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# Systematics of Microwave Polarimetry with the Planck LFI

## 1 Differencing vs. Correlation Polarimeters

Radiometers can be used to measure polarization in two fundamentally different ways.

Differencing polarimeters work in much the same way as polarimeters used in other wavebands; that is, the radiation is filtered to isolate components in several different pure polarization states and these are combined to derive the required Stokes parameters. The Planck Low Frequency Instrument (LFI), described in these proceedings by Villa, is of this type. Each feed horn couples the incoming radiation to a waveguide, essentially preserving the polarization state (deviations from this approximation will be discussed later). An OMT separates the radiation into two orthogonal linear components (‘$`X`$’ and ‘$`Y`$’) which are separately amplified and square-law detected. Ideally, the sum of these signals is proportional to Stokes $`I`$, while the difference measures one component of the $`(Q,U)`$ vector. This is formally equivalent to a Wollaston prism system in optical polarimetry. To obtain the full linear polarization vector, more information is needed, and usually a second feed oriented at $`45^{}`$ to the first is used, which also provides a redundant measurement of $`I`$. This arrangement leaves $`V`$ undetermined, but, as we believe there is no significant background of circular polarization, this is not a drawback for Planck.

Square-law detection systems have offsets due to receiver noise, noise from lossy components in the signal path, and of course from their sensitivity to the dominant unpolarized emission. The offsets are notoriously variable due to physical temperature changes and also to amplifier gain changes, and they will directly affect the measured $`Q`$, $`U`$. For this reason most modern polarimeters are based on correlation rather than differencing. Correlation polarimeters make use of phase coherence to derive the full polarization state of the incoming radiation from a single horn. Again an OMT is used to separate two orthogonal polarizations, and each channel is square-law detected. But in addition, the signals from the two channels are correlated, i.e. multiplied together, with and without a $`90^{}`$ phase shift. The two correlation products give the remaining two Stokes parameters. Because all parameters are measured with the same feed, this gives an improvement of $`\sqrt{2}`$ in sensitivity to linear polarization over a simple differencing system with the same number of feeds; and compared to a more practical null-balanced system (as in the LFI) the correlation receiver has a full factor of 2 advantage. When the main interest is in linear polarization, a polarizer (quarter wave plate equivalent) is usually inserted ahead of the OMT to convert circular to linear polarization, so that the OMT separates polarizations corresponding to right- and left-hand circular on the sky. The correlation products are then the two components of the $`(Q,U)`$ vector.

Ideally, there would be no offsets in the correlation products, because zero polarization implies zero mean correlation between RHC and LHC. In reality cross-polarization (failure of the OMT to completely separate the RHC and LHC signals) and cross-talk (leakage of noise generated in each amplifier chain into the other) mean that the two channels do have a correlated component, but in conventional systems this polarization offset is much smaller than that on the outputs of the square-law detectors. A numerical example is instructive. On a general-purpose telescope, the OMT is required to cover a bandwidth of up to 20 or 30%, which limits the polarization purity to typically 25–35 dB; i.e. the cross-polar voltage is reduced by a factor of $`30`$. As the corresponding voltage in the other channel is unattenuated by definition, the contribution to the correlator offset is $`T_{\mathrm{Antenna}}/30`$. In total-power systems the offset is dominated by $`T_{\mathrm{receiver}}`$ rather than $`T_{\mathrm{Antenna}}`$, but in a correlation system we can reduce the cross-talk by more than the cross-polarization, by using circulators or equivalent to provide an additional $`20`$ dB isolation between the channels. Thus we expect an offset of order $`T_{\mathrm{Antenna}}/30+T_{\mathrm{receiver}}/300`$. Compared to a simple total power system, with an offset of $`T_{\mathrm{Antenna}}+T_{\mathrm{receiver}}`$, this is a very big improvement. But consider the goal of measuring $`\mu `$K polarizations in the presence of typically $`20`$ K of receiver noise, and hence a polarization offset of $`100`$ mK. Fluctuations of one part in $`10^4`$ would swamp the wanted signal.

To summarise, in a correlation system, both cross polarization and cross-talk give a false positive signal. Dedicated instruments must therefore be designed to reduce and stabilise these effects. The former is difficult because the critical factor is the voltage, rather than the power, of the cross term. For instance SPOrt, despite an OMT with 60 dB isolation (Peverini et al., these proceedings), still requires the stability offered by a space mission.

In contrast, we will see that cross-polarization and cross-talk are rather unimportant in differencing systems. False positives are instead generated by the total power offsets. But these offsets are also, of course, a serious problem for total power measurements, and practical systems are designed to minimise their effects. When extreme care is taken to do this, as in the Planck LFI, the dominant polarization systematic is eliminated at the same time. One is then in a position to make accurate measurements of polarization even when the telescope suffers from cross terms that would be difficult to cope with if it was operated as a correlation polarimeter.

## 2 The LFI radiometers

As in any space experiment, the LFI is designed to minimise mass, power consumption and complexity consistent with its primary science goal, which is to measure temperature fluctuations in the CMB. For this reason there is no correlator, and the principle reason for measuring both polarizations in each horn is to gain a factor of $`\sqrt{2}`$ in sensitivity to $`I`$. Nevertheless, the potential to measure polarization has always been recognised, and the design has been optimised for this where there is no conflict with the primary goals.

Each feed horn in the LFI feeds two radiometers, one for each polarization. Each radiometer continuously compares the sky brightness with that of an internal 4 K reference load. As described by Villa (these proceedings) the design ensures that the gain (including $`1/f`$ fluctuations) is identical for the sky and load signals up until detection. After detection, the load gain is adjusted by $``$10% to account for the known difference between the load and mean sky system temperatures, and the two signals are differenced to yield a (nominally) zero mean output, whose amplitude is generally dominated by the CMB dipole and therefore is typically $`IT_0`$2 mK. Despite all these precautions the output is subject to $`1/f`$ noise mainly due to variations in the amplifier noise temperature, but also due to fluctuations in the reference load temperature, etc. However, the amplitude of of the $`1/f`$ noise is designed to be below that of the thermal noise for frequencies greater than the 1 rpm spin period of Planck. Each feed scans the same circle on the sky, 60 times over between hourly repointings, and stacking the data effectively filters out noise except at frequencies very close to harmonics of the spin frequency. Thus the low frequency $`1/f`$ noise contributes only to the zero harmonic, a single undetermined offset on each scan circle. Both offset and the average gain can be calibrated by matching to an assumed CMB dipole, after excluding (or modelling) Galactic plane emission (Bersanelli et al., 1997). Note that errors in the assumed dipole will cause identical gain errors in the two polarization channels, which will not affect the polarization signal to first order. In practice, residual offsets and gain errors are expected, due to errors in the assumed dipole direction, imperfect Galactic masking, and residual $`1/f`$ noise at low order harmonics, but the multiply-redundant coverage of the sky means that these can be removed by de-striping techniques (Maino et al., 1999), which can even be applied directly to the polarization signal (Revenu et al., 2000).

The advantages of the LFI design for polarization measurements could be considerably enhanced if we jettisoned the aim of measuring the total intensity. In this case we could compare the $`X`$ and $`Y`$ polarizations with each other directly instead of with the 4 K loads, so that the output of the radiometer was a direct measure of a linear polarization component. This has several advantages. Most importantly the system temperatures of the two channels would be matched at a level of $`0.1`$ K, instead of $`1`$ K, giving better nulling of the residual $`1/f`$ noise. In addition, the thermal noise is reduced by $`\sqrt{2}`$ because we have eliminated one level of differencing. Finally, the complexity of the instrument is sharply reduced by eliminating the reference loads, half of the amplifier chains, and half the detectors. Such a design may be appropriate for the post-Planck era, when the focus on CMB research will be on polarization.

### 2.1 Polarization response of the LFI radiometers

From the above discussion, we can write the power detected by a given radiometer, say ‘$`P`$’, as

$$s_P=g_P[T_PT_0+R_P+N_P]$$
(1)
where $`g_P`$ is the gain, $`T_P`$ is the antenna temperature (Berkhuijsen, 1975) in the polarization matched to this radiometer, $`T_0`$ is the temperature assumed for balancing, $`N_P`$ is white noise and $`R_P`$ is red (or $`1/f`$) noise. After averaging the data into rings, $`N_P`$ is independent at each pixel but $`R_P`$ is highly correlated.

The polarized brightness can be written in several ways. One of the most useful is in terms of sensitivities to the four Stokes parameters:

$$T_P=\frac{1}{4\pi }(_PI+𝒬_PQ+𝒰_PU+𝒱_PV)𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }$$
(2)
where $`𝒮_P`$ is the beam of radiometer $`P`$ in Stokes parameter $`S`$ (measured in terms of brightness temperature). Taking $`V=0`$, we can re-write this as

$$T_P=\frac{1}{4\pi }_P\{I+ϵ_P(Q\mathrm{cos}2\varphi _P+U\mathrm{sin}2\varphi _P)\}𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }$$
(3)
where $`ϵ_P`$ is the efficiency of linear polarization response and $`\varphi _P`$ is the orientation of peak response. Inserting Eq. 3 into Eq. 1, we note the presence of a large total intensity term $`IT_0`$, of order $`10^3`$ times the polarized term, as previously discussed.

The two radiometers in each feed are nearly orthogonal so we write $`\varphi _Y\varphi _X+\pi /2`$. Thus if we difference the calibrated outputs we get a polarization signal

$$P=\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{s_X}{g_X^{}}\frac{s_Y}{g_Y^{}}\right)ϵ(Q\mathrm{cos}2\varphi +U\mathrm{sin}2\varphi )$$
(4)
where $`g^{}`$ is our estimate of the true gain $`g`$ (for simplicity we idealise the beam as a point measurement for now).

More precisely, let $`g/g^{}=1+\delta g`$, let there be an error $`\delta \varphi `$ in the orthogonality of the two radiometers, and let $`ϵ_Xϵ_Y=\delta ϵ`$. Then to second order in the error terms,

$`P`$ $`=`$ $`ϵ(Q\mathrm{cos}2\varphi +U\mathrm{sin}2\varphi )\left[1+\delta g{\displaystyle \frac{\delta \varphi ^2}{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{(\delta g_X\delta g_Y)\delta ϵ}{4ϵ}}\right]+{\displaystyle \frac{\delta g_X\delta g_Y}{2}}(IT_0)`$ (5)
$`+ϵ(Q\mathrm{sin}2\varphi U\mathrm{cos}2\varphi )\delta \varphi \left[{\displaystyle \frac{\delta g_X\delta g_Y}{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\delta ϵ}{2ϵ}}\right]+{\displaystyle \frac{R_XR_Y+N_XN_Y}{2}}`$
Unlike the situation for a correlation polarimeter, cross-polarization (represented here by $`\delta \varphi `$ and $`1ϵ`$) only appears in the second order, (except for the overall scaling by $`ϵ`$), and even then, only affect terms proportional to $`Q`$ and $`U`$, not $`I`$. Thus, even if these error terms were completely unknown, we could still detect polarization. In reality we expect them to be very small and calibratable, allowing accurate measurement of the polarized background.

## 3 LFI Polarization systematics

### 3.1 Overview

The Planck consortium has chosen to analyse systematics in terms of a number of sources, all of which impact on both total intensity and polarization measurements. Many are common in origin and/or effect between HFI and LFI and are being studied jointly. These headings and their principle polarization impacts on the LFI are as follows:

Contamination of the polarized signal by total intensity straylight from the Sun and Galaxy (because the $`_P`$ far sidelobes are significantly different for the $`X`$ and $`Y`$ polarizations, so fail to cancel); and also by Galactic polarized straylight.

Cross-polarization is discussed in detail in the next section.

Alignment errors between different horns corrupt the reconstruction of the $`(Q,U)`$ vector at each pixel.

The principle effect is $`1/f`$ noise; noise mismatch between $`X`$ and $`Y`$ radiometers may also cause minor degradation in sensitivity. Some of these effects are discussed by Kaplan (these proceedings).

The responses of the instrument to many thermal effects are being modelled (Mennella et al., 2001). Internal straylight affects the polarization signal as for Galactic straylight, except that only fluctuations are important.

