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# Self-Similar Turbulent Dynamo

present-time address: \]DAMTP, University of Cambridge, Wilberforce Rd., Cambridge CB3 0WA, UK.

## Abstract

The amplification of magnetic fields in a highly conducting fluid is studied numerically. During growth, the magnetic field is spatially intermittent: it does not uniformly fill the volume, but is concentrated in long thin folded structures. Contrary to a commonly held view, intermittency of the folded field does not increase indefinitely throughout the growth stage if diffusion is present. Instead, as we show, the probability-density function (PDF) of the field strength becomes self-similar. The normalized moments increase with magnetic Prandtl number in a powerlike fashion. We argue that the self-similarity is to be expected with a finite flow scale and system size. In the nonlinear saturated state, intermittency is reduced and the PDF is exponential. Parallels are noted with self-similar behavior recently observed for passive-scalar mixing and for map dynamos.

preprint: Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 064501 (2004); e-print nlin.CD/0306059

We consider the problem of magnetic-energy amplification by a homogeneous isotropic turbulence in a conducting fluid. This effect is known as the small-scale turbulent dynamo, and it is important to the dynamics of magnetic fields in astrophysical objects. It is, in fact, a generic property of random (in time and/or space) flows that they can amplify magnetic fluctuations at scales smaller than the scale of the flow itself. The amplification is a net result of stretching of the field lines by the local random strain associated with the flow Batchelor (1950); Zeldovich et al. (1984); Childress and Gilbert (1995). The fields generated by this mechanism have a characteristic structure: they concentrate in flux folds containing antiparallel field lines that reverse direction at the resistive scale and remain straight up to the flow scale Ott (1998); Schekochihin et al. (2002, 2003). It is because of the direction reversals that the magnetic energy in the wave-number space is predominantly at the resistive scale Kazantsev (1967); Kulsrud and Anderson (1992). The growing folded fields also concentrate in small parts of the system’s volume: a phenomenon called intermittency. These properties of the small-scale dynamo are most pronounced for systems where the fluid viscosity is much larger than magnetic diffusivity (magnetic Prandtl number $`\text{Pr}_\text{m}=\nu /\eta 1`$), i.e., where magnetic fields reverse direction at scales much smaller than the viscous cutoff. This regime is realized in many astrophysical plasmas: examples are warm interstellar medium, intracluster and intergalactic plasmas. In this Letter, we study the volume-filling properties of the dynamo-generated fields, i.e., the distribution of the field strength.

Consider the equations of incompressible MHD:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}𝐮`$ $`=`$ $`\nu \mathrm{\Delta }𝐮p+𝐁𝐁+𝐟,𝐮=0,`$ (1)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}𝐁`$ $`=`$ $`𝐁𝐮+\eta \mathrm{\Delta }𝐁,`$ (2)
where $`d/dt=_t+𝐮`$. The pressure $`p`$ and the magnetic field $`𝐁`$ are normalized by $`\rho `$ and $`(4\pi \rho )^{1/2}`$, respectively, where $`\rho =\text{const}`$ is density. Turbulence is excited by the forcing $`𝐟`$. The spatial scale of the forcing is usually much larger than the diffusion scales of the fields. In our simulations, we solve Eqs. (12) by a pseudospectral method. The forcing $`𝐟`$ is chosen to be random, white ($`\delta `$-correlated) in time, and restricted to $`k/2\pi =1,2`$. The code units are based on box size 1 and mean injected power $`𝐮𝐟=1`$.

If diffusion is ignored ($`\eta =0`$), Eq. (2) has the following formal solution in the comoving frame:

$`\mathrm{ln}\left[B(t)/B_0\right]={\displaystyle _0^t}𝑑t^{}\widehat{𝐛}\widehat{𝐛}:𝐮(t^{}),`$ (3)
where $`\widehat{𝐛}=𝐁/B`$. The Central Limit Theorem suggests that $`B`$ should have a lognormal PDF with both the mean $`\mathrm{ln}Bt`$ and dispersion $`Dt`$ \[cf. Eq. (4)\]. This implies that $`B^n\mathrm{exp}(\gamma _nt)`$, where the growth rates depend quadratically on the order: $`\gamma _nn(n+3)`$ Zeldovich et al. (1984); Chertkov et al. (1999); Boldyrev and Schekochihin (2000). Thus, in the diffusion-free case, the intermittency of the field-strength distribution increases in time in the sense that the kurtosis $`B^4/B^2^2`$ and all other normalized moments $`B^{mn}/B^mB^n`$ grow exponentially. In space, intermittency means that the growing fields do not uniformly fill the volume (compared to, e.g., a Gaussian field with the same energy). Assuming the equivalence of ensemble and volume averages, we may roughly interpret $`B^4/B^2^2`$ as an inverse volume-filling fraction.

In the limit of small but finite $`\eta `$, the small-scale dynamo can still operate, but analytical description is much harder than for the diffusion-free case. The traditional approach that makes Eq. (2) solvable in the diffusive regime is to consider a model random velocity field that is linear in space Zeldovich et al. (1984) and white in time Kazantsev (1967). The moments of $`B`$ can then be related to the distribution of the finite-time Lyapunov exponents associated with the velocity-gradient matrix $`𝐮`$, which is a function of time only Zeldovich et al. (1984); Chertkov et al. (1999). The result is that the growth rates of $`B^n`$ still increase with $`n`$ as $`\gamma _nn^2`$, i.e, intermittency continues to grow with time Chertkov et al. (1999). It has so far been an accepted view that this model adequately describes the turbulent dynamo in the large-$`\text{Pr}_\text{m}`$ limit. In fact, the picture of increasing intermittency is not borne out by numerical experiments.

In order to understand why, it is crucial to appreciate that the results obtained in the linear-velocity model apply only as long as magnetic fluctuations are “unaware” of the finiteness of the flow scale (system size). The most intuitive, albeit nonrigorous, argument as to why finite-scale effects should be important is as follows.

The fields everywhere are stretched exponentially, but with fluctuating stretching rates, so any occasional difference in field strength between different substructures tends to be amplified exponentially. Intermittency can grow with time if the system is infinite because for each moment $`B^n`$, an ever smaller set of substructures can always be found in which the field has exponentially outgrown the rest of the system and which, therefore, dominantly contribute to $`B^n`$. By contrast, in a finite system, only a finite number of exponentially growing substructures can exist, so the contribution to all moments must eventually come from the same fastest-growing one. The statistics of $`B`$ should, therefore, be self-similar, with $`B^n`$ growing at rates proportional to $`n`$, not $`n^2`$, and all normalized moments $`B^{mn}/B^mB^n`$ saturating 111Note that intermittency is often associated with the presence of sparse field structures that have disparate spatial dimensions (“coherent structures”). In fluid turbulence, these are the vortex filaments. For the dynamo-generated magnetic fields, the coherent structures are the folds, for which the disparate dimensions are their length and the field-reversal scale ($``$ resistive scale). In the linear-velocity model, the folds are elongated indefinitely. In reality, the length of the folds cannot be larger than the scale of the flow because of the bending Schekochihin et al. (2002). The scale separation in the folds is, therefore, bounded from above by $`\text{Pr}_\text{m}^{1/2}`$..

This is exactly what happens in our simulations. After initial diffusion-free growth, the normalized moments saturate (Fig. 1). The PDF of the magnetic-field strength becomes self-similar: namely, the PDFs of $`B/B_{\text{rms}}`$ (here $`B_{\text{rms}}=B^2^{1/2}`$) collapse onto a single stationary profile throughout the kinematic stage of the dynamo (Fig. 2). The large-$`B`$ tail of the PDF of $`B/B_{\text{rms}}`$ is reasonably well fitted by a lognormal distribution. Namely, suppose the PDF of $`z=\mathrm{ln}B`$ is

$`P_z(z)=(\pi D)^{1/2}\mathrm{exp}\left[\left(z\mathrm{ln}B\right)^2/D\right].`$ (4)
Then $`B^n\mathrm{exp}\left[\mathrm{ln}Bn+Dn^2/4\right]`$, so $`D=\mathrm{ln}\left(B^4^{1/2}/B^2\right)`$. In the diffusive regime, $`D=\text{const}`$ and the field-strength statistics become self-similar: the PDF of $`\zeta =\mathrm{ln}(B/B_{\text{rms}})`$ is stationary:

$`P_\zeta (\zeta )=(\pi D)^{1/2}\mathrm{exp}\left[\left(\zeta +D/2\right)^2/D\right].`$ (5)
The lognormal fit in Fig. 3 is obtained by calculating $`D`$ from the numerical data and comparing the profile (5) with the numerically calculated PDF. The fit is qualitative but decent, considering the simplicity of the chosen profile (5), large statistical errors in determining $`B^4/B^2^2`$ (Fig. 4), and dealiasing-induced numerical errors in resolving the field structure Schekochihin et al. (2003). The PDF at low values of $`B`$ appears to be powerlike (Fig. 2b), but there may be an unresolved lognormal tail at even smaller $`B`$. Note that the large-$`B`$ tail describes the straight segments of the folds, while the small-$`B`$ tail gives the field-strength distribution for the weak fields in the bends Schekochihin et al. (2002).

