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# Breaking a secure communication scheme based on the phase synchronization of chaotic systems

## I Introduction

In recent years, a great number of cryptosystems based on chaos have been proposed asocscs ; cc , most of them fundamentally flawed by a lack of robustness and security stusc ; cocborcr ; emmbc ; uamccs ; pwtcisea ; bcsugse ; bcscuas ; ccscurm ; coaces ; coacscs ; coaecc ; otsoacespwccifcp . In ascsbotpsocs , a secure communication scheme based on the phase synchronization of a chaotic system is proposed.

In this new scheme the plaintext binary message $`b`$ is hidden in the instantaneous phase of the drive subsystem used as transmitting signal to drive the response subsystem. At the response subsystem, the phase difference is detected and its strong fluctuation above or below zero recovers the plaintext at certain coupling strength.

The secure communication process is illustrated by means of an example based on coupled Rössler chaotic oscillators. In the example, the drive subsystem is formed by two weak coupled oscillators. The plaintext is used to modulate the same parameter in both oscillators 1 and 2. The equations of the drive subsystem are:

$`\dot{x}_{1,2}=(\omega +\mathrm{\Delta }\omega )y_{1,2}z_{1,2}+\epsilon (x_{2,1}x_{1,2}),`$
$`\dot{y}_{1,2}=(\omega +\mathrm{\Delta }\omega )x_{1,2}+\alpha y_{1,2},`$ (1)
$`\dot{z}_{1,2}=\beta +z_{1,2}(x_{1,2}\gamma ).`$
The response subsystem is governed by:

$`\dot{x}_3=\omega ^{}y_3z_3+\eta ((x_3^2+y_3^2)^{1/2}cos\varphi _mx_3),`$
$`\dot{y}_3=\omega ^{}x_3+\alpha ^{}y_3,`$ (2)
$`\dot{z}_3=\beta +z_3(x_3\gamma ).`$
In the example, the parameter values are: $`\omega =\omega ^{}=1,`$ $`\epsilon =5\times 10^3`$, $`\eta =5.3`$, and $`\alpha =\alpha ^{}=0.15.`$

The parameters $`\beta `$ and $`\gamma `$ are held as constants, with the values $`\{\beta ,\gamma \}=\{0.2,10\}`$.

The parameter $`\omega `$ corresponds to the natural frequency of the Rössler oscillator drive subsystems 1 and 2. The parameter $`\omega ^{}`$ corresponds to the natural frequency of the Rössler oscillator driven subsystem 3, $`\epsilon `$ corresponds to the weak coupling factor between the oscillators 1 and 2, and $`\eta `$ corresponds to the strong coupling factor in the driven oscillator 3.

The parameter mismatch $`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega `$ is modulated by the plaintext, being $`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega =0.01`$ if the bit to be transmitted is “1” and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega =0.01`$ if the bit to be transmitted is “0”.

The ciphertext consists of the phase of the mean field of the drive oscillators:

$$\varphi _m=\mathrm{arctan}\frac{x_1+x_2}{y_1+y_2}.$$

As the phase is a signal that has an unbounded amplitude it can not be transmitted through physical channels. This problem is overcome by coding the signal from $`\pi `$ to $`\pi `$, which corresponds to the Poincaré surface of the atractor, $`y_{1,2}=0`$. As a consequence, the transmitted ciphertext, marked as $`\varphi _m^{}`$, is a sawtooth-like signal with a period equal to the revolution period of the oscillator.

At the receiving end the phase of the response subsystem is:

$$\varphi _3=\mathrm{arctan}\frac{x_3}{y_3}$$

that is also coded from $`\pi `$ to $`\pi `$ as $`\varphi _3^{}`$.

The plaintext is retrieved by calculating the difference between the ciphertext and the reconstructed signal, $`\varphi _m^{}\varphi _3^{}.`$ The difference signal consisted of positive and negative peaks that correspond to the ones and zeros of the plaintext.

The example of ascsbotpsocs  is illustrated in Fig. 1. We have simulated it with a four order Runge-Kutta integration algorithm in MATLAB 6, with a step size of $`0.001`$. In order to recover the plaintext with the exact waveform, allowing for a small time delay, we have included a Smith-trigger as a reconstruction filter, with switch on point at 4 and switch off point at -4.

As in the example of ascsbotpsocs  there is no indication about the parameter initial values, our simulation is implemented with the following initial values: $`(x_1^{(0)},x_2^{(0)},x_3^{(0)},y_1^{(0)},y_2^{(0)},y_3^{(0)},z_1^{(0)},z_2^{(0)},z_3^{(0)})=(5,3,1,0,0,0,0,0,0)`$.

The authors seemed to base the security of its secure communication system on the properties of the phase synchronization. They claimed that it can not be broken by some traditional attacks used against secure chaotic systems with complete synchronization, but no general analysis of security was included.

Although the authors point out that the system parameters play the role of secret key in transmission (ascsbotpsocs, , §V), it is not clearly specified which parameters are considered as candidates to form part of the key, what the allowable value range of those parameters is, what the key space is (how many different keys exist in the system) and how they would be managed.

The weaknesses of this system and the method to break it are discussed in the next section.

## II Breaking the system

The main problem with this cryptosystem lies on the fact that the ciphertext is an analog signal, whose waveform depends on the system parameter values. Likewise, the difference between the ciphertext and the phase signal of a non synchronized receiver $`\varphi _m^{}\varphi _3^{}`$, depends on these same parameters. The study of these signals provides the necessary information to recover a good estimation of the system parameter values and the correct plaintext, as will be seen next.

Let us assume that the key consists of the oscillator’s parameters $`\alpha `$ and $`\omega `$, as they are the only unknowns in the example of ascsbotpsocs . Moreover the parameters $`\beta `$ and $`\gamma `$, that were constants in the example, can not be part of the key because, according to our experiments, the synchronization of the Rössler oscillator is indifferent to a mismatch of the value of these parameters in a range greater than 1 to 1000.

The search space of $`\alpha `$ may be restricted to the unique suitable value range for operation, characterized by the mild chaotic region of the Rössler oscillator, in which its phase increases monotonically with time, showing a chaotic increase rate, that allows hiding the binary information. This region is roughly characterized by the following values of $`\alpha `$:

$$0.03\alpha 0.18.$$
(3)
The operation of the system with lower values of $`\alpha `$ should be avoided because the waveform of the oscillator is quite uniform and its phase increases almost linearly with time. Therefore, the instantaneous phase fluctuations, due to the binary information modulation, can not be effectively hidden, and thus the information could be easily retrieved from the signal.

Higher values of $`\alpha `$ should be also avoided because the Rössler oscillator operates in the wild chaotic region, in which the phase does not increases monotonically with time, showing erratic increases and decreases, rendering impossible the synchronization of the authorized receiver, thus preventing the correct data retrieving.

The behavior of the attractor with respect to $`\alpha `$ is illustrated in Fig. 2, in which the time history of the ciphertext signal $`\varphi _m^{}`$ for three values of $`\alpha `$ is shown. The first sample corresponds to $`\alpha =0.01`$, showing that the phase increases almost linearly. The second one corresponds to $`\alpha =0.15`$, showing that the phase increases monotonically with chaotic behavior. The last sample corresponds to $`\alpha =0.25`$, showing that the phase increases and decreases irregularly.

The sensitivity to the parameter values is so low that the original plaintext can be recovered from the ciphertext using an intruder receiver system with parameter values considerably different from the ones used by the transmitter ((ascsbotpsocs, , Fig. 7)).

We have found that the plaintext $`b^{}`$ can be recovered even when $`\alpha ^{}`$ has an absolute error of $`\pm \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.2}`$. As a consequence, it is sufficient to try four values of $`\alpha ^{}`$, to cover its full usable range. The best set of values is: $`\alpha ^{}=\{0.05,0.09,0.13,0.17\}`$.

In Fig. 3 we show the power spectral analysis of the ciphertext signal. As can be observed, the frequency of the Rössler oscillator is totally evident. The spectrum’s highest peak appears at $`\omega ^{}1.03`$, close to the parameter value of the drive subsystem $`\omega =1`$. Thus, by simply examining the ciphertext, the second key element $`\omega ^{}`$ is guessed with reasonable accuracy.

Let $`\omega ^{}`$ be the approximate value of $`\omega `$. Once it is measured we can use it to recover the plaintext in the following way.

First, we introduce the estimated value of $`\omega ^{}`$ into an intruder receiver with $`\eta =0`$, that is without coupling, so the intruder receiver oscillator will be running freely. To check whether the estimation of $`\omega ^{}`$ is good, we look at the output of the phase comparator $`\varphi _m^{}\varphi _3^{}`$ as well as at the ciphertext signal $`\varphi _m^{}`$ and at the phase signal of the receiver $`\varphi _3^{}`$.

When the frequencies of transmitter and intruder receiver are slightly different, then $`\varphi _m^{}\varphi _3^{}`$ will look like a train of pulses of increasing width summed with a direct current of increasing level; being the final width and direct current increasing level rate proportional to the difference of frequencies $`\omega ^{}\omega `$. Also, the mismatch of the periods of the phase signals $`\varphi _m^{}`$ and $`\varphi _3^{}`$ is perceptible. With this information we can adjust the value of $`\omega ^{}`$ in a few steps, until the width of the pulses tends to zero. Then, the period mismatch of the phase signals $`\varphi _m^{}`$ and $`\varphi _3^{}`$ is unnoticeable and its direct current level equals zero.

The procedure is illustrated in Fig. 4. We begin with $`\omega ^{}=1.03`$, the value estimated from the spectrum, and we see that the correct value of $`\omega ^{}`$ must be slightly lower, thus we try $`\omega ^{}=1.015`$ and we see that we are near the exact value but still a little bit high. Next we try $`\omega ^{}=1.005`$, and we see that the frequency match is quite good. We retain this last value of $`\omega ^{}`$ as the definite one and go to the next step.

