text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

For the foreseeable future, the quenched approximation will continue to play an important role in the study of lattice QCD for both practical and theoretical reasons. The practical reasons are only too obvious, considering the orders-of-magnitude increase in computer resources required for comparable full QCD simulations. But quenched QCD also provides a very instructive counterpoint to the full theory which can yield useful insight into the effect of quark loops in determining hadron structure. This is particularly true in the light-quark limit, where lattice results can be interpreted theoretically with the aid of an effective field theory corresponding to quenched chiral perturbation theory.

The introduction of quenched chiral perturbation theory by Sharpe, Bernard, and Goltermann  established the framework for analyzing the chiral behavior of quenched QCD. This work focused attention on the particular, anomalous role of the quenched $`\eta ^{}`$ propagator. The physical $`\eta ^{}`$ is approximately a flavor singlet and gets most of its mass from the axial anomaly via repeated $`q\overline{q}`$ annihilation. In the quenched approximation, a single annihilation vertex can appear if both sides of the “hairpin diagram” are attached to valence quark lines, but repeated annihilation cannot take place without the closed quark loops of the unquenched theory. Instead of cancelling the Goldstone pole in the valence quark (“connected”) diagram, the single annihilation diagram contributes a term to the $`\eta ^{}`$ propagator which has a double Goldstone pole and an overall sign opposite to that of the valence diagram. Unlike full QCD where $`\eta ^{}`$ loops remain infrared finite in the chiral limit, in the quenched theory, the double Goldstone pole of the hairpin term produces additional quenched chiral loop (QCL) singularities which alter the chiral behavior of the theory. This QCL effect was first observed in lattice results as a deviation from linear behavior of the squared pion mass as a function of quark mass . Recently, the quenched chiral limit was extensively investigated in a high-statistics study at $`\beta =5.7`$. The problem of exceptional configurations, which had prevented previous studies from probing the smaller quark mass region of $`m_\pi <350`$ MeV, was resolved by the pole-shifting ansatz of the modified quenched approximation (MQA). The QCL effect was observed in both the pseudoscalar mass and decay constants at the level expected from a direct study of the $`\eta ^{}`$ hairpin mass insertion and the topological susceptibility. This established several independent and quantitatively consistent determinations of the quenched chiral log coefficient parameter $`\delta `$ (or, equivalently, of the $`\eta ^{}`$ mass insertion $`m_0^2`$).

The spectroscopy of scalar mesons has long been one of the murkier areas of hadron phenomenology. The well-established scalar mesons are typically at masses of a GeV or more, although there have been occasional, fleeting experimental indications of lower mass scalar resonances. In the flavor singlet sector, mixing with glueball states further complicates the intepretation of experimental data. This is clearly an area where lattice QCD calculations can be expected to play a crucial role in the future. High-statistics quenched studies will undoubtedly be an important part of this effort. Naively, we might expect that the anomalous chiral behavior induced by the quenched approximation would be of little importance for scalar-meson spectroscopy, since the meson masses involved are all expected to be quite heavy and not particularly sensitive to the details of chiral extrapolation. However, as we show in this paper, a more careful theoretical analysis combined with a precise numerical study of the scalar, isovector meson propagator at very light quark mass reveals perhaps the most striking quenched chiral loop effect yet observed.

The chiral loop effect we discuss here is exhibited very clearly by comparing the scalar, isovector propagator for the heaviest and lightest quark masses studied. These are shown in Figure 1. For the heaviest quark mass the propagator is a positive and rapidly falling exponential, as expected from heavy scalar meson intermediate states. The fit shown is a sum of two exponentials with the excited state $`a_0^{}`$ mass extracted by comparing local-local, smeared-local, and smeared-smeared correlators. (See discussion in Section 3.) By contrast, the scalar propagator for lighter quarks exhibits a qualitatively different behavior. \[The lower curve in Figure 1 is the one-loop quenched $`\chi PT`$ prediction for the contribution to the scalar propagator of the $`\eta ^{}`$-$`\pi `$ intermediate state only. See below and Section 2.\] This unusual behavior has two qualitative features which point clearly to a specific theoretical interpretation: (1) The additional component becomes much more prominent for the lightest quark masses, and (2) the sign of this component is negative (i.e. opposite to that required by positivity of the spectral function). Both of these properties suggest that the new component is an effect of the $`\eta ^{}`$-$`\pi `$ intermediate state, which is light in the quenched approximation. This contribution arises from the “hairpin + pion” diagram shown in Figure 2(b). This interpretation also explains the fact that this component has a negative spectral weight. The hairpin (single mass insertion) diagram appears in the $`\eta ^{}`$ propagator with the opposite sign from that of the full propagator. In full QCD the $`\eta ^{}`$-$`\pi `$ intermediate state would arise from three different types of quark line diagrams, Figure 2(a) with a single vacuum loop going around the entire diagram, Figure 2(b) with a single hairpin vertex, and the graphs of type 2(c) with one or more vacuum bubbles inserted into the $`\eta ^{}`$ propagator. Of these three, only the hairpin diagram, Figure 2(b), is included in the quenched approximation. Since the single hairpin insertion has an overall negative sign (corresponding to a positive $`\eta ^{}`$ mass shift), the sign of this contribution is opposite to that which would be required by spectral positivity. The prominence of this negative term in our measured propagator is a clear example of the unitarity violation induced by the quenched approximation. \[In the Bernard-Goltermann scalar ghost quark formulation of quenched chiral perturbation theory , the negative sign of the scalar propagator arises from the dominance of a negative metric state consisting of a pair of ghost-quark mesons.\]

## 2 Lattice Results for the Scalar Propagator

In a recent study of quenched chiral logs and the $`\eta ^{}`$ propagator , the MQA pole-shifting ansatz was applied to a set of quark propagators for an ensemble of 300 gauge configurations at $`\beta =5.7`$ on a $`12^3\times 24`$ lattice. The fermion action was clover-improved Wilson-Dirac with $`C_{sw}=1.57`$. Nine values of quark mass were used, corresponding to a range of hopping parameters from $`\kappa =.1400`$ to .1428. Valence quark propagators were calculated from both local delta-function sources and from exponentially smeared sources in Coulomb gauge. (For further details, see Reference .) These pole-shifted quark propagators were used to calculate the scalar meson propagators considered in this paper. The pion masses obtained from this ensemble have values ranging from $`m_\pi a=0.245`$ to $`0.603`$, and are listed in Table I.

It is natural to expect that the scalar $`\overline{\psi }\psi `$ correlator in QCD will be dominated by the coupling to the lightest scalar meson which is expected to have a mass larger than $`1`$ GeV. For the heaviest quark masses studied here, this is in fact the behavior observed for the quenched propagator. First, consider the scalar propagator for our heaviest quark mass, with $`m_\pi a=.603,`$ corresponding to $`\kappa =.1400`$. (From Reference , we have $`\kappa _c=0.14329`$ for clover-improved Wilson-Dirac fermions). The measured values of the local-local, smeared-local, and smeared-smeared propagators are shown in the log plot in Figure 3. As expected, the plot shows clear evidence of a massive scalar meson. For the smeared-local propagator, the time-dependence is reasonably well described for $`t>2`$ by an exponential fit with a mass of $`M_sa=1.25\left(2\right)`$. The effective mass plot for the smeared-local propagator is shown in Figure 4 for $`\kappa =.1400`$. For comparison, the effective mass for the local-local and smeared-smeared propagators are also plotted. Although the smearing function used (an exponential with exponent $`0.5`$ in lattice units) was not tuned for this particular problem, it does a good job of removing excited state contamination, giving a reasonably flat effective mass over several time slices from $`t=2`$ to $`t=6`$, and a nearly identical effective mass plot for smeared-local and smeared-smeared propagators (indicating an absence of excited states in both).

