text:
# Recent results from systematic parameterizations of Ginsparg-Wilson fermions

## 1 Introduction

The fundamental difficulties with the implementation of chiral symmetry on the lattice were finally overcome with the rediscovery of the Ginsparg-Wilson equation  for the lattice Dirac operator $`D`$,

$$D\gamma _5+\gamma _5D=\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}2}aDR\gamma _5D.$$
(1)
On the right-hand side $`R`$ is a local operator commuting with $`\gamma _5`$ and $`a`$ denotes the lattice spacing. This equation implies exact chiral symmetry on the lattice . Results obtained with Dirac operators obeying (1) exactly or approximately now allow to test QCD also in the chiral regime (see  for a recent review). The most widely used chiral Dirac operator is the so-called overlap operator . The overlap formula gives a simple explicit prescription how to construct a Ginsparg-Wilson fermion (i.e. a solution of Eq. (1)) from any decent lattice Dirac operator. An approach related to the overlap formalism are domain wall fermions  where an auxiliary fifth dimension is used to implement the chiral symmetry.

Besides the overlap and domain wall fermions two more approaches to chiral symmetry are known, fixed point fermions  and the chirally improved operator . The fixed point (FP) Dirac operator is constructed from the saddle point evaluation of the RG equations. The chirally improved (CI) operator is obtained by a systematic expansion of a solution of the Ginsparg-Wilson equation. In a practical application both the FP and the CI operator will use only finitely many terms (essentially restricted to the hypercube) and one can expect  only an approximation of a Ginsparg-Wilson fermion. Exact chiral symmetry can, however, be obtained by using the FP or CI operators as a starting point in the overlap projection (see also ). Using an improved operator for the overlap was found to improve the localization and one can hope to also obtain better dispersion and scaling properties. However, additional overlap steps also drive up the cost of the Dirac operator in numerical implementations.

In this contribution we analyze how far into the chiral region one can proceed with FP or CI fermions without additional overlap steps. Following a short review of the construction of FP and CI fermions we will discuss several recently obtained results. We address the spectrum of the Dirac operator and the determination of the topological charge and susceptibility from the index theorem. This is followed by a discussion of the results from quenched spectroscopy with emphasis on the pion mass close to the chiral limit where we extract the quenched chiral log parameter $`\delta `$. We study the scaling behavior of rho and proton masses and of the pion decay constant. We conclude with a discussion of the range of pion masses where one can work competitively with FP and CI fermions without overlap projection.

## 2 Construction of FP and CI fermions

The construction for both the FP and CI operators starts from the expression for a general Dirac operator on the lattice . In Fig. 1 we give a schematic representation of such a general lattice Dirac operator.

Let us start the discussion of the structure with already familiar terms. In the dashed square in the upper left corner of Fig. 1 we show the terms that are used in the Wilson Dirac operator. There are two terms coming with the unit matrix in Dirac space: Firstly a constant term consisting of the mass parameter and the center term in the discretization of the Laplacian. They are represented by a dot. Secondly also the nearest neighbor terms from the discretization of the Laplacian come with a unit matrix in Dirac space. These hopping terms are represented by single hops, i.e. straight lines in all directions (for artistic reasons we show only two of the four possible directions). Besides the two terms trivial in Dirac space, the Wilson operator also contains the naively discretized massless Dirac operator where a sum over all $`\gamma _\mu `$ together with hops in positive and negative $`\mu `$-direction occurs (we show only one of the four directions). In order to describe a derivative here the hops in positive and negative direction come with different signs. The parameters $`s_1,s_2`$ and $`v_1`$ are real numbers chosen such that a fermion free of doublers with a given mass is described.

A more general Dirac operator is obtained when more terms are used to discretize the derivative, such as next to nearest neighbor terms, staples etc. Similarly one can also extend the number of terms in the trivial Dirac sector. Finally from the Symanzik improvement program it is already known that also sectors of the Clifford algebra other than the trivial and vector sectors can contribute to the Dirac operator. So the structure of a general Dirac operator as depicted in Fig. 1 is a sum over all elements of the Clifford algebra. Each element is multiplied with paths of link variables and each path has some coefficient $`s_i,v_i,t_i,a_i,p_i`$. Some of the paths have the same coefficient but differ by relative sign factors. These sign factors are entirely determined by implementing the symmetries C,P and $`\gamma _5`$-hermiticity (i.e. $`\gamma _5D\gamma _5=D^{}`$). Rotation invariance requires paths related by rotations on the lattice to come with the same coefficient and translation invariance makes the coefficients independent of the actual space time point. With our particular choice of the representation of the Clifford algebra the coefficients $`s_i,v_i,t_i,a_i,p_i`$ are real. A further generalization can be obtained by allowing these coefficients to be real functions of local loops of gauge links. This option is used for the construction of the FP Dirac operator.

The FP and the CI operator now differ only in the method for determining the coefficients $`s_i,v_i,t_i,a_i,p_i`$. For the FP operator the goal is to use the coefficients to approximate a solution of the fixed point equation for the Dirac operator. The basic idea is that near the critical surface the theory is invariant under real space renormalization group transformations that relate the quantum fields on a fine lattice to fields on a coarser lattice. In general the corresponding equations are quite involved but in the weak coupling limit they can be solved using the saddle point method. For the Dirac operator the FP equation reads

$$D_c=\kappa \kappa ^2\mathrm{\Omega }\left[D_f+\kappa \mathrm{\Omega }^{}\mathrm{\Omega }\right]^1\mathrm{\Omega }^{}.$$
(2)
Here $`D_c`$ ($`D_f`$) is the FP Dirac operator evaluated on the coarse (fine) gauge field configurations. $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the blocking kernel for the fermions and $`\kappa `$ a free parameter of the blocking procedure which can be used to maximize the slope of the exponential decay of the Dirac operator. The coefficients $`s_i,v_i,t_i,a_i,p_i`$ of the Dirac operator were now adjusted such that a $`\chi ^2`$ functional measuring essentially the difference between the left-hand and right-hand sides of (2) on an ensemble of coarse and fine gauge configurations related by the renormalization group is minimized. In the actual construction this procedure was iterated starting from an ensemble at very weak coupling, followed by an intermediate step and finally a last minimization step at the target coupling. We remark that the action was optimized only for one such coupling corresponding to a lattice spacing of $`0.16`$ fm and then used also for the other two couplings. The parameterized FP operator is described by 82 couplings corresponding to 41 independent terms and each of the coefficients $`s_i,v_i,t_i,a_i,p_i`$ is a linear function of local closed gauge loops. All terms of the FP operator are restricted to the hypercube.

For the CI operator the strategy is to directly insert the expanded Dirac operator as depicted in Fig. 1 into the Ginsparg-Wilson equation (1) with a trivial kernel $`R=1/2`$. The evaluation of the two sides of Eq. (1) can be implemented in an algebraic computer program using directly the systematic representation of Fig. 1. The result is an expansion for both sides of the Ginsparg-Wilson equation similar to the expansion of the original Dirac operator. One can show that the individual terms (different element of the Clifford algebra, different paths) are linearly independent. The coefficients of equal terms on the two sides have to be equal and one can read off a system of coupled quadratic equations for the expansion coefficients

$`2s_1`$ $`=`$ $`s_1^2+8s_2^2\mathrm{}+8v_1^2\mathrm{}`$
$`2s_2`$ $`=`$ $`2s_1s_2+12s_2s_3\mathrm{}+12v_1v_2\mathrm{}`$
$`\mathrm{}..`$ (3)
This system is equivalent to the original Ginsparg-Wilson equation. After one truncates the expansion in Fig. 1 this system becomes finite and can be solved numerically. In addition to the equations representing the Ginsparg-Wilson equation one can impose boundary conditions, i.e. additional equations for the coefficients enforcing vanishing quark mass, the correct dispersion relation in the free case, $`𝒪(a)`$ improvement etc. The resulting CI operator is an approximation of a solution of the Ginsparg-Wilson equation. The CI operator has 19 coefficients and terms on the hypercube plus an extra L-shaped term of length $`\sqrt{5}`$.

## 3 Spectrum of eigenvalues

A first impression of the quality of the approximation of a Ginsparg-Wilson Dirac operator can be obtained by inspecting eigenvalues of the Dirac operator in typical gauge backgrounds. For an exact solution of the Ginsparg-Wilson equation the spectrum is restricted to a circle of radius 1 with center 1 in the complex plane. For the two approximations considered here the spectrum will not exactly lie on the Ginsparg-Wilson circle but show small fluctuations around it.

In Fig. 2 we show a superposition of 6 spectra of the CI operator in quenched background gauge configurations on $`12^3\times 24`$ lattices with lattice spacing $`a=0.1`$ fm. Shown are the 50 smallest eigenvalues for each configuration. It is obvious that the eigenvalues are not located exactly on the Ginsparg-Wilson circle but the fluctuations are rather small. In particular we do not find many configurations with negative real eigenvalues. Such so-called exceptional configurations give rise to numerical problems in the computation of the propagator and limit the smallest quark masses one can work at. As will be discussed below the suppression of the eigenvalue fluctuations achieved by the FP and CI operators allows us to work at considerably smaller quark masses than with e.g. Wilson fermions.

An immediate consequence of the well ordered spectrum is the possibility to use the index theorem  for evaluating the topological charge with the FP and CI operators, while for Wilson fermions the large fluctuations of the eigenvalues lead to a mixture of physical and doubler modes . We determined the topological charge as $`Q=n_{}n_+`$ where $`n_{}`$ ($`n_+`$) is the number of eigenvectors with negative (positive) matrix element with $`\gamma _5`$. Measurements  on different volumes $`V`$ and lattice spacings give for the topological susceptibility ($`\chi _{top}=Q^2/V`$) values of (196(4)MeV)4 for the FP operator and (191(2)MeV)4 for the CI operator.

For the CI operator a detailed analysis of the behavior of $`\chi _{top}`$ across the finite temperature QCD phase transition was performed . The quenched gauge configurations were generated with the Lüscher-Weisz gauge action . Our results for the topological susceptibility as a function of the temperature are displayed in Fig. 3. One finds that the results obtained on $`6\times L^3`$ lattices with spatial extent $`L=12,16`$ and 20 nicely agree with each other showing that finite size effects are under control. We also include results from $`12^4`$ and $`16^4`$ lattices to set the base line below $`T_c`$. The critical temperature $`T_c`$ as determined for the Lüscher-Weisz action in  is marked by the dashed vertical line. One finds that the topological susceptibility starts to decrease already below $`T_c`$ and quickly diminishes as the temperature increases further. The results obtained here using the index theorem agree well with calculations based on bosonic methods for the determination of the topological charge .

## 4 Quenched spectroscopy

During the last year the major goal of the BGR collaboration was to use the FP and CI Dirac operators for quenched spectroscopy. Before we discuss the results of this study let us briefly outline the setting of these calculations.

For the FP operator the perfect gauge action  was used to generate the quenched ensembles. The gauge configurations were smoothened with perfect smearing  (which we consider as part of the parameterization of the Dirac operator) and subsequently fixed to Coulomb gauge. For the quark sources a Gaussian distribution was used.

