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# Contents

## 1 Introduction

The AdS/CFT correspondence is a duality between string or M-theory backgrounds of the form $`AdS_{d+1}\times X`$ and conformal field theories in $`d`$ dimensions . There exist many checks of the duality based on studying explicit models; the most extensively studied one is the $`𝒩=4`$ SYM theory dual to type IIB string theory in $`AdS_5\times S^5`$ (for reviews, see ). One may be bold enough to argue that, whenever there exists an $`AdS_{d+1}\times X`$ solution of string or M-theory, then it serves as a constructive definition of a $`d`$-dimensional CFT, even if its conventional field theoretic formulation is lacking.111This might even be argued for an $`AdS_{d+1}`$ background of some as-yet-unknown theory of quantum gravity with a semi-classical limit in which Einstein gravity is recovered. The universal part of this construction is the $`AdS_{d+1}`$ space, while the “details” of the CFT, such as the number of supersymmetries, the global symmetries, etc., are encoded in the compact space $`X`$. It is particularly interesting to look for model-independent checks of the AdS/CFT duality which do not depend on $`X`$ explicitly. Examples of such checks include studies of finite temperature theories via black holes in AdS , calculations of quark – antiquark potential , and, quite recently, a study of dimensions of high-spin operators .

In this paper we present a new general check of the duality which concerns the change of the central charge under a flow produced by a double-trace deformation. Our check applies to all models which contain scalar fields in $`AdS_{d+1}`$ with

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d^2}{4}}<m^2L^2{\displaystyle \frac{d^2}{4}}+1,`$   (1)
so that both $`\mathrm{\Delta }_+`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{}`$ dimensions are admissible for the dual operator $`𝒪`$  ($`\mathrm{\Delta }_\pm `$ are the two roots of $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\mathrm{\Delta }d)=(mL)^2`$, where $`L`$ is the radius of $`AdS_{d+1}`$). Multi-trace deformations were first studied in the context of AdS/CFT duality in . The modification of the AdS boundary conditions by such operators was presented in  and further elaborated in . The boundary conditions were used in  to argue that, whenever a relevant double-trace deformation $`𝒪^2`$ is added to the action, then the theory flows from a UV fixed point where $`𝒪`$ has dimension $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{}<d/2`$ to an IR fixed point where $`𝒪`$ has dimension $`\mathrm{\Delta }_+=d\mathrm{\Delta }_{}`$.222This type of flow is well-known in $`O(N)`$ models in $`2<d<4`$ with fields $`\varphi ^a`$, $`a=1,\mathrm{},N`$ transforming in the fundamental representation . An $`AdS`$ dual of the flow produced by “double-trace” operator $`(\varphi ^a\varphi ^a)^2`$ was recently proposed in terms of a higher-spin gauge theory in . A $`d=4`$ model where this flow may take place is the $`SU(N)\times SU(N)`$ superconformal gauge theory of  which contains relevant double-trace operators. The difference in the Weyl anomaly produced by this flow in even dimensions $`d`$ was calculated in  using AdS methods; the result is a remarkably simple universal formula which depends only on $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{}`$ and $`d`$. In this paper we rederive this formula using field theoretic methods. Our derivation serves as a new interesting check of the duality, and it also sheds light on the origin of the universality of the result of .

Indeed, the field theory computation doesn’t even depend on the existence of an anti-de Sitter dual—nor on supersymmetry, nor on gauge symmetry. It is a general result, for any even dimension $`d`$, for any UV dimension $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{}(d/21,d/2)`$ of $`𝒪`$, and depending only on having some form of large $`N`$ expansion. Thus it has some interest in its own right, apart from its value as a check of AdS/CFT.

From the AdS point of view, the infrared CFT differs from the ultraviolet CFT only in one respect: the scalar field dual to $`𝒪`$ is quantized with the conventional $`\mathrm{\Delta }_+`$ boundary condition in the IR, but with the unconventional $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{}`$ boundary condition in the UV. This 2-fold ambiguity in quantization of scalar fields in $`AdS_{d+1}`$ with $`m^2`$ in the range (1) was originally found in , while its relevance for the AdS/CFT correspondence was elucidated in . In particular,  presented a prescription for calculating correlation functions of operators with dimension $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{}`$. At the leading order in $`N`$, this prescription asserts that the generating functional of correlation functions in the theory where $`𝒪`$ has dimension $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{}`$ is related by a Legendre transform to the corresponding object in the theory where $`𝒪`$ has dimension $`\mathrm{\Delta }_+`$. In this paper we shed new light on this prescription by combining it with the proposal of . The combined proposal then states that, in the large $`N`$ limit, the ultraviolet CFT is related to the infrared CFT produced by a relevant $`𝒪^2`$ operator through a Legendre transform. We are able to derive this result in the field theory, using the Hubbard-Stratonovich auxiliary field. As a further step, we compute the leading correction in the $`1/N`$ expansion, which follows from the 1-loop diagram for the auxiliary field and scales as $`N^0`$. The anomalous part of this determinant exactly reproduces the AdS result of , in confirmation of the AdS/CFT duality. For this approach to work it is not necessary for the ultraviolet CFT to be supersymmetric; even if it is, the relevant double-trace interaction breaks the supersymmetry.

We also remark that our treatment of the double-trace operators parallels a similar treatment given in  for $`c1`$ matrix models of 2-d quantum gravity deformed by operators $`𝒪^2`$. In particular, the integral over the Hubbard-Stratonovich auxiliary variable was used in  to compare the $`O(N^0)`$ (torus) corrections to the free energy in theories with two different scaling dimensions of operator $`𝒪`$.

## 2 Outline of the field theory calculation

Consider a conformal field theory with a gauge-singlet single-trace scalar operator $`𝒪`$ whose dimension $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ falls in the range $`(d/21,d/2)`$. The lower limit of this range is the dimension of a free scalar field, and it can be shown that a lower dimension for $`𝒪`$ would be inconsistent with unitarity. Let us also assume that in the undeformed conformal field theory, $`𝒪(x)𝒪(0)=1/x^{2\mathrm{\Delta }}`$ on $`^d`$, and that higher point functions of $`𝒪`$ are suppressed by some sort of $`1/N`$ factors, where we may take $`N`$ large. Then there is a general argument that, in the large $`N`$ limit, the renormalization group flow triggered by the relevant deformation $`\frac{f}{2}𝒪^2`$ terminates at an infrared fixed point where $`𝒪`$ is again a scaling operator, but of dimension $`d\mathrm{\Delta }`$. The argument proceeds via a Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation, as follows. Consider the partition function

$`Z_f[J]={\displaystyle 𝒟\varphi e^{S[\varphi ]{\scriptscriptstyle {\scriptscriptstyle \frac{f}{2}}𝒪^2}+{\scriptscriptstyle J𝒪}}}=e^{{\scriptscriptstyle {\scriptscriptstyle \frac{f}{2}}𝒪^2}+{\scriptscriptstyle J𝒪}}_0`$   (2)
where $`f`$ is a constant but $`J`$ may not be. The notation $`𝒟\varphi `$ indicates path integration over all the degrees of freedom of the conformal field theory, and $`S[\varphi ]`$ is the undeformed action. The notation $`\mathrm{}_0`$ indicates an expectation value in the undeformed conformal field theory (that is, with $`J=f=0`$). The Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation amounts to introducing an auxiliary field $`\sigma `$:333The determinant in (3) is a formal expression, defined so that $`\sqrt{det\left(\frac{1}{f}\mathrm{𝟏}\right)}𝒟\sigma e^{\frac{1}{2f}\sigma ^2}=1`$. The contour for $`\sigma (x)`$ should be rotated to run along the imaginary axis to ensure convergence. In Lorentzian signature, the $`\sigma `$ field may be introduced in such a way that the action remains real throughout, up to the usual $`iϵ`$ terms.

$`Z_f[J]=\sqrt{det\left(\frac{1}{f}\mathrm{𝟏}\right)}{\displaystyle 𝒟\sigma e^{{\scriptscriptstyle \left({\scriptscriptstyle \frac{1}{2f}}\sigma ^2+\sigma 𝒪+J𝒪\right)}}_0}.`$   (3)
The assumption that higher point functions of $`𝒪`$ are suppressed now enters in a crucial way:

$`e^{{\scriptscriptstyle (\sigma +J)𝒪}}_0e^{\frac{1}{2}\left({\scriptscriptstyle (\sigma +J)𝒪}\right)^2_0},`$   (4)
up to some $`1/N`$ corrections. The remaining $`\sigma `$ integral required for computing $`Z_f[J]`$ is now strictly Gaussian. If we now define three linear operators by the relations

$`(\widehat{G}\sigma )(x)={\displaystyle d^d\xi \sqrt{g}𝒪(x)𝒪(\xi )_0\sigma (\xi )}`$  $`\widehat{K}=1+f\widehat{G}\widehat{Q}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{f}}\left(\widehat{K}^11\right)={\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{G}}{1+f\widehat{G}}},`$    (5)
then it is straightforward to show that

$`Z_f[J]={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{det\widehat{K}}}}e^{\frac{1}{2}J,\widehat{Q}J}.`$   (6)
Thus in particular, the two-point function for $`𝒪`$ in the presence of the deformation is

$`𝒪(x)𝒪(0)_f={\displaystyle \frac{^2\mathrm{log}Z_f[J]}{J(x)J(0)}}=Q(x,0),`$   (7)
where $`Q(x,0)`$ is the position space representation of the operator $`\widehat{Q}`$. In the dual AdS treatment the same formula for the two-point function was obtained in .

The three linear operators, $`\widehat{G}`$, $`\widehat{K}`$, and $`\widehat{Q}`$, are diagonal in a momentum space basis for functions on $`^d`$. Explicitly,

$`G(k)`$ $`={\displaystyle d^dx\frac{e^{ikx}}{x^{2\mathrm{\Delta }}}}=2^{d2\mathrm{\Delta }}\pi ^{d/2}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{d}{2}\mathrm{\Delta }\right)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mathrm{\Delta })}}k^{2\mathrm{\Delta }d}`$  $`K(k)`$ $`=1+fG(k)Q(k)={\displaystyle \frac{G(k)}{1+fG(k)}}.`$   (8)
Expanding $`Q(k)`$ for small wave-numbers, we find

$`Q(k)`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{f}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f^2G(k)}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f^3G(k)^2}}\mathrm{}`$  for $`fG(k)1`$  $`𝒪(x)𝒪(0)_f`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f^2\pi ^d}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mathrm{\Delta })\mathrm{\Gamma }(d\mathrm{\Delta })}{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{d}{2}\mathrm{\Delta }\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{d}{2}\right)}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{x^{2(d\mathrm{\Delta })}}}`$  for $`xf^{\frac{1}{d2\mathrm{\Delta }}}`$.    (9)
The position space expression shown comes from the $`1/f^2G(k)`$ term, which is the leading non-analytic behavior of $`Q(k)`$ in the small $`k`$ limit. Using the relation $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(x)\mathrm{\Gamma }(1x)=\pi /\mathrm{sin}\pi x`$ and the constraint $`\mathrm{\Delta }(d/21,d/2)`$, it is easy to show that the position space expression for $`𝒪(x)𝒪(0)_f`$ is positive.

