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# Amplification of evanescent waves in a lossy left-handed material slab

## Abstract

We carry out finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations, with a specially-designed boundary condition, on pure evanescent waves interacting with a lossy left-handed material (LHM) slab. Our results provide the first full-wave numerical evidence for the amplification of evanescent waves inside a LHM slab of finite absorption. The amplification is due to the interactions between the evanescent waves and the coupled surface polaritons at the two surfaces of the LHM slab and the physical process can be described by a simple model.

left-handed material (LHM), evanescent wave, surface polariton, superlens.

Recently, Pendry Pendry2000  suggested that a class of superlenses could be realized by a planar slab of the so-called left-handed materials (LHMs) possessing both negative permittivity and permeability. With such a superlens, not only the phases of propagating waves but also the amplitudes of evanescent waves from a near-field object could be restored at its image. Therefore, the spatial resolution of the superlens could overcome the diffraction limit of conventional imaging systems and reach subwavelength scale. Especially at the single frequency where $`ϵ(\omega )=\mu (\omega )=1`$, the superlens could even be perfect – all the structural details of the object could be reconstructed at the image with unlimited resolution. It was soon realized that the superlens could be of great importance in different technological areas.

While great research interests were initiated by the revolutionary concept, hot debates were also raised Hooft2001 ; Williams2001 ; Valanju2002 ; Garcia2002 . For example, based on the fact that LHMs are necessarily dispersive and dissipative Veselago1968 ; Landau1960 , García and Nieto-Vesperinas Garcia2002  argued that the unavoidable absorption in LHM, no matter how tiny it is, would suppress the amplification of evanescent waves and thus the perfect lens is only a theoretical artifact and does not exist in real world. Despite the great amount of analytic and numerical attempts Ziolkowski2001 ; Shen2002 ; Feise2002 ; Haldane2002 ; Fang2003 ; Gomez-Santos2003 ; Loschialpo2003 ; Cummer2003 ; Smith2003 , reported results are diverse and disputes still remain.

It is the purpose of this paper to examine the feasibility of the superlensing effect of a realistic LHM slab using a full-wave finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. Since it is the evanescent waves responsible for the superlensing effect, our investigation concentrates on the interaction between evanescent waves and the LHM slab. Our numerical results provide, for the first time, direct evidence that evanescent waves could be amplified inside a LHM slab of finite absorption. We show how the amplification happens and what is the role of the surface polaritons, excited by evanescent waves at the two surfaces of the LHM slab. We also study the effects of absorption and the thickness of the LHM slab on the amplification.

The major innovation introduced in this paper is the incorporation of a specially-designed boundary condition in the FDTD scheme to simulate pure evanescent waves interacting with a LHM slab. We are therefore able to explicitly study the characteristics of the evanescent waves and their dependence on different parameters. This is significantly different from previous works Ziolkowski2001 ; Loschialpo2003 ; Cummer2003 , where both propagating and evanescent waves were involved in the simulation and the behavior of evanescent waves could only be implied by the image obtained, which caused large discrepancies in the conclusions since many other factors might have also contributed to the image quality in the FDTD simulations.

In this paper we consider a two-dimensional transverse electric (TE) case. A LHM slab in vaccum extends from $`x=0`$ to $`L`$ with surfaces normal to the $`x`$-axis and is infinite in the $`yz`$-plane. The LHM is modelled by causal permittivity ($`ϵ`$) and permeability ($`\mu `$) with the identical plasmonic form,

$$ϵ(\omega )=\mu (\omega )=1\frac{\omega _p^2}{\omega ^2i\omega \nu _c},$$
(1)
where $`\omega _p`$ is the plasma frequency and $`\nu _c`$ is the collision frequency. The $`z`$-polarized electric field source is excited in the $`x=d`$ ($`d=L/2`$ in our simulations) plane. The plane wave solution in vaccum is of the form,

$$E_z(x,y,t)=E_{z0}e^{i(k_xx+k_yy\omega t)},$$
(2)
where $`k_x`$ and $`k_y`$ are wave numbers along the $`x`$\- and $`y`$-directions, respectively, and they satisfy the dispersion relation,

$$k_x^2+k_y^2=\frac{\omega ^2}{c^2}.$$
(3)
In the case of $`k_y^2>k_0^2`$ ($`k_0^2=\omega ^2/c^2`$), $`k_x`$ is imaginary and corresponds to an evanescent wave along the $`x`$-direction.