Kaplan (these proceedings) discusses the effect of inaccurate polarization calibration parameters.

In addition the scan strategy has unique effects on polarization, discussed below.

Detailed studies of these effects are being made as part of the final design optimisation, to ensure that all contributions remain within the top-level error budget. However it is already clear that many will not have a detectable impact on polarization.

As shown in detail in the following section, cross-polarization effects from the main beam appear to be largely negligible, as are the different responses to Stokes $`I`$ of the $`X`$ and $`Y`$ polarizations. Much larger differences are expected in the far sidelobes, but there the largest peaks turn out to be spillover past the subreflector and the main mirror, and initial analysis suggests that the $`_P`$ response in these peaks differs by only about 10%; this contributes to $`\delta g_X\delta g_Y`$ in terms of the analysis of the previous section. An analysis of total-intensity Galactic straylight (Burigana et al., 2001) showed an expected peak contamination of $``$4 $`\mu `$K at high Galactic latitudes in the worst-case 30 GHz band, corresponding to $`\delta T<1\mu `$K in the $`C_{\mathrm{}}`$ spectrum. Therefore the polarized signal should be less than $``$0.1 $`\mu `$K in the power spectrum, which is just below the low-$`\mathrm{}`$ white noise at this frequency. At higher LFI frequencies, Galactic straylight will be even lower, because of the falling spectrum of Galactic emission, and also the increased forward gain.

Pointing errors produce error terms in the images proportional to the local gradient. Typical gradients are of order the amplitude of structure on the scale of the beam, divided by the beamwidth. The pointing requirements for Planck are set by HFI observations in total intensity, for which the ratio of amplitude/beamwidth will be $`>20`$ times that for LFI observations of $`Q`$ or $`U`$. so for our purposes the pointing is expected to be essentially perfect.

Instrument-specific and thermal effects mainly cause artefacts in the polarization signal through the same mechanisms that affect the temperature signal. These are among the hardest to deal with, and drive many aspects of the LFI and Planck mission design. As noted earlier, suppression of these effects in the temperature signal will automatically suppress them in the polarization signal as well, but it is worth noting that often (especially for thermal effects), they produce strongly correlated artefacts in the two channels of each feed and so tend to cancel in the polarization signal.

### 3.2 Cross Polarization

A radiometer operating at a single frequency receiving from a single direction (i.e. a point source) must couple perfectly to some purely polarized signal, that is, in terms of our Stokes response functions, $`_P^2=𝒬_P^2+𝒰_P^2+𝒱_P^2`$. In this sense the concept of ‘cross-polarization’, which implies that a system always has some sensitivity to the ‘wrong’ polarization, is rather misleading. In practice what is meant is that we’d like to build a system sensitive only to $`Q`$ (say), but we find that $`𝒰_P`$ and $`𝒱_P`$ are non-zero. Unwanted sensitivity to $`V`$ is straightforward: it reduces the linear polarization efficiency $`ϵ_P`$ but generally creates no false positives, as $`VQ,U`$. One can also lose efficiency if $`\varphi `$ varies with frequency or across the beam. However, non-zero response to $`U`$ at the beam centre (or averaged over the beam) is best described as an error in $`\varphi `$ rather than as cross polarization in the sense usually intended.

We have been assessing the impact of these effects on the LFI, using physical optics software written by V. Yurchenko (Yurchenko et al., 2001) and comparing these to simulations with the commercial GRASP8 package described by Villa in his presentation. The two sets of results are in excellent agreement, differing mainly through small differences in the assumed illumination patterns of the feeds.

A priori we do not expect the LFI beams to be very well behaved in polarization as the feeds are located $`3^{}`$ to $`4^{}`$ away from the centre of the field of view, and the offset pseudo-Gregorian design of the Planck telescope breaks circular symmetry. However, the design maximises the effective field of view, while the feeds illuminate the telescope with a strong edge taper, making near-in sidelobes extremely low by the standards of normal radio telescopes; they are at $`\stackrel{<}{}30`$ dB below the peak. Given the absence of sharp spikes in the CMB fluctuations, the total intensity beams are effectively Gaussian.

The most troublesome property of the beams is that they are elliptical (axial ratio ranging from 1.14 to 1.39), with the horns in each ‘$`Q,U`$’ matched pair differing in the orientation of the ellipse by large angles. Thus deconvolution will be needed to recover the $`(Q,U)`$ vector at each full-resolution sky pixel; but for background measurements some degradation in resolution is necessary to achieve adequate signal-to-noise in polarization, allowing resolution to be matched through linear techniques.

The total intensity ($`_P`$) beams for the $`X`$ and $`Y`$ channels have effective areas identical to better than a few parts in $`10^5`$; mismatches contribute to $`\delta g`$ in the analysis of the previous section, but acting only on spatial frequencies near the beamwidth. On this scale amplitudes are $`50`$ $`\mu `$K, giving negligible artefacts in the polarization signal.

The major ‘unwanted’ term turns out to be sensitivity to $`V`$, which peaks at several percent of the main beam peak (Fig. 1a) The $`𝒱_P`$ beams always show a rather symmetric positive-negative structure with the zero line passing almost through the peak of the $`_P`$ beam. Integrated over the beam, $`|𝒱_P|/_P\stackrel{<}{}0.2`$% in all cases. Averaged over the beam, the polarization efficiency ranges between 99.1% and 99.7%. If we choose coordinates so the wanted polarization is $`Q`$, the $`𝒰_𝒫`$ beam shows a similar structure to $`𝒱_P`$, but with an even lower amplitude. In this case the zero line goes through the beam centre by definition, and the positive-negative structure is inevitable as there is a smooth gradient of $`\varphi `$ across the centre of the beam. Within the $``$10 dB contour of the $`_P`$ beam, $`\varphi `$ varies by up to about $`2^{}`$. Large deviations occur only near nulls in the sidelobe pattern (Fig. 1b). The effective $`\varphi `$ evaluated from $`𝒬_𝒫`$ and $`𝒰_𝒫`$ integrated over the main beam differs from the value at the peak of $`_P`$ by $`<0.15^{}`$.

We also find that the position angle in the far field rotates almost perfectly with the E-field in the focal plane. As a result, if the $`X`$ and $`Y`$ responses are orthogonal in the feed, the peak and effective values of $`\varphi _X`$ and $`\varphi _Y`$ remain orthogonal in the far field to within $`\delta \varphi 0.2^{}`$.

These results justify our claim that cross-polarization effects are negligible for the LFI, at least at the pixel level. Kaplan (these proceedings) has followed the effect of miscalibration of these parameters through to the $`C_{\mathrm{}}`$ spectra. Here averaging down the thermal noise makes residual polarization systematics more important, but comparison of our results with his findings suggest that even for $`C_{\mathrm{}}`$, the errors induced by the Planck telescope optics for the LFI horns will be almost undetectable; presumably even more so for the more favourably placed HFI horns.

## 4 Feed Orientation and Scanning Strategy for the LFI

If several measurements of components (not necessarily orthogonal) of the ($`Q,U`$) vector are made, each with a Gaussian error distribution, the 2D error distribution will in general be an elliptical Gaussian (Sparks and Axon, 1999). Ideally we would like this distribution to be circular as this minimises the area (Couchot et al., 1999); furthermore asymmetric errors will certainly complicate the derivation of polarization $`C_{\mathrm{}}`$ spectra, and may lead to subtle biases, although no detailed assessment has been made.

It is easy to see that if measurements are made with equally sensitive detectors, with orientations $`\varphi `$ such that $`\{2\varphi \}`$ are evenly distributed around a circle, then the error distribution will be circular. This is satisfied by the normal set-up of two horns each with orthogonal feeds, oriented at $`45^{}`$ to each other; and also by the conventional arrangement in optical polarimetry of $`\varphi =60^{},0^{},60^{}`$. Obviously, combining several such sets with arbitrary offsets in $`\varphi `$ will also yield circular error distributions.

The actual orientations measured on the sky is $`\varphi _{\mathrm{sky}}=\varphi _S+\chi `$, where $`\varphi _S`$ is the orientation of the radiometer polarization relative to the scan direction, and $`\chi `$ is the orientation of the scan circle relative to the sky grid chosen to determine the zero of $`\varphi `$. The default strategy for Planck is for the spin axis to point in the anti-Sun direction towards the Ecliptic, which makes ecliptic meridians a convenient reference direction (Fig. 2). The figure shows that in this case $`\chi `$ is a function of ecliptic latitude, ranging from $`0^{}`$ on the Ecliptic to $`90^{}`$ at the maximum accessible latitude.

The radius of the LFI scan circles varies from $`81^{}`$ to $`89^{}`$. Consequently the values of $`\chi `$ of different detectors measuring the same sky pixel varies, especially near the ecliptic poles. The LFI focal plane has been designed so that most matched pairs of feeds are symmetrically placed on each side of the focal plane parallel to the scan direction (barring small deviations of the spin axis from nominal), so that they share the same scan circle and hence the same relative orientation for all pixels. Unfortunately mechanical constraints prevent this arrangement for four of the sixteen 100 GHz feeds. These are arranged instead as a pair with $`\varphi _S=90^{}`$ on one scan circle, and a pair with $`\varphi _S=45^{}`$ on another. At 44 GHz there are three feeds, two sharing a common scan circle and the third on one several degrees larger. In these cases some ellipticity in the $`(Q,U)`$ error distribution is inevitable. Fig. 3 shows the effect on the error ellipse at high latitudes; it is particularly large at 44 GHz because of the large difference in radius between the two scan circles. A second coverage improves the situation slightly since on the second pass pixels are scanned by the other side of the scan circle, hence at angle $`\chi `$. Even so, we are left with highly elliptical error distributions near the ecliptic poles, precisely the places where integration times are longest and we have the best chance of detecting polarization at high resolution.

To avoid this problem, and also holes in the coverage at the poles, the spin axis must be moved off the Ecliptic. Several scan strategies are under consideration, including a cycloidal path which maintains a constant angle between the Sun and the spin axis, and a simple sinusoidal oscillation in latitude. In these schemes the polarization error ellipse depends on both latitude and longitude. Fig. 4 shows an example at 100 GHz. As far as polarization response goes this option is a significant advance over the default strategy, with rather circular error distributions up to the pole except at isolated position on caustics, and even here the axial ratio reaches only 1.7. Similar improvements are seen at 44 GHz.

## 5 Conclusions

We have shown that in a differencing polarimeter the dominant systematics are common to total intensity and polarization signals, except that some cancellation can be expected in polarization. As all LFI horns provide a measurement of $`I`$ but each only provides one component of the $`(Q,U)`$ vector, the thermal noise in $`Q`$ and $`U`$ will be $`\sqrt{2}`$ larger than in $`I`$. Thus we believe that if we can reach the goal of noise limited sky maps in $`I`$, we should be able to do the same for $`Q`$ and $`U`$. Of course, $`Q`$ and $`U`$ will not be detected at full resolution in most individual pixels, so the true test of our ability to do useful polarization science is to follow the systematics through to the $`C_{\mathrm{}}`$ spectra, and much work is needed to complete this task. But the low level of polarization-specific systematics suggests that here again the hard systematics to beat will be the same ones that affect total intensity, and we know that these can be eliminated with high precision.

Finally we have shown that the polarization response, especially in the most deeply surveyed regions near the ecliptic poles, can be substantially improved by moving the spin axis away from the Ecliptic plane. Further studies of alternative scan strategies will be made to help the project decide on the best option.

## 6 Acknowledgments

We thank our colleagues in the Planck Systematics Effects Work Group on polarization for useful discussions, especially Althea Wilkinson, Fabrizio Villa, Jacques Delabrouille and Jean Kaplan. We acknowledge the use of the HEALPix package (www.eso.org/science/healpix/).


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# Identifying modes in a pulsating sdB (EC 14026) star.

