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# Persistence distributions in a conserved lattice gas with absorbing states

## 1 Introduction

In the last decade numerous articles have been devoted to the study of persistence behavior in nonequilibrium systems DERRIDA\_1 ; BRAY\_1 ; STAUFFER\_1 ; MAJUMDAR\_4 ; CUEILLE\_1 ; MAJUMDAR\_5 ; DERRIDA\_2 ; LEE\_1 ; OERDING\_1 ; HINRICHSEN\_2 ; ALBANO\_1 . The basic quantity of interest is the persistence distribution $`P(t)`$, defined as the probability that a certain physical quantity does not change its state up to time $`t`$ during a stochastic evolution. The persistence distribution has been observed to decay as $`P(t)t^\theta `$, where $`\theta `$ is denoted as the persistence exponent. Since the persistence behavior depends on the entire history of evolution of the nonequilibrium process, there are only few instances of an exact calculation of the persistence exponent in the literature BRAY\_1 ; DERRIDA\_2 ; LEE\_1 . In general the persistence exponent is nontrivial in the sense that it cannot be obtained from scaling relations, except of certain Markovian systems MAJUMDAR\_4 . There exists two different types of persistence exponent $`\theta _\mathrm{l}`$ and $`\theta _\mathrm{g}`$ associated with the persistence behavior of the local and the global order parameter, respectively. These two exponents have been observed in general to be different from each other. Usually for reversible phase transitions the inequality $`\theta _\mathrm{g}<\theta _\mathrm{l}`$ is observed, however in the case of the continuous absorbing phase transition of the Ziff-Gulari-Barshad model ZIFF\_1 , which belongs to the universality class of directed percolation, the reverse inequality has been observed numerically ALBANO\_1 .

Recently Rossi et al. introduced a conserved lattice gas (CLG) model that exhibits a continuous phase transition to an absorbing state at a critical value of the particle density ROSSI\_1 . Numerical simulations in various dimensions LUEB\_19  confirm the conjecture of ROSSI\_1  that the CLG model belongs to a new universality class different from the well known universality class of directed percolation (see HINRICHSEN\_1  for an overview). In this work we consider the persistence distributions of the CLG model in various dimensions ($`D=2,3,4,5`$). We determine numerically the global and local persistence exponents as well as the exponent $`\nu _{}`$ which describes the divergence of the correlation time at the transition point. To our knowledge this is the first time that the persistence behavior of a non-equilibrium critical system with absorbing states is investigated in higher dimensions, i.e., below and above the upper critical dimension $`D_\mathrm{c}`$. Similar to ALBANO\_1  we observe the reverse inequality $`\theta _\mathrm{g}>\theta _\mathrm{l}`$ for the CLG model. We believe that systems exhibiting irreversible phase transitions into an absorbing state are generally characterized by this reversed inequality in contrast to systems exhibiting a reversible phase transition, in particular equilibrium phase transitions.

The paper is organized as follows. In the next section we describe the CLG model. In section 3 we define the local and the global persistence distributions for this model and describe their steady state scaling behavior in the critical regime. In the following two sections we present the determination of the global (sec. 4) and local (sec. 5) persistence exponents. With a short discussion we conclude the paper in section 6.

## 2 The CLG model

We consider the CLG model (see ROSSI\_1 ) on $`D`$-dimensional cubic lattices of linear size $`L`$. Initially one distributes randomly $`N=\rho L`$ particles on the system where $`\rho `$ denotes the particle density. In order to mimic a repulsive interaction a given particle is considered as active if at least one of its $`2D`$ neighboring sites on the cubic lattice is occupied by another particle. If all neighboring sites are empty the particle remains inactive. Active particles are moved in the next update step to one of their empty nearest neighbor sites, selected at random. Starting from a random distribution of particles the system reaches after a transient regime a steady state which is characterized by the density of active sites $`\rho _\mathrm{a}`$. The average density $`\rho _\mathrm{a}`$ is the order parameter of the absorbing phase transition, i.e., it vanishes if the control parameter $`\rho `$ is lower than the critical value $`\rho _\mathrm{c}`$. Approaching the critical value from above the order parameter scales as $`\rho _\mathrm{a}\delta \rho ^\beta `$, where $`\delta \rho =\rho \rho _\mathrm{c}`$. The order parameter exponent $`\beta `$ as well as the scaling behavior of the order parameter fluctuations are investigated numerically in various dimensions in LUEB\_19 . In our simulations, a random sequential update scheme is applied, i.e., all active sites are updated at each time step in a randomly chosen sequence. The considered system sizes are $`L1024`$ for $`D=2`$, $`L128`$ ($`D=3`$), $`L32`$ ($`D=4`$) and $`L16`$ in the case of $`D=5`$. All measurements are performed in the steady state and the used equilibration procedures are discussed in detail in LUEB\_19 .

## 3 Persistence distributions

In this work we consider the persistence behavior of the CLG model. Usually one distinguishes the so-called global persistence distribution $`P_\mathrm{g}(t)`$ and the local persistence distributions $`P_\mathrm{l}(t)`$. The global persistence characterizes the time evolution of the order parameter, i.e., it characterizes how long the whole system remains in a given phase. For instance in magnetic systems $`P_\mathrm{g}(t)`$ can be defined as the probability that the magnetization changes sign after the duration $`t`$. At criticality $`P_\mathrm{g}(t)`$ is expected (see for instance MAJUMDAR\_5 ) to decay algebraically

$$P_\mathrm{g}(t)t^{\theta _\mathrm{g}},$$
(1)
where the time $`t`$ corresponds to the number of update steps. Off criticality, the finite correlation time $`\xi _{}`$ limits this power-law behavior and the corresponding probability distribution displays a cut-off at $`t=𝒪(\xi _{})`$. Using $`\xi _{}\delta \rho ^\nu _{}`$ and standard scaling arguments one expects that the persistence probability obeys the ansatz

$$P_\mathrm{g}(t)=\delta \rho ^{\nu _{}\theta _\mathrm{g}}𝒫_\mathrm{g}(\delta \rho ^\nu _{}t),$$
(2)
with the universal function $`𝒫_\mathrm{g}`$. Thus the scaling behavior of the probability distribution $`P_\mathrm{g}(t)`$ allows to determine beside the persistence exponent $`\theta _\mathrm{g}`$ the exponent $`\nu _{}`$ of the temporal correlations in all considered dimensions.

The phase transition of the CLG model is an irreversible transition into an absorbing state, i.e., the order parameter $`\rho _\mathrm{a}`$ is a strictly positive quantity. In this cases it is usual HINRICHSEN\_2 ; ALBANO\_1  to measure the probability that the deviation of the density of active sites from the order parameter, i.e. $`\rho _\mathrm{a}\rho _\mathrm{a}`$, changes sign after $`t`$ update steps. Furthermore, the distribution of the deviations could be different below and above $`\rho _\mathrm{a}`$. In order to take this asymmetry into account we calculate two different quantities $`P_\mathrm{g}^>(t)`$ and $`P_\mathrm{g}^<(t)`$ corresponding to the global persistence distribution for $`\rho _\mathrm{a}(t)>\rho _\mathrm{a}`$ and $`\rho _\mathrm{a}(t)<\rho _\mathrm{a}`$, respectively.

The so-called local persistence is defined as the probability that the local order parameter at a given site, for instance a single spin, remains in a phase, i.e., it does not flip within a duration $`t`$. In the case of the CLG model we consider the steady state probability distribution $`P_\mathrm{l}(t)`$ that a particle remains inactive for exactly $`t`$ update steps. Since no spontaneous generation of active sites is allowed in the CLG model, a given site may remain inactive for a long time until it is re-activated in the presence of another active site. Thus one expects that the corresponding probability distribution decays algebraically with an exponent $`\theta _\mathrm{l}`$,

$$P_\mathrm{l}(t)t^{\theta _\mathrm{l}}.$$
(3)
Alternatively one may ask how long a given particle remains active. But active sites can be spontaneously ”annihilated” to become inactive and the corresponding probability distribution decays exponentially. This ”asymmetry” HINRICHSEN\_3  in the dynamical behavior of active and inactive sites is already known from other systems exhibiting an absorbing phase transition, for instance directed percolation.

Above the transition point ($`\rho >\rho _\mathrm{c}`$) the local persistence distribution displays a cut-off at $`t=𝒪(\xi _\mathrm{l})`$, where $`\xi _\mathrm{l}`$ denotes the correlation time of the effective single site process. Assuming that $`\xi _\mathrm{l}`$ scales as $`\xi _\mathrm{l}\delta \rho ^{\nu _\mathrm{l}}`$ one obtains the scaling behavior of the local persistence distribution

$$P_\mathrm{l}(t)=\delta \rho ^{\nu _\mathrm{l}\theta _\mathrm{l}}𝒫_\mathrm{l}(\delta \rho ^{\nu _\mathrm{l}}t)$$
(4)
with the local critical exponents $`\theta _\mathrm{l}`$ and $`\nu _\mathrm{l}`$. These local exponents are connected to the order parameter exponent $`\beta `$. Using the scaling ansatz Eq. (4) one can calculate the average time between two activation events

$$t=tP_\mathrm{l}(t)dt\delta \rho ^{\nu _\mathrm{l}(2\theta _\mathrm{l})}.$$
(5)
Approaching the transition point $`(\delta \rho 0)`$ the average time between two activation events diverges (we will see that $`\theta _\mathrm{l}<2`$ in all dimensions). The number of activation events within a certain duration is proportional to $`1/t`$. On the other hand the number of activations is proportional to the probability that a site is active at a given time. Therefore $`1/t\rho _\mathrm{a}`$ and this leads to the scaling relation

$$\nu _\mathrm{l}(2\theta _\mathrm{l})=\beta .$$
(6)
In spatially extended systems the time evolution of a single site is coupled to that of its neighbors, thus the effective single site evolution is non-Markovian. In this sense the local persistence distribution is related to an infinite point correlation function (see for instance ALBANO\_1 ; HINRICHSEN\_3 ) whereas the persistence distribution of the order parameter is related to a two-point correlation function. Thus one expects that the exponent $`\nu _\mathrm{l}`$ does not agree with the exponent of the order parameter $`\nu _\mathrm{l}\nu _{}`$. But this inequality does not imply that the order parameter scaling behavior of the CLG model is characterized by an additional second correlation time because $`\nu _\mathrm{l}`$ just describes the temporal correlations of an effective single site time-series and not of the temporal evolution of the order parameter. Furthermore, one may expect for the same reason that the persistence exponents are different, i.e., $`\theta _\mathrm{g}\theta _\mathrm{l}`$. Previous investigations suggest a general behavior with $`\theta _\mathrm{g}<\theta _\mathrm{l}`$. In this case the persistence behavior of the global properties are stronger than those of the local properties. For instance the average duration between two spin flips in ferromagnetic systems is smaller than the duration between order parameter flips. Recently, a violation of this inequality was reported by Hinrichsen and Koduvely who observed $`\theta _\mathrm{g}\theta _\mathrm{l}`$ in the case of directed percolation HINRICHSEN\_3 . Additionally the persistence distributions of the Ziff-Gulari-Barshad model ZIFF\_1 , which exhibits a continuous absorbing phase transition belonging to the directed percolation universality class, are characterized in the ”long-time regime” ALBANO\_1  by the inequality $`\theta _\mathrm{g}>\theta _\mathrm{l}`$ for $`D=2`$.

