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# On ’t Hooft’s loop operator1footnote 11footnote 1supported by DFG - RE 856/5-1

## I Introduction

In a gauge theory all physical information is contained in (all possible) Wilson loops

$`W[A](C)=P\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \underset{C}{}}𝑑x_\mu A_\mu (x)\right),`$ (1)
where $`A`$ is the algebra valued gauge field222Strictly speaking it would be sufficient to consider the trace of $`W[A](C)`$. Note also, that we use anti-hermitian generators of the gauge group.. This is the basis of the so-called loop space formulation of gauge theory. The expectation value of a temporal Wilson loop $`<W(C)>`$ shows an area law in the confined phase, but screening of the color charges carried by the loop in the deconfined phase. Thus the temporal Wilson loop can serve as an order parameter to distinguish the two phases of Yang-Mills theory.

Another order (or more precisely “disorder”) parameter of Yang-Mills theory was introduced by ’t Hooft and is commonly refered to as ’t Hooft loop. This (dis-) order parameter is in a certain sense dual to the Wilson loop and is defined in the following way: Consider Yang-Mills theory in the Hamiltonian formulation (which assumes Weyl gauge $`A_0=0`$), where the spatial components of the gauge field $`\stackrel{}{A}(\stackrel{}{x})`$ are the coordinates of the theory. (More precisely in this context $`\stackrel{}{A}(\stackrel{}{x})`$ has to be understood as the quantum mechanical “operator” of the canonical coordinate. In the following we will indicate quantum mechanical operators by a hat “^”). The operator for a spatial Wilson loop $`\widehat{W}(C)`$ is given by eq. (1) as $`\widehat{W}(C)=W[\widehat{A}](C)`$, where $`C`$ is a loop in ordinary three-space $`^3`$. The operator of ’t Hooft’s loop $`\widehat{V}(C)`$ is then defined by its commutation relation with the operator of the Wilson loop (1):

$`\widehat{V}\left(C_1\right)\widehat{W}\left(C_2\right)=Z^{L(C_1,C_2)}\widehat{W}\left(C_2\right)\widehat{V}\left(C_1\right).`$ (2)
Here $`Z`$ denotes an element of the center of the gauge group (which is $`Z(N)`$ for gauge group $`SU(N)`$) and

$`L(C_1,C_2)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{C_1}{}}𝑑x_i{\displaystyle \underset{C_2}{}}𝑑y_jϵ_{ijk}{\displaystyle \frac{x_ky_k}{|\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{y}|^3}}`$ (3)
is the Gaussian linking number between the two spatial loops $`C_1,C_2`$.

Like the temporal Wilson loop the expectation value of the (spatial) ’t Hooft loop can serve as an order parameter to distinguish the two phases of Yang-Mills theory. As argued by ’t Hooft 1  in the confined phase the expectation value of the spatial ’t Hooft loop operator $`<\widehat{V}(C)>`$ satisfies a perimeter law (at zero temperature), while in the deconfined phase it shows an area law 1 . Its behavior is thus dual to the one of the expectation value of a temporal Wilson loop.

The ’t Hooft loop operator, defined by eq. (2), can be interpreted as a center vortex creation operator 1 . In statistical physics operators, creating topological excitations, like vortices, are referred to as disorder operators. Their expectation values, referred to as disorder parameters, are related to the free energy of the associated topological excitations.

An explicit realization of a vortex creation operator can be easily given on the lattice, where center vortices represent co-closed $`D2`$ dimensional hypersurfaces of plaquettes being equal to a non-trivial center element333Strictly speaking the vortex surfaces leave on the dual lattice.. The expectation values of the creation operator of vortices wrapping around the periodic torus have been studied numerically in ref. 2 .

Unfortunately ’t Hooft did not give an explicit representation of its loop operator in continuum Yang-Mills theory but rather defines this operator by its effect on the eigenstates of the gauge potential: The effect of $`\widehat{V}(C)`$ is a gauge transformation $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{[C]}`$, which is singular on the curve $`C`$, and if another curve $`C^{}`$ (parametrized by $`s[0,1]`$) winds through $`C`$ with $`n`$ windings in a certain direction then $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{[C]}`$ receives a phase:

$`\mathrm{\Omega }^{[C]}(s=1)=e^{i\frac{2\pi }{N}n}\mathrm{\Omega }^{[C]}(s=0).`$ (4)
This implies that the gauge function $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{[C]}(x)`$ is multivalued but nevertheless the gauge transformed fields $`A^{\mathrm{\Omega }^{[C]}}`$ will be single valued.

It is the purpose of the present paper to provide an explicit realization of ’t Hooft’s loop operator in continuum Yang-Mills theory. In the following we will first construct an operator that generates the singular gauge transformations defined by eq. (4). Second we will show that this operator, when acting on physical (i.e. gauge invariant) states, creates a center vortex. Third we will construct a center vortex creation operator and explicitly show that it satisfies indeed the defining equation (2) for ’t Hooft’s loop operator.

## II Generator of singular gauge transformation

In the following we explicitly construct the singular gauge transformation defined by eq. (4). A good candidate for this gauge function is

$`\mathrm{\Omega }(\mathrm{\Sigma },x)=e^{E\omega (\mathrm{\Sigma },x)}.`$ (5)
Here $`E=E_aT_a`$ denotes a co-weight vector in the Lie algebra, which when exponentiated produces a non-trivial center element

$`e^E=Z.`$ (6)
Furthermore $`\omega (\mathrm{\Sigma },x)`$ is the solid angle subtended by the loop $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ as seen from the point $`x`$, which can be expressed as

$`\omega (\mathrm{\Sigma },x)={\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{\Sigma }}{}}d^2\stackrel{~}{\sigma }_i_i^xD\left(x\overline{x}(\sigma )\right),`$ (7)
where $`D(x)`$ denotes the Green’s function of the 3-dimensional Laplacian, satisfying $`^2D(x)=\delta ^3(x)`$. (We have normalized $`\omega (\mathrm{\Sigma },x)`$ so that the total solid angle of a 2-sphere $`S^2`$ is unity.) A deformation of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ keeping its boundary $`C=\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ fixed, leaves $`\omega (\mathrm{\Sigma },x)`$ invariant, unless $`x`$ crosses $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. When $`x`$ crosses the surface $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ the solid angle $`\omega (\mathrm{\Sigma },x)`$ jumps by $`\pm 1`$ and accordingly the gauge function (5) changes by a center element, eq. (6).

However, as defined by (5), $`\mathrm{\Omega }(\mathrm{\Sigma },x)`$ is a single valued function. To obtain ’t Hooft’s multivalued gauge function $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{[C]}`$ (4) from $`\mathrm{\Omega }(\mathrm{\Sigma },x)`$ (5), we have to ignore the discontinuity (jump) of $`\omega (\mathrm{\Sigma },x)`$, when $`x`$ crosses $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ and instead use the smooth (but multivalued) continuation of $`\omega (\mathrm{\Sigma },x)\omega ^{[\mathrm{\Sigma }=C]}`$ (with the jump of $`x`$ at $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ ignored), which then depends only on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }=C`$. Let us now explicitly construct the generator of the gauge transformation (4).

The operator, which generates a gauge transformations $`\mathrm{\Omega }=e^\mathrm{\Theta },\mathrm{\Theta }=\mathrm{\Theta }^aT_a`$ of the field operators is given by

$`𝒰(\mathrm{\Theta })=exp\left[i{\displaystyle d^3x\left(\widehat{D}_i^{ab}(x)\mathrm{\Theta }^b\right)\mathrm{\Pi }_i^a(x)}\right],`$ (8)
where $`\widehat{D}_i=_i+\widehat{A}_i`$ denotes the covariant derivative with $`\widehat{A}_i^{ab}=f^{acb}A_i^c`$ being the gauge field in the adjoint representation and $`f^{abc}`$ denotes the structure constants of the gauge group. Furthermore

$`\mathrm{\Pi }_i^a(x)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{i}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta }{\delta A_i^a(x)}}.`$ (9)
is the “momentum operator” in Yang-Mills theory, which coincides with the operator of the color electric field and satisfies the (equal time) canonical commutation relation

$`[A_k^a\left(\stackrel{}{x}\right),\mathrm{\Pi }_l^b\left(\stackrel{}{y}\right)]=i\delta ^{ab}\delta _{kl}\delta ^3\left(\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{y}\right).`$ (10)
Any operator in quantum Hilbert space is gauge transformed by the action of the operator (8). For example, for the coordinate operator we have, by using (10),

$`𝒰(\mathrm{\Theta })A𝒰^{}(\mathrm{\Theta })=\mathrm{\Omega }A\mathrm{\Omega }^{}+\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega }^{}=A^\mathrm{\Omega }.`$ (11)
By putting $`\mathrm{\Theta }=E\omega (\mathrm{\Sigma },x)`$, we obtain the operator which generates the gauge transformation (5)

$`𝒰(E\omega )=exp\left[i{\displaystyle d^3xE^a\left(_i\omega \right)\mathrm{\Pi }_i^a}+\omega \widehat{A}_i^{ab}E^b\mathrm{\Pi }_i^a\right].`$ (12)
This operator leaves physical states invariant. To see this perform a partial integration in the exponent of eq. (12)

$`𝒰(E\omega )=exp\left[i{\displaystyle d^3x\left(_i\left(\left(E\omega \right)^a\mathrm{\Pi }_i^a(x)\right)\omega E^a\widehat{D}_i^{ab}\mathrm{\Pi }_i^b(x)\right)}\right].`$ (13)
The first term in the exponent can be converted into a surface integral, which vanishes as the solid angle $`\omega (\mathrm{\Sigma },x)`$ vanishes for $`\stackrel{}{x}^2\mathrm{}`$444In fact, this term can be shown to vanish for all topologically trivial gauge transformation with zero winding number $`n[\mathrm{\Omega }]\mathrm{\Pi }_3\left(S_3\right)`$. The second term in the exponent of eq. (13) vanishes, when acting on gauge invariant states by Gauss’ law $`\widehat{D}\mathrm{\Pi }|\mathrm{\Psi }>=0`$. Thus, when taking the operator $`𝒰(E\omega )`$ literally it has no effect on physical states. However, this operator becomes non-trivial, when one neglects the singular part of $`_i\omega `$, which arises from the jump of $`\omega (\mathrm{\Sigma },x)`$ by $`\pm 1`$, when $`x`$ crosses the surface $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. Then this operator generates precisely the desired multivalued gauge transformation (4), which defines the effect of ’t Hooft’s loop operator. Thus eq. (12), ignoring the singular part of $`_i\omega `$ should give an explicit realization of ’t Hooft’s loop operator. In fact such an operator (12) was considered in ref.4  for planar loops as an explicit realization of the ’t Hooft loop operator, but it was not shown that this operator satisfies the defining eq. (2). In this paper we will explicitly show, that the so defined operator (12) (again with the singular piece of $`_i\omega `$ omitted) is gauge equivalent to a center vortex creation operator and that the latter will satisfy ’t Hooft’s loop algebra (2).

