text:
# Primordial Isocurvature Perturbations: Testing the Adiabaticity of the CMB Anisotropy*footnote **footnote *To appear in the proceedings of the CAPP2000 conference held at Verbier Switzerland, July 2000.

## Abstract

Prospects for testing the adiabaticity of the primordial cosmological perturbations using MAP and PLANCK are evaluated. The most general cosmological perturbation in a universe with just baryons, photons, neutrinos, and a cold dark matter (CDM) component is described. In addition to the familiar adiabatic mode, there are four nonsingular isocurvature modes: a baryon isocurvature mode, a CDM isocurvature mode, a neutrino density isocurvature mode, and a neutrino velocity isocurvature mode. The most general perturbation is described by a $`5\times 5`$, positive-definite, symmetric, matrix-valued function of wave number whose off-diagonal elements represent the correlations between the above mentioned modes. We found that when three modes and their correlations are admitted, the fractional uncertainties in the cosmological parameters and amplitudes of the isocurvature modes and their correlations become of order unity. These degeneracies, however, can be broken with the polarization information provided by PLANCK, reducing the uncertainties to below the ten percent level. Polarization is thus crucial to testing the adiabaticity of the primordial fluctuations.

One of the fundamental challenges of the new cosmology is to establish the underlying character of the primordial perturbations. Long before inflation was proposed, it was pointed out that in their simplest form the primordial perturbations would be adiabatic and Gaussian. It was also pointed out that a scale-free power spectrum, the so-called Harrison-Zeldovich-Peebles power spectrum  , was an aesthetically preferred form and also seemed to account for the then available data quite well.

The subject of this contribution is to propose a test of the first of these two hypotheses: that the primordial perturbations were adiabatic in character. In this context adiabatic means that the primordial stress-energy of the universe was governed by a single, spatially uniform equation of state — in other words, that on surfaces of constant temperature the densities of the various components (e.g. baryons, CDM, neutrinos, etc.) are uniform and that these components share a common velocity field.

In order to test the hypothesis of adiabaticity, it is necessary to contemplate models with non-adiabatic perturbations and then place constraints on the possible amplitudes of these non-adiabatic modes by comparing with the data. Most of the work on how to interpret the future CMB data has assumed a simple one-field inflationary model, for which the fluctuations are adiabatic absent new physics, and a simple power law for the power spectrum . A host of cosmological parameters (such as $`H_0,\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda },\mathrm{\Omega }_b,\mathrm{\Omega }_k,n_s`$ and $`\tau _{reion}`$) are allowed to vary, and Bayesian statistical analysis is applied to determine the values of these undetermined cosmological parameters and their corresponding uncertainties. In many of the papers of this genre that discuss how to analyse the future CMB data, the primary emphasis is placed on how well one will be able to measure the various undetermined cosmological parameters and very little discussion is devoted to testing the underlying assumptions. Rather it is assumed that should the real data not be described by a template taken from the assumed class, this error would naturally become self-evident.

Perhaps more interesting and of more profound significance to discovering how the perturbations from homogeneity and isotropy were first generated in the early universe is to determine the fundamental character of the primordial perturbations. Some examples of questions that one would wish to resolve include the following: Were the primordial perturbations entirely adiabatic in character, or were isocurvature modes excited as well? Were the primordial perturbations exactly Gaussian? Were they ‘scalar,’ or were ‘vector’ and ‘tensor’ modes excited as well? Is an ‘acausal’ theory such as inflation required, or could the perturbations have been imprinted as a continual process? Were ‘decaying’ modes excited as well?

To answer these questions will require new approaches to analysing the forthcoming CMB data. The work reported in this proceeding constitutes a modest step in this direction. In our approach we make two simplifying assumptions: First, we assume a universe with no new physics: a universe with only photons, baryons (and their associated electrons), neutrinos, and a cold dark matter component. Second, we assume that the perturbations were ‘primordial’, meaning that they were initially excited well before recombination so that any decaying modes have had ample opportunity to die away. The first hypothesis excludes, for example, theories of structure formation based on field ordering such as cosmic strings where the dynamics of some scalar or other order parameter field evolves thus perturbing the other components .

Bucher et al.  analysed the most general cosmological perturbation possible under these assumptions using synchronous gauge and found in addition to the two gauge modes, five regular modes and two decaying modes for each wavenumber k:

1. An adiabatic growing mode.
2. An adiabatic decaying mode.
3. A baryon isocurvature mode.
4. A baryon velocity decaying mode.
5. A CDM isocurvature mode.
6. A neutrino density isocurvature mode.
7. A neutrino velocity isocurvature mode.

The leading order terms for all perturbation variables in the series expansion solution, which is valid at early times and on superhorizon scales, is presented in Table I for the regular modes listed above. Here $`R_\gamma `$ and $`R_\nu `$ represent the fractional contribution of photons and neutrinos to the total density at early times deep within the radiation dominated epoch, respectively, while $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{b,0}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{c,0}`$ represent the present day fractional contribution to the total density of baryons and cold dark matter, respectively. The first four modes have already been discussed extensively in the literature. The observational consequences of the neutrino density and neutrino velocity modes, although implicit in the work of Rebhan and Schwarz and of Challinor and Lasenby, however, have only recently been explored .

We next provide a brief qualitative discussion of these modes. For more details the reader is referred to . For the adiabatic mode, as previously mentioned, all components obey a common equation of state and share a common velocity field. The ratios of baryons to photons, CDM to photons, and neutrinos to photons do not vary spatially. For the adiabatic ‘decaying’ mode the perturbation becomes singular as $`t0`$. In the CDM  and baryon  isocurvature modes, the ratios of CDM to photons and of baryons to photons, respectively, vary spatially. Initially, far into the radiation dominated era, these components, idealized to be non-relativistic particles whose density scales as $`\rho a^3`$ (as opposed to $`\rho a^4`$ for radiation) contribute negligibly to the total stress-energy. However, as the universe becomes matter dominated, these variations translate into variations in the equation of state that generate metric perturbations which in turn generate further perturbations in the densities and velocities of all the components. For the baryon velocity ‘decaying’ mode, the velocity of the baryons relative to the photons is rapidly damped by the Thomson scattering of photons off the baryons.

For the neutrino isocurvature modes the neutrino sector is perturbed relative to the radiation sector (i.e., the photons and other components that are strongly coupled to them at early times through Thomson scattering). The perturbations are initially of equal magnitude but in opposite directions, so that the total energy density and momentum density vanishes.

Let us first discuss the neutrino density mode. If neutrinos and photons evolved identically, no metric perturbation would subsequently result. But as a mode enters the horizon, the neutrinos free stream while the photons behave as a perfect fluid because of Thomson scattering off electrons. This differential behavior leads to perturbations in the total stress-energy, which generate metric perturbations, which in turn generate perturbations in all components. The case of the neutrino velocity mode is similar. Initially, the momentum densities cancel. However, because of the differential dynamics upon horizon crossing, stress-energy perturbations arise, which then source metric perturbations, which in turn generate perturbations in the other components. One may have suspected that this mode would be singular because the ‘velocity’ mode in the adiabatic sector is decaying and thus singular. But because of the cancellation initially this too is a nonsingular mode.

In Figure 1 the CMB anisotropies predicted for the various modes are indicated. The CDM and baryon isocurvature modes predict CMB spectra of the same shape, to within a fraction of a percent, so only the baryon isocurvature mode is shown and studied below. Of the isocurvature modes, the baryon isocurvature and CDM isocurvature modes have greatly suppressed power on small scales relative to large scales while the neutrino density isocurvature mode exhibits a rise at $`\mathrm{}75`$ leading to a plateau before the first Doppler peak. However, interestingly, the neutrino velocity isocurvature mode lacks these features, rather having the same qualitative behavior as the adiabatic growing mode.

Now that we have described the five regular modes, we turn to describing the most general primordial cosmological perturbation in a universe with the matter content given above. We momentarily assume Gaussianity, an assumption that we will soon be able to relax somewhat. For a single adiabatic mode describing a Gaussian random process that is homogeneous and isotropic, the statistical properties are completely described by the power spectrum $`P(k)`$, a real valued function of wavenumber. In the case here of five modes, whose amplitudes we indicate as $`A_a(𝐤)`$, ($`a=1,\mathrm{},5`$), the power spectrum generalizes to a $`5\times 5`$, positive-definite, real, symmetric, matrix-valued function of the wavenumber $`P_{ab}(k)`$ where $`A_a(𝐤)A_b(𝐤^{})=P_{ab}(k)\delta ^3(𝐤𝐤^{})`$. If the fluctuations are non-Gaussian, there are nontrivial higher-order correlations to consider as well, but when observables that are quadratic in the small perturbations are considered, $`P_{ab}(k)`$ suffices to characterize their expectation values completely.

The off-diagonal elements of $`P_{ab}(k)`$ represent correlations between the various modes. In multi-field inflationary models these generically occur. In an inflationary model with five or more fields (or a single inflaton with the equivalent number of components), the five fields control the amplitudes of five principal components comprising linear combinations of the five modes. But there is no reason why the directions of these principal components should align with those given here for the individual modes. Therefore, correlations generically occur .

Because CMB data of the quality required to place reasonably stringent constraints on the amplitudes of such modes (or to detect their presence) is not yet available, it is not possible to anticipate the broad range of possibilities for what one might discover in the new data. But a rough estimate of the ability of new experiments (in particular MAP  and PLANCK ) to constrain or detect these modes may be obtained by assuming an underlying cosmological model with only an adiabatic mode to produce the CMB sky (with cosmic variance, of course) and an anticipated error model for the detector noise of these experiments. We then determine the expected likelihood function approximated to quadratic order about its maximum and use this information to compute the errors on the various mode amplitudes and the cosmological parameters when various combinations of isocurvature modes and their correlations are admitted. A more detailed account of this work is given in . Some related work can be found in .

