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# The Shortest Path Across the Mesoscopic System

## Abstract

We study distribution functions (DF) of mesoscopic hopping conductance numerically by searching for the shortest path. We have found that the distributions obtained by choosing randomly the chemical potentials (for a fixed impurity configuration), which corresponds to a typical experimental situation, coincide with those obtained when both impurity configuration and chemical potential is chosen randomly, in agreement with the ergodicity hypothesis. The DFs obtained for one-dimensional systems were found to be quite close to the independent predictions of V.I. Mel’nikov, A.A.Abrikosov and P. Lee et al. For $`D=2`$, the DFs both for narrow system and thin film look similar (and close to the $`1D`$ case).The distribution function for the conductance of the square sample is nearly Gaussian as predicted by both Altshuler et al and Serota et al.

Mesoscopic conductance fluctuations in the insulating regime of small, disordered transistors were first observed by Pepperpep  in GaAs MESFETs and then studied in detail in Si MOSFETs by Fowler, Webb and coworkersfow  in the early 1980s. Extremely strong random fluctuations, spanning several orders of magnitude, were observed at low temperatures in the conductances of narrow-channel devices as the gate voltage was varied. The lognormal distribution for one-dimensional (1D) conductors was long ago analytically predicted by V.I. Mel’nikovMelnikov  and A.A.AbrikosovAbrikosov . The explanation was provided by Leelee  who proposed a model in which electrons move by variable-range hopping (VRH) along a 1D chain. Serota, Kalia and Leeser  went on to simulate the ensemble distribution of the total chain resistance $`R`$ and its dependence on the temperature $`T`$ and the sample length $`L`$. In their ensemble, the random impurities are distributed uniformly in energy and position along the chain. In experiments a single device is generally used, so that the impurity configuration is fixed, and fluctuations are observed as a function of some variable external parameter such as the chemical potential. An ergodicity hypothesis is then invoked to the effect that the same ensemble is sampled in both cases, something that has been verified experimentally by Orlov et al.orl1 . Using the natural logarithm of the resistance, the authors of Ref. ser,  obtained for the mean and standard deviation:

$$\mathrm{ln}\rho \left(\frac{T_0}{T}\right)^{1/2}\left[\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{2L}{\xi }\right)\right]^{1/2}$$
(1)
$$s\left(\mathrm{ln}\rho \mathrm{ln}\rho \right)^2\left(\frac{T_0}{T}\right)^{1/2}\left[\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{2L}{\xi }\right)\right]^{1/2}$$
(2)
where $`\xi `$ is the localization radius and $`T_0`$ is the characteristic temperature for Mott VRH: $`T_0=1/k_B\rho \xi `$ ($`\rho `$ is the density of states at the Fermi energy). It can be seen that the size $`s`$ of the fluctuations decreases extremely slowly with length, a result characteristic of 1D which was first pointed out by Kurkijarvi kur . The explanation is simply that exceptionally large resistance elements, even though they may be statistically rare, dominate the overall resistance since they cannot be by-passed in this geometry. The averaging assumed in the derivation of Mott’s hopping law for 1D does not occur and the total resistance takes on the activated form of the largest individual element. where $`\xi `$ is the localization radius and $`T_0`$ is the characteristic temperature for Mott VRH: $`T_0=1/k_B\rho \xi `$ ($`\rho `$ is the density of states at the Fermi energy).

The crossover from 1D to 2D were also studied Serota ; Igor ; XCXie . The first theoretical description of hopping conductivity in narrow 2D strips was given by SerotaSerota , and numerical simulations from narrow 2D to square 2D at a certain temperature were also done by X.C. Xie and S. Das SarmaXCXie . The conductance DF (on the metallic side) was first fully considered analytically in 2D and above by Altshuler, Kravtsov and I. V. LernerIgor , where they have predicted the Gaussian distribution with long lognormal tails. Due to the finite widths of channels, the 2D VRH is also affected by the width of system. To observe this effect fully, L. He et alvrh  did numerical simulations on all 2D cases, including the short 2D which has been studied experimentally by Hughes et alHughes . Although most of the results are in accordance with these of the previous work, the DF for short 2D is of a long tail to the low conductance opposed to the low resistance as expected. To check the results, we numerically simulate these samples by searching for the shortest path across system other than by percolating it. The shortest paths would be punctures which short out less conductive paths in the 2D geometry. The aim of the present work is to report this study, and first of all, it is also started by replacing the transport problem across a 2D mesoscopic system in Mott hopping regime with a random resistor network as did previously.

Imagine that a particle is about to transport a conductive network. In the principle of lowest energy, it prefers to the path of the smallest overall resistance among all possible paths. The path of lowest energy cost is equivalent to the shortest path of graph theory, which is just what the nature of puncture of the system means. It means that we could also approximate the resistance of the system by looking for the shortest path, as well as by percolating the system as usual. The shortest paths among percolation systems have been studied considerably recently Nehemia ; Dok ; Gerald ; Stanley1 ; Stanley2  in terms of minimal path or optimal path between a pair of sites within the same cluster, and the study on the scaling form of the probability of the shortest path with regard to their Euclidean distance and the cluster mass ($`M_B`$)Gerald  has shown that the average conductance of the percolation backbone is strongly correlated with the shortest path, and it decreases with increasing minimal path. This means the shortest path determines the average conductance in nature.

A network is set up by resistors, $`\rho _{ij}`$, between sites $`i`$ and $`j`$

$$\mathrm{ln}\rho _{ij}=2\alpha d+(|E_i\mu |+|E_j\mu |+|E_iE_j|)/2kT,$$
(3)
Here $`\alpha `$ is the inverse localization length, $`d`$ is the distance of two localized sites, $`E_i`$ and $`E_j`$ are energies of site $`i,j`$, and $`\mu `$ is the chemical potential, $`T`$ is the temperature. Energy is chosen randomly from a uniform distribution in the range $`0.5+0.5`$. Thus the mesoscopic system is reduced to a random resistor network(RRN). To percolate the network, the resistors joining electrodes are selected in ascending order until the first percolation path connects the reservoirs. The resistance of the percolation path is taken to be the resistance of the entire system.

To solve it by the shortest path, Dijkstra algorithmThomas  is applied, which is efficient in finding shortest paths to all nodes from a single source in a fully connected graph. In views of graph, the RRN is partially connected, and there are more than one source nodes except for the 1D case. So, some modifications on this algorithm has been done in the simulation.

In calculation, positions of impurities are uniformly distributed over the system, their energies are distributed evenly between $`0.5+0.5`$, and gate voltage, $`\mu `$, is randomly chosen. Thus we can consider the chemical potential distributions (for a fixed impurity configuration) and the ensemble distributions( for a fixed chemical potential ). For a 1D system of $`L=1000`$, chemical potential $`\mu =0`$ and temperature $`T=0.001`$, we have got the profile of their individual resistances similar to that along percolating path(Fig.1 of Ref.vrh ). It means that it is also the single largest hop along the shortest path that controls the overall conductance of the system. With temperature increasing, the sizes of fluctuation of individual resistors along the shortest path become close.