Finally, we set $`\eta =5.3`$ at the intruder receiver and look at the retrieved data $`b^{}`$ for the previously obtained $`\omega ^{}`$ an for each of the four possible values of $`\alpha ^{}`$. In Fig. 5 the retrieved binary data $`b^{}`$ obtained with $`\omega ^{}=1.005`$ and $`\alpha ^{}=\{0.05,0.09,0.13,0.17\}`$ are presented. It can be seen that for $`\alpha ^{}=\{0.05,0.09,0.13\}`$ only cero value data are obtained and for $`\alpha ^{}=0.17`$ some output data are present, thus we may assume that the value of $`\alpha ^{}=0.17`$ can be retained as the appropriate one to retrieve the plaintext $`b^{}`$ and that the data obtained with it consist of the correct recovered plaintext, as can be verified from the figure.

Although the estimated pair of values $`\{\omega ^{},\alpha ^{}\}=\{1.005,0.17\}`$ are far from the right ones, the plaintext is correctly recovered as a consequence of the system’s low sensitivity to parameters.

Moreover, we have observed that many other combinations of parameter values allow for the recovery of the correct plaintext as well. In Fig. 6 we show after many simulations the region of $`\{\omega ^{},\alpha ^{}\}`$ values in which correct plaintext recovery of a ciphertext generated with a drive subsystem with $`\{\omega ,\alpha \}=\{1.00,0.15\}`$ is achieved.

## III Conclusion

The proposed cryptosystem is rather weak, since it can be broken by measuring the power spectrum of the ciphertext signal and trying a small set of parameter values. There is no detailed description about what the key is, nor what the key space is, a fundamental aspect in every secure communication system. The lack of security discourages the use of this algorithm for secure applications.

Acknowledgements This work is supported by Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología of Spain, research grant TIC2001-0586.


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# Fabrication and Electrical Properties of Pure VO2 Phase Films

## I Introduction

Oxides of vanadium undergo a metal-insulator transition (MIT) at a critical temperature. Among these oxides, vanadium dioxide VO2 has been attracted much attention because its transition temperature is near room temperature, 340 K. The electrical-resistivity change of an order of 104-$`10^5`$ and the abrupt infrared-transmission change are observed at the transition temperature, which makes it useful for application to electrical and optical switching devices.

The properties of the phase transition of VO2 films strongly depends on the nature of the crystal structure and their stoichiometry, including the film orientation, oxygen content, and residual interface strain. In particular, the oxygen partial pressure is very sensitive in growing the films with a pure VO2 phase. Thus, it is important and necessary, although not easy, to obtain pure phase films for better properties of metal-insulator transition.

To date, there have been various methods used for the successful deposition of VO2 thin films, such as chemical vapor deposition, reactive sputtering, and laser ablation. Pulsed laser deposition was proven to be an excellent method, especially in growing oxide thin films.

In this paper, we deposit (100) oriented VO2 thin films on sapphire substrate by laser ablation, with varying the oxygen partial pressure. The polycrystalline films are grown on the SiO2/Si substrate; detailed properties will be presented in another paper. Phases of the vanadium oxide films are extensively investigated by means of observations of crystal structure and of the resistance change with temperature. Furthermore, metal-insulator transition induced by the electric field is observed.

## II Experiments

The VO2 thin films were successfully grown on $`\alpha `$-Al2O3 ($`\overline{1}`$012) and SiO2/Si substrates by laser ablation with a vanadium metal target in an ambient of a partially filled oxygen and argon. The KrF excimer laser (Lambda-Physik, Compex 205) with a wavelength of 248 nm was used to ablate the rotating metal target. An energy density of 1$``$2 J/cm2 was focused on the target surface at a repetition rate of 5 Hz. The distance between the target and the substrate was 5 cm. The detailed conditions for the preparation of the vanadium oxide films are described in Table 1. Prior to deposition, the substrates were cleaned with a formal process to remove residual contaminants on their surfaces. The chamber was evacuated down to the base pressure as low as 10-6 Torr. Argon and oxygen gases were filled by adjusting the gas-flow meter. The substrate temperature was kept at 450 C during the deposition process. The film growth was carried out at a pressure between 50 and 200 mTorr. The target was pre-ablated with a shutter for the several minutes to clean the target surface. The partial pressure of oxygen was the most critical variable in obtaining the pure VO2 phase, which was controlled by the working pressure containing 10% oxygen in an argon atmosphere. The deposition rate of VO2 films was estimated to be about 0.39 Å/sec. After deposition, the substrates were slowly cooled to the room temperature under the same deposition atmosphere as that used for growth.

The crystalline structure of deposited films was analyzed by X-ray diffraction (XRD)and high energy electron diffraction (RHEED). The surface morphology and the film composition were observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), respectively. The resistivity of the films was measured using four-probe method. To observe the metal-insulator transition with respect to the electric field, the Au/Cr electrodes were patterned on VO2 thin films by the lift-off method.

## III Results and Discussion

Figure 1 shows X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns of vanadium oxide films deposited on $`\alpha `$-Al2O3 ($`\overline{1}`$012) substrates in different ambient pressures. The film orientation strongly depends upon partial oxygen contents in the deposition ambient. Although vanadium oxides have several phases, no peaks of phases exist other than those of three phases VO2, V6O13, and V2O5. Figure 1(a) shows that the film synthesized in a pressure of more than about 120 mTorr, is highly (00l) oriented to V2O5. The film deposited in 70 mTorr has mixed phases of VO2, V6O13, and V2O5, as shown in Fig. 1(b). In particular, the (00l) peaks of V6O13 phase were distinct. Figure 1 (c) shows only one peak corresponding to the (200) peak of the monoclinic phase, which indicates the highly preferred orientation of the film. This is in agreement with the results reported by other groups. Thus, VO2 films are grown only in ambient pressures in the range of 55-60 mTorr. Figure 2 shows an XRD pattern of VO2 thin film grown on SiO2/Si substrates. The film was deposited in the same growth conditions on sapphire except for at the deposition temperature of 460 C. The VO2 phase peaks are formed, which means that the VO2 film could be grown even on amorphous SiO2.

Figure 3 shows the SEM image and the RHEED pattern of the VO2 thin films grown on sapphire substrates. As shown in Fig 3(a), the film surface are formed smoothly with no particulate and grains are densely packed. The average grain size of the film is about 60 nm. A typical RHEED pattern for the VO2 film is appeared in Fig 3(b). The pattern was obtained with an electron energy of 15 keV at a room temperature. The arranged spots are observed although the streaks and Kikuchi lines related to uniform crystal surface are not appeared. The spotted pattern is formed when the films have single crystal structure. Therefore the VO2 thin films on sapphire were grown epitaxial. Figure 4 shows SIMS results of VO2 samples. The element distribution along a depth of the film from a surface is plotted. Vanadium ion for both films grown on sapphire and SiO2/Si substrates deeply penetrates into the substrate. The interface region is largely formed. Silicon ion also diffuses into the VO2 film in Fig. 5(b). This large interdiffusion of elements at the interface may be an obstacle to the growth of pure phase films.

Figure 5(a) shows the temperature dependence of the electrical resistance for vanadium oxide films grown on sapphire in the range of 50-70 mTorr as a function of temperature. The resistance measurement was carried out in a cryostat where the samples are cooled and heated by liquid nitrogen and a heating source. The films grown at 55 and 60 mTorr show abrupt resistance change of in the order of 3$`\times `$104 near a critical temperature, $`T_c`$$``$338 K, which is a structural MIT. This abrupt change with a transition width of about 3 K is comparable to that measured in VO2 single crystal. The electrical resistance below $`T_c`$ exponentially increases with a decreasing temperature of the film, which is a typical characteristic of semiconductor. The resistance change near $`T_c`$ for the film grown at the ambient pressure of 65 mTorr is smaller than others.

Figure 5(b) shows that, in a film deposited at 70 mTorr, the resistance change both below $`T_c`$ and near $`T_c`$ is much smaller. This property may be attributed to the existence of the mixed phases in the films. Moreover, a film grown at 50 mTorr shows no distinct transition although the film has VO2 phase from x-ray analysis. This may be considered due to the oxygen deficiencies generated during the deposition with a low oxygen partial pressure. As a result of our experiments, it is found that the pure VO2 thin films are obtained at the narrow process window within the range of 5-10 mTorr. It should be noted that the control of the oxygen content during the deposition is most important.

Figure 6 (a) shows the hysteresis of the resistivity measured by increasing and decreasing the temperature. This thermal hysteresis is evidence of the abrupt first-order phase transition. The width of hysteresis is estimated to be about 4 K. Figure 6 (b) shows the temperature dependence of the electrical resistance for the VO2 film deposited on SiO2/Si. It undergoes a metal-insulator transition near 341 K, which indicates formation of the VO2 phase. There is no abrupt change of resistivity of the VO2 films compared with the VO2/Al2O3 films, but the resistance exponentially decreases with an increasing temperature from 340 K and has a transition width of 10 K. These characteristics are resulted from that the film is polycrystalline, as shown in the XRD pattern of Fig. 2.

Figure 7 shows the MIT induced by the electric field in a VO2 film grown on sapphire substrate. The schematic diagram of a two terminal structure is displayed in the inset figure. The Au/Cr electrodes to apply the electric field was prepared using the rf-sputtering technique, and patterned into a length of 5 $`\mu `$m and a width of 25 $`\mu `$m by the lift-off method. The experiment was conducted at room temperature and the maximum current in the instrumentation was limited to prevent the film from damage suffered from a large current flow in advance; the current compliance was 5 mA. The current density increases with an increasing applied voltage below point $`A`$ in Fig. 7. At the indicated point $`A`$, an abrupt jump is shown; this has been reproducibly observed, and is not interpreted as dielectric breakdown. At point $`B`$, the current density is about 3 $`\times `$ 105 A/cm2; this order is given due to compliance, if there is no compliance, the current density is larger than this value. This is regarded as collective current motion appearing in metal. Thus, the jump is the abrupt MIT. The mechanism of the jump is given in a previous paper because it is outside the scope of this paper.

