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# Rank 1 forms, closed zones and laminae

## Abstract

For a given lattice, we establish an equivalence involving a closed zone of the corresponding Voronoi polytope, a lamina hyperplane of the corresponding Delaunay partition and a rank 1 quadratic form being an extreme ray of the corresponding $`L`$-type domain.

An $`n`$-dimensional lattice determines two normal partitions of the $`n`$ space $`𝐑^n`$ into polytopes. These are the Voronoi partition and the Delaunay partition. These partitions are dual, i.e. a $`k`$-dimensional face of one partition is orthogonal to an $`(nk)`$-dimensional face of the other partition. Besides, a vertex of one partition is the center of a polytope of the other partition.

The Voronoi partition consists of Voronoi polytopes with its centers in lattice points. Moreover, any polytope of the Voronoi partition is obtained by a translation of the Voronoi polytope with the center in the origin (=the zero lattice point). Call this polytope the Voronoi polytope. It consists of those points of $`𝐑^n`$ that are at least as closed to 0 as to any other lattice point.

The Delaunay partition consists of Delaunay polytopes which are, in general, not congruent. The set of all Delaunay polytopes having 0 as a vertex is called the star of Delaunay polytopes. Each Delaunay polytope is the convex hull of all lattice points lying on an empty sphere. This sphere is called empty, since no lattice point is an interior point of the sphere.

The Voronoi polytope and the Delaunay polytopes of the star are tightly related to minimal vectors of cosets $`2L`$ in $`L`$. A coset $`Q`$ is called simple if it contains, up to sign, only one minimal vector.

For a Delaunay polytope $`P_D`$, the lattice vector between any two vertices of $`P_D`$ is a minimal vector of a coset of $`L/2L`$. A lattice vector is an edge of a Delaunay polytope of the star (and then, by duality, it defines a facet of the Voronoi polytope) if and only if it is the minimal vector of a simple coset of $`L/2L`$. All minimal vectors of a non-simple coset are diagonals of a symmetric face of a Delaunay polytope of the star.

The set $`𝒫(P)`$ of all faces of all dimensions of a polytope $`P`$ is partially ordered by inclusion. Call it face poset of $`P`$. The face poset of the Voronoi polytope $`P_V`$ of a lattice $`L`$ determines uniquely the combinatorial structure of $`P_V`$ and the $`L`$-type of the Voronoi and Delaunay partitions. The notion of an $`L`$-type was introduced by G.Voronoi in . One says that a lattice $`L`$ belongs to or is of an $`L`$-type if its Voronoi partition has this $`L`$-type. In other words, two lattices (and their Voronoi and Delaunay partitions) belong to the same $`L`$-type if the corresponding partitions are combinatorially and topologically equivalent, or, equivalently, the face posets of their Voronoi polytopes are isomorphic. If we reverse the order of $`𝒫(P_V)`$, we obtain the poset of those faces of Delaunay polytopes of the star that contain the point 0.

There is a small perturbation of a basis of $`L`$ that does not change the $`L`$-type of $`L`$. Suppose that a perturbation of the basis changes the $`L`$-type. Then the Delaunay partition changes, and there is an empty sphere such that a lattice point either leaves or comes onto the sphere.

There is the following simple but important test of emptiness of a sphere. Let $`S𝐑^n`$ be an $`(n1)`$-dimensional sphere with the origin point 0 on it. Let $`v_1,v_2,\mathrm{},v_n`$ be $`n`$ linearly independent lattice vectors with endpoints on $`S`$. Let $`u𝐑^n`$ be an arbitrary vector and $`u=_{i=1}^nz_iv_i`$. (We denote by $`(p,q)`$ the scalar product of vectors $`p`$ and $`q`$, and set $`p^2=(p,p)`$).

###### Lemma 1

(Proposition 4 of ). The endpoint of $`u`$ is not an interior point of $`S`$ if and only if the following inequality holds

$$u^2\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}z_iv_i^2.$$
(1)
The endpoint of $`u`$ lies on $`S`$ if and only if (1) holds as equality.

Proof. Let $`c`$ be the center of $`S`$. Since the endpoint of $`v_i`$ lies on $`S`$, we have $`(v_ic)^2=c^2`$, $`1in`$, i.e. $`v_i^2=2(v_i,c)`$. Multiplying this equality by $`z_i`$, summing over $`i`$ and taking in attention that $`u=z_iv_i`$, we obtain

$$\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}z_iv_i^2=2(u,c).$$

Since the endpoint of $`u`$ is not an interior point of $`S`$, $`(uc)^2c^2`$, i.e. $`u^22(u,c)`$. Using the above equality, we obtain (1). It is easy to see that (1) holds as equality if and only if the inequality $`u^22(u,c)`$ holds as equality, i.e. if and only if the endpoint of $`u`$ lies on $`S`$. $`\mathrm{}`$

Any basis $`=\{b_i,1in\}`$ of an $`n`$-dimensional lattice $`L`$ determines uniquely a positive definite quadratic form

$$f(x)=(\underset{1}{\overset{n}{}}b_ix_i)^2=\underset{1i,jn}{}a_{ij}x_ix_j.$$

The symmetric matrix $`a_{ij}`$ of the coefficients of this form is the Gram matrix of the basis $``$, i.e. $`a_{ij}=(b_i,b_j)`$. The matrix $`a_{ij}`$ can be considered as a point of an $`N`$-dimensional space, where $`N=\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n+1}{2}\right)`$. In this space, all positive definite forms form an open cone. The closure of this cone is the cone $`𝒫_n`$ of all positive semi-definite quadratic forms of order $`n`$.

One says that a quadratic form belongs to or is of an $`L`$-type if its lattice belongs to this $`L`$-type. Hence the cone $`𝒫_n`$ is partitioned into $`L`$-type domains of forms of the same $`L`$-type. Of course, the cone $`𝒫_n`$ has many domains of the same $`L`$-type corresponding to distinct choices of a basis. Voronoi proved that each $`L`$-type domain is an open polyhedral cone of dimension $`k`$, $`1kN`$. An $`N`$-dimensional $`L`$-type domain is called general. Domains of other dimensions are called special. Any face of the closure of a general $`L`$-type domain is the closure of a special $`L`$-type domain. One-dimensional $`L`$-type domains are extreme rays of the closure of a general $`L`$-type domain.

Call a form an edge form if it belongs to a one-dimensional $`L`$-type domain. In , an edge form is called rigid form, since the only transformation of the corresponding lattice that does not change its $`L`$-type is a scaling. A typical edge form is the square of a linear form: $`f(x)=(_{i=1}^np_ix_i)^2`$, i.e. a rank 1 form. But, for $`n4`$, there are edge forms of full rank $`n`$.

A polyhedral domain of quadratic forms is called dicing domain if all extreme rays of its closure are forms of rank 1. Dicings were defined and studied by Erdahl and Ryshkov . In , they give conditions when a dicing domain is an $`L`$-type domain and prove the following theorem (Theorem 4.3 of ): An $`L`$-type domain is a dicing domain if and only if all the edge forms are rank 1 forms.

Return to the Voronoi polytope $`P_V`$ of an $`n`$-dimensional lattice $`L`$. The Voronoi polytope $`P_V`$ itself and its facets (i.e. faces of dimension $`n1`$) are centrally symmetric, so as its vertices and edges. But faces of other dimensions are, in general, not centrally symmetric. For example, there are many types of two-dimensional faces: hexagons, and others that are degenerated cases of a hexagon when some of its edges are compressed to a point.

The set of edges of $`P_V`$ is partitioned into classes of mutually parallel edges. These classes are called zones. There are two types of zones: closed and open. A zone is called closed if every two-dimensional face contains either two edges of the zone or else none. Otherwise the zone is called open. The notions of closed and open zones was introduced by P.Engel in .

A closed zone has the following property. Let $`l`$ be the minimal length of edges of a closed zone $`Z`$. Let us shorten all edges of $`Z`$ onto a value $`\epsilon l`$. If $`\epsilon <l`$, then $`Z`$ remains closed, and the new polytope $`P_V^{}`$ (with shortened edges) is a Voronoi polytope with the same face poset as $`P_V`$. If $`\epsilon =l`$, then $`Z`$ transforms into an open zone, and $`P_V^{}`$ has another face poset, since at least one edge vanishes.

Since the Voronoi partition is dual to the Delaunay partition, each edge of a Voronoi polytope is orthogonal to a facet of a Delaunay polytope. A facet $`F`$ of a Delaunay polytope of a lattice $`L`$ generates an affine hyperplane $`H`$ in $`𝐑^n`$, namely the hyperplane, where $`F`$ lies. Obviously $`F`$ contains $`n`$ affinely independent lattice points. Hence the intersection $`LH`$ is an $`(n1)`$-dimensional sub-lattice of $`L`$. The Delaunay partition of $`L`$ generates a partition of the hyperplane $`H`$ into Delaunay polytopes of the lattice $`LH`$. It may be that all $`(n1)`$-dimensional Delaunay polytopes of the partition of $`H`$ are facets of Delaunay polytopes of the original Delaunay partition of $`L`$. In this case $`H`$ is called a lamina of the lattice $`L`$.

The notion of lamina was introduced and extensively used by Ryshkov and Baranovskii in  (see §9.4). If $`L`$ belongs to a general $`L`$-type and if a hyperplane $`H`$ is not a lamina, then it intersects in an interior point an edge of at least one Delaunay polytope $`P_D`$ of the star (Lemma 9.3 of ). In other words, there are two vertices of $`P_D`$ that lie in distinct half-spaces determined by $`H`$. We reformulate Lemma 9.3 of  for a lattice of an arbitrary $`L`$-type.

###### Lemma 2

A hyperplane is a lamina if and only if it does not intersect any Delaunay polytope of the star in an interior point.

Obviously, a lamina determines a family of parallel laminae that partitions the lattice $`L`$ into parallel layers, each of them spanning a lamina. Lemma 2 implies the following corollary.

Corollary Every Delaunay polytope of a lattice with a lamina lies between two neighboring laminae with vertices on these two laminae.

The main property of this partition of $`L`$ into layers, spanning laminae, is that the distances between layers may be changed without changing the $`L`$-type of $`L`$.

Let $`H`$ be a hyperplane spanning an $`(n1)`$-dimensional sub-lattice of $`L`$. Let $`e`$ be a unit vector orthogonal to $`H`$. Then we can define an $`ϵ`$-extension along $`e`$ of the space and of the lattice $`L`$ as follows. Any vector $`v𝐑^n`$ is uniquely decomposed as $`v=v_e+v_H`$, where $`v_e=(e,v)e`$ and $`v_H`$ are the projections of $`v`$ onto $`e`$ and $`H`$, respectively. An $`ϵ`$-extension of $`𝐑^n`$ along $`e`$ transforms every vector $`v`$ into the vector

$$v^{}=(1+ϵ)v_e+v_H=ϵ(e,v)e+v.$$
(2)
Here the $`ϵ`$-extension is in fact a contraction if $`ϵ<0`$. In particular, for the norm (=squared length) $`v_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}`$ of the extended vector, we obtain the following expression, where we set $`\lambda =ϵ(2+ϵ)`$:

$$v_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}=v^2+\lambda (e,v)^2.$$
(3)
Of course, an $`ϵ`$-extension of $`𝐑^n`$ along $`e`$ transforms a lattice $`L𝐑^n`$ into an extended lattice $`L^ϵ`$.

There is the following relation between the above introduced notions of a rank 1 form, a closed zone, a lamina and the extended lattice.

###### Theorem 1

Let $`L`$ be an $`n`$-dimensional lattice, $`H`$ be a hyperplane spanning an $`(n1)`$-dimensional sub-lattice of $`L`$, $`e`$ be an $`n`$-dimensional unit vector orthogonal to $`H`$. Let $`f(x)`$ be the quadratic form corresponding to a basis $`\{b_i:1in\}`$ of $`L`$ and $`D(f)`$ be the $`L`$-type domain of $`f`$. The following assertions are equivalent:

(i) $`H`$ is a lamina of the Delaunay partition of $`L`$;

(ii) the Voronoi polytope $`P_V`$ of $`L`$ has a closed zone $`Z_e`$ of edges parallel to the vector $`e`$;

(iii) the $`ϵ`$-extended along $`e`$ lattice $`L^ϵ`$ has the same $`L`$-type as $`L`$ for all $`ϵ>0`$;

(iv) the rank 1 form $`f_e(x)=(e,_1^nb_ix_i)^2`$ lies on an extreme ray of the closure of $`D(f)`$, i.e. $`f+\lambda f_eD(f)`$ for all nonnegative $`\lambda `$.

Proof. (i)$``$(ii). Let $`H`$ be a lamina partitioned into facets of Delaunay polytopes of $`L`$. We can suppose that $`H`$ contains the origin 0. Consider the edges of the Voronoi polytope $`P_V`$ that are orthogonal to the lying in $`H`$ facets of the star. Obviously these edges are parallel to $`e`$ and form the zone $`Z_e`$. We show that $`Z_e`$ is closed. If not, there is a 2-face $`T`$ of $`P_V`$ containing exactly one edge $`u_1Z_e`$. The edges of $`T`$ form a polygon. Let $`u_1,u_2,\mathrm{},u_k`$ be consecutive edges of this polygon. Let $`F_i`$ be the facet of the star that is orthogonal to the edge $`u_i`$, $`1ik`$. The set of facets $`\{F_i:1ik\}`$ has a common $`(n2)`$-dimensional face of the star that is orthogonal to $`T`$ and lies in the lamina $`H`$. Since, for $`2ik`$, the edge $`u_i`$ is not parallel to $`u_1`$, the facet $`F_i`$ does not lie in the lamina $`H`$. Hence there is an index $`j`$ such that the facets $`F_j`$ and $`F_{j+1}`$ lie in distinct halfspaces separated by $`H`$. Obviously, $`F_j`$ and $`F_{j+1}`$ are facets of a same Delaunay polytope $`P_j`$ of the star, and $`H`$ intersects $`P_j`$. This contradicts to definition of a lamina. Hence $`Z_e`$ cannot be open.