## 1 Introduction

Pulsating sdB (known as sdBV or EC14026) stars offer us the potential to probe the interior of Blue Horizontal Branch (or sdB for field) stars using asteroseismology. PG1336-018 (hereafter PG 1336) was discovered to be a pulsating sdB star by Kilkenny et al. (1998), with the added bonus that it is also an eclipsing binary. The companion is a late-type $``$M5 dwarf, so the stellar radii are comparable, yet the companion contributes little to the integrated flux. During primary eclipse the companion covers about half of the pulsator.

## 2 Previous studies

PG 1336 was the target of a Whole Earth Telescope (WET) campaign in April of 1999. It was observed to pulsate in at least 15 modes (Reed *et al.*, 2000) with 2 modes split by twice the orbital frequency. We wished to use the eclipse to identify some of the remaining modes.

Pulsations manifest themselves as alternating hot and cool regions on the star’s surface. As the visible surface area changes (during eclipse), so should the observed pulsation amplitudes. An analysis in which the pulsation axis was aligned with the rotation axis was presented in Reed, Kawaler, & Kleinman (2001). They determined that modes with $`\mathrm{}=1`$, $`m=0`$; $`\mathrm{}=2`$, $`m=\pm 1`$; and all $`\mathrm{}=3`$ modes would *only* be visible during eclipse while $`\mathrm{}=2`$, $`m=\pm 2`$ modes would disappear during eclipse. Other modes would remain unaffected. This means eclipses could be used to identify pulsation modes.

Unfortunately, Xcov 17 did not have the usual WET coverage and was not optimized to study the eclipses. However it did prove the method to be viable and, in April, 2001, the WET observed PG 1336 again.

## 3 Xcov 21

During Xcov 21, $``$440 hours of data were collected from April 17-30, 2001 (a duty cycle of $``$62%). Over 27 separate modes were identified in the out-of-eclipse (OoE) temporal spectrum and this time the data were optimized to examine the pulsations through eclipse. Though still a non-trivial task, we were able to detect 15 peaks. As summarized in §2, we would expect to observe several modes in both the OoE and primary eclipse data, as well as new, rotationally split modes in the primary eclipse data. This was not the case. Of the 15 modes detected during primary eclipse, only 2 were observed in the OoE data (the 2 with the largest amplitudes).

Our first assumption was that the primary eclipse data was too contaminated with aliases to be useful. To test this, we reduced and analyzed data from the secondary eclipse in the same fashion as from the primary eclipse. We readily detected 12 peaks on the temporal spectrum, 11 of which coincided exactly (to within the errors) to those detected in the OoE data. This gave us confidence that it was not a reduction problem. It more likely indicates that aligning the pulsation axis with the rotation axis is a poor assumption.

## 4 A tipped pulsation axis

As first suggested by Margarida Cunha (private communication), if the tidal force dominates the Coriolis force, the pulsation axis may align along the axis of the binary. This is similar to the roAp stars where the magnetic field dictates the alignment of the pulsation axis. To determine the effect of such an alignment, we created simulated light curves where the pulsation axis is tipped by 90 degrees (the inclination of the actual binary is 81 degrees) and precesses to always point toward the companion (eclipses were ignored). Our simulated light curves and Fourier transforms are provided in Figure 1. Pulsation modes are indicated on the left of each plot (as in f$`\mathrm{}m`$). For the light curves, phases (where a shift of $`0.5=180^o`$) are dashed lines, with scales on the right of the plot and dotted lines indicate orbital phases (PE=primary eclipse, SE=secondary eclipse, T and A=quadrature when the star is moving toward and away from the observer, respectively). The dot-dashed line indicates the input frequency (corresponding to a pulsation period of 175 seconds) of the FT, the dotted line is $`1f_{orb}`$ away from the input signal and the dashed line is $`2f_{orb}`$ away from the input signal. As indicated in the figure, *every* non-radial mode undergoes at least two $`180^o`$ shifts in phase during each orbital cycle.

Each pulsation frequency produces a complex light curve which creates a many-peaked temporal spectrum. But this complexity may be the key to understanding the pulsations. PG 1336 has many peaks in the temporal spectrum; by tipping the pulsation axis, we can create many peaks from fewer actual pulsations. If the lightcurve is binned by orbital phase for a particular mode, then only the real peak will be present, and predictable phase shifts for similar valued modes will be observed.

Of the 4 highest amplitude modes, two are split by $`2f_{orb}`$, a signature of $`\mathrm{}`$=1 modes. We divided up the light curve and binned by orbital phase appropriate for an $`\mathrm{}`$=1, $`m=\pm 1`$ mode. We then analized each temporal spectrum independently. In both (phase) cases, a peak midway between appeared where none previously existed in the combined spectrum. Additionally, the phase between the regional spectra changed, as expected for an $`\mathrm{}`$=1, $`m=\pm 1`$ mode. This provides strong indications that indeed PG 1336 has a tipped pulsation axis. The next step will be to bin the light curve by orbital phase appropriate for other modes and perform similar tests. Such tests will be performed in the near future.

### 4.1 Eclipses revisited

Simulations like those in Reed, Kawaler, & Kleinman (2001) were created to model light curves during primary eclipse for the re-aligned pulsation axis. With the exception of the $`\mathrm{}`$=2, $`m=\pm 2`$ modes, all modes show *no* effect from the eclipse in phase and only mild changes in amplitude. Thus, if the pulsation axis is tipped 90 degrees to the rotation axis, amplitude during the primary eclipse is no longer an indicator of pulsation modes.

## 5 Conclusions and future work

Figure 3 shows the pulsations detected from various reductions of the data for PG 1336 from the Xcov 21 WET run. More than 20 individual pulsations are detected in the combined data set, most of which are detected in other, regional data sets as well. The primary eclipse temporal spectrum is the most incongruent, with only 2 modes detected in other temporal spectra. Many of the remaining modes are orbital separations away from modes detected in the OoE spectrum.

The temporal spectra at eclipse and quadrature provide good indications that the pulsation axis of PG 1336 is not aligned with the rotation axis, but rather (at least somewhat) with the tidal force from the companion. This likely has far broader applications than just PG 1336. Since a sizable fraction of sdB stars are likely in binaries (Green, Liebert, & Saffer, 2001), it is probable (and almost a certainty for KPD 1930+2752) that other pulsators also have pulsation axes which (somewhat) align with the tidal force of their companions.

I would also like to call on theorists to help in understanding how pulsations respond to tidal forces. It is already believed that $`p`$ and $`g`$ modes will ”feel” the tidal forces differently, but it would be helpful for observers to have some form of parameterization so we can predict what the pulsation axis *should* be. There is also some question (at least in my mind) as to what it means to have $`m0`$ modes which are not due to rotation.


text:
# Trapped modes in a waveguide with a thick obstacle

## 1. Introduction

The problem of finding necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of trapped modes in waveguides has been known since 1943, . The problem is the following: consider an infinite strip $`M`$ in $`^2`$ (or an infinite cylinder with the smooth boundary in $`^n`$). The spectrum of the (positive) Laplacian (with either Dirichlet or Neumann boundary conditions) acting on this strip is easily computable via the separation of variables; the spectrum is absolutely continuous and equals $`[\nu _0,+\mathrm{})`$. Here, $`\nu _0`$ is the first threshold, i.e. eigenvalue of the cross-section of the cylinder (so $`\nu _0=0`$ in the case of Neumann conditions). Let us now consider the domain $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ (the waveguide) which is a smooth compact perturbation of $`M`$ (for example, we insert an obstacle in $`M`$). The essential spectrum of the Laplacian acting on $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ still equals $`[\nu _0,+\mathrm{})`$, but there may be additional eigenvalues (so-called trapped modes; the number of these trapped modes can be quite large, see examples in  and ). So, the problem is in finding conditions for the existence or absence of such eigenvalues and studying them when they exist. It is customary to distinguish between two situations: the Dirichlet boundary conditions (corresponding to the so-called quantum waveguides) and the Neumann boundary conditions (corresponding to the acoustic waveguides). In the Dirichlet case the first threshold $`\nu _0>0`$, so the eigenvalues can occur outside the essential spectrum. Such eigenvalues (not embedded into the essential spectrum) are stable under small perturbations, and thus they occur in a wide range of situations (see e.g. ). On the contrary, in the Neumann case any eigenvalue is embedded into the continuous spectrum and is very unstable. Therefore, the existence of such eigenvalues is usually due to some symmetry (obvious or hidden) of the situation. In  it was shown that if the obstacle is symmetric about the axis of the strip, then for a wide range of obstacles there is (at least one) eigenvalue. Later, in  more conditions, necessary as well as sufficient for the existence of eigenvalues were established. Also, in that paper the example of a hidden symmetry resulting in the existence of an eigenvalue was given. Once the existence of eigenvalues is established, it is natural to ask how many of them there are and how they behave. In the case of a symmetric obstacle the problem splits into two problems on the half of $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ (obtained by cutting the initial waveguide along its axis); one of these problems corresponds to the additional Dirichlet conditions on the added boundary; the other has additional Neumann conditions. The essential spectrum of the first sub-problem starts at the first non-zero threshold $`\nu _1>0`$ (in the case of the strip of width $`2`$ which we will consider in this paper, $`\nu _1=\pi ^2/4`$), and the second sub-problem still has essential spectrum growing from zero (see next section for more details). Paper  studied what happens if the symmetric obstacle becomes long (in the direction of the axis of the strip). It is proved there that the number of eigenvalues of the Dirichlet sub-problem below $`\nu _1`$ is of the order of the length of the obstacle. In the present paper we study another regime of the asymptotic behaviour of such eigenvalues: suppose that the obstacle is a rectangle placed symmetrically on the axis of the strip (see figure 1).

Let the width of the strip be $`2`$, the length of the rectangle (in the direction of the axis of the strip) be $`2a`$ and the distance from the rectangle to the sides of the waveguide (in the direction orthogonal to the axis) be $`\delta `$. When $`\delta =0`$, the domain degenerates to the union of two semistrips. We are interested in the behaviour of the eigenvalues which lie below the first non-zero threshold $`\nu _1=\pi ^2/4`$ when $`\delta 0`$, in particular, the rate at which they tend to the threshold.

The choice of the rectangle as an obstacle is motivated by the following considerations: suppose for simplicity that $`0<a<1`$. Then, if the obstacle has the shape as in figure 2,

the (unique) eigenvalue will stay away from the threshold $`\nu _1`$ (this can be proved using the same method as in ). On the other hand, if the obstacle has the shape as in figure 3,

it was shown in  that for small enough $`\delta `$ there are no eigenvalues below $`\nu _1`$ at all. The case of a rectangle is an intermediate one: for any $`\delta `$ there is a unique eigenvalue which converges towards $`\nu _1`$ as $`\delta 0`$. This makes the case of a rectangular obstacle such an interesting one. A slightly different problem about the rate of convergence of an eigenvalue to a threshold (in the context of a quantum waveguide) was considered in  and , and that problem turned out to be quite difficult (so that one has to work a lot even to get the correct order of convergence). Our problem, on the contrary, is relatively easy, and one can get the first asymptotic term without too much difficulty (in fact, only the first transversal mode contributes towards the first asymptotic term). We think that one can also obtain the second asymptotic term (by studying further transversal modes), but we have not done this in our paper. The result we have obtained is rather surprising in the sense that the rate of convergence of an eigenvalue towards the threshold depends on whether $`a`$ is an integer or not. We postpone the precise formulation of the result until the next section.

The proof of our result will go along the standard lines. To estimate the eigenvalue from above, we will produce the test-function (or functions, if we have several eigenvalues). To obtain the precise asymptotic constant, the test-function has to be chosen with great care. In order to estimate the eigenvalue from below, we use the technique of estimating quadratic forms, similar to the method of transference of excess energy (see ). There is a small difference between our approach and the method of . Namely, instead of comparing the integrals of the function along different sub-regions of $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ (which was the key tool in ), in our paper we compare such integrals with values of the function in certain points.

The rest of the paper is organised in the following way: in the next section we give some preliminary information and formulate the main theorem 2.1; sections 3-5 are devoted to the proof of this theorem. For the convenience of the reader we discuss first (in the section 3) the easiest case when $`a<1`$. Section 4 deals with the case $`a=1`$ (so that in both these sections we have only one eigenvalue). Finally, in section 5 we explain which changes should be made in the proof when $`a`$ is arbitrary (and there are several eigenvalues).

