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# Contents

## 1 Introduction

Very recently, it has become evident that a promising route towards reconciling the apparent mismatch of the fundamental scales of particle physics and gravity is to modify the short distance behavior of gravity at scales much larger than the Planck length. Such modification can be most simply achieved by introducing extra dimensions (generally thought to be curled-up) in the sub-millimiter range . Within this framework the fundamental scale of gravity $`M_{}`$ can be lowered all the way to $`𝒪`$ (TeV), and the observed Planck scale turns out to be just an effective scale valid for energies below the mass of Kaluza–Klein (KK) excitations . Clearly, while the gravitational force has not been directly measured far below the millimeter range , Standard Model (SM) interactions have been investigated well below this scale. Therefore, if large extra dimensions really exist, one needs some mechanism to prevent SM particles from feeling those extra dimensions. Remarkably, there are several possibilities to confine SM fields (and even gravity) to a 4 dimensional subspace (referred to as a brane-world) within the $`(4+n)`$ dimensional spacetime . While the phenomenology of $`n`$ large compact dimensions and TeV scale strings is very exciting on its own , at the same time it opens up new scenarii in which to explore “exotic” KK-cosmologies , as well as extraordinary astrophysical effects . Naturally, an intense activity to assess its experimental validity in collider experiments is currently underway .

The extremely high center-of-mass (c.m.) energies attained in cosmic ray collisions at the top of the atmosphere are well above those necessary to excite the hypothetical KK modes which would reflect a change in spacetime dimensionality. Therefore, a natural question to ask is wether KK excitations could have a direct influence in the development of extensive air showers. Cascades initiated by neutrinos (with cross sections reaching typical hadronic values) have been extensively discussed elsewhere . We concentrate here on proton-induced showers. Before going into the technical details of the shower simulations, let us summarize the pecularities of gravity with $`n>0`$ that can ruffle the standard “soft semi-hard” scenario.

## 2 Back of the Envelope Insights into KK-Modes Phenomenology

In the canonical example of , spacetime is a direct product of ordinary four-dimensional spacetime and a (flat) spatial $`n`$-torus with circumferences $`L_i=2\pi r_i`$ ($`i=1,\mathrm{},n`$), generally of common linear size $`r_i=r_c`$. As mentioned above, SM fields cannot propagate freely in the extra dimensions without conflict with observations. This is avoided by trapping the fields to a thin shell of thickness $`\delta M_s^1`$ . The only particles propagating in the (4+n) dimensional bulk are the (4+n) gravitons. Because of the compactification, the extra $`n`$ components of the graviton momenta are quantized

$$k_i=\frac{2\pi \mathrm{}_i}{L_c}=\frac{\mathrm{}_i}{r_c},i=1,\mathrm{},n.$$
(1)
Thus, taking into account the degeneracy on $`\mathrm{}_i`$, the graviton looks like a massive KK state with mass

$$m_{\mathrm{}_1,\mathrm{},\mathrm{}_n}=\left(\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\mathrm{}_i^2\right)^{1/2}r_c^1.$$
(2)
It is important to stress that the graviton’s self-interactions must conserve both ordinary 4-momenta and KK momentum components, whereas SM fields (that break translational invariance) do not have well defined KK momenta in the bulk for $`\mathrm{}/r_cM_s`$ . Therefore, interactions of gravitons with SM particles do not conserve KK momentum components.

Applying Gauss’ law at $`rr_c`$ and $`rr_c`$, it is easily seen that the Planck scale of the four dimensional world is related to that of a higher dimensional space-time simply by a volume factor,

$$r_c=\left(\frac{M_{\mathrm{pl}}}{M_{}}\right)^{2/n}\frac{1}{M_{}}=2.0\times 10^{17}\left(\frac{\mathrm{TeV}}{M_{}}\right)\left(\frac{M_{\mathrm{pl}}}{M_{}}\right)^{2/n}\mathrm{cm},$$
(3)
so that $`M_{}`$ can range from $``$ TeV to $`M_{\mathrm{pl}}=10^{18}`$ GeV, for $`r_c1`$ mm and $`n2`$. For $`n6`$, the mass splitting,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }m\frac{1}{r_c}=M_{}\left(\frac{M_{}}{M_{\mathrm{pl}}}\right)^{2/n}\left(\frac{M_{}}{\mathrm{TeV}}\right)^{n+2/2}10^{(12n31)/n}\mathrm{eV},$$
(4)
is so small that the sum over the tower of KK states can be replaced by a continuous integration. Then the number of modes between $`|\mathrm{}|`$ and $`|\mathrm{}|+d\mathrm{}`$ reads,

$$dN=d\mathrm{}_1d\mathrm{}_2\mathrm{}d\mathrm{}_n=S_{n1}|\mathrm{}|^{n1}d\mathrm{},$$
(5)
where

$$S_{n1}=\frac{2\pi ^{n/2}}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(n/2)}$$
(6)
is the surface of a unit-radius sphere in $`n`$ dimensions. Now using Eqs. (2) and (3), Eq. (5) can be re-written as

$$dN=S_{n1}\left(\frac{M_{\mathrm{pl}}}{M_{}}\right)^2\frac{1}{M_{}^n}m^{n1}dm.$$
(7)
From the 4-dimensional viewpoint the graviton interaction vertex is suppressed by $`M_{\mathrm{pl}}`$. Roughly speaking, $`\sigma _mM_{\mathrm{pl}}^2`$. Now, introducing $`d\sigma _m/dt`$, the differential cross section for producing a single mode of mass $`m`$, one can write down the differential cross section for inclusive graviton production

$$\frac{d^2\sigma }{dtdm}=S_{n1}\left(\frac{M_{\mathrm{pl}}}{M_{}}\right)^2\frac{1}{M_{}^n}m^{n1}\frac{d\sigma _m}{dt},$$
(8)
or else, the branching ratio for emitting any one of the available gravitons

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_g\frac{s^{n/2}}{M_{}^{2+n}},$$
(9)
where $`s^{1/2}`$ is the c.m. energy available for graviton-KK emission. All in all, one can see by inspection of Eq. (9) that the enormous number of accessible KK-states can compensate for the $`M_{\mathrm{pl}}^2`$ factor in the scattering amplitude.

Having outlined the general ideas for the production of KK gravitons in very high energy collisions, let us consider now the hadronic scattering of two SM particles. To illustrate the effect of extra dimension gravity, we will estimate the effects of exchanging a tower of KK gravitons between the hadrons, rather than the production of soft gravitons. As usual, the parton evolution of interacting hadrons $`a`$ and $`b`$ must be separated into: (i) the non-perturbative soft cascades, characterized by a small momentum transfer $`q_t<q_02`$ GeV and described by soft Pomeron exchange, (ii) the hard cascades, $`q_t>q_0`$, that should be described perturbatively . If one envisions a scattering process considering the exchange of gravitons, as a qualitative assessment the overall shape of the cross section could be written as

$$\sigma _{\mathrm{tot}}=\sigma ^{\mathrm{KK}}+\sigma ^{4\mathrm{dim}}$$
(10)
where $`\sigma ^{\mathrm{KK}}`$ denotes the contribution from the virtual graviton exchange, and

$$\sigma _{ab}^{4\mathrm{dim}}(s)=\frac{1}{C_{ab}}d^2b\left\{1e^{C_{ab}[\chi _{ab}^{\mathrm{soft}}(s,b)+\chi _{ab}^{\mathrm{hard}}(s,b)]}\right\}.$$
(11)
Here, $`\chi _{ab}^{\mathrm{soft}}(s,b)`$ stands for the soft eikonal defined by

$$\chi _{ab}^{\mathrm{soft}}(s,b)=\frac{\gamma _a\gamma _b}{R_{ab}^2}\mathrm{exp}\left(\mathrm{\Delta }y\frac{b^2}{4R_{ab}^2}\right),$$
(12)
where $`b`$ is the impact parameter, $`y=\mathrm{ln}s`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }=\alpha _P(0)1`$, and $`R_{ab}^2=R_a^2+R_b^2+\alpha _P^{}(0)y`$. The parameters of the Pomeron trajectory ($`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and $`\alpha _P^{}(0)`$) as well as those describing the Pomeron-hadron vertices ($`\gamma `$ and $`R^2`$) are set to their values in qgsjet in the air shower simulation . The semi-hard interaction is treated as the soft Pomeron emission (soft pre-evolution) followed by the hard interaction of partons

$$\chi _{ab}^{\mathrm{hard}}(s,b)=\frac{1}{2}r^2𝑑y_1𝑑y_2\chi _{ab}^{\mathrm{soft}}(e^{y_a+y_b},b)\sigma _{\mathrm{hard}}(e^{yy_ay_b},q_0),$$
(13)
where $`y_{1(2)}`$ are the rapidities of the Pomeron end, $`\sigma _{\mathrm{hard}}`$ is the parton interaction cross section, $`r^2`$ is an adjustable parameter associated with parton density and $`C_{ab}`$ is the shower enhancement coefficient . The latter is also fixed to the value of qgsjet in the simulations.

A complete theory of massive KK graviton modes is not yet available, making it impossible to know the exact cross section at asymptotic energies. A simple Born approximation to the elastic cross section leads, without modification, to $`\sigma ^{\mathrm{KK}}s^2`$ . Unmodified, this behavior by itself eventually violates unitarity. This may be seen either by examining the partial waves of this amplitude, or by noting the high energy Regge behavior of an amplitude with exchange of the graviton spin-2 Regge pole: with intercept $`\alpha (0)=2`$, the elastic cross section

$$\frac{d\sigma }{dt}\frac{|A_R(s,t)|^2}{s^2}s^{2\alpha (0)2}s^2,$$
(14)
whereas the total cross section

$$\sigma ^{\mathrm{KK}}\frac{\mathrm{Im}[A_R(0)]}{s}s^{\alpha (0)1}s,$$
(15)
so that eventually $`\sigma _{\mathrm{el}}^{\mathrm{KK}}>\sigma ^{\mathrm{KK}}.`$ Eikonal unitarization schemes modify these behaviors: in the case of the tree amplitudes  the resulting (unitarized) cross section $`\sigma ^{\mathrm{KK}}s,`$ whereas for the single Regge pole exchange amplitude, $`\sigma ^{\mathrm{KK}}\mathrm{ln}^2(s/s_0)`$ . However, the Regge picture of graviton exchange is not yet entirely established: both the (apparently) increasing dominance assumed by successive Regge cuts due to multiple Regge pole exchange , as well as the presence of the zero mass graviton can introduce considerable uncertainty in the eventual energy behavior of the cross section. Hereafter, we work within the unitarization framework and adopt as our cross section

$$\sigma ^{\mathrm{KK}}\frac{4\pi s}{M_{}^4}10^{28}\left(\frac{M_{}}{\mathrm{TeV}}\right)^4\left(\frac{E}{10^{19}\mathrm{eV}}\right)\mathrm{cm}^2.$$
(16)
## 3 Air Shower Simulations

The experimental information obtained at ground level is only indirectly connected to the first few generations of hadrons. Consequently, the study of the influence of KK-modes on hadronic interactions with c.m. energies $`s^{1/2}>100`$ TeV, requires correctly simulating the intrinsic fluctuations in the air showers.

Let us first discuss in a very general way the possible effects introduced by virtual graviton exchange. The survival probability $`N`$ at atmospheric depth $`X`$ of a particle $`a`$ with mean free path

$$\lambda _a=\frac{m_{\mathrm{air}}}{\sigma _{a\mathrm{air}}},$$
(17)
is given by

$$N(X)=e^{X/\lambda _a},$$
(18)
where $`m_{\mathrm{air}}`$ is the mass of an average atom of air , and the cross sections $`\sigma _{a\mathrm{air}}`$ inferred from Eq. (16) are shown in Fig. 1. It is straightforward to see that the total thickness of the atmosphere corresponds to more than 20 hadronic interaction lengths, depending on the primary zenith angle. The key feature in the evolution of the shower is the branching between decay and interaction of secondary hadrons along their path in the atmosphere. The latter strongly depends both on particle energy and target density.

