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# Influence of Induced Interactions on the Superfluid Transition in Dilute Fermi Gases

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## Abstract

We calculate the effects of induced interactions on the transition temperature to the BCS state in dilute Fermi gases. For a pure Fermi system with 2 species having equal densities, the transition temperature is suppressed by a factor $`(4e)^{1/3}2.2`$, and for $`\nu `$ fermion species, the transition temperature is increased by a factor $`(4e)^{\nu /31}2.2^{\nu 3}`$. For mixtures of fermions and bosons the exchange of boson density fluctuations gives rise to an attractive interaction, and we estimate the increase of the transition temperature due to this effect.

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The study of possible superfluidity in dilute Fermi gases has a long history stretching back to the years immediately after the development of the BCS theory . In recent years the subject has received renewed attention for a variety of reasons. The first is that superfluidity of nucleons plays an important role in theories of neutron stars and of finite nuclei. The magnitudes of superfluid gaps are necessary input for calculations of transport properties and neutrino emission rates, and for modeling the glitches observed in the rotational periods of neutron stars. The second is theoretical interest in how properties of a Fermi system change as the strength of an attractive interaction is varied . If the system has a two-body bound state, it will behave at low densities as a collection of diatomic molecules, while for weaker attraction it will behave as a BCS superfluid. A third reason is the possibility of observing the transition to the BCS paired state in fermion alkali atom vapors in traps . Work on this topic has been spurred on by the recent success in cooling dilute alkali atom vapors to temperatures below the degeneracy temperature .

During the 1990’s there have been a number of papers that calculate the transition temperature, or equivalently the zero temperature gap, of dilute Fermi systems . The basic physics of these papers amounts to summing ladder diagrams with the bare fermion-fermion interaction, and expressing the result in terms of the scattering length for two-body scattering in vacuo. For two spin components with equal densities, these papers predict a transition temperature $`T_c`$ given by

$`kT_{c0}={\displaystyle \frac{\gamma }{\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{8}{e^2}}E_Fe^{1/N(0)U_0}0.61E_Fe^{\pi /2k_Fa},`$ (1)
for weak coupling ($`N(0)|U_0|1`$). Here $`E_F=p_F^2/2m_F`$ is the Fermi energy, $`p_F=\mathrm{}k_F`$ is the Fermi momentum, and $`m_F`$ is the fermion mass. The quantity $`N(0)=m_Fk_F/(2\pi ^2\mathrm{}^2)`$ is the density of states at the Fermi surface and the matrix element of the effective interaction is $`U_0=4\pi \mathrm{}^2a/m_F`$, where $`a`$ is the scattering length for two-body scattering, which is negative for an attractive interaction. The number $`\gamma `$ is $`e^C`$, where $`C0.577`$ is Euler’s constant.

The above calculation does not take into account the effects of the medium on the two-body interaction. Physically these processes, which we refer to as induced interactions, correspond to one fermion polarizing the medium, and a second fermion is then influenced by this polarization. This gives rise to an interaction between fermions analogous to the phonon-induced attraction responsible for pairing of electrons in metallic superconductors. The effects of such interactions on superfluid transition temperatures have been studied in dense systems. In liquid 3He they are responsible for the ABM state being energetically favored close to the superfluid transition temperature, whereas in their absence the BW state would be the equilibrium one . For neutron matter calculations predict that they suppress the superfluid gap significantly  . The corresponding effect in a dilute spin-$`1/2`$ Fermi gas was considered by Gorkov and Melik-Barkhudarov, who found that the transition temperature was suppressed by a factor $`(4e)^{1/3}2.2`$ compared with the result of Eq. (1) . In this paper we elucidate the physical origin of the suppression, and we derive expressions for the transition temperature for fermions with a larger spin degeneracy, and for mixtures of fermions and bosons.

The transition temperature is determined by there being a solution to the linearized equation for the gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐩`$,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐩=\underset{𝐩^{}}{}U(𝐩,𝐩^{})\frac{12f^0(\xi _𝐩^{})}{2\xi _𝐩^{}}\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐩^{},$$
(2)
where $`\xi _𝐩=p^2/2m_F\mu `$ is the energy of a fermion relative to the chemical potential $`\mu `$, and $`f^0(\xi )=[\mathrm{exp}(\xi /kT)+1]^1`$ is the Fermi distribution function. The total interaction is given by

$$U(𝐩,𝐩^{})=U_{\mathrm{bare}}(𝐩,𝐩^{})+U_{\mathrm{ind}}(𝐩,𝐩^{}),$$
(3)
where $`U_{\mathrm{bare}}(𝐩,𝐩^{})`$ is the bare two-body interaction, and $`U_{\mathrm{ind}}(𝐩,𝐩^{})`$ is the induced interaction. Solving the linearized gap equation is equivalent to finding the temperature at which the $`T`$-matrix obtained by summing ladder diagrams for the repeated interaction of two particles with equal and opposite momenta and with total energy $`2\mu `$ diverges. It is convenient to eliminate the bare interaction in favor of $`T_0(𝐩,𝐩^{};2\mu )`$, the $`T`$-matrix for scattering in free space of two fermions, each with energy $`\mu `$. This is given by

$`T_0(𝐩,𝐩^{};2\mu )`$ $`=`$ $`U_{\mathrm{bare}}(𝐩,𝐩^{})`$ (4)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{𝐩^{\prime \prime }}{}}U_{\mathrm{bare}}(𝐩,𝐩^{\prime \prime }){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\xi _{𝐩^{\prime \prime }}}}T_0(𝐩^{\prime \prime },𝐩^{};2\mu ).`$ (5)
Solving Eq. (5) for $`U_{\mathrm{bare}}`$ and inserting the result into (2) one finds

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐩={\displaystyle \underset{𝐩^{}}{}}T_0(𝐩,𝐩^{};2\mu ){\displaystyle \frac{f^0(\xi _𝐩^{})}{\xi _𝐩^{}}}\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐩^{}`$ (6)
$`{\displaystyle \underset{𝐩^{}}{}}U_{\mathrm{ind}}(𝐩,𝐩^{}){\displaystyle \frac{12f^0(\xi _𝐩^{})}{2\xi _𝐩^{}}}\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐩^{}`$ (7)
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{𝐩^{},𝐩^{\prime \prime }}{}}T_0(𝐩,𝐩^{\prime \prime };2\mu ){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\xi _{𝐩^{\prime \prime }}}}U_{\mathrm{ind}}(𝐩^{\prime \prime },𝐩^{}){\displaystyle \frac{12f^0(\xi _𝐩^{})}{2\xi _𝐩^{}}}\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐩^{}.`$ (8)
Let us first consider the transition temperature in the absence of induced interactions. The factor $`f^0(\xi _𝐩^{})/\xi _𝐩^{}`$ falls off rapidly for momenta greater than the Fermi momentum. According to the standard effective range expansion, the on-shell $`T`$-matrix for small $`p`$ and $`p^{}`$ is its value for $`p=p^{}=0`$ and zero energy, $`T_0(0,0;0)=U_0`$, plus terms of order $`p^2`$. The latter terms produce higher-order contributions than those from the induced interaction, and will be neglected here. Thus in Eq. (8) the gap may be put equal to a constant for momenta less than or of order the Fermi momentum, and the temperature at which there is a non-trivial solution to the equation is given by

$`1+U_0{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{p^2dp}{2\pi ^2\mathrm{}^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\xi }}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{e^{\xi /kT_{c0}}+1}}=0.`$ (9)
On performing the integration one arrives at Eq. (1).

We now include the effect of induced interactions, which we shall assume to be small compared with the interaction of two fermions in vacuo. In Eq. (8) the last term represents a final-state interaction. The range of the induced interaction is of order the spacing between fermions or, for the phonon-induced interaction in mixtures, the coherence length. Both these lengths are large compared with the magnitude of the fermion-fermion scattering length, and therefore in the region where the induced interaction is important the wave function of two fermions in the presence of the bare interaction, which is equal to $`1a/r`$, is essentially equal to unity, and final-state effects are negligible. One then finds that the transition temperature is given to leading order in $`U_{\mathrm{ind}}`$ by

$`kT_c={\displaystyle \frac{\gamma }{\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{8}{e^2}}E_Fe^{1/N(0)(U_0+\overline{U}_{\mathrm{ind}})},`$ (10)
where

$`\overline{U}_{\mathrm{ind}}={\displaystyle _1^1}{\displaystyle \frac{d\mathrm{cos}\theta }{2}}U_{\mathrm{ind}}(p_F\widehat{𝐧},p_F\widehat{𝐧}^{}),`$ (11)
is the average of the induced interaction over the Fermi surface. The angle between the two momenta is denoted by $`\theta `$, i. e. $`\widehat{𝐧}\widehat{𝐧}^{}=\mathrm{cos}\theta `$. Note that the frequency dependence of the induced interaction does not enter, only its value at the Fermi surface. When the induced interaction becomes comparable to the bare interaction, the effects of the frequency dependence of the interaction will become important.

We now apply this result to Fermi systems, and we begin by considering a Fermi gas with two internal degrees of freedom, denoted in Fig. 1 by up and down arrows. We shall take the densities of the two components to be equal, since this gives the largest gap. The leading contributions to the induced interaction are represented diagrammatically in Fig. 1. One may ask why they should have any effect at all in this limit, since they are formally of higher order in the density than the leading term. To understand this, consider the process shown in Fig. 1(a), which is the screening of the interaction between two fermions by the other fermions. This is of order the density of states times the square of the effective two-body interaction, and is therefore of order $`k_FaU_0`$. If one alters the effective interaction in the expression (1) by an amount of relative order $`k_Fa`$, it is easy to see that the gap is multiplied by a constant factor, as the calculation of Gorkov and Melik-Barkhudarov demonstrated explicitly . For a contact interaction, the contributions of the diagrams in Fig. 1 give

$`U_{\mathrm{ind}}(p_F\widehat{𝐧},p_F\widehat{𝐧}^{})=U_0^2L(q)`$ (12)
where

$`L(q)=N(0)\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{(1\eta ^2)}{4\eta }}\mathrm{ln}\left|{\displaystyle \frac{1+\eta }{1\eta }}\right|\right),`$ (13)
is the static Lindhard function and $`\eta =q/2k_F`$. Here, $`\mathrm{}𝐪=𝐩^{}𝐩`$ is the momentum transfer in the interaction which, as both particles are at the Fermi surface, is related to the scattering angle $`\theta `$ by $`q^2=2k_F^2(1\mathrm{cos}\theta )`$. Carrying out the integration over angles in Eq. (11) gives

$`\overline{U}_{\mathrm{ind}}=U_0^2N(0){\displaystyle \frac{1+2\mathrm{ln}2}{3}},`$ (14)
and by insertion of this expression in Eq. (10) we find

$`T_c={\displaystyle \frac{1}{(4e)^{1/3}}}T_{c0},`$ (15)
a result implicit in Ref. . We therefore arrive at the striking conclusion that induced interactions reduce the transition temperature by a factor $`(4e)^{1/3}2.2`$ even in the low density limit. It is interesting that calculations of the superfluid gap in neutron matter at densities at which the low-density limit is inapplicable indicate that induced interactions reduce the maximum of the gap as a function of density by a comparable factor , but this is a coincidence.

The physics of the suppression is best examined by expressing the result in terms of the amplitudes for exchange of density and spin fluctuations. In terms of these one finds for the interaction in the spin-singlet channel for the pair of fermions

$`U_{\mathrm{ind}}(q)=[U_s(q)3U_t(q)]/2,`$ (16)
where $`U_s`$ and $`U_t`$ are the amplitudes for exchange of spin-singlet particle-hole pairs (density fluctuations) and spin-triplet ones (spin fluctuations) respectively. The leading contributions to the amplitudes are $`U_s=U_t=U_0^2L(q)`$, and therefore $`U_{\mathrm{ind}}(q)=U_0^2L(q)`$. One way of expressing this is to note that the contributions from the diagrams in Fig. 1(a)-(c), which are due to exchange of spin and density fluctuations with spin projection zero, cancel, leaving the contribution from exchange of spin fluctuations with spin projection $`\pm 1`$, Fig. 1(d). The important process is therefore the suppression of superfluidity by exchange of spin fluctuations, an effect familiar in metallic superconductors and liquid 3He .