Acknowledgement We are very grateful to D. Vassiliev and M. Levitin for helpful suggestions and comments.

## 2. Preliminaries

We consider the domain $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}=(\mathrm{},\mathrm{})\times (1,1)(a,a)\times ((1\delta ),1\delta )`$, $`0<a`$, $`0<\delta <1`$. The spectrum of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ with Neumann boundary conditions on $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ is the interval $`[0,+\mathrm{})`$. To make the study of the eigenvalues easier, we split $`L^2(\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }})`$ into several subspaces invariant with respect of the action of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. First, let $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ be the half of $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$: $`\mathrm{\Omega }=(\mathrm{},\mathrm{})\times (0,1)(a,a)\times (0,1\delta )`$. It is well known (see ) that if we consider the operator $`L`$ which acts as $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ on $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ with Dirichlet boundary conditions on $`\{y=0\}`$ and Neumann boundary conditions on the rest of the boundary $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, then eigenvalues of $`L`$ are at the same time eigenvalues of the Neumann Laplacian on $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$. Moreover, since the essential spectrum of $`L`$ is $`[\pi ^2/4,+\mathrm{})`$, we can study eigenvalues below $`\nu _1:=\pi ^2/4`$ using the variational approach. It is also convenient to make the further reduction of the domain and consider two problems on $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}:=(0,\mathrm{})\times (0,1)(0,a)\times (0,1\delta )`$: one problem, called $`L_D`$, has Dirichlet conditions on $`\{x=0\}\{y=0\}`$ and Neumann conditions elsewhere; the other problem, called $`L_N`$, has Dirichlet conditions on $`\{y=0\}`$ and Neumann conditions elsewhere (see  for more details of this decomposition). Then $`\sigma (L)=\sigma (L_D)\sigma (L_N)`$, i.e. the spectrum of $`L`$ is the union of spectra of $`L_D`$ and $`L_N`$. Let $`\lambda _1\mathrm{}\lambda _n`$ be the eigenvalues of $`L`$ lying below $`\nu _1`$. Using the approach of , together with the test-function from , it is easy to show that $`n=[a]`$ (this will also follow from the proof of our main theorem). Moreover, if $`n`$ is even, then half of these eigenvalues come from $`L_N`$, and another half comes from $`L_D`$. If $`n`$ is odd, then the spare eigenvalue is due to $`L_N`$. It is also known that the eigenvalues coming from $`L_N`$ and $`L_D`$ are alternating and that $`\lambda _1\sigma (L_N)`$. Thus, the top eigenvalue $`\lambda _n`$ is an eigenvalue of $`L_N`$ if and only if $`n`$ is odd. If we fix $`a`$ and let $`\delta 0`$, then all but the last eigenvalue remain bounded away from $`\nu _1`$, i.e. $`\lambda _{n1}<C<\nu _1`$ uniformly over $`\delta `$ (see ). On the other hand, $`\lambda _n\nu _1`$ as $`\delta 0`$. Now we can formulate our main result.

###### Theorem 2.1.

If $`a`$, then

(2.1)
$$\lambda _n=\frac{\pi ^2}{4}M(a)\delta ^2+O(\delta ^3)$$

as $`\delta 0`$, where

(2.2)
$$M(a)=\pi ^2\mathrm{tan}^2\left(\frac{\pi \{a\}}{2}\right)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\pi ^2\mathrm{tan}^2\left(\frac{\pi a}{2}\right)\hfill & 2l<a<2l+1,\hfill \\ \pi ^2\mathrm{cot}^2\left(\frac{\pi a}{2}\right)\hfill & 2l+1<a<2l+2\text{.}\hfill \end{array}$$

Here $`\{a\}:=a[a]`$ is the fractional part of $`a`$. If $`a`$, then

(2.3)
$$\lambda _n=\frac{\pi ^2}{4}M(a)\delta ^{2/3}+O(\delta ^{4/3})$$

as $`\delta 0`$, where

(2.4)
$$M(a)=\left(\frac{\pi ^2}{a}\right)^{2/3}.$$

The rest of the paper is devoted to the proof of this theorem.

## 3. $`a<1`$

In this case there is only one eigenvalue (coming from $`L_N`$), and we denote this eigenvalue by $`\lambda `$. Also, $`M(a)=\pi ^2\mathrm{tan}^2\left(\frac{\pi a}{2}\right)`$. Obviously, (2.1) is equivalent to the following two inequalities:

(3.1)
$$\lambda \frac{\pi ^2}{4}M(a)\delta ^2+O(\delta ^3)$$

and

(3.2)
$$\lambda \frac{\pi ^2}{4}M(a)\delta ^2O(\delta ^3).$$

The strategy of the proof will be quite standard for problems of this sort: to prove (3.1), we will construct the test-function $`\varphi `$ satisfying Dirichlet conditions at $`\{x=0\}`$ for which the Rayleigh quotient

(3.3)
$$Q(\varphi ):=\frac{_\mathrm{\Omega }^{}|\varphi |^2𝑑x𝑑y}{_\mathrm{\Omega }^{}|\varphi |^2𝑑x𝑑y}=\frac{\pi ^2}{4}M(a)\delta ^2+O(\delta ^3),$$

and to prove (3.2), we will estimate the quadratic form of $`L_N`$ from below. It is relatively easy to construct the test-function $`\varphi `$ for which

(3.4)
$$Q(\varphi )=\frac{\pi ^2}{4}K\delta ^2O(\delta ^3),$$

but the constant $`K`$ is worse than $`M(a)`$. For example, let us denote by

(3.5)
$$\eta _k(y):=\sqrt{2}\mathrm{sin}\frac{(2k1)\pi y}{2}$$

($`k1`$) the normalized eigenfunctions of the cross-section of the strip at infinity. Then if we choose

(3.6)
$$\varphi (x,y)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\eta _1(y)e^{\delta (xa)},\hfill & xa\hfill \\ \eta _1(y),\hfill & xa,\hfill \end{array}$$

this function will satisfy (3.4) with $`K=\pi ^2a1<M(a)`$. In order to get the precise constant, we have to correct the function (3.6) in the region above the obstacle. This correction is not obvious, and in order to understand it, we will first prove (3.2). To begin with, we decompose $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ into two parts:

(3.7)
$$\mathrm{\Omega }_l:=(0,a)\times (1\delta ,1)$$

and

(3.8)
$$\mathrm{\Omega }_r:=(a,+\mathrm{})\times (0,1).$$

The estimate of the quadratic form will be different in $`\mathrm{\Omega }_l`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_r`$. In each of these regions we will use certain one-dimensional results to obtain the estimates. The first lemma is rather trivial; it will take care of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_r`$.

###### Lemma 3.1.

For any function $`\phi C^1(𝐑^+)`$ and any $`m>0`$ we have:

(3.9)
$$m\phi ^2(0)_0^{\mathrm{}}\left(\phi ^{}(x)^2+m^2\phi ^2(x)\right)𝑑x.$$

with equality only when $`\phi (x)=Ce^{mx}`$.

###### Proof.

Taking into account that

$$\phi ^2(0)=_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{d}{dx}(\phi ^2(x))𝑑x=2_0^{\mathrm{}}\phi (x)\phi ^{}(x)𝑑x,$$

we see that (3.9) is equivalent to

$$_0^{\mathrm{}}(\phi ^{}(x)+m\phi (x))^2𝑑x0,$$

which makes both statements of lemma obvious. ∎

The second lemma will help us to deal with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_l`$; this lemma is slightly more subtle.

###### Lemma 3.2.

Let $`0<a<1`$ and $`fC^2[0,a],f^{}(0)=0`$. Then

(3.10)
$$_0^a\left(\frac{df}{dx}\right)^2𝑑x\frac{\pi ^2}{4}_0^af^2(x)𝑑x+\frac{\sqrt{M(a)}f^2(a)}{2}0,$$

where

(3.11)
$$M(a)=\pi ^2\mathrm{tan}^2\left(\frac{\pi a}{2}\right).$$

Moreover, equality is reached in (3.10) if

(3.12)
$$f(x)=C\mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{\pi x}{2}\right).$$

###### Proof.

Without loss of generality we can assume $`f`$ satisfies the extra boundary condition

(3.13)
$$f^{}(a)=\frac{\sqrt{M(a)}f(a)}{2}.$$

Indeed, given any function $`f`$ we can choose another function $`g`$ such that $`g`$ satisfies (3.13) and the difference of the left hand sides of (3.10) for $`f`$ and $`g`$ is arbitrarily small.

We now note that

(3.14)
$$_0^a\left(\frac{df}{dx}\right)^2𝑑x+\frac{\sqrt{M(a)}f^2(a)}{2}$$

is the quadratic form of $`\frac{d^2}{dx^2}`$ with the boundary conditions $`f^{}(0)=0,f^{}(a)=\frac{\sqrt{M(a)}f(a)}{2}`$.

The eigenvalues of this operator are the values of $`\mu ^2`$, where $`\mu `$ satisfy

(3.15)
$$\mu \mathrm{tan}(\mu a)=\frac{\sqrt{M(a)}}{2},$$

corresponding eigenfunctions being $`\mathrm{cos}(\mu x)`$. Therefore, the first eigenvalue equals $`\frac{\pi ^2}{4}`$ if and only if $`M(a)`$ is given by (3.11). This finishes the proof of the lemma. ∎

Now we will prove (3.2). To do this, it is enough to show that whenever $`uC^{\mathrm{}}(\mathrm{\Omega }^{})`$, $`u(x,0)=0`$, $`\frac{u}{x}(0,y)=0`$, $`\frac{u}{y}(x,1)=0`$ the following inequality is satisfied:

(3.16)
$$_\mathrm{\Omega }^{}|u|^2𝑑x𝑑y\left(\frac{\pi ^2}{4}M(a)\delta ^2O(\delta ^3)\right)_\mathrm{\Omega }^{}|u|^2𝑑x𝑑y0$$

where $`M(a)=\pi ^2\mathrm{tan}^2\left(\frac{\pi a}{2}\right)`$. Let us decompose the LHS of (3.16) as

(3.17)
$$\begin{array}{cc}& \left(_{\mathrm{\Omega }_l}|u|^2𝑑x𝑑y\frac{\pi ^2}{4}_{\mathrm{\Omega }_l}|u|^2𝑑x𝑑y\right)\hfill \\ \hfill +& \left(_{\mathrm{\Omega }_r}|u|^2𝑑x𝑑y\frac{\pi ^2}{4}_{\mathrm{\Omega }_r}|u|^2𝑑x𝑑y\right)\hfill \\ \hfill +& \left(M(a)\delta ^2+O(\delta ^4)\right)_\mathrm{\Omega }|u|^2𝑑x𝑑y\hfill \\ \hfill =& :L(u)+R(u)+\left(M(a)\delta ^2+O(\delta ^4)\right)_\mathrm{\Omega }|u|^2𝑑x𝑑y\hfill \end{array}$$

(the definitions of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_l`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_r`$ are given in (3.7) and (3.8)). The main idea of the proof is the following: it is obvious that $`R(u)>0`$; moreover, there is a certain extra amount of energy in $`\mathrm{\Omega }_r`$ to spare. We wish to transfer this excess of energy into $`\mathrm{\Omega }_l`$ using the information of one-dimensional problems, similar to the approach in . However, if we do it precisely in the same way as in , the estimate we obtain will be too rough. Therefore, instead we transform the excess of energy of $`u`$ over $`\mathrm{\Omega }_r`$ into an extra positive term involving the values of $`u`$ on the boundary between $`\mathrm{\Omega }_r`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_l`$. To be more precise, we will show that

(3.18)
$$R(u)\frac{\sqrt{M(a)}}{2}_{1\delta }^1|u(a,y)|^2𝑑y$$

and

(3.19)
$$L(u)+\frac{\sqrt{M(a)}}{2}_{1\delta }^1|u(a,y)|^2𝑑y0,$$

which obviously would lead to (3.16).