## III Center vortex creation operator

Let us now explicitly work out the effect of ignoring the singular part of $`\omega `$. One can show that 3

$`\mathrm{\Omega }(\mathrm{\Sigma },x)\mathrm{\Omega }^{}(\mathrm{\Sigma },x)=E\omega (\mathrm{\Sigma },x)=a(\mathrm{\Sigma },x)𝒜(\mathrm{\Sigma },x),`$ (14)
where

$`𝒜_i(\mathrm{\Sigma },x)=E{\displaystyle _\mathrm{\Sigma }}d^2\stackrel{~}{\sigma }_i\delta ^3\left(x\overline{x}(\sigma )\right),`$ (15)
$`a_i(\mathrm{\Sigma },x)=E{\displaystyle _\mathrm{\Sigma }}𝑑\overline{x}_kϵ_{kij}_j^{\overline{x}}D\left(x\overline{x}\right).`$ (16)
Here $`\overline{x}_i(\sigma )`$ denotes a parameterization of the 2-dimensional open surface $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. Furthermore $`a(\mathrm{\Sigma },x)`$ and $`𝒜(\mathrm{\Sigma },x)`$ represent the smooth and the singular part of $`E\omega `$, respectively. The singular part $`𝒜(\mathrm{\Sigma },x)`$ arises precisely from the jump of $`\omega (\mathrm{\Sigma },x)`$, when $`x`$ crosses $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. From the physical point of view $`a(\mathrm{\Sigma },x)`$ and $`𝒜(\mathrm{\Sigma },x)`$ are different gauge representations of one and the same center vortex located at $`C=\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. An ideal center vortex field $`𝒜(C_1)`$, whose flux is located at a loop $`C_1`$ is defined by its property that it produces a non-trivial center element for Wilson loops $`C_2`$ non-trivially (modulo N) linked to the loop $`C_1`$, i.e.

$`W\left[𝒜\left(C_1\right)\right]\left(C_2\right)=Z^{L(C_1,C_2)},`$ (17)
where $`L(C_1,C_2)`$ is the Gaussian linking number (3). Indeed the two potentials (15), (16) satisfy

$`{\displaystyle \underset{C}{}}𝑑x_i𝒜_i(\mathrm{\Sigma },x)`$ $`=`$ $`EI(C,\mathrm{\Sigma })`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{C}{}}𝑑x_ia_i(\mathrm{\Sigma },x)`$ $`=`$ $`EL(C,\mathrm{\Sigma }),`$ (18)
where $`I(C,\mathrm{\Sigma })`$ is the intersection number between the loop $`C`$ and the open surface $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. Since $`I(C,\mathrm{\Sigma })=L(C,\mathrm{\Sigma })`$ both potentials satisfy eq. (17). Note, that $`𝒜(\mathrm{\Sigma },x)`$ represents the continuum analog of the ideal center vortices 3  arising on the lattice after center projection RX , which in D = 3 gives rise to open surfaces $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ of links being equal to a non-trivial center element $`ZZ(N)`$. The boundaries $`C=\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ of these surfaces define closed loops of center flux on the dual lattice. $`a(\mathrm{\Sigma },x)`$ (16) represents the same center vortex as $`𝒜(\mathrm{\Sigma },x)`$ (15), but depends only on the vortex loop $`C=\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, and is transversal $`\stackrel{}{}\stackrel{}{a}(\mathrm{\Sigma },x)=0`$.

Neglecting the singular part of $`\omega (\mathrm{\Sigma },x)`$ in the exponent of eq.(12), i.e. neglecting $`𝒜(\mathrm{\Sigma },x)`$ in eq. (14), we obtain the operator

$`\overline{𝒰}(E\omega )=e^{i{\scriptscriptstyle d^3x\left(a_i^a\mathrm{\Pi }_i^a\omega E^a\widehat{A}^{ab}\mathrm{\Pi }_i^b\right)}},`$ (19)
which precisely generates the singular gauge transformation (4), i.e. $`\overline{𝒰}(E\omega )A\overline{𝒰}^{}(E\omega )=A^{\mathrm{\Omega }^{[\mathrm{\Sigma }]}}`$. For later use we rewrite this operator by adding a “zero” in the exponent and using eq. (14)

$`\overline{𝒰}(E\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`exp\left[i{\displaystyle d^3x\left[\left(a_i^a𝒜_i^a\right)\mathrm{\Pi }_i^a\omega E^a\widehat{A}_i^{ab}\mathrm{\Pi }_i^b+𝒜_i^a\mathrm{\Pi }_i^a(x)\right]}\right]`$ (20)
$`=`$ $`exp\left[i{\displaystyle d^3x\left[𝒜_i^a(x)\mathrm{\Pi }_i^a(x)+\left(\widehat{𝒟}_i\omega E\right)^a\mathrm{\Pi }_i^a\right]}\right].`$
Now observe that the two operators in the exponent commute

$`[𝒜_k^a\mathrm{\Pi }_k^a,\left(\widehat{D}\omega \right)^b\mathrm{\Pi }^b]=𝒜_k^a[\mathrm{\Pi }_k^a,\left(\widehat{A}\omega \right)^b]\mathrm{\Pi }^b=𝒜_k^af^{bac}E^c\omega \mathrm{\Pi }_k^b=0.`$ (21)
The last relation follows since $`𝒜_k^aE^a`$ (see eq. (15). We can therefore rewrite the operator (20) as

$`\overline{𝒰}(E\omega )=exp\left[i{\displaystyle d^3x𝒜_i^a(\mathrm{\Sigma },x)\mathrm{\Pi }_i^a(x)}\right]𝒰(E\omega ),`$ (22)
where $`𝒰(E\omega )`$ is the generator (8) of the (single valued) gauge transformation $`\mathrm{\Omega }(\mathrm{\Sigma },x)`$ (5). When acting on physical states $`|\mathrm{\Psi }>`$ this operator becomes unity ($`𝒰(E\omega )|\mathrm{\Psi }>=|\mathrm{\Psi }>`$) and the operator $`\overline{𝒰}(E\omega )`$ can be replaced by

$`\widehat{V}(\mathrm{\Sigma })=\mathrm{exp}\left[i{\displaystyle d^3x𝒜_i^a(\mathrm{\Sigma },x)\mathrm{\Pi }_i^a(x)}\right].`$ (23)
In the next section we will show, that this operator indeed satisfies the defining equation (2) for ’t Hooft’s loop operator. Before giving that proof let us show that this operator generates a center vortex located at $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$.

A vortex creation operator should add a center vortex field to any given gauge field $`\stackrel{}{A}(x)`$. Let us recall, that in the canonical formulation of continuum Yang-Mills theory the gauge field $`\stackrel{}{A}(x)`$ represents the quantum mechanical coordinate. Let $`|A>`$ denote an eigenstate of the quantum mechanical operator $`\widehat{A}`$ of the Yang-Mills coordinate with “eigenvalue” $`\stackrel{}{A}(x)`$ i.e.

$`\widehat{\stackrel{}{A}}(x)|A>=\stackrel{}{A}(x)|A>.`$ (24)
A vortex creation operator should then satisfy

$`\widehat{V}(C)|A>=|A+𝒜(C)>,`$ (25)
where $`𝒜(C)`$ denotes the gauge potential of a center vortex located at the loop $`C`$. In quantum mechanics the operator, which shifts the coordinate, say $`x`$, by an amount $`x_0`$

$`T\left(x_0\right)|x>=|x+x_0>`$ (26)
is given by

$`T\left(x_0\right)=e^{ix_o\widehat{p}},`$ (27)
where $`\widehat{p}=\frac{1}{i}\frac{d}{dx}`$ is the usual momentum operator. The operator (27) obviously generates a translation in coordinate space. Analogously the operator (23) creates a center vortex field $`𝒜(\mathrm{\Sigma })`$. Indeed from the commutation relation (14) follows

$`\widehat{V}(C)\widehat{A}\widehat{V}(C)^{}=\widehat{A}+𝒜(C)`$ (28)
and by Taylor expansion one finds for any functional of the gauge potential

$`\widehat{V}(C)f\left(\widehat{A}\right)\widehat{V}(C)^{}=f\left(\widehat{A}+𝒜(C)\right),`$ (29)
which proves eq. (25). Eq. (23) represents the continuum version of the center vortex analog of the monopole creation operator introduced by DiGiacomo at al. on the lattice 5  .

Inserting the explicit representation (15) into eq. (23) ’t Hooft’s loop operator becomes

$`\widehat{V}(C)=e^{i\underset{\mathrm{\Sigma }(C)}{}d^2\sigma _kE^a\mathrm{\Pi }_k^a\left(\overline{x}(\sigma )\right)}.`$ (30)
Since $`\mathrm{\Pi }_i^a(x)`$ represents the operator of the electric field it is seen that the ’t Hooft loop operator $`\widehat{V}(C)`$ measures the electric flux through the loop $`C`$. In this sense the spatial ’t Hooft loop is indeed dual to the spatial Wilson loop, which measures the magnetic flux.

## IV Proving ’t Hooft’s loop algebra

Let us now show that the vortex creation operator defined by eqs. (23), (9) and (15), indeed, satisfies the defining eq. (2) for the ’t Hooft loop operator.

¿From eq. (29) follows

$`\widehat{V}\left(C_1\right)W[\widehat{A}]\left(C_2\right)\widehat{V}\left(C_1\right)^{}=W\left[\widehat{A}+𝒜\left(C_1\right)\right]\left(C_2\right).`$ (31)
Note, that $`\widehat{V}(C)`$ is an operator in quantum Hilbert space but not in color space (it does not contain the generators of the gauge group). Hence, this operator does not interfer with the path ordering in the Wilson loop. However, in the resulting Wilson loop $`W\left[\widehat{A}+𝒜\left(C_1\right)\right]\left(C_2\right)`$ appearing on the right-hand side of eq.(31) the two gauge potentials $`\widehat{A}`$ and $`𝒜\left(C_1\right)`$ are both Lie algebra valued gauge fields, which in general do not commute.

To simplify the expression for the Wilson loop $`W\left[A+𝒜\left(C_1\right)\right]\left(C_2\right)`$ let us introduce a parameterization of the loop $`C_2:\overline{x}(s),s[0,1]`$. Then the Wilson loop

$`W[A]\left(C_2\right)=Pe^{\underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}𝑑s\dot{\stackrel{}{x}}(s)\stackrel{}{A}(x(s))}`$ (32)
can be interpreted as a “time evolution operator” in color space. Adopting for this evolution operator the familiar “interaction picture”, interpreting $`\dot{\stackrel{}{x}}(s)\stackrel{}{𝒜}(C_1,\stackrel{}{x}(s))`$ and $`\dot{\stackrel{}{x}}(s)\stackrel{}{A}(x(s))`$ as “free” and “interaction” parts, respectively, of the “Hamiltonian” we find

$`W\left[A+𝒜\left(C_1\right)\right]\left(C_2\right)=W\left[𝒜\left(C_1\right)\right]\left(C_2\right)W\left[A^I\left(C_1\right)\right]\left(C_2\right),`$ (33)
where

$`A^I(C_1;x(s))=U^{}(C_1,s)A\left(x(s)\right)U(C_1,s),`$ (34)
$`U(C_1,s)=U\left[𝒜(C_1)\right](s)=P\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{s}{}}}𝑑s^{}\dot{\stackrel{}{x}}(s^{})\stackrel{}{𝒜}(C_1,x(s^{}))\right)`$ (35)
is the interaction representation of the color matrix $`A(x)=A^a(x)T_a`$. Note, that in the “free” time evolution operator $`U(C_1,s)`$ defined by eq. (35) the path ordering is irrevelant, since the vortex gauge potential $`\stackrel{}{𝒜}=𝒜^aT_a`$ defined by eq. (15) lives in the Cartan subalgebra. (For later use we have, however, kept the path ordering operator.) With the explicit expression for the vortex gauge potential, eq. (15), we find for the “free” time evolution operator (35).