Because of the low air density at the top of the atmosphere the point of the first interaction fluctuates considerably from shower to shower. However, KK-graviton exchange significantly reduces the nucleon attenuation length, e.g., at $`3\times 10^{20}`$ eV, $`\lambda _p^441`$ g/cm2, whereas $`\lambda _p^{(4+n)}38`$ g/cm2. Moreover, tiny deviations on the mean free path of non-leading secondaries yield a small change in the shower interaction length. Namely, the survival probability of a secondary pion (say $`E=5\times 10^{19}`$ eV) at $`X=40`$ g/cm2 is reduced from 43% to 41%, and that of a kaon with the same energy from 30% to 29%. Therefore, one can – perhaps naïvely – state that phenomenological models considering the virtual exchange of graviton towers would trigger, on average, earlier shower developments than a naked “soft semi-hard” scenario.

Test simulations runs of giant air shower evolution have been performed, choosing typical parameters for the experimental situation at the Fly’s Eye and Auger experiments . The algorithms of aires (version 2.1.1)  were slightly modified so as to track the particles in the atmosphere via the standard 8 parameter function,

$$\lambda _a=P_1\frac{1+P_2u+P_3u^2+P_4u^3}{1+P_5u+P_6u^2+P_7u^3+P_8u^4}\mathrm{g}\mathrm{cm}^2,$$
(19)
where $`u=\mathrm{ln}E`$ \[GeV\] and the coefficients $`P_i`$ are listed in Table 1. The hadronization algorithm that translates the parton strings produced during the scattering process into ordinary particles, remains the same.

In the simulation, several sets of protons with $`E=3\times 10^{20}`$ eV were injected at 100 km above sea level (a.s.l.). The sample was uniformly spread in the interval of 0 to 50 zenith angle at the top of the atmosphere. All shower particles with energies above the following thresholds were tracked: 750 keV for gammas, 900 keV for electrons and positrons, 10 MeV for muons, 60 MeV for mesons and 120 MeV for nucleons. The results of these simulations were processed with the help of the aires analysis package.

The atmospheric depth $`X_{\mathrm{max}}`$ at which the shower reaches its maximum number of secondary particles is the standard observable to describe the speed of the shower development. The charged multiplicity, essentially electrons and positrons, is used to determine the number of charged particles and the location of the shower maximum by means of 4-parameter fits to the Gaisser-Hillas function ,

$$N^{\mathrm{ch}}(X)=N_{\mathrm{max}}^{\mathrm{ch}}\left(\frac{XX_0}{X_{\mathrm{max}}X_0}\right)^{[(X_{\mathrm{max}}X_0)/\lambda ]}\mathrm{exp}\left\{\frac{X_{\mathrm{max}}X}{\lambda }\right\},XX_0,$$
(20)
where $`X_{\mathrm{max}}`$, $`N_{\mathrm{max}}^{\mathrm{ch}}`$, $`\lambda `$, and $`X_0`$ are the free parameters to be adjusted . Shown in Fig. 2 are the resultant $`X_{\mathrm{max}}`$ distributions of proton showers with $`3\times 10^{20}`$ eV and primary zenith angle 43.9.111This is the primary zenith angle of the Fly’s Eye event . The tails ($`X_{\mathrm{max}}>900`$ g/cm2) of these distributions were fitted with exponentials ($`\alpha e^{\beta X_{\mathrm{max}}}`$), floating both the normalisation $`\alpha `$ and the exponent in the fit. The resulting parameters are: $`\beta =2.6\pm 0.1\times 10^2`$ cm2/g for the 4-dimensional case, and $`\beta =2.9\pm 0.1\times 10^2`$ cm2/g for the $`(4+n)`$-dimensional case. A statistically significant difference between the two approaches arises in the tail of the distribution. This is because the depth of such penetrating showers increasingly reflects that of the first interaction . Results of the fits to the $`X_{\mathrm{max}}`$ distributions generated by applying progressively less restricted data cuts (distances near the peak) lead to exponential slopes that within the error are consistent with one another.

In Fig. 3 we show the longitudinal developments of proton showers superimposed over the experimental data of the world’s highest energy cosmic ray shower observed to date . We selected from our shower sample those with a primary zenith angle of $`43.9^{}`$, setting the observation level at 850 m a.s.l and with geomagnetic field specific for the Fly’s Eye site. Although at the same total energy a shower that takes into account the virtual graviton exchange develops faster than that modelled with unmodified qgsjet, as expected from our previous analysis, the differences in the position of $`X_{\mathrm{max}}`$ fall within the errors. However, there are visible deviations in the evolution of the charged multiplicity. To estimate the amount of departure from the standard 4-dimensional scenario we analyzed the data by means of a $`\chi ^2`$ test . We assume that the set of measured values by Fly’s Eye are uncorrelated (any depth measurement is independent of any other), and make use of the quantity

$$\chi ^2\underset{j=1}{\overset{q}{}}\frac{|x_j\alpha _j|^2}{\sigma _{x_j}^2},$$
(21)
where $`q`$ is the total number of points in the analysis, $`\sigma _{x_j}`$ is the error on the $`x_j`$th coordinate, $`x_j`$ is the measured value of the coordinate, and $`\alpha _j`$ the (hypothetical) true value of the coordinate. The obtained results are $`\chi _4^2/\mathrm{DOF}=324.89/12`$, $`\chi _{(4+n)}^2/\mathrm{DOF}=200.52/12`$. If in the future the situation should arise that one can be confident that the hadronic interactions are correctly modeled, then it will be necessary to carry out a more sophisticated statistical analysis which, for example, accounts for the non-Gaussian distributions.

It is also interesting to inspect whether KK graviton exchange has any influence on the particle densities at ground level. A summary of the ground lateral distributions of proton showers at vertical incidence ($`E=3\times 10^{20}`$ eV) is reported in Table 2. Here, the ground array was located at 875 g/cm2 and the magnetic field was set to reproduce that prevailing upon the Auger experiment. The ratio between the mean density of charged particles $`\rho _{\mathrm{ch}}^4/\rho _{\mathrm{ch}}^{(4+n)}`$ is a monotonically decreasing function of the distance to the shower core $`R`$. Nevertheless, one should note that within the error limits the ratio, $`\rho _j^4/\rho _j^{(4+n)}`$ ($`j=\mu ^\pm ,e^\pm ,\gamma `$, all charged particles), is always consistent with 1. Thus, we deduce that the possible signatures of KK emission are entirely hidden when the shower front reaches the ground. Furthermore, the competition of decay and interaction of the first generations of mesons propagating in a medium with varying density profile, is of particular relevance in the indirect analysis of data collected by ground arrays. As can be seen in Fig. 4, the ratio $`\rho _j^4/\rho _j^{(4+n)}`$ would generally depend on the primary zenith angle.

Putting all this together, KK-graviton exchange offers a viable mechanism to reduce by around 6% the mean free path of ultra high energy ($`E>5\times 10^{19}`$ eV) hadrons in the atmosphere.

## 4 Conclusion

Theories with large compact dimensions and TeV-scale quantum gravity represent a radical departure from previous fundamental particle physics. If these scenarii have some truth, the scattering phenomenology above collider energies would be quite distinct from SM expectations. In particular, the exchange of KK towers of gravitons leads to a modification of SM hadronic cross sections at $`s^{1/2}>100`$ TeV. Extremely high energy cosmic rays that impinge on stationary nucleons at the top of the atmosphere start chain reactions where the c.m. energy can be as high as 500 TeV. It is therefore instructive to explore KK exchange sensitivity within the entire average profile of the air shower. In this paper we have contributed a few results to this question. We have shown that the exchange of KK gravitons could affect the rate of development of atmospheric cascades initiated by protons. For primary energies above $`3\times 10^{20}`$ eV, the effects are statistically significant and can thus be observed by fluorescence detectors . We have also proved that the footprints left by the $`(4+n)`$-dimensional gravitons become washed out as the shower front gets closer to the ground and, in general, cannot be traced back with surface array data. The details of our analysis should be treated with some caution since they may be sensitive to the hadronic interaction model used. The overall conclusion, however, should remain the same.

## Acknowledgments

This work was partially supported by CONICET (Argentina) and the National Science Foundation.


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# A new method to study lattice QCD at finite temperature and chemical potential

## 1 Introduction

Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) at finite temperature ($`T`$) and/or chemical potential ($`\mu `$) is of fundamental importance, since it describes relevant features of particle physics in the early universe, in neutron stars and in heavy ion collisions. According to the standard picture, as baryon density rises there is a change from a state dominated by hadrons –protons and neutrons– to a state dominated by partons –quarks and gluons. In addition, recently a particularly interesting, rich phase structure has been conjectured for QCD at finite $`T`$ and $`\mu `$ . Of immediate interest is the existence and the location of the critical point in the $`T`$-$`\mu `$ plane in three-flavor QCD, since it can be explored by heavy-ion experiments. Clearly, the transition from hadronic to partonic (or to superconducting/superfluid) state is a fully non-perturbative phenomenon.

Lattice gauge theory is a reliable systematic technique to study the non-perturbative features of QCD. QCD at finite $`\mu `$ can be formulated on the lattice ; however, standard Monte-Carlo techniques can not be used at $`\mu 0`$. The reason is that for non-vanishing real $`\mu `$ the functional measure –thus, the determinant of the Euclidean Dirac operator– is complex. This fact spoils any Monte-Carlo technique based on importance sampling.

Several suggestions were studied in detail to solve the problem. We list a few of them.

In the large gauge coupling limit a monomer-dimer algorithm was used . For small gauge coupling an attractive approach is the “Glasgow method”  in which the partition function is expanded in powers of $`\mathrm{exp}(\mu /T)`$ by using an ensemble of configurations weighted by the $`\mu `$=0 action. After collecting more than 20 million configurations only unphysical results were obtained: a premature onset transition. The reason is that the $`\mu `$=0 ensemble does not overlap sufficiently with the finite density states of interest. Another possibility is to separate the absolute value and the phase of the fermionic determinant and use the former to generate configurations and the latter in observables .

At imaginary $`\mu `$ the measure remains positive and standard Monte Carlo techniques apply. The grand canonical partition function can be obtained by a Fourier transform . In this technique the dominant source of errors is the Fourier transform rather than the poor overlap. One can also use the fact that the partition function away from the transition line should be an analytic function of $`\mu `$, and the fit for imaginary $`\mu `$ values could be analytically continued to real values of $`\mu `$ . At T sufficiently above the transition, both real and imaginary $`\mu `$ can be studied by dimensionally reducing QCD . Hamiltonian formulation may also help studying the problem . One can study adjoint matter and color superconductivity in two-color QCD . Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model was also used as an effective theory for strong interactions . It has also been proposed to consider a $`\mu `$ for isospin rather than for baryon number . Another approach avoids the sign problem by using cluster algorithms, in which negative against positive contributions are cancelled .

We propose a method –an overlap improving multi-parameter reweighting technique– to reduce the overlap problem of the Glasgow method and determine the phase diagram in the $`T`$-$`\mu `$ plane. (Note, that a similar technique was successful for determining the phase diagram of the hot electroweak plasma  e.g. on four-dimensional lattices, for which the applicability of a single-parameter reweighting was poor.)

We study the system (say four-dimensional QCD with dynamical fermions) at $`\mathrm{Re}(\mu )`$=0 around its transition point. Using a Glasgow-type technique we calculate the determinants for each configuration for a set of $`\mu `$, which, similarly to the Ferrenberg-Swendsen method , can be used for reweighting. Using the average plaquette values of the individual configurations for these partition functions an additional Ferrenberg-Swendsen  reweighting can be done in the other parameter, thus in $`\beta `$, too. For Re($`\mu `$)$``$0 and/or Im($`\beta `$)$``$0 significant cancellations of the complex phases appear, but exactly this feature is used in the determination of the zeros of the partition functions (Z), when looking for the transition point. Simultaneously reweighting in the two parameters $`\mu `$ and $`\beta `$ we can keep the system on the transition line, which can be controlled e.g. by the inspection of the Lee-Yang zeros  of Z at complex $`\beta `$. (Note, that the idea of performing a reweighting near the QCD critical line was already suggested in ). This technique gives a good overlap with the original transition-like states. In principle any other parameter can be used for this type of reweighting.

We test this method and illustrate its success compared to the Glasgow method. We present the exploratory results for the $`\mu `$-T phase diagram of the dynamical $`n_f`$=4 staggered QCD. Simulations were done on $`L_t=4`$ lattices of $`4^4`$ and $`46^3`$. We estimate the phase diagram in physical units using the $`\rho `$ mass ($`m_\rho `$) as the definition of the scale.

Due to the small lattices and large spacings our estimate has systematic uncertainties, which can be reduced by approaching the continuum limit. The study of this limit is clearly not the goal of the present Letter.

