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# On the short-distance structure of irrational non-commutative gauge theories

## 1 Introduction

The non-commutativity introduced by the Moyal-Weyl star product appears to give a consistent deformation of supersymmetric gauge theories , and to capture part of the non-locality of open strings at least when they propagate in non-trivial gauge backgrounds . Whether it has any connection with the non-locality of quantum gravity is unclear at this stage. It nevertheless offers an interesting opportunity to study issues of non-locality in field theories.

A simple non-commutative manifold is the fuzzy torus, with a uniform non-commutativity scale $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. Particles then behave as wave packets of Compton wavelength $`1/E`$ along their direction of motion, but $`E\mathrm{\Delta }^2`$ in the orthogonal direction. They can be interpreted as electric dipoles transverse to their motion . For a rational deformation parameter $`\theta =\mathrm{\Delta }^2/\mathrm{\Sigma }^2`$, where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is the size of the box, non-commutativity does not imply non-locality at short distances however: it can be eliminated at the expense of enlarging the gauge group and introducing a magnetic flux. This classical equivalence, known as Morita’s , is assumed to hold true quantum mechanically for maximally supersymmetric gauge theories, and descends directly from the T-duality of open strings . This is not to say that the Moyal deformed gauge theory description is altogether redundant: instead, as explained in Ref. , it may serve in giving an appropriate quasilocal description of the degrees of freedom in a finite energy range $`1/\mathrm{\Sigma }<E<1/(\theta \mathrm{\Sigma })`$, in which the Compton wave length and its dual are smaller than the size of the box. Beyond that range, one may find a Morita equivalent description, where the elementary particles are again localized on the scale of the box. For $`\theta `$ rational, the dual 3+1 dimensional commutative Yang-Mills theory then controls the ultraviolet behavior, while in the infrared the gauge theory undergoes a dimensional reduction to 1+1 dimensional commutative Yang-Mills. The intermediate energy range can be covered by a finite number of Morita dual patches (a single one in the simplest rational case of $`\theta =1/s`$) .

From the discussion above, the only situation where the non-locality of the Moyal product may be effective is clearly when the deformation parameter $`\theta `$ is irrational: the study of this case is the primary goal of this note. Before discussing the case of non-commutative Yang-Mills theories with irrational $`\theta `$, a word is probably needed on the relevance of such considerations for physics. Indeed, for all practical purposes, any irrational number can always be approached by a rational number, and phase transitions are not expected to occur in a dense subspace of parameter space. Moreover, no way has yet been devised to actually establish a measurable parameter as irrational. Nevertheless, the difference between rational and irrational can sometimes be hinted at by going to sufficiently high energy. The case of Villain $`_N`$ lattice gauge theories  in the presence of a $`\theta `$ angle (not to be confused with the non-commutativity parameter) is particularly sharp in that respect: as the temperature increases, the system undergoes a sequence of phase transitions where dyons of charge $`(m,n)`$ condense when $`m/n`$ approaches $`\theta `$ . When $`\theta `$ is irrational, there is an infinite number of phase transitions as $`T\mathrm{}`$. Of course, for all practical purposes, $`T`$ is bounded from above and only a finite number of them are within reach. Other examples where the rationality of $`\theta `$ plays an important role include the “new” decoupled six-dimensional gauge theories , and the non-commutative open string in 1+1 dimensions . In these cases, the very definition of the model with irrational $`\theta `$ angle or string coupling, respectively, is already problematic, and it would be interesting to see if the methods used in this paper are applicable.

In the case of Yang-Mills theories on a non-commutative torus, the difference between rational and irrational (and even between different kinds of irrational number) can be told by going to high energy. Indeed, for $`\theta `$ irrational, it has been found that the cascade of Morita equivalent descriptions never terminates as the energy is increased . In this paper, we shall give an explicit construction of this cascade of pictures, by relating it to the continued fraction approximation of $`\theta `$.222The relevance of continued fraction expansion to non-commutative theories has been independently noticed in , with different motivations. For $`\theta `$ rational, this will establish the existence of a finite covering of the full energy range; for $`\theta `$ irrational we will use it to study the non-local UV behavior of the gauge theory. Depending on some properties of irrational numbers and the level of confidence we require, we will see that one may or may not maintain a local description at short distance. In particular, we will show that there exist values of $`\theta `$ for which no quasi-local description exists beyond a certain energy. This is very similar to the case of $`_N`$ lattice gauge theories in 4 dimensions, where Coulomb phases occur when no dyon can condense, and may prevail all the way to infinite temperature.

At strong ’t Hooft coupling, we will find that a similar behavior holds: for some irrational values of Neveu-Schwarz B-field, there exists ranges of the radial coordinate for which no T-dual picture can give a local (and convergent) supergravity description. In fact, we shall argue that for $`\theta `$ irrational, the radial dimension becomes multifractal near the boundary of AdS. This is an interesting infrared effect in gravity theories with irrational NS B-field, which deserves further study.

The organization of this paper is as follow. In Section 2, we shall take a look back at the problem of Villain $`_N`$ lattice gauge theories, which will allow us to introduce the relevant mathematics. The cascade of Morita phases for NCSYM at weak coupling will then be constructed in Section 3. In Section 4, we shall discuss the UV behavior in the large ’t Hooft coupling regime, from the point of view of the AdS/CFT correspondence, and briefly discuss the situation at finite temperature.

## 2 Phases of the Villain model

As a warm up, we reconsider the phase structure of four dimensional $`_N`$ lattice gauge theories  in the presence of a $`\theta `$ angle, following the discussion in . These models are expected to capture universal features of $`U(N)`$ Yang-Mills in the continuum. For simplicity, we consider a $`_N`$ lattice gauge theory in the Villain approximation. The way to include a $`\theta `$ deformation reducing to the $`\theta FF`$ coupling in the continuum limit was discussed in . The result is that the spectrum contains $`(m,n)`$ states with arbitrary magnetic charge $`m`$ and electric charge $`n`$. Due to the $`\theta `$ angle deformation, the effective electric charge $`e=n\theta m`$ receives a fractional contribution from the magnetic charge through the Witten effect .

The phase structure is controlled by the type of states that condense in the vacuum: the Higgs phase corresponds to a condensation of electric states with charge $`(0,1)`$ and hence confinement of magnetic charges; the ordinary confining phase corresponds to condensation of monopoles with charge $`(1,0)`$. In addition, one may have oblique confinement whereby dyonic states of charge $`(m,n)`$ condense . If no state condenses, the gauge fields remain massless and we have a Coulomb phase. At weak coupling, or small temperature, there is always a Higgs phase. The structure at higher temperature depends however very sensitively on the value of $`\theta `$. Indeed, a state with charge $`(m,n)`$ condenses if its free energy is less than that of the vacuum. The free energy was estimated in , with the result that the condensation occurs if

$$\left(n\theta m\right)^2T+\frac{m^2}{T}<C/N,T=Ng^2/2\pi .$$
(1)
Here $`C`$ is a numerical constant which can in principle be computed. The l.h.s of this equation describes an ellipse in the $`(m,e=nm\theta )`$ plane whose aspect ratio depends on the temperature $`T`$. The condensing states are the states of the lattice $`\times `$ contained in the ellipse and closest to the origin (see Figure 1a). For zero $`\theta `$ angle, the electric state $`(1,0)`$ clearly controls the low temperature behavior, while the magnetic state $`(0,1)`$ controls the high temperature regime. The two phases may be connected for intermediate temperatures by a Coulomb phase if $`C/N`$ is small enough so that the ellipse does not contain any non-zero lattice point.

The situation for non-zero but rational $`\theta =p/q`$ is already quite richer. At very high temperature, the ellipse will select the dyonic states with charge $`(m,n)=(q,p)`$, which have zero effective electric charge $`e=nm\theta `$: the high temperature phase will therefore be an oblique confining phase, in which the $`(q,p)`$ dyon condenses. This will not occur however before $`T>Nq^2/C`$. Below this temperature, there will be other dyonic states with small effective magnetic charge $`e=n_km_k\theta `$, which will be able to condense at an intermediate temperature. If $`\theta `$ is irrational, this will in fact be the case at arbitrary high temperature: dyons with charge ration $`n_k/m_k`$ arbitrarily close to $`\theta `$ will condense successively, and we will encounter an infinite number of phase transitions.

In more detail, there will exist a temperature $`T`$ at which the state $`(m,n)`$ will be able to condense if the minimum value of the l.h.s in (1), attained at $`T=1/|\theta n/m|`$, is lower than the r.h.s, hence

$$|m(n\theta m)|<1/M,M=2N/C,$$
(2)
or equivalently

$$\left|\theta \frac{n}{m}\right|<\frac{1}{Mm^2}.$$
(3)
If this inequality holds, the condensation will occur in a temperature interval

$$\frac{Mm^2}{2}<T<\frac{2}{M(nm\theta )^2}$$
(4)
where we assumed $`|\theta n/m|1`$ for simplicity.

Evidently, the ability to approach $`\theta `$ by a rational number will determine the phase structure of the model. Fortunately, the mathematical topic of Diophantine approximation tells us a lot about the solutions of (3) (see for instance ). If $`\theta =n/m`$ is rational, it is known that there are only a finite number of fractions $`n_k/m_k`$ approching $`\theta `$ to order $`1/(Mm_k^2)`$, irrespective of the constant $`M`$ in (3). Hence there will be a finite number of phase transitions as $`T`$ increases from 0 to $`\mathrm{}`$. In contrast, it is known that there is an infinite number of fractions $`n/m`$ approaching any irrational $`\theta `$ to order $`1/(Mm^2)`$ with $`M=1`$ at least. The case $`M=1`$ is a simple application of Dirichlet’s drawer principle, which guarantees that for any integer $`d`$ there exists a fraction $`n/m`$ with $`md`$ such that $`|\theta n/m|<1/(md)`$.

There is in fact an algorithm allowing to obtain an infinite number of solutions to (3), namely the continued fraction decomposition. Recall that any irrational number can be obtained as a limit of rational numbers $`\theta _k`$, constructed out a series of positive integers $`(c_k)`$ through the continued fraction

$$\theta _k=c_0+\frac{1}{c_1+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{c_2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{}c_{k1}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{c_k}}}}}}}.$$
(5)
The series $`(c_k)`$ specifies the real number $`\theta `$ uniquely. It truncates when $`\theta `$ is rational, and becomes periodic if $`\theta `$ is a quadratic irrational (i.e. a root of a second order polynomial with integer coefficients). The series $`\theta _k=n_k/m_k`$ obtained by truncating the fraction (5) at $`c_k`$ converges monotonically to $`\theta `$ from above for $`k`$ even, and from below for $`k`$ odd. The integers $`n_k`$ and $`m_k`$ are strictly increasing and can be computed using the recursion relations

$`n_k`$ $`=`$ $`c_kn_{k1}+n_{k2},n_0=c_0,n_1=c_0c_1+1`$
$`m_k`$ $`=`$ $`c_km_{k1}+m_{k2},m_0=1,m_1=c_1`$ (6)
Note that the recursion can also be initiated by $`(n_1,m_1)=(1,0)`$. These equations preserve the relation

$$n_{k1}m_kn_km_{k1}=()^k$$
(7)
so that the integers $`(n_k,m_k)`$ remain coprime. The fractions $`n_k/m_k`$ are called the principal convergents of $`\theta `$, while the fractions $`n_k^{(p)}/m_k^{(p)}=(n_{k2}+pn_{k1})/(m_{k2}+pm_{k1})`$ (with $`p=1\mathrm{}c_k1`$) are called intermediate convergents and lie monotonically between $`n_{k2}/m_{k2}`$ and $`n_k/m_k`$. The series $`n_k/m_k`$ can be shown to realize the condition (3) for $`M=1`$, i.e.

$$\left|\theta \frac{n_k}{m_k}\right|\frac{1}{m_k^2}.$$
(8)
In fact it can be shown that for any pair of consecutive convergents $`n_k/m_k`$ and $`n_{k+1}/m_{k+1}`$, at least one of the two satisfies (3) for the stronger value $`M=\sqrt{2}`$; even better, for any triplet of consecutive convergents, at least one of the three satisfies (3) for the stronger value $`M=\sqrt{5}`$. This value cannot be improved, as one can show by taking $`\theta `$ to be the Golden ratio $`(1+\sqrt{5})/2`$ (for which all $`c_k=1`$). If $`\theta `$ is rational, the decomposition (5) terminates, and the $`n_k/m_k`$ give the finite family of approximations to $`\theta =n/m`$ mentioned in the previous paragraph. Using $`1/(m_k\theta n_k)^2n_{k+1}^2/(m_kn_{k+1}n_km_{k+1})^2`$ and (7), we see that the interval in (4) where the $`(n_k,m_k)`$ state condenses is immediately followed by the one where $`(n_{k+1},m_{k+1})`$ condenses, so that the entire temperature range is covered, by an infinite number of phases in the irrational case.

