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# Topological excitations around the vacuum of quantum gravity I: The symmetries of the vacuum

## 1 Introduction

The main problem of loop quantum gravity (see  for review) is the problem of the classical limit. Soon after the hamiltonian constraint of quantum gravity was defined on spin network states , and a wide class of solutions to it was found, it has become apparent that none of those solutions represent continuous spacetime geometry in the classical limit. The problem manifests itself in the fact that the hamiltonian constraint acts on distinct vertices of a spin network independently allowing for no possibility to send a signal between them . Also, the algebra of the hamiltonian constraints appears to be abelian and therefore not isomorphic to the classical constraints algebra .

There are two possible strategies to address this problem. First one can try to approximate states of the type that have been proved to have a good classical limit in ordinary QFT by complicated combinations of loop or spin network solutions. This includes the coherent states program  and approximating states of the Fock space . Second one can extend the range of our search to include other states which are not of loop or spin network type.

An exact state of quantum gravity which has a good classical limit does exist and this is the Chern-Simons state discovered by Kodama back in 1990 .

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_K=e^{\frac{3}{2\mathrm{\Lambda }G\mathrm{}}S_{CS}(A)},$$
(1)
where $`S_{CS}(A)`$ is the Chern-Simons action for the Ashtekar connection , and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is the cosmological constant. Although we don’t have a strict definition of the physical space of states the Kodama state belongs to and, therefore, we cannot calculate the expectation values of physical observables to show that they are peaked around a classical solution, there is some indirect evidence that the Kodama state has a good classical limit. On each spacial slice it satisfies a self-dual set of initial conditions (electric field is proportional to magnetic). These initial conditions are preserved by Einstein’s equations and result in the deSitter or anti-deSitter spacetime depending on the sign of the cosmological constant. This means that (anti)deSitter spacetime must be the classical limit of the Kodama state. For more details about the Kodama state, its relation to loop states and an outline of the program of how to solve the problem of classical limit in loop quantum gravity by using it see .

The problem with the Kodama state is that there is only one state of this kind known. The question is then: Can we define states which can be considered as perturbations around the Kodama state, the later playing the role of the vacuum? More precisely: Given that the classical limit of the Kodama state is the deSitter spacetime can we define states the classical limit of which would be gravitons propagating against the deSitter background?

This is not an easy question to answer because to define these excitations explicitly we need some spacetime structure to build them on. But we don’t know a priori what quantum spacetime is. One can setup a semiclassical framework  in which excitations around the Kodama state are introduced via expanding around classical deSitter spacetime. This has already led to some nontrivial predictions such as modified energy-momentum relations which cannot be obtained from studying purely classical spacetime. The next step would be to develop a formalism that does not rely on any classical spacetime structure at all. One may hope that such completely background independent consideration may reveal more information on what quantum spacetime is. This paper is about a particular way of approaching this.

In section 2 it is suggested that the structure of a TQFT which the Kodama state is the only solution of can be used to define excitations. This can be done by analogy with ’t Hooft, Deser, and Jackew’s formulation of 2+1 gravity with point particles . The new features arising in 3+1 dimensions are described.

Among those features is a ’holographic’ realization of the basic symmetries and observables of the theory. This requires a specific formulation of GR in the presence of a (timelike) boundary. This is done in section 3.

In section 4 the boundary theory is studied in more details. The algebra of boundary observables is derived and the generators of that algebra are related to quasilocal energy momentum and spin. The formalism fixes the coupling constant of the boundary Chern-Simons theory which leads to a q-deformation of the symmetry of the ground state.

In section 5 all the constraint of general relativity are recast in a form of a local conservation law. This form of constraints suggests how the boundary observables should be continued into the bulk.

In the absence of a strict regularization scheme some generic properties of the boundary observables are studied in section 6. In particular it is shown that the Kodama state is the ground state.

In section 7 a general way of introducing excitations around the Kodama state is discussed. In some simple cases the spectra of the boundary observables can be evaluated. In particular it is argued that quasilocal masses and spins must satisfy a relation of the Regge type.

## 2 Point particles in 2+1 gravity: how to extend to 3+1 dimensions

It is remarkable that in 2+1 gravity there is a way to define excitations around the vacuum which does not refer to any structure of classical spacetime. This is a specific way of describing point particles moving in 2+1 dimensional spacetime. Below for definiteness we consider the case of positive cosmological constant.

The action of 2+1 gravity is

$$S=(eF(A)+\mathrm{\Lambda }eee),$$
(2)
where the connection $`A`$ and the metric $`e`$ take the values on 2+1 dimensional $`\gamma `$-matrices and $`F(A)`$ is the curvature of the connection $`A`$. The action (2) can also be considered as the Chern-Simons action for $`SO(3,1)`$ group. The equations of motion of (2)

$$F(A)+\mathrm{\Lambda }ee=0,$$
(3)
and

$$e=0$$
(4)
simply mean that the curvature is constant everywhere and is determined by the cosmological constant. Put in the Chern-Simons language this means that $`SO(3,1)`$-curvature is zero. Therefore there is no intrinsic dynamics in the theory.

Dynamics can be introduced by adding matter to the action. The simplest example of matter is point particles having a certain mass. In 2+1 dimensions point particles do not create a Newtonian potential around them – the $`SO(3,1)`$ curvature is non-zero only at the points of the location of the particles. Classically these particles can be represented as conical singularities with the deficit angles proportional to their masses moving along certain trajectories in the deSitter space.

Quantum mechanically, on the other hand, there are no definite trajectories and the particle is described by a vector in a certain representation of the $`SO(3,1)`$ group. Therefore from the Chern-Simons point of view they can be thought of as point charges of the $`SO(3,1)`$ gauge group, or topological punctures. It is important to notice that $`SO(3,1)`$-symmetry is now understood as the gauge symmetry, the symmetry generated by the constraints (3,4), and not as the global symmetry of a classical background manifold.

This is an example of how the same object can be given two equivalent descriptions, one of which is background dependent and the other is background independent. On one side we have (quantum) particles propagating against a classical deSitter background. On the other side we have a topological field theory on a punctured manifold with all the physical information encoded in the vectors associated to the punctures and the positions of the punctures being irrelevant.

It is tempting to try to extend the above picture to 3+1 dimensions which would give rise to excitations around the Kodama state. The Kodama state is a solution not only of quantum general relativity but also of a four dimensional topological field theory called BF-theory defined by the following action

$$S=BF(A)+\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{2}BB,$$
(5)
where $`B`$ is a 2-form field. The constraints of (5)

$$F(A)+\mathrm{\Lambda }B=0$$
(6)
have a unique solution, which is the Kodama state. So perturbations around the Kodama state can be considered as addition of external sources of curvature to the BF theory, in the same way as matter can be added to 2+1 gravity. The difference is that these sources can still be intrinsic for 3+1 general relativity, i.e. still satisfy the vacuum Einstein equations. This is why pure 3+1 gravity has nontrivial intrinsic dynamics.

There are some other differences between the dynamics of topological matter in 2+1 and in 3+1 dimensions. Let us first ask why the natural extrinsic sources in 2+1 gravity are point particles or 0+1 dimensional objects. What makes the point particles preferred over singular sources of other dimensions? The reason is that this is the only possible objects that can be defined in a general-covariant way. Point particles are sources of curvature and the curvature is a 2-form. For the source to be singular it must contain a $`\delta `$-function and the $`\delta `$-function is a density. Density in turn results from the duality operation acting on forms, and so the volume form of the source must be dual to the curvature form. Therefore the objects which source the curvature must be of codimension 2, which are point particles or punctures. These arguments are similar to those according to which the electric charge in 11-dimensional M-theory must be carried by M2-branes and magnetic charge by M5-branes. The difference is that what is distributional now is not a divergence of a curvature but the curvature itself.

The above logic extends directly to 3+1 dimensions but now objects of codimension 2 are 1+1 dimensional objects. Classically the natural candidate for such objects would be cosmic strings, which are conical singularities extended in one spacial dimension. Being stretched in flat space along $`z`$-axis they can be described by the following metric

$$ds^2=dt^2+dz^2+dr^2+(1\alpha )^2r^2d\varphi ^2,$$
(7)
where $`\alpha `$ is the deficit angle. This metric solves the Einstein’s equations with the following stress-energy tensor

$$T^{\mu \nu }=diag(\alpha ,0,0,\alpha )\delta (r),$$
(8)
which in particular means that it solves all the constraints except the Hamiltonian. This means that general configurations of cosmic strings are not purely gravitational objects as the do not solve the vacuum Einstein’s equations. Yet there may be some specific configurations of them which solve the vacuum Einstein’s equations at least approximately in a weak coupling limit. The example is the graviton mode of a string.

In this paper we will focus mostly on quantum mechanical background independent description of the excitations. The natural candidates for these are Wilson loops

$$W(\mathrm{\Gamma })=Pe^{{\scriptscriptstyle A_a𝑑x^a}}.$$
(9)
They were shown to solve the gauge and the diffeomorphism constraints and also the Hamiltonian constraints for a certain factor ordering , . However the Kodama state is a solution to the Hamiltonian constraint for a different factor ordering. Therefore, as excitations around the Kodama state loops do not solve all the constraints of GR. But, again, there may exist specific configurations of loops which solve all of them. They can be formally defined via expansion of the projector on the physical states or in spin foam models .

Finally, the most profound difference between 2+1 and 3+1 TQFT is that in the constraint algebra. The constraints of 2+1 gravity (3,4)form an $`SO(3,1)`$-algebra, so the symmetry of the only classical solution is present in the canonical structure of the theory. On the other hand the algebra of the constraints (6) of 3+1 dimensional TQFT is abelian, while the symmetry of the only classical solution of the theory which is the deSitter spacetime is $`SO(4,1)`$. So the symmetry of the ”vacuum” solution is not represented in the constraint algebra. Behind this difference is the ”holographical” nature of 3+1 dimensional gravity. This is a consequence of the fact that the basic excitations of the theory are non-local.

Let us expand the last point in a bit more detail. If the constraints form the symmetry algebra of the vacuum classical solution then they can be understood as operators of energy momentum and angular momentum of the theory. Therefore in 2+1 gravity, as it is described here, the operators of the above quantities can be introduced locally. Indeed, energy, momentum, and spin can be assigned to each point particle, and because there is no Newtonian potential, and no gravitational waves in the theory, there is nothing like gravitational energy which generally cannot be defined locally. In 3+1 dimensions on the other hand excitations which do not produce Newtonian potential and can in principle represent the gravitational radiation themselves are strings. But these objects cannot be localized on spacelike 3-slice and do not allow us to define energy, momentum, and angular momentum locally. This is why the symmetry of the vacuum solution cannot be realized as the algebra of bulk constraints of the theory. It can however be realized in a ”holographic” sense. If we pick out a closed 2-surface in the spacial slice and impose a certain boundary conditions on it, then strings can be localized at this surface at the intersection points. On the surface can be defined a field theory, the constraints of which form (a subalgebra of) the deSitter algebra.

