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# Time-delay, energy-continuum, and systematics of particles

## 1 Introduction

One of the interesting problems of particle physics is to explain the relationship between measured masses of fundamental particles and their lifetimes. There have been many attempts, of particular significance are those by Nambu , MacGregor , and Ramanna . Whereas in Nambu’s work on empirical mass spectrum, the discreteness of particle masses was taken in terms of the mass of an electron, MacGregor’s was in terms of the mass of a muon. In recent times, there have been a number of investigations connected to the relation  which employs the measured masses and lifetimes of unstable nuclei and other particles :

$$\frac{MT}{\mathrm{}}=\frac{2^n}{n}.$$
(1)
$`M`$ is the binding energy of the nuclei in $`\alpha `$-emitters, neutron mass in $`\beta `$-emitters, and the entire mass of decaying particles in case of fundamental particles. There is a compendium of the numbers ‘$`n`$’ ensuing from the assumption of eq. (1). In this work, restricting to hadrons, we present a chain of arguments leading to (8), from where (1) follows as an excellent approximation. Considering that the hadron data is quite bizarre, finding a simple systematic rule through it is of great fundamental interest.

There are several indirect reasons to convince us that the relation (1) holds. Of particular importance is the following : if we take the index of neutron, we can find the index $`n`$ for proton by employing the arguments in . With this value of $`n`$, which turns out to be 225, the bound on lifetime of proton comes to be around $`10^{33}`$ years. This empirical relation (1) has been used to obtain bounds on computational time and speed in quantum computers . Also, the relation has inspired an interesting possibility in semiclassical chromodynamics .

There are many interesting instances in physics where concepts from the theory of numbers have been fruitfully employed. In treating the states in continuum in this work, we use some of the well-established results from Cantor’s theory of transfinite numbers. This is quite unique and natural as the divisions in energy can be made arbitrarily; however, it is interesting to make them with the hierarchy of infinities in mind.

It is well-known that a fundamental particle with a certain lifetime represents a resonant state. Thus, to understand the origin of the empirical relation, (1), we have to start with a concept which is at the foundation of unstable or loosely-bound states - resonant states.

In Section 2, we present a relation between time-delay and number of resonances below a certain energy. This relation was found in  where many examples have also been worked out. In Section 3, the continuum is treated with the help of Cantor’s theory and by the help of an inequality from the theory of functions. In Section 4, we will find an index for each resonance and present our conclusions.

## 2 Time-delay and resonances

We shall concentrate here on two-body scattering and two-body time-delay. The general definition of time-delay is given by the scalar product :

$$(f,Qf)=\underset{R\mathrm{}}{lim}_{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}𝑑t\left[(\psi (t),P(R)\psi (t))(\varphi (t),P(R)\varphi (t))\right]$$
(2)
where $`f`$ is an initial scattering state. $`\psi (t)`$ is the exact time-dependent wavefunction which asymptotically behaves as the freely evolving wavepacket $`\varphi (t)`$ and $`P(R)`$ is given by

$`P(R)`$ $`=`$ $`1,\text{ inside the sphere of radius }R`$ (3)
$`=`$ $`0,\text{ outside the sphere of radius }R.`$
From scattering theory, we know that

$`\varphi (t)`$ $`=`$ $`e^{iH_0t}f,`$ (4)
$`\psi (t)`$ $`=`$ $`e^{iHt}\mathrm{\Omega }^{(+)}f,`$ (5)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{(+)}`$ is the Moller operator.

Before taking the limit on $`R`$, Eq. (2) represents the time difference that the exact wave $`\psi (t)`$ an the free wave $`\varphi (t)`$ spend inside the sphere of radius $`R`$. The scalar product $`(f,Qf)`$ is the time-difference computed over all space.

The problem of evaluating $`(f,Qf)`$ was eventually solved by Jauch and Marchand . We first state their result in the following. We can associate a momentum space kernel $`p|Q|p^{}`$ to $`(f,Qf)`$ :

$$(f,Qf)=f(𝐩)^{}𝐩|Q|𝐩^{}f(𝐩^{})𝑑𝐩𝑑𝐩^{}.$$
(6)
$`Q`$ conserves energy and may be written as

$$𝐩|Q|𝐩^{}=\frac{\delta (EE^{})}{\mu p}\widehat{𝐩}|q(E)|\widehat{𝐩}^{},$$
(7)
where $`q(E)`$ is an operator on a two-dimensional Hilbert space. Energies are $`E=p^2/2\mu `$ and $`E^{}=p^2/2\mu `$ where $`\mu `$ is the reduced mass. Similarly, a reduced operator is introduced in  for $`S`$-matrix elements through

$$𝐩|S|𝐩^{}=\frac{\delta (EE^{})}{\mu p}\widehat{𝐩}|s(E)|\widehat{𝐩}^{}.$$
(8)
The operator solution to the proposed problem is finally

$$q(E)=is^{}(E)\frac{d}{dE}s(E).$$
(9)
In the above discussion, $`\mathrm{}`$ is replaced by 1; however, in the last equation, it will appear multiplicatively if we re-insert it. This beautiful result was obtained in the rigorous work by Jauch, Sinha, and Misra . That this is a very general concept in scattering theory and is the same as sojourn times and global time delay has been reviewed in .

There are two more developments which are important to mention to gain a correct perspective. From geometrical considerations, in classical and quantum kinematics, time delay was defined and its relation with $`S`$-matrix was found in . Subsequently, Narnhofer and Thirring  proved that the quasiclassical phase shift is a generator of classical canonical $`S`$ transformation. This result brought out a connection between resonances and looping trajectories, classical meaning of time delay and a classical meaning of Levinson’s theorem. It is, in fact, from these works and using the techniques developed by Jauch and coworkers that it was proved that :

$$_0^E^{}q(E)𝑑E=n_R\mathrm{}$$
(10)
where $`n_R`$ is the number of resonances upto energy $`E^{}`$.

Tsang and Osborn  came very close to this result but missed by just proving the Levinson’s theorem in a different way. They showed for the $`\mathrm{}`$’th partial wave that

$$\delta _{\mathrm{}}(0)=\pi n_B,$$
(11)
where $`n_B`$ is the number of bound states. It is also written in terms of a difference between phase shifts at zero and infinite energy, a critique on this can be seen in .

It was noted in  that this wave-mechanical statement corresponds to a classical geometrical fact relating the volume in phase space of the bound orbits to the integral over the time delay. It is worth noting that this observation is the classical partner of Eq. (10). While Eq. (11) and hence the Levinson’s theorem is concerned with bound states, Eq. (10) is concerned with resonances.

This relation has also been used extensively in a recent work  where all the nucleon and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ resonances were extracted from experimental data.

## 3 Treating the continuum

We have an integral relation in (10). This relation finds the number of resonances in an interval. Given a continuum, finding a resonance is like searching a needle in the hay-stack. To locate it, we need to divide this interval in two parts initially, then sub-divide both the divisions into two parts each, and repeat this process. In this way, depending on the width, a resonance will appear for some value of $`n`$, by then we would have made $`2^n`$ subdivisions of the original interval. For an index, $`n`$ on which a resonance exists, by Cantor’s theory, $`2^n`$ is a continuum. It should be noted that we have brought in Cantor’s concept as we are treating a continuum. Hitherto, these concepts have not been used in treating a continuous spectrum. However, as described above, this is also physically appealing. It is clear from the above discussion that a narrower resonance will be located on narrower bins and hence will lead to a large number of divisions, leading thereby to larger $`n`$. Let us now present it more rigorously.

On making a discrete set on which the resonance exists, we need to incorporate this construction on (10) using some elementary property of the integral. To effect this, let us divide the interval $`[0,E^{}]`$ into $`2^n`$ equal parts. Take $`n`$ of these consecutive parts and call these intervals as $`J_1,J_2,\mathrm{},J_n`$. (Omit the last interval as it may be fraction of other intervals.) Select any point, one in each of these intervals and call them $`E_1,E_2,\mathrm{},E_n`$. Thus, we have divisions at $`0`$, $`\frac{E^{}}{2^n}`$, $`2`$$`\frac{E^{}}{2^n}`$, …, $`(n1)`$$`\frac{E^{}}{2^n}`$. By a property of the Riemann-Stieltjes integration, we have

$$\left|n_R\mathrm{}\underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}q(E_j)\mathrm{\Delta }E_j\right|ME^{}\text{max}_j(\mathrm{\Delta }E_j).$$
(12)
$`M`$ is the maximum value of $`\frac{dq}{dE}`$. This will depend upon the distribution of lifetimes. By construction, $`\text{max}_j(\mathrm{\Delta }E_j)`$ is $`\frac{E^{}}{2^n}`$.

By re-arranging the inequality, we have

$$\frac{n}{2^n}E^{}\frac{n_R\mathrm{}}{_jq(E_j)}\frac{1}{2^n}\frac{ME_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{_jq(E_j)}.$$
(13)
## 4 Stability index for a resonance

Time delay gives a distribution of delay-times as defined through (2). We can obtain an expression for this distribution by posing the problem in the following interesting manner : a particle of given energy $`E`$ is scattered by a potential $`V`$ of range $`R`$. What is the mean time $`T(E,a)`$ that the particle spends inside a sphere of radius $`r=a`$, $`aR`$ ? Solved in an ingenious way a long time ago , the solution for a single channel is

$$T(E,a)=\frac{2}{v}\left[\frac{d\delta }{dk}+a\frac{1}{2k}\mathrm{sin}\{2(ka+\delta )\}\right].$$
(14)
If we make assumptions of the state being a quasistationary state  and thus referring to a resonance at an energy $`E_0`$ with width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ so that the phase shift is

$$\delta =\phi \mathrm{tan}^1\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }/2}{EE_0},$$
(15)
upto the leading term,

$$T(E)=\frac{\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Gamma }}{(EE_0)^2+(\mathrm{\Gamma }/2)^2}.$$
(16)
In fact, $`T(E)`$ is the same as $`q(E)`$. Note that (14) corresponds to an average time $`\overline{T}`$ that the particle spends inside a sphere of radius $`r=a`$. Thus, we can even consider a distribution of $`T`$’s. Remarkably, it has been shown  that this probability distribution function is $`\delta (T\overline{T})`$. This does not clash with the uncertainty relation $`\mathrm{\Delta }E\mathrm{\Delta }t\mathrm{}`$ as we know that while considering the motion of wavepackets, $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ is the uncertainty at the collision instant; it has no relation with the duration of the collision or interaction.

