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# Quantum Electrodynamics is free from the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox

## I Introduction

In their famous 1935 paper Einstein et al. (1935), Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen (EPR) pointed out that the Quantum Mechanics probabilistic description of Nature apparently leads to some mysterious action at a distance. They eventually deduced that the Quantum Theory itself was necessarily incomplete. This suggested the need for some Hidden Variables, allowing for a causal local, deterministic description, but such an hypothesis can hardly agree with the results of a series of experiments carried out in the last several years Bell (1964); Aspect et al. (1981).

It is now commonly believed that local realism is violated by quantum effects even in the relativistic case Aharonov and Albert (1981). This is so paradoxical, that some authors still suggest the need for a “more consistent” theory beyond the present day Relativistic Quantum Mechanics, and argue that a conclusive experimental proof against Hidden Variables is lacking Santos (1992).

Actually, it turns out that no new physics is needed. In fact, there is already a very elegant theory, which describes with extreme accuracy all the known phenomena involving the electromagnetic interaction 111Moreover, it is a part of the Glashow-Weinberg-Salam Standard Model, that describes all known interactions except gravity.. It is Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) Tomonaga (1948); Weinberg (1995). Since it is by construction relativistic, and based on the local U(1) gauge principle, it is not surprising that it is protected against the EPR paradox, as I show in the present paper.

## II The EPR paradox

Let me consider an ideal EPR experiment Einstein et al. (1935); Bransden and Joachain (2000). Two particles, e.g. two photons as in the actual experiments Aspect et al. (1981), are emitted by a source and travel in opposite directions 222It is easy to generalize the present discussion to the case of three or more particles.. Far apart, some conserved observable, such as energy, momentum, or a component of the angular momentum (spin, helicity or polarization), is measured on both of them.

According to the usual interpretation, the measurement carried on one of the two subsystems (call it A) reduces it to an eigenstate of the measured observable, whose conservation immediately forces also the second particle (call it B) to “collapse” into the corresponding “entangled” eigenstate. Since before the experiments the two particles are not prepared in an eigenstate of the measured quantity (see also point 2 few lines below), it seems that the observation on A implies an instantaneous change of the state of the distant particle B. The observed quantity would then get “an element of physical reality”, according to the original definition: “If, without in any way disturbing a system we can predict with certainty (i.e. with probability equal to unity) the value of a physical quantity, then there is an element of physical reality corresponding to this physical quantity” Einstein et al. (1935) (the italics and the parenthesis also belong to the original paper).

According to Einstein and collaborators, the problem of Quantum Mechanics is that: 1) the considered observable gets a definite value on B, after a measurement on the distant particle A, and this occurs with certainty, so that the observable gets a “physical reality” on B; 2) such a physical reality depends on the actual measurement that is done on A (for instance, if instead of measuring the component $`J_z`$ of the angular momentum we decided to measure an observable incompatible with it, such as $`J_x`$, then the state of the distant particle B would correspond to a different physical reality) Einstein et al. (1935). Such a situation is also called a violation of “local realism”.

This is the original EPR paradox of Quantum Mechanics. Only much later, mainly due to the work of Bell Bell (1964), it was reformulated in terms of the correlations (see also sections IV and V), in order to work out predictions that could be tested experimentally. Up to now, the two formulations were thought to be equivalent, but in section IV we shall see that this is not the case. For the moment, let us notice that, according to Einstein and collaborators, the existence of an action at a distance working with perfect efficiency would imply a much harder incompatibility with Special Relativity, as compared with a possible statistical nonlocality as shown in the correlations. I will come back later to the problem of the correlations, and concentrate for the moment on the original EPR paradox.

It is worth mentioning that Einstein and collaborators concluded that the solution to the paradox should necessarily imply that “the wave function does not provide a complete description of the physical reality” Einstein et al. (1935). For the wave function, they meant that associated to the two particle system, describing A and B and nothing else. We shall see that they were right, even though they would perhaps not expect that the solution was to be found in the modern version of the Quantum Theory itself. In fact, the complete description in QED is not limited to the “entangled” state of A and B, since it allows also for the presence of an arbitrary number of “soft photons”.

## III The uncertainty in the number of soft photons

The EPR paradox, as described above, is originated by the assumption of a two particle state, which is incorrect in Relativistic Quantum Mechanics. As we shall see, states involving two or more particles are not “stable” in QED. There are no entangled “stationary” states! In other (more correct) words, additional real particles can be created in coincidence with A and B. Which additional species can appear depends on the available energy. Since massless particles can have arbitrarily low energy, the possible presence of real “soft photons” (i.e. very low energy photons) should always be taken into account in the theoretical treatment. In any case, since soft photons usually escape detection (or they are not looked for), no event can be guaranteed with absolute certainty to involve only the two observed “hard” particles.

Moreover, soft photons can also be created due to the interaction of both A and B with the measuring apparatus. Even though the latter effect will not be used in the rest of the present work, in this section I will mention it since it can be interesting for the Theory of Measurement (for instance, due to possible creation of soft photons during the measurement, the ideal measurement that is used to define the eigenstates of the observables should be considered as a mere approximation).

According to the previous discussion, there are two sources of indetermination on the number of real particles in an EPR experiment: at the production process, or at the measuring apparatus. I will prove this statement using QED perturbation theory (i.e. Feynman diagrams). For simplicity, I will only discuss two kinds of EPR experiments: i) those involving two charged spin 1/2 particles; and ii) those involving two photons. In both cases, I will give explicit examples predicting the creation of an arbitrary number of soft photons.

i) In Fig. 1, I have drawn a tree-level diagram where the blob represents the particular elementary process that produces particles A and B.

Even without specifying that part of the diagram (involving some “initial” particles), we see that an arbitrary number of real soft photons (three in the particular case of the figure) can be attached to each of the external fermion legs. This is a well known effect in QED Weinberg (1995). Fig. 2 shows a diagram describing the interaction of any one of our two particles with a charged particle belonging to the measuring apparatus, through the exchange of a virtual photon.

Here, an arbitrary number of real soft photon lines can be attached to both the electron under measurement and the charged particle belonging to the experimental device.

ii) The two photon case, which corresponds e.g. to Aspect et al. experiment Aspect et al. (1981), seems to be a bit more complicated from a theoretical point of view. Since no three photon vertex exist, we have to look for one loop effects. In Fig. 3, I show a “box” diagram for the production of two real soft photons 333This box diagram has been studied in different contexts, e.g. in the theory of two photon scattering..

The virtual particle in the loop can be any charged fermion (electron, muon, tau, quarks). On the other hand, the interaction with the measuring apparatus can proceed through diagrams such as the tree level one of Fig. 4.

Here, soft photons can be attached in an arbitrary number to the line of the electron or nucleon belonging to the experimental detector 444Actually, in the common experimental situation Aspect et al. (1981) the “hard” photon energy is comparable with the electron binding energies in matter, and QED perturbation theory breaks down Weinberg (1995). But even if it will be hard to compute its rate, soft photon emission during the measurement will still be possible..

It is clear that these considerations can be generalized: an arbitrary and unknown number of soft photons can always be created in any experiment, in any step that involves an interaction.

In the following discussion, we will be interested in particular in the soft photons that are created in coincidence with the two (or more) particles observed in an EPR experiment, as described by diagrams such as those in Figs. 1 and 3. We are now able to understand how QED is protected from the EPR paradox.

## IV The QED solution to the EPR paradox

After the measurement of the conserved observable, say a component of the angular momentum, is performed on particle A, we cannot have any idea about how many soft photons are there around. QED predicts that the conservation law holds for the set including particles A and B together with all the soft photons that are created with them, through diagrams such as those in Figs. 1 or 3. Therefore, we could only say that the subsystem consisting of particle B and all the soft photons that have been produced in coincidence with them will get a definite value of the angular momentum, determined by the result obtained on A. This means that the measurement on A does not allow for a certain prediction of the value of the considered conserved quantity on B. Therefore, the (component of the) angular momentum will not be given a “physical reality” on B after the measurement on A. According to the discussion of section II, this is sufficient to save the theory from the original EPR paradox.

It is important to recall that there is no possibility to control completely the uncertainty on the number of soft photons in a single event. In other words, QED is even less deterministic than Nonrelativistic Quantum Mechanics, due to this underlying sort of Uncertainty Principle on the Number of Particles. In fact, the only predictions that it allows are on probabilities and average values. This greater indetermination protects the theory from the EPR paradox. In other words, it seems that, to remove the paradox, one has to choose between the most extreme possibilities: determinism (hidden variables, the favorite option for Einstein and collaborators), or complete lack of determinism for the single processes (QED, the dice of God) 555However, QED is also a deterministic theory, since the field equations are deterministic. The correlation functions themselves are determined by the initial conditions and the interaction lagrangian. This is an important point, whose possible consequences will be discussed below..

Let me come back to our EPR experiments, and notice that the conservation laws, including energy and momentum, are not expected to hold strictly for the two particle (sub)system, A and B. A general single event will show apparent symmetry violations, except when by chance no soft photon is created. In particular, any violation of a discrete variable such as angular momentum is important, since it is a multiple of $`\mathrm{}`$. These considerations suggest that a possible signature of the theoretical explanation I am proposing would be the observation of an apparent symmetry violation event in an EPR experiment. This would confirm the presence of unobserved soft photons, resulting in a further triumph of QED.

Notice that in the actual EPR experiments Aspect et al. (1981) the correlations between the polarizations of the “hard” photons (A and B) are evaluated. Such correlations are statistical averages over the results for the different single events. The data agree with the prediction of a Quantum Mechanics that did not take into account the soft photons, and are incompatible with the predictions of Hidden Variables theories, that were also considered to be the only possible locally realistic theories. This fact was interpreted as a proof that Nature is EPR paradoxical. However, such a conclusion is not correct. As we will see in the next section, in the case of the EPR experiments that have been performed up to now the QED prediction for the correlations is very close to that obtained in Quantum Mechanics by ignoring the soft photons, so that it can still agree with the data within the experimental errors. However, even a very small probability for soft photons creation is sufficient to forbid any certain prediction for the measurement on B as a consequence of the measurement on A, and this is enough to remove the original EPR paradox, as we have seen. This implies that the experimental study of the correlations cannot be used to decide about the original EPR paradox; it can be used only to disprove the Hidden Variable solution. In other words, the equivalence between the original EPR paradox and its version in terms of the correlations, as worked out by Bell, would hold only if the theoretical correlations were strictly maximal (i.e. if the soft photons did not exist). On the other hand, the observation of a single event showing an apparent violation of the considered conservation law would be an evidence in favor of the present solution for the EPR paradox, since it would confirm that no certain prediction can be made on the state of B after measuring on A.

