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# Nonlinear 𝑟-modes in Rapidly Rotating Relativistic Stars

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## Abstract

The $`r`$-mode instability in rotating relativistic stars has been shown recently to have important astrophysical implications (including the emission of detectable gravitational radiation, the explanation of the initial spins of young neutron stars and the spin-distribution of millisecond pulsars and the explanation of one type of gamma-ray bursts), provided that $`r`$-modes are not saturated at low amplitudes by nonlinear effects or by dissipative mechanisms. Here, we present the first study of nonlinear $`r`$-modes in isentropic, rapidly rotating relativistic stars, via 3-D general-relativistic hydrodynamical evolutions. Our numerical simulations show that (1) on dynamical timescales, there is no strong nonlinear coupling of $`r`$-modes to other modes at amplitudes of order one – unless nonlinear saturation occurs on longer timescales, the maximum $`r`$-mode amplitude is of order unity (i.e., the velocity perturbation is of the same order as the rotational velocity at the equator). An absolute upper limit on the amplitude (relevant, perhaps, for the most rapidly rotating stars) is set by causality. (2) $`r`$-modes and inertial modes in isentropic stars are predominantly discrete modes and possible associated continuous parts were not identified in our simulations. (3) In addition, the kinematical drift associated with $`r`$-modes, recently found by Rezzolla, Lamb and Shapiro (2000), appears to be present in our simulations, but an unambiguous confirmation requires more precise initial data. We discuss the implications of our findings for the detectability of gravitational waves from the $`r`$-mode instability.

PACS numbers: 95.30.Sf, 04.40.Dg, 97.10.Kc, 95.30.Lz

preprint: AUTH-GR-00-1
\]

Considerable effort has been spent in the last two years, in determining the properties of $`r`$-modes  in rotating compact stars, since the discovery  that these modes are unstable to the emission of gravitational radiation. This is motivated by the current understanding that the $`r`$-mode instability may have several important astrophysical consequences: it provides an explanation for the spin-down of rapidly rotating proto-neutron stars to Crab-like spin-periods and for the spin-distribution of millisecond pulsars and accreting neutron stars, while being a strong source of detectable continuous gravitational radiation (see  for reviews). In addition, if $`r`$-modes induce differential rotation, then the interaction between them and the magnetic field in neutron stars has been proposed as a gamma-ray burst model  or as a mechanism for enhancing the star’s toroidal magnetic field, which could, in turn, limit the $`r`$-mode amplitude .

Still, several important uncertainties remain, the resolution of which could significantly modify the above conclusions. In this Letter we present nonlinear hydrodynamical simulations of $`r`$-modes in rapidly rotating relativistic stars (in the relativistic Cowling approximation ) and address the questions of the maximum amplitude that $`r`$-modes can reach, the nature of their frequency spectrum, and the existence of a kinematical differential drift, associated with $`r`$-mode oscillations . To our knowledge, these are the first simulations of nonaxisymmetric oscillation modes in rotating (Newtonian or relativistic) stars.

The maximum amplitude of unstable $`r`$-modes in a fluid star (neglecting the magnetic field) and the precise mechanism by which it is set, are currently unknown, but saturation of the amplitude is thought to occur due to some form of nonlinear hydrodynamical coupling. An example of such a mechanism is the nonlinear coupling of the unstable $`r`$-mode to other, stable, modes of pulsation. Presumably, nonlinear saturation is set on a hydrodynamical timescale, although it cannot be excluded that weak hydrodynamical couplings saturate the $`r`$-mode amplitude on longer timescales (but shorter than the growth timescale due to gravitational radiation reaction).

For our study we have used a numerical code based on the 3-D `CACTUS` code developed by the AEI-Potsdam/NCSA/Washington University collaboration , in which we implemented the 3rd order Piecewise Parabolic Method (PPM)  for the hydrodynamics (see  for a recent review) and added initial data for equilibrium and perturbed rapidly rotating relativistic stars. In  it was shown that the 3rd order PPM method is suitable for long-term evolutions of rotating relativistic stars. The equilibrium initial data are constructed using the `RNS` code . We focus on a particular, representative, rapidly (and uniformly) rotating model with gravitational mass $`M=1.63M_{}`$, equatorial circumferential radius $`R=17.25`$km and spin period $`P=1.26`$ms (the gravitational mass and equatorial radius are larger than for a corresponding nonrotating model, because of rotational effects - the ratio of polar to equatorial coordinate radii is 0.7). The star is rotating at 92% of the mass-shedding (Kepler) limit (at same central density) and we use the $`N=1.0`$ relativistic polytropic equation of state (see ). Unless otherwise noted, we use $`116^3`$ Cartesian grid-points, with an equidistant grid separation of $`\mathrm{\Delta }x=\mathrm{\Delta }y=\mathrm{\Delta }z=0.31`$km.

During the time-evolution, we only evolve the hydrodynamical variables, keeping all spacetime variables fixed at their initial, unperturbed, values (for small amplitude pulsations this is equivalent to the Cowling approximation in linear perturbation theory; see ). Since $`r`$-modes are basically fluid modes, we expect that the adopted approximation is suitable for studying, qualitatively, their basic properties. The computational requirements for a coupled spacetime and hydrodynamical evolution (for the same long-term accuracy as reported here using the Cowling approximation), by far exceed presently available supercomputing resources.

Figure 1 clearly demonstrates the ability of the 3-D code to maintain an unperturbed stationary equilibrium configuration (apart from the influence of local truncation errors) in long-term evolutions. The rotational velocity profile ($`v^x`$ along $`y`$-axis, where $`v^i`$ are the contravariant components of the equilibrium 3-velocity, as measured by a local zero-angular-momentum observer) remains nearly unchanged over more than 20 rotational periods (all simulations presented here are stopped due to computing time restrictions only and could be continued for longer times).

