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# Stable embedded solitons

## Abstract

Stable embedded solitons are discovered in the generalized third-order nonlinear Schrödinger equation. When this equation can be reduced to a perturbed complex modified KdV equation, we developed a soliton perturbation theory which shows that a continuous family of sech-shaped embedded solitons exist and are nonlinearly stable. These analytical results are confirmed by our numerical simulations. These results establish that, contrary to previous beliefs, embedded solitons can be robust despite being in resonance with the linear spectrum. \[PACS: 42.65.Tg, 05.45.Yv.\]

Pulse propagation in optical fibers attracts a lot of attention these days. Pico-second pulses are well described by the nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS) equation which accounts for the second-order dispersion and self-phase modulation. But for femtosecond pulses, other physical effects such as the third-order dispersion and self-steepening become non-negligible. The physical model which incorporates these additional effects is

$$i\left[\psi _z+\beta |\psi |^2\psi _\tau +\mu (|\psi |^2)_\tau \psi \right]+\frac{1}{2}\psi _{\tau \tau }+|\psi |^2\psi +i\psi _{\tau \tau \tau }=0.$$
(1)
Here $`\psi `$ is the envelope of the electric field, $`z`$ is the distance, $`\tau `$ is the retarded time, $`\beta `$ and $`\mu `$ are the self-steepening coefficients . All quantities have been normalized. For optical pulses, $`\beta =\mu `$ . In this paper, we allow $`\beta `$ and $`\mu `$ to be different for the sake of mathematical analysis. The Raman effect, which is dissipative in nature, is also non-negligible . It is not included in the model (1) because we want to focus our attention on the other physical effects in this paper.

The third-order dispersion term in Eq. (1) is significant because it qualitatively changes the linear dispersion relation of Eq. (1). Its effect on the NLS soliton is to generate continuous-wave radiation and causes the soliton to decay . However, solitary waves of Eq. (1) which are embedded inside the linear spectrum do exist in certain parameter regimes , and such waves are called embedded solitons . To see why a solitary wave of Eq. (1) has to be an embedded soliton, we substitute solitary waves of the form $`\mathrm{\Psi }(\tau Vz)e^{i\lambda z}`$ into (1), where velocity $`V`$ and frequency $`\lambda `$ are constants. We readily find that for any frequency $`\lambda `$, the linear equation for $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ allows oscillatory solutions. Thus, all $`\lambda `$ lies in the continuous spectrum of Eq. (1), hence the solitary wave must be an embedded soliton. Stability of these embedded solitons is clearly an important issue. Previous analytical studies have shown that if embedded solitons are isolated in a conservative system, they are at most semi-stable, i.e., the perturbed soliton persists or decays depending on whether the initial energy is higher or lower than that of the embedded soliton . A physical explanation for it is as follows . If the initial state has energy higher than the embedded soliton, it just sheds extra energy through tail radiation and asymptotically approaches this embedded soliton; but if the initial state has lower energy than the embedded soliton, the energy loss (through radiation) drives the solution away from the embedded soliton, resulting in instability. However, embedded solitons in Eq. (1) are not isolated: they exist as a continuous family, parameterized by their energy . Thus, the above physical argument for semi-stability does not apply. Numerical results suggest that the families of double-hump embedded solitons in Eq. (1) are still semi-stable , but the family of single-hump embedded solitons are fully stable .

In this paper, we show that single-hump embedded solitons in Eq. (1) are fully stable when $`|\beta 6|1`$ and $`|\mu |1`$. To our knowledge, this is the first time stable embedded solitons are rigorously established in the literature. This result indicates that embedded solitons can be as robust as conventional (non-embedded) solitons, contrary to the previous belief. The method we will use is to develop a soliton perturbation theory for the (integrable) complex modified KdV (CMKdV) equation, supplemented by numerical simulations.

We first employ the variable transformation

$$\psi =e^{\frac{1}{6}i(\tau \frac{1}{18}z)}\sqrt{\frac{6}{\beta }}u(z,\xi ),\xi \tau \frac{1}{12}z,$$
(2)
upon which Eq. (1) becomes

$$u_z+u_{\xi \xi \xi }+6|u|^2u_\xi =i\alpha |u|^2u\gamma (|u|^2)_\xi u,$$
(3)
where $`\alpha =(6\beta )/\beta `$, and $`\gamma =6\mu /\beta `$. If $`\alpha =\gamma =0`$, the above equation is the CMKdV equation which is completely integrable by the inverse scattering method . It admits sech-shaped soliton solutions whose amplitudes and velocities are free parameters (see below). In this paper, we consider the case $`|\alpha |,|\gamma |1`$, i.e., $`|\beta 6|1`$ and $`|\mu |1`$. In this limit, soliton evolution in the perturbed CMKdV equation (3) can be studied by a soliton perturbation theory. For this purpose, we denote $`\alpha =ϵ\alpha _0,\gamma =ϵ\gamma _0`$, where $`|ϵ|1`$. When $`ϵ=0`$, Eq. (3) has the following soliton solutions

$$u_0(z,\xi )=U_0(\theta )e^{i\lambda z},\theta \xi Vz,$$
(4)
where

$$U_0(\theta )=r\text{sech}r\theta e^{ik\theta },V=r^23k^2,\lambda =2k(r^2+k^2).$$
(5)
Here amplitude $`r`$ and frequency $`k`$ are free parameters. When $`0|ϵ|1`$, these solitons will deform due to perturbations on the right hand side of Eq. (3), and their amplitudes and frequencies will undergo slow evolution with respect to $`z`$. Below, we use the soliton perturbation theory to derive this evolution.

First, we write the solution in the form

$$u(z,\xi )=e^{i_0^z\lambda 𝑑z}U(z,\theta ),\theta =\xi _0^zV𝑑z.$$
(6)
Substituting this form into (3), we find the equation for $`U(z,\theta )`$ as

$$U_z+i\lambda UVU_\theta +U_{\theta \theta \theta }+6|U|^2U_\theta =ϵF(U),$$
(7)
where

$$F(U)=\left[i\alpha _0|U|^2\gamma _0(|U|^2)_\theta \right]U.$$
(8)
Next, we expand the solution $`U`$ into a perturbation series

$$U(z,\theta )=U_0(\theta )+ϵU_1(z,\theta )+ϵ^2U_2(z,\theta )+\mathrm{},$$
(9)
where $`U_0`$ is given in (5). When this series is substituted into Eq. (7), at order 1, the equation is satisfied automatically. At order $`ϵ`$, we obtain the linear inhomogeneous equation for $`U_1`$ as

$$\left(\frac{}{z}+\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}U_1\\ U_1^{}\end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{c}F(U_0)\\ F^{}(U_0)\end{array}\right),$$
(10)
where $``$ is the linearization operator of Eq. (7), and superscript “\*” denotes the complex conjugation. At initial distance $`z=0`$, $`U_1=0`$; when $`z1`$, $`U_1`$ approaches a steady state with continuous-wave tails at infinity. Generation of continuous-wave tails is a distinctive feature of embedded solitons under perturbations . These tails have the form $`he^{2ik\theta }`$, where $`h`$ is the tail amplitude. Due to the Sommerfeld radiation condition, these tails can only appear at $`\theta 1`$, not at $`\theta 1`$. In other words,

$$\underset{z\mathrm{},\theta 1}{lim}U_1=he^{2ik\theta },\underset{z\mathrm{},\theta 1}{lim}U_1=0.$$
(11)
One of the key steps in the soliton perturbation theory is to determine the amplitude $`h`$ of continuous-wave tails in $`U_1`$. This can be done by solving Eq. (10) directly, starting with the zero initial condition . The way to do it is to expand the solution into the complete set of eigenfunctions for the linearization operator $``$, which are just the squared eigenstates of the Zakharov-Shabat system with the soliton potential . This we have done. But a much simpler way to derive $`h`$ is to just consider the steady-state solution $`U_1`$. This allows us to drop the $`z`$ derivative in Eq. (10), and use only solvability conditions to obtain $`h`$. This idea has been used before .

To pursue this latter approach, we need the bounded eigenfunctions of the adjoint linearization operator $`^A`$ with zero eigenvalue. Here the inner product used to define an adjoint operator is

$$f(\theta ),g(\theta )=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}f(\theta )^Tg(\theta )𝑑\theta ,$$
(12)
where the superscript “$`T`$” represents the transpose of a vector. Under this inner product, the adjoint operator $`^A`$ can be readily obtained. Eigenfunctions of $`^A`$ are simply a different set of squared Zakharov-Shabat eigenstates . With this in mind, we can easily show that $`^A`$ has four bounded eigenfunctions for zero eigenvalue — two localized and two non-localized. The localized (discrete) eigenfunctions are

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_1=\left[\begin{array}{c}U_{0\theta }^{}\\ U_{0\theta }\end{array}\right],\mathrm{\Phi }_2=\left[\begin{array}{c}U_0^{}\\ U_0\end{array}\right].$$
(13)
They are associated with the translational and phase invariances of solitons in the CMKdV equation. The non-localized (continuous) eigenfunctions are

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_3=\left[\begin{array}{c}r^2\text{sech}^2r\theta e^{4ik\theta }\\ (r\mathrm{tanh}r\theta +3ik)^2e^{2ik\theta }\end{array}\right],$$
(14)
$$\mathrm{\Phi }_4=\left[\begin{array}{c}(r\mathrm{tanh}r\theta 3ik)^2e^{2ik\theta }\\ r^2\text{sech}^2r\theta e^{4ik\theta }\end{array}\right].$$
(15)
Now we take the inner product between Eq. (10) (with no $`z`$ derivative) and each of the above four eigenfunctions. In view of the asymptotics (11), we see that the first two inner-product equations are simply

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_1,\left(\begin{array}{c}F(U_0)\\ F^{}(U_0)\end{array}\right)=\mathrm{\Phi }_2,\left(\begin{array}{c}F(U_0)\\ F^{}(U_0)\end{array}\right)=0,$$
(16)
which are satisfied automatically when the form (8) for $`F(U)`$ is utilized. The last two inner-product equations are equivalent. After simple calculations, these equations give a formula for the amplitude $`h`$ as

$$h=\frac{1}{4}i\pi (\alpha _0+2\gamma _0k)\frac{r3ik}{r+3ik}\text{sech}\frac{3\pi k}{2r}.$$
(17)
When the tail amplitude $`h`$ has been derived, we can proceed to order $`ϵ^2`$. Again, by applying the solvability conditions for solution $`U_2`$, the dynamical equations for soliton parameters $`r`$ and $`k`$ will be obtained (see  for an example). An alternative way to derive these dynamical equations, which is simpler and physically more insightful, is by using conservation laws . In this latter way we will proceed.