All the above fits very well with the well known fact that energy, momentum and angular momentum cannot be defined locally in general relativity. They however can be defined quasilocally on a surface on which some boundary conditions are satisfied. This is done in a form most suitable for our purposes in the next section.

## 3 Action principle for GR with a boundary: the choice of the boundary action

As was mentioned in the previous section, the only context in which the excitations can be studied from the point of view of the symmetry of the vacuum is when spacetime has a boundary. The boundary doesn’t have to surround the whole spacetime, it may be finite, but a certain kind of condition on the boundary must be satisfied.

In general the variation of an action for general relativity in a bounded region contains a surface term which must vanish for the variational principle to be well defined. This can be achieved by imposing some boundary conditions plus adding a surface term to the action.

There are many possible choices of the surface term in the action. Different boundary conditions require different surface terms. But they do not determine them completely. The surface term also depends on the choice of canonical variables. When we perform a canonical transformation in the theory, this is equivalent to the addition of a total derivative term to the Lagrangian. This term doesn’t change the equations of motion in the bulk, but it may have a nontrivial effect in the boundary. This is another piece of ambiguity in the choice of the surface term.

Here we will follow the proposal of Smolin  relating quantum gravity in the bulk region with topological quantum field theory on the boundary. The self-dual boundary conditions considered there were shown to be satisfied on black hole horizons  and therefore were extremely useful for studying black hole mechanics. However they are not very suitable for our purposes. They do not allow us to define energy and momentum and as a consequence the boundary theory does not completely capture the symmetry of the vacuum.

Therefore we choose another set of boundary conditions. To have a sensible definition of energy and momentum we need to fix metric on the boundary. We must also choose what canonical variables to use and this is motivated by our interest in the Kodama state. First, we must choose the Ashtekar variables in their original form, with the Immirzi parameter equal to $`i`$, as only in this variables the constraints take a simple form which the Kodama state is a solution of. Second, it is well known that General relativity can be obtained from breaking $`SO(4,1)`$-symmetry in topological field theory down to $`SO(3,1)`$ . The resulting form of GR action has definite implications as to what the boundary theory should be. Given that $`SO(4,1)`$ is the symmetry of the Kodama state it is natural to choose this form of the boundary action.

Here it is worth reviewing how a breaking of $`SO(4,1)`$ symmetry in TQFT leads to General Relativity, and what kind of action it results in. For convenience, we will use spinorial notations. Our starting point will be a topological field theory for $`Sp(4)`$ group which is locally isomorphic to $`SO(4,1)`$. The action depends on $`Sp(4)`$-connection $`A_\alpha ^\beta `$, where $`\alpha ,\beta =0,\mathrm{..3}`$.

$$S=\frac{1}{8\pi G\mathrm{\Lambda }}TrF_\beta ^\alpha P_\gamma ^\beta F_\delta ^\gamma P_\alpha ^\delta .$$
(10)
Here $`F_\beta ^\alpha =dA_\beta ^\alpha +A_\gamma ^\alpha A_\beta ^\gamma `$ is the $`Sp(4)`$-curvature 2-form and $`P_\beta ^\alpha `$ is a fixed symmetry breaking 0-form matrix.

$`Sp(4)`$ quantities can be decomposed by using $`SL(2,C)`$ indices notation $`A=0,1`$, $`A^{}=0,1`$. The $`Sp(4)`$ connection can be represented as

$`A_\alpha ^\beta =\left(\begin{array}{cc}A_A^B& \frac{1}{l}e_A^B^{}\\ \frac{1}{l}e_A^{}^B& A_A^{}^B^{}\end{array}\right),`$ (13)
where $`A_A^B`$ and $`A_A^{}^B^{}`$ are left-handed and right-handed $`SL(2,C)`$-connections respectively, $`e_A^{}^B`$ is a tetrad and $`l`$ is a fixed parameter of the dimension of length. Similarly one can decompose $`Sp(4)`$-curvature

$`F_\alpha ^\beta =\left(\begin{array}{cc}F_A^B& F_A^B^{}\\ F_A^{}^B& F_A^{}^B^{}\end{array}\right).`$ (16)
Here

$$F_A^B=f_A^B+\frac{1}{l^2}e_A^A^{}e_A^{}^B,$$
(17)
where $`f_A^B`$ is $`SU(2)_L`$-curvature of the connection $`A_A^B`$, and

$$F_A^{}^B=e_A^{}^B$$
(18)
is the torsion.

To get an action the canonical form of which is Ashtekar’s one has to restrict it to purely self-dual $`SL(2,C)`$-connection, which means that we should choose $`P_\beta ^\alpha `$ in (10) to be

$`P_\alpha ^\beta =\left(\begin{array}{cc}\delta _A^B& 0\\ 0& 0\end{array}\right).`$ (21)
The resulting bulk action is then

$$S_{Bulk}=\frac{1}{8\pi G\mathrm{\Lambda }}(f_A^B+\mathrm{\Lambda }e_A^A^{}e_A^{}^B)(f_B^A+\mathrm{\Lambda }e_B^A^{}e_A^{}^A),$$
(22)
where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=\frac{1}{l^2}`$ is the cosmological constant. This will be the basic bulk action for the rest of the paper.

As we mentioned before in order to be able to define energy and momentum we choose to fix the metric on the boundary

$$\delta e_A^{}^A|_S=0.$$
(23)
We can now calculate the variation of the action (22) subject to this condition.

$`\delta S_{Bulk}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi G\mathrm{\Lambda }}}{\displaystyle (f_A^B+\mathrm{\Lambda }e_A^A^{}e_A^{}^B)}e_B^B^{}\delta e_B^{}^A{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi G\mathrm{\Lambda }}}{\displaystyle }(f_A^B+\mathrm{\Lambda }e_A^A^{}e_A^{}^B)\delta A_B^A`$ (24)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi G\mathrm{\Lambda }}}{\displaystyle _S}(f_A^B+\mathrm{\Lambda }e_A^A^{}e_A^{}^B)\delta A_B^A.`$
For the variation principle to be well defined the boundary term in (24) has to vanish which can be achieved by adding a boundary term to the action (22):

$`S=S_{Bulk}+S_S,`$ (25)
where

$`S_S={\displaystyle \frac{1}{6\pi G\mathrm{\Lambda }}}S_{CS}[A]+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi G}}{\displaystyle _S}e_A^A^{}A_B^Ae_A^{}^B+S[e],`$ (26)
where $`S_{CS}[A]`$ is Chern-Simons action of the connection $`A`$ and $`S[e]`$ is a surface action which depends purely of metric. It can be checked that the the variation of the action (25) subject to the condition (23) has no surface term for arbitrary choice of $`S[e]`$ in (26). The later can be fixed by the requirement that the total action (25) be covariant, i.e. that the gauge and diffeomorphism invariance at the boundary be broken by the boundary conditions and not by the action itself. However diffeomorphism and gauge symmetries are partially broken due to the presence of the boundary. We can keep only invariance with respect to diffeomorphisms tangent to the boundary and with respect to rotations in the tangent space of the boundary. To make it explicit let us introduce an arbitrary unit vector field on the boundary $`s^\mu `$ and its spinorial representation $`s_A^{}^A=s^\mu e_{\mu A^{}}^A`$, $`s_A^{}^As_B^A^{}=\delta _B^A`$. By using it one can parametrize the self-dual part of the tetrad $`e_A^{}^Ae_B^A^{}`$ by a traceless triad $`\sigma _B^A=e_A^{}^As_B^A^{}1/2e_A^{}^Cs_C^A^{}\delta _B^A`$ as

$$e_A^{}^Ae_B^A^{}=\sigma _C^A\sigma _B^C+s\sigma _B^A.$$
(27)
The second term in the r.h.s. of (26) can then be rewritten in the form

$$_Se_A^A^{}A_B^Ae_A^{}^B=_S\sigma _A^BA_C^A\sigma _B^C+_SsA_B^A\sigma _A^B.$$
(28)
The second term in the r.h.s of (28) does not admit a covariant extension and has to be removed. This can be done by choosing the vector field $`s`$ on the boundary to be the unit normal to this boundary, which makes the above term disappear automatically. This means that the triad $`\sigma _B^A`$ is chosen to be the projection of the tetrad $`e_A^{}^A`$ on the surface $`S`$. The remaining term in the r.h.s of (28) by a specific choice of $`S[e]`$ can be completed to the term with a covariant derivative of $`\sigma `$. The covariant form of the boundary action is thus

$`S_S={\displaystyle \frac{1}{6\pi G\mathrm{\Lambda }}}S_{CS}[A]+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi G}}{\displaystyle _S}\sigma _A^B\sigma _B^A`$ (29)
In  two possible sets of boundary conditions dual to each other were studied. One could either fix connection on the boundary $`\delta A_A^B|_S=0`$ or choose self-dual boundary conditions $`F_A^B\mathrm{\Lambda }e_A^A^{}e_A^{}^B`$ and leave the connection loose. Similarly, instead of fixing metric on the boundary the action principle (25) by imposing the following set of conditions

$$\sigma _B^A|_S=0$$
(30)
can be made consistent. As in the case of free varying laps and shift functions we cannot define energy and momentum, the condition (30) must imply that energy and momentum is zero. In the next section we will see that this is indeed the case.

## 4 Quasilocal quantities and the algebra of boundary observables

In this section we will study the boundary theory defined by the action (29) in more details and relate its observables with quasilocal energy, momenta, and angular momenta of the bulk theory.

A theory of the form (29) was considered by Witten  along with the action of 2+1 gravity. It can be rewritten as a Chern -Simons action

$$S_S=\frac{1}{6\pi G\mathrm{\Lambda }}S_{CS}(a)$$
(31)
for SO(3,1)-connection

$$a=A_i𝒥^i+\sqrt{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\sigma _i𝒫^i,$$
(32)
where

$$[𝒥^i,𝒥^j]=ϵ^{ijk}𝒥_k,[𝒥^i,𝒫^j]=ϵ^{ijk}𝒫_k,[𝒫^i,𝒫^j]=ϵ^{ijk}𝒥_k$$
(33)
are the generators of the SO(3,1) group. This means that the constraints of the theory (29) form an SO(3,1) algebra with respect to the boundary simplectic form. In this the theory is similar to 2+1 dimensional gravity. Also its constraints have the same form

$`C_B^A`$ $`=`$ $`ϵ^{\alpha \beta }(F_{\alpha \beta B}^A+\mathrm{\Lambda }\sigma _{\alpha C}^A\sigma _{\beta B}^C)`$
$`H_B^A`$ $`=`$ $`ϵ^{\alpha \beta }_\alpha \sigma _{\beta B}^A,`$ (34)
were indices $`\alpha ,\beta =1,2`$ are two-dimensional spacial manifold indices and $`ϵ^{\alpha \beta }`$ is completely antisymmetric tensor. It differs however form (2+1) gravity by the fact that the gauge and the diffeomorphism constraints have traded places. Also different are the canonical commutation relations between basic variables. Now they are

$`\{A_{\alpha B}^A,A_{\beta D}^C\}`$ $`=`$ $`3\pi G\mathrm{\Lambda }ϵ_{\alpha \beta }(\delta _D^A\delta _B^C+ϵ^{AC}ϵ_{BD})`$
$`\{\sigma _{\alpha B}^A,\sigma _{\beta D}^C\}`$ $`=`$ $`2\pi Gϵ_{\alpha \beta }(\delta _D^A\delta _B^C+ϵ^{AC}ϵ_{BD})`$
$`\{A_{\alpha B}^A,\sigma _{\beta D}^C\}`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (35)
The fact that the boundary theory is a Chern-Simons theory for SO(3,1) group with the coupling constant $`\kappa =\frac{6\pi }{G\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{}}`$ means that the symmetry group of the vacuum is now q-deformed with $`q=\mathrm{exp}(\frac{1}{\kappa +2})`$. This means that particles inserted in punctures of the boundary theory will ”propagate” in q-deformed spacetime.

