stackrel{~}{\rho }^2\stackrel{~}{x}_0^2)/2}`$.

For the inner region it is preferable to define $`\stackrel{~}{x}\stackrel{~}{x}_0+\delta X`$, where the boundary-layer thickness is $`\delta 1`$ and $`|X|0`$ are the regions where the inner and outer solutions must match. Since the asymptotic behavior of the outer solution is known, the inner wavefunction may be expanded as $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{\mathrm{in}}=\pm \sqrt{(1\stackrel{~}{\rho }^2\stackrel{~}{x}_0^2)/2}\left[\mathrm{\Phi }_0+\delta \mathrm{\Phi }_1+\mathrm{}\right]`$. To lowest order in $`\delta `$, Eq. (4) becomes:

$$\left[\frac{ϵ}{\delta ^2}\frac{^2}{X^2}+\left(1\stackrel{~}{\rho }^2\stackrel{~}{x}_0^2\right)\left(1\mathrm{\Phi }_0^2\right)\right]\mathrm{\Phi }_0=0.$$
(5)
The ‘distinguished limit’ giving a nontrivial solution corresponds to $`\delta =\sqrt{ϵ}=R^2`$. When $`|X|0`$, $`\mathrm{\Phi }_01`$ giving a perfect asymptotic match. With the substitution $`X=Z/\sqrt{\frac{1}{/}2(1\stackrel{~}{\rho }^2\stackrel{~}{x}_0^2)}`$, Eq. (5) becomes the well-known equation for a dark soliton in the continuum $`\frac{1}{/}2\frac{d^2}{/}dZ^2\mathrm{\Phi }_0+\mathrm{\Phi }_0^3\mathrm{\Phi }_0=0`$, yielding the exact solution for the inner wavefunction $`\mathrm{\Phi }(X)=\mathrm{tanh}\left[X\sqrt{\frac{1}{/}2(1\stackrel{~}{\rho }^2\stackrel{~}{x}_0^2)}\right]`$.

The uniform solution for the wavefunction over all space may be written as $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{\mathrm{unif}}=\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{\mathrm{out}}+\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{\mathrm{in}}\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{\mathrm{over}}`$, where $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{\mathrm{over}}`$ is the solution in the overlap region $`|X|0`$:

$`\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{\mathrm{unif}}(\stackrel{~}{\rho },\stackrel{~}{x}_>^<)=\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{1\stackrel{~}{\rho }^2\stackrel{~}{x}^2}{2}}}+\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{1\stackrel{~}{\rho }^2\stackrel{~}{x}_0^2}{2}}}`$ (6)
$`\times \left\{\mathrm{tanh}\left[\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{1\stackrel{~}{\rho }^2\stackrel{~}{x}_0^2}{2}}}R^2(\stackrel{~}{x}\stackrel{~}{x}_0)\right]\pm 1\right\},`$ (7)
where the $`\stackrel{~}{x}_<`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{x}_>`$ correspond to $`\stackrel{~}{x}<\stackrel{~}{x}_0`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{x}>\stackrel{~}{x}_0`$, respectively. In principle, the chemical potential may now be found directly from the normalization condition $`4\pi \stackrel{~}{\eta }_0=d^3\stackrel{~}{r}\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{\mathrm{unif}}^2`$. In practice, however, the large number of cross terms resulting from squaring Eq. (7) makes this unnecessarily complicated. Rather, the integral over $`\stackrel{~}{x}`$ is split into three regions: (I) $`\sqrt{1\stackrel{~}{\rho }^2}\stackrel{~}{x}\stackrel{~}{x}_a`$ ($`\stackrel{~}{x}_a<\stackrel{~}{x}_0`$), (II) $`\stackrel{~}{x}_a\stackrel{~}{x}\stackrel{~}{x}_b`$ ($`\stackrel{~}{x}_b>\stackrel{~}{x}_0`$) or $`X_aXX_b`$ ($`X_a\mathrm{}`$ and $`X_b\mathrm{}`$), and (III) $`\stackrel{~}{x}_b\stackrel{~}{x}\sqrt{1\stackrel{~}{\rho }^2}`$. Since the inner and outer solutions are asymptotically equal in the overlap regions, the result cannot depend on the particular choices of $`\stackrel{~}{x}_a`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{x}_a`$. One readily obtains:

$$\stackrel{~}{\eta }_0=\frac{\alpha \beta \eta _0}{R^5}=\frac{1}{15}\frac{\sqrt{2}}{6R^2}\left(1\stackrel{~}{x}_0^2\right)^{3/2},$$
(8)
which may be inverted to yield the chemical potential for the soliton state

$`\stackrel{~}{\mu }_s`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mu _s}{\mathrm{}\omega _x}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(15\alpha \beta \eta _0\right)^{2/5}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left(1\stackrel{~}{x}_0^2\right)^{3/2}`$ (9)
$`=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{\mu }_{\mathrm{TF}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left(1\stackrel{~}{x}_0^2\right)^{3/2}.`$ (10)
The correction to the chemical potential in the TF limit is $`1/\sqrt{2}`$ when the soliton is at the origin $`\stackrel{~}{x}_0=0`$, corresponding to the p-wave state, and is zero when the soliton is at the surface of the cloud $`\stackrel{~}{x}_0=1`$. Since $`\mu =E/N`$, the energy per particle for the soliton is

$$\frac{E_s}{N_0}=\frac{5}{7}\mu _{\mathrm{TF}}+\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(1\stackrel{~}{x}_0^2\right)^{3/2}\mathrm{}\omega _x.$$

The corrections for $`\stackrel{~}{x}_0=0`$ agree with the numerical values, and are independent of both geometry and number at this level of approximation. Physically, the dark soliton has a constant energy as the number of atoms increases, because its area increases as $`R^2`$ while its width diminishes as $`\xi ^21/R^2`$ . A similar invariant is used as a measure of soliton stability in optical fibers . As the transverse soliton confinement becomes more appreciable (i.e. by increasing the frequencies $`\omega _y`$ and $`\omega _z`$), however, the kinetic energy in this direction will grow, and the low-order boundary-layer result will lose its validity.

Two views of a black soliton state defined by Eq. (7) are shown in Fig. 2. In the first, the density with a soliton displaced from the origin, $`x_0=3d_x`$, is shown along the $`x`$-axis, and is compared with the TF ground state solution. The condensate containing a notch soliton bulges slightly overall in order to conserve the total number of atoms; the radii for the TF and soliton states are $`d_x\sqrt{2\stackrel{~}{\mu }_{\mathrm{TF}}}`$ and $`d_x\sqrt{2\stackrel{~}{\mu }_s}`$, respectively. In the second view, the soliton state is shown as a density plot in the $`xy`$-plane. The boundary layer theory to lowest order captures the divergence of the healing length in the vicinity of the cloud surface. In actuality, a displaced soliton would most likely be curved in order for the nodal plane to intersect the cloud boundary at a surface normal; such curvature is found for travelling dark solitons  and for displaced vortices in rotating trapped condensates .

### B Low density limit: Energy differences and anomalous mode

The boundary layer analysis indicates that the energy of the self-consistent $`p_x`$ state in the TF limit is exactly equal to the frequency of the anomalous mode in the Bogoliubov spectrum. In order to determine whether this holds for all densities, it is useful to consider the opposite limit of small condensates where analytical results can be easily obtained.