## 4 Global persistence distributions

We consider the global persistence distributions for dimensions $`D=2,3,4`$. As explained above one expects a cut-off of the probability distributions for $`t𝒪(\xi _{})`$. Thus, $`𝒪(\xi _{})`$ update steps have to be performed to measure one of these long-time events. This shows that extensive simulations are required to obtain the global probability distribution with a sufficient accuracy. For instance $`5\times 10^6`$ single update steps were used in LUEB\_19  to determine the critical behavior of the order parameter $`\rho _\mathrm{a}`$ for $`D=2`$. Here, we used for similar system parameters $`4\times 10^7`$ update steps in the steady state which yield approximately $`6\times 10^5`$ single events for the measurement of the global probability distribution.

Fig. 1 shows the distributions $`P_\mathrm{g}^>(t)`$ and $`P_\mathrm{g}^<(t)`$ for the two-dimensional model in a log-log plot. As one can see the slopes of the curves are nearly the same but the cuf-off behavior differs significantly. Simulations for different values of $`\delta \rho `$ are performed and the obtained curves are analyzed according to the scaling ansatz Eq. (2). In the case of the two-dimensional model we obtain a good data collapse for $`\theta _\mathrm{g}^>=1.57\pm 0.05`$, $`\nu _{}^>=1.15\pm 0.04`$ and $`\theta _\mathrm{g}^<=1.60\pm 0.06`$, $`\nu _{}^<=1.18\pm 0.05`$, respectively. The corresponding curves are shown in Fig. 2. Although the distributions $`P_\mathrm{g}^>(t)`$ and $`P_\mathrm{g}^<(t)`$ differ at the cut-offs the scaling behavior, i.e. the exponents, of both distributions agree within the error-bars.

Our simulations yield that the different cut-off behavior of $`P_\mathrm{g}^>(t)`$ and $`P_\mathrm{g}^<(t)`$ vanishes with increasing dimension. Therefore, no significant differences between the exponents $`\theta _\mathrm{g}^{>,<}`$ and $`\nu _{}^{>,<}`$ are observed in higher dimensions too. In the case of the three dimensional model sufficient data collapses (see Fig. 3) are obtained for the values $`\theta _\mathrm{g}^>=1.53\pm 0.06`$, $`\nu _{}^>=1.03\pm 0.03`$ and $`\theta _\mathrm{g}^<=1.54\pm 0.06`$, $`\nu _{}^<=1.05\pm 0.03`$.

It is known that that the upper critical dimension of the CLG is $`D_\mathrm{c}=4`$ LUEB\_19 . Thus one expects that a data-collapse of the corresponding curves is obtained if one uses the mean-field values of the exponent, i.e., $`\nu _{}=1`$ and $`\theta _\mathrm{g}=3/2`$. In the latter case we assume that the time series of the order parameter can be mapped to a generalized random walk. Using these values a good data-collapse is obtained which is plotted in Fig. 3.

## 5 Local persistence distributions

We consider the local persistence distribution $`P_\mathrm{l}(t)`$ of the CLG model for $`D=2,3,4,5`$. Compared to the global persistence fewer update steps are needed to determine the local persistence distribution for a similar degree of accuracy because the time evolution of all particles ($`N=L^D\rho `$) can be used to measure $`P_\mathrm{l}(t)`$. Similar to the above analysis one varies again the exponents $`\theta _\mathrm{l}`$ and $`\nu _\mathrm{l}`$ until one gets a data-collapse of different curves which correspond to different values of $`\delta \rho `$. The resulting data-collapses for $`D=2,3,4,5`$ are plotted in Fig. 4. The local persistence exponent decreases from $`\theta _\mathrm{l}=1.41\pm 0.02`$ for $`D=2`$ to $`\theta _\mathrm{l}=1.19\pm 0.03`$ for $`D=3`$. For $`D4`$ good data-collapses are obtained for $`\theta _\mathrm{l}=1`$, i.e., our results suggest that the mean-field value is $`\theta _\mathrm{l}=1`$.

The values of the local correlation exponent $`\nu _\mathrm{l}`$ decreases from $`\nu _\mathrm{l}=1.10\pm 0.02`$ ($`D=2`$) to $`\nu _\mathrm{l}=1.04\pm 0.03`$ ($`D=3`$). In the case of $`D=4`$ we used $`\nu _\mathrm{l}=1`$ to obtain the data-collapse. Surprisingly a significantly different value $`\nu _\mathrm{l}=1.08\pm 0.03`$ has to be used to produce a data-collapse for $`D=5`$ (see Fig. 4). But in the case of the five-dimensional system the simulations are limited by the available system sizes ($`L16`$). Therefore, it is possible that the above value describes a certain transient regime instead of the real critical scaling behavior. Therefore, we think that $`\nu _\mathrm{l}=1`$ describes the actual mean-field behavior.

In the following we check the scaling relation Eq. (6) which connects the exponents $`\beta `$, $`\nu _\mathrm{l}`$ and $`\theta _\mathrm{l}`$ in the steady state. For $`D=2`$ our numerically obtained result $`\nu _\mathrm{l}(2\theta _\mathrm{l})=0.649`$ agrees with the result $`\beta =0.637\pm 0.009`$ from LUEB\_19 . In the case of $`D=3`$ we get $`\nu _\mathrm{l}(2\theta _\mathrm{l})=0.842`$ which agrees again with $`\beta =0.837\pm 0.015`$ obtained from the same reference. Finally the values $`\nu _\mathrm{l}=1`$, $`\theta _\mathrm{l}=1`$, and $`\beta =1`$ LUEB\_19 ; LUEB\_20  fulfill the scaling relation exactly which confirms the above conclusion that $`\nu _\mathrm{l}=1`$ is valid for $`D4`$.

It is worth considering the average number of activations within a certain time ($`n_{\mathrm{act}}1/t`$) in detail. Using the Eqs. (5,6) one sees that $`n_{\mathrm{act}}`$ decreases with the dimension, i.e., $`n_{\mathrm{act}}^{\left(D\right)}>n_{\mathrm{act}}^{\left(D+1\right)}`$ for $`\delta \rho 0`$ because $`\beta ^{\left(D\right)}<\beta ^{\left(D+1\right)}`$. This suggests that the probability to re-activate a given site decreases with increasing dimension. This result could be surprising at first sight since one would expect that due to the increasing number of next neighbors in higher dimensions it is more likely to re-activate a given lattice site. But the increasing number of next neighbors results in a reduced re-activation probability. We guess that this behavior is caused by a reduced return probability of activations, similar to a random walk. The probability that a symmetric random walk ever returns to its origin is certain for $`D=1`$ and $`D=2`$ but uncertain for $`D=3`$ (see for instance GRIMMETT\_1 ). In the case of the CLG model one can assume that close to criticality only few activations diffuse through the system. Increasing the dimension it becomes less likely that these activations return to their origins.

## 6 Discussion

Considering the results of the local and global persistence exponents (see Table 1) one concludes that the CLG model is characterized by the reversed persistence behavior $`\theta _\mathrm{g}>\theta _\mathrm{l}`$. The usual behavior $`\theta _\mathrm{g}<\theta _\mathrm{l}`$ was observed in reversible equilibrium phase transitions and means that the global order parameter persists longer in a given phase than the corresponding local quantities. For instance it is more likely in a magnetic system that a single spin flips than the magnetization.

Our result and the similar one of ALBANO\_1  suggest that critical systems with absorbing states behaves generally different from reversible equilibrium systems. Here, the order parameter fluctuates on smaller scales than the local sites. Approaching the transition point ($`\delta \rho 0`$) only a few sites are activated. Considering snapshots of the CLG model we observed that these activated sites are concentrated around small regions of activation which ”diffuses” very slowly through the system. Thus non-active particles persist for a long time in their state until they are re-activated by other active particles. But the order parameter fluctuates around its mean value within this time. This behavior is a common feature of absorbing phase transitions and we therefore think that systems exhibiting an absorbing phase transitions are generally characterized by the reversed persistence behavior $`\theta _\mathrm{g}>\theta _\mathrm{l}`$.


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# 1 Before talking about spin

## 1 Before talking about spin

My assignment is to speak about spin aspects of generalized parton distributions. Before doing so I would however like to point out some of the information they contain even if the spin degrees of freedom are all averaged over.

The usual parton densities we are accustomed with are expectation values of quark or gluon operators for a hadron state, and generalized parton distributions  are their natural extension to non-forward kinematics. This is readily seen from the diagrams for Compton scattering in the deeply virtual limit (Fig. 1). Since an off-shell photon turns into an on-shell one, the two proton states in the hadronic matrix element must have different momenta. A useful set of variables describing the kinematics are $`x`$ and $`\xi `$, parameterizing longitudinal momentum fractions in a frame where both protons move fast, and the Mandelstam invariant $`t=(p^{}p)^2`$, which one can trade for the transverse momentum transfer $`(p^{}p)_{}`$. This tells us immediately that we are in a position to probe the transverse and the longitudinal structure of a fast moving proton in a correlated manner.

Setting $`\xi `$ and $`t`$ to zero one recovers the usual parton distributions, which have the intuitive interpretation of a density in longitudinal parton momentum. Burkardt  has shown that for $`\xi =0`$ we retain a density interpretation if we perform a Fourier transformation from $`(p^{}p)_{}`$ to impact parameter, which measures the transverse distance of the struck quark from the proton’s center. Generalized parton distributions at $`\xi =0`$ thus describe the transverse distribution of partons with a given longitudinal momentum fraction $`x`$. Going to nonzero $`\xi `$ we no longer have this density interpretation. I see this as a blessing rather than a curse: after all QCD is a quantum theory, and it may well be that to understand its bound states we will have to go beyond classical probabilities. In any case, generalized parton distributions probe the transverse and longitudinal structure of the proton in a way that has recently been described in the language of photography .

The meaning of generalized parton distributions at nonzero $`\xi `$ can be elucidated in terms of light-cone wave functions . Barring possible subtleties of the light-cone gauge , one can write the usual parton densities as squared wave functions, summed over all configurations containing a parton with given momentum fraction $`x`$. Going to $`\xi 0`$ we get the product of wave functions corresponding to different momentum fractions of the specified parton. We thus go from classical probabilities to quantum mechanical correlations, or interference terms. Nonzero $`\xi `$ further opens up a kinematical regime where the distributions describe not the emission and reabsorption of one parton (Fig. 1a) but rather the emission of two partons (Fig. 1b). One then probes $`q\overline{q}`$ or gluon pairs in the target wave function. Sum rules tell us that the two regimes are intimately connected: both contribute to the integral of the distributions over $`x`$ at given $`\xi `$ and $`t`$, which gives the elastic proton form factors.

These sum rules remind us that quantities like the Dirac form factor $`F_1(t)`$ also contain information about the proton size. From the above discussion it follows that they give the transverse distribution of quarks, now averaged over all longitudinal momenta. This is the opposite reduction of information than the one we encountered in the usual parton densities. Generalized densities combine and interrelate these two partial descriptions. Note also that there are not many pointlike probes providing local currents for a direct measurement of form factors in the nucleon. In particular there is none for gluons to tell us about their transverse location compared to quarks. Such information may be gained in suitable diffractive processes where generalized gluon distributions are enhanced over the quark ones.

