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# Effect of magnetic field on impurity bound states in high-𝑇_𝑐 superconductors

## Abstract

We consider the influence of a magnetic field $`H`$ on the quasiparticle bound states near scalar impurities in $`d`$-wave superconductors. A “Doppler shift” in the excitation energies induced by the supercurrent leads to several important effects. At large but finite impurity strength, there are corrections to the energy and width of the impurity-induced resonance, proportional to $`H^2`$. On the other hand, in the limit of very strong impurity potential (unitary limit), the bound state is destroyed and acquires a finite width proportional to $`H(\mathrm{ln}H)^1`$. There are also considerable changes in the asymptotic behaviour of the bound state wave functions.

PACS numbers: 74.72.-h, 74.20.Rp

High-temperature superconductors (HTSC) belong to a class of unconventional superconductors with $`d`$-wave symmetry . A non-trivial orbital structure of the order parameter, in particular the presence of the gap nodes, leads to the effects of disorder in HTSC being much richer than in conventional materials. For instance, in contrast to the $`s`$-wave case, the Anderson theorem does not work and non-magnetic impurities exhibit a strong pair-breaking effect. Also, a finite concentration of disorder produces a non-zero density of quasiparticle states at zero energy, which results in a considerable modification of the thermodynamic and transport properties at low temperatures .

One of the striking features of $`d`$-wave superconductors is that even a single scalar impurity has a notable effect on the superconducting state, creating a quasiparticle impurity bound state (IBS) in its vicinity whose energy and width tend to zero in the limit of strong impurity potential . Various aspects of the theory of IBS have been elaborated by many authors, both analytically  and numerically . From the practical point of view, the high sensitivity of IBS to the symmetry of the order parameter and the impurity strength makes these states a powerful tool for probing the properties of HTSC. This has been done recently in beautiful scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) experiments on BSCCO compounds , in which many of the theoretically predicted features of IBS were observed, such as (i) sharp peaks in the energy dependence of the single-particle density of states (DoS), (ii) a cross-shape anisotropy of the quasiparticle wave functions in $`a`$-$`b`$ plane, and (iii) a slow power-law decay of the wave functions away from the impurity. (Some apparent discrepancies between the theory and the experiment, such as the position of the maximum local DoS directly above the impurity site as seen in STM pictures, can be attributed to the blocking effect of Bi-O layers  and thus do not invalidate the standard theoretical picture of IBS.)

All previous studies have neglected the influence of an external magnetic field on IBS. It is known, however, that in the presence of the gap nodes, the supercurrent induced by a magnetic field acts as an effective pair breaker and gives rise to a finite density of bulk quasiparticles at low energies. This should affect the properties of IBS because of the hybridization of localized and delocalized states. The purpose of the present article is to study the combined effect of magnetic field and strong impurity scattering in $`d`$-wave superconductors. We neglect the Zeeman splitting and concentrate on the physical properties relevant to the $`c`$-axis STM experiments which probe the local DoS at various distances from an impurity site. The influence of the magnetic field on the disorder-averaged density of states in $`d`$-wave superconductors with randomly distributed unitary impurities was studied in Ref. .

Let us consider a repulsive point-like impurity with potential $`U(𝐫)=u\delta (𝐫)`$ ($`u>0`$) in a two-dimensional $`d`$-wave superconductor. The external magnetic field can be directed either in the $`a`$-$`b`$ plane or along the $`c`$ axis. In both cases, we assume that the supercurrent $`𝐩_s`$ is locally uniform, and use the gauge in which the order parameter is real . The model Hamiltonian can be written in the following form:

$$=\underset{\mathrm{𝐤𝐤}^{}}{}C_𝐤^{}H_{\mathrm{𝐤𝐤}^{}}C_𝐤^{},$$
(1)
where $`C_𝐤=(c_𝐤,c_𝐤^{})^T`$ are Nambu operators, and

$$H_{\mathrm{𝐤𝐤}^{}}=\left(\begin{array}{cc}H_+& \mathrm{\Delta }_𝐤\\ \mathrm{\Delta }_𝐤& H_{}\end{array}\right).$$
(2)
is the Bogoliubov-de Gennes (BdG) operator. The normal part of $`H_{\mathrm{𝐤𝐤}^{}}`$ depends on the supercurrent via the gauge transformation: $`H_\pm =\xi _{𝐤\pm 𝐩_s}+U_{𝐤𝐤^{}}\xi _𝐤\pm 𝐯_F𝐩_s+U_{𝐤𝐤^{}}`$, where $`\xi _𝐤=k^2/2m\mu `$ is the normal state spectrum (we assume a spherical Fermi surface, which does not restrict the generality of our results, but considerably simplifies the calculations), $`𝐯_F=_𝐤\xi _𝐤`$ is the Fermi velocity, and $`U_𝐤`$ is the Fourier transform of the impurity potential. The mean-field order parameter, corresponding to $`d_{x^2y^2}`$ symmetry, has the form $`\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐤=\mathrm{\Delta }_0(\widehat{k}_x^2\widehat{k}_y^2)=\mathrm{\Delta }_0\mathrm{cos}2\phi `$, where $`\phi `$ is the azimuthal angle in $`a`$-$`b`$ plane. Note that we do not calculate the order parameter self-consistently and assume $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ to be constant. The numerical investigation of the self-consistent BdG equations shows that there is some suppression of the order parameter magnitude near an impurity site , which can affect the low-energy behaviour of DoS in a system with a finite number of impurities . Here we study the single-impurity limit, which corresponds to a dilute disorder concentration. In this case, it has been demonstrated in Ref.  that the order parameter variation leads only to renormalization of the effective impurity strength towards the unitary limit.

The quantity measured in STM experiments is the local differential conductance $`dI/dV`$, which is proportional to the local density of states:

$$N(𝐫,\omega )=\frac{1}{\pi }\mathrm{Im}G_{11}^R(𝐫,𝐫;\omega ),$$
(3)
where $`G^R`$ is the retarded Gor’kov-Nambu matrix Green’s function. In the presence of a single scalar impurity, one can express $`G^R`$ in terms of the Green’s function of a clean superconductor. Thus,

$`G^R(𝐫_1,𝐫_2;\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`G_0^R(𝐫_1𝐫_2,\omega )`$ (5)
$`+G_0^R(𝐫_1,\omega )T(\omega )G_0^R(𝐫_2,\omega ),`$
where the $`T`$-matrix is given by $`T(\omega )=u\tau _3\left[1ug(\omega )\tau _3\right]^1`$, and $`g(\omega )=G_0^R(\mathrm{𝟎},\omega )=d^2k/(2\pi )^2G_0^R(𝐤,\omega )`$. The Green’s function $`G_0^R`$ describes a homogeneous system without an impurity, but in the presence of a uniform supercurrent. The effect of the supercurrent in a translationally invariant system amounts to a “Doppler shift” in the quasiparticle energy. In the momentum representation, we have

$$G_0^R(𝐤,\omega )=\frac{(\omega _+𝐯_F𝐩_s)\tau _0+\xi _𝐤\tau _3+\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐤\tau _1}{(\omega _+𝐯_F𝐩_s)^2\xi _𝐤^2\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐤^2},$$
(6)
where $`\omega _+=\omega +i0`$, and $`\tau _i`$ are the Pauli matrices.

The energies of the impurity-induced IBS correspond to the poles of the $`T`$-matrix and satisfy the equation $`detT(\omega )=0`$, whose solutions can be complex. We are interested in the limit of small supercurrent and strong impurity scattering, so that the relevant energies are expected to be small compared to the gap magnitude. This case is of particular interest because the most profound effects related to IBS have been observed in the vicinity of Zn impurities in BSCCO, which have the $`s`$-wave phase shift $`\delta _00.48\pi `$ and thus are very close to the unitary limit . The momentum integrals can be easily calculated, giving the following result at $`\mathrm{Im}\omega =0`$:

$$\mathrm{Im}g(\omega ,𝐩_s)=g_0(\omega ,𝐩_s)\tau _0+g_1(\omega ,𝐩_s)\tau _1,$$
(7)
where, in leading order in $`(v_Fp_s/\mathrm{\Delta }_0)^2`$,

$`g_0={\displaystyle \frac{\pi N_F}{4\mathrm{\Delta }_0}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{4}{}}}|\omega 𝐯_i𝐩_s|,`$ (8)
$`g_1={\displaystyle \frac{\pi N_F}{8\mathrm{\Delta }_0^2}}[\widehat{𝐳}\times 𝐩_s]{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{4}{}}}(1)^i𝐯_i|\omega 𝐯_i𝐩_s|.`$ (9)
In these expressions, $`N_F`$ is the DoS in the normal state at the Fermi level , $`i`$ labels the gap nodes, and $`𝐯_i`$ are the Fermi velocities at the nodes. We see that, at small supercurrents, it is possible to neglect the off-diagonal terms in (7) (retaining these terms would give the corrections of the order of $`(v_Fp_s/\mathrm{\Delta }_0)^4`$ to the results below). From the Kramers-Kronig relations, we obtain

$$\mathrm{Re}g(\omega )=\frac{N_F}{2\mathrm{\Delta }_0}\underset{i=1}{\overset{4}{}}(\omega 𝐯_i𝐩_s)\mathrm{ln}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_0}{|\omega 𝐯_i𝐩_s|}\tau _0.$$
(10)
The next step in the derivation of the $`T`$-matrix is to continue $`g(\omega )`$, whose real and imaginary parts at the real axis are given by Eqs. (10) and (7), to the whole complex plane of $`\omega `$. Introducing the notation $`z=\omega /\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$, we have $`g(\omega )=\pi N_FF(z)\tau _0`$, where

$$F(z)=\frac{1}{2\pi }\underset{i=1}{\overset{4}{}}(zz_i)\mathrm{ln}(zz_i)iz$$
(11)
with $`z_i=𝐯_i𝐩_s/\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ ($`_iz_i=0`$). Four logarithmic branch cuts go down from $`z=z_i`$ parallel to the negative imaginary axis. Finally,

$$T(z)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\frac{uc}{cF(z)}& 0\\ 0& \frac{uc}{c+F(z)}\end{array}\right),$$
(12)
where $`c=(\pi uN_F)^1=\mathrm{cot}\delta _0>0`$ for a repulsive impurity. This expression for the $`T`$-matrix is valid at $`|z|,|z_i|1`$.

The IBS spectrum is determined by the equation

$$F(z)=\pm c.$$
(13)
In the absence of a supercurrent, $`F(z)F_0(z)=(2/\pi )z\mathrm{ln}ziz`$, and Eq. (13) can be easily solved at $`c1`$, giving the IBS energy of the form $`\omega _0=z_0\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$, where $`\mathrm{Re}z_0=\pi c/2|\mathrm{ln}c|`$, $`\mathrm{Im}z_0=\pi ^2c/4\mathrm{ln}^2c`$ with logarithmic accuracy . The presence of a non-zero imaginary part indicates that the impurity-induced bound state is in fact a narrow resonance.