$`U(C_1;s)=e^{EI(L_{x(0)x(s)},\mathrm{\Sigma }\left(C_1\right))},`$ (36)
where

$`I(L_{x(0)x(s)},\mathrm{\Sigma })={\displaystyle \underset{x(0)}{\overset{x(s)}{}}}𝑑\stackrel{}{x}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{\Sigma }}{}}𝑑\stackrel{}{\sigma }\delta ^3\left(x\overline{x}(\sigma )\right)`$ (37)
is the intersection number between the open path segment $`L_{x(0)x(s)}`$ of the loop $`C_2`$ and the open surface $`\mathrm{\Sigma }\left(C_1\right)`$ bounded by $`C_1`$. Note, the intersection number, eq. (37), depends on the particularly chosen surface $`\mathrm{\Sigma }\left(C_1\right)`$. Different choices of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }\left(C_1\right)`$ keeping the boundary $`C_1=\mathrm{\Sigma }\left(C_1\right)`$ fixed corresponds to different choices of gauges related by a center gauge transformations, see ref. 3 . However, for any surface $`\mathrm{\Sigma }\left(C_1\right)`$ (i.e. center gauge) choosen the intersection number $`I(L,\mathrm{\Sigma }\left(C_1\right))`$ is an integer, and accordingly the evolution operator eq. (35) is equal to a center element (6)

$`U(C_1,x(s))=Z^{I(L_{x(0)x(s)},\mathrm{\Sigma }\left(C_1\right))}`$ (38)
and, hence, commutes with any gauge potential. This implies, that the “interaction representation” $`A^I(C_1,x)`$, eq. (34), coincides with the gauge potential itself, that is $`A^I(C_1,x)=A(x)`$ and eq. (33) simplifies to

$`W\left[A+𝒜\left(C_1\right)\right]\left(C_2\right)=W\left[𝒜\left(C_1\right)\right]\left(C_2\right)W\left[A\right]\left(C_2\right).`$ (39)
Using this relation and, furthermore, eq. (17) one finds from eq. (31) immediately the desired result (2).

A comment is here in order: Strictly speaking ’t Hooft’s loop operator is defined by eq. (2) with $`\widehat{W}(C_2)`$ replaced by its trace, $`tr\widehat{W}(C_2)`$. However, taking the trace of eq. (2) and taking into account that $`\widehat{V}(C)`$, (23) is a unit matrix in color space precisely replaces $`\widehat{W}(C)`$ by $`tr\widehat{W}(C)`$.

## V Gauge invariance

Under (non-singular) gauge transformation $`\mathrm{\Omega }:AA^\mathrm{\Omega }=\mathrm{\Omega }A\mathrm{\Omega }^{}+\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ the operator of the electric field transforms homogeneously

$`\mathrm{\Pi }=\mathrm{\Pi }^aT_a\mathrm{\Pi }^\mathrm{\Omega }=\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Pi }\mathrm{\Omega }^{}.`$ (40)
Thus a gauge transformation de facto replaces the center vortex field $`𝒜=𝒜_aT_a`$ in the ’t Hooft loop operator $`\widehat{V}(C)`$ (23) by the color rotated one $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}𝒜\mathrm{\Omega }.`$ Thus in order to prove that the result of the action of the ’t Hooft operator (23) is independent of the chosen gauge555From eq. (25) and (28) it is seen that ’t Hooft’s loop operator shifts the canonical coordinate $`\stackrel{}{A}`$ by the center vortex field. Requiring the shifted field variable $`\stackrel{}{A^{}}=\stackrel{}{A}+\stackrel{}{𝒜}[C]`$ to transform under gauge transformations in the same way as the unshifted one, $`\stackrel{}{A}`$, (see eq. (11)) implies to demand the “background” field $`𝒜(C)`$ to transform homogeneously, $`𝒜(C)\mathrm{\Omega }𝒜(C)\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$. Then the ’t Hooft operator would be manifestly gauge-invariant. we have to show that the ’t Hooft algebra (2) remains valid when the center vortex field $`𝒜(C,x)`$ is replaced by $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}𝒜(C,x)\mathrm{\Omega }`$. For this we have to show that $`𝒜(C)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}𝒜(C)\mathrm{\Omega }`$ give rise to the same evolution operator (35)

$`U\left[\mathrm{\Omega }^{}𝒜(C)\mathrm{\Omega }\right](s)=U\left[𝒜(C)\right](s).`$ (41)
Since for $`s=1`$ the evolution operator $`U\left[𝒜(C)\right](s)`$ (34) becomes the Wilson loop $`W\left[𝒜(C)\right](C_2)`$, eq. (1), from eq. (41) follows that $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}𝒜(C,x)\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and $`𝒜(C,x)`$ represent the same center vortex flux, i.e.

$`W\left[\mathrm{\Omega }^{}𝒜(C_1)\mathrm{\Omega }\right]\left(C_2\right)=W\left[𝒜\left(C_1\right)\right]\left(C_2\right)=Z^{L(C_1,C_2)}.`$ (42)
To prove eq. (41) we write $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}𝒜\mathrm{\Omega }`$ as gauge transformed of $`𝒜^{}+\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ i.e.

$`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}𝒜\mathrm{\Omega }=\left(𝒜+\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega }^{}\right)^\mathrm{\Omega }^{}.`$ (43)
¿From the definition (35) follows

$`U\left[A^\mathrm{\Omega }\right](s)=\mathrm{\Omega }(s)U\left[A\right](s)\mathrm{\Omega }^{}(0).`$ (44)
Hence we have

$`U\left[\mathrm{\Omega }^{}𝒜\mathrm{\Omega }\right](s)=U\left[\left(𝒜+\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega }^{}\right)^\mathrm{\Omega }^{}\right]=\mathrm{\Omega }^{}(s)U\left[𝒜+\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega }^{}\right](s)\mathrm{\Omega }(0).`$ (45)
For the evolution operator $`U\left[𝒜(C)+\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega }^{}\right]`$ we use again the “interaction representation” with $`𝒜(C)`$ and $`B=\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ being the “free” and “interaction”, respectively, parts

$`U\left[𝒜(C)\right](s)=U\left[𝒜(C)\right](s)U\left[B^I(C)\right](s),`$ (46)
where the interaction representation $`B^I(C)`$ is defined by eqs. (34), (35). Using the fact that $`U\left[𝒜(C)\right](s)`$ represents a center element, see eq. (38), we find that $`B^I(C)=B=\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$, so that eq. (46) becomes

$`U\left[𝒜(C)+\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega }^{}\right](s)=U\left[𝒜(C)\right](s)U\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega }^{}\right](s).`$ (47)
Using eq. (44) we have

$`U\left[\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega }^{}\right](s)=\mathrm{\Omega }(s)U[0](s)\mathrm{\Omega }^{}(0),`$ (48)
with $`U[0](s)=1`$, so that we find from (45) and (47)

$`U\left[\mathrm{\Omega }^{}𝒜\mathrm{\Omega }\right](s)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}(s)\left(U\left[𝒜(C)\right](s)\mathrm{\Omega }(s)\mathrm{\Omega }^{}(0)\right)\mathrm{\Omega }(0)`$ (49)
$`=`$ $`U\left[𝒜(C)\right](s),`$
where we have again used that $`U\left[𝒜(C)\right](s)`$ represents a center element (see eq. (36). This proves that the vortex generation operator $`\widehat{V}(C)`$ (25) does not change when the center vortex field $`𝒜(C)`$ is replaced by the color rotated one $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}𝒜(C)\mathrm{\Omega }`$, which proves the gauge invariance of the action of $`V(C)`$.

## VI Acknowledgments

Discussions with T. Tok and L. v. Smekal are greatly acknowledged.


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# A Mass for the Extrasolar Planet Gl 876b Determined from Hubble Space Telescope Fine Guidance Sensor 3 Astrometry and High-Precision Radial Velocities1footnote 11footnote 1Based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS5-26555

## 1 Introduction

In 1998 two groups searching for unseen companions to stars using the technique of Doppler spectroscopy announced the discovery of a companion to the M4 dwarf star, Ross 780 = Gl 876 (Delfosse et al. 1998, Marcy et al. 1998). This companion was characterized by $`Msini2M_{Jup}`$ and P$``$60d. Later, a second companion was detected, Gl 876c (Marcy et al. 2001), with $`Msini=0.56M_{Jup}`$ and P$``$30d. We were granted HST time to characterize the perturbation due to the longer period companion, GL 876b. The low mass of the primary ($`M_{}=0.32M_{\mathrm{}}`$), the period of Gl 876b, and the system proximity (4.7pc) suggested that even an edge-on orientation ($`M=Msini`$) would produce a detectable perturbation, thus a companion mass. A transiting companion of HD 209458 allowed Henry et al. (2000) to establish the first mass of an extrasolar planet. We report the first astrometrically determined mass of an extrasolar planet.

## 2 Observations and Reductions

Observations were obtained with FGS 3 in fringe tracking mode. The FGS instrument is described in Nelan & Makidon (2002). Each of our 27 data sets required $`40`$ minutes of spacecraft time. Data were reduced and calibrated as detailed in Benedict et al. (2002b), McArthur et al. (2001), and Benedict et al. (1999). While acquiring each set, we measured reference stars and the Gl 876 multiple times to correct for intra-orbit drift (e.g. Benedict et al. 2002a, Fig. 1). Three prime epochs (1, 3, and 4, boldface in Table 1) contain 30 or 45 observations of Gl 876 and were obtained near companion peri- and apastron, as predicted from the radial velocity (RV) data. For a planetary mass companion of unknown inclination observations with HST/FGS precision at any other orbital phase are less likely to yield a detection. To minimize the contribution to our error budget from the FGS Optical Field Angle Distortion calibration (Benedict et al. 1999), we held the spacecraft orientation fixed for the three prime epochs as shown in Table 1. The last three data sets (epochs $`79`$ at a different spacecraft roll) were obtained significantly after the bulk of the observations. They maximize the signatures of stellar parallax and proper motion of Gl 876, so that these systematic motions could be precisely modeled. Table 1 contains mean epochs for the nine distinct observation campaigns.

We obtained classification spectra (27 October 2000) of our astrometric reference stars with the European Southern Observatory Faint Object Spectrograph and Camera (EFOSC) on the 3.6m telescope. This effort yields a more accurate absolute parallax for Gl 876, reducing the contribution of distance uncertainty to the companion mass determination. Reference stars were classified by a combination of template matching and line ratios. The half-fringe produced by the FGS walk down to fine-lock (Nelan & Makidon 2002) indicated that ref-4 is a binary star with $`\mathrm{\Delta }V1`$. With a system brightness, V = 11.02, the primary has an intrinsic V = 11.5. Absolute magnitudes for these spectral types from Cox (2000), V magnitudes from FGS photometry, and an adopted upper limit AV = 0.1 from Schlegel et al. (1998) at the galactic latitude of Gl 876, produced the absolute parallaxes listed in Table 2. These enter our modeling as observations with error.

With the positions measured by FGS 3 we determine the scale, rotation, and offset plate constants for each observation set relative to an arbitrarily adopted constraint epoch. The Gl 876 reference frame contains 5 stars. We employ a six parameter model and neglect corrections for lateral color discussed in Benedict et al. (1999), because the orientation was held constant for the epochs that were expected to yield the largest perturbation signals.

As in all our previous astrometric analyses, we employ GaussFit (Jefferys, Fitzpatrick, & McArthur 1987) to minimize $`\chi ^2`$. The solved equations of condition for the Gl 876 field are:

$$\xi =Ax+By+C+R_x(x^2+y^2)\mu _x\mathrm{\Delta }tP_\alpha \pi _x$$
(1)
$$\eta =Bx+Ay+F+R_y(x^2+y^2)\mu _y\mathrm{\Delta }tP_\delta \pi _y$$
(2)
A, and B are scale and rotation plate constants, C and F are offsets; $`R_x`$ and $`R_y`$ are radial terms; $`\mu _x`$ and $`\mu _y`$ are proper motions; $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$t is the epoch difference from the mean epoch; $`P_\alpha `$ and $`P_\delta `$ are parallax factors; and $`\pi _x`$ and $`\pi _y`$ are the parallaxes in RA and Dec. We obtain the parallax factors from a JPL Earth orbit predictor (Standish 1990), upgraded to version DE405. Orientation to the sky is obtained from ground-based astrometry (USNO-A2.0 catalog, Monet 1998) with uncertainties of $`\pm 0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}05`$.

