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# Execution replay and debugging11footnote 1In M. Ducassé (ed), proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop on Automated Debugging (AADEBUG 2000), August 2000, Munich. COmputer Research Repository (http://www.acm.org/corr/), cs.SE/0011006; whole proceedings: cs.SE/0010035.

## 1 Introduction

Conceptually, a parallel or distributed program222For the remainder of this paper, we will use the term ‘parallel program’ for a program consisting of a number of processes running on a multiprocessor with shared memory and the term ‘distributed program’ for a program running on a number of computers without shared memory. consists of a set of cooperating processes that are executed in parallel by different processors. Writing parallel programs is generally considered more difficult and more error-prone than writing sequential programs as one has not only to concentrate on the implementation of a particular algorithm, but also on the communication and synchronisation between the processes. Most contemporary parallel programming tools are focused on automatic parallelisation of sequential programs, or the analysis and visualisation of parallel programs, not on the development of hand-written parallel or distributed programs. Consequently, there is a clear lack of development tools for parallel and distributed programs.

A standard debugger that is used for ‘cyclic debugging’, i.e. re-executing the program over and over again with the same input, and zooming in on the program execution until the bug is found (using break points, watch points, etc.) assumes that a program can be re-executed deterministically. This is clearly not the case for many parallel and distributed programs. Indeed, a standard source level debugger will change the timing of the processes, and hence maybe alter the program flow. As a result, it can cause the symptoms of a particular bug to suddenly disappear, or to be replaced by other symptoms (so-called Heisenbugs ).

In order to be able to use the wealth of debugging tools that have been developed for sequential programs for the debugging of parallel programs, we need a way to deterministically re-execute a parallel program. The main problem is that parallel programs are non-deterministic (especially the faulty ones): each program run (even with the same input) might result in a different program execution. Although non-determinism is also present in sequential programs (caused by interrupts, etc.) its presence is far more visible in parallel programs because a lot of non-deterministic constructs are used on purpose: e.g., the order in which processors use a semaphore is not planned by the program code but is determined by the competition between the different processes.

One way to enable cyclic debugging techniques for parallel or distributed programs is by the usage of the so-called execution replay technique. This technique conists of two phases: first a trace of a parallel execution is made (record phase), and afterwards the trace is used to control the re-execution of the program (replay phase)333A comparable technique is on-the-fly replay, as described in . This system uses two parallel computers: an execution is recorded on the first one and is replayed at the same time on the second computer., provided one can supply the same input to the program as the one supplied during the recorded run: both interactive input (keyboard) and file input should be identical and also system calls should return the same result (e.g. time-of-day, system usage, …). Since the re-execution is now deterministic, intrusive cyclic debugging tools can be used to debug the program: visualisation, data race detection, etc. is possible during replay without perturbing the original program execution.

In this survey, we start with an overview of the main sources of non-determinism in sequential, parallel and distributed programs, followed by a section on the main issues in execution replay a section on logical clocks, and two sections describing the execution replay methods that are described in literature. Finally, the paper is concluded with a conclusion, and an extensive list of references on this topic.

## 2 Non-determinism

In order to be able to deterministically re-execute a program, we first need to determine the non-determinism in a program execution. We start by making a distinction between different sources of non-determinism.

* External non-determinism means that an application returns different results for repeated executions with the same input . This kind of non-determinism can be desired or undesired. In the cases were it is not desired, it has to be considered a bug that has to be removed from the program. In the other cases, e.g., a program that returns one solution for the eight queens problem (which has different possible solutions)444Eight queens are to be placed on a chess board in such a way that no queen threatens any other queen. this non-determinism has to be considered a feature of the program instead of a bug.
* Internal non-determinism means that repeated executions with the same input yield the same result, but the internal execution path is different. This allows to exploit different alternative executions, balancing the load, maximising the potential parallelism in the implementation, etc.

The amount of internal non-determinism depends on the level of abstraction. E.g. a program can be internally deterministic at the level of semaphore operations, but not at the level of e.g., mutexes or spinning loops used to implement the semaphores. It turns out that the amount of internal non-determinism increases with lower abstraction levels. If a program is internally deterministic at the highest abstraction level, it will –by definition– be externally deterministic too.

In order to be able to re-execute an execution deterministically, one should know all the possible causes of non-deterministic behaviour. The next sections describe the different causes for sequential, parallel and distributed programs.

### 2.1 Sequential programs

A sequential program execution is determined by the program code555This paper assumes that the code is not changed during the execution, hence self-modifying code is not dealt with. and the program input. The input can be provided at program start (initial values of the memory locations) or during the execution (input from disk, keyboard, network, etc.).

Re-execution can only be deterministic if the input to the program is exactly the same as during the original execution. Replaying the input from keyboard, disk, network, and so on, is fairly straightforward to implement by logging the data during the first execution and refeeding it during the re-executions. This also applies to some system calls such as gettimeofday().

Some sources of input are harder to replay because not only the data should be refed, but this should be done at the correct moment. This applies to interrupts or signals because they cause a program transfer. This input can only be faithfully replayed by logging the moment of the interruption as well, e.g. using some kind of SIC (Software Instruction Counter) as in .

This paper will not deal with the non-determinism caused by these types of input but will only focus on the additional non-determinism caused by the parallel or distributed nature of an application.

### 2.2 Parallel programs

For parallel programs one should also take into account the ‘internal’ input operations. Indeed, one could consider the memory read operations as input operations as they potentially read a value written by another process. If one executes a parallel program on a monoprocessor, we can even consider the scheduler as the cause of non-determinism instead of the many read operations. Indeed, for these machines the scheduler operations determine the program execution: another execution with the same scheduling will lead to the same execution. However, this requires a scheduler that intervenes at exactly the same moment as during the first execution.

As the non-determinism caused by memory operations is an important concept for parallel programs, this type of non-determinism is called a ‘race condition’. More specifically, a race condition is defined as two unsynchronised accesses to the same shared location, and at least one access modifies it. We have to make a distinction between two types of race conditions: race conditions that are used to make a program intentionally non-deterministic: synchronisation races, and race conditions that were not intended by the programmer (data races).

We need synchronisation races to allow for competition between threads to enter a critical section, to lock a semaphore, or to implement load balancing. Removing synchronisation races makes a program completely deterministic. Therefore, in this paper, we do not consider synchronisation races a programming error, but a functional and useful characteristic of a parallel program.

Data races are not intended by the programmer, and are mostly the result of improper synchronisation. By changing the synchronisation, data races can always be removed. It is important to notice that the distinction between a data race and a synchronisation race is actually a pure matter of abstraction. At the implementation level of the synchronisation operations, a synchronisation race is caused by a genuine data race (e.g., spin locks, polling, etc.) on a synchronisation variable.

### 2.3 Distributed programs

For distributed programs, non-determinism is mainly introduced by so-called promiscuous receive operations (e.g., MPI\_Recv(...,MPI\_ANY\_SOURCE,...) for MPI  programs) which can receive a message from any other process. As the source of the message is not specified, it is possible that another message is received during a re-execution. In a sense, they play the role of ‘racing’ store operations in non-deterministic programs on multiprocessors.

We assume that messages in a point-to-point communication comply with the non-overtaking property which means that successive messages sent between two nodes are always received in the order in which they were sent (this is the case for MPI and PVM ). Hence, since messages are assumed to be produced deterministically, receive operations in a private point-to-point communication that specify the sender are always deterministic.

Besides the promiscuous receive operations, there is another class of instructions that can cause non-determinism in a message passing program: test operations for non-blocking message operations. These non-blocking operations return to the caller immediately: they do not wait until the message was received/delivered. In this case, test operations are used to check for the arrival of messages or to check if a send operation has finished. Non-blocking test operations are intensively used in message passing programs that use PVM or MPI, e.g., to maximally overlap communication with computation.

By the very fact that the test operations are non-blocking, they can be used in polling loops. The actual number of calls will depend on timing variations of parallel program, and is thus non-deterministic. Although many programs will not base their operation on the number of failed tests, some could do so (e.g., to implement a kind of time-out), and hence cannot be correctly replayed when not recorded.

## 3 Main issues in execution replay

For record/replay systems one will record the non-determinism at a particular abstraction level, and enforce these non-deterministic choices at the same abstraction level during the re-execution. This means that all events that happen on a higher abstraction level will be replayed faithfully, while nothing is known about the events on lower abstraction levels.

On the other hand, the level of abstraction will also determine the amount of information needed to allow for a faithful replay. The lower the abstraction level, the more information about the original execution we can obtain for the debugging session, but the more time and space we need to record the non-deterministic choices (hence more perturbation). The higher the abstraction level, the lesser we have to record, but the more uncertainty we have during debugging about the original execution. Determining the level of abstraction is hence of paramount importance and can make a record/replay system either practical or impractical. In practice, one is only interested in a re-execution that is equivalent ‘as far as the programmer is concerned’, meaning that he/she wants to have access to his/her own code, but he/she is not interested in the code of the libraries he/she is using, as long a the semantics of the library calls is preserved. An equivalent re-execution of the implementation of library routines is not needed, as the programmer cannot observe -let alone debug- these routines anyway.

A practical execution replay system should satisfy two properties, as described in the next two sections.

### 3.1 Low overhead of the record phase

The recording overhead must be low in time  and in space .

The time overhead should be low to circumvent Heisenbugs and to limit the probe effect . A low overhead ensures that the recorded execution is more or less equivalent with a regular execution (without tracing). If the time overhead is low enough we can leave the tracing turned on all the time, even in production code. The trace can then be a standard part of a bug report. Even with a zero overhead, a program execution in record mode, is not guaranteed to be identical to the previous execution without trace mode, because no two executions are guaranteed to be identical in the presence of internal non-determinism. Leaving the tracing on all the time is the only way to guarantee a correct replay of a faulty execution.

The space overhead for the trace files should be limited too. The first reason is that this is necessary to be able to trace long running programs. The second reason is that storing the trace requires some bandwidth, which should be shared with the target program. So, storing more means perturbating more. Therefore, the lesser is recorded, the better it is, as long as it still allows a faithful replay. As the elimination of redundant information must be done at run-time (and in real-time) the analysis should be as simple as possible, minimising program perturbation. It is clear that there is a tradeoff between the space and the time overhead. The space overhead can be limited by using the already mentioned on-the-fly replay method or by using incremental replay techniques . Incremental techniques use a combination of checkpoints with execution traces. These execution traces only contain information about the execution since the last checkpoint was taken. Replay is then only possible for the part of the execution after this checkpoint, making it hard to find bugs for which there is a long time between the occurrence of the bug and the time at which the bug starts to have an effect on the execution. Furthermore, taking consistent (distributed) checkpoints is not that easy.

### 3.2 Faithful re-execution

The necessary condition for using cyclic debugging is that we can re-execute a program as many times as needed, and that the re-executions are in some way ‘equivalent’ with the original execution. As explained above, the abstraction level will be a critical issue. Therefore, an important question for an execution replay method is what and how much to record during the recorded execution.