We start by examining $`R(u)`$ in more details. Since $`u(x,0)=0`$ and $`\frac{u}{y}(x,1)=0`$, we can decompose $`u`$ in the Fourier series when $`xa`$:

(3.20)
$$u(x,y)=\underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}u_k(x)\eta _k(y)$$

($`\eta _j`$ is defined in (3.5)) After simple computations we obtain:

$$_{\mathrm{\Omega }_r}|u|^2=\underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}_a^{\mathrm{}}\left(u_k^{}(x)\right)^2𝑑x+\frac{\pi ^2}{4}\underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}(2k1)^2_a^{\mathrm{}}u_k^2(x)𝑑x$$

and

$$_{\mathrm{\Omega }_r}|u|^2𝑑x𝑑y=\underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}_a^{\mathrm{}}u_k^2(x)𝑑x.$$

These formulae imply

(3.21)
$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill R(u)& =\underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}_a^{\mathrm{}}\left(u_k^{}(x)\right)^2𝑑x+\frac{\pi ^2}{4}\underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}(2k1)^2_a^{\mathrm{}}u_k^2(x)𝑑x\hfill \\ & \frac{\pi ^2}{4}\underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}_a^{\mathrm{}}u_k^2(x)𝑑x+M(a)\delta ^2\underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}_a^{\mathrm{}}u_k^2(x)\hfill \\ & \underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}_a^{\mathrm{}}\left(u_k^{}(x)\right)^2𝑑x+M(a)\delta ^2\underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}_a^{\mathrm{}}u_k^2(x)𝑑x\hfill \end{array}$$

when $`\delta `$ is small enough. Now lemma 3.1 implies

(3.22)
$$R(u)\sqrt{M(a)}\delta \underset{k=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}u_k^2(a).$$

On the other hand, the RHS of (3.18) is

(3.23)
$$\begin{array}{cc}& \frac{\sqrt{M(a)}}{2}_{1\delta }^1|u(a,y)|^2𝑑y\hfill \\ & =\frac{\sqrt{M(a)}}{2}\underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}u_k^2(a)_{1\delta }^12\mathrm{sin}^2\left(\frac{\pi }{2}(2k1)y\right)𝑑y\hfill \\ & =\frac{\sqrt{M(a)}}{2}\underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}u_k^2(a)\left(\delta +\frac{\mathrm{sin}\left(\pi \delta (2k1)\right)}{\pi (2k1)}\right)\sqrt{M(a)}\delta \underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}u_k^2(a),\hfill \end{array}$$

which, together with (3.22), proves (3.18). Equation (3.19) follows immediately if we apply lemma 3.2 to the function $`u(,y)`$ and then integrate the result over $`y`$. This finishes the proof of (3.2).

In order to construct the test-function satisfying (3.3), we try to change all inequalities in the proof of the lower bound into equalities. In other words, we need to have equalities in (3.19), (3.22), and (3.21). The lemmas explain what should we do to get equalities in (3.19) and (3.22). In order to get equality (at least up to terms $`O(\delta ^3)`$) in (3.21), we have to leave only the first Fourier coefficient in (3.20). This leads to the following test-function:

(3.24)
$$\varphi (x,y)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{\pi a}{2}\right)e^{\sqrt{M(a)}\delta (xa)}\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{\pi y}{2}\right)\hfill & xa\text{,}\hfill \\ \mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{\pi x}{2}\right)\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{\pi y}{2}\right)\hfill & xa\text{.}\hfill \end{array}$$

One can check that this function indeed gives us equality up to $`O(\delta ^3)`$ everywhere where it matters, and so it satisfies (3.3) which proves (3.1). The proof of the theorem in the case $`a<1`$ is thus finished.

## 4. $`a=1`$

As before, the inequality (2.3) is equivalent to the following two inequalities:

(4.1)
$$\lambda \frac{\pi ^2}{4}M(a)\delta ^{2/3}+O(\delta ^{4/3})$$

and

(4.2)
$$\lambda \frac{\pi ^2}{4}M(a)\delta ^{2/3}O(\delta ^{4/3}).$$

We start by producing the test-function $`\varphi (x,y)`$ with the Rayleigh quotient equal to the RHS of (4.1). Such a function is given by

(4.3)
$$\varphi (x,y)=\{\begin{array}{cc}e^{\pi ^{2/3}\delta ^{1/3}(x1)}\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{\pi y}{2}\right)\hfill & x1\text{,}\hfill \\ \left(\mathrm{cos}(\mu )\right)^1\mathrm{cos}(\mu x)\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{\pi y}{2}\right)\hfill & x1\text{,}\hfill \end{array}$$

where $`\mu =\frac{\pi }{2}\pi ^{1/3}\delta ^{2/3}`$. A straightforward (though rather lengthy) computation shows that the Rayleigh quotient of this function indeed satisfies

(4.4)
$$Q(\varphi )=\frac{\pi ^2}{4}M(a)\delta ^{2/3}+O(\delta ^{4/3}),$$

which proves (4.1). Another way of seeing that (4.4) holds is to read the proof of (4.2) and check that the function $`\varphi `$ changes all inequalities in it into equalities.

Now we give a proof of (4.2). The proof is quite similar to that of (3.2). The biggest change is that instead of Lemma 3.2, in the case $`a=1`$ we have the following result:

###### Lemma 4.1.

Let $`fC^2[0,1]`$ and $`f^{}(0)=0`$. Then for all small enough positive $`\delta `$

(4.5)
$$_0^1\left(\frac{df}{dx}\right)^2𝑑x\left(\frac{\pi ^2}{4}M\delta ^{2/3}C_1\delta ^{4/3}\right)_0^1f^2(x)𝑑x+\frac{\sqrt{M}f^2(1)}{2\delta ^{2/3}}0,$$

where

(4.6)
$$M:=M(1)=\pi ^{4/3}$$

and $`C_1`$ is a constant, the precise value of which is not important. Moreover, there exists another constant $`C_2`$, such that for

(4.7)
$$g(x)=\mathrm{cos}(\mu x)$$

with $`\mu ^2=\frac{\pi ^2}{4}\pi ^{4/3}\delta ^{2/3}`$, the inequality in the opposite direction is satisfied, namely:

(4.8)
$$_0^1\left(\frac{dg}{dx}\right)^2𝑑x\left(\frac{\pi ^2}{4}M\delta ^{2/3}C_2\delta ^{4/3}\right)_0^1g^2(x)𝑑x+\frac{\sqrt{M}g^2(1)}{2\delta ^{2/3}}0.$$

###### Proof.

The proof follows similar lines to those of Lemma 3.2. Without loss of generality we can assume that $`f`$ satisfies the extra boundary condition

$$f^{}(1)=\frac{\sqrt{M}f(1)}{2\delta ^{2/3}}.$$

Then

$$_0^1\left(\frac{df}{dx}\right)^2𝑑x+\frac{\sqrt{M}f^2(1)}{2\delta ^{2/3}}$$

is the quadratic form of the operator $`\frac{d^2}{dx^2}`$ with boundary conditions

$$f^{}(0)=0,f^{}(1)=\frac{\sqrt{M}f(1)}{2\delta ^{2/3}}.$$

We therefore need to prove that the first eigenvalue of

(4.9)
$$f^{\prime \prime }(x)=\mu ^2f(x),f^{}(0)=0,f^{}(1)=\frac{\sqrt{M}f(1)}{2\delta ^{2/3}}$$

equals $`\frac{\pi ^2}{4}M\delta ^{2/3}+O(\delta ^{4/3})`$ (this indeed would prove both statements of lemma). The eigenvalues of (4.9) are the values of $`\mu _j^2`$ where $`\mu _j`$ are solutions to

(4.10)
$$\mu \mathrm{tan}(\mu )=\frac{\sqrt{M}}{2\delta ^{2/3}};$$

the corresponding eigenfunctions are $`\mathrm{cos}(\mu _jx)`$. Therefore, we need to make sure that

(4.11)
$$\sqrt{\frac{\pi ^2}{4}M\delta ^{2/3}}\mathrm{tan}\left(\sqrt{\frac{\pi ^2}{4}M\delta ^{2/3}}\right)=\frac{\sqrt{M}}{2\delta ^{2/3}}+O(1).$$

The LHS of (4.11) is

$$\frac{\pi }{2}\frac{\pi }{M\delta ^{2/3}}+O(1)=\frac{\pi ^2}{2M\delta ^{2/3}}+O(1).$$

This is precisely the RHS of (4.11) iff $`M`$ is given by (4.6). ∎

We will now prove (4.2). To do this it is enough to show that for arbitrary $`uC^{\mathrm{}}(\mathrm{\Omega }^{})`$ such that $`u(x,0)=\frac{u}{y}(x,1)=\frac{u}{x}(0,y)=0`$, we have

(4.12)
$$_\mathrm{\Omega }^{}|u|^2𝑑x𝑑y\left(\frac{\pi ^2}{4}M\delta ^{2/3}O(\delta ^{4/3})\right)_\mathrm{\Omega }^{}|u|^2𝑑x𝑑y0.$$

The LHS of (4.12) can be rewritten as

$$\begin{array}{cc}& \left(_{\mathrm{\Omega }_l}|u|^2𝑑x𝑑y\left(\frac{\pi ^2}{4}M\delta ^{2/3}O(\delta ^{4/3})\right)_{\mathrm{\Omega }_l}|u|^2𝑑x𝑑y\right)\hfill \\ \hfill +& \left(_{\mathrm{\Omega }_r}|u|^2𝑑x𝑑y\left(\frac{\pi ^2}{4}M\delta ^{2/3}O(\delta ^{4/3})\right)_{\mathrm{\Omega }_r}|u|^2𝑑x𝑑y\right)\hfill \\ \hfill =& :L(u)+R(u).\hfill \end{array}$$

Similar to Section 3, we will show that

(4.13)
$$R(u)\frac{\sqrt{M}}{2\delta ^{2/3}}_{1\delta }^1|u(1,y)|^2𝑑y$$

and

(4.14)
$$L(u)+\frac{\sqrt{M}}{2\delta ^{2/3}}_{1\delta }^1|u(1,y)|^2𝑑y0.$$

The proof of (4.13) is absolutely analogous to the proof of (3.18), and we will skip it. In order to prove (4.14), it is sufficient to show that

(4.15)
$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill _{\mathrm{\Omega }_l}\left(\frac{u}{x}\right)^2𝑑x𝑑y& \left(\frac{\pi ^2}{4}M\delta ^{2/3}C_1\delta ^{4/3}\right)_{\mathrm{\Omega }_l}|u|^2𝑑x𝑑y\hfill \\ & +\frac{\sqrt{M}}{2\delta ^{2/3}}_{1\delta }^1|u(1,y)|^2𝑑y0\hfill \end{array}$$

for some choice of the constant $`C_1`$. This follows immediately if we apply Lemma 4.1 to the function $`u(,y)`$ and then integrate over $`y`$. The proof of (4.2) is therefore complete. The careful look at the proof together with the second part of Lemma 4.1 shows that the choice of the test-function (4.3) indeed changes all the inequalities into equalities, and so (4.1) is proved. This finishes the proof of our theorem in the case $`a=1`$.

