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# Magnetothemopower study of quasi two-dimensional organic conductor 𝛼-(BEDT-TTF)2KHg(SCN)4

## I Introduction

The ground state of the quasi-two dimensional organic conductor $`\alpha `$-(BEDT-TTF)2KHg(SCN)4 has emerged as one of the more important fundamental problems in the area of synthetic metals. This is due to the highly unusual magnetic field dependent behavior of the low temperature ground state which appears below a transition temperature $`T_p`$ = 8 K. The band calculation and the Fermi surface studymori1  suggest a two dimensional Fermi surface consisting of a quasi-one dimensional electron section and a closed hole pocket as shown in Fig. 1 (a). The density wave formation is believed to originate from the instability of the open orbit at low temperatures, which is followed by Fermi surface reconstructionkartsovnik . This in turn leads to the unusual behavior of this compound at low temperatures and high magnetic fieldkartsovnik2 ; sasaki1 . This ground state is now thought to be related to a charge density wave state where both spin and orbital mechanisms compete, as evidenced by recent studies in tilted magnetic fieldsqualls ; proust . Above 22.5 T an anomaly (called the ”kink field” or $`B_k`$ after its discovery by Osada et al., osada  which appears in various transport-related measurements) occurs, and a new high field electronic state emerges. Recently the observation of critical state-like behavior in the magnetizationharrison1  and susceptibility harrison2  above $`B_k`$ has been reported, which indicates an unusual, highly conductive state which is associated with the Landau level filling fraction. Additional thermodynamic evidence for unusual, hysteretic behavior above $`B_k`$, which is related to the Landau level filling, has also been reported in high field magnetocaloric measurements fortune .

The purpose of the present work has been to probe this novel ground state by thermoelectric power (TEP), which involves measuring the potential difference across a sample in the presence of a thermal gradient, as shown in Fig. 1 (c). In general, the resulting signal (in V/K) has the formmcdonald

$$S=\frac{\pi ^2k_B^2}{3e}T(\frac{d\mathrm{ln}n(E)}{dE}+\frac{d\mathrm{ln}v^2(E)}{dE}+\frac{d\mathrm{ln}\tau (E)}{dE})|_{E=E_\mathrm{F}}$$
(1)
where $`n(E)`$ is the density of the states, $`v(E)`$ is an average charge velocity, and $`\tau (E)`$ is the carrier scattering relaxation time. In addition, we have also measured the Nernst effect for specific sample configurations. This involves the transverse thermopower which is given in the simple approximation by $`S_{xy}=QB(l/d)`$, where $`Q`$ is the Nernst coefficient, $`B`$ is the magnetic field, and $`l/d`$ is the ratio of the distance between the Nernst leads and the sample thickness. We note that ideally, for closed orbits, $`S_{xy}`$ is not sensitive to electron/hole compensation effects, and that it increases linearly with magnetic field. (See discussion below).

Clearly the TEP and Nernst signals can be a complex mixture of phenomena which can be difficult to interpret, unless specific aspects of the system under consideration dominate and/or change dramaticallychaikin . Examples include the case of a conventional metal ($`Sk_B/ek_BT/E_\mathrm{F}`$), a superconductor ($`S=0`$), and the quantum Hall effect ($`S`$ 0 or a finite value depending on the Landau level filling). As we will show in the present case, the TEP probe for $`\alpha `$-(BEDT-TTF)2KHg(SCN)4 is particularly sensitive to the Landau level spectrum, to the gap in the electronic structure, and to the in-plane electronic anisotropy.

In light of the discussion above, we state here the main findings of the present work before the full presentation. First, where comparisons can be made with previous studies (all of which are in-plane, and almost exclusively at low or zero magnetic fields), we find that our results agree in the details of the sensitivity of the thermopower to the anisotropic Fermi surface topology, and with absolute value of the thermopower signals previously reported. In addition, we extend these measurements below $`T_p`$, where the TEP reveals details of the transition into the density wave state. Second, we observe, in the oscillatory METP, quantum oscillations associated with the main closed Fermi surface orbit frequency, and also oscillations associated with Fermi surface reconstruction and anomalous second harmonic signals which result from the density wave ground state. We believe that this is the first detailed study of quantum oscillations in a quasi-two dimensional organic conductor by thermopower methods. Third, the background (non-oscillatory) METP is sensitive to changes in the density wave ground state with magnetic field. This includes the signatures for three changes in the Fermi surface topology, one near 3.75 T, a second above 10 T, and a third above 22.5 T. The first two are associated with magnetic breakdown effects, and the latter is the first order phase transition to the high field state. The temperature-magnetic field phase diagram, based on the METP results, is presented. Fourth, we study in detail for the first time the inter-plane thermopower, which gives additional information about the role of the inter-plane transport mechanism of this material. Finally, in the high field state, we describe the phase relationship between the Nernst signal and the METP signal, which is consistent with theoretical predictions.

## II Background

To our knowledge, no thermopower measurements have been carried out on the $`\alpha `$-(BEDT-TTF)2KHg(SCN)4 material in very high magnetic fields. In 1950’s, a series of calculations were done for high field dependence of magnetotransport properties. It was found that, in the limit of $`\omega _c\tau 1`$ (where $`\omega _c`$ is the cyclotron frequency and $`\tau `$ is the scattering time), asymptotic magnetotranport properties (electrical conductivityLAK , thermal conductivityazbel  and thermopowerBGN ) are highly dependent on the Fermi surface topology and carrier compensation, while they weakly depend on the scattering time and the energy dispersion relations. It was therefore suggested that those measurements would be useful to reveal the Fermi surface topologies.

Due to the complex nature of thermopower signals in anisotropic materials, it is useful to briefly consider previous studies in organic materials, including those at high magnetic fields where field induced phase transitions occur. For consistency in the anisotropic thermopower parameters reported below, we use the following notation: the measured values can be written as $`S_{ij}^\alpha `$, where $`i,j=x`$, $`y`$ or $`z`$, signify that the heat current is applied along a geometrical direction $`j`$ and the thermal emf is measured along a direction $`i`$, and $`\alpha `$ is one of the crystallographic axes along which the heat current is applied. For zero magnetic field, $`S_{ij}^\alpha `$ can be written in the reduced form such as $`S_{xx}^\alpha `$, or simply $`S^\alpha `$.

Mori et al. mori2  performed the first in-plane measurements on $`\alpha `$-(BEDT-TTF)2KHg(SCN)4, where the temperature dependence of $`S^a`$ and $`S^c`$ were found to be consistent with the topology of the hole and the electron bands (see Fig. 1). Here, in general, the TEP is positive when the thermal gradient is parallel to the open orbit sheets (where the closed hole orbits dominate the signal), and negative when the thermal gradient is perpendicular to the open orbit sheets (where the electron orbits are the main contribution). Our results, shown in Fig. 2 (and to be discussed below), are in reasonable agreement with these measurements. This assignment is supported by a simulation of the thermopower, based on Boltzmann transport theory, with the bandwidth parameters as inputmori2 ; mori3 .

Another experiment involving in-plane thermopower has been performed on the 10.4 K organic superconductoryu  $`\kappa `$ \- (BEDT-TTF)2Cu\[N(CN)2\]Br (see also Gartner et al. gartner  and Buravov et al. buravov ). This system also has open and closed orbit Fermi surface bands, and again, the sign of the TEP in the normal state above $`T_c`$ follows the general rule that it is positive when the thermal gradient is parallel to the electron sheets, and negative when perpendicular. Below $`T_c`$, the TEP vanished, as expected for a superconductor in zero magnetic field.

In studies of quasi-one dimensional (Q1D) systems based on the TCNQ charge transfer salts chaikin1 ; chaikin2  and the perylene based compoundsbender , various features of TEP were exhibited. Depending on the species of cations and the temperature range, they show linear temperature dependence, 1/$`T`$ behavior, or temperature independence. The linear decrease of TEP was treated by a simple, single carrier in 1D tight binding band model, where the temperature behavior followed a linear $`T`$ dependence, $`S=2\pi ^2k_B^2T/3eW\mathrm{cos}(\pi /2\rho )/\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi /2\rho )`$. Here $`W`$ is the bandwidth and $`\rho `$ is the number of carriers per site. Below the metal-to-insulator transition, the low temperature behavior followed the 1/$`T`$ form $`S=(k_B/e)[(c1)/(c+1)E_g/2k_BT+3/4\mathrm{ln}(m_e/m_h)]`$ where $`E_g`$ is the gap and $`c`$ is the ratio of the electron to hole mobilities. The temperature independent thermopower with magnitude of $`\pm 60\mu `$V/K was attributed to the spin configuration entropy ($`\pm k_B/e(\mathrm{ln2})`$) in the strong Coulomb potential limit ($`Ut`$) in a quarter filled band.

In the presence of an applied magnetic field, the transverse thermopower (the Nernst effect) may be measured in addition to the normal longitudinal TEP (the Seebeck effect). Logvenov et al. logvenov  have investigated the superconducting states of two $`\kappa `$ \- (BEDT-TTF)2X materials up to 3 T. The results, which showed non-zero TEP values even without magnetic fields, were interpreted in terms of flux motion and the Magnus force (in the case of the Nernst effect). The authors found considerable anisotropy which was attributed to the difference in the electron and hole Fermi surface sections.

The quasi-one dimensional Bechgaard salts, which exhibit spin density wave (SDW) formation have been investigated by TEP and MTEP in some detail. The SDW transition in (TMTSF)2AsF6 at ambient pressure (TSDW= 12 K) has been investigated bondarenko  up to 11.3 T. Hysteretic temperature effects in the thermopower were observed as a function of field direction below TSDW, and the authors speculated about pinning, structural changes, and sub-phases associated with the SDW ground state to describe the data. For systems with magnetic field induced spin density wave states (FISDW), two thermopower studies to 30 T have done on the quasi-one dimensional organic conductor series (TMTSF)2ClO4 yu2  and (TMTSF)2PF6 under pressurekang . In these materials a FISDW transition occurs from a Q1D metallic state to a sequence of SDW states. Both the MTEP and Nernst signals, which bear some relation to the corresponding transport measurements (i.e. longitudinal resistivity $`\rho _{xx}`$ and the Hall effect $`\rho _{xy}`$ respectively), are sensitive to these transitions. As the final FISDW sub-phase is entered at constant field with lower temperatures, the thermopower first rises with an activated (gap-like) behavior, followed by a decrease at lower temperatures deeper in the SDW phase. The behavior is interpreted in terms of collective modes within the SDW phases. Notably, quantum oscillations (the so-called ”rapid oscillations” which are periodic in inverse field) are observed in the thermopower for both materials. These experiments show the usefulness of thermopower measurements to probe ground states that are induced at high magnetic fields.

