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# Systolic freedom of loop space

## 1. Introduction

Does the total volume of a Riemannian manifold impose a constraint upon the volume of its submanifolds? This question has interested differential geometers since the work of M. Berger (see  and \[9, p. 192\]) in the seventies, and of M. Gromov ,  in the eighties. In this note we answer this question in the negative (for all but 1-dimensional submanifolds), as follows.

###### Theorem 1.1.

Let $`m`$ and $`n`$ be integers such that $`2m<n`$. Let $`X`$ be an $`n`$-dimensional compact smooth manifold. Then $`X`$ admits metrics of arbitrarily small total volume, such that every $`m`$-dimensional orientable submanifold of less than unit $`m`$-volume is null-homologous as a cycle with rational coefficients.

In other words, the manifold $`X`$ admits a sequence of metrics $`(X,g_j)`$ with $`\mathrm{𝑣𝑜𝑙}(g_j)0`$ as $`j\mathrm{}`$, and such that for every orientable $`MX`$ we have

$$\mathrm{𝑣𝑜𝑙}_m(M)<1[M]=0\text{ in }H_m(X,),$$

where $`\mathrm{𝑣𝑜𝑙}_m(M)`$ is the volume induced by $`g_j`$. Such a phenomenon is called systolic freedom (modulo torsion). For $`m=1`$ the theorem is false: the length of the shortest noncontractible loop is typically constrained by total volume (see section 2).

Our theorem generalizes a previous result by I. Babenko and the authors , concerning systolic freedom in middle dimension (the case $`n=2m`$). The next step toward the proof of Theorem 1.1 was accomplished in , where we reduced the problem to the examination of a finite list of CW complexes (the notion of systolic freedom can be extended in this setting). These complexes are the successive skeleta (up to the $`n^{th}`$ skeleton) of the based loop space, $`\mathrm{\Omega }(S^{m+1})`$, of the sphere $`S^{m+1}`$.

The main idea of the present paper is to use rational homotopy theory to establish the systolic freedom of the skeleta of the loop space.

The starting point of our proof is a map from the $`p`$-fold Cartesian product $`(S^m)^{\times p}`$, where $`p=[\frac{n}{m}]`$, to the $`n`$-skeleton of the Eilenberg-Maclane space $`K(,m)`$ which induces an epimorphism in rational homology in all dimensions through $`n`$. We construct a CW complex $`W`$ by attaching cells to $`(S^m)^{\times p}`$ so as to replace the epimorphisms by isomorphisms. By Sullivan , the localisation at 0 (rationalisation) $`W_0`$ of $`W`$ may be thought of as the $`n`$-skeleton of $`K(,m)`$. Now a map from a compact complex $`X`$ has image in a finite subcomplex of $`K(,m)`$ and hence in a finite piece of $`W_0`$. If $`W_0`$ admits a telescope model, we can conclude that the image of $`X`$ may be deformed into a copy of $`W`$ inside $`W_0`$. In general, the argument is more delicate; here we need to overcome two difficulties:

1. lack of control of the higher homotopy groups of the skeleta of James’s model of the spherical loop space (cf. Remark 4.3);
2. the extra dimension of cells present in a ‘rational cell’ being attached in the process of rationalizing a complex (cf. Remark 5.2).

Finally, the pullback arguments of , , and  reduce the freedom of skeleta of the loop space to the freedom of $`(S^m)^{\times p}`$, known since .

###### Remark 1.2 (Pair of complementary dimensions).

The $`m`$-systole $`\mathrm{𝑠𝑦𝑠}_m(X)`$ of $`X`$ can be briefly defined as the least mass of a rectifiable $`m`$-current representing a nonzero class in integer homology (cf. section 3). Our main theorem states that $`X`$ admits a sequence of metrics $`\{g_j\}`$ with the following asymptotic behavior as $`j\mathrm{}`$:

$$\frac{\mathrm{𝑣𝑜𝑙}_n(g_j)}{\mathrm{𝑠𝑦𝑠}_m(g_j)^{\frac{n}{m}}}0,$$

at least if the $`m`$-dimensional homology of $`X`$ is torsion free.

A related problem is that of systolic freedom in a pair of complementary dimensions $`m`$ and $`nm`$. Recall that $`X`$ is called $`(m,nm)`$-systolically free if there exist metrics $`g_j`$ which behave as follows:

$$\frac{\mathrm{𝑣𝑜𝑙}_n(g_j)}{\mathrm{𝑠𝑦𝑠}_m(g_j)\mathrm{𝑠𝑦𝑠}_{nm}(g_j)}0.$$

While our technique relies on classifying spaces and rational homotopy theory, the problem of a pair of complementary dimensions can be solved by a direct geometric construction, with the input from algebraic topology reduced to Poincaré duality. See .

The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 discusses systolic constraint and mentions a recent result of M. Freedman on freedom with $`_2`$-coefficients. Section 3 defines systolic freedom and the concept of an ‘$`m`$-meromorphic map’. Sections 4 and 5 contain the technical statement of Theorem 1.1 and its proof, and also describe the pertinent telescoping ideas from rational homotopy theory. Section 6 contains some speculations regarding an alternative proof using higher order Whitehead products. Section 7 outlines a program of study of systolic freedom with torsion coefficients, based on an analysis of ‘torsion meromorphic maps’.

## 2. Systolic freedom versus constraint

Our theorem shows that the total volume imposes no upper bounds on the size of the least-area homologically nontrivial submanifold. In contrast, let us recall two results on the existence of such bounds for related invariants.

The first result is M. Gromov’s inequality  for essential manifolds, which we will state in the particular case of real projective space $`P^n`$. Namely, all metrics $`g`$ on $`P^n`$ obey the inequality

$$\underset{\gamma P^1}{\mathrm{min}}g\text{-}\text{length}(\gamma )C_n\sqrt[n]{vol(g)},$$
(1)
where the minimum in the lefthand side is over all closed curves in $`P^n`$ which are homotopic to $`P^1P^n.`$ Here the constant $`C_n`$ is independent of $`g`$, and the $`n`$-th root ensures scale invariance. Gromov’s theorem generalizes classical results of Loewner and Pu in dimension $`2`$ (see also ).

The second result is an inequality similar to the above, but with length replaced by area. Namely, all metrics $`g`$ on complex projective space $`P^n`$ obey Gromov’s inequality (see \[14, p. 262\], or \[21, Theorem 2.6\]):

$$\underset{\gamma _{}^{}P^1}{inf}g\text{-area}(\gamma _{}^{})C_n\sqrt[n]{vol(g)},$$
(2)
where the infimum is over all rational $`2`$-cycles $`\gamma _{}^{}=_kr_k\sigma _k(r_k)`$ representing the generator $`[\gamma _{}^{}]=[P^1]H_2(P^n,)=`$ (the sharp value of the constant is $`\sqrt[n]{n!}`$, as discussed in \[22, section 6.3\] and \[11, 1.8.2\]). Here by definition

$$g\text{-area}(_kr_k\sigma _k)=_k|r_k|g\text{-area}(\sigma _k),$$
(3)
and the area of a piecewise smooth singular $`2`$-simplex $`\sigma _k`$ is the integral of the pullback of $`g`$ to the standard $`2`$-simplex. This inequality was generalized by J. Hebda .

###### Remark 2.1 (Torsion coefficients).

All of our results ultimately rely on a calibration technique using differential forms (cf. \[21, Appendix A\]). A new technique using instead a lower bound on the first eigenvalue $`\lambda _1`$ of the Laplacian, was recently invented by M. Freedman , who proved that $`S^1\times S^2`$ is $`(1,2)`$-systolically free even if one uses $`_2`$-coefficients in homology when defining the systoles. This result implies in particular that the $`4`$-manifold $`S^2\times S^2`$ is free in middle dimension even with $`_2`$-coefficients (cf. section 7).

On the other hand, the question whether inequality (2) remains valid for the complex projective plane if we work with coefficients in $`_2`$ is still open:

$$\underset{\gamma __2^{}P^1}{inf}g\text{-area}(\gamma __2^{})\stackrel{\mathrm{?}\mathrm{?}}{}C_n\sqrt[n]{vol(g)},$$
(4)
where $`\gamma __2^{}`$ is a $`2`$-cycle with $`_2`$-coefficients (e.g. a possibly nonorientable surface) representing the nonzero element in $`H_2(P^n,_2)=_2`$. See also section 7.

It is still unknown whether $`P^3`$ is (1,2)-systolically free modulo 2 (this question was originally posed \[7, p. 622\] in 1994), or in formulas:

$$\underset{\gamma __2^{},\sigma __2^{}}{inf}g\text{-length}(\gamma __2^{})g\text{-area}(\sigma __2^{})\stackrel{\mathrm{?}\mathrm{?}}{}\text{Const}vol(g),$$
(5)
for all metrics $`(P^3,g)`$, where the infimum is over all curves $`\gamma __2^{}P^1`$ and surfaces $`\sigma __2^{}P^2`$.

## 3. Pulling back metrics by $`m`$-meromorphic maps

In , we reduced the proof of the $`m`$-systolic freedom modulo torsion (see definition below) of all smooth $`n`$-manifolds, to the examination of a finite list of objects: the successive skeleta (up to the $`n^{th}`$ skeleton) of the based loop space $`\mathrm{\Omega }(S^{m+1})`$. The price one has to pay is the enlargement of the category to that of CW complexes (see Definition 3.2).

###### Definition 3.1.

Let $`(X,g)`$ be a finite $`n`$-dimensional simplicial complex, endowed with a piecewise smooth metric $`g`$. Let $`mn`$. Let $`\alpha H_m(X,)`$. Define

$$v(\alpha )=\underset{M\alpha }{inf}\mathrm{𝑣𝑜𝑙}_m(M),$$

where the infimum is taken over all piecewise smooth integer cycles $`M`$ representing the class $`\alpha `$. Here the volume of a (smooth) singular simplex is that of the pullback of the quadratic form $`g`$ to the simplex, and we take absolute values of the coefficients to obtain the volume of the cycle, as in formula (3).

We define the systole modulo torsion, $`\mathrm{𝑠𝑦𝑠}^{\mathrm{}}`$, of $`(X,g)`$ by setting

$$\mathrm{𝑠𝑦𝑠}_m^{\mathrm{}}(g)=\underset{\begin{array}{c}\alpha H_m(X,)\\ \alpha \mathrm{torsion}\end{array}}{inf}v(\alpha ).$$

###### Definition 3.2.

An $`n`$-dimensional CW complex $`X`$ is $`m`$-systolically free (modulo torsion) if

$$\underset{g}{inf}\frac{\mathrm{𝑣𝑜𝑙}_n(g)^{\frac{m}{n}}}{\mathrm{𝑠𝑦𝑠}_m^{\mathrm{}}(g)}=0,$$

where the infimum is taken over all piecewise smooth metrics $`g`$ on a finite simplicial complex $`X^{}`$ homotopy equivalent to $`X`$.

Here the choice of $`X^{}`$ is immaterial by virtue of the pullback Lemma 3.6 below, which applies in particular to homotopy equivalences. The idea of the proof of the systolic freedom of the skeleta of the loop space is a reduction to the case of the product of spheres, for which systolic freedom was established in  for $`m3`$, and in \[21, Lemma 4.5 and Corolary 7.9\] in the remaining case:

###### Proposition 3.3 (, ).

The Cartesian product $`(S^m)^{\times p}`$ of $`p`$ copies of the $`m`$-sphere is $`m`$-systolically free, for all $`m2`$ and $`p2`$.

We will carry out such a reduction by means of constructing a morphism from a skeleton of $`\mathrm{\Omega }(S^{m+1})`$ to a product of spheres, and applying pullback arguments developed in , , and .

The morphisms from $`X`$ to $`Y`$ best suited to our problem are more flexible than continuous maps from $`X`$ to $`Y`$. We still work with continuous maps, but we allow certain enlargements of the target $`Y`$ of the map, which we will refer to as ‘meromorphic extensions’.

###### Definition 3.4.

Let $`Y`$ be an $`n`$-dimensional CW complex. A CW complex $`W`$ is called a meromorphic extension of $`Y`$ if $`W`$ has the homotopy type of a finite CW complex obtained from $`Y`$ by attaching cells $`e^d`$ of strictly smaller than the top dimension, or in formulas:

$$WY\underset{i}{}e^{d_i},\text{ where }d_in1.$$

###### Definition 3.5.

Let $`X^n`$ and $`Y^n`$ be finite CW complexes of dimension $`n`$. An $`m`$-meromorphic map, $`XY`$, is a pair $`(W,f)`$ where $`W`$ is a meromorphic extension of $`Y`$ and $`f:XW`$ is a continuous map which induces a monomorphism in $`m`$-dimensional rational homology:

$$f_{}:H_m(X,)H_m(W,)\text{ is injective.}$$

Our terminology is inspired by the observation that the blow-up map $`Y=\widehat{X}X`$ of, say, a complex analytic manifold $`X`$ admits a kind of an inverse: $`XY`$. Here the space $`W`$ is obtained by coning off the exceptional divisor in $`Y=\widehat{X}`$, while the inverse is perturbed in a neighborhood of the blown up point (see \[21, Example 7.4\] for details). Such maps are useful because of the following lemma on pulling back systolic freedom (cf. \[21, Proposition 7.10\]).

