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# Gauged Supergravities, de Sitter Space and Cosmology

## I Introduction

Recent cosmological observations based on the study of supernova supernova  and of the anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation CMB  suggest that soon after the big bang our universe experienced a stage of a very rapid accelerated expansion (inflation) Guth ; New ; chaot ; hybrid . Moreover, observations indicate that few billion years after the big bang the universe entered a second stage of accelerated expansion. The rate of acceleration now is many orders of magnitude smaller than during the stage of inflation in the early universe. For a discussion of the recent cosmological observations and their theoretical interpretation see e.g. astroreviews .

Most of the inflationary models are based on the assumption that the energy-momentum tensor during inflation is dominated by potential energy density of a scalar field, $`T_{\mu \nu }g_{\mu \nu }V(\varphi )`$ with $`V>0`$ book ; LythLiddle . This means, in particular, that $`\dot{\varphi }^2/2V(\varphi )`$. The limiting case $`\dot{\varphi }=0`$ corresponds to de Sitter space with a positive cosmological constant. The current cosmological acceleration can be explained either by a positive vacuum energy $`V`$ (cosmological constant) or by a slowly rolling scalar field in a near de Sitter background with $`\dot{\varphi }^2/2V(\varphi )`$ (quintessence) quint .

Much of the recent progress in theory of all fundamental interactions is related to supersymmetry. Therefore it would be very desirable to find de Sitter or near-de Sitter solutions in supersymmetric theories. In N=1 theories many choices are available and therefore the motivation for a particular choice has to come from a more fundamental theory, either directly from M/string theory in 11/10 dimensions or perhaps from an effective 4d theory with higher supersymmetry.

This was recently discussed in the context of 4d N=2 supersymmetry in Kallosh:2001tm  where a hybrid hypersymmetric model of inflation/acceleration was proposed. On the other hand, it may be difficult to obtain 4d de Sitter space directly from M/string theory. The problems have been recently reviewed in Hull:2001ii ; Spradlin:2001pw .

The basic problem seems to originate from the compactification of M/string theory on internal space with the finite volume. However, some 4d N=8,4,2 gauged supergravity theories are known to have de Sitter solutions with spontaneous breaking of supersymmetry Gates:1983ct -deWit:1984pk . These versions of 4d supergravity are related to 11d supergravity with a non-compact internal 7d space Hull:1988jw . M-theory has some solutions with warped products of de Sitter space with hyperbolic spaces and generalized cylinders, $`dS_4\times ^{p,q,r}`$. For conceptual problems associated with non-compact internal space and attempts to overcome them we refer to Hull:2001ii  and references therein.

Here we will take a simple attitude to potentials of gauged supergravities: we will consider only 4d theories where all kinetic terms have correct sign and therefore these theories from the 4d perspective do not have any conceptual problems whatsoever. We will study the properties of their potentials with regard to cosmology. If we find any potentials interesting for cosmology, we may come back to the problems of accommodating these 4d supergravity models in the framework of M-theory with non-compact internal space.

The physical motivation for our study of potentials of supergravity originates in cosmology. A standard slow-roll inflation resulting in many e-foldings and scale independence of the spectrum will be reviewed. A new concept of fast-roll inflation will be proposed. It is partially motivated by the properties of supergravity potentials and also by the present epoch acceleration with small number of e-foldings.

We start with reminding some well known facts about the relation between de Sitter space and expanding universe in Section II. Section III explains a standard slow-roll inflation and introduces a new concept of a fast-roll inflation. This defines the properties of the potentials interesting for cosmology.

In Sections IV and V we study the potentials of N=8 and N=4, 2 gauged supergravities. In Section VI we discuss some potentials of N=8 supergravity which have interesting Minkowski vacua with flat directions. We discuss the main results and perspectives in Conclusions.

## II de Sitter versus anti de Sitter

Anti de Sitter space was at full attention of high-energy physics community for the last 10 years from the time when it was realized that near horizon the geometry of stringy BPS black holes and branes tends to anti de Sitter space. It was known also for a very long time that the potentials of gauged supergravities have anti de Sitter critical points which are at the top of the inverted potentials and correspond to the maximum of these potentials and the tachyons are present. Still when the negative (mass)2 is limited in a certain way corresponding to Breitenlohner-Freedman bound, the anti de Sitter solution is stable. For $`adS_4`$ the bound is

$$m^2\frac{9}{4}H^2,$$
(1)
where $`H^1`$ defines the radius of the throat of the hyperboloid in the flat 5d space

$$X_0^2X_1^2X_2^2X_3^2+X_4^2=H^2.$$
(2)
The hyperboloid in the 5d flat space defining de Sitter space $`dS_4`$ is

$`X_0^2X_1^2X_2^2X_3^2X_4^2=H^2.`$ (3)
The difference between the two hyperboloids is that the right hand side has an opposite sign. Besides, the $`adS`$ hyperboloid has two ‘time directions’ whereas $`dS`$ one has only one ‘time direction’. The symmetry group for the $`adS`$ hyperboloid is $`SO(3,2)`$ whereas for the $`dS`$ hyperboloid it is $`SO(4,1)`$.

To explain shortly the relation of de Sitter space to cosmology we will first present here the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) metric describing the expanding Friedmann universe:

$`ds^2=dt^2a^2(t)\left[{\displaystyle \frac{dr^2}{1kr^2}}+r^2(d\theta ^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta d\varphi ^2)\right],`$ (4)
where $`k=\pm 1,0`$ for a closed, open or flat expanding Friedmann universe, respectively. Here $`a(t)`$ is the time-dependent scale factor. For a spatially flat universe with $`k=0`$ the metric can be represented in a form

$`ds^2=dt^2a^2(t)d\stackrel{}{x}^2.`$ (5)
Closed Friedmann universe with $`k=1`$ can be represented in the form

$`ds^2=dt^2a^2(t)\left[d\chi ^2+\mathrm{sin}^2(\chi )(d\theta ^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta d\varphi ^2)\right],0\chi 2\pi .`$ (6)
Finally, an open Friedmann universe with $`k=1`$ can be represented in the form

$`ds^2=dt^2a^2(t)\left[d\chi ^2+\mathrm{sinh}^2(\chi )(d\theta ^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta d\varphi ^2)\right],0\chi \mathrm{}.`$ (7)
The relation between the metric of expanding universe and de Sitter space is the following. First, one can consider the hyperboloid (3) in a coordinate system which spans the half of the hyperboloid with $`X_0+X_4>0`$. The choice

$$X_0=H^1\mathrm{sinh}Ht+\frac{1}{2}He^{Ht}\stackrel{}{x}^2,X_4=H^1\mathrm{cosh}Ht\frac{1}{2}He^{Ht},X_i=e^{Ht}x_i,i=1,2,3$$

leads to the metric

$`ds^2=dt^2e^{2Ht}d\stackrel{}{x}^2.`$ (8)
This is a FRW spatially flat metric with the exponential scale factor $`a(t)=e^{Ht}`$. We may choose the coordinates which span the entire hyperboloid :

$$X_0=H^1\mathrm{sinh}Ht,X_1=H^1\mathrm{cosh}Ht\mathrm{cos}\chi ,X_2=H^1\mathrm{cosh}Ht\mathrm{sin}\chi \mathrm{cos}\theta ,$$

$$X_3=H^1\mathrm{cosh}Ht\mathrm{sin}\chi \mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{cos}\varphi ,X_4=H^1\mathrm{cosh}Ht\mathrm{sin}\chi \mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{sin}\varphi ,$$

which results in the metric

$`ds^2=dt^2H^2\mathrm{cosh}^2Ht\left[d\chi ^2+\mathrm{sin}^2(\chi )(d\theta ^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta d\varphi ^2)\right],0\chi 2\pi .`$ (9)
This is a FRW metric of the closed Friedmann universe with the exponential scale factor $`a(t)=H^1\mathrm{cosh}Ht`$. An open Friedmann universe appears from de Sitter space if the coordinate system is chosen as follows:

$$X_0=H^1\mathrm{sinh}Ht\mathrm{cosh}\chi ,X_1=H^1\mathrm{cosh}Ht,X_2=H^1\mathrm{sinh}Ht\mathrm{sinh}\chi \mathrm{cos}\theta ,$$

$$X_3=H^1\mathrm{sinh}Ht\mathrm{sinh}\chi \mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{cos}\varphi ,X_4=H^1\mathrm{sinh}Ht\mathrm{sinh}\chi \mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{sin}\varphi .$$

These coordinates do not cover the entire hyperboloid. The metric is

$`ds^2=dt^2H^2\mathrm{sinh}^2Ht\left[d\chi ^2+\mathrm{sinh}^2(\chi )(d\theta ^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta d\varphi ^2)\right],0\chi \mathrm{}.`$ (10)
This is a FRW metric of the open Friedmann universe with the exponential scale factor $`a(t)=H^1\mathrm{sinh}Ht`$.

## III  de Sitter space, slow-roll inflation and fast-roll inflation

De Sitter space has a direct relation to inflationary cosmology Guth ; New ; chaot ; hybrid ; book ; LythLiddle , which we will briefly describe now. Consider a theory of a scalar field $`\varphi `$ with potential $`V(\varphi )`$. The Friedmann equation for the scale factor of the universe looks as follows:

$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{a}}{a}}\right)^2+{\displaystyle \frac{k}{a^2}}={\displaystyle \frac{\rho (\varphi )}{3}}`$ (11)
in units $`M_p=1`$. Here $`k=\pm 1,0`$ for a closed, open or flat universe correspondingly, $`\rho (\varphi )=V(\varphi )+\dot{\varphi }^2/2+(_i\varphi )^2/2`$ is the energy density of the scalar field.

Let us assume first that $`V(\varphi )=V=const>0`$, and the field $`\varphi `$ is constant and homogeneous, $`\dot{\varphi }=_i\varphi =0`$. Then

$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{a}}{a}}\right)^2+{\displaystyle \frac{k}{a^2}}={\displaystyle \frac{V}{3}}.`$ (12)
The solutions of this equation describe de Sitter space with

$`H=\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{V}{3}}}.`$ (13)
Note that at very large times $`t\mathrm{}`$ all 3 types of de Sitter metric for the flat, closed and open universe lead to the same exponential scale factor

$`e^{Ht},\mathrm{cosh}Hte^{Ht},\mathrm{sinh}Hte^{Ht}.`$ (14)
Therefore we will concentrate on the simplest case of the flat universe with $`a(t)=a(0)e^{Ht}`$. Flatness of the universe is a standard prediction of most of the inflationary models, where typically the term $`\frac{k}{a^2}`$ can be neglected as compared with $`\rho /3`$ after inflation Guth ; New ; chaot ; hybrid ; book ; LythLiddle . This means that inflationary theory predicts that our universe at present cannot be in the anti-de Sitter regime, because Eq. (11) does not have any solutions for $`\rho <0`$ in the flat universe.

De Sitter space can describe late stages of the evolution of our universe if the universe has nonvanishing vacuum energy $`V10^{120}M_p^4`$. However, in order to use de Sitter-like stages for a description of inflation in the early universe one should find how de Sitter stage ends and the usual hot Friedmann universe emerges.

One possibility is to study models where the potential $`V(\varphi )`$ has a very flat maximum, as in the new inflation scenario New . Consider, for example, the model where $`V(\varphi )`$ has a maximum at $`\varphi =0`$, such that in the vicinity of the maximum

$`V(\varphi )=V_0{\displaystyle \frac{m^2\varphi ^2}{2}}.`$ (15)
Suppose that initially the field $`\varphi =\varphi _0`$ was homogeneous, small, and had small velocity, so that $`m^2\varphi ^2/2,\dot{\varphi }^2/2V_0`$. Then the Hubble constant $`H^2=\rho /3=\frac{1}{3}(V_0m^2\varphi ^2/2+\dot{\varphi }^2/2)`$ practically did not change until the field rolled down to the point with $`m^2\varphi _1^2V_0`$. Therefore the universe continues expanding as $`e^{Ht}`$ until the field $`\varphi `$ rolls from $`\varphi _0`$ to

$`\varphi _1\sqrt{V_0}/m.`$ (16)
The motion of a homogeneous field $`\varphi `$ is described by equation

$`\ddot{\varphi }+3H\dot{\varphi }=V^{}=m^2\varphi .`$ (17)
Now let us assume that $`|V^{\prime \prime }|=|m^2|H^2=V/3`$. In this case one can show that the field moves very slowly, so that one can neglect $`\ddot{\varphi }`$ as compared to $`3H\dot{\varphi }`$, and the growing solution for the field $`\varphi `$ is given by $`\varphi =\varphi _0\mathrm{exp}\frac{m^2t}{3H}.`$ This is the standard slow-roll solution for the scalar field during inflation. The slow-roll regime continues at least until the field rolls down below $`\varphi _1`$, i.e. during the time

$`\mathrm{\Delta }t={\displaystyle \frac{3H}{m^2}}\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _1}{\varphi _0}}.`$ (18)
This leads to inflation by a factor of

$`e^{H\mathrm{\Delta }t}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _1}{\varphi _0}}\right)^{3H^2/m^2}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _1}{\varphi _0}}\right)^{V/|V^{\prime \prime }|}.`$ (19)
Thus one can obtain an exponentially large degree of inflation for

$`|V^{\prime \prime }||V|,`$ (20)
which is one of the two well-known inflationary slow-roll conditions: $`\eta =\frac{|V^{\prime \prime }|}{|V|}1`$ and $`ϵ=\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{V^{}}{V}\right)^21`$ LythLiddle . The last condition is automatically satisfied at the top of the effective potential.

