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# Glassiness through the emergence of effective dynamical constraints in interacting systems

## 1 Introduction

Perhaps the simplest systems which display the slow cooperative relaxation characteristic of glasses are the facilitated kinetic Ising models, first introduced in , in which glassiness is not a consequence of either disorder or frustration in the interactions, but of the presence of kinetic constraints in the dynamics of the system. Depending on the nature of the constraints these models may behave as strong  or fragile  glasses, display stretched exponential relaxation , fragile-to-strong transitions , etc.

Kinetically constrained systems are interesting for several reasons. First, they are usually free of disorder or frustration, and the interactions imposed by the constraints are short-ranged. Second, their equilibrium static properties are trivial, so that their glassiness is a purely dynamical effect, in contrast to mean-field models  where statics and dynamics are closely related . Third, their low temperature behaviour is dominated by activated processes, which, although highly relevant for supercooled liquids near the glass transition, are not taken into account by mode-coupling theory  or in mean-field . Finally, the simplicity of these models may allow for exact solutions or at least a thorough analytical description of their behaviour, which can help to understand dynamically arrested systems in general.

The rationale behind the kinetically constrained approach was most clearly given in : it should be possible to describe the dynamics of a strongly interacting system which displays glassy behaviour in terms of hierarchies of degrees of freedom, from fast to slow, independent of the presence of disorder or even frustration; these hierarchies would be weakly interacting in the energetic sense, but their dynamics should be constrained, the faster modes constraining the slower ones. Systems with explicit kinetic constraints, like the spin facilitated models or the constrained lattice gases , represent one side of this picture, but concrete examples in which this full scenario is realized are much harder to find. The purpose of this paper to address this issue by describing a simple class of models of interacting spins with ‘normal’ dynamics which have a dual description in terms of free excitations whose dynamics is subject to effective kinetic constraints. They are thus an explicit realization of the constrained dynamics scenario of .

## 2 Models

Consider the following model: a system of Ising spins $`\sigma =\pm 1`$ on a triangular lattice, where each spin interacts in triplets with its nearest-neighbours lying at the vertices of a downward-pointing triangles

$$H_3=J\underset{ijk}{}\sigma _i\sigma _j\sigma _k$$
(1)
This system belongs to a class of models of Ising spins interacting with its neighbours through plaquette interactions, such that the spins and bonds live in isomorphic lattices and there is one bond per spin. The simplest example is the one-dimensional Ising model (see e.g. ). In two dimensions, in addition to model (1), there is the plaquette model on the square lattice

$$H_4=J\underset{ijkl\mathrm{}}{}\sigma _i\sigma _j\sigma _k\sigma _l$$
(2)
which is a special case of Baxter’s eight vertex model . These models can be generalized to higher dimensions. Four spins interacting in the corners of downward pointing tetrahedra of an fcc lattice would be a generalization of (1), while eight spin interactions in the vertices of cubes of a simple cubic lattice that of (2). The sign of the couplings is irrelevant for large systems, and even disordered $`\pm J`$ can be absorbed by a rescaling of the spins. In what follows $`J>0`$ is assumed.

Below I will mainly focus on the triangular model of Eq. (1), but it will be instructive to compare with the 1d Ising model and the square plaquette model (2).

## 3 Spin-defect duality

The common feature of the class of models of the previous section is that they all have, for appropriate boundary conditions, a one-to-one mapping between spin and bond (or ‘defect’) configurations. For the Ising model on the line this happens if one boundary is fixed, say, $`\sigma _0=1`$, and the other free. In this case the spin to bond mapping and its inverse simply reads

$$b_i\sigma _{i1}\sigma _i\sigma _i=\underset{j=1}{\overset{i}{}}b_j$$
(3)
Similarly, for the square plaquette model there is a $`1`$$`1`$ mapping if the spins on one boundary row and column are fixed, say, $`\sigma _{i0}=\sigma _{0i}=1`$, and the other boundary is left free

$$b_{ij}\sigma _{i1j1}\sigma _{ij1}\sigma _{i1j}\sigma _{ij}\sigma _i=\underset{k,l=1}{\overset{i,j}{}}b_{kl}$$
(4)
Notice that, while the bonds are defined locally in terms of its surrounding spins, the inverse mapping is nonlocal. In order to derive it I made implicit use of the effect that introducing an excitation has in the ground state configuration $`\sigma =1`$, i.e., how the spin configuration has to be rearranged to avoid any further defects.

For the more interesting case of the triangular plaquette model the situation is more complicated. The spin-to-bond mapping is again straightforward

$$b_{ij}\sigma _{ij}\sigma _{ij+1}\sigma _{i1j+1}$$
(5)
where the indices $`i`$ and $`j`$ run along the unit vectors of the triangular lattice $`\stackrel{}{a}_1\widehat{x}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{a}_2\frac{1}{2}(\widehat{x}+\sqrt{3}\widehat{y})`$. The inverse map can be obtained from the following observation . A ground state of the system can be constructed row by row: the state of one row of spins determines the following one. A row configuration can be specified by a dipolynomial (i.e., a generalization of a polynomial with terms with both positive and negative powers of the argument) $`P(z)=_n(12\sigma _n)z^n`$, where $`\sigma _n`$ are the spins on the row, and $`n`$ runs from $`L/2`$ to $`L/2`$, where $`L`$ is the horizontal length of the system. The following row $`\sigma ^{}`$ is then given by $`P^{}(z)=\widehat{T}P(z)`$, where $`\widehat{T}=1+z`$ is the operator which propagates rows, and the coefficients in $`P^{}`$ are taken modulo 2. Suppose a defect is created at position $`n=0`$ in a ground state of all spins up. The row just below the defect has a spin down at $`n=0`$ and its dipolynomial is $`P(z)=1`$. Then the $`m`$–th row below it will be given by $`P^{(m)}(z)=\widehat{T}^m=(1+z)^m\mathrm{mod}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}`$, which means that the propagation of the original spin down produces other down spins at the positions for which the combinatorial numbers $`\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n}{m}\right)`$ mod 2 are nonzero, a structure known as a Pascal triangle (PT), see Fig. 1. The spin configuration due to a configuration of defects is obtained by the superposition mod 2 of the PTs that each individual defect generates and the ground state on which the excitation has been produced.

If the system is of linear length a power of two and has periodic boundary conditions in at least one direction then there is a unique ground state given by all spins up, and the spin-bond mapping is 1–1 . Moreover, the dipolynomial $`P(z)`$ has to be taken modulo $`1+z^L`$ (spins $`\sigma _1`$ and $`\sigma _{L+1}`$ are identified), and, since $`\widehat{T}^L\mathrm{mod}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}=1+z^L`$, the propagation described above stops at the $`L`$–th row. For this case Eq. (5) can be inverted: the spin at site $`ij`$ is given by the superposition of the PTs of all the defects $`b_{kl}=1`$ with $`ilki`$ and $`lj`$,

$$\sigma _{ij}=\underset{l=j}{\overset{j+L1}{}}\underset{k=il}{\overset{i}{}}b_{kl}^{\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{lj}{ik}\right)}$$
(6)
Equation (6) is analogous to Eqs. (3) and (4). An important difference is that, while for the 1d Ising and square plaquette models a spin in the bulk is the product of $`O(L^d)`$ defects, for the triangular model it is given the product of $`O(L^{d_f})`$, where $`d_f=\mathrm{ln}3/\mathrm{ln}2`$ is the fractal dimension of the PT. Similar considerations apply to the higher dimensional models.

## 4 Symmetries

Consider now the symmetries of $`H_3`$. Suppose a whole row of spins is inverted. None of the bonds below that row is affected since pairs of spins on the row interact with spins in the next one. To leave the bonds immediately above unchanged it is necessary to invert every other spin in the preceding row. As one goes up the situation becomes more complicated, but eventually it can be seen that if one inverts two PTs of spins, as shown in Fig. 2, $`H_3`$ remains invariant. The choice of the initial row of flipped spins and the column from which the PTs stem is arbitrary, as is the orientation of the transformation, which can be in the three symmetry directions of the problem. This gives a total of $`3N`$ transformations. However, a bit of algebra with binomial coefficients shows that there are at most $`2L`$ independent symmetry operations. First, by combining transformations in two of the symmetry directions, say $`\stackrel{}{a}_1`$ and $`\stackrel{}{a}_2`$, gives a transformation in the third direction, $`\stackrel{}{a}_2\stackrel{}{a}_1`$. Second, only the choice of row is free, since the central column can be shifted by superposition of transformations in different rows.