Whereas we have obtained solutions to (3) with $`M`$ up to $`\sqrt{5}`$, the value of the constant $`C`$ is not yet known, and may require finer rational approximations to $`\theta `$. The ability to find solutions of (3) with $`M>\sqrt{5}`$ depends crucially on the irrationality of $`\theta `$. To be more precise, let $`M(\theta )`$ define the supremum of all $`M^+`$ such that there exist an infinity of fractions $`n/m`$ approching $`\theta `$ closer than $`1/(Mm^2)`$. Note that $`M(\theta )`$ is invariant under fractional linear transformations $`\theta (a\theta +b)/(c\theta +d)`$. It can in fact be shown that $`M(\theta )=\sqrt{5}`$ if and only if $`\theta `$ is equivalent to the Golden Ratio $`\theta _1=(1+\sqrt{5})/2`$ up to a $`Sl(2,)`$ transformation. If not, then $`M(\theta )2\sqrt{2}`$, with equality iff $`\theta `$ is equivalent to $`\theta _2=1+\sqrt{2}`$. More generally, there exists an infinite series $`(\theta _k)`$ with increasing $`M(\theta _n)3`$, such that any $`\theta `$ with $`M(\theta )<3`$ is equivalent to one of the $`\theta _n`$’s. These numbers $`\theta _n`$ form the Markoff chain, and are quadratic algebraic numbers, roots of second order polynomials which can be obtained in a recursive way . Finally, most irrational numbers satisfy $`M(\theta )3`$, with infinitely many such that $`M(\theta )=3`$. This state of affairs is represented on Figure 2. Coming back to the physical problem at hand, if $`C/(2N)>1/M(\theta )`$, there will be an infinity of states condensing as the temperature is increased from 0 to $`\mathrm{}`$. If however $`C/(2N)<1/M(\theta )`$, as always occurs at large enough $`N`$, there will only be a finite number of phase transitions. This means that the system will reach a Coulomb phase at high temperature, after passing a finite number of phase transitions. This is a rather unusual case where, even at infinite temperature, the symmetry is not restored. The system behaves at high temperature as if the gauge group was non-compact, and thus did not possess topological excitations. The reader should however keep in mind that this statement holds within the Villain approximation.

Finally, we would like to mention an alternate way of understanding the phase structure of the Abelian model. We first note following  that the free-energy in (1) is invariant under electric-magnetic duality, acting by $`Sl(2,)`$ fractional linear transformations on the complexified coupling $`\tau =\theta +i/T`$,

$$\tau \frac{c+d\tau }{a+b\tau },\left(\begin{array}{c}m\\ n\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{cc}a& b\\ c& d\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}m\\ n\end{array}\right),adbc=1.$$
(9)
The temperature and $`\theta `$ angle can therefore always be mapped back into the fundamental domain of the upper half plane, $`|\theta |<1/2,|\tau |>1`$. For $`\theta =0`$, we need only two patches $`T>1`$ and $`T<1`$ to cover the semi-infinite line $`T>0`$, and the Higgs and confining phases mentioned above are simply related to each other by duality $`T1/T`$. For a fixed non-zero rational $`\theta `$, it takes finitely many patches to cover the line $`\tau =\theta +i^+`$, and hence we expect finitely many phase transitions. For an irrational $`\theta `$, it takes an infinite number of patches, and hence we expect infinitely many phase transitions as $`T\mathrm{}`$. Each $`(m,n)`$ dyon defines a disk on the upper half place, centered at $`\tau =n/m+i/(Mm^2)`$ and radius $`1/(Mm^2)`$ (hence tangent to the real axis) which delimits the region of temperature and $`\theta `$ angle where it might condense (see Fig. 1, right). The space between the disks correspond to Coulomb phases. For the critical value $`M=2`$, all disks are tangent to each other. Following a line $`\tau =\theta +i^+`$ from infinity, one encounters an infinite number of phase transitions, except when $`\theta `$ is rational. For $`M>2`$, the disks do not touch each other, and one may find a line such which does not encounter any disk as $`T\mathrm{}`$. For $`M<2`$, the disks start overlap, in which case it is the state with the lowest free energy that condenses. For $`M<\sqrt{3}`$, the disks cover all the upper-half-plane, and there are no Coulomb phases any more.

Having used the Villain model as a setting to introduce the mathematical properties we need, we now come to the proper topic of this note, namely gauge theories on a non-commutative torus.

## 3 NCSYM on an irrational torus at weak coupling

Following , let us consider the $`N=4`$ supersymmetric $`U(N)`$ gauge theory on $`^2\times T_\theta ^2`$ where $`T_\theta ^2`$ is a non-commutative torus with non-locality scale $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and radius $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. The dimensionless deformation parameter is $`\theta =\mathrm{\Delta }^2/\mathrm{\Sigma }^2`$. We also allow for a magnetic background $`m`$ on $`T^2`$. As we recalled in the introduction, the non-commutative gauge theory gives a quasi-local description at energies

$$\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Sigma }}<E<\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }}{\mathrm{\Delta }^2}=\frac{1}{\theta \mathrm{\Sigma }}$$
(10)
At either end of this interval, the wave function starts spreading over the whole torus $`T^2`$, either in the direction of motion (at the lower end) or in the direction transverse to it (at the upper end). In the lower half $`E<1/\mathrm{\Delta }`$ of the interval (10), the effect of the non-commutativity is not noticeable, but this does not affect the statement of quasi-locality and we will not elaborate on this point here. These finite size effects may be avoided by looking for a Morita dual picture which brings the energy $`E`$ within the new quasi-local window $`1/\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Sigma }}<E<1/\stackrel{~}{\theta }\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Sigma }}`$. An $`Sl(2,)`$ Morita transformation acts as

$`\stackrel{~}{\theta }={\displaystyle \frac{c+d\theta }{a+b\theta }},\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}=(a+b\theta )^2\mathrm{\Phi }b(a+b\theta ),\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Sigma }}=(a+b\theta )\mathrm{\Sigma },`$
$`\stackrel{~}{g}_{YM}^2=(a+b\theta )g_{YM}^2,\left(\begin{array}{c}\stackrel{~}{m}\\ \stackrel{~}{N}\end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}a& b\\ c& d\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}m\\ N\end{array}\right),`$ (17)
where $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is the standard magnetic background . We thus have to look for integers $`a,b,c,d`$ such $`adbc=1`$ and

$$\frac{1}{|a+b\theta |\mathrm{\Sigma }}<E<\frac{1}{|c+d\theta |\mathrm{\Sigma }}$$
(18)
If $`\theta `$ is rational, we may choose $`\theta =c/d`$ such that the upper bound is infinite. The quasi-local description in the UV is therefore an ordinary commutative gauge theory, albeit with a magnetic flux. If $`\theta `$ is irrational, the upper bound can never be made infinite, and we have to keep finding dual descriptions as we increase the energy.

Given a fixed energy $`E`$, we may ask what is the optimum duality picture which allows to have a quasi-local description in the largest interval possible around $`E`$. In order to optimize the upper bound, we choose $`|\theta +c/d|1`$. Using $`adbc=1`$, we can rewrite the inequality (18) as

$$d<E\mathrm{\Sigma }<\frac{1}{|c+d\theta |}$$
(19)
This is equivalent to

$$|\theta +c/d|<\frac{1}{dE\mathrm{\Sigma }},dE\mathrm{\Sigma }$$
(20)
By the same Dirichlet’s drawer principle mentioned in Section 1, it is therefore clear that for any $`E`$ there exists a fraction $`c/d`$ such that the above condition is verified. Note that the two conditions in (20) imply

$$|\theta +c/d|<\frac{1}{d^2}$$
(21)
which does not make any reference to the energy any more. In particular, the continued fraction convergents of $`\theta `$ fulfill this condition but it is easy to see that they are not the only ones. The principal and intermediate convergents of $`\theta `$ however have the property of being best approximations to a given rational or irrational $`\theta `$, in the sense that any closer fraction has to have a bigger denominator. By choosing $`c/d`$ as a convergent of $`\theta `$, we thus minimize the lower bound of (20) while maximizing the higher bound. Note that $`a+b\theta `$ tends to zero at the same time as $`c+d\theta `$ does, so that the Yang-Mills coupling $`\stackrel{~}{g}_{YM}`$ keeps decreasing as we go to the UV. The ’t Hooft coupling $`\lambda =g_{YM}^2(N\theta m)`$ however remains unchanged under Morita transformations.

Having justified the relevance of continued fraction approximations, we now proceed to show that the series of convergents $`n_k/m_k`$ provides a complete covering of the full energy range. From the relation (7), we see that the linear fractional transformation

$$\theta ()^{n1}\frac{m_k\theta n_k}{m_{k1}\theta n_{k1}}$$
(22)
is a bona fide $`Sl(2,)`$ Morita transformation. Using the formulae (3), we find that the new range of validity of this dual picture

$$\frac{1}{|n_{k1}m_{k1}\theta |\mathrm{\Sigma }}<E<\frac{1}{|n_km_k\theta |\mathrm{\Sigma }}.$$
(23)
Since $`n_km_k\theta 0`$ as $`k`$ goes to infinity, we see that we have succeeded in covering the entire energy range with non-overlapping dual descriptions, for any irrational $`\theta `$. In analogy with our discussion of the Villain model, one may want to introduce a confidence level in the criterion (10), and ask for which irrational values of $`\theta `$ the cascade of quasi-local descriptions can still be constructed. We will address this question in the next section, after discussing the strong coupling version of the criterion (10). The results will be the same, as far as the $`\theta `$ dependence is concerned, as those to be uncovered at strong coupling.