The result above may easily be generalized to $`\nu `$ fermion species. For simplicity we assume that the two-body interaction is independent of the species, and is diagonal in the species labels. This is true if the interaction is spin-independent and depends only on the distance between the two fermions. The contribution from the diagram in Fig. 1(a) is proportional to $`\nu `$, because all species contribute to the closed loop, while the other diagrams in Fig. 1 are independent of the number of species, since there are no fermion loops. Thus the contribution from all diagrams is the same as for two species, except that the first term is multiplied by $`\nu `$, and their sum is proportional to $`\nu 3`$. The transition temperature is given by

$`T_c=(4e)^{\nu /31}T_{c0},`$ (17)
and therefore for four or more components the transition temperature is increased, rather than decreased.

The results above are not directly applicable to dilute nuclear matter because the nuclear force is strongly dependent on isospin: the neutron-neutron scattering length is approximately $`18.8`$ fm, while the neutron-proton one is $`5.4`$ fm. As a consequence, the induced interaction between two neutrons, say, due to excitation of neutron particle-hole pairs is of order $`(18.8/5.4)^212`$ times stronger than that due to excitation of proton pairs, and therefore the latter contribution may be neglected to a first approximation. The fact that induced interactions are important for pairing even at very low densities in bulk systems indicates the need to investigate how significant these effects are in the outer parts of finite nuclei.

We now consider adding bosons of mass $`m_B`$ to a Fermi gas with two species. The induced interaction between fermions then contains a contribution due to the exchange of boson density fluctuations, analogous to the phonon-induced interaction between electrons in metals and to the induced interaction between 3He atoms in dilute solutions of 3He in 4He. It is given by

$`U_{\mathrm{ind}}=U_{\mathrm{BF}}^2\chi (q,\omega ),`$ (18)
where $`U_{BF}=4\pi \mathrm{}^2a_{BF}/m_{BF}`$ (with $`m_{BF}=2m_Fm_B/(m_F+m_B)`$) is the effective interaction between a boson and a fermion, and $`\chi (q,\omega )`$ is the density-density response function for the bosons as a function of the energy transfer $`\mathrm{}\omega `$. For a dilute Bose gas the response function at zero temperature is given by the result of using the Bogoliubov approximation, and is

$$\chi (q,\omega )=\frac{n_B\mathrm{}^2q^2/m_B}{(\mathrm{}\omega )^2ϵ_q^0(ϵ_q^0+2n_BU_{BB})},$$
(19)
where $`U_{BB}=4\pi \mathrm{}^2a_{BB}/m_B`$ is the boson-boson effective interaction and $`ϵ_q^0=\mathrm{}^2q^2/2m_B`$. For particles at the Fermi surface the energy transfer is zero, and therefore the induced interaction relevant for calculating the transition temperature is

$$U_{\mathrm{ind}}(q,0)=\frac{U_{BF}^2}{U_{BB}}\frac{1}{1+(\mathrm{}q/2m_Bs)^2},$$
(20)
where $`s=(n_BU_{BB}/m_B)^{1/2}`$ is the sound velocity in the boson gas. The average over the Fermi surface of the boson-induced interaction between fermions that enters the equation for the gap is

$$\overline{U}_{\mathrm{ind}}=\frac{U_{BF}^2}{U_{BB}}H(p_F/m_Bs),$$
(21)
where $`H(x)=\mathrm{ln}(1+x^2)/x^2`$. Observe that this result is independent of the density of fermions in the limit of low fermion densities. This is in contrast to the induced interaction due to fermion-fermion interactions alone, which is proportional to $`p_F`$. If we again assume that $`\overline{U}_{\mathrm{ind}}^{BF}`$ is small compared with the fermion-fermion interaction, the transition temperature is given by Eq. (10), where the induced interaction includes terms due to fermion-fermion interactions as well as fermion-boson interactions. In Fig. 3 this is plotted as a function of the dimensionless quantity $`(U_{BF}^2/U_{BB}|U_{FF}|)H(p_F/m_Bs)`$. (To make the notation uniform we here denote the fermion-fermion interaction, which we assume to be attractive, by $`U_{FF}`$ rather than $`U_0`$ as we did in the earlier part of the Letter.) The parameter $`U_{BF}^2/U_{BB}|U_{FF}|`$ is a measure of the importance of the induced interactions compared with the direct one. Since the function $`H`$ decreases monotonically from its maximum value of $`1`$ for $`x=0`$, the largest relative effects are achieved for small fermion densities. As Fig. 3 shows, the increase in $`T_c`$ due to the presence of the bosons can be considerable.

Let us now examine a specific example, a mixture of the fermionic atoms 6Li with the bosonic atoms 87Rb. For the boson-boson scattering length we use $`a_{BB}=109a_0`$, $`a_0`$ being the Bohr radius, and for the fermion-fermion one $`a=2160a_0`$. The boson-fermion scattering length is not known. If we choose the order-of-magnitude estimate $`|a_{BF}|=100a_0`$ , $`U_{BF}^2/U_{BB}|U_{FF}|`$ is only 0.18. For $`n_B=10^{14}`$ cm-3 the increase in $`T_c`$ then amounts to factors of 2.7 and 1.3 for $`k_F|a|=0.2`$ and $`k_F|a|=0.5`$, respectively. If however $`|a_{BF}|`$ were twice as large, these factors would change to 17.6 and 2.2. This indicates the importance of obtaining information about boson-fermion scattering lengths.

Finally we remark that more detailed calculations are required to take into account induced interactions when they become comparable in magnitude to the bare interaction. The details of the frequency dependence of the induced interactions will then become important. We note that corrections to the effective mass of a fermion and to the renormalization constant give corrections to $`T_c`$ of higher order than those considered here.

We are grateful to H. T. C. Stoof for useful conversations. LV acknowledges support from the Danish Ministry of Education.


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# On Density-Matrix Spectra for Two-Dimensional Quantum Systems

## Abstract

For a two-dimensional system of coupled oscillators, the spectra of reduced density matrices can be obtained analytically. This provides an example where the features of these quantities, which are of central importance in numerical studies using the DMRG method, can be seen.

The density-matrix renormalization group method (DMRG) has brought an enormous progress for the study of one-dimensional quantum systems and related classical problems . Consequently, this numerical approach has also been applied to two-dimensional quantum problems . The situation there, however, appears to be much less favourable.

The reason for this has to be sought in the properties of the density matrices which are used to select an optimal reduced basis in the Hilbert space. The essential quantity is the distribution of their eigenvalues. In one dimension, one usually finds a rapid decay, so that a relatively small number of states is sufficient to give very good results. This basically exponential decay can be derived explicitely for non-critical integrable models . In non-integrable cases, the spectra are less regular but still have similar features .

The situation in two dimensions has been discussed in some detail for free fermions  and for the transverse Ising model . It was found that, if one couples one-dimensional chains to form ladders, the number $`m`$ of states one needs to maintain a certain accuracy, grows exponentially with the width $`M`$ of the system. This was derived either from the limit of non-interacting chains, or from numerical calculations. The spectra themselves, however, have not been discussed so far, although they are at the core of the problem. It therefore seems worth while to treat an example, where one can give explicit results.

This is possible for a system of coupled harmonic oscillators, which is integrable in any number of dimensions. This problem was studied recently for the case of a linear chain  and it was shown that the ground-state density matrices, either for one site or for half of the system, are exponentials of bosonic operators. This is a consequence of the Gaussian form of the ground state and holds quite generally. The problem is only to determine the bosonic eigenvalues. This can be done either numerically for a small system, or analytically in the thermodynamic limit.

To be specific, consider the system described by the Hamiltonian

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{^2}{u_i^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\omega _0^2u_i^2)`$ (2)
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{i,j}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}k_{ij}(u_iu_j)^2`$
where $`u_i`$ is the coordinate of the i-th oscillator and $`\omega _0`$ its frequency. The masses are all equal to unity and the oscillators are coupled by springs of strenght $`k_{ij}`$. Transforming $`H`$ to normal coordinates, one can write down the ground state immediately. In terms of the original coordinates it has the form

$$\varphi =\mathrm{exp}(\frac{1}{2}\underset{i,j}{}A_{ij}u_iu_j)$$
(3)
The total density matrix is then $`|\varphi ><\varphi |`$. By integrating out part of the coordinates, one obtains reduced density matrices which have the diagonal form

$$\rho =C\mathrm{exp}(\underset{j}{}\epsilon _jb_j^{}b_j)$$
(4)
with bosonic operators $`b_j`$,$`b_j^{}`$. The eigenvalues $`\epsilon _j`$ follow from a matrix which is obtained from $`A_{ij}`$ and has a dimension equal to the number of kept sites. One divides $`A_{ij}`$ into four submatrices $`a^{11},a^{12},a^{21},a^{22}`$, according to whether the sites $`i`$ and $`j`$ are kept or not. Then the matrix $`a^{11}[a^{12}(a^{22})^1a^{21}]^1`$ has eigenvalues $`\mathrm{cosh}^2(\epsilon _j/2)`$. This can be shown by a straightforward generalization of the approach in section 2 of . In this way, density-matrix spectra can be calculated numerically for an arbitrary assembly of coupled oscillators.

For a large system, however, the situation simplifies. In  it was shown that, for a chain with nearest-neighbour coupling $`k`$ and oscillator frequency $`\omega _0=1k`$, the $`\epsilon _j`$ for half of the system are, in the thermodynamic limit, given by

$$\epsilon _j=(2j1)\epsilon ,j=1,2,3,\mathrm{}$$
(5)
where

$$\epsilon =\pi I(k^{})/I(k)$$
(6)
Here $`I(k)`$ is the complete elliptic integral of the first kind and $`k^{}=\sqrt{1k^2}`$. The result is also valid for finite systems if the size is large compared with the correlation length. The $`\epsilon _j`$ for smaller systems are still similar, but there are deviations from (5) which increase for larger values of $`j`$.

Now consider a two-dimensional square lattice of oscillators with nearest-neighbour couplings $`k_x`$ and $`k_y`$ in the two directions. This can be reduced to a one-dimensional problem by first introducing normal coordinates in the columns. The corresponding normal frequencies are

$$\omega (q)^2=\omega _0^2+2k_y(1\mathrm{cos}q)$$
(7)
where the vertical momenta for open boundary conditions at the ends and $`M`$ sites are given by

$$q=\frac{m}{M}\pi ,m=0,1,2,\mathrm{},(M1)$$
(8)
If one now couples the columns, the different momenta do not mix, and for each value of $`q`$ a horizontal chain of the form (2) results where the oscillator frequency is now $`\omega (q)`$ and the coupling $`k_x`$. For the density matrix of the half-system, this leads to the spectrum (5),(6) with the parameter $`k=k(q)`$ determined from the relation $`k_x/\omega (q)=k/(1k)`$ or explicitely

$$k=k_x/(k_x+\omega (q))$$
(9)
In this way, an analytic expression for the spectrum is obtained. For each $`j`$, one has a band of $`M`$ eigenvalues $`\epsilon _j(q)`$ due to the transverse extension of the system. This reflects the corresponding interface between the two parts into which the system is divided. The dispersion of the vibrational modes in the vertical direction also determines the dispersion of the $`\epsilon `$-band via (9). In particular, a large $`\omega (q)`$ also leads to a large value of $`\epsilon `$.