As has been done previouslyvrh , we also simulate the 1D systems firstly to validate the simulation. The results are shown in Fig.(1). The size of 1D system is 1000 in length, and 50 in localization length. The temperature is $`T=0.001`$, which gives $`\nu =0.225`$. The chemical potential range is $`\mu =0.1+0.1`$. As found in Ref.vrh , with the increase of temperature, the fluctuation of 1D resistance become small.

On the basis of the above validity, the 2D cases are numerically simulated by the shortest path, including cases of narrow 2D, square 2D and short 2D. In our simulation, localization length, temperature,etc., for a 2D system, $`w\times L`$, are the same as in the 1D case, while $`w=100,L=1000`$ for narrow 2D, $`w=1000`$ and $`L=100`$ for short 2D and $`w=L=1000`$ for square 2D system. The results are shown in Fig.2. From this, it is seen clearly that the magnitude of conductance substantially increases with the increase of system width, which is in agreement with the prediction of both Serota Serota  and Altshuler et al Igor , and the numerical results of X.C. Xie et alXCXie  for narrow 2D and square 2D cases. The results also reveal that the situations of narrow 2D is close to the 1D case, and the normal 2D is close to Gaussian. As discovered previouslyvrh , the DF of conductance across the short 2D system is still close to that of 1D case other than a mirror reflection of the latter as expected. Note that the peak of short 2D is shifted to the low end of resistance more than the other 2D cases. According to this, it seems to be more proper to explain the puncture nature of 2D systems by the position of the peak of DF while the long tail of DF shows the bias conductance fluctuations.

In conclusion, the paper has studied the DF of the conductance in mesoscopic systems by the shortest path which could reflect the puncture nature of VRH system more directly. The validity is done and the results are found to be quite close to the numerical results of the narrow and square $`2D`$ systems by P.A. Leelee , Serotaser  and X.C. Xie et alXCXie , *i.e.*, the result for narrow $`2D`$ system is close to that of $`1D`$ case, and the result for square $`2D`$ is close to GaussianIgor . But the unexpected results for short 2D system hints that the puncture nature of 2D systems could be explained more properly by its peak position of DFs and the long tail shows the preference of conductance fluctuation.

###### Acknowledgements.

Authors acknowledge valuable criticism of I. V. Lerner. One of the authors (He) thanks Dr. N. Schwartz for his introduction to the Dijkstra algorithm, and also thanks Prof. Shlomo Havlin for his hospitality in BarIlan University of Israel. This research was supported by THE ISRAEL SCIENCE FOUNDATION founded by The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, NSF of Anhui Province, China (00047520) and THE STARTING FOUNDATION FOR RETURN SCHOLARS by Chinese Government(2001-2002).


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# Random matrix theory for closed quantum dots with weak spin-orbit coupling

## Abstract

To lowest order in the coupling strength, the spin-orbit coupling in quantum dots results in a spin-dependent Aharonov-Bohm flux. This flux decouples the spin-up and -down random matrix theory ensembles of the quantum dot. We employ this ensemble and find significant changes in the distribution of the Coulomb blockade peak height, in particular a decrease of the width of the distribution. The puzzling disagreement between standard random matrix theory and the experimental distributions by Patel et al. might possibly be attributed to these spin-orbit effects.

The spin-orbit coupling in a two-dimensional semiconductor quantum well mainly contributes through the Rashba Rashba  and Dresselhaus Dress  terms, arising from the asymmetry of the confining potential and the lattice structure, respectively. It is much weaker than in three-dimensional semiconductors where it is induced mainly by impurities, which are absent in a high-mobility two-dimensional electron gas. The spin-orbit scattering is further suppressed if the two-dimensional system is confined to a quantum dot; estimates of the spin-flip rates were given in Ref. Khaetskii, . This fact is of great importance for future applications of quantum dots as spintronics devices. However, it was shown that spin-orbit scattering has a significant effect in the presence of an in-plane magnetic field Halperin ; Oreg ; Khaetskii , which explains Halperin  recent experiments Folk .

In this paper, we discuss another manifestation of the spin-orbit coupling in confined structures, which takes place even in the absence of appreciable spin-flip scattering. Aleiner and Fal’ko recently showed Aleiner01a  that a weak spin-orbit coupling creates a spin-dependent Aharonov-Bohm flux. While this flux does not flip spins, it can change the random matrix ensemble of the quantum dot. For broken time reversal symmetry, the spin-up and spin-down parts of the spectrum are completely uncorrelated and described by independent Gaussian unitary ensembles (GUE) Aleiner01a . The possibility of such an ensemble was raised by Alhassid Alhassid01 , while the relation to the spin-orbit coupling was already suggested by Lyanda-Geller and Mirlin Lyanda . In the present paper, we study the statistical distribution of the Coulomb blockade peak height in this ensemble, and find the distribution to be narrowed. This might explain the discrepancy between a recent experiment by Patel et al. Patel98  and standard random matrix theory (RMT) Alhassid98 ; Alhassid01  at low temperatures.

In Ref. Aleiner01a, , the free-electron Hamiltonian with Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit terms was expanded to second order in the coordinates, under the assumption that $`L_{1,2}/\lambda _{1,2}1`$ ($`L_{1,2}`$: lateral dimensions of the two-dimensional quantum dot; $`\lambda _{1,2}`$: characteristic length scale of the spin-orbit coupling which is proportional to the inverse spin-orbit coupling strength). One obtains

$`\stackrel{~}{H}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2m}}\left(\stackrel{}{p}e\stackrel{}{A}\stackrel{}{a}_{}{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _z}{2}}\stackrel{}{a}_{}\right)^2+u(\stackrel{}{r}).`$ (1)
Here, $`u(\stackrel{}{r})`$ is the (disordered) confining potential; $`\stackrel{}{p}=\stackrel{}{P}e\stackrel{}{A}`$ is the kinetic momentum with the canonical momentum $`\stackrel{}{P}`$ and the vector potential