We treat reference star proper motions (from the UCAC catalog, Zacharias et al. 2000) as observations with error. Results are shown in Table 3. The standard errors resulting from the solutions for relative position, parallax, and the final adjusted proper motions of Gl 876 and the reference stars are $`1`$ milliarcsecond (mas). The resulting reference frame ‘catalog’ in $`\xi `$ and $`\eta `$ standard coordinates transformed to RA and DEC relative to reference star ref-4 was determined with average uncertainties $`<\sigma _\xi >=0.7`$ and $`<\sigma _\eta >=0.5`$ mas. Figure 1 shows histograms of target and reference star residuals obtained from our astrometric modeling, prior to including the perturbation in the model.

## 3 The Astrometric Detection of the Gl 876 Perturbation

Once proper motion and parallax have been determined, we search for any remaining systematic patterns in the Gl 876 residuals. After transforming all residuals to an RA-Dec orientation, we plot them (Figure 2) phased to a period of Gl 876b as determined by RV measurements Marcy et al. (2001), P = 61.02 days. Having phased the bulk of the astrometric observations to occur near peri- and apastron, the perturbation appears as a position difference between these two orbital phases in RA and Dec (Figure 2). The straight lines are least-squares fits to all the residuals in both RA and Dec, where the slopes in RA and Dec are 5$`\sigma `$ and 1$`\sigma `$ results, respectively. These slopes are determined almost entirely by the clumps of residuals at $`\varphi `$ = 0.26 (periastron) and $`\varphi `$ = 0.72. By definition, the total vector separation between the residual clumps at peri- and apastron is twice the perturbation semi-major axis, $`2\alpha `$. Hence, from astrometry alone we obtain $`\alpha =0.3\pm 0.1`$ mas. As in any traditional binary star measurement the photocentric orbit as measured by FGS 3 can be influenced by the brightness of the secondary (Benedict et al. 2001). Our simulations and past measurements of actual binary stars indicate that $`\mathrm{\Delta }m=5`$ is the largest $`\mathrm{\Delta }m`$ that might shift the primary photocenter by an amount equal to the astrometric precision of our final semi-major axis result discussed in Section 4. Assuming this $`\mathrm{\Delta }m`$ and any of the lower main sequence mass-luminosity relations referenced below, the system distance, period, and primary mass would predict a 54 mas perturbation. As evidenced by the small perturbation, the companion must have $`\mathrm{\Delta }m>>5`$. The barycentric and photocentric position of Gl 876 are identical within our observational precision.

## 4 The Gl 876b Perturbation Size, Inclination, and Mass from Combined Astrometry and Radial Velocities

Considering only astrometry at peri- and apastron (the two densest clumps seen in Figure 2), we could not distinguish between the inclination and orientation of the perturbation. Properly, our modeling considers the astrometry at all orbital phases. Our analysis techniques for defining orbits by combining HST astrometry and RV have been described by Benedict et. al. (2001). There we determined all reference and target star parameters (including the traditional orbital elements) in a simultaneous solution incorporating both astrometry and RV. For Gl 876 we also employ techniques to combine RV from different sources (Hatzes et al. 2000) and, additionally, apply several constraints. First, we constrain all plate constants to those determined from our astrometry-only solution (equations 1 and 2, Section 2). Second, we constrain the orbital elements K, e, P, and $`\omega `$ to those determined by us (simultaneously, for both the inner and outer companion) from all available RV data. The final constraint is the same one applied in Benedict et al. (2001), the relationship between astrometric and RV determined parameters discussed in Pourbaix & Jorissen (2000).

$$\frac{\alpha sini}{\pi _{abs}}=\frac{PK_1sqrt(1e^2)}{(2\pi )\times 4.7405}$$
(3)
where quantities derived only from our astrometry (parallax, $`\pi _{abs}`$, primary perturbation size, $`\alpha `$, and inclination, $`i`$) are on the left, and quantities derivable for the outermost companion from RV (the period, $`P`$, eccentricity, $`e`$, and the RV amplitude for the primary, $`K_1`$), are on the right.

With RV measurements complete through 2001 (Keck, Lick, CORALIE, ELODIE), all astrometric measurements, and the constraints as described, we solve for parallax, proper motion, and the semi-major axis, orbit orientation, and orbit inclination for the perturbation caused by the outer companion. The model is aware of the existence of the inner companion, and the RV are treated as a sum of the velocities due to both Gl 876b and Gl 876c. But, for now the astrometric signature is treated as a perturbation due only to Gl 876b. For the parameters critical in determining the mass of Gl 876b we find a parallax, $`\pi _{abs}=214.6\pm 0.2`$ mas, a perturbation size, $`\alpha =0.25\pm 0.06`$ mas, and an inclination, $`i=84\mathrm{°}\pm 6`$°. These, proper motion, and the other constrained orbital elements are listed in Tables 4 and 5, along with our mass for Gl 876b. The planetary mass critically depends on the mass of the primary star, for which we have adopted $`M_{}=0.32\pm 0.05M_{\mathrm{}}`$ (Henry & McCarthy 1993, Delfosse et al. 2000, Henry & Torres 2002). The first value in Table 5, $`M_b=1.89\pm 0.34M_{Jup}`$, assumes no uncertainty in the mass of the primary star. The second value, $`M_b=1.9\pm 0.5M_{Jup}`$, incorporates the present uncertainty in $`M_{}`$. Table 4 also shows satisfactory agreement for the parallax and proper motion of Gl 876 from HST, HIPPARCOS (HIP 113020), and the Yale Parallax Catalog (YPC95). If co-planar with Gl 876b, Gl 876c will produce a perturbation of order 0.05 mas.

To confirm the validity of our combined RV and astrometric modeling, we form two normal points with the residuals from the data-rich epochs 1, 3, and 4 (Table 1). We can collapse the clouds of residuals seen in Figure 2 to normal points, because the astrometric residuals are distributed normally (Figure 1). These two best-determined residuals at peri- and apastron are plotted in Figure 3. The errors are standard deviations of the means on each axis. Comparing with four of the many possible orbits permitted by the equation 3 constraint, we find satisfactory consistency with the innermost orbit produced by our derived parameters (Table 5).

We have yet to modify our model to treat the mutual interactions of the two components, which are expected to result in time-varying orbital elements (Laughlin & Chambers 2001, Rivera & Lissauer 2001, Ji, Li, & Liu 2002, Nauenberg 2002). We expect the effect of these changes to be small, because the perturbation magnitude is established using observations spanning only a single orbital period. As a check we input to our model the dynamically determined RV values of Laughlin & Chambers (2001) and obtained a companion mass equal to that found by our dual Keplerian approach. We will eventually include evolution of orbital elements, which may further reduce the mass uncertainty for Gl 876b.

GFB, BEM, and WHJ received support through HST NASA grants G0-08102 and GO-09233 (T. Forveille, P.I.). We thank Otto Franz, Tom Harrison, and Denise Taylor for useful discussions, and an anonymous referee for clarifying suggestions.


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# Electron space charge effect on spin injection into semiconductors

\[

## Abstract

We consider spin polarized transport in a ferromagnet-insulator/semiconductor/insulator-ferromagnet (F1-I-S-I-F2) junction. We find that the spin current is strongly dependent on the spin configurations, the doping and space charge distribution in the semiconductor. When the ferromagnet-semiconductor interface resistance is comparable to the semiconductor resistance, the magnetoresistance ratio of this junction can be greatly enhanced under appropriate doping when the space charge effect in the nonequilibrium transport processes is taken into consideration.

\]

There is much interest recently in incorporating magnetic elements into semiconductor structures. One of the current focus lies in injecting spin polarized electrons into non-magnetic semiconductors. This is partially motivated by the high magnetoresistance observed in ferromagnet tunnel junctions. However, experiments have so far observed a small magnetoresistance ratio of 1%  in F-S-F structures. Schmidt et al  emphasized that the large resistance of the nonmagnetic semiconductor dominates the total resistance and thus lowers the magnetoresistance ratio. A similar discussion based on a ballistic picture was given by Grundler  and Hu et al . Rashba pointed out that in a ferromagnetic metal/insulator/semiconductor (FIS) junction the resistance of the barrier insulator layer can be comparable to that of the semiconductor, $`\mathrm{\Delta }R/R`$ may be raised by a considerable percentage . Many different geometries of the tunneling junction were discussed in Ref..

Although it is possible that to lift the magnetoresistance to near 10% with a very high electric field , there is no a low field scenario yet. On the other hand, the effect of the Coulomb interaction between the electrons in the non-magnetic semiconductor in the nonequilibrium transport process was not taken into consideration in the above mentioned works. In previous works on the ferromagnetic metal/insulator/ferromagnetic metal junction , one of us found that this interaction between the electrons in nonequilibrium transport processes played an important role in the characteristics of the device. Under steady state nonequilibrium conditions, a magnetization dipole layer much larger than the charge dipole layer is induced at the interface. The magnetization dipole layer is zero under equilibrium conditions. In this paper, we consider the role played by the Coulomb interaction in an F1-I1-S-I2-F2 junction. To completely solve the nonequilibrium transport processes with interactions is highly non-trivial. It requires solving self consistently Boltzmann type spin transport equation with the Poisson equation. What we want to touch in this work is using a simple Hartree approximation to check if the effect comes from the interactions is significant. We found that the spin polarized current is strongly affected by the interaction in this approximation. Because of the large difference in the spin-dependent current between the parallel and anti-parallel configurations, which is caused by the space charge effect, the total resistance becomes dependent on the spin configuration. We found that magnetoresistance ratio $`\mathrm{\Delta }R/R`$ can be increased by one order of magnitude higher than the result obtained without the interactions under appropriate doping of the semiconductor. Typically, $`\mathrm{\Delta }R/R3\%`$ for the non-interaction electrons while $`\mathrm{\Delta }R/R`$ may attain values as high as $`50\%`$ due to the space charge. (See, Figures 2 and 3 below.) We also study another physical observable, the polarization $`P=\frac{j_+j_{}}{j_++j_{}}`$ and find that it is strongly dependent on the space charge distribution. We now describe our result in detail.

General description: We consider the junction F1-I1-S-I2-F2. The thickness of the metal (F1, F2), the insulating barriers (I1, I2) and the semiconductor (S) are denoted by $`L^{L,R}`$, $`d_{1,2}`$ and $`x_0`$, respectively (See, Figure 1). For the practical case, $`x_0`$ is less than the spin diffusion length in the semiconductor $`l_N`$. The charge screening lengths in the metal and the semiconductor are denoted by $`\lambda _{L,R}`$ and $`\lambda _N`$, respectively. In our model, we assume $`\lambda _Nl_N`$ and $`\lambda _{R,L}l_{R,L}`$, the spin diffusion lengths in the metal. Typically, $`\lambda 10^1`$nm, $`l10^1`$nm, and $`l_N>1\mu `$m. $`x_0100`$nm to $`1\mu `$m, depending on the structure of junctions. The screening length in the semiconductor, $`\lambda _N`$, is dependent on the doping of the semiconductor and can vary in a wide range, say 10nm for the heavy doped semiconductor and 100nm-1$`\mu `$m for the lightly doped or undoped semiconductor.

The problem we would like to solve is defined by the following four sets of equations.

(1) The first is the total charge-current conservation,

$`𝐣={\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{t}},`$ (1)
where $`\rho `$ is the charge density.

(2) The second is the diffusion equations of the spin $`s`$-dependent current. In order to allow an analytic analysis, we take a simple Hartree approximation into account to see the space charge effect. Under such an approximation, the diffusion equations reads

$`j_s=\sigma _s(\mu _sW_0+E),`$ (2)
where the magnitude of the electric charge has been set as one; $`E`$ is the external electric field; the chemical potential $`\mu _s`$ is related to the charge density $`\rho _s`$ by $`\mu _s=\frac{\rho _s}{N_s}`$ where $`N_s`$ is the spin-dependent density of state. $`W_0=𝑑\stackrel{}{r}^{}U_{int}(\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}^{})\rho (\stackrel{}{r}^{})`$ is the potential caused by the screened Coulomb interaction $`U_{int}(\stackrel{}{r})`$ and $`W_0`$ is the so-called screening field induced by $`U_{int}(\stackrel{}{r})`$. (In the present device geometry, the three dimensional integration is reduced to a one-dimensional one.)

