text:
# Pairing correlations and transitions in nuclear systems

## 1 Introduction

The standard BCS theory has been widely used to describe systems with pairing correlations and phase transitions to a superconducting phase for large systems, from the solid state to nuclear physics, with neutron stars as perhaps the largest object in the universe exhibiting superfluidity in its interior. An eventual superfluid phase in a neutron star will condition the neutrino emission and thereby the cooling history of such a star, in addition to inducing mechanisms such as sudden spin ups in the rotational period of the star; see, for example, Ref.  for recent reviews. For an infinite system, such as a neutron star, the nature of the pairing phase transition is well established as second order.

When a system of correlated fermions such as electrons or nucleons is sufficiently small, the fermionic spectrum becomes discrete. If the spacing approaches the size of the pairing gap, superconductivity is expected to break down ; however, recent experiments on superconducting ultrasmall aluminum grains by Tinkham et al.  revealed the existence of a spectroscopic gap larger than the average electronic level density. This feature was interpreted as a reminiscence of superconductivity and renewed the interest  in studies of what is the lower size limit for superconductivity.

Other finite fermionic systems such as nuclei are expected to exhibit a variety of interesting phase-transition like phenomena, like the disappearence of pairing at a critical temperature $`T_c0.51`$ MeV or the nuclear shape transitions of deformed nuclei associated with the melting of shell effects at $`T_c112`$ MeV. Pairing correlations are expected to play an essential role in nuclear systems, ranging from the binding energy, excitation spectrum and odd-even effects in finite nuclei to superfluidity in the interior of neutron stars. In recent theoretical and experimental studies  of thermodynamical properties of finite nuclei, the heat capacity has been found to exhibit a non-vanishing bump at temperatures proportional to half the pairing gap. These bumps were interpreted as signs of the quenching of pair correlations, representing in turn features of the pairing transition for an infinitely large system. In the study of eventual transitions in e.g., nuclear physics, it is important to know whether a given transition really is of first order, discontinuous, or if there is a continuous change in a physical quantity like the mean energy, as in phase transitions of second order. If one works in the canonical or grand canonical ensembles, for finite systems it is rather difficult to decide on the order of the phase transition. This is due to the fact that in ensembles like the canonical, any anomaly is smeared over a temperature range of $`1/N`$, $`N`$ being the number of particles. In the analysis of finite systems, both a $`\delta `$-function peak and a power law singularity sharpen as the number of particles is increased, making it difficult to distinguish between the two cases, see, for example, Ref. . In addition, first order phase transitions in finite systems have recently been inferred, theoretically and experimentally, from observed negative heat capacities that are associated with anomalous convex intruders in the entropy versus energy curves, resulting in backbendings in the caloric curves; see, for example, Refs. . Negative heat capacities are often claimed to appear only in calculations done in the microcanonical ensemble and are thought to vanish in the canonical or grand-canonical ensembles.

In this work we give first a brief review in Sec. 2 of pairing features in infinite neutron matter. In Sec. 3 we discuss experimental results indicating the gradual breaking of pairs in nuclei. A simple pairing model is in turn used in Sec. 4 to show the similarities between the experimental results and the gradual breaking of pairs. Concluding remarks are presented in Sec. 5.

## 2 Pairing in infinite neutron matter

The presence of neutron superfluidity in the crust and the inner part of neutron stars are considered well established in the physics of these compact stellar objects. In the low density outer part of a neutron star, the neutron superfluidity is expected mainly in the attractive $`{}_{}{}^{1}S_{0}^{}`$ channel. At higher density, the nuclei in the crust dissolve, and one expects a region consisting of a quantum liquid of neutrons and protons in beta equilibrium. The proton contaminant should be superfluid in the $`{}_{}{}^{1}S_{0}^{}`$ channel, while neutron superfluidity is expected to occur mainly in the coupled $`{}_{}{}^{3}P_{2}^{}`$-$`{}_{}{}^{3}F_{2}^{}`$ two-neutron channel. In the core of the star any superfluid phase should finally disappear.

The presence of two different superfluid regimes is suggested by the known trend of the nucleon-nucleon (NN) phase shifts in each scattering channel. In both the $`{}_{}{}^{1}S_{0}^{}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{3}P_{2}^{}`$-$`{}_{}{}^{3}F_{2}^{}`$ channels the phase shifts indicate that the NN interaction is attractive. In particular for the $`{}_{}{}^{1}S_{0}^{}`$ channel, the occurrence of the well known virtual state in the neutron-neutron channel strongly suggests the possibility of a pairing condensate at low density, while for the $`{}_{}{}^{3}P_{2}^{}`$-$`{}_{}{}^{3}F_{2}^{}`$ channel the interaction becomes strongly attractive only at higher energy, which therefore suggests a possible pairing condensate in this channel at higher densities. In recent years the BCS gap equation has been solved with realistic interactions, and the results confirm these expectations.

The $`{}_{}{}^{1}S_{0}^{}`$ neutron superfluid is relevant for phenomena that can occur in the inner crust of neutron stars, like the formation of glitches, which may to be related to vortex pinning of the superfluid phase in the solid crust . The results of different groups are in close agreement on the $`{}_{}{}^{1}S_{0}^{}`$ pairing gap values and on its density dependence, which shows a peak value of about 3 MeV at a Fermi momentum close to $`k_F0.8\mathrm{fm}^1`$ . All these calculations adopt the bare NN interaction or effective interactions without screening corrections as the pairing force. It has been pointed out that the screening by the medium of the interaction could strongly reduce the pairing strength in this channel . However, the issue of the many-body calculation of the pairing effective interaction is a complex one and still far from a satisfactory solution.

The precise knowledge of the $`{}_{}{}^{3}P_{2}^{}`$-$`{}_{}{}^{3}F_{2}^{}`$ pairing gap is of paramount relevance for, e.g., the cooling of neutron stars, and different values correspond to drastically different scenarios for the cooling process. Generally, the gap suppresses the cooling by a factor $`\mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{\Delta }/T)`$ (where $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the energy gap) which is severe for temperatures well below the gap energy.

For $`\beta `$-stable matter in equilibrium, the neutron $`{}_{}{}^{1}S_{0}^{}`$ pairing gap appears at densities corresponding to the crust of the star. It is generally believed that it is the proton contaminant and its $`{}_{}{}^{1}S_{0}^{}`$ pairing gap which dominates in the region from the inner crust to the densities 2-3 times nuclear matter saturation density, together with the $`{}_{}{}^{3}P_{2}^{}`$ gap. The general picture can be summarized as follows:

* The $`{}_{}{}^{1}S_{0}^{}`$ proton gap in $`\beta `$-stable matter is $`1`$ MeV, and if polarization effects were taken into account , it could be further reduced by a factor 2-3.
* The $`{}_{}{}^{3}P_{2}^{}`$ gap is also small, of the order of $`0.1`$ MeV in $`\beta `$-stable matter. If relativistic effects are taken into account, it is almost vanishing. However, there is quite some uncertainty with the value for this pairing gap for densities above $`0.3`$ fm-3 due to the fact that the NN interactions are not fitted for the corresponding lab energies.
* Higher partial waves give essentially vanishing pairing gaps in $`\beta `$-stable matter.

Thus, the $`{}_{}{}^{1}S_{0}^{}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{3}P_{2}^{}`$ partial waves are crucial for our understanding of superfluidity in neutron star matter. However, hyperons such as $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ may be present at twice or more nuclear matter saturation energy. There are indications that the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ interaction is too weak to support a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ gap, while $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{\Sigma }^1}10`$ MeV. Recent cooling simulations seems to indicate that available observations of thermal emissions from pulsars can aid in constraining hyperon gaps. However, all these calculations suffer from the fact that the microscopic inputs, pairing gaps, composition of matter, emissivity rates, etc. are not computed at the same many-body theoretical level. This leaves a considerable uncertainty.

We have not mentioned recent developments beyond the BCS approach, nor have we discussed results for proton-neutron pairing in symmetric or asymmetric matter. Such topics are addressed in the recent works of Lombardo, Schulze and collaborators, see e.g., Refs.  and references therein.

## 3 Thermodynamic properties of nuclei and pairing

The thermodynamical properties of nuclei deviate from infinite systems, although the spectroscopy of finite nuclei and especially many isotopes, are dominated by the same partial waves which are important in neutron star matter, see ref. .

While the quenching of pairing in superconductors is well described as a function of temperature, the nucleus represents a finite many body system characterized by large fluctuations in the thermodynamic observables. A long-standing problem in experimental nuclear physics has been to observe the transition from strongly paired states, at around $`T=0`$, to unpaired states at higher temperatures.

In nuclear theory, the pairing gap parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ can be studied as function of temperature using the BCS gap equations . From this simple model the gap decreases monotonically to zero at a critical temperature of $`T_c0.5\mathrm{\Delta }`$. However, if particle number is projected out , the decrease is significantly delayed. The predicted decrease of pair correlations takes place over several MeV of excitation energy . Recently , structures in the level densities in the 1–7 MeV region were reported, structures which probably are due to the breaking of nucleon pairs and a gradual decrease of pair correlations.

Experimental data on the quenching of pair correlations are important as a test for nuclear theories. Within finite temperature BCS and RPA models, level density and specific heat are calculated for e.g., 58Ni ; within the shell model Monte Carlo method (SMMC)  one is now able to estimate level densities  in heavy nuclei  up to high excitation energies. Here we report on the observation of the gradual transition from strongly paired states to unpaired states in rare earth nuclei at low spin. The canonical heat capacity is used as a thermometer. Since only particles at the Fermi surface contribute to this quantity, it is very sensitive to phase transitions. It has been demonstrated from SMMC calculations in the Fe region , that breaking of only one nucleon pair increases the heat capacity significantly.

The experiments were carried out with 45 MeV 3He projectiles from the MC-35 cyclotron at the University of Oslo. In that experiment, one could extract level densities and $`\gamma `$ strength functions for the 161,162Dy and 171,172Yb nuclei. The data for the even nuclei are published recently .