Notice also that this solution to the EPR paradox is based on two points: the existence of massless particles, the photons; and of the fermion-photon vertex, that allows photons to be created in any external line of the relevant Feynman diagrams. But it is well known that both the electromagnetic vertex and the masslessness of the photon are the direct consequences of the local gauge symmetry. Not only the local symmetry defines the theory, but it also protects against the EPR paradox and the violation of local realism.

## V The QED prediction for the correlations

Even though we have found that the study of the correlations is not relevant for the original EPR paradox, we have to check that the QED predictions still agree with the experiments. The calculation can be done by using the methods discussed in Ref. Weinberg (1995), and the result depends on the actual selectivity in energy and momentum of the experimental setting. Here, I will just provide a rough argument to show that the correlations are usually not expected to be seriously modified by the soft photons creation.

For simplicity, I will consider an ideal EPR experiment involving two charged spin 1/2 particles created after the decay of a zero spin system (let us forget here the difficulty in the measurement of the spin of the charged particles). In this case, the relevant correlation functions are the average values of the products of the components $`S_\stackrel{}{u}(A)`$ and $`S_\stackrel{}{v}(B)`$ of the spins of the two particles along arbitrary axes $`\stackrel{}{u}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{v}`$ Bransden and Joachain (2000). For instance, let $`\stackrel{}{u}=\stackrel{}{v}`$, chosen to be the z axis. If we do not take into account the soft photons, according to Quantum Mechanics the two particles must have opposite spins in order to conserve the total angular momentum. Then we get

$$<S_z(A)S_z(B)>=\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{4}.$$
(1)
Notice that this is the maximal correlation (in absolute value) that can be achieved for two observables whose eigenvalues are $`\pm \mathrm{}/2`$. (If the spins were completely independent, $`<S_z(A)S_z(B)>=<S_z(A)><S_z(B)>=0`$.)

In general, allowing for the soft photons creation through diagrams similar to that of Fig. 1, the correlation will be smaller than maximal. Now, as shown in Chapter 13 of Ref. Weinberg (1995), in the limit where the energy of the soft photons is neglected the helicities of the two fermion will remain opposite. Therefore, the correction to Eq. (1) due to diagrams such as that of Fig. 1 is suppressed by powers of $`\left(\frac{E_{soft}}{E}\right)^2`$, where $`E`$ is the “hard” fermions energy and $`E_{soft}`$ is the typical soft photons energy (essentially, it is the “infrared cutoff” introduced in Ref. Weinberg (1995)). This parameter depends on the experimental settings, but it can be made small by increasing the energy selectivity in the observation of particles A and B. Moreover, in a “selective enough” experimental setting, the two particles will be detected in opposite directions with small angular indetermination, then the total transversal momenta of the soft photons will have a limited phase space available, and this will result in a further suppression of the corresponding diagrams. Diagrams involving an increasing number of soft photons will also be suppressed by the corresponding powers of the fine structure constant $`\alpha 1/137`$. For all these reasons, in the usual EPR experiments we expect that the correlation will be close to that computed using the “entanglement” theory, and the agreement with the data will not be spoiled within the experimental errors.

However, as we have discussed, even a very small probability for soft photons creation is sufficient to save the theory from the original EPR paradox, since it prevents the possibility of a certain prediction on the single event. For instance, in event involving a single photon travelling close to the direction of the two particles A and B, the two fermion helicities will most probably be found parallel rather than antiparallel, in order to cancel the $`\pm \mathrm{}`$ helicity of the photon.

A similar result can be found in the case of the actual EPR photons experiments. In fact, the probability due to the relevant diagram (Fig. 3) is suppressed by four powers of the fine structure constant, by the reduced phase space and by the electron propagators in the loop (the mass of the electron is large as compared with the typical energy of the “hard” photons involved in the experiment, which are typically in the eV range). Therefore, the prediction obtained in QED, taking into account the soft photons, is expected to be very close to that of the previous approach, and will still agree with the present experimental results.

## VI The problem of the apparent nonlocality of the QED correlations

In the QED correlations that we have discussed above, the conservation laws hold for the set of particles A and B and all the possible soft photons. Everything goes as though there were a secret agreement amongst all the distant particles that can appear in a single event (including those that are not observed). This fact is often interpreted as a sign of some “quantum nonlocality”. Before discussing this point, I would like to remember that this problem of the EPR correlations is not the EPR paradox, that is removed by taking into account the uncertainty on the soft photons (see sections II and IV above). On the other hand, the correlations do not imply any direct violation of Special Relativity, since they are merely a statistical property (at least, this was the point of view of Einstein and collaborators, see also few lines below).

In principle, it could be hoped that such an apparent nonlocality of the correlations could be used to save some supposed applications of the EPR paradox, such as teleportation Bennet et al. (1993), that might thus be interpreted as intrinsically statistical processes. For instance, if teleportation is realized using (“hard”) photons in the eV range, the probability for soft photons creation is very small, as we have discussed above, and the existing theory could be thought to be a good approximation. However, I think that a deep study of the measurement problem is needed to prove whether such an interpretation can be correct. This point is of extreme importance and urgency, since teleportation is presently used as a base for Quantum Information Theory and Quantum Computing.

Here, I will provide a possible qualitative argument against the nonlocality interpretation of the correlations, without pretending it to be definitive, in order to stimulate a debate on such an urgent problem. In fact, in QED the correlations are obtained from a covariant Lagrangian density that only involves local interactions; they are causal and the prediction for them is deterministic Weinberg (1995). The fact that the Feynman diagrams of the kind of Figs. 1 and 3 imply a conservation of energy, momentum, angular momentum, etc., amongst the external legs, is a causal, deterministic consequence of the initial “in” state and the local interaction that occurs at the production point. Therefore, I think that it is not correct to interpret the global conservation law as a result of an “instantaneous agreement” occurring at the moment of the measurement, since the correlations showing such a global conservation are calculated as a deterministic result of the evolution from the common origin of the particles A, B and the soft photons. In other words, the global conservation is merely a causal consequence of the local conservation law. No mysterious action at a distance is then working. The real “quantum mystery” is the wave-particle duality, with the localization of the particles in the single events. But the amplitude of probability is a wave, whose evolution respects causality and locality. I think that for this reason Einstein and collaborators in Ref. Einstein et al. (1935) were not concerned with the (nonmaximal) probabilities or correlations, and they were so careful in defining the paradox as a problem occurring if A and B were perfectly “entangled” (“with certainty, i.e. with probability equal to one”, as they say explicitly). Therefore, since we have found that this original paradox (i.e. the “perfect entanglement”) is removed by the soft photons mechanism (even with a very small probability for them to be created), I think that also the nonlocality interpretation of the correlations is undermined. At least, such a “sort of nonlocality”, that (roughly speaking) originates from the causal and local propagation of a “wave” from the production point, does not correspond to any mysterious action at a distance, and cannot be used e.g. as a base for teleportation.

## VII Conclusions

To conclude, I have shown that QED is protected from the original EPR paradox by the local gauge symmetry. This corresponds to the fact that it allows for the creation of an arbitrary number of soft photons in coincidence with the observed particles in an EPR experiment. This mechanism would be confirmed by the experimental observation of an apparent symmetry violation in a single event. On the other hand, the correlations are expected to be smaller than those calculated by ignoring the soft photons, but in the case of the actual EPR experiments that have been realized up to now the correction is expected to be very small, so that the agreement of the Quantum Theory with the present data is not spoiled. Such correlations are usually thought to be by themselves a sign of a “quantum nonlocality”. Although here I have already presented an argument against such an interpretation, this problem deserves further research, which is particularly urgent in order to decide about the actual viability of several supposed applications of the Quantum Theory that were based on the EPR paradox.

###### Acknowledgements.

It is a pleasure to thank Humberto Michinel for stimulating discussions and help, and Esther Pérez, Rafael A. Porto, Uwe Trittmann and Ruth García Fernández for useful comments.


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# Low-temperature specific heat and thermal conductivity of glycerol

## Abstract

We have measured the thermal conductivity of glassy glycerol between 1.5 K and 100 K, as well as the specific heat of both glassy and crystalline phases of glycerol between 0.5 K and 25 K. We discuss both low-temperature properties of this typical molecular glass in terms of the soft-potential model. Our finding of an excellent agreement between its predictions and experimental data for these two independent measurements constitutes a robust proof of the capabilities of the soft-potential model to account for the low-temperature properties of glasses in a wide temperature range.

It is well established ZP ; stephens  that glasses or amorphous solids exhibit thermal properties very different from those of crystalline solids and, even more strikingly, very similar among themselves irrespective of the type of material, chemical bonding, etc. At temperatures $`T<1`$ K, the specific heat $`C_p`$ of non-metallic glasses is significantly larger and the thermal conductivity $`\kappa `$ orders of magnitude lower than those found in their crystalline counterparts. $`C_p`$ depends approximately linearly ($`C_pT`$) and $`\kappa `$ almost quadratically ($`\kappa T^2`$) on temperature, in contrast to the cubic dependences observed in crystals for both properties, well understood in terms of Debye’s theory. At $`T>1`$ K, $`C_p`$ still deviates strongly from the expected $`C_{\mathrm{Debye}}T^3`$ dependence, exhibiting a hump in $`C_p/T^3`$. In the same temperature range the thermal conductivity exhibits a universal plateau.

