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# ATLAS: A Flexible and Extensible Architecture for Linguistic Annotation

## 1. Introduction

Annotated corpora are a central component of research in human language technology. As corpora have proliferated across a rapidly expanding set of languages, disciplines and technologies, the lack of agreed standards has become a critical problem. The standardization of tagsets is necessarily an open-ended task, and will always be subject to revision as the underlying domains change and the theories evolve. Yet with no agreed data models and application programming interfaces (APIs), the bazaar of tools and formats continues to expand, and incompatibilities proliferate. Adapting existing annotation tools to new formats often requires non-trivial re-engineering. Seen from this perspective, general-purpose annotation tools and formats are a distant prospect.

In recent work, Bird and Liberman \[Bird and Liberman, 1999\] have demonstrated commonality across a diverse range of annotation practice. Existing tools generally implement a two-level architecture consisting of an application level (the interface to a user or to external software) and a physical level (the storage format). It is possible to interpose an intermediate, logical level, which is independent of the application and the physical storage (cf. the three-level architecture for relational databases). Once this step is taken, wide-ranging integration of tools and formats becomes possible. The logical level we will propose in this paper is based around the notion of an “annotation graph,” which is a labeled, directed acyclic graph with time-stamps on some of its nodes, anchoring the graph to a physical signal. Annotation becomes the fundamental act of associating a symbolic property (the arc’s label) to an extent of signal data (the arc’s time span).

ATLAS: “Architecture and Tools for Linguistic Analysis Systems” is a recent initiative involving NIST, LDC and MITRE, arising from an array of applications needs spanning corpus construction, evaluation infrastructure, and multi-modal visualization. The principal goal of ATLAS is to provide powerful abstractions over annotation tools and formats in order to maximize flexibility and extensibility. Our approach has been to isolate and abstract over the physical and logical levels of annotation tools and formats, leaving application- and domain-specific issues to the side. The abstract physical level is a persistent XML representation for long-term storage, exchange, and pipelining, and this level is called ATLAS Interchange Format (AIF). The abstract logical representation is the internal representation for broad classes of data. It includes linear signals (text, speech) indexed by intervals (i.e. annotation graphs), images indexed by bounding boxes, and additional generic representations for other data classes (lexicons, tables, aligned corpora).

This paper is structured into three main parts. We begin by describing the problem and our approach, then describe the open architecture. Next, we present the annotation graph model and our generalization of it to higher dimensions, before reporting progress on the implementation. We conclude with a discussion of future plans and an invitation for wider participation.

## 2. The Bazaar of Tools and Formats

Over the last several years, there has been a veritable bloom in new language technology research projects. Measurable progress is being made in many core language technologies including automated speech recognition, information extraction, information retrieval, machine translation, natural language processing and others. To support the development and evaluation of these technologies, there has also been a boom in the development of language research resources.

Not only are more of these projects being formed, they typically adopt a shorter development cycle than has been customary in the past. While much of this acceleration is due to the availability of greatly increased processor speeds and storage capacities, these projects are also benefiting from the creation of spin-off projects focusing on integrated multi-component applications. The result is that many researchers are beginning to develop toolkit approaches to language technology development.

Unfortunately, to date, these efforts have almost always been intra-domain. Likewise, the research corpora that have been developed for these projects have been created and deployed with minimal consideration toward re-use and extensibility. We therefore live in a world with an increasing variety of technology capabilities and a corresponding wealth of research corpora, yet these capabilities and corpora are domain-specific, task-specific, and often even site-specific (see Figure 1).

For example, for several years, NIST has been organizing and implementing language technology evaluations for several research domains using recordings and transcriptions of radio and television news broadcasts (Table 1). Although all of these evaluations have used basically the same source data, each required the development of customized formats and tools. Two years ago, NIST made an attempt to unify its transcription formats with the SGML-based Universal Transcription (UTF) format \[NIST, 1998\] for the DARPA Hub-4 ASR evaluations \[Pallett et al., 1999\]. But, in 1999, when the Hub-4 evaluation was expanded to include an entity recognition evaluation \[Przybocki et al., 1999\], NIST found that the UTF format could not accommodate the different tokenization schemes required by the ASR and extraction communities. It was at this point that NIST realized the need for a more abstract, open-ended transcription format that could accommodate such unforeseen changes. Such a format would have to been domain-independent and permit any conceivable extension.

NIST believed that the best solution to the formats dilemma could be achieved via a multi-site effort initially including NIST, the LDC, and MITRE. NIST would contribute its expertise in language technology evaluation and infrastructure; the LDC would contribute its expertise in corpus development including its recent research in abstract annotation representations using annotation graphs, and its involvement with the new ISLE and TalkBank projects \[ISLE, 2000, TalkBank, 2000\], and MITRE would contribute its expertise in language technology development and annotation and visualization using the Alembic Workbench \[Day et al., 1997\]. Thus, the ATLAS working group was formed.

The group’s mission was to develop a general architecture for annotation including a logical data format, an API and tool-set, and a persistent data representation. The architecture would, by definition, need to be modular, flexible and extensible. First, this architecture would facilitate the exchange and reuse of existing language resources. Such resources would be moved in and out of the ATLAS framework via conversion routines. As such, ATLAS could also act as an interlingua for language corpora. Further, the architecture would provide a platform for the extension of such corpora and the development of new ATLAS-native resources. The ATLAS philosophy would eschew the tradition of imposing monolithic applications or formats on the language research community. Rather, ATLAS would serve as a conduit to enable the greater flow of language resources throughout the language research community.

## 3. The ATLAS Architecture

ATLAS consists of three levels: application, logical, and physical. The overall structure is depicted in Figure 2. We discuss each of these layers in turn, beginning with the middle, logical level.

### 3.1. The logical level

The logical layer consists of a linguistic formalism and an API. The formalism is the annotation graph model and its generalization to higher-dimensional cases. The formalism is a generalization of the annotation graph model, called annotation sets. The API defines a set of procedures for creating, modifying, searching and storing well-formed annotation sets.

### 3.2. The physical level

The API specification will allow for a multiplicity of physical storage implementations that applications are free to access in various ways – via networked client-server models, or via libraries linked directly into application binaries, or via scripting languages. The two dominant storage strategies that we are implementing are: ATLAS Interchange Format (AIF), an XML interchange format; and an RDBMS accessible from ODBC-compliant calls.

The AIF XML format will provide a simple, wide-coverage interchange format for which conversion programs to and from other annotation formats are being developed. The AIF XML annotations are “stand-off” in the sense that they reference the signal being annotated (whether text or speech, or some other modality). This considerably simplifies the encoding of multiple layers of annotation, especially those that would involve crossing brackets if they were embedded in the signal data. Given the generality of the annotation graph formalism, we believe that AIF could serve as an interlingua for sharing annotated linguistic corpora among language processing applications, reducing the number of conversion tools that need to be written.

The RDBMS implementation will provide efficient access to large, heterogeneous linguistic databases, and open the door to analysis of a nature and scale that was hitherto impractical or impossible.

### 3.3. The application level

This level contains a rich diversity of components. The annotation set formalism, as implemented in ATLAS, will reduce the burden on language engineering applications development. To demonstrate this claim, we are developing a range of initial applications, as described below. The modularity provided by the API works for applications as well: distinct components will communicate their operations on annotations via the API, greatly enhancing the re-usability of application-level components.

## 4. The Annotation Graph Model

Annotation graphs were presented by Bird and Liberman \[Bird and Liberman, 1999\] as follows.

###### Definition 1

An annotation graph $`G`$ over a label set $`L`$ and timelines $`T_i,`$ is a 3-tuple $`N,A,\tau `$ consisting of a node set $`N`$, a collection of arcs $`A`$ labeled with elements of $`L`$, and a time function $`\tau `$, which satisfies the following conditions:

1. $`N,A`$ is a labeled acyclic digraph containing no nodes of degree zero;
2. $`\tau :NT_i`$, such that, for any path from node $`n_1`$ to $`n_2`$ in $`A`$, if $`\tau (n_1)`$ and $`\tau (n_2)`$ are defined, then $`\tau (n_1)\tau (n_2)`$;

Note that annotation graphs may be disconnected or empty, and that they must not have orphan nodes.

The formalism can be illustrated with an application to a simple speech database, the TIMIT corpus of read speech \[Garofolo et al., 1986\]. This was the first speech database to be widely distributed. It contains broadband recordings of 630 speakers of 8 major dialects of American English, each reading 10 phonetically rich sentences \[www.ldc.upenn.edu/Catalog/LDC93S1.html\]. Figure 3 shows part of the annotation of one of the sentences. The file on the left contains word transcription, and the file on the right contains phonetic transcription. Part of the corresponding annotation graph is shown underneath.

In Figure 3, each node displays the node identifier and the time offset (in 16kHz sample numbers). The arcs are decorated with type and label information. The type W is for words and the type P is for phonetic transcriptions.

A simplified chart showing the primary objects and their relationships is shown in Figure 4. A graph object is a collection of zero or more arc objects, where these specify an identifier, two nodes, a type, and the content. A node specifies an identifier, a timeline, and an offset into that timeline. A timeline simply denotes a set of signals that share the same abstract notion of time \[Bird and Liberman, 1999\]. For example, multichannel audio signals, or aligned video and audio data are signal sets which have a single time-base, and which would be grouped together by a common timeline. The content object consists of a set of feature-value pairs. The object identifiers are intended to support incoming references from external resources, and cross-references within a particular annotation graph. For example, the value of some feature of a arc could be the identifier of another arc.

The API for this model includes such functions as Arc::insertArc(n1,n2,t,l) to insert an arc from node n1 to node n2 with type t and label l, and Arc::splitArc(a) to replace a single arc with a path of two arcs spanning the same nodes.

## 5. Generalizing the Model

Annotation graphs are useful for annotating linear data types, including intervals found in any particular dimension of a variety of sequentially-arranged signals. However, there are more signal types which we can envision annotating, using the same basic philosophy of indication and characterization. Below we give a generalization of annotation graphs to encompass a class of signal types which correspond to $`n`$-dimensional vector spaces.

### 5.1. Higher-dimensional cases

There are many signals having dimension greater than one, that we acquire in our computers, and that are amenable to linguistic modeling techniques. The input signal to optical character recognition (OCR) is one example of a signal that loses (or at least obfuscates) its temporal dimension prior to acquisition by computer. When annotating the communicative content in a sign language video, one may want to highlight the portion of each of a sequence of images that is involved in the signing, and the same should be done in a lip-reading experiment where the input stream is television broadcast or movie, for example. ATLAS strives to model the annotations required in both reference and hypothesis data for an OCR system, a sign language recognition system, lip-reading system, as well as all well-formed combinations of these.

Annotation graphs, however, do not provide a natural framework for identifying regions of a signal having more than one dimension. Intuitively, we want to be able to specify bounding boxes, or other kinds of bounding areas, as a target for further characterization in the two dimensions of OCR $`(x,y)`$. The analogy carries for higher dimensions such as video $`(x,y,t)`$ where we want bounding volumes. The generalization of annotation graphs that facilitates this is Cartesian Annotation Sets. The name is chosen thus because we want to select a region of a vector space, rather than just an interval. For brevity we will usually refer to these simply as “annotation sets.” Full details are given below.