(ii)$``$(i). Let $`u_1Z_e`$. Consider the facet $`F_1`$ of the star that is orthogonal to $`u_1`$ and contains $`0L`$. $`F_1`$ spans a hyperplane $`H`$ that is orthogonal to $`e`$ and contains $`0L`$. Let $`T_1`$ be a 2-face of $`P_V`$ containing $`u_1`$, and $`u_2`$ be the second edge from $`Z_e`$ contained in $`T_1`$. Let $`F_2`$ be the facet of the star that is dual to $`u_2`$. $`F_2`$ intersects $`F_1`$ by an $`(n2)`$-face that is dual to $`T_1`$ and contains 0. Hence $`F_2`$ contains 0 and is orthogonal to $`e`$. This implies that $`F_2`$ lies in $`H`$. Similarly, for $`i=3,4,\mathrm{}`$, we consider the 2-face $`T_i`$ containing $`u_i,u_{i+1}Z_p`$, and prove that the facet $`F_i`$ of the star dual to $`u_i`$ lies in $`H`$. Since $`P_V`$ is a polytope, it has a finite number of edges. Hence there is $`i_0`$ such that $`u_{i_0}=u_1`$. We obtain a set of facets of the star lying in $`H`$ such that the facet $`F_i`$ intersects $`F_{i1}`$ and $`F_{i+1}`$. Therefore the intersection of the star with $`H`$ consists of facets of the star. Since this is true for all Voronoi polytopes having centers in $`H`$, the hyperplane $`H`$ is partitioned into facets of Delaunay polytopes. This means that $`H`$ is lamina.

(i)$``$(iii). It is sufficient to prove that no lattice point comes onto or leaves the empty sphere $`S`$ of a Delaunay polytope $`P_D`$. Without loss of generality, we can suppose that $`P_D`$ belongs to the star. Let $`v_1,v_2,\mathrm{},v_n`$ be $`n`$ linearly independent lattice vectors with endpoint in vertices of $`P_D`$, i.e. they lie on the sphere $`S`$. Let $`u`$ be any lattice vector and let $`u=_{i=1}^nz_iv_i`$ be its decomposition by $`v_i`$, $`1in`$. According to (2), after an $`ϵ`$-extension of the space along $`e`$, $`u`$ and $`v_i`$ are transformed into the vectors

$$u^{}=u+ϵ(u,e)e,\text{ }v_i^{}=v_i+ϵ(v_i,e)e.$$

By Lemma 1, it is sufficient to prove that the inequality $`u_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}_{i=1}^nz_iv_{i}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}`$ is strict or is an equality according to the inequality $`u^2_{i=1}^nz_iv_i^2`$ is strict or is an equality.

Recall that $`H`$ contains an ($`n1`$)-dimensional sub-lattice. Hence $`(v,e)=k(v)\alpha `$ for any lattice vector $`v`$, where $`k(v)`$ is an integer and $`\alpha `$ does not depend on $`v`$. Let $`k=k(u)`$ and $`k_i=k(v_i)`$. Multiplying the equality $`u=_{i=1}^nz_iv_i`$ by $`e`$, we obtain the equality $`k=_{i=1}^nz_ik_i`$. By Corollary of Lemma 2, the vertices of $`P_D`$ lie on two neighboring laminae. Hence $`|k_i|=0,1`$. Without loss of generality we can suppose that $`k_i0`$, i.e. $`k_i=0,1`$ and therefore $`(v_i,e)^2=k_i^2=k_i`$. Hence, using (3), we have

$$v_{i}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}=v_i^2+\lambda (v_i,e)^2=v_i^2+\lambda k_i\alpha ^2.$$

Since $`_{i=1}^nz_ik_i=k`$, we obtain the equality

$$\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}z_iv_{i}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}z_iv_i^2+\lambda \alpha ^2\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}z_ik_i=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}z_iv_i^2+\lambda \alpha ^2k.$$
(4)
Suppose that $`u^2>_{i=1}^nz_iv_i^2`$. We show that then $`_1^nz_iv_{i}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}<u_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}=u^2+\lambda (u,e)^2=u^2+\lambda \alpha ^2k^2`$. For an integer $`k`$, we have $`kk^2`$ with equality if and only if $`k=0,1`$. The above inequalities and the equality (4) imply

$$\underset{1}{\overset{n}{}}z_iv_{i}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}<u^2+\lambda \alpha ^2k^2=u_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}.$$

Now let $`u^2=_1^nz_iv_i^2`$. This means that $`u`$ has the endpoint in a vertex of $`P_D`$. Hence $`k=0,1`$, i.e. $`k^2=k`$. Hence the equality (4) implies the equality

$$\underset{1}{\overset{n}{}}z_iv_{i}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}=u^2+\lambda \alpha ^2k^2=u_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}.$$

(iii)$``$(iv). We prove in the implication (i)$``$(iii) that $`f(L^ϵ)D(f)`$ for every $`ϵ0`$. Now we show that

$$f(L^ϵ)=f(L)+\lambda f_e,$$

where $`\lambda =ϵ(2+ϵ)`$. The basic vectors of the extended lattice $`L^ϵ`$ have the form

$$b_i^{}=b_i+ϵ(e,b_i)e,1in.$$

Hence the coefficients $`a_{ij}^{}`$ of the quadratic form $`f^ϵ=f(L^ϵ)`$ are as follows

$$a_{ij}^{}=(b_i^{},b_j^{})=(b_i,b_j)+\lambda (e,b_i)(e,b_j).$$

Hence we obtain

$$f^ϵ(x)=f(x)+\lambda (\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}(e,b_i)x_i)^2=f(x)+\lambda f_e(x).$$

This means that the ray $`\{\lambda f_e:\lambda 0\}`$ belongs to the closure of $`D(f)`$. Since this ray is a one-dimensional $`L`$-type domain, it is an extreme ray of cl$`D(f)`$.

(iv)$``$(iii). If $`f_e`$ lies on an extreme ray of cl$`D(f)`$, then the quadratic function $`f^ϵ=f+ϵ(2+ϵ)f_e`$ belongs to $`D(f)`$ for all $`ϵ0`$. The matrix $`a_{ij}^{}`$ of $`f^ϵ`$ is

$$a_{ij}+ϵ(2+ϵ)(e,b_i)(e,b_j)=(b_i^{},b_j^{}).$$

Hence $`f^ϵ`$ is a quadratic form of the $`ϵ`$-extended lattice $`L^ϵ`$. So, $`L^ϵ`$ has the same $`L`$-type as $`L`$ for all $`ϵ0`$.

(iii)$``$(i). We show that if the extended along $`e`$ lattice $`L^ϵ`$ has the same $`L`$-type as $`L`$ for all $`ϵ>0`$, then the hyperplane $`H`$ which is orthogonal to $`e`$ is a lamina. Suppose $`H`$ is not a lamina. Then $`H`$ intersects a Delaunay polytope $`P_D`$ of the star in an interior point. Hence there are two vectors $`v_1`$ and $`v_2`$ with endpoints in vertices of $`P_D`$ such that $`k_1=k(v_1)1`$ and $`k_2=k(v_2)1`$. Consider the lattice vector

$$u=q(k_1v_2k_2v_1),$$

where the integer $`q`$ is chosen such that the endpoint of $`u`$ does not lie on the empty sphere $`S`$ circumscribing $`P_D`$. Expand the pair of vectors $`v_1`$, $`v_2`$ up to a set of $`n`$ independent vectors with endpoints in vertices of $`P_D`$. Then the above expression for $`u`$ is the representation of $`u`$ as a linear combination of these $`n`$ independent vectors. Since the endpoint of $`u`$ does not lie on $`S`$, by Lemma 1, $`\mathrm{\Delta }u^2q(k_1v_2^2k_2v_1^2)>0`$.

Consider an $`ϵ`$-extension of the space along $`e`$. Let $`u^{}`$, $`v_1^{}`$, $`v_2^{}`$ be the $`ϵ`$-extended vectors. Consider the difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{}=u_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}q(k_1v_{2}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}k_2v_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{2})`$. Using (3), we obtain

$$\mathrm{\Delta }^{}=\mathrm{\Delta }+\lambda (e,u)^2q(k_1\lambda (e,v_2)^2k_2\lambda (e,v_1)^2).$$

Since $`(e,u)=\alpha k(u)=0`$, $`(e,v_1)=\alpha k_1`$, $`(e,v_2)=\alpha k_2`$ and $`k_2<0`$, we have

$$\mathrm{\Delta }^{}=\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda qk_1|k_2|(|k_2|+k_1).$$

Let $`p=qk_1|k_2|(k_1+|k_2|)>0`$. Then for $`\lambda =\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{p}`$, we obtain $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{}=0`$. Lemma 1 implies that, for this $`\lambda `$, the endpoint of $`u`$ lies on $`S`$. This means that there is $`ϵ>0`$ such that the $`ϵ`$-extended lattice $`L^ϵ`$ has the $`L`$-type distinct from the $`L`$-type of $`L`$. We obtain a contradiction. $`\mathrm{}`$

Remark 1. The rank 1 function $`f_e(x)=(e,_1^nb_ix_i)^2`$ depends on the basis corresponding to the function $`f(x)`$. But this dependence is not essential in the following sense. Recall that $`(e,b_i)=\alpha k(b_i)`$, where $`k_i=k(b_i)`$ is an integer. If we slightly move $`f(x)`$ in the domain $`D(f)`$, then we slightly change the basis $`=\{b_i:1in\}`$ and the scalar products $`(e,b_i)=\alpha k_i`$. But, since $`k_i`$ is an integer, it cannot change slightly. Hence only $`\alpha `$ slightly changes. This implies that this movement of $`f(x)`$ inside of the $`L`$-type domain $`D(f)`$ causes a movement of $`f_e(x)=\alpha ^2(_1^nk_ix_i)^2`$ along the ray $`\{\lambda (_1^nk_iz_i)^2:\lambda 0\}`$. The collections of the integers $`\{k_i:1in\}`$ is an invariant of the $`L`$-type domain $`D(f)`$.

Remark 2. The equivalence (i)$``$(iv) of Theorem 1 is mentioned in the paper . After the proof of Theorem 4.3, the authors of  write:

> The ideas used in this proof can be extended to cover the case in which only a portion of the edge forms have rank 1. For such an $`L`$-type domain each rank 1 edge form can be associated with a $`D`$-family of parallel hyperplanes $`G`$, and the $`L`$-partitions $`𝒮`$ of lattices on this domain are refinement of the partition determined by $`G`$. In the other direction, any hyperplane which does not intersect the interior of any $`L`$-polytope of an $`L`$-partition can be associated with a rank 1 edge form of the corresponding $`L`$-type domain. Such hyperplanes are members of a $`D`$-family of parallel hyperplanes.

Note that here an $`L`$-partition and an $`L`$-polytope mean a Delaunay partition and a Delaunay polytope, and a $`D`$-family is a family of parallel laminae.

In fact, the authors asserts that the ideas used in the proof of Theorem 4.3 of  can be extended to the proof of the equivalence (i)$``$(iv). But it seems to us that the proof given above is not complete.


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# Dyons with axial symmetry

## 1 Introduction

SU(2) Yang-Mills-Higgs (YMH) theory possesses magnetic monopole , multimonopole  and monopole-antimonopole solutions . The magnetic charge $`m`$ of these solutions is proportional to their topological charge $`n`$. In the Prasad-Sommerfield limit of vanishing Higgs self-coupling, the monopole solution and axially symmetric multimonopole solutions are known analytically , whereas multimonopole solutions without rotational symmetry  and monopole-antimonopole solutions  are only known numerically.

SU(2) Yang-Mills-Higgs (YMH) theory also possesses solutions carrying both magnetic and electric charge . In the Prasad-Sommerfield limit, such dyon solutions with unit topological charge exist for arbitrarily large values of the electric charge , whereas for finite Higgs self-coupling an upper bound for the electric charge of these dyon solutions arises .

Here we construct axially symmetric dyon solutions carrying topological charge $`n>1`$. In section 2 we present the YMH Lagrangian, the equations of motion and the electromagnetic charges. In section 3 we consider the Prasad-Sommerfield limit, and show how dyon solutions are obtained from multimonopole solutions. We present the axially symmetric ansatz and the boundary conditions employed in the numerical construction of the dyonic multimonopole solutions in section 4, and discuss these solutions in section 5, in particular for finite Higgs self-coupling.

## 2 SU(2) YMH Theory

We consider the SU(2) YMH Lagrangian

$$L=\frac{1}{4}F_{\mu \nu }^aF^{\mu \nu ,a}\frac{1}{2}D_\mu \mathrm{\Phi }^aD^\mu \mathrm{\Phi }^a\frac{\lambda }{4}(\mathrm{\Phi }^a\mathrm{\Phi }^a\eta ^2)^2,$$
(1)
with

$$F_{\mu \nu }^a=_\mu A_\nu ^a_\nu A_\mu ^a+g\epsilon ^{abc}A_\mu ^bA_\nu ^c,$$
(2)
$$D_\mu \mathrm{\Phi }^a=_\mu \mathrm{\Phi }^a+g\epsilon ^{abc}A_\mu ^b\mathrm{\Phi }^c,$$
(3)
gauge coupling constant $`g`$, Higgs self-coupling constant $`\lambda `$, Higgs vacuum expectation value $`\eta `$, and equations of motion

$`D_\mu F^{\mu \nu ,a}`$ $`=`$ $`g\epsilon ^{abc}(D^\nu \mathrm{\Phi }^b)\mathrm{\Phi }^c,`$
$`D_\mu D^\mu \mathrm{\Phi }^a`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda \left(\mathrm{\Phi }^b\mathrm{\Phi }^b\eta ^2\right)\mathrm{\Phi }^a.`$ (4)
We are looking for static finite energy solutions of eqs. (4), carrying both magnetic and electric charge. The magnetic field $`B_i`$ and the electric field $`E_i`$ are defined via the electromagnetic ‘t Hooft field strength tensor

$$_{\mu \nu }=\widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }}^aF_{\mu \nu }^a\frac{1}{g}\epsilon _{abc}\widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }}^aD_\mu \widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }}^bD_\nu \widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }}^c,$$
(5)
where in particular

$$E_i=_{i0}=_i(\widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }}^aA_0^a).$$
(6)
For the dyon solutions they yield the magnetic charge $`m`$ ,

$$m=\frac{1}{4\pi }_iB_id^3r=\frac{n}{g},$$
(7)
where $`n`$ is the topological charge of the solutions, and the electric charge $`q`$

$$q=_iE_id^3r=_{S_{\mathrm{}}^2}_i(\widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }}^aA_0^a)dS_i$$
(8)
where $`S_{\mathrm{}}^2`$ denotes the 2-dimensional sphere at infinity.

