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# 1) Introduction

## 1) Introduction

Extended objects such as strings and membranes have been playing an important role in recent theoretical advances in high-energy physics  and cosmology . When coupled to field theories, it happens that specific field configurations become attached to these objects, sometimes substantially influencing their physical properties. These field configurations, frequently carry a nontrivial topological charge, thereby effectively transforming the extended object into a topological excitation. Such excitations usually present the interesting feature of acting as disorder variables, being dual to their counterparts, the order variables, which can be expressed in terms of the lagrangian fields of the theory. This duality relation, physically, means that the vacuum expectation values of the corresponding operators may be used to characterize the different possible phases of the system, according to the breakdown of the corresponding symmetries. It is easy to understand the importance of the role played by topological excitations in this framework by recalling that the presence of these in the physical spectrum of excitations is closely related to the occurence of a spontaneously broken symmetry. Mathematically, duality is expressed as an algebraic relation between the creation operators associated to the order and disorder variables, the so called dual algebra, which has far reaching effects in the physical properties of the system. One possibility opened by the existence of a dual structure manifested through such an algebraic relation is the method of bosonization, by which fermions are mapped into bosons and vice-versa.

As a consequence of the presence of field configurations that become intrinsically attached to an extended object, its statistics may change from bosonic to a generalized one and, in particular, they may become fermionic. This is the statistical transmutation, first obtained for point particles in D=3  an subsequently generalized for strings in D=4 . Bosonization, on the other hand, is a different but related procedure, by which we combine order and disorder dual variables in order to produce a new excitation with generalized statistics that may, in particular be fermionic . Indeed, the construction of a fermionic operator associated to a certain object, completely expressed in terms of the bosonic fields of the underlying field theory to which this object is coupled is in fact the first step towards bosonization. Subsequently, the fermionic correlation functions should be reproduced in the framework of the bosonic theory. The bosonization program has been completely implemented in a spacetime of dimension D=2 , where it has allowed, for instance, the obtainment of exact quantum operator solutions of nonlinear theories. In D=3 it has been only partially fulfiled .

The formulation of the above mentioned ideas both for objects of a dimension larger than one (strings) and spacetimes higher than D=4 is a natural extension of this line of investigation that may have very interesting and useful consequences. In the present work, after presenting an unified approach to the subject in dimensions D=2,3 and 4, we investigate the case of membranes and strings in a spacetime of dimension D=5, considering specifically BF and generalized Chern-Simons theories. We explicitly construct, in both cases, the creation operators for quantum excitations bearing a nonzero topological charge. In the specific case of the generalized Chern-Simons theory, we also consider the case where this excitation is an open string with a topological charge at its tip. We also explicitly obtain the creation operators of the field configurations associated to quantum membranes and show that indeed they are the eigenstates of the field operators with the correct eigenfield configurations. In both theories, we study the duality relation and derive the dual algebra satisfied by the creation operators of topologically charged states and the quantum membrane field configurations. Based on these dual algebras, we then proceed to the obtainment of composite topologically charged membranes and show that they possess general statistics that may be, in particular, fermionic. In this way, therefore, the first step in the bosonization program may be accomplished in the theories considered here. Perspectives for future extensions os this work are presented in Section 5.

## 2) Overview of Quantization of Topological Excitations, p-branes and Duality

### 2.1) Topological Charges, Magnetic Fluxes and p-branes

The identically conserved topological current is expressed in a D-dimensional spacetime in terms of a tensor field of rank D-2. In D=2,3,4 and 5, it is given, respectively by

$$J^\mu =ϵ^{\mu \nu }_\nu \varphi $$

$$J^\mu =ϵ^{\mu \alpha \beta }_\alpha B_\beta $$

$$J^\mu =ϵ^{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }_\nu B_{\alpha \beta }$$

$$J^\mu =ϵ^{\mu \lambda \nu \alpha \beta }_\lambda B_{\nu \alpha \beta }$$
(2.1)
The generalization to higher dimensions is obvious. The topological charge, in all cases is given by

$$Q=d^{D1}xJ^0$$
(2.2)
The magnetic field, or magnetic flux density, on the other hand, is always given in terms of the spatial components of the vector field $`A_\mu `$. Indeed, we have

$$=ϵ^{ij}_iA_j$$

$$^i=ϵ^{ijk}_jA_k$$

$$^{ij}=ϵ^{ijkl}_kA_l,$$
(2.3)
respectively, in three, four and five spacetime dimensions. Observe that only in D=4 the magnetic field is a vector, whereas in D=2 it is not defined.

Let us consider now the current density associated to general extended objects (p-branes), namely strings, membranes or even particles, in any spacetime dimension D. For a particle (0-brane) in the point $`x_0`$, the current density is given by

$$j^\mu (x;x_0)=_{L(x_0)}𝑑\xi ^\mu \delta ^D(x\xi ),$$
(2.4)
where $`L(x_0)`$ is the universe-line of the particle. For a string (1-brane) along the line $`L`$, we have

$$j^{\mu \nu }(x;L)=_{S(L)}d^2\xi ^{\mu \nu }\delta ^D(x\xi ),$$
(2.5)
where $`S(L)`$ is the universe-sheet of the string at $`L`$. Finally, for a membrane (2-brane) along the surface $`S`$, we have accordingly,

$$j^{\mu \alpha \beta }(x;S)=_{V(S)}d^3\xi ^{\mu \alpha \beta }\delta ^D(x\xi ),$$
(2.6)
where $`V(S)`$ is the universe-volume of the membrane at $`S`$.

In what follows, we are going to explore the interplay between the topological charge, magnetic flux and extended objects in BF and Chern-Simons theories in general. Observe that the particle, string and membrane densities associated respectively to the currents (2.4), (2.5) and (2.6) are a scalar, a vector and a rank-2 tensor, respectively $`j^0`$, $`j^{0i}`$ and $`j^{0ij}`$. These is precisely the nature of the magnetic field in D=2, 3 and 4 respectively, according to (2.3). This is not a mere coincidence. It turns out that when particles, strings or membranes are coupled to generalized BF or Chern-Simons theories in D dimensions, a magnetic field (tensor in general) is imparted to the respective object.

It happens also, that a duality relation exists at the quantum level, between the magnetic field bearing object and the topological charge bearing states corresponding to (2.1)that can be constructed in the above mentioned theories.

### 2.2) Sequences of BF and Chern-Simons Theories

BF theories can be constructed in any spacetime dimension D, out of a vector field $`A_\mu `$ and a (D-2)-rank tensor field $`B_{\mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _{D2}}`$. In D=2,3, 4 and 5, respectively, we have

$$_2=\frac{1}{4}F_{\mu \nu }^2ϵ^{\mu \nu }A_\mu _\nu \varphi +\frac{1}{2}_\mu \varphi ^\mu \varphi ,$$
(2.7)
$$_3=\frac{1}{4}F_{\mu \nu }^2ϵ^{\mu \alpha \beta }A_\mu _\alpha B_\beta \frac{1}{4}H_{\mu \nu }^2,$$
(2.8)
$$_4=\frac{1}{4}F_{\mu \nu }^2\frac{1}{2}ϵ^{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }A_\mu _\nu B_{\alpha \beta }+\frac{1}{12}H_{\mu \alpha \beta }^2$$
(2.9)
and

$$_5=\frac{1}{4}F_{\mu \nu }^2\frac{1}{2}ϵ^{\mu \lambda \nu \alpha \beta }A_\mu _\lambda B_{\nu \alpha \beta }+\frac{1}{24}H_{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }^2$$
(2.10)
where $`H_{\mu \nu }=_\mu B_\nu _\nu B_\mu `$, $`H_{\mu \alpha \beta }=_\mu B_{\alpha \beta }+\mathrm{cyc}.\mathrm{perm}.(\mu \alpha \beta )`$ $`H_{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }=_\mu B_{\nu \alpha \beta }+\mathrm{cyc}.\mathrm{perm}.(\mu \nu \alpha \beta )`$ are the field intensity tensors of the B-field in D=3,4 and 5, respectively and $`F_{\mu \nu }=_\mu A_\nu _\nu A_\mu `$. A common feature of thte BF theories in any dimension is that integration over each of the fields $`A`$ or $`B`$ produces a mass term for the other.

The field equations obtained by varying with respect to $`A_\mu `$ in the three lagrangians above are

$$_\nu F^{\mu \nu }=J^\mu ,$$
(2.11)
where $`J^\mu `$, the topological current, is given by each of the expressions in (2.1), respectively in D=2,3, 4 and 5. We immediately see that the topological charge is the source of the electromagnetic field in BF theories in any dimension. Varying with respect to $`B`$, in (2.8), (2.9) and (2.10), on the other hand, we get

$$_\alpha H^{\alpha \mu }=ϵ^{\mu \nu \beta }_\nu A_\beta ,$$
(2.12)
$$_\alpha H^{\alpha \mu \nu }=ϵ^{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }_\alpha A_\beta ,$$
(2.13)
$$_\alpha H^{\alpha \mu \nu \lambda }=ϵ^{\mu \nu \lambda \alpha \beta }_\alpha A_\beta .$$
(2.14)
It is clear that the magnetic fields given by (2.3), in D=3,4 and 5, are the source of the “electric” B-field. The case of three spacetime dimensions is special because $`=J^0`$ and therefore magnetic flux is identical to topological charge. This fact is responsible for many of the interesting features of 3-dimensional Chern-Simons theory as we shall see below.

Generalized Chern-Simons theories may also be constructed in a spacetime of arbitrary dimension D, out of the same fields used for the construction of the BF theories above. Including the minimal coupling to particle, string and membrane densities, we have, respectively, in D=3, 4 and 5,

$$_{CS3}=\frac{1}{2}ϵ^{\mu \alpha \beta }A_\mu _\alpha A_\beta j^\mu A_\mu ,$$
(2.15)
$$_{CS4}=ϵ^{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }A_\mu _\nu B_{\alpha \beta }j^{\mu \nu }B_{\mu \nu }j^\mu A_\mu $$
(2.16)
and

$$_{CS5}=ϵ^{\mu \lambda \nu \alpha \beta }A_\mu _\lambda B_{\nu \alpha \beta }j^{\nu \alpha \beta }B_{\nu \alpha \beta }j^\mu A_\mu .$$
(2.17)
Notice that the case D=3 is special because, both $`A_\mu `$ and $`B_\mu `$ being vector fields, there are three possible equivalent topological terms involving $`AA`$, $`AB`$ and $`BB`$, respectively. Making linear combinations of these two fields, however, it is possible to write all of them as a unique topological term as in (2.15).

Varying each of the lagrangians above with respect to $`A_\mu `$, we obtain

$$j^\mu =J^\mu ,$$
(2.18)
where $`J^\mu `$ is the topological current, in each case, given by Eqs. (2.1). We see that the topological charge density becomes identified with the particle density coupled to the Chern-Simons theory. In the specific case of D=3, as is well known, the topological charge density is also the magnetic flux density or magnetic field (a scalar in this case). This fact is responsible for the statistical transmutation of particles coupled to the Chern-Simons field in three dimensions .

If we vary (2.16) and (2.17) with respect to the B-field, on the other hand, we obtain

$$j^{\mu \nu }=ϵ^{\mu \nu \alpha \beta }_\alpha A_\beta $$
(2.19)
and

$$j^{\mu \nu \lambda }=ϵ^{\mu \nu \lambda \alpha \beta }_\alpha A_\beta $$
(2.20)
Taking the 0-component of each of the currents above, that corresponds to the string and membrane densities, respectively, we get

$$j^{0i}=^i$$

$$j^{0ij}=^{ij}$$
(2.21)
These expressions clearly show that a magnetic field is associated to the p-brane (string or membrane) coupled to the B-field in a generalized Chern-Simons theory.

In the next subsection, we show how to construct the quantum field operators that create states bearing topological charge and also the operators creating the quantum field configuration that are eingenstates of the magnetic field operator with the eigenfield configurations corresponding to the ones associated to strings and membranes in the theories above. We also investigate the duality relation existing among them.