The Letter is organised as follows. Section II. presents the overlap ensuring multi-parameter reweighting technique. Section III. illustrates the applicability of the technique using $`n_f`$=4 dynamical QCD and gives the phase diagram in physical units. We conclude in Section IV.

## 2 Overlap improving multi-parameter reweighting

Let us study a generic system of fermions $`\psi `$ and bosons $`\varphi `$, where the fermion Lagrange density is $`\overline{\psi }M(\varphi )\psi `$. Integrating over the Grassmann fields one gets:

$$Z(\alpha )=𝒟\varphi \mathrm{exp}[S_{bos}(\alpha ,\varphi )]detM(\varphi ,\alpha ),$$
(1)
where $`\alpha `$ denotes a set of parameters of the Lagrangian. Eg. in the case of QCD with staggered quarks $`\alpha `$ consists of $`\beta `$, the quark mass ($`m_q`$) and $`\mu `$ (which is included as $`\mathrm{exp}(\mu )`$ and $`\mathrm{exp}(\mu )`$ multiplicative factors of the forward and backward timelike links, respectively). For some choice of the parameters $`\alpha `$=$`\alpha _0`$ importance sampling can be carried out (e.g. for Re($`\mu `$)=0). Rewriting eq. (1) one obtains

$`Z(\alpha )={\displaystyle 𝒟\varphi \mathrm{exp}[S_{bos}(\alpha _0,\varphi )]detM(\varphi ,\alpha _0)}`$
$`\left\{\mathrm{exp}[S_{bos}(\alpha ,\varphi )+S_{bos}(\alpha _0,\varphi )]{\displaystyle \frac{detM(\varphi ,\alpha )}{detM(\varphi ,\alpha _0)}}\right\}.`$ (2)
Now we treat the terms in the curly bracket as an observable –which is measured on each independent configuration– and the rest as the measure. It is well known that changing only one parameter of the set $`\alpha _0`$ the ensemble generated at $`\alpha _0`$ provides an accurate value for some observables only for very high statistics. This is ensured by important but rare fluctuations as the mismatched measure occasionally sampled the regions where the integrand is large. This is the so-called overlap problem. Note however, that we have several parameters and the set $`\alpha `$ can be adjusted to $`\alpha _0`$ to ensure much better overlap than obtained by varying only one, single parameter. Since the calculation of the determinants is expensive the most straightforward way to obtain a good overlap is to fix the parameters of the matrix M and adjust the parameters which appear only in the bosonic action (in other words perform a Ferrenberg-Swendsen reweighting based on the bosonic part of the curly bracket).

By simulating at a given set of bosonic couplings and using Ferrenberg-Swendsen reweighting we can get information on the system at other values of the couplings, even for complex ones. At finite volumes Z($`\alpha `$) has zeros –thus the free energy singularities– for complex values of these couplings. Standard finite size scaling techniques can be used to analyse the volume dependence of the Lee-Yang zeros. When looking for these zeros we use reweighting for some bosonic couplings. Simultaneously changing two –or more– parameters we can ensure that the system is reweighted along a transition line. This can be monitored by inspecting the Lee-Yang zeros of $`Z`$.

## 3 Illustration: $`n_f`$=4 dynamical QCD results

For the case of lattice QCD at nonvanishing $`\mu `$ the above idea can be applied as follows. We will use two parameter reweighting, namely reweighting in $`\beta `$ and $`\mu `$. One performs the simulations at some $`\beta ,m`$ and $`\mu `$ with $`\mathrm{Re}(\mu )`$=0 (note that purely imaginary $`\mu `$ can be directly simulated). For each independent gauge configuration one calculates the average value of the plaquettes and the ratio of the determinants $`detM(\mu ^{})/detM(\mu ;\mathrm{Re}(\mu )=0)`$. For each $`\mu ^{}`$ some $`\delta \beta `$ can be used to reweight with the measured plaquette values. By this way a much better overlap can be ensured than by reweighting only in $`\mu `$ (Glasgow method).

We have tested these ideas in four-flavor QCD with $`m_q`$=0.05 dynamical staggered quarks. The molecular dynamics Monte-Carlo code of the MILC collaboration was used . We checked that the determinants were calculated on independent configurations. Our statistical errors were obtained by a jackknife analysis.

In order to directly check the applicability of our method we first collected 1200 independent V=4$`6^3`$ configurations at Re($`\mu `$)=Im($`\mu `$)=0 and used the Glasgow-reweighting and also our technique to study Re($`\mu `$)=0, Im($`\mu `$)$``$0. For our method we used the transition $`\beta `$ (5.040) to generate the configurations, while for the Glasgow method $`\beta `$=5.085 was used. At Re($`\mu `$)=0, Im($`\mu `$)$``$0 and at $`\beta `$=5.085 direct simulations are possible. After performing these direct simulations as well, a clear comparison can be done. Figure 1 shows the predictions of the three methods for the quark condensate. The prediction of our method is in complete agreement with the direct results, whereas the predicition of the Glasgow-method is by several standard deviations off. Figure 1 indicates that the two-parameter reweighting is far more trustworthy than the single parameter one. Note, that imaginary chemical potential is a useful check on the proposed method, though it is different from a real chemical potential in biasing the ensemble towards non-zero baryon density.

Based on these experiences we expect that our method is superior also at Re($`\mu `$)$``$0.

Next we study the physical Re($`\mu `$)$``$0 case. In order to have a better overlap and to check further the applicability of our reweighting technique we carried out simulations on $`4^4`$ lattices at four different imaginary $`\mu `$ values $`\mathrm{Im}(\mu )`$=0,0.1,0.2,0.3. The results obtained by the different runs are in complete agreement after reweighting. In the following we use our largest sample generated at $`\mathrm{Im}(\mu )`$=0. On this smaller V we used 13000 independent configurations. On the $`46^3`$ lattice $`\mathrm{Im}(\mu )`$=0 was used with 1200 independent configurations. The runs were carried out at the transition $`\beta `$ values at $`\mathrm{Re}(\mu )`$=0.

Let us illustrate that we are really at a transition point for nonvanishing $`\mu `$=0.3. Figure 2 shows the reweighted Polyakov-line and chiral condensate as a function of $`\beta `$. Furthermore, we check the correctness of our Lee-Yang reweighting approach by showing the structure of a histogram. As it can be seen the turning point (indicating the coexistence of the two phases, thus the transition) is at $`\beta `$=4.94. At $`\mu `$=0.3 the histogram method predicts a equal-weight double-peak stucture at $`\beta _c`$=4.939(5), which is in complete agreement wit the prediction of the Lee-Yang zero technique (see later).

Table 1. gives the real parts of the Lee-Yang zeros. Only zeros with the smallest imaginary parts are listed. The real parts of these zeros are usually used as a definition of the transition $`\beta `$ at finite V. (Note, that the V$`\mathrm{}`$ limit of the imaginary parts tells the order of the transition, cf. .) Based on V=$`4^4`$ and $`46^3`$ we estimated the V$`\mathrm{}`$ limit by $`1/V`$ scaling. The critical $`\beta `$ in this limit is used to transform the results to physical units.

It is of particular interest to determine the phase diagram of QCD on the $`T`$-$`\mu `$ plane. Though the lattices we used are absurdly small and the spacing is quite large, it is illustrative to transform $`\beta `$, $`m_q`$ and $`\mu `$ into physical units. Several parameters can be chosen to fix the scale, they give quite different values at our $`\beta `$ couplings. In the present analysis we fixed the scale by $`m_\rho `$=770 MeV. For small $`\beta `$ values, studied by the present paper, $`m_\rho `$ can be obtained by interpolating between the strong coupling regime  and the early measurements . Figure 3 shows the phase diagram in physical units. The errorbars indicate the statistical uncertainties reached on our sample of only $`𝒪(10^310^4)`$ configurations. Note, that $`L_t`$=4 lattices with the above definition of the scale restrict $`T`$ to be larger than approximately 100 MeV (for clarity we used this value at the origin).

## 4 Conclusions, outlook

We proposed a method –an overlap improving multi-parameter reweighting technique– to numerically study non-zero $`\mu `$ and determine the phase diagram in the $`T`$-$`\mu `$ plane. We applied this technique for $`n_f`$=4 QCD with dynamical staggered quarks. We showed that for Im($`\mu `$)$``$0 the predictions of our method are in complete agreement with the direct simulations, whereas the Glasgow method suffers from the well-known overlap problem. Based on rather small statistics we were able to determine the critical gauge couplings as a function of the real chemical potential, which result was transformed into physical units.

In this exploratory study we concentrated on the transition line separating the two phases. Clearly, the same technique can be applied to $`T`$-$`\mu `$ values somewhat below or above the line, for which the configurations should be collected at an appropriately chosen $`\beta `$ –below or above the transition one– and at $`\mathrm{Re}(\mu )`$=0.

Note, that the factor in curly braces in (2) is of order $`\mathrm{exp}[V\delta ]`$, with $`\delta `$, of course, dependent on the parameters $`\alpha `$ and $`\alpha _0`$ and the configuration $`\varphi `$. Making $`\delta `$ small by a judicious choice of $`\alpha _0`$ seems to work reasonably well at finite temperature. Nevertheless, there are two apparent limitations of the method. For large enough volumes the reweighting factor will always be exponentially suppressed, and at zero temperature $`\delta `$ is larger than at finite T, thus the method most probably can not be applied to locate the transition at T=0.

Our method can be easily applied to any number of Wilson fermions, whereas for $`n_f`$=2 or $`n_f`$=2+1 staggered fermions the situation is more complicated due to the ambiguity of the roots of the determinants .

Note, that the present reweighting does not provide a general solution to the sign problem in QCD, but could be useful to locate the critical point of QCD, for which we are interested in a relatively small $`\mu `$ and high T region of the phase diagram and may get away with relatively small volumes. Another application is to determine the curvature of the phase diagram .

We thank F. Csikor and I. Montvay for useful discussions and comments on the manuscript. This work was partially supported by Hungarian Science Foundation grants No. OTKA-T37615/T34980/T29803/T22929/M28413-37071/OM-MU-708/IKTA111NIIF. This work was in part based on the MILC collaboration’s public lattice gauge theory code: http://physics.indiana.edu/~sg/milc.html.


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# Radio flares and plasmon size in Cygnus X-3

## 1 Introduction

The energetic X-ray binary Cygnus X-3 has been studied in great detail since its discovery in 1967 (Giacconi et al. 1967). It is an active source with measurements in the radio, sub-mm, infrared, X-ray and gamma-rays all of which indicate a highly variable source.

Following infrared spectroscopic measurements (van Kerkwijk et al. 1992; Fender, Hanson & Pooley 1999), the accepted morphology of Cyg X-3 is a compact object in orbit around a Wolf-Rayet star of the WN4-5 type. A measured infrared and X-ray orbital period for the binary of 4.8 hr indicates a very compact system $`(10\mathrm{R}_{})`$ within which a large degree of interaction takes place. The proximity of a compact object to a star with a strong wind provides both accretion onto the compact object, but also a medium of varying optical depth through which jets, formed from accreted material, must travel. Any emission from the jets cannot be observed directly until the wind becomes optically thin to the radiation in the jets. This creates a time-lag between radiation at different frequencies in the jet (typically radio and sub-mm emission) and between jet and central infrared and X-ray emission.

One can use the different radiation regimes to investigate different properties of the system. For example, the low-frequency radiation at radio and sub-mm frequencies comes from synchrotron emitting electrons in the jets, and this has been used by Ogley et al. (in prep.) to obtain an upper-limit to the magnetic field in the jets of 260 $`\mu `$T (2.60 G) at 100 $`\mathrm{R}_{\mathrm{}}`$ from the core. As one observes higher frequencies, the emission changes from synchrotron to thermal free-free, which now comes from the wind in the system and not the jets. An example of the wind emission observed by the ISO satellite is given in Ogley, Bell Burnell & Fender (2001), and a complete spectrum showing the different emission mechanisms from radio to infrared is given in Ogley et al. (in prep.) Fig. 6. However, a thorough investigation using a single radiation regime can also provide a great deal of information.

