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# Hidden dimers and the matrix maps: Fibonacci chains re-visited

## Abstract

The existence of cycles of the matrix maps in Fibonacci class of lattices is well established. We show that such cycles are intimately connected with the presence of interesting positional correlations among the constituent ‘atoms’ in a one dimensional quasiperiodic lattice. We particularly address the transfer model of the classic golden mean Fibonacci chain where a six cycle of the full matrix map exists at the centre of the spectrum \[Kohmoto et al, Phys. Rev. B 35, 1020 (1987)\], and for which no simple physical picture has so far been provided, to the best of our knowledge. In addition, we show that our prescription leads to a determination of other energy values for a mixed model of the Fibonacci chain, for which the full matrix map may have similar cyclic behaviour. Apart from the standard transfer-model of a golden mean Fibonacci chain, we address a variant of it and the silver mean lattice, where the existence of four cycles of the matrix map is already known to exist. The underlying positional correlations for all such cases are discussed in details.

PACS No.s: 71.23.An and 71.23.Ft

One dimensional quasiperiodic lattices have been the subject of extensive research in the past several years, and we have already gathered a wealth of knowledge about these systems \[1-11,13-16, and references therein\]. Theoretical studies of the spectral properties of one dimensional quasiperiodic lattices in particular, have occupied a large portion of all these works \[see 1-11, for example\]. Perhaps the most widely studied model is based on the Fibonacci sequence which started drawing interest after the publication of a couple of pioneering papers by Kohmoto et al  and Ostlund et al . The spectral properties of one dimensional Fibonacci chain are exotic. The single particle eigenstates are neither extended, nor localized in a conventional sense, and the spectrum is a Cantor set with zero Lebesgue measure \[1-3\]. The existence of self similarity and scaling behaviour of the wave functions are two other major properties which mark the difference of such a quasicrystalline chain from a periodic or a randomly disordered lattice. A Fibonacci chain consists of two letters $`A`$ and $`B`$. The entire sequence is generated by successive application of the substitution rule, $`AAB`$ and $`BA`$. The first few generations are, $`G_0=A`$, $`G_1=AB`$, $`G_3=ABA`$, $`G_4=ABAAB`$, and so on, where the letter $`G`$ indicates ‘generation’. The letters $`A`$ and $`B`$ may denote two different ‘atoms’ (site model) or, two different ‘bonds’ separating identical atoms (transfer model) . The electronic properties of such systems are well described within the standard tight binding formalism, where the Hamiltonian, in the Wannier basis, is given by,

$$H=\underset{i}{}ϵ_i|ii|+\underset{ij}{}\left[t_{ij}|ij|+t_{ji}|ji|\right]$$
(1)
Here, $`ϵ_i`$ is the site energy corresponding to the $`i`$-th site and $`t_{ij}=t_{ji}`$ is the hopping integral between the $`i`$th and the $`j`$the sites. To solve for the eigenfunctions it is useful to find the solutions of a set of difference equations which, in the nearest neighbor approximation look like,

$$(Eϵ_i)\psi _i=t_{i,i+1}\psi _{i+1}+t_{i,i1}\psi _{i1}$$
(2)
Here, $`\psi _i`$ is the amplitude of the wave function on the $`i`$th site. The above equation can equivalently be cast into a matrix form:

$`\left(\begin{array}{c}\psi _{i+1}\\ \psi _i\end{array}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}\frac{(Eϵ_i)}{t_{i,i+1}}& \frac{t_{i,i1}}{t_{i,i+1}}\\ 1& 0\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}\psi _i\\ \psi _{i1}\end{array}\right)`$ (9)
The matrix,

$$M_i=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\frac{(Eϵ_i)}{t_{i,i+1}}& \frac{t_{i,i1}}{t_{i,i+1}}\\ 1& 0\end{array}\right)$$

which relates the amplitudes of the wave function at three consecutive sites on the chain, is called the transfer matrix.

For investigating the spectral properties of a quasiperiodic chain, one major approach, using a method of the dynamical systems analysis, has been to generate first a finite segment (a ‘rational approximant’ ) of the Fibonacci chain following the substitution rule. The infinite chain is then constructed by periodically repeating this segment. In this way one can use higher and higher order rational approximants to attain a true quasiperiodic Fibonacci chain in the thermodynamic limit. For any generation $`l`$ one can construct a transfer matrix $`M_l`$ which is the product of the individual transfer matrices across each atomic site in that $`l`$th generation, taken in proper order, i.e., $`M_l=_iM_i`$. This product matrix $`M_l`$ plays a vital role in determining the character of the spectrum and the eigenfunctions. The allowed eigenvalues for the infinite sequence are extracted from a study of the evolution of the trace of the above transfer matrix at successive generations of the Fibonacci sequence . Two important properties of this product matrix for any generation are now well established. We refer to them with respect to the golden mean Fibonacci chain, which will play a central part in this communication.

(i) The Trace Map: Following the prescription that generates the sequence, it is easy to see that the total transfer matrix for any $`l+1`$-th generation sequence is related to the matrices corresponding to two previous generations by the relation, $`M_{l+1}=M_{l1}M_l`$. This leads to a recursion relation between the traces of $`M_n`$, viz,

$$x_{l+1}=2x_lx_{l1}x_{l2}$$
(10)
Here $`x_l=Tr(M_l)/2`$. The “allowed” energy values are those for which $`|x_l|1`$. As the generation increases we find that almost all the energy values belong to the escaping orbits of the map , which speaks for a true singular continuous character of the spectrum.

(ii) The Matrix Map: In addition to the above property, the product matrix $`M_l`$ at any generation $`l`$ is found to exhibit a cyclic behavior \[1-7\], viz, $`M_{l+m}=M_l`$ for certain energy eigenvalues that depend on the model considered. To clarify, let us give the example of the so called ‘transfer model’ of the standard golden mean Fibonacci chain, where the letters $`A`$ and $`B`$ stand for two bonds, ‘Long’ $`(L)`$ and ‘Short’ $`(S)`$ respectively. All the on site potentials are assumed to be same, and put equal to zero. In this model one finds that, at $`E=0`$ which happens to be the centre of the spectrum in this case, the matrix product $`M_l`$ has a six cycle, viz, $`M_{l+6}=M_l`$ for $`l2`$. It may be noticed that such cyclic behaviour of the transfer matrix is also common to quasiperiodic chains other than the golden mean . It is this cyclic property of the matrix $`M_l`$, that has stimulated the present work. The motivation will be clear from the discussion that follows.

The cyclic behaviour of the transfer matrices, as it appears from the previous works in general, has been shown to exist for various quasiperiodic chains without any underlying physical reason. It is not straightforward to prove the existence of cycles of the matrix map for any arbitrary substitutionally generated sequence. Not only that, even if it exists, it is extremely difficult to locate the precise energy eigenvalue for a lattice such as the Fibonacci chain in which the spectrum is a Cantor set having a gap at the vicinity of every energy, at which such a cycle will take place. Precisely, this is the point that motivates us to undertake the present study. We wish to examine whether it is at all possible to provide a simple physical picture that will lead to an understanding the origin of cycles of the matrix map based on the geometric structure of the quasiperiodic chain concerned. In this communication we begin by examining the well known six cycle behaviour at $`E=0`$ in the simplest transfer model of a golden mean Fibonacci chain. We show that there exists hidden dimer\- like correlations between the constituent ‘atoms’. The dimers are not explicitly displayed, but their presence can be directly linked with the six cycle of the full matrix map at $`E=0`$. We give a prescription to unravel the other six cycle energy values as well, though, $`E=0`$ is the only energy for which we have been able to detect a six cycle of the matrix map in the present model. However, in a mixed model of the Fibonacci chain we show that following the same prescription we can evaluate at least two values of the electron energy at which the matrices will repeat after every six generations. Our method is perfectly general, and can be applied to any quasiperiodic sequence. In the latter part of this paper we extend the study to the quasiperiodic silver mean chain  to show the presence of similar kinds of dimers and establish their relationship with the four-cycle matrix map at $`E=0`$ already reported in the literature .

In this context it is worth mentioning that the existence of dimers in random and quasiperiodic chains \[13-16\] has been known to cause unscatterd/ extended eigenstates leading to a perfect transmission. However, the Fibonacci chain and all such lattices in the golden mean class, generated for example, using the rule $`AA^nB`$, $`BA`$  have so far remained un-noticed in this respect. In a very recent work on a more involved model of the Fibonacci lattice Satija et al  have shown that there exist a single ‘resonant’ eigenstate that can be explained in terms of the presence of a ‘dimer’ We begin by studying the oldest and the simplest version of the transfer model of a Fibonacci chain. It will be shown that the dimers in this system exist naturally, but they combine in a nested fashion to give rise to a ‘resonance’ only when certain conditions are satisfied. In what follows we describe the method of analysis.