As pointed out in the Introduction, the behavior of the scalar propagator changes dramatically for the lighter quark mass values. The results for the scalar propagator for our lightest quark mass values are shown in Figure 6, with $`m_\pi a=.245,.267,.307,`$ and $`.342`$ corresponding to $`\kappa `$ values ($`.1428,.1427,.1425`$, and .1423) respectively. Here we have plotted the local-local $`\overline{\psi }\psi `$ correlators. Instead of exhibiting the behavior expected for scalar meson states, these propagators are dominated by a significant negative contribution in the range $`t=2`$ to $`t=7`$ which increases for lighter quark masses. We interpret this behavior as a clear signal for the negative metric contribution associated with the $`\eta ^{}`$-$`\pi `$ intermediate state discussed in the previous Section.

The $`\eta ^{}`$-$`\pi `$ loop interpretation of the anomalous component of the scalar propagator is made more convincing by noting that the leading chiral behavior of this contribution is entirely determined by current algebra in terms of parameters which have already been measured with this ensemble in our previous study of the pseudoscalar propagator . The relevant chiral loop diagram is shown in Figure 5, with the $`\times `$ denoting the $`\eta ^{}`$-hairpin mass insertion $`m_0^2`$, and the $``$’s representing $`\overline{\psi }\psi `$ operator vertices. If we ignore form factor effects at these vertices, we can calculate the $`\eta ^{}`$-$`\pi `$ contribution to the $`\overline{\psi }\psi `$ propagator in momentum space. The propagator

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\left(p\right)\underset{x}{}e^{ipx}\overline{\psi }\psi \left(x\right)\overline{\psi }\psi \left(0\right)$$
(1)
is given in terms of the one-loop integral $`B\left(p\right)`$,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\left(p\right)4r_0^2B\left(p\right)$$
(2)
where

$`B\left(p\right)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{VT}}{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\left(\left(k+p\right)^2+m_\pi ^2\right)}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_0^2}{\left(k^2+m_\pi ^2\right)^2}}`$ (3)
Here, $`2r_0`$ is the $`\overline{\psi }\psi `$ to $`\eta ^{}`$-$`\pi `$ coupling. (In the next section we will discuss including the scalar meson intermediate state, along with form-factor/unitarization effects). The pion mass values for the hopping parameters used here have already been reported in Reference  and are listed here in Table I. The hairpin insertion mass $`m_0^2`$ is also determined in Reference . For clover improved fermions with $`C_{sw}=1.57`$ the value found in the chiral limit (dropping a flavor factor of $`\sqrt{3}`$ included in Table II of that reference) is

$$m_0=.33\left(2\right)$$
(4)
The quark mass dependence of $`m_0`$ was found to be very mild (see Table II of Reference ). Here, for simplicity, we will take it to be a mass independent constant given by (4). The only other parameter needed to evaluate the $`\eta ^{}`$-$`\pi `$ bubble contribution is the coupling of the scalar $`\overline{\psi }\psi `$ operator to the $`\eta ^{}`$-$`\pi `$ state,

$$0\left|\overline{\psi }\psi \right|\eta ^{}\pi $$
(5)
In the quenched theory in the chiral limit, we can relate the threshold value of this matrix element, via a soft-$`\eta ^{}`$ reduction, to the decay constant $`f_P`$, the vacuum-to-one-pion matrix element of the pseudoscalar density. By this argument, we relate the coupling constant in (2) to the $`m_\pi ^2`$ vs. $`m_q`$ slope parameter $`r_0`$ determined in Reference ,

$$r_0=1.99\left(12\right)$$
(6)
Thus, in this approximation the effect of the $`\eta ^{}`$-$`\pi `$ bubble, Eq. (2), is completely predicted by chiral symmetry in terms of the constants (4), (6), and the pion masses in Table I. The result for the lightest quark mass ($`\kappa =.1428`$) is plotted along with the measured propagator in Figure 1 (lower curve). Considering that the plotted curve has no adjustable parameters, it fits the size and shape of the propagator remarkably well in the time range from $`t=3`$ to $`t=7`$. For times $`t<3`$, the measured propagator deviates from the one-loop expression in the positive direction, indicating that the spectral function also contains a heavy scalar meson. This short-range, positive metric exponential component dominates in the heavier quark cases where the chiral loop effect becomes unimportant. The one-loop result also explains the pion mass dependence of the anomalous propagator component, as shown in Figure 7, where we have plotted the value of the scalar propagator at various time separations as a function of $`m_\pi ^2`$. The solid curves are the $`p_0`$ Fourier transform at $`\stackrel{}{p}=0`$ of the one-bubble integral (2), with $`m_0`$ and $`r_0`$ given by (4) and (6). Again the agreement with the data is surprisingly good, considering the absence of any adjustable parameters. The accurate description of both the time-dependence and the pion mass dependence leaves little doubt that, for the lightest quark masses, the scalar propagator over the range of times from about $`t=3`$ to 7 is completely dominated by the $`\eta ^{}`$-$`\pi `$ loop. Furthermore, this agreement shows that the soft pion theorem relating the scalar-density matrix element (5) to the corresponding pseudoscalar matrix element is well satisfied by the lattice results. This is somewhat surprising at $`\beta =5.7`$, where one might have expected substantial chiral symmetry violation from finite lattice-spacing effects.

For short time separations and/or heavier quark masses, an accurate description of the scalar propagator requires positive contributions from scalar meson states along with the negative $`\eta ^{}`$-$`\pi `$ component. In the next Section, we present a derivation of the quenched scalar propagator based on a detailed chiral Lagrangian description which will be used to fit our data for all quark mass values. The corresponding propagator fits are discussed in Section 4.

## 3 Quenched Chiral Perturbation Theory

According to the analysis of Bernard and Golterman, low-energy quenched QCD is described by an effective local field theory with degrees of freedom corresponding to meson bound-states, including not only ordinary $`q\overline{q}`$ mesons, but also $`q^{}\overline{q}`$, $`q\overline{q}^{}`$, and $`q^{}\overline{q}^{}`$ mesons, where $`q^{}`$ is a wrong-statistics ghost quark. Order by order in the $`\eta ^{}`$ mass insertion $`m_0^2`$, the ghost-quark formalism is easily seen to be equivalent to Sharpe’s formulation, which begins with a $`U\left(3\right)\times U\left(3\right)`$ chiral Lagrangian combined with rules inferred from the structure of quark-line diagrams in the quenched theory. In this paper, as in our previous analysis  we follow the latter approach, invoking a chiral Lagrangian having valence pion and $`\eta ^{}`$ degrees of freedom. To describe quenched QCD, the chiral Lagrangian is supplemented with rules which reflect the suppression of internal quark loops. As a result, all normal pion loops are suppressed except for cactus diagrams involving the $`\eta ^{}`$ meson connected by single insertions of the hairpin mass term. Using this procedure we obtained a consistent fit to our lattice data for the pseudoscalar valence and $`\eta ^{}`$ hairpin propagators and determined the relevant chiral Lagrangian parameters. We now extend this analysis to the isovector, scalar propagator.