In order to excite $`r`$-modes during the time-evolution, we perturb the initial stationary model, by adding a specific perturbation $`\delta v^i`$ to the equilibrium 3-velocity $`v^i`$. As there is no exact linear eigenfunction available in the literature that would correspond to an $`l=m=2`$ $`r`$-mode eigenfunction for rapidly rotating relativistic stars in the Cowling approximation, we are using an approximate eigenfunction, derived in spherical polar coordinates, valid in the slow-rotation $`O(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ limit to the first Post-Newtonian (1PN) order (see  for details). We apply the usual transformation between the spherical polar and Cartesian coordinate systems as the latter is used in the 3-D code. We note that, in the Newtonian limit, an amplitude of $`\alpha =1.0`$, corresponds to a maximum velocity perturbation (i.e. the maximum value of the velocity component $`\delta v^\theta `$ in the equatorial plane) equal to roughly $`1/3`$ of the rotational velocity of the star at the equator. With this eigenfunction (multiplied by a chosen initial amplitude $`\alpha `$, that coincides, in the Newtonian limit, with the definition of the amplitude in ), we are able to excite mainly the $`l=m=2`$ $`r`$-mode. Due to the approximate nature of the eigenfunction, additional modes are also excited, primarily $`m=2`$ inertial modes.

Figure 2 displays the evolution of the axial velocity in the equatorial plane ($`v^z`$ along the $`y`$-axis) at a coordinate radius of $`r=0.75r_e`$, where $`r_e`$ is the coordinate radius at the equator. It is clear that the evolution is a superposition of several modes, and that one mode, the $`l=m=2`$ $`r`$-mode, is the dominant component. The amplitude in this evolution is $`\alpha =1.0`$. The perturbed star is evolved for more than 25ms (26 $`l=m=2`$ $`r`$-mode periods), during which the amplitude of the oscillation decreases due to numerical viscosity. Even at amplitudes larger than 1.0, the evolution is still similar to that in Figure 2, with no sign of nonlinear saturation of the $`r`$-mode amplitude on a dynamical timescale (only when $`\alpha `$ exceeds a value much larger than 1.0, nonlinear hydrodynamical saturation sets in; however the precise determination of the maximum saturation amplitude will require more accurate inital data and the simultaneous dynamical evolution of the gravitational field). Our result implies, that, unless nonlinear saturation is set at timescales much longer than the dynamical one, nonlinear hydrodynamical couplings would not prohibit gravitational radiation reaction to drive unstable $`r`$-modes to large amplitudes (of order one) before saturation sets in. An absolute upper limit on the $`r`$-mode amplitude (relevant, perhaps, for the most rapidly rotating stars) is set by causality, requiring $`\sqrt{v_iv^i}<c`$ (where $`c`$ is the speed of light), or approximately, $`\alpha _{\mathrm{causal}}3c/\mathrm{\Omega }R`$, where $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the angular velocity of the equilibrium star (for slowly rotating stars, we expect other upper limits to be more relevant).

A Fourier transform of the time-evolution shown in Figure 2, as a function of the frequency in the inertial frame, shown in Figure 3, reveals that the initial data we are using, excite mainly the $`l=m=2`$ $`r`$-mode ($`r_2`$), with a frequency of 1.03 kHz and, with smaller amplitudes, several inertial modes ($`i_3`$, $`i_4`$, $`i_5`$) and higher harmonics. The frequencies of the various modes are the same at any given point inside the star (the specific data shown in the figure correspond to radii $`r=0.5r_e`$ and $`r=0.75r_e`$), i.e. the evolution consists of a sum of discrete modes and possible associated continuous parts were not excited. This is in agreement with the conclusions in , regarding the $`r`$-mode spectrum in isentropic stars. The possible existence of a continuous part in the frequency spectrum of nonisentropic stars (see e.g. ), will be examined in future work.

In order to identify some of the peaks in the Fourier transform with specific inertial modes, we compare the ratio of their frequencies over the frequency of the $`l=m=2`$ $`r`$-mode to the corresponding ratios derived from the normal mode linear eigenfrequencies, for a Newtonian $`N=1.0`$ polytrope . This comparison shows good agreement and allows us to identify, in Figure 3, the $`m=2`$ inertial modes with $`l_o=3,4,5`$ , having corresponding frequencies $`f=0.68,1.16`$ and $`0.38`$ kHz. In the Newtonian limit, one would expect the above inertial modes to have frequencies $`f=0.70,1.14`$ and $`0.37`$ kHz, for an $`l=m=2`$ $`r`$-mode frequency of 1.03 kHz, which shows that, even though the effects of relativity and rapid rotation on the individual frequencies is not negligible, the ratios of the $`r`$-mode frequency to the frequencies of the inertial modes remain close to their Newtonian, slow-rotation values.

We investigate the influence of the numerical viscosity of the code (due to finite-differencing) on the evolution, by comparing evolutions at different grid-spacings. Figure 4 shows the late-time evolution of the axial velocity in the equatorial plane, at $`r=0.75r_e`$ for grid-spacings of $`\mathrm{\Delta }x=0.59`$km and $`\mathrm{\Delta }x=0.31`$km. The decrease in the amplitude of the oscillation (when compared to the initial amplitude) scales as roughly first order with grid-spacing. This indicates that the numerical viscosity damping the oscillations is dominated by the truncation error at the surface of the star, which is only first-order (compared to the second-order accuracy in the interior; see related discussion in ).

In a recent paper  it is indicated that the hydrodynamical oscillatory motion of an $`r`$-mode in a rotating star may be accompanied by a differential drift (of kinematical origin). In the equatorial plane, the drift velocity has opposite sign, compared to the rotational velocity of the unperturbed star. In a rotating star with a poloidal magnetic field, this kinematical drift may wind up the magnetic field lines and limit the effect of the $`r`$-mode instability . The differential drift reported in  is second order in the $`r`$-mode amplitude, but it is derived from the first-order in amplitude definition of the $`r`$-mode velocity. Still, in the restricted case of a spherical shell , the full nonlinear hydrodynamical equations yield the same kinematical drift as in , independent of the amplitude of the oscillations.

