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# On the hard X-ray spectra of radio-loud active galaxies

## 1 Introduction

In the standard disc-corona paradigm for the X-ray emission from active galactic nuclei (AGN), the hard X-ray source is energized within a magnetically dominated corona and illuminates the optically-thick accretion disc below it (see Beloborodov 1999 for a recent review). The reprocessed emission from the disc imprints spectral features on the observed spectrum, most notably the Fe K$`\alpha `$ line (which may be broadened due to relativistic effects; Fabian et al. 1989; Tanaka et al. 1995; Fabian et al. 2000) and a Compton reflection hump at about 20–30 keV due to the down scattering of higher energy photons (e.g., Pounds et al., 1990). By measuring the strength of these reflection features and comparing to models of X-ray reflection, it is possible, in principle, to constrain the solid-angle subtended by the reflector (as seen from the hard X-ray source), and hence the geometry of the accretion flow a few Schwarzschild radii away from the black hole. Thus, measurement of the X-ray reflection signatures is not only a valuable test for the disc-corona model, but also an important method to probe the central engines of AGN.

Over the last few years observations of radio-loud AGN, particularly broad-line radio galaxies (BLRGs), by ASCA and BeppoSAX have indicated that these sources may have weaker hard X-ray reprocessing features than radio-quiet AGN at similar luminosities (e.g., Eracleous & Halpern, 1998; Grandi et al., 1999; Eracleous, Sambruna & Mushotzky, 2000; Grandi et al., 2001). This has lead some authors to speculate that the thin, optically-thick accretion disc in radio-loud AGN changes to a hot, optically-thin flow before reaching the black hole. Similar conclusions have also been made about Galactic black hole candidates in their low/hard state: they also appear to exhibit weaker reflection features than expected if the standard accretion disc extends down to the last stable orbit (e.g., Życki, Done & Smith, 1997, 1998, 1999; Done & Życki, 1999). Moreover, strong radio emission from black hole candidates tends to be seen only when they are in their low/hard state (Fender, 2001). A truncated disc in radio-loud objects has also been supported by the recent theoretical work of Meier (2001) who considered the strength of the poloidal magnetic field component expected in a standard Shakura & Sunyaev (1973) disc as compared to one in a ADAF-like flow (e.g., Narayan & Yi, 1995). He concluded that only the combination of a rapidly spinning black hole and a geometrically thick accretion flow (i.e., an ADAF) could produce the required jet power for a radio-loud AGN.

However, the problem of accurately determining the amount of reflection in an X-ray spectrum depends on the sophistication of the reflection models available to fit the data. Over the past 10 years numerous calculations of X-ray reflection from Compton thick matter have been performed to compare against the data (e.g., Ross & Fabian, 1993; Życki et al., 1994; Magdziarz & Zdziarski, 1995; Ross, Fabian & Young, 1999; Nayakshin, Kazanas & Kallman, 2000; Ballantyne, Ross & Fabian, 2001). These computations have increased in sophistication over the years: first relaxing the assumption of neutral material and then enforcing the condition of hydrostatic balance on the illuminated material.

Ionization effects can have an important impact on the shape of the reflection spectrum and on the features imprinted on it (Ross et al., 1999). In fact, if the disc surface is highly ionized the reflection features become very weak, and if not taken into account, *a low reflection fraction can be measured*. Such ionized disc models have been shown to account for the measured low reflection fractions in Cyg X-1 (Young et al., 2001) and the black-hole transient Nova Muscae (Done & Nayakshin, 2001b). If this is the case, there is no need for a truncated optically-thick accretion disc in these sources and any jet emission would then arise from a standard disc that extends down to the last stable orbit. However, the inner parts of the disc would be highly ionized, likely due to extreme irradiation from the corona, and possibly radiation-pressure dominated.

In this Letter, we investigate the idea that the low reflection fractions measured in the hard X-ray spectra of radio-loud AGN are simply the result of reprocessing from an ionized accretion disc. In the next Section we calculate the reflection spectra from ionized discs which may be appropriate for radio-loud AGN, and show that they will exhibit weak reflection features. In Section 3 we apply ionized disc models to the ASCA spectrum of the BLRG 3C 120. Finally, we conclude by arguing that, in light of recent results on the radio power of active galaxies, ionized accretion discs should exist in most broad-line radio galaxies.

## 2 Models of ionized reflection

In this section we use the code presented by Ballantyne et al. (2001) to compute examples of reflection spectra from an irradiated disc within a typical radio-loud AGN. Details of the numerical procedures may be found in Ballantyne et al. (2001) and references therein. The simulations model the outer layers of an accretion disc which is illuminated by a power-law continuum of X-rays. This external radiation extends from 1 eV to a sharp cutoff at 100 keV and is parameterized by a photon-index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ (so that photon flux$`E^\mathrm{\Gamma }`$). The gas structure is computed as a function of depth at a single point on the disc. Once the irradiated material has relaxed into thermal, ionization and hydrostatic balance, the reprocessed spectrum is computed.

As discussed in Sect. 4, recent observational evidence suggests that radio-loud AGN are likely accreting at a significant fraction of their Eddington rate. Therefore, we have modelled a radiation-pressure dominated disc accreting at 0.25 of its Eddington rate. At these high rates, standard theory (Shakura & Sunyaev, 1973) predicts that the disc is puffed-up and the surface layers quite tenuous, so the calculations covered the outer 15 Thomson depths of the atmosphere in order to fully resolve the effects of the illumination. The irradiating flux was chosen to be 10 times that of the soft flux emitted by the disc (as might be expected from a magnetic flare event; Nayakshin & Kallman 2001), and strikes the surface of the atmosphere 4 Scharzschild radii from the black hole and at an angle of $`i=54.7`$ degrees to the normal (so that $`\mathrm{cos}i=1/\sqrt{3}`$, a crude approximation to isotropic radiation). To simulate situations appropriate for both the lower-luminosity broad-line radio galaxies and radio-loud quasars, models were run with black hole masses of 5$`\times `$107 M and 109 M.

Reflection spectra were calculated for illuminating power-laws with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.7`$, 1.8, 1.9 and 2.0, and they are shown in Figure 1.

The plots show that the reflection spectra exhibit very weak reflection features as a result of the atmosphere being highly ionized by the incident radiation. In fact, in all the calculations Fe is fully stripped to at least 5 Thomson depths into the atmosphere. Therefore, Fe K$`\alpha `$ photons have to traverse a significant scattering layer before escaping. The Fe K edge feature also suffers from Compton scattering and so the Compton reflection hump at 20–30 keV becomes much less prominent. As was shown by Done & Nayakshin (2001a) and Ballantyne et al. (2001), when such highly ionized spectra are modelled by neutral reflection models then low reflection fractions are easily obtained.

Although the X-ray data collected so far on broad-line radio galaxies indicates that such extreme ionization is not needed (see Sect. 3), it seems likely that weak reflection features are to be naturally expected from a highly-accreting object111Results for a wider range of accretion rates are shown by Ballantyne et al. (2001), and are consistent with the ones presented here.. It should be pointed out, however, that this conclusion will depend on the strength of the illuminating radiation and on the disc structure. If the disc is weakly irradiated (i.e., the ratio of incident flux to disc flux $``$ 1) then there will likely be strong ionized or neutral features in the reflection spectrum (Ballantyne & Ross, 2002). Also, at high accretion rates the surface of the disc may become clumpy and inhomogeneous which may enhance the strength of the reflection features (Fabian et al., 2002).

## 3 Application of ionized disc models to 3C 120

To test whether ionized reflection models actually do fit the data of a radio-loud AGN, we downloaded the ASCA data of the BLRG 3C 120 from the tartarus database. 3C 120 ($`z=0.033`$) is the brightest BLRG in the X-ray sky ($`F_{210\mathrm{keV}}4.5\times 10^{11}`$ erg cm-2 s-1; Sambruna, Eracleous & Mushotzky 1999), and its X-ray properties are typical for its class, i.e., controversial. The 1994 50 ks observation of 3C 120 by ASCA clearly showed an Fe K$`\alpha `$ line (see Fig. 2), but despite five different analyses of this dataset there has been no consensus on the strength of the line. Workers who modelled the continuum as an absorbed power-law (Reynolds, 1997; Sambruna et al., 1999) consistently found the line to be very broad ($`\sigma >1.5`$ keV) and very strong (equivalent width \[EW\] $`1000`$ eV). If, however, the continuum was modelled with reflection (Grandi et al., 1997) or with a broken power-law (Woźniak et al., 1998), the line width and EW dropped by over a factor of two. Recent observations of 3C 120 by RXTE (Eracleous et al., 2000) and BeppoSAX (Zdziarski & Grandi, 2001) have provided some consistency by requiring reflection to fit the continuum and obtaining an Fe K$`\alpha `$ EW $`100`$ eV. Thus, previous work has shown that 3C 120 has a curved X-ray continuum with spectral hardening at high energies and an Fe K$`\alpha `$ line which may be broad.