The accretion process is not constant, but is probably variable in both density and mass-transfer rate. This causes a change in the number of electrons which are available for acceleration in the jet, which alters the synchrotron luminosity. Radio photometry monitors the change in jet emission following a change in the Wolf–Rayet state and three distinct states of emission in the unresolved core of the system have been identified (Waltman et al. 1995):

1. For the majority of the time the system is in a quiescent radio state with GHz flux densities around 100 mJy.
2. Once or twice a year the system undergoes a major flare. The radio flux density increases by 10-100 times on a timescale of around a day. A major flare is very energetic and lasts for days or weeks, exponentially decaying back to quiescence. Identified immediately before a major flare is a period of quenching during which the flux density drops to around 10 mJy and remains at this lower value for up to a week.
3. An intermediate state exists between the high flux of a major flare ( $`>`$ 1 Jy) and the normal quiescent flux of 100 mJy. This is the state of minor flaring and can last for several weeks. During a minor flare state, the system can undergo multiple short-duration flares and is highly active.

Continuous monitoring determines the radio state of Cyg X-3, and allows detailed investigation of the jet mechanism and structure during these different states.

## 2 The radio observations

Daily radio monitoring was carried out using the Ryle Telescope in Cambridge and the Green Bank Interferometer (GBI) in West Virginia. These observatories provided photometry at 2.3 and 8.3 GHz (GBI) and 15 GHz (Ryle). Identification of a minor flare in 1996 November triggered a set of interferometric observations using the MERLIN array. The MERLIN observations were scheduled at C-band (5 GHz) with 6 epochs of 12 hours in duration each separated by one week. The aim of these observations was to map the emission from a plasmon as it travelled from the centre of the binary, as observed by Newell (1995). At a frequency of 5 GHz a plasmon at 10 kpc, travelling at a speed of 0.35 $`c`$ in the plane of the sky, would separate from the core at one MERLIN beam-width per epoch $`(50\mathrm{mas})`$. This jet velocity, taken from the apparent transverse motion measured by Spencer et al. (1986) represents a lower-limit to the separation per epoch. Other measurements have indicated higher velocities of components close to the plane of the sky ($`0.6c`$ from Martí et al. (2000) and $`0.8c`$ from Mioduszewski et al. (2000)). These larger apparent velocities would therefore yield greater separations per MERLIN epoch.

Fig. 1 shows the radio photometry from the Ryle telescope at 15 GHz which was used as a trigger for the MERLIN observations. Cyg X-3 was in quiescence until MJD111In this paper we use the definition of modified Julian date to be MJD = JD $``$ 2 400 000.5, so integer values of MJD fall on 0000 UT. 50400 when it underwent a mild quenching period (flux around 50 mJy). Shortly after the quenching, a minor flare occurred on MJD 50407 which signalled the start of a minor flare period. Subsequent minor flares occurred at random times after this date.

Observations were taken using the standard 5 GHz MERLIN continuum setup. A 15 MHz bandwidth was used for observations of the target source Cygnus X-3, a phase calibrator source 2005+403, a flux calibrator 3C84, and a point source calibrator, either OQ 208 or 0552+398. To calibrate the flux easily, observation of a point source of known flux is required. However, on the longer MERLIN baselines all the point sources are variable in flux, and all the constant flux sources are resolved. One has to observe a point source over all baselines and calibrate the flux scale by measurements of a source of known flux using the short baselines only. Details of this calibration procedure are given in the MERLIN user’s guide, Thomasson et al. (1993) and Ogley (1998).

The source and observational details for all the epochs are given in Table 1.

The times of the MERLIN observations are shown in Fig. 2 together with Ryle photometry at 15 GHz around the same time. The MERLIN observations are indicated by the arrows.

## 3 MERLIN photometry

Because of the variable nature of the source at the time of the MERLIN observations, a robust map of the source is almost impossible to obtain. Variations in observed amplitude can be due to two things: a variable core; or emission away from the phase centre. To reconstruct an image, the assumption that any variation in the fringe amplitude with hour angle is due to the interferometer response to the source structure only is made. However, this is violated if the source varies within the time needed for aperture synthesis. For our observations, a direct reconstruction of the source results in many artifacts including jet-like emission from a central core. The variability of the source is shown in Fig. 3 which plots the measured flux against baseline length or $`uv`$ spacing. One can see that the source is highly variable over all baseline distances and no accurate reconstruction of the source brightness distribution can be obtained.

The plot shown in Fig. 3 does allow some quantative evaluation. A resolved source would show a decrease in measured flux with increasing $`uv`$ spacing, whereas during a flare the measured flux is approximately constant over all $`uv`$ separations. In Fig. 3 the measured flux is high at the longest baselines suggesting that the source is unresolved. A source that is unresolved at a $`uv`$ spacing of 3.5 M$`\lambda `$ at 5 GHz has an angular size of less than 70 mas. This is consistent with a scatter-broadened size of Cygnus X-3, which has a strong dependence on frequency (Wilkinson, Narayan & Spencer 1994) and has been measured at 5 GHz to be $`2030`$ mas (Mioduszewski et al. 2000).

For these observations the success of the MERLIN array is not in its imaging capabilities, but its photometry. Figs 4-9 show photometry for all six C-band epochs. Note that in these figures the vertical scales vary and the zero is not included. Vertical lines in all these figures indicate the time at which X-ray minimum occurs using the ephermeris by Matz et al. (1996).

Data have been averaged into time bins of 2.0-4.0 minute duration to reduce noise and all baselines have been used.

A number of features are visible in the plots. Points to note in the data are:

1. In all but the first four hours of the MJD 50445 (28 December 1996) observation, the flux is variable on timescales shorter than a couple of hours. This causes problems in the mapping as discussed above.
2. A number of flares occurred, however, the timescales involved are not constant or correlated with flare strength or length of time in quiescence preceding a flare.

### 3.1 Power spectra

To search for any periodic signals in the data, photometric points from all six epochs were included and the Fourier spectrum was determined. This is shown in Fig. 10.

The main part of the figure is a direct Fourier transform of the data. The insert is the Fourier transform of the windowing function.

The main transform of the data is the time-domain equivalent of an interferometric dirty map, and the transform of the windowing function is the equivalent of a dirty beam. In the same way as one can re-create a clean map from a dirty map and dirty beam, the power spectrum can be cleaned by an iterative subtraction of the window function (Clark 1980; Roberts, Lehar & Dreher 1987). The result of this procedure is shown in Fig. 11.

To check whether the periods shown in Fig. 11 are spurious, the first three epochs were analysed separately from the last three epochs. The clean spectra are shown in Fig. 12. As there is no correlation between the two halves of the data sets, we can conclude that there are no stable periodicities and any periodicity shown is due to spurious features or quasi-periodic oscillations.

## 4 Discussion

### 4.1 Brightness temperature of the flares

A brightness temperature of a flare can be calculated associated with the flux change from the source. A black body sphere with radius $`r`$, flux $`S_\nu `$, at a distance $`D`$, assuming a Rayleigh-Jeans tail, would have a brightness temperature of

$$T_\mathrm{b}=\frac{c^2S_\nu D^2}{2k_\mathrm{B}\nu ^2r^2}$$
(1)
where $`c`$ is the speed of light, $`k_\mathrm{B}`$ is Boltzmann’s constant and $`\nu `$ is the frequency. Therefore a flare of duration $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ minutes and flux change of $`\mathrm{\Delta }S`$ mJy has a brightness temperature of

$$T_\mathrm{b}=9.66\times 10^{10}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }S_{\mathrm{mJy}}D_{\mathrm{kpc}}^2}{\nu _{\mathrm{GHz}}^2\mathrm{\Delta }t_{\mathrm{min}}^2}\mathrm{K}$$
(2)
where quantities are measured in their subscripted units.

For a typical flare: MJD 50419.56, the flux increase $`\mathrm{\Delta }S=80`$ mJy over $`\mathrm{\Delta }t=46`$ minutes at $`\nu =5`$ GHz. If Cyg X-3 is at a distance of 10 kpc, the brightness temperature is $`T_\mathrm{b}1.5\times 10^{10}`$ K. This value is typical for the majority of flares, including the large flare at MJD 50432. The largest brightness temperature occurred at MJD 50438.6, if the change within 1 integration bin is believable. For this flare the flux change is $`\mathrm{\Delta }S=10`$ mJy over $`\mathrm{\Delta }t=4.0`$ min, and so the brightness temperature is $`T_\mathrm{b}2\times 10^{11}`$ K.

There is a maximum brightness temperature above which inverse Compton losses become catastrophic. This maximum brightness temperature can be written for galactic sources as

$$T_{\mathrm{max}}1.6\times 10^{12}\left(c_{56}^{(\alpha )}\right)^{0.8}\left(\frac{\left(1\alpha \right)}{\nu _U}\left[\frac{\nu _U}{\nu }\right]^\alpha \right)^{0.2}𝒟^{1.2},$$
(3)
where $`\nu _U`$ is the upper frequency of the synchrotron emission in GHz, $`𝒟`$ is the Doppler boosting factor of the emission and $`c_{56}^{(\alpha )}`$ is the $`\alpha `$-dependent parts of the ratio of Pacholczyk constants $`c_5`$ and $`c_6`$ where

$$c_{56}^{(\alpha )}=\frac{3\alpha +5}{6\alpha ^2+19\alpha +13}\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{3\alpha +1}{6}\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{3\alpha +5}{6}\right)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{6\alpha +5}{12}\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{6\alpha +13}{12}\right)}.$$
(4)
(Pacholczyk 1970; Hughes & Miller 1991). For a spectral index of $`\alpha =0.1`$, and $`\nu _U=350`$ GHz (Ogley et al. in prep.), and a frequency of $`\nu =5`$ GHz used in this work, the expression for the maximum brightness temperature evaluates to

$$T_{\mathrm{max}}4.8\times 10^{11}𝒟^{1.2}\mathrm{K}.$$
(5)
An estimation of the bulk Doppler factor of the jets can be inferred from jet expansion. An arcsec-scale measurement (Martí et al. 2000) has shown that at that distance from the core, components are expanding with proper motions of $`\mu _a=10.9`$ mas d-1 and $`\mu _r=9.8`$ mas d-1 for the approaching and receding components respectively. This allows an estimate of the jet bulk velocity and angle to the line of sight to be measured, where

$$\beta \mathrm{cos}\theta =\frac{\mu _a\mu _r}{\mu _a+\mu _r}.$$
(6)
From these observations the authors find $`\beta \mathrm{cos}\theta =0.053\pm 0.027`$, from which they assume a jet velocity of $`\beta =0.60`$ and an angle to the line of sight of $`\theta =85\mathrm{°}`$. If these values are adopted then a Doppler factor of $`𝒟=1.18`$ can be calculated. If the jet speed is increased to $`\beta =0.89`$ as observed in VLBA observations (Mioduszewski et al. 2000), then by using the same value of $`\theta `$, the Doppler factor increase to $`𝒟=2.02`$. Using this range of Doppler factors, the maximum brightness temperature is therefore $`T_{\mathrm{max}}611\times 10^{11}`$ K.

### 4.2 Orbital motion

The effect of the binary’s orbital motion on the observed radio emission from Cyg X-3 is found to be negligible, unlike Cyg X-1 (Brocksopp et al 1999). Reasons why this could be are

* The binary is face on (which is irrespective of the jet angle). Throughout the orbit there is no difference in the amount of material that the jets encounter which would scatter or absorb radiation.
* Radio emission in Cyg X-3 is dominated by optically thin events which occur from a region way outside the orbital diameter, and so any 4.8 h variation, in say particle production or blob ejection, is smoothed out by the time we see it. In Cyg X-1, the radio emission is self-absorbed and is dominated by the high frequencies, this occurring closer to the binary centre.

To quantify this absence of radio emission, each run was Fourier transformed into 100 frequencies with a separation of 0.1 cycles per day. The power spectra were then summed over all the data sets. No significant peak at or around 5 cycles per day ($``$ 4.8 h period) was found in either the individual spectra or in the sum. A 2 $`\sigma `$ upper limit of 15 mJy can be set for the amplitude of any sinusoidal variation in source flux for the average power spectrum. Each daily run was also split into 5 overlapping data sets, transformed and averaged to give an average power sepctrum per run. These showed significantly higher power at low frequencies with a power-law dependence with a typical slope of $`2.4\pm 0.2`$ over the frequency range 4–40 cycles per day. The power law shows that no particular timescale can be assigned to the data.

We have indicated on the figures 49, by vertical lines, the times of X-ray orbital minimum as calculated from the ephemeris of Matz et al. (1996), and one can see that any radio state is equally probable.

### 4.3 Emission position

From the small time-scale variations in the photometric data flares can be identified as originating from a region typically 10 light minutes, or 1.22 AU across. However, it is highly unlikely that this emission occurs close to the centre of the system where the jets are accelerated, as both the jets and the compact object are buried deep within an optically thick, dense stellar wind from the companion star, see Ogley, Bell Burnell, Fender (2001).