In 1972, Phillips phil72  and Anderson, Halperin and Varma AHV  introduced independently the well-known tunneling model (TM), whose fundamental postulate was the ubiquitous existence of small groups of atoms in amorphous solids which can tunnel between two configurations of very similar energy. This simple model of two-level systems or tunneling states successfully explained the low-temperature properties of amorphous solids phil\_rev , though only for $`T<1`$ K. On the contrary, the also rich universal behavior of glasses above 1 K (the hump in $`C_p/T^3`$ and the plateau in the thermal conductivity, or the remarkable feature in the vibrational density of states $`g(\nu )/\nu ^2`$ at low frequencies known as the boson peak) still remains a matter of debate. One of the best accepted approaches to understand all the general behavior of glasses in the whole range of low-energy excitations is the phenomenological soft-potential model (SPM), which can be regarded as an extension of the TM. The SPM kki ; ikp  postulates the coexistence of extended lattice vibrations (sound waves) with quasilocalized low-frequency (soft) modes. In this model, the potential of these soft modes has a uniform stabilizing fourth-order term $`W`$. In addition, each mode has its individual first-order asymmetry $`D_1`$ and second-order restoring force terms $`D_2`$, which can be either positive or negative. Similarly to the TM, a random distribution of potentials is assumed: $`P(D_1,D_2)=P_s`$. The SPM has been developed kki ; ikp ; bggprs ; grbb ; gurevich ; rb  and reviewed parshin ; esqui  in earlier papers where the interested reader is referred to.

Glycerol \[C3H5(OH)3\] is probably the most widely studied wuttke  glass-forming liquid. Its high viscosity at a melting point around room temperature ($`T_m=291`$ K) provides experimentalists with a very convenient temperature range where the supercooled liquid can be studied. Below the glass transition at $`T_g185`$ K, the frozen-in liquid becomes a glass with a relatively weak, hydrogen-bonded network structure. Despite its good glass-forming ability, glycerol can also be obtained in an orthorhombic crystalline state koning , with four C3H5(OH)3 molecules per unit cell, building up a structure of infinite hydrogen-bonded chains FJB . Several measurements of the specific heat of this well-known glass have been indeed reported ahlberg ; craig ; leadbetter ; calemczuk , though not reaching temperatures below 1.5 K in any case. A broad maximum in $`C_p/T^3`$ was clearly observed leadbetter ; calemczuk  around 8.5 K, but the expected existence of tunneling states could not be determined, since it requires temperatures typically below 1 K. Furthermore, Calemczuk et al. calemczuk  also measured the specific heat of the crystalline state of glycerol, but only down to 5 K, hence not reaching temperatures low enough as to assess its Debye coefficient. On the other hand, there are no published thermal-conductivity data at low temperatures neither for glycerol nor for any other similar molecular glass. This is very probably due to the experimental difficulties of adapting the thermal-conductivity technique to a sample which is liquid at ambient temperature and must be thermally controlled in situ to freeze it into the glass state, maintaining at the same time an appropriate geometry and a moderate heat flow for the thermal conductivity to be correctly measured. To our knowledge, only a few orientationally-disordered (“glassy”) crystals from other molecular liquids have been measured bonjour ; vieira .

In this work, we report thermal-conductivity data of glassy glycerol measured from 1.5 K to around 100 K, as well as specific-heat measurements of both glassy and crystalline glycerol between 0.5 K and 25 K. In addition, we make concurrent use of both thermal properties measured for the glassy state in order to test the validity of the soft-potential model in a typical molecular glass.

In Fig. 1(a), we show our thermal-conductivity data of glassy glycerol obtained by cooling in situ below $`T_g`$ at a rate around -1 K/min liquid glycerol (Merck, anhydrous, used without futher purification), placed inside a very thin-walled (0.2 mm) nylon tube. Standard steady-state techniques were employed. The thermal conductivity of the empty nylon tube was independently measured and subtracted. As can be seen, glycerol exhibits the thermal-conductivity behavior typical of glasses, with a plateau around 10 K quantitatively very similar to that of strong, network glasses as As2S3 and GeO2 stephens , i.e., a relatively high thermal conductivity among glasses. Therefore, glycerol could be a useful heat exchange medium at low temperatures when used as a glassy matrix.

Let us first analyze the thermal conductivity of glycerol within the soft-potential model. According to the SPM bggprs , the inverse mean-free path of the phonons carrying out the heat is simply the sum of three contributions: the resonant scattering of the sound waves by either tunneling states or by soft vibrational modes, and the scattering by classical relaxational processes in the same asymmetric double-well potentials responsible of the tunneling states. From these premises, and inserting the corresponding SPM expressions for these three inverse mean-free paths, the thermal conductivity $`\kappa `$ was found to be rb ; esqui

$$\kappa =\frac{2k_\mathrm{B}}{3\pi \overline{C}}\left(\frac{W}{h}\right)^2F(z),$$
(1)
where

$$F(z)=_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑x\frac{x^3\mathrm{e}^x}{(1\mathrm{e}^x)^2}\frac{z^2}{1.1\mathrm{tanh}(x/2)+0.7z^{3/4}+x^3z^3/8}$$
(2)
$`\overline{C}`$ is the usual (averaged over longitudinal and transverse acoustic modes) dimensionless constant of the TM, directly related to the universal plateau in the internal friction $`Q^1=(\pi /2)C`$, and $`z=k_\mathrm{B}T/W`$, where the energy $`W`$ is the aforementioned parameter of the SPM, which marks the crossover from the tunneling-states region at the lowest temperatures to the soft-modes region above it. Indeed, $`W`$ can be determined rb ; esqui  from the position of the maximum $`T_{max}`$ in a $`\kappa /T`$ versus $`T`$ plot:

$$W\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1.6}k_\mathrm{B}T_{max}.$$
(3)
$`T_{max}`$ therefore separates the low-temperature range where resonant scattering by tunneling states dominates ($`\kappa T^2`$) from higher temperatures ($`\kappa \mathrm{const}`$) where the soft modes are the main scatterers of acoustic phonons.

Fig. 1 shows that SPM eqs. (1-2) provide a good fit to thermal-conductivity data of glycerol from the lowest temperatures up to the end of the plateau around 30 K. The two parameters, $`W`$ and $`\overline{C}`$ are easily obtained rb ; esqui  from the $`\kappa /T`$ plot \[Fig. 1(b)\]: the maximum position gives $`W=4.3`$ K and its height $`\overline{C}=1.9\times 10^4`$. The latter constitutes indeed a prediction for the low-temperature internal friction of glycerol, never measured to our knowledge: its plateau value should be around $`Q^13\times 10^4`$, up to rb ; esqui  $`1.2W/k_\mathrm{B}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}5}`$ K, where the rise due to thermal relaxation should occur.

Our specific-heat measurements of glassy and crystalline states of glycerol are presented in Fig. 2 (in a log-log plot showing the whole low-temperature range) and in Fig. 3 (in a $`C_p/T`$ vs $`T^2`$ plot at the lowest temperatures to address the tunneling-states range for the glass and the Debye limit for the crystal). The heat capacity was measured in a 3He-cryostat, employing a low-temperature quasi-adabiatic calorimetric cell, similar to one previously used in a 4He-cryostat EtOH ; POH . The liquid glycerol is placed in a vacuum-tight, thin-walled copper can, with a fine mesh of copper fitted inside to facilitate thermal equilibrium. A thin gold wire was used as heat switch to cool the experimental cell. The subtracted addenda contibution to the total measured heat capacity at 4.2 K (1 K) was about 15 % (22 %) for the glass and about 30 % (50 %) for the crystal. The glass state was obtained by simply cooling the liquid from room temperature down to liquid-helium temperatures. After having measured its heat capacity at low temperature, glassy glycerol was slowly heated above $`T_g`$ (calorimetrically observed to take place at 185 K) until it crystallized around 250–260 K. Once this first-order, exothermic transition was completed, the sample was cooled again and the heat capacity of the crystal measured.

In Fig. 2, published data for the glass between 1.9 and 25 K from Leadbetter and Wycherley leadbetter  can be seen to show a very good agreement with our data. There is also a good agreement with data for the crystal above 5 K calemczuk . The low-temperature cubic Debye contributions are also indicated in that figure: for the crystal, it has been obtained from a least-squares linear fit below 1.5 K in Fig. 3, giving a Debye temperature $`\mathrm{\Theta }_\mathrm{D}=367`$K; for the glass, it can be estimated from zero-temperature extrapolations of elastic data schulz ; litovitz ; jeong  to be $`\mathrm{\Theta }_\mathrm{D}=317`$K. In contrast to the crystal, where $`C_p`$ holds the expected Debye behavior for $`T\mathrm{\Theta }_\mathrm{D}/50`$, the glass exhibits the typical excess over the Debye contribution in the whole low-temperature range. Within the SPM, these additional excitations are understood as soft quasiharmonic vibrations in single-well potentials responsible for the “boson peak” in $`C_p/T^3`$, together with tunneling states arising from related double-well potentials responsible for the quasilinear contribution. The latter dominates below the minimum $`T_{\mathrm{min}}`$ in $`C_p/T^3`$ given by $`W\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1.8}2k_\mathrm{B}T_{\mathrm{min}}`$ parshin ; esqui , and is more clearly observed in Fig. 3, where a linear coefficient $`\gamma =0.13`$mJ/mol$``$K2 can be obtained (i.e., $`\gamma =1.4\mu `$J/g$``$K2 that is very similar to those values found in typical network glasses ZP ; stephens ; phil\_rev ).

Finally, we wish to compare the specific-heat data of glassy glycerol with the behavior predicted by the SPM, once we have previously obtained its basic parameter $`W=4.3`$ K from thermal-conductivity data. As said above, the SPM postulates the coexistence of extended sound waves with quasilocalized modes, either tunneling states in double-well potentials or quasiharmonic vibrations in single-well potentials, with a gradual crossover between them characterized by the energy $`W`$. Therefore, we can write the specific heat for a glass as

$$C_p=C_{\mathrm{Debye}}+C_{\mathrm{TLS}}+C_{\mathrm{sm}},$$
(4)
where $`C_{\mathrm{sm}}`$ is the contribution of soft modes (see below), and the contribution of the tunneling states $`C_{\mathrm{TLS}}`$ is determined, as in the TM, by means of the well-known expression for two-level systems phil\_rev , using the correspondent density of tunneling states in terms of the SPM (eq. (4.7) in Ref. parshin  or eq. (9.30) in Ref. esqui ).