The reflection models that have been previously fit to 3C 120 have assumed that the reprocessor is neutral and have all yielded reflection fractions smaller than unity. This result, combined with the weak Fe K$`\alpha `$ line, has been used as evidence for the claim that the accretion disc is disrupted in radio-loud AGN (Eracleous et al., 2000). However, as mentioned above, if the reprocessor is ionized then the reflection features are naturally weak, and there is no need for a change in accretion geometry. To test this hypothesis we fit the ASCA data of 3C 120 with the constant density ionized disc models of Ross & Fabian (1993) (see also Ross et al. 1999). Data between 0.8 and 10 keV from both Solid state Imaging Spectrometers (SIS-0 & SIS-1) and between 1 and 10 keV from both Gas Imaging Spectrometers (GIS-2 & GIS-3) were fit simultaneously. The Galactic column of $`1.23\times 10^{21}`$ cm-2 was included in all fits. The reflection spectrum was relativistically blurred assuming that the emission arises between 10 and 1000 gravitational radii. The inclination angle was fixed at 14 degrees, as derived from observations of the radio jets (Zensus 1989, but see Wehrle et al. 1992 and Walker, Walker & Benson 1988). We obtained a good fit ($`\chi ^2=1494`$ for 1437 d.o.f.) with the following parameters: $`N_\mathrm{H}^{\mathrm{intrinsic}}=(5.92\pm 0.89)\times 10^{20}`$ cm-2, $`\mathrm{log}\xi =3.621_{0.049}^{+0.054}`$, and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.875\pm 0.015`$, where $`\xi `$ is the ionization parameter of the gas. The residuals to the fit and the ionized reflection model are shown in Figure 2.

The continuum parameters and EW of the Fe K$`\alpha `$ line ($`580`$ eV) are comparable to the results of Grandi et al. (1997). Most importantly, our result is with the reflection fraction fixed at 1. This implies that there is no need for a truncated accretion disc in 3C 120.

The RXTE and BeppoSAX observations of 3C 120 both suggest weaker Fe K$`\alpha `$ lines with EWs $``$ 100 eV (Eracleous et al., 2000; Zdziarski & Grandi, 2001). While the ASCA data analyzed here has higher signal-to-noise and spectral resolution around 6 keV than these other data, it lacks the spectral coverage at energies greater than 10 keV which is provided by these other telescopes. A comparison between all three datasets is shown by Zdziarski & Grandi (2001, their Figure 4). There it can be seen that the shape of the ASCA spectrum is consistent with the RXTE and BeppoSAX data, suggesting that the ionized disc model would be applicable to these other datasets. The difference in Fe line strength may be in part due to differences in modeling the continuum. Eracleous et al. (2000) do not take in account ionized reflection and Zdziarski & Grandi (2001) cannot deal with highly ionized discs (they assume a reflector temperature of 105 K, but the best-fit slab has a surface temperature of 107 K). Another explanation for the difference in EWs is that 3C 120 was brighter by about 50 per cent (in the 2–10 keV band) during the RXTE and BeppoSAX observations than in the ASCA observation (again see Fig. 4 in Zdziarski & Grandi 2001). If the Fe K$`\alpha `$ line flux remains relatively constant, as it is observed to be in some Seyfert 1 galaxies (e.g., NGC 5548 Chiang et al. 2000; MCG–6-30-15 Lee et al. 2000), then the EW would be smaller in these later observations.

The ratio plot shown in Fig. 2 indicates that there is possible spectral hardening at high energies not accounted for by the reflection model. This may be due to dilution from the radio jets which could be particularly relevant for 3C 120 as it has a superluminal jet. Contamination from jet emission would also weaken any reflection features. However, it is unclear whether or not the jet dominates the high-energy emission of 3C 120. Although the object was detected at $`100`$ keV by OSSE (Johnson et al., 1994), it was not picked up by either Comptel or EGRET at MeV energies. At much lower energies, Grandi et al. (1997) claimed to detect with ROSAT a variable soft-excess in 3C 120, as did Zdziarski & Grandi (2001) with BeppoSAX. If 3C 120 does have a soft-excess, then it is unlikely jet contamination would be important at energies $`<10`$ keV, and an ionized disc is a valid model for the spectrum over this band. A more precise determination of the spectrum of 3C 120 requires an XMM-Newton observation.

## 4 Discussion

In this Letter we have presented the idea that the weak reprocessing features seen in the ASCA spectra of many radio-loud AGN are the result of reflection off an ionized disc. With this explanation there does not need to be a significant difference in the accretion geometry between radio-loud and radio-quiet sources. This conclusion is supported by evidence that the traditional bimodal distribution in radio power of AGN is no longer valid. Lacy et al. (2001) used results from the FIRST Bright Quasar Survey to fill in the gap between the radio-quiet and radio-loud populations, and concluded there was a continuous distribution of radio-power that is correlated with both black hole mass and accretion rate. Similarly, Ho & Peng (2001) employed high resolution radio and optical imaging of Seyfert galaxies to show that many of these objects that were thought to be radio-quiet are actually radio-loud (using the $`RL_\nu (6\mathrm{cm})/L_\nu (\mathrm{B})>10`$ definition; Visnovsky et al. 1992). These authors also argued that there is a radio power-optical luminosity correlation in active galaxies that stretches from Seyfert galaxies up to luminous quasars.

There still remains the problem that only a small percentage of AGN exhibit powerful, kpc-scale radio jets. The results of Lacy et al. (2001) suggest that a combination of high accretion rate and large ($`>10^{8.5}`$ M) black hole mass is required to launch ultra-relativistic jets. The radio luminosity-optical luminosity correlations222The correlations seem to exist for both radio-loud and radio-quiet objects, but with the slope being steeper for the radio-loud ones. discussed by Ho & Peng (2001) also point toward an accretion rate dependence. The actual physical mechanism responsible for the radio emission and jets presumably is a magnetohydrodynamic coupling between the accretion flow and a spinning black hole (e.g., Blandford & Znajek, 1977; Macdonald & Thorne, 1982; Rees et al., 1982; Begelman, Blandford & Rees, 1984; Li, 2000a, b), but the details are far from worked out (e.g., Ghosh & Abramowicz, 1997; Livio, Ogilve & Pringle, 1999; Meier, 1999, 2001). However, the key parameters must be the black hole mass and accretion rate because it is likely that rapidly spinning black holes are found in many AGN, irrespective of their radio power (e.g., MCG–6-30-15, Iwasawa et al. 1996, 1999; Wilms et al. 2001). Indeed, studies of the hard X-ray background suggest that most supermassive black holes are rapidly spinning (Fabian & Iwasawa, 1999; Elvis, Risaliti & Zamorani, 2002). Perhaps only rapid accretion onto a very massive spinning black hole can provide the necessary energy to launch kpc-scale radio jets.

However, observational evidence suggests that at least one more parameter other than the black hole mass and the accretion rate is needed to explain the triggering of powerful jets. Recent XMM-Newton observations of some high-luminosity radio-quiet Seyferts have shown evidence for ionized Fe K$`\alpha `$ lines (Reeves et al., 2001; Pounds et al., 2001; Orr et al., 2001), indicating that the accretion disc is becoming more ionized as the luminosity and, likely, the accretion rate increases (Ballantyne & Ross, 2002). A widening zone of extreme ionization on the accretion disc would also explain the ASCA observations of radio-quiet quasars which found that the EW of the Fe K$`\alpha `$ line becomes undetectable at a 2–10 keV luminosity of 1046 erg s-1 (the so-called X-ray Baldwin effect; Iwasawa & Taniguchi 1993; Nandra et al. 1997; Reeves & Turner 2000). Although most of these quasars have an accretion rate close to Eddington and black hole masses $`>10^8`$ M (e.g., Lacy et al., 2001), they do not possess powerful radio jets. Therefore, additional quantities, such as the magnetic field strength and configuration close to the black hole, must also be important in determining the strength of the radio jets.

Nevertheless, it is possible that the weak X-ray reprocessing features from radio-loud sources provide corroborating evidence that a high accretion rate is important for the production of powerful jets. Ultrasoft Seyferts (the subset of narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies with unusual X-ray properties; Brandt 1999; Leighly 1999a, b; Vaughan et al. 1999b) which are likely accreting close to their Eddington limit, have shown evidence for ionized accretion discs in their X-ray spectra (Comastri et al., 1998, 2001; Turner, George & Nandra, 1998; Vaughan et al., 1999a; Ballantyne, Iwasawa & Fabian, 2001; Turner et al., 2001a, b). These objects would not exhibit large scale radio jets because they do not have massive enough black holes, or, perhaps, massive enough bulges to contain an extensive reservoir of gas. Therefore, if the weak X-ray reflection features in radio-loud AGN are due to ionization effects, then it is likely to be a result of their high accretion rate, supporting the view that a large accretion rate is required for the production of relativistic jets. High quality spectral observations of radio-loud AGN by XMM-Newton will be able to test this hypothesis.

## Acknowledgements

This research has made use of the tartarus database, which is supported by Jane Turner and Kirpal Nandra under NASA grants NAG5-7385 and NAG5-7067. DRB acknowledges financial support from the Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. ACF and RRR acknowledge support from the Royal Society and the College of the Holy Cross, respectively.


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# Orbital ordering in frustrated Jahn-Teller systems

## Abstract

We consider the superexchange in ‘frustrated’ Jahn-Teller systems, such as the transition metal oxides NaNiO2, LiNiO2, and ZnMn2O4, in which transition metal ions with doubly degenerate orbitals form a triangular or pyrochlore lattice and are connected by the $`90^{}`$ metal-oxygen-metal bonds. We show that this interaction is much different from a more familiar exchange in systems with the $`180^{}`$-bonds, e.g. perovskites. In contrast to the strong interplay between the orbital and spin degrees of freedom in perovskites, in the $`90^{}`$-exchange systems spins and orbitals are decoupled: the spin exchange is much weaker than the orbital one and it is ferromagnetic for all orbital states. Due to frustration, the mean-field orbital ground state is strongly degenerate. Quantum orbital fluctuations select particular ferro-orbital states, such as the one observed in NaNiO2. We also discuss why LiNiO2 may still behave as an orbital liquid.