In the rest of this section we will relate the constraints (34) with quasilocal observables of the bulk theory. This relation will involve projection of spinors on surfaces which may be spacelike or timelike. For this some useful notations are introduced below.

Let $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ be an arbitrary surface, which may be spacelike or timelike. Let $`n_a`$ be the unit normal vector to this surface, $`n_an^a=\pm 1`$, and $`n_A^{}^A=n^ae_{aA^{}}^A`$ its spinorial representation. $`n_A^{}^A`$ can be considered as an Hermitian metric for spinors on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, which allow us to introduce an operation of Hermition conjugation for such spinors

$$\mu _A^{}=n_A^A^{}\overline{\mu }_A^{},$$
(36)
where bar means complex conjugation. This operation is involutive $`(\mu _A^{})^{}=\pm \mu _A`$, where ’+’ stays for a timelike surface and ’-’ for a spacelike one.

The operation of Hermition conjugation allows one to define a new type of connection on the surface $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. In four dimensions the only relevant completely covariant connection is the torsion free one. We will denote it simply by $``$:

$$e_A^A^{}=de_A^A^{}+A_A^Be_B^A^{}e_A^B^{}A_B^{}^{+A^{}}=0.$$
(37)
Here $`A_A^B`$ and $`A_B^{}^{+A^{}}`$ are anti-self-dual and self-dual parts of the torsion-free connection which act on unprimed (left-handed) and primed (right-handed) spinors respectively. They are related to each other by complex conjugation:

$$A_B^{}^{+A^{}}=\overline{A}_B^{}^A^{}.$$
(38)
Along with the torsion-free covariant derivative one can define define purely anti-self-dual and purely self-dual covariant derivatives. Let $`\mu ^{AA^{}}`$ be an arbitrary spinor with one primed and one unprimed indices. Then we define

$`_a^{}\mu ^{AA^{}}`$ $`=`$ $`_a\mu ^{AA^{}}+A_{aB}^A\mu ^{BA^{}}`$
$`_a^+\mu ^{AA^{}}`$ $`=`$ $`_a\mu ^{AA^{}}+A_{aB^{}}^{+A^{}}\mu ^{AB^{}}.`$ (39)
These “covariant” derivatives are not completely covariant. The first of them restricts the gauge covariance to anti-self dual transformations and the second to self-dual. However they may give rise to fully covariant derivatives when projected on the surface.

Below, unless otherwise stated, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is a spaclike slice of spacetime, $`n_{A^{}B}`$ is the spinorial representation of timelike unit normal vector and $`e_B^A=e^{AA^{}}n_{A^{}B}\frac{1}{2}e^{CA^{}}n_{A^{}C}\delta _B^A`$ is the triad on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$.

Let us first show that the torsion of (anti)self-dual connection defined by (39) projected on a timelike surface $`S`$ is ADM energy-momentum (generally $`S`$ is supposed to be taken to infinity although it doesn’t necessarily have to). Let us consider the second term in the r.h.s of (26) which is the only term dependent on metric needed for consistency of the action principle if we don’t care about covariance. If we take a spacial slice $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ and make a 3+1 decomposition this action will read

$$S_S=\mathrm{}+𝑑te_{tA}^A^{}A_B^Ae_A^{}^B.$$
(40)
ADM energy and momentum are coefficients in front of lapse and shift functions in the above integral, and given that $`e_{tA}^A^{}n_A^A^{}=N`$ and $`e_{tA}^A^{}e_{iA}^A^{}=N_i`$ they are

$`E_{ADM}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi G}}{\displaystyle _{S\mathrm{\Sigma }}}e_B^AA_A^B`$
$`(P_{ADM})_B^A={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi G}}{\displaystyle _{S\mathrm{\Sigma }}}(e_C^AA_B^C{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}e_D^CA_C^D\delta _B^A),`$ (41)
where the symmetric pare of spinorial indices $`A,B`$ labels 3 spacelike directions. The same expressions written in Ashtekar canonical variables can be found e.g. in . Now taking into account that the total connection is torsion-free it is easy to see that the expressions entering the first and the second integral in (41) are components of the torsion of the connection (39), $`^+e_A^A^{}`$, projected on $`n_A^A^{}`$ and orthogonal to $`n_A^A^{}`$ respectively.

The above expressions for energy and momenta are simple and have been proved to be zero in the vacuum, however they are not covariant and do not form any algebraic structure from the point of view of boundary theory. Below we consider covariant expressions for energy and momenta given by the boundary constraints (34).

First, let us notice that the constraints from the first line in (34) define quasilocal angular momenta of the bulk theory.

$$J_B^A=\frac{1}{4\pi G}_{\mathrm{\Sigma }S}\left(\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}F_B^A+\sigma _C^A\sigma _B^C\right)$$
(42)
Indeed $`C_B^A`$ in (34) are boundary terms resulting from the variation of the Gaussian constraints of the bulk theory, generating local Lorentz transformations. One can fix a tetrad on the boundary so that it include gauge condition aligning intrinsic Lorentz frame with the global basis of boundary spacetime. So intrinsic Lorentz transformation identified with global ones and the operator generating them becomes the angular momentum of the theory.

The rest of constraints (34) are components of torsion of purely self-dual connection the triad $`\sigma _B^A`$ which is the tetrad $`e^{AA^{}}`$ projected on $`S`$. The connection entering this torsion can be equally understood as the four-dimensional torsion-free connection:

$$^{}\sigma _B^A=\sigma _B^A.$$
(43)
From the fact that the four-dimensional covariant derivative annihilates the spacetime tetrad $`e^{AA^{}}`$ it follows that only the derivative of the normal vector $`n_{A^{}B}`$ contributes to the torsion (43). This means that the torsion(43) is related to the extrinsic curvature of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$.

$`\sigma _B^A`$ $`=`$ $`(n_{A^{}B})e^{AA^{}}=(dn_{A^{}B}+A_B^Cn_{A^{}C}A_A^{}^{+C^{}}n_{C^{}B})n_D^A^{}\sigma ^{AD}`$ (44)
$`=`$ $`(A_C^{+A}A_C^A)\sigma _B^C`$
Here in the last line we introduced a self-dual connection acting on left-handed spinors

$`A_B^{+A}=n_A^{}^Adn_B^A^{}n_B^{}^AA_A^{}^{+B^{}}n_C^A^{}=n_A^{}^A^+n_B^A^{}`$ (45)
There are some simple relations between self-dual and anti-self-dual connections acting on spinors of the same chirality. First, it follows from (44) that

$$A_B^{+A}A_C^A=iK_B^A,$$
(46)
where $`K_B^A`$ is the tensor of extrinsic curvature of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. On the other hand the usual reality condition for Ashtekar variables means that

$$A_B^{+A}+A_C^A=\mathrm{\Gamma }_B^A,$$
(47)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_B^A`$ is the connection which is torsion-free on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$:

$$_\mathrm{\Gamma }\sigma _B^A=0.$$
(48)
Similarly one can introduce an anti-self-dual connection acting on right-handed spinors

$`A_B^{}^A^{}=n_A^A^{}^{}n_B^{}^A.`$ (49)
Now we should relate $`H_B^A`$ in (34) to energy and momenta. Let $`\tau _{\mu A}^B`$, $`\mu =0,1,2`$ be 3 generator of SL(2,R) group, which is the restriction of SL(2,C) on timelike slice, $`\mu =0`$ corresponding to rotation and $`\mu =1,2`$ corresponding to boosts. By using (44) and (46) it is easy to show that

$`i\tau _{0A}^B(\sigma _B^A)|_{\mathrm{\Sigma }S}=\tau _{0A}^B(K_C^A\sigma _B^C)|_{\mathrm{\Sigma }S}=det(\sigma |_{\mathrm{\Sigma }S})K_\alpha ^\alpha `$ (50)
$`i\tau _{iA}^B(\sigma _B^A)|_{\mathrm{\Sigma }S}=\tau _{iA}^B(K_C^A\sigma _B^C)|_{\mathrm{\Sigma }S}=det(\sigma |_{\mathrm{\Sigma }S})K_t^i,`$
where * denotes hodge dual with respect to the volume form on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }S`$. In the r.h.s. of the first line of (4) we recognize the density which when integrated over $`\mathrm{\Sigma }S`$ give rise to the Brown-York quasilocal energy  and in the second line we find quasilocal momentum. Thus we can write down the relation between constraints $`H_B^A`$ from (34) and quasilocal energy-momentum as follows

$`E`$ $`=`$ $`i\tau _{0A}^B{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi G}}{\displaystyle }\sigma _B^A,`$
$`P_i`$ $`=`$ $`i\tau _{iA}^B{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi G}}{\displaystyle }\sigma _B^A.`$ (51)
The expressions are not simply related to the basic canonical variables of the bulk theory and they do not vanish in the vacuum. However they can be related to simple ADM expressions (41) by using a reference spacetime

$`E_{ADM}=EE_{ref}`$
$`(P_{ADM})_B^A\tau _{iA}^B=P_i(P_i)_{ref},`$ (52)
where the subscript $`ref`$ means ’calculated in a reference spacetime’. Thus simple form can be restored at the cost of covariance. The advantage of this form is that quantities with subscript $`ref`$ are non-dynamical (they are c-numbers), and we can calculate bulk commutators of quasilocal quantities by using simple ADM expressions. More detailed description of Brown-York energy in Ashtekar variables can be found in the paper of Lau .