There are further generalizations of annotation being explored, as one can imagine targeting signals which inhabit spaces that are not results of repeated Cartesian products (e.g. trees, partially ordered sets, relational or semistructured data). The annotation sets cover a very large set of signals that are captured by current digitizing equipment, however, and they are a primary target for development in ATLAS.

### 5.2. Annotation sets

In the terminology of annotation graphs, a labeled arc relates symbolic label data to an extent of signal, and this extent is specified using a pair of nodes. The arc serves a dual purpose: as an ordered pair of nodes specifying an extent; and as an entity which can accommodate label data. We separate these functions by replacing nodes and labeled arcs with some new constructs which reduce to nodes and labeled arcs in the linear case.

We begin by adopting “region” as a term for any extent of signal, regardless of dimensionality. In the one-dimensional case, regions are simply intervals, and there are various ways to specify these (endpoints, start-point plus offset, midpoint plus radius). The endpoint method is convenient since the boundaries are typically shared by several regions, and changing an endpoint value does not then require any further propagation of information. In the two-dimensional case we may specify regions using points or line segments; we select “anchor” as the cover term. Again, the choice of the anchoring method is based on the need to share boundaries between regions. The terminology extends to the three dimensional case, and is neutral as to whether the dimensions are spatial or temporal. We define an ATLAS “annotation” to be a relation between such regions and (structured) labels.

In the one-dimensional case, a collection of arcs is formed into a graph, representing a set of annotations on a particular signal. In the generalized model, we refer to a set of annotations as an “annotation set”. A corpus is then a set of annotation sets, and a collection of corpora (such as LDC-Online) is a set of sets of annotation sets. If the provenance of any particular annotation is stored in its label, and if the signal information resides in the region structure, then there is no harm in flattening this nested set structure. Therefore we view “annotation set” as a top-level construct.

## 6. ATLAS Design and Implementations

ATLAS is an open architecture that provides a flexible and extensible framework for linguistic applications (Figure 5). Significant efforts have been put in the design to try to ensure that the architecture will evolve gracefully as new domains and tasks arise. The general philosophy behind ATLAS design consists in trying to provide a component framework on which new applications can be built and in which new components can be integrated with ease.

We base our design approach on the object paradigm. With respect to this approach, we have tried to clearly identify the concepts that are needed to solve the annotation problem, building on Bird and Liberman’s survey (see \[www.ldc.upenn.edu/annotation/\]). We designed program entities (objects) by assigning them clear responsibilities and by separating the interface from the implementation. This approach has several well-known benefits; here we mention just three, and describe their significance in the present context.

First, this approach allows us to define APIs to ATLAS components that are secure and controlled entry points to the whole architecture. Second, we can vary the implementations of components, offering customization and “plug’n’play” capabilities to developers. Third, language-independent interface definitions will permit ATLAS components to be written using a variety of languages.

### 6.1. ATLAS APIs

The ATLAS APIs are defined to leverage the architecture in an efficient way. They provide entry points to the functionality offered by the framework and ensure encapsulation of ATLAS internals, allowing enhancements to be made to the core functionality without impacting backwards compatibility.

ATLAS will provide a collection of APIs that address a variety of issues, built around the core annotation set API. This core API provides means to create, edit and delete annotations. It enables users and ATLAS developers to manipulate annotation components at the lowest level of abstraction.

Another set of components will support the core API and provide persistent storage capabilities for the architecture. These components will allow ATLAS-compliant tools to abstract the specifics of physical storage and transparently interact with flat files or databases. A complete set of input/output components will be provided for the ATLAS Interchange Format (see below).

Components will be also developed which provide higher-level services to ATLAS-compliant tools, easing the task of creating those tools. These components will also facilitate visualization and editing of annotations and will support a query interface. They will allow third-parties to easily and rapidly develop new ATLAS-compliant tools.

Finally, we are investigating the feasibility of creating components that will ease inter-component communication, transparent access to remote databases, and collaborative annotation.

### 6.2. The core object model and API

A simplified chart showing the primary objects and their relationships is shown in Figure 6. As in the annotation graph object model (Figure 4), annotations specify an identifier, a type, and content. The key difference is that we have abstracted away from one-dimensional annotation by providing the region object. The region object references two or more anchors, where these can define an interval in 1-space or a bounding box or polygon in 2-space. An anchor carries an identifier (so that it may be shared by more than one region), and it specifies a set of signals (generalizing the notion of timeline).

The API for the ATLAS object model is outlined in Figure 7, in simplified form. For each method the object, method name and arguments are specified. Up-to-date information about the API is available from the ATLAS website.

### 6.3. ATLAS Interchange Format

An example of the current instantiation of the ATLAS Interchange Format is shown in Figure 8. This example shows two signals that exist outside this annotation file, one a video of someone called Bill speaking in sign language, and the other an ASCII file consisting of a transcription of Bill’s utterances. One arc (A1) identifies a portion of the video signal as containing Bill’s signing of the ASL letter “e”. Another arc (A2) identifies a portion of the text signal as containing a word whose part of speech is “VBD”. Finally, a third arc (A3) identifies a larger portion of the video signal as being transcribed into the word (or, more literally, the portion of the text signal) identified by the already defined A2 arc. Notice that the “content” of an arc may contain either a set of attribute/value fields (arc A1), a literal string or symbol (arc A2), or even a reference to another arc by its unique identifier (arc A3). The exact syntax of the ATLAS Interchange Format is still being refined, but this example and the one following it indicate some of the general components that will be supported.

An example of an interchange format for structured lexicons is shown in Figure 9, in this case using a German to English dictionary as an example. This example presents only the most generic type of structure for defining a lexicon “signal,” consisting of an entry for each unique meaning of a lexical item, and, as in the annotation graph example before, using a general purpose set of Feature/Value pairs to associate various features with an item. As noted in section 5. on generalizing the model, ATLAS will enable more special-purpose XML elements and structure to be derived and used for particular communities of interest, while retaining the mapping from these back to a core representation so that all relevant ATLAS-compliant tools can operate on the data.

### 6.4. Implementation – current status

At LDC, Michelle Minnick Fox developed the first implementation of the annotation graph API, in Perl/tk. Subsequently, Steven Bird developed a C++ implementation (for both the graph and set APIs). A team consisting of LDC researchers and programmers Steven Bird, David Graff, Xiaoyi Ma, Kevin Walker, Jonathan Wright and Zhibiao Wu has developed Perl and Tcl interfaces, parsers for a wide variety of existing corpus formats, and input/output to AIF. At NIST, Christophe Laprun has developed a Java implementation of the annotation graph API.

### 6.5. Ongoing Activities

Work is ongoing in several areas at the three sites. NIST is working with MITRE to implement an ATLAS architecture for the Automatic Content Extraction (ACE) program Entity Detection and Tracking (EDT) evaluation, in which Person, Organization, Geographical-Political, Location, and Facility entities are to be detected, classified, and clustered \[ACE, 2000\]. The ACE-EDT program will evaluate the application of EDT technology to text source, audio source, and image source data. This multi-domain program will be an important initial testbed for ATLAS.

NIST is using the ATLAS Interchange Format to implement a new portion of the NIST Text REtrieval Conference (TREC) Spoken Document Retrieval Track in which automatic speech recognition systems will be permitted to output non-lexical information such speaker changes, noise changes, pauses, etc. in addition to word transcriptions. These speech-recognizer-produced files will be exchanged among the research sites to examine the utility of multiple recognizers and non-lexical information in performing information retrieval from speech sources \[TREC, 2000\].

The ATLAS architecture will also be used to provide an information aqueduct between components within the DARPA Translingual Information Detection Extraction and Summarization program \[TIDES, 2000\]. The TIDES program will examine issues in integrating multiple language technologies in creating complex multi-media, multi-lingual information systems.

MITRE has developed two tools that are being ported to use the ATLAS annotation infrastructure: Alembic Workbench, a text annotation tool that provides mechanisms for annotating lexemes, multi-word phrases, co-reference relationships and discourse-level structured entities; and the Multi-Modal Logger, which enables multiple distinct signals (speech, text, application widget events, etc.) to be aligned and displayed along a common dimension (usually time) and annotated. MITRE is also developing a tool to support the declaration of new “signal” classes in ATLAS, enabling customized XML DTDs to be derived in a principled way such that ATLAS-compliant applications could operate on these data.

At LDC, development of new annotation tools has been switched over to follow the ATLAS model, and we envisage a day in the not-too-distant future when corpora will be released with a variety of cross-platform tools for accessing and enriching the corpus content. We are exploring links with developers of other tools, including Transcriber \[Barras et al., 2000\], Emu \[Cassidy and Harrington, 1996\], and GATE \[Cunningham et al., 2000\], which have data models that are conceptually close to the annotation graph model. A diverse range of new domains for annotated corpora is being addressed in the context of the CMU/Penn TalkBank project \[TalkBank, 2000\], including annotated recordings of animal calls, and annotated video of sign language. Relational database schemas for annotation data are being explored, and a special purpose query language is being developed \[Cassidy and Bird, 2000, Bird et al., 2000\].

All of the code developed within the ATLAS initiative will be distributed under open source licensing agreements.

## 7. Future

The envisioned ATLAS architecture will support a wide variety of uses and data types. First and foremost, ATLAS will continue to fulfill its primary goal of enabling the prodigious exchange of language resources. However, in addition to providing support for the internal and external data representations, it will include integrated access to useful external resources such as database management systems, network and security systems, and parsers (Figure 5).

As the ATLAS architecture is realized, it will enable the rapid development of new corpora and the exchange and extension of existing corpora. It will facilitate the definition of consistent logical and physical formats for meta data. It will enable previously-impractical annotation endeavors requiring multi-domain, multi-layered, multi-linked annotation. It will become a focal point for the development and sharing of modular reusable annotation components and tools, thus permitting faster application prototyping and development. These components will provide powerful visualization, manipulation, and search capabilities over a variety of corpora.

ATLAS will provide a built-in data infrastructure for evaluation by minimizing the custom-tooling necessary in instrumenting systems for performance measurement. The ATLAS Interchange Format will facilitate the creation of pipelined applications with multiple language technology components. If desired, however, language technology applications and components will be able to eliminate pipelining altogether by using the ATLAS internal representation as a annotation data exchange bus.

Once the initial instantiation of ATLAS is stabilized, it will be made into an open-source entity that will benefit from the contribution of tools and corpora from the worldwide language research community. While the initial focus is on the annotation of text and speech corpora, we can envision much broader applications of the architecture to images, video, non-textual annotation, etc. Given the open nature of the project, it is highly likely that it will evolve in ways that we can’t currently predict. In order to gauge the utility of our approach and to acquire input on possible uses, the ATLAS working group has created a public website at: \[http://www.nist.gov/speech/atlas\].

Before the first public release of ATLAS is made in the Fall of 2000, the ATLAS working group will be seeking comment from potential users and developers. We invite you to peruse the website and send us your input and ideas.


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# Distinguishing Fractional and White Noise in One and Two Dimensions

## Abstract

We discuss the link between uncorrelated noise and Hurst exponent for one and two-dimensional interfaces. We show that long range correlations cannot be observed using one-dimensional cuts through two-dimensional self-affine surfaces whose height distributions are characterized by a Hurst exponent, $`H`$, lower than $`1/2`$. In this domain, fractional and white noise are not distinguishable. A method analysing the correlations in two dimensions is necessary. For $`H>1/2`$, a cross-over regime leads to an systematic over-estimate of the Hurst exponent.