The appropriate effective field theory must now include a multiplet of scalar mesons in addition to the pion and $`\eta ^{}`$ degrees of freedom. Using standard chiral Lagrangian methods, the heavy scalar mesons are described by scalar fields transforming nonlinearly under chiral symmetry rotations. The resulting chiral Lagrangian is

$``$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{f^2}{4}}tr\left\{UU^{}\right\}+{\displaystyle \frac{f^2}{4}}tr\left\{\chi ^{}U+U^{}\chi \right\}`$ (7)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}tr\left\{D\sigma D\sigma \right\}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}m_s^2tr\left\{\sigma \sigma \right\}+g_str\left\{\sigma \sqrt{U}U^{}U\sqrt{U^{}}\right\}`$
$`+`$ $`f_str\left\{\chi ^{}\sqrt{U\sigma }\sqrt{U}+\chi \sqrt{U^{}\sigma }\sqrt{U^{}}\right\}+_{\mathrm{hairpin}}`$
where $`𝒟`$ is a chiral covariant derivative, $`m_s`$ the sigma mass, $`g_s`$ the strength of the chiral invariant coupling of sigma mesons to pions and $`f_s`$ the strength of the corresponding chiral symmetry breaking interactions. Here we denote the scalar field by $`\sigma `$. (Elsewhere, when referring to particle states, we use the conventional $`a_0`$ and $`a_0^{}`$ to denote ground-state and excited-state mesons.) The chiral field matrix $`U`$ contains the pion and $`\eta ^{}`$ degrees of freedom. The $`\eta ^{}`$ mass term is given by the hairpin Lagrangian,

$$_{\mathrm{hairpin}}=\frac{1}{2}m_0^2\left(f^2/8\right)\left[itr\mathrm{ln}\left(U^{}\right)itr\mathrm{ln}\left(U\right)\right]^2.$$
(8)
We have not included interactions involving the couplings $`L_5`$ and $`L_8`$ used in our previous analysis of higher order terms in the sigma potential as they will have only small effects on our analysis of the isovector scalar propagator.

Scalar and pseudoscalar quark densities are represented by meson operators in the effective field theory and can be determined from the dependence of the chiral Lagrangian on the spurion field $`\chi `$. Hence the isovector scalar density operator is given by

$`\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }_2}\mathrm{\Psi }_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}r_0f^2\left(U+U^{}\right)_{12}`$ (9)
$`2r_0f_s\left(\sqrt{U\sigma }\sqrt{U}+\sqrt{U^{}\sigma }\sqrt{U^{}}\right)_{12}`$
with

$`\chi =\chi ^{}=m_\pi ^2=2r_0m_{\mathrm{quark}}.`$ (10)
Our previous fits to the pseudoscalar propagator determined the following values for the chiral Lagrangian parameters,

$`f`$ $`=`$ $`0.1066\left(24\right)`$
$`m_o`$ $`=`$ $`0.33\left(2\right)`$
$`r_o`$ $`=`$ $`1.99\left(12\right).`$ (11)
To lowest order, the local isovector scalar density may be expanded in terms of the pion, $`\eta ^{}`$ and sigma fields,

$$\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }_2}\mathrm{\Psi }_1=2r_0\left(\pi ^+\eta ^{}\right)4\sqrt{2}r_0f_s\left(\sigma ^+\right).$$
(12)
At tree level, only the sigma propagator gives a positive contribution to the scalar propagator

$$<\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }_2}\mathrm{\Psi }_1\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }_1}\mathrm{\Psi }_2>=32r_0^2f_s^2P_\sigma .$$
(13)
where $`P_\sigma `$ is the $`a_0`$ meson propagator. The $`\eta ^{}`$-$`\pi `$ term can only contribute via a meson loop. However, the $`\eta ^{}`$ propagator in the loop is the $`\eta ^{}`$ hairpin propagator with a single insertion of the hairpin mass, $`m_0^2`$ (see Figure 2). Including only these terms, the scalar propagator is

$$<\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }_2}\mathrm{\Psi }_1\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }_1}\mathrm{\Psi }_2>=32r_0^2f_s^2P_\sigma +4r_0^2B_{\mathrm{hp}}$$
(14)
Here $`B_{hp}`$ is the hairpin bubble

$$B_{\mathrm{hp}}=FT\left\{\frac{1}{VT}\underset{k}{}\frac{1}{\left(\left(k+p\right)^2+m_\pi ^2\right)}\frac{m_0^2}{\left(k^2+m_\pi ^2\right)^2}\right\}$$
(15)
and $`FT`$ means the Fourier transform on $`p`$. As discussed in the Introduction, the negative sign of the $`\eta ^{}`$ propagator in loops is dictated by the quenching and implies that this meson loop makes a negative contribution to the scalar propagator. It should also be noted that the $`\eta ^{}`$ propagator is more infrared singular than the normal valence pion propagator. This has a dramatic effect on the scalar propagator. In the light quark limit, the quenched theory predicts that large negative chiral loop effects should dominate the scalar propagator. Our lattice data give convincing evidence for these effects.

A complete analysis of the scalar propagator must go beyond the lowest order terms given above. The chiral Lagrangian predicts couplings between the scalar meson and $`\eta ^{}`$-$`\pi `$ states as well as $`\eta ^{}`$-$`\pi `$ rescattering interactions generated by the symmetry breaking terms that give mass to the pion. These higher order terms involve $`\eta ^{}`$-$`\pi `$ bubble diagrams and can be resummed into a closed form. Since the chiral invariant interactions between the $`\sigma `$ and $`\eta ^{}`$-$`\pi `$ states include derivative couplings, bubbles with derivative couplings at the $`\sigma \eta ^{}\pi `$ vertex must, in principle, also be included. These terms are less infrared singular than the nonderivative terms and are not expected to play a major role in explaining the large quenched effects seen in the data. In the following analysis, we will neglect such derivative coupling terms. The formulas and results given below are for the equal quark mass case; generalizations to the unequal mass case are straightforward.