The power law behavior for $`𝒪𝒪_f`$ in the infrared is prima facia evidence for an infrared fixed point. Furthermore, we find that the dimension of operator $`𝒪`$ has changed from $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ in the UV to $`d\mathrm{\Delta }`$ in the IR, in agreement with the reasoning presented in  on the AdS side of the duality. In fact, $`𝒪(x)𝒪(0)_f`$ in the infrared limit and the original two-point function $`𝒪(x)𝒪(0)_0`$ are related by the Legendre transform prescription proposed in . More generally, introduction of the Hubbard-Stratonovich auxiliary field explains why the generating functionals of planar correlations functions in the infrared CFT, corresponding to operator $`𝒪`$ having dimension $`\mathrm{\Delta }_+`$, and in the UV CFT, corresponding to dimension $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{}`$, are related by the Legendre transform. To demonstrate this, define $`𝒲[\sigma ,h_i]`$ to be the generating functional of correlators in the ultraviolet CFT:

$`e^{𝒲[\sigma ,h_i]}=e^{{\scriptscriptstyle (\sigma 𝒪+_ih_i𝒜_i)}}_0`$   (10)
for single-trace operators $`𝒜_i`$. Using (3) and shifting the auxiliary field, $`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }=\sigma +J`$, we find

$`Z_f[J,h_i]=\sqrt{det\left(\frac{1}{f}\mathrm{𝟏}\right)}{\displaystyle 𝒟\stackrel{~}{\sigma }e^{𝒲[\stackrel{~}{\sigma },h_i]+{\scriptscriptstyle {\scriptscriptstyle \frac{1}{2f}}(\stackrel{~}{\sigma }J)^2}}}.`$   (11)
Now it is convenient to rescale $`J=f\stackrel{~}{J}`$ and send $`f`$ to $`\mathrm{}`$, which corresponds to taking the IR limit. Discarding the term $`f\stackrel{~}{J}^2/2`$ which contributes only a contact term, we find

$`Z_f[\stackrel{~}{J},h_i]{\displaystyle 𝒟\stackrel{~}{\sigma }e^{𝒲[\stackrel{~}{\sigma },h_i]+{\scriptscriptstyle \stackrel{~}{\sigma }\stackrel{~}{J}}}}.`$   (12)
This expression, which is analogous to the result of , may be used to generate the $`1/N`$ expansion in the infrared CFT. To pick out the planar limit, it is sufficient to find the saddle point for $`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }`$, so that the IR generating functional is a Legendre transform of the UV one,

$`\mathrm{log}Z_f[\stackrel{~}{J},h_i]=𝒲[\stackrel{~}{\sigma },h_i]+{\displaystyle \stackrel{~}{\sigma }\stackrel{~}{J}}`$   (13)
where

$`\stackrel{~}{J}={\displaystyle \frac{\delta 𝒲[\stackrel{~}{\sigma },h_i]}{\delta \stackrel{~}{\sigma }}}.`$   (14)
Conversely, the UV generating functional is a Legendre transform of the IR one, in agreement with the results of :

$`𝒲[\stackrel{~}{\sigma },h_i]=\mathrm{log}Z_f[\stackrel{~}{J},h_i]{\displaystyle \stackrel{~}{\sigma }\stackrel{~}{J}},\stackrel{~}{\sigma }={\displaystyle \frac{\delta \mathrm{log}Z_f[\stackrel{~}{J},h_i]}{\delta \stackrel{~}{J}}}.`$   (15)
Now, we go on to consider $`𝒪(N^0)`$ corrections to the leading order result contained in the factor $`\frac{1}{\sqrt{det\widehat{K}}}`$ which comes from fluctuations of the auxiliary field away from its classical value. In order to extract the central charge at the IR fixed point, it will be convenient to consider the theory on a sphere $`S_R^d`$ of radius $`R`$. Conformally mapping $`𝐑^d`$ to $`S_R^d`$ (via a stereographic projection, for example), one can easily show that

$`𝒪(x_1)𝒪(x_2)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{s(x,x^{})^{2\mathrm{\Delta }}}},`$   (16)
where $`s(x,x^{})`$ is the chordal distance between points $`x`$ and $`x^{}`$ on $`S^d`$: that is, $`s(x,x^{})=2R\mathrm{sin}(\theta /2)`$, where $`\theta `$ is the angle between $`x`$ and $`x^{}`$. The operators $`\widehat{G}`$, $`\widehat{K}`$, and $`\widehat{Q}`$ are now diagonal in a basis of spherical harmonics on $`S^d`$. An efficient way to find the eigenvalues $`g_{\mathrm{}}`$ of $`\widehat{G}`$ is to expand

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{s(x,x^{})^{2\mathrm{\Delta }}}}={\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{},m}{}}g_{\mathrm{}}Y_\mathrm{}m^{}(x)Y_\mathrm{}m(x^{}),`$   (17)
where $`\mathrm{}`$ is the principal angular quantum number and $`m`$ collectively denotes all the magnetic quantum numbers. The $`Y_\mathrm{}m(x)`$ are assumed to include a factor of $`R^{d/2}`$, so that when they are squared and integrated over $`S_R^d`$, the result is unity. For any $`x^{}`$, we have

$`g_{\mathrm{}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{Y_\mathrm{}m(x^{})}}{\displaystyle d^dx\sqrt{g}\frac{1}{s(x,x^{})^{2\mathrm{\Delta }}}Y_\mathrm{}m(x)}.`$   (18)
The eigenvalue $`g_{\mathrm{}}`$ has no $`m`$ dependence because of $`SO(d+1)`$ invariance. Now we may choose $`x^{}`$ to be the north pole of $`S^d`$, $`\theta =0`$. Using the fact that on $`S^d`$, $`Y_\mathrm{}0(\theta )`$ is proportional to the Gegenbauer polynomial $`C_{\mathrm{}}^{(d1)/2}(\mathrm{cos}\theta )`$, we have

$`{\displaystyle \frac{g_{\mathrm{}}}{R^{d2\mathrm{\Delta }}}}`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{VolS^{d1}}{C_{\mathrm{}}^{(d1)/2}(1)}}{\displaystyle _1^1}𝑑z(1z^2)^{(d2)/2}(1z)^\mathrm{\Delta }C_{\mathrm{}}^{(d1)/2}(z)`$   $`={\displaystyle \frac{VolS^{d1}}{C_{\mathrm{}}^{(d1)/2}(1)}}(1)^{\mathrm{}}2^{d1\mathrm{\Delta }}\mathrm{\Gamma }(d/2){\displaystyle \frac{(\mathrm{}+d2)!}{\mathrm{}!(d2)!}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(1\mathrm{\Delta })\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{d}{2}\mathrm{\Delta }\right)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(1\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta })\mathrm{\Gamma }(d+\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta })}}`$   $`=(1)^{\mathrm{}}\pi ^{d/2}2^{d\mathrm{\Delta }}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(1\mathrm{\Delta })\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{d}{2}\mathrm{\Delta }\right)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(1\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta })\mathrm{\Gamma }(d+\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta })}}`$   $`=\pi ^{d/2}2^{d\mathrm{\Delta }}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{d}{2}\mathrm{\Delta }\right)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mathrm{\Delta })}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mathrm{}+\mathrm{\Delta })}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(d+\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta })}},`$   (19)
where we have used

$`C_{\mathrm{}}^{(d1)/2}(1)={\displaystyle \frac{(\mathrm{}+d2)!}{\mathrm{}!(d2)!}},`$   (20)
and

$`VolS^{d1}={\displaystyle \frac{2\pi ^{d/2}}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(d/2)}}.`$   (21)
The convenience of working on $`S^d`$ stems from the fact that the central charge may be defined through the integrated one-point function of the trace of the stress tensor: for a conformal field theory,

$`{\displaystyle _{S_R^d}}d^dx\sqrt{g}T_\mu ^\mu =c,`$   (22)
where the radius $`R`$ is arbitrary. The central charge so defined differs by factors of order unity from the usual definitions (where, for example, in two dimensions $`c=1`$ for a free boson, and in four dimensions $`c=N^2/4`$ for $`𝒩=4`$ $`U(N)`$ gauge theory). For a flow between conformal fixed points, the one-point function in (22) will depend on $`R`$, interpolating between $`c_{UV}`$ for small $`R`$ and $`c_{IR}`$ for large $`R`$. For CFT’s in even dimensions greater than $`2`$, there are several distinct central charges, corresponding to different possible Lorentz-invariant counterterms of the appropriate dimension. In CFT’s with anti-de Sitter duals, at large $`N`$ it follows from the considerations of  that all these central charges are related in a rigid way. This need not hold at subleading order in $`N`$. Cardy has conjectured  an analog in four dimensions of Zamolodchikov’s c-theorem for the central charge appearing in (22). We believe that this is the identical central charge that was computed by supergravity methods, up to one loop, in . At any rate, what we wish to do in the next section is to compute

$`c_{IR}c_{UV}={\displaystyle _{S_R^d}}d^dx\sqrt{g}T_\mu ^\mu _f{\displaystyle _{S_R^d}}d^dx\sqrt{g}T_\mu ^\mu _0={\displaystyle \frac{1}{d}}R{\displaystyle \frac{}{R}}(W_f[R]W_0[R])`$   (23)
where $`W_f[R]\mathrm{log}Z_f[J=0,S_R^d]`$, and $`Z_f[J=0,S_R^d]`$ is the partition function of the CFT on the sphere $`S_R^d`$, deformed by $`\frac{f}{2}𝒪^2`$.

## 3 Determinant calculation on $`S^d`$

With the result

$`g_{\mathrm{}}=R^{d2\mathrm{\Delta }}\pi ^{d/2}2^{d\mathrm{\Delta }}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{d}{2}\mathrm{\Delta }\right)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mathrm{\Delta })}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mathrm{}+\mathrm{\Delta })}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(d+\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta })}}`$   (24)
in hand, we wish to compute

$`W_f[R]W_0[R]`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}tr\mathrm{log}\widehat{K}`$   $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}M_d(\mathrm{})\mathrm{log}k_{\mathrm{}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}M_d(\mathrm{})\mathrm{log}(1+fg_{\mathrm{}}),`$   (25)
where $`M_d(\mathrm{})`$ is the degeneracy of states with angular momentum $`\mathrm{}`$ on $`S^d`$:

$`M_d(\mathrm{})={\displaystyle \frac{(\mathrm{}+d2)!(2\mathrm{}+d1)}{\mathrm{}!(d1)!}}.`$   (26)
(This is the dimension of the irreducible representation of $`SO(d+1)`$ formed as the symmetric traceless part of $`\mathrm{}`$ fundamental vector representations). In the limit $`fR^{d2\mathrm{\Delta }}0`$ (a very small sphere, or hardly any deformation), $`W_f[R]W_0[R]`$. In the opposite limit, $`fR^{d2\mathrm{\Delta }}\mathrm{}`$, where we are probing the infrared properties of the theory, the central charge can be read off from the coefficient of $`\mathrm{log}R`$ in an expansion of $`W_f[R]`$. The reason for this is that the derivative in (23) picks out $`\mathrm{log}R`$.

Dropping an overall constant which is independent of both $`R`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, we find for large $`R`$ that

$`W_f[R]W_0[R]={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}M_d(\mathrm{})\mathrm{log}g_{\mathrm{}}.`$   (27)
Because the factors $`\pi ^{d/2}2^{d\mathrm{\Delta }}\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{d}{2}\mathrm{\Delta }\right)/\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mathrm{\Delta })`$ in $`g_{\mathrm{}}`$ do not depend on $`\mathrm{}`$ or $`R`$, they will not contribute to the scale anomaly (23). (The reader can check this explicitly once we have introduced our regulation scheme). Thus we are left with the computation of

$`W_f[R]={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}M_d(\mathrm{})\mathrm{log}\left(R^{d2\mathrm{\Delta }}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mathrm{}+\mathrm{\Delta })}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(d+\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta })}}\right)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(V_1+V_2),`$   (28)
where

$`V_1=(d2\mathrm{\Delta })(\mathrm{log}R){\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}M_d(\mathrm{}),V_2={\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}M_d(\mathrm{})\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mathrm{}+\mathrm{\Delta })}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mathrm{}+d\mathrm{\Delta })}}.`$   (29)
Naively, it seems that only $`V_1`$ has $`\mathrm{log}R`$ dependence. This would be in contradiction with the results of , because it would mean that the central charge would depend linearly on $`d2\mathrm{\Delta }`$. The problem is that, because $`M_d(\mathrm{})`$ is a polynomial of degree $`d1`$, all the sums in (25), (27), (28), and (29) are divergent, and some regulator is required. A regulator must refer to some energy scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ which remains fixed as we differentiate with respect to $`R`$ in calculating $`T_\mu ^\mu `$. This introduces additional $`R`$ dependence beyond what is apparent in (29).

For reasons to be explained, we will settle eventually on zeta-function regularization. However, to appreciate the point about the regulator introducing $`R`$-dependence to a sum over $`\mathrm{}`$, consider the regulated sum

$`{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\mathrm{}^\alpha e^ϵ\mathrm{}=\mathrm{Li}_\alpha (e^ϵ)`$   (30)
where $`ϵ^1=R\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and $`\alpha `$ is real. When $`\alpha =1`$, the right hand side diverges as $`\mathrm{log}ϵ=\mathrm{log}(R\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ in the $`ϵ0`$ limit. For $`\alpha <1`$, the sum converges in the $`ϵ0`$ limit, while for $`\alpha >1`$, the sum (defined now via analytic continuation) has, at most, divergences which are integer powers of $`1/ϵ`$. Evidently, for $`\alpha =1`$, there is logarithmic dependence on $`R`$ which persists in the limit that the cutoff $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is removed.