In this paper, we report thermopower measurement results carried out under high magnetic field and at low temperatures in $`\alpha `$-(BEDT-TTF)2KHg(SCN)4 . The heat current was applied along all three crystallographic axes, and the longitudinal (Seebeck coefficient) and the transverse (Nernst-Ettinghausen effect) thermopower was measured. The asymptotic behaviors of the Seebeck coefficient and the Nernst-Ettinghausen effect suggest that the magnetic breakdown of the closed orbit in the reconstructed Fermi surface are responsible for the observed behavior of magnetothermopower.

## III Experiment

$`\alpha `$-(BEDT-TTF)2KHg(SCN)4 single crystal samples were obtained from the conventional electrochemical crystallization technique. The orientation of crystallographic axes were determined from polarized IR reflection measurements at room temperature. Three different samples from a single batch were used for each three different experimental conditions (heat current $``$ $`a`$-axis, $`c`$-axis or $`b`$-axis). The magnetic field was always applied along the least conducting axis ($`b`$-axis). When the heat current was applied in the most conducting plane ($`ac`$-plane), off-diagonal term of thermopower tensor ($`S_{yx}`$) was also measured simultaneously. The polarity of magnetic field was switched for the measurement of $`S_{yx}`$ to remove spurious components due to the misalignment of the voltage leads. (The alignment of voltage leads for $`S_{xx}`$ measurements was also checked in this manner.) Thermopower measurements were carried out by applying sinusoidal heat currents along a crystallographic axis of the single crystal and measuring thermal emf along the same direction and along the direction rotated by 90 degrees. (see Fig. 1 (c)) The sample was mounted between two quartz blocks, which were heated by sinusoidal heating currents (with oscillation frequency $`f_0`$ = 66 mHz) with $`\pi `$/2 phase difference. The corresponding temperature gradient ($`T`$) and thermal emf with 2$`f_0`$ oscillation frequency were measured. The magnetothermopower of Au lead wires was in situ calibrated by YBa2Cu3O7+δ superconductor. To avoid an ambiguity in determination of $`T`$ under magnetic field, we exploit the reproducibility of $`T`$, which only weakly depends on magnetic field. The procedures of the magnetothermopower measurement method used in this work are detailed elsewhereeschoi .

## IV Results and Discussion

### IV.1 Zero field thermopower

The temperature dependence of zero field thermopower results For $`\alpha `$-(BEDT-TTF)2KHg(SCN)4, along each of the principal axes is shown in Fig. 2, where the inset shows low temperature expansion near $`T_p`$ = 8 K. The in-plane results are in general agreement with previous measurements by Mori et al.mori2 , as discussed in Sect. II. The negative (positive) sign of thermopower along the $`a(c)`$-axis indicates that the Fermi surface is electron (hole)-like along the $`a(c)`$-axis, which corresponds to the Fermi surface as shown in Fig. 1: here, for a thermal gradient along the $`c`$-axis direction, the hole pockets should contribute, whereas for the $`a`$-axis direction, the electron-like open orbits should contribute as well. We note however, that the temperature dependence of the TEP shown in Fig. 2 is non-monotonic. There is a minimum in $`S^c`$ and $`S^a`$ around T = 120 to 150 K .This behavior can be explained by applying the two-dimensional tight binding parameters for this material to the Boltzmann transport equationmori2 ,mori3 .

The inter-plane TEP ($`S^b`$), perpendicular to the conducting planes, which has not been previously measured, shows a monotonic decrease until 35 K, where it changes sign. The positive sign of $`S^b`$ above $`T`$ = 35 K indicates that the hole-like carriers are dominant for the inter-layer transport above $`T`$ = 35 K and the electron-like carriers dominate below that temperature. Clearly, the inter-plane transport shows a distinctly different behavior to that of the in-plane TEP.

From the linear dependence of $`S^c`$ and $`S^b`$ at higher temperature, the density of states per carriers are derived to be 5.3 states/eV for $`S^c`$ and 7.6 states/eV for $`S^b`$. The deviation from the linear dependence in the intermediate temperature range has been treatedmori2 ; mori3  by Mori et al., as mentioned in Sect. II above, as has the peak in $`S^c`$ near 25 K . The peak in $`S^c`$ may arise from the energy-dependent scattering term of Eq. 1, or from the phonon drag effect. The TEP associated with phonon drag results from the electron-phonon coupling. The temperature dependence changes from a $`T^3`$ to a $`T^1`$ behavior chaikin  with increasing temperature. Especially, peak structures at low temperature (typically between $`\theta _D`$/10 and $`\theta _D`$/5, where $`\theta _D`$ is the Debye temperature) are usually attributed to the phonon drag effect, whose temperature dependence in noble metals is quite similar to that of $`S^c`$. Thermopower measurements on the other members of this compound ($`\alpha `$-(BEDT-TTF)2MHg(SCN)4, where M=Tl, Rb, NH4) also showed peak structures at lower temperatures (15 $`20`$ K), which were attributed to the phonon drag effectdemish . Of note is the superconductivity of the NH4 salt, where there is an enhancement of density of states and effective mass (m\* $`2.1m_0`$ for $`\kappa `$-(BEDT-TTF)2NH4Hg(SCN)4 over that of non-superconducting $`\alpha `$-(BEDT-TTF)2KHg(SCN)4 (m\* $`1.5m_0`$)), as pointed out by Mori et al.mori2  However, the origin of enhancement of m\*, which may be due to electron-electron interaction and/or electron-phonon interaction, is not yet clear.

When the heat current is applied perpendicular to the most conducting planes, the 2D band model will not be appropriate without considering the energy dispersion between conducting planes. Since simple mixing of two contributions of $`S^a`$ and $`S^c`$ cannot produce temperature dependence and magnitude of $`S^b`$, it is necessary to find a proper model for inter-plane transport. A straight-forward application of the $`ST/W`$ relationship produces unrealistic values of the $`b`$-axis bandwidth (of order 250 meV), which is known from Fermiology studies to be at least 100 times smaller. At present there is no satisfactory treatment of either the magnetoresistance or the thermopower for the $`b`$-axis transport behavior.

The behavior of the thermopower through the density wave transition ($`T_p`$= 8 K) has also not been previously reported. From the inset of Fig. 2, jumps of thermopower for $`S^a`$ and $`S^c`$ are observed near the metal-density wave transition temperature ($`T_p`$). In the resistance measurements, the change of slope near $`T_p`$ may be attributed to the vanishing conductivity of the open orbit band ($`\sigma _{1D}`$) in parallel with the remaining finite conductivity of closed orbit band ($`\sigma _{2D}`$)brooks . In addition, for thermopower measurements, metallic carriers give a linear $`T`$-dependence while activation over a band gap gives a 1/$`T`$ dependence. Therefore for one type of carrier (either from open orbit or closed orbit) exclusively, $`S^a`$ will diverge below $`T_p`$. Experimentally, there is always the possibility of random diffusion of heat along the sample due to misalignment between heat currents and crystal axes, and also, the total thermopower may involve a mixing of contributions from several bands (especially below $`T_p`$ where the Fermi surface is reconstructed). Nevertheless, we believe that dominant behavior of thermopower in the present case reflects the influence of the heat currents with respect to the topology and orientation of the specific orbits.

When two types of carriers are involved, the total thermopower can be written asmcdonald ,

$$S_{tot}=\frac{\sigma _{1D}S_{1D}+\sigma _{2D}S_{2D}}{\sigma _{1D}+\sigma _{2D}}$$
(2)
Above $`T_p`$, both orbits have metallic conductivity and thermopower; hence the total thermopower shows a linear temperature dependence. But below $`T_p`$, a band gap opens for $`1D`$ band, therefore $`\sigma _{1D}`$ goes to zero exponentially as the temperature decreases, and $`S_{1D}`$ diverges as 1/$`T`$. However, below this temperature, a modified closed orbit band remains, which still gives a metallic thermopower contribution. Consequently, just below the transition temperature, there will be a jump of thermopower, $`\mathrm{\Delta }S`$, from the divergence of $`S_{1D}`$, but this contribution quickly disappears as $`\sigma _{1D}`$ goes to zero.

We may further compare the magnitude of jump of thermopower ($`\mathrm{\Delta }S`$) and that of electronic heat capacity ($`\mathrm{\Delta }C_{el}`$). Since thermopower measures heat carried by a carrier divided by the carrier charge and temperature, $`\mathrm{\Delta }S`$ equals $`\mathrm{\Delta }C_{el}`$/$`e`$. Adding both contributions from $`S^a`$ and $`S^c`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }S`$ is about 1 $`\mu `$V/K, which corresponds to $`\frac{1}{6.24}`$ $`\times 10^{24}`$ J/ K$``$carrier. The reported $`\mathrm{\Delta }C_{el}`$ is about 0.1 J/mol$``$Kkovalev  and 0.25 J/mol$``$Khenning , which are in fair agreement with $`\mathrm{\Delta }S`$. A corresponding change in $`S^b`$ at $`T_p`$ is unclear, if it exists at all (in Fig. 2). This indicates that the phase transition around $`T_p`$ = 8 K occurs predominantly within the in-plane electronic structure.

### IV.2 Magnetothermopower

In Fig. 3, we present the magnetic field dependence of the TEP (i.e. MTEP) for all three crystallographic directions at different, fixed temperatures. To show the field dependence more clearly, some traces are offset from zero as indicated by the dashed lines. The MTEP signal contains two components, the background MTEP which is sensitive to the Fermi surface topology, and the oscillatory MTEP which is a manifestation of the Landau quantization of the closed orbit Fermi surface. To separate the two signals, we show in Fig. 4 the background MTEP data where the oscillatory MTEP has been removed by filtering the total MTEP signal. Finally, the Nernst-Ettinghausen effect at different temperatures is shown in Fig. 5. In all cases the magnetic field is applied along the $`b`$-axis, perpendicular to the $`ac`$ conducting plane.

A similarity between the magnetic field dependence of the thermopower and the resistance can be expected from the Boltzmann transport equations. Indeed we find that the general field-dependence of the MTEP is similar in some respects to that of the magnetoresistancesasaki1 : (1) Below $`T_p`$, the in-plane MTEP shows a broad peak at $`B(=B_A)`$ 10 T. (2) Above the ”kink field” $`B_k`$ at 22.5 T, the field dependence is weak. (3) Quantum oscillations are observed in the MTEP signal associated with the de Haas-van Alphen (dHvA) and Shubnikov - de Haas (SdH) effects (i.e., from Eqn. 1, both thermodynamic and transport properties are involved in the thermopower). The oscillation amplitudes are largest for $`S_{xx}^c`$, and the oscillations are also observed in $`S_{zz}^b`$. (4) The MTEP also shows hysteresis for up and down field sweeps.