Experimentally, pure evanescent waves can be generated by a prism using total internal reflection or a grating with a period finer than the wavelength of the radiation Kawata2001 . Numerically, this can be done more simply in the FDTD simulation with the help of a specially-designed boundary condition along the transverse direction. Owing to the continuity of the field across the interfaces, the transverse wave number $`k_y`$ is a constant in the whole space, both inside and outside the LHM slab. Therefore, it is possible for us to explicitly assign a predefined $`k_y`$ for the simulated wave. One way to achieve this objective is to impose a boundary condition in $`y`$-direction. In this case, we require that the fields in the boundary satisfy $`E_z(x,y\pm \mathrm{\Delta }y)=E_z(x,y)e^{ik_y\mathrm{\Delta }y}`$. This approach is an extension of the periodic boundary condition (PBC)Chan1995  where, normally, only the wave vectors within the first Brillouin zone are employed.

In the FDTD simulation, we apply the standard Yee’s algorithm in which the leapfrog staggered electric field and magnetic field are updated in time using the two coupled Maxwell’s curl equations Taflove2000 . The computational space is taken to be $`4000\times 1`$ cells with $`\mathrm{\Delta }x=\mathrm{\Delta }y=0.3`$ mm. At both ends in the $`x`$-direction, 10-cell uniaxial anisotropic perfectly-matched layer (UPML) Taflove2000  is added to truncate the computational space. The time step used is $`\mathrm{\Delta }t=\mathrm{\Delta }x/(2c)=0.5`$ ps. A sinusoidal source with a smooth turn-on of 30 periods Ziolkowski2001  is employed to excite a monochromatic wave at the angular frequency $`\omega 11`$ GHz. The corresponding wavelength in vacuum $`\lambda _0`$ (=$`2\pi /k_0`$) is about $`566\mathrm{\Delta }x`$. By choosing $`\omega _p`$ and $`\nu _c`$ in (1) appropriately, we have $`ϵ(\omega )=\mu (\omega )=1i\gamma `$ ($`\gamma `$ denotes the loss term) in all our simulations. The dispersive $`ϵ`$ and $`\mu `$ is handled in time domain using the piecewise-linear recursive convolution (PLRC) method Taflove2000 .

In the simulation, we monitored the time evolution of $`E_z`$ at three different locations, the two surfaces of the LHM slab and the image plane. It was found that a transient process occurs at the begining of the simulation and after a certain period, the fields reach their steady state and vibrate sinusoidally with unchanged amplitudes. The time required to reach the final steady state and the dynamic characteristics of the time evolution vary dramatically with different parameters ($`\gamma `$, $`k_y`$ and $`L`$). It is beyond the scope of this paper to describe the details of these simulations. Instead, we will only discuss the steady-state results obtained.