Eq. (3) admits the following two conservation laws:

$$I_1=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}|u|^2𝑑\xi ,$$
(18)
$$I_2=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\left\{\frac{1}{2}i\alpha (u_\xi u^{}uu_\xi ^{})\gamma |u_\xi |^2+\gamma (1+\frac{1}{3}\gamma )|u|^4\right\}𝑑\xi .$$
(19)
When Eq. (6) and the perturbation series (9) are substituted into these conservation laws and terms up to order $`ϵ^2`$ retained, the first conservation law becomes

$$\frac{d}{dz}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\left\{|U_0|^2+ϵ(U_0U_1^{}+U_0^{}U_1)+ϵ^2(U_0U_2^{}+U_0^{}U_2)+ϵ^2|U_1|^2\right\}=0.$$
(20)
To proceed further, the following facts are noted: (i) $`|U_0|^2`$ changes slowly (on the distance scale $`ϵ^2z`$); (ii) the $`U_1`$ field is driven by the inhomogeneous term in Eq. (10) and quickly becomes stationary in the soliton ($`U_0`$) region; the $`U_2`$ field is similar; (iii) the $`U_1`$ field develops a continuous-wave tail of amplitude $`h`$ on the left-hand-side of the soliton \[see Eq. (11)\]; this tail travels at its group velocity $`v_g=12k^2`$; in the moving coordinate $`\xi `$, its relative velocity is $`v_gV=(r^2+9k^2)`$ \[see Eq. (5)\]. The fact (ii) means that the $`z`$ derivatives of the integrals of the second and third terms in Eq. (20) are zero and can be dropped. The fact (iii) means that the $`z`$ derivative of the integral of the last term in (20) is $`ϵ^2(r^2+9k^2)|h|^2`$. When these results and the $`U_0`$ formula (5) are utilized, the first conservation law (20) gives the dynamical equation for the soliton amplitude $`r`$. Similar calculations for the second conservation law produces the dynamical equation for the soliton frequency $`k`$. When the $`h`$ formula (17) is substituted, and ($`ϵ\alpha _0,ϵ\gamma _0`$) replaced by the physical parameters ($`\alpha ,\gamma `$), the dynamical equations for $`r`$ and $`k`$ finally take the form

$$\frac{dr}{dz}=\frac{1}{32}\pi ^2(\alpha +2\gamma k)^2(r^2+9k^2)\text{sech}^2\frac{3\pi k}{2r},$$
(21)
$$\frac{dk}{dz}=\frac{1}{32r}\pi ^2(\alpha +2\gamma k)[3\alpha k\gamma (r^2+3k^2)](r^2+9k^2)\text{sech}^2\frac{3\pi k}{2r},$$
(22)
and they govern the soliton evolution under small perturbations $`|\alpha |,|\gamma |1`$ in Eq. (3). These two equations are the main analytical results of this paper.

Dynamical equations (21) and (22) admit a continuous family of fixed points:

$$k=\frac{\alpha }{2\gamma },r\text{is arbitrary}.$$
(23)
These fixed points correspond to a continuous family of embedded solitons (4) in the original wave equation (3). Their amplitudes $`r`$ are arbitrary, while their speeds $`V`$ depend on $`r`$ according to Eq. (5). It is easy to check that these embedded solitons are precisely the ones reported in . We have further determined the linear and nonlinear stabilities of these fixed points in equations (21) and (22), and found that they are all stable, both linearly and nonlinearly. This means that these sech-shaped embedded solitons in the perturbed CMKdV equation (3) are both linearly and nonlinearly stable, despite the fact that such solitons reside inside the continuous spectrum of the wave system and are in resonance with the continuous waves. They mark a distinct contrast with isolated embedded solitons and the continuous family of double-hump embedded solitons in other physical systems, which were shown to be semi-stable .

The simplest way to demonstrate the linear and nonlinear stabilities of fixed points (23) is by drawing a phase portrait in the $`(r,k)`$ plane. Such a phase portrait with $`\alpha =0.1`$ and $`\gamma =0.1`$ is shown in Fig. 1. At these parameter values, the fixed points are the $`k=\frac{1}{2}`$ line (dashed). Clearly, we see that these points are nonlinearly stable, and they attract a large region of initial parameters. At other $`\alpha `$ and $`\gamma `$ values where $`\alpha \gamma <0`$, the phase portraits are qualitatively similar. If $`\alpha \gamma >0`$, the phase portrait is just the one of $`\alpha \gamma <0`$ with $`k`$ replaced by $`k`$.

Lastly, we confirm the above analytical results by direct numerical simulations of Eq. (3). Our numerical scheme is the pseudo-spectral method along the $`\xi `$ direction, and the fourth-order Runge-Kutta method along the $`z`$ direction. Damping boundary conditions have also been used to filter out the energy radiation emitted into the far field. A number of numerical simulations of Eq. (3), starting with the soliton solution (4) at $`z=0`$, have been performed for various small $`\alpha `$ and $`\gamma `$ values. Good agreement between the numerics and the analysis has been observed. In addition, as $`\alpha `$ and $`\gamma `$ approach zero, the difference between the leading-order perturbation results \[Eqs. (21) and (22)\] and numerical values approaches zero, meaning that our perturbation theory is asymptotically accurate. For illustration purpose, we fix the physical parameters $`\alpha =0.1`$ and $`\gamma =0.1`$, and choose two sets of initial amplitude and frequency values, $`(r_0,k_0)`$=(1.5, 1) and (1.5, 0), which are on the opposite sides of the line of fixed points in Fig. 1. The simulation results are displayed in Fig. 2. For $`(r_0,k_0)`$=(1.5, 1), the pulse evolution is plotted in Fig. 2(a). Due to perturbations in Eq. (3), the speed of the pulse slowly increases. Thus the pulse turns around and eventually approaches a steady positive speed. In Fig. 2(b), the field profiles at two distances are plotted. As predicted, a continuous-wave tail develops on the left of the embedded soliton. Note that the tail amplitude decreases with distance $`z`$, meaning that the embedded soliton is stabilizing . A direct comparison between the numerics and the leading-order perturbation theory in the phase plane is shown in Fig. 2(d). We see that the numerical pulse frequency $`k`$ indeed approaches the theoretical value $`\frac{1}{2}`$.

When $`(r_0,k_0)`$=(1.5, 0), the numerical pulse evolution is displayed in Fig. 2(c). In this case, the soliton slows down under perturbations, contrary to the previous case. Examination of the radiation field indicates that the continuous-wave tails emitted to the left of the soliton are also lessening, indicating that the embedded soliton is stabilizing again as the theory predicts. Comparison in Fig. 2(d) between the numerics and the theory for this case also shows good agreement.

Physically, why are embedded solitons in Eq. (3) fully stable? There are two major reasons. First, these solitons exist as a continuous family. In other words, in the neighborhood of each embedded soliton, there are other embedded solitons nearby which have higher or lower energy. Thus when perturbed, an embedded soliton may always relax into an adjacent one, similar to the NLS-solitons. The second reason is that these embedded solitons are single-humped. Recall that double-humped embedded solitons in Eq. (1) also exist as a continuous family, but they are not stable . This is not surprising, as the instability of multi-hump solitons is well documented in the literature. Embedded solitons in Eq. (3), however, are single-humped. Thus they could be fully stable as we have shown in this paper.

We note that for ultra-short pulses, $`\beta =\mu `$; while in this paper, $`|\alpha |,|\gamma |1`$, i.e., $`|\beta 6|1`$ and $`|\mu |1`$. In the physical case $`\beta =\mu `$, a continuous family of single-hump embedded solitons also exists . In addition, Gromov, et al’s numerical computations show that a sech pulse tends to one or a few single-hump embedded solitons . This numerical evidence, together with the above analytical results and physical arguments, strongly suggests that embedded solitons in this physical case are also stable. A rigorous proof of this full stability in this physical case can be provided by an elaborate internal-perturbation method , which we will pursue in the near future. It is also noted that for ultra-short pulses, the Raman effect is non-negligible. But since embedded solitons without the Raman effect are robust and stable, we can expect that the Raman effect on embedded solitons would be also a frequency downshift, similar to that on NLS solitons .

In summary, we have discovered fully-stable embedded solitons in a physical model relevant for ultra-short pulse propagation in optical fibers. This finding dispels previous skepticism about the observability of embedded solitons. We expect this work to have important implications to ultra-short pulse propagation. It would also stimulate further search for stable embedded solitons in other physical systems.

This work was supported in part by a NASA grant.


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# Is the dark halo of our Galaxy spherical?

## 1 Introduction

The relevance of measuring the shapes of dark-matter halos lies in the fact that they are sensitive to the nature of dark-matter particles themselves. Depending on whether these are cold, self-interacting or hot, the shape of a dark halo may be flattened (e.g. Dubinski & Carlberg 1991), close to spherical (Yoshida et al. 2000; Davé et al. 2001) or spherical (Mayer et al. 2002). If dark-matter was baryonic, then the halos are expected to be strongly flattened, with a ratio of minor to major axis of about 0.2 (Pfenninger & Combes 1994). If, on the other hand, the observed flat rotation curves are due to a modified law of gravity, i.e. MOND, then the “fictitious dark component” ought to be equivalent to a spherical (massless) halo (Milgrom 2001).

Predictions for the shapes of dark-matter halos come mostly from N-body simulations, although some analytic estimates using ellipsoidal collapse models are also available (Eisenstein & Loeb, 1995). Numerical studies using the Standard CDM power spectrum have often yielded triaxial halos with minor-to-major axis ratios of $`c/a0.40.6`$, with cluster size halos more flattened than galaxy size halos (Frenk et al. 1988; Warren et al. 1992; Thomas et al. 1998). More recent studies in a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM cosmology, have shown the typical axis ratios to be $`0.60.8`$ for Milky Way size halos (Bullock 2002).

Observationally, the measurement of the shape of a dark-matter halo is a non-trivial task, and as such different techniques using a variety of tracers have found notably disparate values (see Sackett 1999 for a good review). Powerful probes of the shape of dark halos are tidal streams, since they consist of stars moving on very similar orbits (Lynden-Bell & Lynden-Bell 1995; Johnston 1998). For example, the plane of motion of a tidal stream moving in a spherical potential remains constant in time, implying that its stars will be located on a great circle arc on the sky. Also the width of such a stream will remain constant in an average sense; it will, however, vary periodically depending on the location of its stars along their orbit (Helmi et al. in preparation).

In the case of the Milky Way, Ibata et al. (2001) have concluded that the recently discovered streams from the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy, favor a spherical dark halo, $`c/a1`$, with oblate halos with flattening values of $`c/a0.7`$ rejected at very high confidence levels (less than 1 chance in one million). Mayer et al. (2002) have also claimed that the mere existence of tidal features around the Milky Way and other nearby galaxies rules out strongly aespherical ($`c/a0.8`$) and triaxial halos, since such features would disperse very rapidly in flattened systems. More recently, Majewski et al. (2003), using M giants from the 2MASS data were able to trace the debris from the Sgr dwarf along an almost complete great circle arc on the sky. The narrowness of the stream and its confinement also led them to suggest a nearly perfectly spherical halo for the Milky Way.

One should, however, bare in mind that most of the Sgr debris discovered thus far is probably constituted by material lost from the dwarf galaxy one to three passages ago, i.e. 1 to 3 Gyr ago, as suggested by the models by Helmi & White (2001) and Martinez-Delgado et al. (2004). As will be shown below such dynamically young debris streams may not be as sensitive to the shape of our Galaxy’s dark halo as previously thought.

In this letter, numerical simulations are used to model the evolution of the Sgr dwarf galaxy and of its debris as it orbits the Milky Way. The goal is to determine whether the presently available data on the debris from Sgr can constrain the shape of the Galactic halo as strongly as has been suggested in previous work. With this in mind, we perform several experiments in which the Galactic potential includes a dark halo component with different degrees of flattening. These simulations are introduced in the Section 2. The analysis and results of these simulations are presented in Sec. 3, and we conclude with a brief discussion section.

