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# Untitled Document

gr-qc/0309126

SU–GP–03/6–3

Indecomposable Ideals in Incidence Algebras  To appear in a special issue of Modern Physics Letters A devoted to the proceedings of “Balfest”, held May, 2003, in Vietri sul Mare, Italy

Rafael D. Sorkin

Department of Physics, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-1130, U.S.A.

internet email address: sorkin@physics.syr.edu

Abstract

The elements of a finite partial order $`P`$ can be identified with the maximal indecomposable two-sided ideals of its incidence algebra A, and then for two such ideals, $`IJIJ0`$. This offers one way to recover a poset from its incidence algebra. In the course of proving the above, we classify all of the two-sided ideals of A.

In contemporary physical theory, the concept of a “space” or, more formally, of a set with structure, plays a central role. Most notably, spacetime itself is conceived of in this manner – as a differentiable manifold. However, one can observe a certain tension between two ways of conceptualizing such structures and working with them. Tangent vectors, for example, can be thought of either as infinitesimal displacements or as sets of numbers obeying a linear transformation law. In present day language, the two opposed tendencies of thought can to some extent be characterized by the words “geometrical” and “algebraic”, although neither term is really suitable. Perhaps, “intrinsic” vs “coordinate based” comes closer; and sometimes the words “synthetic” and “analytic” have been used to convey the same opposition (as in synthetic versus analytic geometry).  In the philosophical world, these two attitudes manifest themselves to some degree as “materialism” and “instrumentalism” although the correspondence is obviously very imperfect (cf. the oft stated idea that an instrument reading is always a number.)

Consider, for example, Minkowski spacetime $`\text{𝕄}^4`$. From the “intrinsic” side it can be understood, on one hand, as a topological space of dimension four supporting such concepts as straight line (inertial motion), light cone, and parallelogram. Or by focusing on its causal relationships rather than its metric and topological ones, one can understand $`\text{𝕄}^4`$ as a certain partially ordered set (poset), a second “intrinsic” characterization that is nevertheless very different from the first. In contrast to both these characterizations, $`\text{𝕄}^4`$ would be described from the “coordinate based” side by four real variables $`t,x,y,z`$ which geometrically have the meaning of numerical functions on spacetime. Here, the algebraic relationships among the four variables take center stage, while the actual elements of the space (the points) withdraw into the background.

Of course the “intrinsic” and “coordinate based” descriptions of $`\text{𝕄}^4`$ are mathematically equivalent. The most highly developed and general instance of this sort of equivalence is the Gel’fand isomorphism, which implies in particular that any manifold can be recovered, as a topological space, from the $`C^{}`$-algebra of scalar functions that it supports (in effect its coordinate functions). However, a manifold per se is not yet a spacetime because it lacks metrical information. To recover that as well, one can proceed as in  or following the more detailed scheme of . Neither approach captures in any essential manner the Lorentzian character of the metric, however. (Indeed, the latter scheme is actually incompatible with Lorentzian signature.) The question thus arises whether there exists a similar “algebraization” of spacetime based not on its topological and metrical attributes but on its causal order.

The finding of such a correspondence could be expected to hold interest for more than one reason. On one hand, some workers, going back to , have viewed algebraization as potentially a means by which to introduce a fundamental spacetime discreteness, a view which appears to account for much of the current interest in “non-commutative geometry”. On the other hand, algebraization has from the outset been one of the royal roads to the “quantization” of a theory, so that one might hope that any new equivalence between intrinsic and algebraic descriptions of spacetime – or of whatever hypothetical substratum one takes to replace spacetime – would open up new avenues for building a theory of quantum gravity. It is this second prospect that primarily animates the considerations of the present paper, which are inspired by the hypothesis that the deep structure of spacetime is that of a causal set  . Since this structure is already inherently discrete, there is no need to introduce discreteness and therefore no reason to appeal to algebraization on that score. Nonetheless, one may still feel it useful to attempt various algebraic reformulations of causal set kinematics in the hope that one of them might help lead us to the correct quantum theory of causal set dynamics. I will have a bit more to say about this in the conclusion, but for now let us turn to the mathematical question that will primarily concern us herein: that of finding a suitable “algebraization” of the poset concept.

As I remarked earlier, a relativistic spacetime is inherently a partial order  Order, partial order, partially ordered set, poset, and ordered set are all synonyms. (at least to the extent that one can count on the impossibility of “time travel”). A causal set is also a partial order, but with the crucial difference that it is locally finite.  A poset is called locally finite if all its intervals are finite. If this is strengthened to the requirement that its “upward” and “downward” sets be separately finite, the poset becomes suitable to represent a “finitary topological space”. Posets of this type have been the subject of much work by the dedicatee and his co-workers, but in a spatial context rather than a spacetime one . (See also  ). The results to be proven below will of course apply equally well in this context. Rather than seeking an algebra to capture the structure of an arbitrary poset, then, let us confine ourselves to the simpler case of locally finite orders; in fact let us simplify still further to the case of orders whose cardinality is strictly finite.

So let $`C`$ be a poset of finite cardinality. Does there exist an algebra A naturally associated to $`C`$ and from which, conversely, $`C`$ can be recovered? One algebra that people have studied in this connection is the so called incidence algebra of $`C`$, which one might view as an algebra of retarded (or, dually, advanced) functions on $`C\times C`$, the product being given by convolution. In the finite case, this is just a matrix algebra, or more accurately, it is the algebra of all matrices with zeros in certain specified locations which reflect directly the defining order relation $``$ of $`C`$.

It is known that the incidence algebra does indeed capture the structure of $`C`$, at least if one interprets $``$ reflexively in the sense that the diagonals of the matrices representing the elements of A are left free. Remarkably, the nature of the space $``$ algebra correspondence in this case can be arranged to be closely analogous to that of the Gel’fand isomorphism, even though the algebra which figures in the latter is commutative and semisimple, whereas an incidence algebra is not only non-commutative, but almost nilpotent (which is about as far from semi-simplicity as one can get). Despite these differences, one can in both cases choose to identify the elements of the underlying space with the maximal two-sided ideals of A, as explained in  and .

As we will see in a moment, however, there is quite a different way to set up a correspondence between $`C`$ and A in the poset case, and this is perhaps fortunate, in that one might feel uncomfortable with certain features of the Gel’fand-like scheme as adapted to partial orders. A first concern arises from the circumstance that it is not the fundamental order relation $``$ as such that one directly recovers between elements regarded as maximal ideals, but rather the “nearest neighbor” or link relation  Also called “covering relation” in the mathematical literature.  . The full precedence relation must then be re-generated via transitive closure. In the purely discrete case, this is always possible, so viewing one relation as more or less “fundamental” than the other seems largely a matter of taste. However, the failure to recover $``$ directly could bode ill in a continuum context where the simple precedence relation continues to make sense but links no longer exist (since between any two causally related points, one can always interpolate a third). Moreover, even for finite posets $`C`$, the correspondence between elements and maximal ideals falls apart if one adopts the irreflexive convention  defined below for $`C`$, and this is disturbing because one would hope that a choice of convention would not influence the underlying relationships so strongly. Again, one might hope that some other scheme would be more robust in this regard.

In view of such doubts, it seems worth exploring other ways to recover a poset from its incidence algebra, a task we begin here by showing that it is equally possible to identify the poset elements, not with the maximal ideals, but with certain indecomposable ideals; and by doing so one obtains the precedence relation directly as a relation between the corresponding ideals. Of course, it would also make sense to explore alternatives to the incidence algebra itself, but I will not attempt that in this paper.

Some Definitions

A finite order is a set $`C`$ comprising a finite number of elements and carrying a “precedence relation” $``$ which is transitive and asymmetric. That is, for arbitrary elements $`x,y,z`$ of $`C`$ we always have $`xyzxz`$, and we never have $`xyx`$ when $`x`$ and $`y`$ are distinct. In addition we will always assume, unless stated otherwise, that $``$ is reflexive, i.e. that every element $`x`$ precedes itself: $`xx`$. Although, this is in some sense merely a convention that one can adopt or reject at will, it turns out to influence profoundly the structure of the incidence algebra.  For example, with the reflexive convention, A has in general more idempotents than $`C`$ has elements, whereas with the opposite, irreflexive convention, A has no idempotents at all.

We can now define the incidence algebra of $`C`$ by introducing for each related pair $`xy`$ a generator $`[xy]`$ and taking A to be the set of formal linear combinations of these generators. The order structure of $`C`$ is then further encoded in the rule for multiplication of algebra elements as given by the relation $`[xy][yz]=[xz]`$, for all triples $`xyz`$. For definiteness, we will take the field of scalars to be the complexes , although nothing will depend on this.

Two other representations of the incidence algebra are useful and (for finite $`C`$) strictly equivalent to the definition just given. First one may think of A as an algebra of $`n\times n`$ matrices, where $`n=|C|`$ is the cardinality of $`C`$ and the generator $`[xy]`$ corresponds to the matrix with a single $`1`$ in row $`x`$, column $`y`$ and zeros everywhere else.  In the Dirac notation, this correspondence reads $`[xy]=|x><y|`$, a notation that was used in . The asymmetry of the relation $``$ then translates into the fact that if one chooses a suitable labeling for the elements of $`C`$ (a so called natural labeling) then all the matrices representing members of A are upper triangular (but not strictly so, inasmuch as diagonal generators like $`[xx]`$ are also part of A thanks to our standing assumption that $``$ is reflexive). A slightly different representation of A comes from thinking of the entries of the matrix as the values of a “two-point function” $`f:C\times C\text{}`$. With this representation a member of the incidence algebra is an arbitrary advanced function and the algebra product is convolution: $`f=ghf(x,z)=_yg(x,y)h(y,z)`$. Of course this is just the formula for matrix multiplication in a slightly different notation.

By an ideal $`I`$ of A, I will always mean, in this paper, a two-sided ideal, in other words a nonempty subset of A closed under addition, scalar multiplication, and left or right multiplication by an arbitrary element of A. Note in this connection that, by virtue of our choice of reflexive convention for $`C`$, A is automatically “unital”: it has an identity element given by $`1=[xx]+[yy]+[zz]+\mathrm{}`$, where the sum extends over all elements of $`C`$. Consequently there is no need to distinguish, for example, “regular ideals” from irregular ones .

The sum $`I_1+I_2`$ of two ideals $`I_1`$ and $`I_2`$ is the collection of all sums $`a_1+a_2`$ where $`a_1I_1`$ and $`a_2I_2`$. Equivalently $`I_1+I_2`$ is the least ideal containing both $`I_1`$ and $`I_2`$: it is their “join” in the lattice of ideals of A. An indecomposable ideal in A is then a non-zero ideal that cannot be expressed as the sum of two ideals distinct from itself. (In the language of lattice theory, such an ideal is said to be “join irreducible”. A closely related notion was employed in the definitions of $`TIP`$ and $`TIF`$ in .) By a maximal indecomposable ideal I will mean an indecomposable ideal that is contained properly in no other indecomposable ideal. One also defines simply a maximal ideal $`I\text{A}`$ as one which cannot be enlarged without coinciding with A. (Thus, a maximal ideal is a maximal element in the family of all ideals not equal to A, while a maximal indecomposable ideal is a maximal element in the family of all indecomposable ideals.)