Using our code we attempted to investigate the presence of such a kinematical drift in the numerical evolutions. Our numerical results do indicate that the perturbed star is rotating slower near the surface (compared to the rotational velocity of the unperturbed star) and that this drift scales roughly as $`\alpha ^2`$ for amplitudes of order $`\alpha 1.0`$, although its magnitude is significantly smaller than estimated in . We cannot test the presence of the drift for amplitudes much less than $`\alpha 1.0`$, since it becomes smaller than numerical truncation errors. Even at $`\alpha 1.0`$, it is not completely unambiguous that the drift we find is the same as that predicted by , as it could be due to the fact that our initial data do not correspond exactly to a single $`l=m=2`$ $`r`$-mode and thus also contain other modes and violate (to some extent, which is still acceptable for the main purpose of this work) the relativistic Hamiltonian and momentum constraints. However, the fact that our drift scales as $`\alpha ^2`$, points to an association with the results reported in . Our preliminary findings on the differential drift need to be confirmed by simulations with more precise eigenfunctions and higher resolution, before a definite conclusion can be drawn.

In summary, our hydrodynamical evolutions of nonlinear $`r`$-modes show that (1) nonlinear hydrodynamical couplings would not prohibit $`r`$-modes in isentropic, rapidly rotating relativistic stars from attaining a large amplitude, of order one, when driven unstable by gravitational radiation reaction - it remains to be investigated whether nonlinear saturation could set in at timescales longer than the dynamical one, (2) $`r`$-modes and inertial modes, in isentropic stars, are discrete and (3) a kinematical drift associated with $`r`$-mode oscillations, appears to be present in our simulations, although an unambiguous confirmation will require more precise initial data.

Our finding that gravitational radiation could drive unstable $`r`$-modes to a large amplitude, implies that $`r`$-modes can easily melt the crust in newly-born neutron stars , leaving the initial conclusions about the $`r`$-mode instability being a strong source of gravitational waves (see ) essentially unchanged. Our results also imply that $`r`$-modes could be excited to large amplitudes during the violent formation of a proto-neutron star, after a supernova core-collapse . Our finding that $`r`$-modes oscillate at a, predominatly, discrete frequency (at least in isentropic stars) significantly simplifies the expected gravitational wave signal compared to a signal emitted by a source with a significant continuous part in its frequency spectrum. The indications for the existence of the kinematical drift, call for a more detailed consideration of the interaction between $`r`$-modes and magnetic fields.

We will present details and tests of our numerical method, as well as extensive higher-resolution results for various equations of state and rotation rates, in a forthcoming paper . In future work, we plan to study $`r`$-modes in nonisentropic stars and implement an accelerated gravitational-radiation reaction force (see ).

It is a pleasure to acknowledge John Friedman for suggesting this project as well as for helpful discussions and comments on the manuscript. We also thank Nils Andersson, Curt Cutler, Kostas Kokkotas, Yuri Levin and Luciano Rezzolla for discussions and comments and the CACTUS development team for making the code available. The computations were carried out, in part, on a Cray T3E at the Rechenzentrum Garching. We greatfully acknowledge computing time on an Origin 2000, granted by the Albert-Einstein-Institute, Potsdam. This research was supported, in part, by the European Union grant HPRN-CT-2000-00137.


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# Baryonic resonances mass spectrum from a modified perturbative QCD

## Abstract

A recently proposed modified perturbation expansion for QCD is employed to evaluate the quark self-energies. Results of the order of 1/3 of the nucleon mass are obtained for the effective masses of the up and down quarks in a first approximation. Also, the predicted flavor dependence of the calculated quarks masses turns out to be the appropriate to well reproduce the spectrum of the ground states within the various groups of hadronic resonances through the simple addition of the evaluated constituent quark masses. The results suggests to conjecture that the modified expansion, after also introducing quark condensates in a same token as the gluonic ones, would be able to furnish a natural explanation of the mass spectrum of the three generations of fundamental fermions.

Alejandro Cabo Montes de Oca
Instituto de Cibernética, Matemática y Física;
Calle E, No. 309, Vedado, La Habana, Cuba,
Marcos Rigol Madrazo,

Centro de Estudios Aplicados al Desarrollo Nuclear

Calle 30, N. 502 e/ 5ta y 7ma, Miramar, La Habana, Cuba

Strong interactions at low energy are the subject of an intense research activity directed to complete the present understanding of QCD . Two of the many important questions to be clarified are the nature of the mass spectrum for the numerous hadron and meson resonances and a better understanding of the differences between the constituent and Lagrangian quark masses . On a more general level, there is also a little understanding of the physics determining the mass spectrum of the three generations of fundamental fermions .

In previous papers we have proposed a modification of the standard perturbative expansion for QCD which is based in the idea that the low energy properties are determined by the presence of a condensate of gluon pairs . In paper  the general structure of the modified Feynman rules were proposed and showed that it produces a non-vanishing value of $`G^2`$ even in the simplest approximation and that the condensate seems to be generated spontaneously from the perturbative vacuum of zero particles in a similar form as the earlier Savvidy chromomagnetic vacuum field. Further, in paper  the state of the non-interacting theory which shows the proposed kind of modified Feynman rules, was determined. It occurred that the state is constructed as a coherent superposition of zero momentum gluon pairs. For its determination the condition of being a physical state (a zero mode of the BRST charge) of the non-interacting theory was imposed. After that, the operational quantization was considered in a scheme of the Gupta-Bleuler type in which all the gluons are considered on the same footing . This corresponds with the selection $`\alpha =1`$ value of the gauge parameter in the standard functional approach. In justifying to proceed in such a way, our central assumption is that under the adiabatic connection of the color interaction, the evolution will not bring the state out of the physical subspace at any stage of the connection. Thus, the final state will be also a physical state of the interacting theory in which the associated Feynman expansion should have a physical meaning. It is clear that this approach leaves out the question of the construction of a gauge parameter independent formulation of the theory. However, as a minimal logical ground for the physical relevance of the predictions is given, we decided to postpone this more technical question to further analysis to be done.

