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# Open strings, 2D gravity and AdS/CFT correspondence

## I introduction

One of the most striking features of the Anti-de Sitter/Conformal Field Theory (AdS/CFT) correspondence  is the possibility of relating physical theories that appear completely different at first sight. Although the meaning of the AdS/CFT correspondence is yet to be fully clarified, we expect it will help shed light on fundamental issues of contemporary theoretical physics, such as the non-perturbative regime of Yang-Mills and string theories.

Lower-dimensional models are often used in theoretical physics as simplified models to investigating complex systems. This approach allows to formulate the problem under investigation in a mathematical simpler context, yet retaining the crucial characteristics of the original model. Applying this strategy to the AdS/CFT correspondence we are lead to investigate the lowest-dimensional, $`d=2`$, member of the AdSd/CFTd-1 family. In this case the AdS/CFT conjecture states that gravity on $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ is dual to a one-dimensional conformal field theory living on the timelike boundary of $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$. Widely investigated in the recent literature, the AdS2/CFT1 correspondence has, however, revealed itself much more puzzling than its higher dimensional counterparts . Specific features of two-dimensional gravity and of the conjectured CFT living on the boundary of $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ conspire indeed to make the whole subject very difficult to analyze. Classical two-dimensional (dilaton) gravity is a conformal theory itself. It can be formulated as a nonlinear sigma-model , which, at the classical level, is endowed with conformal symmetry. So we would naively expect gravity on $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ to be dual to a two-dimensional CFT. However, it has been shown that the conformal symmetry associated with AdS2 is infinite dimensional and is generated by a Virasoro algebra. Moreover, there is some evidence that it can be realized in terms of boundary fields describing deformations of the boundary of $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ . These results seem to indicate that the conformal theory is actually a one-dimensional CFT, though the search for a viable candidate has not been successful yet. (See Refs. .)

The above features have a strong impact on the study of two-dimensional gravity structures, i.e., black holes, by means of conformal field theory techniques. Previous attempts to calculate the statistical entropy of $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ black holes were only partially successful  (A mismatch of a factor $`\sqrt{2}`$ between the thermodynamic and statistical entropy was found). Though the free energy of $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ black holes depends quadratically on the Hawking temperature , a feature which is typical of two-dimensional CFTs, it has been shown that $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ black holes are completely characterized by the charges associated with the asymptotic symmetries of $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ . These charges are defined on the timelike boundary of $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$, suggesting that $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ black holes admit a description in terms of a one-dimensional conformal field theory.

In this paper we make a step forward in clarifying the meaning of the AdS/CFT duality in two dimensions. Starting from the nonlinear sigma model description of two-dimensional dilaton gravity  we discuss in depth the duality between two-dimensional dilaton gravity on $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ and open strings. We show that in the weak-coupling regime two-dimensional dilaton gravity on $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ has two different degeneration limits which correspond to Neumann and Dirichlet boundary conditions for the open string, respectively. We put the modes of the gravitational theory on the boundary in a one-to-one correspondence with the string modes and explain the semiclassical properties of the AdS black hole – including the entropy – in terms of the dual CFT microscopic dynamics. Some results of this paper have been anticipated in a previous letter . Here we extend and complete those results, in particular we present a detailed and systematic discussion of the $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$/CFT duality and clarify the meaning of Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions. We also speculate on the relevance of our results in the more general framework of higher-dimensional AdS/CFT dualities.

The structure of the paper is as follows. In Section II and Section III we briefly review the main features of two-dimensional dilaton gravity on $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ and its formulation as a nonlinear sigma model, respectively. We also show that in the weak-coupling regime the theory is described by an open bosonic string. In Section IV we compare the symmetries of two-dimensional dilaton gravity on $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ to the symmetries of the string. In Section V we use the previous results and further field theoretical arguments to show that gravity on $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ is dual to the bosonic string. In Section VI we put in a one-to-one correspondence the string modes with the asymptotic modes of $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ gravity. In Section VII we use the AdS/CFT correspondence to explain the semiclassical properties of the $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ black hole in terms of the microscopic conformal dynamics. Finally, in Section VIII we discuss our results.

## II The two-dimensional dilaton gravity theory

Our starting point is the two-dimensional dilaton gravity action

$$A=\frac{1}{2}d^2x\sqrt{g}\left(\varphi R+V(\varphi )\right).$$
(1)
The scalar field $`\varphi `$ is related to the usual definition of the dilaton $`\phi `$ by $`\varphi =\mathrm{exp}(2\phi )`$. The two-dimensional model (1) has been widely investigated in the literature . Because of its simplicity it has been used to address fundamental problems of quantum gravity and black hole physics in a mathematically simplified context.

In this paper we restrict attention on dilaton gravity models that have $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ as classical solution. The prototype of these models is the Jackiw-Teitelboim theory , JT for short, which is obtained setting $`V(\varphi )=2\lambda ^2\varphi `$ in Eq. (1). Although the JT theory may look rather uninteresting – there are no local physical degrees of freedom, the general solution describes a spacetime of constant negative curvature – a closer examination reveals a much richer structure. In particular, the theory admits black hole solutions . In the following we will briefly review the main features of $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ black holes, referring the reader to the vast literature on the subject for a more detailed discussion. (See, e.g., Ref.  and references therein.)

Owing to the extended Birkhoff theorem the general solution of the JT model in the Schwarzschild gauge is

$$ds^2=\left(\lambda ^2r^2\frac{2m_{bh}}{\lambda \varphi _0}\right)dt^2+\left(\lambda ^2r^2\frac{2m_{bh}}{\lambda \varphi _0}\right)^1dr^2,\varphi =\varphi _0\lambda r,m_{bh}0.$$
(2)
The general theory (1) admits the existence of the gauge invariant, local conserved quantity

$$M=N(\varphi )g_{\mu \nu }^\mu \varphi ^\nu \varphi ,N(\varphi )=^\varphi 𝑑\varphi ^{}V(\varphi ^{}).$$
(3)
On the classical orbit $`M`$ is constant and proportional to the ADM mass of the system . For the JT black hole we have $`M=2\varphi _0\lambda m_{bh}`$. For purely dimensional reasons two-dimensional dilaton gravity does not allow a dimensionful analog of the four-dimensional Newton constant. However, $`\varphi ^1`$ represents the (coordinate dependent) coupling constant of the theory. For the JT model, in particular, $`\varphi _0^1`$ plays the role of a dimensionless Newton constant, $`G_2`$. The metric (2) represents different, locally equivalent, parametrization of $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ according to the value of $`m_{bh}`$. The presence of the scalar field $`\varphi `$ makes these parametrizations globally inequivalent . In this paper, following the notations of Ref. , solutions with $`m_{bh}>0`$ and $`m_{bh}=0`$ will be denoted by $`\mathrm{AdS}_2^+`$ and $`\mathrm{AdS}_2^0`$, respectively. $`\mathrm{AdS}_2^+`$ can be interpreted as a black hole of mass $`m_{bh}`$ with a singularity at $`r=0`$, a timelike boundary at $`r=\mathrm{}`$, and an event horizon at $`r=(2m/\lambda ^3\varphi _0)^{1/2}`$. $`\mathrm{AdS}_2^0`$ can be considered as the ground state, zero mass solution. In this case the singularity at $`r=0`$ is lightlike. Let us stress that the global topology of both $`\mathrm{AdS}_2^0`$ and $`\mathrm{AdS}_2^+`$ is different from the topology of the full AdS2 geometry (the maximally extended spacetime). The latter is a geodesically complete spacetime with cylindrical topology and two timelike boundaries. Because of the singularity at $`r=0`$ both $`\mathrm{AdS}_2^+`$ and $`\mathrm{AdS}_2^0`$ are singular spacetimes with a single timelike boundary at $`r=\mathrm{}`$.

Since $`\mathrm{AdS}_2^+`$ and $`\mathrm{AdS}_2^0`$ are locally equivalent, a coordinate transformation exists that maps the solution (2) with $`m_{bh}>0`$ into the solution with $`m_{bh}=0`$ . Later on this paper we will make use of this coordinate transformation. In the conformal gauge the $`\mathrm{AdS}_2^0`$ metric is

$$ds^2=\frac{1}{\lambda ^2x^2}(dt^2+dx^2).$$
(4)
The metric of the $`\mathrm{AdS}_2^+`$ black hole is

$$ds^2=\frac{a^2}{\mathrm{sinh}^2(a\lambda \sigma )}(d\tau ^2+d\sigma ^2),$$
(5)
where $`a=(2m_{bh}/\varphi _0\lambda )^{1/2}`$. The two metrics above are related by the change of coordinates

$$t=\frac{1}{a\lambda }e^{a\lambda \tau }\mathrm{cosh}(a\lambda \sigma ),x=\frac{1}{a\lambda }e^{a\lambda \tau }\mathrm{sinh}(a\lambda \sigma ).$$
(6)
In the following, we will also use the light-cone coordinates

$$u=\frac{1}{2}(t+x),v=\frac{1}{2}(t+x).$$
(7)
In this coordinate frame the $`\mathrm{AdS}_2^0`$ solution is

$$ds^2=\frac{4}{\lambda ^2(u+v)^2}dudv,\varphi =\varphi _0[\lambda (u+v)]^1.$$
(8)
The black hole solution (2) can be interpreted as a thermodynamic system and the usual thermodynamic parameters can be associated to it. The black hole mass depends quadratically on both the Hawking temperature $`T`$ and the entropy $`S_{bh}`$ ,

$$m_{bh}=\frac{2\pi ^2\varphi _0}{\lambda }T^2,S_{bh}=4\pi \sqrt{\frac{m\varphi _0}{2\lambda }}.$$
(9)
A fundamental question concerns the statistical interpretation of the thermodynamic quantities in Eq. (9). In particular, one would be able to identify the microscopic degrees of freedom whose dynamics produces the huge degeneracy which is contained in Eq. (9).

At the semiclassical level black holes are unstable because of the Hawking effect. In the two-dimensional context the Hawking evaporation process has a simple and nice explanation. From the coordinate transformation (6) we find that the relation between $`\mathrm{AdS}_2^+`$ and $`\mathrm{AdS}_2^0`$ is formally equivalent to the relation between Rindler and Minkowski spacetimes. By quantizing a scalar field in the fixed backgrounds defined by $`\mathrm{AdS}_2^+`$ and $`\mathrm{AdS}_2^0`$ one finds that the positive frequency modes of the quantum field with respect to Killing vector $`_t`$ are not positive frequency modes with respect to Killing vector $`_\tau `$. Hence, the vacuum state which is seen by an observer in the $`(\tau ,\sigma )`$ reference frame appears filled with thermal radiation to an observer in the $`(t,x)`$ frame. The flux corresponds to a Planck spectrum with temperature given by Eq. (9) . The relation between mass and temperature in Eq. (9) is nothing else but the two-dimensional Stefan-Boltzmann law.

The previous features strongly suggest the existence of an underlying two-dimensional field theory whose microscopic dynamics is responsible for the thermodynamic behavior of the black hole.

