text:
# Carrier-induced ferromagnetism in p-Zn1-xMnxTe

## I INTRODUCTION

The possibility of controlling ferromagnetic interactions between the localized spins by the carriers,Stor86 ; Mats98 ; Diet97 ; Haur97 ; Ferr00a  as well as the demonstration of efficient spin injection into a normal semiconductor,Oest99 ; Fied99 ; Ohno99  have recently renewed the interest in diluted magnetic semiconductors (DMS).Furd88  If made functional at reasonably high temperature, ferromagnetic semiconductors would allow one to incorporate spin electronics into usual electronics, and even path the way to integrated quantum computers.Loss98  Up to now, the carrier-induced ferromagnetism has been observed in lead-salt materials, Pb1-x-ySnyMnxTe,Stor86 and in MBE-grown semiconductors with the zinc-blende structure: In1-xMnxAsOhno92  and Ga1-xMnxAs,Mats98 ; Ohno96  as well as in p-doped Cd1-xMnxTe quantum wellsHaur97  and Zn1-xMnxTe epilayers,Ferr00a  in which the observation of the onsets of magnetic ordering in the temperature range between 1 and 3 K corroborated theoretical predictions.Diet97  Thus, while promisingly high Curie temperatures, $`T_\text{C}`$ up to 110 K,Mats98 ; Ohno96  are observed in the GaAs-based compounds, they are dramatically lower in the II-VI DMS structures studied so far. However, the II-VI compounds appear as model materials, in which localized spins and the holes can be introduced and controlled independently, and modulation-doped heterostructures are feasible, so that dimensionality effects can be examined.

In this paper, we present the phase diagram of nitrogen-doped p-Zn1-xMnxTe, i.e., the dependence of the Curie-Weiss temperature $`T_{\text{CW}}`$ on the Mn content $`x`$ and the hole concentration $`p`$. The values of $`T_{\text{CW}}`$ and $`x`$ were obtained from magnetization measurements, while the hole densities were deduced from the Hall resistivity, measured under such conditions that the spin-dependent component is negligible, i.e., either at room temperature, or at low-temperature in a high magnetic field. We show that the observed values of $`T_{\text{CW}}`$ are well described by a mean-field model, in which the hole-mediated exchange interactions are treated either in terms of Rudermann-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida (RKKY) coupling mechanism,Diet97  or by its continuous-medium limit, i.e., the Zener model,Diet97 ; Jung99 ; Diet00a  when the hole density is not too high. Accordingly, three parameters govern the carrier-induced ferromagnetism: the spin-carrier exchange integral $`\beta `$, the effective content of magnetic ions $`x_{\text{eff}}`$, and the spin susceptibility of the carrier liquid $`\chi _\text{h}`$. These three parameters are well known or can be readily evaluated for p-Zn1-xMnxTe. Our findings emphasize the importance of taking carefully into account the competition between ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic interactions as well as the complex structure of the valence band in the calculation of $`\chi _\text{h}`$.Diet00a  Finally, we discuss the case of lower doping, for which the onset of hole localization is clearly observed. We show that localization does not perturb significantly the magnitude of Curie-Weiss temperature but reduces the saturation value of magnetization and gives raise to slow spin dynamics.

The heavily doped DMS studied here lie in-between the case of diluted magnetic metals,Mydo93  where the standard RKKY theory is applicable, and lightly doped DMS,Furd88  for which carriers thermally excited to the bandPash79  and interactions between bound magnetic polaronsWolf96  have been suggested as agents mediating the ferromagnetic coupling. Our results make it possible to identify differences and similarities between ferromagnetic III-V and II-VI material systems. Furthermore, the findings demonstrate how spin-orbit coupling, the competing antiferromagnetic interactions, and the presence of electrostatic disorder affect the carrier-induced ferromagnetism. The Stoner ferromagnetic instability in disordered conductors at low temperatures have recently been discussed theoretically.Kirk99 ; Naro00  We hope that our results will stimulate a similar analysis for the system of localized magnetic ions coupled ferromagnetically by carriers at the boundary of the Anderson-Mott localization.

## II  SAMPLES AND EXPERIMENTAL SET-UP

Zn1-xMnxTe:N layers were grownFerr00a  by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) on a (001) Cd0.96Zn0.04Te substrate, on which a 300 nm CdTe and 200 nm-thick ZnTe buffer layers were deposited, the latter much thicker than the critical thickness of the ZnTe/CdTe system. The active layer, Zn1-xMnxTe:N, typically 500 nm thick, was grown at 300oC. The Zn1-xMnxTe layers were deposited either by using the stoichiometric Zn/Te flux from a ZnTe load and simply adding a Mn flux during the growth of the active layer (resulting in rather rough surfaces), or by using a Zn rich flux (adding an excess of Zn from an additional Zn cell, approximately 50% of the Zn flux from the ZnTe cell), which gives a smooth surface. A home-designed electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) plasma cell served as a source of atomic nitrogen.Grun96

Resistivity and Hall effect measurements were performed between room temperature and 1.5 K in a magnetic field $`H_\text{o}`$ up to 110 kOe, applied in the direction perpendicular to the film surface. In this geometry, there is no magnetization corrections to the external magnetic field acting on the carriers, $`B=H_\text{o}`$. At the same time, the field acting on the localized spins is diminished by the demagnetization correction, $`H=H_\text{o}4\pi M`$. For $`x=0.015`$, the field produced by the saturated Mn spins is $`B_s=4\pi M_s=154`$ G. Typically, the conductivity and the Hall voltage were measured on $`5\times 10`$ mm2 samples with six gold contacts (without etching a Hall bar), using a d.c. current between 0.1 nA and 1 mA. For a Zn0.981Mn0.019Te:N sample with the highest hole concentration the measurements were extended down to 100 mK with the use of the lock-in technique. Magnetization studies were carried out down to 1.5 K employing either a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) set-up (with the magnetic field up to 1.3 kOe) or a vibrating sample magnetometer (with the field up to 20 kOe). In both cases the field was applied in the direction parallel to the film surface, so that no demagnetization effects had to be taken into account.

The values of hole and Mn concentrations were obtained from the studies of the Hall effect and magnetic susceptibility, respectively, according to procedures described in detail below. A hole concentration as high as $`1.2\times 10^{20}`$ cm-3 was obtained in the case of ZnTe and Zn0.981Mn0.019Te epilayers.Ferr00a  To our knowledge, this is the largest hole concentration ever achieved for any II-VI semiconductor. However, the doping efficiency tends to decrease when the Mn content increases, either with or without additional Zn flux during the growth, so that $`p10^{19}`$ cm-3 for $`x0.05`$. All structures with Zn1-xMnxTe epilayers exhibited a temperature-dependent paramagnetic component below 70-80 K. Above 100 K, the signal is temperature independent, providing an adequate evaluation of the substrate contribution to the total magnetic moment. Accordingly, a diamagnetic susceptibility $`1.3\times 10^6`$ emu, independent of temperature, was determined for the ZnTe:N epilayer.

Table I presents the hole concentration $`p`$ as well as the effective Mn content $`x_{\text{eff}}`$ and Curie-Weiss temperature $`T_{\text{CW}}`$, as determined for the studied samples according to procedures described in the next Section.

## III EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

### III.1 Conductance and magnetoresistance

The binding energy of an effective mass acceptor in ZnTe, evaluated from the Baldereschi-Lipari modelBald73  with the published values of the Luttinger parameters for ZnTe,Wagn92  is 59 meV. The same calculation gives the effective Bohr radius, $`a^{}1.3`$ nm, which leads to the Mott critical density $`N_\text{c}=(0.26/a^{})^3=0.8\times 10^{19}`$ cm-3. Experimentally, substitutional nitrogen forms an even slightly shallower acceptor, with a binding energy as low as 53 meV.Grun96  A ZnTe sample with $`p=1.2\times 10^{20}`$ cm-3 is clearly metallic, according to measurements down to pumped liquid helium temperature \[Fig. 1(a)\]. The conductivity $`\sigma `$ of a Zn1-xMnxTe sample with $`x=0.019`$ and with the same hole density ($`p=1.2\times 10^{20}`$ cm-3) is remarkably identical, if measured in a magnetic field, as shown in Fig. 1(b), where data taken in 110 kOe are summarized. The same plot illustrates how the conductivity decreases when the hole concentration diminishes, and demonstrates that the temperature dependence of the conductivity remains weak even for the less doped sample (with $`p=3\times 10^{19}`$ cm-3). In particular, the conductivity of all samples in the magnetic field stay higher or of the order of the Mott minimum metallic conductivity $`\sigma _{min}0.03N_\text{c}^{1/3}e^2/\mathrm{}15`$ Scm-1.

The situation is very different without the applied field \[Fig. 1(a)\]. The sample with the highest doping level exhibits a small decrease of conductivity–by a factor of 2.5 between 10 K and 0.1 K, as shown in the inset to Fig. 1(a). Thus, this sample has to be considered as metallic, also in the absence of the magnetic field, as its conductivity remains an order of magnitude greater than $`\sigma _{min}`$, even at 100 mK. In contrast, the conductivity of samples with slightly smaller hole concentrations decreases rather dramatically when lowering the temperature indicating that the holes become localized at low temperatures in the absence of the field. Such localization induced by magnetic disorder was also detected in Bridgman-grown Zn1-xMnxTe:P with $`p<10^{19}`$ cm-3.Ferr00b  We have checked that no reentrant metallic behavior occurs in such samples down to 100 mK. In contrast, a comparison of Figs. 1(a) and 1(b) points to the presence of a field-induced insulator-to-metal transition, and indeed a colossal (several orders of magnitude) negative magnetoresistance is observed at low temperature. Additionally, a weak positive magnetoresistance in the low field range is also visible, as reported elsewhere.Ferr00c

The above effects, the temperature dependent localization as well as the positive and negative magnetoresistances, are qualitatively similar to those observed previously for n-type DMS.Furd88 ; Sawi86 ; Shap86  In particular, the positive magnetoresistance results from the giant Zeeman splitting of band states in DMS, which modifies quantum corrections to the conductivity at the localization boundary.Sawi86  Under the same conditions, a strong spin dependent scattering of itinerant carriers by ferromagnetic spin puddles (bound magnetic polarons – BMP) is thoughtSawi86 ; Glod94  to account for the shifting of the metal-insulator transition (MIT) towards higher impurity concentrations as well as for the rapid increase of the resistivity when decreasing the temperature, and the associated unusually strong negative magnetoresistance. The latter is enhanced by the increase of the carrier kinetic energy, which results from their redistribution between the spin subbands, an effect particularly important in p-type DMS.Furd88 ; Wojt86

In conclusion, the studies of conductance as a function of temperature and magnetic field reveal qualitatively similar properties of n-type and p-type II-VI DMS in the vicinity of the MIT. In particular, the temperature dependent localization and negative magnetoresistance indicate that the efficiency of spin disorder scattering increases at low temperature. This means that ferromagnetic correlation grows when the temperature decreases. However, the correlation length of some ferromagnetic puddles has to remain small, of the order of the de Broglie wavelength of the itinerant holes, to result in efficient scattering of the hole spins.

### III.2  Hall resistivity

Figure 2 shows the Hall resistivity $`\rho _{xy}`$ measured at various temperatures for the highly doped Zn0.981Mn0.019Te sample. The quoted hole concentration is deduced from the slope of the room temperature Hall resistance. We found that $`\rho _{xy}`$ is linear in the magnetic field and temperature independent down to 150 K. In the case of the ZnTe sample, this normal Hall effect $`\rho _{xy}`$ linear in the field $`H`$ and temperature independent, is observed down to 1.6 K (not shown). By contrast, in the case of Zn1-xMnxTe, when decreasing the temperature below 100 K, one observes first an increase of the slope of the Hall resistance, and then a strong non-linearity. This ”extraordinary” (or ”anomalous”) spin-dependent Hall effect $`\rho _{xy}^{(an)}`$ has already been discussed in Ref. Ferr00c . It is clearly observed in III-V DMS,Mats98  but not in n-doped II-VI DMS.Shap86  Its large magnitude stems from the importance of the spin-orbit coupling in the valence band and from the large polarization of the hole liquid. The latter results from the giant Zeeman splitting of the four hole subbands, which is proportional to the magnetization of the Mn spins. At low temperature and high field, the Mn or the hole spin polarization saturates, and then the Hall resistivity exhibits again a linear dependence on the applied field, with the same slope as at room temperature. Thus, while the spin-dependent component is too large to allow us to determine the hole density at low temperatures and in small fields, its magnitude becomes negligibly small at room temperature, or at low-temperature in high fields. For these two cases, the slope of the Hall resistance was found to be identical, giving unambiguously the value of the hole density.