Similarly, we define the product of two ideals $`I`$ and $`J`$ as the collection of products of members of $`I`$ with members of $`J`$: $`IJ=\left\{xy\right|x,y\text{A}\}`$. From the definitions it is immediate that $`IJ`$ is also an ideal and is contained in both $`I`$ and $`J`$. (It is, however, not in general equal to their intersection $`IJ`$, which would be their “meet” in the lattice of ideals.)

Finally, we define within an arbitrary order $`P`$ a downward set as a subset $`DP`$ that is closed under “taking of pasts”: $`xyDxD`$. An upward set $`U`$ is defined dually. (In spacetime language, these could be called, respectively, “past sets” and “future sets”.)

Recovery of the poset from its incidence algebra

Our main result can be stated as a theorem:

THEOREM Let $`C`$ be a finite order (with reflexive convention) and let A be its incidence algebra. Then the elements $`x`$ of $`C`$ correspond bijectively with the maximal indecomposable ideals $`I`$ of A, and under this correspondence the relation $`x_1x_2`$ goes over to $`I_1I_20`$.

Before proving the theorem, let us notice a sense in which this (or any other) equivalence between a poset and its incidence algebra is somewhat less satisfactory than the Gel’fand isomorphism mentioned earlier, the flaw being that A has in general more automorphisms than $`C`$ has.  Because the algebra A is not commutative, it will in general possess continuous families of inner automorphisms, whereas $`C`$, being a finite set, can have at most a finite number of automorphisms. (On the other hand, it looks as if the superfluity due to the inner automorphisms might be the only one. That is, it looks as if we might have $`Aut(C)Outer(\text{A}):=(Aut\text{A})/(Inner\text{A})`$, where $`(Inner\text{A})`$ is the group of inner automorphisms of A.) Although the isomorphism equivalence class of A can be deduced from that of $`C`$ and conversely, there is thus some “looseness” in the correspondence that is not present in the Gel’fand case. Possibly related is the failure, pointed out in , of the correspondence between a poset and its incidence algebra to be functorial between the category of finite orders with isotone mappings and the category of algebras with algebra homomorphisms.  This is not necessarily a “failing” in itself. For example, the association to a manifold $`M`$ of its tensor algebra is not functorial, nor (as remarked to me by Chris Isham) is the association to $`M`$ of its diffeomorphism group. Nevertheless, for certain purposes the lack of functoriality can be a problem, e.g. if one wished to reproduce the limiting process of  in terms of incidence algebras.

The ideals of A

We will prove the above theorem by classifying the ideals of A. To this end, let us notice that every member of A has a unique expression as a sum of multiples of the generators $`[xy]`$ that we defined earlier. To convey the fact that one particular such generator $`[xy]`$ occurs with a nonzero coefficient in some member of the ideal $`I`$, let me say, for lack of a better word, that $`[xy]`$ “figures in $`I`$”. In contrast, the statement that $`[xy]`$ “is an element of $`I`$” (in symbols, $`[xy]I`$) means that some $`AI`$ literally coincides with $`[xy]`$. In the matrix representation of A, a generator $`[xy]`$ corresponds to a particular location in the matrix. It then “figures in” $`I`$ if some matrix of $`I`$ has a nonzero coefficient in that location, whereas it is an element of $`I`$ if some matrix of $`I`$ has a $`1`$ in that location and zeros everywhere else. In these terms we can now state a key lemma.

LEMMA If some $`[xy]`$ “figures in” the ideal $`I`$ then it is actually an element of $`I`$

PROOF By assumption there is $`AI`$ such that $`A=\alpha [xy]+B`$ where $`\alpha `$ is a nonzero scalar and $`B`$ is a sum of multiples of pairs $`[uv]`$ such that either $`u`$ differs from $`x`$ or $`v`$ from $`y`$. But this means that $`[xx]B[yy]=0`$ because the same holds for every one of its constituent pairs $`[uv]`$. Hence $`[xx]A[yy]=\alpha [xx][xy][yy]=\alpha [xy]`$ is a multiple of $`[xy]`$, and this implies immediately that $`[xy]`$ itself belongs to $`I`$ by the definition of an ideal. (Namely $`[xy]=(1/\alpha )[xx]A[yy]`$ must be an element of $`I`$ if $`A`$ is one.)

COROLLARY Every ideal $`I`$ of A is the set of all linear combinations of some unique set $`𝒰(I)`$ of generators $`[xy]`$.

That is, we have for every ideal of the incidence algebra, $`I=span𝒰(I)`$, where $`𝒰(I)=\{[x_1y_1],[x_2y_2],[x_3y_3],\mathrm{}[x_ny_n]\}`$, with the $`[x_jy_j]`$ being uniquely determined by $`I`$ and conversely. It is moreover, easy to figure out which sets of pairs can belong to an ideal in this way. Let $`S=𝒰(I)`$ be such a set. If $`[xy]S`$ and $`uxyv`$ then $`[uv]=[ux][xy][yv]I`$ and therefore $`[uv]S`$. Thus $`S`$ is necessarily closed under the process of “passing to nested pairs”. To express this succinctly let us formally introduce this “nesting” as an order relation among pairs.

DEFINITION $`[xy][uv]ux`$ and $`yv`$

This definition makes the set of all pairs $`[xy]`$ into a poset $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, and with reference to this auxiliary poset, we see that the sets $`𝒰(I)`$ are precisely the upward sets of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. Thus we have proved:

THEOREM The ideals of A correspond bijectively with the upward sets of the poset $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ of pairs $`[x,y]`$

Moreover, the relation of inclusion between ideals obviously mirrors exactly the relation of inclusion between the corresponding upward sets. In particular, we have

LEMMA $`𝒰(I+J)=𝒰(I)𝒰(J)`$

PROOF Recall that $`I+J`$ is precisely the smallest ideal including both $`I`$ and $`J`$; and notice that the union of two upward sets is also an upward set.

It follows immediately that an ideal $`I`$ is indecomposable iff its corresponding upward set, $`𝒰(I)`$, is not the union of two upward sets distinct from itself. But in any (finite) poset an upward set has this property iff it is (empty or) what might be called a “principal upward set”, that is iff it has the form $`\left\{\eta \right|\xi \eta \}`$ for some $`\xi `$. We have thus shown:

THEOREM The indecomposable ideals of A correspond bijectively with the pairs $`[xy]`$, $`x,yC`$, $`xy`$

From this we can easily conclude that the maximal indecomposable ideals correspond precisely with the principal upward sets of minimal elements of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, which in turn are clearly the diagonal pairs $`[xx]`$, for $`xC`$. In other words:

LEMMA An ideal $`I\text{A}`$ is maximal indecomposable $`I=\text{A}[xx]\text{A}`$ for some $`xC`$.

This substantiates the first assertion of our main theorem.  Very similar reasoning yields the “Gel’fand” correspondence between maximal ideals and elements of $`C`$, since a maximal upward set in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is precisely the complement of a single minimal element of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, i.e. (as we have just observed) of a single pair $`[xx]`$. However, if our only purpose were to classify the maximal ideals of A, it would be simpler just to adopt the representation of an element of A as a matrix and pay attention to the set of zeros on its diagonal. In order to complete the proof, we have only to verify that $`I_xI_y0`$ iff $`xy`$, where I’ve written $`I_x`$ for $`\text{A}[xx]\text{A}`$. But this is completely straightforward. In fact, we have:

LEMMA Let $`\text{I}(x,y)=\text{A}[xy]\text{A}`$ denote the principal ideal generated by $`[xy]`$. Then the product $`\text{I}(x,y)\text{I}(u,v)`$ equals $`\text{I}(x,v)`$ when $`yu`$, and zero otherwise.

PROOF Write B for the product in question. Because A is unital, $`\text{A}\text{A}=\text{A}`$, whence $`\text{B}=\text{A}[xy]\text{A}\text{A}[uv]\text{A}=\text{A}[xy]\text{A}[uv]\text{A}`$. Now, $`[xy]\text{A}[uv]0[yu]\text{A}yu`$, and in that case, clearly, $`\text{B}=\text{A}[xy][yu][uv]\text{A}=\text{A}[xv]\text{A}`$.

COROLLARY $`\text{I}(x,x)\text{I}(y,y)`$ equals $`\text{I}(x,y)`$ when $`xy`$, and zero otherwise.

Our main theorem is thus demonstrated. Along the way, we have seen that every indecomposable ideal is a principal ideal (of some pair $`[xy]`$). We have also found (in view of the most recent lemma) an equivalent way to characterize the maximal indecomposable ideals: An indecomposable ideal $`I`$ is maximal iff it is “idempotent” in the sense that $`II=I`$ (which happens iff $`II0`$).

Finally, it bears remarking that the last lemma actually furnishes an order on the full set of indecomposable ideals. Since every such ideal has the form $`\text{A}[xy]\text{A}`$ for some $`[xy]`$, the substrate of this order can be taken to be the set of pairs  Thus, the order in question shares its substrate with the order $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. The two precedence relations are obviously very different, however. $`xy`$ of elements of $`C`$ and its precedence relation is then $`[xy][uv]yu`$. (Such an order is often called an “interval order”.) It is actually this order that we recover most directly from the algebra A. Interestingly enough, it is neither reflexive nor irreflexive.  providing a counter-argument to the opinion that the choice between the two possibilities is always purely conventional! Rather, it is precisely its reflexive elements that correspond to elements of the underlying poset $`C`$.

Remarks

With the proof of our main theorem, we are in the curious position of being able to discern two very different algebraic images of our original poset $`C`$ within its incidence algebra A. On one hand, we can identify the element $`xC`$ with the ideal generated by $`[xx]`$, on the other hand with the ideal of all algebra elements omitting $`[xx]`$. Depending on which possibility one selects, one recovers from the ideals either the relation $``$ or its associated link relation, respectively. Either way, one can conclude that the full structure of $`C`$ is captured by A.

However, with the second scheme, this conclusion rests heavily on our assumption that $`C`$ is finite, which (trivially) guarantees enough discreteness so that any two related elements of $`C`$ can be joined by a chain of links. In a continuum such as a Lorentzian manifold (or for a countable dense set thereof), this is assuredly not the case because no links are present at all. Hence the construction which recovers $``$ directly (that based on maximal indecomposable ideals) seems more robust from this point of view. It might be interesting to test whether this is indeed true by generalizing A to, say, a globally hyperbolic spacetime $`M`$ and asking whether some suitable analog of the construction of this paper would give back the metric of $`M`$. (This would require one to recover the volume density $`\sqrt{g}`$ in addition to the causal order of $`M`$, but that is not obviously impossible, since $`\sqrt{g}`$ does enter into A, via the definition of the convolution product.)

Of course, it would also be interesting to investigate possible inter-relationships between the two schemes for recovering the elements of $`C`$. Perhaps they could already be seen to be equivalent at the algebraic level, or perhaps they complement each other in some way.