Therefore, in the present work the proposed expansion is applied to evaluate the mass spectrum of the quarks as modified by the inclusion of the gluon condensation effects. The main result which follows is that a particular branch of the spectrum produces constituent mass values of the order 1/3 of the nucleon mass for the up and down quarks. Further, the result for flavor dependence of the effective quark masses is able to predict the rest masses of many of the ground state resonances in the various groups of them as classified in  after a simple addition of the values associated to the corresponding constituent quarks. It should be mentioned that the constituent quark predictions of the order of 1/3 of the nucleon mass as determined by gluon condensation effects were also obtained in  by employing a different approach. Furthermore, the spectrum of mesons, which are currently accepted to show constituent quarks structure are also predicted. In our view, these results strongly support the important role of gluon condensation in determining the structure of many hadrons and mesons and also the possibility of describing them with a modified perturbative expansion. If such is the case, various non-perturbative characteristics of the QCD could be treated in a similar way as in the theory of Bose Condensation . The non-perturbative properties of the theory, then, would be described by the condensation parameter controlling the modified expansion. The possibility for such a picture was already suggested by the earlier chromomagnetic field models . It is natural to expect that the Lorentz invariance of the ground state and the vector character of the gluonic field makes it natural that a Bose condensate effect for gluonic field should present peculiar characteristics as in the case of superconductivity . However, this situation is not excluding the possible applicability of a modified perturbative expansion as in standard Bose condensed systems . The results for the mass spectra arising from the calculations shown here support the existence of such a picture.

The alternative initial state determining the modified perturbation expansion through the Wick theorem was found in  to have the form

$$\varphi =\mathrm{exp}\underset{a}{}\left(\frac{1}{2}A_{0,1}^{a+}A_{0,1}^{a+}+\frac{1}{2}A_{0,2}^{a+}A_{0,2}^{a+}+B_0^{a+}A_0^{L,a+}+i\overline{c}_0^{a+}c_0^{a+}\right)0$$
(1)
in terms of the transverse and longitudinal gluon $`A_{0,1}^{a+},A_{0,2}^{a+},A_0^{L,a+}`$, ghosts $`c_0^{a+},\overline{c}_0^{a+}`$, and Nakanishi-Lautrup $`B_0^{a+}`$ creation operators of the interaction free theory . The state is colorless as indicated by the contracted color index $`a`$. For its construction the BRST physical state conditions $`Q_B\mathrm{\Phi }=0`$ and $`Q_C\mathrm{\Phi }=0`$ were required, in which $`Q_B`$ and $`Q_C`$ are the charges associated to the BRST symmetry and ghost number conservation.

In Refs.  the state (1) was sought in order to implement that the net effect of the application of the Wick Theorem to the expansion of the evolution operator be to produce the form of the gluon propagator introduced in . The expression of the modified propagator in the momentum representation is

$$G_{0\mu \nu }^{ab}\left(k\right)=\delta ^{ab}g_{\mu \nu }\left[\frac{1}{k^2}iC\delta \left(k\right)\right],$$
(2)
in which $`C`$ is the parameter associated with the gluon condensate, and was determined to be real and nonnegative . The ghost and fermion propagators do not showed a modification. It will be the case that under assuming the existence of fermion condensates such a modification should appear. Precisely this possibility leads to the conjecture to be posed in the concluding remarks.

In order to fix a physically supported value for the parameter $`C`$, the following recourse was employed . The gluon condensate parameter $`G^2`$ was calculated up to the order $`g^2`$ and the resulting function of the parameter $`C`$ used to determine this constant by selecting its value to give the presently accepted estimate of $`g^2G^2`$ in the physical vacuum. The details of this evaluation are presented in an extended version of this article . For the calculation of $`g^2G^2`$ the following expression was employed

$$0\left|S_g\right|0=\left[\frac{1}{N}D\varphi S_g\left[\varphi \right]\mathrm{exp}\left(S_T\left(\varphi \right)\right)\right],$$

where $`S_g\left[\varphi \right]`$ represents the usual gauge invariant gluon part of the action and $`S_T`$ is the total Fadeev-Popov action for $`\alpha =1`$.

The final result for $`g^2G^2`$ in terms of $`C`$ is

$$g^2G^2=\frac{288g^4C^2}{\left(2\pi \right)^8}.$$

Further, by making use of the estimated value for $`g^2G^20.5\left(GeV/c^2\right)^4`$ , is obtained the result $`g^2C=64.9394\left(GeV/c^2\right)^2`$.

After the phenomenological determination of $`g^2C`$, let us consider in what follows the one loop correction to the quark self-energy. The notation employed is the one in Ref. . The inverse quark propagator has the form

$$G_{2ij}^1\left(p\right)=i\delta _{ij}\left(m_Qp^\mu \gamma _\mu \mathrm{\Sigma }\left(p\right)\right),$$
(3)
in which the self-energy part $`\mathrm{\Sigma }\left(p\right)`$ is determined up to the order $`g^2`$ and $`m_Q`$ is the Lagrangian mass of the specific kind of flavor being considered.

The only change appearing in (3) with respect to the similar calculation in the standard perturbation expansion is related with the gluon propagator $`G_{0\mu \nu }^{ab}\left(k\right)`$ to be used which will include the mentioned condensate term as defined in (2). Here we will be concerned only with the evaluation of the contribution to the self-energy of the condensate term. The aim is to investigate within the most simple approximation the predictions for the mass corrections determined by it. Therefore, after integrating in the expression for $`\mathrm{\Sigma }\left(p\right)`$ it follows for the inverse Green function (3)

$$G_{2ij}^1\left(p\right)=i\delta _{ij}\left(m_Q\left(1+2\frac{M^2}{\left(m_Q^2p^2\right)}\right)p^\mu \gamma _\mu \left(1+\frac{M^2}{\left(m_Q^2p^2\right)}\right)\right),$$
(4)
where $`M^2=0.111111\left(GeV/c^2\right)^2`$.

The vanishing of the determinant of the matrix (4) determines the modified mass shell in the considered approximation including the effects of the condensate on the spectrum. The mass values will depend on the quark flavor through their Lagrangian mass parameters $`m_Q`$ which have been determined by independent means .