Our results are summarized in Table II. Both the MAP and PLANCK experiments are included, with and without polarization information, and with just the adiabatic mode and with the three isocurvature modes and their correlations. The amplitudes of the isocurvature modes are normalized to give the same total CMB power from $`\mathrm{}=2`$ through $`\mathrm{}=1500`$ as the adiabatic mode. In all cases a scale-invariant spectrum (i.e., $`P(k)k^3`$) was assumed. Tensor modes have not been included. These would only increase the computed uncertainties. With just the adiabatic mode allowed, the errors on the cosmological parameters are as indicated elsewhere in the literature. With just one extra isocurvature mode and its correlation with the adiabatic mode added, these errors increase modestly, in all cases by less than a factor of two. But when three isocurvature modes and their correlations are allowed, the uncertainties become enormous. Errors of order unity imply a breakdown of the quadratic approximation. The above results demonstrate that polarization information will play a crucial role in testing adiabaticity.


format: text

text:
# Predicting Optimal Lengths of Random Knots

## Abstract

In thermally fluctuating long linear polymeric chain in solution, the ends come from time to time into a direct contact or a close vicinity of each other. At such an instance, the chain can be regarded as a closed one and thus will form a knot or rather a virtual knot. Several earlier studies of random knotting demonstrated that simpler knots show their highest occurrence for shorter random walks than more complex knots. However up to now there were no rules that could be used to predict the optimal length of a random walk, i.e. the length for which a given knot reaches its highest occurrence. Using numerical simulations, we show here that a power law accurately describes the relation between the optimal lengths of random walks leading to the formation of different knots and the previously characterized lengths of ideal knots of the corresponding type.

Akos Dobay1, Pierre-Edouard Sottas1,2, Jacques Dubochet1 and

Andrzej Stasiak1

1Laboratory of Ultrastructural Analysis, University of Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland

2Center for Neuromimetic Systems, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, EPFL-DI, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland keywords: knots, polymers, scaling laws, DNA, random walks.

A random walk can frequently lead to the formation of knots and it was proven that as the walk becomes very long the probability of forming nontrivial knots upon closure of such a walk tends to one . Many different simulation approaches were used to study random knotting . Probably the most fundamental one is by simulation of ideal random chains where each segment of the chain is of the same length and has no thickness . In ideal random chains the neighboring segments are not correlated with each other and thus show the average deflection angle of 90. Ideal random chain behavior is interesting from physical point of view as it reflects statistical behavior of long polymer chains in so-called melt phase and in $`\theta `$ solvents where excluded volume effect vanishes . Highly diluted polymer chains in $`\theta `$ solvents are unlikely to interact with each other and therefore upon circularization will form mainly knots rather than links. In thermally fluctuating long linear polymers the ends of the same chain can come from time to time into a close vicinity of each other. This can lead to a cyclization of the polymer whereby the end closure frequently traps a nontrivial knot on the chain. By studying knotting in simulated ideal random chains we thus can gain insight into knotting of real polymer chains in $`\theta `$ solvents and in the dense melt phase frequently used for the preparation of such synthetic polymeric materials like fabrics, paints or adhesives . However, ideal chains do not reflect the behavior of real polymer chains in good solvent. Intramolecular interactions cannot be neglected in these conditions, but can be well approximated by introducing an effective diameter. When such a constraint is introduced into simulated chains one can also model knotting of polymers in good solvents like for example knotting of DNA molecules in typical reaction buffers used for biochemical experiments . Our simulations can be adjusted to both situations and we shall present here results for random chains with and without an effective diameter.
Several earlier studies of random knotting showed that simpler knots reach a maximum of their occurrence for shorter length of random walks than this required for the formation of more complex knots . In considering the equilibrium ensemble of closed walks, these studies showed that the relative frequency of occurrence of each type of knot first increases with the length of the chain, then passes through a maximum and finally decreases exponentially at very long chains. However, these earlier studies did not attempt to establish a relation between the type of a knot and the optimal length of a random walk leading to the maximal occurrence of this knot. If we consider a thermally fluctuating polymer with ends that can stick to each other with the energy much smaller than $`kT`$, then from time to time these ends will stay in contact for a short period and at this moment the polymer will form a trivial or nontrivial knot. In this study, we characterize statistical ensembles of fluctuating linear polymers in order to find specific lengths (expressed in number of statistical segments) at which a given type of knot or rather a virtual knot reaches its highest occurrence.
Recently we have characterized ideal geometric configurations of knots corresponding to the shortest trajectories of flexible cylindrical tube with uniform diameter to form a given knot . The ratio of the length to diameter of the tube forming ideal configuration of a given knot is a topological invariant and we call it here the length of ideal knots. Ideal knots turned out to be good predictors of statistical behavior of random knots. So for example the writhe of ideal configuration of a given knot was equal to the average writhe of thermally fluctuating polymer forming a given random knot . We showed also that electrophoretic migrations of various types of knotted DNA molecules of the same molecular weight or their expected sedimentation constants were practically proportional to the length of the corresponding ideal knots . Therefore we decided here to check whether the length of ideal knots is related to the length of ideal random chains for which different knots reach their highest occurrence. To this aim we used the following simulation procedure. 2$``$109 random walks of 170 segments were started and each time the growing end approached the starting end to a distance smaller than the length of one segment the configuration was saved upon which the walk was continued for the remaining number of steps. Each vector (segment) of the chain was randomly chosen from uniformly distributed vectors pointing from the center to the surface of the unit sphere. Thus some of the random walks showed one or more approaches of the growing and starting ends and we collected 2$``$109 random walks for every number of segments between 5 and 170. Each saved configuration with nearby ends was then closed with a connecting segment and the type of the formed knot was determined by the calculation of its Alexander polynomial .
For random linear walks to efficiently form different knots a compromise has to be met between the length optimizing their close approach and the length which is sufficient to form a knot of a given type. The present analysis differs from earlier studies  where the statistics was based only on equilibrium knotting of closed walks. In our case, we consider the formation of knots through the approach of the terminal segments of linear chains. Therefore not only closed chains, but also linear chains are taken into account in our statistics.
Figure 1 shows the occurrence profiles of different knots with up to six crossings as a function of the length of random walk which leads to the formation of these knots. It is visible that trefoil knots show their highest occurrence for $`25\pm 1`$ segments while $`4_1`$ knots form most frequently for $`42\pm 1`$ segments. The formation of more complicated knots happens much less frequently than this of simpler knots, therefore in the insert in Figure 1 a change of scale is applied to better visualize the occurrence of more complicated knots. We observed that the obtained probabilities values for different knots can be well fitted with the function

$$P_k(N)=a(NN_0)^b\mathrm{exp}(\frac{N^c}{d})$$
(1)
where for each knot $`a`$, $`b`$ and $`d`$ are free parameters, $`c`$ is an empirical constant equal to $`0.18`$, $`N_0`$ is the minimal number of segments required to form a given type of knot  without the closing segment and $`N`$ is the number of segments in the walk. Our fitting function was adapted from Katritch et al. 2000  but modified to take into account the probability of cyclization. Table 1 lists the positions of maximal occurrence for the analyzed types of knots. In order to concentrate on the position of the maximum for different knots and not on their actual probability values we decided to present probability profiles for each knot upon normalizing them by assigning a value 1 to the respective maximum of probabilities.

Figure 2 presents normalized probability profiles for the analyzed knots. It is visible that different knots show now quite similar type of profiles (e.g. knot $`5_1`$ and $`5_2`$) whereby the differences in the position of maximum between knots with different minimal number of crossings can be easily perceived. It may be surprising that we observed here such a short optimal length for analyzed knots while earlier studies showed that several hundred segments are needed to observe maximum occurrence of a given knot among closed walks of a given size . This is simply due to the fact that our system takes into account the probability of cyclization.

In Figure 3 we show the relation between the optimal length of random knots and the length of the corresponding ideal knots. This relation is well approximated by a power law function. Upon fitting the free parameters of this function in the simulation data obtained for the knots with up to 7 crossings, we decided to check if by knowing the length of ideal configurations of more complicated knots we can predict positions of the maximum of occurrence for the corresponding random knots. As the statistics of random knotting gets poor for knots with increasing crossing number we limited verifications of our predictions to these knots with eight crossings which at their maxima of occurrence were represented more than 500 times out of 2$``$109 random walks with a given number of segments. Analysis of our simulation data (Figure 3) positively verified our predictions for optimal sizes of random walks leading to the formation of these knots.

As already mentioned, ideal random chains have no thickness and this causes that they reflect the behavior of polymers in the melt phase where thin polymers have practically no exclusion volume . However when polymers are suspended in a good solvent, like DNA in aqueous solution, the exclusion volume of polymers becomes not negligible and this strongly decreases the probability of forming knots . It was observed that the higher the effective diameter of the polymer the lower the probability of forming knots by random cyclization . We decided therefore to investigate whether a power law relation between the length of ideal knots and the optimal length of randomly knotted chains also holds for chains with an exclusion volume. To this aim from our original set of 2$``$109 ideal random walks for every segment length from 5 to 100 we selected the walks which never showed a closer approach between any pair of non neighboring segments than the considered effective diameter (terminal segments of the chain are considered as neighboring ones). Subsequently we analyzed all configurations with approached ends for the types of formed knots and calculated the probabilities of various knots among all random chains which fulfilled the criteria of a given effective diameter. We observed that as the effective diameter grows the probability of forming various knots decreases and positions of the maximum move toward longer chains. Figure 3 (dashed line) shows the relation between the length of ideal knots and the optimal length of corresponding random knots formed by chains with the effective diameter being set to 0.05 of the segment length. The effective diameter 0.05 corresponds to this of diluted solutions of DNA molecules in about 100 mM NaCl . In the case of DNA each segment in the random chain corresponds to 300 base pair long region . It is visible that the data can be again approximated by a power law function. Fact that lengths of ideal knots shows a correlation with the optimal sizes of corresponding random knots formed by chains with a given effective diameter provides another example that ideal knots are good predictors of physical behavior of real knots .