Concerning physical applications of the duality between a poset and its incidence algebra, there seems not much to say at present. If one is thinking in terms of quantum gravity and causal sets, then trading a causal set $`C`$ for its incidence algebra A is not necessarily a step in the right direction, because a quantal “sum over causal sets” seems easier to imagine (as in ) than a corresponding “sum over algebras A”. On the other hand, the physical causal set $`C`$ is not the only poset to figure in the theory. The “poset of stems” played an important role in the considerations of , where it served as a fixed arena allowing one to define conveniently the Markov process of “classical sequential growth”. (This poset is illustrated in Figure 1 of . Its elements are the finite orders, and its precedence relation is “inclusion as a downward set”.) Perhaps the incidence algebra of this poset could play a role in the search for a physically appropriate dynamics of “quantal sequential growth”. Such a dynamics would provide the quantal analog for causal sets of the classical Einstein equations for continuum Lorentzian manifolds. That is, it would provide a theory of quantum gravity.

Returning to the realm of pure mathematics for a moment, one can ask whether algebras other than the incidence algebra might have a role to play in the “algebraization” of the poset concept. If so, the new algebra might be constructed either from the incidence algebra or directly from the elements of the poset. Here, just to illustrate the type of thing one could consider, is an algebra of the second sort. It might even be trivial as far as I know, but at least it is not as obviously trivial as some similar possibilities I played with first! One takes for generators the elements of $`C`$ itself, and one imposes three sets of relations: (i) $`abcabc=ac`$; (ii) $`ababa=0`$; (iii) $`ab,abba=0`$. If this construction is worthy of further consideration, one might begin by asking whether it is functorial and how the resulting algebra’s automorphism group relates to that of $`C`$.

I would like to thank Prakash Panangaden, Ioannis Raptis and Kamesh Wali for inspiration and encouragement. This research was partly supported by NSF grant PHY-0098488 and by a grant from the Office of Research and Computing of Syracuse University.

References

 R. Geroch, “Einstein Algebras”, Comm. Math. Phys.  26: 271-275 (1972)

 Alain Connes, Noncommutative Geometry (Academic Press, 1994); Giovanni Landi, An Introduction to Noncommutative Spaces and their Geometries, Lecture Notes in Physics: Monographs, m51 (Springer-Verlag, 1977) $``$hep-th/9701078$``$.

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 R.D. Sorkin and K.C. Wali (unpublished)

 Encyclopedic Dictionary of Mathematics, Second Edition (MIT press, 1993), article 36.D

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# Excitations of the torelon

## 1 INTRODUCTION

It is believed that the confining regime of Yang-Mills theory may be described by some kind of effective string model. The energy of the flux tube between static quark sources in 4d SU(3) has been studied in detail : the grouping of excited states into bands and the corresponding energy gap dependence on $`r`$ at large distances is suggestive of the string picture, but there is a significant fine structure. Recent studies in 3d Z(2), SU(2) and compact U(1)  confirmed a string formation at large separation with less pronounced fine structure. In the following calculations we analyse the spectrum of the QCD periodic flux tube. The torelon has no fixed colour sources and so provides a particularly favourable theoretical environment in which to observe the onset of string behaviour .

## 2 SIMULATION DETAILS

On the lattice, torelons may be created using colour-singlet traces of ordered product of link matrices encircling a spatial lattice direction. Excitations are obtained by projection onto longitudinal momentum $`p_z`$ eigenstates and onto different irreps of rotations in the plane transverse to the flux. The energy spectrum of a QCD flux tube is then estimated by Monte-Carlo measurement of the correlation function,

$$C(t)=\varphi ^{}(t)\varphi (0)\stackrel{t\mathrm{}}{}|\text{vac}|\varphi |0|^2e^{E_0t},$$
(1)
where $`E_0`$ is the energy of the lightest state which can be created by the operator $`\varphi (t)`$. Because the signal decreases exponentially as t is increased, it is very important to obtain the asymptotic behaviour of the correlator as quickly as possible. In order to do so we choose operators for which the overlap with the lightest state is as large as possible. We use an anisotropic lattice in which the temporal spacing $`a_t`$ is much smaller than that in the spatial directions $`a_s`$ to exploit the enhanced signal-to-noise of the correlation function at smaller temporal separations. The center symmetry of the Lagrangian allows us to restrict our torelon operators to be positive under charge conjugation. The lattice symmetry of rotations about the winding axis $`z`$, is $`C_{4\nu }Z()`$ for $`p_z=0`$ or $`C_{4\nu }`$ for $`p_z0`$. $`C_{4\nu }`$ contains rotations of $`\frac{\pi }{2}`$ and the reflection in the $`xy`$ plane ($`𝒫`$-parity) and has five irreducible representations: $`A_1`$,$`A_2`$,$`B_1`$,$`B_2`$ and $`E`$. $`Z()`$ denotes the two-element group consisting of the identity operation and the reflection about the midpoint on the principal axis $`z`$ ($``$-parity). States that are even/odd under $``$-parity are labeled by the subscripts $`g`$/$`u`$ respectively.

Simulations were performed on three different lattices of extent in the $`z`$ direction of 8, 12 and 16 $`a_s`$. The lattice action was Symanzik improved and included a two-plaquette term, designed to reduce cut-off artefacts in the scalar glueball mass. The anisotropy was set to $`a_s/a_t=6`$ with $`a_s=0.21`$ fm (from $`r_0`$). Linear combinations of the eight operators shown in Fig. 1 transforming irreducibly under the lattice symmetries were computed on two smeared sets of links and a variational methods was employed on the 16 operators to optimise overlaps.

## 3 EFFECTIVE STRING THEORY

For long QCD torelons, the two transverse oscillations of the tube are the only degrees of freedom forced to be low-lying Goldstone modes. These are the degrees of freedom of an oscillating string. In $`d<26`$ however, quantisation spoils Lorentz invariance and the string picture must then be regarded as an effective theory.

An important question is whether or not sufficiently long QCD torelons can be well described by an effective string theory, such as the Nambu-Goto string in $`d<26`$, or the Polchinski-Strominger proposal . Note that the simplest theories do not naturally include a number of effects that might also be relevant, such as rigidity terms or interactions with the QCD bulk.

At lowest order in an expansion about $`1/L`$, all these pictures give a common spectrum of states with energy gaps $`2\pi N/L`$. The quantum numbers of some of these excitations for states up to $`N=3`$ are given in Table 1. This table is restricted to those states considered in the QCD calculation. This spectrum can be computed for the Nambu-Goto action and a computation of the $`1/L^3`$ corrections in the Polchinski-Strominger scheme is also under investigation. The picture emerging from the analysis of these simple classes of effective string theories is that the fine structure is predominantly dependent on the longitudinal momentum along the string.

## 4 PRELIMINARY RESULTS

The results from the three simulations described in Sec. 2 are presented in Fig. 2. The value $`L=2`$ fm (determined from $`r_0`$) is indicated by a vertical line. As can be seen in the first figure, all states are correctly ordered according to their string classification, $`N`$ once $`L>2`$ fm. The energy gap of all levels is qualitatively in agreement with the first order string prediction $`2\pi N/L`$ as shown in the last figure.

The second figure shows the $`N=1`$ level is close to the lowest-order string prediction, although deviations are resolved. The difference between the lowest-order string model and this excitation appears to grow as L is increased.

In the $`N=2`$ states, significant structure is seen below 2 fm, while an extremely interesting pattern of degeneracies emerges at $`L/a_s=12`$ and $`16`$. Here, the $`p_z=0`$ and $`p_z=2`$ states form two degenerate clusters. This is in agreement with indications from the effective string calculations that the fine structure is dependent on $`p_z`$ alone. The splitting between these clusters decreases as $`L`$ increases.

At $`N=3`$, for $`L>2`$ fm, there appears to be a single degenerate set (notice from Table. 1 all 3 states have $`p_z=1`$) but a clear split between the $`B_1`$ and $`B_2`$ states is found. In the continuum these two states are expected to be degenerate and tests on possible lattice artifacts are under investigation. Extra operators for these states are being studied.

## 5 CONCLUSIONS

In this work, we have demonstrated that high-resolution measurements of the QCD torelon and its excitations can be made on the anisotropic lattice. This data will provide a useful forum for making comparisons with effective string theories and other models of the confining flux. Qualitative predictions of this fine structure remains a significant challenge. Continuum extrapolations are needed and simulations with larger torelons are also under study.

This work was supported by the U.S. NSF under Award PHY-0099450, U.S. DOE Grant No. DE-FG03-97ER40546, EU HPRN-CT-2000-00145. FM is grateful for support from Trinity College and Enterprise-Ireland.


text:
# The Asakura-Oosawa model in the protein limit: the role of many-body interactions

## I Introduction

The Asakura Oosawa (AO) modelAsak58 , also known as the penetrable hard sphere modelVrij76 , was first introduced almost 50 years ago to describe depletion effects in colloid-polymer mixtures. The colloids are modelled as hard spheres (HS) of radius $`R_c`$, and the “polymers”, or AO particles, as penetrable hard spheres (PHS), which interact as ideal particles with each other, but as HS of radius $`R_{AO}`$ with respect to the colloids. In spite of its simplicity, this model has been instrumental in understanding the phase-behaviour of polymer-colloid mixtures. For example, increasing the polymer concentration can lead to a fluid-fluid or fluid-solid demixing of the colloidal particles. The origin of this phase transition arises from the depletion effect, which is easily illustrated by calculating the free-energy of two HS in a bath of PHS AO particles. Each HS excludes a volume $`\frac{4}{3}\pi (R_c+R_{AO})^3`$ from the PHS particles, but when two HS approach, their exclusion volumes overlap, resulting in more free volume available for the PHS spheres. This translates into an effective depletion pair potential between the two particles of the formAsak58 ; Vrij76

$$\beta V_{AO}(r)=z_{AO}\frac{4\pi }{3}(\sigma _{cp})^3\left\{1\frac{3}{4}\frac{r}{\sigma _{cp}}+\frac{1}{16}\left(\frac{r}{\sigma _{cp}}\right)^3\right\},$$
(1)
in the range $`\sigma _c<r2\sigma _{cp}`$, where $`\sigma _{cp}=R_{AO}+R_c`$ and $`z_{AO}`$ is the fugacity of the AO PHS particles. The AO potential is always attractive, with a well-depth that increases with the fugacity (or number density) of AO particles. Simple geometrical arguments show that for size ratios $`q=R_{AO}/R_c0.1547`$ there are no higher order many-body interactions beyond the effective pair potential. For larger $`q`$, however, multiple overlap of the depletion zones can occur, leading to many-body interactions. As with many soft matter systems, these are often difficult to calculate, and so a common approximation is to ignore them, and treat a system in the effective pair-potential approximationLoui01a ; Liko01 . For the AO model, this works surprisingly well for descriptions of phase behaviour up to size-ratios of $`q1`$Meij94 ; Dijk99 .

In this paper we study the AO model for $`q=R_{AO}/R_c>>1`$. For polymer-colloid systems this is often called the nano-particle or protein limit, because small particles such as proteins are needed to achieve the large size-ratios. Clearly, a pair potential picture should break down for large enough $`q`$, where many-body effects are expected to dominate. For ideal polymers in the limit $`q<1`$, the effect of many-body interaction in polymer and colloid mixture has been studied by Meijer and FrenkelMeij94 , who found that these interactions stabilise the liquid phase. Recent work has shown that for $`q>>1`$, many-body effects can qualitatively affect the phase behaviourSear01 ; Bolh03 ; foot1 .