$`\stackrel{}{A}`$ $`=`$ $`B_z[\stackrel{}{r}\times \stackrel{}{n}_z]/2c;\stackrel{}{a}_{}=[\stackrel{}{r}\times \stackrel{}{n}_z]/(2\lambda _1\lambda _2);`$ (2)
$`\stackrel{}{a}_{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6}}{\displaystyle \frac{[\stackrel{}{r}\times \stackrel{}{n}_z]}{\lambda _1\lambda _2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{x_1\sigma _1}{\lambda _1}}+{\displaystyle \frac{x_2\sigma _2}{\lambda _2}}\right);`$ (3)
$`\sigma _i`$ denote the Pauli matrices and $`B`$ is the magnetic field in the direction  perpendicular to the lateral quantum dot. The coordinates $`x_1`$ and $`x_2`$ are along the directions $`[110]`$ and $`[1\overline{1}0]`$ and we neglected the Zeeman splitting term as we are interested in the behavior at relatively low magnetic fields. The term $`\stackrel{}{a}_{}`$ is responsible for spin-flips but it is of higher order in the spin-orbit coupling strength than $`\stackrel{}{a}_{}`$. Thus, it will be neglected in the following as we assume the spin-orbit coupling to be weak such that $`\stackrel{}{a}_{}`$ dominates. The $`\stackrel{}{a}_{}`$ term has exactly the same form as the vector potential $`\stackrel{}{A}`$ except for its spin-dependence. As an electron collects an Aharonov-Bohm flux on a close path due to the vector potential $`\stackrel{}{A}`$, it also collects a spin-dependent flux due to $`\stackrel{}{a}_{}`$. This spin dependent flux translates to a spin-dependent effective magnetic field, so that the electrons feel a total magnetic field of strength $`B_\sigma ^{\mathrm{eff}}=B+\frac{c}{e}\frac{1}{\lambda _1\lambda _2}\frac{\sigma }{2}`$ with $`\sigma =\pm \mathrm{}`$ for up- and down-spin, respectively. An increase of the flux changes the matrix elements, and scrambles the eigenenergies and eigenvectors. In the absence of spin-orbit coupling, the flux is exactly the same for spin-up and spin-down electrons such that their eigenenergies and eigenvectors are degenerate. If the spin-orbit terms are present, but no external magnetic field is applied, the time-reversal symmetry is preserved, and the states are still Kramers degenerate (up-spin and down-spin see the same magnitude of magnetic field with opposite signs). However, when spin-orbit coupling and external magnetic field are present, electrons with different spin see different magnetic fields, and their eigenenergies and eigenvectors decorrelate. If the spin-dependent flux is large enough spin-up and spin-down eigenenergies and eigenvectors are distributed according to two independent GUEs Aleiner01a .

Before we analyze this weak spin-orbit RMT ensemble, we study the decorrelation of the eigenenergies and eigenvectors due to a change in the magnetic field, to determine how much flux is needed in order to have two uncorrelated ensembles. The additional flux translates to a change of the random matrix described by Aleiner01

$$H=\frac{H_1+xH_2}{\sqrt{1+x^2}}$$
(4)
with RMT matrices $`H_1`$ and $`H_2`$ in the unitary ensemble. As the perturbation $`x`$ increases from zero the eigenenergies $`E_i(x)`$ and eigenfunctions $`\mathrm{\Psi }_i(x)`$ of $`H`$ change. We analyze the decorrelations of the energies via the level diffusion correlator $`C_E=\sqrt{(E_i(x)E_i(0))^2}/\mathrm{\Delta }`$, where $`\mathrm{}`$ means averaging over different realizations and different levels $`i`$. This correlator has been shown to have a universal form Attias95 . The decorrelation of the eigenfunctions is measured by $`C_\mathrm{\Gamma }=|\psi _i(x)|\psi _i(0)|^2`$. It can be shown that this correlator also measures the correlations of the level tunneling rates and has a universal form as well Alhassid96 . The results are presented in Fig. 1 and show that the correlations in both quantities disappear at about the same value of $`x\sqrt{N}1`$, where $`N`$ is the size of the random matrix. Hence we conclude that the decorrelation of the eigenvalues and the eigenfunctions (dot-lead coupling) occur together. Thus, the spin-orbit coupling leads to a crossover from two degenerate GUE spectra, to an ensemble of two uncorrelated GUE spectra.

For the above RMT model, the crossover to two independent GUE ensembles occurs at $`x\sqrt{N}1`$. The corresponding flux difference needed to decorrelate the spectrum is given by the following relation Aleiner01

$$x\sqrt{N}=\chi \sqrt{g_T}\frac{\delta \mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{eff}}}{\mathrm{\Phi }_0}$$
(5)
where $`\delta \mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ is the flux difference, $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$ is the quantum unit of flux, $`g_T`$ denotes the Thouless conductance, and $`\chi `$ is a non-universal sample-dependent constant of order unity. We thus realize that one needs about $`1/\sqrt{g_T}`$ flux quanta to crossover to two uncorrelated GUE ensembles.

Let us now estimate the strength of spin-orbit interaction required to create this amount of flux difference. As mentioned above, the difference in effective flux between the two spin sectors is $`\delta \mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{eff}}/\mathrm{\Phi }_0=L_1L_2/(\lambda _1\lambda _2)`$. The $`\lambda `$’s are connected to the Rashba and Dresselhaus spin orbit parameters $`\gamma `$ and $`\eta `$ via $`1/\lambda _1\lambda _2=4(\gamma ^2\eta ^2)`$. Independent estimates of $`\gamma `$ and $`\eta `$ are not available, but, in principle, can be obtained Aleiner01a . One can get an approximate value via the better known parameter $`Q_{\mathrm{SO}}^2=(\mathrm{}v_F/E_F)^2(\gamma ^2+\eta ^2)`$:

$`\left|{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\lambda _1\lambda _2}}\right|`$ $``$ $`Q_{\mathrm{SO}}^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{2E_F}{\mathrm{}v_F}}\right)^2=Q_{\mathrm{SO}}^2k_F^2`$ (6)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta \mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{eff}}}{\mathrm{\Phi }_0}}`$ $`=`$ $`Q_{\mathrm{SO}}^2k_FL_1k_FL_2`$ (7)
Typical experimental values are $`k_FL_{1,2}50`$, $`g_T10100`$, and estimates for $`Q_{\mathrm{SO}}`$ are in the range $`416\times 10^3`$ Halperin . Thus, we estimate $`\sqrt{g_T}\delta \mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{eff}}/\mathrm{\Phi }_0=0.16.4`$, i.e., the right hand side of Eq. (5) can be expected to be of order unity Zumbuehl02 . Hence, the spin-orbit effect is strong enough to decorrelate (or to start to decorrelate) the spin-up and spin-down sector, while being weak enough not to yield significant spin-scattering. A strong spin-scattering, which can be generated by the application of an in-plane magnetic field, would mix the two spin species and result in a single GUE.

We will now analyze this situation where the weak spin-orbit coupling results in two uncorrelated GUE ensembles for spin-up and spin-down electrons and the results do not depend on the spin-orbit strength. Under the assumption of a constant Coulomb interaction Aleiner01  and applying the Master equation for sequential tunneling through the quantum dot, the conductance of a closed quantum dot is given by Beenakker91  (for a review see Ref. Alhassid01, )

$$G=\frac{e^2}{\mathrm{k}_\mathrm{B}T}\underset{i\sigma }{}\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_{i\sigma }^L\mathrm{\Gamma }_{i\sigma }^R}{\mathrm{\Gamma }_{i\sigma }^L+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{i\sigma }^R}P_{\mathrm{eq}}(N)P(E_{i\sigma }|N)[1f(E_{i\sigma }\mu )].$$
(8)
Here $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{i\sigma }^{L(R)}`$ is the tunneling rate between the $`i`$th one-particle eigenlevel of the dot with spin $`\sigma `$ and the left (right) lead, $`E_{i\sigma }`$ is the one-particle eigenenergy of this level, $`P_{\mathrm{eq}}(N)`$ denotes the equilibrium probability to find $`N`$ electrons in the dot (we assume the typical experimental situation where the Coulomb blockade only allows $`N`$ and $`N+1`$ electrons in the quantum dot), $`P(E_{i\sigma }|N)`$ is the canonical probability to have the $`i`$th level of the spin-$`\sigma `$ sector occupied given the presence of $`N`$ electrons in the dot, and $`f(E\mu )`$ is the Fermi function at the effective chemical potential $`\mu `$ which includes the charging energy. In Eq. (8), $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{i\sigma }^{L(R)}`$ is distributed according to the Porter-Thomas distribution for the GUE $`P_2(\mathrm{\Gamma })=\frac{1}{\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}\mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{\Gamma }/\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }})`$, which only depends on the mean value $`\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$ of the distribution (we assume this mean value to be the same for the coupling to the left and right lead in the following).