The varying opacity to the radiation from the wind creates zones along the jet where radiation at different frequencies dominates, as the surrounding medium becomes optically thin. Radii at which this occurs can be calculated using a modified Wright & Barlow (1975) wind model, a function for the Gaunt factor appropriate for radio wavelengths (Leitherer & Robert 1991) and assuming spherical symmetry. The radius at which emission occurs then depends on only the wind parameters such as composition, temperature and mass-loss rate, as well as the frequency of the observed emission. From the delay of flares at 2.25, 8.3 and 15 GHz during 1991 to 1995, parameters for the mean number of free electrons, $`\gamma =1`$, the RMS ionic charge, $`Z=1`$, the mean atomic weight per nucleon, $`\mu =4`$, the temperature, $`T=20,000`$ and the mass-loss rate, $`\dot{M}=1\times 10^5`$ M yr-1 can be calculated (Waltman et al. 1996). This then simplifies the frequency-dependent radius to

$$R_c=3.28\times 10^3g^{1/3}\nu _{\mathrm{GHz}}^{2/3}\mathrm{R}_{},$$
(7)
where

$$g=9.77+1.27\mathrm{log}\left(2.83\times 10^3\nu _{\mathrm{GHz}}^1\right)$$
(8)
and $`\nu _{\mathrm{GHz}}`$ is the frequency measured in GHz. For a frequency of 5 GHz, the radius at which emission is observed is therefore $`R_c`$ 13 AU. This creates significant layering in the emission from the jets with the higher frequencies occurring closer to the centre (at 350 GHz, emission would occur at only 0.5 AU; see Ogley et al. in prep.). We note that the Waltman et al mass loss rate assumes an expansion velocity of only 0.3c; a higher velocity would give a larger mass loss rate and larger values of $`R_c`$. Furthermore Ogley et al (2001) find a significantly larger mass loss rate from infrared observations, a rate independent of the expansion velocity. Finally we note that the wind may not be spherically symmetric - see Ogley, Bell Burnell, Fender (2001) and Fender, Hanson, Pooley (1999).

## 5 Conclusions

We have observed the X-ray binary Cygnus X-3 with the MERLIN interferometer with the intention of mapping jet components in a period of minor flare activity. We observed for six epochs between 01 December 1996 and 11 January 1997. In all epochs the source showed some degree of variability and consequently we were unable to map the source without the creation of artifacts.

High time-resolution photometric observations show a number of small-flux flares of around an hour in duration, with a large amount of structure. This is typical of a minor-flare period. Power spectra of the data show no persistent periodicities in the data, and no evidence of the orbital period of 4.8 hr.

A measurement of the brightness temperature for the flares show typical values of $`10^9`$-$`10^{10}`$ K, with the largest values occurring over 4 minutes and a brightness temperature of $`2\times 10^{11}`$ K. The flare emission is from a region of typically 10 light minutes across, with a diameter of 1.22 AU. However, to be visible at a frequency of 5 GHz these plasmons would be situated at a distance of 13 AU from the core, assuming a spherical wind.

## 6 Acknowledgments

The Authors wish to thank various MERLIN staff for help with data and analysis. We are grateful for the help given by Tom Muxlow, Simon Garrington and Peter Thomasson for scheduling the observations and giving advice in the data reduction. The authors also wish to thank Duncan Law-Green for his assistance in attempting to map the data. RNO wishes to thank Patrick McGrough and Robin Sanderson for their hospitality during the writing of this paper.

Guy Pooley generously made available the Ryle Telescope data.

The Green Bank Interferometer is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated by the NRAO in support of NASA High Energy Astrophysics programme. MERLIN is a National Facility operated by the University of Manchester on behalf of PPARC.


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# References

In two recent papers , we have studied non-supersymmetric solutions of string theory which represent $`p+1`$-dimensional cosmic defects embedded in a $`D`$-dimensional spacetime. These solutions explicitly realize a possibility that our $`3+1`$-dimensional world can be identified with a cosmic defect (brane) in a higher-dimensional theory, also studied by many authors, for example . The cosmic brane models of Refs.  feature a large hierarchy between the $`D`$\- and $`(D2)`$-dimensional scales induced from non-trivial warp factors in the metric and naturally generated by the string coupling of $`O(1)`$. The space-time metrics considered in these models have been studied before in the literature from a more phenomenological point of view . However, none of the solutions presented in the papers listed above combine large hierarchy and localized gravity.

In this letter, we construct classical string theory solutions by joining the two solutions found in Ref.  into a brane-world model with both naturally localized gravity and large hierarchy. The large hierarchy in our stringy brane-worlds is inherited from the general solutions discussed in Ref. , and is caused by the dynamics of the nontrivial stringy moduli. This large hierarchy is directly related to the exponentially large volume of the transverse space of our solution and can be therefore understood along the lines of . Unlike the solutions of , in which gravity comes from the usual Kaluza-Klein mechanism, the stringy brane-world models described in this letter possess localized gravity due to the existence of a normalizable zero mode, guaranteed by the presence of nontrivial moduli. Thus, it is the nontrivial stringy moduli which induce the simultaneous appearance of localized gravity and large hierarchy on the same world-brane.

The general framework of this letter is that of a higher-dimensional string theory compactified on a Calabi-Yau (complex) $`n`$-fold, some moduli ($`\varphi ^\alpha `$) of which are allowed to vary over (the ‘transversal’) part of the non-compact space. Following Ref. , the effective action describing the coupling of the moduli to gravity of the observable spacetime can be derived by dimensionally reducing the higher dimensional Einstein-Hilbert action . Thus, the relevant part of the low-energy effective $`D`$-dimensional action of the moduli, $`\varphi ^\alpha `$, of the Calabi-Yau $`n`$-fold coupled to gravity reads

$$S_{\mathrm{eff}}=S_0+S_{\mathrm{eff}}^b=\frac{1}{2\kappa ^2}\mathrm{d}^Dx\sqrt{g}(R𝒢_{\alpha \overline{\beta }}g^{\mu \nu }_\mu \varphi ^\alpha _\nu \varphi ^{\overline{\beta }}+\mathrm{})+S_{\mathrm{eff}}^b.$$
(1)
Here $`\mu ,\nu =0,\mathrm{},D1`$, $`2\kappa ^2=16\pi G_N^D`$, where $`G_N^D`$ is the $`D`$-dimensional Newton constant, and $`𝒢_{\alpha \overline{\beta }}`$ is the metric on $`_{\varphi ^\alpha }`$, the space of moduli. We neglect higher derivative terms in this effective action and set the other fields in the theory to zero as in . We also restrict the moduli to depend on $`x_i`$, $`i=D2,D1`$, so that $`_a\varphi =0`$, $`a=0,\mathrm{},D3`$. $`S_{\mathrm{eff}}^b`$ is a purely $`D1`$-dimensional effective action describing the brane world implied by the explicit form of the solution described below. The equations of motion for the moduli are

$$g^{ij}\left(_i_j\varphi ^\alpha +\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\beta \gamma }^\alpha (\varphi ,\overline{\varphi })_i\varphi ^\beta _j\varphi ^\gamma \right)=0,$$
(2)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\beta \gamma }^\alpha `$ is the connection on $`_{\varphi ^\alpha }`$. Note that $`S_{\mathrm{eff}}^b`$ does not depend on the moduli. The Einstein equations are

$$R_{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{2}g_{\mu \nu }R=T_{\mu \nu }(\varphi ,\overline{\varphi })+T_{\mu \nu }^b,$$
(3)
where the energy-momentum tensor of the moduli is

$$T_{\mu \nu }=𝒢_{\alpha \overline{\beta }}\left(_\mu \varphi ^\alpha _\nu \varphi ^{\overline{\beta }}\frac{1}{2}g_{\mu \nu }g^{\rho \sigma }_\rho \varphi ^\alpha _\sigma \varphi ^{\overline{\beta }}\right)$$
(4)
and $`T_{\mu \nu }^b`$ is a delta-function source, as shown below.

We consider a single modulus scenario, $`\varphi ^\alpha =\tau `$, and in particular the axion-dilaton system, $`\tau =\mathrm{a}+ie^\mathrm{\Phi }`$, of the $`D=10`$ Type IIB string theory, in which case $`S_0`$ in (1) describes the bosonic degrees of freedom of Type-IIB supergravity. The explicit solutions for $`\tau `$ exhibit non-trivial $`SL(2,\text{ZZ})`$ monodromy , which ensures this to be a stringy rather than (merely) a supergravity vacuum, and $`𝒢_{\tau \overline{\tau }}=(\tau \overline{\tau })^2`$. With a phenomenologically interesting $`K3`$ compactification of the $`D=10`$ solution in mind (upon which the metric receives $`\alpha ^{}`$ corrections), we continue with the general $`D`$-dimensional setting. The metric that interpolates between the two solutions of Ref. , with $`z=\mathrm{log}(r)`$, is:

$`\mathrm{d}s^2`$ $`=`$ $`A(z)\eta _{ab}\mathrm{d}x^a\mathrm{d}x^b+B(z)\mathrm{d}z^2+B(z)l^2\mathrm{d}\theta ^2,`$ (5)
$`A(z)`$ $`=`$ $`Z^{\frac{2}{D2}},Z(z)\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}1+\mathrm{a}_0|\mathrm{z}|,`$ (6)
$`B(z)`$ $`=`$ $`Z^{\frac{D3}{D2}}e^{\frac{\xi }{a_0}[\beta Z^2]},`$ (7)
Here $`\xi `$, $`a_0`$ and $`\beta `$ are free parameters and $`l`$ sets the length scale , which we will take to be of $`O(M_D^1)`$. The dependence on $`|z|`$ (in place of just $`z`$ in Refs. ) induces the $`\delta `$-function terms in Eq. (3) (with $`\varrho \stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}\frac{\mathrm{D}3}{\mathrm{D}2}2\frac{\xi }{\mathrm{a}_0}`$)

$`\eta _{ab}l^2\left[a_0\xi sign^2(z)Z^{\frac{D1}{D2}}e^{\frac{\xi }{a_0}(\beta Z^2)}e^{\frac{\xi }{a_0}(\beta 1)}a_0\varrho \delta (z)\right]`$ $`=`$ $`T_{ab}+T_{ab}^b,`$ (8)
$`a_0\xi sign^2(z)`$ $`=`$ $`T_{zz}+T_{zz}^b,`$ (9)
$`+a_0\xi sign^2(z)+2a_0\delta (z)`$ $`=`$ $`T_{\theta \theta }+T_{\theta \theta }^b.`$ (10)
Hereafter, we refer to the brane at $`z=0`$ as the brane-world: there, $`sign^2(z)=0`$ and so $`T_{\mu \nu }=0`$ also. On the other hand, the $`\delta `$-function terms in the left-hand side of the Einstein equations (3) are now non-zero and read

$$T_{\mu \nu }^b=l^2\text{diag}[a_0\varrho e^{\frac{\xi }{a_0}(\beta 1)},a_0\varrho e^{\frac{\xi }{a_0}(\beta 1)},\mathrm{},a_0\varrho e^{\frac{\xi }{a_0}(\beta 1)},0,2a_0]\delta (z).$$
(11)
Since $`\tau `$ depends on $`\omega ^28a_0\xi 0`$ , we see that $`\varrho 0`$ and $`sign(T_{00}^b)=sign(a_0)`$ for $`|\xi ||\xi _c|\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}|\frac{2(\mathrm{D}3)}{\mathrm{D}2}\mathrm{a}_0|`$. In particular, $`T_{00}^b0`$ in the $`a_00`$ case, when $`z`$ is restricted between the naked (null) singularities at $`z=\pm 1/a_0`$. When $`\xi =0`$ this form of the stress tensor is similar to that of spatial domain walls , in which the surface energy density, $`\sigma `$, is equal to the surface tension, $`p`$, where $`p`$ is the pressure along the domain wall. In our case, however $`|T_{\theta \theta }^b|>T_{00}^b`$. From this it follows that the weak energy condition holds except for $`T_{\theta \theta }^b`$, i.e., $`T_{\mu \nu }^b\zeta ^\mu \zeta ^\nu <0`$ only for the null vector $`\zeta ^\mu =(1,0,\mathrm{},0,\sqrt{A/B})`$. (For a related discussion of this feature of co-dimension two solutions consult for example .) Still, we will assume that it is possible to associate an effective action for the source at $`z=0`$,

$$S_{\mathrm{eff}}^b=\mathrm{d}^{D2}xdzd\theta \sqrt{g}\delta (z)\lambda ^b,$$
(12)
Equating the $`T_{\mu \nu }^b`$ calculated from (12) with the $`\delta `$-function contribution of the Einstein equations from Eq. (810), we obtain that

$$\lambda a_0l^2e^{\frac{\xi }{a_0}(\beta 1)}|\xi ||\xi _c|.$$
(13)
Note that the vacuum energy which couples to gravity is $`\lambda ^b=\lambda `$. Analogous results hold also in the $`a_0>0,\xi >\xi _c`$ case. However, now $`T_{\mu \nu }^b\zeta ^\mu \zeta ^\nu >0`$ for all null vectors.