The CI operator was used with gauge ensembles generated with the Lüscher-Weisz action . Here the gauge configurations were treated with one step of hypercubic blocking . For the CI operator Jacobi smeared sources  were used and no gauge fixing was necessary.

For both operators we worked on three lattice sizes, $`8^3\times 24,12^3\times 24`$ and $`16^3\times 32`$. For both gauge actions we used three different gauge couplings corresponding to lattice spacings of roughly $`a=0.15`$ (0.16 for FP), 0.10 and 0.08 fm ($`a`$ determined from the Sommer parameter). The statistics varied between 100 and 200 configurations for each ensemble. Our choice for the volumes and lattice spacings allows to study the scaling behavior with three different values of $`a`$ at a fixed spatial length of about 1.3 fm and a finite size study at a fixed lattice spacing $`a=0.16`$ fm. For a more detailed account of our setting for quenched spectroscopy see .

Let us begin the discussion of our quenched spectroscopy results with the pion mass and the axial Ward identity (AWI) mass. We computed the pion mass using different 2-point correlators (pseudoscalar, time component of the axial current, and the mixed correlator) and also compared correlators with smeared sink to point-like sink correlators. For all these measurements we find good agreement of the pion masses. The (unrenormalized) AWI mass $`m_{AWI}`$ was computed as

$$m_{AWI}=\frac{_0A_0P}{2PP},$$
(4)
where $`P`$ is the pseudoscalar density and $`A_0`$ the time component of the axial vector current. In Fig. 4 we show the mass of the pion as computed from the pseudoscalar 2-point function (circles) and the AWI mass (crosses) as a function of the bare quark mass. This plot was generated using the FP operator on a $`16^3\times 32`$ lattice at a lattice spacing $`a=0.16`$ fm.

It is a convincing sign of good chiral properties that both the pion mass and the AWI mass extrapolate to zero with the bare quark mass. However, for smaller volumes ( $`L=1.8`$ or 1.3 fm) we found that the quenched topological finite size effects caused by the zero modes  become more important. They can be removed by subtracting the scalar propagator, which has the same topological finite size effect but larger mass, from the pseudoscalar 2-point function (see  for more details). In Fig. 4 we show also two fits to the pion data, a quadratic fit (full curve) and a fit including the quenched chiral log  (dashed curve). Our results for the quenched chiral log from a different method will be discussed below.

Another test of chirality is to determine the residual quark mass. This was done using a linear fit to the AWI mass and taking the intercept of the straight line with the horizontal axis as the residual quark mass $`m_{res}`$. For the FP operator we computed a residual mass of $`am_{res}=0.0006(4)`$ at $`a=0.16`$ fm increasing in size to $`am_{res}=0.0194(2)`$ at $`a=0.08`$. This increase is due to the fact that we used the FP action which was optimized for the $`a=0.16`$ ensemble also at finer lattice spacing without redetermining the coefficients. For the CI operator the residual quark mass came out between $`am_{res}=0.002(1)`$ at $`a=0.15`$ fm and $`am_{res}=0.000(1)`$ at $`a=0.08`$ fm. The smallest pion masses we have worked at are $`m_\pi =210`$ MeV for the FP operator and $`m_\pi =240`$ MeV for the CI operator. We expect that for both operators it is possible to go down to $`m_\pi 200`$ MeV without having to use exceedingly fine lattices.

As another important benchmark measurement we looked at APE and Edinburgh plots. In Fig. 5 we show APE plots for the FP (top) and the CI (bottom) operator. For the FP operator we show three sets of data: The results for spatial extent $`L=1.9`$ fm at $`a=0.16`$ fm (circles), the same ensemble but with the FP operator augmented with three steps of the overlap projection using Legendre polynomials (crosses) and finally results at $`L=2.6`$ fm, $`a=0.16`$ fm (triangles). When comparing the FP operator on volumes with $`L=1.9`$ fm and $`L=2.6`$ fm we find that the data agree well and we do not observe finite size effects for $`L1.9`$ fm. Also the overlap augmented FP operator (crosses) gives rise to results which are in very good agreement with the unimproved FP data.

In the bottom figure for the CI operator we compare a data set from a finer but smaller lattice ($`a=0.1`$ fm, $`L=1.6`$ fm, circles) to results from a lattice similar to the one used for the FP operator in the top figure ($`a=0.15`$ fm, $`L=2.4`$ fm, triangles). Here we do see a splitting between the two curves which we attribute to finite size effects and a small scaling violation. It is interesting to note that the data from the FP operator extrapolate very well to the physical value (marked by a star in the plot), while the result from the CI operator undershoots the physical value similar to what is known from other quenched simulations (see e.g. ).

We conclude our discussion of the quenched spectroscopy with a brief discussion of the scaling properties of hadron masses. To do so, we work for both the FP and the CI operator at a bare quark mass which gives a ratio of $`m_\pi /m_\rho =0.7`$. At such a mass the statistical error is small and also a comparison with less chiral actions can be done (see e.g. ). In Fig. 6 we show the octet (circles) and vector (triangles) masses as a function of the square of the lattice spacing. For both the horizontal and vertical axes we use the Sommer parameter to set the scale. Filled symbols represent the FP results, while open symbols are used for the CI operator. The symbols are connected to guide the eye.

The results from the two operators agree within error bars. Both sets of data show only a small deviation from a horizontal line indicating that both $`𝒪(a)`$ and $`𝒪(a^2)`$ effects are small. Note that since both the parameterized FP operator as well as the CI operator are only approximate solutions of the Ginsparg-Wilson it can not a priori be expected that $`𝒪(a)`$ effects are absent. However, the plot shows that scaling violations are very small.

## 5 Pion decay constant

The definition of the pion decay constant can be combined with the axial Ward identity to yield

$$f_\pi =\frac{2m\sqrt{Z_{PP}}}{m_\pi ^2}.$$
(5)
Here $`Z_{PP}`$ is the prefactor of the pseudoscalar 2-point function at zero-momentum,

$$\underset{x}{}P(x,t)P(0,0)\frac{Z_{PP}}{2m_\pi }\mathrm{exp}(m_\pi t).$$
(6)
Strictly speaking formula (5) holds only for Dirac operators with exact chiral symmetry where the product of renormalization constants $`Z_mZ_P`$ equals 1. For the approximate solutions of the Ginsparg-Wilson equation which we use here this is currently only an assumption which will eventually have to be tested.

In Fig. 7 we show $`f_\pi `$ according to Eq. (5) as a function of the bare quark mass (both in units of the lattice spacing as determined from the Sommer parameter) for the CI operator on the $`16^3\times 32`$ ensemble at $`a=0.1`$ fm. We interpolate the data using a second order polynomial which we subsequently use to extrapolate the data to the chiral limit. We collected the results from the chirally extrapolated values of $`f_\pi `$ from the CI operator and analyzed the scaling of this observable. We find that all data agree well within error bars and the discretization errors are small. Our quenched results come out 10-15 % larger than the experimental value (see  for a more detailed discussion).

## 6 Quenched chiral logs

We have already briefly addressed the possibility of extracting the quenched chiral log parameter $`\delta `$ from the pion mass (compare Fig. 4 and the discussion below the figure). However, here we use a method  which allows to increase the statistics by using pions with non-degenerate quark masses and which also gets rid of the dependence on the unknown chiral perturbation scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\chi `$.

The idea is to form the combinations $`x`$ and $`y`$

$`x`$ $`=`$ $`2+{\displaystyle \frac{m_1+m_2}{m_1m_2}}\mathrm{ln}\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_2}{m_1}}\right),`$
$`y`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4m_1m_2}{(m_1+m_2)^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{M_{12}^{}{}_{}{}^{4}}{M_{11}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}M_{22}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}}.`$ (7)
Here $`M_{12}`$ denotes the mass of the pseudoscalar with quark masses $`m_1`$ and $`m_2`$. Using the results of  one finds

$$y=\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1}+\delta x+𝒪(m^2,\delta ^2,a_\varphi ),$$
(8)
i.e. to leading order the quenched chiral log parameter can be read off from the slope in a plot of $`y`$ versus $`x`$.

In Fig. 8 we show such a $`x`$-$`y`$ plot for the FP operator on the $`16^3\times 32`$ lattice at $`a=0.16`$ fm. The data lie inside a band which gives rise to $`\delta =0.17(2)`$ (compare  for previous determinations of $`\delta `$ with chiral fermions). For the CI operator we obtain a very similar result of $`\delta =0.18(3)`$. These results were obtained by using the unrenormalized AWI quark mass for $`m_1,m_2`$ in Eq. (7). For the CI operator we have also experimented with using the bare quark mass instead and we present a more detailed discussion in .

We remark that we also have obtained preliminary results for the pion scattering lengths and some details are also presented in .

## 7 Conclusions

In this contribution we have presented results from quenched QCD calculations using the parameterized FP and CI operators. Both these operators are approximate solutions of the Ginsparg-Wilson equation and are expected to have good chiral properties. Here these expectations are tested using various observables.

We find that both the pion and the AWI mass nicely extrapolate to 0 as a function of the bare quark mass. If one uses the offset in a linear extrapolation of the AWI mass as a criterion for the remaining chiral symmetry breaking we find residual quark masses between 1 and 4 MeV on a quite coarse lattice with $`a=0.16`$ fm. We have successfully extracted the quenched chiral log parameter $`\delta `$ using pions with non-degenerate quark masses. The octet and vector masses, as well as the pion decay constant show very good scaling behavior. We have demonstrated that we can reach pion masses of about 210 MeV without having to go to very small lattice spacings. A more detailed account of our measurements can be found in .

We would like to wrap up our conclusions with a brief comment on where we think our approximate Ginsparg-Wilson fermions will be competitive. In Fig. 9 we show a sketch which compares the cost of different lattice Dirac operators as a function of the pion mass. For heavy quarks the operator of choice is certainly Wilson’s Dirac operator, maybe combined with clover improvement. However, if one wants to go to smaller masses one has to increase the inverse gauge coupling to reduce eigenvalue fluctuations responsible for exceptional configurations. This leads to a finer lattice and the volume has to be increased which drives up the cost, making Wilson fermions very expensive below pion masses of 300 MeV. At such small masses it is more economical to use the more expensive FP or CI operators which cost about a factor of 30 more than Wilson’s operator (see  for a more detailed discussion of the cost). As already remarked, with these operators we reached 210 MeV without having to go to very fine lattices and we expect that we will remain competitive down to at least 200 MeV. If one needs to go further into the chiral region, e.g. when computing the chiral condensate, one eventually has to use overlap projection to further decrease the pion mass. We believe that in the window between pion masses of 200 and 300 MeV the FP and CI operators are the best choice and we will explore whether this is sufficient to make reliable contact with chiral perturbation theory.

Acknowledgements: I would like to thank the members of the BGR collaboration for sharing their experience and enthusiasm during this first year of work. The calculations were done on the Hitachi SR8000 at the Leibniz Rechenzentrum in Munich and we thank the LRZ staff for training and support. This work was supported in parts by DFG and BMBF.


format: text

text:
# POLARIZATION AND STRUCTURE OF SMALL CLUSTERS.