The number of symmetries has to be the same as the number of ground state configurations. By looking at the cycles of the operator $`\widehat{T}`$  it can be shown that in general there are at most $`O(L)`$ ground states. For the special case of periodic boundary conditions of length a power of two, for which the ground state is unique, it is not difficult to prove that any transformation like that of Fig. 2 ‘wraps’ around on itself and becomes trivial. In that case $`H_3`$ has no exact symmetries.

Once again, the symmetries of $`H_3`$ are a complicated analogue of the ones in the 1d Ising model, which simply has the global inversion symmetry, and the square plaquette model, where $`H_4`$ is left invariant by the inversion of any row or column. In both these cases they are exact symmetries only for periodic or free boundary conditions.

## 5 Statics

With the information of the two previous sections it becomes easy to calculate the static properties of the models. If for each case the boundary conditions are chosen such that the spin-defect mapping is one to one, the bonds are noninteracting and the partition function is simply that of a system of $`N`$ free Ising excitations, $`Z_N=2^N\mathrm{cosh}^N(J/T)`$. Now, for both the 1d Ising model and the square plaquette model, we know from exact diagonalization of their transfer matrices  that for arbitrary boundary conditions the partition function per site in the thermodynamic limit is

$$\kappa \underset{N\mathrm{}}{lim}Z_N^{1/N}=2\mathrm{cosh}(J/T)$$
(7)
In the case of the triangular model, for linear size $`L=2^K`$ with periodic boundary conditions, the row-to-row transfer matrix has a single nonzero eigenvalue equal to $`\kappa ^L`$. For arbitrary boundary conditions it can be checked by numerical diagonalization that the largest eigenvalue is still $`\kappa ^L`$, so that in the thermodynamic limit the partition function per site is given by (7) irrespective of the boundaries. Probably this can be proved using the exact methods of . Similar evidence suggests that for the higher dimensional models Eq. (7) holds too.

The expectation value of bonds is

$$b=\mathrm{tanh}(J/T)$$
(8)
and the equilibrium energy density is, up to constants, just the concentration $`c`$ of defects

$$c=\frac{1}{2}[1\mathrm{tanh}(J/T)]$$
(9)
Using Eqs. (3)–(5) all spin correlation functions can be calculated. Since in all models a spin in the bulk is the product $`O(N^\delta )`$ bonds (the precise power depending on the model), in the limit of $`N\mathrm{}`$, one obtains

$$m\sigma =0$$
(10)
for all $`T>0`$, i.e., all models are disordered at any finite temperature.

Arbitrary correlation functions are computed in a similar manner

$$\sigma _i\mathrm{}\sigma _j=[\mathrm{tanh}(J/T)]^{𝒩_{i\mathrm{}j}}$$
(11)
where $`𝒩_{i\mathrm{}j}`$ is the number of bonds which enter in the definition of the product of spins $`\sigma _i\mathrm{}\sigma _j`$. Only operators for which $`𝒩_{i\mathrm{}j}`$ is finite in the thermodynamic limit have non-vanishing expectation values. As usual the 1d Ising model is the simplest, the product of two spins $`\sigma _i\sigma _j`$ corresponds to the product of all the bonds in between, giving the usual exponential decay of correlations with separation. In the square plaquette model all two and three point spin correlations vanish. The first nontrivial correlations are for quartets of spins in the vertices of rectangles, which corresponds to the product of all enclosed bonds.

In the case of the triangular plaquette model the simplest non-vanishing correlations are for triplets of spins located at the vertices of downward pointing equilateral triangles of side $`2^k`$, which is given by the product of all the enclosed defects which also belong to the corresponding PT,

$$C_{2^k}^{(3)}=\sigma _{ij}\sigma _{ij+2^k}\sigma _{i2^k,j+2^k}=[\mathrm{tanh}(J/T)]^{3^k}$$
(12)
Notice the exact scaling relation $`C_l^{(3)}=[C_1^{(3)}]^{l^{d_f}}`$.

The fact that most of the correlation functions are zero is a consequence of the multiple symmetries of these models and that there is no symmetry breaking in the thermodynamics: only spin products which are invariant under all the symmetry operations can have nonzero correlations.

## 6 Dynamics

While the statics of the class of models being discussed here is trivial their dynamics is not. Under a single spin-flip dynamics like Glauber or Metropolis all of these models, except, of course, the 1d Ising, become dynamically arrested due to the appearance of energy barriers to the relaxation.

Consider the case of the triangular model. A single-spin flip corresponds to flipping the three bond variables around it, see Fig. 3a. This means that an isolated defect is locally stable since any change in the spins around it creates a new pair of defects and thus increases the energy. Moreover, only pairs of defects at a distance $`l=2^k`$ can be relaxed by means of local spin moves, and the energy barrier is $`\mathrm{\Delta }E=k`$ (where we have set $`J=1/2`$), see Fig. 3b. As the system relaxes it has to cross barriers which grow as the logarithm of the size of equilibrating regions.

From the observation that barriers grow logarithmically it is straightforward to estimate the equilibration time. The rate of relaxation of an excitation of linear size $`l`$ is given by the Arrhenius formula $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(l)\mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{ln}l/T\mathrm{ln}2)`$. Thus, after time $`t`$ the average linear distance between defects is $`lt^{T\mathrm{ln}2}`$. The equilibrium value of this distance at low $`T`$ is $`l_{\mathrm{eq}}=c^{1/2}\mathrm{exp}(1/2T)`$, and hence the equilibration time is

$$\tau \mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{1}{2T^2\mathrm{ln}2}\right)$$
(13)
This supra-Arrhenius form is known as Bässler equation  and corresponds to fragile behaviour in the classification of Angell . The absence of any finite temperature singularity is consistent with the fact that model has no finite-temperature phase transition.

The existence of a hierarchy of energy barriers implies that the dynamics takes places in stages corresponding to the relaxation of a typical lengthscale at each stage. This is clearly seen in the decay of the concentration of defects after a quench from $`T=\mathrm{}`$ to a low temperature, Fig. 4a. After an initial $`T`$-independent exponential relaxation corresponding to the (barrierless) removal of pairs of neighbouring defects, the concentration displays “plateaus”, which are more pronounced the lower the temperature. These plateaus are the result of the system becoming trapped in locally stable configurations, and correspond to the different stages of the dynamics.

The dynamical behaviour of the triangular plaquette model is almost identical to that of the asymmetrically constrained Ising chain (or East model) . In fact, the typical distance between defects (and its the whole distribution) at each stage of the dynamics can be computed approximately using the independent interval method of Ref. . Fig. 4b shows that the agreement between theory and simulations is reasonably good . This means that in terms of the defect variables, the dynamics if effectively constrained as in the East model. The existence of a dual description in terms of interacting spins with standard dynamics and in terms of free defects subject to effective kinetic constraints makes this model an explicit realization of the constrained dynamics scenario .

The dynamics of the square plaquette model is somewhat simpler, although still activated. Since a pair of neighbouring defects can diffuse freely, isolated excitations only face barriers of constant size. Its glassy dynamics is strong, like the Fredrickson-Andersen model . The dynamics of the defects is effectively given by the constrained lattice models of covalent networks of Ref. .

The generalization to three dimensions of the triangular model is that of spins on an fcc lattice interacting with 4–spin interactions between nearest–neighbours on the corners of downward pointing tetrahedra. The energy barrier to the relaxation of excitations at a distance $`2^k`$ is in this case $`2k`$. In this model there are zero energy moves when two defects are next to each other, but, in contrast to the square model, these are not diffusive since every pair belongs only to one plaquette. The relaxation time is of the Bässler form, $`\tau \mathrm{exp}\left(2/3T^2\mathrm{ln}2\right)`$, and the behaviour is again fragile. Fig. 4c shows the decay of the concentration of defects after a quench to low temperatures. Notice that the length of the plateaus is now of two units of rescaled time $`T\mathrm{ln}t`$.

The symmetry considerations of the previous sections also apply to the dynamics. Since the evolution operator has the same symmetries as the Hamiltonian, dynamical expectation values of non-symmetric operators will vanish if the initial configuration is taken from a distribution which is also invariant, irrespective of whether the system is in equilibrium or not, as in the out of equilibrium regime after a quench from an initial infinite temperature state. This can be illustrated with the triangular model. Figs. 5a and 5b show that all two–point spin correlations functions vanish at all times after the quench, while the invariant combination of triplets of spins in downward triangles of length a power of two has a nontrivial behaviour in time. Fig. 5b also shows how the stages of the dynamics correspond to the relaxation of regions of size $`2^k`$.

## 7 Conclusions

I have discussed a class of non–disordered and non–frustrated spin models with local plaquette interactions which display glassy behaviour due to the presence of energy barriers to the relaxation. The low temperature dynamics is effectively that of free excitations subject to dynamical constraints.