The slow-roll conditions serve two purposes: They make the total expansion of the universe during the stage of inflation very large, $`e^{H\mathrm{\Delta }t}\left(\frac{\varphi _1}{\varphi _0}\right)^{|V|/|V^{\prime \prime }|}`$, and they ensure that the spectrum of adiabatic density perturbations produced during inflation is almost scale-independent. These density perturbations are produced due to quantum effects during inflation pert ; they are playing a critical role in the subsequent process of formation of the large-scale structure of the universe book ; LythLiddle . The deviation from scale-independence (flatness) of the spectrum is characterized by the factor $`|n1|=|2\frac{|V^{\prime \prime }|}{|V|}3\left(\frac{V^{}}{V}\right)^2|`$ LythLiddle . Recent observations of anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation suggest that $`|n1|0.1`$ CMB , which implies that

$`|V^{\prime \prime }|0.05V.`$ (21)
if the perturbations that we observe were produced during inflation when the field $`\varphi `$ was near the top of the potential.

The slow-roll condition $`|V^{\prime \prime }|V`$ implies that $`|m^2|V_0`$, and, consequently,

$`\varphi _11`$ (22)
in Planck units (i.e. $`\varphi _1M_p`$). This is very similar to the standard requirement that appears in the simplest models of chaotic inflation with $`V(\varphi )\varphi ^n`$ chaot ; book . To avoid this requirement and still have slow-roll inflation one would need to make the potential very flat at the top, and very curved near the minimum of the potential, as in the original version of the new inflation scenario New , or as in the hybrid inflation scenario hybrid .

One of the results of our paper is that the slow-roll condition $`V^{\prime \prime }V`$ is not satisfied near any of the extrema of the potentials with $`V>0`$ in N=8 gauged supergravity that have been studied in the literature. As we will show, in all of the models of N=8 gauged supergravity studied so far one has $`V^{\prime \prime }=2V`$. Thus, in all known cases these models do not support slow-roll i nflation near the extrema of the corresponding potentials.

Is it possible to have a fast-roll inflation with $`|V^{\prime \prime }|=|m^2|H^2=V/3`$? In our investigation of this question we have found, much to our own surprise, that the answer to this question is positive.

For simplicity we will consider first the limiting case $`|m^2|H^2`$. In this case one can neglect the term $`3H\dot{\varphi }`$ in the equation for the field $`\varphi `$. Then the growing solution becomes

$`\varphi =\varphi _0e^{mt}.`$ (23)
The duration of rolling from $`\varphi _0`$ to $`\varphi _1`$ is given by

$`\mathrm{\Delta }t=m^1\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _1}{\varphi _0}}.`$ (24)
Until the field rolls down to $`\varphi _1`$ the energy density remains dominated by $`V_0`$. This leads to inflation by a factor of

$`e^{H\mathrm{\Delta }t}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _1}{\varphi _0}}\right)^{H/m}.`$ (25)
Usually one does not expect the ratio $`\frac{\varphi _1}{\varphi _0}`$ to be exponentially large, and therefore one could think that for $`H/m<1`$ the duration of inflation of this kind must be rather insignificant. Also, no long-wavelength perturbations of metric are generated in the regime $`m>H`$ by the standard inflationary mechanism. That is why the possibility of a fast-roll inflation with $`mH`$ has not been thoroughly studied in the literature.

Meanwhile fast-roll inflation can be quite interesting, at least for a marginally fast-rolling regime with $`mH`$ (i.e. $`\sqrt{|V^{\prime \prime }|}\sqrt{V}`$). This is the regime that we will often encounter in our investigation of extrema of the potentials in N=8 gauged supergravity.

First of all, let us note that the initial value of the field $`\varphi `$ can be quite small. Formally, one may have $`\varphi _0=0`$. In this case the factor $`\frac{\varphi _1}{\varphi _0}`$ in Eq. (25) can be indefinitely large. In reality, $`\varphi _0`$ in this equation cannot be taken much smaller than the level of quantum fluctuations with momenta $`k<m`$, since such fluctuations also experience exponential growth, even in the absence of a homogeneous field $`\varphi _0`$: $`\delta \varphi _k(t)\delta \varphi _k(0)e^{\sqrt{m^2k^2}t}`$. A typical initial amplitude of all quantum fluctuations with $`k<m`$ participating in the exponential growth of the field $`\varphi `$ can be estimated by $`\delta \varphi Cm`$, where $`C=O(10)`$ FKL . A typical time it takes for this field to grow up to $`\varphi _1`$ is given by FKL

$`\mathrm{\Delta }tm^1\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{C\varphi _1}{m}}.`$ (26)
This leads to inflation by a factor of

$`e^{H\mathrm{\Delta }t}\left({\displaystyle \frac{10\varphi _1}{m}}\right)^{H/m}.`$ (27)
Now that we have studied two limiting case, let us study a more general regime where $`m`$ and $`H`$ can be of the same order. To study this problem one should look for solutions of Eq. (17) in the form $`\varphi =\varphi _0e^{i\omega t}`$. This yields

$`\omega =i\left({\displaystyle \frac{3H}{2}}\pm \sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{9H^2}{4}}+m^2}\right).`$ (28)
The solution with the sign - corresponds to the exponentially growing solution

$`\varphi =\varphi _0\mathrm{exp}\left[\left(HtF(m^2/H^2)\right)\right],`$ (29)
where

$`F(m^2/H^2)=\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{9}{4}}+{\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{H^2}}}{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}.`$ (30)
This immediately gives us the general result for the total expansion of the universe during inflation near the maximum of the potential:

$`e^{H\mathrm{\Delta }t}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _1}{\varphi _0}}\right)^{1/F}.`$ (31)
One can easily check that this result coincides with our previously obtained results in the limiting cases $`mH`$ and $`mH`$.

As an example, consider first the potentials with $`m=H`$. In this case one has $`F(1)=0.3`$. In the theories with $`mH`$ one has $`\varphi _1M_p=1`$, so for $`\varphi _010m^1`$ (i.e. for the initial value of the field provided by quantum fluctuations FKL ) one has

$`e^{H\mathrm{\Delta }t}\left({\displaystyle \frac{10M_p}{m}}\right)^{3.3}.`$ (32)
Clearly, this number can be quite significant.

To be more specific, consider the possibility that such models can be responsible for the present stage of accelerated expansion of the universe with the Hubble constant $`H10^{60}M_p`$. Then inflation in an unstable state close to the maximum of the potential in such a theory can lead to expansion of the universe by a factor that can be as large as

$`e^{H\mathrm{\Delta }t}\left(10^{61}\right)^{3.3}10^{200}e^{460}.`$ (33)
This is more than sufficient to explain the observed single e-folding of accelerated expansion of the universe at the present epoch.

Meanwhile if one takes $`m10^2`$ GeV $`10^{16}M_p`$, which corresponds to the electroweak scale, one can obtain fast-roll inflation by a factor of

$`e^{H\mathrm{\Delta }t}\left(10^{17}\right)^{3.3}10^{56}e^{130}.`$ (34)
Efficiency of fast-roll inflation rapidly decreases once one considers the regime with $`Hm`$. An interesting example is provided by gauged N=8 supergravity, where, as we will see later, $`|V^{\prime \prime }|=2V`$, i.e. $`m^2=6H^2`$. In terms of our potential $`V(\varphi )=V_0\frac{m^2\varphi ^2}{2}`$ this implies that the point $`\varphi _1`$, which corresponds to $`V(\varphi _1)=V_0/2`$, is given by $`\varphi _1=1/\sqrt{2}`$. In dimensional units this is equivalent to having $`\varphi _11.5\times 10^{18}`$ GeV. In this model one has $`F(m^2/H^2)=F(6)=1.37`$, and $`1/F=0.73`$. Then, for $`m=\sqrt{6}H2\times 10^{60}M_p`$ one finds

$`e^{H\mathrm{\Delta }t}\left(\mathrm{5\; 10}^{60}\right)^{0.73}10^{44}e^{100}.`$ (35)
Thus, fast-roll inflation in N=8 gauged supergravity may be responsible for up to 100 e-folds of exponential expansion of the universe with the Hubble constant similar to its present value $`H10^{60}M_p`$.

On the other hand, for $`m=\sqrt{6}H10^2`$ GeV one has

$`e^{H\mathrm{\Delta }t}10^{13}e^{28}.`$ (36)
To give a different example, one may consider a simplest model of spontaneous symmetry breaking with the potential

$`V(\varphi )={\displaystyle \frac{\lambda }{4}}(\varphi ^2v^2)^2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}m^2\varphi ^2+{\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{4v^2}}\varphi ^4+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}m^2v^2,`$ (37)
where $`m^2=\lambda v^2`$, and $`\varphi =v`$ corresponds to the minimum of $`V(\varphi )`$ with symmetry breaking. The Hubble constant at $`\varphi =0`$ in this model is given by $`H^2=\frac{m^2v^2}{12}`$, so that $`F(m^2/H^2)=F(12/v^2)`$. Fast-roll inflation in this model occurs for $`\varphi v/2`$. Assuming, e.g., $`v=1`$ and $`m100`$ GeV, one finds $`F^1(12)=0.44`$, and

$`e^{H\mathrm{\Delta }t}\left(10^{17}\right)^{1/F}10^7,`$ (38)
whereas for $`v=0.7`$, as in Polonyi model, one has

$`e^{H\mathrm{\Delta }t}10^5.`$ (39)
Thus, if in a certain class of theories one has $`|V^{\prime \prime }|V`$, one should not immediately discard such theories as candidates for the description of an accelerated (inflationary) stage of the evolution of the universe. Such theories can describe a prolonged stage of fast roll inflation if $`m1`$ in Planck units, see Eqs. (27), (32). For $`|V^{\prime \prime }|V`$, the requirement $`m1`$ is equivalent to the requirement that the extremum of the effective potential corresponds to the energy density much smaller than the Planck density, $`V1`$.

A more detailed discussion of the fast-roll inflation will be contained in a separate publication fastroll .

## IV N=8 Gauged Supergravities

### IV.1 De Wit-Nicolai Potential

The ungauged N=8 supergravity of Cremmer and Julia Cremmer:1979up  has a local $`SU(8)`$ symmetry and a rigid $`SL(8,)`$ symmetry, equations of motion have a larger, non-compact $`E_{7(7)}`$ symmetry. The 70 real scalars of N=8 supergravity parametrize the coset space $`E_7/SU(8)`$ and can be described by an element $`𝒱(x)`$ of the fundamental 56-dimensional representation of $`E_{7(7)}`$:

$`𝒱(x)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}u_{ij}^{IJ}(x)& v_{ijKL}(x)\\ v^{klIJ}(x)& u_{KL}^{kl}(x)\end{array}\right).`$ (42)
Out of 133 fields 63 may be gauged using an $`SU(8)`$ symmetry. De Wit and Nicolai deWit:1982eq  gauged the $`SO(8)`$ subgroup of $`SL(8,𝐑)`$ symmetry of the ungauged supergravity. The $`SO(8)`$ gauge coupling constant $`g`$ is a new parameter which the gauged supergravity has, in addition to the gravitational constant. The local N=8 supersymmetry of gauged supergravity requires a non-trivial effective potential for the scalars. It is proportional to the square of the gauge coupling. The scalar and gravity part of de Wit-Nicolai action is

$`{\displaystyle d^4x\sqrt{g}\left(\frac{1}{2}R\frac{1}{96}\left|A_\mu ^{ijkl}\right|^2V\right)},`$ (43)
where the building blocks for the scalar kinetic terms are: $`A_\mu ^{ijkl}=2\sqrt{2}\left(u_{IJ}^{ij}_\mu v^{klIJ}v^{ijIJ}_\mu u_{IJ}^{kl}\right)`$. De Wit-Nicolai nontrivial effective potential can be written as the difference of two positive definite terms:

$`V=g^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}\left|A_1^{ij}\right|^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{24}}\left|A_{2jkl}^i\right|^2\right),`$ (44)
$`A_1^{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4}{21}}T_m^{ijm},A_{2l}^{ijk}={\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}T_l^{[ijk]},`$ (45)
are some particular combinations of T-tensors:

$`T_l^{kij}`$ $`=`$ $`\left(u_{IJ}^{ij}+v^{ijIJ}\right)\left(u_{lm}^{JK}u_{KI}^{km}v_{lmJK}v^{kmKL}\right).`$ (46)
The 56-bein $`𝒱(x)`$ can be brought into the following form in the $`SU(8)`$ unitary gauge by the $`SU(8)`$ rotation

$`𝒱(x)=\text{exp}\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& \varphi _{ijkl}(x)\\ \varphi ^{ijkl}(x)& 0\end{array}\right),`$ (49)
where $`\varphi ^{ijkl}`$ is a complex self-dual tensor describing the 35 scalars and 35 pseudo-scalars of $`\varphi ^{ijkl}`$) of $`N=8`$ supergravity. The potential has an $`adS_4`$ critical point where all scalars and pseudo-scalars vanish.