PACS number(s): 47.55.Mh, 05.40.+j, 47.53.+n

Self-affine surfaces are abundant in Nature. They are the bread and butter of quantitative characterization of growth phenomena such as fracture surfaces , interface growth and roughening phenomena .

A self-affine surface $`h(x,y)`$ is defined by its behavior under the scale transformation

$$\{\begin{array}{cc}x\lambda x,\hfill & \\ y\lambda y,\hfill & \\ h\lambda ^Hh,\hfill & \end{array}$$
(1)
where $`H`$ is the Hurst exponent.

Most commonly, the Hurst exponent is in the interval $`0H1`$. For instance, fracture surfaces exhibit a Hurst exponent close to 0.8 . Sea floor topography is self affine with a Hurst exponent close to 0.5 . When $`H>1`$, the surface is no longer asymptotically flat. When $`H<0`$, the roughness distribution of the surface is refered to as fractional noise. Fractional noise is typically encountered in Nature in quantities that depend on the local slope of the topography: mechanical stresses, light scattering and fluid flow . For instance, the stress field on the interface between two rough elastic blocks forced into complete contact is a fractional noise with Hurst exponent $`H_\sigma `$ being related to the Hurst exponent of the rough surface, $`H`$, as $`H_\sigma =H1`$ .

In this letter we show that, for values of $`H`$ in the range $`[1,1/2]`$, self affinity takes on very different character in one and two dimensions. If this difference is ignored, one may obtain wrong results when analyzing experimental data, no matter what method one uses for estimating $`H`$. Numerous tools exist for measuring Hurst exponents in the range $`0<H<1`$. Few of these methods have been tested systematically in the range $`H<0`$ .

The power spectrum of a self-affine trace $`h(x)`$, characterized by a Hurst exponent $`H`$, is given in one dimension by

$$P(k)\frac{1}{k^{1+2H}}\text{in one dimension},$$
(2)
while the power spectrum of a two-dimensional self-affine surface $`h(x,y)`$, characterized by the same Hurst exponent is

$$P(k)\frac{1}{k^{2+2H}}\text{in two dimensions}.$$
(3)
White, i.e., uncorrelated noise has a constant power spectrum both in one and two dimensions. Consequently, the value of the Hurst exponent, $`H`$, which describes white noise in one dimension is obtained from Eq. (2)

$$H_{wn}=\frac{1}{2},$$
(4)
while from Eq. (3), we find for the two dimensional case

$$H_{wn}=1.$$
(5)
This result is unexpected: One would have expected the value of the Hurst exponent corresponding to white noise to be independent of dimension.

This result is even more paradoxical when we analyze cuts through a two-dimensional self-affine surface. Suppose one is given a two-dimensional surface with Hurst exponent $`H=1/2`$ and is asked to determine $`H`$. Analyzing the two-dimensional power spectrum of this surface will lead to $`P(k)1/k`$ — a 1/f spectrum, while analysing the power spectrum of one-dimensional cuts through the surface yields white noise. We illustrate this point in Figs. 1 and 2 where we show one-dimensional cuts through two-dimensional surfaces with $`H=1/2`$ and $`1`$ respectively. The synthetic surfaces were generated using a Fourier technique .

Yet a third problem is seen when analyzing a two-dimensional self-affine surface with Hurst exponent in the range $`1H1/2`$. Analysing the correlations in the surface using the two-dimensional power spectrum yields the correct value $`1H1/2`$. However, analysing one-dimensional cuts through the two dimensional surface using the one-dimensional power spectrum method or the average wavelet coefficient (AWC) method  yields the constant value $`H=1/2`$. This is illustrated in Fig. 3. On the other hand, analysing one-dimensional traces generated with the Hurst exponent in the range $`1H1/2`$, yields the input value of $`H`$. This is illustrated in Fig. 4.

This unexpected situation was recently encountered in the analysis of the stress field of elastic self-affine surfaces in full contact . As mentioned above, if the elastic surfaces are characterized by a Hurst exponent $`H`$, the corresponding stress field has a Hurst exponent $`H_\sigma =H1`$. However, when analyzing the stress using one-dimensional cuts, $`H_\sigma `$ was always saturating at the value $`1/2`$ as $`H`$ was lowered to values below $`1/2`$.

In order to understand what lies behind this unexpected behavior, we need a model self-affine surface that is accessible to analytical calculations. The model we choose is based on the Fourier method to generate self-affine surfaces.

We discretize the surface, assuming it to be $`h(n_x,n_y)`$, where $`0n_xN1`$ and $`0n_yN1`$ are the positions of the nodes on a two-dimensional square lattice. The surface may be represented in Fourier space as

$$h(n_x,n_y)=\underset{k_x=0}{\overset{N1}{}}\underset{k_y=0}{\overset{N1}{}}e^{(2\pi i/N)[k_xn_x+k_yn_y]}\frac{\eta (k_x,k_y)}{(k_x^2+k_y^2)^{(H+1)/2}},$$
(6)
where $`\eta (n_x,n_y)`$ is a white (Gaussian) noise defined by a zero mean and a second moment satisfying

$$\eta (k_x,k_y)\eta (k_x^{},k_y^{})=2D\delta _{k_x,k_x^{}}\delta _{k_y,k_y^{}}.$$
(7)
We see immediately from Eq. (6) that for $`H=1`$, $`h(n_x,n_y)`$ is white noise as we are then Fourier transforming the white noise $`\eta (k_x,k_y)`$ directly.

A one-dimensional self-affine trace, on the other hand, may be written

$$h(n_x)=\underset{k_x=0}{\overset{N1}{}}e^{(2\pi i/N)k_xn_x}\frac{\eta (k_x)}{k_x^{H+1}},$$
(8)
where $`\eta (k_x)`$ again is white noise.

In order to study a one-dimensional cut through the two-dimensional surface $`h(n_x,n_y)`$, we place the cut along the $`x`$-axis and Fourier transform $`h(n_x,n_y)`$ in the $`x`$-direction only. This gives us

$$\stackrel{~}{h}(k_x,n_y)=\underset{k_y=0}{\overset{N1}{}}e^{(2\pi i/N)k_yn_y}\frac{\eta (k_x,k_y)}{(k_x^2+k_y^2)^{(H+1)/2}}.$$
(9)
¿From this expression, we readily construct the power spectrum along the cut $`n_y=constant`$,

$$P_y\left(k_x\right)=|\stackrel{~}{h}(k_x,0)|^2+|\stackrel{~}{h}(Nk_x,0)|^2,$$
(10)
where we for simplicity and without loss of generality, have set $`n_y=0`$. Using Eq. (7), we find

$$P_y(k_x)=\frac{2D}{N^2}\underset{k=0}{\overset{N1}{}}\left[\frac{1}{(k_x^2+k^2)^{1+H}}+\frac{1}{(k_x^2+(Nk)^2)^{1+H}}\right].$$
(11)
For large $`N`$, this equation may be simplified to

$$P_y(k_x)=\frac{2D}{N^2}\frac{1}{k_x^{1+2H}}_0^{N/k_x}\frac{dz}{(1+z^2)^{1+H}}.$$
(12)
For $`H>1/2`$, the integral in this equation approaches a constant rapidly as $`N\mathrm{}`$. However, for $`H1/2`$, it behaves as $`(k_x/N)^{1+2H}`$ for large $`N`$. Thus, we conclude that

$$P_y(k_x)\{\begin{array}{cc}(1/k_x)^{1+2H}\hfill & \text{for }H>1/2\text{,}\hfill \\ constant\hfill & \text{for }H1/2\text{,}\hfill \end{array}$$
(13)
This is precisely the behavior we see in Fig. 3. On the other hand, the power spectrum we find for the one-dimensional surface, Eq. (8) is simply the one of Eq. (2) irrespective of the Hurst exponent $`H`$.

One important lesson we draw from this problem and its resolution is that the Hurst exponent does not fully describe the correlations of self-affine surfaces: A two-dimensional surface with a given Hurst exponent may have completely different correlations from a one-dimensional surface provided the Hurst exponent is low enough.

Another important, but related lesson, is that measuring the self-affine properties of a surface by averaging over one-dimensional cuts — which is the standard experimental approach — may lead to wrong results. In fact, it was knowing the correct scaling of the stress field studied in Ref.  and comparing this to the measured quantities that led to this work. Two-dimensional surfaces should preferably be analyzed using two-dimensional tools.

We thank Kim Sneppen for useful discussions. This work was partially funded by the CNRS PICS contract $`\mathrm{\#}753`$ and the Norwegian research council, NFR. We also thank NORDITA for its hospitality and further support.


text:
# Dynamical Structure Factors of the 𝑆=1/2 Bond-Alternating Spin Chain with a Next-Nearest-Neighbor Interaction in Magnetic Fields

## I Introduction

One-dimensional quantum spin systems have attracted great attention both theoretically and experimentally for a long time. Recently, Tonegawa et al. discovered numerically that the $`S=1/2`$ bond-alternating spin chain with a next-nearest-neighbor (NNN) interaction has a parameter region where the plateau exists on the magnetization curve at half of the saturation value. TNK98  The wave function of the lowest-energy state in the plateau region was shown to have the periodicity $`n=4`$TNK98  indicating that spontaneous translational-symmetry breaking, because the periodicity of the Hamiltonian is $`n=2`$. This result is consistent with the necessary condition for the appearance of the magnetization plateau at half of the saturation value in the $`S=1/2`$ spin chain OYA97 , which indicates that the periodicity of the lowest-energy state must be a multiple of $`4`$. On the basis of bosonization technique combined with the renormalization-group theory, the magnetization process of this system was investigated in a viewpoint of the stability of the magnetization plateau. Totsuka98  A simple explanation for the two-fold degenerate ground-state in the plateau region was also presented. Totsuka98

The dynamical structure factor (DSF) of quantum spin systems provides us with important information about the intensity of the magnetic response as a function of energy and momentum transfer. The DSF of $`S=1/2`$ one-dimensional quantum spin systems in magnetic fields was measured by inelastic neutron-scattering experiments. Endoh ; Coldea  The experimental results were compared with numerical results obtained by the exact diagonalization method for the finite system, IS ; Mull ; Wup1  and it has been argued that both results are in good agreement.

