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# Exact ground state of the generalized three-dimensional Shastry-Sutherland model

## Abstract

We generalize the Shastry-Sutherland model to three dimensions. By representing the model as a sum of the semidefinite positive projection operators, we exactly prove that the model has exact dimer ground state. Several schemes for constructing the three-dimensional Shastry-Sutherland model are proposed.

PACS numbers: 75.10.Jm

There has been an increasing interest in the Shastry-Sutherland (S-S) model since it can describe many aspects of the two-dimensional spin gap system $`SrCu_2(BO_3)_2`$. In a series of theoretical investigations, various aspects of the S-S model have been described.

The S-S model is a two dimensional square lattice antiferromagnet with additional diagonal interactions in every second square with alternating directions, see Fig. 1. For the square lattice interaction $`J`$ and the diagonal interaction $`J_d`$, the Hamiltonian can be written as

$$H=J\underset{i,j}{}𝐒_i𝐒_j+J_d\underset{i,j_d}{}𝐒_i𝐒_j$$
(1)
Shastry and Sutherland have shown that the product of singlet pairs (dimers) along the diagonal bonds is the ground state of the system for $`J_d2J`$.

In this paper we generalize the S-S model to three dimensions with various types of interactions. Between the different planes we can construct the exact ground states of three-dimensional models and by this increase the number of three-dimensional models with the exactly known ground states. We consider a three-dimensional cubic lattice (Fig.2) constructed from basic cubic units shown in Fig.3. Each layer in this cubic system is a S-S lattice which is coupled to the next layer by the perpendicular interlayer interaction $`J_{}`$ and the diagonal interaction $`J_\times `$ connected the diagonal end points to those in the next layer. That means that the Sharstry-Sutherland diagonals are on top of each other. If we label the different layers by $`\alpha =1,\mathrm{},L`$ and have $`N\times M`$ sites per layer, the Hamiltonian can be written as

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`J{\displaystyle \underset{i,j,\alpha }{}}𝐒_i^\alpha 𝐒_j^\alpha +J_d{\displaystyle \underset{i,j_d,\alpha }{}}𝐒_i^\alpha 𝐒_j^\alpha `$ (2)
$`+`$ $`J_\times {\displaystyle \underset{i,j_d^{},\alpha }{}}\left(𝐒_i^\alpha 𝐒_j^{\alpha +1}+𝐒_j^\alpha 𝐒_i^{\alpha +1}\right)`$ (3)
$`+`$ $`J_{}{\displaystyle \underset{i,\alpha }{}}𝐒_i^\alpha 𝐒_i^{\alpha +1},`$ (4)
Periodic boundaries in each layer are assumed and $`M`$ and $`N`$ have to be even, while $`L`$ can be even or odd.

It is instructive to consider two different parameter limits of our model (4): (i) For $`J_{}=J_\times =0`$, the 3D model reduces to $`L`$ independent S-S layers. (ii) For $`J=0`$ within each layer, the three-dimensional system decouples to independent $`\frac{1}{2}N\times M`$ two-leg spin ladders of length $`L`$. The structure of this ladder is shown in Fig.4 (a). It is known that such a spin ladder with $`J_{}=J_\times `$ has exact ground state composed of a product of dimers along the rungs of ladder  as long as the exchange interaction along the rung satisfies the condition $`J_d2J_{}`$. This means that in both of the special cases, the product of singlet pairs along the inlayer diagonal bonds is the exact ground state of the model (4). In the following, we will prove that for the general case (but $`J_{}=J_\times `$) the ground state of the three-dimensional model is given by the product of all diagonal singlet pairs

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_D=\underset{\alpha =1}{\overset{L}{}}\underset{i,j_d}{}\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left([]_i^\alpha []_j^\alpha []_i^\alpha []_j^\alpha \right)$$
(5)
for special condition

$$J_d2(J+J_{})$$
(6)
The rigorous proof is made by representing the above model as a sum of the positive semidefinite projection operators and the above condition (6) guarantees that $`\mathrm{\Phi }_D`$ is the ground state of the system. The proof furthermore employs the fact that the global Hamiltonian (4) can be written as a sum of many local sub-Hamiltonians defined on the basic cubic unit (see Fig.3). There are altogether $`Q=\frac{1}{2}N\times M\times L`$ units as local sub-Hamiltonians $`h`$. This part of the Hamiltonian can be written as

$`h`$ $`=`$ $`J_d𝐒_1^1𝐒_3^1+J(𝐒_1^1+𝐒_3^1)(𝐒_2^1+𝐒_4^1)`$ (7)
$`+`$ $`J_{}(𝐒_1^1+𝐒_3^1)(𝐒_1^2+𝐒_3^2),`$ (8)
which is just the sum of spin exchange interactions along the bonds represented by bold lines in Fig. 3. Those spin interactions represented by thin lines belong to the neighboring cubes.