Such spectra, calculated numerically for a $`10\times 10`$ lattice, are show in Fig.1. Plotted are the $`\epsilon _j(q)`$ arranged according to their magnitude for different values of the transverse coupling $`k_y`$. For non-interacting horizontal chains, one has a sequence of plateaus. Turning on $`k_y(>0)`$, the eigenvalues increase except for $`q=0`$ and form real bands. At the lower end, the stair-like structure still persists, while for larger values of $`j`$ the bands are spread more due to the factor $`(2j1)`$ and overlap eventually. After the proper ordering of the $`\epsilon `$, a continuous curve emerges. It corresponds roughly to a linear relation of the form

$$\epsilon _n\lambda n$$
(10)
with integer $`n`$ and $`\lambda 2\epsilon (q=0)/M`$ inversely proportional to the width $`M`$.

The actual eigenvalues $`w_n`$ of $`\rho `$ are obtained by specifying the occupation numbers of the bosonic single-particle levels $`\epsilon _j(q)`$. This leads to an increasingly larger number of possibilities as more $`\epsilon `$ are involved, i.e. for smaller $`w_n`$. The final result is shown in Fig.2 for the same parameters as in Fig.1. One can see that the stair-like structure persists also in the $`w_n`$ for small $`k_y`$, although the plateaus are much longer and given by combinatorical factors. For larger $`k_y`$, rather smooth curves arise which drop increasingly faster. In all cases, there is a rapid initial decay followed by a slower decrease for larger $`n`$. Following , one can derive an asymptotic formula from (10) which reads

$$w_n\mathrm{exp}\{(\lambda /(2\pi ^2/3))\mathrm{ln}^2n\}$$
(11)
and which is obeyed reasonably well by the curves. Due to the slow decay, the truncation error when cutting off the spectrum also decreases slowly. After $`n=100`$, $`500`$ and $`1000`$ it is approximately $`10^5`$, $`10^7`$ and $`10^8`$, respectively, if $`k_x=k_y=\omega _0=1.0`$.

The dependence of the $`w_n`$-spectrum on the width $`M`$ is shown in Fig.3 for the case $`k_x=k_y=1`$. One can see how the curves drop more and more slowly as $`M`$ increases, in accordance with (10) and (11) and the decrease of $`\lambda `$ with $`M`$.

These results confirm that the situation worsens as the system becomes more two-dimensional. The faster initial decay before the onset of the combinatorical effects helps in numerical calculations. Also the interaction helps here to some extent since the $`\epsilon `$-values increase with $`k_y`$ , but this does not remove the basic $`1/M`$ dependence in the exponent. The same features are found if one assumes that one is dealing with fermionic operators in (4). This would correspond to a fermionic system with pair terms such that the Hamiltonian expressed in Fermi operators has the same structure as (2) expressed in Bose operators. In this case, the combinatorical possibilities are reduced, but this leads only to a change $`\lambda 2\lambda `$ in (11). One should also note that we have treated a non-critical system where the situation is in general more favourable. One could extend the considerations to three dimensions, in which case one has two momenta for the transverse directions and therefore an even larger number of $`\epsilon `$-values in each band.

Returning briefly to one dimension, we would like to mention that our model also shows the origin of the different DMRG performance for chains and rings  very clearly. This problem is, in fact, closely related to those discussed above. If one calculates the density-matrix spectrum for a half-ring, one finds the same $`\epsilon _j`$-values at the lower end as for the half-chain, but each value appears twice. When plotted, this leads to a structure as in Fig.1 with steps of length two. The reason lies in the form of the eigenstates of $`\rho `$ which, for small $`\epsilon _j`$, are concentrated near the boundary between system and environment. This feature, which was conjectured before , can be seen explicitely here and is illustrated in Fig.4. The effect is known from the closely related corner transfer matrix of the massive Gaussian model . For a half-ring, which has two points of contact, one then finds two such sets of states which are approximately independent of each other for small $`\epsilon _j`$. Therefore, $`\rho \rho _L\rho _R`$ where $`\rho _L`$ and $`\rho _R`$ are density matrices for only a left or only a right bondary. Thus the situation is the same as for a ladder consisting of two only weakly interacting chains.

Coming back to the two-dimensional problem, the spectra found here explain, in a very direct way, the difficulties of the DMRG in this case. To apply the method, one should use as many symmetries as possible . However, to treat really large systems, a procedure which avoids the extended interfaces between the parts of the system would be necessary. Whether the momentum-space approach of Ref. can help here, is not yet clear.

Acknowledgements

We thank X. Wang for discussions and A. Gendiar for correspondence. M.C. Chung acknowledges the support of Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD).


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# Antiferromagnetic Zigzag Spin Chain in Magnetic Fields at Finite Temperatures

## I introduction

Magnetization processes ( $`M`$-$`H`$ curves, where $`M`$ is magnetization and $`H`$ is magnetic field) of low-dimensional antiferromagnetic (AF) quantum spin systems have attracted much attention, in accordance with remarkable developments in material synthesis techniques and high-field experiments. Recently, a lot of theoretical and experimental researches have clarified the mechanisms of various interesting behaviors of the $`M`$-$`H`$ curves at the zero temperature: e.g. the critical phenomena $`\mathrm{\Delta }M\sqrt{HH_\mathrm{c}}`$ associated with the gapped excitation (excitation gap $`H_\mathrm{c}`$) or with the saturated magnetization (at the saturation field $`H_\mathrm{s}`$), magnetization plateau, and, the middle-field cusp singularity(MFCS). These are field-induced phase transitions of the ground states, reflecting the non-trivial energy level structures of the systems.

Such non-trivial structures of the excitation often cause various characteristic behaviors on bulk quantities at finite temperatures as well. For instance, thermodynamic quantities in magnetic fields are calculated for ladder systems, mixed spin systems, etc, where various peak-structures of the specific heat are observed.

In this paper, we study the thermal behaviors of the antiferromagnetic zigzag spin chain in magnetic fields, which is one of typical systems exhibiting the phase-transition behaviors in the $`M`$-$`H`$ curves and actually realized as quasi-one-dimensional materials: SrCuO2, Cu(ampy)Br2 and the organic compound F2PIMNH. However, the finite-temperature properties of the zigzag chain in the thermodynamic limit have not been studied quantitatively so much, since the frustrated interaction makes the reliable Quantum Monte Carlo(QMC) simulation difficult. Thus it is a fairly interesting problem to investigate the finite-temperature behavior of the zigzag chain both from theoretical and experimental view points.

The Hamiltonian of the zigzag chain is given by

$``$ $`=`$ $`J{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}[\stackrel{}{S}_i\stackrel{}{S}_{i+1}+j\stackrel{}{S}_i\stackrel{}{S}_{i+2}]g\mu _BH{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}S_i^z,`$ (1)
where $`\stackrel{}{S}_i`$ is the $`S=1/2`$ spin operator at $`i`$-th site, $`g`$ is the $`g`$-factor, and $`\mu _B`$ is the Bohr magneton. We have denoted the nearest neighbor coupling as $`J`$, the ratio of the next-nearest coupling as $`j`$($`>0`$), and the applied field as $`H`$. In ref. 14, it has been shown that the zigzag chain has fascinating $`M`$-$`H`$ curves as varying $`j`$. Near the saturation field, there exists the MFCS for $`j>1/4`$ , and the associated two component Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid behavior is observed, where the dispersion curve of the elementary excitation is the double-well curve. At just $`j=1/4`$, the $`M`$-$`H`$ curve behaves as $`\mathrm{\Delta }M(HH_\mathrm{s})^{1/4}`$, unlike the usual square-root behavior in $`j<1/4`$. Near the zero field, the $`M`$-$`H`$ curve in the spin-fluid phase $`j<j_{\mathrm{fd}}(0.2411)`$ is similar to that of the $`S=1/2`$ Heisenberg spin chain. For $`j>j_{\mathrm{fd}}`$, the $`M`$-$`H`$ curve exhibits the square-root behavior, since the system is in the dimerized phase and becomes gapful. Further, for $`j>0.5`$, the incommensurate behavior of the ground state correlation function suggests that another MFCS appears in the $`M`$-$`H`$ curve near the lower critical field. We focus on how the above characteristic behaviors of the $`M`$-$`H`$ curves influence the thermodynamic properties of the zigzag chain.

In order to calculate the finite-temperature quantities of the zigzag chain, we employ the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) method for the quantum transfer matrix(QTM). The remarkable point is that the DMRG is free from the negative sign problem and thus it is successfully applied to some frustrated spin ladder systems. We calculate the magnetization $`M`$, susceptibility $`\chi `$, and specific heat $`C`$ at various temperatures down to $`T/J0.05`$ in the thermodynamic limit. Then we discuss the effects of the non-trivial energy spectrum on the obtained quantities.

This paper is organized as follows. In section 2, we describe the DMRG for the QTM in brief. In section 3, we show the calculated results for the $`M`$-$`H`$ curves of the zigzag chain. In section 4, the thermodynamic properties of the zigzag chain near the saturation field are discussed in detail. In particular, we consider the effect of the MFCS on the specific heat. In section 5, we calculate the quantities $`\chi `$, $`C`$, and $`C/T`$ near the zero field, and discuss the relation to the low-energy excitation of the system. Conclusions are summarized in section 6.

## II numerical methods

The DMRG method for the QTM is widely used to study one-dimensional(1D) quantum spin systems at finite temperatures numerically, since the physical quantities can be obtained successfully down to low temperatures, where the QTM with a sufficient large Trotter number should be treated accurately. Further, it should be mentioned that the DMRG for the QTM is free from the negative sign problem the QMC simulation is suffering from. Thus we can say that the DMRG for the QTM is one of the most suitable numerical tools to study the zigzag chain.

To see our strategy concretely, we rewrite the Hamiltonian of the zigzag chain with the lattice length $`2L`$ into a ladder form shown in Fig. 1:

$`=J{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{L}{}}}\widehat{h}_{i,i+1},`$ (2)
with

$`\widehat{h}_{i,i+1}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[\stackrel{}{S}_i^A\stackrel{}{S}_i^B+\stackrel{}{S}_{i+1}^A\stackrel{}{S}_{i+1}^B]+\stackrel{}{S}_i^B\stackrel{}{S}_{i+1}^A`$ (3)
$`+`$ $`j[\stackrel{}{S}_i^A\stackrel{}{S}_{i+1}^A+\stackrel{}{S}_i^B\stackrel{}{S}_{i+1}^B]+\mathrm{Zeeman}\mathrm{terms},`$ (4)
where $`A`$ and $`B`$ are the labels of the lower and upper legs respectively.

By using the Suzuki-Trotter decomposition, we map the zigzag chain at finite temperature into a 2D classical system on a checker board lattice. Then the partition function of the system can be represented by the QTM $`T_\mathrm{e}^{(N)}T_\mathrm{o}^{(N)}`$:

$$Z=\underset{N\mathrm{}}{lim}\mathrm{Tr}[(T_\mathrm{e}^{(N)}T_\mathrm{o}^{(N)})^{L/2}],$$
(5)
where $`N`$ is the Trotter number. The QTM is defined by the product of the local operator $`W_{i,k}`$ originating from the local Boltzmann weight in the mapped system:

$`T_\mathrm{e}^{(N)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{2k2N;k\mathrm{even}}{}}W_{i,k},\mathrm{for}i=\mathrm{even}`$ (6)
$`T_\mathrm{o}^{(N)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{1k2N1;k\mathrm{odd}}{}}W_{i,k},\mathrm{for}i=\mathrm{odd}`$ (7)
where $`i`$ is the index of the spatial direction and $`k`$ is that of the Trotter one. By using the $`S^z`$-diagonal representation $`|s`$ of the spin operator $`\stackrel{}{S}`$, we have the explicit element of the weight:

$`s_{i+1,k}^{A,B}s_{i+1,k+1}^{A,B}|W_{i,k}|s_{i,k}^{A,B}s_{i,k+1}^{A,B}=`$ (8)
$`s_{i,k+1}^{A,B}s_{i+1,k+1}^{A,B}|\mathrm{exp}(ϵ\widehat{h}_{i,i+1})|s_{i,k}^{A,B}s_{i+1,k}^{A,B},`$ (9)
where $`ϵ=J/(k_BTN)`$ and the notation $`|s_{i,k}^{A,B}|s_{i,k}^A,s_{i,k}^B`$ is introduced for simplicity.