## 5. Arbitrary $`a`$

Consider now the case of arbitrary $`a`$. The main difference between this case and the case $`a1`$ is the fact that now we have to take care of several test-functions, using the mini-max principle. The cases of integer and non-integer $`a`$ require slightly different approach as well as the cases of even and odd $`[a]`$. We consider in details the case of non-integer $`a`$ with even integer part and prove the theorem in this case. Proof of the other cases is similar, and we will not give it here. So, let us assume that $`[a]=2l`$, $`l`$, $`a`$. Then, as we have mentioned already, the number of eigenvalues $`n=2l+1`$, and the top eigenvalue $`\lambda _{2l+1}`$ comes from the Neumann problem $`L_N`$. This problem has exactly $`l+1`$ eigenvalues (the other $`l`$ eigenvalues are due to $`L_D`$). As before, we construct the test-functions to prove the upper bound

(5.1)
$$\lambda _{2l+1}\frac{\pi ^2}{4}M(a)\delta ^2+O(\delta ^3)$$

and estimate the quadratic form to prove the lower bound

(5.2)
$$\lambda _{2l+1}\frac{\pi ^2}{4}M(a)\delta ^2O(\delta ^3).$$

More precisely, in order to prove (5.1) we will construct $`l+1`$ functions $`\varphi _1,\mathrm{},\varphi _{l+1}H^1(\mathrm{\Omega }^{})`$, $`\varphi _j(x,0)=\frac{\varphi _j}{x}(0,y)=\frac{\varphi _j}{y}(x,1)=0`$ such that every non-trivial linear combination $`\varphi =_{j=1}^{l+1}\alpha _j\varphi _j`$ satisfies (3.3). As in section 3, it is relatively easy to construct test-functions which satisfy (3.3) with a weaker constant. So, once again we will start with proving the lower bound and this proof will give us the recipe for choosing the optimal test-functions. Taking into account that we are estimating the eigenvalue number $`l+1`$, the variational formulation of (5.2) is the following: for every set $`u_1,\mathrm{},u_{l+1}C^{\mathrm{}}(\mathrm{\Omega }^{})`$, $`u_j(x,0)=0`$, $`\frac{u_j}{x}(0,y)=0`$, $`\frac{u_j}{y}(x,1)=0`$ there exist constants $`\alpha _j`$, not all zeros ($`1jl+1`$), such that if $`u=_{j=1}^{l+1}\alpha _ju_j`$, then $`Q(u)\frac{\pi ^2}{4}M(a)\delta ^2O(\delta ^4)`$. The proof of this statement goes similarly to the proof from section 3, but we need to make two modifications. First of all, instead of lemma 3.2 we use the following lemma:

###### Lemma 5.1.

Let $`2l<a<2l+1,l`$ and let $`f_1,\mathrm{},f_{l+1}C^2[0,a]`$ satisfy $`f_j^{}(0)=0`$. Then there exist constants $`\alpha _j`$ not all zeros ($`1jl+1`$), such that for the linear combination $`f=_{j=1}^{l+1}\alpha _jf_j`$ the following inequality is satisfied:

(5.3)
$$_0^a\left(\frac{df}{dx}\right)^2𝑑x\frac{\pi ^2}{4}_0^af^2(x)𝑑x+\frac{\sqrt{M(a)}f^2(a)}{2}0,$$

where

(5.4)
$$M(a)=\pi ^2\mathrm{tan}^2\left(\frac{\pi a}{2}\right).$$

Moreover, inequality in the other direction is reached in (5.3) for any linear combination of the following functions:

(5.5)
$$f_j(x)=\mathrm{cos}(\mu _jx),1jl+1,$$

where $`\mu _j`$ are the first $`(l+1)`$ solutions to

(5.6)
$$\mu _j\mathrm{tan}(\mu _ja)=\frac{\pi }{2}\mathrm{tan}\left(\frac{\pi a}{2}\right),$$

with $`\mu _{l+1}=\frac{\pi }{2}`$.

###### Proof.

The proof of this lemma is similar to the proof of Lemma 3.2. First of all we notice that without loss of generality we can assume that $`f_j`$ satisfy the additional boundary condition $`f_j^{}(a)=\frac{\sqrt{M(a)}f_j(a)}{2}`$. Then the statement of the lemma is equivalent to the fact that the $`(l+1)`$st eigenvalue of the problem

(5.7)
$$f^{\prime \prime }(x)=\mu ^2f(x),f^{}(0)=0,f^{}(a)=\frac{\sqrt{M(a)}f(a)}{2}$$

is $`\frac{\pi ^2}{4}`$ and the functions (5.5) are the first $`(l+1)`$ eigenfunctions. As in the proof of Lemma 3.2 the eigenvalues of (5.7) are the values of $`\mu _j^2`$, where $`\mu _j`$ are (positive) solutions to

(5.8)
$$\mu _j\mathrm{tan}(\mu _ja)=\frac{\sqrt{M(a)}}{2}=\frac{\pi }{2}\mathrm{tan}\left(\frac{\pi a}{2}\right),\mu _1<\mu _2<\mathrm{}$$

Obviously, $`\mu _j=\pi /2`$ solves (5.8), and we just have to find the number of solutions of (5.8) which are smaller than $`\pi ^2`$. It is easy to see that (5.8) has precisely one solution in the interval $`(0,\frac{\pi }{2a})`$ and in each of the intervals $`(\frac{(2j1)\pi }{2a},\frac{(2j+1)\pi }{2a})`$ ($`j=1,2,\mathrm{}`$). Since $`\pi /2(\frac{(2l1)\pi }{2a},\frac{(2l+1)\pi }{2a})`$, we see that indeed $`\mu _{l+1}=\pi /2`$. This finishes the proof of lemma. ∎

There is another problem arising if one tries to use the proof from the previous sections directly to prove the inequality (3.19) (the proof of (3.18) is unchanged) We can not apply lemma 5.1 to the set of functions $`u_j(,y)`$ for each $`y`$ separately and then integrate over $`y`$ (like we did in the previous sections), since the choice of coefficients $`\alpha _j`$ would then depend on $`y`$. Therefore, we have to use the Fourier decomposition in the region above the obstacle to show that, roughly speaking, only the first Fourier term matters, which would allow us to apply lemma 5.1 only to this first term. So, let us write $`u`$ in terms of a Fourier Series for $`0xa`$:

$$u(x,y)=\underset{j=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\widehat{u}_j(x)\widehat{\eta }_j(y),$$

where

$$\widehat{\eta }_j(y)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\delta ^{1/2}\hfill & j=0\text{,}\hfill \\ \sqrt{\frac{2}{\delta }}\mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{\pi j}{\delta }(1y)\right)\hfill & j1\text{.}\hfill \end{array}$$

After simple calculations we have

(5.9)
$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill _{\mathrm{\Omega }_l}|u|^2𝑑x𝑑y& =_0^a\left(\widehat{u}_0^{}(x)\right)^2𝑑x+\underset{j=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}_0^a\left(\widehat{u}_j^{}(x)\right)^2𝑑x\hfill \\ & +\frac{\pi ^2}{\delta ^2}\underset{j=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}j^2_0^a\widehat{u}_j^2(x)𝑑x\hfill \\ \hfill _0^a\left(\widehat{u}_0^{}(x)\right)^2𝑑x& +\underset{j=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}_0^a\left(\widehat{u}_j^{}(x)\right)^2𝑑x+\frac{\pi ^2}{\delta ^2}\underset{j=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}_0^a\widehat{u}_j^2(x)𝑑x\hfill \end{array}$$

and

(5.10)
$$_{\mathrm{\Omega }_l}|u|^2𝑑x𝑑y=_0^a\widehat{u}_0^2(x)𝑑x+\underset{j=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}_0^a\widehat{u}_j^2(x)𝑑x.$$

Recall that we are trying to prove (3.19), i.e. that

(5.11)
$$_{\mathrm{\Omega }_l}|u|^2𝑑x𝑑y\frac{\pi ^2}{4}_{\mathrm{\Omega }_l}|u|^2𝑑x𝑑y+\frac{\sqrt{M(a)}}{2}_{1\delta }^1|u(a,y)|^2𝑑y0.$$

Substituting (5.9) and (5.10) into the LHS of (5.11) gives

(5.12)
$$\begin{array}{cc}& _{\mathrm{\Omega }_l}|u|^2𝑑x𝑑y\frac{\pi ^2}{4}_{\mathrm{\Omega }_l}|u|^2𝑑x𝑑y+\frac{\sqrt{M(a)}}{2}_{1\delta }^1|u(a,y)|^2𝑑y\hfill \\ & \left(_0^a\left(\widehat{u}_0^{}(x)\right)^2𝑑x\frac{\pi ^2}{4}_0^a\widehat{u}_0^2(x)𝑑x+\frac{\sqrt{M(a)}\widehat{u}_0^2(a)}{2}\right)\hfill \\ & +\underset{j=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\left(_0^a\left(\widehat{u}_j^{}(x)\right)^2𝑑x+\pi ^2\left(\frac{1}{\delta ^2}\frac{1}{4}\right)_0^a\widehat{u}_j^2(x)𝑑x+\frac{\sqrt{M(a)}\widehat{u}_j^2(a)}{2}\right)\hfill \\ & _0^a\left(\widehat{u}_0^{}(x)\right)^2𝑑x\frac{\pi ^2}{4}_0^a\widehat{u}_0^2(x)𝑑x+\frac{\sqrt{M(a)}\widehat{u}_0^2(a)}{2}.\hfill \end{array}$$

The aim of this exercise was to reduce proving the two-dimensional inequality (5.11) to the one-dimensional one

(5.13)
$$_0^a\left(\widehat{u}_0^{}(x)\right)^2𝑑x\frac{\pi ^2}{4}_0^a\widehat{u}_0^2(x)𝑑x+\frac{\sqrt{M(a)}\widehat{u}_0^2(a)}{2}0,$$

and this is precisely what Lemma 5.1 is about. Namely, having a set of $`(l+1)`$ functions $`u_1`$,…,$`u_{l+1}`$, we apply Lemma 5.1 to their first Fourier coefficients to get a linear combination of them which satisfies (5.13). Computations above show that this implies (3.19) and (5.2).

In order to prove (5.1), we, as always, just look carefully at the proof and try to find functions which change all the inequalities into equalities (at least up to $`O(\delta ^3)`$ terms). This leads to the following set of test-functions:

(5.14)
$$\varphi _j(x,y)=\{\begin{array}{cc}f_j(a)e^{\sqrt{M(a)}\delta (xa)}\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{\pi y}{2}\right)\hfill & xa\text{,}\hfill \\ f_j(x)\mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{\pi y}{2}\right)\hfill & xa\text{,}\hfill \end{array}$$

where $`M(a)`$ is as in (5.4) and $`f_j(x)`$ are (5.5). It is an easy matter to check that any linear combination of them $`\varphi =\alpha _j\varphi _j`$ satisfies

(5.15)
$$Q(\varphi ):=\frac{_\mathrm{\Omega }^{}|\varphi |^2𝑑x𝑑y}{_\mathrm{\Omega }^{}|\varphi |^2𝑑x𝑑y}\frac{\pi ^2}{4}M(a)\delta ^2+O(\delta ^3),$$

which proves (5.1). This finishes the proof of the theorem in the case $`a[a]=2l`$. Other cases are treated similarly.


text:
# Vortices with fractional flux in two-gap superconductors and in extended Faddeev model

## Abstract

We discuss linear topological defects allowed in two-gap superconductors and equivalent extended Faddeev model. We show that in these systems there exist vortices which carry an arbitrary fraction of magnetic flux quantum. Besides that we discuss topological defects which do not carry magnetic flux and describe features of ordinary one-magnetic-flux-quantum vortices in the two-gap system. The results could be relevant for the newly discovered two-band superconductor $`MgB_2`$.

A fundamental property of the Abelian Higgs model is the quantization of magnetic flux . In an ordinary superconductor the Abrikosov vortices can carry only integer number of magnetic flux quanta. The intriguing possibilities of topological defects carrying a fraction of flux quantum have long attracted interest and several nontrivial realizations were identified. For example, a half flux-quantum vortex in a spin-1 condensate is a configuration where a Cooper pair has its spin reversed when moving around the vortex core (this is an analogue of an Alice string in high energy physics where a particle moving around the string flips its charge or enters a “shadow world”) also a half flux-quantum vortex can be formed on a junction of 3 grain boundaries in a crystal etc . In this paper we discuss vortices in two-gap superconductors  (known in particle physics as a Higgs doublet model ) and in the extended Faddeev model. We show that these vortices can carry an arbitrary fraction of magnetic flux quantum.

Experimentally, two-gap superconductivity has been observed in the transition metals $`Nb`$, $`Ta`$,$`V`$ and in $`Nb`$-doped $`SrTiO_3`$ . More recent experiments indicate the two-gap nature of superconductivity in $`MgB_2`$  and $`2HNbSe_2`$ . Two-gap models appear also in the theoretical studies of liquid metallic hydrogen, which should allow superconductivity of both electronic and protonic Cooper pairs . In liquid metallic deuterium a deuteron superfluidity may be present along with superconductivity of electronic Cooper pairs . Other realizations of the two-gap system are superconductors with two types of pairing (e.g. a mixture of $`s`$\- and $`p`$-wave condensates).

