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# 1 Preliminaries

## 1 Preliminaries

Do mountain gorillas know that their ‘civilization’ is embedded in a larger ‘civilization’ corresponding to a much more evolved and intelligent species than themselves? Do they know that they are a protected species inhabitating a natural reserve in a country inside the African continent of planet Earth? The answer to these questions is certainly no, they do not know anything about our social structure, our countries, borders, religions, politics, ….. nor even about our villages and cities, except perhaps for those individuals living in a zoo, or adopted as pets.

In the same way, the human civilization of planet Earth could be immersed in a much larger civilization unknowingly, corresponding to much more evolved and intelligent species than ourselves. After all, the sun is only a young star among thousands of millions of much older stars in our galaxy and the possible existence of such advanced civilizations is only a question of biological evolution doing its job, slowly but relentlessly through the millennia111In addition, as the civilizations would reach some mastery in the field of genetic engineering, the general tendency would be to ‘improve’ themselves, that is their own species, among many others, giving rise to an acceleration of the biological evolution at unimaginable rates. We thank several readers, especially Jim Bogan, for this important suggestion.. If this happens to be the case it is quite sensible to assume that these individuals regard our planet as a natural reserve, full of animal and vegetal species, the Solar System being nothing but a small ‘province’ inside their vast territory.

In this situation, the answer to the usual remark ‘if there are advanced extraterrestrials around, why they do not contact us openly and officialy and teach us their science and technology?’ seems obvious. Would any country in this planet send an official delegation to the mountain gorilla territory to introduce themselves ‘openly and officially’ to the gorilla authorities? Would they shake hands, make agreements and exchange signatures with the dominant males? About teaching us their science and technology, who would volunteer to teach physics, mathematics and engineering to a bunch of gorillas? In addition one has to take into account the limits of the brain capabilities, independently of the culture or education. For example, let us ask ourselves how many bananas would be necessary for the most intelligent gorillas to understand the Maxwell equations of electromagnetism (even if they watch TV or listen to the radio). In the same way we may wonder how many sandwiches, potato chips or cigarretes would be necessary for the most intelligent among our scientists to understand the key scientific and technological results of a much more advanced civilization. Our intellectual faculties and habilities are limited by our brain capabilities that are by no means infinite. Therefore it is most natural and sensible to assume that there may exist important key scientific and technological concepts and results whose understanding is completely beyond the brain capabilities of our species, but is within reach of much more evolved and sophisticated brains corresponding to much more advanced civilizations.

The motivation for this idea has been the recent article ‘Conflict between anthropic reasoning and observation’ by Ken D. Olum . In this article the author presents some computations regarding the probabilities that typical intelligent observers belong to a large (galactic size) civilization at the present time. The underlying idea is that in the observable Universe, because of the existence of thousands of billions of stars older than the Sun, there must be huge civilizations much older than ours which could have spread widely through the Universe. (Although not mentioned in , Enrico Fermi was probably the first scientist to consider similar arguments, in the fifties, leading to some ‘missing-alien’ problem or paradox222We thank Juan Luis Mañes and Cumrun Vafa for pointing out this fact to us..) In particular, using the assumption of an infinite Universe, like in models of eternal inflation, and doing some conservative computations, Olum predicts that ‘all but one individual in $`10^8`$ belongs to a large civilization’. Then he invokes the anthropic premise that we are typical individuals and, as a result, he predicts that there is a probability of $`10^8`$ versus 1 that we belong to a large civilization. Dropping the infinite Universe assumption, but keeping still inflation, the author claims that the predictions are not very different than for the previous case. After analysing several possibilities of where the problem might lie the author concludes: ‘A straightforward application of anthropic reasoning and reasonable assumptions about the capabilities of other civilizations predict that we should be part of a large civilization spanning our galaxy. Although the precise confidence to put in such a prediction depends on one’s assumptions, it is clearly very high. Nevertheless, we do not belong to such a civilization. Thus something should be amiss……. but then what other mistakes are we making…..?

In this note we present what we think is the simplest possible solution to Olum’s and Fermi’s ‘missing-alien’ problems and paradoxes. As we will discuss in detail, we could well be part of a large civilization spanning our galaxy (or a large region of it) without being aware of it. Therefore one obviously natural solution is that we do belong to a large, very advanced civilization, but we are not ‘citizens’ of it because of our primitive low status. The two major mistakes of Olum’s, therefore, would have been to assume: first, that we are typical intelligent observers, and, second, that to belong to a civilization implies to be a citizen of it.

Besides, Olum’s arguments implying that inflation must necessarily aggravate the (very serious) ‘missing-alien’ problem do not seem very convincing and it is some brane world scenarios , in our opinion, what could in fact aggravate dramatically this problem. The reason is the following. If there exist thousands, or millions, of parallel universes separated from ours through extra-dimensions, it would be natural then to expect that some proportion of these universes would have the same laws of physics as ours (presumably half of these would be of matter and the other half of anti-matter), and many of the corresponding advanced civilizations would master the techniques to travel or ‘jump’ through (at least some of) the extra dimensions. This opens up enormous possibilities regarding the expansion of advanced civilizations simultaneously through several parallel universes with the same laws of physics, resulting in multidimensional empires. It could even happen that the expansion to other parallel galaxies through extra dimensions could be easier, with lower cost, than the expansion inside one’s own galaxy333The first scientists to consider extra-dimensions and parallel universes were probably Maxwell and Faraday in the 19th century. Outside the scientific realm this idea is many thousands of years old. At present we are still in a very premature phase in the study of brane worlds and we do not know whether these ideas are in fact realistic. Cumrun Vafa thinks that the fact that we do not see aliens around could be the first proof of the existence of brane worlds: all advanced aliens would have emigrated to better parallel universes (our Universe has zero measure) ..

In many other universes, however, the laws of physics would be different, corresponding perhaps to different vacua of the ‘would be’ ultimate Theory of Everything, resulting probably in ‘shadow matter’ universes with respect to ours. This means that shadow matter would only interact with our matter gravitationally, in the case it would be brought to our Universe using appropiate technology. This does not mean, however, that the shadow universes would be necessarily empty of intelligent beings. If some of them had advanced civilizations, some of their individuals could even ‘jump’ to our Universe, but not for colonization purposes since they would not even see our planets and stars, which they would pass through almost unaware (they would only notice the gravitational pull towards their centers). And the other way around, we could neither see, nor talk to, the shadow visitors, although they could perhaps try to communicate with the ‘would be’ intelligent beings of our Universe, through gravitational waves for example. Regarding anti-matter universes, the intelligent anti-observers would not send colonizers either444although they could send unwanted anti-prisoners, their arrival being known as gamma-ray bursts..

We must also point out that in  there is a continuous, repeatedly use of the concept ‘intelligent observer’ without a definition of its meaning. This fact makes difficult to follow Olum’s arguments and computations properly. For example, do the Cro-Magnon and Neandertal mankinds qualify as civilizations of intelligent observers? How about the very primitive human beings living nowadays in some forests? Do they qualify? Do they belong to ‘the civilization’ of planet Earth even if they know very little about it?

For the discussion in next sections we will use the following intuitive definitions:

Primitive civilizations: Are those civilizations that have a remarkable use of technology in everyday life but are uncapable of leaving their planets to colonize other ones in different stellar systems. Their scientific knowledge can have many degrees, ranging from zero to remarkable high levels. In our planet it seems that only the groups of human beings from, approximately, the last 20.000 years qualify as primitive civilizations, corresponding to what anthropologists call the Modern Man, not so the groups of the various versions of the Early Man, who would only qualify as very primitive civilizations. We call the individuals of the primitive civilizations primitive intelligent observers.

Advanced civilizations: Are those civilizations technologically able to colonize other planets from different stellar systems, ranging from a few planets until thousands of them or more in the case of very advanced civilizations. Depending on their technological level they could even travel through extra dimensions (if they exist) and they could visit and colonize planets located in ‘would be’ nearby galaxies in parallel universes. We call the individuals of these civilizations advanced and very advanced intelligent observers, respectively.

## 2 The Main Ideas

Let us discuss in detail the possibility that our small terrestrial civilization is embedded in a large civilization unknowingly. This will lead very naturally to the the proposal of two major ideas that we call the ‘Subanthropic Principle’ and the ‘Undetectability Conjecture’.

To start let us come back to the main argument. In our galaxy there are thousands of millions of stars much older than the Sun, many of them thousands of millions of years older, in fact. Therefore, it seems most natural to expect, without the need to invoke inflation, that in a reasonable amount of stellar systems technological civilizations should have appeared, and a fraction of them (even tiny) should have survived enough to spread to, at least, large regions of the galaxy. It is then very remarkable the fact that the Solar System has never been encountered or colonized by any advanced civilization,….. or has it?