At zero temperature, only one level ($`i_1`$,$`\sigma _1`$) contributes in Eq. (8) such that $`\mu =E_{i_1\sigma _1}`$, $`P(E_{i\sigma }|N)=1`$, and $`P_{\mathrm{eq}}(N)=1/2`$. Thus, the zero temperature average conductance is given by $`G=\frac{1}{12}\frac{\mathrm{}\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}}{k_BT}\frac{e^2}{\mathrm{}}`$ and the ratio of standard deviation to mean-value becomes $`\sigma (G)/G=2/\sqrt{5}`$. Here, we have used $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{i\sigma }^R/(\mathrm{\Gamma }_{i\sigma }^L+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{i\sigma }^R)=1/3`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{i\sigma }^{R}{}_{}{}^{2}/(\mathrm{\Gamma }_{i\sigma }^L+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{i\sigma }^R)^2=1/5`$ for the GUE distribution. At low temperatures, there are a few realizations of the RMT eigenlevel distribution where a second level ($`i_2`$,$`\sigma _2`$) is within an interval of order $`k_BT`$ around the first level at the Fermi energy. Then, the second level also contributes to the conductance through the quantum dot. Neglecting the shift of the chemical potential due to the second level (i.e., keeping $`\mu =E_{i_1\sigma _1}`$), we calculated this two level situation. This gives the leading behavior in $`k_BT/\mathrm{\Delta }`$ for Eq. (8):

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma (G)}{G}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\sqrt{5}}}(1+\left[{\displaystyle \frac{781}{9}}\mathrm{ln}2{\displaystyle \frac{127}{3}}\mathrm{ln}3{\displaystyle \frac{409}{27}}\right]{\displaystyle \frac{k_BT}{\mathrm{\Delta }}}).`$ (9)
For general temperatures, we maximize numerically the conductance Eq. (8) w.r.t. $`\mu `$, and averaged over 100000 RMT realizations of the eigenenergies and the dot-lead couplings. The results are shown in Fig. 2, in comparison to the experiment of Patel et al.. In contrast to the standard RMT result Patel98 , the RMT ensemble for weak spin-orbit coupling describes the width of the conductance distribution and its change with temperature reasonably well at low temperatures, without any adjustable parameter. Compared to the standard GUE, the width of the distribution is reduced at low temperatures because of the absence of level repulsion for levels with opposite spin. This results in higher probability to find a close-by level (with opposite spin and independent tunneling rate), and leads to more RMT realizations in which two or more levels contribute to the low-temperature conductance. Having more independent channels for the conductance makes the probability distribution more Gaussian and decreases its width. At higher temperatures, the experimental results are not adequately described by spin-orbit effects alone. In the regime $`k_BT\mathrm{\Delta }`$ however Eisenberg01 , one has to account for inelastic scattering $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{in}}`$. Taking the limit $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{in}}\mathrm{}`$, we obtain the high temperature asymptotic behavior $`\frac{\sigma (G)}{G}=\sqrt{\frac{1}{24}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{k_BT}}`$ which gives reasonable results except for the quantum dot with diamond-symbols. Note that upon reducing $`k_BT/\mathrm{\Delta }`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{in}}`$ will decrease, resulting in a crossover from the dot-dashed to the dashed line in Fig. 2. The inelastic scattering rates of Eisenberg01  would imply that the dashed $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{in}}=\mathrm{}`$-line is approached in the range $`k_BT`$=1.5-4 $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$.

In Fig. 3, we compare the full probability distribution with the experimental one Patel98  at $`k_BT=0.1\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and $`k_BT=0.5\mathrm{\Delta }`$. Within the experimental statistical fluctuation, a good agreement is achieved without any free parameters, much better than for the standard RMT Patel98 . This suggests that the spin-orbit strength is sufficient to fully decorrelated the spin-up and spin-down ensembles. With an estimate of the experimental Thouless conductance $`g_T20`$ obtained from $`g_T\sqrt{N}`$, this means that a spin-orbit coupling strength $`Q_{\mathrm{SO}}10^2`$ is required in the quantum dot of Ref. Patel98,  (where we set $`\chi =1`$ in Eq. (5)). In general, the crossover to the weak spin-orbit regime occurs at $`Q_{\mathrm{SO}}^2(k_FL)^{5/2}1`$. Thus, the size of the dot and the parameter $`Q_{\mathrm{SO}}`$ which depends on the dot’s specific asymmetry of the confining potential determine whether this quantum dot is in the weak spin-orbit regime. The size dependence might explain why earlier measurements by Chang et al. Chang96  using very small quantum dots showed agreement with the standard RMT without spin-orbit interaction. A similar agreement was found by Folk et al. Folk96 , despite using similar large quantum dots as in Ref. Patel98, . The contradictory results of Folk96  and Patel98  might be due to the better statistics of the latter experiment, or could be explained within the framework presented here, as following from differences in the confining potential (which might be, e.g., caused by differences in the realization of the two dimensional electron gas and the gate voltage), translating into differences in $`Q_{\mathrm{SO}}`$. Alternatively, it is possible that the spin-orbit effect in both samples is weak, and the deviations from RMT in Patel98  should be explained by another mechanism (e.g. exchange UsajPC ).

In order to validate that the quantum dot is indeed in the weak spin-coupling regime described here, we suggest to repeat the experiment with an in-plane magnetic field. A strong in-plane magnetic field should drive the system towards the strong spin-orbit scattering limit. In general, one would expect the spin-orbit scattering to suppress $`\sigma (G)/G`$. However, in the case of weak spin-orbit coupling the in-plane magnetic field, which drives the system towards a single GUE, regenerates the level repulsion. Therefore, we predict $`\sigma (G)/G`$ to increase upon applying an in-plane magnetic field at low temperatures. Another crucial test to the the weak-spin orbit scenario is the behavior in the absence of a magnetic field. In this case, the degeneracy is preserved but the spin-orbit coupling drives the system from the Gaussian orthogonal to the unitary ensemble Aleiner01a . One implication is a strong suppression of the magnetoconductance.

Finally we note that the disagreements between RMT predictions and the results of Patel98  can not be attributed to dephasing. Had this been the case, this experiment would indicate an appreciable dephasing even at low temperatures, in contradiction with theoretical predictions Altshuler97 . However, recent measurements of the low-temperatures dephasing rates Folk00  are consistent with theory Eisenberg01 , and furthermore, it has been shown by Rupp and Alhassid Rupp02  that dephasing alone can not explain the results of Patel98 . Our calculation shows that the spin-orbit coupling without dephasing can describe the low-temperature part of Patel98 , and that the inclusion of strong dephasing gives reasonable agreement for the high-temperature part.