This can be compared directly to a zeta-function regulator, which can be motivated formally by considering

$`{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\mathrm{}^\alpha {\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{}^s}}=\zeta (s\alpha )`$   (31)
for real $`\alpha `$. Of course, the sum is again defined via analytic continuation when $`Res<\alpha +1`$. When $`\alpha =1`$, there is a pole in the expression on the right hand side at $`s=0`$ with residue $`1`$. For other real $`\alpha `$, there is no pole at $`s=0`$. Comparing with the remarks following (30), one can conclude that for any polynomial sum, extracting the residue from a zeta-function regularization gives the coefficient of $`\mathrm{log}(R\mathrm{\Lambda })`$. A convenient feature of the zeta-function approach is that

$`{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\mathrm{}^\alpha (\mathrm{log}\mathrm{}){\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{}^s}}={\displaystyle \frac{d}{d\alpha }}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\mathrm{}^\alpha {\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{}^s}}=\zeta ^{}(s\alpha ),`$   (32)
which has no residue. Presumably it may be shown that $`\mathrm{}^\alpha (\mathrm{log}\mathrm{})`$ terms can also be dropped with the simpler exponential regulator of the previous paragraph, but the argument seems less transparent.

The last manipulation we need in order to be able to compute the anomaly in any dimension is to set $`x=\mathrm{\Delta }d/2`$ and expand

$`\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mathrm{}+\mathrm{\Delta })}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mathrm{}+d\mathrm{\Delta })}}=\mathrm{log}\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mathrm{}+d/2+x)\mathrm{log}\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mathrm{}+d/2x)=2{\displaystyle \underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n=1}{n\mathrm{odd}}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{x^n}{n!}}\psi ^{(n1)}(\mathrm{}+d/2)`$   (33)
where

$`\psi (z)={\displaystyle \frac{d}{dz}}\mathrm{log}\mathrm{\Gamma }(z)=\mathrm{log}z{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2z}}{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{B_{2k}}{2k}}z^{2k}=\mathrm{log}z+{\displaystyle \underset{s=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\zeta (s)z^{s1}.`$   (34)
Let us proceed now to the calculation of the anomaly in various cases.

### 3.1 Vanishing of the anomaly in odd dimensions $`d`$

Because of the absence of appropriate generally covariant counter-terms for violations of scale invariance, it is expected that $`T_\mu ^\mu =0`$ for a conformal theory in odd dimensions, regardless of which curved manifold the theory is defined on.

It is convenient here to define $`k=\mathrm{}+(d1)/2`$. The multiplicity can be expressed as

$`M_d(k(d1)/2)={\displaystyle \frac{2}{(d1)!}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=0}{\overset{(d3)/2}{}}}(k^2i^2).`$   (35)
Now we observe that

$`V_1=(d2\mathrm{\Delta })\mathrm{log}R{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}M_d(k(d1)/2)`$   (36)
vanishes because $`\zeta (2n)=0`$ for all positive integer $`n`$. The reason we were able to shift the sum from $`\mathrm{}=0`$ to $`\mathrm{}`$ to a sum from $`k=1`$ to $`\mathrm{}`$ is that $`M_d(k(d1)/2)`$ vanishes for $`k=1,2,\mathrm{},(d1)/2`$.

To show that $`V_2`$ also contributes nothing to the anomaly, we use the large $`k`$ expansion

$`\psi (k+1/2)=\mathrm{log}k+{\displaystyle \underset{r=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}b_rk^{2r},`$   (37)
where $`b_1=1/24`$, $`b_2=7/960`$, etc. Since both $`M_d`$ and $`\psi (k+1/2)`$ contain only even powers of $`k`$, the sums

$$\underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}M_d(k(d1)/2)\psi ^{(2n)}(k+1/2)$$
(38)
contain no logarithmic divergences. Therefore, our calculation of the anomaly indeed gives a vanishing result in all odd dimensions $`d`$.

The calculation of  gave a definite non-zero result for the change in the bulk cosmological constant for odd $`d`$, but it is unclear how to translate this in a crisp way into field theory terms. Certainly the scale anomaly vanishes in the calculation of  for odd dimensions. The result of  may correspond to some non-divergent terms in field theory that we are not computing here.

### 3.2 Vanishing of terms linear in $`d2\mathrm{\Delta }`$ in even dimensions $`d`$

A general feature predicted by  is that there is no term linear in $`d2\mathrm{\Delta }`$ in the expansion of the difference $`c_{IR}c_{UV}`$ in powers of $`d2\mathrm{\Delta }`$. This can readily be shown in field theory, as follows.

It is convenient here to define $`k=\mathrm{}+d/2`$. The multiplicity $`M_d(kd/2)`$ vanishes for $`k=1,2,\mathrm{},d/2`$, so we are free to shift a sum from $`\mathrm{}=0`$ to $`\mathrm{}`$ to a sum from $`k=1`$ to $`\mathrm{}`$. We may write

$`M_d(kd/2)={\displaystyle \underset{r=1}{\overset{d1}{}}}a_rk^r`$   (39)
for some set of coefficients $`a_r`$. Now, using the zeta-function regulator,

$`V_1=(d2\mathrm{\Delta })\mathrm{log}R{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}M_d=(d2\mathrm{\Delta })\mathrm{log}R{\displaystyle \underset{r=1}{\overset{d1}{}}}a_r\zeta (r).`$   (40)
On the other hand, the term in $`V_2`$ linear in $`x=\mathrm{\Delta }d/2`$ is

$`(2\mathrm{\Delta }d){\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}M_d(kd/2)\psi (k)`$ $`=(2\mathrm{\Delta }d){\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\left({\displaystyle \underset{r=1}{\overset{d1}{}}}a_rk^r{\displaystyle \underset{s=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\zeta (s)k^{s1}\right)`$   $`=(2\mathrm{\Delta }d)\mathrm{log}(R\mathrm{\Lambda }){\displaystyle \underset{r=1}{\overset{d1}{}}}a_r\zeta (r).`$   (41)
In the first equality we have used (34) and dropped the logarithmic term because it does not survive zeta-function regularization. In the second equality we have simply picked out the $`1/k`$ terms in the product of the two interior sums. Evidently, the $`\mathrm{log}R`$ dependence cancels between (39) and (41).

### 3.3 The cases $`d=2`$, $`4`$, $`6`$, and $`8`$

It remains to compare the coefficients of non-linear odd powers in $`x=\mathrm{\Delta }d/2`$ between our field theory calculation and the $`AdS_{d+1}`$ calculation of , where one finds an anomaly proportional to

$`{\displaystyle _0^x}{\displaystyle \underset{i=0}{\overset{(d2)/2}{}}}(x^2i^2).`$   (42)
In the field theory calculation, only $`V_2`$ contributes. We present the calculation for a few even values of $`d`$, using the same definition, $`k=\mathrm{}+d/2`$, as in section 3.2.

First we consider $`d=2`$, where $`M_2(\mathrm{})=2\mathrm{}+1=2k1`$, so that the necessary sum is

$`{\displaystyle \frac{x^3}{3}}{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}(2k1)\psi ^{\prime \prime }(k)\mathrm{log}(R\mathrm{\Lambda }){\displaystyle \frac{2x^3}{3}},`$   (43)
where the arrow indicates that we have isolated the logarithmic term by zeta-function regularization. All higher powers of $`x`$ produce convergent sums and cannot contribute to the anomaly. The result proportional to $`x^3`$ agrees with  up to overall coefficient.

Now let us consider $`d=4`$, where the result found by  is a particular sum of $`(\mathrm{\Delta }2)^3`$ and $`(\mathrm{\Delta }2)^5`$ behaviors. We have

$`M_4(\mathrm{})={\displaystyle \frac{(\mathrm{}+1)(\mathrm{}+2)(3+2\mathrm{})}{6}}={\displaystyle \frac{k(2k^23k+1)}{6}},`$   (44)
where $`k=\mathrm{}+2`$. So the term of order $`x^3`$ is

$`{\displaystyle \frac{x^3}{3}}{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{k(2k^23k+1)}{6}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{k^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{k^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2k^4}}+\mathrm{}\right)\mathrm{log}(R\mathrm{\Lambda }){\displaystyle \frac{x^3}{18}}.`$   (45)
The term of order $`x^5`$ is evaluated similarly, and the total anomalous part of $`V_2`$ is

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}\mathrm{log}(R\mathrm{\Lambda })\left({\displaystyle \frac{x^3}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{x^5}{5}}\right),`$   (46)
which agrees with (42), again up to an overall normalization.

Now let us check the cases $`d=6`$ and $`d=8`$. Defining $`k=\mathrm{}+3`$, we have

$`M_6(\mathrm{})={\displaystyle \frac{2k^55k^4+5k^22k}{5!}}.`$   (47)
By computations similar to (43) and (45), we find that the anomalous part of $`V_2`$ is

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{180}}\mathrm{log}(R\mathrm{\Lambda })\left({\displaystyle \frac{x^7}{7}}x^5+{\displaystyle \frac{4x^3}{3}}\right),`$   (48)
where $`x=\mathrm{\Delta }3`$. In the $`d=8`$ case, defining $`k=\mathrm{}+4`$, we have

$`M_8(\mathrm{})={\displaystyle \frac{(2k1)(k3)(k2)(k1)k(k+1)(k+2)}{7!}},`$   (49)
and the anomalous part of $`V_2`$ is

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{10080}}\mathrm{log}(R\mathrm{\Lambda })\left({\displaystyle \frac{x^9}{9}}2x^7+{\displaystyle \frac{49x^5}{5}}12x^3\right).`$   (50)
The results (48) and (50) again agree with (42).

Although we have not given a general argument for the agreement of the field theory results with the simple AdS/CFT result (42) of , the cases that we have checked provide fairly convincing evidence that in all even $`d`$ there is full agreement.

## 4 A remark on the two-point function

One of the striking features of the general treatment in section 2 of the field theory computation is that the two-point correlator can be computed not just at the endpoints of the renormalization group flow, but also at intermediate energy scales: on $`𝐑^d`$, the key formulas (recapitulating (7) and (8)) are

$`Q(k)`$ $`{\displaystyle d^dxe^{ikx}𝒪(x)𝒪(0)_f}={\displaystyle \frac{G(k)}{1+fG(k)}}`$  $`G(k)`$ $`=2^{d2\mathrm{\Delta }}\pi ^{d/2}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{d}{2}\mathrm{\Delta }\right)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mathrm{\Delta })}}k^{2\mathrm{\Delta }d},`$   (51)
where the original deformation is $`SS+\frac{f}{2}𝒪^2`$.

On the other hand, the AdS treatment of the renormalization group flow caused by the same deformation, initiated in  and continued in , has also the capacity to yield information about intermediate energy scales. Indeed, in  the AdS methods were used to derive the formula for the two-point function identical to (51). Below we rederive this result in a somewhat different way. In  the two-point function for the scalar $`\phi `$ dual to $`𝒪`$ is given for arbitrary points in the bulk. Parametrizing Euclidean $`AdS_{d+1}`$ as

$`ds^2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{x_0^2}}(dx_0^2+dx_1^2+\mathrm{}+dx_d^2),`$   (52)
the two point function for points $`(x_0,\stackrel{}{x})`$, $`(y_0,\stackrel{}{y})`$ such that $`x_0<y_0`$ is given in  as

$`G_E(x,y;\stackrel{~}{f})`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{d^dk}{(2\pi )^d}\frac{e^{i\stackrel{}{k}(\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{y})}(x_0y_0)^{\frac{d}{2}}K_\nu (ky_0)}{(1+(2/k)^{2\nu }\stackrel{~}{f}\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+\nu )/\mathrm{\Gamma }(1\nu ))L^{d1}}}`$   $`\times \left[I_\nu (kx_0)+\stackrel{~}{f}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+\nu )}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(1\nu )}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2}{k}}\right)^{2\nu }I_\nu (kx_0)\right],`$   (53)
where $`\nu =d/2\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is between $`0`$ and $`1`$.444Note that this sign for $`\nu `$ is opposite the one that often shows up in the literature, for example . This is because $`\nu `$ is being defined in reference to the UV scaling dimension of $`𝒪`$, rather than the IR scaling dimension. Expanding $`\phi `$ near the boundary as

$`\phi \alpha (\stackrel{}{x})x_0^{d\mathrm{\Delta }}+\beta (\stackrel{}{x})x_0^\mathrm{\Delta },`$   (54)
the normalization of $`\stackrel{~}{f}`$ is fixed by writing the boundary condition of  as $`\alpha =\stackrel{~}{f}\beta `$.