Figure 1(a) shows the spatial distribution of the steady-state amplitude of $`E_z`$ as a result of an evanescent wave ($`k_y=2k_0`$) interacting with a LHM slab of thickness $`L=80\mathrm{\Delta }x0.14\lambda _0`$ for different values of $`\gamma `$, ranging from 0.001 to 0.2. Figure 1(b) shows the corresponding $`E_z`$ amplitude at the two surfaces of the slab as a function of $`\gamma `$. The most important feature revealed by the figures is the amplification of the evanescent wave within the LHM slab, i.e., the field at the second surface is stronger than that at the first surface, for finite absorption, even though absorption tends to suppress the amplification. For small values of $`\gamma `$ from 0.001 to 0.01, the field distribution is almost identical. The evanescent wave from the source undergos very little reflection at the first surface of the LHM slab and the field between the source and the first surface is only slightly different from the exponential decay expected. Meanwhile, the field inside the slab shows a monotonic increase which is close to the exponential increase predicted by Pendry for the ideal case ($`ϵ=\mu =1`$) Pendry2000 . The field is amplified by about 4 times from 0.55 at the first surface to 2.1 at the second surface. When $`\gamma `$ increases above 0.01, the field at the first surface increases noticeably while that at the second surface drops, so that the amplification is weakened. When $`\gamma `$ reaches 0.2, the amplification still exists but now the field at the second surface (=1.56) is only about 1.5 times as strong as that of the first surface (=0.97). From the trends of the curves shown in Figure 1(b), we can expect that if $`\gamma `$ is further increased above a certain value $`\gamma _c`$($`>0.2`$), the field at the first surface may finally increase above the decreasing field at the second surface, so that the amplification would be replaced by decay. Associated with the increase in the field at the first surface, larger reflections of the evanescent wave occur at the first surface. Furthermore, a peak appears at the first surface for $`\gamma 0.1`$ and the peak becomes more prominent with increasing $`\gamma `$.

Figure 2 shows the simulation results for a thicker slab with $`L=160\mathrm{\Delta }x0.28\lambda _0`$ while keeping $`k_y=2k_0`$ and $`\gamma `$ from 0.001 to 0.2. While the results show some common features with those obtained for the thinner slab presented in Figure 1, they also reveals a number of distinct features. For $`\gamma =0.001`$, the LHM slab amplifies the field from 1.03 at the first surface to 4.06 at the second surface. The amplification is gradually weakened with increasing field at the first surface and decreasing field at the second surface while $`\gamma `$ is raised. At around $`\gamma =0.07`$ ($`\gamma _c`$), a crossover occurs where the fields at the two surfaces become equal. For $`\gamma >0.07`$, the field at the first surface is stronger than that at the second surface, and the amplification turns into decay. Compared with $`\gamma _c>0.2`$ obtained for the thinner slab, the crossover absorption value $`\gamma _c=0.07`$ is lowered dramatically for the thicker slab. The smaller $`\gamma _c`$ obtained for the thicker slab suggests that large $`L`$ is not favored for the amplification of the evanescent wave inside the LHM slab since it puts more stringent constraints. It is also clearly seen from Figure 2(a) that a peak is present, and large reflection occurs at the first surface, even for the lowest absorption studied ($`\gamma =0.001`$) where the LHM slab is supposed to be well matched to vacuum. This is different from the results shown in Figure 1(a).

So far we have shown the simulation results of the evanescent wave interacting with LHM slabs of different absorption and thickness. The numerical examples provide direct evidence that an evanescent wave could be amplified in a LHM slab of finite absorption. As a result of the amplification of evanescent waves inside the lossy LHM slab, superlensing effect with subwavelength image resolution could be achieved practically Rao2003b . It should be emphasized that our results are based on full-wave numerical experiments where only the casual $`ϵ(\omega )`$ and $`\mu (\omega )`$ of the LHM are predefined and the results are obtained without any further assumptions and approximations.

Next, we will discuss the physical origin of the amplification of the evanescent waves inside the LHM slabs. It was shown by Ruppin that a vacuum/LHM interface supports surface polaritons (SPs), which are characterized by exponential decay in field on both sides of the interface Ruppin2000 ; Ruppin2001 . The peaks at the two surfaces of the LHM slabs and their shapes, shown in Figure 1(a) and 2(a), clearly illustrate the presence of SPs and emphasize their important roles in the systems. We believe that the coupled SPs, excited by the evanescent waves at the two surfaces of the LHM slab, are responsible for the amplification observed Haldane2002 ; Gomez-Santos2003 ; Pendry2002 . To prove this, we show that the features revealed by our numerical results are consistent with the predictions of a simple model of the interaction between the evanescent wave and the coupled SPs.