## 4 Strongly coupled NCSYM and multifractal gravity dual

We now turn to the strong ’t Hooft coupling of NCSYM on a torus with irrational $`\theta `$, which we can study using the AdS/CFT correspondence. We assume the ’t Hooft coupling $`\lambda `$ and $`GCD(N,m)`$ to be large. The metric, dilaton and B-field dual to $`N=4`$ SYM on a non-commutative torus have been obtained in , and read

$`ds^2`$ $`=`$ $`l_s^2\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{U^2}{\sqrt{\lambda }}}(dt^2+dx_1^2)+{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{\lambda }U^2}{\lambda +U^4\mathrm{\Delta }^4}}(dx_2^2+dx_3^2)+{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{\lambda }}{U^2}}dU^2+\sqrt{\lambda }d\mathrm{\Omega }_5^2\right\},`$
$`e^\varphi `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda }{4\pi N}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda }{\lambda +\mathrm{\Delta }^4U^4}}},B_{23}={\displaystyle \frac{l_s^2\mathrm{\Delta }^2U^4}{\lambda +\mathrm{\Delta }^4U^4}},`$ (24)
with periodicities $`x_2x_2+2\pi \mathrm{\Sigma }`$ and $`x_3x_3+2\pi \mathrm{\Sigma }`$. This gravity solution is appropriate for vanishing magnetic background $`m=0`$, which we assume from now on. This is no loss of generality, since one may always choose $`m=0`$ and $`|\theta |<1/2`$ through a duality transformation .

The supergravity can be trusted when the volume of the torus is bigger than the string scale, hence

$$v=\frac{\sqrt{\lambda }U^2\mathrm{\Sigma }^2}{\lambda +U^4\mathrm{\Delta }^4}>\frac{M}{2}$$
(25)
where the r.h.s. is the level of confidence we wish to impose on the supergravity description. If this condition is not satisfied, the Kaluza-Klein modes of the supergravity fields mix with the string winding states, and a supergravity description is no more sufficient. One may be tempted to identify $`M`$ with the radius of convergence of the $`\alpha ^{}`$ expansion, but the derivative expansion is presumably only asymptotic, so that this identification cannot be precise. We shall keep with the somewhat loose notion of “confidence level” in the following, although a better understanding of the constant $`M`$ would certainly be desirable.

In terms of the dimensionless variable $`u=U\mathrm{\Sigma }/\lambda ^{1/4}`$, the volume of the torus in string units becomes

$$v=u^2/(1+\theta ^2u^4)$$
(26)
which attains its maximum value $`1/(2|\theta |)`$ at $`u=1/\sqrt{|\theta |}`$. The torus is therefore bigger than the string length for $`|\theta |<1/2`$, in the range $`u_{}<u<u_+`$ with $`u_\pm ^2=(1\pm \sqrt{1M^2\theta ^2})/(M\theta ^2)`$. If $`\theta 1`$, the supergravity solution can therefore be trusted in the range

$$\frac{\lambda ^{1/4}}{\mathrm{\Sigma }}\sqrt{\frac{M}{2}}<U<\frac{\lambda ^{1/4}\mathrm{\Sigma }}{\mathrm{\Delta }^2}\sqrt{\frac{2}{M}}$$
(27)
with maximum reliability at $`U=\lambda ^{1/4}/\mathrm{\Delta }`$. Using the AdS/CFT dictionary and choosing $`M=2`$, this translates into an energy range

$$\frac{1}{\lambda ^{1/4}\mathrm{\Sigma }}<E<\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }}{\lambda ^{1/4}\mathrm{\Delta }^2}$$
(28)
which agrees with the field theory criterion (10) up to a factor of $`\lambda ^{1/4}`$, as observed in . The requirement of quasi-locality at strong ’t Hooft coupling (ie neglecting the non-local string winding states around the gravity background) therefore matches the requirement of quasi-locality at weak coupling, up to the usual large-N renormalisation by the factor of ’t Hooft coupling. Note that the confidence level $`M`$ could also have been introduced in the weak coupling criterion (10) by specifying the size of the energy window.

Outside this energy range, we may still find a reliable supergravity description by going to a T-dual picture (see  for a review). Applying an $`Sl(2,)`$ T-duality transformation,

$$\rho \frac{a\rho +b}{c\rho +d},\rho =\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }^2}{l_s^2}B_{23}+iv,ve^{2\varphi }=\mathrm{const}.$$
(29)
the volume of the dual torus in string units and the dilaton become

$$v=\frac{u^2}{d^2+(d\theta c)^2u^4},e^\varphi =\frac{\lambda }{4\pi N}\frac{1}{\sqrt{d^2+(d\theta c)^2u^4}}.$$
(30)
In particular, the string coupling remains smaller than the one in the original picture, at least by a factor $`1/d`$. Requiring again the volume to be bigger than a fixed constant $`M/2`$, we obtain a condition

$$\frac{d^2}{u^2}+(d\theta c)^2u^2<\frac{2}{M}$$
(31)
isomorphic to the condition (1) appearing in the Villain model, under the identification

$$\tau =\theta +i/T\text{(Villain)}\tau =\theta +i/u^2\text{(AdS)}$$
(32)
The constant-$`\theta `$ vertical line in the phase diagram of the Villain model (Figure 1b) is therefore identified with the radial direction of AdS for a fixed value of the NS B-field. The disks now indicate what is the appropriate T-dual description (if any) for any point along the $`u`$ axis. From (4), the metric along the radial direction is $`(du/u)^2`$, so that the phase structure is better represented in the $`\theta +i\mathrm{ln}(u)`$ plane, which corresponds to proper distance in target space (Figure 3).

From this picture, we see that the interior of AdS ($`u0`$, i.e. the infrared regime of the gauge theory) is universally described by the $`(c,d)=(1,0)`$ picture, where the volume of the torus diverges at $`u0`$. The system is then describable by a purely D1-brane system (i.e. $`N=0`$), and undergoes a Gregory-Laflamme transition : this is the standard phase transition from 3+1 NCSYM to 1+1 SYM . In contrast, at the boundary of AdS ($`u\mathrm{}`$, i.e. to the UV of the field theory), the behavior depends crucially on the irrationality of $`\theta `$. For any rational value of $`\theta `$, the radial direction ends up into one of the shaded areas (i.e. one of the cusps at the bottom of Figure 3), and remains there all the way towards the boundary of AdS. However, for $`\theta `$ irrational, the radial direction keeps switching from one shaded area to another. If $`M>2`$, the shaded areas are not connected, and there exists values of $`\theta `$ for which there is no reliable description in some radial range. If $`M<\sqrt{3}`$, the complete $`\tau `$ plane is covered, and there is always a trustable T-dual description. Depending on the value of $`M(\theta )`$, the domain of radial positions for which a reliable description exists may be finite ($`M(\theta )<M`$) or infinite ($`M(\theta )>M`$). Note that the string coupling is not an issue, since $`e^\varphi `$ decreases to zero as $`d`$ increases to infinity. As in (2) and (3), the dual supergravity description has a non-empty range of radial positions in which it can be trusted if the minimum of the volume $`v`$ is larger than $`M/2`$, i.e.

$$\frac{1}{2|d(d\theta c)|}>\frac{M}{2}.$$
(33)
The range of validity is then

$$|d|\sqrt{\frac{M}{2}}<\lambda ^{1/4}U\mathrm{\Sigma }<\frac{1}{|d\theta c|}\sqrt{\frac{2}{M}}$$
(34)
The latter condition can be rewritten as $`|\theta c/d|<1/(Md^2)`$, which admits a finite ($`M(\theta )<M`$) or infinite ($`M(\theta )>M`$) number of solutions. The condition (34) for $`M=2`$ agrees with the field theory condition (10) up to the coupling factor $`\lambda ^{1/4}`$, upon noting that $`d1/(a+b\theta )`$ if $`|\theta c/d|1`$.

Quite strikingly, the picture reveals the fractal nature of the radial dimension for irrational $`\theta `$ at the boundary of AdS. For $`\theta `$ a quadratic irrational, the continued fraction decomposition is periodic, and so is the phase structure on the radial direction (in logarithmic units): the radial direction has therefore a definite fractal dimension, related to the periodicity of the expansion. For irrational numbers that are not quadractic however, the ratio of the energies at the branching points is quite erratic, and the radial dimension turns out to be multifractal (see  for a review). These two cases are illustrated on Figure 4. If $`M>M(\theta )`$, the radial direction is completely stringy towards the boundary of AdS, and the dimension of the radial direction covered by duality pictures is therefore 0. It would be very interesting to compute the Hausdorff dimension and the spectrum of fractal exponents for general $`\theta `$ in terms of $`M`$ and $`M(\theta )`$. As a word of caution, we emphasize that the fractality of the radial dimension only arises towards the boundary of AdS, i.e. as an infrared effect in the gravity theory. Whether non-commutativity can also be relevant for the description of the ultraviolet behavior of quantum gravity remains to be seen.

We conclude with three further comments on the phase structure of NCSYM. In the situation we have considered, there is no phase transition between different patches, but only a cross-over in the high energy behavior. One may ask whether this picture changes when we put the gauge theory on a non-commutative torus at finite temperature. The gravity dual was obtained in , and differs from (4) in the $`g_{tt}`$ and $`g_{rr}`$ components only, which are affected by a factor $`(1U_0^4/U^4)`$. The horizon at $`U=U_0`$ effectively cuts off the higher part of the diagram in Figure 1b or Figure 3, but leaves the ultraviolet behavior unchanged. The thermodynamic quantities are invariant under T-duality, so that we do not expect any phase transitions. Second, we may ask whether a Gregory-Laflamme transition can occur in the interior of AdS. This would in principle be achievable by tuning the ratio $`N/m`$ close to $`\theta `$. However, one may show that such a patch with only D1-branes ($`N=0`$) always extends to $`u0`$ . The Gregory-Laflamme transition can therefore only occur in the infrared of the gauge theory. Finally, we should emphasize that the issue of quasi-locality concerns only the effective degrees of freedom at a given energy scale: local operators have smooth correlation functions at all scales, and may in fact become non-local in the dual pictures that we introduced at higher energy.

## Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to J.L.F. Barbón and N. Seiberg for valuable discussions and suggestions. B.P. is indebted to N. Itzhaki for several discussions in Nov. 1999 on the UV behaviour of non-commutative gauge theories. E.R. is grateful to S. Shenker and S. Shenker for educating him on number theory in 1981, and pointing out its relevance to the Villain model, respectively. Hospitality and support of the Racah Institute of Physics in Jerusalem, the CERN Theory Division and the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Meguro, Tokyo 152-8551, extended to B.P. and E.R. respectively during part of this work are gratefully acknowledged. This research is supported in part by the European RTN network HPRN-CT-2000-00122, the David and Lucile Packard foundation, the BSF-American-Israeli Bi-National Science Foundation, the IRF Centers of Excellence Program and the Japan Society for the promotion of sciences.


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# Incomplete nonextensive statistics and zeroth law of thermodynamics

## I Introduction

In its most recent version, Tsallis nonextensive statistical mechanics is constructed on the basis of following three postulates : the nonextensive entropy

$$S_q=k\frac{1_ip_i^q}{1q},(qR)$$
(1)
where $`p_i`$ is the probability that the system of interest is at the state $`i`$, the probability normalization

$$\underset{i}{}p_i=1.$$
(2)
and the expectation of internal energy $`U_q`$ of the system :

$$U_q=\frac{_ip_i^qE_i}{_ip_i^q}.$$
(3)
where $`E_i`$ is the value of hamiltonian $`\widehat{H}`$ at the state $`i`$ of the system. It is worth emphasizing that this formalism, as other current probabilistic theories, is based on the normalization for complete probability distributions, i.e. the sum over $`i`$ in Eq.(2) is to be carried out over all the possible states of the system of interest.