## 5 Einstein’s equations as a local conservation law

It is interesting to notice that the torsion of the connection (39) with the spacetime tetrad

$$T_A^A^{}=^{}e_A^A^{}$$
(53)
projection of which on a boundary defines the ADM energy is a locally conserved quantity in a covariant sense. Indeed the covariant divergence of $`T_A^A^{}`$ vanishes due to Einstein’s equations:

$$T_A^A^{}=^{}e_A^A^{}=F_A^Be_B^A^{}=0.$$
(54)
Here $`F_A^B`$ is the curvature of the self-dual connection. The quantities $`C_B^A`$ from (34) which define quasilocal angular momentum when projected on the boundary are also locally conserved due to the total connection being torsion-free:

$$C_B^A=\left(\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}F_B^A+\sigma _C^A\sigma _B^C\right)=(e_A^{}^Ae_B^A^{})=0.$$
(55)
From (54,55) it follows that the complete set of equations of GR is simply equivalent to the condition of conservation of $`T_A^A^{}`$ and $`C_B^A`$. Therefore all the Einstein’s equations can be put in a form of a local conservation law.

One of the conserved quantities, $`T_A^A^{}`$, is not a tensor (it does not transform covariantly with respect to right-handed gauge transformations). This is like the divergence-freeness condition of stress-energy tensor can be reexpressed as a genuine conservation law for some pseudotensor. In the present situation we can however rewrite all the equation as a conservation of a covariant quantities. This can be done on an arbitrary slice of spacetime. To each such slice one can associate a triad $`\sigma _B^A`$ which is the projection of the tetrad $`e_A^{}^A`$ on it. The torsion of $`\sigma _B^A`$, $`H_B^A=\sigma _B^A`$, is a covariant quantity. In particular, if the slice is timelike this is a constraint (34) of the boundary theory (29). The covariant divergence of $`H_B^A`$ is equivalent to a subset of Einstein’s equations:

$$H_B^A=\sigma _B^A=F_C^A\sigma _B^C=0$$
(56)
These equations are not necessarily defined on a single slice. One can consider one parameter family of slices or foliation of the whole spacetime to define it everywhere. One foliation is however not enough to recover the whole set of Einstein’s equations (equations with components normal to the foliation are still missing). At least two foliations which are different everywhere are required.

The equations (54,55) pulled back on a spacial slice $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ form the complete set of constraints of GR. Formally all the constraints are now Gaussian – they say that the electric field $`C_B^A`$ and some other field $`T_A^A^{}`$ are divergence-free. Quantum-mechanically this form of constraints is very difficult to treat because of complicated dependance of $`H_B^A`$ and even $`T_A^A^{}`$ on the basic canonical variables. However it provides us with some intuition about what generic solutions of the bulk theory must look like. If we introduce a perturbation on the boundary which has certain energy and momentum it has to be continued into the bulk as a certain flux of energy-momentum. Constraint equations simply mean that the lines of such fluxes must be continuous.

## 6 Discussion: Towards the definition of excitations around the vacuum

In this section we are making a proposal on how to define excitations around the vacuum which will be developed in subsequent papers.

Any physical excitation must have nonzero energy. As the energy is defined on a boundary of spacetime, any excitation must be seen from the boundary. Energy together with other boundary observables, such as momentum and angular momentum, provide exactly enough information to specify any excitation. Therefore to introduce an excitation in the vacuum one just has to change somehow the value of the boundary observables.

A natural (and in fact the simplest) way to give a nonzero value to the boundary observables is to put up a topological puncture on the boundary. Because the symmetry of the boundary theory is SO(3,1), containing rotations and boosts parallel to the boundary, and translations tangential to it, to each puncture one can associate a representation of SO(3,1) group (a charge of SO(3,1) gauge field) labeled by casimirs such as mass and spin, and a vector in this representation. This vector specifies the momentum and the polarization of a particle moving along the boundary.

The constraints of general relativity must then continue the excitation introduced on the boundary into the bulk. Because puncture on the boundary is an SO(3,1) charge it must induce a flux of SO(3,1) gauge field. As it was discussed in section 5 the constraints simply mean that the lines of such fluxes must be continuous.

The continuous lines of fluxes of a gauge field may be expressed as Wilson lines of this field. Now the gauge group is SO(3,1) and the Wilson line is

$$W(a)=Pe^{{\scriptscriptstyle a_a𝑑x^a}},$$
(57)
where the connection $`a`$ is that from (32).

The loops (57) are very difficult to treat quantum-mechanically, because the connection $`a`$ entring them is non-commutative with respect to the bulk simplectic form and the expression for a commutator between different components of this connection is very involved. It is therefore difficult to say if the loops (57) indeed satisfy all the constraints of general relativity or not. Yet (although in a different context) a formalism treating non-commutative loops has been developed  and some definite physical predictions have been extracted from it.

The bulk equations of motion can in turn put some constraints on the boundary observables, in particular they can relate masses and spins of particles propagating along the boundary. A glimpse of such a constraint can be found in the work of Thiemann  on ADM energy of spin-network states. The loops with commutative connection considered there are special cases of loops (57) where the representation is labeled by only one casimir which is the spin $`j`$. In  it was shown that in a simple case in which the ADM energy can be diagonalized its enigenvalues scale like

$$E_{ADM}\sqrt[4]{j(j+1)}.$$
(58)
Similar expression for quasilocal energy was obtained in  for a completely different regularization. So the relation (58) seems to be generic. When momentum is zero the energy is proportional to the mass of the particle and as a consequence for large spins we have the following relation

$$m^2j.$$
(59)
This is Regge type of relation for string oscillation modes. This may indicate that some sort of string theory may arise here. Of course this doesn’t have to be any kind of critical strings so far known.

The problem with (58) is that the energy spectrum is discrete and therefore cannot describe propagating particles (they must have continuous kinetic energy). This can be solved by including the more general type of loops (57) for SO(3,1) group for which the spectrum must be continuous. The last statement is somehow supported by some of the results of .

All the above will be developed in subsequent papers.

## Acknowlegements

I would like to thank Lee Smolin and Laurent Freidel for extensive conversations and helpful comments on the draft, and Hideo Kodama and Karim Noui for useful discussions on some aspects of this work.


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# Observation of a common symmetry for the pseudogap and the superconducting order parameter near the surface of underdoped 𝑌𝐵𝑎₂𝐶𝑢₃𝑂_{6+𝑥}

PACS: 74.20.Rp, 74.50.+r, 74.72.Bk

Measurements of the angular dependence of conductance spectra in the a-b plane of underdoped $`YBa_2Cu_3O_{6+x}`$ junctions are reported. At zero magnetic field the superconducting gap shows a $`|d+is|`$-like symmetry. Application of a magnetic field strongly suppresses this gap leaving only the pseudogap feature which also shows a $`|d+is|`$-like angular dependence. We thus observe the same symmetry for the superconducting gap and the pseudogap characterizing the YBCO electrodes near the interface with the barrier. An $`H_{c2}`$ value of $``$5T of the secondary ($`is`$) order parameter can also be deduced from our results.

The concept of the pseudogap in the context of high temperature superconductivity was first suggested by Alloul et al. who measured nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) of $`Y`$ in $`YBa_2Cu_3O_{6+x}`$ (YBCO). Later, the presence of the pseudogap was demonstrated by many different techniques, for example in measurements of angular resolved photo-emission (ARPES), transport studies, tunneling measurements, and conductance spectroscopy in junctions. A comprehensive review of experimental studies of the pseudogap in the HTS materials was given by Timusk and Statt. In particular, Deutscher had shown the existence of two distinct energy scales (energy gaps) in the high temperature superconductors (HTS). One is the ordinary superconducting gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ which exists at $`TT_c`$, while the other is the pseudogap which opens up at $`T^{}`$ or $`T_p`$, both above $`T_c`$. Recently, a pseudogap signature was observed also in the electron doped HTS. The origin of the pseudogap is a subject of intensive studies. Several authors suggested that this regime is characterized by the presence of pre-formed Cooper pairs, which however do not exhibit long range phase coherence. Alternate models suggest that the pseudogap region results from strong superconducting fluctuations, antiferromagnetic correlations, or separation of spin and charge. Currently, there is not enough experimental information to decide which of these models presents the correct description of the origin of the pseudogap. For example, one could interpret the microwave spectroscopy experiments of Corson et al., and the Nernst effect measurements by Xu et al., as supportive of the pre-formed pairs scenario. On the other hand, the null results of experiments searching for Andreev reflections above $`T_c`$ is pointing against it. It is the aim of the present paper to add experimental information which could be useful to discriminate between the various models. In our previous studies we used underdoped YBCO based ramp type (or edge) junctions, to measure the full angular dependence of the conductance spectra in the a-b plane. We found that the superconducting order parameter shows a modified $`d_{x^2y^2}`$ wave behavior with an extended node region and a non zero gap at the node. We also investigated the temperature and magnetic field dependence of the conductance spectra and found three distinct energy scales, which could be distinguished under different fields and temperatures. These were attributed to the two superconducting $`d_{x^2y^2}`$ and $`is`$ (or $`id_{xy}`$) energy gaps, and the pseudogap. In the present work we extend our study to determine the angular dependence of the pseudogap. We find the same angular dependence for the superconducting gap and the pseudogap near the surface of underdoped YBCO as was already found before in BSCO, and discuss some possible reasons of this behavior.

Our underdoped YBCO based ramp type junctions with $`\mathrm{YBa}_2\mathrm{Fe}_{0.45}\mathrm{Cu}_{2.55}\mathrm{O}_{6+\mathrm{x}}`$ barrier were described before. Briefly, they consist of all epitaxial thin film layers of $`caxis`$ orientation with electrodes which are coupled through the junction in the a-b plane. The films were prepared by laser ablation deposition, and patterning was done by deep UV photolithography and Ar ion milling. The junctions were found to have an extremely smooth interface of less than a nanometer roughness. The multilayer thin film structure was patterned into 10 junctions on the (100) $`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ wafer, each in a different direction ($`\theta `$) in the a-b plane of the films. By the use of three separate milling steps of the base electrode, similar ramp angles of $`35\pm 5^{}`$ were obtained for all 10 junctions on the wafer. Typical film thicknesses are 90 nm for the base and cover electrodes and 22 nm for the barrier, while the width of each junction is $`5\mu m`$. A gold layer is deposited on top of the whole wafer and patterned to produce the 10$`\times `$4 contact pads for the 4-terminal transport measurements.

Fig. 1 shows the resistance versus temperature of 6 of the 10 junctions on a wafer. Compared to our previous study, less oxygen was used in the annealing process resulting in much more resistive junctions ($`\times 5`$) and underdoped YBCO electrodes which become superconducting at $``$50K as compared to 60K used previously. The normal state resistance is typical of underdoped $`YBa_2Cu_3O_y`$ with $`6.50y6.55`$. For junctions with orientation close to the $`a`$ or $`b`$ axes, the resistance goes through a minimum at 40K, increases to a local maximum at 7K and then decreases at lower temperature. For junctions with orientation near the node, the normal resistance $`R_N`$ stays almost constant between 40 and 20K and then decreases with temperature down to 7K, where it starts increasing again slightly. Similar to our previous results, we find that the $`R_N`$ values of the $`30^{}`$, $`45^{}`$ and $`60^{}`$ junctions are the lowest. This result is consistent with the $`d_{x^2y^2}`$-wave anisotropy of the order parameter where states in the gap near the node region contribute to increase the conductance at low bias.