After solving the cubic equation produced by equating to zero the determinant of (4), the following quark mass shells relations are obtained

$$p^2m_{q,l}^2=0;\text{for}l=1,2,3$$

in which $`m_{q,l}^2,l=1,2,3`$ designates the three different analytic solutions for the squared masses written below:

$`m_{q,1}^2`$ $`=`$ $`A^{\frac{1}{3}}B+m_Q^2+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}M^2,`$
$`m_{q,2}^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}A^{\frac{1}{3}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}B+m_Q^2+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}M^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}i\sqrt{3}\left(A^{\frac{1}{3}}+B\right),`$
$`m_{q,3}^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}A^{\frac{1}{3}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}B+m_Q^2+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}M^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}i\sqrt{3}\left(A^{\frac{1}{3}}+B\right),`$
where the quantities $`A`$, $`B`$ are determined by the expressions

$`A`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{5}{6}}m_Q^2M^4{\displaystyle \frac{1}{27}}M^6+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{18}}\left(96m_Q^6M^6+177m_Q^4M^812m_Q^2M^{10}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}},`$
$`B`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\frac{2}{3}m_Q^2M^2\frac{1}{9}M^4}{A^{\frac{1}{3}}}}.`$
The various dispersion relations arising from these solutions have some degree of redundancy. However, only six independent solutions emerge at the end for all of the $`m_{q,l}^2`$, with $`l=1,2,3`$. The most of these six branches lead to imaginary values of the masses in some regions of the $`m_Q`$ values. The physical nature of these fermionic wave modes deserve a closer examination which will be considered elsewhere. Here we limit ourselves to examine one of the solutions for the squared mass parameter which shows positive values $`m_q`$ for the fermion squared masses at any momenta and also a growing dependence of the mass on the Lagrangian mass parameter $`m_Q`$. The plot of the graph $`m_q`$ as function of $`m_Q`$ for this solution is shown in Fig.1 in the region $`m_Q<2GeV/c^2`$.

As it can be observed from Fig.1, the interaction with the vacuum condensate dress an initially assumed massless quark $`(m_Q=0)`$ by giving it a finite mass value of the order of one third of the nucleon mass. That is, the $`u`$ and $`d`$ $`quarks`$ acquire in this propagation mode a high contribution to their masses due to the interaction with the condensate. In Table 1 the mass values of the considered propagation mode for each of the six quark flavors as characterized by their reported Lagrangian mass values $`m_Q`$ in Report  are shown.

where $`m_{Low}^{Exp}`$ is the reported lower bound value for the Lagrangian mass, $`m_{Up}^{Exp}`$ is the reported upper value for the Lagrangian mass and $`m_{Med}^{Theo}`$ is the calculated mean value of the constituent mass, for the lower and upper bound of the Lagrangian masses.

Table 1 shows that the masses of the $`u`$ and $`d`$ quarks are near one third of the nucleon mass. It can be noticed that the $`c,b`$ and $`t`$ quarks show masses for which the effect of gluon condensation is not neatly evidenced. The light quarks $`u,d`$ and $`s`$ are the ones which get a clear influence on their mass due to gluon condensation as described here.

These results support that the expansion introduced in Ref.  could have the chance of furnishing important non-perturbative information on the QCD low energy physics. This conclusion is further strengthened by evaluating the masses of the ground states within the various groups of baryonic resonances as classified in . The calculation is done by simply adding the masses corresponding to each of the types of quarks constituting the specific hadron being examined. Table 2 shows the results of that evaluation for the lower energy states within the groups of baryon resonances in conjunction with their experimentally determined masses as given in .

As it can be noticed, the values in Table 2 reasonably well match the mass spectrum of the ground states in each of the families of baryons as classified in . Let us comment about some possible sources of theoretical errors associated to the evaluation of the quark masses and the baryon spectrum. We estimate that one of them is the non inclusion of the standard one loop self energy contributions for the quarks. It should be stressed that its proper consideration within the momentum scale: $`p<1`$ GeV, needs for a knowledge of the running coupling in this region. However, the influence of the modified propagator on the coupling reflects itself only through a two loop evaluation of this quantity. This is because, the one loop divergences are unchanged by the use of the new propagator. In connection with the relative influence of the appreciable lack of precision in the current masses it could be observed that: a) For the mainly massless u and d quarks, the results obtained can not be greatly influenced by the big errors in the estimates of current masses, b) For high values of the current masses for c, b, and t quarks the influence of the condensate can be expected to be weak and the prediction should coincide with the current masses and c) On the other hand for the strange s quark, the effect of the condensate is of the same order as the current mass value. Thus, the error in the estimate of this magnitude could become relevant for the evaluation of the effective mass. This argument, might be working for the results for the baryons in Table II including u and d quarks plus one, two or three s quarks. An increase in the effective s quark mass of near 180 $`MeV/c^2`$ seems to very much improve the predictions for such resonances. Another relevant source of errors is the high margin of error of the present estimates for the current masses. Clearly, the interaction effects could have their influence in the results. Their consideration, however, requires a further study of the predictions for the bound state spectrum of quarks.

Next, the calculated masses for a group of vector mesons is depicted in Table 3 in conjunction with their reported experimental values . The evaluation is performed again by simply adding the mass of the corresponding quarks entering in the known composition of each meson.

As it can be observed from the results for the vector mesons and baryonic resonance masses, in spite of the simple approximation which has been considered, the general structure of the mass spectrum is well reproduced under the only assumption of the accepted value of the gluon condensation parameter $`g^2G^2`$, .

It should underlined that among the obtained dispersion relations, there is a solution predicting a vanishing value of the mass when $`m_Q0`$. It might be the case that these modes could be connected with the family of low mass mesons (e.g. $`\mathrm{\Pi }^{\pm ,0}`$ mesons). Specifically, the possibility exists that the bound states of quark excitations in these low mass states of quarks could describe such low lying mesons. An analysis of this question however, will be deferred to a future extension of the work. As a last point, we would like to conjecture on a possibility suggested by the analysis given here. It is related with the question about whether the mass spectrum of the whole three generations of fundamental fermions could be predicted by a slight generalization of the modified perturbation theory under consideration. In this sense, the presented results led us to the idea that after the introduction of quark condensates along the same lines as it was done for gluon ones in , the obtained perturbation expansion can have the chance to predict both, the Lagrangian mass and the constituent quark mass spectra of the three families of fundamental fermions. The fermion condensates as described in the proposed perturbative way, would be encharged to produce the Lagrangian quark masses as usual, through the chiral symmetry breaking. The gluonic condensates, in one hand, and as illustrated here, could be responsible of generating states of large constituent mass for the low mass quarks states. In another hand, it seems feasible that the higher order radiative corrections (including color interactions with the condensate as well as chiral symmetry corrections) could also determine the mass spectra for leptons and neutrinos. The smaller scale for the masses of these particles could be produced by the lack of lower order color interaction terms in their self-energy. Therefore, the possibility that the Lagrangian mass spectrum of the three generations of the fundamental fermions could be predicted by a modified perturbation expansion of the sort being proposed is suggested. Work devoted to investigate the above conjecture will be considered elsewhere.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to deeply acknowledge the helpful advice and comments of Profs. J. Pestieau, J. Alfaro, M. Lowe, C. Friedli and M. Hirsch. One of the authors (A.C.M) also would like to express his gratitude to the Abdus Salam ICTP and in particular to its Associate-Membership Programme for the whole general support.