Post factum it might seem to be obvious that knots requiring higher length of the rope to tie them should require higher length of a random walk to reach their highest occurrence. However until recently the minimal length of the rope to tie a given knot was not known. In addition the relation between the optimal length of random walk producing a given knot and the length of ideal knot was not yet proposed in the literature. On the other hand a simple expectation would dictate that the shorter the length of ideal knot the higher the probability of its formation. So for example trivial knots are more frequent than trefoils and these are more frequent than $`4_1`$ knots. However this does not hold for $`5_1`$ and $`5_2`$ knots. Ideal knot $`5_1`$ is slightly shorter than ideal $`5_2`$ knot (which is consistent with the optimal size of random walks leading to the formation of corresponding knots), but $`5_2`$ knot formation by random walks is circa twice more frequent than formation of $`5_1`$ knot. Therefore the values of random knots probabilities (in contrast to the positions of the maxima) are not related by a relatively simple growing function to the values of lengths of the corresponding ideal knots.
What can be the possible applications resulting from the determination of the optimal size of knots? For chemical cyclization of polymer chains we can use linear polymer of a specific length and thus promote formation of a given type of knot. Materials with interesting properties could be formed by this way.
Acknowledgment.We thank Alexander Vologodskii and Vsevolod Katritch for making available their routine for the calculation of Alexander polynomial. We also thank Piotr Pieranski for numerous discussions. This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (31-58841.99 and 3152-061636.00).


text:
# Magnetic Field Effect for Two Electrons in a Two Dimensional Random Potential

## I Introduction

The interplay of disorder and interactions in electronic systems is a central problem in condensed matter physics . Two-dimensional (2D) systems are of a particular interest, since the scaling theory of localization  predicts that noninteracting electrons are always localized in a 2D disordered potential, while a metal-insulator transition has been reported in transport measurements with 2D electron and hole gases . The study of this many-body problem is very complicated, both for analytical and numerical analysis. It is therefore highly desirable to have some relatively simple models which could be solved and would lead to a better understanding of the effects of interactions in the presence of disorder. The problem of two interacting particles (TIP) in a random potential has received much attention in the last few years. It has been shown  that the TIP can propagate coherently on a length $`l_c`$ which is much larger than the one-particle localization length $`l_1`$ that can lead to an enhancement of transport . This problem has been studied recently by different groups in one  and two dimension  and it has been understood that the pair delocalization is related to the enhancement of interaction in systems with complex, chaotic eigenstates. The delocalization factor is determined by the density of two-particle states coupled by the interaction, $`\rho _2`$, and by the interaction induced transition rate, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_e`$. At $`\kappa _e=\mathrm{\Gamma }_e\rho _21`$ the interaction matrix elements become comparable with the two-particle level spacing and the collisions between particles give a strong increase of the ratio $`l_c/l_1`$.

Most studies of the TIP problem have considered a short range interaction. In this case, when two particles are localized at a distance $`Rl_1`$, the overlap of their wavefunctions is exponentially small, and such states are localized much in the same way as in the noninteracting case. On the other hand, when the average distance between particles is larger than $`l_1`$, the screening of charges in the problem with a given charge density is problematic. Due to that for such a regime it is natural to consider the bare Coulomb interaction in the simple TIP problem. Recently, it has been shown  that the Coulomb repulsion can delocalize two particles (electrons) in a two-dimensional disordered lattice, even if the particles are separated by a distance $`Rl_1`$. The delocalization of two-electron states takes place in a way similar to the single particle Anderson transition in three dimensions. Indeed, the pair center of mass moves in the 2D plane, while electrons rotate around it that gives an effective third dimension. The rotation goes on a ring of width $`l_1`$ and radius $`Rl_1^{4/3}`$ fixed by energy conservation. As a result the two-particle states are delocalized for excitation energies $`ϵ>ϵ_cl_1^{4/3}`$ ($`\kappa _e>1`$) . This expectations have been confirmed numerically  by a study of the level spacing statistics $`P(s)`$, which displays a transition from the Poisson distribution (for $`ϵ<ϵ_c`$) to the Wigner-Dyson distribution (for $`ϵ>ϵ_c`$). It was also found that at a critical point ($`ϵ=ϵ_c`$) $`P(s)`$ statistics is close to the distribution found in the 3D Anderson model at the mobility edge .

In this paper we consider, for the first time, the effect of a magnetic field on the TIP problem with Coulomb repulsion in two dimensions. We summarize our findings as follows: (1) we numerically compute TIP wavefunctions and give a direct evidence that the Coulomb interaction leads to the delocalization of excited states; (2) we show that with the increase of the excitation energy the level spacing statistics $`P(s)`$ exhibits a transition from the Poisson distribution to the Wigner-Dyson distribution and that at the critical point $`P(s)`$ is similar to the critical statistics found in the 3D Anderson model with broken time reversal symmetry .

The paper is organized as follows. The model is introduced in Section II. In Section III we review the analytical arguments developed  for the TIP problem in two dimensions with Coulomb repulsion and we discuss the influence of a magnetic field on this theory. In Section IV and V we discuss our numerical data for this problem when the time reversal symmetry is broken by a magnetic field. A number of typical examples of interaction induced pair delocalization is shown in Section IV. The transition in the level spacing statistics from the Poisson distribution to the Wigner-Dyson distribution is analysed in Section V. There we present the comparison of our results with the data for the 3D Anderson transition with time reversal symmetry broken by a magnetic field. In Section VI we present the summary of the results.

## II The model

We consider two particles with Coulomb repulsion in a two-dimensional disordered square lattice, in the presence of a constant magnetic field perpendicular to the plane. We restrict our investigations to the triplet case, which corresponds to the study of two spinless fermions. The singlet case, investigated in one and two dimensions for the on-site Hubbard interaction , should give similar results. The Hamiltonian of the model reads:

$$H=\underset{<𝐫,𝐫^{}>}{}V_{𝐫,𝐫^{}}c_𝐫^{}c_𝐫^{}+\underset{𝐫}{}E_𝐫n_𝐫+H_{int}.$$
(1)
The vectors $`𝐫=(x,y)`$ denote the $`L\times L`$ sites of a square lattice with periodic boundary conditions applied in both directions, $`c_𝐫^{}`$ ($`c_𝐫`$) creates (destroys) an electron in the site $`𝐫`$. The occupation number at the site $`𝐫`$ is $`n_𝐫=c_𝐫^{}c_𝐫`$. The uncorrelated random energies $`E_𝐫`$ are distributed with constant probability within the interval $`[W/2,W/2]`$, where $`W`$ denotes the magnitude of the disorder. The nearest neighbors hopping terms on the square lattice include the magnetic field being $`V_{𝐫,𝐫^{}}=V\mathrm{exp}(\pm i2\pi \alpha y)`$ for $`𝐫𝐫^{}=(\pm 1,0)`$, while for $`𝐫𝐫^{}=(0,\pm 1)`$ they are $`V_{𝐫,𝐫^{}}=V`$. This choice corresponds to the Landau gauge for the vector potential, $`𝐀=(Bya,0,0)`$, with the magnetic field $`B`$ perpendicular to the plane. The number of flux quanta per unit cell of the lattice is $`\alpha =eBa^2/h=Ba^2/\varphi _0`$ and in the following the lattice spacing constant $`a`$ is taken to be unity. The magnetic field is chosen to be commensurate with the lattice, i.e. $`\alpha =k/L`$, with $`k`$ integer. The last term in (1) gives the interaction:

$$H_{int}=\frac{U}{2}\underset{𝐫𝐫^{}}{}\frac{n_𝐫n_𝐫^{}}{|𝐫𝐫^{}|},$$
(2)
where $`U`$ is the strength of the Coulomb repulsion and $`|𝐫𝐫^{}|`$ is the interparticle nearest distance computed on a 2D torus.

## III Analytical Estimates

We consider the case with the average distance between electrons $`R=|𝐫_1𝐫_2|`$ much larger than their one-particle localization length: $`Rl_1`$. In the localized regime the one-body Anderson localized orbitals can be represented in the lattice basis as:

$$\varphi _\alpha (𝐫)\frac{1}{l_1}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{|𝐫\overline{𝐫}_\alpha |}{l_1}+i\theta _\alpha (𝐫)\right),$$
(3)
where $`\overline{𝐫}_\alpha `$ marks the center of the localized $`\alpha `$-th single particle eigenstate, and $`\theta _\alpha (𝐫)`$ is a random phase. Interaction matrix elements between noninteracting two-particle eigenstates $`|\alpha \beta `$ and $`|\gamma \delta `$ are given by

$$\gamma \delta |H_{int}|\alpha \beta =Q_{\alpha \beta }^{\gamma \delta }Q_{\alpha \beta }^{\delta \gamma },$$
(4)
with

$$Q_{\alpha \beta }^{\gamma \delta }=U\underset{𝐫𝐫^{}}{}\frac{\varphi _\alpha (𝐫)\varphi _\beta (𝐫^{})\varphi _\gamma ^{}(𝐫)\varphi _\delta ^{}(𝐫^{})}{|𝐫𝐫^{}|}.$$
(5)
Due to one-particle exponential localization, Coulomb repulsion can induce electron jumps only inside the localization domain of size $`l_1`$. Therefore, when $`Rl_1`$, it is possible to expand the interaction for electron displacements $`\mathrm{\Delta }𝐫_1,\mathrm{\Delta }𝐫_2`$ of typical length $`l_1`$ near their initial positions $`𝐫_1,𝐫_2`$. The terms up to the first order in the expansion of the Coulomb potential give only mean-field corrections to the one-particle potential. The first term beyond mean field has a dipole-dipole form, and is of the order of:

$$U_{dd}\frac{U}{R^3}\mathrm{\Delta }𝐫_1\mathrm{\Delta }𝐫_2\frac{Ul_1^2}{R^3}.$$
(6)
This gives dipole-dipole matrix elements between noninteracting eigenstates:

$$(Q_{\alpha \beta }^{\gamma \delta })_{dd}\frac{U}{R^3}\underset{𝐫_1,𝐫_2}{}\mathrm{\Delta }𝐫_1\mathrm{\Delta }𝐫_2\varphi _\alpha (𝐫_1)\varphi _\beta (𝐫_2)\varphi _\gamma ^{}(𝐫_1)\varphi _\delta ^{}(𝐫_2).$$
(7)
The sum in (7) runs over $`l_1^2`$ sites for each electron, so that in total the sum contains of the order of $`l_1^4`$ terms with random signs. Each term is of the order of $`l_1^2\varphi ^4l_1^2`$. As a result, the typical dipole-dipole transition matrix element in the ergodic approximation and with eigenstates given by (3) is of the order of

$$Q_{dd}^{\mathrm{typ}}\frac{U}{R^3}.$$
(8)
On the basis of this result we can estimate the typical interaction induced transition rate $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_e`$ between noninteracting two-particle eigenstates by means of the Fermi golden rule:

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_e(Q_{dd}^{\mathrm{typ}})^2\rho _2\frac{U^2l_1^4}{R^6V}.$$
(9)
Here we took the density of states coupled by interaction, in the middle of the energy band of width $`BV`$, being $`\rho _2l_1^4/V`$. Indeed, due to localization, one-electron jumps on a distance larger than $`l_1`$ give exponentially small matrix elements and these transitions can be excluded from consideration. The mixing of two-electron states takes place when

$$\kappa _e=\mathrm{\Gamma }_e\rho _2\left(\frac{Ul_1^4}{VR^3}\right)^2>1,$$
(10)
that corresponds to $`R<l_1(Ul_1/V)^{1/3}`$. For $`UV`$ one gets $`R<l_1^{4/3}`$, and the condition $`Rl_1`$ is still satisfied when $`l_11`$ . Therefore the physical picture is qualitatively different from the case of short-range screened interaction, where mixing is possible only for states at a distance $`R<l_1`$. For $`\kappa _e>1`$ the pair jumps on a typical length $`l_1`$ and its diffusion rate is

$$D_el_1^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_e\frac{V\kappa _e}{l_1^2}.$$
(11)
The transition from localization to pair diffusion takes place in a way qualitatively similar to the Anderson model in 3D. Indeed, the pair center of mass can move in the 2D plane and in addition the electrons diffusively rotate around it in a ring of radius $`R`$ and width $`l_1`$, keeping their Coulomb energy $`E_{ee}U/R`$ constant. The number of effective sites in the third direction, $`M_{ef}\pi R/l_1`$, is given by the number of circles of size $`l_1`$ in the ring. Therefore, following standard results for the quasi-2D Anderson model , the pair localization length $`l_c`$ is given by

$$\frac{l_c}{l_1}\mathrm{exp}(M_{ef}g_2)\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{\pi R\kappa _e}{l_1}\right),$$
(12)
where $`g_2\kappa _e`$ is the two-particle conductance  and the above estimate is valid in the metallic phase for the corresponding 3D Anderson model ($`\kappa _e>1`$). Since $`Rl_1^{4/3}`$ when $`\kappa _e1`$ (for $`UV`$), at the transition the TIP localization length jumps from $`l_cl_1`$ to an exponentially large value

$$l_cl_1\mathrm{exp}(\pi l_1^{1/3}).$$
(13)
The TIP diffusion will be eventually localized due to the finite number of planes in the third direction. However, if disorder is not too strong ($`l_11`$), Coulomb interaction gives raise to an exponentially sharp localization length enhancement, with a “critical” behavior similar to the 3D Anderson model for finite system sizes $`l_cLl_1`$. We remark that, due to disorder, the ring is not rigid and the electronic motion adapts to the fluctuations of the random potential so that the total energy remains constant even with some variation of the ring radius. This effect should increase the number of planes $`M_{ef}`$ of the effective quasi-2D Anderson model, giving a stronger delocalization effect.

Since the excitation energy $`ϵ`$ is related to the pair distance, $`ϵU/R`$, the condition of pair delocalization ($`k_e>1`$) implies

$$ϵ>ϵ_cl_1^{4/3};$$
(14)
the scaling relation $`ϵ_cl_1^{4/3}=\mathrm{const}`$ is in agreement with the numerical results obtained in Ref. .

Finally we discuss the influence of a magnetic field on the theory presented in this Section. For a typical magnetic field corresponding to $`\alpha =1/6`$ flux quanta per plaquette, the disorder strengths $`W=7V`$ or $`W=10V`$ is strong enough to mix different Landau levels, as it is illustrated in Fig.1 top: the single-particle density of states at $`W=7V`$ is only slightly changed with respect to the zero magnetic field case. In Fig.1 bottom we evaluate the energy dependence of the single particle inverse participation ratio $`\xi _1`$ (IPR):

$$\xi _1=1/\underset{𝐫}{}|\varphi (𝐫)|^4,ł_1\sqrt{\xi _1}.$$
(15)
This convenient characteristic $`\xi _1`$ determines how many sites contribute to an eigenstate and is simply related to the localization length $`l_1`$. The magnetic field gives an increase of $`\xi _1`$ in the middle of the energy band. Indeed, it is known from weak localization  that, in the presence of a magnetic field, coherent time-reversed paths are eliminated and therefore backscattering is suppressed. On the contrary, the magnetic field shrinks the band and at $`W=7V`$ there is a slight reduction of the density of states near the band edges, which brings about a decrease in $`l_1`$ . For the parameters of Fig.1 the results found in  give the critical delocalization energy $`ϵ_c1.2V`$, counted from the energy of the ground state (Fig.1c there), that corresponds to $`E3.8V`$ in Fig.1. At this energy $`\xi _1(\alpha =1/6)\xi _1(\alpha =0)`$ (see Fig.1 bottom) that implies $`l_1(\alpha =1/6)l_1(\alpha =0)`$ and hence we expect that the critical energy for delocalisation transition in a presence of a magnetic field remains approximately the same: $`ϵ_c(\alpha =1/6)ϵ_c(\alpha =0)`$ .

## IV TIP delocalization

In order to study the eigenstate properties of our model with interaction, we diagonalize numerically the Hamiltonian (1). In this way we determine the two-particle probability distribution $`F_k(𝐫_1,𝐫_2)=|\mathrm{\Psi }_k(𝐫_1,𝐫_2)|^2`$ for the $`k`$-th eigenfunction $`\mathrm{\Psi }_k(𝐫_1,𝐫_2)=𝐫_1𝐫_2|\mathrm{\Psi }_k`$ written in the lattice basis. ¿From this we extract the one-particle probability,

$$f_k(𝐫_1)=\underset{𝐫_2}{}F_k(𝐫_1,𝐫_2),$$
(16)
and the probability of interparticle distance,

$$f_{dk}(𝐑)=\underset{𝐫_2}{}F_k(𝐑+𝐫_2,𝐫_2),$$
(17)
with $`𝐑=𝐫_1𝐫_2`$.

Typical examples of probability distributions are shown if Fig.2, at $`W=10V`$ for a system size $`L=30`$. They clearly show that the two-particle ground state (Fig.2 top) remains localized in the presence of interaction, with the particles sitting far from each other in order to minimize Coulomb repulsion. Similar conclusions apply to low-energy eigenstates. On the contrary, for higher excitation energies ($`ϵ/B=0.71`$ in Fig.2 middle, where $`ϵ=\delta E/2`$, the excitation energy of the TIP eigenstate $`\delta E`$ is counted from the ground state and $`B=4V`$ is the band width at $`W=0`$) the probability distribution $`f`$ spreads over the whole lattice, while $`f_d`$ shows a hole at small $`R`$ and a depletion for large $`R`$. The first property is a simple consequence of Coulomb repulsion, while the second one is in agreement with the general discussion of the model (1). Following the analytical arguments  summarized in Section III, we believe that this ring structure (see also Fig.3 top) would become more evident at larger system sizes, with maximum interparticle distance $`R_{max}L/2l_1^{4/3}`$ . It is impossible to fully satisfy such a condition within the system sizes numerically tractable, if one considers that the condition $`l_11`$ should be satisfied at the same time . We stress that this pair delocalization takes place in a regime of strong localization for the one-particle wavefunctions. This is demonstrated in Fig.2 bottom and Fig.3 bottom, which show the probability distributions for the noninteracting problem ($`U=0`$) at the same excitation energy. As a quantitative measure of the interaction induced charge delocalization one can take the inverse participation ratio $`\xi _s`$ for the one-particle probability $`f`$:

$$\xi _s=1/\underset{𝐫_1}{}f^2(𝐫_1).$$
(18)
In this way $`\xi _s`$ gives the number of lattice sites occupied by one particle in an eigenstate. For the case of Fig.2, Coulomb interaction does not significantly change $`\xi _s8`$ for the ground state, while for an excitation energy $`ϵ/B=0.71`$ there is a huge delocalization effect from $`\xi _s=14.7`$ at $`U=0`$ to $`\xi _s=320`$ at $`U=2V`$.

## V Spectral Statistics

The qualitative change of the structure of the eigenstates also leads to a change in the level spacing statistics. In the one particle problem spectral fluctuations proved to be a very useful tool to characterize the 3D Anderson transition . Localized wavefunctions yield uncorrelated spectra with Poisson statistics, characterized by a distribution $`P(s)`$ of the energy spacings between successive levels going to

$$P_P(s)=\mathrm{exp}(s)$$
(19)
when the system size $`Ll_1`$. Delocalized wavefunctions yield correlated spectra and Wigner-Dyson statistics with the Wigner surmise

$$P_U(s)=\frac{32s^2}{\pi ^2}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{4s^2}{\pi }\right)$$
(20)
in the absence of time-reversal symmetry. The striking advantage of such an approach is that it deals only with the spectrum and does not involve heavy numerical calculations of conductivity or eigenfunctions.

To analyze the evolution of the $`P(s)`$ distributions with respect to the excitation energy, it is convenient to use the parameter

$$\eta _U=\frac{_0^{s_U}[P(s)P_U(s)]𝑑s}{_0^{s_U}[P_P(s)P_U(s)]𝑑s},$$
(21)
where $`s_U=0.5076\mathrm{}`$ is the first intersection point of $`P_P(s)`$ and $`P_U(s)`$. In this way $`P_P(s)`$ corresponds to $`\eta _U=1`$ and $`P_U(s)`$ to $`\eta _U=0`$. The dependence of $`\eta _U`$ on the one-electron excitation energy $`ϵ=\delta E/2`$ is shown in Fig.4. This figure shows that at fixed interaction $`U=2V`$, disorder $`W=7V`$, and rescaled magnetic field $`\alpha =1/6`$, curves at different system sizes $`6L24`$ intersect at $`ϵ_c/B0.33`$, with $`\eta _{Uc}0.26`$. While for $`ϵ<ϵ_c`$ the level spacing statistics approaches the Poisson limit ($`\eta _U1`$) when the system size increases, for $`ϵ>ϵ_c`$ the tendency is towards the Wigner-Dyson distribution ($`\eta _U0`$). We note that the critical excitation energies at $`W=7V`$ and $`W=10V`$ ($`ϵ_c0.67`$, data not shown) are similar to the values found in , in agreement with the the expectations of Section III.

The level spacing statistics $`P(s)`$ is shown in Fig.5 near the ground state and for excitation energies $`ϵ>ϵ_c`$, for a system size $`L=18`$. The transition from the Poisson to the Wigner-Dyson statistics is evident.