In the case of less doped samples, we could measure the Hall resistivity down to typically 10 K, with the same conclusions, i.e., (i) the normal Hall effect dominates at temperatures above 150 K; (ii) the Hall resistivity varies linearly with the magnetic field at low temperature in sufficiently large magnetic fields, and (iii) a strong spin-dependent component appears at weak magnetic fields and at low temperature, though its accurate determination in this region is hampered by the large value of the resistance and a strong magnetoresistance. As mentioned above, the Hall resistance provides direct information on the degree of spin polarization $`𝒫`$ of the carrier liquid. However, depending on the dominant mechanism leading to the extraordinary Hall effect,Lero72  $`𝒫`$ is proportional either to the Hall angle, $`𝒫(\rho _{xy}\rho _{xy}^{(o)})/\rho _{xx}`$ (”skew scattering” mechanism) or to the off-diagonal conductivity component, $`𝒫(\rho _{xy}\rho _{xy}^{(o)})/\rho _{xx}^2`$ (”side jump” effect). Accordingly, the form of $`𝒫(T,B)`$ deduced from the Hall and resistivity measurements depends on the assumed model. The work aiming in elucidating the actual origin of the extraordinary Hall effect in p-type DMS is under way.

### III.3 Magnetic properties

#### III.3.1 Antiferromagnetic superexchange

The magnetic properties of undoped Zn1-xMnxTe layers and bulk crystals are well known and the magnetization $`M`$ in the magnetic field $`H`$ can be described by a modified Brillouin function BS,Furd88 ; Gaj79

$$M=Sg\mu _\text{B}N_0x_{\text{eff}}\text{B}_S\left[\frac{Sg\mu _\text{B}H}{k_\text{B}(T+T_{\text{AF}})}\right].$$
(1)
The corresponding low-field susceptibility is given by

$`\chi _{\text{Mn}}`$ $`=`$ $`C_0x_{\text{eff}}/(T+T_{\text{AF}}),`$ (2)
$`C_0`$ $`=`$ $`S(S+1)g_{\text{Mn}}^2\mu _\text{B}^2N_0/3k_\text{B},`$ (3)
where the Mn spin $`S=5/2`$ and the Landé factor $`g_{\text{Mn}}=2.0`$; the density of cation sites in ZnTe is $`N_0=1.76\times 10^{22}`$ cm-3. The two empirical parameters $`x_{\text{eff}}<x`$ and $`T_{\text{AF}}>0`$ take into account the antiferromagnetic superexchange interaction between the Mn spins. At temperatures $`T<20`$ K, the effective density of spin $`x_{\text{eff}}N_0`$ is smaller than the density of Mn ions $`xN_0`$ since the nearest-neighbor (n.-n.) Mn pairs are blocked antiparallel due to their strong superexchange interaction $`J_1/k_\text{B}`$.Furd88  Only ”free spins”, which are not involved in these n.-n. pairs, contribute to $`x_{\text{eff}}`$. The phenomenological Curie-Weiss temperature $`T_{\text{AF}}`$ describes the effect of antiferromagnetic interactions between more distant Mn pairs. This approach is valid over a field and temperature range, which is relevant for the present study. A fitting to a set of data from the literatureBari85  leads us to (Fig. 3):

$`x_{\text{eff}}`$ $`=`$ $`x(0.26\text{e}^{43.3x}+0.73\text{e}^{6.2x}+0.01),`$ (4)
$`T_{\text{AF}}\text{[K]}`$ $`=`$ $`58x150x^2.`$ (5)
The variation of $`x_{\text{eff}}`$ is the same as in Cd1-xMnxTe,Gaj94  which comes as no surprise since a statistical evaluation of concentration of unpaired spins explains satisfactorily the experimental findings.Shap84 ; Fata94

#### III.3.2  Metallic regime — ferromagnetic phase transition

Experimental results demonstrating the presence of the hole-induced ferromagnetism in the metallic Zn0.981Mn0.019Te:N sample are summarized in Figs. 4 and 5. The susceptibility is determined from the value of magnetization at 1 kOe above 5 K, and from the Arrott plots ($`M^2`$ vs. $`H/M`$ plots) at lower temperatures, for which the curvature of the Brillouin function becomes significant. The inverse magnetic susceptibility plotted as a function of temperature (Fig. 4) gives the value of the Curie constant $`C_0`$, which corresponds to $`x_{\text{eff}}=0.015`$. According to Eq. (4) this leads to $`x=0.019`$. The data collected in Fig. 3(b) imply that for such a Mn concentration the antiferromagnetic superexchange results in the Curie-Weiss temperature $`T_{\text{CW}}=1.0`$ K, which would be observed for undoped samples. In contrast, the susceptibility and Hall resistance data for the metallic Zn0.981Mn0.019Te:N sample as depicted in Fig. 4, point to a positive value of the Curie-Weiss temperature $`T_{\text{CW}}=1.45\pm 0.1`$ K. This demonstrates that the itinerant holes mediate ferromagnetic interactions among the Mn spins, which overcompensate the antiferromagnetic superexchange. However, the small value of the resulting Curie-Weiss temperature indicates that the ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic interactions are of similar magnitudes. The competition between them constitutes an important ingredient of the carrier-induced ferromagnetism in II-VI semiconductors.

In order to probe the magnetic ordering below $`T_{\text{CW}}`$, the measurements of the diagonal and Hall resistivities have been extended down to 100 mK. As shown in Fig. 5, clearly visible hystereses develop in both $`\rho _{xx}`$ and $`\rho _{xy}`$ on lowering the temperature. This indicates that the low temperature phase is ferromagnetic. At the same time, the temperature dependence of hysteresis widths presented in Fig. 4, points to the Curie temperature $`T_\text{C}`$ that is only slightly lower than $`T_{\text{CW}}`$. The latter means that the mean-field approximation constitutes a good starting point for the description of the ferromagnetism in the studied system, an expected finding in view of the long-range character of the carrier-mediated exchange interaction.Fish72

#### III.3.3 Ferromagnetic interactions mediated by localized holes

Since the doping efficiency decreases and the magnetic disorder increases with the Mn concentration, the holes are localized in our samples with $`x>0.03`$. Actually, the conductance at $`T<4`$ K drops by several orders of magnitude on crossing the MIT. For instance, according to Fig. 1, zero-field conductance of Zn0.962Mn0.038Te:N with $`p=3\times 10^{19}`$ cm-3 is smaller by more than five orders of magnitude than that of Zn0.981Mn0.019Te:N with $`p=1.2\times 10^{20}`$ cm-3. Thus, an interesting question arises how this dramatic difference in transport properties will affect the hole-mediated ferromagnetic interactions.

Figure 6(a) shows the temperature dependence of the inverse magnetic susceptibility of Zn0.962Mn0.038Te:N with $`p=3\times 10^{19}`$ cm-3. Again the susceptibility was determined from the magnetization at 1 kOe at higher temperatures and from the Arrott plots at lower temperatures. A clear doping-induced positive shift of the Curie-Weiss temperature $`T_{\text{CW}}`$ is put into evidence: we observe $`T_{\text{CW}}=2.3`$ K for a sample with $`x=0.038`$ ($`x_{\text{eff}}=0.025`$) and $`p=3\times 10^{19}`$ cm-3, instead of $`T_{\text{CW}}=T_{\text{AF}}=2`$ K, which—according to Fig. 3(b)—is expected for an undoped sample with the same Mn content.

Figure 6(b) shows magnetization loops measured on the sample in question. A paramagnetic behavior is observed above $`T_{\text{CW}}`$, with a linear dependence of the magnetization on the magnetic field at high temperature (e.g., at 10 K), and an onset of the field-induced saturation of magnetization at lower temperature (e.g., at 3.2 K). Magnetization cycles measured at still lower temperature (e.g., at 1.5 K) exhibit hysteresis: The remanent magnetization is displayed in Fig. 6(a). A slowly decaying component (20% of the total signal at the lowest temperature) was observed after shutting down the field: The values of remanent magnetization plotted in Fig. 6(a) were measured after 15 min, which corresponded to a complete decay of the slowly varying component. We may note that the magnitude of remanent magnetization remains rather small compared to the total amount of Mn spins deduced from the susceptibility in the paramagnetic phase. This is only partly due to the fact that the applied field remains low and these are probably only minor cycles. Such a small magnitude may indicate also that the easy axis is out of the plane. However, effects due to magnetic disorder (competition of ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic interactions) as well as due to electrostatic disorder (mesoscopic fluctuations in the density-of-states) might also be present and drive the system to a spin-glass phase or to a ferromagnetic phase with atypically long relaxation times.Wolf96

Figure 7 shows the temperature dependence of the inverse magnetic susceptibility for two Zn1-xMnxTe layers with an approximate Mn content $`x0.04`$ and even smaller hole concentrations than those in the samples discussed above. Again, doping-induced positive shift of the Curie-Weiss temperature $`T_{\text{CW}}`$ is clearly visible, as instead of $`T_{\text{CW}}=T_{\text{AF}}=2.3`$ K expected for $`x=0.04`$, the observed values of $`T_{\text{CW}}`$ are 2.4 and $`0.4`$ K for $`p=1.5\times 10^{19}`$ cm-3 and $`p=7\times 10^{17}`$ cm-3, respectively.

We conclude that the Curie-Weiss temperature does not exhibit any critical behavior on crossing the MIT. This demonstrates the existence of ferromagnetic interactions of a similar magnitude on both sides of the MIT. At the same time, it is possible that a state with an exotic space or time spin correlation, more complex than that of a simple collinear ferromagnet, develops in the insulator phase.

## IV MODEL AND MATERIAL PARAMETERS

### IV.1 Zener model and spin susceptibility of carriers

As discussed above, our study provides the values of Curie-Weiss $`T_{\text{CW}}`$ as a function of the effective spin density $`x_{\text{eff}}`$, deduced from the Curie constant, and the hole density $`p`$, determined from the Hall effect measurements. Knowing $`x_{\text{eff}}`$, we determine form Eqs. (4) and (5) the actual Mn content $`x`$ and $`T_{\text{AF}}`$. The latter would be observed for undoped samples with the same composition $`x`$, and characterizes the strength of antiferromagnetic interactions between Mn spins more distant than the nearest neighbor pairs. In DMS, the coupling between the hole of spin $`𝒔`$ and position $`𝒓`$, and the Mn spin $`𝑺_i`$ localized at $`𝑹_i`$, is well described by a local exchange interactionFurd88 ; Gaj79 ; Gaj78

$$H_{pd}=\beta 𝒔𝑺_i\delta (𝒓𝑹_i),$$
(6)
where the spin-hole exchange energy is known from magneto-spectroscopy to be $`\beta N_0=1.1`$ eV in Zn1-xMnxTe.Twar84  This interaction can be used to evaluate the energy $`J_{ij}`$ of the carrier-mediated RKKY exchange coupling between the Mn spins $`i`$ and $`j`$. This coupling exhibits the well-known oscillations as a function of the distance between the Mn pairs with the period determined by the Fermi wavevector $`k_\text{F}^1`$. Then, in order to obtain the mean-field value of $`T_{\text{CW}}`$, the interaction energy has to be averaged over the distribution of the Mn spins. This will be elaborated later. Now we consider the limit of low carrier density, in which the mean Mn-Mn distance is small with respect to $`k_\text{F}^1`$. In such a case, the continuous-medium limit of the RKKY model, i.e., the Zener model,Zene50  can be used.Diet97 ; Diet00a ; Cibe99  The mean-field version of this model can be summarized as follows.

First we use the molecular-field and virtual-crystal approximations to relate the spin polarization of the hole liquid to the Mn magnetization $`𝑴`$. The result is

$`s_z`$ $`=`$ $`\beta \stackrel{~}{\chi }_\text{h}{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}S_z^i\delta (𝒓𝑹_i)`$ (7)
$`=`$ $`\beta \stackrel{~}{\chi }_\text{h}x_{\text{eff}}N_0S_z,`$
where the first-line summation runs over a discrete distribution of the Mn spins, and is replaced in the second line by an average spin projection on the direction of $`𝑴`$, taken here as $`z`$-axis. The quantity $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_\text{h}`$ is the carrier spin susceptibility, which in the absence of the spin-orbit interaction would correspond to the Pauli magnetic susceptibility with the $`g\mu _\text{B}`$ factor omitted.

We also adopt the mean-field approximation (MFA) to obtain $`M`$

$`M/g_{\text{Mn}}\mu _\text{B}`$ $`=`$ $`x_{\text{eff}}N_0S_z`$ (8)
$`=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_{\text{Mn}}(g_{\text{Mn}}\mu _\text{B}H\beta s_z),`$
where

$$\stackrel{~}{\chi }_{\text{Mn}}=\frac{\stackrel{~}{C}_0x_{\text{eff}}}{T+T_{\text{AF}}}\text{and}\stackrel{~}{C}_0=\frac{S(S+1)N_0}{3k_\text{B}}.$$
(9)
Combining Eqs. (7) and (8) we are led toDiet97

$$M=\frac{\chi _{\text{Mn}}}{1\stackrel{~}{\chi }_{\text{Mn}}\stackrel{~}{\chi }_\text{h}\beta ^2}H=\frac{C_0x_{\text{eff}}}{TT_{\text{CW}}}H,$$
(10)
with

$$T_{\text{CW}}=T_\text{F}T_{\text{AF}}\text{and}T_\text{F}=x_{\text{eff}}\stackrel{~}{C}_0\beta ^2\stackrel{~}{\chi }_\text{h},$$
(11)
where, within the MFA, $`T_{\text{CW}}`$ is equal to the Curie temperature $`T_\text{C}`$. Usually, however, the MFA, which can also be regarded as a high temperature expansion, gives a better estimate of $`T_{\text{CW}}`$ than of $`T_\text{C}`$.