###### Lemma 3.6 (Pullback Lemma).

Let $`XY`$ be an $`m`$-meromorphic map. If $`Y`$ is $`m`$-systolically free modulo torsion, then so is $`X`$.

###### Example 3.7.

Let us show how one can apply the pullback lemma to reduce the 2-systolic freedom of the complex projective plane $`P^2`$ to that of the product $`S^2\times S^2`$.

Consider the decomposition $`P^2=S^2_hD^4`$, where $`h=\frac{1}{2}[e,e]`$ is the Hopf map. Here $`e`$ is the identity map of $`S^2`$, and $`[e,e]`$ is the Whitehead product. Also consider the CW complex $`W=S^2\times S^2_{e_1e_2}D^3`$. Let $`f:P^1W`$, $`f(e)=de_1`$ where $`d2`$ is an even integer. Then

$$\begin{array}{c}\hfill f(h)=f(\frac{1}{2}[e,e])=\frac{1}{2}[f(e),f(e)]=\frac{1}{2}[de_1,de_1]\\ \hfill =\frac{d^2}{2}[e_1,e_1]=\frac{d^2}{2}[e_1,e_2]=0\text{ in }\pi _3(W),\end{array}$$

since $`e_1=e_2`$ in $`W`$, and so $`[e_1,e_1]=[e_1,e_2]`$. Thus $`f`$ extends to a map $`f:P^2W`$ which is injective in 2-dimensional homology, and hence may be viewed as a 2-meromorphic map $`P^2S^2\times S^2`$. Now Lemma 3.6 reduces the 2-systolic freedom of $`P^2`$ to that of $`S^2\times S^2`$.

See also section 6 for a possible generalisation to $`P^n`$ using higher order Whitehead products.

The above argument is valid in view of the absence of torsion in $`\pi _{2m1}(S^m)`$ for $`m=2`$. For $`m>2`$, we use the following argument to find an $`m`$-meromorphic map to $`S^m\times S^m`$ (see proof of Lemma 4.4 in ).

###### Example 3.8.

Let $`X=S^m_aD^{2m}`$ be a CW complex of dimension $`2m`$ with 3 cells of dimensions 0, $`m`$, and $`2m`$, respectively. Let $`W=S^m\times S^m_{e_1e_2}D^{m+1}`$. Recall that the Whitehead product $`[e,e]\pi _{2m1}(S^m)`$ generates precisely the kernel of the suspension homomorphism. Suspension commutes with the homomorphism induced by the degree $`q`$ self-map $`\varphi _q:S^mS^m`$. Hence, if $`q`$ is a multiple of the order of the (finite!) stable group $`\pi _{2m}(S^{m+1})`$, then the map $`\varphi _q`$ sends $`\pi _{2m1}(S^m)`$ to the subgroup generated by Whitehead products. In particular, $`\varphi _q(a)=\lambda [e,e]`$. We now compose $`\varphi _q`$ with the inclusion $`\iota :S^mW`$ of $`S^m`$ as the first factor of $`S^m\times S^mW`$. It follows that

$$\iota \varphi _q(a)=\iota (\lambda [e,e])=\lambda [e_1,e_1]=\lambda [e_1,e_2]=0\pi _{2m1}(W).$$

Thus, the map $`\iota \varphi _q`$ extends to a map $`XW`$. This proves the $`m`$-systolic freedom of $`X`$.

## 4. Proof of systolic freedom of loop space

The results of this section generalize the middle-dimensional systolic freedom, established in , , and \[21, Theorem 1.5\]. Let $`n=mp,`$ where $`m2`$ and $`p2`$. Let $`(S^m)^{\times p}`$ denote the $`p`$-fold Cartesian product of $`m`$-spheres.

###### Theorem 4.1.

Let $`X`$ be a finite $`n`$-dimensional CW complex with unit $`m`$-th Betti number: $`b_m(X)=1`$. Then $`X`$ admits an $`m`$-meromorphic map to $`(S^m)^{\times p}`$, and hence $`X`$ is $`m`$-systolically free modulo torsion.

###### Proof.

Let $`n=mp`$, where $`m`$ is even (the case of $`m`$ odd is easier; see \[21, section 10\]). Let $`S=(S^m)^{\times p}`$. Let $`\varphi _j`$ be the selfmap of $`S`$ defined by a degree $`j`$ map on each factor. The map $`\varphi _j`$ induces a scalar homomorphism (namely, multiplication by a power of $`j`$) in each cohomology group of $`S`$. Namely, $`\varphi _j^{}=^{\mathrm{}}(j\mathrm{Id})=j^{\mathrm{}}:H^\mathrm{}m(S)H^\mathrm{}m(S).`$ Let $`w=x_1+\mathrm{}+x_p`$ be the sum of the standard generators $`x_i`$ of the cohomology group $`H^m(S)=^p`$. Then

$$w^p=p!x_1\mathrm{}x_p0\text{ in }H^n(S).$$

Now the class $`w`$ defines a map $`f:SK(,m)`$ such that $`f^{}(u)=w,`$ where $`uH^m(K(,m))=`$ is a generator. Recall that $`u`$ is a multiplicative generator of the polynomial ring $`H^{}(K(,m))[u]`$ ($`m`$ even). Our proof will rely on the following lemma.

###### Lemma 4.2.

The map $`f:(S^m)^{\times p}K(,m)`$ extends to a map $`f:WK(,m)`$ which induces an isomorphism in rational homology through dimension $`n`$, where $`W`$ is a finite CW complex obtained from $`S`$ by attaching cells of dimension at most $`nm+1<n`$. Furthermore, the maps $`\varphi _j^2`$ extend to $`W`$ for $`j`$ divisible by a sufficiently large $`j_0`$, in the following two situations:

1. if $`p=2`$ or $`3`$;
2. if $`m=2`$.

###### Proof.

Since $`w^p0`$, the map $`f:(S^m)^{\times p}K(,m)`$ induces an epimorphism

$$H_k(S,)H_k(K(,m),)$$
(6)
in each dimension less than $`n`$, and an isomorphism in dimension $`n`$. We will use the relative Hurewicz theorem to eliminate the successive kernels of the homomorphisms (6), and construct $`W`$ by skeleta $`W^{(k)}`$ inductively on $`k`$ (cf. \[26, p. 27\]).

Let $`S=(S^m)^{\times p}`$ and let $`W^{(m)}=S^{(m)}=S^m\mathrm{}S^m`$.

Next, let $`W^{(m+1)}=S^{(m)}_{e_1e_2}D^{m+1}_{e_2e_3}\mathrm{}_{e_{p1}e_p}D^{m+1}`$. Then $`W^{(m+1)}S^m`$.

Since the map $`\varphi _j`$ acts by $`j\mathrm{Id}`$ on $`\pi _m(W^{(m)})=H_m(S)`$, it extends to $`W^{(m+1)}`$.

We set $`W^{(2m)}=W^{(m+1)}S^{(2m)}`$ and note that, by patching the two pieces, $`\varphi _j`$ extends to $`W^{(2m)}`$. Note that $`W^{(2m)}S^m_iD_i^{2m}`$, where $`i=1,\mathrm{},\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{p}{2}\right)`$. We have $`W^{(2m)}/W^{(m+1)}_iS^{2m}`$, $`i=1,\mathrm{},\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{p}{2}\right)`$. Consider the exact sequence

$$\pi _{2m}(W^{(m+1)})\pi _{2m}(W^{(2m)})\pi _{2m}(W^{(2m)},W^{(m+1)}).$$
(7)
By Hurewicz’s theorem, the map $`\varphi _j`$ induces multiplication by $`j^2\mathrm{Id}`$ on the group

$$\pi _{2m}(W^{(2m)},W^{(m+1)})=H_{2m}(W^{(2m)},W^{(m+1)})=H_{2m}(_iS^{2m})=_{}^{{\scriptscriptstyle \frac{p}{2}}}.$$
(8)
Now consider the diagram

$$\begin{array}{ccccc}H_{2m+1}(K(,m),W^{(2m)})& \stackrel{}{}& H_{2m}(W^{(2m)})& \stackrel{f_{}}{}& H_{2m}(K(,m))\\ h_1& & h_2& & \\ \pi _{2m+1}(K(,m),W^{(2m)})& \stackrel{}{}& \pi _{2m}(W^{(2m)}),\end{array}$$

where $`h_i`$ are the Hurewicz maps. By the relative Hurewicz theorem, the homomorphism $`h_1`$ is surjective. Thus $`\mathrm{ker}(f_{})=\mathrm{im}(h_1)=\mathrm{im}(h_2).`$ Hence, every element in $`\mathrm{ker}(f_{})`$ is spherical.

Let $`\alpha _i\pi _{2m}(W^{(2m)})`$, $`i=1,\mathrm{}\frac{p}{2}1`$, be a set of lifts via the Hurewicz homomorphism $`h_2`$, of a set of generators of the kernel of $`f`$. From the exact sequence (7), we have $`\varphi _j(\alpha _i)=j^2\alpha _i+t`$, where $`t\pi _{2m}(S^m)`$ is of finite order. By Sullivan’s result \[26, p. 19\] on the nilpotence of the finite homotopy groups of spheres, there exists a $`j_0`$ such that if $`j_0|j`$ then $`\varphi _j=0`$ on $`\pi _{2m}(S^m)`$. Assume also that $`j_0`$ is a multiple of the order of $`\pi _{2m}(S^m)`$. Then

$$\varphi _j^2(\alpha _i)=\varphi _j(j^2\alpha _i+t)=j^2(\varphi _j(\alpha _i))+\varphi _j(t)=j^4\alpha _i+j^2t=j^4\alpha _i,$$

i.e. $`\varphi _j^2(\alpha _i)`$ is proportional to $`\alpha _i`$.

It follows that $`\varphi _j^2`$ extends to the next skeleton

$$W^{(2m+1)}=W^{(2m)}_{\alpha _i}D_i^{2m+1}$$

and therefore also to $`W^{(3m)}=W^{(2m+1)}S^{(3m)}`$, proving part (a) of the lemma.

We can similarly define $`W^{(\mathrm{}m)}=W^{((\mathrm{}1)m+1)}S^{(\mathrm{}m)}`$, and use the Serre form of the relative Hurewicz theorem (see \[23, pp. 95–98\]) to define

$$W^{(\mathrm{}m+1)}=W^{(\mathrm{}m)}_{\alpha _i}D_i^{\mathrm{}m+1}\text{ for }i=1,\mathrm{},\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{p}{\mathrm{}}\right)1.$$

Proceeding by induction, we extend $`f`$ to the space $`W=W^{((p1)m+1)}S`$, which is the desired meromorphic extension of $`S`$ (cf. Definition 3.4).

###### Remark 4.3.

The above argument does not yield an extension of $`\varphi _j^2`$ to $`W^{(3m+1)}`$ (when $`p4`$) because already the group $`\pi _{3m}(W^{(2m+1)},W^{(m+1)})`$ cannot be shown to be finite merely from Hurewicz’s theorem, as in the calculation (8) above. An alternative approach given below gives an easy proof only for $`m=2`$ (cf. Remark 4.4).

