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# Contents

## 1 Introduction

In recent years, motivated by the brane world scenario , there has been an enormous interest in exploring the experimental signatures of extra dimensions . In the context of string theory, information about the size and shape of the extra dimensions could shed light on the nature of our string vacuum. Indeed, one of the outstanding challenges in connecting string theory with low energy physics is to understand how the enormous degeneracy of string vacua is lifted. Although the underlying mechanism which selects our string vacuum is unknown at present, over the years we have gained a great deal of insights into the physical implications of string theory by exploring compactifications of string and M theory on various manifolds. Since the spectrum of particles and their interactions in the low energy theory are determined by the size and shape of the extra dimensions, we can use phenomenological constraints to focus our attention on the subset of manifolds that are relevant in describing our observed four-dimensional physics. For example, in compactifying the weakly coupled heterotic string on a Calabi-Yau manifold with the standard embedding, one finds that the number of generations of chiral matter is determined by the Euler character whereas the Yukawa couplings are given by the intersection numbers of cycles in the Calabi-Yau space. In brane world models where chiral fermions arise from intersecting branes , the number of chiral generations is again determined by a topological quantity, namely, the intersection number between different D-branes 111In a T-dual picture, these numbers are related to Dirac indexes , that again are topological quantities.. The basic premise of string phenomenology is to make use of some geometrical/topological insights to construct string models that satisfy some basic physical requirements (e.g., models with three generations, the correct structure of Yukawa couplings and gauge couplings, etc) from which we can extract their low energy predictions. In addition to the Standard Model-like spectrum of light fields, different compactifications generically give rise to different spectra of Kaluza-Klein (KK) modes, winding modes as well as stringy states. Therefore, if we were able to measure the mass spectrum of these heavy modes (i.e., the size and shape of the extra dimensions), we could further constrain the types of compactifications. This is also the philosophy behind the studies of the experimental signatures of different extra dimension scenarios as the KK spectra are different for large extra dimensions , warped compactifications , compact hyperbolic manifolds , and etc.

The question we address in this paper is the reverse, namely, given the mass spectrum of the Kaluza-Klein (KK) modes, how well can we reconstruct the extra dimensions? As we shall see, there exist distinct manifolds which nonetheless have the same set of eigenvalues of the Laplacian. Therefore, compactifications on these isospectral manifolds result in identical KK mass spectrum. Interestingly, some of the isospectral manifolds are Ricci-flat, complex, and Kähler. Hence they provide isospectral backgrounds not only for point particles but also for the propagation of strings. In reality, we cannot measure the full KK spectrum and so perhaps a physically more relevant question is: how much information about the properties of a compact manifold (e.g., its dimension, volume, and curvature etc) can we extract from measuring the masses of a finite number of Kaluza-Klein modes? Utilizing results from the subject of finite spectral geometry, we obtain some quantitative estimate of the accuracy in reconstructing the geometrical properties (such as the dimension, volume and curvature) of the compact manifold.

The fact that geometrical interpretations are not unique is not a new surprise in string theory – one of the notable examples of such non-uniqueness is mirror symmetry. It has long been conjectured  and demonstrated by explicit examples  that in string theory there are topologically distinct manifolds which give rise to identical physical models. The equivalence of mirror manifolds is due to the extended nature of strings – roughly speaking, the KK modes and the winding modes are interchanged under mirror symmetry. Compactifications on isospectral manifolds correspond to a simpler form of equivalence – the mass spectra of the KK modes and the winding modes of isospectral manifolds are identical individually. Therefore such equivalence holds even in the point particle ($`\alpha ^{}0`$) limit. However, we note that unlike mirror manifolds which give rise to physical models with identical spectrum as well as interactions, compactifications on isospectral manifolds could differ at the level of interactions and so these manifolds can be disentangled with additional measurements such as the couplings between different KK modes.

An important lesson drawn from the idea of deconstruction  222Some similar ideas were considered in . is that from the mass spectrum of only a finite number of KK modes (the low lying modes), we cannot distinguish between a higher-dimensional theory and a four-dimensional gauge theory which becomes strongly coupled in the infrared. Here, we shall see that even the full KK mass spectrum does not give us sufficient information to reconstruct the compact manifold.

This paper is organized as follows: in section 2 we revisit the general properties of a free scalar in a compact space. This will be our toy model to discuss some general properties of compactifications. Then, in section 3, we analyze the asymptotic expansion of the heat kernel given properties of the manifold that we can read from the spectrum of the Laplacian. In section 4, we compute the heat kernel for some simple examples: flat tori and spheres. In particular, we will see how to read off different information about the manifold from these functions. In section 5, we will discuss how the Laplacian acting on forms can give more information. Then we will describe some properties of different manifolds with the same spectrum, i.e. isospectral manifolds. In section 7 we will briefly describe how interactions can distinguish between isospectral manifolds. We then discuss the implications of isospectral manifolds to string theory: we will consider some examples of isospectral manifolds where the conformal theory can be constructed, e.g. flat tori. Then we will discuss some properties of general string backgrounds, in particular, how strings will not be able classically to distinguish isospectral manifolds from their spectrum. Finally, in section 9, we will address the question of what can we say with only a finite number of eigenvalues, i.e., the low-lying Kaluza-Klein masses.

## 2 Scalar Field on a Compact Manifold

Let us take the simplest example: consider a free scalar field living on $`R^{1,3}\times `$, where we take $``$ to be a compact manifold without boundary of dimension $`n`$:

$$\varphi :R^{1,3}\times R$$
(2.1)
From the four dimensional perspective, we get a set of scalar fields with a mass2 $`m_i^2=\lambda _i`$, where $`\lambda _i`$ are the eigenvalues of the Laplacian operator on the compact Riemannian manifold, i.e. a manifold plus a metric on it $`(,g)`$:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_g\varphi _i=\lambda _i\varphi _i.$$
(2.2)
The eigenfunctions, $`\varphi _i`$, can be taken to be an orthonormal basis for the harmonic functions on $``$:

$$_{}\varphi _i\varphi _j=\delta _{ij}.$$
(2.3)
The spectrum of the Laplacian operator, i.e. the set of its eigenvalues counted with the corresponding multiplicities $`\{\lambda _i\}`$, is a discrete sequence of real positive number with the following properties:

* There is a unique zero mode which is just a constant $`\varphi _0=1/\sqrt{Vol()}`$,
* The eigenvalues form a numerable, infinite set: $`\lambda _i\lambda _{i+1}`$,
* The limit $`lim_i\mathrm{}\lambda _i=\mathrm{}`$,
* The integral of the eigenfunctions in the compact space vanishes except for the zero mode:

$$_{}\varphi _i=\sqrt{Vol()}\delta _{i0}.$$
(2.4)
* In the limit where $`k\mathrm{}`$ the eigenvalues $`\lambda _k`$ satisfy the Weyl asymptotic formula:

$$\underset{k\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{\lambda _k}{k^{2/n}}=\frac{c_n}{(Vol())^{2/n}}$$
(2.5)
where $`c_n=\frac{(2\pi )^2}{\omega _n^{2/n}}`$ and $`\omega _n`$ is the volume of the unit ball in $`R^n`$. Then at very high masses, $`k\mathrm{}`$, the variation of the number of eigenvalues with respect to the variation of the masses is:

$$\delta N=\frac{nVol()}{c_n^{n/2}}m^{n1}\delta m$$
(2.6)
as expected. If the number of dimensions is bigger the number of modes grows very quickly.

Now, the questions that we would like to consider is the following: given the spectrum, what information about the compact manifold can we reproduce? More specifically, what are the geometric properties that are determined by the spectrum? Are there two or more Riemannian manifolds with the same spectrum (isospectral)?

## 3 Heat Invariants

Let $``$ be a smooth compact Riemannian manifold without boundary of dimension $`m`$. The Laplacian on this manifold has a spectrum $`\{\lambda _i\}`$. Let us define the function (trace of the heat kernel):

$$Z(t)=\underset{i}{}e^{t\lambda _i}$$
(3.7)
Taking the limit $`t0`$ of the $`Z(t)`$ we get the Minakshisundaram-Peijel expansion 333Also known in physics as the Schwinger-de Witt expansion (see  for a field theory perspective of the heat kernel). The name varies in the literature. Besides Schwinger-de Witt and Minakshisundaram-Peijel, it is sometimes also called the Minakshisundaram-Seeley expansion.:

$$Z(t)=\frac{1}{(4\pi t)^{m/2}}(a_0+a_1t+a_2t^2+\mathrm{})$$
(3.8)
where the $`a_i`$ are some Riemannian invariant functions of the curvature tensor and its covariant derivatives 444See among others .. If the manifold has a boundary there is a term proportional to $`t^{1/2}`$ in the expansion proportional to the volume of the boundary:

$$a_{1/2}=\frac{\sqrt{\pi }}{2}Vol().$$
(3.9)
Let us consider the case without boundary. The first tree terms are:

* The first term is just the volume of the manifold:

$$a_0=_{}𝑑x\sqrt{g},$$
(3.10)
This term can be easily obtained by computing the heat kernel as the partition function of a scalar field in a quadratic approximation. That is, this term can be obtained by taking the heat kernel as the partition function of a free scalar field on the manifold and performing the path integral by expanding the fields to quadratic order.
* The second term is the integral of the Ricci scalar:

$$a_1=\frac{1}{6}_{}𝑑x\sqrt{g}R,$$
(3.11)
* The third term is

$$a_2=\frac{1}{360}_{}𝑑x\sqrt{g}(5R^22R_{ij}R^{ij}+2R_{ijkl}R^{ijkl}),$$
(3.12)

From this expansion we can extract some information that only depends on the masses of the Kaluza-Klein modes:

* The dimension of the manifold can be read off from the pole at $`t=0`$. The divergence comes from the growing of the number of modes at high energy. The higher the number of dimensions, the stronger is the divergence.
* From the $`a_0`$ term one can obtain the volume. Similarly, in a case of a manifold with boundary one can obtain the volume of the boundary from the $`a_{1/2}`$ term.
* From the $`a_1`$ term we obtain the integral of the Ricci scalar. In the particular case of dimension 2, this integral is related (by Gauss-Bonnet) to the Euler characteristic of the manifold: $`a_1=2\pi \chi ()/3`$. Then in two dimensions the spectrum of the Laplacian encodes topological information – the genus. Put it in another way, two isospectral manifolds in 2 dimensions have the same genus.
* The $`a_2`$ term has no interpretation as a topological invariant in any dimension. The same is happening with the higher order terms. However, when wisely combined they can be used to get some topological information. That is the usual trick in some index theorems 555See, for instance, the book of Gilkey ..

In particular, two isospectral manifolds have the same dimension and volume. This asymptotic expansion does not contain all the topological information. For instance, a flat two dimensional torus and a flat Klein bottle have different spectrum but the asymptotic expansion will be the same if they have the same volume 666All the $`a_i`$ vanish except the $`a_0`$ term due to the dependence on the curvature.. In the asymptotic expansion we loose information that is encoded in terms of the form $`e^{l_i/t}`$, where $`l_i`$ are the lengths of closed geodesics. When, $`t0`$ all these terms vanish like ’non-perturbative’ effects. In section 8, this relation between closed geodesics and the heat kernel will be used to discuss the masses of winding states in string theory.

In general, there are some properties that can be obtained from the spectrum, such as the dimension, volume, curvature, genus in dimension 2, etc. These are the audible properties. There are other properties that are not audible, e.g., the first homotopy group .

## 4 Examples

Now we are going to illustrate the behavior of the trace of the heat kernel and with two known examples. The first is a flat torus in any dimension. There the asymptotic behavior is particularly easy to obtain by using the Poisson resummation formula. The second example is the case of round spheres in any dimension where the asymptotics are a little bit more involved.

### 4.1 Flat Tori

The easiest example is a flat $`n`$ dimensional torus. The spectrum is just:

$$\lambda _m=\underset{ij}{}G^{ij}n_in_j$$
(4.13)
where the $`n_i`$ are integer numbers. The heat trace is:

$$Z(t)=\underset{n_iZ}{}e^{t_{ij}G^{ij}n_in_j}$$
(4.14)
By using Poisson resummation and taking the limit $`t0`$ we obtain the asymptotic expansion:

$$Z(t)\frac{\sqrt{Vol()}}{(4\pi t)^{n/2}}$$
(4.15)
The only term that is surviving in this expansion is the first term. Higher order terms vanish due to the dependence on the curvature. In particular, we can deduce for the two dimensional torus that its Euler characteristic is zero.

When Poisson resummation is used we can see all the ’non-perturbative’ 777Non-perturbative in the sense that they cannot be obtained in the small $`t`$ expansion by perturbations around the zero. terms $`e^{l_i/t}`$ giving information about the closed geodesics (in string theory they are related to the winding modes). In the limit $`t0`$ all these terms are exponentially suppressed.

### 4.2 Spheres

Let us consider a sphere of dimension $`n`$ with the usual round metric and radius $`1`$. The eigenvalues of the Laplacian are $`\lambda _j=j(j+n1)`$. They appear with multiplicity: $`deg_j=\left(\frac{n+j}{n}\right)\left(\frac{n+j2}{n}\right)`$. The heat trace is just:

$$Z(t)=\underset{j}{}deg_je^{tj(j+n1)}$$
(4.16)
The more familiar case of a round $`S^2`$ gives:

$$Z(t)=\underset{j}{}(2j+1)e^{tj(j+1)}$$
(4.17)
The asymptotic expansion $`t0`$ for the two dimensional sphere is  888That can be computed by using Mellin transform, for instance.:

$$Z(t)=\frac{1}{t}\frac{e^{t/4}}{\sqrt{\pi t}}_0^1\frac{e^{x/t}}{sin(\sqrt{x})}𝑑x=(1/t+1/3+t/15+\mathrm{})$$
(4.18)
In particular, one can deduce from here that the Euler characteristic is $`\chi =2`$.

For a three dimensional round sphere the asymptotic expansion gives :

$$Z(t)=\frac{Vol()}{(4\pi t)^{3/2}}e^t=\frac{Vol()}{(4\pi t)^{3/2}}(1+t+t^2/2+\mathrm{})$$
(4.19)
That is very easy to compute by writing:

$$Z(t)=\underset{j0}{}(j+1)^2e^{t(j+1)^2+t}=\frac{e^t}{2}\underset{jZ}{}(j+1)^2e^{t(j+1)^2}=\frac{e^t}{2}\frac{d}{dt}\underset{jZ}{}e^{tj^2}$$
(4.20)
and using the Poisson resummation formula:

$$Z(t)=\frac{e^t\sqrt{\pi }}{2}\frac{d}{dt}(t^{1/2}\underset{jZ}{}e^{\frac{\pi ^2j^2}{t}}).$$
(4.21)
That gives the correct asymptotic behavior by taking into account that the volume of a round $`S^3`$ of radius 1 is $`Vol()=2\pi ^2`$.

## 5 Higher Forms and Other Fields

In addition to functions, the Laplacian can also act on higher p-forms and their corresponding spectra can give us further information about the compact manifold. For instance, the size and the shape of a round sphere in any dimensions is specified by the spectrum of the Laplacian on functions together with the spectrum of the Laplacian on one forms . Another information than one can get immediately are the Betti numbers, because we know that the number of harmonic p-forms, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_gC=0`$, is just the Betti number $`b_p`$ of the manifold (Hodge-de Rham theorem). So in principle, the zero modes alone, i.e. massless p-forms in four dimensions, can tell us the Betti numbers of the manifold. So, what is the information we get from higher forms?

The asymptotic expansion can be carried out as in the case of functions, but now the coefficients are different :

$$Z_p(t)=\frac{1}{(4\pi t)^{m/2}}(a_0+a_1t+a_2t^2+\mathrm{})$$
(5.22)
where:

$`a_0`$ $`=`$ $`c(n,p)Vol()`$
$`a_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{c_0(n,p)}{6}}{\displaystyle _{}}𝑑x\sqrt{g}R`$
$`a_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{360}}{\displaystyle _{}}𝑑x(c_1(n,p)R^2+c_2(n,p)R_{ij}R^{ij}+c_3(n,p)R_{ijkl}R^{ijkl})`$ (5.23)
where the coefficients can be obtained from the function:

$$c(n,p)=\left(\begin{array}{c}n\\ p\end{array}\right)=\frac{n!}{(np)!p!}.$$
(5.24)
The coefficients are:

$`c_0(n,p)`$ $`=`$ $`c(n,p)6c(n2,p1)`$
$`c_1(n,p)`$ $`=`$ $`5c(n,p)60c(n2,p1)+180c(n4,p2)`$
$`c_2(n,p)`$ $`=`$ $`2c(n,p)+180c(n2,p1)720c(n4,p2)`$
$`c_3(n,p)`$ $`=`$ $`2c(n,p)30c(n2,p1)+180c(n4,p2)`$ (5.25)
The non-trivial information on the manifold that is not present in the Laplacian on functions comes from the second term $`a_2`$ that gives a different linear combination of terms quadratic in the curvature.

By using Poincare duality one can relate the coefficients for p-forms to the coefficients for $`(np)`$-forms: $`Z_p(t)=Z_{(np)}(t)`$. So only half of the forms give us new information.

In particular the Laplacian acting on 1-forms gives rise to the following terms:

$`a_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{n6}{6}}{\displaystyle _{}}𝑑x\sqrt{g}R`$
$`a_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{n}{360}}{\displaystyle _{}}𝑑x(5R^22R_{ij}R^{ij}+2R_{ijkl}R^{ijkl})`$ (5.26)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{12}}{\displaystyle _{}}𝑑x\sqrt{g}(2R^26R_{ij}R^{ij}+R_{ijkl}R^{ijkl})`$
Thus Laplacian on forms can be used to distinguish isospectral manifolds that are not locally isometric. If the manifolds are locally isometric, all the heat kernel asymptotics are the same as they depend only on the curvature.

## 6 Isospectral Manifolds

M. Kac asked the following question in 1966 : Can we hear the shape of a drum? If someone is playing a drum of a particular shape in another room, can we reproduce the shape of this drum by measuring the notes? This is a problem of finding the spectrum of a two-dimensional surface with Dirichlet boundary conditions. The answer is negative and was shown very recently in 1991 by C. Gordon, D. Webb and S. Wolpert . They explicitly constructed a pair of drums with different shape but the same spectrum.