A correct though somewhat heuristic method to obtain the AdS/CFT prediction for the two-point function $`Q(k)`$, up to an overall normalization, is to start with the $`k^{\mathrm{th}}`$ Fourier component of $`G_E`$, set $`x_0=y_0=ϵ`$, and extract the coefficient of the leading non-analytic term in $`ϵ^2`$ as $`ϵ0`$. The result is supposed to be $`Q(k)`$, up to an overall factor that may be $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-dependent. Dropping such factors, one obtains

$`Q(k){\displaystyle \frac{k^{2\nu }}{1+(2/k)^{2\nu }\stackrel{~}{f}\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+\nu )/\mathrm{\Gamma }(1\nu )}}.`$   (55)
Only the term $`I_\nu (kx_0)`$ inside square brackets in (53) contributes to (55). Evidently, (55) is in agreement with (51) (up to the overall normalization which we have not endeavored to compute) provided we identify

$`\stackrel{~}{f}={\displaystyle \frac{2\pi ^{d/2}}{d2\mathrm{\Delta }}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{d}{2}+1\right)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mathrm{\Delta })}}f.`$   (56)
It may be possible to normalize $`\stackrel{~}{f}`$ in an independent manner and make a consistency check with (56). We presume that due care would allow us to reconcile the overall normalization as well; but since this can be studied entirely at the UV fixed point, and has only to do with the $`J𝒪`$ couplings that have been well-explored in other literature, we will not address the issue here.

The main point that the results of  and of this section illustrate is that the AdS/CFT and field theory computations yield information about the entire RG flow, with no scheme dependence in physical answers.

## Acknowledgments

We thank C. Callan, L. Rastelli, and E. Witten for useful discussions. I.R.K. is also grateful to the Institute for Advanced Study for hospitality. The work of S.S.G. is supported in part by the Department of Energy under Grant No. DE-FG02-91ER40671. The work of I.R.K. is supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. PHY-9802484. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.


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# Scanning Tunneling Microscopy in TTF-TCNQ :direct proof of phase and amplitude modulated charge density waves

## Abstract

Charge density waves (CDW) have been studied at the surface of a cleaved TTF-TCNQ single crystal using a low temperature scanning tunneling microscope (STM) under ultra high vacuum (UHV) conditions, between 300K and 33K with molecular resolution. All CDW phase transitions of TTF-TCNQ have been identified. The measurement of the modulation wave vector along the a direction provides the first evidence for the existence of domains comprising single plane wave modulated structures in the temperature regime where the transverse wave vector of the CDW is temperature dependent, as hinted by the theory more than 20 years ago.

The discovery of the organic molecular crystal tetrathiafulvalene-tetracyanoquinodimethane (TTF-TCNQ ), comprising weakly coupled one dimensional (1D) molecular stacks, created a tremendous turmoil in 1973 Heeger ; Cowan . This was the first molecular crystal to show a conductivity approaching that of conventional metals at room temperature and exhibiting a metal-like behaviour on cooling. A partial charge is transfered from TTF to TCNQ stacks and the charge density $`\rho `$ potentially available for transport is determined by the value of $`k_F`$ at which the bonding TCNQ band crosses the antibonding TTF band, leading to $`2k_F`$=$`\rho \pi /b`$ in the 1D band picture, where b is the unit cell length . Between 54K and 38K, CDW’s successively develop in the TCNQ and TTF stacks. These transitions have been ascribed to the instability of a one dimensional electronic gas due to the Peierls mechanism, see reference Schulz  for a review.

When the CDW’s are active on both kinds of stacks frustration arises and the 2D ordered superlattice can be described by plane waves with the wave vectors $`q_+`$ = \[+$`q_a(T)`$, $`2k_F`$\] or $`q_{}`$ =\[$`q_a(T)`$, $`2k_F`$\]. Both lead to configurations which are energetically equivalent. The wave vector $`q_+`$ gives rise to a charge modulation such as $`\rho (r)`$ = $`\rho _+`$cos$`(q_+r+\theta _+)`$ which is a CDW of fixed amplitude and a phase varying like $`q_aa`$ along the $`a`$ direction, and similarly for the $`q_{}`$ wave vector. Consequently, the diffraction pattern of the CDW state should display an equal number of domains characterized by the vectors $`q_+`$ and $`q_{}`$ .

There also exists another possibility, namely: the superposition of the two plane waves $`q_+`$ and $`q_{}`$ which leads to a CDW with constant phase but a modulated amplitude along the $`a`$ direction Bjelis ; Abrahams , double-$`q`$ configuration. The only solution which can take advantage of the commensurability energy related to the transverse commensurate periodicity through the fourth order Umklapp term in a Landau-Ginzburg expansion is the double-$`q`$ configuration Abrahams . This means that both wave vectors are simultaneously activated below 38 K with four satellite spots at $`\pm q_+`$ and $`\pm q_{}`$ in the reciprocal space around a main Bragg spot. On the other hand, it has been pointed out that the phase modulated solution should be the most stable one in the incommensurate transverse wave vector temperature regime and also the only one to provide a smooth onset at 49K Abrahams . The presence of a microscopic coexistence of vectors $`q_+`$ and $`q_{}`$ below 38K has been shown by X-ray diffuse scattering Kagoshima  and a structural determination Bouveret . However, in spite of the data of an early STM study of TTF-TCNQ Nishiguchi  showing a phase modulated 2D structure at 42 K there exists no direct evidence of a transition from a phase modulated regime between 49 and 38 K where the temperature dependence makes the amplitude of $`q_a`$ sliding to an amplitude modulated situation below 38 K. Diffraction experiments performed on a bulk sample have failed to provide a clue since they cannot tell the difference between an amplitude modulated configuration and one in which the phase is modulated with an equal number of domains with $`q_+`$ and $`q_{}`$. Therefore, only those specific techniques like STM probing the sample locally are likely to provide an answer to this problem.

The present STM investigation of a TTF-TCNQ single crystal has been performed in a broad temperature range (33-300 K). The primary goal was to achieve the best possible experimental conditions in order to provide local information regarding the development of 3D ordered CDW’s below 54K. This work brings the first direct experimental proof for the existence of phase modulated and amplitude modulated CDW’s between 49-38 K and below 38 K respectively and also supports the model proposed by theoreticians more than 20 years ago Bjelis ; Bak .

The experiment was carried out in an UHV-LT-STM system with separate UHV chambers for STM measurements, sample and tip preparation. The base pressure in each chamber is in the range of $`10^{11}`$ mbar. A commercially available LT-STM head is used in this study and the entire scanning unit (including tip, sample, piezo tube, piezo motor and damping system) is inserted in a thermostat with four gold-plated cold shields (Omicron LT-STM). The sample temperature is controlled by a Lake Shore DRC 91C controller. Typical temperature fluctuations are less than 20 mK in 200 seconds with an average temperature drift below 50 mK per hour. Mechanically sharpened Pt/Ir tips were used. The durability of the tips has been demonstrated by their ability to get molecular resolution of TTF-TCNQ for hours. The quality of the tips is checked by their ability to obtain atomic resolution on a gold surface before and after imaging of TTF-TCNQ . We image the sample using a constant current mode. The maximum data rate is 100 KHz and the typical time needed to record one image is 200 seconds.

Crystals of TTF-TCNQ with nice looking natural faces and typical dimensions of 3 $`\times `$ 0.5 $`\times `$ 0.05 mm3 are selected for this experiment. A clean (001) surface is obtained by cleaving the single crystal with a razor blade in air just before insertion. Direct exposure to air is restricted to less than 2 minutes. In order to avoid micro-cracks in TTF-TCNQ while cooling or warming, the temperature variation rate is kept at 1 K per minute.

Figure 1a displays a typical image of the a-b plane (area 5.3 $`\times `$ 5.3 nm2) obtained in a constant current mode (I=1 nA, V=50 mV) at 63 K where a 1D structure of parallel chains is clearly observed with one set of chains containing a triplet of balls and the other a doublet. According to the calibration of the piezo at low temperature, the distance between similar chains is 1.22 nm and 0.38 nm between units along the chain direction, see fig.1b. Both distances compare very well with the a and b lattice constants, b = 0.3819 nm and a = 1.229 nm Kistenmacher . We can ascribe the triplet feature in fig.1a to the TCNQ in agreement with the early work of Sleator and Tycko Sleator . The TTF molecule appears usually as a single ball feature in STM imaging although reports of doublet structures have also been made in the literature Kato . An extensive interpretation of the TTF-TCNQ image in the absence of CDW will be given in a forthcoming paperOrdejon and the present work is restricted to the physics provided by STM images of the TCNQ molecules only. No bias voltage dependence (polarity) of the image was observed during our measurements in agreeement with the expected conducting nature of the surface Sacks . In the whole temperature domain where the sample is metallic i.e. above 54K, images like fig.1a were observed and we could not detect any modulation on the STM image besides that provided by the uniform TTF-TCNQ lattice. Therefore, the periodic modulation along the TCNQ stacks reported in ref Nishiguchi  at 61K could be related to static CDW’s stabilized by defects or steps on the surface as noticed by the authors.

Below 54K a two dimensional superstructure restricted to the TCNQ chains with a period of 2a $`\times `$ 3.3b appears in the image (see fig.2a).

The modulation wavevector (shown in fig.2b by Fourier transforming the image) does not vary down to 49K. On further cooling, the transverse modulation vector becomes incommensurate (IC) and a temperature dependence $`q_a(T)`$ is observed without noticeable change along b, figs.3a,b. The Fourier transformed image shows that the modulation can be described by a single wave vector $`q_+`$ or $`q_{}`$ in the temperature domain 49-38 K. However, a transverse commensurability ($`\times 4`$) arises abruptly at 38 K. The ordering of the charge density modulations both along a and b directions at 36.5 K is presented in figs.3c,d. Below 38K (low temperature commensurate phase) a double-$`q`$ CDW modulation $`q_+`$ and $`q_{}`$ is identified.

The images presented above are the first to report a study of the 2D superlattice structure of TTF-TCNQ in real space below the Peierls transition down to the temperature of 33 K. The value and temperature dependence of the modulation wave vector are in very good agreement with the detailed X-ray Pouget ; Khanna ; Kagoshima  and neutron scattering Ellenson ; Ellenson77  reports (see fig.4a).

We can provide a real space signature of the intermediate temperature regime in which the transverse period is evolving with temperature (the sliding regime) before a lock-in takes place at 38 K. Although the signal coming from the CDW modulation is always dominant in all our scans (with a corrugation of 0.21 nm at 36.5 K along the TCNQ stacks) it does not overcome the corrugation coming from the underlying TCNQ lattice, namely 0.12 nm. Thanks to the coexistence between CDW and original lattices on the images, molecular resolution can be obtained in the CDW condensed state at low temperature.

This is at variance with layered compounds such as 1T-TaSe2 where the image is dominated by the CDW superlattice but somewhat similar to the situation in 2H-NbSe2 Giambattista .

The very good agreement between the real space CDW features and the results from the neutron scattering experiments shows that cleaved surfaces are highly ordered and retain the electronic properties of the bulk material. A similar conclusion was reached in ARPES experiments performed on cleaved (001) surfaces of TTF-TCNQ Zwick ; Claessen . The salient result of this work is given in fig.3 which makes it clear that warming through the transverse lock-in transition the modulation evolves from an amplitude modulation along a (double-$`q`$ superlattice) in the commensurate phase to a phase modulation in the incommensurate wave vector regime with only a single-$`q`$ vector activated over the investigated sample area.

Thus, we have shown that TTF-TCNQ adopts a domain structure in the temperature regime where the transverse ordering of the CDW’s is incommensurate. This is probably the clue to understand the hysteresis displayed by $`q_a(T)`$ between 49K and 38K Ellenson ; Ellenson77  as suggested by Pouget89 ; Barisic85 .

The fact that the CDW is observable by a STM probe shows that it is static in spite of its incommensurate nature (along the b direction), and is therefore pinned by impurities or defects .

The low temperature CDW in TTF-TCNQ is thus an ideal candidate to study the local phase shift for the following reasons: the unit cell in the a-b plane has a quadratic symmetry, the CDW phase is commensurate in the a direction but incommensurate in the b direction, the CDW modulation is double-$`q`$ modulated below 38K so the phase shifts along a and b can be studied separately and in addition a modulation of the amplitude along a is expected.

Furthermore, we notice on figs.4a,b that the phase of the CDW is such as to present an alternation of the amplitude on the TCNQ stacks like $`++++`$, etc… along the a direction.

The phasing of the CDW with respect to the underlying lattice below 38 K agrees with the diffraction experiments data Pouget . The results of our work show that STM techniques are very well adapted to the local study of CDW’s in TTF-TCNQ and resolve the question of phase against amplitude modulation. In addition, this work opens new ways towards a local investigation of the pinning of the CDW’s around impurities to derive information about the nature of the pinning mechanism (strong or weak).