For $`m=2`$, we can understand the effect of $`\varphi _j`$ on $`\pi _2\mathrm{}(W^{(2\mathrm{})})`$ easily using the Hopf fibration over $`P^n`$. We argue inductively. To the extent that $`\varphi _j`$ already acts on $`W^{(2\mathrm{})}`$, the family $`(\varphi _j)`$ localizes homology of the space $`W^{(2l)}`$. Therefore by \[26, p. 19\], the family also localizes homotopy, so that we have the same corollary as for the spheres: the map on $`d`$ torsion of $`\pi _i(W^{(2l)})`$ induced by $`\varphi _d`$ is nilpotent. To show that the action of $`\varphi _j`$ is scalar on $`\pi _2\mathrm{}(W^{(2\mathrm{})})`$, it therefore suffices to show that this group has rank precisely

$$\text{rank}(H_2\mathrm{}(W^{(2\mathrm{})}))1=\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{p}{\mathrm{}}\right)1.$$

Consider the exact sequence of pair $`(W^{(2\mathrm{})},W^{(2l1)})`$:

$$\pi _2\mathrm{}(W^{(2\mathrm{}1)})\pi _2\mathrm{}(W^{(2\mathrm{})})\pi _2\mathrm{}(W^{(2\mathrm{})},W^{(2\mathrm{}1)})=H_2\mathrm{}(W^{(2\mathrm{})},W^{(2\mathrm{}1)})=^{\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{p}{\mathrm{}}\right)}$$

by Hurewicz. We need to show that the group $`\pi _2\mathrm{}(W^{(2\mathrm{}1)})`$ is finite. Now the map $`W^{(2\mathrm{}1)}P^\mathrm{}1`$, where $`P^\mathrm{}1P^{\mathrm{}}=K(,2)`$, has already been constructed. This map induces an isomorphism in rational homology in all dimensions. By the Serre-Hurewicz theorem, the group $`\pi _i(P^\mathrm{}1,W^{(2\mathrm{}1)})`$ is finite for all $`i`$. The exact sequence of the pair shows that the groups $`\pi _i(W^{(2\mathrm{}1)})`$ are all finite except $`\pi _2`$ and $`\pi _{2\mathrm{}1}`$, since $`\pi _{2\mathrm{}1}(P^\mathrm{}1)=\pi _{2\mathrm{}1}(S^{2\mathrm{}1})=`$ from the exact sequence of the Hopf fibration, proving part (b) of the Lemma. ∎

###### Remark 4.4.

To generalize this proof to $`m3`$, one could replace the spaces $`P^n`$ by the skeleta of $`\mathrm{\Omega }(S^{m+1})`$ (cf. formula (10)). However, the calculation of the homotopy groups of such skeleta is not as immediate as that of complex projective spaces.

## 5. Conclusion of proof

Lemma 4.2 provides a quick proof of Theorem 4.1 in the cases (a) and (b), as follows. We appeal to rational homotopy theory, to conclude that the rationalisation $`W_0`$ of $`W`$ can be thought of as the $`n`$-skeleton of $`K(,m)=K(,m)_0`$.

Due to the existence of the selfmaps $`\varphi _j^2`$ of $`W`$, according to D. Sullivan , the space $`W_0`$ admits a model as an infinite telescope on $`W`$, whose $`j`$-th stage is the cylinder of the self-map $`\varphi _j^2`$ of $`W`$, where $`\varphi _j`$ is induced by a degree $`j`$ map on each of the factors in $`S^m\times \mathrm{}\times S^m=S`$.

Now let $`X`$ be a finite $`n`$-dimensional CW complex with $`b_m(X)=1`$. Consider a map from $`X`$ to $`K(,m)`$ defined by any non-torsion $`m`$-dimensional cohomology class. The map may be assumed to have image in $`W_0`$, viewed as the skeleton of the classifying space. Being compact, the image of $`X`$ lies in a finite piece of the telescope structure of $`W_0`$. Hence it can be retracted to the final stage, $`W`$, of the finite piece. Now $`W`$ is just the space $`(S^m)^{\times p}`$, with some cells of dimension at most $`nm+1<n`$ attached. Hence $`W`$ is a meromorphic extension of $`S`$. We thus obtain an $`m`$-meromorphic map $`X(S^m)^{\times p}`$. The pullback lemma 3.6 completes the proof in the 2 cases mentioned in Lemma 4.2.

In the general case $`p4,m3`$, we need a more delicate argument. We rely on the following property of maps of compact spaces into rationalisations.

###### Lemma 5.1.

Let $`S`$ be a CW complex admitting a telescope model (i.e. there are self-maps which localize homology). Assume that a CW complex $`W`$ is obtained from $`S`$ by attaching cells of dimension at most $`k`$. Then the image of a compact space mapping into the rationalisation $`W_0`$ of $`W`$ may always be deformed into a subcomplex of $`W_0`$ which is homotopy equivalent to a copy of $`S`$ with cells of dimension at most $`k+1`$ attached.

###### Proof.

Recall that $`S_0`$ is obtained as the direct limit in the following construction:

$$S_0=\underset{j}{}S\times I/(x,1)(\varphi _jid_j(x),0).$$
(9)
Here $`id_j:SS`$ is the identification of the $`j`$-th and $`(j+1)`$-th levels.

A local CW complex is built inductively by attaching cones over the local sphere using maps of the local spheres into the lower ‘local skeletons’. For each cell of dimension $`k`$ attached to $`S`$, we attach a corresponding local cell to $`S_0`$, which contains cells $`\sigma ^{d_i}`$ of dimension $`d_ik+1`$. Here the extra dimension is due to the presence of cylinders in formula (9). A map from a compact space $`X`$ into $`W_0`$ has image in a finite subcomplex $`W_0^{}W_0`$, which may be assumed to be of the following form: take a finite piece

$$S_0^{}=\underset{j}{\overset{N}{}}S\times I/(x,1)(\varphi _jid_j(x),0)$$

of the infinite telescope $`S_0`$, and attach, to $`S_0^{}`$, at most finitely many cells from among the $`\sigma ^{d_i}`$. Namely,

$$W_0^{}=S_0^{}_i\sigma ^{d_i}.$$

From the homotopy equivalence $`S_0^{}S`$, we obtain the equivalence $`W_0^{}S_i\sigma ^{d_i}`$, since each attaching map is an element of a homotopy group and hence a homotopy invariant, while homotopy groups commute with direct limits by a simple compactness argument. ∎

To complete the proof of Theorem 4.1, we argue as follows. Let $`W_0`$ be the rationalisation of the space $`W`$ of the lemma. By the universal property of a localisation \[26, p. 18\], the map from $`W`$ to the local space $`K(,m)`$ induced by $`f`$ extends to a map $`W_0K(,m)`$. Thus $`W_0`$ may be thought of as the $`n`$-skeleton of $`K(,m)`$. Recall that $`W`$ is obtained from $`S`$ by adding cells of dimension at most $`nm+1`$.

If $`X`$ is compact, by Lemma 5.1 the image of the map can be deformed into a space $`W_0^{}`$ obtained from $`S`$ by attaching cells of dimension at most $`nm+2`$.

###### Remark 5.2.

The space $`W_0^{}`$ is thus a meromorphic extension (cf. Definition 3.4) of $`S`$ only if $`m3`$. The case $`m=2`$ is handled as above (following Remark 4.3), using the Hopf fibration over $`K(,2)=P^{\mathrm{}}`$.

Since we rely on an existence theorem for rationalisations, what we lose control of in this version of the proof is the exact form of the meromorphic extension of $`S`$, which admits a continuous map from $`X`$. ∎

###### Corollary 5.3.

Every finite $`n`$-dimensional CW complex is $`m`$-systolically free modulo torsion, provided $`2m<n`$.

###### Proof.

Recall that Theorem 1.6 of  reduces the general case to that of the successive skeleta of the loop space $`\mathrm{\Omega }=\mathrm{\Omega }(S^{m+1})`$, arising from the cell decomposition of I. James,

$$\mathrm{\Omega }S^me^{2m}e^{3m}\mathrm{},$$
(10)
with precisely one cell in each dimension divisible by $`m`$ (see ). We now apply Theorem 4.1 to the $`n`$-skeleton of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, to prove its $`m`$-systolic freedom modulo torsion, completing the proof of the Corollary.

Our proof of Theorem 1.6 of  can be simplified by using the telescope model for the localisation $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0=K(,m)`$ of the loop space $`\mathrm{\Omega }=\mathrm{\Omega }(S^{m+1})`$. Such a model exists by , since $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ admits self-maps defined by mapping a loop to its $`j`$-th iterate, which induce multiplication by $`j`$ in all homology groups.

Namely, let $`X`$ be a finite $`n`$-dimensional CW complex, and let $`b=b_m(X)`$ be its $`m`$-th Betti number. A choice of a basis for a maximal lattice in $`H^m(X)`$ defines a map $`XK(^b,m)`$. The composition of this map with the canonical map $`K(^b,m)K(^b,m)_0=\mathrm{\Omega }_0^{\times b}`$, induces an isomorphism $`H_m(X,)H_m(\mathrm{\Omega }_0^{\times b},)`$. Now we argue as above. We use the compactness of $`X`$ to construct a projection to the final level of a finite piece of the telescope.

By the pullback lemma 3.6, it remains to prove the $`m`$-systolic freedom of the $`n`$-skeleton of $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{\times b}`$. Next, we apply the carving up technique of , to reduce the problem to the $`m`$-systolic freedom of the closures of the top-dimensional cells in the $`n`$-skeleton $`(\mathrm{\Omega }^{\times b})^{(n)}`$ of $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{\times b}`$.

The cell decomposition of $`(\mathrm{\Omega }^{\times b})^{(n)}`$ induced by the James decomposition (10) contains only cells of dimensions divisible by $`m`$. In particular, there are no cells of codimension 1.

The absence of codimension 1 cells in $`(\mathrm{\Omega }^{\times b})^{(n)}`$ is the crucial ingredient of the carving up technique. It allows us to isolate the different cell closures in $`(\mathrm{\Omega }^{\times b})^{(n)}`$ from each other. This is accomplished by inserting long cylinders based on the boundary, in $`(\mathrm{\Omega }^{\times b})^{(nm)}`$, of each top-dimensional cell. The absence of cells of codimension 1 guarantees that these cylinders have positive codimension, and thus make no contribution to total $`n`$-dimensional volume.

The effect of the long cylinders is to minimize the interaction between distinct top-dimensional cells, so that an $`m`$-cycle traveling from one to the other would have to pay a heavy price in terms of its $`m`$-volume. The formal argument, using coarea and isoperimetric inequalities, appears in \[21, Appendix B\].

Each of the top-dimensional cells in $`(\mathrm{\Omega }^{\times b})^{(n)}`$ is a product of skeleta $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{(mp_i)}`$ of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. Each $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{(mp_i)}`$ admits a meromorphic map to $`(S^m)^{\times p_i}`$ by Theorem 4.1. Thus there exists a meromorphic map

$$_i\mathrm{\Omega }^{(mp_i)}_i(S^m)^{\times p_i}=(S^m)^{\times (\mathrm{\Sigma }_ip_i)}=(S^m)^{\times p}.$$

The $`m`$-systolic freedom of $`_i\mathrm{\Omega }^{(mp_i)}`$ now follows from the systolic freedom of products of spheres (cf. Proposition 3.3). ∎

## 6. Higher order Whitehead products

It is tempting to try to generalize the argument of Example 3.7 using higher order Whitehead products, so as to derive the systolic freedom of $`P^n`$, or of the appropriate skeleton of the loop space, from the systolic freedom of the Cartesian product $`(S^2)^{\times n}`$.

We form the analogue of the space $`W`$ of Example 3.7 by defining $`W_n`$ to be the CW complex obtained from $`(S^2)^{\times n}`$ by attaching $`n1`$ copies of a 3-cell along differences of consecutive 2-spheres in the product $`(S^2)^{\times n}`$:

$$W_n=(S^2)^{\times n}_{e_1e_2}D^3_{e_2e_3}\mathrm{}_{e_{n1}e_n}D^3.$$

The top-dimensional cell of $`(S^2)^{\times n}`$ is attached by means of the $`n^{\text{th}}`$ order Whitehead product $`a_n=[e_1,\mathrm{},e_n]`$ of the 2-dimensional generators. Thus

$$W_n=W_n^{(2n2)}_{a_n}D^{2n}$$

where $`W^{(i)}`$ denotes the $`i`$-skeleton. Furthermore, $`P^n=P^{n1}_hD^{2n}`$ where

$$n!h=[e,e,\mathrm{},e]$$
(11)
(cf. \[24, p. 416\], \[1, p. 460\], \[15, p. 39\]). Now let $`f=\varphi _d`$ be a self-map of $`S^2`$ of degree $`d`$. By virtue of formula (11), we can write

$$f(n!h)=f([e,e,\mathrm{},e])[f(e),f(e),\mathrm{},f(e)]=[de_1,de_1,\mathrm{},de_1].$$

Since $`e_i=e_j`$ in $`W_n^{(2n2)}`$ for all $`i`$ and $`j`$, we have

$$f(n!h)[de_1,de_2,\mathrm{},de_n]=d^n[e_1,e_2,\mathrm{},e_n].$$

Since $`f(n!h)=n!f(h)`$, we obtain

$$f(h)\frac{d^n}{n!}[e_1,e_2,\mathrm{},e_n]+t\pi _{2n1}(W_n^{(2n2)})$$

assuming the fraction is an integer (e.g. if $`n!`$ divides $`d`$), where $`t\pi _{2n1}(W_n^{(2n2)})`$ is a torsion element of order dividing $`(n!)`$.