The transfer model of a Fibonacci chain comprises of two different ‘bonds’ $`L`$ and $`S`$ generated according to the prescription $`LLS`$ and $`SL`$. We attribute three values to the on site potentials, viz, $`ϵ_\alpha `$, $`ϵ_\beta `$ and , $`ϵ_\gamma `$ corresponding to the sites flanked by $`LL`$ , $`LS`$, $`SL`$ bonds respectively. The nearest neighbor hopping integrals are designated by $`t_L`$ and $`t_S`$ corresponding to the $`L`$ and $`S`$ bonds . Let us now define three types of transfer matrices correspondent to the three sites $`\alpha `$, $`\beta `$ and $`\gamma `$, viz

$$M_\alpha =\left(\begin{array}{cc}\frac{(Eϵ_\alpha )}{t_L}& 1\\ 1& 0\end{array}\right);M_\beta =\left(\begin{array}{cc}\frac{(Eϵ_\beta )}{t_S}& \frac{t_L}{t_S}\\ 1& 0\end{array}\right);M_\gamma =\left(\begin{array}{cc}\frac{(Eϵ_\gamma )}{t_L}& \frac{t_S}{t_L}\\ 1& 0\end{array}\right)$$

The transfer matrix for any $`l+1`$-th generation chain is obtained recursively following the equation,

$$M_{l+1}=M_{l1}M_l$$
(11)
where, $`M_l`$ is the matrix for the $`l`$-th generation, obtained by multiplying the above elementary matrices $`M_\alpha `$, $`M_\beta `$ and $`M_\gamma `$ in proper order. In the above equation, $`M_1=M_\alpha `$ and $`M_2=M_\gamma M_\beta =M_{\gamma \beta }`$ (say) . It has been observed in the literature  that in the above model with $`ϵ_\alpha =ϵ_\beta =ϵ_\gamma =0`$ and $`t_L=1`$ and $`t_S=2`$, one gets $`M_{l+6}=M_l`$ for $`l2`$. Let us now give a simple physical picture of this phenomenon based on the existence of the dimer like positional correlations in this model of the Fibonacci chain.

Consider the second generation chain, i.e. $`l=2`$. This is $`LS`$. The product transfer matrix, when written explicitly for this segment, is, $`M_2=M_\gamma M_\beta M_\alpha `$. We have taken the first site of this chain to be of type $`\alpha `$ without the loss of generality. The last site will be of type $`\gamma `$. This is obvious, because the segment $`LS`$ has to be repeated periodically, so that the bond appearing after the $`S`$ will be $`L`$. The matrix for $`l=8`$ i.e. $`M_8`$ naturally consists of a much longer string of $`M_\alpha `$, $`M_\beta `$ and $`M_\gamma `$. Yet, at $`E=0`$, we all know that $`M_8=M_2`$ and this is repeated after every six steps for $`l2`$. So, to our mind, a natural question should be, how do the individual matrices combine so that the bigger and bigger strings of matrices shrink back to $`M_2`$ at this particular energy ? This leads us to carefully examine the structure of the Fibonacci chain. In Fig.1 we show a Fibonacci chain in the sixth generation for example. We observe that in it (as well as in an infinite chain), the $`\alpha `$-sites appear in isolation and the $`\beta \gamma `$ sites appear in pair, as well as in isolation. It is important to observe that every isolated $`\beta \gamma `$ cluster, as well as $`\beta \gamma `$ pairs side by side, are flanked by two $`\alpha `$-sites. This happens everywhere, even in the infinite chain. Now, if the trace of the matrix $`M_{\gamma \beta }=M_\gamma M_\beta `$ becomes zero, then the corresponding energy renders the matrix product $`M_{\gamma \beta }M_{\gamma \beta }`$ identity (barring a negative sign) \[12-14\]. Once the $`\beta \gamma `$ clusters (joined by the solid curve in Fig.1) combine to give us an identity contribution in terms of the matrices, the $`\alpha `$ sites at the two flanks (joined by a dotted curve in Fig.1) automatically form a ‘dimer’ . If the trace of $`M_\alpha `$ now vanishes for the same energy, then the product of two consecutive $`M_\alpha `$ matrices also become equal to an identity matrix (once again with a negative sign), so that a local cluster of matrices $`M_\alpha M_{\gamma \beta }M_{\gamma \beta }M_\alpha `$ becomes equal to an identity matrix. This will happen locally throughout the chain. In this way one can see that the entire string of matrices will reduce, in ‘size’, because of the resonance in these two different kinds of dimers ($`\alpha \alpha `$ and $`\beta \gamma \beta \gamma `$) simultaneously. These pairs appear in a nested fashion, and appear at all scales of length because of the self-similar character of the lattice. If we get an energy for which $`M_\alpha ^2=M_{\gamma \beta }^2=I`$, $`I`$ being the $`2X2`$ identity matrix, then one can verify that, $`M_l=M_{l+6}`$ for $`l2`$. Now, let us see if $`E=0`$ satisfies this criterion. In the transfer model,

$$Tr(M_{\gamma \beta })=\frac{(Eϵ_\beta )(Eϵ_\gamma )(t_L^2+t_S^2)}{t_Lt_S}$$
(12)
We select $`ϵ_\alpha =ϵ_\beta =ϵ_\gamma =0`$ and $`t_S=2`$ and $`t_L=1`$ . $`E=0`$ definitely makes $`M_\alpha ^2=I`$, but $`Tr(M_{\gamma \beta })0`$ and hence, $`M_{\gamma \beta }^2I`$. The resonance condition discussed above is not satisfied. This of course, does not rule out the possibility of having bigger clusters in the formation of nested dimers. For example, one can see (Fig.2a) that there are clusters formed by the triplet $`\beta \gamma \alpha `$ and $`\beta \gamma `$ which are distributed in the same manner and can be considered to be a ‘renormalized’ version of the basic clusters formed by $`\beta \gamma `$ and $`\alpha `$ respectively. It turns out that in the transfer model the clusters responsible for a six cycle of the matrix map at $`E=0`$ are the pairs $`\beta \gamma \alpha \beta \gamma `$\- $`\beta \gamma \alpha \beta \gamma `$ flanked at the two extremities by the cluster $`\alpha \beta \gamma `$. That is, $`Tr(M_{\gamma \beta }M_\alpha M_{\gamma \beta })=Tr(M_{\gamma \beta }M_\alpha )=0`$ at $`E=0`$. Under this condition $`M_{l+6}=M_l`$ for $`l2`$. Once this is observed the question that arises immediately is, how to identify the minimal clusters responsible for a possible six (or other) cycle of the full matrix map for the chain. To resolve this issue we get back to the method of real space renormalization scheme, applied to the infinite quasiperiodic chains in the literature . It is important however, to appreciate that, the renormalization group method will be used here only to identify the minimal clusters responsible for resonance.

It is known that the on-site potentials and the hopping integrals in the infinite Fibonacci chain renormalize to :

$`ϵ_\alpha (n+1)=ϵ_\gamma (n)+[t_L(n)^2+t_S(n)^2]/(Eϵ_\beta (n));ϵ_\beta (n+1)=ϵ_\gamma (n)+t_S(n)^2/(Eϵ_\beta (n));ϵ_\gamma (n+1)^2=ϵ_\alpha (n)+t_L(n)^2/(Eϵ_\beta (n));t_L(n+1)=t_L(n)t_S(n)/(Eϵ_\beta (n))`$ and $`t_S(n+1)=t_L(n)`$.

One defines a parameter space of reduced dimensionality, and defined by the dimensionless quantities $`w,x,y`$ and $`z`$, where,

$`w_n=(Eϵ_\alpha (n))/t_L(n),x_n=(Eϵ_\beta (n))/t_L(n),y_n=(Eϵ_\gamma (n))/t_L(n)`$ and, $`z_n=t_S(n)/t_L(n)`$. These parameters, under renormalization give rise to the following set of recursion relations ,

$`w_{n+1}=(x_ny_n)/z_nz_n1/z_n;x_{n+1}=(x_ny_n)/z_nz_n;y_{n+1}=(w_nx_n)/z_n1/z_n`$, and, $`z_{n+1}=x_n/z_n`$.