text:
# Relativistic Fluctuations and Anomalous Darwin Terms in Superconductors

## Abstract

The anomalous Darwin term, one of the recently derived relativistic corrections to the conventional theory of superconductivity, is analysed in detail. A new derivation of this term, much simpler than that given originally, is presented and used to interpret the term physically, in terms of fluctuations of the relativistic wave packet describing the paired electrons. Several puzzling features of the original derivation find a simple explanation in terms of this reinterpretation. The question of observability of the anomalous Darwin term, and its relation to the conventional Darwin term and to earlier proposed superconducting Darwin terms are also discussed.

PACS numbers: 74.25.Jb, 71.15.Rf, 74.20.-z, 74.72.-h

Recently it was demonstrated that a number of interesting and potentially observable relativistic effects exist in superconductors. The corresponding relativistic theory of superconductivity was proposed in Ref. , developed in detail in Refs.  and , and briefly summarized in Ref. . A recent partial review is found in the textbook Ref. . Among the predictions of the theory are the existence of new types of unconventional superconducting order parameters (not derivable from Schrödinger’s equation but only from the Dirac equation), and weakly relativistic correction terms to the conventional theory of superconductivity. The present report is concerned with the physics of one of these correction terms.

Two essentially different types of such terms turned out to exist. The first class are those corrections known from the application of relativity to other areas of solid-state or atomic physic, such as the conventional kinetic-energy, spin-orbit, and Darwin corrections. The latter two terms depend crucially on the presence of an external electrostatic potential (in the present case a crystal lattice), and are zero for free particles. The second class comprises terms (of the same order in $`1/c`$ and formally of a similar structure as those in the first class), which contain the superconducting pair potential in place of the lattice potential. These terms depend crucially on the presence of a pair potential, and are zero for unpaired particles. The superconducting counterparts to the spin-orbit and Darwin terms were termed the anomalous spin-orbit and Darwin terms, respectively .

Having derived these terms, one is now confronted with the task to analyze their consequences and assess their observability. As a first step of this program the conventional and the anomalous spin-orbit coupling have recently been investigated in detail in the framework of the theory of dichroism in superconductors . It turned out that experimental results can be qualitatively understood on the basis of that theory . Another recent application of the theory is the proof by Strange  that the London equation governing the electrodynamics of simple superconductors (which is usually derived in a nonrelativistic way), can be derived directly from the relativistic theory of superconductivity.

The purpose of the present report is to continue with this program by taking a look at another term of the second class, namely the anomalous Darwin term. A very simple rederivation of that term is given, which does not rely on the formalism of Refs.  and . This rederivation provides a, previously unavailable, physical interpretation of that term, which is used to explain several puzzling features of the original derivation. Conceptual consequences and the question of observability are discussed, as is the relation of the anomalous Darwin term to similar terms, proposed by other authors.

The starting point is the standard Bogolubov-de Gennes equation  of the microscopic theory of superconductivity, which for spin-dependent potentials becomes a $`4\times 4`$ matrix equation. For ease of notation this equation is here condensed in $`2\times 2`$ form, by introducing the Pauli matrix $`\widehat{\sigma }_y`$ and the unit matrix $`\widehat{I}`$. For singlet superconductors in the absence of magnetic fields the equation then takes the form

$`\left(\begin{array}{cc}\widehat{h}(𝐫)\widehat{I}& i\widehat{\sigma }_y\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐫,𝐫^{})\\ i\widehat{\sigma }_y\mathrm{\Delta }^{}(𝐫,𝐫^{})& \widehat{h}(𝐫)\widehat{I}\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}u_{n\sigma }(𝐫)\\ v_{n\sigma }(𝐫)\end{array}\right)`$ (5)
$`=E_{n\sigma }\left(\begin{array}{c}u_{n\sigma }(𝐫)\\ v_{n\sigma }(𝐫)\end{array}\right),`$ (8)
where $`\widehat{h}(𝐫)=\mathrm{}^2^2/(2m)+v(𝐫)`$ is the single-particle Hamiltonian describing the normal state, and $`v(𝐫)`$ is the lattice potential, including a mean field  or Kohn-Sham  term arising from the Coulomb interaction. $`\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐫,𝐫^{})`$ is the (generally nonlocal) pair potential of the superconductor, and $`u_{n\sigma }(𝐫)`$ and $`v_{n\sigma }(𝐫)`$ are the particle and hole amplitudes, coupled by this potential. This equation, which is usually derived in a nonrelativistic way , can be identified as an approximation to lowest order in $`v/c`$ (where $`v`$ is a typical particle velocity and $`c`$ the velocity of light) to the relativistic Dirac-Bogolubov-de Gennes equation , which describes pairing on the basis of the Dirac equation.

To second order one finds various weakly relativistic correction terms to Eq. (8) . The one of interest in the present work is the so called anomalous Darwin term, which is to be added to the offdiagonal entries of the matrix in Eq. (8). This term is given by

$$d_D(𝐱,𝐑)=i\widehat{\sigma }_y\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{8m^2c^2}_R^2\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐱,𝐑),$$
(9)
where $`𝐱=𝐫𝐫^{}`$ and $`𝐑=(𝐫+𝐫^{})/2`$ are relative and center-of-mass coordinates of the two electrons in the Cooper pair, respectively. For comparison purposes we also record the conventional Darwin term

$$v_D(𝐫)=\widehat{I}\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{8m^2c^2}_r^2v(𝐫),$$
(10)
which appears as a correction to the diagonal entries of Eq. (8). This term is usually derived by applying the Foldy-Wouthuysen transformation or the Pauli approximation to the Dirac equation . In the same way, the anomalous Darwin term (together with the other anomalous corrections) follows from the Dirac-Bogolubov-de Gennes equation .