Now the problem of the torsion element $`t`$ can be handled by replacing $`P^n`$ by the $`2n`$-skeleton of a model of $`\mathrm{\Omega }(S^3)`$ (cf. (10)). Then the attaching map $`h^{}`$ is a higher order Whitehead product and we may set $`d=1`$, to obtain

$$h^{}[e_1,\mathrm{},e_n]\pi _{2n1}(W_n^{(2n2)}).$$

Now the set $`[e_1,\mathrm{},e_n]\pi _{2n1}(W_n)`$ clearly contains zero, corresponding to the attaching map $`a_n`$ of the top-dimensional cell in the product of spheres. However, this class may also contain other elements, due to ambiguity in the choice of the extension to the fat wedge. For instance, the 4-skeleton of the space $`W_3=S^2\times S^2\times S^2_{e_1e_2}D^3_{e_2e_3}D^3`$ is homotopy equivalent to the 2-sphere with three distinct 4-cells attached along the same class $`[e,e]`$. There are thus 9 potentially nonhomotopic possibilities for extending the inclusion $`S^2S^2S^2W_3`$ to the fat wedge $`W_3^{(4)}W_3`$.

Thus, the indeterminacy of the higher order Whitehead product is an obstruction to the attempted generalisation of the proof of Example 3.7. On the other hand, attaching higher-dimensional cells to reduce the rank of all homology groups to at most 1 may resolve the indeterminacy and yield an alternative proof of the main theorem.

## 7. Torsion coefficients for meromorphic maps

There now exists a first example of systolic freedom even with $`_2`$ coefficients, due to M. Freedman  (cf. Remark 2.1). One could therefore propose to study systolic freedom over $`_2`$ of manifolds. Essentially this would amount to proving the statement of Theorem 1.1, with the word ‘orientable’ deleted, as in the following question.

###### Question 7.1.

Let $`m`$ and $`n`$ be integers such that $`2m<n`$. Let $`X`$ be an $`n`$-dimensional compact smooth manifold. Does $`X`$ admit metrics of arbitrarily small total volume, such that every $`m`$-dimensional (possibly nonorientable) submanifold of less than unit $`m`$-volume is null-homologous as a cycle with $`_2`$ coefficients?

We could attack this question by studying ‘torsion meromorphic maps’, where we replace $``$ by $`_2`$ in Definition 3.5. We could then study the partial order on the set of all manifolds of a given dimension, defined by the existence of a torsion meromorphic map between them.

This approach immediately yields the 2-systolic freedom over $`_2`$ of $`S^2\times S^2`$, since it admits a degree 1 map to $`S^2\times S^1\times S^1`$ with a pair of 2-cells attached (cf. \[21, Corollary 7.9\]), while the freedom of $`S^2\times S^1\times S^1`$ follows from Freedman’s example $`(S^2\times S^1,g_F)`$ by forming Cartesian product with a circle of length $`\frac{\mathrm{𝑠𝑦𝑠}_2^_2(g_F)}{\mathrm{𝑠𝑦𝑠}_1^_2(g_F)}`$.

Meanwhile, a simple analysis of the multiplicative structure of the pertinent cohomology rings suggests that the manifold $`P^2`$ ought not to admit a torsion meromorphic map to $`S^2\times S^2`$. It is thus the simplest manifold for which Question 7.1 is open.

###### Acknowledgment.

We are grateful to Shmuel Weinberger and to Emanuel Dror-Farjoun for helpful discussions of rational homotopy theory. Ivan Babenko carefully went over an early version of this paper and made a number of pertinent suggestions and corrections, for which we thank him.


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# Studying the 𝜔-mass in-medium in 𝛾+𝐴→𝜋⁰𝛾+𝑋 reactions

## 1 Introduction

The modification of hadron properties in the nuclear medium is one of the current topics in hadron and nuclear physics. Vector-meson properties in the nuclear medium have attracted considerable attention since their in-medium spectral function was measured by dilepton spectroscopy ($`l^+l^{}`$) without distortion due to final-state interactions. An enhancement in the lepton pair spectrum from heavy-ion collisions relative to proton-nucleus reactions has been observed by the CERES Agakichiev1 ; Agakichiev2 ; Agakichiev3  and HELIOS-3 Masera  collaborations at the SPS in the invariant-mass range from 0.4 – 0.7 GeV. As proposed in Refs. Brown ; Li ; Cassing1 ; Rapp1 ; Cassing2  an enhancement can be understood in terms of a modification of the vector-meson properties in dense and hot nuclear matter. Collisional broadening of the $`\rho `$-meson width or dropping of the $`\rho `$-mass pole might be responsible for the experimental observations. The in-medium modifications of vector mesons have also been discussed in Refs Boffi ; Bianchi1 ; Rapp2 ; Muccifora ; Rapp3  in the context of photo-absorption data on nuclei Bianchi1 ; Bianchi2 . Recently, it was suggested Falter  that photoproduction data can provide access to the momentum dependence of the in-medium $`\rho `$-meson potential Eletsky1 ; Kondratyuk ; Eletsky2 .

Theoretical studies within different models predict a dropping of the in-medium $`\rho `$-meson mass ($`m^{}`$) at normal nuclear-matter density ($`\rho _0=`$0.16 fm-3) within the range of $`240m^{}m_V45`$ MeV Hatsuda1 ; Asakawa ; Koike ; Jin ; Saito1 ; Tsushima1 ; Leupold , where $`m_V`$ denotes the bare $`\rho `$-mass. However, it was argued in Refs. Chanfray ; Herrmann ; Rapp4 ; Friman1 ; Klingl1  that due to substantial collisional broadening the $`\rho `$-meson might not survive as a “proper” quasiparticle at large nuclear densities and only reflects a continuum spectral strength of the isovector current. Thus, the $`\rho `$-meson spectral function is difficult to identify at high baryon density.

The situation is better for the $`\omega `$-meson. Here, the predictions for a modification of the $`\omega `$-mass (at normal nuclear-matter density $`\rho _o`$) are within the range $`140m^{}m_V15`$ MeV Tsushima1 ; Klingl1 ; Friman2 ; Saito2 ; Saito3 ; Klingl2 , while the $`\omega `$-meson collisional width is estimated within the range of 20 to 50 MeV Klingl1 ; Friman2 ; Lykasov . Thus it is expected that the in-medium $`\omega `$-meson survives as a quasiparticle and can be observed as a structure in the $`\omega `$-mass spectrum. In this case, one should observe a significant resonance structure on top of a continuum.

The $`\varphi `$ and $`J/\mathrm{\Psi }`$ mesons should also change their masses slightly at normal nuclear density with a small collisional width due to the almost negligible interaction with nucleons Koike ; Jin ; Tsushima1 ; Klingl1 . However, their in-medium modifications are rather small compared to the $`\omega `$-meson and their production is suppressed due to the internal $`s\overline{s}`$ or $`c\overline{c}`$ quark structure.

In heavy-ion collisions the baryon density varies dramatically with time due to the formation and expansion of the “fireball”. It was proposed in Refs. Sibirtsev1 ; Weidmann ; Effenberger1 ; Effenberger2 ; Golubeva2 ; Sibirtsev2 ; schoen96 ; metag95 ; metag98  to study the in-medium vector meson properties in the interactions of pions, protons or photons with nuclei. Both the $`l^+l^{}`$ and $`\pi ^0\gamma `$ invariant-mass spectra have been discussed as possibilities investigating the vector-meson properties in matter.

Only vector mesons decaying inside nuclei can be used for an identification of the in-medium properties. This imposes the kinematic condition Nikolaev  that the decay length of the vector meson $`L_VE_V/m_V\mathrm{\Gamma }_V`$ should be less than the nuclear radius. It implies that the vector mesons should be produced at small velocities or energies $`E_V`$ from heavy-nuclear targets. Furthermore, because of the finite vector-meson life time, $`1/\mathrm{\Gamma }_V`$, only a fraction will decay inside the nucleus and the final spectra will show the signal from decays inside and outside the target nucleus as well as contributions from the interference of the two amplitudes.

In case of dilepton measurements in $`\gamma A`$ reactions Effenberger2  the in-medium signal from $`\omega `$-meson decays is superimposed on a broad signal from the $`\rho `$-meson. In addition, the dilepton measurements in $`\gamma A`$ reactions are dominated by the Bethe-Heitler process, which can only be suppressed by rather severe kinematic cuts Effenberger2 . Therefore, the $`\pi ^0\gamma `$ measurements appear to be more promising.

The in-medium properties of vector mesons can be detected with dilepton spectroscopy as mentioned above. As was proposed in Refs. Golubeva1 ; Sibirtsev1 , an alternative way to study the in-medium modification of the $`\omega `$-meson is to look at the $`\omega \pi ^0+\gamma `$ decay mode. This mode accounts for 8.5$``$10-2 of the total $`\omega `$ decay width, while for the $`\rho `$-meson it is only $`6.810^4`$. The contribution of the $`\rho `$-meson to the $`\pi ^0\gamma `$-mass distribution is therefore negligible, which makes the $`\pi ^0\gamma `$-decay mode an exclusive probe to study the $`\omega `$-meson properties in matter.

It should be pointed out that the reconstruction of the $`\omega \pi ^0+\gamma `$ mode is hindered by the final-state interactions of the $`\pi ^0`$-meson in the nucleus, which might be quite strong in case of large nuclei Sibirtsev1 . In addition, the pion from the $`\omega `$ decay may be off-shell, too. Furthermore, the finite experimental efficiency causes a mis-identification of four $`\gamma `$ events from the channels $`\pi ^0\pi ^0`$, $`\eta \pi ^0`$ and related reactions with more than three photons in the final channel. Thus the $`\pi ^0\gamma 3\gamma `$ mode requires a full understanding of the contributions from these reactions.

We investigate the possibility to deduce the in-medium modification of the $`\omega `$-meson from the $`\pi ^0\gamma `$ invariant-mass distribution for $`\gamma +A`$ reactions and evaluate the optimal experimental conditions for the photon energy and the size of the target nucleus. We will apply kinematic cuts on 3 photon events in order to identify the distortion of the in-medium signal due to the $`\pi ^0`$-meson final state interaction. Our study is designed for the TAPS Gabler  and Crystal Barrel aker92  experiment at ELSA. The detector response is known and the background contribution due to the final-state mis-identifications, caused by the detector efficiency and the corrections due to the experimental resolution in the reconstruction of the $`\pi ^0\gamma `$ spectrum, are calculated.

## 2 Ingredients of the model

The calculations were performed within the transport model previously applied to $`\rho `$, $`K^+`$, $`K^{}`$ and $`\omega `$ meson production in pion-nucleus and proton-nucleus collisions Sibirtsev1 ; Sibirtsev2 ; Sibirtsev3 . In the following, we describe the new ingredients of the model relevant to photoproduction of $`\omega `$-mesons and the calculation of the background $`\gamma +N\pi ^0+\pi ^0+N`$ reaction.

In Fig. 1, the $`\gamma +p\omega +p`$ cross section is shown as a function of the photon energy $`E_\gamma `$ from Ref. Landolt . The dashed line gives the result for the $`\omega `$ cross section calculated within the $`\pi `$ and $`\eta `$-meson exchange model where the parameters have been adopted from Refs. Friman3 ; Titov . Our calculations are close to the predictions of Refs. Friman3 ; Titov . The discrepancy between the data and the calculations at $`E_\gamma 2.5`$ GeV might be due to additional contributions from pomeron exchange Titov , which plays a dominant role at high energies Donnachie .

For an application in our transport calculations we parameterize the data on the $`\gamma +p\omega +p`$ cross section as

$$\sigma =\frac{[(sm_N^2m_\omega ^2)^24m_N^2m_\omega ^2]^{1/2}}{s(sm_N^2)}\frac{A}{(\sqrt{s}M)^2+\mathrm{\Gamma }^2/4},$$
(1)
where $`s`$, $`m_N`$ and $`m_\omega `$ are the squared invariant collision energy, the nucleon and $`\omega `$-meson masses, respectively. The parameters $`M=1.7`$ GeV, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$=6 GeV and $`A`$=396 $`\mu `$b$``$GeV-4 have been fitted to the data Landolt .

The solid line in Fig. 1 shows the parametrization (1) that reproduces the available data Landolt  reasonable well. We mention that the parameterization (1) is also in agreement with recent SAPHIR data Klein1 ; Klein2 . The cross section on the neutron was taken to be the same as on a proton.

In the transport code the $`\omega `$-mesons are produced in accordance with their spectral function. In addition to the vacuum spectral function, an in-medium modification was introduced by the real and imaginary part of an effective $`\omega `$-meson potential Sibirtsev1

$`\mathrm{}U_\omega (\rho )=m_\omega \beta {\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{\rho _0}},`$
$`\mathrm{}U_\omega (\rho )=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{coll}{\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{\rho _0}},`$ (2)
where $`m_\omega `$ is the bare $`\omega `$-meson mass, $`\rho _0`$=0.16 fm-3 and $`\rho `$ is the local nuclear density. The parameter $`\beta =`$–0.16 was adopted from the model predictions in Refs. Tsushima1 ; Klingl1 ; Friman2 ; Saito2 ; Saito3 ; Klingl2  and the collisional width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{coll}`$=50 MeV was taken from Refs. Klingl1 ; Lykasov . We calculate the production, the propagation and decay of the $`\omega `$-meson inside the potential (2). This prescription consistently guarantees that the $`\omega `$-mesons decaying outside the nuclei regain the $`\omega `$-spectral function in vacuum.