At $`p_s0`$, the effect of supercurrent on IBS strongly depends on the relation between the Doppler shift $`v_Fp_s`$ and the “bare” energy $`\omega _0`$. If $`𝐩_s`$ is parallel to one of the crystallographic axes, e.g. $`(100)`$, then $`z_{1,4}=z_{2,3}=z_s=v_Fp_s/\sqrt{2}\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$, and Eq. (11) takes the form

$`F(z)=iz+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}(z+z_s)\mathrm{ln}(z+z_s)`$ (14)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}(zz_s)\mathrm{ln}(zz_s).`$ (15)
For $`z_s|z_0|`$, the solution of Eq. (13) can be found perturbatively in $`z_s`$. Using the expansion $`F(z)=F_0(z)+z_s^2/\pi z`$, we find

$$\{\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{Re}z=\mathrm{Re}z_0\frac{1}{\pi c}z_s^2,\hfill \\ \mathrm{Im}z=\mathrm{Im}z_0\frac{1}{2c\mathrm{ln}^2c}z_s^2.\hfill \end{array}$$
(16)
These expressions are valid as long as $`|\delta z(z_s)/z_0|1`$. Thus, in the presence of a small magnetic field, the corrections to the IBS energy and width are proportional to $`H^2`$ ($`z_s^2=0.5[H/H_c(0)]^2`$ for $`𝐇\widehat{z}`$).

More interesting is the opposite limit of “large” supercurrents, which is relevant when the impurity scattering is close to the unitary limit. In zero field, the bare IBS energy vanishes at $`c=0`$, so the impurity-induced resonance gets decoupled from the continuum of propagating excitations and becomes a true bound state with zero width. The dominant energy scale in this case is provided by the Doppler shift $`v_Fp_s`$, which makes it possible to treat the right-hand side of Eq. (13) as a small perturbation. It can be checked that the equation $`F(z)=0`$ has only one solution in the complex plane:

$$z_{}=i\frac{\pi z_s}{2|\mathrm{ln}z_s|}.$$
(17)
At $`c0`$, we look for a solution in the form $`z=z_{}+\delta z(c)`$ and obtain

$$\{\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{Re}z=\frac{\pi c}{2|\mathrm{ln}z_s|},\hfill \\ \mathrm{Im}z=\frac{\pi z_s}{2|\mathrm{ln}z_s|}+O(c^2).\hfill \end{array}$$
(18)
These expressions are valid as long as $`|\mathrm{Re}z/z_{}|1`$, i.e. at $`z_sc`$. From Eqs. (18) we see that the zero-energy IBS in the unitary limit is destroyed by magnetic field, getting replaced by a resonance whose width is proportional to $`H(\mathrm{ln}H)^1`$. The physical reason for this is clear from Eqs. (3) and (7): at non-zero supercurrent, the DoS of the bulk excitations does not vanish at $`\omega =0`$, which leads to a stronger hybridization of the IBS and the continuum of propagating states. We would like to stress that the result (18) is manifestly non-perturbative in magnetic field.

The calculations for other directions of supercurrent can be done in a similar fashion. Solution of Eq. (13) leads to the expressions analogous to (16) and (18), albeit with different numerical coefficients. Therefore, the qualitative effect of magnetic field on the IBS energy does not depend on the direction of $`𝐩_s`$.

In order to visualize our results and facilitate the comparison with STM experiments, we have computed the local DoS at the impurity site:

$$N(\mathrm{𝟎},\omega )=N_F\mathrm{Im}\frac{cF(z)}{cF(z)},$$
(19)
where $`F`$ is given by Eq. (11). The dependence of $`N(\mathrm{𝟎},\omega )`$ on energy and supercurrent is plotted in Fig. 1. We see that the asymmetric peak in the local DoS, which corresponds to a hole-like resonance at $`c>0`$, gets shifted and broadened in the presence of supercurrent.

It follows from (19) that $`N(\mathrm{𝟎},\omega )=0`$ at $`c=0`$. For this reason, the STM measurements directly at the impurity site are not useful in the unitary limit. To study the effect of supercurrent on IBS in this case, one should calculate the local DoS away from the point $`𝐫=0`$, e.g. at one of the nearest neighbors of the impurity site, where the local DoS is known to reach its maximum value at $`p_s=0`$ . According to Eqs. (3), (5) and (12), the local DoS at site $`𝐫`$ in the unitary limit can be represented in the form

$`N(𝐫,\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`N_0(\omega )`$ (21)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi ^2N_F}}\mathrm{Im}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{F(z)}}\left[G_0^R(𝐫,\omega )G_0^R(𝐫,\omega )\right]_{11},`$
where $`N_0(\omega )=(1/\pi )g_0(\omega )`$ is the DoS for a clean $`d`$-wave superconductor in the presence of supercurrent, and $`G_0^R(𝐫,\omega )`$ is the Fourier transform of Eq. (6). At $`𝐫=𝐚`$ and $`(\omega ,v_Fp_s)/\mathrm{\Delta }_00`$, one can neglect the first term on the right hand side of Eq. (21) compared to the second one, which is singular in this limit. The singularity comes from $`F^1(z)`$, while the product of two Green’s functions is not singular and can be replaced by its value at $`\omega =p_s=0`$, which is real. Therefore, $`N(𝐚,\omega )/N_F\mathrm{Im}F^1(z)`$. We have calculated the energy dependence of $`\delta N(𝐚,\omega )=N(𝐚,\omega )N_0(\omega )`$ for $`𝐩_s𝐚`$ and plotted the results in Fig. 2. As the supercurrent increases, so does the width of the zero-energy peak, whereas its magnitude decreases. Experimentally, a notable suppression of the $`c`$-axis zero-bias conductance peaks (ZBCP) has been reported in Ref.  for YBCO/Ag and TBCCO/Au planar junctions. It is tempting to attribute this observation to the effect of magnetic field on the IBS induced by strong defects at the surface of those materials.

Another peculiar property of IBS, which was predicted in Ref.  and observed in recent STM experiments , is a sharp four-fold anisotropy of the IBS wave functions at zero bias, with a characteristic $`1/r^2`$-tails at large distances from the impurity. This not only reflects the microscopic symmetry of superconducting state, but also has important consequences for the quasiparticle transport in HTSC. It was argued in Ref.  that, in the presence of many impurities, the overlap of the extended IBS wave functions along the gap node directions can result in the formation of an impurity band, where all states are delocalized and can thus participate in quasiparticle transport. This should be contrasted to the propagating excitations which are localized in the presence of short-range disorder potential .

Here we address the following question: What is the effect of magnetic field on the asymptotics of the IBS wave functions in the unitary limit? We study the decay of $`\delta N(𝐫,\omega )=N(𝐫,\omega )N_0(\omega )`$ along the nodal direction $`(110)`$ at $`\omega =0`$. The coordinate dependence of $`G_0^R(𝐫,\omega )`$ in Eq. (21) is described by rather cumbersome expressions (the details of calculations will be given in a separate publication), which take on a particularly simple form in the limit of large distances from the impurity $`rp_s^1\xi _0=v_F/\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$. In contrast to our results for the IBS energies, the asymptotic behaviour of the wave functions strongly depends on the direction of the supercurrent. If $`𝐩_s`$ is perpendicular to the nodal direction $`(110)`$, then, in leading order in $`1/r`$,

$$\delta N(𝐫,0)=\frac{\gamma (p_s)N_F\xi _0^2}{4\pi ^2}\frac{\mathrm{sin}^2k_Fr}{r^2},$$
(22)
for $`k_F\xi _0p_sr1`$, and

$$\delta N(𝐫,0)=\frac{\gamma (p_s)p_s}{8\pi ^2\mathrm{\Delta }_0}\frac{1}{r},$$
(23)
for $`p_srk_F\xi _01`$ (we introduced the notation $`\gamma (p_s)=\mathrm{Im}F^1(z=0)`$). If $`𝐩_s`$ is parallel to $`(110)`$, then

$$\delta N(𝐫,0)=\frac{N_Fp_s\xi _0^2}{8\pi }\mathrm{Im}\left[F^1(0)\frac{e^{2ik_Fr}}{r}\right].$$
(24)
Eq. (22) is essentially the zero-field result, whereas Eqs. (23,24) show that magnetic field leads to a slower power-law decay of the envelope IBS wave functions along the nodal directions, or even the disappearance of the Fermi oscillations at very large distances from the impurity. These changes reflect the contributions from the nodal quasiparticles excited by supercurrent. In particular, the non-oscillatory tail in Eq. (23) comes from the $`(\overline{1}10)`$ and $`(1\overline{1}0)`$ nodal states for which $`𝐤_F𝐫=0`$.

In conclusion, we have studied the influence of magnetic field on the impurity bound states in $`d`$-wave superconductors. We have found several effects, which can be directly measured in STM experiments, such as a non-linear shift of the electron-hole asymmetric peak in the local DoS at $`c0`$, and also strong suppression and broadening of the zero-bias peak in the unitary limit. The changes in the wave function asymptotics can lead to a stronger long-range overlap between the bound states at different impurities, which might considerably affect the quasiparticle transport in HTSC.

We are pleased to thank John Wei for useful discussions. This work was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.


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# Primordial space-time foam as an origin of cosmological matter-antimatter asymmetryThis is an extended version of an essay selected for an “honorable mention” in the Annual Essay Competition of the Gravity Research Foundation for the year 2001.

## 1 Introduction

The idea put forward by Stückelberg and Feynman that antimatter is nothing more than matter propagating backward in time acquires a special significance in cosmology. In the absence of gravity, space-time is a kinematic arena. On the one side, it constrains the form of the laws of nature by preserving their form under Poincaré transformations. On the other side, it determines the equations of motion and introduces the notion of matter and antimatter in terms of particular finite dimensional representations of the Lorentz group.

As soon as one begins to take effects of gravitation into account, and allows for an interplay of the quantum and gravitational realms, space-time becomes a dynamical entity. In particular, in the early universe this entity suffered violent quantum-induced fluctuations as was first written down at length by Wheeler . Once the temporal component of this primordial space-time foam, as the Planck-era space-time with quantum-induced fluctuations has come to be known, is allowed to be endowed with fluctuations in its direction, the question immediately arises as to what implications does Stükelberg’s and Feynman’s framework hold for the early universe.

The evidence in favor of the cosmic matter-antimatter asymmetry has been strengthened by a series of recent observations. For instance, the antihelium-helium ratio, as reported by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer collaboration , is

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Phi }_{\overline{\text{He}}}}{\mathrm{\Phi }_{\text{He}}}}<1.7\times 10^6.`$ (1)
The AMS detected no antihelium, or any $`Z2`$ anti-nuclei (which could have been created in an antimatter star). When this information is coupled with the observed isotropy of the cosmic microwave background, on the one hand, and the information on the cosmic diffuse $`\gamma `$-ray background, on the other hand, one comes to the conclusion that we live in a universe which contains no significant amount of antimatter . This asymmetry is known as the cosmic antimatter problem, or problem of the cosmological CP violation. The latter interpretation implicitly assumes CPT symmetry to hold in the early universe. However, as long as the early universe contains an inherent element of non-locality, CPT might have suffered a substantial violation . For this reason, it is perhaps not quite appropiate to refer to the cosmological matter-antimatter asymmetry as the cosmological CP violation. Stated in the texbook language, the cosmological matter–antimatter problem reads :

> At $`kT>m_pc^2`$, there exist in equilibrium roughly equal numbers of photons, protons and antiprotons. Today, $`N_p/N_\gamma 10^9`$, but $`N_{\overline{p}}0`$. Conservation of baryon number would imply that $`N_p/N_{\overline{p}}=1+O(10^9)`$ at early times. Where did this initial asymmetry come from?

Our answer, in this essay, is: This initial asymmetry is a signature of the violent space-time fluctuations in the early universe.