In our opinion there is an important flaw in Olum’s (implicit) assumptions about the relations between the different civilizations put into contact in the process of expansion. Although he does not mention this crucial issue, one gets the impression that he believes that the more advanced civilizations will push the less advanced ones to their own level in order to integrate them, or rather they will exploit, damage, or annihilate them in order to conquer the planet, in the case of aggressive colonizers. We fully agree that aggressive advanced civilizations will exploit/damage/annihilate the less advanced civilizations as much as it is convenient for them. In the case of non-aggressive advanced civilizations, however, the possibility that they will integrate the less advanced ones only makes sense if those ones are not that inferior. That is, if the gap between the two civilizations is not very big, then it is realistic to expect that the superior civilization will push the inferior one to their own level, to some extent at least. In some cases, however, the non-aggressive advanced civilizations will encounter planets with primitive or very primitive civilizations, with an enormous gap (technologically, scientifically and genetically) between them. In particular, the differences between their brain capabilities and those of the primitive individuals could be pathetic. In these circumstances, it is completely unrealistic and naive to expect that the advanced individuals will try to integrate the primitive ones into their own civilizations. They rather will behave ‘ecologically’ towards them, treating them as sort of ‘protected species’ and not interfering (or only very discretely) with their natural evolution.

With this insight it is now much easier to accept the possibility that the Solar System could have been encountered or colonized many thousands, or even millions, years ago by, at least, one non-aggressive advanced civilization, who treated and still treat our planet as some protected natural reserve. As a matter of fact, they could have even brought many plants and animals to planet Earth, including our ancestors, presumably to improve their life conditions (they could have been in danger of extinction in their own planet, for example)555One expected activity of advanced civilizations would be the dissemination of life on ‘promising’ planets, in the same way that we plant trees in appropriate environments. In the case life started in this way on planet Earth, then all terrestrial living beings would have common building blocks of DNA with the living beings of thousands of other planets which would have undergone similar insemination procedures with the same bacteria. It is conceivable therefore that, under these circumstances, plants and animals could have been brought to Earth whose extraterrestrial origin would be impossible to detect by any biologist or geneticist.. Perhaps the Solar System has been visited by aggressive colonizers, as well as non-aggressive ones, resulting in battles or just pacific negotiations between them. Perhaps the aggressive losers will come back in the future, to try again.

This view about ourselves, a small primitive civilization immersed in a large, advanced civilization, leads straightforwardly to the realization that we could find ourselves not among the typical intelligent observers of our galaxy, but only among a small proportion of primitive intelligent observers instead, completely ignorant of their low status. The typical intelligent observers would be the citizens of the advanced and very advanced civilizations who would ‘own’ the galaxy. But our galaxy is just one typical galaxy from our observable Universe. This leads very naturally to our first proposal:

The Subanthropic Principle: We are not typical among the intelligent observers from the Universe. Typical civilizations of typical galaxies would be hundreds of thousands, or millions, of years more evolved than ours and, consequently, typical intelligent observers would be orders of magnitude more intelligent than us.

Observe that the Subanthropic Principle is almost equivalent to the proposal that, at present, all typical galaxies of the Universe are already colonized (or large regions of them) by advanced, or very advanced, civilizations, a small proportion of their individuals belonging to primitive subcivilizations, like ours. Whether the primitive subcivilizations know or ignore their low status will, most likely, depend on the ethical standards of the advanced civilization in which they are immersed. If the standards are low, the individuals of the primitive subcivilizations will be surely abused in many ways, in the same way that in our civilization large groups of human beings abuse other human beings in weaker positions, as well as animals in general. Therefore, in this case the primitive individuals will be painfully aware of their low status. If the ethical standards of the advanced individuals is high instead, then very probably they will respect the natural evolution (biological, social, cultural) of the primitive subcivilizations, treating them ‘ecologically’ as some kind of protected species. In this case, that we think could well describe the situation of the terrestrial civilization, the primitive individuals would be completely unaware of the existence of the large advanced civilization in which they are immersed.

Now there is an important remark: if the Solar System is part of the territory of an advanced civilization, why we do not detect any signal of civilization in any of the solid planets and large satellites in it? It would be most natural if they had built bases all along the Solar System (including underground and submarine bases in planet Earth) and maybe some colonies here and there on, or beneath, the surface of some solid planets and large satellites (this is exactly what we plan to do in the future ourselves!). The simplest answer would be that they do not find the Solar System attractive enough to live themselves and, as a consequence, they have only a few tiny bases difficult to detect. However, independently of whether or not they find the Solar System attractive to build colonies, we believe that all advanced civilizations must be necessarily aware of the existence of aggressive advanced civilizations and, as a result, they should have developed very sophisticated camouflage systems, so that no signals of civilization can be detected by any external observers (neither by their space probes). Probably, in many cases they even manipulate and distort the global data of their planets (temperature, air composition, etc.), to fool external observers for disuasion purposes666It may sound strange that advanced civilizations would need to protect themselves against aggressors. However, there is not a single proof or indication that the ethical development of a civilization or an individual, grows in parallel with their level of material well-being or with their technological and scientific development. One may also argue that advanced aggressive civilizations must annihilate themselves, what seems a sensible guess. The crucial issue, however, is not whether they will annihilate themselves but how much damage they can produce to other civilizations (primitive as well as advanced) before they annihilate themselves.. This is the content of our second proposal:

The Undetectability Conjecture: Generically, all advanced enough civilizations camouflage their planets for security reasons, so that no signal of civilization can be detected by external observers, who would only obtain distorted data for disuasion purposes.

Observe that, if this conjecture turns out to be true, then we cannot be sure whether the terrestrial civilization is the unique civilization inhabitating the Solar System, as we firmly believe (this statement is independent, in fact, of whether or not our civilization is embedded in a large advanced civilization, we only needed to have ‘advanced neighbors’). In fact, the inconsistency in the scientific reasoning used in the astronomical observations of planets and satellites is remarkable. One uses as input the non-proved assumption that, at the sources, there are no intelligent beings manipulating the data that we receive, and then one concludes that there is no signal of intelligent life, as the data prove. But this assumption could turn out to be wrong. The right claim would be in this case that there is no signal of primitive civilizations, like ours, who would allow themselves to be detected by external observers, but nothing can be said about the possibility of advanced civilizations, capable to fool our telescopes, detectors and space probes, and who would not allow themselves to be detected.

Finally, we must mention that the first scholar, at least in western history, who suggested that many stars out there could have planets similar to ours: with plants, animals, people, etc., was Giordano Bruno, in the 16th century. He claimed that the Sun was only one star among the many thousands, and therefore, like the Sun, many other stars would also have planets around and living beings inhabitating them . To appreciate the genius of Giordano Bruno one has to take into account that he lived at the time when more than 99% of the intellectuals believed that the Earth was the center of the Universe, and a few others, like Copernico and Galileo, believed that it was the Sun, instead, the center of the Universe, the stars being some bright heavenly bodies of unknown nature777For these and other ideas Giordano Bruno was imprisoned eight years and finally burned at the stake in Rome, in piazza Campo di Fiori, the 17th February 1600. The catholic church, which some years ago apologized for the treatment given to Galileo, has never apologized, however, for the treatment received by Giordano Bruno.. Nowadays we know that the Universe has no center and that our planet is only a tiny particle of dust in its inmensity. In spite of this, for many human beings the Earth is still the center of the Universe, the chosen planet inhabited by the most perfect and intelligent beings all over the Universe: the Crown of the Creation. (There are even regular scientists and ‘intellectuals’ who wonder whether the whole Universe was created just for us, terrestrial human beings, to exist!).

## 3 Conclusions and Final Remarks

We have discussed the possibility that our civilization could be embedded in a large advanced civilization spanning (at least) a large region of our galaxy. This should be expected, in fact, since in our galaxy there are many thousands of millions of stars much older that the Sun. Using two simple and natural assumptions we see that this possibility cannot be ruled out.

The first assumption explains why the members or citizens of the large civilization would not interact and socialize with us (openly and officially, at least). The reason would be that we do not qualify as full members, neither as associates, nor to be in the queue for applications, although we perhaps qualify as pets or ‘friends’. This situation we generalize, taking into account that we live in a typical galaxy, resulting in the Subanthropic Principle that states that we are not typical among the intelligent observers from the Universe, but much below the standards.

The second assumption, that we call the Undetectability Conjecture, explains why we do not detect any signals of this large civilization in which we would be immersed. The reason would be that, generically, all advanced civilizations are undetectable for security reasons, due to the existence of aggressive advanced civilizations. In any case, why would advanced civilizations allow alien civilizations to watch their cities, laboratories, military installations, etc., when they could fool them very easily instead?

The Subanthropic Principle is almost equivalent to the proposal that all the typical galaxies of the Universe are already colonized (or at least large parts of them) by advanced, or very advanced, civilizations, which is a most natural guess taking into account that many thousands of millions of stars which populate the typical galaxies are thousands of millions of years older than the Sun. In these large advanced civilizations there would always exist, generically, a small percentage of individuals which belong to primitive subcivilizations. If the ethical standards of the advanced individuals are low, then the primitive individuals will be abused in many ways (maybe even annihilated). If the ethical standards of the advanced individuals are high instead, then probably they will treat the primitive individuals in an ecological way; that is, like a protected species living in a natural reserve. In this case, which could well describe the situation of our civilization, most of the primitive individuals would completely ignore the existence of the advanced civilization in which they are immersed.

We have also argued that the idea of brane worlds, although still in very premature stage, could in fact aggravate enormously the ‘missing-alien’ problem, pointed out first by Enrico Fermi as was mentioned before. The reason is that, if other parallel universes exist with the same laws of physics than ours, it could happen that advanced civilizations could be technically able to ‘jump’ through the extra dimensions to our galaxy for expansion and colonization purposes. As a result, it could even happen that the ‘owners’ of the Solar System (if they exist) had come from another universe and had created a huge multidimensional empire, with large pieces of territory in several ‘parallel’ galaxies. It could also happen that advanced civilizations would find more efficient (cheaper, energetically preferable) to expand along extra dimensions than inside their own galaxy.