For an individual resonance, (13) will modify simply as

$$\frac{n_0}{2^{n_0}}E^{}\frac{\mathrm{}}{q_0}\frac{1}{2^{n_0}}\frac{ME^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }}{q_0},$$
(17)
where for simplicity, we have assumed that the resonances are quasistationary states corresponding to the second sheet of the Riemann surface of $`s(E)`$. The maximum of $`\frac{dq}{dE}`$ occurs at $`E_0\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }}{2\sqrt{3}}`$. The maximum $`M=\frac{3\sqrt{3}\mathrm{}}{\mathrm{\Gamma }^2}`$. Eq. (17) can now be written as

$$\frac{E^{}\tau _0}{\mathrm{}}\frac{2^{n_0}}{n_0}\left[1\frac{3\sqrt{3}}{2^{n_0}}\frac{E^{}}{\mathrm{\Gamma }}\right].$$
(18)
We can now compare the index $`n_0`$ coming from (1)  with that coming from the positivity of the quantity in the square bracket in (18). Thus, we must have $`n_0`$ satisfying

$$n_0\frac{\mathrm{log}(3\sqrt{3}E^{}/\mathrm{\Gamma })}{\mathrm{log}2}.$$
(19)
Given the energy $`E^{}`$ and width, we have now an inequality binding $`n_0`$ for a resonance. In the next Section, we will compare the values coming from (19) with those found assuming (1).

## 5 Systematics in terms of the stability index

In Table 1, we present the comparison of the values for $`n_0`$ following (19) with the ones found empirically in . It is amazing that (19) almost reproduces the compendium of ‘$`n_0`$’s ensuing from the assumption of (1). This remarkable agreement implies that with the index $`n`$ taken as the first integer greater than (19), $`2^n/n`$ reproduces the dimensionless ratio $`MT/\mathrm{}`$. This proves (1) and hence provides a global systematization of masses and lifetimes of all the hadrons in such a simple way. For the $`K^+`$ meson, (19) does not predict the correct index, and this is not clear to us. However, this is the only exception known to us; for the rest, at least the order of magnitude is correct. This becomes more important as we have presented a proof for the relation conjectured earlier.

The remarkable agreement of the values of stability indices found in Table 1 suggests that there must be a proof of (1), or, that there exists a relation closely related to (1). To see this, almost trivially now, we employ the relation, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\mathrm{}/\tau _0`$ and get

$$\frac{E^{}\tau _0}{\mathrm{}}\frac{2^{n_0}}{n_0+3\sqrt{3}}=\frac{2^{n_0}}{n_0}\left[1\frac{3\sqrt{3}}{n_0}+\left(\frac{3\sqrt{3}}{n_0}\right)^2\mathrm{}\right].$$
(20)
From this, it follows that the empirical relation (1) is a good approximation to the above result for the cases when $`n_0>3\sqrt{3}`$. Most of the hadrons belong to the situation where $`n_0>5`$. Eq. (19) is an inequality, thus there could be many $`n_0`$’s. We will consistently take the first integer larger than $`n_0`$ following (19) for each hadron. This entails the compendium of the index, $`n_0`$.

## 6 Remarks

We wish to make some important points here which clarify some subtle issues underlying the discussion presented above. These points also show some limitations of our approach and suggest future directions which could be of great interest.

1. According to the “bootstrap” hypothesis, all strongly interacting particles are bound states or resonances . We have employed the $`S`$-matrix method and in this approach, closely related methods apply to both nonrelativistic and relativistic problems. One can use the understanding of bound states, resonances, and perturbations on the interaction that one has in nonrelativistic quantum mechanics as a guide in relativistic problems which, according to the “bootstrap” hypothesis, possess these features.
2. In the $`S`$-matrix formulation of statistical mechanics, the change in particle number is taken care of. The $`S`$-matrix formulation helps in extending the nonrelativistic statistical mechanics to relativistic statistical mechanics. We have taken the intermediate state of a particle (e.g., proton) and another particle (say, a field quantum like $`\pi ^+`$ meson) as a resonance because it is neither a bound state nor a scattering state. When applied to nucleon and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ resonances, we have been successful in extracting correct partial widths for corresponding channels .
3. We have only considered two-body time-delay. There could be multiparticle time-delay involving more than two particles. We do not know the effect of those details except that they effects will only be at a less significant order. However, we emphasize that there are examples like $`\omega `$ meson which decays in $`\pi ^+,\pi ^{},\pi ^0`$ mesons with a probability 0.88; these particles will be explainable only by employing three-particle time-delay .
4. For most of the particles, there are many channels of transformation. In the multi-channel case, the time-delay used here and in other related works is only correct in a quasi-classical approximation. This result is not well-known and can be seen in a footnote in .
5. We have assumed a Lorentzian distribution for time-delay, whereas it is recently shown that some of the hadron resonances may not have a Lorentzian shape . There are also overlapping resonances. We have made simplifying assumptions.
6. It is possible to choose the division of the interval in (4) so that instead of $`\frac{2^n}{n}`$, some other form like $`\frac{2^{f(n)}}{f(n)}`$ ensues. However, that would not make any conceptual difference. Also, here $`2^n`$ is chosen as an expression of the continuum in comparison with $`n`$, an expression naturally coming from Cantor’s well-known theory. This is the most natural choice. Thus, we have been able to label each resonance by an integer, $`n`$, which is remarkable. Also, note that larger the $`n`$, more stable the particle is. We have called this index as a “stability index”.
7. We believe that the relation found here would have a microscopic origin. It is already clear that it is consistent with quantum scattering theory (relativistic and non-relativistic) as we started with the relation (3).

Acknowledgements

SRJ thanks Zafar Ahmed and A. K. Jain for important discussions. SRJ also thanks the National Institute of Advanced Studies for warm hospitality extended towards him during his visits.


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# Towards an Intelligent Database System Founded on the SP Theory of Computing and Cognition

## 1 Introduction

The SP theory is a new theory of computing and cognition developed with the aim of integrating and simplifying a range of concepts in computing and cognitive science, with a particular emphasis on concepts in artificial intelligence. An overview of the theory is presented in Wolff (2003b) and more detail may be found in earlier publications cited there.

Amongst other things, the SP theory provides an attractive model for database applications, especially those requiring a measure of human-like ‘intelligence’. There is, of course, a wide variety of existing database systems that exhibit varying degrees and kinds of intelligence (Bertino et al., 2001) and it is reasonable to ask what may be gained by creating yet another system in that domain. In brief, the attractions of the SP model in this connection are that:

* It provides an extraordinarily simple yet versatile format for representing knowledge that facilitates the seamless integration of different kinds of knowledge.
* It provides a framework for processing that knowledge that integrates and simplifies a range of artificial intelligence functions including probabilistic and exact forms of reasoning, unsupervised learning, fuzzy pattern recognition, best-match information retrieval, planning, problem solving and others.
* At the same time, it can function like established database models, when that is required.

Prototypes of the SP system have been developed as software simulations running on an ordinary computer. These prototypes serve to demonstrate what can be done with the system and they provide the examples shown in this paper. But a programme of further development will be required to translate the prototypes into a system with ‘industrial strength’.

### 1.1 Aims and Presentation

The main aims of this paper are:

* To describe how the SP model can emulate other models used in database applications and to compare the SP model with those other models.
* To review the artificial intelligence capabilities of the SP model and its relationship with other artificial intelligence systems.
* To consider how current prototypes may be translated into a working system.

This paper does not aim to provide a comprehensive view of the SP theory and applications because this has already been provided in Wolff (2003b) and earlier publications. The narrower focus of this paper is on the SP system as an intelligent database system.

In the next section, the SP theory is described in outline. After that, Sections 3, 4 and 5 are concerned with the first aim listed above, Section 6 is concerned with the second aim and Section 7 with the third.

## 2 Outline of the SP Theory

The SP theory is an abstract model of any system for processing information, either natural or artificial. The system is Turing-equivalent in the sense that it can model the workings of a universal Turing machine but, unlike the universal Turing machine and equivalent models such as Lamda Calculus or Post’s Canonical System, it has much more to say about the nature of ‘intelligence’ (Wolff, 1999a). The entire theory is based on principles of minimum length encoding pioneered by Ray Solomonoff (1964) and others (see Li and Vitányi (1997)).

In broad terms, the system receives ‘New’ information from its environment and transfers it to a repository of ‘Old’ information. At the same time, it tries to compress the information as much as possible by finding patterns that match each other and merging or ‘unifying’ patterns that are the same. An important part of this process is the building of ‘multiple alignments’ as described below. This provides the key to recognition, information retrieval, reasoning, learning, and other aspects of intelligence to be reviewed in Section 6.

### 2.1 Representation of Knowledge

In the SP system, all knowledge is stored as arrays of atomic symbols in one or two dimensions called patterns. In work to date, the main focus has been on 1-D patterns but it is envisaged that, at some stage, the concepts will be generalised to patterns in two dimensions.

Although this may seem to be a very limited format, it is possible within the system to model a wide range of existing formats for knowledge, including context-free and context-sensitive grammars, condition-action rules, tables, networks and trees of various kinds, including class-inclusion hierarchies, part-whole-hierarchies and discrimination networks. Some examples will be seen below.

In the SP system, a symbol is simply a ‘mark’ that can be matched with other symbols to decide in each case whether it is the ‘same’ or ‘different’. There are no symbols in the system with ‘hidden’ meaning such as ‘multiply’ as the meaning of ‘$`\times `$’ in arithmetic or ‘add’ as the meaning of ‘+’. However, it is possible to define the meaning of any given symbol in the SP system in terms of other symbols and patterns that are associated with it in the system.