### 2.3) Creation Operators of Topological Excitations and Extended Objects

Let us examine here the general form of the topological excitation and extended object creation operators both in Chern-Simons and BF theories in arbitrary dimensions. We start with the creation operators of topological charge bearing excitations in generalized BF-theories. The best known case is D=2, where this operator is given by

$$\mu (x,t)=\mathrm{exp}\left\{ia_{\mathrm{}}^x𝑑\xi \mathrm{\Pi }(\xi ,t)\right\}$$
(2.22)
where $`\mathrm{\Pi }=_0\varphi `$ is the momentum canonically conjugate to $`\varphi `$. This expression has been generalized to three and four spacetime dimensions, respectively, in the form

$$\mu (\stackrel{}{x},t)=\mathrm{exp}\left\{ia_{\mathrm{}}^\stackrel{}{x}𝑑\xi ^iϵ^{ij}\mathrm{\Pi }^j(\stackrel{}{\xi },t)\right\}$$
(2.23)
and

$$\mu (\stackrel{}{x},t)=\mathrm{exp}\left\{ia_{\mathrm{}}^\stackrel{}{x}𝑑\xi ^iϵ^{ijk}\mathrm{\Pi }^{jk}(\stackrel{}{\xi },t)\right\},$$
(2.24)
where $`\mathrm{\Pi }^j=H^{oj}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Pi }^{jk}=H^{ojk}`$. $`H^{\mu \nu }`$ is the field intensity tensor of the $`B_\mu `$ field in D=3 and $`H^{\mu \nu \alpha }`$ the one of the $`B_{\mu \nu }`$ field in D=4. All of these three operators create eigenstates of Q, Eq. (2.2), with eigenvalue proportional to $`a`$ (see , for D=4 and , for D=3). In all cases, D=2,3 and 4 above, the operator $`\mu `$ can be written as

$$\mu (x)=\mathrm{exp}\left\{ia_{\mathrm{}}^x𝑑x^\mu J_\mu \right\},$$
(2.25)
with $`J^\mu `$ given by the corresponding expression in (2.1).

Let us consider now the topological charge creation operators in generalized Chern-Simons theories given by (2.15)-(2.16). According to the results of  the operator that creates eigenstates of the topological charge $`Q`$, Eq. (2.2) is given by the expression

$$\mu (\stackrel{}{x},t)=\mathrm{exp}\left\{ia_{\mathrm{}}^\stackrel{}{x}𝑑\xi ^\mu A_\mu (\stackrel{}{\xi },t)\right\}$$
(2.26)
in both theories, respectively in D=3 and D=4. In the following sections, we are going to determine the creation operator of topological charge eigenstates, both in BF and Chern-Simons theories in D=5.

We have seen above that a magnetic field, which may be a scalar, vector or tensor, given by (2.3), is associated to a particle, string or membrane in generalized Chern-Simons theories in D=3, 4 and 5, respectively. The operator creating the quantum magnetic field eigenstates associated to these objects has been studied in  for the case D=3 and in  for D=4. For Chern-Simons theory in D=3, this operator is given by

$$\sigma (x)=\mathrm{exp}\left\{ibd^3xj^\mu A_\mu \right\},$$
(2.27)
where the current $`j^\mu `$ is given by (2.4). It can be shown  that

$$|\sigma >=b|\sigma >$$
(2.28)
Inserting (2.4) in (2.27), we immediately find that in this case $`\sigma (x)=\mu (x)`$, reflecting, at the quantum level, the fact that (scalar) magnetic field and topological charge are identified in D=3 Chern-Simons theory.

For Chern-Simons theory in D=4, conversely, the operator that creates the eigenstates of the quantum vector magnetic field that is associated to a string coupled to the tensor field according to (2.16), is given by

$$\sigma (L)=\mathrm{exp}\left\{ibd^4xj^{\mu \nu }(L)B_{\mu \nu }\right\},$$
(2.29)
for a string at the curve $`L`$, associated to the density $`j^{\mu \nu }`$ given by (2.5). It can be shown  that for a closed spatial string at the curve $`C`$ we have, indeed,

$$^i|\sigma (C)>=2b\left[_C𝑑\xi ^i\delta (\stackrel{}{\xi }\stackrel{}{x})\right]|\sigma (C)>.$$
(2.30)
Interestingly, in the case of BF theories in D=3 and D=4, the creation operator of the extended objects carrying the corresponding attached magnetic field has exactly the same form as the ones in (2.27) and (2.29), respectively in D=3,  and D=4, . In this case they create eigenstates of the generalized “electric” B-field, which is precisely the magnetic field of $`A_\mu `$, as we have seen above. Of course, in D=3 $`A_\mu `$ and $`B_\mu `$ are identified.

These observations allow us to induce that the general form of the operator creating the quantum field states associated to general extended objects, either in Chern-Simons or BF-theories, in an arbitrary dimension, should be given by

$$\sigma =\mathrm{exp}\left\{ibd^Dxj^{\mu \mathrm{}\nu }B_{\mu \mathrm{}\nu }\right\},$$
(2.31)
where the object density $`j^{\mu \mathrm{}\nu }`$ is given by (2.4), (2.5), (2.6) anf generalizations thereof. We are going to verify this explicitly fore case of membranes in D=5, in the following two sections.

### 2.4) Duality

There exists a remarmakable relationship between the creation operators of topological charge and extended objects in a given theory. This is order-disorder duality, in the sense of Kadanoff and Ceva . Physically, the vacuum expectation value of the topological charge creation operator behaves as a disorder parameter, dual to the corresponding expectation value of the extended object creation operator. Observe that in the case of a vector field (2.31) is nothing but the Wilson loop (or line) operator. This duality has been extended and explored in continuum field theory by ’t Hooft .

From the mathematical point of view, order-disorder duality is expressed as an algebraic relation beteen $`\sigma `$ and $`\mu `$, as first discovered in the framework of the Ising model , and subsequently generalized to field theory . In D=2, the dual algebra is

$$\mu (x,t)\sigma (y,t)=\mathrm{exp}\left\{i\frac{ab}{2\pi }\theta (yx)\right\}\sigma (y,t)\mu (x,t),$$
(2.32)
where $`\theta `$ is the Heaviside function. In D=3, the corresponding algebraic relation is

$$\mu (\stackrel{}{x},t)\sigma (\stackrel{}{y},t)=\mathrm{exp}\left\{i\frac{ab}{2\pi }\mathrm{arg}(\stackrel{}{y}\stackrel{}{x})\right\}\sigma (\stackrel{}{y},t)\mu (\stackrel{}{x},t).$$
(2.33)
The generalization of these algebraic relations existing between a point topological charge operator and the creation operator of a string at a spatial curve $`C`$ for D=4 has been obtained in  and is given by

$$\mu (\stackrel{}{x},t)\sigma (C,t)=\mathrm{exp}\left\{i\frac{ab}{4\pi }\mathrm{\Omega }(\stackrel{}{y};C)\right\}\sigma (C,t)\mu (\stackrel{}{x},t),$$
(2.34)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }(\stackrel{}{y};C)`$ is the solid angle comprised by $`\stackrel{}{y}`$ and the spatial curve $`C`$.

One of the most important consequences of the dual (order-disorder) algebra is the possibility of constructing a mapping between fermionic and bosonic fields known as bosonization . Indeed, it follows from the above relations that the product of $`\sigma `$ and $`\mu `$ fields may have generalized and, in particular, fermionic statistics. This product is precisely what appears in the bosonized expression of the Dirac field in D=2, obtained by Mandelstam . Also in D=3, a similar product has been obtained in the bosonization of the free massless Dirac field .

## 3) Quantum Magnetic Membranes and Topological Excitations in the BF Theory in D=5

### 3.1) The Topological Charge Operator

Let us investigate here the creation operator for quantum topological charge eigenstates in the five dimensional BF theory described by the lagrangian (2.10). Following the sequence expressed in (2.22), (2.23) and (2.24), we write

$$\mu (\stackrel{}{x},t)=\mathrm{exp}\left\{i\frac{a}{3}_{\mathrm{}}^\stackrel{}{x}𝑑\xi ^iϵ^{ijkl}\mathrm{\Pi }^{jkl}(\stackrel{}{\xi },t)\right\},$$
(3.1)
where $`\mathrm{\Pi }^{jkl}=H^{jkl0}`$ is the momentum canonically conjugate to $`B^{jkl}`$, which satisfies the following canonical commutation rules

$$[B^{ijk}(\stackrel{}{x},t),\mathrm{\Pi }^{rst}(\stackrel{}{y},t)]=\mathrm{i}\mathrm{\Delta }^{ijk,rst}\delta ^4(\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{y}),$$
(3.2)
where

$$\mathrm{\Delta }^{ijk,rst}=\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{permutations}[rst]}(1)^P\delta ^{ir}\delta ^{js}\delta ^{kt},$$
(3.3)
$`P`$ being the parity of the permutation. These have been obtained by eliminating the second class constraints, without the use of any gauge condition.

Let us determine the commutation of $`\mu `$ with the topological charge operator

$$Q=d^4xϵ^{ijkl}_iB_{jkl}$$
(3.4)
Using (3.2) and the Baker-Hausdorf formula, we readily get

$$[Q,\mu ]=a\mu ,$$
(3.5)
which implies that the states $`|\mu >=\mu |0>`$, created by $`\mu `$ are indeed eigenstates of the topological charge $`Q`$, given by (3.4), with eigenvalue $`a`$.

### 3.2) The Magnetic Membrane Creation Operator

Let us study here the operator creating the quantum field configuration corresponding to a magnetic membrane in D=5 BF theory. Following the sequence occurrying in (2.27), (2.29) and (2.31), we write, for a membrane at a spatial surface $`S`$,

$$\sigma (S)=\mathrm{exp}\left\{ibd^5xj^{\mu \nu \alpha }(S)B_{\mu \nu \alpha }\right\},$$
(3.6)
where $`j^{\mu \nu \alpha }(S)`$ is given by (2.6). Using (2.6) and performing the $`x`$ integration in the above equation, we find

$$\sigma (S;t)=\mathrm{exp}\left\{ib_{V(S)}d^3\xi ^{ijk}B_{ijk}(\stackrel{}{\xi },t)\right\},$$
(3.7)
where $`V(S)`$ is the universe-volume of the membrane at $`S`$, which has precisely $`S`$ as its border and $`d^3\xi ^{ijk}`$, its volume element.

Let us determine the commutation relation between $`\sigma (S;t)`$ and the the 2-tensor magnetic field $`^{ij}`$, expressed by (2.3), in D=5. From (2.14), it becomes clear that in D=5 BF theory, we have

$$^{ij}=_k\mathrm{\Pi }^{kij}$$
(3.8)
where $`\mathrm{\Pi }^{jkl}=H^{jkl0}`$ is the momentum canonically conjugate to $`B^{jkl}`$.

Let us call $`\sigma (S;t)e^{\alpha (S;t)}`$. Using (3.8) and (3.2), we get

$$[^{ij}(\stackrel{}{x};t),\alpha (S;t)]=b_{V(S)}d^3\xi ^{ijk}_k\delta ^4(\stackrel{}{\xi }\stackrel{}{x})$$

$$=b_Sd^2\xi ^{ij}\delta ^4(\stackrel{}{\xi }\stackrel{}{x}),$$
(3.9)
where, in the last step, we used the generalized Stokes’ theorem. Notice that the directions associated to $`i,j`$ are tangent to the membrane at each point. Using the Baker-Hausdorf formula, we immediately find

$$[^{ij}(\stackrel{}{x};t),\sigma (S;t)]=b\left[_Sd^2\xi ^{ij}\delta ^4(\stackrel{}{\xi }\stackrel{}{x})\right]\sigma (S;t),$$
(3.10)
which implies

$$^{ij}(\stackrel{}{x};t)|\sigma (S;t)>=b\left[_Sd^2\xi ^{ij}\delta ^4(\stackrel{}{\xi }\stackrel{}{x})\right]|\sigma (S;t)>.$$
(3.11)
This shows that $`\sigma (S;t)`$ creates eigenstates of the magnetic field with an eigenconfiguration that is nonvanishing along the membrane. Integrating the magnetic field along a surface $`R`$ orthogonal to the membrane, we get the magnetic flux

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_R=_Rd^2\eta ^{ij}^{ij}$$
(3.12)
satisfying

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_R|\sigma (S;t)>=b|\sigma (S;t)>.$$
(3.13)
### 3.3) Duality, Generalized Statistics and Fermionization

Let us show now that a duality relation that generalizes (2.32), (2.33) and (2.34) can be established between the topological charge creation operator $`\mu `$, given by (3.1) and the membrane operator $`\sigma `$, given by (3.7), in the framework of BF theory in five spacetime dimensions. Indeed, calling $`\mu (\stackrel{}{x};t)e^{\beta (\stackrel{}{x};t)}`$ and again $`\sigma (S;t)e^{\alpha (S;t)}`$, we obtain, using (3.2),

$$[\beta (\stackrel{}{x};t),\alpha (S;t)]=\mathrm{i}ab_{V(S)}d^3\eta ^i_{\mathrm{}}^\stackrel{}{x}𝑑\xi ^i\delta ^4(\stackrel{}{\xi }\stackrel{}{\eta }),$$
(3.14)
where $`d^3\eta ^i`$ is the volume element of $`V(S)`$. Using the result (6.4) of the Appendix, we get

$$[\beta (\stackrel{}{x};t),\alpha (S;t)]=\mathrm{i}\frac{12ab}{4\pi ^2}_{V(S)}d^3\eta ^i\frac{(\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{\eta })^i}{|\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{\eta }|^4}$$

$$=\mathrm{i}\frac{12ab}{4\pi ^2}\mathrm{\Omega }_3(\stackrel{}{x};S),$$
(3.15)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_3(\stackrel{}{x};S)`$ is the hypersolid angle comprised by the point $`\stackrel{}{x}`$ and the surface $`S`$ associated to the membrane. This is defined by $`dV=R^3d\mathrm{\Omega }_3`$, where $`dV`$ is the element of the volume enclosed by the surface $`S`$.