## 1 INTRODUCTION.

In this paper we study the influence of polarization on the structure of small ionic-covalent clusters. In a previous paper  (to be referred to as I) on this subject we have reported that polarizability can be an important factor determining the geometry of clusters, especially clusters consisting of electropositive and electronegative atoms. We illustrated this by the calculation of the structure of A4M4 clusters where A is an alkali ion: Li, Na, K, Rb, Cs and M is a tetralide ion: Si, Ge, Sn, Pb as a function of the polarizability. We used the full ionic charges in these calculations. We find that the structures are only stable for polarizabilities smaller than about 0.7 times the Fraga  values. Secondly, we find that for this maximum value of the polarizability the stable structure of K4M4, Rb4M4 and Cs4M4 is a M4 tetrahedron with the alkali far outside the four faces of this tetrahedron: the Normal Double Tetrahedron (NDT) structure. We found that in case of Li and Na for small polarizability of M the same structure as for the other alkalis, while for large values of the polarizability we found the Li or Na near the faces of the M4 tetrahedron: the near Face Centered Double Tetrahedron (FDT) structure. For intermediate values of the polarizability we find two pairs of M2, separated by Li or Na (to be indicated by PAR) and a boat or butterfly like structure: a tetrahedron with two elongated opposite M–M bonds, we indicate by BUT. Note that NDT and FDT have $`T_d`$ symmetry, and PAR and BUT have $`S_4`$ symmetry. One can continuously distort the first structures to get the latter structures, $`T_d`$ is a special case of $`S_4`$ symmetry.

In the present paper we will discuss these clusters in some more detail, with especial emphasis of the dependence of the geometry on the ionic charge and polarizability. In the calculations we reported in I we also found sometimes a structure with the M ions in a sort of butterfly geometry (indicated by BUT). However we always found this geometry to have a smaller binding energy than the other geometries for the M subcluster: two M2 pairs (PAR), the Normal Tetrahedron (NDT) and Near Face Centered Tetrahedron (FDT). However the difference in binding energy was rather small (of the order of 0.1 eV). So we decided to study the dependence of the structure of these clusters on the ionic charge. Another reason to look whether the geometry depends on the ionic charge is that we found in I from our semi–empirical quantum calculation on these clusters that the charges on the ions are somewhat smaller than the full ones.

Furthermore, we note that there are two structures for crystalline LiGe : one equivalent to LiSi (a Si network with a three–fold coordination) and a second one with weakly coupled layers of Ge, with half of the Ge with a four–fold coordination and the other Ge with a two–fold coordination. This would lead to charge imbalance, with one neutral Ge and one Ge2-. An analysis shows that the latter Ge has two rather short interlayer Ge–Ge bonds, which have a bondstrength  of 0.25 each, so its formal valence charge is Ge1.5-, thus satisfying the generalized Zintl-Bussmann-Klemm valence rule . The other alkali monotetralides crystallize either in a structure with well defined M4 tetrahedra (all Na, K, Rb, Cs monotetralides) or in a structure with M layers (LiSn) or in a distorted CsCl structure (LiPb). These structures are reviewed in . The only known IR spectra are reported in .

This is not the only known structure where the tetralide M- ions form layered, three–dimensional network or a structure with isolated tetrahedrons. Earth-alkaline ditetralides crystallize all in a structure with three–fold coordinated tetralide sublattice  in a layered structure (CaSi2, High-Pressure-High-Temperature BaSi2) or in a structure with tetrahedra (BaSi2, CaGe2, SrGe2, BaGe2), or in a structure with a three–dimensional network (SrSi2). Large cations seem to favor the structure with tetrahedra, small cations the layered structure.

We choose to study the structure of Li4Ge4 as a function of polarizability and ionic charge. In the next section we give a brief account of the theoretical model. In section 3 we give results, in section 4 we give a discussion of these results and the conclusions.

## 2 THEORY.

The theoretical model we use is the same as in I. It is a mixture of a semi–empirical quantum mechanical model and a classical electrostatic model. The semi–empirical model is used to describe the valence electrons. It is basically an adaptation for clusters of the parameterization scheme given by Harrison  for the hybridization matrix elements he derived for the solid state. We have applied his new scheme  and parameter values, which includes overlap matrix elements calculated by the Wolffberg–Helmholtz approximation. Electron–electron interactions are neglected in this scheme. The unperturbed atomic orbital energies are also taken from Harrison . We include the peripheral s state correction as a perturbation. We include only the atomic s and p levels of the alkali and tetralide.

The classical electrostatic contributions to the binding energy consist of the Coulomb interactions of the ionic charges ($`Q`$), the interaction between the Coulomb fields and the induced polarizability, the dipole-dipole interactions, and the energy required to create these induced dipoles. The polarizability is taken from Fraga . All results are reported as a function of the fraction of these polarization values. The polarizability of A and M are determined by the same fraction of the Fraga value.

Next to this we have two semiclassical contributions: the van der Waals interaction and the Born repulsion. For the first we take the form: $`C/R^6`$. The constant $`C`$ is approximated by the polarizability. As this contribution is in general small we did not optimize the parameter $`C`$. For the Born repulsion between two atoms/ions 1 and 2 a distance $`R`$ apart we take: $`F(\rho _1+\rho _2)\mathrm{exp}((R_1^0+R_2^0R)/(\rho _1+\rho _2))`$, where $`R_i^0`$ is the Born radius of atom $`i`$, and $`\rho _i`$ is the decay length of the Born repulsion for $`R>R_1^0+R_2^0`$. The Born radii have been fixed so as to reproduce the neutral atom interatomic distances (see  and I) by this model.

We do not take into account the contribution due to the covalent distortion of the valence electron density in the calculation of the polarization contribution. We also neglect the distortion of the core charge density due to core–core overlap in case of short interatomic distances.

We have calculated the minimum energy using the Simplex method, using all atom coordinates in the minimization. In some cases, to be discussed below, we have used structures with a fixed geometry: NDT and FDT with two parameters, PAR and BUT with four parameters.

## 3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION.

In figure 1 we present the cluster structure phase diagram for Li4Ge4. We find five regions: one where the tetrahedron of Ge is stable (NDT), one where Ge2 piars are stable (PAR), another where a butterfly geometry - a tetrahedron with two long opposite bonds – is stable (BUT) and a fourth where isolated ions of Ge are stable (FDT). These structures are illustrated in figure 2. The fifth region for $`\alpha >0.75\alpha _F`$ is where the A4M4 can always find a configuration in which the polarizability becomes the most important contribution to the total energy. We illustrate these geometries in figure: 2 for the Li4Ge4 cluster.

Let us first discuss the extent of the latter region of instability. It has been known for a long time that including the polarizability of ions in the calculation of the cluster structure with minimum energy can give rise to divergences in the total energy. Some years ago, Thole  discussed the problem of the polarization catastrophe in Molecular Dynamics simulations of molecules due to close appraoch of two molecules. He derived a criterium for the nearest approach of two molecules in order to avoid such problems: the effective polarizability of two polarizable molecules diverges if two molecules appraoch each other closer than $`R=(2\alpha )^{1/3}`$. This criterium is independent of the local electric fields. However, using this criterium our systems would be stable.

We performed a calculation for the butterfly/pair geometry of the total energy, and derived a relation between $`R`$ distance in the pairs (or the diagonal, in the butterfly) and the distance between the pairs (height of the butterfly): $`H`$. One then finds the following condition for divergence of polarization contribution to the total energy:

$$A=\frac{R^3}{\alpha }=\frac{1}{4}\left[x2+\left((3x2)^2+16\frac{H^2}{R^2}x^2\right)^{1/2}\right]$$
(1)
where $`x=(1/2+(H/R)^2)^{5/2}`$. We find that for $`R(4.66\alpha )^{1/3}`$, there is always an $`H`$ for which the total energy diverges. Using the values of Fraga for the polarizability, we find that the critical value of the polarization is $`0.7\alpha _F`$. This is what we actually find in our simulations. This limit for stable solutions is independent of the electric field. Obvious within this region of polarization induced instability there are relative minima.

In this instability region we find that for certain atoms the length of the dipole moment is larger than the ion diameter. The polarization energy becomes even larger than the Born repulsion, and the ions can come very close together. Our model is not longer valid: The cores start to overlap strongly, and one should also take into account the deformation of the core charge distribution, described by the so–called deformation dipole moment (Tosi et al ).

In the region where we find the stable geometries we can describe the succession of structures with increasing polarizability as if polarizability tends to break the covalent M-M bonds: large polarizability together with strong electric fields act as a scissor on covalent bonds. Also from the point of view of increasing the ionic charges one finds these covalent bonds are broken with increasing ionic charge: from a Ge4 tetrahedron in the NDT structure with six Ge–Ge bonds with a lenght of approximately 2.53 – 2.61 $`\AA `$ with the Li far away outside on its 4 faces, to a BUT structure with a Ge4 butterfly with four short Ge–Ge bonds (2.45-2.53 $`\AA `$), and two long “bonds” of about 3.00 $`\AA `$. This geometry is for relative large polarizability an intermediate structure to a PAR structure with two Ge2 pairs, with a total of 2 Ge–Ge with bond lengths of 2.39 – 2.45 $`\AA `$. These pairs are about 3.68 – 3.80 $`\AA `$ apart. For relative large polarizability the Ge pairs further dissociate to isolated Ge ions (FDT), where one finds the four Li on or just outside the faces of the large Ge tetrahedron. In this case the interatomic Ge distance is about 3.7 $`\AA `$.

In the stable regime we have applied the Simplex to minimize the total energy with all atom coordinates. In some cases one has to be very near to the minimum otherwise the Simplex gets stuck in a relative minimum. This happens especially in the case of two pairs. One of the problems is that there are two solutions with pairs in the case of Li4Ge4, which are separated by an energy of about 0.7 eV. The one with highest energy has a somewhat larger Ge–Ge distance in the Ge2 pairs. Secondly, in case of the pairs with lowest energy, the energy minimum in the coordinate “landscape” seems to be very localized, and difficult to find. Such a problem did not arise for the other geometries of Li4Ge4.

We have calculated the vibration energies (which we report elsewhere ) of these clusters. We find that the cluster with two pairs with the short Ge–Ge bond has one mode with a very large energy of the order of 0.8 eV. We noted that the Simplex has difficulties finding the minimum, and actually one finds a number of saddlepoints which are very close in coordinate space. Note also the large extend of the region in the phase diagram where the Ge2 pairs are metastable 1B.

We find that the ionic charges as calculated from the semi–empirical molecular orbital part of our calculation are approximately 0.8 for all A4M4 clusters.

In the solid state we identify the M4 tetrahedron binding energy with the energy difference between the NDT and FDT configuration. We calculated the energy difference between a A4M4 cluster with a M4 tetrahedron (NDT) and with four isolated M ions (FDT). For the charge transfer we take $`Q=0.8`$ and for the polarizability $`\alpha =\alpha _F`$. The results are in table 1, and where they can be compared with results from an analysis of lattice energies  and with M4 binding energies derived from specific heat data . Note the good agreement of the energy differences calculated within our simple model and the binding energies obtained from the specific heat data  and Madelung energy analysis .