As is always the case in propagator studies, the presence of excited states in the spectral function complicates the analysis. As we discussed in Section II, in addition to the propagator for local $`\overline{\psi }\psi `$ operators, we have calculated propagators with a smeared source at one or both ends. In our previous analysis of the pseudoscalar channel , a full multi-state fitting procedure was employed. Here we take a somewhat simpler approach which is suggested by features of the data. We model the spectral function in terms of three components: (1) the $`\eta ^{}`$-$`\pi `$ state, (2) a ground-state scalar meson $`a_0`$, and (3) an excited-state scalar meson $`a_0^{}`$. We perform an analysis of the local-local propagator by first using information from the smeared-local and smeared-smeared propagators to remove the excited-state $`a_0^{}`$ scalar meson component and then fitting to a formula obtained by resumming all repeated bubble graphs involving the $`\eta ^{}`$-$`\pi `$ state and the ground-state $`a_0`$ scalar meson, as depicted in Figure 8. To estimate and remove the contribution of the excited $`a_0^{}`$ from the local propagator, we consider first the case with the heaviest quark, $`\kappa =.1400.`$ Within statistics, all of the scalar propagators for smeared and local sources exhibit the same time-dependence beyond $`t=3`$. In fact, the smeared-local and smeared-smeared propagators are equal, up to an overall factor, at all time slices, as evidenced by the effective mass plot in Figure 4. For the heavier quark mass values, the $`\eta ^{}`$-$`\pi `$ loop is relatively unimportant, and the smeared and local propagators can be analyzed in terms of a ground-state and excited-state scalar meson. The fact that the smeared-local and smeared-smeared propagators, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{SL}\left(t\right)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{SS}\left(t\right)`$ are proportional and that both give flat effective mass plots indicates that neither propagator has a significant excited-state component. On the other hand, the local-local propagator clearly has a significant $`a_0^{}`$ component, as seen in the effective mass plot, Figure 4.

It is straightforward to estimate the $`a_0^{}`$ contribution by using the (essentially time-independent) ratio $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{SL}/\mathrm{\Delta }_{SS}`$ to determine the excited state component of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{LL}`$.

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{LL}\left(t\right)\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_{SL}}{\mathrm{\Delta }_{SS}}\mathrm{\Delta }_{SL}\left(t\right)C_{a_0}\mathrm{exp}\left(m_{a_0}t\right)$$
(16)
Numerically, the above procedure applied to the $`\kappa =.1400`$ propagators gives excited state parameters

$$C_{a_0^{}}=0.275\left(30\right),m_{a_0^{}}=1.86\left(10\right)$$
(17)
The large mass obtained emphasizes that the excited state contribution is only important at very short time separations. Similar results are obtained for $`\kappa =.1405`$ and $`.1410`$, with no significant observed dependence on quark mass. With this information, we can separate off the excited state component of the local-local propagator:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{LL}\left(t\right)=C_{a_0^{}}\mathrm{exp}\left(m_{a_0^{}}t\right)+\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_{LL}\left(t\right)$$
(18)
where $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_{LL}\left(t\right)`$ includes contributions from the $`\eta ^{}`$-$`\pi `$ state and from the ground state scalar meson, and will be modelled by the bubble sum depicted in Figure 8. For the lighter quark masses, the $`\eta ^{}`$-$`\pi `$ state becomes important, and it is more difficult to disentangle the $`a_0`$ and $`a_0^{}`$ contributions. In the fits to the local-local propagator described in the next section, we have neglected the quark mass dependence of the excited state $`a_0^{}`$ term and used the estimate (17) for all quark masses.

By resumming the multiple bubble and scalar propagator graphs shown in Figure 8, the full propagator may be written in terms of the one-loop bubble function $`B\left(p\right)`$ defined in equation (2),

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\left(p\right)=4r_0^2B^{ren}+32r_0^2\left(f_sf_s\left(2m_\pi ^2/f^2\right)B^{ren}\right)\left(f_sf_s\left(2m_\pi ^2/f^2\right)B^{ren}\right)P_{a0}$$
(19)
where $`f_s`$ is the coupling of the scalar meson to the $`\overline{\psi }\psi `$ density, $`B^{ren}\left(p\right)`$ is the resummed multiple-bubble function,

$$B^{ren}=\frac{B\left(p\right)}{1+\left(2m_\pi ^2/f^2\right)B}$$
(20)
and $`P_{a0}`$ is the resummed $`a_0`$ propagator,

$$P_{a0}^1=\widehat{p}^2+m_s^2+32\left(f_sm_\pi ^2/f^2\right)^2B^{ren}$$
(21)
Note that the negative sign associated with the hairpin insertion has been taken outside of the bubble function, i.e. the functions $`B\left(p\right)`$ and $`B^{ren}\left(p\right)`$ are both positive.

We use the bubble function $`B\left(p\right)`$ defined for the lattice version of the full chiral Lagrangian with the same lattice spacing as the quark lattice. In (20,21), the lattice four-momentum is defined by $`\widehat{p}2\mathrm{sin}\left(p/2\right)`$ as appropriate for bosonic propagators. If we are to use the pion masses in Table I, which were determined from fitting the t-space pion propagators, then the pion masses used in lattice propagators above are given by $`\stackrel{~}{m}_\pi =2\mathrm{sinh}\left(m_\pi /2\right)`$.

This analysis includes all contributions to the scalar propagator which can be computed by direct $`\eta ^{}`$-$`\pi `$ bubble summation and mixing with the $`a_0`$ scalar meson state. We use these expressions in our analysis of the lattice data on the isovector, scalar propagator.

The quenched theory does introduce additional contributions which could modify the behavior of the bubble terms. For example, pions can interact through double hairpin exchange diagrams whose infrared behavior is doubly enhanced. Therefore, virtual $`\eta ^{}`$ processes do not decouple in the infrared limit as is normally expected for soft pion interactions but can generate long range forces between mesons in the quenched theory. Preliminary estimates of these effects indicate they are negligible for the range of pion masses and lattice volume considered in this paper and they have not been included in our analysis.

## 4 Global Fits and Determination of Chiral Lagrangian Parameters

In Section 2 we showed that the data for the scalar propagator for heavier quark masses was dominated by the scalar meson $`a_0`$ intermediate state (after removing the excited $`a_0^{}`$ contribution, as discussed in that Section), while for light masses, it is dominated by the $`\eta ^{}`$-$`\pi `$ intermediate state. To get a consistent fit for all masses, we have found that the resummed formula (19) (Figure 8) produces the most stable results. (The simpler alternative of using the sum of a scalar meson pole plus the single bubble function gives fits with only slightly worse $`\chi ^2`$’s but the resulting fit parameters $`f_s`$ and $`m_s`$ are less stable as a function of quark mass.) All of the fits discussed in this section are based on the formula (19) with the parameters $`r_0`$ and $`f`$ fixed at their previously determined values (3). We present the results of two different fitting procedures. In the first set of fits (Table I), we take the hairpin mass insertion parameter $`m_0`$ to be fixed at the value (3) and use the scalar propagator fits to extract the scalar meson Lagrangian parameters $`f_s`$ and $`m_s`$. In the second set of fits (Table II), we let $`m_0`$ be a fit paramter and investigate how well the scalar propagator data by itself determines the value of the hairpin insertion.