The AO model was originally developed for size-ratios $`q<1`$, where $`R_{AO}`$ taken to be the radius of gyration $`R_g`$ of ideal polymersAsak58 ; Vrij76 . For $`q>>1`$ this simple mapping no longer holds, although the AO model can still be mapped onto a model for ideal polymers by correctly defining an effective $`R_{AO}`$ radiusBolh03 . However, our goal here is not so much to study colloid-polymer mixtures, but rather to investigate the effect of many-body interactions on a well-defined system. The AO model has the particular advantage that the effective pair interaction $`V_{AO}(r)`$ is exactly known. By directly calculating the phase behaviour and structure of a two-component AO model, and comparing it to an effective one-component model with the AO pair potential, we can systematically study the effect of many-body interactions. The insight gained from this well characterised system should increase our appreciation of the complexity of many-body effects in soft matter systems.

The paper is organised as follows: In section 2 we calculate the phase-behaviour of the AO model, using Monte Carlo (MC) simulations and several simple theories. In section 3 we describe the pair correlation functions, and also the effective colloid-colloid structure factors. Finally, we discuss our results in section 4.

## II Phase behaviour

### II.1 Monte Carlo Simulations

We performed Gibbs ensemble Monte Carlofrenkelbook  simulations in the semi-grand ensemble, where colloids are treated canonically and the PHS in the grand canonical ensemble, for three size ratios $`q=3,5,8`$. The total number of colloidal particles ($`N=108`$) is hence fixed, although they can exchange boxes. The chemical potential or fugacity of the PHS is kept constant by the usual grand canonical MC insertion and extraction movesfrenkelbook . Further details of the method can be found in refs. Bolh94 ; Bolh02 . This setup is equivalent to an AO mixture in osmotic equilibrium with a reservoir of only PHS particlesLekk92 .

Results for the binodals are shown in Fig. 1. For increasing $`q`$, the critical colloid packing fraction $`\eta _c=\frac{4}{3}\pi \rho _cR_c^3`$ tends to zero, while the PHS packing fraction $`\eta _{AO}=\frac{4}{3}\pi \rho _{AO}R_{AO}^3`$ increases. It is also instructive to compare the binodals on a log-log plot, shown in Fig. 2, which emphasises parts of the binodals further from the critical point. For example, we see that the binodals cross at very low $`\eta _c`$.

It is often convenient to plot the phase diagrams in the semi-grand ensemble, where the colloids are treated in the canonical ensemble and the PHS in the grand canonical ensemble. This is equivalent to setting up an AO mixture in osmotic equilibrium with a reservoir of only PHS particlesLekk92 . Because the PHS particles are ideal, the fugacity $`z_{AO}=\mathrm{exp}(\beta \mu _{AO})=\rho _{AO}^r`$. The results in this representation are shown in Fig. 3.

The binodals in Figs. 1 \- 3 are quite different to those of the AO model for $`q<1`$, shown, for example, in refs. Lekk92 ; Dijk99 . First of all, they are at much lower packing fractions of the colloids. In fact, the critical colloid packing fraction tends to zero for increasing $`q`$. Moreover, in the reservoir representation, the binodals are much narrower, an effect that becomes more pronounced with increasing $`q`$. Both effects are similar to what has been found for mixtures of ideal polymers and colloidsSear01 ; Bolh03 .

The physical origin of the low critical colloid packing fraction is the large cross-interaction between the two different species. Perhaps a simpler way of viewing this is to first imagine a binary HS mixture of particles of equal diameter $`\sigma _c`$, but with a cross diameter $`\sigma _{12}>\sigma _c`$. As $`\sigma _{12}`$ increases, the system will phase separate at lower and lower volume fractions of the HS particles. A phase-diagram like that shown in Fig. 1 would be symmetric in the packing fractions of the two species. However, one could also choose to represent the packing fraction of one of the two species, say species $`1`$, as $`\eta _1=\frac{1}{6}\pi \rho _1\sigma _{12}^3`$. For large enough $`q`$ the phase diagram would then closely resemble that of Fig. 1, since the packing fraction of species $`1`$ would be so low that it could be replaced by an AO PHS particle without significantly affecting the phase behaviour. This way of obtaining the large $`q`$ limit of the AO model also suggests that a simple virial theory should become increasingly accurate as $`q`$ increases and the critical packing fractions decrease. The next section will show that such a virial theory works very well indeedfoot2 .

### II.2 Two-component free volume and virial theories

A general Helmholtz free-energy for the two-component AO model can be written as:

$$\frac{F(N_c,N_{AO},V)}{V}=f=f_c^{HS}(\rho _c)+f_{AO}^{id}(\rho _p)+f_{cAO}(\rho _c,\rho _{AO})$$
(2)
where the colloids are treated as hard-spheres, and the AO PHS as ideal particles. We suppress the dependence on temperature $`T`$, since our model is athermal.

Whereas $`f_c^{HS}(\rho _c)`$ and $`f_{AO}^{id}(\rho _{AO})`$ are well understoodHans86 , less is known about the $`f_{cAO}(\rho _c,\rho _{AO})`$ term. In the free-volume theory of Lekkerkerker et al.Lekk92 , $`f_{cAO}`$ is approximated as

$$f_{cAO}^{free}=\rho _{AO}\omega (\eta _c,q).$$
(3)
In other words, terms proportional to $`\rho _{AO}^2`$ and higher in $`f_{cAO}`$ are ignored. $`\omega (\eta _c,q)`$ can then be interpreted as the free energy of inserting a single AO PHS particle into a bath of HS colloids at packing fraction $`\eta _c`$. In their classic paper, Lekkerkerker et al.Lekk92  calculated $`\omega (\eta _c,q)`$ from scaled particle theory:

$`\omega (\eta _c,q)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{ln}(1\eta _c)+A{\displaystyle \frac{\eta _c}{1+\eta _c}}`$
$`+`$ $`B\left({\displaystyle \frac{\eta _c}{1+\eta _c}}\right)^2+C\left({\displaystyle \frac{\eta _c}{1+\eta _c}}\right)^3,`$
where $`A=3q+3q^2+q^3`$, $`B=\frac{9}{2}q^2+3q^3`$, and $`C=3q^3`$. In the nomenclature of ref. Lekk92 , $`\omega (\eta _c,q)=\mathrm{ln}(\alpha (\eta _c,q))`$ with $`\alpha (\eta _c,q)`$ the so-called free-volume fraction, which defines the particle packing fraction $`\eta _{AO}^r`$ in a reservoir at the same chemical potential as the mixture i.e. $`\eta _{AO}=\alpha (\eta _c,q)\eta _{AO}^r`$. As $`q`$ increases, so does the relative strength of the cross interaction, leading to lower and lower critical colloid packing fractions. It therefore makes sense to expand $`f_{cAO}^{free}`$ in powers of $`\eta _c`$:

$$f_{cAO}^{free}=\rho _{AO}\left(\eta _c(1+q)^3+𝒪(\eta _c^2)\right).$$
(5)
The leading term is proportional to the second cross-virial coefficient. In other words, for low $`\eta _c`$ (and for any $`\rho _{AO}`$), free-volume theory reduces, as expected, to a simple virial theory.

For the virial theory defined by Eq. (2) and the leading term of Eq. (5), the large $`q`$ limit of the critical points can be derived:

$`\underset{q\mathrm{}}{lim}\eta _c^{crit}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(1+q)^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{q^3}}`$ (6)
$`\underset{q\mathrm{}}{lim}\eta _{AO}^{crit}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{q^3}{(1+q)^3}}1`$ (7)
$`\underset{q\mathrm{}}{lim}\eta _{AO}^{r,crit}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{exp}(1)q^3}{(1+q)^3}}\mathrm{exp}(1).`$ (8)
Since $`\eta _c^{crit}0`$ as $`q\mathrm{}`$, it follows that free-volume theory shows the same limiting behaviour, which is demonstrated in Fig. 4.

A comparison with Figs. 1 – 3 shows that, even though higher order $`\rho _{AO}`$ effects in $`f_{cAO}`$ are ignored, free-volume theory agrees remarkably well with simulations, just as was found earlier for $`q1`$Dijk02 ; Bolh02 . The main deviations are found near the critical point; these can partially be ascribed to the fact that free-volume theory is a mean-field theory, with the wrong critical exponents etc…, which normally leads to more rounded binodals. Nevertheless, the simulations are quite consistent with the limiting behaviour for the critical points derived in Eqs. (6) - (8).

In Fig. 1, we also show the binodal for $`q=8`$ obtained from the simple cross-virial theory. The differences with free-volume theory are not visible on the scale of the graph. For smaller $`q`$ the virial theory is not quite as good as the free-volume theory, but it still provides a semi-quantitative description of the binodals, suggesting that the basic physics can be understood at this simpler level.

The good agreement between simulations and free-volume theory for the fluid-fluid binodals suggests that we can use the latter to estimate the position of the triple point. This occurs when the gas, liquid and solid are in equilibrium, and an easy way to estimate the location of the triple point is to set up an equilibrium between the gas phase branch of the binodal, and a HS fluid at the freezing transition. This results in an approximate position for the triple point at $`\eta _c=0.494`$ and:

$$\eta _{AO}^{r,triple}\frac{\pi }{6}\beta P_{coex}\sigma _c^3q^36.12q^3,$$
(9)
where the reduced coexistence pressure of a HS fluid at freezing, $`\beta P_{coex}\sigma _c^3`$, is known from simulationsfrenkelbook . In the limit of large $`q`$ it is virtually impossible to fit any PHS spheres into the colloidal crystal, while the gas-phase binodals are at extremely low $`\eta _c`$; we therefore expect this relationship to become asymptotically exact for large size ratios. In fact, Eq. (9) gives a good prediction for the free-volume triple point for all size ratios where a triple point exist, i.e. even for $`q<1`$. For example, at $`q=0.8`$ free volume theory gives $`\eta _{AO}^r=3.13`$ while Eq. (9) would predict $`\eta _{AO}^r=3.17`$. This analysis shows that, in the semi-grand ensemble, the triple point moves to extremely large values of $`\eta _{AO}^r`$, compared to the critical point.

### II.3 One-component theory with pair potentials

It is instructive to compare the results for the two-component AO model with those of an effective one-component model. As mentioned in the introduction, the AO PHS particles can be integrated out to derive an exact pair potential, valid for all $`q`$, and given by Eq. (1). For $`q0.1547`$ this leads to an exact description of the system, but for larger $`q`$, many-body interactions must be invoked. Nevertheless, for practical reasons, the pair approximation is often used in soft matter physics. In many situations this works well, but here we expect it to break down as $`q`$ increases.

For large $`q`$, the pair potential of Eq. (1) becomes very long-ranged with respect to the colloidal diameter $`\sigma _c`$. Therefore mean-field theory, for which the free-energy takes the form

$$\frac{F^{MF}(N_c,z_{AO},V)}{V}=f_c^{HS}(\rho _c)+\frac{1}{2}\rho _c^2𝑑𝐫V_{AO}(r).$$
(10)
should become asymptotically exact. For this simple “van der Waals limit”, the critical colloid packing fraction is always given by $`\eta _c^{crit}0.13`$, independent of potential details. Here we work in the semi-grand ensemble, where the effective pair potential picture has a consistent statistical mechanical interpretationDijk99 ; Loui02 . In Fig. 5, the binodals from Eq. (10) are compared to the full 2-component simulations.