We now demonstrate that, for a suitable choice of parameters, both large hierarchy and localized gravity are realized in these brane world solutions!

The large hierarchy between the $`(D2)`$\- and $`D`$-dimensional Planck scales is the same as in Refs. :

$`M_{D2}^{D4}`$ $`=`$ $`M_D^{D2}{\displaystyle _M_{}}dvd\theta \psi _0^2(v)`$ (14)
$`=`$ $`M_D^{D2}{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi l^2}{|a_0|}}e^{\frac{\beta \xi }{a_0}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{a_0}{\xi }}\right)^{\frac{D3}{2(D2)}}\{\begin{array}{cc}\left[\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{D3}{2(D2)}\right)\gamma (\frac{D3}{2(D2)};\frac{\xi }{a_0})\right]\hfill & \text{for }a_0>0\text{,}\hfill \\ & \\ \gamma (\frac{D3}{2(D2)};\frac{\xi }{a_0})\hfill & \text{for }a_0<0\text{.}\hfill \end{array}`$ (15)
where $`M_{}`$ denotes the hyperbolic transverse space . Note that the large hierarchy is controlled by the product of $`\beta `$ and the ratio $`\frac{\xi }{a_0}>0`$, where the positivity of the latter is due to the presence of the non-trivial stringy moduli. It is therefore possible to choose $`\frac{\xi }{a_0}\beta `$, so as to have a large hierarchy between $`M_D`$ and $`M_{D2}`$.

Following the discussion of Randall and Sundrum  we compute the coupling of gravity to the fields on the brane. Writing, $`\overline{g}_{\mu \nu }\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}\mathrm{g}_{\mu \nu }|_{\mathrm{z}=0}`$ for the metric on the brane world, there is a non-trivial contribution from $`\sqrt{g}`$, i.e., $`\sqrt{g}|_{z=0}=\sqrt{\overline{g}}l^2e^{(\beta 1)\xi /a_0}`$. Hence, (12) becomes

$$S_{\mathrm{eff}}^ba_0\mathrm{d}^{D2}xd\theta \sqrt{\overline{g}}^b,$$
(16)
where we have taken into account the tension for the brane world according to Eq. (13). Thus, in contrast to the scenario in  there is no need to rescale the fields, masses, couplings and vevs in $`^b`$, and they retain their fundamental, $`D`$-dimensional value, $`O(M_D)`$. Also, using Eq. (5), the kinetic terms of a typical field, $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$, expand

$$|_\mu \mathrm{\Psi }|^2=|_{}\mathrm{\Psi }|^2+l^2e^{\frac{\xi }{a_0}(\beta 1)}|_{}\mathrm{\Psi }|,$$
(17)
so that the transverse excitations of $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ are exponentially supressed.

To understand the localization of gravity, we look at small gravitational fluctuations $`\delta \eta _{ab}=h_{ab}`$ of the longitudinal part of the metric. From the Einstein equations, $`h_{ab}`$ satisfies a wave equation of the form :

$$\mathrm{}h_{ab}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{g}}_\mu (\sqrt{g}g^{\mu \nu }_\nu h_{ab})=0.$$
(18)
Following  we change coordinates,

$`\mathrm{d}v`$ $`=`$ $`lZ^{\frac{(D1)}{2(D2)}}e^{\frac{\xi }{2a_0}[\beta Z^2]}\mathrm{d}z.`$ (19)
$`\mathrm{d}s^2`$ $`=`$ $`A(v)\eta _{ab}\mathrm{d}x^a\mathrm{d}x^b+A(v)\mathrm{d}v^2+B(v)l^2\mathrm{d}\theta ^2,`$ (20)
The isometries of the metric dictate the following ansatz

$$h_{ab}=ϵ_{ab}e^{ipx}e^{in\theta }\frac{\varphi }{\psi _0},$$
(21)
where

$$\psi _0\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}\sqrt{\mathrm{A}^1\sqrt{\mathrm{g}}}=\sqrt{\mathrm{A}^{\frac{\mathrm{D}3}{2}}\mathrm{B}^{\frac{1}{2}}}=\mathrm{Z}^{\frac{\mathrm{D}3}{4(\mathrm{D}2)}}\mathrm{e}^{\frac{\xi }{4\mathrm{a}_0}[\beta \mathrm{Z}^2]}.$$
(22)
With these variables , Eq. (18) becomes a Schrödinger-like equation:

$$\varphi ^{^{\prime \prime }}+\left(\frac{\psi _0^{^{\prime \prime }}}{\psi _0}+\frac{A}{B}n^2\right)\varphi =m^2\varphi .$$
(23)
For simplicity, we choose $`n=0`$. Integrating Eq. (19) gives

$`vv_0`$ $`=`$ $`sign(z)v_{}\left[\gamma _0^1\gamma (\frac{D3}{4(D2)};\frac{\xi Z^2}{2a_0})1\right],`$
$`v_{}`$ $`=`$ $`\frac{l}{2a_0}e^{\frac{\beta \xi }{2a_0}}\left(\frac{2a_0}{\xi }\right)^{\frac{D3}{4(D2)}}\gamma _0,\gamma _0=\gamma (\frac{D3}{4(D2)};\frac{\xi }{2a_0}).`$ (24)
The change of variables $`zv`$ is single-valued, continuous and smooth across $`z=0`$, and $`sign(z)=sign(vv_0)`$. Owing to the dependence on $`\gamma (a;x)`$, Eq. (24) is not explicitly invertible, obstructing the evaluation of $`\psi _0^{\prime \prime }/\psi _0`$ in Eq. (23). However, in the $`\xi 0`$ limit:

$$\stackrel{~}{v}v_0=sign(z)\stackrel{~}{v}_{}\left[Z^{\frac{D3}{2(D2)}}1\right],\stackrel{~}{v}_{}\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}\frac{2(\mathrm{D}2)}{\mathrm{D}3}\frac{\mathrm{l}}{\mathrm{a}_0},$$
(25)
which is easy to invert explicitly. Hereafter, we set $`v_0=0`$.

Following the procedure described in the appendix of Ref. , the zero-mode wave function can be expressed, in the simpler $`\xi =0`$ case, in terms of $`\stackrel{~}{v}`$:

$$\stackrel{~}{\psi }_0(\stackrel{~}{v})=\sqrt{(1+|\stackrel{~}{v}|/\stackrel{~}{v}_{})}.$$
(26)
The approximate effective potential

$$\stackrel{~}{V}(\stackrel{~}{v})\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}\frac{\stackrel{~}{\psi }_0^{\prime \prime }}{\stackrel{~}{\psi }_0}=\frac{sign^2(\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{v}})}{4(|\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{v}}_{}||\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{v}}|)^2}\frac{1}{|\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{v}}_{}|}\delta (\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{v}})$$
(27)
exhibits a $`\delta `$-function well, which will remain true for small enough $`|\xi /a_0|0`$. By systematically expanding in $`\xi `$, $`\stackrel{~}{V}(\stackrel{~}{v})`$ may be turned into the true effective potential, $`V(v)`$. In particular, for large enough $`|\xi |`$, the sign of the coefficient in front of the $`\delta `$-function changes, and we must then choose $`v_{}>0`$ for a $`\delta `$-function well. Here, we focus on the small-$`|\xi |`$ approximation (27), drop the tildes and defer the analysis of the clearly technically involved large-$`|\xi |`$ case for a more detailed effort . (Equivalently we could consider the case in which $`a_0,\xi >0`$ and expand around $`v_{\mathrm{}}=v(|z|=\mathrm{})`$. One can show that the result is exactly the same as in the situation considered here .)

The Schrödinger equation can now be written as

$$\left[\frac{\mathrm{d}^2}{\mathrm{d}^2v}+\frac{sign^2(v)}{4(|v_{}||v|)^2}+\frac{1}{|v_{}|}\delta (v)\right]\varphi _m=m^2\varphi _m.$$
(28)
Away from $`v=0`$, the general solution of this Schrödinger equation is

$$\varphi _m=a_m\sqrt{|v_{}||v|}J_0\left(m(|v_{}||v|)\right)+b_m\sqrt{|v_{}||v|}Y_0\left(m(|v_{}||v|)\right).$$
(29)
At $`v=0`$, the $`\delta `$-function implies the matching condition

$$\left[2\frac{d\varphi _m}{dv}\frac{1}{|v_{}|}\varphi _m\right]_{v=0}=0.$$
(30)
Evaluating Eq. (29) for small values of $`m`$,

$$\varphi _ma_m\sqrt{|v_{}||v|}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}+b_m\sqrt{|v_{}||v|}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}\mathrm{log}\left(\frac{1}{2}m(|v_{}||v|)\right),$$
(31)
it is clear that Eq. (30) is satisfied only if $`b_m=0`$.

We are left to determine $`a_m`$ such that the normalization integral of $`\varphi _m`$ is $`m`$-independent

$$\varphi _m|\varphi _m=a_m^2_v_{}^v_{}dv(|v_{}||v|)J_0^2(m(|v_{}||v|)).$$
(32)
(Similar results of Eqs. (26-32) hold for $`a_0,\xi >0`$.) Note that this integral can be computed exactly, even though the exact result is not relevant for the following discussion. We now argue that this normalization integral is dominated by the plane wave approximation, i.e.,

$$J_0^2(m|v_{}|)\frac{\mathrm{cos}^2(m|v_{}|\pi /4)}{m|v_{}|},m|v_{}|1.$$
(33)
Strictly speaking, the plane wave approximation breaks down in the $`\xi =0`$ limit for the following reason: The argument of the Bessel function solutions is $`m(|v_{}||v|)`$. If we assume that $`m1/l`$, since $`l`$ is the fundamental length scale in the problem (and the higher dimensional scale), then $`m(|v_{}||v|)|a_0|^1`$. Therefore, it is not possible to approximate the solution in terms of plane waves.

Fortunately, this problem is resolved by the presence of non-trivial moduli, i.e., by $`\xi 0`$, which is necessary for the large hierarchy. In this case we obtain the same general differential equation, except that an explicit expression for $`V(v)`$ is lacking. However, we may replace, in Eq. (7), $`e^{\frac{\xi }{a_0}[\beta Z^2]}e^{\frac{\beta \xi }{a_0}}`$, which is a good approximation near the naked singularities, at $`|z|=|a_0|^1`$. Nevertheless, the result is surprisingly accurate. The zero-mode wave function can be expressed in terms of $`v`$, just as before. Note that $`v_{}`$ now depends on $`\xi `$. The normalization integral for $`\psi _0`$ becomes,

$$\psi _0|\psi _0=2\pi dv|\psi _0|^2=\frac{2(D2)}{D3}\frac{2\pi l^2}{|a_0|}e^{\frac{\beta |\xi |}{|a_0|}}.$$
(34)
When we compare this expression with the exact result (15), the only discrepancy occurs in the power of $`a_0/\xi `$ and the overall $`O(1)`$ numerical factor. Similar arguments apply for the $`\varphi _m`$ when $`\xi 0`$. For the normalization $`\varphi _m|\varphi _m`$ we get,

$$\varphi _m|\varphi _m_{\xi 0}=e^{\frac{\beta |\xi |}{|a_0|}}\varphi _m|\varphi _m_{\xi =0}.$$
(35)
The plane wave approximation is valid for $`\xi 0`$ because $`v_{}l/|a_0|\mathrm{exp}(\frac{\beta |\xi |}{|a_0|})`$ and hence when $`m`$ is large $`mv_{}1`$. Recall that while $`m`$ can be large, it is limited by $`l^1`$. Thus, we can compute $`\varphi _m|\varphi _m`$ by looking at large $`mv_{}`$ for which the Bessel function, $`J_0`$, looks like a plane wave (33). This means that $`\varphi _m|\varphi _ma_m^2m^1v_{}`$. Thus, we have to choose $`a_m\sqrt{m}`$. Since $`v_{}l`$, then $`\varphi _m\sqrt{ml}`$. It is now clear that $`\psi _0lim_{m0}\varphi _m`$, i.e., the presence of non-trivial stringy moduli guarantees the existence of the isolated zero mode, and hence localized gravity at $`z=0`$.