Here we will consider compact manifolds without boundary. The first example of isospectral manifolds was found in 1964 by J. Milnor : two 16 dimensional flat tori 999As we will see later these are the flat tori associated with the lattices of $`E_8\times E_8`$ and $`Spin(32)`$ algebras. As we all know the partition function is the same for both theories. The distinction comes in the three point function, i.e., the interaction.. Later, other examples of flat tori were found in dimension four . Isospectrality however is a rare phenomenon: almost all flat tori are uniquely determined by the spectrum and there are at most finitely many tori with the same spectrum .

An example was found in 1980  which illustrated that the first homotopy group is not determined by the spectrum. The first examples of continuous isospectral metrics were found in 1984 by . Contrary to continuous isospectral metrics is the notion of spectral rigidity, i.e. there are no deformations of the metric that preserve the spectrum. For instance, all round spheres are spectrally rigid .

There are a few Riemannian manifolds that are completely determined by their spectra: for instance, all the rounded spheres $`S^n`$ with $`n<6`$ . That can be generalized to all the rounded spheres by considering not only the spectrum on functions but also on one forms .

One of the methods used to generate isospectral manifolds is the Sunada method . The basic idea is to start with a Riemannian manifold and to quotient it by two different discrete subgroups of the isometries, in such a way that the actions are free and there is a relation between the representations 101010More specifically, if there is an unitary isomorphism between the representations of the groups on $`L^2`$-functions. Then it is easy to see that this construction gives isospectral manifolds: as the orbifold groups commute with the isometries, the Laplacian is invariant and the orbifold groups act on the eigenspaces of the Laplacian. The eigenfunctions should be invariant under the group. If the dimension of the invariant states are the same, then the two manifolds are isospectral.. Then the two orbifolds are isospectral. All the isospectral manifolds constructed in this way have a common Riemannian covering and they are always locally isometric. These manifolds can only be distinguished by global properties such as the first homotopy group if the two orbifold groups are not isomorphic. The Sunada method implies not only isospectrality on function but on p-forms .

Recently new isospectral manifolds have been constructed that are not locally isometric. The first example dates back to 1991 which involves a pair of isospectral manifolds with boundaries . In 1992 the first example of compact isospectral manifolds without boundary was constructed . The method used in these construction is quite different from the one of Sunada and does not imply local isometry. This method was used to obtain continuous multi-parameter families of isospectral products of spheres (of dimension bigger than three) and tori (of dimension bigger than one) , and some simply connected closed isospectral manifolds . However, the heat invariants for the Laplacian operator acting on one forms are different.

Recently isospectral non-locally isometric examples have been found in dimension four: $`S^2\times T^2`$ and other interesting examples involving continuous isospectral families of metrics on Lie groups . In particular, the heat invariant for the Laplace operator on 1-forms changes. Isospectral metrics have been found for higher dimensional spheres and balls, Riemann surfaces of genus $`g>3`$, and etc.

We have seen, in analyzing the heat kernel expansion at $`t0`$, that two isospectral manifolds have the same dimension (that can be read from the order of the pole at $`t=0`$), the same volume (that is the constant in the first term of the expansion), the integral of the Ricci scalar (the second term), and so on. In same cases, such as in two dimensions, one can automatically read off some topological data, e.g., the Euler character.

Furthermore, one can prove for two isospectral manifolds of dimension less than six that if one has constant sectional curvature 111111The sectional curvature is a curvature that is associated to two planes at each point. It can be defined in terms of the Riemann curvature as: $`K_{ij}=R_{ijij}/(g_{ii}g_{jj}g_{ij}^2)`$. For instance in a two dimensional manifold is $`K=R_{1212}/det(g)=R/2`$. , the other has constant sectional curvature as well . In particular, if one is isometric to the standard sphere or a real projective space $`RP^n`$ so is the other.

It is easy to see from the heat kernel expansions that if two manifolds are isospectral for functions, 1 and 2-forms  that if one of the manifolds has constant scalar curvature or if it is Einstein so is the other 121212That can be proved very easily by taking the $`a_2`$ terms of the expansions for the different forms and observing that the combinations of the curvature are linearly independent.. For instance, we can ask ourselves, is there a manifold isospectral to a K3 that is not another K3? If this is isospectrality in functions, one-forms and two forms we can use this theorem and the fact that the Betti numbers are the same to conclude that if there is such isospectral manifold it should be another K3.

We will see in section 8 same explicit examples of isospectral flat tori in dimension four and sixteen.

## 7 Field Interactions

Previously we have considered free fields on a compact manifold. Can interactions distinguish isospectral manifolds? As the simplest example, let us take a single scalar field with a cubic interaction term:

$$=\frac{1}{2}(\varphi )^2+\frac{g}{3!}\varphi ^3.$$
(7.27)
When reduced to four dimensions the field $`\varphi =_ia_i\varphi _i`$ is decomposed into an infinite set of four dimensional scalar fields $`a_i:R^{1,3}R`$, where the $`\varphi _i`$ are the eigenfunctions of the Laplacian operator in the compact space. The interaction term in four dimensions looks like:

$$\frac{g}{3!}\underset{ijk}{}c_{ijk}a_ia_ja_k$$
(7.28)
where $`c_{ijk}=_{}\varphi _i\varphi _j\varphi _k`$. The interaction with the massless fields $`c_{0jk}=\delta _{jk}/\sqrt{Vol()}`$ do not distinguish isospectral manifolds. But in general, the $`c_{ijk}`$ could make the distinction.

Notice that the massive particles do not enter in tree level processes of massless particles due to the $`c_{0jk}=\delta _{jk}/\sqrt{Vol()}`$. For this toy model, tree level involving massless fields processes are blind to higher modes and in particular they cannot distinguish isospectral manifolds 131313This is true for our simple model involving only a scalar field. However, for more complicated cases involving gauge fields such as string theory on $`E_8\times E_8`$ and $`SO(32)`$, even the interactions between massless states can distinguish between isospectral manifolds, e.g., the coupling of three gauge bosons.. However the tree level interaction of massive modes depends on $`c_{ijk}`$. For instance, one can consider the annihilation of two $`a_i`$ modes to get two other modes $`a_j`$ (see figure 1):

$$_{iijj}g^2\underset{k}{}c_{iik}c_{jjk}\frac{1}{p^2+\lambda _k}$$
(7.29)
By using:

$$\frac{1}{p^2+\lambda _j}=_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑te^{t(p^2+\lambda _j)}$$
(7.30)
one can express the amplitude in terms of a heat kernel:

$$_{iijj}g^2\underset{k}{}c_{iik}c_{jjk}_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑te^{t(p^2+\lambda _k)}=g^2_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑te^{tp^2}\underset{k}{}c_{iik}c_{jjk}e^{t\lambda _k}$$
(7.31)
The higher modes enter, for instance, in the correction for the masses of the fields $`a_i`$ due to all the other modes circulating around a loop (see figure 2):

$$_ig^2\underset{jk}{}c_{ijk}^2\frac{dp^4}{(p^2+\lambda _j)(p^2+\lambda _k)}$$
(7.32)
One can see that the corrections can be written in terms of the function:

$$Z_i(t,t^{})=\underset{jk}{}c_{ijk}^2e^{t\lambda _j}e^{t^{}\lambda _k}$$
(7.33)
The difference between isospectral manifolds comes in the interaction coefficients $`c_{ijk}`$ for massive modes. Let us take the corrections to the mass of the lowest state:

$$Z_0(t,t^{})=\frac{1}{Vol()}\underset{k}{}e^{(t+t^{})\lambda _k}=Z(t+t^{})$$
(7.34)
That has the usual UV pole at short distances $`t+t^{}0`$:

$$Z_0(t,t^{})\frac{1}{(4\pi (t+t^{}))^{n/2}}$$
(7.35)
## 8 Strings on Isospectral Manifolds

In general we cannot construct the spectrum of string theory for two isospectral manifolds as we do not know the conformal theory description of them. However, as we have seen, there are some flat tori that are isospectral and non-isometric. The first known example is the 16 dimensional tori constructed by Milnor in 1964  141414These lattices are even and self-dual. As one suspects, the two lattices are the $`E_8\times E_8`$ and $`SO(32)`$ lattices  that appear in the heterotic strings. $`E_8\times E_8`$ and $`SO(32)/Z_2`$ have the same partition function but interactions (e.g. the algebra that they form) are different. We can only tell the difference between the lattices at the level of interactions.. We will analyze the isospectral four dimensional tori of . Then we will make some comments about more general backgrounds where we do not know the conformal theory description.

### 8.1 Flat Tori

Flat tori can be constructed by the quotient of flat space $`R^n`$ by a lattice. We will use isospectral lattices to describe a pair of lattices that give isospectral tori. In two dimensions the lattice is completely determined by the theta-series. In three dimensions the problem of finding two isospectral lattices is still open. The lowest dimension of two known flat tori that are isospectral is in dimension four . This is the case we will consider. Higher dimensional cases are known in 5, 6, 8, 12 and 16 dimensions.