The partition function in the canonical ensemble $`Z(T)=_{n=0}^{\mathrm{}}\rho (E_n)e^{E_n/T}`$ is determined by the measured level density of accessible states $`\rho (E_n)`$ in the present nuclear reaction. Strictly, the sum should run from zero to infinity. Here we calculate $`Z`$ for temperatures up to $`T=1`$ MeV. However, the experimental level densities only cover the excitation region up close to the neutron binding energy of about 6 and 8 MeV for odd and even mass nuclei, respectively. For higher energies it is reasonable to assume Fermi gas properties, since single particles are excited into the continuum region with high level density. Therefore, due to lack of experimental data, the level density is extrapolated to higher energies by the shifted Fermi gas model expression . The extraction of the microcanonical heat capacity $`C_V(E)`$ gives large fluctuations which are difficult to interpret . Therefore, the heat capacity $`C_V(T)`$ is calculated within the canonical ensemble, where $`T`$ is a fixed input value in the theory, and a more appropriate parameter, see e.g., Schiller et al.  for further details.

The deduced heat capacities for the 161,162Dy nuclei are shown in Fig. 1 together with the SMMC results of Liu and Alhassid  for various iron isotopes. The results labelled ’model’ are discussed further in Refs. . We note that both the theoretical and experimental results exhibit S-shaped $`C_V(T)`$-curves. The S-shaped curve is interpreted as a fingerprint of a phase transition in a finite system from a phase with strong pairing correlations to a phase without such correlations. Due to the strong smoothing introduced by the transformation to the canonical ensemble, we do not expect to see discrete transitions between the various quasiparticle regimes, but only the transition where all pairing correlations are quenched as a whole. It is worth noticing that the S-shape is much less pronounced for the odd system, again a possible indication of the importance of pairing correlations. This can also be seen from Fig. 2, taken from Ref. .

Here we notice that the entropy of the even and odd systems merge at a temperature $`T0.5`$ MeV, in close agreement with the point where the S-shape of the heat capacity of the 161,162Dy nuclei appears in Fig. 1. The temperature where the experimental entropies merge, could in turn be interpreted as the point where other degrees of freedom than pairing take over. A theoretical interpretation in terms of the vanishing of pairing correlations is given in Refs. . The extraction of the microcanonical heat capacity $`C_V(E)`$ gives large fluctuations which are difficult to interpret . Therefore, the heat capacity $`C_V(T)`$ is calculated within the canonical ensemble, where $`T`$ is a fixed input value in the theory, and a more appropriate parameter, see e.g., Schiller et al.  for further details.

The deduced heat capacities for the 161,162Dy nuclei are shown in Fig. 1 together with the SMMC results of Liu and Alhassid  for various iron isotopes. The results labelled ’model’ are discussed further in Ref. . We note that both the theoretical and experimental results exhibit S-shaped $`C_V(T)`$-curves. The S-shaped curve is interpreted as a fingerprint of a phase transition in a finite system from a phase with strong pairing correlations to a phase without such correlations. Due to the strong smoothing introduced by the transformation to the canonical ensemble, we do not expect to see discrete transitions between the various quasiparticle regimes, but only the transition where all pairing correlations are quenched as a whole. It is worth noticing that the S-shape is much less pronounced for the odd system, again a possible indication of the importance of pairing correlations. This can also be seen from Fig. 2, taken from Ref. .

Here we notice that the entropy of the even and odd systems merge at a temperature $`T0.5`$ MeV, in close agreement with the point where the S-shape of the heat capacity of the 161,162Dy nuclei appears in Fig. 1. The temperature where the experimental entropies merge, could in turn be interpreted as the point where other degrees of freedom than pairing take over. A theoretical interpretation in terms of the vanishing of pairing correlations is given in Ref.  and in the next section.

## 4 Simple pairing model and nature of the pairing transition

We aim here to identify the nature of the pairing transition and give a theoretical interpretation of the results from the previous section. Since we are dealing with pairing correlations, our Hamiltonian is

$$H=\underset{i}{}\epsilon _ia_i^{}a_iG\underset{ij>0}{}a_i^{}a_{\overline{ı}}^{}a_{\overline{ȷ}}a_j,$$
(1)
where $`a^{}`$ and $`a`$ are fermion creation and annihilation operators, respectively. The indices $`i`$ and $`j`$ run over the number of levels $`L`$, and the label $`\overline{ı}`$ stands for a time-reversed state. The parameter $`G`$ is the strength of the pairing force while $`\epsilon _i`$ is the single-particle energy of level $`i`$. We assume that the single-particle levels are equidistant with a fixed spacing $`d`$. Moreover, in our simple model, the degeneracy of the single-particle levels is set to $`2J+1=2`$, with $`J=1/2`$ being the spin of the particle. Seniority $`𝐒`$ is a good quantum number and the eigenvalue problem can be block-diagonalized in terms of different seniority values. Loosely speaking, the seniority quantum number $`𝐒`$ is equal to the number of unpaired particles. For systems with less than $`1618`$ particles, this model can be diagonalized exactly, and we can obtain all eigenstates. In our studies below, we will always consider the case of half-filling, i.e., equally many particles and single-particle levels. This case has the largest dimensionality: for 16 particles in 16 doubly degenerate single-particle shells, we have a total of $`4\times 10^8`$ states. We choose units MeV for the energy and set $`G=0.2`$ MeV in all calculations while we let $`d`$ vary.

Through diagonalization of the above Hamiltonian we can define exactly the density of states $`\mathrm{\Omega }_N(E)`$ for an $`N`$-particle system with excitation energy $`E`$. An alternative to the exact diagonalization, would be to use Richardson’s well-known solution , however, we are interested in all eigenstates, and the amount of numerical labor will most likely be similar. The density of states is an essential ingredient in the evaluation of thermal averages and for the discussion of phase transitions in finite systems. For nuclei, experimental information on the density of states is expected to reveal important information on nuclear shell structure, pair correlations and other correlation phenomena in the nucleonic motion.

The density of states $`\mathrm{\Omega }_N(E)`$ is the statistical weight of the given state with excitation energy $`E`$, and its logarithm

$$S_N(E)=k_B\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Omega }_N(E),$$
(2)
is the entropy (we set Boltzmann’s constant $`k_B=1`$) of the $`N`$-particle system. The density of states defines also the partition function in the microcanonical ensemble and can be used to compute the partition function $`Z`$ of the canonical ensemble through

$$Z(\beta )=\underset{E}{}\mathrm{\Omega }_N(E)e^{\beta E},$$
(3)
with $`\beta =1/T`$ the inverse temperature. With $`Z`$ it is straightforward to generate other thermodynamical properties such as the mean energy $`E`$ or the specific heat $`C_V`$.

The density of states can also be used to define the free energy $`F(E)`$ in the microcanonical ensemble at a fixed temperature $`T`$ (actually an expectation value in this ensemble),

$$F(E)=T\mathrm{ln}\left[\mathrm{\Omega }_N(E)e^{\beta E}\right].$$
(4)
Note that here we include only configurations at a particular $`E`$.

The above free energy was used by e.g., Lee and Kosterlitz , based on the histogram approach for studying phase transitions developed by Ferrenberg and Swendsen , in their studies of phase transitions of classical spin systems. If a phase transition is present, a plot of $`F(E)`$ versus $`E`$ will show two local minima which correspond to configurations that are characteristic of the high and low temperature phases. At the transition temperature $`T_C`$ the value of $`F(E)`$ at the two minima equal, while at temperatures below $`T_C`$, the low-energy minimum is the absolute minimum. At temperatures above $`T_C`$, the high-energy minimum is the largest. If there is no phase transition, the system developes only one minimum for all temperatures. Since we are dealing with finite systems, we can study the development of the two minima as function of the dimension of the system and thereby extract information about the nature of the phase transition. If we are dealing with a second order phase transition, the behavior of $`F(E)`$ does not change dramatically as the size of the system increases. However, if the transition is first order, the difference in free energy, i.e., the distance between the maximum and minimum values, will increase with increasing dimension.

To elucidate the nature of the transition we calculate exactly the free energy $`F(E)`$ of Eq. (4) through diagonalization of the pairing Hamiltonian of Eq. (1) for systems with up to 16 particles in $`16`$ doubly degenerate levels. For $`d/G=0.5`$ and 16 single-particle levels, we develop two clear minima for the free energy. This is seen in Fig. 3 where we show the free energy as function of excitation energy using Eq. (4) at temperatures $`T=0.5`$, $`T=0.85`$ and $`T=1.0`$ MeV. The first minimum corresponds to the case where we break one pair. The second and third minima correspond to cases where two and three pairs are broken, respectively. When two pairs are broken, corresponding to seniority $`𝐒=4`$, the free energy minimum is made up of contributions from states with $`𝐒=0,2,4`$. These contributions serve to lower the free energy. Similarly, with three pairs broken we see a new free energy minimum which receives contributions from $`𝐒=0,2,4,6`$. At higher excitation energies, population inversion takes place, and our model is no longer realistic.

We note that for $`T=0.5`$ MeV, the minima at lower excitation energies are favored. At $`T=1.0`$ MeV, the higher energy phase (more broken pairs) is favored. We see also, at $`T=0.85`$ MeV, that the free-energy minima where we break two and three pairs equal. Where two minima coexist, we may have an indication of a phase transition. Note however that this is not a phase transition in the ordinary thermodynamical sense. There is no abrupt transition from a purely paired phase to a nonpaired phase. Instead, our system developes several such intermediate steps where different numbers of broken pairs can coexist. At e.g., $`T=0.95`$ MeV, we find again two equal minima. For this case, seniority $`𝐒=6`$ and $`𝐒=8`$ yield two equal minima. This picture repeats itself for higher seniority and higher temperatures.

If we then focus on the second and third minima, i.e., where we break two and three pairs, respectively, the difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }F`$ between the minimum and the maximum of the free energy, can aid us in distinguishing between a first order and a second order phase transition. If $`\mathrm{\Delta }F/N`$ remains constant as $`N`$ increases, we have a second order transition. An increasing $`\mathrm{\Delta }F/N`$ indicates a first order phase transition. In Table 1 we display $`\mathrm{\Delta }F/N`$ for $`N=10`$, 12, 14 and 16 at $`T=0.85`$ MeV. It is important to note that the features seen in Fig. 3, apply to the cases with $`N=10`$, 12 and 14 as well, where $`T=0.85`$ MeV is the temperature where the second and third minima equal. This means that the temperature where the transition is meant to take place remains stable as function of number of single-particle levels and particles. This is in agreement with the simulations of Lee and Kosterlitz . We find a similar result for the minima developed at $`T=0.95`$ MeV, where both $`𝐒=6`$ and $`𝐒=8`$ coexist. However, due to population inversion, these minima are only seen clearly for $`N=12`$, $`14`$ and $`16`$ particles.