The above three equations lead to following nonextensivity in entropy for a isolated system composed of two subsystems $`A`$ and $`B`$ verifying the factorization of joint probability $`p_{ij}(A+B)=p_i(A)p_j(B)`$ :

$$S_q(A+B)=S_q(A)+S_q(B)\frac{q1}{k}S_q(A)S_q(B)$$
(4)
Recently, the zeroth law of thermodynamics in this formalism becomes a centre of scientific interest. It was believed that this law could not exist in the framework of nonextensive statistical mechanics. If this was true, the definition of heat and work would be impossible and the application of this statistical mechanics to thermodynamic systems would be severely disturbed. On the basis of Eq.(4) and the assumption of extensive energy $`U_q(A+B)=U_q(A)+U_q(B)`$, Abe and co-workers discussed the establishment of the zeroth law of thermodynamics within Tsallis theory and obtain

$$\frac{S_q(A)}{U_q(A)}Z_q^{q1}(A)=\frac{S_q(B)}{U_q(B)}Z_q^{q1}(B)$$
(5)
or

$$T(A)=T(B)$$
(6)
where $`1/T=\frac{S_q}{U_q}Z_q^{q1}`$ is defined as the measurable absolute temperature. One of the consequences of this approach is that the Clausius definition of entropy is modified and written as

$$dS_q=Z^{1q}\frac{dQ}{T}$$
(7)
where $`dQ`$ is of course the heat transfer from the surroundings to the system of interest. This modification has in turn other consequences on the definition of Helmoholtz free energy and generalized forces. The reader is referred to the reference  for detailed discussion on this topic.

In this paper, I show an attempt to establish the zeroth law within an alternative formalism of nonextensive statistics without neglecting the nonextensivity in energy. This formalism is based on an information theory related to incomplete probability distribution  with which Eq. (2) does not hold because

$$\underset{i=1}{\overset{v}{}}p_i=Q1$$
(8)
where $`v`$ is only the number of the accessible or known states of the system of interest and so can be greater or smaller than the total number of all states of the system. This situation can occur if, for example, we do not know all the interactions in the system and have to neglect the unknown interaction in the hamiltonian and in the equation of motion. The solution of this equation should give us the accessible states.

## II Incomplete normalization

When it is impossible to count all the possible states or to know the exact probability distribution of a system, the probabilities become nonadditive and do not sum to one. The necessity of the introduction of this kind of nonadditive probabilities was first noticed by economists***I would like to cite some comments of economists on this subject. J. Dow, M.H. Simonsen and S. Werlang wrote, concerning the financial risk and uncertainty : ”With a nonadditive probability measure, the ’probability’ that either of two mutually exclusive events will occur is not necessarily equal to the sum of their two ’probabilities’. If it is less than the sum, the expected-utility calculations using this probability measure will reflect uncertainty aversion as well as (possibly) risk aversion. The reader may be disturbed by ’probabilities’ that do not sum to one. It should be stressed that the probabilities, together with the utility function, provide a representation of behavior. They are not ’objective probabilities’”. ”Uncertainty means, in fact, incomplete information about the true probabilities … The attractiveness of the concept of sub-additive probabilities is that it might provide the best possible description for what is behind the widespread notion of ’subjective probabilities’ in the theory of financial decisions.” It is also of interest to note that, in the last decade, there was a strong development of the method of Backward Stochastic Differential Equation with a nonextensive q-expectation which may be applied to describe the ”risk aversion” behavior of financial decisions . Recently, in order to address this kind of probabilities, we proposed to replace Eqs. (2) and (3) with following relations  :

$$\underset{i}{\overset{v}{}}\frac{p_i}{Q}=\underset{i=1}{\overset{v}{}}p_i^q=1,(q[0,\mathrm{}])$$
(9)
and

$$U_q=\underset{i=1}{\overset{v}{}}p_i^qE_i.$$
(10)
We would like to indicate here that the parameter $`q`$ is in this way logically related to the quantity $`Q`$ in Eq.(8) and so to the interactions neglected in the hamiltonian of the system. For example, for a micro-canonical ensemble, we can write : $`q=1\frac{lnQ}{lnp}`$ or $`Q=v^{\frac{q1}{q}}`$. This relation may help us to understand $`q`$ values different from unity obtained for complex systems.

On the basis of Eqs.(9) and (10), considering the usual postulates of Shannon information theory and an information measure $`I`$ with generalized Hartley formula ($`I(x)=\frac{x^{1q}1}{1q}`$), we obtain following entropy for nonextensive systems :

$$S_q=k\underset{i=1}{\overset{v}{}}p_i^q\frac{p_i^{1q}1}{1q}=k\frac{_{i=1}^vp_i_{i=1}^vp_i^q}{1q}$$
(11)
which is just Tsallis entropy Eq(1) provided that the normalization Eq.(2) holds. If we consider the incomplete normalization Eq.(9) and expectation Eq.(10), this entropy leads to different nonextensive properties which is consistent with following assumptions concerning an isolated system composed of two correlated systems $`A`$ and $`B`$ :

$$S_q(A+B)=S_q(A)+S_q(B)+\frac{q1}{k}S_q(A)S_q(B).$$
(12)
and for internal energy :

$$U_q(A+B)=U_q(A)+U_q(B)+(q1)\beta U_q(A)U_q(B).$$
(13)
These relations should be considered as two fundamental hypotheses of the incomplete statistics on the basis of which the zeroth law holds.

## III Zeroth law of thermodynamics

From Eq. (12), a small variation of the total entropy can be written as :

$`\delta S_q(A+B)`$ $`=`$ $`[1+{\displaystyle \frac{q1}{k}}S_q(B)]\delta S_q(A)+[1+{\displaystyle \frac{q1}{k}}S_q(A)]\delta S_q(B)`$ (14)
$`=`$ $`[1+{\displaystyle \frac{q1}{k}}S_q(B)]{\displaystyle \frac{S_q(A)}{U_q(A)}}\delta U_q(A)+[1+{\displaystyle \frac{q1}{k}}S_q(A)]{\displaystyle \frac{S_q(B)}{U_q(B)}}\delta U_q(B).`$ (15)
From Eq. (13), the variation of the total internal energy is given by :

$`\delta U_q(A+B)`$ $`=`$ $`[1+(q1)\beta U_q(B)]\delta U_q(A)+[1+(q1)\beta U_q(A)]\delta U_q(B).`$ (16)
It is supposed that the total system $`(A+B)`$ is completely isolated. So $`\delta U_q(A+B)=0`$ which leads to :

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta U_q(A)}{1+(q1)\beta U_q(A)}}={\displaystyle \frac{\delta U_q(B)}{1+(q1)\beta U_q(B)}}`$ (17)
At the equilibrium of the composite system $`(A+B)`$, we have $`\delta S_q(A+B)=0`$. So Eqs. (14) and (17) lead to :

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1+(q1)\beta U_q(A)}{1+\frac{q1}{k}S_q(A)}}{\displaystyle \frac{S_q(A)}{U_q(A)}}={\displaystyle \frac{1+(q1)\beta U_q(B)}{1+\frac{q1}{k}S_q(B)}}{\displaystyle \frac{S_q(B)}{U_q(B)}}.`$ (18)
Now with the help of the incomplete distribution function given in reference $`p_i=\frac{1}{Z_q}[1(1q)\beta E_i]^{\frac{1}{1q}}`$ with $`Z_q^q=_i^v[1(1q)\beta E_i]^{\frac{q}{1q}}`$., we easily obtain

$`{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}p_i={\displaystyle \frac{1}{Z_q^{1q}}}[1+(q1)\beta U_q].`$ (19)
From Tsallis entropy Eq.(11) and the incomplete normalization Eq.(9), we get

$`{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}p_i=1+{\displaystyle \frac{q1}{k}}S_q.`$ (20)
Eqs.(19) and (20) lead to

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1+(q1)\beta U_q}{1+\frac{q1}{k}S_q}}=Z_q^{1q}`$ (21)
which recasts Eq.(18) as follows :

$`Z_q^{1q}(A){\displaystyle \frac{S_q(A)}{U_q(A)}}=Z_q^{1q}(B){\displaystyle \frac{S_q(B)}{U_q(B)}}.`$ (22)
Eq.(21) also means

$`Z_q^{1q}{\displaystyle \frac{S_q}{U_q}}=\beta .`$ (23)
or

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\text{S}_q}{U_q}}=\beta .`$ (24)
where $`\text{S}_q=Z_q^{1q}S_q`$. We finally have

$`\beta (A)=\beta (B)`$ (25)
where $`\beta `$ is to be considered as the generalized inverse temperature $`1/kT`$. Eq.(25) is the generalized zeroth law of thermodynamics for nonextensive systems with the same parameter $`q`$. It suggests that the Clausius’ definition of thermodynamic entropy has to be modified. Now we should write

$`dQ=Td\text{S}_q.`$ (26)
So the first law of thermodynamics should be written as follows

$`dU_q=Td\text{S}_q+YdX.`$ (27)
where $`Y`$ is the generalized force and $`X`$ the correspondent external variable. The free-energy $`F_q`$ should be defined as

$`dF_q=\text{S}_qdT+YdX`$ (28)
or

$`F_q=U_qT\text{S}_q,`$ (29)
which leads to, with the help of Eq.(21) :

$$F_q=kT\frac{Z^{1q}1}{1q}.$$
(30)
We can easily show that $`Z_q(C)=Z_q(A)Z_q(B)`$. So for a composite system $`C=A+B`$, we can write :

$`F_q(C)`$ $`=`$ $`F_q(A)+F_q(B)(1q)\beta F_q(A)F_q(B).`$ (31)
We also have, for the heat capacity

$$C_X=\{\frac{dQ}{dT}\}_X=T\{\frac{\text{S}_q}{T}\}_X=T\{\frac{^2F_q}{T^2}\}_X$$
(32)
and for the equation of state :

$$Y=\{\frac{F_q}{X}\}_T$$
(33)
We can also address other ensembles like, for example, isothermal-isobaric ensemble. The Gibbs free energy $`G`$ in this case is given by

$`G_q=U_qT\text{S}_q+pV=kT{\displaystyle \frac{Z^{1q}1}{1q}},`$ (34)
where $`Z_q^q=_i^v[1(1q)\beta (E_i+pV_i)]^{\frac{q}{1q}}`$, $`p`$ is the pressure, $`V_i`$ the volume of the system at state $`i`$ (with $`V`$ as average value). We naturally have

$`G_q(C)`$ $`=`$ $`G_q(A)+G_q(B)(1q)\beta G_q(A)G_q(B).`$ (35)
and

$$V=\{\frac{G_q}{p}\}_T.$$
(36)
## IV Conclusion

It is shown that the zeroth law of thermodynamics can hold within the nonextensive statistics based on the incomplete normalization without neglecting the nonextensivity in energy or other physical quantities. So this nonextensive statistical mechanics offers the possibility to address systems in which the nonadditivity in energy, volume or other external variables can not be neglected.


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# An Atlas of Burst Oscillations and Spectral Properties in 4U 1728–34

## 1 Introduction

Type I X–ray bursts (for a review, see, e.g., Lewin et al. 1993) in the low mass X–ray binary (LMXB) 4U 1728–34 were discovered with the SAS–3 observatory in 1976 (Lewin 1976; Hoffman et al. 1976). An extensive study of the burst properties of 96 bursts was done by Basinska et al. (1984) with the Y-axis detectors on board SAS 3. Radius expansion bursts were reported by Basinska et al. (1984), Inoue (1988), Foster et al. (1986) and Day & Tawara (1990). The source has been classified by Hasinger & van der Klis (1989) as an atoll source based on timing and spectral observations with the EXOSAT satellite. The distance to the source is about 4 kpc (van Paradijs 1978; Foster et al. 1986; Di Salvo et al. 2000b). No optical counterpart has been identified (Liller 1977).