In the conventional case a much simpler alternative derivation exists, which is based on the fact that a wave packet formed from solutions to the Dirac equation performs a very rapid oscillatory motion with amplitude $`\delta 𝐫\lambda _c:=\mathrm{}/(mc)`$, where $`\lambda _c`$ is the reduced Compton wavelength. This so called ’Zitterbewegung’ (trembling motion) results from the interference of the positive-energy and negative-energy components of the wave packet . On the average, the particle thus feels the potential spread out over a region of order $`\delta 𝐫`$, instead of its value at $`𝐫`$. The resulting average change in energy is easily estimated to be

$`\delta v(𝐫)=v(𝐫+\delta 𝐫)v(𝐫)`$ (11)
$`={\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}\delta r_i{\displaystyle \frac{V}{r_i}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{ij}{}}\delta r_i\delta r_j{\displaystyle \frac{^2V}{r_ir_j}}+\mathrm{}`$ (12)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}(\delta 𝐫)^2_r^2v(𝐫){\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{6m^2c^2}}_r^2v(𝐫),`$ (13)
where it was assumed that the fluctuations do not have a preferred direction in space. The resulting average potential $`\delta v(𝐫)`$ is, up to a numerical factor $`6/8`$, that of the conventional Darwin term $`v_D(𝐫)`$. (The more accurate estimate $`(\delta 𝐫)^2(3/4)\lambda _c^2`$, occasionally found in the literature , reproduces the Darwin term exactly.) The above line of reasoning is very powerful, in spite of its simplicity. It requires, for example, only a slight generalization to yield an accurate estimate for the Lamb shift (see, e.g., Ref. , p. 80), which is a much more subtle relativistic effect than the Darwin term.

We now proceed by generalizing the same procedure to the superconducting case. Due to the presence of the pair potential $`\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐫,𝐫^{})`$ the particles now fluctuate in two potentials, each of which affects the single-particle energy. In a first approximation the fluctuations in the potentials $`v(𝐫)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐫,𝐫^{})`$ can be treated as independent. It thus remains to calculate the average change of energy due to the fluctuations in the pair potential. In the same way as above one finds for the fluctuations of the center-of-mass coordinate of the pair

$`\delta \mathrm{\Delta }(𝐱,𝐑)=\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐱,𝐑+\delta 𝐑)\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐱,𝐑)=`$ (14)
$`{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}\delta R_i{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐱,𝐑)}{R_i}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{ij}{}}\delta R_i\delta R_j{\displaystyle \frac{^2\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐱,𝐑)}{R_iR_j}}+\mathrm{}`$ (15)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}(\delta 𝐑)^2_R^2\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐱,𝐑).`$ (16)
Using again the estimate $`(\delta 𝐑)^2\lambda _c^2`$ for the amplitude of the Zitterbewegung, we find the effective potential

$$\delta \mathrm{\Delta }(𝐱,𝐑)=\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{6m^2c^2}_R^2\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐱,𝐑),$$
(17)
which is, up to the same numerical prefactor as in the conventional case, the anomalous Darwin term, as obtained from the microscopic theory . This simple rederivation now allows us to draw a number of conclusions regarding the nature of the anomalous Darwin term.

First, note that the anomalous Darwin term is one of the main results of Refs.  and , obtained there after lengthy algebraic manipulations based on the general theory of Ref. . The fact that one can find a much simpler rederivation of this term, not based on the general equations of those papers, gives additional confidence in that theory.

Second, from the point of view of those references it remained a puzzle why no anomalous Darwin term containing derivatives with respect to the relative coordinate exists, in particular since there is such a term in the case of the anomalous spin-orbit coupling (there are, effectively, two anomalous spin-orbit terms, one containing $`_x\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐱,𝐑)`$, the other $`_R\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐱,𝐑)`$ ). It was already verified in Ref.  that the hypothetical existence of an anomalous Darwin term containing $`_x^2\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐱,𝐑)`$ is incompatible with the correct local limit, but the physical reason for the absence of this term was not apparent from the microscopic calculation of that work.

The present rederivation of this term from relativistic fluctuations of the paired particles in the pair potential suggests a simple solution to this puzzle: Once the electrons are paired, their fluctuations are not independent anymore. The electrons in the Cooper pair are locked into mutually time-conjugate single-particle states, so that relative fluctuations within the pair are strongly suppressed. We are thus dealing only with fluctuations of the center-of-mass coordinate $`𝐑`$ of the pair, but not of the relative coordinate $`𝐱`$. Essentially, the entity fluctuating in the pair potential is the pair as a whole.

Additional insight into the nature of the anomalous Darwin term is gained by comparing it with the superconducting Darwin terms derived in Refs.  and . In these papers it is pointed out that even in a nonrelativistic situation the Bogolubov-de Gennes equations do have negative-energy solutions (representing the condensate), separated by an energy gap from the positive-energy states (the excited quasiparticles, representing broken pairs). By approximately decoupling these two types of states via a Foldy-Wouthuysen transformation, purely superconducting counterparts to the Zitterbewegung and the conventional Darwin term were found. These superconducting Darwin terms are superficially similar to the one discussed here. However, although of superconducting origin, they do not contain the pair potential, but the ordinary lattice potential, and are thus closer related to the conventional Darwin term than to the anomalous one. Furthermore, not being of relativistic origin, they do not carry the relativistic prefactor $`\mathrm{}^2/(8m^2c^2)`$ of the Darwin terms discussed here. Finally, the superconducting Darwin terms of Refs.  and  do not appear in the standard Bogolubov-de Gennes equation (8), but only in an approximate form of that equation, in which the excited quasiparticles were approximately decoupled from the condensed pairs . This is completely analogous to the case of the Dirac equation, from which the conventional and the anomalous Darwin terms are derived by approximately decoupling electrons from positrons .