The perturbation expansion for the time-independent GP equation (1) requires expanding the condensate wavefunction $`\psi =\psi _0+\lambda \psi _1`$ and chemical potential $`\stackrel{~}{\mu }=\stackrel{~}{\mu }_0+\lambda \stackrel{~}{\mu }_1`$ in powers of $`\lambda 4\pi \eta _0`$. The normalized unperturbed $`p_x`$ state is

$$\psi _0=\left(\frac{4\alpha \beta }{\pi ^3}\right)^{1/4}xe^{\left(x^2+\alpha y^2+\beta z^2\right)/2}$$
(11)
and $`\stackrel{~}{\mu }_0=\frac{1}{/}2\left(3+\alpha +\beta \right)`$. Making use of the readily derived expression for a purely real condensate wavefunction

$$\stackrel{~}{\mu }_1=d^3r\psi _0^4=\frac{3}{8\pi }\sqrt{\frac{\alpha \beta }{2\pi }},$$
(12)
one immediately obtains the first order correction to the chemical potential

$$\mu \left(\stackrel{~}{\mu }_0+\frac{3}{2}\sqrt{\frac{\alpha \beta }{2\pi }}\eta _0\right)\mathrm{}\omega _x.$$
(13)
The low-lying excitations $`\epsilon `$ may be obtained using the Bogoliubov equations

$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{/}}2^2+V_{\mathrm{trap}}+2V_\mathrm{H}\stackrel{~}{\mu }\right)uV_\mathrm{H}v`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{\epsilon }u`$ (14)
$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{/}}2^2+V_{\mathrm{trap}}+2V_\mathrm{H}\stackrel{~}{\mu }\right)vV_\mathrm{H}u`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{\epsilon }v,`$ (15)
where $`u=u(𝐫)`$ and $`v=v(𝐫)`$. These equations may be written in the more convenient form $`\left(H_0+\lambda H_1\right)\psi =\stackrel{~}{\epsilon }\mathrm{\Psi }`$, where

$`H_0`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}\frac{1}{/}2^2+V_{\mathrm{trap}}\stackrel{~}{\mu }_0& 0\\ 0& \frac{1}{/}2^2V_{\mathrm{trap}}+\stackrel{~}{\mu }_0\end{array}\right),`$ (16)
$`H_1`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}2\psi _0^2\stackrel{~}{\mu }_1& \psi _0^2\\ \psi _0^2& \stackrel{~}{\mu }_12\psi _0^2\end{array}\right),\mathrm{\Psi }=\left(\begin{array}{c}u\\ v\end{array}\right).`$ (17)
For arbitrary trap anisotropy, there are always two degenerate modes with energy $`\stackrel{~}{\epsilon }=\epsilon /\mathrm{}\omega _x=1`$ in the unperturbed $`p_x`$ state; these are the dipole and anomalous modes with positive and negative unit norms, respectively:

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_1`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{c}1\\ 0\end{array}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{\alpha \beta }{4\pi ^3}}\right)^{1/4}\left(2x^21\right)e^{\left(x^2+\alpha y^2+\beta z^2\right)/2},`$ (18)
$`\mathrm{\Psi }_2`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{c}0\\ 1\end{array}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{\alpha \beta }{\pi ^3}}\right)^{1/4}e^{\left(x^2+\alpha y^2+\beta z^2\right)/2}.`$ (19)
Note that the ‘ground state’ is the p-wave condensate wavefunction given in Eq. (11). The degeneracy between these states is lifted by the perturbing Hamiltonian $`H_1`$, and the first-order corrections to the eigenvalues follow directly from the diagonalization of the resulting nonsymmetric $`g\times g`$ matrix

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_i|H_1|\mathrm{\Psi }_j,i,j=1,2,\mathrm{},g,$$
(20)
where $`g`$ is the degeneracy. Direct application of Eq. (20) with $`g=2`$ yields no finite-number correction for the dipole mode, as expected, while the energy of the anomalous mode becomes

$$\epsilon _a\left(1\frac{1}{4}\sqrt{\frac{\alpha \beta }{2\pi }}\eta _0\right)\mathrm{}\omega _x.$$
(21)
Evidently, the value of the anomalous mode in the $`p_x`$ state is not generally equal to the difference (12) in the chemical potentials between the p-wave and s-wave states

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\mu =\left(1+\frac{3}{2}\sqrt{\frac{\alpha \beta }{2\pi }}\eta _0\right)\mathrm{}\omega _x.$$
(22)
Indeed, the perturbative corrections do not even have the same sign.

### C Low density limit: Complex modes

It is instructive to consider the special case where all of the trapping frequencies are equal, $`\alpha =\beta =1`$. In this geometry, according to Ref. , an infinitesimal condensate number gives rise to pure imaginary frequencies. Assuming a $`p_x`$ state, one may define $`\rho ^2y^2+z^2`$ and block diagonalize the Hamiltonian into states of definite angular momentum $`L_x=m\mathrm{}`$. In the $`m=0`$ manifold, in addition to the dipole (18) and anomalous (19) excitations, there is a third mode with $`\stackrel{~}{\epsilon }=1`$:

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_3=\left(\begin{array}{c}1\\ 0\end{array}\right)\frac{1}{\pi ^{3/4}}\left(1\rho ^2\right)e^{\left(x^2+\rho ^2\right)/2}.$$
(23)
Diagonalizing the resulting $`3\times 3`$ matrix (20), one again obtains no correction for the dipole mode. The remaining degenerate modes, however, split into complex conjugate pairs with energies

$$\epsilon =\left[1\frac{1}{8\sqrt{2\pi }}\left(3\pm i\sqrt{7}\right)\eta _0\right]\mathrm{}\omega _x.$$
(24)
These results are compared with numerical calculations for a spherical trap in Fig. 3. The numerics are extremely close to the expression (24) for small $`\eta _0`$, but show deviations by $`\eta _00.1`$.

The corresponding complex eigenvectors both have zero norm $`d^3r\left(|u_i|^2|v_i|^2\right)d^3r\mathrm{\Psi }_i^{}\sigma _3\mathrm{\Psi }_i=0`$, and satisfy the boundary conditions $`u,v0`$ as $`𝐫\mathrm{}`$:

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_2^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_1\sqrt{2}\mathrm{\Psi }_2{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{2}}{4}}\left(1i\sqrt{7}\right)\mathrm{\Psi }_3;`$ (25)
$`\mathrm{\Psi }_3^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_1\sqrt{2}\mathrm{\Psi }_2{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{2}}{4}}\left(1+i\sqrt{7}\right)\mathrm{\Psi }_3.`$ (26)
The condensate coupling between the axial and radial modes gives rise to modes with frequencies that are complex, rather than purely imaginary as assumed in . It is important to note that the existence of complex Bogoliubov excitations does not violate the general condition on the quasiparticle amplitudes :

$$\left(\epsilon _i\epsilon _j^{}\right)d^3r\left(u_j^{}u_iv_j^{}v_i\right)=0.$$
(27)
If $`i=j`$ and $`\epsilon _i`$ is complex, the corresponding particle-hole eigenfunction must have zero norm.

For any given number of condensate atoms $`N_0`$ in a cylindrically symmetric trap, there is a critical anisotropy $`\omega _\rho /\omega _x=\alpha `$ such that all the Bogoliubov excitations of the p-wave state become purely real . Indeed, in the limit $`N_00`$ considered here, any $`\alpha >1`$ is sufficient to ensure the disappearance of the complex modes because the degeneracy between the anomalous and transverse modes is broken by the anisotropy.