In conclusion, we analyzed the effect of weak spin-orbit coupling on closed quantum dots in the presence of a perpendicular magnetic field which breaks the time-reversal symmetry. In this regime which can be realized for (some) quantum dots, the spin-orbit coupling does not lead to one non-degenerate GUE ensemble but to two independent GUEs for spin-up and -down electrons. This has important consequences, in particular, at low temperatures, as there is no level-repulsion for levels with opposite spins. The statistical distribution of the conductance peak maximum shows a good agreement with recent experimental distributions by Patel et al. Patel98 , but disagrees with experiments for similar sized quantum dots Folk96 . The exchange interaction might yield similar changes in the statistical distribution UsajPC , and it is unclear at present whether the complete explanation for the peak heights statistics behavior is given by the weak spin-orbit RMT. More experiments are needed to clarify the relative importance of the two effects and to explain the experimental contradiction mentioned above. If the spin-orbit effect is dominant, we predict an increase of the width of the distribution upon applying a strong in-plane magnetic field and a very low magnetoconductance. We further note that without spin-degeneracy there will also be no $`\delta `$-function-like contribution in the level-spacing distribution, in contrast to standard RMT.

###### Acknowledgements.

We acknowledge helpful discussions with I.L. Aleiner, Y. Alhassid, H.U. Baranger, C.M. Marcus, T. Rupp, and G. Usaj. This work has been supported by ARO, DARPA, and the Alexander von Humboldt foundation.


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# Physics of Strongly Coupled 𝑁=1 Supersymmetric 𝑆𝑂(𝑁_𝑐) Gauge Theories

## Abstract

We construct an effective superpotential that describes dynamical flavor symmetry breaking in supersymmetric $`N`$=1 $`SO(N_c)`$ theories with $`N_f`$-flavor quarks for $`N_fN_c`$. Our superpotential induces spontaneous flavor symmetry breaking of $`SU(N_f)`$ down to $`SO(N_c)`$ $`\times `$ $`SU(N_fN_c)`$ as nonabelian residual groups and respects the anomaly-matching property owing to the appearance of massless composite Nambu-Goldstone superfields. In massive $`SO(N_c)`$ theories, our superpotential provides holomorphic decoupling property and consistent vacuum structure with instanton effect if $`N_c2`$ quarks remain massless. This superpotential may reflect the remnant of physics corresponding to $`N`$=2 $`SO(N_c)`$ theories near the Chebyshev point, which also exhibits dynamical flavor symmetry breaking.

The phase structure of strongly coupled $`N`$=1 supersymmetric (SUSY) gauge theories can be determined by perturbing well-understood $`N=2`$ gauge theories. The $`N`$=1 supersymmetric quantum chromodynamics (SQCD) with $`N_c`$-colors and $`N_f`$-flavors is well described by the $`N`$=1 duality for $`N_fN_c+2`$ using dual quarks. The similar dual description is also applicable to other gauge theories such as those based on $`SO(N_c)`$. However, it is only possible to theoretically confirm the validity of the $`N`$=1 duality by embedding it in softly broken $`N`$=2 theories. Since the $`N`$=2 theories are so constrained, it is not possible to cover the confining physics for all ranges of $`N_f`$ for a given $`N_c`$. In SQCD with $`N_f<3N_c`$, the $`N`$=1 duality is believed to describe its physics for $`N_f`$ $``$ $`N_c`$+2 as long as dual quarks have $`N_fN_c`$ colors while the $`N`$=2 duality supports the $`N`$=1 duality only if $`N_f>3N_c/2`$, where SQCD is characterized by an interacting Coulomb phase.

In $`SO(N_c)`$ gauge theories (with $`N_f<3(N_c2)`$), the similar question on the validity of $`N`$=1 duality has lately been raised by noticing the existence of the Chebyshev point in $`N`$=2 gauge theories. Physics near the Chebyshev point is found to be characterized by the presence of dynamical flavor symmetry breaking due to the condensation of mesons, which should be contrasted with the absence of flavor symmetry breaking in the $`N`$=1 duality. Although, in the $`N`$=1 limit, the Chebyshev point appears to merge with the ordinary singular point, where the flavor symmetries remain unbroken, we speculate that there is a strictly stable phase with dynamical flavor symmetry breaking even in the $`N`$=1 limit, which reflects the $`N`$=2 physics near the Chebyshev point.

In this paper, we suggest that the low-energy degree of freedom in confining $`SO(N_c)`$ theories with $`N_fN_c`$ is provided by Nambu-Goldstone superfields associated with the dynamical flavor symmetry breaking, which is well regulated by our proposed effective superpotential. Although there is no direct proof that out superpotential is related to the $`N`$=1 physics derived from the $`N`$=2 physics near the Chebyshev point, we expect that it describes the $`N`$=1 physics since it passes three consistency checks offered by the holomorphic decoupling property, the instanton physics and the anomaly-matching property. There have also been several discussions on the possible existence of such a flavor symmetry breaking phase in the case of SQCD with $`N_f`$ $``$ $`N_c`$+2.

We start with the classic construction of an effective superpotential, which is invariant under the transformations under all the symmetries and is compatible with the response from an anomalous $`U(1)_{anom}`$ symmetry. Namely, we require that not only it is invariant under an anomaly free $`SU(N_f)`$ $`\times `$ $`U(1)_R`$ symmetry, where quark superfields have $`(N_fN_c+2)/N_f`$ as a $`U(1)_R`$ charge, but also it is equipped with the transformation property under $`U(1)_{anom}`$ broken by the instanton effect, which is represented by $`\delta `$ $``$ $`F^{\mu \nu }\stackrel{~}{F}_{\mu \nu }`$, where $``$ represents the lagrangian of the $`SO(N_c)`$ theory and $`F^{\mu \nu }`$ ($`\stackrel{~}{F}_{\mu \nu }ϵ_{\mu \nu \rho \sigma }F^{\rho \sigma }`$) is a gauge field strength.