Table 1 reveals that $`\mathrm{\Delta }F/N`$ is nearly constant, with $`\mathrm{\Delta }F/N0.5`$ MeV, indicating a transition of second order. This result is in agreement with what is expected for an infinite system. It is also easy to see from Fig. 3, that the entropy in the microcanonical ensemble can be convex for certain excitation energy ranges, resulting in eventual negative heat capacities, as inferred from the authors of Refs. . The analysis above however, does not lend support to interpreting this as a sign of a first order phase transition.

We note the important result that for $`d/G>1.5`$, our free energy, for $`N16`$, developes only one minimum for all temperatures. That is, for larger single-particle spacings, there is no sign of a phase transition. This means that there is a critical relation between $`d`$ and $`G`$ for the appearance of a phase transition-like behavior, being a reminiscence of the thermodynamical limit. This agrees also with e.g., the results for ultrasmall metallic grains .

We have thus indications that the transition from the paired seniority zero ground state to a mixed phase state is second order. The free-energy analysis also demonstrates that each transition in seniority phases in the microcanonical ensemble is of second order. The strength of the pairing in these systems determines the nature of the phase transitions. In particular, for a weakly paired system, we found no evidence for two phases, while normal pairing strengths, such as those found in nuclei, may well exhibit the paired-phase and mixed seniority phases that we demonstrated in this model. We will include more realistic interactions to investigate this point in future work. We also found, using Auxiliary Field Monte Carlo computations for this system  together with the histogram method of Refs. , that the energy fluctuations in the canonical ensemble make it rather difficult to extract useful information on the nature of the phase transitions from these techniques.

## 5 Conclusions

In summary, the $`{}_{}{}^{1}S_{0}^{}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{3}P_{2}^{}`$ partial waves are crucial for our understanding of superfluidity in neutron star matter. The role of polarization terms and hyperon pairing are still open and unsettled topics, see ref.  for further discussions. Furthermore, we have also discussed recent experimental and theoretical studies of thermodynamical properties of finite nuclei and their interpretation in terms of eventual pairing transitions in finite nuclei. For a more detailed theoretical analysis we would howerver need extensive shell-model Monte Carlo simulations in order to test the role played by e.g., pairing terms in the interaction. It is an open question whether such calculations lend support to the experimentally observed level densities.

## Acknowledgements

We are much indebted to Magne Guttormsen (Oslo) and Andreas Schiller (LLNL/MSU) for the many discussion on the topics addressed here.


format: text

text:
# Transformation of a generalized Harry Dym equation into the Hirota–Satsuma system

## 1 Introduction

Recently, Popowicz  introduced the following new generalization of the Harry Dym (HD) equation:

$$u_t=u^3\left(u^{1/2}v^{3/2}\right)_{xxx},v_t=v^3\left(v^{1/2}u^{3/2}\right)_{xxx}.$$
(1)
This remarkably simple and symmetric system of coupled equations possesses a Lax pair and a Hamiltonian structure .

In the present paper, we construct a chain of transformations which relates the new generalized HD equation of Popowicz (1) with the well-studied Hirota–Satsuma system of coupled KdV equations . There are no general methods of transforming a given nonlinear system into another one, less complicated or better studied, and the usual way of finding necessary transformations is based on experience, guess and good luck. For this reason, we give no comments on how these transformations were found in the present case.

## 2 Transforming the generalized HD equation

First, we transform the dependent variables $`u`$ and $`v`$ of the generalized HD equation (1) in the following way:

$$u=a\mathrm{exp}(b),v=a\mathrm{exp}(b).$$
(2)
In the new dependent variables, $`a(x,t)`$ and $`b(x,t)`$, the system (1) takes the form

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill a_t& =a^3a_{xxx}+12a^3a_xb_x^2+12a^4b_xb_{xx},\hfill \\ \hfill b_t& =2a^3b_{xxx}6a^2a_xb_{xx}6a^2a_{xx}b_x8a^3b_x^3,\hfill \end{array}$$
(3)
where the (original) HD equation is clearly seen at $`b=\mathrm{constant}`$. Note that the separants of the coupled evolution equations (3), i.e. the coefficients at the third-order $`x`$-derivatives in (3), have the form $`\mathrm{constant}\times a^3`$, and thus the role played by the invertible transformation (2) is to prepare the system (1) for the next step of transforming, which brings (3) into a constant-separant form.

Second, we try to transform $`x`$, $`a`$ and $`b`$ in (3) as follows:

$$x=p(y,t),a(x,t)=p_y(y,t),b(x,t)=q(y,t).$$
(4)
This is an extension of the transformation used by Ibragimov  to relate the (original) HD equation with the Schwarzian-modified KdV equation. The transformation (4) really works and relates the system (3) with the constant-separant system

$`p_t`$ $`=p_{yyy}{\displaystyle \frac{3p_{yy}^2}{2p_y}}+6p_yq_y^2,`$ (5a)
$`q_t`$ $`=2q_{yyy}2q_y^33\left({\displaystyle \frac{p_{yyy}}{p_y}}{\displaystyle \frac{3p_{yy}^2}{2p_y^2}}\right)q_y.`$ (5b)
To verify this, one may use the identities

$$a_x=_y,a_t=p_{yt}\frac{p_{yy}p_t}{p_y},b_t=q_t\frac{q_yp_t}{p_y}$$

which follow from (4) straightforwardly. Note that (4) is not an invertible transformation: it maps the system (5) into the system (3), whereas its application in the opposite direction, from (3) to (5), requires one integration by $`x`$. We have omitted the terms $`\alpha (t)p_y`$ and $`\alpha (t)q_y`$ in the right-hand sides of (5a) and (5b), respectively, where this arbitrary function $`\alpha (t)`$ appeared as a ‘constant’ of that integration. The Schwarzian-modified KdV equation is clearly seen in the system (5) at $`q=\mathrm{constant}`$. Nevertheless, further steps of transforming the generalized HD equation (1) do not involve the Schwarzian derivative.

Third, we make the transformation

$$f(y,t)=\frac{p_{yy}}{p_y},g(y,t)=q_y,$$
(6)
admitted by the equations (5) owing to their form, and obtain the system

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill f_t& =\left(f_{yy}+12gg_y\frac{1}{2}f^3+6fg^2\right)_y,\hfill \\ \hfill g_t& =\left(2g_{yy}3gf_y+\frac{3}{2}f^2g2g^3\right)_y\hfill \end{array}$$
(7)
which belongs to the well-studied class of coupled mKdV equations.

Fourth, we apply the Miura-type transformation

$$r(y,t)=f_y+\frac{1}{2}f^2+2g^2,s(y,t)=g_y+fg$$
(8)
to the coupled mKdV equations (7) and obtain the Hirota–Satsuma system of coupled KdV equations

$$r_t=r_{yyy}3rr_y+24ss_y,s_t=2s_{yyy}+3rs_y.$$
(9)
Note that the system (7) and the transformation (8) (up to a linear change of variables) were introduced in .

Consequently, we have constructed the chain of transformations (2), (4), (6) and (8) which relates the generalized HD equation (1) with the Hirota–Satsuma system (9).

## 3 Conclusion

In this paper, we transformed the new generalized HD equation of Popowicz (1) into the well-known Hirota–Satsuma system of coupled KdV equations (9). Possible applications of this, which were completely out of the scope of our work, may include relating Lax pairs and Hamiltonian structures of (1) and (9), deriving a recursion operator for (1) from the known one of (9), explaining analytic properties of (1) from the standpoint of the Painlevé property of (9), etc. We can add that chains of transformations, similar to the one obtained in this paper, have been successfully used in  for relating two new generalized HD equations of Brunelli, Das and Popowicz  with known integrable systems as well.

## Acknowledgments

The author is deeply grateful to all people at the Mathematical Institute of Silesian University for kind help and hospitality, and to the Centre for Higher Education Studies of Czech Republic for support.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Recently, evidence for the existence of two new mesonic states with charm and strange quark content has been presented by three experiments . Table 1 summarizes the experimental measurements of the masses of the two new states as well as our weighted averages of the meson masses. The uncertainties of the averages have been obtained by adding in quadrature the statistical and systematic errors reported by the experiments.

At first, the BaBar Collaboration , running the BaBar detector at the PEP-II asymmetric-energy $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}`$ storage ring, announced the observation of a charmed strange meson called $`D_{sJ}^{}(2317)^\pm .`$ This new state manifested as narrow resonance with a mass of $`M(D_{sJ}^{}(2317)^\pm )=(2316.8\pm 0.4\pm 3.0)\text{MeV}`$ in the $`D_s^\pm \pi ^0`$ invariant-mass distribution.

The CLEO Collaboration  provided the confirmation of the existence of the $`D_{sJ}^{}(2317)^\pm `$ meson from data collected with the CLEO II detector in symmetric $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}`$ collisions at the Cornell Electron Storage Ring. Furthermore, the CLEO Collaboration  reported the observation of a charmed, strange meson called $`D_{sJ}(2463)^\pm .`$ This new state manifested itself as narrow resonance in the $`D_s^\pm \pi ^0`$ invariant-mass spectrum. Interestingly, the CLEO experiment  found, within errors, identical results for the mass differences (with statistical and systematic errors) between these two $`D_{sJ}^{}(2317)^\pm `$ and $`D_{sJ}(2463)^\pm `$ states and the well-established  $`D_s^\pm `$ and $`D_s^\pm `$ mesons, respectively:

$`M(D_{sJ}^{}(2317)^\pm )M(D_s^\pm )`$ $`=`$ $`(350.0\pm 1.2\pm 1.0)\text{MeV},`$
$`M(D_{sJ}(2463)^\pm )M(D_s^\pm )`$ $`=`$ $`(351.2\pm 1.7\pm 1.0)\text{MeV}.`$
With the most recent Particle Data Group averages  $`M(D_s^\pm )=(1968.1\pm 0.5)\text{MeV},`$ for the mass of the $`D_s^\pm `$ meson, and $`M(D_s^\pm )=(2111.9\pm 0.7)\text{MeV},`$ for the mass of the $`D_s^\pm `$ meson, the mass differences translate into the resonance masses listed in Table 1. In return the BaBar experiment confirmed the existence of the $`D_{sJ}(2463)^\pm `$ meson .