Beyond the general comparison between resistivity and MTEP, unique field-dependent features are observed in the MTEP and Nernst signals: (1) For $`S_{xx}^a`$ and $`S_{xx}^c`$, the MTEP exhibits a minimum at $`B=B_{min}`$ after which it rapidly increases up to maximum at $`B=B_A`$. $`B_{min}`$ is also temperature dependent, and decreases with increasing temperature.

(2)For the $`a`$-axis behavior, the Nernst signal $`S_{yx}^a`$ shows a similar field dependence to the MTEP signal $`S_{xx}^a`$ in general, but $`S_{yx}^a`$ is asymptotic to zero above $`B_k`$ for all temperatures measured. In contrast, $`S_{xx}^a`$ is asymptotic to non-zero, temperature dependent values above $`B_k`$.

(3) For the $`c`$-axis behavior, $`S_{yx}^c`$ shows linear field dependence at higher field, which is distinct from the other thermopower coefficients.

(4) For the $`b`$-axis, $`S_{zz}^b`$ exhibits some aspects of $`S_{xx}^a`$ and $`S_{xx}^c`$ mentioned above, which may involve some mixing of the in-plane components.

Fig. 6 shows the temperature dependence of magnetothermopower for fixed magnetic field. As the magnetic field is increased, the transition temperature $`T_p`$, represented as a jump or shoulder in the data, shifts to lower temperature. (For $`S_{zz}^b`$ and $`S_{xx}^c`$ at $`B`$=27 T however, $`T_p`$ could not be resolved.) The temperature-field phase diagram, based exclusively on the field and temperature dependent thermopower data ($`B_{min},B_A,B_K`$, and $`T_p(B)`$), is shown in Fig. 7. The phase diagram is very similar (with the exception of the new $`B_{min}`$ line) to previous determinations by transportsasaki ; biskup , NMRkanoda ; kuhns , magnetizationharrison1 ; christ , and specific heatkartsovnik3 .

#### IV.2.1 Theoretical aspects of high field thermopower measurements

To interpret the origin of the field dependence of the MTEP, it is useful to examine the magnetic field dependence of the thermopower for an anisotropic system. When thermopower is measured under magnetic field, tensor elements of thermopower should be considered since both the temperature gradient and the magnetic field are vectorial. For our experimental conditions (zero electric current and zero transverse heat current), the kinetic equations for thermopower and heat currents can be written as,

$`E_i=\alpha _{ij}T_j,`$ $`(J_q)_i=K_{ij}T_j`$ (3)
where $`E`$ is the electric field produced by the thermal emf, $`\alpha `$ is the thermopower tensor under magnetic field, $`J_q`$ is the heat current, and $`K`$ is the thermal conductivity tensor. We have two different experimental situations.

(a) $`H`$ $``$ $`z`$ axis $``$ $`J_q`$ $``$ $`T_z`$ ($`S_{zz}^b`$ in this paper) : In this case, no Lorentz force is applied so that $`T`$x= $`T`$y = 0, and above equations have simple scalar form,

$`E_z=\alpha _{zz}T_z,`$ $`(J_q)_z=K_{zz}T_z`$ (4)
The measured value $`S_{zz}^b`$ is obtained from $`E_z`$/$`T`$z.

(b) $`H`$ $``$ $`z`$ axis $``$ $`J_q`$ ($`S_{xx}^a`$, $`S_{yx}^a`$, $`S_{xx}^c`$ and $`S_{yx}^c`$ in this paper) : In this case, $`T`$ is not parallel with $`J_q`$, and has a non-zero $`y`$ component given by -$`T`$x$`K_{yx}`$/$`K_{yy}`$. If we rewrite Eq. 3 for this case,

$$\left(\begin{array}{c}E_x\\ E_y\end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\alpha _{xx}& \alpha _{xy}\\ \alpha _{yx}& \alpha _{yy}\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}T_x\\ T_xK_{yx}/K_{yy}\end{array}\right)$$
(5)
In terms of measured values, Eq. 5 can be expressed as,

$`S_{xx}={\displaystyle \frac{E_x}{T_x}}=\alpha _{xx}\alpha _{xy}{\displaystyle \frac{K_{yx}}{K_{yy}}}`$
$`S_{yx}={\displaystyle \frac{E_y}{T_x}}=\alpha _{yx}\alpha _{yy}{\displaystyle \frac{K_{yx}}{K_{yy}}}`$ (6)
The asymptotic behavior of thermoelectric tensor $`\alpha _{ij}`$BGN  and thermal conductivity tensor $`K_{ij}`$azbel  were calculated at low temperature and high magnetic field. They show different behavior for the three different cases, i.e., (a) closed and compensated orbits (b) closed and uncompensated orbits and, (c) open orbits along the $`x`$direction. For each case, the asymptotic behaviors of $`S_{ij}`$ can be calculated and the results are summarized in Table 1.

The saturation values are temperature dependent for each case, and they should be determined by considering the scattering and the dispersion relations.

#### IV.2.2 Comparison of theoretical and experimental MTEP results

We now compare the thermopower data with the theoretical field dependence described above. We focus our attention on the behavior of the $`S^c`$ signal shown in Fig. 3 and 4, since it is significantly larger than the other signals, and it is predominantly hole-like (i.e. positive, and closed orbit-sensitive). We may use as a guide the detailed work by Uji et al. on the Fermiology study of the quantum oscillationsuji , due to closed orbits in the magnetic breakdown network, which have been proposed to describe the Fermi surface topology below $`T_p`$. In this model it is assumed that only small closed orbit pockets exist in the reconstructed Fermi surface below $`T_p`$ near zero magnetic field. As the magnetic field is increased, larger and larger Fermi surface sections become involved in the SdH oscillations as magnetic breakdown becomes more probable. These effects appear experimentally in the SdH measurements: in Figs. 8 and 9 of Ref. , the onset of the SdH oscillations associated with the various magnetic breakdown orbits ($`\alpha `$, $`\varphi `$, etc.) occurs above 3.5 T. At higher fields, above 7 T, the $`\beta `$ orbit associated with the Brillouin zone appears, i.e. magnetic breakdown occurs over most of the Fermi surface. Finally, above the kink field, the original Fermi surface topology (as in Fig. 1) re-emerges.

In light of the above, our first point of comparison is the behavior of $`B_{min}`$. For $`S^c`$, and indeed in all MTEP directions, there is a distinct change in the signal above $`B_{min}`$ from a relatively flat response to a pronounced increase in slope (approximately linear) with field. This behavior is entirely consistent with the theoretical model above for a set of closed, compensated orbits.

At higher fields, above $`B_A`$, the compensated closed orbit behavior of $`S^c`$ changes dramatically, and this indicates that the magnetic breakdown network of closed orbits is undergoing modification with increasing field. By comparison with the theory above, we may speculate that this is the onset of uncompensated closed orbit behavior, which exhibits less (eventually no) field dependence.

Finally, above the kink field, the original, uncompensated closed orbit FS is realized, and the field dependence disappears, as is evident from the $`S^c`$ data. Above $`B_K`$, we may compare the temperature dependence of $`S^c`$ with those at zero field above $`T_p`$ (See Fig. 6). Except for field dependent offsets, the thermopower above $`T_p(B)`$ for the three directions is similar, save for the case of $`S^b`$ which is anomalous, even in the absence of field.

Beyond this simple comparison of the most dominant MTEP signal with previous SdH studies and theoretical expectations, the assignment the mechanisms responsible for the magnetic field dependence of $`S^a`$ and $`S^b`$ are more speculative. This is due to the apparent mixing of terms in the experimental data, and to sort them out is beyond the scope of the present work. However, the Nernst data shows significant difference for the $`a`$ and $`c`$ axes ($`S_{yx}^a`$ and $`S_{yx}^c`$). This is most apparent above $`B_k`$, where the original FS is expected to be recovered. Here $`S_{yx}^a`$ is seen to be asymptotic to zero (i.e. $`H^1`$ dependence), whilst $`S_{yx}^c`$ clearly assumes a linear (i.e. H1) dependence. This behavior is consistent with expectations based on the theory represented in Table 1.

#### IV.2.3 MTEP and Landau quantization

From Eq. 1, it is clear that for a quasi-two dimensional Fermi surface, the magnetic field dependence of the Landau level spectrumLK  will produce quantum oscillations in the thermopower, which will originate from both thermodynamic and electron transport factors. The latter has been treated by Zil’bermanzilberman  and Long et al. long  where scattering between states of the Landau level closest to the Fermi surface and states of other occupied are considered. We find in our results a clear indication of the Landau level spectrum in the MTEP and Nernst data, the periodicity of which is in good agreement with previous SdH and dHvA measurementswosnitza . In particular, the oscillation frequency obtained from the fast Fourier transform (FFT) analysis of $`S_{xx}^c`$ and $`S_{yx}^c`$ at 0.7 K (see Fig. 8) is about 667 T, which agrees with results obtained from other measurementsuji . This comparison also includes the observation of higher harmonics of the fundamental $`\alpha `$ orbit, and even the $`\varphi `$ orbit (180 T) which is expected to be a manifestation of the magnetic breakdown topology below $`B_k`$. (See for instance Uji et al.uji ).

An important feature of our results, most evident above $`B_k`$, is a phase difference between the METP and Nernst quantum oscillations. This is shown in Fig. 9 for two different cases, the $`a`$-, and $`c`$-axes. Indeed, Zil’berman’s modelzilberman ; long  predicts a phase difference of $`\pi `$ between the MTEP and Nernst oscillations. We show this more explicitly for $`S_{xx}^c`$ and$`S_{yx}^c`$ at $`T`$=0.7 K in Fig. 10 , with the angle ($`\theta `$) defined as the ratio of the electric fields due to transverse and longitudinal thermopower ($`\theta `$=arctan ($`S_{yx}/S_{xx}`$)= arctan($`E_y/E_x`$). The phase difference is $`\pi `$, which supports Zil’berman’s modelzilberman .

Zil’berman’s model also predicts similar field and temperature dependence of oscillation amplitude with that of the Lifschitz-Kosevich formula for de Haas-van Alphen oscillations. The amplitude of thermopower oscillation increases when $`B_A<B<B_k`$, but it is almost field independent above $`B_k`$. We note that in this range of temperature, the quantum oscillation amplitude is complicated due to the anomalous high field state, where the dHvA and SdH behave in a significantly different manner, and a comparison based on standard LK theory is not applicable. A more systematic study of the MTEP and Nernst effects above $`B_k`$ vs temperature, and also vs. field orientation, will be necessary to provide a complete picture.