In the rest of discussions, we follows the same strategy as the one developed in Ref. to examine vacuum structure in the $`SO(N_c)`$ theory, where we use the freedom that cannot be determined by symmetries and holomorphy. In $`SO(N_c)`$ theories with $`N_fN_c`$, the resulting superpotential, $`W_{\mathrm{eff}}`$, with quark masses included is given by

$$W_{\mathrm{eff}}=S\left\{\mathrm{ln}\left[\frac{S^{N_cN_f+2}\mathrm{det}\left(T\right)f(Z)}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^{3N_cN_f6}}\right]+N_fN_c+2\right\}\underset{i=1}{\overset{N_f}{}}m_iT^{ii}$$
(1)
with an arbitrary function, $`f(Z)`$, to be determined, where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is the scale of the $`SO(N_c)`$ theory and $`m_i`$ is the mass of the $`i`$-th quark. The fields, $`S`$ and $`T`$, are composite superfields defined by

$$S=\frac{1}{32\pi ^2}\underset{A,B=1}{\overset{N_c}{}}W_{[AB]}W_{[AB]},T^{ij}=\underset{A=1}{\overset{N_c}{}}Q_A^iQ_A^j,$$
(2)
where chiral quark superfields and chiral gauge superfields are, respectively, denoted by $`Q_A^i`$ and $`W_{[AB]}`$ for $`i,j`$ = 1 $``$ $`N_f`$ and $`A,B`$ = 1 $``$ $`N_c`$. The remaining field denoted by $`Z`$ describes an effective field defined by

$`Z`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{_{i_1\mathrm{}i_{N_f},j_1\mathrm{}j_{N_f}}\epsilon _{i_1\mathrm{}i_{N_f}}\epsilon _{j_1\mathrm{}j_{N_f}}B^{[i_1\mathrm{}i_{N_c}]}T^{i_{N_c+1}j_{N_c+1}}\mathrm{}T^{i_{N_f}j_{N_f}}B^{[j_1\mathrm{}j_{N_c}]}}{N_c!N_c!\left(N_fN_c\right)!\left(N_fN_c\right)!\mathrm{det}\left(T\right)}},`$ (3)
where

$`B^{[i_1i_2\mathrm{}i_{N_c}]}={\displaystyle \underset{A_1\mathrm{}A_{N_c}}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N_c!}}\epsilon ^{A_1A_2\mathrm{}A_{N_c}}Q_{A_1}^{i_1}\mathrm{}Q_{A_{N_c}}^{i_{N_c}},`$ (4)
since we are restricted to study the case with $`N_fN_c`$. We use the notation of $`Z=BT^{N_fN_c}B/\mathrm{det}(T)`$. Note that $`Z`$ is neutral under the entire chiral symmetries including $`U(1)_{anom}`$ and the $`Z`$-dependence of $`f(Z)`$ cannot be determined by the symmetry principle.

Two comments are in order:

1. Since the $`SO(N_c)`$ theory has color-antisymmetric gauge fields, there are lots of composite fields containing both quarks and chiral gauge fields. Whether these composites are light or not can only be examined by the anomaly-matching property of our superpotential normally dictated by the Nambu-Goldstone superfields. It will be found that these composites need not enter in the low-energy degree of freedom.
2. The explicit use of the redundant field of $`S`$ is essential in our discussions. The vacuum structure of the $`SO(N_c)`$ theory can be more transparent if we study dynamics of the $`SO(N_c)`$ theory in terms of $`S`$ by taking a softly broken $`SO(N_c)`$ theory in its SUSY limit.

It is readily understood that if one flavor becomes heavy, our superpotential exhibits a holomorphic decoupling property. Let the $`N_f`$-th flavor be massive and others be massless, then we have

$$W_{\mathrm{eff}}=S\left\{\mathrm{ln}\left[\frac{S^{N_cN_f2}\mathrm{det}\left(T\right)f(Z)}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^{3N_cN_f6}}\right]+N_fN_c+2\right\}mT^{N_fN_f}.$$
(5)
The field, $`T`$, can be divided into $`\stackrel{~}{T}`$ with a light flavor $`(N_f1)`$ $`\times `$ $`(N_f1)`$ submatrix and $`T^{N_fN_f}`$ and also $`B`$ into light flavored $`\stackrel{~}{B}`$ and heavy flavored parts. The off-diagonal elements of $`T`$ and the heavy flavored $`B`$ vanish at the minimum, where $`T^{N_fN_f}`$ = $`S/m`$ is derived. Inserting this relation into Eq.(5), we finally obtain

$$W_{\mathrm{eff}}=S\left\{\mathrm{ln}\left[\frac{S^{N_cN_f1}\mathrm{det}(\stackrel{~}{T})f(\stackrel{~}{Z})}{\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^{3N_cN_f5}}\right]+N_fN_c+1\right\},$$
(6)
where $`\stackrel{~}{Z}`$ = $`\stackrel{~}{B}\stackrel{~}{T}^{N_fN_c1}\stackrel{~}{B}`$/$`\mathrm{det}(\stackrel{~}{T})`$ from $`Z`$ = $`\stackrel{~}{B}T^{N_fN_f}\stackrel{~}{T}^{N_fN_c1}\stackrel{~}{B}/T^{N_fN_f}\mathrm{det}(\stackrel{~}{T})`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^{3N_cN_f5}`$ = $`m\mathrm{\Lambda }^{3N_cN_f6}`$. Thus, we are left with Eq.(1) with $`N_f1`$ massless flavors. This decoupling is successively applied to the $`SO(N_c)`$ theory until $`N_f`$ is reduced to $`N_c`$.

In the massless $`SO(N_c)`$ theory, it should be noted that if $`S`$ is integrated out, one reaches the following superpotential for the massless $`SO(N_c)`$ theory:

$$W_{\mathrm{eff}}^{}=\left(N_fN_c+2\right)\left[\frac{\mathrm{det}\left(T\right)f(Z)}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^{3N_cN_f6}}\right]^{1/(N_fN_c+2)}.$$
(7)
Since $`W_{\mathrm{eff}}^{}`$ vanishes in the classical limit, where the constraint of $`BT^{N_fN_c}B`$ = $`\mathrm{det}\left(T\right)`$, namely $`Z`$ = 1, is satisfied, we find that $`f(1)`$ = 0. The simplest form of $`f(Z)`$ can be given by

$$f(Z)=1Z,$$
(8)
which gives

$$W_{\mathrm{eff}}^{}=\left(N_fN_c+2\right)\left[\frac{\mathrm{det}\left(T\right)BT^{N_fN_c}B}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^{3N_cN_f6}}\right]^{1/(N_fN_c+2)}.$$
(9)
The massive $`SO(N_c)`$ theory can also be analyzed by considering the instanton contributions from the gauginos and $`N_f`$ quarks in the massless $`SO(N_c)`$ theory. The instanton contributions can be expressed as

$$(\lambda \lambda )^{N_c2}\mathrm{det}(\psi ^i\psi ^j),$$
(10)
where $`\psi `$ ($`\lambda `$) is a spinor component of $`Q`$ ($`S`$). In the case with $`N_fN_c+2`$ massive quarks labeled by $`i`$=$`N_c1`$ $``$ $`N_f`$, this instanton amplitude is further transformed into

$$\underset{a=1}{\overset{N_c2}{}}\pi _a=c\mathrm{\Lambda }^{2N_c4}\underset{i=Nc1}{\overset{N_f}{}}m_i/\mathrm{\Lambda },$$
(11)
where $`\pi _i`$ represents the scalar component of $`T^{ii}`$ and $`c`$ is a non-vanishing coefficient. On the other hand, our superpotential yields the conditions of $`W_{\mathrm{eff}}/\pi _\lambda `$ = 0 and $`W_{\mathrm{eff}}/\pi _i`$ = 0 for $`i`$ = $`N_c1`$ $``$ $`N_f`$ and gives $`\pi _\lambda /\pi _i`$ = $`m_i`$ ($`i`$ = $`N_c`$ $``$ $`N_f`$) and $`(1\alpha )\pi _\lambda /\pi _i`$ = $`m_i`$ ($`i`$ = $`N_c2`$ and $`N_c1`$) known as the Konishi anomaly relation, where $`\alpha `$ = $`zf^{}(z)/f(z)`$ for $`z`$ = $`0|Z|0`$. We find that

$$(1\alpha )^2f(z)=\underset{a=1}{\overset{N_c2}{}}\mathrm{\Lambda }^2/\pi _a\underset{i=N_c1}{\overset{N_f}{}}m_i/\mathrm{\Lambda }.$$
(12)
These two relations of Eqs.(12) and (11) show that the mass dependence in $`f(z)`$ is completely cancelled. The absence of this mass dependence is a clear indication of the consistency of our superpotential of Eq.(1). Since $`(1\alpha )^2f(z)`$ = 1/$`c`$ ($``$0), we obtain that $`f(z)`$0 or equivalently $`z1`$ for Eq.(8). Therefore, the classical constraint, corresponding to $`z`$ = 1, should be modified for this massive $`SO(N_c)`$ theory.