For $`\alpha <1`$, complex modes can arise in many $`m`$ states. In this regime, there exist numerous additional unperturbed anomalous modes with energy $`\stackrel{~}{\epsilon }_{nm}=1\alpha (2n+m)0`$ but negative norm (since $`u=0`$) that are degenerate with eigenstates having energy $`\stackrel{~}{\epsilon }_{n^{}m^{}}=\alpha (2n^{}+m^{})1\stackrel{~}{\epsilon }_{nm}`$ and positive norm ($`v=0`$). It is interesting to determine if the nonlinear coupling among these degenerate modes gives rise to complex excitations even in the limit of vanishing transverse confinement, $`\alpha 0`$. Consider the $`m=0`$ manifold and $`\alpha =1/q`$ with even integer $`q\mathrm{}`$. Degeneracies occur when the axial quantum numbers for both the $`u`$ and $`v`$ are zero and the radial numbers $`n_u=\frac{q}{/}2+p`$ and $`n_v=\frac{q}{/}2p`$, respectively, where $`0p\frac{q}{/}2`$. When $`p=\frac{q}{/}2`$, the unperturbed energy is $`\stackrel{~}{\epsilon }_0=1`$, but since the terms in Eq. (20) involving $`\mathrm{\Psi }_3L_q^{(0)}/q!`$ will be smaller than the other terms by a factor $`1/q!`$, this complex mode vanishes in the limit $`q\mathrm{}`$. In the opposite limit $`p=0`$, the unperturbed energy is $`\stackrel{~}{\epsilon }_0=0`$, and the quasiparticle amplitudes become

$`u=v`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{L_{q/2}^{(0)}(\rho /\sqrt{q})}{\pi ^{3/4}\sqrt{q}(q/2)!}}e^{(\rho ^2/q+x^2)/2}`$ (28)
$``$ $`J_0(\sqrt{2}\rho )e^{x^2/2},q\mathrm{}.`$ (29)
Note that this $`u=v`$ solution has even $`x`$-symmetry and therefore does not correspond to the Goldstone mode. The condensate wavefunction $`\psi `$ in Eq. (11) becomes independent of $`\rho `$, and the $`2\times 2`$ matrix (20) immediately yields the imaginary eigenvalues

$$\epsilon =\pm i\sqrt{\frac{3\pi }{2}}n_0ad_x^2\mathrm{}\omega _x,$$
(30)
where $`n_0=N_0/𝒱`$ is the condensate density in the system volume $`𝒱`$. The same solution is found for all values of $`m`$ in this limit. Thus, even in the absence of transverse confinement, the excitation spectrum of the $`p_x`$ state contains complex modes, in agreement with the results of Ref. .

Additional insight into the limit of transverse deconfinement may be gained by assuming translational invariance in $`\widehat{x}`$ and $`\widehat{y}`$ at the outset. With the axial quantum numbers zero, the unperturbed energies for the $`u`$ and $`v`$ become $`\stackrel{~}{\epsilon }_0^u=\frac{1}{/}2\left(k_{y}^{u}{}_{}{}^{2}+k_{z}^{u}{}_{}{}^{2}\right)1`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\epsilon }_0^v=1\frac{1}{/}2\left(k_{y}^{v}{}_{}{}^{2}+k_{z}^{v}{}_{}{}^{2}\right)`$. When these are degenerate, the off-diagonal couplings are non-zero only if $`k_y^u=k_y^v=k_y`$ and $`k_z^u=k_z^v=k_z`$, enforcing the condition $`\stackrel{~}{\epsilon }_0^u=\stackrel{~}{\epsilon }_0^v=0`$ and $`k_y^2+k_z^2=k^2=2`$. Note that the unperturbed energy $`\epsilon _0=0`$ and relevant wavevector $`|k|=\sqrt{2}`$ are the same as in the infinitely weak trap limit considered above. The perturbing matrix (20) consists of an infinite number of identical $`2\times 2`$ submatrices for a given value of $`k_x`$ and $`k_y=\sqrt{2k_x^2}`$. Each submatrix corresponds to a different value of $`m`$ in the cylindrical case considered above, and yields the imaginary modes

$$\epsilon _k=\pm i\sqrt{\frac{3\pi }{2}}n_0ad_x^2\frac{\mathrm{}^2k^2}{2M}=\pm i\sqrt{\frac{3\pi }{2}}n_0ad_x^2\mathrm{}\omega _x,$$
(31)
in agreement with the result (30).

Summarizing the results of this section, in the limit of weak particle interactions or low condensate densities, we have found that the anomalous mode frequency does not correspond to the frequency difference between the excited and ground state energies. In addition, solitons are unstable in a sufficiently loose trap. For solitons oriented in the radial direction of a cylindrically symmetric trap, imaginary eigenvalues appear in the Bogoliubov excitation spectrum when the axial frequency begins to exceed the radial frequency. These modes persist in the limit of vanishing radial confinement.

## V Complex excitations and snake instability

The explicit connection between the existence of excitations with complex frequencies and the dynamic instability of the p-wave state remains unclear. This ‘snake instability’ is well known in the nonlinear optical community , and is associated with the undulation of the nodal plane in the radial direction. It has been conjectured that the complex modes are responsible for the snake instability ; however, these modes have zero norm by definition (27), so it is not clear how they can become occupied. It is important, therefore, to determine if the wavelength of the undulation matches the spatial dependence of complex modes in the Bogoliubov spectrum, and if the snake instability disappears when the excitation frequencies become purely real.

The low-lying complex modes for a stationary p-wave condensate are determined numerically using the Bogoliubov equations (15). For ease of computation, the trap is assumed to be cylindrically symmetric, $`\rho ^2=y^2+z^2`$, with the condensate wavefunction odd under reflection in axial direction $`\widehat{x}`$. In Fig. 4 are shown the complex modes in the excitation spectrum as a function of radial confinement, for a trap with axial frequency $`\omega _x=2\pi 50`$ rad/s containing a condensate with $`10^4`$ atoms. All complex modes have even axial parity. For relatively weak trap anisotropy $`\omega _\rho /\omega _x\alpha 3`$, there are several complex modes with angular momentum projections $`m=0,1,2`$. As $`\alpha `$ increases, these modes disappear in turn until only one purely imaginary mode with $`m=1`$ remains. Its magnitude reaches a maximum at $`\alpha 6`$, and vanishes at $`\alpha 10`$. A similar removal of the imaginary modes can be effected by decreasing the particle number at fixed geometry.

For large anisotropy $`\alpha 1`$, the stability criterion is expected to be approximately $`\alpha _c\stackrel{~}{\mu }/2.4`$ , where $`\stackrel{~}{\mu }=\mu /\mathrm{}\omega _x`$. In the TF approximation, $`\alpha _c7.6`$ for the geometry considered above. The larger value required here is due to deviations from the TF limit; the radial wavefunction approaches a Gaussian when the transverse confinement is strong. When $`\alpha =10`$, the TF chemical potential is $`\mu _{\mathrm{TF}}=23.88\mathrm{}\omega _x`$ while the actual value is determined to be $`\mu 26.89\mathrm{}\omega _x`$.

The dynamic stability of dark soliton excited states is investigated by propagation of the GP equation in real time for an extended period. In the absence of an applied perturbation, the self-consistent states should remain absolutely stationary. In practice, however, numerical noise inherent in the propagation algorithm is magnified by the nonlinearity. Although the norm and chemical potential are conserved to one part in $`10^{12}`$ and $`10^{15}`$ respectively during the numerical propagation, the kink state eventually decays. In order to make contact with the complex excitation frequencies in Fig. 4, we considered the cases $`\alpha =1`$, 6, and 10. For the first two cases, the modes with the largest imaginary component are $`\epsilon =0.63i\mathrm{}\omega _x`$ and $`1.74i\mathrm{}\omega _x`$; the p-wave states were found to decay in real time in approximately 160 ms and 40 ms, respectively. The third case with $`\alpha =10`$ remained stable for the longest propagation time considered, 200 ms. Thus, the lifetime of the p-wave state appears qualitatively to scale with the inverse of the largest imaginary mode in the excitation spectrum.