In the thermodynamic limit $`L\mathrm{}`$, the thermal property of the system is extracted from the largest eigenvalue and the corresponding eigenvector of the QTM with the sufficiently large Trotter number $`N`$. Then we can employ the DMRG for the transfer matrix developed by T.Nishino. Practically, we regard, for example, $`|s_{i,k}^{A,B}`$ as a four-state single spin, and perform the DMRG calculation with the periodic boundary condition. The detail of the algorithm follows Ref.35, where $`T_\mathrm{e}^{(N)}`$ and $`T_\mathrm{o}^{(N)}`$ are renormalized separately. In addition we make the density matrix block-diagonal with help of the conservation law for the QTM.

In the DMRG calculation, we often meet undesirable complex eigenvalues of the density matrix, because the numerical diagonalization yields inaccurate results for an asymmetric matrix having degenerate eigenvalues. Thus, if the complex number appears in the nearly-degenerate eigenvectors of the density matrix, we reorthogonalize the corresponding eigenvectors to be represented by real numbers.

We calculate the magnetization $`M`$ and the internal energy $`E`$ from the obtained eigenvector directly. We further calculate the susceptibility $`\chi `$ and specific heat $`C`$ by numerical differentiation for $`M`$ and $`E`$ respectively. In the following, we set $`k_B=1`$, $`g\mu _B=1`$ and $`J=1`$ for simplicity. The calculations were done with $`ϵ=0.1`$ and the maximum number of the retained bases $`m=88`$. We have confirmed that the computed data converged with respect to $`m`$ and $`ϵ`$.

## III numerical results for the $`M`$-$`H`$ curves

In Fig. 2, we show the calculated $`M`$-$`H`$ curves of the zigzag chain at finite temperatures for $`j=0.2`$, $`0.5`$, and $`0.6`$. We also show the zero-temperature $`M`$-$`H`$ curves calculated by the product-wavefunction renormalization group method (PWFRG) for comparison. At zero temperature, the $`M`$-$`H`$ curve for $`j=0.2`$ has no anomaly in the middle field region. On the other hand, the $`M`$-$`H`$ curve for $`j=0.5`$ has one MFCS at $`H_{\mathrm{cusp}}1.9`$. We further find that the $`M`$-$`H`$ curve for $`j=0.6`$ has two MFCS at $`H_{\mathrm{cusp}}0.6`$ and $`1.8`$.

At finite temperature, the singularities of the ground state $`M`$-$`H`$ curve are generally rounded by the thermal excitation. Indeed the $`M`$-$`H`$ curves show no singularity in the high temperature region. As temperature decreases, however, the quantum effects appear. We can see that the temperature dependence of the $`M`$-$`H`$ curve for $`j=0.5`$ is enhanced near the cusp field $`H_{\mathrm{cusp}}1.9`$, comparing with that for $`j=0.2`$. The differentiation curve($`dM/dH`$ curve) of the $`M`$-$`H`$ curve shows the MFCS effect more clearly(insets of Fig. 2). In the $`dM/dH`$ curve for $`j=0.5`$ at $`T=0.05`$, a shoulder can be observed at $`H=2.0`$. For $`j=0.6`$ we can see the winding structure in the $`M`$-$`H`$ curve at $`T=0.05`$, corresponding to the higher MFCS and the lower MFCS. The $`dM/dH`$ curve also displays the double cusp structure of $`M`$-$`H`$ curve at low temperature; the shoulder at the higher MFCS field becomes more clearly and the peak near the lower MFCS field does sharp.

## IV near the saturation field

In this section, we consider the thermodynamic behaviors of the zigzag chain near the saturation field, where we can take a down-spin-particle picture of the elementary excitation. The saturation field $`H_s`$ is given by $`2`$ for $`j1/4`$ and $`1+2j+1/(8j)`$ for $`j>1/4`$. Near $`H_s`$, a down spin in the saturated (all up) state can be regarded as a spinless fermion, which is the effective low-energy limit of the $`\delta `$-function Bose gas model, and then the energy dispersion of the particle is calculated to be

$$\omega (k)=\mathrm{cos}k1+j(\mathrm{cos}2k1).$$
(10)
This one-particle dispersion curve fully characterizes the qualitative property of the $`M`$-$`H`$ curve near $`H_s`$. For $`j1/4`$, $`\omega (k)`$ has a single minimum at $`k=\pi `$, while, for $`j>1/4`$, $`\omega (k)`$ has a local maximum at $`k=\pi `$ and two minima at $`k=\pi \pm \mathrm{cos}^1(1/(4j))`$. Thus, for $`0j1/4`$, the $`M`$-$`H`$ curve is smooth in the whole field range $`0HH_s`$. While, for $`j>1/4`$, “ van Hove singularity” corresponding to the local maximum of $`\omega (k)`$ gives the MFCS in the higher-field region of the $`M`$-$`H`$ curve.

In Fig. 3, we show the specific heat $`C`$ at various applied fields $`H`$ above $`H_s`$. In the case of $`j=0.2`$, clear peaks of $`C`$ can be seen in the low-temperature region($`T<0.3`$), except for $`H=H_s`$. Then we can find that the peak position $`T_{\mathrm{peak}}`$, which is defined by the temperature at the top of the low-temperature peak, is approximately proportional to the energy gap $`|HH_s|`$. Hence, the low-temperature peaks represent the divergence of the density of state at the bottom of the dispersion curve (10).

At just $`H=H_s`$, the peak disappears and, then, the temperature dependence of the specific heat $`C(H=H_s)`$ becomes the power-law behavior: $`T^{1/\alpha }`$ in $`T1`$(see the inset of Fig. 3(a) ). This power $`\alpha `$ is determined by the shape of the dispersion curve in $`k\pi `$ limit, where we have $`\omega (k)(k\pi )^\alpha `$. For $`j<1/4`$, in strict sense, $`\alpha =2`$ should be obtained in $`T0`$ limit, since Eq. (10) has a quadratic term. However, the coefficient of the quadratic term decreases and the quartic term becomes dominant, as $`j`$ increases to $`j=1/4`$. Thus we see the cross-over behavior from $`\alpha =4`$ to $`2`$ as shown in the inset of Fig. 3(a). On the other hand, $`C/T^{1/4}`$ plot for $`j=1/4`$ is consistent with $`\alpha =4`$, where the quadratic term vanishes completely and Eq. (10) becomes $`\omega (k)(k\pi )^4`$. The above power-law behavior of $`C`$ is essentially the same as the Fermi liquid one, which is verified for the Heisenberg chain($`j=0`$) with $`\alpha =2`$ .

For $`j=0.5`$, the double-well structure of Eq. (10) induces interesting properties on the specific heat $`C`$ near $`H_s`$. Indeed, the low-temperature peak exists even at $`H=H_s(=2.25)`$, and a weak shoulder structure can be observed at the slightly upper fields than $`H_s`$ (see the Inset of Fig. 3(b) ). In addition, we can see that the peak-temperature $`T_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ is approximately proportional to $`HH_{\mathrm{cusp}}`$ when $`|H_sH|1`$. Therefore the strong peak represents the “van Hove singularity” corresponding to the MFCS, and the weak shoulder structure comes from the bottom of the dispersion curve.

In order to illustrate the effects of the MFCS more clearly, we have calculated the specific heat $`C`$ near the cusp field $`H_{\mathrm{cusp}}1.9`$. In Fig. 4, we show the calculated result for $`j=0.5`$ at $`H=1.85(=H_s0.4)`$, which is slightly below $`H_{\mathrm{cusp}}`$. We also show that for $`j=0.2`$ at $`H=1.6(=H_s0.4)`$ for comparison. For $`j=0.5`$, we can find that the specific heat increases sharply at very low temperature, and has a shoulder at $`T0.1`$. On the other hand, for $`j=0.2`$, we find a peak near $`T0.1`$ only. Thus, the sharp increase of the specific heat at very low temperature for $`j=0.5`$ comes from the “van Hove singularity” of $`\omega (k)`$, and the shoulder is attributed to the bottom of $`\omega (k)`$. In addition, we note that the bottom of $`\omega (k)`$ gives weak contribution to the specific heat.

From the above results, we can conclude that the band edge singularities of $`\omega (k)`$ at $`k=\pi `$ or $`k=\pi \pm \mathrm{cos}^1(1/4j)`$ explain correctly the specific heat behaviors both near $`H_s`$ and $`H_{\mathrm{cusp}}`$.

## V Near the zero applied field

At the zero magnetic field, various experiments have been done for the actual materials, where the observed susceptibility is shifted from that of the pure $`S=1/2`$ Heisenberg model. This shift of the susceptibility is attributed to the deformation of the low-lying excitation, which is induced by the frustration effect due to the next-nearest coupling. In this section, we calculate the thermodynamic quantities near the zero field, which play a crucial role to determine the exchange coupling constant of the materials, and discuss the relation between the obtained quantities and the low-lying excitation structures.

In Fig. 5, we show the specific heat $`C`$, the quantity $`C/T`$, and the susceptibility $`\chi `$ at the zero field for $`0.1j0.6`$.

In $`j<j_{\mathrm{fd}}(=0.2411)`$, the zigzag chain is in the gapless spin-fluid phase at the zero field and the $`M`$-$`H`$ curves do not show any singularity as in Fig. 2(a). Thus the calculated quantities for $`j=0.1`$ and $`j=0.2`$ are qualitatively the same as that of the $`S=1/2`$ Heisenberg chain($`j=0`$), though the broad peaks of $`\chi `$ and $`C`$ shift to the low-temperature side. As shown in Fig. 5(a) and (b), $`\chi `$ and $`C/T`$ approaches to the constant value in the zero-temperature limit. We extrapolate the coefficient of the linear specific heat $`\gamma lim_{T0}C/T`$ by a polynomial fit of $`C/T=\gamma +a_1T+a_2T^2`$ in the range $`0.06<T<0.12`$, and obtain $`\gamma =0.75`$ for $`j=0.1`$ and $`\gamma =0.85`$ for $`j=0.2`$. We also compute the zero-temperature susceptibility $`\chi _0`$ by numerical differentiation of the PWFRG results with $`\mathrm{\Delta }H=0.005`$: we obtain $`\chi _0=0.118`$ for $`j=0.1`$ and $`\chi _0=0.131`$ for $`j=0.2`$. Here we note that the same manner of the extrapolation at the Heisenberg point ($`j=0`$) yields $`\gamma =0.66`$ and $`\chi _0=0.108`$, which agree with the Bethe ansatz values. According to the conformal field theory(CFT), the coefficient of the linear specific heat and the ground state susceptibility $`\chi _0`$ are given by $`\gamma =\pi c/(3v)`$ and $`\chi _0=1/(2\pi v)`$ respectively, where $`c`$ is the central charge and $`v`$ is the spin wave velocity. The calculated values of $`\gamma `$ and $`\chi _0`$ are almost consistent with the CFT prediction with $`c=1`$, but the strong log-correction for $`\chi _0`$ prevents us from verifying the CFT relation precisely.

For $`j>j_{\mathrm{fd}}`$ the zigzag spin chain is gapful. However, the magnitude of the gap is quite small in $`j_{\mathrm{fd}}<j\underset{}{<}0.4`$. Thus the specific heat $`C`$ and the susceptibility $`\chi `$ for $`j=0.3`$ are similar to those in $`j<j_{\mathrm{fd}}`$. For $`j=0.4`$ and $`0.5`$, $`\chi `$ and $`C`$ catch the effect of the gap: the exponential decay of the susceptibility can be seen in the low temperature. For $`j=0.6`$, the energy gap becomes large, so that $`\chi `$ and $`C`$ show clear exponential decay in low temperature region. In the specific heat for $`j=0.6`$, the peak at $`T0.15`$ seems to be distinguishable from the broad peak around $`T0.5`$(see Fig. 5(a)). As shown in Fig. 2(c), the $`M`$-$`H`$ curve of $`j=0.6`$ has the lower MFCS, and the dispersion curve of the excitation is expected to be the double-well structure, which is supported by the incommensurability of the ground-state correlation function. The double-well structure of the dispersion curve possibly explains the remarkable shape change of the specific heat for $`j=0.6`$.