## IV Conclusions

We successfully deposited pure VO2 thin films on the sapphire by laser ablation. The working pressure to obtain the pure VO2 phase is near 60 mTorr in an ambient of Ar + 10% O2. The VO2 films on sapphire underwent an abrupt MIT at $`T_c`$=338 K with resistance change of an order of 104. The MIT and the collective current motion are observed when the electric field is applied to the film.


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# Two Particle States in an Asymmetric Box

## 1 Introduction

In a series of papers, Lüscher obtained results  which relate the energy of a two-particle state in a cubic box (a torus) with the elastic scattering phases of the two particles in the continuum. This formula, now known as Lüscher’s formula, has been utilized in a number of applications, e.g. linear sigma model in the broken phase , and also in quenched QCD . Due to limited numerical computational power, the $`s`$-wave scattering length, which is related to the scattering phase shift at vanishing relative three momentum, is mostly studied in hadron scattering using quenched approximation. CP-PACS collaboration calculated the scattering phases at non-zero momenta in pion-pion $`s`$-wave scattering in the $`I=2`$ channel  using quenched Wilson fermions and recently also in two flavor full QCD . In typical lattice QCD calculations, if one would like to probe for physical information concerning two-particle states with non-zero relative three momentum, large lattices have to be used which usually requires enormous amount of computing resource. One of the reasons for this is the following. In a cubic box, the three momenta of a single particle are quantized according to: $`𝐤=(2\pi /L)𝐧(2\pi /L)(n_1,n_2,n_3)`$, with $`𝐧Z^3`$. 111That is, $`n_1`$, $`n_2`$ and $`n_3`$ are integers. In order to control lattice artifacts due to these non-zero momentum modes, one needs to have large values of $`L`$. One disadvantage of the cubic box is that the energy of a free particle with lowest non-zero momentum is degenerate. This means that the second lowest energy level of the particle with non-vanishing momentum corresponds to $`𝐧=(1,1,0)`$. If one would like to measure these states on the lattice, even larger values of $`L`$ should be used. One way to remedy this is to use a three dimensional box whose shape is not cubic. If we use a generic rectangular box of size $`(\eta _1L)\times (\eta _2L)\times L`$ with $`\eta _1`$ and $`\eta _2`$ other than unity, we would have three different low-lying one-particle energy with non-zero momenta corresponding to $`𝐧=(1,0,0)`$, $`(0,1,0)`$ and $`(0,0,1)`$, respectively. This scenario is useful since it presents more available low momentum modes for a given lattice size, which is important in the study of hadron-hadron scattering phase shift. Similar situation also occurs in the study of $`K`$ to $`\pi \pi `$ matrix element (see Ref.  for a review and references therein). There, one also needs to study two-particle states with non-vanishing relative three-momentum. Again, a cubic box yields too few available low-lying non-vanishing momenta and large value of $`L`$ is needed to reach the physical interesting kinematic region. In these cases, one could try an asymmetric rectangular box with only one side being large while the other sides moderate. In an asymmetric rectangular box, the original formulae due to Lüscher, which give the relation between the energy eigenvalues in the finite box and the continuum scattering phases, have to be modified accordingly. The purpose of this letter is to derive the equivalents of Lüscher’s formulae in the case of a generic rectangular (not necessarily cubic) box.

We consider two-particle states in a box of size $`(\eta _1L)\times (\eta _2L)\times L`$ with periodic boundary conditions. For definiteness, we take $`\eta _11`$,$`\eta _21`$, which amounts to denoting the the length of the smallest side of the rectangular box as $`L`$. The following derivation depends heavily on the previous results obtained in Ref. . We will take over similar assumptions as in Ref. . In particular, the relation between the energy eigenvalues and the scattering phases derived in the non-relativistic quantum mechanical model can be carried over to the case of relativistic, massive field theory under these assumptions, the same way as in the case of cubic box which was discussed in detail in Ref. . For the quantum mechanical model, we assume that the range of the interaction, denoted by $`R`$, of the two-particle system is such that $`R<L/2`$.

The modifications which have to be implemented, as compared with Ref. , are mainly concerned with different symmetries of the box. In a cubic box, the representations of the rotational group are decomposed into irreducible representations of the cubic group. In a generic asymmetric box, the symmetry of the system is reduced. In the case of $`\eta _1=\eta _21`$, the basic group becomes $`D_4`$; if $`\eta _1\eta _21`$, the symmetry is further reduced to $`D_2`$, modulo parity operation. Therefore, the final expression relating the energy eigenvalues of the system and the scattering phases will be different.

## 2 Energy eigenstates and singular periodic solutions of Helmholtz equation

As discussed in Ref. , the energy eigenstates in a box is intimately related to the singular periodic solutions of the Helmholtz equation:

$$(^2+k^2)\psi (𝐫)=0.$$
(1)
These solutions are periodic: $`\psi (𝐫+\widehat{𝐧}L)=\psi (𝐫)`$ and are bounded by certain powers of $`r=|𝐫|`$ near $`r=0`$. The momentum modes in the rectangular box are quantized as: $`𝐤=(2\pi /L)\stackrel{~}{𝐧}`$. Here we introduce the notations: $`\stackrel{~}{𝐧}(n_1/\eta _1,n_2/\eta _2,n_3)`$ and $`\widehat{𝐧}(n_1\eta _1,\eta _2n_2,n_3)`$ with $`𝐧=(n_1,n_2,n_3)Z^3`$. For regular values of $`k`$, 222This means that $`|k|(2\pi /L)|\stackrel{~}{𝐧}|`$ for any $`𝐧Z^3`$.the singular periodic solutions of Helmholtz equation can be obtained from the Green’s function:

$$G(𝐫;k^2)=\frac{1}{\eta _1\eta _2L^3}\underset{𝐩}{}\frac{e^{i𝐩𝐫}}{𝐩^2k^2}.$$
(2)
We define: $`𝒴_{lm}(𝐫)r^lY_{lm}(\mathrm{\Omega }_𝐫)`$, where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_𝐫`$ represents the solid angle parameters $`(\theta ,\varphi )`$ of $`𝐫`$ in spherical coordinates; $`Y_{lm}`$ are the usual spherical harmonic functions. It is well-known that $`𝒴_{lm}(𝐫)`$ consist of all linear independent, homogeneous functions in $`(x,y,z)`$ of degree $`l`$ that transform irreducibly under the rotational group. We then define:

$$G_{lm}(𝐫;k^2)=𝒴_{lm}()G(𝐫;k^2),$$
(3)
which form a complete, linear independent set of functions of singular periodic solutions to Helmholtz equation. The functions $`G_{lm}(𝐫;k^2)`$ may be expanded into spherical harmonics:

$$G_{lm}(𝐫;k^2)=\frac{()^lk^{l+1}}{4\pi }\left[Y_{lm}(\mathrm{\Omega }_𝐫)n_l(kr)+\underset{l^{}m^{}}{}_{lm;l^{}m^{}}Y_{l^{}m^{}}(\mathrm{\Omega }_𝐫)j_l^{}(kr)\right].$$
(4)
Here, $`j_l`$ and $`n_l`$ are the usual spherical Bessel functions and the matrix $`_{lm;l^{}m^{}}`$ is related to the modified zeta function via:

$`_{lm;js}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{l^{}m^{}}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{()^si^{jl}𝒵_{l^{}m^{}}(1,q^2;\eta _1,\eta _2)}{\eta _1\eta _2\pi ^{3/2}q^{l^{}+1}}}\sqrt{(2l+1)(2l^{}+1)(2j+1)}`$ (9)
$`\times `$ $`\left(\begin{array}{ccc}l& l^{}& j\\ 0& 0& 0\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{ccc}l& l^{}& j\\ m& m^{}& s\end{array}\right).`$
In this formula, the Wigner $`3j`$-symbols can be related to the Clebcsh-Gordan coefficients in the usual way. For a given angular momentum cutoff $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, the quantity $`_{lm;l^{}m^{}}`$ can be viewed as the matrix element of a linear operator $`\widehat{M}`$ in a vector space $`_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, which is spanned by all harmonic polynomials of degree $`l\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. The modified zeta function is formally defined by:

$$𝒵_{lm}(s,q^2;\eta _1,\eta _2)=\underset{𝐧}{}\frac{𝒴_{lm}(\stackrel{~}{𝐧})}{(\stackrel{~}{𝐧}^2q^2)^s}.$$
(10)
According to this definition, the modified zeta function at the right-hand side of Eq. (9) is formally divergent and needs to be analytically continued. Following similar discussions as in Ref. , one could obtain a finite expression for the modified zeta function which is suitable for numerical evaluation. It is also obvious from the symmetry of $`D_4`$ or $`D_2`$ that, for $`l4`$, the only non-vanishing zeta functions at $`s=1`$ are: $`𝒵_{00}`$, $`𝒵_{20}`$, $`𝒵_{2\pm 2}`$, $`𝒵_{40}`$, $`𝒵_{4\pm 2}`$ and $`𝒵_{4\pm 4}`$. One easily verifies that, if $`\eta _1=\eta _2=1`$, all of the above definitions and formulae reduce to the those obtained in Ref. .

The energy eigenstates of the two-particle system may be expanded in terms of singular periodic solutions of Helmholtz equation. This solution in the region where the interaction is vanishing can be expressed in terms of ordinary spherical Bessel functions, which is related to the scattering phases in the usual way. For the two-particle eigenstate in the symmetry sector $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ in a box of particular symmetry (either $`D_4`$ or $`D_2`$), the energy eigenvalue, $`E=k^2/2\mu `$ with $`\mu `$ being the reduced mass of the two particles, is determined by:

$$det[e^{2i\delta }\widehat{U}(\mathrm{\Gamma })]=0,\widehat{U}(\mathrm{\Gamma })=(\widehat{M}(\mathrm{\Gamma })+i)/(\widehat{M}(\mathrm{\Gamma })i).$$
(11)
Here $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ denotes a particular representation of the group $`D_4`$ or $`D_2`$. $`\widehat{M}(\mathrm{\Gamma })`$ represents a linear operator in the vector space $`_\mathrm{\Lambda }(\mathrm{\Gamma })`$. This vector space is spanned by all complex vectors whose components are $`v_{ln}`$, with $`l\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, and $`n`$ runs from $`1`$ to the number of occurrence of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ in the decomposition of representation with angular momentum $`l`$, see Ref.  for details. To write out more explicit formulae, one therefore has to consider decompositions of the rotational group representations under appropriate symmetries.