The model we use to describe the interaction between the evanescent wave and the two coupled SPs is simply the same as the forced vibration and resonance of damped identical oscillators with linear coupling, which can be written in the coupled equations Gomez-Santos2003

$`\ddot{\varphi }_1+\gamma \dot{\varphi }_1+\omega _0^2\varphi _1+\mathrm{\Omega }_c^2\varphi _2`$ $`=`$ $`Fe^{i\omega t}`$
$`\ddot{\varphi }_2+\gamma \dot{\varphi }_2+\omega _0^2\varphi _2+\mathrm{\Omega }_c^2\varphi _1`$ $`=`$ $`0`$ (4)
where $`\varphi _1`$ and $`\varphi _2`$ denote the oscillations of the first SP and the second SP, respectively; $`\omega _0`$ is the natural resonant frequency of the single SP; $`\mathrm{\Omega }_c^2`$ describes the coupling strength between the two SPs; and $`F`$ describes the external excitation introduced by the evanescent wave. When the evanescent wave is of frequency $`\omega _0`$, which is the case in our simulation, the steady-state solutions of $`\varphi _1`$ and $`\varphi _2`$ have the simple forms

$`\varphi _1(\omega _0)={\displaystyle \frac{i\gamma \omega _0Fe^{i\omega _0t}}{\mathrm{\Omega }_c^4+\gamma ^2\omega _0^2}},\varphi _2(\omega _0)={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_c^2Fe^{i\omega _0t}}{\mathrm{\Omega }_c^4+\gamma ^2\omega _0^2}}.`$ (5)
The characteristics of the coupled SPs and their dependences on different parameters can be readily analyzed from these solutions. In the lossless limit $`\gamma 0`$, the first SP disappears with $`|\varphi _1|=0`$ and only the second SP is present in the system with finite coupling. This is the ideal case and an exponential amplification occurs inside the LHM slab. For finite absorption both SPs are excited. Simple calculation shows that, $`|\varphi _1|`$ increases with increasing $`\gamma `$ until it passes through a peak, located at $`\gamma =\gamma _p`$ ($`\gamma _p=\mathrm{\Omega }_c^2/\omega _0`$), and decreases beyond. On the other hand, $`|\varphi _2|`$ decreases monotonically with increasing $`\gamma `$. The ratio $`|\varphi _1/\varphi _2|=\gamma \omega _0/\mathrm{\Omega }_c^2`$ gives a measure of the relative strength of the two SPs. For small values of $`\gamma `$, $`|\varphi _1/\varphi _2|<1`$, the second SP is stronger than the first so that amplification takes place. However, the effect is reversed for $`\gamma >\gamma _c`$ ($`\gamma _c=\mathrm{\Omega }_c^2/\omega _0`$) where the first SP is dominant. It is clear that $`\gamma _c=\gamma _p`$, which means that the crossover of $`|\varphi _1|`$ and $`|\varphi _2|`$ is accompanied by the peak in $`|\varphi _1|`$. All these features are clearly observed in Figures 1 and 2. Furthermore, it is expected that increasing $`L`$ reduces $`\mathrm{\Omega }_c^2`$, so that the value of $`\gamma _c`$ is smaller for the thicker LHM slab, which is also consistent with the numerical results.