## V Conclusion

We have applied the method of magnetothermopower to investigate the low temperature, magnetic field dependent phase of the anisotropic organic conductor $`\alpha `$-(BEDT-TTF)2KHg(SCN)4. Our results show that the sensitivity of thermopower to anisotropic Fermi surface topologies may be extended to the study of systems where temperature and magnetic field alter these topologies. The most significant results of the present investigation include the determination of the low temperature phase diagram of $`\alpha `$-(BEDT-TTF)2KHg(SCN)4, based purely on thermopower measurements, the study of the onset of magnetic breakdown effects via the magnetothermopower, and the measurement of quantum oscillations in the magnetothermopower and Nernst effect, which are in accord with theoretical expectations.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was carried out at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, which is funded by a cooperative agreement between the National Science Foundation and the State of Florida through NSF-DMR 00-84173. JSB acknowledges support from NSF-DMR-99-71474 for this work, and ESC acknowledges post-doctoral support from KOSEF.


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# Brane World Astronomy

## I Unified Theory

The Standard Model of strong, weak and electromagnetic interactions includes all the forms of mass-energy so far observed in nature, other than gravity. It is based on a relativistic quantum field theory of interacting fermion and boson fields, with forces arising from Yang-Mills vector gauge fields, propagating in a 3+1-dimensional spacetime. Gravity is formulated in a completely different way, using General Relativity, as a classical theory of dynamical spacetime itself: “Spacetime tells mass-energy how to move, and mass-energy tells spacetime how to curve.”

Even though there is no direct inconsistency or disagreement of these theories with experiment or with each other, there is widespread dissatisfaction with the inelegance of this dualistic situation. It is suspected by those who believe in the unity of the natural world that there might be a single unified theory, derivable from simple principles of symmetry, which will appear in an appropriate mathematical limit as the Standard Model fields propagating in a General Relativistic spacetime.

Major steps have been taken recently in the construction of a unified theory; one can cite several triumphs of a theoretical nature, such as the ability to count precisely the quantum mechanical degrees of freedom of spacetime itself in certain special black hole spacetimes horowitz . We may now also have observed riess ; perlmutter ; suntzeff  the first real-world phenomenon which specifically calls upon new quantum-gravity unification physics outside of “Standard Model Plus GR”: the Cosmological Constant (or “Dark Energy”). Thus there is real hope that the Theory of Everything may become a real, testable physical theory. However it is not clear how to complete the most important step, connecting the fundamental theory to the real world which is so well described by “Standard Model Plus GR.” The current best candidate for a Theory of Everything, “M theory”, is formulated in ten spatial dimensions instead of three, and has no direct, distinctive connections with any real-world experiment.

Recent developments in M theory suggest that there may be an intermediate level of structure associated with dimensional reduction, which has spawned a wide variety of proposed designs for new “Brane World” models arkanihierarchy ; antoniadas ; arkaniphenom ; randallsundrum1 ; randallsundrum2 ; lykkenrandall ; karchrandall ; sundrum : In these models, the fields of the Standard Model are confined to an approximately three-dimensional wall or “brane” imbedded in an extended ten-dimensional space or “bulk”, which is described by adding extra dimensions to General Relativity. The brane has a thickness smaller than the TeV scale of current particle experiments, while the extra dimensions of the bulk can be as large as the $`10^2`$eV scale of current gravity experiments. This paper is a brief overview of brane worlds and some new effects they might produce in astrophysics.

Brane world models aim to short-cut the connection between fundamental theory and phenomena. They introduce a kind of “effective theory” as a conceptual bridge— a parametrized model broadly motivated by structures in the fundamental theory, which can be used to calculate new phenomena at low energy. Although it is not clear that this strategy will work in the long run, it has certainly broken a logjam in thinking and has spawned many intriguing new theoretical predictions and experimental tests.

## II  extra dimensions

Direct detailed data from accelerators confirm the 3+1-dimensional behavior of Standard Model quantum fields directly to the current experimental energies of about 100 GeV, and with some modest extrapolation to about 1 TeV. That is, any effects of a fourth spatial dimension had better not appear in particle interactions unless it is on a length scale much smaller than $`(1\mathrm{TeV})^1`$.

The ideas wilczek ; weinberg  of the logarithmic running of couplings in standard supersymmetric grand unification (SUSY GUTs) suggest an extension to much higher energies. Renormalization group calculations allow extrapolation of the observed strong, weak and electromagnetic couplings as a function of energy; the three curves intersect at the supersymmetric grand unification scale, around $`10^{16}`$ GeV. This nontrivial intersection, which has been confirmed by increasingly precise accelerator experiments, is often cited as evidence for the unification scheme. In SUSY GUTs, the Standard Model structure including 3+1-D field theory is preserved up to this much higher energy scale.

The limits on the dimensionality of gravity are much weaker. Gauss’ law tells us that the gravitational force falls off as $`r^{1N_s}`$ where $`N_s`$ is the total number of spatial dimensions. Experimentsadelberger  (motivated in part by brane world models) now confirm Newton’s inverse square law (and hence $`N_s=3`$) from astronomical scales down to hair’s-width distances of about 250$`\mu `$m. This submillimeter scale is is however still vastly larger than those probed by the Standard Model fields; 0.3 mm corresponds to an energy of about 0.003 eV.

The “Cosmological Constant Problem” may be related to effects of extra dimensions. One way to state this problem (there are many) begins with the observation that the zero point fluctuations of Standard Model quantum fields on a given scale $`E`$, if they couple to gravity, correspond to a gravitating vacuum energy density of magnitude $`E^4`$. The observed vacuum energy (or Dark Energy) density is about equal to the critical density of the universe, which is about $`(10^2\mathrm{eV})^4`$. But the success of the Standard Model requires the presence of the field fluctuations at least up to TeV scales. (Above that energy, it is possible for fermion and boson contributions to cancel exactly due to supersymmetry. Below that energy, we know that the system is not supersymmetric in today’s vacuum). As presently formulated, the theory requires an offset of the zero energy level of the vacuum magically tuned to a precision of $`17\times 4`$ orders of magnitude.

If for some reason the coupling of gravity to zero point modes were strongly suppressed above $`10^2\mathrm{eV}`$, the gravitating energy of the vacuum would come out about right. The corresponding length scale, 0.1mm, lies just below the current experimental tests for gravitational coupling, but will become accessible with the next generation experiments. (Note that the predictions of the brane worlds with extra dimensions on these scales, which are discussed below, naitvely have the wrong sign to solve the cosmological constant problem, since with $`N_s>3`$ the gravitational force increases faster than $`r^2`$ on small scales).

A coincidence worth mentioning is that the gravitational timescale associated with matter at an energy density of $`\rho (\mathrm{TeV})^4`$ is $`(G\rho )^{1/2}1mm/c`$. This coincidence is important in cosmology because it means that the uncertainty associated with the possible geometrical effects of gravity propagating in extra dimensions start at about the same place as the uncertainties associated with the possible new physics beyond the TeV scale. If there is indeed new physics at the 0.1mm scale responsible for the cosmological constant, then this also would explain the coincidence between the age of the universe when the cosmological constant starts to dominate the mass-energy (that is, about now), and the typical lifetimes of stars; that is, there may be a derivable reason why $`\rho _{vacuum}M_{Planck}^4(M_{proton}/M_{Planck})^6`$.

Aside from the cosmological constant, there is the corresponding Hierarchy Problem in particle physics itself: if the fundamental scale is $`10^{19}`$ GeV, how is the “light” TeV scale preserved in all orders of all interactions? (Related to this: what is the origin of Large Numbers of astrophysics, which derive from the large ratio $`m_{Planck}/m_{proton}`$?) The traditional approach is to invoke supersymmetry above the TeV scale to preserve the hierarchy, and to explain the large numbers as due to the logarithmically running couplings. In some of the new schemes however, the Planck scale is a kind of illusion; physics is fundamentally different above the $`10`$ TeV scale, which is the only fundamental scale in the theory. The large numbers in these schemes arise from taking modest numbers to large powers; the gravitational force in ten dimensional space falls off as $`r^9`$!

## III  extra dimensions in unified theory

The candidate Theory of Everything, sometimes called M theory (or supersymmetric superstring theory, or matrix theory, etc., depending on the limit and the context), consistently includes both quantum mechanics and general relativity, and possibly includes the Standard Model. It provides a framework for computing statistically the entropy of certain black holes from first principles. A hallmark of the theory is a formal melding and blurring of the distinction between string (and particle) degrees of freedom, and geometrical degrees of freedom. Powerful dualities are exploited to show the equivalence of different formulations and between large and small scales and strong and weak coupling limits. In spite of the fluid character of the ideas, one central property seems to become more firmly established with time: the theory exists only in 10 fundamental spatial dimensions.

The central idea for dealing with the 7 “extra” dimensions is “compactification”: we are unaware of the extra dimensions because they are much smaller than the three normal large space dimensions. For example, a three dimensional tube can appear two dimensional if its walls are thin enough, and even one dimensional if it is long and thin enough. As the above remarks indicate, the size of the extra dimensions for Standard Model field propagation must be smaller than $`(\mathrm{TeV})^1`$, and smaller than $`(10^{16}\mathrm{GeV})^1`$ if SUSY GUT ideas are right.

The idea of compactification was investigated by Kaluza and Klein in the 1920’s as a way to unify gravity and electromagnetism. They showed the geometrodynamics of an additional very small dimension could appear at low energies as an electromagnetic field tensor. Extra dimensions lead to new predicted degrees of freedom in fields— for example an intrinsically massless field creates a “Kaluza- Klein tower” of new, effectively massive excitations corresponding to harmonics of states propagating around the short new directions. Altough traditionally the extra dimensions and new effects associated with M-theory have generally been assumed to happen close to the Planck scale, this is not neccesarily the case; the most notable result of brane world models is that the extra dimensions may be very large, possibly even infinite in extent.

M-theory is known to contain structures that offer suggestive clues to compactification. Features called branes appear which have lower dimensionality than the whole space. They form sites where the fundamental objects, one dimensional strings, can terminate, suggesting that in a low energy theory the gauge interactions may be confined to a lower dimensional surface embedded in the ten dimensional space. Branes are often thought of as classical, defect- or soliton-like structures resembling cosmic domain walls, with a surface tension and an internal vacuum energy larger than that in the surrounding higher dimensional background space. (Since the latter can be negative, the background space can be a higher-dimensional Anti-de Sitter solution even though our universe has a positive energy density). New types of excitations, corresponding to degrees of freedom such as displacement of the brane in the higher dimensions, correspond to propagating modes and new types of particles that might be observed.