## 3 Symmetry of an asymmetric box

As mentioned in the beginning of this letter, modifications have to be made since the symmetry of an asymmetric box is different from that of a cubic one. We first describe the case $`\eta _1=\eta _2`$. The symmetry group is $`D_4`$, which has $`4`$ one-dimensional representations: $`A_1`$, $`A_2`$, $`B_1`$, $`B_2`$ and a two-dimensional irreducible representation $`E`$. The representations of the rotational group are decomposed according to:

$$\mathrm{𝟎}=A_1^+,\mathbf{\hspace{0.33em}1}=A_2^{}+E^{},\mathbf{\hspace{0.33em}2}=A_1^++B_1^++B_2^++E^+,$$
(12)
As is seen, in the $`A_1^+`$ sector, up to $`l2`$ both $`s`$-wave and $`d`$-wave contribute. This corresponds to two linearly independent, homogeneous polynomials with degrees not more than $`2`$, which are invariant under $`D_4`$. These two polynomials can be identified as $`𝒴_{00}`$ and $`𝒴_{20}(x^2+y^22z^2)`$. Therefore, we can write out the reduced matrix element $`(A_1^+)_{ll^{}}=m_{ll^{}}`$ in this sector:

$`m_{00}`$ $`=`$ $`𝒲_{00},m_{20}=m_{02}=𝒲_{20},`$
$`m_{22}`$ $`=`$ $`𝒲_{00}+{\displaystyle \frac{2\sqrt{5}}{7}}𝒲_{20}+{\displaystyle \frac{6}{7}}𝒲_{40},`$ (13)
where we have introduced the notation:

$$𝒲_{lm}(1,q^2;\eta _1,\eta _2)\frac{𝒵_{lm}(1,q^2;\eta _1,\eta _2)}{\pi ^{3/2}\eta _1\eta _2q^{l+1}}.$$
(14)
We find that, in the case of $`D_4`$ symmetry, Eq. (11) becomes:

$$\left(1+\frac{m_{02}^2}{m_{00}}\frac{\mathrm{tan}\delta _2}{1m_{22}\mathrm{tan}\delta _2}\right)\mathrm{tan}\delta _0=\frac{1}{m_{00}}.$$
(15)
Similar formula also appears in the case of cubic box except that the mixing with $`s`$-wave comes in at $`l=4`$, not at $`l=2`$.

For the case $`\eta _1\eta _2`$, the symmetry group becomes $`D_2`$ which has only $`4`$ one-dimensional representations: $`A`$, $`B_1`$, $`B_2`$ and $`B_3`$. The decomposition (12) is replaced by:

$$\mathrm{𝟎}=A^+,\mathbf{\hspace{0.33em}1}=B_1^{}+B_2^{}+B_3^{},\mathbf{\hspace{0.33em}2}=A^++A^++B_1^++B_2^++B_3^+.$$
(16)
So, up to $`l2`$, $`A^+`$ occurs three times: once in $`l=0`$ and twice in $`l=2`$. The corresponding basis polynomials can be taken as: $`𝒴_{00}`$, $`𝒴_{20}`$ and $`(𝒴_{22}+𝒴_{22})/\sqrt{2}`$. If we denote the above three states as: $`0`$, $`2`$ and $`\overline{2}`$, the reduced matrix $`\widehat{M}(A^+)`$ is three-dimensional with matrix elements $`m_{00}`$, $`m_{02}=m_{20}`$ and $`m_{22}`$ given in Eq. (3) and the rest are given by:

$`m_{0\overline{2}}`$ $`=`$ $`m_{\overline{2}0}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}(𝒲_{22}+𝒲_{22}),`$
$`m_{2\overline{2}}`$ $`=`$ $`m_{\overline{2}2}={\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{10}}{7}}(𝒲_{22}+𝒲_{22})+{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{30}}{14}}(𝒲_{42}+𝒲_{42}),`$
$`m_{\overline{2}\overline{2}}`$ $`=`$ $`𝒲_{00}{\displaystyle \frac{2\sqrt{5}}{7}}𝒲_{20}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{7}}𝒲_{40}+\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{5}{14}}}(𝒲_{44}+𝒲_{44}).`$ (17)
Similar to Eq. (15), the relation between the energy eigenvalue and the scattering phases now reads:

$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{m_{00}}}\mathrm{cot}\delta _01\right)\left|\begin{array}{cc}1m_{22}\mathrm{tan}\delta _2& m_{2\overline{2}}\mathrm{tan}\delta _2\\ m_{2\overline{2}}\mathrm{tan}\delta _2& 1m_{\overline{2}\overline{2}}\mathrm{tan}\delta _2\end{array}\right|`$ (20)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m_{02}\mathrm{tan}^2\delta _2}{m_{00}}}\left|\begin{array}{cc}m_{02}& m_{2\overline{2}}\\ m_{0\overline{2}}& (\mathrm{cot}\delta _2m_{\overline{2}\overline{2}})\end{array}\right|{\displaystyle \frac{m_{0\overline{2}}\mathrm{tan}^2\delta _2}{m_{00}}}\left|\begin{array}{cc}m_{02}& (\mathrm{cot}\delta _2m_{22})\\ m_{0\overline{2}}& m_{2\overline{2}}\end{array}\right|.`$ (25)
If the $`d`$-wave phase shift were small enough, it is easy to check that both Eq (15) and Eq (20) simplifies to:

$$\mathrm{cot}\delta _0(k)=m_{00}=\frac{𝒵_{00}(1,q^2;\eta _1,\eta _2)}{\pi ^{3/2}\eta _1\eta _2q}.$$
(26)
For the general case, Eq. (15) and Eq. (20) offer the desired relation between the energy eigenvalues in the $`A_1^+`$ sector and the scattering phases for the cases $`\eta _1=\eta _2`$ and $`\eta _1\eta _2`$, respectively.

## 4 Large volume expansion of the scattering length

It is known that in low-energy scattering processes, the scattering phases $`\delta _l(k)`$ behaves like: $`\mathrm{tan}\delta _l(k)k^{2l+1}`$ for small $`k`$, where $`k`$ is the relative momentum of the two particles being scattered. It is easy to verify that both $`m_{00}`$ and $`m_{02}`$ behave like $`1/q^3`$ as $`q0`$. Since $`\mathrm{tan}\delta _2(q)`$ goes to zero like $`q^5`$, we see that the effects due to $`d`$-wave phase shift in Eq. (15) and Eq. (20) are negligible as long as the relative momentum $`q`$ is small enough. Therefore, in both cases, the $`s`$-wave scattering length $`a_0`$ will be determined by the zero momentum limit of Eq. (26).

For a large box, a large $`L`$ expansion of the formulae can be deduced. Using Eq. (26), we find that the $`s`$-wave scattering length $`a_0`$ is related to the energy difference in a generic rectangular box via: 333 For low relative momenta, the $`d`$-wave scattering phase behaves like: $`\mathrm{tan}\delta _2(q)a_2k^5=a_2(2\pi /L)^5q^5`$, with $`a_2`$ being the $`d`$-wave scattering length. If we treat the effects due to $`\mathrm{tan}\delta _2`$ perturbatively, we see from Eq. (15) and Eq. (20) that, in Eq. (27), functions $`c_1`$ and $`c_2`$ receive contributions that are proportional to $`(a_2/L^5)`$, which is of higher order in $`1/L`$ for large $`L`$.

$$\delta E=\frac{2\pi a_0}{\eta _1\eta _2\mu L^3}\left[1+c_1(\eta _1,\eta _2)\left(\frac{a_0}{L}\right)+c_2(\eta _1,\eta _2)\left(\frac{a_0}{L}\right)^2+\mathrm{}\right].$$
(27)
Here, $`\mu `$ designates the reduced mass of the two particles whose mass values are $`m_1`$ and $`m_2`$, respectively. Energy shift $`\delta EEm_1m_2`$ where $`E`$ is the energy eigenvalue of the two-particle state. Functions $`c_1(\eta _1,\eta _2)`$ and $`c_2(\eta _1,\eta _2)`$ are given by:

$`c_1(\eta _1,\eta _2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{Z}_{00}(1,0;\eta _1,\eta _2)}{\pi \eta _1\eta _2}},`$
$`c_2(\eta _1,\eta _2)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{Z}_{00}^2(1,0;\eta _1,\eta _2)\widehat{Z}_{00}(2,0;\eta _1,\eta _2)}{(\pi \eta _1\eta _2)^2}},`$ (28)
where the subtracted zeta function is defined as:

$$\widehat{Z}_{00}(s,q^2;\eta _1,\eta _2)=\underset{|\stackrel{~}{𝐧}|^2q^2}{}\frac{1}{(\stackrel{~}{𝐧}^2q^2)^s}.$$
(29)
In Table 1, we have listed numerical values for the coefficients $`c_1(\eta _1,\eta _2)`$ and $`c_2(\eta _1,\eta _2)`$ under some typical topology. In the first column of the table, we tabulated the ratio for the three sides of the box: $`\eta _1:\eta _2:1`$. Note that for $`\eta _1=\eta _2=1`$, these two functions reduce to the old numerical values for the cubic box which had been used in earlier scattering length calculations.