We thank J.P.Pouget, K.Maki and E.Canadell for very fruitful discussions.Z.Z.Wang acknowledges the financial support of the SESAME contract 1377.


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# THE BIAS OF GALAXIES AND THE DENSITY OF THE UNIVERSE FROM THE 2dF GALAXY REDSHIFT SURVEY

## 1 What’s bias

We are confident that the Universe started off almost uniform with very small primordial perturbations as we can see for example in the Cosmic microwave background at redshift $`1100`$, with a distribution very close to gaussian (cf. Heavens, Wu and Sanz contributions). Given these properties of the inital conditions and a set of cosmological parameters, it is possible to predict the statistical properties of the large scale mass distribution in the local Universe (at $`z0`$) via e.g. N-body simulations. If we could observe the mass distribution in the local Universe this would be a very powerful tool to/we could discriminate between different cosmological models. Unfortunately, we cannot observe the mass distribution directly, what we can easily observe is the distribution of objects that “light up” as for example the galaxy distribution in the 2dF galaxy redshift survey (2dFGRS; fig. 1 left panel). It is well known that different kind of luminous objects show different clustering properties (e.g., Peacock and Dodds 1994). Thus different kind of luminous objects cannot be all faithful tracers of the underlying mass distrbution, and galaxies might be biased tracers of the mass: on large scales we might say $`\delta _g=b\delta _m`$, where $`\delta \delta \rho /\rho `$ the subscripts $`g`$ and $`m`$ stand for galaxy and mass, and $`b`$ denotes the (linear) bias parameter. The concept of bias was introduced by Kaiser (1984), originally to explain the clustering properties of Abell clusters, but the concept was a key element to reconcile the theoretical prejudice of an $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=1`$ Universeaaa $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ denotes the present-day matter density of the Universe in units of the critical density. with the observations of large-scale structure. Today we know that the Universe is not Einstein-de Sitter, so in principle we do not need galaxy bias, but ’the genie is out of the bottle’.

### 1.1 Why measure it

We could say that bias encloses our ignorance about the complicated process of galaxy formation, so we could learn about galaxy formation by measuring it. However, there is a more important reason to measure it: there is a degeneracy intrinsic to linear theory large-scale structure studies (i.e. power spectrum or correlation function studies) between the effect of gravity driven by $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ and the effect of bias; these studies can only yield $`\beta \mathrm{\Omega }_m^{0.6}/b`$, thus we need to know, or measure, the bias parameter $`b`$ to get the real “prize”, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$. The 2dF team has measured this parameter from the survey obtaining $`\beta =0.43\pm 0.07`$ (Peacock et al. 2001).

### 1.2 How to disentangle gravity from bias

Gravity leaves its own signature on the distribution of mass density. In fact non-linear gravity skews the field (because of the requirement that $`\delta _m1`$). Bias can also introduce skewness, but the effect of gravity on the shape of the cosmological structures is different from that of biasing: gravity creates very characteristic sheets and filaments in the mass distribution (e.g. Zeldovich pancakes). If we succed in measuring how much gravity signature there is in the galaxy distribution, we can disentangle gravity from biasing. The statistical tool most effective to pick up this signature of gravity is the bispectrum.

## 2 Bispectrum

The bispectrum, $`B(\stackrel{}{k_1},\stackrel{}{k_2},\stackrel{}{k_3})`$, is the Fourier space counterpart of the three point correlation function, more precisely: $`\delta _{\stackrel{}{k_1}}\delta _{\stackrel{}{k_2}}\delta _{\stackrel{}{k_2}}=B(\stackrel{}{k_1},\stackrel{}{k_2},\stackrel{}{k_3})\delta ^D(\stackrel{}{k_1}+\stackrel{}{k_2}+\stackrel{}{k_3})`$ where $`\delta ^D`$ denotes the Dirac delta function. Due to the presence of the Dirac delta function we see that the bispectrum is defined on triplets of k-vectors that form triangles. The bispectrum is zero for a gaussian field, but, even if the Universe started off with gaussian initial conditions, we should expect to detect non-zero bispectrum today on non-linear scales. In particular, the expression for the bispectrum is easy to obtain in the mildly non-linear regime i.e. in second order perturbation theory in $`\delta `$. (The theory of the bispectrum has been developed by e.g., Fry 1994, Matarrese Verde Heavens 1997, Verde et al 1998, Scoccimarro et al 1998, Scoccimarro et al 1999). To be consistent one has to expand also the bias to second order (i.e. $`\delta _g=b_1\delta +m+1/2b_2\delta _m^2+\mathrm{}`$). The expression for the galaxy bispectrum thus becomes:

$$B_g(\stackrel{}{k_1},\stackrel{}{k_2},\stackrel{}{k_3})=\left[\frac{1}{b_1}J(\stackrel{}{k_1},\stackrel{}{k_2})+\frac{b_2}{b_1^2}\right]P_g(k_1)P_g(k_2)+cyc.$$
(1)
where $`P_g`$ denotes the (measurable) galaxy power spectrum, $`B_g`$ the (measurable) galaxy bispectrum and $`J`$ is a known function of the k-vectors. The shape information, that is the signature of gravity in the large scale structure distribution is enclosed in this function $`J`$.

The form of equation (1) implies that it is possible to extract the linear and quadratic bias parameters ($`b_1`$ and $`b_2`$) via a likelihood analysis.

## 3 The bias of 2dF galaxies

The 2dFGRS, when finished, will provide a 3D map of 250,000 galaxiesbbbfor more details see Lahav contribution in these proceedngs or http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/2dFGRS/. The bispectrum analysis presented here is based on only 130K of them. Equation (1) applies only on mildly non-linear scales, and, more importantly, only in a very idealized case (survey of infinite volume, the distance of galaxies is accurately known, no discreteness effects etc.). In the case of the 2dFGRS there are many real-world effects to account for (redshift space distortions, discreteness, window function, selection function etc..). We can model all these effects (for details see Verde et al. 1998, Verde et al. 2002) and asses the performance of the bispectrum method with a Monte Carlo approach, by performing the analysis on several mock 2dFGRS catalogs with known bias parameters.

We analized the bispectrum signal of 80 million triangles configurations from the galaxy distribution of the 2dFGRS obtaining: $`b_1=1.04\pm 0.11`$, $`b_2=0.05\pm 0.08`$. The 2dF galaxies on large scales are thus unbiased tracers of the mass distribution. This result is in agreement with the findings of Lahav et al. 2002 (see Lahav contributon), but has been obtained with a completely independent method and entirely from the 2dFGRS alone, independently of other data sets. The fact that the quadratic bias parameter is consistent with being zero argues powerfully that 2dFGRS galaxies indeed trace the mass on large scales.

We also find no evidence for scale dependence bias. At some level non-linear/scale dependent bias must appear on small scales, but these scales might be too small for the perturbative method used here to be valid. Note that this results applyes to 2dF galaxies or more specifically to $`1.9L_{}`$ galaxies at $`z0.17`$. Because of the tendency of bias to approach unity with time, this results does not rule out the biased galaxy formation picture: galaxies might have had a significant bias at formation time.

## 4 The density of the Universe

By combining the 2dFGRS measurement of the $`\beta `$ parameter with the measurement of the bias presented here, we obtain a determination of the matter density of the Universe $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{m,z_{eff}}=0.27\pm 0.06`$. We stress here that this result has been obtained from the 2dFGRS alone, independently of other data sets. Note that the effective depth of the survey is $`z=0.17`$, thus our measurement should be interpreted as $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ at this epoch. The extrapolation at $`z=0`$ is model dependent. In the right panel of fig. 1 the blue shaded areas show the 1,2 and 3 sigma confidence contours in the $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ plane (here $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ denotes the cosmological constant). For comparison we also show the 1,2 and 3 sigma constraints from the Boomerang data (de Bernardis 2001) and supernovae 1A (Perlmutter et al 1999). The dotted line denotes flat Universe. The solid lines show the joint confidence contours for Boomerang and 2dF. It is quite remarkable that three different experiments (subject to very dfferent systematics) agree so well (Heavens, Verde, Percival 2002) and point towards the same cosmological model.

## 5 Conclusions

We have demonstrated that the optically selected galaxies from the 2dFGRS trace the dark matter density extremely well on large scales. This allows us to break the degeneracy, intrinsic to power spectrum studies, between gravity and biasing. We obtain a measurement of the matter density parameter at $`z_{eff}=0.17`$ of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{m,z_{eff}}=0.27\pm 0.06`$. The extrapolation of this quantity at $`z=0`$ is model dependent, however the constraints of cosmological parameters obtained from 2dFGRS, Cosmic microwave background and Supernovae agree remarkably well. Thus we can cosnculd that we are converging towards a cosmological model where the Universe is flat, is dominated by a vacuum energy component ($`\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.8\pm 0.08`$) and the matter density is $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.2=\pm 0.06`$.

## Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the 2dFGRS team and AAO staff for making this superb galaxy survey.


text:
# X ray emission line profile modeling of hot stars

## I Introduction

Ultraviolet spectra of O and B stars (with luminosities up to $`L=10^6\mathrm{L}_{}`$ and surface temperatures $`T3\mathrm{T}_{}`$) show the signatures of rapidly expanding winds, with velocities on the order of a few $`1000\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, densities of order $`10^{10}\mathrm{cm}^3`$, and mass-loss rates up to $`10^5\mathrm{M}_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$. These stars are detected to have soft-x-ray luminosities of $`10^7`$ times their total (bolometric) luminosities.Chlebowski et al. (1989) In cooler stars, like the Sun, x rays are produced in coronae, which are high-temperature regions near the surface of the star, and their x-ray line widths are primarily indicative of thermal broadening. The line widths observed in x-ray spectra of hot stars, however, provide evidence that the emission originates in extended, high-velocity winds. Kahn et al. (2001)

The Chandra X-ray Observatory has the spectral resolution to resolve Doppler-broadened lines from hot stars, providing quantitative information about the geometry and kinematics of the wind and putting important constraints on physical models that may explain the observed x rays. Chandra uses a set of concentric parabolic and hyperbolic mirrors with an effective area of about $`10\mathrm{cm}^2`$ to focus x rays on its instrument package. The Medium Energy Grating (MEG) provides a resolution of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda =0.023\text{Å}`$ from $`0.4`$ to $`5.0\mathrm{keV}`$ ($`31`$ to $`2.5\text{Å}`$).

## II Spherically-Symmetric Wind Models

An optically-thin, spherically-expanding, x-ray-emitting plasma produces symmetric line profiles centered on the rest wavelengths of the lines with a shape determined entirely by the velocity and emissivity structure of the plasma. Two effects can change the symmetry of the line. The star itself occults part of the plasma, while cold components of the wind absorb x rays, meaning photons traveling along longer lines of sight or through more dense wind regions will be less likely to reach the observer. In a radially expanding wind, the observer sees blue-shifted emission from the approaching material on the near side of the wind and red-shifted emission from the receding material on the far side. Thus an optically thick wind has the effect of removing photons from the red side of the profile, shifting the line center blueward and altering the shape of the line.

Owocki and Cohen Owocki and Cohen (2001) have numerically integrated a spherically-symmetric wind model to determine the shape of line profiles produced in a wind characterized by four parameters. The wind velocity at a distance $`r`$ from the center of the star is assumed to be of the form $`v(r)=v_{\mathrm{}}(1R_{}/r)^\beta `$ (a “$`\beta `$ velocity law”), where $`R_{}`$ is the stellar radius, $`v_{\mathrm{}}`$ is the terminal velocity of the wind (determined from ultraviolet spectra), and $`\beta `$ is a free parameter of order unity. Given a constant mass-loss rate, the density at any point in a smoothly-expanding, spherically-symmetric wind can be determined from the velocity law. The emissivity of the wind is taken to be zero below some radius $`R_0`$, and to fall off like $`n^2r^q`$ above that, where $`n`$ is the density of the wind and $`q`$ is a free parameter. The optical depth of the wind is characterized by the parameter $`\tau _{}`$, which is defined so that, in a constant velocity wind ($`\beta =0`$, $`v=v_{\mathrm{}}`$), $`\tau _{}`$ is the radial optical depth at the surface of the star and the radius of optical depth unity is $`r|_{\tau =1}=\tau _{}R_{}`$. The parameters $`\beta `$, $`q`$, $`R_0`$, and $`\tau _{}`$ offer enough flexibility to characterize a variety of physical models, including coronal models (by setting $`q`$ and $`\beta `$ to high values and $`R_0=R_{}`$).