We see that, even before talking about spin, we have access to a much more detailed image of a hadron than the essentially one-dimensional projection of usual parton densities and the information from form factors.

## 2 The two roles of spin

Let us now investigate the spin degrees of freedom in deeply virtual Compton scattering and in exclusive meson production $`\gamma ^{}pMp`$, or in their counterparts $`\gamma p\gamma ^{}p`$ and $`Mp\gamma ^{}p`$ with timelike photons . It turns out that polarization for the photon and meson plays a quite different role than on the target side.

### 2.1 The photon side

To access generalized parton distributions one needs a large virtuality $`Q^2`$ of the virtual photon, and polarization offers a valuable tool to asses whether a given $`Q^2`$ is indeed large enough. This is because in the large limit $`Q^2`$ selection rules emerge for the helicities on the photon side. They follow from two ingredients. First, one can neglect $`t`$ when evaluating the hard partonic subprocess, where effects of nonzero $`t`$ are suppressed by a power of $`\sqrt{t}/Q`$. The hard scattering thus becomes collinear. The second ingredient is that the chirality of light quarks is conserved in the hard scattering, up to corrections in the tiny current quark masses. The axial anomaly of QCD does not invalidate this argument: chirality violation can occur in quantities dominated by soft physics but not in a hard scattering kernel .

Taking the Compton diagram in Fig. 1a as an example, we thus have that the hard scattering, including radiative corrections, cannot change the quark helicity. In the collinear limit helicity is equivalent to angular momentum along the collision axis, so that the photon helicity must be conserved, too. The leading Compton amplitudes thus have a transverse initial photon, whereas the ones with a longitudinal $`\gamma ^{}`$ are subleading in $`1/Q`$. For meson production one finds that the leading amplitude is the one where both the $`\gamma ^{}`$ and the meson have helicity zero .

These selection rules can be tested experimentally. Consider the electroproduction processes $`epep\gamma `$ or $`epepM`$ in the targe rest frame. The azimuthal angle $`\phi `$ between the planes spanned by the initial and scattered lepton and by the outgoing proton and photon (meson) describes a rotation around the direction of the intermediate $`\gamma ^{}`$. Quantum mechanics tells us that rotations are intimately connected with angular momentum, and it is not surprising that the $`\phi `$ distribution contains information about the $`\gamma ^{}`$ helicity. If the meson $`M`$ decays, as in $`\rho \pi ^+\pi ^{}`$, further information can be gained from its decay angular distribution.

An application of these results is the $`\mathrm{sin}\phi `$ dependence of the single electron spin asymmetry in pion electroproduction measured by HERMES . It directly tells us that amplitudes with a longitudinal and a transverse $`\gamma ^{}`$ have interfered. Since the asymmetry is rather large we can infer that a subleading amplitude (the one with a transverse photon) is not negligible compared with the leading one for the process and $`Q^2`$ range in question. The angular analysis in deeply virtual Compton scattering is more involved , but up to corrections a $`\mathrm{sin}\phi `$ behavior of the single electron spin asymmetry comes from transverse and a $`\mathrm{sin}(2\phi )`$ from longitudinal $`\gamma ^{}`$. Both the HERMES and CLAS data  shows little sign of a $`\mathrm{sin}(2\phi )`$ variation and thus suggests that the amplitudes with a longitudinal $`\gamma ^{}`$ are indeed suppressed.

The arguments sketched above can be extended beyond the leading approximation in $`1/Q`$. For Compton scattering this has been worked out, and one finds that at the level of $`1/Q`$ corrections one only has longitudinal $`\gamma ^{}`$ polarization. This is twice good news: for one thing it means that $`1/Q`$ corrections (which need not be tiny at moderate $`Q^2`$) do not affect the $`\mathrm{sin}\phi `$ part of the single spin asymmetry from which one wants to extract the leading amplitudes. On the other hand, when data is sufficiently accurate to extract the $`\mathrm{sin}(2\phi )`$ component one will be able to study the first subleading amplitudes for themselves. This would be interesting because they can still be expressed in terms of generalized parton distributions at twist-three level, in a manner very similar to the polarized structure function $`g_2(x)`$ in inclusive deep inelastic scattering .

### 2.2 The target side

Unless the transverse momentum transfer $`(p^{}p)_{}`$ is exactly zero, the polarizations of the initial and final proton do not follow selection rules like the photon and meson, they are indeed unconstrained by the helicities on the photon side. This is because a momentum transfer of a few 100 MeV is small compared with $`Q`$, but not compared with a typical hadronic scale governing the physics of the hadronic matrix elements in our factorized diagrams. The overall helicity of the process need not be conserved since transfer of orbital angular momentum will ensure angular momentum conservation. This is another example of what we saw in the first section: by going away from the strictly collinear kinematics of the usual parton model quantities we get access to physics in the transverse direction, and a particular aspect of this is the orbital angular momentum along the longitudinal axis.

The wave function representation tells us for instance that the generalized parton distribution $`E`$ (and thus also its first moment, the Pauli form factor $`F_2(t)`$) would vanish if the proton did not have configurations where the helicities of the partons do not add up to the helicity of the proton. This reflects from a quite different angle the statement of Ji’s sum rule  which connects $`E`$ with the orbital angular momentum of quarks in the proton.

Since the hadron helicities are not fixed, a cross section in general measures a particular combination of initial and final proton helicities, and thus of the associated generalized parton distributions. In the large $`Q^2`$ limit, the beam charge asymmetry in Compton scattering involves for instance the combination

$$\mathrm{cos}\phi \left[F_1(t)H+\xi \left(F_1(t)+F_2(t)\right)\stackrel{~}{H}\frac{t}{4M_p^2}F_2(t)E\right]$$
(1)
of Ji’s distributions ($`\stackrel{~}{E}`$ drops out of this observable by an accident of symmetry). Notice that one cannot use the trick of Rosenbluth separation here: to vary the factors weighting the distributions in (1) one must vary $`t`$ or $`\xi `$, but the distributions themselves depend on these variables. On the other hand, the full calculation  shows that with longitudinal and transverse target polarization (but without measuring recoil polarization) one obtains enough linear combinations of the four distributions to separate them in principle.

## 3 Generalized transversity distributions

Quark transversity distributions, which in a helicity basis describe quark helicity flip, are interesting objects for several reasons . Little is known about their size and shape, and vigorous experimental effort will be devoted to improve this situation in the coming years. These distributions have of course a generalization to non-forward kinematics . Since helicity conservation does not apply at nonzero $`(p^{}p)_{}`$ there are four distributions for each quark flavor, corresponding to the four helicity combinations of the initial and final proton . Time reversal invariance does not eliminate any of these, but rather fixes their phase and determines their behavior under $`\xi \xi `$. The counting of generalized parton distributions for a given parton species and target is thus different from the one for helicity amplitudes or for forward distributions.

Unfortunately no process is presently known where generalized quark transversity occurs, but the situation is better for the generalized helicity flip distributions with gluons. Note that these exist even for spin $`\frac{1}{2}`$ targets, unlike their forward counterparts, where the gluon helicity flip by two units must be matched on the target side. A remarkable property of these distributions is that under evolution they do not mix with quarks (which cannot flip helicity by two units). Gluon transversity distributions can thus not be generated by DGLAP-type gluon radiation off quarks and in this sense probe “intrinsic glue” in the target. Next to nothing is known about them, but we can infer on their behavior at very small momentum fractions from their evolution equations. For this it is enough to consider the forward case (with for instance a photon target to satisfy helicity conservation) . In the double logarithmic limit of large $`\mathrm{log}Q^2\mathrm{log}(1/x)`$ one obtains

$$g(x)x^1f_1(x),\mathrm{\Delta }g(x)x^0f_2(x),\delta g(x)x^1f_3(x),$$
(2)
for the unpolarized, longitudinally polarized, and transversity distributions, respectively, with the residual $`x`$ dependence in the functions $`f_i(x)`$ controlled by $`\alpha _s`$. Results of the double logarithmic approximation should be used with care, but the hierarchy in (2) does suggest that gluon transversity will fall and not rise at small $`x`$. The region of moderate momentum fractions may thus be the best place to look for these distributions.

Gluon transversity occurs in deeply virtual Compton scattering, where to leading order in $`1/Q`$ it provides the only contribution to the photon double helicity flip amplitude. It thus comes with a characteristic signature in the $`\phi `$ distribution, which provides a handle to separate it from other distributions. The beam charge asymmetry to leading order in $`1/Q`$ for instance goes like

$$\mathrm{cos}3\phi \frac{\alpha _s}{\pi }\left[F_2(t)H_T2\left(F_1(t)+\frac{t}{4M_p^2}F_2(t)\right)\stackrel{~}{H}_TF_1(t)E_T\right],$$
(3)
where $`H_T,\stackrel{~}{H}_T,E_T`$ are three of the four gluon transversity distributions. Unfortunately this contribution has to compete with terms suppressed by $`M_p^2/Q^2`$ but without the factor $`\alpha _s/\pi `$ . Whether gluon transversity can be accessed in Compton scattering will thus depend on their size and on the achievable values of $`Q^2`$. Another process recently proposed is $`\gamma ^{}p\rho p`$ . Here gluon transversity appears in the amplitudes with double helicity flip from the photon to the $`\rho `$, which are subleading in the $`1/Q`$ expansion.

## 4 Deuteron target

Some of the facilities that can study virtual Compton scattering and meson production run with deuteron targets a part of their time, and it is natural to ask what can be learned from the corresponding generalized parton distributions.

The number of helicity combinations for a spin-one target is rather large, but the algebra involved in the appropriate distributions is not hopelessly tedious . Concentrating on the parton helicity conserving sector, a counting argument analogous to the one we made for the proton tells us that for each parton species there are 9 generalized distributions, 5 of them averaged over parton helicities and 4 sensitive to parton polarization.

In the forward limit three of the quark distributions tend to the well-known quark densities in the deuteron, which at leading order in $`\alpha _s`$ are proportional to the structure functions $`F_1(x)`$, $`b_1(x)`$, and $`g_1(x)`$. Taking the lowest moment in $`x`$ we recover the 3 vector and the 2 axial vector form factors for elastic deuteron transitions from 5 of the generalized distributions. The lowest moments of the other 4 distributions turn out to be zero for different symmetry reasons, one of them being directly related to the sum rule for $`b_1(x)`$ found by Close and Kumano .

The generalized parton distributions of a nuclear system are interesting beyond their spin structure. Consider the simple picture of a deuteron as a weakly bound state of a proton and a neutron, described by two-body wave functions with the appropriate momentum and spin dependence. As for usual parton densities, the parton distribution in the deuteron is then a convolution of these nuclear light-cone wave functions and the parton distributions in a single nucleon, as shown in Fig. 2a and 2b. In this picture the momentum transfer of the process is entirely taken by the emitting nucleon. For nonzero $`\xi `$ the longitudinal momentum fraction of this nucleon in the bound state before and after the scattering is thus different, and the $`\xi `$ dependence of the generalized parton distribution reflects rather directly the width of the deuteron wave function in longitudinal momentum. This dependence is again accessible in correlation with the transverse distribution, controlled by the variable $`t`$. Since the deuteron is a weakly bound system, its wave function will not allow too large values of longitudinal transfer $`\xi `$. For larger $`\xi `$ one will thus be sensitive to quantum fluctuations of the deuteron that are more complicated than a system of two almost free nucleons.