Finally, in the Appendix we discuss the issue of possible contacts and interactions between advanced civilizations or individuals and primitive civilizations or individuals. It seems very unlikely that non-aggressive advanced civilizations would ‘introduce themselves’ to any primitive civilization. Nevertheless, we have identified three major causes or reasons which could motivate individuals of advanced civilizations to seek interactions or relationships with primitive individuals: scientific purposes, entertainment purposes and criminal purposes. We also point out that the Subanthropic Principle and the Undetectability Conjecture predict a rather low probability of success for the SETI project, the reason being the low percentage of technological civilizations susceptible to be detected (the period of detectability of an average civilization could last less than 500 years).

Appendix

In what follows we will discuss the possible sources of contacts and interactions between advanced civilizations or individuals and primitive civilizations or individuals. As we argued in the preliminaries, it is very unlikely that a non-aggressive advanced civilization would contact any primitive civilization ‘openly and officially’ (at least until the latter reaches a remarkable degree of development that our civilization has not reached yet). Aggressive advanced civilizations, however, would ‘introduce themselves’ before, after, or during the strike, for their own convenience. (The fact that our civilization has never been attacked by aggressive aliens, as far as history knows, could be indeed a clue that we belong to a non-aggressive advanced civilization which protects planet Earth, as part of its territory).

If we now consider possible contacts and relationships between individuals of advanced civilizations and primitive individuals, rather than between their civilizations, many more possibilities appear. Trying to identify which advanced individuals could seek interactions or relationships with primitive individuals, and for which reasons, leads us to distinguish three main sources of contacts:

1) Scientific research by regular scientists related to life-sciences, such as biologists, medical researchers, anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, etc. Whether or not the corresponding research activities could damage the primitive individuals (physically or mentally), would depend on the legal regulations of the advanced civilizations regarding ethical treatment towards individuals of primitive civilizations.

2) Entertainment, affection, etc. That is, one reason for an individual of an advanced civilization to establish contact with primitive individuals could be simply to have fun and relax. The advanced individual could have, with respect to the primitive individuals, the kind of feelings that push us to interact and play with cats and dogs and many other species. In addition, if in our planet there are millions of cat-lovers and millions of dog-lovers, and there are even snake, pig, …. and gorilla-lovers, it is most natural to expect that there may exist some primitive-individual-lovers, in particular terrestrial-human-lovers, among advanced aliens. Why not? This would apply specially to those advanced individuals who must spend long periods of time working in primitive planets, living in underground or submarine boring bases, which surely would exist in our planet in the case that our civilization is embedded in a large civilization (the workers in the bases being the ‘guards’ or militars that take care of the planet).

3) Criminal purposes of all kinds, including activities by regular scientists which would be forbidden by their legal ethical regulations. We can imagine dozens of different criminal purposes for which the primitive individuals could be kidnapped, tortured and even killed, including abject topics such as ‘high gastronomy’ and sadist games. To be realistic, one only has to think of the treatment that some cruel human beings give to their victims, be either other human beings (often children) or animals. The point is that the ethical level of an individual, or a civilization, does not necessarily grow in parallel with their technological and scientific achievements, or with their level of material well-being. In the case that our civilization is embedded in a large civilization, one of the tasks of the ‘guards’ living in the bases would be, undoubtely, to chase away the human-hunters and other outlaws.

Regarding the SETI - search for extraterrestrial intelligence - project, if the Undetectability Conjecture turns out to be true, then SETI turns into SETPI: search for extraterrestrial primitive intelligence. The reason is that, in this case, only primitive civilizations could be detected by external observers. On the other hand, if the Subanthropic Principle is correct, then the primitive civilizations would be very scarce compared to the total amount of technological civilizations, and even more scarce would be the ones with an appropriate technological level to produce electromagnetic emissions to be detected by distant civilizations. (Observe that the period of ‘detectability’ of an average civilization could last less than 500 years). Therefore the probability for one primitive civilization to detect another one would be very small. For these reasons the Subanthropic Principle and the Undetectability Conjecture predict a rather low probability of succes for the SETI project888Maybe the SETI-experts should join the competition for collaboration: the ‘human antennas’ or ‘alternative-SETI’-experts, who claim to have long-term, well established contacts with alien partners, some of them ‘sitting at home’ in their own planets and some others living temporarily in our planet in underground or submarine basis. The guiness record in such relations is probably held by the spanish ‘grupo Aztlan’, which for around twenty five years gather once per week at night to establish (what they claim to be) telepathical communications with a group of sociologists of planet Apu, orbiting Alpha B Centauri, which are sitting at home, or in the office..

A last remark is that we have never done any investigation in the subject of alledged alien contacts. As a result we have essentially no opinion about the true or false alien nature of those circulating through the media. Nevertheless, we believe that it must be an impossible task to identify true alien contacts (if they exist at all) just by reading the reports given to, or written by, their terrestrial partners. The reason is that, for our intuition, the claims of civilizations much more advanced than us must necessarily sound ridiculous, hilarious, crazy, science fiction ideas. But the same would have happened if we had described our TV sets, our planes, our microwave ovens, our computers, etc …..to people only 100 years ago!. Let us also notice that many persons, including many scientists, have a very deep rooted reluctance and aversion to accept the possibility of the existence of extraterrestrial species much more advanced and intelligent than us, who could even visit our planet. We call this prejudice the ‘Crown of the Creation Syndrome’ (CCS), for obvious reasons. Curiously, whereas many religious persons are not CCS sufferers, many atheists are (one reason could well be that they grew in very religious families which implanted in their children’s minds strong impressions of the greatness and uniqueness of the human species)999In short, the CCS sufferers firmly believe, or secretely hope, that nobody in the whole Universe can do what we cannot do, in particular interstellar travel. Interestingly, they often harbour very high expectations about the future capabilities and great achievements awaiting our civilization. In spite of this, in their reasoning they lack the ability to interchange ‘we’ by ‘they’, and the future by the past, in reference to possible civilizations millions of years older than ours. For example, many of them accept gladly big suggestions of the type ‘we will travel to other planets and stars’, ‘we will colonize the galaxy’, etc. and however, they cannot even listen to the suggestions that ‘they could have travelled to other planets and stars (including the Solar System and the Earth)’, ‘they could have colonized the galaxy’, etc., which are received with sarcasm, disapproval and even anger..

To finish, we would like to point out that the present status of the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence could well be described by the popular american protest-song from the sixties that we transcribe next.

Where have all the aliens gone?

Long time passing….

Where have all the aliens gone?

Long time ago….

Where have all the aliens gone?

Could be hidden everywhere!

When will we ever learn?

When will we ever learn?

(Repeat three times)

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to many readers of this article who have expressed their appreciation for it. After it was published in Popular Physics and Space Physics exactly one year ago, we have received an avalanche of questions, comments, suggestions, observations,… and also a considerable amount of information in the form of bibliography and webpages related to the matters discussed by us. Unfortunately, we have not had the opportunity to read more than a minimum piece of that information, for lack of time. Of special interest is the website www.ufoskeptic.org, by astrophysicist Bernard Haisch, which has been made for and by scientists with some interest in the subject of alien civilizations. We are also grateful and indebted to our friend María Teresa Fernández Martínez for many illuminating conversations and for her help in preparing the spanish translation of the article. We also thank Bill Parkyn for correcting several english typos, as well as for his interesting remarks. Finally, we appreciate the cartoon www.funny-city.com/cartoons/images/43.jpg which has been sent to us.

Note

The first version of this article appeared in August 2003. This date remains on the cover of the present revised version, finished in August 2004, because the article remains essentially the same, except for several minor modifications: four footnotes (1, 5, 8 and 9), one last paragraph in the Appendix and a few small improvements in the redaction. We have translated this article to spanish after we received several requests to do so. The spanish version is also available at physics/0308078. Finally, Popular Science is not officially supported by the Spanish Scientific Research Council (CSIC) and should be done therefore as a private activity. For this reason there is no preprint number and affiliation data on the cover of this article.

Biographical Note

The author, Beatriz Gato Rivera, was born in Madrid, Spain. She studied Physics in the Complutense University in Madrid, where she also obtained the Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics in 1985. She is specialist in Particle Physics and Mathematical Physics. After spending three postdoctoral years at MIT (Masachussets Institute of Technology) and another three years at CERN, she joined the permanent research staff of the Spanish Scientific Research Council (CSIC). e-mail: t38@nikhef.nl


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

At the present time, supersymmetry is a leading candidate for physics beyond the Standard Model (SM). It provides a technical solution to the problematic naturalness of the hierarchy of mass scales in particle physics  and its renormalization-group equations (RGEs) allow the SM parameters to be run up the Planck scale, enabling the gauge couplings to unify at a high-energy GUT scale $`10^{16}`$ GeV . Furthermore, with $`R`$ parity conserved as in the minimal supersymmetric extension of the SM (MSSM), the lightest neutralino $`\chi `$, which is expected to be the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP), is a good candidate for providing the cold dark matter required by astrophysics and cosmology .