## 2 The simulations

In our numerical simulations, we represent the Galaxy by a fixed potential with three components: a dark logarithmic halo

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{halo}}=v_{\mathrm{halo}}^2\mathrm{ln}(R^2+z^2/q^2+d^2),$$
(1)
a Miyamoto-Nagai disk

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{disk}}=\frac{GM_{\mathrm{disk}}}{\sqrt{R^2+(a_\mathrm{d}+\sqrt{z^2+b_\mathrm{d}^2})^2}},$$
(2)
and a spherical Hernquist bulge

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{bulge}}=\frac{GM_{\mathrm{bulge}}}{r+c_\mathrm{b}},$$
(3)
where $`d=12`$ kpc and $`v_{\mathrm{halo}}=131.5`$ km s-1; $`M_{\mathrm{disk}}=10^{11}\mathrm{M}_{}`$, $`a_\mathrm{d}`$ = 6.5 kpc and $`b_\mathrm{d}`$ = 0.26 kpc; $`M_{\mathrm{bulge}}=3.4\times 10^{10}\mathrm{M}_{}`$ and $`c_\mathrm{b}`$ = 0.7 kpc. This choice of parameters gives a flat rotation curve with an asymptotic circular velocity of 186 km s-1along the mayor axis of the galaxy, and a circular velocity at the location of the Sun of 229 km s-1, as shown in the top panel of Fig.1. The parameter $`q`$ is allowed to vary from 0.8 to 1.25, that is, from an oblate to a prolate configuration. In the bottom panel of Figure 1 we show the variation of the density flattening for the halo component in these models. Here $`q_\rho `$ is defined by the ratio of the distances down the $`z`$ and $`R`$ axes at which a given isodensity surface cuts those axes (see Binney & Tremaine, 1987, p. 48).

The orbit of Sagittarius is relatively well constrained (Ibata et al. 1997). The heliocentric distance $`d25\pm 2`$ kpc, position $`(l,b)=(5.6^{},14^{})`$, and the heliocentric radial velocity $`v_r^{\mathrm{sun}}140\pm 2`$ km s-1of the galaxy core are well determined. Recent proper motion measurements imply $`v_\beta 280\pm 20`$ km s-1(Ibata et al. 2001). The strong North-South elongation of the system, as well as its debris, suggest that the orbit should be close to polar. To set up the simulations we generate random orbits consistent with these constraints. We also require that the present-day inclination of the orbit defined as $`L_z/L`$ (the ratio of the $`z`$-component to the total angular momentum) does not deviate by more than 5% from that of a plane defined by the cross product of the current position of Sgr $`𝕣_{\mathrm{Sgr}}`$ and the northern $`𝕣_{\mathrm{NS}}`$ (and southern $`𝕣_{\mathrm{SS}}`$) clumps of debris detected by the SDSS (Ivezic et al. 2000; Yanny et al. 2000)

We represent the Sgr galaxy by a collection of $`5\times 10^4`$ particles and model their self-gravity by a multipole expansion of the internal potential to fourth order (White 1983; Zaritsky & White 1988; see also Helmi & White 2001). For the stellar distribution of the pre-disruption dwarf a King model is chosen, since this has been shown to fit well the dwarf spheroidals satellites of the Milky Way (Mateo 1998). This model is specified by a combination of three parameters: the depth of the potential well of the system $`\mathrm{\Psi }(r=0)`$, a measure of the central velocity dispersion $`\sigma ^2`$, and the central density $`\rho _0`$ or the King radius $`r_0`$.

In summary, we proceed as follows. For the spherical halo case, we select an orbit as described above, integrate this orbit backward in time (until $`t_i=10`$ Gyr), to provide the initial position and velocity of the centre of mass of the satellite in the numerical simulation. We then probe the parameter space of initial models (we leave $`\mathrm{\Psi }(r=0)/\sigma ^2=3.3`$ and $`r_0=0.5`$ kpc fixed), until we find one that reproduces currently available observations of the main body and of the debris from Sgr. It turns out that this initial model is close to the purely stellar model of Helmi & White (2001). For the oblate and prolate halo potentials, we select orbits which have similar mean apocentric and pericentric distances, as well as similar $`L_z`$, to be able to determine what the effect of varying $`q`$ is in a direct manner. The initial models for the satellite are chosen so that, after 10 Gyr of evolution, the system has reached a similar degree of disruption as in the spherical halo case, which is typically set to 10 - 20 %. The orbital properties and models of the satellite are listed in Table 1.

The set of stringent conditions imposed on the orbits and initial models of the satellite are required for a fair comparison of the effect of oblate and prolate halos on the properties of its debris. Note that the aim is not so much to find the best fit model of the Sgr dwarf and of its orbit for each one of the given potentials of the Milky Way, but to compare similar orbits and models to get a handle on how the variation in the degree of flattening affects their evolution. The models presented here do reproduce the properties of the main body of Sgr, as well as the location of its debris. This implies that variations in the characteristics of the debris streams may only be attributed to the variation in the shape of the dark halo component.

## 3 Results

The panels in Figure 2 show the sky distribution in equatorial coordinates ($`\alpha `$, $`\delta `$) for all the particles in the different experiments. The particles are colour-coded according to when they became unbound from their parent satellite. Dark grey corresponds to particles unbound in the first 3.5 Gyr of evolution (approximately 5 pericentric passages), light grey to those released between 3.5 and 7 Gyr (that is, between approximately 5 and 9 passages), while black are those that have been released in the last 3 Gyr of evolution (or less than 4 passages ago). This last subset also includes particles that are still bound, i.e. what we call the main body of Sgr.

It immediately strikes the eye that the distribution of black particles is very similar in all five cases. The particles define relatively narrow structures on the sky. These streams are so young dynamically that they have not really been able to experience the flattening of the dark halo in which they orbit, which eventually will lead to their thickening. Therefore, such young streams are not sensitive enough to measure nor constrain the shape of a halo.

The precession and thickening effects, are on the other hand, visible for the oldest streams in the most oblate halo, with $`q=0.8`$ and an average density flattening within the region probed by Sgr orbit of $`q_\rho =0.6`$. Interestingly, in the case of the prolate halo of similar flattening ($`1/q=0.8`$ and $`q_\rho =1.63`$), the oldest streams are much more coherent. This is probably due to the fact that the orbit of Sgr has a high-inclination, i.e. it is essentially aligned with the principal axis of the density distribution, and hence is less subject to strong precession.

For comparison, the first panel of Figure 2 shows the distribution of claimed detections of debris from Sgr discovered so far by the SDSS (Ivezic et al. 2000; Yanny et al. 2000; Newberg et al. 2002) and by Majewski et al. (2003). There seems to be a very good correspondence between the location of this debris and that of the most recently lost particles in our simulations (black dots in the remaining panels). Therefore, our results would seem to imply that the observed streams could be, in fact, made up of stars lost by the Sgr dwarf in the last 3 Gyr of evolution. If this were the case, the immediate conclusion would be that such observations cannot put meaningful constraints on the shape of the Galactic halo.

But are the black dots in Figure 2 really tracing all the debris that has been discovered thus far? To determine whether this is the case, we also need to check that their dynamical properties (radial velocities and spatial location) are indeed similar. To that end, in Figure 3 we show the distance vs. right ascension distribution of particles for two of our experiments: the most oblate and the most prolate cases. We have used the same colour coding as before, and also overplotted the detections of the northern and southern Sgr debris discovered by SDSS. It becomes now clear that these detections are all tracing only the material that has been released by the Sgr dwarf in the last 3 Gyr. All our experiments of different flattening essentially show the same features, and are in agreement with the observational data available about Sgr and its streams.

We also note here that the tidal streams traced by the 2MASS M giants in Majewski et al. (2003), are also well-represented by the black dots shown in Fig. 2 and Fig. 3.

The light grey dots representing particles released between 3.5 and 7 Gyr ago, are distributed along a thicker great circle path on the sky in all but the most oblate halo experiments. Their sky location overlaps substantially with the dynamically young streams and with the observations of the streams from Sgr detected thus far. However, when the additional dynamical information that is available is used, it becomes clear that the overlap is only due to a projection effect, and that these intermediate age streams have a different 3-dimensional spatial distribution, as evidenced by their different distance distribution as shown in Fig. 3. There are currently no observational data that would correspond to these intermediate age streams, although see Dohm-Palmer et al. (2001) for a possible hint.

## 4 Discussion

We have carried out numerical experiments of the evolution of the Sgr dwarf and its debris orbiting in Galactic potentials with dark halo components with different degrees of flattening. These experiments show that dynamically young streams (younger than about 3 Gyr) on a Sgr-like orbit remain very coherent spatially, defining great circle arcs on the sky even when the mean minor-to-major density axis ratio $`c/a`$ of the dark halo of our Galaxy model within the region probed by Sagittarius orbit is as low as 0.6 (prolate and oblate cases). A straightforward comparison to the various detections of debris material from Sgr leads to the unavoidable conclusion that this debris is dynamically young. Hence its striking confinement to a great circle arc on the sky does not imply that the dark halo of our Galaxy is nearly spherical. This is in agreement with the conclusions of Martinez-Delgado et al. (2004).

These results would seem to be in contradiction with those of Ibata et al. (2001). The difference probably lies in the fact that, in their simulations, the dwarf is completely disrupted by the present time (no core can be seen in any of the figures corresponding to flattened mass distributions). Hence they are unable to distinguish streams as dynamically young as ours. This can either be due to the fact that the chosen orbits were not a good representation of the actual orbit of Sgr, or to their initial model of the dwarf, upon which they probably did not impose any restrictions concerning its survival.

It is perhaps worth emphasizing that to produce similar end products (i.e. main body of the Sgr dwarf) in simulations with different potential shapes, adjustments in the initial model of the dwarf are necessary. For comparison, Ibata et al. (2001) use only two models in their experiments. These are the models that evolved in a spherical potential reproduce the properties of the main body (these were presented in the papers by Ibata & Lewis 1998; and Helmi & White 2001). When these initial models of the Sgr dwarf were evolved in potentials with different degrees of flattening, they gave rise to quite different present-day dwarfs: the evolution of the dwarf galaxy is not independent of the potential in which it orbits. In contrast to the approach adopted here, Ibata et al. did not “correct” their models for this effect and this is why their dwarf in the flattened potentials does not survive until the present time, nor produces dynamically young streams that would be visible today.

It becomes clear that the initial conditions imposed on the orbit as well as on the model of the progenitor of Sagittarius are both critical to the interpretation of the numerical experiments run under different dark matter halo shapes. Is it possible to constrain them in a realistic way? Concerning the initial models of the dwarf, observations of the main body of Sgr can be used as boundary conditions. It is desirable that the observed characteristics of Sgr are reproduced before one addresses the properties of its debris. All models discussed in this paper satisfy this requirement in the following sense. They reproduce the properties of the main body described by Ibata et al.(1997), in terms of the extent, surface brightness and internal velocity dispersion. A good correspondence is also found for the number counts and the contrast between the main body and the M giant streams. This is shown in Fig.4, and should be compared to Fig.13 of Majewski et al. (2003).

The main difference between the stellar model discussed in Helmi & White (2001) and the models presented here, lies in the orbital parameters (slightly larger apocentre and pericentre distances; these were less well constrained three years ago). The mass ratio of the remnant to the initial dwarf ranges between 10-20% in all cases. The fraction of mass contained in the dynamically youngest streams in the stellar model of Helmi & White (2001) is $``$ 10%, while for the models presented in this paper it varies from 13% to 25% of the initial mass of the system. This implies slightly different recent mass-loss rates for each one of the models presented here. However, the similarity in the spatial distribution of the youngest streams in all our experiments indicates that this is not strongly dependent on the detailed recent mass-loss history. The spatial distribution of stars in these dynamically young streams is mostly determined by the recent orbital trajectory, which by construction is similar in all cases (see also Martinez-Delgado et al. 2004).