Fig. 2 shows the normalized conductance measured on 3 of the 10 junctions on the wafer at 3.8K, and also at 6.4K for the 45 (node) junction. The absolute values of the conductance at zero bias can be inferred from the resistance values in Fig. 1 which were measured at low DC bias. Like in our previous studies, we find a different angular dependence of the conductance spectra for junctions near the node orientation (30 and 45) and the one near the main axis (15). For the sake of simplicity, we take the measured tunneling gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ of our junctions as the peak to peak voltage difference divided by 4. The resulting $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\theta )`$ is shown in the inset of Fig. 2 together with the gap values measured in our previous study and the expected form $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0|cos(2\theta )|`$ where $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0=20\mathrm{mV}`$. Both sets of data agree quite well, and the dominant $`d_{x^2y^2}`$-wave symmetry is clearly seen. We single out the spectra of the $`\theta =45^{}`$ junction, which exhibits a zero bias conductance peak at 6.4K, consistent with a $`d_{x^2y^2}`$-wave order parameter. At a lower temperature, this peak splits, implying the emergence of a secondary order parameter, previously observed by others. The finite gap value at $`\theta =45^{}`$ in our previous work is well reproduced, and equals $`3\pm 0.5\mathrm{mV}`$, consistent with $`2.5\pm 0.3\mathrm{mV}`$ value found before. There is therefore evidence from several sources regarding the existence of an additional sub-dominant component in the pair potential of YBCO near a surface (in our case, the interface with the barrier). Since the gap feature at low bias disappears already at 6.4K, and a zero bias peak appears as seen in Fig. 2 and also in Ref. , it cannot result from a finite tunneling cone which should be independent of temperature. Therefore, the observation can be explained as due to a presence of $`is`$ or $`id_{xy}`$ components in the order parameter near a surface. To further check this conclusion we also simulated the conductance curve of the 450 junction at 3.8K using a $`d_{x^2y^2}+is`$ wave order parameter and a model given by Tanaka, Tanuma and Kashiwaya. The simulation result fits the data very well, and is shown by the solid line in Fig. 2. Attempts to fit the data using a $`d_{x^2y^2}+s`$ wave order parameter were not successful. Another feature seen in the normalized conductance of the node junction in Fig. 2 is that the maximum conductance at low bias is larger than the Andreev limit of 2 for high transparency (low Z) junctions. The reason for this is the existence of bound states also at voltage values higher than zero bias.

Fig. 3 shows the low temperature conductance spectra of the $`0^{}`$ junction at several magnetic fields normal to the wafer, together with the corresponding gap values versus field. First we note that the maxima of the conductance seen in this figure show a much smaller variation with the field compared to the $`45^{}`$ junction in Fig. 2 (17% versus 250%). The inset of Fig. 3 shows the gap apparently increasing with field. We attribute this apparent behavior to changes in the relative spectral weight of the superconducting gap and the pseudogap induced by the magnetic field. With the application of a magnetic field, first the strongest feature attributed to the $`is`$ or $`id_{xy}`$ component of the order parameter is suppressed, followed by the $`d_{x^2y^2}`$ component, finally leaving only the pseudogap feature which appears at the highest energy. Similar observations were reported by Krasnov et al in intrinsic BSCO junctions. Their conductance spectra have also shown suppression of characteristic features with increasing field, while the apparent gap energies were observed to either decrease or increase with field depending on temperature. Above $`T_c`$ in our junctions, the leads to the junction become normal and their resistance becomes much larger than that of the junction. Hence, measurements of the conductance spectra above $`T_c`$ are not possible. We therefore used the magnetic field to suppress superconductivity at low temperature, as was done recently also by Alff et al.. In our previous observations, the apparent peak position of the conductance in the 0 junction was found to decrease with increasing field up to 5T. The reason for the difference from the present results can be due to the fact that the present junctions are much more resistive and thus more in the tunneling-like regime. The inset of Fig. 3 shows that upon increasing the field up to 1.1T, the position of the peak in the conductance spectra increases from 9 to 20 mV with a plateau at $``$19 mV which is similar to the d-gap value of the 60K YBCO phase measured previously ($`16\pm 1.5`$ mV). This effect is attributed to the suppression of the $`is`$ component whose signature disappears already at $``$0.2T. At higher fields, the $`d_{x^2y^2}`$ gap signature in the conductance is also suppressed (at $``$1.4T), and the conductance spectra exhibit only a peak around 110 mV which corresponds to a gap value of 55 mV. This value is characteristic of the pseudogap in underdoped YBCO, and we therefore identify this feature as the pseudogap. At 8T, the peak position again decreases slightly.

Why should a field in the range of a few Tesla (small compared to $`H_{c2}`$) suppress the $`d_{x^2y^2}`$ gap signature (of the 50K YBCO phase) at 4K is puzzling, but the large 50-60 mV gap values observed here are clearly due to the pseudogap and not the $`d_{x^2y^2}`$ gap. We suggest the possibility that superconductivity near the interface is weakened by the proximity effect with the normal barrier. This effect is apparently much stronger in our new, more resistive junctions. Preliminary results using junctions with a non-magnetic Ga doped YBCO barrier, also show similar behavior in magnetic fields as observed in the present study in junctions with a Fe doped YBCO barrier. It is therefore quite unlikely that the depression results from scattering in the barrier, as the result seems independent of the type of dopant used in the tunneling barrier. We also note that conductance spectra in which the relative spectral weight of the pseudogap feature is larger than the d-gap were observed before, even at zero field. Thus the $`d_{x^2y^2}`$-wave characteristic is not fully suppresses at 1-2T, but only becomes weaker in comparison with the pseudogap. Recently, an $`H_{c2}`$ value of about 35T was measured for underdoped YBCO with $`T_c`$=50K like we use here. This relatively low $`H_{c2}`$ value together with a weaker superconductivity near the interface, can also help explain the surprisingly strong suppression of the d-wave characteristic. Going back now to the results in the inset of Fig. 3, one can deduce that the ratio of critical fields $`H_{c2}(d_{x^2y^2})/H_{c2}(is)`$ in underdoped YBCO is of the order of 1.4/0.2=7. Taking $`H_{c2}(d_{x^2y^2})`$ as 35T, we can estimate that the critical field of the $`is`$ component of the order parameter should be of about 5T.

Fig. 4 shows the conductance spectra of the $`45^{}`$ junction at 4K under several magnetic fields normal to the wafer, together with the corresponding gap values. As discussed before, since a pure $`d_{x^2y^2}`$-wave order parameter has no gap along the node, the prominent features at small fields in the conductance characteristics of Fig. 4 must be due to the small $`is`$-wave component. We find that with increasing field, the whole conductance spectrum is almost totally suppressed, similarly to what was observed with the $`0^{}`$ junction. We attribute the non conservation of spectral weight in the normalized conductance spectra versus field to the breaking of bound states which are prevalent at energies $`E2\mathrm{\Delta }_d`$. The position of the conductance peak increases significantly, from 3 mV at 0T to 7.5 mV at 8T as seen in the inset of this figure. As was explained above, the larger gap values seen at high fields (see inset of Fig. 3) are due to the pseudogap. Therefore, the conductance characteristics at high fields in Fig. 4 must also be due to the pseudogap. It seems that by applying an 8T field, we can apparently ”erase” all other features except the pseudogap. We are therefore in the position to perform a clean measurement of the angular dependence of the pseudogap in underdoped YBCO.

Fig. 5 presents the main message of this study. It shows the normalized conductance spectra at 4K and 8T of six junctions with different orientations in the a-b plane (main panel), and the resulting angular dependence of the measured pseudogap feature (inset). We find that the angular dependence of the pseudogap is the same as that of the superconducting gap given in the inset of Fig. 2 (to within experimental error). This indicates that the two phenomena might have a common origin. The most obvious reason is that both are related to the intrinsic crystalline symmetry of YBCO. It would appear that since the signature of the superconducting gap disappears with the application of a magnetic field and that of the pseudogap does not, the pseudogap is not connected with superconductivity. However, since the value of the magnetic field needed to suppress these features seems to depend on the energy of the peak in the conductance curve, it could be that the field we have at our disposal (8T) is simply insufficient for the suppression of the pseudogap feature. Hence, other scenarios which are consistent with the present results cannot be ruled out . One such scenario is that of the possible existence of uncorrelated pre-formed pairs in the pseudogap regime. These pairs have the same symmetry of the pair-wave function as that of the correlated pairs and can thus naturally yield the same symmetry for the pseudogap and the superconducting gap.

It should be noted though that angular resolved photoemission measurements (ARPES) of the angular dependence of the gap and the pseudogap have been done before in BSCO 2212 by Ding et al.. They found that there is basically no significant difference between the observed gap below and above $`T_c`$. The magnitude and angular dependence of the gap and pseudogap was almost the same, except for the observation of a broader node region for the pseudogap. The error in the ARPES measurements however, in the values of the energy gap of the heavily underdoped BSCO was quite large, about $`\pm 60\%`$. In contrast, the error in the present conductance measurements in the determination of the energy gap values near the node region is much smaller, about $`\pm 20\%`$. Therefore, the added value of the present results is the higher energy resolution, the use of a different (tunneling) technique, and the fact that we study another material, underdoped YBCO.

In conclusion, our results of the angular dependence of the conductance demonstrate clearly that both the superconducting gap and the pseudogap have the same $`|d_{x^2y^2}+is|`$-like symmetry in underdoped YBCO near the interface of the junctions. This result, combined with the similar result found for underdoped BSCCO, imposes another constraint on the theoretical description of the pseudogap. We also found that $`H_{c2}`$ of the small $`is`$ component of the order parameter is of the order of 5T.

We are grateful to A. Auerbach, O. Millo, G. Deutscher and I. Lubimova for useful discussions. We also thank I. Lubimova for use of her conductance simulation program. This research was supported in part by the Israel Science Foundation, the Heinrich Hertz Minerva Center for HTS, the Karl Stoll Chair in advanced materials, and by the Fund for the Promotion of Research at the Technion.

Figure Captions

Resistance versus temperature of six of the ten junctions on the wafer. The inset shows the low temperature region, illuminating the difference between junctions along the main axes (solid symbols) and near the node (open symbols).

Normalized conductance versus voltage bias of three of the junctions, together with a simulation of the node junction data at 3.8K (line). The inset shows the angular dependence of the gap of these junctions at 3.8K (open squares), together with previous gap values taken from Ref.  at 4.5K (solid circles), and 20$`|cos(2\theta )|`$ (line).

Conductance spectra at low temperatures of the 0 junction for several magnetic field values (main panel), and the corresponding gap energies versus field (circles and a triangle) together with more data (squares) from Ref.  (inset).