To explain why the first SP is stronger for the thicker slab when $`\gamma `$ is small and unchanged, we need to know the expressions of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_c^2`$ and $`F`$ explicitly on the geometry. In the weak coupling limit $`\kappa _xL\mathrm{}`$ ($`\kappa _x=\sqrt{k_y^2\omega ^2/c^2}`$), they can be approximately written in the forms Haldane2002 ; Gomez-Santos2003 : $`FCe^{\kappa _xL/2}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_c^2De^{\kappa _xL}`$, where $`C`$ and $`D`$ are coefficients independent of $`\kappa _xL`$. Then, we have

$`{\displaystyle \frac{|\varphi _1(\omega _0)|}{(\kappa L)}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma \omega _0F}{(\mathrm{\Omega }_c^4+\gamma ^2\omega _0^2)^2}}(3\mathrm{\Omega }_c^4\omega _0^2\gamma ^2).`$ (6)
When $`3\mathrm{\Omega }_c^4\omega _0^2\gamma ^2>0`$, i.e., $`\gamma <\sqrt{3}\gamma _c`$, the first SP is getting stronger with increasing $`L`$, which explains the stronger first SP presented in Figure 2. It should be mentioned that the weak coupling limit may not be applicable for our simulations, where $`\kappa _xL0.24`$ (for $`L=80\mathrm{\Delta }x`$) and 0.48 (for $`L=160\mathrm{\Delta }x`$). However, it aids in understanding the result. In fact, from a purely physical point of view, the emergence of the first SP with certain strength is crucial for the effective excitation of the second SP in the thicker slab, where the coupling coefficient $`\mathrm{\Omega }_c^2`$ is reduced. It is the first SP that mediates the energy transfer from the evanescnet waves to the second SP.

In conclusion, we have proposed a method to simulate pure evanescent waves interacting with a LHM slab using FDTD. The simulation results provide the first full-wave numerical evidence that evanescent waves could be amplified inside a LHM slab with finite absorption. It also reveals that the coupled SPs, excited by the evanescent waves at the two surfaces of the LHM slab, play important roles in the amplification effect. We have shown that absorption tends to suppress the amplification and the amplification could be replaced by decay when the absorption is above the crossover value $`\gamma _c`$, which is greatly reduced with increasing thickness of the LHM slab. All features in our numerical results can be understood consistently using a simple model which describes the interaction between the evanescent waves and the coupled SPs.


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# Dynamical model for the quantum-to-classical crossover of shot noise

## I Introduction

Noise plays a uniquely informative role in connection with the particle-wave duality.Bee03  This has been appreciated for light since Einstein’s theory of photon noise. Recent theoreticalAga00 ; Sim02 ; Naz02 ; Sil03 ; Sch03  and experimentalObe01  work has used electronic shot noise in quantum dots to explore the crossover from particle to wave dynamics. Particle dynamics is deterministic and noiseless, while wave dynamics is stochastic and noisy.Bee91

The crossover is governed by the ratio of two time scales, one classical and one quantum. The classical time is the mean dwell time $`\tau _D`$ of the electron in the quantum dot. The quantum time is the Ehrenfest time $`\tau _E`$, which is the time it takes a wave packet of minimal size to spread over the entire system. While $`\tau _D`$ is independent of $`\mathrm{}`$, the time $`\tau _E`$ increases $`\mathrm{ln}(1/\mathrm{})`$ for chaotic dynamics. An exponential suppression $`\mathrm{exp}(\tau _E/\tau _D)`$ of the shot noise power in the classical limit $`\mathrm{}0`$ (or equivalently, in the limit system-size-over-wave-length to infinity) was predicted by Agam, Aleiner, and Larkin.Aga00  A recent experiment by Oberholzer, Sukhorukov, and SchönenbergerObe01  fits this exponential function. However, the accuracy and range of the experimental data is not sufficient to distinguish this prediction from competing theories (notably the rational function predicted by SukhorukovSuk01  for short-range impurity scattering).

Computer simulations would be an obvious way to test the theory in a controlled model (where one can be certain that there is no weak impurity scattering to complicate the interpretation). However, the exceedingly slow (logarithmic) growth of $`\tau _E`$ with the ratio of system size over wave length has so far prevented a numerical test. Motivated by a recent successful computer simulation of the Ehrenfest-time dependent excitation gap in the superconducting proximity effect,Jac02  we use the same model of the open kicked rotator to search for the Ehrenfest-time dependence of the shot noise.