The story does not end here. In analogy to the quark-antiquark region of Fig. 1b, there is now the case where a nucleon-antinucleon pair in the initial deuteron wave function annihilates into a $`q\overline{q}`$ system which is then emitted (Fig. 2c). The annihilation is described by a generalized distribution amplitude, which can be studied in other hard processes . Intuition suggests that four-nucleon configurations should be extremely rare in the deuteron, but they are required by Lorentz invariance. Whereas in the description of the elastic form factors one can avoid their appearance by choosing a frame with $`\xi =0`$, we now have nonzero $`\xi `$ imposed by the process. In this sense generalized parton distributions may provide a handle to access truly relativistic effects in a nuclear system.

## 5 Conclusions

Spin plays a variety of roles in the context of generalized parton distributions. In the hard processes processes where these quantities appear, the helicity of the photon and meson provides a handle on the reaction mechanism, which selects certain helicity transitions. Measurement of the corresponding azimuthal distributions allows one to separate different hard scattering contributions. On the other hand, the helicities in the hard subprocess do not fix those of the initial and final hadron, and to separate their different combinations in the parton distributions one needs target (or recoil) polarization.

A particular selection of photon helicities gives access to gluon transversity distributions, provided power correction terms are sufficiently small in the region under study. Since they cannot be generated from quarks via perturbative quark-gluon splitting, these distributions constitute a rather unique probe of “intrinsic glue” in the proton. For spin $`\frac{1}{2}`$ targets they decouple in the forward limit and are only visible in exclusive processes, when helicity is not conserved.

The non-conservation of helicity in generalized parton distributions is what makes these quantities sensitive to orbital angular momentum in an essential way. This is possible because one goes away from the purely collinear kinematics describing the familiar twist-two quantities of the parton model, and illustrates a characteristic feature of nonforward exclusive processes: they simultaneously probe the transverse and the longitudinal distribution of quarks and gluons in a hadron state. For nuclear systems we have seen that, in analogy, one may be able to access the longitudinal and transverse distribution of its nucleon constituents, and possibly more complicated configurations.

Clearly, the dependence of generalized parton distributions on three kinematical variables, and the number of distributions describing different helicity combinations present a considerable complexity. In a sense this is the price to pay for the amount of physics information encoded in these quantities. It is however crucial to realize that for many important aspects one need not fully disentangle this complexity. The interrelation of longitudinal and transverse structure of partons in a nucleon, or of nucleons in a nucleus, can be studied quantitatively from the distribution in the two external kinematical variables $`\xi `$ and $`t`$, even if the deconvolution of the loop integral over the variable $`x`$ is not performed. In a similar way, the very information of whether gluon transversity is small or large for a typical size of longitudinal momentum set by $`\xi `$ would in itself be valuable, given how little we know about the non-perturbative origin of quark and gluon distributions in QCD bound states.

## Acknowledgements

It is a pleasure to thank Bo-Qiang Ma and his colleagues for the marvelous organization of this meeting, and Bernard Pire for valuable remarks on the manuscript.


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# The influence of clumping on surface brightness fits of edge-on spiral galaxies

## 1 Introduction

Optical extinction by interstellar grains complicates the study of the stellar and dust content of a spiral galaxy. For moderate to high optical depths, information on the intrinsic properties of each of these components is entangled in the observed surface brightness distribution of the galaxy. The usual way of deriving these properties is by comparing the observations with radiative transfer calculations in a dusty galactic model. A certain degree of complexity is needed in the description of the geometric distributions of a galactic model. Radiative transfer models with simple geometries have been proven to provide equivocal results (Disney, Davies, & Phillipps 1989). Furthermore, scattering must be taken into account, given the high albedo observed for Galactic dust (Gordon, Calzetti, & Witt 1997).

A radiative transfer code using the Monte Carlo (MC) technique can, in principle, accommodate any stellar and dust distribution and provide an accurate calculation of the surface brightness for a given model (Witt, Thronson, & Capuano 1992; Bianchi, Ferrara, & Giovanardi 1996; de Jong 1996). However, the MC method is time consuming and thus can not be easily included in fitting procedures. For such procedures an approximate treatment of the radiative transfer is more appropriate.

The first approach of such a procedure was introduced by Kylafis & Bahcall (1987, hereafter KB), where vertical profiles of a model galaxy were fitted to observations of NGC 891. In KB’s work, scattering is calculated up to the first order and an approximation is introduced for the higher order contributions while the distribution of the dust is assumed to be smooth and exponential along the radial and vertical directions. A similar approximation for the treatment of scattering is adopted by Silva et al. (1998). Other works prefer an exact solution for scattering within simple geometries (Bruzual, Magris, & Calvet 1988; Corradi, Beckman, & Simonneau 1996; Xu & Buat 1995).

Using the KB method, the radiative transfer equation can be solved for a wide variety of geometries (Byun et al. 1994). Xilouris et al. (1997;1998) improved the original idea of KB and implemented a technique to fit the surface brightness distribution of edge-on spirals. In edge-on galaxies, the effects of extinction are maximized and it is possible to separate the stellar and dust components. The method has been successfully applied to a sample of seven edge-on galaxies (Xilouris et al. 1999) concluding that late-type spiral galaxies have a moderate opacity, with a mean face-on optical depth in the B-band $`\tau _\mathrm{B}0.8`$. As in most of the models used for the description of spiral galaxies, Xilouris et al. (1999) adopt smooth exponential distributions to describe the stellar and dust disks.

Real galaxies exhibit a wide variety of inhomogeneities, like spiral arms, bars, clumps. While it is possible to include these structures in the solution, when fitting an observed image it is desirable to deal with the simplest possible description, in order to limit the number of model parameters. Complex models can then be used to test the reliability of the description obtained with the simple models. This is done, for example, in Misiriotis et al. (2000), where synthetic edge-on images of model galaxies with a spiral structure are fitted with a smooth exponential model. They find that plain exponential distributions provide a good description of the galactic disks. The derivation of the stellar and dust parameters is only slightly affected by the spiral pattern.

In this paper we perform a similar exercise to study the influence of dust clumping on the fit of edge-on galaxies. In most cases, a clumpy medium exhibits higher transparency than a smooth one of the same dust mass. Therefore, the comparison of real images with smooth models may result in an underestimation of the dust content in a galaxy. Here we use the MC method presented by Bianchi et al. (2000, hereafter BFDA) to create images of clumpy galactic models. For the parametrisation of BFDA, the maximum difference between clumpy and homogeneous models can be seen in the edge-on case. Monte Carlo models of highly inclined galaxies had been produced also by Kuchinski et al. (1998), with a different parametrisation for the clump distribution. With respect to their result, the influence of clumping in the edge-on case is larger for the model adopted here (see the discussion in BFDA). The MC images of BFDA will be fitted with the KB model as in Misiriotis et al. (2000), aiming at determining the efficiency of clumping in hiding the dust when a galaxy is seen edge-on.

Sect. 2 describes the method adopted for the comparison and the MC models we have used to produce the synthetic images. A model with exponentially distributed clumps developed for this work is presented in the Appendix. The results are presented in Sect. 3 and a summary is given in Sect. 4.

## 2 Our Method

Following the procedure described by Misiriotis et al. (2000), we fit images made with the KB method to the MC images of a clumpy model galaxy. Both the MC and the KB models presented here are computed for the V-band. The Henyey & Greenstein (1941) phase function is used with the scattering parameters in the V band albedo $`\omega =0.6`$ and asymmetry $`g=0.6`$ (Gordon et al. 1997).

The parameters defining the smooth models are the central face-on surface brightness $`I_{}`$, the radial scalelength $`\alpha _{}`$ and the vertical scalelength $`\beta _{}`$ of the stellar disk, the V-band central face-on optical depth $`\tau _\mathrm{V}`$, the radial scalelength $`\alpha _d`$ and the vertical scalelength $`\beta _d`$ of the dust disk. The total intrinsic luminosity $`L_{}`$ is equal to $`4\pi I_{}\alpha _{}^2`$ while the dust mass $`M_d`$ is propotional to $`\tau _\mathrm{V}\alpha _d^2`$. The results from the fits are compared to the input parameters of the MC images and are analyzed as a function of the fraction of dust locked into clumps $`f_\mathrm{c}`$. Additionally, we study the importance of scattering in the fitted models.

The disk parameters adopted for the MC models are those used in BFDA. For the stellar disk, we have adopted a ratio between radial and vertical scalelengths $`\alpha _{}/\beta _{}=11.5`$. The smooth dust disk has the same radial scalelength as the stellar one and a vertical scalelength $`\beta _\mathrm{d}=0.4\beta _{}`$. In both the simulation and the fitting procedure the dust distribution has been truncated at 4.6 radial scalelengths along the radial direction and at 4 vertical scalelengths along the vertical direction.

In the clumpy images, $`\tau _\mathrm{V}`$ defines the total mass of dust in the model, i.e. for the same $`\tau _\mathrm{V}`$ the clumpy and the smooth models have the same dust mass. In partially clumpy models, a fraction $`f_\mathrm{c}`$ of the total dust mass is distributed in clumps, while the remaining is distributed in a smooth disk of central face-on optical depth $`\tau _\mathrm{V}(1f_\mathrm{c})`$. The number of the clumps $`N_c`$ is determined as described in BFDA.

To cover the full range of $`\tau _\mathrm{V}`$ and $`f_\mathrm{c}`$ we considered the following optical depths : $`\tau _\mathrm{V}`$=0.5, 1, 2 and 5. For each optical depth we produced images with $`f_\mathrm{c}`$= 0 (smooth case), 0.25, 0.5, 0.75 and 1.0, resulting in a set of 20 images. Several different sets can be produced depending on how we distribute the dust clumps. We have decided to produce 3 sets.

In the set named “molecular”, the dust clumps follow the same distribution as the molecular gas in the Galaxy and their characteristics are based on the Giant Molecular Clouds. Details on these models can be found in BFDA. In this set, the $`f_\mathrm{c}`$=1 case is not considered because it would mean that all the dust is distributed in a molecular ring and an exponential model is not reccommended to reproduce such a distribution.

A second set of models named “exponential” was produced with the dust clumps following the same exponential distribution as the smooth dust disk while the stars were smoothly distributed. The exponential models are described in detail in the Appendix.

In the third set of models named “embedded” the clumps are distributed exponentially, while a fraction of starlight $`f_{\mathrm{emb}}`$=0.5 was embedded in the dust clumps. For the case of $`f_\mathrm{c}`$=0, there can be no $`f_{\mathrm{emb}}`$=0.5 because when there are no clumps there is nowhere to embed the embedded starlight.

The MC images of the clumpy model galaxies were constructed to be as similar as possible to observations. The images cover 151 pixels along the major axis from the galactic center to the border of the image, while the radial scalelength of the stellar and the dust disk is equal to 50 pixels. For each image, photons are gathered in a finite inclination band (Bianchi et al. 1996). which was chosen to be 1. The number of photons for the MC simulations was chosen so that a realistic signal to noise ratio was achieved (Bianchi et al. 1996).

The fitting was performed as in Misiriotis et al. (2000), by minimizing the sum of the squares of the differences between the MC and the KB images. In Fig. 1 we present a contour plot of an edge-on image from a MC smooth model ($`f_\mathrm{c}`$=0) together with the isophotes of the same model image, produced using the KB method. The coincidence of the MC and KB model images demonstrates the consistency of the two methods.