One of the most spectacular discoveries in unification theory is Maldacena’s AdS5/CFT correspondence: $`N=4`$ supergravity in extended 5D Anti-deSitter space is exactly equivalent to a conformal field theory on its 4D boundary, which can be regarded as just ordinary Minkowski space. Here is a concrete example of a quantum gravity theory with all the richness associated with fields in five dimensions, all the details of which map onto the behavior of a conformal field theory in the standard 4D spacetimewitten .

A related earlier idea called “holography” was inspired by the thermodynamics and information content of black holes. The conjecture is that all 3D fields are actually encoded by some theory acting on a 2D surface. We know that black hole entropy is given by a constant times the surface area of its (two-dimensional) event horizon. This means that a finite (indeed countable) amount of data on a two-dimensional surface (roughly, a few bytes per Planck area) must suffice to specify everything going on in the three-dimensional volume of space within it. The holography conjecture is that this applies to the whole universe— that three-dimensional space in some sense is an illusion, that the actual behavior is in some more fundamental sense two dimensional.

## IV brane worlds

Brane worlds start with the idea that the familiar Standard Model fields are confined to a wall or “brane”. This structure has three large dimensions but a thickness TeV-1 or smaller in the other dimensions. Gravity on the other hand can propagate much farther into one or more larger dimensions (called the “bulk”). The brane can be thought of as a stable classical defect embedded in a highly symmetric space of more dimensions, usually Anti-deSitter. Within this framework there are many options.

In some models, one or two extra dimensions can be of surprisingly large sizearkanihierarchy ; antoniadas ; arkaniphenom , as they are only constrained by the direct experimental gravitational probes of the order of a few hundred microns. Most of the “large” extra dimensions however must be much smaller than this. Elaborations of brane worlds have been explored; for example, some have multiple branes which interact gravitationally. In others, there are different branes for different Standard Model fermion fields, with bosons allowed to travel in the bulk between them.

In one interesting class of brane-world models (“nonfactorizable geometries”, randallsundrum1 ; randallsundrum2 ; lykkenrandall ; karchrandall ), the extra dimensions can be even larger, but the larger embedding space is highly curved, which traps gravitons in a bound state close to a brane. (Such geometries are said to have a “warp factor” (!)). The curvature radius of higher-dimensional (e.g. Anti-deSitter) space is again on a mesoscopic scale, which may be as large as $`0.2`$ mm. Macroscopic black holes can be pictured as thin pancakes stuck to the brane, with only three large dimensions. The AdS space is Poincaré invariant and is itself a stable solution, so the setup is dynamically self-consistent, the kind of structure which might develop naturally from a defect in fields in higher dimensions.

The apparent (usual) Planck mass in 3+1D, $`M_{Planck}`$, is related to the true fundamental scale $`M_{}`$ by $`M_{Planck}^2M_{}^2(M_{}^nV_n)`$ where $`V_n`$ is the volume of $`n`$ extra dimensions (larger than $`M_{}^1`$) in which gravity propagates. Thus if there is one extra dimension much larger than the others, the mm limits from gravity experiments require a unification scale $`M_{}=10^6`$TeV or larger. If there are two extra large dimensions the mm limits give $`M_{}`$ close to the TeV scale. If we try to solve the hierarchy problem with a single $`M_{}`$ not too far above the TeV scale, this can be accomplished for $`n2`$ by choosing suitable extra dimension sizes; for 7 equally large extra dimensions, we might have gravity propagating in ten dimensions, seven of which have size $`b10^{10}`$ mm. The range of options for a simple model with $`n`$ extra bulk dimensions of the same size $`b_0`$ is illustrated in figure 1.

An interesting result is that the unification implied by the running-together of Standard Model coupling constants can still work in brane-world scenarios, but the three gauge couplings come together at a much reduced energy Dienes:1998qh ; Dienes:1999vg . With the addition of extra dimensions for the gauge fields (as well as gravity), the renormalization of the fields produces a power-law dependence of coupling on energy (like gravity always had), so that they run together in a rather modest range of energy. For example, if the brane has a width in a single extra dimension of TeV-1 then at higher energy the Standard Model couplings rapidly converge and meet in a point at about 20 TeV. This is regarded as less elegant than the parameter-free running-together of SUSY at the $`10^{16}`$ GeV GUT scale but it may be the way nature works. These schemes thus hold out the attractive possibility of a unification scheme, even including gravity, with just one scale; it is even possible that we might find full quantum gravity effects accessible at the level of the next-generation accelerators. The famous “Desert” and the Planck scale, which have shaped so much discussion in the past, may be mirages.

## V brane astronomy

The new fields and particles of these models might appear at accelerators in various manifestations. Some of these appear as “normal” new particle effects, such as excitation of Nambu-Goldstone modes of brane oscillations which would show up with the same signatures of missing energy and momentum as a weakly interacting scalar particle, or radion modes which might appear with signatures resembling (if not identical with) a Higgs scalar. Other possibilities include quirky signatures, such as multiple, evenly-spaced events produced as a particle traveling in the bulk punches periodically through the 3-brane. Null results in laboratory searches for measurable departures from Newton’s inverse square law at short distances are an important constraint for $`n=1`$ or 2.

As usual, astrophysical environments reach farther into parameter space. New weakly coupled species in these models are constrained in the same way axions are, using arguments based on energy losses from supernovae and red giants. The “Kaluza-Klein tower” states can be particularly interesting. Massive KK modes of the graviton are a generic effect, and their cosmological production is an important constraint. They are produced thermally in the early universe, and only avoid causing an overclosure catastrophe in some cases because they can be very weakly coupled to the thermal particles on the brane. By the same token, for the right parameters they are a cold dark matter candidate. KK ladders of massive sterile neutrinos are a possible candidate for warm dark matter, and may display unusual nonthermal energy distributions induced by species oscillations. Brane worlds may bring important new insights into the cosmological constantflanagan  and inflationmaartens . It is even possible for gravitational waves to travel faster than light since they can take a “short cut” across the bulk.

A more speculative phenomenon, which potentially reaches even farther into parameter space, is the classical production of gravitational waves in the early universe, which survive to the present as a nonthermal stochastic backgroundmaggiore . Brane-world models suggest new sources of stochastic backgrounds: their new geometrical degrees of freedom can be coherently excited by symmetry breaking in the early universe, leading to gravitational radiation today at redshifted frequencies appropriate for new observatories such as LIGO and LISA hoganbrane ; hoganbrane2 . New extra-dimensional effects remain important until the Hubble length $`H^1M_{Planck}/T^2`$ is comparable to the size or curvature radius $`b`$ of the extra dimensionsarkaniphenom ; csaki ; rapidinflation , or until the temperature falls below the new unification scale, whichever happens last.

Of particular interest are two new geometrical degrees of freedom common to many of these models: “radion” modes controlling the size or curvature of the extra dimensionscsaki ; goldbergerwise , and new Nambu-Goldstone modes corresponding to inhomogeneous displacements of the brane in the extra dimensionsarkaniphenom ; sundrum . Cosmological symmetry breaking can create large-amplitude, coherent classical excitations on scales of order $`H^1`$ as the configuration of the extra dimensions and the position of the brane settle into their present state.

The scalar modes of this distortion have long ago disappeared since they are on a very small scale (i.e., less than 1 mm times the redshift, or about the size of the solar system today), but the tensor modes might be observable. Extra dimensions with scale between 10 Å and 1 mm, which enter the 3+1-D era at cosmic temperatures between 1 and 1000 TeV, produce backgrounds with energy peaked at observed frequencies in the LISA band, between $`10^1`$ and $`10^4`$ Hz. The background is detectable above instrument and astrophysical foregrounds if initial metric perturbations are excited to a fractional amplitude of $`10^3`$ or more. As shown in Figure 2, brane world models which “solve the hierarchy problem” naturally produce backgrounds in the range of frequencies encompassed by LISA for all the viable cases, $`n=2`$ to 7. Ground based detectors (LIGO, VIRGO, TAMA, GEO), probing higher frequencies, reach extra dimensions down to $`10^{15}`$ mm and unification energies up to $`10^{13}`$ GeV.

Thus it is possible that gravitational wave astrophysics might “see” outside of the four dimensions of ordinary spacetime, and trace the details of how the three spatial dimensions settled into their present shape, in brane worlds that cannot be tested by any other known technique (see Figure 2). The background spectrum also contains information about a regime of cosmic history not preserved by any other relic (Figure 3).

I am grateful for useful conversations with E. Adelberger, D. Kaplan, A. Nelson, C. Stubbs, and S. Weinberg.


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# Conference Summary 20th Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics

## I OVERVIEW

Speaking as a particle physicist, an outsider, I have to say that my chief reaction after a week of listening to talks at this meeting is one of envy. You astrophysicists are blessed with enlightening data in an abundance that particle physicists haven’t seen since the 1970s. And although you still face many mysteries, theory is increasingly converging with observation.

For instance, as discussed by Shri Kulkarni, it now seems clear that gamma ray bursters are at cosmological distances, producing over $`10^{50}`$ ergs in particle kinetic energies alone in a minute or so, making them the most spectacular objects in the sky. Tsvi Piran described a fireball model for the gamma ray bursters, in which gamma rays are produced by relativistic particles accelerated by shocks within material that is ejected ultra-relativisticaly from a central source. One can think of various mechanisms for the hidden central source, but even without a specific model for the source, the fireball model does a good job of accounting for what is observed.

According to this fireball model, gamma rays from the bursters are strongly beamed. Peter Höflich presented evidence that core collapse supernova are also highly aspherical. Both conclusions may be good news for gravitational wave astronomers — only aspherical explosions can generate gravitational waves.

Spectacular things seem to be turning up all over. Amy Barger told us how X-ray observations are revealing many active galactic nuclei in what had previously seemed like ordinary galaxies, and John Kormendy reported evidence that the events that produce galactic bulges or elliptical galaxies are the same as those that produce black holes in galactic centers.

Astrophysics is currently the beneficiary of massive surveys that are providing or will soon provide a flood of important data. We heard from John Peacock about the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey, from Bruce Margon about the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and from George Ricker about the HETE x-ray and $`\gamma `$\- ray satellite mission. Together with cosmic microwave background observations, about which more later, there seems to be a general consistency with the big bang cosmology, with about 30% of the critical mass furnished by cold dark matter, and about $`70\%`$ furnished by negative-pressure vacuum energy.