## 5 Conclusions

In this letter, we have studied two-particle scattering states in a generic rectangular box with periodic boundary conditions. The relations of the energy eigenvalues and the scattering phases in the continuum are found. These can be viewed as a generalization of the well-known Lüscher’s formula. In particular, we show that the $`s`$-wave scattering length is related to the energy shift by a simple formula, which is a direct generalization of the corresponding formula in the case of cubic box. We argued that this asymmetric topology might be useful in practice since it provides more available low-lying momentum modes in a finite box, which will be advantageous in the study of scattering phase shifts at non-zero three momenta in hadron-hadron scattering and possibly also in other applications.


text:
# Octahedral Tilt Instability of ReO3-type Crystals

## Appendix A

A generalized CM theory Allen  can be constructed as follows. For an array of point polarizable molecules at fixed positions $`\stackrel{}{R}_i`$, the energy for an arbitrary pattern of dipoles $`\{\stackrel{}{\mu }_i\}`$ is

$$\left(\{\stackrel{}{\mu }_i\}\right)=\underset{i}{}\left(\frac{\mu _i^2}{2\alpha }\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{}{\mu }_i\stackrel{}{F}_{D,i}\right)=\frac{1}{2}<\mu |\frac{1}{\alpha }\widehat{\mathrm{𝟏}}𝚪|\mu >.$$
(6)
For dipoles on the X anions in perovskite structure, there are 3 sublattice sites per cubic unit cell. A vector space notation is used where $`|\mu >`$ is a $`9N`$-dimensional column vector of the 3 Cartesian components of each of the $`3N`$ dipoles in $`N`$ unit cells, and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is the $`9N\times 9N`$ dipole-dipole interaction matrix which has elements

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{i\alpha ,j\beta }=\frac{3R_{ij\alpha }R_{ij\beta }\delta _{\alpha \beta }R_{ij}^2}{R_{ij}^5}.$$
(7)
The lattice is stable against dipole formation if the quadratic form Eq.(6) is positive (all its eigenvalues should be positive.) The condition for instability is that the maximum eigenvalue $`\gamma `$ of the matrix $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ exceeds the restoring force constant $`1/\alpha `$. The corresponding eigenvector gives the pattern of displacement dipoles $`|\mu >`$ which has the most self-stabilizing displacment pattern.

Bloch’s theorem allows eigenstates of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ to be chosen as simultaneous eigenstates of translations $`T(\stackrel{}{R})`$ where $`\stackrel{}{R}`$ is any translation vector of the primitive (simple cubic) lattice. The resulting Bloch states are labeled by wavevector $`\stackrel{}{k}`$ which lies in the first Brillouin zone. The eigenvalues were computed numerically, using an Ewald method Smith  to converge the sums. Results are shown in Fig. 3. As a test of the code, eigenvalues were also calculated for a model with a fourth sublattice corresponding to the perovskite A sites. Together with the three X sites, the resulting lattice is equivalent to the face-centered cubic structure in a non-primitive conventional cube and a four-atom basis. It was found numerically that the largest eigenvalue equalled $`4\pi n/3`$ (with $`n=4/a^3`$) and occurred at $`\stackrel{}{k}=(000)`$. This is the known result of CM theory – when every molecule bears the same moment $`\stackrel{}{\mu }`$ and sits on a site of cubic symmetry, the field at each site is given by the classical Lorentz value $`(4\pi /3)\stackrel{}{P}`$, and a ferroelectric instability occurs when the energy $`\stackrel{}{P}\stackrel{}{F}`$ exceeds the cost $`\mu ^2/2\alpha `$ to create the dipoles.

The flatness of the uppermost branch of $`\gamma `$ versus $`k`$ in Fig. 3 indicates that there is not much interaction coupling the $`xy`$-oriented dipoles in one $`xy`$ plane to the $`xy`$-oriented dipoles in adjacent planes. This result can be understood as a consequence of the exponentially rapid transverse decay of electric field of a periodic array of dipoles Allen . This fact helps explain why the observed tilts of perovskites are so indiscriminating in their preferred wavevector $`(\pi ,\pi ,0)`$ vs. $`(\pi ,\pi ,\pi )`$, and even allow mixed wavevector solutions.


text:
# A Possible Mechanism for Generating a Small Positive Cosmological Constant

## Abstract

We argue that in the context of string theory a large number $`N`$ of connected degenerate vacua that mix will lead to a ground state with much lower energy, essentially because of the standard level repulsion of quantum theory for the wavefunction of the Universe. We imagine a history where initial quantum fluctuations give an energy density $`m_{susy}^2m_{Pl}^2,`$ but the universe quickly cascades to an energy density $`m_{susy}^2m_{Pl}^2/N.`$ Then at various phase transitions there are large contributions to the energy density and rearrangement of levels, followed again by a rapid cascade to the ground state or near it. If this mechanism is correct, the ground state of the theory describing our world would be a superposition of a large number of connected string vacua, with shared superselection sets of properties such as three families etc. The observed value of the cosmological constant is determined in terms of the Planck mass, the scale of supersymmetry breaking and the number of connected string vacua.

preprint: MCTP-03-50preprint: DAMTP-2003-128preprint: hepth 0311152

Recent observations of type Ia supernovae a  and the cosmic microwave background power spectrum b  have led to the consensus that there is dark energy giving a contribution of $`\mathrm{\Omega }0.7`$ or $`\rho _{de}10^{10}\mathrm{eV}^4`$ to the total energy density of the Universe. This dark energy can be identified with a positive cosmological constant, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{de},`$ by $`\rho _{de}=\mathrm{\Lambda }_{de}/8\pi G_N.`$ $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{de}`$ is very small on any energy scale in fundamental physics, being roughly $`10^{122}`$ in Planckian units. It is a challenge to explain this observation c , particularly without recourse to anthropic arguments, and using the only quantum theory of spacetime and particle physics available, namely string theory. Attempts to understand this problem are hindered by several events in the history of the Universe where a vacuum energy that is like a cosmological constant is expected to be generated. As the Universe evolves, there are stages of its thermal history where vacuum energy becomes important. During the inflationary epoch perhaps $`\mathrm{\Lambda }m_{unif}^2,`$ with the unification mass scale $`m_{unif}`$ being $`10^{16}\mathrm{GeV}`$. Later supersymmetry breaking is expected to generate $`\mathrm{\Lambda }m_{susy}^2,`$ with $`m_{susy}1\mathrm{T}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}.`$ At the electroweak transition one expects to find $`\mathrm{\Lambda }m_{ew}^2,`$ with the electroweak scale being roughly $`m_{ew}100\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}.`$ Lastly, there is the QCD confinement transition with $`\mathrm{\Lambda }m_{QCD}^2,`$ with $`m_{QCD}250\mathrm{M}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}.`$ All of these scales are very much larger than the scale observed for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{de}`$. The cosmological constant problem(s) require solving at least three logically separate but probably related issues: (1) The quantum fluctuation contribution to the energy density $`\rho _om_{susy}^2m_{Pl}^210^{80}\mathrm{eV}^4`$ must be reduced so that it is at or below $`\rho _{de}.`$ (2) The various vacuum energy contributions need to be similarly dealt with. (3) A residual of order $`10^{10}\mathrm{eV}^4`$ needs to be explained.

A precursor of our approach is the paper of Yokoyama d , who studied the ground state of a theory with two degenerate vacua mixed by instanton effects, assuming the cosmological constant vanished in the absolute ground state. We were stimulated by this treatment of degenerate vacua to consider what would happen in string theory. Meanwhile, a number of quite different and interesting analyses of the cosmological constant problem have appeared in recent years and while we have been obtaining the results we describe, e , suss , feng , BP .

We will formulate our approach in terms of a compactified string theory, and assume the compact manifold is Calabi-Yau. This is particular limit of M-theory rather than being general, and of course we do not yet know whether this is nature’s choice. If this approach indeed leads to progress in understanding the cosmological constant problem(s) there are two possibilities. Either the approach can be generalized to other limits of M-theory, or it is evidence that the compactification is on Calabi-Yau manifolds. Since we compactify on a Calabi-Yau space, the effective four-dimensional cosmological constant is expected to be zero before supersymmetry breaking, f . Our approach has the advantage of allowing softly broken $`N=1`$ supergravity to appear in four-dimensions coupled to matter. The precise nature of the matter is determined by the properties of the Calabi-Yau space. Each topologically distinct Calabi-Yau space has a large moduli space. The absence of massless scalars in nature means that quantum corrections must have arisen that break the moduli space up into isolated points by the introduction of some potential $`V`$. $`V`$ can have many isolated degenerate minima at $`V_{min}`$ corresponding to many possible physical vacuum states. However, $`V_{min}`$ must be above, or at, the vacuum energy density in the phase where supersymmetry is unbroken, so that compactification of a Calabi-Yau space implies that all minima are such that $`V_{min}0`$. Extensive discussion of such a potential has recently been given by Douglas, g . An expansion of $`V`$ about a minimum is typically taken to be the usual low-energy supersymmetry breaking superpotential, with only a finite potential barrier between the various possible vacuum states. A difficulty in making contact with phenomenology relates to the number of possible vacuum states $`N.`$ $`N`$ is thought to be enormous with estimates that range from $`10^{12},`$ h  to perhaps more than $`10^{138}`$, g . The essential thing to keep in mind is that we probably live in the ground state of the complete potential, or at least a very low-lying long-lived state, and the properties of our world are determined by being in this state and not by the properties of any of the string vacua that might arise in any particular compactification scheme. This comes about because in systems with large numbers of minima of $`V`$, although classically one might live in a single one of these minima, in quantum mechanics the true eigenstate of the Hamiltonian has a wavefunction that is large near many of these minima. This phenomenon is well established and is responsible for the band structure of solids. Thus it may well be that the true cosmological constant is small in the ground state even though it is large if calculated perturbatively about any single string vacuum, as we argue here.