In the standard SPM, the density of quasiharmonic soft vibrations increases continuously with frequency as

$$g_{\mathrm{sm}}(h\nu )=\frac{1}{8}\frac{P_s}{W}\left(\frac{h\nu }{W}\right)^4,$$
(5)
where $`P_s`$ is the distribution constant of soft potentials. In the harmonic approximation, this leads to a specific-heat contribution from soft modes given by esqui

$$C_{\mathrm{sm}}=\frac{2\pi ^6}{21}P_sk_\mathrm{B}\left(\frac{k_\mathrm{B}T}{W}\right)^5.$$
(6)
The solid line in Fig. 2 shows the result of eq. (4), where $`W=4.3`$ K was taken from the thermal-conductivity measurement and $`P_s=1.6\times 10^{19}`$ mol-1 was simply determined to scale with experimental data.

Obviously, the real distribution of soft modes cannot grow with frequency $`g_{\mathrm{sm}}(\nu )\nu ^4`$ unlimitedly. Gil et al. grbb  proposed a gaussian distribution in the asymmetry of the soft potentials (hence multiplying eq. (5) by an integral factor, see eq. (9.40) in Ref. esqui ) based in a thermal strain ansatz, which without any further fitting parameter allowed them to account for the specific heat, thermal conductivity and vibrational density of states $`g(\nu )/\nu ^2`$ in the whole relevant range, including the “boson peak”. Alternatively, Gurevich et al. gurevich  argued that the simple picture of independent quasilocalized harmonic vibrations coexisting with sound waves should fail at the Ioffe-Regel limit, not far above the boson peak. The interaction between soft modes would lead to a reconstruction of the vibrational density of states at higher frequencies, where delocalized soft vibrations with $`g_{\mathrm{sm}}(\nu )\nu `$ should dominate, therefore also explaining the boson-peak feature. Furthermore, hybridization of acoustic phonons with quasilocalized modes has been proposed to set in around the boson peak elliott . For the sake of completeness, we also show in Fig. 2 by a dashed line the result of the total SPM prediction for the specific heat if the above-mentioned correction grbb ; esqui  of eq. (6) is used. As can be seen, the position of the maximum in $`C_p/T^3`$ (which only depends on $`W`$ and the glass transition temperature $`T_\mathrm{g}`$, hence being determined without any free parameter) is very well predicted, though its height is not so well accounted for. However, these quantitative agreements or disagreements of the SPM around or above the boson peak are perhaps not very relevant, since the low-energy limits of both independent quasilocalized modes and Debye acoustic phonons (note that even in the crystal, $`C_p`$ starts to deviate from the cubic limit above 5 K) should begin to fail there, for the reasons mentioned above. Nevertheless, one may conclude that the maximum in $`C_p/T^3`$ of glasses (i.e., the boson peak) is just the fingerprint of the end for the low-energy distribution of independent soft modes, which govern low-temperature properties and low-frequency dynamics of glasses.

In any case, it is noteworthy that with only a constant factor $`P_s`$, used as free parameter to fit the height of the $`C_p(T)`$ curve ($`W`$ was independently determined from thermal-conductivity data), the SPM is able to account consistently for the specific heat of this glass in the low-temperature range, from the tunneling-states region below 1 K up to the broad peak in $`C_p/T^3`$, including the crossover region around the minimum in $`C_p/T^3`$.

In summary, we have concurrently measured two low-temperature thermal properties of a paradigmatic molecular glass, glycerol, as well as the specific heat of the crystalline phase between 0.5 K and 25 K, hence being able to determine its Debye temperature. At lower temperatures, both properties for the glass exhibit a typical behavior indicative of the existence of tunneling states. Moreover, we have used these data as a new test of the SPM, which has been shown to successfully explain the specific heat and the thermal conductivity in a wide temperature range, also for a molecular glass such as glycerol.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was supported by MCyT (Spain) within project BFM2000-0035-C02-01.


text:
# High resolution simulations of star formation

## References

Bate, M. R., Burkert, A. 1997, MNRAS, 288, 1060

Boffin, H. M. J., Watkins, S. , Bhattal, A., Francis, N., Whitworth, A. P. 1998, MNRAS, 300, 1189

Morris, J. P., Monaghan, J. J., 1997, J. Comp. Phys., 136, 41

Whitworth, A.P., 1998, MNRAS, 296, 442


text:
# Criticality and oscillatory behavior in non-Markovian Contact Process

## I introduction

Studying phase transitions in the systems far from equilibrium has been a topic of growing interest in recent years . Specially systems with absorbing states which can not evolve further once they are trapped in one such state have been an interesting subject of research. Various models with one or more absorbing states have been studied which belong to a few universality classes and mostly to that of Directed Percolation (DP). According to the DP conjecture , every phase transition in a system with a single absorbing state having short range interactions with no special symmetry or quenched disorder  belongs to the DP class. There has been examples of absorbing state phase transitions without some of the DP conjecture conditions that still belong to the DP class such as systems with an infinite number of absorbing states . There has also been another universality classes for parity conserving systems  and as recently proposed, for systems with infinitely many absorbing states coupled to a conserved field .

Although the Markovian property have been implicitly accepted in these models it is not essential for a nonequilibrium phase transition. Usually, adding some kind of memory to the system, such that the system should refer to its history in order to define its future, gives rise to some new interesting behaviors that are absent in Markovian ones . However properties of non-Markovian nonequilibrium phase transition have not been studied.

In this paper a non-Markovian variant of the Contact Process (CP)  is introduced and the critical behavior is investigated. Standard CP in its continuous time version is a lattice model in which every empty site is being occupied by a particle with rate $`\lambda n/z`$ and every particle is removed with rate one, where $`z`$ is the coordination number, $`n`$ number of occupied nearest neighbors and $`\lambda `$ a positive parameter controlling the creation rate. The system has a second-order critical point at $`\lambda _c=3.2978`$ and it belongs to the DP class .

In this model I introduce a memory for each particle: every particle knows when it has been created. Like standard CP, every site is being occupied by a particle at a rate proportional to the number of its occupied nearest neighbors, while every existing particle will die exactly at age $`\tau `$. For large values of $`\tau `$ the particles live enough to reproduce plenty of another ones and the system can remain in its active state. As $`\tau `$ is decreased, each particle has less time to create another particles and for $`\tau <\tau _c`$ the system will be trapped in its absorbing state with probability 1, where there is no existing particle and no new particles can be born.

Attributing age to the particles in the CP model has been suggested earlier , but not in a way that leads to a non-Markovian model. Although some interesting alterations in the dynamical behavior of the system have been observed.

Non-Markovian property gives rise to some oscillations in the density of particles. These oscillations are also supported by the Mean-Filed approximation. Because of the non-Markovian property of the system, there is a delay parameter in the mean field equation and this reproduces the oscillatory solutions observed in the simulations. By mean-field approach, existence of the phase transition is justified and a critical age can be found, but like standard CP the critical behavior is not described completely.

In this paper, the critical behavior of the model is studied using the time-dependent Monte Carlo method. The critical dynamical exponents has been calculated, and shown to be in good agreement of those of DP.

## II Model

The model is defined on a 1-dimensional lattice and with continuous time. Every site is either empty or occupied by a single particle. There is a chance for a vacant site to be occupied provided there are occupied sites in its nearest neighborhood. A new particle is born in an empty site with rate $`n/2`$ ($`n`$ number of occupied nearest neighbors). Every particle will die exactly at time $`\tau `$ after its birth.

Obviously there must be a phase transition in the system with density of the particles as the order parameter. For small values of $`\tau `$ particles die fast and eventually the system is trapped in its absorbing state. For large $`\tau `$’s, particles have a large lifetime and reproduce sufficiently other ones to keep the system active. Fig. 1 shows a single cluster in a realization of the model for $`\tau =3.5`$ and up to $`t=100`$. As can be seen, every particle has a definite lifetime and here the system is in its active state.

Like CP, here the creation process is not history-dependent, however the death process is, and thus we have a non-Markovian process. To find out that how many particles are removed at each moment, we should know how many particles had been created at time $`\tau `$ earlier. Therefore a knowledge of only the present state of the system is not enough to find out the future states.

## III Mean-Field equation

Let $`\sigma _1(x)`$ and $`\sigma _0(x)`$ denote the state of site $`x`$, and $`\rho `$ be the density of particles. $`\sigma _1(x)`$ is 1 if the site is occupied and 0 if it is vacant, and we have

$$\rho =\sigma _1(x)_x=1\sigma _0(x)_x.$$
(1)
Therefore the rate of reproduction is

$$\sigma _1(x)\sigma _0(x+1)_x$$
(2)
it can be written in terms of the density-vacancy correlation function (the correlation of the of occupied and vacant sites)

$$C_{10}(\delta )=\frac{\sigma _1(x)\sigma _0(x+\delta )_x\rho (1\rho )}{\rho (1\rho )}$$
(3)
Hence the rate of reproduction is

$$r\rho _t(1\rho _t)$$
(4)
where

$$r=1+C_{10}(\delta =1).$$
(5)
Obviously $`C_{10}(\delta =1)`$ is negative (a particle reduces the chance of its nearest neighbors to be vacant), and thus $`r<1`$. In the mean-field approximation the correlation is neglected and we put $`r=1`$. Therefore the mean-field equation will be

$$\frac{d\rho _t}{dt}=\rho _t(1\rho _t)\rho _{t\tau }(1\rho _{t\tau })(t>\tau )$$
(6)
where the second term is the rate of annihilation at time $`t`$, equal to the rate of creation at time $`t\tau `$. This equation is true for $`t>\tau `$. I assume that all existing particles at $`t=0`$, gradually die during the time interval $`(0,\tau )`$. So for $`t<\tau `$ we have:

$$\frac{d\rho _t}{dt}=\rho _t(1\rho _t)\rho _0/\tau (t\tau ).$$
(7)
This equation can be re-written in the integral form. First by integrating Eq. (7)

$$\rho _t=_0^t\rho _t^{}(1\rho _t^{})𝑑t^{}\rho _0t/\tau +\rho _0(t\tau )$$
(8)
specially for $`t=\tau `$

$$\rho _{t=\tau }=_0^\tau \rho _t^{}(1\rho _t^{})𝑑t^{}.$$
(9)
By integrating eq. (6) and making use of eq. (9) we find

$$\rho _t=_{t\tau }^t\rho _t^{}(1\rho _t^{})𝑑t^{}(t>\tau )$$
(10)
It is a definite integral with a time dependent lower- and upper-limit. So although the integrand is non-negative, $`\rho (t)`$ may have a non-monotonic behavior.