The MSSM contains two Higgs doublets and each SM particle has a superpartner . In order to obtain viable phenomenology, supersymmetry should be broken by soft terms . In the most general case, there are more than 100 new parameters in this soft supersymmetry-breaking sector, suggesting two approaches for doing the MSSM phenomenology. The first approach is to assume that some simplified pattern of supersymmetry breaking is input at the GUT scale, and then evolve the RGEs for the MSSM down to lower energies, so as to calculate the spectrum at the weak scale. The simplest model of this kind is the CMSSM -, in which the soft supersymmetry-breaking masses $`m_{1/2}`$ of the gauginos and $`m_0`$ of the sfermions, as well as the trilinear parameters $`A_0`$, are each assumed to be universal at the GUT input scale. Extensive studies have been made of this and other GUT input scenarios -.

Another approach is the low-energy effective supersymmetric theory (LEEST) approach. In this case, one does not care about any particular mass relation at high energy scales, and simply uses the weak scale as the input scale -. The only phenomenological guidance used is provided by the constraints from experimental observations. However, if one allows all the soft supersymmetry-breaking parameters to be free, there will again be too many parameters for a satisfactory phenomenological analysis to be possible, so this approach usually also assumes some simplification at the weak scale, e.g., universal slepton and/or squark masses, in spite of the fact that these universalities would not look natural from the GUT point of view.

One argument for using the LEEST approach is that experiments have not been able to probe energy scales higher than 1 TeV, and no one really knows what the higher-energy physics really is. However, loop corrections should not be abandoned, unless we want to throw out Quantum Field Theory altogether, and the RGEs are the best way to treat these. Even if one does not impose any particular structure at some GUT scale, the RGE running could in general lead to some sfermions becoming tachyonic at some higher energy scale, i.e., $`m_{\stackrel{~}{f}}^2(Q)<0`$ for some $`Q>M_W`$. To avoid this tachyon problem, one must impose suitable positivity constraints on the different sfermion masses in the LEEST. These would depend on the scale up to which the MSSM RGEs are thought to apply, above which one might add some extra fields in a way suitable for avoiding the tachyonic instability. For example, in the CMSSM with non-universal Higgs masses (NUHM), it was shown  that positivity constraints on the soft Higgs masses at the GUT scale imposes strong constraints on the allowable parameter space.

The CMSSM and LEEST approaches differ in their treatments of this tachyonic problem. If one uses the GUT scale as the input scale and makes the CMSSM universality assumption, it is trivial to avoid the tachyon problem by imposing relatively minor restrictions on the MSSM parameters $`\mu ,A_0`$ and $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$. In a LEEST analysis, the tachyon problem is accentuated if one chooses spectra that optimize particular observables. In this paper, we discuss one particular example, that of the neutralino-proton cross section, which is crucial for experiments searching directly for cold dark matter particles via their scattering on ordinary matter. In this case, one may obtain encouragingly large cross sections by choosing relatively light squark masses. However, renormalization effects are prone to driving such light squarks tachyonic at some energy scale that is not far beyond the weak scale. We consider this contrary to one of the primary ambitions of supersymmetry, which was to formulate a plausible extension of the SM that could remain valid all the way up some high energy scale, such as the GUT scale, and make the mass hierarchy natural.

In view of the importance of this issue, we first summarize in Section 2 why we consider that tachyonic sfermions unacceptable. Then, in Section 3, we exhibit some of the correlations among the observable sparticle masses that arise if we use non-tachyonic soft supersymmetry-breaking sfermion masses at the GUT or 10-TeV scale as inputs to the MSSM. We emphasize the well-known point, for example, that the effective squark masses at the weak scale must be much greater than the effective slepton masses in this case, unless we start with slepton masses much greater than squark masses at the input scale. Then, Section 4 outlines the more general model we use for our LEEST analysis, in which no hypothesis is made about extrapolability to the GUT scale. Section 5 compares the elastic scattering cross sections found for different choices of the energy scale up to which the LEEST is postulated to apply without tachyons appearing. Finally, Section 6 presents our conclusions.

## 2 Vacuum Instability in the MSSM

Let us first consider a sample RGE for the case of a right-handed up-type squark:

$$Q\frac{dm^2}{dQ}\frac{1}{8\pi ^2}\left[\frac{16}{3}g_3^2M_3^2\frac{16}{9}g_1^2M_1^2\right]$$
(1)
where $`g_{1(3)}`$ is the $`U(1)_Y(SU(3)_c)`$ gauge coupling and $`M_{1(3)}`$ the corresponding gaugino mass. At the one-loop level, (1) can be solved exactly using the solutions to the gauge coupling RGEs and the relationship between ratios of gaugino masses and gauge couplings, and yields

$`m^2(Q)=m^2(M_W)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3\pi ^2}}g_3^2(M_3)M_3^2\mathrm{ln}(Q/M_3)\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{1+3g_3^2(M_3)\mathrm{ln}(Q/M_3)/(16\pi ^2)}{[1+3g_3^2(M_3)\mathrm{ln}(Q/M_3)/(8\pi ^2)]^2}}\right\}`$ (2)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{9\pi ^2}}g_1^2(M_1)M_1^2\mathrm{ln}(Q/M_1)\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{111g_1^2(M_1)\mathrm{ln}(Q/M_1)/(16\pi ^2)}{[111g_1^2(M_1)\mathrm{ln}(Q/M_1)/(8\pi ^2)]^2}}\right\}`$
From this equation, it is straightforward to see the monotonic decrease in the squark mass at $`Q>M_W`$. In addition, one readily sees that as the gaugino mass (and in particular the gluino mass) increases, the rate at which the squark mass decreases also increases. Therefore, depending on one’s choice of $`m^2(M_W)`$, it is quite generic to find that $`m^2(Q_0)=0`$, for some $`M_W<Q_0<M_{GUT}`$.

Problems with tachyonic instabilities were first raised in this context in . The resulting tachyonic behaviour of the solution to the RGEs is an indication that the scalars are being expanded about the wrong vacuum. In this case, there are at least two options for treating the problem.

1. One can introduce new physics at an energy scale below $`Q_0`$, so that the RGE running is affected and the positivity of $`m^2`$ is maintained. Of course, such a solution is by fiat outside the realm of the MSSM and hence of this paper.
2. If no new physics is introduced below $`Q_0`$, then it must be present at some higher energy $`Q>Q_0`$ \- perhaps the GUT scale or some intermediate scale - in order to restore the stability of the theory. In this case, however, one expects the squarks to acquire non-zero vacuum expectation values $`v(Q)Q`$, related to the new very high-energy scale $`Q>Q_0`$. The severity of such instabilities and the existence of new vacua in the presence of flat directions in the effective potential was particularly stressed in , and explicit solutions with $`v(Q)Q`$ were exhibited.

To see that the broken vacuum persists down to low energies, consider the evolution of the RGEs at large field values. Any field coupled to the squark with the large vacuum expectation value becomes massive, and hence is unavailable for the radiative running of $`m^2`$ back to positive values. In this case, the solution to the RGEs will have $`m^2(Q)<0`$ for all $`Q`$ and the theory will possess a low-energy global minimum with charge and color breaking (CCB) 111For discussions concerning CCB vacua in the CMSSM, see ..

It was argued in  that this situation could be tolerated, because the Universe would naturally fall into our false vacuum as the cosmological temperature fell, and then take much longer than the present age of the Universe to tunnel into the true vacuum. We find this point of view disturbingly anthropic. Moreover, it has been observed that, if the early Universe went through an inflationary phase, it is likely to have fallen directly into the true vacuum, so the lifetime of the false vacuum is irrelevant .

Following this debate, cosmological data ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_{tot}1`$, near-scale-invariant adiabatic density fluctuations that appear Gaussian, etc. .) have come increasingly to favour some variant of inflationary cosmology. At best, the stability conditions on the MSSM might depend on the details of the inflationary cosmology chosen. At worst, their neglect lead to an entirely inconsistent theory. Overall, we think that tolerating tachyonic sfermions would court disaster. Furthermore, since the tachyonic Higgs instability induced by the top Yukawa coupling, leading to dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking, is such an attractive feature of the MSSM, we are reluctant to introduce ambiguity into the mechanism by accepting other tachyonic instabilities in the MSSM.

## 3 GUT Correlations Among MSSM Parameters

The simplest way to avoid the tachyonic instabilities discussed above is to input acceptable parameters at the high-energy scale, as is done in the CMSSM. Assuming input soft supersymmetry-breaking parameters at the GUT or some other high-energy scale, one may use the MSSM RGEs to calculate the sparticle mass spectrum at the weak scale. The RGE evolution leads in general to correlations among the various supersymmetric parameters. Moreover, in some cases, a wide range of these input parameters at the GUT scale corresponds to a specific range down at the weak scale, as we now demonstrate.