## III The sigma model approach to two-dimensional dilaton gravity

The dilaton gravity action (1) can be cast in a nonlinear conformal sigma model form . The two-dimensional Ricci scalar $`R^{(2)}(g)`$ can be locally written as

$$R^{(2)}(g)=2_\mu A^\mu ,A^\mu =\frac{^\mu ^\nu \chi _\nu \chi _\nu ^\nu \chi ^\mu \chi }{_\rho \chi ^\rho \chi },$$
(10)
where $`\chi `$ is an auxiliary scalar function. Equation (10) can be checked using conformal coordinates and general covariance arguments. Differentiating Eq. (3), setting $`\chi =\varphi `$ in Eq. (10), and integrating per parts, the action (1) can be written as a functional of $`M`$ and $`\varphi `$

$$A=\frac{1}{2}_\mathrm{\Sigma }d^2x\sqrt{g}\frac{_\mu \varphi ^\mu M}{N(\varphi )M}.$$
(11)
Clearly, the action (11) describes a two-dimensional nonlinear sigma model. In the canonical form, using the metric parametrization

$$g_{\mu \nu }=\rho \left(\begin{array}{cc}\alpha ^2\beta ^2& \beta \\ \beta & 1\end{array}\right),$$
(12)
the super-Hamiltonian and super-momentum are

$`_0`$ $`=`$ $`2[N(\varphi )M]\pi _\varphi \pi _M+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2[N(\varphi )M]}}\varphi ^{}M^{},`$ (13)
$`_1`$ $`=`$ $`\varphi ^{}\pi _\varphi M^{}\pi _M.`$ (14)
The canonical action must be complemented by a boundary term at the spatial boundaries to make the action finite and differentiable. According to Ref.  the boundary term coincides with the conserved charge, i.e., the mass, of the black hole. \[See below, Eq. (36)\]. The canonical chart $`(\varphi ,\pi _\varphi ,M,\pi _M)`$ is related to the canonical chart $`(\varphi ,\mathrm{\Pi }_\varphi ,\rho ,\mathrm{\Pi }_\rho )`$ by the map

$`M`$ $`=`$ $`N(\varphi ){\displaystyle \frac{4\rho ^2\mathrm{\Pi }_\rho ^2\varphi ^2}{\rho }},`$ (15)
$`\pi _M`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\rho ^2\mathrm{\Pi }_\rho }{4\rho ^2\mathrm{\Pi }_\rho ^2\varphi ^2}},`$ (16)
$`\pi _\varphi `$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Pi }_\varphi {\displaystyle \frac{\rho ^2\mathrm{\Pi }_\rho }{4\rho ^2\mathrm{\Pi }_\rho ^2\varphi ^2}}\left[V(\varphi )+2\mathrm{\Pi }_\rho \left({\displaystyle \frac{\varphi ^{}}{\rho \mathrm{\Pi }_\rho }}\right)^{}\right].`$ (17)
Equation (15) proves the equivalence of Eq. (1) and Eq. (11) at canonical level.

Let us consider the JT model. In this case it is convenient to define the “coupling constant” field

$$\psi =\frac{1}{2\lambda ^2\varphi }.$$
(18)
In terms of $`M`$ and $`\psi `$ the JT action is

$$A=d^2x\sqrt{g}_\mu M^\mu \psi \frac{1}{14\lambda ^2\psi ^2M}.$$
(19)
The boundary of the spacetime is now located at $`\psi =0`$. The action (19) can be expanded around $`\psi =0`$,

$$A=d^2x\sqrt{g}_\mu M^\mu \psi \left[1+\underset{k=1}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}(2\lambda )^{2k}M^k\psi ^{2k}\right].$$
(20)
Equation (20) is both a weak-coupling expansion in terms of the coordinate-dependent gravitational coupling of the model and an expansion near the boundary of $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$. This fact suggests that the gravitational theory can be represented perturbatively as an expansion around the boundary. The first term (zero order) of the expansion coincides with the action for a bosonic string living in a two-dimensional flat target spacetime and describes the (off-shell) weak-coupled gravitational theory. It can be cast in the usual form (see Ref.  for notations)

$`A_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi \alpha ^{}}}{\displaystyle d^2zX^\mu \overline{}X_\mu }`$ (21)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi \alpha ^{}}}{\displaystyle d^2z(X^0\overline{}X^0+X^1\overline{}X^1)}`$ (22)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi \alpha ^{}}}{\displaystyle d^2z(X^2\overline{}X^2+X^1\overline{}X^1)},`$ (23)
by defining the new fields

$$\begin{array}{ccccc}\sqrt{\pi \alpha ^{}}M\hfill & =\hfill & \frac{1}{2}(X^1+iX^2)\hfill & =\hfill & \frac{1}{2}(X^1+X^0),\hfill \\ & & & & \\ \sqrt{\pi \alpha ^{}}\psi \hfill & =\hfill & \frac{1}{2}(X^1iX^2)\hfill & =\hfill & \frac{1}{2}(X^1X^0),\hfill \end{array}$$
(24)
where $`\sqrt{\alpha ^{}}`$ is the string length, and

$$zu=\frac{1}{2}(\sigma ^1+i\sigma ^2),\overline{z}v=\frac{1}{2}(\sigma ^1i\sigma ^2).$$
(25)
Higher orders in the expansion (20) can be interpreted as interaction terms for the bosonic string (21). They describe perturbative (off-shell) effects induced by the gravitational bulk on the boundary. Classically, the two-dimensional JT model is a topological theory with no propagating physical degrees of freedom. Owing to the Birkhoff theorem  the physics on the gauge shell, i.e., in the fundamental state, is completely determined by the spacetime boundary where the conserved charge is defined, whereas the bulk is pure gauge. In the perturbative sigma model approach the first term of the expansion (20) can be interpreted as describing both the (off-shell) gravitational theory on the boundary and the weak-coupling regime of the theory. Therefore, we expect that the free bosonic string (21) – with properly fixed boundary conditions – describes the semiclassical properties of the theory. Higher orders in the coupling constant perturbative expansion (20) describe the corrections to the off-shell dynamics on the boundary and lead, in the quantum theory, to gravitational corrections to the classical geometry. (See e.g. Ref.  where quantum corrections to the ADM mass of the Schwarzschild black hole have been calculated at the second order in the curvature expansion.)

The boundary conditions to be imposed on the free bosonic string (21) are essential in determining the physical content of the AdS/CFT correspondence. First of all, we note that AdS2 has a timelike boundary at $`x=0`$, so the CFT (21) must necessarily describe open strings. Since open strings propagating in a two-dimensional target spacetime do not have transverse excitations, we can impose either Dirichlet boundary conditions \[$`_aX^\mu (x=0)=0`$\] or Neumann boundary conditions \[$`n^a_aX^\mu (x=0)=0`$, where $`n^a`$ is the normal to the boundary\]. Expanding the fields on the boundary \[see below Eq. (37)\], in the former case we have

$$X^\mu (x=0)=\sqrt{\pi \alpha ^{}}M_0(t)=\text{constant},$$
(26)
where $`M_0(t)`$ is the (constant) zero-mode of the mass field $`M`$ on the boundary. Dirichlet boundary conditions break translation invariance. Moreover, they hold fixed the endpoint of the string on the boundary and do not allow any dynamical degree of freedom on the boundary itself. Hence, Dirichlet boundary conditions realize a AdS2/CFT2 correspondence. The one-dimensional boundary can be interpreted as a $`D`$-brane ($`0`$-brane). Possibly, a non-trivial dynamics on the brane can be generated by the introduction of Chan-Paton factors. (See, e.g., Ref. .)

Neumann boundary conditions do not break translation invariance. They allow for excitations on the boundary,

$$X^\mu (x=0)=\sqrt{\pi \alpha ^{}}M_0(t).$$
(27)
Since Neumann boundary conditions allow dynamical degrees of freedom on the boundary, they seem to realize a AdS2/CFT1 correspondence, where CFT1 is a genuine one-dimensional CFT generated by the charges living on the boundary .

In addition to the timelike boundary at $`x=0`$, AdS$`{}_{}{}^{0}{}_{2}{}^{}`$ has an inner null boundary. However, the presence of the latter does not influence the dynamics of the open string. In the conformal coordinate frame $`(t,x)`$ the metric of $`\mathrm{AdS}_2^0`$ is given by Eq. (4) and the presence of the dilaton requires

$$\mathrm{}<t<\mathrm{},0x<\mathrm{}.$$
(28)
In this coordinate frame the inner null boundary is located at $`x=\mathrm{}`$. Eq. (4) implies that $`\mathrm{AdS}_2^0`$ is conformal to the Minkowski spacetime. Hence, because of conformal invariance open strings on $`\mathrm{AdS}_2^0`$ are equivalent to open strings on the region of the $`(t,x)`$ Minkowski spacetime defined by Eq. (28). In the next section we will discuss how the symmetries of the bosonic string (21) reflect in the asymptotic symmetries of the two-dimensional gravitational theory (1).

## IV Symmetries of two-dimensional gravity and symmetries of the string

$`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ is a maximally symmetric space, so the JT theory admits three Killing vectors that generate the $`SO(1,2)SL(2,R)`$ group of isometries. In the JT theory the presence of the dilaton actually breaks the $`SL(2,R)`$ symmetry . However, this is irrelevant for the present discussion. Indeed, in the weak-coupling regime, $`\psi 0`$, one naturally expects the $`SL(2,R)`$ symmetry to be enlarged to the full asymptotic symmetry group of $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$. Since Eq. (20) is a near-boundary expansion, the only relevant symmetries are the symmetries that leave the $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ metric asymptotically invariant.

The symmetries of the bosonic string (21) are related to the asymptotic symmetry group of $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$. The latter has been studied in detail in Refs. . The asymptotic symmetries of $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ can be found by imposing suitable boundary conditions for the metric at $`r\mathrm{}`$. These boundary conditions express the intuitive notion of “asymptotically anti-de Sitter” and allow the charges associated with the symmetry to be properly defined.

In the Schwarzschild gauge the boundary conditions to be imposed on the metric $`ds^2=g_{\mu \nu }dx^\mu dx^\nu `$ and on the scalar field $`\varphi `$ are

$$\begin{array}{ccc}g_{tt}\hfill & =& \lambda ^2r^2+\gamma _{tt}+O\left(\frac{1}{r}\right),\hfill \\ g_{tr}\hfill & =& \frac{\gamma _{tr}}{\lambda ^3r^3}+O\left(\frac{1}{x^5}\right),\hfill \\ g_{rr}\hfill & =& \frac{1}{\lambda ^2r^2}+\frac{\gamma _{tt}}{\lambda ^4r^4}+O\left(\frac{1}{r^6}\right),\hfill \end{array}$$
(29)
and

$$\varphi =\varphi _0\left[\lambda r+\rho \lambda r+\frac{\gamma _{\varphi \varphi }}{\lambda r}+O\left(\frac{1}{r^2}\right)\right],$$
(30)
respectively. In the previous equations the $`\gamma `$’s and $`\rho `$ are arbitrary functions of $`t`$ and can be thought as characterizing the deformations of the boundary of $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ and of the dilaton field. In the conformal gauge the boundary of $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ is located at $`u=v`$ and the above conditions (at the order $`k`$) read

$$\begin{array}{ccc}g_{uu}\hfill & =& U_0(uv)+\mathrm{}+U_k(uv)(u+v)^k+O[(u+v)^{k+1}]\hfill \\ & & \\ g_{uv}\hfill & =& \frac{2}{\lambda ^2(u+v)^2}+Y_0(uv)+\mathrm{}+Y_k(uv)(u+v)^k+O[(u+v)^{k+1}]\hfill \\ & & \\ g_{vv}\hfill & =& V_0(uv)+\mathrm{}+V_k(uv)(u+v)^k+O[(u+v)^{k+1}]\hfill \\ & & \\ \varphi \hfill & =& \varphi _0\left[\frac{\omega _1}{\lambda (u+v)}+\omega _1\lambda (u+v)+\mathrm{}+\omega _k\lambda ^k(u+v)^k+O[(u+v)^{k+1}]\right]\hfill \end{array}$$
(31)
where the coefficients $`\mathrm{\Theta }_k=(U_k,V_k,Y_k,\omega _k)`$ are arbitrary functions of $`uv`$. By definition the leading terms in Eqs. (31) are invariant under the transformations generated by the asymptotic symmetry group. The functions $`\mathrm{\Theta }_k`$ change according to a representation of the asymptotic symmetry group. Solving the Killing equations for the metric (31), we find that the asymptotic symmetry group is generated by the Killing vectors