## 3 Results of the fits

### 3.1 Testing of the codes and the effects of scattering

Since the two radiative transfer methods (BFDA and KB) used in this work have been developed independently and with different algorithms, we checked for their consistency in several ways. We first produced images without scattering and without clumps using the MC method and fitted them with the KB method. The fits were able to retrieve all the parameters with a scatter smaller than 4%.

We then analyzed the smooth models ($`f_\mathrm{c}=0`$) described in the previous section. Two fits were produced for each MC image. In the first, the fitting model is computed without scattering, while in the second scattering is taken into account. This way we can quantify both the importance of scattering in fits of edge-on galaxies and the approximation of KB in their treatment of scattering.

In Fig. 2 we show the parameters $`I_{}`$ and $`\tau _\mathrm{V}`$ whose behavior changes the most when passing from an absorption-only fit to a fit including scattering. It is well-known that scattering reduces the effective absorption of a dusty medium, thus resulting in an increased surface brightness. When scattering is not included (dotted lines in Fig. 2), the fitting procedure compensates for this by reducing the optical depth of the dust disk and by increasing the central surface brightness of the stellar disk. The underestimate of the dust content is the dominant effect, because the stellar luminosity is significantly constrained by the parts of the galaxy that lie outside of the dust lane, where the absorption is negligible. Absorption-only fits result in an underestimate of the face-on optical depth ranging from 10% for $`\tau _\mathrm{V}`$=0.5 to 25% for $`\tau _\mathrm{V}`$=5. As for the central face-on surface brightness ($`I_{}`$), the maximum discrepancy is an overestimation by 10% for $`\tau _\mathrm{V}`$=0.5

When scattering is included, the fitted parameters are very close to the input values (solid lines in Fig. 2). The $`\tau _\mathrm{V}`$ plot confirms the validity of the approximation for scattering introduced by Kylafis & Bahcall (1987), at least for low-to-moderate optical depths. Even for $`\tau _\mathrm{V}`$=5, the derived optical depth is only 15% larger than the input value. All the other parameters derived from fits with scattering were found to vary within less than 4% of the input values.

### 3.2 The effect of clumping

The quality of the fits is poorer when synthetic images from clumpy models are analyzed. The sum of the squares of the differences between input data and fitted models increases by about an order of magnitude. Furthermore, in many cases it was possible to find a few equally acceptable fits, corresponding to local minima. While some parameters of KB models may change from minimum to minimum, we found that the derived dust mass and intrinsic luminosity are nearly the same.

In Fig. 3 we have plotted the derived normalized dust mass and intrinsic luminosity, as functions of $`f_\mathrm{c}`$ and of $`\tau _\mathrm{V}`$, for the “molecular” models, (BFDA; top row); for the “exponential” models (middle row) and for the “embedded” models (bottom row).

The derived dust masses, normalized to the input values, are shown in the left column of Fig. 3. The trend of the dust mass with $`f_\mathrm{c}`$ does not depend on the type of clumping or on the optical depth of the model, the amount of detected dust decreases with increasing $`f_\mathrm{c}`$. For the two sets of models without embedded stellar emission (“molecular” and “exponential”), the dust mass is underestimated by less than 10% for $`f_\mathrm{c}`$=0.25 to about 20-30% for $`f_\mathrm{c}`$=0.75. For the “exponential” set for $`f_\mathrm{c}`$=1, the underestimate reaches values of 40%. For the “embedded” models the fitting procedure recovers the input dust quite well. All the dust is detected for $`f_\mathrm{c}`$=0.25 and only 20% is missed for $`f_\mathrm{c}`$=0.75.

The results of the fitting procedure for the intrinsic, dust-free, luminosity $`L_{}`$ are shown in the right column of Fig. 3, again normalized to the input value. As for the dust mass, the trends with $`f_\mathrm{c}`$ for different models are very similar and do not depend sensitively on the value of $`\tau _\mathrm{V}`$. The fitting model overestimates the luminosity with increasing $`f_\mathrm{c}`$. For $`f_\mathrm{c}`$=0.75 and $`f_{\mathrm{emb}}=0`$, the derived luminosity is about 20% larger than the input value.

The overestimate of the luminosity drives the fitting procedure to increase the dust mass in order to obscure the additional starlight. If the luminosity was not overestimated then even less dust would be needed to fit the synthetic images. A simple major-axis analysis, i.e. a comparison of the radial profiles along the dust lane suggests that the smooth model detects only half of the dust mass (BFDA) and leads to the conclusion that clumping causes an underestimate of the face-on optical depth.

This is not the case for the fits shown here. The fitting procedure tries to interpret the reduced extinction caused by clumping by decreasing the dust radial scalelength $`\alpha _d`$ and keeping the optical depth high (actually, to a value similar to the input one), rather than decreasing $`\tau _\mathrm{V}`$ and keeping $`\alpha _d`$ fixed. The reason for this may be that the surface brightness in models with clumping departs from that of a smooth exponential disk, when all the image, and not only a single profile, is fitted. Given the general trend of the retrieved data, it does not seem probable that we have systematically hit local minima of the fit.

We have shown that the trend of dust mass underestimation is nearly independent of the optical depth of the model. This may suggest that the same percentage of dust is missed when fitting a galaxy at different wavelengths. Therefore, clumping should not affect the determination of the extinction law from fits of a galaxy in different bands. As long as the dust properties do not vary significantly with wavelength, as in the optical range, it is possible to interpret the absence of a trend with $`\tau _\mathrm{V}`$ as an absence of a trend with $`\lambda `$.

## 4 Summary

We have used a Monte Carlo code for the radiative transfer in a clumpy galactic model to produce synthetic edge-on images of spiral galaxies in the V-band. The images have then been analyzed using the fitting procedure of Xilouris et al. (1999), that uses the method of Kylafis & Bahcall (1987) to compute the radiative transfer in smooth galactic models. We first checked for the consistency of the two independent codes, by analyzing smooth MC images. Despite the differences in the solution of the radiative transfer, it was possible to retrieve the parameters of the MC models within 4% of their original value and we confirmed the importance of scattering in the radiative transfer simulations. The dust mass is significantly underestimated when scattering is not included in the fitting routine.

We have then studied the influence of clumping on the derivation of the parameters, when a synthetic image of an edge-on clumpy galactic model is analyzed through a simpler (and more controllable) smooth model. As expected, using a smooth model when fitting images of edge-on galaxies leads to an underestimation of the dust content of the galaxy. For the distribution of clumps adopted in this paper, about 20-30% of the dust mass is missed by the fitting, the value depending more on the fraction of dust located in clumps rather than on the details of the clumps distribution or the total dust mass of the model. In addition, clumping alters the surface brightness distribution with respect to that of a smooth exponential model, thus making the fit more difficult. This may explain the overestimation of the intrinsic luminosity in models with clumping.

We stress again here that our work is limited to the edge-on case, for which convergent fits can be obtained with the KB technique. The results may also depend on the clump distribution and on the geometrical parameters adopted here. However, it is interesting to note that other works find a small influence of clumping in edge-on galaxies. Kuchinski et al. (1998) produced radiative transfer models of disk galaxies including clumping. The distribution of clumps is different from the one adopted here: the clumpy medium is characterised by a costant filling factor throughout the whole disk and by a density contrast with the homogeneous medium (Witt & Gordon 1996, see also BFDA for a comparison with the present models). Comparing colour gradients across the extinction lane of highly inclined galaxies with the model results, they find that the inferred opacity of the dust disk is largely insensitive to the difference between clumpy and homogeneous dust distributions.

Recent analyses of dust emission at $`\lambda >100\mu `$m suggest that the amount of dust in spiral galaxies is larger than what derived from fits of edge-on surface brightness profiles (Bianchi et al. 2000; Popescu et al. 2000; Misiriotis et al. 2001). Clumping has been imputed to as a possible cause for this discrepancy: dust in star-forming regions may contribute dominantly to the Far Infrared emission without being seen through its extinction effects. However, the underestimation produced by the clumpy distributions adopted in this paper is always smaller than 40%, unable to explain the magnitude of the effect. Different dust/clump distributions may be needed. Popescu et al. (2000) and Misiriotis et al. (2001) find that the long wavelength emission observed in two galaxies (namely, NGC 891 and NGC 5907) can be explained by including a second dust disk, at least as massive as the dust disk causing the observed extinction lane and thin enough to escape detection through the technique of surface brightness fitting.

###### Acknowledgements.

We would like to thank Professor N. D. Kylafis for his suggestions and assistance concerning this work, and the referee, Professor A. Witt, for thoughtful comments.

## Appendix A Models with exponentially distributed clumps

In BFDA it was assumed that all the material associated with the molecular phase in a spiral galaxy is in Giant Molecular Clouds. Radiative transfer models were produced assuming that dust clumps are distributed as the molecular gas in the Galaxy, i.e. in a ring-like structure. However, most of luminous, face-on, late-type galaxies, and a good fraction of early-type spirals, show a radial exponential distribution for the H<sub>2</sub> column density (Young & Scoville 1991). For the sake of completeness, we briefly present here a set of models with an exponential distribution for the dust clumps. The clumps distribution has the same scalelengths as the smooth dust disk. All the other parameters are the same as in BFDA.

The effects of clumping in these models are not very different from those obtained adopting the Galactic H<sub>2</sub> distribution. Exponentially distributed clumps make the models less transparent, but only slightly. For example, in the $`\tau _V`$=2 model with fraction of gas in clumps f<sub>c</sub>=0.75, 15% of the radiation is absorbed, while in BFDA it was 12%. We recall that in a smooth model 19% of the radiation is absorbed. For models with embedded stellar emission, the difference is even smaller, because of the increased contribution of the absorption within each clump. The number of clumps and their opacity are independent of the assumed clump distribution and are the same as in BFDA.

As in BFDA, the largest differences between homogeneous and clumpy simulations are for the edge-on profiles. In Fig. 4 we show the edge-on major-axis profiles for the BFDA models and for the models with exponential clumping, for $`\tau _\mathrm{V}`$=2, $`f_\mathrm{c}`$=0.25,0.5,0.75 and f<sub>emb</sub>=0. The profile for a smooth $`\tau _\mathrm{V}`$=2 disk is shown as a reference. Because of the exponential distribution, the profiles of the new clumpy models are similar to those for smooth exponential disks, independently of $`f_\mathrm{c}`$ and f<sub>emb</sub>. Instead, BFDA models show the effects of the ring-like clumping distribution, even when f<sub>emb</sub>=0.


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# Anomalous Dynamic Scaling in Locally-Conserved Coarsening of Fractal Clusters

\[

## Abstract

We report two-dimensional phase-field simulations of locally-conserved coarsening dynamics of random fractal clusters with fractal dimension $`D=1.7`$ and $`1.5`$. The correlation function, cluster perimeter and solute mass are measured as functions of time. Analyzing the correlation function dynamics, we identify two different time-dependent length scales that exhibit power laws in time. The exponents of these power laws are independent of $`D`$; one of them is apparently the “classical” exponent $`1/3`$. The solute mass versus time exhibits dynamic scaling with a $`D`$-dependent exponent, in agreement with a simple scaling theory.