The plots in Figs. 13 are for a $`256^3`$ simulation of Eqs. (12) with $`\nu =5\times 10^2`$ and $`\text{Pr}_\text{m}=\nu /\eta =500`$. The Reynolds number for this run is $`\text{Re}=u^2^{1/2}/\nu k_02`$, (here $`k_0=2\pi `$ is the box wavenumber). Thus, the velocity field, while random, is smooth in space. This is the so-called viscosity-dominated regime, which is the only physical setting in which large $`\text{Pr}_\text{m}`$ can be resolved numerically. Interestingly, results for larger Re (“real turbulence”) and $`\text{Pr}_\text{m}1`$ are very similar, especially in the kinematic regime. The reason for this is that the small-scale dynamo is always driven by the fastest eddies — the viscous-scale ones Kulsrud and Anderson (1992), — and essentially the same field-stretching mechanism applies in both synthetic one-scale dynamos Kazantsev (1967); Zeldovich et al. (1984); Childress and Gilbert (1995); Ott (1998); Schekochihin et al. (2002) and in turbulent systems with $`\text{Pr}_\text{m}1`$. In runs with $`\text{Pr}_\text{m}=10`$, $`\text{Re}100`$, and even with $`\text{Pr}_\text{m}=1`$, $`\text{Re}450`$ (not shown), we have found behavior analogous to that described above: saturation of normalized moments in the kinematic diffusive regime and self-similar field-strength PDFs fairly well fitted by the lognormal profile (5). In fact, the lognormal fit worked even better in these cases, which are somewhat less violently fluctuating, because velocity is not as strongly coupled to the forcing. More detailed comparisons will be reported in a future paper Schekochihin et al. (2003).

The hypothetical lognormal PDF (4) becomes self-similar only if its dispersion $`D`$ does not depend on time. In contrast, in the diffusion-free regime, $`D\gamma t`$, where $`\gamma 𝐮`$ is the stretching rate (the turnover rate of the viscous-scale eddies). In the case of $`\eta >0`$ and linear velocity field, the formula for $`B^n`$ derived by Chertkov et al. Chertkov et al. (1999) is also consistent with a lognormal distribution for which $`D\gamma t`$. Both results are only valid transiently, during the time that it takes magnetic fluctuations to reach the resistive scale (in the former case) or the system (flow) scale (in the latter case). Since the scale separation is $`\text{Pr}_\text{m}^{1/2}`$ and and the spreading over scales proceeds exponentially fast at the rate $`\gamma `$ (e.g. Kulsrud and Anderson (1992)), the time during which intermittency increases is $`t_{}\gamma ^1\mathrm{ln}\text{Pr}_\text{m}^{1/2}`$. Physically, this is the time necessary to form a typical fold with length of the order of the flow scale and field reversals at the resistive scale — starting either from a flow-scale or a resistive-scale fluctuation. We might conjecture that this time determines the magnitude of the dispersion in the self-similar regime: $`D\gamma t_{}\mathrm{ln}\text{Pr}_\text{m}^{1/2}`$, which implies that the kurtosis $`B^4/B^2^2=\mathrm{exp}(2D)`$ increases with $`\text{Pr}_\text{m}`$ in a powerlike fashion. The specific power law depends on prefactors that may be non-universal. The same holds for other normalized moments. Figure 4 is an attempt to test this hypothesis for a sequence of simulations with increasing $`\text{Pr}_\text{m}`$. The fluctuations in the kinematic regime are very large (see Fig. 1), so the error bars are too wide to allow us to claim definite confirmation of the powerlike behavior, but our results are consistent with a $`B^4/B^2^2\text{Pr}_\text{m}^{0.3}`$ scaling 222A note of caution is in order: at current resolutions, our lognormal fit is not the unique possibility consistent with numerical results: stretched-exponential and even steep-power-tail fits of comparable quality can be achieved. Note, however, that a stretched exponential would not be consistent with $`\text{Pr}_\text{m}`$-dependent normalized moments..

We emphasize that the self-similarity reported here is statistical, not exact. Namely, it does not imply that the magnetic field is simply a growing eigenmode of the induction equation (2). Such an eigenmode does exist for some finite-scale non-random (and time-independent) flows and maps, owing essentially to the fact that the diffusion operator has a discrete spectrum in a finite domain Childress and Gilbert (1995). The self-similar PDF we have found here is a natural counterpart of this eigenmode dynamo for random flows.

Note that for the problem of passive-scalar decay, self-similar behavior was also found in certain two-dimensional maps (the so-called “strange mode” Pierrehumbert (1994); Fereday et al. (2002); Sukhatme and Pierrehumbert (2002); Thiffeault and Childress (2003)), two-dimensional non-smooth inverse-cascading turbulence Chaves et al. (2001), and even in scalar-mixing experiments Rothstein et al. (1999). In map dynamos studied by Ott et al. Du and Ott (1993); Ott (1998), moments of $`B`$ also grew at rates $`n`$ (these authors related such behavior to the flux-cancellation property of the field, i.e, to the folded structure). We expect that self-similar evolution is a fundamental property of passive advection of scalar and vector fields by finite-scale flows.

A detailed discussion of the nonlinear saturation of the dynamo and of the magnetic-field intermittency in the saturated state is beyond the scope of this Letter. We limit ourselves to mentioning that the nonlinearity leads to a reduction of intermittency due to tighter packing of the system domain by the saturated fields (Fig. 1). It is not a surprising result: nonlinear back reaction imposes an upper bound on the field growth, and, once the strongest fields in the dominant substructure saturate, the weaker ones elsewhere have an opportunity to catch up. The PDF of the saturated field turns out to be exponential (Fig. 3, cf. Brandenburg et al. (1996); Cattaneo (1999)). Accordingly, in the nonlinear regime, the kurtosis does not depend on $`\text{Pr}_\text{m}`$ (Fig. 4). Furthermore, while $`B_{\text{rms}}`$ is not $`\text{Pr}_\text{m}`$-independent for finite values of $`\text{Pr}_\text{m}`$ (though $`B_{\text{rms}}`$ does tend to a constant value $`u_{\text{rms}}`$ as $`\text{Pr}_\text{m}\mathrm{}`$), the PDF of $`B/B_{\text{rms}}`$ turns out to be the same for all $`\text{Pr}_\text{m}`$. Further results on the nonlinear dynamo will be reported elsewhere Schekochihin et al. (2003).

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank S. Boldyrev, S. Taylor, J.-L. Thiffeault, P. Haynes, and M. Vergassola for useful comments. This work was supported by grants from PPARC (PPA/G/S/2002/00075), EPSRC (GR/R55344/01) and UKAEA (QS06992). Simulations were done at UKAFF (Leicester) and NCSA (Illinois).


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# Spin-1/2 geometric phase driven by decohering quantum fields

## Abstract

We calculate the geometric phase of a spin-1/2 system driven by a one and two mode quantum field subject to decoherence. Using the quantum jump approach, we show that the corrections to the phase in the no-jump trajectory are different when considering an adiabatic and non-adiabatic evolution. We discuss the implications of our results from both the fundamental as well as quantum computational perspective.

In quantum mechanics physical states are equivalent up to a global phase which in general does not contain useful information about the described system, and thus, can be ignored. However, Berry berry84a  surprisingly showed that these phases can have a component of geometric origin with important observable consequences, being the most cited examples the Aharonov-Bohm effect aharanov59a  and the spin-1/2 particle driven by a rotating magnetic field berry84a . These components which are gauge invariant and only depend on the path followed by the system during its evolution, have been investigated and tested in a variety of settings and have been generalized in several directions shapere89a . Geometric phases are interesting both from a fundamental point of view and for their applications, among which geometric quantum computation ekert00a ; falci ; pachos00a  is one of the most important. In fact, the use of geometric phases in the implementation of fault-tolerant quantum gates has motivated their study under more realistic situations sioqvist00 ; ericsson02 . For example, when a system interacts with an environment, its quantum superpositions may decay into statistical mixtures zurek81a ; caldeiras85  and this effect, called decoherence, is the most important limiting factor for quantum computation.

Previous works investigate the behavior of geometric phases under some typical errors sources like random classical fluctuations to the driving fields, as well as generic reservoirs acting in spin 1/2 evolutions gabriele ; carollo03 . All of them consider the driving field as a classical system. However, any driving field is also a quantized system and, whenever this quantum behavior is relevant, which is the case in many experimental situations, decoherence on these fields may play an important role. In fact, it may even become critical, particularly when geometric phases are used to implement quantum protocols, like communication and computational ones.

In this letter, we investigate the behavior of the geometric phase of a spin 1/2 particle interacting with a driving magnetic field when this field is not only quantized but also subjected to decoherence. We calculate and analyze the effect of decoherence of the driving field on both adiabatic and non-adiabatic evolutions of the joint spin and quantized modes system. First we briefly describe the general framework of geometric phases in open systems, developed in carollo03 . Then we calculate Berry’s phases for different interactions of spin 1/2 systems and decohering fields both in the adiabatic and non-adiabatic scenarios. Finally we point out the differences between these two situations and how this noise source compares to previously analyzed ones.