All lines produced in an extended wind of this form will be skewed to the blue side of line center by the removal of photons from the red edge of the profile. Chandra observations of the star $`\zeta `$ Puppis Cassinelli et al. (2001) reveal broad lines with a significant blueward skew, suggesting an extended, spherical wind model may be able to explain the shape of the profiles.

Preliminary work on fitting the Owocki and Cohen model to lines in $`\zeta `$ Puppis suggest that good fits may be obtained with physically reasonable parameters. Figure 1 (a) shows the Chandra MEG (sum of $`+1`$, and $`1`$ order) spectrum of the $`12.13\text{Å}`$ Ne X Lyman $`\alpha `$ line of $`\zeta `$ Puppis along with the best-fit line profile.

Other hot stars, however, show much more symmetric profiles. Figure 1 (b) shows the same Ne X line of $`\theta ^1`$ Orionis C along with the model that fit the line in $`\zeta `$ Puppis. No spherically-symmetric wind model that includes absorption can fit the relatively narrow and symmetric line from this star.

## III Modeling non-spherically-symmetric winds

A promising alternative to spherically-symmetric models is the Magnetically Confined Wind Shock (MCWS) model in which a strong (kG), large-scale dipole magnetic field originates from the star’s surface and directs the stellar outflow. This field directs the wind toward the magnetic equator, where flows from opposite hemispheres collide, causing strong shocks and heating the wind plasma to $`T10^7`$ K. This theory, originally proposed by Babel and Montmerle Babel and Montmerle (1997), lately has gained currency due to the direct detection of an 1100 G field on $`\theta ^1`$ Orionis C Donati et al. (2002) and the detailed magnetohydrodynamic modeling by ud-Doula and Owocki. 111A. ud-Doula and S. P. Owocki. Astrophys. J. (in press, accepted 2 May 2002)

As an initial exploration of this model, we have numerically synthesized emission line profiles of equatorial x-ray-emitting flows. In figure 2 we show the results of a simple model based on a radially directed flow confined to the magnetic equator of a hot star (using a $`\beta `$ velocity law, with the flow confined to within 20 degrees of the equator). Because stellar magnetic fields are often tilted with respect to the rotation axis, our viewing orientation changes with rotation phase. In the figure we show a simulated line profile from three different angles: 0 degrees (magnetic pole-on), 45 degrees, and 90 degrees (equator-on). The characteristics of these profiles are due to (the changing) projected radial velocity of the x-ray-emitting wind, as well as (viewing-angle dependent) occultation by the star.

Clearly, the rotation phase can affect the line profiles, which is a conclusion we will be testing against recently obtained multi-phase Chandra observations of $`\theta ^1`$ Orionis C itself. This star has a 45 degree angle between the magnetic and rotation axes Donati et al. (2002), and a viewing angle that is also tilted by 45 degrees with respect to the rotation axis, giving us a full range of viewing angles with respect to the star’s magnetic axis. Future modeling work will include the effects of absorption by the cold wind and also take into account more realistic and complex flow morphologies, including spectral post processing of numerical MHD simulations.


text:
# Hadronic interaction of 𝜂 and 𝜂' mesons with nucleonsThis work has been partly supported by the European Community – Access to Research Infrastructure action of the Improving Human Potential Programme.

## 1 COMPARISON OF THE p-$`\eta `$ AND p-$`\eta ^{}`$ INTERACTIONS

Close to the kinematical threshold the total cross section for the meson production via the nucleon-nucleon interaction grows rapidly with increasing excess energy Q. It is well established  that for the $`pppp\eta `$  and $`pppp\eta ^{}`$  reactions this total cross section changes by about two orders of magnitude within a Q range of about ten MeV. The shape of the excitation function is predominantly determined by the changes of the phase space volume and by the final state interaction among the produced particles. The precision of the experiments performed at the cooler synchrotrons allows to distinguish the subtle effects originating from the meson-nucleon interaction. A quantitative derivation of the $`p\eta `$ and $`p\eta ^{}`$ hadronic potentials requires, however, a sophisticated theoretical treatment since the distortion caused by the nucleons is by orders of magnitude larger than that due to the meson–nucleon forces, and even small fractional inaccuracies in the description of nucleon–nucleon effects may obscure the inference on the meson–nucleon interaction. To minimize the ambiguities which may result from these discrepancies – at least for the qualitative estimation of the effects of the unknown meson–nucleon interaction – one can compare the spectra from the production of a meson under investigation to the spectra determined for the production of a meson whose interaction with nucleons is established. To visualize the influences of the $`p\eta `$ and $`p\eta ^{}`$ interaction on the energy dependence of the total cross section we have compared the modulus of the primary transition amplitude $`|M_0|`$ of the $`pppp\eta `$ and $`pppp\eta ^{}`$ reactions to the one extracted from the data on the $`pppp\pi ^0`$ reaction  111 The S-wave $`\pi `$-proton interaction is negligibly weak in comparison to the proton-proton one. The real part of the $`\pi p`$ scattering length ( $`|a_{p\pi }|=0.13`$ fm  ) is more than a factor of 50 smaller than $`|a_{pp}|=7.83`$ fm ..

Figures 1a and 1b show the dependence of $`|M_0|`$ on the phase–space volume for $`\eta `$ and $`\eta ^{}`$ production normalized to $`|M_0^{\pi ^0}|`$. The values of $`|M_0|`$ were extracted from the experimental data disregarding the proton–meson interaction. If the influence of the neglected interactions were the same in the case of the $`\eta (\eta ^{})`$ and $`\pi ^0`$ production the points would be consistent with the solid line. This holds in case of the $`pppp\eta ^{}`$ reaction indicating the weakness of the proton–$`\eta ^{}`$ interaction independently of the prescription used for the proton–proton FSI . In case of the $`\eta ^{}`$ meson its low–energy interaction with the nucleons was expected to be very weak since there exists no baryonic resonance which would decay into $`N\eta ^{}`$ channel . In contrary, the existence of the $`N^{}(1535)`$ resonance, which decays significantly into nucleon and the $`\eta `$ meson, indicates that the $`N\eta `$ interaction is much stronger than the $`N\eta ^{}`$ one, and indeed as depicted in figure 1a the strong effects of the $`\eta pp`$ FSI at low $`V_{ps}`$ are visible.

As a next step for a quantitative understanding of the $`pp\eta `$ dynamics a full three-body description of the system with the complex hadronic potentials is required as well as an exact determination of the magnitudes of the contributing partial waves. Some aspects of the latter issue are discussed in the next section.

## 2 DIFFERENTIAL CROSS SECTIONS FOR THE REACTION $`pppp\eta `$

On previous conferences we have already reported on the phase space density distribution determined for the $`pppp\eta `$ reaction at an excess energy of Q = 15.5 MeV . The obtained spectrum – shown here in figure 2 – revealed a strong deviation from the expectation based on the factorization of the transition amplitude into the constant primary production and the on-shell incoherent pairwise interaction among the produced particles (see solid and dashed lines).

The experimental data obtained independently by TOF  and COSY-11  using different detection systems agree perfectly with each other and make possible systematical errors rather improbable. The data show also a fully isotropic distribution over the polar emission angle of the $`\eta `$ meson in the center-of-mass frame , and are consistent with an isotropic angular distribution of the relative momentum of the protons seen in the center-of-mass system  (angle $`\theta ^{}`$ on the middle side of figure 2).

According to preliminary investigations based on the meson exchange model , the observed distribution of the proton-proton invariant mass cannot be explained assuming that the production of the outgoing particles takes place exclusively with the relative angular momentum equal to zero. The discrepancy between the solid line of figure 2 and the data is also too large to be explained by the underestimation of the s-wave proton-$`\eta `$ interaction. Inspired by that difficulty we checked the partial wave distribution in the proton-proton system deriving from the data the angular distribution of the proton momentum in the rest frame of proton-proton system (angle $`\theta ^{}`$ on the right side of figure 2). A possible non-zero angular momentum between outgoing protons should manifest itself in an unisotropic population of the angle between the relative proton-proton momentum and the recoil particle ($`\eta `$) seen from the di-proton rest system . The distributions determined for three intervals of $`s_{pp}`$ are shown in figure 3. As a first step we restricted the analysis assuming that only S– and P– waves contribute, and we fit the data by the linear combination of the Legendre polynomials up to the second degree, which in case of two identical particles reads: $`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma }{d\mathrm{\Omega }}}=a\left(1+bP_2(cos\theta ^{})\right)`$. In this representation the parameter $`b`$ is a measure of the relative amplitude of the P– and S–wave contributions.

As a result we obtained that $`b`$ is consistent with zero for $`s_{pp}<3.535`$ GeV2/c4 and amounts to $`0.12`$ for the middle and upper ranges of $`s_{pp}`$. This value supports the hypothesis that an admixture of P-waves in the proton-proton subsystem is not negligible already at an excess energy of Q = 15.5 MeV.


text:
# The harmonic oscillator, dimensional analysis and inflationary solutions

## I Introduction

“No discussion of modern cosmology would be complete without some mention of inflation …. This is the idea that … there existed a phase in which the universe expands much faster (in fact exponentially) than the rate given by the standard scenario” D'Inverno0 . Although now more than 20 years old, this idea survived well in the modern cosmology: “cosmologists … fell in love with inflation, because it could explain some nagging problems raised by the standard big bang model” Horgan . In fact, inflation is now probably more alive than ever, since the most recent measurements of the cosmic microwave background indicate an almost flat universe, a result predicted by inflation. But despite the success of inflation among cosmologists, and several attempts to explain it, inflation is only a general idea, since no one came up with a definitive inflationary scenario.

As an important part of the modern cosmology, inflation is now a subject present in several introductory texts, articles and books. In one science dictionary, for example, one can read, under the entry “early universe”, that “an important idea in the theory of the early universe is that of inflation – the idea that the nature of the vacuum state gave rise, after the big bang, to an exponential expansion of the universe” Dictionary . This shows that is common to associate the inflationary idea with a ‘decay’ or ‘phase transition’ of the vacuum (or something alike), and it is almost canonical to present inflation in this way Kolb .

To be more specific, the most usual approach is to show inflation as an effect due to the dynamics of a scalar field, with use of an approximation known as ‘slow rollover’. However, from a practical point of view, it is possible to present the construction of inflationary solutions without the mention or use of any approximations, from very basic concepts. The dynamics of one single homogeneous scalar field is one-dimensional, and as such it has similarities with the dynamics of the one-dimensional harmonic oscillator, and this fact can be used in an introductory approach to the idea of inflation, together with ‘suggestions’ given by dimensional analysis.

It is the purpose of this work, then, to show how to explain inflation from a pragmatic and basic point of view, in a step-by-step process, starting from the harmonic oscillator to finally get, after some general mathematical efforts, exact inflationary solutions. Therefore, it must be noted that here the focus is on the production of inflationary solutions, and not on interpreting what they can mean or what kind of problems they can solve.

It is important to notice that, though pedagogical, this text takes advantage of common conventions of the scientific notation. For example, throughout this text natural units are used, ie, $`c=G=\mathrm{}=1`$, unless stated otherwise, like in the section of dimensional analysis. Also, the sum convention is always present, ie, terms like $`_{\mu =0}^3\left(x^\mu \right)^2`$ are written as $`x^\mu x_\mu `$, with greek indices ($`\mu ,\nu ,\mathrm{}`$) running from $`0`$ to $`3`$ and latin ones ($`i,j,\mathrm{}`$) from $`1`$ to $`3`$. Finally, generic constants are written as $`c_i`$ ($`c_1,c_2,\mathrm{}`$) and $`\lambda _i`$ ($`\lambda _1,\lambda _2,\mathrm{}`$).

## II The harmonic oscillator

A basic one-dimensional system may be constructed with a particle of mass $`m`$ and velocity $`v`$ subject to a force $`F`$, from which one obtains a potential energy $`V\left(x\right)`$, so that $`V\left(x\right)=F𝑑x`$. Such system may be described by the Lagrangian

$$L(x,v)=TV\left(x\right)=\frac{mv^2}{2}V\left(x\right),$$
(1)
where $`T`$ is the kinetic energy of the particle. Notice that the Lagrangian is a function of the coordinate $`x`$ and its first derivative, the velocity $`v`$, ie, $`L=L(x,v)`$.

From the Lagrangian one can build another function, the Hamiltonian

$$HpvL=\frac{p^2}{2m}+V\left(x\right),$$
(2)
where

$$p\frac{L}{v}=mv$$
(3)
is the momentum associated with the coordinate $`x`$. The Hamiltonian, which is a function of $`x`$ and $`p`$, represents the total energy of the system.