\]

Many non-equilibrium systems develop morphological instabilities and ramified growth at an early stage of the dynamics, exhibit coarsening at an intermediate stage, and finally approach a simple equilibrium. A classic example is diffusion-controlled systems, such as deposition of solute from a supersaturated solution and solidification from an overcooled melt. The stage of morphological instability has been under extensive investigation . If some noise is present, fractal clusters (FCs) similar to diffusion-limited aggregates (DLA) can develop . If the total amount of mass or heat is finite, the subsequent dynamics are dominated by surface-tension-driven relaxation (coarsening) . Coarsening of FCs in systems with conserved order parameter, apart from being interesting in its own right, exemplifies a more general problem of phase ordering: emergence of order from disorder, following a quench from a disordered state into a region of phase coexistence . This example is non-trivial because of the long-ranged, power-law correlations intrinsic in FCs. The role of long-ranged correlation in phase ordering dynamics has been under debate in connection to dynamic scale invariance (DSI), a major simplifying factor in theory . DSI presumes that there is, at late times, a single dynamic length scale $`l(t)`$ so that the correlation function $`C(r,t)`$ approaches a self-similar form $`g[r/l(t)]`$ . In locally-conserved systems (model B) $`l(t)`$ is expected to show dynamic scaling (by which we simply mean a power law in time) with “classical” dynamic exponent $`1/3`$ .

Because of complexity of phase-ordering dynamics, DSI has not been proven, except for a very few simple models . However, there is extensive evidence, from experiments and simulations, supporting DSI in conserved systems with short-ranged correlations. Recently, phase-field simulations of coarsening of a globally-conserved, interface-controlled system with long-ranged correlations were performed . DLAs with fractal dimension $`D=1.75`$ served in Ref.  as the initial conditions for the minority phase. Notice that a FC is a particular case of systems with long-ranged correlations. $`D`$ is equal to the exponent $`\sigma `$ that appears in the power-law decay of the correlation function at $`t=0`$: $`C(r,t=0)r^{(d\sigma )}`$, where $`d`$ is the Euclidian dimension . The simulations  have not found any deviations from DSI and yielded the “classical” value of the dynamic exponent for the globally-conserved model, which is $`1/2`$.

The results  stand in sharp contrast with simulation results on locally-conserved coarsening of DLA clusters, where breakdown of DSI was observed . Breakdown of DSI is related to the fact that the upper cutoff $`L`$ of the FCs remains almost constant in the process of coarsening . While interpreting this finding, one should distinguish between two regimes: diffusion-controlled: $`l_d<L`$, and Laplacian: $`l_d>L`$, where $`l_dt^{1/2}`$ is the diffusion length. It is clear that $`L`$ should remain almost constant in the diffusion-controlled regime, as interaction between far-lying parts of the cluster is exponentially small in this case. The inequality $`l_d<L`$ was satisfied in the simulations of Refs. , and it is satisfied in the simulations reported in the present work. However, even in the opposite limit of Laplacian coarsening one can expect $`L`$ to remain almost constant (and breakdown of DSI to persist), this time because of Laplacian screening of transport. An additional non-trivial aspect of locally-conserved coarsening of DLA clusters is the following. Though not dynamically scale-invariant, this coarsening process was shown to exhibit dynamic scaling (with “unusual” exponent $`0.210.22`$) . This implies hidden simplicity of a more complex nature than DSI.

We report phase-field simulations of locally-conserved coarsening of 3 sets of random FCs. The clusters have fractal dimensions $`D=1.7`$ and $`1.5`$. Our motivation was to check whether the “anomalous” scaling persists for clusters different from DLA, and to investigate its possible dependence on $`D`$. The simulations confirm breakdown of DSI in all cases. We identify three power laws in time. Two of them correspond to dynamic length scales found from the dynamics of $`C(r,t)`$ at small and intermediate distances. The first length scale, with exponent $`0.210.22`$, is the same as observed earlier. Surprisingly, it does not show any dependence on $`D`$. The second length scale has exponent close to $`1/3`$, and we suggest a simple interpretation for its appearance. The third dynamic exponent is found in the time dependence of the “solute mass”, and it is $`D`$-dependent. We suggest a simple scaling theory for the second and third exponents.

Here is a brief description of our simulation techniques. We employed a hierarchical algorithm  to build random FCs with tunable fractal dimension. The algorithm starts with a set of $`2^n`$ square particles grouped into pairs. These pairs are then grouped into pairs of pairs, and so on, in an iterative procedure. After $`n`$ iterations the final aggregate of $`2^n`$ particles is obtained. The desired fractal dimension $`D`$ is achieved by an appropriate mutual position in which the aggregates are sticked together in each iteration . The clusters obtained in this way are ”reinforced”, by an addition of peripheral sites as suggested in Ref. , to avoid breakup at an early stage of coarsening. The quality of obtained FCs is controlled by computing the correlation function (see below) and checking the quality of the power law.

A standard phase-field model for locally-conserved coarsening is the Cahn-Hilliard equation

$$\frac{u}{t}+\frac{1}{2}^2\left(^2u+uu^3\right)=0.$$
(1)
This equation was discretized and solved numerically. Two different numerical schemes were employed to advance the solution in time. The first scheme used an explicit Euler integration. The simulated domain $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ was a two-dimensional box 1024$`\times `$1024 with no-flux boundary conditions (zero normal component of $`u`$ at the boundaries). The grid size was $`\mathrm{\Delta }x=\mathrm{\Delta }y=1`$, the time step $`\mathrm{\Delta }t=1/25`$ ensured numerical stability. The time range of these simulations was $`0<t<5000`$. The second scheme used a semi-implicit Fourier spectral method . The simulation box was 1792$`\times `$1792, with periodic boundary conditions. The grid size was $`\mathrm{\Delta }x=\mathrm{\Delta }y=1`$ that corresponds to $`1792`$ Fourier modes in each dimension. The time step was $`\mathrm{\Delta }t=0.3`$, the total time range was $`0<t<15000`$. Overall, three series of simulations were performed. In two of them, with the explicit scheme, 10 FCs with $`D=1.7`$ (series A) and 10 FCs with $`D=1.5`$ (series C) served as the initial conditions for the minority phase $`u=1`$. In addition, 7 FCs with $`D=1.7`$ (series B) were simulated with the spectral scheme. The minority phase area fractions were $`10.5\%`$ (series A), $`7.5\%`$ (series B) and $`5.8\%`$ (series C). Notice that the initial cluster area in series B was almost twice as big as that in series A, while $`D`$ was the same.

Eq. (1) with either no-flux, or periodic boundary conditions obey conservation laws: $`I_0=\underset{\mathrm{\Omega }}{}u(𝐫,t)𝐝r=const`$ and $`𝐈_1=\underset{\mathrm{\Omega }}{}𝐫u(𝐫,t)𝐝r=const.`$ Our numerical schemes preserve $`I_0`$ exactly. We checked that they also preserve $`𝐈_\mathrm{𝟏}`$ with a very high accuracy: better than $`5\times 10^3\%`$ up to $`t=5000`$ (explicit scheme), and better than $`0.05`$% up to $`t=15,000`$ (spectral scheme). Additional tests of the two schemes included obtaining the stationary kink solution of Eq. (1) and observing the “classic” scaling with exponent $`1/3`$ for the initial condition in the form of “white noise”.

The cluster was identified as the locus of $`B(\text{r},t)=1`$, where $`B(\text{r},t)=1`$ for $`u(\text{r},t)0`$ and zero otherwise. Figures 1 and 2 show snapshots of the coarsening dynamics observed in series A and C. One can see that larger features grow at the expense of smaller ones. The global structure of the clusters remains unchanged. In particular, the cluster size is almost constant, in a marked contrast to the globally-conserved case . A significant decrease of $`L`$ in time is a necessary prerequisite of any fractal coarsening that obeys DSI , therefore its absence clearly implies that DSI is broken. One can also notice a more pronounced breakup of the cluster for $`D=1.5`$. Still, even in this case the large-scale mass distribution in the cluster does not change much.

To characterize the coarsening dynamics, several quantities were sampled and averaged over the initial conditions in each of the three simulation series:

1. (Circularly averaged) equal-time correlation function, normalized at r=0:

$$C(r,t)=\frac{<\rho (𝐫^{}+𝐫,t)\rho (𝐫^{},t)>}{<\rho ^2(𝐫^{},t)>}.$$
2. Cluster perimeter $`P(t)`$ .
3. Cluster mass $`M(t)=\underset{B(𝐫,t)=1}{}\rho (𝐫,t)\mathrm{𝐝𝐫}.`$
4. “Solute” mass outside the cluster
$`M_s(t)=\underset{B(𝐫,t)=0}{}\rho (𝐫,t)\mathrm{𝐝𝐫}.`$

Here an auxiliary “density” field $`\rho (𝐫,t)=(1/2)[u(𝐫,t)+1]`$ is introduced that varies between $`0`$ and $`1`$. Also, $`I_0=const`$ implies that $`M(t)+M_s(t)=const`$.

Figure 3 shows $`C(r,t)`$ at different times for simulation series B ($`D=1.7`$). Coarsening occurs at small and intermediate distances, while the large-$`r`$ tail remains almost unchanged. The fractal behavior is observed only in the “frozen” tail that shrinks in time. On the typical scales of coarsening, the cluster is not fractal anymore. This implies breakdown of DSI at $`D<2`$. The same type of behavior of $`C(r,t)`$ was obtained for the locally-conserved coarsening of DLA clusters . At small distances, $`C(r,t)`$ behaves linearly with $`r`$: $`C(r,t)1r/l_1(t)`$, as expected from the Porod law . This asymptotics yields dynamic length scale $`l_1(t)`$. One can also see a knee-like feature at intermediate distances that develops in the course of time. This feature yields dynamic length scale $`l_2`$. We define $`l_2`$ as the maximum value of $`r`$ for which the relative difference between $`C(r,0)`$ and $`C(r,t)`$ is not greater than $`3\%`$ (the results are insensitive to the exact value of this threshold). Notice that, by the end of the simulation time, the diffusion length $`l_d`$ is already greater than $`10^2`$. Still, we do not see any signature of $`l_d`$ in the shape of $`C(r,t)`$ at large distances. We expect that the tail of $`C(r,t)`$ will remain “frozen” until late times, and DSI broken, in the Laplacian regime as well.

Figures 4 and 5 show the measured quantities $`l_1,l_2,P`$ and $`M_s`$, averaged over the initial conditions, versus time for simulation series B and C, respectively. We fitted these time dependencies by power laws with exponents $`\alpha _1,\beta ,\alpha _2`$ and $`\gamma `$, respectively. According to Porod law , one expects $`\alpha _1=\alpha _2`$. All simulation results are summarized in Table 1. $`\alpha _1`$ and $`\alpha _2`$ are close to the previously reported values . Remarkably, they do not depend on $`D`$. The exponent $`\beta `$ is close to the classical exponent $`1/3`$. The appearance of the classical exponent in a situation with broken DSI requires an explanation (see below). The solute mass exhibits dynamic scaling with a $`D`$-dependent exponent $`\gamma `$.