Within the system, constructs such as ‘variable’, ‘value’, ‘type’, ‘class’, ‘subclass’, ‘object’, ‘iteration’, ‘true’, ‘false’, and ‘negation’ are not provided explicitly. However, the effect of these constructs can be achieved by the use of patterns and symbols, and we shall see some examples below.

### 2.2 Processing of Knowledge

When any one New pattern is received, the system tries to find the best possible match between the New pattern and one or more of the Old patterns. The result of this process is the creation of one or more multiple alignments, examples of which will be seen below.111The concept of multiple alignment in the SP framework is similar to that concept in bioinformatics but there are important differences described in Wolff (2003b). Each multiple alignment is evaluated in terms of the principles of minimum length encoding as explained in Wolff (2003b) and earlier papers cited there.

Figure 1 is a simple example of the way in which a multiple alignment can achieve the effect of parsing a sentence, with SP patterns representing grammatical rules. By convention, the New pattern—which in this case is the sentence to be parsed—is always shown in column 0. All the other columns contain Old patterns, one pattern per column in any order. The Old patterns in this example represent grammatical rules. For example, the pattern ‘S NP #NP V #V NP #NP #S’ in column 7 is equivalent to ‘S $``$ NP V NP’ in the convention of re-write rules, and the pattern ‘NP D #D N #N #NP’ in column 5 is equivalent to ‘NP $``$ D N’. The entire multiple alignment divides the sentence into labelled parts and subparts like a conventional parsing and assigns a grammatical category to each word.

Contrary to what this example may suggest, the system has at least the expressive power of a context-sensitive grammar. More elaborate examples of natural language processing in the SP system and a much fuller discussion of this area of application may be found in Wolff (2000).

In one operation, the creation of multiple alignments achieves a range of computational effects, depending on the kinds of Old pattern that are stored in the system. These effects include ‘parsing’ (as in the example just shown), ‘recognition’ of an unknown entity, ‘retrieval’ of stored information, probabilistic ‘reasoning’, logical ‘deduction’, mathematical ‘calculation’, and more.

In cases where the New pattern cannot be fully matched with the Old patterns, the system may ‘learn’ by creating patterns that are derived from multiple alignments where partial matching has been achieved or, if there are no such multiple alignments, from the New pattern itself (Wolff, 2002b). These system-generated patterns are added to the repository of Old patterns. Periodically, these patterns are evaluated in terms the principles of minimum length encoding and the repository of Old patterns may be purged of patterns that are least useful in those terms.

### 2.3 Computer Models

In the development of the SP theory, computer models have been created as a way of reducing vagueness and inconsistencies in the theory, as a way of verifying that the system really does work according to expectations, and as a means of demonstrating what the system can do. Two main models have been developed to date:

* SP61 which is a partial model of the system that builds multiple alignments from New and Old patterns (Wolff, 2000). This model does not attempt any learning and it does not add any patterns to its repository of Old patterns. All the Old patterns in the model must be supplied by the user when the program starts. This model is relatively stable and provides all the examples in this article.
* SP70 which is an augmented version of SP61 that builds multiple alignments and can learn by adding system-generated patterns to its repository of Old patterns (Wolff, 2003c, 2002b). This model has already demonstrated significant capabilities for learning but further work is needed to realise the full potential of the model.

### 2.4 Arithmetic and Procedural Code

Since the SP system can model the operation of a universal Turing machine, it can, in principle, be used for any kind of arithmetic or mathematical operation and it can, in principle, perform any kind of ‘procedure’ that one might program in a procedural programming language such as C++ or Cobol. That said, most applications that have been developed to date have a ‘declarative’ flavour and the ways in which the system may be applied to arithmetic or other mathematical operations have not yet been explored in any depth (but see Wolff (2002a)). This has a bearing on how the system may be developed for database applications, as will be discussed in Section 7.

### 2.5 Computational Complexity

Many problems in artificial intelligence are known to be intractable if one wishes to obtain the best possible answer. But if one is content with answers that are merely ‘good enough’, then it is often possible to achieve dramatic reductions in time complexity or space complexity or both.

These remarks apply to the multiple alignment problem in bioinformatics and to the version of that problem that has been developed in the SP system. For any realistic example, an exhaustive search of the abstract space of possible multiple alignments is not possible and constraints must be applied, pruning away large parts of the search space. In current models, the main emphasis is on hill climbing and related techniques that concentrate search in areas that are proving productive without ruling out any part of the search space a priori—and with enough flexibility to be able to escape from ‘local peaks’.

In a serial processing environment, the time complexity of the SP61 model is approximately O$`(\mathrm{log}_2N_s\times N_sO_s)`$, where $`N_s`$ is the number of symbols in the New pattern and $`O_s`$ is the total number of symbols in the patterns in Old. In a parallel processing environment, the time complexity may approach O$`(\mathrm{log}_2N_s\times N_s)`$, depending on how well the parallel processing is applied. The space complexity in serial or parallel environments is approximately O$`(O_s)`$.

In a serial processing environment, the time complexity of the SP70 model is approximately O$`(N_{p}^{}{}_{}{}^{2})`$ where $`N_p`$ is the number of patterns in New and it is assumed that they are all of the same size or nearly so. In a parallel processing environment, the time complexity may approach O$`(N_p)`$, depending on how well the parallel processing is applied. In serial or parallel environments, the space complexity is approximately O$`(N_p)`$.

## 3 The Relational Model

This section and the two that follow describe how the SP model may achieve the effect of popular database models used in ‘mainstream’ data processing applications. This section discusses the relational model, Section 4 is concerned with the object-oriented model and Section 5 considers the hierarchical and network models.

Consider a typical table from a relational database like the one shown in Figure 1 (from the DreamHome example in Connolly and Begg (2002, p. 80)). The same information can be represented using SP patterns, as shown in Figure 2.

Readers who are familiar with XML (Bray et al., 2000) will see that the way in which tables are represented with SP patterns is essentially the same as the way in which they are represented in XML. Each pattern begins with a symbol ‘$`<`$staff$`>`$’ that identifies it as a pattern representing a member of staff and there is a corresponding symbol, ‘$`<`$/staff$`>`$’, at the end. Likewise, each field within each pattern is marked by start and end symbols such as ‘$`<`$staff\_no$`>`$$`<`$/staff\_no$`>`$’ and ‘$`<`$first\_name$`>`$$`<`$/first\_name$`>`$’.

Unlike XML, there is no restriction on the styles of symbols that may be used. For example, ‘$`<`$staff$`>`$$`<`$/staff$`>`$’, ‘$`<`$staff\_no$`>`$$`<`$/staff\_no$`>`$’ and ‘$`<`$first\_name$`>`$$`<`$/first\_name$`>`$’ may be replaced by symbols such as ‘staff … #staff’, ‘staff\_no … #staff\_no’ and ‘first\_name … #first\_name’, like the symbols used in Figure 1. Any other style that is convenient may also be used. In other applications, it may not be necessary to provide start and end symbols in some of the patterns, and in some cases, start and end symbols may not be needed at all.

At first sight, the SP (and XML) representation of a table is much more long-winded and cumbersome than the representation shown in Figure 2. But a table in a relational database—as it appears on a computer screen or a computer print-out—is a simplified representation of what is stored in computer memory or on a computer disk. In relational database systems, the ‘internal’ representation of each table contains memory pointers or tags that are close analogues of symbols like ‘$`<`$staff$`>`$’, $`<`$/staff$`>`$’, ‘$`<`$staff\_no$`>`$’ and ‘$`<`$/staff\_no$`>`$’ that appear in the SP and XML representations. In short, the SP representation is essentially the same as the ‘internal’ representation of a table in a relational database. The way tables are printed out or displayed on a computer screen is largely a cosmetic matter and there is no reason why tables in an SP database should not be printed or displayed in the conventional style.

### 3.1 Retrieval of Information: Query by Example

In the SP system, the most natural way to retrieve information is in the manner of ‘query-by-example’. To achieve this, patterns like those shown in Figure 2 are stored as Old patterns and the query is created as a New pattern in the same format as the stored patterns but with fewer symbols. For example, if we wish to identify all the female staff at branch number B003, our query pattern would be ‘$`<`$staff$`>`$ $`<`$sex$`>`$ F $`<`$/sex$`>`$ $`<`$branch\_no$`>`$ B003 $`<`$/branch\_no$`>`$ $`<`$/staff$`>`$’ or even ‘$`<`$staff$`>`$ F B003 $`<`$/staff$`>`$’.

Given this query as the New pattern and patterns like those in Figure 2 as Old patterns, SP61 creates a variety of multiple alignments but only two of them match all the symbols in the New pattern. These two multiple alignments—shown in Figure 3—identify all the female staff in branch B003, as required. As previously noted, the New pattern in any multiple alignment is always shown in column 0 and the remaining columns contain Old patterns, one pattern per column.

Of course, there is no need for the results of the user’s query to be displayed in the manner shown in Figure 3. As with the representation of tables, there is no reason in principle why information should not be displayed or printed in whatever format is convenient.

#### 3.1.1 Retrieving Information from Two or More Tables

With relational databases, it is of course quite usual for a single query to retrieve information from two or more tables. This subsection shows how this can be done in the SP model with an example corresponding to a simple join between two tables.

In the DreamHome example (Connolly and Begg, 2002, p. 80), there is one table for clients and another for viewings of properties by clients. If we wish to know which clients have viewed one or more properties and the comments they have made (example 5.24 in Connolly and Begg (2002, p. 138)), we may achieve this with an SQL query like this:

| SELECT c.client\_no, first\_name, last\_name, property\_no, comment |
| --- |
| FROM Client c, Viewing v |
| WHERE c.client\_no = v.client\_no; |

In the SP model, an equivalent effect can be achieved by creating multiple alignments like the one shown in Figure 4. This is one of the five best multiple alignments created by SP61 with the pattern shown in column 0 in New and patterns corresponding to the two tables in Old. Each of these five multiple alignments shows details of a viewing (in column 1) and the client who is doing the viewing (in column 2). No other multiple alignments match all the symbols in New.