Finding stationary density is not possible in the differential equation. Setting $`d\rho _t/dt=0`$ leads to nothing more than $`\rho _t=1\rho _{t\tau }`$ or $`\rho _t=\rho _{t\tau }`$. The former is irrelevant in the steady state and the latter is correct for every value of $`\overline{\rho }`$. However by setting $`\rho _t=\rho _t^{}=\overline{\rho }`$ in the integral equation (Eq. (10) ), it turns out that

$$\overline{\rho }=0$$
(11)
or

$$\overline{\rho }=11/\tau .$$
(12)
Thus there is a phase transition at $`\tau =\tau _c=1`$.

## IV Oscillations

It is being observed that the density of particles $`\rho `$ undergoes damped oscillations while approaching the stationary state. The solid line in the figure 2 shows one such oscillatory evolution of $`\rho `$. Simulations are done in a lattice of 10000 sites with periodic boundary condition. The plotted curves are averaged over 100 realizations for $`\tau =7`$. Period of oscillations is slightly greater than $`\tau `$. This kind of oscillations are present for all values of $`\tau `$, but they are weaker for smaller $`\tau `$.

The oscillatory behavior can be understood by paying attention to the history-dependence feature of the model. Since every particle dies at age $`\tau `$, the time evolution at time $`t`$ is coupled to the state of the system at time $`t\tau `$. A high creation rate at time $`t`$ is equivalent to a high annihilation rate at time $`t+\tau `$. So an increase in the density at time $`t`$ can lead to a decrease in it at some time later and naturally the period of the oscillations is of order $`\tau `$.

These oscillations are also supported by the mean-field approximation. The mean-field equation is a delayed nonlinear first-order differential equation that is able to have oscillatory solutions which do not exist in ordinary first-order differential equations. Figure 2 (dashed line) shows one of these oscillatory solutions for $`\tau =7`$. Period of oscillations in real model and Mean-Field are the same.

The delay time in the mean-field differential equation, can be eliminated by a Taylor expansion of $`\rho _{t\tau }`$. It basically contains derivatives up to infinite order. In fact here we have an infinite-order differential equation which is naturally able to demonstrate many complex behaviors. As in simulations, Oscillatory behavior is sensitive to changes in the value of $`\tau `$. It disappears for small enough values of $`\tau `$ and it is less damped for larger $`\tau `$’s.

## V Critical Behavior

In this section I present the results concerning the critical behavior of the system obtained from simulating the model. Simulation is made using the time-dependent Monte Carlo method . In this method, the simulation is started with the system in a state very close to the absorbing state that is all the sites are vacant except one in origin which is occupied. The age of this single particle is initially set to 0. The sites are updated parallel and after every time increment all existing particles become older by that amount. They die after growing up to age $`\tau `$.

I measure the average population of particles $`N(t)`$, averaged over all realizations, $`P(t)`$, the probability of not entering the absorbing state up to time $`t`$, and $`R^2(t)`$ the mean square spreading distance. As a result of the scaling hypothesis , at criticality, these quantities should scale algebraically as

$$N(t)t^\eta $$
(13)
$$P(t)t^\delta $$
(14)
$$R^2(t)t^z$$
(15)
So at criticality the log-log plot of these functions should asymptotically become a straight line with the slope equal to the dynamical critical exponents. The local slopes for the survival probability $`P(t)`$ are defined by

$$\delta (t)=\frac{\mathrm{ln}[P(t)/P(t/b)]}{\mathrm{ln}(b)}$$
(16)
and similarly for the other exponents. I usually use $`b=15`$. Away from criticality there are either upward or downward curvatures in the log-log plot of functions versus $`t`$ and also in the plot of the critical exponents versus $`1/t`$, depending upon the super- or sub-criticality of the system. By detecting the straight line from the curved ones, the value of $`\tau _c`$ can be evaluated with a good precision. Having $`\tau _c`$, the critical exponents can also be found.

Simulations are typically done up to time 400 (although many runs enter the absorbing state earlier) with a time increment of 0.004 for continuous-time simulation. Obviously this is equal to the maximum precision possible in determining $`\tau _c`$. Statistical quantities have been generally averaged over 10000 different realizations of the model.

Figure (3) shows the results of the dynamical simulations. In different panels local slopes as defined in eq.(16) for different dynamical critical exponents have been depicted against $`1/t`$. The best estimation for the critical age based on these graphs is $`\tau _c3.07(1)`$. For the critical exponents I find $`\eta =0.304(1)`$, $`\delta =0.1653(1)`$ and $`z=1.272(1)`$. These critical exponents are in good agreement with those of Directed Percolation and thus the system belongs to the DP class.

## VI Conclusion

In summary, a Non-Markovian version of the Contact Process is introduced. Particles have an age which determines when they are born and when they will be annihilated. Interesting oscillatory behaviors are observed in density of particles and the same oscillations are also present in the Mean-Filed approximation. Because of the non-Markovian property of the model there is a time delay in the mean-filed first-order differential equation which allows it to demonstrate oscillatory behaviors.

Applying time-dependent Monte Carlo technique, critical properties of the absorbing phase transition has been investigated and shown to belong to DP universality class. DP class is so extended to contain a non-Markovian model.

## ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank M. R. Ejtehadi and H. Hinrichsen for critical reading of the manuscript and stimulating comments and Stephan Haas for valuable supports. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation Grant No. DMR-0089882.


text:
# The Vanishing of the Theta Function in the KP Direction: a Geometric Approach

## 1. Introduction

The fundamental paper \[SW\] by Segal and Wilson on soliton equations leads to an explicit formula for computing the vanishing of the Riemann theta function in a direction which is natural from the geometric point of view. In order to present this formula, let $`C`$ be a compact Riemann surface (of genus $`g>1`$), let $`pC`$ and let $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ denote the theta divisor $`\mathrm{\Theta }\mathrm{Pic}^{g1}(C)`$. Also let $`\vartheta `$ denote Riemann’s theta function, for which $`(\vartheta )=\mathrm{\Theta }`$. For a point $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$, consider the embedding $`C\mathrm{Pic}^{g1}(C):q(qp)`$. The natural direction alluded to above is the tangent space $`X_p`$ to this embedded curve at $``$. Following \[SW\] the vanishing of $`\vartheta `$ at $``$ in the direction of $`X_p`$, denoted $`\mathrm{ord}_{}(\vartheta ,X_p)`$ is obtained by considering the infinite subset of $``$, defined by

$$S_{}=\{sh^0(((s+1)p))=h^0((sp))+1\}.$$

In fact, the sections of $``$ over $`C\{p\}`$ define an infinite-dimensional plane $`W`$, which is an element of the Sato Grassmannian and the vanishing of the tau function in the KP-direction is, according to \[SW, Prop. 8.6\], given by the codimension of $`W`$, which is explicitly given by the finite sum $`_{i0}is_i`$, upon writing $`S_{}=\{s_0<s_1<s_2<\mathrm{}\}`$. The tau function coincides, up to an exponential factor, with the Riemann theta function of $`C`$ (\[SW, Th. 9.11\]) and the tangent direction $`X_p`$ coincides with the KP-direction (see \[S, Lemma 5 and Appendix 0\]). Therefore, the order of vanishing is given by

$$\mathrm{ord}_{}(\vartheta ,X_p)=\underset{i0}{}is_i.$$

The purpose of this paper is to give an algebraic-geometric proof of this result. Our proof uses (only) the classical theory of linear systems on Riemann surfaces and it highlights the geometric meaning of the order of vanishing. As is pointed out in \[SW, footnote p. 51\] an independent (analytical) proof of this formula has also been given by John Fay (see \[F\]), by using the theory of theta functions.

The first step of our approach consists of an interpretation of the order of vanishing as the intersection multiplicity of the theta divisor with a copy of $`C`$, properly embedded (at least around $``$) in $`\mathrm{Pic}^{g1}(C)`$. If we pull back the theta divisor using this embedding we find a divisor $`R`$ on $`C`$ which is the sum of the ramification divisors of the maps

$$\phi _{}^k:C\mathrm{Grass}_{k+1}(H^0()^{}),$$

which are the natural generalizations of the morphisms $`\phi _{}:C(H^0()^{})`$ defined by the linear system $`||`$ (assumed here base point free). It follows that the order of vanishing is given by the multiplicity of $`p`$ in $`R`$, leading to

$$\mathrm{ord}_{}(\vartheta ,X_p)=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}m_ii.$$

where $`\{m_1<\mathrm{}<m_n\}`$ is the gap sequence $`G_p((np))`$ of $`(np)`$ at $`p`$. This formula is independent of $`n`$, which is assumed sufficiently large (e.g. $`n=g`$ will do). Noticing that for $`n=g`$ one has $`s_i=gm_{gi}`$ (for $`i=0,\mathrm{},g1`$) from which Formula (1) follows at once.

Notice that the Segal-Wilson formula for the vanishing of the tau function may also be applied in the case of tau functions that come from singular curves. It would be interesting to adapt our geometric arguments to this case, leading to a formula for the vanishing of the *theta functions for singular curves*, as proposed in \[SW, Remark 6.13\].

The structure of this paper is as follows. In Section 2 we fix the notation and we recall the notions of gap numbers for arbitrary line bundles. In Section 3 we translate the order of vanishing of the theta function in terms of intersection theory and we show that this order is given as an inflectionary weight. This is used in Section 5 to obtain an explicit formula, which we show to be equivalent to the formula by Segal and Wilson.