Since the above commutator is a c-number, using the Baker-Hausdorf formula, we readily find

$$\mu (\stackrel{}{x};t)\sigma (S;t)=\mathrm{exp}\left\{\mathrm{i}\frac{12ab}{4\pi ^2}\mathrm{\Omega }_3(\stackrel{}{x};S)\right\}\sigma (S;t)\mu (\stackrel{}{x};t)$$
(3.16)
This is the dual algebra satisfied by the topological excitation and membrane creation operators in D=5 BF theory, that generalizes the corresponding expressions in D=2,3 and 4, given respectively by (2.32), (2.33) and (2.34).

We now construct the creation operator for the composite state carrying both topological charge and tensor magnetic flux along a closed membrane along the surface $`S`$. We choose $`S_x`$ to be a sphere of radius $`R`$ centered at $`\stackrel{}{x}`$ and place the topological charge in the center, namely,

$$\psi (x;S_x;t)=\underset{\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{y}}{lim}\mu (\stackrel{}{x},t)\sigma (S_y,t)$$
(3.17)
Using the fact that $`\mathrm{\Omega }_3(\stackrel{}{x};S_y)\mathrm{\Omega }_3(\stackrel{}{y};S_x)=4\pi ^2ϵ\left(\mathrm{\Omega }_3(\stackrel{}{x};S_y)\right)`$, where $`ϵ(x)`$ is the sign function, we obtain from (3.16)

$$\psi (x;S_x;t)\psi (y;S_y;t)=e^{i12abϵ\left(\mathrm{\Omega }_3(\stackrel{}{x};C_y)\right)}\psi (y;S_y;t)\psi (x;S_x;t).$$
(3.18)
This relation shows that a topologically charged membrane, created by the operator $`\psi `$, defined in (3.17), possesses generalized statistics determined by the parameters $`a`$ and $`b`$. For a suitable choice of the parameters $`a`$ and $`b`$, we can obtain fermionic states even though we are in the framework of a purely bosonic BF theory.

## 4) Bosonic Membranes and Strings Coupled to the Generalized Chern-Simons Theory in D=5

### 4.1) The Topological Charge Operator

Let us consider in this section the generalized Chern-Simons theory coupled to a membrane and an external source $`j^\mu `$, described by the lagrangian given by (2.17). We shall firstly study the topological excitations creation operator. Inspired in (2.26), we write

$$\mu (\stackrel{}{x},t)=\mathrm{exp}\left\{i\frac{a}{3}_{\mathrm{},L}^\stackrel{}{x}𝑑\xi ^iA^i(\stackrel{}{\xi },t)\right\},$$
(4.1)
Let us evaluate the commutation relation of this operator with the topological charge $`Q`$, which in the present theory is also given by (3.4). For this, we need the canonical commutation rules for the D=5 Chern-Simons theory, namely

$$[B^{ijk}(\stackrel{}{x},t),A^l(\stackrel{}{y},t)]=\mathrm{i}ϵ^{ijkl}\delta ^4(\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{y})$$

$$[B^{ijk}(\stackrel{}{x},t),B^{lmn}(\stackrel{}{y},t)]=[A^i(\stackrel{}{x},t),A^j(\stackrel{}{y},t)]=0,$$
(4.2)
which, again, have been obtained by eliminating the second class constraints without fixing any gauge condition. Calling $`\mu (\stackrel{}{x},t)e^{\beta (\stackrel{}{x},t)}`$ and using (4.2), we find

$$[Q,\beta (\stackrel{}{x},t)]=ad^4y_{\mathrm{}}^\stackrel{}{x}𝑑\xi ^i_{(\xi )}^i\delta ^4(\stackrel{}{\xi }\stackrel{}{y})=a$$
(4.3)
Since this is a c-number, we immediately conclude that

$$[Q,\mu ]=a\mu ,$$
(4.4)
implying that the operator given by (4.1) indeed creates topologically charged excitations, namely eigenstates of $`Q`$.

A very interesting special case of the theory described by (2.17) is the one when the source $`j^\mu `$ is given by

$$j^\mu =_C𝑑\xi ^\mu \delta ^5(x\xi ),$$
(4.5)
where $`C`$ is the border of the universe-sheet of a string. For a closed spatial string, we have $`j^0=0`$, implying, according to (2.18), that this type of string does not bear any topological charge. For an open spatial string, however, $`j^00`$ and we see that it carries a nonvanishing topological charge. Notice that, in this case, $`C`$ is still closed despite of the fact that the string is open. We conclude that, in this situation, the operator $`\mu (\stackrel{}{x},t)`$ in (4.1) creates an open string with extremity at the point $`\stackrel{}{x}`$, along the line $`L`$.

### 4.2) The Membrane Creation Operator

Let us consider now the operator creating the quantum field configuration associated to the membrane coupled to the generalized Chern-Simons theory in D=5. From (2.20) and (2.21), we see that there is a 2-tensor magnetic field attached to the membrane coupled to the tensor field in (2.17). Following (2.31) we write the membrane creation operator in the present case as $`\sigma (S;t)e^{\alpha (S;t)}`$ where $`\sigma (S;t)`$ is given by expressions identical to (3.6) and (3.7), which we had in D=5 BF theory. Using (2.3) and the canonical commutation rules (4.2), we find that expressions (3.9), (3.10),(3.11) and (3.13) also hold here. These imply that also here the operator $`\sigma (S;t)`$ creates the correct eigenstates of the magnetic field attached to the quantum membrane.

### 4.3) Duality, Generalized Statistics and Fermionization

Using the canonical commutation rules (4.2), and following the same steps as in the previous section, it is easy to see that the topological excitation operator $`\mu (\stackrel{}{x},t)`$, given by (4.1) and the membrane operator $`\sigma (S;t)`$, given by (3.7) satisfy precisely the same relations expressed in (3.14) to (3.18). In particular the dual algebra (3.16) is the same. As a consequece, also the composite states of a membrane and a point topological charge have generalized statistics that may be, in particular, fermionic. Of course the previous remarks also hold when $`\mu `$ may be regarded as the creation operator of an open string.

## 5) Perspectives

The general duality structure investigated here has proved to be completely general and can be extended for any spacetime dimension. It may also be applied to extended objects of any dimensionality. The formalism introduced here shall certainly be required whenever a quantum description of extended objects such as strings or membranes coupled to a field theory should be needed. The full quantization of an extended object (p-brane) is in general plagued by difficulties, usually associated with anomalies. These, in a light-cone gauge formulation, would appear in the algebra of generators of the Lorentz group. Only superstrings and the supermembrane in D=11 are known to be free of these anomalies . Nonsupersymmetric p-branes, on the other hand, are known to suffer from conformal anomalies in general. The absence of supersymmetry anomalies is associated to the presence of massless states in the spectrum . It is precisely in connection to this fact that the present formulation is potentially useful for the full quantization of p-branes. Indeed, dual order-disorder algebras such as (3.16), (2.32), (2.33) and (2.34) have been shown  to be closely related to a criterion for the presence of massless states in the spectrum. This actually happens whenever the expectation values of both operators satisfying the dual algebra vanish.

The natural extension of this work involves the evaluation of correlation functions of membrane and topological excitation creation operators in BF and Chern-Simons theories, both in D=5 and D=4. This study will lead, among other things, to a detailed description of the quantum spectrum of excitations for these extended objects as well as of their scattering properties. It shall also certainly lead to very interesting unfoldings regarding bosonization in higher dimensions.

## 6) Appendix

In a spacetime of dimension D=4, the spatial laplacian obeys the equation

$$^2\left[\frac{1}{4\pi |\stackrel{}{\xi }\stackrel{}{x}|}\right]=\delta ^3(\stackrel{}{\xi }\stackrel{}{x})$$
(6.1)
and the above Green’s function satisfies the identity

$$_{(\xi )}^i\left[\frac{1}{4\pi |\stackrel{}{\xi }\stackrel{}{x}|}\right]=\{\begin{array}{cc}ϵ^{ijk}_{(\xi )}^j\phi ^k(\stackrel{}{\xi }\stackrel{}{x});& \stackrel{}{\xi }V_L\\ _{\mathrm{},L}^\stackrel{}{x}𝑑\eta ^i\delta ^3(\stackrel{}{\eta }\stackrel{}{\xi });& \stackrel{}{\xi }V_L\end{array},$$
(6.2)
where $`V_L`$ is a cone of infinitesimal angle with vertex at $`\stackrel{}{\xi }=\stackrel{}{x}`$ and axis along the line $`L:(\mathrm{},\stackrel{}{x})`$ and $`\stackrel{}{\phi }=\frac{1\mathrm{cos}\theta }{r\mathrm{sin}\theta }\widehat{\phi }`$, with $`r=|\stackrel{}{\xi }\stackrel{}{x}|`$.

In a spacetime of dimension D=5, conversely, we have for the spatial laplacian

$$^2\left[\frac{1}{4\pi ^2|\stackrel{}{\xi }\stackrel{}{x}|^2}\right]=\delta ^4(\stackrel{}{\xi }\stackrel{}{x})$$
(6.3)
Inside a hypercone containing $`L`$ and with the tip in $`\stackrel{}{x}`$ we have, accordingly, the identity

$$_{(\xi )}^i\left[\frac{1}{4\pi ^2|\stackrel{}{\xi }\stackrel{}{x}|^2}\right]=_{\mathrm{},L}^\stackrel{}{x}𝑑\eta ^i\delta ^4(\stackrel{}{\eta }\stackrel{}{\xi }),$$
(6.4)
which can be easily verified by applying $`_{(\xi )}^i`$. Observe now that, because of the $`\delta `$-function, (3.14) is non vanishing only inside $`V_L`$, hence we can use (6.4), in order to establish (3.15).

## 7) Acknowledgements

This work has been supported in part by CNPq, FAPERJ and
PRONEX - 66.2002/1998-9.


format: text

text:
# Transition to hydrodynamics in colliding fermion clouds

## 1 Introduction

Several experiments on cooling two spin-polarized states of a Fermi gas have proven that this setup is an important tool for investigating the collisional properties of such a quantum system . The JILA group has recently performed experiments in which the collisionality of a 40K mixture is tuned by either varying the atomic density  or the off-resonant value of the inter-species scattering length . Also the temperature of the gas has been used to drive its collisionality and the importance of Pauli blocking at very low temperatures has thereby been demonstrated . The role of collisions has also been investigated in dipolar collective modes of a boson-fermion mixture  at temperatures in both the quantum and classical regimes. The behaviour of the collision rate inferred from these experiments plays a crucial role in the development of strategies to improve the evaporative cooling techniques. In addition, the collisionality also affects other observables such as the damping and diffusion processes in the quantum mixture. In Ref.  an anisotropic expansion of a cigar-shaped two-component Fermi gas has been observed. In contrast to the bosonic case, the anisotropy of the expansion at very low temperatures cannot be taken as a clear signature of fermionic superfluidity  and could be due to purely collisional effects.

While ergodic approximations on semiclassical Boltzmann equations have been used to describe the evaporative cooling process , a microscopic understanding of the transition towards hydrodynamics  or of the anisotropic expansion in the case of attractive interactions  needs a complete numerical study of the dynamics of the quantum gas in position and momentum space . In this paper we describe the strategy that we have used to solve numerically the Vlasov-Landau Equations (VLE) for an ultracold two-component fermion gas with a fully three-dimensional (3D) algorithm. The two fermionic fluids are treated by a particle-dynamics approach , accounting for mean-field interactions and for collisions between the two species. Since the Pauli principle causes a saturation of phase space at very low temperature, we have developed a locally adaptive importance-sampling technique which allows us to select the colliding particles in a way which is by several orders of magnitude faster than in standard Monte Carlo techniques. Furthermore, the control of the occupancy of the unitary cells of phase space and a suitable choice of computational parameters permit us to avoid Pauli inconsistencies during the dynamics.