Conductance spectra at 4K of the 45 junction at several magnetic fields (main panel), and the field dependence of the corresponding gap energies together with more data at 3.5K (inset).

Normalized conductance spectra at 4K and 8T of six junctions (main panel), and the angular dependence of the pseudogap and 45$`|cos(2\theta )|`$ (inset).


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# Three-Pion Hanbury-Brown-Twiss Correlations in Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions from the STAR Experiment

## Abstract

Data from the first physics run at the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory, Au+Au collisions at $`\sqrt{s_{NN}}=130`$ GeV, have been analyzed by the STAR Collaboration using three-pion correlations with charged pions to study whether pions are emitted independently at freezeout. We have made a high-statistics measurement of the three-pion correlation function and calculated the normalized three-particle correlator to obtain a quantitative measurement of the degree of chaoticity of the pion source. It is found that the degree of chaoticity seems to increase with increasing particle multiplicity.

Two-pion Hanbury Brown and Twiss (HBT) interferometry in principle provides a means of extracting the space-time evolution of the pion source produced at kinematic freeze-out in relativistic heavy-ion collisions Gyulassy ; Report . An underlying assumption of this method is that pions are produced from a completely chaotic source, i.e. a source in which the hadronized pions are created with random quantum particle production phases. In applications of two-pion HBT the validity of this assumption is usually tested by extracting the “$`\lambda `$-parameter” which in a simple picture is unity for a fully chaotic source and zero for a fully coherent source Gyulassy ; Report . However, this parameter also depends on many other factors, such as contamination from other particles in the pion sample, unresolvable contributions from the decay of long-lived resonances and unstable particles ($`\omega ,\eta ,\eta ^{},K^0,\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, etc.), and inaccurate Coulomb corrections Report .

A better determination of the source chaoticity is possible by using three-particle correlations. Normalizing the three-pion correlation function appropriately by the two-pion correlator, the effects from particle misidentification and decay contributions can be removed HZ , thereby isolating possible coherence effects in the particle emission process. The resulting three-pion correlator $`r_3`$ provides the means of extracting the degree of source chaoticity by examining its value in the limit of zero relative momentum. Recent measurements at the CERN SPS from experiments NA44 and WA98 have focused on extracting $`r_3`$ from three-pion correlations NA44 ; WA98 . While these studies have produced results which are consistent with a chaotic source for Pb+Pb collisions ($`\sqrt{s_{NN}}=17`$ GeV), NA44 in particular has shown for S+Pb collisions ($`\sqrt{s_{NN}}=20`$ GeV) a result which does not appear to be consistent with the chaotic assumption. All of these prior results suffer from low statistics which limits their significance. We present here using charged pions the first high-statistics heavy-ion study of three-pion correlations, resulting in the first accurate measurement of the degree of chaoticity in Au+Au collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). Note that a similar study has recently been carried out for CERN LEP $`e^+e^{}`$ collisions LEP  which reports a fully chaotic source.

The present three-pion correlation study by the STAR experiment at RHIC supplements the published two-pion correlation data from Au+Au collisions at $`\sqrt{s_{NN}}=130`$ GeV STARHBT . A summary of the three-pion results will be presented for two multiplicity classes. By looking at collision classes with different multiplicities we can vary the impact parameter, and thus the number of initially colliding nucleons, and study the effect of the size of the colliding system on the source chaoticity. We discuss the method of normalization of the correlation function and its extrapolation to vanishing relative momentum in order to extract the source chaoticity; we estimate the various systematic uncertainties associated with these procedures.

Before presenting our experimental results, we first outline the formalism which guided our analysis (for details see Ref. HZ ; NS  and references therein). The measured observable is the normalized three-pion correlator:

$$r_3\left(Q_3\right)=\frac{\left(C_3\left(Q_3\right)1\right)\left(C_2\left(Q_{12}\right)1\right)\left(C_2\left(Q_{23}\right)1\right)\left(C_2\left(Q_{31}\right)1\right)}{\sqrt{\left(C_2\left(Q_{12}\right)1\right)\left(C_2\left(Q_{23}\right)1\right)\left(C_2\left(Q_{31}\right)1\right)}}$$
(1)
Here $`Q_3=\sqrt{Q_{12}^2+Q_{23}^2+Q_{31}^2}`$ and $`Q_{ij}=\sqrt{(p_ip_j)^2}`$ are the standard invariant relative momenta NA44 ; WA98  which can be computed for each pion triplet from the three measured momenta $`(\text{p}_1,\text{p}_2,\text{p}_3)`$. $`C_2(p_i,p_j)=\frac{P_2(p_i,p_j)}{P_1\left(p_i\right)P_1\left(p_j\right)}=C_2(Q_{ij})`$ and $`C_3(p_1,p_2,p_3)=\frac{P_3(p_1,p_2,p_3)}{P_1\left(p_1\right)P_1\left(p_2\right)P_1\left(p_3\right)}=C_3(Q_3)`$, where $`P`$ represents the momentum probability distribution. In Ref. HZ  the ratio $`r_3`$ is defined in terms of functions which depend on all 9 components of $`(\text{p}_1,\text{p}_2,\text{p}_3)`$; however, limited statistics even in our high-statistics sample requires a projection of both the numerator and denominator onto a single momentum variable, $`Q_3`$.

For fully chaotic sources $`r_3/2`$ approaches unity as all relative momenta (and thus $`Q_3`$) go to zero. If the source is partially coherent, a relationship can be established HZ  between the limiting value of the three-pion correlator at $`Q_3=0`$ and $`\epsilon `$, the fraction of pions which are emitted chaotically from the pion source ($`0\epsilon \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}`$):

$$\frac{1}{2}r_3\left(Q_3=0\right)=\sqrt{\epsilon }\frac{32\epsilon }{(2\epsilon )^{3/2}}.$$
(2)
$`\epsilon `$ gives an upper limit on the value of the two-pion $`\lambda `$-parameter, which is sensitive to the fraction of coherent pairs in a sample, i.e. $`\lambda =\epsilon (2\epsilon )`$ assuming no other effects on $`\lambda `$ such as long-lived resonancesReport . Eq. (2) is not affected by the projection onto a single relative momentum variable. To exploit it and extract the degree of chaoticity $`\epsilon `$, the measured data for $`r_3`$ must, however, be extrapolated from finite $`Q_3`$ to $`Q_3=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}`$.

Similar to the two-boson correlation function, the three-boson correlation function $`C_3\left(Q_3\right)`$ is calculated from the data by taking the ratio $`\frac{A\left(Q_3\right)}{B\left(Q_3\right)}`$ and normalizing it to unity at large $`Q_3`$. Here $`A\left(Q_3\right)=\frac{dN}{dQ_3}`$ is the three-pion distribution as a function of the invariant three-pion relative momentum, integrated over the total momentum of the pion triplet as well as all other relative momentum components. It is obtained by taking three pions from a single event, calculating $`Q_3`$, and binning the results in a histogram. $`B\left(Q_3\right)`$ is the analogous mixed event distribution which is computed by taking a single pion from each of three separate events. Because of the zero in the denominator of the normalized three-pion correlator $`r_3`$ at large $`Q_{ij}`$, the particular method of normalization of $`C_2`$ and $`C_3`$ can have a strong effect on the calculation. The propagation of statistical errors through the $`r_3`$ functions, however, accounts for these effects completely. In fact, it is only with the very high statistics available from STAR that the calculation can be considered in the range $`15<Q_3<120`$ MeV/$`c`$. This range is large enough to provide reliable extrapolation to $`Q_3=0`$.

Data for the present results are from about $`300`$K events taken during the $`\sqrt{s_{NN}}=130`$ GeV Au+Au run at STAR using the Time Projection Chamber (TPC) NIM  as the primary tracking detector. In the discussion that follows, all phase space cuts and experimental corrections are similar to the two-pion HBT analysis STARHBT . A set of multiplicity classes was created by taking the 12% most central for the high-multiplicity class and the next 20% most central for the mid-multiplicity class. For both multiplicity bins, tracks were constrained to have $`p_T`$ in the range $`0.125<p_T<0.5`$ GeV/$`c`$, and pseudorapidity $`\left|\eta \right|<1.0`$. A vertex cut was also applied to events such that the vertex along the z-axis (beam direction) had to fall within $`\pm 75`$ cm of the center of the detector. In the range $`15<Q_3<120`$ MeV/$`c`$, approximately 150 million triplets were included in both the negative and positive pion studies.

The $`C_2`$ correlation function was corrected for Coulomb repulsion with a finite Gaussian source approximation, using an integration of Coulomb wave functions Coulomb . In calculating $`C_3`$, the correction was applied by taking the product of three two-pion corrections, obtained from the three possible pairs formed from each mixed-event triplet. This type of correction approximates the three-body Coulomb problem to first order TherMath ; 3PWaveFunction . Other methods to more accurately estimate the true three-body Coulomb effect show a 5-10% smaller correction 3-body-CC . This difference was applied to the Coulomb correction factor in calculating $`C_3`$, and the resulting shifts in the $`r_3`$ function were found to be within systematic uncertainties. A separate study examined the effect of inappropriately applying the Coulomb correction to pions which come from long-lived resonances scattres . Using a rescattering model TJH , the value of $`r_3`$ was found to increase by 10% when pairs and triplets of pions which contain pions from long-lived resonances were inappropriately Coulomb corrected. Effects of finite momentum resolution on $`r_3`$ were also studied using this model and were found to be insignificant. The $`1\sigma `$ uncertainty in determining $`Q_3`$ is found to be about $`10`$ MeV/c.

Figure 1 shows the $`C_3`$ correlation function for negatively charged pions in the high-multiplicity bin. The shape of $`C_3`$ is mostly built up of products of two-pion correlations with the effect of true three-pion correlations being more subtle. At large $`Q_3`$, $`C_3`$ approaches unity and for an ideal pion source, i.e. $`\lambda =1`$, $`C_3`$ would approach $`6`$ at $`Q_3=0`$ (this is not the present case since $`\lambda <1`$). A Gaussian parameterization is inadequate to describe this correlation function; this is consistent with results obtained in other experiments and a simulationTJH ; WA98 ; NA44 . In calculating $`r_3`$, the actual binned values of the correlation function for the various values of $`Q_3`$ are used instead of a fit TJH . In order to use Eq.( 1), triplets are obtained that pass all of the momentum space and experimental cuts. $`Q_3`$, $`Q_{12}`$, $`Q_{23}`$ and $`Q_{31}`$ are calculated from the triplet and the three pairs that can be formed from the triplet. The values $`C_3\left(Q_3\right)`$, $`C_2\left(Q_{12}\right)`$, $`C_2\left(Q_{23}\right)`$ and $`C_2\left(Q_{31}\right)`$ are then computed from the binned actual two- and three-pion correlation functions. These values are then used to calculate $`r_3`$, which is then binned as a function of $`Q_3`$. The average for each bin is then calculated to obtain the final result. Systematic uncertainties are greatest at the low $`Q_3`$ end due to track merging effects and the uncertainty in the Coulomb correction. The parameters controlling these effects were modified $`\pm 20\%`$ from the nominal values to obtain the overall systematic uncertainty in each bin.