After the launch of the Rossi X–ray Timing Explorer (RXTE), burst oscillations on a millisecond time scale (i.e. at 363 Hz) were first discovered in 4U 1728–34 by Strohmayer et al. (1996a). Such oscillations have since been found in several other atoll sources, i.e. 4U 1636–53 (Strohmayer et al. 1998a,b; Strohmayer 1999; Miller 1999, 2000; Zhang et al. 1997) , 4U 1702–43 (Strohmayer & Markwardt 1999; Markwardt et al. 1999), KS 1731–260 (Morgan & Smith 1996; Smith et al. 1997; Muno et al. 2000), MXB 1743–29 (Strohmayer et al. 1996b; Strohmayer et al. 1997), Aql X–1 (Zhang et al. 1998; Ford 1999; Yu et al. 1999), and marginally in the Rapid Burster (Fox & Lewin 1999). The frequency during the burst usually increases to an asymptotic value which tends to be quite stable (see for an overview Strohmayer, Swank, & Zhang 1998). This led to a simple model (Strohmayer et al. 1997) in which the oscillations arise due to a hot spot in a layer that due to the burst has expanded in radius (by 10–30 m, this is not related to the expansion by several kilometers during classical radius expansion bursts) and is therefore rotating slightly slower than the neutron star itself. As the layer recontracts the frequency increases towards the neutron star spin frequency. However, note that in 4U 1636–53 (Miller 1999; Strohmayer 1999) and in KS 1731–260 (Muno et al. 2000) decreases in frequency have also been seen. For 4U 1728–34 Strohmayer et al. (1998b) found that for 3 bursts (bursts 4, 5 and 17 in this paper) occurring more than 1.5 yr apart, the observed asymptotic oscillation periods were all close to 2.7476 ms and within 0.2 $`\mu s`$ of each other.

For several atoll sources correlations have been found between timing properties and the position of the source in the X–ray color–color diagram (e.g., Hasinger & van der Klis 1989; Prins & van der Klis 1997; Méndez et al. 1999; van Straaten et al. 2000). A correlation between the position of 4U 1728–34 in the color–color diagram and several power spectral features is shown in Méndez & van der Klis (1999) and Di Salvo et al. (2000a). The most obvious explanation for these correlations is that both the timing properties and the position in the color–color diagram track the changing mass accretion rate (Hasinger & van der Klis 1989), from low in the so–called island state, and increasing along the banana branch (for definitions see Hasinger & van der Klis 1989). A link between the position in the color–color diagram and burst spectral properties was found for 4U 1636–53 (van der Klis et al. 1990) and 4U 1705–44 (van der Klis 1989).

For KS 1731–260 Muno et al. (2000) connected the position in the color–color diagram with both the X-ray spectral properties during the bursts and the presence of burst oscillations. In the island state, KS 1731–260 showed longer decay time scales, larger fluences, no evidence for radius expansion and no burst oscillations. On the banana branch, the bursts were shorter, the fluences were smaller, and radius expansion episodes (where the emitting region expands by a factor of 2.5–5.2) and burst oscillations were present.

In this paper we present an overview of the spectral and burst–oscillation properties of 21 bursts in 4U 1728–34. We particularly investigate the relation between oscillation characteristics and radius–expansion characteristics of the bursts. We also connect our results to the position of the source in the color-color diagram when the bursts took place.

## 2 Observations and Data Analysis

In this analysis we use data obtained with RXTE’s proportional counter array (PCA; for more instrument information see Zhang et al. 1993). To prevent break down events the voltage of the PCA was lowered on three occasions leading to four periods of a different voltage, called gain epochs. We study bursts occurring in two RXTE data sets. One set (observation ID 10073) took place during gain epoch 1 (before 1996 March 21), and one (observation ID 20083) during gain epoch 3 (between 1996 April 15 and 1999 March 22). We find a total number of 21 bursts. In the data we analyzed all 5 detectors of the PCA were operational. All bursts are listed in Table 1. The start times listed in Table 1 are the times that the rise in count rate, caused by the burst, triggered the Experiment Data System (EDS).

### 2.1 Spectral Analysis

We use the Standard 2 mode, which has a 16–s time–resolution and 129 energy channels, to analyze the spectral properties of 96 s of persistent emission just before each burst. To study the spectral properties during the bursts we use a burst trigger mode which has 64 energy channels and a time resolution of 8 ms. We determine a spectrum every 0.25 s. We correct each spectrum for background and dead–time using the methods supplied by the RXTE team. We fit the spectra between 2.8 and 20 keV. For the fits we implement a systematic error of 1 %. We fix the hydrogen column density, $`N_\mathrm{H}`$, to the value of $`2.5\times 10^{22}`$ atoms cm-2 (Hoffman et al. 1976; Grindlay & Hertz 1981; Foster et al. 1986; Di Salvo et al. 2000b).

The spectra of the persistent emission were fit with an exponentially cut–off power law defined as $`N_\mathrm{\Gamma }E^\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{exp}^{\mathrm{E}/\mathrm{kT}}`$, where $`E`$ is the photon energy, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ the power–law index, $`N_\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is the cut–off power law normalization, and $`kT`$ is the cut–off energy. To this we add a Gaussian line with a fixed width ($`\sigma =0.1`$ keV) and energy (6.5 keV) as observed previously (see Di Salvo et al. 2000b). This line could be due to iron emission. For the epoch 1 data eight spectra have a reduced chi squared, $`\chi ^2`$/dof $`<1.6`$ and four spectra (the four with the lowest spectral index, all $``$ 1) have a $`\chi ^2`$/dof around 2.2 with 49 degrees of freedom. The fits are generally better for the data from epoch 3 ($`\chi ^2`$/dof $`<1.2`$ with 42 degrees of freedom) even for spectra as hard or harder than seen in epoch 1, presumably due to better calibration in epoch 3.

When we fit the burst spectra we model the total burst emission by a component equal to that of the persistent emission (which is fixed during the burst) plus a single blackbody component to describe the net burst emission. The bolometric blackbody flux, blackbody temperature, blackbody radius at 4.3 kpc (see Foster et al. 1986) and $`\chi ^2`$/dof of four representative bursts are shown in Figure 1. The fits generally have a $`\chi ^2`$/dof below about 2 with 26 (epoch 1) or 23 (epoch 3) degrees of freedom, however sometimes it goes up to about 3. We note that in some of the bursts that show radius expansion (see below) the $`\chi ^2`$/dof peaks during the increase/decrease phase of the radius (see e.g. bursts 21 and 9 in Figure 1, this also occurs in bursts 1, 2, 7–11 and 20). It seems that the spectra deviate from simple Planckian functions when the radius varies rapidly (see also Lewin et al. 1993). We note that there are alternative methods (Sztajno et al. 1986) to handle the spectral analysis during bursts. We picked the commonly used method described above as the aim of our paper is only to provide a homogeneous description of all burst properties for the purpose of correlating with the location in the color–color diagram (see below), and not to do detailed spectral modelling.

When a burst undergoes a radius expansion episode the luminosity $`L`$ stays constant and is equal to the Eddington luminosity, $`L_{\mathrm{edd}}`$ (modulo gravitational redshift effects with changing radius). Because $`LR^2T_{\mathrm{eff}}^4`$, with $`R`$ the radius of the photosphere and $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ the effective temperature, when $`R`$ increases $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ must decrease. Bursts 1, 2, 7–12, 20 and 21 clearly show this rise in blackbody radius and simultaneous dip in blackbody temperature. Bursts 4–6 have a peak flux comparable to that of these radius expansion bursts (see Table 2), and therefore might be expected to show some evidence of radius expansion as well. Indeed, burst 6 shows a clear bump in radius accompanied by a slight dip in temperature (Fig. 1) and bursts 4 and 5 only have one 0.25 s point were the radius peaked and the temperature dipped. Because the effects are marginal, hereafter we shall count those bursts as having no radius expansion. Bursts 13–18 show a gradual increase in blackbody radius, for the entire duration of the burst, but no simultaneous decrease in blackbody temperature. This is not classical radius expansion, but might either be a real increase in the X-ray burning area (see e.g. Kong et al. 2000) or it is a similar effect as that seen just after the radius contraction phase of bursts 8–12 (see below).

Bursts 8–12 show an unexpected spectral behaviour (see burst 9 in Fig. 1). After the radius contraction phase the blackbody radius reaches a minimum value followed by an increase. This behaviour has previously been seen in bursts from several other sources (e.g. Hoffman et al. 1980; Tawara et al. 1984; van Paradijs et al. 1990; Kaptein et al. 2000), although we note that the durations of those bursts were all long ($`>60`$ s). The behaviour could perhaps be due to a spectral hardening effect caused by electron scattering in the neutron star atmosphere, that depends mainly on the ratio $`L/L_{\mathrm{edd}}`$ (see for a discussion Kaptein et al. 2000). Kaptein et al. (2000) try to correct the temperature and radius for a burst in 1RXS J171824.2–402934 and find that when corrected the increase in radius after the minimum is substantially less (however, the effect does not disappear after correction).

From the spectral fits of the burst and the persistent emission we can determine the classical burst parameters such as the maximum flux (bolometric black body flux plus the persistent emmision integrated between 0.01–100 keV), $`F_{\mathrm{peak}}`$, the blackbody temperature at 10 % of the Eddington flux, $`kT_{0.1}`$, the rise time, $`t_{\mathrm{rise}}`$, and the fluence, $`E_\mathrm{b}`$. As an indicator for the temperature of a burst we use the temperature in the time bin closest to 10 % of the Eddington flux in Figure 1. The Eddington flux, $`F_{\mathrm{edd}}`$, is defined by the highest peak flux from all the radius expansion bursts (i.e. that of burst 9: $`12.6\times 10^8`$ erg cm-2 s-1; at a distance of 4.3 kpc and assuming that the burst emission is isotropic this leads to $`L_{\mathrm{edd}}=2.79\times 10^{38}`$ erg s-1). To determine $`E_\mathrm{b}`$ we sum the flux from the start of the burst until the end of the available data. To compensate for the missing fluence at the end of the burst (since the burst flux decays exponentially it finishes at infinite times), we fit the burst tail with an exponential function which we integrate from the end of the trigger file to infinity. We calculate the standard burst parameters (see e.g. Lewin et al. 1993) $`\gamma `$ ($`=F_{\mathrm{pers}}/[F_{\mathrm{peak}}F_{\mathrm{pers}}]`$, where $`F_{\mathrm{pers}}`$ is the persistent flux just before the burst), $`\tau `$ ($`=E_b/[F_{\mathrm{peak}}F_{\mathrm{pers}}]`$) and a lower limit (because of South Atlantic Anomaly passages and earth occultations) for $`\alpha `$ ($`=F_{\mathrm{pers}}/(E_b/\mathrm{\Delta }t)`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ is the time since the previous burst). To determine the rise time, $`t_{\mathrm{rise}}`$ we use the PCA light curve over the full PCA energy band with a time resolution of 0.0312 s (see Figure 2). We define $`t_{\mathrm{rise}}`$ as the time for the burst to increase from 25 % to 90 % of the peak rate. All burst parameters are shown in Table 2.

We can compare our values of $`F_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ with the peak bolometric flux found by Franco (2000, see also the note added to the manuscript) for the same set of bursts. Although they do not include the persistent emission in their listed values and extract spectra of 0.125 s instead of the 0.25 s we use, the two sets of results are in agreement.