We assume in our analysis the following ranges of the sparticle mass parameters at the GUT scale:

$`m_{\stackrel{~}{Q}}^{}{}_{0}{}^{}=m_{\stackrel{~}{U}}^{}{}_{0}{}^{}=m_{\stackrel{~}{D}}^{}{}_{0}{}^{}2\mathrm{TeV},m_{\stackrel{~}{L}}^{}{}_{0}{}^{}=m_{\stackrel{~}{E}}^{}{}_{0}{}^{}2\mathrm{TeV},`$
$`m_{1/2}2\mathrm{TeV},m_{1,2}2\mathrm{TeV},`$
$`|A_0|1\mathrm{TeV},\mathrm{tan}\beta 58,`$ (3)
where $`m_{\stackrel{~}{Q},\stackrel{~}{U},\stackrel{~}{D}}^{}{}_{0}{}^{}`$ and $`m_{\stackrel{~}{E},\stackrel{~}{L}}^{}{}_{0}{}^{}`$ are the input GUT-scale soft supersymmetry-breaking masses for all three families of squarks and sleptons, respectively, $`m_{1/2}`$ is the common gaugino mass, and $`m_{1,2}`$ are the soft supersymmetry-breaking masses for the two Higgs doublets.

In the CMSSM, one postulates GUT unification relations among the soft supersymmetry-breaking masses of the sfermions and Higgs bosons: $`m_{\stackrel{~}{Q}}^{}{}_{0}{}^{}=m_{\stackrel{~}{U}}^{}{}_{0}{}^{}=m_{\stackrel{~}{D}}^{}{}_{0}{}^{}=m_{\stackrel{~}{L}}^{}{}_{0}{}^{}=m_{\stackrel{~}{E}}^{}{}_{0}{}^{}=m_{1,2}`$. These conditions are relaxed here. Even so, as we now show, the RGE evolution of the soft supersymmetry-breaking parameters between the GUT and weak scales result in some striking correlations between the weak-scale parameters. Therefore, one cannot treat their values at the weak scale as completely independent quantities, if the model under study corresponds to a more fundamental theory at a higher scale. To illustrate these correlations, we have chosen to present a few particular examples. We assume universality between the SU(3), SU(2) and U(1) gaugino masses $`m_{1/2}`$ at the GUT scale and discuss the dependences of the weak-scale values of various soft parameters in the sfermion sector. Specifically, we display the dependences of the soft supersymmetry-breaking sfermion masses and trilinear scalar couplings on the common gaugino mass $`m_{1/2}`$ at the input GUT scale.

We first show in Figure 1 the weak-scale values of the soft supersymmetry-breaking mass parameters (a) $`m_{\stackrel{~}{E}_3}`$ and (b) $`m_{\stackrel{~}{L}_3}`$, which appear in the slepton sector of the third generation, and (c) $`m_{\stackrel{~}{U}_3}`$ and (d) $`m_{\stackrel{~}{Q}_3}`$, which appear in the squark sector of the third generation, as functions of $`m_{1/2}`$. We use a random 50,000-point sample in the range of parameters (3), with $`|A_0|<1`$ TeV. The different symbols: \[light (green) $`\times `$ signs/ dark (red) $`+`$ signs\] correspond to imposing the constraints $`m_{\stackrel{~}{E}}^{}{}_{0}{}^{}500\mathrm{GeV}`$ / between $`500`$ and $`1000\mathrm{GeV}`$ for Figs. 1(a, b), and $`m_{\stackrel{~}{Q}}^{}{}_{0}{}^{}500\mathrm{GeV}`$ / between $`500`$ and $`1000\mathrm{GeV}`$ in Figs. 1(c, d), respectively.

It is immediately apparent that the soft supersymmetry-breaking masses are correlated, especially for large values of the gaugino mass, where the corresponding terms dominate the RGEs for $`m_{\stackrel{~}{E}_3}`$ and $`m_{\stackrel{~}{L}_3}`$. This can be seen from the approximate one-loop solutions to the RGEs for the sleptons (we neglect the D-term contribution for clarity):

$`m_{\stackrel{~}{E}_3}^2`$ $`=`$ $`m_{\stackrel{~}{E}_3}^{}{}_{0}{}^{2}+0.15m_{1/2}^2,`$
$`m_{\stackrel{~}{L}_3}^2`$ $`=`$ $`m_{\stackrel{~}{L}_3}^{}{}_{0}{}^{2}+0.52m_{1/2}^2.`$ (4)
The correlation between the soft supersymmetry-breaking masses $`m_{\stackrel{~}{Q}_3}`$, $`m_{\stackrel{~}{U}_3}`$ and the gaugino mass, presented in Figure 1(c, d), is even tighter, due to the larger value of the combination $`g_3M_3`$ relative to either $`g_1M_1`$ or $`g_2M_2`$, which drives the evolution of the slepton masses and is shown in the following approximate solution:

$`m_{\stackrel{~}{U}_3}^2`$ $`=`$ $`0.52m_{\stackrel{~}{U}_3}^{}{}_{0}{}^{2}+5.4m_{1/2}^2+m_t^2,`$
$`m_{\stackrel{~}{Q}_3}^2`$ $`=`$ $`0.04m_{\stackrel{~}{Q}_3}^{}{}_{0}{}^{2}+4.2m_{1/2}^2+m_t^2.`$ (5)
In this case, the substantial size of the top Yukawa coupling, which appears in the RGE of $`m_{\stackrel{~}{Q}_3}`$, also plays an important role. The boundaries of the allowed regions in Fig. 1 can easily be understood from (4) and (5). The upper edge is clearly an artifact of the choice of the upper cut-off on the GUT-scale masses. If one were to select higher ranges for the soft supersymmetry-breaking masses, i.e., greater than 1000 GeV for the input masses, the correlation region would just move upwards to larger low-energy masses. What is important to note, however, is that the lower right parts of these figures, regions with low mass sfermions and large gaugino masses, are never populated. The lower edge is, in fact, determined by the gaugino mass contribution to the weak-scale masses. Indeed, we see that, because the contributions to the weak-scale masses from the input squark masses are much weaker than those from the input slepton masses (0.52 and 0.04 versus 1.0) the correlation is much tighter for squarks than for sleptons, particularly for the left-handed stops. Furthermore, one sees that the slope of the correlation is fixed by the coefficients of $`m_{1/2}`$, which are much larger for squarks than for sleptons.

We note that, for any given value of $`m_{1/2}`$, the allowed ranges of $`m_{\stackrel{~}{L}_3}`$ and $`m_{\stackrel{~}{E}_3}`$ at the weak scale are lower than those of $`m_{\stackrel{~}{Q}_3}`$ and $`m_{\stackrel{~}{U}_3}`$, reflecting the greater renormalizations of the squark mass parameters, as seen by comparing the coefficients of $`m_{1/2}`$ in (4) and (5). Several aspects of the MSSM spectrum enter in the calculation of the relic LSP density, including the $`Z`$ and Higgs masses as well as sfermion masses. However, in most of the region where an acceptable relic mass density is obtainable in the CMSSM, $`\chi `$ slepton coannihilations are very important . These are controlled, in particular, by $`m_{\stackrel{~}{E}_3}`$ and $`m_{\stackrel{~}{L}_3}`$, whereas the $`\chi p`$ elastic scattering cross section is largely controlled by squark masses. We see in panels (a) and (b) of Figure 1 that these slepton mass parameters are strongly correlated. Moreover, they are much smaller than the squark masses shown in panels (c) and (d), implying that the $`\chi p`$ elastic scattering rate must be much smaller than would have been the case if the slepton and squark masses were comparable.

As noted above, the squark and (to a lesser extent) the slepton masses cannot be very small, unless $`m_{1/2}`$ is small. Within the GUT approach, for example, if $`m_{1/2}1000`$ GeV, then $`m_{\stackrel{~}{Q}_3}>2000`$ GeV, with an uncertainty $`10`$ %. Assuming small squark masses but large $`m_{1/2}`$, as might be done within the LEEST approach to yield relatively large cross sections for large LSP masses, would lead to the squarks becoming tachyonic long before the GUT scale. For another discussion of ‘perverse’ models with tachyonic squarks at the GUT scale, see .

In Fig. 2, we exhibit similar correlations between the weak-scale soft supersymmetry-breaking masses in the case where the same ranges for the sfermion masses and trilinear couplings as in (3) are now assumed at a scale of 10 TeV. However, we still assume GUT unification for the gaugino masses. In this case, we still observe correlations between $`m_{1/2}`$ and the weak-scale sfermion masses and trilinear couplings, though they are somewhat weaker than in Fig. 1, where we had assumed (3) at the GUT scale. As before, we also observe that the weak-scale squark masses are generally significantly larger than the corresponding slepton masses. For example, if $`m_{1/2}1000`$ GeV, the range of possible slepton masses still has no overlap with the range of possible squark masses. As already emphasized, if the physical squark and slepton masses are small and (nearly) equal, then, except possibly for small values of $`m_{1/2}`$, the squarks would become tachyonic at some scale not far above the weak scale 222This statement depends on our assumption of universal gaugino masses at the GUT scale. If one assumed non-universal gaugino masses $`M_{1,2,3}`$, one would need $`M_3M_{1,2}`$ to get nearly equal squark and slepton physical masses. This situation might not be suitable for providing dark matter..

Using these representative examples as a guide, we conclude, that even if one abandons the unification of the soft supersymmetry-breaking sfermion and Higgs-boson masses at the GUT scale, RGE evolution yields interesting correlations among the various parameters of the model also down at the weak scale. The fact that certain combinations of sfermion masses at the weak scale and gaugino masses are never realized in a top-down analysis reflects the tachyonic constraint that we will apply in the following section.