Our argument is basically that mixing of $`N`$ degenerate string vacua by normal quantum mechanical level repulsion leads to a ground state with energy density of order the initial one divided by $`N`$. The first thing we need to do is to make an estimate of how much the lowest level is decreased as a function of the number of connected vacua. We use a simple one-dimensional quantum mechanical model to illustrate this point. Consider a particle of mass $`m`$ moving in a periodic potential of unit period with $`V(x)=V_0(1cos(2\pi x))/2`$. This potential has minima at $`x=n`$ for any integer $`n`$. The bottom of each potential well looks very much like that of a simple harmonic oscillator of angular frequency $`\omega =\sqrt{2\pi ^2V_0/m}`$. If there was just one such minimum, then one would expect the ground state energy to be roughly $`\mathrm{}\omega /2`$. However, the true quantum mechanical ground state of this system does not occur when the particle’s wavefunction is concentrated at the bottom of one of the wells, but rather, by virtue of Bloch’s theorem, one which is non-vanishing in each of the minima of the potential. The result is that the highly degenerate initial state is replaced by a band of energies. One can calculate the allowed energy band by the traditional method of solving the Schrödinger equation. However this problem can also be appoximately solved by using instanton methods. Consider a set of states $`|n`$ that are simple harmonic oscillator ground states of the particle at the minima $`x=n.`$ The true eigenstates of the Hamiltonian are Bloch waves, eigenstates of the translation operator. A trial Bloch state wavefunction can then be written as

$$|\theta =\sqrt{\frac{1}{2\pi }}\underset{n}{}e^{in\theta }|n$$
(1)
where $`0<\theta <2\pi ,`$ or equivalently theta vacua in the instanton literature. Since $`n^{}|n=\delta _{n^{},n}`$, $`\theta ^{}|\theta =\delta (\theta ^{}\theta ).`$ Consider the matrix element $`_{\theta ^{},\theta }=\theta ^{}|e^{HT/\mathrm{}}|\theta `$, where $`H`$ is the Hamiltonian. As the Euclidean time parameter $`T`$ becomes large, $`_{\theta ^{},\theta }\delta (\theta ^{}\theta )e^{E(\theta )T/\mathrm{}}`$ where $`E(\theta )`$ is the energy of the lowest Bloch wave labeled by $`\theta `$. Were our trial state to contain any other eigenstates of the Hamiltonian with higher values of the energy, by taking the limit as $`T\mathrm{}`$ their contributions would be suppressed relative to ground state energy, so $`E(\theta )`$ in this limit is precisely the ground state energy.

The instanton method i  basically involves rewriting this expression as $`_{\theta ^{},\theta }=_{n^{},n}\theta ^{}|n^{}n^{}|e^{HT/\mathrm{}}|nn|\theta .`$ In this sum, the matrix element $`n^{}|e^{HT/\mathrm{}}|n`$ would vanish unless $`n^{}=n`$ if the Hamiltonian really were a series of isolated simple harmonic oscillator potentials. But the real Hamiltonian will allow the possibility of a particle localized at $`x=n`$ to tunnel through to $`x=n\pm 1`$. This barrier penetration problem can be solved by the WKB method and results in $`n\pm 1|e^{HT/\mathrm{}}|nn|e^{HT/\mathrm{}}|nKTe^{S_0/\mathrm{}}`$ where $`S_0`$ is usually called the instanton action. If one chooses the $`+()`$ sign in this expression, it is usually referred to as the (anti)-instanton contribution. A convenient way of thinking of the instanton results from considering the details of the WKB method. A classical particle can move in the potential $`V(x)`$ along a path from $`x=n`$ to $`x=n+1`$ with zero total energy. This motion, $`\overline{x}=x(t)`$ is the instanton. The WKB expression for the instanton action is therefore $`S_0=_n^{n+1}\sqrt{2V(x)}𝑑x`$. The factor $`K`$ is given by

$$K=\sqrt{\frac{S_0}{2\pi \mathrm{}}}\sqrt{\left|\frac{\mathrm{det}(_t^2+\omega ^2)}{\mathrm{det}^{}(_t^2+V^{\prime \prime }(\overline{x}))}\right|}$$
(2)
In this expression, determinant of an operator means the product of all of the eigenvalues of the operator for wavefunctions that have finite norm and obey appropriate boundary conditions. The prime in the determinant in the denominator means that the zero eigenvalue of this operator must be omitted because otherwise the expression is ill-defined. Physically this corresponds to the location (in the Euclidean time parameter $`T`$) of the center of the instanton. The fact that this center can be anywhere results in the factor of $`T`$ in the matrix element. The factor of $`\sqrt{\frac{S_0}{2\pi \mathrm{}}}`$ comes about because one has to omit the zero mode from the determinant in the denominator of $`K`$. One should notice that $`K`$ has the dimension of an inverse length, coming from the fact that there is one fewer eigenvalue in the determinant in the denominator relative to the numerator. $`K`$ represents the difference between quantum fluctuations in the harmonic oscillator ground state and those associated with the instanton tunneling event.

The above expression describes what happens if the particle tunnels once from $`|n`$ to $`|n+1`$, but it is clear that one must allow the possibility that the particle can tunnel an arbitrary number of times. This is just done by supposing that one adds the contribution of $`p`$ instantons and $`q`$ anti-instantons with $`p=q+1`$ to indicate that one has only jumped by one step. To calculate a more general matrix element where one jumps from $`n`$ to $`n^{}`$ one adds the contributions from $`p`$ instantons and $`q`$ anti-instantons subject to $`pq=n^{}n.`$ This results in the expression

$`_{\theta ^{},\theta }`$ $`={\displaystyle \underset{n,n^{},p,q}{}}\theta ^{}|n^{}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{p!}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{q!}}(KTe^{S_0/\mathrm{}})^{p+q}\delta _{pq,n^{}n}`$
$`\times n|\theta e^{\frac{\omega T}{2}}`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{n,n^{},p,q}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{p!}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{q!}}(KTe^{S_0/\mathrm{}})^{p+q}e^{in\theta in^{}\theta ^{}}e^{\frac{\omega T}{2}}`$
$`={\displaystyle \underset{p,q}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{p!}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{q!}}(KTe^{S_0/\mathrm{}})^{p+q}e^{i(pq)\theta ^{}}\delta (\theta \theta ^{})e^{\frac{\omega T}{2}}`$
$`=e^{2KT\mathrm{cos}\theta ^{}e^{S_0/\mathrm{}}}\delta (\theta \theta ^{})e^{\frac{\omega T}{2}}`$ (3)
where we have used $`\delta (\theta \theta ^{})=1/2\pi _ne^{in(\theta \theta ^{})}.`$ The factors of $`p!`$ and $`q!`$ in the sum over the (anti)-instantons arise because the (anti)-instantons are indistinguishable. By comparing this expression with the definition of $`E(\theta )`$ we see that

$$E(\theta )=\frac{\mathrm{}\omega }{2}2\mathrm{}K\mathrm{cos}\theta e^{S_0/\mathrm{}}$$
(4)
This shows that the lowest energy state, corresponding to $`\theta =0,`$ is depressed relative to the simple estimate by an amount $`2\mathrm{}Ke^{S_0/\mathrm{}}.`$ It should be noted that the band is a continuum of width $`\mathrm{\Delta }E=4\mathrm{}Ke^{S_0/\mathrm{}}`$ whose wavefunctions correspond to varying $`\theta `$ from $`0`$ to $`\pi `$. The fact that this is a continuous band is a consequence of allowing an infinite number of minima in the potential. Were one dealing with the case in which there were a finite number, $`N`$, of such minima, as we expect in string theory, then the locations of the boundary of the band would be unaltered for $`N1`$ but instead of a continuum there would be $`N`$ discrete energy levels in the band each separated by $`\mathrm{\Delta }E/N.`$

The nature of the instanton calculation is such that it can be extended in a natural way to the case of field theory. The basic formalism is unaltered except that the energy of a state is now replaced by the energy density, and in the expression for $`K`$ the determinant factors are replaced by the corresponding determinants of the wave operators governing the fluctuations in the quantum fields. The replacement of energy by energy density in field theory comes about because the basic degrees of freedom in field theory are oscillators at each point in space rather than single particles as in quantum mechanics.

The semi-classical effective action for gravitation coupled to a collection of scalar fields $`\varphi _i`$ is

$$S=\frac{1}{16\pi G_N}g^{1/2}d^4x(R2\mathrm{\Lambda })+g^{1/2}d^4x\left(\underset{i}{}\varphi _i^2+V(\varphi )\right)$$
(5)
where $`R`$ is the Ricci scalar, and $`V(\varphi )`$ is the potential for the scalars. Note that the only coupling constant in this expression is the $`\frac{1}{16\pi G_N}`$ in front of the gravitational piece of the action.

The situation we are discussing in cosmology is analagous to the quantum mechanical setup we just described, except for the physical interpretation of the instantons. We are assuming that in the absence of supersymmetry breaking, no vacuum energy is generated. Once supersymmetry is broken, there is a potential that governs which of the Calabi-Yau spaces we are in. It has many minima. Tunneling removes the degeneracies, pushing one level up and the other down repeatedly. Quantum fluctuations give rise naturally to a vacuum energy of $`m_{susy}^2m_{Pl}^2`$ which is the field theory analog of the zero point energy of the harmonic oscillator in our quantum mechanical example. This result will be modified by instanton effects because of the possibility of Hawking-Moss tunneling to any of the other possible vacua. Consider the case where all quantum corrections are turned off so that one is dealing with classical field theory. The possible vacua are then described by the product of four-dimensional Minkowski space with any Calabi-Yau space. No restriction is put on either the differential structure or the topology of the Calabi-Yau space. One knows that the differential structure is completely free, but it transpires that in string theory, one can even change the topology of the Calabi-Yau space without causing any singularities that would render such a change inadmissible, pc . When quantum corrections are turned on, some potential develops leading to $`N`$ possible discrete vacua. Just as in our one-dimensional quantum mechanical example, eigenstates of the Hamiltonian will not be concentrated only in a single minimum since there are a huge number of minima all with the same vacuum energy at the bottom of their potential wells. It is perhaps rather premature to make a detailed model of what the actual potential looks like, but we can make some general observations. We expect that our results will applicable whatever the actual nature of the potential is for more or less the same reasons that the band structure of solids is more or less independent of the material.