The above reasoning can easily be generalized to the case of a phase transition to a spatially-modulated ground-state, characterized by non-zero magnetization $`𝑴(𝒒)`$. The corresponding mean-field value of the ordering temperature $`T_\text{C}(𝒒)`$ is given by the solution of the equation:Diet99

$$\stackrel{~}{\chi }_{\text{Mn}}(𝒒,T)\stackrel{~}{\chi }_\text{h}(𝒒,T)\beta ^2=1.$$
(12)
In the case of the conduction band, the periodic part of the Bloch wave function is S-like, so that spin dynamics is not perturbed by the spin-orbit interaction. The spin susceptibility of a degenerate carrier liquid at $`q=0`$ is then directly related to the density-of-states at the Fermi energy,

$$\stackrel{~}{\chi }_e=\frac{1}{4}A_\text{F}\rho (E_\text{F}).$$
(13)
Here, the prefactor $`A_\text{F}`$ is the Fermi liquid parameter that takes into account the enhancement of the spin susceptibility by the carrier-carrier exchange interactions. However, in the case of the holes involving P-like states, the influence of the spin-orbit coupling has to be taken into account.Diet97 ; Diet00a

### IV.2 Spin susceptibility of holes

The valence band in ZnTe is characterized by a rather strong spin-orbit coupling, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\text{o}=0.96`$ eV.Herm84  Hence at the center of the Brillouin zone the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_7`$ split-off band is well separated from the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_8`$ quadruplet, and for small wavevectors, the dispersion can be calculated by using the $`4\times 4`$ Luttinger Hamiltonian. We adopt the experimental values of the Luttinger parametersWagn92  $`\gamma _1=3.8`$, $`\gamma _2=0.72`$, and $`\gamma _3=1.3`$, and use the spherical approximation,Bald73  i.e., we replace $`\gamma _2`$ and $`\gamma _3`$ by $`\gamma _s=\frac{2}{5}\gamma _2+\frac{3}{5}\gamma _3`$. In this approximation, the values of the heavy-hole mass $`m_{\text{hh}}=0.60m_0`$ and the light-hole mass $`m_{\text{lh}}=0.17m_0`$, are independent of the direction of the wave vector $`𝒌`$.

We are interested in the response function of the holes for the molecular field applied along the $`z`$ direction. However, at $`k0`$, the periodic parts of the Bloch functions are the eigenstates of $`𝑱𝒌/k`$, i.e, the quantization axis is along $`𝒌`$. The corresponding eigenfunctions, $`|\pm 3/2,𝒌`$ for the heavy holes and $`|\pm 1/2,𝒌`$ for the light holes, can be obtained from the eigenfunctions of $`J_z`$, $`|\pm 3/2_z`$ and $`|\pm 1/2_z`$, by applying the corresponding rotation matrix within the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_8`$ quadruplet, identical to the rotation matrix within a $`J=3/2`$ quadruplet. The important point here is that $`s_z`$ in the basis of the eigenfunctions $`|\pm 3/2,𝒌`$ and $`|\pm 1/2,𝒌`$ reads

$$s_z=\left[\begin{array}{cccc}\frac{\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta }}{2}& 0& \frac{\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Theta }}{2\sqrt{3}}& 0\\ 0& \frac{\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta }}{2}& 0& \frac{\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Theta }}{2\sqrt{3}}\\ \frac{\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Theta }}{2\sqrt{3}}& 0& \frac{\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta }}{6}& \frac{\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Theta }}{3}\\ 0& \frac{\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Theta }}{2\sqrt{3}}& \frac{\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Theta }}{3}& \frac{\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta }}{6}\end{array}\right],$$
(14)
where $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ is the polar angle of the wavevector $`𝒌`$. There are no matrix elements between states with different $`𝒌`$ vectors.

The longitudinal component of the hole spin susceptibility is

$$\stackrel{~}{\chi }_\text{h}(𝒒)=2\underset{i,j,𝒌}{}\frac{\left|i,𝒌|s_z|j,𝒌+𝒒\right|^2}{E_{j,𝒌+𝒒}E_{i,𝒌}}f(E_{i,𝒌})\left[1f(E_{j,𝒌+𝒒})\right],$$
(15)
where $`|i,𝒌`$ are the periodic part of the Bloch functions, $`E_{i,𝒌}=\mathrm{}^2k^2/2m_{\text{hh}}`$ or $`\mathrm{}^2k^2/2m_{\text{lh}}`$, and $`f(E_{i,𝒌})`$ is the Fermi-Dirac distribution function for the corresponding hole subbands. The RKKY interaction energy is proportional to the Fourier transform of Eq. (15). In the framework of the Zener model of ferromagnetism, we are interested in $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_\text{h}(𝒒=0)`$. The result that is obtained after a straightforward calculation for the degenerate hole gas assumes the form

$$\stackrel{~}{\chi }_\text{h}=\frac{1}{4}A_\text{F}\rho (E_\text{F})\left[\frac{1}{3}+\frac{8}{9}\frac{m_{\text{hh}}^{3/2}m_{\text{lh}}m_{\text{lh}}^{3/2}m_{\text{hh}}}{(m_{\text{hh}}m_{\text{lh}})(m_{\text{hh}}^{3/2}+m_{\text{lh}}^{3/2})}\right],$$
(16)
where the Fermi liquid parameter $`A_\text{F}`$, to be discussed later, represents the effect of the hole-hole interaction, and

$$\rho (E_\text{F})=(m_{\text{hh}}^{3/2}+m_{\text{lh}}^{3/2})^{2/3}(3\pi ^2p)^{1/3}/\pi ^2\mathrm{}^2.$$
(17)
The two terms in the square brackets in Eq. (16) describes two distinct effects of the spin-orbit interaction on the hole spin susceptibility:
\- the first arises from terms which are diagonal within the heavy-hole and within the light-hole subbands. Thus, the spin-orbit interaction reduces intra-band hole spin polarization by a factor of three. Another, more intuitive, description is obtained by noting that applying the molecular field $`B`$ along the $`z`$ direction splits the Fermi surface into two (up and down) surfaces, with the Zeeman splitting of the heavy holes proportional to $`B\pm 3/2,𝒌|s_z|\pm 3/2,𝒌=\pm B\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta }`$,Gaj78  as shown in Fig. 8. The spin polarization is obtained by integrating $`s_z`$ over the states between the two Fermi surfaces, both $`s_z`$ and the population depending on $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$. This means, in particular, that the spin polarization of the holes, i.e., the spin component of their magnetization, is not simply proportional to the difference in the up and down populations, as it would be the case for the electrons in the conduction band. By integrating the sum of the square of the relevant matrix elements over the solid angle we obtain the reduction factor $`_0^\pi \mathrm{cos}^2\mathrm{\Theta }\text{d}\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta }/_0^\pi \text{d}\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta }=1/3`$. Hence, this reduction factor expresses the fact that the heavy-hole spin is quantized along the direction of $`𝒌`$, so that exchange splitting vanishes for $`𝒌𝑩`$. A similar procedure for the light-hole subband leads to the same reduction factor 1/3.
\- The second term arises from non-diagonal terms coupling the heavy and light-hole subbands, that is, it represents interband spin polarization. Then, the Fermi distribution functions define the range of integration, from the Fermi wavevector of the light-holes to that of the heavy-holes. The corresponding contribution to $`T_{\text{CW}}`$ can be viewed as the manifestation of the Bloembergen-Rowland mechanismFurd88  of the indirect spin-spin exchange interaction, allowed here by the spin-orbit coupling.

Introducing into Eq. (16) the values of the hole effective masses corresponding to ZnTe we find that the spin-orbit interaction reduces the hole spin susceptibility by a factor of 2.1,

$$\stackrel{~}{\chi }_\text{h}=\frac{1}{4}\rho (E_\text{F})\frac{1}{2.1}.$$
(18)
It has been checked that $`T_{\text{CW}}`$ values resulting from Eqs. (11) and (18) agree with those determined by numerical minimization of the free energy, which is obtained by summing up eigenvalues of the corresponding $`4\times 4`$ Luttinger matrix.Diet00a ; Diet00b  Actually, the theoretical model developed recently,Diet00a ; Diet00b  allows one to determine the magnetization as a function of temperature and magnetic field taking into account non-zero anisotropy, finite spin-orbit splitting, and biaxial strain within the $`6\times 6`$ Luttinger model of the valence band in tetrahedrally coordinated semiconductors. We shall compare results of the $`4\times 4`$ and $`6\times 6`$ models vis-à-vis our experimental data on $`T_{\text{CW}}`$, and show that the difference between their predictions is slight for the parameters of p-Zn1-xMnxTe.

### IV.3 Zener vs. RKKY model

We identify two experimentally important situations, for which the Zener model, as introduced above, ceases to be valid. The first one corresponds to the case when an average time of carrier tunneling between Mn pairs $`(Vx_{\text{eff}}^{1/3})^1`$ becomes significantly longer than the inverse exchange energy $`|\beta N_0|^1`$. Here $`V`$ is the width of the carrier band, and its magnitude, not the Fermi energy as sometimes suggested, constitutes the relevant energy scale. For long tunneling times, the molecular-field and virtual-crystal approximations break down, an effect detected in Cd1-xMnxS.Beno92  Double-exchange model constitutes the appropriate description of the carrier-mediated exchange interaction in the limit $`V0`$.

The second case is that of a large carrier concentration, $`n>x_{\text{eff}}N_0`$. In this region, important changes in the carrier response function occur at the length scale of a mean distance between the localized spins. Accordingly, the description of spin magnetization by the continuous-medium approximation, which constitutes the basis of the Zener model, ceases to be valid. In contrast, the RKKY model is a good starting point in this regime, as it provides the dependence of the interaction energy of particular spin pairs as a function of their distance. This makes it possible to evaluate the system energy for a given distribution of the localized spins.

We note in passing that in the limit when the continuous-medium approximation is valid, $`nx_{\text{eff}}N_0`$, the mean-field value of the ordering temperature $`T(𝒒)`$ deduced from the Zener and RKKY model are identical, independently of microscopic spin arrangement. In particular, in both models, the Curie temperature is determined entirely by matrix elements that are diagonal in $`𝒌`$, as non-diagonal terms vanish when the continuous-medium approximation is valid. If this is not the case, the two models are equivalent only if the spins are randomly distributed over a continuum.Diet97

Since the RKKY model appears as more general, it is tempting to adopt it for the description of experimental findings. Unfortunately, however, in the presence of spin-orbit interaction, the spin-spin Hamiltonian contains non-scalar pseudo-dipole and Moriya-Dzialoshinskii terms, whose dependence of the pair distance seems to be described by non-elementary functions. Briefly, the RKKY model is technically much more cumbersome than the Zener model for the holes in the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_8`$ band. On the other hand, in the case of the sample with the highest doping level, the hole concentration $`p=1.2\times 10^{20}`$ cm-3 becomes comparable with $`x_{\text{eff}}N_0=1.8\times 10^{20}`$ cm-3. Moreover, we note that the blocking of n.-n. Mn pairs in the zero-spin state by antiferromagnetic superexchange not only reduces the effective spin concentration but also makes the spin distribution to be highly non-random — no n.-n. Mn pairs are involved in the ferromagnetic interactions.

In order to evaluate the resulting effect on the Curie-Weiss temperature we start from the expression for the energy of the RKKY exchange interaction between two Mn spins at relative position $`𝑹`$ induced by carriers described by S-like wave functions (see, e.g. Ref. 3),

$$J(𝑹)=\chi _\text{h}(0)\frac{2k_\text{F}^3}{\pi }\beta ^2\frac{\mathrm{sin}(2k_\text{F}R)2k_\text{F}R\mathrm{cos}(2k_\text{F}R)}{(2k_\text{F}R)^4}.$$
(19)
Since the main contribution to $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_\text{h}(𝒒)`$ in Eq. (15) comes from the heavy hole band, we use the heavy hole wavevector at the Fermi level for $`k_\text{F}`$ in Eq. (19). At the same time, the prefactor in Eq. (19), the hole spin susceptibility $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_\text{h}`$ at $`q=0`$, is calculated from Eq. (16), so that it takes the complex structure of the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_8`$ bands into account.