There are two possible approaches to force executions of a parallel or distributed program to be equivalent to a traced execution. The first one is to force the processes to read the same values of shared variables or to receive the same messages as during the traced execution by recording the original value (content-based or data-based replay). The second one (ordering-based replay) makes sure that the interactions between the different processes occur in the same order as during the original execution. For parallel programs, the processes are forced to access the shared variables in the same order as during the traced execution, forcing the variables to undergo the modifications in the same order as during the record phase. For distributed programs, the processes are forced to receive the messages in the same order as during the original execution.

In this case, a scheme for detecting and recording the order of the operations should be used. For detecting the order in which operations are executed (or for detecting that there is no ordering and the operations are therefore in parallel), logical clocks are commonly used.

## 4 Logical clocks

A logical clock  $`C()`$ should obey the so-called clock condition666$`ab`$ means that operation $`a`$ ‘happened before’ operation $`b`$ meaning there is some sort of causal relation between the two events.

$$abC(a)<C(b)$$

This relation simple states that if $`a`$ occurs causally before $`b`$, the timestamp of $`a`$ should be smaller than the timestamp of $`b`$. As it is sufficient to order the subsequent operations on the same variable, such a clock normally calculates a new timestamp based on the old timestamp of the process and the timestamp attached to the last operation on the variable. It is clear that it is not sufficient to use the wall time of the operations as timestamps as the wall clock on different processes (especially in distributed machines) is not synchronised.

The simplest form of a logical clock is the scalar Lamport clock : a scalar value is attached to each process. Each time a process executes an operation, the clock produces a new value: the new clock is the successor of the maximum value of the last timestamp of the process and of the timestamp attached to the last operation on the same object. This is a fairly natural way of updating the clock: the new operation happens after the last operation on the object and the last operation of the process; hence the new timestamp should be bigger than the timestamps attached to these two operations. It is clear that this type of clock satisfies the clock condition. If we have two operations $`a`$ and $`b`$ with timestamps $`C(a)`$ and $`C(b)`$ then we have three possibilities:

* $`C(a)=C(b)`$ meaning that there is no causal relation between these two operations.
* $`C(a)<C(b)`$ meaning that there could be a causal relation between these operations ($`ab`$), but we are sure that the contrary relation ($`ba`$) is not true.
* $`C(a)>C(b)`$ meaning the same as above with $`a`$ and $`b`$ switched.

Note that this type of clock provides enough information to get a faithful replay: if we trace the Lamport timestamps of the operations, we get a correct replay if we stall an operation $`x`$ with timestamp $`C(x)`$ until all operations $`y`$ with $`C(y)<C(x)`$ have been executed.

Vector clocks  are used if one wants to obtain more information about an execution. A vector clock for a program with $`N`$ processes consists of $`N`$ scalar values. If process $`p`$ executes an operation, the new vector timestamp is calculated as follows: first, a new vector timestamp is calculated as the supremum of the last timestamps of the process and the object on which the operation is performed, and then the $`p`$-th element is incremented. An interesting property of a vector clock is that it not only satisfies the clock condition but also the stronger condition (meaning they are strongly consistent)

$$abC(a)<C(b)$$

This means that given two vector clocks $`C(a)`$ and $`C(b)`$, it is possible to deduce the causal relation between the two operations $`a`$ and $`b`$.

It is possible to augment the dimension of the logical clock even more, resulting in matrix clocks . Matrix clocks provide second order information to a process. It is a list of vector clocks, namely per process the last vector clock that was communicated to the current process. This information can be used to discard obsolete information in distributed systems.

## 5 Execution replay methods for parallel programs

In this section, an overview of the most important replay methods described in literature is given.

### 5.1 Content-based

In  a content-based replay method (name Recap) that traces the data read from every shared memory location is proposed. A trace generation of 1 MB/s on a VAX 11/780 was measured, making content-based replay impractical as the time needed to record the large amount of required information is significant, which might modify the initial execution considerably. Moreover, not only the time but also the space overhead is too large.

This replay method has however one benefit: it is possible to replay a subset of the processes (or even one process) in isolation. Nevertheless, it is argued  that this is no real benefit as it is difficult to examine the interactions between the different processes, hindering the task of finding the cause of a bug. Today, content-based replay is only used for tracing I/O and for tracing the result of certain system calls such as gettimeofday(). Indeed, this is the only viable solutions as it is not possible to ‘replay’ the operations that produced the result of these operations.

### 5.2 Ordering-based

As mentioned above these methods try to guarantee that the shared memory dependencies during the replay phase match the dependencies that were observed during the record phase. This will make sure that e.g. each read is executed after the same write as during the recorded execution forcing the same data to be read. It turns out that this approach allows for a dramatical reduction in the time and space overhead in the recording phase. The tracing of the order of the memory operations can be done using hardware , software or hybrid probes.

#### 5.2.1 Replaying on a monoprocessor

Replay mechanisms based on the scheduling order of the different threads can be used for monoprocessor systems. Indeed, by imposing the same scheduling order during replay, an equivalent execution is constructed . This scheme can be extended to multiprocessor systems by also tracing the memory operations executed between two successive scheduling operations. In , such an implementation for Java is described. Since a typical execution of a Java program has a small number of scheduler operations (no time slicing is used and therefore scheduling is only performed at predefined points such as monitorenter calls) they succeed in producing very small trace files albeit at the cost of a large overhead (17-88%).

Such a method is of course only viable if one has complete control over the operations of the scheduler, as is only the case for proprietary systems or virtual machines such as the JVM used by Java applications.

#### 5.2.2 Replaying on a multiprocessor

For systems where one has no control over the scheduler operations or if one wants to replay on a multiprocessor more powerful replay methods are needed. The methods described below are targeted at non-proprietary systems such as UNIX systems and require no modifications to the kernel: they all work in user space.

##### Instant Replay

Instant Replay  is probably the most known replay method. The method is targeted at CREW (concurrent reader, exclusive writer) systems and attaches a version number to each shared object. Each time a read operation is performed on an certain object, the version number of the object is traced. For each write operation performed on an object, the version number of the object is incremented and the number of read operations between the last two write operations is traced. During the replay phase, each read operation stalls till the version number of the object is correct, and each write operation stalls until the same number of read operations for a specific version (number) of the object are performed. It is clear that this method only works if the memory operations obey the CREW property: Instant Replay was proposed for a Butterfly with monitors. If a process reads or writes the object without using the monitor, the operation will not be traced and a correct replay is impossible. As such, only the synchronisation races are replayed, not the data races.

In , the Instant Replay method was adapted for a pSather, a parallel object-oriented programming language.

##### Bacon & Goldstein

In , a hardware-assisted replay method was proposed. The system observers the cache traffic between the memory and the CPU’s and logs a subset of it. It is clear that this approach is highly computer dependent but it introduces no overhead at all, at the cost of extra hardware. Both the record and the replay phase use additional hardware in order to accomplish this task. A trace bandwidth of 1.17MB/s was measured for a fine-grained shared memory application on a 12-processor computer. As the tracing occurs at the lowest possible level, it is impossible to distinguish the synchronisation operations from the ‘normal’ memory operations. Therefore, this method replays both the synchronisation races and the data races.

##### Netzer

In  a replay system based on vector clocks was presented. The system attaches a vector timestamp to each process and each shared variable. Each time a process accesses a variable, both the vector timestamp of the process and the object are updated. As vector clocks are strongly consistent it is possible to detect parallel operations on the same variable by comparing the attached vector timestamps. If they turn out to be non-ordered, the operations are not properly synchronised, and as such the pair is involved in a race. By replaying the race in the same order during the replay, the race causes no harm and the replayed execution is equivalent with the recorded execution. The method succeeds in limiting the space overhead because the vector clocks automatically remove transitive ordered accesses from the trace.

Unfortunately, the method has a number of disadvantages:

* the size of a vector clock varies with the number of processes, making it difficult to deal with programs that dynamically create threads.
* a vector clock has to be attached to all shared memory locations. Moreover, the vector clocks have to compared at all shared accesses. Although the papers about the method do not contain figures about the time overhead, it is reasonable to expect a large overhead.
* data and synchronisation races are treated equally: they are both replayed. Although this sounds reasonable if one wants a correct replay, we feel that a programmer would rather remove the data race and replay the synchronisation races. After all, data races are often bugs that should be removed from the program.

##### ROLT

In  a method based on scalar Lamport timestamps was proposed. Scalar timestamps are attached to each process and each synchronisation operation. At each synchronisation operation new timestamps are calculated. For a correct replay, it is sufficient to stall each synchronisation operation until all synchronisation operations with smaller timestamps have been executed. It turns out that by logging the increments of the timestamps only, a substantial reduction of the trace files can be obtained. It is clear that by attaching scalar timestamps to all synchronisation operations, a total order is imposed on these operations although the operations in the recorded execution are only partially ordered. The additional artificial dependencies are not harmful as they do not contradict the actual execution order. They have however an impact on the replay phase as it is possible that a synchronisation operation on one synchronisation variable will have to wait for an operation on another synchronisation variable.

By using so-called fully snooped variants  of the Lamport clocks it is possible to calculate a total order that is consistent with the wall time of the operations, removing the synthetic dependencies from the trace (at the cost of a bigger trace file).

Compared to Netzer’s method the system has the advantage that it scales well (no vector clocks are used) and leads to small trace files. Similar to Netzer’s technique, the scalar clocks automatically calculate the transitive reduction of the order of the synchronisation operations.

The method was originally proposed for monitor operations (it was also implemented for TreadMarks , a distributed shared memory system ), making it unsuitable for programs containing data races. In  the replay method was extended with automatic data race detection during the replay phase. During the record phase the order of the synchronisation operations is recorded and during the first replayed execution a data race detector runs as a watchdog. If a data race is found, the replayed execution cannot be guaranteed to be correct after the data race occurred, but this is no problem as the first data race should be removed anyway. The data race can then be removed by using cyclic debugging of the first part of the program. As soon as one is sure that an execution no longer contains data races, a regular replayed execution (without the data race detector running as a watchdog) can be used to find the non-synchronisation related errors in the particular execution.

During the data race detection phase, information about all memory operations is collected. As this would lead to a huge memory consumption, snooped matrix clocks are used in order to remove information that can be discarded (these are the memory operations that can no longer race with new operations as all new operations are causally related to the discarded ones.). The detection of the data races themselves is performed using vector clocks.

## 6 Methods for distributed programs

In the past, a whole deal of methods have been proposed for replaying distributed programs. Implementing such a method for distributed programs is simpler than for parallel programs as distributed programs exchange information using message operations, and these operations are typically part of a library or use a daemon (e.g. PVM and MPI). Intercepting the operations is therefore straightforward as it can be done by instrumenting function calls. This is not the case for replaying parallel programs as individual memory operations have to be traced.