The linear-density approximation in Eq. (2) is in reasonable agreement111For instance, the comparison between the scaling Brown ; Hatsuda1  and the calculations Saito1 ; Tsushima2  for a carbon target is shown in Fig. 3 of Ref. Sibirtsev3 . with the density dependence of the real part of the vector-meson potential calculated in Refs. Saito1 ; Tsushima2  for finite nuclei.

Furthermore, we account for the elastic and inelastic $`\omega `$-meson interactions in nuclei employing the cross sections given in Ref. Lykasov . We calculate the distortion of the $`\omega \pi ^0\gamma `$ signal due to the re-scattering of the $`\pi ^0`$-meson by adopting the total and elastic $`\pi +N`$ differential cross sections from the Karlsruhe-Helsinki partial-wave analysis Hohler ; Koch . In the medium, however, many-body phenomena like two-nucleon absorption of pions may occur additionally, which is very pronounced for low momentum pions ericson , but becomes questionable for pion momenta above 350 MeV/c since the pion wavelength must be somewhat larger than the average distance between nucleons. We have investigated the role of such many-body effects by calculating $`\pi ^+`$ absorption on nuclei for pion momenta above 300 MeV/c employing the cross sections from Hohler ; Koch . As a genuine result we find that for $`{}_{}{}^{65}Fe`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{209}Bi`$ nuclei we overestimate the pion absorption by 10-20 %, respectively, in comparison to the data from Ref. piabs . This result is fully in line with the earlier transport studies by Engel et al. in Ref. Engel . In addition, we have analyzed the two-nucleon absorption in the $`\omega `$-production channel discussed in this paper. For the energies presented here, the effect of an additional two-nucleon absorption is estimated to be around 5%. We thus discard additional many-body phenomena in order not to overestimate the $`\pi ^0`$ reabsorption.

To calculate the background from two neutral pions we implement the elementary photoproduction cross section shown in Fig. 2. While data Landolt  for the $`\gamma +p\pi ^++\pi ^{}+p`$ cross section are available for a large range of photon energies, data for the $`\gamma +p\pi ^0+\pi ^0+p`$ reaction are only available up to $`E_\gamma `$0.8 GeV wolf . We employ a resonance model to construct a parameterization over the desirable range of photon energies. As shown by the dashed lines in Fig. 2, the contribution from the baryonic resonances coupled to two pions can be calculated for both reactions by taking into account the resonance properties from the analysis in Ref. Manley . We assume the same energy dependence of the non-resonant contribution for the $`\gamma +p\pi ^0+\pi ^0+p`$ and the $`\gamma +p\pi ^++\pi ^{}+p`$ reaction, however, scale the strength in line with the low-energy data wolf . Our estimate for the $`\gamma +p\pi ^0+\pi ^0+p`$ cross section is in reasonable agreement with the microscopic calculations of Ref. Gomez .

Experimental data on the $`\gamma +N\eta +\pi ^0+N`$ reaction, that might contribute to the background, are not available. We thus discard this channel in our present calculations. It is known experimentally Landolt  that the total $`\gamma +N`$ cross section is almost saturated by the sum of the $`\gamma +N\pi +N`$, $`\gamma +N2\pi +N`$ and $`\gamma +N\eta +N`$ partial cross sections below a photon energy of 1.3 GeV. At higher photon energies the dominant contributions to the total $`\gamma +N`$ cross section stem from multi-pion production Landolt .

Since not only the $`\omega `$-meson, but also the decay pion changes its spectral function in the medium, the in-medium $`\omega `$ Dalitz decay has to be discussed explicitly. Now let the in-medium $`\omega `$ mass be $`M`$ and the decay pion have a mass $`m_\pi ^{}`$ that is selected by Monte Carlo according to its in-medium width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\pi ^{}`$ and mass shift $`\delta m_\pi `$. Energy and momentum conservation - in the rest frame of the $`\omega `$ meson - than implies

$$M^2=(E_\pi ^{}+E_\gamma )^2=(\sqrt{p_\pi ^2+m_\pi ^2}+E_\gamma )^2,$$
(3)
with $`E_\gamma =|p_\pi ^{}|`$ denoting the photon energy which in magnitude equals the momentum of the decay pion. Whereas the photon propagates to the vacuum without distortion, the in-medium pion changes its momentum and spectral function during the propagation to the vacuum according to quantum off-shell propagation ca1 ; ca2 . In the particular case, where the pion self energy $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_\pi `$ has no explicit time dependence ($`_t\mathrm{\Sigma }_\pi =0`$) and is only a function of momentum and density, which holds well for the case of $`p+A`$ reactions, the energy of the pion $`E_\pi ^{}=E_\pi `$ is a constant of motion (cf. Eq. (20) in Ref. ca2 ). Thus the off-shell mass and momentum balance out during the propagation as shown graphically in Ref. ca2  in Figs. 1 and 2 for a related problem. The magnitude of the pion momentum in vacuum - if not scattered explicitly or being absorbed - then is given by

$$p_\pi ^v=\sqrt{p_\pi ^2+m_\pi ^2m_0^2},$$
(4)
where $`m_0`$ denotes the vacuum pion mass and $`p_\pi ^{}`$ the pion momentum in the $`\omega `$ decay in-medium. The invariant mass (squared) of the pion and photon in the vacuum then is given by

$$M_r^2=(E_\pi +E_\gamma )^2(p_\pi ^vE_\gamma )^2=M^2(p_\pi ^vE_\gamma )^2.$$
(5)
The pion propagation thus leads to a slight downward shift of the invariant mass in vacuum relative to its original in-medium value. We note, that the above considerations apply well for heavy nuclei where the corrections in energy due to the recoil momentum of the nucleus ($`|p_\pi ^vE_\gamma |`$) can be discarded.

For an actual quantification of this effect one has to specify the pion spectral function e.g. at nuclear matter density $`\rho _0`$. The pions, that originate from the $`\omega `$ decay in $`\gamma +A`$ reactions, have typical momenta $`300`$ MeV such that their interaction cross section with nucleons is in the order of 30-35 mb, while their velocity $`\beta _\pi `$ relative to the target is close to 1. Consequently the collisional broadening can be estimated as

$$\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }_\pi \beta _\pi \sigma _{\pi N}\rho _085120MeV,$$
(6)
which is still quite substantial. For a test case we have assumed the $`\omega `$ in-medium spectral function to be represented by a Breit-Wigner of width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{tot}`$ = 50 MeV and pole mass of 0.65 GeV. Then for each invariant mass $`M`$ the decay of the $`\omega `$ to a photon and an in-medium pion can be evaluated and the pion momentum $`p_\pi ^v`$ according to (4). The results of the simulations for the pion off-shell effects on the reconstructed invariant mass distribution in (5) show that for a pion collisional broadening of 100 – 200 MeV the shift in invariant mass is practically invisible at the pole mass and only becomes more pronounced in the low mass tails of the invariant mass distribution. In Fig. 3 the $`\pi ^0`$ off-shell effect is displayed quantitatively for the reaction $`\gamma +Ca\pi ^0\gamma +X`$ at an incident photon energy of 1.2 GeV. Shown is the $`\pi ^0\gamma `$-mass distribution for those $`\omega `$ mesons which decay inside the nucleus. Indicated are the distributions assuming freely propagating on-shell $`\pi ^0`$ mesons (filled circles) and assuming a modification of the $`\pi ^0`$ spectral function by a Breit-Wigner distribution with a width of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$=150 MeV (open triangles). As seen from Fig. 3, the mean-field propagation of the $`\pi ^0`$ meson in the nucleus can be safely neglected especially in view of presently achievable experimental mass resolutions (see Section 4). Furthermore, the spectrum is strongly distorted by $`\pi ^0`$ rescattering only in the low mass tails (see Section 3.2). Thus we continue our studies with on-shell calculations for the pions without substantial loss in accuracy.

## 3 Model predictions

The coupled-channel transport model described in the previous section has been adopted in a Monte-Carlo simulation to examine and optimize the feasibility of measuring the $`\omega `$ mass at nuclear densities in the process $`\gamma +A\pi ^0\gamma +X`$. In particular, the effect of the final-state $`\pi ^0`$ rescattering to the $`\omega `$-mass determination is studied. Furthermore, the dependence on the incident photon energy and the atomic mass of the nucleus is addressed in this section. In sections 4 and 5 the effect of experimental resolution and background processes are discussed.

### 3.1 Incident photon energy

The fraction of $`\omega `$ mesons decaying inside the nucleus can be optimized by minimizing the decay length $`L_\omega E_\omega /m_\omega \mathrm{\Gamma }_\omega `$. It is therefore preferred that the kinetic energy of the $`\omega `$ meson is small. This can be achieved with an incident photon energy close to the $`\omega `$-production threshold as illustrated in Fig. 4. Here, the kinetic-energy distributions of the $`\omega `$ produced in the reaction $`\gamma +Ca\omega +X`$ for an incident photon energy of $`E_\gamma `$=1.2 GeV (solid histogram) and an incident photon energy of $`E_\gamma `$=2.0 GeV (dotted histogram) are compared. Clearly, the $`\omega `$ meson has the smallest average energy for $`E_\gamma `$=1.2 GeV. Furthermore, at $`E_\gamma `$=1.2 GeV the $`\omega `$-production cross section is still comparable to the cross sections at larger incident photon energies (see Fig. 1). Thus in the simulations described below an incident photon energy of $`E_\gamma `$=1.2 GeV is used.

### 3.2 $`\pi ^0`$ rescattering

One of the critical arguments against studying the $`\omega `$-mass in-medium by the decay $`\omega \pi ^0\gamma `$ is the strong final-state interaction of the $`\pi ^0`$. The transport model allows to study this effect quantitatively. In Fig. 5 this is illustrated for the reaction $`\gamma +Nb\pi ^0\gamma +X`$ at $`E_\gamma `$=1.2 GeV. The figure shows the $`\pi ^0\gamma `$-mass distribution decomposed in the fraction of $`\omega `$ mesons decaying outside the nucleus (a), the fraction decaying inside the nucleus (b) (for which the $`\pi ^0`$ does not rescatter) and the fraction decaying inside the nucleus in case of $`\pi ^0`$ rescattering (c). Note, that a fraction of approximately 36% of the $`\omega `$ mesons decays inside the nucleus. By definition, a particle decays “inside” the nucleus if the density $`\rho >0.05`$ fm-3. A shift (of $``$20%) and the effect of collisional broadening (of $``$50 MeV) of the $`\omega `$-mass distribution can be observed as parametrized according to Eqs. (2). For $``$40% of all the $`\omega `$ mesons decaying inside the nucleus, the final-state $`\pi ^0`$ does rescatter. However, this background appears dominantly at relatively small invariant masses $`M_{\pi ^0\gamma }`$ and is spread out over a large mass range. The scattering of the $`\pi ^0`$ with the nucleons alter its direction and kinetic energy such that the initial $`\omega `$-mass information is essentially lost. Hence, the $`\pi ^0`$-rescattering contribution is significantly smaller in the range 0.6$`<M_{\pi ^0\gamma }<`$0.8 GeV than the contribution of $`\omega `$ mesons decaying inside without $`\pi ^0`$ rescattering.

The energy loss of the rescattered $`\pi ^0`$ mesons can be exploited experimentally to reduce the background from rescattering even further. This is illustrated in Fig. 6, showing the $`\pi ^0\gamma `$-mass distribution versus the reconstructed kinetic energy of the $`\pi ^0`$. Clearly, the contribution of $`\omega `$ mesons decaying inside the nucleus - with $`\pi ^0`$ rescattering - is correlated with low-energy $`\pi ^0`$. Without a significant loss of the actual signal ($`\omega `$ mesons decaying inside the medium without rescattering of the $`\pi ^0`$), the dominant part of the $`\pi ^0`$-rescattering background can be eliminated by selecting $`\pi ^0`$ mesons with a kinetic energy $`T_{\pi ^0}>150`$ MeV. The resulting $`\pi ^0\gamma `$-mass distribution is shown in Fig. 7. An improvement compared to Fig. 5 can be observed. The contribution of the $`\pi ^0`$-rescattering background is now reduced to 1% within the mass range of $`0.6<M_{\pi ^0\gamma }<0.8`$ GeV. Besides exploiting the energy loss of the rescattered $`\pi ^0`$, angular correlations between the incident photon, the final-state photon and the $`\pi ^0`$ meson can be used to enhance the in-medium signal relative to $`\pi ^0`$-rescattering background. An analysis has shown that a similar result as shown in Fig. 7 can be obtained by alternatively gating on the opening angle between the final-state $`\pi ^0`$ and $`\gamma `$ and cutting on the out-of-plane angle of the $`\pi ^0`$ relative to the incident and final-state $`\gamma `$-$`\gamma `$ plane.