Now we report a simple scaling theory for the exponents $`\beta `$ and $`\gamma `$. It is based on the fact that, at subdiffusive distances, $`r<l_d(t)`$, the Cahn-Hilliard dynamics are reducible to a sharp-interface model of Laplacian coarsening . The process of Laplacian coarsening can be described as follows. Small branches of the cluster shrink and disappear, and their material is reabsorbed by larger branches. Because of Laplacian screening, reabsorption occurs locally (therefore, the mass distribution on large scales remains unchanged). The reabsorption events cause undulations of the interfaces of the branches. Assuming DSI on length scales $`l_1(t)<r<l_d(t)`$, we see that, by time $`t`$, the characteristic undulation lenght is of order $`t^{1/3}`$. This gives a natural explanation to the dynamic length scale $`l_2t^{1/3}`$ observed in the simulations. The Gibbs-Thomson condition at the interface  implies a solute density of order $`t^{1/3}`$ in the “contaminated” region within a distance $`l_d`$ from the cluster. Taking into account the (preserved) fractal structure of the cluster at distances large compared to $`l_d`$, we estimate the contaminated area as $`A_dl_d^2(L/l_d)^Dt^{(2D)/2}`$. Multiplying the ”solute density” $`t^{1/3}`$ by $`A_d`$ yields the solute mass: $`M_s(t)t^{(43D)/6}`$. The last row in the table shows the theoretical exponent $`\gamma _{th}=(43D)/6`$. A good agreement with simulations is seen. Notice that $`\gamma _{th}`$ changes sign at $`D=4/3`$. At $`D<4/3`$ reabsorption should effectively stop, and the cluster should continue dissolving. We performed a single simulation with a random FC with D=1.3 that indeed showed a very slow but persistent increase of $`M_s`$ with time. Notice, however, that FC with a smaller $`D`$ also implies, in our simulations, a smaller area fraction of the minority phase. At too small area fractions the minority phase can dissolve completely, independently of $`D`$. Therefore, a more careful investigation is needed in order to distinguish between these two effects.

In summary, the simulations support earlier results  on breakdown of DSI in locally-conserved coarsening of systems with long-ranged correlations and reveal new signatures of hidden simplicity in these systems. We confirm the value of the anomalous dynamic exponent $`\alpha _10.210.22`$. Surprisingly, it does not show any dependence on $`D`$. Two additional dynamic exponents $`\beta 1/3`$ and $`\gamma =\gamma (D)`$ are identified. They can be interpreted in terms of Laplacian coarsening at subdiffusive distances $`r<l_d(t)`$, combined with DSI at intermediate distances $`l_1(t)<r<l_d(t)`$.

The work was supported by the Israel Science Foundation and by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (grant No. 99-01-00123). We thank Prof. M. Conti for providing the explicit Cahn-Hilliard solver and correlation function diagnostics, and Nadav Katz for helping us with the realization of the algorithm . We also thank Prof. G.I. Barenblatt, Orly Lipshtat and Avner Peleg for instructive discussions.


text:
# Some Solutions of Berkovits’Superstring Field Theory

## 1 Introduction

Open string field theory is very useful tool for the understanding of the tachyon condensation. (For review and extensive list of references, see ). While bosonic string field theory  based on the Chern-Simons-like action is very well understood in superstring case the situation is not such a clear. The straightforward superstring extension of the bosonic string field theory  suffers from an emergence of contact divergences that forces us to include higher-contact terms when two picture changing operators collide. (For discussion of this issue and other related problems we again recommend to see very good review .)

Another interesting approach to the problem of the construction of superstring field theory was given in Berkovits’ works . While previous string field theories are based on the Chern-Simons-like actions, Berkovits formulation is based on the Wess-Zummino-Witten-like action. Two major advantages of Berkovits superstring field theory are that it is manifestly $`SO(3,1)`$ super-Poincare invariant and that it does not require contact terms to remove tree-level divergences  (For recent review of Berkovits superstring field theory (NSFT), see .) In particular, it was shown that the calculation of the tachyon potential in BSFT is in a very good agreement with Sen’s conjecture . The tachyon kink and lump solution was also analysed ( For extensive list of references, see .)

In this short note we will construct solution of NSFT following mainly the seminal paper . We begin with the analysis of the equation of motion of the NS sector 222In this paper we will discuss Neveu-Schwarz sector of open string field theory only. However proposal for inclusion of Ramond sector has been done in very interesting paper , see also . of NSFT. This string field theory is characterised with given bulk (bulk on the world-sheet) conformal field theory (CFT) and with given boundary conditions on the boundary of the world-sheet. In other words, in terminology of , we have a string field theory characterised by given boundary CFT (BCFT), where string fields belong to the Hilbert space of BCFT. As is well known (for recent discussion of this approach in bosonic open string field theory and extensive list of references, see, for example , for case of NSFT see, ) fluctuations around field configuration that is solution of the equation of motion are described with the same action as the original one, however with shifted BRST operator. Since this new BRST operator can have very complicated form, there should exist such a field redefinition so that after performing this redefinition in the action, the new BRST operator gains the same structure as the original one, but fluctuation fields are transformed to the fields that belong to the Hilbert space of the new BCFT’. This new BCFT’ has the same CFT in the bulk of the world-sheet as BCFT has so that the BRST operator should be the same as the original one, however boundary conditions have changed which is reflected in the change of vertex operators and hence string fields. We will show that the generator of this transformation is in natural way related to the solution of the equation of motion of NSFT so that whenever we can find such a generator, we can very easily find exact solution of the string field equation of motion. We hope that our results could be helpful for finding new exact solutions of the string field theory equation of motion and could be also helpful in present study of the vacuum string field theory  (For recent works and extensive list of references, see ).

This note is organised as follows. In section (2) we briefly review basic facts about NS sector of Berkovits string field theory.

The main part of this paper is contained in section (3). There we will show that for any solution of the equation of motion of NSFT we can construct new BRST operator according to the analysis . Using particular form of this operator suggested in  we will show that there exist field redefinition that maps the new BRST operator to the original one. Under this transformation string fields that took values in Hilbert space of the original BCFT are mapped to the new BCFT’ with new boundary conditions. Then we show that the action is invariant under this redefinition. Finally, we extend our analysis to the case of Witten’s bosonic open string field theory.

In conclusion (4) we outline our results and suggest possible directions of further research.

## 2 Review of superstring field theory

In this section we would like to review basic facts about superstring field theory, for more details, see . The general off-shell string field configuration in the GSO(+) NS sector corresponding Grassmann even open string vertex operator $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ of ghost number $`0`$ and picture number $`0`$ in the combined conformal field theory of a $`c=15`$ superconformal matter system, and $`b,c,\beta ,\gamma `$ ghost system with $`c=15`$. We can also express $`\beta ,\gamma `$ in terms of ghost fields $`\xi ,\eta ,\varphi `$

$$\beta =\xi e^\varphi ,\gamma =\eta e^\varphi ,$$
(1)
the ghost number $`n_g`$ and the picture number $`n_p`$ assignments are as follows

$`b:n_g=1,n_p=0c:n_g=1,n_p=0;`$
$`e^{q\varphi }:n_g=0,n_p=q;`$
$`\xi :n_q=1,n_p=1\eta :n_q=1,n_p=1.`$
The BRST operator $`Q_B`$ is given

$$Q_B=𝑑zj(z)=𝑑z\left\{c(T_m+T_{\xi \eta }+T_\varphi )+ccb+\eta e^\varphi G_m\eta \eta e^{2\varphi }b\right\},$$
(3)
where

$$T_{\xi \eta }=\xi \eta ,T_\varphi =\frac{1}{2}\varphi \varphi ^2\varphi ,$$
(4)
$`T_m`$ is a matter stress tensor and $`G_m`$ is a matter superconformal generator. Throughout this paper we will be working in units $`\alpha ^{}=1`$.

The string field action is given

$$S=\frac{1}{2}\left((e^\mathrm{\Phi }Q_Be^\mathrm{\Phi })(e^\mathrm{\Phi }\eta _0e^\mathrm{\Phi })_0^1𝑑t(e^{t\mathrm{\Phi }}_te^{t\mathrm{\Phi }})\{(e^{t\mathrm{\Phi }}Q_Be^{t\mathrm{\Phi }}),(e^{t\mathrm{\Phi }}\eta _0e^{t\mathrm{\Phi }})\}\right),$$
(5)
where $`\{A,B\}=AB+BA`$ and $`e^{t\mathrm{\Phi }}_te^{t\mathrm{\Phi }}=\mathrm{\Phi }`$. Here the products and integral are defined by Witten’s gluing prescription of the string. The exponential of string field is defined in the same manner $`e^\mathrm{\Phi }=1+\mathrm{\Phi }+\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{\Phi }+\mathrm{}`$. In the following we will not explicitly write $``$ symbol. The basis properties of $`Q_B,\eta _0`$ which we will need in our analysis (for more details, see  and reference therein) are

$`Q_B^2=0,\eta _0^2=0,\{Q_B,\eta _0\}=0,`$
$`Q_B(\mathrm{\Phi }_1\mathrm{\Phi }_2)=Q_B(\mathrm{\Phi }_1)\mathrm{\Phi }_2+\mathrm{\Phi }_1Q_B(\mathrm{\Phi }_2),`$
$`\eta _0(\mathrm{\Phi }_1\mathrm{\Phi }_2)=\eta _0(\mathrm{\Phi }_1)\mathrm{\Phi }_2+\mathrm{\Phi }_1\eta _0(\mathrm{\Phi }_2),`$
$`{\displaystyle Q_B(\mathrm{})}=0,{\displaystyle \eta _0(\mathrm{})}=0,`$
where $`\mathrm{\Phi }_1,\mathrm{\Phi }_2`$ are Grassmann even fields.

## 3 General solution in Berkovits string field theory

Since we will not perform any explicit calculation we will again use abstract Witten’s formalism in string field theory . As usual we will not write explicitly the string field theory star product $``$. We start with the action

$$S=\frac{1}{2}\left((e^\mathrm{\Phi }Q_Be^\mathrm{\Phi })(e^\mathrm{\Phi }\eta _0e^\mathrm{\Phi })_0^1𝑑t(e^{t\mathrm{\Phi }}_te^{t\mathrm{\Phi }})\{(e^{t\mathrm{\Phi }}Q_Be^{t\mathrm{\Phi }}),(e^{t\mathrm{\Phi }}\eta _0e^{t\mathrm{\Phi }})\}\right).$$
(7)
We must stress that this action is formulated around one fixed BCFT with given BRST operator $`Q_B`$. Let us consider general solution of the equation of motion that arises from the action (7)

$$\eta _0(G_0^1Q_B(G_0))=0,G_0=e^{\mathrm{\Phi }_0}.$$
(8)
Now we would like to study the fluctuation around this solution. For that reason we write general string field containing fluctuation around this solution as

$$G=G_0h,h=e^\varphi ,G^1=h^1G_0^1.$$
(9)
To see that this field really describes fluctuations around solution $`G_0`$ note that for $`\varphi =0,G=G_0`$. It is also clear that any string field in the form $`e^{\mathrm{\Phi }_0+\varphi ^{}}`$ can be always rewritten in the form given above.