Due to the large granularity one encounters in distributed applications, the time overhead is not that important. Most methods therefore primarily focus on reducing the space overhead.

Basically, two techniques are used. The first technique uses vector clocks and was proposed by Netzer in . The technique basically checks whether the send operation that corresponds to a receive operation is ordered with the last receive operation of the same process. If this is true, the messages cannot be received in the wrong order, hence no race exists. If the receive and the send operations are not ordered, this is traced. As was the case for Netzer’s method for parallel programs, this method also removes transitive orders from the trace file. In  this method was implemented for MPI-programs. The trace was augmented with information about the number of non-blocking test operations. Neyman et al. adapt this method for PVM-programs in . Unfortunately, non-blocking test operations are not dealt with, making an exact replayed execution not always possible: any program that depends on the number of test-operations performed (e.g., for time-outs) cannot be correctly replayed.

The second technique is based on the fact that it is sufficient to trace the actual sender of messages received by promiscuous receive operations. This information can then be used during replay to force the promiscuous receive operations to wait on a messages originating from a particular sender process. Hence, a promiscuous receive operation can be made deterministic during replay by replacing it on-the-fly by a point-to-point receive operation. In  are some examples of this method. The first method does not deal with non-blocking test operations leading to the same problems as mentioned above.

In  a completely different approach is taken. Instead of replaying a recorded execution on an actual computer, the replay is simulated. By altering the ‘transit time’ of messages, non-deterministic behaviour is tested. Another approach is used in  where only one process is partially replayed starting from a checkpoint. This method therefore offers a very limited view on an execution. The system was implemented for PVM and uses tagged messages in order to replay them.

In , a method for Athapascan , a hybrid parallel/distributed system is described. Athapascan consists of a number of nodes running on different computers that communicate using messages (on top of MPI). Each node consists of a number of POSIX threads communicating using shared memory. The proposed replay method consists two parts. The previously mentioned ROLT method is used for dealing with the non-determinism due to the shared variables. For the promiscuous receive operations, the actual sender of the messages received is recorded while the number of test operations is logged for the non-blocking test operations.

## 7 Conclusions

It is clear that in the last 15 year, a lot of research and work has been devoted to execution replay methods on behalf of the debugging community. However, in order to get a perfect execution replay method, one part is still missing: replaying the input. Although implementing a replay tool for input seems straightforward –intercepting library or system calls should suffice– no tool exists at this moment, probably because this is not exactly a research field requiring much theoretical foundations.

## Acknowledgements

Michiel Ronsse is sponsored by a GOA project (12050895) from Ghent University. Koen De Bosschere is a research associate with the Fund for Scientific Research – Flanders.


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# An Alternative Explanation on the Two Relaxation Rates in Cuprate Superconductors

\[

## Abstract

Transport properties of high transition temperature (high-$`T_c`$) superconductors have been shown to have two distinct relaxation rates. We argue that this apparent inconsistence can be resolved with an effective carrier density $`n`$ linear in temperature $`T`$. Experimental evidences both for and against this explanation are analyzed and we conclude that this offers a simple yet promising scenario. Above the pseudogap temperature $`T^{}`$ the normal state of high-$`T_c`$ cuprates is close to a Fermi liquid. It however assumes non-Fermi-liquid behaviors below $`T^{}`$.

\]

The peculiar normal-state transport properties of high-$`T_c`$ superconductors are rather controversial and not well understood. The most striking of these is the observation of two relaxation rates . The resistivity $`\rho `$ is linear in temperature $`T`$, which implies a transport (longitudinal ) relaxation rate $`1/\tau _{tr}T`$ from $`\rho =m_c/ne_c^2\tau _{tr}`$ assuming that $`e_c`$, $`m_c`$, $`n`$, respectively the charge, mass and density of carriers are $`T`$-independent. In contrast, the Hall (transverse) relaxation rate $`1/\tau _H`$ from the cotangent of Hall angle $`\mathrm{cot}\theta _H=m_cc/e_cH\tau _H`$ is quadratic in $`T`$. These two distinct $`T`$ dependences have various explanations. Probably the best known is due to Anderson, based on the spin-charge separation of a Luttinger liquid . Other interesting scenarios include but are not limited to the near-antiferromagnetic Fermi liquid (NAFL) theory of D. Pines et al.  and marginal Fermi liquid (MFL) theory by Varma et al. .

We are here to point out that the two distinct rates might be superficial if the effective carrier density (concentration) $`n`$ actually depends on $`T`$, or $`n=n(T)`$. Especially if the $`n(T)T`$, then we are left with perhaps only one rate, for both longitudinal and transverse processes. This is easy to see because $`1/\tau _{tr}=n(T)e_c^2\rho /m_c`$ (in Gaussian units) and as long as $`n(T)T`$ and $`\rho T`$ we then get $`1/\tau _{tr}T^2`$. It has therefore the same $`T`$ dependence as $`1/\tau _H`$ from the Hall effect.

Similar explanations have been proposed before . Alexandrov and Mott also suggest $`n(T)T`$ although their carriers are bosons (bipolarons) . This scheme of variable $`n`$ however does not come without difficulties. Optical conductivity  seems to suggest that spectral weight of the Drude part is independent of $`T`$,implying a constant $`n`$. Nevertheless, we will show later that such an evidence is oversimplified.

Although the discrepancy between $`\rho T`$ and $`\mathrm{cot}\theta _HT^2`$ is widely treated as abnormal, similar behaviors happen elsewhere, typically in some semimetals. Bismuth displays a similar discrepancy from 77 K to 300 K as shown in Figs. 1(a) and 1(b), although with a $`\mathrm{cot}(\theta _H)T^{2.5}`$ instead . This behavior has long been understood from a single rate $`1/\tau T^{2.5}`$ and a variable $`n(T)T^{1.5}`$ \[see Fig. 1(c)\], which in combination give a $`\rho T`$. It is very unlikely that a Luttinger liquid theory is relevant to a three-dimensional conductor, to which Bi belongs. Then taking such discrepancy as the evidence for spin-charge separation is not persuasive.

With a much lower $`n`$ ($`10^{17}`$ cm-3), the semimetal Bi still has a lower resistivity than most cuprates in their normal states, which are often treated as metals. This raises the question of whether doped cuprate is a metal, a semimetal, or even a semiconductor as suggested by Alexandrov and Mott . We believe that it has the characters of all the three. It is like metal or semimetal as required by a non-zero $`n`$ when approaching $`0\mathrm{K}`$. On the other hand, significant electrostatic field effects  on the transport, the divergent $`0\mathrm{K}`$ resistance under a strong magnetic field  and the likely variable $`n`$ from the Hall effect  put it near semiconductors and semimetals, quite far from a simple metal  where $`n`$ is taken as fixed.

Let us go back to other evidences supporting the $`n(T)T`$ argument. The first and foremost is actually the Hall coefficient $`R_H`$ itself. Within the temperature range where $`\mathrm{cot}\theta _HT^2`$, $`R_H`$ can be nicely fitted by $`1/(a_0+a_1T)`$ in optimally doped (OD) $`p`$-type cuprates . Note that $`R_H=1/ne_cc`$ or equivalently $`1/e_ccR_H`$ measures $`n`$ in a simple parabolic band. However a naive explanation of $`n=1/e_ccR_H`$ seems not prudent because $`R_H`$ may reach 0 in some cuprates. This is perhaps why the $`T`$-dependent $`R_H`$ is not widely accepted as the evidence for $`n(T)T`$. However $`R_H=0`$ can be understood with a two-carrier model as a result of compensation . And as long as one carrier dominates the transport, $`R_H`$ is still $`1/n`$ although $`e_ccR_H=1/n`$ no longer holds. To see this, suppose that the densities of two carriers are given respectively by $`n_e=n_{e0}+n_{e1}T`$ and $`n_h=n_{h0}+n_{h1}T`$, giving rise to a Hall coefficient

$`R_H`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{n_hn_eb^2}{e_cc(n_h+n_eb)^2}}`$ (1)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(n_{h0}n_{e0}b^2)+(n_{h1}n_{e1}b^2)T}{e_cc\left[(n_{h0}+n_{e0}b)+(n_{h1}+n_{e1}b)T\right]^2}},`$ (2)
where $`b=\mu _e/\mu _h`$ is the mobility ratio. If $`n_{e1}Tn_{e0}`$, $`n_{h1}Tn_{h0}`$, and $`n_{h1}n_{e1}b^20`$, $`R_H`$ is roughly $`1/T`$. Thus the Hall effect strongly suggests $`n(T)T`$  in the normal state of OD $`p`$-type cuprates.

$`R_H`$ is arguably the most widely used and quite accurate method to determine $`n`$ in metals and semiconductors when compensation is not severe. It is not persuasive to treat one half of the Hall effect, say $`\mathrm{cot}\theta _HT^2`$ as exact, while disregarding the physical meaning of the other half, namely $`R_H1/T`$, for $`\mathrm{cot}\theta _H=m_cc/e_cH\tau _H`$ itself holds strictly only for a simple parabolic band, just as $`R_H=1/ne_cc`$. Actually putting these two facts at equal footing makes the physics compact and concise: there roughly exists a relaxation rate $`1/\tau T^2`$, governing both longitudinal and transverse processes. $`\rho =m_c/n(T)e_c^2\tau _{tr}T`$ is the result of $`1/\tau _{tr}1/\tau T^2`$, and $`n(T)T`$, while $`\mathrm{cot}\theta _H=m_cc/e_cH\tau _H`$ has no $`n(T)`$ in it thus $`\mathrm{cot}\theta _H1/\tau _H1/\tau T^2`$. (We assume that $`m_c`$ is relatively $`T`$-independent and this issue will be addressed later). With a non-fixed $`n`$, we can proceed on to the apparent violation of Kohler’s rule .

The Kohler’s rule in its ordinary form states that the relative magnetoresistance $`\mathrm{\Delta }\rho /\rho _0`$ in a magnetic field $`H`$, can be represented in the form

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\rho /\rho _0=F(H/\rho _0),$$
(3)
where $`\rho _0`$ is the resistivity at $`H=0`$ and $`F`$ is a function given by the metal and its sample geometry only.

In cuprates, approximately $`\mathrm{\Delta }\rho /\rho _0H^2T^4`$  but $`H/\rho _0HT^1`$. Because $`\mathrm{\Delta }\rho /\rho _0`$ (or $`H^2T^4`$) is not a function of $`H/\rho _0`$ (or $`HT^1`$) only, Kohler’s rule seems to be violated.