Finally, both discoveries have been confirmed by the Belle Collaboration, operating the Belle detector at the KEKB asymmetric-energy $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}`$ collider; the Belle experiment identified the new $`D_{sJ}^{}(2317)^\pm `$ and $`D_{sJ}(2463)^\pm `$ states in the exclusive $`B`$ meson decays $`BD+D_{sJ}^{}(2317)`$ and $`BD+D_{sJ}(2463)`$ , and continuum $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}`$ annihilations .

Until now, for the $`D_{sJ}^{}(2317)^\pm `$ state, only the decay $`D_{sJ}^{}(2317)^+D_s^++\pi ^0`$ and, for the $`D_{sJ}(2463)^\pm `$ meson, the decays $`D_{sJ}(2463)^+D_s^++\pi ^0`$ and $`D_{sJ}(2463)^+D_s^++\gamma `$ (as well as, of course, their charge-conjugate channels) have been observed . For both states, the widths of the resonance peaks are consistent with the experimental mass resolution. This indicates that the observed resonance widths are consistent with those expected for states of zero intrinsic or natural width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }.`$ The CLEO Collaboration reports identical upper limits: $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(D_{sJ}^{}(2317)^\pm )<7\text{MeV}`$ for the $`D_{sJ}^{}(2317)^\pm `$ meson and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(D_{sJ}(2463)^\pm )<7\text{MeV}`$ for the $`D_{sJ}(2463)^\pm `$ meson, at the 90% confidence level .

Concerning the quantum numbers of these two narrow resonances, all experimental findings, such as all the observed decay modes and angular distributions, are consistent with their interpretation as P-wave states with spin-parity assignment $`J^P=0^+`$ for the $`D_{sJ}^{}(2317)^\pm `$ meson  and $`J^P=1^+`$ for the $`D_{sJ}(2463)^\pm `$ meson .

The new states do not show the decay patterns favoured by theoretical expectation:

* The mass of the $`D_{sJ}^{}(2317)^\pm `$ meson is $`40.8\text{MeV}`$ below the kinematical threshold $`2358.4\text{MeV}`$ for its isospin-conserving strong decay $`D_{sJ}^{}(2317)^+D^0+K^+,`$ and $`49.4\text{MeV}`$ below the kinematical threshold $`2367.0\text{MeV}`$ for its isospin-conserving strong decay $`D_{sJ}^{}(2317)^+D^++K^0`$ (charge-conjugate decays are understood).
* The mass of the $`D_{sJ}(2463)^\pm `$ meson lies above the two kinematical thresholds for the decays $`D_{sJ}(2463)^+D^0+K^+`$ and $`D_{sJ}(2463)^+D^++K^0;`$ these processes, however, are in conflict with the conservation of angular momentum and parity.
* The mass of the $`D_{sJ}(2463)^\pm `$ meson is $`41.5\text{MeV}`$ below the kinematical threshold $`2500.5\text{MeV}`$ for its isospin-conserving decay $`D_{sJ}(2463)^+D^{}(2007)^0+K^+,`$ and $`48.7\text{MeV}`$ below the kinematical threshold $`2507.7\text{MeV}`$ for its isospin-conserving decay $`D_{sJ}(2463)^+D^{}(2010)^++K^0`$ (charge-conjugate decays are understood).

As a consequence of their low masses blocking their isospin-conserving strong decays, the mesons $`D_{sJ}^{}(2317)^\pm `$ and $`D_{sJ}(2463)^\pm `$ decay via the channels $`D_{sJ}^{}(2317)^+D_s^++\pi ^0`$ and $`D_{sJ}(2463)^+D_s^++\pi ^0,`$ which both violate isospin conservation, and through the radiative decay mode $`D_{sJ}(2463)^+D_s^++\gamma ,`$ as well as the respective charge-conjugate modes. This explains the observed narrowness of the total decay widths of these states.

The experimentally measured masses of the two $`D_{sJ}^{}(2317)^\pm `$ and $`D_{sJ}(2463)^\pm `$ states (summarized in Table 1) are significantly smaller than the corresponding predictions of most, but not all, QCD-inspired quark potential models, which regard these mesons as P-wave bound states $`(c\overline{s})`$ of a charm quark $`c`$ and a strange antiquark $`\overline{s}.`$ Concerning the masses of the $`J^P=0^+`$ and the lower $`J^P=1^+`$ $`(c\overline{s})`$ states, typical sets of predictions are obtained, e.g., in the comprehensive potential-model analyses of Refs. , whereas results at the low-mass end of the spectrum of predictions can be found in Refs. . The failure of quark potential models to explain such low masses of the new resonances prompted a multitude of speculations about the genuine nature of these states . Tentative interpretations view the mesons $`D_{sJ}^{}(2317)^\pm `$ and $`D_{sJ}(2463)^\pm `$ dominantly as $`(c\overline{s})`$ bound states , $`(DK)`$ molecules , four-quark bound states , or $`D\pi `$ atoms . Clearly, in general each of these mesons is a linear combination of all Fock states which carry the appropriate quantum numbers.

In this work, we examine whether the new $`D_s`$ mesons can be accommodated as $`(c\overline{s})`$ bound states in a phenomenologically appealing nonrelativistic quark potential model. After recalling in Sec. 2 the spectroscopic classification of heavy-light states, we sketch in Sec. 3 the adopted quark model, and present in Sec. 4 our—disappointing—findings.

## 2 Spectroscopy of heavy-quark light-quark mesons

The spectroscopic classification of bound states $`(Q\overline{q})`$ composed of a heavy quark $`Q`$ and a comparatively light antiquark $`\overline{q}`$ is greatly facilitated by the following observation. In the limit of infinitely large mass of the heavy quark $`Q,`$ the spin $`𝒔_Q`$ of the heavy quark $`Q`$ and the total angular momentum $`𝒋`$ of the light quark $`q,`$ defined as the sum $`𝒋=𝒍+𝒔_q`$ of the orbital angular momentum $`𝒍`$ and the spin $`𝒔_q`$ of the light quark $`q,`$ are separately conserved. Hence, in this case $`𝒋`$ provides a “good” quantum number for classification.

The light-quark angular momentum $`𝒋`$ and the spin $`𝒔_Q`$ of the heavy quark combine to the total angular momentum $`𝑱=𝒋+𝒔_Q`$ of the $`(Q\overline{q})`$ bound state. The corresponding quantum number $`J`$ fixes the spin of the resulting meson. The parity $`P`$ of this meson is related to the quantum number $`\mathrm{}`$ of the orbital angular momentum $`𝒍`$ by $`P=(1)^{\mathrm{}+1}.`$

Thus, in the heavy-quark limit the heavy-light bound states $`(Q\overline{q})`$ may conveniently be classified in terms of the light-quark total-angular-momentum quantum number $`j`$:

have orbital angular momentum $`\mathrm{}=0`$ and, therefore, negative parity, $`P=1.`$ Spin and orbital angular momentum of the light quark $`q`$ can couple only to $`j^P=\frac{1}{2}^{}.`$ Combining the light-quark total angular momentum $`𝒋=𝒔_q`$ with the spin of the heavy quark $`Q`$ yields a spin-singlet state with spin-parity assignment $`J^P=0^{}`$ and a spin-triplet state with spin-parity assignment $`J^P=1^{}.`$

The pseudoscalar $`J^P=0^{}`$ state has been identified with the isosinglet $`D_s^\pm `$ meson (the former $`F^\pm `$ meson), with a mass of $`(1968.1\pm 0.5)\text{MeV}`$ and a well-established spin-parity assignment $`J^P=0^{}`$ . The vector $`J^P=1^{}`$ state is assumed to be identical to the isosinglet $`D_s^\pm `$ meson, with a mass of $`(2111.9\pm 0.7)\text{MeV},`$ natural spin-parity, and width and decay modes consistent with the assignment $`J^P=1^{}`$ .

have orbital angular momentum $`\mathrm{}=1`$ and, therefore, positive parity, $`P=+1.`$ Spin and orbital angular momentum of the light quark can couple either to $`j^P=\frac{1}{2}^+`$ or to $`j^P=\frac{3}{2}^+.`$ Combination with the spin of the heavy quark yields, for $`j^P=\frac{1}{2}^+,`$ two states with spin-parity assignment $`J^P=0^+`$ and $`J^P=1^+,`$ and, for $`j^P=\frac{3}{2}^+,`$ two states with spin-parity assignment $`J^P=1^+`$ and $`J^P=2^+.`$ The two $`J^P=1^+`$ states do not have definite charge-conjugation properties; therefore, they can undergo mixing.

The vector $`J^P=1^+`$ state belonging to the $`j^P=\frac{3}{2}^+`$ doublet (with possibly small admixtures of its vector $`J^P=1^+`$ counterpart belonging to the $`j^P=\frac{1}{2}^+`$ doublet) is, in general, assumed to be identical to the isosinglet $`D_{s1}(2536)^\pm `$ meson, with a mass of $`(2535.35\pm 0.34\pm 0.5)\text{MeV}`$ and its spin-parity assignment $`J^P=1^+`$ which is strongly favoured but still needs confirmation .

The spin-triplet tensor $`J^P=2^+`$ state is identified with the isosinglet $`D_{sJ}(2573)^\pm `$ meson, with a mass of $`(2572.4\pm 1.5)\text{MeV},`$ natural spin-parity, and width and decay modes consistent with the assignment $`J^P=2^+`$ .

Therefore, the present phenomenological status of the $`D_s`$ system can be summarized in the following way: The two S-wave (ground) states are experimentally well established. Good candidates for two of the four P-wave states predicted by theory for bound states of two spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ fermions have been observed. The open question is: May the $`D_{sJ}^{}(2317)^\pm `$ and $`D_{sJ}(2463)^\pm `$ states be interpreted as one or the other of the two missing $`(c\overline{s})`$ states?