Let us take the 4-parameter family of isospectral 4-dimensional tori constructed in . Let $`e_i`$, $`i=1\mathrm{}4`$, a set of orthogonal vectors satisfying the normalization:

$$e_ie_i=\frac{\alpha _i}{12}$$
(8.36)
where $`\alpha _i>0`$. The lattices $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\pm `$ are generated by the vectors (written in the above basis):

$`v_1^\pm `$ $`=`$ $`(\pm 3,1,1,1)`$
$`v_2^\pm `$ $`=`$ $`(1,\pm 3,1,1)`$
$`v_3^\pm `$ $`=`$ $`(1,1,\pm 3,1)`$
$`v_4^\pm `$ $`=`$ $`(1,1,1,\pm 3).`$ (8.37)
The two lattices $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\pm `$ are isospectral.

The metrics on these lattices are:

$$G_{ij}^\pm =v_i^\pm v_j^\pm $$
(8.38)
So the Kaluza-Klein modes, $`n_i`$ plus the winding modes, $`m^i`$, have masses:

$$m^2=G^{ij}n_in_j+\frac{G_{ij}}{\alpha ^2}m^im^j$$
(8.39)
The dual lattice of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^\pm `$ with lengths $`\alpha _i`$ is $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}`$ with lengths $`\alpha _i^{}=1/\alpha _i`$. One can easily see that they are also isospectral. So string theory cannot distinguish between this pair of isospectral manifolds. In other words, if the lattices of momenta and windings are $`(\mathrm{\Lambda }^+(\alpha _i),\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}(1/\alpha _i))`$, the isospectral lattices are $`(\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}(\alpha _i),\mathrm{\Lambda }^+(1/\alpha _i))`$. The operation of mapping isospectral manifolds commutes with T-duality and so the set of dualities on the torus is enlarged.

### 8.2 Winding Modes

In general, we do not have a conformal field theory description of two isospectral manifolds as the flat tori we have seen before, so the question for the general case of two isospectral metrics is still open.

Let us first address the following question: can winding modes distinguish isospectral manifolds? Classically strings can wrap closed geodesic curves. The mass of the states associated with these strings is proportional to the lengths. We can order the closed geodesics $`\beta _i`$ by the length $`l(\beta _i)l(\beta _{i+1})`$. The sequence $`l(\beta _1),l(\beta _2),\mathrm{}`$ is called the length spectrum. Are the length and the eigenvalue equivalent? In our particular case we are interested in whether the spectrum of geodesic can be deduced from the eigenvalue spectrum.

In general, the two spectra are not equivalent 151515See, for instance, .. But there are some cases, e.g., compact Riemann surfaces of genus $`g>1`$ where the two spectra are equivalent. For torus (genus 1), the momentum modes determine the windings in flat cases (just Poisson resummation).

But we are not interested in the exact equivalence between the two spectra but in the possible distinction of two isospectral manifolds from the classical winding states. For that, the theorem of Colin de Verdiere on closed geodesics  is very useful. Under the generic assumption that the set of closed geodesics are isolated and non-degenerated, it is proved that the eigenvalues of the Laplacian determine the spectrum of lengths of closed geodesics. So in a generic case, classical winding states cannot distinguish isospectral manifolds.

## 9 What can we extract from a finite number of eigenvalues?

We have seen that even we cannot determine the complete geometry of a manifold by the spectrum one can obtain its dimension, volume, and etc. We can then wonder what kind of information about the manifold can we obtain with only a finite number of eigenvalues (the low-lying ones). There are several ways of understanding this problem.

The first point of view is the one taken in the subject of finite spectral geometry 161616See for instance, the article of J.M. Lee in  and .. We can try to estimate the dimension, volume or some constraints on the curvature. What are then the properties of a manifold that we can estimate from a finite number of eigenvalues? How many eigenvalues do we need to estimate them with some given accuracy?

The second viewpoint is more physical. In general, when we are measuring the properties of an object, we use some scale and we define various properties of this object (like the volume, for instance) at this scale 171717A similar approach has been taken in , where the idea is illustrated with flat tori.. That scale is given in our case by the wavelength of the particle that is propagating in the manifold, which is of the order of the inverse of the mass of this particle. Very massive particles can give very detail information about the structure of the manifold (see figure 3). Now imagine we want to measure the volume of our manifold. Using only the long wavelength modes we get an estimation of it at this scale. Taking into account higher order modes we can refine our measuring. From this point of view it is preferable to talk about the volume at some scale rather than the true volume (whatever it is) since perhaps the latter can never be defined.

The two viewpoints are very different but complementary. The viewpoint of finite spectral geometry assumes a fixed Riemannian manifold and by imposing bounds on some properties of the manifold one can obtain information about this manifold with a precision that depends on the bounds. The information on short scales is disregarded because of these bounds. The second viewpoint does not care about what is the exact structure at very small scales, like when we are measuring some gross properties of an object we do not care about the atomic structure of it, we just make a rough estimation at some scale. The second viewpoint also suggests that one needs more eigenvalues to determine topological quantities such as the genus of a Riemann surface in contrast to the volume (as illustrated in figure 3).

As an example take a round $`S^2`$ sphere of radius $`R`$. As we have seen in the examples, the eigenvalues of the Laplacian are $`\lambda _j=j(j+1)/R^2`$. The number of solutions with an eigenvalue less or equal to $`\lambda _j`$ are $`N_j=(j+1)^2`$ (counting multiplicities). Imagine that from other measurements we find out that there are only two dimensions. From the Weyl’s formula we can approximate the volume of the manifold as follows:

$$Vol()c_2\frac{N_k}{\lambda _{N_k}}=4\pi R^2(1+\frac{1}{k})$$
(9.40)
where $`c_2=4\pi `$. So the masses of the fields give the following approximation to the volume of the manifold: $`8\pi R^2`$, $`6\pi R^2`$, $`16\pi R^2/3`$,… Converging to the actual volume of the two sphere $`4\pi R^2`$. In the more physical interpretation we can say that these values give the volume at different scales, but due to the convergence one can find a well defined limit $`4\pi `$ and higher orders give very little information about the volume.

In what follows we will take the point of view of finite spectral geometry. In general we cannot deduce things like the number of extra dimensions, or the volume of the manifold without assuming something about the curvature of the manifold. That can be seen in a very simple example by J.M. Lee : consider a Riemannian manifold $``$ with some spectrum $`\lambda _i`$. Now take a manifold $`\times S_ϵ^1`$, where $`S_ϵ^1`$ is a circle of radius $`ϵ`$. The eigenvalues of the Laplacian on this new manifold are: $`\lambda _i+n^2/ϵ^2`$. For $`ϵ`$ small enough, the spectrum of the two manifolds agree in the first $`N`$ eigenvalues. This is an example of a family of finite isospectral manifolds. So in order to get some information about the manifold from a finite part of the spectrum some geometric assumptions should be made. As we will see, some of these assumptions can be that the curvature is bounded.

The basic idea of  is to take a formula involving a limit of the eigenvalues (like the Weyl formula or the heat trace expansion) and estimate the accuracy of measuring some properties of the manifold (e.g., the volume) with an error function. Let us take, for instance, the Weyl formula and let us define the error function:

$$E(k)=\left|\frac{\lambda _k}{k^{2/n}}\frac{c_n}{Vol()}\right|$$
(9.41)
Then one try to estimate $`E(k)`$, i.e., to show the existence of inequalities of the form $`E(k)f(k,c_i)`$, where the $`c_i`$ are some quantities with a definite geometric meaning. For instance, the theorem of Li and Yau  for convex Euclidean domains of fixed dimension (domains of $`R^n`$ where every two points are connected by a geodesic in the domain) says that there is a number $`N`$ such that higher modes $`k>N`$ satisfy $`E(k)<ϵ`$. The number $`N`$ of eigenvalues needed to measure the volume of the domain depends only on $`ϵ`$ and the eigenvalues $`k<N`$.

One can repeat the argument for the heat trace and try to find some bound for the volume of a closed manifold. That is done in  by considering manifolds with some bound on the Ricci curvature, sectional curvatures, and so on.

In particular, we can get some bounds on the number of eigenvalues needed to obtain the dimension. Let us suppose $``$ to be a connected, compact Riemann manifold without boundary with sectional curvature bounded from above and below $`b>R_{sect}>\kappa >0`$, then there is a value $`N`$ of the low-lying eigenvalues from the spectrum of $``$ such that the dimension is determined by them.

Another piece of interesting information is the spectral gap, i.e. the first eigenvalue $`\lambda _1`$181818See, for instance, .. For instance, take the classical estimate of Lichnerowicz : if the Ricci curvature is bounded from bellow by $`R(n1)\kappa >0`$, where $`n`$ is the dimension and $`\kappa `$ is some positive real number, then the spectral gap is bigger than $`\lambda _1n\kappa `$. This inequality becomes an equality only for the usual sphere . But this information is completely useless if $`\kappa =0`$.

More interesting is the result of Li  that says that if the Ricci scalar $`R0`$ then the spectral gap satisfies $`\lambda _1\pi ^2/(2d^2)`$ where $`d`$ is the diameter of the manifold. This limit has been improved  to $`\lambda _1\pi ^2/d^2`$. That tells us that if we assume that the manifold has a metric with non-negative Ricci scalar curvature then we can get an estimation of the diameter from the first eigenvalue: $`d\pi /\sqrt{\lambda _1}`$.