Further, we consider the zigzag chain in a small magnetic field, where the excitation related with the lower MFCS can be observed more directly. In Fig. 6, we show the specific heat $`C`$ and the susceptibility $`\chi `$ for $`j=0.2`$, $`0.5`$,and $`0.6`$ at the fixed field $`H=0.7`$. For $`j=0.2`$, the properties of $`C`$ and $`\chi `$ is essentially the same as those at the zero field. For $`j=0.5`$, on the other hand, $`C`$ and $`\chi `$ are enhanced in the low temperature region, because of the excitation gap. For $`j=0.6`$, where the lower MFCS appearing in the $`M`$-$`H`$ curve, we can see the susceptibility has very sharp peak at very low temperature. The specific heat also grows sharply at very low temperature as well, which is quite similar to that of the higher field MFCS. These outstanding peaks in $`\chi `$ and $`C`$ support that the dispersion curve of the low-lying excitation has such a structure as the double-well one. However, the evidence for the double-well structure can not be detected directly within the present calculation, since the field at the lower MFCS and the lower critical field of the excitation gap are very close as shown in Fig. 2(c).

Here, we make a comment on the relevance of present calculations with the experimental results. For example, the susceptibility of the compound Cu(ampy)Br2 was measured by Kikuchi, and then the ratio of the exchange coupling is estimated as $`j=0.2`$.  The $`M`$-$`H`$ curve of this compound is also observed to have no anomaly in the middle field region, which is consistent with the present calculation. Moreover, Hosokoshi, et al have found that the susceptibility of the organic compound F2PIMNH shows the clear exponential decay in low temperature region, which imply $`j>0.4`$ compared with the calculated susceptibility in Fig. 5-(c). Then it is suggested that the $`M`$-$`H`$ curve of F2PIMNH has the MFCS. However the high field experiment has not yet been done for this compound.

## VI summary

In this paper we have quantitatively studied the thermodynamic behaviors of the antiferromagnetic zigzag spin chain in magnetic fields. We have calculated the magnetization processes ($`M`$-$`H`$ curves) at finite temperatures by using the density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) method for the quantum transfer matrix. The zero-temperature $`M`$-$`H`$ curves were also calculated by the product wave-function renormalization group method. We have shown that the zero-temperature $`M`$-$`H`$ curve has zero, one, and two middle field cusp singularity(MFCS) for $`j=0.2`$, $`0.5`$ and $`0.6`$, respectively. The thermal effect on the $`M`$-$`H`$ curve was discussed as well.

We have further investigated the bulk physical quantities at finite temperatures in terms of the non-trivial energy-level structures responsible for the singularities in the zero-temperature $`M`$-$`H`$ curve. Near the saturation field, we have considered the band edge singularities in $`j1/4`$, where the Fermi liquid behavior is observed. For $`j>1/4`$, we have shown that the double-minimum shape of the dispersion curve correctly explains the peak structures of the specific heat.

Near the zero field, we have considered the susceptibility $`\chi `$ and specific heat $`C`$. In the gapless region, i.e. $`j<0.2411`$, we have shown $`\chi `$ and $`C`$ exhibiting typical gapless behaviors and checked the CFT relation between the zero-temperature susceptibility and the coefficient of linear specific heat. For $`j>0.2411`$, the exponential decay of $`\chi `$ and $`C`$ has been observed in low temperatures. Moreover, we have seen that another peak of $`C`$ is induced for $`j=0.6`$, where the double-well structure of the dispersion curve is expected to accompany with the lower MFCS. We have also calculated the susceptibility $`\chi `$ and specific heat $`C`$ in the small field $`H=0.7`$. The highly enhanced peaks for $`\chi `$ and $`C`$ of $`j=0.6`$ support the double-well structure of the dispersion curve. To understand the microscopic view about such low-lying excitation connected to the conformation mechanism of the lower MFCS is a remaining problem.

In the connection to the experiments, the $`M`$-$`H`$ curve of F2PIMNH is interesting, since the appearance of the MFCS can be predicted by the present calculation. In addition, the crystal structure of another zigzag materials suggests that they may have large next-nearest coupling $`j`$, by taking into account the orbital symmetry of the atoms concerned with the super-exchange interaction. In analyzing experimental data for the above zigzag materials, we believe that the present results is of use.

###### Acknowledgements.

We would like to thank H. Kikuchi, Y. Narumi, and M. Hagiwara for stimulating discussions about experiments. We also thank to Y. Akutsu, Y. Hieida for fruitful discussions. One of the authors (K. O.) is supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.


text:
# Chiral aspects of baryon structure in the quark model.

## Abstract

The implications of chiral symmetry for the quark model are discussed. In particular its connection with the meson-baryon approach is outlined. It is stressed that in the closure approximation, where the intermediate baryon states are used instead of the original quark basis, it is imperative to take into account the whole infinite tower of the radially excited states in order that the crucially important effects related to the short-range part of the meson-exchange interaction be preserved. It is shown that the chiral constituent quark model is able to explain the nucleon axial vector coupling constant and automatically incorporates all the necessary loop corrections.

It has been suggested some time ago  that the most important interactions in light and strange baryons in the low-energy regime (below the chiral symmetry breaking scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\chi 1`$GeV) are the effective confining interaction and the short-range part of the Goldstone boson exchange (GBE) interaction between the constituent quarks, which are quasiparticles in Bogoliubov or Landau sense and related to dynamical chiral symmetry breaking. That this should be so follows from the fact that the typical momentum of valence current quarks in the nucleon is well below the chiral symmetry breaking scale, implying that the low-energy characteristics of baryons, such as their masses, should be formed by the nonperturbative QCD dynamics, that is responsible for chiral symmetry breaking and confinement, but not by the perturbative QCD degrees of freedom, which become active at much higher momentum scale.

From the microscopical side the effective meson exchange interaction between valence quarks in baryons necessarily arises from the t-channel iterations of the QCD gluodynamics which triggers the breaking of chiral symmetry . To understand the structure of the nucleon in the low-energy regime it is therefore much simpler to use an effective theory, which operates with the quasiparticles (in this case constituent quarks and chiral fields), which are necessarily implied by the original nonperturbative QCD dynamics.

The short-range part of the GBE interaction can be schematically written as *** Through the whole paper we use pion-exchange. The transition to the whole GBE exchange within the $`SU(3)_F`$ limit implies a substitution of the $`SU(2)`$ flavor matrices by the $`SU(3)`$ ones.

$$\stackrel{}{\tau }_i\stackrel{}{\tau }_j\stackrel{}{\sigma }_i\stackrel{}{\sigma }_j,$$
(1)
multiplied by a radial function. In the extreme case where the scale of the chiral symmetry breaking approaches infinity, the radial form of this interaction is given by the delta-function. In the case of the finite physical pion and constituent quark sizes it should be some finite function with the range $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\chi ^1`$. A short-range force of the same type is also supplied by the vector-meson-like exchange interaction , which can also be considered as a representation of the correlated two-Goldstone boson exchange, since the latter has a $`\rho `$-meson pole in the t-channel . The same force is also implied by the Yukawa part of the axial vector meson exchange. There are phenomenological reasons to believe that these contributions also can be important. The recent lattice results on the origin of the $`N\mathrm{\Delta }`$ splitting , large $`N_c`$  and phenomenological  analyses of the negative parity $`L=1`$ states support the physical picture based on the interaction (1).

In a recent paper  Thomas and Krein have continued a critical discussion of the chiral constituent quark model. In their first paper  it was argued that the pion exchange diagram of Fig. 1b, which is the basis for the interaction (1), should give results in conflict with the prediction of baryon chiral perturbation theory (BChPT). The latter suggests that in the $`ϵ`$-neighbourhood of the chiral limit the leading nonanalytic contribution (LNA) to the nucleon mass (i.e. a contribution of the order $`m_c^{3/2}\mu ^3`$, where $`m_c`$ and $`\mu `$ are current quark and pion masses, respectively) is given by

$$\delta m_N=\frac{3}{32\pi f_\pi ^2}g_A^2\mu ^315MeV,$$
(2)
where $`\mu `$ is the pion mass in the neighborhood of the chiral limit and $`g_A`$ is the nucleon axial vector coupling constant in the same regime. This contribution arises from the nucleon self-energy graph of Fig. 2a, whereas the diagram of Fig. 2c does not contribute to LNA in the chiral limit . The argument made in ref.  was that the Yukawa part of the pion-exchange interaction of Fig. 1b,

$$+\stackrel{}{\tau }_i\stackrel{}{\tau }_j\stackrel{}{\sigma }_i\stackrel{}{\sigma }_j\mu ^2\frac{e^{\mu r}}{r},$$
(3)
would necessarily lead to a splitting of $`N`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ at the order $`\mu ^3`$, which is equivalent to some contribution of a diagram of Fig. 1c to the nucleon self-energy at the same order. Since the Yukawa part (3) of the meson exchange interaction is firmly related to the short-range part (1) of the pion-exchange interaction, the authors of ref.  concluded that the splittings that arise from this interaction are in conflict with BChPT and hence wrong.

It was, however, proven in ref. , that the argument above is incorrect. The reason is that the short-range interaction (1) appears at the order $`m_c^0=1`$, i.e. persists in the chiral limit, while the contribution of the Yukawa part of the meson-exchange interaction appears only in subleading orders $`m_c,m_c^{3/2},\mathrm{}`$ and vanishes in the chiral limit $`m_c=0`$. Hence, while in the chiral limit the interaction (1) does contribute to the nucleon self-energy and to the $`N\mathrm{\Delta }`$ splitting, the Yukawa part (3) does not! Therefore there is no contradiction with BChPT. Beyond the chiral limit (i.e. for any finite pion mass $`\mu `$) the interaction (3) provides a very small splitting between $`N`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. But in this regime BChPT states that there also appears a contribution from the diagrams of Fig. 2c and Fig. 2d  and therefore there is no contradiction again.

In their second paper  Thomas and Krein suggested another argument, namely that the baryon-self energy should be obtained only from the projection onto the intermediate baryon states and that the $`N`$ \- $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ splitting, calculated after performing such a projection, was very different to that one implied by Fig. 1a and Fig. 1b and by the operator (1). Below we show that this new argument does not hold. In particular we demonstrate that the infinite tower of the radially excited states must be taken in the meson-baryon basis in order to incorporate properly the crucially important effects implied by the interaction (1). We also show that the chiral constituent quark model successfully explains the nucleon axial vector coupling constant and thus correctly incorporates all the necessary loop corrections.