The fits which extract the scalar parameters, with $`m_0`$ held fixed, are given in Table 1. We see that the value of the ground state scalar mass parameter $`m_s`$ is rather well determined for the heaviest quark masses, but becomes less accurate for lighter masses, where the $`\eta ^{}`$-$`\pi `$ state dominates. A linear fit to the scalar mass values in Table 1 gives a value of

$$m_s=1.14\left(7\right)$$
(22)
in the chiral limit. Using the charmonium scale $`a^1=1.18`$ GeV, this gives a scalar meson mass of $`1.34\left(9\right)`$ GeV. The scalar decay constant $`f_s`$ in the chiral limit is

$$f_s=.057\left(3\right)$$
(23)
In addition to extracting scalar parameters, it is interesting to carry out fits to the scalar propagator with $`m_0`$ as a fit parameter. This procedure emphasizes the fact that the scalar propagator data alone provides a fairly accurate estimate of $`m_0`$ which is independent of, and consistent with, the previous estimates in Reference . As we saw in the previous fits, the scalar mass $`m_s`$ is well-determined for the heaviest quarks, but is poorly determined at the light-quark end. To obtain stable fits with $`m_0`$ as a fit parameter, we fix $`m_s`$ to be given by a linear fit obtained from the three heaviest quark values, $`m_s=1.106+1.145m_q`$. where $`m_q`$ is the bare quark mass $`\left(\kappa ^1\kappa _c^1\right)/2`$ in lattice units. In this set of fits, $`f_s`$ is found to be approximately independent of quark mass and is well-approximated by (23) for all quark masses. The values of the $`\eta ^{}`$ mass parameter $`m_0`$ obtained from these fits are given in Table 2 and plotted in Figure 9. A linear fit to this data gives

$$m_0=0.34\left(4\right)$$
(24)
in the chiral limit. This result, obtained from the scalar propagator data alone, is quite consistent with our previous estimates which included direct $`\eta ^{}`$ hairpin measurements, a topological susceptibility calculation, and QCL effects in the pseudoscalar channel .

One feature of the scalar propagator which appears to be somewhat inconsistent with our theoretical model is the behavior at larger time separations, $`t7`$. For the lightest quarks, we saw that the propagator was well-described in the region $`t=3`$ to 6 by the one-loop $`\eta ^{}`$-$`\pi `$ bubble. However, beyond $`t=6`$, the propagator appears to go to zero (from below) more rapidly than the theoretical curve predicted by either the one-loop calculation or the bubble-sum formula, as shown for $`\kappa =.1427`$ in Figure 10. If it is a significant departure from the chiral symmetry prediction, it could be an indication of strong $`\eta ^{}`$-$`\pi `$ interactions near threshold. Such interactions would normally be ruled out by soft-pion arguments, but may arise due either to explicit chiral symmetry breaking of the Wilson-Dirac action or because of higher order quenched effects. For the heaviest quarks, we also find that the propagator appears to have an additional positive contribution for $`t7`$. For example, we can obtain a good fit (to both the heavy and light mass data at large time) by adding a small $`\pi `$ propagator term to the fit model. However, the origin of such a contribution is not presently understood within our model.

## 5 Discussion

We have presented convincing evidence that the quenched scalar, isovector meson propagator exhibits a prominent “quenched chiral loop” (QCL) artifact at light quark mass which is properly interpreted as the effect of an $`\eta ^{}`$-$`\pi `$ intermediate state. QCL effects that have been observed in other quantities  have been rather subtle, involving relatively small deviations from full QCD chiral behavior. By contrast, the QCL effect discussed here is an unmistakable chiral power singularity, and in fact dominates the scalar correlator for the lightest quark masses we have studied. The negative spectral weight of this contribution is a particularly vivid illustration of the oft-stated truism that the quenched approximation violates unitarity.

The results presented here also provide further evidence of the effectiveness of the pole-shifting ansatz of the modified quenched approximation. It is only after pole-shifting that we are able to study the lightest quark masses for which the $`\eta ^{}`$-$`\pi `$ state becomes obvious. It should be remarked, however, that even for the heavier quark masses, the QCL effect is not negligible, and must be included in the fitting function in order to draw correct conclusions about the scalar meson mass. For example, fitting the scalar propagator at the heavier quark masses with a simple exponential and ignoring the $`\eta ^{}`$-$`\pi `$ contribution would lead to the erroneous conclusion that the scalar meson becomes heavier as the quark mass gets lighter. The resulting effect on the chiral extrapolation is at least as severe as typical QCL effects in the quenched light hadron spectrum. For pion masses below about 400 MeV, the $`\eta ^{}`$-$`\pi `$ contribution becomes dominant, making the scalar meson mass difficult to determine accurately. Nevertheless, by combining lattice calculations with quenched chiral perturbation theory, more extensive studies of scalar meson spectroscopy in the quenched approximation should be feasible. Finally, the prominence of the QCL effect in the scalar valence propagator suggests that this propagator be added to the list of standard bellwether quantities (such as topological susceptibility, $`\eta ^{}`$ mass, and long-range static potential) which are expected to be particularly sensitive to the difference between quenched and full QCD gauge ensembles.

## 6 Acknowledgements

The work of W. Bardeen and E. Eichten was performed at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, which is operated by University Research Association, Inc., under contract DE-AC02-76CHO3000. The work of A. Duncan was supported in part by NSF grant PHY00-88946. The work of N. Isgur was supported by DOE Contract DE-AC05-84ER40150 under which the Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA) operates the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab). The work of H. Thacker was supported in part by the Department of Energy under grant DE-FG02-97ER41027.


format: text

text:
# Quantum Corrections to the Kinetic Term in the Randall-Sundrum model

## 1 Introduction

Interest in the possibilities of large extra dimensions  and the solution to the hierarchy problem for non-factorisable geometries , has sparked a renewed effort in Kaluza-Klein theories. In particular, much work has been done on one loop quantum effects in the Randall-Sundrum model , with the hope of stabilizing the radion field. In  it was shown that massless bulk fermions lead to stability, but the parameters of the model have to be fine tuned to obtain the observed mass hierarchy. It was also argued that the radion mass was smaller than a $`TeV`$ and ruled out by experiment. This was also confirmed for massive bulk fermions . Consequently, classical or non-perturbative mechanisms have been saught to stablise the radion .

In fact, we shall argue below that the radion mass can be consistent with experiment if there is one additional fine tuned parameter in the model. This makes a total of three parameters to be fine tuned, as opposed to just two in this context (the cosmological constant and the TeV Higgs mass) in the standard model. However, it has long been a mystery why the effects of quantum gravity do not introduce Planck scale corrections into the standard model.

In the earlier work on Kaluza Klein theories  it was found that the kinetic terms in the effective action played an important role. Although they have no effect on the size of the internal dimension, they can lead to instability in what would otherwise be a stable compactification.

In this paper we calculate the finite one loop correction to the radion kinetic term from massless fermions and find that it vanishes to second order in derivatives. The calculation adapts a diagramatic method for obtaining derivative expansions of a heat kernel , which is closely related to the ‘covariant perturbation theory’ first devised by Vilkovisky . In this case the fine tunings are protected at one loop order.

## 2 The radion action

We will give a simplified picture of how one obtains the radion field from the five dimensional action (along the lines of ). The fifth dimension will be taken to be an orbifold $`S^1/Z_2`$, then the full set of classical field equations can be obtained from an action

$$S=\frac{1}{8\pi G_5}_{}\left(R2\mathrm{\Lambda }\right)\frac{1}{4\pi G_5}_{}K_{}_m,$$
(1)
where the boundary $``$ consists of a hidden brane $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_h`$ and a visible brane $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_v`$ with extrinsic curvature scalars $`K`$. The Lagrangian density $`_m`$ represents brane matter fields, and the action correctly reproduces the brane boundary conditions . We shall be mostly concerned with the vacuum energies $`𝒱_h`$ and $`𝒱_v`$. In the original Randall-Sundrum model, $`𝒱_h=𝒱_v=𝒱_0`$, where

$$𝒱_0=\frac{3\kappa }{4\pi G_5}$$
(2)
and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=6\kappa ^2`$.