There is a large class of compounds containing transition metal (TM) ions with orbital degeneracy - the so-called Jahn-Teller (JT) systems. Orbital degrees of freedom and, in particular, their ordering or the cooperative Jahn-Teller effect, give rise to a very rich physics KugelKhomskii ; TokuraNagaosa . The interplay between orbitals and spins often leads to rather peculiar magnetic structures, turning e.g. cubic perovskites like KCuF3 into quasi-one-dimensional spin-chain materials KugelKhomskii . It was recently suggested that in some JT systems orbitals remain disordered at all temperatures, forming an orbital liquid state Ishihara ; FeinerOlesZaanen ; Keimer ; KhaliullinMaekawa . The suppression of an orbital ordering was discussed for materials with a simple cubic structure, e.g. the perovskite LaTiO3, and was attributed to a strong anisotropy of orbital interactions and a strong coupling between orbital and spin excitations. One would expect to find an even stronger tendency to form an orbital liquid in JT compounds with more complicated crystal structures, especially, in ‘geometrically frustrated’ systems Ramirez , e.g. the spinel ZnMn2O4, in which Mn3+ ions with the configuration ($`t_{2g}^3e_g^1`$) form a pyrochlore lattice of corner sharing tetrahedra, or the layered materials LiNiO2 and NaNiO2 with a triangular lattice of low-spin Ni3+ ion in the ($`t_{2g}^6e_g^1`$) configuration. Orbital ordering in such systems is an open issue, interesting from both theoretical and practical points of view, as some of these compounds (LiNiO2, NaNiO2) are now studied as promising materials for rechargeable batteries, and their performance may be significantly affected by the JT effect.

An important difference between the TM oxides with ‘frustrated lattices’ and perovskites is the angle between the oxygen-metal bonds connecting two neighboring TM ions. While in perovskites this angle is close to $`180^{}`$, in the geometrically frustrated JT systems it is typically $`90^{}`$. Though usually ignored, this difference has important consequences for orbital and magnetic orderings. In this Letter we derive the Hamiltonian of the $`90^{}`$-exchange and show that, unlike in perovskites, in frustrated JT systems orbitals and spins are essentially decoupled and that orbital and magnetic orderings can be considered separately from each other. Considering in particular layered materials with a triangular lattice, we show that the orbital interactions are strongly frustrated, which results in a large number of disordered mean-field ground states. However, we argue that this frustration is lifted by quantum orbital fluctuations that stabilize a ferro-orbital state and induce a gap in the spectrum of orbital excitations. We also show that the ordering of spins in the layers is ferromagnetic. These results agree with experimental properties of NaNiO2 Chappel  and lead us to a conclusion that the puzzling absence of both spin and orbital ordering in LiNiO2 Kitaoka ; Reynaud  results from disorder rather than from the superexchange.

We first obtain the exchange Hamiltonian describing interactions between TM ions with one electron or hole on doubly degenerate $`e_g`$-levels. In this case orbital states are conveniently described by introducing isospins (or pseudospins) $`𝐓_j`$ on each TM site $`j`$, which act on the up and down states, $`|T^z=\pm \frac{1}{2}`$ identified with, respectively, $`d_{3z^2r^2}`$ and $`d_{x^2y^2}`$ orbitals. Quite generally, an effective interaction between the orbitals and spins on pairs of neighboring TM sites $`i`$ and $`j`$ has the form KugelKhomskii

$$H_{ST}=\underset{ij}{}\left[J_S(𝐒_i𝐒_j)+J_TT_iT_j+J_{ST}(𝐒_i𝐒_j)T_iT_j\right]$$
(1)
(for simplicity, we do not show here the full structure of the orbital interactions, which are strongly anisotropic both in real and isospin space). In perovskites with the $`180^{}`$-bonds the spin- and orbital-exchange constants $`J_S`$ and $`J_T`$, as well as the constant $`J_{ST}`$, describing the coupling between orbitals and spins, are all of the same order of magnitude. This makes the spin and orbital orderings dependent on each other KugelKhomskii . The strong interplay between orbitals and spins is also crucial for the mechanisms of suppression of these orderings used in Refs. FeinerOlesZaanen ; Li ; Mila  to explain an apparent absence of both orbital and magnetic ordering in LiNiO2 Kitaoka ; Reynaud . In particular, in the $`SU(4)`$ version of the model Eq.(1) Li ; Mila  both the spin and orbital interactions are isotropic and $`J_S=J_T=\frac{1}{4}J_{ST}`$. We first show that the actual situation in the $`90^{}`$-systems is quite different: the orbital exchange is strongly anisotropic and $`J_SJ_{ST}J_T`$.

We derive the exchange Hamiltonian using as an example the layered material NaNiO2, in which Ni and Na ions occupy consecutive $`[111]`$-planes of the NaCl structure (see Fig. 1(a)). In each plane the low-spin Ni3+ ions with one electron on the doubly degenerate $`e_g`$ level form a triangular lattice. The exchange between two nearest-neighbor Ni ions in the planes occurs via common oxygens and the angle between the two oxygen $`p`$-orbitals involved in this exchange is $`90^{}`$. The exchange between Ni ions from two neighboring planes (separated by a plane of Na ions) is weak and will be neglected here.

The electron hopping in the $`z`$-direction can only occur between the $`p_z`$ oxygen and the $`d_{3z^2r^2}`$ nickel orbitals. The corresponding hopping amplitude is denoted by $`t`$. All other processes are forbidden by symmetries of the oxygen $`p`$ and nickel $`e_g`$ orbitals. Thus, the hopping amplitude in the $`z`$-direction is $`t`$ for the $`|T^z=+\frac{1}{2}`$ nickel state, and $`0`$ for the $`|T^z=\frac{1}{2}`$ state. More generally, the hopping in the $`\alpha `$-direction ($`\alpha =x,y,z`$) is only nonzero for the oxygen $`p_\alpha `$ and the nickel $`d_{3\alpha ^2r^2}`$ orbitals. It is convenient to introduce the isospin operators $`I^\alpha =𝐓𝐧^\alpha `$, where $`𝐧^\alpha `$ are three unit vectors in the $`(T^x,T^z)`$ plane

$$𝐧^x=\frac{1}{2}\widehat{𝐳}\frac{\sqrt{3}}{2}\widehat{𝐱},𝐧^y=\frac{1}{2}\widehat{𝐳}+\frac{\sqrt{3}}{2}\widehat{𝐱},𝐧^z=\widehat{𝐳}.$$
(2)
The operators $`I^x`$ and $`I^y`$ play the role of $`T^z`$ for the $`x`$ and $`y`$-directions, i.e. they describe the occupation of, respectively, the $`d_{3x^2r^2}`$ and $`d_{3y^2r^2}`$ orbital. The hopping amplitude in the $`\alpha `$-direction is then $`t`$ for the $`|I^\alpha =+\frac{1}{2}`$ state and $`0`$ for the $`|I^\alpha =\frac{1}{2}`$ state.

Figure 1(b) shows a plaquette in the $`\alpha \beta `$-plane ($`\alpha ,\beta =x,y,z`$) formed by two neighboring Ni sites $`1`$ and $`2`$ and the two oxygens shared by the oxygen octahedra surrounding the TM ions. An effective exchange Hamiltonian for two $`e_g`$ nickel electrons is obtained by expanding the plaquette energy in powers of the hopping amplitude $`t`$, which is assumed to be much smaller than the energy $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ of the electron transfer from O to Ni and the Hubbard repulsion on oxygen $`U_p`$. The orbital and spin exchange appears in the fourth order of the perturbative expansion and the higher-order terms are neglected here.

We first neglect also the Hund’s rule coupling between the spins of two holes on oxygens. In that case the $`90^{}`$-exchange is independent of a spin configuration and only involves orbitals. The orbital exchange Hamiltonian of the plaquette in the $`\alpha \beta `$-plane has the form

$$H_T=J_T^{\alpha \beta }+const,$$
(3)
where

$$^{\alpha \beta }=(\frac{3}{2}I_1^\alpha )\left(\frac{3}{2}I_2^\beta \right)+(\frac{3}{2}I_1^\beta )\left(\frac{3}{2}I_2^\alpha \right)$$
(4)
and $`J_T`$ is the coupling constant specified below. The factor $`\frac{3}{2}I_1^\alpha `$ counts the number of the oxygen electrons that can hop to the Ni site $`1`$ along the bond in the $`\alpha `$-direction. This number equals $`1`$, if the $`e_g`$-electron is in the state $`|I_1^\alpha =+\frac{1}{2}`$, and $`2`$, if the electron occupies the state $`|I_1^\alpha =\frac{1}{2}`$. (For one hole on $`e_g`$-level, as in Cu2+, the exchange interaction corresponding to Eq.(4) involves combinations $`\left(\frac{1}{2}+I^\alpha \right)`$ instead of $`\left(\frac{3}{2}I^\alpha \right)`$.) The two terms in Eq.(4) correspond to the two exchange paths on the plaquette through the oxygens O1 and O2.

The orbital coupling

$$J_T=\frac{4t^2}{\mathrm{\Delta }^2(2\mathrm{\Delta }+U_p)}+\frac{2t^4}{\mathrm{\Delta }^3}=\frac{2t^4U_p}{\mathrm{\Delta }^3(2\mathrm{\Delta }+U_p)}$$
(5)
is the sum of the contributions of two different mechanisms of the orbital exchange. The first term in Eq.(5) is due to the exchange via the intermediate states with two holes on one of the oxygens from the plaquette. The mechanism resulting in the second term in Eq.(5) works even for infinite $`U_p`$, when the two-hole oxygen states are forbidden. To understand its origin consider first a single Ni site inside the oxygen octahedron. The hopping of electrons from the $`6`$ oxygens to nickel results in the energy decrease $`\delta E`$. For two neighboring Ni sites this decrease is smaller than $`2\delta E`$, as the surrounding octahedra share two oxygens and the two-hole oxygen states are forbidden for infinite $`U_p`$. The effect of the blocking of the two-hole states on common oxygens depends on orbital states of the $`e_g`$-electrons, which gives rise to the orbital exchange with the coupling constant $`\frac{2t^4}{\mathrm{\Delta }^3}`$.