So, let us summarize the above discussions. In general, by taking the most general Riemannian manifolds one cannot say what is the dimension, the volume, and so on. However for reasonable manifolds (avoiding strong curvature, for instance) we can establish some bounds on the dimension and the volume of the manifold. It would be interesting to get other bounds on the Euler characteristic for a Riemann surface from the asymptotic expansion of the heat trace. Also we have seen that interesting bounds on the diameter of the compact space can be obtained by the first eigenvalue, i.e. from the spectral gap, for positive Ricci scalar manifolds.

Another way of understanding this is if we want to obtain same details about the compactification structure from the long wavelengths modes (i.e., the lowest modes in the spectrum), we have to decouple the very energetic ones. Under some conditions these very massive modes do not contribute and we are able to give information about the shape of the manifold. The dimension and the volume become audible quantities.

## 10 Conclusions

In this paper we have explored many issues surrounding the question of how much information can one obtain from the spectrum (i.e. the masses) of the Kaluza-Klein modes. We have seen that one can reconstruct properties of the manifold such as the number of dimensions, the volume, and in some cases, like in two dimensional manifolds, topological information such as the genus. In reality, however, even if one day we can detect these particles, we will have access to only a finite number of them. In this case we discussed how one can reproduce some information about the manifold if certain assumptions are taken into account. In particular, if we assume that the manifold has a non-negative scalar curvature, then the spectral gap gives us a lower bound on the size of the manifold. In general, the modes at some mass $`m=\sqrt{\lambda }`$ give us information about the Riemannian manifold at scale $`L1/\sqrt{\lambda }`$. This wavelength puts a limit on the accuracy of our approximation. More detailed properties of the manifold that require a resolution smaller than $`L`$ remain inaudible.

We have also analyzed some examples of manifolds with the same Laplacian spectrum, i.e. isospectral manifolds. These manifolds ’sound’ the same and cannot be distinguished by the masses of all the massive modes. In some cases where the conformal field theory for strings propagating in such isospectral backgrounds can be explictly constructed, we have seen that string theory cannot ’hear’ the difference between isospectral manifolds. The models relevant for string compactifications that we have analyzed here are just isospectral flat tori. General arguments tell us that the spectrum of the Laplacian can predict the spectrum of closed geodesics, i.e. the classical masses of the winding modes.

We also pointed out that although the mass spectrum cannot distinguish between isospectral manifolds, generically interactions can hear the difference between them. Furthermore, interactions also give rise to corrections to the masses of the eigenmodes.

We have taken the ’very’ toy model of a scalar field and p-forms on the compact manifold without boundary. Our analysis can be generalized to include fermions, gauge fields with non-trivial bundles, gravity, and etc. It would be interesting to extend our analysis to manifolds with boundaries since in some cases the boundaries could have the physical interpretation as branes 191919For example, the end-of-the-world branes in the strongly coupled heterotic string theory .. Another interesting direction is to analyze the possible non-commutative deformations of a manifold. Following the work of Connes one can find non-commutative isospectral deformations of a manifold that in principle are spectrally rigid, e.g., a sphere. For instance, it was shown in  that any compact Riemannian spin manifold whose isometry group has rank $`r2`$ admits isospectral deformations to noncommutative geometries.

Many interesting questions remain: Can be hear the holonomy group of a manifold? Can we find two isospectral Calabi-Yau’s? How can other fields distinguish isospectral manifolds? We hope to return to some of these issues in the future.

## Acknowledgments

We thank Luis Alvarez-Gaumé, Roberto Emparan, Brian Greene, Dan Kabat, Heather Logan, Riccardo Rattazzi, Mark Trodden, Tomás Ortín and Liantao Wang for discussions. RR thanks the University of Wisconsin for hospitality during the initial stage of this work. The work of GS is supported in part by funds from the University of Wisconsin. GS also acknowledges the hospitality of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics during the final stage of this work.


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# Nonlinear stress and fluctuation dynamics of sheared disordered wet foam

## I Introduction

One of the potentially exciting features of driven, complex fluids is the possible existence of an “effective” temperature Ono et al. (2002); Berthier and Barrat (2002). Examples of systems for which an effective temperature may prove a useful idea include foams, emulsion, granular materials, and colloidal glasses (for example, see Ref. Liu and Nagel (2001), and references therein). Theoretical studies of effective temperatures using the bubble model of foams Ono et al. (2002) and the “standard model” for super cooled liquid (a binary Lennard-Jones mixture) Berthier and Barrat (2002) provide strong motivation for experimental studies of effective temperature. Understanding the nature of fluctuations in these systems is a key step toward developing an understanding of any concept of effective temperature. In this paper, we focus on fluctuations in a sheared, two-dimensional foam system: bubble rafts Argon and Kuo (1979); Lauridsen et al. (2002). Under shear, initially jammed foam exhibits elastic behavior until the yield strain, followed by intermittent “stress drops” as the bubbles undergo nonlinear topological rearrangements (for a review of foams see Kraynik (1988); Stavans (1993); Weaire and Hutzler (1999)). The fluctuations in stress, and other quantities in the system, are reminiscent of thermal fluctuations and motivate definitions of effective temperature. Previous work with bubble rafts characterized the statistical distribution of stress drops for a single system size and a small range of strain rates Lauridsen et al. (2002). The results were in excellent agreement with simulations of the bubble model Durian (1995, 1997); Tewari et al. (1999). In this paper, we will report on results for a greater range of system size and strain rate. Additionally, we will report on a number of measures other than the distribution of stress drops. In addition to providing a starting point for studies of effective temperatures, this work provides detailed tests of competing models of flowing, two-dimensional foams.

There are a number of different models of flowing foam. They all make qualitatively similar predictions regarding the behavior of the stress as a function of strain rate. For small rates-of-strain, there is an initial elastic region. At a critical value of the stress (yield stress) or strain (yield strain), the foam begins to flow. The flow in this region is intermittent, with periods of increase followed by sudden, irregular stress releases, referred to as stress drops. Where the models differ is the details of the distribution of stress drops. These differences are the result of different assumptions concerning the source of dissipation and dryness of the foam. As this work focuses on two-dimensional foams, the “dryness” is characterized by the area fraction of gas, $`\varphi `$. For $`\varphi =1`$, foam is perfectly dry, and the bubbles are all polygons. For $`\varphi <0.84`$, the foam “melts” into a froth of exclusively circular bubbles. Foams near this limit are referred to as “wet”.

Four main models of two-dimensional foam are: the vertex model Kawasaki et al. (1989); Okuzono and Kawasaki (1995); Kawasaki et al. (1992); the quasi-static model Weaire et al. (1992); Hutzler et al. (1995); the extended q-Potts model Jiang et al. (1999); and the bubble model Durian (1995, 1997); Tewari et al. (1999). The vertex model is not particularly relevant to our system, as it models dry foam. The quasi-static model is special because it does not contain any dissipation. It deals with wet foams. The results from this model suggest a power-law distribution for the probability of stress drops of a certain size occurring Weaire et al. (1992); Hutzler et al. (1995). This result is based mainly on measuring the distribution of T1 events. T1 events are nonlinear neighbor switching events between four bubbles. The extended q-Potts model includes dissipation without making any specific assumptions about the dissipation. The work in Ref. Jiang et al. (1999) focuses on the dry foam limit, but the model can treat wet foams. These simulations suggest that a quasi-static limit does not exist for foam. In other words, as the strain rate is continually decreased, the properties of the flow continue to change. Also, they report a transition, as a function of disorder, from a viscoelastic solid to a viscoelastic fluid. The signature of this change was the fact that sufficiently disordered foams displayed no yield strain. Instead, such foams flowed immediately upon the application of shear. Finally, this work suggests that the distribution of energy drops in sheared foam obeys a power-law. However, the distribution of T1 events does not. The bubble model is applicable to wet foams, and its main prediction with regard to stress drops is a power-law distribution for small stress drops with an exponential cutoff at larger stress drop magnitudes Durian (1995, 1997); Tewari et al. (1999). In contrast to the q-Potts model, the bubble model does predict a quasi-static limit for flowing foams.

Experiments with foam have yielded various results. Indirect studies of three-dimensional foam using diffusive wave spectroscopy suggest a cutoff to the nonlinear rearrangements Gopal and Durian (1995). Studies of T1 events using two-dimensional foams agree with these results Dennin and Knobler (1997). These experiments used the gas-liquid coexistence region of Langmuir monolayers to make truly two-dimensional foams. Experiments using quasi-static shear of a single layer of bubbles between glass plates suggest that there may be system-wide events, suggesting a possible power-law behavior Kader and Earnshaw (1999). Work with bubble rafts (a single layer of bubbles on the surface of water) showed that the distribution of stress drops for a system of approximately 900 bubbles exhibited the exponential cutoff predicted by the bubble model Lauridsen et al. (2002). In order to further test the agreement with the bubble model, we have extended the work in Ref. Lauridsen et al. (2002) to a wide range of system sizes and strain rates. Furthermore, in addition to reporting on the distribution of stress drops, we also measure the rate of stress drops, the average stress (which gives the viscosity), and the normalized stress fluctuation. We establish that the cutoff in stress drops is not a finite size effect. Also, we show that for this system there is a well-defined quasi-static limit, as predicted by the bubble model. Finally, we will discuss the apparent dependence of some of the properties on system size and strain rate. The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section II describes the experimental techniques. Section III presents the results. Section IV discusses the results in context of the various models of foams.