Consider a generic Hamiltonian of a chiral constituent quark model, which has also been used by Thomas and Krein:

$$H=H_0+H_\pi +W,$$
(4)
and assume that this Hamiltonian can be treated perturbatively with respect to the pion-quark interaction $`W`$ (in reality this will not be valid). In the expression above, $`H_0`$ describes the effective confinement part of the model with eigenstates $`|B_\alpha ^{(0)}>`$ (called bare quark states in ref. ), $`H_\pi `$ is the Hamiltonian for the noninteracting pion field. The surprising statement of ref.  is that this Hamiltonian could not be treated directly (that would indeed correspond to the sum of diagrams of Fig. 1a and Fig. 1b) but rather an insertion of a sum over intermediate baryon-pion states should be done leading to the following self-energy:

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }(E)=\underset{n}{}<B_0|W^+|n>\frac{1}{EE_n}<n|W|B_0>.$$
(5)
In this expression the closure representation for the intermediate pion-baryon system has been used. It is obvious, however, that the representation (5) is correct and equivalent to the initial Hamiltonian (4) only when the full (infinite) set of the intermediate states is taken into account. When the authors of ref.  apply this expression to $`N`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ self-energies and obtain the following relations

$$M_N=M_0^{}\frac{25}{2}P_{00}^{}16P_{N\mathrm{\Delta }},$$
(6)
$$M_\mathrm{\Delta }=M_0^{}4P_{\mathrm{\Delta }N}\frac{25}{2}P_{00}^{},$$
(7)
they truncate the sum over $`n`$ in eq. (5) to the ground states of $`N`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ only. After that they compare the expressions (6) and (7) with those of  (based on the interaction (1))

$$M_N=M_015P_{00}^\pi ,$$
(8)
$$M_\mathrm{\Delta }=M_03P_{00}^\pi ,$$
(9)
and conclude from the apparent difference that (8) and (9) should be incorrect. An obvious error is that they identify $`M_0^{}`$ and $`P_{00}^{}`$ with $`M_0`$ and $`P_{00}^\pi `$. The parameter $`M_0`$, however, includes both the contribution from the constituent quark mass and the confinement. The constituent quark mass, by definition, contains the pion self-energy contribution of Fig. 1a . The latter contribution is ultraviolet divergent and is absorbed into constituent quark mass after renormalization. While the coefficient $`P_{00}^{}`$ takes into account the intermediate state $`N`$ in (6) and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ in (7), the coefficient $`P_{00}^\pi `$ implicitly includes all allowed radially excited states with all possible radial and spin-isospin quantum numbers, which can be coupled to the nucleon or delta bare ground states via the pion absorption (emission) operator. This difference is of crucial importance.

The pion-exchange interaction of Fig. 1b contains both the ultraviolet part (1), which is independent of the pion mass, and the infrared part (3). If one is interested only in the small effects related with the infrared part of the meson exchange interaction, as well as in the infrared contributions from the constituent quark self energy of Fig. 1 at the order $`\mu ^3`$, then the truncation of the intermediate states in (5) to $`N`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ ground states would be approximately justified, because all other intermediate states will not contribute at this order. Note again, that this is true only in the vicinity of the chiral limit. With the real value of the pion mass, there will also appear some contributions from radially excited states. However, this is not true for the ultraviolet part (1) of the meson exchange interaction, which produces a much more important effect for the baryon mass. In this case the truncation of the intermediate states to the ground $`N`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ states leads to astray. In a perturbative treatment this is obvious from the fact that the contribution of the interaction (1) is determined by the coefficients $`P_{00}^\pi `$ which are proportional to the square of the bare baryon wave function at zero separation between two constituent quarks. If one uses the closure representation, one needs a complete infinite set of all possible radially excited states with all possible spin-isospin quantum numbers that are allowed by the pion transition in order to represent correctly the contribution above. Mathematically this statement is equivalent to the need for an infinite complete basis to represent the delta function in the closure representation and any effect of the higher terms in this expansion is not smaller than the effect of the first terms. It is easy to verify that the result obtained with the ground states only, like in (6)-(7), is dramatically different from the correct one in (8)-(9).

This is also valid for the nonperturbative treatment , where the finite function with the range $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\chi ^1`$ must be used instead of the original delta function in (1). For example, if one uses a harmonic oscillator basis in a variational calculation one needs all states up to $`20\mathrm{}\omega `$ to achieve a convergence. This is nothing else than taking into account all highly excited intermediate baryon states.

Because the identification of $`P_{00}^{}`$, $`P_{N\mathrm{\Delta }}^\pi `$ and $`P_{\mathrm{\Delta }N}^\pi `$ in (6) and (7) with $`P_{00}^\pi 30`$ MeV in (8) and (9) is erroneous, and the expressions (6) and (7) by themselves are by no means justified, the conclusion about the nucleon self-energy of $`\frac{57}{2}P_{00}^{}855`$ MeV is also not justified. The correct nucleon self-energy in the chiral limit is given by $`15P_{00}`$ by the expression (8) (which is due to the interaction (1)). The constituent quark self-energy is ultraviolet divergent and thus completely absorbed into the definition of the constituent quark mass after renormalization. The different ultraviolet behaviour of graphs of Fig. 1a and Fig. 1b is lost in the expressions (6) and (7) which do not distinguish between these two graphs.

One may ask, why the typical calculations along BChPT ignore all the intermediate excited states? It is because the task of BChPT is different. It considers only corrections that are implied by the nonzero mass of current quarks (pions) and all contributions of the chiral limit (which are numerically much more important) are encoded into the fitting parameters, which are the tree level baryon $`N`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ masses, coupling constants and counterterms. BChPT a-priori cannot answer the question what is the origin of the $`N\mathrm{\Delta }`$ splitting. The task of the quark model is wider. It should incorporate not only small corrections from the finite pion mass, but what is much more important it should offer an explanation of the main contributions in the chiral limit.

When one uses the quark basis and the diagrams of Fig. 1 both the chiral limit and small corrections from pion mass are met properly. There are obvious advantages even for the treatment of the small corrections from the pion mass in this case. This is because it takes into account explicitly the very different infrared behaviour of the graphs of Fig. 1a and Fig. 1b. For example, with the quark basis it is manifest that the chiral log corrections ($`\mathrm{ln}\mu ^2`$) to the baryon mass can appear from the quark self-energy graph of Fig 1a only and they are not supplied by the meson exchange interaction of Fig. 1b . This property is lost in any usual pion-baryon description (because it does not distinguish between the two graphs in Fig. 1). It guarantees that when one uses a pion-baryon basis there should be implicit strong cancellations when one considers excited intermediate states in addition to the ground states, which are ignored in the present state of BChPT.

In addition, in the large $`N_c`$ limit the $`SU(6)_{FS}`$ symmetry of baryons becomes exact  (note, that this is not the case for mesons). This symmetry is also the symmetry of the nonperturbed basis in the quark model for baryons. It is crucially important to keep manifest the large $`N_c`$ behaviour and the $`1/N_c`$ corrections within the BChPT expansion because there must be large $`N_c`$ cancellations of one-loop corrections, the property which is lost in the usual formulation of BChPT. ”Not including the $`1/N_c`$ cancellations in a systematic way gives a misleading picture of the baryon chiral expansion” . These cancellations are explicit when one uses the quark basis. The pion exchange interaction of Fig. 1b contributes to the $`N`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ masses at the order $`N_c`$, but its contribution to the $`N\mathrm{\Delta }`$ splitting and to the violation of $`SU(6)`$ appears at the order $`1/N_c`$, as it must be. This implies that the combination of the $`SU(6)`$ quark basis and the pionic contributions at the quark level correctly preserves at the same time the implications of ChPT and large $`N_c`$ expansion at the orders $`N_c,1,1/N_c`$.

The next issue to be addressed is the questioning by the authors of ref.  about the statement in ref.  that the LNA should be mostly due to the constituent quark self-energy of Fig. 1a. This self-energy implies the following contribution

$$\delta m_N=3\times \left\{\frac{3}{32\pi f_\pi ^2}(g_A^q)^2\mu ^3\right\},$$
(10)
which can be easily obtained if one considers the constituent quarks to be quasifree.In reality the constituent quark is confined and the free Green function should be substituted by the Green function of a particle in the confining potential. That will imply some small modifications of (10). Here $`g_A^q`$ stands for the axial vector coupling of the constituent quark. Using then the well-known $`SU(6)`$ relation

$$g_A=5/3g_A^q,$$
(11)
one obtains a result which is very close to (2). The success of the naive quark model relation (11) suggests that there should be a deep root in it. The $`SU(6)`$ symmetry of the naive quark model is the exact symmetry of QCD for baryons in the large $`N_c`$ limit and in the same limit the nucleon axial charge is given by the expectation value of the operator

$$\underset{l=1}{\overset{N_c}{}}q_l^{}\left\{\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{\tau }\right\}q_l,$$
(12)
evaluated with exact $`SU(6)`$ wave functions, which gives a contribution at the order $`N_c`$ . This procedure, upon substitution $`N_c=3`$, results in relation (11).

While the relation (11), which is model independent, should be considered as a definition of the constituent quark axial charge in the large $`N_c`$ limit with all relativistic and other possible effects automatically incorporated, it is interesting to learn whether our intuitive view of constituent quark is compatible with this relation and the empirical value for the nucleon axial vector charge, $`g_A=1.25`$.

The axial vector current of the constituent quark is given as

$$A_\mu ^a=ig_A^q\overline{u}(p^{})\gamma _\mu \gamma _5\tau ^au(p).$$
(13)
In terms of Pauli spinors it reduces to

$$A^{ia}=g_A^q\sigma ^i\tau ^a\left\{1\frac{2}{3}\left(1\frac{1}{\sqrt{1+\stackrel{~}{𝐯}^2}}\right)\right\}.$$
(14)
Here the ”velocity” operator is defined as $`\stackrel{~}{𝐯}=(𝐩^{}+𝐩)/2m`$. This ”velocity” operator should not be mixed with the standard one-particle relativistic velocity $`𝐯`$. In the limit $`𝐩^{}=𝐩`$ they are obviously related via $`\stackrel{~}{v}^2=\frac{v^2}{1v^2}`$. Note that the expression (14) is exact and does not assume a nonrelativistic expansion of the constituent quark spinors. It is explicitly seen from this expression that the relativistic motion factor in curly brackets can be absorbed into a definition of the axial vector charge of the constituent quark that is effectively at rest and thus one indeed obtains the recipe (12). Assuming that the constituent quark is relativistic, $`v^20.5÷0.7`$ (as it indeed follows from the semirelativistic dynamical calculations  with the confining interaction as the only interaction between constituent quarks), one obtains relativistic motion correction factor $`0.8÷0.7`$. This factor, combined with expression (11) gives $`g_A=5/3\times 0.8÷0.7=1.3÷1.2`$. In this calculation it has been assumed that in the large $`N_c`$ limit the ”bare” constituent quark axial vector charge $`g_A^q`$ in (14) is given by 1  (there are some arguments, however, that it should not necessarily be so ).

All correction to the expression (11) start at the order $`1/N_c`$ . To these belong corrections due to the pion cloud of constituent quarks  and due to the pion exchange interaction. As explained in ref.  and above the pion exchange interaction, which contributes to the violation of $`SU(6)`$ at the order $`1/N_c`$, results in the configuration mixing at this order and provides thus a small renormalization of the expression (11). It also contains the $`\mu ^3`$ contribution to the nucleon mass and thus provides other small renormalization of the expression (10). The latter contributions represent effects of the quark enviroment because they are two-body contributions and are determined by the quantum numbers of a pair of quarks, but not of a single isolated quark. Since the model does inherently contain the loop contributions of Fig. 2 and is able to reproduce (at least approximately) the axial charge of the nucleon, it necessarily reproduces LNA.

Finally a comment on the remarks by Thomas and Krein  and Lipkin  regarding the failure of the prediction of the naive constituent quark model for some specific combination of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ magnetic moments. It is not surprising that the naive constituent quark model, which ignores all effects implied by chiral symmetry dynamical breaking fails here. Within the chiral constituent quark model these implications assume the pion-loop contribution at the quark level  as well as the meson exchange current (MEC) contributions (see e.g. the recent papers ). The latter represent two-body effects, i.e. effects of the quark enviroment (in the language of Thomas and Krein  and papers cited therein). While the results of the qualitative calculations show that the effects of the MEC for some observables, specifically for the magnetic moments should be significant and work in a proper direction  (because, as it is well known from nuclear physics, the MEC contributions to M1 electromagnetic transitions are large), one cannot unfortunately calculate them reliably because the problem is highly relativistic and the derivation of the meson exchange current operators at the order $`v^2/c^2`$, justified in nuclear physics, cannot be considered to be quantitative in the present application. But an important issue, which we want to stress, is that the LNA contribution and other chiral corrections to magnetic moments are taken into account as soon as pion loops and MEC contributions are properly included.