The argument above is however not valid if carrier density $`n`$ is not fixed. A scrutiny on its derivation  shows that a more general form of Kohler’s rule is

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\rho /\rho _0=F(H\tau ),$$
(4)
where $`\tau `$ is the single relaxation time assumed for that conductor. For simple metals, $`n`$ is roughly a constant, so that $`\tau `$ has the same $`T`$ dependence as $`\rho _0`$ and thus there is no problem if one writes $`\mathrm{\Delta }\rho /\rho _0=F(H/\rho _0)`$ instead of $`F(H\tau )`$. However for cuprates, $`n`$ likely depends on $`T`$, so we should use Eq. (4) instead of Eq. (3) in order to see if Kohler’s rule survives. Because $`H\tau HT^2`$ where $`1/\tau `$ is the single rate assumed, we have $`\mathrm{\Delta }\rho /\rho _0H^2T^4=(HT^2)^2`$ and thus $`\mathrm{\Delta }\rho /\rho _0(H\tau )^2=F(H\tau )`$ so that Kohler’s rule still holds. \[Similarly in Bi, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\rho /\rho _0H^2T^5=(HT^{2.5})^2`$ inferred from Fig. 1(d) and so we get $`\mathrm{\Delta }\rho /\rho _0(H\tau )^2=F(H\tau )`$ because $`1/\tau T^{2.5}`$ here in Bi. Kohler’s rule is not violated either.\]

The perseverance of Kohler’s rule barely strengthens the idea of a single rate $`1/\tau T^2`$. Thus our previous explanation of the Hall effect seems to be in the right direction. Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) studies also suggest the applicability of semimetal band structure to cuprates. Fig. 2 shows some likely scenarios how this might be materialized in Bi-2212 with the Fermi surface (FS) mapping following Ref. . The discussion can be generalized to other $`p`$-type superconductors.

Having seen some evidences for this explanation, we now discuss experiments at odds with it. The most serious one, in our opinion, is from the optical conductivity $`\sigma (\omega )`$. To account for the non-Drude behavior of $`\sigma (\omega )`$ in cuprates, a classical two-component model  is used in quite some studies,

$$\sigma (\omega ,T)=\sigma _\mathrm{D}(\omega ,T)+\sigma _{\mathrm{MIR}}(\omega ,T),$$
(5)
where $`\sigma _\mathrm{D}(\omega ,T)=[n(T)e_c^2/m_c]\{(1/\tau )/[\omega ^2+(1/\tau )^2]\}`$ is the $`T`$-dependent Drude part while $`\sigma _{\mathrm{MIR}}(\omega ,T)`$ is the nearly $`T`$-independent midinfrared (MIR) part. The spectral weight of Drude part $`_0^{\mathrm{}}\sigma _\mathrm{D}(\omega ,T)𝑑\omega `$, is found to be independent of $`T`$ \[the shape of $`\sigma _\mathrm{D}(\omega ,T)`$ is $`T`$-dependent though\], suggesting a constant $`n`$ if $`m_c`$ is taken independent of $`T`$. Nonetheless the typical use of such a model is oversimplified. The problem is: the MIR is treated as $`T`$-independent and modeled as classical Lorentz oscillators.

The $`T`$-dependence of MIR is tied to its nature. MIR is often understood as an interband electronic transition . This interband transition, especially at its low $`\omega `$ part, is however not from excitation over the charge-transfer (CT) gap. Rather it perhaps comes from doping-related states and spectral weight transfers inside the CT gap as suggested by various doping-dependent photoemission, inverse photoemission, X-ray absorption, electron-energy-loss spectroscopy and IR reflectance studies . Without lingering over the exact origin of these MIR-related states, we have two observations from experiments. First, MIR states are very close to the Fermi level, manifested by low energy MIR tail approaching $`\omega =0`$ . Such states might relate to the flat band, van Hove singularity and electronlike states \[see Figs. 2(c) and 2(f)\] revealed in ARPES. Second, MIR states are localized at low $`T`$ as seen in $`\sigma (\omega )`$ at 20 K or lower  as shown in Figs. 3(b), because otherwise it would behave Drudelike and there would not be an MIR at all. Then the interband transitions of MIR are likely from shallow localized states to extented ones.

With these two properties of MIR states, $`\sigma _{\mathrm{MIR}}`$ should be $`T`$-dependent in its low $`\omega `$ part (actually in far infrared, FIR), because higher $`T`$ should progressively set more carriers free, which corresponds to a spectral weight transfer from MIR (or FIR) to the Drude part as indicated by the arrow in Fig. 3(d). In other words, the classical model of Lorentz oscillator with a $`T`$-independent MIR is not correct considering the quantum nature of interband excitations. With increasing $`T`$, there should be a reduction in the spectral weight of MIR as shown in Fig. 3(a), and this reduction in MIR should then be made up by an increase in the Drude part \[Fig. 3(d)\] according to the sum rule (i.e., a spectral weight transfer). Such weight reduction  and weight transfer  have been understood in optical studies of narrow-gap semiconductors like HgTe, Hg1-xCdxTe, and semimetals such as Bi. Unlike valence-to-conduction-band type of transition there ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }_8`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_8`$ in HgTe, Hg1-xCdxTe and possibly crossing the $`L`$-point gap in Bi), the MIR in cuprates are likely from localized to extended bands, but a similar $`T`$-dependence should still hold. However being overlapped $`\sigma _\mathrm{D}`$ and $`\sigma _{\mathrm{MIR}}`$ in cuprates have no clear-cut method to separate. (Overlap of the two parts in Hg1-xCdxTe and Bi is not as severe.) So what is often used in analysis, is assuming that the $`\sigma _{\mathrm{MIR}}`$ at 20 K or lower, written indiscriminately as $`\sigma _{\mathrm{MIR}}(\omega ,20\mathrm{K})`$ for simplicity, be the same for all other $`T`$ . Such a procedure without little doubt would make a constant Drude weight simply because of the conductivity sum rule.

Rewrite Eq. (5) as

$$\sigma _\mathrm{D}(\omega ,T)=\sigma (\omega ,T)\sigma _{\mathrm{MIR}}(\omega ,T).$$
(6)
Integrate both sides over $`\omega `$ from 0 to $`\mathrm{}`$, and by using sum rule for $`\sigma _\mathrm{D}(\omega ,T)`$, we get

$$\frac{\pi n(T)e_c^2}{2m_c}=_0^{\mathrm{}}\sigma (\omega ,T)𝑑\omega _0^{\mathrm{}}\sigma _{\mathrm{MIR}}(\omega ,T)𝑑\omega ,$$
(7)
where the total weight $`_0^{\mathrm{}}\sigma (\omega ,T)𝑑\omega `$ of the two parts basically measures the number of states available within the CT gap . It is directly integrated from experimental $`\sigma (\omega ,T)`$ and is found independent of $`T`$. If a $`\sigma _{\mathrm{MIR}}(\omega ,T)=\sigma _{\mathrm{MIR}}(\omega ,20\mathrm{K})`$ is assumed for all $`T`$, as is done in a typical $`T`$-dependent two-component analysis , we are left with

$$n(T)=\frac{2m_c}{\pi e_c^2}\left[_0^{\mathrm{}}\sigma (\omega ,T)𝑑\omega _0^{\mathrm{}}\sigma _{\mathrm{MIR}}(\omega ,20\mathrm{K})𝑑\omega \right].$$
(8)
Because $`_0^{\mathrm{}}\sigma _{\mathrm{MIR}}(\omega ,20\mathrm{K})𝑑\omega `$ is a constant, the right hand side of Eq. (8) is $`T`$-invariant, and we are left with an effective carrier density $`n_0^{\mathrm{}}\sigma (\omega ,T)𝑑\omega _0^{\mathrm{}}\sigma _{\mathrm{MIR}}(\omega ,20\mathrm{K})𝑑\omega `$ which is independent of $`T`$ even if $`n`$ changes with the temperature in reality. Introduction of self-consistent iteration  marginally improves the result but qualitatively it would not cure the problem. There are different approaches using straightforward least-squares fit . However, with a classical and oversimplified Drude-Lorentz model to start from, such fits are not likely to uncover the sizable $`T`$-dependence of the Drude weight.

Meanwhile the high $`\omega `$ part of MIR is less affected by $`T`$, as easily understood from quantum statistics and because the MIR is several times larger than Drude part, a spectral transfer on the order of one Drude weight does not contradict to the convention of nearly $`T`$-independent MIR. The transfer only occurs at low $`\omega `$ where the overlap with Drude peak makes its detection hard.

The analysis above explains the origin of variable $`n`$ as well: as $`T`$ increases, previously localized carriers are now set free and we are likely left with an $`nT`$. Actually this variable $`n`$ finds common point in the one-component model of $`\sigma (\omega ,T)`$ , where renormalized relaxation rate $`1/\tau ^{}`$ and renormalized mass $`m_c^{}`$ both depend on $`T`$ and $`\omega `$. In other words,

$$\sigma (\omega ,T)=\frac{ne_c^2}{m_c^{}(\omega ,T)}\frac{1/\tau ^{}(\omega ,T)}{\omega ^2+[1/\tau ^{}(\omega ,T)]^2},$$
(9)
where $`n`$ is however taken as fixed. In a typical result of this model , the renormalized mass $`m_c^{}(\omega ,T)`$ at low $`\omega `$ say $`200\mathrm{cm}^1`$ decreases with increasing $`T`$ as $`m_c^{}(\omega ,T)=m_{c0}a_0/(a_0+a_1T)`$ with $`m_{c0}`$ the $`m_c^{}`$ at low $`T`$ while the renormalized rate $`1/\tau ^{}(\omega ,T)`$ at low $`\omega `$ roughly increases as $`T^2`$. This behavior is perhaps equivalent to an alternative combination of low frequency $`n(\omega ,T)(a_0+a_1T)/a_0`$ and $`1/\tau ^{}(\omega ,T)T^2`$ if the mass $`m_c`$ is taken as fixed instead. Mathematically, by inserting $`m_c^{}(\omega ,T)=m_{c0}a_0/(a_0+a_1T)`$ in Eq. (9), we have

$`\sigma (\omega ,T)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{ne_c^2}{m_{c0}a_0/(a_0+a_1T)}}{\displaystyle \frac{1/\tau ^{}(\omega ,T)}{\omega ^2+[1/\tau ^{}(\omega ,T)]^2}}`$ (10)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{n[(a_0+a_1T)/a_0]e_c^2}{m_{c0}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1/\tau ^{}(\omega ,T)}{\omega ^2+[1/\tau ^{}(\omega ,T)]^2}}.`$ (11)
If we treat mass $`m_{c0}`$ as fixed, then $`n(a_0+a_1T)/a_0`$ can be taken an effective carrier density which is linear in $`T`$, and we arrive at the same conclusion as we made earlier. There must exist renormalization effects to some extent, but meanwhile we cannot rule out the variation of $`n`$ with $`T`$. The problem is however that the current optical technique is not able to differentiate one effect from the other because $`m_c`$ and $`n`$ are entangled together in the expression of optical conductivity.