The DSF of $`S=1/2`$ one-dimensional spin-gapped systems in magnetic fields was investigated by numerical calculation Wup2 ; Poil ; MH . Using the recursion method, the longitudinal DSF of the $`S=1/2`$ Heisenberg chain with a NNN interaction was calculated at the half of the saturated magnetization, and the characteristic distribution of the intensity has been discussed Wup2 . The longitudinal DSF of the $`S=1/2`$ bond-alternating spin chain with a NNN interaction was calculated using the numerical diagonalization method Poil ; MH . When some adequate parameters are used, this model is considered to be an effective model Hamiltonian for $`\mathrm{CuGeO}_3`$RD ; CCE  It has been shown that the large intensity lies at the soft mode, Poil ; MH  and the distribution of the intensity is remarkably affected by the spin-phonon coupling. MH  Using bosonization technique, the DSF of the $`S=1/2`$ one-dimensional spin-gapped systems such as the Heisenberg chain with a NNN interaction, the bond-alternating chain and the two-leg ladder FZ99  was calculated systematically in magnetic fields CG . On the basis of the results, Chitra and Giamarchi have concluded that the features of $`S=1/2`$ one-dimensional spin-gapped systems appear not in thermodynamic quantities but in critical and dynamical properties of the spin correlation function, when the energy gap is collapsed by magnetic fields. CG

In this paper, we calculate the DSF of the $`S=1/2`$ bond-alternating spin chain with a NNN interaction in magnetic fields, using the continued fraction method based on the Lanczos algorithm. GB87  This model can be regarded as the $`S=1/2`$ two-leg spin ladder with a diagonal interaction. In §II, we summarize the numerical method to make this paper self-contained. In §III, we show the DSF of the $`S=1/2`$ bond-alternating spin chain with a NNN interaction, turning our attention on the behavior at the magnetization plateau. In §IV, the results for the DSF of the $`S=1/2`$ two-leg spin ladder and the $`S=1/2`$ two-leg spin ladder with a diagonal interaction are shown at half of the saturated magnetization. We summarize the paper in §V.

## II Model and numerical method

Let us consider the following model Hamiltonian for the $`S=1/2`$ bond-alternating spin chain with a NNN interaction in magnetic fields,

$``$ $`=`$ $`_0+_z,`$ (1)
$`_0`$ $`=`$ $`J_1{\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}𝑺_{1,j}𝑺_{2,j}+J_2{\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}𝑺_{2,j}𝑺_{1,j+1},+J_3{\displaystyle \underset{l,j}{}}𝑺_{l,j}𝑺_{l,j+1},`$ (2)
$`_z`$ $`=`$ $`MH,`$ (3)
where $`𝑺_{l,j}`$ is the $`S=1/2`$ spin operator on the site $`j`$ of the sublattice $`l`$ ($`l=1`$ or $`2`$), $`J_1`$ and $`J_2`$ are the alternating nearest-neighbor interactions, and $`J_3`$ is the next-nearest-neighbor interaction. The chain is divided into two sublattices, which consist of every other sites. The distance between neighboring spins is set equal to unity. The magnetization is given by $`M=_{l,j}S_{l,j}^z`$. We set $`J_1,J_2`$ and $`J_3>0`$. The periodic boundary condition is applied. Note that the system described by the model Hamiltonian (1) can be regarded as the $`S=1/2`$ two-leg spin ladder with a diagonal interaction, where $`J_1`$, $`J_2`$ and $`J_3`$ are the interchain, diagonal and intrachain interactions, respectively.

To calculate the DSF, we first consider the ladder geometry. In this case, the DSF is defined as,

$`S^\mu (q_x,q_y,\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}|\mathrm{\Psi }_n|S_{q_x,q_y}^\mu |\mathrm{\Psi }_0|^2\delta (\omega (E_nE_0))`$ (4)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}\underset{\epsilon +0}{lim}\text{Im}\mathrm{\Psi }_0|S_{q_x,q_y}^{\mu }{}_{}{}^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{z+E_0}}S_{q_x,q_y}^\mu |\mathrm{\Psi }_0,`$ (5)
where $`z=\omega +\mathrm{i}\epsilon `$, $`\mathrm{\Psi }_n`$ is the eigenfunction of $``$ whose eigenvalue is $`E_n`$, $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0`$ is the ground state eigenfunction with the eigenvalue $`E_0`$, and $`q_x`$ and $`q_y`$ are the wave vectors along the chain and the rung, respectively. The Fourier transform of the spin operator $`S_{q_x,q_y}^\mu `$ is given by

$$S_{q_x,q_y}^\mu =\frac{1}{\sqrt{N}}\underset{l,j}{}\mathrm{exp}[\mathrm{i}(q_xj+q_yl)]S_{l,j}^\mu ,$$
(6)
where $`\mu =x,y,z`$ or $`+,,z`$.

We calculate $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0`$ numerically in the subspace with a given magnetization. The DSF can be expressed by the continued fraction in the tridiagonal basis of the Hamiltonian with the initial vector $`|\varphi _0=S_{q_x,q_y}^\mu |\mathrm{\Psi }_0/\sqrt{\mathrm{\Psi }_0|S_{q_x,q_y}^{\mu }{}_{}{}^{}S_{q_x,q_y}^\mu |\mathrm{\Psi }_0}`$GB87

$`S^\mu (q_x,q_y,\omega )={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}\underset{\epsilon +0}{lim}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Psi }_0|S_{q_x,q_y}^{\mu }{}_{}{}^{}S_{q_x,q_y}^\mu |\mathrm{\Psi }_0}{z\alpha _0{\displaystyle \frac{\beta _{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{z\alpha _1{\displaystyle \frac{\beta _{2}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{z\alpha _2{\displaystyle \frac{\beta _{3}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{z\alpha _3{\displaystyle \frac{\beta _{4}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{z\alpha _4\mathrm{}}}}}}}}}}},`$ (7)
where $`\alpha _i`$ and $`\beta _{i+1}`$ $`(i=0,1,2,\mathrm{})`$ are the diagonal $`(i+1,i+1)`$ and the sub-diagonal $`(i+2,i+1)`$ elements of the tridiagonal Hamiltonian. The matrix elements $`\alpha _i`$ and $`\beta _i`$ are calculated by the Lanczos method. We evaluate the continued fraction by the modified Lenz method NR . This method enables us to estimate the convergency quantitatively. A small but finite $`\epsilon `$ is used instead of taking the limit $`\epsilon 0`$. We set $`\epsilon =3.0\times 10^2`$.

In magnetic field along the $`z`$ axis, rotational symmetry around the $`x`$ and $`y`$ axes is broken, while rotational symmetry around the $`z`$ axis remains. Hence, $`S^x(q_x,q_y,\omega )=S^y(q_x,q_y,\omega )S^z(q_x,q_y,\omega )`$. We calculate $`S^+(q_x,q_y,\omega )`$ and $`S^{}(q_x,q_y,\omega )`$ to obtain $`S^x(q_x,q_y,\omega )`$ by using $`S^x(q_x,q_y,\omega )=(1/4)[S^+(q_x,q_y,\omega )+S^{}(q_x,q_y,\omega )]`$. We now define the magnetic field where the magnetization changes from $`M`$ to $`M+1`$ or from $`M1`$ to $`M`$ as

$`E_L(N,M+1)E_L(N,M)`$ $`=`$ $`H_1,`$ (8)
$`E_L(N,M)E_L(N,M1)`$ $`=`$ $`H_2,`$ (9)
where $`E_L(N,M)`$ is the lowest energy of $`_0`$ with $`N`$ spins and the magnetization $`M`$. When we calculate the DSF on the magnetization plateau, we have to fix the magnetic field in the plateau region. We use $`H_1`$ for $`S^{}(q_x,q_y,\omega )`$ and $`H_2`$ for $`S^+(q_x,q_y,\omega )`$, indicating that $`S^{}(q_x,q_y,\omega )`$ and $`S^+(q_x,q_y,\omega )`$ are calculated at the highest and lowest ends of the magnetic field on the magnetization plateau, respectively. Then, we fix the magnetic field $`H_P`$ in $`H_2<H_P<H_1`$. Shifting $`S^{}(q_x,q_y,\omega )`$ and $`S^+(q_x,q_y,\omega )`$ along the $`\omega `$ axis by $`H_1H_P`$ and $`H_PH_2`$, respectively, and adding up them thus obtained, we can calculate $`S^x(q_x,q_y,\omega )\left(=(1/4)[S^+(q_x,q_y,\omega )+S^{}(q_x,q_y,\omega )]\right)`$ in a given magnetic field $`H_P`$. When the magnetization plateau does not appear, the finite size scaling based on conformal field theory is worthwhile to calculate the precise value of the magnetic field in the thermodynamic limit for a given magnetization $`m=N/M`$ST91  Nevertheless, we take the average of $`H_1`$ and $`H_2`$ to determine the magnetic field for a given $`m`$, because the error in the magnetic field thus obtained shifts slightly the DSF along the $`\omega `$ axis.

For the one-dimensional geometry, we do not have to distinguish $`q_y`$ from $`q_x`$. Therefore, (4) and (6) are simply described as

$`S^\mu (q,\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}|\mathrm{\Psi }_n|S_q^\mu |\mathrm{\Psi }_0|^2\delta (\omega (E_nE_0)),`$ (10)
$`S_q^\mu `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{N}}}{\displaystyle \underset{l,j}{}}\mathrm{exp}[\mathrm{i}(2j+l)q]S_{l,j}^\mu .`$ (11)
On the basis of (10) and (11), the calculation of the DSF for the one-dimensional geometry is performed in the same way as done for the ladder geometry.

## III DSF of the $`S=1/2`$ bond-alternating spin chain with a NNN interaction

The DSF of the $`S=1/2`$ bond-alternating spin chains with a NNN interaction is shown in Fig. 1 for $`m=1/4`$ with $`(N,M)=(28,7)`$. Note that all figures in this paper have the same scale concerning the intensity of the DSF. Parameters are (a) $`J_1=1.2,J_2=0.8,J_3=0.4`$, (b) $`J_1=1.5,J_2=0.5,J_3=0.3`$, and (c) $`J_1=1.1,J_2=0.9,J_3=0.3`$. According to ref. 1, the plateau exists on the magnetization curve in Figs. 1(a) and (b), but do not exist in Fig. 1(c). The magnetic fields for $`m=1/4`$ are (a) $`H=1.80`$, (b) $`H=1.75`$, and (c) $`H1.751`$, respectively. In Figs. 1(a) and (b), two divergency of $`S^z(q,\omega )`$ in $`\omega 0`$ are seen at $`q=0`$ and $`q=\pi /2`$, whereas in Fig. 1(c) a divergence of $`S^z(q,\omega )`$ in $`\omega 0`$ is seen only at $`q=0`$. The results for $`S^z(q,\omega )`$ indicate that in the systems of Figs. 1(a) and (b), translational symmetry is broken and the periodicity is twice as large as that in Fig. 1(c). Thus, the condition for the appearance of the magnetization plateau OYA97  is satisfied. The peaks of $`S^z(q,\omega )`$ around $`\omega 1.0`$ in Fig. 1(a) and $`\omega 1.3`$ in Fig. 1(b) are almost dispersionless. On the contrary, the results for $`S^x(q,\omega )`$ change qualitatively depending on the parameters as shown in Figs. 1(a) and (b). In Fig. 1(a), there are small peaks around $`\omega 1.7`$. The dispersion relation exhibits cosine-like $`q`$ dependence with the periodicity $`\pi `$ and the amplitude $``$ $`0.7`$. In Fig. 1(b), the peaks of $`S^x(q,\omega )`$ exhibit sine-like $`q`$ dependence with the periodicity $`\pi /2`$ and the small amplitude $``$ $`0.1`$.