A two-gap superconductor is described by a two-flavour Ginzburg-Landau free energy functional:

$`F={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2m_1}}\left|\left(+ie𝐀\right)\mathrm{\Psi }_1\right|^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2m_2}}\left|\left(+ie𝐀\right)\mathrm{\Psi }_2\right|^2`$ (1)
$`+V(|\mathrm{\Psi }_{1,2}|^2)+\eta [\mathrm{\Psi }_1^{}\mathrm{\Psi }_2+\mathrm{\Psi }_2^{}\mathrm{\Psi }_1]+{\displaystyle \frac{𝐁^2}{2}}`$ (2)
where $`\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha =|\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha |e^{i\varphi _\alpha }`$ and $`V(|\mathrm{\Psi }_{1,2}|^2)=b_\alpha |\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha |^2+\frac{c_\alpha }{2}|\mathrm{\Psi }_\alpha |^4`$ and $`\eta `$ is a characteristic of the interband Josephson coupling strength .

Many exotic properties of (2) are obscured in the Ginzburg-Landau presentation of the free energy functional. In  it was shown that there exists an exact equivalence mapping between the model (2) and an extended version of Faddeev’s $`O(3)`$ nonlinear $`\sigma `$-model , which describes the two-gap superconductors in terms of gauge invariant variables which explicitly show the degrees of freedom present in the system. This model consists of a three-component unit vector $`\stackrel{}{𝐧}`$ in interaction with a massive vector field $`\stackrel{}{𝖢}`$ and a density-related variable $`\rho `$ :

$`F`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\rho ^2}{4}}(\stackrel{}{𝐧})^2+(\rho )^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\rho ^2}{16}}\stackrel{}{𝖢}^2+V(\rho ,n_3)+\rho ^2Kn_1`$ (3)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{32e^2}}\left(_i𝖢_j_j𝖢_i\stackrel{}{𝐧}_i\stackrel{}{𝐧}\times _j\stackrel{}{𝐧}\right)^2`$ (4)
where $`_i=\frac{d}{dx_i}`$, $`V=A+Bn_3+Cn_3^2`$. The models (2) and (4) are connected in the following way : coefficients $`A,B,C`$ are given by: $`A=\rho ^2[4c_1m_1^2+4c_2m_2^2b_1m_1b_2m_2];B=\rho ^2[8c_2m_2^28c_1m_1^2b_2m_2+b_1m_1];C=4\rho ^2[c_1m_1^2+c_2m_2^2]`$. The position of the unit vector $`\stackrel{}{𝐧}`$ on the sphere $`S^2`$ can be characterized by two angles as follows: $`\stackrel{}{𝐧}=(\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{cos}\gamma ,\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{sin}\gamma ,\mathrm{cos}\theta )`$, where $`\gamma =(\varphi _1\varphi _2);|\mathrm{\Psi }_{1,2}|=[\sqrt{2m_1}\rho \mathrm{sin}\left(\frac{\theta }{2}\right),\sqrt{2m_2}\rho \mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{\theta }{2}\right)]`$; $`\stackrel{}{𝖢}=\frac{i}{m_1\rho ^2}\left\{\mathrm{\Psi }_1^{}\mathrm{\Psi }_1\mathrm{\Psi }_1\mathrm{\Psi }_1^{}\right\}+\frac{i}{m_2\rho ^2}\{\mathrm{\Psi }_2^{}\mathrm{\Psi }_2\mathrm{\Psi }_2\mathrm{\Psi }_2^{}\}\frac{2e}{\rho ^2}\left(\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|^2}{m_1}+\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_2|^2}{m_2}\right)𝐀`$. We consider the system in the presence of an interband Josephson coupling $`\eta [\mathrm{\Psi }_1^{}\mathrm{\Psi }_2+\mathrm{\Psi }_2^{}\mathrm{\Psi }_1]=\rho ^2Kn_1`$ where $`K2\eta \sqrt{m_1m_2}`$. The potential term $`V`$ in (4) determines the energetically preferred ground state value for $`n_3`$, which corresponds to uniform density of both condensates. We denote it as $`\stackrel{~}{n}_3\left[\frac{N_2}{m_2}\frac{N_1}{m_1}\right]\left[\frac{N_1}{m_1}+\frac{N_2}{m_2}\right]^1`$ where $`N_{1,2}`$ stands for the average $`<|\mathrm{\Psi }_{1,2}|^2>`$. Thus, in the presence of the intrinsic Josephson effect, the ground state value of $`\stackrel{}{𝐧}`$ corresponds to a point where $`n_1=1`$ on a circle specified by the condition $`n_3=\stackrel{~}{n}_3\mathrm{cos}\stackrel{~}{\theta }`$. We note that (4) shows the Meissner effect, which is manifest in generation of the mass for $`\stackrel{}{𝖢}`$ . The corresponding length scale $`\lambda `$ is the London magnetic field penetration length: $`\lambda ^2=\frac{1}{e^2}\left[\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|^2}{m_1}+\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_2|^2}{m_2}\right]^1`$. One can observe from (4) that along with the Meissner effect in a two-band superconductor there exists a neutral boson. That is, if one considers a uniform density of condensates, the vector field $`\stackrel{}{𝖢}`$ decouples from the field $`\stackrel{}{𝐧}`$, because $`\stackrel{}{𝐧}_i\stackrel{}{𝐧}\times _j\stackrel{}{𝐧}\mathrm{sin}\theta [_i\gamma _j\theta _i\gamma _j\theta ]=0`$, when $`n_3=\mathrm{cos}\stackrel{~}{\theta }=const`$. Thus, when $`\eta =0`$, the system possesses a massless neutral $`O(2)`$ excitation associated with the phase variable $`\gamma =(\varphi _1\varphi _2)`$. This phenomenon has no counterpart in one-gap superconductors where the Goldstone boson associated with $`O(2)`$ symmetry is “eaten” by the Meissner effect. In the presence of the Josephson effect ($`\eta 0`$) the variables still decouple but the Josephson term $`\rho ^2Kn_1`$ breaks the neutral $`O(2)`$ symmetry by giving a nonzero mass to $`n_1`$.

Let us discuss vortices in the system (4). In the London limit ($`|\mathrm{\Psi }_i|=const`$), the eqs. (2), (4) become:

$`F={\displaystyle \frac{\rho ^2}{4}}(\stackrel{}{𝐧})^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\rho ^2}{16}}\stackrel{}{𝖢}^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{32e^2}}[_i𝖢_j_j𝖢_i]^2+\rho ^2Kn_1=`$ (5)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\rho ^2}{4}}\mathrm{sin}^2\stackrel{~}{\theta }(\gamma )^2+\rho ^2\left[\mathrm{sin}^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{\theta }}{2}}\right)\varphi _1+\mathrm{cos}^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{\theta }}{2}}\right)\varphi _2e𝐀\right]^2`$ (6)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{𝐁^2}{2}}+\rho ^2K\mathrm{sin}\stackrel{~}{\theta }\mathrm{cos}\gamma `$ (7)
From this expression one can observe that the vortices characterized by $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\varphi _1+\varphi _2)_\sigma 𝑑l[(\varphi _1+\varphi _2)]=4\pi m;\mathrm{\Delta }(\varphi _1\varphi _2)=0`$, (where we integrate over a closed curve $`\sigma `$ around the vortex core) is the analogue of $`m`$-flux quanta Abrikosov vortices in an ordinary superconductor characterized by $`\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }|^2}{m}=\left(\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|^2}{m_1}+\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_2|^2}{m_2}\right)`$. Let us observe that if both phases $`\varphi _{1,2}`$ change by $`2\pi `$ around the core then a vortex carries one quantum of magnetic flux.

The vortices characterized by $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\varphi _1\varphi _2)=4\pi n`$ in the case where $`\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|^2}{m_1}\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_2|^2}{m_2}`$ have nontrivial structure. Let us first consider the case when $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\varphi _1+\varphi _2)=0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\varphi _1\varphi _2)=4\pi `$. First of all such a vortex features a neutral superflow characterized by a $`4\pi `$ gain in the variable $`\gamma `$. In the case of $`\eta 0`$ this vortex is described by the sine-Gordon functional: $`F=(1/4)\rho ^2\mathrm{sin}^2\stackrel{~}{\theta }(\gamma )^2+\rho ^2K\mathrm{sin}\stackrel{~}{\theta }\mathrm{cos}\gamma `$. \[In the limit $`\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|^2}{m_1}=\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_2|^2}{m_2}`$, this vortex does not involve a nontrivial configuration of the field $`\stackrel{}{𝖢}`$, as can be seen from (7)\]. In the case $`K=\eta =0`$ this vortex is equivalent to a vortex in a neutral superfluid with superfluid stiffness $`(1/2)\rho ^2\mathrm{sin}^2\stackrel{~}{\theta }`$. As follows from (7), in the case when $`\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|^2}{m_1}\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_2|^2}{m_2}`$, a topological defect in the neutral field associated with $`\gamma `$ is necessarily accompanied by a nontrivial configuration of the charged field $`\stackrel{}{𝖢}`$. That is, for such a topological defect the second term in (7) becomes $`\rho ^2\left[\left\{\mathrm{sin}^2\left(\frac{\stackrel{~}{\theta }}{2}\right)\mathrm{cos}^2\left(\frac{\stackrel{~}{\theta }}{2}\right)\right\}\frac{(\varphi _1\varphi _2)}{2}e𝐀\right]^2`$. This term is nonvanishing for such a vortex configuration, which means that this vortex besides neutral vorticity also carries magnetic field. Lets us calculate the magnetic flux carried by such a vortex. The supercurrent around the core of this vortex is: $`𝐉=2e\rho ^2\left[\left\{\mathrm{sin}^2\left(\frac{\stackrel{~}{\theta }}{2}\right)\mathrm{cos}^2\left(\frac{\stackrel{~}{\theta }}{2}\right)\right\}\frac{(\varphi _1\varphi _2)}{2}e𝐀\right]`$. Lets us now integrate this expression over a closed path $`\sigma `$ situated at a distance larger than $`\lambda `$ from the vortex core. Indeed at a distance much larger than the penetration length the supercurrent $`𝐉`$, or equivalently the massive field $`\stackrel{}{𝖢}`$, vanishes. Thus we arrive at the following equation:

$`\mathrm{\Phi }=\mathrm{cos}\stackrel{~}{\theta }{\displaystyle _\sigma }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\varphi _1\varphi _2)d𝐥=\mathrm{cos}\stackrel{~}{\theta }\mathrm{\Phi }_0\stackrel{~}{n}_3\mathrm{\Phi }_0,`$ (8)
where $`\mathrm{\Phi }=_\sigma 𝐀𝑑𝐥`$ is the magnetic flux carried by our vortex and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0=2\pi /e`$ is the standard magnetic flux quantum. From (8) it follows that in our system such a vortex can carry arbitrary fraction of magnetic flux quantum since it depends on the free parameter $`\mathrm{cos}\stackrel{~}{\theta }`$ which is a measure of the relative densities of the two condensates in the system.  In the general case, a vortex characterized by the following phase changes around the core $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _1=2\pi k_1\mathrm{and}\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _2=2\pi k_2`$, carries the following flux:

$`\mathrm{\Phi }_{(k_1,k_2)}=\left[\mathrm{sin}^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{\theta }}{2}}\right)k_1+\mathrm{cos}^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{\theta }}{2}}\right)k_2\right]\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$ (9)
We should emphasis that a straightforward inspection of (4) shows that this model allows neutral vortices associated with the neutral $`O(2)`$ boson without a nontrivial configuration of the field $`\stackrel{}{𝖢}`$ for any values of $`\stackrel{~}{n}_3`$. However such solutions (e.g. vortices in the case $`\stackrel{~}{n_3}0`$ characterized by $`\mathrm{\Delta }\gamma =2\pi ;\stackrel{}{𝖢}0`$) are unphysical because these vortices do not satisfy the condition that $`\varphi _i`$ change by $`2\pi k_i`$ around the vortex core (as follows from (7)). Thus, while the original model (2) and the extended Faddeev model (4) have the same number of degrees of freedom so that the fields $`\stackrel{}{𝐧}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{𝖢}`$ are dynamically independed by construction, the mapping incurs a constraint on topological defects in $`\stackrel{}{𝐧}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{𝖢}`$ since $`\varphi _{1,2}`$ appear in both of them. So, in the hydrodynamic limit in (4) there is no direct coupling between the fields $`\stackrel{}{𝐧}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{𝖢}`$, however in a non-simply-connected space a topological defect in the field $`\stackrel{}{𝐧}`$ necessary induce a nontrivial configuration of the field $`\stackrel{}{𝖢}`$. The consequence of this is the fractionalization of magnetic flux in the model (4).