## 2. Preliminaries

In this section we introduce the notation and collect some results on curve theory. Throughout the whole paper $`C`$ denotes a compact Riemann surface of genus $`g`$ and $`pC`$ a marked point.

For a divisor $`D`$ on $`C`$ we denote by $`𝒪_C(D)`$ the corresponding line bundle and for a line bundle $``$ on $`C`$ its linear system is denoted by $`||`$. We use the standard abbreviations $`h^0()`$ for $`dimH^0(C,)`$ and $`(D)`$ for $`𝒪_C(D)`$, where $``$ is any line bundle and $`D`$ is any divisor on $`C`$. We will use the Riemann-Roch theorem in the form

$$h^0()=h^0(\omega _C^1)g+\mathrm{deg}()+1,$$

where $``$ is any line bundle on $`C`$ and $`\omega _C`$ is the canonical bundle of $`C`$.

We now recall the notions of gap numbers and inflectionary weights. For proofs and details we refer to \[Mi, Sect. VII.4\] and to \[ACGH, Ch. 1 Ex. C\].

Let $``$ be a line bundle on $`C`$ of positive degree and let $`qC`$. An integer $`m1`$ is called a *gap number for $``$ at $`q`$* if

$$h^0((mq))=h^0(((m1)q))1,$$

and the set $`G_q()`$ of gap numbers for $``$ at $`q`$ is called the *gap sequence of $``$ at $`q`$*; its cardinality is $`r=h^0()`$ and no gap number is larger than $`\mathrm{deg}+1`$. Writing

$$G_q()=\{1m_1<m_2<\mathrm{}<m_r\mathrm{deg}+1\},$$

we have that $`m_1>1`$ if and only if $`q`$ is a base point of $``$ and that $`m_r=\mathrm{deg}+1`$ if and only if $`=𝒪_C(\mathrm{deg}q)`$. For a general point $`qC`$ the gap sequence of $``$ at $`q`$ is $`\{1,2,\mathrm{},h^0()\}`$; a point $`q`$ for which the gap sequence of $``$ at $`q`$ is not of this form is called an *inflection point for $``$*. Notice that $`q`$ is an inflection point if and only if $`h^0((rq))0`$, where $`r=h^0()`$.

If the linear system $`||`$ is base point free the inflection points have the following geometric interpretation. Consider the morphism $`\phi _{}:C(H^0()^{})`$ defined by the linear system $`||`$. For a generic $`qC`$ there is a unique $`k`$-dimensional osculating plane to $`\phi _{}(C)`$ at $`\phi _{}(q)`$, yielding a well-defined morphism

(1)
$$\phi _{}^k:C\mathrm{Grass}_{k+1}(H^0()^{}),$$

called the $`k`$-th *associated map*. This way one arrives at $`h^0()1`$ associated maps $`\phi _{}^{i1},i=1,\mathrm{},h^0()1,`$ ($`\phi _{}^0=\phi _{}`$). In these terms a point $`q`$ is an inflection point if and only if $`q`$ is a ramification point of one of the maps $`\phi _{}^k`$. We denote the ramification divisor of $`\phi _{}^k`$ by $`R_k()`$ and we define

$$R()=\underset{k=1}{\overset{h^0()1}{}}R_{k1}().$$

The multiplicity $`w_q()`$ of $`q`$ in $`R()`$ is called the *inflectionary weight* of $`q`$ with respect to $``$ and is given by

(2)
$$w_q()=\underset{i=1}{\overset{h^0()}{}}(m_ii).$$

When $``$ is not base point free we define the inflectionary weights $`w_q()`$ by (2) and the ramification divisor $`R()`$ by $`R()=_qw_q()q`$. This divisor admits an alternative description as the zero divisor of $`W=W(z)(dz)^{\frac{n(n1)}{2}}`$ where $`z`$ is a local coordinate, $`n=h^0()`$ and $`W(z)=W(f_1,\mathrm{},f_n)`$ is the Wronskian with respect to any basis $`f_1,\mathrm{},f_n`$ of $`H^0()`$. In particular $`W`$ is a holomorphic section of the line bundle $`^n\omega _C^{\frac{n(n1)}{2}}`$.

Taking $`=\omega _C`$ one recovers the well-known notion of the gap sequence of $`qC`$, denoted by $`G_q`$, and the above definition of the inflectionary points and weights reduces, by a simple application of Riemann-Roch, to the standard definition of Weierstraß points and their weights.

Finally let us fix our conventions about the Jacobian $`J(C)`$ of $`C`$. By definiton $`J(C)=H^0(\omega _C)^{}/H_1(C,)`$, so that the vector space $`H^0(\omega _C)^{}`$ is canonically identified with the tangent space of $`J(C)`$ at every point. By the Abel-Jacobi theorem there is a canonical isomorphism $`J(C)\mathrm{Pic}^0(C)`$. Moreover every line bundle $``$ on $`C`$ of degree $`g1`$ induces an isomorphism $`J(C)\mathrm{Pic}^0(C)\mathrm{Pic}^{g1}(C),𝒫𝒫`$. For our purposes it is convenient to work with $`\mathrm{Pic}^{g1}(C)`$ rather than $`\mathrm{Pic}^0(C)`$. So in the sequel we identify $`J(C)`$ with $`\mathrm{Pic}^{g1}(C)`$ without further noticing, the underlying isomorphism (respectively line bundle defining the isomorphism) will always be evident from the context. The main advantage working with $`J(C)=\mathrm{Pic}^{g1}(C)`$ is, that we have a canonical *theta divisor* $`\mathrm{\Theta }=\{J(C)h^0()>0\}`$. By Riemann-Roch, $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ is invariant with respect to the natural involution

(3)
$$\iota :J(C)J(C),\iota ()=\omega _C^1.$$

More precisely we have $`h^0()=h^0(\iota ())`$ for any $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$.

We denote by $`\vartheta `$ the Riemann theta function on $`H^0(\omega _C)^{}`$ for which $`\pi ^{}\mathrm{\Theta }`$ is the zero divisor of $`\vartheta `$, where $`\pi `$ is the natural projection $`H^0(\omega _C)^{}J(C)`$.

For any $`J(C)`$ we have an embedding $`\alpha _{,p}`$ of $`C`$ into $`J(C)`$, given by $`\alpha _{,p}(q)=(qp)`$. Clearly for different $``$ and $`p`$ the maps $`\alpha _{,p}`$ only differ by a translation on $`J(C)`$.

## 3. Geometric description of the order of vanishing

Let $`J(C)`$ and let $`X`$ be a one-dimensional subvector space of the tangent space $`H^0(\omega _C)^{}`$ at $``$. Choose any point $`l`$ in the fiber of $`\pi `$ over $``$ and consider the affine line $`l+X`$ which passes through $`l`$ and which has direction $`X`$. The order of vanishing of $`\vartheta |_{l+X}`$ at the point $`l`$ is independent of the choice of $`l\pi ^1()`$. So define the order of vanishing of $`\vartheta `$ at $``$ in the direction of $`X`$, denoted $`\mathrm{ord}_{}(\vartheta ,X)`$, as $`\mathrm{ord}_l\vartheta |_{l+X}`$. If $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ does not contain the straight line $`\overline{X}=\pi (l+X)`$ then there exists a small neighborhood $`U`$ of $`l`$ in $`l+X`$ such that $`\pi (U)\mathrm{\Theta }=\{\}`$ and $`\mathrm{ord}_{}(\vartheta ,X)=(\pi (U)\mathrm{\Theta })_{}`$, the intersection multiplicity of $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ with $`\pi (U)`$ at $``$.

Let $`X_p`$ denote the tangent space to $`\alpha _{,p}(C)`$ at $``$. Notice that, as a subvector space of $`H^0(\omega _C)^{}`$, $`X_p`$ does not depend on $``$ but only on the point $`pC`$. We wish to compute $`\mathrm{ord}_{}(\vartheta ,X_p)`$ for an arbitrary $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$; if $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ then this order is trivially zero. It can be shown 111This follows from \[SW, Prop. 8.6 and Th. 9.11\] but a geometric proof of this (geometric!) property is unknown. that for all $`C`$, $``$ and $`p`$ that $`\overline{X}_p`$ is not contained in $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$, which is clearly true as soon as $`C`$, $``$ or $`p`$ is generic. For this the idea is to replace $`\pi (U)`$ by a a complete curve which, around $``$, looks like $`\pi (U)`$. Notice that if $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ we cannot use $`\alpha _{,p}(C)`$ because the latter does not necessarily intersect $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ properly. Consider for any integer $`n0`$ the morphism

(4)
$$\alpha _{,p,n}:CJ(C),\alpha _{,p,n}(q)=(nqnp).$$

Notice that $`\alpha _{,p,n}(p)=`$ and that for a small neighborhood $`V`$ of $`p`$ in $`C`$ the tangent space to $`\alpha _{,p,n}(V)`$ at $``$ is precisely $`X_p`$.

###### Lemma 3.1.

For all $`J(C)`$ and $`n>0`$ we have

1. $`\alpha _{,p,n}(C)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ intersect properly if and only if $`h^0((np))=0`$;
2. $`\alpha _{,p,n}(C)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ intersect properly if and only if $`h^0(\iota ()(np))=0`$.

###### Proof.

We prove (1), the proof of (2) is similar. Recall that an irreducible curve intersects a divisor properly precisely when the curve is not contained in the support of the divisor. So $`\alpha _{,p,n}(C)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ do not intersect properly if and only if $`h^0((nqnp))>0`$ for all $`qC`$. We claim that this is equivalent to $`h^0((np))>0`$. Indeed, by Riemann-Roch

$`h^0((nqnp))`$ $`=h^0(\iota ()(npnq)),\text{and}`$
$`h^0(\iota ()(np))`$ $`=h^0((np))+n.`$
So $`h^0((npnq))>0`$ for all $`qC`$ if and only if $`h^0(\iota ()(np))>n`$, leading to our claim. ∎

In particular, when $`|n|g`$ then

$$\mathrm{ord}_{}(\vartheta ,X_p)=(\mathrm{\Theta }\alpha _{,p,n}(V))_{},$$

where $`V`$ is a small neighborhood of $`p`$ in $`C`$. Pulling this intersection back to $`C`$ we get that for any $`|n|g`$

$$\mathrm{ord}_{}(\vartheta ,X_p)=\mathrm{mult}_p(\alpha _{,p,n}^{}\mathrm{\Theta }).$$

This multiplicity will be computed in the next section.