We now define a projection operator $`𝐏`$ composed of three one half spins as

$$𝐏[𝐒_1,𝐒_2,𝐒_3]=\frac{1}{3}\left[\left(𝐒_1+𝐒_2+𝐒_3\right)^2\frac{3}{4}\right],$$
(9)
which projects a state into the subspace with total spin $`3/2`$. Using the projection operators, we can transform our Hamiltonian part $`h`$ which is represented as

$`h`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}(2J+2J_{})+(J_d2J2J_{})𝐒_1^1𝐒_3^1`$ (12)
$`+J\left[𝐏(𝐒_1^1,𝐒_2^1,𝐒_3^1)+𝐏(𝐒_1^1,𝐒_4^1,𝐒_3^1)\right]`$
$`+J_{}\left[𝐏(𝐒_3^1,𝐒_1^1,𝐒_1^2)+𝐏(𝐒_1^1,𝐒_3^1,𝐒_3^2)\right].`$
It is obvious that, for $`J_d=2(J+J_{})`$, certain terms in Eq. (12) vanish and thereby the Hamiltonian is a sum of four positive semidefinite projection operators. The singlet state

$$[𝐒_1^1,𝐒_3^1]=\left([]_1^1[]_3^1[]_1^1[]_3^1\right)/\sqrt{2}$$
(13)
has the lowest eigenvalue $`0`$ for each of the four projection operators and thus is the ground state of this sub-Hamiltonian. For larger $`J_d`$ this singlet is also the lowest energy eigenstate of the term $`𝐒_1^1𝐒_3^1`$, and hence it is the ground state of the total sub-Hamiltonian $`h`$ with the ground state energy $`E_h=\frac{3}{4}J_d`$. All the other sub-Hamiltonians defined on other basic units of cube have the same properties as the one explicitly shown in Fig. 3. Therefore, the global ground state of this three-dimensional model is just a product of dimers for each layer. Such a ground state is essentially an optimum ground state of the global Hamiltonian, since it is simultaneously ground state of every local sub-Hamiltonian. The corresponding ground state energy is then given by

$$E=\frac{3}{4}QJ_d.$$
(14)
This general proof actually does not depend on the special coupling parameters between the layers we discussed so far. We see that the main condition is that the dimer along the diagonals in the layer should be also the dimers along the rungs of the corresponding ladders. And as long as the vertical spin ladders have dimers along the rungs as ground states, we can put them together in three dimensions. Therefore, generalization of the model (4) is straightforward by changing the inter-layer coupling way. The first example is that we couple the different layers only along one interlayer diagonal (Fig.4. (b)). In this case we require $`J_\times =2J_{}`$ which means that the individual ladders are Majumdar-Gosh chains. The second example is given when the two legs of ladder have different interactions (Fig. 4. (c)). If we call them $`J_{}`$ and $`J_{}^{}`$, we should have the conditions

$$J_\times =J_{}+J_{}^{}$$
(15)
and

$$J_d2J+J_{}+J_{}^{}.$$
(16)
Even the limit $`J_{}^{}=0`$ is allowed and we have vertical sawtooth chains coupled together.  In the third example, we may couple the different layers by some intermediate spins shown in Fig.5. If this coupling has a strength $`J^{}`$, we should have the condition

$$J_d2J+J^{}$$
(17)
and the ground state is still a product of dimers each layer. There could be of course other constructions. The main point is that we have shown that the Shastry-Sutherland layer could be coupled to other layers by different mechanisms which only have to make sure that these ladders have dimers on the rungs as ground state.