This is not to say that there are no puzzles. Alan Watson reported on the long-standing puzzles of understanding how the highest energy cosmic rays are generated and how they manage to get to earth through the cosmic microwave background. There are also persistent problems in matching the cold dark matter model to observations of the mass distribution in galaxies. Ben Moore cast some doubt on whether cold dark matter really leads to the missing “cuspy cores” of galaxy haloes, and he concentrated instead on a different problem: cold dark matter models give much more matter in satellites of galaxies than is observed. He suggests that the missing satellites may really be there, and that they have not been observed because they have not formed stars. The reionization processes discussed here by Paul Shapiro may be responsible for the failure of star formation.

Our knowledge of the dark matter mass distribution within galaxies is receiving important contributions from observations of the lensing of quasar images by intervening galaxies, discussed by Genevieve Soucail. There have been hopes of using surveys of gravitational lenses to distinguish among cosmological models, but I have the impression that the study of galactic lenses will turn out to be more important in learning about the lensing galaxies themselves. Andrew Gould reported that microlensing observations have ruled out the dark matter being massive compact halo objects with masses in the range $`10^7M_{}`$ to $`10^3M_{}`$.

It would of course be a great advance if cold dark matter particles could be directly detected. We heard a lively debate about whether weakly interacting massive dark matter particles have already been detected, between Rita Bernabei (pro) and Blas Cabrera (con). It would be foolhardy for a theorist to try to judge this issue, but at least one gathers that, if the dark matter is composed of WIMPs, then they can be detected.

I have now completed my 10 minute general summary of the conference. There were other excellent plenary talks, and I have not mentioned any of the parallel talks, but what can you do in 10 minutes? In the remaining 35 minutes, I want to take up some special topics, on which I will have a few comments of my own.

## II LARGE EXTRA DIMENSIONS

It is an old idea that the four spacetime dimensions in which we live are embedded in a higher dimensional spacetime, with the extra dimensions rolled up in some sort of compact manifold with radius $`R`$. This would have profound cosmological consequences: the compactification of the extra dimensions could be the most important event in the history of the universe, and such theories would contain vast numbers of new types of particle.

In the original version of this theory any field would have normal modes that would be observed in four dimensions as an infinite tower of ‘Kaluza–Klein recurrences,’ particles carrying the quantum numbers of the fields, with masses given by multiples of $`1/R`$. It had generally been supposed that $`R`$ would be of the order of the Planck length, or perhaps 10 to 100 times larger, of the order of the inverse energy $`M`$ at which the strong and electroweak coupling constants are unified. Even setting this preconception aside, it had seemed that in any case $`R`$ would have to be smaller than $`10^{16}\mathrm{cm}(100\mathrm{GeV})^1`$, in order that the Kaluza–Klein recurrences of the particles of the standard model would be heavy enough to have escaped detection.

The possibilities for higher dimensional theories became much richer with the increasing attention given to the idea that the spacetime in which we live does not merely appear four-dimensional — our three-space may be a truly three-dimensional surface that is embedded in a higher dimensional space. (This is the picture of higher dimensions that was vividly described in Edwin Abbott’s 1884 novel Flatland, and has more recently become an important part of string theory, starting with Polchinski’s work on D-branes.) This idea opens up the possibility that some fields may depend only on position on the four-dimensional spacetime surface, while others ‘live in the bulk’ — that is, they depend on position in the full higher-dimensional space. Only the fields that live in the bulk would have Kaluza–Klein recurrences.

Craig Hogan here discussed the recently proposed idea that the compactification scale $`R`$ may actually be much larger than $`10^{16}`$ cm, with no Kaluza–Klein recurrences for the particles of the standard model because the standard model fields depend only on position in the four-dimensional spacetime in which we live. According to this idea, it is only the gravitational field that depends on position in the higher dimensional space, and so it is only the graviton that has has Kaluza–Klein recurrences, which at ordinary energies would interact too weakly to have been observed. The long range forces produced by exchange of these massive gravitons would be small enough to have escaped detection in measurements of gravitational forces between laboratory masses as long as $`R<1`$ mm. (There are stronger astrophysical and cosmological bounds on $`R`$, arising from limits on the production of graviton recurrences in supernovas and in the early universe.)

In any such theory with large compactification radius $`R`$ the Planck mass scale of the higher dimensional theory of gravitation would be very much less than the Planck mass scale in our four dimensional spacetime. In a world with $`4+N`$ spacetime dimensions the gravitational constant $`G_{4+N}`$ (the reciprocal of the coefficient of the term $`d^{4+N}x\sqrt{g}g_{\mu \nu }R^{\mu \nu }`$ in the action) has dimensionality $`[\mathrm{mass}]^{2N}`$, so we would expect it to be given in terms of some fundamental higher dimensional Planck mass scale $`M_{}`$ by $`G_{4+N}M_{}^{2N}`$. Dimensional analysis then tells us that the gravitational constant $`G`$ in four spacetime dimensions must be given by

$$GM_{}^{2N}R^N.$$
(1)
The usual assumption in theories with extra dimensions has been that $`RM_{}^1`$, in which case $`GM_{}^2`$, and $`M_{}`$ would have to be about $`10^{19}`$ GeV. But if we take $`N=1`$ and $`R`$ 1 mm, then $`1/R10^{13}`$ GeV, and $`M_{}10^8`$ GeV. With $`N=2`$ and $`R`$ 1 mm, $`M_{}300`$ GeV. This is the most attractive aspect of theories with large extra dimensions: they can reduce or eliminate what had seemed like a huge gap between the characteristic energy scale of electroweak symmetry breaking and the fundamental energy scale at which gravitation becomes a strong interaction.

Theories with large extra dimensions are very ingenious, and they may even be correct, but I am not enthusiastic about them, for they give up the one solid accomplishment of previous theories that attempt to go beyond the standard model: the renormalization group equations of the original standard model showed that there is an energy, around $`10^{15}`$ GeV, where the three independent gauge coupling constants become nearly equal. In the supersymmetric version of the standard model the convergence of the couplings with each other becomes more precise, and the energy scale $`M_U`$ of this unification moves up to about $`2\times 10^{16}`$ GeV , which is less than would be expected in string theories of gravitation by a factor of only about 20. (This is also a plausible energy scale for the violation of lepton number conservation that may be showing up in the neutrino oscillation experiments discussed here by Masayuki Nakahata.) The Kaluza–Klein tower of graviton recurrences does nothing to change the running of the strong and electroweak coupling constants, and since the higher dimensional Planck mass $`M_{}`$ is very much less than $`10^{15}`$ GeV in theories with large extra dimensions (this, after all, is the point of these theories), it appears that in these theories the standard model gauge couplings are not unified at the fundamental mass scale $`M_{}`$. Of course, they might be unified at some higher energy, but we have no way to calculate what happens in these theories at any energy higher than $`M_{}`$.

In his talk here Hogan mentioned that Dienes, Dudas, and Gherghetta have proposed a way out of this problem. I looked up their papers, and found that they modify the renormalization group equations for the gauge couplings of the standard model by allowing the gauge and Higgs fields (and perhaps some fermion fields) to depend on position in the higher dimensional space, along with the gravitational field. Of course, then they have to avoid conflict with experiment by taking $`1/R`$ greater than 100 GeV. The Kaluza-Klein recurrences of the gauge bosons greatly increase the rate at which the coupling constants of the standard model run, but with little change in their unification. To put this quantitatively, Dienes et al. find the bare (Wilsonian) couplings evaluated with a cut-off $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ are

$$\frac{4\pi }{g_i^2(\mathrm{\Lambda })}=\frac{4\pi }{g_i^2(m_Z)}\frac{b_i}{2\pi }\mathrm{ln}\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{m_Z}+\frac{\overline{b}_i}{2\pi }\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Lambda }R\frac{\overline{b}_iX_N}{2\pi N}\left[(\mathrm{\Lambda }R)^N1\right],$$
(2)
where $`g_1`$ and $`g_2`$ are defined as usual in terms of the electron charge $`e`$ and the electroweak mixing angle $`\theta `$ by $`g_1^2=e^2/\mathrm{sin}^2\theta `$ and $`g_2^2=5e^2/3\mathrm{cos}^2\theta `$; $`g_3`$ is the coupling constant of quantum chromodynamics; and $`X_N`$ is a number of order unity. The constants $`(b_1,b_2,b_3)`$ are the factors $`(33/5,1,3)`$ appearing in the renormalization group equation of the supersymmetric standard model with two Higgs doublets, while the constants $`(\overline{b}_1,\overline{b}_2,\overline{b}_3)`$ are the corresponding factors $`(3/5,3,6)`$ in the renormalization group equations for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ above the compactification scale $`1/R`$ (with a possible constant added to each of the $`\overline{b}_i`$, proportional to the number of chiral fermions that live in the bulk). Dienes et al. remark that the standard model couplings still come close to converging to a common value, because the ratios of the differences of the $`\overline{b}_i`$ are not very different from the ratios of the differences of the $`b_i`$. I would like to put this more quantitatively, by asking what value of $`\mathrm{sin}^2\theta `$ is needed in order for the couplings to become exactly equal at some value of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. In the supersymmetric standard model, this is

$$\mathrm{sin}^2\theta =\frac{3(b_3b_2)+5(b_2b_1)e^2/g_3^2}{8b_33b_25b_1}=\frac{1}{5}+\frac{7}{15}\frac{e^2}{g_3^2}=0.231,$$
(3)
in excellent agreement with the measured value $`0.23117\pm 0.00016`$. (Here $`e`$ and $`g_3`$ are taken as measured at $`m_Z`$, in which case $`e^2/4\pi =1/128`$ and $`g_3^2/4\pi =0.118`$.) If all the running of the couplings were at scales greater than $`1/R`$, then $`\mathrm{sin}^2\theta `$ would be given by Eq. (3), but with $`b_i`$ replaced with $`\overline{b}_i`$:

$$\mathrm{sin}^2\theta =\frac{3(\overline{b}_3\overline{b}_2)+5(\overline{b}_2\overline{b}_1)e^2/g_3^2}{8\overline{b}_33\overline{b}_25\overline{b}_1}=\frac{3}{14}+\frac{3}{7}\frac{e^2}{g_3^2}=0.243.$$
(4)
This is not bad, but nevertheless outside experimental bounds. (It would be necessary to consider higher-order contributions in the renormalization group equations and threshold effects to be sure that there is really a discrepancy here.) In order not to spoil the prediction for $`\mathrm{sin}^2\theta `$, $`1/R`$ would have to be considerably larger than 1 TeV, so that much of the running of the coupling constants would occur at scales below $`1/R`$, where the renormalization group equations are those of the supersymmetric standard model.

