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# References

hep-th/0308069

On the effective action of a space-like brane

Somdatta Bhattacharyaa, Sudipta Mukherjib and Shibaji Roya

a Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, 1/AF Bidhannagar, Calcutta-700 064, India
E-Mails: som, roy@theory.saha.ernet.in

b Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar 751 005, India
E-Mail: mukherji@iopb.res.in

Abstract

Starting from the non-BPS D$`(p+1)`$-brane action, we derive an effective action in $`(p+1)`$ space dimensions by studying the fluctuations of various bosonic fields around the time-like tachyonic kink solution (obtained by Wick rotation of the space-like tachyonic kink solution) of the non-BPS brane. In real time this describes the dynamics of a space-like or Euclidean brane in $`(p+1)`$ dimensions containing a Dirac-Born-Infeld (DBI) part and an Wess-Zumino (WZ) part. The WZ part is purely imaginary and so the action is complex if it represents the source of the time-dependent background of type II string theory i.e. the S-brane. On the other hand, the WZ part as well as the action is real if it represents the source in type II string theory i.e. the E-brane. The DBI part is the same as obtained before using different method. This is then further illustrated by considering brane probe in space-like brane background.

Non-BPS D$`(p+1)`$-branes exist in both type IIA (for $`p`$ = even) and type IIB (for $`p`$ = odd) string theory and are unstable due to the presence of open string tachyon in their world-volume . The dynamics of the non-BPS branes can be described by an effective tachyon field theory  and if the tachyon depends on one of the space-like coordinates ($`x^{p+1}x`$ (say)) of the brane, it has an infinitely thin but finite tension kink solution . It has been shown that for this solution the total energy of the brane is localized around $`x=0`$ with the tension $`𝒯_p=V(T)𝑑T`$, $`T`$ being the tachyon. Sen has shown  that even though the tachyon effective action is valid (where higher ($`2`$) derivatives of tachyon are neglected) for large $`T`$, the fluctuations of massless modes on the kink solution interpolating between the two vacua at $`T=\mathrm{}`$ and $`T=\mathrm{}`$, passing through $`T=0`$, correctly reproduce the DBI action of the BPS D$`p`$-brane without any higher derivative corrections. Also, the fluctuations are not assumed to be small in this derivation. The minimum of the potential $`V(T)`$ has been argued to describe the closed string vacuum .

In order to understand the decay of the non-BPS D$`(p+1)`$-brane, one should really consider the tachyon to be time dependent . Thus the rolling of the tachyon is responsible for the decay of the non-BPS D$`(p+1)`$-brane to the closed string vacuum . On the other hand, by a similar reasoning as given in the previous paragraph, the rolling of the tachyon can also be seen to be responsible for the appearance of the space-like $`p`$-branes  (S$`p`$-branes or E$`p`$-branes) at the maximum of the tachyon potential $`V(T)`$ where $`T0`$. S$`p`$-branes (E$`p`$-branes) are space-like topological defects localized in $`(p+1)`$-dimensional space-like hypersurface in the type II (type II)111Type II string theory is related to type II string theory by a time-like T-duality . So, for example, type IIA (type IIB) string theory compactified on a time-like circle of radius $`R`$ is dual to type IIB (type IIA) string theory compactified on a dual time-like circle of radius $`1/R`$. Space-like $`p`$-branes in type II theory are the S$`p`$-branes and the space-like branes in type II theory are the E$`p`$ branes. string theory and appears when finely tuned incoming closed string radiation pushes the tachyon (at $`x^0=\mathrm{}`$) to the top of the potential from one side and then the tachyon rolls down to the other side (at $`x^0=\mathrm{}`$) dissipating its energy back to radiation . In this process, the space-like $`p`$-brane appears and exists only for a moment in time at $`x^0=0`$. These are the sources for the classical time dependent solutions  of the string effective action222Actually here we are considering space-like $`p`$-brane solutions without a time reversal symmetry. It is also possible to consider solutions having a time reversal symmetry. A world-sheet construction for a particular boundary interaction (corresponding to $`\lambda =1/2`$)  describing the tachyon on an unstable D-brane reveals that there is an array of space-like $`p`$-branes situated on the imaginary time axis at $`x^0=im\pi `$, for odd integers $`m`$. In real time this has been interpreted as closed string radiation ..

In this paper, we give a simple derivation of a S$`p`$-brane (or E$`p`$-brane) action starting from the non-BPS D$`(p+1)`$-brane action with time dependent tachyon. Here we make use of Sen’s derivation  of a codimension one BPS D-brane action as the space-like tachyonic kink solution of the non-BPS D-brane action. When the tachyon is time dependent, the solution of the equation of motion can be obtained by a Wick rotation of the corresponding solution with space-dependent tachyon. This solution may be regarded as the time-like tachyonic kink of the non-BPS D-brane action. We then study the fluctuations of various bosonic fields on the Euclidean world-volume around this solution and obtain an effective action. In real time, this effective action represents the S$`p`$-brane (or E$`p`$-brane) action describing the dynamics of the various fields living on the brane. We derive both the DBI and the WZ parts of the action, where the DBI part matches with the results obtained earlier  using different method. We will point out in what sense we call this an S$`p`$-brane or an E$`p`$-brane action. We also give an alternative argument to further support the form of the action that we have obtained. This is done by considering the brane probe in a non-extremal $`p`$-brane background. The $`p`$-branes turn into space-like branes as we consider the region beyond their horizons. The probe action, continued beyond the horizon, is found to take the form of the space-like brane action that we have been discussing so far.

The dynamics of the non-BPS D$`(p+1)`$-brane is governed by the following tachyon effective action333We are using the convention where $`\eta _{\mu \nu }=\mathrm{diag}(1,1,\mathrm{},1)`$ and $`\alpha ^{}=1`$. ,

$$S=d^{p+2}xV(T)\sqrt{\mathrm{det}(\eta _{\mu \nu }+_\mu T_\nu T)}$$
(1)
where $`T`$ is the tachyon field and $`V(T)`$ is its potential, with $`V(T)=V(T)`$ and $`V(T)`$ has a maximum at $`T=0`$, while $`V(T)0`$ as $`T\pm \mathrm{}`$. $`\mu ,\nu =0,1,\mathrm{},p+1`$ are the world-volume indices. We have set the world-volume gauge fields and the transverse scalars to zero for simplicity and will include them later. Also, we assume that classically the tachyon is dependent on the time coordinate $`x^0`$. The equation of motion following from (1) is,

$$_0\left[\frac{V(T)_0T}{\sqrt{1(_0T)^2}}\right]+V^{}(T)\sqrt{1(_0T)^2}=0$$
(2)
Here ‘prime’ denotes the derivative of the function with respect to its argument. Now instead of solving this equation directly if we Wick rotate $`x^0i\tau `$, then in terms of $`\tau `$ coordinate (2) can be rewritten as

$$_\tau \left[\frac{V(T)_\tau T}{\sqrt{1+(_\tau T)^2}}\right]V^{}(T)\sqrt{1+(_\tau T)^2}=0$$
(3)
The solution for this equation has the form $`T=f(a\tau )`$, where $`a`$ is a parameter which will be taken to infinity at the end. The function $`f`$ satisfies $`f(u)=f(u)`$, $`f(\pm \mathrm{})=\pm \mathrm{}`$ and $`f^{}(u)>0`$ for all $`u`$, otherwise it is an arbitrary function. This solution is obtained by Sen  and is used to derive the codimension one BPS D-brane action as the space-like tachyonic kink solution of the non-BPS D-brane action. Now we note that if $`f(a\tau )`$ is a solution to eq.(3), then $`f(iax^0)`$ is a solution to eq.(2). We point out that for real $`x^0`$ although $`f(iax^0)`$ is a solution to eq.(2), it is unphysical as it does not satisfy the proper boundary condition of the time dependent tachyon. Namely, from the conservation of energy momentum tensor following from (1), $`_0T_{00}=0`$, where

$$T_{00}=\frac{V(T)}{\sqrt{1(_0T)^2}}$$
(4)
we find $`_0T1`$ as $`x^0\pm \mathrm{}`$ and $`_0T=0`$ at $`x^0=0`$ i.e. at the top of the potential where the tachyon starts rolling. However, we can still formally use the solution $`T=f(iax^0)`$ and mention how we can finally obtain the action in real time.

Now we consider the dynamics of the translational zero mode along $`x^0`$ direction and it corresponds to the fluctuation of the tachyon as,

$$T(x^0,\xi ^\alpha )=f(ia(x^0X^0(\xi ^\alpha )))$$
(5)
where $`\xi ^\alpha `$, with $`\alpha =1,\mathrm{},p+1`$ are the world-volume coordinates excluding time and $`X^0(\xi ^\alpha )`$ is a scalar living in $`(p+1)`$-dimensional Euclidean world-volume associated with the translational zero mode of the time-like kink along $`x^0`$. Using (5) we find,

$$\sqrt{\mathrm{det}(\eta _{\mu \nu }+_\mu T_\nu T)}=\sqrt{1+\eta _{\mu \nu }_\mu T_\nu T}=\left[1+a^2f^2(1\delta ^{\alpha \beta }_\alpha X^0_\beta X^0)\right]^{1/2}$$
(6)
Now substituting (6) into (1) we find for $`a\mathrm{}`$,

$`S`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑x^0d^{p+1}\xi V(f)af^{}\left[1\delta ^{\alpha \beta }_\alpha X^0_\beta X^0\right]^{1/2}}`$ (7)
$`=`$ $`i{\displaystyle V(y)𝑑yd^{p+1}\xi \sqrt{\mathrm{det}(\delta _{\alpha \beta }_0X^0_\beta X^0)}}`$
In writing the second line in (7), we have made a change of variable $`f(ia(x^0X^0(\xi ^\alpha )))=y`$. We notice that the integral $`iV(y)𝑑y`$ is nothing but the action $`S`$ per unit $`(p+1)`$-dimensional Euclidean world-volume with the tachyon taking its classical value $`T_{cl}=f(iax^0)`$. However in real time the integral does not make sense as we have mentioned before and we have to really ‘undo’ the effect of Wick rotation of $`x^0`$ coordinate by replacing $`f(iax^0)T_{cl}(x^0)`$. So, we have to replace,

$`i{\displaystyle V(y)𝑑y}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑x^0V(f)af^{}}={\displaystyle 𝑑x^0V(f)\sqrt{1(ia)^2f^2}}`$ (8)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑x^0V(T_{cl})\sqrt{1(_0T_{cl})^2}}S_0`$
So, in real time the action would take the form,

$$S=S_0d^{p+1}\xi \sqrt{\mathrm{det}(\delta _{\alpha \beta }_\alpha X^0_\beta X^0)}$$
(9)
where $`S_0=𝑑x^0V(T_{cl})\sqrt{1(_0T_{cl})^2}`$. Since the expression inside the square root in (9) is already expressed in real scalar $`X^0`$, this is the DBI action of the space-like $`p`$ brane. Note that the kinetic term of the scalar $`X^0`$ has a wrong sign since this is the zero mode associated with the time translation.