Let us first consider a system described by the density operator $`\rho `$ and a Hamiltonian $`H`$. The decoherence process due to the interaction with an environment (under the Markovian approximation) is described by the following master equation ($`\mathrm{}=1`$):

$$\dot{\rho }=\frac{1}{i}[H,\rho ]\frac{1}{2}\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}\{\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }_k\rho +\rho \mathrm{\Gamma }_k^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }_k2\mathrm{\Gamma }_k\rho \mathrm{\Gamma }_k^{}\},$$
(1)
where the commutator generates the coherent part of the evolution and the remaining part represents the effect of the reservoir on the dynamics of the system. The action of each $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_k`$ amounts to a different decohering process. Suppose that we monitor the system and do not detect any decay. The geometric phase for the ”no-jump” trajectory for master equation (1) in the continuous limit is given by carollo03 :

$$\gamma ^0=_0^T\frac{\psi ^0(t)|H|\psi ^0(t)}{\psi ^0(t)|\psi ^0(t)}𝑑t\mathrm{arg}\{\psi ^0(T)|\psi ^0(0)\},$$
(2)
where

$$i\frac{d}{dt}|\psi ^0(t)=\stackrel{~}{H}|\psi ^0(t),|\psi ^0(0)=|\psi _0,$$
(3)
and $`\stackrel{~}{H}`$ is a non-Hermitian effective Hamiltonian given by:

$$\stackrel{~}{H}=H\frac{i}{2}\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}\mathrm{\Gamma }_k^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }_k.$$
(4)
Before applying this general framework to our problem we consider the adiabatic phase of a two-level system and a single mode quantum field following fuentes-guridi02a . We describe the two-level system with Bohr frequency $`\omega `$ in terms of Pauli operators $`\sigma _z`$, $`\sigma _\pm =(\sigma _x\pm i\sigma _y)/2`$ and the field with frequency $`\nu `$ in terms of the creation and annihilation operators $`a`$ and $`a^{}`$. In the interaction picture, the initial Hamiltonian reads

$$H_{int}=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{2}\sigma _z+g(a^{}\sigma _{}+a\sigma _+),$$
(5)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }=\omega \nu `$ is the detuning between the quantum mode and the two-level system and $`g`$ is the coupling constant. The evolution of the system is dictated by the usual time dependent Schrödinger equation. Following fuentes-guridi02a , to generate a geometric phase the Hamiltonian is varied in a cyclic and adiabatic fashion by means of the unitary operation $`U=e^{i\varphi \widehat{n}}`$ where $`\widehat{n}=a^{}a`$ is the number of photons in the field. Using Berry’s formula for the phase berry84a  we find that the eigenstate of (5)

$`|\mathrm{\Psi }^+=\mathrm{cos}(\theta _n/2)|e,n+\mathrm{sin}(\theta _n/2)|g,n+1,`$ (6)
acquires the phase

$$\gamma _+=2\pi n=2\pi n+\pi (1\mathrm{cos}\theta _n),$$
(7)
where $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _n=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{2R}`$ with $`R=\sqrt{\mathrm{\Delta }^2/4+g^2(n+1)}`$, when $`\varphi `$ is varied from 0 to $`2\pi `$. To consider now that the field is subject to decoherence we describe our system by equation (1) with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\sqrt{\lambda }a`$, i.e. the field is linearly losing photons to its reservoir. Thus, the effective Hamiltonian is $`\stackrel{~}{H}=Hi\frac{\lambda }{2}\widehat{n}`$. Using equation (2) and (3) we obtain the phase

$$\gamma _+^d=2\pi n+\pi \left(1\text{Re}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }i\lambda /2}{\sqrt{(\mathrm{\Delta }i\lambda /2)^2+4g^2(n+1)}}\right).$$
(8)
This result can be easily derived using the bi-orthogonal basis technique illustrated in garrison88  which gives rise to a complex geometric phase whose real part corresponds, in the adiabatic case, to the general formula (3).

Notice that the lowest order correction in $`\lambda /R`$ of eq. (8) is quadratic, which means that in case of low decoherence we recover the phase $`\gamma _+`$, up to the first order in $`\lambda /R`$. To the second order in $`\lambda /R`$ the geometric phase (8) reads:

$$\gamma _+^d\gamma _++\pi \mathrm{cos}\theta _n\frac{(\lambda /R)^2}{16}\left(1+3/2\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _n\right).$$

It is important to notice that in case of low decoherence the deviation of the geometric phase from the value $`\gamma _+`$ is null up to the first order in $`\lambda /R`$. This reflects the resilience of the geometric phase against the environment. The reason for this can be interpreted heuristically as a consequence of the adiabatic evolution of the system under consideration.

Under the adiabatic assumption, the state of a system, in its evolution, tends to follow the eigenstates of the instantaneous Hamiltonian. Loosely speaking, this behaviour opposes to the tendency of the environment of dragging the state away from its undisturbed evolution.

More precisely, the adiabatic approximation ensures that the probability for a state to follow the instantaneous eigenstate of the unperturbed Hermitian Hamiltonian is highly enhanced compared to the probabilities of transitions to other eigenspaces. In fact, the probability amplitudes associated to these transitions are averaged down due to their high frequency evolutions (of the order of Bohr frequencies of the system), whereas the probability amplitude of staying in the same eigenspace is almost stationary. If the decoherence rate is sufficiently small, this amounts to effectively projecting the state back to the original eigenspace, whenever it tends to be driven away by the environment. Therefore, the state trajectory on the projective Hilbert space tends to be unaffected by the decoherence (up to the first order), thereby leaving the area enclosed in the path, and hence the geometric phase, unchanged.

This characteristic of robustness against decoherence is also present in other systems. For example, similar properties can be observed in the analogous model, analyzed in ref. fuentes-guridi02a , in which a two-level atom interacts with not one but two quantized modes of a harmonic oscillator. In this case, the geometric phase is obtained by an adiabatic evolution of the initial Hamiltonian

$$H=\nu a^{}a+\nu b^{}b+g(\sigma _+a+\sigma _{}a^{}),$$
(9)
where the extra mode is described by the creation and annihilation operators $`b`$ and $`b^{}`$ respectively.

Analogously to the previous case, an initial eigenstate of this Hamiltonian $`|\psi =\mathrm{cos}\theta _n/2|e,n,n^{}+\mathrm{sin}\theta _n/2|g,n+1,n^{}`$, is considered. After a cyclic evolution of this state following the adiabatic rotation of Hamiltonian (9) in a two-dimensional parameter space, the original state acquires a geometric phase equal to:

$$\chi _{(n,n^{})}=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Omega }\left[nn^{}+\frac{1}{2}(1\mathrm{cos}\theta _n)\right],$$
(10)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the solid angle described by the parameters. In ref. carollo02  the authors suggest a cavity QED experiment that implements this rotation and allows for the measurement of the above mentioned phase.

In order to study the case where the interacting fields are decohering, we consider the Hamiltonian $`\stackrel{~}{H}=Hi\frac{\lambda }{2}\widehat{N}`$ with $`\widehat{N}=a^{}a+b^{}b`$ the total number of photons in the system. As in the single-mode case, here a non-Hermitiam Hamiltonian is obtained from the assumption that no jump occurs during the evolution, i.e. the system is assumed to be continuously monitored by detectors and no emission of photon is registered. The adiabatic phase then yields

$`\chi _{(n,n^{})}^d=`$ (11)
$`={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{2}}\left((nn^{})+1\text{Re}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }i\lambda /2}{\sqrt{(\mathrm{\Delta }i\lambda /2)^2+4g^2(n+1)}}}\right).`$
Again, the expected geometric phase (10) is recovered in case of low decoherence, and the lowest order correction is only quadratic in $`\lambda /R`$, being $`R=\sqrt{\mathrm{\Delta }^2/4+g^2(n+1)}`$ the Rabi frequency. Finally, note that a second order correction in the decaying factor $`\lambda `$ for the ”no-jump” trajectory suggests that the fields decoherence may not play such an important role in the realization of the proposed experiment carollo02 .

It is interesting to compare the geometric phase due to an adiabatic evolution in presence of decoherence and the analogous result obtained in a non-adiabatic fashion. It is well known aharonov87  that the adiabaticity is not a necessary condition to observe geometric phases. In fact, these are uniquely defined by the path on the projective Hilbert space traversed by the quantum system in its evolution. Thus, no matter how this evolution is achieved, the geometric phase will remained unchanged. This may no longer be the case in presence of decoherence, as the interaction with the environment can affects differently adiabatic and non-adiabatic evolutions.

A typical example of non-adiabatic evolution is the one in which the Hamiltonian is time-independent and the initial state is chosen to be a cyclic state, i.e. a state that after a suitable time T evolves back to itself, up to a phase change. In some cases it is possible to choose a Hamiltonian and a cyclic state such that they generates exactly the same path as the one associated to a given adiabatic evolution. In bose02  we considered the non-adiabatic version of the fully quantised spin-1/2 phase. Here we present the analysis of this case taking into account the effect of decoherence and compare the geometric phase obtained in the analogous adiabatic case.

In the non-adiabatic setup that we are presenting, the system is initially prepared in an entangled state of atom and the field mode. Then it evolves under a time independent Hamiltonian involving only the degrees of freedom of the field. By turning on a Jaynes-Cummings interaction we can prepare the system in the state (6).

After this interaction has been switched off, we assume that the dynamics of the system is described, in the interaction picture, by the Hamiltonian:

$$H_{int}=\beta \widehat{n},$$
(12)
where $`\beta `$ is a constant parameter. Thus, the state evolves according to:

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }^+(t)=e^{i\beta \widehat{n}t}|\mathrm{\Psi }^+,$$
(13)
and after a time $`T=4\pi /\beta `$ the state completes a closed loop. Using the definition of Aharanov and Anandan geometric phase aharonov87  it is easy to show that after a cyclic evolution the phase acquired by the state is $`\gamma _+`$, the same as (8) obtained in the adiabatic case.