## 4 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS.

Using this relative simple model, introduced in section 2, for the calculation of the total energy of ionic-covalent clusters, we have studied the influence of the polarizability on the geometry and structure of a relative simple cluster Li4Ge4. We find that polarizability together with ionic charge can break covalent bonds. This is contrary to the usual believe that polarization plays approximately the same role as covalent bonding. Strong polarizability breaks covalent bonds. In order to access the validity of our model for these A4M4 clusters we also calculated the dissociation energy and vibration energies  of these clusters. Where experimental data are available we find good agreement with experiment.

A region of instability in the phase diagram of Li4Ge4 clusters is found for large polarizability. The most simple way to remedy the deficiency of our model is to introduce the deformation dipole, which develops when two atom cores are overlapping.

From the phase diagram of LiGe 1A we conclude that for small anion polarizability these Li4Ge4 clusters have a cubic structure with anions and cations approximately on the vertices of a cube, independent of the ionic charge. For increasing anion polarizability the Ge4 tetrahedron deforms into two pairs, separated by the four Li cations, or into a butterfly, with two relative long M–M bonds, and four normal M–M bond lengths, or into a structure where all the covalent bonds of the Ge4 tetrahedron are broken up. Further increasing the polarizability we enter into a regime where no structure is stable. In case of Sn and Pb we do not find these intermediate phase of pair or butterfly.

Let us now briefly comment on how we can apply this results to solid state structures. In general we expect the local Coulomb fields in a solid to be smaller than in the clusters we have studied. In order to apply our results to the solid state we have to keep this in mind. Firstly, for small cations like Li and Mg we donot expect isolated M4 tetrahedra in the solid state – unless when $`\alpha _M`$ is very small. A possible characteristic for the structure of these compounds are in this case: a 3–fold coordinated 2d or 3d network of the M sublattice or a strongly distorted ionic structure (NaCl, CsCl).

Secondly, For large cations like K, Rb, Cs, Ba one expects based on the calculations presented in this paper isolated M4 tetrahedra. Na, Ca and Sr are intermediate. In our very first paper  on this subject we applied a simple hybridization model to a modified Bethe lattice. We found a very clear separation between the isolated tetrahedron structures of Na, K, Rb and Cs mono tetralides and the Li monotetralides. The different structures found for these Li compounds can only be explained by taking into account polarizability.

It is clear that one finds the same trends in the solid state as found for these small clusters. The pair and butterfly configuration can be compared with the 2–dimensional layered and 3–dimensional network structures found for LiGe and LiSi.

Next let us turn our attention to the liquid state of these alkali monotetralides. For reviews of this field see: . LiSn and LiPb are not of interest because the tetrahedra are already broken up in the solid state. In the liquid state of Cs, Rb and possibly K monotetralides one finds tetrahedra, which, due to entropic effects, break up with increasing temperature into smaller units. This holds probably also for NaSn and NaPb. This is actually the interpretation of the Schottky anomaly found in the liquid state of these systems . In case of NaSi and NaGe there is also the possibility of the formation of 3-fold coordinated network: in our calculations the BUT and PAR configurations are metastable phases with an energy not far above the NDT. This offers also an explanation for the occurance of these M networks observed in MD  and Reverse Monte Carlo  simulations.

We conclude that these model calculations on small ionic–covalent clusters can give us reliable data on the interatomic distances, binding energy and vibration spectra of such small clusters, and is a basis for the discussion of structural phase transitions in alkali-monotetralides and alkaline–earth–ditetralides.

## Acknowledgements

We acknowledge a grant from the Europea Union ( TMR contract: ERBFMBICT–950218), which made the first stages of this research possible, and a grant from CNPq (300928/97–0) during the final stages of this work.


text:
# Adiabatic Index of Dense Matter and Damping of Neutron Star Pulsations

## 1 Introduction

The adiabatic index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1=(n_\mathrm{b}/P)(\mathrm{d}P/\mathrm{d}n_\mathrm{b})`$ for density perturbations determines the changes of pressure $`P`$ associated with variations of the local baryon density $`n_\mathrm{b}`$ (e.g., Shapiro & Teukolsky 1983). It enters the equations governing small-amplitude neutron-star pulsations (Thorne & Campolattaro 1967, Thorne 1968, 1969) as well as the criteria of stability of cold relativistic stars (Meltzer & Thorne 1966, Chanmugan & Gabriel 1971, Chanmugan 1977, Gourgoulhon et al. 1995). For the time-dependent perturbations, like neutron-star pulsations, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$ has to be calculated taking into account the slowness of various equilibration channels in dense matter. The same factors strongly affect viscous damping of neutron-star pulsations.

In the present paper, we study three main factors which regulate $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$ and the viscous damping of pulsations: composition of dense matter, pulsation amplitude, and superfluidity of baryons. Equilibration processes for various compositions of neutron-star cores are studied in Sect. 2. In Sect. 3, we calculate the adiabatic index under various conditions of density, composition, and temperature. We separately study two different regimes: first, the regime with the perturbations of chemical potentials of particles much smaller than $`T`$, and second, the regime with the perturbations much larger than $`T`$ (we use the units in which the Boltzmann constant $`k_\mathrm{B}=1`$); we also consider the effect of baryon superfluidity. In Sect. 4 we estimate the timescales of the viscous damping of density pulsations under various physical conditions which can be realized in the neutron-star cores. Finally, in Sect. 5 we summarize our results and briefly discuss the problems which remain to be solved.

## 2 Relaxation processes in neutron-star cores

It is widely believed that dense matter of the outer neutron-star core ($`0.5n_0n_\mathrm{b}2n_0`$, where $`n_00.16`$ fm-3 is the number density of saturated nuclear matter) contains neutrons (n), protons (p), electrons (e), and – if the electron Fermi energy exceeds the muon rest energy (that occurs at $`n_\mathrm{b}n_0`$) – also muons ($`\mu `$). At higher densities in the inner core, hyperons may appear, first of all, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ hyperons. All constituents of matter are strongly degenerate. We restrict ourselves to this composition and will not consider exotic models of matter containing pion or kaon condensates or free quarks. We will study a neutrino-transparent neutron-star core formed in about 30 s after the neutron star birth in a supernova explosion. We ignore thus the early stage of the neutrino opaque core in a protoneutron star (the adiabatic index in such matter was studied by Gondek et al. ghz97 (1997)).

### 2.1 Strong and weak-interaction processes

Full thermodynamic equilibrium in dense matter is established only after partial equilibria are achieved in all equilibration channels. In our case, there may be five types of channels \[labelled as (a), (a), (b), (c), and (d)\], with drastically different relaxation times. These channels, described partly, e.g., by Yakovlev et al. (ykgh01 (2001)) and Haensel et al. (hly02 (2002)), are as follows:
(a) Strong and Coulombic elastic collisions,

$$\mathrm{BB}^{}\mathrm{BB}^{},\mathrm{}\mathrm{B}\mathrm{}\mathrm{B},\mathrm{}\mathrm{}^{}\mathrm{}\mathrm{}^{},$$
(1)
where B and $`\mathrm{B}^{}`$ are baryons (nucleons B=N or hyperons B=H), while $`\mathrm{}`$ and $`\mathrm{}^{}`$ are leptons in dense matter (electrons or muons). These processes do not change particle fractions.
($`\mathrm{a}^{}`$) Strong-interaction processes conserving strangeness but changing baryon fractions,

$$\mathrm{n}\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{p}\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}.$$
(2)
(b) Modified Urca processes like

$$\mathrm{nN}\mathrm{N}^{}\mathrm{p}\mathrm{}\overline{\nu }_l,\mathrm{pN}\mathrm{}\mathrm{nN}^{}\nu _{\mathrm{}},$$
(3)
where $`\nu _{\mathrm{}}`$ and $`\overline{\nu }_{\mathrm{}}`$ are neutrino and antineutrino. Similar processes can also proceed with one or both nucleons replaced by hyperons. These processes can change the fractions of nucleons, hyperons, and leptons.
(c) Direct Urca processes involving nucleons and hyperons,

$`\mathrm{n}\mathrm{p}\mathrm{}\overline{\nu }_{\mathrm{}},\mathrm{p}\mathrm{}\mathrm{n}\nu _{\mathrm{}};`$ (4)
$`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}\mathrm{n}\mathrm{}\overline{\nu }_{\mathrm{}},\mathrm{n}\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}\nu _{\mathrm{}};`$ (5)
$`\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{p}\mathrm{}\overline{\nu }_{\mathrm{}},\mathrm{p}\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Lambda }\nu _{\mathrm{}},`$ (6)
which, similarly to processes (b), can change the fractions of nucleons, hyperons, and leptons.
(d) Nonleptonic collisions of baryons changing strangeness, e.g.,

$$\mathrm{N}\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{Nn},\mathrm{nn}\mathrm{p}\mathrm{\Sigma }^{};$$
(7)
they can change the fractions of baryons, but do not affect the fractions of leptons.

### 2.2 Relaxation times

Relaxation times in channels (a) and ($`\mathrm{a}^{}`$) are about $`(10^{16}10^{19})/T_9^2`$ s or shorter, where $`T_9T/10^9\mathrm{K}`$ (this can be deduced, e.g., from the results of Flowers & Itoh fi79 (1979)). Therefore, these channels guarantee instantaneous (on hydrodynamical time scales) partial thermodynamic equilibration to the Fermi-Dirac distributions of particles of all species $`j`$ with a temperature $`T`$ and chemical potentials $`\mu _j`$. Processes ($`\mathrm{a}^{}`$) allow for additional equilibration of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}`$, and nucleons, which leads to the equality of the chemical potentials $`\mu _\mathrm{\Sigma }+\mu _p=\mu _n+\mu _\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. The relaxation in channels (b), (c), and (d) (with relaxation times $`\tau _\mathrm{M}`$, $`\tau _\mathrm{D}`$, and $`\tau _\mathrm{H}`$) is associated with weak interactions and lasts, therefore, much longer; it will be important for our analysis. In a nonsuperfluid matter close to full equilibrium the relaxation times can be estimated as (e.g., Yakovlev et al. ykgh01 (2001), Haensel et al. hly02 (2002))

$$\tau _\mathrm{M}\frac{2\mathrm{month}}{T_9^6},\tau _\mathrm{D}\frac{20\mathrm{s}}{T_9^4},\tau _\mathrm{H}\frac{1\mathrm{ms}}{T_9^2}.$$
(8)
These estimates are valid if only the pulsation amplitudes $`\delta \mu _j|\mu _j\mu _j^{(0)}|`$ are very low, $`\delta \mu _jT`$, where $`\mu _j^{(0)}`$ is the fully equilibrium value of $`\mu _j`$. We will call this regime as the regime of subthermal pulsations.