If the system is to build multiple alignments like the one shown in Figure 4, it is necessary for each pattern representing a viewing to refer to the client as ‘$`<`$client$`>`$$`<`$/client$`>`$’ rather than ‘$`<`$client\_no$`>`$$`<`$/client\_no$`>`$’ (where ‘…’ represents ‘CR76’ or other client number). This allows the system to access details of the client such as ‘first\_name’ and ‘last\_name’.222To be fully consistent, the same idea should also be applied to the way in which a property for rent is referenced from each of the ‘viewing’ patterns. This would mean that ‘$`<`$property\_no$`>`$$`<`$/property\_no$`>`$’ in each ‘viewing’ pattern would be changed to ‘$`<`$property$`>`$$`<`$/property$`>`$’ and it would also mean that each of the five alignments would include a column showing the property for rent.

### 3.2 Retrieval of Information: Query Languages

The SP system does not, in itself, provide any query language like SQL for the retrieval of information. However, the system has proved to be effective in the processing of natural languages (see Wolff (2000) and Section 6, below) and there is no reason in principle why the same should not be true of artificial languages like SQL. If a query language is deemed necessary, it should be possible to specify the syntax of such a language using SP patterns and to process them within the multiple alignment framework to achieve information retrieval as required. These are matters requiring further investigation.

### 3.3 Comparison Between the SP Model and the Relational Model

One of the attractions of the relational model—and perhaps the main reason for its popularity—is the simplicity of the idea of storing all database knowledge in tables. This format is very suitable for much of the knowledge to be stored in typical data processing applications but it is by no means ‘universal’. It is not, for example, a good medium for representing any kind of grammar or the kinds of if-then rules used in expert systems. It can be used to represent the kinds of hierarchical structure associated with object-oriented design but it has shortcomings in this connection, as we shall see in the next section.

A major difference between the relational model and the SP model is that the SP model provides a format for knowledge that is even simpler than in the relational model. Although this simplification may seem relatively slight, it has a dramatic impact on what can be represented in the system. Many kinds of knowledge that are outside the scope of the relational model can be accommodated in the SP system and, as we shall see, it overcomes the weaknesses of the relational model in representing hierarchical structures. At the same time, it can accommodate the relational model when that is required.

The second main difference between the two models is that the relational model is designed purely for the storage and retrieval of knowledge while the SP model can, in addition, support a range of different kinds of intelligence, to be reviewed in Section 6.

## 4 Object-Oriented Concepts

Since the invention of the Simula language for programming and simulation in the 1960s (Birtwistle et al., 1973), there has been a growing recognition of the value of organising software and databases into hierarchies of ‘classes’ and ‘subclasses’, with ‘inheritance’ of ‘attributes’ down each hierarchy to individual ‘objects’ at the bottom level. An associated idea is that any object may be structured into a hierarchy of ‘parts’ and ‘subparts’. These ‘object-oriented’ concepts allow software and databases to model the structure of human concepts (thus making them more comprehensible) and they help to minimise redundancies in knowledge. And this makes it easier to modify any given body of knowledge without introducing unwanted inconsistencies. In the database world, object-oriented concepts have been developed in the ‘entity-relationship model’ and the ‘enhanced entity-relationship model’ (see Connolly and Begg (2002)) and also in a variety of ‘object-oriented databases’ (see Bertino et al. (2001)). (In the remainder of this paper, the entity-relationship model and enhanced entity-relationship model will be referred to collectively as the entity-relationship model.)

In the SP system, all the object-oriented concepts mentioned in the previous paragraph may be expressed and integrated using SP patterns, as illustrated in Figure 5. As previously noted, column 0 contains the New pattern and the remaining columns contain Old patterns, one pattern per column. The order of the Old patterns is entirely arbitrary, without special significance.

In this figure, column 2 contains a pattern representing the class ‘vehicle’. At this abstract level, a ‘vehicle’ in this example is something with a registration number, an engine, steering wheel, seats, and so on, but the details are unspecified. Some of that detail is provided by the pattern in column 4 that represents the subclass ‘car’. In this example, a car is a vehicle with 4 seats, 4 doors and 4 wheels and a relatively small space for carrying luggage. Yet more detail is supplied by the pattern shown in column 1 that represents a specific instance of a car with an identifier (‘v4’), a registration number (‘LMN 888’), and with a gasoline type of engine with a capacity of 2 litres.

So far, we know relatively little about the engine in v4. More information is supplied by the pattern in column 3 which represents the structure of the class of internal combustion engines. At this abstract level, an engine is something with fuel, a ‘capacity’, some level of ‘compression’, and a cylinder block, crank shaft, piston and valves.

More detail about the engine in this vehicle is provided by the pattern in column 5 which tells us that, as a gasoline-type engine, it runs on gasoline fuel, that it has a (relatively) low compression and that, in addition to the parts mentioned earlier, it has spark plugs and a carburettor. The main alternative to gasoline-type engines is, of course, the diesel type—not shown in the figure—which runs on diesel fuel, has a (relatively) high compression, and does not need spark plugs or a carburettor.

Readers may wonder why the symbols ‘$`<`$v$`>`$’ and ‘$`<`$/v$`>`$’ are used in the patterns shown in columns 1, 2 and 4 and why ‘$`<`$e$`>`$’ and ‘$`<`$/e$`>`$’ appear in columns 1, 3 and 5. These symbols are, in effect, ‘punctuation’ symbols that are needed to ensure that multiple alignments can be formed according to the principles described in Wolff (2003b) and earlier publications.

### 4.1 Discussion

The multiple alignment concept, as it has been developed in the SP framework, provides a means of expressing all the main constructs associated with object-oriented design:

* Classes, subclasses and objects. In Figure 5, there is a hierarchy of classes from ‘vehicle’ at the top level (column 2) through ‘car’ at an intermediate level (column 4) to an individual object (‘v4’ shown in column 1) at the bottom level. The class ‘engine’ is also shown at an abstract level (column 3) and at a more concrete level (column 5).
* Inheritance of attributes. From the multiple alignment in Figure 5 we can infer that v4 has a cylinder block, crank shaft, pistons and valves, that the engine has a low compression, that the vehicle has 4 wheels, and so on. None of these ‘attributes’ are specified in the pattern for v4 shown in column 1. They are ‘inherited’ from patterns representing other classes, in much the same way as in other object-oriented systems.
* Cross-classification and multiple inheritance. The multiple alignment framework supports cross-classification with multiple inheritance just as easily as it does simple class hierarchies with single inheritance. With our ‘vehicle’ example, it would be easy enough to introduce patterns representing, say, ‘military vehicles’ or ‘civilian vehicles’, a classification which cuts across the division of vehicles into categories such as ‘car’, ‘bus’, ‘van’, and so on. In a similar way, vehicles can be cross-classified as ‘gasoline\_type’ or ‘diesel\_type’ on the strength of the engines they contain, as shown in our example.
* Parts and subparts. In our example, the class ‘vehicle’ has parts such as ‘engine’, ‘steering\_wheel’, ‘seats’, and so on, and the ‘engine’ has parts such as ‘cylinder\_block’, ‘crank\_shaft’ etc. If there was only one type of engine, then all the parts and other attributes of engines could be expressed within the ‘vehicle’ pattern, without the need for a separate pattern to represent the engine. The reason that a separate pattern is needed—with a corresponding slot in the ‘vehicle’ pattern—is that there is more than one kind of engine. Another reason for representing the class of engines with separate patterns is that engines may be used in a variety of other things (e.g., boats, planes and generators), not just in road vehicles.

#### 4.1.1 Variables, Values and Types

It should be apparent that, in the SP system, a pair of neighbouring symbols like ‘$`<`$fuel$`>`$’ and ‘$`<`$/fuel$`>`$’ function very much like a ‘variable’ in a conventional system. By appropriate alignment within a multiple alignment, such a variable may receive a ‘value’ such as ‘gasoline’ or ‘diesel’ in this example. The range of possible values that a given variable may take—the ‘type’ of the variable—is defined implicitly within any given set of patterns in Old.

#### 4.1.2 Variability of Concepts

Column 4 in Figure 5 shows a car as something with 4 seats, 4 doors and 4 wheels but of course we know that all of these values can vary. Sports cars often have 2 seats and 2 doors, some budget cars have 3 wheels, and a stretch limo may have many more seats and doors. In a more fully-developed example, numbers of seats, doors and wheels would be unspecified at the level of ‘car’ and would be defined in subclasses like those that have been mentioned.

### 4.2 Comparison Between the SP Model and Other Object-Oriented Systems

Perhaps the most striking difference between the SP system and other object-oriented systems is the extraordinary simplicity of the format for knowledge in the SP system, compared with the variety of constructs used in other system—such as ‘classes’, ‘objects’, ‘methods’, ‘messages’, ‘isa’ links, ‘part-of’ links, and more. This subsections considers a selection of other differences that are somewhat more subtle but are, nevertheless, important.

#### 4.2.1 Parts, Attributes and Inheritance

In Simula and most object-oriented systems that have come after, there is a distinction between ‘attributes’ of objects and ‘parts’ of objects. The former are defined at compile time while the aggregation of parts to form wholes is a run-time process. This means that the inheritance mechanism applies to attributes but not to parts.

In the SP system, this distinction disappears. Parts of objects can be defined at any level in a class hierarchy and inherited by all the lower level. There is seamless integration of class hierarchies with part-whole hierarchies.

#### 4.2.2 Objects, Classes and Metaclasses

By contrast with most object-oriented systems, the SP system makes no formal distinction between ‘class’ and ‘object’. This accords with the observation that what we perceive to be an individual object, such as ‘our car’, can itself be seen to represent a variety of possibilities: ‘our car taking us on holiday’, ‘our car carrying the shopping’, and so on. A pattern like the one shown in column 1 of Figure 5 could easily function as a class with vacant slots to be filled at a more specific level by details of the passengers or load being carried, the rôle the vehicle is playing, the colour it has been painted, and so on. This flexibility is lost in systems that do make a formal distinction between classes and objects.