While rather unrealistic, these models have several interesting features. They are explicit realizations of both sides of the constrained dynamics scenario. Since the dynamics is defined through their Hamiltonian, glassiness is not a consequence of ad hoc dynamical rules, as in models with imposed kinetic constraints. The fact that their statics is trivial but their dynamics glassy is consistent with recent observations in more realistic models . And all the interesting behaviour happens in the activated regime.

I warmly acknowledge the collaboration of Mark Newman in much of the work described here. I would also like to thank David Chandler and Arnaud Buhot for important discussions. This work was supported by the Glasstone Fund (Oxford).

## References


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# Experimental Results on the Diffractive Production of Light Vector Mesons

## 1 Introduction

Investigations of the exclusive production of vector mesons in electron-proton interactions by the H1 and ZEUS collaborations at HERA have yielded detailed information on vacuum-exchange dynamics, since the high flux of real and virtual photons from the electron beam provides a means of investigating such processes with high precision. The particular interest in the light vector mesons $`\rho ^0`$, $`\varphi `$ and $`\omega `$ lies in the opportunity to reach kinematic regions of momentum transfer in which effects of binding are small and the fundamental scaling properties of the underlying vacuum-exchange process are revealed. In contrast to studies of inclusive processes, decay-angle analyses in exclusive and semi-exclusive processes yield detailed information on the spin-density matrix, i.e. the helicity-transfer characteristics of the production mechanism. Since these are related on very general theoretical grounds to the scaling properties in field theoretical descriptions , stringent constraints on the phenomenological interpretation of strong vacuum-exchange mechanisms are obtained. In recent years, much theoretical work has been done on such interpretations, both for vector-meson electroproduction at high photon virtuality , and for photoproduction at high momentum transfer .

This report concerns recent results on elastic $`\rho ^0`$ electroproduction from longitudinal and transverse virtual photons, including a Regge analysis at high $`Q^2`$, investigations of the dependence of the spin-density matrix elements on proton dissociation and the momentum transferred to the proton, as well as scaling and helicity-transfer properties of $`\rho ^0`$ and $`\varphi `$ photoproduction at high momentum transfer. The results address quantitatively a variety of theoretical concerns. By comparing the properties of the photon/vector-meson transition for elastic electroproduction to those for the proton-dissociative process, one tests the interpretation of the process as diffraction, since any difference implies a correlation between the photon/vector-meson and the hadronic vertices. Any $`Q^2`$ dependence in an extracted Regge trajectory challenges a canonical assumption of fixed poles in Regge theory. The dependence of the forward cross sections on $`Q^2`$ confront recent QCD descriptions of diffractive processes which predict asymptotic dominance of the production of longitudinal vector mesons from longitudinal virtual photons, with a Q<sup>-6</sup> dependence modified by the $`Q^2`$ dependence in the gluon density and in the strong coupling. The transverse cross section is expected to be suppressed by a factor of $`Q^2`$, though corrections due to the endpoints of the quark momentum distributions in the meson mitigate this expectation. A related line of argument has been proposed to predict the dominance of longitudinal vector mesons at high $`|t|`$ in diffractive photoproduction, where $`t`$ is the square of the momentum transferred to the proton. Again, production of transverse vector mesons is expected to be suppressed by a factor of $`t`$, resulting in a prediction of $`\sigma /t(t)^4`$, modified by the $`t`$ dependence in the gluon density and in the strong coupling. These helicity selection rules in the dependence on momentum transfer are straightforward consequences of the two-gluon model for diffractive processes .

## 2 Scaling laws and helicity selection in vector-meson electroproduction

Figure 1 shows the recently obtained $`Q^2`$ dependence of the total $`\rho ^0`$ elastic cross section presented by the ZEUS collaboration .

A fit to the form $`(Q^2+\mathrm{M}_\rho ^2)^n`$ shows that the power $`n`$ varies with the lower bound on $`Q^2`$ chosen for the fit. For lower bounds greater than $`5\mathrm{GeV}^2`$, the fit is statistically consistent with a power of $`2.36\pm 0.04`$. The H1 collaboration has remarked upon the scaling of the total cross section, pointing out that the $`\varphi `$ and $`J/\psi `$ cross sections exhibit scaling behavior remarkably similar to that for the $`\rho ^0`$ when weighted with normalization factors corresponding to the quark-charge content of the meson, as shown in Fig. 2 .

However, each of the above observations is difficult to interpret phenomenologically, since the contributions from longitudinal and transverse photons are expected to scale differently, and the relative contributions are known to vary rapidly with $`Q^2`$, as shown in Fig. 3 .

This measurement of the ratio $`R=\sigma _\mathrm{L}/\sigma _\mathrm{T}`$ allowed extraction of the scaling properties of $`\sigma _\mathrm{L}`$ and $`\sigma _\mathrm{T}`$ separately, as shown in Fig. 4 .

The separation of the scaling properties of the cross sections for longitudinal and transverse photons was obtained by analysis of the polar decay-angle distribution. The hard scaling behavior is impressive, since the longitudinal cross section is even harder than a point-like-scattering (Rutherford) cross section. In the context of QCD calculations which model vacuum exchange as the exchange of a color-neutral pair of gluons, this indicates that the $`Q^2`$ dependence of the square of the gluon density compensates the leading $`Q^6`$ behavior by more than a factor of $`Q^2`$. Also remarkable is the hard behavior of the transverse cross section, which encourages a leading-order field theoretical interpretation as well. In the case of the production of transverse vector mesons, however, the QCD calculation is complicated by contributions arising from the endpoints of the quark momentum distribution in the vector meson , resulting in the necessity for modelling non-perturbative effects . It has been experimentally established that the spin-flip contributions are rather small ($``$ 10%) , so the observed $`Q^2`$ dependences in the cross sections for longitudinal and transverse photons are each determined by the helicity-conserving amplitudes to a good approximation.

The ratio of $`\varphi `$ to $`\rho ^0`$ elastic electroproduction is shown in Fig. 5 .

Of particular interest is the observation that the $`Q^2`$ dependence for these two vector mesons becomes similar at the same scale at which the cross section ratio reaches the value obtained from simple quark-charge counting. Since the ratio $`R`$ for the $`\varphi `$ is known to exhibit a $`Q^2`$ dependence similar to that for the $`\rho ^0`$ , we can conclude that $`\sigma _\mathrm{L}`$ and $`\sigma _\mathrm{T}`$ show a hard scaling behavior for the $`\varphi `$ as well, and that the observed scaling is a property of the vacuum-exchange process little modified by meson binding effects.

Figure 5 also shows that the $`\omega `$/$`\rho ^0`$ ratio, which reached the value derived from quark-charge counting at low $`Q^2`$, does not rise with $`Q^2`$ in this range. One can conclude either that some $`\varphi `$ suppression mechanism is active at low $`Q^2`$, $`or`$ that there is an additional production mechanism which is similar for the $`\rho ^0`$ and $`\omega `$ at low $`Q^2`$ but absent in the case of the $`\varphi `$.

The H1 collaboration has investigated the dependence of the ratio $`R`$ and the combination of spin-density matrix elements $`r_{00}^5+r_{11}^5`$ on the momentum transfer to the proton . Figure 6 shows the dependence on $`t^{}`$, which denotes the momentum transferred to the proton after subtraction of the kinematic lower bound.

The ratio $`R`$ shows no strong dependence on $`t^{}`$ for $`Q^2`$ greater than a few $`\mathrm{GeV}^2`$. The sum $`r_{00}^5+r_{11}^5`$ must vanish for $`s`$-channel amplitudes which conserve helicity  in the photon/vector-meson transition. Such conservation of helicity is a simple consequence of angular momentum conservation at zero momentum transfer. These results show evidence for a nonzero contribution from helicity-violating amplitudes which increases with $`t^{}`$.

## 3 The Pomeron trajectory measured in $`\rho ^0`$ electroproduction

The ZEUS collaboration has extracted a measurement of the Pomeron trajectory in $`\rho ^0`$ electroproduction at $`Q^2`$ values of 3.5 and 10.0 $`\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ by measuring the energy dependence of the elastic cross section in four bins of $`t`$ up to a value of 0.6 $`\mathrm{GeV}^2`$. They find a value for the intercept of $`\alpha _{\mathrm{I}\mathrm{P}}(t=0)=1.14\pm 0.01(\mathrm{stat})\pm 0.03(\mathrm{sys})`$ and a slope of $`\alpha _{\mathrm{I}\mathrm{P}}^{}=0.04\pm 0.07(\mathrm{stat})_{0.04}^{+0.13}(\mathrm{sys})`$. One can conclude that the trajectory for this process has a higher intercept and less shrinkage than the soft Pomeron trajectory which successfully describes hadronic cross sections at low momentum transfer.