When the decoherence of the field is considered, the phase for the no-jump trajectory can be calculated from the expression (2) which yields

$$\gamma ^d=\frac{\beta }{\lambda }\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Psi }^+|e^{2\pi \frac{\lambda }{\beta }\widehat{n}}\mathrm{\Psi }^+.$$
(14)
Given the initial state (6), the eq. (14) reads

$$\gamma _+^d=2\pi n\frac{\beta }{\lambda }\mathrm{ln}(\mathrm{cos}^2\frac{\theta _n}{2}+e^{2\pi \frac{\gamma }{\beta }}\mathrm{sin}^2\frac{\theta _n}{2}),$$
(15)
As expected, the decoherence-free case is recovered for low values of the parameter $`\lambda `$. In fact in the limit of $`\lambda <<\beta `$ the geometric phase results:

$$\gamma _+^d=\gamma _++\frac{\lambda }{2\beta }(\pi \mathrm{sin}\theta _n)^2+o((\frac{\lambda }{\beta })^2).$$
(16)
This result can be easily understood in the following way. In the case of no-jump evolution, i.e. of no photon emission, the decay rate due to the imaginary part of the Hamiltonian $`\stackrel{~}{H}`$ is proportional to the number $`n`$ of photons contained in the mode. Therefore, given an initial superposition of two states with different values of $`n`$, the amplitude associated to the lowest number of photons gradually increases in time and eventually the system converges to the state with the lowest $`n`$. In other words, since, for the no-jump trajectory, no photon decaying is observed, the probability of the lower $`n`$ state increases with time. In the Bloch sphere representation of the subspace $`\{|e,n,|g,n+1\}`$, the evolution under the free Hamiltonian (18) would just appear as a rotation of the Bloch vector around the $`z`$ axis. By considering the decoherence of the field the state will then spiral towards the south pole. Thus, the first order term in $`\lambda /\beta `$ appearing in Eq. (16) accounts for the extra area spanned by the system on the Bloch sphere due to the decoherence.

As expected the geometric phase is affected by decoherence in different ways for the adiabatic and non-adiabatic scenarios. In particular, for low decoherence rates, i.e. $`\lambda <<R`$ and $`\lambda <<\beta `$ in the adiabatic and non-adiabatic case, respectively, the lowest correction is quadratic in the former and linear in the latter case. This should be expected since in the adiabatic evolution the probability for the state to be dragged away by the decoherence from the unperturbed evolution is washed away (in the first order) by the driving Hamiltonian, thereby opposing against decohering effects. On the other hand, in the non-adiabatic evolution, there is no action other than the decoherence, which finds no resistance in the evolution.

Analogous considerations can be done in the case of a two modes system described by the Hamiltonian (9). The non-adiabatic version of the same problem can be described in the following way. We assume that we can prepare the system in the initial state:

$$|\psi _{in}=e^{iJ_y\alpha }|\varphi .$$
(17)
The dynamics of the system is described, in the interaction picture, by the Hamiltonian:

$$H_{int}=\delta J_z,$$
(18)
where $`\delta `$ is now the constant parameter. Thus, the state evolves according to:

$$|\psi (t)=e^{i\delta J_zt}|\psi _{in},$$
(19)
and as in the one mode case, after a time $`T=4\pi /\delta `$ the state completes a closed loop. The non-adiabatic phase is $`\chi _{(n,n^{})}`$. Adding decoherence to the system we obtain the following phase

$`\chi _{(n,n^{})}=4\pi (1\mathrm{cos}\alpha ){\displaystyle \frac{nn^{}}{2}}`$ (20)
$`1/4\mathrm{cos}\alpha {\displaystyle \frac{\delta }{\lambda }}\mathrm{ln}\left[1{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(1\mathrm{cos}\theta _n)\left(1e^{\frac{\lambda }{\delta }8\pi }\right)\right]`$
and at first order in $`\lambda /\delta `$ we recover the expression (11), with $`\mathrm{\Omega }=4\pi (\mathrm{cos}\alpha )`$, i.e. the solid angle spanned on the parameter sphere in the case of no decoherence.

Working towards having a realistic description of geometric phases we have introduced field decoherence in the problem of a two-level system interaction with a quantized field. We analyzed the one and two mode models in the adiabatic and non-adiabatic case. We showed that when the geometric phase is generated by an adiabatic evolution the first correction due to the decoherence of the driving field for the no-jump trajectory is only of second order in the decaying rate of the field $`\lambda `$. This result reinforces the idea that geometric phases can be robust to errors, in agreement with previous works which analyze the geometric phase under classical noise sources gabriele  like random fluctuations of a classical driving field. We also showed that, for the non-adiabatic evolution this is no longer the case, and decoherence effects appear already in the first order correction term. This result is also in accordance with previous works in which, again, different classical noise sources were considered non-adiabatic123 ; nazir .

Our results are particularly relevant in the experimental realizations of these phases, like the one proposed in carollo02 , and in their use in the implementation of geometric quantum computation. Understanding the effects of decoherence in the geometric evolution of states is the first step in finding schemes resilient to this. We are now investigating a robust scheme to field decoherence using engineered reservoirs.

This research was supported by EPSRC, Hewlett-Packard, Elsag spa and the EU and Quiprocone Grant No. 040. AC acknowledges the support of ”Fondazione Angelo della Riccia” and the University of Milan and MFS acknowledges the support of CNPq.


text:
# A note on 4-dimensional traversable wormholes and energy conditions in higher dimensions

## I Introduction

It has been argued that if traversable wormholes exists, time-machines can be constructed. On the other hand, although quantum effects are capable of violating null, weak, strong and dominant energy conditions***see, for instance Chapter 12 of Ref. for a useful discussion on the various energy conditions. It is worth pointing out that these energy conditions are assumed in the derivations of some singularity theorems and laws of black hole thermodynamics.; it is also known that wormholes require exotic matter, and must lead to violations of reasonable, classical physical restrictions such as the null energy condition. So it is not entirely clear that stable traversable wormholes can also be realized physically, and are not merely theoretical constructs. Recently, there has also been great interest in the existence of higher dimensional space-times. Since a lower dimensional manifold can readily be embedded in a higher dimension, if higher dimensions exist, what appears as a wormhole to a 4-dimensional observer may indeed correspond to a restricted path in a higher dimensional space-time with a classically acceptable higher-dimensional stress-tensor. In other words, the “4-dimensional wormhole traveller” encounters no violation of reasonable energy conditions from the perspective of the higher dimensional space-time. In this short note we demonstrate explicitly that this is possible by choosing just a particular class of traversable 4-dimensional wormhole solutions; and showing that it leads to reasonable stress-tensors which satisfy the strong and dominant energy conditions if the 5-dimensional space-time in which the wormhole is embedded is regarded as a solution of the higher dimensional Einstein field equations. This raises the implication that if higher dimensions exist, even without resorting to instances of exotic stress-tensors from quantum effects, time machines and causality violations in 4-dimensions may be encountered via trajectories in higher dimensions which appear as wormhole traversals to 4-dimensional observers.

## II Wormhole solutions, embedding and higher dimensional curvature tensor

We start by choosing a particular class of suitable traversable wormhole solutions. Our aim is not to exhaustively examine all possible solutions, but to explicitly demonstrate that the higher dimensional stress-tensor is physically reasonable. To wit, we consider the wormhole solution of Ref.  in 4-dimensions expressed as

$$ds^2=e^{2\varphi (r)}dt^2+dr^2/[1b(r)/r]+r^2(d\theta ^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta d\varphi ^2).$$
(1)
It can be embedded in 5 dimensions by introducing the fifth coordinate $`z`$ such that

$$dz/dr=\pm [r/b(r)1]^{\frac{1}{2}}.$$
(2)
Thus if we regard the 5-dimensional metric as

$$ds^2=e^{2\varphi (r)}dt^2+dz^2+dr^2+r^2(d\theta ^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta d\varphi ^2),$$
(3)
a restricted part of the higher dimension subject to Eq.(2.2) corresponds to the 4-dimensional wormhole metric of Eq.(2.1). The 5-dimensional vielbien 1-forms, $`e^A(A=0,1,2,3,4),`$ are consequently

$$\{e^0=e^\varphi dt,e^1=dz,e^2=dr,e^3=rd\theta ,e^4=r\mathrm{sin}\theta d\varphi \};$$
(4)
and the spin connection can be straightforwardly evaluated via the torsionless condition

$$de^A+\omega _B^Ae^B=0.$$
(5)
Our convention is $`\eta _{AB}=\mathrm{diag}.(1,+1,+1,+1,+1)`$ for the 5-dimensional Minskowski metric. If we denote $`\varphi ^{}(r)d\varphi (r)/dr`$, then the only nonvanishing Lorentz components of the spin connection 1-form are

$`\omega _2^0`$ $`=`$ $`\varphi ^{}e^\varphi dt\omega _3^2=d\theta ,`$ (6)
$`\omega _4^2`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{sin}\theta d\varphi ,\omega _4^3=\mathrm{cos}\theta d\varphi ;`$ (7)
and the only nontrivial components of the curvature 2-form, $`_B^A=d\omega _B^A+\omega _C^A\omega _B^C`$, are

$$_2^0=[\varphi \mathrm{"}+\varphi ^2]e^\varphi drdt,_3^0=\varphi ^{}e^\varphi dtd\theta ,_4^0=\varphi ^{}e^\varphi dt\mathrm{sin}\theta d\varphi .$$
(8)
We may expand the the curvature 2-form using $`_{AB}\frac{1}{2}R_{ABCD}e^Ce^D`$, and it can be readily shown that the only nonvanishing components of the Riemann-Christoffel curvature, $`R_{ABCD}`$, are

$$R_{202}^0=(\varphi \mathrm{"}+\varphi ^2),R_{303}^0=R_{404}^0=\varphi ^{}/r.$$
(9)
This yields the only nontrivial Ricci curvature components, $`R_{AB}=R_{ACB}^C`$, as

$$R_{22}=(\varphi \mathrm{"}+\varphi ^2),R_{33}=R_{44}=\varphi ^{}/r;$$
(10)
and the Ricci scalar curvature, $`R=R_A^A`$, as

$$R=2(\varphi \mathrm{"}+\varphi ^2)4\varphi ^{}/r.$$
(11)
With these we can compute the Einstein tensor