While referring to space-time fluctuations one needs to clearly identify the gravitational environment one is embedded in. For the present epoch, there are at least four important studies which explore the observability of the space-time foam effects. In Ref.  observability of the spatial component of the space-time foam is studied. For certain models, the space-time foam has been found to carry detectable effects in gravity-wave interferometers. In Ref. , Amelino-Camelia et al. also explore the possibility of studying quantum-gravity effects via analysing the fine-scale structure and hard spectra of gamma-ray bursters. The work of Klapdor-Kleingrothaus et al.  investigates the effects of space-time foam on the neutrino-less double $`\beta `$ decay and neutrino oscillations within the astrophysical context. Finally, a series of papers  have attempted to understand the existing data on solar and atmospheric neutrinos in terms of quantum-gravity de-coherence induced by space-time fluctuations.

LoSecco has analysed the SN1987a “neutrino” events observed in the Kamiokande and Irvine-Michigan-Brookhaven (IMB) detectors. Assuming that these events contain $`\nu _ee`$ scattering events (i.e., $`\nu _ee\nu _ee`$), as well as $`\overline{\nu }_ep`$ capture events (i.e., $`\overline{\nu }_epe^+n`$), he verified CP invariance in general relativity to a few parts in $`10^6`$ \[see, Ref.  for exact meaning of this number\]. However, it is to be noted that the LoSecco limit on CP violation in general relativity applies to the present epoch only, i.e., when the space-time fluctuations are “tiny.” It does not hold for the early universe where one expects violent fluctuations of space-time. It is that very epoch of the universe that is of prime interest to us here.

To establish the thesis that the observed cosmological matter-antimatter asymmetry arises, and carries a significant contribution from asymmetric space-time fluctuations and their interplay with the Stückelberg-Feynman interpretation of antimatter, it is essential to first undertake an ab initio look at the fermionic (baryonic/leptonic) representation space from the point of view of the Lorentz symmetry without space-time fluctuations. This is done in Section 2. Therein we shall discover a new quantum-mechanical phase in Sec. 2.1. In Section 3 we shall connect this phase with the matter-antimatter symmetry. The stated answer is then established in Section 4 by invoking the Stückelberg-Feynman interpretation of antimatter . Section 4.2 briefly studies the effect of the space-time fluctuations on the fine structure constant and concludes that it must have been smaller in the past. Encouragingly, recent studies of the QSO absorption lines provide a 4.1 standard deviation support for this prediction. The essay closes by a few concluding remarks in Section 5.

## 2 Spin-$`\mathrm{𝟏}/\mathrm{𝟐}`$ matter-antimatter without space-time fluctuations

In order to study implications of space-time fluctuations on the notion of matter and antimatter we here undertake a critical and detailed look at the $`(1/2,0)(0,1/2)`$ representation space.

### 2.1 Matter-antimatter phase factor

The spin-$`1/2`$ fermions of interest are described by the $`(1/2,0)(0,1/2)`$ representation space of the Lorentz group (in the usual notation of Ref. ). This assumption shall be taken to provide sufficiently accurate description of baryons and leptons even in the early universe — its validity may, at most, be confined to sufficiently small local domains. In general, however, an important distinction must be made whether we consider the $`(1/2,0)(0,1/2)`$ representation space of the Dirac type, or that of Majorana type. Fortunately, the arguments that we present are equally valid for the Dirac case as for the Majorana case. Because some of the readers may be more familiar with the usual Dirac construct, and because certain additional subtleties enter the Majorana construct , we shall confine our attention to the $`(1/2,0)(0,1/2)`$ Dirac construct.

To describe charged particles in the Dirac sense the appropriate $`(1/2,0)(0,1/2)`$ spinors have the form:

$`\psi (\stackrel{}{p})\left(\begin{array}{c}\varphi _R(\stackrel{}{p})\\ \varphi _L(\stackrel{}{p})\end{array}\right).`$ (4)
The $`\varphi _R(\stackrel{}{p})`$ transforms as a $`(1/2,0)`$ spinor,111 Note that identical transformation properties under Lorentz group do not necessarily imply that other transformations properties will be identical as well. The latter, e.g., may refer to transformations under C, P, and T. Thus, the Dirac- and Majorana-$`(1/2,0)(0,1/2)`$ constructs carry different physical characteristics under operations of C, P, and T, while carrying identical transformations under the Lorentz group. and boosts as

$`\varphi _R(\stackrel{}{p})=\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{\sigma }}{2}}\stackrel{}{\phi }\right)\varphi _R(\stackrel{}{0}).`$ (5)
In the above equation, the $`\stackrel{}{\sigma }`$ stand for the standard Pauli matrices, and $`\stackrel{}{\phi }`$ is the boost parameter. The $`\stackrel{}{0}`$ corresponds to the momentum of a particle at rest. The definition of $`\stackrel{}{\phi }`$ is motivated by the fact that $`E^2\stackrel{}{p}^2=m^2`$, and that $`\mathrm{cosh}^2\alpha \mathrm{sinh}^2\alpha =1`$ (as an identity). Thus, one can parameterize Lorentz boosts via $`\stackrel{}{\phi }`$,

$`\mathrm{cosh}\phi ={\displaystyle \frac{E}{m}},\mathrm{sinh}\phi ={\displaystyle \frac{|\stackrel{}{p}|}{m}},\widehat{\phi }={\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{p}}{|\stackrel{}{p}|}}.`$ (6)
We shall assume that $`m0`$. On the other hand, $`\varphi _L(\stackrel{}{p})`$ transforms as a $`(0,1/2)`$ spinor, and boosts with the opposite sign in the exponent:

$`\varphi _L(\stackrel{}{p})=\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{\sigma }}{2}}\stackrel{}{\phi }\right)\varphi _L(\stackrel{}{0}).`$ (7)
As we shall see in Sec. 2.2, the wave equation satisfied by the $`(1/2,0)(0,1/2)`$ spinor defined in Eq. (4) follows from: (a) The transformation properties of $`\varphi _R(\stackrel{}{p})`$ and $`\varphi _L(\stackrel{}{p})`$ as contained in Eqs. (5) and (7), and very importantly, (b) The relative phase between the $`\varphi _R(\stackrel{}{0})`$ and $`\varphi _L(\stackrel{}{0})`$. The latter observation is of special importance to us here and it shall be found to lie at the heart of our arguments.

Due to the isotropy of the zero-momentum vector, $`\stackrel{}{0}`$, one may argue that $`\varphi _R(\stackrel{}{0})=\varphi _L(\stackrel{}{0})`$. In fact, that is precisely what is done in the standard textbooks . Ryder’s classic book on the theory of quantum fields, in fact, argues:

> Now when a particle is at rest, one cannot define its spin as either left- or right-handed, so
>
> $`\varphi _R(\stackrel{}{0})=\varphi _L(\stackrel{}{0}).`$ (8)

Same assumption has been adopted by Hladik , and we have encountered it in literature elsewhere as well (for which we have not kept a complete record). The assertion (8) is justified if one was to confine to a purely classical framework. However, if one is to invoke a quantum framework for the interpretation of these spinors then this equality can only be claimed up to a phase:

$`\varphi _R(\stackrel{}{0})=\zeta \varphi _L(\stackrel{}{0}).`$ (9)
We find that a convenient choice for $`\zeta `$ is:

$`\zeta =\pm \mathrm{exp}(\pm i\varphi ).`$ (10)
The $`+`$ sign is to be taken for “particle” spinors, while the $``$ sign is to be used for the “antiparticle” spinors (see, Ref. ). Otherwise, i.e., if one ignores this phase, one misses anti-particles!222In order to place this observation within a proper context, we wish to stress that this phase becomes manifest only within the group-theoretical derivations of the Dirac equation. Further, in the relevant limit it is in agreement with the remarks of Gaioli and Garcia Alvarez  on Ryder’s derivation of the Dirac equation. Moreover, if C, P, and T covariances are invoked, it is implicitly contained in the more traditional treatments of the Dirac equation. However, to the best of our knowledge, nowhere in literature has the full physical content of this phase been understood; nor has it been explored in the context of space-time fluctuations. The first hint for the possible existence of this phase appears in a footnote of a 1993 paper on the Bargmann-Wightman-Wigner type quantum field theory .

The most general form of $`\varphi `$ is a $`2\times 2`$ space-time dependent matrix. That is,

$`\mathrm{exp}(i\varphi )=\mathrm{exp}\left(i\sigma ^a\varphi _a(t,\stackrel{}{x})\right)`$ (11)
where $`\sigma ^a`$ forms the set $`(I_2,\stackrel{}{\sigma })`$ with $`I_2`$ as a $`2\times 2`$ identity matrix, and the $`\varphi _a(t,\stackrel{}{x})`$ are a set of four space-time dependent, i.e., local, parameters. The demand that the resulting spinor of Eq. (4) still transform as an $`(1/2,0)(0,1/2)`$ object yields, $`\varphi _a=0`$, for $`a=1,2,3`$. Consequently, $`\varphi `$ is reduced to an identity matrix multiplied by a space-time dependent real parameter $`\varphi _0`$:

$`\varphi =I_2\times \varphi _0(t,\stackrel{}{x})`$ (12)
In the absence of space-time fluctuations, a glimpse into the physical and mathematical content of $`\varphi `$ can already be obtained by treating $`\varphi _0`$ as a real c-number with no space-time dependence. By doing so, the effect of space-time fluctuations — a subject of our immediate interest — shall become easier to understand.

### 2.2 Derivation of a Dirac-type wave equation

Equations (5), (7), and (9) contain essentially the entire kinematic structure of the Dirac-type spin-$`1/2`$ particles. To see this we follow the foot steps of Lewis Ryder , but we now carefully incorporate the important ingredient embedded in a non-vanishing $`\varphi `$.

1. On the right-hand side of Eq. (5), substitute for $`\varphi _R(\stackrel{}{0})`$ from (9). This gives

$`\varphi _R(\stackrel{}{p})=\zeta \mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{\sigma }}{2}}\stackrel{}{\phi }\right)\varphi _L(\stackrel{}{0}).`$ (13)
2. From Eq. (7) obtain,

$`\varphi _L(\stackrel{}{0})=\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{\sigma }}{2}}\stackrel{}{\phi }\right)\varphi _L(\stackrel{}{p}),`$ (14)
and insert it into the right-hand side of Eq. (13). This yields:

$`\varphi _R(\stackrel{}{p})=\zeta \mathrm{exp}\left(\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{\phi }\right)\varphi _L(\stackrel{}{p}).`$ (15)
3. Similarly, starting from Eqs. (7) and (9) we obtain:

$`\varphi _L(\stackrel{}{p})=\zeta ^1\mathrm{exp}\left(\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{\phi }\right)\varphi _R(\stackrel{}{p}).`$ (16)
4. Now, because $`\left(\stackrel{}{\sigma }\widehat{p}\right)^2=2\times 2\text{Identity matrix,}I_2`$

$`\left(\stackrel{}{\sigma }\widehat{p}\right)^n=\{\begin{array}{cc}I_2\hfill & \text{for n even}\hfill \\ \stackrel{}{\sigma }\widehat{p}\hfill & \text{for n odd}\hfill \end{array}.`$ (17)
This leads to the identities:333Note, it is precisely the property expressed by Eq. (17) that is responsible for the linearity of the Dirac equation as will become obvious below.