## 4 Low-Energy Effective Supersymmetric Theory

For our low-energy effective supersymmetric theory (LEEST) analysis, we use as our input parameters the SU(2) gaugino mass $`M_2`$, the Higgs mixing parameter $`\mu `$, the (assumed to be) universal soft supersymmetry-breaking slepton mass $`m_\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{}}`$, the universal squark mass $`m_{\stackrel{~}{q}}`$, the trilinear couplings $`A_t`$, $`A_b`$ and $`A_\tau `$, the pseudoscalar Higgs-boson mass $`m_A`$, and $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$. We consider the following ranges for these parameters at the weak scale:

$`100\mathrm{GeV}M_22\mathrm{TeV},`$
$`100\mathrm{GeV}m_\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{}}2\mathrm{TeV},`$
$`200\mathrm{GeV}m_{\stackrel{~}{q}}4\mathrm{TeV},`$
$`90\mathrm{GeV}m_A2\mathrm{TeV},`$
$`100\mathrm{GeV}|\mu |2\mathrm{TeV}.`$ (6)
We analyze in this paper only the $`\mu >0`$ case, fix $`A_t=A_b=1\mathrm{TeV}`$, assume $`A_\tau =0`$, and sample $`\mathrm{tan}\beta =10`$, 35 and 50. These assumptions have been chosen to resemble those of . We note that other LEEST analyses  are more flexible, allowing $`m_\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{}}m_{\stackrel{~}{q}}`$ with both small (i.e. $`<200`$ GeV), a possibility not included in (6). However, with regard to the discussion in the previous two sections, inclusion of the lower squark masses will almost certainly lead to tachyonic instabilities making the choice (6) somewhat better motivated. As usual, to obtain the physical sfermion masses, we add $`D`$-term corrections and diagonalize the mass matrices. The other gaugino masses, $`M_1`$ and $`M_3`$, are approximated by $`M_1=5/3M_2\mathrm{tan}^2\theta _W`$ and $`M_3=29.74M_2\alpha _s`$, so as to mimic gaugino unification at the GUT scale.

We should emphasize that this is an oversimplified model. First of all, there is no known fundamental principle why all the slepton and all the squark soft supersymmetry-breaking masses should each be universal at the weak scale 333On the other hand, the experimental upper limits on flavour-changing neutral interactions suggest that the physical masses of particles with the same internal quantum numbers in different generations should be relatively degenerate .. Moreover, physical masses should be calculated at their appropriate scale, and sfermion masses at $`M_Z`$ could be significantly different from those at $`M_{susy}`$. Nevertheless, this toy model is often used in the literature , and may be sufficient to represent a general analysis of the effective MSSM. It should be noted that, in this kind of analysis, one must make some simplifying assumptions, because otherwise the number of parameters is impractically large.

We apply the constraints on new particles from direct LEP searches, namely $`m_{\chi ^\pm }>104`$ GeV , $`m_{\stackrel{~}{e}}>99`$ GeV  and Higgs mass limits . We require the branching ratio for $`bs\gamma `$ to be consistent with the experimental measurements . We do not impose the constraint suggested by $`g_\mu 2`$ , as the magnitude of the Standard Model contribution is still undetermined, in view of the discrepancy between the $`e^+e^{}`$ data and the $`\tau `$-decay data . For the relic density of neutralinos $`\chi `$, we require that $`0.1\mathrm{\Omega }_\chi h^20.3`$. We use this more conservative range rather than that suggested by the recent WMAP data  ($`0.094\mathrm{\Omega }_\chi h^20.129`$), because it is more suitable for comparison with previous work 444In fact, we have found that restricting MSSM so that the relic density falls within the WMAP range does not reduce significantly the ranges of the cross sections possible for any given value of $`m_\chi `$, though it may restrict the range of $`m_\chi `$ itself.. For studies on the effect of the new WMAP density in CMSSM models, see .

We emphasize the importance of implementing correctly the available experimental constraints. For example, the SM limit of 114 GeV  applies in the CMSSM, and also in the LEEST framework discussed here when $`m_A`$ is large. For small values of $`m_A`$ for which the $`ZZh`$ coupling factor $`\mathrm{sin}(\beta \alpha )`$ is less than a half, we relax the Higgs mass bound to 87 GeV. One might obtain much larger elastic scattering cross sections if one used a smaller lower limit on $`m_h`$. Similarly, the $`bs\gamma `$ constraint must be implemented taking careful account of the theoretical as well as the experimental errors, since it provides important lower limits on sparticle masses, in particular for $`\mu <0`$ and high values of $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$.

## 5 Elastic Neutralino-Proton Scattering Cross Sections

Finally, we are ready to compute the elastic $`\chi p`$ scattering cross section in the LEEST framework, using a scan in 100-GeV steps of the parameter space over the ranges given in (6). For the points that pass all the phenomenological constraints mentioned earlier, we calculate the neutralino-proton cross section $`\sigma _{\chi p}`$ using the procedure described in . We begin with the spin-independent (scalar) part of the cross section, and then turn to the spin-dependent part.

We discuss the spin-independent neutralino-proton cross section first in the general LEEST case, i.e., with parameters chosen in the low-energy effective MSSM and ignoring the effects of RGE running. The results are shown as the most extensive and lightest (green) shaded regions in Fig. 3. There are six panels, two each for $`\mathrm{tan}\beta =10,35,50`$, in the top, middle and bottom rows of panels in the figure. The left panels have $`200\mathrm{GeV}m_{\stackrel{~}{q}}2\mathrm{TeV}`$ and the right panels have $`2\mathrm{TeV}m_{\stackrel{~}{q}}4\mathrm{TeV}`$. We see that, as expected, the maximum values of the cross section are higher in the left panels than in the right panels. This indicates the importance of the $`t`$-channel squark-exchange diagrams for the points with large cross sections, when the exchanged squark masses are light. We also notice that larger values of $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ have higher maximum cross sections, which is also known to be true for the CMSSM case. These results are in reasonably close agreement with those of .

When we evolve the MSSM RGEs up and demand that tachyonic sfermions be absent at the GUT scale $`10^{16}\mathrm{GeV}`$, we obtain the results shown as the smallest and darkest (blue) shaded regions in Fig. 3. In the left panels, these shaded regions are cut at $`m_{\stackrel{~}{\chi }}400`$ GeV, whilst in the right panels they extend to $`m_{\stackrel{~}{\chi }}800`$ GeV. This is due to the fact that, as we evolve to higher energies using the RGEs, the squark masses get smaller at rates that depend on the gaugino masses, as described in section 3. The larger the gaugino masses, the smaller the squark masses are at the GUT scale. As can be seen in Fig. 1, even if we start with $`m_{\stackrel{~}{q}}(m_Z)=2000`$ GeV, we find zero squark masses at the GUT scale for $`m_{1/2}`$ around 1000 GeV, corresponding to a neutralino mass around 400 GeV. If we increase the squark mass to 4000 GeV, $`m_{1/2}`$ can go up to around 2000 GeV, corresponding to $`m_\chi 800`$ GeV.

In the left panels of Fig. 3, we observe that the maximum cross section is generally lower than what would obtain if one did not impose the GUT constraint. This reflects the fact that, for any given value of $`m_\chi `$ and hence $`m_{1/2}`$, a lower limit on the low-energy effective squark masses is imposed by requiring the absence of tachyonic sfermions at the GUT scale. While this effect is quite pronounced at $`\mathrm{tan}\beta =10`$, we note that the reduction in the maximum cross section (for fixed $`m_\chi `$) is smaller at higher $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$. Furthermore, at low values of $`m_\chi `$ ($``$ 250 GeV), there is almost no reduction at all. In the panels on the right, no reduction is seen, as the squark masses are already so high that squark exchange is no longer the dominant contribution to the cross section.

Even if one does not require the absence of tachyons up to the GUT scale, their absence up to a lower effective scale still imposes important constraints on the MSSM, as is also seen in Fig. 3. The medium-sized and -shaded (red) regions show the ranges of the spin-independent $`\chi p`$ elastic cross section allowed if one forbids the existence of tachyons at scales below 10 TeV rather than the GUT scale. We see that, even with this much-reduced maximal scale, the RGEs provide significant restrictions. In fact, most of the power of the non-tachyonic constraint appears well below the GUT scale.

In Fig. 4 we show analogous results for the spin-dependent part of the $`\chi p`$ elastic scattering cross section. Looking at the left or the right panels only, we see that the maximum cross sections are not greatly reduced by using the RGEs and requiring the absence of tachyons up to high energies. However, if we combine the left panels with the right ones, we nevertheless find that a smaller range of cross sections is allowed when we apply the RGE constraint than would be permitted without the RGE constraint, especially for large $`m_\chi `$.