Another consequence of making a formal distinction between objects and classes is that it points to the need for the concept of a ‘metaclass’:

> “If each object is an instance of a class, and a class is an object, the \[object-oriented\] model should provide the notion of metaclass. A metaclass is the class of a class.” (Bertino et al., 2001, p. 43).

It is true that this construct is not provided in most object-oriented database systems but it has been introduced in some artificial intelligence systems so that classes can be derived from metaclasses in the same way that objects are derived from classes. Of course, this logic points to the need for ‘metametaclasses’, ‘metametametaclasses’, and so on without limit.

Because the SP system makes no distinction between ‘object’ and ‘class’, there is no need for the concept of ‘metaclass’ or anything beyond it. All these constructs are represented by patterns.

#### 4.2.3 The Entity-Relationship Model with a Relational Database

With minor variations, the entity-relationship model has become the mainstay of data processing applications for business and administration. Diagrammatic representations of entities and relationships are normally implemented with a relational database and there are efficient software tools to do the translation, hiding many of the details. Since this combination of entity-relationship model and relational database has come to be so widely used, it will be the focus of our discussion here.

A table can be used to represent a class, with the columns (fields) representing the attributes of the class and the rows representing individual instances of the class. Each class or subclass in a class hierarchy can also be represented by a table but in this case it is necessary to provide additional fields so that the necessary connections can be made. For example, the class of ‘staff’ in a company may be represented by a table like the one shown in Figure 1 and separate tables may be created for each of the subclasses ‘manager’, ‘supervisor’ and ‘assistant’, each of these with columns relevant to the particular subclass but not for other subclasses. In addition, each of the tables for the subclasses needs a column such as ‘Staff Number’ so that the record of an individual in any one subclass can be connected to the corresponding record in the superclass. Similar principles apply to the division of concepts into parts and subparts.

This system works quite well for many applications but it has a number of shortcomings compared with the SP system:

* Using tables to represent classes means that the description of a class must always take the form of a set of variables corresponding to the fields in the table. In the SP system, it is possible to describe a class using any combination of variables and literals, according to need. It is, for example, possible to record that a vehicle has a steering wheel (as in column 2 of Figure 5) without any implication that there may be alternative kinds of steering wheel to be recorded in a field with that name. It is also possible to provide a verbal description of any class, something that is outside the scope of the relational model.
* Using tables to represent classes means that the record for every individual must have start and end tags for every field in the table regardless of whether or not that field is used. In the SP system, start and end tags are only needed for the fields that contain a value in the record for any individual.
* The SP system allows the description of class hierarchies and part-whole hierarchies to be separated from the description of individual members of those hierarchies. By contrast, the use of tables to represent class hierarchies and part-whole hierarchies means that the structure of these hierarchies must be reproduced, again and again, in every instance. Using tables to represent either kind of hierarchy means that information that is specific to any one individual is fragmented and must be pieced together using keys. In the SP system, by contrast, information that is specific to any one individual can always be represented with a single pattern. The SP system provides for the smooth integration of class hierarchies and part-whole hierarchies in a way that cannot be achieved using tables.

## 5 The Hierarchical and Network Models

Although the hierarchical and network models for databases have fallen out of favour in ordinary data processing applications, the network model has seen a revival, first with the development of the hypertext concept and then more dramatically with the application of that concept to the world wide web. The hierarchical model is the mainstay of hierarchical file systems and finds niche applications in directories of various kinds.

In the SP system, any network or hierarchy can be represented using connections between patterns like the connection between ‘engine’ and ‘vehicle’ in Figure 5 (columns 3 and 2). The basic idea is that one pattern, ‘A’, may contain the start and end symbols of another pattern, ‘B’, so that the two patterns can be connected in a multiple alignment like this:

0 1 2   \ a1 - a1  \ -- \ b1 -------- b1  \ - \ a2 - a2  \  0 1 2.

In effect, the pair of symbols ‘$`<`$B$`>`$ $`<`$/B$`>`$’ in the ‘A’ pattern (column 1) are a ‘reference’ to the ‘B’ pattern (column 2). With this simple device, it is possible to link patterns in hierarchies and networks of any complexity. Any one pattern may appear recursively, two or more times within a multiple alignment, as described in Wolff (2003b) and earlier publications.

Where the full versatility of this scheme is not needed, it is also possible to create networks and hierarchies from patterns like ‘$`<`$A$`>`$$`<`$B$`>`$’, ‘$`<`$B$`>`$$`<`$C$`>`$’ and ‘$`<`$C$`>`$$`<`$D$`>`$’ that can be linked end-to-end by alignment within a multiple alignment.

## 6 The SP Model and Aspects of Intelligence

This section briefly reviews aspects of intelligence that have been shown to fall within the scope of the SP system, highlighting those with particular relevance to intelligent databases. The main points of difference between the SP system and other artificial intelligence systems are also reviewed. Readers are referred to Wolff (2003b) and other cited sources for more detail about artificial intelligence capabilities of the system outlined here:

* Representation of knowledge. As previously mentioned, the format that has been adopted for representing knowledge within the SP system has proved to be remarkably versatile, despite its extreme simplicity. Given the system for forming multiple alignments, flat patterns can be used to represent context-free and context-sensitive grammars (Wolff, 2000), networks, trees (including class-inclusion hierarchies and part-whole hierarchies), tables, if-then rules and more. Some of this versatility has been demonstrated above.

In the context of knowledge-based systems, a benefit of this versatile ‘universal’ format for knowledge is the scope that it offers for the seamless integration of different kinds of knowledge, minimising the awkward incompatibilities that arise in many computing systems.
* Fuzzy pattern recognition and best-match information retrieval. At the heart of the SP system is a version of dynamic programming (see Sankoff and Kruskall (1983)) that allows the system to find ‘good’ full and partial matches between patterns (Wolff, 1994).333The technique that has been developed in the SP models has advantages compared with standard techniques for dynamic programming: it can process arbitrarily long patterns without excessive demands on memory, it can find many alternative matches, and the ‘depth’ or thoroughness of searching can be determined by the user. This allows the system to recognise objects and patterns in a ‘fuzzy’ manner and to retrieve stored information without the need for an exact match between the retrieval query and any item to be retrieved.
* Ontologies and ‘semantic’ retrieval of information. The SP system provides a powerful framework for the representation and processing of ontologies and for the retrieval of information by meanings rather than literal matching of patterns (Wolff, 2003a).
* Analysis and production of natural languages. The syntax of natural languages may be represented with SP patterns and both the parsing and the production of sentences may be achieved by the formation of multiple alignments (Wolff, 2000). Non-syntactic ‘semantic’ structures may also be represented and processed in the SP system. Recent work, not yet published, has shown how syntax and semantics may be integrated within the SP framework.
* Probabilistic reasoning. A major strength of the SP system is its support for probabilistic ‘deduction’ in one step or via chains of reasoning, abductive reasoning, and nonmonotonic reasoning with default values (Wolff, 1999b). Relative probabilities of inferences may be calculated strictly in accordance with standard probability theory and the system provides an explanation for the phenomenon of ‘explaining away’ (Pearl, 1988).
* Exact forms of reasoning. Although this area is less well developed, there are good reasons to think that the SP system may also be applied to the ‘exact’ kinds of reasoning found in many areas of logic and mathematics, where answers are either ‘true’ or ‘false’, with nothing in between (Wolff, 2002a).
* Planning and problem solving. The SP system has been applied successfully to the problem of finding a route between two places (Wolff, 2003b) and it can solve geometric analogy problems translated into textual form (Wolff, 1999b).
* Unsupervised learning. In its overall abstract structure, the SP system is conceived as a system for unsupervised learning—and capabilities in this area have now been demonstrated in the SP70 computer model (Wolff, 2003c, 2002b). The results are good enough to show that the approach is sound but further development is needed to realise the full potential of this model.

If this potential can be realised, this should reduce or eliminate the need for human judgement in the normalisation of knowledge structures. The SP system should be able to organise its knowledge automatically in a way that minimises redundancies and reveals the natural structures in that knowledge, including class hierarchies, part-whole hierarchies and their integration. It should also be able to abstract rules and other generalisations from its stored knowledge, in the manner of datamining systems. Of course, existing datamining techniques may also be applied to an SP database.

### 6.1 Relationship with Other Artificial Intelligence Systems

It would take us too far afield to attempt a detailed comparison with artificial intelligence systems in the kinds of areas mentioned above. As an attempt to integrate ideas across a wide area, the SP system naturally has points of similarity with many existing systems, but at the same time, it has its own distinctive features.

Chief amongst these is the remarkable simplicity of the system combined with its very wide scope, much wider than the great majority of artificial intelligence systems, with the possible exception of unified theories of cognition such as Soar (Laird et al., 1987; Rosenbloom et al., 1993) and ACT-R (Anderson and Lebiere, 1998). Like those two systems, the development of the SP system was inspired by the writings of Allen Newell, putting the case for greater breadth and depth in theories of cognition (Newell, 1973, 1990).

Unlike hybrid systems, of which there are many, the SP system is not merely a conjunction of two or more different systems, combining their capabilities and also their complexities. The SP system is the result of a radical rethink of concepts in artificial intelligence and beyond, aiming for integration in a radically simplified structure. The result is a conceptual framework with distinctive features of which the main ones are:

* All kinds of knowledge are represented with flat patterns.
* All kinds of processing is achieved by compression of information by the matching and unification of patterns.
* The use of a modified version of the concept of multiple alignment as a vehicle for recognition of patterns, information retrieval, probabilistic and exact forms of reasoning, and other artificial intelligence functions.

## 7 Developing the System

The SP computer models (SP61 and SP70) are good enough to demonstrate what can be done with the system but fall short of what would be needed for applications in industry, commerce or administration. This section considers how the SP concepts that have been developed to date may be translated into a practical system.

### 7.1 Parallel Processing

Although the computational complexity of both models in a serial processing environment is within the bounds of what is normally considered to be acceptable, significant improvements are to be expected if the system can be developed with the benefit of parallel processing (Section 2.5). And of course, parallel processing brings the additional benefit of faster processing in absolute terms and, with suitable design, greater robustness in the face of system failures. Parallel processing is now a recognised requirement to meet the high computational demands of large scale databases (Abdelguerfi and Lavington, 1995; Abdelguerfi and Wong, 1998) and large-scale applications in artificial intelligence.