### 3.3 Atomic-mass dependence

The dependence of the $`\omega `$-mass in-medium on the atomic mass ($`A`$) has been studied by performing Monte-Carlo simulations for different nuclei. The result is shown in Fig. 8 for a proton, carbon, calcium and niobium target, varying $`A`$ between 1 and 92. All spectra are normalized at the pole mass of the $`\omega `$ ($`M_{\pi ^0\gamma }`$=0.78 GeV). Obviously, the contribution of the $`\omega `$ mesons decaying inside the nucleus (with and without $`\pi ^0`$ rescattering) increases as function of $`A`$ simply due to an increase in the effective radius of the nucleus. One might argue that a larger nucleus, like $`Pb`$, is more suited. However, for heavy targets one has to take into account the decrease in radiation length with $`Z^2`$, therefore increasing the fraction of incident photons converting into a lepton pair. In Table 1 we have summarized a quantitative analysis of the different contributions for different targets, e.g. the fraction of $`\omega `$ mesons decaying outside the nucleus, inside the nucleus without $`\pi ^0`$ rescattering, and inside the nucleus with $`\pi ^0`$ rescattering. In addition, the effect of a cut on $`T_{\pi ^0}>150`$ MeV is included in the table (values in brackets).

## 4 Experimental resolution

A realistic simulation has to take the effect of a finite detector resolution on the $`\pi ^0\gamma `$-mass determination into account. Therefore, we have included in the simulation a photon position resolution of $`\sigma `$=1.2 and a photon energy response as measured with the photon spectrometer TAPS consisting of BaF2 crystals Gabler . A similar resolution is expected for the Crystal Barrel detector ($`CsI`$aker92 , therefore providing a realistic simulation for future experiments at ELSA. The effect on the invariant-mass determination for different nuclei is shown in Fig. 9. Although an obvious decrease in the mass resolution can be observed by a comparison with Fig. 8, a shoulder due to $`\omega `$ mesons decaying inside the nucleus is still visible and increases with the size of the nucleus. The figure demonstrates the necessity of measuring the $`\pi ^0\gamma `$ mass for a set of different targets to avoid experimental ambiguities.

## 5 Channel misinterpretation

So far, the effect of experimental background has not been considered in the simulations. We expect the main source of background to come from a misidentification of the $`\gamma +A\pi ^0\gamma +X`$ reaction due to not detecting one of the photons of the process $`\gamma +A\pi ^0\pi ^0+X`$. Therefore, the latter reaction has been implemented in the calculation as described in section 2 and simulated in the same framework as the $`\gamma +A\pi ^0\gamma +X`$ process. The result for $`\gamma +Nb`$ at an incident photon energy of 1.2 GeV is shown in Fig. 10. Here, we assumed that the probability of not detecting a photon due to detector thresholds, inefficiencies and acceptances is 5%. The contribution of the $`\pi ^0\pi ^0`$ background as indicated by the shaded part of the spectrum is $``$36% of the total yield. In the mass range of interest ($`0.6<M_{\gamma \pi ^0}<0.8`$ GeV) the contribution is only 1%.

The fraction of the $`\pi ^0\pi ^0`$ background to the total mass distribution can be reduced by simple kinematic cuts as proposed in Fig. 11. In this figure, the energy distribution of one of the photons of the $`\gamma +Nb\pi ^0\pi ^0+X`$ reaction (grey line) is compared to the energy distribution of the photon of the $`\gamma +Nb\pi ^0\gamma +X`$ reaction (solid line). Clearly, requiring the photon energy to be larger than 200 MeV reduces the $`\pi ^0\pi ^0`$ background significantly without a large loss of the actual signal. The effect of an additional cut of $`E_\gamma >200`$ MeV on the $`M_{\pi ^0\gamma }`$ distribution is shown in Fig. 12 for $`\gamma +Nb`$ at an incident photon energy of 1.2 GeV. In addition, the contribution of $`\omega `$ mesons decaying outside the nucleus and the contribution decaying inside the nucleus, with and without $`\pi ^0`$ rescattering, are depicted. Note that the background from $`\pi ^0`$ rescattering and from the $`\pi ^0\pi ^0`$ channel within the complete mass range between $`M_{\pi ^0\gamma }`$=0.6 and 0.8 GeV is significantly smaller than the signal of interest, i.e. the fraction of $`\omega `$ mesons decaying inside without a rescattering of the $`\pi ^0`$.

## 6 Conclusions

In this study the feasibility of measuring the $`\omega `$ spectral function at normal nuclear densities is discussed by exploiting the process $`\gamma +A\pi ^0\gamma +X`$. Experimentally, this process will be studied with the Crystal Barrel detector aker92  at ELSA in coincidence with the photon spectrometer TAPS Gabler . Such experiments are complementary to plans at GSI and CEBAF to measure the channels $`\pi ^{}+Ae^+e^{}+X`$ and $`\gamma +Ae^+e^{}+X`$ with the HADES Fri99  and CLAS clas  detector, respectively. The processes are sensitive to the spectral functions of the $`\rho `$-meson, which has a large decay branch into $`e^+e^{}`$ pairs. Furthermore, photon-induced dilepton studies have to take into account the contribution from the dominant Bethe-Heitler process.

The main drawback of measuring the $`\omega `$ mass in-medium via its decay $`\omega \pi ^0\gamma `$ is the use of a hadronic probe ($`\pi ^0`$) which has a sizeable probability to interact with the nucleons. The influence of this background on the mass determination has been studied using a coupled-channel transport calculation adopted in a Monte-Carlo simulation. Although the final-state interactions of the $`\pi ^0`$ meson are found to be large, its contribution at the invariant mass region of interest ($`0.6<M_{\pi ^0\gamma }<0.8`$ MeV) is small. A kinematic cut on the kinetic energy of the $`\pi ^0`$ allows for a further reduction of the $`\pi ^0`$-rescattering background, leading to an almost negligible contribution to the $`\pi ^0\gamma `$ invariant-mass distribution.

The photon spectrometers, TAPS and Crystal Barrel, have a finite mass resolution which is larger than the decay width of a free-propagating $`\omega `$ meson. This hinders the observation of an in-medium mass shift of the $`\omega `$ meson. Simulations including a realistic $`\pi ^0\gamma `$-mass resolution show that within the assumption of a mass reduction according to Brown-Rho scaling Brown  and an additional increase in the decay width due to collisional broadening of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{coll}`$50 MeV, a shift in the $`\omega `$ mass can still be experimentally observed. In particular, differences in the $`\pi ^0\gamma `$ invariant-mass spectrum for several nuclei might provide evidence for a mass shift.

The dominant experimental background is expected to stem from the process $`\gamma +A\pi ^0\pi ^0+X`$. By missing one of the photons, this channel can be misidentified as a $`\gamma +A\pi ^0\gamma +X`$ reaction. This background has been estimated using the coupled-channel model, and it is found to be small at the $`\pi ^0\gamma `$-mass region where a mass shift of the $`\omega `$ meson is expected. Kinematic cuts on the energy of the photons have demonstrated to be an efficient technique to reduce this source of contamination.

In conclusion, it is shown that the $`\gamma +A\pi ^0\gamma `$ process can be used experimentally to measure the in-medium mass of the $`\omega `$ meson. This conclusion is based upon assumptions on properties of the in-medium $`\omega `$ meson, like mass and width, which theoretically are considered to be realistic.

## Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowlegde discussions with the CB-ELSA group, in particular with U. Thoma. This work is supported by DFG and FZ Jülich.


text:
# References

UNIL-IPT-01-08

May 2001

Localization of metric fluctuations on scalar branes

Massimo Giovannini111Electronic address: massimo.giovannini@ipt.unil.ch
Institute of Theoretical Physics
University of Lausanne
CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland

## Abstract

The localization of metric fluctuations on scalar brane configurations breaking spontaneously five-dimensional Poincaré invariance is discussed. Assuming that the four-dimensional Planck mass is finite and that the geometry is regular, it is demonstrated that the vector and scalar fluctuations of the metric are not localized on the brane.

If internal dimensions are not compact  all the fields describing the fundamental forces of our four-dimensional world should be localized on a higher dimensional topological defect . Localized means that the various fields should exhibit normalizable zero modes with respect to the bulk coordinates parameterizing the geometry of the defect in the extra-dimensional space. Among the various interactions an important rôle is played by gravitational forces  since the localization of the metric fluctuations can lead to computable and measurable deviations of Newton law at short distances . In  it has been shown that the zero mode related to the tensor fluctuations of the geometry is localized, provided the four-dimensional Planck mass is finite. For a recent review see .

If the four-dimensional world is Poincaré-invariant, the higher-dimensional geometry will have not only tensor modes but also scalar and vector fluctuations. The localization of the various modes of the geometry will then be the subject of the present analysis. On top of four-dimensional Poincaré invariance, the invariance of the fluctuations under infinitesimal coordinate transformations, i.e. gauge-invariance , can be used in order to simplify the problem. Gauge invariance guarantees that the equations for the fluctuations of the geometry do not change when moving from one coordinate system to the other. The tensor modes of the geometry are gauge-invariant but the scalar and vector modes are not. Hence, gauge-invariant fluctuations corresponding to these modes should be constructed and analyzed. The general derivation of these equations allows a model-independent discussion of the normalizability properties of the zero modes related to the various fluctuations of the metric.

The following five-dimensional action 111 Latin (uppercase) indices run over the five-dimensional space-time whereas Greek indices run over the four-dimensional space-time. Notice that $`\kappa =8\pi G_5=8\pi /M_5^3`$. Natural gravitational units will be often employed by setting $`2\kappa =1`$..

$$S=d^5x\sqrt{|G|}\left[\frac{R}{2\kappa }+\frac{1}{2}G^{AB}_A\phi _B\phi V(\phi )\right],$$
(1)
can be used in order to describe the breaking of five-dimensional Poincaré symmetry. Consider a potential which is invariant under the $`\phi \phi `$ symmetry. Then, non-singular domain-wall solutions can be obtained, for various potentials, in a metric

$$ds^2=\overline{G}_{AB}dx^Adx^B=a^2(w)[dt^2d\stackrel{}{x}^2dw^2].$$
(2)
For instance solutions of the type

$`a(w)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{b^2w^2+1}}},`$ (3)
$`\phi =\phi (w)=\sqrt{6}\mathrm{arctan}bw,`$ (4)
is found for trigonometric potentials  like $`V(\phi )(15\mathrm{sin}^2\phi /\sqrt{6})`$. Solutions like Eqs. (3)–(4) represent a smooth version of the Randall-Sundrum scenario . The assumptions of the present analysis will now be listed.

(i) The five-dimensional geometry is regular (in a technical sense) for any value of the bulk coordinate $`w`$. This implies that singularities in the curvature invariants are absent.

(ii) Five-dimensional Poincaré invariance is broken through a smooth five dimensional domain-wall solution generated by a potential $`V(\phi )`$ which is invariant under $`\phi \phi `$. The warp factor $`a(w)`$ will then be assumed symmetric for $`ww`$.

(iii) Four-dimensional Planck mass is finite because the following integral converges

$$M_P^2M^3_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑wa^3(w).$$
(5)
(iv) Five-dimensional gravity is described according to Eq. (1) and, consequently, the equations of motion for the warped background generated by the smooth wall are, in natural gravitational units,

$`\phi _{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}=6(^2^{}),`$ (6)
$`Va^2=3(3^2+^{}).`$ (7)
where the prime denotes derivation with respect to $`w`$ and $`=a^{}/a`$.

Under these assumptions it will be shown that the gauge-invariant fluctuations corresponding to scalar and vector modes of the geometry are not localized on the wall. On the contrary, tensor modes of the geometry will be shown to be localized. This program will be achieved in two steps. In the first step decoupled equations for the gauge-invariant variables describing the fluctuations of the geometry will be obtained for general brane backgrounds without assuming any specific solution. In the second step the normalizability of the zero modes will be addressed using only the assumptions (i)–(iv).