$$\chi ^{AdS}=\chi ^u(u,v)_u+\chi ^v(u,v)_v,$$
(32)
where

$$\chi ^u=\frac{1}{2}\left[ϵ+ϵ^{}(u+v)+\frac{1}{2}ϵ^{\prime \prime }(u+v)^2\right]+\alpha ^u,\chi ^v=\frac{1}{2}\left[ϵ+ϵ^{}(u+v)\frac{1}{2}ϵ^{\prime \prime }(u+v)^2\right]+\alpha ^v.$$
(33)
Here, $`ϵ`$ is an arbitrary function of $`uv`$,  denotes differentiation with respect to $`uv`$, and $`\alpha ^{u,v}=_{k=3}^+\mathrm{}\alpha _k^{u,v}(uv)(u+v)^k`$. The functions $`\alpha ^{u,v}`$ represent “pure gauge” diffeomorphisms of the two-dimensional gravitational theory that fall off rapidly on the boundary. Expanding the function $`ϵ(uv)`$ in power series, the Killing vectors (32) are recognized to define a conformal group which is generated by the Virasoro algebra

$$[L_m^{AdS},L_n^{AdS}]=(mn)L_{m+n}^{AdS}.$$
(34)
The boundary fields $`\mathrm{\Theta }_k`$ span a representation of the conformal group. Their transformation law is

$$\delta _ϵ\mathrm{\Theta }_k=ϵ\mathrm{\Theta }_k^{}+(h+k)ϵ^{}\mathrm{\Theta }_k+\mathrm{},$$
(35)
where dots denote terms that depend on higher derivatives of $`ϵ`$ and on pure gauge diffeomorphisms, and $`h=2`$ for $`U_k,V_k,Y_k`$ and $`h=0`$ for $`\omega _k`$, respectively. Note that the pure gauge transformations affect the boundary fields but leave invariant the charge associated with the falloff conditions,

$$J(ϵ)=ϵ\lambda \varphi _0\left[2\omega _1+\frac{1}{8}(U_0+V_0+2Y_0)\right]=ϵ\frac{M_0(t)}{2\lambda \varphi _0},$$
(36)
where $`J(ϵ)`$ has been calculated for $`\omega _1=1`$. Both the mass functional $`M`$ and the coupling constant field $`\psi `$ can be expanded in power series around the boundary

$$M=\underset{k=0}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}M_k(uv)(u+v)^k,\psi =\underset{k=1}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}\psi _k(uv)(u+v)^k.$$
(37)
Using Eqs. (3) and (18) both $`M_k`$ and $`\psi _k`$ can be expressed in terms of the boundary fields. They transform according to Eq. (35) with $`h=0`$. The two-dimensional dilaton gravity action or, alternatively, the sigma model action can be expanded around the boundary as well. Expanding in power series the Lagrangian density, $`=_{k=0}^+\mathrm{}_k(uv)(u+v)^k`$, we find that $`_k`$ transform according to Eq. (35) with $`h=2`$, as is expected for a two-dimensional conformal field theory.

The sigma model action (11) is classically invariant under the conformal transformations of the two-dimensional world-sheet. This invariance is not manifest in its two-dimensional gravitational counterpart (1). Conformal invariance of two-dimensional dilaton gravity is more subtle and can be understood in terms of the Weyl-rescaling invariance of the target space coordinates $`\psi `$ and $`M`$ . At the leading order in the $`\psi 0`$ expansion the conformal symmetry of the sigma model is the usual two-dimensional conformal symmetry group of the free bosonic string (21) which is generated by the Killing vectors

$$\chi ^{CFT}=\chi (z)+\stackrel{~}{\chi }(\overline{z})\overline{}.$$
(38)
The transformation law of a generic $`CFT_2`$ field $`X(z,\overline{z})`$ of weights $`(h,\stackrel{~}{h})`$ is

$$\delta _{\chi ,\stackrel{~}{\chi }}X=(\chi +h\chi )X+(\stackrel{~}{\chi }\overline{}+\stackrel{~}{h}\overline{}\stackrel{~}{\chi })X.$$
(39)
Expanding $`\chi (z)`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }(\overline{z})`$ as

$$\chi (z)=\underset{m=\mathrm{}}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}\gamma _mz^{m+1},\stackrel{~}{\chi }(\overline{z})=\underset{m=\mathrm{}}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}\stackrel{~}{\gamma }_m\overline{z}^{m+1},$$
(40)
we have

$$\chi ^{CFT}=\underset{m=\mathrm{}}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}\left(\gamma _mL_m^{CFT}+\stackrel{~}{\gamma }_m\stackrel{~}{L}_m^{CFT}\right),$$
(41)
where

$$L_m^{CFT}=z^{m+1},\stackrel{~}{L}_m^{CFT}=\overline{z}^{m+1}\overline{},$$
(42)
each satisfy the Virasoro algebra (34). Finally, the stress-energy tensor is

$$T_{zz}=\frac{1}{2\pi \alpha ^{}}X^\mu X_\mu =2M\mathrm{\Psi }=\frac{1}{2\pi }\underset{m=\mathrm{}}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}L_m^{CFT}z^{2m}.$$
(43)
In the next section we will see that the asymptotic symmetry group of $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ (with fixed pure gauge diffeomorphisms) coincides with the conformal symmetry group of the free bosonic string with properly chosen boundary conditions.

## V Duality of two-dimensional gravity on AdS2 and open strings

The duality between gravity on AdS2 and the open string can be realized by putting in a one-to-one correspondence the symmetries of the string and the asymptotic symmetries of AdS2. The physical content of the AdS2/CFT correspondence varies according to the boundary conditions that are chosen for the bosonic string (21). We will consider first Dirichlet and then Neumann boundary conditions.

### A Dirichlet boundary conditions

Equations (33) suggest that the $`u`$ and $`v`$ components of the Killing vectors of the asymptotic symmetry group, $`\chi ^u`$ and $`\chi ^v`$, are not independent. Let us neglect initially the pure gauge diffeomorphisms in Eqs. (33) and define two auxiliary functions $`\chi (u)`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }(v)`$ that satisfy the relation (notations will be clear soon)

$$\chi ((t+x)/2)|_{x=0}=\stackrel{~}{\chi }((t+x)/2)|_{x=0}=\frac{1}{2}ϵ(t).$$
(44)
At the second order in the expansion the $`u`$ and $`v`$ components of the Killing vectors (32) can be recognized to be the first three terms of the expansion around $`x=0`$ of the functions $`\chi (u)`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }(v)`$

$$\chi =\frac{1}{2}\underset{k=0}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{1}{k!}\frac{d^kϵ}{d(uv)^k}(u+v)^k,\stackrel{~}{\chi }=\frac{1}{2}\underset{k=0}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}(1)^k\frac{1}{k!}\frac{d^kϵ}{d(uv)^k}(u+v)^k.$$
(45)
Assuming that the equivalence is valid at any order and taking into account Eq. (25), we find that the CFT2 Killing vectors (38) coincide with the $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ Killing vectors (32) where the gauge diffeomorphisms have been fixed as

$$\alpha _k^u=(1)^{k+1}\alpha _k^v=\frac{1}{2k!}\frac{d^kϵ}{d(uv)^k}.$$
(46)
Hence, the asymptotic symmetry group of AdS2 coincides with the symmetry group of the bosonic open string (21). In order to obtain the second one from the first one we need to fix the gauge diffeomorphisms of the gravitational theory. This gives a non trivial relation between the diffeomorphisms of the two-dimensional dilaton gravity theory and the diffeomorphisms of the conformal field theory.

The previous equations follow from the Dirichlet condition for the function $`𝒳(u,v)\chi (u)+\stackrel{~}{\chi }(v)`$, i.e.,

$$𝒳(u,v)\chi (u)+\stackrel{~}{\chi }(v)=0,$$
(47)
on the boundary $`u+v=0`$. This equation implies that the conformal symmetry is generated by a single copy of the Virasoro algebra and the weights $`(h,\stackrel{~}{h})`$ appear in the transformation law (39) only in the combination $`w=h+\stackrel{~}{h}`$.

The correspondence between the conformal group of the bosonic string and the asymptotic $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ group can be observed directly on the $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ fields $`\mathrm{\Theta }_k`$, $`M_k`$, $`\psi _k`$ and $`_k`$. Each of these fields can be interpreted as the coefficient of the expansion of the corresponding CFT2 field around the boundary with given weight $`w=h+\stackrel{~}{h}`$ and pole of order $`p`$. We have the table:

$`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ Field $`h`$  $`\stackrel{~}{h}`$ $`w`$ $`p`$    $`U_k`$ $`2`$  $`0`$ $`2`$ $`0`$    $`V_k`$ $`0`$  $`2`$ $`2`$ $`0`$    $`Y_k`$ $`1`$  $`1`$ $`2`$ $`2`$    $`\omega _k`$ $`0`$  $`0`$ $`0`$ $`1`$    $`M_k`$ $`0`$  $`0`$ $`0`$ $`0`$    $`\psi _k`$ $`0`$  $`0`$ $`0`$ $`1`$    $`_k`$ $`1`$  $`1`$ $`2`$ $`0`$     (48)
The table above represents the AdS2/CFT2 correspondence in terms of fields: the $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ fields are interpreted as objects of the two-dimensional CFT. Using Eq. (39) together with Eqs. (45) we recover the transformation (35) of the $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ fields.

The AdS2/CFT2 correspondence allows to determine the Virasoro generators of the asymptotic symmetry group of AdS2 from CFT2. Let us consider the Virasoro generators (42). Using the $`(t,x)`$ coordinates we have

$$L_m^{CFT}=2^{m1}\underset{k=0}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}t^{m+1k}x^k\beta _{m2,k}(_t+_x),$$
(49)
where

$$\beta _{m2,k}=\left(\begin{array}{c}1m\\ k\end{array}\right).$$
(50)
A similar expression holds for $`\stackrel{~}{L}_m^{CFT}`$. We have seen that the asymptotic symmetry group of $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ can be obtained from the conformal group of the string by imposing Eq. (47). Applying the condition (47) to Eq. (41) we find $`\gamma _m=(1)^m\stackrel{~}{\gamma }_m`$. From Eq. (49) the Killing vectors for the Dirichlet boundary conditions read

$$\chi ^{CFT}=\underset{m=\mathrm{}}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}\gamma _mL_m^{},$$
(51)
where

$$L_m^{}=2^m\underset{k=0}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}\left[\beta _{m2,2k}t^{m+12k}x^{2k}_t+\beta _{m2,2k+1}t^{m2k}x^{2k+1}_x\right].$$
(52)
The Killing vectors (51) coincide with the Killing vectors of the asymptotic symmetry group of $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ (32) with fixed pure gauge diffeomorphisms. \[See Eq. (46).\] Indeed, let us consider Eq. (33) with fixed gauge diffeomorphisms and expand $`ϵ(t)`$ in power series

$$ϵ(t)=\underset{m=\mathrm{}}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}2^mϵ_mt^{m+1}.$$
(53)
The Killing vectors (32) are cast in the form

$$\chi ^{AdS}=\underset{m=\mathrm{}}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}ϵ_mL_m^{AdS},$$
(54)
where

$`L_m^{AdS}`$ $`=`$ $`2^m\left\{\left[t^{m+1}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(m+1)(m)t^{m1}x^2+\mathrm{}\right]_t+\left[(m+1)t^mx+\mathrm{}\right]_x\right\}`$ (55)
$`=`$ $`L_m^{}.`$ (56)
Setting $`ϵ_m=\gamma _m`$ the Killing vectors of the $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ asymptotic symmetry group and the Killing vectors of the string with Dirichlet boundary conditions coincide. Therefore, they generate both the full symmetry group of the bosonic open string and the gravitational asymptotic symmetry group of $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ with fixed pure gauge diffeomorphisms. The Virasoro generators of the $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ asymptotic symmetry group are

$$L_m^{AdS}=2^{m1}\left\{\left[(t+x)^{m+1}+(tx)^{m+1}\right]_t+\left[(t+x)^{m+1}(tx)^{m+1}\right]_x\right\}.$$
(57)
The Virasoro generators (57) are simply obtained from the Virasoro generators of the string by taking the linear combination $`L_m^{AdS}=L_m^{CFT}+(1)^m\stackrel{~}{L}_m^{CFT}`$ and changing coordinates to $`(t,x)`$. This relation implies that the symmetries of the open string are generated by a single copy of the Virasoro algebra. On the boundary the Virasoro generators are $`L_m^{AdS}|_{x=0}=2^mt^{m+1}_t`$.