We will identify the radion with the relative motion of the branes on a fixed Randal-Sundrum background

$$ds^2=a(y)^2g_{\mu \nu }dx^\mu dx^\nu +dy^2,$$
(3)
with $`a(y)=\mathrm{exp}(\kappa y)`$ and Ricci scalar $`R=20\kappa ^2`$. This assumes that the brane motion and the five dimensional gravity waves decouple at leading order.

The moving branes are located at $`y=y_h(x)`$ and $`y=y_v(x)`$, with extrinsic curvatures given by $`K_h=K_v`$,

$$K_v|g|^{1/2}4\kappa a_v^4a_v^2a_v\kappa a_v^2(a_v)^2$$
(4)
where $`^2`$ is the d’Alembertian operator. Substitution into the original action gives a reduced Lagrangian $`=TV`$, where

$`T`$ $`=`$ $`\frac{1}{2}C_v\kappa ^2(a_v)^2\frac{1}{2}C_h\kappa ^2(a_h)^2`$ (5)
$`V`$ $`=`$ $`B_v\kappa ^4a_v^4B_h\kappa ^4a_h^4`$ (6)
and

$`B_v\kappa ^4`$ $`=`$ $`𝒱_0+𝒱_v`$ (7)
$`B_h\kappa ^4`$ $`=`$ $`𝒱_0𝒱_h`$ (8)
$`C_v\kappa ^4`$ $`=`$ $`2𝒱_0+𝒱_v`$ (9)
$`C_h\kappa ^4`$ $`=`$ $`2𝒱_0𝒱_h`$ (10)
Provided that the motions are small, the reduced action will generate a consistent set of field equations. The equations are incomplete because the metric variations have been restricted, but for spatially homogenous fields the field equations can be completed with a single constraint $`T+V=0`$ .

The relative motion of the two branes can be isolated by introducing a change of variables,

$`\sigma `$ $`=`$ $`y_vy_h`$ (11)
$`a`$ $`=`$ $`C^1\left(C_ha_h^2C_va_v^2\right)^{1/2}`$ (12)
where $`C=(C_hC_v)^{1/2}`$. In the new variables,

$`T`$ $`=`$ $`\frac{1}{2}Z_T\kappa ^4(\sigma )^2\frac{1}{2}C\kappa ^2(a)^2`$ (13)
$`V`$ $`=`$ $`Z_V\left(B_hB_ve^{4\kappa \sigma }\right)`$ (14)
where

$`Z_T`$ $`=`$ $`2C^3a^2(C_he^{\kappa \sigma }C_ve^{\kappa \sigma })^2`$ (15)
$`Z_V`$ $`=`$ $`C^2a^4e^{2\kappa \sigma }(C_he^{\kappa \sigma }C_ve^{\kappa \sigma })^1`$ (16)
The negative kinetic term is associated with the fact that $`a`$ represents a gravitational degree of freedom of the double brane system, and corresponds to a Friedmann equation of the usual form. The Friedmann equation in $`a_v`$, which still determines the expansion rate of the visible brane, has non-standard signs leading to doubts about the consistency of the Randall-Sundrum model and standard cosmology . The crucial idea here is that when the two branes are tied together by Casimir forces, the dynamical equations are simplest when expressed in terms of the collective coordinate $`a`$ and predict the usual cosmological evolution.

The classical theory has the shortcoming that the potential does not have a minimum. This has lead to the consideration of one loop effects . Calculations of the vacuum energy for $`g_f`$ massless fermion fields leads to a potential

$$V=Z_V\left(B_hB_ve^{4\kappa \sigma }+Ae^{4\kappa \sigma }(1e^{\kappa \sigma })^4\right)$$
(17)
where $`A`$ is given in terms of the Riemann zeta function,

$$A=\frac{3\zeta (5)g_f}{128\pi ^2}.$$
(18)
An equilibrium configuration requires both $`V=0`$ and $`V^{}=0`$. This implies that $`B_v>A`$ and gives a relationship between $`B_h`$ and $`B_v`$

The ratio of the mass scale and the Planck scale on the brane is set by $`\lambda =e^{\kappa \sigma }`$. In order to obtain a mass hierarchy close to the measured value we need the value of $`B_v`$ to lie very close to the value of $`A`$. The mass of the radion (to a relative accuracy of $`\lambda `$) is then

$$m_\sigma ^2=AC^1\kappa ^2\lambda ^3$$
(19)
As Garriga et al.  have pointed out, a radion with this mass should have been observed in particle experiments before now. However, at the expense of one further fine tuned parameter, the radion can be invisible with a large mass for small values of $`C_v`$, which corresponds to selected ranges of $`𝒱_0`$. A consistent radion model requires three fine tuned parameters,

$`𝒱_v`$ $``$ $`2\kappa ^4A`$ (20)
$`𝒱_h`$ $``$ $`\kappa ^4A`$ (21)
$`𝒱_0`$ $``$ $`\kappa ^4A`$ (22)
We will not attempt to explain why the Lagrangian should have such fine tuned parameters. However, the importance of the kinetic terms in fixing the radion mass has lead us to examine the one loop corrections to these terms in order to test the robustness of the fine tunings at the one loop level.

## 3 The Basic Method

We will obtain a perturbative expansion of the one loop effective action for massless fermions on the moving brane background. The coordinate system is chosen so that the coordinate in the fifth dimension is constant on the boundaries, and then an expansion in derivatives of the metric is performed. An analysis of the different fermion boundary conditions can be found in . We shall consider the case of fermion components which satisfy Neumann boundary conditions, but the other possibilities can be treated in an equivalent way.

The conformal invariance of the massless fermions allows us to simplify the problem by using the conformally related flat background metric,

$$ds^2=dx^2+d\tau ^2.$$
(23)
with $`\tau _h(x)<\tau <\tau _v(x)`$. We can replace $`\tau `$ with the coordinate $`\theta `$ which is constant on the boundaries,

$$\theta =\pi (\tau \tau _h(x))/\beta (x)$$
(24)
where $`\beta (x)=\tau _v(x)\tau _h(x)`$. The metric becomes

$$ds^2=dx^2+\beta ^2\pi ^2(d\theta +A_\mu dx^\mu )^2,$$
(25)
where

$$A_\mu =\theta _ca_\mu +\frac{\pi }{2}b_\mu $$
(26)
for $`\theta _c=\theta \frac{\pi }{2}`$ and

$`a_\mu `$ $`=`$ $`\beta ^1(_\mu \beta )`$ (27)
$`b_\mu `$ $`=`$ $`\beta ^1_\mu (\tau _h+\tau _v)`$ (28)
The unperturbed configuration is therefore $`A=0`$ and $`\beta `$ constant.