The profile of burst number 19 deviates strongly from all the other bursts (see Fig. 3). About 15 s before the burst really goes off the flux goes up and 9 s before the burst rise a small precursor occurs. The burst itself has a small fluence and is extremely short ($`\tau =2.0`$ s) compared to the other bursts ($`\tau >4.3`$ s). Including the pre-burst rise emission only increases the fluence by $`30`$ %, so it remains low.

### 2.2 Burst Oscillations

To get a first indication of which bursts show oscillations we made Leahy normalized power spectra (Leahy et al. 1983) starting a few seconds before the burst with a Nyquist frequency of 2048 Hz and a frequency resolution of 0.25 Hz. We used a PCA data mode with a 125$`\mu `$s time resolution and no energy resolution (the PCA is sensitive in the 2–60 keV range). We determine if there is any power between 360 and 365 Hz (based on previous results by Strohmayer et al. 1998b) that is more significant than 3$`\sigma `$ (single trial). We find oscillations in 15 out of the 21 bursts. These preliminary detections were confirmed in our further analysis (see below).

We then examined the bursts with oscillations more closely. We made Leahy normalized dynamical power spectra starting about 4 s before the rise and extending to about 12 s after the rise. The dynamical power spectrum is composed of individual power spectra each covering a 4 s interval. These intervals overlap, each new interval starting 0.125 s later than the previous one, increasing the time resolution at the expense of introducing correlations. We initially looked for oscillations between 300 and 400 Hz but found no evidence for oscillations outside the 360–365 Hz interval. We show the dynamical power spectra between 360 and 365 Hz for the bursts that show oscillations in Figure 2. For each individual power spectrum there are 21 frequency bins between 360 and 365 Hz. Due to the overlaps, adjacent power spectra are correlated; after each 4 s the power spectra become uncorrelated. In a dynamical power spectrum with a total duration of 16 s there are four independent power spectra, which leads to a total of 84 ($`21\times 4`$) independent powers. For clarity we plot only those powers above a value of 9.2, the 99% confidence detection level for a single trial. In each plot about one independent power can be expected to exceed this level due to only Poisson noise fluctuations. Such a power fluctuation can show up in several adjacent power spectra. In each plot we include the PCA light curve over the full PCA energy band. The light curve and power spectra are aligned such that each point in the dynamical power spectrum represents a power spectrum taken over 2 s before and 2 s after the corresponding point in the light curve.

For the four strongest frequency tracks (4, 5, 14 and 17) we list the frequency shift and frequency endpoint of the tracks seen in Figure 2 in Table 3. We note that these values might be influenced by noise powers (on average one per plot, see above) accidentally situated near the beginning or end of a frequency track.

Because the frequency of the oscillation drifts during the 4 s interval for which each power spectrum is computed, the power spreads over a number of frequency bins. To compute the total power of the oscillation for each power spectrum we first find the highest power, $`P_{\mathrm{max}}`$, between 360 and 365 Hz. We then determine the Poisson level, $`P_{\mathrm{pois}}`$, by averaging between 1000 and 1500 Hz and add up all power ($`P_{\mathrm{tot}}`$) above the Poisson level in an interval of 4 Hz around the frequency bin containing $`P_{\mathrm{max}}`$. As the oscillation signal is deterministic, the error in the power of each frequency bin is equal to $`P_{\mathrm{pois}}`$ so the error in the total power is obtained by quadratically adding these powers over the 4 Hz interval. From the resulting total oscillation power we calculate the rms fractional amplitude plotted in the bottom frames of Figure 2. We only plot the rms fractional amplitude when the corresponding $`P_{\mathrm{max}}`$ is larger than 9.2 and the corresponding $`P_{\mathrm{tot}}`$ differs more then 1 $`\sigma `$ from 0. When this is not the case we calculate an upper limit in the same way as for the bursts that show no oscillations (see below).

For the bursts that show no significant oscillations we perform an identical dynamic power spectral analysis as above. No significant oscillations are present. We add up all power above the Poisson level between 360 and 365 Hz, $`P_{360365}`$, calculate the $`1\sigma `$ error in this power in the same way as for $`P_{\mathrm{tot}}`$ (see above) and use this to obtain a 97.5 % confidence upper limit on $`P_{\mathrm{tot}}`$ ($`P_{\mathrm{u}.\mathrm{l}.}`$ = $`P_{360365}`$ \+ 2 $`\times `$ error).

## 3 Results

Previous studies of spectral burst parameters in 4U 1728–34 have been made with HEAO 1 (Hoffman et al. 1979), Einstein (Grindlay & Hertz 1981), EXOSAT (Foster et al. 1986), Astron (Kaminker et al. 1989), and Ginga (Day & Tawara 1990). The most extensive study was done with SAS 3 by Basinska et al. (1984) and included 96 burst detected in $``$48 days of observations between 1976 March and 1979 March. In Figure 4 we plot our values of $`E_\mathrm{b}`$ versus $`F_{\mathrm{peak}}F_{\mathrm{pers}}`$ together with those of Basinska et al. (1984). We have also included two points obtained with Ginga (Day & Tawara 1990), one with HEAO 1 (Hoffman et al. 1979), and one with Astron (Kaminker et al. 1989). Basinska et al. (1984) observed a strong, approximately linear, correlation between $`E_\mathrm{b}`$ and $`F_{\mathrm{peak}}F_{\mathrm{pers}}`$ at low $`E_\mathrm{b}`$ levels; at higher $`E_\mathrm{b}`$ values there was a turnover at $`7\times 10^8`$ erg cm-2 s-1 and they suggested that the source had reached a critical luminosity. In our sample the strong correlation extends to values for $`F_{\mathrm{peak}}F_{\mathrm{pers}}`$ up to $`12\times 10^8`$ erg cm-2 s-1. We do not observe a turnover and $`F_{\mathrm{peak}}F_{\mathrm{pers}}`$ clearly exceeds $`7.5\times 10^8`$ erg cm-2 s-1. We note that the measured values of $`F_{\mathrm{peak}}F_{\mathrm{pers}}`$ depend on the size of the used time bins. However, this cannot account for the much larger $`F_{\mathrm{peak}}F_{\mathrm{pers}}`$ we observe.

We find $`\tau `$ ranging between 4.7 and 6.8 s, with the exception of burst 19, which has $`\tau =2.3`$ s. Excluding the so called ”Super Burst” (Basinska et al. 1994, see Figure 4) which has $`\tau =19.9`$ s Basinska et al. (1984) found $`\tau `$ to range between 5.1 and 12.3 s, and that the rise times were, with one exception, all short ($`<5`$ s); this is consistent with our results.

We determine the positions of the bursts in the color–color diagram produced by Di Salvo et al. (2000a) by taking the weighted average in hard and soft color for ten 16–s points from Standard 2 data prior to the burst. The hard color in Di Salvo et al. (2000a) is defined as the count rate in the energy band 9.7$``$16.0 keV divided by the rate in the energy band 6.4$``$9.7 keV and the soft color as that in the energy band 3.5$``$6.4 keV divided by the rate in the energy band 2.0$``$3.5 keV. In burst 11, due to Earth occultation, only four 16 s points were available prior to the burst, leading to larger errors in the colors. The position of each burst in the color–color diagram is shown in Figure 5.

For each burst we find the rank number as used by Di Salvo et al. (2000a) to mark the position in the color–color diagram. The soft color, hard color, rank number as well as the count rate in the 2.0–16.0 keV band are listed in Table 1. To study the correlation between the various burst spectral properties and position in the color–color diagram we plot several parameters versus their rank number in Figure 6. $`E_\mathrm{b}`$ and $`F_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ (and thus $`\gamma `$) clearly correlate with the position in the color color diagram, both decreasing with rank number (while $`\gamma `$ increases). Although $`kT_{0.1}`$ and $`\tau `$ change only marginally they also appear to decrease with rank number.

In the right–hand panel of Figure 5, we marked the bursts with radius expansion with open symbols. The bursts with radius expansion that show the unusual radius variations described in §2.1 are marked with open diamonds. All the bursts in the island state, some of the bursts on the lower banana, and none of the bursts on the upper banana show radius expansion. In the left–hand panel of Figure 5, the bursts with oscillations are marked with filled circles, the ones without with pluses. The 5 bursts with rank numbers below 7 (island state) show no oscillations. These are precisely bursts 8–12, which exhibited the unusual radius variations (see §2.1). The bursts with rank numbers greater than 9 (the edge of the island state and the banana branch) all show oscillations (except the weak burst 3 at rank number 14, whose oscillation upper limit is consistent with the oscillation strength seen in the other bursts). These oscillating bursts therefore include all bursts with radius expansion that had no unusual radius variations, as well as all bursts (except burst 3) without radius expansion.

Upper limits indicate that oscillations in the island state, if any, really have a lower rms than those on the banana branch and are not just harder to detect due to lower count rates there. To demonstrate this we find the rms fractional amplitude corresponding to the largest $`P_{\mathrm{tot}}`$ or $`P_{\mathrm{u}.\mathrm{l}.}`$ in each burst. From this we exclude the first 4 s of Figure 2 where the resulting rms fractional amplitudes are systematically high because the summed count rate over 4 s contains a fraction of counts from the persistent emission. The peak rms fractional amplitudes and upper limits are plotted in Figure 7. The higher peak rms fractional amplitudes tend to occur at higher rank numbers.

The dynamical power spectra of the bursts with oscillations (Fig. 2) show several different types of frequency tracks. A remarkable difference can be seen between the frequency tracks of the bursts with oscillations with radius expansion (1, 2, 7, 20 and 21), and those without (4–6 and 13–19). In the first group, with one exception (burst 21), oscillations appear only after the burst has reached its maximum flux, whereas in the second group the oscillations always appear right at the start of the burst. Note that for burst 6, while we see the oscillations at the start of the burst, they appear later than in the other bursts with early oscillations. Burst 6 is also the burst which in its group has the strongest hint for radius expansion.

Previously, all oscillations observed in the tails of bursts appeared after the contraction phase of a radius expansion episode (Smith, Morgan & Bradt 1997; Muno et al. 2000). Here we observe tail oscillations both in bursts with (e.g. burst 1) and without (e.g. burst 17) radius expansion. All bursts without radius expansion exhibited oscillations in the burst rise; the radius expansion bursts with oscillations (except burst 21) did not. So, in radius expansion bursts, as reported before, the oscillations appear after radius “touchdown” at the end of the radius expansion phase, but contrary to other sources (4U 1636–54, Strohmayer et al. 1998a; KS 1731–260, Muno et al. 2000), in 4U 1728–34 there is a strong tendency for them to be entirely undetectable in the burst rise. Remember that the grey–scale power amplitudes in Figure 2 refer to the 4 seconds around the point where they are plotted.

Bursts 4, 5, and 17 show a ”complete” frequency track, where in about 10 s the frequency rises by $`3.5`$ Hz before converging asymptotically to $`364`$ Hz. The initial rise in frequency seems to be steeper in burst 17 than in the other two. In all other bursts it seems that we only observe part of a full track such as seen in bursts 4, 5, or 17. The oscillations in these bursts always show up in the time–frequency position where one would expect them based upon the shape of the frequency track in either bursts 4 and 5, or burst 17. We do not observe frequency decreases such as seen in one burst in 4U 1636–53 (Miller 2000; Strohmayer 1999) and one burst in KS 1731–260 (Muno et al. 2000).