We have chosen to model the dwarf using a King profile with only one component of stellar nature. We have not taken into account the effect of a dark-matter halo encompassing the stellar distribution, which would have been important during the initial stages of evolution of the dwarf (see Jiang & Binney 2000). However, it is very likely that the main body of the present day Sagittarius represents only the central region of the progenitor dwarf (Helmi & White 2001); and we may assume that the dominant component of this central region is stellar. This implies that the properties of the streams formed in the last pericentric passages, i.e. those that are dynamically young, will not to differ substantially from those originated in dark-matter dominated progenitors. To support this statement, in Fig.5 we have plotted the distribution of “star-like” particles for the dark-matter dominated model of Helmi & White (2001). The stellar component of this model initially is very similar to the purely stellar model discussed in the same paper (see their Fig. 6). The mass-to-light ratio varies with radius (more precisely with binding energy), implying that the streams formed at early times are dark-matter dominated, while those dynamically young are purely stellar.

The left panel of Fig.5 shows the sky distribution of “dark-matter” (in grey) and of “star” particles (in black). The panel on the right shows their right ascension vs distance distribution (same colour coding). These plots should be compared to Figs.2 and 3. We note that the dynamically young streams produced in a dark-matter dominated system, whose initial stellar distribution is similar to that of the purely stellar systems discussed in this paper, are not significantly different to those produced in purely stellar systems. This is the case because the streams highlighted here, and which we believe correspond to the streams observed, are formed by material lost in the last few pericentric passages and originate in regions of the initial system which were dominated by stars (rather than by dark-matter). The situation would perhaps be different if the Sgr dwarf was a system in dynamical equilibrium, currently surrounded by a massive dark halo. The most recently formed streams, would then have a large-dark matter content. If however, as most authors conclude (Johnston, Spergel & Hernquist 1995; Velazquez & White 1995; Zhao 1998; Gómez-Flechoso, Fux & Martinet 1999; Helmi & White 2001; Majewski et al. 2003), Sgr is close to complete disruption, then the youngest streams should be made up of material which is star dominated, as in these simulations. The high mass-to-light ratios suggested by the observations are most likely due to the fact that the system is not in virial equilibrium, and its large internal velocity dispersion is inflated due to the effect of tides, which are strongest close to pericentre.

To measure the shape of the dark halo of the Galaxy reliably dynamically old streams are required, and this implies using stars that trace old stellar populations, such as RR Lyrae stars, the BHBs and the red giants, as well as main sequence turn-off stars. Such older streams will typically have very low surface brightness, and hence are more difficult to detect, particularly if the dark halo of our Galaxy is not spherical.

While this paper was being written, Newberg et al. (2003) found an excess of BHB stars at a distance of 80 kpc from the Sun, in a direction which lies 10 kpc away from the plane defined by the debris of Sgr. This prompted them to suggest that it could be material lost by the dwarf in earlier passages. Notably, Fig. 3 of this Letter shows, for our simulations of the most oblate and most prolate halos, the presence of debris at a similar location in the sky ($`110^{}\alpha 130^{}`$ and $`\delta 30^{}`$) and at a similarly large distance. This debris is old (lost in the first 3 passages) yet it is not far from the great circle defined by the young debris streams. Thus, even though the Newberg et al. (2003) result seems at first sight to be very compelling, more careful modeling and a better estimate of the width of the stream, as well as velocity data on the BHB star candidates are needed to really constrain the shape of the dark halo of the Galaxy. Interestingly the presence of such ancient streams necessarily imply that Sgr has already been orbiting the Galaxy for about 10 Gyr.

No other prominent stellar streams have been found thus far in the Galactic halo. Although the volume probed by the surveys to date has been somewhat limited, the situation is changing rapidly. The lack of bright and spatially coherent stellar streams in the Galactic halo could be suggesting that this is in fact rather flattened. On the other hand, it could be indicative of a low satellite accretion rate or a hint that the majority of the satellites accreted are dark. It is important to disentangle these issues; they provide direct constraints both on the nature of dark-matter as well as on the process of galaxy formation.

## Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Heather Morrison and Julio Navarro for valuable discussions that prompted the writing of this paper, and Mariano Méndez and Rien van de Weygaert for comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. The anonymous referee is gratefully acknowledged for comments which helped improve the paper. This research was funded through a NOVA fellowship.


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# Electromagnetic vortex lines riding atop null solutions of the Maxwell equations

## 1 Introduction

Complex scalar fields in a three-dimensional space carry generically a collection of vortex lines. These vortex lines are located at the zeroes of the field. Complex generic vector fields do not have such properties because the requirement that all field components simultaneously vanish leads to an overdetermined set of equations. There are at least two ways to overcome this difficulty and to introduce vortex lines also for vector fields. One may either select one relevant component of the field (as, for example, in the scalar theory of light) or one may build a single field entity from various vector components. The first approach has been used in most papers on phase singularities in wave fields (for a thorough review and list of references see ). In our previous publication  we have chosen the second method. We have studied phase singularities and vortex lines associated with the zeroes of the square $`𝑭𝑭`$ of the Riemann-Silberstein111This name was introduced in a review paper  on the photon wave function, where one may also find information on the history of the Riemann-Silberstein vector. The first to make a practical use of the RS vector in the analysis of electromagnetic waves was Bateman . The RS vector offers a very convenient representation of the electromagnetic field, especially in the study of vortex lines, and I shall make an extensive use of it here. (RS) vector (my units are chosen so that $`ϵ=1`$ and $`\mu =1`$)

$`𝑭=(𝑬+\mathrm{}𝑩)/\sqrt{2}.`$ (1)
The vortex lines of the electromagnetic field defined in this manner are rather elusive objects —they lack clear signature and may be hard to observe. Even though the phase of the field has dislocations, the electromagnetic field does not vanish on these vortex lines, but it is just a null electromagnetic field — the two relativistic field invariants vanish on vortex lines. Nevertheless, the vortex lines built on $`𝑭𝑭`$ may still have some role to play in singular optics as discussed in the papers by M. Berry  and G. Kaiser  appearing in this issue.

In the present paper I explore a different approach. It is based on the observation that when a null solution of the Maxwell equations is taken as the background field, an extra scalar multiplier may imprint on this solution a rich vortex structure. This time all components of the electromagnetic field will vanish on vortex lines. Of course, the vortex lines that are introduced in this manner do not have a generic character since they are found only in special cases — for null fields. However, the class of solutions of the Maxwell equations that carry these vortex lines is, in my opinion, sufficiently broad and interesting to make this approach relevant for singular optics. In addition, the present study touches upon some important concepts discovered before in the general relativistic context.

## 2 Scalar prefactor as a carrier of phase singularities

The starting point of this investigation is an observation that a complex scalar function $`\varphi (𝒓,t)`$ multiplying the RS vector will control the zeroes of the electromagnetic field. Wherever $`\varphi (𝒓,t)`$ vanishes, the electric and magnetic field vectors vanish. Assuming that the background field $`𝑭`$, as well as the product $`\varphi 𝑭`$, satisfy the Maxwell equations

$`\mathrm{}_t𝑭(𝒓,t)=\times 𝑭(𝒓,t),𝑭(𝒓,t)=0,`$ (2)
$`\mathrm{}_t\left(\varphi (𝒓,t)𝑭(𝒓,t)\right)=\times \left(\varphi (𝒓,t)𝑭(𝒓,t)\right),\left(\varphi (𝒓,t)𝑭(𝒓,t)\right)=0,`$ (3)
we arrive at the following conditions on the prefactor field $`\varphi (𝒓,t)`$ (to simplify the notation, from now on I omit the dependence of $`𝑭`$ on space-time coordinates)

$`𝑭\mathrm{}_t\varphi (𝒓,t)=𝑭\times \varphi (𝒓,t),`$ (4)
$`𝑭\varphi (𝒓,t)=0.`$ (5)
This set of equations possesses nontrivial solutions only when the background field is null, i.e. $`𝑭^2=𝑬^2/2𝑩^2/2+\mathrm{}𝑬𝑩=0.`$ In order to prove this assertion, we can take the scalar product of both sides of Eq. (4) with the vector $`𝑭`$. Since the scalar product on the right hand side is equal to zero, the left hand side must also vanish and this results in the following alternative: either $`_t\varphi (𝒓,t)`$ or $`𝑭𝑭`$ must vanish. In the first case, we end up with a trivial result: the scalar function $`\varphi (𝒓,t)`$ must be a constant. It cannot depend on space and time variables since its gradient is at the same time parallel to $`𝑭`$, as seen from Eq. (4), and orthogonal to $`𝑭`$, as seen from Eq. (5). In the second case we may have a nontrivial form of $`\varphi (𝒓,t)`$. Taking the scalar product of Eq. (4) with the complex conjugate RS vector $`𝑭^{}`$ we obtain the condition

$`\mathrm{}𝑭^{}𝑭_t\varphi (𝒓,t)=𝑭^{}\left(𝑭\times \varphi (𝒓,t)\right)=\left(𝑭^{}\times 𝑭\right)\varphi (𝒓,t).`$ (6)
Finally, I obtain the following two partial differential equations for the function $`\varphi (𝒓,t)`$

$`_t\varphi (𝒓,t)+𝒏\varphi (𝒓,t)=0,𝑭\varphi (𝒓,t)=0,`$ (7)
where $`𝒏`$ is the normalized Poynting vector

$`𝒏={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}𝑭^{}\times 𝑭}{𝑭^{}𝑭}}={\displaystyle \frac{𝑬\times 𝑩}{𝑬^2/2+𝑩^2/2}}.`$ (8)
The solutions of Eqs. (7) will in general have zeroes and this will lead to vortex lines of the electromagnetic field riding atop the background solution $`𝑭`$. On each vortex line the electromagnetic field vanishes. Near the vortex line the electric and magnetic field vectors followed around a closed contour rotate by $`2\pi m`$, where $`m`$ is the topological charge of the vortex. In contrast to nonrelativistic wave mechanics , there is no interaction between vortex lines introduced in this manner. All vortices move independently, since the product of solutions of the first order partial differential equations (7) is again a solution. We may always add new vortices without changing the motion of the existing ones. In the following sections I shall give general solutions of Eqs. (7) in two special cases: when the background field is a plane monochromatic wave and when it is the Robinson-Trautman field.

## 3 Simple example

Let us consider the solution of the Maxwell equations described by the following RS vector

$`𝑭(𝒓,t)=(\widehat{𝒙}+\mathrm{}\widehat{𝒚})\mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{}kz\mathrm{}\omega t).`$ (9)
This solution describes the left-handed circularly polarized wave propagating in the $`z`$ direction. It is a null field, since $`(\widehat{𝒙}+\mathrm{}\widehat{𝒚})(\widehat{𝒙}+\mathrm{}\widehat{𝒚})=0`$. In this case, Eqs. (7) take on the form

$`(_t+_z)\varphi (𝒓,t)=0,(_x+\mathrm{}_y)\varphi (𝒓,t)=0.`$ (10)
General solution of these equations is an arbitrary function of two variables: the real variable $`zt`$ and the complex variable $`x+\mathrm{}y`$. Thus, we arrive at the family of solutions of the Maxwell equations of the form

$`𝑭(𝒓,t)=f(zt,x+\mathrm{}y)(\widehat{𝒙}+\mathrm{}\widehat{𝒚})\mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{}k(zt)).`$ (11)
These solutions may have a rich vortex structure. Assuming, for simplicity, a polynomial dependence on $`x+\mathrm{}yw`$, we may write down the function $`f`$ in the factorized form

$`f(zt,x+\mathrm{}y)=(wa_1(zt))(wa_2(zt))\mathrm{}(wa_n(zt)),`$ (12)
where $`a_k(zt)`$ are some functions of $`zt`$. Each term in this product gives rise to an infinite vortex line whose shape is determined by the equation $`x+\mathrm{}y=a_k(zt)`$. Each vortex line moves independently. In general, each vortex line flies with the speed of light in the $`z`$-direction. However, when the function $`a_k(zt)`$ is just a constant, the corresponding vortex line is a stationary straight line in $`z`$-direction. A simple example of the $`\varphi `$ function of the type (12) is

$`\varphi (𝒓,t)=(x+\mathrm{}y)^m.`$ (13)
In this case the RS vector $`\varphi 𝑭`$ carries a straight vortex line along the $`z`$-axis with the topological charge $`m`$.