With these facts, the Newton potential has the following form:

$$U(r)M_D^{(D2)}\frac{M_1M_2}{r}\frac{\psi _0^2(0)}{\psi _0|\psi _0}+\underset{m}{}M_D^{(D2)}\frac{M_1M_2}{r}e^{mr}\frac{\varphi _m^2(0)}{\varphi _m|\varphi _m}.$$
(36)
The Newton constant is determined from the first term:

$$G_NM_D^{(D2)}\frac{\psi _0^2(0)}{\psi _0|\psi _0}.$$
(37)
Dimensional analysis implies that the correction to Newton’s potential is

$$\mathrm{}U(r)G_N\frac{M_1M_2}{r}\mathrm{d}(ml)(ml)^2Ne^{mr},$$
(38)
where the integral approximates the large sum over dense modes in Eq. (36). Here $`(ml)^2`$ comes from the integration measure and $`\varphi _m^2(0)`$, and

$$N=\frac{\psi _0|\psi _0}{\varphi _m|\varphi _m}\frac{(\varphi _m^2(0)/m)}{\psi _0^2(0)}.$$
(39)
It can be argued that to leading order in $`m`$, $`N`$ does not depend on $`m`$ and is of $`O(1)`$. The $`m`$ independence follows from the plane wave approximation, which we have argued is valid in the $`\xi 0`$ case. Strictly speaking, higher order correction in $`m`$ give rise to higher order corrections in $`1/r`$ to the Newtonian potential, which are even more suppressed.

Given the form of the normalization $`\varphi _m|\varphi _m`$ from (35) it is possible to compute $`N`$ by looking at the $`\xi =0`$ case as the factor $`\mathrm{exp}(\frac{\beta |\xi |}{|a_0|})`$ gets canceled between the numerator and denominator in (39). Thus, we get that $`NO(1)`$, and so

$$\mathrm{}U(r)G_N\frac{M_1M_2}{r}\frac{l^3}{r^3}.$$
(40)
Note that $`\mathrm{}U(r)`$ does not depend on $`|a_0|`$ since $`NO(1)`$ and the $`|a_0|`$ factors cancel between $`\varphi _m|\varphi _m`$ and $`\psi _0|\psi _0`$. Also, $`\mathrm{}U(r)`$ is a very small correction if, for example, $`M_DTeV`$, since $`l(M_D)^1`$. The Newton potential has only been checked down to $`r_e1\text{mm}10^{12}GeV^1`$, so that $`l/r<l/r_e10^{15}`$.

In conclusion we discuss some stringy aspects of the brane world described in this letter: The general framework of our analysis is that of a higher-dimensional string theory compactified on a Calabi-Yau (complex) $`n`$-fold, some moduli ($`\varphi ^\alpha `$) of which are allowed to vary over (the ‘transversal’) part of the non-compact space. In the uncompactified Type IIB theory, the rôle of space-dependent moduli is played by the axion-dilaton system with $`SL(2,\text{ZZ})`$ monodromy properties very much like in Vafa’s description of F-theory . It is these non-holomorphic and non-trivial moduli that are responsible for the localization of gravity and large hierarchy (the latter being understood along the lines of the scenarios with large extra dimensions ) in the brane world solution discussed in this letter. Generically, our solutions have naked singularities (the resolution of which was discussed in ). Consequently, our solutions do not saturate the BPS bound in general, supersymmetry being broken in the presence of the naked singularities, and can be thought of as a particular example of warped Kaluza-Klein compactifications in string theory. However, as shown in , there exists a limit in which our solution formally becomes supersymmetric. The hyperbolic transverse space degenerates in this case into a cylinder. This supersymmetric limit (as discussed in ) describes a collection of strongly interacting $`D7`$-branes. Upon a $`K3`$ compactification, the product of this $`K3`$ and the transverse cylinder may also be identified with a $`K3`$ fibered Calabi-Yau 3-fold, in the limit where the base $`\mathrm{IP}^1`$ degenerates into the transverse cylinder. The metric in such a limit may be analyzed along the lines in Ref. .

Now, in analogy with Verlinde’s discussion of the origin of the Randall-Sundrum solution from Calabi-Yau compactifications , we might envision a situation in which, after supersymmetry breaking, the form factors in the longitudinal part of the metric and the 2-dimensional part of the Calabi-Yau metric may be well approximated by the warp factors describing our solution. The difficulty here, as opposed to Verlinde’s discussion, is that our solution is explicitly non-supersymmetric. In Verlinde’s discussion the Randall-Sundrum brane world is made of $`D3`$-branes. In our case we unfortunately do not understand the nature of the non-supersymmetric $`3`$-brane obtained after wrapping a distribution of $`7`$-branes on a K3. Thus the discussion becomes even more qualitative.

Acknowledgments: We thank V. Balasubramanian, J. de Boer, C. Johnson, M. Luty, P. Mayr and J. Polchinski for useful discussions. P. B. would like to thank the theory group at SLAC for its hospitality in the final stages of this project. The work of P. B. was supported in part by the US Department of Energy under grant number DE-FG03-84ER40168. T. H. wishes to thank the Caltech-USC Center for Theoretical Physics for its hospitality, and the US Department of Energy for their generous support under grant number DE-FG02-94ER-40854. The work of D. M. was supported in part by the US Department of Energy under grant number DE-FG03-84ER40168.


text:
# Resonance-assisted tunneling in near-integrable systems

\[

## Abstract

Dynamical tunneling between symmetry related invariant tori is studied in the near-integrable regime. Using the kicked Harper model as an illustration, we show that the exponential decay of the wave functions in the classically forbidden region is modified due to coupling processes that are mediated by classical resonances. This mechanism leads to a substantial deviation of the splitting between quasi-degenerate eigenvalues from the purely exponential decrease with $`1/\mathrm{}`$ obtained for the integrable system. A simple semiclassical framework, which takes into account the effect of the resonance substructure on the KAM tori, allows to quantitatively reproduce the behavior of the eigenvalue splittings.

\]

Despite its genuinely quantal character, tunneling is strongly influenced, if not entirely governed, by the structure of the underlying classical phase space . Changing the dynamics from integrable to chaotic substantially modifies the tunnel coupling between two wells, not only if the chaos affects the classical motion within the wells (as considered in ), but also if the destruction of invariant tori is entirely restricted to phase space domains far inside the classically forbidden region.

Consider, for instance, a classical system exhibiting, due to a discrete symmetry, two congruent but separate regular regions. Semiclassical EBK quantization enables one to construct “quasi-modes” within each of these regions (i.e., wave functions fulfilling the Schrödinger equation to all powers of $`\mathrm{}`$), with exactly the same energy for any pair of symmetry related quantized tori. This degeneracy becomes eventually lifted by the non-classical coupling between the quasi-modes, which selects the symmetric and the antisymmetric linear combination of these states as “true” eigenstates of the quantum system.

This “dynamical tunneling” process  arises in both integrable and non-integrable systems, but with substantially different effectiveness. Introducing an appreciable chaotic layer in between the two regular regions significantly enhances the tunnel coupling as compared to the integrable case and induces a huge sensitivity of the coupling with respect to variations of external parameters . This phenomenon was successfully explained by the interaction of the regular quasi-modes with quantum states living semiclassically within the chaotic domain, which, due to their delocalized nature, assist at the connection between these quasi-modes . Based on this picture, random matrix descriptions of the chaotic part of phase space were shown to reproduce the statistical properties of the tunneling rates . Recent wave chaos experiments on optical  and microwave cavities  confirm the relevance of chaos for the tunnel coupling in nonintegrable systems. For the classically forbidden component of the underlying coupling process, however, namely the continuation of the wave function from the quantized torus to the chaos border, a general semiclassical theory is still lacking.

In the present contribution, we shall not tackle this problem directly for strongly mixed dynamics, but consider a simpler situation, namely the nearly integrable regime for which chaos is not appreciably developed. Yet, we shall see that, despite a seemingly “regular” phase space, the tunnel decay of the wave function and the associated coupling rates are non-trivial and cannot be reproduced by an integrable approximation of the dynamics. To explain this, we shall emphasize the role of classical resonances which come into play through two important, but distinct aspects. The first one, the importance of which in this context has already been recognized by Bonci and coworkers , is the existence of level crossings induced by a resonant torus in the semiclassical spectrum. Alone, however, they do not induce any modifications, as they arise also in integrable systems. The second aspect concerns the coupling of near-degenerate levels, which is related to the influence of the destruction of resonant tori on the nearby phase space . The main purpose of this letter is to demonstrate that the combination of these two aspects form the basis of a mechanism which, via the exponentially decaying tail of the eigenstates, controls the tunneling between symmetric islands. At rather large values of $`\mathrm{}`$, this process may imply only one resonance. Deeper in the semiclassical regime, however, several of them are generally involved.

To make things more concrete, we shall illustrate our discussion on a specific, one-dimensional time periodic, example, namely the kicked Harper . Classically, this system is described by the Hamiltonian

$$H=\mathrm{cos}p+\underset{n=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\tau \delta (tn\tau )\mathrm{cos}q$$
(1)
where $`\tau `$ represents the kick period as well as the perturbation strength. Fig. 1(a1) shows the near-integrable classical phase space of the corresponding map for $`\tau =1`$ within the fundamental domain $`\pi q,p\pi `$.

The quantization of the Kicked Harper map is conveniently described by the propagator $`U`$ over one kick period, which is given by the product of the two unitary operators, $`U=\mathrm{exp}\left(i\tau \mathrm{}^1\mathrm{cos}\widehat{p}\right)\mathrm{exp}\left(i\tau \mathrm{}^1\mathrm{cos}\widehat{q}\right)`$, representing the kick and the free propagation between the kicks, respectively. For $`\mathrm{}=2\pi /N`$ with integer $`N`$, the $`2\pi `$ periodicity in $`q`$ and $`p`$ permits writing the eigenfunctions $`\psi `$ as Bloch-like functions in both position and momentum – e.g., by imposing $`\psi (q+2\pi )=\pm \psi (q)`$ and $`\widehat{\psi }(p+2\pi )=\widehat{\psi }(p)`$ with $`\widehat{\psi }`$ the Fourier transform of $`\psi `$. This effectively reduces the eigenvalue problem $`U\psi =\mathrm{e}^{i\phi }\psi `$ to the fundamental domain, yielding, for each particular choice of the periodicity conditions, a finite spectrum with $`N`$ discrete eigenphases $`\phi _n`$.

Fig. 1(a2) shows the probability density of a typical eigenfunction in the near-integrable regime at $`\tau =1`$, for $`\mathrm{}=2\pi /N`$ with $`N=66`$. The wave function corresponds to the 5th excited state within the central regular region around $`(q,p)=(0,0)`$ and is localized on the classical Kolmogorov-Arnold-Moser (KAM) torus with the action $`I_0=\pi /6`$ (boldly marked in Fig. 1). We see that the eigenfunction exhibits the usual oscillatory structure within the torus and decreases exponentially beyond the caustics. However, this tunneling decay is not monotonous, but interrupted by a local “shoulder” at $`q\pm 0.7\pi `$. For smaller $`\mathrm{}`$ the same description applies except that several shoulders usually appear. See, e.g., the 10th excited state for $`N=126`$ in Fig. 1(a3).

The modification in the tunneling tail of the eigenfunctions has appreciable consequences for the eigenphase splitting $`\mathrm{\Delta }\phi _n=|\phi _n^{(+)}\phi _n^{()}|`$ between the “periodic” and the “anti-periodic” state \[defined by $`\psi (q+2\pi )=\pm \psi (q)`$\], which is, in analogy to the energy difference between symmetric and antisymmetric states in double well problems, entirely dominated by the tunneling tails of the wave function. Fig. 2 shows, as a function of $`N=2\pi /\mathrm{}`$, the splittings for the $`n`$th excited states at $`N=6(2n+1)`$, which are all localized on the torus with action $`I_0`$. A clear departure from a purely exponential decay with $`1/\mathrm{}`$, to be expected for integrable dynamics, is observed.