The intermediate states with two holes on one oxygen also result in a spin exchange. As in such states the holes occupy two mutually orthogonal orbitals $`p_\alpha `$ and $`p_\beta `$, the spin exchange is only possible due to the Hund’s rule coupling $`J_H`$ between the spins of the holes (in systems with the $`180^{}`$-bonds the spin exchange occurs even for $`J_H=0`$). The corresponding exchange Hamiltonian involves both spin and isospin operators and to the lowest-order in powers of $`J_H`$ it has the form

$$H_{TS}=J_{TS}^{\alpha \beta }\left[\frac{3}{4}+(𝐒_1𝐒_2)\right],$$
(6)
where $`J_{TS}=\frac{4t^4J_H}{\mathrm{\Delta }^2(2\mathrm{\Delta }+U_p)^2}`$ and $`^{\alpha \beta }`$ is given by Eq.(4). The interaction described by Eq.(6) is different the $`180^{}`$-exchange in two important respects. First, since for any orbital state the expectation value $`^{\alpha \beta }>0`$, the spin exchange is effectively ferromagnetic independent of an orbital state (the average spin-exchange coupling $`J_{TS}^{\alpha \beta }<0`$ is negative). Second, since $`J_HU_p`$, the spin-isospin coupling in the $`90^{}`$-systems is weaker than the pure orbital exchange, described by Eq.(3):

$$\frac{J_{TS}}{J_T}=\frac{J_H}{U_p}\frac{2\mathrm{\Delta }}{(2\mathrm{\Delta }+U_p)}.$$

Thus, in $`90^{}`$-exchange systems spins and orbitals cannot strongly influence each other, i.e. they are essentially decoupled. (A similar conclusion was reached by Reitsma and Feiner (unpublished). We are grateful to L. F. Feiner for informing us about their results.)

We can now obtain the Hamiltonian describing the orbital interactions in the Ni layers of NaNiO2 (see Fig. 1a). In each layer Ni ions form a triangular lattice, the sites of which lie on intersections of the three sets of lines parallel to the unit vectors $`𝐞_{xy}`$, $`𝐞_{yz}`$, and $`𝐞_{zx}`$, as shown in Fig. 2. It will be convenient to identify $`𝐞_{\alpha \beta }`$ with the three unit vectors in the isospace (see Eq.(2)) by $`𝐧^x=𝐞_{yz}`$, $`𝐧^y=𝐞_{zx}`$, and $`𝐧^z=𝐞_{xy}`$. The bonds between the nearest-neighbor sites $`j`$ and $`j+e_{\alpha \beta }`$ of the triangular lattice (the lattice constant is put to $`1`$) are diagonals of the Ni-O plaquettes lying in the $`\alpha \beta `$ plane (cf. Fig. 1b). Hence, the Hamiltonian, describing orbital interactions on the triangular lattice has the form:

$$H_T=J_T\underset{j}{}\underset{\stackrel{\alpha \beta }{\alpha \beta }}{}I_j^\alpha I_{j+e_{\alpha \beta }}^\beta .$$
(7)
The terms linear in the operators $`I_j^\alpha `$ (see Eq.(3)) are canceled in (7), since $`_\alpha I_j^\alpha =0`$.

The Hamiltonian Eq.(7) is invariant under the global rotation of the isospin operators $`T^\alpha `$ over the angle $`\frac{2\pi }{3}`$ around the $`y`$-axis combined with the rotation of the triangular lattice over the same angle. This transformation is equivalent to a cyclic permutation of the indices $`x`$, $`y`$, and $`z`$ of the vectors $`𝐞_{\alpha \beta }`$ and the isospin operators $`I^\alpha `$. Thus the Hamiltonian Eq.(7) has the same symmetry as the so-called ‘compass’ model, describing exchange interactions between TM ions on a cubic lattice KugelKhomskii ; GKhaliullin  (note, however, that in our case the three operators $`I^x`$, $`I^y`$, and $`I^z`$ are not independent).

The orbital exchange on a triangular lattice turns out to be strongly frustrated and the mean-field ground state is not unique. The simplest states with the minimal energy $`E_0=\frac{3}{8}J`$ per site are ferro-orbital states, in which $`𝐓_j=T𝐦`$ on all lattice sites, where $`𝐦`$ is an arbitrary unit vector in the $`(T^x,T^z)`$-plane and $`T=\frac{1}{2}`$. The energy of these states is independent of orientation of $`𝐦`$, even though the Hamiltonian (7) is not invariant under arbitrary rotations in the $`(T^x,T^z)`$-plane (this continuous ground-state degeneracy is similar to the one of the ‘compass’ model GKhaliullin ). Furthermore, there exist also disordered mean-field ground states, which can be obtained from the ferro-orbital states by inverting the sign of $`T_j^x`$ on an arbitrarily selected set of lines parallel to $`𝐞_{xy}`$ (see Fig. 2). Such states are ordered along the $`xy`$-lines, but there are no long-range correlations between the $`x`$-projections of isospins in the transverse direction. By circular permutations of the $`x`$, $`y`$, and $`z`$ indices one can obtain similar states, which are only ordered along the lines parallel to the $`𝐞_{yz}`$ and $`𝐞_{zx}`$ vectors.

This large ground-state degeneracy is lifted by quantum orbital fluctuations (the so-called ‘order-from-disorder’ mechanism Villain ; Shender ). First, we have checked numerically that disordered states (see Fig. 2) have a higher energy of the zero-point fluctuations than the corresponding uniform states. Second, the zero-point energy of uniform states has $`6`$ minima at the isospin orientations $`𝐦=\pm 𝐧^x,\pm 𝐧^y,\pm 𝐧^z`$. In the original notation these are the ferro-orbital states with one of the orbitals $`d_{3z^2r^2}`$, $`d_{3x^2r^2}`$, $`d_{3y^2r^2}`$, $`d_{x^2y^2}`$, $`d_{y^2z^2}`$, and $`d_{z^2x^2}`$ occupied at each site. Furthermore, the anharmonicity effects KhomskiivdBrink  usually stabilize elongated octahedra, i.e. the orbitals $`d_{3z^2r^2}`$, $`d_{3x^2r^2}`$, or $`d_{3y^2r^2}`$. As was mentioned above, spins in layers order ferromagnetically.

We would like to point out that the standard description of orbital excitations with non-interacting bosons (‘isospin-wave approximation’) is insufficient for the calculation of quantum corrections to the ground-state energy of the frustrated Hamiltonian Eq.(7). In this approximation the orbital excitation spectrum for the six ground states is one-dimensional

$$\omega _𝐪=3\sqrt{2}TJ_T\left|\mathrm{sin}\frac{(𝐪𝐦)}{2}\right|,$$
(8)
which is a direct consequence of the absence of long-range correlations between chains in disordered mean-field ground states. The gapless one-dimensional spectrum leads to infrared-divergent fluctuations. To get rid of them, one has to take into account interactions between the bosons, which can be consistently done in the large isospin limit, $`T1`$. The interactions suppress quantum fluctuations by opening a gap and inducing a dispersion in the direction transverse to $`𝐦`$. This can be understood from the fact that the self-energy diagrams, shown in Fig. 3 (a) and (b), diverge unless a gap is introduced (in field theory a similar mechanism is known as a ‘dynamical mass generation’ Coleman ). The physical origin of the gap is the breaking of the continuous ground-state degeneracy by quantum fluctuations GKhaliullin . In the large-$`T`$ limit the quantum fluctuations are relatively small and the gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }J_T\sqrt{T}`$ is much smaller than the band width $`W3\sqrt{2}J_TT`$ of the orbital excitations. The dispersion in the transverse direction is of the order of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ details .

The main conclusions of our theory of the exchange in frustrated systems (spins are coupled much weaker than orbitals, the ground state is ordered both ferro-orbitally and ferromagnetically) are in agreement with the orbital and magnetic structure of the layered compound NaNiO2, which undergoes two transitions: At $`T_o=480`$K the oxygen octahedra become elongated, which corresponds to the ferro-orbital ordering of the $`d_{3z^2r^2}`$-type, and at the much lower temperature, $`T_s=20`$K, the Ni spins in the $`[111]`$ layers order ferromagnetically Chappel .

It is, therefore, very puzzling that the structurally identical material LiNiO2 shows neither orbital nor spin ordering. In principle, we cannot exclude that the quantum orbital fluctuations, which for $`T=\frac{1}{2}`$ are relatively large, destroy the long-range ferro-orbital ordering and stabilize an orbital liquid (such quantum melting of the ‘order-from-disorder’ was discussed in the context of another frustrated system in Ref. Lecheminant ). Since for $`T=\frac{1}{2}`$ there is no small parameter in the problem, the question whether the ground state of the orbital Hamiltonian Eq.(7) is ordered or disordered, can only be resolved by numerical calculations that are beyond the scope of this Letter. In any case, this possible explanation of the absence of orbital ordering in LiNiO2 is fundamentally different from those based on a strong interplay between orbitals and spins FeinerOlesZaanen ; Li ; Mila . Actually, due to the decoupling of spins from orbitals in frustrated systems, an orbital liquid should still have a ferromagnetic order.

We think that the puzzles surrounding LiNiO2 indicate an importance of electron-lattice interactions and disorder, not included in the present theory. As was argued in Refs. Chappel ; Mertz , the ‘intrinsic’ disorder caused by the presence of magnetic Ni ions in the Li $`[111]`$ planes, results in a strong interlayer coupling that frustrates the ferromagnetic spin ordering in Ni layers. In NaNiO2 such disorder should be weaker: as the size difference of Na and Ni ions is larger than that of Li and Ni ions, the alternating stacking of the Na and Ni $`[111]`$ layers is more perfect than that of Li and Ni in LiNiO2. The larger charge radius of the Na ion also implies stronger electron-lattice interactions in NaNiO2. In general, such interactions suppress quantum orbital fluctuations and stabilize a ferro-orbital ordering Kanamori ; EnglmanHalperin . This may explain why NaNiO2 is orbitally ordered, while LiNiO2 is not.