(3) The third is the magnetization relaxation equation where the magnetization density $`M=\rho _{}\rho _{}`$ relaxes with a renormalized spin diffusion length $`l`$. In the relaxation time approximation, one has

$`^2MM/l^2=0.`$ (3)
(4) The fourth is the boundary condition at the interfaces

$`\mathrm{\Delta }\stackrel{~}{\mu }_s\mathrm{\Delta }W=r(1s\gamma )j_s,`$ (4)
where $`\stackrel{~}{\mu }_s=\mu _s+Ex`$; $`Ex`$ is the voltage drop on the left side of the barrier and $`\mathrm{\Delta }W`$ is the electric potential drop across the barrier, which is assumed much smaller than $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mu _s`$; $`r_s=r(1s\gamma )`$ is the barrier resistance. We assume that there is no spin relaxation in the insulator, the spin-dependent currents are continuous across the junctions, $`j_s^L(d_1/2)=j_s^N(d_1/2)`$ and $`j_s^R(x_0+d_2/2)=j_s^N(x_0d_2/2)`$.

In addition, we have the neutrality condition for the total charges ($`Q_{L,N,R}`$, e.g., $`Q_N=_{d_1/2}^{x_0+d_1/2}\rho 𝑑x`$) accumulated at the interfaces. By Gauss’ law, for the point $`d_1/2<x<x_0+d_1/2`$, i.e., inside the semiconductor, the potential $`W_0`$ is determined by

$`W_0(x)=4\pi Q_L+4\pi {\displaystyle _{d_1/2}^x}\rho 𝑑x,`$ (5)
whose constant part of the right hand side gives the constraint on the charge while the $`x`$-dependent part gives the function form of the potential $`W_0`$. Another constraint is the neutrality of the system:

$`Q_L+Q_N+Q_R=0.`$ (6)
With those sets of equations (Eqs.(1)-(4)) and the two constraint on the charges (Eqs.(5) and (6)), the problem can be solved. The formal solutions of the problem are

$`\rho ^L(x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda _L}{l_L}}\rho _{10}^Le^{(x+d_1/2)/\lambda _L}+{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda _L^2}{l_L^2}}\rho _{20}^Le^{(x+d_1/2)/l_L},`$ (7)
$`M^L(x)`$ $`=`$ $`M_0^L(1{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda _L^2}{l_L^2}})e^{(x+d_1/2)/l_L},`$ (8)
with similar solutions for the right hand side. In the semiconductor, if $`\lambda _Nx_0`$,

$`\rho ^N(x)`$ $`=`$ $`\rho ^{(1)}(x)+\rho ^{(2)}(x),`$ (9)
$`\rho ^{(1)}(x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda _N}{l_N}}\rho _{10}^{(1)}e^{(xd_1/2)/\lambda _N}+{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda _N^2}{l_N^2}}\rho _{20}^{(1)}e^{(xd_1/2)/l_N},`$ (10)
$`\rho ^{(2)}(x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda _N}{l_N}}\rho _{10}^{(2)}e^{(xx_0+d_2/2)/\lambda _N}`$ (11)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda _N^2}{l_N^2}}\rho _{20}^{(2)}e^{(xx_0+d_2/2)/l_N}.`$ (12)
$`M^{(1),(2)}`$ can be obtained similarly. All of coefficients in (8) and (12) can be determined by using Eqs.(1)-(4) and the constraint (5) and (6). The screening potential $`W_0`$ is determined by Gauss’ law. The total current is $`j=_sj_s`$. Although $`j_s`$ are not a constant, the total current $`j`$ is still a constant.

The spin-dependent current: To demonstrate the essential physics, we simplify matters by setting the parameters of the metals and barrier widths on the left and right sides to be the same: $`\lambda _R=\lambda _L=\lambda `$, $`l_L=l_R=l`$, $`d_1=d_2=d`$ and so on. The resistances of the barrier layers are taken as $`r^{(1)}=r^{(2)}=r`$; $`\gamma _1=\gamma _2=\gamma `$ for the parallel configuration and $`\gamma _1=\gamma _2=\gamma `$ for the anti-parallel configuration. To illustrate, we focus on the calculation in the left barrier located at $`x=0`$. The tunneling resistance is given by $`r_s^{(1)}=r(1\gamma s)=r_{0,s}\mathrm{exp}[d(\kappa _s(\mu )\kappa _s(0))],`$ where $`\kappa _s(\mu )_0^d𝑑x[2m(U\mathrm{\Delta }\mu _s(0)x/d)]^{1/2},`$ with $`U`$ the barrier height. That is $`\kappa _s(\mu )=\kappa _{0,s}\frac{2}{3\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{\mu }_s(0)}[1(1\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{\mu }_s(0))^{3/2}].`$ Here $`\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{\mu }_s=\mathrm{\Delta }\mu _s/U`$. The current $`j_s^L(x)`$ at $`x=0`$ is dependent on the bias voltage and the space charge distribution, which is given by

$`j_s^L(0)=A_sj_{0s},`$ (13)
where

$`A_s`$ $`=`$ $`1+{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi \lambda ^2}{l}}{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha (\beta s)}{1\alpha \beta }}{\displaystyle \frac{\rho _{10}^L+M_0^L}{E}},`$ (14)
and $`j_{0s}=\sigma _sE`$ is the current with no interaction; $`\beta `$ ($`\alpha `$) measures the spin asymmetry of the conductivities $`\sigma _s`$ (densities of states at the Fermi surface $`N_s`$): $`\sigma _s=\frac{\sigma }{2}(1+\beta s)`$ and $`N_s=\frac{1}{2}N_F(1+s\alpha )`$ where $`N_F`$ is related to the screening length $`\lambda `$ by $`\frac{1}{N_F}=2\pi \lambda ^2\frac{1\alpha ^2}{1\alpha \beta }`$. Noting that both $`\rho _{10}^L`$ and $`M_0^L`$ are proportional to the external electric field $`E`$, $`A_s`$ is solely determined by the material parameters.

Eq. (13) implies that the spin-dependent current $`j_s(0)`$ passing the interface differs a factor $`A_s`$ from the non-interacting current $`j_{0s}(0)`$ which, for the parallel configuration, is given by

$`j_{0s}^s(0){\displaystyle \frac{V}{R_N+2r_{0,s}Y_s(0)}},`$ (15)
where $`Y_s(0)=e^{\kappa _{0s}d[\frac{2}{3\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{\mu }_s(0)}(1(1\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{\mu }_s(0))^{3/2})1]}.`$ For the anti-parallel configuration,

$`j_{0s}^a(0){\displaystyle \frac{V}{R_N+_sr_{0,s}Y_s(0)}},`$ (16)
which is almost spin-independent.

The magnetoresistance: Since the total current is constant everywhere, we have, for the parallel configuration

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{R_P}}={\displaystyle \underset{s}{}}j_s(0)/V={\displaystyle \underset{s}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{A_s^P}{R_N+2r_{0,s}Y_s^P(0)}},`$ (17)
and for the anti-parallel configuration, we have

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{R_{AP}}}={\displaystyle \underset{s}{}}j_s(0)/V={\displaystyle \frac{2}{R_N+_sr_{0,s}Y_s^{AP}(0)}}.`$ (18)
From these, we obtain the magnetoresistance ratio

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }R}{R}}{\displaystyle \frac{R_{AP}R_P}{(R_{AP}+R_P)/2}}={\displaystyle \frac{2X}{2+X}},`$ (19)
$`X={\displaystyle \underset{s}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{A_s^P(R_N+_s^{}r_{0,s^{}}Y_s^{}^{AP}(0))}{2(R_N+2r_{0,s}Y_s^P(0))}}1.`$ (20)
For non-interacting electrons, $`A_+^P=A_{}^P=1`$ and one can see that $`\mathrm{\Delta }R/R`$ will not be beyond a maximal value (at $`V0`$) about 3.23% for $`r_{0+}:r_0:R_N=1:2:1`$ and decays as the bias voltage increases. In Fig. 2, we plot the bias-dependence of the magnetoresistance ratio for both the non-interacting and the interacting case with $`x_01.25\mu `$m. Here we take $`\lambda =0.1`$nm, $`l=20`$nm, $`\alpha =\beta =1/2`$ and $`l_N=3\mu `$m . After the space charge effect is included, the ratio (19) grows as $`\lambda _N`$ becomes smaller. This screening length can be controlled by doping the semiconductor (or by applying an external gate voltage). The small $`\lambda _N`$ requires heavy doping of the semiconductor. For a heavily doped semiconductor, it may arrive at the giant magnetoresistance value, say 56% as shown in the figure, which raises orders of the magnitude comparing to the magnetoresistance for the non-interacting electrons.

There are some points to be emphasized in our calculations. i) In the large $`R_N`$ limit, $`\mathrm{\Delta }R/R`$ tends to zero no matter if there is any interaction effect. ii) At zero bias, the magnetoresistance is highest. In Fig. 2, we show the dependence of the magnetoresistance ratio on $`\lambda _N/x_0`$ for different $`x_0(l)`$ at zero bias . For a given $`x_0`$, we see the magnetoresistance is also dependent on $`l`$. iii) The magnetoresistance is reduced as the bias voltage increases. We expect that the effective barrier height $`U`$, say several voltage, for the FIS interface to be larger than that for the F-I-F structure because the work function of the semiconductor is smaller than that of a metal. So on an absolute scale of voltage, this effect is not as big as in the conventional F-I-F structure. Namely, the large magnetoresistance can be anticipated at an experimental relevant bias voltage.

The polarization: We consider another experimental measurable quantity , the polarization of current, which is defined by $`P=\frac{j_+(0)j_{}(0)}{j_+(0)+j_{}(0)}.`$ We first calculate $`P`$ by ignoring the space charge effect. In the anti-parallel configuration $`P`$ is nearly zero. The polarization $`P`$ for the parallel configuration is also small if $`R_N`$ dominates but it may arrive a considerable magnitude if the $`r_{0s}`$ is of the same order of $`R_N`$, e.g., if the ratio $`r_{0+}:r_0:R_N=1:2:1`$, it may arrive at 40% at the zero bias. (In a wide range, our result is not very sensitive to this ratio if these resistances have the same order of magnitude.) $`P`$ decays as the bias voltage increases, say for $`V/U1`$, $`P`$ drops to less than $`10\%`$.

To see the space charge effect, we look at $`A_s`$. We found that $`A_s`$ are nearly independent of $`l_N`$ if $`l_N`$ is the longest length scale. We fix $`l_N=3\mu `$m and $`\kappa _{0s}d=300`$. For the anti-parallel configuration, the polarization is given by $`P^{ap}=\frac{A_+A_{}}{A_++A_{}}`$, which is bias-independent. In a large screening length $`\lambda _N`$ and $`x_0`$, e.g, $`100`$nm and 1.5 $`\mu `$m, $`P^{ap}`$ is of the same order of the magnitude as that in the non-interacting case. However, for a small $`\lambda _N`$ and $`x_0`$, e.g., 30 nm and $`0.5\mu `$m, $`P^{ap}`$ can be larger than one because $`j_+`$, $`j_{}`$ can go in opposite directions. $`P^{ap}`$ becomes significant when $`\lambda _N`$ and $`x_0`$ are getting smaller. The physics behind this phenomenon can not be well-understood yet at this stage. An intuitive consideration is as follows: The effective driving potential $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mu _s`$ is different in sign between spin up and spin down electrons, because the net charge density at the interface is less than the magnetization density . This inequality can be traced to stem from the fact that the magnetic length is much larger than the screening length. Because of this sign difference of the driving potential, the currents for the two spin components may go in opposite directions. However, this consideration has to be examined thoroughly and we shall leave it to the further works. The polarization of the parallel configuration is bias dependent. For a large $`\lambda _N`$ and small $`x_0`$ (say 100 nm and 0.5$`\mu `$m), $`P^p`$ decays as the bias voltage increases. However, for a small $`\lambda _N`$ (say 30 nm) and large $`x_0`$ (say 2$`\mu `$m), $`P^p`$ increases as the bias voltage and finally saturates. However, these bias dependent effects happen only in the high bias regime, say $`V/U>1`$. Thus, for the practical usage, this bias dependence may not be so important.