## 3 Nonrelativistic quark–antiquark potential model

The present analysis of the charmed strange meson system is based on a nonrelativistic quark model improved by the lowest-order relativistic corrections. For recent reviews of the phenomenological description of hadrons as bound states of quarks within the more intuitive framework of (both nonrelativistic and semirelativistic) potential models see, for instance, Refs. . Since we intend to describe bound states composed of both a heavy quark and a light quark, we have to make use of a framework which is capable to reproduce the properties not only of heavy quarkonia but also of light mesons .

The nonrelativistic interquark potential $`V(r)`$ characterizing the phenomenological model employed in the present analysis is of a “funnel-like” Coulomb-plus-linear shape, improved by an intermediate exponential damping . This quark model provides an excellent description of both the observed  meson and baryon mass spectra . Apart from the strong fine-structure constant $`\alpha _\mathrm{s}`$ and the masses of the quarks, this model involves six constant parameters, $`a,b,c,d,V_0,R_1,`$ entering in the potential $`V(r)`$:

$`V(r)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _\mathrm{s}}{r}}b\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{r}{c}}\right)+d+V_0\text{for}rR_1,`$
$`V(r)`$ $`=`$ $`arb\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{r}{c}}\right)+V_0\text{for}rR_1.`$
From the smoothness of $`V(r)`$ at $`r=R_1,`$ the potential parameters $`R_1`$ and $`d`$ are related to the strong fine-structure constant $`\alpha _\mathrm{s}`$ and the slope $`a`$ of the linear term according to

$$R_1=\sqrt{\frac{4\alpha _\mathrm{s}}{3a}},d=4\sqrt{\frac{\alpha _\mathrm{s}a}{3}}.$$

Starting from the Bethe–Salpeter formalism for the description of bound states within relativistic quantum field theory, the static potential $`V(r)`$ in the Schrödinger equation may be derived from the interaction kernel entering in the Bethe–Salpeter equation by Fourier transformation. However, for a confining potential, such as the linear potential $`V(r)=ar,`$ the corresponding Bethe–Salpeter kernel has to be a highly singular object. The necessary regularization of the kernel introduces a constant in the static potential. In order to compensate the (infrared) divergence of the interaction kernel, in the case of the linear potential $`V(r)=ar`$ this (negative) constant $`V_0`$ has to involve the slope $`a`$ of the linear potential, and the Euler–Mascheroni constant $`\gamma =\mathrm{0.577\hspace{0.17em}215\hspace{0.17em}664\hspace{0.17em}901}\mathrm{}`$ :

$$V_0=2\sqrt{a}\mathrm{exp}\left[(\gamma \frac{1}{2})\right]2\sqrt{a}.$$

The above relations reduce the number of parameters in the potential to four: $`\alpha _\mathrm{s},a,b,c.`$ With respect to the Lorentz structure of the quark–antiquark interaction, the potential $`V(r)`$ is split into a Lorentz-scalar part $`V_\mathrm{S}=ar`$ and a Lorentz-vector part $`V_\mathrm{V}=VV_\mathrm{S}.`$

The generalized Breit–Fermi Hamiltonian contains all relativistic corrections to the (nonrelativistic) Schrödinger Hamiltonian up to and including the second order in the inverse masses of the bound-state constituents. This lowest-order relativistic correction discriminates between different Lorentz structures of the quark–antiquark interaction. The spin-dependent relativistic corrections consist, for a Lorentz-vector spin structure, of a spin–orbit, a spin–spin, and a tensor term, and, for a Lorentz-scalar spin structure, of only a spin–orbit term. The spin–spin term, however, involves the Laplacian $`\mathrm{\Delta }V_\mathrm{V}(r)`$ of the vector potential $`V_\mathrm{V}(r);`$ for any Coulomb-like contribution to the vector potential $`V_\mathrm{V}(r),`$ i.e., a term in $`V_\mathrm{V}(r)`$ proportional to $`1/r,`$ this yields a highly singular expression:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{1}{r}=4\pi \delta ^{(3)}(𝒓).$$

Similarly, for a Coulomb-like contribution $`V(r)1/r`$ to the nonrelativistic interaction potential $`V(r)`$ the spin–orbit and tensor terms introduce singularities of the form $`1/r^3.`$ This makes the Breit–Fermi Hamiltonian an operator which is unbounded from below. However, for heavy bound-state constituents, all relativistic corrections may be treated as perturbations of the well-defined nonrelativistic Schrödinger Hamiltonian operator.

The mass difference between the pseudoscalar $`\pi `$ and the vector $`\rho `$ meson, generated by the spin–spin interaction, is of the same order of magnitude as the involved meson masses. This indicates that, for any description of mesons containing light quarks, the inclusion of at least the spin–spin term in the nonperturbative treatment is mandatory. Within the nonrelativistic framework, a conceivable solution is the ad-hoc replacement of the $`\delta `$ function by a suitable smearing function $`f(r)`$ which converges weakly towards the $`\delta `$ function in the appropriate limit, i.e., the use of a representation of the $`\delta `$ function. This procedure should be independent of the particular choice of the representation of the $`\delta `$ function. The model of Ref.  replaces the $`\delta `$ function by the smearing function

$$f(r)=\frac{1}{4\pi r_0^2}\frac{\mathrm{exp}(r/r_0)}{r},$$

satisfying

$$\underset{r_00}{lim}f(r)=\delta ^{(3)}(𝒓).$$

The dependence of the smearing-range parameter introduced here, $`r_0,`$ on the masses of the bound-state constituents is encoded in a purely phenomenological relationship . The numerical values of the parameters of this model have been determined in Ref.  from a fit of the mesons known at that time, yielding, for the constituent quark masses, $`m_\mathrm{u}=m_\mathrm{d}=336\text{MeV},`$ $`m_\mathrm{s}=575\text{MeV},`$ $`m_\mathrm{c}=1845\text{MeV},`$ $`m_\mathrm{b}=5235\text{MeV},`$ and, for the couplings in the potential, $`\alpha _\mathrm{s}=0.31,`$ $`a=0.15\text{GeV}^2,`$ $`b=0.956\text{GeV},`$ $`c=2.05\text{GeV}^1.`$

For this quark interaction, the mass eigenvalues and eigenstates of the Breit–Fermi Hamiltonian are computed to high accuracy with the help of the numerical integration procedure for the solution of the Schrödinger equation developed in Ref. . However, before applying the above quark model to the main target of the present investigation, viz., the system of charmed strange ($`D_s`$) mesons, we would like to confront this model’s predictions for the entire mass spectrum of the experimentally well-established mesons with results obtained in some representative different approaches. For this comparison, we choose the relativized quark potential model of Godfrey, Isgur, and Kokoski , and a relativistic quark model for mesons developed over the last decade by some Bonn group within the Lorentz-covariant framework of the Bethe–Salpeter equation .

In order to get some idea of the significance of our approach, that is, to estimate the accuracy of our predictions, and to compare them with the findings of different models, we introduce, as a measure of quality, a quantity $`Q,`$ defined as the average of the square of the relative error of the theoretical result $`M_i^{(\mathrm{th})}`$ for the mass of the composite particle $`i=1,2,3,\mathrm{}`$ with respect to the corresponding experimentally measured value $`M_i^{(\mathrm{exp})}`$:

$$Q\frac{1}{N}\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\left(\frac{M_i^{(\mathrm{th})}M_i^{(\mathrm{exp})}}{M_i^{(\mathrm{exp})}}\right)^2.$$

The smaller the numerical $`Q`$ value, the higher is the accuracy of the adopted approach. For the numerical comparison of the models, we take into account their predictions for $`N=24`$ energy levels corresponding to the well-established mesons $`\pi ,`$ $`\rho (770),`$ $`\varphi (1020),`$ $`\pi (1300),`$ $`\rho (1450),`$ $`K,`$ $`K^{}(892),`$ $`D,`$ $`D^{}(2010),`$ $`D_s,`$ $`D_s^{},`$ $`B,`$ $`B^{},`$ $`B_s,`$ $`\eta _c(1\mathrm{S}),`$ $`J/\psi (1\mathrm{S}),`$ $`\eta _c(2\mathrm{S}),`$ $`\psi (2\mathrm{S}),`$ $`\psi (4040),`$ $`\psi (4415),`$ $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(1\mathrm{S}),`$ $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(2\mathrm{S}),`$ $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(3\mathrm{S}),`$ and $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(4\mathrm{S}).`$ Numerically we find for the quality measure $`Q`$ in our approach $`Q=0.019\%,`$ for the Godfrey–Isgur–Kokoski model  $`Q=0.041\%,`$ which is roughly twice as large as our $`Q`$ value, and from the results presented in Refs.  for the Bethe–Salpeter treatment $`Q=0.28\%,`$ which is more than an order of magnitude larger than our $`Q`$ value. From these numbers, we feel entitled to conclude that this quark potential model is definitely competitive (at least).