Following Sen , it is not difficult to include world-volume gauge fields and other transverse scalars into the action and we will use the same procedure as discussed above. The action now takes the form,

$$S=d^{p+2}xV(T)\sqrt{\mathrm{det}(a_{\mu \nu })}$$
(10)
where,

$`a_{\mu \nu }`$ $`=`$ $`\eta _{\mu \nu }+_\mu T_\nu T+_\mu x^I_\nu x^I+f_{\mu \nu }`$
$`\mathrm{with},f_{\mu \nu }`$ $`=`$ $`_\mu a_\nu _\nu a_\mu `$ (11)
Here, $`\mu ,\nu =0,1,\mathrm{},p+1`$ are the world-volume indices of the non-BPS D$`(p+1)`$-brane and $`I=p+2,\mathrm{},9`$ are the transverse space indices. $`a_\mu `$ is the world-volume gauge field and $`x^I`$ are the scalars corresponding to the transverse coordinates. We assume for simplicity that classically both the gauge fields and the scalars on the world volume vanish and the fluctuations of various fields take the forms,

$`T(x^0,\xi ^\alpha )`$ $`=`$ $`f(ia(x^0X^0(\xi ^\alpha )))`$
$`a_0(x^0,\xi ^\alpha )`$ $`=`$ $`0,a_\alpha (x^0,\xi ^\alpha )=A_\alpha (\xi ^\alpha ),x^I(x^0,\xi ^\alpha )=X^I(\xi ^\alpha )`$ (12)
Note from above that we are assuming that the $`(p+2)`$-dimensional fields $`a_\mu `$ and $`x^I`$ do not depend on time $`x^0`$ and the fluctuations away from the time-like tachyonic kink are arbitrary. This makes sense for the Wick rotated (or Euclideanized) theory and the justification can be found in ref.. Now for this field configuration we can compute various components of $`a_{\mu \nu }`$ as

$`a_{00}`$ $`=`$ $`1a^2f^2,a_{0\alpha }=a_{\alpha 0}=a^2f^2_\alpha X^0`$
$`a_{\alpha \beta }`$ $`=`$ $`(1a^2f^2)_\alpha X^0_\beta X^0+A_{\alpha \beta }`$
$`\mathrm{where},A_{\alpha \beta }`$ $`=`$ $`\delta _{\alpha \beta }_\alpha X^0_\beta X^0+_\alpha X^I_\beta X^I+F_{\alpha \beta }`$ (13)
with $`F_{\alpha \beta }=_\alpha A_\beta _\beta A_\alpha `$. Now using (13) we find,

$$\sqrt{\mathrm{det}(a_{\mu \nu })}=af^{}\sqrt{\mathrm{det}(A_{\alpha \beta })},\mathrm{for},a\mathrm{}$$
(14)
Substituting (14) into the action (10) we get,

$`S`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑x^0d^{p+1}\xi V(f)af^{}\sqrt{\mathrm{det}(A_{\alpha \beta })}}`$ (15)
$`=`$ $`i{\displaystyle V(y)𝑑yd^{p+1}\xi \sqrt{\mathrm{det}(A_{\alpha \beta })}}`$
where $`A_{\alpha \beta }`$ is given in eq.(13). Again in the last line we have introduced the variable $`y=f(ia(x^0X^0(\xi ^\alpha )))`$. As before we can write the action in real time by replacing

$$iV(y)𝑑y𝑑x^0V(T_{cl})\sqrt{1(_0T_{cl})^2}S_0$$
(16)
Where $`S_0`$ is the action per unit $`(p+1)`$-dimensional Euclidean volume evaluated with the classical values of the fields. Therefore, we get

$$S=S_0d^{p+1}\xi \sqrt{\mathrm{det}(A_{\alpha \beta })}$$
(17)
This is the form of the DBI part of the space-like $`p`$-brane action. We note that the first three terms in $`A_{\alpha \beta }`$ given in (13) i.e. $`\delta _{\alpha \beta }_\alpha X^0_\beta X^0+_\alpha X^I_\beta X^I`$ is the pull-back of the space-time metric on the $`(p+1)`$-dimensional Euclidean world-volume of the space-like $`p`$-brane in the static gauge and so, the DBI action really has the form

$$S=S_0d^{p+1}\xi \sqrt{\mathrm{det}(g_{\alpha \beta }+F_{\alpha \beta })}$$
(18)
Taking into account the closed string background in the NSNS sector the action would take the form,

$$S=S_0d^{p+1}\xi e^\varphi \sqrt{\mathrm{det}(g_{\alpha \beta }+B_{\alpha \beta }+F_{\alpha \beta })}$$
(19)
where $`\varphi `$ is the dilaton, $`g_{\alpha \beta }`$ and $`B_{\alpha \beta }`$ are respectively the pull-backs of the space-time metric and the antisymmetric tensor to the world-volume of the space-like $`p`$-brane.

Apart from the DBI part the S$`p`$-brane (or E$`p`$-brane) action should also contain a Wess-Zumino term. The Wess-Zumino term of a non-BPS D$`(p+1)`$-brane has the form,

$$S_{WZ}=W(T)𝑑Tce^f$$
(20)
where $`W(T)`$ is an even function of $`T`$, which vanishes as $`T\pm \mathrm{}`$. $`f=f_{\mu \nu }dx^\mu dx^\nu `$ and $`c=_{q0}c^{(p+12q)}`$, where $`c^{(p+12q)}`$ are the pull-backs of the RR $`(p+12q)`$-form fields on to the world-volume. Note that here we are considering only the bosonic sector and in the absence of the RR background the WZ term would vanish444 In fact if we include the fermionic sector $`c`$ also has a contribution from the fermions and so the WZ term would be non-vanishing even if the RR background is zero .. Now to evaluate (20) we first find,

$$f=f_{\mu \nu }dx^\mu dx^\nu =2f_{0\alpha }dx^0d\xi ^\alpha +F_{\alpha \beta }d\xi ^\alpha d\xi ^\beta $$
(21)
For the fluctuation (12) the above simply reduces to $`F`$. Now since $`dT=iaf^{}du`$, where $`u=x^0X^0(\xi ^\alpha )`$, we can write

$$c=\underset{m}{}c^{(m)}=\underset{m}{}\left(mc_{0\alpha _2\mathrm{}\alpha _m}^{(m)}_{\alpha _1}X^0+c_{\alpha _1\mathrm{}\alpha _m}^{(m)}\right)d\xi ^{\alpha _1}\mathrm{}d\xi ^{\alpha _m}$$
(22)
The term in the r.h.s. of (22) is the pull-back of an $`m`$-form onto the $`(p+1)`$-dimensional Euclidean world-volume of the space-like $`p`$-brane and can be identified with $`C^{(m)}`$. Using these relations the WZ term in (20) simplifies to

$`S_{WZ}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle W(f)(iaf^{})𝑑u}Ce^F`$ (23)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle W(y)𝑑yC}e^F`$
where in writing the last expression we have introduced a new variable $`y=f(iau)`$. If we now identify $`W(y)𝑑y=V(y)𝑑y`$ in analogy with the space-like tachyonic kink solution then

$$S_{WZ}=i(iV(y)𝑑y)Ce^F$$
(24)
Now as argued before the integral in the paranthesis makes sense only in the Wick rotated theory i.e. when $`x^0`$ is imaginary. However, if we want to write it in real $`x^0`$ the integral $`iV(y)𝑑y`$ should be replaced by $`S_0=𝑑x^0V(T_{cl})\sqrt{1(_0T_{cl})^2}`$. Also if we include the closed string NSNS field $`B`$, then $`F`$ should be replaced by $`F+B`$, where $`B_{\alpha \beta }`$ should be the pull-back of the space-time field onto the world-volume of space-like $`p`$-brane. So, the full space-like $`p`$-brane action containing the DBI part and the WZ part is given by

$$S_{DBI}+S_{WZ}=S_0d^{p+1}\xi e^\varphi \sqrt{\mathrm{det}(g_{\alpha \beta }+B_{\alpha \beta }+F_{\alpha \beta })}+iS_0Ce^{F+B}$$
(25)
Thus we find that in type II theory where the RR form-fields $`C`$’s are real, the above action is complex. So, the S$`p`$-brane action obtained this way has a complex structure. Note that the action in (25) differs from the usual BPS D-brane action by an overall factor of $`i`$ and therefore the equations of motion remain the same. This is important for their solutions to give a consistent background preserving the conformal symmetry of the open string world-sheet. On the other hand, if we interpret the action (25) as that of an E$`p`$-brane in type II theory then the RR form fields $`C`$ is replaced by $`CC^{}=iC`$  and the action is real. The DBI part of the above action matches exactly with the S$`p`$-brane action obtained earlier  using different method. However, since in that derivation the closed string background was not taken into account, the WZ term was absent and it was not clear whether the action really corresponded to an S$`p`$-brane or an E$`p`$-brane action. Here, we observe that if we insist on the reality of the full action, then the action in ref. should be considered as an E$`p`$-brane action.

To further illustrate the possible nature of the world volume action of the previously discussed time dependent configurations, let us consider the following scenario. Consider the static black $`p`$-brane solutions of type II supergravities. These solutions are typically singular and the singularity is hidden behind the horizon. Due to the presence of the horizon, one can associate a non-zero temperature with these solutions. As a result, they completely break the original supersymmetry of the type II theories. It is well known  that, as one crosses the horizon of such a solution, the role of time and space gets interchanged. Consequently, a static metric turns into a time dependent metric as long as we restrict our attention inside the horizon. This time dependent metric is typically the S-brane metric that we have been discussing so far. In the following, we would like to consider D$`p`$ brane probes in such a $`p`$-brane background. As we will see, the probe brane action can be interpreted as a space-like $`p`$ brane action once it crosses the horizon of the background geomerty. However, the action turns out to be complex as before. To get a real action, one needs to make the corresponding RR form of the corresponding D$`p`$ brane purely imaginary. This, in turn, turns the background to a solution of a type II theory along with the probe action to the one of E$`p`$-brane action. In the following, we discuss this in some detail.