The energy density of the dyon solutions is given by the $`tt`$-component of the energy momentum tensor. Integration over all space yields their energy

$$E=\left\{\frac{1}{4}F_{ij}^aF_{ij}^a+\frac{1}{2}F_{i0}^aF_{i0}^a+\frac{1}{2}D_i\mathrm{\Phi }^aD_i\mathrm{\Phi }^a+\frac{1}{2}D_0\mathrm{\Phi }^aD_0\mathrm{\Phi }^a+\frac{\lambda }{4}(\mathrm{\Phi }^a\mathrm{\Phi }^a\eta ^2)^2\right\}d^3r.$$
(9)
## 3 Prasad-Sommerfield limit $`𝝀\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟎}`$

Let us first consider the Prasad-Sommerfield limit $`𝝀\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟎}`$. In this limit axially symmetric multimonopole solutions are known analytically  and numerically .

We now show, that in the static limit dyon solutions are obtained directly from monopole solutions. Assuming that the time component of the gauge field is parallel to the Higgs field in isospace ,

$$𝑨_\mathrm{𝟎}^𝒂\mathbf{=}𝜶𝚽^𝒂\mathbf{,}$$
(10)
where $`𝜶`$ is a constant, leads to $`𝑫_\mathrm{𝟎}𝚽^𝒂\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟎}`$ and $`𝑭_{𝒊\mathrm{𝟎}}^𝒂\mathbf{=}𝜶\mathbf{(}\mathbf{}_𝒊𝚽^𝒂\mathbf{+}𝒈𝜺_{𝒂𝒃𝒄}𝑨_𝒊^𝒃𝚽^𝒄\mathbf{)}\mathbf{=}𝜶𝑫_𝒊𝚽^𝒂`$. Consequently, the field equations (4) reduce to

$`𝑫_𝒊𝑭^{𝒊𝒋\mathbf{,}𝒂}`$ $`\mathbf{=}`$ $`\mathbf{}𝒈𝜺_{𝒂𝒃𝒄}\mathbf{(}\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{}𝜶^\mathrm{𝟐}\mathbf{)}𝑫^𝒋𝚽^𝒃𝚽^𝒄\mathbf{,}`$
$`𝑫_𝒊𝑫^𝒊𝚽^𝒂`$ $`\mathbf{=}`$ $`\mathrm{𝟎}\mathbf{,}`$ (11)
and the field equation for the time component of the gauge field coincides with the field equation for the Higgs field. Substituting $`\stackrel{\mathbf{~}}{𝚽}^𝒂\mathbf{=}\sqrt{\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{}𝜶^\mathrm{𝟐}}𝚽^𝒂`$ into eqs. (11) leads to the monopole equations.

Thus, to any static solution $`\mathbf{(}𝑨_𝒊^𝒂\mathbf{,}\stackrel{\mathbf{~}}{𝚽}^𝒂\mathbf{)}`$ of the monopole equations in the Prasad-Sommerfield limit with $`\stackrel{\mathbf{~}}{𝚽}^𝒂\stackrel{𝒓\mathbf{}\mathbf{}}{\mathbf{}}\stackrel{\mathbf{~}}{𝜼}`$ there corresponds a family of dyon solutions

$$\mathbf{\left(}𝑨_𝒊^𝒂\mathbf{,}𝑨_\mathrm{𝟎}^𝒂\mathbf{=}𝑸\stackrel{\mathbf{~}}{𝚽}^𝒂\mathbf{,}𝚽^𝒂\mathbf{=}\sqrt{\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{+}𝑸^\mathrm{𝟐}}\stackrel{\mathbf{~}}{𝚽}^𝒂\mathbf{\right)}\mathbf{,}$$
(12)
with $`𝚽^𝒂\stackrel{𝒓\mathbf{}\mathbf{}}{\mathbf{}}\stackrel{\mathbf{~}}{𝜼}\sqrt{\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{+}𝑸^\mathrm{𝟐}}`$, where we have introduced

$$𝑸\mathbf{=}𝜶\mathbf{/}\sqrt{\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{}𝜶^\mathrm{𝟐}}\mathbf{.}$$
(13)
Let us now turn to the energy of the dyon solutions. If $`\mathbf{(}𝑨_𝒊^𝒂\mathbf{,}\stackrel{\mathbf{~}}{𝚽}^𝒂\mathbf{)}`$ is a solution of the monopole equations, it extremizes the energy functional

$$𝑬_{\mathrm{𝐌𝐏}}\mathbf{=}\mathbf{}\mathbf{\left\{}\frac{\mathrm{𝟏}}{\mathrm{𝟒}}𝑭_{𝒊𝒋}^𝒂𝑭_{𝒊𝒋}^𝒂\mathbf{+}\frac{\mathrm{𝟏}}{\mathrm{𝟐}}𝑫_𝒊\stackrel{\mathbf{~}}{𝚽}^𝒂𝑫_𝒊\stackrel{\mathbf{~}}{𝚽}^𝒂\mathbf{\right\}}𝒅^\mathrm{𝟑}𝒓\mathbf{,}$$
(14)
Since the scaling argument yields

$$\mathbf{}\mathbf{\left\{}\frac{\mathrm{𝟏}}{\mathrm{𝟐}}𝑫_𝒊\stackrel{\mathbf{~}}{𝚽}^𝒂𝑫_𝒊\stackrel{\mathbf{~}}{𝚽}^𝒂\mathbf{\right\}}𝒅^\mathrm{𝟑}𝒓\mathbf{=}\mathbf{}\mathbf{\left\{}\frac{\mathrm{𝟏}}{\mathrm{𝟒}}𝑭_{𝒊𝒋}^𝒂𝑭_{𝒊𝒋}^𝒂\mathbf{\right\}}𝒅^\mathrm{𝟑}𝒓\mathbf{=}\frac{\mathrm{𝟏}}{\mathrm{𝟐}}𝑬_{\mathrm{𝐌𝐏}}\mathbf{,}$$
(15)
we obtain for the energy of the dyon solutions (eq. (12) )

$`𝑬\mathbf{(}𝑸\mathbf{)}`$ $`\mathbf{=}`$ $`{\displaystyle \mathbf{}\mathbf{\left\{}\frac{\mathrm{𝟏}}{\mathrm{𝟒}}𝑭_{𝒊𝒋}^𝒂𝑭_{𝒊𝒋}^𝒂\mathbf{+}\frac{\mathrm{𝟏}}{\mathrm{𝟐}}𝑸^\mathrm{𝟐}𝑫_𝒊\stackrel{\mathbf{~}}{𝚽}^𝒂𝑫_𝒊\stackrel{\mathbf{~}}{𝚽}^𝒂\mathbf{+}\frac{\mathrm{𝟏}}{\mathrm{𝟐}}\mathbf{(}\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{+}𝑸^\mathrm{𝟐}\mathbf{)}𝑫_𝒊\stackrel{\mathbf{~}}{𝚽}^𝒂𝑫_𝒊\stackrel{\mathbf{~}}{𝚽}^𝒂\mathbf{\right\}}𝒅^\mathrm{𝟑}𝒓}`$ (16)
$`\mathbf{=}`$ $`{\displaystyle \mathbf{}\mathbf{\left\{}\frac{\mathrm{𝟏}}{\mathrm{𝟒}}𝑭_{𝒊𝒋}^𝒂𝑭_{𝒊𝒋}^𝒂\mathbf{+}\mathbf{(}\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{+}\mathrm{𝟐}𝑸^\mathrm{𝟐}\mathbf{)}\frac{\mathrm{𝟏}}{\mathrm{𝟐}}𝑫_𝒊\stackrel{\mathbf{~}}{𝚽}^𝒂𝑫_𝒊\stackrel{\mathbf{~}}{𝚽}^𝒂\mathbf{\right\}}𝒅^\mathrm{𝟑}𝒓}`$
$`\mathbf{=}`$ $`\mathrm{𝟐}\mathbf{(}\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{+}𝑸^\mathrm{𝟐}\mathbf{)}{\displaystyle \mathbf{}\mathbf{\left\{}\frac{\mathrm{𝟏}}{\mathrm{𝟒}}𝑭_{𝒊𝒋}^𝒂𝑭_{𝒊𝒋}^𝒂\mathbf{\right\}}𝒅^\mathrm{𝟑}𝒓}`$
$`\mathbf{=}`$ $`\mathbf{(}\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{+}𝑸^\mathrm{𝟐}\mathbf{)}𝑬_{\mathrm{𝐌𝐏}}\mathbf{.}`$
Note, that the above construction of electrically charged solutions is fairly general. Applying it e.g. to monopole-antimonopole solutions , the resulting solutions possess magnetic charges of opposite sign, but electric charges of equal sign. The reason is, that the magnetic charges are related to topological defects at the locations of the zeros of the Higgs field modulus, whereas the electric charge is related to the power law behaviour of the asymptotic Higgs field.

BPS monopole solutions satisfy the (anti-)selfdual equations

$$𝑭_{𝒊𝒋}^𝒂\mathbf{=}\mathbf{\pm }𝜺_{𝒊𝒋𝒌}𝑫_𝒌\stackrel{\mathbf{~}}{𝚽}^𝒂\mathbf{.}$$
(17)
Their energy saturates the lower bound $`𝑬_{\mathrm{𝐌𝐏}}\mathbf{=}\mathbf{(}\mathrm{𝟒}𝝅\mathbf{|}𝒏\mathbf{|}\mathbf{/}𝒈\mathbf{)}\stackrel{\mathbf{~}}{𝜼}`$, where $`𝒏`$ denotes the topological charge. According to eq. (16), we then find for the energy of the dyon solutions $`𝑬\mathbf{(}𝑸\mathbf{)}\mathbf{=}\mathbf{(}\mathrm{𝟒}𝝅\mathbf{|}𝒏\mathbf{|}\mathbf{/}𝒈\mathbf{)}\stackrel{\mathbf{~}}{𝜼}\mathbf{(}\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{+}𝑸^\mathrm{𝟐}\mathbf{)}`$. Choosing $`\stackrel{\mathbf{~}}{𝜼}\mathbf{=}𝜼\mathbf{/}\sqrt{\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{+}𝑸^\mathrm{𝟐}}`$, such that the Higgs field approaches asymptotically the value $`𝜼`$, we obtain

$$𝑬\mathbf{(}𝑸\mathbf{)}\mathbf{=}\frac{\mathrm{𝟒}𝝅\mathbf{|}𝒏\mathbf{|}}{𝒈}𝜼\sqrt{\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{+}𝑸^\mathrm{𝟐}}\mathbf{.}$$
(18)
Moreover, the energy density $`\mathit{ϵ}\mathbf{(}𝑸\mathbf{)}`$ of the dyon solutions is proportional to the energy density $`\mathit{ϵ}_{\mathrm{𝐌𝐏}}`$ of the BPS solutions,

$$\mathit{ϵ}\mathbf{(}𝑸\mathbf{)}\mathbf{=}\mathbf{(}\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{+}𝑸^\mathrm{𝟐}\mathbf{)}\mathit{ϵ}_{\mathrm{𝐌𝐏}}\mathbf{.}$$
(19)
Let us finally express the energy of the dyon solutions in terms of their magnetic and electric charges. With the electric field (6)

$$𝑬_𝒊\mathbf{=}\widehat{𝚽}^𝒂𝑭_{𝒊\mathrm{𝟎}}^𝒂\mathbf{=}𝑸\widehat{\stackrel{\mathbf{~}}{𝚽}}^𝒂\mathbf{}_𝒊\stackrel{\mathbf{~}}{𝚽}^𝒂\mathbf{=}𝑸\mathbf{}_𝒊\stackrel{\mathbf{~}}{𝚽}^𝒂$$
(20)
and the asymptotic form of the modulus of the Higgs field of BPS multimonopoles

$$\stackrel{\mathbf{~}}{𝚽}^𝒂\mathbf{=}\stackrel{\mathbf{~}}{𝜼}\mathbf{\left(}\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{}\frac{\mathbf{|}𝒏\mathbf{|}}{\stackrel{\mathbf{~}}{𝜼}𝒈𝒓}\mathbf{\right)}\mathbf{+}𝑶\mathbf{(}𝒓^\mathbf{}\mathrm{𝟐}\mathbf{)}$$
(21)
the expression for the electric charge, eq. (8), yields

$$𝒒\mathbf{=}𝑸\mathbf{}_{𝑺_{\mathbf{}}^\mathrm{𝟐}}\mathbf{}_𝒊\stackrel{\mathbf{~}}{𝚽}^𝒂𝒅𝑺_𝒊\mathbf{=}\frac{\mathrm{𝟒}𝝅\mathbf{|}𝒏\mathbf{|}}{𝒈}𝑸\mathbf{,}$$
(22)
Consequently, the energy of the dyon solutions is given by

$$𝑬\mathbf{(}𝒎\mathbf{,}𝒒\mathbf{)}\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟒}𝝅𝜼\sqrt{𝒎^\mathrm{𝟐}\mathbf{+}\mathbf{\left(}\frac{𝒒}{\mathrm{𝟒}𝝅}\mathbf{\right)}^\mathrm{𝟐}}\mathbf{.}$$
(23)
In this form the BPS expression for the energy reflects the electromagnetic duality (see e.g. ).