The $`P(s)`$ statistics near the critical point $`ϵ=ϵ_c`$ is shown in Fig.6. The curves at different system sizes display a size-independent intermediate distribution, which exhibits level repulsion $`P(s)s^2`$ at small $`s`$ and a Poisson-like tail $`P(s)\mathrm{exp}(as)`$, with $`a1.9`$. The close agreement between these distributions and the critical statistics found in the 3D Anderson model with broken time reversal symmetry at the mobility edge, taken from Ref. , supports the analytical arguments given in Section III. This 3D critical statistics also gives a good approximation for the 2D critical statistics at $`W=10V`$ (see Fig.6), with $`\eta _{Uc}0.29`$. The small difference in the $`\eta _{Uc}`$ values at $`W=7V,10V`$ (already observed at $`\alpha =0`$, see Ref. ) could be attributed to the fact that the jump in the localization length at the “transition”, $`l_c/l_1\mathrm{exp}(\pi l_1^{1/3})`$, is not sufficiently sharp. This is due to the not very large values of $`l_1`$ accessible for numerical simulations. Indeed, the investigation of cases with larger $`l_1`$ would require a significant increase of the system size, in order to satisfy the condition $`L>Rl_1^{4/3}`$. We also note that the finite statistics and the limited system sizes prevent us from precisely evaluating the critical excitation energy $`ϵ_c`$ and the critical value $`\eta _{Uc}`$.

## VI Conclusions

We have shown that Coulomb interaction can delocalize electron pairs in a 2D disordered potential in the presence of a magnetic field, above a critical excitation energy, in a way similar to the Anderson transition in 3D. The close relation between these two transitions is reflected in the close similarity of level statistics at the critical point. The results obtained in this papers should be relevant for experiments at small electron density and/or large disorder fluctuations, when the distance between electrons is larger than the size of their localization length in the absence of interaction.

We thank Isa Zharekeshev for the possibility to use the data of Ref.  , and the IDRIS in Orsay and the CICT in Toulouse for access to their supercomputers.


text:
# Sandpiles and absorbing-state phase transitions: recent results and open problems

## Introduction

Slowly driven by the input of new ideas and concepts, avalanches of papers have in recent years seen the light in the field of self-organized criticality (SOC) btw ; manna ; zhang1 ; Dhar ; Jensen ; 2times ; stella ; BJP . This activity was certainly justified by the huge conceptual and practical implications of the self-organization mechanisms. From a theoretical point of view two main questions were soon posed: (i) what are the main ingredients able to drive “spontaneously” a system to its critical state without need of fine-tuning any control parameter?, and (ii) what are the links between self-organized critical states and standard critical ones appearing in equilibrium and non-equilibrium systems?. In order to answer the first of the two aforementioned issues, several paths to SOC have been identified (a recent review of them, as well as a summary on experiments on SOC can be found in BJP ). Certainly the most celebrated ones among them are: the presence of two infinitely-separated time scales 2times , and extremal dynamics bs , though these are certainly not the only ones Dhar ; BJP .

For example, in sandpiles btw ; manna ; zhang1 , the archetype of SOC systems, the two infinitely separated time scales correspond to a slow scale at which grains of sand are added to the system, and a fast one for the relaxation of unstable piles which leads to a rapid redistribution of sand, and eventually to boundary dissipation. It has been shown that it is only in the double limit of driving rate, $`h`$, and dissipation rate, $`ϵ`$ going to $`0^+`$ with $`h/ϵ0`$, that scale invariant behavior is generated up to the system-size cut-off 2times ; vz . Under the effect of the external drive, the system jumps among stable (absorbing) configurations via avalanche-like rearrangements. Some of the sandpiles we will refer to are: the original Bak-Tang-Wiesenfeld (BTW) sandpile btw , the Manna model manna , the Zhang model zhang1 , the Oslo ricepile model oslo , as well as some variations of them.

Despite of some very remarkable rigorous results Dhar ; priezz  and some renormalization group analyses rg , the question of whether the critical properties of sandpiles can be related to more standard critical phase transitions, or more specifically, whether the associated critical (avalanche) exponents btw ; manna ; Jensen  can be ascribed to any known universality class, remains open.

A priori, these are not straightforward questions to answer; in particular, the presence of two time scales makes it difficult to apply standard techniques for the study of scale invariant systems to sandpiles. Another intrinsic difficulty lies in the fact, that exponents controlling the deviation from criticality cannot be measured in slowly driven sandpiles, posed by definition at their critical point.

## Fixed Energy Sandpiles and absorbing states

In order to circumvent these difficulties we have studied the the so-called fixed energy sandpiles (FES) fes2 ; dvz ; FES . These are cellular automata sharing the same microscopic dynamics as their corresponding standard sandpile counterparts but without external driving or dissipation. For each standard sandpile model we can define its FES version by keeping constant its total energy (number of sand grains). In this way, the initial energy density $`\zeta `$ becomes a control parameter. FES are found to be critical only for a particular value $`\zeta =\zeta _c`$ (which as we will show turns out to be identical to the stationary energy density of its driven-dissipative counterpart FES ). For energy densities below $`\zeta _c`$ the FES-sandpile falls into an absorbing state reviews , while for values above that threshold activity is indefinitely sustained, i.e. the FES is in an active phase. Consequently, the phase transition in FES can be enviewed as an absorbing state phase transition reviews ; ant  (with an infinite number of absorbing states). Observe that, switching on dissipation and driving, in the presence of activity $`\zeta >\zeta _c`$ and $`d\zeta /dt<0`$. In the absence of activity there is addition, but no loss of activity, so $`\zeta <\zeta _c`$ implies $`d\zeta /dt>0`$ inf . Evidently, the only possible stationary value for the density in the sandpile is $`\zeta _c`$! Not only $`\zeta _c`$ is common to a critical FES and its slowly-driven counterpart: also higher moments and correlation functions coincide in the large-size limit (as expected, given that the bulk dynamics is identical in both cases). We have performed extensive numerical analyses of the critical behavior of FES aimed at verifying the previous arguments and at determining a complete set of exponents. We refer the reader to FES  where the main ideas, simulations, analysis techniques, and results are presented (some of the obtained critical exponents are included in table 1).

Let us remark that other attempts have been made to connect sandpiles with different types of phase transitions, as for instance: pinning-depinning transitions in disordered media interfaces , the voter model directed , and branching processes branch . It is beyond the scope of this paper to review or discuss them.

Generically systems exhibiting a transition into an absorbing state belong in the universality class of directed percolation (DP), the field theoretical (or Langevin equation) representation of which is the celebrated Reggeon field theory (RFT) rft ; reviews . This universality class has proven very robust with respect to the variation of microscopic details, number of components, and number of absorbing states pcp ; many ; reviews . Only in the presence of some extra conservation law or additional symmetry (as, for example, a $`Z_2`$-symmetry between two equivalent absorbing states, which in some cases tantamount to parity conservation baw ), have the critical exponents been found to differ from those of DP baw .

Following rather general principles of relevance and symmetry, a set of Langevin equations aimed at capturing the critical features of FES was proposed in FES . Let us emphasize that this type of phenomenological approach has proven extremely useful, and provided sound results when applied to other systems with many absorbing states (see many ). This set of equations includes one for the evolution of a coarse-grained activity field, $`\varphi (𝐱,t)`$, and one for the energy (or background) field, $`E(𝐱,t)`$ FES . The activity field represents the local density of unstable sites, while the energy field stands for the total number of grains regardless of the local activity state. The proposed set of equations is:

$`_t\varphi (𝐱,t)`$ $`=`$ $`\mu \varphi (𝐱,t)b\varphi ^2(𝐱,t)+D^2\varphi (𝐱,t)+wE(𝐱,t)\varphi (𝐱,t)+\sigma \sqrt{\varphi }\eta (𝐱,t)`$
$`_tE(𝐱,t)`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda ^2\varphi (𝐱,t)`$ (1)
where $`\mu ,b,D,w,\sigma `$, and $`\lambda `$ are constants, and $`\eta `$ is a Gaussian white noise. In a nutshell, these equations express the fact that the transition for the activity is controlled by the same type of terms appearing in the RFT, i.e. the most relevant terms in standard absorbing-state phase transitions reviews ; rft , plus an additional coupling between the activity field and a static conserved energy field. This extra term stems from the fact that creation of activity is locally fostered by the presence of a high density of the background field, and this background field (energy) is a conserved one. The extra conservation law is therefore the new relevant ingredient with respect to RFT. Some other terms, consistent with the symmetries and conservation laws, could have been included in Eq.(1) but they all turn out to be irrelevant from a power counting analysis FES . Let us also remark that the second equation in Eq.(1), being linear, can be integrated out, leading to a non-Markovian contribution and a quenched disordered linear term in the activity equation (a detailed analysis and discussion of these terms can be found in FES ). In what follows, we avoid performing such an integration to make explicit the presence of a conservation law, and stress that this extra contribution is relevant at the RFT fixed point FES .

Which sandpiles is this theory intended to describe? Although in principle we would like to describe the original BTW sandpile this seems to be an unrealizable task, the reasons for this being manifold. The main reason, is that the BTW model being deterministic, has many hidden conservation laws and toppling invariants Dhar  which are almost impossible to implement in a coarse grained Langevin equation (for which a detailed book-keeping of symmetries and conservation laws is essential). Owing to the existence of these conservation laws, the FES version of the BTW exhibits strong non-ergodicity as shown and discussed in FES ; the stationary state depends strongly upon the initial configuration (and not only on the initial energy). From a different perspective, it has also been recently shown that BTW does not obey simple scaling stella .

Our approach is therefore intended to reproduce the scaling behavior of stochastic sandpiles with no extra conservation, symmetry, or spatial anisotropy directed , as for example: the Manna model manna , ricepiles oslo , the stochastic version of the Zhang model zhang1 ; romu3 , and other modifications of them.

## The universality class

Having proposed a set of Langevin equations for stochastic sandpiles, it would be an extremely desirable next step to derive specific predictions (i.e. values of the critical exponents and scaling functions), obtained after solving perturbatively the renormalization group associated with Eq.(1). Despite considerable efforts, unfortunately, so far we have not been able to complete satisfactorily such a challenging task. Elucidating whether this is just due to technicalities, or has some more profound origin (concerning the theory renormalizability) still needs to be sorted out.