We have limited our discussion to homogeneous models in which every basic unit has the same structure and exchange strength. We can also generalize our discussion to inhomogeneous cases, e.g. to a model where the inlayer coupling strengths, $`J^\alpha `$ and $`J_d^\alpha `$, are different in each layer. In this case we only have to make sure that the constraint

$$J_d^\alpha 2(J^\alpha +J_{})$$
(18)
is still fulfilled.

To conclude, we extend the two dimensional S-S model to three dimension and find the exact ground state of the generalized three-dimensional S-S model. An exact proof based upon the representation of projection operators is given. We also discuss several ways of extending the 3D S-S model.

S. Chen would like to specially thank J. Voit for his critical reading of the manuscript and encouragement. This research was supported by DFG through Grants No. VO436/7-2.


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# 1 Center-of-mass energies and corresponding approximate integrated luminosities recorded per experiment during the second phase of LEP running.

## 1 Four-Fermion Contact Interactions

The mathematical formulation of four-fermion contact interactions is a general framework for describing possible deviations from the Standard Model interactions. At LEP, the experiments search for contact interactions of the form $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\mathrm{f}\overline{\mathrm{f}}`$. The general gauge invariant and chiral/flavour conserving Lagrangian used to describe possible contact interactions is given by

$$_{\mathrm{contact}}=\frac{g^2}{(1+\delta )\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}\underset{ij=\mathrm{L},\mathrm{R}}{}\eta _{ij}(\overline{e}_i\gamma ^\mu e_i)(\overline{f}_j\gamma _\mu f_j)$$

where $`g^2`$ is usually set arbitrarily to $`4\pi `$ by convention, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is the energy scale of these new interactions, $`\delta =1`$ only for eeee interactions and is zero otherwise, and $`e_i,f_i`$ are left or right-handed spinors. The parameters $`\eta _{ij}`$, which have values generally between -1 and 1, describe the chiral structure of the interactions . The different models  considered and their corresponding values of $`\eta _{ij}`$ are presented in table 2.

The existence of four-fermion contact interactions would result in deviations in the di-fermion cross-section and asymmetry measurements from the Standard Model predictions. No deviations are observed. Limits on the energy scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ are calculated for different models by fitting the measured di-fermion cross-sections, leptonic forward-backward asymmetries, $`\mathrm{R}_\mathrm{b}`$ and $`\mathrm{R}_\mathrm{c}`$ at all the center-of-mass energies achieved at LEP. Figure 1 presents graphically the combined LEP results of the fit to different models for the contact interactions $`\mathrm{ee}\mathrm{}\overline{\mathrm{}}`$, $`\mathrm{eeb}\overline{\mathrm{b}}`$ and $`\mathrm{eec}\overline{\mathrm{c}}`$ . These particular interactions are only accessible at LEP. The limits $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^{},\mathrm{\Lambda }^+`$ correspond to destructive and constructive interference between the Standard Model and contact interactions contributions. Limits for $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$ interactions are obtained, assuming lepton universality, by combining results from $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\tau ^+\tau ^{}`$.

## 2 $`𝐙^{\mathbf{}}`$ Boson

Many different models predict the existence of additional gauge bosons. Precision measurements of LEP data are used to constrain the parameters associated with an extra neutral gauge boson ($`\mathrm{Z}^{}`$). In general, an additional neutral boson could mix with the Standard Model $`\mathrm{Z}^0`$ boson. This mixing can be parameterised by the angle $`\theta _{\mathrm{ZZ}^{}}`$.

Limits on the mass ($`\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{Z}^{}`$) and mixing angle ($`\theta _{\mathrm{ZZ}^{}}`$) are obtained from measurements, both at the $`\mathrm{Z}^0`$ pole and at higher energy, of the di-fermion cross-sections and leptonic forward-backward asymmetries. At the $`\mathrm{Z}^0`$ pole, measured cross-sections and asymmetries are particularly sensitive to the coupling of a possible $`\mathrm{Z}^{}`$ to fermions and are therefore most sensitive to the mixing angle $`\theta _{\mathrm{ZZ}^{}}`$. At high energy, the interference between $`\mathrm{Z}^0`$ and $`\mathrm{Z}^{}`$ is important and the data are consequently particularly sensitive to the mass $`\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{Z}^{}`$.