## 4 Discussion

There have been several previous studies linking burst parameters to inferred mass accretion rate. Some studies used the persistent flux as an indicator for mass accretion rate (e.g. EXO 0748–676, Gottwald et al. 1986; 4U 1608–53, Murakami et al. 1980; van Paradijs, Penninx & Lewin 1988). However, studies of the kilohertz QPOs and timing features at low frequency have shown that for the LMXBs the position in the color–color diagram is a better correlator to the timing properties and hence may be a better indicator for mass accretion rate than the persistent flux (Hasinger & van der Klis (1989), for a review see van der Klis et al. 2000). For 4U 1636–52 and 4U 1705–44 it was shown earlier that the correlation between burst parameters $`kT_{0.1}`$, $`\tau `$ and position of the source in the color–color diagram was strong, where the correlation with the persistent flux was lacking (van der Klis et al. 1990). In 4U 1728–34 we find no preference for the position in the color–color diagram over the persistent flux as a correlator with the burst spectral properties as there was with properties of the kilohertz QPOs (Méndez & van der Klis 1999) and with properties of several low frequency features (Di Salvo et al. 2000a). Perhaps this is due to the relatively large intrinsic scatter in the burst parameters. In this work we use the position in the color–color diagram, as in view of the results for other sources (see above) we expect this to be the more robust correlator.

We now compare our results with those recently obtained for KS 1731–260 by Muno et al. (2000). In Table 4 we compare several properties of KS 1731–260 and 4U 1728–34. KS 1731–260 showed only two distinct states, the island state and the banana branch with no data covering the transition between these two states. The bursts in the island state were longer ($`\tau `$ $`15`$ s) than those on the banana branch ($`7`$ s). The peak flux was slightly lower ($`4\times 10^8`$ erg cm-2 s-1) in the island state than on the banana branch ($`5\times 10^8`$ erg cm-2 s-1), and $`E_\mathrm{b}`$ was higher ($`7\times 10^7`$ erg cm-2) in the island state than on the banana branch ($`4\times 10^7`$ erg cm-2). Radius expansion bursts were observed on the banana branch but not in the island state.

In 4U 1728–34, contrary to the case of KS 1731–260, we observe a smooth transition between the island state and the banana branch. Di Salvo et al. (2000a) found that power spectra with rank numbers 1–11 are typical of the island state, 14 corresponds to the lower banana and 19 to the upper banana. We find that from island to banana $`\tau `$ changes only marginally, from $`6`$ s in the island state to $`5`$ s on the banana branch. Another source for which $`\tau `$ is about constant (and also short, with $`\tau =4.2\pm 1.2`$) over a wide range of $`F_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ and $`E_\mathrm{b}`$ (and we know that in 4U 1728–34 $`F_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ and $`E_\mathrm{b}`$ depend on rank number) is 4U 1735–44 (Lewin et al. 1980). However, most sources show the same behaviour as KS 1731–260, namely $`\tau `$ is several tens of seconds at low inferred mass accretion rate and about 5 s at high inferred mass accretion rate (e.g., EXO 0748–676, Gottwald et al. 1986; 4U 1636–53, van der Klis et al. 1990; 4U 1705–44, van der Klis 1989). We note that a previous study of 4U 1728–34 by Basinska et al. (1984) did show a larger range in $`\tau `$ (5.1–12.3 s).

Another difference with KS 1731–260 is that in 4U 1728–34 the bursts in the island state show radius expansion (albeit with unusual radius variations), and have a higher $`F_{\mathrm{peak}}`$. As the source moves from the lower towards the upper banana the radius expansion episodes disappear and $`F_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ becomes smaller (see Figures 5 and 6). The sources EXO 0748–676 (Gottwald et al. 1986) and 4U 1705–44 (Langmeier et al. 1987) like KS 1731–260 but contrary to 4U 1728–34 both show higher peak fluxes at higher inferred mass accretion rates. The fluence in 4U 1728–34 does show a similar behaviour to KS 1731–260: it changes gradually from about $`7\times 10^7`$ erg cm-2 in the island state to $`3\times 10^7`$ erg cm-2 on the banana branch (see Fig. 6).

In KS 1731–260 oscillations were found only to occur on the banana branch and not in the island state (Muno et al. 2000). For 4U 1728–34 we also observe that burst oscillations appear at the higher inferred mass accretion states (see Fig. 5). Because we see a gradual transition between island and banana state, we can ascertain that oscillations are already detectable when the power spectrum of the persistent emission (Di Salvo et al. 2000a) still indicates an island state (see above).

Cumming & Bildsten (2000) explain the presence/absence of burst oscillations in KS 1731–260 in terms of the presence/absence of a H–rich region. They show that if an oscillation is generated near the burning layers, it can escape coherently from a helium–rich region, but not from a H–rich region. The bursts in KS 1731–260 show characteristics of pure He ignition (short durations, radius expansion and high peak flux) when the source is in the banana state, and of mixed H/He ignition when the source is in the island state; and oscillations occur only when there is pure He ignition. However, in 4U 1728–34 in the island state we observe that the burst oscillations disappear while the bursts still have all characteristics of pure He ignition.

In KS 1731–260 the presence of burst oscillations and radius expansion were nearly perfectly correlated; all but one of the bursts with burst oscillations also had radius expansion, and none of the bursts without oscillations showed radius expansion. In contrast, in 4U 1728–34 radius expansion bursts occur below a certain inferred mass accretion rate level, burst oscillations above another level and in the middle both phenomena occur in the same bursts. It is striking that the bursts with radius expansion that show the unusual radius variations described in §2.1 are exactly the bursts from which the oscillations are absent. We cannot from our data determine if unusual radius variations and absence of oscillations have a causal relation or are both just a characteristic of bursts occurring at low inferred mass accretion rate. Nevertheless, while there may not be a good correlation between the occurrence of radius expansion and burst oscillations, the way the radius expansion occurs may in fact be physically connected to the occurrence of oscillations. Perhaps, the unusual radius variations, which occur only in our most energetic bursts, are an indication that the magnetic fuel containment near the magnetic poles (a possible explanation for late burst oscillations, Miller 1999) is less efficient in stronger bursts.

So, it seems that both in KS 1731–260 and in 4U 1728–34 the timing as well as the spectral parameters of the bursts depend monotonically on the position of the source in the color–color diagram. Also, both in KS 1731–260 and 4U 1728–34 the presence/absence of the burst oscillations depends on the position in the color–color diagram in more or less the same way. However, the dependence of most of the spectral burst parameters on the position in the color–color diagram shows a clear discrepancy between the two sources, from which we are led to conclude that the correlations between spectral burst parameters and the occurrence of oscillations suggested from the KS 1731–260 data is not universal.

To summarize:

* The burst oscillations become significantly weaker (and in fact undetectable) in the island state without the characteristics of the bursts switching from pure He to mixed H and He unstable burning, as occurs in KS 1731–260.
* Radius expansion per se does not determine the presence or absence of burst oscillations. Both are more likely to occur at lower inferred mass accretion rates.
* Contrary to what was noted in Muno et al. (2000) for other sources, we do observe oscillations in the tails of non radius expansion bursts.
* Among our bursts with radius expansion, the most energetic ones at the lowest inferred mass accretion rate, which show an unexpected spectral behaviour with a double–peaked radius curve do not show burst oscillations, while the others do.
* Among our bursts with oscillations, the radius expansion bursts (with one exception) show no oscillations during the burst rise whereas non–radius expansion bursts do.

As the only two sources studied until now already show remarkable differences in their behavior, further studies of correlated spectral and timing behaviour of other type I X–ray bursters showing burst oscillations are necessary to come to a full understanding of just what determines whether, and if so, in which part of its profile, a burst oscillates.

## 5 Acknowledgements

This work was supported by NWO SPINOZA grant 08–0 to E.P.J. van den Heuvel, by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) under contract number 614–51–002, and by the Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA). This research has made use of data obtained through the High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center Online Service, provided by the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center. We would like to thank Tiziana di Salvo for providing the data of the color–color diagram. We would also like to thank the referee whose comments helped us to improve the paper.

Note added in manuscript.–Just before this paper was submitted we became aware of a paper in preparation by Franco (2000) on the burst oscillations in 4U 1728–34. Where between the two papers conclusions overlap, they are consistent. To avoid confusion, we note that our definition of a ”complete frequency” track is more restrictive than ”a burst with oscillations in the rise and the tail” used in Franco (2000). We call a frequency track ”complete” only when the oscillations are present essentially throughout the entire burst ($``$ 14 s). We would like to thank Lucia Franco for her willingness to exchange manuscripts before publication.


text:
# Quantum Zeno Effect in Quantum Chaotic Systems

## Abstract

We analyzed the effect of frequent measurements on the quantum systems that are chaotic in the classical limit. It is shown that the kicked rotator, a well-known example of quantum chaos, is too special to be used as a testing ground for the effects of the repeated measurements. The abrupt change of state vectors by the delta-kick singular interruptions causes a quantum anti-Zeno effect. However, in more realistic systems with interaction potentials of continuous time dependence the quantum Zeno effect prevails.

Quantum mechanical behavior of the systems that are chaotic in the classical limit, so called quantum chaos, has recently been the subject of considerable interest . Now it is generally accepted that classical-like chaos is absent in quantum mechanics. We can consider dividing the whole physical problem of quantum dynamics into two qualitatively different parts: unitary time evolution of the wave function $`\psi (t)`$ described by Schrödinger’s equation and the collapse of the wave function caused by quantum measurements. The first part has been mostly investigated in the study of quantum chaos so far while the second part still remains controversial. The absence of classical-like chaos is agreed only in the first part. It has been stressed that, particularly by Lamb, that the clarification of quantum chaos should be based on the thorough understanding of the concept of measurements in quantum mechanics .

One of the most paradoxical results in the measurement problem is the quantum Zeno effect (or quantum watched pot) , which is the inhibition of the time evolution of a quantum system, from one eigenstate of an observable into a superposition of eigenstates, by frequently repeated measurements . It can occur when measurement are repeated so rapidly that the time between any two successive measurements is much shorter than the natural life time of the state. In his 1930 book , Dirac already asserted that an observation of an observable always results in one of the eigenvalues of that observable, and that two measurements of the same observable made in rapid succession would give the same results. Itano et al. experimentally found that Rabi oscillations were diminished by frequent measurements of the survival of the initial eigenstate, which was considered as the first demonstration of the quantum Zeno effect . However, it is arguable whether this confirms the quantum Zeno effect completely . Recently Kofman and Kurizki  found that the modification of a decay process is determined by the energy spread incurred by the measurements and by the distributions of the states to which the decaying state is coupled. They concluded, whereas the inhibitory quantum Zeno effect may be feasible in a limited class of systems, the opposite effect, accelerated decay or quantum anti-Zeno effect, appears to be much more ubiquitous.

One major modification that quantum mechanics introduces to the classical picture of the deterministic chaos is the suppression of chaotic diffusion, a phenomenon usually referred to as dynamical localization (DL). This phenomenon, first discovered by Casati et al.  in their investigation of the kicked rotator, can be understood as a dynamical version of Anderson localization in solids . Just like the other quantum interference effects, DL is very sensitive to any incoherent perturbation. In the quantum kicked rotator, even when the corresponding classical dynamics is regular, a diffusive behavior is obtained if a measurement is performed after each kick . This phenomena was interpreted as an example of the anti-Zeno effect . However, in this paper we show, although the kicked rotor is a well-known example of the quantum chaos, it is too special to be used as a testing ground for the effect of the repeated measurements. The anti-Zeno effect in the kicked rotator is rather a trivial consequence of singular interruptions by the delta kicks. In more general classes of the quantum systems that are chaotic in the classical limit, the quantum Zeno effect prevails, which can be also confirmed by using the results of Kofman and Kurizki .