In conclusion, we developed a theory of the orbital and spin exchange in JT systems with doubly degenerate electronic orbitals and $`90^{}`$ metal-oxygen-metal bonds. We showed that in these systems spins and orbitals are essentially decoupled: spins interact much weaker than orbitals and the spin exchange is ferromagnetic for any orbital state. The orbital exchange between TM ions on a triangular lattice is strongly frustrated, resulting in infinite number of disordered classical ground states. An even stronger frustration can be shown to occur in spinels, in which TM ions form a pyrochlore lattice (to be published elsewhere). We showed, however, that small quantum orbital fluctuations remove the frustration and induce a ferro-orbital ordering. Our theory is an agreement with the orbital and magnetic structure observed in NaNiO2. We also argued that large quantum fluctuations and ‘intrinsic’ disorder may, in principle, turn a frustrated system into an orbital liquid, which may explain the absence of orbital ordering in LiNiO2.

We are grateful to A. Stepanov and to G. Chouteau and members of his group for extensive discussions of the experimental situation in LiNiO2 and NaNiO2, and to G. Khaliullin and L.-F Feiner for the useful discussions.


text:
# On the Nature of the ‘Quasiparticle’ Peak in the Angular Resolved Spectrum of the Superconducting Underdoped Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8.

## I Introduction

A sharp peak in the angular resolved photoemission spectrum of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8 (BSCCO) is the major subject of this paper . This peak emerges from an incoherent background at temperatures somewhat higher than $`T_c`$ and persists all the way down to $`T=0`$. It is located around $`(\pi ,0)`$ (in the units of inverse lattice spacing) in the Brillouin zone. Substantial efforts have been invested into uncovering the nature of this peak. It was assumed that this might provide us with an important clue about a mechanism of the superconducting state. In this paper we will argue that the peak is a consequence of normal state phenomenology. Our method will enable us to explain qualitatively the most salient features of the peak behavior.

Unlike overdoped cuprates, it is believed that for the underdoped materials the normal state single-particle Green’s function can be qualitatively characterized by the presence of the pseudogap – a depletion of the spectral density $`A_{n𝐤}(\omega )=2\mathrm{I}\mathrm{m}G_{n𝐤}(\omega )`$ near $`\omega =0`$ for $`𝐤`$ in the vicinity of $`M`$ point of the Brillouin zone close to the Fermi surface (see fig.1b). The origin of the pseudogap is unclear at the moment. Yet, our method does not require such knowledge.

The causality puts some constraints on the Green’s function: its real part can be found according to the Kramers transformation . Then, for any reasonable choice of ”pseudogapped” $`A_{n𝐤}(\omega )`$ the function $`\left|\mathrm{Re}G_{n𝐤}(\omega )\right|`$ has two maxima located approximately at the edges of the pseudogap (fig.1a). We will show that those maxima are responsible for the emergence of the ‘quasiparticles’ in the superconducting state.

There are several microscopical theories which explain the emergence of the peak below $`T_c`$ . In the approach presented by J.E. Hirsch charge carriers (holes) are coupled to a bosonic bath. If this coupling weakens with the growth of the local hole concentration the superconducting pairing driven by the kinetic energy occurs: the kinetic energy benefits from the effective reduction of the boson-hole coupling. Another consequence of this boson-hole decoupling is the increase of the quasiparticle peak weight. In the paper by M. Eschrig et. al. a model of the electrons interacting with a magnetic resonance has been discussed. It is claimed that this model reproduces correctly the most salient features of the photoemission spectrum. This paper was a development of a previous work by M. Norman, H. Ding and collaborators . The latter is important to us since it has some similarities with the present approach. In Ref.  the authors concentrated their attention on a step-like feature in the electron self-energy which could explain the shape of the spectrum. In order to account for such a feature they postulated the existence of a collective mode below $`T_c`$. This mode has to disappear above $`T_c`$ for the model predictions to be consistent with the data. It is believed that this mode and the magnetic resonance mentioned above are the same entity. Many-body investigation of the phenomenon was undertaken by E. Carlson et. al. They assume that in the cuprate materials phase separation takes place. It leads to the formation of stripes with every stripe being 1D metallic conductor. Using bosonization the authors demonstrated that below $`T_c`$ the single-particle spectral density develops a delta-function peak at the superconducting gap energy.

In contrast to these studies, we will deduce this peak without resorting to microscopical considerations. It will be shown that the peak in the single-particle spectral density is a consequence of the analytical structure of the normal state Green’s function.

## II Analytical structure of the single electron propagator

In this part of the paper we will calculate the spectral density in the superconducting state. Let us derive first an auxiliary relation between the Green’s function of an electron and a hole. The spin-up electron retarded propagator is: $`G^\mathrm{e}(t)=i\mathrm{\Theta }(t)c_{}(t)c_{}^{}(0)+c_{}^{}(0)c_{}(t).`$ The propagator for a spin-up hole:

$`G^\mathrm{h}(t)=i\mathrm{\Theta }(t)c_{}^{}(t)c_{}^{}(0)+c_{}^{}(0)c_{}^{}(t)=\left(i\mathrm{\Theta }(t)c_{}^{}(0)c_{}^{}(t)+c_{}^{}(t)c_{}^{}(0)\right)^{}=`$ (1)
$`\left(i\mathrm{\Theta }(t)U_x^1c_{}^{}(0)U_x^{}U_x^1c_{}^{}(t)U_x^{}+U_x^1c_{}^{}(t)U_x^{}U_x^1c_{}^{}(0)U_x^{}\right)^{}=\left(G^\mathrm{e}(t)\right)^{}.`$ (2)
Here $`U_x`$ is the unitary rotation operator. It rotates the spin of the electron by $`\pi `$ around $`x`$ axis: $`U_x^1c_\alpha ^{}U_x^{}=i\sigma _{\alpha \beta }^xc_\beta ^{}`$ and $`U_x^1c_\alpha ^{}U_x^{}=i\sigma _{\alpha \beta }^xc_\beta ^{}.`$ The ground state is invariant under the action of $`U_x`$. After performing Fourier transformation for the last equality one arrives at:

$$G^\mathrm{h}(\omega )=\left(G^\mathrm{e}(\omega )\right)^{}.$$
(3)
Assume now that the system at hand is in the normal state but not far from the superconducting transition. Its retarded Green’s function in Nambu representation can be written as:

$$\widehat{G}_{n𝐤}(\omega )=\left(\begin{array}{cc}G_{n𝐤}(\omega )& 0\\ 0& G_{n𝐤}^{}(\omega )\end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}G_{n𝐤}(\omega )& 0\\ 0& G_{n𝐤}^{}(\omega )\end{array}\right)$$
(4)
In this form it describes independent propagation of an electron and a hole. Spatial inversion symmetry guarantees that $`G_𝐤=G_𝐤`$.

This function $`\widehat{G}_n`$ satisfies Dyson’s equation:

$$(\omega _0)\widehat{G}_{n𝐤}(\omega )=\widehat{1}+\widehat{\mathrm{\Sigma }}_{n𝐤}(\omega )\widehat{G}_{n𝐤}(\omega ).$$
(5)
Here $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Sigma }}_n`$ is the retarded self-energy in the normal state:

$$\widehat{\mathrm{\Sigma }}_{n𝐤}(\omega )=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{\Sigma }_{n𝐤}(\omega )& 0\\ 0& \mathrm{\Sigma }_{n𝐤}^{}(\omega )\end{array}\right).$$
(6)
Next, we change, let’s say, doping and drive the system superconducting. New Green’s function $`\widehat{G}_s`$ satisfies an equation similar to (5) with new self-energy $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Sigma }}_{s𝐤}=\widehat{\mathrm{\Sigma }}_{n𝐤}+\widehat{\sigma }_𝐤`$ where $`\widehat{\sigma }`$ given by:

$$\widehat{\sigma }_𝐤(\omega )=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\mu _𝐤(\omega )& \sigma _𝐤^𝒜(\omega )\\ (\sigma _𝐤^𝒜(\omega ))^{}& \left(\mu _𝐤(\omega )\right)^{}\end{array}\right).$$
(7)
Here the relation $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{12}(\omega )=(\mathrm{\Sigma }_{21}(\omega ))^{}`$ between two off-diagonal elements of the Nambu self-energy has been used. It follows from an equation $`G_{12}(\omega )=G_{21}^{}(\omega )`$ for anomalous propagators which, in turn, can be obtained along the same lines as (3). The point of this derivation is to establish the analytical structure of the self-energy in the superconducting state. This will be used in our discussion of a sum rule.