In order to reveal the cause of this perturbation, we expand our wave function in terms of eigenstates of the time-independent Hamiltonian $`\stackrel{~}{H}`$ that is best adapted to the KAM structure of the regular region. This effective Hamiltonian can generally be expressed as an asymptotic series in the perturbation strength $`\tau `$. We use, in our case, a method introduced by Sokolov  and obtain

$$\stackrel{~}{H}=\mathrm{cos}p+\mathrm{cos}q\frac{\tau }{2}\mathrm{sin}p\mathrm{sin}q+O(\tau ^2)$$
(2)
in first order in $`\tau `$. Fig. 1(b1) shows the phase space generated by the integrable approximation $`\stackrel{~}{H}`$ up to the 6th order in $`\tau `$. We see that the KAM tori of the Kicked Harper are well reproduced within the regular region.

Calculating the overlap $`|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_m|\psi _n|`$ between the Kicked Harper eigenstate $`\psi _n`$ and the $`m`$th excited eigenstate of $`\stackrel{~}{H}`$ identifies the structure in the tunneling tail in terms of contributions from the eigenstates of the integrable approximation. In fact, this overlap is, as expected, almost unity at $`m=n`$, decreases rapidly with $`|mn|`$, and exhibits relatively pronounced local maxima for particular highly excited states of $`\stackrel{~}{H}`$. Plotting their probability densities \[dotted lines in Fig. 1(b2,b3)\] clearly confirms that it is the admixture of these particular components which modifies the tunneling decay of $`\psi _n`$.

This “selection rule” suggests a resonance phenomenon as underlying mechanism, principal aspects of which have already been discussed in the literature . The classical phase space of the Kicked Harper map exhibits island chains corresponding to nonlinear resonances between the kick and the unperturbed dynamics, two of which, the $`10`$:$`1`$ and the $`14`$:$`1`$ resonance, are visible in Fig. 1(a1). A $`r`$:$`s`$ resonance, with $`r`$ islands, generates in its neighborhood a periodic perturbation of $`\stackrel{~}{H}`$ and thereby couples $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }_n`$ to $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{n+rk}`$ with integer $`k`$, and it is precisely the combination of these couplings that gives rise to the shoulder structures in the tunneling tail.

To demonstrate that the above interpretation is basically correct, we use a semiclassical description of these couplings between quasi-states to reconstruct the wave function in the tunneling regime and to reproduce the behavior of the fluctuations in the eigenphase splittings. Following the lines of the derivation undertaken by Ozorio de Almeida , we perform our semiclassical study in the action-angle variable representation $`(I,\theta )`$ associated with the integrable dynamics of $`\stackrel{~}{H}`$. In this representation, the Kicked Harper Hamiltonian is written as $`H=H_0(I)+V(I,\theta ,t)`$ with $`H_0(I)\stackrel{~}{H}(p,q)`$ the unperturbed integrable Hamiltonian.

Let us, for the moment, assume that the phase space of the integrable system is perturbed by only one single island chain corresponding to a $`r`$:$`s`$ resonance. Following standard secular perturbation theory , we place ourselves in the co-rotating frame by the transformation $`\theta \widehat{\theta }=\theta 2\pi st/r\tau `$ to the slowly varying angle $`\widehat{\theta }`$. It is then possible to perform a canonical transformation towards new action-angle variables $`(I^{},\widehat{\theta }^{})`$ for which the perturbation $`V`$ is effectively replaced by its time-average $`\overline{V}_{r:s}=(1/r\tau )_0^{r\tau }𝑑tV(I^{},\widehat{\theta }^{}+2\pi st/(r\tau ),t)`$ over $`r`$ kick periods. This yields a time-independent Hamiltonian

$$H_{r:s}H_0(I^{})\frac{2\pi s}{r\tau }I^{}+\overline{V}_{r:s}(I^{},\widehat{\theta }^{}),$$
(3)
for the effective dynamics in the vicinity of the $`r`$:$`s`$ resonance. The potential $`\overline{V}_{r:s}`$ is given by a $`2\pi /r`$ periodic function of $`\widehat{\theta }`$ and can therefore be written as

$$\overline{V}_{r:s}=\underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}V_{r:s}^k\mathrm{cos}(kr\widehat{\theta ^{}}+\xi _k).$$
(4)
In practice, we directly extract the Fourier coefficients $`V_{r:s}^k`$, neglecting their action dependence, from the structure of the separatrix associated with the $`r`$:$`s`$ resonance. In the action-angle variable representation, the functional form $`I_{sep}^{(+)}(\widehat{\theta })`$, $`I_{sep}^{()}(\widehat{\theta })`$ of the “upper” and the “lower” separatrix between the resonance substructure and the KAM domain can be numerically constructed in a straightforward way. From the knowledge of $`H_0(I)`$ and from the condition that $`H_{r:s}(I_{sep}^{(\pm )}(\widehat{\theta }),\widehat{\theta })`$ be independent of $`\widehat{\theta }`$, the coefficients $`V_{r:s}^k`$ are calculated by the Fourier analysis of

$$\overline{V}_{r:s}(\widehat{\theta })+\left[H_0(I)\frac{2\pi sI}{r\tau }\right]_{I=I_{r:s}+\mathrm{\Delta }I_{\mathrm{sep}}(\widehat{\theta })}=\text{const}$$
(5)
with $`I_{r:s}`$ the action at the $`r`$:$`s`$ resonance and $`\mathrm{\Delta }I_{\mathrm{sep}}(\widehat{\theta })=(I_{\mathrm{sep}}^{(+)}(\widehat{\theta })I_{\mathrm{sep}}^{()}(\widehat{\theta }))/2`$ \[using $`I_{r:s}+\mathrm{\Delta }I_{\mathrm{sep}}`$ instead of $`I_{sep}^{(\pm )}`$, we compensate for the error that is introduced by the discrepancy between the $`(I,\widehat{\theta })`$ and the $`(I^{},\widehat{\theta }^{})`$ representation\].

The Kicked Harper eigenstates $`\psi _n`$ can now be explicitly constructed as linear combinations of the eigenstates $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }_n`$ of the integrable Hamiltonian within the framework of the first order perturbation theory, which involves the unperturbed eigenenergies $`\stackrel{~}{E}_n`$ of $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }_n`$ and the matrix elements $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }_n^{}|\overline{V}_{r:s}|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_n`$ of the perturbation $`\overline{V}_{r:s}`$. These matrix elements are directly calculated in the action-angle variable representation $`(I,\widehat{\theta })`$; using Eq. (4) and representing the unperturbed eigenfunctions semiclassically as $`\widehat{\theta }|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_n=\mathrm{exp}(in\widehat{\theta })/\sqrt{2\pi }`$, we obtain \[$`\sigma =\mathrm{sgn}(n^{}n)`$\]

$$\stackrel{~}{\psi }_n^{}|\overline{V}_{r:s}|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_n=\underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{V_{r:s}^k}{2}\delta _{|n^{}n|,kr}\mathrm{exp}(i\sigma \xi _k).$$
(6)
We notice that nonzero couplings arise only between states the quantum numbers of which differ by integer multiples of $`r`$. As a consequence of this selection rule, the perturbative expression for the $`n`$th Kicked Harper eigenstate involves only contributions $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }_n^{}`$ with $`n^{}n=kr`$ for integer $`k`$, and the eigenphase splittings $`\mathrm{\Delta }\phi _n=|\phi _n^{(+)}\phi _n^{()}|`$ between periodic and anti-periodic states are to a very good approximation given by

$`\mathrm{\Delta }\phi _n`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{r:s}^{n,k}\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{~}{\phi }_{n+kr}\text{with}`$ (7)
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{r:s}^{n,k0}`$ $`=`$ $`\left|{\displaystyle \frac{V_{r:s}^k/2}{\stackrel{~}{E}_n\stackrel{~}{E}_{n+kr}+2\pi \mathrm{}sk/\tau }}\right|^2`$ (8)
(and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{r:s}^{n,k=0}1`$). $`\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{~}{\phi }_n=|\stackrel{~}{\phi }_n^{(+)}\stackrel{~}{\phi }_n^{()}|`$ denotes the $`n`$th eigenphase splitting for the integrable Hamiltonian $`\stackrel{~}{H}`$ and can be semiclassically computed using standard WKB techniques for integrable dynamics. In principle, the sum on the r.h.s. of (8) involves all couplings to the states the quantum numbers of which satisfy the selection rule $`n^{}n=kr`$. In practice, it is typically dominated by the contributions with quasi-energies closest to degeneracy in the Floquet spectrum of the kicked system. Such a near-degeneracy occurs if the action of the $`r`$:$`s`$ resonant torus lies close to the arithmetic mean of the classical actions associated with $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }_n`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }_{n+rk}`$, in which case the energy difference $`\stackrel{~}{E}_n\stackrel{~}{E}_{n+km}`$ is determined by the linear approximation of $`\stackrel{~}{H}`$ near the resonant torus, which exhibits constant eigenphase spacing $`2\pi s/r`$.

The dotted line in Fig. 2 shows the semiclassically calculated eigenphase splittings of the states $`\psi _n`$ that are localized on the torus with action $`I_0`$. Below $`N=100`$, only the 10:1 resonance is taken into account. Above $`N=100`$, multiple coupling schemes involving also the 8:1 and 14:1 resonances become important. This, however, does not pose any essential difficulty. Taking into account the effect of each $`r`$:$`s`$ resonance separately, we can recursively apply the mechanism described above for a single resonance, which amounts to generalize Eq. (8) to a multiple sum over products of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{r:s}^{n,k}`$. This sum is again dominated by near-degenerate contributions; for $`N=126`$ for instance \[Fig. 1(a3,b3)\], it is given by $`\mathrm{\Delta }\phi _{10}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{8:1}^{10,2}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{10:1}^{16,1}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{14:1}^{36,1}\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{~}{\phi }_{50}`$.

We see in Fig. 2 that the agreement with the exact quantum result is fairly good, though not perfect. Deviations from the quantum splittings occur due to neglecting the action dependence of the Fourier coefficients $`V_{r:s}^k`$ of the potential (4) and sometimes also due to accidental near-degeneracies of $`\psi _n`$ with states that are associated with the “opposite” regular region centered around $`(q,p)=(\pi ,\pi )`$ beyond the separatrix. Nevertheless, the main features in the fluctuations of the level splittings are well reproduced by our semiclassical description.

In conclusion, we have given a simple prescription how to reproduce the tunneling rate fluctuations in the near-integrable regime by the classical structure of a few important resonances. The effect of a $`r`$:$`s`$ resonance on the tunneling process of a regular eigenstate is twofold. On the one hand, the periodic modulation of the KAM torus structure due to the resonance induces appreciable couplings to higher states that are selected by the periodicity $`r`$ of the island chain. These couplings become, on the other hand, substantially enhanced at near-degeneracies in the quasi-energy spectrum. We have explicitly incorporated this mechanism in a perturbative semiclassical framework which, through simple iteration, is generalized to multiple coupling schemes involving several resonances. As underlying picture, we obtain that each $`r`$:$`s`$ resonance allows the wave function to “hop” from one side of the island chain to the other, with the quantum number changing by integer multiples of $`r`$. For large $`\mathrm{}`$ only one or few resonances with relatively small $`r`$ come into play, whereas for small $`\mathrm{}`$ the tunnel coupling proceeds via a succession of hops over several adjacent island chains, rather than by one single, but longer, classically forbidden event. Comparison with the quantum tunneling rates shows good agreement, and confirms in particular also that contributions from the chaotic part of phase space do not play a role in the near-integrable regime.

Though exemplified only within the Kicked Harper model, we expect that the resonance-assisted coupling phenomenon discussed here represents the fundamental tunneling mechanism for general near-integrable systems. An open and interesting question is to which extent the role of the resonances retains its importance also in strongly mixed regular-chaotic systems where a macroscopic fraction of quantum states is associated with chaotic domains. We believe that at least the “regular” contribution to chaos-assisted tunneling, i.e., the coupling from the torus to the chaos border, is now amenable to straightforward reproduction via the identification of the major resonances inside the regular domain.

We thank E. Bogomoly, O. Bohigas, P. Leboeuf, S. Tomsovic, and A. M. Ozorio de Almeida for helpful and inspiring discussions. PS acknowledges financial support from Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung and DFG. The LPTMS is an “Unité de recherche de l’Université Paris 11 associée au C.N.R.S.”