## 4 Axially Symmetric YMH Ansatz

To construct dyon solutions numerically, we employ the static axially symmetric ansatz used in the numerical construction of multimonopoles , supplemented by a non-vanishing time-component of the gauge field. In spherical coordinates with $`𝑨_𝝁^𝒂𝒅𝒙^𝝁\mathbf{=}𝑨_𝒕^𝒂𝒅𝒕\mathbf{+}𝑨_𝒓^𝒂𝒅𝒓\mathbf{+}𝑨_𝜽^𝒂𝒅𝜽\mathbf{+}𝑨_𝝋^𝒂𝒅𝝋`$, the ansatz reads

$$𝑨_𝒕^𝒂\mathbf{=}𝜼\mathbf{\left[}𝑯_\mathrm{𝟓}\mathbf{(}𝒓\mathbf{,}𝜽\mathbf{)}𝒖_𝒓^𝒂\mathbf{+}𝑯_\mathrm{𝟔}\mathbf{(}𝒓\mathbf{,}𝜽\mathbf{)}𝒖_𝜽^𝒂\mathbf{\right]}\mathbf{,}$$
(24)
$$𝑨_𝒓^𝒂\mathbf{=}\frac{\mathrm{𝟏}}{𝒓}𝑯_\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{(}𝒓\mathbf{,}𝜽\mathbf{)}𝒖_𝝋^𝒂\mathbf{,}𝑨_𝜽^𝒂\mathbf{=}\mathbf{(}\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{}𝑯_\mathrm{𝟐}\mathbf{(}𝒓\mathbf{,}𝜽\mathbf{)}\mathbf{)}𝒖_𝝋^𝒂\mathbf{,}$$
(25)
$$𝑨_𝝋^𝒂\mathbf{=}\mathbf{}𝒏\mathrm{𝐬𝐢𝐧}𝜽\mathbf{\left[}𝑯_\mathrm{𝟑}\mathbf{(}𝒓\mathbf{,}𝜽\mathbf{)}𝒖_𝒓^𝒂\mathbf{+}\mathbf{(}\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{}𝑯_\mathrm{𝟒}\mathbf{(}𝒓\mathbf{,}𝜽\mathbf{)}\mathbf{)}𝒖_𝜽^𝒂\mathbf{\right]}\mathbf{,}$$
(26)
$$𝚽^𝒂\mathbf{=}𝜼\mathbf{\left[}\mathit{\varphi }_\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{(}𝒓\mathbf{,}𝜽\mathbf{)}𝒖_𝒓^𝒂\mathbf{+}\mathit{\varphi }_\mathrm{𝟐}\mathbf{(}𝒓\mathbf{,}𝜽\mathbf{)}𝒖_𝜽^𝒂\mathbf{\right]}\mathbf{,}$$
(27)
with unit vectors

$$\stackrel{\mathbf{}}{𝒖}_𝒓\mathbf{=}\mathbf{(}\mathrm{𝐬𝐢𝐧}𝜽\mathrm{𝐜𝐨𝐬}𝒏𝝋\mathbf{,}\mathrm{𝐬𝐢𝐧}𝜽\mathrm{𝐬𝐢𝐧}𝒏𝝋\mathbf{,}\mathrm{𝐜𝐨𝐬}𝜽\mathbf{)}\mathbf{,}$$
(28)
$$\stackrel{\mathbf{}}{𝒖}_𝜽\mathbf{=}\mathbf{(}\mathrm{𝐜𝐨𝐬}𝜽\mathrm{𝐜𝐨𝐬}𝒏𝝋\mathbf{,}\mathrm{𝐜𝐨𝐬}𝜽\mathrm{𝐬𝐢𝐧}𝒏𝝋\mathbf{,}\mathbf{}\mathrm{𝐬𝐢𝐧}𝜽\mathbf{)}\mathbf{,}$$
(29)
$$\stackrel{\mathbf{}}{𝒖}_𝝋\mathbf{=}\mathbf{(}\mathbf{}\mathrm{𝐬𝐢𝐧}𝒏𝝋\mathbf{,}\mathrm{𝐜𝐨𝐬}𝒏𝝋\mathbf{,}\mathrm{𝟎}\mathbf{)}\mathbf{.}$$
(30)
The winding number $`𝒏`$ corresponds to the topological charge of the solutions . For $`𝒏\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟏}`$ the ansatz reproduces the spherically symmetric dyons .

Regularity, finite energy and symmetry requirements lead to the boundary conditions . At the origin and at infinity they read

$$𝑯_𝒊\mathbf{(}\mathrm{𝟎}\mathbf{,}𝜽\mathbf{)}\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟎}\mathbf{,}𝒊\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{,}\mathrm{𝟑}\mathbf{,}\mathrm{𝟓}\mathbf{,}\mathrm{𝟔}\mathbf{,}𝑯_𝒊\mathbf{(}\mathrm{𝟎}\mathbf{,}𝜽\mathbf{)}\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{,}𝒊\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟐}\mathbf{,}\mathrm{𝟒}\mathbf{,}$$
(31)
$$\mathit{\varphi }_𝒊\mathbf{(}\mathrm{𝟎}\mathbf{,}𝜽\mathbf{)}\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟎}\mathbf{,}𝒊\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{,}\mathrm{𝟐}\mathbf{,}$$
(32)
$$𝑯_𝒊\mathbf{(}\mathbf{}\mathbf{,}𝜽\mathbf{)}\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟎}\mathbf{,}𝒊\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{,}\mathrm{𝟐}\mathbf{,}\mathrm{𝟑}\mathbf{,}\mathrm{𝟒}\mathbf{,}\mathrm{𝟔}\mathbf{,}𝑯_\mathrm{𝟓}\mathbf{(}\mathbf{}\mathbf{,}𝜽\mathbf{)}\mathbf{=}𝜶\mathbf{,}$$
(33)
$$\mathit{\varphi }_\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{(}\mathbf{}\mathbf{,}𝜽\mathbf{)}\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{,}\mathit{\varphi }_\mathrm{𝟐}\mathbf{(}\mathbf{}\mathbf{,}𝜽\mathbf{)}\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟎}\mathbf{,}$$
(34)
and on the $`𝒛`$\- and $`𝝆`$\- axis (with $`𝒛\mathbf{=}𝒓\mathrm{𝐜𝐨𝐬}𝜽`$ and $`𝝆\mathbf{=}𝒓\mathrm{𝐬𝐢𝐧}𝜽`$) they are

$$𝑯_𝒊\mathbf{(}𝒓\mathbf{,}\mathrm{𝟎}\mathbf{)}\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟎}\mathbf{,}𝒊\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{,}\mathrm{𝟑}\mathbf{,}\mathrm{𝟔}\mathbf{,}\mathbf{}_𝜽𝑯_𝒊\mathbf{(}𝒓\mathbf{,}\mathrm{𝟎}\mathbf{)}\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟎}\mathbf{,}𝒊\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟐}\mathbf{,}\mathrm{𝟒}\mathbf{,}\mathrm{𝟓}\mathbf{,}$$
(35)
$$\mathbf{}_𝜽\mathit{\varphi }_\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{(}𝒓\mathbf{,}\mathrm{𝟎}\mathbf{)}\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟎}\mathbf{,}\mathit{\varphi }_\mathrm{𝟐}\mathbf{(}𝒓\mathbf{,}\mathrm{𝟎}\mathbf{)}\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟎}\mathbf{,}$$
(36)
$$𝑯_𝒊\mathbf{(}𝒓\mathbf{,}𝝅\mathbf{/}\mathrm{𝟐}\mathbf{)}\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟎}\mathbf{,}𝒊\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{,}\mathrm{𝟑}\mathbf{,}\mathrm{𝟔}\mathbf{,}\mathbf{}_𝜽𝑯_𝒊\mathbf{(}𝒓\mathbf{,}𝝅\mathbf{/}\mathrm{𝟐}\mathbf{)}\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟎}\mathbf{,}𝒊\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟐}\mathbf{,}\mathrm{𝟒}\mathbf{,}\mathrm{𝟓}\mathbf{,}$$
(37)
$$\mathbf{}_𝜽\mathit{\varphi }_\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{(}𝒓\mathbf{,}𝝅\mathbf{/}\mathrm{𝟐}\mathbf{)}\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟎}\mathbf{,}\mathit{\varphi }_\mathrm{𝟐}\mathbf{(}𝒓\mathbf{,}𝝅\mathbf{/}\mathrm{𝟐}\mathbf{)}\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟎}\mathbf{.}$$
(38)
The constant $`𝜶`$ in eq. (33) is restricted to $`𝜶\mathbf{}\mathrm{𝟏}`$. For $`𝜶\mathbf{>}\mathrm{𝟏}`$ some gauge field functions become oscillating instead of asymptotically decaying, completely analogous to the $`𝒏\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟏}`$ case .

## 5 Dyon Solutions

We now present the axially symmetric dyon solutions, obtained numerically for vanishing and finite Higgs self-coupling.

### 5.1 Vanishing Higgs self-coupling

In the Prasad-Sommerfield limit the time component of the gauge field and the Higgs field are proportional, eq. (10), in particular, $`𝑯_\mathrm{𝟓}\mathbf{/}\mathit{\varphi }_\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{=}𝜶`$ and $`𝑯_\mathrm{𝟔}\mathbf{/}\mathit{\varphi }_\mathrm{𝟐}\mathbf{=}𝜶`$. The proportionality constant $`𝜶`$, eq. (13), then determines the electric charge, eq. (22), and the energy, eq. (18) resp. eq. (23).

The numerically obtained axially symmetric solutions with topological charge $`𝒏\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟏}`$, 2 and 3 satisfy these relations very well. Both the energy per topological charge $`𝑬_𝒏\mathbf{/}𝒏`$ and the electric charge per topological charge $`𝒒_𝒏\mathbf{/}𝒏`$ are independent of the topological charge $`𝒏`$ and depend only on the constant $`𝜶`$. Since the electric charge diverges for $`𝜶\mathbf{}\mathrm{𝟏}`$, the dyon solutions exist for arbitrarily large values of the electric charge.

### 5.2 Finite Higgs self-coupling

For finite Higgs self-coupling, the simple scaling relations no longer hold. Although for small Higgs self-coupling the time component of the gauge field and the Higgs field are still almost proportional.

The magnetic charge is given in terms of the topological charge also for finite Higgs self-coupling. However, the electric charge is no more obtained from the asymptotic behaviour of the Higgs field $`𝚽^𝒂\mathbf{=}𝚽^𝒃\widehat{𝚽}_{\mathbf{}}^𝒂`$ alone, which now decays exponentially

$$𝚽^𝒂\mathbf{=}𝜼\mathbf{(}\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{}𝒆^{\mathbf{}𝒓𝜷}\mathbf{)}\mathbf{,}𝜷\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐭}\mathbf{.}$$
(39)
Instead the asymptotic behaviour of the time component of the gauge field now primarily determines the electric charge, eq. (8),

$$𝒒\mathbf{=}\underset{𝒓\mathbf{}\mathbf{}}{𝐥𝐢𝐦}\mathrm{𝟒}𝝅\widehat{𝚽}_{\mathbf{}}^𝒂𝒓^\mathrm{𝟐}\mathbf{}_𝒓𝑨_𝒕^𝒂\mathbf{=}\underset{𝒓\mathbf{}\mathbf{}}{𝐥𝐢𝐦}\mathrm{𝟒}𝝅𝜼𝒓^\mathrm{𝟐}\mathbf{}_𝒓𝑯_\mathrm{𝟓}\mathbf{.}$$
(40)
In Fig. 1 we show the energy per topological charge $`𝑬_𝒏\mathbf{/}𝒏`$ in units of $`\mathrm{𝟒}𝝅𝜼\mathbf{/}𝒈`$ for Higgs self-coupling $`𝝀\mathbf{=}\mathbf{0.5}`$ and for topological number $`𝒏\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟏}`$, 2 and 3 as a function of the electric charge per topological charge $`𝒒_𝒏\mathbf{/}𝒏`$ in units of $`\mathrm{𝟒}𝝅\mathbf{/}𝒈`$. For dyons, as for magnetic monopoles , there exists only a repulsive phase for $`𝝀\mathbf{}\mathrm{𝟎}`$, because the attractive Higgs field becomes massive and thus exponentially decaying. Therefore - unlike the BPS case - it can no longer cancel the long-range repulsive force of the gauge fields.

For finite $`𝝀`$ the energy per topological charge $`𝑬_𝒏\mathbf{/}𝒏`$ increases with increasing $`𝒏`$. The energy per topological charge $`𝑬_𝒏\mathbf{/}𝒏`$ of the axialsymmetric solutions is higher than $`𝑬_𝒏\mathbf{/}𝒏`$ of the spherical symmetric solution. The axially symmetric $`𝒏\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟑}`$ solutions have higher $`𝑬_𝒏\mathbf{/}𝒏`$ than the corresponding $`𝒏\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟐}`$ solutions. For $`𝒏\mathbf{}\mathrm{𝟑}`$ in addition solutions with only discrete symmetries exist . We expect that for finite $`𝝀`$ these solutions are energetically more favorable than the axially symmetric solutions constructed here.