In the overall picture we have a large number of minima, “vacuum states.” There will be a complicated energy surface between these minima over which one could travel if one had sufficient energy available. Classically, if one does not have the energy available, one is trapped in a particular minimum and all of the other minima are irrelevant. Quantum mechanically however the effect of other discrete minima is extremely important. One can tunnel between various of these minima and the rate at which this happens has a profound influence on the physical consequences of this possible mixing of the vacua. To say something definite about the tunneling rates requires some understanding of this potential energy surface. At the bottom of each potential well, one expects that the potential is given by the usual low-energy supersymmetry breaking superpotential. Thus we expect that the curvature of the potential energy function at the bottom of each well is governed essentially by the supersymmetry-breaking scale, $`m_{susy}.`$ More precisely, the relevant scale should be proportional to $`m_{susy},`$ so that it vanishes with $`m_{susy},`$ but it could depend on other physics too. The situation we are describing is a little bit like looking at the surface of a lake. Prior to supersymmetry breaking, the surface of the lake is completely flat. Once supersymmetry breaking is turned on, the surface of the lake becomes irregular with all of the surface features governed by a single scale. Under these circumstances, the only scale relevant to instanton processes will be $`m_{susy}`$. If we were thinking in the more traditional way where the observed universe corresponds to being confined to a single minimum, this could be a catastrophe since the potential barriers between different minima would be relatively small, and so the universe could quickly tunnel to some new minimum where the physics was quite different to the original minimum. Such a transition from one state to another is rather like that encountered in “old” inflation, and could lead to regions of new vacuum expanding at the speed of light into a region of the old vacuum. Such an event has not happened even on cosmological timescales. However, in our picture, this is not important since the universe we are considering is a superposition of states described by all accessible vacuum states. No possibility of a sudden tunneling to a world unlike the one we now occupy exists.

It is possible that the potential also involves $`m_{Pl}`$ in some essential way, though this seems rather unnatural, or perhaps the curvature is determined by the Hubble parameter $`H,`$ since supersymmetry is broken by the energy density in the early universe DRT . Thus we will momentarily allow for these more general cases. Now we apply Hawking-Moss instanton methods to evaluate the spectrum and energy density of the ground state energy band. For definiteness, suppose that the actual potential consists of a $`d`$-dimensional hypercubic lattice of minima at zero vacuum energy at the points in field space $`(n_1,\mathrm{},n_d).`$ The minima are separated by barriers of height roughly on the scale $`M`$. As we outlined above, it is not initially clear what scale $`M`$ should have. The widths of these potential barriers are presumably controlled by the same basic scale. However, in the absence of supersymmetry breaking, the potential is flat, and supersymmetry breaking is what gives rise to the curvature of the potential. So, we expect that $`HMm_{susy}.`$ Equally unclear is the value of $`d.`$ It is determined by which minima can communicate with which other minima via instantons, so all we can be sure of is that $`1<d<N.`$

For each direction, we can introduce a separate $`\theta `$ variable, so that our states are described by $`(\theta _1,\mathrm{}\theta _d).`$ Let

$$_{\theta _1^{},\mathrm{}\theta _d^{},\theta _1\mathrm{}\theta _d}=\{\theta _i^{}\}|e^{HT/\mathrm{}}|\{\theta _i\}$$
(6)
where we now evaluate this expression in a box of volume $`V`$. As $`T`$ becomes large, then $`_i\delta (\theta _i^{}\theta _i)e^{\rho (\{\theta _i\})VT/\mathrm{}}`$ where $`\rho (\{\theta _i\})`$ is the energy density of the lowest energy states described by $`\{\theta _i\}`$. Then by the usual type of instanton argument, we find

$`_{\theta _1^{},\mathrm{}\theta _d^{},\theta _1\mathrm{}\theta _d}={\displaystyle \underset{\{n_i^{},n_i,p_1,q_i\}}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{\{p_i,q_i\}}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{p_i!}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{q_i!}}`$
$`\times (𝒦TVe^{S_0/\mathrm{}})^{p_i+q_i}{\displaystyle \underset{\{n_i^{},n_i\}}{}}e^{in_i\theta _iin_i^{}\theta _i^{}}e^{\rho _oVT/\mathrm{}}`$ (7)
Here we have used the appropriate field theory extrapolation of the instanton formula we used in the quantum mechanical model. The principal difference is that one is now calculating the energy density of the vacuum and the determinant factors in $`𝒦`$ are now replaced by the ratio of functional determinants describing the quantum fluctuations of the fields in the model. Just as in the quantum mechanical case, we evaluate $``$ giving

$`_{\theta _1^{},\mathrm{}\theta _d^{},\theta _1\mathrm{}\theta _d}`$ $`=({\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}\delta (\theta _i^{}\theta _i))`$ (8)
$`e^{2_{i=1}^d𝒦VT\mathrm{cos}\theta _ie^{S_0/\mathrm{}}}e^{\rho _oVT/\mathrm{}}`$
where $`S_0`$ is the action of the instanton. Thus, a general expression for the vacuum energy density $`\rho `$ for a state described by $`\{\theta _i\}`$ is

$$\rho (\{\theta _i\})=\rho _02\underset{i}{\overset{d}{}}𝒦\mathrm{cos}\theta _ie^{S_0/\mathrm{}}.$$
(9)
Thus the lowest energy density in the band $`\rho _{min}`$ is found by choosing all the $`\theta _i`$ to vanish given by

$$\rho _{min}=\rho _o2𝒦de^{S_0/\mathrm{}}$$
(10)
This expression makes it look as if $`\rho _{min}`$ could be negative. On general grounds, we know that $`\rho _{min}0,`$ so $`\rho _{min}<0`$ would mean that our approximations have broken down. Equation (10) is our main technical result.

We now need to describe the precise nature of these instantons and what they do and do not connect. Each instanton describes the amplitude of tunneling between one particular minimum of the potential and one that is adjacent to it in field space, that is between, for example $`(n_1,\mathrm{},n_i,\mathrm{},n_d)`$ and $`(n_1,\mathrm{},n_i+1,\mathrm{},n_d)`$. The situation we are describing here is quite different from the quantum mechanical example. The minima of the potential do not correspond to points in physical space, but rather describe the particular Calabi-Yau space on which ten-dimensional spacetime is compactified. In the traditional way of thinking about compactification, this corresponds to a particular vacuum state in which the wavefunction of the universe is concentrated. The precise nature of the Calabi-Yau space would then determine the physics of the low-energy world (particle spectrum, coupling constants, masses etc.,) if the wavefunction could be so localized. But, the wavefunction must spread out over all of these vacua or at least some superselection sector. We expect that the wavefunction of the universe will therefore be some superposition of many of these Calabi-Yau vacua, and then presumably low-energy physics is determined statistically from the properties of these many vacua. A potential question then is why must one consider such a superposition, analogous to the theta vacua of QCD? If there were a conserved current, then states would be labeled by the corresponding charge. However, suppose that one imagined starting off the universe with the wavefunction concentrated in one particular minimum, and the Hamiltonian were such that the wavefunction could leak into another distinct minimum. Then having the wavefunction concentrated in one specified minimum could not possibly be an eigenstate of the Hamiltonian. To find eigenstates of the Hamiltonian one must include the possibility that one has a superposition of various states making up a wavefunction with support in potentially a considerable number of distinct minima.

Thus the transitions are not realized in spacetime as tunneling from one metastable state to another, but rather as a mechanism for calculating the energy spectrum of the theory taking into account these effects which can never be calculated in perturbation theory. This is to be contrasted with the usual uses of instantons in which they provide a mechanism by which the universe can start in some particular vacuum state and evolve, by a quantum mechanical tunneling process, to a new vacuum. Examples of this process include “old ”inflation, Guth  and studies of the cosmological constant problem in most of the papers we have been able to find. In particular, the most common procedure whereby a bubble of “true ”vacuum nucleates in a sea of “false ”vacuum would not be expected to give the correct answer for the problem we are considering.

There are two types of instanton that have been used to evaluate such amplitudes. The first (historically) is the Coleman-De Luccia CDeL  instanton which is not appropriate for us. In the absence of gravitation, their instanton has a size that is inversely proportional to the difference in the classical energy densities between the two adjacent minima. Since the minima are degenerate for purposes of calculating the spectrum, the difference is zero and so the size must be very large. So we believe that this instanton would have a physical dimension that is potentially greater than the size of the universe. The universe we are describing is de Sitter, since the effective cosmological constant is, and will remain, positive according to our results. It has a spatial extent that is finite. So their instanton is not relevant. Although this picture is modified by the inclusion of gravitation, the modifications are slight and do not affect the above conclusion CDeL , HM .

The second type is the so-called Hawking-Moss HM  instanton. Here, the values of the fields are constant in space and such that one sits at the top of the potential barrier between adjacent vacua. Thus one expects the energy density there to be $`M^4`$. If one were in infinite flat space, the resultant action $`S_0`$ for this instanton would be also be infinite, and the corresponding amplitude would vanish. But, since we are in de Sitter space, with finite spatial volume, the contribution is finite, and the amplitudes are not suppressed. In fact, we can estimate the action for this instanton. The potential term in the action we denote by $`V(\varphi )`$ where $`\varphi `$ are the relevant collection of fields, such as moduli fields or any fields that parameterize the fluctuations. The Euclidean action for constant $`\varphi `$ is

$$S=\mathrm{}g^{1/2}d^4xV(\varphi ),$$
(11)
where the integral is taken over four-dimensional Euclidean de Sitter space. Since $`V(\varphi )M^4`$ and the volume of Euclidean de Sitter space is $`H^4`$, the action $`S_0\mathrm{}M^4H^4`$, which is $`1`$ at the supersymmetry breaking scale or earlier. These instantons occur, and are relevant, whenever there is a finite potential barrier between any minima in a spacetime of finite volume.. These instantons are the ones that are relevant to the calculation of the spectrum of energies of the superposition of degenerate string theory vacua we are discussing.