All of the above considerations were based on the relativistic generalization of the BCS (singlet) order parameter. However, the general theory of Refs.  and  also provided the form of the relativistic corrections to triplet superconductors, and predicted the possibility of a new type of order parameter, involving charge conjugation instead of time reversal as pairing symmetry. Recently these terms have been analysed in more detail . While for triplet superconductors one finds similar anomalous Darwin terms as in the singlet case, for the order parameters involving one charge conjugation operation no anomalous Darwin terms are found at all, not even one involving the center-of-mass coordinate.

The above rederivation of the anomalous Darwin term provides a simple explanation for this absence. It was already pointed out in Ref.  that pairs described by an order parameter involving one charge conjugation operation are intrinsically relativistic; the corresponding pair potential vanishes in the nonrelativistic limit. On the other hand, the only place in which relativity enters Eqs. (13) and (16) is as the origin of the fluctuations, $`\delta 𝐫`$ and $`\delta 𝐑`$. In particular, to order $`1/c^2`$ or, equivalently, $`(\delta 𝐑)^2`$, the pair potential in Eqs. (16) and (17) is the nonrelativistic pair potential. Consequently, for order parameters involving one charge conjugation the pair effectively fluctuates, to order $`(\delta 𝐑)^2`$, only in the crystal potential, but not in the pair potential. Hence there are no associated anomalous Darwin terms for these order parameters. This is the result also found after considerable algebraic manipulations from the microscopic theory .

We now return to the conventional singlet case and proceed with a tentative discussion of the possibility of experimental observation of the anomalous Darwin term. The conventional Darwin term is normally a rather small effect. This is not only due to the prefactor $`1/c^2`$, but also related to the fact that, unlike the spin-orbit term, which breaks rotational symmetry, the conventional Darwin term does not break any nonrelativistic symmetries. In the case of the anomalous Darwin term the situation is similar. Although this term can break symmetries because it contains the pair potential, which may break the symmetry of the crystal lattice in so called unconventional superconductors , this symmetry breaking is of entirely nonrelativistic origin and manifests itself not only in the relativistic correction terms, but already in the nonrelativistic theory based on Eq. (8). It is thus expected that experimental observation of the anomalous Darwin term is much harder than that of the anomalous spin-orbit coupling term (which may be detected, e.g., by magnetooptical means ).

An essential difference between the anomalous and the conventional Darwin term, which may facilitate experimental detection of the former, is the temperature dependence of the pair potential, which is absent from the conventional Darwin term, but intrinsic to the anomalous one. Another important difference is related to the derivatives of the potentials. While the expectation value of the conventional ionic Darwin term, originating from the ions at positions $`𝐑_i`$, is nonzero only for s-states, which are nonvanishing at the position of the nuclei ,

$$_r^2v_{ion}(𝐫)=\underset{i}{}_r^2\frac{1}{|𝐫𝐑_i|}=4\pi \underset{i}{}\delta ^{(3)}(𝐫𝐑_i),$$
(18)
the anomalous Darwin term can also influence other states, since the pair potential $`\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐱,𝐑)`$ is not a simple sum of Coulomb-like contributions. Any signature of a Darwin term for non s-states (e.g., the p-state contribution to the conduction band in simple metals, or the partially filled d-shells of transition metals) with the characteristic temperature dependence of the pair potential, would constitute an unequivocal identification of the anomalous Darwin term. Such an identification may come from high-resolution photoemission or tunneling experiments, detecting the small temperature dependent energy shifts produced by the anomalous Darwin term.

A direct comparison of the order of magnitude of the pair potential $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ (of the order of $`0.1`$ meV in BCS superconductors and about hundred times larger in high-temperature superconductors) with $`mc^2`$ ($`511`$ keV) is rather discouraging, but the fact that the anomalous Darwin term affects all states involved in pairing (and not only the s-states) partially compensates for this difference in energies. Furthermore, in solid-state situations the relativistic prefactor $`1/c^2`$ does not always imply smallness of the effects, because the large number of involved particles can make up for this factor , in particular in superconductors, where the particles act coherently. The contribution of the anomalous spin-orbit coupling (which is of the same order in $`1/c`$ as the anomalous Darwin term) to the magnetooptical response of a superconductor is, for example, hugely enhanced near the critical temperature by the superconducting coherence factors .

Due to the second derivative of the pair potential with respect to the center-of-mass coordinate of the Cooper pair, the anomalous Darwin term is larger in situations in which the pair potential varies rapidly in space. Examples are thin films, surfaces, or vortices, in particular in systems with a short coherence length. An ideal system for observations would thus be a copper-oxide superconductor, since these simultaneously have a very short coherence lenght ($`\xi `$ is only about $`10^3`$ Compton wave lengths!), a large pair potential (evidenced by the large energy gap), and very heavy elements in the lattice (which generally favours relativistic effects).

As long as such experiments have not been performed, the main results of the present paper are of a conceptual nature: (i) The much simpler rederivation of one of the main results of Refs.  and  gives additional confidence in the more complex formalism of those references. (ii) The interpretation in terms of rapid spatial fluctuations of the Cooper pair in the pair potential elucidates the physical origin of the anomalous Darwin term, which was not apparent from the earlier work. It also yields a simple explanation for the previously puzzling fact that the anomalous Darwin term contains only derivatives with respect to the center-of-mass coordinate of the Cooper pair, and not also derivatives with respect to the relative coordinate. (iii) The same interpretation also explains the absence of any type of anomalous Darwin terms for relativistic order parameters involving one charge conjugation. (iv) The temperature dependence of the anomalous Darwin term, together with its effect on other than s-states, were argued to provide a clear signature of this term. Thin films of high-temperature superconductors (or other superconductors with a short coherence length and a large pair potential) were suggested as ideal systems to look for observable consequences of the anomalous Darwin term.

Acknowledgments Valuable discussions with E. K. U. Gross, L. N. Oliveira, M. Marques, and B. L. Györffy are gratefully acknowledged. Part of this work was supported by the German Science Foundation (DFG), part by the Science Foundation of the State of São Paulo, Brazil (FAPESP).