Inserting this upper expression in (7) we obtain an action for $`\varphi `$. As was argued in  in order to find form of the new BRST operator we must ask an question what form of the equation of motion obeys shifted field $`h=e^\varphi `$ 333For alternative and more elegant approach to this problem, see .. Then it was shown  that the new BRST operator has a form

$$\stackrel{~}{Q}(X)=Q_B(X)+AX(1)^XXA,A=G_0^1Q_B(G_0).$$
(10)
Let us now presume that the new BRST operator $`\stackrel{~}{Q}`$ can be written as 444This suggestion is based on results presented in .

$$\stackrel{~}{Q}=e^KQ_B(e^K),$$
(11)
where $`K`$ is operator of ghost charge and picture number equal to zero that obeys following rules

$`K(AB)=K(A)B+AK(B),`$
$`{\displaystyle K(A)B}={\displaystyle AK(B)}`$
and commutes with $`\eta _0`$. In order to have a well defined string field theory, $`\stackrel{~}{Q}`$ must obey (2). Firstly, we can easily show that

$`\stackrel{~}{Q}^2=e^KQ_Be^Ke^KQ_Be^K=e^KQ_B^2e^K=0,`$
$`\{\stackrel{~}{Q},\eta _0\}=\{e^KQ_Be^K,\eta _0\}=e^K\{Q_B,\eta _0\}e^K=0,`$
since $`[K,\eta _0]=0`$. We also have

$`\stackrel{~}{Q}(\mathrm{\Phi }_1\mathrm{\Phi }_2)=e^K\left[Q_B\left(e^K(\mathrm{\Phi }_1\mathrm{\Phi }_2)\right)\right]=e^K\left[Q_B\left(e^K(\mathrm{\Phi }_1)e^K(\mathrm{\Phi }_2)\right)\right]=`$
$`=e^K\left[Q_B\left(e^K(\mathrm{\Phi }_1)\right)e^K(\mathrm{\Phi }_2)+e^K(\mathrm{\Phi }_1)Q_B\left(e^K(\mathrm{\Phi }_2)\right)\right]=`$
$`=e^K\left[Q_B\left(e^K(\mathrm{\Phi }_1)\right)\right]e^Ke^K(\mathrm{\Phi }_2)+e^Ke^K(\mathrm{\Phi }_1)e^K\left[Q_B\left(e^K(\mathrm{\Phi }_2)\right)\right]=`$
$`=\stackrel{~}{Q}(\mathrm{\Phi }_1)\mathrm{\Phi }_2+\mathrm{\Phi }_1\stackrel{~}{Q}(\mathrm{\Phi }_2),`$
where we have used

$`e^K(AB)=AB+K(A)B+AK(B)+`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}K^2(A)B+K(A)K(B)+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}AK^2(B)+\mathrm{}=e^K(A)e^K(B)`$
which follows from (3). In the same way we can show that

$$e^K(AB)=e^K(A)e^K(B).$$
(16)
We can also easily see that (11) obeys the last axiom in (2)

$$\stackrel{~}{Q}(X)=e^K\left[Q_B\left(e^K(X)\right)\right]=Q_B\left(e^K(X)\right)e^K()=Q_B\left(e^K(X)\right)=0,$$
(17)
where $``$ is ”identity” ghost number and picture number zero field (for recent discussion of some properties of this field, see ) which is defined as

$$X=X=X,X.$$
(18)
Then we have

$$K(X)=K(X)=K()X+K(X)=K(X)K()=0$$
(19)
and consequently

$$e^K()=e^K()=.$$
(20)
In (17) we have also used

$`{\displaystyle e^K(X)Y}={\displaystyle \underset{n}{}\frac{1}{n!}(1)^nK^n(X)Y}=`$
$`={\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n!}(1)^nK^{n1}(X)K(Y)}={\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n!}}{\displaystyle XK^n(Y)}={\displaystyle Xe^K(Y)}`$
which is a result of successive application of the second property of $`K`$ given in (3).

To finish our analysis, we must find such a string field that solves the equation of motion (8) and leads to the shifted BRST operator (10). In fact, similar calculation has been performed in  so that we do not repeat it here. In the same way as in  one can show that the field $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$ that is a solution of (8) and leads to (10) has a form

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_0=K^L(),$$
(22)
where indices $`R,L`$ corresponds to the left and right side of open string .

We have seen that the new operator $`\stackrel{~}{Q}`$ obeys all axioms given in (2) and hence we can define NSFT around the new background configuration characterised with this new BRST operator (10). It is important to stress that in BCFT language, we have new BRST operator that can be completely general, however the fluctuation fields still belong to the Hilbert space of the original BCFT. For that reason it is natural to find such a field redefinition that maps $`\stackrel{~}{Q}`$ in $`Q_B`$ so that the new BRST operator is of the same form and the fluctuation fields that belong to the Hilbert space of the original BCFT are mapped to the fields that belong to the Hilbert space of new BCFT’. We will show that this can be easily done in the framework of Berkovits string field theory.

In order to obtain BRST operator of the same functional form as the original one, we perform field redefinition

$$\varphi =e^K(\mathrm{\Psi }).$$
(23)
Using (3) we can show

$`e^\varphi ={\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n!}}\left(e^K(\mathrm{\Psi })\right)^n=e^K\left({\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n!}}\mathrm{\Psi }^n\right)=e^K(e^\mathrm{\Psi }),`$
$`e^\varphi ={\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{(1)^n}{n!}}\left(e^K(\mathrm{\Psi })\right)^n=e^K\left({\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{(1)^n}{n!}}\mathrm{\Psi }^n\right)=e^K(e^\mathrm{\Psi })`$
and consequently

$$e^K(e^\mathrm{\Psi })e^K(e^\mathrm{\Psi })=e^K(e^\mathrm{\Psi }e^\mathrm{\Psi })=e^K()=.$$
(25)
Using these results we immediately obtain

$`{\displaystyle (e^\varphi \stackrel{~}{Q}(e^\varphi ))(e^\varphi \eta _0(e^\varphi ))}=`$
$`={\displaystyle e^K(e^\mathrm{\Psi })e^KQ_Be^Ke^K(e^\mathrm{\Psi })e^K(e^\mathrm{\Psi })\eta _0(e^K(e^\mathrm{\Psi }))}=`$
$`={\displaystyle e^\mathrm{\Psi }e^K\left[e^KQ_B(e^\mathrm{\Psi })e^K(e^\mathrm{\Psi })\eta _0(e^K(e^\mathrm{\Psi }))\right]}=`$
$`={\displaystyle e^\mathrm{\Psi }e^K\left[e^K(Q_B(e^\mathrm{\Psi }))e^K(e^\mathrm{\Psi }\eta _0(e^\mathrm{\Psi }))\right]}=`$
$`={\displaystyle (e^\mathrm{\Psi }Q_B(e^\mathrm{\Psi }))(e^\mathrm{\Psi }\eta _0(e^\mathrm{\Psi }))}.`$
We can also show that

$`e^{t\varphi }={\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n!}}t^n(e^K(\mathrm{\Psi }))^n=e^K\left({\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n!}}(t\mathrm{\Psi })^n\right)=e^K(e^{t\mathrm{\Psi }}),`$
$`e^{t\varphi }_te^{t\varphi }=e^Ke^{t\mathrm{\Psi }}e^K_t(e^{t\mathrm{\Psi }})=e^K(e^{t\mathrm{\Psi }}_te^{t\mathrm{\Psi }}),`$
$`e^{t\varphi }\stackrel{~}{Q}e^{t\varphi }=e^K(e^{t\mathrm{\Psi }})e^KQ_Be^Ke^K(e^{t\mathrm{\Psi }})=e^K\left(e^{t\mathrm{\Psi }}Q_B(e^{t\mathrm{\Psi }})\right),`$
$`e^{t\varphi }\eta _0(e^{t\varphi })=e^K\left(e^{t\mathrm{\Psi }}\eta _0(e^{t\mathrm{\Psi }})\right)`$
so that we have

$`{\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑t(e^{t\varphi }_te^{t\varphi })\{(e^{t\varphi }\stackrel{~}{Q}(e^{t\varphi })),(e^{t\varphi }\eta _0(e^{t\varphi }))\}=`$
$`={\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑te^K(e^{t\mathrm{\Psi }}_te^{t\mathrm{\Psi }})e^K\{(e^{t\mathrm{\Psi }}Q_B(e^{t\mathrm{\Psi }})),(e^{t\mathrm{\Psi }}\eta _0(e^{t\mathrm{\Psi }}))\}=`$
$`={\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑t(e^{t\mathrm{\Psi }}_te^{t\mathrm{\Psi }})e^Ke^K\{(e^{t\mathrm{\Psi }}Q_B(e^{t\mathrm{\Psi }})),(e^{t\mathrm{\Psi }}\eta _0(e^{t\mathrm{\Psi }}))\}=`$
$`={\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑te^{t\mathrm{\Psi }}_te^{t\mathrm{\Psi }}\{(e^{t\mathrm{\Psi }}Q_B(e^{t\mathrm{\Psi }})),(e^{t\mathrm{\Psi }}\eta _0(e^{t\mathrm{\Psi }}))\}.`$
From (3), (3) we obtain correct form of the action for fluctuation fields around new background configuration, however with the BRST operator having the same form as the original one. Now the modification of the background is reflected in the change of the string fields that now belong to the Hilbert space of the BCFT’ theory.

We can easily previous result to the case of Witten’s open bosonic string theory with the action

$$S=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Phi }Q_B(\mathrm{\Phi })+\frac{1}{3}\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{\Phi },$$
(29)
where now $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is ghost number one string field. From (29) we obtain the equation of motion

$$Q_B\mathrm{\Phi }+\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{\Phi }=0.$$
(30)
It is easy to see that the field

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_0=e^{\mathrm{\Psi }_0}Q_B(e^{\mathrm{\Psi }_0})$$
(31)
with any ghost number zero field $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0`$ is a solution of the equation of motion. As in previous case we presume that $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0`$ can be written as follows

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_0=K_L(),$$
(32)
where $`K`$ is operator obeying (3). Now the new BRST operator has the same form as before

$$e^KQ_B(e^K).$$
(33)
Then we can perform the same field transformation as in supersymmetric case and we end up with the action, where the BRST operator has the same form as the original one and the fluctuating field belongs to the Hilbert space of the new BCFT’ theory. So that whenever we will find such two BCFT theories that are related field redefinition given above, we can claim that one string field theory action arises from the expansion around the background configuration that is solution of the equation of motion of the original string field theory where the solution can be written as $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0=K^L()`$.

## 4 Conclusion

In this short note we gave a simple solution of the equation of motion of the Berkovits string field theory. We have shown that whenever we can express shifted BRST operator in the form similar to the form suggested in  we can easily obtain the solution of the equation of motion. On the other hand, knowledge of the operator $`K`$ allows us to find such a solution as well. In particular, operator $`K`$ can correspond to the generator of broken symmetry by D-brane background as for example, generator of translation in direction transverse to D-brane. Then solution given above corresponds to translation of D-brane in transverse direction. It is clear that these two configurations should be equivalent so that the original and final BCFT should be the same. We will show in forthcoming publication that this is really true.

We have also shown that similar method can be used in case of Witten’s bosonic string field theory. However, in this case the appropriate solution corresponds to the pure gauge. The similar result has been discussed recently in .

Finally we must stress that our method cannot generate all solutions of equation of motion of string field theory. From discussion given above it is clear that this method is not applicable when we cannot find operator $`K`$ relating original and final configuration. In particular, this method cannot be used for the case of tachyon condensation.

There are many problems that worth to be studied. Firstly, we will present particular examples, corresponding to the marginal deformation of the original string field theory. Then we will try to formulate our result in the CFT language, using very elegant formalism reviewed recently in . We will return to these problems in future. And finally, we hope to extend our result to the case of NSFT theory including Ramond sector, following recent papers .
Acknowledgement

This work is partly supported by EU contract HPRN-CT-2000-00122.