According to Eqs. (8), the slowest are modified Urca processes which involve neutrinos and largest number of strongly degenerate particles. The most rapid are nonleptonic processes changing strangeness; they go via weak interaction but involve smallest number of degenerate particles and no neutrinos. While estimating $`\tau _\mathrm{H}`$ and viscous dissipation parameters in hyperonic matter from the results of Haensel et al. (hly02 (2002)), we set the phenomenological hyperon reaction parameter $`\chi =0.1`$. All the parameters in hyperonic matter are rather uncertain and can differ from the presented values within a factor of ten or even larger.

## 3 Adiabatic index

Clearly, one can divide the neutron star core into three zones with different relaxation properties. The outer zone (zone “M”) extends from the core-crust interface, $`n_\mathrm{b}0.5n_0`$, to some baryon density $`n_\mathrm{D}`$. The relaxation in this zone is provided by the modified Urca processes (b). The intermediate zone “D” extends from the density $`n_\mathrm{D}`$, at which the direct Urca process becomes open, to some density $`n_\mathrm{H}`$. The relaxation goes much faster there, because it is provided by the direct Urca processes (c) while the modified Urca processes are always insignificant once the direct Urca processes are open. The inner zone “H” extends from the density $`n_\mathrm{H}`$, at which hyperonic processes (d) start to operate, to the stellar center. In this zone, we have the relaxation channels of two very different types: direct Urca (c) and nonlepton hyperonic processes (d), with $`\tau _\mathrm{H}\tau _\mathrm{D}`$. The low-mass neutron stars contain only zone M. More massive stars may contain zones D and H.

In a pulsating star, the baryon number density $`n_\mathrm{b}`$ varies with pulsation period $`2\pi /\omega 10^3`$ s, where $`\omega 10^4`$ s-1 is a typical pulsation frequency. Even if the unperturbed (non-pulsating) stellar state was in the full equilibrium (which we assume), the pulsating matter may be out of the equilibrium with respect to channels (b)–(d). The adiabatic index for perturbations of the matter has, therefore, to be defined as

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_1=\frac{n_\mathrm{b}}{P}\left(\frac{\mathrm{d}P}{\mathrm{d}n_\mathrm{b}}\right)_\mathrm{C}=\frac{\rho +P/c^2}{P}\left(\frac{\mathrm{d}P}{\mathrm{d}\rho }\right)_\mathrm{C},$$
(9)
where $`\rho `$ is the mass density and the subscript C means that the derivative should be constrained by the conditions in various channels (see below). In the full equilibrium, we have $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{EQ}}`$, where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{EQ}}`$ is the adiabatic index that determines the stiffness of the equation of state (EOS) in a non-pulsating star (i.e., determines the basic neutron-star structure in equilibrium). Figure 1 shows the density dependence of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{EQ}}`$ for a relativistic mean-field EOS of Glendenning (glendenning85 (1985); his case 3) of npe$`\mu \mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}`$ matter (similar curve of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{EQ}}`$ was calculated, for instance, by Balberg & Gal bg97 (1997)). For this EOS, $`\mu `$, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}`$ particles appear at $`n_\mathrm{b}=0.110`$, 0.310, and 0.319 fm-3, respectively, and the main direct Urca process, Eq. (4), with electrons is allowed at $`n_\mathrm{D}=0.227`$ fm-3. The adiabatic index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$ in question may differ from $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{EQ}}`$ because of the lack of equilibrium in channels (b)–(d) in pulsating matter.

Exact calculation of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$ is complicated. Thus we restrict ourselves to several important limiting cases.

Generally, the pressure depends not only on $`n_\mathrm{b}`$ but also on the fractions $`x_j=n_i/n_\mathrm{b}`$ of various particle species $`j`$. Thus, Eq. (9) can be written as

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_1=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{FR}}+\frac{n_\mathrm{b}}{P}\underset{j}{}\left(\frac{P}{x_j}\right)_{n_\mathrm{b}}\left(\frac{x_j}{n_\mathrm{b}}\right)_\mathrm{C},$$
(10)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{FR}}=(\mathrm{ln}P/\mathrm{ln}n_\mathrm{b})_{\{x_j\}}`$ is the adiabatic index calculated for the “frozen” composition of matter (at $`x_j=`$ constant). The frozen-composition index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{FR}}`$ is also depicted in Fig. 1 for the same model of dense matter. Freezing the particle fractions makes an EOS stiffer and increases $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$. The real value of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$ lies evidently between $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{EQ}}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{FR}}`$. Some examples are shown in Fig. 2.

Two obvious conditions of varying the parameters of matter while calculating the derivatives in Eq. (10) are: conservation of baryon number and electric neutrality. This reduces the number of independent fractions (degrees of freedom) by two. Other conditions are described below.

### 3.1 Subthermal pulsations in nonsuperfluid matter

Let us consider nonsuperfluid matter and the subthermal pulsation regime, $`\delta \mu _jT`$, for all $`j`$. In zones M and D, the relaxation times $`\tau _\mathrm{M}`$ and $`\tau _\mathrm{D}`$ are much larger than the pulsation periods $`2\pi /\omega `$. Accordingly, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{FR}}`$ is a good approximation, i.e., $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$ is noticeably higher than $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{EQ}}`$ (Figs. 1 and 2).

In zone H, the situation is more complicated. If the star is sufficiently cold, $`T10^9`$ K, we have $`\tau _\mathrm{H}2\pi /\omega `$, and again $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{FR}}`$. However, in a hotter star, we may have the opposite condition, $`\tau _\mathrm{H}2\pi /\omega `$, which will lead to the equilibrium in hyperonic channels (d); then $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$ has to be calculated assuming this equilibrium. The latter implies two conditions:

$$\mu _\mathrm{n}+\mu _\mathrm{\Lambda }=\mu _\mathrm{p}+\mu _\mathrm{\Sigma },x_\mathrm{\Sigma }+x_\mathrm{\Lambda }=x_\mathrm{\Sigma }^{(0)}+x_\mathrm{\Lambda }^{(0)},$$
(11)
in pulsating matter (the upperscript (0) refers to equilibrium values). In combination with conservation of baryon number and electric neutrality in pulsating matter, conditions (11) allow us to calculate the partial derivatives in Eq. (10) and determine $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$ (plotted by the thick solid line in Fig. 2). This adiabatic index is only slightly lower than $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{FR}}`$, for the adopted EOS (cf. the thick solid line and the upper dashed line in Fig. 2).

### 3.2 Suprathermal pulsations in nonsuperfluid matter

Let us outline the case of larger pulsation amplitudes, $`\delta \mu _jT`$, which however are assumed to be relatively small, $`\delta \mu _j\mu _j`$, so that the linear pulsation theory is valid. Under such conditions, the deviations of the chemical potentials from the fully equilibrium values will strongly reduce the relaxation times $`\tau `$. As follows from calculations of the rates of nonequilibrium processes (e.g., Reisenegger reisenegger95 (1995), Yakovlev et al. ykgh01 (2001)), one can estimate the relaxation time at $`\delta \mu _jT`$ by replacing

$$T\stackrel{~}{T}=\sqrt{T^2+(\delta \mu )^2/(2\pi )^2}$$
(12)
in Eqs. (8), where $`\delta \mu `$ is a typical pulsation amplitude of chemical potentials. This replacement correctly reproduces the regime of subthermal pulsations ($`\delta \mu T`$, $`\stackrel{~}{T}T`$). In the suprathermal regime, $`\delta \mu T`$, the relaxation times no longer depend on $`T`$ but depend on the pulsation amplitude $`\delta \mu `$ instead. Let us stress that the replacement is approximate; detailed calculations are required to obtain quantitatively accurate results in the suprathermal regime. Such calculations are beyond the scope of the present paper.

To illustrate the suprathermal effects let us take, for instance, $`T=100`$ keV $`10^9`$ K, $`\mu 500`$ MeV, and $`\delta \mu 0.02\mu 10`$ MeV. Then we have $`\delta \mu /T100`$ and the relaxation times $`\tau _\mathrm{M}`$ 0.1 s, $`\tau _\mathrm{D}10^4`$ s, and $`\tau _\mathrm{H}3\times 10^6`$ s. Thus, $`\tau _\mathrm{M}`$ remains much larger than $`2\pi /\omega `$, and we have $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{FR}}`$, as before, in zone M. However, $`\tau _{\mathrm{D},\mathrm{H}}2\pi /\omega `$, and we have rapid relaxation in all channels in zones D and H, where we can put $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{EQ}}`$. The adiabatic index for this regime is plotted by the dot-and-dashed line in Fig. 2 (marked as $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1^{}`$).

### 3.3 Subthermal pulsations in superfluid matter

Now we return to subthermal pulsations, $`\delta \mu T`$, but assume superfluidity of baryons. All baryon species (n, p, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}`$, in our example) can be in a superfluid state. The critical temperatures $`T_\mathrm{c}`$ of baryon superfluids depend on the model of strong interactions and the many-body theory employed. Various microscopic models predict density dependent $`T_\mathrm{c}`$, different for different baryons, ranging from $`10^8`$ K to $`10^{10}`$ K (e.g., Lombardo & Schulze ls01 (2001); also see Haensel et al. hly01 (2001, 2002) for references). A strong superfluidity ($`T_\mathrm{c}T`$) will drastically (exponentially) reduce the rates of the processes involving baryons (due to the appearance of superfluid gaps in baryon energy spectra; see, e.g., Yakovlev et al. ykgh01 (2001)). This will increase the relaxation times (8) in various channels (b)–(d). In this case we can easily have $`\tau 2\pi /\omega `$, and the relaxation will be frozen over pulsation periods. Thus, putting $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{FR}}`$ will be a good approximation.

### 3.4 Suprathermal pulsations in superfluid matter

This case is complicated. Note however that the pulsations with amplitudes $`\delta \mu `$ higher than the superfluid gaps, $`\mathrm{\Delta }1`$ MeV, seem to be independent of superfluid properties of dense matter. Thus, the relaxation times of pulsations with such amplitudes can be estimated using the results of Sect. 3.2.

## 4 Damping of stellar pulsations by bulk viscosity

Let us turn to the bulk viscosity of dense matter and associated damping of neutron-star pulsations. For the composition of dense matter we are interested in, these problems have been studied in a number of papers starting from the pioneering papers by Langer & Cameron (lc69 (1969)) and Jones (jones71 (1971)). The current state of the problem and references to other papers can be found in Jones (jones01 (2001)), Haensel et al. (hly02 (2002)), and Lindblom & Owen (lo02 (2002)).

### 4.1 Nonsuperfluid matter

Simple estimates of the bulk viscosity $`\zeta `$ in the familiar subthermal regime are given, for instance, by Haensel et al. (hly01 (2001, 2002)). The generalization to the case of suprathermal pulsations is straightforward. Generally, one can introduce an effective bulk viscosity $`\stackrel{~}{\zeta }`$ which determines actual dissipation rate of pulsation energy per unit volume. The estimates of $`\stackrel{~}{\zeta }`$ can be obtained from the estimates of $`\zeta `$ by replacing there $`T\stackrel{~}{T}`$. In this way we come to the order-of-magnitude estimates of the effective bulk viscosity in zones M, D, and H:

$`\stackrel{~}{\zeta }_\mathrm{M}`$ $``$ $`5\times 10^{18}\omega _4^2\stackrel{~}{T}_9^6\mathrm{g}\mathrm{cm}^1\mathrm{s}^1,`$ (13)
$`\stackrel{~}{\zeta }_\mathrm{D}`$ $``$ $`5\times 10^{24}\omega _4^2\stackrel{~}{T}_9^4\mathrm{g}\mathrm{cm}^1\mathrm{s}^1,`$ (14)
$`\stackrel{~}{\zeta }_\mathrm{H}`$ $``$ $`10^{29}\omega _4^2\stackrel{~}{T}_9^2\mathrm{g}\mathrm{cm}^1\mathrm{s}^1,`$ (15)
where $`\omega _4`$ is the pulsation frequency in units of $`10^4`$ s-1.