## 4 Trautman-Robinson fields

Null solutions of the Maxwell equations were extensively studied by Robinson  in connection with his work in general relativity. In particular, these solutions played an important role in the discovery of new solutions of Einstein field equations  and also they appear in Penrose twistor theory . A family of null solutions of the Maxwell equations that featured prominently in these studies was described in  — I shall call them the Robinson-Trautman (RT) fields222Topical review has been recently published by Trautman . They are usually expressed in a special coordinate system but I shall use here more intuitive Cartesian coordinates. In these coordinates the RS vectors representing the RT solutions can be written in the form

$`F_x=f(\alpha ,\beta ){\displaystyle \frac{\beta ^21}{t\mathrm{}az}},`$ (14a)
$`F_y=\mathrm{}f(\alpha ,\beta ){\displaystyle \frac{\beta ^2+1}{t\mathrm{}az}},`$ (14b)
$`F_z=f(\alpha ,\beta ){\displaystyle \frac{2\beta }{t\mathrm{}az}},`$ (14c)
where $`f(\alpha ,\beta )`$ is an arbitrary function of the following complex combinations of the Cartesian coordinates

$`\alpha =t\mathrm{}a+z{\displaystyle \frac{x^2+y^2}{t\mathrm{}az}},\beta ={\displaystyle \frac{x\mathrm{}y}{t\mathrm{}az}}.`$ (14o)
The RT Maxwell fields are related to the simple plane wave field discussed in the previous section. Taking the $`f`$ function in the form $`f(\alpha ,\beta )=\alpha ^3`$, we obtain the following localized null solution of Maxwell equations

$`F_x=\left((x\mathrm{}y)^2(t\mathrm{}az)^2\right)/d^3,`$ (14pa)
$`F_y=\mathrm{}\left((x\mathrm{}y)^2+(t\mathrm{}az)^2\right)/d^3,`$ (14pb)
$`F_z=2(x\mathrm{}y)(t\mathrm{}az)/d^3,`$ (14pc)
where $`d=((t\mathrm{}a)^2x^2y^2z^2)`$. This field may be obtained from the plane wave solution of the previous section by the coordinate transformation (conformal reflection) $`x^\mu x^\mu /x^2`$ accompanied by the shift in time by an imaginary constant $`\mathrm{}a`$ and evaluated in the limit of infinite wavelength, when $`k0`$. The energy density of this field is equal to

$`𝑭^{}𝑭=2{\displaystyle \frac{\left(a^2+(tz)^2+x^2+y^2\right)^2}{\left((a^2t^2+x^2+y^2+z^2)^2+4a^2t^2\right)^3}}.`$ (14pq)
From this formula we see that the electromagnetic field (14pa14pc) can never vanish. Note, that the presence of $`\mathrm{}a`$ eliminates the singularity on the light cone and makes the energy of the field finite,

$`{\displaystyle d^3r𝑭^{}𝑭}={\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{4a^5}}.`$ (14pr)
There are some simple solutions with a single vortex line built on this background function. The simplest ones are obtained by taking the scalar multiplier function $`\varphi `$ equal to $`\beta ^m`$. These solutions have a stationary vortex line along the $`z`$-direction with the topological charge equal to $`m`$. A bit more complex vortex line is obtained when $`\varphi =\alpha +4a\beta `$. The vanishing of $`\varphi `$ leads to the following two equations for the vortex coordinates

$`2y=t,(x+2a)^2+z^2=3a^2+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}t^2.`$ (14ps)
Thus, at each time the vortex line forms a circle lying on the uniformly moving $`y=t/2`$ plane. The radius of the circle is shrinking until $`t=0`$ and then it starts expanding. Possibilities for constructing solutions with more intricate vortex lines are unlimited.

I would like to thank Michael Berry, Mark Dennis and Gerald Kaiser for discussions and fruitful comments. I am especially indebted to Andrzej Trautman who shared with me his profound understanding of complex spacetime.

## References


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Experimental studies of the spin structure of the proton and the theoretical interpretation of the obtained results, are mostly aimed at identifying the various carriers of angular momentum inside the proton, and measuring their individual contributions to its total spin. In the past most studies were based on inclusive spin-dependent deep-inelastic lepton scattering experiments, which showed, in the QCD parton model interpretation, that the spin of the quarks can only account for about 30% of the spin of the nucleon . In recent years many more probes of the spin structure of the nucleon have become available: semi-inclusive deep-inelastic scattering to study the polarization of individual quark flavors, photon-gluon fusion to measure the gluon polarization, exclusive processes giving (indirectly) access to possible orbital angular momentum contributions, and single spin asymmetries to investigate the transverse spin distribution. This rich variety of possible probes of the nucleon spin is reflected by the many experiments underway or in preparation that (will) provide experimental data on this subject. At this workshop data from HERMES at DESY, COMPASS at CERN, Hall A and B at JLab, and STAR and PHENIX at RHIC were presented, thus illustrating the expansion of the field.

A parallel effort has been made on the theoretical side. Starting a long time ago from the unexpected data of Ref.  (the so-called ‘proton spin crisis’), our understanding of the spin structure of the nucleon has by now greatly improved, stressing the role of quark and gluon polarization, intrinsic partonic motion and orbital angular momentum. New generalized QCD analyses of structure functions and spin effects involving parton transverse motion, and (among others) quark-gluon correlations have been proposed, which open the way to a new interpretation of existing data and suggestions for new measurements of spin obervables. More in particular, the increased experimental efforts to study the spin structure of the nucleon partly follow two such theoretical developments:

* The (re-)introduction of generalized parton distributions (GPDs) for the description of partonic correlations provides a unified framework for the description of a wide range of different experiments. By taking the first moment of a combination of certain GPDs, for example, information can be obtained on the total angular momentum $`J_q`$ of the quarks in the nucleon . By comparing measured values of $`J_q`$ to the total spin carried by quarks $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }_q`$, information might be obtained on the orbital motion of quarks in the nucleon.
* It is predicted by both the chiral-soliton (instanton) model  and lattice gauge calculations  that the tensor charge of the nucleon ($`\delta \mathrm{\Sigma }_q`$), which can be derived from the transversity distribution function $`h_1(x)`$ of the nucleon, is considerably larger than the longitudinal quark spin contribution $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }_q`$, which is derived from data on the longitudinal spin-dependent structure function $`g_1(x)`$. The difference between $`\delta \mathrm{\Sigma }_q`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Sigma }_q`$ is caused by the absence of gluon-splitting contributions in the transverse case, which is also expected to result in a relatively weak $`Q^2`$ dependence of $`h_1(x)`$. Unfortunately, inclusive deep-inelastic scattering cannot be used to measure $`h_1(x)`$ as it is a chirally odd quantity. In semi-inclusive DIS information on $`h_1(x)`$ can be obtained if a process is identified that is governed by a chirally odd fragmentation function .

At the workshop many talks were devoted to first results and/or new plans to measure either the generalized parton distributions or the transversity distribution.

Given all these developments the presentations submitted to the working group on spin physics were split in the following categories:

1. Inclusive spin structure & QCD analyses
2. Semi-inclusive DIS & spin-flavor decompositions
3. Gluon polarization & charm production
4. Exclusive reactions & generalized parton distributions
5. Transversity & (single) spin asymmetries

The same five categories are used in the next section, where the experimental and theoretical results presented in the working group are summarized. In the final section of the paper some perspectives for spin physics are sketched.

## 2 New experimental and theoretical results

In the following five subsections the most important results presented at the workshop are summarized. It is noted that unavoidable personal biases are introduced whenever a rich collection of new results has to be summarised. For a full collection of subjects and results discussed at the workshop the reader is referred to the individual contributions appearing elsewhere in these proceedings. To avoid unnecessary duplication, the figures representing the various new results are not reproduced in the subsections below.

### 2.1 Inclusive spin structure & QCD analyses

Following last years release of very precise $`g_1^d(x)`$ data by the HERMES Collaboration, this year the collaboration presented QCD fits of all available $`g_1(x)`$ data . Using two different techniques, fairly precise (and consistent) singlet and non-singlet parton distributions were obtained. It has also been possible to extract values for the polarized gluon distribution $`x\mathrm{\Delta }G(x)`$ with relatively large margins of uncertainty. The resulting first moment $`\mathrm{\Delta }G`$ of the polarized gluon distribution is still largely uncertain, ranging from about +0.1 to +1.0, but most likely positive.

Exploiting the high luminosity available at JLab, the Hall-A collaboration presented new high-$`x`$ data obtained in inclusive polarized electron scattering from a polarized 3He target . The resulting values for $`A_1^n(x)`$ cover the $`x`$-domain from 0.3 to 0.6 and have superior precision as compared to existing data. If such data are extended to even higher $`x`$-values in the future it will be possible to determine the limiting value of $`A_1^n(x)`$ at $`x`$ 1 for which widely different predictions exist.

In the deuteron the quarks can be polarized even if the deuteron itself is unpolarized. Such a non-zero quark polarization can be caused by nuclear interaction effects, and needs to be accounted for when the spin-dependent structure function of the neutron $`g_1^n(x)`$ is extracted from polarized deep-inelastic scattering data on the deuteron. The effect of a possibly small quark polarization in an unpolarized deuteron target can be studied by measuring the tensor structure function $`b_1^d(x)`$, which can be determined from deep-inelastic scattering experiments if a tensor polarized deuterium target is used. Such measurements were carried out for the first time by the HERMES Collaboration at DESY . The data presented show that $`b_1^d(x)`$ is small, being consistent with zero for $`x>`$ 0.1 and slightly positive at lower values of $`x`$.

¿From the theoretical point of view the agreement between the QCD predictions on the evolution of the polarized structure function $`g_1^p(x,Q^2)`$ and the data is very good; however, the amount of available data and the explored kinematical regions, if compared with the analogous information on the unpolarized distribution functions, is still rather poor. The Bjorken sum rule on the difference between the first moment of $`g_1^p(x,Q^2)`$ and $`g_1^n(x,Q^2)`$ is well obeyed, while the few data on $`g_2(x,Q^2)`$ do not yet allow a definite conclusion about the validity of the Burkhardt-Cottingham sum rule, although indicating its possible violation .