Besides the obvious quantitative differences for the location of the critical points (note that the y-axis is logarithmic!), there are important qualitative differences as well. For example, the two-component binodals are much more narrow. Furthermore, the critical points show opposite scaling behaviour with increasing size ratio $`q`$: For the two-component model $`\eta _{AO}^{r,crit}`$, tends to a constant and $`\eta _c`$ tends to zero, whereas for the one-component model $`\eta _{AO}^{r,crit}`$ tends to zero and $`\eta _c`$ tends to a constant.

The dominant effect of the many-body interactions appears to be repulsive, since phase-separation occurs at a much higher packing fraction of the AO PHS particles. In fact, the three-body interactions have already been calculated for the AO modelGoul01 ; they are repulsive for all geometries. This would seem consistent with the overall effect of the many-body interactions. However, this interpretation is most likely too naive. For example, we expect that the fourth order term is attractive again, and that the series oscillates, as was recently found in simulations of a self avoiding walk polymer systemBolh01a . In general, the sign of a many-body interaction can vary in a complex way with coordinates. A good example is given by the 3-body HS depletion interactions calculated in ref. Goul01 . Furthermore, it has recently been shown that the effects of many-body interactions in a mixture of interacting polymers and colloids are attractiveBolh03 ; Rote03 , the opposite of what we find for the AO model. These examples suggest that it is generally quite difficult to make simple predictions regarding the effect of many-body interactions on phase-behaviour.

## III Pair structure

### III.1 Radial distribution functions

Given the unusual phase-behaviour of the AO model in the protein limit, it should be interesting investigate the effect of many-body interactions on the pair structure. To that end we performed Monte Carlo simulations of the colloid-colloid and colloid-AO pair correlations. Representative examples are shown in Fig. 6. Both $`g_{cc}(r)`$ and $`g_{cAO}(r)`$ have fairly weak structure, with only one main peak. The reasons for this are two fold: 1) The colloid packing fraction is very low. 2) More generally, long ranged interactions lead to less sharply peaked radial distribution functionsLoui01a . We also compared the simulations to pair correlations derived from the test-particle route for a recently developed fundamental measure theory (FMT) density functional theory (DFT)Schm00 . This DFT shows the same phase-behaviour as the free volume theory, which we have shown to be very accurate for the AO model. We therefore expect the DFT to be rather good in this limit, although correlations are often a more sensitive probe of a DFT than phase behaviour is. Results are compared in Fig. 6 to the simulations. For lower $`\eta _{AO}`$ the agreement is very good, but for higher $`\eta _{AO}`$ some deviations are found. This may partially be because the state point for the highest $`\eta _{AO}`$, $`(\eta _c=0.004,\eta _{AO}=0.6)`$ is very close to the free-volume critical point (which lies at $`\eta _c=0.0046,\eta _{AO}=0.586`$), while the critical point for the simulations is further away.

On might expect that, due to the low colloid densities, the correlation functions should be rather straightforward to calculate with integral equation methodsHans86 . In Fig. 7 we compare, for one state-point, some representative results from the Percus Yevick (PY) and Hypernetted Chain (HNC) approximationsHans86 . PY systematically underestimates the peaks, a general effect that becomes more pronounced with increasing $`\eta _{AO}`$, and which is similar to what happens for binary HS mixturesLoui01a . HNC appears to be more accurate, but it suffers from a non-solution line, a mathematical artifact where no solutions are found. This non-solution line occurs well before the expected spinodal, and makes HNC less useful. Finally we note that direct functional differentiation of the FMT DFT in the bulk leads to PY correlation functions. The test-particle route we apply here is thought to generally be more reliable.

### III.2 Structure factors

For scattering experiments, a more useful measure of the pair correlations is given by the colloid-colloid structure factor $`S(k)`$. These are shown in Fig. 8 for some of the same state points as in Fig. 6. The $`S(k)`$ shows virtually no structure, except for a maximum at $`S(0)`$. This behaviour seems to be generic for the large $`q`$ limit of the AO model.

Another interesting observation is the occurrence of an isosbestic point $`k_{isos}`$, a value of $`k`$ where $`S(k)`$ is invariant to changes in $`\eta _{AO}`$. A recent theoryLoui03a  for isosbestic points predicts that $`k_{isos}\sigma _c`$ decreases with increasing rangefoot3 . The theory predicts that $`k_{isos}\sigma _c\pi `$ for very short ranged potentials, and that for the AO model it can be approximated as:

$$k_{isos}\sigma _c\pi /\left(1+0.42q/2+(0.42q)^2/12\right)$$
(11)
Even though this theory was derived for the small $`q`$ limit of a one-component model, it still appears to be semi-quantitative here, since we find an isosbestic point at $`k_{isos}=1.3\pm 0.05`$ and Eq. (11) would predict $`k_{isos}=1.30`$. For other $`q`$’s we also found good agreement. This further suggests that one experimental signature of the long-ranged nature of the AO model is the late upturn of $`S(k)`$ toward a maximum at $`S(0)`$. This is illustrated in Fig. 9. We note that in a recent paper, Tuinier and BruletTuin03  have shown similar behaviour from a one-component calculation with only effective pair potentials. They also performed small angle neutron scattering experiments on lysozyme-polysaccharide mixtures, measuring structure factors $`S(k)`$ that appear quite similar in shape to those predicted here for the AO model. Since these authors obtained similar qualitative behaviour to our simulations from a one-component theory, the qualitative behaviour of $`S(k)`$ that we observe is most likely caused by the long-ranged nature of the pair potentials, and not so much by the many-body character of the interactions.

### III.3 Effective colloid-colloid pair potentials

The extremely low packing fractions of $`\eta _c`$ studied here might suggest that one could approximate the pair correlation function by its zero density limit:

$$\underset{\eta _c0}{lim}g_{cc}(r)=\mathrm{exp}\left[\beta V_{AO}(r)\right].$$
(12)
However, this is not correct, as suggested by the large differences between the binodals calculated only with $`V_{AO}(r)`$ and those calculated for the full two-component AO model. We demonstrate this explicitly in Fig. 10, where $`g_{cc}(r)`$ at the same $`\eta _{AO}^r`$ (which means the same $`V_{AO}(r)`$), but for different $`\eta _c`$ was calculated with the FMT DFT approach. At $`\eta _c=0`$, eq. (12) is of course exactly obeyed, but this no longer holds for the other values of $`\eta _c`$. The effect of the many-body interactions lowers the peak of $`g(r)`$, which is consistent with the behaviour of the binodals, where the effect of the many-body interactions is to reduce the cohesion between the HS colloids.

A general theorem states that for any $`g(r)`$ and density $`\rho `$, there exists a unique pair potential $`v_g(r;\rho )`$ which will reproduce that $`g(r)`$, regardless of the underlying many-body interactionsHend74 . We inverted the $`g_{cc}(r)`$ at two state-points with HNC and PY inversions. The results are shown in Fig. 11. The two inversion methods give very similar results (especially at low polymer packing fractions, where both inversions can not be distinguished on the scale of the graph), suggesting that the potential obtained is indeed close to the true $`v_g(r;\rho _c)`$. Note that $`v_g(r;\rho _c)`$ is different from the simple potential of mean force $`\mathrm{ln}(g_{cc}(r))`$, which shows that correlation effects are important here. As expected, $`v_g(r;\rho _c)`$ is less attractive than the bare pair potential $`V_{AO}(r)`$. It is also slightly longer ranged. If there were no many-body forces, then $`v_g(r;\rho _c)`$ would be equal to $`V_{AO}(r)`$ at all densities. The differences can therefore be attributed to many-body interactions, whose overall effect is to weaken the effective pair potential.

At each density one could use $`v_g(r;\rho )`$ to extract the colloid-colloid pair correlations, and also the osmotic pressure through the compressibility route. However, in general a large density dependence of the effective pair potential also implies difficulties like the representability issues discussed in ref. Loui02 , making a pairwise description less useful.

### III.4 Effective PHS-PHS pair potentials

In the limit of large $`q`$ it might seem tempting to try the opposite of the usual Asakura-Oosawa strategy, and integrate out the HS colloids instead of the PHS particles. This can easily be done, and the potential between two isolated PHS particles takes the same functional form as in Eq. (1), but with colloid and PHS AO parameters switched. One difference is that $`V_{AO}(r)`$ is now relevant down to $`r=0`$, because there is no HS repulsion to restrict it to $`r\sigma _c`$, as is the case for the colloids. However, a description based only on the effective pair potential immediately leads to problems. The lack of hard-core repulsion means that the effective one-component system of PHS particles with an AO type pairwise attraction falls into the class of catastrophic potentials defined by RuelleRuel69 , for which there is no thermodynamic limit. This does not mean that one cannot derive a consistent thermodynamics by integrating out the HS colloids. Rather, because the PHS particles can overlap so easily, many-body effects are always very important, especially at small $`r`$, and are necessary to stabilise the effective PHS system. A similar situation was recently found when integrating out internal degrees of freedom for a solution of polymers in a poor solventKrak03 , as well as for a Gaussian Core modelArch02 . Both examples can lead to catastrophic pair potentials, even though the underlying many-body system is stable.

## IV Conclusions

In conclusion then, we have shown that in the so-called protein limit, where $`q>>1`$, the behaviour of the two-component AO model differs significantly from a description based on an effective pair potential description alone. We summarise our main results:

* In the limit of large $`q`$, the AO binodals move to lower and lower colloid packing fractions $`\eta _c`$, and at the critical point, the AO particle packing fraction $`\eta _{AO}`$ tends to a constant. This is opposite to what is found from a pair potential description alone, and so this phase behaviour can be ascribed to many-body interactions.
* The free-volume theory of Lekkerkerker et al.Lekk92  works remarkably well for the phase-behaviour. It reduces to a simple virial theory in the large $`q`$ limit, allowing us to extract limiting values for the critical points which are consistent with the simulations.
* The colloid-colloid pair-correlation functions show very weak structure. Even at very low packing fractions $`\eta _c`$, $`g_{cc}(r)`$ is not well described by its zero-density limit $`\mathrm{exp}[\beta V_{AO}(r)]`$. The pair correlations are well described by a recent fundamental measure theory density functional theorySchm00 , at least if one is not close to the critical point.
* The overall effect of the many-body interactions is repulsive, as seen in the phase behaviour, and also in the structure.
* There are clear signatures of the long-ranged interactions in the structure factors $`S(k)`$. In particular, the value of $`k\sigma _c`$ where $`S(k)`$ begins to rise to its maximum at $`k=0`$, decreases with increasing $`q`$.
* A description based on effective pair potentials between the PHS particles, derived by integrating out the smaller HS colloids, leads to catastrophic systems with no thermodynamic limit.

Our aim in this paper was to study the effects of many-body interactions in a well-defined model system. Although it would be tempting to extract some more general insights about the role of many-body interactions in soft matter systems, this is not so easy to do. On the one hand, we can make predictions about the behaviour of a related many-body system, namely a mixture of ideal polymers and HS colloids in the limit of large $`q`$Sear01 ; Bolh03  where we expect some similar trends. But on the other hand, if the ideal polymers are replaced by interacting ones, the behaviour changes: for example, the critical colloid packing fraction is almost constant, and the overall effect of the many-body interactions is attractive instead of repulsiveBolh03 . It is clearly not always easy to predict the effect of the many-body interactions a-priori. We conclude from this that coarse-graining a soft-matter system to a representation where many-body interactions are important when compared to the pair interaction may not always be a very fruitful way forward. Sometimes it may be easier to treat the original system without this coarse-graining step.