The two fermionic gases are confined inside different harmonic traps. Regardless of the initial perturbation exciting the dipolar modes, we observe that as temperature is lowered, even through most collisions become forbidden classically and by the Pauli principle, the few collisions that occur still suffice to drive the mixture from the collisionless to the hydrodynamic regime. This effect has already been predicted in our previous study , where the angular degree of freedom was taken into account via an effective weight in a 2D numerical code. The limitations of the 2D approach are illustrated in the present work by comparing the oscillation frequencies and the damping rate of the dipolar oscillations evaluated within the 2D approach with those obtained by means of the present 3D scheme. We also find that the choice of the initial state modifies the spectra of the dipolar modes. In particular, if the symmetry of the initial configuration is broken and one species is initially at rest, kicking by the other species will induce oscillations at the characteristic frequency of the latter.

The paper is organized as follows. In Sec. 2 we introduce the physical model and describe in detail the numerical method developed to solve it. In Sec. 3 we study the dipolar oscillations in various collisional regimes and compare the results with those obtained in our previous work. Concluding remarks are given in Sec. 4.

## 2 The model and its solution in 3D

The two fermionic components in external potentials $`V_{\mathrm{ext}}^{(j)}(\mathrm{r}\mathbf{)}`$ are described by the distribution functions $`f^{(j)}(\mathrm{r}\mathbf{,}\mathrm{p}\mathbf{,}\mathrm{t}\mathbf{)}`$ with $`j=1`$ or 2. They obey the kinetic equations

$$_tf^{(j)}+\frac{\mathrm{p}}{m}\mathbf{}_\mathrm{r}f^{(j)}_\mathrm{r}U^{(j)}\mathbf{}_\mathrm{p}f^{(j)}=C_{12}[f^{(j)}]$$
(1)
where the mean-field effective potential is $`U^{(j)}(\mathrm{r}\mathbf{,}\mathrm{t}\mathbf{)}\mathbf{}\mathrm{V}_{\mathrm{𝐞𝐱𝐭}}^{\mathbf{(}\mathrm{j}\mathbf{)}}\mathbf{(}\mathrm{r}\mathbf{)}\mathbf{+}\mathrm{g}\mathrm{n}^{\mathbf{(}\overline{\mathrm{j}}\mathbf{)}}\mathbf{(}\mathrm{r}\mathbf{,}\mathrm{t}\mathbf{)}`$ with $`\overline{j}`$ denoting the species different from $`j`$. Here we have set $`\mathrm{}=1`$, $`g=2\pi a/m_r`$ with $`a`$ being the $`s`$-wave scattering length between two atoms of different species and $`m_r`$ the reduced mass, and $`n^{(j)}(\mathrm{r}\mathbf{,}\mathrm{t}\mathbf{)}`$ is the density obtained by integrating $`f^{(j)}(\mathrm{r}\mathbf{,}\mathrm{p}\mathbf{,}\mathrm{t}\mathbf{)}`$ over momentum.

Collisions between atoms of the same spin can be neglected at low temperature, so that in Eq. (1) the term $`C_{12}`$ involves only collisions between particles that are polarized in two different Zeeman states. We have:

$$C_{12}[f^{(j)}]g^2\frac{2(2\pi )^4}{V^3}\underset{\mathrm{p}_2\mathbf{,}\mathrm{p}_3\mathbf{,}\mathrm{p}_4}{}\mathrm{\Delta }_\mathrm{p}\mathrm{\Delta }_\epsilon [\overline{f}^{(j)}\overline{f}_2^{(\overline{j})}f_3^{(j)}f_4^{(\overline{j})}f^{(j)}f_2^{(\overline{j})}\overline{f}_3^{(j)}\overline{f}_4^{(\overline{j})}]$$
(2)
with $`f^{(j)}f^{(j)}(\mathrm{r}\mathbf{,}\mathrm{p}\mathbf{,}\mathrm{t}\mathbf{)}`$, $`\overline{f}^{(j)}1f^{(j)}`$, $`f_i^{(j)}f^{(j)}(\mathrm{r}\mathbf{,}\mathrm{p}_\mathrm{i}\mathbf{,}\mathrm{t}\mathbf{)}`$, $`\overline{f}_i^{(j)}1f_i^{(j)}`$. $`V`$ is the volume occupied by the gas and the factors $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\mathrm{p}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\epsilon `$ are the usual delta functions accounting for conservation of momentum and energy, with the energies given by $`p_i^2/2m_j+U^{(j)}(\mathrm{r}\mathbf{,}\mathrm{t}\mathbf{)}`$.

The equilibrium state of the mixture is given by the stationary solution of Eq. (1), i.e. by the local Fermi-Dirac distributions

$$f^{(j)}(\mathrm{r}\mathbf{,}\mathrm{p}\mathbf{)}\mathbf{=}\mathbf{\left(}\mathrm{e}^{𝜷\mathbf{\left(}\mathrm{p}^2\mathbf{/}2\mathrm{m}_\mathrm{j}\mathbf{+}\mathrm{U}^{\mathbf{(}\mathrm{j}\mathbf{)}}\mathbf{(}\mathrm{r}\mathbf{)}\mathbf{}𝝁_\mathrm{j}\mathbf{\right)}}\mathbf{+}1\mathbf{\right)}^\mathbf{}1$$
(3)
at given temperature $`T=1/k_B\beta `$, where $`\mu _j`$ is the chemical potential ensuring the normalization condition $`f^{(j)}(\mathrm{r}\mathbf{,}\mathrm{p}\mathbf{)}\mathrm{d}^3\mathrm{r}\mathrm{d}^3\mathrm{p}\mathbf{/}\mathrm{h}^3\mathbf{=}\mathrm{N}_\mathrm{j}`$. The particle densities entering $`U^{(j)}`$ are to be determined self-consistently by integration over momenta. The details of this calculation have been previously given in Ref. .

### 2.1 Numerical method

The numerical solution of the coupled VLE in Eq. (1) is carried out inside a finite box of size $`L_x\times L_y\times L_z`$ and discretized with a spacing $`\mathrm{\Delta }x_j`$. We describe each species in the box by means of a set of $`N_c`$ computational particles (cp) at phase-space points $`\{\mathrm{r}_\mathrm{i}\mathbf{,}\mathrm{p}_\mathrm{i}\mathbf{\}}`$ which are spread according to the distribution $`f`$. In this way each fermion is represented by $`N_q=N_c/N_j>1`$ “quarks”.

The initial selection of the computational particles is made by direct Monte Carlo sampling of the equilibrium distributions. Moreover, since collisions are very sensitive to the statistical nature of the colliding particles, we enforce the Pauli principle in each phase-space volume of size $`h^3`$ by resampling the computational particles that would otherwise exceed the allowed number of quarks $`N_q`$ in that cell. This further control is needed since we are dealing with a finite-size sample of Fermi-Dirac distributions.

The solution of Eqs. (1) proceeds in two steps: (i) the Lagrangian evolution of each distribution in phase space due to mean-field and external forces, and (ii) the occurrence of binary collisions among particles of the two species à la Boltzmann. Once the initial state is prepared, the first stage of the evolution is carried out by means of a second-order symplectic integrator , and we update the position and velocity of each particle $`i`$ according to the scheme

$$\{\begin{array}{ccc}\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{r}}_i\hfill & =& \mathrm{r}_\mathrm{i}\mathbf{(}\mathrm{t}\mathbf{)}\mathbf{+}\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{t}\mathrm{v}_\mathrm{i}\mathbf{(}\mathrm{t}\mathbf{)}\mathbf{,}\hfill \\ \mathrm{v}_\mathrm{i}\mathbf{(}\mathrm{t}\mathbf{+}\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{t}\mathbf{)}\hfill & =& \mathrm{v}_\mathrm{i}\mathbf{(}\mathrm{t}\mathbf{)}\mathbf{+}\mathrm{m}^\mathbf{}1\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{t}\mathrm{F}\mathbf{(}\stackrel{\mathbf{~}}{\mathrm{r}}_\mathrm{i}\mathbf{)}\hfill \\ \mathrm{r}_\mathrm{i}\mathbf{(}\mathrm{t}\mathbf{+}\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{t}\mathbf{)}\hfill & =& \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{r}_\mathrm{i}}+\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Delta }t\mathrm{v}_\mathrm{i}\mathbf{(}\mathrm{t}\mathbf{+}\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{t}\mathbf{)}\hfill \end{array}.$$

Here $`\mathrm{F}\mathbf{(}\mathrm{r}\mathbf{)}`$ is the mean-field force $`\mathrm{F}\mathbf{(}\mathrm{r}\mathbf{)}\mathbf{=}\mathbf{}\mathbf{}\mathrm{U}^{\mathbf{(}\mathrm{j}\mathbf{)}}\mathbf{(}\mathrm{r}\mathbf{)}`$ with $`j=1`$ or 2. To compute the mean-field forces we first calculate the average density at a given cell by counting the number of particles inside the cell. The density is then numerically differentiated to obtain the forces at the grid points. The forces so calculated are finally linearly interpolated to the positions of the particles.

It is worthwhile remembering that Liouvillean evolutions are incompressible, so that a distribution function satisfying the Pauli principle at a given time will satisfy the same constraint afterwards. This is an exact property whose numerical counterpart is checked during the course of the simulation.

The second step of the solution involves binary collisions. At variance from the Lagrangian evolution these are tracked on a coarser mesh of spacing of the order of the de Broglie wavelength (a “Pauli cell”). In this way we introduce a temperature-dependent scale which imposes a length scale on which the particles are effectively indistinguishable. This can be seen as an extension of the standard Boltzmann approach. Furthermore, collisions in different Pauli cells can be handled independently due to the locality of Eq. (2).

Our method allows us to count the number of collisions that occur step-by-step both classically and quantum-mechanically. In each Pauli cell we add up the classical probability of collisions between every pair of particles and store the pairs whose probability is greater than a locally adapted threshold. This reduces the running time and the storage needs of the code by several orders of magnitude, and at the same time the threshold is adjusted in order to guarantee a correct supply of pairs at each time step. The quantum features of the mixture are included in the last step of the collision algorithm where the Pauli suppression in Eq. (2) is applied. For every classically colliding pair we calculate the blocking terms $`(1f^{(j)})`$ by analyzing the occupancy of the momentum states in the Pauli cell. We have explicitly verified that this procedure yields the correct Pauli-suppressed fraction of collisions for a weakly interacting gas at least down to $`T0.2T_F`$ .

We turn now to the discussion of the choice of computational parameters which allows us a reliable implementation of the Lagrangian evolution. During the dynamics two unphysical processes may occur: (i) the presence of an excess of quarks in saturated phase-space cells, and (ii) a broadening of the atomic cloud inside the trap. No cell of volume $`h^3`$ contains more than $`N_q`$ quarks for each species if the initial state has been accurately prepared. In this case, the inconsistent location of quarks takes place after we move the particles. Indeed, both problems (i) and (ii) are related to the calculation of the accelerations induced by mean-field forces. As already mentioned, these forces are constructed first on the simulation grid and then interpolated to the actual position of each particle. Therefore, an accurate description requires small spacings $`\mathrm{\Delta }x_j`$ and a large number of computational particles per cell.

Aiming at understanding the impact on the results of the different choices for the values of $`N_q`$ and $`L_j/\mathrm{\Delta }x_j`$ we have studied the axial motion of two interacting Fermi clouds for several values of these parameters. Hereafter we shall consider magnetically trapped 40K atoms that are equally shared in two different Zeeman states ($`m_F=9/2`$ and $`m_F=7/2`$) and confined in isotropic harmonic traps with slightly different frequencies ($`\omega _{9/2}=2\pi \times 19.8\mathrm{s}^1`$ and $`\omega _{7/2}=2\pi \times 17.46\mathrm{s}^1`$). For this test case we take the total number of particles $`N=200`$, the mutual scattering length $`a=3\times 10^4`$ Bohr radii (a strongly collisional regime), and $`T=0.3T_F`$. Both clouds are suddenly displaced from their equilibrium positions along the axial direction and start oscillating. We then analyze the evolution of the mixture for a total time $`t_{fin}50\omega _{9/2}^1`$ ($`8`$ complete oscillations) and from the value of the centre-of-mass position $`z_j(t)`$ we extract the oscillation frequencies $`\omega _j`$ of the two components and the average damping rate $`\overline{\gamma }`$. The details of this procedure will be given in Sec. 3. In addition we also compute the axial spreads of the density profiles $`D_j=\mathrm{\Delta }z_j_{t_{fin}}/\mathrm{\Delta }z_j_{t_0}`$ and the quantum collision rate $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_q`$ by direct counting of the total collisions per particle, and monitor the number $`𝒩`$ of computational particles located in forbidden phase-space cells. The latter shall be called Pauli inconsistencies. For the system parameters here considered, we find that the oscillation frequencies do not vary considerably as $`N_q`$ and $`L_j/\mathrm{\Delta }x_j`$ are varied. The dependence of the other observables is summarized in Table 1.