The static non-extremal $`p`$-brane solutions of our interest are given in . In $`D`$ space-time dimension, they have the form

$$ds^2=e^{2A}(e^{2f}(dx^0)^2+dx^idx^i)+e^{2B}(e^{2f}dr^2+r^2d\mathrm{\Omega }^2),$$
(26)
where $`(x^0,x^i)`$ parametrise the $`p+1`$-dimensional world-volume of the $`p`$-brane. The coordinates transverse to the brane are $`r`$ and the $`(Dp2)`$ coordinates on the unit sphere $`d\mathrm{\Omega }`$. The functional form of $`A`$, $`B`$ and $`f`$ can be found in . For our purpose, we only need to know that they depend solely on the radial coordinate $`r`$. This solution has a singularity at $`r=0`$. Furthermore, $`e^{2f}`$ becomes zero at finite non-zero value of $`r`$. The location repersents the horizon. Beside the metric, there is a nontrivial dilaton $`\varphi `$ which also is a function of $`r`$. The other non-trivial field is a form field whose field strength is given by $`F=\lambda ϵ_{Dp2}`$. Here $`ϵ_{Dp2}`$ is the volume form on the unit sphere $`d\mathrm{\Omega }`$. The solution (26) then corresponds to a solitonic $`p`$-brane with magnetic charge $`\lambda `$.

As discussed in , the metric in (26) becomes a time-dependent one once we consider the interior region of the $`p`$-brane. Inside the horizon, the function $`e^{2f}e^{2f}`$. Consequently, as can be seen from (26), the timelike coordinate $`x^0`$ becomes spacelike and the radial coordinate $`r`$ aquires a new interpretation as the timelike coordinate. Renaming, therefore, the new spacelike coordinate $`x^0`$ as $`z`$ and the timelike coordinate $`r`$ as $`\tau `$, we get the metric as

$$ds^2=e^{2A}(e^{2f}dz^2+dx^idx^i)e^{2B2f}d\tau ^2+e^{2B}\tau ^2d\mathrm{\Omega }^2,$$
(27)
where $`A,B`$ and $`f`$ are all now functions of time $`\tau `$. The functional form of the dilaton field $`\varphi `$ remains the same as before except that it now aquires a time dependence due to the replacement of $`r`$ by $`\tau `$. The above configuration can be identified as a spacelike brane configuration with $`p+1`$ dimensional world volume parametrised by $`(z,x^i)`$. However, this brane is anisotropic on the world-volume due to the appearance of $`e^{2f}`$ only infront of $`z`$ coordinate. However, this will not be of importance on what we discuss in the following.

Let us now consider a probe brane of $`p+1`$ dimensional world-volume in the background geometry given in (26). The action of the probe brane will have a DBI part and the WZ part given by

$$S=𝒯_{p+1}d^{p+1}\xi e^\varphi \sqrt{\mathrm{det}(g_{\mu \nu })}+𝒯_{p+1}_{_{p+1}}C_{p+1},$$
(28)
where $`\mu ,\nu `$ run over the $`p+1`$ world-volume coordinates $`\xi ^0,\xi ^1,\mathrm{},\xi ^p`$ and $`C_{p+1}`$ is the usual RR-form associated with the brane. In the above, the RR form is integrated over the $`p+1`$ dimensional world-volume. $`𝒯_{p+1}`$ is related to the tension of the brane. We will now explicitly evaluate the probe action (28) in the $`p`$-brane background given in (26). We will first consider the DBI part and later focus on the WZ part of the action. In the static gauge

$$\xi ^0=x^0,\mathrm{and}\xi ^i=x^i,$$
(29)
the components of the induced metric $`g_{\mu \nu }`$ take the form

$`g_{00}`$ $`=`$ $`e^{2A+2f}+e^{2B2f}\left({\displaystyle \frac{r}{\xi ^0}}\right)^2+r^2e^{2B}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta _a}{\xi ^0}}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta ^a}{\xi ^0}}`$
$`g_{0i}`$ $`=`$ $`e^{2B2f}{\displaystyle \frac{r}{\xi ^0}}{\displaystyle \frac{r}{\xi ^i}}+r^2e^{2B}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta _a}{\xi ^0}}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta ^a}{\xi ^i}}`$
$`g_{ii}`$ $`=`$ $`e^{2A}+e^{2B2f}\left({\displaystyle \frac{r}{\xi ^i}}\right)^2+r^2e^{2B}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta _a}{\xi ^i}}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta ^a}{\xi ^i}}`$
$`g_{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`e^{2B2f}{\displaystyle \frac{r}{\xi ^i}}{\displaystyle \frac{r}{\xi ^j}}+r^2e^{2B}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta _a}{\xi ^i}}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta ^a}{\xi ^j}}`$ (30)
where $`\theta ^a`$ are the coordinates on $`d\mathrm{\Omega }`$. Now, we would like to continue the probe action beyond the horizon, which occurs at the point where $`e^{2f}=0`$. As discussed earlier, this is done by substituting

$$e^{2f}e^{2f},x^0z\mathrm{and}r\tau $$
(31)
in (26). However, in order to maintain the previous gauge choice (29), we now need to have the following identifications of world-volume coordinates:

$$\xi ^0\xi ^{p+1},\mathrm{with}\xi ^{p+1}=z,\xi ^i=x^i,$$
(32)
so that the induced metric components on the world-volume are now

$`g_{p+1,p+1}`$ $`=`$ $`e^{2A+2f}e^{2B2f}({\displaystyle \frac{\tau }{\xi ^{p+1}}})^2+\tau ^2e^{2B}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta _a}{\xi ^{p+1}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta ^a}{\xi ^{p+1}}}`$
$`g_{p+1,i}`$ $`=`$ $`e^{2B2f}{\displaystyle \frac{\tau }{\xi ^{p+1}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\tau }{\xi ^i}}+\tau ^2e^{2B}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta _a}{\xi ^{p+1}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta ^a}{\xi ^i}}`$
$`g_{ii}`$ $`=`$ $`e^{2A}e^{2B2f}({\displaystyle \frac{\tau }{\xi ^i}})^2+\tau ^2e^{2B}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta _a}{\xi ^i}}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta ^a}{\xi ^i}}`$
$`g_{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`e^{2B2f}{\displaystyle \frac{\tau }{\xi ^i}}{\displaystyle \frac{\tau }{\xi ^j}}+\tau ^2e^{2B}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta _a}{\xi ^i}}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta ^a}{\xi ^j}}.`$ (33)
It can now easily be checked that the above components follow from the probe action

$$i𝒯_{p+1}d^{p+1}\xi e^\varphi \sqrt{\mathrm{det}(g_{\alpha \beta })}$$
(34)
when evaluated on the background (27). Here, the indices $`\alpha ,\beta `$ run over the Euclidian world-volume coordinates $`\xi ^1,\mathrm{},\xi ^{p+1}`$. This is precisely the form of space-like brane action as obtained before and also suggested in  if we identify $`i𝒯_{p+1}=S_0`$, where $`S_0`$ is the action given before in (8). Note that with this identification we encounter two puzzles. First of all, $`S_0`$ as given in (8) is real, whereas $`i𝒯_{p+1}`$ appears to be purely imaginary555We would like to point out that here we are assuming that $`𝒯_{p+1}`$ will remain real as we interchange $`r\tau `$ and $`x^0z`$, but this is not really true as we have seen in our earlier discussion. since $`𝒯_{p+1}`$ is related to the tension of the brane given in (28). Secondly, $`S_0`$ is the action per unit $`(p+1)`$-dimensional Euclidean volume of a non-BPS brane with the tachyon and other fields taking their classical values, but in this derivation tachyon does not appear explicitly. The resolution of the puzzles can be understood as follows. Note that the action (28) can also be regarded as a non-BPS D$`(p+1)`$-brane action on its space-like tachyonic kink where the tachyon as well as the other backgrounds depend only on the brane direction $`x^{p+1}=x`$ (say). So, $`𝒯_{p+1}=V(y)𝑑y`$ (as mentioned before) with $`y=T=f(ax)`$, with $`a\mathrm{}`$ and the function $`f`$ is as defined after eq.(3). Now as the probe brane is taken inside the horizon, $`x\tau `$ and $`x^0z`$, i.e. the space-like coordinate $`x`$ becomes time-like and so, $`f(ax)f(a\tau )`$, but it is no longer a solution to the tachyon equation of motion. It will be a solution if we Euclideanize $`\tau `$ i.e. $`f(ia\tau )`$ will be a solution. This is exactly the solution we used before. So, the factor in front of the DBI part of the action becomes $`i𝒯_{p+1}=iV(y)𝑑y`$ and this when continued to the real time gives $`S_0`$ (see eq.(8)).

Let us now look at the WZ part. We note that under (31) and (32), the WZ term in (28) takes the following form

$$𝒯_{p+1}_{_{p+1}}C_{p+1}𝒯_{p+1}_{\stackrel{~}{}_{p+1}}C_{p+1}.$$
(35)
Here, $`_{p+1}`$ is the world-volume of the static brane with coordinates $`\xi ^0,\xi ^1,\mathrm{},\xi ^p`$ where as $`\stackrel{~}{}_{p+1}`$ is the world-volume of the space-like brane with coordinates $`\xi ^1,\mathrm{},\xi ^p,\xi ^{p+1}`$. Here again we identify $`𝒯_{p+1}=iS_0`$ and consequently, the total world-volume action of the time dependent configuration given in (27) is the sum of (34) and (35) exactly the same form as obtained earlier in (25). The action is clearly complex unless we make the RR field imaginary $`C_{p+1}iC_{p+1}`$. As discussed before, under such a transformation, the solution (27) really corresponds to an E$`p`$ brane solution of type II theory.

To conclude, we have given a simple derivation of a space-like brane action including the DBI and the WZ parts starting from the non-BPS D-brane action. We have used the time-like tachyonic kink solution of the tachyon effective action describing the dynamics of the non-BPS D-brane by a Wick rotation of the space-like tachyonic kink solution. The fluctuations of various bosonic fields on the Euclidean world-volume around this solution produce an effective action. In real time, this describes the low energy effective action of a space-like brane. We notice that if we start from type II theory where the closed string background has real RR form fields then the action is complex and it is the action of an S$`p`$-brane. But, if we start from type II theory where the RR form is still real but differ from those of type II theory by a factor of $`i`$ then the action is real and it represents the action of an E$`p`$-brane. We pointed out that by just studying the DBI part we can not conclude whether it represents the action of an S$`p`$-brane or an E$`p`$-brane. To further support the correctness of the form of the action we have also given an alternative argument.
Acknowledgements: We would like to thank Ashoke Sen for a useful communication at an early stage of this work. We would also like to thank Koji Hashimoto for many useful correspondences. SM would like to thank Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics for hospitality during the course of this work.