## Acknowledgements

A. Moncho-Jordá thanks the Ramón Areces Foundation (Madrid), and A.A. Louis thanks the Royal Society (London) for financial support.


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# Diffraction-free subwavelength-beam optics

## I Introduction

Diffraction is one of the fundamental laws of physics. It affects all classical and quantum mechanical fields without exception. Owing to the law, it is impossible in quantum mechanics to define at a given time both the position of a matter wave-packet and its direction to an arbitrary degree of accuracy. Because of the diffraction phenomenon, light spreads out in all directions after passing a slit smaller than its wavelength. The harder one tries to decrease the beam transverse dimension by narrowing the slit, the more it broadens out. Similarly, the beam width dramatically increases with increasing the distance from the slit. Thus, the diffraction imposes a fundamental limit on the transverse dimension of a beam at a given distance from an aperture and consequently limits the resolution capabilities and makes harder the position requirements of subwavelength-beam optical devices, such as near-field scanning optical microscopes (NSOM) and spectroscopes (see, for example Rayl ; Beth ; Ash ; Betz ).

In order to completely avoid the diffractive broadening of a beam, generally speaking, one can use the two main approaches. A light beam can be confined to subwavelength transverse dimensions by multiple total internal reflections at boundaries of a high-refractive-index waveguide Marc . Unfortunately, the guided beam spreads out in all directions after passing the waveguide output-aperture. Another approach uses ”diffraction-free” beams Brit ; Ziol ; Durn ; Gori . A diffraction-less beam, for instance a Bessel-type beam, propagates in free space without diffractive broadening. Although, the diffraction-free beams, the widths of which greatly exceed the wavelength, have been well understood and realized experimentally, neither theoretical principle nor blueprint of the diffraction-free subwavelength-beam optics has been presented up to now.

In the present article we show that a subwavelength-sized beam propagating without diffractive broadening can be produced in free space by the constructive interference of multiple beams of a Fresnel source of the respective high-refraction-index waveguide. The results theoretically demonstrate the feasibility of completely diffraction-free subwavelength-beam optics, for both continuous waves and ultra-short pulses. The approach extends operation of the near-field subwavelength-beam optics to the ”not-too-distant” field regime (0.5 to about 10 wavelengths).

## II Theoretical analysis and discussion

In this section, we show that the diffractive broadening of a subwavelength-sized beam can be completely avoided. The approach involves a recently established relation between the waveguide and free-space optics Kuk1 ; Cann . Although, these areas of optics are usually considered to be independent of each other, it was showed that the fields confined by a high-refractive-index waveguide, whose width exceeds the wavelength $`\lambda `$, could be reproduced in free space by a Fresnel source of this waveguide. The basic concept of the Fresnel-waveguide source of a diffraction-free beam is quite simple. The concept is demonstrated in Fig. 1 for a plane-parallel guide having total-reflection walls. In the approach, the boundaries of the waveguide are replaced by virtual sources Kuk1 . The diffraction-free beam $`E^{}(x^{},z,t)`$ confined by the waveguide is supported in free space at points $`(x^{},z)`$ by the constructive interference of multiple beams $`E_n^{}(x^{},z,t)`$ of a Fresnel source of the waveguide:

$`E^{}(x^{},z,t)={\displaystyle \underset{n=M}{\overset{M}{}}}E_n^{}(x^{},z,t),`$ (1)
where the number $`2M+1`$ of the beams $`E_n^{}(x^{},z,t)`$ depends on their widths at the distance $`z`$ from the source; $`n=0`$,$`\pm 1`$,$`\pm 2`$,…,$`\pm M`$; $`z>0`$ and $`x^{}<a`$. The beam $`E_n^{}(x^{},z,t)`$ is emerged from the $`n`$-th zone of the Fresnel source having the field distribution

$`E_n(x,0,t)=E_0(x_n,0,t)\mathrm{exp}(i\pi n),`$ (2)
which is obtained by the periodic $`(x_n=x\pm 2na)`$ translation of the field $`E_0(x,0,t)`$ and the $`\pi n`$-change of its phase; $`E_0(x,0,t)`$ is the field at the input aperture; $`z=0`$ and $`x<a`$. Thus, the Fresnel-waveguide $`_{n=M}^ME_n^{}(x^{},z,t)`$ is constructed by the periodic translation and the phase change of the beam $`E_0^{}(x^{},z,t)`$ emerged from the waveguide aperture.

The above-described approach, which was originally developed by using the Helmholtz-Kirchhoff integral theorem Kuk1 , fails when the waveguide width $`2a`$ is close to the wavelength $`\lambda `$. It is surprising that in the general form of Eqs. 1 and 2, as it will be shown below, the approach provides solution of the problem also in the case of subwavelength waveguides (see, Figs. 2-4). Figure 2 presents the normalized energy flux distribution $`S_z^{norm}=(c/8\pi )Re(\stackrel{}{E}\times \stackrel{}{H}^{})_z`$ of a diffraction-less beam computed for the Fresnel source of a subwavelength ($`a=0.05\lambda `$) waveguide, at the three distances $`z`$ from the source. In the figure the normalized flux of a single beam, which was used in the construction of the Fresnel source, is shown at $`z=6a`$ for comparison. The Fresnel waveguide $`E^{}(x^{},z,t)`$ was constructed by the translation of the single beam $`E_0^{}(x^{},z,t)`$ and the periodical change of its phase (see, Eqs. 1, 2 and Fig. 1). The single beam $`E_0^{}(x^{},z,t)`$ is formatted by transmission of a plane monochromatic wave through a subwavelength waveguide (thick slit) with perfectly conducting walls. The details of the computations of the electric $`\stackrel{}{E}=(E_x,0,E_z)`$ and magnetic $`\stackrel{}{H}=(0,H_y,0)`$ field distributions of the transmitted beam are presented in Refs. Bet2 ; Kuk2 . The full width at half maximum (FWHM) and the energy flux of the diffraction-less subwavelength beam versus the distance $`z`$ from the Fresnel-waveguide source are shown in Fig. 3, in comparison to that of the single beam produced by the slit. The results presented in Figs. 2 and 3 demonstrate theoretically the feasibility of completely diffraction-free subwavelength-beam optics. Notice, that at the distance $`z=a`$, which is generally accepted for practical near-field scanning optical microscopy Bet2 , FWHM of the diffraction-free beam is about two times lower than that of the single beam. This should provide two-times increase of the spatial resolution of the near-field scanning optical microscopy and spectroscopy. Although, the Fresnel-waveguide source producing a subwavelength diffraction-free continuous wave is already an unexpected finding, an example presented in Fig. 4 demonstrates that such a source can be constructed also for the ultra-short (near single-cycle) pulses. The figure shows the computed electric field $`E_x`$ of the diffraction-free subwavelength pulse formatted by the Fresnel-waveguide source at the distance $`z=3a`$. The pulse used for the construction of the Fresnel waveguide is formatted by transmission of the femtosecond (near single-cycle) pulse through the slit Kuk2 . It should be noted that the diffraction-free pulse (Fig. 4) is not in conflict with the recently established uncertainty relation between spatial and temporal uncertainties of a wave-packet Kuk3  because of the multiple-beam nature of the Fresnel-waveguide source. The diffraction-free pulse is localized in space and time at the expense of increasing the number of beams (pulses) that support the diffraction-free wave-packet under its free-space propagation.

The results theoretically demonstrate the feasibility of $`completely`$ $`diffraction`$-$`free`$ $`subwavelength`$-$`beam`$ $`optics`$, for both continuous waves and ultra-short pulses. The approach extends operation of the near-field subwavelength-beam optics to the far-field regime ($`z>0.5\lambda `$). Notice, in this connection, that the number of the Fresnel beams supporting the diffraction-free beam increases and the beam intensity decreases with increasing the distance $`z`$ (see, Figs. 1-3). Therefore, the effective operation of the optics is restricted to the ”not-too-distant” field region (0.5 to about 10 wavelengths). The optics could improve spatial and temporal resolution capabilities and positioning requirements of the near-field scanning optical microscopy and spectroscopy. The approach could also be used for many other subwavelength-photonic purposes, such as sensors, communications, optical switching devices and microsources. It should be noted that the method can be extended to the 3-dimensional beams. In this case, one could use the Fresnel sources of 3-dimensional subwavelength waveguides Kuk4 . The concept of the Fresnel sources of subwavelength waveguides helps us to understand the studies Leze ; Mart , which have demonstrated that a series of parallel grooves surrounding a nanometre-sized slit in a metal film produces a micrometer-size beam that spreads to an angle of only few degrees. Another relevant result is achievement of about 20 percent reduction of far-field diffraction by structured apertures Doga . The evident parallelism between mechanisms of the formation of a subwavelength waveguide in free space by the Fresnel multiple-beam source and the enhancement of light transmission by subwavelength aperture arrays Ebbe  should also be noted. The presented theoretical principle of the Fresnel-waveguide source of a diffraction-free subwavelength beam could be realized experimentally using the techniques Leze ; Mart ; Doga , the air and dielectric guide bends or the hybrid hetero structures (for example, see the study Chut  and references therein).

## III Conclusion

We have showed that a subwavelength-sized beam propagating without diffractive broadening can be produced in free space by the constructive interference of multiple beams of a Fresnel source of the respective high-refraction-index waveguide. The presented results theoretically demonstrate the feasibility of $`completely`$ $`diffraction`$-$`free`$ $`subwavelength`$-$`beam`$ $`optics`$, for both continuous waves and ultra-short pulses. The approach extends operation of the near-field subwavelength-beam optics to the ”not-too-distant” field regime (0.5 to about 10 wavelengths).

###### Acknowledgements.

This study was supported by the Fifth Framework of the European Commission (Financial support from the EC for shared-cost RTD actions: research and technological development projects, demonstration projects and combined projects. Contract NG6RD-CT-2001-00602). The authors thank the Computing Services Centre, Faculty of Science, University of Pecs, for providing computational resources.


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# Solving the Schwinger-Dyson Equations for Gluodynamics in the Maximal Abelian GaugeSupported by Sumitomo Foundations, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)13135203 from MEXT, and (C)14540243 from JSPS.

## 1 Introduction

The Schwinger-Dyson (SD) equation is one of the most popular approaches to investigate the non-perturbative features of quantum field theory. The analyses by making use of the SD equation for quark propagator are well-known. Recently, the coupled SD equations for the gluon and ghost propagators in Yang-Mills theory have been studied mainly in the Lorentz (Landau) gauge. In this paper, we derive the SD equations for the $`SU(2)`$ Yang-Mills theory in the maximal Abelian (MA) gauge and solve them analytically in the infrared (IR) asymptotic region. The MA gauge is useful to investigate the Yang-Mills theory from the view point of the dual superconductivity.

In the MA gauge, in contrast to the ordinary Lorentz gauge, we must explicitly distinguish the diagonal components of the fields from the off-diagonal components. This is indeed the case even in the perturbative analysis in the UV region. Therefore, we must take account of the four propagators for the diagonal gluon, off-diagonal gluon, diagonal ghost and off-diagonal ghost. Numerical behaviors of gluon propagators in the MA gauge are also investigated on a lattice simulation.