It should be noted that both the Killing vectors and the Virasoro generators are now defined outside the spacetime boundary. By fixing the gauge diffeomorphisms we select a subgroup of the full two-dimensional diffeomorphism group of the gravitational theory. This subgroup is recognized to be the conformal group of the string with Dirichlet boundary conditions. The latter can also be defined as a subgroup of the diffeomorphisms that leave the two-dimensional metric asymptotically invariant ($`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$/CFT2 duality).

Finally, let us conclude this section with a few equations that will be useful in the following. The subalgebra $`SL(2,R)`$ of the Virasoro algebra is generated by

$$L_0^{AdS}=t_t+x_x,L_1^{AdS}=2_t,L_1^{AdS}=\frac{1}{2}(t^2+x^2)_t+xt_x.$$
(58)
The Virasoro generator $`L_0^{AdS}`$ does not generate translations in $`t`$ but dilatations. Changing coordinates to $`(\tau ,\sigma )`$ \[see Eq. (6)\] the Virasoro generators become

$$L_m^{AdS}=(2a\lambda )^me^{ma\lambda \tau }\frac{1}{a\lambda }\left[\mathrm{cosh}(ma\lambda \sigma )_\tau \mathrm{sinh}(ma\lambda \sigma )_\sigma \right].$$
(59)
In this reference frame $`L_0^{AdS}`$ generates translations in the new time coordinate $`\tau `$.

### B Neumann boundary conditions

Let us now discuss the AdS2/CFT duality when Neumann boundary conditions are enforced. Imposing the Neumann boundary conditions on the function $`𝒳(u,v)`$ \[see Eq. (47)\] we have, on the boundary $`u+v=0`$,

$$_u\chi (u)+_v\stackrel{~}{\chi }(v)=0.$$
(60)
Equation (60) is solved by the condition

$$\chi ((t+x)/2)|_{x=0}=\stackrel{~}{\chi }((t+x)/2)|_{x=0}=\frac{1}{2}ϵ(t).$$
(61)
Using Eq. (61) we try and put in a one-to-one correspondence the symmetry group of the open string with Neumann boundary conditions with the asymptotic symmetry group of $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$. Imposing the condition (61) on the CFT Killing vectors (41) we find $`\gamma _m=(1)^m\stackrel{~}{\gamma }_m`$. The Virasoro generators of the asymptotic $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ group with Neumann boundary conditions are

$$L_m^{AdS}=2^{m1}\left\{\left[(t+x)^{m+1}(tx)^{m+1}\right]_t+\left[(t+x)^{m+1}+(tx)^{m+1}\right]_x\right\}.$$
(62)
From the previous equation it follows that the Virasoro generators vanish on the boundary. Hence, the asymptotic symmetry group of $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ cannot be put in correspondence with the conformal symmetry group of the open string when Neumann boundary conditions are enforced. We will see in the next section that this is due to the impossibility of realizing the symmetry in terms of local string oscillators. Neumann boundary conditions lead to a topological theory without local degrees of freedom and the $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ asymptotic symmetry group can be realized uniquely by the charges . In this case the $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$/CFT correspondence is local/topological.

## VI Mode expansion and holography

The $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$/CFT correspondence can be realized using local oscillator degrees of freedom as well. Let us expand the string field in normal modes

$$X^\mu =x^\mu ip^\mu \mathrm{log}|z|^2+i\left(\frac{\alpha ^{}}{2}\right)^{1/2}\underset{m=\mathrm{}}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{1}{m}\left(\alpha _m^\mu z^m+\stackrel{~}{\alpha }_m^\mu \overline{z}^m\right).$$
(63)
Substituting the previous expansion in Eqs. (24) and comparing the result to the expansion of the fields $`M`$ and $`\psi `$

$$M=\underset{k=0}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}\underset{m=\mathrm{}}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}M_{k,m}x^kt^m,\psi =\underset{k=1}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}\underset{m=\mathrm{}}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}\psi _{k,m}x^kt^m,$$
(64)
we find (we assume $`t>0`$ for simplicity)

$`\alpha _m^\mu `$ $`=`$ $`i\sqrt{\pi }2^{1/2m}\left[mM_{0,m}M_{1,1m}\pm \psi _{1,1m}\right],`$ (65)
$`\stackrel{~}{\alpha }_m^\mu `$ $`=`$ $`i\sqrt{\pi }2^{1/2m}(1)^m\left[mM_{0,m}+M_{1,1m}\psi _{1,1m}\right],`$ (66)
where the $`\pm `$ signs refer to the 0 and 1 components of $`\alpha _m^\mu `$, respectively. Equation (65) puts the modes of the string in a one-to-one correspondence with the “gravitational” modes of the fields $`M`$ and $`\psi `$.

Let us now enforce Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions on the string field. Neumann boundary conditions imply $`M_{k,m}=0`$, $`\psi _{k,m}=0`$ for $`k1`$, so Eq. (65) becomes

$$\alpha _m^\mu =(1)^m\stackrel{~}{\alpha }_m^\mu =i\sqrt{\pi }2^{1/2m}\left(mM_{0,m}\right).$$
(67)
The generators of the Virasoro algebra of CFT2 vanish identically,

$$L_m^{CFT}=\frac{1}{2}\underset{n=\mathrm{}}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}\alpha _{mn}^\mu \alpha _{\mu n}=0.$$
(68)
Therefore, the $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$/CFT duality cannot be realized in terms of local oscillators. This result has a natural interpretation. The gravitational theory with Neumann boundary conditions is a topological theory with no local degrees of freedom. The two-dimensional CFT action depends only on $`M_{1,m}`$ and $`M_{k,m}`$, $`\psi _{k,m}`$ with $`k>1`$, so vanishes at any order of the expansion.

The Dirichlet boundary conditions imply

$$p^\mu =0,\alpha _m^\mu =(1)^{m+1}\stackrel{~}{\alpha }_m^\mu M_{0,m}=0\text{for}m0,$$
(69)
and Eq. (65) becomes

$$\alpha _m^\mu =i\sqrt{\pi }2^{1/2m}\left[M_{1,1m}\psi _{1,1m}\right].$$
(70)
The Virasoro generators of CFT2 are

$$L_m^{CFT}=\frac{1}{2}\underset{n=\mathrm{}}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}\alpha _{mn}^\mu \alpha _{\mu n}=\pi 2^m\underset{n=\mathrm{}}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}M_{1,1n}\psi _{1,1m+n}.$$
(71)
The previous results have two important consequences. Firstly, we see that the mass field $`M`$ is constant on the boundary. This is due to the breaking of translational invariance on the boundary that follows from the Dirichlet conditions. \[See also Eq. (26).\] $`M_{0,0}`$ is essentially the conserved charge and does not appear in the definition of the string modes. Secondly, with a bit of algebra it can be proved that the gravitational modes $`M_{k,m}`$ and $`\psi _{k,m}`$ satisfy the two recurrency relations

$$M_{k+2,m2}=\frac{m(m1)}{(k+2)(k+1)}M_{k,m},\psi _{k+2,m2}=\frac{m(m1)}{(k+2)(k+1)}\psi _{k,m}.$$
(72)
Substituting Eq. (69) in the recurrency relations above, and recalling that for the $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ geometry $`\psi _{0,m}=0`$, the gravitational modes are

$$\begin{array}{cccccc}k\hfill & =& \text{even}\hfill & :& M_{k,m}=0,\hfill & \psi _{k,m}=0;\hfill \\ k\hfill & =& \text{odd}\hfill & :& M_{k,m}M_{k,m}(M_{1,m},\psi _{1,m}),\hfill & \psi _{k,m}\psi _{k,m}(M_{1,m},\psi _{1,m}).\hfill \end{array}$$
(73)
The gravitational modes $`M_{k,m}`$ and $`\psi _{k,m}`$ are completely determined by $`M_{1,m}`$ and $`\psi _{1,m}`$ which are, in turn, determined by the string modes through Eq. (70). Therefore, the modes of the bosonic string determine completely the sigma model, i.e., the full gravitational theory. The latter can be expressed as a function of the gravitational modes $`M_{k,m}`$ and $`\psi _{k,m}`$ by the perturbative expansion (20). Then, owing to Eq. (70) and Eq. (73), the perturbative expansion (20) can be written as a function of the string modes. We conclude that gravity on $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ is completely determined by the (interacting) Dirichlet open string. Vice versa, the asymptotic two-dimensional gravitational modes near the boundary, that describe boundary deformations, determine completely CFT2. This is a sort of holographic principle: the physics on the spacetime boundary determines the properties of the theory in the bulk. However, it should be stressed that we have here a somehow unusual realization of the holographic principle. Usually, in the context of the AdS/CFT correspondence we have a gravitational theory defined on a $`d`$-dimensional bulk which is dual to a CFT theory living on its $`(d1)`$-dimensional boundary. In our case the picture is reversed: The CFT open string lives on the two-dimensional bulk, whereas the gravitational theory is completely defined by a boundary theory. We have already pointed out that this property is related to the peculiar nature of gravity in two spacetime dimensions, which is itself a conformal field theory.

The free bosonic string describes the off-shell dynamics of the classical black hole with mass $`m_{bh}`$ (the fundamental state of the theory). Higher order terms in the expansion (20) – the interaction vertices of the string – describe the off-shell corrections to the fundamental state due to effects of the bulk. This result is a natural consequence of the topological nature of the theory. It holds in the quantum theory as well, where the (on-shell) fundamental state of a black hole with given classical mass $`m_{bh}`$ is given by the eigenstate of the mass operator, whereas the sigma model describes the (off-shell) black hole excitations (Quantum Birkhoff Theorem ). We recover the result that have previously anticipated: The Dirichlet bosonic string describes the off-shell semiclassical properties of the theory whereas the interaction terms in the perturbative expansion describe higher order corrections to the off-shell dynamics that lead, in the quantum formalism, to the gravitational corrections of the classical geometry.