The conclusion is that the meson-baryon or quark models which employ only the subspace of the pion-nucleon and pion-delta states, are incomplete and ignore the most important short range effects of the pion (meson) degrees of freedom for the baryon structure. If one uses the pion(meson)-baryon basis it is imperative to include the whole tower of the excited baryon states.

The author is indebted to D.O. Riska and W. Plessas for carefully reading the manuscript.

Figure captions

Fig.1 Pion loop a) and pion exchange b) contributions to the baryon mass within the chiral constituent quark model.

Fig.2 Pion loop contributions to the baryon mass with the pion-baryon system in the intermediate state truncated to $`N`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ states only.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

2D conformally–invariant field theories have become the subject of intense investigation in recent years, after the work of Belavin, Polyakov, and Zamolodchikov . One of the main reasons for this, is that 2D conformal field theories describe the critical behaviour of two dimensional statistical models \[2–5\]. Conformal field theory provides us with a simple and powerful means of calculating the critical exponents, as well as, the correlation functions of the theory at the critical point . Another application of conformal field theories is in string theories. Originally, string theory was formulated in flat twenty six dimensional space–time for bosonic- and flat ten dimensional space–time for supersymmetric-theories. It has been realized now that the central part of string theory is a 2D conformally–invariant field theory. It is also seen that tree level string amplitudes may be expressed in terms of correlation functions of the corresponding conformal field theory on the plane, whereas string loop amplitudes may be expressed in terms of correlation functions of the same conformal field theory on higher genus Riemann surfaces \[7–10\].

Supersymmtry is a $`Z_2`$ extension of the Poincaré algebra . But this can be enlarged, to a superconformal algebra for example . If the dimension of the space–time is two, there are also fractional supersymmetric extensions of the Poincaré and conformal algebra \[14–17\]. Fractional supersymmetry is a $`Z_n`$ extension of the Poincaré algebra.

In this paper, the special case $`n=3`$ is considered. So the components of the superfield have grades 0, 1, and 2. The complex plane is extended by introducing two independent paragrassmann variables $`\theta `$ and $`\overline{\theta }`$, satisfying $`\theta ^3=\overline{\theta }^3=0`$. One can develop an algebra, the fractional $`n=3`$ algebra, based on these variables and their derivatives \[18–20\]. In , this fractional supersymmetry has been investigated by introducing a certain fractional superconformal action. We don’t consider any special action here. What we do, is to use only the structure of fractional superconformal symmetry in order to obtain general restrictions on the two–point functions. The scheme of the paper is the following. In section 2, infinitesimal superconformal transformations are defined. In section 3, the generators of these transformation and their algebra are investigated. In section 4, the two–point functions of such theories are obtained. Finally, section 5 contains the concluding remarks.

## 2 Infinitesimal superconformal transformations

Consider a paragrassmann variable $`\theta `$, satisfying

$$\theta ^3=0.$$
(1)
A function of a complex variable $`z`$, and this paragrassmann variable, will be of the form

$$f(z,\theta )=f_0(z)+\theta f_1(z)+\theta ^2f_2(z).$$
(2)
Now define the covariant derivatives as

$$D:=_\theta q\theta ^2_z,$$
(3)
where $`q`$ is one of the third roots of unity, not equal to one, and $`_\theta `$ satisfies

$$_\theta \theta =1+q\theta _\theta .$$
(4)
An infinitesimal transformation

$`z^{}`$ $`=`$ $`z+\omega _0(z)+\theta \omega _1(z)+\theta ^2\omega _2(z)`$ (5)
$`\theta ^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\theta +ϵ_0(z)+\theta ϵ_1(z)+\theta ^2ϵ_2(z)`$ (6)
is called superconformal if

$$D=(D\theta ^{})D^{}$$
(7)
where

$$D^{}=_\theta ^{}q\theta ^2_z^{}$$
(8)
From these, it is found that an infinitesimal superconformal transformation is of the form

$`\theta ^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\theta +ϵ_0(z)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\theta \omega _0^{}(z)+\theta ^2ϵ_2(z),`$ (9)
$`z^{}`$ $`=`$ $`z+\omega _0(z)q\theta ^2ϵ_0(z),`$ (10)
where $`\omega _0^{}(z):=_z\omega _0(z)`$. It is also seen that the following commutative relations hold.

$`ϵ_2\theta `$ $`=`$ $`q\theta ϵ_2,`$ (11)
$`ϵ_0\theta `$ $`=`$ $`q\theta ϵ_0.`$ (12)
One can extend these naturally to functions of $`z`$ and $`\overline{z}`$, and $`\theta `$ and $`\overline{\theta }`$ (full functions instead of chiral ones). It is sufficient to define a covariant derivative for the pair $`(\overline{z},\overline{\theta })`$, the analogue of (3), and extend the transformations (5), so that there are similar transformations for $`(\overline{z},\overline{\theta })`$ as well. Then, defining a superconformal transformation as one satisfying (6) and its analogue for $`(\overline{z},\overline{\theta })`$, one obtains, in addition to (8) and (9), similar expressions where $`(z,\theta ,\omega ,ϵ)`$ are simply replaced by $`(\overline{z},\overline{\theta },\overline{\omega },\overline{ϵ})`$. So, the superconformal transformations consist of two distinct class of transformations, the holomorphic and the antiholomorphic, that do not talk to each other.

## 3 Generators of superconformal field theory

The (chiral) superfield $`\varphi (\theta ,z)`$ with the expansion

$$\varphi (\theta ,z)=\phi _0(z)+\theta \phi _1(z)+\theta ^2\phi _2(z)$$
(13)
is a super-primaryfield of weight $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ if it transforms under a superconformal transformations as

$$\varphi (\theta ,z)(D\theta ^{})^{3\mathrm{\Delta }}\varphi (\theta ^{},z^{})$$
(14)
One can write this as

$$\varphi (\theta ,z)[1+\stackrel{~}{T}(\omega _0)+\stackrel{~}{S}(ϵ_0)+\stackrel{~}{H}(ϵ_2)]\varphi (\theta ,z),$$
(15)
to arrive at

$`\stackrel{~}{T}(\omega _0)`$ $`=`$ $`\omega _0_z+\left(\mathrm{\Delta }+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{3}}\right)\omega _0^{},`$ (16)
$`\stackrel{~}{S}(ϵ_0)`$ $`=`$ $`ϵ_0(\delta _\theta q^2\theta ^2_z)3\mathrm{\Delta }q^2ϵ_0^{}\theta ^2,`$ (17)
$`\stackrel{~}{H}(ϵ_2)`$ $`=`$ $`qϵ_2(\theta ^2_\theta \mathrm{\Delta }\theta ).`$ (18)
Here $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and $`\delta _\theta `$ are operators satisfying

$$[\mathrm{\Lambda },\theta ]=1,$$
(19)
and

$$\delta _\theta \theta =q^1\theta \delta _\theta +1,$$
(20)
respectively.

One can now define the generators

$`l_n`$ $`:=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{T}(z^{n+1}),`$ (21)
$`g_r`$ $`:=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{S}(z^{r+1/3}),`$ (22)
where $`n`$ and $`r+1/3`$ are integers. The generators of superconformal transformations are defined through

$`[L_n,\varphi (\theta ,z)]`$ $`:=`$ $`l_n\varphi ,`$ (23)
$`[G_r,\varphi (\theta ,z)]`$ $`:=`$ $`g_r\varphi .`$ (24)
One can check that, apart from a possible central extension, these generators satisfy the following relations.

$$[L_n,L_m]=(nm)L_{n+m},$$
(25)
$$[L_n,G_r]=\left(\frac{n}{3}r\right)G_{n+r},$$
(26)
and

$$G_rG_sG_t+\text{five other permutations of the indices}=6L_{r+s+t}.$$
(27)
This algebra, which contains the Virasoro algebra (18) as a subalgebra, has nontrivial central extensions. It is shown  that there is only one subalgera (containing $`G`$-generators as well as $`L_n`$’s), the central extension for which is trivial. This algebra is the one generated by $`\{L_1,L_0,G_{1/3}\}`$. Note that if one excludes $`G_r`$’s, there exists another subalgebra generated by $`\{L_1,L_0,L_1\}`$, the central extension of which is trivial. Also note that we have not included the generators corresponding to $`\stackrel{~}{H}`$ in the algebra. The reason is that there is no closed subalgebra, with a trivial central extension, containing these generators .

Now we have the effects of $`L_n`$’s and $`G_r`$’s on the superfield. It is not difficult to obtain their effect on the component fields. For $`L_n`$’s, the first equation of (17) leads directly to

$$[L_n,\varphi _k(z)]=z^{n+1}_z\varphi _k+(n+1)z^n\left(\mathrm{\Delta }+\frac{k}{3}\right)\varphi _k.$$
(28)
This shows that the component field $`\varphi _k`$ is simply a primary field with the weight $`\mathrm{\Delta }+k/3`$. One can also write (21) in terms of operator–product expansion:

$$[T(w)\varphi _k(z)]\frac{\varphi _k(z)}{wz}+\frac{(\mathrm{\Delta }+k/3)\varphi _k(z)}{(wz)^2},$$
(29)
where $``$ denotes the radial ordering and $`T(z)`$ is the holomorphic part of the energy–momentum tensor:

$$T(z)=\underset{n}{}\frac{L_n}{z^{n+2}}.$$
(30)
For $`G_r`$’s, a little more care is needed. One defines a $`\chi `$–commutator as

$$[A,B]_\chi :=AB\chi BA.$$
(31)
It is easy to see that

$$[A,BB^{}]_{\chi \chi ^{}}=[A,B]_\chi B^{}+\chi B[A,B^{}]_\chi ^{}.$$
(32)
Now, if we use

$$[G,\theta ]_q=0,$$
(33)
then the second equation of (23) leads to

$`[G_r,\varphi _0(z)]`$ $`=`$ $`z^{r+1/3}\varphi _1,`$ (34)
$`[G_r,\varphi _1(z)]_{q^1}`$ $`=`$ $`z^{r+1/3}\varphi _2,`$ (35)
$`[G_r,\varphi _2(z)]_{q^2}`$ $`=`$ $`\left[z^{r+1/3}_z\varphi _0+\left(r+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\right)z^{r2/3}(3\mathrm{\Delta })\varphi _0\right].`$ (36)
This can also be written in terms of the operator–product expansion. To do this, however, one should first define a proper radial ordering for the supersymmetry generator and the component fields. Defining

$$[S(w)\varphi _k(z)]:=\{\begin{array}{cc}S(w)\varphi _k(z),\hfill & |w|>|z|\hfill \\ q^k\varphi _k(z)S(w),\hfill & |w|<|z|\hfill \end{array}$$
(37)
where

$$S(z):=\underset{r}{}\frac{G_r}{z^{r+4/3}},$$
(38)
one is led to

$`[S(w)\varphi _0(z)]`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _1(z)}{wz}},`$ (39)
$`[S(w)\varphi _1(z)]`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _2(z)}{wz}},`$ (40)
$`[S(w)\varphi _2(z)]`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _0(z)}{wz}}{\displaystyle \frac{3\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _0(z)}{(wz)^2}}.`$ (41)
What we really use to restrict the correlation functions is that part of the algebra the central extension of which is trivial, that is, the algebra generated by $`\{L_1,L_0,G_{1/3}\}`$.