## 4 Vector-meson photoproduction at high momentum transfer

The ZEUS collaboration has extended its previous measurement of proton-dissociative vector-meson photoproduction  to higher momentum transfer ($`|t|\text{ }<11\mathrm{GeV}^2`$) by exploiting the higher statistics of the data set recorded in 1996/1997 . A small electron calorimeter positioned near the electron beam-pipe 44 m from the interaction point served to select events initiated by quasi-real photons in the process $`\gamma +p\mathrm{VM}+Y`$, where $`Y`$ represents a dissociated state of the proton. The resulting range in $`\gamma p`$ center-of-mass energy extends from 80 to 120 GeV. Since the transverse momentum of the final-state positron was required to be small by the geometrical acceptance of the calorimeter ($`Q^2<0.02\mathrm{GeV}^2`$), the transverse momentum of the vector meson, $`p_\mathrm{t}`$, provided an accurate estimate of the square of the momentum transferred to the proton via $`tp_\mathrm{t}^2`$. The differential cross sections $`\sigma /t`$ were obtained in the region $`|t|>1.2\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ and are shown in Fig. 7.

The measurements provide good sensitivity to the observed power-law dependence $`\sigma /t(t)^n`$ . Over the region in momentum transfer covered by the data, the power is found to be $`n=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3.31}\pm 0.02(\mathrm{stat})\pm 0.12(\mathrm{sys})`$ for the $`\rho ^0`$ and $`n=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2.77}\pm 0.07(\mathrm{stat})\pm 0.17(\mathrm{sys})`$ for the $`\varphi `$ .

Figure 8

shows the ratio of $`\rho ^0`$ and $`\varphi `$ cross sections as a function of $`t`$. Just as in the case of electroproduction, one observes that the momentum-transfer dependence for these two vector mesons becomes similar at the same scale at which the cross section ratio reaches the value obtained from quark-charge counting. Such an observation yields valuable information concerning the nature of the short-distance coupling which is free of the large uncertainties arising from meson-binding effects in calculations of the absolute magnitudes of the cross sections.

Figure 9 shows the values for the combinations of spin-density matrix elements measured in the $`s`$-channel helicity frame $`r_{00}^{04}`$, Re $`r_{10}^{04}`$ and $`r_{11}^{04}`$ as a function of $`t`$ obtained from this data sample.

The helicity-conserving (transverse-to-transverse) process clearly dominates, as shown by the small value of $`r_{00}^{04}`$, which is the probability for longitudinal production, and by the small value of Re $`r_{10}^{04}`$, which is sensitive to the interference between the helicity-conserving ($`TT`$) and single-flip ($`TL`$) amplitudes. The statistical power of the data also allow accurate determination of a non-zero double-flip contribution, as shown by the non-zero value of $`r_{11}^{04}`$ at high $`|t|`$, since it arises from the interference between the non-flip and double-flip amplitudes.

It should be noted that these results represent the first measurements of light-vector-meson photoproduction at values of $`t`$ comparable to those of $`Q^2`$ in inclusive deep inelastic electron-proton scattering which revealed the existence of fractionally charged proton constituents at SLAC in 1967. In contrast to the deep inelastic scattering process, this vacuum-exchange reaction is presumably sensitive to strong couplings rather than to the electric charges of the proton constituents. A transition to power-law scaling is observed, and the momentum-transfer dependence for the $`\rho ^0`$ becomes similar to that for the $`\varphi `$ at the same scale at which the cross section ratio reaches the value obtained from quark-charge counting. Since this is also the region in which the momentum transfer exceeds the masses, one can plausibly assume that the observed dependence characterizes the underlying dynamics independent of meson-binding effects. Given the phenomenological successes of QCD descriptions of diffractive electroproduction of longitudinal vector mesons during the past few years, it is remarkable that the observed power for the dominant transverse-to-transverse amplitude in photoproduction is lower than expected from two-gluon-exchange calculations . These calculations yield a leading $`(t)^4`$ dependence, further steepened by the running of the strong coupling constant: $`\sigma /t\alpha _\mathrm{s}^4/(t)^4`$. It is interesting to note that this expectation for the leading power behavior is not specific to QCD. Chernyak and Zhitnitsky have pointed out, for example, that these rules hold for the exchange of any vector or axial-vector current or for any Lagrangian with dimensionless coupling constants .

## 5 Conclusions

Investigations of the diffractive production of light vector mesons at HERA provide detailed information on the dynamics which govern vacuum-exchange processes. The dependence on proton-dissociation of the helicity-transfer properties of the virtual-photon/vector-meson transition has been shown to be weak, supporting the characterization of vector-meson electroproduction in this kinematic region as a diffractive process. A Pomeron trajectory has been measured in exclusive $`\rho ^0`$ electroproduction at high photon virtuality for the first time. This trajectory exhibits a higher intercept and weaker slope than does the trajectory measured in $`\rho ^0`$ photoproduction, which was similar to that determined in soft hadronic processes.

High-statistics measurements at values of both $`Q^2`$ and $`t`$ far exceeding the light-meson mass scale have been obtained. The expectation that meson-binding effects are small in this region are supported by the observation that the momentum-transfer dependence for the $`\rho ^0`$ becomes similar to that for the $`\varphi `$ at the same scale at which the cross section ratio reaches the value obtained from quark-charge counting. The common power behavior may thus be interpreted as characterizing the vacuum-exchange dynamics alone.

Decay-angle analyses have experimentally distinguished the momentum-transfer scaling properties of the various helicity amplitudes. The $`Q^2`$ dependence for the longitudinal elastic $`\rho ^0`$ electroproduction has been found to follow a power law with a power approximately one unit lower than observed for the transverse cross section, as expected on very general theoretical grounds. However, results on the semi-exclusive photoproduction of $`\rho ^0`$ and $`\varphi `$ mesons at high momentum transfer show a remarkably hard power law to govern the short-distance transverse-to-transverse vacuum-exchange amplitude. The fundamental nature of the theoretical basis which leads to the expectation of a softer spectrum is likely to motivate an intensification of the already widespread phenomenological activities which address the many experimental results on the diffractive production of vector mesons at HERA.

## 6 Acknowledgments

This work is supported by the Federal Ministry for Education and Research of Germany.

## References


text:
# Compressibility Divergence and Mott Endpoints

\[

## Abstract

In the context of the dynamical mean field theory of the Hubbard model, we study the behavior of the compressibility near the density driven Mott transition at finite temperatures. We demonstrate this divergence using dynamical mean field theory and Quantum Monte Carlo simulations in the one band and the two band Hubbard model. We supplement this result with considerations based on the Landau theory framework, and discuss the relevance of our results to the $`\alpha `$-$`\gamma `$ endpoint in Cerium.

\]

The Mott transition, namely the metal-insulator transition (MIT) driven by electron-electron interactions , is a fascinating phenomenon realized experimentally in many compounds such as $`\mathrm{V}_2\mathrm{O}_3`$ and Ni(Se,S)2 . The Mott transition concept is also relevant to elements in the lanthanide and actinide series . Viewed from a broader perspective, the Mott transition problem forces us to develop tools to describe materials where the electron is not fully described by either a real space picture or a momentum space picture, and continues to spur advances in many body and electronic structure methods.

On the theory side, the Hubbard model is the simplest Hamiltonian that captures some of the essential physics of the transition. It has been intensively studied in one dimension, but in this limit no finite temperature phase transitions can take place. In recent years, theoretical progress has been made in the understanding of the Mott-Hubbard transition using the dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT) . In this framework, Mott transition points can be viewed as bifurcation points of a functional  of the local Greens function G, or of its associated variable, the Weiss field which describes the local environment of a correlated site.

The case of the correlation strength $`(U)`$ driven MIT at half filling, is now well understood. At temperature $`T=0`$ there are two bifurcation points, one denoted by $`U_{c1}(T=0)`$ where the insulating solution disappears, and the other denoted by $`U_{c2}(T=0)`$ where the metallic state disappears in a fashion reminiscent to the Brinkman Rice scenario . It was found that in the $`U`$-$`T`$ phase diagram of the frustrated Hubbard model there is a first-order MIT line  that ends in a finite temperature second-order critical point $`(T_{MIT},U_{MIT})`$ which has the character of a regular Ising bifurcation with a rapid variation of the susceptibility connected to the double occupancy . At higher temperatures the $`U_{c2}(T)`$ and $`U_{c1}(T)`$ lines become crossover lines, which have a well defined experimental significance discussed in .