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# ASCA AND RXTE OBSERVATIONS OF NON-THERMAL X-RAY EMISSION FROM GALACTIC SUPERNOVA REMNANTS: G156.2+5.7

## INTRODUCTION

In recent years the study of non-thermal X-ray emission from Galactic supernova remnants (SNRs) has attracted a considerable amount of interest within the astronomical community. Extensive research in this field commenced with the discovery that the X-ray emission from the Galactic SNR SN 1006 is predominately non-thermal (Koyama et al. 1995, Allen et al. 2001). Since this discovery, the number of Galactic SNRs which are known to possess spectra dominated by non-thermal X-ray emission has steadily increased and currently includes G347.3-0.5 (Koyama et al. 1997, Slane et al. 1999, Pannuti et al. 2003), G266.2-1.2 (Slane et al. 2001) and G28.6-0.1 (Bamba et al. 2001, Koyama et al. 2001) as well as SN 1006. Generally speaking, all of these Galactic SNRs are X-ray luminous, radio weak sources with shell-type morphologies expanding into low density ambient media. It is generally believed that the non-thermal X-ray emission is in fact synchrotron emission from electrons accelerated along the shock front of the SNR (e.g., Reynolds 1996, 1998; Reynolds and Keohane 1999), although others have argued that for at least some SNRs, the emission is instead produced by non-thermal bremsstrahlung (e.g. Vink and Laming 2002).

If the observed non-thermal emission does in fact have a synchrotron origin, it is possible to estimate the maximum energy of cosmic-ray electrons accelerated by these SNRs through an analysis of this emission. While it is currently believed that Galactic SNRs accelerate cosmic-ray particles to the well-known “knee” feature of the cosmic-ray spectrum ($`E`$knee $``$ 3000 TeV), only a scant amount of data is available to test this hypothesis. To probe this issue in more detail, we are conducting an X-ray survey of a sample of Galactic SNRs using new and archived observations made with such satellites as the Röntgensatellit (ROSAT), the Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and Astrophysics (ASCA), the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE), the X-ray Multiple Mirror Mission (XMM-Newton) and the Chandra X-ray Observatory. We are extracting emission spectra from the X-ray bright rims of Galactic SNRs known or suspected to possess non-thermal components to their X-ray emission. To illustrate this work, in this paper we consider one of the sources in our sample, G156.2$`+`$5.7 (RX J04591$`+`$5147): this SNR is suspected to possess both thermal and non-thermal components to its X-ray emission (Yamauchi et al. 1993, Yamauchi et al. 1999, Tomida 1999). We analyze observations made of the northwestern rim of this SNR using the Gas Imaging Spectrometer (GIS) aboard ASCA and the Proportional Counter Array (PCA) aboard RXTE. A detailed summary of these observations is provided in Table 1. In Figure 1, we present an X-ray image of G156.2$`+`$5.7 that was prepared using six pointed observations made with the Position Sensitive Proportional Counter (PSPC) aboard $`\mathrm{𝑅𝑂𝑆𝐴𝑇}`$.

## THE GALACTIC SNR G156.2$`+`$5.7 (RX J04591$`+`$5147)

The Galactic X-ray SNR G156.2$`+`$5.7 (RX J04591$`+`$5147) was discovered during the $`\mathrm{𝑅𝑂𝑆𝐴𝑇}`$ All-Sky Survey and first described by Pfeffermann et al. (1991). Using a Sedov model to fit its X-ray spectrum, those authors derived an age of 26000 yr for G156.2$`+`$5.7, a distance of 3 kpc (which is supported by an independent distance estimate of 1-3 kpc based on the column density toward this source as well as HI observations) and an extremely low ambient density of 0.01 cm-3. Assuming a distance of 3 kpc, the X-ray flux from this SNR given by Pfeffermann et al. (1991) (1.9$`\times `$ 10-10 ergs cm-2 sec-1 between 0.1 and 2.4 keV) indicates a luminosity of 2.0 $`\times `$ 1035 ergs sec-1, placing this source among the ten most luminous known Galactic X-ray SNRs. Complementary radio observations of G156.2$`+`$5.7 presented by Reich et al. (1992) indicated a modest flux density of 4.2$`\pm `$0.1 Jy at 1 GHz and an extremely low surface brightness of 5.8 $`\times `$ 10-20 ergs cm-2 sr-1. Reich et al. (1992) also noted that the radio emission from the rims of this SNR is highly polarized, consistent with a synchrotron origin. These characteristics – high X-ray luminosity but low radio luminosity, low ambient medium density, and polarized radio emission from the rims of the SNR – are generally in common with the other Galactic SNRs known to possess X-ray spectra dominated by non-thermal emission. Additional X-ray observations of G156.2$`+`$5.7 have been presented using observations made with $`\mathrm{𝑅𝑂𝑆𝐴𝑇}`$, $`\mathrm{𝐺𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑎}`$ (Yamauchi et al. 1993) and $`\mathrm{𝐴𝑆𝐶𝐴}`$ (Yamauchi et al. 1999). Both of those papers commented on the harder component to the X-ray spectrum of this SNR, with Yamauchi et al. (1999) deriving a photon index of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$=2.1$`{}_{0.2}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+0.3}`$ for a power-law fit to this component over the $`\mathrm{𝐴𝑆𝐶𝐴}`$ energy band. This index is comparable to the indicies derived by power-law fits to the hard components of the $`\mathrm{𝐴𝑆𝐶𝐴}`$ X-ray spectra from other Galactic SNRs.

## OBSERVATIONS OF G156.2$`+`$5.7

### ASCA GIS2+GIS3 Observations

Both the GIS and the Solid-State Imaging Spectrometer (SIS) aboard $`\mathrm{𝐴𝑆𝐶𝐴}`$ (Tanaka et al. 1994) observed two different positions along the northwestern rim of G156.2$`+`$5.7, but becuase the GIS has a larger field of view than the SIS we only consider data from that instrument in this work. The GIS consists of two units (denoted as GIS2 and GIS3) of imaging gas scintillation proportional counters with a sealed-off gas cell equipped with an imaging phototube. The GIS is sensitive over the energy range of approximately 0.7 – 10 keV and has an energy resolution of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`E`$/$`E`$ = 0.078 at 6 keV (Ohashi et al. 1996, Makishima et al. 1996). The reduction process filtered data for elevation

Fig. 1. ROSAT PSPC X-ray image of G156.2$`+`$5.7 depicting emission over the energy range of 0.4-2.0 keV (courtesy of Steven Snowden). The two small circles represent the fields of view of the $`\mathrm{𝐴𝑆𝐶𝐴}`$ GIS observations, while the large circle represents the field of view of the $`\mathrm{𝑅𝑋𝑇𝐸}`$ PCA observation (see Table 1 and “Observations of G156.2+5.7.”)

Fig. 2. X-ray spectra of the northwestern rim of G156.2$`+`$5.7 as observed by the ASCA GIS and the RXTE PCA (see Table 1 and “Results”).

angle, stable pointing directions, the South Atlantic Anomaly and cut-off rigidity. The data were also screened for characteristics of the GIS internal background and screening based on event locations and rise time. The standard script “ASCASCREEN” was run to accomplish this reduction. To boost the signal-to-noise, for both pointings we combined the spectra observed by the GIS2 and GIS3 units and considered these combined spectra in our analysis.

### RXTE PCA Observations

Because of the rather large angular extent of G156.2$`+`$5.7 ($``$ 110 arcminutes, Green 2001), it was not possible to observe the entire SNR with a single pointing of the PCA, so we instead observed just the luminous northwestern rim. The PCA is a spectrophotometer comprised of an array of five coaligned proportional counter units that is sensitive to photons that have energies between approximately 2 and 60 keV. The energy resolution $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$$`E`$/$`E`$ of the array is 0.18 at 6 keV, and the maximum on-axis collecting area is about 6000 cm2 at 9.72 keV. The PCA data were screened to remove the time intervals during which (1) one or more of the five proportional counter units is off, (2) G156.2$`+`$5.7 is less than 10 above the limb of the Earth, (3) the background model is not well-defined and (4) the pointing direction of the detectors is more that 0.02 from the nominal pointing direction in either right ascension or declination.

## RESULTS

We first considered the two $`\mathrm{𝐴𝑆𝐶𝐴}`$ GIS observations of the northwestern rim: these observations were sensitive to thermal emission from G156.2$`+`$5.7 and we used the data from these observations to model this type of emission. We point out that the point source AX J0500$`+`$5238 lies along the northwestern rim and is believed to be a background galaxy unrelated to G156.2$`+`$5.7 (Tomida 1999, Yamauchi et al. 1999). We extracted spectra for two regions along this rim as sampled by the two $`\mathrm{𝐴𝑆𝐶𝐴}`$ GIS pointings (excluding flux from AX J0500$`+`$5238) and fit the spectra using a thermal $`\mathrm{𝑅𝐴𝑌𝑀𝑂𝑁𝐷}`$ model (Raymond and Smith 1977) with abundances frozen to solar values. Photoelectric absorption along the line of sight was fit using the $`\mathrm{𝑊𝐴𝐵𝑆}`$ model, which is based on the Wisconsin cross-sections (Morrison and McCammon 1983) and relative elemental abundances as described by Anders and Ebihara (1982). For the spectra extracted from both regions we obtained acceptable fits using $`\mathrm{𝑊𝐴𝐵𝑆}`$$`\times `$$`\mathrm{𝑅𝐴𝑌𝑀𝑂𝑁𝐷}`$ in both cases. In the case of the SeqID 50011000 observation, our fit values were $`\mathrm{𝑘𝑇}`$ = 0.48$`{}_{0.20}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+0.19}`$ keV and $`N`$H = 0.47$`{}_{0.19}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+0.25}`$ $`\times `$ 1022 cm-2 with $`\chi `$2/degrees of freedom = 42.6/149, while for the SeqID 57059000 observation our fit values were $`\mathrm{𝑘𝑇}`$ = 0.57$`{}_{0.17}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+0.13}`$ keV and $`N`$H = 0.24$`{}_{0.18}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+0.15}`$ $`\times `$ 1022 cm-2 with $`\chi `$2/degrees of freedom = 71.6/149. We therefore conclude that the thermal emission from the northwestern rim of G156.2$`+`$5.7. may be adequately modeled using the a column density and a temperature corresponding to the average values for these two parameters derived from these two fits; that is, assuming $`N`$H = 0.36 $`\times `$ 1022 cm-2 and $`\mathrm{𝑘𝑇}`$ = 0.52 keV.

We next considered the $`\mathrm{𝑅𝑋𝑇𝐸}`$ PCA observation of the northwestern rim of G156.2$`+`$5.7: because of the large field of view of the PCA, this observation sampled flux from G156.2$`+`$5.7 as well as AX J0500$`+`$5238 and a second background galaxy, 3C 130. To properly account for emission from these two galaxies, we first extracted and modeled a GIS spectrum for AX J0500$`+`$5238 and fit the spectrum over the energy range of 0.7–6.0 keV using a power law and the $`\mathrm{𝑊𝐴𝐵𝑆}`$ model for photoelectric absorption. We obtained an acceptable fit ($`\chi `$2/degrees of freedom = 90.5/448) to the spectrum with a photon index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ = 2.0$`{}_{0.7}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+1.1}`$ and a column density $`N`$H = 0.57$`{}_{0.57}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+0.94}`$ $`\times `$ 10-22 cm-2 (both broadly consistent with Tomida 1999 and Yamauchi et al. 1999). In the case of 3C 130 (which was not sampled by the $`\mathrm{𝐴𝑆𝐶𝐴}`$ GIS observations), Hardcastle (1998) obtained an acceptable fit to the spectrum of this source using the $`\mathrm{𝑅𝐴𝑌𝑀𝑂𝑁𝐷}`$ model ($`\mathrm{𝑘𝑇}`$ = 2.9$`{}_{2}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+9}`$ keV) and a column density $`N`$H = 0.9$`{}_{0.2}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+0.5}`$ $`\times `$ 1022 cm-2, assuming a redshift of 0.109. We adopt this model in our fitting procedure to describe the X-ray emission from 3C 130.