### IV.2 Non-compact gaugings

Compact gaugings of N=8 supergravity do not give de Sitter solutions, however the non-compact and non-semi-simple gaugings with $`CSO(p,q,r)`$ groups, suggested and developed by Hull Hull:1984yy , do have de Sitter and Minkowski solutions. These are unitary 4d theories with positive definite kinetic terms. One starts with the subalgebra of the $`SL(8,)`$ algebra with the metric parametrized by two parameters $`\xi `$ and $`\zeta `$

$`\eta _{AB}=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}\mathrm{𝟏}_{p\times p}& & \\ & \xi \mathrm{𝟏}_{q\times q}& \\ & & \xi \zeta \mathrm{𝟏}_{r\times r}\end{array}\right),p+q+r=8.`$ (50)
It was shown in Cordaro:1998tx  that N=8 gauged supergravity can depend only on one continuous parameter that corresponds to a coupling constant and parameters $`\xi `$ and $`\zeta `$ can have only descrete values 1,-1 and 0. The gauging for the case $`\xi =1,\zeta =1`$ corresponds to $`SO(p+q,r)`$ group, $`\xi =1,\zeta =1`$ is $`SO(p,q+r)`$ gauging and so on. The $`CSO(p,q,r)`$ group is a group contraction of the $`SO(p+r,q)`$ group preserving a symmetric metric with $`p`$ positive eigenvalues, $`q`$ negative eigenvalues (for negative $`\xi `$), and $`r`$ zero eigenvalues.

Recently the potentials that explicitly depend on two scalar fields $`s`$ and $`t`$ (out of 70 ) were proposed in Ahn:2001by :

$`V_{\xi ,\zeta }^{p,q,r}(s,t)=g^2\left(4(_sW_{\xi ,\zeta }^{p,q,r}(s,t))^2+4(_tW_{\xi ,\zeta }^{p,q,r}(s,t))^26(W_{\xi ,\zeta }^{p,q,r}(s,t))^2\right)`$ (51)
where the superpotential $`W_{\xi ,\zeta }^{p,q,r}(s,t)`$ is:

$`W_{\xi ,\zeta }^{p,q,r}(s,t)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{8}}\left(pe^{\sqrt{\frac{4q}{p(p+q)}}s\sqrt{\frac{r}{2(p+q)}}t}+q\xi e^{\sqrt{\frac{4p}{q(p+q)}}s\sqrt{\frac{r}{2(p+q)}}t}+r\xi \zeta e^{\sqrt{\frac{p+q}{2r}}t}\right)`$ (52)
and the kinetic terms for scalar fields have a canonical form. Gravitational and scalar part of the supergravity action for each model with $`p,q,r`$ and $`\xi ,\zeta `$ is given by

$`S_{\xi ,\zeta }^{p,q,r}={\displaystyle d^4x\sqrt{g}\left(\frac{1}{2}R\frac{1}{2}^\mu s_\mu s\frac{1}{2}^\mu t_\mu tV_{\xi ,\eta }^{p,q,r}(s,t)\right)}.`$ (53)
Thus we have a family of models characterized by 3 discrete parameters $`p+q+r=8`$ and by two parameters $`\xi ,\zeta `$. At $`r=0`$, $`p+q=8`$ the meaning of $`\xi `$ can be inferred from the higher-dimensional interpretation of these models. It has been shown by Hull and Warner Hull:1988jw  that they can be obtained from 11d supergravity (M-theory). The general case of a compactification on a hyperboloid gives SO(p,q) gauging and a compactification on a sphere leads to SO(8) gauging of de Wit and Nicolai deWit:1982eq . The corresponding hypersurface constraining the internal 7-manifold is

$`r^2=\eta _{AB}z^Az^B={\displaystyle \underset{A=1}{\overset{p}{}}}(z^A)^2+\xi {\displaystyle \underset{A=p+1}{\overset{8}{}}}(z^A)^2.`$ (54)
For $`\xi <0`$ the expression (54) represents a family of hyperboloids and for $`\xi >0`$ it is a family of ellipsoids.

We have investigated the nature of the critical points corresponding to de Sitter vacua for potentials (51) from Ahn:2001by . We have found that they are always saddle points, the eigenvalues of the matrix of the second derivatives have one positive and one negative value. We have presented the results of the calculations in the Table 1 for $`g^2=1`$.

$`\begin{array}{ccccccccccc}& & & & & & & & & & \\ p& q& r& \xi & \zeta & s_{cr}& t_{cr}& W(s_{cr},t_{cr})& V(s_{cr},t_{cr})& (m_1)^2& (m_2)^2\\ & & & & & & & & & & \\ 1& 2& 5& & & & 0.7522& \frac{1}{2}\times 3^{3/8}& & 10.53& 5.264\\ 1& 4& 3& & & & 0.7522& \frac{1}{2}\times 3^{3/8}& & 5.264& 3.51\\ 2& 1& 5& 1& 1& 0& 0.7522& \frac{1}{2}\times 3^{3/8}& 2\times 3^{1/4}& 10.53& 5.264\\ 2& 3& 3& & & & 0.7522& \frac{1}{2}\times 3^{3/8}& & 5.264& 3.51\\ 3& 2& 3& & & & 0.7522& \frac{1}{2}\times 3^{3/8}& & 5.264& 3.51\\ 4& 1& 3& & & & 0.7522& \frac{1}{2}\times 3^{3/8}& & 5.264& 3.51\\ & & & & & & & & & & \\ 1& 3& 4& & & & & & & 4.& 4.\\ 2& 2& 4& 1& 1& 0& 0& 0& 2& 4.& 4.\\ 3& 1& 4& & & & & & & 4.& 4.\\ & & & & & & & & & & \\ 3& 1& 4& & & 0.4757& 0.5826& \frac{1}{2}\times 3^{3/8}& & 5.264& 3.51\\ 3& 2& 3& & & 0.6017& 0.4513& \frac{1}{2}\times 3^{3/8}& & 5.264& 3.51\\ 3& 3& 2& 1& 1& 0.6728& 0.3364& \frac{1}{2}\times 3^{3/8}& 2\times 3^{1/4}& 5.264& 3.51\\ 3& 4& 1& & & 0.7192& 0.2202& \frac{1}{2}\times 3^{3/8}& & 5.264& 3.51\\ 5& 1& 2& & & 0.5014& 0.5606& \frac{1}{2}\times 3^{3/8}& & 10.53& 5.264\\ 5& 2& 1& & & 0.6565& 0.367& \frac{1}{2}\times 3^{3/8}& & 10.53& 5.264\\ & & & & & & & & & & \\ 4& 1& 3& & & & & & & 4.& 4.\\ 4& 2& 2& 1& 1& 0& 0& 0& 2& 4.& 4.\\ 4& 3& 1& & & & & & & 4.& 4.\\ & & & & & & & & & & \\ 1& 3& 4& & & 0.4757& 0.5826& \frac{1}{2}\times 3^{3/8}& & 5.264& 3.51\\ 1& 5& 2& & & 0.5014& 0.5606& \frac{1}{2}\times 3^{3/8}& & 10.53& 5.264\\ 2& 3& 3& 1& 1& 0.6017& 0.4513& \frac{1}{2}\times 3^{3/8}& 2\times 3^{1/4}& 5.264& 3.51\\ 2& 5& 1& & & 0.6565& 0.367& \frac{1}{2}\times 3^{3/8}& & 10.53& 5.264\\ 3& 3& 2& & & 0.6728& 0.3364& \frac{1}{2}\times 3^{3/8}& & 5.264& 3.51\\ 4& 3& 1& & & 0.7192& 0.2202& \frac{1}{2}\times 3^{3/8}& & 5.264& 3.51\\ & & & & & & & & & & \\ 1& 4& 3& & & & & & & 4.& 4.\\ 3& 4& 1& 1& 1& 0& 0& 0& 2& 4.& 4.\\ 2& 4& 2& & & & & & & 4.& 4.\end{array}`$
Table 1. De Sitter critical points for $`p,q,r`$, $`\xi `$, $`\zeta `$ models. One of the mass square eigenvalues $`(m_1)^2`$ or $`(m_2)^2`$ is negative, all critical points are saddles.

For each model we give the critical values of the fields, a superpotential and a potential. The eigenvalues of the square of the mass matrix are $`(m_1)^2`$ and $`(m_2)^2`$. Their product is in all cases negative. Now we may also compare the tachyonic mass near the critical point with the value of the potential there. We find that in all 27 cases a remarkable relation takes place: $`V^{\prime \prime }=|m^2|_{tach}=2V`$. The absolute value of the square of the tachyonic mass is twice the value of the potential in units in which $`M_p=1`$. Using the curvature of the de Sitter space we can present these relations as

$`|m^2|_{tach}=2V={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}|R|=6H^2.`$ (56)
The positive square mass eigenvalues at the critical point also have a simple relation to the potential and/or to the curvature. In models where $`W_{cr}=0`$ one has

$`m_{tach}^2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}|R|,m_{pos}^2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}|R|.`$ (57)
In models with $`W_{cr}0`$

$`m_{tach}^2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}|R|,m_{pos}^2=|R|\mathrm{or}m_{pos}^2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}|R|.`$ (58)
Until now we described potentials with an extremum corresponding to de Sitter space. All of such extrema corresponded to saddle points of the type shown in Fig. 1. In all models of such type known so far, there is only one such saddle point, and the potential is unbounded from below, as we have checked. Whereas such potentials could play some role in the description of the present stage of exponential expansion of the universe, it is hard to see them playing any role in inflationary cosmology. The slow-roll condition is not satisfied, however, as we discussed in Sect. III, the fast-roll regime with $`|V^{\prime \prime }|=2V`$ may be acceptable in certain cases. The situation may change once one considers potentials involving many other scalar fields and/or quantum corrections.

Now we will also study the nature of the critical points for potentials depending on one field in the models with $`SO(p,q)`$ gauging with $`p+q=8`$ and $`r=0`$ Hull:1984yy . We will use the form of these models as given in Hull:1984yy , with a canonical kinetic term for the the scalar field $`\varphi `$ as in Ahn:2001by . The relevant part of the action of N=8 gauged supergravity is:

$`S_{p,q,\xi }={\displaystyle d^4x\sqrt{g}\left(\frac{1}{2}R\frac{1}{2}^\mu \varphi _\mu \varphi V_{p,q,\xi }(\varphi )\right)}.`$ (59)
The potential can be written with the help of a superpotential $`W_{p,q,\xi }`$:

$`W_{p,q,\xi }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{8}}\left(pe^{\sqrt{\frac{q}{2p}}\varphi }+q\xi e^{\sqrt{\frac{p}{2q}}\varphi }\right),`$ (60)
$`V_{p,q,\xi }`$ $`=`$ $`g^2\left(4(_\varphi W_{p,q,\xi }(\varphi ))^26W_{p,q,\xi }(\varphi )^2\right).`$ (61)
In fact the de Sitter vacua here are the same as in Table 1 where only one out of two scalars $`s`$ and $`t`$ are kept and the critical points correspond to a maximum of the potential. There are three cases of de Sitter vacua.