At the next step, following Haensel et al. (2002), we estimate a typical viscous dissipation time of stellar pulsations, $`t_{\mathrm{diss}}\rho R^2/\stackrel{~}{\zeta }`$, with $`R10`$ km being the radius of the neutron-star core. The timescale $`t_{\mathrm{diss}}`$ is determined either by dissipation in zone M ($`t_{\mathrm{diss}}=t_\mathrm{M}`$, if zones D and H are absent), or dissipation in zone D ($`t_{\mathrm{diss}}=t_\mathrm{D}`$, if zone H is absent), or dissipation in zone H ($`t_{\mathrm{diss}}=t_\mathrm{H}`$, if a representative zone H is available). Then we obtain drastically different dissipation times,

$$t_\mathrm{M}\frac{10\omega _4^2}{\stackrel{~}{T}_9^6}\mathrm{yr},t_\mathrm{D}\frac{100\omega _4^2}{\stackrel{~}{T}_9^4}\mathrm{s},t_\mathrm{H}\frac{10\omega _4^2}{\stackrel{~}{T}_9^2}\mathrm{ms},$$
(16)
for the different cases.

For the subthermal pulsations, we have $`\stackrel{~}{T}=T`$ and reproduce thus the estimates given by Haensel et al. (hly02 (2002)). For the suprathermal pulsations, $`\delta \mu T`$, the effective bulk viscosity and dissipation time (just as the relaxation times in Sect. 3.2) stop to depend on temperature $`T`$ but depend on $`\delta \mu `$ instead, producing strongly enhanced nonlinear (in the pulsation amplitude, $`\delta \mu `$) viscous pulsation damping. The damping will completely destroy the pulsation mode if the dissipation time $`t_{\mathrm{diss}}`$ becomes comparable to the pulsation period $`2\pi /\omega `$. Thus, setting $`t_{\mathrm{diss}}=2\pi /\omega `$ we can find the maximum pulsation amplitude $`\delta \mu _{\mathrm{max}}`$ which a pulsating star can sustain. For the pulsations in regimes M, D, and H, we obtain:

$`\delta \mu _{\mathrm{max}}^\mathrm{M}`$ $``$ $`50\omega _4^{1/2}\mathrm{MeV},`$ (17)
$`\delta \mu _{\mathrm{max}}^\mathrm{D}`$ $``$ $`10\omega _4^{3/4}\mathrm{MeV},`$ (18)
$`\delta \mu _{\mathrm{max}}^\mathrm{H}`$ $``$ $`2\omega _4^{3/2}\mathrm{MeV}.`$ (19)
Accordingly, the viscous damping cannot allow the star to pulsate with too large amplitude, and the maximum amplitude does depend on the damping regime. It is natural to assume that the strong damping with the maximum amplitude will rapidly reduce the pulsation amplitudes to a lower level with a smaller damping rate.

### 4.2 Superfluid matter

The effects of superfluidity are similar to those described in Sects. 3.3 and 3.4. For subthermal pulsations, these effects were considered, for instance, by Haensel et al. (hly00 (2000, 2001, 2002)). A strong superfluidity may drastically (by many orders of magnitude) reduce the bulk viscosity and the dissipation rate. The effects of superfluidity on the bulk viscosity and the damping of pulsations in the suprathermal regime with $`\delta \mu \mathrm{\Delta }`$ are expected to be small, i.e., the results of Sect. 4.1 can be used.

## 5 Summary

We have outlined the most important factors which affect the adiabatic index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$ for density perturbations and the viscous damping of pulsations in the neutron-star cores. First, non-leptonic strangeness-changing processes with hyperons may be rapid enough to establish partial hyperonic equilibrium over pulsation periods and decrease $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$ slightly below the “frozen” adiabatic index, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{FR}}`$, in hyperonic matter. In addition, they induce a rapid viscous damping even in the subthermal pulsation regime ($`\delta \mu _jT`$). Second, suprathermal but still linear perturbations ($`T\delta \mu _j\mu _j`$) may produce a very rapid equilibration in various relaxation channels which reduces $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$ to the fully equilibrium value $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{EQ}}`$, enhances the bulk viscosity and damps the pulsations quickly to lower amplitudes. Third, superfluidity of baryons in the subthermal regime increases relaxation times in various channels, brings $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$ closer to $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{FR}}`$, and reduces the viscous dissipation.

Therefore, a proper calculation of neutron star pulsations and their dynamical evolution represents a complicated problem. Much work is required to study this problem in full detail. Our order-of-magnitude estimates have to be replaced with accurate numerical solutions of the equations of stellar pulsations taking into account proper boundary conditions and joint effect of various factors in all neutron-star layers, from the surface to the center. Our assumption of one typical pulsation amplitude of chemical potentials, $`\delta \mu `$, in Eq. (12) is an oversimplification. In reality, one has to deal with the number of density dependent amplitudes $`\delta \mu _j`$ for different particle species $`j`$. The relaxation in different equilibration channels and the viscous damping of pulsations can be strongly nonuniform; one cannot exclude the existence of thin layers in the neutron star cores, where the damping is exceptionally strong. For instance, they may be the layers where new hyperons appear, with sufficiently small chemical potentials $`\mu _j`$ just beyond their appearance threshold. Neutron star pulsations in these layers may be suprathermal, producing enhanced damping. The problem of suprathermal pulsation regime, without and with superfluidity of baryons, is of special importance. This regime will be accompanied by huge energy release which will heat the star.

###### Acknowledgements.

DGY is grateful to A.A. Pamyatnykh for a helpful discussion. KPL and DGY acknowledge hospitality of N. Copernicus Astronomical Center in Warsaw. This work was supported in part by the RBRF (grants Nos. 02-02-17668 and 00-07-90183) and KBN (grant 5 P03D 020 20).


text:
# Untitled Document

KCL-MTH-02-22

hep-th//y0208214

The Spontaneous Compactification of the Closed Bosonic String

Peter West

Department of Mathematics

King’s College, London, UK

Abstract

We argue that the higher space-time derivative terms that occur in closed bosonic string field theory are reminiscent of those found in the Landau theory of liquid-crystal transitions. We examine the lowest level approximation of the closed bosonic string and find evidence for the existence of a new vacuum that spontaneously breaks Lorentz and translation symmetries. This effect can be interpreted as a spontaneous compactification of the theory.

email: pwest@mth.kcl.ac.uk

String field theories differ from more conventional field theories in that they contain an infinite number of fields. However, they also possess another unusual feature, namely they contain interactions terms that involve an infinite number of space-time derivatives. This feature can be thought of as a consequence of the extended nature of the string and the causal nature of its interactions. In light-cone string field theory , or the gauge covariant string field theory of references , strings interact by joining, or alternatively splitting, at their end points. Clearly, this interaction is causal in that it occurs at a point in space-time. It can be described by overlap conditions that simply state, using appropriate delta functions, that the strings have joined in this way. When these interactions are formulated in terms of the infinite set of component fields of the string one finds that the interactions have an infinite number of space-time derivatives. Although the causal nature of the interaction is less apparent in the most popular open string field theory , which is based on strings joining at their mid points, the interactions also contain an infinite number of space-time derivatives.

From early on it was realised that the open and closed bosonic strings in twenty six dimensions possessed tachyons. Often the appearance of these tachyons has been cited as a reason to reject these theories from serious consideration, although this same argument was never deployed to argue against the presence of a tachyon in the standard model of particle physics. In fact, since the earliest stages of the development of string theory it has been realised that the tachyon could signal an instability in the vacuum state. To demonstrate such a phenomenon required a non-perturbative formulation of these string theories, such as string field theories. However, as these formulations contain an infinite number of component fields, the calculation to demonstrate such a mechanism looked difficult. The first clear steps to demonstrate the existence of a new vacuum in the open bosonic string came in reference  where a systematic approximation procedure, namely level truncation, was used. Convincing evidence for a new vacuum was found and it was shown, as a consequence of the higher derivative terms, that many of the particles in the original theory seemed to be eliminated as they did not have poles at the new minimum .

More recently, it has been argued that this new vacuum has a natural interpretation  in terms of the role of open strings in bosonic D-branes, namely it corresponds to the decay of a D25-brane to give a vacuum state in which only closed string states occur. This picture has received convincing evidence in that the energy between the old and the new vacua agrees at low levels with the energy of the D25-brane  and the open string states are in the zero cohomology class of $`Q`$ when evaluated at the new vacuum .

It has been realised that one could carry out a similar calculation for the closed bosonic string, but little work has been done in this direction as there has been no corresponding interpretation of the solution and as closed bosonic string field theory is much more complicated. In this paper we will argue that the appearance of non-trivial space-time derivatives in the open and closed string field theories is a feature that is also occurs in the Landau theory of liquid-crystal transitions . In this theory the bilinear term in the free energy has a momentum dependence that is not simply given by $`p^\mu p_\mu `$, but is a more complicated function which possess a minimum energy for a non-zero value of $`p_\mu `$. Further consideration of the interaction terms implies that this corresponds to the crystalisation of the liquid.

We will apply this idea to the open and closed bosonic strings and find that for the open string there appears to be no evidence of the appearance of this mechanism, but for the closed bosonic string there exists a non-vanishing value of the momentum that lowers the energy and so spontaneously breaking the Lorentz and translation invariance of the theory. We interpret this as meaning that the closed bosonic string theory undergoes a spontaneous compactification. The possible relevance of the Landau theory of liquid-crystal transitions for the closed bosonic string has been discussed before .