Electronic specific heat $`C^{el}`$ seems to suggest a fixed $`n`$ because $`\gamma =C^{el}/T`$ is a constant above $`T_c`$ . Localized states, as long as not far from the Fermi surface ($`kT`$), nevertheless contribute to $`\gamma `$ because these carriers may increase their energy and jump to extended states simply by thermal excitation. Classically this is interpreted as while being localized and deprived of translational degrees of freedom (DOF), they nevertheless have oscillatory DOF. Thus these states still contribute a term $`T`$ to $`C^{el}`$, such that significant variation in $`\gamma /T`$ is not seen. There are recent reports claiming a scattering rate linear in $`T`$ shown by ARPES . However we need to caution on the meaning of such a rate and its relation to the actual transport relaxation rate. Averaging to more than 0.2 eV at 300 K , such rate is far from $`1/\tau _{tr}`$ of 300-500 cm-1 given by current IR transport studies. On the other hand recent dynamic conductivity experiment clearly show a transport rate $`1/\tau _{tr}T^2`$ by THz technique , which in principle is a much finer probe than ARPES in energy resolution, and more important, directly measures transport rates. The $`T^2`$-rate revealed in THz experiments could well be the single rate we proposed in this paper.

All these experimental evidences suggest a promising combination of $`1/\tau T^2`$ and $`n(T)T`$ in explaining the peculiar transport in cuprates. Then what is the scattering mechanism behind the $`T^2`$ rate? It is perhaps mainly caused by electron-electron and electron-hole scatterings. A fermion-fermion scattering results in a $`T^2`$ rate basically because of the phase space restraints from the Pauli principle. In two-dimension (2D), some nesting effect might be prominent but it has been shown that $`e`$-$`e`$ scattering still basically follows a $`T^2`$ law .

Here we have however a variable $`n(T)`$ which might make us suspect a rate $`1/\tau `$ increasing faster than $`T^2`$. Intuitively the electrons (holes) are getting more crowded with increasing $`T`$. So we want to use a very simple argument based on power analysis to show that this worry is not needed.

Treating the scattering process using Fermi Golden rule, the probability per unit time that an electron in $`𝐤`$ will be scattered into another $`𝐤^{}`$ is given by

$$w(𝐤^{},𝐤)=\frac{2\pi }{\mathrm{}}𝐤^{}|H^{}|𝐤^2\delta (\epsilon _𝐤\epsilon _𝐤^{}),$$
(12)
where $`|𝐤=e^{i\mathrm{𝐤𝐫}}`$ up to a normalization constant and $`H^{}=e^{\alpha r}/r`$, the screened coulomb potential. In two-dimension (2D),

$`𝐤^{}|H^{}|𝐤`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^{i(𝐤𝐤^{})𝐫}e^{\alpha r}}{r}d^2r}`$ (13)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^{i\mathrm{𝐪𝐫}}e^{\alpha r}}{r}r𝑑r𝑑\theta },`$ (14)
where $`𝐪=𝐤𝐤^{}`$ and thus $`q=2k\mathrm{sin}(\theta /2)`$ with $`\theta `$ the angle between $`𝐤`$ and $`𝐤^{}`$.

Notice that in 2D, $`e^{i\mathrm{𝐪𝐫}}`$ can be expanded by Bessel functions of the first kind. Then

$`e^{i\mathrm{𝐪𝐫}}`$ $`=`$ $`e^{iqr\mathrm{cos}\theta }`$ (15)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{m=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}J_m(qr)i^me^{im\theta }.`$ (16)
Integrate the above first over $`\theta `$ and $`e^{im\theta }`$ averages to 0 except when $`m=0`$. Thus

$$𝐤^{}|H^{}|𝐤=2\pi _0^{\mathrm{}}J_0(qr)e^{\alpha r}𝑑r=\frac{2\pi }{(q^2+\alpha ^2)^{\frac{1}{2}}}.$$
(17)
When the screening is not strong which should be the case for cuprates  we see that $`𝐤^{}|H^{}|𝐤^24\pi ^2/q^2=\pi ^2/sin^2(\theta /2)k^2`$, where $`k`$ will be taken as $`k_F`$ because effective scatterings only occur near the FS. To be illustrative, we only consider an isotropic case (i.e., the FS is a circle), then the Fermi wave-vector $`k_F=[2\pi n(T)]^{1/2}`$ in 2D where $`n(T)`$ is taken as the area density of carriers. Without considering the complication from umklapp scattering, we conclude that the transition rate from $`𝐤`$ to $`𝐤^{}`$, $`w(𝐤^{},𝐤)`$ is $`1/T`$ because $`k^2=k_F^2n(T)`$ and $`n(T)T`$. Now let us look at the phase space available for scattering. The perimeter of the FS is $`2\pi k_F[n(T)]^{1/2}T^{1/2}`$ and thus the number of states available for scattering to and from is proportional to the product of the perimeter $`2\pi k_F`$ and the thermal excitation width $`k_BT`$ with $`k_B`$ the Boltzmann’s constant, in other words proportional $`T^{3/2}`$. Applied to both initial and final states this gives us a factor of $`T^3`$ from the phase space restriction. Combined with a transition probability $`w(𝐤^{},𝐤)T^1`$ as already seen, it results in a relaxation rate $`1/\tau T^2`$, which is exactly what we find in experiments. Complication from screening, umklapp process and so on will be shown in a separate publication but the result is essentially the same.

Similar argument applies to $`e`$-$`h`$ process where the Fermion nature of $`e`$ and $`h`$ on their own part gives the same phase restriction we mentioned before and thus the same $`T`$ dependence for charge transports.

This $`e`$-$`h`$ liquid is perhaps near a Fermi liquid (FL) above the pseudogap temperature $`T^{}`$. Nonetheless it is not so under $`T^{}`$ because the presence of excitonic states formed by $`e`$ and $`h`$ is significant at low $`T`$. These excitons are stable against recombination because of the semimetallic band structure, unlike those of fast-recombining type found in semiconductors. These bound states, as a discontinuous change from the free particle motions, manifest the loss of one-to-one correspondence from the states of free Fermi gas. This offers an explanation for various non-Fermi-liquid phenomena of cuprates. The importance of discontinuities and non-perturbative approaches in high-$`T_c`$ superconductivity were very well summarized by Anderson  although we do not think that spin-charge separation is the necessary step in understanding the normal state. Some 30 years ago, Mott emphasized the interacting nature of such excitonic states . Kohn , Halperin and Rice , pointed out the possible anomalies, like excitonic insulator, CDW, SDW, antiferromagnetic correlation, and phase separation in such a strongly interacted $`e`$-$`h`$ system, which reminds us of many of the correlation phenomena and possibly the stripe phase found in high-$`T_c`$ materials.

Although Jérome, Rice and Kohn , Halperin and Rice  also argued that the ground state of the excitonic state is an insulator, not to mention superconductivity, their conclusion is only true for a system with equal numbers of electrons and holes. If the densities of $`e`$ and $`h`$ are not equal, the ground state should be a conductor at least. The possibility of high-$`T_c`$ superconductivity in systems similar to this was studied by Allender, Bray and Bardeen , and Ginzburg . All these suggest a possible connection of high-$`T_c`$ superconductivity to the excitonic states of electron-hole liquid.


text:
# Detection of X-ray line emission from the shell of SNR B0540–69.3 with XMM-Newton RGS Based on observations obtained with XMM-Newton, an ESA science mission with instruments and contributions directly funded by ESA Member States and the USA (NASA).

## 1 Introduction

SNR 0540–69.3 is one of only a few Crab-like supernova remnants (SNRs) with a shell. SNR0540–69.3 harbors a pulsar, PSR B0540–69.3, discovered in the soft X-ray band by Seward, Harnden, & Helfand (seward1 (1984)). Like the Crab, it shows plerion emission from a synchrotron nebula powered by the embedded young pulsar (Chanan, Helfand & Reynolds chanan (1984)). From the period (50 ms) and spin down rate ($`4.79\times 10^{13}\mathrm{s}\mathrm{s}^1`$) a a characteristic age of 1660 yr and rotational energy loss rate of $`1.5\times 10^{38}`$ergs s-1 have been derived (Seward, Harnden, & Helfand seward1 (1984)).

Early optical observations (Mathewson et al. mathewson (1980)) classified SNR 0540–69.3 as a young oxygen-rich SNR with an 8″ diameter shell, bright in \[O iii\]. Mathewson et al. (mathewson (1980)) also found a diffuse patch of \[O iii\] $``$30″ to the west of the ring which indicated that the remnant was larger than 8″. A ROSAT High Resolution Imager observation by Seward & Harnden (1994) also revealed emission from well outside the central region, which they interpreted as from a patchy outer shell with a diameter of 55″. This shell contributes $``$20% to the measured flux in the ROSAT 0.1–2 keV band. More recently Gotthelf & Wang (gotthelf (2000)) presented a high resolution Chandra HRC observation of PSR B0540–69.3 which clearly shows emission from the outer shell.

In this letter, we report the results of observations of SNR 0540–69 acquired with the Reflection Grating Spectrometer on board the XMM-Newton Observatory (den Herder et al. denherder (2001)). These observations allow us for the first time to detect and identify emission lines from the remnant shell. Our spectral analysis allows us to derive values for the temperature, ionization timescale, abundances, location, and velocity of the emitting gas.

## 2 Observations & Data Reduction

PSR B0540 was observed repeatedly as part of the calibration of the Reflection Grating Spectrometer (RGS) during the Calibration/Performance Verification (Cal/PV) phase. For the purpose of this letter, we have analyzed the 126 ks data obtained on 2000 May 26, which is the longest observation with the lowest background. The observation was performed with the telescope rolled such that the RGS dispersion axis was aligned at 21.29°, clockwise on the sky, from celestial north. The data were initially processed with the XMM-Newton Science Analysis Software (SAS). The spectra were extracted by applying spatial filters to the CCD image while a CCD pulse-height filter was applied to select the $`m=1`$ spectral order. The remnant is located on the edge of a broad region of diffuse emission (Wang & Helfand wang (1991)) which complicates background determination. However, the image is small enough on the detector that spatial regions offset from the source position can be used for background subtraction. The background spectra were extracted by applying the same pulse height filters as used for the source, to spatial regions at either edge of the camera.

A response matrix appropriate to the spatial extent of the source was generated as follows. A spatial mask corresponding to the RGS aperture was imposed on the Chandra HRC image, and the intensity distribution was integrated over the RGS cross-dispersion direction. The resulting profile was convolved with the RGS point source response matrix, generated with the SAS task RGSRMFGEN. The spectral analysis was performed using the SRON SPEX (Kaastra et al. kaastra (1996)) package, which contains the MEKAL code (Mewe et al. mewe (1995)) for modeling thermal emission.