From the above recursion relations one can show that

$$w_{n+3}=w_{n+2}w_{n+1}w_n$$
(13)
which is equivalent to the trace map $`(3)`$ with $`w_n=2x_n`$. Using the set of recursion relations (7) together with Eq.(6) it is straightforward to show that if we set $`w_n=w_{n+1}=0`$ then (i) $`w_{n+3}=w_n`$, and (ii) $`(w_{n+6},x_{n+6},y_{n+6},z_{n+6})=(w_n,x_n,y_n,z_n)`$. That is, the entire parameter space is mapped onto itself after six steps of renormalization. Additionally, one comes across a three cycle of the trace map (as $`w_{n+3}=w_n`$). As the total transfer matrix across any arbitrary generation can be completely expressed in terms of the parameters $`w`$, $`x`$, $`y`$ and $`z`$, it is obvious that the transfer matrix for the generation $`n+6`$ will be identical to that in the generation $`n`$ for the energy value extracted by setting $`w_n=w_{n+1}=0`$. Most interestingly, it can be checked that $`w_n`$ is actually $`Tr(M_{\alpha ,n})`$ and $`w_{n+1}=Tr(M_{\alpha ,n+1})=Tr(M_{\gamma \beta ,n})`$ , where $`M_{i,n}`$ is the transfer matrix for the $`i`$th site in the $`n`$ step renormalized lattice. Therefore, setting $`w_n=w_{n+1}=0`$ is equivalent to searching for simultaneous zeros for the polynomial equations $`Tr(M_{\alpha ,n})=0`$ and $`Tr(M_{\gamma \beta ,n})=0`$. If we start with an infinite Fibonacci chain and re-scale it, we observe that the resonance condition, as described above, is satisfied for the first time on a two times renormalized version of the original Fibonacci chain (i.e. $`n=2`$) if we take $`E=0`$. That is, for $`E=0`$, we get $`w_2=0`$ and $`w_3=0`$ simultaneously. The $`\alpha \alpha `$ and the $`\gamma \beta \gamma \beta `$ pairs at this length scale form the required ‘dimers’ causing resonance. To see what minimal clusters do they correspond to in terms of the original chain, we trace back to the lattice at the original length scale to see that the elementary blocks causing resonance are clusters like $`\alpha \beta \gamma `$ and $`\beta \gamma \alpha \beta \gamma `$ respectively. The ‘dimers’ in a one-step renormalized lattice and their correspondence with the ‘dimers’ in the original, un-renormalized lattice is illustrated in Fig.2. Doing one more step is simple. It should be noted that the method outlined here indicates the possible existence of six cycle for other values of $`E`$. For example, one could search for simultaneous zero’s of, say, $`w_4`$ and $`w_5`$ etc. However, we have been unable to detect any other value for the energy in this model that may lead to other cyclic behaviors. But, we propose a second model which clearly shows that based on the same thread of reasoning one can get more than one energy values for which a six cycle map for the transfer matrix exists.

A mixed model:

Let us select a model in which $`ϵ_\alpha =\sqrt{5}`$, $`ϵ_\beta =ϵ_\gamma =0`$, $`t_L=1`$ and $`t_S=2`$. With this choice of the parameters we find that, $`Tr(M_\alpha )=Tr(M_{\gamma \beta })=0`$ in the original (un-renormalized) lattice if we set $`E=\sqrt{5}`$. This leads to the fact that if we start with the above mixed model Fibonacci chain at the $`8`$-th generation, then the $`\alpha \alpha `$ and $`\beta \gamma \beta \gamma `$ pairs in the original lattice will form the nested dimers. The corresponding transfer matrices will combine together to give rise to an identity matrix, and one is finally left with a product of $`M_{\gamma \beta }M_\alpha `$ in the $`8`$th generation corresponding to the triplet of sites $`\alpha \beta \gamma `$ which is the same as the second generation chain. That is, we achieve the result $`M_8=M_2`$, $`M_9=M_3`$ and so on. Let us now renormalize the lattice once and look for a simultaneous solution of the equations $`w_2=0`$ and $`w_3=0`$. Most interestingly we find that $`w_2=w_3=0`$ for $`E=\sqrt{5}`$. If we trace back to the original lattice it is easy to discern that the fundamental clusters responsible for resonance in this case are $`\alpha \beta \gamma `$ and $`\beta \gamma `$ respectively. This implies that for $`E=\sqrt{5}`$ the six cycle feature $`M_l=M_{l+6}`$ sets in for $`l3`$. Thus we have been able to identify two different energy eigenvalues for this mixed model of the Fibonacci chain for which the matrix map has a six cycle. For the two different energy eigenvalues the ‘dimer correlations’ are revealed at two different scales of length. This is an important feature, linked with the inherent self similarity of the lattice concerned.

The silver mean lattice:

To check the validity of our arguments further, we have extended this idea to the transfer model of the silver mean lattice, which is generated according to the rule $`LLLS`$ and $`SL`$. It may be mentioned at this point, that the entire discussion made for the silver mean case is valid, in general, for the class of lattices grown according to the rule $`LL^mS`$, $`SL`$. The recursion relations depicting the parameter space in the silver mean case are ,

$`w_{n+1}=(w_nx_n1)y_n/z_nw_nz_nx_n/z_n;x_{n+1}=(w_nx_n1)y_n/z_nw_nz_n;y_{n+1}=(w_nx_n1)w_n/z_nx_n/z_n;z_{n+1}=(w_nx_n1)/z_n`$, and, $`t_{n+1}=x_ny_n/z_nz_n1/z_n`$

From the above relations it follows that , $`w_{n+2}=w_{n+1}t_{n+2}w_n`$ and, $`t_{n+2}=w_nw_{n+1}t_{n+1}`$. The basic clusters responsible for dimer correlation in this case are $`\alpha \alpha `$ and $`\alpha \beta \gamma \alpha \beta \gamma `$ respectively. We find that, $`(w_{n+4},x_{n+4},y_{n+4},z_{n+4})=(w_n,x_n,y_n,z_n)`$ if we set $`w_n=w_{n+1}=0`$. This happens for $`E=0`$. That means the four cycle of the matrix map  is observed following our prescription. The trace map exhibits a two cycle behavior in this case, as $`w_{n+2}=w_n`$. One can look for other possible cycles of $`M_l`$ by renormalizing the lattice and following the arguments given earlier. These aspects are now being investigated and the results will be published in due course.

Acknowledgment:

The authors are thankful to R. K. Moitra and S. N. Karmakar for suggestions. One of the authors (A.C.) acknowledges interesting discussions with Michael Schreiber.

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Figure Captions:

Fig.1: Sixth generation Fibonacci chain with three different sites. Clusters forming dimers are displayed by solid (for $`\beta \gamma `$) and dashed (for $`\alpha `$) lines respectively.

Fig.2: Portion of an infinite Fibonacci chain. Clusters responsible for dimer-like correlations in one-step renormalized lattice (b) are the $`\beta \gamma `$ doublet (dashed box) and the single $`\alpha `$ sites (solid box). They correspond to the triplet $`\beta \gamma \alpha `$ (dashed box) and the doublet $`\beta \gamma `$ (solid box) respectively,in the un-renormalized lattice (a).


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# In-Medium Baryon Interactions and Hypernuclear Structure

## 1 Introduction

For the study of baryonic systems at densities exceeding the nuclear matter saturation density $`\rho _0`$ by several times the understanding not only of the nucleon-nucleon interaction at high densities but also of the hyperon-nucleon and hyperon-hyperon interactions is necessary. Unlike the nucleonic sector – which is fairly well under control with high precision meson exchange potentials and Dirac-Brueckner theory – almost no scattering experiments are feasible in the strangeness sector for principle reasons. An extension of baryon-baryon interactions to the S$``$0 sector on theoretical grounds is thus necessary. A natural choice here is the use of SU(3)f. Although SU(3)-symmetry is broken on the level of the hadron masses, the relevant SU(3) charges strangeness and isospin are conserved by the strong baryon-baryon (BB) interaction. One can therefore expect that on the level of the coupling constants this symmetry might hold to a reasonable degree of accuracy, too. Nevertheless, even assuming exact SU(3) invariance for the BB interactions does not yield an unique fixing of the relations between couplings (as is already the case for the isospin in the NN sector). Points left open by symmetry considerations are the pseudo-scalar/pseudo-vector ratio, the $`f/(f+d)`$ ratio and the scalar sector. Especially the scalar sector requires a separate effort of modelling since none of the particles of a scalar octet – which can be constructed in accordance to the mesonic octets of pseudo-scalars and vectors – is found in a way suitable to use it in the standard meson exchange approaches as a particle with sharp mass $`m_s`$. The analysis of NN scattering data within the one-boson-exchange (OBE) framework shows however that the inclusion of scalar exchange channels is required to describe the data accurately. Such an analysis is, as mentioned earlier, not possible for the S$``$0 sector, making the scalar channels subject to modelling. One way to generate a controlled extension is to introduce the scalar mesons dynamically as correlated exchanges of pseudoscalar mesons in the $`\pi \pi `$ and $`K\overline{K}`$ channel. Such an approach is used e.g. by the Jülich potential .