Figure 2 shows examples of two-dimensional limits obtained for four different models: Left-Right Symmetric , Sequential Standard Model  and $`\mathrm{E}_6`$ GUT models ($`\chi ,\psi ,\eta `$. Regions outside the curves are excluded at the 95% confidence level. Table 3 shows the 95% confidence level lower mass limits obtained assuming the $`\mathrm{Z}^{}`$ is decoupled from the Standard Model $`\mathrm{Z}^0`$ ($`\theta _{\mathrm{ZZ}^{}}=0`$).

## 3 Leptoquarks

Leptoquarks are spin 0 or spin 1 particles carrying both lepton and baryon numbers and mediating interactions between quarks and leptons. In general, the total number of possible leptoquark states is reduced to 9 scalar and 9 vector states by assuming that the interaction between a leptoquark, a quark and a lepton be dimensionless, $`\mathrm{SU}(2)\times \mathrm{U}(1)`$ invariant and conserves baryon/lepton numbers. Under these assumptions, the list of possible leptoquark states can be found in . Leptoquarks are said to be first generation leptoquarks if they only couple to first generation leptons and quarks.

First generation leptoquarks could be singly produced at LEP in association with an electron and a quark which often travel in the forward direction outside the detector acceptance. The dominant diagrams for single production of leptoquarks at LEP are shown in figure 3. The leptoquarks produced then decay to a lepton and a quark resulting in event final states containing a monojet, or one jet and one isolated electron. The production cross-section depends on the mass of the leptoquark $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{LQ}}`$, and on the coupling parameters $`\mathrm{g}_{\mathrm{L},\mathrm{R}}`$, where L,R denote the chirality of the lepton it is coupling to. Data analysed are compatible with expectations from the Standard Model. Figure 4 shows an example of limits on the coupling as a function of leptoquark mass obtained for different scalar and vector leptoquark states.

The pair production of leptoquarks at LEP would mainly proceed through an s-channel $`\gamma /\mathrm{Z}^0`$ exchange diagram. Given the existing limits on the couplings $`\mathrm{g}_{\mathrm{L},\mathrm{R}}`$, the t-channel contribution to the production of first generation leptoquarks is negligible. Thus, the pair production of leptoquarks is independent of the couplings $`\mathrm{g}_{\mathrm{L},\mathrm{R}}`$ and only depends on the leptoquark masses. All three generations of leptoquarks could be pair produced. The decay of both leptoquarks results in event final states containing two hadronic jets and two leptons, two jets and one lepton, or two jets and missing energy. Limits on leptoquark masses obtained from pair production searches are shown in table 4.

Leptoquarks could also contribute to the production of two-jet events via a t-channel leptoquark exchange. Limits on leptoquark masses in this case are obtained by fitting the measured $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\mathrm{q}\overline{\mathrm{q}}`$ cross-section at different centre-of-mass energies. The predicted deviations in the cross-section are calculated assuming one coupling ($`\mathrm{g}_\mathrm{L}`$ or $`\mathrm{g}_\mathrm{R}`$) to be equal to $`\sqrt{4\pi \alpha _{\mathrm{em}}}`$ and setting the other to zero. Furthermore, the couplings are assumed to be flavour diagonal. Table 5 presents preliminary mass limits for different leptoquark states obtained from indirect searches.

## 4 Excited Leptons

Excited states of the known leptons naturally arise in compositeness models which assume fermions have substructure. At LEP, excited leptons ($`\mathrm{}^{}`$) could be both pair or singly produced. Limits on the mass and coupling of excited leptons are calculated in the framework of the model described in . The gauge invariant Lagrangian describing the coupling between an excited lepton, a lepton and a gauge boson is given by

$$=\frac{1}{2\mathrm{\Lambda }}\overline{\mathrm{}}^{}\sigma ^{\mu \nu }\left[gf\frac{𝝉}{2}𝑾_{\mu \nu }+g^{}f^{}\frac{Y}{2}B_{\mu \nu }\right]\mathrm{}_\mathrm{L}$$

where $`\sigma ^{\mu \nu }`$ is the covariant bilinear tensor, $`𝝉`$ denotes the Pauli matrices, $`Y`$ is the weak hypercharge, $`𝐖_{\mu \nu }`$ and $`B_{\mu \nu }`$ represent the Standard Model gauge field tensors and the couplings $`g,g^{}`$ are the SU(2) and U(1) coupling constants of the Standard Model. The compositeness scale is set by the parameter $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ which has units of energy. Finally, the strength of the $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{}^{}\mathrm{V}`$ couplings is governed by the constants $`f`$ and $`f^{}`$. These constants can be interpreted as weight factors associated to the different gauge groups. The values of $`f`$ and $`f^{}`$ dictate the relative branching fractions of excited leptons to each gauge boson. In order to reduce the number of free parameters, limits are usually calculated for the specific cases $`f=f^{}`$ and $`f=f^{}`$.