At the heart of the SP system is the building of multiple alignments and the core operation here is a process for finding good full and partial matches between patterns in the manner of dynamic programming. At this level, there is considerable scope for the application of parallel processing because there are often many pairs of patterns that need to be matched and this can be done in parallel just as well as it can be done in sequence. There is also scope for parallel processing at a more fine-grained level because the process of matching involves a process of ‘broadcasting’ symbols to make yes/no matches with other symbols and this is an intrinsically parallel operation.

The SP machine does not necessarily have to be developed in silicon. One futuristic possibility is to exploit the potential of organic molecules such as DNA or proteins—in solution—to achieve the effect of high-parallel pattern matching. This kind of ‘molecular computation’ is already the subject of much research (see, for example, Adleman (1994, 1998)) and techniques of that kind could, conceivably, form the basis of a high-parallel SP machine.

Another possibility is to use light for the kind of high-speed, high-parallel pattern matching that is needed at the heart of the SP machine. Apart from its speed, an attraction of light in this connection is that light rays can cross each other without interfering with each other, eliminating the need to segregate one stream of signals from another (see, for example, Cho and Colomb (1998); Louri and Hatch (1994)).

On relatively short time scales, a silicon version of the SP machine would probably be the easiest option and it may be developed in at least four different ways:

* It should be feasible to design new hardware for the kind of high-parallel pattern matching that is needed.
* Given that SIMD and MIMD high-parallel computers are already in existence, an alternative strategy is to create the SP machine as a software virtual machine running on one of these platforms.
* An existing high-parallel database system (see, for example, Page (1992); Mahapatra and Mishra (2000)) may be modified to support the SP model. Other models may, of course be retained alongside the SP model.
* The system may be developed using low-cost computers connected together in a LAN or even a WAN. Systems like Google have been developed in this way and they already provide high-speed pattern matching of a kind that may be adapted for use within a software implementation of the SP machine.

### 7.2 User Interface

A graphical user interface to the SP system is needed for the input of data and queries, for the setting of parameters, and for viewing data and results. Facilities that would be useful include:

* The possibility of translating SP patterns like those shown in Figure 2 into a conventional tabular format (without start and end tags) for viewing or printing.
* The representation of class hierarchies, part-whole hierarchies or other kinds of hierarchy or network in graphical form, without showing the tags that are used to link patterns together.
* The ability to represent multiple alignments as flat patterns, reducing each column to a single symbol.
* Facilities for scrolling and zooming to view any large structure such as a large multiple alignment, or a large hierarchy, network, or table.
* Menus and dialogue boxes for controlling the system and setting parameters.

For some applications there may be a need to provide an SQL-like query language. As indicated in Section 3.2, it seems likely that this may be achieved within the SP framework by means of an appropriate set of SP patterns—but the details of how that should be done would need investigation.

### 7.3 Hybrid Solutions

In the development and application of information systems, it is rarely possible to introduce a new model and simultaneously discard all pre-established models. There is normally a transition phase, which may be very prolonged, where two or more models coexist as alternatives for different applications or are used in some combination, according to need. As the SP system matures, it may form hybrids with other systems in at least three different ways:

* As noted previously (Section 2.4), the SP system is not yet a rival for well-established procedural languages like C++ or Cobol, and its application to arithmetic and other areas of mathematics needs development. However, there is no reason why the system should not be used in conjunction with existing procedural languages, and with arithmetic or mathematical functions, in very much the same way that the relational database model is standardly used in conjunction with these non-relational languages and functions in many data processing applications.
* Although in principle the SP system is a model for any kind of software, it is likely to be some time before it would be feasible or sensible to translate all existing applications into the form of SP patterns. Meanwhile, there is no reason why an SP database system should not serve as a framework within which existing applications may be embedded, in much the same way that a relational or object-oriented database—or, indeed, an hierarchical file system—may contain pointers to executable files of many different kinds (see, for example, Cariño and Sterling (1998)).
* As noted previously, there is no reason why existing datamining techniques should not be used with an SP database although, in the long run, this kind of processing should fall within the scope of the SP model.

## 8 Conclusion

The SP model is an alternative to existing database models that offers significant benefits compared with those models. Within the multiple alignment framework it is possible to represent knowledge in a format that is both simple and versatile, and processing within the framework provides a key to intelligence in the recognition of patterns, retrieval of information, probabilistic and exact kinds of reasoning, planning, problem solving and others.

The versatility of the SP framework means that existing database models can be accommodated within the system and it can function in accordance with any one of those models where that is required. At the same time, it offers a range of options that are not available in systems that are dedicated to any of the existing models.

Although more work is required in understanding how the model may be developed for learning, other aspects are sufficiently robust and mature for development into an industrial strength working system.

## Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Thomas Connolly for constructive comments on this article. The responsibility for all errors and oversights is, of course, my own.


text:
# Couplings varying on cosmological scales and Lorentz breaking

## 1 Introduction

From a theoretical point of view, our current understanding of nature at the fundamental level leaves unresolved a variety of issues, so that present-day physical theories are believed to be the low-energy limit of some underlying framework. Any effects from an underlying theory involving gravity are expected to be minuscule due to the likely suppression by at least one power of the Planck mass. In such a situation, it appears practical to consider violations of symmetries that hold exactly in our present fundamental laws, might be violated in approaches to underlying physics, and are amenable to high-precision experiments.

Although spacetime symmetries are a cornerstone of all known physics, they might be violated at a more fundamental level: in the context of string field theory, an explicit mechanism for the spontaneous breaking of Lorentz invariance exists kps . Other examples of Lorentz-violating frameworks include spacetime foam foam , nontrivial spacetime topology klink , realistic noncommutative field theories ncqed , and loop quantum gravity lgr . Moreover, Lorentz tests are currently among the most precise null experiments available. Thus, spacetime-symmetry investigations provide a promising tool in the search for underlying physics cpt01 .

The low-energy effects of Lorentz breaking are described by a general Standard-Model Extension ck , which has been constructed to contain all coordinate-invariant lagrangian terms formed by combining conventional field operators and coefficients carrying Lorentz indices. Although these terms are observer Lorentz symmetric, they explicitly break invariance under boosts and rotations of particles rl03 . The Standard-Model Extension has provided the theoretical framework for the analysis of numerous Lorentz-symmetry tests involving hadrons hadronexpt ; hadronth , protons and neutrons pn , leptons eexpt ; eexpt2 ; ilt , photons cfj ; km ; lipa ; split , muons muons , and neutrinos neu .

In the present work, we investigate the relation between Lorentz breaking and violations of translation invariance sugra . More specifically, we argue that scalar couplings varying on cosmological scales also lead to the type of Lorentz violation described by the Standard-Model Extension. Since both Lorentz transformations and spacetime translations are interwoven in the Poincaré group, such a result does not come as a surprise. Intuitively, the behavior of the vacuum is that of a spacetime-varying medium so that isotropy, for example, can be lost in certain local inertial frames.

Early work in the field of spacetime-dependent couplings includes Dirac’s large-number hypothesis lnh . More recently, it has been realized that varying couplings are natural in many fundamental theories theo ; recent , which provides an additional example for the fact that spacetime-symmetry violations are a promising candidate experimental signature for more fundamental physics. Investigations in this field are further motivated by current claims of observational evidence for a time-varying electromagnetic coupling webb . The experimental status and theoretical ideas are reviewed in Ref. jp .

In the context of $`N=4`$ supergravity in four dimensions, we demonstrate how smoothly varying couplings can naturally be obtained from a classical cosmological solution. In particular, the fine-structure parameter $`\alpha =e^2/4\pi `$ and the electromagnetic $`\theta `$ angle acquire related spacetime dependences leading to the aforementioned Lorentz-violating effects. Although the employed supergravity framework is known to be unrealistic in detail, it is contained in the $`N=1`$ supergravity in 11 spacetime dimensions, which is a limit of M theory. Our approach can therefore yield some insight into generic features of a candidate fundamental theory.

This talk is organized as follows. In Sec. 2, we set up our supergravity model in the context of cosmology. In particular, we obtain an analytical solution to the equations of motion. Section 3 discusses the emergent time-varying couplings and comments on experimental constraints. Aspects of the associated Lorentz violation are investigated in Sec. 4. A short summary is contained in Sec. 5.

## 2 Supergravity cosmology

The $`N=4`$ supergravity in four spacetime dimensions contains in its spectrum a simple graviton represented by the metric $`g_{\mu \nu }`$, four gravitinos $`\psi _\mu ^j`$, six abelian graviphotons $`A_\mu ^{jk}`$, four fermions $`\chi ^j`$, and a complex scalar $`Z`$. Latin indices $`j,k,\mathrm{}`$ transform under the internal SO(4) symmetry group, and the $`A_\mu ^{jk}`$ lie in the adjoint representation. In Planck units, the bosonic part $``$ of the lagrangian takes the form cj

$$=\sqrt{g}\left(\frac{1}{2}R\frac{1}{4}M_{jklm}F_{\mu \nu }^{jk}F^{lm\mu \nu }\frac{1}{8}N_{jklm}\epsilon ^{\mu \nu \rho \sigma }F_{\mu \nu }^{jk}F_{\rho \sigma }^{lm}+\frac{_\mu Z^\mu \overline{Z}}{(1Z\overline{Z})^2}\right).$$
(1)
The complex scalar $`Z`$ determines the generalized electromagnetic coupling constant $`M_{jklm}`$ and the generalized $`\theta `$-term coupling $`N_{jklm}`$, which are both real:

$$M_{jklm}+iN_{jklm}=\frac{1}{2}(\delta _{jl}\delta _{km}\delta _{jm}\delta _{kl})\frac{1Z^2}{1+Z^2}i\epsilon _{jklm}\frac{Z}{1+Z^2}.$$
(2)
Note also that $`Z`$ contains an axion and a dilaton. It is convenient to isolate the dilaton piece $`B`$ via a field redefinition. Employing the Cayley map $`W=i(Z1)/(Z+1)`$ and defining real fields $`A`$ and $`B`$ such that $`W=A+iB`$ yields the following expression for the scalar kinetic term: $`_\mathrm{b}=\sqrt{g}(_\mu A^\mu A+_\mu B^\mu B)/4B^2`$. The couplings $`M_{jklm}`$ and $`N_{jklm}`$ transform accordingly. The fermion kinetic terms are just

$$_{\mathrm{fermion}}=\sqrt{g}\delta ^{jk}\left(\overline{\psi }_j^\mu \gamma _{\mu \nu \rho }D^\nu \psi _k^\rho +\overline{\chi }_j\gamma _\mu D^\mu \chi _k\right).$$
(3)
Note that these are independent of the scalars $`A`$ and $`B`$. There are also higher-order terms in the fermions coupled to the gauge fields and pieces that are quartic in the fermions.