$`\mathrm{exp}\left(\pm \stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{\phi }\right)={\displaystyle \frac{EI_2\pm \stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{p}}{m}}`$ (18)
5. Next, substitute these identities in Eqs. (15) and (16), and re-arrange to obtain:

$`\left(\begin{array}{cc}m\zeta ^1& EI_2+\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{p}\\ EI_2\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{p}& m\zeta \end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}\varphi _R(\stackrel{}{p})\\ \varphi _L(\stackrel{}{p})\end{array}\right)=0.`$ (23)
6. Finally, with $`p_\mu =(p^0,\stackrel{}{p})`$, $`E=p^0`$, read off the Weyl-representation gamma matrices:444We now abbreviate $`I_2`$ by $`I`$. The zeros below stand for $`2\times 2`$ null matrices, and $`\sigma ^1=\sigma _x`$, etc.

$`\gamma ^0=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& I\\ I& 0\end{array}\right),\gamma ^i=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& \sigma ^i\\ \sigma ^i& 0\end{array}\right),`$ (28)
and introduce

$`\mathrm{\Phi }(\varphi )=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\zeta ^1(\varphi )& 0\\ 0& \zeta (\varphi )\end{array}\right).`$ (31)
This yields,

$`\left(\gamma ^\mu p_\mu m\mathrm{\Phi }(\varphi )\right)\psi (\stackrel{}{p})=0.`$ (32)

The obtained equation is Poincaré covariant and indeed carries the solutions with the correct dispersion relations $`E=\pm \sqrt{\stackrel{}{p}^2+m^2}`$, because

$`\text{Det}\left[\gamma ^\mu p_\mu m\mathrm{\Phi }(\zeta )\right]=\left(\stackrel{}{p}^2+m^2E^2\right)^2.`$ (33)
Now, if $`\mathrm{\Phi }(\zeta )`$ is allowed to carry space-time dependence, the same method proceeds (with $`\varphi _0`$ becoming a local parameter), and Eq. (32) becomes the CP-violating Dirac equation postulated in Ref. .

## 3 New phase and matter-antimatter symmetry

The reader may have already noted that $`\text{Det}\left[\gamma ^\mu p_\mu m\mathrm{\Phi }(\varphi )\right]`$ is independent of $`\varphi `$. Consequently, Poincaré covariance alone cannot constrain $`\varphi `$. To constrain this phase angle one needs to invoke additional symmetries. If we demand Eq. (32) to be covariant under the operations of C, P, and T, then we find that

$`\varphi _0=n\times 2\pi ,\text{with}n=0,1,2,\mathrm{}.`$ (34)
That is, for a kinematic structure that is covariant under C, P, and T symmetries, Eq. (9) reduces to

$`\varphi _R(\stackrel{}{0})=\pm \varphi _L(\stackrel{}{0}).`$ (35)
The $`\psi (\stackrel{}{p})`$ of Eq. (4) constructed with a plus sign in the above equation results in the “particle $`u`$-spinors”, while the minus sign in Eq. (35) results in the “antiparticle $`v`$-spinors.” Explicitly, the particle spinors are

$`u_{+1/2}(\stackrel{}{p})=\kappa (\stackrel{}{p})\left(\begin{array}{c}1\\ 0\\ 1\\ 0\end{array}\right),u_{1/2}(\stackrel{}{p})=\kappa (\stackrel{}{p})\left(\begin{array}{c}0\\ 1\\ 0\\ 1\end{array}\right)`$ (44)
and the antiparticle spinors read

$`v_{+1/2}(\stackrel{}{p})=\kappa (\stackrel{}{p})\left(\begin{array}{c}1\\ 0\\ 1\\ 0\end{array}\right),v_{1/2}(\stackrel{}{p})=\kappa (\stackrel{}{p})\left(\begin{array}{c}0\\ 1\\ 0\\ 1\end{array}\right).`$ (53)
Here the $`(1/2,0)(0,1/2)`$ boost, $`\kappa (\stackrel{}{p})`$, as contained in Eqs. (5) and (7), is given by

$`\kappa (\stackrel{}{p})=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{exp}(\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{\phi }/2)& 0\\ 0& \mathrm{exp}(\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{\phi }/2)\end{array}\right).`$ (56)
The particle-antiparticle spinors found in the standard textbooks, see, e.g., Bjorken and Drell’s (BD) well-known classic , are related to those obtained here by:

$`\psi ^{BD}(\stackrel{}{p})={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\left(\begin{array}{cc}I& I\\ I& I\end{array}\right)\psi (\stackrel{}{p})`$ (59)
Parenthetically, one may be interested to note that different fermions in Nature, i.e., quarks and leptons, need not carry same $`\varphi _0`$ dependence for the underlying spinorial structure. In the event, say, the $`s`$-quark carried a different $`\varphi _0`$ than given by Eq. (34), the resulting kinematic structure might not be intrinsically CP respecting. We envisage the above considerations, when incorporated in the kinematic structure of the standard model particles, to hold serious potential to provide a source for CP violation in particle physics. But, here in this essay our interest is mainly in the cosmological matter-antimatter asymmetry — a violation which we now argue arises from an interplay of the $`\varphi _0`$ and space-time fluctuations.

At this stage in our essay we have arrived at the standard $`(1/2,0)(0,1/2)`$ Dirac construct. The merit of this apparently simple exercise lies in having exposed a CPT-related hidden phase in the $`(1/2,0)(0,1/2)`$ representation space and having deciphered that the Poincaré symmetry alone does not entirely constrain the $`(1/2,0)(0,1/2)`$ representation space. One needs additional requirements of P, C, and T symmetries. Further, invoking the standard conventions we reach the key understanding. It reads:

> Spin-1/2 matter of the Dirac type corresponds to the plus sign in Eq. (35), while the antimatter is characterized by the minus sign.

Now, in order to arrive at our thesis, we make the needed observations explicitly. In the standard textbook treatments, the Dirac’s hole theory and Stückelberg-Feynman’s interpretation of antiparticles as particles going backward in time are considered equivalent. However, as pointed out by Hatfield , and confirmed explicitly by the work on $`(1,0)(0,1)`$ representation space , the former framework applies only to the fermions while the latter is applicable to fermions as well as to bosons. From a parenthetic remark of Feynman contained in his paper entitled “The theory of positrons” it is also apparent that he was aware of this advantage of his theory (see, p. 750, in ). For this reason, we shall here adopt the Stückelberg-Feynman framework for the matter-antimatter solutions of the $`(1/2,0)(0,1/2)`$ representation space. It is then seen that the $`+\mathrm{exp}(+i\varphi )=+1`$ corresponds to a particle propagating in the forward direction of time while the $`\mathrm{exp}(i\varphi )=1`$ corresponds to the particle propagating backward in time (which is then interpreted as antiparticle).

## 4 Matter-antimatter asymmetry and Space-time fluctuations

In the presence of space-time fluctuations, Stc̈kelberg-Feynman framework suggests a natural extension. We propose this to be:

> A particle moving forward in time on encountering a region of space-time, with a backward temporal fluctuation, becomes an antiparticle.

That is, temporal fluctuations interchange $`(1/2,0)(0,1/2)`$ sectors associated with the phases $`+\mathrm{exp}(+i\varphi )`$ and $`\mathrm{exp}(i\varphi )`$, and thereby transforms a particle into an antiparticle:

$`\text{Temporal fluctuations}:`$
$`(1/2,0)(0,1/2)\text{Sector with}+\mathrm{exp}(+i\varphi )`$
$`(1/2,0)(0,1/2)\text{Sector with}\mathrm{exp}(i\varphi )`$ (60)
In this process, the conservation of charges connected by the C operator (such as, electric charge and baryon number) are violated. With CP symmetry and baryon number conservation violated in this manner these processes must proceed in an environment with a slight lack of thermal equilibrium in order to account for the cosmological matter-antimatter  asymmetry. We underline “slight” in order to accommodate for the high degree of temperature isotropy of the cosmic microwave background.

In the cosmological realm the advantage of the Stückelberg-Feynman over the Dirac’s hole theory is more than formal. In fact, the the former framework appears crucial to understanding the matter-antimatter asymmetry in the early universe. To argue this assertion we note:

1. In the standard big bang scenario, at $`t=0`$, it is not possible to define propagation backward in time.
2. The interplay of the quantum and gravitational realms implies that space-time itself must carry fluctuations. The simplest argument leading to this observation is that if gravitational effects associated with a quantum measurement process are incorporated, then space-time measurements become non-commutative. This has been discussed in detail, e.g., in Refs. .

Now photons are self-conjugate under the operation of charge conjugation, C, and thus are insensitive to the arrow of time. On the other hand, in the Stückelberg-Feynman framework, spin-$`1/2`$ matter fields of the Dirac type are endowed with a sensitivity to the arrow of time. To understand the cosmological matter-antimatter asymmetry, the observation in item (1) above suggests to confine one’s attention to a universe with only fermions (and no anti-fermions) at $`t=0`$. This is precisely what we shall do next. The possibility of a photonic birth shall be taken up in Sec. 4.1.

Given this circumstance, and once the reality of quantum-induced space-time fluctuations is accepted, it is readily seen that from the vantage point of an hypothetical observer riding the temporal component of these fluctuations, the Stückelberg-Feynman interpretation implies that matter-antimatter identity of the primordial spin-$`1/2`$ Dirac type particles varies with time.555An alternate view may be taken that an $`e^{}`$, say \[described by a $`u(\stackrel{}{p})`$\], propagating forward in time encounters a space-time region undergoing a backward temporal fluctuation. The effect of this encounter is to transform an $`e^{}`$ into an $`e^+`$ \[described by a $`v(\stackrel{}{p})`$\]. It is be noted that in every space-time region there are, with respect to the local arrow of time, both forward and backward in time propagating particles. That is, as seen by the indicated hypothetical observer, the phases in Eq. (35) is no longer uniquely plus, or uniquely minus, for a given particle. But, instead, it oscillates, $`+`$, with time in an observer-dependent manner. As determined by the averaged observations of a large number of indicated hypothetical observers666Whose ride on the space-time fluctuations is assumed incoherent. the ratio defining the cosmic antimatter problem

$`{\displaystyle \frac{N_p}{N_{\overline{p}}}}|_{kTm_pc^2}=1+O(10^9)`$ (61)
is then an indication that the temporal fluctuations were dramatically violent even at $`kTm_pc^2`$. The early universe at $`kTm_pc^2`$ was characterized by a forward-backward asymmetry in time of the order $`O(10^9)`$. This asymmetry was perhaps even much smaller at still higher temperatures. The cosmological arrow of time was still in the birth pangs. However, it is apparent that as soon as the cosmological arrow of time becomes well pronounced, i.e., the backward temporal fluctuations loose their amplitude in relation to the forward fluctuations, the universe appears as composed of matter.

In brief, the considered scenario, the primordial universe begins with a maximal matter-antimatter asymmetry in favor of matter. However, the violent space-time fluctuations soon transform it into a matter-antimatter universe with roughly equal densities of both. At $`tm_pc^2`$, the matter-antimatter asymmetry is roughly one part in a billion. At this stage, matter and antimatter annihilate and in the process an attempt towards a thermal equilibrium of various then-existing radiation and particle components can proceed. To what extent a thermal equilibrium is reached is determined by $`t_u`$ (see Eq. (63) below), and various related thermodynamic considerations.