In contrast to the Prasad-Sommerfield limit, where dyon solutions exist for arbitrary electric charge, there exists an ($`𝒏`$-dependent) upper bound for the electric charge of dyon solutions when the Higgs self-coupling is finite. This is illustrated in Fig. 2, where we show the electric charge per topological charge $`𝒒_𝒏\mathbf{/}𝒏`$ as a function of the parameter $`𝜶`$ for $`𝝀\mathbf{=}\mathbf{0.5}`$ and $`𝒏\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟏}`$, 2 and 3. For $`𝜶\mathbf{}\mathrm{𝟏}`$ the upper bound of the electric charge is reached. The localized dyon solutions then cease to exist, because some gauge field functions become oscillatory instead of asymptotically exponentially decaying. The upper bounds in Fig. 2, where $`𝜶\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟏}`$, represent therefore the endpoints of the curves in Fig. 1.

The upper bound of the electric charge of the dyon solutions decreases with increasing Higgs self-coupling $`𝝀`$. This is seen in Fig. 3 where we show the electric charge per topological charge $`𝒒_𝒏\mathbf{/}𝒏`$ as a function of the parameter $`𝜶`$ for $`𝝀\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟎}`$, 0.5 and 1 for dyons with $`𝒏\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟐}`$. Note, that the curve for $`𝝀\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟎}`$ is independent of $`𝒏`$.

The dyons with $`𝒏\mathbf{>}\mathrm{𝟏}`$ possess toroidal shape, as is illustrated in Fig. 4. In this three-dimensional plot the energy density of the dyon solution with topological charge $`𝒏\mathbf{=}\mathrm{𝟐}`$ and electric charge per topological charge $`𝒒_\mathrm{𝟐}\mathbf{/}\mathrm{𝟐}\mathbf{=}\mathbf{0.6}`$ is shown for Higgs self-coupling $`𝝀\mathbf{=}\mathbf{0.5}`$ as a function of the compactified coordinates $`𝝆\mathbf{=}\overline{𝒙}\mathrm{𝐬𝐢𝐧}𝜽`$ and $`𝒛\mathbf{=}\overline{𝒙}\mathrm{𝐜𝐨𝐬}𝜽`$, where $`\overline{𝒙}\mathbf{=}𝒙\mathbf{/}\mathbf{(}\mathrm{𝟏}\mathbf{+}𝒙\mathbf{)}`$ is the coordinate used in the numerical calculations. The effect of the presence of the electric charge is seen in Fig. 5, where the energy density is shown as a function of the compactified coordinate $`\overline{𝒙}`$ for several values of the angle $`𝜽`$, both for the above dyon solution and for the corresponding multimonopole solution.

## 6 Conclusions

We have constructed axially symmetric solutions of SU(2) YMH theory carrying both magnetic and electric charge. In the Prasad-Sommerfield limit solutions with electric charge are obtained from purely magnetically charged solutions by simple scaling relations. The energy expression eq. (23) for these BPS solutions reflects the electromagnetic duality.

For finite Higgs self-coupling the energies don’t satisfy a duality relation analogous to eq. (23). In particular there exist $`𝒏`$\- and $`𝝀`$-dependent upper bounds for the electric charge of dyon solutions, where localized solutions cease to exist.

The toroidal shape of the energy density of the monopole solutions is retained for the dyon solutions. With increasing electric charge the maximum of the energy density decreases, instead the energy density reaches further out.

As for the multimonopoles, dyonic solutions can be constructed for the monopole-antimonopole solutions. These solutions then possess magnetic charges of opposite sign, but electric charges of equal sign. In the Prasad-Sommerfield limit the dyonic monopole-antimonopole solutions can be obtained by means of the same scaling relations as the dyonic multimonopole solutions. The numerical construction of dyonic monopole-antimonopole solutions is presently under consideration.

Acknowledgement

We gratefully acknowledge discussions with Y. Brihaye and T. Tchrakian.


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# The lithium isotope ratio in the metal-poor halo star G271-162 from VLT/UVES observations Based on public data released from the UVES commissioning at the VLT/Kueyen telescope, ESO, Paranal, Chile

## 1 Introduction

Due to the special status of $`{}_{}{}^{6}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}`$ for astrophysics and cosmology, much work has been devoted to the search for this isotope in metal-poor stars ever since the first detection in HD 84937 by Smith et al. (smith93 (1993)). The reason for this interest is threefold: i) The presence of $`{}_{}{}^{6}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}`$ in the envelope of halo stars severely limits the possible depletion of $`{}_{}{}^{7}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}`$, and thus allows a more accurate determination of the primordial $`{}_{}{}^{7}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}`$ abundance (Ryan et al. ryan99 (1999); Asplund & Carlsson asplund00 (2000)); ii) $`{}_{}{}^{6}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}`$ abundances provide an additional test of theories for the production of the light elements (Li, Be and B) by cosmic ray processes; iii) Since $`{}_{}{}^{6}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}`$ is an even more fragile nuclei than $`{}_{}{}^{7}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}`$ it is a sensitive probe of possible mixing events during the stellar life.

To date $`{}_{}{}^{6}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}`$ is claimed to have been detected in two metal-poor halo stars, HD 84937 and BD +26 3578, and two metal-poor disk stars, HD 68284 and HD 130551 (Smith et al. smith98 (1998); Hobbs & Thorburn hobbs97 (1997); Cayrel et al. cayrel99 (1999); Nissen et al. nissen99 (1999)). Clearly, an observational test of models for the formation and evolution of $`{}_{}{}^{6}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}`$ and for the depletion of $`{}_{}{}^{6}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}`$ in stellar envelopes requires a much larger set of $`{}_{}{}^{6}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}`$ data spanning a large metallicity range. With the advent of high-resolution spectrographs on 8m-class telescopes this is now becoming feasible.

The determinations of $`{}_{}{}^{6}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}`$ abundances are based on the increased width and asymmetry of the Li i 670.8 nm doublet introduced by the isotope shift (0.16 Å = 7.1 km s-1) of $`{}_{}{}^{6}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}`$. Since the line is not resolved, the derived $`{}_{}{}^{6}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}`$ abundance depends on the adopted stellar line broadening as estimated from other spectral lines. Until now all such analyses have relied on 1D hydrostatic model atmospheres which cannot predict the inherent line asymmetries introduced by the convective motions in the atmosphere and thus is a potential source of uncertainty. An attractive alternative is provided by the new generation of 3D hydrodynamical model atmospheres (e.g. Stein & Nordlund stein98 (1998); Asplund et al. asplund99 (1999), asp00 (2000)) which self-consistently compute the time-dependent convective velocity fields and thus are able to predict the convective line asymmetries.

In the present Letter we analyze a high resolution, very high $`S/N`$ spectrum of the metal-poor halo star G271-162 obtained during the commissioning of UVES on VLT/Kueyen using both 1D and 3D model atmospheres. Thereby we also investigate the ability of UVES to provide high quality spectra as needed in many astrophysical studies.

## 2 Observations and reductions of UVES spectra

The metal-poor star G 271-162 (BD $-$10 388) was chosen as one of the targets for the first commissioning of UVES, the UV-Visual Echelle Spectrograph (D’Odorico & Kaper, dodorico00 (2000)) on the ESO VLT UT2 (Kueyen) telescope. The aim was to test if UVES can supply high quality spectra suitable for a determination of the lithium isotope ratio in stars – one of the most demanding problems in observational stellar astrophysics. Being situated at the turnoff point for halo stars in the HR diagram, G 271-162 is very similar to HD 84937; hence, one would expect the Li isotope ratio to be about the same, i.e. $`{}_{}{}^{6}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}/{}_{}{}^{7}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}0.06`$. Furthermore, G 271-162 represents a group of about 50 halo turnoff stars with $`10V11.5`$ that are too faint to be searched for $`{}_{}{}^{6}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}`$ using high resolution spectrographs at 4m class telescopes. With UVES it should be possible to reach these stars and hence to increase the sample of stars with $`{}_{}{}^{6}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}`$ determinations by an order of magnitude.

Four spectra of G 271-162 were obtained on October 11 - 13, 1999, with exposure times ranging from 30 to 60 min. The width of the entrance slit was set at 0.3 arcsec to get a resolution close to 120 000. An image slicer is foreseen for this high resolution mode of UVES, but was not available during the first commissioning run. Instead, the star was continuously moved along the slit within $`\pm 5`$ arcsec corresponding to approximately 50 pixels on the CCDs. This widening of the echelle orders is essential in obtaining very high S/N. The lack of the image slicer made the efficiency of UVES critically dependent on the seeing, but it is noted that on one night with excellent seeing on Paranal (0.35 arcsec) the efficiency of UVES was as high as could be expected in the image slicer mode for average seeing conditions.

The red arm of UVES was applied with the two CCDs (EEV $`4096\times 2048`$ and MIT-LL $`4096\times 2048`$) covering the spectral regions 610 - 705 and 715 - 810 nm in 14 and 10 echelle orders, respectively. Cross disperser #3 was chosen to provide ample space ($`150`$ pixels) between the orders for accurate measurement of the background.

The spectra have been reduced using standard IRAF tasks for order definition, background subtraction, FF division, extraction of orders, wavelength calibration and continuum normalization. The spectrum of a bright B-type star, HR 8858, was observed and used to remove telluric lines present in some spectral regions. After correction for radial velocity shifts the four spectra were combined to one. Fig. 1 shows the very high $`S/N`$ and resolution obtained.

The wavelength calibration is based on 30-40 thorium lines per echelle order, and the rms of a 2-dimensional 4th order polynomial fit between pixel and wavelength space is 1.1 mÅ. In addition, the Th lines can be used to check the resolution; the instrument profile is well approximated with a Gaussian and no asymmetry is seen. The resolution as measured from the FWHM of the Th lines varies, however, along a given spectral order from about 100 000 to 120 000. Thanks to the large number of Th lines available, the variation could be mapped and the actual instrumental resolution for a given stellar line determined and applied in connection with the spectrum synthesis. It is noted that this problem of resolution variations has been fixed during the second commissioning run of UVES.

## 3 Analysis

The analysis of the Li i feature (equivalent width 29.0 mÅ) has been carried out using both 1D hydrostatic (Asplund et al. asplund97 (1997)) and 3D hydrodynamical LTE model atmospheres (Asplund et al. asplund99 (1999)). According to Strömgren photometry the stellar parameters of G 271-162 are $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}=6295\pm 70`$ K and $`\text{[Fe/H]}=2.15\pm 0.2`$ while the uncertain Hipparcos parallax suggests $`\text{log }g=3.7_{0.7}^{+0.4}`$. G 271-162 closely resembles HD 84937 for which the IR flux method (IRFM), the Hipparcos parallax and stellar spectroscopy imply $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}=6330\pm 80`$ K, $`\text{log }g=4.0\pm 0.1`$ and $`\text{[Fe/H]}=2.25\pm 0.2`$, which we therefore also adopt for G 271-162. It should be emphasized though that the exact choice of parameters does not influence significantly the lithium isotope ratio determinations although it does of course affect the absolute abundances.

When applying 1D model atmospheres to spectral synthesis additional line broadening besides the instrumental broadening is required. This broadening, which is mainly due to macroturbulence, was approximated by a Gaussian function and determined from a $`\chi ^2`$ fit of five unblended lines (Ca i 612.2, Ca i 616.2, Fe i 623.0, Ca i 643.9, and K i 769.9 nm), all of similar strength as the Li i 670.8 nm line. In the case of the K i 769.9 nm resonance line the hyperfine structure and isotopic shift between $`{}_{}{}^{39}\mathrm{K}_{}^{}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{41}\mathrm{K}_{}^{}`$ were taken into account although the effect turned out to be rather negligible. A more sophisticated broadening like a radial-tangential profile did not improve the agreement with the observed profiles. In contrast, in hydrodynamical model atmospheres the self-consistent convective motions account for all of the line broadening except for the unknown rotational velocity $`v_{\mathrm{rot}}\mathrm{sin}i`$ of the star. This parameter was determined by fitting a disk-integration of the angle-dependent theoretical 3D line profiles to the observed profiles of the K i, Ca i and Fe i lines.

The comparison between theoretical and observed profiles was quantified using a $`\chi ^2`$ analysis in an analogous way to previous investigations (Nissen et al. nissen99 (1999)). The $`\chi ^2`$ was computed through $`\chi ^2=(O_iS_i)^2/\sigma ^2`$, where $`O_i`$ is the observed spectral point, $`S_i`$ the synthesis and $`\sigma =(S/N)^1`$ as estimated in two adjacent continuum windows to the lines. When estimating the FWHM of the Gaussian broadening (1D) and $`v_{\mathrm{rot}}\mathrm{sin}i`$ (3D), the abundance and the wavelength zeropoint of the observed spectrum were allowed to vary to optimize the fit (Figs. 2 and 3). The most probable value corresponds to the minimum of $`\chi ^2`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2=\chi ^2\chi _{\mathrm{min}}^2=1,4`$ and 9 represent the 1-, 2- and 3$`\sigma `$ confidence limits of the determinations. These broadening parameters were subsequently used in a similar $`\chi ^2`$ analysis of the Li i 670.8 nm line. The free parameters in the comparison between the predicted and observed profile were, besides the $`{}_{}{}^{6}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}`$ fraction, the total Li abundance and the wavelength zeropoint of the observed profile. It is emphasized that for each value of $`{}_{}{}^{6}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}`$/$`{}_{}{}^{7}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}`$ the other free parameters are optimized to get the smallest possible value of $`\chi ^2`$.

The 1D analysis of the K i, Ca i and Fe i lines implies a $`FWHM=5.9\pm 0.1`$km s-1of the stellar line broadening function. However, the detailed agreement with the observations are far from perfect (Fig. 2). In particular, the distinct red asymmetry of all lines similar to the solar case (e.g. Asplund et al. asp00 (2000)) is not accounted for. The result of the $`\chi ^2`$ analysis of the Li i 670.8 nm doublet suggests a possible detection of $`{}_{}{}^{6}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}`$: $`{}_{}{}^{6}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}/{}_{}{}^{7}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}=0.02\pm 0.01`$ ($`1\sigma `$). The minimum $`\chi _{\mathrm{red}}^2=\chi ^2/\nu `$, where $`\nu `$ is the number of degrees of freedom in the fit, is satisfactory close to 1.