To model the non-thermal component to the observed X-ray emission from the northwestern rim of G156.2$`+`$5.7, we considered two different models: a simple power law model and the $`\mathrm{𝑆𝑅𝐶𝑈𝑇}`$ model (Reynolds 1998, Reynolds and Keohane 1999). This latter model describes a synchrotron spectrum from a power-law distribution (with an exponential cutoff) of electrons in a uniform magnetic field. The photon spectrum is itself a power-law, rolling off more slowly than exponential in photon energies. The $`\mathrm{𝑆𝑅𝐶𝑈𝑇}`$ model can be used to estimate the maximum energy of electrons accelerated by the SNR: we assume that the relativistic electron energy spectrum $`N`$e($`E`$) may be expressed as $`N`$e ($`E`$) = $`K`$ $`E`$ $`e`$$`^{E/E_{\mathrm{cutoff}}}`$, where $`K`$ is a normalization constant derived from the observed flux density of the region of the SNR at 1 GHz, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is defined as 2$`\alpha `$+1 (where $`\alpha `$ is the radio spectral index) and $`E`$cutoff is the maximum energy of the accelerated cosmic-ray electrons. A crucial advantage of this model is that a resulting fit may be compared with two observable properties of an SNR, namely its flux density at 1 GHz and $`\alpha `$. Also, one of the fit parameters for this model is the cutoff frequency $`\nu _{\mathrm{cutoff}}`$ of the electron synchrotron spectrum, defined as the frequency at which the flux has dropped by a factor of 10 from a straight power law. This frequency may be expressed as

$$\nu _{\mathrm{cutoff}}1.66\times 10^{16}\left(\frac{B_{\mu \mathrm{G}}}{10\mu G}\right)\left(\frac{E_{\mathrm{cutoff}}}{10\text{TeV}}\right)^2\text{Hz,}$$
(1)
where $`B_{\mu \mathrm{G}}`$ is the magnetic field strength of the SNR in $`\mu `$G, assuming the electrons are moving perpendicular to the magnetic field. By using the value for $`\nu _{\mathrm{cutoff}}`$ returned by $`\mathrm{𝑆𝑅𝐶𝑈𝑇}`$, an estimate for the maximum energy $`E`$cutoff for the shock-accelerated electrons may be calculated.

We therefore modeled the $`\mathrm{𝑅𝑋𝑇𝐸}`$ PCA spectrum using a four component model: a component for the thermal emission from the rim, a component for the emission from AX J0500$`+`$5238, a component for the emission from 3C 130 and finally a component for the nonthermal emission from the rim. For the first three components, we adopt the previously-described models and parameter values, while for the final component we separately used and compared a power law model and an $`\mathrm{𝑆𝑅𝐶𝑈𝑇}`$ model. Both of these models give acceptable fits to the non-thermal component of the spectrum: in the case of the power law model, for the photon index we obtain $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ = 2.0$`{}_{0.5}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+0.2}`$ ($`\chi `$2/degrees of freedom = 16.2/15 = 1.08). Our value for the photon index is similar to values found for the bright rims of other SNRs that feature non-thermal spectra, such as G266.2$``$1.2 and G347.3$``$0.5 (Slane et al. 1999; 2001). This value is also comparable to the value obtained by Yamauchi et al. 1999 ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ = 2.1) in their analysis of $`\mathrm{𝐺𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑎}`$ observations of G156.2$`+`$5.7. Using the $`\mathrm{𝑆𝑅𝐶𝑈𝑇}`$ model also yields an acceptable fit ($`\chi `$2/degrees of freedom = 19.9/14 = 1.42) with values of 0.66$`\pm `$0.05 and 1.58$`{}_{0.14}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+0.15}`$ Jy for $`\alpha `$ and the normalization, respectively: both of these values are broadly consistent with the results of Reich et al. (1992). It is very remarkable that using the $`\mathrm{𝑆𝑅𝐶𝑈𝑇}`$ model yields a fit which closely approximates the known radio properties of this SNR (note that the value for the normalization is almost half the total flux density at 1 GHz of G156.2$`+`$5.7 and reflects the bilateral radio morphology of this SNR). For the cutoff frequency parameter of this fit, we obtain $`\nu `$cutoff = 2.41$`{}_{0.23}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+0.22}`$ $`\times `$ 1017 Hz: assuming that the mean magnetic field strength of G156.2$`+`$5.7 is 14 $`\mu `$G (Reich et al. 1992) and using Equation (1), we estimate that the maximum energy of cosmic-ray electrons accelerated along the northwestern rim of G156.2$`+`$5.7 is $``$ 32 TeV, well short of the “knee” feature of the cosmic-ray spectrum. In Figure 2, we present fits to the two $`\mathrm{𝐴𝑆𝐶𝐴}`$ GIS2+GIS3 spectra and the $`\mathrm{𝑅𝑋𝑇𝐸}`$ PCA spectrum that we have extracted for this analysis, using the $`\mathrm{𝑆𝑅𝐶𝑈𝑇}`$ model to fit the non-thermal X-ray emission seen in the $`\mathrm{𝑅𝑋𝑇𝐸}`$ PCA spectrum. Additional X-ray observations of the northwestern rim of G156.2$`+`$5.7 with improved sensitivity are required to more rigorously constrain its spectral properties.

## COMPARISONS WITH OTHER GALACTIC SNRS

In Table 2, we present a comparison of the gross properties of five Galactic SNRs (SN 1006, G28.6$``$0.1, G266.2$``$1.2 and G347.3$``$0.5, as well as G156.2$`+`$5.7) with X-ray spectra which feature non-thermal emission. All of the SNRs in this class are X-ray luminous but radio faint and are expanding into regions of low ambient density ($`n`$ $``$ 0.2 cm-3): it appears that searches for other SNRs in this class should concentrate on sources expanding into a low density media. However, we point out that two other SNRs which are known to possess non-thermal components to their X-ray spectra, Cas A and RCW 86, are expanding into high density ambient media. Therefore, the density of the ambient media is not the only factor in determining the strength of the non-thermal component to X-ray emission from SNRs. No clear evidence exists that any of these five SNRs are currently accelerating cosmic-ray electrons to the “knee” of the cosmic-ray spectrum: in fact, estimates for $`E`$cutoff for each of these SNRs often fall short by an order of magnitude or more (Reynolds and Keohane 1999). Additional observations of Galactic SNRs using the present generation of X-ray observatories are required in order to analyze the phenomena of non-thermal X-ray emission and cosmic-ray acceleration by SNRs.

## ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We thank the referee for useful comments which helped enhance the quality of this paper. We are very grateful to Steven Snowden for preparing the ROSAT PSPC image of G156.2$`+`$5.7 for the purposes of this work. T. G. P. acknowledges a useful discussion with W. Reich regarding the radio properties of G156.2$`+`$5.7. T. G. P. also acknowledges support for this work from NASA LTSA grant NAG5-9237.

Email address of T.G. Pannuti: tpannuti@space.mit.edu


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# Properties evolution near the ferromagnetic quantum critical point in the series CaxSr1-xRuO3

## Abstract

A series of epitaxial films were grown across the solid solution CaxSr1-xRuO3 in order to pinpoint the ferromagnetic to paramagnetic quantum phase transition in this system and to study the evolution of transport and magnetic properties in its vicinity. The ferromagnetic $`T_c`$ of SrRuO3 was found to decrease linearly with Ca doping levels up to 70%. Further doping resulted in the abrupt elimination of ferromagnetic order, and the onset of low temperature ($`<`$ 10K) non-Fermi liquid (NFL) resistivity of the form $`\rho \rho _0+AT^{1.5}`$ for samples with $`x0.751.0`$. The resistivity exponent of 1.5 matches that previously observed for intermetallic alloys (such as MnSi) at their ferromagnetic quantum critical points, indicating possible universality of this NFL behavior. Field-dependent specific heat measurements on bulk samples at compositions near the quantum phase transition provide additional evidence for NFL behavior ($`C/T\mathrm{log}T`$) and show the conditions under which spin fluctuations contribute to the specific heat.

Ruthenates initially attracted the attention of the physics community when superconductivity was discovered in Sr2RuO4 maeno94 , a compound isostructural with the high-Tc superconductor La2-xBaxCuO4 bednorz86 . Since that time, ruthenates have proved to be interesting in their own right, with their 4$`d`$ magnetism khalifah01 ; grigera01 ; mypaper6 ; nakatsuji00  generating as much or more interest than their superconductivity. A focus area of ruthenate research which draws on both their good conductivity and their tunable magnetism has recently emerged, converging in the study of non-Fermi liquid behavior in these systems khalifah01 ; grigera01 ; klein99 ; capogna02 . The Fermi liquid model of Landau predicts a standard behavior of metallic systems at low temperatures, namely a resistivity $`\rho `$ which scales as $`T^2`$, a temperature independent magnetic susceptibility $`\chi `$, and a temperature normalized specific heat $`C/T`$ which is constant. The preconditions of this model ($`T`$-independent electron interactions which are short range in both space and time stewart01 ) are almost universally satisfied among solid state compounds. The compounds which are the exception to this rule (non-Fermi liquids, or NFL materials) are therefore of interest. The study of NFL compounds had its genesis with UxY1-xPd3 seaman91 , and has now been extended to a few dozen intermetallic systems stewart01 . NFL behavior in oxides remains rare, and the best examples to date have been found among ruthenates, most notably La4Ru6O19 khalifah01 , Sr3Ru2O7 grigera01 , and CaRuO3 klein99 .

One potential route for finding NFL behavior is tuning a system to the vicinity of a quantum phase transition (QPT), a regime where the length scale of electronic fluctuations are diverging as the precise end point of the quantum phase transition is approached. This methodology has been used to study NFL behavior in systems such as UxY1-xPd3 seaman91  and CeCu6-xAux lohneysen96a  whose antiferromagnetic ordering temperature $`T_N`$ can be suppressed to zero by doping. Additionally, NFL behavior can be found at a metamagnetic transition, as exemplified on the field-tuning experiments on Sr3Ru2O7 grigera01 . Similar behavior can be found by suppressing the Curie temperature ($`T_c`$) of ferromagnets, as was observed when hydrostatic pressure was applied to suppress the weak ferromagnetism of MnSi pfleiderer97 ; pfleiderer01 . Of these three routes to QPTs, those involving ferromagnetic QPTs are the rarest stewart01 , and the discovery and characterization of additional systems with ferromagnetic QPTs will provide essential information for the study of NFL quantum criticality.