In any case, the running of the couplings is so rapid above the compactification scale $`1/R`$ that the couplings become equal (to the extent that they do become equal) at an energy not far above $`1/R`$. The $`4+N`$ dimensional Planck scale $`M_{}`$ given by Eq. (1) is very much greater than this. Taking $`1/R`$ greater than 1 TeV, Eq. (1) would give $`M_{}`$ greater than $`10^{13}`$ GeV for $`N=1`$. Even for $`N=7`$, we would have $`M_{}`$ greater than $`10^6`$ GeV. Thus theories of this sort save the unification of couplings at the cost of reintroducing a large gap between the higher-dimensional Planck scale $`M_{}`$ and the electroweak scale.

## III VACUUM ENERGY

There are now two problems surrounding the energy of empty space. The first is the old problem, why the vacuum energy density is so much smaller than any one of a number of individual contributions. For instance, it is smaller than the energy density in quantum fluctuations of the gravitational field at wavelengths above the Planck length by a factor of about $`10^{122}`$ and it is smaller than the latent heat associated with the breakdown of chiral symmetry in the strong interactions by a factor about $`10^{50}`$. All these contributions can be cancelled by just adding an appropriate cosmological constant in the gravitational field equations; the problem is why there should be such a fantastically well-adjusted cancellation. The second, newer, problem is why the vacuum energy density that seems to be showing up in supernova studies of the redshift-distance relation (reviewed in a parallel session by Nick Suntzeff and Saul Perlmutter) is of the same order of magnitude (apparently larger by a factor about 2) as the matter density at the present time. There are five broad classes of attempts to solve one or both of these problems:

1) Cancellation Mechanisms
It has occurred to many theorists that the gravitational effect of vacuum energy might be wiped out by the dynamics of a scalar field, which automatically adjusts itself to minimize the spacetime curvature. So far, this has never worked. Some recent attempts were described by Andre Linde in a parallel session.

2) Deep Symmetries
There are several symmetries that could account for a vanishing vacuum energy, if they were not broken. One is scale invariance; another is supersymmetry. The problem is to see how to preserve the vanishing of the vacuum energy despite the breakdown of the symmetry. No one knows how to do this.

3) Quintessence
It is increasingly popular to consider the possibility that the vacuum energy is not constant, but evolves with the universe. For instance, a real scalar field $`\varphi `$ with Lagrangian density $`_\mu \varphi ^\mu \varphi /2V(\varphi )`$ if spatially homogeneous contributes a vacuum energy density and a pressure

$$\rho =\frac{1}{2}\dot{\varphi }^2+V(\varphi ),p=\frac{1}{2}\dot{\varphi }^2V(\varphi ),$$
(5)
so the condition $`\rho +3p<0`$ for an accelerating expansion is satisfied if the field $`\varphi `$ is evolving sufficiently slowly so that $`\dot{\varphi }^2<V(\varphi )`$.

It must be said from the outset that, in themselves, quintessence theories do not help with the first problem mentioned above — they do not explain why $`V(\varphi )`$ does not contain an additive constant of the order of $`(10^{19}\mathrm{GeV})^4`$. It is true that superstring theories naturally lead to “modular” scalar fields $`\varphi `$ for which $`V(\varphi )`$ does vanish as $`\varphi \mathrm{}`$, in which case the vacuum becomes supersymmetric. It might be hoped that the vacuum energy is small now, because the scalar field is well on its way toward this limit. The trouble is that the vacuum now is nowhere near supersymmetric, so that in these theories we would expect a present vacuum energy of the order of the fourth power of the supersymmetry-breaking scale, or at least $`(1\mathrm{TeV})^4`$.

On the other hand, such theories may help with the second problem, if the quintessence energy is somehow related to the energy in matter and radiation, because the present moment is not so many $`e`$-foldings of cosmic expansion (about 10, in fact) from the turning point in cosmic history when the radiation energy density (including neutrinos) fell below the matter energy density. Paul Steinhardt here described a model in which the quintessence energy density was less than the radiation energy density by a constant factor $`r`$, as long as radiation dominated over matter. (It is necessary that $`r`$ be considerably less than unity, in order that quintessence should not appreciably increase the expansion rate during the era of nucleosynthesis, increasing the present helium abundance above the observed value.) Then when the radiation energy density fell below the matter energy density at a cross-over redshift $`z_C3000`$ the quintessence energy dropped sharply by a factor of order $`r^2`$, and has remained roughly constant since then. Since the cross-over between radiation and matter dominance the matter energy density has decreased by a factor $`z_C^3`$, so the ratio of the quintessence energy density and the matter energy density now should be of order $`r^2\times r\times z_C^3=(z_Cr)^3`$. For the quintessence and matter energies to be about equal now, $`r`$ must be equal to about $`1/z_C3\times 10^4`$. Steinhardt tells me that when these calculations are done carefully, the required ratio $`r`$ of quintessence to radiation energy density at early times is about $`10^2`$, rather than $`3\times 10^4`$. But whatever the value of $`r`$ that makes the quintessence energy comparable to the matter energy density now, it requires some fairly fine tuning: changing $`r`$ by a factor $`10`$ would change the ratio of the present values of the quintessence energy density and the matter energy density by a factor $`10^3`$.

4) Brane Solutions

Several authors have found solutions of brane theories of the Randall–Sundrum kind in which our four-dimensional spacetime is flat, despite the presence of a large cosmological constant in the higher dimensional gravitational Lagrangian. These solutions contained an unacceptable essential singularity off the brane, but there are models in which this can be avoided. I don’t believe that there is anything unique in these solutions, so that instead of having to fine tune parameters in the Lagrangian one has to fine tune initial conditions. Also, it is not clear why the effective cosmological constant has to be zero now, rather than before the spontaneous breakdown of the chiral symmetry of quantum chromodynamics, when the latent heat associated with this phase transition would have given the vacuum an energy density $`(1\mathrm{GeV})^4`$.

5) Anthropic Principle
Why is the temperature on earth in the narrow range where water is liquid? One answer is that otherwise we wouldn’t be here. This answer makes sense only because there are many planets in the universe, with a wide range of surface temperatures. Because there are so many planets, it is natural that some of them should have liquid water, and of course it is just these planets on which there would be anyone to wonder about the temperature. In the same way, if our big bang is just one of many big bangs, with a wide range of vacuum energies, then it is natural that some of these big bangs should have a vacuum energy in the narrow range where galaxies can form, and of course it is just these big bangs in which there could be astronomers and physicists wondering about the vacuum energy. To be specific, a constant vacuum energy if negative would have to be greater than about $`10^{120}m_{\mathrm{Planck}}^4`$, in order for the universe not to collapse before life has had time to develop, and if positive it would have to be less than about $`+10^{118}m_{\mathrm{Planck}}^4`$, in order for galaxies to have had a chance to form before the matter energy density fell too far below the vacuum energy density. As far as I know, this is at present the only way of understanding the small value of the vacuum energy. But of course it makes sense only if the big bang in which we live is one of an ensemble of many big bangs with a wide range of values of the cosmological constant. There are various ways that this might be realized:

(a) Wormholes or other quantum gravitational effects may cause the wave function of the universe to break up into different incoherent terms, corresponding to various possible universes with different values for what are usually called the constants of nature, perhaps including the cosmological constant.

(b) Various versions of “new” inflation lead to a continual production of big bangs, perhaps with different values of the vacuum energy. For instance, if there is a scalar field that takes different initial values in the different big bangs, and if it has a sufficiently flat potential, then its energy appears like a cosmological constant, which takes different values in different big bangs.

(c) As the universe evolves the vacuum energy may drop discontinuously to lower and lower discrete values. One way for this to happen is for the vacuum energy to be a function of a scalar field, with many local minima, so that as the universe evolves the vacuum energy keeps dropping discontinuously to lower and lower local minima. Another possibility with similar consequences is based on the introduction of an antisymmetric gauge potential $`A_{\mu \nu \lambda }`$, which enters in the Lagrangian density in a term proportional to $`F^{\mu \nu \lambda \kappa }F_{\mu \nu \lambda \kappa }`$, where $`F_{\mu \nu \lambda \kappa }`$ is $`_\kappa A_{\mu \nu \lambda }`$ with antisymmetrized indices. Instead of a scalar field tunneling from one minimum of a potential to another, the vacuum energy evolves through the formation of membranes, across which there is a discontinuity in the value of Lorentz-invariant gauge fields $`F_{\mu \nu \lambda \kappa }=Fϵ_{\mu \nu \lambda \kappa }`$. To allow an anthropic explanation of the smallness of the vacuum energy, it is essential that the metastable values of the vacuum energy be very close together. Several models of this sort have been proposed recently.

Under any of these alternatives, we have not only an upper bound on the vacuum energy density, given by the matter energy density at the time of formation of the earliest galaxies, but also a plausible expectation, which Vilenkin calls the principle of mediocrity, that the vacuum energy density found by typical astronomers will be comparable to the mass density at the time when most galaxies condense, since any larger vacuum energy density would reduce the number of galaxies formed, and there is no reason why the vacuum energy density should be much smaller. The observed vacuum energy density is somewhat smaller than this, but not very much smaller. This can be put quantitatively: under the assumption that the a priori probability distribution of the vacuum energy is approximately constant within the narrow range within which galaxies can form, the probability that an astronomer in any of the big bangs would find a value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ as small as $`0.7`$ ranges from 5% to 12%, depending on various assumptions about the initial fluctuations. In this calculation the fractional fluctuation in the cosmic mass density at recombination is assumed to take the value observed in our big bang, since the vacuum energy would have a negligible effect on physical processes at and before recombination. There are also interesting calculations along these lines in which the rms value of density fluctuations at recombination is allowed to vary independently of the vacuum energy.

## IV COSMIC MICROWAVE BACKGROUND ANISOTROPIES

Perhaps the most remarkable improvement in cosmological knowledge over the past decade has been in studies of the cosmic microwave background. Since COBE, there is for the first time a cosmological parameter — the radiation temperature — that is known to three significant figures. More recently, since the BOOMERANG and MAXIMA experiments reviewed here by Paolo de Bernardis, our knowledge of small angular scale anisotropies has become good enough to set useful limits on other cosmological parameters, such as the present spatial curvature.

Unfortunately, this has produced a frustrating situation for those of us who are not specialists in the theory of the cosmic microwave background. We see papers in which experimental results for the strengths $`C_{\mathrm{}}`$ of the $`\mathrm{}`$th multipole in the temperature correlation function are compared with computer generated plots of $`C_{\mathrm{}}`$ versus $`\mathrm{}`$ for various values of the cosmological parameters, without the non-specialist reader being able to understand why the theoretical plots of $`C_{\mathrm{}}`$ versus $`\mathrm{}`$ look the way they do, or why they depend on cosmological parameters the way they do. I want to take the opportunity here to advertise a formalism that I think helps in understanding the main features of the observed anisotropies, and how they depend on various cosmological assumptions.