The inconsistencies disappear by increasing the number of grid points, while a large number of computational particles per cell is required to prevent statistical noise from producing spurious diffusion of the particles. The average damping rate $`\overline{\gamma }`$ is sensitive to the spreading of the clouds, but seems to be less affected by the presence of few inconsistencies. On the other hand the collisional rate $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_q`$ depends more strongly on both factors.

In summary, this test case has given us enough information to select appropriate parameters for reliable calculations. In the following numerical experiments we shall choose the most suitable values of $`N_q`$ and $`L_j/\mathrm{\Delta }x_j`$ in order to ensure $`D_j1`$ and a negligible $`𝒩`$, while keeping the computing time within reasonable limits.

## 3 Dipolar oscillations

The quantum features of the mixture are most conveniently displayed by its collective modes, which in turn can be investigated by analyzing the dynamical response of the system under distortions of the equilibrium state. This can be done quite straightforwardly in actual experiments where the cloverleaf setup is used : a bias magnetic field displaces the centre of the trap, while a Stern-Gerlach separation of the two Zeeman states could be obtained by adding a magnetic field gradient .

In the following we analyze the dipolar modes of the mixture at varying scattering length, as can be done e.g. by exploiting Feshbach resonances , and focus on two specific types of initial conditions: one in which both components start oscillating with the same amplitude (in-phase oscillations) and the other in which only the $`m_F=9/2`$ species is initially displaced (kicked oscillations).

### 3.1 In-phase oscillations

The equilibrium fermionic density profiles for $`2\times 10^4`$ particles are first created with the traps centred at $`\mathrm{r}\mathbf{=}\mathbf{(}0\mathbf{,}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}\mathbf{,}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}\mathbf{)}\mathrm{a}_{\mathrm{h}\mathrm{o}}`$. At $`t=0`$ we let the confinements return to the position $`\mathrm{r}\mathbf{=}0`$ and hence the atoms start oscillating. In the collisionless regime the natural oscillation frequencies of the two species are different and correspond to trap frequencies renormalized by mean-field interactions, whereas the hydrodynamic regime is characterized by a common oscillation frequency of the two clouds, whose motions have been locked by frequent collisions between their particles. In this limit classical kinetic theory predicts that the common frequency is $`\omega _{HD}=\sqrt{(\omega _{9/2}^2+\omega _{7/2}^2)/2}`$, which in our case gives $`\omega _{HD}117.3\mathrm{s}^1`$. This is in agreement with our numerical results as is shown in Fig. 1(a), where the in-phase dipolar frequencies are plotted as functions of the collision rate $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_q`$.

In evaluating the oscillation frequencies and damping rates we have assumed that the dynamics is well described by an exponentially damped harmonic motion and fitted each centre-of-mass position $`z_j(t)`$ with a function $`A_j\mathrm{cos}(\omega _jt+\varphi _j)\mathrm{exp}(\gamma _jt)`$. We calculate the average damping rate as $`\overline{\gamma }=(\gamma _{9/2}+\gamma _{7/2})/2`$ and estimate the uncertainty of the result by analyzing the dependence of the fit parameters on the fitting range. This uncertainty is reported in the figures as error bars. The intermediate regime is characterized by a strong damping and larger uncertainties in the single-mode frequencies, which destroy the coherence of the oscillations.

As an illustration of the various dynamical regimes we show in Fig. 2 the evolution of the centre of mass of the two species for three values of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_q`$ at $`T=0.3T_F`$. For $`2\pi \mathrm{\Gamma }_q\omega _j^11`$ the two clouds oscillate independently without appreciable damping, whereas as $`2\pi \mathrm{\Gamma }_q\omega _j^1`$ approaches unity the two centres of mass start moving together but still incoherently and therefore their oscillations are damped. At higher collisionality ($`2\pi \mathrm{\Gamma }_q\omega _j^11`$) the two species are locked and oscillate at the same frequency without damping.

From Figures 1(a) and 1(b) it is clear that the transition towards the hydrodynamic regime occurs for lower values of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_q`$ at $`T=0.3T_F`$ than at $`T=0.6T_F`$. This phenomenon can be attributed to collisions which involve particles in a narrower energy range around the Fermi level as the temperature decreases . However, the results presented here are only in qualitative agreement with those obtained in Refs. . In fact, the 2D approach overestimates the collision rate and the damping rate. This is shown in Fig. 3 where the oscillation frequencies are compared with those obtained by using the 2D code.

### 3.2 Kicked oscillations

We next excite the dipolar mode with a different initial configuration, by taking the trap centre at $`(0,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0})`$ for the $`m_F=7/2`$ component and at $`(0,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0},\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1})a_{ho}`$ for the $`m_F=9/2`$ component. The confinement for the $`m_F=9/2`$ component is then shifted to $`z=0`$ and only its atoms start oscillating. If the two clouds did not interact, the $`m_F=9/2`$ component would oscillate at its bare frequency and the centre-of-mass of the other species would not move. Collisionality drives both clouds into oscillation.

In Fig. 4(a) we show the axial centre-of-mass position for the two clouds as a function of time for four values of the collision rate $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_q`$. At variance from what was found in the in-phase case, a single-mode model cannot describe the oscillations since even in the collisionless region the $`m_F=7/2`$ motion has a strong frequency component induced by the $`m_F=9/2`$ motion. This can be seen from the corresponding Fourier transform $`\left|\widehat{z}_j(\omega )\right|`$ of the centre-of-mass positions in the various regimes, which are shown in Fig. 4(b). In the case of small collisionality (the two top curves in Fig. 4) the $`m_F=9/2`$ component acts as a drive on the $`m_F=7/2`$ component but is not strongly affected by collisions.

The corresponding $`z_j(t)`$ trajectories are drawn in Fig. 4(a). For low collisionality (top and second row in Fig. 4), a beating between the two peaks in the $`m_F=7/2`$ spectrum is visible in the $`z_{7/2}(t)`$ signal. At higher collisionality the two clouds get locked and oscillate at a single frequency, which is intermediate between the two trap frequencies (see also the spectrum in Fig.4(b))).

## 4  Summary and concluding remarks

We have studied the transition from the collisionless to the hydrodynamic regime in a 40K mixture at temperatures where the effects of Pauli blocking are noticeable. The Vlasov-Landau equations of two interacting fermionic fluids are solved numerically by means of a fully three-dimensional particle-dynamics approach incorporating mean-field and collisional interactions. The implementation of a locally-adaptive importance sampling technique during the collisional step has allowed us to obtain a method which is very efficient at low temperature, for realistic number of particles and in a wide range of collisional strength. By exploiting this code we investigate the dipolar collective modes and analyze the oscillation frequencies and damping rates of the system for various initial configurations. We find that the transition to hydrodynamics is shifted to lower values of the collision rate as temperature decreases.

As a future application, this procedure shall permit us to perform numerical experiments on cooling and expansion dynamics. These studies will help characterize the mixture in the intermediate regime where neither purely collisionless nor collisional approaches are appropriate. In addition the extension to highly interacting systems in the so-called unitary limit of collisions  shall provide more physical insight into recent experiments on attractive mixtures of fermionic atoms . Efforts to pursue these further studies are currently underway and will be reported elsewhere.

This work has been partially supported by INFM under the PRA-Photonmatter Programme.

## References


text:
# 1 Ratio 𝑅_𝑛^(𝑇)(𝑄²) of the experimental moments 𝑀_𝑛^(𝑇)(𝑄²), obtained in Ref. [], with the theoretical moments 𝑀̄_𝑛^(𝑇)(𝑄²), calculated in Ref. []. The dotted line represents the square of a monopole form factor corresponding to a 𝐶𝑄 size 𝑟_𝑄=0.21𝑓𝑚. The dots, squares, diamonds and triangles correspond to 𝑛={2,4,6} and 8, respectively. (Adapted from Ref. []).

Preprint RM3-TH/03-16

Possible evidence of extended objects
inside the protonaaaTo appear in Nucler Physics A as Proceedings of the XVII International IUPAP Conference on Few-Body Problems in Physics, Durham (North Carolina, USA), June 5-10, 2003.

R. Petronzio, S. Simula∗∗ and G. Ricco∗∗∗

Università di Roma ”Tor Vergata” and INFN, Sezione di Roma II, I-00133 Roma, Italy

∗∗Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Roma III, I-00146 Roma, Italy

∗∗∗Universitá di Genova and INFN - Genova, I-16146, Genova, Italy

## Abstract

Recent data on the Nachtmann moments of the unpolarized proton structure function $`F_2^p`$, obtained at low momentum transfer with the $`CLAS`$ detector at Jefferson Lab, are interpreted in terms of the dominance of the elastic coupling of the virtual photon with extended substructures inside the proton. The $`CLAS`$ data exhibit a new type of scaling behavior and the resulting scaling function can be interpreted as a constituent form factor consistent with the elastic nucleon data. A constituent size of $`0.2÷0.3fm`$ is obtained.

The inclusive electron-proton cross section has been recently measured in Hall B at Jefferson Lab using the $`CLAS`$ spectrometer . The measurements have been performed in the nucleon resonance regions ($`W<2.5GeV`$) for values of the squared four-momentum transfer $`Q^2`$ below $`4.5(GeV/c)^2`$. One of the most relevant features of such measurements is that the $`CLAS`$ large acceptance has allowed to determine the cross section in a wide two-dimensional range of values of $`Q^2`$ and $`x=Q^2/2M\nu `$. This has made it possible to extract the proton structure function $`F_2^p(x,Q^2)`$ and to directly integrate all the existing world data at fixed $`Q^2`$ over the whole significant $`x`$-range for the determination of the (inelastic) transverse Nachtmann moments $`M_n^{(T)}(Q^2)`$ with order $`n=2,4,6,8`$, defined as

$`M_n^{(T)}(Q^2){\displaystyle _0^{x_\pi }}𝑑x{\displaystyle \frac{\xi ^{n+1}}{x^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{3+3(n+1)r+n(n+2)r^2}{(n+2)(n+3)}}F_2^p(x,Q^2),`$ (1)
where $`\xi =2x/(1+r)`$, $`r=\sqrt{1+4M^2x^2/Q^2}`$ and $`x_\pi `$ is the pion threshold.

A possible interpretation of the experimental results of Ref.  has been proposed in Ref. . There the original two-stage model of Ref. , developed in the Deep Inelastic Scattering ($`DIS`$) regime, is extended to values of $`Q^2`$ around and below the scale of chiral symmetry breaking, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\chi `$, and above the $`QCD`$ confinement scale, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}`$, i.e. $`0.1÷0.2\text{ }<Q^2(GeV/c)^2\text{ }<1÷2`$. In this contribution we briefly recall the main results of Ref. , namely: i) the data of Ref.  exhibit a new type of scaling behavior expected within the generalized two-stage model, and ii) the resulting scaling function can be interpreted as (the square of) a constituent quark ($`CQ`$) form factor with a $`CQ`$ size of $`0.2÷0.3fm`$.

The basic assumption of the two-stage model is that hadrons are made of a finite number of $`CQ`$’s having a partonic structure. The latter depends only on short-distance physics, independent of the particular hadron, while the motion of the $`CQ`$’s inside the hadron reflects non-perturbative physics depending on the particular hadron. For values of $`Q^2`$ around and below the scale of chiral symmetry breaking, one expects that the elastic coupling of the incoming virtual boson with the $`CQ`$ dominates over the inelastic channels. As explained in Ref. , the $`Q^2`$-range of applicability of the generalized two-stage model is qualitatively given by $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}^2\text{ }<Q^2\text{ }<\mathrm{\Lambda }_\chi ^2`$, i.e. $`0.1÷0.2\text{ }<Q^2(GeV/c)^2\text{ }<1÷2`$.

The dominance of the elastic coupling at the $`CQ`$ level cannot however hold at each $`x`$ value, but only in a local duality sense. The $`CQ`$-hadron duality can be translated in the space of moments into the following (approximate) equivalence

$`M_n^{(T)}(Q^2)F^2(Q^2)\overline{M}_n^{(T)}(Q^2),`$ (2)
where $`\overline{M}_n^{(T)}(Q^2)`$ describes the effect of the internal $`CQ`$ motion inside the hadron on the moment of order $`n`$, and $`F(Q^2)`$ is the $`CQ`$ elastic form factor (see Ref.  for its definition). Equation (2) is expected to hold for low values of the order $`n`$, except $`n=2`$, because the second moment $`M_2^{(T)}(Q^2)`$ is significantly affected by the low-$`x`$ region where the concept of valence dominance may become unreliable (cf. for more details Ref. ).