As illustrated in Figs. 5 and 6, there is a close similarity between the spatial variation of the eigenmode with the largest imaginary component and that of the soliton nodal plane during the initial decay. For a p-wave state in a sperical trap, such as the one considered above but with $`10^5`$ atoms, the relevant excitation is purely imaginary with an energy $`ϵ=2.16i\mathrm{}\omega _x`$, and $`|u|=|v|`$ (as is the case for all pure imaginary modes). Fig. 5 shows the corresponding radial and axial dependences of the complex $`u`$ Bogoliubov amplitude. The quasiparticle amplitudes are highly localized axially, but oscillate radially within the soliton nodal plane. It is interesting to note that the imaginary components of the excitation energies tend to decrease as the number of radial nodes increases; this behavior is due to the effective negative kinetic energy of the dark soliton , and is reminiscent of internal waves at the interface between layers in stratified fluid mixtures .

In Fig. 6, snaphots of the snake instability are shown for a $`p_y`$-wave state in a spherical trap \[for convenience, the axis perpendicular to the nodal line is taken to be along $`\widehat{y}`$, the vertical direction in Fig. 6(a)-(c)\]. The GP equation is solved on a Cartesian mesh with no parity restrictions. After approximately 40 ms of real time propagation, the black soliton begins to undulate. The spatial variations are symmetric about the $`y`$-axis, originating near the center and propagating outwards. The overall shape follows closely that of the largest $`u`$ amplitude shown in Fig. 5: the two radial nodes of this imaginary excitation correspond to stationary points in the soliton bending. At an intermediate time, Fig. 6(e), the soliton has decayed into two concentric vortex rings whose cores are located at these nodes. The outer vortex ring decays rapidly (by 75 ms) to the condensate surface, where it shrinks considerably, as shown in Fig. 6(f); the inner ring was found to remain stable for much longer times. The vortex rings are barely visible in the integrated densities shown in Fig. 6(a)-(c), so we expect the experimental observation of these intriguing features using standard absorption imaging to be a challenge. The decay of the soliton into vortex rings produces a large number of density oscillations, which are required in order to conserve the total energy of the system and which are undamped in the present formalism. At long times, these oscillations are most evident at the condensate surface, giving rise to the bright halo in Fig. 6(f).

It is interesting to investigate the snake instability for parameters relevant to recent experiments on dark solitons in trapped condensates . Fig. 7 shows the breakup of a black soliton in a completely anisotropic trap containing one million Na atoms. The undulations are already pronounced by 12 ms, and radiate outwards from the soliton center as found above. Unlike the spherically symmetric condensate shown in Fig. 6, however, the soliton does not decay into concentric vortex rings far from its center, but rather into a series of approximately evenly spaced curved vortex lines in the direction of weakest confinement (taken to be $`\widehat{x}`$). The results imply that the largest imaginary mode in the Bogoliubov excitation spectrum has an energy of $`6\mathrm{}\omega _x`$ and has 14 nodes along $`\widehat{x}`$. At longer times, the innermost two vortex rings make contact with one another, and subsequently detach into a vortex line and a ring. The simulations indicate a rich dynamics among quantized vortices in these systems that are only beginning to be explored .

## VI Field excitation

Several techniques have been proposed for the experimental production of dark solitons in trapped condensates, including adiabatic Raman transitions to the p-wave state , preparation of the condensate in a superposition of two internal states , collisions between two separate condensates , and phase imprinting ; the last approach was recently implemented experimentally . For small particle interactions, the self-consistent excited states (such as a p-wave or d-wave condensate with at least one stationary dark soliton) approach the non-interacting single-particle excitations of the harmonic trap. In this regime, it might be possible to transfer most of the condensate into a soliton state by applying an external field resonant with the energy difference between the ground and excited self-consistent states.

We have attempted to excite the $`d_{xy}`$ dark soliton state for a small condensate containing $`N_0=1024`$ atoms in a completely anisotropic trap, shown in Fig. 1(b). The field excitation is modeled by a large-amplitude time-dependent spatial perturbation in the GP equation (1) given by $`V_{\mathrm{add}}(𝐫,t)=A(t)xy\mathrm{cos}(\omega _pt)`$, where the amplitude $`A(t)`$ is $`25\%`$ of a trap energy $`\mathrm{}\omega _x`$ and includes a smooth turn on and turn off as a function of time. The probe frequency is set at $`\omega _p=2.06`$, which is the separation in chemical potential of the ground and first $`d_{xy}`$ state (cf. Table II).

The time-dependent probability density in the $`z=0`$ plane is shown in Fig. 8 with snapshots at $`t=T_p`$, $`4T_p`$, $`7T_p`$, and $`10T_p`$, where $`T_p=2\pi /\omega _p0.5T`$. At $`t=T_p`$, the wavefunction overlap with the ground state is $`0.98`$ and with the $`d_{xy}`$ state is $`0.01`$. Until $`t=4T_p`$, the wavefunction overlap with the ground state decreases monotonically to $`0.57`$, while the overlap with the $`d_{xy}`$ state increases to a maximum of $`0.25`$. Thereafter, as illustrated at times $`t=7T_p`$ and $`t=10T_p`$, the wavefunction overlaps with both the ground and this particular dark soliton state decrease. While the perturbing potential is not able to yield a $`d_{xy}`$ state, the last image in Fig. 8 at $`t=10T_p`$ shows the formation of a number of depressions in the probability density at the very edge of the condensate, corresponding to multiple vortices with both senses of circulation.

The inability of a field excitation to produce dark solitons in not surprising, in light of the snake instabilities discussed in Sec. V. Dark solitons are unstable against the formation of vortices under ideal conditions, and are increasingly unstable in the presence of an external perturbation. Nevertheless, applying a very large amplitude perturbation may be a viable alternative approach for the formation of vortices in systems with much larger condensate densities; this possibility remains for future work.

## VII conclusions

In summary, self-consistent ground and excited states of a condensate in an anisotropic harmonic trap are calculated by direct solution of the time-dependent GP equation in three dimensions. The energy of a dark soliton at the center of the trap, relative to the true ground state, is found to be independent of both the number of atoms and the trap geometry in the TF limit, with a value equal to the soliton oscillation frequency. In the weakly interacting limit, however, the energy of the anomalous mode does not equal the energy of the dark soliton. In both limits, the low-lying Bogoliubov excitation spectrum of p-wave states is found to contain modes with complex frequencies, which may be removed by strong trap confinement in the soliton plane or by decreasing the condensate density. These complex modes are shown to give rise to the snake instability of the solitons observed in real time propagation of the GP equation. In extended trap geometries, the solitons are found to decay into vortex lines and rings at long times, imposing constraints on the ability to generate and observe these intriguing excitations in current experimental geometries.

###### Acknowledgements.

The authors are grateful to G. M. Bruun, P. Colarusso, P. S. Julienne, W. P. Reinhardt, and J. Simsarian for stimulating discussions, and to P. Ketcham for his assistance in generating the color figures. This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation (MSP), and by the U.S. Office of Naval Research (DLF and CWC). Part of the computational work was carried out at the National Energy Research Supercomputer Center at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Work (LAC) performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy through the Los Alamos National Laboratory.