## 3 Analysis and Results

### 3.1 Location of emitting region

We initially extracted spectra with spatial filters $`0.25\mathrm{}`$, $`0.5\mathrm{}`$, $`1\mathrm{}`$ and $`1.5\mathrm{}`$ wide, each centered about the peak emission. The most interesting feature in the spectra is the presence of an O viii Ly$`\alpha `$ emission line that becomes more prominent as the width of the spatial extraction region is increased. This is an indication that at least some of the O emission is from the SNR shell, and not the central region. To further constrain the spatial distribution of the emitting gas we created a cross-dispersion image profile of the O viii Ly$`\alpha `$ line by integrating over the line in the dispersion direction. The cross-dispersion profile, plotted in Fig. 1, shows two peaks. Referring to the Chandra HRC image (Gotthelf & Wang gotthelf (2000), reproduced here as Fig. 2), we conclude that we see O emission both from the central region of the remnant, centered on the pulsar, (the peak at offset zero in Fig. 1b), as well as from the partial shell to the west (the second peak $``$ 24 arcsec towards more negative offset in Fig. 1b).

The angular extent of this partial shell, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi 30\mathrm{}`$, corresponds to an effective wavelength width along the dispersion direction of $`0.06`$ Å, comparable to the wavelength resolution of the spectrometer. This implies that we do not have the sensitivity to resolve variations in brightness along the shell.

### 3.2 Spectral analysis

We divided the remnant into three regions, Northeast (NE), Central (C) and Southwest (SW), for the purpose of spectral analysis. For the NE and SW regions we use an extraction width of 0.5′centered at $`\pm 0.375\mathrm{}`$ about the central compact region, while for the brighter C region we use a width of 0.25′. The spectra for these regions are displayed in Figs. 3 and 4. Each spectrum shows a strong power law continuum with superimposed line emission, most notably O viii Ly$`\alpha `$. Emission line features are weakest in the spectrum extracted from the NE region, where we only detect O viii Ly$`\alpha `$ and possibly weak O vii emission. The line emission is strongest in the SW spectrum where we easily identify emission lines of O viii (Ly$`\alpha `$, Ly$`\beta `$), O vii ($`n=21`$ triplet, He$`\beta `$), Fe xvii ($`15.01,16.78,17.05,17.10`$ Å), Ne x (Ly$`\alpha `$), and Ne ix ($`n=21`$ triplet). Due to galactic absorption, no features can be seen longward of $`23`$ Å. Note that even though the shell-like structure and the plerion are only partially resolved by the telescopes of XMM-Newton, the high spectral resolution of the RGS allows for high sensitivity to the discrete emission from the remnant, even though the spectrum is dominated by the powerlaw continuum from the plerion.

In the SW spectrum, O viii Ly$`\alpha `$ has a significant offset of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda =0.17`$ Å with respect to the laboratory wavelength. This offset must be largely due to a Doppler shift, and not to a positional offset between the nominal pointing direction (the pulsar position) and the emission centroid of the shell, because the equivalent wavelength extent of the shell is much smaller than the observed shift. In the Chandra image, we find that the centroid of the SW emission, projected onto the RGS dispersion direction, is offset from the centroid of the plerionic emission, by about $`9\mathrm{}`$ along the dispersion direction. This corresponds to a wavelength offset of $`0.019`$ Å. The net Doppler shift of the SW emission is thus $`0.15`$ Å, which corresponds to a radial velocity of $`v2370`$ km s-1. A similar radial velocity is also observed in the other strong emission lines in the spectrum. Note that the radial velocity of the LMC, $`v_{\mathrm{LMC}}=+278`$ km s-1, is only a relatively small correction to this measurement. The emission lines seen in the C and NE spectra are too faint to permit a meaningful radial velocity determination.

We synthesized a spectral model comprising three components: a power law to represent the synchrotron emission from the plerion, a non-equilibrium ionization (NEI) model for the thermal line emission, and foreground absorption. The free parameters of the model are the photon index of the power law and its normalization, the electron temperature $`T_\mathrm{e}`$, emission measure, abundances, ionization age $`n_\mathrm{e}t`$ of the shocked gas, and the column density $`N_\mathrm{H}`$ of foreground absorbing gas. Here, $`n_\mathrm{e}`$ is the electron density of the shell, and $`t`$ is the time since the hot gas was shocked. We adopt a distance of 51 kpc throughout.

We concentrated our quantitative analysis on the SW region since the spectrum from this region contains the strongest line emission features. Fixing the O abundance to a third solar (note that we have no independent way of constraining the absolute abundances, since the continuum emission is dominated by the plerionic emission), the abundances of Ne and Fe were allowed to vary with respect to O. An initial fit was made to the SW spectrum, using O viii Ly$`\alpha `$ and O vii-triplet only. The parameters obtained were subsequently used as starting parameters for fits to the entire spectrum. For the Ne/O and Fe/O abundance ratios, we obtain Ne/O $`3.0`$ and Fe/O $`2.1`$ relative to their solar values. The best fit model parameters are listed in Table 1. Fits were also made to the NE and C spectra. Since the line emission in these regions is extremely weak we fixed the NEI component parameters (i.e. electron temperature and ionization parameter) to the best fit parameters obtained from the SW region, while allowing the emission measure and photon indices of the power law component to vary. The best fit parameters are given in Table 1, and the spectra, together with the best fit models are shown in Figures 3, 4 and 5.

As can be seen from the Figures and the $`\chi ^2`$ values in Table 1, the fits are not perfect. This is probably due to a combination of remaining small calibration uncertainties in the RGS effective area (most of the $`\chi ^2`$ is in the relatively poor fit to the continuum, which is due to the plerion, at the shorter wavelengths, where the RGS effective area is least well calibrated), and the simplicity of our spectral model, which does not allow for temperature and ionization inhomogeneities. In particular, there is a feature at $`14`$ Å, which is not fit by our isothermal model. Candidate emission lines are $`2p3d`$ in Fe xviii at 14.208 Å, or possibly $`2s3p`$ in Fe xxi at 14.008 Å, although the latter should be accompanied by strong emission at 12.29 Å in equilibrium. In any case, detectable amounts of higher charge states of Fe L would definitely indicate the presence of hotter plasma.

## 4 Discussion

First of all, a qualitative point. We detect faint, but significant O viii emission from the direction of the plerion. At our spatial resolution, we cannot exclude the possibility that a significant component of this line emission is in fact from foreground remnant gas seen in projection and contamination by the SW region. If confirmed at higher spatial resolution, this detection would be interesting, because Mathewson et al. (mathewson (1980)) detected intense optical \[O iii\] emission from this same inner region, with a large velocity dispersion of $`v3000`$ km s-1. There may consequently be a wide range of ionization present in the plerion. Unfortunately, we do not have the sensitivity to try and localize the highly ionized oxygen, and to constrain its kinematics for comparison with the \[O iii\] image.

Next, we check for consistency of our measured parameter values. The interpretation of the radial velocity measured in O viii is somewhat complicated. We see what appears to be a limb-brightened shell in the Chandra HRC image, but if the emission is really arranged in such a shell, one would not expect to see any radial velocity shift of the material at all, its velocity vector being entirely perpendicular to the line of sight. We know instead that the line emitting material has a velocity component along the line of sight of $`2370`$ km s-1, which, combined with an unknown perpendicular velocity component, sets a lower limit on the true space velocity of the O viii emitting gas. To relate this space velocity to the velocity of the expanding blast wave requires making a further assumption about the structure and evolution of the expanding remnant. However, the measured radial velocity still gives a lower limit on the true expansion velocity, independent of these assumptions.

With a measured radius of $`30\mathrm{}`$, the shell has a linear radius of $`R_\mathrm{s}=7.4`$ pc. Combined with the lower limit on the expansion velocity, we estimate an upper limit to the age of the shell of $`t<2800`$ yr, consistent with the pulsar spindown age of 1660 yr. Conversely, if we assume that the age of the shell is identical to the pulsar spindown age, we would conclude that the true expansion velocity of the blast wave is $`4600`$ km s-1, and the radial velocity we observe in the X-ray lines is either due to material well inside the interior of the remnant (where the flow velocities are smaller), or the line emitting gas must have a substantial perpendicular velocity component if it is located in the immediate post-shock region.

The discrete emission line spectrum implies an ionization age of approximately $`n_\mathrm{e}t2.5\times 10^{10}`$ cm-3 s, a low value, which probably implies that the plasma has not yet reached ionization equilibrium. Combined with the pulsar spindown age, one infers a density of the medium of $`n_\mathrm{e}0.4`$ cm-3. But the gas may have been shocked (much) more recently than the characteristic age of the blast wave, depending on it position within the remnant interior, and so we should regard this density estimate as a lower limit. Also, from the emission measure of the line emitting gas, we derive a density of approximately $`n_\mathrm{e}10`$ cm-3 (assuming a half shell of relative thickness $`\mathrm{\Delta }RR_\mathrm{s}/10`$ for the volume estimate). Given the relative insensitivity of the density estimate to the volume and emission measure, this higher density estimate may be closer to the characteristic values at the shell than the estimate derived from the ionization age, and this would favor the conclusion that the gas has been shocked more recently. In fact, the measured electron temperature, $`kT_\mathrm{e}0.6`$ keV, is incompatible with the lower limit on the blast wave velocity $`v_\mathrm{s}>2400`$ km s-1 (unless the electron- and ion temperatures have not equilibrated), and most likely, we are seeing material that has recently passed through a (much slower) reverse shock. If gas with a much higher electron temperature is associated with the outer blast wave, it will be difficult to detect it in the XMM-Newton data. Because the remnant is only partially resolved, both the RGS and EPIC data are dominated by strong emission from the plerion, which reduces the sensitivity to detection of hot thermal gas.

## 5 Conclusions

We have detected resolved X-ray line emission from the supernova remnant shell around PSR B0540–69.3, confirming the nature of the shell-like structure seen in previous experiments as a thermal SNR. Unfortunately, given the relatively low signal-to-noise of the observation, the fact that the object is only partially spatially resolved, and the uncertainties in the interpretation of the estimates of the various observable parameters, we can not uniquely decide what the evolutionary status of the remnant is, or what the relation of the line emitting gas is to the overall structure of the remnant.

## 6 Acknowledgements

We thank Eric Gotthelf for supplying us with his Chandra HRC image. The Laboratory for Space Research Utrecht is supported financially by NWO, the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research. The Columbia group is supported by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Mullard Space Science Laboratory acknowledges financial support form the UK Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council.


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# Unified theory of strongly correlated electron systems

## Abstract

In framework of eigen-functional bosonization method, we introduce an imaginary phase field to uniquely represent electron correlation, and demonstrate that the Landau Fermi liquid theory and the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid theory can be unified. It is very clear in this framework that the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid behavior of one-dimensional interacting electron gases originates from their Fermi structure, and the non-Landau-Fermi liquid behavior of 2D interacting electron gases is induced by the long-range electron interaction, while 3D interacting electron gases generally show the Landau Fermi liquid behavior.

Since the discovery of high Tc cuprate superconductors, the strongly correlated electron systems has been extensively studied theoretically. Now a common consensus is reached that the low energy physics properties of cuprate superconductors, such as anomalous normal state behavior and high superconducting transition temperature, are determined by the strong electron correlation in their copper-oxide plane(s). However, up to now there is not a microscopic or phenomenal theory to successfully explain the normal and superconducting physical properties of the cuprate superconductors, because one cannot exactly and effectively treat the strong electron correlation of the systems.