If one has a reasonable model for the $`CQ`$ momentum distributions in the hadron, the theoretical moments $`\overline{M}_n^{(T)}(Q^2)`$ can be estimated and therefore the ratio

$`R_n^{(T)}(Q^2)M_n^{(T)}(Q^2)/\overline{M}_n^{(T)}(Q^2)`$ (3)
can be constructed starting from the experimental moments $`M_n^{(T)}(Q^2)`$. Thus, if Eq. (2) holds, the ratio $`R_n^{(T)}(Q^2)`$ is expected to depend only on $`Q^2`$, i.e. it becomes independent of the order $`n`$ (as well as on the specific hadron), viz.

$`R_n^{(T)}(Q^2)F^2(Q^2).`$ (4)
The scaling function, given by the r.h.s. of Eq. (4), is directly the square of the $`CQ`$ form factor, i.e. the form factor of a confined object.

The data of Ref.  manifest a clear tendency to the scaling property (4) even assuming no internal $`CQ`$ motion inside the proton, which represents a very simplified and rough model for the $`CQ`$ momentum distribution. Explicitly one gets $`\overline{M}_n^{(T)}(Q^2)(1/3)^{n1}`$. Though simple, such an hypothesis explains very well the spread of about one order of magnitude between the experimental moments of order $`n`$ and $`(n+2)`$ (cf. Ref. ). In our opinion this is an important result (almost a pure experimental result) because obtained with a very simple hypothesis about the $`CQ`$ motion in the proton.

The effect of the internal $`CQ`$ motion was investigated in Ref.  and found to be important. The basic result of Ref.  is represented in Fig. 1, where it can clearly be seen that the scaling property (4) is well satisfied by the $`CLAS`$ data for $`n=4,6,8`$ with the expected exception of $`n=2`$. The scaling function of Fig. 1 can be interpolated using the square of a monopole ansatz, $`F(Q^2)1/(1+r_Q^2Q^2/6)`$, with $`r_Q=0.21fm`$. The precise value of the $`CQ`$ size $`r_Q`$ depends on the specific values of the model parameters. Such a dependence has been thoroughly investigated in Ref.  and the final result is that a safe estimate of the $`CQ`$ size $`r_Q`$ is between $`0.2`$ and $`0.3fm`$.

The $`CQ`$ form factor extracted from the scaling function and the model used for the nucleon wave function should be consistent with the elastic nucleon data. In Ref.  the nucleon elastic form factors were calculated adopting the covariant light-front approach of Ref. , which is properly formulated at $`q^+=0`$. It turns out that the calculated nucleon form factors slightly overestimate the data, but a nice consistency can be easily reached through small variations of the model parameters.

In conclusion the generalized two-stage model of Ref.  provides an explanation of the recent $`CLAS`$ data of Ref.  in terms of the dominance of the elastic coupling of the virtual photon with extended objects inside the proton at low values of $`Q^2`$, namely $`0.1÷0.2\text{ }<Q^2(GeV/c)^2\text{ }<1÷2`$. A positive comparison with forthcoming data on other structure functions, like the longitudinal (see Ref. ) and the polarized ones, will provide further compelling evidence that constituent quarks are intermediate substructures between the hadrons and the current quarks and gluons of $`QCD`$.


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# CERN-TH/2003-253 The 𝜂'𝑔^∗𝑔^(∗) Vertex Function in Perturbative QCD and 𝜂'-Meson Mass Effects

## 1 Introduction

The $`\eta ^{}g^{}g^{()}`$ effective vertex function (EVF) \[or the $`\eta ^{}`$ – gluon transition form factor\], $`F_{\eta ^{}g^{}g^{}}(q_1^2,q_2^2,m_\eta ^{}^2)`$, enters in a number of decays such as $`J/\psi \eta ^{}\gamma `$, $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}\eta ^{}X`$, $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}\eta ^{}\gamma `$, $`B(\pi ,\rho ,K,K^{})\eta ^{}`$, $`B\eta ^{}X_s`$, and hadronic production processes, such as $`N+N(\overline{N})\eta ^{}X`$, and hence is of great phenomenological importance.

At low gluon virtualities, $`|q_1^2||q_2^2|m_\eta ^{}^2`$, the EVF is determined by the QCD anomaly while in inclusive decays of $`B`$\- or $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$-mesons, the gluon virtualities can be large enough ($`|q_i^2|m_\eta ^{}^2`$) to allow the perturbative-QCD consideration for the EVF. Indeed, the hard part of the $`\eta ^{}`$-meson energy spectrum in the inclusive decay $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(1S)ggg^{}(g^{}\eta ^{}g)\eta ^{}X`$ is well reproduced when the perturbative-QCD form for the $`\eta ^{}`$ – gluon transition form factor is used in the analysis Artuso:2002px ; Kagan:2002dq ; Ali:2003vw .

In the perturbative-QCD framework, the $`\eta ^{}g^{}g^{()}`$ EVF can be calculated as a convolution of a hard-scattering kernel with the $`\eta ^{}`$-meson wave-function. For the energetic $`\eta ^{}`$-meson, transverse degrees of freedom of the meson constituents can be neglected and its wave-function is well described in terms of the quark-antiquark and gluonic light-cone distribution amplitudes (LCDAs). As the gluonic content of the $`\eta ^{}`$-meson is very important in many process, its effect can not be ignored. In this approach, the $`\eta ^{}g^{}g^{()}`$ EVF has been studied by several groups Muta:1999tc ; Ali:2000ci ; Kroll:2002nt ; Agaev:2002ek . As the $`\eta ^{}`$-meson mass is relatively large, it is not a good approximation to neglect it in certain kinematical regions, in particular, when the gluon virtuality is time-like. A consistent treatment of the $`\eta ^{}`$-meson mass effect in the EVF was undertaken by us recently Ali:2003kg  and the results obtained are presented in this report.

## 2 Light-Cone $`\eta ^{}`$-Meson Wave-Function

The $`\eta ^{}`$-meson contains both the quark-antiquark and gluonic components and, for energetic $`\eta ^{}`$-meson, its wave-function can be presented in the form of the twist decomposition and described by the LCDAs. Here, we restrict ourselves to the leading-twist (twist-two) approximation only. An underlying theoretical basis for such a description can be found in Kroll:2002nt ; Ali:2003kg . The twist-two LCDAs are usually used in the following approximate forms:

$`\varphi _\eta ^{}^{(q)}(u,Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`6u\overline{u}\left[1+6(15u\overline{u})A_2(Q^2)\right],`$
$`\varphi _\eta ^{}^{(g)}(u,Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`5u^2\overline{u}^2(u\overline{u})B_2(Q^2),`$ (1)
where only the second Gegenbauer moments $`A_2(Q^2)`$ and $`B_2(Q^2)`$ are kept. As the quark-antiquark and gluonic components are mixed under the scale evolution, the Gegenbauer moments introduced above are superpositions of the non-perturbative parameters $`B_2^{(q)}(\mu _0^2)`$ and $`B_2^{(g)}(\mu _0^2)`$ \[the Gegenbauer coefficients\]:

$`A_2(Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`B_2^{(q)}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s(\mu _0^2)}{\alpha _s(Q^2)}}\right]^{\gamma _+^2}+\rho _2^{(g)}B_2^{(g)}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s(\mu _0^2)}{\alpha _s(Q^2)}}\right]^{\gamma _{}^2},`$ (2)
$`B_2(Q^2)`$ $`=`$ $`\rho _2^{(q)}B_2^{(q)}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s(\mu _0^2)}{\alpha _s(Q^2)}}\right]^{\gamma _+^2}+B_2^{(g)}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _s(\mu _0^2)}{\alpha _s(Q^2)}}\right]^{\gamma _{}^2}.`$ (3)
The Gegenbauer coefficients at the initial scale $`\mu _0`$ of the LCDA evolution can be estimated by non-perturbative methods or extracted from the experimental data sensitive to the internal structure of the $`\eta ^{}`$-meson. In particular, a fit to the CLEO and L3 data on the $`\eta ^{}\gamma `$ transition form factor for $`Q^2>2`$ GeV2 was recently undertaken in Kroll:2002nt . The other process which allows to get an independent information on the Gegenbauer coefficients in the $`\eta ^{}g^{}g`$ EVF is the inclusive $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(1S)\eta ^{}X`$ decay. The $`\eta ^{}`$-meson energy spectrum in this decay was recently measured by the CLEO collaboration Artuso:2002px  and the data on the hard part of the spectrum are in agreement with the perturbative-QCD analysis Kagan:2002dq ; Ali:2003vw . Current experiments and the theoretical analysis undertaken in these processes individually leave an order of magnitude uncertainties on the Gegenbauer coefficients but the combined fit of the data allows to reduce substantially these uncertainties and results in the following values Ali:2003vw :

$`B_2^{(q)}(2\mathrm{GeV}^2)`$ $`=`$ $`0.008\pm 0.054,`$ (4)
$`B_2^{(g)}(2\mathrm{GeV}^2)`$ $`=`$ $`4.6\pm 2.5.`$
## 3 The $`\eta ^{}g^{}g^{()}`$ Effective Vertex Function

In the momentum space, the $`\eta ^{}g^{}g^{}`$ EVF can be extracted from the invariant matrix element of the process $`\eta ^{}(p)g^{}(q_1)g^{}(q_2)`$:

$$F_{\eta ^{}g^{}g^{}}(q_1^2,q_2^2,m_\eta ^{}^2)\delta _{AB}\epsilon ^{\mu \nu \rho \sigma }\epsilon _{1\mu }^A\epsilon _{2\nu }^Bq_{1\rho }q_{2\sigma }.$$
(5)
This amplitude gets contributions from both the quark-antiquark and gluonic components of the $`\eta ^{}`$-meson and the corresponding individual amplitudes $`^{(q)}`$ and $`^{(g)}`$ can be calculated as follows:

$`^{(q)}`$ $`=`$ $`if_\eta ^{}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}}𝑑u\varphi _\eta ^{}^{(q)}(u,Q^2)𝒫_{j\beta b;i\alpha a}^{(q)}\delta ^{ab}\left[T_\mathrm{H}^{(q)}\right]_{ij}^{\alpha \beta },`$ (6)
$`^{(g)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{if_\eta ^{}}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{1}{}}}𝑑u{\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _\eta ^{}^{(g)}(u,Q^2)}{u\overline{u}}}𝒫_{\sigma D;\rho C}^{(g)}\left[T_\mathrm{H}^{(g)}\right]_{CD}^{\rho \sigma }.`$ (7)
Here, $`\left[T_\mathrm{H}^{(q)}\right]_{ij}^{\alpha \beta }`$ ($`\left[T_\mathrm{H}^{(g)}\right]_{CD}^{\rho \sigma }`$) is the quark (gluonic) hard-scattering kernel calculated in the perturbative QCD and $`𝒫_{j\beta b;i\alpha a}^{(q)}`$ ($`𝒫_{\mu A;\nu B}^{(g)}`$) is the $`\eta ^{}`$-meson projection operator onto the quark-antiquark (two-gluon) state Ali:2003vw .