If the total energy of the system is conserved, then

$$\frac{dH}{dt}=\frac{H}{x}\left(\frac{dx}{dt}\right)+\frac{H}{p}\left(\frac{dp}{dt}\right)+\frac{H}{t}=0,$$
(4)
or, equivalently,

$$\frac{d}{dt}\left(\frac{mv^2}{2}+V\right)=0,$$
(5)
from where one gets the equation of movement

$$m\frac{d^2x}{dt^2}+\frac{dV}{dx}=0.$$
(6)
What kind of potential can one have in this equation? Possible answers can be given by dimensional analysis. Noting that

$$\left[V\right]=kg^1m^2s^2$$
(7)
where $`\left[Q\right]`$ means the dimension of the quantity $`Q`$, and $`kg`$, $`m`$ and $`s`$ are the units of mass, distance and time in SI units, respectively, relations like

$$V=\lambda _1x^p$$
(8)
are possible only if

$$\left[\lambda _1\right]=\left[Vx^p\right]=kg^1m^{2p}s^2.$$
(9)
Therefore, in this case the system must have some measurable constant $`\lambda _1`$ with dimensions given by (9).

“The most important problem in one-dimensional motion … is the harmonic oscillator” Symon . This system may be represented by a mass fastened to a spring. The spring is characterized by a constant $`k`$ which has

$$\left[k\right]=kg^1s^2,$$
(10)
so that, for the harmonic oscillator, the correct form of the potential is

$$V\left(x\right)=\lambda _1x^2=\mu kx^2,$$
(11)
where $`\mu `$ is a dimensionless constant. Since the spring obeys Hooke’s law $`F=kx`$, then $`\mu =1/2`$, and the equation of movement for the harmonic oscillator is

$$m\frac{d^2x}{dt^2}+kx=0.$$
(12)
The one-dimensional harmonic oscillator, which by its simplicity represents a prototype for many one-dimensional systems, can be generalized in the context of a field theory in a 4-dimensional – or covariant – formalism. Such generalization is the main topic of the next section, where the Lagrangian formulation is also written covariantly.

## III A generalized harmonic oscillator

For a covariant generalization of the harmonic oscillator one needs some new concepts, usually presented as a ‘preface to curvature’ Schutz :

* the idea of a space-time, with coordinates $`x^\mu `$ and the metric $`g_{\mu \nu }`$ (of determinant $`g`$), described by the interval $`ds^2g_{\mu \nu }dx^\mu dx^\nu `$;
* the covariant derivative $`_\mu `$, which substitutes the usual derivative $`_\mu d/dx^\mu `$, and related to it by a conexion $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\beta \gamma }^\alpha `$, such that $`\left(_\mu _\mu \right)x^\nu =\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mu \alpha }^\nu x^\alpha `$ and $`_\mu g_{\alpha \beta }=0`$;
* the idea of a Lagrangian density $`=(x^\mu ,_\mu \phi _i)`$, which is a scalar density D'Inverno  of weight $`+1`$, and which depends on the space-time coordinates $`x^\mu `$ through fields $`\phi _i\left(x^\mu \right)`$ and their gradients $`_\mu \phi _i\left(x^\mu \right)`$.

Using these concepts, the simplest covariant field generalization of the harmonic oscillator is

$$=\sqrt{g}\left[\frac{1}{2}g^{\mu \nu }_\mu \phi _\nu \phi V\left(\phi \right)\right].$$
(13)
Now, for any infinite system described by a general Lagrangian density $``$, one can write an energy-momentum tensor Birrel

$$T^{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{\sqrt{g}}\left[\pi ^\mu ^\nu \phi _ig^{\mu \nu }\right],$$
(14)
where

$$\pi ^\mu \frac{}{\left(_\mu \phi \right)},$$
(15)
and from it, by use of the conservation condition

$$_\mu T^{\mu \nu }=0,$$
(16)
to obtain the equations of movement – the field equations – of the system.

In the case of the generalized harmonic oscillator the field equation obtained is the Klein-Gordon equation,

$$\mathrm{}\phi +\frac{dV}{d\phi }g^{\mu \nu }_\mu _\nu \phi +\frac{dV}{d\phi }=0,$$
(17)
where $`\mathrm{}`$ is the d’Alembertian operator. Notice that both the covariant derivative and the d’Alembertian depend on the metric $`g_{\mu \nu }`$, and that one can write for a scalar, explicitly Birrel2 ,

$$\mathrm{}\phi =\left[g\right]^{1/2}_\mu \left(\sqrt{g}g^{\mu \nu }_\nu \phi \right).$$
(18)
Everything done in this section has a good analogy with the classical description of the one-dimensional harmonic oscillator of the previous section. For example, the one-dimensional harmonic oscillator has as equation of movement a linear second-order differential equation, while the field equation for the generalized harmonic oscillator is a generalization of this, with the d’Alembertian operator acting as the second-order differential operator. However, the d’Alembertian depends on the metric $`g_{\mu \nu }`$ of the spacetime. So, in order to solve the field equation for the generalized harmonic oscillator first one must find how to write it explicitly. This is done in the next section with the geometric formalism of General Relativity.

## IV General Relativity

The relation between the metric of a space-time and its content of matter and energy is given by the Einstein Equations

$$G_{\mu \nu }R_{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{2}g_{\mu \nu }R=8\pi T_{\mu \nu }+g_{\mu \nu }\mathrm{\Lambda },$$
(19)
where $`R_{\mu \nu }`$, the Ricci tensor, is a geometrical quantity built with the metric and its derivatives up to second order, $`Rg^{\mu \nu }R_{\mu \nu }`$ is the Ricci scalar, and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is the cosmological constant. If one wants a very general solution of Einstein Equations, representing an isotropic and homogeneous space-time, it is common to use the metric present in the Friedmann–Lemaître-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) element of line

$$ds^2=dt^2a^2\left(t\right)\left[\frac{dr^2}{1kr^2}+r^2\left(d\theta ^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta d\varphi ^2\right)\right],$$
(20)
where $`a\left(t\right)`$ is the scale factor, and where $`k=0,\pm 1`$ is a number, the parameter of curvature. Another important assumption is that the matter content of the universe may be represented by a generic perfect fluid with

$$T^{\mu \nu }=\left(\rho +p\right)u^\mu u^\nu pg^{\mu \nu }$$
(21)
as energy-momentum tensor, where $`u^\mu `$ is the 4-velocity of the fluid, $`\rho `$ its energy density and $`p`$ its pressure. Using these ingredients, one obtains two equations, one relating $`\rho `$ and $`a`$,

$$\frac{1}{a^2}\left(\frac{da}{dt}\right)^2+\frac{k}{a^2}=\frac{8\pi }{3}\rho +\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{3},$$
(22)
known as Friedmann’s Equation, and another relating $`p`$ and $`a`$,

$$\frac{2}{a}\frac{d^2a}{dt^2}+\frac{1}{a^2}\left(\frac{da}{dt}\right)^2+\frac{k}{a^2}=\mathrm{\Lambda }8\pi p.$$
(23)
It is important to notice that these two equations are not independent, due to the conservation of energy,

$$d\left(\rho V\right)+pdV=0,$$
(24)
which relates the variation of $`\rho `$ with $`p`$ and the variation of the volume $`V`$ of the fluid.

The important thing to be noticed here is that the metric $`g_{\mu \nu }`$ has a time dependence, in the scale factor $`a\left(t\right)`$, represented by any of the equations (22) and (23). Therefore, different contents of matter and energy, expressed in $`\rho `$ and $`p`$, give birth to different temporal evolutions of the metric. One kind of these possible evolutions received the name of inflation.

## V The field equations

The FLRW metric also allows to write explicitly the d’Alembertian, through eq. (18), such that the field equation becomes

$$\frac{^2\phi }{t^2}+\frac{3}{a}\frac{da}{dt}\frac{\phi }{t}+\frac{1}{a^2}^2\phi +\frac{dV}{d\phi }=0,$$
(25)
where $`^2`$ is the usual three-dimensional Laplacian operator.

Can the energy-momentum tensor of the scalar field, obtained from equations (13) and (14), be compared to the one of a perfect fluid? If one assumes that the field is homogeneous there is no spatial gradients and, therefore, from the component $`T^{00}`$, one gets

$$\rho =\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{d\phi }{dt}\right)^2+V\left(\phi \right)$$
(26)
and, after this, it becomes clear that

$$p=\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{d\phi }{dt}\right)^2V\left(\phi \right).$$
(27)
This gives the equation of state

$$p=w\rho ,$$
(28)
where

$$w\left[\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{d\phi }{dt}\right)^2V\left(\phi \right)\right]\left[\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{d\phi }{dt}\right)^2+V\left(\phi \right)\right]^1.$$
(29)
Using the above results one obtains two independent equations,

$$\left(\frac{1}{a}\frac{da}{dt}\right)^2+\frac{k}{a^2}=\frac{8\pi }{3}\left[\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{d\phi }{dt}\right)^2+V\left(\phi \right)\right]+\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{3},$$
(30)
or its equivalent

$$\frac{2}{a}\frac{d^2a}{dt^2}+\frac{1}{a^2}\left(\frac{da}{dt}\right)^2+\frac{k}{a^2}=\mathrm{\Lambda }8\pi \left[\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{d\phi }{dt}\right)^2V\left(\phi \right)\right],$$
(31)
and

$$\frac{d^2\phi }{dt^2}+\frac{3}{a}\frac{da}{dt}\frac{d\phi }{dt}+\frac{dV}{d\phi }=0,$$
(32)
which becomes the equation for the harmonic oscillator if $`a`$ is constant, or its equivalent

$$\frac{d}{dt}\left[\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{d\phi }{dt}\right)^2+V\left(\phi \right)\right]+\frac{3}{a}\frac{da}{dt}\left(\frac{d\phi }{dt}\right)^2=0,$$
(33)
which is nothing more than the condition for energy conservation, with $`a^3`$ assuming the role of the volume.

Unfortunately, the two independent equations obtained contain three unknowns, $`a`$, $`\phi `$ and $`V`$. Therefore, in order to solve them one needs something else, like simplifying assumptions, or an equation relating $`V`$ and $`\phi `$, for example. The most common procedure is to specify some kind of potential, $`V\left(\phi \right)`$, and from it solve the equations for the field and the scale factor. In the next section it is shown that a group of inflationary solutions can be built with relations suggested by dimensional analysis.

## VI Dimensional considerations

A natural choice to solve the system formed by the equations (30) and (32) consists in using as an extra hypothesis some relation between the unknowns $`a`$ and $`\phi `$ (and their derivatives) suggested by dimensional analysis. As a specific example, one can use only relations where all needed constants are built with a combination of the universal constants $`c`$ and $`G`$, both present in General Relativity.

The first step consists in observing that

$$\left[G^pc^q\right]=kg^pm^{3p+q}s^{2pq}.$$
(34)
Assuming

$$\left[a\right]=m$$
(35)
and

$$\left[\left(\frac{d\phi }{dt}\right)^2\right]=kg^1m^1s^2,$$
(36)
one can ‘try’ relations such as

$$\left(\frac{d\phi }{dt}\right)^{2k}=\lambda _1a^{\mathrm{}},$$
(37)
where

$$\left[\lambda _1\right]=\left[\left(\frac{d\phi }{dt}\right)^{2k}a^{\mathrm{}}\right]=kg^km^{k+\mathrm{}}s^{2k}.$$
(38)
Comparing this last result with equation (34) one obtains the system of equations

$$\{\begin{array}{c}k=p\hfill \\ k+\mathrm{}=3p+q\hfill \\ 2k=2pq\hfill \end{array},$$
(39)
which gives $`p=k`$, $`q=4k`$ and $`\mathrm{}=2k`$. Choosing $`k=1/2`$ one gets $`\left[\lambda _1\right]=\left[G^{1/2}c^2\right]`$ and the relation

$$\frac{d\phi }{dt}=\lambda _1a^1.$$
(40)
Substituting this ‘ansatz’ in (30) and in (33), one obtains a new system formed by the equations

$$\left(\frac{1}{a}\frac{da}{dt}\right)^2+\frac{k}{a^2}=\frac{8\pi }{3}\left[\frac{\lambda _1^2}{2a^2}+V\left(\phi \right)\right]+\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{3}$$
(41)
and

$$\frac{2\lambda _1^2}{a^3}\frac{da}{dt}+\frac{dV}{dt}=0.$$
(42)
This last equation shows that

$$V=V_0+\lambda _1^2a^2,$$
(43)
with $`V_0`$ being a constant, what finally allows one the obtain the solutions