Let us start by perturbing the five-dimensional Einstein equations and of the equation for the scalar field

$`\delta R_{AB}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_A\phi _B\chi +{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_A\chi _B\phi {\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{V}{\phi }}\chi \overline{G}_{AB}{\displaystyle \frac{V}{3}}\delta G_{AB},`$ (8)
$`\delta G^{AB}\left(_A_B\phi \overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_{AB}^C_C\phi \right)+\overline{G}^{AB}\left(_A_B\chi \overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_{AB}^C_C\chi \delta \mathrm{\Gamma }_{AB}^C\phi \right)+{\displaystyle \frac{^2V}{\phi ^2}}\chi =0,`$ (9)
where the metric and the scalar field have been separated into their background and perturbation parts:

$`G_{AB}(x^\mu ,w)=\overline{G}_{AB}(w)+\delta G_{AB}(x^\mu ,w),`$
$`\phi (x^\mu ,w)=\phi (w)+\chi (x^\mu ,w).`$ (10)
In Eqs. (8)-(9), $`\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }_{AB}^C`$ and $`\delta R_{AB}`$ are, respectively, the fluctuations of the Christoffel connections and of the Ricci tensors, whereas $`\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_{AB}^C`$ are the values of the connections computed using the background metric (2). According to Eq. (8) and (9), the fluctuations of the scalar brane, $`\chi `$ are coupled to the scalar fluctuations of the geometry $`\delta G_{AB}(x^\mu ,w)`$ whose modes can be decomposed using Poincaré invariance in four dimensions as

$$\delta G_{AB}=a^2(w)\left(\begin{array}{ccc}2h_{\mu \nu }+(_\mu f_\nu +_\nu f_\mu )+2\eta _{\mu \nu }\psi +2_\mu _\nu E& D_\mu +_\mu C& \\ D_\mu +_\mu C& 2\xi & \end{array}\right).$$
(11)
On top of $`h_{\mu \nu }`$ which is divergence-less and trace-less (i.e. $`_\mu h_\nu ^\mu `$=0, $`h_\mu ^\mu =0`$) there are four scalars (i.e. $`E`$, $`\psi `$, $`\xi `$ and $`C`$) and two divergence-less vectors ($`D_\mu `$ and $`f_\mu `$). For infinitesimal coordinate transformations $`x^A\stackrel{~}{x}^A=x^A+ϵ^A`$ the tensors $`h_{\mu \nu }`$ are invariant whereas the vectors and the scalars transform non-trivially. The four-dimensional part of the infinitesimal shift $`ϵ_A=a^2(w)(ϵ_\mu ,ϵ_w)`$, can be decomposed as $`ϵ_\mu =_\mu ϵ+\zeta _\mu `$ where $`\zeta _\mu `$ is a divergence-less vector and $`ϵ`$ is a scalar.

It is then clear that the transformations for the scalars involve two gauge functions $`ϵ`$ and $`ϵ_w`$. The transformations for the vectors involve $`\zeta _\mu `$. Two scalars and one divergence-less vector can be gauged-away by fixing the scalar and the vector gauge functions. In a different perspective , since there are two scalar gauge functions and four scalar fluctuations of the metric (11), two gauge-invariant (scalar) variables can be defined. In the present case the gauge-invariant scalar variables can be chosen to be:

$`\mathrm{\Psi }=\psi (E^{}C),`$
$`\mathrm{\Xi }=\xi {\displaystyle \frac{1}{a}}[a(CE^{})]^{}.`$ (12)
By shifting infinitesimally the coordinate system from $`x^A`$ to $`\stackrel{~}{x}^A`$ the metric fluctuations change as

$$\delta G_{AB}(x^\mu ,w)\delta \stackrel{~}{G}_{AB}=\delta G_{AB}_Aϵ_B_Bϵ_A,$$
(13)
where the covariant derivatives are computed using the backround metric of Eq. (2). In spite of this, $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}=\mathrm{\Psi }`$, $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Xi }}=\mathrm{\Xi }`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{h}_{\mu \nu }=h_{\mu \nu }`$. The physical interpretation of $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is clear if a specific gauge choice is selected. In the longitudinal gauge (i.e. $`E=0`$, $`C=0`$ and $`f_\mu =0`$) $`\mathrm{\Xi }=\xi `$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }=\psi `$. Thus, in the longitudinal gauge, $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$ are identical to the metric perturbations in a conformally Newtonian coordinate system. The scalar field fluctuation of Eq. (10) is not gauge-invariant and the gauge-invariant variable associated with it is:

$$X=\chi \phi ^{}(E^{}C).$$
(14)
Since there is one vector gauge function,i. e. $`\zeta _\mu `$, one gauge-invariant variable can be constructed out of $`D_\mu `$ and $`f_\mu `$:

$$V_\mu =D_\mu f_\mu ^{}.$$
(15)
In terms of the variables defined in Eqs. (12)–(14) and (15) the perturbed system of Eqs. (8)–(9) can be written in a fully gauge-invariant way. The equation for the tensors, as expected, decouples from the very beginning:

$$\mu _{\mu \nu }^{\prime \prime }_\alpha ^\alpha \mu _{\mu \nu }\frac{(a^{3/2})^{\prime \prime }}{a^{3/2}}\mu _{\mu \nu }=0.$$
(16)
where $`\mu _{\mu \nu }=a^{3/2}h_{\mu \nu }`$ is the canonical normal mode of the of the action (1) perturbed to second order in the amplitude of tensor fluctuations.

The scalar variables (12) and (14) form a closed system consisting of the diagonal components of Eq. (8)

$`\mathrm{\Psi }^{\prime \prime }+7\mathrm{\Psi }^{}+\mathrm{\Xi }^{}+2(^{}+3^2)\mathrm{\Xi }+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{V}{\phi }}a^2X_\alpha ^\alpha \mathrm{\Psi }=0,`$ (17)
$`_\alpha ^\alpha \mathrm{\Xi }4[\mathrm{\Psi }^{\prime \prime }+\mathrm{\Psi }^{}]4\mathrm{\Xi }^{}\phi ^{}X^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{V}{\phi }}a^2X+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}Va^2\mathrm{\Xi }=0,`$ (18)
supplemented by the gauge-invariant version of the perturbed scalar field equation (9)

$$_\alpha ^\alpha XX^{\prime \prime }3X^{}+\frac{^2V}{\phi ^2}a^2X\phi ^{}[4\mathrm{\Psi }^{}+\mathrm{\Xi }^{}]2\mathrm{\Xi }(\phi ^{\prime \prime }+3\phi ^{})=0,$$
(20)
and subjected to the constraints

$`_\mu _\nu [\mathrm{\Xi }2\mathrm{\Psi }]=0,`$ (21)
$`6\mathrm{\Xi }+6\mathrm{\Psi }^{}+X\phi ^{}=0.`$ (22)
coming from the off-diagonal components of Eq. (8). From Eq. (8), the evolution of the gauge-invariant vector variable (15) is

$$_\alpha ^\alpha 𝒱_\mu =0,𝒱_\mu ^{}+\frac{3}{2}𝒱_\mu =0,$$
(23)
where $`𝒱_\mu =a^{3/2}V_\mu `$ is the canonical normal mode of the action (1) perturbed to second order in the amplitude of vector fluctuations of the metric.

Using repeatedly the constraints of Eqs. (21)–(22), together with the background relations (6)–(7), the scalar system can be reduced to the following two equations

$`\mathrm{\Phi }^{\prime \prime }_\alpha ^\alpha \mathrm{\Phi }z\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{z}}\right)^{\prime \prime }\mathrm{\Phi }=0,`$ (24)
$`𝒢^{\prime \prime }_\alpha ^\alpha 𝒢{\displaystyle \frac{z^{\prime \prime }}{z}}𝒢=0,`$ (25)
where

$$\mathrm{\Phi }=\frac{a^{3/2}}{\phi ^{}}\mathrm{\Psi },𝒢=a^{3/2}\mathrm{\Psi }zX.$$
(26)
The same equation satisfied by $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is also satisfied by $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$ by virtue of the constraint (21). In Eq. (25) and (26) the background dependence appears in terms of the “universal” function $`z(w)`$

$$z(w)=\frac{a^{3/2}\phi ^{}}{}.$$
(27)
It should be appreciated that these equations are completely general and do not depend on the specific background but only upon the general form of the metric (2) and of the action (1). In fact, in order to derive Eqs. (24)–(25) and (26)–(27) no specific background has been assumed, but only Eqs. (6)–(7) which come directly from Eq. (1) and hold for any choice of the potential generating the scalar brane configuration.

The effective “potentials” appearing in the Schrödinger-like equations (24) and (25) are dual with respect to $`z1/z`$. It can be shown that the gauge-invariant function $`𝒢`$ is the normal mode of the action perturbed to second order in the amplitude of the scalar fluctuations of the metric analogous to the normal modes one can obtain in the case of compact internal dimensions  of Kaluza-Klein type.

Let us now discuss the localization of the zero modes of the various fluctuations and enter the second step of the present discussion. The lowest mass eigenstate of Eq. (16) is $`\mu (w)=\mu _0a^{3/2}(w)`$. Hence, the normalization condition of the tensor zero mode implies

$$|\mu _0|^2_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}a^3𝑑w=2|\mu _0|^2_0^{\mathrm{}}a^3(w)𝑑w=1.$$
(28)
where the assumed $`ww`$ symmetry of the background geometry has been exploited. Using assumptions (i), (ii) and (iii) the tensor zero mode is then normalizable .

Let us now move to the analysis of vector fluctuations. Eq. (23) shows that the vector fluctuations are always massless and the corresponding zero mode is $`𝒱(w)𝒱_0a^{3/2}`$. Consequently, the normalization condition will be

$$2|𝒱_0|^2_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{dw}{a^3(w)}=1,$$
(29)
which cannot be satisfied if assumption (i), (ii) and (iii) hold. If $`a^3(w)`$ converges everywhere, $`1/a^3(w)`$ will not be convergent. Therefore, if the four-dimensional Planck mass is finite the tensor modes of the geometry are normalizable and the vectors are not.

From Eq. (24) the lowest mass eigenstate of the metric fluctuation $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ corresponds to $`\mathrm{\Phi }(w)=\mathrm{\Phi }_0z^1(w)`$ and the related normalization condition reads

$$2|\mathrm{\Phi }_0|^2_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{dw}{z^2(w)}=1.$$
(30)
The integrand appearing in Eq. (30) will now be shown to be non convergent at infinity if the geometry is regular. In fact according to assumption (i)

$`R={\displaystyle \frac{4}{a^2}}(2^{}+3^2),R_{MN}R^{MN}={\displaystyle \frac{4}{a^4}}(4^4+6^{}^2+5_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}),`$
$`R_{MNAB}R^{MNAB}={\displaystyle \frac{8}{a^4}}(2_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}5^4),`$ (31)
should be regular for any $`w`$ and, in particular, at infinity. The absence of poles in the curvature invariants guarantees the regularity of the five-dimensional geometry. Eq. (31) rules then out, in the coordinate system of (2), warp factors decaying at infinity as $`e^{dw}`$ or $`e^{d^2w^2}`$: these profiles would lead to divergences in Eqs. (31) at infinity 222In order to avoid confusions it should be stressed that exponential warp factors naturally appear in non-conformal coordinate systems related to the one of Eq. (2) as $`a(w)dw=dy`$.. Since $`a(w)`$ must converge at infinity, $`a(w)w^\gamma `$ with $`1/3\gamma 1`$. Notice that $`\gamma 1/3`$ comes from the convergence (at infinity) of the integral of Eq. (5) 333 In this sense the power $`\gamma `$ measures only the degree of convergence of a given integral. and that $`\gamma 1`$ is implied by Eqs. (31) since, at infinity, $`R_{MN}R^{MN}R_{MNAB}R^{MNAB}w^{4(\gamma 1)}`$ should converge. Using Eq. (27) and Eq. (6) the integrand of Eq. (30) can be written as

$$\frac{1}{z^2}=\frac{^2}{a^3\phi _{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}=\frac{1}{6a^3}\left(\frac{^2}{^2^{}}\right).$$
(32)
The behavior at infinity of Eq. (32) can be now investigated assuming the regularity of Eqs. (31), i.e. $`a(w)w^\gamma `$ with $`0<\gamma 1`$. In this limit

$$\underset{w\mathrm{}}{lim}\left(\frac{^2}{^2^{}}\right)\frac{\gamma ^2}{\gamma ^2\gamma }.$$
(33)
and $`1/z^2`$ diverges at least as $`a^3`$. In fact, if $`\gamma =1`$, $`1/z^2`$ diverges even more as it can be argued from Eq. (33) which has a further pole for $`\gamma ^2=\gamma `$. The example given in Eqs. (3)–(4) corresponds to a behavior at infinity given by $`\gamma =1`$. Direct calculations show that $`1/z^2`$ diverges, in this case, as $`w^5`$.

Consequently, if the four-dimensional Planck mass is finite and if space-time is regular the gauge-invariant (scalar) zero mode is not normalizable and not localized on the brane. For sake of completeness it should be mentioned that, for the lowest mass eigenvalue, there is a second (linearly independent) solution to Eq. (24) which is given by $`z^1(w)^wz^2(x)𝑑x`$ which has poles at infinity and for $`w0`$. The poles appearing for $`w0`$ will now be discussed since they are needed in order to prove that the zero modes of Eq. (25) are not localized. As far as the poles at infinity are concerned it is interesting to consider what happens to $`z^1(w)^wz^2(x)𝑑x`$ in the case of the solution (3)–(4). In this case, by direct use of Eqs. (3)–(4) and (27) we have that the second solution diverges, at infinity, as $`(1+b^2w^2)^{1/4}(1+2b^2w^2)`$.