Excited leptons could be pair produced via an s-channel $`\gamma /\mathrm{Z}^0`$ diagram. Since excited leptons would promptly decay to any of the gauge bosons, a large number of final states are possible. Table 6 summarizes the lower mass limits obtained from the search of pair produced excited leptons by all four LEP experiments and for different $`f,f^{}`$ assignments. In general, mass limits from pair production searches are set close to the kinematic limit. Limits presented in table 6 sometimes differ between experiments since different data sets were used to calculate the limits, see references  for further details.

Excited leptons could also be singly produced in association with a Standard Model lepton. Possible event final states may contain isolated leptons and one photon, pairs of hadronic jets and in some cases missing energy from neutrinos. No excesses of events are observed in the data. Limits on the ratio of the coupling to the compositeness scale ($`f/\mathrm{\Lambda }`$) as a function of excited lepton mass are calculated. Figure 5 shows typical limits obtained from the single production searches for different $`f`$ and $`f^{}`$ assignments. The predicted single production cross-section of excited electrons is enhanced by the contribution of a t-channel exchange diagram resulting in more stringent limits than for excited muons and taus.

## 5 Technicolour

Technicolour is a new strong QCD-like interaction that could naturally induce electroweak symmetry breaking. In this framework, the $`W^\pm `$ and $`\mathrm{Z}^0`$ bosons are condensates of a new family of fermions called technifermions. The phenomenology associated to the existence of technicolour is inferred using the framework of the technicolour “straw-man” model , a low energy approximation of technicolour containing a minimum number of free parameters.

Searches for the production of technirho ($`\rho _\mathrm{T}`$) and technipions ($`\pi _\mathrm{T}`$) are performed. The dominant processes searched for include

$$\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\rho _\mathrm{T}^{()}\hfill & \pi _\mathrm{T}^+\pi _\mathrm{T}^{}\hfill \\ & \pi _\mathrm{T}^\pm W_\mathrm{L}^{}\hfill \\ & W_\mathrm{L}^\pm W_\mathrm{L}^{}\hfill \\ & \pi _\mathrm{T}^0\gamma \hfill \\ & \mathrm{f}\overline{\mathrm{f}}\hfill \end{array}$$

where $`W_\mathrm{L}`$ indicates the longitudinal component of the $`W`$ boson. The cross-section of the three first final states shown above only depend on $`\mathrm{M}_{\rho _\mathrm{T}}`$, $`\mathrm{M}_{\pi _\mathrm{T}}`$ and $`\mathrm{N}_\mathrm{D}`$, the number of technicolour doublets. For $`\mathrm{M}_{\rho _\mathrm{T}}>2\mathrm{M}_{\pi _\mathrm{T}}`$, the $`\pi _\mathrm{T}^+\pi _\mathrm{T}^{}`$ final state dominates. In addition to the technirho exchange diagram, the reaction $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\pi _\mathrm{T}^0\gamma `$ can also proceed via the exchange of a techniomega ($`\omega _\mathrm{T}`$) and is therefore model dependent. The cross-section $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\pi _\mathrm{T}^0\gamma `$ depends, in addition to $`\mathrm{M}_{\rho _\mathrm{T}}`$, $`\mathrm{M}_{\pi _\mathrm{T}}`$ and $`\mathrm{N}_\mathrm{D}`$, on the mass scale $`\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{V}`$, the technicolour coupling constant $`\alpha _{\rho _\mathrm{T}}`$ and the sum of the charges of the U and D techniquarks ($`\mathrm{Q}_\mathrm{U}+\mathrm{Q}_\mathrm{D}`$). Finally, the $`\mathrm{f}\overline{\mathrm{f}}`$ final state is in general suppressed. Many of the decay final states considered lead to topologies similar to the Standard Model production of $`W`$ pairs. Also, since approximately 90% of technipions decay to b quarks, b-tagging is an important part of the search for technicolour.