The results for the two multiplicity bins are shown in Figure 2 for $`\pi ^{}`$ and $`\pi ^+`$, plotted as functions of $`Q_3^2`$. Plotting in this way is suggested by the theoretical analysis in HZ  which shows that the leading relative momentum dependencies in the numerator and denominator of Eq. (1) are quadratic fn1 , allowing for a linear extrapolation of the results shown in Figure 2 to $`Q_3=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}`$ by fitting them to the form

$$r_3\left(Q_3\right)/2=r_3(0)/2\alpha Q_3^2.$$
(3)
where $`r_3(0)/2`$ and $`\alpha `$ are fit parameters. From Figure 2 it appears that the normalized three-pion correlator $`r_3(Q_3)`$ does indeed show a leading quadratic dependence for the smaller $`Q_3^2`$ values (Eq. (3) was fit to the range $`0<Q_3<60`$ MeV/c).

The resulting intercepts $`r_3(0)/2`$ are shown in Figure 3, along with the results of WA98 and NA44. Error bars for STAR points are statistical+systematic. As mentioned earlier, the systematic error is computed by varying several parameters independently, including particle track cut parameters. The variation of the parameters is seen to produce, in general, asymmetric variations in the extracted intercepts. Intercepts from the quadratic fits as well as from quartic fits (i.e. adding a quartic term to Eq. (3) and fitting over the broader range $`0<Q_3<120`$ MeV/c) are shown for comparison, and are seen to agree within errors. The STAR $`\pi ^+`$ and $`\pi ^{}`$ results are also seen to agree within error bars. NA44 reported a result close to unity for Pb-Pb interactions, but a much lower result for S-Pb NA44 , both with no clear $`Q_3`$ dependence. The Pb-Pb result from WA98 is somewhat smaller than that from NA44, although they agree within error bars, and the $`Q_3`$-dependence in their result is similar to what is seen in STAR WA98 .

Figure 4 shows the results from the calculation of $`\epsilon `$ for STAR’s measurements, and for those from WA98 and NA44, plotted versus charged particle multiplicity per unit pseudorapidity, $`dN/d\eta `$. The calculation was done starting with the results of Figure 3, decreasing them by 10% to approximately take into account the overcorrection produced by Coulomb-correcting long-lived resonances (see earlier discussion) and using Eq. (2). It was assumed that the 10% correction also applies to the SPS data, and to be conservative, a $`\pm 5\%`$ systematic uncertainty on the correction (i.e. $`10\%\pm 5\%`$) was included in all of the error bars shown. The plot shows an increasing trend in the STAR $`\pi ^{}`$ and $`\pi ^+`$ results going from mid-central to central collisions. For the mid-central data, the results for $`\epsilon `$ show a partially chaotic source, as seen in the SPS results. The central data appear to give a mostly chaotic pion source. Including the SPS measurements into the overall systematics, there appears to be, within the uncertainties shown, a systematic increase in $`\epsilon `$ with increasing $`dN/d\eta `$, the smallest value being for SPS S-Pb collisions and the largest value for STAR central Au-Au collisions ($`dN/d\eta `$ for charged particles at mid-$`\eta `$ for SPS S-Pb, SPS Pb-Pb, STAR mid-central, and STAR central are approximately 100(scaled from S-S), 370, 280, and 510, respectivelyna49mult ; phobosmult ). It is also found for the STAR results that the upper limit on the two-pion $`\lambda `$-parameter obtained from $`\epsilon `$ using the relationship mentioned earlier is in the range $`0.710.81`$ for mid-central and $`0.910.97`$ for central events. The actual values for $`\lambda `$ extracted from STAR $`\pi ^{}\pi ^{}`$ HBT measurements are 0.53$`\pm `$0.02 for mid-central and 0.50$`\pm `$0.01 for central events (the $`\pi ^+\pi ^+`$ values agree with these within errors)STARHBT . The lower $`\lambda `$-values extracted from the two-pion experiment can be explained in terms of long-lived resonance effects, which nicely cancel out in a three-pion analysisTJH .

In summary, we have presented three-pion HBT results for $`\sqrt{s_{NN}}=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}130}`$ GeV data at STAR, and have shown that for the central multiplicity class the STAR data indicate a large degree of chaoticity in the source at freeze-out, whereas for the mid-central class the source is less chaotic. Our $`r_3`$ results are close to those extracted in SPS Pb+Pb collisions, but differ from the low value obtained in SPS S+Pb collisions. The comparison between SPS and STAR results suggests a systematic dependence of the chaoticity on particle multiplicity. High statistics from STAR have allowed a normalized three-pion correlator calculation that extends to $`120`$ MeV/$`c`$ in $`Q_3`$, and the dependence on this variable has been shown to be quadratic in nature for low $`Q_3`$. STAR’s measured values provide increased confidence in the validity of standard HBT analyses based on the assumption of a chaotic source for central collisions at RHIC.

###### Acknowledgements.

We wish to thank the RHIC Operations Group and the RHIC Computing Facility at Brookhaven National Laboratory, and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for their support. This work was supported by the Division of Nuclear Physics and the Division of High Energy Physics of the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy, the United States National Science Foundation, the Bundesministerium fuer Bildung und Forschung of Germany, the Institut National de la Physique Nucleaire et de la Physique des Particules of France, the United Kingdom Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Fundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo, Brazil, the Russian Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Education of China, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Swiss National Science Foundation, and the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic.


text:
# BaBar Web job submission with Globus authentication and AFS access

## I INTRODUCTION

### I.1 The BaBar experiment

BaBar is a major particle physics experimentbabar-ref  running at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), which has already produced many billions of events, both real and simulated, in thousands of files. These events are processed, re-processed and selected by standard production jobs. In addition the collaboration numbers 500+ physicists, many of whom are active in running individual analysis jobs. While certainly smaller than the impending experiments at the LHC, BaBar’s requirements approach them in several respects, and meeting the challenge of BaBar is an invaluable rehearsal for the challenge of the LHC.

### I.2 BaBar computing

BaBar data processing creates a very high demand for computing resources, both in storage space and CPU time. Largely as a consequence of this, the collaboration has moved from a system which was basically central, with all resources being provided at the SLAC site, to a distributed model with large and medium sites (‘Tier A’ and ‘Tier C’) spread across the USA and Europe.

Grid technology provides the obvious means to make these resources available. However, unlike the LHC experiments, the BaBar system evolved in the pre-Grid era, and tools have to be provided which can be used with the current system, rather than building in Grid concepts from the start. There is also a difference in timing: we require solutions that can be used today rather than in 2007.

We therefore set out as an exercise to see what could be done with existing Grid technology, such as Globus and AFS, rather than the more complete but longer term solutions offered by the EDG EDG-ref  and similar projects. We encountered the problems familiar to other developers \- authentication, authorisation, data location, the input sandbox and data retrieval - and were able to solve them, in some cases in more than one way.

### I.3 The Demonstrator

The work went through two phases. The first was a project to provide a Grid based BaBar system that would act as proof of principle - the ‘Demonstrator’. The user runs a Web browser through their desktop or laptop, and for portability no extra software is required on this platform. The user selects the data to be analysed according to pre-existing BaBar criteria, and they are processed by the standard analysis job (‘the WorkBook example’)workbook-ref . The http server is used for file transport. Standard ntuples are written, and these are retrieved to the user platform where they can be analysed using ROOT.

The Demonstrator was successfully used at eScience events in the summer of 2002 sheffield-ref .

### I.4 The gsub command

The second phase is a command line system - gsub, which gives easy flexibility for the typical physics analyst. The user is presumed to have the standard BaBar environment (which enables compilation, data location, etc) running on their platform. AFS is used for the input and output sandboxes, and the tokens are maintained using the gsiklog client and gsiklogd servergsiklog-ref , so that gsiklogd must be running as a server on the user home system. This places demands on the user system but not on the remote sites - a reasonable scenario given that the user is presumed to want to make use of resources at the remote sites, whereas the remote sites have no great incentive to provide special facilities for the user.

We describe the two systems, their good features and also those features which we hope to improve by incorporation of the more sophisticated middleware currently being written.

### I.5 ‘BaBarGrid’

Developments involved a number of clusters of PCs running linux. Several of these were at UK institutes (Manchester, Birmingham, Rutherford, Imperial, Bristol, Liverpool, QMUL and RHUL) and comprised identical 40 node PC farms. Facilities at IN2P3 and Dresden were also included at some stage. There was good communication and co-operation between the sites and their system managers.

## II THE THREE A’S

### II.1 Authentication

Standard Grid certificates were used for authentication. Sites involved had a mutual policy of recognising those authorities accepted by the EDG and this covered the UK and French institutes. The DOE and German authorities came into being during this period; before they were available IN2P3 offered the facility for BaBar users to acquire a certificate.

We resisted early calls for BaBar itself to become a CA. By maintaining a clear distinction between authentication and authorisation we realised that the proper rôle of the experimental organisation was with the latter and not the former.

### II.2 Authorisation

For an authorisation system we set up a VO (Virtual Organisation) VO-ref  for BaBar. This is maintained at Manchester and published using the ldap system in the usual way.

The BaBarGrid sites are available to all members of BaBar. In some cases (Rutherford and IN2P3, the Tier A sites) this means equal access for all members. The Tier C university sites require a system whereby in principle (or even in practice) priority can be given to local members: institutes are responsible for the cost and maintenance of their sites, and while they are generally happy for them to be put to use by outside members, they do not want their local machines taken over by heavy outside use to an extent that impinges on the productivity of locals.

A ‘member of BaBar’ has a precise definition membership-ref . All members have an account at SLAC, and this has specific ‘BaBar’ authorisation on the AFS acl list. Obtaining this requires user signatures, consent by the SLAC computer center, authorisation by the group leader, and the list is kept up to date to weed out members who have moved on elsewhere. It makes sense to use this existing well-audited system rather than involving users in further paperwork.

Any BaBarGrid user has also, by definition, got a Grid Certificate. We therefore set up a system whereby all a user has to do to be entered in the BaBar VO is to copy the DN (Distinguished Name) from their Grid certificate into a specifically named file in their home area at SLAC. A cron job scans for such files, checks the (SLAC) userid against the AFS acl list, and forwards the DN to the VO server at Manchester.

A second cron job runs at each participating site, and picks up the list of authorised users from the VO. The local system manager retain control over this job and can readily modify it, if necessary, to remove any known rogues. This has not been necessary and we do not expect it to be, but it is a useful factor in making the system acceptable to local managements.