The comparison to experimental data of such a SU(3) extended theory is needed to put it on safe grounds. “Simple” hadronic systems containing strangeness that can be produced and observed very accurately by experiment are hypernuclei. To pin down or verify the couplings and the degrees of freedom in the SU(3) model a microscopic translation of the free interactions to finite densities has to be performed. This can be done by the use of Dirac-Brueckner theory incorporating the effect of Pauli-exclusion and the dressing of the free baryon propagators due to self-energies in the medium. In this approach the two particle in-medium scattering equation is solved self-consistently in ladder approximation. An application to finite systems is not possible for technical reasons. As an approximation the DB self-energies can be used in the local density approximation for finite nuclei. The density dependent relativistic hadron field theory, presented in the next section, provides such a framework .

## 2 DDRH Theory

The density dependent relativistic hadron field theory (DDRH)  is a relativistic Lagrangian field theory with baryons and mesons as degrees of freedom. It utilizes a mapping of DB self-energies onto DDRH mean-field self-energies with density dependent couplings

$$\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_i(\widehat{\rho })}{m_i}\right)\rho _i\mathrm{\Sigma }_{DB}^i$$
(1)
for finite nuclei with realistic interactions describing free scattering. To retain a Lorentz invariant field theory the density dependent couplings are constructed as functionals of Lorentz scalar combinations of the baryon field operators $`\widehat{\rho }`$. The description of isospin nuclei within DDRH has been shown to be very good using the Bonn A and the Groningen NN-potentials .

Due to the functional structure of the vertices, containing the baryon field operators, the equations of motion for the baryons do get additional and particular terms, the rearrangement self-energies. They account for static polarization effects of the particles in the medium and are given by

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_{rearr}\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_\varphi (\widehat{\rho })}{\widehat{\rho }}\rho _\varphi \varphi $$
(2)
where $`\varphi `$ is the meson field and $`\rho _\varphi `$ the respective density appearing as source term in the meson field equation. These terms ensure the thermodynamical consistency of the theory.

The extension to the strangeness regime would be straightforward if there were DB calculations available for the complete baryon octet. An analysis of the DB equations shows, however, that the coupling functionals of the hyperons can be approximated by the coupling functionals of the nucleons scaled by a constant factor and taking the respective hyperonic density as the argument :

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{Y\alpha }(\rho _Y)R_{Y\alpha }\mathrm{\Gamma }_{N\alpha }(\rho _Y),$$
(3)
where $`R_{Y\alpha }=\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }_{Y\alpha }(\rho )}{\mathrm{\Sigma }_{N\alpha }(\rho )}\frac{g_{Y\alpha }}{g_{N\alpha }}`$ and $`g_i`$ are the free couplings.

We applied this prescription to the mean-field calculation of single $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ hypernuclei , taking the scalar scaling factor $`R_{\mathrm{\Lambda }\sigma }`$ from calculations of $`\pi \pi `$ and $`K\overline{K}`$ correlations ($`R_{\mathrm{\Lambda }\sigma }=0.49`$) . The scaling factor for the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{\Lambda }\omega `$ vertex at present is fitted heuristically to hypernuclear data. The results for single $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ hypernuclei are very satisfactory, see fig. 1. The description is in quality – on the percent level – matching the result of purely phenomenological mean-field models. The additional overhead in theoretical and mathematical effort for our approach is, however, paying off in a microscopic link to the free interaction. An even more important theoretical aspect is the complete control on the dynamical content represented by specific classes of diagrams in the kernel of the DB equations.

Encouraged by the results, work on Dirac-Brueckner calculations for the complete baryonic octet based on meson exchange potentials of the Bonn-Jl̈ich type is in progress. Together with high precision spectroscopic measurements on single- and multi-hypernuclei, this offers the unique possibility to determine interactions for the complete baryonic octet within a consistent microscopic frame. For this approach – based on the relativistic mean-field (DDRH theory) – it will be, however, necessary, that high precision measurements are pursued on higher mass systems to obtain results as reliable as possible. The heavier systems are much better suited for structure calculations because finite size effects occuring in light nuclei are minimized .

## 3 HBT correlations

A method complementing the one presented above for achieving information on baryon-baryon interactions is the measurement of Hanbury-Brown-Twiss (HBT) two particle correlations in very high energetic collisions of heavy ions. This was studied first for hyperons ($`\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{\Lambda }`$) in . It was shown on the example of a s-wave resonance in the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ channel that interactions between the two particles modify quite significantly the standard correlations solely due to fermion quantum statistics, namely resulting in a negative correlation of -0.5 when the relative momentum $`q_{rel}`$ approaches 0. The HBT correlation function $`R`$ measures the ratio of the product of the two differential single particle cross sections to the differential two particle cross section, each normalized to the respective total cross section:

$$\frac{1}{\sigma _{12}}\frac{d^6\sigma _{12}}{d\stackrel{}{p}_1d\stackrel{}{p}_2}=\left(1+R(q_{rel})\right)\frac{1}{\sigma _1}\frac{d^3\sigma _1}{d\stackrel{}{p}_1}\frac{1}{\sigma _2}\frac{d^3\sigma _2}{d\stackrel{}{p}_2}$$
(4)
First measurements for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ correlations have been performed by WA97 which, however, were of still rather poor statistics . More encouraging preliminary results were obtained in a more recent analysis by NA49 , see fig. 2. The error bars, especially in the relevant region below 200 MeV relative momentum, are still too large due to insufficient statistics.

Within the same meson exchange model as described in the above section these correlations can be computed by solving the T-matrix equation $`𝒯(q^{},q,s)=𝒱(q^{},q,s)+d^4k𝒱(q^{},k,s)G^{(2)}(k,s)𝒯(k,q,s)`$ and then compared to data. In the case of sufficently high statistics this will give detailed information on the interactions of the two particles. More accurate data is likely to be taken at RHIC in the near future. However, there are still some “impurities” in the extraction of interaction informations in that way. First, the experimental spectra include secondary $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$s from the electro-magnetic decay of initially produced $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^0`$ hyperons which thus have to be accounted for in the calculated correlations. They will somehow wash out the correlation structure of the pure $`\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ channel . Secondly, the source function of the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$s (and the $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^0`$s) needs to be modelled as this will influence the width of the momentum region in which correlations are pronounced.

This work was supported by the “European Graduate School: Complex Systems of Hadrons and Nuclei, Gießen–Copenhagen” and GSI Darmstadt.

## References


text:
# Monte Carlo Tests of SLE Predictions for the 2D Self-Avoiding Walk

## Abstract

The conjecture that the scaling limit of the two-dimensional self-avoiding walk (SAW) in a half plane is given by the stochastic Loewner evolution (SLE) with $`\kappa =8/3`$ leads to explicit predictions about the SAW. A remarkable feature of these predictions is that they yield not just critical exponents, but probability distributions for certain random variables associated with the self-avoiding walk. We test two of these predictions with Monte Carlo simulations and find excellent agreement, thus providing numerical support to the conjecture that the scaling limit of the SAW is SLE8/3.

A variety of two dimensional models in statistical physics are expected to have conformally invariant scaling limits. This conformal invariance has made it possible to determine critical exponents for these two dimensional models. Recently, Schramm introduced a two dimensional conformally invariant random process which he called stochastic Loewner evolution Schramm (2001a). This process depends on a parameter $`\kappa `$, and so is denoted SLEκ. The qualitative behavior of the process changes with the parameter and it appears that for different values of $`\kappa `$, the process is related to the scaling limit of various two dimensional models.