* $`p=q=4`$

$`V_{4,4,\xi }`$ $`=`$ $`g^2\left(e^{\sqrt{2}\varphi }+4\xi +\xi ^2e^{\sqrt{2}\varphi }\right).`$ (62)
De Sitter critical point is at negative $`\xi `$ so that $`e^{\sqrt{2}\varphi _{cr}}=\frac{1}{|\xi |}.`$ The value of the potential and of its second derivative at the critical points is:

$`V_{4,4,\xi }|_{cr}=2g^2|\xi |,(V_{4,4,\xi }^{\prime \prime })_{cr}=4g^2|\xi |.`$ (63)
* $`p=5`$ , $`q=3`$

$`V_{5,3,\xi }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3g^2}{8}}\left(5e^{\sqrt{\frac{6}{5}}\varphi }+10\xi e^{\sqrt{\frac{2}{15}}\varphi }+\xi ^2e^{\sqrt{\frac{10}{3}}\varphi }\right).`$ (64)
De Sitter critical point is at negative $`\xi `$ and $`e^{4\sqrt{\frac{2}{15}}\varphi _{cr}}=\frac{3}{|\xi |}.`$ The value of the potential and of its second derivative at the critical point is:

$`V_{5,3,\xi }|_{cr}=2g^23^{\frac{1}{4}}|\xi |^{\frac{3}{4}},(V_{5,3,\xi }^{\prime \prime })_{cr}=4g^23^{\frac{1}{4}}|\xi |^{\frac{3}{4}}.`$ (65)
* $`p=3`$ , $`q=5`$

$`V_{3,5,\xi }={\displaystyle \frac{3g^2}{8}}\left(e^{\sqrt{\frac{10}{3}}\varphi }+10\xi e^{\sqrt{\frac{2}{15}}\varphi }+5\xi ^2e^{\sqrt{\frac{6}{5}}\varphi }\right).`$ (66)
De Sitter critical point is at negative $`\xi `$ and $`e^{4\sqrt{\frac{2}{15}}\varphi _{cr}}=\frac{3}{|\xi |}.`$ The value of the potential and of its second derivative at the critical points is:

$`V_{3,5,\xi }|_{cr}=2g^23^{\frac{1}{4}}|\xi |^{\frac{5}{4}},(V_{3,5,\xi }^{\prime \prime })_{cr}=4g^23^{\frac{1}{4}}|\xi |^{\frac{5}{4}}.`$ (67)

Thus we find that in all 3 cases above the critical point is a maximum of the scalar potential and the tachyonic mass squared has twice the value of the potential:

$`V^{^{\prime \prime }}=|m^2|_{tach}=2V={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}|R|.`$ (68)
## V de Sitter vacua of N=4 and N=2 gauged supergravities

The first de Sitter solutions of gauged supergravity have been discovered by Gates and Zwiebach Gates:1983ct , Zwiebach:1984qq  in the framework of $`SU(2)\times SU(2)`$ gauged version of the $`SO(4)`$ N=4 theory. It seems that SO(4) gauged supergravities have to have two independent gauge couplings $`g_1`$ and $`g_2`$ corresponding to each $`SU(2)`$. However, it was found by Zwiebach Zwiebach:1984qq  that it is not really the case due to the presence of scalar fields in front of the kinetic terms of the vector fields. These scalar fields acquire vacuum expectation values and this makes it necessary to rescale vector fields and gauged couplings so that the model has only one effective coupling constant. For the case corresponding to a positive cosmological constant $`g_1`$ and $`g_2`$ have to satisfy a relation $`g_{1eff}=g_{2eff}=\sqrt{g_1g_2}.`$ It was shown that the value of cosmological constant depends only on this one effective coupling constant. More general N=4 supergravities were studied in superspace in Gates:1983an .

Later de Roo and Wagemans deRoo:1985jh  studied a more the general case of $`SU(2)\times SU(2)`$ gauging with separate phases $`\alpha _{1,2}`$ for each $`SU(2)`$ . For $`\alpha =\alpha _1\alpha _2=\frac{\pi }{2}`$ the scalar potential proposed in deRoo:1985jh  corresponds to the potentials from the papers of Gates and Zwiebach Gates:1983ct ,Zwiebach:1984qq  and Hull Hull:1984yy . In all cases scalars parametrize the $`\frac{SU(1,1)}{U(1)}`$ coset space.

We will also take into account that some supergravity actions have the Einstein term as $`\pm \frac{1}{2}R`$, which corresponds to $`\pm \frac{M_p^2}{2}R`$ with $`M_p=1`$, whereas some other actions have $`\pm \frac{1}{4}R`$, which corresponds to $`\pm \frac{M_p^2}{2}R`$ with $`M_p=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}`$. In N=8 case in the previous action we had $`M_p=1`$ case, in deRoo:1985jh  we have $`M_p=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}`$ case. When we will compare the relation between tachyon mass and the potential, we will keep this in mind. We will perform the study of de Sitter solutions, starting with the potential from de Roo and Wagemans paper deRoo:1985jh :

$`V={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(g_1^2|\mathrm{\Phi }_1|^2+g_2^2|\mathrm{\Phi }_2|^2\right)ig_1g_2\left(\mathrm{\Phi }_1^{}\mathrm{\Phi }_2\mathrm{\Phi }_2^{}\mathrm{\Phi }_1\right),`$ (69)
where scalar fields $`\mathrm{\Phi }_1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_2`$ are

$`\mathrm{\Phi }_1=e^{i\alpha _1}\varphi ^1+e^{i\alpha _1}\varphi ^2,`$
$`\mathrm{\Phi }_1=e^{i\alpha _2}\varphi ^1+e^{i\alpha _2}\varphi ^2,`$
where $`\varphi _1`$ and $`\varphi _2`$ are SU(1,1) doublet of scalar fields from N=4 Weyl multiplet

$`\varphi ^1=(\varphi _1)^{},\varphi ^2=(\varphi _2)^{},`$ (70)
with the constraint:

$`\varphi ^a\varphi _a=1,a=1,2.`$ (71)
The solution of this constraint gives:

$`\varphi _1={\displaystyle \frac{e^{i\beta }}{\sqrt{1|Z|^2}}},\varphi _2={\displaystyle \frac{Ze^{i(\alpha _1+\alpha _2)}}{\sqrt{1|Z|^2}}},`$ (72)
where

$$e^{i\beta }=\frac{e^{i\alpha }g_1^2+e^{i\alpha }g_2^2}{|e^{i\alpha }g_1^2+e^{i\alpha }g_2^2|}$$

and $`\alpha =\alpha _1\alpha _2.`$ The only remaining independent scalar field is $`Z=X+iY`$ and in terms of this field $`Z`$ and parameter $`\alpha =\alpha _1\alpha _2`$ the potential is:

$`V={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(1|Z|^2)}}\left((g_1^2+g_2^2)(1+|Z|^2)2|e^{i\alpha }g_1^2+e^{i\alpha }g_2^2|X\right)2g_1g_2\mathrm{sin}\alpha .`$ (73)
The critical point for this potential with the additional constraint $`|Z|<1`$, required for the positivity of the kinetic terms for scalars, is:

$`X_{cr}`$ $`=`$ $`Z_0={\displaystyle \frac{g_1^2+g_2^22|g_1g_2\mathrm{sin}(\alpha )|}{|e^{i\alpha }g_1^2+e^{i\alpha }g_2^2|}}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g_1^2+g_2^22|g_1g_2\mathrm{sin}\alpha |}{\sqrt{(g_1^2+g_2^22g_1g_2\mathrm{sin}\alpha )(g_1^2+g_2^2+2g_1g_2\mathrm{sin}\alpha )}}},`$
$`Y_{cr}`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$
The potential at this point is $`V|_{cr}=|g_1g_2\mathrm{sin}\alpha |2g_1g_2\mathrm{sin}\alpha .`$ For $`2g_1g_2\mathrm{sin}\alpha <0`$ the potential is positive

$`V_{cr}=|g_1g_2\mathrm{sin}\alpha |.`$ (74)
To find a second derivative of the potential we have to find the scalars which have canonical kinetic terms at the critical point. Using (70) and (71) we will get kinetic terms at the critical point:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\varphi ^a\varphi _a={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(1Z_0^2)^2}}XX{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(1Z_0^2)}}YY.`$ (75)
Thus $`x=\frac{1}{(1Z_0^2)}X`$ and $`y=\frac{1}{(1Z_0^2)^{1/2}}Y`$ are the fields over which we have to differentiate the potential. We find:

$`m_{xx}^2`$ $`=`$ $`4|g_1g_2\mathrm{sin}\alpha |,`$ (76)
$`m_{yy}^2`$ $`=`$ $`(g_1^2+g_2^2+2|g_1g_2\mathrm{sin}\alpha |).`$ (77)
Thus we see (with account of normalization $`M_p^2=\frac{1}{2}`$ in deRoo:1985jh ) that the tachyonic mass in the $`x`$ direction compares with the potential as in all previous cases:

$`M_p^2V_{cr}^{^{\prime \prime }}=2V_{cr},m_{tach}^2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}|R|.`$ (78)
However, the potential in $`y`$ direction has a tachyonic mass which looks quite independent of the value of the potential at the critical point. This looks puzzling in view of the large amount of examples considered before. However, in a particular case of $`\alpha =\frac{\pi }{2}`$ this puzzle is resolved as follows:

$`V_{cr}=|g_1g_2|,m_{xx}^2=4|g_1g_2|,m_{yy}^2=(g_1+g_2)^2.`$ (79)
This is still puzzling, however here we have to remember that without looking at kinetic terms for vector fields, one can not make a definite judgement about the relation between $`g_1`$ and $`g_2`$. But this analysis was performed by Zwiebach in Zwiebach:1984qq  and he concluded that effectively one has to consider only the case of $`g_1=g_2`$ for the de Sitter solution. This case gives us $`m_{yy}^2=0`$. In fact the potential depends only on the combination $`Z^2=X^2+Y^2`$ and there is only one tachyon excitation and a flat direction. Thus suggests that if we would perform the analysis of the kinetic terms for vector fields for the theory with $`\alpha \frac{\pi }{2}`$ we would find again that for canonical kinetic terms we do not have an extra tachyon field.

Another form of potential of N=4 theory was given in Hull:1984yy  and has been recently discussed in Hull:2001ii :

$`V=\left(4g_1g_2+(g_1^2+g_2^2)\mathrm{cosh}(a|\phi |)+(g_1^2g_2^2){\displaystyle \frac{Re\phi }{|\phi |}}\mathrm{sinh}(a|\phi |)\right)`$ (80)
with $`W=\frac{\phi }{|\phi |}\mathrm{tanh}(\frac{a|\phi |}{2}).`$ For $`g_1=g_2`$ we get the potential discussed in Hull:2001ii

$$V=\frac{1}{2}g^2(\mathrm{cosh}(a|\phi |)2)$$

with $`g^2=4g_1g_2.`$ The critical point is $`\phi =0`$ and $`V|_{cr}=\frac{1}{2}g^2.`$ The presence of the parameter $`a`$ will not affect the properties of the system even though it seems that in this case $`V^{\prime \prime }|_{cr}=\frac{a^2}{2}g^2`$ and for very small $`a`$ it is possible to get $`V|_{cr}|V^{\prime \prime }|_{cr}.`$ The properties of the potential are related to canonical kinetic terms and the rescaling of the scalar field $`\phi `$ in the potential will also lead to the rescaling of the kinetic terms therefore we conclude that there is no free adjustable parameter which can be used for a slow-roll condition.

The $`SU(2)\times SU(2)`$ gauging of N=4 supergravity can be easily reduced to N=2 gauged supergravity with one vector multiplet gauging deWit:1984pk . In this case $`g_1=g_2`$ and the potential has a form:

$`V=2g_1^24g_1^2{\displaystyle \frac{|Z|^2}{(1|Z|^2)}}.`$ (81)
The critical point corresponds to $`Z=0`$ and $`V|_{cr}=2g_1^2.`$ Again in this case we find that the tachyon mass is related to the potential as $`M_p^2V_{cr}^{^{\prime \prime }}=2V_{cr}`$.

To summarize, in all cases of N=4 and N=2 gauged supergravities which we looked at, we find tachyons with relation to the curvature of the de Sitter space of the form $`m_{tach}^2=\frac{1}{2}|R|`$. The situation for gauged N=2 supergravities may be more complicated in general and required additional consideration.

## VI  Minkowski vacua and a possibility of inflation along flat directions

There is another class of potentials which should not be overlooked in our search for de Sitter solutions. For certain values of parameters the potentials have flat directions corresponding to Minkowski space with $`V(\varphi )=0`$. Existence of Minkowski or near-Minkowski ground state is a pre-requisite of a successful inflationary cosmology, so even though at the classical level such potentials do not have any de Sitter solutions, their existence is rather intriguing.

Several examples of such models have been presented in Ahn:2001by . The corresponding results can be summarized by the following table.

$`\begin{array}{ccccccccccc}& & & & & & & & & & \\ p& q& r& \xi & \zeta & s_{cr}& t_{cr}& W(s_{cr},t_{cr})& V(s_{cr},t_{cr})& m_1^2& m_2^2\\ & & & & & & & & & & \\ 1& 1& 6& 1& 0& 0& \mathrm{any}& \frac{1}{4}\mathrm{exp}\left[\sqrt{\frac{3}{2}}t_{cr}\right]& 0& 2e^{\sqrt{6}t_{cr}}& 0\\ & & & & & & & & & & \\ 2& 1& 5& & & & & & & 0& 0\\ 2& 2& 4& & & & & & & 0& 0\\ 2& 3& 3& 0& 1,0,1& \mathrm{any}& \mathrm{any}& \frac{1}{4}\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{2s_{cr}\sqrt{5}t_{cr}}{\sqrt{6}}\right]& 0& 0& 0\\ 2& 4& 2& & & & & & & 0& 0\\ 2& 5& 1& & & & & & & 0& 0\end{array}`$
The class of theories in this table has a possibility to be related to M-theory avoiding the non-compactness problem. In all cases here $`\xi 0`$, thus there is no negative components of the metric on the hypersurface (54). Instead, there are some non-compact $`U(1)`$ directions, for example, in $`p=1`$, $`q=1`$, $`r=1`$, $`\xi =1`$, $`\zeta =0`$ case the internal space is $`𝐒^2\times 𝐑^6`$ and the symmetry is $`SO(2)\times U(1)^{15}`$. However the flat directions $`𝐑^6`$ could be compactified to $`𝐓^6`$ as explained in Hull:2001ii .