## 4 Results, Discussion, and Conclusions

Table 2 gives the predictions of the quark model sketched in Sec. 3 for the masses of the lowest-lying six $`(c\overline{s})`$ bound states expected by the spectroscopic classification of Sec. 2. Notice that we still adopt the model parameter values determined in the fit of Ref. . The formalism of the Breit–Fermi Hamiltonian is more closely related to $`L`$-$`S`$ coupling. Consequently, the states are labelled here by the usual spectroscopic notation $`n{}_{}{}^{2S+1}\mathrm{}_{J}^{},`$ where $`n`$ denotes the principal quantum number, $`S`$ is the quantum number of the total spin $`𝑺=𝒔_Q+𝒔_q,`$ and S, P, D, … indicate orbital angular momentum $`\mathrm{}=0,1,2,\mathrm{}.`$ There are two $`J^P=1^+`$ states: the spin-singlet $`{}_{}{}^{1}\mathrm{P}_{1}^{}`$ state and the spin-triplet $`{}_{}{}^{3}\mathrm{P}_{1}^{}`$ state. Because of non-diagonal contributions of the relativistic corrections in the Breit–Fermi Hamiltonian, the two $`J^P=1^+`$ states do not constitute mass eigenstates. The physical states associated to the lower (l) or the higher (h) mass eigenvalue, respectively, of the Breit–Fermi Hamiltonian are called $`D_{s1}^{(\mathrm{l})}`$ and $`D_{s1}^{(\mathrm{h})}.`$ The latter states are obtained from the states $`{}_{}{}^{1}\mathrm{P}_{1}^{}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{3}\mathrm{P}_{1}^{}`$ by an orthogonal transformation involving some mixing angle $`\theta `$:

$`|D_{s1}^{(\mathrm{l})}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}\theta |{}_{}{}^{1}\mathrm{P}_{1}^{}\mathrm{sin}\theta |{}_{}{}^{3}\mathrm{P}_{1}^{},`$
$`|D_{s1}^{(\mathrm{h})}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{sin}\theta |{}_{}{}^{1}\mathrm{P}_{1}^{}+\mathrm{cos}\theta |{}_{}{}^{3}\mathrm{P}_{1}^{}.`$
In our quark model we find for this $`{}_{}{}^{1}\mathrm{P}_{1}^{}`$-$`{}_{}{}^{3}\mathrm{P}_{1}^{}`$ mixing angle the numerical value $`\theta =44.7^{}.`$

Moreover, Table 2 compares the predictions of our approach with, on the one hand, the experimentally observed masses  of all previously known $`D_s`$ mesons and, on the other hand, the results of the four (nonrelativistic) potential models  explicitly mentioned in the Introduction and of the Bonn Bethe–Salpeter model . First of all, we note that all predictions of the Lorentz-covariant Bethe–Salpeter framework do not substantially differ from the potential-model ones; this indicates that the problems with the new $`D_s`$ states are not just a consequence of the nonrelativistic approximation. Our results show a satisfactory agreement with experiment and are within the range of predictions of the other models. We are forced to conclude that the model of Ref. , too, cannot explain the masses of the new $`D_s`$ resonances; this discrepancy becomes still more distinct when inspecting the binding energy of the quark–antiquark bound states.

We may get a clue to the correct identification of the heavier of the two new states, the $`D_{sJ}(2463)^\pm `$ meson, by inspection of the center of gravity (COG) of the $`\mathrm{}=1`$ states. For P-wave states, the mass $`M(\text{COG})_\mathrm{P}`$ of the center of gravity is defined according to

$$M(\text{COG})_\mathrm{P}\frac{1}{9}[M({}_{}{}^{3}\mathrm{P}_{0}^{})+3M({}_{}{}^{3}\mathrm{P}_{1}^{})+5M({}_{}{}^{3}\mathrm{P}_{2}^{})].$$

Within the framework of (nonrelativistic) interaction-potential models for two-particle bound states, a perturbative inclusion of the spin–spin interaction implies the equality of the P-wave center-of-gravity mass $`M(\text{COG})_\mathrm{P}`$ and the mass $`M({}_{}{}^{1}\mathrm{P}_{1}^{})`$ of the $`{}_{}{}^{1}\mathrm{P}_{1}^{}`$ state:

$$M(\text{COG})_\mathrm{P}=M({}_{}{}^{1}\mathrm{P}_{1}^{})\text{(perturbatively)}.$$

In contrast to this, in a nonperturbative treatment of the spin–spin interaction by, e.g., some smearing of Dirac’s $`\delta `$ function—which should come closer to reality—the P-wave center-of-gravity mass $`M(\text{COG})_\mathrm{P}`$ will be larger than the mass $`M({}_{}{}^{1}\mathrm{P}_{1}^{})`$ of the $`{}_{}{}^{1}\mathrm{P}_{1}^{}`$ state:

$$M(\text{COG})_\mathrm{P}>M({}_{}{}^{1}\mathrm{P}_{1}^{})\text{(nonperturbatively)}.$$

Let’s neglect the mixing of the two $`J^P=1^+`$ states necessary to get the physical states.

* Identifying the $`{}_{}{}^{3}\mathrm{P}_{1}^{}`$ state with the $`D_{s1}(2536)^\pm `$ of mass $`(2535.35\pm 0.34\pm 0.5)\text{MeV},`$ and the $`{}_{}{}^{1}\mathrm{P}_{1}^{}`$ state with the $`D_{sJ}(2463)^\pm `$ meson of mass $`(2459.0\pm 1.1)\text{MeV},`$ entails

$$M(\text{COG})_\mathrm{P}^{(\mathrm{exp})}=2531.7\text{MeV}>M({}_{}{}^{1}\mathrm{P}_{1}^{})=M(D_{sJ}(2463)^\pm )=2459.0\text{MeV},$$

in accordance with the above general theoretical expectations for this inequality.
* Identifying the $`{}_{}{}^{3}\mathrm{P}_{1}^{}`$ state with the $`D_{sJ}(2463)^\pm `$ meson of mass $`(2459.0\pm 1.1)\text{MeV},`$ and the $`{}_{}{}^{1}\mathrm{P}_{1}^{}`$ state with the $`D_{s1}(2536)^\pm `$ of mass $`(2535.35\pm 0.34\pm 0.5)\text{MeV},`$ entails

$$M(\text{COG})_\mathrm{P}^{(\mathrm{exp})}=2506.3\text{MeV}<M({}_{}{}^{1}\mathrm{P}_{1}^{})=M(D_{s1}(2536)^\pm )=2535.35\text{MeV},$$

in contradiction to the above general theoretical expectation for this inequality.

This simple observation may be regarded as a hint that the new $`D_{sJ}(2463)^\pm `$ resonance is predominantly a $`{}_{}{}^{1}\mathrm{P}_{1}^{}`$ state.


text:
# LHC Symposium 2003: Summary Talk

## 1 Leaping Over Energy Frontiers

Even more than simply continuing the empirical research of the past, we are at the threshold of a new era, with a new leap beyond the current energy frontier. Following the excellent presentations at this Symposium, it is perhaps worthwhile to pause a moment and consider our most recent leaps of energy frontiers. What do they suggest?

What happened when the ISR and the ”200 GeV” machine turned on? Available center-of-mass energy jumped from 8 GeV to 20-50 GeV. New energy territory opened to us. We were surprised, even shocked by how different the world seemed. Almost immediately, we saw the advent of high-$`p_t`$ events at both the CERN ISR and at Fermilab. Pions were observed with cross sections no longer dropping exponentially with $`p_t`$. Rather, the drop with $`p_t`$ was more like a power-law, eventually reaching that for hard point-like scattering! Backgrounds for many planned experiments were orders of magnitude larger than expected. More fundamentally, we observed (as we now understand it) the effects of the quark substructure of hadrons.

We also started to produce particles essentially undreamed of before - well, dreamed of by only a few foolhardy visionaries. In addition to the pions at high $`p_t`$ coming from hadronic interactions, a plethora of leptons appeared. Their numbers could not be explained by the decay of known strongly-produced particles. Eventually, these leptons were seen to come from the semileptonic decays of the previously-unknown heavy quarks.

Perhaps the excess of leptons reminds you of the apparent excesses of heavy quarks seen in hadronic interactions today (especially of B mesons and $`J/\psi `$ and $`\psi ^{}`$ onia). It may be that what Mary Bishai referred to as a $`b`$-production excess of 1.2-1.9 times theory, will continue to fall as theoretical models of production are refined. The fractional excess does seem to be coming down with time. However, it is possible that we are already seeing the effects of something which we will only understand once we have data from the LHC.

What happened when the big CERN and Fermilab hadron colliders turned on? Available energy jumped from a few tens of GeV to 630 and 2,000 GeV. Again, new energy territory opened for exploraton. We were again surprised - maybe not so much by a new energy scale which was predicted ($`W`$ and $`Z`$ masses), but by the very large mass of the top quark. I remember well, how upon seeing evidence for the bottom quark, we immediately expected to see the top quark at $`\pi `$ times the mass of the bottom quark, just like the factor between the bottom quark and the strange quark. The ratio of top to bottom quark masses is more like 40 than 3! We do not understand why the top quark is so heavy to this very day.

We have seen no direct evidence of any of the suggested new particles: not sequential $`W`$ or $`Z`$ bosons, not Higgs, not SUSY, nor techni-particles. We have not seen a break in $`p_t`$ spectra, nor the onset of a new level in the hierarchy of matter, nor any suggestion of something more fundamental than quarks and leptons.

## 2 How the Preparations are Going

As you have shown at this symposium, you are building detectors, and solving technical and managerial problems. You are also building expanded collaborations and new tools to deal with the new sociology: learning how to live with larger and increasingly internationalized collaborations, learning new techniques and tools for ever larger projects, and beginning to experiment with new computing paradigms like GRID.

I have been impressed by the trigger tables shown and the expanding physics goals shown by experiments. We had talks on heavy-ion collision measurements in the big $`pp`$ detectors, ATLAS and CMS, detection of quark jets in ALICE, and the appearance of B physics everywhere. Detectors have had design and engineering updates, and simulations continue to include more complete detector modeling. As usual, the results suggest somewhat less capability, but hopefully more realistic expectations. At the same time, perhaps motivated in part by the new understanding, better algorithms have been developed to compensate for somewhat reduced detector expectations; e.g., in tracking and and heavy quark tagging algorithms. In order to continue this progress, mock data challenge efforts cannot be over-valued, both for improving the physics reach of experiments and and for debugging the computing environment of the future. Even more, better motivation will come from the data itself once you have the real thing.

As an example of how time with actual physics data helps, let me cite the work reported by Juan Estrada at a seminar at Fermilab just the week before the Symposium, and referred to by Jianming Qian. Unlike previous CDF and DZero top-quark mass analyses that used templates, this new DZero analysis uses lepton plus jets events and makes a direct calculation of the signal and background probability for each event. That probability depends on all measured momenta of the final state lepton and jets, and each event’s contribution depends on how well it is measured. The quoted preliminary result for the top quark mass is $`M_t=180.1\pm 3.6\pm 4.0GeV`$. The improvement in statistical error is equivalent to a factor of 2.4 in the size of the data sample. The relative error in this one decay channel alone is 3%, compared to 2.9% from the previous combined CDF and DZero average for all analysed decay channels.