Schramm’s SLE process is defined in a half plane as follows. Let $`B_t`$ be a standard one-dimensional Brownian motion. We define a complex-valued function $`g_t(z)`$ for $`z`$ in the upper half of the complex plane by the following differential equation,

$$_tg_t(z)=\frac{2}{g_t(z)\sqrt{\kappa }B_t},$$
(1)
along with the initial condition $`g_0(z)=z`$. The SLE trace is the curve defined by

$$\gamma (t)=\underset{z0}{lim}g_t^1(z+\sqrt{\kappa }B_t).$$
(2)
(The limit is only over $`z`$ in the upper half plane. $`g_t^1`$ can be obtained by solving the differential equation backwards in time.) The limit exists and gives a continuous curve. This has been proved for $`\kappa 8`$, and is believed to be true for all $`\kappa `$ Schramm (2001a); Rohde and Schramm (2001). For $`\kappa =8/3`$ it is conjectured that this SLE trace gives the scaling limit of the SAW restricted to the half plane Lawler et al. (to appeara).

Schramm showed that if the loop-erased random walk has a conformally invariant scaling limit, then that limit must be SLE2 Schramm (2001a). He also conjectured that the scaling limit of percolation should be related to SLE6, and the scaling limit of uniform spanning trees is described by SLE2 and SLE8. Smirnov has proved the conformal invariance conjecture for critical percolation on the triangular lattice and that SLE6 describes the limit Smirnov (2001). Lawler, Schramm and Werner used SLE6 to rigorously determine the “intersection exponents” for Brownian motion and proved a conjecture of Mandelbrot that the outer boundary of a Brownian path has Hausdorff dimension 4/3 Lawler et al. (2001, to appearb, to appearc, to appeard). Rohde and Schramm conjectured that the random cluster representation of the Potts model for $`0<q<4`$ is related to the SLE process as well Rohde and Schramm (2001).

By using stochastic calculus it is possible to compute many quantities related to SLE. A remarkable feature of these calculations is that they can yield not just critical exponents, but entire probability distributions for certain random variables. In this paper we will consider two examples of such random variables, illustrated in figure 1. For SLE8/3 one can explicitly compute the probability distributions of $`X`$ and $`Y`$. We will compare these explicit distributions with Monte Carlo simulations of the random variables for the SAW.

To define the first random variable we fix a point $`(c,0)`$ on the horizontal axis. Given an SLE trace or a SAW with lattice spacing $`\delta `$, we consider the distance from the curve to the point $`(c,0)`$. We define $`X`$ to be the ratio of this distance to $`c`$.

$$X=\frac{1}{c}\underset{t0}{\mathrm{min}}\gamma (t)(c,0)$$
(3)
So $`X`$ takes values in $`(0,1]`$. SLE is invariant under dilations, so the distribution of $`X`$ is independent of $`c`$. In the scaling limit ($`\delta 0`$) the distribution of $`X`$ for the SAW should also be independent of $`c`$.

For the second random variable we consider the intersections of the curve with the vertical line $`x=c`$. We define $`Y`$ to be the ratio of the $`y`$-coordinate of the lowest intersection to $`c`$.

$$Y=\frac{1}{c}\mathrm{min}\{y:(y,c)=\gamma (t)forsomet0\}$$
(4)
So $`Y`$ takes values in $`(0,\mathrm{})`$. The distribution of $`Y`$ should also be independent of $`c`$.

The distributions of $`X`$ and $`Y`$ will follow from a remarkable theorem of Lawler, Schramm and Werner Lawler et al. (to appeara) for SLE8/3, which appears in a survey article by Lawler Lawler (to appear) about their joint results. Let $`H`$ be the upper half plane, and $`\overline{H}`$ its closure. Let $`A`$ be a compact subset of $`\overline{H}`$ which does not contain $`0`$ and such that $`HA`$ is simply connected. Let $`\mathrm{\Phi }_A`$ be the conformal map from $`HA`$ onto $`H`$ which fixes $`0`$ and $`\mathrm{}`$ and has $`\mathrm{\Phi }_A^{}(\mathrm{})=1`$.

Theorem (Lawler, Schramm, Werner) For $`\kappa =8/3`$, SLE in a half plane satisfies

$$P(\gamma [0,\mathrm{})A=\mathrm{})=\mathrm{\Phi }_A^{}(0)^{5/8}$$
(5)
The Riemann mapping theorem says that the conformal map $`\mathrm{\Phi }_A`$ exists, but an explicit formula for it is available in only a few special cases. For the two random variables defined above, the computation of their distributions is just an application of the above theorem for two $`A`$’s for which there is an explicit conformal map.

We start with the random variable $`X`$, and take $`c=1`$. For $`a<1`$, let $`A_a`$ be the half of the disc centered at $`(1,0)`$ with radius $`a`$ that is in the upper half plane. The distance $`X`$ from $`\gamma [0,\mathrm{})`$ to $`(1,0)`$ is less than or equal to $`a`$ if and only if $`\gamma [0,\mathrm{})`$ hits $`A_a`$. So

$$P(Xa)=P(\gamma [0,\mathrm{})A_a\mathrm{})$$
(6)
The conformal map that sends $`HA_a`$ onto $`H`$ is

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_{A_a}(z)=z1+\frac{a^2}{z1}+1+a^2,$$
(7)
It is normalized so that it fixes $`0`$ and $`\mathrm{}`$ and has $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{A_a}^{}(\mathrm{})=1`$. Since $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{A_a}^{}(0)=1a^2`$, the theorem says

$$P(Xt)=1(1t^2)^{5/8}.$$
(8)
In figure 2 the solid curve is the above function. The results of our Monte Carlo simulation for the SAW on the square lattice are shown with circles. One cannot see any difference at the scale of this plot.

Now we find the distribution of $`Y`$. Again, we take $`c=1`$. Let $`L_a`$ to be the vertical line segment from $`(1,0)`$ to $`(1,a)`$. The random variable $`Y`$ is less than or equal to $`a`$ if and only if the curve hits $`L_a`$. So

$$P(Ya)=P(\gamma [0,\mathrm{})L_a\mathrm{})$$
(9)
The conformal map that takes $`HL_a`$ onto the upper half plane is

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_{L_a}(z)=i\sqrt{(z1)^2a^2}+\sqrt{1+a^2}$$
(10)
(The square root is defined with the usual branch cut along the negative $`x`$-axis.) The map fixes $`0`$ and $`\mathrm{}`$ and has $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{L_a}^{}(\mathrm{})=1`$. We have $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{L_a}^{}(0)=1/\sqrt{1+a^2}`$, so the theorem says

$$P(Yt)=1(1+t^2)^{5/16}$$
(11)
In figure 3 the solid curve is the above function and the results of our Monte Carlo simulation for the SAW on the square lattice are again shown with circles.

We simulate the self-avoiding walk using the pivot algorithm (Expository accounts of this algorithm may be found in Madras and G.Slade (1993); Sokal (1995).) An iteration of this Markov chain algorithm starts by picking a random site on the walk. Then one picks a random lattice symmetry $`g`$. The section of the walk from the starting point to the randomly chosen site is not changed. The rest of the walk is “pivoted” by applying $`g`$ to it with respect to the randomly chosen site. If the resulting walk is self-avoiding, it is accepted; otherwise it is rejected. The pivot algorithm can also be used to simulate the SAW restricted to the half plane. When a pivot is proposed, in addition to checking if the pivoted walk is self-avoiding, one must also check if it stays in the half-plane. If both of these conditions are satisfied, then the pivot is accepted.

If one uses a hash table and checks for self-intersections in the pivoted walk starting from the pivot point and working outwards, then the time required for the pivot algorithm to produce an accepted pivot is believed to be $`O(N)`$ on average Madras and Sokal (1988). It has been shown recently that by taking advantage of the nearest neighbor nature of the walk when checking for self-intersections and using a data structure to store the walk that postpones carrying out the pivots, the pivot algorithm in two dimensions can be implemented so that the time required to produce an accepted pivot is $`O(N^q)`$ with $`q`$ less than one Kennedy (to appear). The exact value of $`q`$ is not known, but it appears to be less than $`0.57`$ for two-dimensional walks.

To study the scaling limit of the SAW walk there are two limits that must be taken. We must let the number of steps, $`N`$, go to infinity and we must take the lattice spacing to zero. A walk with $`N`$ steps lives on scale $`N^{3/4}`$, so to study the random variables $`X`$ and $`Y`$ we take $`c=sN^{3/4}`$. We must take $`s`$ small to make the effect of the finite length of our walks negligible, and we must take $`N`$ large to make the lattice spacing small compared to the scale of the random variables. Our simulations are done on the square lattice with $`N=1,000,000`$. We study the distribution of $`X`$ for $`s=0.05`$ and $`s=0.1`$. For $`Y`$ we use $`s=0.005`$ and $`s=0.01`$. We compute $`P(Xt)`$ and $`P(Yt)`$ for $`1,000`$ values of $`t`$. For $`X`$, the values of $`t`$ range from $`0`$ to $`1`$. For $`Y`$ the values range from $`0`$ to $`20`$.