## II Experimental Details

A standard bubble raft Argon and Kuo (1979) provides a nice model system for studying two-dimensional foams. Bubble rafts consist of a layer of bubbles floating on the surface of water. The motion of the bubbles is essentially all in the plane defined by the water surface. However, it should be noted that the system is not an ideal, two-dimensional system, as some motion is possible perpendicular to the surface. However, in all of our experiments, the bubbles were monitored with video cameras, and no motion was observable perpendicular to the water surface. The bubble raft was produced by flowing regulated nitrogen gas through a hypodermic needle into a homogeneous solution of 82.0% by volume glycerine, 14.5% by volume deionized water, 1.50% by volume triethanolamine, and 2.00% by volume oleic acid. The bubble size was dependent on the nitrogen flow rate, which we varied using a needle valve. The bubble diameter ranged from 2 to 6 mm, with most bubbles in the 3 to 4 mm range. The resulting bubbles were spooned into a cylindrical Couette viscometer described in detail in Ref. Ghaskadvi and Dennin (1998). This produced a two-dimensional, wet foam on a homogeneous liquid substrate of 80% by volume deionized water, 15% by volume glycerine, and 5.0% by volume Miracle Bubbles (Imperial Toy Corp.) The Couette viscometer consists of a shallow dish that contains the liquid substrate. Two concentric Teflon rings are placed vertically in the dish. The outer ring consists of twelve segmented pieces and has an adjustable radius. The inner ring, or rotor, has a radius $`r=4.0\mathrm{cm}`$ and was suspended by a wire to form a torsion pendulum. Polypropylene balls with a 4 mm diameter were epoxied to the circumference of the inner rotor to prevent the innermost row of bubbles from slipping. The outermost row of bubbles was monitored, and no slip of bubbles on the outer barrier was observed. Figure 1 is a top view of a typical bubble raft in our apparatus. Portions of the two Teflon rings are visible.

To shear the foam, the outer Teflon barrier was rotated at a constant angular velocity in the range 0.0005 rad/s to 0.5 rad/s. The torque, $`\tau `$, on the inner rotor was monitored by recording the angular position of the inner rotor (and thus the angular displacement of the torsion wire) twice per second. The angular position was measured using magnetic flux techniques described in detail in Ref. Ghaskadvi and Dennin (1998). This data was recorded by a 12-bit analog-to-digital converter and stored on a PC. The tangential stress, $`\sigma `$, on the inner rotor due to the foam is given by $`\sigma =\tau /(2\pi r^2)`$. During periods without any rearrangements, the fluctuations in the stress were at the level of one bit, corresponding to changes in stress of $`2\times 10^3\mathrm{dyne}/\mathrm{cm}`$. Therefore, when computing stress drops, we filtered the data to eliminate any changes in stress of $`\pm 2\times 10^3\mathrm{dyne}/\mathrm{cm}`$.

The bubble raft was constructed by placing the approximate number of desired bubbles in the trough with the outer barrier set to a large radius. It is important to note that the bubbles exhibited a strong attraction to each other. This is a microscopic detail that is not included in any of the models discussed in the introduction. Typically, two-dimensional foams are characterized by their gas-area fraction, which is the ratio of the area filled by gas to the total area. Because the bubbles actually exist in three dimensions for a bubble raft, the fluid walls (and the cross-sectional area of a bubble) are height dependent. This complicates the definition of gas-area fraction. Therefore, we used a functional definition for gas-area fraction based on the images of the bubble raft. We defined the area of gas to be the black regions within bubbles in an image and maintained constant lighting conditions so that this definition was consistent from run to run. The outer barrier was compressed until the desired bubble density was achieved. It should be noted that this resulted in a variation in the initial shear stress of the bubble raft that did not relax significantly on the time-scale of the experiments. Therefore, due to the finite lifetime of the raft, the experiments were carried out with this initial pre-stress present. Both the total number of bubbles and average gas area fraction were determined from images of a large section of the trough, assuming an essentially uniform distribution of bubbles throughout the trough. For all of the data reported here, the gas area fraction was approximately 0.95.

The stability of the bubbles was enhanced by cooling the fluid substrate to $`5^{}\mathrm{C}`$. Also, a glass cover was placed over the bubbles. The cover helped reduce evaporation and was not in contact with the bubbles. The entire apparatus was contained in a cabinet. The cabinet reduced the air flow around the apparatus, and a humidifier placed within the cabinet helped to extend the lifetime of the bubbles. The bubbles in the bubble raft did not exhibit any substantial coarsening with time. Instead, the raft tended to suffer catastrophic failure after approximately two hours due to a significant number of bubbles popping. Presumably, this was due primarily to the loss of fluid in the bubble walls from drainage into the fluid substrate and/or evaporation. Because the bubble raft did not coarsen significantly, there is no competition between coarsening and shear induced rearrangements.

## III Experimental Results

Figure 2 shows the typical behavior of the stress versus strain for strains above the yield strain. The irregular behavior of the stress during flow is apparent. This behavior can be characterized by considering the distribution of stress drops. This is shown in Fig. 3 for a system with 1550 bubbles for various strain rates ($`\dot{\gamma }`$). All results are given in terms of normalized stress drops ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma \delta \sigma /\sigma _{max}`$), where the stress drops $`\delta \sigma `$ for each run are normalized by the maximum stress ($`\sigma _{max}`$) for that run. A bin size for $`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma `$ of $`2.5\times 10^3`$ was used in plotting the distribution, with the probability of a stress drop of size $`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma `$ ($`P(\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma )`$) defined as the number of drops within each bin divided by the total number of drops in the run. The solid line is a guide to the eye and has a slope of -0.8. The distribution is consistent with a power law for small stress drops with an exponential cutoff. Because of the cutoff, there is a a well-defined average stress drop, $`<\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma >`$. The $`P(\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma )`$ for different system sizes are qualitatively the same, a power-law for small $`\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma `$, with an exponential cutoff. In order to look for quantitative differences as a function of system size, we considered the behavior of $`<\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma >`$.

The average stress drop is shown as a function of strain rate for different system sizes in Fig. 4. The smallest system consisted of $`1.6\times 10^3`$ bubbles and is given by the squares. For this system, there is essentially no dependence of $`<\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma >`$ on strain rate. For the systems with more than $`5.6\times 10^3`$ bubbles (all of the other systems that we studied), there does appear to be a weak strain rate dependence. One observes an increase in the average stress drop with strain rate, until $`\dot{\gamma }0.07\mathrm{s}^1`$. Above this value, the average stress-drop is independent of strain rate. The implications of this will be discussion in Sec. IV.

One important result is that there is no increase in $`<\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma >`$ with system size. This effectively rules out system size as the source of the cutoff. At the lowest strain rates, $`<\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma >`$ is lower for the larger systems. A possible reason for this behavior is discussed in Sec. IV.

The relation between average stress and strain rate is shown in Fig. 5. The maximum stress displays a similar dependence. Note the knee of the curve, at $`\dot{\gamma }0.07\mathrm{s}^1`$. A line is drawn as a guide to the eye, with a slope of 1/3. The overall curve is consistent with a Herschel-Bulkley model of viscosity where the stress is given by $`\sigma =A+B\dot{\gamma }^n`$ Bird et al. (1977). Here $`\dot{\gamma }`$ is the strain rate and A and B are constants. The variation in average stress in Fig. 5 is most likely due to the variation in the initial stress from run to run discussed in Sec. II. Presumably, if sufficient aging of the system were possible before each run, this variation would be reduced.

An alternate way to view the same data is to consider $`\eta <\sigma >/\dot{\gamma }`$ versus $`\dot{\gamma }`$, shown in Fig. 6. This is the steady-state viscosity, taking care in computing $`\dot{\gamma }`$ at the inner cylinder Bird et al. (1977). The solid line with slope -1 and dashed line with slope -2/3 are guides to the eye and clearly illustrate the Herschel-Bulkley behavior of the bubble raft, with an exponent $`n=1/3`$. This behavior is consistent with the shear-thinning velocity profile reported in Ref. Lauridsen et al. (2002) for $`\dot{\gamma }=0.062\mathrm{s}^1`$. An open question is the behavior of the velocity profile at extremely low strain rates, where the average stress is essentially independent of strain rate. One definitely observes bubble motions throughout the bulk of the system. However, at these low shear rates, most of the time the system is undergoing a linear increase of the stress, and only occasionally is there a stress drop. Initial measurements of the flow during such an increase in the stress are consistent with a linear profile of the velocity. However, detailed measurements in this regime will be conducted in the future to determine what the long-time average (one that includes many stress drops) of the flow profile is. This is important given measurements of velocity profiles at low shear rates that report an exponential decay of the velocity for a similar system Debrégeas et al. (2001). For our system, one issue is whether or not the water substrate dragged the bubbles. We made a number of measurements where the outer cylinder was rotated, but the bubble raft was not in contact with the outer cylinder. This was accomplished by removing the approximately the outer three rows of bubbles. Under these conditions, no flow of the bubble raft was observed, and no measurable stress was transmitted to the inner rotor. This provides strong evidence that the underlying water does not “drag” the bubble raft.