Some theoretical issues are still open concerning heavy quark and higher twist contributions, the small-$`x`$ behavior, radiative corrections and modeling of polarized distribution functions. New results were presented on the twist-2 heavy quark contribution to $`g_2(x,Q^2)`$ within a covariant parton model, obeying the Wandura-Wilczek and Burkhardt-Cottingham relations . A model independent determination of higher-twist contributions to $`g_1(x,Q^2)`$ was presented by Alexander Sidorov , and another study of higher-twist effects, within an infrared-renormalon model, by Andrei Kataev . The small-$`x`$ behaviour of the singlet $`g_1`$ function, taking into account effects due to the running of the strong coupling constant $`\alpha _s`$, was obtained by Boris Ermolaev . Radiative corrections were discussed by Eduard Kuraev  and statistical modeling of polarized distributions by Jacques Soffer . Finally, the importance of the Bloom-Gilman duality when discussing inclusive polarized parton distributions was discussed by Alessandra Fantoni .

### 2.2 Semi-inclusive DIS & spin-flavor decompositions

In semi-inclusive deep-inelastic scattering from polarized targets a (possibly identified) hadron is observed in coincidence with the scattered lepton. The hadron serves to tag the flavour of the quark struck in the scattering process. Assuming that the fragmentation process is sufficiently well known the observed double spin asymmetries for several identified hadron species can be converted to helicity distributions for individual quark flavours. The results of such an analysis were presented by Marc Beckmann  with supporting information provided by Achim Hillenbrand  on the treatment of the fragmentation process. The data, which were derived from asymmetries measured at HERMES, demonstrated that each of the helicity densities for $`\overline{u}`$, $`\overline{d}`$ and $`s`$ sea quarks are consistent with zero. Also the helicity difference distribution $`\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{u}\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{d}`$ was shown to be consistent with zero, which is remarkable as existing calculations  suggest a positive value for this distribution.

In the nearby future more data on flavor-separated helicity distributions can be expected from Hall-A (at high $`x`$ and using some – sofar relatively strong – simplifying assumptions ) and COMPASS (at low $`x`$ ). It is of interest to note that the polarized $`pp`$ collisions at RHIC will provide a completely independent measure of the flavour-separated quark helicity distributions using the parity violating $`W^+`$ and $`W^{}`$ production channels. Simulated data for the PHENIX experiment at RHIC indicate that a high statistical precision can be obtained for the spin-dependent distributions $`\mathrm{\Delta }u`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }d`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{u}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\overline{d}`$ .

### 2.3 Gluon polarization & charm production

Gluons are expected to play an important role in explaining the spin structure of the nucleon. At present, only a single measurement exists on the gluon polarization in the proton , but this measurement suffers from large statistical and systematic uncertainties. Hence, new dedicated experiments are needed to measure the gluon polarization $`\mathrm{\Delta }G`$ much more precisely. At the workshop three such experiments were discussed:

* The COMPASS Collaboration  intends to measure $`\mathrm{\Delta }G`$ by identifying photon-gluon fusion processes in deep-inelastic muon scattering through charm production or the observation of high $`p_T`$-pairs. The COMPASS experiment was successfully commissioned in 2002, and first longitudinally polarized data have been collected, but no results on $`\mathrm{\Delta }G`$ are yet available.
* The RHIC-Spin Collaboration  will measure double spin asymmetries in polarized $`pp`$ collisions. Very precise values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }G`$ can be obtained if it is possible to identify prompt photons in the photon-gluon Compton process. No data have been collected yet, but it is very encouraging that it has been demonstrated to be possible to inject, ramp and maintain a polarized proton beam in RHIC.
* The SLAC E161 Collaboration  has prepared a proposal to measure $`\mathrm{\Delta }G`$ by identifying photon-gluon fusion events through open charm production. At present it is unclear when the experiment will run.

### 2.4 Exclusive reactions & generalized parton distributions

While a precise experimental knowledge of the Generalized Parton Distributions (GPDs) would give essentialy complete information on the structure of the nucleons, the usual inclusive structure functions and elastic form factors only provide limited information as they represent limiting cases of the GPDs. This argument explains the importance of the GPD framework, as was discussed in the introductory talk on this subject by Maxim Polyakov .

Access to the Generalized Parton Distributions (GPDs) is obtained by identifying exclusive reactions in high-energy lepton-induced experiments. By making use of a variety of polarization states, targets and final-state hadrons the experiments are sensitive to different combinations of GPDs . Hence, many different observables need to be extracted from the experimental data in order to be able to map the GPDs. The HERMES Collaboration  made a start with this effort by determining various asymmetries from their data. In the channel corresponding to exclusive photon production (or Deeply Virtual Compton Scattering) beam-spin asymmetries, beam-charge asymmetries, and target-spin asymmetries were shown. In each case non-zero asymmetries were reported, but the statistical precision in the various kinematical distributions is still rather modest. Single target-spin asymmetries were also shown for exclusive $`\rho ^0`$ and $`\pi ^+`$ production data . Also in this case the observed asymmetries are small and the statistical precision is still limited. On the other hand, the successful determination of each of these asymmetries on the basis of the relatively low-luminosity HERMES data, implies that it is in principle possible to measure the various GPDs if in due time dedicated higher-luminosity experiments become available.

### 2.5 Transversity & (single) spin asymmetries

The transversity distribution is the only leading-twist quark distribution for which no experimental data are available. It is a chirally odd quantity and cannot be accessed in fully inclusive DIS, where it cannot be combined with a suitable chiral-odd partner to yield an observable cross section. On the other hand, it can couple, in semi-inclusive DIS or in high-energy proton-proton collisions, to other chiral-odd functions, giving rise to interesting and unexpected single spin effects .

One way of obtaining information on the transversity distribution $`h_1(x)`$ is by measuring single target-spin asymmetries in semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering on transversely polarized targets. Such measurements have been started both at COMPASS  and HERMES , but analysis results are not yet available. In the absence of transverse polarization data, existing longitudinally polarized data have been used to determine the single-target spin asymmetry $`A_{UL}`$; because of the – on average – non-zero lepton scattering angle the measured asymmetry can originate from a small ($``$ 15%) transverse spin component. At the workshop the HERMES data on $`A_{UL}`$ for both the proton and the deuteron were presented . The measured asymmetries are well reproduced by two independent calculations that include rough estimates for $`h_1(x)`$ and the chiral-odd (Collins) fragmentation function $`H_1^{}`$ . These calculations only include the Collins effect, i.e. the process sensitive to $`h_1(x)`$, but ignore possible contributions from the Sivers effect, i.e. the process involving the $`k_{}`$-dependent structure function $`f_{1T}^{}`$ in combination with the usual chiral-even fragmentation function. Transversely polarized data are needed to separate these two effects. Their relative importance has been discussed by Anatoli Efremov . A general discussion on azimuthal asymmetries in semi-inclusive DIS, including model estimates of the Collins function, was presented by Karo Oganessyan .

A combination of the Collins and Sivers effect is also expected to be responsible for the transverse single-spin asymmetries (SSAs) observed in pion production by the E704 collaboration already some time ago. These data are now confirmed, at much higher energy, by the STAR collaboration at RHIC . A discussion of SSAs in proton-proton collisions (with one proton transversely polarized), for both pion production and Drell-Yan processes, within a perturbative QCD factorization scheme including parton transverse motion, was presented by Umberto D’Alesio . Jacques Soffer  discussed SSAs in gauge boson production and derived an inequality involving single and double transverse spin asymmetries, $`A_{NN}`$ and $`A_N`$, which might lead to a useful phenomenological bound for $`A_N`$.

The origin of single spin asymmetries has recently been much debated using various models for the Sivers and Collins functions, relating spin and intrinsic motion in, respectively, the distribution of quarks inside a transversely polarized proton and the fragmentation of a transversely polarized quark into a pion. In particular the Sivers effect, which was thought to violate QCD time-reversal invariance, is by now accepted as a properly defined phenomenon , with explicit model calculations being available . Some important features of these SSA mechanisms, like the factorizability, the universality and the QCD evolution remain a challenging open problem, although considerable progress has been made; a nice discussion of many of these questions can be found in the contribution of Andreas Metz .

## 3 Perspectives

The field of high-energy spin physics has constantly grown both in terms of its theoretical interest, and the number of dedicated experiments and surprising results that became available in the last 15 years. As is well-known, spin is such a subtle – truly relativistic and quantum-mechanical – quantity that spin observables provide severe crucial tests of any theory or theoretical model. The QCD spin structure of the nucleon is a fascinating subject, in that the very simple perturbative QCD spin dynamics (helicity conservation) does not match most of the observed spin effects. Hence, it is clear that in due time all aspects of QCD spin have to be understood.

In the coming years many more data on the spin-structure of the nucleon will become available. The gluon polarization will be measured by both COMPASS and RHIC-spin with a fairly good precision, while various data on exclusive reactions (to study GPDs) will be produced by HERMES and JLab. The subject of transversity distributions will be addressed by both COMPASS and HERMES at two different values of $`Q^2`$, thus making it possible to verify the predicted weak $`Q^2`$ dependence by combining both data sets. Together, all these data will make it possible to quantify the role of the various carriers of angular momentum in the proton, and provide novel tests of QCD in a so-far unexplored domain.

The data will need theoretical interpretation and understanding, aiming at achieving a consistent definite dynamical picture of nucleon structure, capable of accounting for any spin effect. Relevant progress has been made along this line, but many more steps have to be taken: concepts like the Generalized Parton Distributions and the Transversity Distribution have to translate into quantitative experimental observations, giving the necessary initial non-perturbative input to QCD perturbation theory. QCD evolutions, universality and factorization properties have to be discussed and studied, before it can be claimed that a consistent unified picture has been obtained.

## Acknowledgements

We thank all participants of the working group on spin physics for their contributions to the DIS’03 Proceedings. One of the authors (GvdS) is supported by the Dutch Foundation for ”Fundamenteel Onderzoek der Materie” (FOM).


text:
# Inflationary Attractor in Braneworld Scenario

## I Introduction

Recent developments in string theory and its extension M-theory have suggested that the standard model particles are confined on a hypersurface (called brane) embedded in a higher dimensional space (called bulk). Only gravity and other exotic matter such as the dilaton can propagate in the bulk HW . Our universe may be such a brane-like object. In the braneworld scenario, constraints on the size of extra dimensions become weaker because the standard model particles propagate only in three spatial dimensions. Arkani-Hamed, Dimopoulos and Dvali considered a flat bulk geometry in (4+d)-dimensions, in which $`d`$ dimensions are compact with radius $`R`$ (toroidal topology) ADD . Considerable progress was made by Randall and Sundrum, who considered non-flat, i.e. warped bulk geometries RS . In their first paper, they proposed a mechanism to solve the hierarchy problem by a small extra dimension. In their second paper, the braneworld with a positive tension was investigated. The effective Einstein equations and the generalized Friedmann equation on the brane were derived SMS ; BDE . Since the energy density of the brane appears quadratically in the new Friedmann equation in contrast with the linear behaviour of the usual equation, the scenario has interesting cosmological implications, in particular, the prospects of inflation are enhanced on the brane MWBH . Modifications to the Friedmann constraint equation lead to a faster Hubble expansion at high energies and a more strongly damped evolution of the scalar field. This assists slow rolling inflation, enhances the amount of inflation obtained in any given model, and drives the perturbations towards an exactly scale-invariant Harrison-Zel’dovich spectrum MWBH . Recently, several authors have investigated the cosmological implications of a tachyon rolling down its potential, which have not been derived from string theory, to its ground state SEN ; GWG . Sufficient inflation driven by the rolling tachyon can be achieved in the context of the braneworld scenario BBS .