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# Local electronic properties of single wall nanotube circuits measured by conducting-tip AFM

## Abstract

We use conducting-tip atomic force microscopy (AFM) to measure local electronic properties of single wall carbon nanotube (SWNT) circuits on insulating substrates. When a voltage is applied to the tip and AFM feedback is used to position the tip, images formed from the tip-sample tunnel current have single tube resolution (near 1 nm diameter), more than an order of magnitude better than simultaneously acquired topographic AFM images. By finding points where the tip-sample current is zero, it is possible to measure the electrochemical potential within the circuit, again with nanometer resolution. Such measurements provide compelling evidence that nanotubes within a bundle have only weak electronic coupling. Finally the AFM tip is used as a local electrostatic gate, and the gating action can be correlated with the structure of the SWNT bundle sample. This technique should be useful for a broad range of circuits containing SWNTs and other molecules.

Single wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs)  are a fascinating class of molecules whose electronic properties are exquisitely sensitive to local structural, mechanical, and electrostatic perturbations. For example, a slight change in the wrapping of the constituent graphene sheet opens an energy gap of 0.6 eV in the band structure of a previously metallic 1.4 nm diameter nanotube . It was predicted theoretically  and recently demonstrated in experiment that defects, impurities, and mechanical deformation can lead to a rich variety of functional devices such as rectifying diodes  and double quantum dots . Coupled with recent progress in Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) manipulation of SWNTs  and multi-walled nanotubes , these results imply that it may soon be possible to engineer and fabricate single-nanotube molecular devices.

Methods to probe the local electronic properties of SWNT circuits are needed to unravel the important design principles. Conventional transport measurements characterize nanotube circuits as a whole, with no local information. Scanning tunnel microscopy (STM) and scanning tunnel spectroscopy (STS), in contrast, give detailed local information about the electronic structure  of individual nanotubes and SWNT bundles. These have not been applied to nanotube circuits because the tip-sample tunnel current, used for z-position feedback, drops to zero over an insulating substrate, causing the tip to “crash” into the sample.

In this work, we marry the strengths of these techniques and use conducting tip Atomic Force Microscopy (CT-AFM) to inspect and make the first measurements of the local electronic properties of SWNT bundles in circuits with nanometer-scale resolution. In contrast to earlier work , we use non-contact AFM to probe delicate SWNT samples that may not tolerate the high forces associated with contact-mode AFM. We make the following observations: First, CT-AFM tunnel current images of SWNTs in circuits can have 1 nm resolution, much better than that of standard AFM. Second, we measure the local voltage within a SWNT bundle and obtain compelling evidence that nanotubes within the bundle are only weakly coupled electrically, as predicted by theory . We also find that the resistance of two electrical contacts to an individual SWNT bundle in a circuit can vary considerably, a possibility that was not considered in earlier experiments. Finally, we demonstrate that the conducting AFM tip can be used as a local gate of the SWNT circuit, and we correlate the strength of the local gating with the bundle structure. These encouraging first results indicate that tapping mode CT-AFM is likely to play a key role in the development of functional electronic devices based on SWNTs and other molecular species.

Samples for these experiments are SWNT circuits on silicon wafers with a 300 nm oxide layer. SWNTs are made by laser ablation , and the as-grown material dispersed in dimethylformamide (to give small bundles with diameter below 3 nm) or isopropanol (bundle diameter near 10 nm). For some experiments (e.g., Fig. 1) Cr/Au electrodes are patterned by electron beam lithography and then drops of SWNT solution spin-coated onto the substrate, dispersing nanotubes that contact the electrodes at random. In other experiments (Figs. 2 and 3), SWNTs are first dispersed as above then located by AFM, and electron beam lithography is used to pattern electrodes that connect bundles to large contact pads.

The AFM we use is based on a vibrating quartz “needle sensor” (Omicron Instruments) whose mechanical oscillation (amplitude of 1 - 2 nm, tip-sample force of a few nanonewtons ) is detected electrically. Conducting AFM tips (coated with tungsten carbide or doped diamond) are attached with conducting epoxy to the end of the needle sensor using a micromanipulator. All measurements are performed under ambient lab conditions.

AFM image resolution is typically limited by the tip radius to 10 nm or more, so small features like single tubes in a bundle are not resolved. In contrast, the exponential distance dependence of the tunnel current gives STM of SWNTs much higher (even atomic) resolution . STM samples must conduct everywhere, but with CT-AFM, we can apply a voltage between the tip and sample, use the mechanical force signal for feedback, and create an image from the tip-sample tunnel current. With this technique, we have previously achieved near-atomic resolution images of SWNT bundles lying on a gold substrate .

Here we extend the approach and use this imaging mode to examine a SWNT bundle electrically connected to a single electrode on an otherwise insulating substrate. The upper inset to Fig. 1 is the AFM topographic image showing the SWNT bundle and the gold electrode; individual tubes within the bundle are not resolved. The lower inset is the simultaneously obtained current signal with the tip biased at $`2`$ V and the gold electrode grounded. As found earlier , considerably more current flows from the AFM tip to the nanotubes (which are soft and deform under pressure from the tip) than to the harder gold electrode. In the expanded image (tip bias of $`1`$ V), single tubes are clearly resolved within the bundle, a resolution enhancement we ascribe to the tunnel current’s exponential sensitivity to tip-sample separation. We have found that this enhanced resolution imaging mode is an excellent tool for inspecting nanometer-scale circuits, even on substrates where surface roughness would hinder the detection of nanometer-size objects by conventional AFM.

With a related approach we measure the voltage inside a nanotube circuit (Fig. 2). Figure 2(a) is a topographic AFM image of a 8 nm high SWNT bundle (blue) connected to two gold electrodes (yellow) on a SiO2 substrate (purple). A potential difference of $`0.6`$ V exists between the two electrodes, creating a transport current of 1 $`\mu `$A along the bundle. The AFM tip is biased at an intermediate voltage ($`0.45`$ V), the mechanical force signal is used as feedback, and we image the tip-sample current (Fig. 2(b)). When the local voltage in the circuit is greater than the tip voltage, current flows from the sample to the tip (blue); when the tip voltage is larger, current flows from the tip to the sample (red). Points where the local voltage equals the tip voltage and zero current flows can be located with a spatial resolution of just a few nanometers. Figure 2(b) demonstrates the intriguing fact that regions of different potential coexist along the bundle cross-section. Images with similar structure are frequently obtained in this AFM mode and are completely stable when the scan direction is reversed, so we conclude that this is not an artifact associated with sample topography. Such images provide compelling evidence that current flow is not uniform within the bundle; instead the current carrying path meanders through the bundle (predominantly confined to metallic tubes), and tubes in the bundle are only weakly coupled electronically. This is expected behavior for bundles that consist of different species of SWNTs , as is believed to be the case for samples produced by either laser ablation or carbon arc. Methods to overcome weak coupling between neighboring nanotubes will be needed to realize proposed applications of SWNTs or SWNT bundles as nanoelectronic interconnects.

In some circuits the contact resistance to a bundle is much larger than the intrinsic bundle resistance, so we measure nearly a constant voltage along the full bundle length of about 1 $`\mu `$m. We often find that the bundle voltage is almost equal to that of one of the two contacts: we conclude that the contact resistances differ strongly (by as much as a factor of 10), a possibility that has not been considered in earlier experiments. In other circuits, the contact resistance can be so small that voltage changes within the bundle are resolved, as seen in Fig. 2. This technique enables future experiments to create detailed maps of the voltage profile within SWNT circuits for comparison to predictions for transport within these nearly ideal one-dimensional systems. Since the insulating substrate contributes no signal with our approach, it may have significant advantages for this application over related methods that probe local voltages through charge interactions (e.g., electrostatic force microscopy (EFM) ), where the substrate dielectric response contributes to the measured image.