The dependence of the maximum stress on strain rate suggests the existence of a quasi-static limit. Below a strain rate of approximately $`0.07\mathrm{s}^1`$, the stress is essentially independent of the rate of strain. This was checked by considering the number of stress drops per unit strain ($`S`$). This is plotted in Fig. 7. As with the maximum stress, $`S`$ approaches a constant below values of the strain rate of approximately $`0.07\mathrm{s}^1`$.

In addition to the distribution of stress drops, we also characterized the intensity of fluctuations around the mean. We defined the fluctuation intensity, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, as the standard deviation of the stress (after the yield stress) for a given run, expressed as a fraction of the mean stress:

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }\sqrt{\frac{1}{N}\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\left(\frac{\sigma _i<\sigma >}{<\sigma >}\right)^2}$$
(1)
where the sum is over the measured values of stress and N is the number of data points for a given experimental run. Given the existence of the pre-stress, the normalization by the average stress allows for a better comparison between different systems. Figure 8 shows the results for the fluctuation intensity ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$) as a function of $`\dot{\gamma }`$ for the different system sizes. There is significant scatter in the data; however, there is a clear trend of decreasing $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ as $`\dot{\gamma }`$ increases. One consequence of this is a correlation between $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and the $`<\sigma >`$. This is illustrated in Fig. 9, where the data for the different system sizes are combined into a single plot. Again, there is significant scatter in the data, but the trend is obvious.

## IV Summary

The results presented here provide strong evidence that the bubble model provides an accurate description of the shear behavior of a bubble raft. To the extent that bubble rafts are equivalent to foam, the bubble model would also describe a two-dimensional flowing foam. The stress drop distribution, the average stress as a function of strain rate (the steady state viscosity), and the rate of stress drops, $`S`$, are all consistent with the bubble model Tewari et al. (1999). This agreement is despite the fact that the bubble rafts studied here are strongly attractive, a feature that is not explicitly in the model. One interesting result is that both the bubble model and the bubble rafts are well-described as a Herschel-Bulkley fluid with an exponent of 1/3 Langer and Liu (2000). It remains to be seen if this exponent is a generic feature of the model, and of similar models, or if there is something specific to the parameters used in Ref. Langer and Liu (2000). For example, the exponent may depend on various characteristics of the foam, such as the gas-area fraction. This dependence also needs to be tested for the bubble rafts.

Comparison of our studies with both the quasi-static model Weaire et al. (1992); Hutzler et al. (1995) and the quasi-static experiments Kader and Earnshaw (1999) raises an interesting question: is there a fundamental difference between slow but steady shear, and true quasi-static motions? The disagreement between our results and the quasi-static experiments suggests that such a difference may exist. However, it is also possible that the discrepancies are due to comparing direct measurements of the stress drops with sizes of spatial rearrangements. Future work with our system will look at both the issue of quasi-static steps versus steady shear and the spatial extent of rearrangements.

With regard to the extended q-Potts model, this work raises some important questions. Two clear predictions of that model are: (1) there is no quasi-static limit; and (2) a sufficiently disordered foam no longer has a yield strain Jiang et al. (1999). Neither behavior was observed in our experiments. At this point, one would need to do further work to determine if there was something fundamentally missing from the q-Potts model that results in this disagreement. The other possibility is that our foams were either not sufficiently disordered to be accurately described by the q-Potts model or they were not sufficiently dry, as the simulations in Ref. Jiang et al. (1999) were for dry foam. Therefore, future experiments will focus on the role of disorder and the wetness of the foam.

Though not conclusive, the behavior of the average stress drop as a function of system size and strain rate, shown in Fig. 4, suggests some interesting behavior. The large decrease in $`<\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma >`$ as a function of system size is surprising. One possible explanation involves the spatial correlations between bubble rearrangements that produce the stress drops. As the system size increases, there are more spatial locations at which rearrangements can occur. For low enough strain rates, there will be an intermediate range of systems size for which this increases the probability of isolated small stress drops occurring. Once one region slips, enough stress is relieved that the other regions do not rearrange until a sufficiently later time that they are recorded as a new stress drop. Such dynamics would result in a decrease in the average stress drop with system size. Eventually, as the system size increases even more, this behavior should “smooth” out the dynamics, as small stress drops occur almost continuously. Presumably, this happens in large, three-dimensional samples. On the other hand, for these intermediate size systems, as the strain rate is increased, the stress releases occur closer together. This increases the likelihood of multiple small events in different spatial locations combining to form larger stress drops. Therefore, one observes an increase in the average stress drop as a function of strain rate. Eventually, as the system crosses over to more fluid-like behavior, there is again a “smoothing” of the dynamics. In this regime, the average stress drop becomes independent of strain rate. Clearly, more work is needed, both in the experiments and simulations, to test these ideas. In particular, they highlight the importance of measuring both spatial correlations between rearrangement events and the correlation between the rearrangements and the stress drops.

Finally, it interesting that the crossover to “smoother,” more fluid-like behavior, as a function of strain rate, is evident in both the measurement of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and $`<\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma >`$. However, the two measures reveal slightly different behavior. As one increases the strain rate, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ decreases monotonically (see Fig. 8). However, $`<\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma >`$ becomes independent of $`\dot{\gamma }`$ at the higher strain rates (see Fig. 4). The two results are not inconsistent, as $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ measures the size of fluctuations from the mean, while $`<\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma >`$ measures the average size of the changes in stress that produce these fluctuations. Again, understanding the spatial distribution of bubble rearrangements will probably be an important step in fully understanding the dependence of these two measures of the fluctuations on strain rate.

###### Acknowledgements.

The authors acknowledge funding from NSF grant CTS-0085751. M. Dennin acknowledges further funding from the Research Corporation and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. E. Pratt was supported by NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) grant PHY-9988066. The authors thank A. J. Liu and C. O’Hern for useful discussion of the bubble model and Y. Jiang for discussions of the q-Potts model.


text:
# An Investigation of the Coupling Potential by means of S-matrix Inversion

## I Introduction

In this paper we investigate the coupling potential that gives rise to inelastic scattering by studying the total elastic scattering potential that arises in the presence of inelastic scattering. We do this by determining, by means of $`S_lV`$ inversion, the total elastic scattering potential corresponding to the elastic scattering $`S`$-matrix. This allows us to identify the dynamical polarization potential, DPP, and it is the properties of this which we can then relate to the characteristics of the coupling potential.

Boztosun and Rae boztosun1  have recently made a detailed analysis of the 12C+12C system over a wide energy range and have shown that the standard (conventional) coupled-channels calculations are unable to explain the elastic and the inelastic scattering data simultaneously and that the magnitude of the mutual-2+ cross-section is under-predicted by a large factor in the 12C+12C system. This has been a major problem for the last couple of decades, but a new coupling potential proposed by these authors solves many of these problems. This new coupling potential also successfully explains elastic and inelastic scattering of the 12C+24Mg and 16O+28Si systems over a very wide range of energies boztosun2 ; boztosun3 ; boztosun4 .

Substantial information about the effect of this new coupling potential can be obtained from the inversion process since the new and the standard coupled-channels calculations lead to different elastic scattering $`S`$-matrices, $`S_l`$. This change in $`S_l`$ can be represented, by inverting $`S_l`$ for a range of $`l`$ values, as a change in the effective local elastic scattering potential, $`V`$.

All the required experimental data (elastic, single-$`2^+`$ and mutual-$`2^+`$ excitations) are available at two energies: $`E_{\mathrm{Lab}}`$=93.8 MeV and $`E_{\mathrm{Lab}}`$=126.7 MeV. These are studied with both the conventional and the new inelastic coupling potentials.

In the next section, we review the inversion method. Sections III and IV show the results of the conventional and new coupled-channels calculations and we present our general conclusions in section V.

## II The Method

We apply the iterative perturbative (IP) method for $`S_l`$ to the $`V(r)`$ inversion as implemented in the code IMAGO Cooper . This method has been described in detail in the references Ait 93a ; Ait 93b ; Coo 90 ; Coo 92 ; Coo 96 ; Mac 80 ; Mac 82  and relevant points and required definitions are simply noted below. The algorithm iteratively corrects a ‘starting reference potential’ (SRP), here initially taken to be the square of the Woods-Saxon potential from reference boztosun1 . The quality of the inversion is quantified by the ‘phase shift difference’, $`\sigma `$. This is defined in terms of the target S-matrix $`S_l^T`$ for which the potential is sought, and the $`S_l^I`$ as calculated with the potential found by the inversion, as follows:

$$\sigma ^2=\underset{l}{}|S_l^TS_l^I|^2$$
(1)
The minimization of $`\sigma `$ usually requires several sequences of inversion iterations in heavy-ion cases as presented here.