The one loop effective action $`W`$ can be related to the Laplacian $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ of the metric (25). We shall obtain a derivative expansion of $`W`$ using heat kernel techniques. The heat kernel $`K(x,\theta ,x^{},\theta ^{},t)`$ satisfies the equation

$$\frac{K}{t}\mathrm{\Delta }K=\delta (xx^{})\delta (\theta \theta ^{})\delta (t)$$
(29)
The explicit form of the Laplacian is

$$\mathrm{\Delta }=\pi \beta ^1(_\mu _\theta A_\mu )\beta \pi ^1(^\mu A^\mu _\theta )\pi ^2\beta ^2_\theta ^2=\mathrm{\Delta }_0+\mathrm{\Delta }_I.$$
(30)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }_I`$ denotes terms depending on derivatives of $`\beta `$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_1`$ with one derivative, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_2`$ with two derivatives etc. The first terms are

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ $`=`$ $`_\mu ^2\pi ^2\beta ^2_\theta ^2,`$ (31)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }_1`$ $`=`$ $`\xi ^\mu \pi ^2(_\mu \beta ^2)_\theta ^2+A_\mu _\theta ^\mu +A^\mu _\mu _\theta ,`$ (32)
where $`\xi =x^{}x`$.

It is possible to show using perturbation theory  that the heat kernel has a representation in the form of a time ordered exponential. In bra and ket notation,

$$K(x,\theta ,x^{},\theta ^{},t)=x^{}\theta ^{}\left|e^{\mathrm{\Delta }_0t}T\mathrm{exp}\left[_0^te^{\mathrm{\Delta }_0t^{}}\mathrm{\Delta }_Ie^{\mathrm{\Delta }_0t^{}}𝑑t^{}\right]\right|x\theta .$$
(33)
The calculation of the heat kernel can be performed most easily in momentum space, therefore we introduce momentum basis states $`|kn`$ and vertex operators

$$V_{mn}\delta _{kk^{}}=k^{}m|e^{\mathrm{\Delta }_0t^{}}\mathrm{\Delta }_Ie^{\mathrm{\Delta }_0t^{}}|kn.$$
(34)
For Neumann boundary conditions,

$$K(x,\theta ,x,\theta ,t)=\beta ^1\frac{d^4k}{(2\pi )^4}\underset{m,n}{}\mathrm{cos}m\theta \mathrm{cos}n\theta e^{\omega _m^2tk^2t}\left(T\mathrm{exp}V(t^{})𝑑t^{}\right)_{mn}$$
(35)
The integrated trace of the heat kernel

$$K(t)=d^4x\frac{d^4k}{(2\pi )^4}\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}e^{\omega _n^2tk^2t}\left(T\mathrm{exp}V(t^{})𝑑t^{}\right)_{nn}.$$
(36)
As in reference , we arrange the time ordered exponential in such a way that we can use Wick’s theorem. Defining

$$\mathrm{}=\frac{1}{Z(t)}\frac{d^4k}{(2\pi )^4}\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}e^{\omega _n^2t}e^{k^2t/2}\mathrm{}e^{k^2t/2},$$
(37)
with $`Z(t)=(4\pi t)^2_ne^{\omega _n^2t}`$, gives

$$K(t)=d^4xZ(t)T\mathrm{exp}\left(e^{k^2t/2}Ve^{k^2t/2}\right).$$
(38)
In order to construct the vertex operator we take the previous expresions for $`\mathrm{\Delta }_I`$ and make the replacements

$$\xi ^\mu \delta ^\mu ,_\mu \frac{1}{2}\delta _\mu ^{},\theta _c\overline{\theta },_\theta ^2n^2$$
(39)
where $`\overline{\theta }(t^{})`$ is defined in appendix B, $`\delta _\mu ^{}=2ik_\mu `$ and

$$\delta ^\mu (t^{})=i\frac{}{k_\mu }2ik^\mu t^{}+ik^\mu t.$$
(40)
The expansion of the time ordered products leads to contractions between the above operators which can be interpreted as propagators (see appendix A).

To begin with, consider $`\tau _h+\tau _v=0`$, i.e. $`A_\mu =\theta _ca_\mu `$. If $`A_\mu `$ is substituted into (34) one finds the vertex operators

$`V_1`$ $`=`$ $`2\omega _n^2\delta _{mn}a_\mu \delta ^\mu +m|\overline{\theta }_\theta |na_\mu \delta ^\mu `$ (41)
$`V_2`$ $`=`$ $`\omega _n^2\delta _{mn}(a_{\mu ,\nu }2a_\mu a_\nu )\delta ^\mu \delta ^\nu +\frac{1}{2}m|\overline{\theta }_\theta |na_{\nu ,\mu }(\delta ^\mu \delta ^\nu +\delta ^\nu \delta ^\mu )a^2m|(\overline{\theta }_\theta )^2|n,`$ (42)
where $`\omega _n^2=\pi ^2n^2/\beta ^2`$.

The last term in the expression for $`V_2`$ can be removed by the vertex elimination trick described in . This allows terms to be eliminated by modifying the contraction

$$\stackrel{}{D}(t_i,t_j)=2\delta (t_it_j)2t^1.$$
(43)
The remaining vertex $`V_2`$, and all higher order vertices, can be obtained by differentiating $`V_1`$.

The vertex operators can be represented diagramatically by vertices with external legs representing the $`\delta `$ operators (see figure 1 and figure 2). Each diagram contributes to the heat kernel (38), or equivalently to the zeta function via a Mellin transform,

$$\zeta _k(s)=d^4x\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(s)}t^{s1}Z(t)\mathrm{}𝑑t.$$
(44)
The one loop effective action is given by $`W=\frac{1}{2}\zeta ^{}(0)`$.

## 4 Second order calculation

We now perform the calculation of the contribution to the kinetic terms to second order. There are only three diagrams that contribute to the effective action. Other diagrams are zero due to the proper time integrals (see appendix A) or theta integrals (see appendix B).

The first diagram is shown in figure 3a with one second order vertex and one contraction $`D(t_1,t_1)`$. This diagram gives a contribution to the heat kernel of (see equation (38)),

$$Z(t)(3a)=\frac{1}{2}\frac{1}{(4\pi t)^2}(^\mu a_\mu 2a^2)\frac{1}{3}t^2\underset{n}{}e^{\omega _n^2t}\omega _n^2,$$
(45)
where the first factor is a symmetry factor and the first integral in (A7) has been used. The contribution of the diagram to the zeta function (denoted by $`\zeta _a`$) is given by equation (44),

$$\zeta _a(s)=\frac{1}{16\pi ^2}d^4x\frac{1}{6}(^\mu a_\mu 2a^2)\omega _n^{22s}.$$
(46)
The sum can be expressed in terms of the Riemann zeta function and the derivative of the zeta function at $`s=0`$ is then

$$\zeta _a^{}(0)=\frac{1}{16\pi ^2}\frac{\pi ^2}{3}\zeta _R^{}(2)d^4x\beta ^2(^\mu a_\mu 2a^2).$$
(47)
Using $`a_\mu =\beta ^1_\mu \beta `$ and $`\zeta _R^{}(2)=\zeta _R(3)/(4\pi ^2)`$, we get

$$\zeta _a^{}(0)=\frac{1}{16\pi ^2}\frac{1}{48}\zeta _R(3)\pi ^2d^4x(^2\beta ^2),$$
(48)
This term is a total divergence and makes no contribution unless the 3-branes have a boundary.