The perovskite CaxSr1-xRuO3 series is a good candidate system for observing NFL behavior at the vicinity of a ferromagnetic quantum critical point, given that SrRuO3 is a moderately strong itinerant electron ferromagnet ($`T_c`$ = 160K) whose $`T_c`$ can be completely suppressed via Ca substitution. This system has been shown to be metallic across its entire breadth eom92 . Furthermore, studies on epitaxial films of its end member CaRuO3 have found a resistivity exponent of $`\rho \rho _0+AT^{1.5}`$ klein99 ; capogna02 . Specific heat studies on powder samples have found a diverging $`C/T`$ near a Ca content of x = 0.8 kiyama98 . As powder samples are unsuitable for measuring resistivity exponents, and no method exists for synthesizing precisely targeted compositions of CaxSr1-xRuO3 crystals, this study examined the resistivity of thin film samples in the CaxSr1-xRuO3 series. In addition, a select set of powder samples with a composition near x=0.8 were prepared to study the field-dependent behavior of the specific heat near the critical regime.

CaxSr1-xRuO3 films were grown epitaxially on a lanthanum aluminum oxide (LAO) substrate using a two-target pulsed laser deposition technique. The two targets of commercially obtained SrRuO3 and CaRuO3 (Praxair) were mounted on a rotating carousel, and by varying the relative number of laser pulses fired onto each target the stoichiometry of the film could be precisely controlled. For all mixed samples, the maximum number of pulses fired consecutively on one target was always less than 10 (note that 25 pulses are typically necessary to deposit a full perovskite monolayer). For film growth, the substrates were mounted on a heated plate that was kept at 675 C in a background of 80 mTorr of oxygen. KrF (248nm) eximer radiation was used with an energy density of 3.87 J/cm2 at the target. The thicknesses of the films were measured by cross-sectional scanning electron miscroscopy (SEM) analysis, and were approximately 2000 Å in height. Film compositions were monitored both by energy dispersive x-ray analysis (EDX) and Rutherford backscattering (RBS).

Powder CaxSr1-xRuO3 samples for heat capacity measurements were prepared from high purity starting reagents of RuO2 (Alfa, 99.95%), SrCO3 (Alfa, 99.995%), and CaCO3 (Alfa, 99.995%). Ground mixtures of the stoichiometric ratios of the reagents (with 1 mol % excess RuO2) were initially calcined at 1100 C to react ruthenium with the carbonates, minimizing the Ru volatility in future heating steps. The product of this reaction was phase separated into Ca-rich and Sr-rich perovskite fractions, as seen in powder x-ray diffraction patterns collected on a Scintag PAD-V diffractometer. Further grinding and heat treatments ($``$48h total) at 1300 C were necessary to obtain a single perovskite phase. Isostatically pressed pellets (1/2” dia, 2 tons pressure) were then prepared and fired at 1300 C. Small sections were cut from these dense pellets to use in heat capacity measurements.

Sample resistivities were measured using 4-probe measurements on bar samples with areas of approximately 1 $`\times `$ 4 mm2. Pt wire leads (1 mil) were attached using silver epoxy (Epotek, H20E). A short ($``$1 hr) high temperature anneal (300-500 C) was necessary to reduce the contact resistance below 5 $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. The dc resistance and magnetoresistance measurements were done in the 2-350K temperature range in a Quantum Design Physical Property Measurement System (PPMS) using a sufficiently low current (typically 0.5 to 5.0 mA) to avoid sample heating. Magnetoresistance measurements were made on heating after previously cooling samples in the absence of a magnetic field. Residual resistivities were on the order of 50-150 $`\mu \mathrm{\Omega }`$ cm while room temperature resistivities fell between 150 and 400 $`\mu \mathrm{\Omega }`$ cm. Heat capacity measurements were performed in the Quantum Design PPMS using dense plates of pressed powder samples with typical masses of 30-45 mg cut from the center of pellets. Magnetic measurements were performed in a commercial magnetometer (Quantum Design MPMS).

The primary advantage of thin film resistivity measurements over single crystal measurements in the CaxSr1-xRuO3 solid solution is the precise control of sample stoichiometries. Due to the different partition coefficients and different volatilities of CaRuO3 and SrRuO3, the growth of homogenous mixed CaxSr1-xRuO3 ruthenate perovskites crystals presents a tremendous technical challenge. In contrast, it is a facile process to accurately synthesize targeted compositions of CaxSr1-xRuO3 thin films using our two-target PLD process. In this study, the CaxSr1-xRuO3 composition was varied in 10% steps across the entire compositional regime, with one additional sample containing 75% Ca made to allow a finer mesh near the hypothesized quantum phase transition in this system. As can be seen in Fig. 1a, the targeted and measured composition of all the films were identical within the precision of the measurement techniques.

An additional measure of film quality is the residual resistivity ratio (RRR), here taken to be the resistivity at room temperature divided by the resistivity at 4K. It can be seen in Fig. 1b that the CaxSr1-xRuO3 films typically have good RRRs of $`3`$, with the SrRuO3 and CaRuO3 end members having extra high RRRs of 5 and 8, respectively. The lack of composition dependence across the mixed CaxSr1-xRuO3 samples indicates that the reduced RRRs of the quaternary oxides is a result of electronic inhomogeneity (from the presence of two different types of alkali earth sites) rather than strict compositional disorder. A similar trend has been observed in mixed CaxSr1-xRuO3 single crystals unpub2 . The RRRs of these samples measured here are comparable to those of most previous preparations of CaRuO3 and SrRuO3eom92 ; hyun02 , though we note that others have produced some exceptionally high quality films by utilizing chemical vapor deposition (CVD) techniques on strontium titanate (STO) substrates kiyama98 ; mackenzie98 ; klein96b .

Our first goal was to accurately determine the composition at which the ferromagnetism of SrRuO3 is completely suppressed via Ca-doping. Magnetic susceptibility measurements (Fig. 2a) show that samples with 60% and 70% Ca have substantial magnetic hysteresis, while the sample with 75% Ca does not, placing the endpoint of this quantum phase transition between $`x`$ = 0.70 and $`x`$ = 0.75. Due to the small mass of the deposited films ($`1\mu `$g), it was impractical to determine the ferromagnetic ordering temperatures from dc susceptibility measurements. Instead, ordering temperatures were obtained from magnetoresistance (MR) measurements, as shown in Fig. 2b. Each ferromagnetic sample has a well-defined peak. Gaussian fits accurately described the peak maxima, allowing a ferromagnetic $`T_c`$ to be determined for each sample in the range 0 $`x0.70`$. It should be noted that the Tc obtained from MR measurements is analogous to $`T_c`$ obtained from ac magnetic susceptibility measurements. In both of these cases, the peak maximum occurs at the midpoint of the transition where spin fluctuations are largest. This $`T_c`$ is always lower than the onset $`T_c`$ obtained from dc magnetic susceptibility measurements.

The ferromagnetic phase diagram of CaxSr1-xRuO3 (Fig. 2c) shows a linear dependence of $`T_c`$ on composition down to 70% Ca. If this line is extrapolated to $`T_c`$ = 0, an endpoint is predicted at $`x`$ = 0.86. This is in contrast to both the SQUID and MR measurements, which show that the ferromagnetic ordering disappears by $`x`$ = 0.75. It appears that there is a precipitous drop in the ferromagnetic $`T_c`$ in the vicinity of the CaxSr1-xRuO3 quantum phase transition. The origin of this abrupt change is not known, but will be the focus of future experiments using a finer compositional grid near the transition temperature.

The effect of ferromagnetism on the resistivity of CaxSr1-xRuO3 can be seen in Fig. 3a, which shows the normalized resistivity of samples with 0-70% Ca. The high temperature resistivity data show little compositional variation, though at lower temperatures each of these ferromagnetic samples shows a marked reduction in the resistivity on passing through the magnetic ordering transition due to the reduced spin scattering in the ordered phase. As expected, the downturns in the resistivity curves show monotonic compositional variation.

This compositional variation ceases for the nonmagnetic samples (0.75 $`x`$ 0.90), indicating that there are no significant differences in the spin scattering between these compositions (Fig. 3b). The failure of the 100% Ca sample to scale with the other nonmagnetic samples is a consequence of the higher RRR of this sample rather than intrinsic electronic differences. This can be seen in Fig. 3c, where the data are renormalized to highlight the low temperature (2-10K) variations of the resistivity, which reflect the the intrinsic electronic interactions. The low temperature scaling of our CaxSr1-xRuO3 samples shows that the resistivities of the entire compositional range collapse onto two primary curves. The nonmagnetic samples ($`0.75x1.00`$) fall on the more slowly varying curve and the ferromagnetic ($`0.00x<0.70`$) ones fall on the more rapidly varying curve. The only exception is the weakest ferromagnet ($`x=0.70`$), which falls on an intermediate curve. This establishes the low temperature regime of 2-10K as the proper regime for looking for scaling exponents and other quantum critical phenomena. It should be noted that this temperature regime has also been shown to be the most significant one for understanding the related ruthenates Sr3Ru2O7 grigera01  and Ca2-xSrxRuO4 nakatsuji03 .

One hallmark of non-Fermi liquid behavior is power law scaling of resistivity, of the general form $`\rho =\rho _0+AT^\alpha `$, where $`\alpha `$ is a number less than the normal value of 2 predicted by Landau theory. In principle, the exponent $`\alpha `$ can give insights into the nature of a system, via comparison with theoretical predictions stewart01 . In the framework of the spin fluctuation theories of Moriya Moriya95  and Lonzarich lonzarich97 , resistivity is predicted to scale as $`T^{5/3}`$ in the vicinity of a three dimensional ferromagnetic transition. This can be contrasted to the antiferromagnetic case, which is instead predicted to show a $`T^{3/2}`$ dependence. CaRuO3 was previously reported to obey $`T^{3/2}`$ scaling in its resistivity klein99 ; capogna02  over the range of 2-10K.