To date a question which has not yet been addressed in the literature on inflation in the braneworld scenario is the issue of constraints on the phase space of initial conditions for inflation. If inflation is to be truly predictive, the evolution when the scalar field is at some given point on the potential has to be independent of the initial conditions. Otherwise, any result, such as the amplitude of density perturbations, would depend on the unknowable initial conditions. However, the scalar wave equation is a second-order equation, implying that $`\dot{\varphi }`$, in principle, can take on any value anywhere on the potential, and so, there certainly is not a unique solution at each point on the potential. Therefore inflation can be predictive only if the solutions exhibit an attractor behavior, where the differences between solutions of different initial conditions rapidly vanish. In the standard cosmology the inflationary equations do indeed possess this vital property GOLD . In the braneworld scenario, it is interesting and necessary to investigate the initial conditions for inflation. In this paper, using the Hamilton-Jacobi formalism, we show that inflation driven by a scalar field or a tachyon field on the brane possesses the attractor behavior and obtain a set of exact inflationary solutions. As examples we plot the trajectories in the phase space numerically. Phase portraits indicate that an initial kinetic term decays rapidly and it does not prevent the onset of inflation. Moreover, we find that the trajectories more rapidly reach the slow rolling curve in the braneworld scenario than in the standard cosmology.

## II Modified Friedmann Equation in the Braneworld Scenario

In the five-dimensional braneworld scenario RS , the four-dimensional Einstein equations induced on the brane can be written as SMS

$$G_{\mu \nu }=\mathrm{\Lambda }_4g_{\mu \nu }+\kappa _4^2T_{\mu \nu }+\kappa _5^4\pi _{\mu \nu }E_{\mu \nu },$$
(1)
where $`T_{\mu \nu }`$ is the energy-momentum tensor of matter on the brane, $`\pi _{\mu \nu }`$ is a tensor quadratic in $`T_{\mu \nu }`$,

$$\pi _{\mu \nu }=\frac{1}{12}TT_{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{4}T_{\mu \eta }T_\nu ^\eta +\frac{1}{8}g_{\mu \nu }T_{\eta \lambda }T^{\eta \lambda }\frac{1}{24}T^2g_{\mu \nu },$$
(2)
and $`E_{\mu \nu }`$ is a projection of the five-dimensional Weyl tensor, describing the effect of bulk graviton degrees of freedom on brane dynamics. The effective cosmological constant $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_4`$ on the brane is determined by the five-dimensional bulk cosmological constant $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_5`$ and the brane tension $`\sigma `$ as

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }_4=\frac{\kappa _5^2}{2}\left(\mathrm{\Lambda }_5+\frac{\kappa _5^2}{6}\sigma ^2\right),$$
(3)
and the four-dimensional Planck scale is given by

$$\kappa _4^2=\frac{\kappa _5^2}{6}\sigma .$$
(4)
In a spatially flat Friedmann-Roberson-Walker (FRW) model the Friedmann equation on the brane becomes BDE :

$$H^2=\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_4}{3}+\frac{\kappa _4^2}{3}\rho \left(1+\frac{\rho }{2\sigma }\right)+\frac{\mu }{a^4}.$$
(5)
where $`\mu `$ is an integration constant arising from $`E_{\mu \nu }`$, and thus transmitting bulk graviton influence onto the brane. This term is called the dark radiation term, which can be obtained from a full analysis of the bulk equations. In the following we will assume that $`\mu =0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_4=0`$, which indicates that these is a fine-tuning $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_5=\frac{\kappa _5^2}{6}\sigma ^2`$. If the brane tension $`\sigma `$ is much below the energy scale on the brane, then the new term in $`\rho ^2`$ is dominant in the modified Friedmann equation. Hence, the term in $`\rho `$ is negligible during inflation in early universe.

## III Attractor Behavior for Standard Inflaton

We consider a scalar field $`\varphi `$ confined on the brane with self-interaction potential $`V(\varphi )`$. The evolution equation of the field is

$$\ddot{\varphi }+3H\dot{\varphi }+V^{}(\varphi )=0,$$
(6)
subject to the modified Friedmann constraint

$$H^2=\frac{\kappa _4^2}{6\sigma }\left(\frac{1}{2}\dot{\varphi }^2+V(\varphi )\right)^2.$$
(7)
One can derive a very useful alternative form of these equations by using the scalar field as a time variable LPB . This requires that $`\varphi `$ does not change sign during inflation. Without loss of generality, we can choose $`\dot{\varphi }>0`$ throughout. If this is not satisfied, it can be brought about by redefining $`\varphi \varphi `$. Differentiating Eq.(7) with respect to $`t`$ and using Eq.(6) gives

$$\dot{H}=\frac{3\kappa _4}{\sqrt{6\sigma }}H\dot{\varphi }^2.$$
(8)
We may divide each side by $`\dot{\varphi }`$ to eliminate the time dependence in the Friedmann equation, obtaining

$$\dot{\varphi }=\frac{\sqrt{6\sigma }}{3\kappa _4}\frac{H^{}(\varphi )}{H(\varphi )},$$
(9)
which gives the relation between $`\varphi `$ and $`t`$. This allows us to write the Friedmann equation in the first-order form

$$\frac{\sigma }{3\kappa _4^2}\left[\frac{H^{}(\varphi )}{H(\varphi )}\right]^2\frac{\sqrt{6\sigma }}{\kappa _4}H(\varphi )=V(\varphi ).$$
(10)
This new set of equations (9) and (10) is the Hamilton-Jacobi equations, which is normally more convenient than the Eqs.(6) and (7). It allows us to consider $`H(\varphi )`$, rather than $`V(\varphi )`$, as the fundamental quantity to be specified. Once $`H(\varphi )`$ has been specified, we immediately can obtain the corresponding potential from Eq.(10). Also, Eq.(9) gives the relation between $`\varphi `$ and $`t`$, which enables us to obtain $`H(t)`$, which, if it is desired, can be integrated to $`a(t)`$. Therefore, this is the most direct route to obtaining a large set of exact inflationary solutions.

As an example of using (9) and (10), let us consider a universe in the braneworld scenario with $`H(\varphi )=\varphi ^\alpha `$. Elementary algebra now gives the potential to be of the form

$$V(\varphi )=\frac{\sqrt{6\sigma }}{\kappa _4}\varphi ^\alpha \frac{\sigma \alpha ^2}{3\kappa _4^2}\varphi ^2.$$
(11)
The corresponding evolution of $`\varphi (t)`$ is

$$\varphi (t)=\left(\varphi _0^2+\frac{2\sqrt{6\sigma }\alpha }{3\kappa _4}t\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}.$$
(12)
Then we obtain

$$a(t)\{\begin{array}{cc}\left(1+\frac{4\sqrt{6\sigma }}{3\varphi _0^2\kappa _4}t\right)^{\frac{3\kappa _4}{4\sqrt{6\sigma }}}\hfill & \alpha =2\hfill \\ \mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{3\kappa _4}{\alpha (2\alpha )\sqrt{6\sigma }}\left(\varphi _0^2+\frac{2\sqrt{6\sigma }\alpha }{3\kappa _4}t\right)^{1\frac{\alpha }{2}}\right]\hfill & \alpha 2.\hfill \end{array}$$
(13)
Using the Hamilton-Jacobi equations (9) and (10), we demonstrate the attractor behavior in the braneworld scenario. Suppose $`H_0(\varphi )`$ is any solution to Eq.(10), which can be either inflationary or non-inflationary. Add to this a linear homogeneous perturbation $`\delta H(\varphi )`$; the attractor condition will be satisfied if it becomes small as $`\varphi `$ increases. For simplicity, we shall assume, discuss further below, that the perturbations do not reverse the sign of $`\dot{\varphi }`$, though the result holds under more general circumstances. Substituting $`H(\varphi )=H_0(\varphi )+\delta H(\varphi )`$ into Eq.(10) and linearizing it, we find that the perturbation obeys

$$H_0^{}\delta H^{}\left(\frac{9\sqrt{6}\kappa _4}{2\sqrt{\sigma }}H_0\frac{3\kappa _4^2}{\sigma }V\right)H_0\delta H,$$
(14)
which has the general solution

$$\delta H(\varphi )=\delta H(\varphi _i)\mathrm{exp}\left[_{\varphi _i}^\varphi \left(\frac{3\sqrt{6}\kappa _4}{2\sqrt{\sigma }}\frac{H_0^2}{H_0^{}}+\frac{H_0^{}}{H_0}\right)𝑑\varphi \right],$$
(15)
where $`\delta H(\varphi _i)`$ is the value at some initial point $`\varphi _i`$. We have used the fact that $`H_0`$ is any solution to Eq.(10). Because $`H_0^{}`$ and $`d\varphi `$ have opposing signs, the integrand within the exponential term is negative definite, and hence all linear perturbations do indeed die away. If there is an inflationary solution, all linear perturbations approach it at least exponentially fast as the scalar field rolls.

To study an explicit numerical computation of the phase space trajectories in the braneworld scenario, it is most convenient to rewrite the evolution equations (7) and (6) for $`H`$ and $`\varphi `$ as a set of two first-order differential equations with two independent variables $`\varphi `$ and $`\dot{\varphi }`$

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\varphi }{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`\dot{\varphi },`$ (16)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\dot{\varphi }}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3\kappa _4}{\sqrt{6\sigma }}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\dot{\varphi }^2+V(\varphi )\right]\dot{\varphi }V^{}(\varphi ).`$ (17)
Let us consider two different examples. In the first example, we consider a new inflation model in the braneworld scenario, with a potential of Coleman-Weinberg type

$$V(\varphi )=\lambda \varphi ^4\left(\mathrm{ln}\frac{\varphi ^2}{\phi ^2}\frac{1}{2}\right)+\frac{1}{2}\lambda \phi ^4.$$
(18)
We choose different initial conditions in the range $`|\varphi _0|<\phi `$ and $`|\dot{\varphi }_0|<\sqrt{\lambda }\phi ^2`$, and we follow the evolution until the field begins to oscillate around the true vacuum at $`\pm \phi `$. Figure 1 displays the trajectories in the $`(x,y)`$ plane for this model in the braneworld scenario, where $`x`$ and $`y`$ are dimensionless coordinates

$$\varphi =\phi x,\dot{\varphi }=\sqrt{\lambda }\phi ^2y,t=\frac{1}{\sqrt{\lambda }\phi }\eta ,y=\frac{dx}{d\eta }.$$

We find that an initial kinetic term decays rapidly and it does not prevent the onset of inflation. There is a curve that attracts most of the trajectories. This curve corresponds to the slow rolling solution. Moreover, comparing the phase portrait Figure 1 to Figure 2 reveals that the trajectories more rapidly reach the slow rolling curve in the braneworld scenario than in the standard cosmology. Assuming $`\lambda 1`$, $`\phi M_p`$ and $`\phi ^4/\sigma 10`$, the trajectory with $`\dot{\varphi }_00.3M_p^2`$ reaches the slow rolling curve at $`\varphi 0.3M_p`$ in Figure 1 while at $`\varphi 0.5M_p`$ in Figure 2.