The second term corresponds to the diagram in figure 3b. Here identities in appendix A and B have to be used. The diagram gives

$$Z(t)(3b)=\frac{1}{(4\pi t)^2}^\mu a_\mu \frac{1}{3}t^2\underset{n}{}e^{\omega _n^2t}\omega _n^2.$$
(49)
The contribution to the effective action is now

$`\zeta _b^{}(0)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{16\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi ^2}{3}}\zeta _R^{}(2){\displaystyle d^4x\beta ^2(^\mu a_\mu )}`$ (50)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{16\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi ^2}{3}}\zeta _R^{}(2){\displaystyle d^4x\beta ^4(\beta )^2},`$
where we have used equation (26) and integrated by parts.

The third term corresponds to the diagram in figure 3c. For this diagram

$$Z(t)(3c)=\frac{1}{2}\frac{1}{(4\pi t)^2}a^2\frac{4}{3}t^2\underset{n}{}e^{\omega _n^2t}\omega _n^2.$$
(51)
The contribution to the effective action is

$`\zeta _c^{}(0)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{16\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi ^2}{3}}\zeta _R^{}(2){\displaystyle d^4x\beta ^2a^2}`$ (52)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{16\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi ^2}{3}}\zeta _R^{}(2){\displaystyle d^4x\beta ^4(\beta )^2}.`$
Thus we see that equations (50) and (52) cancel. A similar calculation shows that the terms involving $`b_\mu `$ also cancel.

## 5 Conclusion

The method which we have used to evaluate the kinetic terms in the radion action for a brane world model can be extended quite easily. We have explicitly shown that there are no one loop second order corrections from massless fermions. It also follows by a simple extension of the arguments that there are no one loop second order corrections from any conformally invariant bulk fields on a conformally flat background or from massive fields on a flat background. The results are therefore not restricted to the Randall-Sundrum model and could be used for other brane world scenarios.

We might ask whether there are any derivative terms in the one loop corrections to the radion action. In fact, they do have to exist because of the renormalisation scale dependence. The renormalisation scale enters along with the $`a_5`$ heat kernel coefficient , which is of order $`K^4`$ in the extrinsic curvature and therefore eighth order in derivatives. We do not know yet whether this is the leading term in the derivative expansion.

Although the calculation of one loop effects may have a bearing on the hierarchy problem, the quantum corrections can also be considered in contexts which are independent of the hierarchy problem. For example, the cosmological evolution of these models appears to offer advantages over other stabalisation mechanisms in the way that the expansion couples to the energy density on the brane . It would be interesting to persue this point in more detail.

## Appendix A Propagators

There are three different propagators corresponding to the distinct combinations of the operators,

$`T\delta ^\mu (t_1)\delta ^\nu (t_2)`$ $`=`$ $`\delta ^{\mu \nu }D(t_1,t_2)`$ (53)
$`T\delta _\mu ^{}(t_1)\delta ^\nu (t_2)`$ $`=`$ $`\delta _\mu {}_{}{}^{\nu }\stackrel{}{D}(t_1,t_2)`$ (54)
$`T\delta _\mu ^{}(t_1)\delta _\nu ^{}(t_2)`$ $`=`$ $`\delta _{\mu \nu }\stackrel{}{D}(t_1,t_2).`$ (55)
These can be evaluated using the creation and annihilation operators defined in , leading to

$`D(t_1,t_2)`$ $`=`$ $`2\text{min}(t_1,t_2)2t^1t_1t_2`$ (56)
$`\stackrel{}{D}(t_1,t_2)`$ $`=`$ $`2\theta (t_2t_1)2t^1t_2`$ (57)
where $`\theta (t)=1`$ for $`t0`$ and zero otherwise. The third contraction evaluates to $`2t^1`$, but we replace (55) with

$$\stackrel{}{D}(t_1,t_2)=2\delta (t_1t_2)2t^1$$
(58)
in order to reduce the number of vertices. The relevant time integrals of the propagators are:

$`{\displaystyle _0^t}D(t_1,t_1)𝑑t_1={\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}t^2`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^t}D(t_1,t_2)𝑑t_1𝑑t_2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}t^3`$
$`{\displaystyle _0^t}\stackrel{}{D}(t_1,t_2)𝑑t_1𝑑t_2=0`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^t}t_1\stackrel{}{D}(t_1,t_2)𝑑t_1𝑑t_2=0`$
$`{\displaystyle _0^t}(\stackrel{}{D}(t_1,t_1)+\stackrel{}{D}(t_1,t_1))𝑑t_1=0`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^t}t_1(\stackrel{}{D}(t_1,t_1)+\stackrel{}{D}(t_1,t_1))𝑑t_1={\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}t^2`$
$`{\displaystyle _0^t}\stackrel{}{D}(t_1,t_2)dt_1dt_2=0`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^t}(t_1+t_2)\stackrel{}{D}(t_1,t_2)dt_1dt_2=0`$
$`{\displaystyle _0^t}Max(t_1,t_2)\stackrel{}{D}(t_1,t_2)dt_1dt_2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}t^2`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^t}t_1t_2\stackrel{}{D}(t_1,t_2)dt_1dt_2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}t^3`$ (59)
## Appendix B Theta integrals

The $`\theta `$ direction is special because the modes in this coordinate are discrete, $`\theta |n=\sqrt{2}\mathrm{cos}(n\theta )`$ for Neumann boundary conditions and $`\theta |n=\sqrt{2}\mathrm{sin}(n\theta )`$ for Dirichlet boundary conditions. We need a way to replace a $`\theta `$ sandwiched between $`e^{\mathrm{\Delta }_0t}`$ terms inside the $`|kn`$ matrix elements. For this we use the Cambell-Baker-Hausdorff formula,

$$e^{\mathrm{\Delta }_0t}\theta _ce^{\mathrm{\Delta }_0t}=\overline{\theta }(t).$$
(60)
where $`\overline{\theta }(t)`$ is an operator

$$\overline{\theta }(t)=\theta _c2\pi ^2\beta ^2t_\theta $$
(61)
An important contraction identity we require for figure 3c is

$$n|T\overline{\theta }(t_1)_\theta \overline{\theta }(t_2)_\theta |n=\frac{1}{12}\beta ^2\omega _n^2+4\omega _n^2\mathrm{max}(t_1,t_2)\pm \omega _n^2(t_1+t_2)+4\omega _n^4t_1t_2.$$
(62)
The results for other $`\theta `$ dependent terms in the matrix elements are given by

$`n|n=1`$ $`n|_\theta |n=0`$
$`n|\theta _c_\theta |n=\pm {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}`$ $`n|\theta _c^2|n={\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2}{12}}`$
$`n|(\theta _c_\theta )^2|n={\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2n^2}{12}}`$ $`n|_\theta ^2|n=n^2.`$ (63)
The upper signs correspond to Neumann boundary conditions and the lower to Dirichlet boundary conditions.