There are 20 billion iterations of the Markov chain in the simulation. Approximately $`5\%`$ of these proposed pivots are accepted. For some random variables, e.g., the end to end distance of the walk, an accepted pivot produces a radical change in the value of the random variable, and it is expected that each accepted pivot produces an essentially independent sample of the random variable. For our random variables a pivot can change their values only if it occurs in a relatively short segment of the walk near the origin. So the autocorrelation time will be significantly longer than for random variables like the end to end distance.

Since it is impossible to see the difference between the SAW simulations and the SLE curves in figures 2 and 3, we plot the distributions from the SAW simulations minus the SLE8/3 distributions in figures 4 and 5. The most important feature of these figures is the scale on the vertical axis. It is $`1/100`$ of the scale of figures 2 and 3. So the agreement between the SLE distributions and the simulated SAW distributions is excellent. Since the simulation uses finite length walks with a nonzero lattice spacing, if the simulation was run long enough we would see that the quantity being plotted is not exactly zero. Error bars, based on two standard deviations, are shown in the figures for selected values of $`t`$. (Different values of $`t`$ are used for the two curves so the error bars do not overlap.) The error bars are the same order of magnitude as the quantity being plotted, so our simulation is not quite accurate enough to see the finite length and lattice effects for the values of $`N`$ and $`s`$ that we use. (In the $`s=0.1`$ curve for $`X`$, the effects might be just beginning to emerge.)

Our simulations of the SAW walk in a half plane have shown that the distributions of two particular random variables related to the walk agree extremely well with the exact distributions of SLE8/3 for these random variables. This supports the conjecture that the scaling limit of the SAW is SLE8/3. Schramm has recently given a formula for the probability that the SLE curve passes to the right of a fixed point in the half plane for all values of $`\kappa `$ Schramm (2001b). We expect that the distributions of many more random variables associated with SLE8/3 will be found in the near future.

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (DMS-9970608).


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# Multiple return times in the quantum baker map

## 1 Introduction

In classical dynamical systems, one may study how long it takes a system to return to the phase space region it occupied at time zero. In general, this time will increase when the phase space area under consideration is decreased. M. Kac has shown that, for an ergodic dynamical system, the average return time, assuming that the system starts in a set $`A`$, is given by $`\mu (A)^1`$ where the average is taken over the ergodic measure $`\mu `$.

Related to this are results about asymptotically rare events. Consider a sequence $`A_k`$ of subsets of phase space such that $`lim_k\mathrm{}\mu (A_k)=0`$. If the time for a point $`x`$ in phase space to visit $`A_k`$ is denoted by $`\tau _k(x)`$, then the question arises how the product $`\mu (A_k)\tau _k(x)`$ behaves. This turns out, for a large class of models, to have an exponential distribution .

One may wonder whether a similar situation occurs in quantum mechanics. In finite dimensional systems, looking with increasing precision (corresponding to the $`k\mathrm{}`$ limit of above) means increasing the dimension of the system, which amounts to taking its classical limit. Here, the inverse dimension plays the rôle of Planck’s constant. Return times were studied for various quantum dynamical systems. A natural way of measuring returns is provided by the notion of transition probability: for any two vectors $`\phi `$ and $`\psi `$ in a Hilbert space it is defined as $`|\phi |\psi |^2`$.

## 2 Multiple return times

If a system starts from an initial state $`\phi _0`$, one can consider

$$n\phi _0|\phi _n,$$
(1)
where $`\phi _n`$ is the state of the system after $`n`$ time steps. For finite dimensional systems this function is almost periodic. Interesting behaviour is displayed only when looking at the correct time scale. It is known that, for classically chaotic systems, the quantum system follows its classical counterpart in the sense of coherent states up to a certain breaking time of the order of $`\mathrm{log}N`$, where $`N`$ is the dimension of its Hilbert space of states. We propose to analyse the function (1) through the spectrum of the Gram matrix associated with a sequence of normalised vectors $`\phi _0,\mathrm{},\phi _{K1}`$:

$$G_K=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}\phi _0|\phi _0& \mathrm{}& \phi _0|\phi _{K1}\\ \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}& \mathrm{}\\ \phi _{K1}|\phi _0& \mathrm{}& \phi _{K1}|\phi _{K1}\end{array}\right).$$

$`G_K`$ is a positive semi-definite matrix and its eigenvalues are independent of the order of the vectors and of any extra phase added to any of them.

Information about the amount and the frequency of vectors that return to a small neighbourhood in Hilbert space lies encoded in the spectrum of this matrix. This fact is best appreciated by examining a simple example. Consider the sequence $`\{\psi _1,\psi _2,\psi _2,\psi _1,\psi _3,\psi _4,\psi _1\}`$, where the $`\psi _i`$’s are normalised and mutually orthogonal. This amounts to specifying a sequence of letters belonging to a given alphabet (the classical case). The Gram matrix consists of only zeroes and ones (because of the orthonormality) and its spectrum is $`\{0,0,0,1,1,2,3\}`$. An eigenvalue different from zero indicates the number of times a certain vector is repeated and its multiplicity tells how many vectors are repeated that often. In our example, only two vectors are repeated, the vector $`\psi _1`$ twice and $`\psi _2`$ once, summing up to three, which is exactly the multiplicity of zero. This example provides the link with the return times mentioned in the introduction: one considers a partition of phase space and keeps track of the different sets a particle visits during its evolution. The associated Gram matrix has a one for its $`ij`$th entry if the visited sets at times $`i`$ and $`j`$ are the same and a zero otherwise. Hence calculating the spectrum of the Gram matrix immediately gives all the return times.

In general, for a true quantum system, the vectors in a sequence will not be orthogonal and the overlaps will be complex numbers with absolute value smaller than or equal to one. However, a similar interpretation of the spectrum can be obtained remembering that overlaps with absolute value close to 1 indicate vectors close to each other, while overlaps close to zero indicate almost orthogonal vectors. Generically, the non-zero eigenvalues of the Gram matrix are non-degenerate and the notion of multiplicity of above should be replaced by the spectral density, i.e. a degenerate eigenvalue is now replaced by different eigenvalues close to each other. The multiplicity of zero is equal to the number of linear dependencies in the given sequence. Two rather extreme cases will clarify this. A large concentration of eigenvalues around 1 indicates that a large amount of vectors have small mutual overlaps. This can be compared with the classical situation of above, with a spectrum consisting mainly of ones and only a few zeroes, indicating very few repetitions. A presence of many eigenvalues close to zero suggests that many vectors lie close to one another, leading to many large overlaps. This compares to a classical situation where some letters are repeated many times, giving rise to many zeroes in the spectrum and only a few large integers.

A point that has not been stressed yet is the number of time steps to consider. The spectrum of the Gram matrix will surely contain an eigenvalue zero when the number $`K`$ of vectors exceeds the dimension $`N`$ of the Hilbert space. Including too many time steps causes a large degeneracy of zero. We shall demonstrate, using numerical simulations, that also $`K`$ has to be taken large such that the ratio $`K/N`$ is a fixed number $`\tau `$: time measured on the Heisenberg scale. The same scaling is relevant for a random model that can be treated analytically.

A natural choice for the initial state is a coherent state centred around a point in classical phase space. There are several reasons for this. Taking the large $`N`$ limit immediately implies the comparison of quantum systems with different dimensions. This also entails that initial states for different dimensions have to be comparable. Coherent states exist for every $`N`$, occupy a volume $`1/N`$ of phase space and have a clear limit, namely a single point in phase space. Also, a coherent state is typically not a eigenvector of the evolution which would lead to a completely trivial spectrum of the Gram matrix.

The precise object we shall investigate is the empirical eigenvalue distribution of the Gram matrix. If a matrix has eigenvalues $`\lambda _1,\mathrm{},\lambda _K`$, then its empirical eigenvalue distribution is

$$\rho (\mathrm{d}\lambda )\underset{\mathrm{i}=1}{\overset{\mathrm{K}}{}}\delta (\lambda \lambda _\mathrm{i})\mathrm{d}\lambda .$$

In this way, the number of eigenvalues in a set $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is given by $`\rho (\mathrm{\Lambda })`$.

We shall illustrate this approach by example. We consider two simple quantum dynamical systems frequently encountered in the quantum chaos literature. They have clearly defined classical limits. The first example is the quantum baker map and the second the kicked top.