The temperature inhomogeneities and velocity fields in the 3D hydrodynamical model atmospheres introduce characteristic line asymmetries, which for the Sun perfectly describe the observed asymmetries even on an absolute wavelength scale (Asplund et al. asp00 (2000)). The existence of the predicted line asymmetries in the 3D analysis vastly improves the agreement with the observed profiles for G 271-162 (Fig. 3); other lines show similarly encouraging correspondence. This provides additional support for the realism of the 3D model when describing the real stellar photosphere, as well as giving a higher degree of confidence in the estimate of the lithium isotope ratio. The stellar rotation was determined to be $`v_{\mathrm{rot}}\mathrm{sin}i=2.9\pm 0.1`$km s-1, which in turn implies $`{}_{}{}^{6}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}/{}_{}{}^{7}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}=0.02\pm 0.01`$ ($`1\sigma `$) according to Fig 5, the same result as in the 1D analysis. Again, the minimum $`\chi _{\mathrm{red}}^2`$ is close to 1 as it should.

## 4 Discussion and conclusions

Both the 1D and 3D analyses suggest a possible detection of $`{}_{}{}^{6}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}`$ in G 271-162 at the level of $`{}_{}{}^{6}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}/{}_{}{}^{7}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}=0.02\pm 0.01`$. Given the remaining uncertainties in the determination of the stellar line broadening (e.g. NLTE effects) the detection should, however, be considered preliminary. The similarity between the 1D and 3D results and the excellent agreement between the observed and predicted profiles in 3D, could be interpreted as support for a positive detection though. It also lends added confidence to previous detections of $`{}_{}{}^{6}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}`$ in metal-poor stars based on 1D investigations (e.g. Smith et al. smith98 (1998); Nissen et al. nissen99 (1999)). Evidently, the convective line asymmetries are rather negligible compared to the isotopic shift of the $`{}_{}{}^{6}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}`$ doublet.

Regardless of whether $`{}_{}{}^{6}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}`$ has been detected in G 271-162 or not, the $`{}_{}{}^{6}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}`$/$`{}_{}{}^{7}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}`$ ratio appears in any case to be smaller than in HD 84937 for which a weighted average of the results of Hobbs & Thorburn (hobbs97 (1997)), Smith et al. (smith98 (1998)) and Cayrel et al. (cayrel99 (1999)) is $`{}_{}{}^{6}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}/{}_{}{}^{7}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}=0.059\pm 0.016(1\sigma )`$. This is quite puzzling, because the two stars have almost identical parameters according to the $`uvby`$-$`\beta `$ photometry of Schuster & Nissen (schuster88 (1988)). Table 1 lists the measured indices for the three halo stars with $`{}_{}{}^{6}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}`$ measurements after correction for a small reddening of G 271-162, $`E(by)=0.020`$, as derived from the the $`\beta `$ \- $`(by)_0`$ calibration of Schuster & Nissen (schuster89 (1989)). Table 2 shows the derived parameters using the IRFM calibration of $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ vs. $`(by)_0`$ by Alonso et al. (1996a ), the \[Fe/H\] calibration of Schuster & Nissen (schuster89 (1989)) and the $`M_V`$ calibration of Nissen & Schuster (nissen91 (1991)). The directly measured IRFM temperatures of HD 84937 and BD +26 3578 are 6330 and 6310 (Alonso et al. 1996b ) in excellent agreement with the values in Table 2, whereas G 271-162 has not been measured. The absolute magnitude of HD 84937 from the Hipparcos parallax (ESA, esa97 (1997)) is $`M_V=3.82\pm 0.19`$ in good agreement with the photometric value within the quoted errors. For the two other stars the relative error of the Hipparcos parallax is far too large to estimate $`M_V`$ with any reasonable accuracy. Finally, a preliminary abundance analysis shows that HD 84937 and G 271-162 have the same metal abundances within $`\pm 0.15`$ dex.

Fig. 6 shows the location of the three stars in the $`M_\mathrm{V}`$-$`\mathrm{log}T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ diagram. Clearly, HD 84937 and G 271-162 have nearly the same mass. This makes it difficult to explain the lower $`{}_{}{}^{6}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}`$ abundance in G 271-162 as a depletion effect and raises the interesting question of a possible intrinsic scatter of $`{}_{}{}^{6}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}`$/$`{}_{}{}^{7}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}`$ in the ISM at a given metallicity. In this connection we note that some models for the formation of the light elements by cosmic ray processes in the early Galaxy predict a scatter of one order of magnitude in the abundance of $`{}_{}{}^{6}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}`$, Be and B relative to Fe, e.g. the bimodal superbubble model of Parizot & Drury (parizot99 (1999)) and the supernovae-driven chemical evolution model for the Galactic halo by Suzuki et al. (suzuki99 (1999)).

It is clear that the ability of UVES on VLT/Kueyen to gather high quality, high resolution and very high $`S/N`$ spectra of even $`V10\stackrel{m}{.}5`$ stars as evident from the present study, has opened up the possibility for a large survey of $`{}_{}{}^{6}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}`$/$`{}_{}{}^{7}\mathrm{Li}_{}^{}`$ for stars with a wide range of metallicities. An observing program with this exact aim using UVES/VLT is currently in progress, which is expected to be of great importance both for an improved understanding of Big Bang nucleosynthesis, cosmic chemical evolution of the light elements and stellar mixing events.

###### Acknowledgements.

We are greatly indebted to all the people involved in the conception, construction and commissioning of the UVES instrument, without whom this project would have been impossible.


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# Observation of the parallel-magnetic-field-induced superconductor-insulator transition in thin amorphous InO films

## Abstract

We study the response of a thin superconducting amorphous InO film with variable oxygen content to a parallel magnetic field. A field-induced superconductor-insulator transition (SIT) is observed that is very similar to the one in normal magnetic fields. As the boson-vortex duality, which is the key-stone of the theory of the field-induced SIT, is obviously absent in the parallel configuration, we have to draw conclusion about the theory insufficiency.

A good deal of work was performed on the investigation of the magnetic-field-induced superconductor-insulator transition (SIT) on superconducting amorphous films of InO , MoGe , and MoSi  with thickness comparable to the superconducting coherence length. It was found that with increasing field $`B`$ the resistance $`R`$ of all studied films rises abruptly at a magnetic field $`B_c`$ and then passes through a maximum followed by a drop in high magnetic fields . The film state just above $`B_c`$ was identified as insulating although at lowest temperatures about 30 mK the maximum resistance does not exceed 100 k$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and the temperature dependences of $`1/R`$ correspond to the activation energies which do not exceed by far the lowest temperatures. Near $`B_c`$ at sufficiently low temperatures, the resistance $`R(T,B)`$ was found to be a function of single scaling variable $`u=(BB_c)/T^y`$ with exponent $`y0.8`$. The above experimental findings are regarded to confirm the theory of the quantum SIT  in two-dimensional (2D) superconducting films subjected to a normal magnetic field. This theory exploits the concept of the hypothetical system of charged bosons in a random potential and is based on the boson-vortex symmetry of the model Hamiltonian. In the vicinity of the SIT point ($`T=0,B=B_c`$) the film resistance $`R(T,B)`$ is expected to be a universal function of the single scaling variable which is defined as the ratio of the correlation length $`\xi (BB_c)^\nu `$ and the dephasing length $`L_\varphi T^{1/z}`$, where $`\nu `$ and $`z`$ are the critical indices. The form of the scaling variable implies that the value $`1/z\nu `$ has to be identified with exponent $`y`$. The concept of the localization of electron pairs, or bosons , has been supported recently by the work of Ref. . There, it is shown that for a 2D superconducting film with strong disorder the region of fluctuation superconductivity, where the electron pairs occur, should extend down to zero temperature. In this region the unpaired electrons are supposed to be localized whereas the bosons can be either localized or delocalized, dependent on the value of magnetic field.

Other experimental results were interpreted within the model of electron pair localization: (i) a crossing of Hall isotherms $`R_{xy}(B)`$ was observed at a field $`B_{c0}>B_c`$ and attributed to a transition between the Bose-insulator and a Fermi-insulator that consists of localized single electrons, i.e., pairing is presumed to be destroyed at $`B_{c0}`$ ; (ii) the resistance drop in high fields was explained in terms of the electron pair breaking which occurs gradually with increasing $`B`$ owing to the different binding energies of bosons in a random potential .

However, a very similar SIT has been observed recently on amorphous MoSi films with the thickness $`d=1700`$ Å which is an order of magnitude larger compared to the superconducting coherence length $`\xi _{sc}`$ . This fact causes one to think that either the theory is inadequate or its restrictions are too severe.

Here, we investigate the influence of a parallel magnetic field on the superconducting properties of a thin amorphous InO film with variable oxygen content. For all film states we find a complete similarity in the behaviour of the resistance $`R(T,B)`$ for both parallel and perpendicular magnetic field.

The sample is an amorphous InO film with thickness 200 Å that was grown by electron-gun-evaporation of a high-purity In2O3 target onto a glass substrate . Oxygen deficiency compared to fully stoichiometric insulating compound In2O3 causes the film conductivity. By changing the oxygen content one can cover the range from a superconducting material ($`\xi _{sc}500`$ Å) to an insulator with activated conductance . The procedures to change reversibly the film state are described in detail in Ref. . To reinforce the superconducting properties of the film we used heating in vacuum up to a temperature from the interval 70 – 110C until the sample resistance got saturated. To shift the film state in the opposite direction we made exposure to air at room temperature. As the film remains amorphous during these manipulations, it is natural to assume that the treatment used results mainly in a change of the carrier density $`n`$ and that the value $`n`$ is inversely proportional to the room temperature resistance $`R_r`$ of the sample. Seven superconducting states of the film were studied.

The film was mounted into the top loading system of a dilution refrigerator; it was set either parallel or normal to the magnetic field within $`1^{}`$ accuracy. A four-terminal lock-in technique at a frequency of 10 Hz was used to measure the resistance of the sample. The ac current through the sample was equal to 1 nA.

The experimental dependences $`R(B)`$ for two close states of the film in the normal and parallel field orientation are presented in Fig. 1. As seen from the figure, for both field orientations the isotherms cross at the critical field $`B_c`$ which separates the superconducting region I and the insulating region II. The resistance drop with $`B`$ in region III down to values about $`h/e^2`$ indicates that at high magnetic fields the film state is metallic. The critical field $`B_c`$ is found to vary with field direction by about a factor of two. Nevertheless, near $`B_c`$, the experimental data collapse onto a single curve equally well for both perpendicular and parallel magnetic field with the close values of exponent $`y`$, see Fig. 2.

Figure 3 displays the behaviour of the relative resistance maximum $`R_{\mathrm{max}}/R_{14\mathrm{T}}`$ at the lowest temperature and of the critical field $`B_c`$ with changing film state. As seen from the figure, the resistance ratio decreases and approaches unity as one goes deeper into the superconducting phase. The value $`B_c`$ for both field directions increases when departing from the zero-field SIT, being higher in the parallel configuration.

The mean free path of the normal electrons in our film is small compared to the film thickness  and, hence, the metal-insulator transition expected in region III should be three-dimensional. In this case the conductance $`1/R`$ in the vicinity of metal-insulator transition is expected to change linearly with $`T^{1/3}`$ and extrapolation of the linear dependence to $`T=0`$ should reveal whether the phase is metallic or insulating as judged by offset sign . Such a data analysis is shown in Fig. 4. For both field configurations the experimental data behave similarly: the offset of the linear dependence increases with $`B`$ passing through zero at the transition point.

The crucial point of the theory of the magnetic-field-driven SIT  is the boson-vortex duality for induced by external magnetic field vortices penetrating the film, which is not the case for a parallel magnetic field. The experimentally observed complete similarity of the SIT properties in the perpendicular and parallel magnetic field forces one to conclude that the theory is not directly applicable for actual superconducting systems with disorder.

Nonetheless, assuming that the parallel magnetic field is capable of localizing the fluctuation-induced Cooper pairs in the paraconductivity region, one can translate all experimental findings into the language of localized bosons. We emphasize that the speculations below are very attractive but do not have a sound experimental basis so far.

One can reckon that the resistance rise with $`B`$ in region II is caused by decreasing boson localization length. Assuming additionally that the magnetic field not only localizes but also breaks electron pairs, it is easy to interpret the resistance drop in region III: breaking the correlations in localized electron pairs results in an increase of the electron hopping probability  and eventually electron delocalization at high fields . For sufficiently deep film states in the superconducting phase, i.e., sufficiently high $`B_c`$, at $`B>B_c`$ the localized bosons coexist with delocalized normal electrons so that the state never becomes insulating. In other words, as one advances into the superconducting phase, a fraction of the localized bosons reduces. As a result, the relative amplitude of the resistance maximum $`R_{\mathrm{max}}/R_{14\mathrm{T}}`$ tends to unity (Fig. 3), and the SIT should transform into an ordinary superconductor to normal metal transition.

In summary, we have investigated the response of a thin superconducting amorphous InO film to a parallel magnetic field. At a critical field $`B_c`$ a SIT has been observed that is very similar to the one in normal magnetic fields. That the boson-vortex duality is absent in the parallel configuration points to the insufficiency of the theory of the field-induced SIT . We find that the behaviours of the film resistance at fields above the transition are also similar for the parallel and normal magnetic field.

This work was supported by Grants RFBR 99-02-16117 and RFBR-PICS 98-02-22037 and by the Programme ”Statistical Physics” from the Russian Ministry of Sciences.