Let us begin by considering a simplified model that agrees with the lowest level string field theory for the open and closed bosonic string for appropriate values of its parameters. In particular, we consider a scalar field $`\phi `$ which has the action

$$A=d^Dx\left(\frac{1}{2}_\mu \phi ^\mu \phi +\frac{b}{2\alpha ^{}}\phi ^2\lambda \stackrel{~}{\phi }^3\right)$$
$`(1.1)`$
where $`\stackrel{~}{\phi }=e^{\alpha ^{}\gamma ^2}\phi `$ and $`b,\lambda `$ and $`\gamma `$ are dimensionless constants and $`\alpha ^{}`$ is a constant with the dimensions of $`\mathrm{mass}^2`$. The potential for this action has an unstable minimum at the origin, but a stable minimum at $`<\phi >=\frac{b}{3\alpha ^{}\lambda }`$. After making the transformation to the minimum by taking $`\phi =\widehat{\phi }+<\phi >`$, dropping the $`\widehat{}`$ and going to momentum space the action becomes

$$A=\frac{1}{2}\frac{d^Dp}{(2\pi )^D}\phi (p)D(p)\phi (p)$$

$$\lambda \frac{d^Dr}{(2\pi )^D}\frac{d^Dq}{(2\pi )^D}\frac{d^Dp}{(2\pi )^D}(2\pi )^D\delta ^D(r+q+p)\phi (r)\phi (q)\phi (p)e^{\alpha ^{}\gamma (r^2+q^2+p^2)}$$
$`(1.2)`$
where

$$D(p)=\frac{1}{\alpha ^{}}(\alpha ^{}p^2b+2be^{2\alpha ^{}\gamma p^2})$$
$`(1.3)`$
We now wish to consider the energy for configurations which are time independent, i.e. $`_0\phi =0`$. As the action depends on an infinite number of time derivatives the energy momentum tensor and so the energy have a complicated expression, given in general in reference , in terms of the derivatives of $`\phi `$ and the differentials of the Lagrangian by these quantities. However, for time independent configurations the energy is just given by $`E=L`$ where $`L`$ is the Lagrangian for time independent configurations.

We observe that the energy has some features in common with the energy used in the Landau theory of liquid-crystal phase transitions, namely a kinetic energy term with a very non-trivial dependence on momentum. To analyse the energy we follow references  and first examine the kinetic term to find if there is a preferred minimum momentum, that is we look for the minimum of $`D(p)`$. In a usual field theory $`D(p)=p^2`$ and the minimum is at $`p^\mu =0`$ and so the Lorentz and translation symmetries are not broken. However, in our case we find that a possible the minimum of $`D(p)`$ occurs at

$$e^{2\alpha ^{}\gamma p^2}=4\gamma b,\mathrm{or}\mathrm{equivalently}\mathrm{at},\alpha ^{}p^2=\frac{1}{2\gamma }\mathrm{ln}(4\gamma b)$$
$`(1.4)`$
As we are working in the mainly plus metric, $`p^2=\underset{¯}{p}.\underset{¯}{p}`$ and so consequently we only find an actual minimum if $`4\gamma b>1`$ assuming $`\gamma >0`$. One easily verifies this is also just the condition for $`D(p)`$ to decrease for small $`p^2`$, clearly indicating the presence of an instability. For large $`p^2`$ $`D(p)`$ goes to $`+\mathrm{}`$. Hence if $`4\gamma b>1`$ we find that the state of lowest energy has a non-vanishing momentum and the translation and Lorentz symmetries are spontaneously broken.

The direction of the momentum at the minimum is not determined by the kinetic energy term, however, the cubic term contains a momentum delta function and so the momenta that occur at the minimum must form a set of equilateral triangles. In the Landau theory of the liquid-crystal transitions the field that occurs in the free energy is the density which then forms a set of oscillatory waves corresponding to the allowed momenta. The intersecting coincident peaks of the density waves form a periodic array which is interpreted as a crystal.

The action of equation (1.1) is just that which occurs in the open and closed bosonic string field theories if one works at the lowest level and so keeps only the tachyon. The open bosonic string has been extensively studied for the so called cubic open string formulation which consists of only the quadratic term of references  and a term cubic in string functional which was given in reference . For this theory at lowest level, the parameters in the action of equation (1.1) are given by

$$\gamma =ln(\frac{3\sqrt{3}}{4})=0.2616,b=1,\mathrm{and}\lambda =(\frac{\sqrt{3}}{2})^7g_o$$
$`(1.5)`$
where $`g_0`$ is the open string coupling constant. One finds that $`4\gamma b=1.0464`$ and the corresponding possible minimum momentum is given by $`\alpha ^{}p^2=0.0867`$. It is difficult to argue that these values are sufficiently in the interesting region to lead to the spontaneous breaking of Lorentz and translation invariance. Indeed, it would seem more likely that when higher orders are included the result will be that the actual minimum occurs for $`p^2=0`$. In reference  the kinetic energies for various other fields are computed and one can carry out a similar analysis. The result is that no convincing sign of a non-trivial minimum momentum.

Within the context of a non-polynomial string field theory for the closed string, at the lowest level, and keeping only the cubic term, reference  found that the tachyon obeyed an action of the form of equation (1.1) provided the corresponding parameters are given by

$$\gamma =\frac{1}{2}ln(\frac{3\sqrt{3}}{4}),b=4,\mathrm{and}\lambda =(\frac{3^8}{2^{13}})g_c$$
$`(1.6)`$
For the closed string one finds that $`4\gamma b=2.0928`$ and the corresponding $`\alpha ^{}p^2=2.823=1.9962\sqrt{2}`$. It would seem conceivable that the actual values of these quantities are 2 and $`2.\sqrt{2}`$ respectively. Hence, at least for the lowest order of approximation the closed bosonic string has a lowest energy state which has a non-vanishing momentum and so spontaneously breaks translation and Lorentz invariance.

The appearance of a minimum with non-vanishing momentum solves a puzzle. Suppose that it had turned out that after shifting the scalar field to the new vacuum that the energy was minimised by a value of the momentum which vanished. Assuming that this vacuum inherited to a solution involving all the fields of the closed bosonic string theory in such a way that translations and Lorentz symmetry were also not broken then one would have a solution which preserved all these symmetries, but had a lower energy than the vacuum where all fields and momenta vanished. However, this could not correspond to a possible space-time filling brane solution, since, as seen from the perspective of the closed string, such a solution would have positive energy with respect to the original vacuum. Although there should exist solutions of the closed bosonic string corresponding to p-branes solutions which would break Lorentz and translation invariance these should also have possess positive energy with respect to the zero solution and so could not be identified with the vacua found above.

One can expect that the other fields of the closed bosonic string also have kinetic terms whose lowest energy state is one with a non-vanishing value of the momentum. Since one of these fields is the graviton, which determines the underlying space-time, it is natural to suppose that the periodic nature of the vacuum state in space-time actually corresponds to a compactification of space-time. The simple calculation presented in this paper would have to be extended to higher levels and so necessarily involve possible vacuum expectation values for tensorial fields before it became clear what compactifications would be allowed. In the context of the open string, vacua with non-vanishing expectation values for tensorial fields, but vanishing momentum, have been considered  and it would be interesting to find an interpretation for them.

Corresponding to the spontaneous breaking of Lorentz and translation symmetry we would expect the appearance of Goldstone bosons. These would be restricted to propagate in the uncompactified space-time directions and, due to the inverse Higgs effect, their number would not correspond to the number of broken generators.

There is one very appealing interpretation for the new vacuum solution proposed in this paper. The closed bosonic string is a much simpler and more natural structure than the closed superstrings in ten dimensions and once a shift to a new vacuum can be established it would appear to be a consistent theory. It would seem unreasonable if such a tightly constrained theory was not part of the unified picture, containing the ten dimensional string theories, that we now believe in. Indeed, sometime ago it was suggested that there could exist a mechanism whereby the closed bosonic string could become the superstring theories in ten dimensions. Although no such mechanism was suggested, it has been shown  that there existed truncations of the closed bosonic string spectra which were those of the ten dimensional strings and, more recently, this statement was extended to branes . It is very natural to suppose that the new Lorentz and translation breaking vacuum of the closed bosonic string found in this paper is the missing mechanism that recovers the ten dimensional strings from the closed twenty six dimensional bosonic string. Clearly, there remains much work to be done to establish the validity of the new vacuum. It would be interesting to extend the calculation to include higher levels of the closed bosonic string and although the method of calculation given in reference  has good phenomological motivation, it would also be good to give a more unified analysis of the energy by treating the kinetic and higher order terms in the same way. However, we note that the mechanism is rather insensitive to the details of the model and so one would expect it to be present also once these corrections are included.

The existence of such a connection between the closed bosonic string and the ten dimensional superstrings is consistent with the conjectures of reference  where the former and the latter, which are of type II, were conjectured to be invariant under rank 27 and 11 Kac-Moody algebras respectively. Hence, although the closed bosonic string possess no supersymmetry it is thought, according to this conjecture, to be invariant under a very powerful algebra that should determine many of its properties. As a result, the vacuum found in this paper should break not only Lorentz and translation symmetries, but also the $`K_{27}`$ algebra of the closed bosonic string and one may hope to find, at least in the case of breaking to the type II strings, that the relevant vacuum preserves the $`E_{11}`$ algebra. One encouraging sign is that $`K_{27}`$ contains the sub-algebra $`E_{11}D_{16}`$. While the first factor is clearly that required as a residual symmetry, the second factor contains a $`D_8`$ sub-algebra which is required in the work of reference  to find the spectrum of the superstrings in ten dimensions.

References

 M. Kaku and K. Kikkawa, Field Theory of Relativistic Strings. I. Trees, Phys. Rev. D10 (1974) 1110; Field Theory of Relativistic Strings. II. Loops, Phys. Rev. D10 (1974) 1823.

 A. Neveu and P. West, Gauge Covariant Local Formulation of Bosonic Strings; Nucl. Phys. B268 (1986) 125; The Interacting Gauge Covariant Bosonic String, Phys. Lett. 168B (1985) 192, Symmetries of the Interacting Gauge Covariant Bosonic String, Nucl. Phys. B278 (1986) 601; String Lengths in Covariant String Field Theory and OSp(26,2/2), Nucl. Phys. B293 (1987) 226.

 A. Neveu, H. Nicolai and P. West, New Symmetries and Ghost Structure of Covariant String Theories, Phys. Lett. 167B (1986) 307.

 E. Witten, Non-Commutative Geometry and String Field Theory, Nucl. Phys. B268 (1998) 253.

 V. Kostelecky and S. Samuel, The Static Tachyon Potential in the Open Bosonic string Theory, Phys. Lett. 207B (1988) 169, On a non-perturbative Vacuum for the Open bosonic String, Nucl. Phys. B336 (1990) 263.

 A. Sen, Stable Non-BPS Bound States of BPS D-branes, JHEP 9808 (1998) 010, hep-th/9805019; Descent Relations among Bosonic D-branes, hep-th/9902105,Universality of the Tachyon Potential, JHEP9912 (1999) 027, hep-th/9911116.

 A. Sen and B. Zwiebach, Tachyon Condensation in String Field theory, hep-th/9912249.

 N. Moeller and Washington Taylor, Level Truncation and the Tachyon in the open Bosonic String Field Theory, hep-th/0002237.

 I. Ellwood and Washington Taylor, Open String Field Theory without Open Strings, hep-th/0103085.

 For a review see P. W. Anderson, Basic Notions of Condensed Matter Physics, Benjamin/Cummings, 1984.

 S. Alexander and J. McTague, Should all Crystals be bcc Landau Theory of Solidification and Crystal Nucleation, Phys. Rev. lett. 41 (1978) 702.

 E. Rabinovici, Introduction to String Ground State construction, CERN.4726/87; S. Elitzur, A. Forge and E. Rabinovici, Some Global Aspects of String Compactification, Nucl. Phys. B559 (1991) 581-610.