Combining the above equations one gets for $`\widehat{G}_s`$ the expression:

$$\widehat{G}_{s𝐤}=\left(\widehat{G}_{n𝐤}^1\widehat{\sigma }_𝐤\right)^1.$$
(8)
## III Green’s function in the superconducting state

The equations derived in the previous section are completely general. In order to proceed further we need to make a simplifying assumption: near the Fermi surface electronic $`(\omega <0)`$ and hole $`(\omega >0)`$ parts of the spectral function are symmetric for small $`|\omega |`$. One can express that as:

$$A_𝐤(\omega )=A_𝐤(\omega )$$
(9)
for $`|\omega |<\omega _g`$ where $`\omega _g`$ is the size of the pseudogap. Exact particle-hole symmetry is absent in the cuprates. We would like to argue, however, that (9) holds at least approximately for $`𝐤`$ close to the Fermi surface. Firstly, the tunneling data  shows that the pseudogap is symmetric with respect to voltage polarity change. One might think that this tells little about validity of (9) since the tunneling differential conductance measures $`𝐤`$-integrated spectral density. However, Ding et al. (inset of fig.1b of Ref. ) demonstrated that scanning tunneling microscope (STM) spectrum multiplied by the Fermi distribution function at appropriate temperature coincides with the angular-resolved spectral density at $`𝐤=(\pi ,0)`$. This means that STM spectrum equal to $`A_𝐤(\omega )`$ for $`\omega <0`$. It is natural to expect that the spectral density coincide with the STM conductivity for $`\omega >0`$ as well. Thus, the symmetry of the STM data suggests the symmetry of the photoemission spectrum. Although, it is not our goal to construct a theory of tunneling into cuprates we may speculate that this agreement between the tunneling conductance and the photoemission spectrum is not a coincidence but a consequence of the inter-plane hopping matrix element $`𝐤`$-dependence: as discussed before  the inter-plane hopping matrix element is at its maximum for the electrons with a momentum parallel to $`(\pi ,0)`$ and it is vanishes along Brillouin zone diagonal. Therefore, it is conceivable that the most of the tunneling current is carried by the electrons near $`(\pi ,0)`$. Secondly, we would like to direct our attention toward the discussion of Ref. . In the latter paper the angular resolved spectrum at $`𝐤=𝐤_\mathrm{F}`$ was analyzed with the help of a momentum distribution sum rule. Theoretically, it was proved that an expression $`1_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\omega \mathrm{tanh}(\omega /2T)(A_{𝐤_\mathrm{F}}(\omega )A_{𝐤_\mathrm{F}}(\omega ))`$ has to be temperature independent provided that (9) is true for small $`|\omega |`$ . This expression can be easily extracted from the data since it is proportional to the integral over $`\omega `$ of the photoemission spectrum. The spectrum for $`𝐤`$ near $`(\pi ,0)`$ was integrated, and the integral showed no dependence on the temperature, supporting the assumption of the symmetry. Finally, we would like to mention two other papers  where (9) was assumed to be true. Thus, we believe we have enough evidence to treat (9) as a reasonable approximation for small $`|\omega |`$. The structure of the background for $`|\omega |>\omega _g`$ is of little interest to us since the positions of $`|\mathrm{Re}G_n|`$ maxima are insensitive to the background. For the purpose of simplicity we will assume that the background is also symmetric. That is, (9) is true for any $`\omega `$. In such a case Green’s function satisfies $`G_𝐤(\omega )=G_𝐤^{}(\omega )`$.

A consequence of the symmetry is a constraint on the self-energy in the superconducting phase:

$$\widehat{\sigma }_𝐤(\omega )=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\mu _𝐤(\omega )& \sigma _𝐤^𝒜(\omega )\mathrm{e}^{i\varphi }\\ \sigma _𝐤^𝒜(\omega )\mathrm{e}^{i\varphi }& \mu _𝐤(\omega )\end{array}\right),$$
(10)
where $`\varphi `$ is a real number and the functions $`\mu `$ and $`\sigma ^𝒜`$ satisfy the following:

$$\mu _𝐤(\omega )=\mu _𝐤^{}(\omega )\mathrm{and}\sigma _𝐤^𝒜(\omega )=(\sigma _𝐤^𝒜(\omega ))^{}.$$
(11)
In terms of these functions the superconducting spectral density equals to:

$$A_{s𝐤}=2\mathrm{I}\mathrm{m}\left\{\frac{G_{n𝐤}\left(G_{n𝐤}\right)^2\mu _𝐤}{\left(1G_{n𝐤}\mu _𝐤\right)^2\left(\sigma _𝐤^𝒜\right)^2\left(G_{n𝐤}\right)^2}\right\}.$$
(12)
Let us simplify this equation. If the system is close to the transition point then $`\widehat{\sigma }`$ is small and the denominator of (12) is close to unity everywhere except the edges of the pseudogap. At those points as one can see from fig.1a $`(\mathrm{Re}G_n)^2`$ is big and one should be more careful. If we are away from the Brillouin zone diagonal where $`\sigma ^𝒜`$ is zero then to the second order in $`\sigma ^𝒜`$ and to the first order in $`\mu =𝒪(|\sigma ^𝒜|^2)`$ we find that the denominator is equal to $`1(\sigma ^𝒜)^2(G_n)^2`$. In this expression the terms like $`G_n\mu `$ have been dropped. Although, they are of the order of $`|\sigma ^𝒜|^2`$ we presume that they are smaller than $`(\mathrm{Re}G_n)^2|\sigma ^𝒜|^2`$ since the latter is proportional to the second power of $`\mathrm{Re}G_n`$ which is big at the pseudogap edges. This gives for the spectral function:

$$A_{s𝐤}(\omega )\frac{A_{n𝐤}(\omega )}{1\mathrm{Re}\left\{\left(\sigma _𝐤^𝒜(\omega )\right)^2\right\}\left(\mathrm{Re}G_{n𝐤}(\omega )\right)^2},$$
(13)
where we omit $`(G_n)^2\mu `$ term in the numerator assuming that it is small compare to $`G_n`$. The last formula is the key to understanding the appearance of the ‘quasiparticles’ below $`T_c`$. At the edges of the pseudogap $`(\mathrm{Re}G_n)^2`$ peaks up, the denominator gets smaller and the spectral function develops a sharp maximum. This is true provided that $`\mathrm{Re}\left\{\left(\sigma ^𝒜\right)^2\right\}`$ is positive at the edges of the pseudogap .

## IV Spectrum properties

Now we would like to analyze (12) and (13) to obtain simple properties of the ‘quasiparticles’ which can be compared against the experiment.

First, it is clear that the position of the peak in the frequency domain is determined by the pseudogap edge. Therefore, we expect to see strong correlation between the size of the pseudogap and the frequency (binding energy) position of the peak. This is precisely the effect reported in  where temperature dependence of the peak frequency was compared against that of the pseudogap size. Fig.2C of that paper shows that the peak position traces the size of the pseudogap. Similar phenomena is seen for the peak dispersion (binding energy vs. $`𝐤`$). As reported in  the pseudogap at $`(\pi ,0)`$ is virtually $`𝐤`$-independent. This is consistent with the weak dispersion of the peak itself .

In order to obtain the shape of the spectral function at $`𝐤=(\pi ,0)`$ we performed simple numerical study. We modeled $`\mu ,\sigma ^𝒜`$ and $`A_n`$ as

$$\begin{array}{c}\mu =0\\ \\ \mathrm{Re}\sigma _𝐤^𝒜=\sigma _0^𝒜\mathrm{exp}((\omega /\omega ^𝒜)^2)\\ \\ A_{n𝐤}=A_0\left(\mathrm{arctan}\left(\left(\omega \omega _g\right)/\omega _e\right)\mathrm{arctan}\left(\left(\omega +\omega _g\right)/\omega _e\right)+\pi \right)\mathrm{exp}\left(\left|\omega /W\right|\right).\end{array}$$
(14)
The energy $`\omega _e`$ determines how abrupt the edges of the pseudogap, $`W`$ mimics the bandwidth. The constant $`A_0`$ has to be determined from the sum rule :

$$_{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}\frac{d\omega }{2\pi }A_𝐤(\omega )=1.$$
(15)
The parameter $`\omega ^𝒜`$ describes the frequency dependence of the anomalous self-energy. It is commonly put equal to infinity. This makes the anomalous self-energy frequency independent. Below we will discuss both cases of finite and infinite $`\omega ^𝒜`$.

The imaginary part of $`\sigma ^𝒜`$ and the real part of the Green’s function can be found with the help of numerical Kramers transformation. Then the spectral function in the superconducting state is determined using (12). The resultant spectra for different parameter values are presented on fig.2 and fig.3. These two figures correspond to different values of $`\omega ^𝒜`$ ($`\omega ^𝒜/\omega _g=15`$ for fig.2 and $`\omega ^𝒜/\omega _g=7`$ for fig.3). On each figure the top (bottom) row corresponds to $`\sigma ^𝒜/\omega _g=25`$ $`(\sigma ^𝒜/\omega _g=15)`$. The value of $`\omega _e/\omega _g`$ in the left (right) column is 0.3 (0.1). We see clear ‘dip-and-hump’ structure of the spectrum for big values of $`\sigma ^𝒜`$. When this quantity is small we find only a tiny bump or even a kink instead of a well-developed peak. Such situation seems to be realized in Pb-doped BSCO compound . This angular resolved photoemission study revealed no peak in the spectrum (fig.3, right panel of the latter reference). Authors claim that their energy resolution is high enough to observe the peak should it be present in the spectrum.

By comparing different spectra from fig.2 and 3 we can discuss the dependence of the spectrum shape on the model parameters. Two parameters which affect the spectrum the most are $`\sigma ^𝒜/\omega _g`$ and $`\omega _e/\omega _g`$. The effect of $`\sigma ^𝒜`$ is obvious: the bigger the anomalous self-energy the higher the peak. The ratio $`\omega _e/\omega _g`$ regulates the height of the peaks of $`\mathrm{Re}G_n`$. This height is proportional to $`\mathrm{ln}(\omega _e/\omega _g)`$. Thus, the smaller this ratio the higher the peak in the superconducting spectrum. The value of $`\omega ^𝒜`$ specifies roughly the position of the hump. For $`\omega ^𝒜=\mathrm{}`$ the hump is absent from the spectrum – it is moved to infinite frequency.