## 3 Progress, Yet Concerns

You have shown real, substantial progress from the past year at this Symposium. It has been very good to see the progress on the LHC itself, and on the detectors, software, and physics planning. We can all be happy that civil construction is now going well, and magnet production is getting better. Roger Cashmore spoke of the ”nightmare” of the civil construction problems that are now behind us. We are also happy to see so many detector components getting into construction. We have heard about facing real challenges. Some have been technical; e.g., in military radiation-hard electronics, some electronic noise and yield issues, material budgets, and radiation damage effects. Some challenges have been financial in origin, leading to scope changes and, sometimes, to additional funding. Other challenges have been with schedules, requiring continuous review and adjustments (e.g., lack of test-beam availability). Personally, I am happy to see some full system tests, and indications that planning for commissioning is getting serious attention. We are all happy to see solutions over the last year to these and other problems .

Your progress is important to us at Fermilab. First, it is important for our physics program (CMS) and our super-conducting magnet program. Mike Witherell, in his Director’s welcome to you, noted that only Fermilab’s Tevatron Collider and neutrino programs are larger here at the Lab. Second, your progress is important for the planning of much of the rest of our program as well. For the Tevatron Collider, currently the energy frontier machine, the importance is obvious. However, in fact, your progress is important to all of HEP. Consider the implications for B Factories!

Nevertheless, even as an LHC outsider, I have concerns. The scale of the industrial technology needed for the machine and for the detectors is still new to our community. It is not obvious that accelerator components will stay ahead of the ”just in time” schedule. We have all been invited to look at the CERN LHC ”dashboard” on the web. There is no real evidence yet of the rapid change in delivery slopes needed to meet the schedule for beams.

Timing can be everything. Staging of detector components may get us to the point where we cannot buy needed components later. This is already a problem. Some commercial technologies may not last long enough for our development and construction schedules. DMILL radiation hard ASIC technology is going away already; will 0.25 micron ASIC technology be far behind? Even networking and computing components are a worry. Consider the ”Objectivity” software suite. At the same time, there are more technology decisions yet to be made than is healthy at this stage. I would mention the CMS pixel size, the ATLAS B-layer pixel size, the CMS electromagnetic calorimeter electronics, and the LHCb RICH photon-detection decision especially.

Common computing approaches can save duplication, and help by stressing systems in more than one environment. This can head off problems later, as the environments evolve for all those using a given approach. Yet, this commonality of approach is just starting. I was surprised in the talks of Lothar Bauerdick and Nick Brook to see so far how little integrated into the big experiments are the GRID projects.

Testing and commissioning times are getting squeezed almost everywhere - already!

## 4 A Few Words About the Physics

The main message from the experiments at this Symposium has been that discoveries may be made very early, if nature is as expected by most. In my summary, I have chosen to show some of the most frequently referenced transparencies. Since these plots have been shown so often, I won’t even have to tell you what they are, even if none of us remembers or cites where the plots were first shown! The famous Higgs sensitivity plot is made to show the early discovery expected over the whole range of likely mass. Recently, including the vector-boson fusion process helps in the previously-difficult low-mass region. For SUSY, again we are assured of rapid discovery, the plots showing possible discovery up to $`1.5TeV`$ even with only ”1 day” of data – OK, it’s a good day.

In the area of Heavy Ions, I’d like to mention the particularly good review of Heavy Ion Physics at RHIC by Gunther Roland. He showed a ”consistent description of the final state,” but noted that ”we’re missing a picture of \[the\] dynamical evolution” that gets us there from the initial conditions. Many speakers showed where the LHC sits on the phase diagram of temperature vs baryonic chemical potential. This plot does not do justice in my eyes to the role of the LHC. The LHC is shown in a tiny corner of the plot. Yet, the ”missing picture of dynamical evolution” may require:

* More dynamic range in kinematic variables
* Longer time for escaping partons to feel effects of quark-gluon plasma
* Larger samples of charm, bottom, and onium

All these features should be available at the LHC. The table from the talk of Russell Betts shows quantitatively the much higher energy densities, multiplicities characteristic of more quark-gluon plasma, and the longer times available for the plasma to influence the outgoing states. All these should make the anticipated effects much easier to see at the LHC and to understand.

Finally, I’d like to focus on two personal-favorite physics topics: compossitness and extra dimensions. Signatures for both of these topics may come to be manifest in the same way that high-$`p_t`$ events came to us at the ISR and at Fermilab. Moreover, such signals can appear quite early, with subsets of working detectors and the simplest of analyses.

## 5 The Message

Our keynote speaker, Scott Willenbrock, gave us a similar message to mine. In many ways, physics has never been more exciting.

* We are about to extend the energy frontier by a factor of 7.
* We have an excellent model of what we have seen already.
* However, we know that our model is incomplete, and we have detailed predictions which soon can be tested definitively.

We are not at the ”end of science,” but hopefully at the threshold of exciting new science. What will the new science be? I really don’t know. However, personally, I expect we will have major surprises. I expect surprises comparable to those when the CERN ISR and Fermilab began. In the face of the new energy frontier;

* be prepared to read out all working detectors;
* be prepared for analysis of early, imperfect data;
* be prepared for discovery;
* be prepared for surprises in signal and in backgrounds;
* and be prepared to think new thoughts!

Good luck!

## 6 A Word of Thanks

I would like to end with a word of thanks

* to the organizers,
* to the support staff,
* and to the speakers (specially those who responded to my request for advance word on their presentations)

for making this such an informative and invigorating symposium.


text:
# Lattice supersymmetry and string phenomenology

## Abstract

I discuss the usefulness of lattice supersymmetry in relation to string phenomenology. I suggest how lattice results might be incorporated into string phenomenology. I outline difficulties and describe some constructions that contain an exact lattice version of supersymmetry, thereby reducing fine-tuning of the regulator. I mention some problems that occur for these lattices.

String phenomenology would benefit from lattice supersymmetry.  Without stabilization of moduli, very little predictivity exists in semi-realistic (supersymmetric) string-derived models. The details of stabilization schemes are always somewhat “iffy” because of nonholomorphic quantities in the effective theory (things that depend on the Kähler potential $`K`$, such as soft masses, B-terms, A-terms, and more generally, the scalar potential), which are not protected by nonrenormalization theorems. Without such theorems, one can only (reliably) resort to: (i) symmetry constraints on the effective theory; (ii) calculations in a weak coupling regime; (iii) direct study of nonperturbative physics. Typically, (i) and (ii) are not powerful enough to yield the reliability that people like myself long for. On the other hand, (iii) may allow us to explore some important issues in string phenomenology.

Naturally, dynamical supersymmetry breaking through the physics of a strongly coupled gauge theory is a realm in which we would like to improve our understanding of nonperturbative physics; in particular, nonperturbative renormalization of the Kähler potential.

But there are other aspects of the low energy effective theory that depend on our understanding of strongly coupled gauge theories. For example, it is well known that various ad hoc assumptions for nonperturbative corrections to the Kähler potential of the dilaton can stabilize it at a weak coupling value; what is not as well appreciated is that generic nonperturbative corrections to the Kähler potential of the dilaton carve out local minima in the strong coupling regime. Until we understand the Kähler potential in the strong coupling regime, we cannot really say where the global minimum is. Even if we fine-tune beta function coefficients to yield a viable race-track stabilization, a deeper minimum may exist at strong coupling once the nonperturbative super-Yang-Mills (SYM) corrections to the Kähler potential are included.

The dilaton is just one of many moduli $`\varphi _i`$ whose stabilization we ultimately need to understand. Thus a more general statement of the observations made above is the following. Very often in semi-realistic string-derived models there exist points in moduli space where at least one factor in the gauge group becomes strongly coupled in the infrared. In such cases we often cannot reliably say what the true vacuum of the theory is without an improved understanding of the strongly coupled gauge theory. How can we say what are the deepest minima of the scalar potential $`V(K,W;\varphi _i,\overline{\varphi }_i)`$ if we only know $`K`$ in some subspace of the scalar manifold? Lattice supersymmetry might be able to yield at least qualitative results related to this issue.

Nonperturbative super-QCD and supergravity.  Consider how we typically incorporate super-QCD instantons into an effective supergravity theory. We obtain an effective action $`S_{\mathrm{eff}}(g,\theta ,\varphi _i)`$ that describes the instanton corrections from super-QCD, which (unlike the supergravity we are supposed to be studying) is a renormalizable field theory; the $`\varphi _i`$ denotes that we often fix some scalars to some point in the moduli space; we also work at a fixed value of the gauge coupling $`g`$, and the $`\theta `$ parameter dependence is generally implied by holomorphy. Then we embed the instanton corrections back into the supergravity effective action. We argue that it is okay to compute the instanton corrections from super-QCD rather than the full supergravity because the effects of the nonrenormalizable supergravity operators in the effective theory will be supressed by the dynamical/fundamental hierarchy $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{SQCD}}m_P`$. There is often a self-consistency criterion implicit in all of this; e.g., since $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{SQCD}}`$ depends on the dilaton, taking $`g,\theta `$ to be frozen background fields in the instanton calculation assumes that the dilaton is sufficiently stabilized that we can treat it this way; otherwise the results of the computation with the dilaton held frozen may have little to do with the actual instanton corrections in the theory with a dynamical dilaton (particularly where the Kähler potential is concerned).

By analogy, I would like to make the following “lattice proposal” for studying nonperturbative corrections to string-derived effective supergravity actions: obtain $`S_{\mathrm{eff}}(g,\theta ,\varphi _i)`$ from lattice super-QCD. Provided it is asymptotically free, the target continuum theory has an ultraviolet attractive fixed point, and therefore a corresponding lattice theory should have a well-defined continuum limit. The effective action will be obtained by the usual procedure of matching lattice results for Euclidean Green’s functions to predictions of an effective (interpolating) continuum action, up to errors of order $`a\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{SQCD}}`$, where $`a`$ is the lattice spacing. We then embed these results into the “tree” supergravity effective action, just as we do the instanton calculations. In this way, the lack of universality associated with a nonrenormalizable theory such as supergravity is no big deal; it is just the usual regulator sensitivity that one faces when computing quantum corrections to an effective field theory. What is important is that our regulator respect the symmetries of the target continuum theory. The lattice action neglects nonrenormalizable supergravity interactions; thus we expect to obtain results that are valid up to order $`1/am_P`$ corrections, as well discretization and finite volume systematic errors. What we need is a “window” where $`m_Pa^1\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{SQCD}}`$. In this way the lattice computation avoids the physics of the underlying theory near the Planck scale. Note that we will not be able to explore regions of moduli space where this inequality fails to hold; for this we need a nonperturbative analysis of string theory itself. We must also check the self-consistency of holding moduli, such as the dilaton, fixed, just as we did in the case of the instanton calculation.