In the case $`p=1`$, $`q=1`$, $`r=1`$, $`\xi =1`$, $`\zeta =0`$ the potential of the scalar fields $`s`$ and $`t`$ looks as follows:

$$V(s,t)=\frac{1}{8}e^{\sqrt{2}(2s+\sqrt{3}t)}\left(1e^{2\sqrt{2}s}\right)^2=\frac{1}{2}e^{\sqrt{6}t}\mathrm{sinh}^2(\sqrt{2}s).$$
(83)
This potential blows up at large negative $`t`$ and at large $`|s|`$, it is even with respect to $`s`$, and it vanishes for all $`t`$ along the valley $`s=0`$, see Fig. 2. Its curvature is positive in all directions, no tachyons are present.

This potential is not of inflationary type, at least at the classical level. Indeed, there is no slow-roll regime of inflationary type in the theories with exponential potentials of type $`e^{c\varphi }`$ with $`c1`$; such potentials are too steep. Meanwhile, the potential along the valley vanishes, so inflation does not appear for the fields moving along this valley as well. One could hope that the regime of acceleration may emerge when the fields oscillate in the valley and slowly drift towards positive $`t`$. However, the energy density of the oscillating field rapidly drops down. We have checked numerically, for various initial conditions for $`s`$ and $`t`$, that the cosmological evolution in the theory with this potential is not inflationary.

A similar situation appears in the model with $`p=2`$, described in the lower part of the table. In this model the potential vanishes (i.e. the cosmological constant is equal to zero) for all $`s`$ and $`t`$. Once again, in this case one does not have an inflationary regime.

However, it might happen that the flat directions can be lifted due to quantum effects. Note that in these models supersymmetry is broken along the flat directions, so it does not protect the effective potential against radiative corrections.

In this respect it is instructive to remember the recent example related to P-term inflation in N=2 Kallosh:2001tm , as well as very similar examples of D-term inflation Dvali  and F-term inflation in N=1 Lyth . The effective potential in P-term inflation at the classical level has several Minkowski flat directions with unbroken supersymmetry. Perturbative effects cannot lift up these flat directions and give rise to inflation. However, once one takes into account possible FI terms, these flat directions are lifted up to a state with $`V>0`$. They still remain flat, but they correspond to de Sitter vacuum with broken supersymmetry. Then the radiative corrections, which appear because of the supersymmetry breaking, make the effective potential $`V`$ slightly tilted. This leads to a realization of the hybrid inflation scenario in N=2.

We do not know whether anything like that will happen in N=8, but this is a very interesting possibility that deserves separate investigation.

One should note also that in this paper we concentrated on the investigation of potentials with extrema at finite values of the scalar fields. However, one may also look for possible classical potentials that may have flat directions approaching de Sitter state with $`V>0`$ or Minkowski state with $`V=0`$ only asymptotically. From the point of view of cosmology such potentials are very interesting: They can describe inflation at large $`V(\varphi )`$ and quintessence at small $`V(\varphi )`$.

## VII Conclusions

In this paper we investigated the possibility to have de Sitter-like solutions describing inflation/accelerated expansion of the universe in some N=8,4, 2 gauged supergravities. In each model that we have studied we have found that de Sitter state corresponds to a single unstable extremum of the scalar potential $`V`$. The (negative) curvature of the potential in the direction of the fastest descent in all of these models obeys the simple rule: $`|V^{\prime \prime }|=2V`$ in units $`M_p=1`$. (Note that throughout the paper we are using the following definition of the Planck mass: $`M_p^2=8\pi /G`$, where $`G`$ is the gravitational coupling constant.) This relation can be represented in the following way: $`|m^2|=|R|/2`$, where $`m^2`$ is the tachyonic mass corresponding to the excitation in the direction of the fastest descent, and $`R`$ is the curvature scalar, $`|R|=12H^2`$. It would be very interesting to find a simple geometric explanation of this relation. More general relations between tachyonic $`|m^2|`$ and a potential may be possible, particularly in $`N=2`$ theories Priv . In this paper we concentrated on the derivation of this relation for a large class of models, and on investigation of its consequences.

One of the consequences is that the slow-roll inflationary regime is impossible near the extrema of the scalar potential in such models. Note, however, that this conclusion may change when one takes into account more scalar fields and more general gaugings. In N=2 gauged supergravities with vector and hypermultiplets one may expect some new results. We have studied only those models of N=8,4,2 supergravities for which an explicit expression for the potential was known. In these models the potential depends only on one or two scalar fields. Thus it may happen that some of our conclusions are not generic. It would be interesting, in particular, to look for potentials that have flat directions with $`|V^{\prime \prime }|V`$ asymptotically approaching Minkowski vacuum with $`V=0`$ or de Sitter vacuum with $`V10^{120}`$, which would correspond to the present state of the universe.

If such a regime is possible, one may start looking for it already at the classical level. One may also try to find out whether the flat directions with $`V=0`$, which are present in some versions of $`N=8`$ gauged supergravity, can be lifted up by quantum effects, and can be used for implementation of inflation. An example of how this possibility could be realized in N= 2 have been recently given in Kallosh:2001tm ; see also examples in N= 1 given in Dvali ; Lyth .

On the other hand, if one is only interested in describing the present stage of quasi-exponential expansion of the universe in a state with $`V10^{120}`$, the danger of the vacuum instability can be removed to a very distant future, hundreds of billions of years from the present epoch: The universe with $`|V^{\prime \prime }|=2V10^{120}`$ may experience more than 100 e-folds of fast-roll inflation, which is more than sufficient to explain the present stage of accelerated expansion. Of course, such models require rather extreme values of parameters, but it is still interesting that such a regime is possible despite the expected strong instability of de Sitter space with $`|V^{\prime \prime }|=2V`$.

### Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to G. Dall’Agata, G. Felder, P. Fré, C. Hull, N. Kaloper, S. Kachru, L. Kofman, P. Townsend, A. Van Proeyen, and E. Witten for useful discussions. This work was supported by NSF grant PHY-9870115. The work of M.S. was partly supported by the Department of Energy under a contract DE-AC03-76SF00515. S.P. acknowledges the support from Stanford Graduate Fellowship Foundation.

### Note Added

While we were preparing this paper for the submission we became aware of a related investigation by Paul Townsend, hep-th/0110072. He has found a model based on N=8 gauged supergravity with a sufficiently flat potential, which may lead to a marginally inflationary regime $`a(t)t^3`$. Such potentials can be useful for the description of the present acceleration of the universe, as proposed in hep-th/0110072. It would be interesting to use such potentials for a description of inflation in the early universe. However, density perturbations produced in the universe with $`a(t)t^3`$ have a substantially non-flat spectrum, $`n`$ is well below 1, whereas observations suggest $`|n1|0.1`$. One should note also that the model proposed in hep-th/0110072 is based on finding de Sitter solution in d=5 and making a subsequent reduction to d=4. In order to check whether this model is realistic it would be important to find out whether the corresponding 5d de Sitter solution may suffer from the same problem of instability as all 4d de Sitter solutions analysed in our paper.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The heavy quark production near thresholds will be thoroughly investigated at future accelerators, e.g. . One can study the $`q\overline{q}`$ systems near threshold in $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation  and $`\gamma \gamma `$ collisions . In $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation the production vertex is local (the electromagnetic current in case of photon and/or neutral weak current in case of $`Z`$-boson), the basic observable is a production cross section which is saturated by S-wave (for the vector current). In $`\gamma \gamma `$ collisions the production vertex is nonlocal and both S- and P-waves can be studied for different helicity photons, the number of observables is larger (cross sections $`\sigma _S`$, $`\sigma _P`$, S-P interference). In $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation high precision data are already available for $`b\overline{b}`$ and expected for $`t\overline{t}`$. The $`\gamma \gamma q\overline{q}`$ experiments are planned.

## 2 Features of theoretical description

Heavy quarks near the production threshold moves slowly that justifies the use of the nonrelativistic quantum mechanics for their description \[6-8\]. Being much simpler than the comprehensive relativistic treatment of the bound state problem with Bethe-Salpeter amplitude , the nonrelativistic approach allows one to take into account exactly such an essential feature of the near-threshold dynamics as Coulomb interaction . For unstable heavy quarks with a large decay width it is possible to compute the cross section near threshold point-wise in energy because the large decay width suppresses the long distance effects of strong interaction . The $`t\overline{t}`$-pair near the production threshold is just a system that satisfies the requirement of being nonrelativistic. Therefore the description of $`t\overline{t}`$-system near the production threshold $`\sqrt{s}2m_t`$ ($`\sqrt{s}`$ is a total energy of the pair, $`m_t`$ is the top quark mass) is quite precise within nonrelativistic QCD (NRQCD). Reasons for this accuracy are related to the large mass of the top:

* The top quark is very heavy $`m_t=175\mathrm{GeV}`$  and there is an energy region of about $`810`$ GeV near the threshold where the nonrelativistic approximation for the kinematics is very precise. For $`\sqrt{s}=2m_t+E`$ with $`|E|<5\mathrm{GeV}`$ the quark velocity is small

$$v=\sqrt{1\frac{4m_t^2}{s}}=\sqrt{1\frac{4m_t^2}{(2m_t+E)^2}}\sqrt{\frac{E}{m_t}}<0.151.$$
(1)
Relativistic effects are small and can be taken into account perturbatively in $`v`$ (even in $`v^2`$).
* The strong coupling constant at the high energy scale is small $`\alpha _s(m_t)0.1`$ that makes the perturbative mapping of QCD onto the low energy effective theory (NRQCD) numerically precise.
* The decay width of top quark is large, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_t=1.43`$ GeV; infrared (small momenta) region is suppressed and PT calculation for the cross section near the threshold is reliable point-wise in energy.

Because $`\alpha _sv`$ and the ratio $`\alpha _s/v`$ is not small, the Coulomb interaction is enhanced. The ordinary perturbation theory for the cross section (with free quarks as the lowest order approximation) breaks down and all terms of the order $`(\alpha _s/v)^n`$ should be summed. The expansion for a generic observable $`f(E)`$ in this kinematical region has the form

$$f(E)=f_0(\alpha _s/v)+\alpha _sf_1(\alpha _s/v)+\alpha _s^2f_2(\alpha _s/v)+\mathrm{}$$
(2)
where $`f_i(\alpha _s/v)`$ are some (not polynomial) functions of the ratio $`\alpha _s/v`$, $`f_0(\alpha _s/v)`$ is a result of the pure Coulomb approximation (or a kind of its improvement). The expansion in $`\alpha _s`$ in eq. (2) takes into account the perturbative QCD corrections to the parameters of NRQCD and relativistic corrections (in the regime $`v\alpha _s`$).

For the $`e^+e^{}t\overline{t}`$ process mediated by the photon the NNLO analysis is well known. The basic quantity is the vacuum polarization function

$$\mathrm{\Pi }(E)=iTj_{em}(x)j_{em}(0)e^{iqx}𝑑x,q^2=(2m_t+E)^2.$$
(3)
Near the threshold (for small energy $`E`$) NRQCD is used. The cross section is saturated with S-wave scattering. In this approximation the polarization function near the threshold to the NNLO accuracy in NRQCD is given by

$$\mathrm{\Pi }(E)=\frac{2\pi }{m_t^2}C_h(\alpha _s)C_𝒪(E/m_t)G(E;0,0).$$
(4)
The pole mass definition is used for $`m_t`$ (e.g. ), $`\alpha _s`$ is the strong coupling constant. $`C_h(\alpha _s)`$ is the high energy coefficient. $`G(E;0,0)`$ is the nonrelativistic Green function (GF). The quantity $`C_𝒪(E/m_t)`$ describes the contributions of higher dimension operators within the effective theory approach. These contributions have, in general, a different structure than the leading term. To the NNLO of NRQCD the contribution of higher dimension operators can be written as a total factor $`C_𝒪(E/m_t)`$ for the leading order GF, $`C_𝒪(E/m_t)=14E/3m_t`$. The polarization function near the threshold (4) contains expansions in small parameters $`\alpha _s`$ and/or $`v`$, cf. eq. (2). The leading order approximation of the low energy part is the exact Coulomb solution for the Green function.