Now, we discuss the vacuum structure in the massless $`SO(N_c)`$ theory. It is obvious that our superpotential allows all vacuum expectation values (VEV’s) to vanish. In this case, since the anomaly-matching is not satisfied by original massless composite fields, the $`SO(N_c)`$ theory should employ magnetic degree’s of freedom called magnetic quarks. However, we will advocate the possible existence of another vacuum with non-vanishing VEV’s determined by the superpotential of Eq.(9), which yields dynamical breakdown of the flavor symmetry of $`SU(N_f)\times U(1)_R`$ compatible with the anomaly-matching property. Both vacua become the correct vacua with the same vanishing vacuum energy since they are supported by appropriate effective superpotentials described by either magnetic quarks or by composites made of the original quarks.

To find the spontaneous symmetry-breaking solution, we rely upon on the plausible theoretical expectation that the SUSY theory has a smooth limit to the SUSY-preserving phase from the SUSY-breaking phase. In order to see solely the SUSY breaking effect, we adopt the simplest term that is invariant under the whole flavor symmetries, which is given by the following mass term, $`_{mass}`$, for the scalar quarks, $`\varphi _A^i`$:

$$_{mass}=\mu ^2\underset{i,A}{}|\varphi _A^i|^2.$$
(13)
Together with the potential term arising from $`W_{\mathrm{eff}}`$, we find that

$`V_{\mathrm{eff}}=G_T\left({\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{N_f}{}}}|W_{\mathrm{eff};i}|^2\right)+G_B|W_{\mathrm{eff};B}|^2+G_S|W_{\mathrm{eff};\lambda }|^2+V_{\mathrm{soft}},`$ (14)
$`V_{\mathrm{soft}}=\mu ^2\mathrm{\Lambda }^2{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{N_f}{}}}|\pi _i|^2+\mathrm{\Lambda }^{2(N_c1)}\mu ^2|\pi _B|^2`$ (15)
with the definition of $`W_{\mathrm{eff};i}`$ $``$ $`W_{\mathrm{eff}}/\pi _i`$, etc., where $`\pi _\lambda `$ and $`\pi _B`$, respectively, represent the scalar components of $`S`$ and $`B^{[12\mathrm{}N_c]}`$. Other fields such as scalar components of $`T^{ij}`$ with $`ij`$ can be set to vanish at the minimum of $`V_{\mathrm{eff}}`$; therefore, we omit these terms. The coefficient $`G_T`$ comes from the K$`\ddot{\mathrm{a}}`$hlar potential, $`K`$, which is assumed to be diagonal, $`^2K/T^{ik}T^j\mathrm{}`$ = $`\delta _{ij}\delta _k\mathrm{}G_T^1`$ with $`G_T`$ = $`G_T(T^{}T)`$, and similarly for $`G_B`$ = $`G_B(B^{}B)`$ and $`G_S`$ = $`G_S(S^{}S)`$. Since we are interested in the SUSY-breaking phase in the vicinity of the SUSY-preserving phase, the leading terms of $`\mu ^2`$ are sufficient to control the SUSY breaking effects. Namely, we assume that $`\mu ^2/\mathrm{\Lambda }^21`$.

Since the original flavor symmetries do not provide the consistent anomaly-matching property, the $`SO(N_c)`$ dynamics requires that some of the $`\pi `$ acquire non-vanishing VEV’s so that it triggers dynamical symmetry breaking that supplies the Nambu-Goldstone bosons to produce appropriate anomalies. In the SUSY limit, this breaking simultaneously supplies massless quasi Nambu-Goldstone fermions that also produce appropriate anomalies. If all anomalies are saturated by these Nambu-Goldstone superfields, flavor symmetries cease to undergo further dynamical breakdown. Therefore, the $`SO(N_c)`$ dynamics at least allows one of the $`\pi _i`$ ($`i`$=1 $``$ $`N_f`$) to develop a VEV and let this be labeled by $`i`$ = $`1`$: $`|\pi _1|`$ = $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_T^2`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^2`$. This VEV is determined by solving $`V_{\mathrm{eff}}/\pi _i`$ = 0 that yields

$$G_TW_{\mathrm{eff};a}^{}\frac{\pi _\lambda }{\pi _a}\left(1\alpha \right)=G_SW_{\mathrm{eff};\lambda }^{}\left(1\alpha \right)+\beta X_B+M^2\left|\frac{\pi _a}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\right|^2,$$
(16)
for $`a`$=1$`N_c`$, If we choose $`i`$=$`N_c+1N_f`$, which are not the indices used in $`B^{[12\mathrm{}N_c]}`$, we cannot obtain the consistent vacuum configuration. where $`\beta `$ = $`z\alpha ^{}`$ and

$`M^2=\mu ^2+G_T^{}\mathrm{\Lambda }^2{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{N_f}{}}}\left|W_{\mathrm{eff};i}\right|^2,X_B=G_T{\displaystyle \underset{a=1}{\overset{N_c}{}}}W_{\mathrm{eff};a}^{}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi _\lambda }{\pi _a}}G_BW_{\mathrm{eff};B}^{}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi _\lambda }{\pi _B}}.`$ (17)
The SUSY breaking effect is specified by $`\mu ^2|\pi _1|^2`$ in Eq.(16) through $`M^2`$ because of $`\pi _1`$ $``$ 0. This effect is also contained in $`W_{\mathrm{eff};\lambda }`$ and $`X_B`$. From Eq.(16) with $`W_{\mathrm{eff};a}=(1\alpha )\pi _\lambda /\pi _a`$ ($`a=1N_c`$), we find that

$$\left|\frac{\pi _a}{\pi _1}\right|^2=1+\frac{(M^2/\mathrm{\Lambda }^2)(\left|\pi _1\right|^2\left|\pi _a\right|^2)}{G_SW_{\mathrm{eff};\lambda }^{}\left(1\alpha \right)+\beta X_B+(M^2/\mathrm{\Lambda }^2)\left|\pi _a\right|^2}.$$
(18)
It is obvious that $`\pi _{a1}`$ = 0 cannot satisfy Eq.(18). In fact, $`\pi _{a1}`$ = $`\pi _1`$ is a solution to this problem, leading to $`|\pi _a|`$ = $`|\pi _1|`$ (= $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_T^2`$). As a whole, all the $`|\pi _a|`$ for $`a`$=$`1N_c`$ dynamically acquire the same VEV once one of these $`|\pi _a|`$ receives a VEV.