In conclusions, we have considered the space charge effect in a multiple FIS junction. In the Hartree approximation, we found a conspicuous difference of the spin-dependent current in the parallel configuration from that in the non-interaction models while the difference is minor for the anti-parallel configuration. This leads to an order of magnitude growing in the magnetoresistance ratio in such an approximation from the non-interaction model if the parameters of the junction are appropriately chosen. Although our theory is based on a specific junction geometry and a simple approximation, it has indicated that the electron interaction may play an important role in nonequilibrium transport processes for some types of spintronic devices on the spin injection. To quantitatively solve the nonoequilibrium transport processes, a stricter treatment is required.

This work was partially supported by the NSF of China. STC was partially supported by the US NSF. He thanks the hospitality of Institute of Theoretical Physics (Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing) where this work was completed.

Fig. 1 The sketch of the geometry of the junction. The quantities of the left (right) ferromagnet is indexed as ’L’ (’R’) .

Fig. 2 The magnetoresistances versus the bias voltage for non-interacting junction and the junctions with the space charge distribution. $`\kappa _{0s}d=300`$ has been taken.

Fig. 3 The magnetoresistance versus $`\lambda _N/x_0`$ in $`V=0`$ for given semiconductor sizes $`x_0`$. The curves corresponding to different $`l`$ are plotted in each diagram.


text:
# Magnetic monopoles from gauge theory phase transitions

(11 July, 2003)

## Abstract

Thermal fluctuations of the gauge field lead to monopole formation at the grand unified phase transition in the early universe, even if the transition is merely a smooth crossover. The dependence of the produced monopole density on various parameters is qualitatively different from theories with global symmetries, and the monopoles have a positive correlation at short distances. The number density of monopoles may be suppressed if the grand unified symmetry is only restored for a short time by, for instance, non-thermal symmetry restoration after preheating.

preprint: DAMTP-2002-157preprint: hep-ph/0212130

It is a generic property of grand unified theories (GUTs) that magnetic monopoles of mass of the order $`m_M10^{16}`$ GeV exist 'tHooft:1974qc ; Polyakov:ek , and these monopoles would have been produced in large numbers in the GUT phase transition at $`T_{\mathrm{GUT}}m_M`$ Kibble:1976sj . Afterwards, pair annihilations can decrease the monopole density, but estimates show that the number density would still be comparable to baryons Preskill:1979zi . Because the monopoles are $`10^{16}`$ times heavier than protons, this would have caused the universe to collapse under its own weight long ago.

This monopole problem, alongside with several other cosmological puzzles, was wiped away by the theory of inflation Guth:1980zm , as the monopole density would have been diluted to a negligible level by a period of accelerating expansion. For this to solve the problem, the reheat temperature at which the universe thermalizes must be lower than $`T_{\mathrm{GUT}}`$. These constraints are even stronger in models with non-perturbative effects such as preheating Kofman:1995fi , since the GUT symmetry can be temporarily restored Khlebnikov:1998sz ; Rajantie:2000fd  and topological defects formed even if the reheat temperature is well below $`T_{\mathrm{GUT}}`$ Kasuya:1998td ; Tkachev:1998dc . It is therefore important to understand how monopoles are formed to estimate how strong the bounds imposed by the monopole problem really are.

In this paper, I will discuss monopole formation at a phase transition that starts from complete thermal equilibrium. It is clear that this is not actually the case for the GUT transition, because of the high expansion rate and the non-equilibrium effects mentioned above. Nevertheless, the assumption of thermal equilibrium simplifies the problem significantly and makes it possible to identify the physical mechanisms that are responsible for monopole formation. Once these mechanisms are understood, their effects can be studied in more realistic non-equilibrium settings.

The symmetry broken at the GUT phase transition is a local gauge invariance, whereas most of the existing literature on monopole formation implicitly assumes a breakdown of a global symmetry. The Kibble (or Kibble-Zurek) mechanism Kibble:1976sj ; Zurek:1985qw , which forms the monopoles in the global case, is ultimately based on the observation that the direction of the order parameter cannot be correlated at infinitely long distances. Because the direction of the order parameter is not gauge invariant, this argument cannot be used in GUTs.

Moreover, gauge symmetries cannot be spontaneously broken Elitzur:im . For rather generic parameter values, there is actually no phase transition at all, but simply a smooth crossover between the phases Polyakov:vu ; Hart:1996ac . Does this mean that the whole evolution could be adiabatic and thereby there would be no monopole formation at all?

I will present an argument that shows that monopoles are still formed. This result is based on causality and the conservation of magnetic charge. In fact, Weinberg and Lee Weinberg:uq ; Lee:gt  have used somewhat similar reasoning to constrain later annihilations of monopoles after the phase transition in the context of the Kibble mechanism. As I will argue, there are long-wavelength thermal fluctuations of the magnetic charge in the symmetric phase, and they will freeze out forming monopoles. These fluctuations are physical and well defined, because the high and low temperature phases are smoothly connected. As there is, in this sense, a high density of monopoles above the transition, one could say that we are describing annihilation rather than formation of monopoles. This is obviously a matter of taste, but in any case, the monopoles do not correspond to localized energy concentrations in the symmetric phase and cannot therefore be thought of as particles.

The mechanism presented in this paper is physically different from global theories. Both involve a freeze-out of long-wavelength degrees of freedom, but in global theories this happens when the scalar correlation length diverges at the transition point. In our case, everything is finite at the (approximate) transition point but the magnetic screening length diverges in the zero-temperature limit. The reason why this freeze-out leads to monopole formation is also different. As we shall see, the monopoles formed in a gauge theory have positive correlations at short distances, which is the opposite of what the Kibble mechanism predicts Digal:1998ak . The number density of monopoles will also be qualitatively different from the Kibble mechanism.

Let us start by briefly reviewing the standard Kibble mechanism Kibble:1976sj , which is valid in the case of global symmetries. For simplicity, we shall discuss the SU(2) symmetry group only, but the same arguments should apply to SU(5), SO(10) or other possible GUTs. The Lagrangian of the global SU(2) scalar theory is

$$=\mathrm{Tr}_\mu \mathrm{\Phi }^\mu \mathrm{\Phi }m^2\mathrm{Tr}\mathrm{\Phi }^2\lambda \left(\mathrm{Tr}\mathrm{\Phi }^2\right)^2,$$
(1)
where $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is in the adjoint representation, and we are assuming that at zero temperature, the SU(2) symmetry is broken. To leading order, this means $`m^2<0`$.

We shall consider this theory at a non-zero temperature $`T`$. When the temperature is high enough, the SU(2) symmetry is unbroken. We are asking what happens if we start from thermal equilibrium in the symmetric phase and gradually decrease the temperature so that the symmetry gets broken. As long as couplings are weak, we can approximate the equilibrium and near-equilibrium dynamics reasonably well by a classical field theory with a temperature-dependent mass term $`m^2(T)`$ Farakos:1994kx ; Moore:1996bn ; Rajantie:1997pr ; Hindmarsh:2001vp . Although it is difficult to make this approach quantitatively very accurate, it gives us a way of thinking about the dynamics in terms of hot classical fields without quantum mechanical complications.

It only takes a small change in temperature near the critical temperature $`T_c`$ to cause the phase transition, and this effect is mainly due to the effective mass parameter’s changing from positive to negative. Therefore, we shall simply consider keeping $`T`$ fixed and varying $`m^2`$.

Let us now discuss the dynamics of the global theory (1). In the high-temperature phase, the field $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ vanishes on the average. In the broken phase, it would ideally have a non-zero constant value $`\mathrm{\Phi }(\stackrel{}{x})=\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$, where $`\mathrm{Tr}\mathrm{\Phi }_0^2=\varphi ^2/2=m^2/2\lambda >0`$, but this would require ordering of the field at infinite distances, which cannot be achieved in finite time. Instead, the scalar correlation length $`\xi `$ grows as the transition point is approached, but freezes out to some finite value $`\widehat{\xi }`$, which is determined by the critical dynamics of the system Zurek:1985qw  and ultimately limited by causality.

After the transition, we can imagine that the system consists of domains of radius $`\widehat{\xi }`$, between which $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is totally uncorrelated. At each point where four of these domains meet, there is a fixed, non-zero probability that the field cannot smoothly interpolate between the domains without vanishing at a point. This point is a monopole, and therefore this scenario predicts a monopole density

$$n_M^{\mathrm{Kibble}}\widehat{\xi }^3.$$
(2)
Furthermore, there is a strong negative correlation between monopoles at short distances Digal:1998ak ; Rajantie:2001ps : Imagine a sphere centred at a monopole. If the radius is greater than $`\widehat{\xi }`$, each point at the sphere is uncorrelated with its centre and therefore insensitive to whether there is a monopole inside or not. Consequently, the average winding number must be zero and there must be an antimonopole within distance $`\widehat{\xi }`$ from each monopole.

Having reviewed the Kibble-Zurek scenario, let us now turn our attention to the gauge theory. The gradients in the Lagrangian are replaced by covariant derivatives $`D_\mu =_\mu +igA_\mu `$,

$``$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{Tr}F_{\mu \nu }F^{\mu \nu }+\mathrm{Tr}[D_\mu ,\mathrm{\Phi }][D^\mu ,\mathrm{\Phi }]`$ (3)
$`m^2\mathrm{Tr}\mathrm{\Phi }^2\lambda \left(\mathrm{Tr}\mathrm{\Phi }^2\right)^2,`$
where $`F_{\mu \nu }=(ig)^1[D_\mu ,D_\nu ]`$.

At a high temperature $`T`$ and at weak coupling $`g`$, the phase structure of this theory is given to a good approximation by a three-dimensional effective theory Rajantie:1997pr , which depends on two parameters, $`g^2(T/T_c1)`$ and the ratio of the coupling constants $`\lambda /g^2`$. There is a line of first-order transitions at small $`\lambda /g^2`$ Coleman:jx , which ends at a second-order point at around $`\lambda /g^20.3`$ Kajantie:1997tt . To simplify the estimates, we actually assume that $`\lambda /g^21`$, which is above the critical value so that the two phases are smoothly connected Hart:1996ac  and all correlation lengths are finite. In particular, the scalar correlation length is microscopic Kajantie:1997tt , of order $`1/g^2T`$, and therefore we ignore scalar fluctuations. Even then, it is still possible to find an approximate crossover point, which separates a “symmetric” and a “broken” phase, and we will use this terminology although it is not quite precise.

In the broken phase, there is still an unbroken U(1) subgroup, and the corresponding magnetic field is given by the ’t Hooft operator 'tHooft:1974qc ,

$$_i=\frac{1}{2}ϵ_{ijk}\left[\mathrm{Tr}\widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }}F_{jk}+\frac{1}{2ig}\mathrm{Tr}\widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }}(D_j\widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }})(D_k\widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }})\right],$$
(4)
where $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Phi }}=\mathrm{\Phi }\sqrt{2/\mathrm{Tr}\mathrm{\Phi }^2}`$ is well-defined almost everywhere. In continuum, $`_i`$ is sourceless apart from points where $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ vanishes, and has sources of integer multiples of $`4\pi /g`$ at those points. Being sources of the magnetic field, these points are quantized magnetic charges, and therefore we call them magnetic monopoles, whether or not they resemble the ’t Hooft-Polyakov monopole solution 'tHooft:1974qc ; Polyakov:ek . It is straightforward to see that magnetic charge defined in this way is conserved, i.e., the world lines of these monopoles cannot end.