It is worth noticing that the degrees of freedom involved in the correspondence (70) are local, pure gauge, degrees of freedom. Both two-dimensional dilaton gravity and string theory with two-dimensional target spacetime are topological theories. So the gravitational modes $`M_{1,k},\psi _{1,k}`$ and the string modes $`\alpha _k^\nu `$ describe pure gauge degrees of freedom. Since we are dealing with pure gauge degrees of freedom, criticisms could be raised about the relevance of the correspondence that we are discussing. In the next section we will use the correspondence to calculate the statistical entropy of two-dimensional black holes. The reader might argue that we are not counting physical states of the two-dimensional bulk theory. However, this approach is consistent as long as we restrict our discussion to topological theories such as two-dimensional dilaton gravity and three-dimensional pure gravity theories . Our treatment of two-dimensional dilaton gravity and that of Refs.  suggest the existence of a nontrivial relation between local pure gauge degrees of freedom on the bulk and topological degrees of freedom on the boundary. In the three-dimensional case Carlip has found an explicit realization of this relation . In our case we have not been able to find a similar relation, yet the duality that we have found provides a strong evidence in this direction.

The discussion of this section has profound implications on the statistical interpretation of the thermodynamic quantities in Eq. (9). It is commonly believed that the thermodynamic relations (9) hold within some sort of semiclassical approximation to gravity. If the free open string really describes semiclassical $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ gravity then it should provide a statistical description of the thermodynamic relations (9). This is indeed the case, as we will see in the next section.

## VII Two-dimensional black holes as open strings

The $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$/open string duality discussed in the previous sections allows to interpreting the excitations of the gravitational theory, i.e., of the black holes, in terms of the excitations of the string. Naively, we would be tempted to use the equations of Sections V and VI to work out the correspondence explicitly. For instance, we could try and use Eq. (71) to calculate the mass of the string state which is associated with the gravitational excitations described by the modes $`M_{1,k},\psi _{1,k}`$. Unfortunately, we do not know how to relate explicitly the sigma model modes with the physical parameters of the black hole. So most of the equations of the previous sections cannot be employed to describe black holes straightforwardly. However, the knowledge of the exact form of the correspondence is not necessary. The bare fact that a two-dimensional black hole has a dual description in terms of a two-dimensional conformal field theory with central charge $`c`$ is sufficient to explain the semiclassical behavior of the black hole.

The energy of the CFT excitation is given by the eigenvalue, $`m_{CFT}`$, of the Virasoro operator $`L_0^{CFT}`$,

$$m_{bh}=\lambda m_{CFT}.$$
(74)
(With our conventions $`m_{CFT}`$ is dimensionless.) The energy-temperature and entropy-mass relations of a two-dimensional CFT are ,

$$m_{CFT}=\frac{\pi }{12}\alpha ^{}cT^2,S_{CFT}=2\pi \sqrt{\frac{cm_{CFT}}{6}},$$
(75)
respectively. The previous equations reproduce the functional behavior of the thermodynamic parameters of the black hole, Eq. (9). In order to show that the thermodynamic behavior of the two-dimensional black hole has a direct interpretation in terms of the microscopic dynamics of the two-dimensional CFT, we must show that Eqs. (75) match Eqs. (11) exactly. This can be done by expressing the central charge $`c`$ associated with the central extension of the Virasoro algebra generated by $`L_m^{CFT}`$ in terms of the physical parameters of the two-dimensional black hole.

The central charge can be determined using its interpretation as a Casimir energy. (See for instance Ref..) The transformation law of the stress-energy tensor under the change of coordinates (6) is

$$T_{ww}^{(2)}=(_wz)^2T_{zz}^{(2)}\frac{c}{12}\{w,z\}(_wz)^2,$$
(76)
where $`w=\tau +\sigma `$ and $`\{w,z\}`$ is the Schwarzian derivative. The vacuum energy is shifted by $`l_0l_0a^2c/24`$, where $`l_0`$ is the eigenvalue of $`L_0^{CFT}`$ which is associated to the vacuum. This shift corresponds to a Casimir energy $`E=a^2c\lambda /24`$.

The coordinate transformation (6) maps the $`\mathrm{AdS}_2^0`$ ground state (4) into the $`\mathrm{AdS}_2^+`$ black hole (5) with mass $`m_{bh}=a^2\varphi _0\lambda /2`$. Because of the duality relation between the gravitational theory and the Dirichlet string we can interpret the previous map as the gravitational theory counterpart of the shift of $`L_0^{CFT}`$ in CFT2 and equate the Casimir energy $`E`$ with $`m_{bh}`$. Actually, the equation picks up a minus sign,

$$E=m_{bh},$$
(77)
because the coordinate transformation (6) maps observers. An observer in the $`\mathrm{AdS}_2^+`$ vacuum sees the $`\mathrm{AdS}_2^0`$ vacuum filled with thermal radiation with negative flux . Using Eq. (77) one easily finds

$$c=12\varphi _0.$$
(78)
Inserting Eq. (78) into Eqs. (75), expressing the string length in terms of $`\lambda `$, $`\alpha ^{}=2\pi /\lambda ^2`$, and eventually using Eq. (74), Eqs. (75) reduce to Eqs. (9).

The statistical interpretation of the two-dimensional $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ black hole entropy by means of the two-dimensional conformal theory confirms the $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$/CFT2 duality while stressing the peculiarity of the two-dimensional case in the AdS/CFT family. In the case under consideration the duality maps theories that live in spacetimes of identical dimensionality. So the relation is not holographic in the usual sense, because it does not imply the huge reduction of the number of degrees of freedom which is typical of the holographic principle.

This result is also understood through a different, albeit related, argument. The holographic principle puts an upper bound to the information that can be encoded in a spacetime region. This upper bound is given by the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy

$$S_{bh}=\frac{A}{4G},$$
(79)
where $`A`$ is the area of the boundary surrounding the region (the area of the black hole horizon) and $`G`$ is the Newton constant. In our two-dimensional case the entropy can be written

$$S_{bh}=2\pi \varphi _h=2\pi r_h\lambda \varphi _0,$$
(80)
where $`\varphi _h`$ and $`r_h`$ are the dilaton and the radius evaluated at the horizon, respectively. Since $`\varphi _0^1`$ plays the role of the two-dimensional Newton constant, the previous relation can be rewritten as $`S_{bh}=2\pi A\lambda /G_2`$, where $`A=r_h`$. This relation is interpreted as an information bound rather than as a holographic bound. Indeed, $`A`$ is not the area of the boundary – in our case the boundary is a point – but the area of the two-dimensional bulk region $`0<rr_h`$. Note that the previous arguments are only valid for the Dirichlet open string. When Neumann boundary conditions are imposed the realization of the AdS/CFT duality is more problematic. In this case a consistent AdS/CFT duality can be realized exclusively by a one-dimensional CFT on the boundary which supports the conventional notion of holography. On the other hand the two-dimensional Stefan-Boltzmann law (9) seems to rule out a realization of the conformal symmetry on the boundary by means of a quantum mechanical system.

The Hawking evaporation process of the two-dimensional $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ black hole  has a natural interpretation in the context of the $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$/CFT2 correspondence as well. In Section V we pointed out that in the $`(t,x)`$ coordinate frame $`L_0^{AdS}`$ generates dilatations, whereas in the coordinate frame $`(\tau ,\sigma )`$ generates time translations. The coordinate transformation (6) maps the $`\mathrm{AdS}_2^0`$ ground state (4) into the $`\mathrm{AdS}_2^+`$ black hole (5). Since positive frequency modes of a quantum field with respect to Killing vector $`_t`$ are not positive frequency modes with respect to Killing vector $`_\tau `$, the $`\mathrm{AdS}_2^+`$ vacuum state appears filled with thermal radiation to an observer in the $`\mathrm{AdS}_2^0`$ vacuum. The particle spectrum can be obtained calculating the Bogoliubov coefficients between the two vacua . One finds that an observer in the $`\mathrm{AdS}_2^0`$ vacuum detects a thermal flux of particles with Planck spectrum and temperature (9). The value of the total Hawking flux has been calculated in Ref. . Therefore, the Hawking evaporation effect emerges in the CFT context by requiring that $`L_0^{AdS}`$ is the generator of time translations.

Up to now we have restricted our considerations to the JT model. Our results can be extended to the general dilaton gravity model (1) provided that its solutions behave asymptotically as in Eq. (29) and Eq. (30). A sufficient condition is that the potential $`V(\varphi )`$ in Eq. (1) behaves for $`\varphi \mathrm{}`$ as

$$V(\varphi )=2\varphi +O\left(\varphi ^2\right).$$
(81)
One can easily check that in this case the leading term in the weak-coupling expansion (19) describes a free bosonic string. Moreover, Eqs. (9) describe the thermodynamic behavior of the corresponding black solutions at the leading order in the large $`m_{bh}`$ expansion . Hence, the results obtained in Section VII for the JT model hold for the general model (81) at the leading order in the large $`m_{bh}`$ expansion.

Let us conclude this section with a remark concerning the relevance of our results for four-dimensional black holes. The two-dimensional dilaton gravity model (1) represents not only a toy model for studying gravitational physics in a simplified context, but describes asymptotically flat four-dimensional black holes in the near-horizon, near-extremal approximation  as well. It can be showed that a class of black hole solutions of the effective string theory whose near-horizon behavior is $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$$`\times S^2`$, and $`\varphi `$ varies linearly, exist. Our derivation of the statistical entropy applies straightforwardly to these solutions.

## VIII Discussion

In the previous sections we have been able to work out in detail the correspondence between two-dimensional dilaton gravity on $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ and open strings. Actually, the exact form of the correspondence is perturbative and has only been studied at the leading order in the weak-coupling expansion $`\psi 0`$. We have seen that in this regime two-dimensional dilaton gravity has two degeneration limits that are described by open strings with Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions, respectively. Since the description of this degeneracy is based on boundary conditions, it is, however, not completely satisfactory. One would like to understand it in terms of different regions in the parameter space of the theory.

The previous formulation of the AdS/CFT duality is very useful not only because it makes direct contact with the original Maldacena conjecture , but also because it can shed some light on several puzzling issues of the AdS/CFT correspondence. The main point of this formulation is the observation that the weak-coupling limit $`\psi 0`$ can be obtained in two different ways. Since $`\varphi =\varphi _0\lambda r`$, the weak-coupling limit can be reached by letting $`\varphi _0\mathrm{}`$ at $`r=\lambda ^1\varphi \varphi _0^1=`$ constant. So we have two weak-coupling regimes: i) $`r>>1/\lambda =\sqrt{\alpha ^{}/2\pi }`$ and ii) $`r1/\lambda =\sqrt{\alpha ^{}/2\pi }`$. Note that these weak-coupling limits require that the weak-coupling expansions of the previous sections are written in terms the variables $`x/\varphi _0`$ and $`(u+v)/\varphi _0`$, respectively. Since $`\varphi _0`$ is equal to $`1/12`$ of the central charge of the CFT, it counts the degrees of freedom and is the two-dimensional analogue of $`N`$ in the Maldacena conjecture. The limit i) corresponds to a one-dimensional CFT on the boundary and describes the excitations of the endpoints of a Neumann open string. The limit ii) describes a two-dimensional CFT in the bulk and describes the excitations of a Dirichlet open string.