The CT-AFM tip can be used as a local stimulus for the SWNT circuit, as well as a local probe as described above. In conventional transport measurements, individual semiconducting nanotubes exhibit a strong field effect due to a nearby gate voltage , as do SWNT bundles where semiconducting tubes carry a large fraction of the current. In contrast, almost no field effect is observed for metallic nanotubes  or bundles that are heavily doped by exposure to potassium or other elements . We use the conducting AFM tip as a scanned local gate  of a bundle and find that the gating action is inhomogeneous and correlated with bundle structure.

For this experiment, the tip-sample force is small, so the tip acts as a capacitively coupled local gate, and no tunnel current flows from the tip to the sample. Figure 3(a) is a topographic AFM image of a bundle (blue) connected to two gold electrodes (yellow). For most of its length, the bundle has a diameter of 8 nm, but an expanded image (Fig. 3(b)) shows that the bundle narrows at the point marked by the arrow to just 1.5 nm, the diameter of a single tube. A bias voltage drives current through the circuit which is used as the image signal while the conducting AFM tip (biased at -2 V) is scanned above the sample (Fig. 3(c)). A superimposed contour map shows the bundle topography. Over most of the image there is no field effect, indicating that in regions where the bundle has diameter is near 8 nm, current is carried by one or more metallic nanotubes, which are not sensitive to electric field. When the tip is within 30 nm of the narrow region, however, the current increases by nearly a factor of two. The most likely explanation is that in this 1.5 nm diameter region where one or just a few nanotubes contribute to transport, a large fraction or even all of the current is carried by semiconducting SWNTs, which display a “p-type” response to the gate voltage (i.e., the majority carriers are holes, so a negative gate voltage leads to increased current) . The spatial resolution is of order 30 nm, which we ascribe to AFM tip curvature and not the much smaller tip-sample separation of 1 - 5 nm. When a positive voltage is applied to the tip (Fig. 3(d)), we make a surprising observation: we expect to find only a current decrease, complementary to the image of Fig. 3(c), but instead observe a small region with weak “n-type” behavior (yellow) right next to a p-type region (blue). At this point we can not explain this last finding; more experiments are needed to determine whether this is characteristic of a naturally occurring p-n junction  or some other nanotube structure.

In conclusion, we have developed hybrid scanning probe modes to inspect and characterize SWNT circuits on insulating substrates. The ability to pass a tunnel current between tip and sample in tapping-mode AFM makes it possible to image functioning circuits with 1 nm resolution, an order of magnitude better than is achieved with conventional AFM. The tunnel current also enables the determination of the voltage at specific points with resolution of a few nanometers. Finally, the tip can be used as a local gate of the circuit, and the gating action correlates with sample structure with resolution limited by AFM tip curvature. In the future we plan to apply these techniques to more intricate nanotube circuits, and circuits containing other types of electrically active molecules.

The high-quality nanotube material used in this work was provided by the Smalley group at Rice University. We acknowledge useful discussions with David Bergeron, James Hone, Charles Kane, Jay Kikkawa, Jacques Lefebvre, and Eugene Mele. This work was supported by the NSF under award number DMR-9802560 and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (W.C.). A.T.J. recognizes the support of the Packard Foundation and an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship.


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# Spin half in classical general relativity

## 1 Introduction

Spin half is normally regarded as a non-classical property peculiar to quantum theory. Objects with spin-half are represented by spinor fields. The most distinctive, indeed the characteristic, property of a spinor is the way it transforms under a rotation. In particular the fact that a rotation of space coordinates by an angle of $`2\pi `$ is not an identity operation whereas a rotation by $`4\pi `$ is an identity operation. This work offers an explanation of why spinor fields are needed to represent fermions. The explanation is based entirely upon classical general relativity.

Many authors have explored the relation between general relativity and quantum theory, some attempt to apply quantum theory to curved spacetime and non-trivial spacetime topologies by adding quantum fields to the underlying manifold. Such an approach with spin-half particles requires the manifold to be endowed with a spinor field; Geroch  describes the constraints on the topology and orientability of spacetime in order to admit a spinor field. This work does not attempt to add or construct a spinor field on a curved spacetime. Instead it attempts to explain why we need to use spinor fields (on flat spacetime) to model some particles. The constraints imposed by Geroch do not apply.

In quantum theory, a wavefunction, or quantum field, is used to calculate the probabilistic results of experiments which detect a particle. This is certainly true. To go beyond this pragmatic view requires an interpretation of quantum theory (see for example Ballentine  or Isham  for a discussion). To regard the wavefunction itself as being the particle has substantial conceptual and practical problems. But if the particle and wavefunction are indeed different, then a model or description of an elementary particle is required. One way of modelling an elementary particle is as a region of space-time with non-trivial topology - a geon  which can be described using classical general relativity. The wavefunction would still be the tool for calculating the results of experiments but its role would be that of a probability function. It is important to keep in mind this distinction between the particle itself and the quantum fields used to calculate the results of experiments.

The complex fields used to represent particles need to have, amongst other attributes, the same transformation properties as the particles that they represent. Particles with zero spin and spherical symmetry are represented by a complex scalar field. Spin-1 particles with the transformation properties of a vector are represented by vector fields. Note that vectors and spinors are defined by their transformation properties under rotations. An elementary particle (or indeed any object) may have the transformation properties of a vector \- a pencil is a good approximation. The vector would describe its orientation, and a rotation of either the object or the coordinate system would be correctly modelled by the vector. By contrast the quantum mechanical wavefunction defines a vector (or scalar) at each point in space (a vector field) and the components would be complex numbers - this is what quantum theory requires to compute the probabilistic results of experiments. In a similar way there is a distinction between a single object having the transformation properties of a spinor and a spinor field which is used by quantum mechanics to represent such an object.

Some authors have produced artificial models, parts of which, transform as a spinor see for example the cube within a cube described by Misner, Thorne and Wheeler or the tethered rocks of Hartung . This paper shows how an object with the transformation properties of a spinor can be constructed within classical general relativity. The work requires that the topology of spacetime within a fermion is non-trivial and is not time orientable. It would then follow that quantum theory in flat spacetime would need to model the dynamics of such a particle using spinor fields.

This paper relates to models of elementary particles as regions of spacetime with non-trivial topology. The term geon was used by Misner and Wheeler to describe particle-like structures with non-trivial spatial topology . The idea was later extended by Hadley to regions which also had non-trivial causal structure called 4-geons . The investigation of manifolds which are not time orientable is motivated by the suggestion that models of elementary particles based on such manifolds would give rise to quantum mechanical effects  and that a reversal of the time orientation is related both to topology change  and the measurement process in quantum theory. Therefore, the manifolds being examined have real significance quite apart from their transformation under rotations. The simplest example was described in the paper by Diemer and Hadley  and shown to display net charge from the source-free Maxwell equations. Hadley’s gravitational explanation for quantum theory provides additional motivation for this work, but the results of this paper are interesting in their own right and do not depend upon the earlier work. The main result is a fascinating consequence of non-trivial causal structure in general relativity.

Here it is shown that non time orientable manifolds present obstructions which prevent a physical (time parameterised) rotation being extended throughout the manifold in a non-trivial way. There must be some exempt points. This topological obstruction will, in general, prevent a $`2\pi `$ rotation (and any well behaved extension of it) from being an identity operation. This property of spinors is intimately related to the fact that the group of rotations, SO(3), is not simply connected. A result which can be seen in the famous scissors model of Dirac and the cube within a cube described by Misner, Thorne and Wheeler . A description is given in references  and  contains a proof.