In what follows, we look at situations in which only one graviphoton, $`F_{\mu \nu }^{12}F_{\mu \nu }`$, is excited. The bosonic lagrangian then takes the form

$$=\sqrt{g}\left(\frac{1}{2}R\frac{1}{4}MF_{\mu \nu }F^{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{4}NF_{\mu \nu }\stackrel{~}{F}^{\mu \nu }+\frac{_\mu A^\mu A+_\mu B^\mu B}{4B^2}\right),$$
(4)
where we have abbreviated $`\stackrel{~}{F}^{\mu \nu }=\epsilon ^{\mu \nu \rho \sigma }F_{\rho \sigma }/2`$, as usual. The electromagnetic and $`\theta `$-term couplings become

$$M=\frac{B(A^2+B^2+1)}{(1+A^2+B^2)^24A^2},N=\frac{A(A^2+B^21)}{(1+A^2+B^2)^24A^2}.$$
(5)
Next, we construct an exact classical solution within the model described by lagrangian (4). To this end, we consider a homogeneous and isotropic Universe, with a flat ($`k=0`$) Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) line element given by $`ds^2=dt^2a^2(t)(dx^2+dy^2+dz^2)`$. With these assumptions, the scalars $`A`$ and $`B`$ and the scale factor $`a`$ can only depend on the comoving time $`t`$. In the absence of energy-momentum sources other than the scalar fields, one of the Einstein equations reads $`a\ddot{a}+2\dot{a}^2=0`$. Besides the trivial solution $`a=\mathrm{const}.`$, this equation is solved by

$$a(t)=c\sqrt[3]{t},$$
(6)
where $`c`$ is an integration constant. This time evolution of the scale factor is far slower than the observed one. This is a consequence of the fact that the above approach fails to model the matter content of the Universe.

To describe a more realistic situation we refine our model by including the energy-momentum tensor of dust given by $`T_{\mu \nu }=\rho u_\mu u_\nu `$. Here, $`u^\mu `$ is a unit timelike vector orthogonal to the spatial hypersurfaces and $`\rho (t)`$ is the average energy density of galaxies and other matter. In the present context, this energy-momentum tensor is associated with the fermions in our model. Note that the fermionic sector does not couple directly to the scalar fields $`A`$ and $`B`$, so that we take $`T_{\mu \nu }`$ as conserved separately:

$$\frac{d(\rho a^3)}{dt}=0.$$
(7)
For the moment, we set $`F_{\mu \nu }`$ to zero and consider the equations of motion for our model. Variation of the action with respect to $`A`$ and $`B`$ yields:

$$\frac{d}{dt}\left(\frac{a^3\dot{A}}{B^2}\right)=0,\frac{d}{dt}\left(\frac{a^3\dot{B}}{B^2}\right)+\frac{a^3}{B^3}(\dot{A}^2+\dot{B}^2)=0,$$
(8)
where the dot indicates a derivative with respect to the comoving time $`t`$. Our supergravity model is also governed by the Einstein equations. Varying with respect to the metric and incorporating the energy-momentum tensor of dust gives:

$$G_{\mu \nu }=T_{\mu \nu }+\frac{1}{2B^2}(_\mu A_\nu A+_\mu B_\nu B)\frac{1}{4B^2}g_{\mu \nu }(_\lambda A^\lambda A+_\lambda B^\lambda B).$$
(9)
In the present context, the ten equations (9) contain only two independent ones:

$$3\frac{\ddot{a}}{a}=\frac{1}{2}\rho +\frac{1}{2B^2}(\dot{A}^2+\dot{B}^2),\frac{\ddot{a}}{a}+2\frac{\dot{a}^2}{a^2}=\frac{1}{2}\rho .$$
(10)
The energy-conservation equation (7) yields $`\rho (t)=c_n/a^3(t)`$. The integration constant $`c_n`$ describes the amount of fermionic matter in our model. If the Universe has matter density $`\rho _n`$ and scale size $`a_n=a(t_n)`$ at the present time $`t_n`$, then $`c_n`$ obeys $`c_n=\rho _na_n^3`$. This result can be used to integrate the second one of the Einstein equations (10), which determines the time evolution of the scale factor:

$$a(t)=\sqrt[3]{\frac{3}{4}c_n(t+t_0)^2c_1},$$
(11)
where $`c_1`$ and $`t_0`$ are integration constants with the following physical interpretations: $`c_1`$ controls the amount of energy stored in the scalar fields $`A`$ and $`B`$, and $`t_0`$ sets the value of the comoving time $`t`$ at the initial singularity. Our choice is $`t_0=\sqrt{4c_1/3c_n}`$, which corresponds to $`t=0`$ when $`a(t)=0`$. Note that in this refined version of our supergravity model including the dust, the time dependence of the scale factor is $`a(t)t^{2/3}`$ at late times $`tt_0`$, as anticipated for a $`k=0`$ matter-dominated Universe.

The equation of motion for $`A`$ in (8) yields $`\dot{A}=c_2B^2/a^3`$, where the integration constant $`c_2`$ has been introduced. The complete solution can most easily be obtained in terms of a parameter time $`\tau `$ defined by

$$t=t_0\left(\mathrm{coth}\frac{\sqrt{3}}{4\tau }1\right).$$
(12)
Note that $`\tau =0`$ at the initial singularity when $`t=0`$, and $`\tau `$ increases when $`t`$ increases. In terms of this parametric time, the fields $`A`$ and $`B`$ evolve according to

$$A=\pm \lambda \mathrm{tanh}(\frac{1}{\tau }+c_3)+A_0,B=\lambda sech(\frac{1}{\tau }+c_3).$$
(13)
Here $`\lambda 4c_1/\sqrt{3}c_2t_0`$, and $`c_3`$ and $`A_0`$ are integration constants. In the remaining part of this work we take $`c_3`$ to be zero for simplicity. One can then verify that at late times on a scale set by $`t_0`$, the parameter time obeys $`\tau \sqrt{3}t/4t_0`$. This implies that the late-time values of $`A`$ and $`B`$ are given by $`\pm 4\lambda t_0/\sqrt{3}t+A_0`$ and $`\lambda (18t_0^2/3t^2)`$, respectively. Thus, the axion and the dilaton tend to constant values. Note in particular, that this feature occurs for the string-theory dilaton $`B`$, despite the absence of a dilaton potential. This is basically a consequence of energy conservation.

## 3 Spacetime-varying couplings

The next step is to allow small fluctuations of $`F_{\mu \nu }`$. For the moment, we take the axion-dilaton background determined by (13) as nondynamical. Many experiments are confined to spacetime regions small on cosmological scales. We will therefore continue our analysis in a local inertial frame.

The values of the couplings associated with the dynamics of the field $`F_{\mu \nu }`$ are most easily extracted by comparison with the conventional electrodynamics lagrangian in the presence of a nontrivial $`\theta `$ angle. In a local inertial frame, this lagrangian can be taken as

$$_{\mathrm{em}}=\frac{1}{4e^2}F_{\mu \nu }F^{\mu \nu }\frac{\theta }{16\pi ^2}F_{\mu \nu }\stackrel{~}{F}^{\mu \nu }.$$
(14)
Then, inspection shows that in our supergravity model we can identify

$$e^21/M(t),\theta 4\pi ^2N(t).$$
(15)
Note that $`M`$ and $`N`$ are functions of the comoving time $`t`$ via Eq. (13). It follows that in an arbitrary local inertial frame, $`e`$ and $`\theta `$ acquire related spacetime dependences.

We continue with a few considerations regarding experimental estimates. Our simplifying assumption is $`c_3=0`$, as mentioned before. Matching the asymptotic electromagnetic coupling as determined from the background (13) with the observed present-day value yields the boundary condition $`e^2(t\mathrm{})4\pi /137`$. It follows that $`|A_0|1`$ and $`\lambda \text{ }<2\pi /137`$. Within this restricted range of parameters, we take

$$\lambda =2\pi /137,A_0=\sqrt{1\lambda ^2}.$$
(16)
This special case simplifies the analysis further because it leads to a zero asymptotic value for $`\theta `$. Note, however, that the above values are sufficiently general in the sense that the estimates determined below remain valid or improve for other parameter choices in more than 98% of the allowed range.

In what follows, we can replace the time coordinates $`t^{}`$ in comoving local inertial frames with the comoving time $`t`$ because $`t^{}`$ and $`t`$ agree to first order. At late times $`tt_0`$, one can verify that $`e^22\lambda 8\lambda ^2t_0/\sqrt{3}t`$ and thus $`\dot{\alpha }/\alpha \pm 4\lambda t_0/\sqrt{3}t^2`$. Observational constraints on $`\dot{\alpha }/\alpha `$ at late times, i.e., in a recent cosmological epoch, have been determined through various analyses of data from the Oklo fossil reactor oklo . The bounds obtained are roughly $`|\dot{\alpha }/\alpha |\text{ }<10^{16}`$ yr-1. If the present age of the Universe is taken to be $`t_n10^{10}`$ yr, the Oklo constraint yields the estimate $`t_0\text{ }<10^6`$ yr, which is consistent with our previous late-times assumption.