It is well-known that usual metals can be described by the Landau Fermi liquid theory, in which there is weak correlation among electrons, and near the Fermi surface there exist well-defined quasi-particles (holes), thus the fundamental assumption of the Landau Fermi liquid theory is satisfied, i.e., the states of an interacting electron gas can be put into a one-to-one correspondence via adiabatic continuation with those of the free electron gas. However, for strong electron correlation, this fundamental assumption of the Landau Fermi liquid theory may fail, and one does not have well-defined quasi-particles (holes) near the Fermi surface. A one-dimensional interacting electron gas is a good example, in which there is strong electron correlation even though for small electron interaction, thus one does not have well-defined quasi-particles (holes) near the Fermi levels $`\pm k_F`$ (its Fermi surface is composed of two points, $`\pm k_F`$, defined by the Fermi momentum $`k_F`$). It is described by the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid theory, where in low energy regime electron Green’s function and other correlation functions present power-law behavior, and the correlation exponents are not universal, and depend upon the electron interaction strength. Therefore, the one-dimensional interacting electron gas is a strongly correlated electron system even for weak electron interaction.

Generally, the low energy behavior of the one-dimensional (1D) interacting electron gas is qualitatively different from that of three-dimensional (3D) interacting electron gas, the former is represented by the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid theory, while the latter is represented by the Landau Fermi liquid theory (see below). This difference derives from their different Fermi surface strctures. For 1D electron gas, its Fermi surface is composed of two points $`\pm k_F`$, defined by the Fermi momentum $`k_F`$, and its Hilbert space is drastically suppressed. There are only two kinds of elementary excitation modes, one is the excitation modes near these two Fermi levels $`\pm k_F`$, respectively, where the energy spectrum is approximately linear; and another one is the excitation modes with large momentum ($`2nk_F`$, $`n=1,2,\mathrm{}`$) transfer between these Fermi levels $`\pm k_F`$, which usually make the system become an insulator ( for a 1D electron gas this kind of excitation is absent). This drastically suppressed Hilbert space will induce the strong electron correlation even for weak electron interaction, thus it is true that for a 1D interacting electron gas the strong electron correlation originates from its special Fermi surface structure, and the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid theory is an universal theory of 1D electron gases. In contrast with the 1D electron gas, the Fermi surface of the 3D electron gas is a sphere with a radius $`k_F`$, and its Hilbert space is enlarged comparing with that of the 1D electron gas. The low energy elementary excitation modes are quasi-particles and quasi-holes. It is well-known that even for long-range Coulomb interaction, the 3D electron gas still can be described by the Landau Fermi liquid theory, where strong electron interaction does not mean that there is the strong electron correlation, and it only produces weak and short-range electron correlation. Thus the Landau Fermi liquid theory is an universal theory of 3D electron gases.

For 2D electron gas, the situation is different. Its Fermi surface is a circle with a radius $`k_F`$, and for long-range Coulomb interaction, it shows non-Landau-Fermi liquid behavior in the low energy regime. We shall demonstrate that this anomalous behavior of the 2D interacting electron gas derives from the two aspects, one is its Fermi structure, and another one is the long-range electron interaction. These both effects induce the strong electron correlation, thus the non-Landau-Fermi liquid behavior of the 2D strongly correlated electron gas cannot be completely represented by the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid theory. It shows not only some characters of the Landau Fermi liquid, but also some characters of the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid.

It is very desirable to find an unified theory to represent not only 1D interacting electron gases, but also 2D and 3D interacting electron gases. In the framework of the eigen-functional bosonization method, we try to give such the unified theory of strongly correlated electron gases, which not only reduces to the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid theory for the 1D interacting electron gas and to the Landau Fermi liquid thoery for the 3D interacting electron gas, but also can represent the low energy behavior of the 2D interacting electron gas. We clearly demonstrate that an imaginary phase field which naturally appears in the eigen-functional bosonization, is a key parameter field hiden in the strongly correlated electron systems and represents the electron correlation, and the eigen-functionals can be used to define the states of the interacting electrons. By calculation the overlap of these eigen-functionals with the eigen-functions of the free electrons, we can judge whether or not there exist well-defined quasi-particles (holes) near the Fermi surface. The imaginary phase field is a very important quantity in our representation, and it determines the low energy behavior of the system. Moreover, as $`d2`$ it does not contribute to the action of the system.

In general, we consider the Hamiltonian (omitting spin label $`\sigma `$ of the electron operators $`c_k`$)

$$H=\underset{k}{}ϵ(k)c_k^{}c_k+\frac{1}{2L^d}\underset{q}{}v(q)\rho (q)\rho (q)$$
(1)
where $`ϵ(k)=k^2/(2m)\mu `$, $`\mu `$ is the chemical potential, $`d`$ is the dimension number, $`\rho (q)=(1/L^d)_kc_k^{}c_{k+q}`$ is the electron density operator, and $`v(q)`$ is the Coulomb potential. The last term represents usual electron’s Coulomb interaction (four-fermion interaction). Usually, one can introduce the Hubbard-Stratonovich (HS) field $`\varphi (x,t)`$ to descouple this four-fermion interaction term. With the standard path integral method, we have the action of the system,

$`S`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑td^dx\left\{\mathrm{\Psi }^{}(x,t)\left[i\frac{}{t}+\mu +\frac{^2}{2m}\varphi (x,t)\right]\mathrm{\Psi }(x,t)\right\}}`$ (2)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2TL^d}}{\displaystyle \underset{q,\mathrm{\Omega }}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{v(q)}}\varphi (q,\mathrm{\Omega })\varphi (q,\mathrm{\Omega })`$ (3)
where $`\mathrm{\Psi }(x,t)`$ is the electron field. The system now reduces into that the electrons move in the HS field $`\varphi (x,t)`$, and we have the eigen-functional equation,

$$\left[i\frac{}{t}+\mu +\frac{^2}{2m}\varphi (x,t)\right]\mathrm{\Psi }_{k\omega }(x,t,[\varphi ])=E_{k\omega }[\varphi ]\mathrm{\Psi }_{k\omega }(x,t,[\varphi ])$$
(4)
where the eigen-value $`E_{k\omega }[\varphi ]=\omega ϵ(k)\mathrm{\Sigma }_k[\varphi ]`$, and the self-energy $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_k[\varphi ]=_0^1𝑑\xi 𝑑td^dx\varphi (x,t)\mathrm{\Psi }_{k\omega }^{}(x,t,[\xi \varphi ])\mathrm{\Psi }_{k\omega }(x,t,[\xi \varphi ])`$ is a regular function, and independent of $`\omega `$. The eigen-functionals $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{k\omega }(x,t,[\varphi ])`$ can be used to define the elementary low energy excitation modes, i.e., quasi-particles (holes) and/or collective excitation modes, and have the formal solutions,

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{k\omega }(x,t,[\varphi ])=A_k\left(\frac{1}{TL^d}\right)^{1/2}e^{Q_k(x,t)}e^{i𝐤𝐱i(\omega \mathrm{\Sigma }_k[\varphi ])t}$$
(5)
where $`|A_k|1`$ is the normalization constant, and $`T\mathrm{}`$ is the time length of the system. These eigen-functionals are composed of two parts, one presents the free electrons, and another one presents the correlation of the electrons produced by the electron interaction. Thus we can formally write

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_{k\omega }(x,t,[\varphi ])=\psi _{k\omega }(x,t)e^{Q_k(x,t)}`$ (6)
The phase fields $`Q_k(x,t)`$ determine the low energy behavior of the system, and satisfy the usual Eikonal equation with the condition $`Q_k(x,t)=0`$ as $`\varphi (x,t)=0`$,

$$\left[i\frac{}{t}+i\frac{𝐤}{m}+\frac{^2}{2m}\right]Q_k(x,t)\varphi (x,t)=\frac{1}{2m}\left(Q_k(x,t)\right)^2$$
(7)
which can be exactly solved by a series expansion of the HS field $`\varphi (x,t)`$ and/or by computer calculations.

With the solution of the eigen-functionals $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{k\omega }(x,t,[\varphi ])`$ (5), the action of the system reads (omitting constant terms),

$`S`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2TL^d}}{\displaystyle \underset{q,\mathrm{\Omega }}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi (q,\mathrm{\Omega })\varphi (q,\mathrm{\Omega })}{v(q)}}`$ (8)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑td^dx\varphi (x,t)\left[F_1(x,t,\delta )+F_2(x,t)\right]_{\delta 0}}`$ (9)
where $`F_1(x,t,\delta )=(1/(2\pi )^d)d^dk\theta (ϵ(k))\mathrm{sin}(𝐤\delta )\delta Q_k^I(x,t)`$, $`F_2(x,t)=(2/(2\pi ^d))d^dk\theta (ϵ(k))Q_k^R(x,t)`$, and $`\theta (x)`$ is a step function, i.e., $`\theta (x)=1`$ for $`x>0`$ and $`\theta (x)=0`$ for $`x<0`$. We have written the phase field as $`Q_k(x,t)=Q_k^R(x,t)+iQ_k^I(x,t)`$, a real part $`Q_k^R(x,t)`$ and an imaginary part $`Q_k^I(x,t)`$. We shall demonstrate that the phase field $`Q_k^I(x,t)`$ completely determine the low energy behavior of the system. It is also noted that the action of the system is composed of two parts, one is from the real phase field $`Q_k^R(x,t)`$, and another one is from the imaginary phase field $`Q_k^I(x,t)`$. Due to the Fermi surface structure of the system, the momentum integral in $`F_1(x,t,\delta )`$ can be written as, $`d^dk=S_{d1}d|k||k|^{d1}_0^\pi 𝑑\theta (\mathrm{sin}\theta )^{d2}`$, where $`S_d=2\pi ^{d/2}/\mathrm{\Gamma }(d/2)`$. As $`d2`$, the integration of $`\mathrm{sin}(𝐤\delta )`$ is regular, thus as $`\delta 0`$ the function $`F_1(x,t,\delta )=0`$, the imaginary phase filed $`Q_k^I(x,t)`$ has no contribution to the action of the system. Only at $`d=1`$, it has contribution to the action, where the real phase field $`Q_k^R(x,t)`$ is zero (see below). This property is independent of the electron interaction, it is completely determined by the Fermi surface structure of the system.