Log-log plots of the normalized resistivity ($`\rho \rho _0`$) versus temperature showed nearly linear behavior below 10K over our entire range of CaxSr1-xRuO3 samples, again confirming that the search for power laws should be done in this regime (data not shown). As seen in Fig. 4a, normal Fermi liquid behavior ($`T^2`$ scaling) is observed for samples with $`<`$ 70% Ca. On the other hand, samples with $``$ 75% Ca are found to scale as $`T^{1.5}`$ (fig 4b). The 70% Ca sample is again found to fall in an intermediate crossover regime, as seen when the extracted resistivity power law exponents are plotted in fig 4c. This convincingly demonstrates two important facts. First, the nature of the conduction is fundamentally different in the magnetic and nonmagnetic samples. Second, the scattering processes must be fundamentally the same for each of the individual samples within each class of samples (ferromagnetic and paramagnetic). From this, we conclude that the most ferromagnetic samples are behaving as Fermi liquids, while the entire range of nonmagnetic samples exhibit the same type of non-Fermi liquid behavior originally reported for the end member, CaRuO3. This is important to note as disorder has often been invoked as a necessary component of NFL behavior. However, the same NFL scaling of the resistivity data is observed both for the single phase (CaRuO3, $`x=1`$) and solid solution (CaxSr1-xRuO3, $`0.75x<1`$) films studied here, indicating that crystalline disorder is of minimal importance in these samples.

Compounds exhibiting Fermi liquid behavior are expected to have a heat capacity of $`C`$ = $`aT^3+\gamma T`$ due to the phononic and electronic contributions, respectively. The zero field (H = 0T) and high field (H = 9T) specific heat data for a range of compositions near the quantum phase transition ($`x`$ = 0.64, 0.72, 0.76, 0.80, and 0.84) are shown in fig. 5. At low temperatures where the phononic contribution is negligible, Fermi liquid theory predicts $`C/T`$ to have a constant value. This is not observed in the CaxSr1-xRuO3 samples, which instead have a minimum in $`C/T`$ plots around 10K. As temperatures are decreased below 10K, $`C/T`$ continues to increase with no apparent trend toward saturation. This non-Fermi liquid behavior is most prevalent near the ferromagnetic quantum phase transition in the CaxSr1-xRuO3 system, as seen in fig. 5a and also in previous measurements kiyama98 . The $`\gamma `$ values exhibits a maximum near this QPT (fig. 5c), with the $`\gamma `$ for $`x`$ = 0.72 exceeding 100 mJ/mol K2, more than three times higher than that of pure SrRuO3. As seen in figs. 5b and 6, the application of strong magnetic fields suppresses the electronic portion of the specific heat by 10-15 mJ/mol K2 for samples with $`x`$ = 0.64 to 0.72, indicating that spin fluctuations play an important role at these concentrations. These spin fluctuations are only contributing near the QPT, as both samples with higher Ca contents (fig. 6) and pure SrRuO3 kiyama98  have heat capacities which are field-independent.

Specific heat data provide additional evidence for quantum critical scaling at the quantum phase transition in the CaxSr1-xRuO3 system. One of the recognized hallmarks of quantum criticality is a log $`T`$ dependence of $`C/T`$ stewart01 ; lohneysen96a . In plots of the zero-field (H=0T) specific heats versus log $`T`$ (fig. 5a), the entire range of CaxSr1-xRuO3 samples studied exhibit linearity up to approximately 7K. The compositions nearest the QPT ($`x`$ = 0.68, 0.72) have the strongest temperature dependence in addition to having largest low temperature $`\gamma `$ values. This linearity is muted for the high-field data (fig. 5b), where the upturns in $`C/T`$ below 10K result in an increase of only $``$ 5 mJ/mol K2.

In conclusion, both resistivity and specific heat data indicates that the non-Fermi liquid behavior of CaRuO3 results from its proximity to the quantum phase transition where the ferromagnetic moment of SrRuO3 is suppressed. The NFL behavior which was initially reported for CaRuO3 is not unique to that composition, but is instead a universal feature of the CaxSr1-xRuO3 phase space with 0.75 $`<x<`$ 1. The NFL resistivity exponent of $`T^{1.5}`$ found for CaxSr1-xRuO3 samples is the same one observed when pressure is used to suppress the itinerant electron ferromagnetism of MnSi, and has also been reported for two other itinerant ferromagnets, ZrZn2 and Ni3Al pfleiderer01 . Given the widely disparate nature of the CaxSr1-xRuO3 films and the MnSi single crystals (oxide vs. intermetallic compositions, epitaxial films vs. single crystals, residual resistivities of a few hundreds of vs. a few tenths of $`\mu \mathrm{\Omega }`$ cm, doping levels of up to 25% vs. a pure system, strong vs. weak crystalline electrical field effects), it is intriguing that such similar behaviors are observed, and is indicative of the dominant role that the nearly magnetic itinerant electrons play in determining the behavior of these systems.

The helpful advice on experimental techniques from B. Sales, R. Jin, and J. Thompson was greatly appreciated, as was the theoretical guidance of A. Millis, D. Singh, and R. Osborn. Special thanks go to V. Keppens and G. Petculescu for making equipment at the University of Mississippi available for exploratory measurements. Research sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, managed by UT-Battelle, LLC.


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# Finite temperature theory of the trapped two dimensional Bose gas

## Abstract

We present a Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov (HFB) theoretical treatment of the two-dimensional trapped Bose gas and indicate how semiclassical approximations to this and other formalisms have lead to confusion. We numerically obtain results for the quantum mechanical HFB theory within the Popov approximation and show that the presence of the trap stabilizes the condensate against long wavelength fluctuations. These results are used to show where phase fluctuations lead to the formation of a quasicondensate.

The question of whether a weakly interacting Bose gas can undergo Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) when confined to an effectively two dimensional (2D) geometry, has gained significant topical interest with the advent of recent experiments gorlitz . It is well know that a 2D homogeneous ideal gas of bosons does not undergo BEC at finite temperature statmech . Indeed it has been rigorously shown that even when interactions between the particles are included hohenberg  there is no BEC phase transition at finite temperature, although a superfluid phase transition in the form of a Kosterlitz-Thouless (KT) transition KT  can be shown to take place. The KT transition occurs because of the enhanced importance of fluctuations in the 2D system yielding a quasi-condensate state where the length scale for phase coherence is small compared to the system size. The observation of such a phase transition has been reported recently safanov  for a 2D gas of dilute hydrogen on a liquid helium surface. For the non-interacting gas, Bagnato and Kleppner Bagnato  showed that an ideal gas in a 2D harmonic trap does exhibit a BEC phase. Petrov *et al.* petrov  included interactions and showed within the Thomas-Fermi approximation, that well below $`T_c`$ there exists a true condensate while at higher temperatures a quasicondensate forms. We are interested in the phase diagram at temperatures below and within this fluctuation regime to investigate both the true BEC state and the onset of phase fluctuations that lead to the destruction of the BEC.

In three dimensions (3D), the finite temperature Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov (HFB) treatment of the trapped Bose gas has proved very successful allan ; rob ; hzg . It is therefore natural to develop this approach for the 2D gas. Remarkably the quantum mechanical HFB formalism has, to the best of our knowledge, never been implemented in 2D, the development of which is the central result of this article. First let us consider however, a simplification to the fully quantum mechanical implementation of HFB that has been used to conclude previously that there is no BEC in an interacting 2D Bose gas.

In 2D, with a cylindrically symmetric trapping potential, the grand-canonical many-body Hamiltonian is given by

$$\begin{array}{c}H=\mathrm{d}^2r\widehat{\psi }^{}(r)\hfill \\ \hfill \left(\frac{\mathrm{}^2^2}{2m}+\frac{m\omega _0^2}{2}r^2\mu +\frac{g(r)}{2}\widehat{\psi }^{}(r)\widehat{\psi }(r)\right)\widehat{\psi }(r),\end{array}$$
(1)
where we have assumed a spatially dependent coupling parameter, introduced by the many-body T-matrix for the trapped case as proposed in mark ; sam .

In a manner identical to the development of the theory in 3D gapless2  we assume that the many-body Bose field operator can be decomposed into a mean, condensate part and a fluctuating field operator part such that $`\widehat{\psi }=\widehat{\psi }+\stackrel{~}{\psi }\varphi +\stackrel{~}{\psi }`$. The above Hamiltonian can then be diagonalised provided the condensate order parameter, $`\varphi `$, obeys the generalised Gross-Pitaevskii equation (GPE)

$$\left(\frac{\mathrm{}^2^2}{2m}+\frac{m\omega _0^2}{2}r^2\mu +g(n_c+2\stackrel{~}{n})\right)\varphi =0,$$
(2)
and the quasiparticle excitations obey the Bogoliubov-de Gennes (BdG) equations

$`\widehat{}u_ign_cv_i`$ $`=`$ $`E_iu_i`$
$`\widehat{}v_ign_cu_i`$ $`=`$ $`E_iv_i,`$ (3)
where $`\widehat{}=\frac{\mathrm{}^2^2}{2m}+\frac{m\omega _0^2}{2}r^2\mu +g(2n_c+2\stackrel{~}{n})`$, $`n_c=\varphi ^{}\varphi `$ is the condensate density and $`\stackrel{~}{n}`$ the noncondensate density, which is evaluated by populating the quasiparticle levels according to the usual Bose distribution. In the derivation of these equations we have used the canonical transformation $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }=_i[u_i\widehat{\alpha }_iv_i^{}\widehat{\alpha }_i^{}]`$ where the $`\widehat{\alpha }_i`$ satisfy the usual Bose commutation relations and we have taken the so called Popov approximation, neglecting anomalous pair averages of the fluctuating field operator.

Together, the GPE and BdG equations form a closed set and can be solved numerically using techniques analogous to those developed in 3D. This we will describe shortly, but first let us attempt to obtain a semiclassical solution of these equations. This is the approach taken by previous authors mullin .

Let us assume that the temperature is large compared to the energy level spacing in the trap. We can now replace the quasiparticle amplitudes such that $`u_iue^{i\theta }`$ and $`v_ive^{i\theta }`$ where the common phase, $`\theta `$, defines a quasiparticle momentum, $`𝐩=\mathrm{}\theta `$. Neglecting spatial derivatives of $`u`$, $`v`$, and $`𝐩`$ (local density approximation) and making a continuum approximation for the Bose distribution function, the quasiparticle excitation spectrum is found to be given by

$$E_{sc}(𝐩,𝐫)=\sqrt{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{sc}^2(gn_c)^2},$$
(4)
where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{sc}=\frac{𝐩^2}{2m}+\frac{1}{2}m\omega _0^2r^2\mu +2gn_c+2g\stackrel{~}{n}`$ and the condensate density is still calculated via the GPE. The density of excited state particles can now be integrated in closed form to give

$$\stackrel{~}{n}=\frac{1}{\lambda ^2}\left[\mathrm{ln}\left(1\mathrm{exp}(\sqrt{t^2s^2})\right)+\frac{t}{2}\frac{1}{2}\sqrt{t^2s^2}\right],$$
(5)
where $`\lambda ^2=\mathrm{}^2/2\pi mkT`$, $`s=gn_c/kT`$ and $`t=\frac{1}{kT}\left(\frac{1}{2}m\omega _0^2r^2\mu +2gn_c\right)`$. These semiclassical HFB equations form a closed set and it is this set of equations that previous authors have attempted to solve self-consistently. This is not possible however, as the semiclassical approximation can only be used consistently at low energy if combined with a Thomas-Fermi approximation for the condensate reidl . There are therefore no solutions to these equations.