One can show under very general assumptions that the fractional variation from the mean of the cosmic microwave background temperature observed in a direction $`\widehat{n}`$ takes the form

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }T(\widehat{n})}{T}=d^3kϵ_𝐤e^{id_A𝐤\widehat{n}}\left[F(k)+i\widehat{n}\widehat{k}G(k)\right],$$
(6)
where $`d_A`$ is the angular diameter distance of the surface of last scattering

$$d_A=\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Omega }_C^{1/2}H_0(1+z_L)}\mathrm{sinh}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }_C^{1/2}_{\frac{1}{1+z_L}}^1\frac{dx}{\sqrt{\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }x^4+\mathrm{\Omega }_Cx^2+\mathrm{\Omega }_Mx}}\right],$$
(7)
(with $`z_L1100`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_C1\mathrm{\Omega }_M\mathrm{\Omega }_V`$); $`𝐤^2ϵ_𝐤`$ is proportional to the Fourier transform of the fluctuation in the energy density at early times (with $`𝐤`$ the physical wave number vector at the nominal moment of last scattering, so that $`d_A𝐤`$ in the argument of the exponential is essentially independent of how this moment is defined); and $`F(k)`$ and $`G(k)`$ are a pair of form factors that incorporate all relevant information about acoustic oscillations up to the time of last scattering, with $`F(k)`$ arising from intrinsic temperature fluctuations and the Sachs–Wolfe effect, and $`G(k)`$ arising from the Doppler effect. Given the form factors, one can find the coefficients $`C_{\mathrm{}}`$ for $`\mathrm{}1`$ by a single integration

$$\mathrm{}(\mathrm{}+1)C_{\mathrm{}}\frac{8\pi ^2\mathrm{}^3}{d_A^3}_1^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\beta 𝒫(\mathrm{}\beta /d_A)\left[\frac{\beta F^2(\mathrm{}\beta /d_A)}{\sqrt{\beta ^21}}+\frac{\sqrt{\beta ^21}G^2(\mathrm{}\beta /d_A)}{\beta }\right].$$
(8)
where $`𝒫(k)`$ is the power spectral function, defined by

$$ϵ_𝐤ϵ_𝐤^{}=\delta ^3(𝐤+𝐤^{})𝒫(k).$$
(9)
(The first term in the square brackets in Eq. (8) appeared in a calculation by Bond and Efstathiou; I think the second is new.)

As you can see from the $`F^2(k)`$ term in Eq. (8), for $`\mathrm{}1`$ the main contribution to $`C_{\mathrm{}}`$ of the Sachs–Wolfe effect and intrinsic temperature fluctuations comes from wave numbers close to $`d_A/\mathrm{}`$, but this well-known result is not a good approximation for the Doppler effect form factor $`G(k)`$. Since it is the form factors rather than $`C_{\mathrm{}}`$ that really reflect what was going on before-recombination, it is important to try to measure them more directly, as for instance through interferometric measurements of the temperature correlation function, of the sort described in a parallel session by K. Y. Lo et al. and B. S. Mason et al.

The Harrison–Zel’dovich spectrum suggested by theories of new inflation is $`𝒫(k)=Bk^3`$, with $`B`$ a constant. In this case Eq. (8) gives a formula for $`C_{\mathrm{}}`$ that is valid for $`\mathrm{}1`$ and $`\mathrm{}d_A/d_H`$ (where $`d_Hd_A`$ is the horizon distance at the time of last scattering):

$$\mathrm{}(\mathrm{}+1)C_{\mathrm{}}8\pi ^2BF_0^2\left\{1\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{d_A^2}\left[d^2\left(\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{\overline{d}\mathrm{}}{2d_A}\right)C\right)d^2\right]+\mathrm{}\right\},$$
(10)
where $`C`$ is the Euler constant $`C\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}(1)=0.57722`$, and $`d`$ and $`d^{}`$ are a pair of characteristic lengths of order $`d_H`$:

$$d^2\frac{2F_0F_2+G_1^2}{F_0^2},d^2\frac{3F_0F_2+\frac{1}{2}G_1^2}{F_0^2},$$
(11)
expressed in terms of coefficients in a power series expansion of the form factors:

$$F(k)=F_0+F_2k^2+\mathrm{},G(k)=G_1k+G_3k^3+\mathrm{}.$$
(12)
(This formula applies even when $`\mathrm{}`$ is not much larger than unity, except for $`\mathrm{}=0`$ and $`\mathrm{}=1`$ , provided we replace $`\mathrm{}^2`$ with $`\mathrm{}(\mathrm{}+1)`$ and $`\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{}`$ with $`_{r=1}^{\mathrm{}}1/r+C`$.) The quantity $`\overline{d}`$ in the logarithm is another length of order $`d_H`$, this one given by a much more complicated expression involving the form factors at all wave numbers, but since $`d_Hd_A`$ the precise value of $`\mathrm{ln}(\overline{d}/2d_A)`$ does not depend sensitively on the precise value of $`\overline{d}`$.

One advantage of this formalism is that it provides a nice separation between the three different kinds of effect that influence the observed temperature fluctuation, that arise in three different eras: the power spectral function $`𝒫(k)`$ characterizes the origin of the fluctuations, perhaps in the era of inflation; the form factors $`F(k)`$ and $`G(k)`$ characterize acoustic fluctuations up to the time of last scattering; and the angular diameter distance $`d_A`$ depends on the propagation of light since then. This allows us to see easily what depends on what parameters. The form factors $`F(k)`$ and $`G(k)`$ depend strongly on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Bh^2`$ (through the effect of baryons on the sound speed) and more weakly on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Mh^2`$ (through the effect of radiation on the expansion rate before the time of last scattering), but since the curvature and vacuum energy were negligible at and before last scattering, $`F(k)`$ and $`G(k)`$ are essentially independent of the present curvature and of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. The power spectral function $`𝒫(k)`$ is expected to be independent of all these parameters. On the other hand, $`d_A`$ is affected by whatever governed the paths of light rays since the time of last scattering, so it depends strongly on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, and the spatial curvature, but it is essentially independent of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_B`$. In quintessence theories $`d_A`$ would be given by a formula different from (7), but $`𝒫(k)`$ and the form factors would be essentially unchanged as long as the quintessence energy density was a small part of the total energy density at and before the time of last scattering. In particular, Eq. (8) shows that $`\mathrm{}(\mathrm{}+1)C_{\mathrm{}}`$ for $`\mathrm{}1`$ depends on $`\mathrm{}`$ and $`d_A`$ only through the ratio $`\mathrm{}/d_A`$, so changes in $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ or the introduction of quintessence would lead to a re-scaling of all the $`\mathrm{}`$-values of the peaks in the plots of $`\mathrm{}(\mathrm{}+1)C_{\mathrm{}}`$ versus $`\mathrm{}`$, but would have little effect on their height.

Another advantage of this formalism is that, although $`C_{\mathrm{}}`$ must be calculated by a numerical integration, it is possible to give approximate analytic expressions for the form factors in terms of elementary functions, at least in the approximation that the dark matter dominates the gravitational field for a significant length of time before last scattering. (There have been numerous earlier analytic calculations of the temperature fluctuations, and their results may all be put in the form (6), but my point here is that this form is general, not depending on the particular approximations used.) In this approximation the form factors for very small wave numbers are

$`F(k)`$ $``$ $`13k^2t_L^2/23[\xi ^1+\xi ^2\mathrm{ln}(1+\xi )]k^4t_L^4/4+\mathrm{},`$ (13)
$`G(k)`$ $``$ $`3kt_L3k^3t_L^3/2(1+\xi )+\mathrm{},`$ (14)
while for wave numbers large enough to allow the use of the WKB approximation the form factors are

$$F(k)=(1+2\xi /k^2t_L^2)^1\left[3\xi +2\xi /k^2t_L^2+(1+\xi )^{1/4}e^{k^2d_\mathrm{\Delta }^2}\mathrm{cos}(kd_H)\right],$$
(15)
and

$$G(k)=\sqrt{3}(1+2\xi /k^2t_L^2)^1(1+\xi )^{3/4}e^{k^2d_\mathrm{\Delta }^2}\mathrm{sin}(kd_H).$$
(16)
Here $`t_L`$ is the time of last scattering; $`\xi =27\mathrm{\Omega }_Bh^2`$ is $`3/4`$ the ratio of the baryon to photon energy densities at this time; $`d_H`$ is the acoustic horizon size at this time; and $`d_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is a damping length, typically less than $`d_H`$. Using these results in Eq. (8) gives the curves for $`\mathrm{}(\mathrm{}+1)C_{\mathrm{}}/6C_2`$ versus $`\mathrm{}d_H/d_A`$ shown in Figure 1, in the approximation that damping and the term $`2\xi /k^2t_L^2`$ may be neglected near the peak. In this approximation the scalar form factor $`F(k)`$ has a peak at $`k_1=\pi /d_H`$ for any value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Bh^2`$, but the peak in $`\mathrm{}(\mathrm{}+1)C_{\mathrm{}}`$ does not appear (as is often said) at $`\mathrm{}=k_1d_A=\pi d_A/d_H`$; instead, $`\mathrm{}d_H/d_A`$ at the peak ranges from 3.0 to 2.6, depending on the value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Bh^2`$.

We see even from these crude calculations how sensitive is the height of the first peak in $`\mathrm{}(\mathrm{}+1)C_{\mathrm{}}/6C_2`$ to the baryon density parameter $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Bh^2`$. (The experimental value for the height of this peak is about 6.) Right now, there is some worry about the fact that the value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Bh^2`$ inferred from the ratio of the heights of the second and first peaks is larger than that inferred from considerations of cosmological nucleosynthesis. Perhaps it would be worth trying to estimate $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Bh^2`$ by comparing theory and experiment for the ratio of $`\mathrm{}(\mathrm{}+1)C_{\mathrm{}}`$ at the first peak to its value for small $`\mathrm{}`$, discarding the data at the second peak where the statistics are worse and complicated damping effects make the theory more complicated.<sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1At the meeting someone in the audience said that this has been done, but that was in the early days, not I think with the more detailed information now available.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to Willy Fischler, Hugo Martel, Paul Shapiro, and Craig Wheeler for their help in preparing this report. This research was supported in part by a grant from the Welch Foundation and by National Science Foundation Grants PHY 9511632 and PHY 0071512.

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