$`G_{AB}`$ $`=`$ $`R_{AB}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\eta _{AB}R`$ (12)
$`=`$ $`R_{AB}+\eta _{AB}[2\varphi ^{}/r+(\varphi \mathrm{"}+\varphi ^2)].`$ (13)
Gathering the previous results, the Einstein tensor is therefore diagonal, and has components

$`G_{00}`$ $`=`$ $`0,G_{11}=2\varphi ^{}/r+(\varphi \mathrm{"}+\varphi ^2),G_{22}=2\varphi ^{}/r,`$ (14)
$`G_{33}`$ $`=`$ $`G_{44}=\varphi ^{}/r+(\varphi \mathrm{"}+\varphi ^2).`$ (15)
Assuming that Einstein’s field equations for the higher dimension are satisfied i.e.

$$G_{AB}=\kappa _0^2T_{AB},$$
(16)
where $`\kappa _0`$ is the 5-dimensional coupling; it follows that the 5-dimensional energy-momentum or stress tensor must be

$$T_{AB}=\frac{1}{\kappa _0^2}\left(\begin{array}{ccccc}0& 0& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& 2\varphi ^{}/r+(\varphi \mathrm{"}+\varphi ^2)& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 2\varphi ^{}/r& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& \varphi ^{}/r+(\varphi \mathrm{"}+\varphi ^2)& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& 0& \varphi ^{}/r+(\varphi \mathrm{"}+\varphi ^2)\end{array}\right).$$
(17)
## III Energy conditions

In order for the 4-dimensional metric of Eq.(2.1) to describe suitable traversable 4-dimensional wormhole solutions, the parameters are known to be

$$\varphi ^{}=\frac{\kappa ^2\tau (r)r^3+b(r)}{2r(rb(r))},$$
(18)
where $`\kappa ^2=8\pi G`$ and $`\tau `$ is the tension per unit area in the r-direction of the wormhole i.e. the negative of the radial pressure. For comparison, if we assume Einstein’s theory, the 4-dimensional stress-tensor of the metric of Eq.(2.1) is

$$T_{ab}=\frac{1}{\kappa ^2}\left(\begin{array}{cccc}\rho =\frac{b^{}}{\kappa ^2r^2}& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& \tau & 0& 0\\ 0& 0& p=\frac{r}{2}[(\rho \tau )\varphi ^{}\tau ^{}]\tau & 0\\ 0& 0& 0& p\end{array}\right),$$
(19)
where $`a,b=0,1,2,3`$ denote the components in the unit basis of the vierbien of Eq.(2.1); and $`b^{}(r)db(r)/dr`$. As explained in Ref., the flaring out condition $`(d^2r/dz^2)|_{r=b_0}=[(b(r)b^{}(r)r)/(2b^2(r))]|_{b_0}>0`$ and $`[(rb(r))\varphi ^{}(r)]|_{b_0}=0`$ at the throat ($`r=b_0`$) of the wormhole implies $`\tau (b_0)>\rho (b_0)`$. Thus from the 4-dimensional perspective “exotic matter” will be required and the null energy condition,see Chapter 12 of Ref. for a discussion of the energy conditions and their equivalence to the relations used in this article.

$$\rho +p_i0i,$$
(20)
is obviously violated, at least at the throat of the wormhole. This implies a violation of the weak energy condition which includes the statement $`\rho 0`$ besides the null energy condition of (3.3). On the other hand it is is easy to check there exist suitable choices of the wormhole shape function $`b(r)`$ and the factor $`\varphi (r)`$ controlling time dilation which do not violate suitable energy conditions for the 5-dimensional stress-tensor of Eq.(2.14). For instance, we may adopt $`\varphi (r)=0`$, $`b=`$ positive constant and $`\tau (r)=b_0/(\kappa ^2r^3)`$ \- indeed these parameters were suggested in Ref.  to minimize exotic material. This gives $`\tau ^{}(b_0)=3/(\kappa ^2b_0^2).`$ Consequently, for the 4-dimensional stress-tensor of Eq.(3.2), the null energy condition and also the stronger statement of dominant energy condition,

$$\rho 0\mathrm{and}ip_i[\rho ,\rho ],$$
(21)
are violated; and for constant tension $`(\tau ^{}=0)`$ the strong energy condition,

$$i\rho +p_i0\mathrm{and}\rho +\underset{i}{}p_i0,$$
(22)
is also not satisfied. But from the perspective of the higher-dimensional theory, there is no “exotic matter” whatsoever as the strong and dominant energy conditions clearly hold for the 5-dimensional stress-tensor of Eq.(2.14). In this particular instance, the higher dimensional embedding manifold is just the Minkowski space-time obeying vacuum ($`T_{AB}=0`$ ) Einstein field equations in 5-dimensions.

The results can be discussed in a more general setting. If our 4-dimensional manifold $`M`$ is described by a 3-brane with metric $`q_{\mu \nu }=g_{\mu \nu }n_\mu n_\nu `$ in a 5-dimensional space-time with metric $`g_{\mu \nu }`$ and the normal to $`M`$ is $`n_\mu `$, then the metric $`g_{\mu \nu }`$ of a theory satisfying the 5-dimensional Einstein field equation of Eq.(2.13) will produce a 4-dimensional Einstein tensor of the form

$$G_{\mu \nu }=\frac{2\kappa _0^2}{3}\left(T_{\rho \sigma }q_\mu ^\rho q_\nu ^\sigma +(T_{\rho \sigma }n^\rho n^\sigma \frac{1}{4}T)q_{\mu \nu }\right)+KK_{\mu \nu }K_\mu ^\sigma K_{\nu \sigma }\frac{1}{2}q_{\mu \nu }(K^2K^{\alpha \beta }K_{\alpha \beta })C_{\beta \rho \sigma }^\alpha n_\alpha n^\rho q_\mu ^\beta q_\nu ^\sigma $$
(23)
where $`T`$ and $`K`$ are respectively the trace of the higher dimensional stress-tensor and the extrinsic curvature $`K_{\mu \nu }`$, and $`C_{\beta \rho \sigma }^\alpha `$ is the higher-dimensional Weyl or conformal tensor. We showed explicitly that even when $`T_{\mu \nu }`$ obeys reasonable energy conditions, $`G_{\mu \nu }`$ can nevertheless be “exotic”. Moreover, our $`(M,q_{\mu \nu })`$ corresponds specifically to an interesting class of traversable 4-dimensional wormholes. From the 4-dimensional perspective, the existence of higher dimensions may thus facilitate wormhole and time machine constructions through access to “exotic matter” but may also entail perplexing chronology violations via wormhole traversals.

###### Acknowledgements.

The research for this work has been supported in part by funds from the National Science Council of Taiwan under grants nos. NSC91-2112-M-009-034, NSC90-2112-M-006-012 and NSC91-2112-M-006-018.


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# USTC-ICTS-03-10 BIon Configuration with Fuzzy 𝑆² Structure

## 1 Introduction

It is well known that the concept of D-brane  arises as the extended objects that open strings can end on. The worldvolume dynamics of D-brane, which can be derived as the low energy effective action of open string, is described by the Born-Infeld (BI) action . Dynamically, under some circumstances, a lower-dimensional brane can be blown-up to another higher-dimensional brane. Inversely, the lower-dimensional brane can be considered as a partially collapsed version of the higher-dimensional brane. It is observed in  that a BI string can tunnel to a tubular D2-brane or nucleate to spheroidal bulge of D2-brane in constant RR field background. Another observation in  is that a similar non-trivial background can blow up a bunch of D0-brane into fuzzy 2-sphere, which is the well-known Myers effect. Furthermore,  suggests that string carrying D0-brane charge can be ’blown-up’ into supertube supported against collapse by electric-magnetic angular momentum. The supertubes are collections of type IIA fundamental strings and D0-branes, which have been expanded to tubular 1/4-supersymmetric D2-branes by the addition of angular momentum.

Born-Infeld theory admits some finite energy static solutions. These solutions, called as BIons , are with pointlike sources like the fundamental strings. They play the important role in the theory of D-branes as the ends of string intersecting the brane when the effects of gravity are ignored . In particular, the BIon solution can be used to analyze the tunnelling of some D-brane configurations. Emparan  investigated some static unstable configurations in the presence of a constant 4-form RR field strength. These configurations include the bound configuration of a spherical brane and the BI string approaching the limit of a spike at large distance. This BI string possesses the character of BIon solution. According to the BIon description of solutions in Born-Infeld theory, we shall call the brane configuration with the BIon’s character as the BIon configuration. In this viewpoint, the BIon configuration considered by Emparan is the bound configuration of a D2-brane and the fundamental strings which can be expressed as the sources of a Coulomb-like electric field. The BIon solution in  describes the configuration of the type IIA strings ending on the D2-brane and D0-branes. In order to preserve the supersymmetry, the ’dissolved’ fundamental strings which can be interpreted as the sources of the electric field and the ’dissolved’ D0-branes which are realized as the magnetic fluxes must be considered. So this BIon configuration is the bound brane configuration of a D2-brane, the fundamentle strings and the D0-branes. Recently, Hyakutake  found the fuzzy BIon solution by establishing the dual description of the BIon solution in . The fuzzy BIon is described by the configuration obtained by pulling the fuzzy plane in a fixed direction. It is natural to ask whether there exist more general BIon solutions or not, and how the geometries of the brane configurations are affected by the BIon’s properties. In this paper, we are interested in finding some new BIon solutions, and analyzing the geometric characteristics of the BIon configurations corresponding to them.