The zero temperature aspects of the doping driven MIT were studied in . It was shown that there are two solutions in an area bound by the curves $`\mu _{c1}`$, where the insulating solution disappears, and $`\mu _{c2}`$, where the metallic state disappears. The finite temperature aspects of the doping driven Mott transition have not been investigated so far. This is the subject of this paper. We will not consider the effects of long range order.

Our main interest is the behavior of the charge compressibility near the doping driven Mott transition in the paramagnetic phase at finite temperatures. Furukawa and Imada  pointed out that the compressibility diverges at the density driven Mott transition in 2-dimensions at $`T=0`$. This behavior has been also observed on other models of correlated electron systems such as the t-J model indicating that this phenomenon is quite general . Simple models of the Mott transition, such as the Gutzwiller approximation or the slave-boson approach predict a finite compressibility . It is very important to understand the physical origin of this result, and to see if it is realized in the DMFT solution of the Hubbard model. The previously investigated bifurcation points within the DMFT, have either a finite charge compressibility, such as in the $`T=0`$ density driven Mott transition, or a vanishing charge compressibility, as in the $`T=0`$ correlation driven transition.

Our study of the neighborhood of the Mott transition endpoint is relevant to materials which have a finite temperature isostructural phase transition such as Cerium. This can be seen by generalizing the derivation of the Landau free energy of . Near the transition, the free energy of more complicated models would have the same form as that studied in our paper.

We start with the m-band degenerate Hubbard model:

$`H\mu N`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{t}{\sqrt{z}}}{\displaystyle \underset{ijm\sigma }{}}c_{im\sigma }^{}c_{jm\sigma }+{\displaystyle \frac{U}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{i,m,m^{}\sigma }{}}n_{im\sigma }n_{im^{}\sigma }`$ (2)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{U}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{i,mm^{}\sigma }{}}n_{im\sigma }n_{im^{}\sigma }\mu {\displaystyle \underset{im\sigma }{}}n_{im\sigma }`$
The first term describes the hopping between nearest neighbors $`ij`$ on a lattice with coordination number $`z`$. $`m,m^{}=1,2`$ are the band indices and $`\sigma =,`$ labels the spin index. The parameter $`U`$ is the energy cost associated with having a double occupancy on each site. $`t`$ and $`U`$ are assumed to be independent of the band indices and we concentrate on the paramagnetic phase. In the limit of infinite dimensions, $`z\mathrm{}`$, this model can be mapped onto a single-impurity Anderson model (SIAM) supplemented by a self-consistency condition . The DMFT equation of the model reads

$$t^2G_{m\sigma }(i\omega _n)[\mathrm{\Delta },\alpha ]=\mathrm{\Delta }(i\omega _n)$$
(3)
where $`\omega _n`$ are the fermionic Matsubara frequencies, $`G_{m\sigma }`$ is the impurity Green’s function and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the hybridization function of the SIAM. Here, $`\alpha `$ denotes the control parameter such as temperature $`T`$, Coulomb repulsion $`U`$, chemical potential $`\mu `$, etc. We adopt a semicircular density of states, $`\rho (ϵ)=(\frac{2}{\pi D})\sqrt{1(ϵ/D)^2}`$ where the half-bandwidth $`D=2t=1`$ is our unit of energy.

We now propose a schematic phase diagram (Fig. 1) for the degenerate Hubbard model. The figure shows cross sections of the $`T`$-$`\mu `$ plane for various values of the interaction $`U`$. In the particle-hole symmetric case in the 1-band model the peaks have equal height. The shaded regions indicate coexistence between metallic and insulating solutions. The presence of a coexistence region and a first order phase transition in 2-band model was apparent in earlier Monte Carlo calculations . This also follows from the general form of the Landau functional of this problem , which has the same form for the 1-band and and the multiband situations. The finite temperature and general chemical potential aspects of this problem had not been discussed before in the literature.

On solving the DMFT equation (3) iteratively using quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) methods, we find that at integer filling, for smaller values of $`U`$ ($`<U_{c1}`$ in Fig. 1) the solutions show metallic behavior while for large values of $`U`$ ($`>U_{c2}`$ in Fig. 1) the solutions show insulating behavior. In Fig.2 we show the results for the doping (per spin) $`\delta =n1/2`$ as a function of the chemical potential $`\mu `$ obtained from QMC calculations with $`\mathrm{\Delta }\tau =0.5`$ in the single band case. The interaction value $`U=2.46`$ is inside the small region of coexisting solutions when the system is at half-filling . In the lower panel we show the results at several temperatures above the critical temperature $`T_{MIT}`$. As the temperature is decreased the curves develop a sigmoidal shape, which is a hallmark of the approach to a second order critical point in Landau theory, as in the familiar Ising mean-field model.

The results for the total occupation number $`n`$ as a function of $`\mu `$ in the 2-band model are shown in Fig.3. The QMC calculation was carried out at $`\mathrm{\Delta }\tau =0.25`$ and $`U=3.0`$. At higher temperatures, only one solution is present, whereas on lowering the temperature to $`T=1/40`$ both metallic and insulating solutions coexist.

To obtain coexisting solutions below $`T_{MIT}`$ we first start at high doping in a metallic state as indicated by the left arrow in the upper panel of Fig.2. For this, we use a seed from low $`U`$ ($`<U_{c1}`$ in Fig.1) and continuously evolve towards integer filling through the upper branch solution which always remains metallic with finite compressibility. We use a self-consistent solution as new seed for the successive calculations at smaller $`\mu `$. On the other hand, a second solution is also present at half-filling in Fig.2 (or near $`n=1`$ in Fig.3) corresponding to an insulting-like state, obtained by using a seed from large $`U`$ ($`>U_{c2}`$ in Fig. 1). This state is essentially incompressible as $`n`$ almost remains constant while increasing $`\mu `$. This can be continuously followed as $`\mu `$ is increased until the eventual jump of $`n`$ towards the unique solution present at the higher values of $`\mu `$. This procedure successfully determined the location of the coexisting region.

Locating these parameters in the schematic phase diagram, we find that the data for the 1-band model below $`T_{MIT}`$ in Fig. 2 corresponds to the region near the right peak at $`U_{MIT}<U<U_{c2}`$ in Fig. 1. As we move towards $`\delta =0`$ in the metallic phase, we cross the coexistence region and reach the $`\mu _{c2}`$ line at $`T=1/50`$. Upon lowering $`T`$ to $`1/64`$ we can approach $`\delta =0`$ without crossing the $`\mu _{c2}`$ line. In the 2-band model, it was found that at $`T=1/40`$ the insulating solution disappears as we move away from $`n=1`$ indicating the the $`\mu _{c1}`$ line has been crossed indicating that the data in Fig. 3 lies near the right peak at $`U_{MIT}<U<U_{c2}`$ in Fig. 1.

The region with two coexisting solutions has two different values of $`n`$ for given $`T`$ and $`\mu `$. These two coexisting solutions have different free energies and the actual thermodynamic state of the system will be that of minimum energy. Therefore, a jump in the particle occupation is predicted at a first-order line. The actual determination of this line, thus implies a precise calculation of the free energy which lies outside the scope of the present work.

From the $`n`$ vs. $`\mu `$ curves in Figs. 2 and 3 we computed the numerical derivative of the particle number with respect to the chemical potential to obtain charge compressibility $`\kappa `$. The results for $`\kappa ^1`$ as a function of the temperature above $`T_{MIT}`$ (Fig.4) indicate that $`\kappa ^10`$ as we pass through the MIT.

We also like to mention that in our simulations we observed characteristic effects of enhanced fluctuations and critical slowing down as the MIT is approached. Hence, simulations have to be done with extreme care, appropriately choosing the seeds for the iterative process and gathering many sample points for accurate statistics. In practice we use $`10^5`$ MC sweeps and run our calculations in an 8 node parallel cluster. As we approach the critical points, we used up to a few hundred iterations to obtain converged solutions.

We now complement our numerical results with Landau theory arguments. The mean-field equation (3) can be obtained by differentiating the Landau functional

$$F_{\text{LG}}[\mathrm{\Delta }]=T\underset{n}{}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }(i\omega _n)^2}{t^2}+F_{\text{imp}}[\mathrm{\Delta }]$$
(4)
with respect to the hybridization $`\mathrm{\Delta }(i\omega _n)`$ of the SIAM, which has the meaning of a Weiss field. $`F_{\text{imp}}[\mathrm{\Delta }]`$ is the free energy of the SIAM in presence of a hybridization. The Green’s function of the SIAM is $`G(i\omega _n)[\mathrm{\Delta },\alpha ]=(1/2T)\delta F_{\text{imp}}/\delta \mathrm{\Delta }`$. This Landau approach was used to describe the Mott transition at half filling .