We compare the DSF in the absence of the magnetization plateau shown in Fig. 1(c) with that of the $`S=1/2`$ Heisenberg chain ($`J_1=J_2=1.0,J_3=0`$) for $`m=1/4`$ ($`(N,M)=(28,7)`$) shown in Fig. 2. The magnetic field for $`m=1/4`$ in the latter system is evaluated as $`H1.584`$, which is close to the exact value $`1.597`$ Mull ; Griffiths64 . The dotted lines denote the lower bound of the excitation continuum obtained from the Bethe ansatz solution IS77 . The results for $`S^z(q,\omega )`$ and $`S^x(q,\omega )`$ in both systems are qualitatively the same, although the additional NNN interaction exists in the system shown in Fig. 1(c).

## IV DSF of the $`S=1/2`$ two-leg spin ladders

We show the DSF of the $`S=1/2`$ two-leg spin ladder system for $`m=1/4`$ with $`(N,M)=(28,7)`$ in Fig. 3. Parameters are $`J_1=2.0,J_2=0`$ and $`J_3=1.0`$. Thus, the system is in the strong interchain-coupling regime. The wave vector along the rung is fixed to be $`q_y=0`$ and $`\pi `$. The magnetic field corresponding to $`m=1/4`$ is evaluated as $`H2.768`$ from eqs. (8) and (9). In Fig. 3, $`S^z(q_x,0,\omega )`$ and $`S^x(q_x,\pi ,\omega )`$ are gapless, while $`S^z(q_x,\pi ,\omega )`$ and $`S^x(q_x,0,\omega )`$ are gapful. This gapless and gapful behavior is consistent with the asymptotics of the spin correlation functions obtained by the hard-core boson representation of the strong-coupling two-leg ladder FZ99 : algebraically decaying ones, $`S_{i,0}^zS_{j,0}^z`$ and $`S_{i,\pi }^xS_{j,\pi }^x`$, and exponentially decaying ones, $`S_{i,\pi }^zS_{j,\pi }^z`$ and $`S_{i,0}^xS_{j,0}^x`$com3

The strong-coupling $`S=1/2`$ two-leg spin ladder in magnetic field can be mapped onto the $`S=1/2`$ $`XXZ`$ chain with the anisotropy $`\mathrm{\Delta }=1/2`$ in effective magnetic field CJFHLBHP ; Mila98 ; GT99 ; FZ99 . As shown in Fig. 3 (a), the intensity of $`S^z(q_x,0,\omega )`$ lies almost between the boundaries $`\omega =(3\sqrt{3}J_3/4)|\mathrm{sin}q|`$ and $`\omega =(3\sqrt{3}J_3/2)|\mathrm{sin}q/2|`$, which are the lower and the upper bounds of the excitation continuum of the $`S=1/2`$ $`XXZ`$ chain with $`\mathrm{\Delta }=1/2`$MT  In $`S^x(q_x,\pi ,\omega )`$, the intensity becomes larger along the lower boundary as $`q_x\pi `$. The magnetic field corresponding to $`m=1/4`$ is given as $`H_{1/4}=J_1+J_3/2=2.5`$ from the effective $`S=1/2`$ $`XXZ`$ chain with $`\mathrm{\Delta }=1/2`$ com1 . The value $`H_{1/4}=2.5`$ is close to our numerical estimation $`H2.768`$.

In $`S^z(q_x,\pi ,\omega )`$ and $`S^x(q_x,0,\omega )`$, the lower boundaries in the $`\omega q_x`$ plane show convexly downward and take the minima at $`q_x=\pi /2`$. The largest intensity of $`S^z(q_x,\pi ,\omega )`$ appears at $`q_x=\pi `$, while that of $`S^x(q_x,0,\omega )`$ appears at $`q_x=0`$. The origin of the largest intensity can be explained by the fact that the two modes intersect at $`q_x=\pi `$ in $`S^z(q_x,\pi ,\omega )`$, and those intersect at $`q_x=0`$ in $`S^x(q_x,0,\omega )`$ as seen in Fig. 3 . These results are qualitatively the same as those obtained in ref. 14, where the DSF of the weak-coupling $`S=1/2`$ two-leg spin ladder in $`0<m<1/2`$ com2  was calculated analytically using bosonization technique. According to ref. 14, furthermore, it is argued that these largest intensities in the gapful DSF come out at $`(q_x,\omega )=(\pi ,H)`$ in $`S^z(q_x,\pi ,\omega )`$ and at $`(q_x,\omega )=(0,H)`$ in $`S^x(q_x,0,\omega )`$. From our numerical results, we evaluate that $`\omega H(2.768)`$ at both points in agreement with the results in ref. 14. It is interesting that the bosonization analysis for the weak-coupling regime well describes the feature of the strong-coupling regime.

Finally, we show the DSF of the $`S=1/2`$ two-leg ladder with a diagonal interaction in comparison with that of the $`S=1/2`$ bond-alternating spin chain with a NNN interaction. Used parameters are $`J_1=1.2,J_2=0.8`$, and $`J_3=0.4`$, which are the same as those in Fig. 1(a). We set $`m=1/4`$ with $`(N,M)=(28,7)`$. The wave vector $`q_x=\pi `$ in the two-leg ladder geometry corresponds to the wave vector $`q=\pi /2`$ in the one-dimensional geometry. In Fig. 4, two divergent peaks appear at $`q_x=0`$ and $`\pi `$ in $`\omega 0`$ in $`S^z(q_x,0,\omega )`$, indicating broken translational symmetry. In $`S^z(q_x,\pi ,\omega )`$, the small dispersionless peaks appear around $`\omega 1.0`$ and $`2.0`$ as also seen in Fig. 1(a), while in $`S^x(q_x,\pi ,\omega )`$, the peaks appear in $`\omega <1`$. Since there are no peaks around $`\omega 1.0`$ and $`2.0`$ in $`S^z(q_x,0,\omega )`$, and in $`\omega <1`$ in $`S^x(q_x,0,\omega )`$, these peaks in Fig. 4(b) are governed by the interchain mode $`q_y=\pi `$. This is confirmed by the observation that the intensity corresponding to these peaks becomes so weak as $`q`$ approaches $`0`$ in Fig. 1(a).

## V Summary

We have calculated the DSF of the $`S=1/2`$ bond-alternating spin chain with a NNN interaction in magnetic fields, using the continued fraction method based on the Lanczos algorithm. When the plateau exists on the magnetization curve, large intensity with a periodic dispersion relation comes out in $`S^z(q,\omega )`$, whose periodicity and amplitude are sensitive to the coupling constants. On the other hand, large intensity with an almost dispersionless mode comes out in $`S^x(q,\omega )`$. When the plateau does not exist, the DSF shows qualitatively the same behavior as that of the $`S=1/2`$ Heisenberg chain.

The DSF of the $`S=1/2`$ two-leg ladder for $`m=1/4`$ is also calculated in the strong interchain-coupling regime. The DSF shows gapless or gapful behavior depending on the wave vector $`q_y`$. The gapless modes in $`S^z(q_x,0,\omega )`$ and $`S^x(q_x,\pi ,\omega )`$ are well described by the $`S=1/2`$ $`XXZ`$ chain with $`\mathrm{\Delta }=1/2`$. The gapful behavior in $`S^z(q_x,\pi ,\omega )`$ and $`S^x(q_x,0,\omega )`$ is consistent with the results based on bosonization technique for the weak-coupling regime.

## Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Professor T. Tonegawa for sending numerical data. One of authors (S. S.) would like to thank Professor I. Harada for sending preprints. Numerical computations were carried out at the computer facility of Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics. This work was supported by the Grant-in-Aid no. 10640344 for Scientific Research from the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture, Japan.


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# Andreev reflection at point contacts with heavy-fermion UBe13 ?

\[

\]

In a recent Letter, Wälti et al.  have presented evidence for unconventional superconductivity in heavy-fermion UBe13, using point-contact spectroscopy. They proposed that the huge zero-bias conductance peaks found for their contacts between UBe13 and a Au tip are due to the existence of low-energy Andreev surface bound states indicating a non-trivial energy-gap function. This interpretation implicitly assumes that the junctions are in the ballistic limit, that means the electronic mean free path $`l`$ is considerably larger than the contact radius $`a`$. As will be shown below, such a condition is unlikely to be fulfilled for contacts with UBe13. In the normal state just above $`T_c`$, its electrical resistivity amounts to $`\rho 130\mu \mathrm{\Omega }`$cm, see for example Ref. . This very large resistivity results in an extremely short electronic mean free path $`l1`$nm, estimated using $`\rho l=3\pi R_\mathrm{K}/2k_\mathrm{F}^2`$ with $`R_\mathrm{K}=h/e^2=25.8\mathrm{k}\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and assuming a typical metallic Fermi wave number $`k_\mathrm{F}10`$nm-1.

The basic properties of a metallic junction in the normal state are described by Wexler’s formula . Its approximate form splits up the contact resistance $`R`$ into a ballistic (also called Sharvin resistance) and a resistive part (Maxwell resistance)

$$R(T)\frac{2R_\mathrm{K}}{(ak_\mathrm{F})^2}+\frac{\rho (T)}{4a}$$
(1)
For simplicity, equal Fermi wave numbers with spherical Fermi surfaces on both sides of the junction are assumed, and the contribution of one of the electrodes (here the Au tip) to the resistive part has already been neglected. At large contacts with radii $`al`$, Maxwell’s resistance $`\rho (T)/4a`$ dominates. In the ballistic limit ($`al`$) the resistive part represents a small correction to the ballistic contact resistance, describing backscattering processes. At a resistance of

$$R_{eq}\frac{\left(\rho k_\mathrm{F}\right)^2}{16R_\mathrm{K}}$$
(2)
both parts of the contact resistance have equal size. It requires $`RR_{eq}410\mathrm{\Omega }`$ for a UBe13 \- Au junction to be in the ballistic limit. This is indeed a very strong criterium for spectroscopy on these point contacts.

According to Wexler’s formula Eq. (1), the resistive part vanishes when the UBe13 sample becomes superconducting, leaving the ballistic part for possible Andreev reflection processes. Therefore, any analysis in terms of Andreev reflection requires either the junction to be in the ballistic limit or to separate the different contributions to the superconducting signal.

Wexler’s formula offers a straightforward strategy to solve this problem by comparing the temperature dependence of the specific resistivity in the normal state with that of the contact resistance to derive the contact radius $`a`$. Akimenko et al.  first proposed and verified the principles of such an analysis on junctions between simple normal metals. This method applied to junctions between UBe13 and a normal metal (tungsten) showed the size of the superconducting anomalies to coincide with the resistive (Maxwell) part of the contact resistance over a wide range of contact radii $`a`$, indicating a negligible contribution of Andreev reflection .

The (typical) contact discussed in Ref.  has a normal-state $`R2\mathrm{\Omega }`$. Consequently, it is not in the ballistic limit: This resistance is mainly due to Maxwell’s $`\rho /4a`$, with a contact radius $`a160`$nm, while the ballistic part $`2R_\mathrm{K}/(ak_\mathrm{F})^2`$ is quite small. When the contact is cooled to below $`T_c`$, the electrical resistivity $`\rho =0`$ and, thus, Maxwell’s resistance vanishes. This leads to the observed large rise of the zero-bias conductance. Approximating the ballistic resistance by the residual contact resistance $`0.2\mathrm{\Omega }`$, the Fermi wave number $`k_\mathrm{F}3`$nm-1, a quite reasonable value.