If we want to investigate more general BIon configurations, which include the spherical D2-brane, the effective BI action considered by us should include the Chern-Simons coupling term in the presence of non-zero RR field strength. The reason is due to the Myers effect  that the above non-trivial background can blow-up a collection of D0-branes into a fuzzy two-sphere. In the presence of the constant RR field strength, the matrix fields of N coincident D0-branes’ configuration are no longer globally stable if they were diagonalized simultaneously. Also it is known that in the supertube of  the addition of D0-branes, of which the charge can be interpreted as the magnetic flux, is to provide a stabilization mechanism of preventing from collapse by crossed electric and magnetic fields. In order to make our considering BIon configuration stable, it should be the bound brane configurations of a D2-brane, fundamental strings and D0-branes in the background of the non-trivial RR field. Since the fundamental strings can be expressed as the sources of the electric field and the D0-brane charge can be interpreted as the magnetic flux, our starting point should be the effective BI action with both the electric field and the magnetic field in the presence of the constant RR field strength.

In the next section, we shall discuss some BIon configurations from the effective BI action as mentioned above. Indeed, We find two classical stable solutions describing the BIon configurations with $`S^2`$ structure and with tube structure respectively. The former, which can be regarded as the bound brane configuration of a spherical D2-brane, fundamental strings and D0-brane, is one of the main results in this paper. Subsequently, in terms of the dielectric effect from the viewpoint of $`N`$ coincident D0-branes, we find that the BIon configuration with $`S^2`$ structure also exist as a fuzzy object. The energy of the BIon configuration with the fuzzy $`S^2`$ structure is lower than that of the configuration of the usual fuzzy $`S^2`$ found by Myers . That is, the former is more stable that the latter.

## 2 BIon on a dielectric spherical D2-brane

As mentioned above, here we focus on a D2-brane with N magnetic fluxes in the presence of constant RR flux $`F_{0123}^4=4h`$. For generality we also allow the electric field on the world volume, which can lead to the growing of a spike on the usual dielectric spherical D2-brane. The BI action including the Chern-Simons terms, which governs the low energy dynamics of D2-brane in a RR background, reads as

$$I=T_2d^3\xi \left\{\sqrt{det(P[G]_{ab}+\lambda F_{ab})}\right\}+\mu _2P[C^{(3)}],$$
(1)
where $`T_2=2\pi /(2\pi ł_s)^3g_s`$ is the D2-brane tension and $`\lambda =2\pi ł_s^2`$. As usual $`P[\mathrm{}]`$ is used to clarify the the pullbacks, and the potential $`C^{(3)}`$ of the R-R field is defined by $`F^4=dC^{(3)}`$. Since we are interested in static configuration with axial symmetry, it is convenient to use the cylindrical coordinates

$$x^0=t,x^1=R(z)\mathrm{cos}\theta ,x^2=R(z)\mathrm{sin}\theta ,x^3=z,$$
(2)
where $`(t,\theta ,z)`$ are the world volume coordinates. For time-independent magnetic field and electric field in z direction, the BI 2-form field strength can be expressed as

$$F=Edtdz+Bdzd\theta .$$
(3)
Under the above conditions the D2-brane action can be reduced to

$$I=T_2𝑑t𝑑\theta 𝑑z\left\{\sqrt{R^2(\lambda ^2E^2+1)+\lambda ^2B^2+R^2R_z^2}2hR^2\right\}.$$
(4)
The Hamiltonian of the system is defined as

$$𝒟E.$$
(5)
Here $`𝒟`$ is the ’electric displacement’ which is defined as $`𝒟=\frac{1}{T_2\lambda }\frac{L}{E}`$, and it obeys the Gauss law constraint $`_z𝒟=0`$. $`E`$ can be express by using $`𝒟`$ as

$$E=\frac{𝒟}{\lambda R}\sqrt{\frac{R^2(1+R_z^2)+\lambda ^2B^2}{𝒟^2+R^2}}.$$
(6)
So the Hamiltonian density becomes

$$=T_2\left\{\frac{1}{R}\sqrt{(𝒟^2+R^2)(R^2(1+R_z^2)+\lambda ^2B^2)}2hR^2\right\}.$$
(7)
The Euler-Lagrange equation for $`A_x`$ and $`A_\theta `$ can produce another constraint on the magnetic field. If we define $`\mathrm{\Pi }=\frac{1}{T_2\lambda }\frac{L}{B}`$, the constraint reads as $`_z\mathrm{\Pi }=_\theta \mathrm{\Pi }=0`$. So $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ is a constant. Furthermore, we can establish the relation between the magnetic field $`B`$ and $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ in the following form

$$B=\frac{\mathrm{\Pi }R^2}{\lambda }\sqrt{\frac{1+R_z^2}{𝒟^2+(1\mathrm{\Pi }^2)R^2}}.$$
(8)
It should be noticed from (8) that the number of the magnetic flux per unit area becomes infinitely small as $`R`$ approach to zero, unlike the case with no electric field where it is uniform. Quantization of the magnetic flux requires

$$N=\frac{1}{2\pi }𝑑\theta 𝑑zB=\frac{1}{2\pi \lambda }𝑑\theta 𝑑z\sqrt{\frac{\mathrm{\Pi }^2R^4(1+R_z^2)}{𝒟^2+R^2\mathrm{\Pi }^2R^2}}.$$
(9)
The Hamiltonian density can be rewritten in terms of $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ as

$$=T_2\left\{(𝒟^2+R^2)\sqrt{\frac{1+R_z^2}{𝒟^2+(1\mathrm{\Pi }^2)R^2}}2hR^2\right\}.$$
(10)
Since the negative $`h`$ will oppose the expansion of the brane, we will assume $`h0`$ in the following.

It is instructive to first consider the tube-like solution with $`R_z=0`$ for all $`z`$. Since the configuration is noncompact, we should assume that the length in the $`z`$ direction is taken as $`L`$ to make the energy finite. Using the constraint (9) we can eliminate $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ in the (10) to give

$$=T_2\left\{\frac{1}{R}\sqrt{(R^2+\mathrm{\Omega }^2)(R^2+𝒟^2)}2hR^2\right\},$$
(11)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }=\frac{\lambda N}{L}`$. It is easily seen that for nonzero $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and $`𝒟`$, the BI-string has infinite energy, thus is unstable. It would be blown-up to tube configuration at local minimum of the energy. If $`h=0`$ this is just the supertube solution. With $`h`$ turned on, the tube should grow larger and become meta-stable, which can be understood as the Myers effect. And when $`h`$ reach some critical value, the tube would be completely unstable.

Now let us turn to general case with nonzero $`R_z`$ and look for static solution by extremizing the energy with respect to the field R. The static equation for R, which is gotten by varying (10) while N is fixed, is

$$\frac{}{R}+\frac{}{\mathrm{\Pi }}\frac{\mathrm{\Pi }}{R}\frac{d}{dz}\frac{}{R_z}=0.$$
(12)
After some algebraic manipulation, it can be rewritten as (only valid for $`R_z0`$)

$$\frac{d}{dz}\left\{\sqrt{\frac{𝒟^2+(1\mathrm{\Pi }^2)R^2}{1+R_z^2}}2hR^2\right\}=0.$$
(13)
Introducing the integration constant C, we find

$`R_z`$ $`=`$ $`\pm {\displaystyle \frac{1}{2hR^2+C}}\sqrt{𝒟^2+(1\mathrm{\Pi }^2)R^2(2hR^2+C)^2}`$ (14)
$`=`$ $`\pm {\displaystyle \frac{2h}{2hR^2+C}}\sqrt{(R_+^2R^2)(R^2R_{}^2)}.`$
Here $`R_\pm `$ are defined as

$$R_\pm ^2=\frac{1}{8h^2}\left\{(1\mathrm{\Pi }^24hC)\pm \sqrt{(1\mathrm{\Pi }^24hC)^2+16h^2(𝒟^2C^2)}\right\}.$$
(15)
We also rewrite the BI field strength for further convenience as

$$E=\frac{𝒟}{\lambda (2hR^2+C)},B=\frac{\mathrm{\Pi }R^2}{\lambda (2hR^2+C)}.$$
(16)
Though (14) can always be integrated in terms of elliptic integrals as done in , we have no need to do it for general case.