The mean-field value of ferromagnetic temperature $`T_\text{F}`$ is then obtained from the first moment of the distribution of the pair interaction energies $`J(R_{ij})`$. Thus, we determine $`T_\text{F}`$ by a summation of the interaction energies $`J(R)`$ between a given spin at $`R=0`$, and all other free Mn spins distributed over the cation sites of the zinc-blende lattice,

$$T_\text{F}=\frac{S(S+1)}{3k_\text{B}}\underset{\text{fcc sites}}{}P(i)J(𝑹_i).$$
(20)
Here, the occupation probability is $`P(i)=0`$ for the nearest neighbors to the origin (since the point $`R=0`$ is occupied by the Mn spin, the n.-n. spin would be blocked antiferromagnetically), and $`P(i)=x_{\text{eff}}`$ for all other fcc sites. As mentioned above, replacing the discrete sum in Eq. (20) by a continuous integration with the uniform density $`x_{\text{eff}}`$ would lead to Eq. (11). We shall compare those two models for $`T_\text{F}`$ as well as their ability to describe the experimental data in Sec. V. Finally, we note that on increasing the carrier concentration the second moment of the distribution $`J(R_{ij})`$ grows faster than the first moment. The former determines the spin-freezing temperature $`T_\text{g}`$, which at some point may become higher than $`T_\text{F}`$. We evaluate that $`T_\text{g}<T_\text{F}`$ for the samples studied here. Such a cross-over from the ferromagnetic to spin-glass phase as a function of $`p/xN_0`$ has, in fact, been observed in IV-VI DMS.Egge94  For even greater values of $`p/xN_0`$, the Kondo temperature $`T_\text{K}`$ may become higher than $`T_\text{g}`$, so that screening of the spins by the carriers will occur at $`T<T_K`$ if $`T_\text{K}>T_\text{g}`$.

### IV.4 Effects of disorder and carrier-carrier interactions

The present experimental results address the question of how disorder in the electronic subsystem affects the carrier-mediated interaction among the localized spins. In the framework of the RKKY model, the mean free path $`l`$ sets an upper distance of Mn pairs contributing to the first moment of the distribution $`J(R_{ij})`$. This leads to a reduction of $`T_\text{F}`$ by $`(1\pi /4k_\text{F}l)`$ for $`k_\text{F}l1`$.Diet97  In terms of the Zener model, this reduction factor represents the scattering broadening of the thermodynamic density-of-states $`\rho (E_\text{F})`$.Diet97 ; Koss00  At the same time, the second moment, and thus $`T_\text{g}`$, is only affected by spin-dependent scattering.Zyuz86

Interestingly enough, neither $`l`$ nor $`\rho (E_\text{F})`$ exhibit critical behavior at the MIT – typically $`lk_\text{F}^1`$ at criticality when approaching the MIT from the metallic side. In contrast, the localization length $`\xi `$ diverges at the MIT and, according to the scaling picture, decreases gradually towards the Bohr radius $`a^{}`$ deeply in the insulator phase. Then, the ferromagnetic exchange is mediated by carriers thermally excited to the bandPash79  or by spin-dependent coupling between BMP.Wolf96  However, over a wide range of dopant concentrations, the average value of $`\xi `$ is significantly larger than both $`a^{}`$ and $`l`$. We expect that such weakly localized carriers carry efficiently the spin-spin coupling. Since distances smaller than $`l`$ are important for ferromagnetism, carrier localization will have a minor influence on the value of $`T_\text{F}`$ for such an exchange mechanism.

At the same time, however, large mesoscopic fluctuations in the local values of $`\rho (E_\text{F})`$ and $`\xi `$, are expected in the vicinity of the MIT. This will introduce additional randomness in the system, the corresponding correlation length being of the order of either spin coherence, thermal or localization length, each presumably much longer than that characterizing magnetic disorder. In a simplistic two-fluid picture,Diet00a ; Diet00b  we envisage that mosaics of ferromagnetic and paramagnetic regions appear at the Curie temperature. The latter corresponds to regions not visited by the carriers. The former contain delocalized or weakly localized carriers. Such carriers set a long-range ferromagnetic correlation between the Mn spins, including those contributing to BMP that are formed around singly occupied impurity-like states. According to this model, the ferromagnetic portion of the material, and thus the magnitude of spontaneous magnetization, grows with the dopant concentration.

Finally, we consider the enhancement of the tendency towards ferromagnetism by the carrier-carrier interactions. Within the Zener model, this enhancement is described by the Fermi liquid parameter $`A_\text{F}`$. The value $`A_\text{F}1.2`$ was calculated by a local spin-density approach for a 3D carrier liquid of similar density.Jung99  We adopt this value here, as its enhancement by disorder is probably unimportant due to efficient spin-flip scattering in our system.

## V COMPARISON OF EXPERIMENTAL AND THEORETICAL RESULTS

In order to compare experimental and theoretical results for samples with various Mn content $`x`$ and hole concentrations $`p`$, we introduce a normalized value of the ferromagnetic temperature,

$$\stackrel{~}{T}_\text{F}=(T_{\text{CW}}+T_{\text{AF}})/10^2x_{\text{eff}},$$
(21)
where $`T_{\text{CW}}`$ and $`x_{\text{eff}}`$ are determined from the measurements of the magnetic susceptibility as a function of temperature, whereas the corresponding values of $`T_{\text{AF}}`$ are calculated from Eq. (5). The actual values of $`T_{\text{CW}}`$ and $`x_{\text{eff}}`$ for the studied samples are summarized in Table I (Sec. II). According to the Zener model (Eq. 11), the normalized ferromagnetic temperature, as defined by Eq. (21), does not depend on the Mn content.

Figure 9 presents experimental and theoretical values of $`\stackrel{~}{T}_\text{F}`$ as a function of $`p`$. The studied hole concentration range covers both sides of the MIT, the sample with the highest $`p`$ values being metallic. Remarkably, the presence of the MIT appears to have no effect on the experimental values of $`\stackrel{~}{T}_\text{F}(p)`$. This substantiates the view that the two phenomena, carrier-mediated ferromagnetic interactions and carrier localization, are sensitive to carrier wave functions at different length scales: the former shorter while the latter longer than the mean free path. This encourages us to interpret the data disregarding localization effects. Furthermore, we shall neglect the influence of scattering on the density-of-states, an approximation that should be relaxed once appropriate information would be available.

The dotted line in Fig. 9 represents results of the analytic calculation within the Zener model, employing $`4\times 4`$ spherical Luttinger Hamiltonian, Eqs. (11) and (16). Similarly, the dashed line was obtained numerically from the $`6\times 6`$ model.Diet00a ; Diet00b  Due to the large magnitude of spin-orbit splitting in ZnTe, the difference between the models is slight, even for relatively large hole concentrations. It is seen that the Zener model describes correctly the ferromagnetic temperature in the region of low hole concentrations but it predicts a significantly too large value of $`\stackrel{~}{T}_\text{F}`$ for the sample with $`p=1.2\times 10^{20}`$ cm-3. As already mentioned, in this sample $`x_{\text{eff}}`$ = 0.015, so that the inverse Fermi wavevector becomes comparable to the mean Mn-Mn distance, $`d_{MnMn}k_\text{F}=1.4`$. As a result the continuous-medium approximation, inherent to the Zener model, ceases to be valid. The solid line in Fig. 9 depicts numerical data obtained within the RKKY model, Eqs. (19) and (20) for $`x_{\text{eff}}`$ = 0.015, with the long-wavelength hole spin susceptibility computed by the $`6\times 6`$ Luttinger model. A significant reduction of $`\stackrel{~}{T}_\text{F}`$ for large $`p`$, consistent with the experimental findings, is clearly visible. This reduction reflects the important effect of the antiferromagnetic n.-n. Mn pairs on the distribution of the free spins. In view that theory is developed with no adjustable parameters, we conclude that the main processes accounting for the magnitude of the Curie-Weiss temperature are well understood in p-Zn1-xMnxTe.

Figure 10 presents the dependence of magnetization on the magnetic field for one non-metallic and one metallic sample. The dependence of magnetization on the magnetic field is in accord with the expectation of the mean-field theory in the case of the metallic sample. In contrast, the magnitude of magnetization observed in the non-metallic sample in the weak fields is about two times smaller than expected. This substantiates the conjecture about the phase separation into the regions with a different degree of Mn spin polarization on the insulator side of the MIT.

## VI SUMMARY AND OUTLOOK

The progress in nitrogen doping of Zn1-xMnxTe by MBE achieved in course of this work has made it possible to grow II-VI DMS, in which hole kinetic energy is high enough to overcompensate electrostatic and magnetic disorder, so that the metal phase exists down to the millikelvin temperature range. In such a sample the doping-induced ferromagnetic ordering has been put into the evidence. Two factors have been identified, which make the Curie temperature relatively low, $`T_\text{C}1.5`$ K at $`p=1.2\times 10^{20}`$ cm-3 and $`x=0.019`$, despite the rather large values of the effective mass and p-d exchange integral. First, the spin-orbit interaction in the valence band leads to more than two-fold reduction of $`T_\text{C}`$. Second, the superexchange antiferromagnetic interactions have been found to lower $`T_\text{C}`$ even further. In particular, the residual antiferromagnetic interactions between more distant Mn pairs contribute to the reduction of $`T_\text{C}`$. Moreover, the presence of magnetically inert nearest-neighbor Mn pairs not only lowers the effective Mn concentration but also makes the antiferromagnetic portion of the RKKY interaction to become more significant. The resulting competition between the ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic interactions is expected to grow with $`p/x`$, and may ultimately result in the transition to a spin-glass phase. Alternatively, with decreasing $`x`$ at given $`p`$, the Kondo effect may show up.

We note that the present results, as well as those for Ga1-xMnxAs,Diet00a ; Diet00b  make it possible to single out dominant effects accounting for differences between temperatures of ferromagnetic ordering in particular families of magnetic semiconductors.Diet00a ; Diet00b  One of the effects is the magnitude of the spin-orbit splitting $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\text{o}`$ in the valence band, which—if much greater than the Fermi energy—reduces $`T_\text{C}`$. This is the case of p-Zn1-xMnxTe. In contrast, due to the smaller value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\text{o}`$ in Ga1-xMnxAs, the reduction ceases to be important. Moreover, the mixing between $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_8`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_7`$ bands enlarges the density-of-states at the Fermi level. Another important aspect of III-V DMS is associated with the fact that Mn ions supply both spins and holes. This results in a large Coulomb potential at closely lying Mn pairs. Accordingly, such a complex binds a hole, which mediates a strong ferromagnetic coupling that overcompensates the intrinsic antiferromagnetic interaction. As a result, the strong reduction of $`T_\text{C}`$ by the superexchange observed in II-VI semiconductors is virtually absent in the case of III-V DMS.Diet00a

Particularly interesting is the problem of interplay between Anderson-Mott localization and carrier-mediated exchange interaction. Our results demonstrate the presence of magnetoresistance and temperature dependent localization, qualitatively similar to those observed previously in n-type DMS but somewhat enhanced due to a greater magnitude of the exchange energy in the case of the holes. At the same time, the strength of the carrier-mediated ferromagnetic interaction appears to be insensitive to hole localization. This behavior, observed also in Ga1-xMnxAs,Mats98  is assigned to the different length scales involved in the two processes. However, the low-temperature phase in nonmetallic samples show a number of peculiarities, such as slow dynamics and partial saturation of the magnetization. Furthermore, in contrast to, e.g., Eu chalcogenides, no reentrance to the metallic behavior is observed in the low-temperature phase, which indicates that spin-disorder scattering remains effective. Thus, the ground state on the insulator side of the MIT may not be a simple co-linear ferromagnet. The presence of a phase separation into ferromagnetic and paramagnetic spin puddles has been suggestedDiet00a  to occur near the MIT. We plan to employ local experimental probes in order to verify this conjecture. We also hope that our results will prompt a theoretical examination of effects of mesoscopic fluctuations in the density-of-states and localization radius upon the carrier-mediated ferromagnetic interactions between magnetic impurities.

## Acknowledgments

We thank Jacek Furdyna, Hideo Ohno, and Maciej Sawicki for valuable discussions. The Grenoble-Warsaw collaboration was supported by the ”Polonium” Program, the work in Poland by the Foundation for Polish Science and the State Committee for Scientific Research under Grant No. 2-PB03B-02417.


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# Strong Isospin Breaking in CP-even and CP-odd 𝐾→𝜋𝜋 Decays

## Abstract

Complete next-to-leading (chiral) order (NLO) expressions for the strong isospin-breaking (IB) contributions in $`K\pi \pi `$ are used to discuss (1) for CP-even, the impact on the magnitude of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }I=1/2`$ Rule, and (2) for CP-odd, the strong IB correction, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{st}`$, for the gluonic penguin contribution to $`ϵ^{}/ϵ`$, with particular emphasis on the strong low-energy constant (LEC) and loop contributions, numerical values for which are model-independent at NLO.