Let us estimate each VEV for composite superfields. Since the classical constraint of $`f(z)`$ = 0 is to be proved to receive no modification at the SUSY minimum, this breaking effect can arise as tiny deviation of $`f(z)`$ from 0 in the SUSY-breaking vacuum, which is denoted by $`\xi `$ $``$ $`1z`$ ($``$ 1). After a little calculus, we find

$$\left|\pi _{i=1N_c}\right|=\mathrm{\Lambda }_T^2,\left|\pi _{i=N_c+1N_f}\right|=\xi \left|\pi _{i=1N_c}\right|,|\pi _B|\mathrm{\Lambda }_T^{N_c},\left|\pi _\lambda \right|\mathrm{\Lambda }^3\xi ^{\frac{N_fN_c+1}{N_fN_c+2}},$$
(19)
in the leading order of $`\xi `$, whose $`\mu `$-dependence can be fixed by solving the set of equations of $`V_{\mathrm{eff}}/\pi _{i,B,\lambda }`$ = 0. In the softly broken $`SO(N_c)`$ theory, our superpotential indicates the breakdown of all chiral symmetries.

We expect that this phenomenon persists to occur in the SUSY limit of $`\mu 0`$ or equivalently $`\xi 0`$. At the SUSY minimum with the suggested vacuum of $`|\pi _{a=1N_c}|`$ = $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_T^2`$, we find the classical constraint of $`f(z)`$ = 0, which is derived by using $`W_{\mathrm{eff};\lambda }`$ = 0 and by noticing that $`\pi _\lambda /\pi _{i=N_c+1N_f}`$ = 0 from $`W_{\mathrm{eff};i}`$ = 0. In the SUSY limit, $`\pi _{i=N_c+1N_f}`$ vanish to recover chiral $`SU(N_fN_c)`$ symmetry and $`\pi _\lambda `$ vanishes to recover chiral $`U(1)`$ symmetry. The symmetry breaking is thus described by

$`SU(N_f)\times U(1)_RSO(N_c)\times SU(N_fN_c)\times U(1)_R^{},`$ (20)
where $`U(1)_R^{}`$ is associated with the number of $`SU(N_c)`$-adjoint and $`SU(N_c)`$-singlet fermions and with the number of the ($`N_fN_c`$)-plet scalars of $`SU(N_fN_c)`$.

This dynamical breaking can really persist in the SUSY limit only if the anomaly-matching property is respected by composite superfields. The anomaly-matching property is easily seen by the use of the complementarity. This dynamical breakdown of $`SU(N_f)\times U(1)_R`$ can also be realized by the corresponding Higgs phase defined by $`0|\varphi _A^a|0`$ = $`\delta _A^a\mathrm{\Lambda }_T`$ for $`a,A`$ = 1 $``$ $`N_c`$. The anomaly-matching is trivially satisfied in the Higgs phase, whose spectrum is found to be precisely equal to that of the massless composite Nambu-Goldstone superfields represented by $`T^{ab}`$ with Tr($`T^{ab}`$) = 0, $`T^{ia}`$ and a linear combination of Tr($`T^{ab}`$) and $`B^{[12\mathrm{}N_c]}`$ ($`a,b`$=$`1N_c`$, $`i`$=$`N_c+1N_f`$). No other composite fields such as those including gauge chiral superfields are not present in the low-energy spectrum. Our superpotential, thus, assures that the anomaly-matching is a dynamical consequence.

Summarizing our discussions, we have examined the dynamics of the $`SO(N_c)`$ theory with $`N_cN_f`$ $`\left(<3(N_c2)\right)`$ based on the effective superpotential:

$$W_{\mathrm{eff}}=S\left\{\mathrm{ln}\left[\frac{S^{N_cN_f2}\left(\mathrm{det}\left(T\right)BT^{N_fN_c}B\right)}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^{3N_cN_f6}}\right]+N_fN_c+2\right\}+\underset{i=1}{\overset{N_f}{}}m_iT^{ii}.$$
(21)
This superpotential is equivalent to the following superpotential:

$$W_{\mathrm{eff}}^{}=\left(N_fN_c+2\right)\left[\frac{\mathrm{det}\left(T\right)BT^{N_fN_c}B}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^{3N_cN_f6}}\right]^{1/(N_fN_c+2)}+\underset{i=1}{\overset{N_f}{}}m_iT^{ii}.$$
(22)
We have found that our superpotential respects

1. holomorphic decoupling property,
2. correct vacuum structure with instanton physics when $`N_c2`$ quarks become massless and others remain massive,
3. dynamical breakdown of the flavor $`SU(N_c)`$ symmetry described by

$`SU(N_f)\times U(1)_RSO(N_c)\times SU(N_fN_c)\times U(1)_R^{},`$ (23)
in the massless $`SO(N_c)`$ theory and
4. consistent anomaly-matching property due to the emergence of the Nambu-Goldstone superfields.

The explicit VEV’s for composite superfields induced by our flavor-blind soft SUSY-breaking are calculated to be:

$`\left|0|T^{ij}|0\right|=\{\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{\Lambda }_T^2\delta ^{ij}(i=1N_c)\hfill \\ \xi \mathrm{\Lambda }_T^2\delta ^{ij}(i=N_c+1N_f)\hfill \end{array},`$ (26)
$`\left|0|B^{[12\mathrm{}N_c]}|0\right|\mathrm{\Lambda }_T^{N_c},\left|0|S|0\right|\mathrm{\Lambda }_T^3\xi ^{\frac{N_fN_c+1}{N_fN_c+2}},`$ (27)
where $`\xi `$ $``$ 0 gives the SUSY limit. The estimation clearly shows that the onset of the flavor-blind soft SUSY-breaking completely breaks the residual chiral symmetries of $`SU(N_fN_c)`$ and $`U(1)_R^{}`$. The classical constraint of $`\mathrm{det}\left(T\right)`$=$`BT^{N_fN_c}B`$ is modified into

$$\mathrm{det}\left(T\right)BT^{N_fN_c}B=\xi \mathrm{det}\left(T\right),$$
(28)
which measures the parameter $`\xi `$.

Since the dynamical flavor symmetry breaking can be consistently described by $`W_{\mathrm{eff}}^{}`$ of Eq.(22), we speculate that the $`N`$=1 physics controlled by $`W_{\mathrm{eff}}^{}`$ reflects the remnant of the $`N`$=2 physics near the Chebyshev point, where the dynamical flavor symmetry breaking is a must. We also hope that the advent of the powerful theoretical tools to implement chiral fermions in lattice formulation of the $`SO(N_c)`$ dynamics and of powerful computers to perform lattice simulation reveals the real physics of the $`SO(N_c)`$ theory.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work is supported by the Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Areas B (No 13135219) from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology, Japan.