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# Simple Microscopic Theory of Amontons’ Laws for Static Friction

## Abstract

A microscopic theory for the ubiquitous phenomenon of static friction is presented. Interactions between two surfaces are modeled by an energy penalty that increases exponentially with the degree of surface overlap. The resulting static friction is proportional to load, in accordance with Amontons’ laws. However the friction coefficient between bare surfaces vanishes as the area of individual contacts grows, except in the rare case of commensurate surfaces. An area independent friction coefficient is obtained for any surface geometry when an adsorbed layer of mobile atoms is introduced between the surfaces. The predictions from our simple analytic model are confirmed by atomistically detailed molecular dynamics simulations.

Static friction $`F_\mathrm{s}`$ is the lateral force that must be applied to initiate sliding of one object over another. Its presence implies that the objects have locked together into a local energy minimum that must be overcome by the external force. This threshold force is observed between all the objects around us, yet its molecular origins have remained baffling. How do surfaces manage to lock together, and why does the friction obey Amontons’ laws that $`F_\mathrm{s}`$ increases linearly with the load $`L`$ pushing the objects together, and is independent of the surface area ?

Early theories of friction were based on the purely geometric argument that friction is caused by interlocking of surface asperities . The idea (Fig. 1) is that the top surface must be lifted up a typical slope $`\mathrm{tan}\alpha `$ determined by roughness on the bottom surface. If there is no microscopic friction between the surfaces, then the minimum force to initiate sliding is $`F_\mathrm{s}=L\mathrm{tan}\alpha `$. This result satisfies Amontons’ laws with a constant coefficient of friction $`\mu _\mathrm{s}F_\mathrm{s}/L=\mathrm{tan}\alpha `$. In 1737, Bélidor obtained a typical experimental value of $`\mu _\mathrm{s}0.35`$ by modeling rough surfaces as spherical asperities arranged to form commensurate crystalline walls . More recently, Israelachvili et al. have discussed a similar “cobblestone” model where the spherical asperities are atoms. However, asperities on real surfaces do not match as well as envisioned in these models or sketched in Fig. 1. On average, for every asperity or atom going up a ramp, there is another going down. One concludes that the mean friction between rigid surfaces vanishes unless they happen to have the same periodicity and alignment. Detailed calculations show that elastic deformations are generally too small to alter this conclusion .

In this Letter, we study a simple model of the static friction in individual contacts as a function of their area $`A`$. At fixed $`A`$, the static friction between bare surfaces is proportional to load. However, as implied by previous work , the prefactor vanishes for incommensurate surfaces. We find that $`F_\mathrm{s}/L`$ also vanishes for disordered surfaces, scaling as $`A^{1/2}`$ as the area increases. These results for bare surfaces are inconsistent with Amontons’ laws. Of course most surfaces around us are covered by a few angstroms of hydrocarbons, water and other small airborn molecules . We show that introducing such mobile molecules into the interface between incommensurate or disordered surfaces yields a value of $`\mu _\mathrm{s}=F_\mathrm{s}/L`$ that is independent of contact size and load. This naturally leads to Amontons’ laws for any distribution of contacts. Our analytic predictions are then tested against previous  and new computer simulations.

In our model, two surfaces “pay” an energy penalty $`V_{\mathrm{ww}}`$ that increases exponentially as the local separation between them decreases and they begin to overlap. This form of interaction is frequently used to model the Pauli repulsion between atoms, and contains the hard-sphere models of Bélidor and Israelachvili et al. as a limiting case. Within the contact area $`A`$ the surfaces are parallel to the $`xy`$ plane. The bottom wall is held fixed, has zero mean height, and local height $`\delta z_\mathrm{b}(\stackrel{}{x})`$. The mean height $`z_\mathrm{t}`$ and lateral position $`\stackrel{}{x}_\mathrm{t}`$ of the top wall are varied, and its local height is $`z_\mathrm{t}+\delta z_\mathrm{t}(\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}_\mathrm{t})`$. Then $`V_{\mathrm{ww}}`$ can be written as an integral over $`A`$

$$V_{\mathrm{ww}}(\stackrel{}{x}_\mathrm{t},z_\mathrm{t})=\epsilon d^2xe^{\left[z_\mathrm{t}+\delta z_\mathrm{t}(\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}_\mathrm{t})\delta z_\mathrm{b}(\stackrel{}{x})\right]/\xi },$$
(1)
where $`\xi `$ and $`\epsilon `$ characterize the length and energy per unit area of the interaction. The dependence of $`V_{\mathrm{ww}}`$ on $`z_\mathrm{t}`$ can be pulled out of the integral in Eq. 1. The integral then depends only on $`\stackrel{}{x}_\mathrm{t}`$ and can be expressed as an effective shift in the mean wall separation by $`\mathrm{\Delta }z(\stackrel{}{x}_\mathrm{t})`$:

$$V_{\mathrm{ww}}(\stackrel{}{x}_\mathrm{t},z_\mathrm{t})=\epsilon Ae^{\left\{z_\mathrm{t}+\mathrm{\Delta }z(\stackrel{}{x}_\mathrm{t})\right\}/\xi }.$$
(2)
The lateral and normal forces on a static contact are equal to the derivatives of $`V_{\mathrm{ww}}`$ with respect to $`\stackrel{}{x}_\mathrm{t}`$ and $`z_\mathrm{t}`$, respectively. Due to the simple form of Eq. 2 almost all factors in the ratio of friction to normal load cancel, and the ratio is independent of load . The static friction coefficient corresponds to the maximum of this ratio, taken along the direction of the applied force:

$$\mu _\mathrm{s}=\mathrm{max}\left[\frac{}{x_\mathrm{t}}\mathrm{\Delta }z(\stackrel{}{x}_\mathrm{t})\right].$$
(3)
Physically, $`\mathrm{\Delta }z(\stackrel{}{x}_\mathrm{t})/x_\mathrm{t}`$ represents an effective ramp that the top surface must climb to escape the local potential energy minimum. It is analogous to $`\mathrm{tan}\alpha `$ in Fig. 1, but arises from many molecular-scale interactions. Note that the factorization that leads to Eq. 3 relies on the exponential form of the local energy penalty. However our numerical tests with other interaction potentials and the simulations with Lennard-Jones potentials described below show that the result is more general.

The effect of the area of contact on the friction coefficient $`\mu _\mathrm{s}`$ is most easily seen by making a cumulant expansion of Eq. (1). To leading order, $`\mathrm{\Delta }z`$ is proportional to the mean-squared difference between $`\delta z_\mathrm{t}`$ and $`\delta z_\mathrm{b}`$. Only the contribution from the cross product contributes to the variation of $`\mathrm{\Delta }z`$ with respect to $`\stackrel{}{x}_t`$, yielding

$$\mu _\mathrm{s}\underset{x_t}{\mathrm{max}}\frac{1}{\xi }\underset{\stackrel{}{k}}{}ik_x\delta \stackrel{~}{z}_\mathrm{b}(\stackrel{}{k})\delta \stackrel{~}{z}_\mathrm{t}^{}(\stackrel{}{k})e^{i\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{x}_\mathrm{t}},$$
(4)
where $`\delta \stackrel{~}{z}_{\mathrm{b},\mathrm{t}}`$ are the 2D Fourier transforms of $`\delta z_{\mathrm{b},\mathrm{t}}`$. Explicit evaluation of Eq. 3 for various trial surfaces, and the simulations described below, show that higher order terms in $`\delta z`$ do not alter any of the following predictions.

Eq. (4) implies several relations between the geometry of the two surfaces and the friction between them: (i) If the two surfaces are crystalline and commensurate, then $`\delta z_t`$ and $`\delta z_b`$ share a common periodicity. The corresponding Bragg peaks in their Fourier transforms lead to an area independent $`\mu _\mathrm{s}`$. (ii) The magnitude of $`\mu _\mathrm{s}`$ is largest for two identical surfaces, where all Bragg peaks contribute. For commensurate surfaces that are not identical, $`\mu _\mathrm{s}`$ decreases exponentially with the length of the common period. For example, if there are $`p`$ lattice constants of the bottom surface for every $`q`$ lattice constants of the top surface, then the contribution to $`\mu _\mathrm{s}`$ comes from the $`q_{th}`$ Bragg peak of the bottom surface and the $`p_{th}`$ Bragg peak of the top surface. The Fourier content of atomically rough surfaces drops at least exponentially with $`|\stackrel{}{k}|`$, producing a corresponding decrease in $`\mu _\mathrm{s}`$. (iii) As a consequence of (ii), $`\mu _\mathrm{s}`$ vanishes completely for infinite incommensurate contacts. Contributions from the circumference of finite contacts yield a rapidly vanishing contribution to $`\mu _\mathrm{s}`$ . (iv) For two disordered but smooth surfaces $`\delta \stackrel{~}{z}_\mathrm{t}(\stackrel{}{k})`$ and $`\delta \stackrel{~}{z}_\mathrm{b}(\stackrel{}{k})`$ have rings of diffuse scattering that overlap. There will be many $`\stackrel{}{k}`$ that contribute to $`\mu _\mathrm{s}`$, but the phase of each contribution will be random. For interfaces with contact-area independent corrugation $`\delta z_{\mathrm{t},\mathrm{b}}^2`$, one can immediately conclude from the law of large numbers that $`\mu _\mathrm{s}A^{1/2}`$. Self-similar and curved interfaces need a more careful treatment .

Two geometry independent predictions can also be drawn from Eqs. (3) and (4): (v) $`\mu _\mathrm{s}`$ does not depend on the interaction strength $`\epsilon `$. (vi) Allowing for elastic deformation of the surfaces typically reduces $`\mu _\mathrm{s}`$, because the roughness decreases as the surfaces become more compliant .

Predictions (i) to (iii) agree with previous analytic and simulation studies of the force between commensurate and incommensurate surfaces . (v) is in agreement with recent computer simulations , where doubling the strength of Lennard-Jones interactions produced almost no change in $`\mu _\mathrm{s}`$. (iv) and (vi) are new results that are tested by simulations below. First we consider the implications of mobile atoms between the surfaces within our analytic model.

Fig. 2 illustrates how a mobile layer of atoms between two surfaces can lead to a finite $`\mu _\mathrm{s}`$ independent of the geometry of the two surfaces. The mobile atoms are able to move to positions where they simultaneously match the geometry of both top and bottom surfaces. This has the effect of augmenting the height of the bottom surface in a way that matches the undulations of the top surface, and gives an area independent contribution to Eq. 3.

In order to incorporate mobile atoms into our theory quantitatively, we presume that wherever a mobile atom sits in the interface, the effective distance between top and bottom wall is reduced by the diameter $`d`$ of the mobile atom. This effectively incorporates the mobile atoms into one of the walls. The position of a mobile atom in the interface is defined by a vector $`\stackrel{}{x}_i`$ so that the dimensionless areal density of the mobile atoms can be written as $`\rho (\stackrel{}{x})=(\pi d^2/4)_i\delta (\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}_i)`$. For the sake of simplicity, we assume that the mobile layer screens the direct wall-wall interaction and that interactions between the mobile atoms can be ignored. The latter assumption is consistent with observations  that $`\mu _\mathrm{s}`$ is insensitive to the density of mobile atoms. The validity of both assumptions was verified through simulations for the model system introduced below.

With this model, the total energy of the system is given by the indirect wall-wall interaction mediated through the mobile atoms. This takes the form

$`V_{\mathrm{ww}}`$ $`=`$ $`\epsilon {\displaystyle d^2x\rho (\stackrel{}{x})e^{\left\{z_\mathrm{t}+\delta z_\mathrm{t}(\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{x}_\mathrm{t})\delta z_\mathrm{b}(\stackrel{}{x})d\right\}/\xi }}`$ (5)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\epsilon \pi d^2}{4}}\mathrm{e}^{(z_\mathrm{t}d)/\xi }{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}e^{(\delta z_\mathrm{t}(\stackrel{}{x}_i\stackrel{}{x}_t)\delta z_\mathrm{b}(\stackrel{}{x}_i))/\xi }.`$ (6)
The force on the top wall $`\stackrel{}{F}_\mathrm{t}`$ can again be calculated by taking the gradient of $`V_{\mathrm{ww}}`$ with respect to the center of mass position of the top wall: $`(\stackrel{}{x}_\mathrm{t},z_\mathrm{t})`$. It is possible to decompose $`\stackrel{}{F}_\mathrm{t}`$ into forces $`\stackrel{}{F}_{\mathrm{t},i}`$ that stem from individual atoms. For each such force, a linear relationship between the $`x`$ component of the force $`F_{\mathrm{t},ix}`$ and the “local” load $`F_{\mathrm{t}iz}`$ can be established that is similar to Eq. (3):

$$F_{\mathrm{t},ix}=\left[\frac{}{x_\mathrm{t}}\left(\delta z_\mathrm{t}(\stackrel{}{x}_i\stackrel{}{x}_t)\delta z_\mathrm{b}(\stackrel{}{x}_i)\right)\right]F_{\mathrm{t},iz}.$$
(7)
As long as the partial derivative has a well-defined average value, the total friction will rise linearly with the total load.

At this point, we turn back to a more qualitative discussion. As long as the temperature is small compared to the energy barrier for diffusion between the surfaces, atoms will sit near local energy minima. The simulations described below show that these local minima usually correspond to the (++) configurations identified in Fig. 2, where the energy with respect to both surfaces is concave. Lateral displacements of the walls will ultimately limit the volume accessible to (++) atoms and increase $`V_{ww}`$. The atoms have created interlocking asperities that resist sliding much like those in Fig. 1. One can show more rigorously from Eq. 5 that if all atoms sit at (++) positions, the response to a lateral displacement is an opposing force that is linear in the normal load $`L`$ and independent of the area of contact. Indeed, this “Amontons’ law for elastic pinning” with an elastic restoring force linear in $`L`$ has been observed experimentally . Thus, we may conclude that mobile atoms in the interface lead to Amontons’ laws with a non-vanishing friction coefficient. The pinning of two surfaces through a “between-sorbed” layer can also be interpreted in terms of a generalized Frenkel-Kontorova or Tomlinson model . In these models, incommensurate layers exhibit static friction when one of the surfaces is so compliant that it can conform to the other surface. The mobile atoms act like an elastic sheet with nearly infinite compliance and thus allow locking to occur.