 N. Moeller and B. Zwiebach, Dynamics with Infinitely many Time Derivatives and Rolling Tachyons, hep-th/0207107

 V. Kostelecky and S. Samuel, Collective Physics in the Closed Bosonic String, Phys. Rev D43, (1990) 1289.

 A. Casher, F. Englert, H. Nicolai, A. Taormina, Consistent Superstrings as Solutions of the D=26 Bosonic String Theory Phys. Lett B162  (1985) 121; F. Englert, H. Nicolai, A. Schellekens, Superstrings from $`26`$ dimensions, Nucl. Phys. B274 (1986) 315.

 F. Englert, L. Houart and A. Taormina, Brane Fusion in the Bosonic and the Emergence of Fermionic Strings, Phys. Lett JHEP 0108 (2001) 013, hep-th/0106235; A. Chattaraputi, F. Englert, L. Houart and A. Taormina, The Bosonic Mother of Fermionic D-branes , hep-th/0207238.

 P. West, $`E_{11}`$ and M Theory, Class. Quant. Grav. 18 (2001) 4443 , hep-th/0104081.

 V. Kostelecky and S. Samuel, Spontaneous Breaking of Lorentz Symmetry in String Theory, Phys. Rev. D 39 (1989) 683; V. Kostelecky and R. Potting, Expectation Values,Lorentz Invariance, and CPT in the Open Bosonic String, hep-th/9605088.


text:
# Using of Phenomenological Piecewise Continuous Map for Modeling of Neurons Behaviour

## I Introduction

Investigations of neuron ensembles (Central Pattern Generators, CPG) from the nonlinear dynamics viewpoint attract attention of many physicists last years. It is known some successful experiments with biological neurons (see, for example, ). Now exist a lot of mathematical models describing neuron behavior on the basis of ordinary differential equations . Even simple models such as well-known FitzHugh–Nagumo and Rose–Hindmarsh systems, which may describe some important facts of neuron dynamics, need a lot of resources in numerical experiments for rather large ensembles. In this case the models with discrete time (maps) are much more appropriate.

It is known a set of such kind maps (i) the model with variable taking the discrete set of values (finite automata) , (ii) the map taken on the flow of differential equations system , (iii) learning globally coupled excitable map system , (iv) recently proposed two-dimensional map . However, the variety of models and methods for the neuron dynamics descriptions testifies that nonexists the common approach for creation of maps defining the isolated neuron behavior as well as for creation of the model neuron ensembles with pregiven topology and coupling kind.

In this paper is proposed a map with variable that changes continuously in specified range. This map demonstrates behavior that is qualitatively similar to the real neuron dynamics. It will be shown below that proposed map describes the complete synchronization in neuron ensembles. It will be also observed dependence the synchronization degree of the network configuration. Another results that will be discussed connected with the influence of external force on studied ensembles.

## II The single neuron model

The map was constructed on the assumption of phenomenological conceptions. The basic idea is founded on the fact that in neuron behavior at time series the three regions (rest, burst and spike regions) could be identified. This relative division is schematically shown in Fig. 1.

The map ($`xx^{}`$) consists of two piecewise continuous functions connected by transition conditions. The system dynamics is described with four state variables: $`x[0,1]`$, $`d=\{1,1\}`$, $`s_1,s_2=\{0,1\}`$. The main “observable” variable $`x`$ qualitatively corresponds to membrane potential of the neuron, the variable $`d`$ is used to select one of two branches of function and the variables $`s_1,s_2`$ are “switches”, which define the conditions for burst ending. In mathematical notation the map are written in the following way.

If $`d=1`$ (the increasing of the $`x`$ value)

$$x^{}=\{\begin{array}{ccc}\alpha _1\mathrm{arctan}(k_1x),\hfill & \text{if}\hfill & x[0,a\delta _1),\hfill \\ 2ax,\hfill & \text{if}\hfill & x[a\delta _1,a),\hfill \\ \gamma _1\left(xa\right)+a,\hfill & \text{if}\hfill & x[a,c),\hfill \end{array}$$
(1)
The transition condition: $`d=1`$ if $`x[c,1]`$.

If $`d=1`$ (the decreasing of the $`x`$ value)

$$x^{}=\{\begin{array}{ccc}\frac{1}{\gamma _2}\left(xa\right)+a,\hfill & \text{if}\hfill & x[a+\delta _2,1],\hfill \\ 2ax,\hfill & \text{if}\hfill & x[a,a+\delta _2),s_1s_2=1\hfill \\ \frac{1}{\alpha _2}\mathrm{arctan}(k_2x),\hfill & \text{if}\hfill & x[\delta _3,a).\hfill \end{array}$$
(2)
Additional terms: $`d=1`$ if $`x[a,a+\delta _2)`$ and $`s_1s_2=0`$,

$`s_1=\{\begin{array}{ccc}1,\hfill & \text{if}\hfill & x[c,h_1],\hfill \\ 0,\hfill & \text{if}\hfill & x[0,a],\hfill \end{array}s_2=\{\begin{array}{ccc}1,\hfill & \text{if}\hfill & x[h_2,1],\hfill \\ 0,\hfill & \text{if}\hfill & x[0,a],\hfill \end{array}`$

$`d=1`$ if $`x[0,\delta _3)`$.

Here $`a`$, $`k_1`$, $`k_2`$, $`\gamma _1`$, $`\gamma _2`$, $`\delta _1`$, $`\delta _2`$, $`\delta _3`$ are some constant parameters, and others coefficients are determined from continuity condition ($`c=(1a)/\gamma _1+a,\alpha _1=a/\mathrm{arctan}(k_1a)`$, $`\alpha _2=a/\mathrm{arctan}(k_2a)`$). Parameter $`h_2`$ is also constant and close to unity, and $`h_1`$ should depend on the value of $`c`$, that is $`h_1=c+\mathrm{\Delta }h`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }h`$ is the relatively small parameter.

For better understanding how this map works the iteration diagram is shown in the Fig. 2. Fig. 3 demonstrates the time series for the isolated model neuron described by the map for various values of control parameters.

## III Generalization of the model to coupled neurons. Two coupled neurons

Investigation of single neuron behavior has a little practical sense. Much more interesting might be model of neuron ensemble. Therefore this piecewise continuous map was generalized to coupled neuron systems. In case of the ensemble with $`N`$ elements with state variables $`(x_n^1,x_n^2,\mathrm{},x_n^N)`$ the influence of neighbours to $`j`$-th neuron at ($`n+1`$) discrete time is given by adding the following term to $`x_{n+1}^j`$ variable

$$\frac{1}{L_j}\underset{\begin{array}{c}i=1\hfill \\ ij\hfill \end{array}}{\overset{N}{}}\epsilon _{ij}\left(x_n^ix_n^j\right)\mathrm{\Theta }\left(x_n^ia\right),$$
(3)
where $`\epsilon _{ij}`$, ($`i,j=1,\mathrm{},N`$) is the connection weight between $`i`$-th and $`j`$-th elements, $`L_j`$ is the number of neighbours of $`j`$-th neuron, $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ is the Heaviside step function (authors presume that exists a threshold of interaction).

The first investigated small ensemble was constructed of two coupled neurons. The main interest of the system research was consisted in revealing complete synchronization. The degree of synchronization was determined as

$$\mathrm{\Delta }=\frac{1}{M}\underset{n=1}{\overset{M}{}}\left|x_n^1x_n^2\right|,$$
(4)
where $`M`$ is the number of iterations for a discrete time average.

Value $`\mathrm{\Delta }=0`$ corresponds to the highest degree of synchronization, $`\mathrm{\Delta }>0`$ means that the synchronization is absent or synchronization is incomplete. In this research the degree of synchronization (4) on the plane of parameters $`(\epsilon ,\gamma _1)`$ is calculated. The choice of parameter $`\epsilon `$ as a control parameter is natural because it’s value determines the strength of connection. The value of parameter $`\gamma _1`$ (as well as $`\gamma _2`$) influences considerably to the system behavior, so it is chosen as second control parameter. The parameter planes are plotted in grayscale, namely, synchronization (for value $`\mathrm{\Delta }=0`$) region marked with the white color, the positive value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is subjected to the simple rule: the larger value, the darker point. Such parameter plane for two coupled neurons is presented in Fig. 4. The behavior of this system in some points, marked on the parameter plane with letters, is shown in Fig. 5.

It was revealed that the system dynamics depends on the initial conditions therefore the question about typicalness of presented parameter plane occurs. This problem was studied in detail. The view of the attraction basins, plotted in different points of the parameter plane, and the parameter planes obtained for various initial conditions shows that the general features of the planes are invariable, so this question will be not discussed below.

## IV Systems with several elements

In the research is observed a large quantity of neuron ensembles with different numbers of elements and various spatial configurations. Some revealed regularities for ensemble of seven coupled neurons is presented here.

In case of several elements the degree of synchronization can’t be defined with (4), therefore in numerical experiments is used the following approximate relationship

$`\mathrm{\Delta }={\displaystyle \frac{1}{M}}{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{M}{}}}\left|x_n^k{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}}x_n^i\right|.`$

Fig. 6 presents the parameter planes that are gotten for systems schematically shown at the insets. As it can be seen, the areas with synchronous behaviour become larger when additional connections are inserted. Note, that although this tendency is clearly visible from Fig. 6, the synchronous behaviour is observed in another areas of the parameter plane (see Fig. 6b and Fig. 6c). Comperison of Fig. 6b and Fig. 6c shows that synchronization degree is decreased in the region $`\epsilon [0.8;1.0]`$ for all values $`\gamma _1`$. This result remains correct for systems with another numbers of elements.

It was shown that the synchronization degree depends on the fast motion (the spikes region) and practically is independent of slow motions. This fact was revealed when the nonlinear branches (see Fig. 2, region $`x_n[0;a]`$) of the map functions (1), (2) were approximated with piecewise linear functions. There is the visible changes of the time series, but the view of parameter planes remains without any considerable changes.

## V The influence of the external action

The investigations of the synchronization also involved the possibility to influence on this process with an external signal. It was revealed that an external low-amplitude spatially uniform field (both periodical and chaotic) may increase the degree of synchronization in the ensemble. As the example of this fact the parameter planes are presented for ring-type system with seven neurons under an external force (Fig. 7).

As one can see from comparison of the parameter plane in Fig. 7 and Fig. 6a, the region of synchronous behaviour for the model neuron ensemble under the external force becames larger in relation to the region for unperturbated system.

## VI Conclusion

In this work the phenomenological map describing some aspects of neuron dynamics is presented. It is shown that the proposed map qualitatively simulates real neuron behavior and describes some synchronization phenomena that is observed in neuron ensembles, connected via electrical synapse. The assumption that just fast motion is responsible for the synchronization phenomena is prior and should be confirmed. The results related to a possibility of low-amplitude external field to increase the degree of synchronization in small model neuron ensemble may be useful from the practical viewpoint but only in case that they will get an experimental verification.

The way on the creation of the piecewise map from phenomenological viewpoint (from view of the system time series), applied in the work, could be used for other sysnems.

This work was supported by RFBR under grants 02-02-16351, 00-15-96673, Program ”Universities of Russia” and Ministry of Education of Russian Federation under grant E00-3.5-196.