Another interesting property of our superconducting state spectrum is its compliance with the sum rule (15). Mathematical proof of this fact is given in Appendix. Visually, one can notice from figures 2 and 3 that the depletion of the spectral weight in the dip is roughly compensated by its enhancement at the hump. Experimentally, however, it is seen that the weight from the dip goes into the peak. The reason for this discrepancy is the lack of exact knowledge about $`\widehat{\sigma }`$. Particular, we are unable to identify any first principal based constraint which would provide us with any information about $`\mu `$. To keep our consideration as simple as possible we chose to put $`\mu `$ equal to zero.

As we stressed the equality (9) is only an approximation. Thus, an interesting question worth discussing is how deviations from (9) affect the peak in the superconducting state. To address this issue we model the electron spectral function as

$$A_{n𝐤}^\mathrm{e}(\omega )=A_{n𝐤}(\omega +\mathrm{\Delta }\omega ),$$
(16)
where $`A_{n𝐤}(\omega )`$ is given by (14). In this case the pseudogap for electrons is bigger then the pseudogap for holes by the amount of $`2\mathrm{\Delta }\omega `$. The spectral function can be found according to

$$A_{s𝐤}^\mathrm{e}=2\mathrm{I}\mathrm{m}\left\{\frac{G_{n𝐤}^\mathrm{e}}{1\left(\sigma _𝐤^𝒜\right)^2G_{n𝐤}^\mathrm{h}G_{n𝐤}^\mathrm{e}}\right\}.$$
(17)
The resulting function for $`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega =0.2\omega _g`$ and $`\sigma ^𝒜(\omega )25\omega _g`$ is plotted on fig.4. As one can see the only effect of the asymmetry is uneven hight of the peaks for positive and negative frequencies. The reason for this becomes clear if one notice that (17) may be approximated in the manner similar to (13):

$$A_{s𝐤}^\mathrm{e}\frac{A_{n𝐤}^\mathrm{e}}{1\left(\sigma _𝐤^𝒜\right)^2\mathrm{Re}\left\{G_{n𝐤}^\mathrm{h}G_{n𝐤}^\mathrm{e}\right\}}.$$
(18)
In order to demonstrate the quality of this approximation we plotted this expression on fig.4. The denominator in (18) is symmetric with respect to the frequency sign change. It has two minima located approximately at $`\pm \omega _g`$. Since $`A_n^\mathrm{e}(\omega _g)>A_n^\mathrm{e}(\omega _g)`$ the peak at $`\omega <0`$ is smaller. It is now clear that the superconducting state spectrum is rather robust with respect to small deviations from (9).

To understand why the peak appears at the temperatures higher than $`T_c`$ it is enough to imagine that in the cuprates there is a temperature window $`T_{\mathrm{local}}>T>T_c`$ where the phase coherence exists over some finite time scale $`\tau (T),\tau \mathrm{}`$ as $`TT_c`$. Experimental evidence of this was produced by . Speaking more technically, in this temperature window one can use (10) with non-zero $`\sigma ^𝒜`$ and fixed $`\varphi `$ to describe the single-particle dynamics on the time scale less than $`\tau `$. For time periods bigger than $`\tau `$ the dynamics of the phase $`\varphi `$ cannot be neglected anymore. If $`\tau `$ is big enough one can simply average the propagator over the phase fluctuations. For infinitely long time the anomalous propagator always vanishes above $`T_c`$ due to the phase dynamics. However, the peak in the photoemission spectrum does not vanish since, as it follows from (12), it is independent of $`\varphi `$.

## V Discussion

We study the ‘quasiparticle’ peak in the superconducting state of the underdoped BSCCO. The main conclusion of the present work is that the peak can be explained on the basis of the normal state phenomenology. Our analysis is based on three premises. First, we assume that the single particle spectrum has a pseudogap (fig.1b). The most important consequence of that is the peaks of the function $`|\mathrm{Re}G_n(\omega )|`$ at the edges of the pseudogap. Next, we assume that there is approximate symmetry between positive-frequency and negative-frequency parts of the spectrum (9). This guarantees that the function $`\mathrm{Re}\{G_n(\omega )G_n(\omega )\}`$ has only one maximum at $`\omega <0`$. We also shown that some violation of (9) is not fatal for the qualitative structure of the superconducting state spectrum. Finally, there is the third assumption we made implicitly: the single-particle anomalous self-energy $`\sigma ^𝒜(\omega )`$ does not go to zero at the edges of the pseudogap. If $`\sigma ^𝒜`$ does go to zero then the peak in the superconducting phase could be completely suppressed (see (13)).

In order to explain the emergence of the peak at $`T>T_c`$ we accepted another postulate. It was agreed that (10) local order parameter is established and it is permissible to use (10) with fluctuating $`\varphi `$ to describe the single-particle dynamics above $`T_c`$.

The fact that the peak can be derived from the normal state properties suggests that it is not a fundamental object. Moreover, depending on the circumstances it may be absent or replaced by a less prominent feature .

It is also can be surmised that this phenomena may not be limited to the cuprate superconductors only. The peak could be present in the superconducting state of any material which has a pseudogap in the normal state.

We did not try to fit any experimental data by our curves from fig.2 and fig.3. It is not possible owing to the lack of knowledge about exact form of functions (14). We also have no independent information about the values of $`\omega _e,\omega ^𝒜,\sigma _0^𝒜`$. Another argument against feasibility of the spectrum fit is a problem with the experimental data themselves. It is known that the photoemission spectrum is a convolution of the single-electron Green’s function and a photoemission matrix element. It has been assumed that this matrix element is a constant, at least in a relevant range of parameters. Thus, relative intensities of different features of the spectrum were believed to be free of any influence extrinsic to the electron dynamics. However, it was shown recently that the matrix element has very non-trivial dependence on the photon energy and the binding energy of the photoelectrons . In such a situation the significance of an intensity fit is substantially devaluated.

To conclude, we study the peak in the photoemission spectrum of BSCCO. It was shown that this peak is a consequence of the normal state pseudogap. We derived the most basic properties of the peak and demonstrated that they are in qualitative agreement with the experimental data available.

## VI Acknoledgements

Author is most grateful to D. Basov, A.J. Millis and J.E. Hirsch for help and discussions.

## VII Appendix

In this Appendix we will prove that under rather mild assumptions on $`G_n`$ and $`\sigma ^𝒜`$ the spectral function (12) satisfies (15). In our derivation we will assume that $`\mu 0`$. This limitation is not crucial.

An essential part of our proof is the analyticity of both $`G_n(\omega )`$ and $`\sigma ^𝒜(\omega )`$ for complex values of $`\omega ,\mathrm{Im}\omega >0`$ (upper half-plane). First, we establish asymptotical behavior of $`G_n`$ at large $`|\omega |`$. If $`|\omega |W`$ the details of the spectral function $`A(\omega )`$ are irrelevant and it can be viewed as a delta function times $`2\pi `$. This means that at large $`|\omega |,\mathrm{Im}\omega >0`$

$$G_n(\omega )=_{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}\frac{d\omega ^{}}{2\pi }\frac{A_n(\omega ^{})}{\omega \omega ^{}}\frac{1}{\omega }.$$
(19)
We see, that due to the sum rule (15) the residue of $`G_n`$ at infinity is exactly unity. Next, for any finite $`\omega ^𝒜`$ the same reasoning can be applied to $`\sigma ^𝒜`$ with the result:

$$\sigma ^𝒜(\omega )=𝒪(|\omega |^1)$$
(20)
for large $`|\omega |`$. We do not try to determine the residue of $`\sigma ^𝒜`$ at intinity since it is of no interst to us. The asymptotical behavior combined with the absence of any singularity in the upper half-plane of complex $`\omega `$ implies that both $`G_n`$ and $`\sigma ^𝒜`$ are bounded:

$`|\sigma ^𝒜(\omega )|<C_\sigma ,`$ (21)
$`|G_n(\omega )|<C_G.`$ (22)
where $`C_{\sigma ,G}`$ are some real positive constants. Now we are in position to prove that:

$`\mathrm{Im}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}}𝑑\omega \left(G_s(\omega )G_n(\omega )\right)=0,`$ (23)
$`G_s(\omega )={\displaystyle \frac{G_n(\omega )}{1(\sigma ^𝒜(\omega ))^2(G_n(\omega ))^2}},`$ (24)
provided that the product $`C_GC_\sigma <1`$. This inequality guarantees that the denominator of $`G_s(\omega )`$ never goes to zero. Therefore, the integrand of (23) has no singularities for $`\mathrm{Im}\omega >0`$. This means that we can transform the integration contour into a semi-circle in the upper half-plane. The integral over the semi-circle of infinite radius equals to the residue at infinity times $`(\pi )`$. We already know that this residue is unity for $`G_n`$. It is also unity for $`G_s`$: at large $`|\omega |`$ the denominator is non-singular and approaches 1, thus, the leading asymptotic behavior of $`G_s`$ is the same as that of $`G_n`$. The residue of the integrand is zero which proves (23).


text:
# A Note on Isometric Embeddings of Surfaces of Revolution

Partially supported by the NSF Grant: Model Institutes for Excellence at UMET

1. INTRODUCTION. In 1916 Weyl asked: “Does there exist a smooth global isometric embedding of the Riemannian manifold $`(S^2,g)`$ into $`(^3,can)`$?” Here, $`can`$ is the flat (i.e. canonical) metric on $`^3`$. Solutions to this problem (of various orders of differentiability) have been given by, Weyl, , Nirenberg, , Heinz, , Alexandrov, , and Pogorelov, . All of these results require that the Gauss curvature be positive. A recent result of Hong and Zuily  requires only that the curvature be non-negative. The converses of these theorems cannot hold since it is easy to find embedded metrics with some negative curvature. Moreover, not every metric on $`S^2`$ admits such an isometric embedding. The reader may refer to Greene, , wherein one finds examples of smooth metrics on $`S^2`$ for which there is no $`C^2`$ isometric embedding in $`(^3,can)`$. In this paper we study the special case of $`S^1`$ invariant metrics on $`S^2`$ (i.e. surfaces of revolution). These metrics have two important characteristics: they have two distinguished points, the fixed points of the $`S^1`$ action (north and south pole); and important geometric quantities, such as Gauss curvature, are functions of only one variable. This has the effect of converting computations, which in general require Stokes theorem, to the more basic fundamental theorem of calculus.