The nonrelativistic Green’s function $`G(E)=(HE)^1`$ is determined by the nonrelativistic Hamiltonian

$$H=\frac{p^2}{m_t}+V(r)$$
(5)
describing dynamics of the $`t\overline{t}`$-pair near the threshold. The most complicated part of Hamiltonian (5) to find is the heavy quark static potential $`V_{pot}(r)`$ entering into the potential $`V(r)`$. The static potential $`V_{pot}(r)`$ is computed in perturbation theory and can be written in the form

$$V_{pot}(q)=\frac{4\alpha _\mathrm{v}(r)}{3r}$$
(6)
that gives a definition of the effective charge $`\alpha _\mathrm{v}`$ related to the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$-scheme coupling constant

$$\alpha _\mathrm{v}(\mu )=\alpha _s(\mu )(1+a_1\alpha _s(\mu )+a_2\alpha _s(\mu )^2).$$
(7)
Coefficients $`a_{1,2}`$ are known \[14-15\]. The effective coupling $`\alpha _\mathrm{v}`$ is nothing but a coupling constant in some special subtraction scheme. The coefficient $`a_2`$ allows one to find the effective $`\beta `$-function $`\beta _\mathrm{v}`$ for the evolution of the coupling $`\alpha _\mathrm{v}`$ at NNLO.

High energy coefficient $`C_h(\alpha _s)`$ is given by the expression

$$C_h(\alpha )=1\frac{16}{3}\frac{\alpha _s}{\pi }+\left(\frac{\alpha _s}{\pi }\right)^2\left(\frac{140}{27}\pi ^2\mathrm{ln}\frac{\mu _f}{m_t}+c_2\right).$$
(8)
The NLO result for $`C_h(\alpha _s)`$ has been known since long ago \[17-18\]. At NNLO there appears a term proportional to the logarithm of the factorization parameter $`\mu _f`$ that separates long and short distances (or large and small momenta) within the effective theory approach. The finite ($`\mu _f`$ independent) coefficient $`c_2`$ is known . An explicit dependence of high and low energy quantities on the factorization scale $`\mu _f`$ is a general feature of effective theories which are valid only for a given region of energy. Physical quantities are factorization scale independent. In NRQCD the $`\mu _f`$ dependence cancels between Green’s function and the high energy coefficient $`C_h`$.

The main dynamical quantity in description of the $`t\overline{t}`$ system near the threshold is the nonrelativistic Green’s function $`G=(HE)^1`$. The Hamiltonian is represented in the form \[22-24\]

$$H=H_C+\mathrm{\Delta }H,H_C=\frac{p^2}{m_t}\frac{4\alpha _s}{3r}$$
(9)
with $`\mathrm{\Delta }H`$ describing high order corrections. Constructing the Green’s function is straightforward and can be done analytically within perturbation theory near Coulomb Green’s function $`G_C(E)`$ or numerically for complex values of $`E`$ that can be used to describe the production of particles with nonzero width \[25-33\].

The analytical solution for Green’s function is perturbative in $`\mathrm{\Delta }H`$

$$G=G_CG_C\mathrm{\Delta }HG_C+G_C\mathrm{\Delta }HG_C\mathrm{\Delta }HG_C\mathrm{}$$
(10)
Results are presented basically as an expansion in consecutive orders

$$G=G_0+\mathrm{\Delta }G_1+\mathrm{\Delta }G_2$$
(11)
to check the convergence of the approximations. The leading order is given by Coulomb approximation, $`G_0=G_C`$. At NLO the quantity $`\mathrm{\Delta }G_1`$ takes into account the corrections from the static potential $`V_{pot}(r)`$ related to $`a_1`$ coefficient in eq. (7). At the NNLO the quantity $`\mathrm{\Delta }G_2O(\alpha _s^2)`$ in a sense of eq. (2) accounts for $`\alpha _s^2`$ terms in the static potential $`V_{pot}(r)`$ ($`a_2`$ coefficient in eq. (7)) and relativistic $`v^2`$ corrections. It also contains a second iteration of the $`O(\alpha _s)`$ term from $`V_{pot}(r)`$. The $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$-scheme for the static potential $`V_{pot}(r)`$ is mainly used in the solution. The numerical results for GF obtained by different authors agree with each other .

## 3 Physical results

For the $`b\overline{b}`$ system an accurate description of the spectrum in terms of moments

$$_n=_{4m_b^2}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{\rho (s)ds}{s^n}$$

is obtained in the near-threshold Coulomb PT calculations. This analysis gave the best determination of the numerical value for the $`b`$ quark mass

$$m_b=4.80\pm 0.06\mathrm{GeV}.$$

For the $`t\overline{t}`$ system the top quark width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_t`$ plays a crucial role in the calculation of the production cross section near the threshold. At the formal level the width is taken into account by a shift of the energy variable $`E`$. The mass operator of the top quark is approximated by the expression $`M=m_ti\mathrm{\Gamma }_t/2`$. Then the kinematical variable $`s4m_t^2`$ relevant to the near-threshold dynamics is substituted with $`s4M^2`$ ($`\sqrt{s}=E+2m_t`$) and one finds

$$s4M^2=4m_t(E+i\mathrm{\Gamma }_t)+E^2+\mathrm{\Gamma }_t^2.$$

Neglecting higher orders in $`E`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_t`$ one obtains a recipe for taking into account the width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_t`$ by the shift $`EE+i\mathrm{\Gamma }_t`$. The dispersion relation for the vacuum polarization function $`\mathrm{\Pi }(E)`$ has the form

$$\mathrm{\Pi }(E)=\frac{\rho (E^{})dE^{}}{E^{}E}.$$

With the shift recipe one finds

$$\sigma (E)\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Pi }(E+i\mathrm{\Gamma }_t)=\mathrm{Im}\frac{\rho (E^{})dE^{}}{E^{}Ei\mathrm{\Gamma }_t}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_t\frac{\rho (E^{})dE^{}}{(E^{}E)^2+\mathrm{\Gamma }_t^2}.$$
(12)
Because the point $`E+i\mathrm{\Gamma }_t`$ lies sufficiently far from the positive semiaxis (and the origin) in the complex energy plane the cross section eq. (12) is calculable point-wise in energy. The hadronic cross section $`\sigma (E)`$ was obtained by many authors . The normalized cross section for typical values $`m_t=175`$ GeV, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_t=1.43`$ GeV, $`\alpha _s(M_Z)=0.118`$ has the characteristic points which are usually considered as basic observables. They are: $`E_p`$ – the position of the peak in the cross section and $`H_p`$ – its height. In the limit of the small $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_t`$ (at least for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_t`$ that is smaller than the spacing between the first two Coulomb poles) one would have $`E_pE_0`$ and $`H_p|\psi _0(0)|^2`$. The actual value of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_t=1.43`$ GeV is larger than the spacing $`|E_0E_1|m_t\alpha _s^2/30.6\mathrm{GeV}`$ therefore the peak position and height are not determined by the first resonance only. The convergence for $`E_p`$ and $`H_p`$ in the consecutive orders of perturbation theory near the Coulomb solution is not fast in the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$-scheme. For the typical numerical values of the theoretical parameters $`m_t`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_t`$ and $`\alpha _s(M_Z)`$ one finds

$`E_p`$ $`=`$ $`E_0(1+0.58+0.38+\mathrm{})`$
$`H_p`$ $`=`$ $`H_0(10.15+0.12+\mathrm{})`$ (13)
(see also ). Important contributions that affect the quality of convergence are the local term ($`\alpha _sV_0\delta (\stackrel{}{r})`$ which is related to $`1/r^2`$ non-Abelian term ) and higher order PT corrections to $`V_{pot}(r)`$.

## 4 Discussion and conclusion

Slow convergence for the peak characteristics of the cross section given in eq. (3) has been actively discussed. The suggestions of the redefinition of the top quark mass have been made (e.g. ) as the use of the pole mass for a description of the cross section near the threshold is criticized on the ground of its infrared instability . This approach is based on introduction of an effective mass that partly accounts for interaction \[41-43\]. In this talk I only discuss some possible ways of optimizing the convergence for the Green’s function with the pole mass as a theoretical parameter . Actual calculations near the threshold have been performed within the pole mass scheme. For optimizing the convergence one can use methods of exact summation of some contributions in all orders and renormalization scheme invariance of PT series e.g. . The Hamiltonian can be written in the form

$$H=H_{LO}+\mathrm{\Delta }V_{PT}+\alpha _sV_0\delta (\stackrel{}{r}),V_0=\frac{70\pi }{9m_t^2}$$
(14)
where corrections are given by the perturbation theory corrections to $`V_{pot}(r)`$ ($`\mathrm{\Delta }V_{PT}`$-part) and by the local term ($`\alpha _sV_0\delta (\stackrel{}{r})`$-part). The $`\delta (\stackrel{}{r})`$-part is a separable potential and can be taken into account exactly . The solution reads

$$G(E;0,0)=\frac{G_{ir}(E;0,0)}{1+\alpha _sV_0G_{ir}(E;0,0)}$$
(15)
with

$$G_{ir}(E)=(H_{LO}+\mathrm{\Delta }V_{PT}E)^1$$
(16)
being the irreducible Green’s function. The PT expansion of the static potential in NRQCD is important for getting stable results for the cross section near the threshold because the static potential is the genuine quantity which is computed in high order of PT in the strong coupling constant . The convergence in the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ scheme is not fast which reflects the physical situation that the observables represented by the cross section curve (for instance, $`E_p`$ and $`H_p`$) are sensitive to different scales. The finite-order perturbation theory expansion of the static potential cannot handle several distinct scales with the same accuracy. Indeed, the PT expansion of the static potential is done near some (arbitrary) scale (or distance) which can be considered simply as a normalization point. The farther a given point lies from this normalization point the worse the precision of the PT expansion for the static potential is. The PT expressions in the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ scheme are not directly sensitive to physical scales because subtractions are made in a mass independent way (for instance, massive particles do not decouple automatically in the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ scheme e.g. ). One can rewrite the static potential through some physical parameters which is similar to the use of the momentum subtraction scheme instead of the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$-scheme

$$V_{pot}(r)=\frac{4\alpha _0}{3r}\left(1+\alpha _0b_1\mathrm{ln}r/r_0+\alpha _0^2(b_1^2\mathrm{ln}^2r/r_0+b_2^{}\mathrm{ln}r/r_0+c)\right).$$
(17)
Here $`r_0`$ and $`c`$ are the parameters of the renormalization scheme freedom in NNLO and $`\alpha _0`$ is the corresponding coupling in the $`\{r_0,c\}`$-scheme . They parameterize the center of the expansion (a normalization point) and the derivative (respective $`\beta `$-function) of the static potential. The parameters ($`r_0,c`$) can be chosen such in order to minimize the higher order corrections to a particular observable (e.g.  where NLO analysis has been done). In such a case $`r_0`$ can be understood as a typical distance to which a chosen observable is sensitive. Note that the best approximation of the static potential $`V_{pot}(r)`$ for different scales would be provided by the use of the running coupling constant $`\alpha _s(r)`$. The analytical calculation of GF becomes technically impossible in this case. The numerical calculation of GF requires some regularization at large distances where the IR singularity (Landau pole) can occur in $`\alpha _s(r)`$. The singularity can be dealt with if an IR fixed point appears in the evolution for the effective coupling constant (e.g. ) or with some nonPT regularization for the potential (e.g. ). For the top quark production the contribution of the large $`r`$ region into the cross section is small because of the large decay width of the top quark. In the finite-order PT analysis the parameters $`r_0`$ and $`c`$ can be chosen to minimize higher order corrections either to $`E_p`$ or to $`H_p`$ but not to both simultaneously because $`E_p`$ and $`H_p`$ are sensitive to different distances. One finds the difference of scales minimizing corrections to the first Coulomb resonance in NLO to be

$$\mathrm{ln}(r_E/r_\psi )=\frac{1}{3}+\frac{\pi ^2}{9}.$$
(18)
Because of the large top quark width many states contribute into the position and height of the peak in the cross section. Therefore the characteristic distance estimates are not so transparent (the NNLO peak position, for instance, is not exactly the ground state energy in the zero width limit). The relation (18) can serve just as a basic guide. In practical analysis one can choose the particular numerical values for the parameters ($`r_0,c`$) which stabilize either $`E_p`$ or $`H_p`$.

## Acknowledgments

I thank J.G.Körner for kind hospitality at Mainz University where the paper was completed. The work is supported in part by Russian Fund for Basic Research under contracts 99-01-00091 and 01-02-16171, by INTAS and DFG grants.


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# Spectrally resolved flares in the quiescent black hole V404 Cyg

### Acknowledgments.

RIH, CAH and PAC acknowledge financial support the Leverhulme Trust. The WHT and JKT are operated on La Palma by the ING in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the IAC.