Friedman and Sorkin  have previously considered other topological obstructions which prevent a rotational transformation being extended from the region of flat spacetime throughout the manifold (ie into the interior of the particle). On some 3-manifolds (characterised by Hendricks ) it is not possible to define a rotational vector field. In the context of quantum gravity, Friedman and Sorkin impose a wavefunction on such manifolds and consider the effects of a rotation on the asymptotically flat regions. They conclude that a wavefunction as required by a theory of quantum gravity could have a spinorial character. By contrast; this work invokes a different mechanism, it applies to manifolds which have a physical interest for other reasons. Furthermore, these results arise from classical general relativity, they do not invoke any quantum theory of gravity, but they may help to explain quantum phenomena.

## 2 Line bundle models of spacetime

Although the analysis requires a clear distinction between time and space directions, the results can be obtained by applying topological arguments to a non-trivial line bundle over a 3-manifold - it is not necessary to define a metric explicitly.

A causal spacetime is modelled by a trivial line-bundle $`E`$ over a 3-manifold, $``$, $`E\stackrel{\pi }{}`$. The base manifold, $``$, corresponds to space at $`t=0`$. The evolution is given by a diffeomorphism, $`Q`$ from $`\times `$ to the line bundle $`E`$ such that $`Q(,0)`$ is the zero section and $`(Q(,t))()`$ is the space at a time $`t`$. Under a transformation a fixed point in space would be mapped to a point on its own fibre. A non-trivial line-bundle over a 3-manifold is a convenient topological model of those non-time orientable spacetimes with the property that time is not orientable on any spacelike slice; the manifold described by Diemer and Hadley is an example.

A base 3-manifold endowed with a non-trivial line bundle would correspond to a spacetime that is not time orientable. If the line bundle is non-trivial then every section has some zero points. In general, the space of zero points, $`X`$, is a 2-dimensional surface. It is this topological property of sections of a non-trivial line bundle which gives rise to the results in this paper. This can be illustrated by considering sections of a möbius strip. The base manifold is a circle, $`S^1`$, which corresponds to a circular space - the time direction is everywhere normal to the base circle. Parts of the base manifold can be moved within the Möbius band, but an attempt to shift the entire circle up or down is not possible - there will be at least one point where the shifted circle crosses the base circle.

## 3 Models of particles

A particle in spacetime is modelled as an asymptotically flat 3-manifold with non-trivial topology and endowed with a line bundle where each fibre corresponds to the timeline of a point in space. A non-time-orientable manifold corresponds to a non-trivial line bundle.

The simplest example due to Diemer and Hadley is RP3 with a point removed and endowed with a non-trivial line-bundle. The point removed corresponds to spatial infinity and a sphere $`S^2`$ enclosing the point corresponds to a sphere enclosing the particle. With the addition of a Faraday electromagnetic field 2-form, this construction can model a spherically symmetric electric monopole.

An alternative construction of the same spacetime manifold is as follows: a ball is removed from space (a cylinder from spacetime) and then joined up by identifying opposite points, but reversing the time direction. Externally this is spherically symmetric. The region of non-trivial topology can be surrounded by a sphere, $`S^2`$, such that spacetime is topologically trivial and asymptotically flat outside the sphere.

## 4 Definitions of rotations

Rotations are well-defined in $`^3`$ as elements of SO(3). Every rotation has an axis, $`\zeta `$, and is an element of the one parameter subgroup of rotations about this fixed axis. Rotations, $`\rho _\zeta (\theta )`$, by an angle $`\theta `$ about an axis $`\zeta `$ are smooth maps from $`^3`$ to $`^3`$ which satisfy the following conditions:

###### Definition 4.1 (1-parameter subgroup conditions)

1. $`\rho _\zeta (0)=\mathrm{id}`$
2. $`\theta ,\varphi \rho _\zeta (\theta +\varphi )=\rho _\zeta (\theta )\rho _\zeta (\varphi )`$
3. $`\rho _\zeta `$ is a smooth function

In the following the subscript $`\zeta `$ will be omitted for clarity.

We need to extend the usual definition so that it applies to manifolds with a non-trivial topology and to manifolds which are not time-orientable. For physical reasons we restrict attention to asymptotically flat manifolds, and in the asymptotically flat region we require correspondence with rotations defined in $`^3`$.

###### Definition 4.2 (A Rotation on an Asymptotically Flat Manifold)

A rotation, $`R(\theta )`$, by an angle $`\theta `$, on an Asymptotically Flat Manifold, $``$, is an element of a 1-parameter subgroup of diffeomorphisms from $``$ to itself which satisfies the conditions 4.1 above and $`\theta `$ converges to a rotation, $`\rho _\zeta (\theta )`$, in $`^3`$ for large $`x`$:

$$\mathrm{dist}(\rho _\zeta (\theta )x,R(\theta )x)0\text{as }|x|\mathrm{}\text{ }$$
(1)
The definition is very wide, the form of the transformation is only tightly prescribed in the asymptotic regions. In particular $`R(\theta )`$ is not an isometry, it is any smooth extension of the familiar form of a rotation.

###### Remark 4.3

A rotation always exists - consider two concentric spheres $`S_a^2`$ and $`S_b^2`$ where $`S_b^2`$ encloses $`S_a^2`$ which in turn encloses the region of non-trivial topology:

$$R(\theta )=\{\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{id}=R(0)\hfill & \text{inside }S_a^2\hfill \\ \rho (\theta )\hfill & \text{outside }S_b^2\hfill \\ \rho (f(r)\theta )\hfill & \text{in between}\hfill \end{array}$$
(2)
where $`f(r)`$ is any smooth function of $`r`$ such that $`f(r)=0`$ when $`r=r_a`$ and $`f(r)=1`$ when $`r=r_b`$.

###### Remark 4.4

Rotations are not uniquely defined by definition 4.2. Any smooth function $`f(r)`$ with the properties above can be used to construct a rotation $`R(\theta )`$ which satisfies 4.2 and has the same asymptotic form.

A rotation is an element of a 1-parameter subgroup of diffeomorphisms acting on $``$. The rotation and the subgroup define a path in $``$ from $`x`$ to $`R(\theta )x`$: $`\gamma _\theta (\lambda )=\{R(\lambda \theta )x|x,\lambda [0,1]\}`$, This definition has no notion of time. The parameter, $`\lambda `$ has no physical significance, the rotation is not an operation that can be physically implemented. Of specific concern in this paper is the notion of a physical rotation - a rotation which defines a worldline parameterised by time. This gives an operation that is physically relevant, an object or a 3-manifold can be transformed from an initial state at $`t=0`$ to a rotated state at a later time $`t=1`$:

###### Definition 4.5 (Physical Rotation on a time-orientable manifold)

A physical rotation, $`(\theta )`$ on a time-orientable manifold is a map from $``$, identified with the zero section, to the image of the unit section of the line bundle:

$$(\theta )(x,0)(R(\theta )x,1)$$
(3)
where $`(\theta )`$ also satisfies the 1-parameter subgroup conditions 4.1. The projection of a physical rotation onto the base manifold gives a rotation of an asymptotically flat manifold defined earlier:

$$\pi (\theta )=R(\theta )$$
(4)
A physical rotation and its subgroup define a curve in the line bundle $`E`$ from $`(x,0)`$ to $`(R(\theta )x,1)`$, $`\chi _\theta (t)=\{(R(t\theta )x,t)|x,t[0,1]\}`$, which is the worldline of each point $`x`$. The projection of the worldline is equal to the path in $``$ defined earlier: $`\pi \chi _\theta (t)=\gamma _\theta (t)`$. Although a physical rotation is conceptually different, there is a one to one correspondence between physical rotations and rotations of an asymptotically flat manifold defined earlier. Similarly the curves, $`\gamma _\theta (\lambda )`$, and world lines, $`\chi _\theta (t)`$ are in one to one correspondence.