The duality discussed in our paper has been obtained at the zeroth order in the perturbative expansion (20). Let us discuss qualitatively how the picture is affected by the presence of higher order terms in Eq. (20). Potential terms in the perturbative expansion of the sigma model do not destroy (classical) conformal invariance. Now the model describes open strings propagating in a curved target spacetime. The $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ boundary can be regarded as the (asymptotic) vacuum state of the theory and the string field is expanded in normal modes around this vacuum. Imposing Dirichlet boundary conditions we find the correspondence between the gravitational modes and the string modes, Eq. (70). The theory can then be expressed at any order as a function of the first order gravitational modes $`M_{1,m}`$, $`\psi _{1,m}`$ or, alternatively, as a function of the string modes $`\alpha _m^\mu `$. The potential term at a given order gives the interaction term for the modes. Obviously, dealing with an interacting theory, the relation between the stress-energy tensor and the Virasoro generators (43) is not valid. Though the first order gravitational modes define uniquely the stress-energy tensor, the relation of the latter with the string modes is more complicated than Eq. (43). Consequently, we expect the central charge to be different from the central charge of the free theory, $`c=12\varphi _0`$, and the thermodynamic relations (9) to be altered. This is no surprise. Higher order (off-shell) corrections to the free theory on the boundary induce (quantum) corrections to the black hole geometry that affect the derivation of the thermodynamic relations (9). Calculating at a given perturbative order the black hole geometry and the central charge one could find out how the statistical derivation of the entropy is affected by the presence of the interaction terms.

The existence of two degeneration limits of the weak-coupled dilaton gravity theory clarifies some controversial issues of the two-dimensional AdS/CFT correspondence. The two-dimensional CFT with Dirichlet boundary conditions gives a consistent explanation of the features of the dilaton gravity theory. We might conclude that the microscopic dynamics of two-dimensional black holes is fully captured by a two-dimensional CFT. This conclusion is not completely satisfactory, however, because a one-dimensional CFT living on the boundary of $`\mathrm{AdS}_2`$ emerges in our picture as well. The role of the AdS2/CFT1 correspondence, and its relation to the AdS2/CFT2 duality, are not yet fully understood and deserve further investigations. In this respect, the results of this paper seem to give contradictory indications. Although a CFT1 fits naturally in our scheme, it is indeed very difficult to understand how it could explain the energy-temperature relation (9).

It has been proposed  that conformal mechanics, possibly in the form of large $`N`$ Calogero models, describes the ground state of the two-dimensional black holes arising as near-horizon geometry of the four-dimensional Reissner-Nordström black hole, which is characterized by a constant dilaton. If we could extend this proposal to our case, which is characterized by a non-constant dilaton, the conformal mechanics would describe the ground state, whereas the two-dimensional CFT would describe the black hole excitations . However, the existence of a mass gap that separates the ground state from the continuous part of the spectrum – typical of the Reissner-Nordström-like black holes but absent in the JT case – seems a crucial missing ingredient to make this proposal feasible.

## Acknowledgments

We thank D. Klemm, M. Lissia, S. Mignemi and P. Carta for useful discussions. M. Cavaglià is supported by a FCT grant Praxis XXI - Formação Avançada de Recursos Humanos, Subprograma Ciência e Tecnologia do $`2^o`$ Quadro Comunitário de Apoio, contract number BPD/20166/99.


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# Does matter wave amplification work for fermions?

\[

## Abstract

We discuss the relationship between bosonic stimulation, density fluctuations, and matter wave gratings. It is shown that enhanced stimulated scattering, matter wave amplification and atomic four-wave mixing are in principle possible for fermionic or non-degenerate samples if they are prepared in a cooperative state. In practice, there are limitations by short coherence times.

\]

Introduction. The realization of Bose-Einstein condensation in atoms has made it possible to study the phenomenon of bosonic stimulation for massive particles. Superradiance of atoms , four wave mixing  and matter wave amplification  were described as processes which are bosonically stimulated, i.e., their rates are proportional to $`(N+1)`$, where $`N`$ is the number of identical bosons in the final state. These experimental achievements have raised the question whether these processes are inherently connected to bosonic systems.

We have recently pointed out that atomic superradiance does not depend on Bose-Einstein statistics and would occur for thermal atoms or even for fermions, although with a much shorter coherence time , and similar arguments should apply to four-wave mixing. These suggestions have stirred a controversy among researchers. This note will reconcile the different physical descriptions. The central result is that the stimulated processes mentioned above do not rely on quantum statistics, but rather on symmetry and coherence.

This note also addresses a widespread misconception about bosonic stimulation which regards stimulated scattering as being solely due to quantum-statistical enhancement by the final state, i.e. as if the particles in the final state mysteriously attract other identical particles without any other physical effect. We show that the presence of a macroscopically occupied state increases the density fluctuations of the system, and bosonically enhanced scattering is simply the diffraction of particles from these density fluctuations.

Scattering theory. It is useful to summarize basic aspects of the theory of scattering of light or particles from an arbitrary system. These textbook results simply follow from lowest order perturbation theory (Fermi’s Golden Rule). The double differential cross section can be decomposed into two factors $`\frac{\mathrm{d}^2\sigma }{\mathrm{d}\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{d}\omega }=\left(\frac{\mathrm{d}\sigma }{\mathrm{d}\mathrm{\Omega }}\right)_{\mathrm{single}}S(q,\omega )`$. The first one is the differential cross section for the scattering by a single particle (e.g. the Rayleigh cross section for far-off resonant light scattering), the second one is the dynamic structure factor (van Hove or scattering function) $`S(q,\omega )`$ which is the Fourier transform of the density-density correlation function: $`S(q,\omega )=(1/2\pi )dte^{\mathrm{i}\omega t}\widehat{\rho }(q,t)\widehat{\rho }^{}(q,0)`$ where $`\widehat{\rho }(q)`$ is the Fourier transform of the particle density operator (see, e.g. ).

For a non-interacting system, $`S(q,\omega )`$ can be expressed using the single-particle states $`|i`$ with energy $`E_i`$ and occupation numbers $`N_i`$:

$`S(q,\omega )=S_0(q)\delta (\omega )+`$ (2)
$`{\displaystyle \underset{ij}{}}\left|j\left|e^{\mathrm{i}qr}\right|i\right|^2N_i(N_j+1)\delta \left[\omega (E_jE_i)/\mathrm{}\right]`$
The factor $`(N_j+1)`$ reflects bosonic stimulation by the occupation of the final state. The elastic term $`S_0(q)`$ describes coherent elastic scattering or diffraction and is simply the square of the Fourier transform of the density $`S_0(q)=\left|\rho ^{}(q)\right|^2=\left|N_ii\left|e^{\mathrm{i}qr}\right|i\right|^2`$.

A simple example. It is instructive to apply this formalism to a system of non-interacting bosons which has macroscopic occupation in two momentum states with momentum $`\pm \mathrm{}k`$. If the initial state is a Fock state $`|+k^{N_+}|k^N_{}`$, we find that, apart from forward scattering, the dominant term in $`S(q,\omega )`$ is the bosonically enhanced scattering between those two (degenerate) states, $`S(q,\omega )=\left[N^2\delta _{q,0}+N_+(N_{}+1)\delta _{q,2k}+N_{}(N_++1)\delta _{q,2k}\right]\delta (\omega )`$ where the Kronecker symbol $`\delta _{q,p}`$ implies $`q=p`$ within the wavevector resolution $`1/L`$ of a finite volume with length $`L`$. Alternatively, we can assume the initial state to be a coherent superposition state $`|i^N`$ with the eigenstate $`|i=c_+|+k+c_{}|k`$ and $`|c_\pm |^2=N_\pm /N`$ and $`N=N_++N_{}`$. Now, the dominant contribution to $`S(q,\omega )`$ comes from $`S_0(q)=N^2\delta _{q,0}+N^2|c_+|^2|c_{}|^2\left[\delta _{q,2k}+\delta _{q,2k}\right]`$ which is equivalent to the Fock state case when the difference between $`N_\pm `$ and $`N_\pm +1`$ can be neglected in the limit of large occupation numbers.

This equivalence between Fock states and coherent superposition states has been extensively discussed in the context of two interfering Bose-Einstein condensates  and also with regard to optical coherences . Those papers show that, in many situations, a Fock state is equivalent to an ensemble of coherent states with arbitrary phase. Experimental interrogation determines the phase and reduces the ensemble to a single coherent state with a phase which will vary from experiment to experiment. For large occupation numbers, one can therefore regard the Fock state as an initial state which has not yet “declared its phase”, and, for the convenience of calculations, replace the Fock state by a coherent superposition state with an arbitrarily chosen phase.

However, on first sight, the physical interpretation is different. In the Fock state formulation, the enhanced scattering results from a macroscopic occupation number in a single quantum state, whereas for the coherent superposition state, the scattering is simple diffraction by a sinusoidally modulated density distribution with an amplitude proportional to $`N|c_+c_{}|`$. This density modulation acts as a diffraction grating for incident light or particles and has a diffraction efficiency proportional to the square of the amplitude. Such a density modulation does not require bosonic atoms. It can, for example, be imprinted into thermal or fermionic clouds by subjecting them to a suitable optical standing wave. The equivalence of these two descriptions points towards one of the major conclusions of this paper, namely that macroscopic population of bosonic states is not necessary for enhanced scattering.

The previous discussion assumed scattering between two degenerate momentum states $`|\pm k`$. A simple Gallilean transformation generalizes this to two arbitrary momentum states $`|k_\pm `$ with energies $`E_\pm `$. Now the standing wave moves with a velocity $`\mathrm{}(k_++k_{})/2m`$ where $`m`$ is the mass of the atoms, and the enhanced scattering appears at $`\mathrm{}\omega =\pm (E_+E_{})`$ instead of at $`\omega =0`$.

Enhancement of fluctuations. The general results of statistical physics presented above emphasize that enhanced scattering must be related to enhanced density fluctuations. Therefore, bosonic enhancement of a scattering rate is either due to a density modulation $`\rho (q)`$ (in the coherent superposition description) or due to density fluctuations (in the Fock state description) — the latter can be regarded as a density modulation with an unknown phase. This relation allows a more intuitive answer to the question why there is bosonic enhancement when two atoms 1 and 2 collide in the presence of a condensate with $`N_0`$ atoms. The standard answer would be that the symmetry of the wavefunction enhances the scattering rate into the condensate and into some other state 3 by a factor of $`(N_0+1)`$. An equivalent answer is that the condensate interferes with atom 2 (or 1) and creates a density grating with an amplitude proportional to $`N_0^{1/2}`$ which diffracts atom 1 (or 2) into state 3. The grating absorbs this momentum transfer by transferring the atom in state 2 (or 1) into the condensate. Therefore, bosonic stimulation can be regarded as heterodyne amplification of density fluctuations where the condensate acts as the local oscillator.

Dicke superradiance. We now want to establish the connection between bosonic enhancement and Dicke superradiance. This will formally introduce the enhancement factor $`(N+1)`$ for non-bosonic systems. A system of atoms with $`N`$ atoms in two states $`|\pm `$ is conveniently described with the formalism introduced by Dicke to discuss superradiance in two-level atoms . It should be emphasized that the only assumption in this treatment is that the $`N`$ atoms couple identically to the probe field (the electromagnetic field or some incident particle beam), i.e., that they have the same transition frequency and matrix element without any assumption of quantum statistics. For example, in magnetic resonance experiments, the Dicke treatment would apply to different atomic species with the same value of the magnetic moment.

Dicke regarded the two-level atom as a spin 1/2 system and introduced angular momentum quantum numbers. In this subspace, a fully symmetric state of $`N`$ atoms has spin $`s=N/2`$ and magnetic quantum number $`m=(N_+N_{})/2`$. The squared matrix element for the transition $`|s,m\pm 1|s,m`$ induced by the ladder operator $`S_{}`$ is $`(s\pm m+1)(sm)`$. Expressing this by initial occupation numbers $`N_\pm `$, one obtains $`N_\pm (N_{}+1)`$  retrieving the formula of bosonic enhancement. The transition rates are largest for the $`N`$ particle state with $`s=N/2`$ which is therefore called the state of maximum cooperativity.