## 3 Models

The quantum baker map is a dynamics on $`^N`$ with $`N`$ even . Defining the discrete Fourier transform on $`^M`$

$$F_M|m=\frac{1}{M}\underset{n=0}{\overset{M1}{}}\mathrm{e}^{\frac{2\pi inm}{M}}|n,$$

the unitary evolution operator of the baker map is

$$U=F_N\left(\begin{array}{cc}F_{N/2}^1& 0\\ 0& F_{N/2}^1\end{array}\right).$$

Its classical limit can be shown to be

$$\left(\begin{array}{c}q\\ p\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}2qmod1\\ p/2+[2q]/2\end{array}\right)$$

where $`\left(\begin{array}{c}q\\ p\end{array}\right)`$ is a point in the phase space $`[0,1]\times [0,1]`$. The position and momentum $`q`$ and $`p`$ are the classical limits of

$$Q_N|m=\frac{m}{N}|m\text{and}P_N=F_NQ_NF_N^1.$$

The baker map is an example of a chaotic system: it has a positive Lyapunov exponent equal to $`\mathrm{log}2`$.

First, we numerically construct a coherent state in an $`N`$-dimensional Hilbert space centred around a chosen classical point in phase space. One way of doing this is by calculating the ground state of an appropriate Harper operator and subsequently shifting it over to the desired classical point. Then, we apply the operator $`U`$ a number of times to calculate the overlaps needed in the Gram matrix. Note that when the first row of the Gram matrix is calculated, all other matrix elements are known because of the unitarity of the evolution. Unitarity has another interesting consequence: the precision of the calculation does not exponentially decrease with the number of time steps. One way to see this, is applying the unitary evolution to an initial state many times, followed by applying an equal number of times the adjoint of the evolution. The resulting state is remarkably close to the original state, despite the presence of numerical round-off errors in the components of the vectors and the unitary matrix. This is in sharp contrast with numerical simulations of chaotic classical systems where positive Lyapunov exponents cause the numerical errors to quickly exceed the desired precision. The eigenvalues of the Gram matrix are calculated and the empirical eigenvalue distribution is represented by the bar diagrams of Figure 1. The solid black line will be commented on later in this letter.

The first thing that Figure 1 reveals is the time scale $`N`$ on which a non-trivial eigenvalue density is present. For a fixed time on the Heisenberg time scale, i.e. a fixed ratio $`\tau =K/N`$ , the eigenvalue densities are very similar. For comparison, choosing $`K`$ of the order of $`\mathrm{log}N`$ produces a Gram matrix close to the identity matrix and therefore a spectrum which is greatly concentrated around one. For times much larger than $`N`$ the linear dependencies dominate the picture and the empirical eigenvalue distribution tends to a Dirac distribution at zero. Secondly, we note that we did not specify which coherent state we began with. Our simulations show that the initial state does not affect the form of the eigenvalue distribution. Diagrams, very similar to those of Figure 1, were obtained for different initial states.

The same procedure was carried out for a second example: the quantum kicked top. This is a quantum spin-$`j`$ system with basic observables $`J_x,J_y`$ and $`J_z`$ obeying the usual commutation relations $`[J_x,J_y]=iJ_z+cycl.perm.`$. The unitary evolution is given by

$$U=\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}kJ_z^2/2j}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}pJ_y}.$$

The classical limit of this system is a dynamics on the two dimensional sphere given by

$`x^{}`$ $`=(x\mathrm{cos}p+z\mathrm{sin}p)\mathrm{cos}(kz\mathrm{cos}pkx\mathrm{sin}p)`$
$`+y\mathrm{sin}(kz\mathrm{cos}pkx\mathrm{sin}p),`$
$`y^{}`$ $`=(x\mathrm{cos}p+z\mathrm{sin}p)\mathrm{sin}(kz\mathrm{cos}pkx\mathrm{sin}p)`$
$`y\mathrm{cos}(kz\mathrm{cos}pkx\mathrm{sin}p),`$
$`z^{}`$ $`=x\mathrm{sin}p+z\mathrm{cos}p,`$
with $`(x,y,z)`$ a unit vector in $`^3`$ which is the classical limit of $`(J_x,J_y,J_z)/j`$. This map is a composition of a rotation around the y-axis over an angle $`p`$ and a torsion around the $`z`$-axis over an angle proportional to the $`z`$-component. Numerical studies suggest the following behaviour. For small values of the parameters $`k`$ and $`p`$, this system displays regular behaviour in large parts of the sphere, separated by chaotic regions. The regular islands shrink as the parameters grow, leading eventually to almost global chaos (See ). This is an interesting feature of this model: varying the control parameters $`k`$ and $`p`$ changes the behaviour of the classical model considerably. It can be concluded from Figure 2 that this difference in behaviour is also present in the quantum kicked top. For small values of the control parameters $`k`$ and $`p`$ there are a lot of approximate returns during the first $`K=\tau N`$ time steps. This is clear from the large number of eigenvalues close to zero. We expect that in the limit $`K=\tau N\mathrm{}`$ this distribution tends to a degenerate one in zero as the system visits only a small fraction of the available states. Enlarging the control parameters places more weight on higher eigenvalues and a totally different eigenvalue distribution appears. These distributions appear to be very similar to the ones for the baker map for the same value of $`\tau `$.

One unexplained feature in the diagrams is the solid line. This is actually the graph of an analytical function obtained in the following way. Instead of trying to calculate the limiting empirical eigenvalue distribution for a true quantum mechanical model, like the baker map or the kicked top, one can try to simplify the calculations by considering a random vector model. For an $`N`$-dimensional Hilbert space, a sequence of $`K`$ normalised vectors is chosen randomly and independently according to the uniform distribution on the unit sphere. In this way, one can try to mimic the evolution of a system which wanders wildly in Hilbert space. The limiting eigenvalue distribution ($`N,K\mathrm{}`$ and $`K/N\tau `$) of the Gram matrix associated with this sequence of random vectors can be calculated explicitly and is given by the Marchenko-Pastur distribution

$$\rho _\tau (\mathrm{d}t)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{\sqrt{4\tau t(t+\tau 1)^2}}{2\pi \tau t}\mathrm{d}t\hfill & 0<\tau 1\hfill \\ \frac{\tau 1}{\tau }\delta (t)\mathrm{d}t\hfill & \\ +\frac{\sqrt{4\tau t(t+\tau 1)^2}}{2\pi \tau t}\mathrm{d}t\hfill & 1<\tau .\hfill \end{array}$$

This density is the solid line depicted in Figures 1 and 2. A possible explanation for the similarity between the eigenvalue distributions generated by the baker map and the kicked top and the Marchenko-Pastur distribution is that, when the number of time steps is linear in the dimension of the Hilbert space, subsequent vectors in a chaotic quantum evolution are almost random and visit all of the Hilbert space without preference for one direction or region.

## 4 Conclusion

The eigenvalue distribution of the Gram matrix appears to be a meaningful object in the so-called deep quantum regime where the system is allowed to visit a finite fraction of the total number of available states. Moreover, for systems with a chaotic classical limit, numerical simulations indicate that the limiting distribution is universal and coincides with that of random vectors, even if the latter model is not a unitary dynamics. If the classical limit is regular, we find a degenerate distribution. Linking the limiting spectrum of the Gram matrix with the distribution of energy or quasi-energy level separations  definitely deserves further research. Another interesting question, that is also relevant in quantum information theory, is what happens when the dynamical system is no longer isolated but weakly coupled to an environment. In such a situation, density matrices instead of vector states must be used to describe the decoherence induced by the environment.


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# High-Frequency Impedance of Driven Superlattices

## Abstract

The complex impedance of a semiconductor superlattice biased into the regime of negative differential conductivity and driven by an additional GHz ac voltage is computed. From a simulation of the nonlinear spatio-temporal dynamics of traveling field domains we obtain strong variations of the amplitude and phase of the impedance with increasing driving frequency. These serve as fingerprints of the underlying quasiperiodic or frequency locking behavior. An anomalous phase shift appears as a result of phase synchronization of the traveling domains. If the imaginary part of the impedance is compensated by an external inductor, both the frequency and the intensity of the oscillations strongly increase.

Semiconductor superlattices (SL) show pronounced negative differential conductivity (NDC) . If the total bias is chosen such that the average electric field is in the NDC region, stable inhomogeneous field distributions (field domains) or self-sustained oscillations  with frequencies up to 150 GHz at room temperature appear. Which of these scenarios occurs depends on bias, doping, temperature, and the properties of the injecting contact . For a recent overview see Ref. .