Of course, a more detailed investigation would also take into account that part of the contact region could stay normal due to the deformation of the UBe13 crystal lattice caused by the Au tip, enhancing the residual contact resistance, or that there could be contributions from Andreev reflection. However, the latter processes are difficult to identify because of the large resistive (Maxwell) component of the superconducting signal.


text:
# Slow inviscid flows of a compressible fluid in spatially inhomogeneous systems

## I Introduction

Hydrodynamic-type systems of equations are extensively employed for macroscopic description of physical phenomena in ordinary and superfluid liquids, in gases, in plasmas, in other substances. In solving hydrodynamic problems, it is admissible in many cases to neglect all dissipative processes and use the ideal fluid approximation, at least as the first step. With this approximation, a dynamic model describing flow is conservative. The Hamiltonian formalism is a convenient tool to deal with such systems ,, which makes possible to consider in a universal way all nonlinear processes. A big number of works is devoted to application of the Hamiltonian method in hydrodynamics (see, for instance, the reviews , and references therein).

One of the most important questions, permitted for a universal consideration in the frame of canonical formalism, is the question about integrals of motion of a dynamic system. Accordingly to the theorem of Noether ,, each conservation law of a system is closely connected with a symmetry of the corresponding Lagrangian with respect to some one-parametric group of transformations of dynamical variables. It is well known that the conservation laws for the energy, momentum, and for the angular momentum follow from the fundamental properties of the space and time, namely from homogeneity of the time and from homogeneity and isotropy of the space. Due to these properties, shifts and rotations of a system do not change its Lagrangian. The characteristic feature of the hydrodynamic-type systems is that they possess, besides the indicated usual integrals of motion, also an infinite number of specific integrals of motion related to the freezing-in property of canonical vorticity -. The reason for this is a basic physical property of fluids, relabeling symmetry. For instance, in isentropic flows the circulation of the canonical momentum along any frozen-in closed contour is conserved. In usual nonrelativistic hydrodynamics, where the canonical momentum coincides with the velocity, the given statement is known as the theorem of Kelvin about conservation of the velocity circulation ,.

Existence of an infinite number of integrals of motion influences strongly dynamical and statistical properties of liquid systems. This is the reason why a clarification of structure of conservation laws is very important, as well as search for such new parameterizations for dynamical variables, which take into account the integrals of motion more completely. In many cases, even when a dissipation is present but its level is low, it is still correct to speak about integrals of the corresponding conservative problem, because values of some of them are conserved with a high accuracy, especially on an initial stage of the evolution, while the system has not proceeded to a state where a role of dissipation is significant due to large gradients. Besides this, conservation laws in physical systems, as a rule, are associated with definite geometrical objects. Usage of these associations promotes understanding and vivid imagination of everything that happens. In hydrodynamic models, the frozen-in vortex lines are such geometrical objects, so the present work is devoted to study of motion of vortex lines in spatially inhomogeneous systems.

Hydrodynamic equations describe, in particular, an interaction between ”soft” degrees of freedom of a system – frozen-in vortices, and ”hard” degrees of freedom – acoustic modes. The presence of soft degrees of freedom is explained by the fact that equilibrium states of the fluid are highly degenerated due to the relabeling symmetry. Thus, no potential energy corresponds to soft degrees of freedom, unlike the hard degrees of freedom. Due to dominating effect of elastic potential energy, hard degrees of freedom behave, typically, like a set of weakly nonlinear oscillators. On the contrary, dynamics of soft degrees of freedom is not dominated by a potential energy, and usually it is highly nonlinear. In a limit of slow flows, when a typical velocity of vortex structure motion is small in comparison with the sound speed, a dynamic regime is possible, in which the hard degrees of freedom, corresponding to deviations of fluid density $`\rho (𝐫,t)`$ from an equilibrium configuration $`\rho _0(𝐫)`$, are excited weakly. Then, completely neglecting the sound, in the homogeneous case $`\rho _0=const`$ one arrives at the models of incompressible fluid. For dynamics of vortices in incompressible perfect fluid the so called formalism of vortex lines has been developed recently -, which takes into account the conservation of topology of the vorticity field ,. Application of this formalism allows one to deal with a partially integrated system, where the topology is fixed by the Cauchy invariant . In proposed description the frozen-in solenoidal vorticity field is considered as a continuous distribution of the elementary objects – vortex lines. Such formulation of inviscid hydrodynamics as the problem of vortex line motion has been very suitable for study of localized vortex structures like vortex filaments. Also, it seems to be an adequate approach to the problem of finite time singularity formation in solutions of hydrodynamic equations .

The goal of the present work is to extend the vortex line formalism to the case when equilibrium density $`\rho _0(𝐫)`$ is a fixed nontrivial function of spatial coordinates due to a static influence of some external forces. Such situation takes place in many physically important models. For examples, it can be the gravitational force for a large mass of an isentropic gas, both in usual and in relativistic hydrodynamics, or it can be the condition of electrical neutrality for the electron fluid on a given background of ion distribution in the model of electron magnetohydrodynamics (EMHD). The theory developed can be also applied to tasks about long-scale dynamics of the quantized vortex filaments in a Bose-Einstein condensate placed into a trap of a sufficiently large size. The vortex line formalism seems to be a universal and adequate tool for investigation of slow inviscid flows in inhomogeneous systems. For instance, it makes possible, in a simple and standard way, to analyze qualitative behavior of vortices without detailed consideration of basic equations of motion for the fluid. Therefore the proposed approach can have advantages over other methods when complicated systems will be studied.

As a concrete result, the local induction approximation (LIA) in vortex dynamics will be analyzed for several spatially inhomogeneous physical systems, namely for Eulerian compressible hydrodynamics in an external field, for EMHD, and for vortices in trapped Bose-Einstein condensates. A new equation of vortex filament motion will be derived, which takes into account the inhomogeneity of these systems \[the Eq.(33)\]. As to relativistic hydrodynamics in a static gravitational field, the proposed method gives a more complicated LIA equation than the Eq.(33), as it has been shown recently by the present author . \[See also the most recent paper  about dynamics of an ultrarelativistic fluid in the flat anisotropic cosmological models of expanding Universe, where the formalism of vortex lines has been applied to systems with Hamiltonian functionals depending explicitly on the time variable, and the effect of nonstationary anisotropy of the space on vortex dynamics has been studied.\]

This paper is organized as follows. A short review of Lagrangian formalism for fluid media is given in Sec. II. It provides a basis for development in Sec. III of the vortex line formalism for spatially inhomogeneous systems. Then in Sec. IV, the method developed is applied to derive approximate equations of motion for slender nonstretched vortex filaments in three above mentioned physical models.

## II Lagrangian formalism for a fluid

From viewpoint of the Lagrangian formalism, the freezing-in property of the canonical vorticity is due to the special symmetry of the basic equations of ideal hydrodynamics -, ,. As known, the entire Lagrangian description of a motion of some continuous medium can be given by the three-dimensional (3D) mapping $`𝐫=𝐱(𝐚,t)`$, which indicates the space coordinates of each medium point labeled by a label $`𝐚=(a_1,a_2,a_3)`$, at an arbitrary moment in time $`t`$. The labeling $`𝐚`$ can be chosen in such a manner that the amount of matter in a small volume $`d^3𝐚`$ in the label space is simply equal to this volume. With neglecting all dissipative processes, a dynamic model describing flow is conservative, so the equations of motion for the mapping $`𝐱(𝐚,t)`$ follow from a variational principle

$$\delta S=\delta \{𝐱(𝐚,t),\dot{𝐱}(𝐚,t)\}𝑑t=0,$$

where the Lagrangian $``$ is a functional of $`𝐱(𝐚,t),\dot{𝐱}(𝐚,t)`$, and also spatial derivatives. A very important circumstance is related to the fluidity property of the media under consideration. The fluidity is manifested in the fact that the Lagrangian actually contains the dependence on $`𝐱(𝐚,t)`$ and $`\dot{𝐱}(𝐚,t)`$ only through two Eulerian characteristics of the flow, namely through the field of density $`\rho (𝐫,t)`$ and the velocity field $`𝐯(𝐫,t)`$, i.e., $`=\{\rho ,𝐯\}`$, with

$$\rho (𝐫,t)=\text{det}\frac{𝐚(𝐫,t)}{𝐫},𝐯(𝐫,t)=\dot{𝐱}(𝐚,t)|_{𝐚=𝐚(𝐫,t)}$$
(1)
Here $`𝐚(𝐫,t)`$ is the inverse mapping with respect to $`𝐱(𝐚,t)`$.

A simple particular example is the Lagrangian of ordinary Eulerian isentropic hydrodynamics

$$_{Euler}=\left(\rho \frac{𝐯^2}{2}\epsilon (\rho )\rho U(𝐫)\right)𝑑𝐫,$$
(2)
where $`\epsilon (\rho )`$ is the internal energy density, $`U(𝐫)`$ is the external force potential, for instance, the gravitational potential.

A less trivial example is the Lagrangian of relativistic isentropic hydrodynamics  in a curved space-time with metric tensor $`g_{ik}(t,𝐫)`$ ($`i,k=\mathrm{0..3};\alpha ,\beta =\mathrm{1..3}`$)

$$_r=\left(\frac{\rho }{\sqrt{g}}\sqrt{g_{00}+2g_{0\alpha }v^\alpha +g_{\alpha \beta }v^\alpha v^\beta }\right)\sqrt{g}𝑑𝐫.$$

Here $`g=\text{det}g_{ik}`$ is the determinant of the metric tensor, the expression in parenthesis is equal to the absolute value of the current four-vector $`n^i=n(dx^i/ds)`$ . A dependence $`(n)`$ connects the relativistic density $``$ of the fluid energy, measured in a locally co-moving reference frame, with $`n`$.

In plasma physics, the model of electron magnetohydrodynamics is useful. EMHD follows in the limit of slow flows from the Lagrangian of electron fluid

$$_e=\left(\rho \frac{𝐯^2}{2}+\frac{e}{mc}\rho (𝐀𝐯)\frac{(\text{curl }𝐀)^2}{8\pi }+\mathrm{}\right)𝑑𝐫,$$
(3)
where $`\rho (𝐫,t)`$ is the density of electron fluid, $`e`$ is the electric charge of electron, $`m`$ is its mass, and $`c`$ is the speed of light. The vector potential $`𝐀(𝐫,t)`$ of the electromagnetic field determines the magnetic field $`𝐁(𝐫,t)`$ by the relation $`𝐁=\text{curl }𝐀`$. In this paper, we will not need an explicit form of other terms indicated by the dots.

The list of examples, of course, is not exhausted by three given models. All known hydrodynamic models without dissipation, where the conservation of fluid amount takes place, can be described in this way. So the theory developed here is quite universal and applicable in various branches of physics where vortex phenomena occur.