In the presence of IB, the standard isospin decomposition of the $`K^+\pi ^+\pi ^0`$, $`K^0\pi ^+\pi ^{},\pi ^0\pi ^0`$ decay amplitudes, $`A_{+0}`$, $`A_+`$ and $`A_{00}`$, becomes cdg

$`A_{00}`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{1/3}A_0\mathrm{e}^{i\mathrm{\Phi }_0}[\sqrt{2/3}]A_2\mathrm{e}^{i\mathrm{\Phi }_2},`$
$`A_+`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{1/3}A_0\mathrm{e}^{i\mathrm{\Phi }_0}+[1/\sqrt{6}]A_2\mathrm{e}^{i\mathrm{\Phi }_2},`$
$`A_{+0}`$ $`=`$ $`[\sqrt{3}/2]A_2^{}\mathrm{e}^{i\mathrm{\Phi }_2^{}}.`$ (1)
Ignoring $`\mathrm{\Delta }I=2`$ electromagnetic (EM) channel coupling, $`\mathrm{\Phi }_I`$ are the $`\pi \pi `$ phases. In general, EM- and strong-IB-induced $`\mathrm{\Delta }I=5/2`$ effects make $`|A_2^{}||A_2|`$. $`A_0`$, $`A_2`$ can be chosen real in the absence of CP violation.

Since $`|A_0|22|A_2|`$, IB “leakage” of the large octet ($`I=0`$) amplitude into the $`\mathrm{\Delta }I=3/2`$ ($`I=2`$) amplitude can be numerically significant. EM leakage has been computed to NLO in Ref. cdg  (see also eimnp00 ); we compute the NLO strong leakage for both CP-even and gluonic-penguin-mediated CP-odd transitions. Strong cancellation between gluonic penguin ($`O_6`$) and electroweak penguin contributions make Standard Model predictions for $`ϵ^{}/ϵ`$ sensitive to the latter burasrev .

At leading (chiral) order (LO), the ratio, $`\delta A_2/A_0`$, with $`\delta A_2`$ the strong octet leakage contribution to $`A_2`$, is unambiguous. The IC part of $`A_2`$, $`A_2^{IC}`$, is decreased by $`\left[\mathrm{\Omega }_{st}\right]_{LO}=13\%`$ once strong IB is included. The LO $`O_6`$ suppression in $`ϵ^{}/ϵ`$ is $`1\mathrm{\Omega }_{st}`$. Recent analyses of $`ϵ^{}/ϵ`$ employ $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{st}=0.25\pm 0.08`$ burasrev . The difference reflects estimates of NLO effects mediated by an intermediate $`\eta ^{}`$ through the $`K^0\pi ^0\eta ^{}`$ transition dghtbg . This effect, in conventional ChPT (involving only the $`\pi `$, $`K`$ and $`\eta `$ as explicit degrees of freedom), represents one contribution to the CP-even (CP-odd) NLO weak LEC’s, $`E_k^+`$ ($`E_k^{}`$kmw90 , but does not exhaust such contributions.

Let us fix notation. At LO, the low-energy representations of the dominant CP-even ($`+`$) octet operator and CP-odd ($``$) gluonic penguin operator are kmw90

$$c^\pm Tr\left[\lambda ^\pm _\mu U^{}^\mu U\right],$$
(2)
where $`\lambda ^+=\lambda _6`$, $`\lambda ^{}=\lambda _7`$, and $`U=exp\left(i\lambda \pi \right)`$, as usual. A complete set of NLO contributions is obtained by evaluating the sum of (i) graphs with a single LO weak vertex (proportional to $`c^\pm `$) and one of the external legs dressed by a single strong NLO vertex (proportional to one of the NLO strong LEC’s, $`L_k`$) (“strong LEC contributions”); (ii) 1-loop graphs involving a single LO weak vertex and strong vertices only of LO (“loop contributions”); and (iii) tree graphs involving a single NLO weak vertex kmw90  (“NLO weak LEC contributions”). Only the sum of all three classes of contribution is renormalization-scale-independent and physically meaningful. From Eq. (2), it is immediately obvious that LO CP-even and CP-odd $`K^0`$ decay vertices are related through the substitution $`c^+\mathrm{i}c^{}`$. The loop-plus-strong-LEC part of the NLO contribution to the ratio $`\delta A_2/A_0`$ is, therefore, the same for the CP-even and CP-odd cases. Because, moreover, the LO LEC’s, $`c^\pm `$, cancel in the ratio, this contribution is, though scale-dependent, model-independent.

The strong LEC contributions to $`\delta A_2/A_0`$ have recently been discussed in Ref. emnp99 . They include an $`\eta ^{}`$-mediated $`\pi ^0`$-$`\eta `$ mixing term proportional to $`L_7`$ which is, however, empirically, almost completely cancelled by an accompanying $`L_8`$ contribution emnp99 . The loop contributions have been evaluated in Ref. cwkmk2pi . Since the full set of $`E_k^+`$ ($`E_k^{}`$) cannot be determined empirically at present, one is forced to use model values. The models used are discussed below.

For the CP-even case, the leakage contributions, $`\delta A_2=\delta A_2^{}`$, are given in Table 1 cwkmk2pi . The corresponding EM contributions cdg  are shown for comparison. The errors reflect uncertainties in the estimates of the NLO LEC’s (see Ref. cwkmk2pi  for details, and references to the models employed for the $`E_k^+`$). Denoting the ratio of fitted LO $`27`$-plet to octet weak LEC’s obtained neglecting, or including, IB by $`r_{IC}`$, or $`r_{IB}`$, respectively, we find $`R_{IB}r_{IB}/r_{IC}=0.963\pm 0.029\pm 0.010\pm 0.034`$. The errors correspond, respectively, to model dependence of the $`E_k^+`$, uncertainties in $`B_0(m_dm_u)`$, and the EM uncertainties of Refs. cdg . The deviation from $`1`$ is significantly smaller than at LO (where $`R_{IB}=0.870`$). The true $`\mathrm{\Delta }I=1/2`$ rule enhancement, $`r_{IB}`$, can thus be approximated by $`r_{IC}`$ to an accuracy of better than $`10\%`$. The $`\mathrm{\Delta }I=5/2`$ contribution (dominantly EM in character cwkmk2pi ), leads to $`A_2/A_2^{}=1.094\pm 0.0391`$, and significantly exacerbates the phase discrepancy problem for the neutral $`K`$ decays cwkmk2pi .

For the CP-odd case, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{st}=\omega \mathrm{Im}\delta A_2/\mathrm{Im}A_0`$ ($`\omega =\mathrm{Re}A_0/\mathrm{Re}A_222`$). $`\mathrm{Im}A_0`$ is associated with $`O_6`$. At LO, $`\left[\mathrm{\Omega }_{st}\right]_{LO}=0.13`$. At NLO

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_{st}}{[\mathrm{\Omega }_{st}]_{LO}}=\left[1+\frac{\mathrm{Im}\delta A_2^{(NLO;ND)}}{\mathrm{Im}\delta A_2^{(LO)}}\frac{\mathrm{Im}A_0^{(NLO;ND)}}{\mathrm{Im}A_0^{(LO)}}\right]\left[1+R_2R_0\right].$$
(3)
The superscript $`(NLO;ND)`$ indicates the sum of non-dispersion NLO contributions (involving NLO weak and strong LEC’s and the non-dispersive parts of loop graphs). Neither the NLO $`I=0`$ isospin-conserving nor NLO $`I=2`$ IB leakage $`E_k^{}`$ combinations are known. The NLO dispersive contributions create phases consistent with Watson’s theorem. Although the positive $`I=0`$ phases correspond to attractive FSI, the $`E_k^{}`$ terms may, nonetheless, make $`\mathrm{Im}A_0`$ smaller at NLO than the LO (see comments on Ref. pichpallente  in Ref. burasetal  for a related discussion). If, however, NLO effects do enhance $`ImA_0`$ (decreasing the level of $`O_6`$-$`O_8`$ cancellation and increasing $`ϵ^{}/ϵ`$) $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{st}`$ will be simultaneously suppressed, further amplifying this increase. The known NLO contributions (loops and strong LEC terms) give contributions $`0.24(0.31)`$ to $`R_2`$ and $`0.02(+0.42)`$ to $`R_0`$, at scale $`\mu =m_\eta (m_\rho )`$ cwkmee . For the (model-dependent) $`E_k^{}`$ contributions, we considered the possibility of using 3 models: the weak deformation model (WDM) wdm , the chiral quark model (ChQM) chiqm , and the scalar saturation model of Ref. gvshazi  (SSM). Ref. gvshazi  was the first to argue explicitly that NLO weak LEC contributions other than those mediated by the $`\eta ^{}`$ might be numerically important. A large negative contribution to $`R_2R_0`$ was obtained which, if correct, would significantly enhance the $`O_6`$ contribution to $`ϵ^{}/ϵ`$. In contrast, the two earlier models produce positive, or near-zero, $`E_k^{}`$ contributions to $`R_2R_0`$. Since there is a problem with the SSM estimate111The model values, $`\widehat{E}_k^{}`$, of the $`E_k^{}`$ are obtained by (1) approximating the renormalized 4-quark operator $`O_6`$ as the product of renormalized scalar densities (the factorization approximation) and (2) dropping (divergent) seagull terms in the low-energy representation of this product. Two types of contribution to $`\widehat{E}_k^{}`$ result, $`\left[\widehat{E}_k^{}\right]_1`$ (proportional to the strong $`6^{th}`$ order LEC’s), and $`\left[\widehat{E}_k^{}\right]_2`$ (proportional to a product of 2 $`4^{th}`$ order strong LEC’s). As an example, $`\left[\widehat{E}_1^{}\right]_2=16\sqrt{2}G_FV_{us}^{}V_{ud}Im(C_6)B_0^2L_8^2`$ gvshazi . In Ref. gvshazi  it is assumed that the finite part of this expression is proportional to the square, $`[L_8^r]^2`$, of the finite part of $`L_8`$. This, however, is incorrect. In dimensional regularization, the Laurent expansion of $`L_8`$ begins at $`O[1/(d4)]`$; the finite part of $`L_8^2`$ is thus actually $`[L_8^r]^2+5L_8^{(1)}/384\pi ^2`$, with $`L_8^{(1)}`$ the coefficient of the $`O[d4]`$ term in the $`L_8`$ Laurent expansion. $`L_8^{(1)}`$ enters physical processes beginning at $`6^{th}`$ order in the chiral expansion, and hence is on the same footing as the other $`6^{th}`$ order strong LEC’s appearing in $`\left[\widehat{E}_k^{}\right]_1`$ and retained in Ref. gvshazi . Since, it is inconsistent to drop the $`L_k^{(1)}`$, and the SSM provides no means of estimating their values, the numerical estimates given in Ref. gvshazi  are incomplete, and cannot be used. we have used only the WDM and ChQM. Taking the WDM model $`E_k^{}`$ to correspond to a scale $`\mu m_\rho `$, we find, combining with the strong LEC and loop contributions given above, $`1+R_2R_0=0.27`$ in the WDM and $`0.64`$ in the ChQM. Taking the more microscopic ChQM to provide a central value, and the difference between the WDM and ChQM to provide a minimal measure of model dependence in the theoretical result, we obtain, at NLO, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{st}=0.08\pm 0.05`$, significantly smaller than both the conventionally employed value $`0.25\pm 0.08`$, and that, $`0.16\pm 0.03`$, obtained in the estimate of Ref. emnp99 , based on the strong LEC contributions only. The central value above, combined with conventional central values for the $`B`$-factors, leads to a $`50\%`$ increase in the predicted value for $`ϵ^{}/ϵ`$. To be conservative, we would propose using this lower central value with an even larger error estimate, in all future calculations of Standard Model values for $`ϵ^{}/ϵ`$.


text:
# Can Merons Describe Confinement?

## 1 Introduction

Merons are one of the earliest proposed semiclassical mechanisms for confinement,  but have received less attention than other approaches  due to analytical limitations. I will present a new direction for meron studies,111Talk presented at the “Fourth workshop on Continuous Advances in QCD,” Minneapolis, MN, May 12-14, 2000. The work presented in this talk was done in collaboration with J. W. Negele.  developed recently,  in which lattice gauge theory will be able to determine the presence and role of merons in QCD.

Chiral symmetry breaking and confinement of color charge, the two essential features of low-energy QCD, cannot be understood perturbatively in the coupling constant. Two complementary nonperturbative approaches are analytical approximation using semiclassical analysis of the QCD path integral (analogous to the WKB approximation in quantum mechanics) and numerical solution using lattice gauge theory. Combining physical understanding from the semiclassical approximation with systematic rigor of the lattice has provided valuable insight into hadron structure  and can be extended to study confinement.