Adding to thermal equilibrium is the fact that before a distinct cosmological arrow of time is born, cosmic time is really not a good measure of the cosmic age. To attend to this unique cosmolgical circumstance, we suggest that the cosmic age should be defined as the sum of the cosmic time plus a thermodynamic time. Around $`t=0`$, we define the thermodynamic time, $`t_{th}`$, as

$`t_{th}\overline{A}\times N(t).`$ (62)
Here, $`\overline{A}`$ stands for the average amplitude of the temporal fluctuations (around $`t=0`$), while $`N(t)`$ equals the number of the accummulated fluctuations at cosmic time $`t`$. From that, the age of the universe $`t_u`$ can be read off as

$`t_ut+t_{th}.`$ (63)
In order that a cosmological arrow of time comes into a distinct existence we surmise that (and a full theory of quantum gravity should account for) as evolution of the universe proceeds, the amplitude associated with the backward temporal fluctuation begins to diminish compared to the amplitude for forward fluctuations. As this happens, the universe once again begins to appear as matter dominated, but now it has an additional radiation component. $`N(t)`$ can, in principle, be determined from the constraints imposed by directional uniformity of the temperature of the cosmic microwave background radiation, and additional sources of thermalization that may emerge from “opening up” of the light cone in the theory of relativity that carries an invariant length .

### 4.1 Cosmological matter-antimatter asymmetry with a photonic birth

An alternate scenario would be a photonic birth of the universe, followed by a pair-created matter and antimatter. As a result of the asymmetric temporal fluctuations, the matter-antimatter ratio will undergo local changes resulting into excess of one type of matter over the other. This can happen when, e.g., a $`e^+`$ encounters a region of space-time where a temporal fluctuation has changed the direction of time. In that process the $`e^+`$ becomes an $`e^{}`$, which can thus, in one of the possibility (say), annihilate an $`e^+`$ which has either not suffered any reversal in temporal fluctuation, or, has suffered an even number of them. In considering such a process one may envisage a rigid mountain form placed on two spatial dimensions and one time dimension — the latter representing the height. In such processes space-time fluctuations result in a net creation/destruction of electric charge (and/or, baron number). Note that a similar fate meets if we begin with an $`e^{}`$ in the above example. A one part in a billion imbalance in such processes could then give rise to the observed matter-antimatter asymmetry. This scenario is conceptually more intricate and calls for a detailed Monte Carlo simulations to explore its viability.

### 4.2 Fine Structure constant and space-time fluctuations

Above considerations suggest a natural and testable prediction:

As already noted, it is a general expectation of every model of space-time foam that space-time fluctuations were much more violent at the big bang, and that these have slowly become less intense. As a consequence, far from big bang, and still in the distant past (to become more precise below), the magnitude of the effective charge of an electron would appear smaller than its present value. For, while the time fluctuates backward, a particle that was interpreted as an electron would appear as a positron. Larger backward time fluctuations in the past would thus effectively reduce the magnitude of the observed electronic charge. The same result applies to a proton. Thus, under the assumption of time-constancy for $`\mathrm{}`$ and $`c`$ over the period of interest, one would expect the fine structure constant $`\alpha =e^2/\mathrm{}c`$ to be smaller in the past.

As this essay was written, we learned that this prediction is consistent with the latest results on the variation of the fine structure constant . With the definition, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha /\alpha =(\alpha _z\alpha _0)/\alpha _0`$, where $`\alpha _0`$ is the present day value of $`\alpha `$ and $`\alpha _z`$ is the value at absorption redshift $`z`$ \[see  for details\], they find:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha }{\alpha }}=(0.72\pm 0.18)\times 10^5`$ (64)
over the redshift range $`0.5<z<3.5`$. The result (64) confirms their earlier study , and now represents a statistically significant $`4.1`$ standard deviation effect in favor of the conclusion that $`\alpha `$ was slightly smaller in the past.

## 5 Concluding remarks

The notion of charge conservation, and in particular that of baryon number conservation, is an empirically derived concept from observations in an cosmic epoch when the cosmological arrow of time is a well established object. However, as we have seen, these conservations law carry little meaning when this very important object was still in its formative stages and suffered violent fluctuations. This circumstance suggests that, in the presence of space-time fluctuations, the principle of local gauge invariance (whether in some internal space, or space-time), and the related notion of parallel transport, must undergo fundamental changes.

Given a specific form of the space-time fluctuations (an input to come from a future full theory of quantum and gravitational realms), one may derive the time-dependent matter-antimatter ratio beginning with, say, matter alone. The considerations presented above strongly indicate that even at $`kTm_pc^2`$ the space-time fluctuations were so violent that for every observer the matter-antimatter ratio appeared as to be roughly unity. As the backward fluctuations in time became less dominant, and the cosmic arrow of time acquired a physical reality, the same universe began to appear as matter dominated. The violent interplay of the quantum and gravitational realms did not respect conservation of electric charge, and baryon number. Interestingly, all this is a natural consequence if one adopts the Stückelberg-Feynman interpretation of matter-antimatter and allows for quantum-induced fluctuations of space-time. If all this provides a fundamental space-time origin of the cosmological matter-antimatter asymmetry, the CP violation in heavy quark systems may be understood if the the light quarks carried a $`\varphi _0`$ given by Eq. (34), while the heavy quarks, say the strange one, carried a CP violating kinematic structure.

In the last two years it has become apparent that quantum-gravity induced fluctuations in spatial distances can be studied using gravity-wave interferometers . This essay indicates that a careful analysis of the cosmological evolution of the fine structure constant, along the lines of the pioneering work of Webb et al. , could become a powerful probe of the temporal fluctuations in the space-time foam.

## Acknowledgments

Giovanni Amelino-Camelia, Naresh Dadhich, Lorenzo Diaz, Gaetano Lambiase, Yong Liu, J. M. LoSecco, and P. Singh provided comments on an earlier version of this essay. We extend to them our thanks.


text:
# Depinning of a Superfluid Vortex Inside a Circular Defect

## I Introduction

A superflow passing through a constriction or an obstacle of some sort can produce vorticity in a process known as inhomogeneous nucleation . The vortex is created at the boundary between the superfluid and the container walls and two flow regimes are identified. When the flow velocity, far away from the walls, is smaller than a critical velocity an effective barrier is present that prevents vorticity to appear in the flow, this is the laminar flow regime. Above the critical velocity, a vortexless state can dynamically produce vorticity. In the laminar flow regime, and in the absence of thermal excitations, it is believed that vorticity can still be produced via Macroscopic Quantum Tunneling (MQT).

Measurements of the vortex production rates for a sphere moving in a superfluid  and for an oscillating superflow through a microscopic orifice  have shown evidence of MQT of vorticity at sufficiently low temperatures. Numerical studies of the dynamical nucleation process, above the critical velocity, have relied on the nonlinear Schrödinger model for the superfluid dynamics . Analytical studies of the tunneling process have used the collective coordinate approach to map what is really a field theory tunneling problem into a standard Quantum Mechanical problem for the vortex coordinates . Besides the bosonic superfluid, similar ideas have been applied to vortex states in short coherence length superconductors .

Different from Ref. , that studied the classical nucleation of a vortex/antivortex pair in the proximity of a circular obstacle in a two dimensional superflow, in this work we will investigate the depinning of a quantum of circulation trapped inside the obstacle.

In the following sections we define the Gross-Pitaevskii model and extract the dynamics of the collective coordinate from the condensate equations of motion. We obtain an expression for the critical velocity and compare it with a numerical result. The process of dynamical nucleation, above the critical velocity, is illustrated with a numerical integration of the nonlinear Schrödinger equation. The Macroscopic Quantum Tunneling, below the critical velocity, is studied within the collective coordinate approach and the semiclassical nucleation rate is obtained.

## II The Model

The problem we consider is that of a two dimensional superflow past an impenetrable disk perpendicular to the $`z`$ axis. We will be interested in the process of removal of a preexistent quantum of vorticity inside the disk by the applied superflow (along the $`y`$ direction). In three dimensions this would correspond to a straight vortex depinning from a columnar defect due to an applied superflow perpendicular to the column axis. In Ref.  this problem is studied considering that the vortex depins in the form of an arc attached to the column.

We start from the Gross-Pitaevskii model for the dynamics of the condensate wave function, i.e. the nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLSE) :

$$i\mathrm{}\frac{\psi }{t}=\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m}^2\psi +g(|\psi |^2\rho _0)\psi .$$
(1)
Here $`m`$ is the boson mass, $`g`$ is the parameter in the hard core potential between the bosons and $`\rho _0`$ is the equilibrium superfluid number density. The obstacle and any applied flow impose appropriate boundary conditions on the condensate wave function $`\psi `$.

It will prove convenient to express length in units of the coherence length $`\xi =\sqrt{\mathrm{}^2/g\rho _0m}`$, the condensate in units of $`\sqrt{\rho _0}`$ and velocities in units of the speed of sound $`c=\mathrm{}/m\xi `$.

We take as boundary conditions on $`\psi `$:

$$\psi (𝐫,t)e^{iv_{\mathrm{}}y}e^{i\theta },r\mathrm{},$$
(2)
$$\psi (𝐫,t)=0,ra.$$
(3)
The first and second exponentials in 2 say that at infinity we have the external flow along the $`y`$ direction and the circulation due to a vortex somewhere near, or inside the disk. We assigned a radius $`a`$ to the disk and placed the origin at its center.

The determination of the critical velocity for vortex depinning can be made by looking for steady state solutions of the NLSE equation above. For $`v_{\mathrm{}}`$ below a certain critical value, dependent only on the disk radius, one is able to find stationary solutions representing a laminar flow. Above the critical velocity no stationary state exists, a state with a circulation around the disk can evolve to produce a vortex near the edge of the disk. The NLSE in $`1d`$ was found to display the same type of behavior , phase slips are dynamically produced behind an inhomogeneity if a large enough flow velocity is applied at infinity. We postpone the discussion of the numerical calculation to section IV.

## III The Collective Coordinate Approach

Now we will follow Ref.  and study this problem using as a collective coordinate the 2$`d`$ location of the vortex in the flow region. We will ignore the role of the superfluid compressibility.

When we write $`\psi =\sqrt{\rho }e^{i\varphi }`$, the NLSE yields a continuity equation and an Euler equation for the superfluid density $`\rho `$ and superfluid velocity $`𝐯=\varphi `$. In the incompressible limit these equations become:

$$𝐯=0,$$
(4)
$$\frac{𝐯}{t}+(𝐯)𝐯=0.$$
(5)
If a set of vortices of charge $`n_i=\pm 1`$ is present at positions $`𝐑_i`$, we also have:

$$\times 𝐯=\underset{i}{}2\pi n_i\delta (𝐫𝐑_i).$$
(6)
The boundary condition 3 becomes

$$𝐯\widehat{r}=0,r=a.$$
(7)
The problem of determining the velocity field from a given distribution of vortices and a fixed boundary condition at infinity is contained in equations 4 and 6. They can be cast in the form of a $`2d`$ electrostatic problem if we define the potential $`\chi `$:

$$𝐯=\chi \times \widehat{z}.$$
(8)
Eqs. 4 and 6 reduce to a Poisson’s equation:

$$^2\chi =\underset{i}{}2\pi n_i\delta (𝐫𝐑_i).$$
(9)
As for the boundary condition, Eq. 2 translates to $`\chi \chi _0v_{\mathrm{}}x`$ at infinity and the disk becomes an equipotential of $`\chi `$ due to the impenetrability condition 7.

The vortex dynamics is contained in equation 5. As is well known, inside an ideal and incompressible fluid the vortex follows the flow velocity at its center (excluding the singular contribution of the vortex itself to $`𝐯`$). This being simply Kelvin’s theorem :

$$\frac{d𝐑}{dt}=𝐯(𝐑,t).$$
(10)
In the Appendix we show how to go from Eq. 5 to Eq. 10.