We now consider the 1D interacting electron gas, in which the Fermi surface is composed of two Fermi levels, $`\pm k_F`$, and the electron energy spectrum can be written as, $`ϵ(k)=\pm v_Fk`$, where $`v_F`$ is the electron Fermi velocity. The branch $`ϵ(k)=v_Fk`$ represents the right-moving electrons, and the branch $`ϵ(k)=v_Fk`$ represents the left-moving electrons. In general, the electron interaction term reads, $`(1/L)_qV(q)\rho _R(q)\rho _L(q)`$, where $`\rho _{R(L)}(q)`$ are the right- and left-moving electron densities, respectively, and $`V(q)V`$, a constant. To decouple this four-fermion interaction, we introduce two HS fields $`\varphi _R(x,t)`$ and $`\varphi _L(x,t)`$, and have two sets of eigen-functionals representing the right- and left-moving electrons, respectively,

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_{Rk\omega }(x,t,[\varphi ])`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{TL}}\right)^{1/2}e^{Q_R(x,t)}e^{ikxi(\omega \mathrm{\Sigma }_R[\varphi ])t}`$ (10)
$`\mathrm{\Psi }_{Lk\omega }(x,t,[\varphi ])`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{TL}}\right)^{1/2}e^{Q_L(x,t)}e^{ikxi(\omega \mathrm{\Sigma }_L[\varphi ])t}`$ (11)
where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{R(L)}[\varphi ]`$ is a regular quantity, and independent of $`k`$ and $`\omega `$. The phase fields $`Q_R(x,t)`$ and $`Q_L(x,t)`$ are independent of $`k`$, and satisfy the simplified Eikonal equation,

$`\left(i{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}+iv_F{\displaystyle \frac{}{x}}\right)Q_R(x,t)\varphi _R(x,t)`$ $`=`$ $`0`$ (12)
$`\left(i{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}iv_F{\displaystyle \frac{}{x}}\right)Q_L(x,t)\varphi _L(x,t)`$ $`=`$ $`0`$ (13)
These linear differential equations can be easily solved, and the phase fields $`Q_R(x,t)`$ and $`Q_L(x,t)`$ are imaginary because the HS fields $`\varphi _{R(L)}(x,t)`$ are real. It is worthy noted that the imaginary phase fields $`Q_{R(L)}(x,t)`$ not only determine the electron correlation, but also contribute to the action of the system. This is qualitatively different from that in 2D and 3D electron gases, where the imaginary part of the phase field $`Q_k(x,t)`$ does not contribute to the action due to their Fermi surface structures.

It is very simple to prove that the 1D interacting electron gas is a strongly correlated system even for very weak electron interaction $`V0`$. With the action (9), by the simple calculation we can obtain the relations,

$`<\psi _{R(L)k\omega }(x,t)\mathrm{\Psi }_{R(L)k\omega }^{}(x^{},t,[\varphi ])>_\varphi `$ $``$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{L}}\right)^\alpha e^{ik(xx^{})}`$ (14)
$`<e^{Q_{R(L)}(x,t)}e^{Q_{R(L)}(x^{},t)}>_\varphi `$ $``$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{|xx^{}|}}\right)^{2\alpha },|xx^{}|\mathrm{}`$ (15)
where $`\alpha (1V/(2\pi \mathrm{}v_F))/2`$ for $`V0`$, is the dimensionless coupling strength parameter, the eigen-functions $`\psi _{R(L)k\omega }(x,t)`$ present the right(left)-moving free electrons, and $`<\mathrm{}>_\varphi `$ means taking functional average over the HS field $`\varphi _{R(L)}(x,t)`$. The first equation presents the zero overlap between the eigen-functionals $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{R(L)k\omega }(x,t,[\varphi ])`$ of the interaction electrons and the eigen-functions of the free electrons ($`V=0`$) as $`L\mathrm{}`$, thus the states of the interacting electron gas does not have one-to-one correspondence via adiabatic continuation with those of the free electron gas, and there are not well-defined quasi-particles (holes) near its two Fermi levels $`\pm k_F`$. The second equation presents the strong electron correlation, in which the electron correlation length is infinity even for weak electron interaction, this can be easily seen by re-writing the right side of the last equation in (14) as, $`\mathrm{exp}\{2\alpha \mathrm{ln}|xx^{}|\}`$. Due to this strong electron correlation, the low energy excitation modes of the 1D interacting electron gas are those collective excitation modes, such as the charge and spin density waves, and there are not well-defined quasi-particles (holes) near the two Fermi levels $`\pm k_F`$. Thus the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid theory is a strongly correlated theory, and is universal for 1D interacting electron gases.

As $`d2`$, the real phase field $`Q_k^R(x,t)`$ is finite, and the imaginary phase field $`Q_k^I(x,t)`$ does not contribute to the action of the system. For simplicity, we can solve the Eikonal equation by neglecting the quadratic term $`(Q_k)^2`$. This approximation is reasonable because for the long-range Coulomb interaction, only the states near the Fermi surface with momentum $`q<q_c`$ ($`q_ck_F`$) are important in the low energy regime, and for the smooth function $`Q_k(x,t)`$ this quadratic term is proportional to $`(q_c/k_F)^20`$. With this approximation, we can obtain the simple effective action,

$$S_{eff.}=\frac{1}{2TL^d}\underset{q,\mathrm{\Omega }}{}\left(\frac{1}{v(q)}\chi (q,\mathrm{\Omega })\right)|\varphi (q,\mathrm{\Omega })|^2$$
(16)
where $`\chi (q,\mathrm{\Omega })`$ is usual Lindhard function. In fact, the above approximation is equivalent to usual random-phase approximation (RPA). However, in present framework, it gives more useful and important informations than usual RPA perturbation method, because we have not only the real phase field, but also the imaginary phase field. This imaginary phase field does not contribute to the action of the system, but it determines the electron correlation. For a 3D electron gas with long-range Coulomb interaction $`v(q)=e^2/(4\pi q^2)`$, by simple calculation, we have the relations,

$`<\psi _{k\omega }(x,t)\mathrm{\Psi }_{k\omega }^{}(x^{},t,[\varphi ])>_\varphi `$ $``$ $`Z_ke^{i𝐤(𝐱𝐱^{})}`$ (17)
$`<e^{iQ_k^I(x,t)}e^{iQ_k^I(x^{},t)}>_\varphi `$ $``$ $`e^{z_k^I(xx^{})}`$ (18)
where $`Z_k`$ is finite, and $`z_k^I(x)`$ is a smooth function. As $`|𝐱|\mathrm{}`$, the function $`z_k^I(x)`$ goes to zero. The first equation presents that the eigen-functionals $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{k\omega }(x,t,[\varphi ])`$ have strong overlap with the eigen-functions $`\psi _{k\omega }(x,t)`$, and the second equation presents that there is weak electron correlation even for long-range Coulomb interaction. Thus the fundamental assumption of the Landau Fermi liquid theory is satisfied, thus there are well-defined quasi-articles (holes) near the Fermi surface. The Landau Fermi liquid theory is universal for 3D interacting electron gases. Therefore, we can generally conclude that there does not exist non-Landau-Fermi liquid behavior in the 3D electron gases as $`q_ck_F`$. For a 2D electron gas with the long-range Coulomb interaction $`v(q)=e^2/(4\pi q^2)`$, the situation is different from that in the 3D electron gas. By simple calculation, we can obtain the relations,

$`<\psi _{k\omega }(x,t)\mathrm{\Psi }_{k\omega }^{}(x^{},t,[\varphi ])>_\varphi `$ $``$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{q_cL}}\right)^\beta e^{i𝐤(𝐱𝐱^{})}`$ (19)
$`<e^{iQ_k^I(x,t)}e^{iQ_k^I(x^{},t)}>_\varphi `$ $``$ $`e^{2\beta \mathrm{ln}(q_c|𝐱𝐱^{}|)},|𝐱𝐱^{}|\mathrm{}`$ (20)
where $`\beta =e^2/(2(4\pi )^2\omega _p)`$ is the dimensionless coupling strength parameter, where $`\omega _p`$ is the plasma frequency. In fact, $`q_cL\mathrm{}`$, the first equation presents that the eigen-functionals $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{k\omega }(x,t,[\varphi ])`$ has no (or infinitesimal) overlap with the eigen-functions $`\psi _{k\omega }(x,t)`$, and the second equation presents the strong electron correlation. In this case, the fundamental assumption of the Landau Fermi liquid theory fails, and the system shows the non-Landau-Fermi liquid behavior. Even though the asymptotic behavior of the single electron Green’s function is similar to that of the 1D interacting electron gas (see, (14) and (19)), while they originate from different physics. The former is producted by the plasmon excitation of the system, while the latter is induced by the gapless charge (spin) density wave(s). Thus this non-Landau-Fermi liquid behavior is different from the usual Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid behavior, because the former is induced by the strong long-range electron interaction, while the latter is induced by the Fermi structure of the 1D electron gases. However, this difference can also be clearly seen from their effective actions of the density field. For 1D interacting electron gases, this action can be easily obtained by usual bosonization method, where the density field has well-defined propagator (density wave). For the 2D electron gas with long-range Coulomb interaction, the effective action (16) can be written as with the density field,

$$S_{eff.}[\rho ]=\frac{1}{2TL^2}\underset{q,\mathrm{\Omega }}{}\left(\frac{1}{\chi (q,\mathrm{\Omega })}v(q)\right)|\rho (q,\mathrm{\Omega })|^2$$
(21)
where the density field does not have well-defined propagator. It was shown in Ref. that as $`e^24\pi `$ the system can be described as a Landau Fermi liquid formed by chargeless quasi-particles which has vanishing wavefunction overlap with the bare electrons in the system. In the short range $`\xi 1/q_c`$, one can also define local quasi-particles (holes). For short range and/or weak electron interaction, the 2D interacting electron gases would show the Landau Fermi liquid behavior in the low energy region.

In summary, in the simple framework of the eigen-functional bosonization method, we have demonstrated that the imaginary phase field $`Q_k^I(x,t)`$ can completely represent the electron correlation, and the Landau Fermi liquid theory and the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid theory can be unified. It is very clear in this framework that: a). the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid behavior of 1D interacting electron gases originates from their Fermi structure which is composed of two Fermi levels $`\pm k_F`$; the phase field is imaginary, and contributes to the action of the systems. b). the non-Landau-Fermi liquid behavior of 2D interacting electron gas is induced by the long-range Coulomb interaction. The imaginary phase field $`Q_k^I(x,t)`$ does not contribute to the action of the system. However, for other anomalous gauge interaction, the system can also show the non-Landau-Fermi liquid behavior if the imaginary phase field $`Q_k^I(x,t)`$ satisfies the relations in (19). Generally, 2D interacting electron gases may show the Landau Fermi liquid behavior or non-Landau-Fermi liquid behavior in the low energy region, which completely depends upon the electron interaction. c). 3D interacting electron gases generally show the Landau Fermi liquid behavior. The electron interaction cannot alter this property as $`q_ck_F`$, and it only modifies the weak electron correlation length and the overlap weight with the bare electron wavefunctions.

This method can also be used to treat a 2D electron gas with transverse gauge interaction, and gives the same results as that in Ref.. However, this method can clearly show that the non-Fermi liquid behavior of this system originates from the imaginary phase field which is a function of transverse gauge fields.

We thank T. K. Ng for helpful discussions.