Leaving aside for the moment field theoretical analysis of Eq.(1), we proceed with a slightly more indirect verification of the validity of our theory. Inspired by the previous set of equations Eq.(1) two of us have recently made the following conjecture: all stochastic models with an infinite number of absorbing states in which the order parameter evolution is coupled to a static conserved field define a unique universality class romu1 . This conjecture has been supported by extensive simulations of the following different models fulfilling all the above-listed requirements romu1 ; romu2 :

* (i) a conserved threshold transfer process cttp ; reviews ;
* (ii) a conserved lattice gas with repulsion of nearest neighbor particles romu1 ;
* (iii) a reaction-diffusion model (CRD) with two species A and B romu2

(see romu1 ; romu2  for model definitions and details). All the measured critical exponents both for steady state and for analysis of spreading reviews  coincide within error bars and are also the same as those measured in extensive numerical simulations of the FES Manna sandpile FES  (up-to-date exponent values in two and three dimensions are listed in table I; for further simulation details as well as model and exponents definitions see FES ; romu1 ; romu2 ; reviews ).

Furthermore, the slowly-driven versions of the previous models are self-organized romu1 ; romu2 , and the corresponding avalanche exponents are in good agreement with those of stochastic sandpiles Num-manna ; FES . Finally, all the scaling laws among steady-state, spreading and avalanche critical exponents Brief  are satisfied within numerical accuracy (except for some well identified anomalies FES ; romu1 ; romu2 ). This shows rather unambiguously that the critical point of a slowly-driven sandpile coincides with that of its FES version, supports strongly the previously enunciated conjecture, and identifies stochastic sandpiles as belonging in the universality class of systems with many absorbing states and order parameter coupled to a static conserved field.

Moreover, the conserved reaction-diffusion model studied in romu2  has the notorious advantage of been susceptible to be mapped exactly using a a Fock-space representation and creation-annihilation operators Fock  into an effective action, or equivalently into a set of Langevin equations romu2 . Remarkably, up to naïvely irrelevant terms, this set of equations coincides with Eq.(1). The additional irrelevant terms appearing in the exact mapping, might also be of some importance in lower dimensions (this issue is currently under study).

## Conclusions and open problems

Different stochastic sandpile models show critical properties that are fully compatible with those of their corresponding FES versions. Using this equivalence stochastic sandpiles have been shown to belong in the universality class of systems exhibiting an absorbing-state phase transition with order parameter coupled to a static conserved density field. This result places sandpiles within the range of applicability of standard tools for the study of scale invariance in phase transitions, and constitutes in our opinion a step forward in the rationalizing SOC.

Finally let us enumerate some open questions and problems, on which we are presently working:

* Direct numerical integration of the Langevin equations Eq.(1) using the method of discrete . This will provide an even more direct test for the validity of the Langevin equations.
* Connection of the universality class discussed in this paper with that of the pinning-depinning transitions in disordered systems interfaces . Numerical simulations show that these two classes are indeed the same; we are working on the theoretical connections between them AM .
* Renormalization of the field theory for FES, Eq. (1).
* Clarification of some anomalies found in some time-dependent magnitudes in FES (like that affecting the exponent $`\theta `$).
* Extension of the numerical analysis to one-dimensional sandpiles.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We acknowledge M. Alava, A. Barrat, D. Dhar, P. Grassberger, K.B. Lauritsen, E.Marinari, L. Pietronero and A. Stella for useful discussions and comments. We acknowledge partial support from the European Network contract ERBFMRXCT980183; M.A.M acknowledges also support from the Spanish DGESIC project PB97-0842, and Junta de Andalucía project FQM-165. R.D. acknowledges CNPq and CAPES. R.P.R. acknowledges support from grant CICYT PB97-0693.


text:
# A New Radio - X-Ray Probe of Galaxy Cluster Magnetic Fields

## 1 INTRODUCTION

Determinations of magnetic field strengths in the intracluster medium over the past decade have revealed fields of unanticipated strength in some clusters. Additionally, these studies have raised apparent contradictions between field strengths (or limits) obtained from different observational methods. In order to understand the physical conditions in the intracluster medium, it is important to understand the origin(s) of cluster fields, and the astrophysical processes that relate them to other energy constituents of the cluster gas.

Estimates of magnetic field strengths in the intracluster medium (ICM) can be determined from measurements of Faraday rotation through the intracluster gas, and an independent measurement of the ICM thermal electron density, $`n_e`$. Faraday rotation is given by:

$$\mathrm{RM}=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\chi }{\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda ^2}=811.9_0^Ln_eB_{}𝑑\mathrm{}\mathrm{rad}\mathrm{m}^2,$$
(1)
where $`\chi `$ is the position angle of the linearly polarized radiation at wavelength $`\lambda `$, $`n_e`$ is the thermal electron density in $`\mathrm{cm}^3`$, $`B_{}`$ is the line of sight magnetic field strength in $`\mu `$G, and $`L`$ is the path length in kpc. The thermal electron density in a cluster can be determined from X-ray surface brightness profiles of the hot (T$`10^8`$ K), diffuse ($`n_e10^3h_{75}^{1/2}\mathrm{cm}^3`$) gas (Böhringer, 1995) which fills the cluster potential.

The first study of background RMs over a single cluster (Kim et al., 1990) was a targeted set of deep VLA observations of 18 sources close in angular position to the Coma cluster (which has no cooling flow, but a strong synchrotron halo). The result of the study was $`<|B|>_{icm}`$ = 2.5 $`(\mathrm{}/10\mathrm{kpc})^{1/2}h_{75}^{1/2}\mu `$G where $`\mathrm{}`$ is the B-reversal scale. In a subsequent study by Feretti et al. (1995) the discovery of smaller $`\mathrm{}`$ scales down to 1 kpc raised this estimate to $`7.2h_{75}^{1/2}\mu `$G for Coma.

Studies of a large number of galaxy clusters with many RM probes per cluster are currently unfeasible given the sensitivity limits of available radio telescopes, combined with the small angular size of more distant clusters. This situation can be circumvented by obtaining RM probes through a sample of clusters, each having typically only one or two (bright) polarized radio sources. The consensus of these studies (Lawler & Dennison, 1982; Kim et al., 1991; Goldshmidt & Rephaeli, 1993) is that cluster cores have a detectable component of RM, and many have field strengths at the microgauss level. Note that the Faraday study by Hennessy, Owen, & Eilek (1989) does not find evidence for intracluster magnetic fields. This discrepancy is, however, likely due to the combination of small statistics and large impact parameters in their study.

For a few clusters with extensive cooling flows, high resolution Faraday rotation measure mapping of extended sources that are embedded within the cooling flow zones have, in combination with X-ray data, produced magnetic field strength estimates of 10–40 $`\mu `$G, ordered on scales varying from 100 – 0.5 kpc (see Taylor, Allen, & Fabian 1999, and references therein).

Lower limits to ICM magnetic field strengths in the range 0.1 – 1 $`\mu `$G level have been suggested from recent detections of both excess (over thermal) extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and hard X-ray (HEX) emission in some clusters. These field values would seem to prima facie contradict the much higher values above if the EUV excess emission is interpreted as inverse Compton (IC) scattering of $``$ 100 MeV electrons (Rephaeli, Ulmer, & Gruber, 1994). The EUV detections (Bowyer, Berghöfer, & Korpela, 1999) in particular apply to only a few clusters having widespread extended synchrotron emission and/or they occur near to the cooling flow zone (as in M87). Spatial differentiation of high and low magnetic field regions in the ICM avoids the apparent contradiction by allowing the synchrotron and EUV IC emission to originate in low field regions, while high field regions, where the synchrotron energy loss time is short, would provide the major contribution to the Faraday rotation measures (Enßlin, Lieu, & Biermann, 1999). Further, EUV emission also appears not to be cluster wide, but concentrated to central sub-regions, and hence does not spatially correspond to the wider regions probed by the X-ray emission and Faraday RM measurements. The HEX excess in clusters can be plausibly understood as bremsstrahlung from a (probably shock heated) population of suprathermal electrons (Enßlin, Lieu, & Biermann, 1999; Dogiel, 1999; Sarazin & Kempner, 2000). Thus, on balance, it appears that spatial differentiation of field regions and/or emission mechanisms other than IC scattering of CMB photons are more plausible where apparent contradictions in magnetic field estimates arise.

This paper concentrates on what we shall term “normal” Abell clusters i.e. those which have neither widespread cooling flows nor strong synchrotron halos. The observations are aimed at estimating the strength and spatial extent of intracluster medium magnetic fields for a relatively homogeneous sample of 16 Abell clusters. Throughout this Letter, we adopt $`H_o=75h_{75}\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$, and $`q_o`$=0.5.

## 2 SELECTION OF THE CLUSTERS

Each target cluster in our sample was required to have bright ($`\mathrm{L}_\mathrm{x}>5\times 10^{42}`$$`h_{75}^2\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{s}^1`$), extended X-ray emission in ROSAT observations. Therefore, the majority of the target galaxy clusters in our sample fall within the low redshift ($`z0.1`$) part of the X-ray-brightest Abell-type clusters of galaxies (XBACs, Ebeling et al., 1996) sample. The XBACs clusters are limited to high Galactic latitudes ($`|\mathrm{b}|20\mathrm{°}`$), low redshifts ($`z0.2`$), and ROSAT 0.1–2.4 keV band X-ray fluxes above $`5.0\times 10^{12}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$. A further selection constraint was that each cluster was required to have at least one linearly polarized radio source viewed through the X-ray emitting gas. Such radio sources are referred to as the cluster sample. A second set of polarized (control) radio sources viewed, in projection, outside the boundary of the X-ray emission was also selected for each target galaxy cluster. All polarized radio targets (cluster and control) were selected from the NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS, Condon et al., 1998) data.

Galaxy cluster selection was further constrained such that the sightlines of the target radio sources probed, collectively, the largest possible range of impact parameters. The sources also had to have sufficient polarized flux density that follow-up polarimetry could be undertaken in short integrations ($``$ 5 minutes) at the VLA111The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. Specifically the inclusion criterion required $`I_{1.4}>`$ 100 mJy and 1.4 GHz polarization, $`m_{1.4}`$, greater than 1% in the NVSS survey. A complete description of the galaxy cluster and radio source samples will be presented in Clarke, Kronberg, & Böhringer (in preparation).

The final sample consists of 16 Abell clusters, 13 of which are members of the XBACs sample. The three non-XBACs clusters fall slightly below the flux limit for inclusion in the XBACs sample. Our 16 cluster sample was reduced from an original 24 that fell within the above criterion as severe radio frequency interference, which is endemic to some of the crucial (for RM) 20 cm bands, reduced the reliability of some RMs. To optimize data quality, we reduced the final sample to 16, since even this smaller number was statistically adequate.