Most semiclassical treatments of QCD have focused on instantons, leading to a qualitative, and in some cases even quantitative, understanding of chiral symmetry breaking and the structure of the QCD vacuum.  However, simple configurations of instantons, such as a dilute gas  or a random superposition,  do not confine color charges. It is possible the complicated dynamics of confinement escapes any explanation save a full solution of QCD at large coupling. However, analogy with lower dimensional models seems to indicate otherwise.

In 2+1 dimensions, the Georgi-Glashow model, which couples a triplet Higgs to an SU(2) vector boson field, contains magnetic monopoles as solutions to the Euclidean classical equations of motion. Taking the Higgs to have an expectation value along the third isospin direction $`\varphi _a=\delta _{a3}v`$, the residual massless photon exhibits a monopole solution of form $`A_\mu ^3ϵ_{3\mu \nu }x_\nu /x^2`$ at large distances. Polyakov showed these monopoles condense, leading to confinement of electric charge.  Similarly, the Schwinger model (QED in 1+1 dimensions) exhibits confinement through the dominance of vortex configurations  of form $`A_\mu =ϵ_{\mu \nu }x_\nu /x^2`$. These vortices have a topological charge of $`\frac{1}{2}`$, which also shows up in the quark correlator at finite temperature.

These semiclassical examples of confinement are intriguing in that the effect is generated by the same gauge-field configuration interpreted in different dimensions. The meron is the (3+1)-dimensional nonabelian extension of the ’t Hooft–Polyakov monopole configuration with $`A_\mu ^a=\eta _{a\mu \nu }x_\nu /x^2`$. The important property shared by each of these configurations is $`A1/r`$ and is not pure gauge. Then the integral $`A_\mu 𝑑x^\mu `$ over a loop of area $`R\times T`$ will have a contribution of order unity as long as the source of the field is within $`R`$ of this loop in any direction.  If the vacuum is made up of a uniform distribution of these semiclassical configurations, the energy between charged particles will behave like $`E(R)R^d`$ in $`d`$+1 dimensions. Interactions between monopoles in 2+1 dimensions reduce this down to a linearly rising potential  and it is conjectured that merons will do the same in 3+1 dimensions.

However, a purely analytic study of merons has proven intractable for several reasons. Unlike instantons, no exact solution exists for more than two merons,  gauge fields for isolated merons fall off too slowly ($`A1/x`$) to superpose them, and the field strength is singular. A patched Ansatz configuration that removes the singularities  does not satisfy the classical Yang-Mills equations, preventing even calculation of gaussian fluctuations around a meron pair.

The properties of merons are reviewed in Sec. 2. The discussion is restricted to SU(2) color, since topological objects live in embedded SU(2) subgroups of larger gauge groups. As work with instantons has shown, fermionic zero modes are a powerful tool for identifying topological objects on the lattice. Therefore, in Sec. 3, the zero mode of the continuum meron pair Ansatz is analytically derived. In Sec. 4, a smooth, finite action configuration corresponding to a meron pair is presented, which with its associated quantum fluctuations, should be present in Monte Carlo lattice QCD calculations. These exact numerical results along with the associated zero mode are compared with analytical results of the meron pair Ansatz.

## 2 Analytic Meron Review

Two known solutions to the classical Yang-Mills equations in four Euclidean dimensions are instantons and merons. Both have topological charge, can be interpreted as tunneling solutions, and can be written in the general form (for the covariant derivative $`D_\mu =_\mu iA_\mu ^a\sigma ^a/2`$)

$$A_\mu ^a(x)=\frac{2\eta _{a\mu \nu }x^\nu }{x^2}f(x^2),$$
(1)
with $`f(x^2)=x^2/(x^2+\rho ^2)`$ for an instanton and $`f(x^2)=\frac{1}{2}`$ for a meron.

Conformal symmetry of the classical Yang-Mills action, in particular under inversion $`x_\mu x_\mu /x^2`$, shows that in addition to a meron at the origin, there is a second meron at infinity. These two merons can be mapped to arbitrary positions, defined to be the origin and $`d_\mu `$, by the conformal transformation222A more general conformal transformation only differs from this choice by either a rotation, a translation, or a dilatation.

$$x_\mu d_\mu +d^2\frac{(xd)_\mu }{(xd)^2}.$$
(2)
After a gauge transformation, the gauge field for the two merons takes the simple form

$$A_\mu ^a(x)=\eta _{a\mu \nu }\left[\frac{x^\nu }{x^2}+\frac{(xd)^\nu }{(xd)^2}\right].$$
(3)
Similar to instantons,  a meron pair can be expressed in singular gauge by performing a large gauge transformation about the mid-point of the pair,  resulting in a gauge field that falls off faster at large distances ($`Ax^3`$). A careful treatment of the singularities shows that the topological charge density is

$$Q(x)\frac{\text{Tr}}{16\pi ^2}\left(F_{\mu \nu }\stackrel{~}{F}^{\mu \nu }\right)=\frac{1}{2}\delta ^4(x)+\frac{1}{2}\delta ^4(xd),$$
(4)
yielding total topological charge $`Q=1`$, just like the instanton.

The gauge field Eq. (3) has infinite action density at the singularities $`x_\mu =\{0,d_\mu \}`$. Hence, a finite action Ansatz has been suggested

$$A_\mu ^a(x)=\eta _{a\mu \nu }x^\nu \{\begin{array}{ccc}\frac{2}{x^2+r^2},& \sqrt{x^2}<r,\hfill & \text{region I,}\hfill \\ \frac{1}{x^2},& r<\sqrt{x^2}<R,\hfill & \text{region II,}\hfill \\ \frac{2}{x^2+R^2},& R<\sqrt{x^2},\hfill & \text{region III,}\hfill \end{array}$$
(5)
with arbitrary radii $`r`$ and $`R`$. Here, the singular meron fields for $`\sqrt{x^2}<r`$ and $`\sqrt{x^2}>R`$ are replaced by instanton caps, each containing topological charge $`\frac{1}{2}`$ to agree with Eq. (4). The action for this configuration is

$$S=\frac{8\pi ^2}{g^2}+\frac{3\pi ^2}{g^2}\mathrm{ln}\frac{R}{r},$$
(6)
which shows the divergence in the $`r0`$ or $`R\mathrm{}`$ limit. There is no angular dependence in this patching, and so the conformal symmetry of the meron pair is retained. For example, under a dilatation $`x_\mu \lambda x_\mu `$, both $`r`$ and $`R`$ get multiplied by $`1/\lambda `$ but the ratio and hence the action Eq. (6) remains invariant. Although this patching of instanton caps is continuous, the derivatives are not, and so the equations of motion are violated at the boundaries of the regions in Eq. (5).

Applying the same transformations used to attain Eq. (3) to the instanton cap solution, regions I and III become four-dimensional spheres each containing half an instanton.  The geometry of the instanton caps is shown in Fig. 1 for the symmetric choice of displacement $`d=\sqrt{Rr}`$ along the $`z`$-direction. Note that the action for the complicated geometry of Fig. 1 is still given by Eq. (6), which for $`d=\sqrt{Rr}`$ can be rewritten as

$$S=S_0\left(1+\frac{3}{4}\mathrm{ln}\frac{d}{r}\right),$$
(7)
with $`S_0=8\pi ^2/g^2`$. This case will be used below, and generalization to a different $`d`$ is straightforward.

The original positions of the two merons $`x_\mu =\{0,d_\mu \}`$ are not the centers of the spheres, nor are they the positions of maximum action density, which occurs within the spheres with $`S_{\mathrm{max}}=(48/g^2)(R+r)^4/d^8`$ at

$$\left(M_\mathrm{I}\right)_\mu =\frac{r^2}{r^2+d^2}d_\mu ,\left(M_{\mathrm{III}}\right)_\mu =\frac{R^2}{R^2+d^2}d_\mu .$$
(8)
However, in the limit $`r0`$ and $`R\mathrm{}`$ holding $`d`$ fixed, the spheres will shrink around the original points reducing to the bare meron pair in Eq. (3). In the opposite limit $`Rr`$, the radii of the spheres increase to infinity, leaving an instanton of size $`\rho =d`$.

An instanton can therefore be interpreted as consisting of a meron pair. This complements the fact that instantons and antiinstantons have dipole interactions between each other. If there exists a regime in QCD where meron entropy contributes more to the free energy than the logarithmic potential between pairs, like the Kosterlitz–Thouless phase transition, instantons will break apart into meron pairs,  with the intrinsic size of the instanton caps determined by the original instanton scale $`\rho `$. This will occur when the entropy to create meron pairs, which is $`R/r`$ in each space-time direction with the general scales $`r`$ and $`R`$ given in Eq. (5), overcomes the logarithmic interaction energy Eq. (6) to dominate the QCD path integral, or schematically,

$$\left(\frac{R}{r}\right)^4e^{3\pi ^2\mathrm{ln}(R/r)/g^2(s)}=\left(\frac{R}{r}\right)^{43\pi ^2/g^2(s)}\stackrel{>}{_{}}1.$$
(9)
How the scale $`s`$ in the renormalized coupling constant depends on $`r`$ and $`R`$ is not known. It is assumed that as longer and longer distances are probed, $`s`$ also increases, causing entropy to win out over energy in Eq. (9). This occurs for relatively weak coupling, $`g^2(s)/8\pi ^2>\frac{3}{32}`$, so the semiclassical approximation should still be valid.  Lattice calculations can test this physical picture by increasing the coupling constant and seeing if the predominant semiclassical degrees of freedom change from a dilute gas of instantons into a plasma of merons.

## 3 Analytic Zero Modes

The Atiyah-Singer index theorem states that a fermion in the presence of a gauge field with topological charge $`Q`$, described by the equation

$$/D\psi =\lambda \psi ,\text{with}\psi =\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{\psi _R}{\psi _L}\right),$$
(10)
has $`n_R`$ right-handed and $`n_L`$ left-handed zero modes (defined by $`\lambda =0`$) such that $`Q=n_Ln_R`$. This can sometimes be strengthened by a vanishing theorem.  Applying $`/`$$`D`$ twice to $`\psi `$ decouples the right- and left-hand components, and focusing on the equation for $`\psi _R`$, gives

$$\left(D^2+\frac{1}{2}\overline{\eta }_{a\mu \nu }\sigma ^aF^{\mu \nu }\right)\psi _R=0,$$
(11)
where $`\overline{\eta }_{a\mu \nu }`$ denotes the ’t Hooft symbol, $`\sigma ^a`$ acts on the spin indices of $`\psi _R`$, and $`F^{\mu \nu }`$ acts on the color indices. For a self-dual gauge field (like an instanton), the second term in Eq. (11) is zero; and since $`D^2`$ is a negative definite operator, there are no normalizable right-handed zero modes, implying $`Q=n_L`$. Although the meron pair is not self-dual, the second term can be shown to be negative definite as well, leading to the same conclusion.

In general, a gauge field in Lorentz gauge with $`Q=1`$ can be written in the form

$$A_\mu ^a(x)=\eta _{a\mu \nu }_\nu \mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Pi }(x).$$
(12)
This has a fermion zero mode given by

$$\psi =\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{0}{\varphi }\right),\varphi _\alpha ^a=𝒩\mathrm{\Pi }^{3/2}\epsilon _\alpha ^a,$$
(13)
with normalization $`𝒩`$ and $`\epsilon =i\sigma _2`$ coupling the spin index $`\alpha `$ to the color index $`a`$ (both of which can be either 1 or 2) in a singlet configuration. The gauge field for the meron pair with instanton caps can be expressed in the form Eq. (12) with

$$\mathrm{\Pi }(x)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{2\xi _id^2}{x^2+\xi _i^2(xd)^2},\hfill & \text{for regions }i=\text{ I, III,}\hfill \\ \frac{d^2}{\sqrt{x^2(xd)^2}},\hfill & \text{region II,}\hfill \end{array}$$
(14)
with $`\xi _\mathrm{I}=r/d`$ and $`\xi _{\mathrm{III}}=R/d`$. The normalized solution to the zero mode is then Eq. (13) with

$$𝒩^1=2\pi d^2\left[2\sqrt{\frac{r}{R}}\right]^{1/2}.$$
(15)
Note that the unregulated meron pair ($`r0`$, $`R\mathrm{}`$) has a normalizable zero mode itself

$$\varphi _\alpha ^a(x)=\frac{d\epsilon _\alpha ^a}{2\sqrt{2}\pi \left(x^2(xd)^2\right)^{3/4}}.$$
(16)
The gauge-invariant zero mode density $`\psi ^{}\psi (x)`$ has a bridge between two merons that falls off like $`x^3`$ in contrast to the $`x^6`$ fall-off in all other directions. This behavior can be used to identify merons when analyzing their zero modes on the lattice, similar to what was done for instantons in Ref. .