Noticing the duality connecting the effective potentials of Eqs. (24) and (25) it can be verified that the lowest mass eigenstate of Eq. (25) is given by $`𝒢(w)=𝒢_0z(w)`$. Provided the assumptions (i)–(iv) are satisfied, it will now be demonstrated that the integral

$$2|𝒢_0|^2_0^{\mathrm{}}z^2𝑑w,$$
(34)
is divergent not because of the behavior at infinity but because of the behavior of the solution close to the core of the wall, i.e. $`w0`$. Bearing in mind Eq. (31), assumption (i) and (ii) imply that $`a(w)`$ and $`\phi `$ should be regular for any $`w`$. More specifically close to the core of the wall $`\phi `$ should go to zero and $`a(w)`$ should go to a constant because of $`ww`$ symmetry and the following regular expansions can be written for small $`w`$

$`a(w)a_0a_1w^\beta +\mathrm{},\beta >0,`$ (35)
$`\phi (w)\phi _1w^\alpha +\mathrm{},\alpha >0,`$ (36)
for $`w0`$. Inserting the expansion (35)–(36) into Eq. (6) the relations can be obtained:

$$\beta =2\alpha ,\alpha ^2\phi _1^2=6\frac{a_1}{a_0}\beta (\beta 1).$$
(37)
Inserting now Eqs. (35)–(36) into Eq. (27) and exploiting the first of Eqs. (37) we have

$$\underset{w0}{lim}z^2(w)w^{2(\alpha \beta )}=w^{2\alpha }.\alpha >0$$
(38)
Using Eqs. (35) into Eqs. (31), $`R_{AB}R^{AB}R_{MNAB}R^{MNAB}w^{2\beta 4}`$, which implies $`\beta 2`$ in order to have regular invariants for $`w0`$. Since, from Eq. (37), $`\beta =2\alpha `$, in Eq. (38) it must be $`\alpha 1`$. As in the case of Eq. (24) also eq. (25) has a second (linearly independent) solution for the lowest mass eigenvalue, namely $`z(w)^w𝑑xz^2(x)`$ which has poles at infinity. In fact, a direct check shows that, at infinity, this quantity goes ar $`w^{\frac{3}{2}\gamma +1}`$ where, as usual, $`1/3\gamma 1`$ for the convergence of the Planck mass and of the curvature invariants at infinity.

In conclusion, it has been demonstrated that under assumptions (i)–(iv), the scalar and vector fluctuations of the five-dimensional metric decouple from the wall. Heeding experimental tests , the present results suggest that, under the assumptions (i)–(iv), no vector or scalar component of the Newtonian potential at short distances should be expected.

It is pleasure to thank M. E. Shaposhnikov for important comments.


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# Untitled Document

This paper has been withdrawn by the author, due a crucial error in the derivation.


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# MEASUREMENTS OF THE GRAVITY WAVES VELOCITY

## Introduction

The observational data presented of the Earth s microseismic background associated with gravitational waves shows an influence of the nearest cosmic objects on the Earth. I will use the simplest theoretical model to avoid complexities that might arise in a more sophisticated approach. Let us focus on two gravity-connected objects such as Earth-Moon, Earth-Jupiter, Earth-Saturn, Earth-Sun, Earth-nearest stars. These coupled pairs will be considered as antenna and the whole earth as receiver or sensor. Now if the gravity wave length is comparable with the antenna dimension (the distance $`L`$ between the gravity-connected objects), resonance phenomena may appear in the antenna, producing a peak in the microseismic background spectrum.

The source of the gravity waves with different frequencies in Univers may be the gravity waves exchange between gravity-connected objects and gravity instability of the cosmic clouds that leads to the stars formation. It is possible to show as an example mechanism of the gravity waves generation with broad frequency spectrum. There is a theorem: if some system can have the position of the unstable equilibrium between stable state and unstable one then this system can oscilate in stable area with low frequencies and this frequencies decreases when the system approaches to the equilibrium (threshold of the instability) with wavenumber being finite at zero frequency . This theorem is aplicable exactly to the case of the gravity instability clouds in Universe. This well known Jeans’s instability lead usually to the process of the stars formation . Presented process must be preceded by the intensive gravity waves creation and spectrum of this waves will continuosly shifts in low frequancy range when clouds will aproach to the instability threshold. Consequently we can state that the gravity waves with different frequencies are existing in Univers allways as the stars creation process is existing allways.

It is possible to evaluate the gravity wave velocity $`C`$ using the simplest relation between frequency $`\nu `$ and wavelength $`\lambda `$, i. e., $`\nu =C/\lambda `$ (assuming $`\lambda /2L`$) if such peaks are observed. Consequently, the goal of this study of the microseismic background is to search for such peaks.

## Observations

Our observations were made in the seismic station at Simpheropol University at Sevastopol using laser interferometery . Six peaks were found at $`2.3Hz`$, $`1Hz`$, $`0.9Hz`$, $`0.6Hz`$, $`0.4Hz`$, $`0.2Hz`$ (see Fig.1 $`a`$$`b`$). These figures were taken directly from the spectranalyser SK4-72 using recording equipment. The SK4-72 accumulates the output interferometer signals and enhances the periodic components of the signal relative to chaotic components. One thousand twenty four records of length 40 seconds were averaged.

There exist massive gravity objects at distances of 1.3, 2.7, 3.5, 5, 8, and around 11 parsecs. All the distances $`L`$ between earth and these objects correspond to all the observed peaks only if the value of the gravity-wave velocity $`C`$ is nearly nine orders of magnitude greater than the velocity of light, if we ascribe

them to resonances in the earth-object system in accord with the simple formula $`\nu =C/\lambda `$ ($`\lambda /2L`$ due to resonance). This conclusion permits the calculation of the gravity-potential distribution of the nearest stars. This distribution is shown in Fig.1 $`c`$. Comparison of Fig.1 $`a`$$`b`$ with Fig.1 $`c`$ reveal a close similarity of corresponding curves: each peak of Fig.1 $`a`$$`b`$ corresponds to a peak on Fig.1 $`c`$ and vice versa. However, there are non-important differences that should be pointed out for clarity. For distances $`L>4`$ parsecs, data were taken only for the brightest star, and the curve of gravity potential corresponding to this distance is lower than for the $`L<4`$ level on the theoretical Fig.1 $`c`$. Another difference consists of the presence of uniform growth for the low-frequency background component on experimental Fig.1 $`a`$$`b`$ which does not appear on Fig.1 $`c`$. Usually this uniform component of the microseismic background is described by the law $`A_\omega 1/\omega ^2`$ .

Besides the quantitative correlation of frequency peaks with the distribution of the nearest stars, there is qualitative correspondence as well. Namely, the sharpest peak at $`2.28Hz`$ corresponds mainly to the distance between earth and the nearest stars doublet $`A`$ and $`B`$ ($`\alpha `$ Centaurus ). The broader peak at $`1Hz`$ on Fig.1 $`a`$, $`b`$ corresponds to the distances to stars distributed over the range from 2.4 to 3.8 parsecs . The spectranalyzer SK4-72 averages all resonance peaks for this $`2.43.8`$ range into one broad peak around $`1Hz`$ (Fig.1 $`a`$). But the broad peak on Fig.1 $`a`$, under more careful study, splits into two peaks (Fig.1 $`b`$) if spectranalyzer SK4-72 is processing in the frequency range from $`0.1`$ to $`2Hz`$ (the exaggeration of the frequency scale). This subdivision of the frequency range corresponds to the divisions of the group of stars from 2.4 to 3.8 parsecs into two subgroups situated around 2.7 and 3.5 parsecs (Fig.1 $`c`$).

The gravity potential distribution of these subgroups plus the uniform background spectrum is shown on Fig.1 $`a`$ by the dotted curve. Thus we see both quantitative and qualitative correlation of the frequency spectra of the microseismic background that can be associated with resonance gravity-wave exchange. It is these correlations that provide the possibility of evaluating the gravity-wave velocity which turns out to be nine orders of magnitude greater than the velocity of light.

If the experimental results are considered to be meaningful then it is possible to propose further more decisive observations. Namely, it is reasonable to look for resonance peaks corresponding to the gravitational wave exchange of the Earth with the Moon ($`240MHz`$), the Sun ($`0.6MHz`$), Venus ($`0.32.2MHz`$), Jupiter ($`100150kHz`$), and Saturn ($`5872kHz`$). Moreover, the peaks corresponding to Venus, Jupiter and Saturn should change their frequency in accordance with the changing distance between Earth and these planets during their orbital motion around the Sun. Establishing such a correlation will be a crucial experiment, decisively supporting the results presented above concerning the enormous gravity-wave velocity and the elastic model of the physical vacuum .

## Discussion

Such enormous velocity gravity waves were discussed before from a different physical perspective  and . Laplace gave a lower-limit evaluation of the gravity propagation velocity using observational data on the stability of the Earth-Moon system. This lower limit was found to be $`510^8`$ times greater than the velocity of light $`c`$ . If we normalize the gravity velocity in Laplace s formula to that of the light velocity, then we get the unacceptable conclusion that the Earth-Moon system could exist only about 3000 years. The gravity-wave velocity evaluation was given independently using theoretical assumptions about the elastic model of the physical vacuum in  also. This evaluation of the velocities ratio is close to that of Laplace and is approximately equal to $`(e/mf^{1/2})^{1/2}`$ where $`f`$, $`e`$, and $`m`$ are the gravitational constant, the electron charge and the proton mass . I did not know of Laplace s result when  was written, and therefore a citation to Laplace s result is absent from that paper.

Some problems appearing in connection with the huge gravity-wave velocity are discussed in  on the basis of the elastic model of the physical vacuum. The very large difference of the gravity and electromagnetic velocities means, first of all, that many electromagnetic and gravitational phenomena are practically independent and their mutual influence appears only through their appearance in some physical constants. This huge gravity-wave velocity also means that we are living in a practically static gravitational field. Retardation effects become substantial only for distances comparable with the dimensions of the Universe, or for very large cosmic objects at least. This point of view lends a better understanding to the problems of Universe structure and its evolution, as the interaction time between the components of the Universe is considerably less than its lifetime, i. e., components of the Universe are causally connected and we do not need to violate any thermodynamic laws. The existence of a velocity that is larger than the light velocity violates, of course, the relativistic invariance of special relativity theory. But this violation causes only small changes in values of the physical constants (for example, $`e`$) only in the eighteenth decimal, as in the relativistic root $`(1(v/C)^2)^{1/2}`$ appearing in the elastic model of the physical vacuum , the ratio $`v/C`$ does not exceed $`c/C10^9`$ in the approach discussed. In the elastic model, shear waves compare with electromagnetic waves, longitudinal waves with gravitational waves, and the particles are considered as singularities of the elastic body. From the point of view of the singularity, the elastic body is emptiness. Consequently the problem of their capture does not appear. Every singularity has an eigenfrequency spectrum with complex frequencies . The real part of the frequency is connected with the self energy (mass) and the imaginary part determines the lifetime. Consequently, each spectrum mode has eigenfrequency and eigenattenuation, i.e., self energy and lifetime are interconnected. So, we could in principle set up the mathematical problem of the elementary particle mass spectrum as a problem of the inhomogeneity self oscillations the elastic body with the above-mentioned difference of shear and longitudinal velocities having eigenfrequencies $`10^9`$ times more than eigenattenuation . Consequently, our model of the physical vacuum can explain the slow decay of elementary particles  if this decay process includes radial self-oscillation of the cavity (model of vacancy). This is one more consequence of the large longitudinal wave velocity of elastic ether and consequently the large gravity wave velocity. The elastic model of the physical vacuum also predicts conversion of gravity waves into electromagnetic waves and vice-versa. Again, the very large ratio of gravity to electromagnetic velocity prevents intensive energy transfer between gravitational and electromagnetic phenomena, as the coefficient of transformation is proportional to $`10^9`$. Only for very large-scale phenomena can transformation effects become important: for example, only between gravity-connected large-scale objects can there be intensive gravity-electromagnetic wave exchange that would lead to creation of a photon background. And this electromagnetic background could have footprints of the resonance gravity-wave exchange similar to the microseismic background peaks discussed above. There are, of course, other effects associated with the large difference between the gravity and electromagnetic wave velocities. But these are subjects of further study. At the end, it should be noted that the existence of a gravitational-wave velocity nine orders of magnitude greater than the electromagnetic wave velocity may lead to vast theoretical and experimental consequences and to a better understanding of nature.