So a two-band superconductor (2) and extended Faddeev model (4) allow the following linear composite topological defects:

(i) $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\varphi _1\varphi _2)=4\pi n`$; $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\varphi _1+\varphi _2)=0`$: these are the vortices which feature neutral superflow. When the ground state of the variable $`\stackrel{}{𝐧}`$ corresponds to the equator on $`S^2`$ (that is the case when $`\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|^2}{m_1}=\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_2|^2}{m_2}`$ or equivalently $`\mathrm{cos}\stackrel{~}{\theta }=0`$) these vortices do not carry magnetic flux. In the case when $`\mathrm{cos}\stackrel{~}{\theta }0`$, the only physical solutions with neutral vorticity also carry a fraction of magnetic flux quantum. In the case of nonzero Josephson coupling these vortices are described by the sine-Gordon equation (7).

(ii) $`\mathrm{\Delta }\gamma =0`$; $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\varphi _1+\varphi _2)=4\pi k`$ these are the vortices which feature circular supercurrent and no circular neutral superflow. Such vortices carry $`k`$ flux quanta of magnetic field. One of the physical consequences of our analysis is that we can observe that in the two-gap superconductor (2), (4), in spite of the existence of two types of Cooper pairs, a formation of two sublattices of vortices corresponding to each of the condensates in an external field is energetically forbidden. This is because the energy per unit length of noncomposite vortices is divergent in an infinite sample both in cases of zero and nonzero Josephson coupling (in case of finite $`\eta `$ a vortex creates a domain wall which makes its energy per unit length divergent in infinite sample ). We can also observe that a superconductor made up of one condensate which is of type-II and another condensate which is of type-I will in general, in the presense of an external magnetic field, form one flux quantum vortices involving both condensates and will preserve two-gap superconductivity, even if the external field exceeds the thermodynamic critical magnetic field for the type-I condensate.

(iii) $`\mathrm{\Delta }\gamma =2\pi n`$; $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\varphi _1+\varphi _2)=4\pi l`$: These are the vortices which may be viewed as a co-centered $`l`$-flux quanta Abrikosov vortex combined with a vortex with neutral vorticity with winding number $`n`$ carrying a fractional magnetic flux. These vortices and the vortices of type (ii) characterized by $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\varphi _1+\varphi _2)8\pi `$ could be unstable against decay into more simple vortices .

Besides composite vortices the system allows vortices where the phase of one of the condensates changes by $`2\pi `$ around the core whereas the phase of the second condensate remains constant. These vortices are also principally different from ordinary Abrikosov vortices. Let us discuss these vortices in the Ginzburg-Landau formalism (2). This will provide additional perspective on the discussion and will allow us to illustrate the connection between the models (2) and (4). We shall present a solution for these vortices in the limit when the inverse mass for $`n_1`$ which is given by Josephson term is larger than the sample size. Such an approximation allows one to put $`\eta `$ to zero. We should note that there certainly exist systems where $`\eta `$ is exactly zero. That is, a model with $`\eta =0`$ should describe vortices in a bi-layer system: a superconductor-insulator-superconductor compound is an example of a system of two condensates coupled only by a gauge field. In such a system, a vortex in one layer carries flux through the second layer, where it also induces a current, which should lead to the flux fractionalization. Besides that an additional $`U(1)`$ symmetry appears if one considers equal-spin pairing. In that case, if the spin-orbit coupling is neglected, each spin population has its own phase, without Josephson coupling .

Let us recall the GL equation for the supercurrent in standard notations: $`𝐉=\frac{ie}{2m_1}[\mathrm{\Psi }_1^{}\mathrm{\Psi }_1\mathrm{\Psi }_1\mathrm{\Psi }_1^{}]+\frac{ie}{2m_2}[\mathrm{\Psi }_2^{}\mathrm{\Psi }_2\mathrm{\Psi }_2\mathrm{\Psi }_2^{}]+e^2𝐀\left[\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|^2}{m_1}+\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_2|^2}{m_2}\right]`$. In the situation when only the phase $`\varphi _1`$ changes by $`2\pi `$ around the core while the phase of the second condensate remains constant, we have the following expression for the vector potential: $`𝐀=𝐉\left[e^2\left(\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|^2}{m_1}+\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_2|^2}{m_2}\right)\right]^1+\frac{1}{e}\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|^2}{m_1}\left[\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|^2}{m_1}+\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_2|^2}{m_2}\right]^1\varphi _1`$. From this expression it follows that the vortex characterized by $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _1=2\pi ;\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _2=0`$ carries the following fractional magnetic flux

$`\mathrm{\Phi }={\displaystyle \stackrel{}{𝐀}𝑑l}={\displaystyle \frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|^2}{m_1}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|^2}{m_1}}+{\displaystyle \frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_2|^2}{m_2}}\right]^1\mathrm{\Phi }_0,`$ (10)
Let us now remark on what are the physical roots of this flux fractionalization. Further examining the solution for the vortex ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _1=2\pi ,\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _2=0`$), we can write the vector potential as $`𝐀=\frac{𝐫\times 𝐞_z}{|r|}|𝐀(r)|`$ where $`r`$ measures the distance from the core and $`𝐞_z`$ is a unit vector pointing along the core. The magnetic field is then given by $`|𝐁|=\frac{1}{r}\frac{d}{dr}(r|𝐀|)`$. The equation for the current $`𝐉`$ can then be rewritten as

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dr}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r}}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dr}}(r|𝐀|)\right]+{\displaystyle \frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|^2}{m_1}}\left[|𝐀|e^2{\displaystyle \frac{e}{r}}\right]+{\displaystyle \frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_2|^2}{m_2}}|𝐀|e^2=0`$ (11)
For such a vortex, the solution for the vector potential is

$`|𝐀|`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|^2}{m_1}}{\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|^2}{m_1}+\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_2|^2}{m_2}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{er}}`$ (13)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|^2}{m_1}}{\sqrt{\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|^2}{m_1}+\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_2|^2}{m_2}}}}K_1\left(e\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|^2}{m_1}}+{\displaystyle \frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_2|^2}{m_2}}}r\right)`$
Indeed the magnetic field vanishes exponentially away from the vortex core with the characteristic length scale given by the magnetic field penetration length $`\lambda =\left[e\sqrt{\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|^2}{m_1}+\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_2|^2}{m_2}}\right]^1`$: $`|𝐁|=e\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|^2}{m_1}K_0\left(e\sqrt{\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|^2}{m_1}+\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_2|^2}{m_2}}r\right)`$. Also, in contrast to the Abrikosov vortex , besides having the fractionalization of magnetic flux our vortex also features the neutral vorticity. This, in particular, can be seen by substituting the solution (13) into (2). Then, at length scales larger than the magnetic field penetration length from the vortex core, we have the following expression for the energy density: $`F=\frac{1}{2m_1}\left|\left(+i\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|^2}{m_1}\left[\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|^2}{m_1}+\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_2|^2}{m_2}\right]^{1/2}\frac{1}{r}\right)\mathrm{\Psi }_1\right|^2+\frac{1}{2m_2}\left|\left(i\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|^2}{m_1}\left[\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|^2}{m_1}+\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_2|^2}{m_2}\right]^{1/2}\frac{1}{r}\right)\mathrm{\Psi }_2\right|^2`$. Thus the energy per unit length of the vortex ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _1=2\pi ,\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _2=0`$) is divergent. This is due to the fact that such a topological configuration necessarily induces in a two-gap system the neutral superflow. Indeed the above expression for $`F`$ is similar to the energy density of a vortex in a neutral system with effective stiffness $`\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|^2}{m_1}\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_2|^2}{m_2}\left[\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|^2}{m_1}+\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_2|^2}{m_2}\right]^1`$:

$$F_n=\frac{1}{2}\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|^2}{m_1}\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_2|^2}{m_2}\left[\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_1|^2}{m_1}+\frac{|\mathrm{\Psi }_2|^2}{m_2}\right]^1|\mathrm{e}^{i\varphi _1}|^2$$
(14)
This shows transparently the physical origin of the presence in the system of a massless neutral boson; a topologically nontrivial configuration ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _1=2\pi ,\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _2=0`$), besides having a current in the condensate $`\mathrm{\Psi }_1`$ also necessarily induces current in the condensate $`\mathrm{\Psi }_2`$. Albeit in such a configuration there are no gradients of $`\varphi _2`$, however the two condensates are not independent but are connected by the vector potential. The admixture of an oppositely directed supercurrent of the condensate $`\mathrm{\Psi }_2`$ leads to the situation when the two supercurrtents partially compensate the induced by each other magnetic field. This leads to the existence of the effective neutral superflow in the system (which in particular should dominate long-range interaction between vortices). Moreover it is the fact that the two currents partially compensate induced by each other magnetic field, which leads to the fractionalization of magnetic flux. We stress that the vortex solutions ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _1=2\pi ,\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _2=0`$) in this model, albeit being topologically stable, however can not form as an energetically preferred state in external field. In an external field the system will form the composite vortices ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _1=2\pi ,\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _2=2\pi `$) described above.

There is however an experimental set up which should allow one to directly observe ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _1=2\pi ,\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _2=0`$) excitations. That is, in a two - gap superconducting film described by (2) there should occur thermal creation of pairs of vortices and antivortices with neutral vorticity and fractional magnetic flux. The fact that this type of vortex features both confined magnetic field and long-range interaction due to neutral superflow will allow: (i) detection of the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition in a system of these vortices by standard experimental techniques like flux-noise measurements or measurements in an applied dynamic magnetic field (like in a system of Abrikosov vortices ). (ii) such measurements straightforwardly allow one to extract data about type of interaction between a vortex and an antivortex in the system. In spite of being by definition sensitive only to magnetic flux carrying vortices these measurements should give exactly the picture of the BKT transition like in a neutral $`U(1)`$ system. That is, the transition should be a pure BKT transition but not a “would be” BKT transition like in a system of Abrikosov vortices. As it is well known there is no true BKT transition is a system of Abrikosov vortices: because their interaction is screened by the Meissner effect and a BKT transition is replaced by a crossover which is observable only when penetration length is sufficiently large . Moreover the BKT transition in a system of these vortices should be observable even in a type-I system  (both in the limits $`\eta =0`$ and when $`\eta `$ is large, where one has sine-Gordon vortices interacting with a linear potential ).

In conclusion, we studied vortices in a two-gap superconductor. We have shown that the system allows several types of vortices, such as vortices carrying an arbitrary fraction of the magnetic flux quantum, which have no counterpart in ordinary one-gap superconductors or two-gap neutral superfluids. This study also has interdisciplinary interest because similar models are highly relevant in particle physics .

It is a great pleasure to thank L.D. Faddeev, D. Gorokhov, A. J. Niemi, G. Volovik, K. Zarembo, V. Cheianov, Y.M. Cho, O.Festin, S. Girvin and P. Svedlindh for interesting discussions and/or comments. This work has been supported by grant STINT IG2001-062, the Swedish Royal Academy of Science and Goran Gustafsson Stiftelse UU/KTH. The author also acknowledges NorFA mobility scholarship and Thordur Jonsson and Larus Thorlacius for hospitality during his stay at University of Iceland.