Such a system will couple to the probe field in a superradiant way (i.e., with an up to $`N`$ times enhanced transition rate). In the Bloch vector picture, its dynamics is described as the precession of a macroscopic spin vector with length $`s=N/2`$. This spin vector decays in a time $`1/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is the total (homogeneous and inhomogeneous) linewidth of the transition $`|+|`$. Collective superradiant behaviour can only be observed at times shorter than $`1/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$.

Application to matter wave gratings. Dicke’s formalism is usually applied to one-photon transitions between internal states, but here we use it to discuss scattering, i.e. a two-photon transition between two momentum states $`|k_\pm `$. Let’s first assume that we have an ideal Bose-Einstein condensate in the $`k=0`$ momentum state. Light scattering between momentum states $`k=0`$ and $`k=q`$ has an infinite coherence time for a non-interacting condensate of infinite size (Fig. 1a). For a thermal (non-degenerate) cloud of atoms with thermal momentum spread $`\mathrm{}k_{\mathrm{th}}\mathrm{}q`$ the transition frequencies for the transfer of momentum $`\mathrm{}q`$ are Doppler broadened by $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\mathrm{}k_{\mathrm{th}}q/m`$. For times shorter than $`1/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ the system will behave collectively like the Bose condensed system, i.e. a probe beam would induce transitions between the $`k=0`$ and $`k=q`$ momentum states at a rate proportional to $`N_{k=0}(N_{k=q}+1)`$. The same argument applies to a Fermi degenerate cloud by replacing $`k_{\mathrm{th}}`$ with the Fermi wavevector $`k_F`$ (Fig. 1b). Due to the assumption $`\mathrm{}k_F\mathrm{}q`$, Pauli blocking due to scattering into already occupied states is absent. If this assumption is not made, a part of the cloud becomes inactive, and our discussion would apply only to the atoms near the Fermi surface.

The previous paragraph generalized the bosonic Fock state ensemble to non-degenerate and fermionic clouds. We now come back to the coherent superposition state. For bosons, it can be produced from a Bose-Einstein condensate in the $`\stackrel{}{k}=\stackrel{}{0}`$ state by applying a (so-called Bragg) pulse of two laser beams which differ in wavevector by $`\stackrel{}{q}`$ and in frequency by the recoil frequency $`\mathrm{}^2q^2/2m`$. Those beams resonantly drive the transition between momentum states $`\stackrel{}{k}=\stackrel{}{0}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{k}=\stackrel{}{q}`$  and prepare the superposition state discussed above. Similarly, in a thermal (or fermionic) cloud, the Bragg pulse creates a modulated density distribution with wavelength $`2\pi /q`$ which has the same contrast as in the bosonic case and will diffract light or atoms at the same rate. However, due to the thermal motion with velocity $`\mathrm{}k_{\mathrm{th}}/m`$, this grating decays during a time $`m/\mathrm{}k_{\mathrm{th}}q=1/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ (and similar for the fermionic case). Thus the Dicke picture and the diffraction picture agree.

Coherence time. The Doppler broadening discussed above seems to imply a fundamental limit to the coherence time of a Fermi system. However, at least in principle, one can prepare a Fermi system with infinite coherence time by starting out with a cloud which is in a single momentum state along the $`\widehat{z}`$ axis, but occupies many momentum states along $`\widehat{x}`$ and $`\widehat{y}`$. With a Bragg pulse transferring momentum $`q\widehat{z}`$, one can prepare a system which shows collective behavior for scattering particles or light with momentum transfer $`q\widehat{z}`$ with an infinite coherence time (Fig. 1c). Therefore, there is no direct connection between a long coherence time and a high phase-space density. In this ensemble, the scattering is between the states $`|k_z=0|k_x,k_y`$ and $`|k_z=q|k_x,k_y`$. Therefore, we have enhanced scattering into the $`|k_z=q`$ quantum state, but the atoms may differ in other quantum numbers. What matters is only the symmetrization of the many-body wavefunction along $`\widehat{z}`$. The other quantum numbers ensure that there is no conflict with the Pauli blocking for fermionic systems. This is analogous to the separation of electronic wavefunctions into a symmetric part (e.g. the spin part) and an antisymmetric part (e.g. the spatial part) where the coupling to an external field (e.g. electron spin resonance experiment) only depends on the symmetric part.

Experiments. The experiments both on superradiance  and four-wave mixing  in Bose-Einstein condensates have in common that a matter wave grating formed by two macroscopically occupied momentum states is probed, either by light or by atoms. Both experiments create the coherent superposition state discussed above using a Bragg pulse. In the limit of low intensity of the probe beam, the scattering is independent of the nature of the probe particles — one could have used any kind of radiation, bosons or fermions . The bosonic stimulation observed in both experiments demonstrates the dynamic nature of the matter wave grating. Each time, a particle or photon is diffracted, the amplitude of the grating grows.

In practice, it is difficult or impossible to carry out these experiments with fermions or thermal atoms. When we observed superradiance of a condensate, we couldn’t observe similar behaviour above the BEC transition temperature since the threshold laser intensity for superradiant gain is several orders of magnitude higher (see Ref. ) for details). Furthermore, the superradiance may be suppressed by heating or other decoherence processes. The shorter coherence time for non-BEC samples should be even more crucial for the four-wave mixing experiment where the matter wave grating is probed by very slow atoms which have a long transit time of about 1 ms through the sample. Another concern are incoherent processes which accompany the stimulated processes discussed so far. Since the incoherent processes scale linearly with the number of atoms, whereas the stimulated process is proportional to $`N^2`$, there is in principle always a regime where the stimulated process dominates .

Discussion. Coming back to the initial question: Is matter wave amplification possible for fermions? The answer is yes, if the system is prepared in a cooperative state and the amplification is faster than the coherence time. However, this amplification does not pile up atoms in a single quantum state, but rather in states which are in the same (or approximately the same) momentum state along $`\widehat{z}`$, but differ in other quantum numbers. Therefore, this amplification can be regarded as amplification of a density modulation or as amplification of spatial bunching of atoms.

The phase-coherent matter wave amplification for fermions would start with a short Bragg pulse which puts some of the atoms into a recoil state which is then amplified. This superposition of two momentum states creates a matter wave grating. This can be regarded as the interference pattern of each atom with itself with all the individual interference patterns being exactly in phase. Matter wave amplification occurs when a single laser beam is diffracted off this grating increasing the amplitude of each atom to be in the recoiling state. Therefore, the matter wave amplification scheme of Refs.  would work for fermions, provided the whole process can be done in the short coherence time of the fermionic matter wave grating.

The major difference between bosonic and fermionic system is that a bosonic system with two macroscopically occupied quantum states is always in a fully symmetric and maximally cooperative state. In other words, if two independent Bose condensates cross each other, there is always a macroscopic interference pattern (as observed experimentally ), which is reflected in $`S(q,\omega )`$ being proportional to $`N^2`$ (or to $`N_+N_{}`$, to be more precise). It is this density modulation which can be amplified by the dynamic diffraction discussed in this paper. If two beams of fermions overlap, there is no macroscopic interference, unless the two beams were prepared in a symmetric way, e.g. by generating one of the beams by a Bragg pulse from the other one.

Our discussion of scattering without change of the internal state can be generalized. For example, if atoms scatter into the condensate through a spinflip process, the density grating has to be replaced by a polarization or coherence grating. Such gratings were experimentally studied for laser-cooled atoms in Ref. .

This paper has focused on bosonically enhanced scattering. Similarly, bosonic enhancement of spontaneous emission depends only on a cooperative initial state and not directly on quantum statistics. For scattering, the relevant coupling strength are the density fluctuations. For spontaneous emission, it is the electric dipole moment. Both are enhanced by the presence of a Bose condensate, in the latter case because the excited atom corresponds to a Dicke vector of spin $`s=N/2,m=N/2+1/2`$ which couples more strongly to the vacuum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field than an individual atom. Alternatively, the enhanced spontaneous emission can be regarded as the constructive interference of an “emitted” ground state atom with the macroscopic ground state matter wave. This picture is analogous to the semi-classical interpretation of stimulated emission of light. Ref.  shows that bosonic stimulation of photons is due to the constructive interference of the emission of a classical oscillating dipole with the incident field in the forward direction.

In conclusion, we have shown that bosonically enhanced scattering is related to density fluctuations and matter wave gratings. The analogy with Dicke superradiance emphasizes that matter wave amplification and atomic four-wave mixing are possible for fermionic or non-degenerate samples. Bosonic quantum-degeneracy is sufficient, but not necessary for such enhanced scattering. It represents only one special way to prepare a system in a cooperative state which shows coherent and collective behavior.

We are grateful to A. Aspect, C. Cohen-Tannoudji, K. Helmerson, D. Kleppner, P. Meystre, W.D. Phillips, D.E. Pritchard, S. Rolston, M.O. Scully, D.M. Stamper-Kurn, and E. Wright for helpful discussion, and to A. Görlitz, C. Raman, A.P. Chikkatur and S. Gupta for valuable comments on the manuscript. This work was supported by NSF, ONR, ARO, NASA, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.


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# Radiation pressure instability as a variability mechanism in the microquasar GRS 1915+105

## 1 INTRODUCTION

A standard, geometrically thin accretion disk (Shakura & Sunyaev, 1973) is known to be unstable in the innermost, radiation pressure dominated regions (Lightman & Eardley 1974, Pringle, Rees & Pacholczyk 1974)). The presence of this instability is due to an assumption that the viscous torque is proportional to the total (gas+radiation) pressure. Since our understanding of the nature of viscosity in a disk is poor (for a review, see Papaloizou & Lin 1995) we can explore the viscosity mechanism indirectly, through modeling the consequences of the radiation pressure instability and comparing them to the observed variability of X-ray sources.

On the theoretical side, the basic description of stationary solutions was completed by Abramowicz et al. (1988) who found that radial advection stabilize the disk at high accretion rates so a time dependent behavior was expected only for intermediate accretion rates. The disk evolution was first computed by Honma, Matsuoto & Kato (1991), and Szuszkiewicz & Miller (1998) presented computations of several consecutive outbursts, thus confirming a limit cycle behavior of the disk.

On the observational side, a perfect candidate has been found to study the details of radiation pressure instability. This is the X-ray source GRS 1915+105 discovered by GRANAT observatory (Castro-Tirado, Brandt & Lundt 1992) and extensively observed by the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer (Belloni et al. 1997a, 1997b). The source exhibits a superluminal jet (Mirabel & Rodriguez 1994). During outbursts, its X-ray luminosity is dominated by a disk-like component (Belloni et al 1997a), and therefore the observed variability in this state should reflect the time behavior of the disk. The variations are well modeled phenomenologically by periodic changes of the disc inner radius (e.g. Feroci et al. 1999). The scenario, in which the radiation pressure instability is actually responsible for these variations was outlined by Belloni et al. (1997c). The duration of the hard spectral state episodes in the disk-dominated epochs was recently identified with the viscous timescale of a standard, radiation pressure dominated disk (Trudolyubov, Churazov & Gilfanov 1999).