Lattice supersymmetry is problematic.  At most a discrete subgroup of the super-Poincaré invariance group can be realized exactly on the lattice, since it already breaks the Poincaré invariance to a subgroup. Moreover, it is well-known that chiral symmetries are difficult to realize on the lattice; chiral R symmetries and flavor symmetries play a key role in super-QCD.

“It’s just a regulator,” one might say. True enough, in principle a combination of (i) adding counterterm operators to the action, and (ii) fine-tuning bare lattice parameters, can yield the correct quantum continuum limit: the continuum limit of lattice Green’s functions involving energy-momentum scales well below the cutoff should satisfy the various Ward identities. However in practice fine-tuning and a complicated lattice action are “expensive;” the computations take too long since the Green’s functions must be evaluated by Monte Carlo simulation over a range of bare parameters in order to find a point that will satisfy the Ward identities. This can render the fine-tuning approach impractical. Nevertheless quite a bit of work in this direction has been done; e.g., see refs. References.

Exact lattice symmetries.  For the hypercubic lattice actions that are most often studied, discrete rotation and translation symmetries guarantee Poincaré invariance in the quantum continuum limit, without any fine-tuning: the exact lattice symmetries prevent one from writing down relevant or marginal operators that would violate Poincaré invariance in the interpolating continuum action (the effective action that describes the quantum continuum limit of the lattice theory). Long ago, Ginsparg and Wilson pointed out that there can exist an exact lattice version of chiral symmetry that will likewise guarantee the continuum chiral symmetry without fine-tuning. There now exist realizations of the Ginsparg-Wilson relation that the lattice Dirac operator must obey, introduced in the quite famous papers of Kaplan, Neuberger and Lüscher. In the latter paper Lüscher suggested the possibility of an exact lattice supersymmetry. This notion has been explicitly realized by several groups; for example, see refs. References-References and references therein. In the examples that are interacting, the supercharges are nilpotent, $`Q^2=0`$, allowing for an algebra that is consistent with the absence of infinitesmal Poincaré invariance on the lattice. The exact lattice supersymmetry forbids certain relevant or marginal operators. This eliminates or reduces the fine-tuning required to obtain the target continuum theory. One rather interesting idea is based on deconstruction; it is due to Cohen, Kaplan, Katz and Ünsal.- They are able to write down lattice Yang-Mills theories with some exact lattice supersymmetry. Brief reviews by Kaplan are available; these are readable and supply details that I do not have space to provide.

Deconstruction, originally.  This is a gauge-invariant regularization of $`d>4`$ gauge theories. One obtains an effective $`d>4`$ gauge theory from a 4d quiver = moose = product group gauge theory. 1 or 2 dims are emergent, effective dimensions. In Fig. 1, I show a quiver theory with 6 factors $`G_1,\mathrm{},G_6`$ and representations $`(𝐑_𝐢,𝐑_𝐣)`$ that are charged under pairs, forming “links” of a “torus” in “theory space.”

Deconstruction, latticization.  Fig. 1 cries out: Why not make some/all of our 4d emergent? Is this a pathway to new lattice theories? Maybe if the quiver is supersymmetric, will we wind up with some exact lattice supersymmetry?

Deconstruction of all 3 spatial dimensions was considered by Kaplan, Katz and Ünsal. Deconstruction of just 1 spatial dimension was considered by Poppitz, Rozali and myself; we looked at the $`U(1)_R`$ anomaly in $`𝒩=2`$ 4d SYM. Poppitz has gone on to analyze KK monopoles in this framework.

The case with all dimensions latticized has also begun to be studied. Here one starts with 0d supersymmetric quiver theories. This affords a spacetime (Euclidean) lattice formulation of SYM, and explicit constructions have been written down by Cohen et al. These 0d theories contain some exact lattice supersymmetry that eliminates or reduces fine-tuning. I have studied some of the practical aspects of these theories; i.e., relating to actually running a Monte Carlo simulation that would compute Euclidean Green’s functions. I will now outline a couple of the simpler models and comment very briefly on my recent findings.

(2,2) 2d $`U(k)`$ SYM.  This model was introduced in ref. References. The target theory is (2,2) 2d $`U(k)`$ SYM, which is obtained111All SYM theories discussed in the following are the Euclidean versions. from a 4d $``$ 2d reduction of $`𝒩=1`$ 4d pure SYM. We start with a mother theory. It is the $`𝒩=4`$ SYM matrix model that is obtained from 4d $``$ 0d reduction of 4d $`𝒩=1`$ $`U(kN^2)`$ SYM. The theory contains (Hermitian) bosons $`v_m=v_m^\beta T^\beta ,m\{0,1,2,3\}`$ in a Hermitian basis $`T^\beta `$ of $`u(kN^2)`$. In addition the theory contains 2-component Euclidean Majorana-Nicolai fermions $`\psi =\psi ^\beta T^\beta ,\overline{\psi }=\overline{\psi }^\beta T^\beta ,\psi =(\lambda ,\xi )^T,\overline{\psi }=(\alpha ,\beta )`$. The mother theory action is

$`S={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4g^2}}\text{Tr}\left([v_m,v_n][v_m,v_n]\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{g^2}}\text{Tr}\left(\overline{\psi }\overline{\sigma }_m[v_m,\psi ]\right),\overline{\sigma }_m=(1,i𝝈)`$ (1)
Next we progress to a daughter theory. We project out all fields not inert with respect to a $`Z_N\times Z_N`$ symmetry of mother theory; i.e., we orbifold the matrix model. I suppress most of the details. The orbifold is chosen in such a way that it breaks the mother theory gauge group to a $`U(k)`$ lattice gauge symmetry: $`U(kN^2)_{𝐦=(1,1)}^{(N,N)}U(k)_𝐦`$. The bosons which survive decompose as follows: $`v_mx_𝐦,\overline{x}_𝐦,y_𝐦,\overline{y}_𝐦`$, with each a bifundamental linking two factors in the quiver, just as in the 1d quiver mentioned above. $`x`$’s are links in the $`x`$-direction and $`y`$’s are links in the $`y`$-direction.

Finally we extract the lattice theory. To do this we expand around a point in moduli space: $`x_𝐦=(2a^2)^{1/2}\mathrm{𝟏}+\mathrm{},y_𝐦=(2a^2)^{1/2}\mathrm{𝟏}+\mathrm{}`$. This is stabilized with deformation of the action:

$`\mathrm{\Delta }S={\displaystyle \frac{a^2\mu ^2}{g^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{𝐦}{}}\text{Tr}\left[\left(x_𝐦x_𝐦^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2a^2}}\right)^2+\left(y_𝐦y_𝐦^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2a^2}}\right)^2\right]`$ (2)
Although this breaks the lattice supersymmetry, we scale the deformation away in the thermodynamic limit: $`\mu 1/Na`$. Further conditions, required to control fluctuations, are described in ref. References.

Fermion determinant.  In the daughter theory, the fermion action is of the form $`S_F=\overline{\psi }M\psi `$, and the (boson field dependent) matrix $`M`$ is problematic. First, there exists an ever-present fermion zeromode, $`detM0`$, independent of the boson configuration. I project it out to exhibit the determinant for the other fermions. A simple method is to deform the fermion matrix $`MM_ϵM+ϵ\mathrm{𝟏}`$. Then the product of nonzero eigenvalues is identical to $`det\widehat{M}_0lim_{ϵ0^+}ϵ^1detM_ϵ`$. In the computation of Green’s functions, this procedure factors out and cancels the zeromode. I have studied $`det\widehat{M}_0`$ for boson configurations drawn randomly from a Gaussian distribution, centered on the relevant point in moduli space, with unit variance. The phase $`\varphi =\mathrm{arg}det\widehat{M}_0`$ is uniformly distributed throughout the interval $`(\pi ,\pi ]`$ (see Fig. 2).

After integrating out the fermions, we are left with a complex “effective” boson action

$`\mathrm{exp}(S_{\text{eff}}(x,y))=e^{i\varphi (x,y)}\left[\mathrm{exp}\left(S_B(x,y)+\mathrm{ln}|det\widehat{M}(0;x,y)|\right)\right]`$ (3)
Presumably the corresponding violation of unitarity vanishes in the continuum limit; certainly we see no evidence of it in the classical continuum limit, which has been worked out in ref. References. The quantity in brackets is a valid probability measure for boson configurations. The corresponding action is called the phase-quenched action: $`S_{p.q.}(x,y)=S_B(x,y)\mathrm{ln}|det\widehat{M}(0;x,y)|`$. It is difficult to study the original action by Monte Carlo methods, because we must reweight the phase-quenched expectation values by the phase using the identity $`𝒪=e^{i\varphi }𝒪_{p.q.}/e^{i\varphi }_{p.q.}`$ The cancellations that occur as the phase flops around are in most cases a severe problem. The same problem is encountered in QCD with an appreciable baryon density.

(4,4) 2d $`U(k)`$ SYM.  This is another model constructed by Cohen et al. The target theory is (4,4) 2d $`U(k)`$ SYM, obtained from the 6d $``$ 2d reduction of $`𝒩=1`$ 6d pure $`U(k)`$ SYM. For this model I find similar problems fermion determinant. With random boson pulls from a Gaussian distribution I obtain a roughly flat distribution for the phase of the fermion determinant; the data is quite similar to Fig. 2. One might hope that in the phase-quenched ensemble the situation would improve—that the phase of the fermion determinant would most often be found near some particular value. Unfortunately, I find that this is not the case for the smaller lattices that I can presently simulate; again, the data is flat like Fig. 2.

Conclusions.  While it would be very nice indeed to obtain reliable and accurate results for supersymmetric Yang-Mills using lattice simulations, it is not at all an easy task. Further research is needed; it remains to be seen whether or not results useful to string phenomenology will emerge.

Acknowledgements
I thank Erich Poppitz for collaboration and fruitful conversation. I received support from the National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada and from the Ontario Premier’s Research Excellence Award.