As discussed in Ref., the finite temperature Mott transition is a regular bifurcation point. On differentiating the Landau functional twice we get a matrix of the form $`\delta _{nm}+M_{nm}`$ where

$$M_{nm}=\frac{t^2}{2T}\frac{\delta ^2F_{\text{imp}}[\mathrm{\Delta }]}{\delta \mathrm{\Delta }(i\omega _n)\delta \mathrm{\Delta }(i\omega _m)}|_{\text{cp}}$$
(5)
acquires a zero mode.

We now make a small change in chemical potential around the critical point and expand the mean field equation(3) to first order in $`\delta \alpha =(\mu \mu _c)`$, $`\delta \mathrm{\Delta }=\mathrm{\Delta }(\alpha _c+\delta \alpha )\mathrm{\Delta }(\alpha _c)`$. We get,

$$\frac{\delta \mathrm{\Delta }(i\omega _n)}{\delta \alpha }=\underset{m}{}\frac{1}{1M_{mn}}t^2\frac{G_{imp}(i\omega _n)}{\alpha }$$
(6)
From (3), the lattice occupation at any site which is identical to the local impurity occupation is related to the hybridization by $`n=(2T/t^2)_n\mathrm{\Delta }(i\omega _n)`$. Thus,

$$\frac{dn}{d\mu }=2\underset{n}{}\left[\frac{1}{1M}\right]T\frac{G_{imp}(i\omega _n)}{\mu }$$
(7)
Clearly, unless the derivative in the $`rhs`$ of (7) is exactly orthogonal to the zero mode of the matrix M, the bifurcation condition leads to the singular behavior of the compressibility. The QMC studies shown above demonstrate that this orthogonality does not occur. The divergence of the compressibility strengthens the liquid-gas picture of the Mott transition presented by Castellani et. al. .

From the experimental viewpoint, we believe that our results highlight important aspects of the physics of the $`\alpha `$-$`\gamma `$ transition in Cerium. The detailed description of the non-universal aspects of this material requires more quantitative studies or more elaborate models such as those studied by Held et. al. . However, the functional describing these complicated models near the finite temperature Mott transition would reduce to the one underlying the equations we studied. Hence it is plausible that the behavior of the compressibility that we identified in our basic model applies to the $`\alpha `$-$`\gamma `$ transition of Cerium as well. The divergence of compressibility in the Cerium $`\alpha `$-$`\gamma `$ transition therefore has an electronic origin and can be understood from model calculations without involving lattice degrees of freedom (which would renormalize values of the critical points without changing qualitative features). In our data, we find a decrease in compressibility during the transition from the insulating to the metallic phase which is similar to what has been measured by Beecroft and Swenson in . According to the results in , the compressibility in the low-pressure $`\gamma `$ phase (corresponding to the insulating region) is larger than in the high pressure $`\alpha `$ phase (corresponding to the metallic-like state) at low temperatures, and this effect becomes less noticeable at higher temperatures. Our QMC studies have shown that there is a region of coexistence where the metallic phase is extended into the stability region of the insulating phase, corresponding to the hysteresis observed in the data in . This was also found in X-ray diffraction studies on Cerium , where the $`\gamma `$ phase was quenched into into the region of stability of the $`\alpha `$ phase near the phase boundary.

In summary, we presented a careful QMC numerical solution of the doping driven Mott transition in the limit of large lattice connectivity. Our study unveils that the divergence of the compressibility is a generic feature of the confluence of the finite temperature Mott endpoint. We understood this divergence in terms of a simple argument based on Landau theory, which indicates that these results are more general than the specific models for which the numerical studies were carried out. Our results were found to be relevant to the physics of the Cerium $`\alpha `$-$`\gamma `$ transition.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS : This research was supported by the Division of Materials Research of the National Science Foundation, under grant NSF DMR 0096462, the Division of Basic Energy Sciences of the Department of Energy under grant US DOE, grant No. DE-FG02-99ER45761. M.J.R. acknowledges support of Fundación Antorchas, CONICET (PID $`N^o4547/96`$), and ANPCYT (PMT-PICT1855).


text:
# Lattice Quark Propagator in Landau and Laplacian Gauges

## 1 Introduction

The quark propagator is a fundamental quantity of QCD. Though gauge dependent, it manifestly displays dynamical chiral symmetry breaking, contains the chiral condensate and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\text{QCD}}`$ and has been used to compute the running quark mass (see Ref.  and references therein). Some model hadron calculations rely on ansätze for the quark propagator, yet on the lattice we have the opportunity to study it in a direct, nonperturbative fashion. Quark propagator studies can be complicated, however, by strong lattice artefacts .

We are required to fix a gauge and we choose the Landau and the Laplacian gauges . We use Wilson glue at $`\beta =5.85`$ ($`a0.125`$ fm) on a $`16^3\times 32`$ lattice and six quark masses from $`am=0.075`$ down to 0.0125 (115 to 19 MeV). Calculations were done on 80 configurations.

In the (Euclidean) continuum, Lorentz invariance allows us to decompose the full propagator into Dirac vector and scalar pieces

$$S^1(p^2)=Z^1(p^2)[i\gamma p+M(p^2)].$$
(1)
Asymptotic freedom means that, as $`p^2\mathrm{}`$, $`S^1(p^2)i\gamma p+m,`$ (the free propagator) where $`m`$ is the bare quark mass.

We use the “Asqtad” quark action , a fat-link Staggered action using three-link, five-link and seven-link staples to minimise flavour changing interactions along with the three-link Naik term and planar five-link Lepage term. The coefficients are tadpole improved and tuned to remove all tree-level $`𝒪(a^2)`$ errors. This action was motivated by the desire to improve flavour symmetry, but has also been reported to have good rotational properties.

From consideration of the tree-level forms of our two actions, we define the new momentum variables $`q_\mu \mathrm{sin}(p_\mu )`$ and $`q_\mu \mathrm{sin}(p_\mu )\left[1+\frac{1}{6}\mathrm{sin}^2(p_\mu )\right]`$ for the KS and Asqtad actions respectively. By considering the propagator as a function of $`q_\mu `$, we ensure that the lattice quark propagator has the correct tree-level form and hopefully better approximates its continuum behaviour. This is the same philosphy that has been used in studies of the gluon propagator (see Ref.  and references therein). See also footnote 6 in Ref. .

## 2 Laplacian Gauge

Laplacian gauge is a nonlinear gauge fixing that respects rotational invariance yet is free of Gribov ambiguities. Although it is difficult to understand perturbatively, it is equivalent to Landau gauge in the asymptotic region. It is also computationally cheaper then Landau gauge. There is, however, more than one way of obtaining such a gauge fixing in SU(N). The three implementations of Laplacian gauge fixing discussed are

1. $`^2`$(I) gauge (QR decomposition), used in Ref. .
2. $`^2`$(II) gauge, where the complex 3x3 matrix is projected onto SU(3) by maximising its trace. This will be discussed in more detail in an upcoming work on the gluon propagator .
3. $`^2`$(III) gauge (Polar decomposition), the original prescription described in Ref. .

The gauge transformations employed in Laplacian gauge fixing are constructed from the lowest eigenvectors of the covariant lattice Laplacian operator. The three implementations discussed differ in the way that the gauge transformation is constructed from the above eigenvectors. We can think of each projection method as defining its own Laplacian gauge. In all cases the resulting gauge is unambiguous for all configurations except a set of measure zero.

## 3 Results

We investigated the applicaton of tree-level correction to the quark propagator by comparing the $`Z`$ functions using $`p`$ and $`q`$. We saw that hypercubic artefacts were small when we used $`p`$ and they vanished almost entirely when using $`q`$. It is less clear which momentum variable should be used for the mass function, because at tree-level it is not multiplied by the momentum, but for consistency we use $`q`$ here as well. In the case of the mass function, the choice of momentum will actually make little difference to our results.

In Fig. 1 the mass function is plotted, in Landau gauge, for both actions with quark mass $`ma=0.05`$. We see that the KS action gives a much larger value for M(0) than the Asqtad action and is slower to approach asymptotic behaviour. The Asqtad action also shows slightly better rotational symmetry.

The Asqtad action displays clearly better rotational symmetry in the quark $`Z`$ function and, curiously, improved infrared behaviour as well. The Asqtad action also displays a better approach to asymptopia, approaching one in the ultraviolet. Furthermore, the relative improvement increases as the quark mass decreases. Comparing the mass function for the two actions at $`ma=0.0125`$, the lowest mass studied here, the low quark mass has introduced less noise into the propagator with the Asqtad action than with the KS action.