## 4 Two–point functions

The two–point functions should be invariant under the action of the subalgebra generated by $`\{L_1,L_0,G_{1/3}\}`$. This means

$`0|[L_1,\varphi _k\varphi _k^{}^{}]|0`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (42)
$`0|[L_0,\varphi _k\varphi _k^{}^{}]|0`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (43)
$`0|[G_{1/3},\varphi _k\varphi _k^{}^{}]_{q^{kk^{}}}|0`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (44)
Here we have used the shorthand notation $`\varphi _k=\varphi _k(z)`$ and $`\varphi _k^{}^{}=\varphi _k^{}^{}(z^{})`$. $`\varphi `$ and $`\varphi ^{}`$ are primary superfields of weight $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{}`$, respectively. Equations (31) and (32) imply that

$$\varphi _k\varphi _k^{}^{}=\frac{A_{k,k^{}}}{(zz^{})^{\mathrm{\Delta }+\mathrm{\Delta }^{}+(k+k^{})/3}}.$$
(45)
This is simply due to the fact that $`\varphi _k`$ and $`\varphi _k^{}^{}`$ are primary fields of the weight $`\mathrm{\Delta }+k/3`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{}+k^{}/3`$, respectively. Note that it is not required that these weights be equal to each other, since we have not included $`L_1`$ in the subalgebra.

(33) relates $`A_{k_1,k_1^{}}`$ with $`A_{k_2,k_2^{}}`$, if

$$k_1+k_1^{}(k_2+k_2^{})=0,\text{mod 3}.$$
(46)
Therefore, there remains 3 independent constants in the 9 correlation functions. Correlation functions of grade 0:

$`\varphi _0\varphi _0^{}`$ $`:=`$ $`A_0f_{0,0}=A_0{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(zz^{})^{\mathrm{\Delta }+\mathrm{\Delta }^{}}}},`$ (47)
$`\varphi _1\varphi _2^{}`$ $`:=`$ $`A_0f_{1,2}=A_0{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }+\mathrm{\Delta }^{}}{(zz^{})^{\mathrm{\Delta }+\mathrm{\Delta }^{}+1}}},`$ (48)
$`\varphi _2\varphi _1^{}`$ $`:=`$ $`A_0f_{2,1}=A_0{\displaystyle \frac{q^2(\mathrm{\Delta }+\mathrm{\Delta }^{})}{(zz^{})^{\mathrm{\Delta }+\mathrm{\Delta }^{}+1}}},`$ (49)
those of grade one:

$`\varphi _0\varphi _1^{}`$ $`:=`$ $`A_1f_{0,1}=A_1{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(zz^{})^{\mathrm{\Delta }+\mathrm{\Delta }^{}+1/3}}},`$ (50)
$`\varphi _1\varphi _0^{}`$ $`:=`$ $`A_1f_{1,0}=A_1{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(zz^{})^{\mathrm{\Delta }+\mathrm{\Delta }^{}+1/3}}},`$ (51)
$`\varphi _2\varphi _2^{}`$ $`:=`$ $`A_1f_{2,2}=A_1{\displaystyle \frac{q^2(\mathrm{\Delta }+\mathrm{\Delta }^{}+1/3)}{(zz^{})^{\mathrm{\Delta }+\mathrm{\Delta }^{}+4/3}}},`$ (52)
and those of grade two:

$`\varphi _0\varphi _2^{}`$ $`:=`$ $`A_2f_{0,2}=A_2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(zz^{})^{\mathrm{\Delta }+\mathrm{\Delta }^{}+2/3}}},`$ (53)
$`\varphi _1\varphi _1^{}`$ $`:=`$ $`A_2f_{1,1}=A_2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(zz^{})^{\mathrm{\Delta }+\mathrm{\Delta }^{}+2/3}}},`$ (54)
$`\varphi _2\varphi _0^{}`$ $`:=`$ $`A_2f_{2,0}=A_2{\displaystyle \frac{q^2}{(zz^{})^{\mathrm{\Delta }+\mathrm{\Delta }^{}+2/3}}}.`$ (55)
It is easy to check that adding $`L_1`$ to the subalgebra trivializes the correlation functions. The reason is that in all of the correlation sets (of the same grade) there exists at least one correlation function the weights of its primary fields are not equal to each other, regardless of the values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{}`$. In fact, acting on $`\varphi _k\varphi _k^{}^{}`$ by $`G_{1/3}`$ relates $`\varphi _{k+1}\varphi _k^{}^{}`$ to $`\varphi _k\varphi _{k^{}+1}^{}`$. And it is impossible that both

$$\mathrm{\Delta }+1/3=\mathrm{\Delta }^{},\text{mod 1}$$
(56)
and

$$\mathrm{\Delta }=\mathrm{\Delta }^{}+1/3,\text{mod 1}$$
(57)
hold. This shows that either $`\varphi _{k+1}\varphi _k^{}^{}`$ or $`\varphi _k\varphi _{k^{}+1}^{}`$ are zero, and so the other should be zero as well.

So far, everything has been calculated for the chiral fields. Let us generalize this no the full fields. The generalization is not difficult. One introduces component fields $`\varphi _{k\overline{k}}(z,\overline{z})`$ which have the following properties. The action of the energy–momentum generators on these component fields is

$`[L_n,\varphi _{k\overline{k}}(z,\overline{z})]`$ $`=`$ $`z^{n+1}_z\varphi _{k\overline{k}}+(n+1)z^n\left(\mathrm{\Delta }+{\displaystyle \frac{k}{3}}\right)\varphi _{k\overline{k}},`$ (58)
$`[\overline{L}_n,\varphi _{k\overline{k}}(z,\overline{z})]`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{z}^{n+1}_{\overline{z}}\varphi _{k\overline{k}}+(n+1)\overline{z}^n\left(\overline{\mathrm{\Delta }}+{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{k}}{3}}\right)\varphi _{k\overline{k}}.`$ (59)
While there are generators of the supersymmetry which act like

$`[G_r,\varphi _{0\overline{k}}(z,\overline{z})]_{q^{\overline{k}}}`$ $`=`$ $`z^{r+1/3}\varphi _{1\overline{k}},`$ (60)
$`[G_r,\varphi _{1\overline{k}}(z,\overline{z})]_{q^{1\overline{k}}}`$ $`=`$ $`z^{r+1/3}\varphi _{2\overline{k}},`$ (61)
$`[G_r,\varphi _{2\overline{k}}(z,\overline{z})]_{q^{2\overline{k}}}`$ $`=`$ $`\left[z^{r+1/3}_z\varphi _{0\overline{k}}+\left(r+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\right)z^{r2/3}(3\mathrm{\Delta })\varphi _{0\overline{k}}\right],`$ (62)
and

$`[\overline{G}_r,\varphi _{k0}(z,\overline{z})]_{q^k}`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{z}^{r+1/3}\varphi _{k1},`$ (63)
$`[\overline{G}_r,\varphi _{k1}(z,\overline{z})]_{q^{k1}}`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{z}^{r+1/3}\varphi _{k2},`$ (64)
$`[\overline{G}_r,\varphi _{k2}(z,\overline{z})]_{q^{k2}}`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\overline{z}^{r+1/3}_{\overline{z}}\varphi _{k0}+\left(r+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\right)\overline{z}^{r2/3}(3\overline{\mathrm{\Delta }})\varphi _{k0}\right].`$ (65)
The equations to be satisfied by the two–point functions are

$`0|[L_1(\overline{L}_1),\varphi _{k\overline{k}}\varphi _{k^{}\overline{k}^{}}^{}]|0=0,`$ (66)
$`0|[L_0(\overline{L}_0),\varphi _{k\overline{k}}\varphi _{k^{}\overline{k}^{}}^{}]|0=0,`$ (67)
$`0|[G_{1/3}(\overline{G}_{1/3}),\varphi _{k\overline{k}}\varphi _{k^{}\overline{k}^{}}^{}]_{q^{k\overline{k}k^{}\overline{k}^{}}}|0=0.`$ (68)
Once again, the first two sets of equations simply imply that

$$\varphi _{k\overline{k}}\varphi _{k^{}\overline{k}^{}}^{}=\frac{A_{k\overline{k},k^{}\overline{k}^{}}}{(zz^{})^{\mathrm{\Delta }+\mathrm{\Delta }^{}+(k+k^{})/3}(\overline{z}\overline{z}^{})^{\overline{\mathrm{\Delta }}+\overline{\mathrm{\Delta }}^{}+(\overline{k}+\overline{k}^{})/3}}.$$
(69)
The third set of equations relate $`A_{k_1\overline{k}_1,k_1^{}\overline{k}_1^{}}`$ to $`A_{k_2\overline{k}_2,k_2^{}\overline{k}_2^{}}`$, provided

$$k_1+k_1^{}(k_2+k_2^{})=\overline{k}_1+\overline{k}_1^{}(\overline{k}_2+\overline{k}_2^{})=0,\text{mod 3}.$$
(70)
So, there remains nine arbitrary constants in these correlation functions. One can write the correlations in terms of the correlations of the chiral fields. To see this, notice that

$$0|[G_{1/3},\varphi _{k\overline{k}}\varphi _{k^{}\overline{k}^{}}^{}]_{q^{k\overline{k}}}|0=O_k\varphi _{(k+1)\overline{k}}\varphi _{k^{}\overline{k}^{}}^{}+q^{k\overline{k}}O_k^{}^{}\varphi _{k\overline{k}}\varphi _{(k^{}+1)\overline{k}^{}}^{}.$$
(71)
Here $`O_k`$ and $`O_k^{}^{}`$ are coefficients (or derivatives) which depend only on $`k`$ and $`k^{}`$, respectively. The right–hand should of course be zero, due to the supersymmetry of the theory. The corresponding equation for chiral correlations differs from this, only in the coefficient $`q^{k\overline{k}}`$. For the chiral correlations, this coefficient is simply $`q^k`$. But it is easy to check that the set $`q^{k\overline{k}}\varphi _{k\overline{k}}\varphi _{k^{}\overline{k}^{}}^{}`$ satisfies the same equations of the chiral correlations. It is also easy to see that this same set satisfy the same equations of the antichiral correlations as well. So, the general solution for the full correlations is

$$\varphi _{k\overline{k}}\varphi _{k^{}\overline{k}^{}}^{}=A_{K\overline{K}}q^{k\overline{k}}f_{k,k^{}}(zz^{})\overline{f}_{\overline{k},\overline{k}^{}}(\overline{z}\overline{z}^{}),$$
(72)
where $`f_{k,k^{}}`$’s are defined through (36)–(38), $`\overline{f}_{\overline{k},\overline{k}^{}}`$’s are the same as these with $`\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{\mathrm{\Delta }}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{}\overline{\mathrm{\Delta }}^{}`$,

$$K=k+k^{},\text{mod 3},$$
(73)
and

$$\overline{K}=\overline{k}+\overline{k}^{},\text{mod 3}.$$
(74)
## 5 Concluding remarks

We considered fractional superconformal field theories only through the general symmetries of such theories. For the special case of three component fields in the superfield, the two–point functions were obtained. In fractional superconformal field theories, one cannot impose the symmetries generated by $`L_1`$ and $`\overline{L}_1`$ as non anomalous symmetries. Otherwise, the whole theory becomes trivial. This is due to the fact that the fractional supersymmetry generator changes the weight of the fields by $`1/3`$ (or $`1/f`$ if there are $`f`$ component fields in the superfield). So, two two–point functions will be related to each other, and the difference between the weights of the fields of one correlation is $`2/f`$ greater than the difference between the weights of the fields of the other correlation. As the symmetry generated by $`L_1`$ requires the weights of the fields in nonzero two–point functions be equal to each other, at least one of these correlations will be zero, and this forces the other to be zero as well. One can also see that the theory becomes trivial, through the fact that adding $`L_1`$ to the subalgebra generated by $`\{L_1,L_0,G_{1/3}\}`$ brings all of the generators of the superconformal theory to the algebra.

As $`L_1`$ is not in the non anomalous symmetry generators, the component fields don’t enjoy the full conformal symmetry (that is the $`sl(2)`$ symmetry generated by $`\{L_1,L_0,L_1\}`$). So, the three–point functions cannot be determined up to only constants; there remains unknown functions in them. In fact one has lost the special conformal transformations as non anomalous symmetries, and the symmetries of the theory, apart from the supersymmetry, are just the space–time symmetries plus dilation.