Let us begin by analyzing the kicked rotator described by the following Hamiltonian

$$H=\frac{p^2}{2}+\lambda \mathrm{cos}x\underset{k=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\delta (tkT),$$
(1)
where $`\lambda `$ and $`T`$ is the kick strength and the time interval between successive delta kicks, respectively. Using the complete set of eigenstates $`|n`$, in which $`x|n=\mathrm{exp}(inx)/\sqrt{2\pi }`$, the state just after the $`(k+1)`$th kick, $`\psi (k+1)=c_n(k+1)|n`$, can be described by unitary transformation of the state just after the $`k`$th kick, $`\psi (k)=c_n(k)|n`$:

$$c_n(k+1)=\underset{m}{}U_{nm}c_m(k),$$
(2)
where $`U_{nm}=(i)^{nm}J_{nm}(\lambda /\mathrm{})\mathrm{exp}(i\mathrm{}m^2T/2)`$ with $`J_n`$, the $`n`$th order Bessel function. Figure 1 shows the probability distribution of the state after a single kick for the initial condition $`|n=0`$ with $`\lambda =20`$ and $`T=1/4`$. Since during the time interval between successive kicks the momentum distribution is not changed, it is meaningless to perform the measurements more frequently than at the rate of $`1/T`$.

The quantum Zeno effect is represented by the relation, $`P(t)1`$ as $`\tau 0`$, where $`\tau `$ and $`P(t)`$ represent the time interval between successive measurements and the survival probability of the initial state, respectively. Note that the Zeno effect concerns itself with the short time behavior of the quantum evolution. In the kicked rotator the Zeno effect cannot take place by the following reasons. First, since the momentum distribution does not change during the time interval between successive kicks, any measurement done during that time interval, will trivially yield an identical result. Hence, for any meaningful discussion of the Zeno effect, we should consider $`\tau `$ larger than the period $`T`$. Once we have this constraint, the fact that $`P(t)`$ changes abruptly even after a single kick leads us to conclude that any physically meaningful Zeno effect cannot occur in this system. The quantum localization due to the quantum interference is destroyed in the kicked rotator by the decoherence induced by the measurements. This observation is interesting but does not prove the existence of the anti-Zeno effect in a broad class of the quantum systems that are chaotic in the classical limit.

In order to analyze the effect of repeated measurements in the absence of the abrupt changes of the wave function as in the kicked rotator, we consider a new Hamiltonian with continuous time dependence:

$$H=\frac{p^2}{2}+\lambda \mathrm{cos}x\mathrm{cos}t.$$
(3)
It is noted that the delta kicks in Eq. (1) can be expanded as follows,

$$\underset{k=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\delta (tkT)=\frac{2}{T}\underset{m=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\mathrm{cos}(\frac{2\pi mt}{T})+\frac{1}{T},$$
(4)
so that Eq. (3) corresponds to the rotator driven by a single frequency mode among the infinite numbers of modes of the kicked rotator. Figure 2 shows a Poincare surface of section of Eq. (3) with $`\lambda =10`$, where a confined chaotic region is seen near the origin. While the diffusion of the classical kicked rotator does not stop due to the infinite number of frequency components, the classical as well as the quantum diffusion in Eq. (3) become saturated. In Fig. 3 we show that both classical and quantum evolution of $`\mathrm{\Delta }p^2(t)`$ have the same average level except for the quantum fluctuations, so that both the quantum and classical results in Fig. 3 correspond to a delocalized regime. In our discussion it is not necessary that the quantum diffusion should be suppressed below the classical one, the so-called localized regime.

Consider now the dynamics of a system subjected to measurements at time $`n\tau `$ ($`n`$ is an integer). The wave function can be expanded into a linear superposition of complete bases of an observable, say, $`A`$, for example

$$\psi (t)=\underset{n}{}c_n(t)u_n,Au_n=a_nu_n.$$
(5)
where $`c_n(t)=|c_n(t)|e^{i\varphi (t)}`$ with $`\varphi (t)`$ a phase factor. A measurement of the system’s state at $`t=n\tau `$ projects the system onto one of the eigenstates of the measured observable $`A`$ with a probability $`|c_n(t)|^2`$. After the measurement we know the probabilities, but we lose information on the phase of the amplitudes $`\varphi (t)`$, so that the phase after the measurement can be regarded being random. This is nothing but the simple measurement postulate, so-called von Neumann’s formulation of the wave function collapse.

By using this concept we can find the quantum evolution of the system of Eq. (3) under the repeated measurements. The system is described by a unitary transformation given by Schrödinger’s equation in the momentum representation. Upon measuring the momentum we randomize the phases of all the amplitudes, which can be also expressed by a unitary transformation of a form of a diagonal matrix with random complex numbers of unity amplitude. Even though this diagonal matrix is unitary in the mathematical expression, it can be considered irreversible in time in the physical sense since the phase randomization corresponds to a stochastic process. In practice, for reducing the fluctuations induced by the phase randomization, we averaged over 100 data sets for each result. Figure 4 shows that the autocorrelation of the initial wave function (or survival probability), $`|\psi (0)|\psi (t)|^2`$, without measurement (the solid curve) decreases faster than that under measurement (the dashed and the dotted curves). In addition, the shorter is the time interval of the measurement, the slower is the decay of the autocorrelation. This is exactly what the quantum Zeno effect is.

Figure 3 presents $`\mathrm{\Delta }p^2(t)`$ for the quantum evolution both with and without measurement, where the long time behavior is totally different from the short time one. The decoherence induced by the measurements destroys quantum (and classical) localization. It should be emphasized that this delocalization (or diffusion) does not show anti-Zeno effect since Zeno effect manifests itself only in the short time limt. It is also noted that the measured quantum dynamics is not equivalent to the classical dynamics regardless of the frequency of measurements, which has been already known in several previous works .

To gain more physical insight let us examine the present problem using the analysis tool similar to that of Ref. . We write $`\widehat{H}=\widehat{H}_0+\widehat{V}g(t)`$, so that $`\widehat{H}_0|\alpha =\mathrm{}\omega _\alpha |\alpha `$ and $`\widehat{H}_0|j=\mathrm{}\omega _j|j`$, where $`|\alpha `$ is an initial (decaying) state and $`|j`$’s are orthogonal to $`|\alpha `$. The wavefunction can be written by

$$\psi (t)=\alpha (t)e^{i\omega _\alpha t}|\alpha +\underset{j}{}\beta _je^{i\omega _jt}|j.$$
(6)
One can then obtain the following equations from Schrödinger’s equation

$`\dot{\alpha }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}\alpha |\widehat{V}|je^{i(\omega _\alpha \omega _j)t}g(t)\beta _j`$ (7)
$`\dot{\beta }_j`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{\mathrm{}}}j|\widehat{V}|\alpha e^{i(\omega _\alpha \omega _j)t}g(t)\alpha .`$ (8)
Integrating (8) and inserting it into (7), we obtain the equation

$$\dot{\alpha }=_0^t𝑑t^{}e^{i\omega _\alpha (tt^{})}\mathrm{\Phi }(tt^{})g(t)g(t^{})\alpha (t^{}),$$
(9)
where

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(t)=\mathrm{}^2\underset{j}{}|\alpha |\widehat{V}|j|^2e^{i\omega _jt}.$$
(10)
Since we need to obtain only the short time behavior, for which $`\alpha (t)\alpha (0)=1`$, we can set $`\alpha (t^{})=1`$ in the right side of Eq. (9) to obtain

$$\alpha 1_0^t𝑑xe^{i\omega _\alpha x}\mathrm{\Phi }(x)M(t,x),$$
(11)
where

$$M(t,x)=_x^t𝑑t^{}g(t^{})g(t^{}x).$$
(12)
If measurements are performed at sufficiently small interval $`\tau `$, we can obtain the survival probability, $`P(t)`$, using Eq. (11)

$$P(t=n\tau )|\alpha (\tau )|^{2n}e^{R(\tau )t},$$
(13)
where

$$R=\frac{2}{\tau }Re_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑te^{i\omega _\alpha t}\mathrm{\Phi }(t)M(\tau ,t)\theta (\tau t).$$
(14)
The function $`\theta (x)`$ is 1 for $`x0`$ and 0 for $`x<0`$. Using the convolution theorem of Fourier transform, Eq. (14) can be rewritten by

$$R=2\pi _0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\omega G(\omega )F(\omega ),$$
(15)
where

$$G(\omega )=Four\{\mathrm{\Phi }(t)\}=\mathrm{}^2|\alpha |\widehat{V}|j|^2\delta (\omega \omega _j)$$
(16)
and

$$F(\omega )=Four\left\{\frac{1}{\tau }M(\tau ,t)e^{i\omega _\alpha t}\theta (\tau t)\right\}.$$
(17)
$`Four(f)`$ means Fourier transform of the function $`f`$. While the function $`G(\omega )`$ in Eq. (16) is the spectral density of the states depending on the Hamiltonian, especially the coupling, $`\widehat{V}`$, the form factor $`F(\omega )`$ in Eq. (17) shows the broadening of the eigenvalue $`\omega _\alpha `$ incurred by the frequent measurements. If the time independent potential is considered, simply $`F_0(\omega )=(\tau /2\pi )\mathrm{sinc}^2((\omega \omega _\alpha )\tau /2)`$, in which the broadening rate is approximately $`1/\tau `$, consistent with the uncertainty principle.

In the case of a time dependent potential like the one described by Eq. (3), only $`F(\omega )`$ is modified from $`F_0(\omega )`$. Even though this is not just simple sinc function, the broadening of $`\omega _\alpha `$ is of the order of $`1/\tau `$ or larger. As the time interval of measurement, $`\tau `$, decreases, the broadening of $`F(\omega )`$ becomes larger, so that for a given $`\omega `$ the value of $`F`$ also decreases. Consequently we can roughly write $`F\tau `$ (or monotonically increasing function of $`\tau `$). Since $`0|\mathrm{cos}x|j=(\delta _{1j}+\delta _{1j})/2`$ in (3), we obtain the following simple equation

$$G(\omega )=\lambda ^2\delta \left(\omega \frac{1}{2}\right).$$
(18)
From these it can be easily shown that $`R\lambda ^2\tau `$, which means that in the limit of $`\tau 0`$, the decay rate goes to zero. This corresponds to the Zeno effect. If the delta kicks in Eq. (1) are replaced by pulses with a gaussian shape with finite time duration of interaction, which also means more harmonics are included in Eq. (3), the above discussion is still applicable, and thus we find the decay rate $`R`$ still proportional to $`\tau `$ with a different numerical constant. Therefore, for a realistic kicked rotator we reach the same conclusion, the Zeno effect.

In summary, we have investigated the effect of frequent measurements on quantum systems that are chaotic in the classical limit. In the well-known kicked rotator a meaningful Zeno effect cannot occur due to the abrupt change of state vectors by the delta kicks. For fair evaluation of measurement-induced effects a new Hamiltonian with continuous time dependence has been considered instead. In this case, it was shown that the shorter is the time interval of the measurement, the slower is the decay of the survival probability. This clearly shows the quantum Zeno effect occurs. We also examined this problem analytically and confirmed our conclusion. Even though in the case of radiative or radioactive decay quantum anti-Zeno effect prevail , in the usual dynamical systems including chaotic ones quantum Zeno effect is more feasible.

We thanks Hyunchul Nha, Jaewan Kim, and Hai-Woong Lee for helpful discussion. This work is supported by Creative Research Initiatives of the Korean Ministry of Science and Technology.