## 4 Merons on the Lattice

As mentioned above, the patching of instanton caps to obtain an explicit analytic solution has unavoidable and unphysical discontinuities in the action density. Therefore, in order to study this solution further, the gauge field is put on a space-time lattice of spacing $`a`$ in a box of size $`L_0\times L_1\times L_2\times L_3`$. The gauge-field degrees of freedom are replaced by the usual parallel transport link variable,

$$U_\mu (x)=\mathrm{P}\mathrm{exp}\left[i_x^{x+a\widehat{e}_\mu }A_\nu (z)𝑑z^\nu \right].$$
(17)
The exponentiated integral can be performed analytically within the instanton caps, producing arctangents. Outside of the caps, the integral is evaluated numerically by dividing each link into as many sub-links as necessary to reduce the $`𝒪(a^3)`$ path-ordering errors below machine precision.

Calculating the action density $`S(x)`$ for a meron pair with instanton caps using the improved action of Ref.  and the topological charge density $`Q(x)`$ using products of clovers, the lattice results (open circles) are compared with the patched Ansatz results (solid line) in Fig. 2 for $`r=9`$ and $`d=20.8`$ (in units of the lattice spacing) on a $`32^3\times 40`$ lattice. The Arnoldi method is used to solve for the zero mode of this gauge configuration and hence the density $`\psi ^{}\psi (x)`$, which is also compared with the analytic result in the same figure, showing excellent agreement.

Two important features of the patched Ansatz also evident with the lattice representation are the discontinuities in the action density at the boundary of the instanton caps and vanishing of the topological charge density outside of the caps as given by Eq. (4). The discontinuity in the action density is unphysical and can be smoothed out by using a relaxation algorithm to iteratively minimize the lattice action.  On a sweep through the lattice, referred to as a cooling step, each link is chosen to locally minimize the action density. Since a single instanton is already a minimum of the action, this algorithm would leave the instanton unchanged (for a suitably improved lattice action). The result for the regulated meron pair after ten cooling steps is represented in Fig. 2 by the filled circles, showing the discontinuities in the action density have already been smoothed out. Figure 3 shows side-by-side the cooled $`Q(x)`$ and $`\psi ^{}\psi (x)`$ in the $`(z,t)`$-plane for three different meron pair separations. As the separation vanishes, the zero mode goes over into the well-known instanton zero mode result.

Like instanton-antiinstanton pairs, however, a meron pair is not a strict minimum of the action, since it has a weak attractive interaction Eq. (6) and under repeated relaxation will coalesce to form an instanton. This is analogous to the annihilation of an instanton-antiinstanton pair through cooling.  Nevertheless, just as it is important to sum all the quasi-stationary instanton-antiinstanton configurations to obtain essential nonperturbative physics,  meron pairs may be expected to play an analogous role. A precise framework for including quasi-stationary meron pairs is to introduce a constraint $`𝒬[A]`$ on a suitable collective variable $`q`$ (here chosen to be the quadrupole moment $`3z^2x^2y^2t^2`$ of the topological charge) as follows

$`Z`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle DA\mathrm{exp}\left\{S[A]\right\}}={\displaystyle 𝑑qZ_q},`$ (18)
$`Z_q`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle DA\mathrm{exp}\left\{S[A]\lambda \left(𝒬[A]q\right)^2\right\}}.`$ (19)
The meron pair is then a true minimum of the effective action with constraint, allowing for a semiclassical treatment of $`Z_q`$. Afterwards, $`q`$ is integrated to obtain the full partition function $`Z`$.

The criterion for a good collective variable $`q`$ of the system is that the gradient in the direction of $`q`$ is small compared to the curvature associated with all the quantum fluctuations. In this case, an adiabatic limit results in which relaxation of the unconstrained meron pair slowly evolves through a sequence of quasi-stationary solutions, each of which is close to a corresponding stationary constrained solution. Detailed comparison of the quasi-stationary and constrained solutions shows this adiabatic limit is well satisfied. Therefore, the action of a meron pair as it freely coalesces into an instanton is presented here. To compare with the patched Ansatz, the meron separation $`d`$ and radii $`r`$ and $`R`$ of the lattice configuration are required. These are found by first measuring the separation of the two maxima in the action density $`\mathrm{\Delta }|M_\mathrm{I}M_{\mathrm{III}}|`$ (using cubic splines) and their values (which are the same in the symmetric case, denoted by $`S_{\mathrm{max}}=48/g^2w^4`$), and then using Eq. (8) to give

$$d^2=\mathrm{\Delta }^2+4w^2,r=\frac{2wd}{d+\mathrm{\Delta }},R=\frac{2wd}{d\mathrm{\Delta }}.$$
(20)
In Fig. 4, the total action of a meron pair is plotted as a function of $`d/r`$ (solid line), which for the analytic case is given by Eq. (7). Also shown are cooling trajectories for four lattice configurations with different initial meron pair separations. Each case starts with a patched Ansatz of a given separation and the lattice action agrees with that of the analytic Ansatz.

The first few cooling steps primarily decrease the action without changing the collective variable (which is now effectively $`d/r`$), as observed above in Fig. 2. Further cooling gradually decreases the collective variable, tracing out a new logarithmic curve for the total action (dashed line in Fig. 4), which is about $`0.25`$ smaller than the analytic case. This curve represents the total action of the smooth adiabatic or constrained lattice meron pair solutions.

The essential property of merons that could allow them to dominate the path integral and confine color charge is the logarithmic interaction Eqs. (6,7) which is weak enough to be dominated by the meron entropy.  Hence, the key physical result from Fig. 4 is the fact that smooth adiabatic or constrained lattice meron pair solutions clearly exhibit this logarithmic behavior.

In summary, stationary meron pair solutions have been found on the lattice exhibiting a logarithmic interaction and fermion zero mode localized about the individual merons in agreement with analytic results. The presence and role of merons in numerical evaluations of the QCD path integral should be investigated, and the study of fermionic zero modes and cooling of gauge configurations are possible tools to do so.

## Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the organizers, K. Olive, A. Vainshtein, M. Shifman, and M. Voloshin, for an enjoyable and informative workshop. This work was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy under cooperative research agreement #DF-FC02-94ER40818.


text:
# References

Noncommutative gauge theories are the topic of much recent interest -. Early examples of such theories arose in nonperturbative regularizations of membranes , D-branes and strings -, and they have also recently emerged at various limits of M theory. They are, therefore, relevant to aspects of string and D-brane dynamics. They exhibit an interesting space uncertainty relation  and have many similarities with large-$`N`$ gauge theories and lattice gauge theories .

The above theories are field theories on a noncommutative space  (for a concise review see also ). For a flat such space the coordinates $`X_i`$ obey the commutation relations

$$[X_i,X_j]=i\theta _{ij}$$
(1)
with $`\theta _{ij}`$ a set of commuting parameters. Specializing to 3+1 dimensions, and assuming a commutative time dimension, we can always bring the above to the form

$$[X,Y]=i\theta ,[X,Z]=[Y,Z]=0$$
(2)
with $`\theta >0`$. So only the $`(X,Y)`$ plane is noncommutative and resembles a quantum phase space (with $`\theta `$ playing the role of $`\mathrm{}`$) on which $`X`$ and $`Y`$ act as coordinate and momentum operators.

One expects that at the limit $`\theta 0`$ such theories go over to ordinary commutative ones. There can be, however, interesting nonperturbative effects that arise for nonzero $`\theta `$ and do not have a smooth limit. These effects could be present already at the classical level, in the form of nonperturbative solutions. Several such solutions have recently appeared -. In , in particular, a solution representing a magnetic monopole has been derived. In this letter we will demonstrate the existence of nonperturbative solutions corresponding to magnetic flux tubes of arbitrary cross-section.

One way to describe field theories on noncommutative spaces is through star products of ordinary functions. In this approach, a one-to-one correspondence between functions of operators $`\widehat{f}`$ and ordinary functions $`f`$ is established by Weyl ordering:

$$\widehat{f}(X,Y)=\frac{1}{2\pi }d^2k\stackrel{~}{f}(k_1,k_2)e^{i(k_1X+k_2Y)}$$
(3)
where $`\stackrel{~}{f}`$ is the Fourier transform of $`f`$. The product of two Weyl ordered operators $`\widehat{f}\widehat{g}`$, Weyl reordered, corresponds to a function denoted $`fg`$

$$fg(x,y)=e^{\frac{i}{2}\theta (_{x_1}_{y_2}_{x_2}_{y_1})}f(x_1,y_1)g(x_2,y_2)|_{x_1=x_2,y_1=y_2}$$
(4)
which defines the noncommutative star product. One then writes noncommutative field theory lagrangians in terms of commutative fields but with products replaced by star products.

We will specialize to the case of noncommutative $`U(1)`$ gauge theories, with or without Higgs fields. The action involves the gauge fields $`A_\mu `$ and, possibly, a Higgs field $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$:

$$S=\frac{1}{4g^2}d^4x\left\{F_{\mu \nu }^2+(D_\mu \mathrm{\Phi })^2\right\}$$
(5)
where

$$F_{\mu \nu }=_\mu A_\nu _\nu A_\mu +i(A_\mu A_\nu A_\nu A_\mu )$$
(6)
and

$$D_\mu \mathrm{\Phi }=_\mu \mathrm{\Phi }+i(A_\mu \mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{\Phi }A_\mu )$$
(7)
Indices $`(0,1,2,3)=(t,x,y,z)`$ are summed with the flat Minkowski metric. (We used the fact $`𝑑x𝑑yfg=𝑑x𝑑yfg`$ to eliminate star products in $`S`$.) In the standard commutative limit the above is a free theory, $`g`$ is irrelevant and the Higgs field $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ decouples from the Maxwell field. Here, however, we have a coupled interacting system.

An alternative approach to noncommutative theories is to acknowledge that they refer to operator-valued fields and work directly with operators on the quantum phase space $`(X,Y)`$ which are functions of $`z`$ and $`t`$ . In this approach, star products become operator products and integration over the $`(X,Y)`$ plane becomes trace:

$$𝑑x𝑑yf(x,y)=2\pi \theta \mathrm{Tr}\widehat{f}(X,Y)$$
(8)
Derivatives in the $`X`$ and $`Y`$ direction become the standard quantum generators of translations in these variables and they act on operators in the adjoint way, via commutation. That is, for any operator $`F`$

$$_xF=\frac{i}{\theta }[Y,F],_yF=\frac{i}{\theta }[X,F],$$
(9)
Understanding, now, $`A_\mu `$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ as anti-hermitian operator-valued functions of $`z`$ and $`t`$, the action becomes

$$S=\frac{\pi \theta }{4g^2}𝑑z𝑑t\mathrm{Tr}\left\{F_{\mu \nu }^2+(D_\mu \mathrm{\Phi })^2\right\}$$
(10)
with

$`F_{\mu \nu }`$ $`=`$ $`_\mu A_\nu _\nu A_\mu +[A_\mu ,A_\nu ]`$ (11)
$`D_\mu \mathrm{\Phi }`$ $`=`$ $`_\mu \mathrm{\Phi }+[A_\mu ,\mathrm{\Phi }]`$ (12)
We can also write the field strength, in analogy to the commutative case, as the commutator of affine derivative operators:

$$\widehat{F}_{\mu \nu }=[\widehat{A}_\mu ,\widehat{A}_\nu ]$$
(13)
where we defined

$$\widehat{A}_\mu =_\mu +A_\mu $$
(14)
We should stress that partial derivatives $`_X`$ and $`_Y`$, when they act in the adjoint on operator fields commute. Viewed, however, as operators on the same footing as $`A_x`$ and $`A_y`$, as we assume in (14), do not commute; $`\widehat{F}`$, then, differs from $`F`$ by the commutator of the two derivatives on the noncommutative plane:

$$\widehat{F}_{\mu \nu }=F_{\mu \nu }+\omega _{\mu \nu }$$
(15)
$`\omega `$ is a constant magnetic field in the $`z`$-direction (proportional to the symplectic 2-form on the $`(X,Y)`$ plane) with one ‘quantum’ of flux per unit cell of area $`2\pi \theta `$:

$$\omega _{\mu \nu }=\frac{i}{\theta }(\delta _{\mu 1}\delta _{\nu 2}\delta _{\nu 1}\delta _{\mu 2})$$
(16)
Covariant derivatives also become

$$D_\mu \mathrm{\Phi }=[\widehat{A}_\mu ,\mathrm{\Phi }]$$
(17)
This rewriting may be of little interest for the $`z`$\- (and $`t`$-) components, since $`_z`$ and $`A_z`$ are operators on different spaces, but it is quite relevant for the $`X`$ and $`Y`$ components since both $`_i`$ and $`A_i`$ are operators on the same space; $`\widehat{A}_i`$ are the only operators appearing in the theory.