Fig. 2 (top) shows the $`Z`$ function for the Asqtad action in Landau and $`^2`$(I) gauges. Data has been cylinder cut  for easier comparison.They are in excellent agreement in the ultraviolet but differ significantly in the infrared. There appears to be some slight difference in the $`Z`$ function between $`^2`$(I) and $`^2`$(II) gauges.

Fig. 2 (bottom) shows the mass function for the Asqtad action in Landau and $`^2`$(I) gauges. The two mass functions agree in the ultraviolet and in the infrared, but the Landau gauge mass function sits slightly higher in the intermediate region. The mass functions are nearly identical in $`^2`$(I) and $`^2`$(II) gauges. We have also found that Landau gauge gives slightly less anisotropy at this lattice spacing.

$`^2`$(III) performs very poorly. We found that many of the matrices had vanishingly small determinants (compared to numerical precision), which destroyed the projection onto SU(3). Problems with $`^2`$(III) have also been seen in the gluon propagator .

A fit to each of the mass functions, including the chiral limit, was performed using the ansatz

$$M(p)=\frac{c\mathrm{\Lambda }^{1+2\alpha }}{p^{2\alpha }+\mathrm{\Lambda }^{2\alpha }}+m_0,$$
(2)
which is a generalisation of the one used in Ref. . $`\alpha >1`$ is increasingly favoured as the quark mass approaches zero. We show here, in Fig. 3, one fit for the mass function in the chiral limit.

As we have simulated on only one lattice, it remains to do a thorough examination of discretisation and finite volume effects. In forthcoming work we will also examine the gluon propagator in the Laplacian gauges.

## Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Derek Leinweber and Jonivar Skullerud for useful discussions.


text:
# Nature of order from random two-body interactions

## I Introdution

Nature of the mechanism generating order out of randomness constitutes one of the most fundamental issues of the contemporary physics. Theories based on various versions of ensembles of the random matrices provide one possible theoretical frame for studying such effects. The Gaussian orthogonal ensemble (GOE) constitutes the most common reference. The related concepts originate  from nuclear physics and prove very useful in the area of strongly interacting Fermi systems or in quantum chaos . At present they finds even broader applications in such diverse fields like the brain research , econophysics  and most recently in the ”Real-World” networks or graphs . Utility of the standard random matrix theory (RMT) results form the fact that a potential agreement reflects the generic properties of a system and thus in many cases it provides an appropriate null hypothesis. From this perspective the deviations are even more interesting as they can be used to quantify some properties which are nonrandom and thus system specific.

In this context the recently identified  preponderance of the $`J=0`$ ground states in strongly interacting Fermi systems, such as atomic nuclei, arising from random two-body interactions seems to indicate the effect reflecting a ’sparser connectivity’ than just pure random. Several closely related issues have also been addressed in the context of mesoscopic  and randomly interacting many-spin systems . One purpose of the present investigation is to identify the origin of the related physically relevant deviations from standard RMT and to quantify their character. Since it was nuclear physics which gave birth to RMT we believe that the present example, even though addressed in the nuclear context, may also stimulate much broader activity and understanding of similar effects in other areas.

## II Statistics of matrix elements

Our theoretical framework is thus analogous to this of ref. . Then schematically, indicating nevertheless all the relevant ingredients, the interaction matrix elements $`v_{\alpha ,\alpha ^{}}^J`$ of good total angular momentum $`J`$ in the shell-model basis $`|\alpha `$ can be expressed as follows :

$$v_{\alpha ,\alpha ^{}}^J=\underset{J^{}}{}\underset{ii^{}}{}c_{J^{}ii^{}}^{J\alpha \alpha ^{}}g_{ii^{}}^J^{}.$$
(1)
The summation runs over all combinations of the two-particle states $`|i`$ coupled to the angular momentum $`J^{}`$ and connected by the two-body interaction $`g`$. $`g_{ii^{}}^J^{}`$ denote the radial parts of the corresponding two-body matrix elements while $`c_{J^{}ii^{}}^{J\alpha \alpha ^{}}`$ globally represent elements of the angular momentum recoupling geometry. Structures analogous to eq. (1) can be identified in various other areas. The quantum open systems  or the neural nets  provide immediate examples.

In statistical ensembles of matrices the crucial factor determining the structure of eigenspectrum is the probability distribution $`P_V(v)`$ of matrix elements . Especially relevant are the tails of such distributions since they prescribe the probability of appearance of the large matrix elements. From the point of view of the mechanism producing the energy gaps they are most effective in generating a local reduction of dimensionality responsible for such effects. In principle, the probability distribution of the shell model matrix elements is prescribed by their general structure expressed by the eq. (1), provided the probability distributions of both $`g_{ii^{}}^J^{}`$ and $`c_{J^{}ii^{}}^{J\alpha \alpha ^{}}`$ are known. In general terms this structure can be considered to be of the form

$$V=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}V_i$$
(2)
and each $`V_i`$ to be a product of another two variables denoted as $`C_i`$ and $`G_i`$. By making use of the convolution theorem  the probability distribution $`P_V(v)`$ that $`V`$ assumes a value equal to $`v`$ can be expressed as:

$$P_V(v)=F^1[F(P_{V_1}(v_1))F(P_{V_2}(v_2))\mathrm{}F(P_{V_N}(v_N))],$$
(3)
where $`F`$ denotes a Fourier transform, $`F^1`$ its inverse and $`P_{V_i}(v_i)`$ the probability distributions of individual terms. Taking in addition into account the fact that

$$P_{V_i}(v_i)=𝑑g_iP_{G_i}(g_i)P_{C_i}(\frac{v_i}{g_i})\frac{1}{|g_i|}$$
(4)
one can explicitely derive the form of $`P_V(v)`$ in several cases. Assuming for instance that all the above constituents are identically Gaussian distributed (then, according to eq. (4), $`P_{V_i}(v_i)=K_0(|v_i|)/\pi `$ and thus $`F(P_{V_i}(v_i))=1/\sqrt{1+\omega ^2}`$ ) one arrives at

$$P_V(v)=\frac{|v|^{(N1)/2}K_{(N1)/2}(|v|)}{2^{(N1)/2}\mathrm{\Gamma }(N/2)\sqrt{\pi }},$$
(5)
where $`K`$ stands for the modified Bessel function. Asymptotically, for large $`v`$, this leads to

$$P_V(v)\mathrm{exp}(|v|)|v|^{N/21}.$$
(6)
For such a global estimate the identical Gaussian distribution of $`g_{ii^{}}^J^{}`$ is consistent both with the Two-Body Random Ensemble (TBRE)  and with the Random Quasiparticle Ensemble (RQE) . The only anticipated difference originates from the fact that in the second case the variance of the distribution drops down with $`J^{}`$ like the inverse of $`2J^{}+1`$ which is expected to result in a smaller effective $`N`$ as compared to TBRE. By contrast, in both versions of the above random ensembles the geometry expressed by $`c_{J^{}ii^{}}^{J\alpha \alpha ^{}}`$ enters explicitely. However, the complicated quasi-random coupling of individual spins is believed  to result in the so-called geometric chaoticity . For the extreme values of $`J`$ the underlying selection rules may however impose severe constraints in achieving such a limit. Below we therefore explicitly verify its range of applicability.

## III The model and results

The model to be quantitatively explored here consists, similarly as in ref. , of 6 identical particles (all single-particle energies are set to zero) operating in the $`sd`$ shell. Fig. 1 shows distributions of the corresponding geometrical factors $`c_{J^{}ii^{}}^{J\alpha \alpha ^{}}`$ for $`\alpha \alpha ^{}`$ and for several relevant values of $`J`$ and $`J^{}`$.