In our supergravity model, the variation of the electromagnetic coupling $`\alpha `$ with time can be relatively complicated, and qualitative features of this variation can depend on the integration constants determining the background nwap . A sample time dependence of $`\alpha `$ is depicted in Fig. 1. The solid line represents the relative variation of $`\alpha `$ for the case $`t_n/t_0=2000`$ as a function of the fractional look-back time $`1t/t_n`$ to the initial singularity. To provide an approximate match to the recently reported data favoring a varying fine-structure parameter,111The data, also plotted in Fig. 1, were obtained from measurements of high-redshift spectra over periods of approximately $`0.6t_n`$ to $`0.8t_n`$ assuming $`H_0=65`$ km/s/Mpc and $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_m,\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda })=(0.3,0.7)`$ webb . the integration constants $`\lambda `$ and $`A_0`$ have been changed fractionally by parts in $`10^3`$ from the values (16). Although these choices of parameters have no overlap with the Oklo data set, they lie within the constraints for a variation of $`\theta `$ to be discussed in the next section. Note that the solid line reflects both nonlinearities and non-monotonic features of $`\alpha (t)`$.

## 4 Lorentz violation

The Lorentz-violating effects in our supergravity cosmology can be seen explicitly at the level of the equations of motion for $`F_{\mu \nu }`$:

$$\frac{1}{e^2}_\mu F^{\mu \nu }\frac{2}{e^3}(_\mu e)F^{\mu \nu }+\frac{1}{4\pi ^2}(_\mu \theta )\stackrel{~}{F}^{\mu \nu }=j^\nu .$$
(17)
Here, we have introduced charged matter described by a 4-current $`j^\nu `$ for completeness. When $`e`$ and $`\theta `$ are constant, their derivatives in (17) would vanish and the usual inhomogeneous Maxwell equations would emerge. However, in the present case of varying $`M`$ and $`N`$, the dynamics of the electromagnetic field is modified. Restricting attention to spacetime regions small on cosmological scales, the gradients $`_\mu M`$ and $`_\mu N`$ must be approximately constant. Although these gradients do not spoil coordinate invariance, they do select a preferred 4-direction in any local inertial frame. For example, in a comoving inertial frame $`_\mu M`$ and $`_\mu N`$ are both purely timelike. It follows that particle Lorentz symmetry, i.e., symmetry under boosts, rotations, or both of localized electromagnetic fields, is violated.

The above type of Lorentz breaking is to be distinguished from the usual violation of global Lorentz symmetry in textbook FRW cosmologies: in a conventional situation without varying scalars any local inertial frame is Lorentz symmetric, whereas in the present case the variation of $`e`$ and $`\theta `$ results in particle Lorentz breaking in all local inertial frames. Note also that the Lorentz violation in our supergravity cosmology is independent of the details of the model as long as $`e`$ and $`\theta `$ vary on cosmological scales. This suggests particle Lorentz violation could be a common feature of models incorporating couplings with a sufficiently smooth and slow spacetime dependence.

An integration by parts of the action yields an equivalent form of our modified electrodynamics lagrangian:

$$_{\mathrm{em}}^{}=\frac{1}{4e^2}F_{\mu \nu }F^{\mu \nu }+\frac{1}{8\pi ^2}(_\mu \theta )A_\nu \stackrel{~}{F}^{\mu \nu }.$$
(18)
Since $`\theta `$ varies in the present supergravity model, particle Lorentz violation and CPT breaking are apparent already at the lagrangian level. Again, in most practical situations it suffices to consider small spacetime regions, so that the gradient of $`\theta `$ can be taken as a constant 4-vector. We can then identify $`e^2_\mu \theta /8\pi ^2`$ with the Lorentz- and CPT-violating $`(k_{AF})_\mu `$ parameter in the Standard-Model Extension.

In addition to a constant $`(k_{AF})_\mu `$, consider now the special situation in which $`e`$ does not vary. This case has recently received a lot of attention in the literature cfj ; ck ; jkk ; neto ; axph . Then, the lagrangian (18) becomes translationally invariant and energy-momentum conservation holds. Note, however, that the conserved energy fails to be positive definite, so that instabilities can occur cfj ; ck ; lehcpt01 . On the other hand, the lagrangian (18) is associated with a positive-definite supergravity theory222The $`N`$ term in the lagrangian (4) is independent of the metric and so does not contribute to the conserved symmetric energy-momentum tensor. The remaining terms have conventional structure and it is straightforward to verify that they are positive definite. and the question arises how this difficulty is avoided in the present context.

Although $`(k_{AF})_\mu `$ has been treated thus far as constant and nondynamical, it is associated with the dynamical degrees of freedom $`A`$ and $`B`$ in the present context. In the full theory, excitations of the field $`F_{\mu \nu }`$ will lead to deformations $`\delta A`$ and $`\delta B`$ in the background solution (13), such that $`AA+\delta A`$ and $`BB+\delta B`$. Thus, in the presence of a nonzero $`F_{\mu \nu }`$ the energy-momentum tensor $`(T^\mathrm{b})^{\mu \nu }`$ of the background receives an additional contribution from the perturbations $`\delta A`$ and $`\delta B`$, so that $`(T^\mathrm{b})^{\mu \nu }(T_F^\mathrm{b})^{\mu \nu }=(T^\mathrm{b})^{\mu \nu }+\delta (T^\mathrm{b})^{\mu \nu }`$. This contribution compensates the negative-energy ones arising from the $`(k_{AF})_\mu `$ term.

The compensation mechanism can be illustrated explicitly at the classical level333In quantum field theory, radiative corrections mix these terms fn2 . in the lagrangian

$$=_{\mathrm{em}}^{}+_\mathrm{b},$$
(19)
where $`_\mathrm{b}`$ has been defined in Sec. 2. In what follows we concentrate on the $`A`$\- and $`B`$-dependence of $`\theta `$, and take as $`e`$ as constant for simplicity. It can be checked that incorporating the spacetime variation of $`e`$ leaves the conclusions unchanged. We begin by considering the total conserved energy-momentum tensor $`(T_F^\mathrm{t})^{\mu \nu }`$ and isolating the piece $`(T^{\mathrm{em}})^{\mu \nu }`$ associated with $`F_{\mu \nu }`$: $`(T_F^\mathrm{t})^{\mu \nu }=(T^{\mathrm{em}})^{\mu \nu }+(T_F^\mathrm{b})^{\mu \nu }`$, where

$`(T^{\mathrm{em}})^{\mu \nu }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{}{(_\mu A^\lambda )}}^\nu A^\lambda \eta ^{\mu \nu }_{\mathrm{em}}^{},`$
$`(T_F^\mathrm{b})^{\mu \nu }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{}{(_\mu A)}}^\nu A+{\displaystyle \frac{}{(_\mu B)}}^\nu B\eta ^{\mu \nu }_\mathrm{b}.`$ (20)
With these definitions we obtain explicitly:

$$(T^{\mathrm{em}})^{\mu \nu }=\frac{1}{e^2}F_\lambda ^\mu F^{\lambda \nu }+\frac{1}{4e^2}\eta ^{\mu \nu }F^{\rho \sigma }F_{\rho \sigma }+\frac{1}{8\pi ^2}(^\nu \theta )A_\lambda \stackrel{~}{F}^{\lambda \mu }.$$
(21)
Note that only the last term in (21) can lead to negative energies. Similarly, we find for the piece associated with the background

$$(T_F^\mathrm{b})^{\mu \nu }=\frac{^\mu A^\nu A}{2B^2}\frac{\eta ^{\mu \nu }}{4B^2}(_\lambda A^\lambda A+_\lambda B^\lambda B)+\frac{^\mu B^\nu B}{2B^2}\frac{1}{8\pi ^2}(^\nu \theta )A_\lambda \stackrel{~}{F}^{\lambda \mu },$$
(22)
where again negative-energy contributions can arise only from the last term. Equations (21) and (22) show that $`(T_F^\mathrm{t})^{\mu \nu }`$ is free from unsatisfactory terms, so that the total conserved energy is positive definite, even in the presence of a nonzero $`(k_{AF})_\mu `$. The apparent paradox lies in the fact that the two pieces $`(T_F^{\mathrm{em}})^{\mu \nu }`$ and $`(T_F^\mathrm{b})^{\mu \nu }`$, each containing the term with the positivity difficulty, become separately conserved in the limit of a constant $`^\nu \theta `$.444A constant timelike $`(k_{AF})_\mu `$ violates microscopic causality cfj ; ck ; klink ; lehcpt01 . Our supergravity model may circumvent this, but a complete analysis of this lies outside our present scope.

In the present supergravity cosmology, the spacetime dependences of both $`e`$ and $`\theta `$ follow from the background (13) and are therefore related. This fact can be exploited in the context of experimental estimates. In our model, we obtain $`\dot{N}2t_0/\sqrt{3}\lambda t^2`$ for the time variation of $`N`$ at late times. The direct observational limit of $`(k_{AF})_0\text{ }<10^{42}`$ GeV cfj  then bounds the variation of $`\alpha `$ in time to be $`|\dot{\alpha }/\alpha |\text{ }<10^{12}`$ yr-1, consistent with the Oklo data oklo . Reversing the analysis, the Oklo bounds constrain $`(k_{AF})_\mu `$ to be less than $`10^{46}`$ GeV, which compares favorably with the above direct limit.

## 5 Summary

In a cosmological context, we have determined an analytical solution within a simple supergravity model. This classical solutions describes a situation with varying electromagnetic couplings $`e`$ and $`\theta `$. The functional dependence of these couplings on spacetime is highly nonlinear. We have demonstrated within this model and argued in the general case that spacetime-dependent couplings lead to particle Lorentz violation. Our supergravity cosmology avoids the usual positivity problems associated with a varying $`\theta `$ angle.

The author wishes to thank V. Alan Kostelecký and Malcolm J. Perry for their collaboration and Behram N. Kursunoglu for the invitation to the Coral Gables meeting. This work was supported in part by the Centro Multidisciplinar de Astrofísica (CENTRA).