Armed with nothing more than the fundamental theorem of calculus, we will show that the non-negativity of the integrals of the curvature over all disks centered at a pole is the necessary and sufficient condition for isometric embeddability of $`S^1`$ invariant metrics on $`S^2`$ into $`(^3,can)`$. So that, although in general, an isometrically embedded metric cannot be expected to have non-negative curvature everywhere, in some sense one has the next best thing: every pole-centered disk has non-negative integral curvature.

2. ISOMETRIC EMBEDDINGS OF ROTATION INVARIANT SURFACES. The results that we obtain are based on a well know and quite elementary result regarding $`S^1`$ invariant metrics on $`S^2`$ (i.e. Surfaces of Revolution) which can be found in Besse , p. 95-106. The reader will find the results of this section to be, essentially, nothing but a reformulation of Besse’s treament. The reader should be aware that our use of the term surface of revolution is equivalent to the definition abstract surface of revolution (not, a priori, embedded in $`^3`$) which can be found in Hwang, .

Let $`(M,g)`$ be an $`S^1`$ invariant Riemannian manifold which is diffeomorphic to $`S^2`$ and which has volume $`4\pi `$. We will assume the metric to be $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$. Since $`(M,g)`$ has an effective $`S^1`$ isometry group there are exactly two fixed points. We call the fixed points $`np`$ and $`sp`$ and let $`U`$ be the open set $`M\{np,sp\}`$. On $`U`$ the metric has the form

$$g=dsds+a^2(s)d\theta d\theta $$
(1)
where $`s`$ is the arclength along a geodesic connecting $`np`$ to $`sp`$ and $`a(s)`$ is a function $`a:[0,L]^+`$ satisfying $`a(0)=a(L)=0`$ and $`a^{}(0)=1=a^{}(L)`$. The canonical (i.e. constant curvature) metric is obtained by taking $`a(s)=\mathrm{sin}s`$.

The Riemannian measure, $`\sqrt{g}ds_{}d\theta \stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}\sqrt{detg}ds_{}d\theta `$ (with respect to which all surface integrals are computed as double integrals) is, in this case, given by $`\sqrt{g}ds_{}d\theta =a(s)ds_{}d\theta `$. This fact, together with the following formula for the Gauss curvature of this metric,

$$K(s)=a^{\prime \prime }(s)/a(s),$$
(2)
reduces the proof of the Gauss-Bonnet Theorem, $`_MK=4\pi `$, to a simple application of the fundamental theorem of calculus.

One can always isometrically embed such a metric into $`^2\times `$ as follows:

$$\{\begin{array}{ccc}\psi ^1(s,\theta )& =& a(s)\mathrm{cos}\theta \hfill \\ \psi ^2(s,\theta )& =& a(s)\mathrm{sin}\theta \hfill \\ \psi ^3(s,\theta )& =& _c^s\sqrt{1(a^{})^2(t)}𝑑t\hfill \end{array}$$
(3)
for some $`c[0,L]`$. The function $`\psi ^3`$ is, in general, complex valued so the condition for embeddability in $`^3`$ reduces to the condition under which $`\psi ^3`$ is real valued. The interested reader will find the following proposition to be equivalent to the result on p-106 of , so we will omit the proof.

###### Proposition 1.

Let $`(M,g)`$, with metric $`g`$ as in (1), be diffeomorphic to $`S^2`$. $`(M,g)`$ can be isometrically $`C^1`$ embedded in $`(^3,can)`$ if and only if $`|a^{}(s)|1`$ for all $`s[0,L]`$. ∎

For a generalization of this proposition, see .

We will end this section with the observation that, in our special case, non-negative curvature implies isometric embeddability since $`K(s)0`$ implies that $`a^{}(s)`$ is a non-increasing function on $`[0,L]`$ with maximum $`1`$ and minimum $`1`$ and hence $`|a^{}(s)|1`$. This proves the following proposition which can be though of as a special case of the theorem of Hong and Zuily .

###### Proposition 2.

Let $`(M,g)`$ be an $`S^1`$ invariant Riemannian manifold which is diffeomorphic to $`S^2`$ with Gauss curvature $`K`$. If $`K0`$ on $`M`$ then $`(M,g)`$ can be $`C^1`$ isometrically embedded in $`(^3,can)`$. ∎

3. MAIN RESULTS. Our main result is the following necessary and sufficient condition.

###### Theorem 3.

Let $`(M,g)`$ be an $`S^1`$ invariant Riemannian manifold which is diffeomorphic to $`S^2`$. Let $`K`$ be the Gauss curvature and let $`np`$ and $`sp`$ denote the fixed points of the $`S^1`$ action. $`(M,g)`$ can be $`C^1`$ isometrically embedded in $`(^3,can)`$ if and only if for all disks $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ centered at $`np`$ or $`sp`$

$$_\mathrm{\Omega }K0.$$

###### Proof.

Each closed disk, $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, centered at $`np`$ is parametrized by $`0sx`$, $`0\theta <2\pi `$ for some $`x`$. So

$$_\mathrm{\Omega }K=_0^{2\pi }_0^xK(s)\sqrt{g}𝑑s_{}𝑑\theta =2\pi _0^xK(s)\sqrt{g}𝑑s.$$

Hence

$$_\mathrm{\Omega }K0\text{ if and only if }_0^xK(s)\sqrt{g}𝑑s0.$$

But now, since $`K(s)=a^{\prime \prime }(s)/a(s)`$, $`\sqrt{g}=a(s)`$, and $`a^{}(0)=1`$,

$$_0^xK(s)\sqrt{g}𝑑s=a^{}(x)+1$$
(4)
and it now easily follows that

$$_0^xK(s)\sqrt{g}𝑑s0\text{ if and only if }a^{}(x)1.$$

A similar argument shows that the non-negativity of all integrals over disks centered at $`sp`$ is equivalent to $`_x^LK(s)\sqrt{g}𝑑s0`$ for all $`x`$. Also, it is easy to show that $`_0^LK(s)\sqrt{g}𝑑s=2`$ (this is, essentially, the Gauss-Bonnet Theorem) hence

$$_x^LK(s)\sqrt{g}𝑑s=2_0^xK(s)\sqrt{g}𝑑s$$

which, after substitution of (4), leads to the conclusion

$$_x^LK(s)\sqrt{g}𝑑s0\text{ if and only if }a^{}(x)1.$$

In other words: $`_\mathrm{\Omega }K0`$ for all disks $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ centered at $`np`$ or $`sp`$ if and only if $`|a^{}(s)|1`$ for all $`s[0,L]`$ and the result now follows from Proposition 1. ∎

There are several interesting consequences of this result. Perhaps the first observation to make is that Theorem 3 provides another proof of Proposition 2 since, obviously, $`K0`$ everywhere implies $`_\mathrm{\Omega }K0`$ for all $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. It is also easy to see that if $`(M,g)`$ is isometrically embedded in $`(^3,can)`$, then the curvature must be non-negative at the poles. This observation yields the following obstruction to isometric embedding in terms of the curvature. For a similar result in terms of the spectrum see .

###### Corollary 4.

Let $`(M,g)`$ be an $`S^1`$ invariant Riemannian manifold of area $`4\pi `$ which is diffeomorphic to $`S^2`$. Let $`K`$ be the Gauss curvature and let $`np`$ and $`sp`$ denote the fixed points of the $`S^1`$ action. If $`K(np)<0`$ or $`K(sp)<0`$ then $`(M,g)`$ cannot be isometrically embedded in $`(^3,can)`$.

###### Proof.

We assume $`K(np)<0`$ i.e. $`K(0)<0`$. Since $`K(s)`$ extends to a continuous function on $`[0,L]`$ and $`\sqrt{g(s)}>0`$ on $`(0,L)`$ then for some $`ϵ>0`$, $`K(s)\sqrt{g(s)}<0`$ on $`(0,ϵ)`$ and hence $`_0^ϵK(s)\sqrt{g(s)}𝑑s<0`$. The result now follows from Theorem 3. ∎

This result is probably well known, but we have not found a reference.

Another particular case of the Gauss Bonnet theorem states that for any domain $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ with $`C^2`$ boundary $`C`$

$$_\mathrm{\Omega }K+_Ck_g=2\pi $$
(5)
where $`k_g`$ is the geodesic curvature of $`C`$. Applying this to our disks centered at the pole and observing that the boundary of these disks are circles of latitude, we get:

###### Corollary 5.

Let $`(M,g)`$ be an $`S^1`$ invariant Riemannian manifold of area $`4\pi `$ which is diffeomorphic to $`S^2`$ and has Gauss curvature $`K`$. $`(M,g)`$ can be $`C^1`$ isometrically embedded in $`(^3,can)`$ if and only if for all circles of latitude, $`C`$,

$$\left|_Ck_g\right|2\pi .$$

###### Proof.

Each circle of latitude serves as the boundary of two disks, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1`$ centered at $`np`$ and another, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_2`$ centered at $`sp`$ but with opposite orientations hence, from (5),

$$_{\mathrm{\Omega }_1}K+_Ck_g=2\pi \text{ and }_{\mathrm{\Omega }_2}K_Ck_g=2\pi ,$$

and so $`_\mathrm{\Omega }K0`$ for all $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ if and only if $`2\pi _Ck_g0`$ and $`2\pi +_Ck_g0`$. Thus $`\left|_Ck_g\right|2\pi `$. ∎