We now derive the dynamics of a vortex of charge $`n`$ at position $`𝐑`$ outside the disk, with an applied flow at infinity, $`𝐯_{\mathrm{}}=v_{\mathrm{}}\widehat{y}`$, by first writing the general solution of Eq. 9 as the sum of three terms:

$$\chi _\mathrm{e}(𝐫)=v_{\mathrm{}}x(1a^2/r^2),$$
(11)
$$G_0(𝐫,𝐑)=n\mathrm{ln}|𝐫𝐑|,$$
(12)
$$G_I(𝐫,𝐑)=+n\mathrm{ln}|𝐫(a^2/R^2)𝐑|n\mathrm{ln}(r/a).$$
(13)
The total flow, which obeys the topological constraint $`𝐯𝑑𝐥=n`$ for a path enclosing the disk at infinity, is given by:

$$𝐯(𝐫,t)=_𝐫\left[\chi _\mathrm{e}(𝐫)+G_0(𝐫,𝐑)+G_I(𝐫,𝐑)\right]\times \widehat{z}.$$
(14)
To find the flow velocity at the vortex position and the vortex equation of motion we use the symmetry properties of the Green’s functions and obtain (excluding the singular contribution of $`G_0`$):

$$\frac{d𝐑}{dt}=_𝐑\left[\chi _\mathrm{e}(𝐑)+\frac{1}{2}G_I(𝐑,𝐑)\right]\times \widehat{z}.$$
(15)
One can view this equation as Newton’s equation for a massless object moving in a constant $`B`$-field along the $`z`$ direction plus an electrostatic potential set by $`\chi _\mathrm{e}`$ and $`G_I`$ (the applied flow plus the vortex images). Alternatively, the $`X`$ and $`Y`$ coordinates of the vortex can be thought of as conjugate variables with $`\chi _\mathrm{e}+\frac{1}{2}G_I`$ playing the role of the Hamiltonian.

The absence of a mass term is due to the incompressibility assumption, the effect of the compressibility is to introduce retardation effects in the response of the vortex to its external surroundings, which in turn gives rise to a frequency dependent mass term in the vortex equation of motion . The issue of the vortex mass in a neutral superfluid was, until recently, the subject of many papers .

Fig. 1 shows the isolines of the Hamiltonian function, which correspond to the trajectories followed by a positive vortex in the incompressible limit. There one sees a saddle point to the right of the disk separating closed trajectories near the disk from open ones, of the same energy, further from it.

As it stands, Fig. 1 describes the dynamics of a vortex that is already outside the disk, but we want to describe the process of vortex depinning whereby the quantum of circulation, initially inside the disk, is pushed outwards by the flow in the form of a vortex. The problem we face is characteristic of the collective coordinate approach since we are using as variable the very object whose creation we want to describe. One way out of this dilemma is to recognize that the incompressibility hypothesis should hold only at a distance $`\delta (\xi )`$ away from the obstacle. The nucleation process in fact happens, due to compressibility effects, within a coherence length from the disk, see Ref.  and Fig. 3 below.

If the parameter $`v_{\mathrm{}}`$ is such that the saddle point is inside this region dominated by the compressibility, one has the possibility of the nucleated vortex to appear in one of the open orbits to the right of the disk and be dragged along by the flow, as one observes in the simulation of the NLSE. Correspondingly, when the saddle point is outside the compressibility region any nucleated vortex would remain close to the disk, in one of the closed orbits. We would like to identify this situation with what happens when the velocity is below the critical velocity and the quantum of circulation remains trapped inside the disk.

We therefore find an estimate for the critical velocity from:

$$\frac{}{X}\left[\chi _\mathrm{e}(𝐑)+\frac{1}{2}G_I(𝐑,𝐑)\right]_{(X,Y)=(a+\delta ,0)}=0,$$
(16)
and view $`\delta `$ as an adjustable parameter of order $`\xi `$.

We obtain:

$$v_\mathrm{c}=\frac{a^2(a+\delta )}{(a+\delta )^4a^4}.$$
(17)
An alternative expression for the critical velocity is that used in Ref. . One writes the NLSE as two equations for $`\rho `$ and $`\varphi `$. One of the equations is a continuity equation, the other is:

$$\frac{\varphi }{t}=\frac{1}{2}\frac{^2\sqrt{\rho }}{\sqrt{\rho }}+\frac{1}{2}(\varphi )^2+\rho 1.$$
(18)
In the steady state, $`\varphi /t`$ must be a constant. The asymptotic region fixes this value and one finds:

$$\frac{1}{2}(v_{\mathrm{}}^2v^2)=\frac{1}{2}\frac{^2\sqrt{\rho }}{\sqrt{\rho }}+\rho 1.$$
(19)
If one ignores the Laplacian in this equation one obtains a relation between $`v`$ and $`\rho `$. Above a certain value of $`v`$ one has $`d[\rho (v)v]/dv<0`$, this defines $`v_{\mathrm{max}}=\sqrt{(v_{\mathrm{}}^2+2)/3}`$ as the maximum possible velocity inside the fluid. If at some point $`v>v_{\mathrm{max}}`$ a vortex will be nucleated so as to reduce the flow velocity at that point. We can estimate the highest velocity in the flow using the incompressible limit. If a quantum of circulation is present inside the disk, $`v`$ is maximum at the equator, and it is equal to $`2v_{\mathrm{}}+1/a`$. This gives the critical velocity as the maximum value of $`v_{\mathrm{}}`$ that ensures $`v<v_{\mathrm{max}}`$ everywhere in the flow:

$$v_\mathrm{c}=\frac{3}{11}\left[\frac{2}{a}+\sqrt{\frac{1}{3a^2}+\frac{22}{9}}\right].$$
(20)
In the limit $`a\mathrm{}`$ one finds the critical velocity for vortex/antivortex pair nucleation, $`(v_\mathrm{c})_{\mathrm{pair}}=\sqrt{2/11}`$, quoted in Ref. .

In Fig. 2 we show the dependence of $`v_\mathrm{c}`$ on the disk radius from Eqs. 17 and 20. In the first case we used $`\delta =0.5`$.

## IV Numerical Simulation

To determine numerically the critical velocity for depinning we looked for the values of $`v_{\mathrm{}}`$ which allowed a steady state solution of Eq. 1. This solution, with the boundary condition of Eq. 2 at infinity, has $`e^{iv_{\mathrm{}}^2t/2}`$ as time dependence. The spatial dependence is then found as a solution of

$$\frac{v_{\mathrm{}}^2}{2}\psi =\frac{1}{2}^2\psi +(|\psi |^21)\psi ,$$
(21)
with boundary conditions given by Eqs. 2 and 3.

We wrote this equation using finite differences on a two dimensional grid and reduced the problem to a set of $`N`$ complex, nonlinear algebraic equations, for $`N`$ complex variables, the values of $`\psi `$ at the grid nodes. This was solved, starting from a trial state, using Newton’s method . The number of nodes varied depending on the disk radius so that we always had a minimum distance of $`10\xi `$ between the disk boundary and the sides of the working area. The grid spacing used was 0.5$`\xi `$, but it was reduced to 0.25$`\xi `$ for disks of smaller radii to ensure a reasonable representation of the disk as a region of the square grid. The disk radii ranged from 0.5$`\xi `$ to $`10\xi `$.

After a solution with a given value of $`v_{\mathrm{}}`$ was found, a new $`v_{\mathrm{}}`$, increased by 0.1, was used in the boundary condition and in equation 21. The code was run again taking the available solution as trial state. When Newton’s method failed to converge we took the last value of $`v_{\mathrm{}}`$ as a lower limit for the critical velocity.

The critical velocities so obtained are shown in Fig. 2. There one sees an increase of $`v_\mathrm{c}`$ with the disk radius, as both Eqs. 17 and 20 predict, and an apparent saturation at the value 0.5$`c`$, higher than the prediction of $`\sqrt{2/11}c`$ of Eq. 20. The value of $`\delta `$ that must be used in Eq. 17 to obtain this asymptotic value of $`v_\mathrm{c}`$ is $`0.5\xi `$.

Above the critical velocity, if one uses as initial state a condensate with a quantum of circulation inside the disk, one can observe the creation of a vortex from the dynamics of the NLSE, Eq. 1. This equation was solved numerically using finite differences in a grid similar to the one described above. The condensate at time zero was evolved using a split-step algorithm  where the Laplacian part and the nonlinear part of the NLSE were used alternately. The time step was 0.1$`\xi /c`$. The condensate amplitude at four different times is shown in Fig. 3. There one observes the vortex formation in the region close to the disk equator and its subsequent movement downstream. After the vortex depinning, a vortex/antivortex pair is seen nucleating as in Ref. . This happens because the value of $`v_{\mathrm{}}=0.5c`$ used is also above the critical velocity for pair nucleation for that particular radius, $`a=1\xi `$.

## V Macroscopic Quantum Tunneling

Below the critical velocity an effective barrier prevents the circulation around the disk to become a vortex outside the disk. At zero temperature this barrier can only be overcome via Macroscopic Quantum Tunneling. In a thorough semiclassical treatment we would have to find the bounce in imaginary time that connects the condensate corresponding to the stationary, laminar flow, solution of the NLSE at $`\tau =\mathrm{}`$ to a condensate containing a nucleated vortex near the disk at $`\tau =0`$, and back to the stationary state at $`\tau =+\mathrm{}`$. This bounce would be a nontrivial solution of the imaginary time NLSE :

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\psi }{\tau }}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}^2\psi +(\psi \overline{\psi }1)\psi ,\psi (𝐫,\mathrm{})=\psi _0(𝐫),`$ (22)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{\psi }}{\tau }}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}^2\overline{\psi }+(\psi \overline{\psi }1)\overline{\psi },\overline{\psi }(𝐫,+\mathrm{})=\psi _0^{}(𝐫).`$ (23)
Here, $`\psi _0(𝐫)`$ is the stationary condensate that represents the laminar flow around the disk with the circulation trapped inside. The bounce solution would show, as imaginary time progresses, a vortex leaving the disk towards the flow and then returning back. The vortex position at $`\tau =0`$ would indicate the most favorable position inside the flow for the vortex to emerge.

Instead of retaining all degrees of freedom of the condensate in the calculation of the bounce one can use the collective coordinate approach of section III and focus on the dynamics of the vortex position. In this approach the bounce, or tunneling path, connects a closed orbit in the $`XY`$ plane to its open counterpart having the same value of $`E=\chi _\mathrm{e}+\frac{1}{2}G_I`$. This is done by allowing the momentum $`Y`$ to become imaginary, see Fig. 4. The logarithm of the WKB tunneling rate is then proportional to the $`p\dot{q}`$ part of the action that governs the vortex dynamics, Eq. 15. This action in real time is:

$$S[𝐑]=h\rho _0\xi ^2\left[Y\dot{X}\chi _\mathrm{e}(𝐑)\frac{1}{2}G_I(𝐑,𝐑)\right]𝑑t.$$
(24)
The semiclassical tunneling rate is then:

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{WKB}}\mathrm{exp}\left[2\pi \rho _0\xi ^2|Y(X,E)|𝑑X\right],$$
(25)
with $`Y(X,E)`$ being the trajectory in the $`XY`$ plane that is a solution (with imaginary $`Y`$) of:

$$\chi _\mathrm{e}(𝐑)+\frac{1}{2}G_I(𝐑,𝐑)=E.$$
(26)
The argument in the exponential is $`2\pi `$ times the number of bosons enclosed by the imaginary momentum trajectory. To compare, in the field theory for the condensate we find the tunneling rate from:

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{WKB}}\mathrm{exp}\left[\rho _0\xi ^2\overline{\psi _\mathrm{b}}\frac{\psi _\mathrm{b}}{\tau }𝑑𝐫𝑑\tau \right],$$
(27)
where $`\psi _\mathrm{b}(𝐫,\tau )`$ is the bounce solution of Eqs. 22 and 23.