It is trivial to show that in the Thomas-Fermi limit $`t=s`$ and the expression for the semiclassical thermal density is undefined. Indeed, even for low particle numbers, it can be shown that the arguments of the square roots always contain values at some spatial point that are negative (and approach zero from below in the Thomas-Fermi limit) and hence this expression is never well defined. The origin of this problem lies in the expression for the semiclassical excitation spectrum. At low energies, or equivalently long wavelengths, Eq. (4) yields imaginary energies. This has been used to conclude that in 2D BEC cannot take place since the condensate is destabilised by long wavelength fluctuations mullin . This is simply incorrect. What one is seeing is a failure of the semiclassical approximation. If the discrete nature of the excitation spectrum for the finite size trap is not retained for the low energy excitations, and this is the case within the semiclassical approximation, there comes a point where the magnitude of the chemical potential exceeds the magnitude of the effective potential and the argument in Eq. (4) becomes negative for low p. Just because the semiclassical treatment of the HFB formalism fails does not mean that the quantum mechanical theory will also. In this case the long wavelength oscillations, corresponding to the $`𝐩=\mathrm{𝟎}`$ limit in the semiclassical case, are precluded by the finite size of the trap. Therefore, to determine whether BEC can take place in 2D, the full, numerically expensive, discrete calculation must be undertaken.

As an aside, it is possible to obtain a well defined semiclassical theory of the trapped 2D gas if one makes the further Hartree-Fock approximation kim . This consists of setting the $`v(𝐫,𝐩)`$ terms in the semiclassical HFB treatment to zero everywhere. The Hartree-Fock excitation spectrum is now single particle-like and is just given by $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{sc}`$ rather than by the phonon-like Bogoliubov spectrum of Eq. (4). There is therefore no problem with the infrared divergence seen previously and one can integrate to obtain the semiclassical Hartree-Fock thermal density,

$$\stackrel{~}{n}=\frac{1}{\lambda ^2}\left[\mathrm{ln}\left(1e^{(\frac{1}{2}m\omega _0^2r^2+2gn_c+2g\stackrel{~}{n}\mu )/kT}\right)\right],$$
(6)
which can be solved self-consistently together with the GPE to obtain a Bose condensed solution. Interestingly, if one omits the ground state from the calculation, effectively demanding that condensation does not occur, then it is still possible to obtain a self-consistent solution for the thermal density at all temperatures. Therefore, at the level of the semiclassical Hartree-Fock approximation, one might conclude that there is no BEC in the thermodynamic limit for a 2D gas of trapped, interacting bosons.

By removing the lowest lying state however, one has truncated the available state space and so one may expect that the thermodynamically stable state is the condensed phase. This is confirmed by calculating the free energies for the two states. Above the BEC transition temperature the free energy of the condensed and uncondensed solutions are virtually indistinguishable, but below the critical temperature the free energy for the condensed solution is the lower, confirming that within the Hartree-Fock approximation, BEC is the thermodynamically favoured state mullin .

We now proceed to solve the quantum mechanical, discrete, HFB equations \[Eq. (2) and Eq. (3)\] self-consistently. The method of solution is described in detail elsewhere gapless2 , but is outlined here for completeness.

First, the GPE equation is solved using an expansion in some appropriate basis set with the condensate and noncondensate densities set to zero. The solution for the condensate wavefunction is then used to construct $`n_c`$ and the process iterated to find a converged solution. One now needs to calculate the noncondensate density. To do this one decouples the BdG equations by making the transformation to the auxillary functions $`\psi _i^{(\pm )}u_i\pm v_i`$. One can thus obtain equations for $`\psi _i^{(+)}`$ and $`\psi _i^{()}`$ separately. These are solved using a further basis set expansion, for which we use the basis of excited states of the GPE to ensure orthogonality with the condensate and to simplify the construction of the matrix elements. The noncondensate density is then constructed by populating the quasiparticle states. This value of $`\stackrel{~}{n}`$ is inserted into the GPE and the whole process repeated iteratively until convergence.

In contrast to the semiclassical HFB treatment we have no difficulty in finding self-consistent solutions to the quantum, discrete HFB equations and typical results are presented below. In the numerical solution we non-dimensionalise our equations using the natural harmonic oscillator units. In this case we take our Rydberg of energy to be $`\mathrm{}\omega _0/2`$ and in these units the non-dimensional interaction parameter, $`g(r)`$, takes values between $`0.09`$ and $`0.1`$. This parameter, in 3D, depends only upon the s-wave scattering length, $`a`$, however, in 2D, $`g`$ also depends upon the strength of the confining potential in the third dimension. The 2D gas thus represents a system where the interparticle interaction strength can be tuned by modulating the confining potential in the z-direction in a manner analogous to the use of the Feshbach resonance in 3D ketterle . It has even been suggested that the sign of the interaction strength (and hence whether the interactions are attractive or repulsive) can be changed by tuning the confining potential in the third direction petrov .

In Fig. (1) we display the low lying excitation spectrum as a function of temperature for the trapped gas of 2000 87Rb atoms. Shown are the lowest lying $`m=1`$, $`m=2`$ and $`m=0`$ quasiparticle, or collective, modes up to the critical temperature. We point out that the results shown are those of the HFB-Popov equations. In three dimensions, in the presence of significant direct driving of the thermal cloud, the theory fails to predict shifts in the frequencies above about $`0.6T_c`$ sam\_2ndorder . These are related to the dynamics of the thermal cloud not included in this theory. The excitation spectrum shown should be valid in experiments where the condensate is driven directly.

In the three dimensional asymmetric case this approximation is valid only below $`0.6T_c`$. However, we include the higher temperatures for the symmetrical case where the theory in 3D does not fail. The $`m=1`$ mode is the Kohn mode kohn  and clearly satisfies the generalised Kohn theorem to within our resolution, apart from a slight deviation near the critical temperature. The quadrupole ($`m=2`$) and breathing ($`m=0`$) modes are well defined and nowhere look like going soft (approaching zero frequency as an indication of an instability). We therefore conclude there are well defined solutions to the quantum mechanical HFB equations, in a manner exactly the same as in 3D, for all temperatures below the critical temperature.

It is important to note that, at low temperatures, the frequency of the lowest lying $`m=0`$ mode, or breathing mode, is at precisely $`2\omega _0`$, independent of the interaction strength. This result was predicted some time ago by Pitaevskii and Rosch pitaevskii , purely from symmetry arguments. Indeed, they show rigorously that the existence of $`2\omega _0`$ oscillations is ensured by the underlying SO(2,1) symmetry of the full quantum theory Hamiltonian for the interacting harmonically confined 2D gas with a contact interaction. It is therefore noteworthy (and critical) that our calculations confirm this result numerically at low temperatures. At higher temperatures the result is still valid, however the excitations are those for a condensate in an effective potential which is modified by the addition of the potential $`2g\stackrel{~}{n}`$ from the static thermal cloud. The condensate effectively sees a weaker harmonic potential and hence the $`m=0`$ mode has a slightly lower frequency. Above the critical temperature, the excitation frequencies, of course, go over to those of the thermal gas. Similarly, at high temperatures (near the critical temperature) the $`m=1`$ mode no longer satisfies the Kohn theorem precisely. This is again due to the presence of the potential from the thermal cloud. The effective potential in which the condensate oscillates is no longer harmonic and the Kohn theorem broken. As discussed previously gapless2 , if the full dynamics of the thermal cloud were included, then the Kohn theorem would be satisfied at all temperatures.

In Fig. 2 we show the condensate fraction as a function of temperature. It is clear that at temperatures below the critical temperature we obtain a macroscopic occupation of the ground state, which implies BEC. This however is not sufficient. For true condensation we require a well defined phase over the entire condensate. In 3D this is true for all temperatures below $`T_c`$ except for a small region near the critical temperature often refered to as the Ginzburg region. In this region phase fluctuations prohibit the formation of a true condensate. In a uniform 2D gas this region extends all the way to $`T=0`$ and is what prevents the formation of a BEC. In Fig. 3 we plot the off-diagonal correlation function, $`g^{(1)}(0,r)`$ nara  showing that only at low temperatures is there a coherent condensate with a correlated phase spanning the condensate. As the temperature is increased the coherence begins to decay on a length scale less than the dimensions of the gas. In analogy with Petrov et al. petrov , if we expand the field operator as $`\widehat{\psi }=\varphi _0+\delta \widehat{\psi }=\sqrt{\widehat{n}}e^{i\widehat{\varphi }}`$ then we can express the noncondensate density as $`\stackrel{~}{n}=\delta \widehat{\psi }^{}\delta \widehat{\psi }=\frac{\delta \widehat{n}^2}{4n_0}+i[\delta \widehat{n},\widehat{\varphi }]/2+n_0\widehat{\varphi }^2`$. At low temperatures density fluctuations are suppressed and this yields $`\stackrel{~}{n}/n_0\widehat{\varphi }^2`$. Using the Thomas-Fermi approximation Petrov et al. conclude that phase fluctuations lead to the formation of a quasicondensate at temperatures of around $`T=T_c/2`$ for our parameters. In our case we find that the condensate persists to approximately this temperature, but above this the phase becomes ill defined and the system is best described as a quasicondensate. This is consistent with our numerical calculation of the correlation function. A treatment of the 2D gas which could describe the quasicondensate has recently been formulated nick , but has yet to be implemented.

In conclusion, we have shown that the presence of the trap stabilizes the condensate against long wavelength fluctuations. This is true not only for density fluctuations, but for phase fluctuations as well, which are included in our formalism via the contribution to the non-condensate density from low-energy quasiparticles. Our work is consistent with Petrov et al. petrov . A 2D trapped dilute gas of weakly interacting bosons therefore does undergo BEC, forming a pure condensate at temperatures below a transition region near $`T_c`$. Although this conclusion has been reached by, among others, Petrov et al. petrov  and Bagnato and Kleppner Bagnato , the converse conclusion has also appeared in the literature mullin . The prospect of performing the HFB calculation has been proposed as a means of clarifying the issue (in addition to the above references, see for example, Bayindir and Tanatar Bayindir ), but to this point no one had done so. We have now performed this calculation and unambiguously shown that BEC does occur for the 2D trapped interacting gas when the discrete nature of the energy spectrum is taken into consideration.

This work was funded through a University of Otago Research Grant and by the Marsden Fund of the Royal Society of New Zealand. BvZ would like to acknowledge support from Rajat Bhaduri through the NSERC of Canada. SM thanks the Royal Society (London) for financial support and CG the DAAD for partial support. DH would like to thank Matthew Davis for many stimulating and useful discussions.