It is important to mention ab initio two types of systematic bias that might result from the above selection criteria. First, the condition $`m_{1.4}>`$ 1% may preferentially select against regions of very high Faraday rotation, whose signature would be low polarization at the longer radio wavelengths. This could have caused some high RMs, but not low RMs, to have been missed in our cluster sample. This would statistically understate the clusters’ true rotation measure distribution, and hence magnetic field strengths. Second, the very innermost regions of the cluster cores, which in some cases may have a cooling flow, will have been missed because of their small angular cross sections. We do not consider this second form of bias to be serious, since this investigation is targeted to cluster volumes that do not have strong cooling flows.

## 3 OBSERVATIONS AND ANALYSIS OF THE DATA

### 3.1 Radio

Target radio sources selected from the NVSS survey were re-observed with the VLA at four to six wavelengths within the 20 cm and 6 cm bands. These wavelengths were selected to provide Faraday rotation measures that are unambiguous within the range $`|\mathrm{RM}|2600`$ $`\mathrm{rad}\mathrm{m}^2`$. The observations were undertaken in October and December 1995, August 1996, and September 1997 in the VLA’s B, D, and CS configurations respectively.

The radio data were reduced within the NRAO AIPS package following the standard Fourier transform, deconvolve, and restore method. In addition, self-calibration was applied to each source to further reduce the effects of phase fluctuations. Images in the Stokes I, Q, and U parameters were produced for each source at each of at least four wavelengths.

### 3.2 X-ray

X-ray observations of each galaxy cluster were retrieved from the ROSAT Data Archive222The ROSAT Data Archive is maintained by the Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik (MPE) at Garching, Germany.. Thirteen of the target clusters were in the Pointed Observation archive while the data for the remaining three clusters were extracted from the ROSAT All-Sky Survey archive. All extracted X-ray data were taken using one of ROSAT’s Position Sensitive Proportional Counters (PSPCs) which have moderate angular resolution (FWHM $``$ 25″) and are sensitive to photons in range of 0.1 – 2.4 keV.

The ROSAT X-ray data were reduced using the Extended X-ray Scientific Analysis Software (EXSAS, Zimmermann et al., 1994) package under the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO’s) Munich Image Data Analysis System (MIDAS). A radial X-ray surface brightness profile was determined for each cluster by integrating the PSPC photon events over concentric annuli of 15″ and 30″ for the ROSAT Pointed and RASS Observations respectively. The surface brightness profiles were fit with a hydrostatic isothermal model (Sarazin, 1986).

## 4 RESULTS

The observed Faraday rotation measure of an individual source is an algebraic sum of Faraday contributions due to our Galaxy, the cluster, any source-intrinsic component, and the general IGM. The latter three are usually small, and the Galactic RM contribution was statistically removed by subtracting the mean RM over all non-cluster sources within 10 of the cluster center from that of the radio probe in question. Due to the high Galactic latitudes of the target clusters, the mean Galactic contribution in the present sample is fairly small, on average 9.5 rad $`\mathrm{m}^2`$. The cluster radio sources and associated Galaxy-corrected RMs are listed in Table 1.

In Figure A New Radio $``$ X-Ray Probe of Galaxy Cluster Magnetic Fields we plot the residual rotation measure of the radio sources as a function of cluster impact parameter in kiloparsecs. This figure displays a clear Faraday excess in radio sources viewed through the X-ray emitting ICM (open points) as compared to those viewed beyond the detectable edge of the thermal cluster gas. The RM distribution of the control sources has a width of 15 $`\mathrm{rad}\mathrm{m}^2`$ while that of the cluster sources viewed through the ICM is much broader at 114 $`\mathrm{rad}\mathrm{m}^2`$. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test rejects the null hypothesis that the two samples were drawn from the same population with a confidence level of 99.5%. This confirms the detection of an intracluster Faraday rotating medium.

Determination of magnetic field strengths at various impact parameters within our cluster sample requires some assumption about the field topology along the line of sight to the radio probe. The simplest model of the ICM magnetic fields is a “uniform slab” in which the magnetic field has constant strength and direction through the entire cluster. Using this model and the X-ray determined electron densities, Equation 1 yields magnetic field strengths between $``$ 0.5 – 3.0$`h_{75}^{1/2}`$ $`\mu `$G across the Faraday sample. More realistically, there are reversals along the line of sight to the radio source probe. In the simple case of an intracluster medium composed of $`𝒩`$ cells of uniform size and field strength, but random field directions, the field in an individual cell increases as $`\sqrt{𝒩}`$ over the uniform slab estimate. Using a simple tangled cell model with a constant coherence length, $`\mathrm{}`$ = 10 $`h_{75}^1`$ kpc, yields an average intracluster magnetic field strength estimate of $`5(\mathrm{}/10\mathrm{kpc})^{1/2}h_{75}^{1/2}\mu `$G. This coherence length $`\mathrm{}`$, estimated from RM images of three extended radio sources in our sample (see below), is limited by the resolution of our images. Because $`<\mathrm{}(r)>`$ may systematically change (e.g. increase with $`r`$) this “global” average field value could increase to values as high as 10$`h_{75}^{1/2}\mu G`$ near the cluster cores.

The distribution of excess RM’s appears to cutoff close to the observed X-ray outer boundary. This result, though interesting and new, requires more detailed X-ray and radio data to understand the variation of the magnetic to thermal energy density $`\epsilon _B(r)`$/$`\epsilon _{th}(r)`$ throughout the ICM.

A striking effect, seen in Figure A New Radio $``$ X-Ray Probe of Galaxy Cluster Magnetic Fields, is the virtual exclusion of small RMs at $`r\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}500}h_{75}^1\mathrm{kpc}`$. This suggests that the RM filling factor in normal galaxy clusters is very high. An independent, quantitative estimate of the RM filling factor is provided from analysis of multi-frequency polarization images of three extended radio sources, 0039+212, 0056-013, and 1650+815 (J2000) that are embedded within three of our clusters (Abell 75, 119, and 2247 respectively). These sources project a combined area of $`2.5\times 10^4\mathrm{kpc}^2`$, and consist of 3 sets of 30, 48, and 24 contiguous independent RM sightlines, each of which has approximately the same areal cross-section: $`(5\mathrm{kpc})^2`$. The individual RM histograms across the three sources are consistent with normal distributions with means of -60, -144, and -97 $`\mathrm{rad}\mathrm{m}^2`$. We find that 95% of the sightlines within this subset of three clusters have RMs significantly higher than the dispersion for non-cluster sightlines, $`|\mathrm{RM}|=15\mathrm{rad}\mathrm{m}^2`$. This implies that the areal filling factor of magnetic fields is at least 95% in the ICM. This strongly suggests that these enhanced magnetic field levels permeate the clusters with a high filling factor, since within cell sizes down to a resolution of 10 kpc almost no ray passing through the ICM escapes some magnetized region.

## 5 DISCUSSION

These results confirm the widespread existence of magnetic fields in the central regions of non cooling flow clusters. The cluster-enhanced RM can generally be traced out to the periphery of the ROSAT-detectable ICM X-ray emission. The rotation measure distribution across our cluster sample drops from $``$ 200 $`\mathrm{rad}\mathrm{m}^2`$ in the central regions (which may be an underestimate, see §2) to the background level of $``$ 15 $`\mathrm{rad}\mathrm{m}^2`$ at large radii.

Our new measurements of (1) the RM, (2) the intracluster electron density, (3) the magnetic field volume filling factor, and (4) the average tangling scale of the field enable us to estimate, even if only crudely, an important physical quantity $``$ the total energy in the ICM magnetic field for “normal”, non-merging, relaxed clusters. For a 5$`h_{75}^{1/2}\mu `$G magnetic field in the inner 500 $`h_{75}^1`$ kpc sphere, the total magnetic energy is $`E_B=1.5\times 10^{61}(\frac{r}{500\mathrm{kpc}})^3(\frac{B}{5\mu \mathrm{G}})^2`$$`h_{75}^2\mathrm{ergs}`$. The magnetic energy content of the ICM can then be compared to the total thermal energy content in the same cluster volume. The latter is (again taking constant values within a fiducial radius that is close to both the RM cutoff radius in Figure A New Radio $``$ X-Ray Probe of Galaxy Cluster Magnetic Fields and the X-ray radius) $`E_{th}=6.4\times 10^{62}n_e\left(\frac{r}{500\mathrm{kpc}}\right)^3\left(\frac{T}{10^8\mathrm{K}}\right)h_{75}^2\mathrm{ergs}`$, where $`n_e`$ is the intracluster electron density in units of $`10^3h_{75}^{1/2}\mathrm{cm}^3`$. The ratio $`\frac{E_B}{E_{th}}`$ is of order 2.5%, and the possibility that $`|B|`$ may be underestimated due to limited radio resolution makes it possible that $`\frac{E_B}{E_{th}}`$ could be even higher. Even at the lower bound of 2.5% the ratio suggests that the magnetic energy provides a non-negligible fraction of the energy budget of the ICM.

We can now compare this approximate magnetic energy estimate with other sources of energy that are relevant for a cluster: the thermonuclear (stellar) energy released in all cluster-member galaxies, the gravitational binding energy released from AGN/accretion disks, the cluster gas binding energy, and the energy associated with past merger events. The available energy from stellar sources cannot be much greater than $`10^{62}`$ ergs (Völk & Atoyan, 2000), i.e. of comparable magnitude, and is thus insufficient to maintain the magnetic fields, barring a very high energy conversion efficiency. This means that thermonuclear energy can be ruled out as the primary source of intracluster magnetic field energy. It must therefore be ultimately derived from gravity. A single powerful AGN/accretion disk can be expected to inject approximately $`10^{61}`$ ergs over its lifetime into the ICM. Comparing the lifetime of the radio source with the cluster lifetime we expect $`10^2`$ sources to have injected a total of $`10^{62}10^{63}`$ ergs into the ICM. This makes AGN/accretion disks an attractive possible source of the ICM field energy, as has been suggested by Colgate & Li (1999). Other sources of ICM magnetic energy are the gravitational binding energy of the cluster gas, which is of order $`10^{64}`$ ergs, and the energy associated with a past cluster merger event, which is of order $`10^{6364}`$ ergs. This suggests that the magnetic energy possibly “taps into” a combination of the gravitational energy released in AGN/accretion disks over the lifetimes of clusters, and shearing and shocks associated with larger scale infall of matter as the clusters evolve.