It follows from the definitions (1) that dynamics of the density $`\rho (𝐫,t)`$ obeys the continuity equation in its standard form

$$\rho _t+(\rho 𝐯)=0.$$
(4)
The vanishing condition for variation of the action $`S=\{\rho ,𝐯\}𝑑t`$, when the mapping $`𝐱(𝐚,t)`$ is varied by $`\delta 𝐱(𝐚,t)`$, can be expressed in Eulerian representation as follows (the generalized Euler equation )

$$(_t+𝐯)\left(\frac{1}{\rho }\frac{\delta }{\delta 𝐯}\right)=\left(\frac{\delta }{\delta \rho }\right)\frac{1}{\rho }\left(\frac{\delta }{\delta v^\alpha }\right)v^\alpha .$$
(5)
This is merely the variational Euler-Lagrange equation

$$\frac{d}{dt}\frac{\delta }{\delta \dot{𝐱}(𝐚)}=\frac{\delta }{\delta 𝐱(𝐚)}$$

for fluid particle dynamics. The equations (4) and (5) determine completely evolution of hydrodynamic system.

It was already mentioned that in all such systems an infinite number of conservation laws exists. The $`\{\rho ,𝐯\}`$-dependence means that the Lagrangian $`\{𝐱(𝐚,t),\dot{𝐱}(𝐚,t)\}`$ admits the infinite-parametric symmetry group – it assumes the same value on any two mappings $`𝐱_1(𝐚,t)`$ and $`𝐱_2(𝐚,t)`$, if they differ one from another only by some relabeling of the labels with unit Jacobian

$$𝐱_2(𝐚,t)=𝐱_1(𝐚^{}(𝐚),t),\text{det}𝐚^{}/𝐚=1.$$
(6)
Obviously, such mappings create the same density and velocity fields. According to the Noether’s theorem ,, every one-parametric sub-group of the relabeling group $`𝐚^{}(𝐚)`$ with unit Jacobian corresponds to an integral of motion. There are several classifications of these conservation laws. For instance, one can postulate that circulation of the canonical momentum $`𝐩(𝐫,t)`$,

$$𝐩(𝐫,t)\frac{\delta }{\delta \dot{𝐱}(𝐚,t)}|_{𝐚=𝐚(𝐫,t)}=\frac{1}{\rho }\left(\frac{\delta \{\rho ,𝐯\}}{\delta 𝐯}\right),$$
(7)
along an arbitrary frozen-in closed contour $`\gamma (t)`$ does not depend on time (the generalized theorem of Kelvin):

$$_{\gamma (t)}(𝐩d𝐫)=const.$$

We arrive at a different formulation, in terms of the so called Cauchy invariant, when consider the solenoidal field of the canonical vorticity $`𝛀(𝐫,t)`$,

$$𝛀(𝐫,t)=\text{curl}𝐩(𝐫,t).$$
(8)
It is easy to check that application of the curl-operator to the equation (5) gives

$$𝛀_t=\text{curl}[𝐯\times 𝛀].$$
(9)
The formal solution of this equation is

$$𝛀(𝐫,t)=\delta (𝐫𝐱(𝐚,t))(𝛀_0(𝐚)_𝐚)𝐱(𝐚,t)𝑑𝐚,$$
(10)
where the solenoidal independent on time field $`𝛀_0(𝐚)`$ is exactly the Cauchy invariant. The equation (10) displays that lines of initial solenoidal field $`𝛀_0(𝐚)`$ are deformed in course of motion by the mapping $`𝐱(𝐚,t)`$, keeping all the topological characteristics unchanged ,. This feature of vortex lines dynamics is called the freezing-in property.

## III Hamiltonian dynamics of vortex lines

To continue, it is more convenient to reformulate the problem in terms of density and canonical momentum. Let the system be specified by some Hamilton’s functional $`\{\rho ,𝐩\}`$

$$=\left(\frac{\delta }{\delta 𝐯}𝐯\right)𝑑𝐫,$$
(11)
where the velocity $`𝐯`$ is expressed through the momentum $`𝐩`$ and through the density $`\rho `$ with the help of Eq. (7). Let us note that the following equality takes place

$$𝐯=\frac{1}{\rho }\left(\frac{\delta }{\delta 𝐩}\right),$$
(12)
which is analogous to the formula (7). The Hamiltonian (non-canonical ) equations of motion for the fields of density and momentum follow from Eqs. (4) and (5). With taking into account the equality (12), they have the form (for detailed derivation see )

$$\rho _t+\left(\frac{\delta }{\delta 𝐩}\right)=0,$$
(13)
$$𝐩_t=\left[\left(\frac{\delta }{\delta 𝐩}\right)\times \frac{\text{curl}𝐩}{\rho }\right]\left(\frac{\delta }{\delta \rho }\right).$$
(14)
It is supposed in this work that the Hamiltonian has a minimum at some configuration $`\{\rho _0(𝐫),𝐩_0(𝐫)\}`$. For simplicity, we will consider only systems without gyroscopic effects, i.e., $`𝐩_0(𝐫)=\mathrm{𝟎}`$. Our purpose is to study slow flows near the equilibrium. In the regime under consideration, which corresponds formally to ”prohibition” of excitation of the acoustic modes, the flow of fluid occurs in such a way that the density of each moving portion of fluid follows the given function $`\rho _0(𝐫)`$. Therefore the equation (13) gives the condition

$$\left(\frac{\delta }{\delta 𝐩}\right)=0,$$
(15)
which means that after imposing the constrain $`\rho =\rho _0(𝐫)`$ the Hamiltonian does not depend anymore on the potential component of the canonical momentum field, it depends now only on the solenoidal component, i.e., actually on the vorticity $`𝛀`$. It should be also noted that it is sufficient to take into consideration only quadratic part of the Hamiltonian, because the flow is supposed to be slow, so higher order terms, if any exists, may be neglected. Therefore, in further equations, $`\{𝛀\}`$ is actually a quadratic functional of the vorticity field, though this fact will not be used in formal calculations. The condition (15) implies validity of the formula

$$\frac{\delta }{\delta 𝐩}=\text{curl}\left(\frac{\delta }{\delta 𝛀}\right),$$
(16)
so the next equation for slow dynamics of the vorticity follows from (14)

$$𝛀_t=\text{curl}\left[\text{curl}\left(\frac{\delta }{\delta 𝛀}\right)\times \frac{𝛀}{\rho _0(𝐫)}\right]$$
(17)
This equation differs only by presence of the function $`\rho _0(𝐫)`$ (instead of the unity) from the equation used in the works  and  as a start point in the transition to the vortex line representation in homogeneous systems. Therefore all the further constructions will be done similarly to Ref.. First, let us fix the topology of the vorticity field by means of the formula

$$𝛀(𝐫,t)=\delta (𝐫𝐑(𝐚,t))(𝛀_0(𝐚)_𝐚)𝐑(𝐚,t)𝑑𝐚$$

$$=\frac{(𝛀_0(𝐚)_𝐚)𝐑(𝐚,t)}{\text{det}𝐑/𝐚}|_{𝐚=𝐑^1(𝐫,t)}$$
(18)
where $`𝛀_0(𝐚)`$ is the Cauchy invariant. The vector

$$𝐓(𝐚,t)=(𝛀_0(𝐚)_𝐚)𝐑(𝐚,t)$$
(19)
is directed along the vorticity field at the point $`𝐫=𝐑(𝐚,t)`$. It is necessary to stress that the information supplied by the mapping $`𝐑(𝐚,t)`$ is not so full as the information supplied by the purely Lagrangian mapping $`𝐱(𝐚,t)`$. The role of the mapping $`𝐑(𝐚,t)`$ is exhausted by a continuous deformation of the vortex lines of the initial field $`𝛀_0`$. This means that the Jacobian

$$J=\text{det}𝐑/𝐚$$
(20)
is not related directly to the density $`\rho _0(𝐫)`$, inasmuch as, unlike the mapping $`𝐱(𝐚,t)`$, the new mapping $`𝐑(𝐚,t)`$ is defined up to an arbitrary non-uniform shift along the vortex lines. Geometrical meaning of the representation (18) becomes more clear if instead of $`𝐚`$ we use a so called vortex line coordinate system $`(\nu _1(𝐚),\nu _2(𝐚),\xi (𝐚))`$, so that the 2D Lagrangian coordinate $`\nu =(\nu _1,\nu _2)𝒩`$ is a label of vortex lines, which lies in some manifold $`𝒩`$, while a longitudinal coordinate $`\xi `$ parameterizes the vortex line. Locally, vortex line coordinate system exists for arbitrary topology of the vorticity field, but globally – only in the case when all the lines are closed. In the last case the equation (18) can be rewritten in the simple form

$$𝛀(𝐫,t)=_𝒩d^2\nu \delta (𝐫𝐑(\nu ,\xi ,t))𝐑_\xi 𝑑\xi ,$$
(21)
where $`𝐑_\xi =𝐑/\xi `$. The geometrical meaning of this formula is rather evident — the frozen-in vorticity field is presented as a continuous distribution of vortex lines. It is also clear that the choice of the longitudinal parameter is nonunique. This choice is determined exclusively by convenience for a particular task. Usage of the formula

$$𝛀_t(𝐫,t)=\text{curl}_𝐫\delta (𝐫𝐑(𝐚,t))[𝐑_t(𝐚,t)\times 𝐓(𝐚,t)]𝑑𝐚,$$
(22)
which follows immediately from Eq. (18), together with the general relationship between variational derivatives of an arbitrary functional $`F\{𝛀\}`$

$$\left[𝐓\times \text{curl}_𝐫\left(\frac{\delta F}{\delta 𝛀(𝐑)}\right)\right]=\frac{\delta F\{𝛀\{𝐑\}\}}{\delta 𝐑(𝐚)}|_{𝛀_0}$$
(23)
allow us to obtain the equation of motion for the mapping $`𝐑(𝐚,t)`$ by substitution of the representation (18) into the equation (17). As the result, dynamics of the mapping $`𝐑(𝐚,t)`$ is determined by the equation

$$\left[(𝛀_0(𝐚)_𝐚)𝐑(𝐚)\times 𝐑_t(𝐚)\right]\rho _0(𝐑)=\frac{\delta \{𝛀\{𝐑\}\}}{\delta 𝐑(𝐚)}.$$
(24)
It is not very difficult to check by a direct calculation that the given equation of motion for $`𝐑(𝐚,t)`$ follows from the variational principle $`\delta _{𝛀_0}𝑑t=0`$, where the Lagrangian is

$$_{𝛀_0}=(\left[𝐑_t\times 𝐃(𝐑)\right](𝛀_0_𝐚)𝐑)𝑑𝐚\{𝛀\{𝐑\}\},$$
(25)
with the vector function $`𝐃(𝐑)`$ being related to the density $`\rho _0(𝐫)`$ by the equality

$$(_𝐑𝐃(𝐑))=\rho _0(𝐑).$$
(26)
For application to vortex filaments, the following form of the Lagrangian is more useful, where $`𝐑=𝐑(\nu ,\xi ,t)`$:

$$_𝒩=_𝒩d^2\nu \left(\left[𝐑_t\times 𝐃(𝐑)\right]𝐑_\xi \right)𝑑\xi \{𝛀\{𝐑\}\}.$$
(27)
It should be stressed that conservation in time of the fluid amount inside each closed frozen-in vortex surface is not imposed a priori as a constrain for the mapping $`𝐑(𝐚,t)`$. All such quantities are conserved in the dynamical sense due to the symmetry of the Lagrangian (27) with respect to the group of relabelings of the labels $`\nu `$ of vortex lines

$$\nu =\nu (\stackrel{~}{\nu },t),(\nu _1,\nu _2)/(\stackrel{~}{\nu }_1,\stackrel{~}{\nu }_2)=1.$$
(28)
Considering all one-parametrical subgroups of the given group of area-preserving transformations and applying the Noether’s theorem  to the Lagrangian (27), it is possible to obtain the indicated integrals of motion in the next form (compare with Ref.)

$$I_\mathrm{\Psi }=_𝒩\mathrm{\Psi }(\nu _1,\nu _2)d^2\nu \rho _0(𝐑)([𝐑_1\times 𝐑_2]𝐑_\xi )𝑑\xi $$
(29)
where $`\mathrm{\Psi }(\nu _1,\nu _2)`$ is an arbitrary function on the manifold $`𝒩`$ of labels, with the only condition $`\mathrm{\Psi }|_𝒩=0`$.