$$a\left(t\right)=\frac{1}{2\alpha }\left[c_1e^{\alpha t}+\frac{k4\pi \lambda _1^2}{c_1}e^{\alpha t}\right],$$
(44)
$$\phi \left(t\right)=\phi _0+\frac{\lambda _1}{\left(4\pi \lambda _1^2k\right)^{1/2}}\mathrm{ln}\left[\frac{\left(4\pi \lambda _1^2k\right)^{1/2}c_1e^{\alpha t}}{\left(4\pi \lambda _1^2k\right)^{1/2}+c_1e^{\alpha t}}\right],$$
(45)
and

$$V\left(\phi \right)=V_0\frac{\alpha ^2}{k4\pi \lambda _1^2}\mathrm{sinh}^2\left[\frac{\left(4\pi \lambda _1^2k\right)^{1/2}}{\lambda _1}\left(\phi \phi _0\right)\right],$$
(46)
where $`c_1`$, $`\phi _0`$ and $`3\alpha ^28\pi V_0+\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ are constants. Notice that these solutions, which do not always include the initial condition $`a\left(0\right)=0`$, are not valid for the case $`\alpha =0`$, when one has instead

$$a\left(t\right)=\left(4\pi \lambda _1^2k\right)^{1/2}t,$$
(47)
$$\phi \left(t\right)=\phi _0+\lambda _1\left(4\pi \lambda _1^2k\right)^{1/2}\mathrm{ln}t,$$
(48)
and

$$V\left(\phi \right)=\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{8\pi }\frac{\lambda _1^2}{k4\pi \lambda _1^2}\mathrm{exp}\left[2\sqrt{4\pi \frac{k}{\lambda _1^2}}\left(\phi \phi _0\right)\right].$$
(49)
Another possible relation inspired by dimensional analysis is

$$\left(\frac{d\phi }{dt}\right)^{2k}=\lambda _2H^n\lambda _2\left(\frac{1}{a}\frac{da}{dt}\right)^n,$$
(50)
with $`H`$ being now the Hubble function, and

$$\left[\lambda _2\right]=\left[\left(\frac{d\phi }{dt}\right)^{2k}H^n\right]=kg^km^ks^{2k+n}.$$
(51)
Using (34) one has, then, $`n=q=2p=2k`$. Choosing $`k=1/2`$, $`\left[\lambda _2\right]=\left[G^{1/2}c^1\right]`$ and the ansatz now becomes

$$\frac{d\phi }{dt}=\lambda _2\frac{1}{a}\frac{da}{dt}=\lambda _2\frac{d\mathrm{ln}a}{dt},$$
(52)
or

$$a=\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{\phi \phi _0}{\lambda _2}\right),$$
(53)
what substituted in (30) and in (33) yields, for $`k=\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$,

$$a\left(t\right)=t^{1/\left(4\pi \lambda _2^2\right)},$$
(54)
$$\phi \left(t\right)=\phi _0+\frac{1}{4\pi \lambda _2}\mathrm{ln}t,$$
(55)
and

$$V\left(\phi \right)=\left(\frac{3}{8\pi \lambda _2^2}\frac{1}{2}\right)\frac{\mathrm{exp}\left[8\pi \lambda _2\left(\phi \phi _0\right)\right]}{16\pi ^2\lambda _2^2},$$
(56)
where $`\phi _0`$ is a constant.

A last example is given by the relation

$$\left(\frac{d\phi }{dt}\right)^{2k}=\lambda _3\left(\frac{dH}{dt}\right)^j,$$
(57)
where

$$\left[\lambda _3\right]=\left[\left(\frac{d\phi }{dt}\right)^{2k}\left(\frac{dH}{dt}\right)^j\right]=kg^km^ks^{2k+2j}.$$
(58)
Now, the indices are such that $`2j=q=2p=2k`$, and choosing $`k=1`$ one gets $`\left[\lambda _3\right]=\left[G^1c^2\right]`$ and the relation

$$\left(\frac{d\phi }{dt}\right)^2=\lambda _3\frac{dH}{dt},$$
(59)
with the solutions

$$a\left(t\right)=\frac{1}{2\beta }\left[c_2e^{\beta t}+\frac{1}{c_2}\left(\frac{k}{1+4\pi \lambda _3}\right)e^{\beta t}\right],$$
(60)
$$\phi \left(t\right)=\phi _0+\sqrt{\lambda _3}\mathrm{ln}\left[\frac{k^{1/2}\left(1+4\pi \lambda _3\right)^{1/2}c_2e^{\alpha t}}{k^{1/2}\left(1+4\pi \lambda _3\right)^{1/2}+c_2e^{\alpha t}}\right],$$
(61)
and

$$V\left(\phi \right)=V_0\lambda _3\beta ^2\left(\frac{1}{2}+\mathrm{cosh}^2\frac{\phi \phi _0}{\sqrt{\lambda _3}}\right),$$
(62)
where $`c_2`$, $`V_0`$ and $`\phi _0`$ are constants, and $`3\beta ^2\left(8\pi V_0+\mathrm{\Lambda }\right)\left(1+4\pi \lambda _3\right)^1`$. These solutions, which do not always include the initial condition $`a\left(0\right)=0`$, are valid for $`\beta 0`$. When $`\beta =0`$ one has instead

$$a\left(t\right)=k^{1/2}\left(1+4\pi \lambda _3\right)^{1/2}t,$$
(63)
$$\phi \left(t\right)=\phi _0+\sqrt{\lambda _3}\mathrm{ln}t,$$
(64)
and

$$V\left(\phi \right)=\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{8\pi }\lambda _3\mathrm{exp}\left[2\frac{\left(\phi \phi _0\right)}{\sqrt{\lambda _3}}\right].$$
(65)
It is interesting to notice that a relation like

$$\left(\frac{d\phi }{dt}\right)^{2k}=\lambda _4\left(\frac{da}{dt}\right)^q$$
(66)
is not valid if one wants $`\lambda _4`$ a constant with dimension equal to the dimension of a combination of only $`c`$ and $`G`$.

To finish this section it is important to remark that the solutions obtained above, all of them generalizations of solutions presented before in the literature Ellis , are only of two kinds with relation to the behaviour of the scale factor $`a`$: a power function of $`t`$ and a combination of exponentials of $`t`$. In the next section it will be discussed if such kinds of solutions are inflationary solutions.

## VII Inflation

The inflationary epoch of the universe is usually seen as the age where the universe inflated very fast, in an exponential way. However, this ‘definition’ of inflation can be widened: one can say that “inflation is defined as an epoch in the history of the universe during which the cosmic expansion is accelerated” Faraoni . This means that a solution of Friedmann’s equation for the scale factor $`a\left(t\right)`$ can be seen as an inflationary solution if it is an expanding solution and its second time derivative is positive,

$$\frac{d^2a}{dt^2}>0.$$
(67)
However, combining (22) and (23), one can see that

$$\frac{d^2a}{dt^2}=\frac{a}{3}\left[\mathrm{\Lambda }4\pi \left(\rho +3p\right)\right],$$
(68)
so that, considering only solutions and times where $`a0`$, the condition for inflation becomes equivalent to have

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }>4\pi \left(\rho +3p\right).$$
(69)
Defining a new density $`\rho _\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ such that $`8\pi \rho _\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and assuming the equation of state $`p=w\rho `$ this relation is written as

$$\frac{\rho _\mathrm{\Lambda }}{\rho }>\frac{1+3w}{2}.$$
(70)
For ordinary matter (‘dust’) $`w=0`$, while for radiation $`w=1/3`$. If, however, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$ then one must necessarily have $`w<1/3`$.

The solutions presented in the previous section are of two kinds: a power function of $`t`$, where

$$a\left(t\right)=c_1t^\lambda \frac{d^2a}{dt^2}=\frac{\lambda \left(\lambda 1\right)}{t^2}a\left(t\right),$$
(71)
and a combination of exponentials of $`t`$, with

$$a\left(t\right)=c_2e^{\lambda t}+c_3e^{\lambda t}\frac{d^2a}{dt^2}=\lambda ^2a\left(t\right).$$
(72)
Clearly, such solutions obey the condition for inflation with two restrictions: $`\lambda >1`$, in the power function case, and $`\lambda ^2>0`$, in the exponential case. Therefore, from all solutions presented here, in this section, only the ones given by equations (47) and (63) can not be considered inflationary, while the solution given by eq. (44) is inflationary for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }>8\pi V_0`$, the one given by eq. (54) is inflationary for $`1>4\pi \lambda _2^2`$, and the one given by (60) is inflationary wherever $`\left(8\pi V_0+\mathrm{\Lambda }\right)\left(1+4\pi \lambda _3\right)^1>0`$.

## VIII Final remarks

The purpose of this work was to show, using as example the ‘idea’ of inflation, that even very basic concepts, such as the use of dimensional analysis, can have its role in the search of more sophisticated results. This process can be illustrated a little more with one last example. If one tries the relation

$$\left(\frac{d\phi }{dt}\right)^{2k}=\lambda _2H^n+\lambda _2^{},$$
(73)
one gets that

$$\left[\lambda _2^{}\right]=kg^km^ks^{2k},$$
(74)
and certainly this can not be obtained using only $`c`$ and $`G`$. Now if one allows the use of Planck’s constant $`\mathrm{}`$, one has

$$\left[G^pc^q\mathrm{}^r\right]=kg^{p+r}m^{3p+q+2r}s^{2pqr},$$
(75)
such that $`2r=p=2q/7=2k`$. Choosing $`k=1`$, one obtains $`\left[\lambda _2^{}\right]=\left[G^2c^8\left(\mathrm{}c\right)^1\right]`$ and

$$\left(\frac{d\phi }{dt}\right)^2=\lambda _2H^2+\lambda _2^{}$$
(76)
Deriving this relation and substituting the result in (33) one gets

$$\lambda _2H\frac{dH}{dt}+3H\left(\lambda _2H^2+\lambda _2^{}\right)+\frac{dV}{dt}=0.$$
(77)
Now, inserting (76) in (30) and returning the result into (77) one gets

$$\frac{dH}{dt}+4\pi \left(\lambda _2H^2+\lambda _2^{}\right)\frac{k}{a^2}=0.$$
(78)
This equation is easily solved when $`k=0`$, with the results

$$H\left(t\right)=\sqrt{\frac{\lambda _2^{}}{\lambda _2}}\mathrm{tan}\left[4\pi \sqrt{\lambda _2\lambda _2^{}}\left(tt_0\right)\right]$$
(79)
and

$$a\left(t\right)=a_0\mathrm{cos}^{1/\left(4\pi \lambda _2\right)}\left[4\pi \sqrt{\lambda _2\lambda _2^{}}\left(tt_0\right)\right],$$
(80)
where $`t_0`$ and $`a_0`$ are constants of integration. Imposing that $`a\left(0\right)=0`$ one gets $`2\gamma t_0=\pi `$, and if $`\lambda _2>0`$ and $`\lambda _2^{}<0`$, then $`\sqrt{\lambda _2\lambda _2^{}}`$ is a purely imaginary quantity, such that

$$a\left(t\right)=a_1\mathrm{sinh}^{1/\left(4\pi \lambda _2\right)}4\pi \sqrt{\lambda _2\left|\lambda _2^{}\right|}t,$$
(81)
where $`a_1`$ is a real positive constant. Finally, if one chooses $`4\pi \lambda _2=3`$, then, from (30) and (76), $`V=V_0=\left(4\pi \left|\lambda _2^{}\right|\mathrm{\Lambda }\right)(8\pi )^1`$ and

$$a\left(t\right)=a_1\mathrm{sinh}^{1/3}\sqrt{3\left(8\pi V_0+\mathrm{\Lambda }\right)}t.$$
(82)
Notice that this exact solution, obtained previously in the literature through the supposition of a specific form for the potential $`V`$ of the scalar field Faraoni , is just a particular case of a more general solution given by eq. (81).

It is important to emphasize that if one uses dimensional analysis to obtain new reasonable relations between physical quantities, relations which can be used as working hypothesis, one must worry about the validity – or origin – of such relations: do they represent something more than a possible mathematical relation with the dimensions adjusted correctly? For example, in the case worked above does the use of Planck’s constant $`\mathrm{}`$ to obtain the right dimensions of the constant $`\lambda _2^{}`$ indicate that such constant must have a quantum origin?

However, putting aside interpretative questions, one message this work wants to leave is that dimensional analysis is a very helpful and handy tool, which beyond allowing to check the consistency of some results, can also suggest new approaches, explanations and results, both in teaching and research.

## Acknowledgements

S. Silva e Costa thanks the Brazilian agency FAPESP (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo) for financial support (grant 00/13762-6).