In the second example, we investigate the simplest chaotic inflation model on the brane driven by a scalar field with potential

$$V(\varphi )=\frac{1}{2}m^2\varphi ^2.$$
(19)
All solutions to these two equations can be represented as trajectories in the two-dimensional phase space of $`\varphi `$ and $`\dot{\varphi }`$. Figure 3 displays the trajectories in the $`(x,y)`$ plane for this model, where $`x`$ and $`y`$ are dimensionless coordinates

$$\varphi =mx,\dot{\varphi }=m^2y,t=\frac{1}{m}\eta ,y=\frac{dx}{d\eta }.$$

We see that there is a curve that attracts most of the trajectories. However, unlike the new inflation case where only a small part of it corresponds to inflation, in the chaotic case the attractor is the inflationary solution. Comparing Figure 3 to Figure 4, an initial kinetic term decays more rapidly in the braneworld scenario than that in standard cosmology. The COBE constraints require $`m10^{13}`$ GeV MWBH . Assuming $`V(\varphi )/\sigma 10`$, the initial kinetic term $`\dot{\varphi }_02\times 10^{31}`$ GeV decays to zero at $`\varphi 3\times 10^{17}`$ GeV in Figure 3 while at $`\varphi 9\times 10^{17}`$ GeV in Figure 4.

## IV Attractor Behavior for Tachyonic Matter

According to Sen SEN , the effective action of the tachyon field in the Born-Infeld form can be written as

$$S=d^4x\sqrt{g}\left(\frac{1}{2\kappa _4^2}R+V(\varphi )\sqrt{1+_\mu \varphi ^\mu \varphi }\right),$$
(20)
The rolling tachyon in a spatially flat FRW cosmological model can be described by a fluid with a positive energy density $`\rho `$ and a negative pressure $`P`$ given by

$`\rho `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{V(\varphi )}{\sqrt{1\dot{\varphi }^2}}},`$ (21)
$`P`$ $`=`$ $`V(\varphi )\sqrt{1\dot{\varphi }^2},`$ (22)
The evolution equation of the tachyon field minimally coupled to gravity and the modified Friedmann constraint are

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\ddot{\varphi }}{1\dot{\varphi }^2}}+3H\dot{\varphi }+{\displaystyle \frac{V^{}(\varphi )}{V(\varphi )}}=0,`$ (23)
$`H^2={\displaystyle \frac{\kappa _4^2}{6\sigma }}{\displaystyle \frac{V^2(\varphi )}{1\dot{\varphi }^2}}.`$ (24)
Differentiating Eq.(24) with respect to $`t`$ and substituting it in Eq.(23) gives

$$\dot{H}=3H^2\dot{\varphi }^2.$$
(25)
We may divide each side by $`\dot{\varphi }`$ to eliminate the time dependence in the Friedmann equation, obtaining the Hamilton-Jacobi equations

$`\dot{\varphi }={\displaystyle \frac{H^{}(\varphi )}{3H^2(\varphi )}},`$ (26)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{2\sigma }{3\kappa _4^2}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{H^{}(\varphi )}{H(\varphi )}}\right]^2{\displaystyle \frac{6\sigma }{\kappa _4^2}}H^2(\varphi )=V^2(\varphi ).`$ (27)
Once $`H(\varphi )`$ has been specified, we can obtain the corresponding potential and exact inflationary solution using (26) and (27). For example, $`H(\varphi )=\varphi ^\alpha `$ gives the potential

$$V(\varphi )=\frac{\sqrt{\sigma }}{\kappa _4}\left(6\varphi ^{2\alpha }\frac{2\alpha ^2}{3}\varphi ^2\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}.$$
(28)
The corresponding evolution of $`\varphi (t)`$ is

$$\varphi (t)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\varphi _0e^{\frac{2}{3}t}\hfill & \alpha =2\hfill \\ \left(\varphi _0^{2\alpha }+\frac{(2\alpha )\alpha }{3}t\right)^{\frac{1}{2\alpha }}\hfill & \alpha 2.\hfill \end{array}$$
(29)
Then we obtain the corresponding evolution of $`a(t)`$

$$a(t)\{\begin{array}{cc}\left(1+\frac{1}{3}\varphi _0^1t\right)^3\hfill & \alpha =1\hfill \\ \mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{3}{4}\varphi _0^2e^{\frac{4}{3}t}\right)\hfill & \alpha =2\hfill \\ \mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{3}{2\alpha (1\alpha )}\left(\varphi _0^{2\alpha }+\frac{2\alpha \alpha ^2}{3}t\right)^{\frac{22\alpha }{2\alpha }}\right]\hfill & \text{others}.\hfill \end{array}$$
(30)
Analogous to the preceding section we use the Hamilton-Jacobi formalism to analysis the attractor behavior of the tachyonic inflation in the braneworld scenario. Suppose $`H_0(\varphi )`$ is any solution to the full equation of motion, Eq.(27), which can be either inflationary or non-inflationary. Consider a linear homogeneous perturbation $`\delta H(\varphi )`$. It therefore obeys the linearized equation

$$H_0^{}\delta H^{}\left(18H_0^2\frac{3\kappa _4^2}{2\sigma }V^2\right)H_0\delta H,$$
(31)
which has the general solution

$$\delta H(\varphi )=\delta H(\varphi _i)\mathrm{exp}\left[_{\varphi _i}^\varphi \left(\frac{9H_0^3}{H_0^{}}+\frac{H_0^{}}{H_0}\right)𝑑\varphi \right],$$
(32)
We have used the fact that $`H_0`$ is any solution to Eq.(27). Since $`H_0^{}`$ and $`d\varphi `$ have opposing signs, the integrand within the exponential term is negative definite, and hence all linear perturbations do indeed die away. That is, provided the potential is able to support inflation, the inflationary solutions all rapidly approach one another, with exponential rapidity once in the linear regime.

The tachyon potential $`V(\varphi )0`$ as $`\varphi \mathrm{}`$, but its exact form is not know at present. Sen has argued that the qualitative dynamics of string tachyons can be described by (20) with exponential potential SEN2 , which is further investigated in support of this potential for the tachyon system SAMI . The field equations (23) and (24) for tachyonic matter on the brane with the exponential potential

$$V(\varphi )=V_0e^{\alpha \varphi }$$
(33)
can be cast in the form

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\varphi }{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`\dot{\varphi },`$ (34)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\dot{\varphi }}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`(1\dot{\varphi }^2)\left[\alpha {\displaystyle \frac{3\kappa _4V(\varphi )}{\sqrt{6\sigma }}}(1\dot{\varphi }^2)^{\frac{1}{2}}\dot{\varphi }\right].`$ (35)
We choose different initial conditions $`\varphi `$ $`(0\varphi )`$ and $`\dot{\varphi }`$ $`(0\dot{\varphi }1)`$, and we follow the evolution with the exponential potential numerically. Figure 5 displays the trajectories in the $`(\varphi ,\dot{\varphi })`$ plane for this model. We see that there is a curve that attracts most of the trajectories. This curve corresponds to the slow rolling solution. A sufficient tachyon inflation consistent with the observational constraints in the braneworld scenario prefers the string coupling $`g_s10^{16}`$ and the string mass scale $`M_s10^7M_p`$ BBS . Thus the string energy density $`V_010^{15}M_p^4`$. We find that the trajectory with $`\dot{\varphi }_00.8\times 10^7M_p`$ reaches the slow rolling solution at $`\varphi 0.7`$ in Figure 5 in the braneworld scenario while at $`\varphi 1.2`$ in Figure 6 in the standard cosmology, where we assume $`\alpha 1/2`$ and $`V_0/\sigma 10`$. The numerical computation indicates that an initial kinetic term of tachyon field decays more rapidly in the braneworld scenario than in the standard cosmology if the brane tension remains sufficiently below the string energy density.

The effective tachyon field action given by Eq.(20) is a closed form expression incorporating all the higher power of $`_\mu \varphi `$. It is impossible to obtain a canonical kinetic term via a field redefinition. The momentum conjugate to $`\varphi `$ is given by

$$\mathrm{\Pi }=\frac{V(\varphi )}{\sqrt{1\dot{\varphi ^2}}}\dot{\varphi }.$$
(36)
Figure 7 and Figure 8 display the trajectories in the $`(\varphi ,\mathrm{\Pi })`$ plane for this model in the braneworld scenario and in the standard FRW scenario respectively, which are consistent with Figure 5 and Figure 6. Comparing Figure 5 to Figure 7, when $`\varphi \mathrm{}`$, the kinetic term $`\dot{\varphi }1`$ and the momentum density $`\mathrm{\Pi }0`$ since $`V(\varphi )0`$.

## V Conclusions and Discussions

We have derived the Hamilton-Jacobi equations of the inflation driven by a scalar field or a tachyon field, which is confined on a three-dimensional brane in five-dimensional Einstein gravity, and have obtained a set of exact inflationary solutions. To demonstrate the attractor behavior, we use the Hamilton-Jacobi formalism, which greatly simplifies the analysis. We restrict ourselves to linear homogeneous perturbations, which is all that is needed because, classically at least, inflation does indeed generate large smooth patches. If the perturbation is nonlinear, then the solution is made more complicated but, because the full equation is only first order, it is easy to see that solutions are compelled to approach one another regardless of whether the perturbation is linear or not. For simplicity, we also assume that the perturbations do not reverse the sign of $`\dot{\varphi }`$, which can matter only if the perturbation takes the field over the top of a maximum in the potential because otherwise it will simply roll up, reverse its direction, and pass back down through the same point, where it can be regarded as a perturbation on the original solution with the same sign of $`\dot{\varphi }`$.

Moreover, we have investigated two typical models for the scalar field: the new inflation with the Coleman-Weinberg potential and the chaotic inflation with the simplest potential, and have investigated the tachyon inflation on the brane with the exponential potential. The phase space trajectories indicate that an initial kinetic term decays rapidly and it does not prevent the onset of inflation, that is, inflation on the brane possesses the attractor behaviour. In phase space there is a curve that attracts most of the trajectories. This curve corresponds to the slow rolling solution. Our numerical results show that the initial kinetic terms more rapidly decay and so the trajectories more rapidly reach the inflationary solution in the braneworld scenario than in the standard cosmology. At low energies, $`\rho \sigma `$, the modified Freidmann equation (5) reduces to the standard form since the term quadratic in the energy density is negligible. However at high energies, $`\rho \sigma `$, the term quadratic in the energy density dominates the modified Freidmann equation. The effect of the modified Friedmann equations (7) and (24) at high energies is to increase the Hubble parameter by the new factor $`\rho /2\sigma `$. Thus the friction term $`3H\dot{\varphi }`$ in the evolution equation of the field (6) or (23) becomes larger, which leads to more rapid decay of the initial kinetic term. Thus brane effects widen the range of the initial conditions for successful inflation.

It is interesting to investigate cosmological evolutions in models where the effective potential $`V(\varphi )=V_0+\frac{1}{2}m^2\varphi ^2`$ may become negative for some values of the field $`\varphi `$ in the braneworld scenario. Phase portraits of such theories in space of variables $`(\varphi ,\dot{\varphi },H)`$ are different from phase portraits in the standard usual cosmological scenario FFKL . For a flat universe $`k=0`$ with a negative potential $`V_0<0`$, all trajectories in the three-dimensional phase space $`(\varphi ,\dot{\varphi },H)`$ are located at a paraboloid in contrast with a hyperboloid of one sheet in the standard cosmological scenario. Trajectories both in the expanding universe region $`(H>0)`$ and in the contracting universe region $`(H<0)`$ spiral in towards the center in two-dimensional projection $`(\varphi ,\dot{\varphi })`$ of the flat universe hypersurface for this model. However, there appears a wormhole connecting the expanding and contracting branches in the standard cosmological scenario FFKL . In the braneworld scenario, cosmological evolution with negative potential may have more fruitful phenomena, which is worth studying further.

## Acknowledgements

It is a pleasure to acknowledge helpful discussions with Yun-Song Piao and Rong-Gen Cai. This project was in part supported by NNSFC under Grant No.10175070 and by NBRPC2003CB716300.