The action in terms of the new field strength becomes

$`\widehat{S}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi \theta }{2g^2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑z𝑑t\mathrm{Tr}\left\{[\widehat{A}_\mu ,\widehat{A}_\nu ]^2+[\widehat{A}_\mu ,\mathrm{\Phi }]^2\right\}}`$ (18)
$`=`$ $`S+{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{g^2\theta }}{\displaystyle 𝑑z𝑑t[\mathrm{Tr1}i\theta F_{12}]}`$
The first additional term is an irrelevant (infinite) constant while the second is the trace of a commutator which contributes only “boundary” terms. The two actions lead to the same equations of motion:

$`[\widehat{A}_\nu ,[\widehat{A}_\nu ,\widehat{A}_\mu ]]+[\mathrm{\Phi },[\mathrm{\Phi },\widehat{A}_\mu ]]`$ $`=`$ $`0`$
$`[\widehat{A}_\nu ,[\widehat{A}_\nu ,\mathrm{\Phi }]]`$ $`=`$ $`0`$ (19)
For static, purely magnetic configurations ($`A_0=0`$, $`_0=0`$) we can also write the Bogomolny equations

$$[\widehat{A}_i,\widehat{A}_j]=\pm ϵ_{ijk}[\widehat{A}_k,\mathrm{\Phi }]$$
(20)
which minimize the energy of such configurations and automatically satisfy the equations of motion (19) by virtue of the Jacobi identity.

We will look for solutions of (19,20) that represent static magnetic flux tubes in the $`z`$-direction. We therefore take $`_zA_i=0`$ and also make the gauge choice $`A_z=0`$. Defining the new fields

$$A=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(\widehat{A}_1+i\widehat{A}_2),\overline{A}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(\widehat{A}_1i\widehat{A}_2)$$
(21)
the equations of motion for pure gauge theory simply become

$$[A,[\overline{A},A]]=0$$
(22)
while the Bogomolny equations for the Higgs theory become

$$0=_zA=\pm [A,\mathrm{\Phi }],_z\mathrm{\Phi }=\pm [A,\overline{A}]$$
(23)
The second equation in (23) is solved as

$$\mathrm{\Phi }=\pm z[A,\overline{A}]+\mathrm{\Phi }_0$$
(24)
with $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$ a constant operator. The first equation, then, becomes

$$[A,[\overline{A},A]]=0,[A,\mathrm{\Phi }_0]=[\overline{A},\mathrm{\Phi }_0]=0$$
(25)
Thus the equation for $`A`$ is the same as in the theory without Higgs, and we have an extra $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$ field (which can be proportional to the unit operator and does not contribute to the action or energy).

Instead of working with $`X`$ and $`Y`$ it is more convenient to work with oscillator operators

$$a=\frac{X+iY}{\sqrt{2\theta }},a^{}=\frac{XiY}{\sqrt{2\theta }};[a,a^{}]=1$$
(26)
acting on oscillator states $`|n>`$, $`n=0,1,\mathrm{}`$ diagonalizing the number operator $`N=a^{}a`$. In terms of these, $`A`$ and $`\overline{A}`$ become

$$A=\frac{a}{\sqrt{\theta }}+A_1+iA_2,\overline{A}=\frac{a^{}}{\sqrt{\theta }}+A_1iA_2$$
(27)
Note that $`N`$ plays the role of the square of the distance from the origin $`R`$, $`N\frac{R^2}{2\theta }`$.

The ‘vacuum’ configuration $`A_i=0`$ corresponds to $`A=a/\sqrt{\theta }`$. We shall look for rotationally invariant solutions in the form of a deformed oscillator

$$A=f(N)a$$
(28)
with $`f()`$ a scalar function. The above is a shorthand for the explicit expression

$$A=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}g(n)|n><n+1|,g(n)=\sqrt{n+1}f(n)$$
(29)
Substituting the above ansatz in (22) we obtain for $`g(n)`$:

$$g(n)\left\{|g(n+1)|^22|g(n)|^2+|g(n1)|^2\right\}=0$$
(30)
valid for all $`n`$ and subject to the boundary condition $`g(1)=0`$. Thus, either $`g(n)`$ or the expression in brackets (which is the discrete laplacian on $`g`$) should vanish.

Assume that two successive zeros of $`g(n)`$ are $`n_1<n_2`$. Then the above equation for $`n_1<n<n_2`$ gives a system of $`n_2n_11`$ linear homogeneous independent equations for the quantities $`|g(n_1+1)|^2,\mathrm{}|g(n_21)|^2`$, which implies that all these $`g(n)`$ have to vanish as well. We conclude that the general situation is $`g(1)=\mathrm{}=g(n_01)=0`$ with $`n_0`$ some nonnegative integer. The rest of the $`g(n)`$ are essentially the same as those for the operator $`a`$, only shifted up by $`n_0`$. Choosing vanishing phases for $`g(n)`$ and an overall normalization $`1/\sqrt{\theta }`$ we obtain

$$g(n)=\sqrt{\frac{nn_0+1}{\theta }},nn_0;g(n)=0,0n<n_0$$
(31)
$`A`$ can be expressed as

$$A=\frac{a}{\sqrt{\theta }}\sqrt{\frac{N}{Nn_0}}\widehat{\mathrm{P}}_{n_0}$$
(32)
where

$$\widehat{\mathrm{P}}_{n_0}=1\mathrm{P}_{n_0}=\underset{n=n_0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}|n><n|$$
(33)
is the operator that projects out the first $`n_0`$ levels. Clearly $`n_0=0`$ reproduces the vacuum solution $`A=a/\sqrt{\theta }`$. For large distances from the origin, that is, for $`N1`$, $`A`$ becomes

$$A\frac{a}{\sqrt{\theta }}\left(1+\frac{n_0}{2N}\right)\frac{a}{\sqrt{\theta }}+\frac{n_0}{\sqrt{2}}\frac{X+iY}{R^2}$$
(34)
so it reproduces the gauge field of a Dirac string of strength $`n_0`$. (Remember that $`A_i`$ are anti-hermitian, so (34) implies that $`iA_jϵ_{jk}X_k/R^2`$, a vortex configuration.)

The field strength $`\widehat{F}`$ is

$$\widehat{F}_{\mu \nu }=\omega _{\mu \nu }\widehat{\mathrm{P}}_{n_0}$$
(35)
and so

$$F_{\mu \nu }=\omega _{\mu \nu }\mathrm{P}_{n_0}$$
(36)
The above represents a circular static magnetic flux tube centered at the origin of the $`(X,Y)`$ plane with radius $`\sqrt{\theta n_0}`$. It resembles a circular quantum Hall ‘droplet’ with $`n_0`$ particles. The total magnetic flux is

$$\varphi =2\pi \theta \mathrm{Tr}(iF_{12})=2\pi n_0$$
(37)
and is obviously quantized. We stress that the obtained solution is nonperturbative since, in the area around the origin, it cannot be written as $`A=a/\sqrt{\theta }+𝒪(\theta ^0)`$.

This solution is by no means unique. Firstly, we can perform any unitary transformation and still have a solution. Such deformations are considered to be generalized gauge transformations, but they lead to configurations with varying profiles on the $`(X,Y)`$ plane; for instance, the coherent-squeezed state operator

$$U=e^{\mu ^{}a\mu a^{}}e^{\lambda ^{}a^2\lambda a_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}$$
(38)
deforms the cross-section of the tube into an ellipsoidal one and also moves it to a different position on the plane. In general, conjugation with all possible $`U`$ will change the position and shape of the cross-section into any closed curve with the same area (the set of all $`U`$ generates all area-preserving diffeomorphisms on the noncommutative space). Thus all quantum Hall droplets correspond to flux tube solutions.

(Note that $`U`$ in (38) above alters the asymptotic behavior of $`A`$ for $`N1`$ and thus would lead to a field nonperturbatively different from the vacuum everywhere. We can, however, choose appropriate operators $`U^{}`$ which perform the required reshaping of the tube while leaving the asymptotics of $`A`$ unchanged. Such a $`U^{}`$ would be, e.g.,

$$U^{}=U^{f(N)}$$
(39)
with $`U`$ as above and $`f(N)`$ a real function such that $`f(N)0`$ for $`N\mathrm{}`$ while $`f(N)=1`$ for $`Nn_0`$.)

Secondly, we can start with similar higher-moment ansatze, such as

$$A=f(N)a^k=\underset{n}{}g(n)|n><n+k|$$
(40)
The analysis is similar, but now the equations group into $`k`$ uncoupled subsystems, each involving the coefficients $`g(kn+q)`$ for a single $`q=0,1,\mathrm{}k1`$. We can choose a solution as above for each $`q`$, that is,

$$g(kn+q)=C_q\sqrt{nn_q+1},nn_q$$
(41)
with different normalizations $`C_q`$ and shifts $`n_q`$ for each $`q`$. The field strength $`\widehat{F}`$ of such configurations becomes

$$\widehat{F}_{\mu \nu }=\theta \omega _{\mu \nu }\underset{q=0}{\overset{k1}{}}|C_q|^2\underset{n=n_q}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}|kn+q><kn+q|$$
(42)
So by choosing all $`|C_q|^2=1/\theta `$ we obtain a localized $`F`$

$$F_{\mu \nu }=\omega _{\mu \nu }\underset{q=0}{\overset{k1}{}}\underset{n=0}{\overset{n_q1}{}}|kn+q><kn+q|$$
(43)
This is a flux tube with spatial extent $`\sqrt{\theta kn_{\mathrm{max}}}`$, where $`n_{\mathrm{max}}`$ is the maximum of $`n_q`$, and a varying radial profile. (We can, e.g., obtain an annular profile between the values $`n_1`$ and $`n_2`$ by choosing $`k=n_2`$ and $`n_q=0`$ for $`q<n_1`$, $`n_q=1`$ for $`n_1q<n_2`$.) We note, however, that the asymptotics of $`A`$ are always different than the vacuum, so this seems to be an entirely nonperturbative solution (although we have not excluded the possibility that an appropriate unitary transformation will make it asymptotically perturbative).

Finally, we can take advantage of the scaling symmetry of the equations of motion (19) when expressed in terms of $`\widehat{A}_i`$ and simply multiply the previous solutions by any number. Taking the original circular-profile solution (32) and multiplying by $`\lambda `$ gives a solution with a field strength

$$F_\lambda =(\lambda ^21)\omega \lambda ^2\omega \mathrm{P}_{n_0}=\omega \mathrm{P}_{n_0}+(\lambda ^21)\omega \widehat{\mathrm{P}}_{n_0}$$
(44)
It represents a flux tube identical to the original one plus a constant magnetic field outside it. By choosing $`\lambda ^2=1+𝒪(\theta )`$ we can make the constant field perturbative, if we wish. We point out that this scaling transformation exists for any general solution of the equations of motion, as

$$\widehat{A}_{x,y}(z,t)\lambda \widehat{A}_{x,y}(\lambda z,\lambda t),A_{z,t}(z,t)\lambda A_{z,t}(\lambda z,\lambda t),\mathrm{\Phi }(z,t)\lambda \mathrm{\Phi }(\lambda z,\lambda t)$$
(45)
which leads to a transformation of the field strength

$$F_{\mu \nu }(z,t)\lambda ^2F_{\mu \nu }(\lambda z,\lambda t)+(\lambda ^21)\omega _{\mu \nu }$$
(46)
We stress that this is a nonperturbative transformation which does not go over to the usual scaling transformation of the commutative theory at the limit $`\theta 0`$. Applied, for example, to the monopole solution found in , it produces a monopole with a fractional strength $`\lambda ^2`$ dilated in the $`z`$-direction by $`\lambda ^1`$, in the presence of a constant magnetic field.

In conclusion, we have explored several nonperturbative solutions of the static equations of motion of noncommutative $`U(1)`$ gauge theory with or without a Higgs field, in the shape of flux tube configurations. The flux of these tubes seems to obey a quantization condition similar to the one in compact electrodynamics, for which we have no topological explanation. This is presumably related to the integrality of the index of some operator. The situation is certainly rather different from the commutative case, since, for instance, we can evade the quantization of the magnetic monopole charge by embedding it in a constant magnetic field, as demonstrated in the previous paragraph.

The analysis of this paper may also shed some light to the question of the stability of the monopole solution of . The monopole was tied to a string in the $`z`$-direction, asymptotically similar to our flux tube solution for $`n_0=1`$. This string carries energy per unit length, and would naturally want to contract and pull the monopole in the $`z`$-direction. As we stressed, however, noncommutative gauge theory is most naturally formulated in terms of $`\widehat{A}_i`$ rather than $`A_i`$ (there is no natural separation of $`\widehat{A}_i`$ into a $`_i`$ and a $`A_i`$ piece in the action). The field strength $`\widehat{F}`$ in terms of $`\widehat{A}`$ has an additional constant magnetic field $`\omega `$. In the presence of this field the string carries no field inside it and represents a depletion (rather than addition) of energy. It therefore has a negative tension and wants to expand, pushing the monopole in the negative $`z`$-direction. On the other hand, due to the magnetic field $`\omega `$, the monopole feels a magnetostatic force pulling it upwards. This exactly balances the push of the string and stabilizes it.

Clearly the above heuristic discussion touches upon the question of field self-interaction and charges in noncommutative gauge theories. These and similar issues are left for future investigation.

I would like to thank Ulf Lindström for interesting discussions.