The results for the quark-antiquark and gluonic parts of the $`\eta ^{}g^{}g^{}`$ EVF can be written in the form:

$`F_{\eta ^{}g^{}g^{}}^{(q)}(q^2,\omega ,\eta )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi \alpha _s(Q^2)}{m_\eta ^{}^2\lambda }}{\displaystyle \frac{3f_\eta ^{}\sqrt{N_f}}{N_c}}`$
$`\times `$ $`\left\{G_0^{(q)}(\omega ,\eta )+6A_2(Q^2)G_2^{(q)}(\omega ,\eta )\right\},`$
$$F_{\eta ^{}g^{}g^{}}^{(g)}(q^2,\omega ,\eta )=\frac{4\pi \alpha _s(Q^2)}{m_\eta ^{}^2\lambda }\frac{5f_\eta ^{}}{2\sqrt{N_f}}B_2(Q^2)\mathrm{G}_2^{(g)}(\omega ,\eta ),$$
(9)
where the following kinematical quantities: $`q^2=q_1^2+q_2^2`$, $`\omega =(q_1^2q_2^2)/q^2`$, $`\eta =m_\eta ^{}^2/q^2`$, and the parameter $`\lambda =\sqrt{1\eta (2\eta )/\omega ^2}`$ are introduced. The explicit forms of the functions $`G_0^{(q)}(\omega ,\eta )`$, $`\mathrm{G}_2^{(q)}(\omega ,\eta )`$, and $`G_2^{(g)}(\omega ,\eta )`$ can be found in Ali:2003kg . When the $`\eta ^{}`$-meson mass is neglected ($`m_\eta ^{}=0`$), the usual $`1/q^2`$ behavior of the EVF is reproduced Ali:2003kg . Both contributions contain the factor $`1/\lambda `$ which is equal to $`m_\eta ^{}^2/(q_1^2m_\eta ^{}^2)`$ for the case when the second gluon in the final state is on the mass shell ($`q_2^2=0`$). Thus, the phenomenological form for the $`\eta ^{}g`$ transition form factor suggested by Kagan and Petrov Kagan:1997qn :

$$F(q_1^2)F_{\eta ^{}g^{}g}(q_1^2,0,m_\eta ^{}^2)=\frac{m_\eta ^{}^2H(q_1^2)}{q_1^2m_\eta ^{}^2},$$
(10)
is naturally reproduced in the LCDA approach when the $`\eta ^{}`$-meson mass is taken into account. As a disadvantage of this approach, one encounters a singularity at $`q_1^2=m_\eta ^{}^2`$ which, however, can be removed by an inclusion of transverse degrees of freedom for the partons in the $`\eta ^{}`$-meson. In contrast to Kagan:1997qn  where it was suggested to approximate the function $`H(q_1^2)`$ in (10) by a constant value, $`H_0=1.7`$ GeV-1, the explicit form of this function was calculated by us in the framework of the QCD hard-scattering approach Ali:2003kg . It can be presented the following approximate form:

$$H_{\mathrm{as}}(q_1^2)=\frac{4\pi \alpha _s(Q^2)}{m_\eta ^{}^2}\sqrt{3}f_\eta ^{}\left[1+A_2(Q^2)\frac{5}{36}B_2(Q^2)\right],$$
(11)
in the region of the applicability of the perturbative QCD which was taken as $`q_1^2<1`$ GeV2 and $`q_1^2>2`$ GeV2. The dependence on $`q_1^2`$ in the r.h.s. of (11) is coming only through the combination $`Q^2=|q_1^2|+m_\eta ^{}^2`$.

The dependence of the EVF on the gluon virtuality $`q_1^2`$ in the time- and space-like regions for the combined best-fit values (4) of the Gegenbauer coefficients is presented in Fig. 1. The inclusion of the $`\eta ^{}`$-meson mass reduces the parametric dependence on the Gegenbauer coefficients of the $`\eta ^{}g^{}g`$ EVF in the time-like region of the gluon virtuality. This is generally not the case for the space-like gluon virtuality, in particular for the low values, as the $`\eta ^{}`$-meson mass effects are not as pronounced.

A formal limit of the function (11) for on-shell gluons ($`q_1^2=0`$) exists with a strong dependence on the Gegenbauer coefficients as shown in Fig. 2. It is well known that the value of the $`\eta ^{}g^{}g^{}`$ EVF in this limit is determined by the anomaly:

$$F_{\eta ^{}gg}^\mathrm{A}=4\pi \alpha _s(m_\eta ^{}^2)\frac{1}{2\pi ^2f_\eta ^{}}=H_\mathrm{A},$$
(12)
which is substantially different from the limiting values of the perturbative-QCD motivated EVF (see Fig. 2). Thus, the behavior of $`H_{\mathrm{as}}(q_1^2)`$ should be modified accordingly. In Ali:2003kg , we suggested the following interpolating formulae:

$$\stackrel{~}{H}(q_1^2)=H_{\mathrm{as}}(q_1^2)+\left[H_AH_{\mathrm{as}}(0)\right]\mathrm{exp}\left[C_sq_1^2/m_\eta ^{}^2\right],$$
(13)
to improve the EVF behavior at the low space-like virtuality. In the numerical analysis, $`C_s=2`$ was adopted for the free parameter introduced, which allows a smooth interpolation between the anomaly normalization at $`q_1^2=0`$ and the perturbative-QCD result for the large-$`|q_1^2|`$ region. As seen from Fig. 2, this interpolation strongly decrease the dispersion in the region of the low space-like gluon virtuality.

## 4 Summary

The $`\eta ^{}g^{}g^{()}`$ EVF is calculated in the perturbative-QCD approach using the LCDAs for the $`\eta ^{}`$-meson wave-function with the inclusion of the $`\eta ^{}`$-meson mass. If one of the gluons is on the mass shell, the pole-like behavior of the $`\eta ^{}`$ – gluon transition form factor emerges in this approach for both the quark-antiquark and gluonic parts of the EVF. The corresponding function $`H(q_1^2)`$ is perturbatively calculated. The $`\eta ^{}`$-meson mass effects are analyzed numerically with the result that they are important for lower values of the gluon virtuality, in particular in the time-like region. An interpolating formulae connecting the QCD-anomaly value and the perturbative-QCD behavior of the $`\eta ^{}`$ – gluon transition form factor is presented for the space-like region of the gluon virtuality, taking into account the $`\eta ^{}`$-meson mass, which modifies the EVF significantly in the region $`|q_1^2|<1`$ GeV2 and reduces also the theoretical dispersion in this region considerably.

###### Acknowledgements.

The work of A.Ya.P. has been supported by the Schweizerischer Nationalfonds.


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# Implications of area scaling of quantum fluctuations

## I Introduction

Area scaling of black hole thermodynamics BekensteinBHentropy ; Hawking  has lead to a better understanding of some of the properties that a quantum theory of gravity should have, and to the concept of holography holsusskind  or dimensional reduction holthooft . One formulation of the holographic principle states that $`d+1`$ dimensional quantum gravitational systems can be described by some boundary theory living on a $`d`$ dimensional hyper-surface (see Bousso  for a review). An explicit example of this is given by the AdS/CFT correspondence AdSCFTrev .

Considering not a curved, but flat Minkowski space-time, one can show that when restricting measurements to a spatial volume $`V`$, the variance of quantum fluctuations of (a certain class of) bulk operators scales as the surface area of $`V`$ holmin . These fluctuations are due to the entangled properties of states inside and outside the region $`V`$.

Although these fluctuations are quantum mechanical in nature, arising from expectation values of operators in a pure state $`|0`$, for example $`0|O^V|0`$, an observer restricted to the region $`V`$ will observe statistical fluctuations that are determined by a density matrix $`\rho _{in}`$: $`\text{Tr}(\rho _{in}O_V)`$ feynmanbookstatmech . $`\rho _{in}`$ is obtained by taking the density matrix describing the original state and tracing over the degrees of freedom external to $`V`$: $`\rho _{in}=\text{Tr}_{out}|0><0|`$. In this sense, we may compare the area scaling properties of quantum fluctuations to volume scaling properties of statistical fluctuations in a canonical bulk theory. From this point of view the area scaling of thermodynamic quantities in restricted regions of space is due to quantum entanglement. This is consistent with the observation that entanglement entropy scales linearly with the boundary area Bombelli ; Srednicki .

It has also been shown that one can relate spatial integrals over n-point functions of a free field theory in the bulk, to those of a free field theory on the boundary when the latter is half of space holmin . We wish to present further evidence that area scaling of the variance of quantum fluctuations, and more general correlation functions, should be ascribed to a boundary theory, regardless of the details of the bulk theory or the geometry of the boundary.

In what follows, we give several examples of energy fluctuations in specific geometries. These examples highlight the differences between area scaling and the usual notion of volume dependent fluctuations obtained from canonical statistical systems. We consider energy fluctuations since these are more intuitive to our understanding, though in general many other operators also have fluctuations which scale as the surface area. For example, Noether charges associated to symmetries of the theory provide interesting examples of bulk operators with surface fluctuations. A more precise discussion of the general properties that characterize bulk operators with area scaling fluctuations is presented in the text.

To calculate energy fluctuations we consider the energy operator of a certain spatial volume $`V`$ in d+1 dimensional Minkowski space: $`E^V=_V:(\stackrel{}{x}):d^dx`$. The fluctuations of this operator in its vacuum state is given by $`(\mathrm{\Delta }E^V)^20|(E^V)^2|0`$, and may be evaluated analytically for certain symmetric geometries, and numerically otherwise. In any case, general considerations show that to leading order, the fluctuations scale linearly with the boundary area of $`V`$: $`(\mathrm{\Delta }E^V)^2S(V)`$.

## II The flower and the annulus

To show the peculiarity of area scaling behavior (of energy fluctuations) we consider geometries in which one would expect that energy fluctuations decrease or remain the same if they are volume dependent, and instead they increase. To keep things simple, we work in 2+1 dimensions.

### II.1 The flower

Our first example is the ‘flower’ geometry Oaknin:2003dc : a shape whose boundary is given by $`\stackrel{}{x}(\theta )=(R+\mathrm{\Delta }R\mathrm{sin}(J\theta ))(\mathrm{cos}(\theta ),\mathrm{sin}(\theta ))`$. For $`J0`$ the surface area (length) of this shape increases with $`J`$ (the number of ‘petals’), while the volume (area): $`\pi (R^2+\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }R^2}{4})`$ stays constant. If energy fluctuations were associated to the bulk one would expect that they remain constant as $`J`$ increases. Instead, as the numerical calculation shows (See Figure 1), the variance of energy fluctuations increase as $`J`$ (and thus the surface area) gets larger, suggesting that the fluctuations are associated to the boundary.

### II.2 The annulus

A somewhat more radical situation is given by an annulus geometry. We divide space into three regions. Region one is a circle of radius $`R_1`$. Region two is an annulus of radii $`R_1`$ and $`R_2`$ ($`R_2>R_1`$), which is concentric with the circle given earlier, and region 3 is that part of space which encloses the annulus and circle. As we increase the size of the inner radius $`R_1`$, the volume of the annulus decreases, yet its surface area increases. Therefore, when considering the energy fluctuations in the annulus, we find, remarkably, that they increase as the annulus becomes thinner. This is shown in figure 2.

Another property that one may consider in an annulus configuration, is the correlation between fluctuations in different regions of space. Considering the volumes $`V_1`$ and $`V_2`$ corresponding to the circle and annulus, we argue that the covariance, $`\text{cov}(E^{V_1},E^{V_2})`$, of the energy in these two regions is proportional to their mutual surface area (in this case the circumference of the circle).

This can be stated as a more general argument. For any two operators $`O^{V_1}`$ and $`O^{V_2}`$ defined as an integral over a density $`_{V_i}𝒪d^dx`$, $`\text{cov}(O_{V_1},O_{V_2})`$ scales linearly with the mutual surface area, if the the two point function $`F(r=|\stackrel{}{r}_1\stackrel{}{r}_2|)0|O(\stackrel{}{r}_1)O(\stackrel{}{r}_2)|0=^2g(r)`$ is derived from a function $`g(r)`$ which has short range and is not too divergent ar $`r=0`$.

We give here an outline of the proof, whose details will be presented elsewhere tbp . We observe that the covariance of these operators may be written as111For simplicity we assume that the vacuum expectation value of $`𝒪`$ is zero.

$`\text{cov}(O_{V_1},O_{V_2})`$ $`={\displaystyle _{V_1}}{\displaystyle _{V_2}}0|𝒪(\stackrel{}{r}_1)𝒪(\stackrel{}{r}_2)|0d^dr_1d^dr_2`$
$`={\displaystyle _{V_1}}{\displaystyle _{V_2}}F(|\stackrel{}{r}_1\stackrel{}{r}_2|)d^dr_1d^dr_2`$
$`={\displaystyle D_{V_1,V_2}(\xi )F(\xi )𝑑\xi }.`$
All information on the geometry is contained in the function

$$D_{V_1,V_2}(\xi )=_{V_1}_{V_2}\delta (\xi |\stackrel{}{r}_1\stackrel{}{r}_2|)d^dr_1d^dr_2.$$
(1)
Using $`F=^2g`$, integrating by parts, and using the short range behavior of $`g`$, one can show that the covariance of the two operators scales, to leading order, as $`\stackrel{~}{D}(0)=\frac{d}{d\xi }\left(\frac{D(\xi )}{\xi ^{d1}}\right)|_{\xi =0}`$ holmin .