## IV Local induction approximation

When a particular task is being solved, the necessity always arises in making some simplifications. The variational formulation for the dynamics of vortex lines allows us to introduce and control various approximations on the level of the Lagrangian (27), what in practice is more convenient and more simple than control of approximations made on the level of equations of motion. For example we will consider now the so called local induction approximation (LIA) in dynamics of a slender non-stretched vortex filament. As known, in spatially homogeneous systems the LIA yields an integrable equation which is gauge equivalent to the Nonlinear Schroedinger Equation . In general case, inhomogeneity destroys the integrability of LIA equation. Nevertheless, this does not reduce the value of LIA as a simplified model of filament dynamics.

### A LIA in Eulerian hydrodynamics

At first, we will consider the Eulerian hydrodynamics, where the canonical momentum and the velocity coincide. Let the vorticity be concentrated in a quasi-one-dimensional structure, a vortex filament, with a typical longitudinal scale $`L`$ being much larger than the width $`d`$ of the filament. A typical scale of spatial inhomogeneity is supposed to be of order of $`L`$ or larger. In such situation, the kinetic energy of the fluid is concentrated in the vicinity of the filament, with the corresponding integral being logarithmically large on the parameter $`L/d`$. The LIA consist in the following simplifications. First, in the kinetic part of the Lagrangian (27), the dependence of the shape of vortex lines on the label $`\nu `$ is neglected, i.e., the filament is considered as a single curve $`𝐑(\xi ,t)`$. After integration over $`d^2\nu `$ the constant multiplier $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ appears now, which is the value of velocity circulation around the filament. Second, some significant simplifications may be done in the Hamiltonian. Generally speaking, exact expression for the Hamiltonian implies derivation of the dependence $`𝐯\{\rho _0,𝛀\}`$ from the following system of equations:

$$\text{curl }𝐯=𝛀,\text{div }(\rho _0(𝐫)𝐯)=0,$$

and subsequent substitution of $`𝐯`$ into the expression for the kinetic energy. After that one has to deal with a nonlocal Hamiltonian

$$_{Euler}^{\{\rho _0\}}=\frac{1}{2}G_{\alpha \beta }^{\{E,\rho _0\}}(𝐫_1,𝐫_2)\mathrm{\Omega }_\alpha (𝐫_1)\mathrm{\Omega }_\beta (𝐫_2)𝑑𝐫_1𝑑𝐫_2,$$

where the Green function $`G_{\alpha \beta }^{\{E,\rho _0\}}(𝐫_1,𝐫_2)`$ has the following asymptotics at close arguments:

$$G_{\alpha \beta }^{\{E,\rho _0\}}(𝐫_1,𝐫_2)\frac{\rho _0(𝐫_1)\delta _{\alpha \beta }}{4\pi |𝐫_2𝐫_1|},𝐫_2𝐫_1.$$

Therefore the Hamiltonian of a singular vortex filament,

$$_f^{d=0}=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }^2}{2}G_{\alpha \beta }^{\{E,\rho _0\}}(𝐑_1,𝐑_2)R_{1\alpha }^{}R_{2\beta }^{}𝑑\xi _1𝑑\xi _2,$$
(30)
where $`R_{1\alpha }^{}=_{\xi _1}R_\alpha (\xi _1)`$ and so on, logarithmically diverges. Taking into account the finite width $`d`$ and the longitudinal scale $`L`$, it is possible to put, with a logarithmic accuracy, the Hamiltonian of a thin vortex filament equal to the following expression

$$_f^d_A=\mathrm{\Gamma }A\rho _0(𝐑)|𝐑_\xi |𝑑\xi ,$$
(31)
where the constant $`A`$ is

$$A=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }}{4\pi }\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{L}{d}\right).$$
(32)
In accordance with the simplifications made above, the motion of a slender vortex filament in the spatially inhomogeneous system is described approximately by the equation

$$[𝐑_\xi \times 𝐑_t]\rho _0(𝐑)/A=\rho _0(𝐑)|𝐑_\xi |_\xi \left(\rho _0(𝐑)\frac{𝐑_\xi }{|𝐑_\xi |}\right),$$

which is obtained by substitution of the Hamiltonian (31) into the equation (24). The given equation can be solved with respect to $`𝐑_t`$ and rewritten in terms of the geometrically invariant objects $`𝐭,𝐛,\kappa `$, where $`𝐭`$ is the unit tangent vector on the curve, $`𝐛`$ is the unit binormal vector, and $`\kappa `$ is the curvature of the line. As the result, we have the equation

$$𝐑_t/A=[(\mathrm{ln}\rho _0(𝐑))\times 𝐭]+\kappa 𝐛,$$
(33)
applicability of which is not limited actually by the Eulerian hydrodynamics. Let us indicate at least two more physical models where the LIA equation (33) is useful.

### B LIA in EMHD

The first model is EMHD, the Hamiltonian of which contains, besides the kinetic energy, also the energy of magnetic field $`𝐁`$ created by current of the electron fluid through the motionless inhomogeneous ion fluid. In principle, the Hamiltonian of EMHD is determined by the relations that follow from the Lagrangian $`_e`$, Eq.(3):

$$\text{curl }𝐯+\frac{e}{mc}𝐁=𝛀,\text{curl }𝐁=\frac{4\pi e}{mc}\rho _0(𝐫)𝐯,$$

$`_{EMHD}={\displaystyle \left(\rho _0(𝐫)\frac{𝐯^2}{2}+\frac{𝐁^2}{8\pi }\right)𝑑𝐫}.`$

In spatially homogeneous system we would obtain the expression

$$_{EMHD}^h=\frac{\rho _0}{8\pi }\frac{e^{q|𝐫_1𝐫_2|}}{|𝐫_1𝐫_2|}𝛀(𝐫_1)𝛀(𝐫_2)𝑑𝐫_1𝑑𝐫_2,$$

where the screening parameter $`q`$ is determined by the relation

$$q^2=\frac{4\pi \rho _0e^2}{m^2c^2}.$$

In inhomogeneous system $`q`$ is a function of coordinates, with a typical value $`\stackrel{~}{q}`$. Let us suppose the inequalities $`\stackrel{~}{q}L1`$, and $`\stackrel{~}{q}d1`$. One can see that the logarithmic integral analogous to the expression (30) is cut now not on the $`L`$, but on the skin depth $`\lambda =1/q`$. Accordingly, for this case the constant $`A`$ in LIA equation (33) is given by the expression

$$A_{EMHD}=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }}{4\pi }\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{mc}{ed\sqrt{\stackrel{~}{\rho }}}\right).$$

We see that in ideal EMHD the LIA works better than in Eulerian hydrodynamics, due to the screening effect.

### C LIA in Bose-Einstein condensate

Another important physical model, where the equation (33) may be applied, is the theory of Bose-Einstein condensate for a weakly nonideal trapped gas with a quantized vortex filament . At zero temperature this system is described approximately by the complex order parameter $`\mathrm{\Phi }(𝐫,t)`$ (the wave function of the condensate), with the equation of motion (the Gross-Pitaevskii equation) taking in dimensionless variables the form

$$i\mathrm{\Phi }_t=\left(\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Delta }+U(𝐫)\mu +|\mathrm{\Phi }|^2\right)\mathrm{\Phi },$$
(34)
where $`U(𝐫)`$ is an external potential, usually of the quadratic form

$$U(𝐫)=ax^2+by^2+cz^2,$$

and the constant $`\mu `$ is the chemical potential. Let us suppose $`abc`$. It is well known that the equation (34) admits the hydrodynamical interpretation. The variables $`\rho `$ and $`𝐩`$ are defined by the relations

$$\rho =|\mathrm{\Phi }|^2,\rho 𝐩=(\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }}\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{\Phi }\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }})/2i.$$

The corresponding Hamiltonian is

$$_{GP}=\left[\frac{(\sqrt{\rho })^2+\rho 𝐩^2}{2}+(U(𝐫)\mu )\rho +\frac{\rho ^2}{2}\right]𝑑𝐫.$$

In comparison with the ordinary Eulerian hydrodynamics, there is the term depending on the density gradient in this expression. However, with large values of the parameter $`\mu ^2/a`$, one may neglect that term in calculation of the equilibrium density inside the space region where the density is not exponentially small, and use the approximate formula

$$\rho _0(𝐫)\mu U(𝐫),\text{if}\{\mu ^2a;\mu U(𝐫)>0\}.$$

As known, the equation (34) admits solutions with quantized vortex filaments, the circulation around them being equal to $`2\pi `$. In these solutions, the density differs significantly from $`\rho _0(𝐫)`$ only at close distances of order $`1/\sqrt{\mu }`$ from the zero line. Far away, up to distances of order $`L\sqrt{\mu /a}1/\sqrt{\mu }`$, we have almost Eulerian flow. Therefore the LIA equation (33) is valid for description of slow motion of quantum vortex filament in trapped Bose-condensate of a relatively large size $`L`$, with the parameter

$$A=A_{GP}=(1/4)\mathrm{ln}(\mu ^2/a).$$

The inequality $`\mu ^2a`$ ensures also the smallness of the filament velocity $`v_f\kappa A_{GP}`$ with respect to the speed of sound $`c_s\sqrt{\mu }`$, while the curvature of the filament is of order $`\kappa \sqrt{a/\mu }`$ .

## Conclusions

Let us summarize briefly the main results of this paper. First, with neglecting acoustic degrees of freedom in investigation of slow isentropic flows of a compressible perfect fluid in spatially inhomogeneous systems, the general form of variational principle for dynamics of frozen-in vortex lines has been found. The connection from the basic Lagrangian given in terms of density and velocity fields to the Hamiltonian of vortex lines has been provided, which allows one to analyze vorticity dynamics in complicated systems initially specified by the principle of least action. Second, this method has been applied to several physically important models, such as Eulerian hydrodynamics in an external field, ideal electron magnetohydrodynamics on inhomogeneous ion background, and the Gross-Pitaevskii model for trapped Bose-Einstein condensate, in order to derive approximate equations of motion for vortex filaments. It has been established that a mathematical structure of the equations derived is the same in all the three cases, though parameters have different physical meaning in each case.

The final remark concerns possibility for development of an analogous approach in the general case, when acoustic waves are important. Though at present moment this work has not been completed yet, but the author hopes it will be done in the future on the basis of equations (13-14).

## Acknowledgments

This work was supported by RFBR (grant No. 00-01-00929), by the Russian State Program of Support of the Leading Scientific Schools (grant No. 00-15-96007), by the INTAS, and by the Fund KFA, Forschungszentrum, Juelich, Germany.