## 2 SD equations in the MA gauge

First, we derive the SD equations from the $`SU(2)`$ Yang-Mills action in the MA gauge. The graphical representation of SD equations are shown in Figure 1.

For the diagonal gluon propagator, we adopt the Landau gauge so that the diagonal gluon propagator $`D_{\mu \nu }(p^2)`$ has only the transverse part

$$D_{\mu \nu }(p^2):=\frac{F_\mathrm{d}(p^2)}{p^2}P_{\mu \nu }^\mathrm{T},$$
(1)
where we defined the form factor $`F_\mathrm{d}(p^2)`$. While, the off-diagonal gluon propagator $`D_{\mu \nu }^{ab}(p^2)`$ has both the transverse and longitudinal parts

$$D_{\mu \nu }^{ab}:=\left[\frac{F_\mathrm{T}(p^2)}{p^2}P_{\mu \nu }^\mathrm{T}+\alpha \frac{F_\mathrm{L}(p^2)}{p^2}P_{\mu \nu }^\mathrm{L}\right]\delta ^{ab},$$
(2)
where we defined the form factors $`F_\mathrm{T}(p^2)`$ and $`F_\mathrm{L}(p^2)`$. The form factor $`G(p^2)`$ for the off-diagonal ghost propagator $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{ab}(p^2)`$ is defined

$$\mathrm{\Delta }^{ab}(p^2):=\frac{G(p^2)}{p^2}\delta ^{ab}.$$
(3)
The diagonal ghost propagator is decoupled from the other fields so that we omit it hereafter.

Now, we write down the SD equations:

$`D_{\mu \nu }(q^2)^1=Z_aD_{\mu \nu }^{(0)}(q^2)^1`$
$`+Z_C^2{\displaystyle _p}\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu ^{(0)da}(r,p)\mathrm{\Delta }^{ab}(p)\mathrm{\Gamma }_\nu ^{bc}(p,r)\mathrm{\Delta }^{cd}(r)`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{Z_A^2}{2}}{\displaystyle _p}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mu \rho \xi }^{(0)da}(r,p)D_{\xi \eta }^{ab}(p^2)\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\nu \sigma \eta }^{bc}(p,r)D_{\rho \sigma }^{cd}(p^2)`$
$`+\text{(tadpole contributions)},`$ (4)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }^{ab}(q^2)^1=Z_C\mathrm{\Delta }^{(0)ab}(q^2)^1`$
$`Z_C^2{\displaystyle _p}\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu ^{(0)ac}(r,p)\mathrm{\Delta }^{cd}(p)\mathrm{\Gamma }_\nu ^{db}(p,r)D_{\mu \nu }(r)`$
$`+\text{(tadpole contributions)},`$ (5)
and

$`D_{\mu \nu }^{ab}(q^2)^1=Z_AD_{\mu \nu }^{(0)ab}(q^2)^1`$
$`Z_A^2{\displaystyle _p}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\rho \mu \xi }^{(0)ac}(r,p)D_{\xi \eta }^{cd}(p)\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\sigma \nu \eta }^{db}(p,r)D_{\rho \sigma }(r)`$
$`+\text{(tadpole contributions)}.`$ (6)
Here the contributions from the two-loop graphs have been omitted. The full form of SD equations will be given in a separate paper. $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu ^{ac}(p,q)`$ is the full vertex function for the diagonal gluon, off-diagonal ghost and off-diagonal antighost interaction, while $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mu \rho \sigma }^{ac}(p,q)`$ is the full vertex function for an interaction of the diagonal gluon and two off-diagonal gluons, and the superscript “$`(0)`$” means a bare propagator or vertex function.

In the MA gauge, we obtain the Slavnov-Taylor (ST) identities

$$(pq)^\mu \mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu ^{ab}(p,q)=\mathrm{\Delta }^{ab}(p^2)^1\mathrm{\Delta }^{ab}(q^2)^1,$$
(7)
$$(pq)^\mu \mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mu \rho \sigma }^{ab}(p,q)=D_{\rho \sigma }^{ab}(p^2)^1D_{\rho \sigma }^{ab}(q^2)^1.$$
(8)
## 3 Truncation and Approximations

In order to solve the SD equations analytically, we employ the following approximations.

* We neglect the two-loop contributions.
* Instead of the full vertex functions, we adopt modified vertex functions which are compatible with the ST identities. We adopt approximations for vertex functions as

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu ^{ab}(p,q)\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu ^{(0)ab}(p,q)_{p^2}\{p^2G^1(p^2)\},$$
(9)
and

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mu \rho \sigma }^{ab}(p,q)\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mu \rho \sigma }^{(0)ab}(p,q)_{p^2}\{p^2F_\mathrm{T}^1(p^2)\}.$$
(10)
Here, we adopt the Feynman gauge for the off-diagonal gluon for simplicity, that is, $`\alpha =1`$ and $`F_\mathrm{T}(p^2)=F_\mathrm{L}(p^2)`$. Substituting the bare form factors, which are $`G(p^2)=F_\mathrm{T}(p^2)=1`$, into the right hand side of the ansatz (9) and (10), we obtain the bare vertex functions. Moreover, these ansatz are compatible with the ST identities (7) and (8) in the limit of $`pq`$.
* In the momentum integration, we use the Higashijima-Miransky approximation as

$$F\left((pq)^2\right)=F\left(\mathrm{max}\{p^2,q^2\}\right).$$
(11)

## 4 Solving the SD equations

Now we adopt the ansatz for the form factors in the IR region:

$$\begin{array}{c}F_\mathrm{d}(p^2)=A(p^2)^u+\mathrm{},\hfill \\ G(p^2)=B(p^2)^v+\mathrm{},\hfill \\ F_\mathrm{T}(p^2)=C(p^2)^w+\mathrm{}.\hfill \end{array}$$
(12)
Substituting the ansatz (12) for the form factors, and the ansatz (9) and (10) for vertex functions into the SD equations (4), (5) and (6), and comparing the leading term in the both sides of each equation, we obtain the following results for $`\alpha =1`$.

* From eqs. (5) and (6), we obtain the relations $`v1`$ and $`w1`$.
* In the case of $`v>1`$ and $`w>1`$, from the eq. (4), we obtain the relation $`u=\mathrm{min}\{v,w\}`$ so that $`u`$ is less than $`1`$.
* In the case of $`v=1`$ and $`w>1`$, we need redefine the form factor $`G(p^2)`$ as $`G(p^2)=B_0p^2+B_1(p^2)^v^{}+\mathrm{}`$ with $`v^{}>1`$ since contributions from the leading term of $`G(p^2)`$ are canceled each other in the ansatz (9). Therefore we need the information of next leading term of the form factor $`G(p^2)`$. In this case we obtain the relation $`u=\mathrm{min}\{v^{},w\}`$ from the eq. (4) so that $`u`$ is also less than $`1`$.
* Next, we consider the case of $`v>1`$ and $`w=1`$. As well as the above case, we need redefine the form factor $`F_\mathrm{T}(p^2)`$ as $`F_\mathrm{T}(p^2)=C_0p^2+C_1(p^2)^w^{}+\mathrm{}`$ with $`w^{}>1`$ and we obtain the relation $`u=\mathrm{min}\{v,w^{}\}`$ ($`u<1`$).
* Similarly, in the case of $`v=w=1`$, we obtain the relation $`u=\mathrm{min}\{v^{},w^{}\}`$ ($`u<1`$).

The results are summarized in Table 1.

In the gauge other than the Feynman gauge, that is, $`\alpha 1`$, the calculation and discussion are very tedious. However, the qualitative results are identical to the above case except for the following one point. In this case, even if $`w=1`$, there occurs no cancellation as in the above two cases 2c and 2d. This is because the off-diagonal gluon propagator has the momentum dependent tensor structure for $`\alpha 1`$, while it is proportional to $`\delta _{\mu \nu }`$ for $`\alpha =1`$. Therefore, we obtain the relation $`u=1`$ in the case of $`w=1`$. (See Table 2.)

## 5 Conclusion

In the IR limit, the form factors of each propagator behave as

$$F_\mathrm{d}(p^2)A(p^2)^u+\mathrm{}(u1),$$
(13)
$$G(p^2)B(p^2)^v+\mathrm{}(v1),$$
(14)
$$F_\mathrm{T}(p^2)C(p^2)^w+\mathrm{}(w1).$$
(15)
Therefore the solution shows that the diagonal gluon propagator is enhanced in the IR limit, while the off-diagonal gluon and off-diagonal ghost propagators are suppressed in the IR region. Our results are compatible with a hypothesis of Abelian dominance.


text:
# Evidence of a decrease of kHz QPO peak separation towards low frequencies in 4U 1728–34 (GX 354–0)

## 1 Introduction

Low-mass X-ray binary (LMXB) low-magnetic field neutron stars (NSs) often show pairs of kHz quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) in their power spectra. The frequency separation $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu `$ between these ‘twin peaks’ is sometimes observed to be close to the burst oscillation frequency $`\nu _{burst}`$, interpreted as the spin frequency of the NS (Strohmayer et al. 1996; see Chakrabarty et al. 2003), while sometimes it is close to half of it. Recent work on the millisecond pulsar SAX J1808.4–3658 (where the spin frequency is more straightforwardly measured, at 401 Hz; Wijnands et al. 2003) indicates that in those latter cases $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu `$ is half the spin frequency. In some, perhaps all sources $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu `$ decreases significantly with increasing QPO frequency. GX 17+2 shows a hint of a decrease at lower frequencies (Homan et al. 2002), but is consistent with being constant. In some sources, e.g. 4U 1728–34 (Méndez & van der Klis 1999), the peak separation is always significantly lower than the burst oscillation $`\nu _{burst}`$, while in 4U 1636–53 (Jonker, Méndez & van der Klis 2002) $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu `$ varies between lower and higher than $`\nu _{burst}/2`$.

Two competing interpretations exist for these high frequency timing features (for a review see van der Klis 2000 and references therein) which make definite predictions for $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu `$. The relativistic precession model (RPM: Stella & Vietri 1998, 1999) is based on free test particle orbits around a compact object. This model identifies the ‘upper’ kHz QPO as the frequency of an orbit in the disc and the ‘lower’ kHz QPO with the periastron precession of this orbit. The RPM model predicts that the frequency separation $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu `$ decreases both when the kHz QPO frequencies increase (as observed), but also when they decrease to sufficiently low frequencies. In the sonic point beat frequency model (SPBFM: Miller, Lamb & Psaltis 1998) an orbiting clump at the sonic radius is related to the production of the upper kHz QPO and the beat between this clump and the NS spin frequency produces the lower kHz QPO. In this model $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu `$ should in principle be equal to the spin frequency, but can decrease when the upper kHz QPO increases due to the spiral-in of the clump. So, both theoretical models (RPM and SPBMF) can explain the observed decrease of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu `$ with increasing QPO frequency. What evidence can constrain or test the validity of the models? The two models predict different behaviours of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu `$ as the kHz QPO frequencies decrease: the RPM predicts a decrease of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu `$, while the beat frequency model predicts a steady or increasing (see e.g. discussion in Jonker et al. 2002) peak separation. In addition, Osherovich & Titarchuk (1999) developed the two-oscillator model in which explained the kHz QPOs as arising from oscillations of hot blobs thrown into the NS’s magnetosphere. They identify the lower kHz QPO frequency as the Keplerian frequency of the blob and the upper kHz QPO frequency as the radial oscillator mode frequency, a non linear function of the Keplerian frequency. This model also gives a relation between the lower and the upper kHz QPOs (dependent on the source; see e.g. Titarchuk, Osherovich & Kuznetsov 1999) which can be tested by observations.