We shall evaluate $`\stackrel{~}{D}(\xi )`$ for small $`\xi `$, where the volumes $`V_1`$ and $`V_2`$ are just touching (from the outside) at a boundary $`B`$. Let $`\stackrel{}{r_i}V_i`$, and consider the vectors $`\stackrel{}{R}=\frac{\stackrel{}{r}_1+\stackrel{}{r}_2}{2}`$, and $`\stackrel{}{r}=\stackrel{}{r}_2\stackrel{}{r}_1`$. Geometrically $`\stackrel{}{r}`$ points from $`\stackrel{}{r}_1`$ to $`\stackrel{}{r}_2`$, and $`\stackrel{}{R}`$ points to the center of $`\stackrel{}{r}`$ (See figure 3). We may now do the integration in (1) in the $`R`$$`r`$ coordinate system. For a given value of $`\xi `$, we have $`|\stackrel{}{r}|=\xi `$, implying that $`\stackrel{}{r}_1`$ and $`\stackrel{}{r}_2`$ are located such that the distance between them is $`\xi `$. Since they are located at different ends of the boundary, the vector $`\stackrel{}{R}`$ covers a volume of $`S(B)\xi `$ (where $`S(B)`$ is the surface area of $`B`$), centered at the boundary between the two regions (See figure 4). Therefore, the integration over the $`R`$ coordinate in (1) will give $`S(B)\xi `$. The integral over the radial part of the $`r`$ coordinate and the delta function will yield a $`\xi ^{d1}`$ term, and the angular part, which is restricted as $`R`$ gets near the boundary, will contribute a geometric factor $`G_S`$. Hence $`\stackrel{~}{D}(0)=G_SS(B)`$.

Therefore the fluctuations in the ring and the fluctuations in the circle will be correlated such that their covariance is proportional to their mutual surface area.

## III Correlations of fluctuations

We wish to generalize the above argument and show that the covariance of any two operators $`O_{V_1}`$ and $`O_{V_2}`$ will be proportional to the mutual surface area of the volumes $`V_1`$ and $`V_2`$ (if, as stated earlier, the two point correlation function $`F(r)`$ is derived from a short range function $`g(r)`$ which is not too divergent ar $`r=0`$.) Again, we only outline the proof.

From the arguments of the previous section, it is enough to show that $`\stackrel{~}{D}(0)S(B)`$, with $`B=B(V_1)B(V_2)`$. We consider three generic cases: first we look at a specific case where the volume $`V_1`$ is contained completely (with no mutual boundaries) in $`V_2`$. We switch to the $`R`$$`r`$ coordinate system. To leading order, the integration over the $`\stackrel{}{R}`$ coordinate will be proportional to the volume, except for a region of thickness $`\xi `$ from the boundary. To sub-leading order, there will be contributions to the surface area term from within $`V_1`$ and external to $`V_1`$. The restriction of the angular part of $`\stackrel{}{r}`$ inside $`V_1`$, and external to $`V_1`$ combine so that they cancel the surface term introduced from the volume integration over the $`\stackrel{}{R}`$ coordinate. So, in this case, there are no surface area terms in $`D(\xi )`$, and therefore $`\stackrel{~}{D}(0)=0`$.

Next we look at regions $`V_1`$ and $`V_2`$ which have boundaries overlapping only from within each other (that is $`V_1V_2`$, and they have a mutual boundary). Consider $`V_3`$ which is the complement of $`V_2`$, and define $`O=O_{V_2}+O_{V_3}`$. By the comment made earlier, $`\text{cov}(O,O_{V_1})=0`$. This implies $`\text{cov}(O_{V_2},O_{V_1})+\text{cov}(O_{V_3},O_{V_1})=0`$. Since the boundaries of $`V_3`$ and $`V_2`$ are equal (by the definition of a boundary, and assuming that the whole space has no boundary), then $`BB(V_3)B(V_1)=B(V_2)B(V_1)`$. Since $`V_3`$ is external to $`V_1`$, we have from the earlier argument that $`\text{cov}(O_{V_3},O_{V_1})G_SS(B)`$, implying that $`\text{cov}(O_{V_2},O_{V_1})G_SS(B)`$.

More complex geometries may now be handled by dividing $`V_1`$, (or $`V_2`$) into subvolumes which satisfy the above conditions. This is treated in detail in tbp .

Therefore, since $`\stackrel{~}{D}(0)S(B)`$, we have that under the restrictions mentioned, $`\text{cov}(O^{V_1}O^{V_2})S(B)`$. In what follows we give a numerical example of this and discuss its implications.

### III.1 Displaced Boxes

Our final numerical example is that of relatively placed boxes. We consider a large square box $``$ of volume $`L\times L`$, and inside it, a smaller square box $`𝒜`$ of volume $`L/2\times L/2`$. We then move the box $`𝒜`$ by an amount $`\mathrm{\Delta }x`$ along one of the symmetry axes of the box $``$ as shown in Figure 5.

In a bulk theory, we would expect that the statistical fluctuations in the energy in the box $``$, and those in the box $`𝒜`$ be correlated only if the boxes have some mutual volume, as there is no method by which, at a given time, fluctuations in region $`𝒜`$ ‘know of’ fluctuations in region $``$. As the boxes are contained in each other, we expect to see some correlation between fluctuations in both regions, and as the boxes move farther apart the fluctuations will become less correlated, until the regions are disjoint, at which point measurements in region $`𝒜`$ and measurements in region $``$ are not correlated.

However, as we showed above, when considering entanglement induced fluctuations, the covariance will be zero, unless the boxes have a mutual surface area. This is shown explicitly in the numerical calculation (See Figure 5).

The apparent interference pattern when the boundaries of the boxes almost coincide is a result of U.V. effects—these attribute to the boundaries a certain fuzziness which creates an interference pattern when they almost coincide.

The correlations of the energy fluctuations in the boxes do not behave as expected from correlations induced by a bulk theory: constant when $`𝒜`$ is inside $``$, and slowly decreasing to zero as $`𝒜`$ exits $``$. Instead the energy fluctuations are uncorrelated, until the boxes have a mutual surface. Therefore, the mechanism by which fluctuations in region $``$ and region $`𝒜`$ know of each other, must be dependent on the boundary of the regions.

Also, the sign of the covariance changes when the surface is ‘common’ or ‘anti-common’: apart from the energies being correlated as the boundaries are in contact, we note that when the boundaries are common from within we get that a positive fluctuation in region $`𝒜`$ corresponds to a positive fluctuation in region $``$, whereas when the boundaries are common from the outside, a positive fluctuation in $``$ corresponds to a negative fluctuation in $`𝒜`$. This again, is an indication that the fluctuations occur on the boundary.

## IV Summary

We have given several examples of area scaling of energy fluctuations in various geometries. The area fluctuations are originally calculated in a bulk - type setting, yet they have properties which are typical in boundary theories, suggesting that perhaps some corresponding boundary theory may give similar results.

In the flower geometry, we have seen that the energy fluctuations are very sensitive to the geometry of the boundary they are being measured in. Had the fluctuations been those of a canonical statistical ensemble, one would have expected that the fluctuations of the energy be proportional to the volume of the system, which in this case is constant.

In the annulus example the energy fluctuations in the annulus increase with decreasing annulus volume (area) (but increasing surface area (perimeter)). This, again, is in contradiction with our usual understanding of bulk - type theories.

Finally, when considering the energy fluctuations in two different regions of space, we have shown that these are correlated only if the regions have a mutual boundary. Moreover, the sign of the covariance changes as the boundaries are common or anti-common, which, as explained earlier, is characteristic of a boundary theory.

The surface dependence of fluctuations of extensive quantities restricted to spatial sub-volumes is a characteristic feature of glass-like statistical systems. In this paper we have discussed some implications of this behaviour in the context of a free quantum field theory in Minkowski space. Those conclusions could be also of interest in the context of primordial cosmological density fluctuations at the time of recombination, which share the same glass-like character Oaknin:2003dc .

## V Acknowledgements

Research supported in part by the Israel Science Foundation under grant no. 174/00-2 and by the NSF under grant no.PHY-99-07949. A. Y. is partially supported by the Kreitman foundation. D. O is partially supported by NSERC of Canada. R. B. thanks the KITP, UC at Santa Barbara, where this work has been completed. We would like to thank B. Kol for discussions and B. Reznik for clarifying some issues regarding entanglement and the vacuum.

## Appendix A Numerical calculations

For the numerical calculations we have considered a free scalar field theory in 2+1 dimensional Minkowski space. We impose an I.R. cutoff by defining all of space to have size $`L\times L`$ (with periodic boundary conditions), and a U.V. momentum cutoff $`\frac{2\pi N}{L}`$. The fields may be expanded in fourier modes:

$`\mathrm{\Phi }(\stackrel{}{x})`$ $`={\displaystyle \underset{n_1,n_2=N}{\overset{+N}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{L}}q_{(n_1,n_2)}exp\left(+2\pi ı({\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{2}{}}}n_jx_j)/L\right)`$
$`\mathrm{\Pi }^{}(\stackrel{}{x})`$ $`={\displaystyle \underset{n_1,n_2=N}{\overset{+N}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{L}}p_{(n_1,n_2)}^{}exp\left(2\pi ı({\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{2}{}}}n_jx_j)/L\right).`$
So that

$$E_V=\underset{\stackrel{}{n},\stackrel{}{m}}{}\left(p_\stackrel{}{n}^{}p_\stackrel{}{m}+\kappa _{\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{m}}^2q_\stackrel{}{n}^{}q_\stackrel{}{m}\right)A_V(\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{m},L),$$

where

$`\kappa _{\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{m}}^2`$ $`=\left({\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{L}}\right)^2(\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{m})+M^2`$
and
$`A_V(\stackrel{}{k},L)`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{L^2}}{\displaystyle _V}d^2\stackrel{}{x}exp\left(2\pi ı\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{x}/L\right).`$
Using the divergence theorem, one can simplify $`A_V`$

$$A_V(\stackrel{}{k},L)A_V(\stackrel{}{k},L)=\frac{1}{L^2}_V\frac{iL}{2\pi }e^{(2\pi ı\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{x}/L)}\frac{\stackrel{}{k}d\stackrel{}{A}}{|\stackrel{}{k}^2|}.$$
(2)
The expectation value of $`E_{V_1}E_{V_2}`$ in the vacuum can be expressed as

$$\text{var}(E_V)=\frac{1}{4}\underset{\stackrel{}{n},\stackrel{}{m}}{}\left(\frac{\kappa _{\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{m}}^2}{\sqrt{\kappa _\stackrel{}{n}}\sqrt{\kappa _\stackrel{}{m}}}\sqrt{\kappa _\stackrel{}{n}}\sqrt{\kappa _\stackrel{}{m}}\right)^2|F_V(\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{m},L)|^2,$$

and that

$$\begin{array}{c}\text{cov}(E_{V_1},E_{V_2})=\frac{1}{4}\underset{\stackrel{}{n},\stackrel{}{m}}{}\left(\frac{\kappa _{\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{m}}^2}{\sqrt{\kappa _\stackrel{}{n}}\sqrt{\kappa _\stackrel{}{m}}}\sqrt{\kappa _\stackrel{}{n}}\sqrt{\kappa _\stackrel{}{m}}\right)^2\times (F_{V1}(\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{m},L))^{}(F_{V2}(\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{m},L)),\hfill \end{array}$$

where we have defined $`\kappa _\stackrel{}{n}^2=\kappa _{\stackrel{}{n}\stackrel{}{n}}^2`$. This expression shows that the covariance is obtained as an interference process between many different modes.

For the flower geometry we have used an I.R. cutoff of L=100 units, and a U.V. cutoff of N=25, yielding $`\frac{L}{2\pi N}0.6`$ units. As the distance between the petals decreases to the order of the U.V. cutoff, one observes some slight deviation from the area scaling law described above. A numerical calculation of the flower geometry was carried out for free fields of masses $`M=0,0.5,1`$ units-1. The graph that we have presented in Fig. 1 corresponds to $`\mathrm{\Delta }R=1`$ unit, and $`R=10`$ units. We have also checked the results for free fields of masses $`M=0,0.5,1,2.5`$ units-1, radii R=10,20 and 40 units and $`\mathrm{\Delta }R`$ = 1,2, and 4 units. Apart from the deviations at large radii which, as suggested earlier, are perhaps related to “perimeter corrections”, the results were similar.

The infrared cutoff for the annulus was fixed at L=100 units of length and the ultraviolet cutoff by $`\frac{L}{2\pi N}1`$ unit of length. The scalar field was taken to be massless. For the plot given in Fig. 2 we used an external radius of 40 units, and varied the inner radius from 11.5 units to 25.5 units.

For the relative boxes we have imposed an I.R. cutoff of L=100 units, and a U.V. cutoff using N=30, yielding $`\frac{L}{2\pi N}1.8`$ units. Box $``$ had a boundary located at $`(20,20)\times (20,20)`$, and the smaller box’s boundary was at $`(10+\mathrm{\Delta }x,10+\mathrm{\Delta }x)\times (10,10)`$. Figure 5 was plotted for a field of mass $`M=0.5`$ units-1. We get similar results for a higher mass field ($`M=3.5`$ units-1).