The same construction has also been done on lattice Kronfeld:1987vd ; Davis:2000kv , and the conservation law of magnetic charge is preserved. Even though we will not discuss numerical simulations in this paper, this is very important, because classical field theory cannot be in thermal equilibrium in continuum. Because the monopoles are well-defined and stable on lattice, we can consistently talk about them and the magnetic field at a non-zero temperature.

Deep in the broken phase, where $`m_M>T`$, we can treat the monopoles as point-like particles. Therefore, we have the standard expression for the equilibrium monopole density

$$n_M^{\mathrm{eq}}(m_MT)^{3/2}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{m_M}{T}\right).$$
(5)
The monopole mass $`m_M`$ is roughly $`m_M\varphi /g(m^2/\lambda g^2)^{1/2}`$. When $`m^2`$ decreases further, $`m_M`$ grows rapidly, which suppresses $`n_M^{\mathrm{eq}}`$.

If the monopoles did not have long-range interactions, they would be essentially uncorrelated and behave very much like the magnetic field in the Abelian Higgs model Hindmarsh:2000kd ; Rajantie:2001ps , albeit in three rather than two dimensions. There is, however, a magnetic Coulomb interaction between the monopoles, and we shall see that it suppresses their production. This interaction gives rise to correlations, which are reflected in the screening of the magnetic field by the monopoles Polyakov:vu ; Davis:2001mg , in analogy with the Debye screening of the electric field.

We define the magnetic screening length $`\xi _B`$ as the decay rate of the correlator of ’t Hooft field strength operators $`_i`$. In equilibrium, it is approximately

$$\xi _B1/m_B\sqrt{\frac{T}{n_Mq_M^2}}\sqrt{\frac{g^2T}{n_M}},$$
(6)
where $`q_M=4\pi /g`$ is the magnetic charge of a monopole. Correspondingly, if we define

$$\rho _M=\stackrel{}{}\stackrel{}{},$$
(7)
the magnetic charge-charge correlator is

$$\rho _M(\stackrel{}{x})\rho _M(\stackrel{}{y})q_M^2n_M(\delta (\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{y})\frac{m_B^2}{4\pi |\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{y}|}e^{m_B|\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{y}|}).$$
(8)
Using Eq. (5), we find that the equilibrium screening length behaves as

$$\xi _B\left(\frac{g^4}{Tm_M^3}\right)^{1/4}e^{m_M/2T}.$$
(9)
Because there is no phase transition, the correlators of $`_i`$ or $`\rho _M`$ cannot change qualitatively when we move to the symmetric phase. Otherwise, their behaviour could be used to distinguish between the phases. Consequently, the screening length is always well defined, and we can actually use Eq. (6) to define the monopole density $`n_M`$ in the symmetric phase. Furthermore, we expect that above the crossover, $`\xi _B(g^2T)^1`$, because the only relevant scale for equal-time correlations is $`g^2T`$ Hart:1996ac .111The scale $`g^2T`$ is generic in hot gauge theories and is known as the magnetic screening scale. This magnetic screening refers to non-Abelian magnetic fields, and it is uncertain whether it can be thought of originating from some kind of monopoles. In contrast, the field $`_i`$ is, by definition, screened by monopoles, because the monopoles were defined as sources of $`_i`$.

If $`m^2`$ is decreased at a constant rate, $`\xi _B`$ would have to grow exponentially fast to stay in equilibrium, but, obviously, it cannot grow faster than the speed of light. In practice, it would grow much slower than this. This means that sooner or later the growth rate $`d\xi _B/dt`$ needed for the system to stay in equilibrium exceeds the maximum value, and the system falls out of equilibrium. We shall denote the time when this happens by $`\widehat{t}`$.

The screening length $`\xi _B`$ can still keep on growing, but so slowly that we can ignore it if we are only interested in finding an order-of-magnitude estimate for the initial monopole density. Therefore, we define the freeze-out screening length $`\widehat{\xi }_B`$ as $`\xi _B`$ at the time when it falls out of equilibrium,

$$\widehat{\xi }_B=\xi _B(\widehat{t}).$$
(10)
At the time of the freeze-out, the monopole density is

$$\widehat{n}_M\frac{T}{q_M^2\widehat{\xi }_B^2}\frac{g^2T}{\widehat{\xi }_B^2}.$$
(11)
Note that by cooling the system slower, we can make $`\widehat{\xi }_B`$ arbitrarily large. When $`\widehat{\xi }_B(g^2T)^1`$, the typical distance $`\widehat{d}\widehat{n}_M^{1/3}`$ between monopoles and antimonopoles is much shorter than the screening length.

Even after the freeze-out, the monopole density will keep on decreasing, but this is now due to pair annihilations at length scales shorter than $`\widehat{\xi }_B`$. These annihilations smoothen the distribution of monopoles at short distances, but they cannot remove them completely Weinberg:uq ; Lee:gt . To see this, consider a sphere of radius $`\widehat{\xi }_B`$. The annihilations may reduce the number of monopoles inside the sphere to the minimum, but they cannot change its net magnetic charge significantly. While the net magnetic charge is zero on the average, it fluctuates with a root-mean-squared value of

$$Q_M(\widehat{\xi }_B)=\sqrt{\left(^{\widehat{\xi }_B}d^3x\rho _M(\stackrel{}{x})\right)^2}\sqrt{T\widehat{\xi }_B}.$$
(12)
Since the annihilations cannot reduce the charge below this, the monopole density cannot fall below

$$n_M\frac{Q_M(\widehat{\xi }_B)}{q_M\widehat{\xi }_B^3}q_M^1\sqrt{\frac{T}{\widehat{\xi }_B^5}}g\sqrt{\frac{T}{\widehat{\xi }_B^5}}.$$
(13)
We have not shown how to estimate $`\widehat{\xi }_B`$, but nevertheless, this expression is clearly different from the Kibble-Zurek result (2), because of the explicit appearance of $`g`$ and $`T`$.

Moreover, as long as $`Q_M(\widehat{\xi }_B)q_M`$, there will be clusters of monopoles of equal sign, and the number of monopoles in each of them can be large if $`T\widehat{\xi }_B^1`$. This means that there is a positive correlation between monopoles at short distances, very much in the same way as in the case of vortices in the Abelian Higgs model Hindmarsh:2000kd ; Rajantie:2001ps  and in stark contrast with the Kibble mechanism.

We can reach the same conclusions by studying the time evolution of the magnetic charge correlator in the Fourier space. We define the equal-time correlator $`G(k)`$ by

$$\rho _M(\stackrel{}{k})\rho _M(\stackrel{}{q})=q_M^2G(k)(2\pi )^3\delta \left(\stackrel{}{k}+\stackrel{}{q}\right),$$
(14)
and from Eq. (8), we find

$$G(k)=\frac{T}{q_M^2}\frac{m_B^2k^2}{k^2+m_B^2}.$$
(15)
As there is no transition, we expect that

$$G(k)\frac{Tk^2}{q_M^2}$$
(16)
in the symmetric phase where $`m_B`$ is large.

Deep in the broken phase, $`G(k)`$ approaches zero, but causality implies that very long-wavelength (low $`k`$) correlations can only change slowly Weinberg:uq ; Lee:gt . We can give a rough upper bound for the rate of change,

$$\left|\frac{d\mathrm{ln}G(k)}{dt}\right|<k.$$
(17)
Using Eq. (15), this becomes

$$\frac{k^2}{k^2+m_B^2}\frac{d\mathrm{ln}m_B^2}{dt}<k.$$
(18)
Below the transition, $`\mathrm{ln}m_B\sqrt{m^2}/g^2T`$, and if we keep on decreasing $`m^2`$, then sooner or later Eq. (18) ceases to be satisfied for $`k`$ less than some critical value $`\widehat{k}`$. The modes with higher $`k`$ keep on decreasing and we approximate the final correlator by

$$G(k)\frac{Tk^2}{q_M^2}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{k^2}{2\widehat{k}^2}\right).$$
(19)
A Gaussian fall-off like this would follow naturally from diffusion, but our conclusions do not depend on the precise form of the correlator, as long as it has a relatively sharp cutoff at $`\widehat{k}`$. The corresponding monopole density is given by

$$n_M\left(\frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}G(k)\right)^{1/2}q_M^1\sqrt{T\widehat{k}^5},$$
(20)
which agrees with Eq. (13) if we identify $`\widehat{k}=1/\widehat{\xi }_B`$.

We can also find the monopole-monopole correlator in coordinate space by taking the Fourier transform of Eq. (19),

$$G(r)\frac{T\widehat{k}^5}{q_M^2}\frac{e^{r^2\widehat{k}^2/2}}{(2\pi )^{3/2}}\left(3r^2\widehat{k}^2\right),$$
(21)
and it is indeed positive at distances $`r<\sqrt{3}/\widehat{k}`$.

As a concrete example, let us now estimate the monopole density produced in the GUT phase transition using only causality to limit the growth of $`\xi _B`$. It is clear that causality leads to a freeze-out, because the currect magnetic screening length would be proportional to $`\mathrm{exp}(m_M/2T)\mathrm{exp}(10^{28})`$ and therefore enormously longer than the size of the observable universe. This is still an oversimplification and the estimates should not be taken literally.

At high temperatures, the effective mass parameter of the theory is $`m^2(T)g^2(T^2T_{\mathrm{GUT}}^2)`$. Because of the expansion of the universe, the temperature is decreasing at the rate $`dT/dtT^3/M_P`$, where $`M_P10^{19}\mathrm{GeV}`$ is the Planck mass. Near $`T_{\mathrm{GUT}}`$, we can therefore approximate

$$m^2g^2\frac{T_{\mathrm{GUT}}^4}{M_P}t.$$
(22)
Deep enough in the broken phase, the monopole mass grows as

$$m_M\sqrt{\frac{t}{g^2M_P}}T_{\mathrm{GUT}}^2.$$
(23)
From Eq. (9) we see that the growth rate of $`\xi _B`$ is

$$\frac{d\xi _B}{dt}\frac{T_{\mathrm{GUT}}^{11/4}}{gm_M^{7/4}M_P}e^{m_M/2T_{\mathrm{GUT}}}=\frac{T_{\mathrm{GUT}}}{gM_P}x^{7/4}e^x,$$
(24)
where we have introduced the dimensionless variable $`x=m_M/2T_{\mathrm{GUT}}`$. We require that this is equal to $`1`$ for the freeze-out scale, and find $`x\mathrm{ln}(gM_P/T_{\mathrm{GUT}}),`$ and consequently $`\widehat{\xi }_Bg^2M_P/T_{\mathrm{GUT}}^2.`$ Then, Eq. (13) tells us that the monopole density is

$$n_M\frac{1}{g^4}\left(\frac{T_{\mathrm{GUT}}^{11}}{M_P^5}\right)^{1/2},$$
(25)
which we can compare with the prediction of the Kibble mechanism under the same circumstances Einhorn:ym ,

$$n_M^{\mathrm{Kibble}}\frac{g^2T_{\mathrm{GUT}}^4}{M_P}.$$
(26)
The two results differ by a factor of $`g^6(M_P/T_{\mathrm{GUT}})^{3/2}`$, which is not particularly large for realistic GUTs, but could in principle have any value.

According to Eq. (12), the typical number of monopoles in a cluster is

$$N_M^{\mathrm{net}}=\frac{Q_M}{q_M}g^2\sqrt{\frac{M_P}{T_{\mathrm{GUT}}}}.$$
(27)
This combination is, again, of order one, which means that there is a possibility of forming small clusters.

As was already mentioned, the estimate in Eq. (25) is not very precise. The main factor in this is that the magnetic charges are likely to move diffusively rather than at the speed of light. The true freeze-out scale $`\widehat{\xi }_B`$ is necessarily shorter than our estimate and therefore Eq. (25) can be thought of as an approximate lower bound and Eq. (27) as an upper bound. Furthermore, if the transition is fast enough, which may actually be the case in the GUT transition, the approximation in Eq. (5) that the monopoles are point particles is not justified and one should instead use a field theory description. Nevertheless, this simplified calculation shows the places where more accurate physical input is needed to improve the estimates.