## References

Casares J., Charles P. A., 1992, MNRAS, 255, 7

Casares J., Charles P. A., Naylor T., Pavlenko E. P., 1993, MNRAS, 265, 834

Hynes R. I., Zurita C., Haswell C. A., Casares J., Charles P., Pavlenko E. P., Shugarov S. Yu., Lott D., 2002, MNRAS, submitted


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# DESY 01-146 ISSN 0418-9833 hep-ph/0110296 October 2001 On the Field Renormalization Constant for Unstable Particles

## Abstract

A recently proposed normalization condition for the imaginary part of the self-energy of an unstable particle is shown to lead to a closed expression for the field renormalization constant $`Z`$. In turn, the exact expression for $`Z`$ is necessary, in some important cases, in order to avoid power-like infrared divergences in high orders of perturbation theory. In the same examples, the width plays the rôle of an infrared cutoff and, consequently, $`Z`$ is not an analytic function of the coupling constant.

PACS numbers: 11.10.Gh, 11.15.Bt

The unrenormalized transverse propagator of a gauge boson is of the form:

$$𝒟_{\mu \nu }^{(u)}(s)=\frac{iQ_{\mu \nu }}{sM_0^2A(s)},$$
(1)
where $`Q_{\mu \nu }=g_{\mu \nu }q_\mu q_\nu /s`$, $`q_\mu `$ is the four-momentum, $`s=q^2`$, $`M_0`$ is the bare mass, and $`A(s)`$ is the unrenormalized self-energy. An analogous expression holds for a scalar boson, with $`iQ_{\mu \nu }i`$. The complex position of the propagator’s pole is given by

$$\overline{s}=M_0^2+A(\overline{s}).$$
(2)
Combining Eqs. (1) and (2), we have

$$𝒟_{\mu \nu }^{(u)}(s)=\frac{iQ_{\mu \nu }}{s\overline{s}[A(s)A(\overline{s})]}.$$
(3)
Parameterizing $`\overline{s}=m_2^2im_2\mathrm{\Gamma }_2`$, where we employ the notation of Ref. , and considering the real and imaginary parts of Eq. (2), we see that

$`m_2^2`$ $`=`$ $`M_0^2+ReA(\overline{s}),`$ (4)
$`m_2\mathrm{\Gamma }_2`$ $`=`$ $`ImA(\overline{s}).`$ (5)
If $`m_2`$ is identified with the renormalized mass, Eq. (4) tells us that the mass counterterm is given by $`\delta m_2^2=ReA(\overline{s})`$. This is to be contrasted with the conventional mass renormalization

$$M^2=M_0^2+ReA(M^2),$$
(6)
where $`M`$ is the on-shell mass. The great theoretical advantage of using $`m_2`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_2`$ as the basis to define mass and width is that they are intrinsically gauge-independent quantities, while $`M`$ is known to be gauge dependent in next-to-next-to-leading order .

The renormalized propagator $`𝒟_{\mu \nu }^{(r)}(s)`$ is obtained by dividing Eq. (1) by the field renormalization constant $`Z=1\delta Z`$. Recalling Eq. (4), one readily obtains

$$𝒟_{\mu \nu }^{(r)}(s)=\frac{iQ_{\mu \nu }}{sm_2^2𝒮(s)+Re𝒮(\overline{s})\delta Z\left(sm_2^2\right)},$$
(7)
where

$$𝒮(s)ZA(s).$$
(8)
Thus, the renormalized self-energy is given by

$$𝒮^{(r)}(s)=𝒮(s)Re𝒮(\overline{s})+\delta Z\left(sm_2^2\right),$$
(9)
where the second and third terms are identified with the mass renormalization parameter,

$$\delta M^2Z\delta m_2^2=Re𝒮(\overline{s}),$$
(10)
and the field renormalization counterterm, respectively. Since the hermiticity of the Lagrangian density requires these counterterms to be real, $`\delta Z`$ must be chosen in such a way that, for real $`s`$, $`Re𝒮^{(r)}(s)`$ is ultraviolet convergent to all orders of perturbation theory. Once this is done, $`Im𝒮^{(r)}(s)=Im𝒮(s)=ZImA(s)`$ must also be ultraviolet convergent to all orders, since there are no further counterterms available. This means that $`Z`$ can be defined by choosing a suitable normalization condition on $`Im𝒮(s)=ZImA(s)`$.

Recently, a novel normalization condition for $`Im𝒮(s)=ZImA(s)`$, namely

$$Im𝒮\left(m_2^2\right)ZImA\left(m_2^2\right)=m_2\mathrm{\Gamma }_2,$$
(11)
was proposed independently in Eqs. (22) and (23) of Ref.  and in Ref. . The above relation between the width and the self-energy is known to be valid at the one-loop order. Eq. (11) extends its validity as an exact normalization condition, valid to all orders. While the objective of Ref.  was to solve the notorious problem of threshold singularities in the conventional definition of $`Z`$ , that of Ref.  was to provide a second normalization condition for the systematic order-by-order removal of ultraviolet divergences in $`𝒮^{(r)}(s)`$.

An interesting feature of the analysis of Ref.  is that it leads to exact, closed expressions for $`Z`$. This may be understood immediately by combining Eq. (11) with Eqs. (5) and (8):

$$Im𝒮\left(m_2^2\right)=ImA(\overline{s})=\frac{Im𝒮(\overline{s})}{Z}.$$
(12)
Thus,

$$Z=\frac{Im𝒮(\overline{s})}{Im𝒮\left(m_2^2\right)}=1\frac{Im\left[𝒮(\overline{s})𝒮\left(m_2^2\right)\right]}{m_2\mathrm{\Gamma }_2},$$
(13)
where we again employed Eq. (11). Eq. (13) tells us that, once the normalization condition of Eq. (11) is adopted, the field renormalization counterterm is given by the closed expression

$$\delta Z=\frac{Im\left[𝒮(\overline{s})𝒮\left(m_2^2\right)\right]}{m_2\mathrm{\Gamma }_2}.$$
(14)
In particular, the renormalized self-energy my be written as

$$𝒮^{(r)}(s)=𝒮(s)Re𝒮(\overline{s})+\frac{Im\left[𝒮(\overline{s})𝒮\left(m_2^2\right)\right]}{m_2\mathrm{\Gamma }_2}\left(sm_2^2\right).$$
(15)
Combining Eq. (13) with Eq. (8), $`Z`$ may be also expressed in terms of the unrenormalized self-energy, as

$$Z=\frac{1}{1+Im\left[A(\overline{s})A\left(m_2^2\right)\right]/(m_2\mathrm{\Gamma }_2)},$$
(16)
the expression given in Eq. (23) of Ref. . As explained in that paper, Eq. (16), in conjunction with Eq. (5), leads to $`ZImA\left(m_2^2\right)=m_2\mathrm{\Gamma }_2`$ as a mathematical identity, a result that coincides with the normalization condition of Eq. (11).

In general, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_2=𝒪(g^2)`$, where $`g`$ is a generic gauge coupling. If $`\delta M^2=Re𝒮(\overline{s})`$ and $`\delta Z=Im\left[𝒮(\overline{s})𝒮\left(m_2^2\right)\right]/(m_2\mathrm{\Gamma }_2)`$ admit expansions in powers of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_2`$, one readily obtains the expressions for the counterterms to all orders. For instance,

$`\delta M^2`$ $`=`$ $`RII^{}{\displaystyle \frac{I^2}{2}}R^{\prime \prime }+{\displaystyle \frac{I^3}{6}}I^{(3)}+{\displaystyle \frac{I^4}{24}}R^{(4)}+\mathrm{}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}(1)^n\left[{\displaystyle \frac{I^{2n}}{(2n)!}}R^{(2n)}{\displaystyle \frac{I^{2n+1}}{(2n+1)!}}I^{(2n+1)}\right],`$
$`\delta Z`$ $`=`$ $`R^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{I}{2}}I^{\prime \prime }+{\displaystyle \frac{I^2}{6}}R^{(3)}{\displaystyle \frac{I^3}{24}}I^{(4)}+\mathrm{}`$ (17)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}(1)^{n+1}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{I^{2n}}{(2n+1)!}}R^{(2n+1)}{\displaystyle \frac{I^{2n+1}}{(2n+2)!}}I^{(2n+2)}\right],`$
where $`RRe𝒮(s)`$, $`IIm𝒮(s)`$, the primes and superscripts $`(n)`$ indicate derivatives with respect to $`s`$, and all the functions are evaluated at $`s=m_2^2`$. Separating out the contributions of $`i`$-th loop order ($`i=1,2,\mathrm{}`$) and taking into account differences in the sign conventions, the first few terms of Eq. (17) coincide with the results obtained in Ref.  by considering the systematic order-by-order renormalization. The leading terms in Eq. (17) are the results of the conventional analysis valid in the narrow-width approximation, except that $`R`$ and $`R^{}`$ are evaluated at $`m_2^2`$, rather than $`M^2`$. The other terms in Eq. (17) represent further contributions beyond that approximation.

In some important cases, however, the expansions of Eq. (17) are ill-defined, since they lead to power-like infrared divergences. Examples include contributions to the $`W`$-boson and unstable-quark self-energies involving $`(W,\gamma )`$ and $`(q,g)`$ virtual contributions, respectively, where $`\gamma `$, $`g`$, and $`q`$ denote photons, gluons, and unstable quarks. For instance, it is well known that the one-loop $`(W,\gamma )`$ virtual contribution to the unrenormalized $`W`$-boson self-energy $`A(s)`$ contains a term $`c\left(sm_2^2\right)\mathrm{ln}\left[\left(m_2^2s\right)/m_2^2\right]`$, where $`c=(\alpha /2\pi )(\xi _\gamma 3)`$ and $`\xi _\gamma `$ is the gauge parameter associated with the photon . This leads to a logarithmic singularity in $`R^{}`$, namely $`clim_{sm_2^2}\mathrm{ln}\left[\left(m_2^2s\right)/m_2^2\right]`$, which, as is well known, is conventionally regularized with an infinitesimal photon mass or by means of dimensional regularization . However, higher order derivatives such as $`R^{(n)}`$ develop singularities proportional to $`clim_{sm_2^2}\left(m_2^2s\right)^{1n}`$ ($`n2`$), i.e. power-like infrared singularities of any order. A similar behaviour arises from the one-loop $`(q,g)`$ virtual contribution to the unstable-quark self-energy. Clearly, such a catastrophic behaviour is a strong indication that, in such cases, the expansions in Eq. (17) are ill-defined and highly unphysical.

In considering the $`(W,\gamma )`$ virtual contribution in the resonance region $`sm_2^2`$, it is important to take into account the effect of self-energy insertions in the $`W`$-boson line. As explained in Refs. , this leads to the replacement

$$c\left(sm_2^2\right)\mathrm{ln}\frac{m_2^2s}{m_2^2}c(s\overline{s})\mathrm{ln}\frac{\overline{s}s}{\overline{s}}.$$
(18)
If the modified form of Eq. (18) is inserted in Eq. (17), the power-like infrared divergences are avoided, but terms of the form $`c(im_2\mathrm{\Gamma }_2)^{1n}`$ ($`n2`$) are generated, which signal a breakdown of the perturbative expansion. Thus, inverse powers of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_2`$ would occur in $`R^{(n)}`$ and $`I^{(n)}`$ for $`n=3,5,\mathrm{}`$ and $`n=2,4,\mathrm{}`$, respectively.

These catastrophic problems can be neatly avoided by employing the exact, closed expressions of Eqs. (10) and (14). For instance, $`c(s\overline{s})\mathrm{ln}[(\overline{s}s)/\overline{s}]`$ contributes zero to $`\delta M^2`$ \[cf. Eq. (10)\] and $`c\mathrm{ln}a`$, where $`a=\mathrm{\Gamma }_2/\sqrt{m_2^2+\mathrm{\Gamma }_2^2}`$, to $`\delta Z`$ \[cf. Eq. (14)\]. Thus, in this contribution, the width plays the rôle of an infrared cutoff. Since generally $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_2=𝒪(g^2)`$, we also see that $`\delta Z`$ is not an analytic function of $`g^2`$ in the neighborhood of $`g^2=0`$.