In this Letter we present the timing analysis of recent observations of the LMXB 4U 1728–34. We find twin peaks with lower kHz QPO frequency as low as $`308`$ Hz, and the first indication for a significant decrease of the kHz QPO peak separation as the kHz QPO frequencies decrease. If confirmed, this evidence will strongly constrain theoretical models and, in particular, rule out the sonic point beat frequency model in its current formulation.

### 1.1 4U 1728–34

4U 1728–34 (GX 354–0; Forman et al. 1976) is a low-mass X-ray binary and type-I X-ray burster (Lewin 1976; Hoffman et al. 1976), identifying the accreting compact object as a neutron star. Hasinger & van der Klis (1989) classified 4U 1728–34 as an atoll-type X-ray binary. Strohmayer et al. (1996) found slightly drifting oscillations at $`363`$ Hz during X-ray bursts, interpreted as the spin frequency of the NS. At high frequencies the source shows kHz QPOs up to 1,200 Hz (Stromayer, Zhang & Swank 1997) often in pairs (lower and upper kHz QPOs). These pairs have a frequency separation $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu `$ almost constant at $`350`$ Hz (i.e. significantly lower than the spin frequency) for lower kHz QPOs between $`500`$ and $`800`$ Hz, decreasing significantly to $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu 280`$ Hz above $`800`$ Hz (Méndez & van der Klis 1999). No twin peaks with a lower kHz QPO frequency lower than $`500`$ Hz have been found in 4U 1728–34 until now.

## 2 Observations and data analysis

We have made timing analysis of 4U 1728–34 data from 1999 to 2002 performed using the Proportional Counter Array (PCA) instrument on the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) satellite.

### 2.1 Colour-colour diagram

We have used Standard2 data of the Proportional Counter Unit 2 (PCU2, always on in all epochs) to produce the CD of all the observations available in the RXTE public archive (from 1996 to 2002). The soft colour and the hard colour are defined as the count rate ratio (3.5–6) keV/(2–3.5) keV and (9.7–16) keV/(6–9.7) keV, respectively. We have normalised the colours of 4U 1728–34 to the colours of the Crab calculated with the closest observation available to each 4U 1728–34 observation. In Fig. 1 we show the mean colours of all the observations of 4U 1728–34 (dots); squares are the observations (1996–1997) previously analysed by Di Salvo et al. (2000) and van Straaten et al. (2001); the circle marks the observation where we find significant kHz twin peaks (see below). Di Salvo et al. (2000) found a gap in the CD between the island state and the banana state. This gap was only due to lack of observations. We concentrate on the observations filling in this ‘gap’ in between island and banana, namely in the range 0.9–0.98 of the hard colour.

### 2.2 Timing analysis

For the production of the power spectra we have used event data with a time resolution of 125 $`\mu `$s. We rebinned the data in time to obtain a Nyquist frequency of 4096 Hz. For each observation we created Leahy et al. (1993) normalised power spectra from segments of 16 s length. We removed drop outs and X-ray bursts from the data, but no background and deadtime corrections were performed. We averaged the power spectra and subtracted Poisson noise spectrum according to Zhang et al. (1995), shifted in power to match the spectrum between 3000 and 4000 Hz, where there should be no timing features. We then converted the power spectra to squared fractional rms. We have fitted the power spectra with a multi-Lorentzian model (for details see Belloni, Psaltis & van der Klis 2001 and references therein). The power spectra of the gap observations are fitted using one broad Lorentzian (Lb or Lb2) to represent the low frequency noise and the break frequency, one ( Lh) or two (Lb and Lh) narrower Lorentzians between $`1050`$ Hz, a broad Lorentzian around 100 Hz (LhHz) and one (except two observations in which two are needed, i.e. with a single-trial significance $`>3\sigma `$; see § 3) narrow Lorentzian to fit the upper kHz QPO Lu in the range $`500700`$ Hz (see van Straaten, van der Klis & Méndez 2003 for details on terminology).

## 3 Results

Fig. 2 shows a typical power spectrum of the observations analysed, with the best-fit model. The upper kHz QPO is present in 46 out of 48 observations. The power spectra are consistent with those found around this position in the CD by Di Salvo et al. (2000) and van Straaten et al. (2001; see Fig. 1, panel 7 in van Straaten et al. 2001). In two observations, namely 50023-01-11-00 and 60029-02-02-00, we observe both the lower (Ll) and the upper kHz QPO. In 50023-01-11-00 Ll and Lu are single-trial significant (see § 3.1) at a 4.4$`\sigma `$ and 7.9$`\sigma `$ level, respectively. In 60029-02-02-00 the significance is 4.5$`\sigma `$ for the lower kHz QPO and 3.4$`\sigma `$ for the upper kHz QPO. Another observation (50023-01-31-00) shows a less significant ($`2.3\sigma `$) lower kHz QPO (the upper kHz QPO is significant at 10$`\sigma `$). In the observation 50023-01-11-00 (see Fig. 3) the centroid frequencies of the lower and the upper kHz QPOs are $`\nu _l=308\pm 5`$ Hz and $`\nu _u=582\pm 10`$ Hz, respectively. The peak separation is $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu =274\pm 11`$. In the observation 60029-02-02-00 the centroid frequencies of the lower and the upper kHz QPOs are $`\nu _l=385\pm 9`$ Hz and $`\nu _u=616\pm 19`$ Hz, respectively. The peak separation is $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu =231\pm 21`$. To check for frequency variations in the kHz peaks we divided observation 50023-01-11-00 in to four time segments and observation 60029-02-02-00 in to two segments, and analysed the power spectra of these segments. We note that 60029-02-02-00 is ‘naturally’ divided in two by an X-ray burst, hence in this case we have analysed the pre-burst and post-burst power spectra. No significant frequency variations are present in either observation.

### 3.1 Trials and significance of the kHz QPOs

The number of gap observations analysed (observations with the hard colour in the range 0.9–0.98 and with event data with a time resolution of 125 $`\mu `$s) is 48. When we look for a timing feature, the probability of a statistical fluctuation in the power spectrum at a certain frequency increases with the number of trials, i.e. with the number of power spectra searched, and with the range of frequencies $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _{range}`$ in which we expect the QPO. We estimate the total number of trials as number of power spectra $`\times \mathrm{\Delta }\nu _{range}/FWHM`$. As reported in Fig. 3, in observation 50023-01-11-00 we have a very significant upper kHz QPO at 582 Hz. We expect the lower kHz QPO (which has a $`FWHM45`$ Hz) in an interval of frequencies of about 200 Hz. This leads to $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _{range}/FWHM4.4`$. $`4.4\sigma `$ single-trial significance means a chance probability of $`1.08\times 10^5`$ which multiplied by 48 trials and by 4.4 gives $`2.28\times 10^3`$: the QPO is still significant at a $`3\sigma `$ level. The kHz QPOs at $`385Hz`$ and $`615`$ Hz of the observation 60029-02-02-00 turn out to be only marginally significant, below $`3\sigma `$. Therefore only one gap observation can be reported to show evidence of twin peaks in the power spectrum.

## 4 Discussion

We have analysed the observations of 4U 1728–34, filling in the ‘gap’ in the CD (found by Di Salvo et al. 2002) in between island and banana, namely in the range 0.9–0.98 of the hard colour (see Fig. 1). In one of these observation we find two significant kHz QPOs with a lower kHz QPO as low as 308 Hz (the lowest ‘lower’ kHz QPO ever found in this source). The lower kHz QPO has an amplitude of $`5.9\pm 0.8`$ per cent (rms) and Q=$`\nu _0/FWHM=6.9\pm 2.5`$; the upper kHz QPO has $`12.8\pm 0.8`$ per cent rms and Q=$`2.9\pm 0.5`$. Do these features fit in the overall timing behaviour of the source? The amplitudes vs. $`\nu _{max}`$ of the kHz QPOs of 4U 1728–34 are shown in Fig. 1 of Méndez & van der Klis (2001). The lower and the upper kHz QPOs form two distinct traces in the plot; the upper kHz QPO we find fits perfectly in the upper kHz QPO trace. The lower kHz QPO appears discrepant, but there are no other lower kHz QPO measurements below $`600`$ kHz with which to compare.

Comparison of the upper kHz QPO frequency with Q and amplitude of both the upper and lower kHz QPOs (see Fig. 4 in van Straaten et al. 2002) shows that all the parameters of these QPOs fit in the overall trend of the source. In Fig. 4 we show the characteristic frequency $`\nu _{max}`$ (see Belloni et al. 2001) of the upper kHz QPOs ($`\nu _{umax}`$) as a function of the $`\nu _{max}`$ of all the other components used to fit the power spectra of 4U 1728–34. The grey points are from van Straaten et al. (2002) and the black points are from the observation 50023-01-11-00. The upper kHz QPO frequency of the observation 50023-01-11-00 is consistent with the correlations found with all the other components and in particular extend the Ll–Lu correlation (stars) to lower frequencies. The location of Ll at $`\nu _{lmax}=308\pm 5`$ Hz is too high for a hHz QPO which in any case is separately detected (Fig. 3). Whether or not the ‘gap’ in the Ll–Lu correlation (diamonds in Fig. 4) between $`600800`$ Hz is real must be further investigated. Clearly, bridging this gap would increase our confidence in the identification of the peak at $`308`$ Hz.

The peak separation of the kHz QPOs we have found ($`275`$ Hz) is significantly lower than both the spin frequency as inferred by burst oscillations ($`363`$ Hz; Strohmayer et al. 1996) and the ‘saturation’ value (at $`349`$ Hz) found by Méndez & van der Klis (1999) in the range $`500800`$ Hz. In Fig. 5 we show the peak frequency separation $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu `$ as a function of the lower kHz QPO frequency. Black points are from Méndez & van der Klis (1999) and the open circle is our observation. The solid line indicates the frequency of the burst oscillations at 363.9 Hz (Strohmayer et al. 1996). This indicates a decrease of the peak frequency separation at low frequencies. This decrease is contrary to what is expected from the SPBFM, which predicts a steady or increasing peak frequency separation at low frequencies (see e.g. Fig. 2 in Lamb & Miller 2001). A clear prediction of a decrease of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu `$ is made by the RPM. However, it seems that the decrease at low frequencies we find is steeper than the one predicted by the RPM: see e.g. Fig. 1 in Stella & Vietri (1999). We have also checked the relation between the upper and lower kHz QPOs as predicted by the two-oscillator model. We have used the values of the constant parameters of equation 15 in Osherovich & Titarchuk (1999) as determined by Titarchuk, Osherovich & Kuznetsov (1999) for 4U 1728–34. For a low frequency QPO of 308 Hz the two-oscillator model predicts an upper kHz QPO of $`717`$ Hz, much higher than the one observed.

## Acknowledgements

SM would like to thank Steve van Straaten, Tiziana Di Salvo and Mariano Méndez for very helpful discussions. We would like to thank the anonymous referee for her/his comments and suggestions.