We have tested the above predictions for disordered walls using molecular dynamics simulations of the model described in detail in Refs.  and . The two walls contain discrete atoms tied to their equilibrium sites by springs of stiffness $`\kappa `$. Periodic boundary conditions are applied in the plane of the walls. Mobile molecules between the surfaces contain $`n`$ spherical monomers bound into a chain. All monomers and wall atoms also interact with a Lennard-Jones potential. For the results presented below, $`n=1`$ or 6, and the energy and length scales ($`ϵ`$ and $`\sigma `$, respectively) of the Lennard-Jones potential are the same for monomers and wall atoms. Other parameters produced equivalent results. Disordered walls were made by quenching bulk fluid states and then removing all atoms above or below some height.

Fig. 3 shows representative results for the scaling of friction with contact area. The top wall was coupled to a constant normal load and a slowly increasing lateral force. The static friction was determined from the threshold force needed to initiate lateral motion of the top wall. For all cases considered, the coefficient of friction between bare disordered surfaces vanished as $`A^{1/2}`$ (solid line) in agreement with prediction (iv). In contrast, when molecules were inserted into the interface, the static friction rapidly approached a constant as $`A`$ was increased. It is interesting to note that the bare and disordered surfaces have equal friction at an area corresponding to about 1000 atoms. This is slightly larger than contacts in atomic force microscopy, but much smaller than the micron size contacts between typical surfaces. In agreement with prediction (vi), decreasing $`\kappa `$ to the smallest reasonable value  ($`\kappa =400ϵ\sigma ^2`$) reduced the friction between bare walls considerably (crosses). Much smaller reductions ($``$20%) were observed when mobile atoms were present between elastic surfaces. In both cases the reductions reflect the ability for atoms to move vertically to minimize the steric overlap with the opposing surface. When atomic displacements were constrained to the horizontal plane, we observed no reduction in $`F_\mathrm{s}`$.

The simulations also allowed us to test the assumption that monomers in (++) configurations (Fig. 2) dominate the pinning. Fig. 4 shows results for a quarter monolayer of spherical molecules ($`n=1`$) as the force was ramped up to a value slightly above $`F_\mathrm{s}`$ over a time $`t_{\mathrm{reverse}}`$ and then returned four times as rapidly to zero. About 90% of mobile atoms sit at (+ +) positions until the wall begins to slide ($`t/t_{\mathrm{reverse}}0.95`$), and they contribute an even larger fraction of $`F_\mathrm{s}`$. Atoms that sit at convex positions relative to both walls (- -), were only seen during sliding. Even in this dynamic state, almost 70% of the atoms are in (+ +) sites and they continue to provide most of the lateral force. A detailed analysis of these runs shows that the mechanisms of kinetic and static friction are closely related in this model. At any instant in time, most of the mobile atoms are in local energy minima and resist lateral motion. When these sites become unstable (+ -) or (- -) sites, the atoms pop rapidly to a new site. Energy is dissipated during these rapid pops and flows into the walls as heat.

In conclusion, we have presented a simple analytic model for the molecular origins of friction. Although the model assumes exponential repulsion between surfaces, we presented simulations with more realistic potentials that show that the predictions are more generally applicable. Specifically the model provides a microscopic foundation for Amontons’ law $`F_{\mathrm{lateral}}=\mu L`$, but shows that $`\mu `$ vanishes for bare incommensurate or disordered surfaces as the size of contacts increases. Introducing mobile atoms between the surfaces yields Amontons’ laws: $`\mu `$ is independent of surface area and load for any contact geometry. The simulations also reveal deep connections between static and kinetic friction. Of course, experimental systems contain additional features that have not been treated. These include long-range elastic and plastic deformations of the walls, generation of wear debris, and chemical reactions . All of these may be important in particular systems.

We thank K. Binder, G. He and B. N. J. Persson for useful discussions. Support from the National Science Foundation through Grant No. DMR-9634131 is gratefully acknowledged. MHM is grateful for support through the Israeli-German D.I.P.-Project No 352-101.


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# Looking for non-Gaussianity in the COBE-DMR data with spherical wavelets

## 1 Introduction

Testing the Gaussianity of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) fluctuations has become of great interest since it would make it possible to distinguish between competing theories of structure formation in the early Universe such as inflation and topological defects. With this aim, a large number of techniques have already been proposed, many of them being applied to the 4-year COBE-DMR data (see e.g. Barreiro 2000). Although most of these analyses did not find evidence for non-Gaussianity, methods based on bispectrum analyses (Ferreira et al. 1998, Magueijo 1999; see also Zaroubi et al. 1999) and on statistics of wavelet coefficients (Pando et al. 1998) have yielded detection of non-Gaussianity in the COBE-DMR data. In particular, Pando et al. have found a significant non-Gaussian signal at the $`99\%`$ confidence level on computing the scale-scale correlation of the wavelet coefficients. This analysis has recently been revised by Mukherjee et al. (2000) (hereinafter MHL) who take into account that the results depend critically on the orientation of the signal and that a large number of the computed statistics do not show deviation from the Gaussian case. According to MHL, Gaussianity can be ruled out only at the $`41\%`$ confidence level in the DSMB data and at the $`72\%`$ level in the 53+90 GHz coadded data. The above wavelet analyses have been performed applying planar wavelets to Face 0 and Face 5 of the COBE-DMR QuadCube pixelisation. Therefore only one-third of the available data is being considered and, at the same time, undesirable projection effects may be present. In this work, we have performed a similar analysis to those of Pando et al and MHL, but applying orthogonal spherical Haar wavelets (SHW) (see Sweldens 1995 and references therein) to the COBE data in HEALPix pixelisation (Górski et al 1999) with the customised Galactic cut (Banday et al. 1997). On the one hand, this hierarchical pixelisation scheme is particularly well-suited to the application of such a wavelet decomposition. On the other hand, SHW are more appropriate to study data over a large region of the sky and also allow an easy identification of those coefficients affected by the Galaxy. Therefore all data lying outside the Galactic cut is used in the analysis, i.e., approximately two-thirds of the total number of COBE-DMR pixels.

As an illustration, we present our results for three different orientations of the data to account for the sensitivity of these estimators to the orientation of the input signal.

## 2 The wavelet analysis

We have used the coadded 53+90 GHz COBE-DMR map (each weighted according to the inverse of its noise variance) in HEALPix pixelisation (see Banday et al. 2000 for the map-making) with the customised Galactic cut. HEALPix is an equal area, iso-latitude and hierarchical pixelisation of the sphere. The resolution level of the grid can be expressed by a parameter $`j`$ (or equivalently $`N_{side}`$ with $`N_{side}=2^{j1}`$). The lowest resolution ($`j=1`$) comprises twelve pixels in three rings around the poles and equator. To move to a higher resolution level, each pixel at resolution $`j`$ is divided into four pixels at resolution $`j+1`$. Therefore the total number of pixels at a given resolution $`j`$ is $`n_j=12\times 4^{j1}`$. The COBE-DMR maps correspond to a resolution $`J=7`$.

Orthogonal SHW are not translations and dilations of a given function and so can be adapted to more general spaces than $`R^n`$ (Sweldens 1995). In addition, they still enjoy the usual properties of planar wavelets such as a good frequency-space localisation and a fast transform algorithm. The temperature field can be decomposed in terms of the SHW basis functions as

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }T}{T}(x_i)=\underset{l=0}{\overset{n_{j_0}1}{}}\lambda _{j_0,l}\phi _{j_0,l}(x_i)+\underset{j=j_0}{\overset{J1}{}}\underset{m=1}{\overset{3}{}}\underset{l=0}{\overset{n_j1}{}}\gamma _{m,j,l}\psi _{m,j,l}(x_i)$$
(1)
where $`\lambda _{j_0,l}`$ and $`\gamma _{j,m,l}`$ are the approximation and detail wavelet coefficients respectively. The first term in the previous equation corresponds to a coarser resolution image of the original map whereas the detail coefficients encode the difference between both maps. The index $`j`$ runs from the lowest resolution considered $`j_0`$ to $`J1`$. Finally, the index $`m`$ corresponds to the three different wavelet functions at each scale needed to have a wavelet basis. In order to get the wavelet coefficients, one starts identifying the pixels at the map resolution $`J`$ with the approximation coefficients $`\lambda _{J,l}`$. Then each wavelet coefficient at resolution $`J1`$ is obtained as a linear combination of the four corresponding coefficients at resolution $`J`$. In this way, the approximation coefficients $`\lambda _{J1,l}`$ and three sets of detail coefficients $`\gamma _{1,J1,l}`$, $`\gamma _{2,J1,l}`$ and $`\gamma _{3,J1,l}`$ at scale $`J1`$ are obtained. The same process is performed again but starting with the $`\lambda _{J1,l}`$ coefficients as our initial map to obtain the wavelet coefficients at $`J2`$ and then the process is repeated down to the lowest resolution considered $`j_0`$ (for a more detailed description see Barreiro et al. 2000, Tenorio et al. 1999).

In our wavelet analysis, we obtain estimators for the skewness $`\widehat{S}(j,m)`$, (excess) kurtosis $`\widehat{K}(j,m)`$ and scale-scale correlation $`\widehat{C}^2(j,m)`$ (as defined in Barreiro et al. 2000) of each type $`m`$ of detail wavelet coefficients at each scale $`j`$. In order to perform our non-Gaussianity test, we first obtain the previous quantities for the coadded 53+90 GHz COBE-DMR map, discarding those wavelet coefficients coming from pixels inside the Galactic cut. Then the same estimators are obtained for a large number (10000) of CMB all-sky simulated maps, that take into account the characteristics of the COBE-DMR data. In this way, we can obtain approximate probability distributions for the $`\widehat{S}(j,m)`$, $`\widehat{K}(j,m)`$ and $`\widehat{C}^2(j,m)`$ statistics for a CMB signal derived from the chosen model. In particular, the CMB simulations are drawn from a inflationary/CDM model with parameters $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=1`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$, $`h=0.5`$, $`n=1`$ and $`Q_{rmsps}=18\mu K`$ but we do not expect our results to vary significantly with a different choice of parameters (see MHL). By comparing these distributions with the values computed from the COBE-DMR data, we can obtain the probability that our data are derived from a Gaussian distribution characterised by the chosen power spectrum. In addition, since the wavelet decomposition is sensitive to the orientation of the data, we perform the previous test for three different orientations of the sky. Therefore we compute a total of $`42\times 3=126`$ statistics for each map.

## 3 Results

The computed $`\widehat{S}(j,m)`$, $`\widehat{K}(j,m)`$ and $`\widehat{C}^2(j,m)`$ spectra are plotted in Fig. 1 for three different orientations. We rotate the 53+90 COBE-DMR map around an axis passing through the North and South Galactic poles. A rotation of $`90`$ degrees around this direction simply shifts the twelve base-pixels of the HEALPix pixelisation into each other and therefore gives rise to the same results as the original orientation. We show the results computed from the COBE-DMR data for a rotation of 0 (orientation A, solid squares), 30 (orientation B, crosses) and 60 (orientation C, stars) degrees with respect to the original orientation of the map. The open circle and error bars correspond to the average value and the 68, 95 and $`99\%`$ confidence levels of the distribution obtained from the 10000 CDM realisations for orientation A. We do not plot the corresponding error bars for orientations B and C in Fig. 1 for the sake of clarity and because the conclusions derived from the plot remain unchanged. For convenience, the skewness and kurtosis spectra have been normalised at each value of $`(j,m)`$ such that the variance of the distribution obtained from the 10000 CDM realisations is equal to unity. We can see in Fig. 1 that the COBE-DMR values of the $`\widehat{S}(j,m)`$ and $`\widehat{C}^2(j,m)`$ spectra for orientations A,B and C are consistent with being derived from a parent Gaussian distribution. However, we find a detection of non-Gaussianity in the $`\widehat{K}(j,m)`$ spectra at $`j=2`$ and $`m=3`$ at the $`>99\%`$ confidence level for orientation A, the rest of the values lying within their respective Gaussian probability distributions.

In order to assess the statistical significance of this detection and since most of our statistics show no evidence of non-Gaussianity, we have used Monte-Carlo simulations to estimate the probability of having at least one detection of non-Gaussianity at the $`99\%`$ confidence level out of our 126 statistics for an underlying Gaussian field. We find that this occurs in $`69\%`$ of the cases and therefore this analysis does not provide strong evidence of non-Gaussianity in the COBE-DMR data. This is in agreement with the results obtained by MHL.

We have also checked that the general conclusions regarding non-Gaussianity are not affected, at least in our case, by the choice of a different set of orientations (see Barreiro et al. 2000).

## 4 Conclusions

We have investigated the Gaussianity of the 4-year COBE data (in HEALPix pixelisation) with an analysis based on SHW. We have taken into account the sensitivity of our method with respect to the orientation of the input signal, presenting the results for three different orientations.

We have found a single detection of non-Gaussianity at the $`>99\%`$ confidence level out of our 126 computed statistics, corresponding to the value of the kurtosis at $`j=2,m=3`$ for one of the chosen orientations. Using Monte-Carlo simulations we estimate that the probability of having such a detection in one of our statistics is as high as $`0.69`$ for the case of an underlying Gaussian field. Therefore, we conclude that an analysis based on SHW of the 4-year COBE-DMR data show no evidence of non-Gaussianity in the CMB.

## Acknowledgements

RBB thanks Luis Tenorio for helpful comments about spherical wavelets. We thank all the people involved in producing the HEALPix package, which has been extensively used along this work. RBB acknowledges financial support from the PPARC in the form of a research grant.