Whereas the semiclassical recipe for the tunneling of $`\psi `$ is well defined, in the collective coordinate treatment it is not clear between which pair of trajectories the tunneling will take place, or equivalently, which value of $`E`$ is to be used in Eq. 25. This ambiguity stems from the fact that the collective coordinate approach does not really describe the vortex nucleation process, instead it describes the tunneling of a preexisting vortex bound to the disk in a closed trajectory towards an open trajectory further inside the flow.

One can imagine doing the same kind of approximation used to obtain the formula for the critical velocity and simply admit that the tunneling will occur between the closed trajectory that reaches a distance $`\delta `$ from the disk and its open counterpart. This would correspond to the vortex being produced at the furthest possible distance inside the compressibility dominated region around the disk. This fixes the value of $`E`$ to be used in Eq. 25 and is consistent with the formula for the critical velocity, Eq. 17, since we then obtain $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{WKB}}1`$ as $`v_{\mathrm{}}v_\mathrm{c}`$ (when the saddle point is exactly at a distance $`\delta `$ from the disk).

In Fig. 5 we show the dependence of the tunneling rate with the applied velocity, $`v_{\mathrm{}}`$, calculated using Eq. 25 for radii $`a=`$ 1, 2 and $`3\xi `$ and $`\delta =`$ 0.5 and 1.5$`\xi `$. One observes, for small values of $`v_{\mathrm{}}/v_c`$, that

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{exp}\left[C(v_c/v_{\mathrm{}})^\alpha \right],\alpha =2.8\pm 0.1,$$
(28)
is a good fit to all curves.

## VI Conclusion

We have analyzed the process of vortex depinning from a two dimensional obstacle due to an applied superflow. We discussed the process of dynamical depinning, above the critical velocity, and the process of depinning via MQT, at zero temperature and below the critical velocity, with a collective coordinate approach. The problems inherent to this approach were circumvented with the introduction of a length $`\delta `$ ($`\xi `$) proportional to the size of the compressibility dominated region around the defect. A more thorough calculation of the critical velocity was made using the full NLSE and compared with the estimate based on the collective coordinate. The process of dynamical nucleation was demonstrated with a numerical simulation of the time dependent NLSE.

It is left for a future work to contrast the the semiclassical tunneling rate computed from Eq. 25 with the one obtained by solving the imaginary time NLSE.

Experiments on critical velocities of two dimensional neutral superflows past obstacles do not exist in the literature, nevertheless one can expect the calculations presented here to be applicable to layered superconductors in the superclean limit, when the pancake vortices are expected to follow the dynamics discussed in section III, see Ref. . When such systems are irradiated by heavy ions defects similar to the ones discussed here can be formed. Measurements of the critical current dependence with the temperature and applied magnetic field already exists, see for instance Ref. , but the dependence with the defect radius is still lacking, when obtained a comparison could be made with the results presented here.

## Kelvin’s Theorem

Here we derive Kelvin’s theorem, Eq. 10, from Eq. 5. We consider a flow field $`𝐯(𝐫,t)`$ and compute the rate of change of the circulation in a path $`C(t)`$ being dragged by the flow:

$$\frac{d}{dt}_{C(t)}𝐯(𝐫,t)𝑑𝐥.$$
(29)
We must evaluate,

$$\frac{1}{dt}\left[_{C(t+dt)}𝐯(𝐫,t+dt)𝑑𝐥_{C(t)}𝐯(𝐫,t)𝑑𝐥\right].$$
(30)
The mapping between points in the $`C(t)`$ loop and points in the $`C(t+dt)`$ loop is

$$𝐫𝐫+𝐯(𝐫,t)dt.$$
(31)
Therefore an element $`d𝐥`$ in $`C(t)`$ is mapped to

$`𝐫+d𝐥`$ $``$ $`𝐫+d𝐥+𝐯(𝐫+d𝐥,t)dt,`$ (32)
$`d𝐥`$ $``$ $`d𝐥+(d𝐥)𝐯(𝐫,t)dt.`$ (33)
The integral in the $`C(t+dt)`$ loop can then be written as

$$_{C(t)}𝐯[𝐫+𝐯(𝐫,t)dt,t+dt]\{d𝐥+(d𝐥)𝐯(𝐫,t)dt\},$$
(34)
or, to lowest order in $`dt`$,

$$_{C(t)}\{𝐯+_t𝐯dt+(dt𝐯)𝐯\}𝑑𝐥+_{C(t)}𝐯(d𝐥)𝐯𝑑t.$$
(35)
Finally we obtain for the derivative,

$$\frac{d}{dt}_{C(t)}𝐯𝑑𝐥=_{C(t)}_t𝐯d𝐥+_{C(t)}(𝐯)𝐯𝑑𝐥+_{C(t)}\frac{1}{2}v^2d𝐥.$$
(36)
The first two integrals add up to zero by virtue of Eq. 5, whereas the third integral is identically zero as long as the path does not cross any singularity of $`v^2`$.

The fact that the circulation is a constant along any path flowing with the fluid imply that the singular vortices must follow the flow velocity at their center. That is, Eq. 10 must hold.


text:
# A Map of the Ionized Component of the Intermediate Velocity Cloud Complex K

## 1 Introduction

Optical emission lines are a new tool for the exploration of high- and intermediate-velocity clouds (HVCs and IVCs), traditionally discovered and studied in the 21 cm line of H I or through absorption line observations. The H$`\alpha `$ intensity from such structures is typically a few tenths of a Rayleigh (1 R$`=10^6/4\pi `$ photons cm-2 s-1 sr-1 $`=2.4\times 10^7`$ ergs cm-2 s-1 sr-1) and has only recently been accessible through modern detectors. With such faint emission, previous studies of emission lines such as H$`\alpha `$, \[S II\], and \[N II\] from HVCs and IVCs have been limited to single pointed observations, although they have gleaned some of the first information about the ionization, temperature, and metallicity of these gas structures (Weiner & Williams 1996; Tufte, Reynolds, & Haffner 1998; Bland-Hawthorn et al. 1998; Wakker et al. 1999). Since most of the known HVCs and IVCs are at high latitudes and many are distant ($`d>500`$ pc) structures, studies of their ionized component reveal information not only about the clouds themselves but also about the environment of the Galactic halo and the escape of radiation from the Galactic plane.

With high sensitivity and velocity resolution, the recently completed Wisconsin H-Alpha Mapper111More information about WHAM can be found at http://www.astro.wisc.edu/wham/.  (WHAM) Northern Sky Survey is yielding an enormous amount of new information about the ionized nature of IVCs. Wakker (2001) has recently separated out the large ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}40\mathrm{°}`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }b40\mathrm{°}`$) H I intermediate-velocity Complex K (previously classified with Complex C) centered near $`\mathrm{}=50\mathrm{°}`$, $`b=+50\mathrm{°}`$, $`v_{\mathrm{LSR}}60`$ to $`80`$ km s-1. Here we present the first map of the ionized component of Complex K.

## 2 Observations

The WHAM Northern Sky Survey provides the first velocity-resolved survey of H$`\alpha `$ emission from the Galaxy. Each of the 37,300 pointings in the northern survey captures a spectrum over $`v_{\mathrm{LSR}}100`$ to $`+100`$ km s-1 from a one-degree patch of sky. Since WHAM provides 12 km s-1 spectral resolution, we are able to cleanly remove the bright and variable geocoronal H$`\alpha `$ emission ($`I213`$ R) and numerous fainter ($`I0.10.3`$ R) atmospheric lines (N. R. Hausen et al., in preparation), allowing detections of faint Galactic emission below 0.1 R. The survey achieves nearly full coverage of the sky with beam spacings of $`\mathrm{\Delta }b=0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}85`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}=0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}98/\mathrm{cos}b`$ above $`\delta >30\mathrm{°}`$. More information about the instrument and survey strategy can be found in Tufte (1997), Haffner (1999), and L. M. Haffner et al. (in preparation).

## 3 Results

Figure A Map of the Ionized Component  of the Intermediate Velocity Cloud Complex K shows an image of the H$`\alpha `$ emission from WHAM and contours of 21 cm emission from the Leiden-Dwingeloo H I survey (Hartmann & Burton, 1997) toward Complex K. Note that the image and contours reflect a strict integration limit between $`95`$ and $`50`$ km s-1. As a result, the colorbar legend underestimates the total H$`\alpha `$ line intensity by about 20% (*e.g.* Figure A Map of the Ionized Component  of the Intermediate Velocity Cloud Complex K, see below). Since the distance to Complex K is still relatively uncertain, we have not applied an extinction correction to the data presented here. However, since the total $`N_{HI}(100<v_{LSR}<+100)`$ over the face of the cloud only varies from about 1 to $`4\times 10^{20}`$ cm-2, such a correction to the observed H$`\alpha `$ flux would be at most about 25% if all the neutral material is between us and Complex K.

The ionized emission is distributed diffusely over the neutral extent of the complex; it does not appear to arise from numerous point sources within the complex. The integrated H$`\alpha `$ intensity in the region displayed in Figure A Map of the Ionized Component  of the Intermediate Velocity Cloud Complex K ranges from 0.5 R down to a conservative detection limit of 0.1 R or EM $``$ 1.1 to 0.2 cm-6 pc (1 R $`2.25`$ cm-6 pc for $`T=8000`$ K). The extent of the H$`\alpha `$ emission in the main part of the complex ($`\mathrm{}=30\mathrm{°}`$ to $`65\mathrm{°}`$, $`b=+30\mathrm{°}`$ to $`+70\mathrm{°}`$) matches the $`N_H=7\times 10^{18}`$ cm-2 contour quite closely; however, the peaks in each emission component do not correspond as well. A detailed quantitative analysis of the H$`\alpha `$ and H I intensities within each one-degree WHAM pointing reveals that there is little correlation between the integrated intensities of the IVC components. The linear correlation coefficient for pointings within the main part of the complex is 0.4. Although the spatial distribution and velocity profiles correspond extremely well, a simple relationship relating the H$`\alpha `$ intensity to the H I column does not exist. In fact, for many of the largest concentrations of H I emission (*e.g.,* $`\mathrm{}=48\mathrm{°},b=+36\mathrm{°}`$; $`\mathrm{}=54\mathrm{°},b=+52\mathrm{°}`$; $`\mathrm{}=45\mathrm{°},b=+44\mathrm{°}`$), the brighter H$`\alpha `$ emission is consistently at higher longitudes than the regions of brightest 21 cm emission. We created H$`\alpha `$ and H I latitude profiles from the images to quantify the extent of this offset. By examining the two latitude profiles simultaneously and by computing correlation coefficients between the profiles in their natural and offset positions, we find that the H$`\alpha `$ emission is consistently shifted or extended to higher Galactic longitudes in nearly all latitude slices by a 2 to 4 degrees.