However definition 4.5 cannot be applied to a spacetime which is not time orientable (a non-trivial line bundle) because it assumes the existence of a nowhere vanishing section (the unit section) which implies that a global trivialisation of the line bundle exists. We refine definition 4.5 so that it applies to any asymptotically flat manifold including those which are not time orientable. The definition requires the replacement on the unit section of the line bundle by another section $`\varphi `$ :

###### Definition 4.6 (Physical Rotation)

A physical rotation, $`(\theta )`$ is a map from $``$, identified with the zero section, to the image of a section $`\varphi `$ of the line bundle:

$`(\theta )(x,0)`$ $``$ $`(R(\theta )x,\varphi (x))`$ (5)
$`\text{when }\varphi (x)=0`$ $`R(\theta )x=x\theta `$ (6)
$`\text{as }|x|\mathrm{}`$ $`\varphi (x)1`$ (7)
Clearly a physical rotation exists and is not unique. Equation 4 is still valid but there is no longer a one to one correspondence between physical rotations and rotations of an asymptotically flat manifold due to equation 6.

This definition is obviously of physical relevance. A real rotation in the laboratory is well-defined in an almost flat region of spacetime. The internal structure of a particle is unknown and the structure of spacetime within a particle is also unknown. This definition places few constraints on the internal structure of a particle and accommodates both a spacetime with non-trivial topology as well as the existence of extraneous fields on a flat spacetime.

In general a Physical Rotation is not an isometry, it does not preserve distances except in the asymptotic region. It is defined as a general extension of a rotation from the asymptotic region to the whole manifold. An isometric extension would not normally be possible. An analogy would be a large rubber disk, fixed in the middle with two or more nails. The outer rim could be rotated, near the outer rim the rotation would be an isometry. The transformation created by rotating the rim, can be extended to the whole disk, but it is not an isometry throughout the disk.

This construction agrees with the normal definition of a rotation in the asymptotically flat region, it can be extended to the whole of a time orientable manifold with $`\varphi (x)=1x`$. It can also be extended to the whole manifold even when it is not time orientable, but for some points $`\varphi (x)=0`$. Definition 4.6 and equation 6 distinguish two types of fixed points under a rotation.

###### Definition 4.7 (fixed point)

$`x`$ is a fixed point of the rotation if $`(\theta )(x,0)(x,\varphi (x))`$

These points correspond to the axes of a rotation. But there are also exempt points:

###### Definition 4.8 (exempt point)

$`x`$ is an exempt point of the rotation if $`(\theta )(x,0)(x,0)`$

We denote by $`X`$ the set of all exempt points. The name exempt conforms to the definition of Hartung, where he considers the rotation of a tethered object, the object rotates but the other end of the tether is an exempt point in the sense of being a point to which the rotation is not applied.

As already pointed out, rotations are not uniquely specified by this definition. The rotation is tightly defined in the asymptotic region where it maps $`(x,0)(R(\theta )x,\varphi (x))(\rho (x),1)`$, but there are many ways of extending the section of the line bundle and many ways of extending the rotation transformation. Consequently the exempt points are not determined by the rotation in the asymptotic region, but depend upon the way in which the section is extended. On a manifold which is not time-orientable, time is not orientable around at least one class of non-contractable closed curves in $``$ and therefore every such curve must have at least one exempt point. Consequently, the space of exempt points is at least two dimensional (otherwise a small distortion of the curve could be made which would not have an exempt point) and the proof in  applies.

## 5 Spin-half

The following results apply to the specific particle model described above and also to the more general case where the particle is a region of spacetime with non-trivial topology surrounded by a world tube $`S^2\times `$ such that any region spanning the $`S^2`$ does not admit a time orientation. This is sufficient to ensure that any section of the line bundle has exempt points.

The fact that the exempt points form a 2-dimensional surface ensures that this model is analogous to the tethered rocks of Hartung  and the scissors trick of Dirac . It follows that a $`2\pi `$ rotation cannot be an identity operation but $`4\pi `$ rotation can be:

$`(0)`$ $`(x,0)(x,\varphi (x))`$ (8)
$`(2\pi )x\mathrm{st}:`$ $`(x,0)(R(2\pi )x,\varphi (x))`$ $`(x,\varphi (x))`$ (9)
$`(4\pi )\mathrm{st}:\mathrm{x}`$ $`(x,0)(R(4\pi )x,\varphi (x))`$ $`=(x,\varphi (x))`$ (10)
It follows that $`(0)`$, the identity transformation, is diffeomorphic to $`(4\pi )`$ relative to $`\{X,S^2\}`$ and that $`(2\pi )`$ is not. This is also a necessary, but not sufficient condition, for $`(4\pi )`$ to be an isometry and for $`(2\pi )`$ not to be an isometry. A $`2\pi `$ rotation could be an isometry if the particle had an internal symmetry - which is not possessed by the simple monopole example.

This gives a physical explanation of why it is appropriate to model a fermion as a tethered object. This model, with non-trivial causal structure, was originally constructed to explain how the effects of quantum theory could arise within classical general relativity. The spin half effects (and also the appearance of electric charge ) are simply a consequence of using general relativity to explain quantum effects.

## 6 Conclusion

On the relation to quantum theory, we take a pragmatic view of quantum theory that it is a scheme for predicting the probabilistic distribution of the outcomes of measurements. It is clear that a particle must be represented by a mathematical object with the appropriate transformation properties under rotations. The particle modelled here has the transformation properties of a spinor, so any field theory which attempts to model the behaviour under rotations will necessarily use spinor fields.

This approach contrasts with that of Sorkin, who considered a wavefunction imposed upon a non-trivial manifold. That would be meaningless when the constructions given can display quantum mechanical effects by themselves. Here the wavefunction is defined in $`^4`$ and is a means of mapping the evolution of non-trivial causal structure onto a conventional spacetime.

The previous sections modelled a single free particle. Hartung extends the idea of a tethered rock to two or more tethered rocks and concludes that an exchange of particles is equivalent to a $`2\pi `$ rotation of one of the particles. However his analysis assumes that two tethered rocks is equivalent to a pair of rocks tethered to each other. With the model presented here, such an equivalence is not apparent.

In general relativity, the non-gravitational energy, momentum and angular momentum can be derived from the energy momentum tensor which is defined at every point of spacetime. However the contribution of the gravitational field itself to the total energy, momentum and angular momentum cannot be defined locally and hence the total values cannot be defined locally (see for example ). Well defined global values exist in asymptotically flat manifolds such as the one described here. This example has a total angular momentum of zero. The asymptotic form of the metric is independent of the time orientability. This must be the case because a non-zero value would give a well-defined spin direction independently of measurement which is contrary both to quantum theory and experiment. Indeed a zero angular momentum for an unpolarised electron is just what one would expect from the Bohm interpretation of quantum mechanics.

In conclusion, the transformation properties of fermions have been modelled using classical general relativity. A 4-geon model of a particle, originally constructed to explain quantum effects, is shown to exhibit spin-half transformation properties. The well-known fact that fermions transform like tethered objects is therefore explained with an established classical theory - general relativity. It is particularly significant that the explanation arises naturally, indeed almost inevitably, as a consequence of the proposed gravitational explanation of quantum mechanics .

I am grateful to Dr M Micallef (Mathematics Institute, University of Warwick) for valuable discussions and many helpful suggestions.

## References