Next, we need to determine $`𝒦`$. $`𝒦VT`$ can be evaluated by standard Feynman diagram type calculations. To one loop, it is given by the ratio of the determinants of those operators governing the fluctuations of the quantum fields in our problem evaluated in the presence of the instanton field to those evaluated without. There is a large literature on such objects, see for example GP , CD , FT . The determinants in the absence of the instanton depend only on $`H`$ and the curvature at the bottom of the potential well, whereas in the presence of the instanton they depend on $`H`$ and the curvature at the top of the barrier. Thus we expect that roughly $`𝒦H^4`$ in the early universe.

Since the levels are generated by splitting of degenerate levels mixed by instanton effects, the lowest level can never become negative. It must always lie above the positive (or zero) minimum of the potential. If each vacuum state could communicate with only a single nearest neighbor, then $`d1`$. If all vacua can rapidly tunnel to the others, then $`dN.`$ We expect $`dN,`$ where $`N`$ is an effective number of string vacua that are connected. The separation between the various states in this band is $`𝒦d/Ne^{S_0/\mathrm{}}.`$

Suppose that $`𝒦de^{S_0/\mathrm{}}`$ is of order $`\rho _o.`$ Then the bottom of the band will reach down to a vacuum energy of nearly zero. Since the separation of the energy densities is roughly $`(𝒦d/N)e^{S_0/\mathrm{}}\rho _o/N,`$ we can expect that $`\rho _{de}\rho _o/N.`$ For this to work as observed, since $`\rho _om_{susy}^2m_{Pl}^2`$, $`S_0/\mathrm{}1`$ and $`𝒦H^4m_{susy}^4`$, we find $`d\frac{m_{Pl}^2}{m_{susy}^2}10^{32}e^{S_0/\mathrm{}}`$ and $`N\frac{\rho _o}{\rho _{de}}10^{90}`$. For $`Mm_{susy},`$ as discussed above, we find $`d10^{32}`$. Since $`dN,`$ we expect our approximation to be reliable. (If $`H`$ is relevant rather than $`m_{susy}`$ then $`d`$ might be somewhat smaller.) Rather amazingly, these figures do not appear to contradict any known facts or estimates about string theory compactification. String theorists should regard this as an experimental determination of the value of $`N`$. Cosmologists should perhaps regard this as a prediction of the value of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{de}.`$

In this picture, the universe is not in a state described by any one minimum of the effective potential. This is in accordance with what one expects from generic quantum mechanical systems with large numbers of degenerate minima. Whilst this is not alarming for the cases of something like an electron in a crystal, it is a bit strange within the context of cosmology. The wavefunction of the universe would seem to be described by the statistical properties of many minima. However $`dN`$ so it seems as if the actual number of states that are involved is relatively small, only $`10^{32}`$ or so. One would expect that these states would all have features in common with the observed universe, such as there being three families, a low-energy gauge group of $`SU(3)SU(2)U(1),`$ massless quarks and leptons, etc. and would have the same values of all conserved quantities. Such quantities would be a sort of superselection set.

Finally, as discussed at the beginning of the paper, it is necessary to deal with not only the energy from the quantum fluctuations but also the repeated release of energy density as the universe cools. What we expect qualitatively is that the relaxation time for the universe to cascade to the lowest levels is small, because the levels are closely spaced and this old-fashioned tunneling is rapid. Initially the energy from quantum fluctuations gives $`N`$ levels with energy density $`m_{susy}^2m_{Pl}^2.`$ Then the mixing splits the levels and the universe falls down to the low-lying levels with energy density $`m_{susy}^2m_{Pl}^2/N.`$ Inflation and reheating are occurring and the universe cools. At various phase transitions additional energy density is dumped in, rearranging the levels. Quickly the tunneling splits them, again leaving the universe in a low level. For each case $`N,d`$ will be different: $`N^{},d^{}`$ etc.

Perhaps protein folding is a useful analogy. Think of the universe as a protein. Initially the protein is in a high energy level, and then it quickly falls mainly by tunneling to a minimum of the energy. The physics of protein folding has for some time been described in terms of an “energy landscape”, a terminology recently introduced into particle physics in suss . For a review of the situation in protein folding see j .

For this picture to be valid it is necessary first that the cascade take place sufficiently rapidly. This is much easier to achieve if the $`N^{}`$ levels have widths at least of the order of their splitting. Although at present we are unable to estimate the width of these levels, because there are so many levels this seems entirely plausible. There must also be a mechanism for dissipating the released energy. Since vacuum energy couples to gravity, surely graviton emission will be an important way to carry the energy away. That is because $`only`$ the gravitational field couples to the vacuum energy density. So we expect that graviton emission will cause $`\theta _i`$ to decay. Because of gauge invariance, it turns out that graviton pair production is the most important process, so that gravitons are produced with opposite momenta and carry away energy in the usual way, Ford . Perhaps it is possible for other processes also to contribute, for example the production of branes as has been considered in k , feng

To estimate such effects, we suppose that the $`\theta _i`$ can be viewed as fields with spatial and time dependence. If that was all there was to it, then the equations of motion for $`\theta _i`$ would imply that $`\theta _i`$ were constant. That is because vacuum energy couples to the gravitational field through a term in the four-dimensional tree level action of the form

$$(detg_{ab})^{1/2}\rho (\{\theta _i\}).$$
(12)
Quantum gravity effects will however generate additional terms in the one-loop effective Lagrangian, $`m_{Pl}^2_i\theta _i\theta _i`$ and $`m_{Pl}^4_i\theta _i^2`$. The first is the standard kinetic energy expression for the fields $`\theta _i`$, and the second is just the usual mass term. The resultant semi-classical equations of motion then can be derived from the effective Lagrangian for each $`\theta _i`$, which leads to the decay of $`\theta _i`$’s to zero on a Planck timescale, rapidly enough to guarantee that the $`\theta _i`$ are minimized along with the energy density.

If correct, our approach has a number of phenomenological implications. Since the level splitting mechanism can push the lowest levels down but not below the absolute minimum of the potential, a small non-zero cosmological constant is a generic result. Since the energy density is a cosmological constant, we predict a time-independent equation of state, $`w=1.`$

The “why now ”problem — why is the size of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{de}`$ about the same as $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{dm}`$ so the dark energy is dominating now rather than much earlier, in which case it could have prevented formation of gravitationally bound systems — is in principle solved by our approach, if the number of connected string vacua and the fluctuation energy density could be calculated. Of course, in practice that is very difficult. If the number of connected string degenerate minima is very large, then the number of possible ground states with energies of order $`10^3`$ eV or less is large. The actual ground state of a universe can be any of the low lying ones, many of which would allow solar system and galaxy formation. This requires $`Nm_{susy}^2m_{Pl}^2/10^{10}\mathrm{eV}^4,`$ which is consistent with our estimates. But to fully explain “why now ”it is necessary actually to calculate $`\rho _0`$ and $`N`$ rather accurately.

While our approach is not an anthropic one, a residual anthropic element could enter until it could be proved that the number of connected string vacua was large enough to guarantee that there were many very low lying levels, and that the relaxation mechanism was very efficient in tunneling to very low lying levels. All universes that can form structure will — there is no reason why we should live in a highly probably one.

A persistent problem for supergravity and string-based model building is what to do about the cosmological constant. Our approach suggests that the solution to the cosmological constant problem will not impact significantly other aspects of models, such as soft breaking Lagrangian parameters or Yukawa couplings in the superpotential or CP violation properties. Our approach may also offer the possibility of changes in the low-energy effective couplings at phase transitions. For example near the electroweak or QCD transitions changes could occur since then additional vacuum energy poured into the universe from the phase transitions could trigger vacuum readjustments that could allow for changes in scalar vacuum expectation values at these eras.

An apparently unpleasant consequence of our approach is that our world is not in the minimum of the potential of a single compactification but rather a superposition of a large number of different ones. Of course the relevant number that mix must all have the same value of the number of families and any similar properties, so the total number of string vacua can be considerably larger than the connected ones. Probably all of the properties of the world that are shared by all of the connected states, such as the number of families, the standard model gauge group, softly broken $`N=1`$ supersymmetry, etc., can be derived even though the ground state is a superposition. More generally, it will not only be hard to identify the correct string vacuum from first principles, it is probably both not possible and not relevant. In the end that may be a virtue — just as inflation can provide powerful explanatory power (once the inflaton is identified), so too perhaps having the universe in a highly mixed state will allow progress once it is better understood.

One might start to wonder when this mechanism for producing a cosmological constant becomes the dominant one. At very early times after compactification, there must surely be a period of inflation at or around the GUT scale. This means that whatever corrections to the cosmological constant we generate must be small compared to this rather larger scale. This puts a somewhat different limit on the value of $`N`$. By analogy with our previous estimates, we find that $`N<<\frac{\rho _{unif}}{\rho _{de}}10^{116}`$. At later stages, periods of inflation could take place, but in the end we will always relax down to close to the bottom of the band of allowed energies. Thus, for example it could be that there is inflation at the electroweak transition. Equally, it might happen that the precise state we end up in before and after this period of inflation could be different, leading to (hopefully not drastic) differences in low-energy physics before and after the transition. Similar comments also of course apply to the QCD phase transition. In contrast, at the supersymmetry breaking transition, we first find our mechanism to give interesting results leading to a much lower cosmological constant than naively envisaged.

What we have presented is a mechanism that seems to be able to deal with the cosmological constant problem(s). To establish that it indeed does, it will be necessary to have a much better understanding of the number of connected string vacua, the relaxation issues and the interactions connecting different vacua and perhaps other issues. We are presently examining these questions further, KPZZ . If this approach is indeed correct, then the dark energy should just be thought of as an energy density purely due to ubiquitous quantum fluctuations.

We would like to thank Michigan Center for Theoretical Physics for its generous hospitality to MJP and ANZ, and the US Department of Energy for partial financial support, S. Krimm for providing helpful references about protein folding, and D. Berman, M. Douglas, G. Gibbons, F. Larsen, J.T. Liu, R. McNees, J. Wells and R-J. Zhang for helpful conversations.