Figures A Map of the Ionized Component  of the Intermediate Velocity Cloud Complex K and A Map of the Ionized Component  of the Intermediate Velocity Cloud Complex K present representative H$`\alpha `$ spectra (top panels) from Complex K with the one-degree WHAM beam centered at $`\mathrm{}=57\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}02,b=+49\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}22`$ and $`\mathrm{}=48\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}03,b=+36\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}49`$, respectively. Corresponding H I 21 cm spectra centered at $`\mathrm{}=57\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}0,b=+49\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}0`$ and $`\mathrm{}=48\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}0,b=+36\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}5`$ from the Leiden-Dwingeloo H I survey are displayed in the bottom panel of each figure. These two sightlines sample some of the brighter emission from Complex K. The dashed vertical lines denote the integration range used to construct the H$`\alpha `$ image and 21 cm contours in Figure A Map of the Ionized Component  of the Intermediate Velocity Cloud Complex K. Since hydrogen has a thermal width of $`22`$ km s-1 at $`T=10^4`$ K, we have chosen a restricted integration range to avoid contamination in the image from the local emission component centered near $`v_{\mathrm{LSR}}=0`$ km s-1. As noted above, the values in the color legend of Figure A Map of the Ionized Component  of the Intermediate Velocity Cloud Complex K should be increased by about 20% to estimate the total intensity of a typical Complex K emission line.

The solid lines in the top panels of Figures A Map of the Ionized Component  of the Intermediate Velocity Cloud Complex K and A Map of the Ionized Component  of the Intermediate Velocity Cloud Complex K represent a Gaussian component fit convolved with the WHAM instrument profile (approximately 12 km s-1 FWHM). We also performed a multi-component fit on the H I spectrum. Only the IVC component is shown clearly in the bottom panels of Figures A Map of the Ionized Component  of the Intermediate Velocity Cloud Complex K and A Map of the Ionized Component  of the Intermediate Velocity Cloud Complex K since little effort was spent trying to accurately model the bright, local 21 cm emission. Figure A Map of the Ionized Component  of the Intermediate Velocity Cloud Complex K clearly shows at least two components in the intermediate-velocity neutral gas. A single Gaussian fit to the H$`\alpha `$ emission in this direction results in a large ($`>40`$ km s-1) width, atypical of diffuse gas; a free-fit two Gaussian profile is not well defined due to the intrinsic ionized gas line widths. Instead, we have chosen to fix the mean velocity of the two components in the H$`\alpha `$ fit to be the same as those clearly defined in the H I profile. The best parameters for our fits are given in Table 1. Channel maps and profile analyses show some variation in the mean velocity of the H$`\alpha `$ and H I emission, with values that fall roughly between $`50`$ and $`75`$ km s-1. There appears to be no systematic velocity gradients in the complex, although the higher velocity H I component at $`75`$ km s-1 is limited to the two regions of the complex centered at $`\mathrm{}=48\mathrm{°},b=+37\mathrm{°}`$ and $`\mathrm{}=38\mathrm{°},b=+62\mathrm{°}`$.

## 4 Discussion

As reviewed by Wakker (2001), little absorption line data directly toward Complex K exists at this time, and thus we have little information about its distance, only that it lies between about 0.3 and 7.7 kpc. There is a firm upper limit since the cloud has been seen in absorption (de Boer & Savage, 1983; Bates et al., 1995; Shaw et al., 1996) toward M 13 ($`\mathrm{}=59\mathrm{°},b=+41\mathrm{°}`$). Carretta et al. (2000) have recently calculated the distance modulus of M 13 to be 14.44 mag, which sets an upper limit of 7.7 kpc on the distance to that portion of Complex K toward M 13. A lower limit to the distance comes from the work of Bates et al. (1995) who included three local stars in their absorption line study of stars in M 13. Two of their targets, HD 151749 and HD 150462, have reliably measured parallaxes (HIPPARCOS, Perryman et al., 1997), which place them at 150 and 175 pc, respectively. Their third target, HD 149802, has an estimated distance of about 270 pc given that it and HD 150462 have both been classified as A0 but differ in V brightnesses by 0.9 mag. They did not detect Complex K absorption in either Ca II or Na I toward any of these stars.

If the entire complex is at a common distance then its angular extent, from $`b=+30\mathrm{°}`$ to $`b=+70\mathrm{°}`$, corresponds to a length of $`0.68d`$ kpc and a maximum vertical extent above the midplane of $`0.94d`$ kpc, where $`d`$ is the distance to the complex in units of 1 kpc. If instead the complex is a column of gas perpendicular to the Galactic plane at a constant *radial* distance (distance along the Galactic plane) from the sun, its length is $`2.2r`$ kpc, where $`r`$ is the radial distance of the complex from the sun in units of 1 kpc. Gas participating in Galactic rotation toward the center of the complex near $`\mathrm{}=55\mathrm{°}`$, $`b=+45\mathrm{°}`$ would be expected to have a radial velocity of $`v_{\mathrm{LSR}}=+10`$ km s-1 at 1 kpc up to a maximum (at the tangent point) of $`v_{\mathrm{LSR}}=+30`$ km s-1 at 6.5 kpc (Clemens, 1985). As a result, the deviation velocity (Wakker, 1991) for Complex K is approximately $`100`$ km s-1 from that expected by circular rotation.

With few observations of the ionized component of IVCs and HVCs, it is difficult to discriminate among possible candidates for the source of ionization. Since the clouds are moving at anomalous velocities, processes such as ram-pressure heating (Weiner & Williams, 1996) and radiation produced by a cloud-halo shocked interface have been explored (Tufte et al., 1998) in addition to photoionization by an ambient Lyman continuum flux (Tufte et al., 1998). In the case of Complex K, the relatively diffuse H$`\alpha `$ emission over the extent of the neutral gas suggests the latter ionization mechanism. However, at its lower distance limit (300 pc), the vertical extent of the complex is only $`z=150`$ to $`z=300`$ pc, fully within the WIM layer, and its anomalous velocity would likely cause an interaction with the ambient medium. But unless Complex K is falling nearly directly towards us, we find little evidence for an H$`\alpha `$ enhancement in the morphology due to cloud motion. In support of photoionization by an external or ambient flux, note that while the total H I column densities presented in Table 1 for the IVC components vary by a factor eight, the H$`\alpha `$ intensities are relatively constant. For the cloud as a whole, we find that the neutral gas displays much higher intensity contrast than the ionized gas in Complex K (see also Figures A Map of the Ionized Component  of the Intermediate Velocity Cloud Complex K and A Map of the Ionized Component  of the Intermediate Velocity Cloud Complex K). Furthermore, as noted above in §3, the point-to-point correspondence of the total IVC intensity of the two emission lines is poor. These observations are consistent with photoionizing the skin of a neutral cloud. In this case, the cloud becomes self-shielding from ionizing radiation and $`N_{HI}`$ is independent from the H$`\alpha `$ intensity, which becomes mostly a function of incident Lyman continuum flux and geometry.

If a cloud is ionized by an external photoionizing source, the incident Lyman continuum flux on the cloud surface can be estimated (see Tufte et al., 1998). Ignoring the complexity of geometry but applying the maximum possible extinction correction (25%; see §3) to the sample ionized IVC component in Table 1, we find the incident flux of ionizing photons is $`\varphi 1.2\times 10^6`$ photons cm-2 s-1 for the brightest H$`\alpha `$ regions in Complex K. With the small lower limit on its distance, there is some chance that Complex K is a relatively local feature that could be ionized by nearby sources. A search within $`16\mathrm{°}`$ of $`\mathrm{}=55\mathrm{°}`$, $`b=+45\mathrm{°}`$ (the rough center of the brightest regions of the complex) reveals no early spectral type objects with sufficient luminosity to ionize the region, even at its minimum distance of $`300`$ pc. As noted above, the ionized regions with higher H$`\alpha `$ intensities appear to be offset a few degrees from the larger column density neutral regions. To test whether the ionization of the complex could be sustained by a brighter, more distant halo source, we have explored a large region at higher Galactic longitudes than Complex K ($`80\mathrm{°}<\mathrm{}<180\mathrm{°}`$; $`+30\mathrm{°}<b<+80\mathrm{°}`$) for possible ionizing sources. In this case, the only potential source appears to be the O9.5 V star HD 93521 ($`\mathrm{}=183\mathrm{°}`$, $`b=+62\mathrm{°}`$, $`d=1.7`$ kpc; Irvine 1989). Given the direction and range of distances possible for Complex K, it is closest to the star when placed about 700 pc away ($`z500`$ pc); here they are separated by about 1.5 kpc. Using a value of $`\mathrm{log}Q_0=48.38`$, where $`Q_0`$ is the number of hydrogen ionizing photons per second emitted from an O9.5 V star (Vacca, Garmany, & Shull, 1996) and taking into account *only* the geometrical dilution of the radiation (i.e. no intervening gas or dust absorption), we find that the ionizing flux at Complex K from HD 93521 is $`\varphi 8.4\times 10^3`$ photons cm-2 s-1, far short of that needed to maintain the ionization of the complex.

More likely, a scenario similar to those used to explain the ionization of the Warm Ionized Medium (Miller & Cox, 1993; Dove & Shull, 1994; Dove, Shull, & Ferrara, 2000; Slavin, McKee, & Hollenbach, 2000) is also providing the ionizing flux for Complex K. Dove et al. (2000) cite upward halo ionizing fluxes for their various models of the propagation of OB association radiation through the surrounding superbubbles. Their range of calculated values, $`\varphi 1`$$`2\times 10^6`$ photons cm-2 s-1, agree well with what is required to maintain the ionization of Complex K. Bland-Hawthorn & Maloney (1999) have produced a model of the propagation of the ionizing flux in the Galactic halo and the resulting H$`\alpha `$ emission from halo clouds. We find that our observed H$`\alpha `$ intensity is consistent with that expected from their model in the direction of Complex K for distances $`<8`$ kpc from the sun (0.15–0.30 R; J. Bland-Hawthorn 2000, private communication). Cooling hot gas generated in supernova remnants has also been shown by Slavin et al. (2000) to provide a mean value of $`\varphi =5.4\times 10^5`$ photons cm-2 s-1 to the halo ionizing flux, nearly half that required for the brightest emitting regions in the complex and sufficient alone to sustain the faintest.

With WHAM, we have finally begun to explore the structure of the ionized component of IVCs and HVCs with the H$`\alpha `$ line in the same manner as has been done for the neutral gas with the 21 cm line. Furthermore, maps in other optical emission lines such as \[S II\] and \[N II\] will provide additional information about the temperature, ionization, and metallicity of the ionized gas (Haffner et al., 1999; Wakker et al., 1999). These future observations have the potential to provide insight not only about the nature of these high latitude structures but also about the ambient Galactic halo gas and radiation field.

We would like to thank Bart Wakker for the first H I-H$`\alpha `$ comparisons in this region, Joss Bland-Hawthorn for providing model results along the Complex K sight line, and Bob Benjamin for continuing halo consultation and Galactic rotation code. Source searches were conducted through the SIMBAD database operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France. WHAM is supported by the National Science Foundation through grant AST 96-19424.


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# 1 Mass spectra of the events from the inclusive NC DIS selection for data (symbols) and DIS expectation (histograms). The data is shown before (open squares, dashed-line histogram) and after (filled dots, full-line histogram) a 𝑦 cut designed to maximize the significance of (a) a scalar and (b) a vector leptoquark (LQ) signal. The grey boxes indicate the ±1𝜎 uncertainty due to the systematic errors on the NC DIS expectation.

## Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the HERA machine group whose outstanding efforts have made and continue to make this experiment possible. We thank the engineers and technicians for their work in constructing and now maintaining the H1 detector, our funding agencies for financial support, the DESY technical staff for continual assistance and the DESY directorate for the hospitality which they extend to the non DESY members of the collaboration.