## III Conventional Coupling Potential

We invert the elastic scattering $`S`$-matrix elements, calculated with the standard coupling potential, at a laboratory energy of 126.7 MeV, as follows:

$`(i)`$ An elastic scattering calculation is carried out without any coupling to excited states of 12C in order to verify that the uncoupled $`S`$-matrix, when inverted, gives precisely what we understand to be the ‘bare’ potential. This also verifies that our the coupled channel and inversion programs are numerically consistent. The low order moments (volume integral and RMS radius) of the potential obtained in this way are shown in Table 1, labelled ‘BARE’.

$`(ii)`$ The first excited state (single-2+) of the 12C is included in a coupled channel calculation in order to observe the effect of the inclusion of this state on the real and imaginary components of the potential. This $`S`$-matrix is inverted and the potential obtained in this way is shown in Table 1, labelled ‘SINGLE’.

$`(iii)`$ Mutual excitation, as well as single-2+ state excitation, is included. Initially, inversion fails to give a non-oscillatory potential. Therefore, the ‘SINGLE’ inverted potential is employed as the SRP for inverting the ‘MUTUAL’ elastic S-matrix, and this does lead to a reasonably smooth potential. Characteristics of the potential obtained in this way are also shown in Table 1. In each case, two inverted potentials are presented since oscillatory features tend to appear in the potentials. These potentials are, however, much less oscillatory than the ‘mutual’ potential found when the bare potential is employed as SRP. In each case, the first listed potential is smooth but gives a less than perfect fit to $`S_l`$ while the second fits $`S_l`$ almost perfectly, albeit with some oscillatory features.

The oscillatory features probably represent $`l`$-dependence in the ‘true’ potential, but are hard to interpret and make the calculation of $`J`$ and $`<r^2>^{1/2}`$ problematic. It is known that $`S_l`$, calculated from smooth but $`l`$-dependent potentials, can be well represented by $`l`$-independent potentials with oscillatory features. It is also expected from the Feshbach formalism that the DPP will be $`l`$-dependent to some degree. The oscillatory features are clearly a subject for further study, and here we simply present two alternative fits: ‘smooth’ and ‘lower $`\sigma ^2`$’, where low $`\sigma ^2`$ is defined in Eqn. 1.

Since the calculation is for identical bosons, we have $`S_l`$ for even $`l`$ only. The inverted potentials are thus less well-determined because there is less information to define the potential. It may well be reasonable in future studies of this kind to retain odd $`l`$ in order to either eliminate spurious oscillatory features or to confirm that they should be present.

The nature of the DPP induced by single-channel coupling emerges from a comparison of the characteristics of the ‘bare’ potential, first line in Table 1, with those with single-channel coupling, second and third lines. Single-channel coupling in this model induces a DPP with an attractive real component with $`\mathrm{\Delta }J_\mathrm{R}15`$ MeV fm3 and an absorptive imaginary component with $`\mathrm{\Delta }J_\mathrm{I}20`$ MeV fm3. The change in $`<r^2>_\mathrm{R}^{1/2}`$ is small but negative, in contrast to the change associated with the ‘new’ coupling, where, as we shall see in Table 2, it is positive, at least for smooth potentials.

The inclusion of mutual excitation has a significant effect on the potentials, as the last two lines in Table 1 reveal. For the surface region, the comparison of the new SRP and the total inverted potentials obtained for the mutual case are shown in Fig. 1 for different values of $`\sigma ^2`$. The total effect of the coupling when mutual excitation is included is to induce a DPP with an attractive real component with $`\mathrm{\Delta }J_\mathrm{R}35`$ MeV fm3 and an absorptive component with $`\mathrm{\Delta }J_\mathrm{I}35`$ MeV fm3. For the real potential in particular, the mutual coupling almost doubles the effect.

Two important outcomes have emerged at this stage: (i) the simultaneous mutual excitation of the two nuclei in coupled-channels calculations contributes in a substantial way to the inter-nuclear interaction, and, (ii) it is confirmed, as is clearly seen from Table 1, that inelastic coupling has a substantial contribution to the real as well as to the imaginary potential. Although this was pointed out long ago rsm , one still often encounters the statement that inelastic coupling just gives rise to additional absorption.

## IV The DPP with the New Coupling Potential

We now present the results of inverting the elastic scattering S-matrix arising from CC calculations involving the new coupling potential. The numerical characteristics of the potentials are shown in Table 2 for $`E_{\mathrm{Lab}}`$=126.7 MeV and in Table 3 for $`E_{\mathrm{Lab}}`$=93.8 MeV. The bare potential and the total inverted potential are compared in Fig. 2. The new coupling potential leads to a deepening in the surface region which can be compared with the effect of the conventional coupling inferred from Fig. 1. This deepening is quantified in Table 2 where we find that $`\mathrm{\Delta }J_\mathrm{R}35`$ MeV fm3 and $`\mathrm{\Delta }J_\mathrm{I}15`$ MeV fm3.

In contrast to the case with the conventional coupling, the added attraction is much greater than the added absorption. It is well known that light heavy-ion reactions are extremely sensitive to the shape of the potential in the surface region. This deepening in the surface region certainly has substantial effects on scattering since it has solved many of the underlying problems of the 12C+12C reaction. Just why the added attraction is much greater than the added absorption with the new coupling interaction, and not with the standard coupling interaction, is among the many properties of the DPP which are at present not well understood. It presents a challenge for future studies.

Nevertheless, it could be argued that this deepening may be interpreted in terms of the strongly deformed structure of the target nucleus and, as Boztosun and Rae boztosun1  argued, it may be related to the super-deformed state of the 24Mg by considering its two 12C cluster structure.

The minimum in the surface region and the strongly deformed structure of the target nucleus appear to be related. When one looks at the potential of the 16O+28Si elastic scattering calculations of Kobos and Satchler kobos1  and Kobos, Satchler and Mackintosh kobos2 , a minimum in the surface region is observed. In those calculations, a deep double-folding real potential has been used with two small ad hoc potentials introduced artificially and they create the minimum in the surface region. Neither Kobos and Satchler nor others were able to fit the data without two small ad hoc potentials.

On the other hand, Boztosun and Rae boztosun2  have also analyzed this reaction from 29 MeV to 142.5 MeV with the new coupling potential and successfully removed these two small ad hoc potentials by including the single-2+ and single-4+ excited states of the target nucleus, 28Si. Kobos and Satchler interpreted their effects in terms of the ‘barrier/internal’ wave decomposition. However, the present inversion results imply that the minima in the phenomenological potentials represent inelastic coupling effects. Therefore, as we pointed out, this phenomenon is likely to be related to the deformation of the target nucleus, 28Si.

The whole procedure was also applied at 93.8 MeV in order to verify the effect of the new coupling interaction on the elastic scattering potential. Inversion proved to be less straightforward at the lower energy, and problems are encountered in getting a smooth potential with the ‘mutual’ case. This is partly due to the smaller number of partial waves contributing to the inversion and also, possibly, due to an increased $`l`$-dependence at the lower energy. Once more, a number of solutions are presented, with those having lower $`\sigma ^2`$ generally corresponding to more oscillatory potentials.

The numerical values of the bare and the total inverted potentials are shown in Table 3. The first and third solutions are much smoother than the second, which however has a notably lower $`\sigma ^2`$.

For the smooth potentials we have $`\mathrm{\Delta }J_\mathrm{R}38`$ MeV fm3 and $`\mathrm{\Delta }J_\mathrm{I}28`$ MeV fm3. Thus, as at 126.7 MeV, the effect on the real part is greater than that on the imaginary part in absolute though not in relative terms. The different radial form of the DPP results in a tendency for $`<r^2>^{1/2}`$ to increase, at least for the smooth solutions. This is a departure from what happens with ‘conventional’ coupling and deserves investigation.

## V Summary and discussion

The considerable success of the new coupling potential of Boztosun and Rae boztosun1  has subjected the standard coupled-channels procedure to scrutiny. Studies using this new coupling potential may lead to new insights into the formalism and a new interpretation of a class of direct reactions. Here we have investigated the effect of this new coupling potential upon the effective elastic scattering potential by inverting the elastic $`S`$-matrix derived from coupled channel calculations. We have observed that the inclusion of the excited states of the target nucleus has an important effect on the real as well as the imaginary potential.

When the standard coupling interaction, the added attraction is almost the same as the added absorption. However, with the new coupling interaction, the added attraction is much greater than the added absorption. This deep attraction creates a deepening in the surface region for the total inverted potential as shown in Fig. 2, and this solves many of the underlying problems of the 12C+12C, 12C+24Mg and 16O+28Si systems over a very wide energy range boztosun2 ; boztosun3 ; boztosun4 ; boztosun5 . With the standard coupling potential, $`<r^2>_{\mathrm{R},\mathrm{I}}^{1/2}`$, $`R_{\mathrm{rms}}`$, tends to decrease, but with the new coupling it tends to increase. Understanding why $`R_{\mathrm{rms}}`$ increases with the new, but not with the standard, coupling potential is a challenge for further studies. For unstable nuclei, elastic scattering is a source of nuclear size information, so an understanding of how inelastic processes modify $`<r^2>^{1/2}`$ is important.

## VI Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Drs W.D.M. Rae, Y. Nedjadi, S. Ait-Tahar, B. Buck, A.M. Merchant and Professor B.R. Fulton for valuable discussions and encouragements.