Given that the cooling flows represent a late stage of cluster evolution and our “global” value of 5 $`h_{75}^{1/2}\mu G`$ for ICM zones within the clusters, but outside of cooling flow zones, we conclude that the cooling flow develops out of a medium whose field strength is already a significant fraction of what is seen in the cooling flow zones.

P.P.K. acknowledges the support of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the support of a Killam Fellowship, and T.E.C. is grateful for the support of NSERC, OGS, and I.O.D.E. scholarships, and the Sumner Fellowship. We acknowledge beneficial discussions with Stirling Colgate, Jean Eilek, Torsten Enßlin, Jim Felten, and Greg Taylor, and we thank the referee for helpful comments.


text:
# Gamma and Cosmic-Ray Tests of Special Relativity

## QDRK

It has been pointed out gon00  that Lorentz symmetry violation (LSV) at Planck scale can play a crucial role in astrophysical processes at very high energy. Ultra-high energy (UHE) cosmic rays NAG  provide a laboratory to test this prediction. A typical pattern is provided by models with an absolute local rest frame and a fundamental length scale $`a`$ where new physics is expected to occur gon97a . They naturally lead to a quadratically deformed relativistic kinematics (QDRK) of the form gon97b :

$$E=(2\pi )^1hca^1e(ka)$$
(1)
where $`h`$ is the Planck constant, $`c`$ the speed of light, $`k`$ the wave vector, and $`[e(ka)]^2`$ is a convex function of $`(ka)^2`$ obtained from vacuum dynamics. Expanding equation (1) for $`ka1`$ , we can write gon97b :

$`e(ka)`$ $``$ $`[(ka)^2\alpha (ka)^4+(2\pi a)^2h^2m^2c^2]^{1/2}`$ (2)
$`\alpha `$ being a model-dependent constant, in the range $`0.10.01`$ for full-strength violation of Lorentz symmetry at the fundamental length scale, and m the mass of the particle. For momentum $`pmc`$ , we get:

$`E`$ $``$ $`pc+m^2c^3(2p)^1pc\alpha (ka)^2/2`$ (3)
It is assumed that the earth moves slowly with respect to the absolute rest frame. The ”deformation” approximated by $`\mathrm{\Delta }E=pc\alpha (ka)^2/2`$ in the right-hand side of (3) implies a Lorentz symmetry violation in the ratio $`Ep^1`$ varying like $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(k)\mathrm{\Gamma }_0k^2`$ where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_0=\alpha a^2/2`$ . If $`c`$ is a universal parameter for all particles, the QDRK defined by (1) - (3) preserves Lorentz symmetry in the limit $`k0`$, contrary to the standard $`THϵ\mu `$ model will  .

At energies above $`E_{trans}\pi ^{1/2}h^{1/2}(2\alpha )^{1/4}a^{1/2}m^{1/2}c^{3/2}`$, the deformation $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ dominates over the mass term $`m^2c^3(2p)^1`$ in (3) and modifies all kinematical balances: physics gets closer to Planck scale than to electroweak scale and ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECR) become an efficient probe of Planck-scale physics. The parton model (in any version) does no longer hold, and similarly for standard formulae on Lorentz contraction and time dilation gon97c  Because of the negative value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ gon97d  , it costs more and more energy, as $`E`$ increases, to split the incoming logitudinal momentum in the laboratory rest frame. As the ratio $`m^2c^3(2p\mathrm{\Delta }E)^1`$ varies like $`E^4`$ , the transition at $`E_{trans}`$ is very sharp. QDRK can lead gon00  to important observable phenomena. In particular:

\- For $`\alpha a^2>10^{72}cm^2`$ , and assuming universal values of $`\alpha `$ and $`c`$ , there is no GZK cutoff for the particles under consideration gon97a  . In astrophysical processes at very high energy, similar mechanisms can inhibit gon97d  radiation under external forces (e.g. synchrotron-like, where the interactions occur with virtual photons), photodisintegration of nuclei, momentum loss trough collisions (e.g. with a photon wind in reverse shocks), production of lower-energy secondaries…

\- Unstable particles with at least two stable particles in the final states of all their decay channels become stable at very high energy gon97a . Above $`E_{trans}`$, the lifetimes of all unstable particles (e.g. the $`\pi ^0`$ in cascades) become much longer than predicted by relativistic kinematics. The neutron or even the $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{++}`$ can be candidates for the primaries of the highest-energy cosmic ray events. If $`c`$ and $`\alpha `$ are not exactly universal, many different scenarios are possible gon97d  .

\- The allowed final-state phase space of two-body collisions is strongly reduced at very high energy, gon97e  , with a sharp fall of partial and total cross-sections for cosmic-ray energies above $`E_{lim}(2\pi )^{2/3}(E_Ta^2\alpha ^1h^2c^2)^{1/3}`$, where $`E_T`$ is the target energy. Using the previous figures for LSV parameters, above some energy $`E_{lim}`$ between 1022 and $`10^{24}`$ $`eV`$ a cosmic ray will not deposit most of its energy in the atmosphere and can possibly fake an exotic event with much less energy gon97e  .

Requiring simultaneously the absence of GZK cutoff in the region $`E10^{20}eV`$ , and that cosmic rays with $`E`$ below $`3.10^{20}eV`$ deposit most of their energy in the atmosphere, leads to the constraint gon97e  : $`10^{72}cm^2<\alpha a^2<10^{61}cm^2`$ , equivalent to $`10^{20}<\alpha <10^9`$ for $`a10^{26}cm`$ ($`10^{21}GeV`$ scale). Assuming full-strength LSV forces $`a`$ to be in the range $`10^{36}cm<a<10^{30}cm`$ , but a $`10^6`$ LSV at Planck scale can still explain the data. Thus, the simplest version of QDRK naturally fits with the expected potential role of Planck-scale dynamics.

## LDRK

LDRK, linearly deformed relativistic kinematics, was discarded in our 1997 and subsequent papers for phenomenological reasons gon00  , but has nevertheless been proposed by several authors (see e.g. amel ), for cosmic-ray and gravitational-wave phenomenology. The fonction $`e(ka)`$ is then a function of $`ka`$ and, for $`ka1`$ :

$`e(ka)[(ka)^2\beta (ka)^3+(2\pi a)^2h^2m^2c^2]^{1/2}`$ (4)
$`\beta `$ being a model-dependent constant. For momentum $`pmc`$ :

$`Epc+m^2c^3(2p)^1pc\beta (ka)/2`$ (5)
the deformation $`\mathrm{\Delta }E=pc\beta (ka)/2`$ being now driven by an effective parameter proportional to momentum. LDRK can be generated by introducing a background gravitational field in the propagation equations of free particles el1  . If existing bounds on LSV from nuclear magnetic resonance experiments are to be intepreted as setting a bound of $`10^{21}`$ on relative LSV at the momentum scale $`p100MeV`$ , this implies $`\beta a<10^{34}cm`$ . But LDRK leads to inconsistencies with cosmic-ray experiments unless $`\beta a`$ is much smaller. Concepts and formulae presented for QDRK can be readily extended to LDRK, and we get now:

$`E_{trans}\pi ^{1/3}h^{1/3}(2\beta )^{1/3}a^{1/3}m^{2/3}c^{5/3}`$ (6)
$`E_{lim}(2\pi )^{1/2}(E_Ta^1\beta ^1hc)^{1/2}`$ (7)
For a high-energy photon, LDRK is usually parameterized el1  as:

$`Epcpc\beta (ka)/2=pcp^2M^1`$ (8)
where $`M`$ is an effective mass scale. Tests of this model through gamma-ray bursts, measuring the delays in the arrival time of photons of different energies, have been considered in norris  for the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), and more generally in el1  . But, from the same considerations developed in our 1997-99 papers taking QDRK as an exemple, stringent bounds on LDRK can be derived. Assume that LDRK applies only to photons, and not to charged particles, so that at high energy we can write for a charged particle, $`ch`$ , the dispersion relation:

$`E_{ch}`$ $``$ $`p_{ch}c+m_{ch}^2c^3(2p_{ch})^1`$ (9)
where the $`ch`$ subscript stands for the charged particle under consideration. Then, it can be readily checked that the decay $`chch+\gamma `$ would be allowed for $`p`$ above $`(2m_{ch}^2Mc^3)^{1/3}`$ , i.e:

\- for an electron, above $`E2TeV`$ if $`M=10^{16}GeV`$ , and above $`20TeV`$ if $`M=10^{19}GeV`$ ;

\- for a muon or charged pion, above $`E80TeV`$ if $`M=10^{16}GeV`$ , and above $`800TeV`$ if $`M=10^{19}GeV`$ ;

\- for a proton, above $`E240TeV`$ if $`M=10^{16}GeV`$ , and above $`2.4PeV`$ if $`M=10^{19}GeV`$ ;

\- for a $`\tau `$ lepton, above $`E400TeV`$ if $`M=10^{16}GeV`$ , and above $`4PeV`$ if $`M=10^{19}GeV`$ ;

so that none of these particles would be oberved above such energies, apart from very short paths. Such decays seem to be in contradiction with cosmic ray data, but avoiding them forces the charged particles to have the same kind of propagators as the photon, with the same effective value of $`M`$ up to small differences. Similar conditions are readily derived for all ”elementary” particles, leading for all of them, up to small devations, to a LDRK given by the universal dispersion relation:

$`Epc+m^2c^3(2p)^1p^2M^1`$ (10)
For instance, $`\pi ^0`$ production would otherwise be inhibited. But if, as it seems compulsory, the $`\pi ^0`$ kinematics follows a similar law, then the decay time for $`\pi ^0\gamma \gamma `$ will become much longer than predicted by special relativity at energies above $`50TeV`$ if $`M=10^{16}GeV`$ and $`500TeV`$ if $`M=10^{19}GeV`$ . Again, this seems to be in contradiction with cosmic-ray data. Requiring that the $`\pi ^0`$ lifetime agrees with special relativity at $`E10^{17}eV`$ would force $`M`$ to be above $`10^{26}GeV`$ , far away from the values to be tested at GLAST. Another bound is obtained from the condition that there are $`3.10^{20}eV`$ cosmic-ray events. Setting $`E_{lim}`$ to this value, and taking oxygen to be the target, yields $`M3.10^{21}GeV`$ . As it appears very difficult to make LDRK , with $`M`$ reasonably close to Planck scale, compatible with experimental data, it seems necessary to reconsider the models to be tested at GLAST and in gravitational-wave experiments.