However, the time evolution computations of Honma et al. (1991) and Szuszkiewicz & Miller (1998) based on radiation pressure instability strongly overpredict the amplitude of the outburst of GRS 1915+105. Therefore, Nayakshin, Rapaport & Melia (2000) suggested that the standard viscosity law does not apply and they successfully reproduced the overall shape of GRS 1915+105 RXTE lightcurve under an assumption of viscosity law of Taam, Chen & Swank (1997). In order to reproduce the observed minimum luminosity required for outburst behavior they also had to assume that the disk dissipates only 10% of the energy, with the remaining energy dissipated in a hot corona, which is not supported by observations.

In this paper we apply the standard viscosity assumption and nevertheless we successfully reproduce the RXTE ligthcurve of GRS 1915+105. The key elements of our model, in comparison with Honma et al. (1991) and Szuszkiewicz & Miller (1998), are: (i) the presence of the outflow in a form of a jet (modeled after Nayakshin et al. 2000), (ii) the use of the appropriate coefficients in vertically averaged equations determined from the disk vertical structure, (iii) the presence of a moderately strong corona, dissipating 50% of the energy.

## 2 METHOD

### 2.1 Assumptions

We study the time-dependent structure of a Keplerian vertically averaged accretion disk.

We use a standard viscosity prescription, i.e. we assume that the viscous stress tensor is proportional to the total pressure, $`P`$ ($`\tau _{r\phi }=\alpha P`$).

The angular momentum distribution of disk material is approximated as Keplerian so we neglect the problem of the transonic character of the flow close to the marginally stable orbit studied by Honma et al. (1991) and Szuszkiewicz & Miller (1998). Instead, we pay much more attention to various disk cooling mechanisms.

We assume that the heat generated within the disk at any radius is either stored temporarily within this radius or is removed by: (i) radiation (ii) advection (iii) jet. Because the spectral observations show the presence of a hard X-ray tail, we also assume the existence of a hot corona.

The radiative cooling of the disk is calculated assuming that the disk is optically thick and radiates as a black body. The fraction of energy carried by advection is determined by standard equations (e.g. Paczyński & Bisnovatyi-Kogan 1981, Muchotrzeb & Paczyński 1982, Abramowicz et al. 1988).

Fraction of energy, $`f_{jet}`$, carried locally by a jet is parameterized after Nayakshin et al. (2000):

$$f_{jet}=1\frac{1}{1+A\dot{m}^2}.$$
(1)
Here the constant A is a model parameter describing the strength of the jet and $`\dot{m}`$ is the local accretion rate at a given moment and radius, measured in units of the Eddington accretion rate:

$$\dot{M}_{Edd}=\frac{L_{Edd}}{c^2\eta }=\frac{4\pi GMm_H}{\sigma _Tc\eta }.$$
(2)
The assumed efficiency of accretion is $`\eta =1/16`$, as it results from the pseudo-Newtonian approximation to disk accretion.

In our model this cooling mechanism is included in the energy balance, in opposite to the model of Nayakshin et al. (2000) where the jet was only used as an energy channel carrying a fraction of energy dissipated in the corona.

The fraction of the energy dissipated in the corona is a free parameter of the model and in the present model we assume it takes a constant value, $`f_{cor}=0.5`$, independent from time and radius.

The time evolution of the disk is governed by two equations: energy balance given in the following form

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }T\frac{S}{t}=F_{gen}F_{rad}F_{adv}F_{jet}F_{cor}$$
(3)
and the standard equation describing the time evolution of the disk surface density

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }}{t}=\frac{1}{r}\frac{}{r}\left(3r^{1/2}\frac{}{r}\left(r^{1/2}\nu \mathrm{\Sigma }\right)\right),$$
(4)
where the cooling by jet and corona is defined as

$$f_{jet}=\frac{F_{jet}}{F_{rad}+F_{adv}+F_{jet}},$$
(5)
$$f_{cor}=\frac{F_{cor}}{F_{rad}+F_{adv}+F_{jet}+F_{cor}},$$
(6)
Determination of algebraic relation between the quantities in Eq. 3 and 4 results from the continuity equation, hydrostatic equilibrium and radiative transfer. It involves the determination of dimensionless coefficients which results from replacement of the disk vertical structure with vertically averaged (or equatorial) quantities (e.g. Abramowicz et al. 1988, Honma et al. 1991).

We determine those coefficients from the study of the vertical structure of a stationary disk at 10 $`r_g`$ (see e.g. Dörer et al. 1996). Apart from standard ingredients, our stationary disk model included the effect of radial advection, energy transport by convection and appropriate bound-free opacities. The numerical code used for the computations was developed from the version of Pojmański (1986) and subsequently modified by Różańska et al. (1999). The coefficients, as defined by Muchotrzeb & Paczyński (1982) and Abramowicz et al. (1988) are: $`B1=0.8`$, $`B3=5.0`$ and $`B4=6.0`$, while the above authors used $`B1=0.67`$, $`B3=B4=6.0`$ and Honma et al. (1991) used $`B1=1.0`$, $`B3=16.0`$ and $`B4=8.0`$.

The importance of the model ingredients is illustrated by the stability curve of a stationary model calculated at 10 $`R_{Schw}`$ for $`10M_{}`$ black hole mass and viscosity parameter $`\alpha `$ equal to 0.01 (see Figure 1).

The triangles in Fig. 1 are obtained from the solution of the disk vertical structure, and dashed line is the stability curve obtained from the vertically averaged disk equations (with appropriate coefficients). In these two cases the disk corona and jet were neglected ($`A=0`$ and $`f_{cor}=0`$). The dotted line shows a modification of the stability curve by the corona ($`f_{cor}=0.5`$). The solid line shows the effect of the jet ($`A=0.05`$).

On the same plot (circles) we show the stability curve calculated similarly to the method adopted by Nayakshin et al. (2000), i.e. we computed the disk surface density from the vertically averaged disk structure as specified in that paper, but we assumed the standard viscosity law. For the Nayakshin et al. model the instability occurs for accretion rates as low as $`\dot{m}0.03`$. Therefore, in order to stabilize the disk at low $`\dot{m}`$ the authors had to postulate a strong corona. In our model we expect the instability to appear for accretion rates higher than $`\dot{m}0.1`$ at that radius and even higher than $`\dot{m}0.2`$ if half of the gravitational energy is dissipated in the corona ($`f_{cor}=0.5`$).

### 2.2 Time Evolution and Model Parameters

We use the time evolution code originally developed and described in detail by Smak (1984) for the study of cataclysmic variables, and modified by Siemiginowska, Czerny & Kostyunin (1996) in the context of ionization instability in AGN (see also Hameury et al. 1998).

We adopt the mass supply, $`\dot{m}_o`$, to the inner part of the disk as a model parameter and follow the time evolution of the disk under the radiation pressure instability in thermal and viscous timescale, as studied by Szuszkiewicz & Miller (1998). The complete model is given by the mass supply rate, $`\dot{m}_o`$, viscosity parameter, $`\alpha `$, jet efficiency factor, $`A`$ (relating the fraction of energy carried by the jet to the local temporary accretion rate), and the (fixed) fraction of energy dissipated in the corona, $`f_{cor}`$.

## 3 RESULTS

We calculate the time evolution of the disk for a set of parameters adequate to explain the timescales and the amplitudes of the typical outbursts observed in GRS 1915+105. In the following we assume that the black hole mass is equal to $`M=10M_{}`$ (estimated mass of the microquasar ranges from 7 to 33 $`M_{}`$), viscosity parameter $`\alpha =0.01`$ (as used by Nayakshin et al. 2000 on standard branch), $`f_{cor}=0.5`$ (moderate corona) and $`A=0.05`$ (mildly strong jet efficiency).

The instability can occur only above a certain accretion rate limit for a given mass and viscosity. For our choice of parameters, the disk is stable when the accretion rate $`\dot{m}_o`$ is smaller than 0.16. For accretion rates above this limit the disk exhibits strong and regular outbursts.

The amplitude of the global outburst depends mostly on the shape of the stability curve in the innermost part of the disk, which constrains the jet efficiency $`A`$. The duration of the limit cycle, on the other hand, is basically determined by the viscous timescale at the outer radius of the instability zone in a stationary model, so it scales with the choice of the viscosity parameter $`\alpha `$.

In Figure 2 we show four lightcurves calculated for four values of the external accretion rate. Other parameters were kept the same. The plotted lightcurves represent the bolometric luminosity of the disk. However, they may be to some extent directly compared to the observed lightcurves expressed in counts/sec since the count rate in RXTE is strongly dominated by the soft energy band, determined mostly by the disk luminosity. The outbursts are almost periodic but their overall shape is significantly influenced by the mass supply rate. When $`\dot{m}_o`$ is only slightly larger than the minimum value required for instability to operate, the outbursts last only $`100`$ s and the separation between them is relatively long. With an increase of $`\dot{m}_o`$ the duration of the bursts increases up to $`1000`$ s although the amplitude does not change strongly. Similar results were obtained by Nayakshin et al. (2000). Although their approach to the description of the disk structure was different from ours, it led to a similar stability curve and therefore outburst properties.

By comparing our model to the GRS 1915+105 behavior we conclude that the observed shape of the microquasar’s lightcurves can be obtained by varying the mass supply rate. The observed outburst’s amplitude constrains the jet efficiency. The energy carried away in the jet varies during the cycle: it is negligible at low luminosity but can reach $`15\%20\%`$ during the outburst, for assumed A=0.05. The jet losses thus provide more efficient mechanism for stabilizing the disk than the advection and ensure that the luminosity of the source during outburst does not exceed the Eddington value.

The viscosity parameter $`\alpha `$ does not influence the shape of the stability curve, therefore the amplitude of the outburst remains the same as long as $`\alpha `$ is the same on the upper and lower branches. The change of $`\alpha `$ in this case results in the horizontal shift of the entire $`\dot{M}\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ curve. However, this strongly affects the surface density and viscous timescale, so for small $`\alpha `$ the surface density is higher and the viscous timescale is longer. The adopted value well represents the observed timescales in the microquasar.

## 4 DISCUSSION

We show that a physically viable instability due to radiation pressure in a standard disk model can well represent the time dependent behavior of GRS 1915 +105 if the advection and the presence of a moderate corona ($`f_{cor}=0.5`$) and a jet is included in the model.

The mechanism operates for accretion rates above $`\dot{m}_o0.16`$ which is in agreement with the observations of GRS 1915 +105 – the source does not exhibit any outbursts if the mean luminosity temporarily drops below $`2.1\times 10^{38}`$ erg/s. The viscosity coefficient of order of 0.01 is appropriate to model the typical outburst duration as a function of the mass supply to the innermost part of accretion disk. The presence of the jet is necessary to explain the observed amplitude of the outburst, since without the jet the lightcurve variations are too large (factor $`30`$). The role of advection and the jet in the presented parameterization are similar, but for the required value of the jet efficiency the jet losses dominate and the effect of advection is never strong.

We conclude that the parameterization of the viscous stress as proportional to the total pressure well represents the true viscous stress properties and the radiation pressure instability is a promising model of the basic instability mechanism underlying the observed variability of this microquasar. The energy losses due to the jet are an essential ingredient of such model. Models based on modified viscosity law may allow for much lower jet efficiency. Observational constraints on the amount of energy carried by the jet will allow to distinguish between the two possibilities.

Acknowledgements. We are grateful to Marek A. Abramowicz for interesting discussions on the viscosity parametrization in advective discs. We thank Craig Markwardt for helpful discussion on the observed variability of GRS 1915+105 and J.I. Smak for many discussions of the disk time evolution problems. We also thank the anonymous referee for suggestion on improvement our presentation. This work was supported in part by grants 2P03D01816 and 2P03D01519 of the Polish State Committee for Scientific Research. AS was supported by NASA Contract NAS8-39073 and NAG5-3391.