Finally, we compare the above results with the range we find for the $`\chi p`$ cross section if we start from the GUT scale with the ranges of input parameters described in Section 2, and run down from $`M_{GUT}`$ to $`M_Z`$. This top-down approach gives us Fig. 5, where all values of $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ are combined. To facilitate the comparison with the previous figures, we distinguish between the regions which give rise to squark masses above and below 2 TeV, corresponding to the right and left panels of the previous two figures. The area shown here should be compared to the dark (blue) shaded region corresponding to the GUT constraint. Indeed, the resulting ranges are similar to those found on the left side (both sides) of Fig. 3, when one imposes the GUT constraint and combines all the three values of $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$. Qualitatively, therefore, we find that the LEEST approach gives similar results to the GUT (top-down) approach, so long as the the tachyonic stability constraints are imposed. We note, however, that the allowed cross-section ranges do differ from those in the CMSSM , because the allowed parameter choices are no longer restricted to an extreme part of the coannihilation tail and, even within this tail, the other weak-scale sparticle masses have wider ranges than in the CMSSM. On the other hand, these results are very similar to the NUHM, which is a relaxed version of the CMSSM in which the Higgs soft masses are non-universal but the squark and slepton masses are universal .

## 6 Conclusions

We have compared in this paper predictions for neutralino-proton scattering in models that are free from tachyonic instabilities all the way up to the GUT scale, or just up to 10 TeV, with those of models in which only a low-energy effective supersymmetric theory (LEEST) is assumed, and no restriction is placed on its behaviour above the weak scale. As we have shown, larger LSP masses and larger cross sections are obtainable in the LEEST approach, but at the risk of sacrificing some of the major motivations for postulating low-energy supersymmetry. Specifically, we argue that a generic LEEST cannot be extrapolated up to the GUT scale. The main issue is whether the tachyonic instabilities that are generic in the LEEST approach are tolerable. Clearly in any theory with GUT scale unification, they are not. Cross sections larger than those in the CMSSM may be attainable, particularly at large LSP masses, if such tachyonic instabilities are allowed.

Acknowledgments
We would like to thank M. Shifman and M. Srednicki for helpful conversations. The work of K.A.O., Y.S. and V.C.S. was supported in part by DOE grant DE–FG02–94ER–40823.


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# 4/TPJU-7/03 Quantum systems in a cut Fock space

## 1 Introduction

Recently there has been a further progress in understanding a family of quantum mechanical systems emerging from the dimensional reduction of supersymmetric gauge theories first studied in . Resulting models, even though much simpler than the original field theories, can be rather complex and with nontrivial solution. In the programme proposed in , the hamiltonian is diagonalized in the limited Hilbert space providing the complete spectrum of the system with a cutoff. Then the cutoff is gradually removed and convergence towards the exact (i.e. the infinite Hilbert space) spectrum is observed. Interestingly, even for quite complex systems with 15 degrees of freedom the convergence occurs before the size of the basis grows out of control .

Above method, which is essentially numerical, raises a number of theoretical questions about exact solutions of quantum mechanics in a limited Hilbert space. Some of them will be addressed in this paper. In the next Section we define the cutoff as the maximal number of harmonic oscillator quanta, $`N`$. Then we solve analytically for the spectrum of the momentum and coordinate operators at arbitrary finite $`N`$. In Section 4 the asymptotic behaviour for large $`N`$ is derived and the new scaling law required to recover the infinite Hilbert space limit is formulated. The universality of the above scaling and similarity of the whole procedure to the familiar continuum limit in lattice field theories is discussed. It is also shown that present results prove the assertion of Ref. that the continuous spectrum in quantum mechanics gives rise to the power-like dependence on the cutoff. On the other hand, it was found numerically, that the eigenenergies of the discrete, localized states have much faster convergence. This correlation between the nature of the spectrum and the cutoff dependence is very useful in studying supersymmetric systems where the distinction between continuous and discrete spectra is an important issue .

A general idea of increasing the number of states in a trial wave function is of course not new and is closely connected with the classical variational calculations111For some applications for gauge systems see e.g. .. However we are not aware of any systematic studies of the cutoff dependence based on the exact solutions of cut systems, especially in the context of contrasting the discrete and continuous spectra.

## 2 A cut Fock space

Every quantum hamiltonian can be written in terms of the creation and annihilation operators of a simple, normalized harmonic oscillator

$$H(Q,P)=H(a,a^{}),$$
(1)
where

$$Q=(a+a^{})/\sqrt{2},P=(aa^{})/i\sqrt{2},[a,a^{}]=1.$$
(2)
And similarly for the fermionic degrees of freedom if required. It follows that a large class of polynomial hamiltonians has a simple representation in the eigenbasis $`\{|n>\}`$ of the occupation number operator $`a^{}a`$.

$$|n>=\frac{a_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{n}}{\sqrt{n!}}|0>.$$
(3)
Apart from the theoretical simplicity, this basis has an important practical advantage. It is labeled by a discrete index $`n`$ and consequently is well suited for numerical applications.

Therefore a straightforward method for numerical solution of any quantum problem consists of: a) limiting the basis, Eq. (3), to e.g. $`nN`$; b) calculating the finite matrix representation of the hamiltonian (1) in such a cut basis; and c) numerically diagonalizing above finite matrix to obtain complete spectrum and the eigenstates of the system. Moreover, changing the cutoff $`N`$ provides the model independent way to estimate the systematic errors introduced by limiting the number of allowed quanta.

It is evident that theoretical understanding of the cutoff dependence for various quantum mechanical systems would further extend applicability of this approach. In particular, the knowledge of the asymptotic behaviour of the eigenvalues of a cut hamiltonian for large $`N`$ could be used to perform quantitative extrapolation to the infinite cutoff limit. We begin studying these questions with the simplest building blocks of any hamiltonian, i.e. the $`P`$ and $`Q`$ operators.

## 3 The spectrum of cut momentum and coordinate operators

Standard expressions for the matrix elements of the $`P`$ and $`Q`$ operators in the occupation number basis read.

$`nPk`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{i}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{k}{2}}}\delta _{n,k1}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{i}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{k+1}{2}}}\delta _{n,k+1},`$ (4)
$`nQk`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{k}{2}}}\delta _{n,k1}+\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{k+1}{2}}}\delta _{n,k+1}.`$ (5)
In the Hilbert space, limited to maximum $`N`$ quanta, $`P`$ and $`Q`$ become $`(N+1)\times (N+1)`$ matrices. Hence, the eigenvalues, $`\lambda `$, of e.g. momentum, are given by the zeros of the following determinant

$$I_{N+1}=\left|\begin{array}{cccccc}\eta & \sqrt{1}& 0& .& .& .\\ \sqrt{1}& \eta & \sqrt{2}& .& .& .\\ 0& \sqrt{2}& \eta & .& .& .\\ .& .& .& .& .& .\\ .& .& .& .& \eta & \sqrt{N}\\ .& .& .& .& \sqrt{N}& \eta \end{array}\right|,$$
(6)
where $`\eta =i\sqrt{2}\lambda `$. Laplace expansion gives, for the simpler variable $`J_n=I_n/n!`$, the following recursion relation

$$(n+2)J_{n+2}+\eta J_{n+1}J_n=0,J_1=\eta ,J_2=\frac{1}{2}(\eta ^2+1),$$
(7)
which is closely related to the well known recursion for the Hermite polynomials. We find

$$I_n(\lambda )=2^{\frac{n}{2}}i^nH_n(\lambda ).$$
(8)
It follows that the spectrum of the momentum in the cut Hilbert space with maximum $`N`$ quanta is given by the zeroes of the Hermite polynomials $`H_{N+1}(z)`$

$$p_m^N=z_m^{(N+1)},\text{where}H_{N+1}(z_m^{(N+1)})=0,m=1,2,\mathrm{},N+1.$$
(9)
This constitutes the main result of present paper.

Calculations for the coordinate operator $`Q`$ are very similar. Resulting eigenvalues, $`q_m^N`$, are identical

$$q_m^N=z_m^{(N+1)},$$
(10)
which could have been expected from the duality between $`P`$ and $`Q`$. It is important that this duality is not violated by our cutoff. Of course the eigenvectors of $`P`$ and $`Q`$ are different. Since the eigenvalues are symmetric with respect to the origin, we will use only positive ones. Hence, we introduce a slightly different enumeration

$`p_0^N<p_1^N<p_2^N<\mathrm{}<p_m^N<\mathrm{}p_{N/2}^N,`$ $`Neven,`$ (11)
$`p_1^N<p_2^N<\mathrm{}<p_m^N<\mathrm{}p_{(N+1)/2}^N,`$ $`Nodd.`$ (12)
which will be used in the next Section.

## 4 Continuum limit - scaling

Restricting the infinite Hilbert space by artificially cutting off the basis of the Fock states has some resemblance to the familiar discretization in a lattice field theory. In both situations a cutoff makes a problem numerically tractable and in the end it has to be removed to reach a physical description of the continuous world. In lattice calculations this is much more delicate due to the infinite number of degrees of freedom, and must be accompanied with a nontrivial adjustment (scaling) of bare parameters. Interestingly, similar phenomenon is observed when we increase the size of the Hilbert space in our cut quantum mechanics in order to recover standard quantum system. To see this, consider the large N limit of the spectrum of the momentum operator derived in the previous Section. From the known asymptotics of the roots of Hermite polynomials  we obtain (see Appendix)

$`p_m^N`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi m}{\sqrt{2N+3}}}\sqrt{1+{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2m^23/2}{3(2N+3)^2}}}+O(N^{4.5}),`$ (13)
$`p_m^N`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi (m\frac{1}{2})}{\sqrt{2N+3}}}\sqrt{1+{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2(m\frac{1}{2})^23/2}{3(2N+3)^2}}}+O(N^{4.5}),`$ (14)
with $`m`$ and $`N`$ as in (11) and (12) respectively. Therefore an infinite N limit at fixed m is trivial and does not reproduce the spectrum of the P operator in the infinite Hilbert space. On the other hand varying the ”principal quantum number” $`m`$ with the cutoff $`N`$ according to the following prescription

$$m=\frac{\sqrt{2N}}{\pi }p,$$
(15)
defines the scaling limit of our quantum system

$$lim_N\mathrm{}p_{m(N,p)}^N=p,$$
(16)
which reproduces the known spectrum of the momentum for any real eigenvalue $`p`$. Because of the above analogy with the lattice approach, the adjustment (15) will be called scaling and we will refer to the scaling limit, Eq.(16), as the continuum limit.