In order to gain some insight we shall have some brief discussion about the solution in the absence of RR fields. If we set $`h=0`$, (14) becomes $`R_z=\pm \frac{1}{C}\sqrt{(1\mathrm{\Pi }^2)R^2+𝒟^2C^2}`$. The equation for $`R`$ can be easily integrated. The solution for the case $`C=𝒟`$ is $`R=\mathrm{exp}\left\{\pm \frac{\sqrt{1\mathrm{\Pi }^2}}{𝒟}(zz_0)\right\}`$. This solution leads a logarithmic bending of D2-brane. The electric potential also admits a form of logarithm, while the magnetic field is proportional to $`R`$. These are the characteristics of the BIon solution. Actually It is just the BIon configuration preserving $`1/4`$ supersymmetry found in . The solution corresponding to $`C^2>𝒟^2`$ is $`R=\sqrt{\frac{C^2𝒟^2}{1\mathrm{\Pi }^2}}\mathrm{cosh}\left\{\pm \frac{\sqrt{1\mathrm{\Pi }^2}}{C}(zz_0)\right\}`$. This is electric neutral catenoidal solution representing two D-branes joined by a throat. The case $`C^2<𝒟^2`$ implies the solution $`R=\sqrt{\frac{𝒟^2C^2}{1\mathrm{\Pi }^2}}\mathrm{sinh}\left\{\pm \frac{\sqrt{1\mathrm{\Pi }^2}}{C}(zz_0)\right\}`$, which is a singular deformation of the BIon solution as discussed in .

For $`h`$ nonzero, we note that the term in the square root of (14) should be larger than zero, so $`R`$ is restricted between $`R_{}`$ and $`R_+`$. To be more precisely $`R`$ can change from $`R_{}`$ to $`R_+`$ or from $`R_+`$ to $`R_{}`$. General solution extending in $`z`$ direction can be composed through periodic continuation. If $`R_{}<0`$, i.e. $`C^2<𝒟^2`$, there is a singularity at finite $`z`$ as $`R`$ approach zero. As expected from the case $`h=0`$, this represents a spike with finite length. Only the case $`R_{}=0`$ admits an infinitely long spike without singularity. This is the main configuration we interested in throughout this section.

In this case we can integrate (14) easily to find

$$\sqrt{R_+^2R^2}+\frac{𝒟}{2hR_+}\mathrm{ln}\frac{R_++\sqrt{R_+^2R^2}}{R}=|zz_0|,$$
(17)
with $`R_+^2=\frac{1\mathrm{\Pi }^24h𝒟}{4h^2}`$. In fact, the solution (17) describes the BIon configuration. As $`R`$ approach $`R_+`$ the second term can be neglected. This leads to $`R^2+|zz_0|^2=R_+^2`$ which describes a sphere at $`z=z_0`$ with radius $`R_+`$. As $`R`$ approach zero the second term is dominant and $`R\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{1}{L}(|zz_0|R_+)\right)`$. This is exactly the BIon solution satisfying the equation $`dz=\pm \frac{L}{2}\frac{dR^2}{R^2}`$, with $`L_s=\frac{𝒟}{2hR_+}`$ characterizing the length of the spike. Furthermore the BI field strength can be rewritten as

$$F=\frac{𝒟}{2\lambda hR_+R}dtdR+\frac{\mathrm{\Pi }R}{2\lambda hR_+}dRd\theta .$$
(18)
This suggest a radial Coulomb-like charge on the worldvolume, as expected from the BIon solution. So the whole solution representing a BIon configuration with a sphere. Similar configuration was discovered in  with only the electric field turned on, which is the sphalerons on top of a potential barrier. But as we shall see later, when magnetic field exist, this configuration would be stable.

The energy of the configuration (17) is given by

$$H=2hT_2V_3+T_0N\mathrm{\Pi }+2\pi T_2𝒟𝑑z,$$
(19)
where $`V_3=\frac{4}{3}\pi R^3`$ is the volume of the sphere. As shown in  the quantization condition on the $`𝒟`$-flux is $`\frac{1}{2\pi }𝑑\theta 𝒟=ng`$, i.e., $`𝒟=ng`$. By using this relation the last term in (19) can be written as $`nT_f𝑑z`$ which is just the energy of n fundamental string. So one would observe that the energy exactly split into three parts arising from the energy of RR flux, D0-branes and fundamental strings. So we can identify this configuration as the bound state of D2-brane with N D0-branes and n fundamental strings dissolved in the worldvolume. Furthermore it is noticed that the second term in (19) is not the pure energy of N D0-branes, but includes the contribution of $`𝒟`$ through $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$. This can be explained by considering the interaction of the fundamental strings and D0-branes. The N units magnetic fluxes can be written as

$$N=\frac{\mathrm{\Pi }}{h\lambda }R_+=\frac{\mathrm{\Pi }\sqrt{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2\mathrm{\Pi }^2}}{2h^2\lambda },$$
(20)
from which we can express $`\mathrm{\Pi }^2`$ as a function of N

$$\mathrm{\Pi }^2=\frac{1}{2}\left(\mathrm{\Lambda }\pm \sqrt{\mathrm{\Lambda }^24\mathrm{\Xi }^2}\right).$$
(21)
Here $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^214h𝒟`$ and $`\mathrm{\Xi }2h^2\lambda N`$. We consider the case with small BI field that $`\mathrm{\Xi }1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Xi }\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, which is appropriate for our discussion below and for later comparison with D0-brane description. The two possible value of $`\mathrm{\Pi }^2`$ can be approximated as $`\mathrm{\Pi }_1^2=\mathrm{\Lambda }^2\frac{\mathrm{\Xi }^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Pi }_2^2=\frac{\mathrm{\Xi }^2}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}`$. Inserting them back in (19) we can get the corresponding energy ( below we have neglected the energy of the BI-string since it is always the same in each case)

$$H=\{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{NT_0}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}(\mathrm{\Lambda }^2\frac{\mathrm{\Xi }^2}{6\mathrm{\Lambda }^2})\hfill & R_1=\frac{\mathrm{\Xi }}{2h\mathrm{\Lambda }}\hfill \\ \frac{1}{3}NT_0\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }^3}{\mathrm{\Xi }}\hfill & R_2=\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{2h}\hfill \end{array}$$
(22)
The situation with only magnetic or electric field had been explored extensively. Now we shall investigate what will happen when we turn on both fields. First with no magnetic fluxes, there exist two configurations with $`R_1=0`$ and $`R_2=\frac{1}{2h}\sqrt{14h𝒟}`$. They are just the stable BI-string and the $`S^2`$ configuration with string ending as discussed in . As we turn on the magnetic fluxes, we have two configuration with string ending on $`S^2`$, which is different from the case with only electric field. One of them is with a smaller sphere of which the radius is $`R_1=\frac{\mathrm{\Xi }}{2h\mathrm{\Lambda }}`$, and the other is with a larger sphere of which the radius is $`R_2=\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{2h}`$. It can be seen from (22) that the former have lower energy than the latter under the condition of small BI field, i.e., the former is more stable than the latter. Furthermore, one can see that under the same circumstance the energy of the latter configuration is independent of the number of magnetic flux $`N`$. Hence, the configuration with a larger sphere corresponds to the $`S^2`$ configuration with string ending in the case of no magnetic field, and it is unstable. As discussed previously now BI-string would gain an infinite energy shift and become unstable. However, because the magnetic flux can be interpreted as a ’dissolved’ D0-brane charge, turning on the magnetic field implies that some D0-branes is added to the system. Due to the Myers effect, a stuck of D0-branes is blown-up a sphere. This makes the BIon configuration with string ending on the smaller sphere become stable. On the other words, as $`N`$ being turned off the bludge shrinks to zero size and the BI-string is recovered. Similarly, we can also start from the case with only magnetic field, where there is a meta-stable $`S^2`$ known as the dielectric sphere. We know that in type IIA superstring theory there exists the BIon configuration which represents a fundamental string ending on a bound of a D2-brane and D0-branes . From the viewpoint of the world volume theory on the D2-brane, the fundamental string is expressed as a source of a Coulomb-like electric field. Thus, as we turn on electric field, the fundamental string is effectively attached to the spherical brane configuration. Conclusively, the meta-stable configuration is the spherical brane configuration with spikes.

## 3 Fuzzy BIon from dielectric D0-branes

In this section, we shall show that the configuration we have found in the previous section also exist as a bound state of N D0-branes. We start with the low energy effective action of N D0-branes, which is the non-abelian extension of BI action proposed in , the leading nontrivial terms are

$$SNT_0V_1+\frac{1}{4}\lambda ^2T_0𝑑tTr(2D_0\varphi ^iD_0\varphi ^i+[\varphi ^i,\varphi ^j]^2)\frac{4}{3}ih\lambda ^2\mu _0ϵ_{ijk}𝑑tTr(\varphi ^i\varphi ^j\varphi ^k),$$
(23)
where $`D_0\varphi ^i=_0\varphi ^i+i[A_0,\varphi ^i]`$ and $`i,j,k=1,2,3`$. We have consistently set $`\varphi ^4,\mathrm{},\varphi ^9`$ to zero, and the RR background $`F_{0123}^4=4h`$ has been introduced into the action through Chern-Simons term. It should be noticed that this action is valid only when the commutators $`i\lambda [\varphi ^i,\varphi ^j]`$ are small enough, or $`h^2\lambda N1`$. The corresponding Lagrangian can be written as

$$L=NT_0+\lambda ^2T_0Tr\left\{\frac{1}{2}D_0\varphi ^iD_0\varphi ^i+\frac{1}{4}[\varphi ^i,\varphi ^j]^2i\alpha ϵ_{ijk}\varphi ^i\varphi ^j\varphi ^k\right\}.$$
(24)
Here we define $`\alpha =\frac{4}{3}h`$ for further convenience. The equation of motion for $`\varphi ^i`$ and Gauss law constraint derived directly from the Lagrangian are

$$[D_0,[D_0,\varphi ^i]]+\frac{3i\alpha }{2}ϵ_{ijk}[\varphi ^j,\varphi ^k]+[[\varphi ^i,\varphi ^k],\varphi ^k]=0,[\varphi ^i,[D_0,\varphi ^i]]=0.$$
(25)
Following , for configurations with axial symmetry, we choose the ansatz