As one can see, the Gaussian may be considered quite a reasonable representation of the distribution of such factors for all combinations of $`J`$ and $`J^{}`$ shown, with one exception, for those which involve $`J=0`$. In this later case the distribution of $`c_{J^{}ii^{}}^{0\alpha \alpha ^{}}`$ resembles more a uniform distribution over a finite interval located symmetrically with respect to zero. One principal reason for this fact is that the $`6j`$ symbols which enter $`c_{J^{}ii^{}}^{J\alpha \alpha ^{}}`$ are here more selective. These empirical facts justify well the estimates of $`P_V(v)`$ based on eq. (5) for $`J0`$ and not so well for $`J=0`$. More appropriate in this particular case is to assume a uniform distribution of $`c_{J^{}ii^{}}^{0\alpha \alpha ^{}}`$ over an interval confined by say $`c_0`$ and $`c_0`$, i.e., $`P_{C_i}(c_i)=1/2c_0`$, retaining $`P_{G_i}(g_i)`$ in its original Gaussian form of course. By making use of eqs. (3) and (4) one then obtains

$$P_V(v)=\frac{1}{\pi }_0^{\mathrm{}}\left[\sqrt{\frac{\pi }{2}}\frac{\mathrm{erf}(c_0\omega /\sqrt{2})}{c_0\omega }\right]^N\mathrm{cos}(\omega v)𝑑\omega $$
(7)
which for large $`v`$ behaves like

$$P_V(v)\mathrm{exp}(|v|^2).$$
(8)
An explicit calculation of the distribution of the shell model off-diagonal matrix elements for the various $`J`$-values based on the present model with two-body matrix elements drawn from RQE (TBRE results in similar relations among different $`J`$-sectors though the distributions are somewhat broader as compared to RQE) confirms the above analytical estimates as is illustrated in Fig. 2.

Indeed, such a distribution in the $`J=0`$ sector resembles more a Gaussian and the large $`v`$ tails of this distribution drop down faster as compared to the $`J0`$-sectors where this asymptotics is exponential (eq. (6)). At the same time the $`J0`$ sectors are dominated by very small matrix elements to a larger degree than $`J=0`$. The probability of appearance of a large off-diagonal matrix element which in magnitude overwhelms the remaining ones is thus greater for $`J0`$ than for $`J=0`$. Such an effective reduction of the rank in the former case is expected to result in a stronger tendency to localization as compared to GOE . The corresponding characteristics can be quantified in terms of the information entropy

$$K_l^J=\underset{\alpha =1}{\overset{M_J}{}}|a_{l,\alpha }^J|^2\mathrm{ln}|a_{l,\alpha }^J|^2$$
(9)
of an eigenstate labelled by $`l`$ from the $`J`$-sector. The coefficients $`a_{l,\alpha }^J`$ denote the eigenvector components in the basis $`|\alpha >`$. Such a mean field basis offers an appropriate reference  for the present purpose. Since the definition of $`K_l^J`$ involves the total number of states $`M_J`$ which differ for different $`J`$’s, before relating the result to the GOE we normalise $`K_l^J`$ to the GOE limit of this quantity

$$K_{GOE}^J=\psi (M_J/2+1)\psi (3/2),$$
(10)
where $`\psi `$ is the digamma function. Within our model the so-calculated and RQE ensemble averaged quantity for all the states versus their corresponding energies $`E_l^J`$ is illustrated in Fig. 3. As anticipated, it is not $`J=0`$ whose lowest eigenstate comes out most localised, i.e., most regular. The lowest states for several higher $`J`$ values (like 2 and especially 4) deviate much more from GOE. This thus indicates more favorable conditions for the emergence of energy gaps for larger $`J`$ than for $`J=0`$.

Fig. 3 provides one more information which turns out helpful to properly interpret the results. The $`J=0`$ states are spread over the broadest energy interval even though the number of states $`(M_0=14)`$ is here significantly smaller than for several larger $`J`$ values $`(M_1=19,M_2=33,M_3=29,M_4=26)`$. As a result, the average level spacing is a factor of few larger for $`J=0`$ than for the remaining ones.

In Fig. 4 (dashed line) we therefore show distributions of the ground state $`(E_1^J)`$ gaps

$$s^J=(E_2^JE_1^J)/D^J,$$
(11)
where similarly as in ref. ,

$$D^J=<E_3^JE_2^J>,$$
(12)
though here for each $`J`$ individually.

As it is clearly seen the $`J=0`$-sector does not significantly distinguish from the remaining ones. In view of our investigations presented above one would however expect a reduced probability for occurance of the large ground state energy gaps in this particular sector. As the solid lines in Fig. 4 indicate such an effect does indeed take place when $`D^J`$ in eq. (11) is replaced by

$$\overline{D}^J=<E_{M_J}^JE_2^J>/(M_J2).$$
(13)
In fact, it seems more appropriate and more consistent with the above global considerations to relate the ground state energy gap just to the average global level spacing among the remaining states, characteristic for a given $`J`$, as expressed by eq. (13).

Finally one may ask a question why this tendency does not extend to the highest $`J`$-values. In this connection one has to remember that the off-diagonal matrix elements is not the only relevant element. These are the diagonal matrix elements which constitute the driving term. Irrespective of the value of $`J`$ their distribution is always Gaussian-like. This can be observed numerically and is consistent with arguments formulated in terms of eqs. (1 \- 6) since the geometrical factors $`c_{J^{}ii^{}}^{J\alpha \alpha ^{}}`$ entering the diagonal matrix elements are always nonnegative. As it is shown in Fig. 5 (dashed lines), increasing however $`J`$ beyond 4 results in a significant reduction of the variance of $`P_V(v)`$ for the diagonal matrix elements and consequently a larger fraction of the off-diagonal matrix elements becomes effective in mixing the basis states. In addition, due to a smaller number of terms entering the eq. (1), for the stretched high-$`J`$ states the effect of geometric chaoticity is no longer effective and in this respect the conditions become similar to those for $`J=0`$. As a result, the distribution of off-diagonal matrix elements converts back towards more Gaussian-like shaped, i.e. $`N_{eff}`$ becomes larger (for $`J=6`$ not shown in Fig. 2 $`N_{eff}=2.67`$). Superposing the above two effects one thus obtains even smaller gaps and even more delocalized states at the edges of the spectra as compared to $`J=0`$. In fact the spectral density (solid lines in Fig. (5)) becomes even somewhat closer to semicircular in this case.

## IV Summary

The present investigation based both on theoretical as well as on numerical arguments clearly shows that the many-body problems described in terms of various variants of the two-body random ensembles (like RQE or TBRE) develop quantitatively well identified deviations from the GOE. These deviations can be linked to differences in the distribution of matrix elements and quantified in terms of the localisation or of energy gaps in eigenspectra. Contrary to the common belief they point to the intermediate total angular momenta as those $`J`$-sectors whose ground states are ordered most. From this perspective, a predominance of the $`J=0`$ ground states  can be viewed as a result of mixing states with different characteristic energy scales from different $`J`$-sectors. It seems also appropriate to notice here that the arguments formulated in terms of eqs. (1-6) provide a more adequate approach towards understanding the distribution of matrix elements in realistic nuclear shell-model calculations than the ones based on multipole expansion . Finally, similar parallels between the distribution of matrix elements and the structure of eigenspectra relative to the GOE can be set in the recent econophysics  applications.

We acknowledge useful discussions with J. Okołowicz, M. Płoszajczak and I. Rotter at the early stage of this development. This work was partly supported by KBN Grant No. 2 P03B 097 16 and by the German-Polish DLR scientific exchange program, grant No. POL-028-98.

FIGURE CAPTIONS

Fig. 1 The normalised distribution of geometrical factors $`c_{J^{}ii^{}}^{J\alpha \alpha ^{}}`$ entering the off-diagonal matrix elements (eq. (1)) for the model of 6 particles in the $`sd`$-shell.
Fig. 2 The probability distributions of nonzero many-body off-diagonal matrix elements in different $`J`$-sectors drawn from one thousand of RQE samples of two-body matrix elements. The energy scale is set by $`\overline{v}`$, where $`w_J^{}=\overline{v}^2/(2J^{}+1)`$ and $`w_J^{}`$ determines the RQE mean square variance. These distributions are fitted (solid lines) in terms of eq. (5 with $`N`$ treated as a fitting parameter. The corresponding best $`N`$’s $`(N_{eff})`$ for each $`J`$ are listed. By increasing $`N`$ the distribution prescribed by eq. (5) quickly approaches (as a consequence of the central limit theorem) the Gaussian distribution. In this way the $`J=0`$ distribution is demonstrated to be much closer to the Gaussian than the remaining ones whose asymptotic behaviour is consistent with a slower, exponential fall-off.
Fig. 3 The information entropy normalised to its GOE limit $`(K_l^J/K_{GOE}^J)`$ for all the states $`l`$ from various $`J`$-sectors (all positive parity) versus energies $`(E_l^J)`$ of those states. All the quantities are ensemble averaged. The energy units are the same as in Fig. 2.
Fig. 4 Distributions of ground state energy gaps $`s^J`$ as defined by the eq. (11) for successive $`J`$’s. The dashed line uses $`D^J`$ defined by eq. (12) while the solid line the one defined by eq. (13).
Fig. 5 The probability distributions of the diagonal matrix elements in different $`J`$-sectors drawn from one thousand of RQE samples of two-body matrix elements (dashed lines) and the corresponding spectral densities (solid lines). The energy units are the same as in Fig. 2.