A number of comments is in order here. First, for finite cutoff $`N`$, the $`N+1`$ eigenvalues, Eq.(14), span the interval of the length $`O(\sqrt{N})`$ and are separated by the distance $`O(1/\sqrt{N})`$. When $`N`$ tends to infinity they spread out covering the whole real axis and, at the same time, become more dense approximating any real number $`p`$ with arbitrary precision. In another words, limiting the number of quanta can be thought of as regularizing the system both in the infrared and in the ultraviolet. This means that the single dimensionless parameter $`N`$ controls both the continuum limit and the infinite volume limit at the same time.

Second, the scaling, Eq.(15), is universal, i.e. it applies to the spectrum of any operator which commutes with $`P`$. For example, it was found  that the spectrum of a cut free particle hamiltonian, $`H=P^2/2`$, behaves at large N as

$`E_m^N`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{(m1/2)^2}{2N+5}},`$
$`E_m^N`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{2N+5}},`$ (17)
for $`N`$ even and odd respectively. This implies, together with (15), the standard spectral relation $`E(p)=p^2/2`$ in the continuum limit. Note that the scaling deduced only from the momentum variable was sufficient to derive the continuum limit of the energy 222Of course we also needed the solution of the free particle problem in a cut Fock space..

Third, this universality should also extend to any scattering problem in quantum mechanics, that is to less trivial hamiltonians with continuous spectra, provided the momenta can be defined asymptotically. This observation is particularly useful for studying nonlocalized solutions of supersymmetric systems.

Finally we stress the difference in the cutoff dependence between the eigenenergies of the localized and nonlocalized states. Results (14) and (17) prove that for the continuous spectrum the eigenenergies fall as a power of the cutoff. On the other hand there is a strong numerical evidence that in the case of the discrete, localized eigenstates the convergence of the eigenenergies is much faster, probably exponential or even stronger . The difference between the two is so dramatic that it was successfully used to distinguish between both classes of solutions from the finite N data alone . The scaling (15) applies only to the continuous spectrum. Continuum limit of the eigenenergies from the discrete spectrum is achieved simply by taking large $`N`$ at fixed $`m`$.

To conclude this Section we derive the form of the large $`N`$ corrections to the continuous spectrum. Let us use a slightly more general form of (15)

$$m=\frac{\sqrt{2N}}{\pi }p+b,$$
(18)
with arbitrary real $`b`$. Inserting Eq.(18) into (13) and regrouping terms according to their N dependence gives

$`p_m^N=p`$ $`+`$ $`\pi (b{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}){\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2N}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}p(p^29){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2N}}`$ (20)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{2}}(b{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}})({\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}p^23){\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2N)^{\frac{3}{2}}}}+\mathrm{}`$
The parameter $`b`$ can be used to speed up the convergence. Obviously $`b=1/2`$ is optimal in this case, however this choice is not universal in general. In fact we readily see this even in our example. For even number of quanta, Eq.(13), the best choice is $`b=0`$. The same remark applies if one improves the convergence by replacing $`\sqrt{2N}`$ by , e.g. $`\sqrt{2N+3}`$ in (15). Of course the limiting value of the momentum is independent of $`b`$ in agreement with the universality.

## 5 Summary and outlook

Quantum mechanics in a cut Hilbert space is an interesting theoretical framework admitting a number of exact solutions which, to our knowledge, have never been obtained before. Apart from its theoretical and pedagogical significance, analytical understanding of the cutoff dependence of the solutions provides the useful practical tool to study more complex systems.

Scaling found in the spectrum of the cut momentum operator seems to be a general property of nonlocalized states. It was confirmed in the simple case of a free particle in one dimension and we are currently extending this to higher dimensions. Many other applications, with various degree of complexity, are possible. One of the most interesting is the study of the scattering states in the family of supersymmetric Yang-Mills quantum mechanical systems with the flat valleys potentials (SYMQM). Reduced from the two dimensional space-time (D=2) theory, SYMQM is essentially the quantum mechanics of a free particle in three (color) dimensions with a constraint . Thus it can be readily analyzed with the present method. The D=4 system is already nontrivial, revealing both the discrete and continuum spectrum . Since one can assign a momentum along the valley to the asymptotic scattering sates, we expect that above scaling should also work in this case. Recent numerical progress in solving this system in a cut Hilbert space makes this programme rather feasible now. Finally, in the most complex D=10 SYMQM, with its threshold bound state and the continuum of the scattering states, one can also assign an asymptotic momentum to these states . Hence the momentum scaling found here should be used in extracting the continuum limit of this model from its cut formulation.

Acknowledgments JW thanks the Theory Group of Pisa University for their hospitality. This work is supported by the Polish Committee for Scientific Research under the grant no. PB 2P03B09622, during 2002 -2004.

## 6 Appendix

Here we will derive the asymptotic form of the zeroes of the Hermite polynomials $`H_n`$ for large order $`n`$. When $`n`$ is even they can be obtained from the following relation

$$H_n(z)=(1)^{\frac{n}{2}}2^n\frac{1}{2}n!L_{\frac{n}{2}}^{\frac{1}{2}}(z^2),$$
(21)
where $`L_n^\alpha (z^2)`$ are the generalized Laguerre polynomials with parameter $`\alpha `$. Then, roots of the Laguerre polynomials are approximated by the first $`n/2`$ roots of the Bessel functions. Let $`z_m^n`$, $`t_{m,\alpha }^{\frac{n}{2}}`$ and $`j_{m,\alpha }`$ denote the m-th positive root of the $`H_n(z)`$, $`L_{\frac{n}{2}}^{}{}_{}{}^{\alpha }(z)`$ and the Bessel function $`J_\alpha (z)`$ respectively. One has

$$t_{m,\alpha }^{\frac{n}{2}}=\frac{j_{m,\alpha }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{4k_{\frac{n}{2},\alpha }}\left(1+\frac{2(\alpha ^21)+j_{m,\alpha }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{48k_{\frac{n}{2},\alpha }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}\right)+O(n^5),$$
(22)
where

$$k_{\frac{n}{2},\alpha }=\frac{n}{2}+\frac{\alpha +1}{2}.$$
(23)
For $`\alpha =\frac{1}{2}`$, $`J_{\frac{1}{2}}(z)=\sqrt{\frac{2}{\pi z}}cos(z)`$, hence $`j_{\alpha ,m}=\pi (m\frac{1}{2})`$, $`m=1,2\mathrm{},\frac{n}{2}`$ and $`k_{\frac{n}{2},\alpha }=\frac{n}{2}+\frac{1}{4}`$. Therefore

$$(z_m^n)^2=t_{m,\alpha }^{\frac{n}{2}}=\frac{\pi ^2(m\frac{1}{2})^2}{2n+1}\left(1+\frac{\pi ^2(m\frac{1}{2})^2\frac{3}{2}}{3(2n+1)^2}\right)+O(n^5),$$
(24)
and the positive roots are

$$z_m^n=\frac{\pi (m\frac{1}{2})}{\sqrt{2n+1}}\sqrt{1+\frac{\pi ^2(m\frac{1}{2})^2\frac{3}{2}}{3(2n+1)^2}}+O(n^{4.5}).$$
(25)
For an odd order, $`n`$, analogous relations read

$`H_n(z)`$ $`=`$ $`(1)^{\frac{n1}{2}}2^n({\displaystyle \frac{n1}{2}})!zL_{\frac{n1}{2}}^{\frac{1}{2}}(z^2),`$ (26)
$`t_{m,\alpha }^{\frac{n1}{2}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{j_{m,\alpha }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{4k_{\frac{n1}{2},\alpha }}}\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{2(\alpha ^21)+j_{m,\alpha }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{48k_{\frac{n1}{2},\alpha }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}}\right)+O(n^5),`$ (27)
$`k_{\frac{n1}{2},\alpha }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{n1}{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha +1}{2}},(z_{m,\alpha }^n)^2=t_{m,\alpha }^{\frac{n1}{2}}.`$ (28)
In this case $`J_\alpha (z)=J_{\frac{1}{2}}(z)=\sqrt{\frac{2}{\pi z}}sin(z)`$, therefore $`j_{\alpha ,m}=\pi m`$, $`m=0,1,2,\mathrm{},\frac{n1}{2}`$, and $`k_{\frac{n1}{2},\alpha }=\frac{n}{2}+\frac{1}{4}`$. Then, similar steps as above give

$$z_m^n=\frac{\pi m}{\sqrt{2n+1}}\sqrt{1+\frac{\pi ^2m^2\frac{3}{2}}{3(2n+1)^2}}+O(n^{4.5}).$$
(29)