## 4. The divisor $`\alpha _{,p,n}^{}\mathrm{\Theta }`$

The aim of this section is to prove the following

###### Theorem 4.1.

For all $`J(C)`$, $`pC`$, and $`n>0`$ with $`h^0(\iota ()(np))=0`$

$$\alpha _{,p,n}^{}\mathrm{\Theta }=R((np)).$$

For the proof we need the following

###### Proposition 4.2.

For all $`J(C),pC`$ and $`n>0`$

$$\alpha _{,p,n}^{}𝒪_{J(C)}(\mathrm{\Theta })=((np))^n\omega _C^{\frac{n(n1)}{2}}.$$

###### Proof.

Step I: The case $`n=1`$ follows exactly from \[LB\] Lemma 11.3.4 with $`x=0,\kappa =`$, and $`c=p`$.

Step II: For $`n1`$ consider the difference map

$$\delta _{}^n:C^{2n}J(C),\delta _{}^n(p_1,q_1,\mathrm{},p_n,q_n)=(_ip_iq_i)$$

and denote by $`\pi _i^n:C^{2n}C`$ the $`i`$-th projection. We show by induction on $`n`$ that for all $`n1`$ and all $`J(C)`$

(5)
$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \delta _{}^{n}{}_{}{}^{}𝒪_{J(C)}(\mathrm{\Theta })& =\hfill \\ \hfill \underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\left(\pi _{2i1}^{n}{}_{}{}^{}(\omega _C^1)\pi _{2i}^{n}{}_{}{}^{}\right)& 𝒪_{C^{2n}}\left(\underset{1i<j2n}{}(1)^{i+j+1}(\pi _i^n,\pi _j^n)^{}\mathrm{\Delta }\right),\hfill \end{array}$$

where $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ denotes the diagonal in $`C^2`$.

For $`n=1`$ we have to show that

$$\delta _{}^{1}{}_{}{}^{}𝒪_{J(C)}(\mathrm{\Theta })=\pi _{1}^{1}{}_{}{}^{}(\omega _C^1)\pi _{2}^{1}{}_{}{}^{}𝒪_{C^2}(\mathrm{\Delta })$$

for all $`\mathrm{Pic}^{g1}(C)`$. According to the Seesaw Principle (see \[LB\] A.9) it suffices to show that the restrictions to $`C\times \{q\}`$ and $`\{q\}\times C`$ of both sides of the equation coincide for all $`qC`$. But since the composition of $`\delta _{}^1`$ with the natural embedding $`CC\times \{q\}C\times C`$ is the map $`\iota \alpha _{\omega _C^1,q,1}`$ and $`\iota ^{}\mathrm{\Theta }=\mathrm{\Theta }`$ we have, using Step I,

$`\delta _{}^{1}{}_{}{}^{}𝒪_{J(C)}(\mathrm{\Theta })|C\times \{q\}`$ $`=\alpha _{\omega _C^1,q,1}^{}𝒪_{J(C)}(\mathrm{\Theta })=\omega _C^1(q)`$
$`=\pi _{1}^{1}{}_{}{}^{}(\omega _C^1)\pi _{2}^{1}{}_{}{}^{}𝒪_{C^2}(\mathrm{\Delta })|C\times \{q\},`$
and similarly for the restriction to $`\{q\}\times C`$.

Now suppose $`n>1`$ and equation (5) holds for all $`n^{}<n`$. Restricting both sides of equation (5) to $`C^{2n2}\times \{p,q\}`$ and $`\{p_1,q_1,\mathrm{},p_{n1},q_{n1}\}\times C^2`$ for all $`p,q,p_1,q_1,\mathrm{},p_{n1},q_{n1}C`$, and using the induction hypothesis for $`n^{}=n1`$ and $`n^{}=1`$ respectively, the Seesaw Principle implies that also equation (5) holds.

Step III: Consider the embedding $`ȷ_p:CC^{2n},ȷ_p(q)=(p,q,\mathrm{},p,q)`$ and notice that $`\delta _{}^nȷ_p=\alpha _{,p,n}`$, so that

$$\alpha _{,p,n}^{}𝒪_{J(C)}(\mathrm{\Theta })=ȷ_p^{}\delta _{}^{n}{}_{}{}^{}𝒪_{J(C)}(\mathrm{\Theta }).$$

It follows that $`\alpha _{,p,n}^{}𝒪_{J(C)}(\mathrm{\Theta })`$ can be computed from (5). Since

$$(\pi _i^n,\pi _j^n)ȷ_p(q)=\{\begin{array}{cc}(p,p)& i,j\text{ odd}\hfill \\ (q,q)& i,j\text{ even}\hfill \\ (p,q)\text{ or }(q,p)& \text{otherwise,}\hfill \end{array}$$

we have that

$$ȷ_p^{}(\pi _i^n,\pi _j^n)^{}𝒪_{C^2}(\mathrm{\Delta })=\{\begin{array}{cc}𝒪_C& i,j\text{ odd}\hfill \\ \omega _C^1& i,j\text{ even}\hfill \\ 𝒪_C(p)& \text{otherwise.}\hfill \end{array}$$

It follows that the pull back by $`ȷ_p`$ of the right hand side of (5) equals $`^n(n^2p)\omega _C^{\frac{n(n1)}{2}}`$. This completes the proof. ∎

###### Proof of Theorem 4.1.

By the choice of $`n`$ we have $`h^0((np))=n`$ and the curve $`\alpha _{,p,n}(C)`$ intersects the divisor $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ properly. The line bundle $`((np))^n\omega _C^{\frac{n(n1)}{2}}`$ has two distinguished divisors, namely $`\alpha _{,p,n}^{}\mathrm{\Theta }`$ (according to Proposition 4.2) and $`R((np))`$ (according to Section 2). Moreover these divisors have the same support, since by definition $`q\alpha _{,p,n}^{}\mathrm{\Theta }`$ if and only if $`\alpha _{,p,n}(q)\mathrm{\Theta }`$, i.e., $`h^0((npnq))>0`$, and this is the case if and only if $`q`$ is an inflection point for the line bundle $`(np)`$. For generic $``$ and $`p`$ the line bundle $`(np)`$ admits only normal inflection points, so $`R((np))=_{i=1}^{n^2g}q_i`$ with pairwise different points $`q_i`$, and hence $`R((np))=\alpha _{,p,n}^{}\mathrm{\Theta }`$. This equality extends to all $``$ and $`p`$ for which $`\alpha _{,p,n}^{}\mathrm{\Theta }`$ exists and by Lemma 3.1 this is exactly the set $`\{(,p)J(C)\times C|h^0(\iota ()(np))=0\}`$. ∎

###### Remark 1.

Similarly one can show that if $`\alpha _{,p,n}(C)`$ intersects $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ properly, then $`\alpha _{,p,n}^{}\mathrm{\Theta }=R(\iota ()(np))`$.

## 5. Formula(s) for the order of vanishing

In this section we prove the following theorem:

###### Theorem 5.1.

For every $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$

(6)
$$\mathrm{ord}_{}(\vartheta ,X_p)=\underset{m}{}mg+h^0(((gm)p)),$$

where the sum runs over the $`g`$ integers $`m`$ satisfying $`h^0(((gm)p))=h^0(((gm+1)p))1`$.

We will obtain it as a direct consequence of the following proposition.

###### Proposition 5.2.

With $`n`$ chosen such that $`\alpha _{,p,n}(C)`$ intersects $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ properly (e.g., $`n=g`$), the order of vanishing of $`\vartheta `$ at $``$ in the direction $`X_p`$ is the inflectionary weight of $`p`$ with respect to $`(np)`$. Therefore,

(7)
$$\mathrm{ord}_{}(\vartheta ,X_p)=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}m_ii.$$

where $`\{m_1<\mathrm{}<m_n\}`$ is the gap sequence $`G_p((np))`$ of $`(np)`$ at $`p`$.

###### Proof.

According to Section 3 and Theorem 4.1 we have that

$$\mathrm{ord}_{}(\vartheta ,X_p)=\mathrm{mult}_p(\alpha _{,p,n}^{}\mathrm{\Theta })=w_p((np))=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}m_ii.$$

###### Proof of Theorem 5.1.

By definition the sum in equation (6) runs over the set $`G_p((gp))=\{m_1<\mathrm{}<m_g\}`$ of gap numbers of $`(gp)`$ at $`p`$. An immediate computation shows that $`h^0(((gm_i)p))=gi`$ for $`i=1,\mathrm{},g`$. So the assertion follows from Proposition 5.2 with $`n=g`$. ∎

We now relate Theorem 5.1 to the Formula (1), given by Segal and Wilson. Recall from the introduction the infinite set

$$S_{}=\{sh^0(((s+1)p))=h^0((sp))+1\}.$$

###### Proposition 5.3.

Denote $`S_{}=\{s_0<s_1<s_2<\mathrm{}\}`$. Then

$$\mathrm{ord}_{}(\vartheta ,X_p)=\underset{i0}{}is_i.$$

###### Proof.

Note first that $`s_0\mathrm{deg}1=g`$. For $`gsg1`$ we have that $`sS_{}`$ if and only if $`gsG_p((gp))=\{m_1<\mathrm{}<m_g\}`$, so that $`s_i=gm_{gi}`$ for $`i=0,\mathrm{},g1`$. On the other hand $`nS_{}`$ for any $`ng`$ so that $`s_n=n`$ for any $`ng`$. Summing up we find

$$\underset{i0}{}is_i=\underset{i=0}{\overset{g1}{}}ig+m_{gi}=\underset{i=1}{\overset{g}{}}m_ii.$$

Hence Formula (1) follows from Proposition 5.2. ∎


text:
# Associated Higgs boson production with heavy quarks at Hadron Colliders: impact of NLO results

## I Introduction

The possibility of discovering a Higgs boson in the range between $`115130`$ GeV is becoming increasingly likely. The Standard Model (SM) precision fits are consistent with a light Higgs boson Lepewwg:2001 . At the same time, the Higgs sector of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) requires the existence of a scalar Higgs boson lighter than about 130 GeV Heinemeyer:1998np . Both the Fermilab Tevatron and the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will focus on the search for a light Higgs boson. Since in the low mass range, below the $`W`$-pair threshold, a Higgs boson mainly decays hadronically into $`b\overline{b}`$ pairs, both the Tevatron and the LHC will have to optimize their search strategies in order to overcome the overwhelming hadronic background. This implies that all available Higgs boson production and decay channels have to be considered.