### II.3 Accounting

This list is appended to the site’s gridmap file with the generic userid prefix babar. Appending the list has the desirable effect that if a user has a specific account at the site, and this is put into the gridmap file by other means, then a grid request for their DN will take the specific account rather than the generic one.

The generic account system generic-ref  provides a pool of accounts (babar01, babar02...babar99 or whatever) and the user is mapped onto the first free pool account. This gives outsiders the facility to use the site, while providing accountability: if a particular account behaves (inadvertantly or deliberately) in an anti-social way, the DN that was given this account is known. Furthermore these accounts can, if desired, be given lower priorities and privileges than local ones.

If a DN has finished with the account and then submits a subsequent request, it will be given the same account as last time. This is useful for retrieving output from jobs.

We thus have a system of authorisation and accounting which scales, i.e. for $`M`$ users at $`N`$ sites it requires $`N+M`$ transactions rather than $`N\times M`$, and yet which enables local users to have priority. The system has proved easy to operate and is reliable.

## III DATA LOCATION

Data in BaBar is organised into runs, sets of approximately 600,000 events recorded by the experiment. When a run is finished the run number is incremented and the next run started. The mapping of datafiles to runs is many-to-one: each file contains the events from a particular run, there are many such files containing different processing and selection stages but for each (complete) processing specification there is a unique file for each run. All the necessary metadata information can thus be contained in the dataset name, which includes the run number, processing version, selection program version, selection type and other informationskimdata-ref .

The data catalog is maintained centrally at SLAC, and is thus also the metadata catalog: each filename contains a full and systematic description of what it contains.

Each site contains a copy of the main metadata catalog, updated nightly. It also contains an extra flag for each file which is set if a local copy exists. This is maintained by the SkimTools facilities skimtools-ref  which are used, for example, to request datasets fulfilling certain criteria to be copied from SLAC to the local site if they do not exist.

The name of each file is the same in all sites. To accommodate the fact that different sites have different disk organisations, each file name starts with the unix symbolic variable $BFROOT. This is defined in a login script to point to an appropriate node in the file system for that particular site.

This system does not map particularly usefully onto the ‘replica catalog’ concept replicacatalog-ref . For this reason, and because of the problems of speed and usability then being encountered with the general ldap based replica catalog of EDG, we decided to develop our own system for these specific purposes.

This catalog can be queried with the skimData command, which responds to requests for lists of the files satisfying user-defined criteria that exist locally. This list of files is actually produced as a series of tcl commands, and hence known as ‘the .tcl files’, and for convenience in splitting a complete analysis into jobs the skimData command is usually used to produce a number of .tcl files. A typical analysis might involve $`100`$ such .tcl files, each containing a list of $`100`$ data files.

### III.1 Data and the Demonstrator

For the demonstrator, use was made of the fact that skimData can respond to requests from a remote site. The user specifies the file selection criteria through as simple Web interface Perl/cgi script. They then specify, through a similar script, a list of sites in priority order. skimData is then invoked to produce .tcl files for all runs available at the first site. It is then invoked for the second site, using the list of runs found at the first site as a set of runs for which information is not desired, (a facility originally provided to avoid undesirable data and hence called ‘badruns’) generating a second set of .tcl files. This process is then repeated for all sites specified.

### III.2  Data and gsub

Although this method worked, the time taken for remote skimData queries could be inconveniently long (typically a few minutes). The method was therefore improved by adding to the catalog a list of availability at all sites. This is maintained gathering the information by a nightly cron job. For convenience it could be maintained centrally and copied by local sites as it is done for the rest of the metadata. The system this scales for $`N`$ sites as $`2N`$ rather than $`N^2`$. The information is not quite up to date but this is not a practical drawback.

This produces a single .tcl file, and an index file which describes which runs are available at which sites. Another Perl/cgi script is used to divide these into .tcl files to be run at each site according to rather simple user criteria.

## IV THE INPUT SANDBOX

A BaBar analysis job is performed by running a binary which takes as its first and only argument the name of a .tcl file. Typically it takes the form BetaApp myAnalysis.tcl, where myAnalysis.tcl is a small file which contains specific user instructions; it sources one of the .tcl files produced by skimData to locate the event data it is to run on, and also various standard BaBar .tcl files, which in turn source other similar .tcl files.

In the standard (pre-Grid) system, such a job is run from a ‘working directory’ within the standard BaBar environment, i.e. various symbolic links and environment variables are provided to all the files that will be needed workdir-ref . This includes the standard BaBar .tcl files and also some files used in processing (such as tabulated efficiencies of Particle Identification.)

These other (non-tcl) files pose a particular problem as there is no easy way of knowing which files will be required. An analysis may run satisfactorily in a test job, but in production there is nothing to stop a low probability branch in the analysis requiring the reading of an unforeseen file. There is a collaboration policy that the information contained in such files should be moved to a central file (the conditions database), but this is not yet complete.

It would be possible to build a system which relied on such an environment also being available at the remote site. However we felt this to be unduly restrictive - it requires not just that a BaBar environment be available, but that the corresponding BaBar environment, which changes from release to release, be available. So these files (.tcl and others) must be provided in the input sandbox for the job.

To run a job one needs

* The Event Data
* The binary
* The skimData .tcl file
* The myAnalysis.tcl file
* The other .tcl files
* The other non-.tcl files

Only the first does not present a problem. We adopted throughout the philosophy of taking the job to the data, rather than moving the data to the job. From the way the .tcl files have been produced, the data will be present and accessible with the appropriate definition of $BFROOT.

### IV.1 Inputs and the demonstrator

As the demonstrator used a unique binary, this was compiled (at SLAC) copied to a location (at Manchester) where it was accessible via http. This was then copied (sucked) to the remote site at the start of each job.

The skimData.tcl file for the job was sent in the input stream as part of the input generated by the Perl/cgi script.

The myAnalysis.tcl file was then expanded, i.e. each sourced .tcl file was replaced by the actual contents, iteratively until the file was self-complete. This was a major task to do by hand, though a facility has now been provided to do this automatically, if necessary. This large .tcl file was then shipped to the remote sites in a similar manner to the binary, as were the few but large non-tcl files the standard job requires.

### IV.2 Inputs and the gsub command

In the second version we use AFS to circumvent the input sandbox problem. The user’s working directory must be within an AFS filesystem at a site running a gsiklogd server. An AFS filesystem is not a problem as many BaBar working environments use, or have the option of using, AFS based user directories (e.g. SLAC and RAL). The second is a requirement which does require the co-operation of the system manager, but there are no major problems associated with it.

At the start of each job gsiklog is run (as a client) at the remote site. The binary is copied if it is not available on the system, so this does not restrict the choice of target sites. This essentially provides an AFS token on the authority of the Grid proxy, which is used to run the job. The job can then change directory to the user’s working directory, and all the links are available. All the .tcl files, and the non-tcl files, and the binary are then available. Some initialisation of environment variables is required but can readily be done through standard login scripts - the only point where care is needed is to avoid confusion between the $BFROOT appropriate for the remote site and for the user’s home site.

AFS access is well known to be slow and inappropriate for large data transfers, owing to the time taken due to local caching etc. This is not a major drawback, as these files are small and read only once during for each node. The data itself is read locally, using NFS.

## V JOB SUBMISSION

### V.1 Job submission for the Demonstrator

Having set up the .tcl files, or before, the user creates a grid proxy on their local platform. This is then uploaded into the web server. This temporarily delegates the user’s identity to the web server. Using an unmodified web browser with the user’s certificate, the user can then instruct the server to perform remote job submission and other operations on the grid.

The server dispatches a set of jobs, one for each of the .tcl files. For convenience in data collection, the set of jobs for each site is called superjob, and each superjob starts with a job0 which copies the binary, the expanded Babar .tcl file, and the identified other files to the remote site making them available for the subsequent jobs. The set of all superjobs (the hyperjob) is the complete ‘job’ in the sense that it is often used.

Some initialisation of environment variables is required but can readily be done through standard login scripts - the only point where care is need is in possible confusion between the appropriate $BFROOT for the remote site and that for the user’s home site.

Individual jobs run at the remote sites, usually through submission to PBS. Their progress can be monitored and their log files retrieved, though this is rather slow and incovenient other than for test purposes.

### V.2 Submitting jobs with the gsub command

The basic BetaApp myAnalysis.tcl commands are sent by globus-job-submit to the appropriate remote sites (again, usually to the pbs batch system) in a simple wrapper that does the gsiklog and cd to the working directory. Each is preceded by a globus-job-run -stage to provide gsiklog if necessary, and other simple tasks.

For each .tcl file the user (or a simple script) gives the command gsub \<site\> BetaApp myAnalysis.tcl. There is no need to categorise them into hyper and superjob collections.

## VI OUTPUT RETRIEVAL

The log files are not of much interest. Each analysis job produces as useful output a set of ntuple/histogram files in hbook (or ROOT) format. The job jobnn typically processes a .tcl file data-nn.tcl and produces a file output-nn.root.

### VI.1 Output from the Demonstrator

As each job finishes it moves its output file (stored on the farm node) to a directory \<superjobid\> on the gatekeeper for that site, and tars together all the jobs there to form a single file. Thus as jobs start to finish, there is always one file on the site that contains all the presently available output data.

The user - again from a web browser running Perl/cgi - can then invoke a job which runs on the server and copies all the tarred superjob files back to a directory \<hyperjobid\> using grid-ftp. They are untarred and tarred into a single directory, and renamed as necessary so that missing/unfinished/failed jobs do not give holes in the sequence. A link is provided to the total tarred file, and a specific MIME type assigned. The browser has this MIME type specified such that when the link is clicked on, the file is downloaded to the browser and untarred, and a small ROOT program run to produce a set of histograms from the total results.

### VI.2 Output from gsub

By contrast, this is absolutely trivial. AFS also provides the output sandbox. The ntuple files are written directly back to the users work directory and can be analysed there.

## VII CONCLUSIONS

### VII.1 Achievements

We have found what appears to be a simple and stable solution to the three A’s problem. The Demonstrator has shown that simple grid tools can be used to locate data across remote sites, run appropriate analysis jobs, retrieve and combine the outputs.

The improved metadata catalog system and the gsub command are providing system which has the flexibility for real users doing real analysis in a real experiment

### VII.2 Limitations

There is no resource matching (except for the data). The user still has to make choices about what sites to use, and balance loading appropriately.

The system is slow - each gsub takes many seconds. For a typical analysis involving several hundred jobs a script looping over gsub can take a barely acceptable time to process.

A small fraction of jobs are lost. There is no bookkeeping system to take care of this, and providing one is not a simple add in.

### VII.3 Outlook

The gsub command will be made available within BaBar. Whether it is picked up and exploited by users will be an interesting test. The globus-job-submit commands will be replaced by edg-job-submit as soon as the system becomes stable and supported.

###### Acknowledgements.

The authors wish to thank Dr Jenny Williams who expanded the .tcl file for the demonstrator.