$`\varphi _{mn}^1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\rho _{m+1/2}\delta _{m+1,n}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\rho _{m1/2}\delta _{m,n+1},`$
$`\varphi _{mn}^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\rho _{m+1/2}\delta _{m+1,n}{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\rho _{m1/2}\delta _{m,n+1},`$ (26)
$`\varphi _{mn}^3`$ $`=`$ $`z_m\delta _{m,n},A_{0mn}=a_m\delta _{m,n}.`$
Here we only consider the static configuration. Thus, substituting the ansatz into (25), we get

$`(a_{m+1}a_m)^2(z_{m+1}z_m)^2+3\alpha (z_{m+1}z_m)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[\rho _{m1/2}^22\rho _{m+1/2}^2+\rho _{m+3/2}^2]=0,`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{3\alpha }{2}}(\rho _{m1/2}^2\rho _{m+1/2}^2)[\rho _{m+1/2}^2(z_{m+1}z_m)\rho _{m1/2}^2(z_mz_{m1})]=0,`$ (27)
$`\rho _{m+1/2}^2(a_{m+1}a_m)\rho _{m1/2}^2(a_ma_{m1})=0.`$
To solve the above equations, we first choose the ansatz $`\rho _{m+1/2}=\frac{3}{2}\alpha \sqrt{(j+m+1)(jm)}`$, which is reasonable since $`\varphi ^i`$ just become the fuzzy sphere solution found in  when $`z_m=\frac{3}{2}\alpha m`$. Now we are to find general $`z_m`$ and $`a_m`$ as a solution of (3). Substituting $`\rho _{m+1/2}`$ into the second equation of (3) yields

$$z_{m+1}z_m=\frac{3}{2}\alpha +\frac{C}{\rho _{m+1/2}^2}$$
(28)
Then inserting this back into the first equation in (3), one finds

$$a_{m+1}a_m=\pm \frac{C}{\rho _{m+1/2}^2}.$$
(29)
It can be easily checked that this solution also satisfies the third equation in (3). Here C is an arbitrary constant. For our convenience we can set $`z_0=a_0=0`$. From (28) and (29) one can find

$`z_m`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}\alpha m+sgn(m){\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{|m|1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{C}{\rho _{m+1/2}^2}},`$
$`a_m`$ $`=`$ $`\pm sgn(m){\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{|m|1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{C}{\rho _{m+1/2}^2}}.`$ (30)
The algebra describing the fuzzy configuration can be written as

$$[\varphi ^1,\varphi ^2]=i\frac{3}{2}\alpha (\varphi ^3A_0),[\varphi ^2,\varphi ^3]=i\frac{3}{2}\alpha \varphi ^1\pm [\varphi ^2,A_0],[\varphi ^3,\varphi ^1]=i\frac{3}{2}\alpha \varphi ^2\pm [A_0,\varphi ^1].$$
(31)
If we have redefinitions $`\varphi ^1\stackrel{~}{\varphi ^1}`$, $`\varphi ^2\stackrel{~}{\varphi ^2}`$ and $`\varphi ^3\stackrel{~}{\varphi ^3}\pm A_0`$, (31) can be rewritten in terms of $`\stackrel{~}{\varphi ^i}`$ as $`[\stackrel{~}{\varphi ^i},\stackrel{~}{\varphi ^j}]=i\frac{3}{2}\alpha ϵ_{ijk}\stackrel{~}{\varphi ^k}`$. This is essentially the $`SU(2)`$ algebra with a deformation in the $`z`$ direction corresponding to two lumps protruding in the north and south pole of fuzzy $`S^2`$. The shape of the lump is completely determined by $`A_0`$. For the bound brane configuration including the string, which we are just interested in, $`A_0`$ can not be set to zero. The reason is that $`A_0`$ is related to the string charge as explained in .

When $`C`$ equals to zero in (3), we have $`\varphi ^3\stackrel{~}{\varphi ^3}`$. And it is obvious that $`\varphi ^i`$ satisfy the $`SU(2)`$ algebra representing a fuzzy sphere of radius $`h\lambda N`$. Thus we recover the fuzzy $`S^2`$ blown-up due to Myers effect. But the solution is more interesting with nonzero $`C`$. The nonvanish contribution of the lump is described by

$$\mathrm{\Delta }z_m=\frac{1}{2}\frac{C}{4mh^2}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\rho _m^2}{\rho _{m+1/2}^2}.$$
(32)
Here we use the identity $`\mathrm{\Delta }\rho _m^2=8mh^2`$. This is just the regularized version of the differential equation that BIon should satisfy. The coefficient $`L_s\frac{C}{4mh^2}`$ is identified with the length of the spike we defined previously. In the spike-dominant region $`m\frac{N}{2}`$, the length is approximate to $`\frac{\lambda C}{\mathrm{\Xi }}`$. It is easily seen that the length is inverse proportional to the $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$, which agree with previous result implying the spike would be suppressed by the magnetic flux. Furthermore, if we identify $`\lambda C`$ with $`𝒟`$, the radius of the sphere and length of the spike are given by $`R=h\lambda N`$ and $`L_s=\frac{𝒟}{\mathrm{\Xi }}`$ respectively, which is completely the same as the previous results for small $`𝒟`$

In order to analyze the stability of our solution, we should calculate the correspondent energy. The Hamiltonian can be derived from (24) as

$$H=NT_0+\lambda ^2T_0Tr\left(\frac{1}{2}_0\varphi ^i_0\varphi ^i+\frac{1}{2}[A_0,\varphi ^i]^2\frac{1}{4}[\varphi ^i,\varphi ^j]^2+i\alpha ϵ_{ijk}\varphi ^i\varphi ^j\varphi ^k\right).$$
(33)
Imposing the static condition and using (25) to eliminate the term with $`A_0`$ yields

$$H=NT_0\frac{1}{4}\lambda ^2T_0Tr\left(i\alpha ϵ_{ijk}\varphi ^i[\varphi ^j,\varphi ^k][\varphi ^i,\varphi ^j]^2\right).$$
(34)
Substituting the solution (3) into the Hamiltonian, we find

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`H_0{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\lambda ^2T_0C{\displaystyle \underset{m=j}{\overset{j}{}}}\left(2\alpha 4h^2\alpha |m|{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{|m|1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\rho _{k+1/2}^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{C}{\rho _{m+1/2}^2}}\right)`$
$`=`$ $`H_0{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\lambda ^2T_0C{\displaystyle \underset{m=j}{\overset{j}{}}}\mathrm{\Delta }z_m{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}h\lambda ^2T_0C.`$
Here $`H_0`$ is the energy of the usual fuzzy sphere and equals to $`NT_0\frac{2}{3}NT_0(h^2\lambda N)^2(1\frac{1}{N^2})`$. It is interesting to observe that $`_{m=j}^j\mathrm{\Delta }z_m`$ corresponds to the length of a string through the fuzzy sphere. The contribution to energy due to this string is similar to the that of fundamental string except that it is negative. If the radius $`h\lambda N`$ is fixed, the last term is inverse proportional to $`N`$ and vanish in the large $`N`$ limit. Thus the total energy is smaller than $`H_0`$ for $`C>0`$, which means that our solution with spikes has lower energy than the fuzzy $`S^2`$. This implies that the dielectric sphere is not stable and can grow spikes to lower its energy if we allow $`A_0`$ to be nonzero. Conclusively, the BIon configuration given by us is more stable than the configuration of the fuzzy sphere done by Myers .

So from above analysis we can see that our solution of the N D0-brane action represent a BIon configuration with fuzzy $`S^2`$ structure, Which in the large N limit gives the same configuration found in the previous section when we analyze the D2-brane worldvolume action. This is what we have expected, and it also supply a new evidence for the equivalence of the two pictures.

## 4 Conclusions

Based on the physical consideration, here we have investigated the D2-brane in uniform RR background while we have incorporate both electric and magnetic field in the world volume of the brane. Some new static solutions of this system have been found. One among them is geometrically described by a two-sphere with a spike, charactered by the BIon of string ending on the spherical D2-brane. In the language of BIon configuration, it is a BIon configuration composed of the bound brane of a D2-brane, $`n`$ fundamental strings and $`N`$ D0-branes. By product, we also obtain a tube solution. They can be understood as the blown-up objects of the BI-string due to the Myers effect if we turn on the magnetic field. It has been shown that these configurations are classically stable. Due to the presence of the RR-flux, the configurations found above are quantum mechanically unstable, they would tunnel to configurations with larger radius. Further work is needed to elucidate the process through the construction of bounce solution and calculation of the decay rate.

In order to investigate how the dielectric D2-brane is affected in the presence of electric field, we have also analyzed the a system of N D0-branes in the same RR background. We give a solution describing a BIons configuration with fuzzy $`S^2`$ structure which is the same as the D2-brane picture. By the redefinition of the matrix field, it is shown that algebra of the fuzzy configuration is a deformed $`SU(2)`$ algebra which has nontrivial topology. By comparing the energy of this BIon configuration with that of the Myers’ fuzzy $`S^2`$ configuration, we find that our configuration is more stable than Myers’.

## 5 Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Sen Hu and J.X. Lu for helpful discussions. Jing Shao also thanks Interdisciplinary Center for Theoretical Study of USTC in Hefei for hospitality during his staying in the Institute. The work was partly supported by the NNSF of China (Grant No.90203003) and by the Foundation of Education Ministry of China (Grant No.010335025).