In order to apply the self-sustained oscillations as a high–frequency generator in an electronic device, it is crucial to know the response of the SL in an external circuit. A key ingredient for the analysis is the complex impedance of the SL in the respective frequency range. This is the subject of this paper where the complex impedance is evaluated numerically by imposing an additional ac bias to the SL. The interplay of the self-sustained oscillations and the external frequency causes a variety of interesting phenomena such as frequency locking, quasi-periodic and chaotic behavior which has been extensively studied both theoretically  and experimentally . In contrast to those studies we focus on the response to the circuit and concurrent phase synchronization phenomena in this work.

We describe the dynamical evolution of the SL by rate equations for the electron densities in the quantum wells, together with Poisson’s equation for the electric fields. The current densities $`J_{jj+1}`$ between adjacent quantum wells are evaluated within the model of sequential tunneling, and Ohmic boundary conditions with a contact conductivity $`\sigma `$ are used. For details see Refs. . Here we apply a periodic bias signal $`U(t)=U_{\mathrm{dc}}+U_{\mathrm{ac}}\mathrm{sin}(2\pi \nu _1t)`$ and study the total current $`I(t)=A_{j=0}^NJ_{jj+1}/(N+1)`$. In particular we consider the Fourier component $`I_{\mathrm{ac}}(\nu _1)\mathrm{sin}(2\pi \nu _1t\varphi )`$ which gives the complex impedance

$$Z(\nu _1)=\frac{U_{\mathrm{ac}}}{I_{\mathrm{ac}}(\nu _1)}e^{i\varphi }.$$
(1)
As an example we consider the SL structure studied in Ref. . It consists of $`N=120`$ GaAs wells of width 4.9 nm separated by 1.3 nm AlAs barriers. The sample is n-doped with a density of $`8.7\times 10^{10}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ per period and the sample cross section is $`A=64(\mu \mathrm{m})^2`$. We estimate the energy broadening $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=15`$ meV, which effectively gives the sum of phonon, impurity and interface roughness scattering rates. All calculations are performed at room temperature.

In Fig. 1a we display the calculated current–voltage characteristic for $`U_{\mathrm{ac}}=0`$. While for large values of the contact conductivity $`\sigma `$ stationary field domains occur, self-sustained current oscillations (where pairs of accumulation and depletion fronts travel through the sample) are found for lower $`\sigma `$ (Fig. 1b). This scenario is quite general for moderately doped samples . In the following we use $`\sigma =20`$ A/Vm giving best agreement with the measured current-voltage characteristic.

At $`U_{\mathrm{dc}}=2`$ V, the self-sustained oscillations exhibit a frequency of $`\nu _0=2.1`$ GHz. Now we study the change in the current signal by imposing an additional ac-bias amplitude $`U_{\mathrm{ac}}`$ with frequency $`\nu _1`$. Fig. 2 displays the absolute value and the phase of the complex impedance given by Eq. (1). For both strengths of the ac amplitude one observes strong variations in the amplitude and phase of $`Z`$. In particular one observes pronounced minima in $`|Z|`$ and a corresponding monotonic increase in $`\varphi `$ around frequencies $`\nu _1`$ which are approximately integer multiples of $`\nu _0`$. This is due to frequency locking , where the external frequency $`\nu _1`$ modifies the main oscillation frequency to $`\nu _0^{}`$ such that $`\nu _1/\nu _0^{}`$ is a rational number. While locking occurs in a rather wide frequency range for $`\nu _1/\nu _0^{}`$, locking into rational numbers with larger denominators are less easy to observe (The corresponding widths of the locking intervals roughly follow the position in the Farey-tree of the rational numbers, see . The width of the locking ranges also increases with $`U_{\mathrm{ac}}`$.) A more detailed examination indicates that the local minima in $`|Z|`$ correspond to the locking regions, and $`\varphi `$ increases with $`\nu _1`$ in those intervals, while a decrease is frequently observed outside these ranges where quasi-periodic or possibly chaotic behavior occurs. Thus the presence of several locking intervals explains the variety of peaks.

For high frequencies $`\nu _1\nu _0`$ the variations of $`Z`$ become less pronounced and $`|Z|300\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and $`\varphi \pi /2`$ is observed. This corresponds to a capacitive current with an effective frequency-dependent capacitance $`C_{\mathrm{eff}}(\nu _1)1/(2\pi \nu _1|Z|)`$. At $`\nu _1=10`$ GHz this gives $`C_{\mathrm{eff}}50`$ fF. This capacitance results from the interaction with the internal front dynamics in the SL structure; the intrinsic sample capacitance $`ϵ_rϵ_0A/(Nd)=10`$ fF is significantly smaller.

While we have only shown results for $`U_{\mathrm{dc}}=2`$ V and $`\sigma =20`$ A/Vm here, we checked that the features discussed above neither change for different biases nor different contact conductivities, albeit the main oscillation frequency $`\nu _0`$ and the locking ranges change slightly.

Now we focus on the 1/1 locking region which is of interest if the device is used as an oscillator. In Fig. 3 we show the current and bias signal for different frequencies $`\nu _1`$. In parts (a) ($`\nu _1=1.95`$ GHz) and (f) ($`\nu _1=2.3`$ GHz) no complete locking occurs and the current does not exhibit a periodic signal. Between these frequencies the current signal is periodic with a frequency $`\nu _0^{}=\nu _1`$ imposed by the external bias. While the current peaks occur around the minima of the external bias for $`\nu _1=2`$ GHz (corresponding to $`\varphi \pi `$), the delay between the current peaks and the bias maxima decreases with frequency until they are approximately in phase at the upper boundary of the locking range at $`\nu _1=2.25`$ GHz (corresponding to $`\varphi 0`$). It is intriguing to note that this behavior is opposite to the response of a damped linear oscillator, where the phase between the driving signal and the response shifts from $`0`$ to $`\pi `$ with increasing driving frequency. The current peaks correspond to the formation of a domain at the emitter, while during the current minima the domain traverses the sample. The domain transit velocity is larger for smaller voltage. The phase shift between current and voltage adjusts such that the domain velocity increases with increasing driving frequency during the whole locking interval. This is a phase synchronization effect induced by the domain dynamics.

Let us analyze the behavior close to the onset of the locking interval in detail, see Fig. 4. The main frequency component of the current signal is given by $`\nu _0^{}`$. In the locking region it is equal to the frequency of the driving bias $`\nu _1`$ such that $`\nu _0^{}\nu _1`$ vanishes in a finite range of $`\nu _1`$. In contrast, far away from the locking $`\nu _0^{}`$ is essentially given by the free oscillation frequency $`\nu _0`$, thus $`\nu _0^{}\nu _1`$ exhibits a linear relation. Close to the boundaries of the locking region a square root behavior $`\nu _0^{}\nu _1\sqrt{|\nu _1\nu _1^{\mathrm{crit}}|}`$ can be detected, which is a general feature of frequency locking, see, e.g., .

Fig. 4b shows the amplitude and the monotonically increasing phase of the impedance over the whole locking interval. We extract an impedance $`Zi150\mathrm{\Omega }`$ for $`\nu _0=2.1GHz`$. Now we compensate this impedance by an external circuit with an inductor of $`L=10`$ nH and a resistor of 25 $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ in series with the SL. (The resistor may result both from connecting wires or due to radiation damping in a real device.) Fig. 5 shows that the oscillation mode is strongly affected: The frequency is increased to $`\nu =5.6`$ GHz, the oscillation is more sinusoidal, and the current amplitude increases. Thus the device performance of the SL is strongly improved. This effect is due to a different oscillation mode, where the domains are quenched such that they only traverse a small part of the SL. As the domain velocity is almost constant, the frequency increases.

We have shown that the amplitude and the phase of the complex impedance $`Z`$ exhibit strong variations with the driving frequency $`\nu _1`$. The distinct minima of the amplitude of the impedance correspond directly to the frequency locking intervals. In these regions the frequency components of the current at $`\nu _1`$ are particularly large, leading to small $`|Z|`$. The phase of the impedance is monotonically increasing with frequency from $`\pi `$ to zero in the locking intervals, which constitutes a phase shift of $`\pi `$ compared to the standard behavior of a driven oscillator. These effects are caused by phase synchronization of the spatio-temporal dynamics of the traveling field domains in the NDC regime. Compensating the imaginary part of the impedance in an external circuit strongly improves the device performance of the SL.

Partial support from Sfb 555 is acknowledged.