In this context, the associated production of a Higgs boson with a pair of top-antitop quarks has drawn increasing attention. In spite of the very small cross section, this production mode has an extremely distinctive signature, and recent analyses have shown that it can be within the reach not only of the LHC, but also of the Tevatron, if integrated luminosities of 15-30 fb<sup>-1</sup> become available Goldstein:2000bp . From ongoing studies incandela:2001  we learn that including $`p\overline{p}t\overline{t}H`$ among the Higgs search channels could lower the luminosity required for discovery of a SM like Higgs at the Tevatron by as much as 15-20%, given the high significance of the corresponding signature hobbs:2001 . If not at the Tevatron, this mode will surely be used at the LHC, where it is instrumental in the discovery of a light SM like Higgs TDRCMS:1994 ; TDRATLAS:1999 . The higher statistics available at the LHC will also allow a first precision measurement of the top quark Yukawa coupling at the 20% level.

In view of the relevance that this production mode can have in particular for the Tevatron, we have recently completed the calculation of the inclusive total cross section for $`p\overline{p}t\overline{t}h`$, for a SM Higgs ($`h=h_{SM}`$), at the Tevatron center of mass energy $`\sqrt{s}=2`$ TeV, including first order QCD corrections Reina:2001sf ; Reina:2001bc . The main impact of next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD corrections is in reducing the dependence on the renormalization and factorization scales of the Born level cross section enormously, giving us increased confidence in our theoretical predictions. We will briefly discuss the characteristics of our calculation in Sec. II, and present our results in Sec. III. This calculation has also been performed by the authors of Ref. Beenakker:2001rj , and results of our two groups are in very good agreement.

## II General Framework

The $`𝒪(\alpha _s^3)`$ total cross section for $`p\overline{p}t\overline{t}h`$ is defined as:

$$\sigma _{NLO}(p\overline{p}t\overline{t}h)=\underset{ij}{}𝑑x_1𝑑x_2_i^p(x_1,\mu )_j^{\overline{p}}(x_2,\mu )\widehat{\sigma }_{NLO}^{ij}(x_1,x_2,\mu ),$$
(1)
where we denote by $`_i^{p,\overline{p}}`$ the NLO parton distribution functions for parton $`i`$ in a proton/antiproton, defined at a generic factorization scale $`\mu _f=\mu `$. $`\widehat{\sigma }_{NLO}^{ij}`$ is the $`𝒪(\alpha _s^3)`$ parton level total cross section for incoming partons $`i`$ and $`j`$, made of the two channels $`q\overline{q},ggt\overline{t}h`$, and renormalized at an arbitrary scale $`\mu _r`$ which we also take to be $`\mu _r=\mu `$. We note that because of the large mass of the produced $`t\overline{t}h`$ final state, this process is very close to threshold at the Tevatron, for $`p\overline{p}`$ collision at center of mass energy $`\sqrt{s}=2`$ TeV. As a consequence, at the Tevatron more than $`95\%`$ of the tree level total cross section comes from $`q\overline{q}t\overline{t}h`$, summed over all light quark flavors, and the $`gg`$ contribution is completely negligible. Therefore we compute $`\sigma _{NLO}(p\overline{p}t\overline{t}h)`$ by including in $`\widehat{\sigma }_{NLO}^{ij}`$ only the $`𝒪(\alpha _s)`$ corrections to $`q\overline{q}t\overline{t}h`$. The calculation of $`ggt\overline{t}h`$ at $`𝒪(\alpha _s^3)`$ is, however, crucial to determine $`\sigma _{NLO}(ppt\overline{t}h)`$ for the LHC, since in $`pp`$ collisions at $`\sqrt{s}=14`$ TeV a large fraction of the total cross section comes from the $`ggt\overline{t}h`$ channel. The $`𝒪(\alpha _s^3)`$ total cross section for the LHC has been estimated within the Effective Higgs Approximation in Ref. Dawson:1998im . Full results are presented in Ref. Beenakker:2001rj  and will also appear in Ref. Dawson:2001gg .

The $`𝒪(\alpha _s^3)`$ parton level total cross section can be written as:

$$\widehat{\sigma }_{NLO}^{ij}(x_1,x_2,\mu )=\alpha _s^2(\mu )\left\{\widehat{f}_{LO}^{ij}(x_1,x_2)+\frac{\alpha _s(\mu )}{4\pi }\widehat{f}_{NLO}^{ij}(x_1,x_2,\mu )\right\}\widehat{\sigma }_{LO}^{ij}(x_1,x_2,\mu )+\delta \widehat{\sigma }_{NLO}^{ij}(x_1,x_2,\mu ),$$
(2)
where $`\delta \widehat{\sigma }_{NLO}^{ij}(x_1,x_2,\mu )`$ consists of both $`𝒪(\alpha _s)`$ virtual and real corrections to the Born cross section :

$$\delta \widehat{\sigma }_{NLO}^{ij}(x_1,x_2,\mu )=\widehat{\sigma }_{virt}^{ij}+\widehat{\sigma }_{real}^{ij}.$$
(3)
The virtual part of the NLO cross section contains UV divergences that are renormalized by introducing a suitable set of counterterms. It also contains IR singularities that are cancelled by analogous singularities in the real part of the NLO cross section and in the renormalized parton distribution functions.

The calculation of the $`𝒪(\alpha _s)`$ virtual corrections has required us to evaluate pentagon scalar integrals with several massive external and internal particles. These integrals were not available in the literature, and we have calculated them by reducing them to a linear combination of box scalar integrals, by applying the method originally introduced in Bern:1993em ; Bern:1994kr .

The $`𝒪(\alpha _s)`$ real corrections, i.e. the cross section for $`q\overline{q}t\overline{t}h+g`$, have been calculated using two different implementations of the Phase Space Slicing (PSS) method, with the introduction of one Giele:1992vf ; Giele:1993dj ; Keller:1998tf  or two cutoffs Harris:2001sx  respectively. In both cases, the IR singularities due to the emission of either a soft or a collinear gluon can be isolated in specific regions of the phase space, and calculated analytically, while the integration over the remaining phase space is performed numerically using standard Monte Carlo techniques. In fact, this is the first application of the one cutoff PSS method to a case with more than one massive particle in the final state. A detailed description of our calculation can be found in Ref. Reina:2001bc .

## III Results

All the results presented in this section have been obtained using CTEQ4M parton distribution functions Lai:1997mg  and the 2-loop evolution of $`\alpha _s(\mu )`$ for the calculation of the NLO cross section, and CTEQ4L parton distribution functions and the 1-loop evolution of $`\alpha _s(\mu )`$ for the calculation of the lowest order cross section, $`\sigma _{LO}`$. The top-quark mass is taken to be $`m_t=174`$ GeV and $`\alpha _s^{NLO}(M_Z)=0.116`$.

The importance of having calculated the total cross section for $`p\overline{p}t\overline{t}h`$ at the NLO of QCD corrections is manifest in Fig. 2, where we show, for $`M_h=120`$ GeV, how at NLO the dependence on the arbitrary renormalization/factorization scale $`\mu `$ is significantly reduced. For $`M_h=120`$ GeV, the NLO cross section varies in the range $`4.84.5`$ fb with a residual renormalization and factorization scale dependence of the order of $`8\%`$. For larger Higgs masses the cross section becomes much smaller, with values of the order of 1 fb for $`M_h=180`$ GeV, as illustrated in Fig. 2. Combining the residual scale dependence with the error from the parton distribution functions (6%) and from $`m_t`$ (7%), we estimate the uncertainty on our theoretical prediction at about 12%.

In Fig. 2, we also notice that the LO and NLO cross section curves cross at a scale between $`2m_t`$ and $`2m_t+M_h`$. If we define as customary a K-factor as the ratio between the NLO and the LO cross sections, $`K=\sigma _{NLO}/\sigma _{LO}`$, the K factor for $`p\overline{p}t\overline{t}h`$ turns out to be smaller than one for scales roughly below $`2m_t+M_h`$ and bigger than one otherwise. The dependence of the K-factor on $`M_h`$ is very mild, as shown in Fig. 3, where we plot the behavior of the K-factor for scales $`\mu =m_t`$ ($`K0.7`$) and $`\mu =2m_t`$ ($`K0.95`$). It is worth noting, however, that, given the strong scale dependence of the LO cross section, the K-factor also shows a significant $`\mu `$-dependence and therefore is an equally unreliable prediction. Therefore we would like to stress once more that we only discuss the K-factor as a qualitative indication of the impact of $`𝒪(\alpha _s)`$ QCD corrections. The physically meaningful quantity is the NLO cross section, not the K-factor.

## IV Conclusions

The NLO inclusive total cross section for the Standard Model process $`p\overline{p}t\overline{t}h`$ at $`\sqrt{s}=2`$ TeV shows a drastically reduced scale dependence as compared to the Born result and leads to increased confidence in predictions based on these results. The NLO QCD corrections slightly decrease or increase the Born level cross section depending on the renormalization and factorization scales used. The NLO inclusive total cross section for Higgs boson masses in the range accessible at the Tevatron, $`120<M_h<180`$ GeV, is of the order of $`15`$ fb.

###### Acknowledgements.

The work of L.R. (S.D.) is supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy under grant DE-FG02-97ER41022 (DE-AC02-76CH00016). The work of D.W. is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under grant DE-FG02-91ER40685.