In the final states considered, no hint of the existence of technicolour is found. Examples of exclusion regions in the ($`\mathrm{M}_{\pi _\mathrm{T}}`$, $`\mathrm{M}_{\rho _\mathrm{T}}`$) plane obtained at LEP are shown in figure 6. The grey regions are excluded at the 95% confidence level. Limits presented from DELPHI  (top left) were calculated for the maximal $`W_\mathrm{L}\pi _\mathrm{T}`$ mixing case, $`\mathrm{N}_\mathrm{D}=2`$. Figure 6 (top right) shows the exclusion regions obtained by OPAL  for the theoretically preferred value $`\mathrm{N}_\mathrm{D}=9`$, and assuming $`(\mathrm{Q}_\mathrm{U}+\mathrm{Q}_\mathrm{D})=5/3`$. Finally, bounds presented from L3  (bottom) are valid for any value of $`\mathrm{N}_\mathrm{D}`$ and for $`(\mathrm{Q}_\mathrm{U}+\mathrm{Q}_\mathrm{D})=0,1,5/3`$. Limits on the technipion mass can be extracted from these exclusion plots and are summarised in table 7.

## 6 Gravity in Extra Dimensions

Recently, a new scenario has been proposed which tries to explain the large difference between the energy scale of gravity and the other forces. The framework developped by Arkani-Hamed, Dimopoulos and Dvali  assumes that the universe is made of extra dimensions in which Standard Model particles are confined to a 4-dimensional “wall”. In this scenario, only gravitons can propagate in the extra dimensions. Furthermore, the Planck mass in 4 dimensions ($`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{Pl}}`$) can be related to the Planck mass in 4+n dimensions ($`\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{D}`$) by the relation $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{Pl}}^2=\mathrm{R}^\mathrm{n}\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{D}^{\mathrm{n}+2}`$, where n is the number of extra dimensions and R is the size of these extra dimensions. The hierarchy between the scale of gravity and the other forces is removed under the assumption that $`\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{D}`$ is similar to the electroweak scale. Under these circumstances, extra dimensions could be “large” enough to be probed in collider experiments. The existence of low scale gravity in extra dimensions would manifest itself by the direct and indirect production of gravitons. In 4-dimensions, gravitons would appear as massive, non-interacting stable particles with a wide range of possible masses.

Gravitons could be produced in the reaction $`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\mathrm{G}\gamma `$ which would result in single photon final states with missing energy. The cross-section for such process is proportional to $`(\sqrt{s}/\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{D}^2)^\mathrm{n}`$. Data are in good agreement with the Standard Model predictions and thus limits on the value of the Planck mass in 4+n dimensions, $`\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{D}`$, are calculated. Table 8 shows the lower limits on $`\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{D}`$ obtained by each LEP experiment as a function of the number of extra dimensions.

Deviations due to the existence of low scale gravity could also be observed in the di-fermion and di-boson production cross-sections. The graviton contribution ($`\mathrm{e}^+\mathrm{e}^{}\mathrm{G}^{}\mathrm{f}\overline{\mathrm{f}},\mathrm{VV}`$) can be parameterised as a function of $`\lambda /\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{s}^4`$ where $`\lambda `$ depends on the details of the theory of quantum gravity (number of extra dimensions, compactification, etc.) and $`\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{s}`$ is a UV cut-off set to the string scale, presumed to be $`𝒪`$(TeV) in these models . The di-electron final state is the most sensitive channel to possible contributions from graviton exchange. Figure 7 shows an example of likelihood curves for different final states studied, obtained from a fit to data recorded at $`\sqrt{s}=183209`$ GeV by OPAL . Resulting limits on $`\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{s}`$ obtained by some of the LEP experiments can be found in table 9 for $`\lambda /\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{s}=\pm 1`$.

## 7 Summary

Recent preliminary results on various searches performed at LEP have been summarised. These represent only a subset of the work involved in the pursuit of physics beyond the Standard Model. Much work remains to finalise preliminary results from individual experiments and publish the final LEP combined limits of many searches. Data analysed by the four LEP experiments are in agreement with the Standard Model predictions.