It is also interesting to apply this same picture to cases where the GUT symmetry is restored only briefly after inflation, either because of “non-thermal” fluctuations Khlebnikov:1998sz ; Rajantie:2000fd ; Tkachev:1998dc ; Kasuya:1998td  or because the reheat temperature is slightly above $`T_{\mathrm{GUT}}`$. The estimated monopole density depends on the low-momentum behaviour of $`G(k)`$ given in Eq. (16). Because of charge conservation, the monopoles and antimonopoles must be produced in pairs, and even if they move at the speed of light, the leading term in $`G(k)`$ grows as $`G(k)n_Mk^2t^2`$. It will therefore take at least the time $`t_{\mathrm{eq}}(g^2T/n_M)^{1/2}\xi _B`$ to achieve the form (16). This conclusion can also be reached by considering the time it takes for the pairs to reach the equilibrium size $`\xi _B`$.

This means that if the GUT symmetry is restored only very briefly, for a period shorter than $`t_{\mathrm{eq}}(g^2T_{\mathrm{GUT}})^1`$, the number density of monopoles will be suppressed. In reality, the equilibration process is probably significantly slower, and therefore $`t_{\mathrm{eq}}`$ can be much larger, perhaps even so large that the bounds on the reheat temperature disappear completely. In any case, a more careful analysis of the dynamics is needed to estimate how strong the suppression is in practice and whether it solves the monopole problem in the case of non-thermal symmetry restoration.

The author would like to thank Mark Hindmarsh, Tom Kibble and Andrei Linde for useful discussions, and PPARC, Churchill College and the ESF Programme “Cosmology in the Laboratory” for financial support.


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# Status of the KASCADE-Grande Experiment

## 1 INTRODUCTION

The origin and acceleration mechanism of ultra-high energy cosmic rays ($`E\begin{array}{c}>\\ \end{array}10^{14}`$ eV) and the origin of the ‘knee’ at approx. $`310^{15}`$ eV have been subject to debate for several decades. Most commonly, it is assumed that cosmic rays gain their energy by first order Fermi acceleration at highly supersonic shock waves originating in supernova explosions. Simple dimensional estimates show that this process is limited to $`E_{\mathrm{max}}\begin{array}{c}<\\ \end{array}Z\times (\rho \times B)`$, with $`Z`$ being the atomic number of the cosmic ray (CR) isotope and $`\rho `$, $`B`$ the size and magnetic field strength of the acceleration region. A more detailed examination of the astrophysical parameters suggests an upper limit of acceleration of $`E_{\mathrm{max}}Z\times 10^{15}`$ eV . It is thus tempting to identify the knee with the maximum energy obtained by such accelerators. A brief compilation of alternative interpretations of the knee is given in Ref. . As a simple consequence of the aforementioned ‘standard’ picture, one expects to see a break at constant rigidity for all particles, i.e. protons would break off first and iron nuclei at correspondingly higher energy. This results in an increasingly heavier composition at energies above the knee.

Such a global change of composition is in fact observed by various experiments, including KASCADE  and EAS-TOP  (a recent compilation can be found in Ref. ). A rather convincing proof has recently been presented by the KASCADE collaboration  reporting preliminary evidence for a knee shifting towards higher energies with increasing mass of the primaries (see also contributions to this conference by H. Ulrich et al. and M. Roth et al.). However, reconstruction properties and statistics do not allow to clearly identify the expected iron knee at $`E10^{17}`$ eV. The primary goal of the KASCADE-Grande experiment is to uncover the possible existence of an iron break by providing high quality data from $`10^{16}`$ \- $`10^{18}`$ eV. The experiment covers an area of approx. 0.5 km2 and is located next to the KASCADE site in order to operate jointly with the existing KASCADE detectors. The combination with KASCADE will guarantee a cross calibration of the detectors and will provide full coverage from $`310^{14}`$ to $`10^{18}`$ eV.

By the time of writing this article, all detector stations have been deployed and first showers were already observed with preliminary readout electronics. Full operation will start in January 2003 and full statistics will be reached after 3-4 years of data taking. The present status of the array, its resolutions and capabilities in reconstructing the average primary composition and its verification of the hadronic interaction models are discussed.

## 2 EXPERIMENT

A sketch of the KASCADE-Grande layout is presented in Fig. 1. It consists of three different detector arrays: KASCADE, Grande, and Piccolo.

The KASCADE experiment  comprises three major components: an array of electron and muon detectors, a central detector mainly for hadron measurements but with substantial muon detection areas, and an underground muon tracking detector (MTD). The $`e/\gamma `$\- and $`\mu `$-detectors cover an area of 200 $`\times `$ 200 m2 and consist of 252 detector stations located on a square grid of 13 m separation providing in total about 490 m2 of $`e/\gamma `$ and 622 m2 of muon coverage. The detection thresholds for vertical incidence are $`E_e>5`$ MeV and $`E_\mu >230`$ MeV. The central detector system (320 m2) consists of a highly-segmented hadronic calorimeter read out by 44,000 channels of warm liquid ionization chambers, a layer of scintillation counters above the shielding, a trigger plane of scintillation counters in the third layer and, at the very bottom, 2 layers of positional sensitive MWPC’s and a streamer tube layer with pad read-out for muon tracking at $`E_\mu 2.4`$ GeV. The MTD is located in a 44 $`\times `$ 5.4 $`\times `$ 2.4 m3 tunnel, close to the central detector. It houses three horizontal and two vertical layers of positional sensitive limited streamer tubes for muon tracking at $`E_\mu 0.8`$ GeV. The accuracy in reconstructing the muon direction is $`\sigma 0.35^{}`$ . With its approx. 1000 m2 of muon detector coverage KASCADE-Grande provides a much better muon sampling fraction (approx. 1000 m2) than any other previous experiment.

Grande comprises 37 stations of 10 m2 scintillation counters reused from the former EAS-TOP experiment . The stations are positioned at an average mutual distance of approx. 130 m. They are subdivided into 16 individual scintillation detectors (80 $`\times `$ 80 cm2) read out by one phototube each. The inner four scintillation detectors are independently read out by low gain phototubes in order to provide a high dynamic range with high quality particle density and timing measurements from $`0.3`$ to $`30000`$ charged particles per 10 m2 .

Piccolo consists of an array of 8 stations, each equipped with 12 scintillator plates (10 m2/station) that were reused from the KARMEN neutrino experiment . The small array is placed between the centres of the KASCADE and Grande arrays and its main task is to provide a fast external trigger to Grande and KASCADE allowing to record coincident events with all the detectors of KASCADE-Grande. The simulated trigger efficiency using CORSIKA/QGSJET calculations is shown in Fig. 2 together with the trigger efficiency of the Grande array only. Using Piccolo, full detection efficiency is thus reached for $`E\begin{array}{c}>\\ \end{array}10^{16}`$ eV while in its absence, the KASCADE multidetector information would only be availabe for showers above energies of $`10^{17}`$ eV. A summary of the detector components together with their most relevant parameters is given in Table 1.

For triggering, Grande is electronically subdivided into 18 hexagonal clusters of 6 outer and one central station each. Requiring e.g. 4-fold coincidences within each cluster (demanding a signal over threshold in the central and in 3 adjacent outer stations) we measure a trigger rate of $`0.3`$ Hz per cluster and a total trigger rate of Grande of $`5.9`$ Hz, well in expectation with simulation results. To improve the signal/noise ratio for low particle densities, the PMT signals will be amplified and shaped in the Grande stations. Digitisation is done after transmission via 700 m long shielded cables in peak sensing ADCs located in the central Grande-DAQ station. All detector components are deployed and data taking will start in January 2003.

## 3 ANALYSIS

After three years of data taking the total exposure of KASCADE-Grande will be $`\mathrm{\Gamma }10^{14}`$ m2 sr s. This corresponds to the following numbers of collected events (including the trigger efficiency of Piccolo): $`n(>10^{16}eV)1.710^6`$, $`n(>10^{17}eV)2.510^4`$, $`n(>10^{18}eV)250`$. KASCADE-Grande will thus provide statistically significant physical information up to about $`10^{18}`$ eV.

The basic experimental observables will be: (i) the muon density at core distances between 300 and 600 m providing, after applying a fit to the observed muon lateral distribution, the muon density at 600 m, $`\rho _{\mu 600}`$, (ii) the muon production heights ($`h_\mu `$) reconstructed from the KASCADE muon tracking detector by means of triangulation (including timing information for the muons in the KASCADE central detector), and (iii) the shower size ($`N_{ch}`$) and lateral electron density profile from the extended electromagnetic (e.m.) Grande array.

The reconstruction accuracies of the Grande array have been estimated by CORSIKA-QGSJET simulations. For the energy range of interest ($`N_{ch}10^7`$; $`E\begin{array}{c}>\\ \end{array}10^{16}`$ eV, vertical showers) the shower core position can be reconstructed to better than 5 m and the shower direction to better than $`1.5^{}`$. Using not yet optimized lateral distribution functions, the shower size can be reconstructed to better than 10 % (see Fig. 3).

Typical muon densities for $`E_0=10^{17}`$eV protons will be $`\rho _{\mu 600}0.1`$ m-2. Considering a detection area of about 800 m2 for low energy muons, we expect an average of 80 muons detected on a event by event basis meaning a statistical fluctuation of about $`12\%`$.

Monte Carlo simulations using the CORSIKA package have been performed also to check the experiment capabilities for testing the hadronic interaction models and reconstructing the mass of primary CRs through the three observables $`N_e`$, $`\rho _{\mu 600}`$, and $`h_\mu `$. An example is presented in Fig. 4. Here, a $`N_e`$ vs $`\rho _{\mu 600}`$ scatter plot is shown for proton and iron induced simulated air showers. The primary composition is simply defined in terms of the mass parameter $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$, whose definition through $`N_e`$ and $`\rho _{\mu 600}`$ is shown in the same figure. The line separating p and Fe primaries best is indicated by the bold line. The mass axis $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$ is thus shown orthogonal to this line. The parameter $`\rho _{\mu 600}`$ can, as first approximation, be used as energy estimator. It has been verified that the composition can be reconstructed in a reliable way even by such simple methods. However, the later analysis will use more advanced techniques, similar to those of Refs. .

Hadronic interaction models will be studied by their differences seen in the longitudinal shower developments. Experimentally, this will be performed by the observed average relation between $`h_\mu `$ and $`\rho _{\mu 600}`$ and, to some extend, by studying hadronic observables using the KASCADE calorimeter.

## 4 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

KASCADE-Grande has been realized at the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe by a joint operation of the KASCADE and EAS-TOP detectors. The apparatus is almost completed and data taking will start shortly. Within three years of effective data taking it will accumulate sufficient statistics up to $`10^{18}`$ eV. The experiment will cover an energy range that is only poorly known, essentially from old AKENO  and the lower tail of FLY’S EYE  data. Its task is to provide more information on the structure of the knee by testing the rigidity dependent model up to the energies of the “iron” group. Moreover, it will allow to test hadronic models in an energy range not accessible to present accelerators but important for CRs physics. Finally, it will provide a bridge to the measurement and interpretation of CRs for experiments working at much higher energies like the Pierre Auger, HIRES or EUSO projects.

### Acknowledgements

The authors are indebted to the members of the engineering and technical staff of the KASCADE-Grande collaboration, who contributed with enthusiasm and engagement to the construction of the experiment. The work has been supported by the Ministry for Research and Education of the Federal Government of Germany. Special thanks also go to INFN for allowing the use of the EAS-TOP equipment to build the Grande array. The collaborating Institute of Lodz is supported by the Polish State Committee for Scientific Research and the Institute of Bucharest by a grant of the Romanian National Academy for Science, Research and Technology. The KASCADE-Grande work is embedded in the frame of scientific -technical cooperation (WTZ) projects between Germany and Romania, and between Germany and Poland.