An expression for the renormalized propagator, alternative to Eq. (7), is obtained by dividing Eq. (3) by $`Z`$:

$$𝒟_{\mu \nu }^{(r)}(s)=\frac{iQ_{\mu \nu }}{s\overline{s}[𝒮(s)𝒮(\overline{s})]\delta Z(s\overline{s})}.$$
(19)
Writing

$$\frac{\overline{s}s}{\overline{s}}=\rho (s)\mathrm{e}^{i\theta (s)},$$
(20)
where

$`\rho (s)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{m_2}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{\left(sm_2^2\right)^2+m_2^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_2^2}{m_2^2+\mathrm{\Gamma }_2^2}}},`$
$`\rho (s)\mathrm{sin}\theta (s)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{s\mathrm{\Gamma }_2}{m_2\left(m_2^2+\mathrm{\Gamma }_2^2\right)}}(\pi \theta \pi ),`$ (21)
and using Eq. (14), the contribution of $`c(s\overline{s})\mathrm{ln}[(\overline{s}s)/\overline{s}]`$ to Eq. (19) becomes

$$\frac{iQ_{\mu \nu }}{(s\overline{s})\{1c[\mathrm{ln}\rho (s)\mathrm{ln}a+i\theta (s)]\}}.$$
(22)
At $`s=m_2^2`$, we have $`\rho \left(m_2^2\right)=a`$ and $`\mathrm{sin}\theta \left(m_2^2\right)=m_2/\sqrt{m_2^2+\mathrm{\Gamma }_2^2}`$, so that the expression between curly brackets in Eq. (22) is purely imaginary. Furthermore, $`\theta \left(m_2^2\right)\pi /2`$ in the case $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_2m_2`$. Thus, with the choice of Eq. (14), the rôle of $`\delta Z`$ is to cancel the contribution $`\mathrm{ln}\rho (s)`$ at $`s=m_2^2`$, which depends logarithmically on $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_2`$. These results may be understood directly by setting $`s=m_2^2`$ in Eqs. (7) or (19) and recalling Eqs. (11) and (20). On the other hand, far away from the resonance region, i.e. for $`\left|sm_2^2\right|m_2\mathrm{\Gamma }_2`$, $`\mathrm{ln}\rho (s)`$ does not depend logarithmically on $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_2`$, while $`\mathrm{ln}[\rho (s)/a]`$ does. The latter feature is not surprising, since away from the resonance region $`𝒮(s)`$ has a regular behaviour, while $`\delta Z`$ is logarithmically divergent in the limit $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_20`$.

As mentioned before, the original motivation that led to Eq. (16) or its equivalent, Eq. (13), was to solve the problem of threshold singularities in the evaluation of $`Z`$, which occurs when the mass of the unstable particle is degenerate with the sum of masses of a pair of contributing virtual particles . Since $`m_\gamma =m_g=0`$, the contributions of the $`(W,\gamma )`$ and $`(q,g)`$ virtual pairs to the $`Z`$ factors of the $`W`$ boson and the unstable quark $`q`$ are particular, albeit very important, examples of threshold singularities. It is for this reason that the definition of the $`Z`$ factor, embodied in the exact, closed expressions of Eqs (13) and (16), provides a consistent formulation to treat the associated “infrared contributions.”

In summary, we have shown that the normalization condition of Eq. (11) leads to exact, closed formulae for the field renormalization constant of the unstable particle \[Eq. (13) or its equivalent, Eq. (16)\] and that, in some important cases, these expressions play an important rôle in the evaluation of $`Z`$ beyond the narrow-width approximation.

Acknowledgements

A.S. is grateful to the Theory Group of the 2nd Institute for Theoretical Physics for the hospitality extended to him during a visit when this manuscript was prepared. The work of B.A.K. was supported in part by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft through Grant No. KN 365/1-1, by the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung through Grant No. 05 HT1GUA/4, and by the European Commission through the Research Training Network Quantum Chromodynamics and the Deep Structure of Elementary Particles under Contract No. ERBFMRX-CT98-0194. The work of A.S. was supported in part by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation through Research Award No. IV USA 1051120 USS, and by the National Science Foundation through Grant No. PHY-0070787.


text:
# Possible Odderon discovery at HERA via charge asymmetry in the diffractive 𝜋⁺𝜋⁻ production

## 1 Introduction

The Odderon — a $`C`$-odd Regge singularity with intercept close to 1 — is an inevitable feature of QCD motivated picture of high energy scattering and its experimental discovery and the determination of its coupling to hadrons is crucial for the QCD theory of strong interactions. Within perturbative QCD, the pomeron exchange is naturally modelled by the color-singlet two-gluon exchange in the $`t`$-channel.

Although much effort has been put forth to verify the Odderon existence, up to now the Odderon remains elusive. After years of vain search for the Odderon signal in particle-antiparticle cross section differences, the focus of investigation shifted towards processes initiated exclusively by Odderon, namely, photoproduction of scalar or tensor mesons $`\gamma p\{\pi ^0,\eta ,\eta _cf_2\}+p^{}`$. However the cross sections involved are quite low and the signal seems hardly separable from the background.

## 2 The idea

We propose a novel idea, inspired partly by earlier work  of how to catch a glimpse of Odderon existence. We suggest to look at dipion, not any concrete meson, photoproduction process $`\gamma p\pi ^+\pi ^{}p^{}`$ at high energies. Then, the Odderon will reveal itself as the only source of kinematical charge asymmetries in the dipion spectrum.

Indeed, such a reaction can proceed via two types of channels. The first type involves the Pomeron exchange, which helps the initial photon turn into vector or higher spin mesons with $`C=1`$, which then decay into $`\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ pair. The second type has Odderon as the $`t`$-channel exchange, which lets the photon transform into scalar or tensor mesons with $`C=+1`$ with their subsequent decay into dipion.

Obviously, the two mechanisms of dipion production do not interfere in the total cross section, but the interference effect is still present in the differential cross sections: $`d\sigma |A_{𝐈𝐏}|^2+2Re(A_{𝐈𝐏}A_O^{})+|A_O|^2`$. So, the essense of our idea is to extract this interference term.

However, if we try to tackle this problem at the partonic level (that is thinking that we produce $`q\overline{q}`$ pair by either pomeron or Odderon without asking how quarks will hadronize), we immediately run into a difficulty. Indeed, at the partonic level the pomeron induced amplitude is predominantly imaginary, while the Odderon induced amplitude is mostly real. This makes the interference term suppressed  by small factor $`\mathrm{sin}\left[\pi (\alpha _{𝐈𝐏}\alpha _O)/2\right]`$, which is in addition sensitive to the yet unknown value of Odderon intercept.

A closer look, however, shows that this is a fake problem. Indeed, in reality we produce mesons, hadronic resonances, but not quarks. Introduction of intermediate resonances instantaneously brings extra phases — the Breit-Wigner phases — and removes the spurious orthogonality of the pomeron and Odderon amplitudes.

This observation can be viewed as an example of strong breaking of parton-hadron duality: the final-state interaction has such a profound effect, that is gives birth to a new effect.

In order to extract charge asymmetric terms in differential cross sections, we suggest to perform their Fourier analysis. In doing so, we find it particularly useful to introduce two types of asymmetries: the forward-backward (FB) and the transverse ($``$) asymmetries defined according to: $`A_{FB}=𝑑\sigma \mathrm{cos}\theta /𝑑\sigma ;A_{}=𝑑\sigma \mathrm{cos}\delta /𝑑\sigma `$, where $`\theta `$ and $`\delta `$ are the polar and the azimuthal angles of $`\pi ^+`$ in dipion rest frame. The physical meaning of non-zero $`A_{FB}`$ is that one of pions tends to move faster than the other, while $`A_{}`$ would mean that one of pions is produced preferrably along, or opposite to, momentum transfer $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{}`$.

## 3 A promising case: $`\rho /f_2(1270)`$ interference

The above paragraphs contain already the key idea of our proposal. A numerical illustration can give a feeling of the magnitude of the effect.

As said above, the production of the dipion can proceed via formation of a whole number of intermediate resonances. However it is known that the whole $`(\pi ^+\pi ^{})_{C=1}`$ spectrum around $`M1`$ GeV is overwhelmed by the $`\rho `$ peak, while the most prominent feature of the $`(\pi ^+\pi ^{})_{C=+1}`$ spectrum in this region is the $`f_2(1270)`$ resonance. Therefore it seems quite a reasonable approximation to consider only two diagrams: those with Pomeron induced $`\gamma \rho `$ transition and with Odderon induced $`\gamma f_2(1270)`$ transition.

Since the helicity properties of the Odderon exchange are not yet established, we considered two extreme cases: (1) strict $`s`$-channel helicity conservation (SCHC) for both $`\rho `$ and $`f_2`$, and (2) maximal $`s`$-channel helicity non-conservation (SCHNC) when $`f_2`$ meson is produced only in $`\pm 2`$ helicity state. In the former and the latter cases we expect FB and transverse asymmetries respectively.

Within the framework of SCHC, the two properly normalized amplitudes, written explicitly in terms of corresponding cross sections, are

$`𝒜_{𝐈𝐏}`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{\sigma _\rho }\text{e}^{\frac{i\pi }{2}\alpha _{𝐈𝐏}}{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{m_\rho \mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho /\pi }}{M^2m_\rho ^2+im_\rho \mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho }}\sqrt{3}\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{cos}(\widehat{\stackrel{}{e}_{}\stackrel{}{r}_{}})\sqrt{B_\rho }\text{e}^{\frac{B_\rho \stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_{}^2}{2}},`$
$`𝒜_𝒪`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{\sigma _f}\text{e}^{i\frac{\pi }{2}\alpha _𝒪}{\displaystyle \frac{i\sqrt{m_f\mathrm{\Gamma }_fBR/\pi }}{M^2m_f^2+im_f\mathrm{\Gamma }_f}}\sqrt{15}\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{cos}\theta \mathrm{cos}(\widehat{\stackrel{}{e}_{}\stackrel{}{r}_{}})\sqrt{B_f}\text{e}^{\frac{B_f\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_{}^2}{2}}.`$
One sees that Breit-Wigner phases present here insure maximal interference effects directly under $`\rho `$ peak (where both amplitudes become almost real) and directly under $`f_2`$ peak (where both amplitudes turn predominantly imaginary). In the former case, however, the charge symmetric contribution is huge, which greatly suppresses the local FB asymmetry defined as $`A_{FB}(M^2)=𝑑\sigma (M^2)\mathrm{cos}\theta /𝑑\sigma (M^2)`$. On the contrary, under $`f_2`$ peak the charge symmetric contribution is still saturated by the disappearing $`\rho `$ meson tail, and therefore one can expect the largest $`A_{FB}(M^2)`$ here. The value of this FB asymmetry directly under $`f_2`$ resonance can be then estimated as

$$A_{FB}(m_f^2)\sqrt{\frac{2}{5}}\sqrt{\frac{\sigma _f}{\sigma _\rho }}\frac{m_f^2m_\rho ^2}{\sqrt{m_\rho m_f\mathrm{\Gamma }_\rho \mathrm{\Gamma }_f}}\sqrt{BR(f_2\pi ^+\pi ^{})}.$$

Here for simplicity we took $`B_\rho =B_{f_2}`$. Plugging in numbers and using $`\sigma _\rho =6\mu b`$ and $`\sigma _O=20`$ nb , we predict the peak value of local FB asymmetry as high as $`A_{FB}(m_f^2)21\%`$. If one asks for the integrated asymmetry in the optimal region $`1.1\text{ GeV}<M<1.4\text{ GeV}`$, one gets $`A_{FB}=11\%.`$

We can also analyze the case of maximal SCHNC, i.e. when $`f_2`$ meson is produced only in $`\pm 2`$ helicity state (as indeed indicated by some model calculations ). Cross section $`\sigma _f20`$ nb is now ascribed to this production. The amplitudes $`𝒜_{𝐈𝐏}(\rho ^{+1})`$ and $`𝒜_𝒪(f_2^{+2})`$ can be written in an analogous form. Local transverse asymmetry at the $`f_2`$ peak is found to be $`A_{}(m_f^2)41\%`$. The integral transverse asymmetry within the invariant mass range $`1.1\text{ GeV}<M<1.4\text{ GeV}`$ adds up to $`A_{}=21\%`$.

## 4 Competitive mechanisms

In order to safely interprete the charge asymmetry as the manifestation of the Odderon, we must make sure that no other competitive mechanism can lead to the same effect, at least with that large magnitude.

There are two contenders: the secondary reggeon ($`\rho /\omega `$) and the photon exchanges. However both contributions are suppressed so that in the HERA energy domain both $`\sigma ^{\rho /\omega }(\gamma pf_2p)`$ and $`\sigma ^\gamma (\gamma pf_2p)`$ lie below 1 nb. Thus we arrive at the conclusion: if the Odderon-induced cross section is as strong as expected ($`\sigma ^O(\gamma pf_2X)20\text{ nb}`$), then no other mechanism can mimic the Odderon signal.

## 5 Conclusions

In this work we suggested a radically different way to search for much needed but still elusive Odderon: that is, to look at charge asymmetries in the spectrum of photoproduced dipions.

We also observed in our particular problem remarkably severe breaking of much-celebrated parton-hadron duality. The origin of this breaking was the strong final state interaction of produced quark-antiquark pair.

Our main finding can be states as: regardless of the nature of Odderon exchange, regardless of the precise helicity structure of the Odderon coupling to matter, irrespective of the exact value of Odderon intercept, the Odderon will be seen, unless some tremendous unforeseen suppressions come into play. Borrowing the Odderon-induced cross sections from models, we predict charge asymmetries to be as huge as $`1020\%`$. This effect is so prominent and so clear, that it must be easily seen at HERA.