The reasoning behind this model is as follows. The physical system we seek to describe is a ballistic (clean) quantum dot in a two-dimensional electron gas, connected by two ballistic leads to electron reservoirs. While the phase space of this system is four-dimensional, it can be reduced to two dimensions on a Poincaré surface of section.Bog92 ; Pra03  The open kicked rotator Oss02 ; Bor91 ; Bor92 ; Jac02  is a stroboscopic model with a two-dimensional phase space that is computationally more tractable, yet has the same phenomenology as open ballistic quantum dots.

We study the model in two complementary ways. First we present a fully numerical, quantum mechanical solution. Then we compare with a partially analytical, semiclassical solution, which is an implementation for this particular model of a general scheme presented recently by Silvestrov, Goorden, and one of the authors.Sil03

## II Description of the model

We give a description of the open kicked rotator, both in quantum mechanical and in classical terms.

### II.1 Closed system

We begin with the closed system (without the leads). In this subsection we follow Refs. Izr90, ; Haa92, . The quantum kicked rotator has Hamiltonian

$$H=\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2I_0}\frac{^2}{\theta ^2}+\frac{KI_0}{\tau _0}\mathrm{cos}\theta \underset{k=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\delta _s(tk\tau _0).$$
(1)
The variable $`\theta (0,2\pi )`$ is the angular coordinate of a particle moving along a circle (with moment of inertia $`I_0`$), kicked periodically at time intervals $`\tau _0`$ (with a strength $`K\mathrm{cos}\theta `$). To avoid a spurious breaking of time-reversal symmetry later on, when we open up the system, we represent the kicking by a symmetrized delta function: $`\delta _s(t)=\frac{1}{2}\delta (tϵ)+\frac{1}{2}\delta (t+ϵ)`$, with infinitesimal $`ϵ`$. The ratio $`\mathrm{}\tau _0/2\pi I_0h_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ represents the effective Planck constant, which governs the quantum-to-classical crossover. The stroboscopic time $`\tau _0`$ is set to unity in most of the equations.

The stroboscopic time evolution of a wave function is given by the Floquet operator $`=𝒯\mathrm{exp}(i_0^{\tau _0}𝑑tH/\mathrm{})`$, where $`𝒯`$ indicates time ordering of the exponential. For $`1/h_{\mathrm{eff}}M`$ an even integer, $``$ can be represented by an $`M\times M`$ unitary symmetric matrix. The angular coordinate and momentum eigenvalues are $`\theta _m=2\pi m/M`$ and $`J_m=\mathrm{}\mathrm{}`$, with $`m,\mathrm{}=1,2,\mathrm{}M`$. We will use rescaled variables $`x=\theta /2\pi `$ and $`p=J/\mathrm{}M`$ in the range $`(0,1)`$.

The eigenvalues $`\mathrm{exp}(i\epsilon _m)`$ of $``$ define the quasi-energies $`\epsilon _m(0,2\pi )`$. The mean spacing $`2\pi /M`$ of the quasi-energies plays the role of the mean level spacing $`\delta `$ in the quantum dot. In coordinate representation the matrix elements of $``$ are given by

$`_{mm^{}}=(XU^{}\mathrm{\Pi }UX)_{mm^{}},`$ (2a)
$`U_{mm^{}}=M^{1/2}e^{2\pi imm^{}/M},`$ (2b)
$`X_{mm^{}}=\delta _{mm^{}}e^{i(MK/4\pi )\mathrm{cos}(2\pi m/M)},`$ (2c)
$`\mathrm{\Pi }_{mm^{}}=\delta _{mm^{}}e^{i\pi m^2/M}.`$ (2d)
The matrix product $`U^{}\mathrm{\Pi }U`$ can be evaluated in closed form, resulting in the manifestly symmetric expression

$$(U^{}\mathrm{\Pi }U)_{mm^{}}=M^{1/2}e^{i\pi /4}\mathrm{exp}[i(\pi /M)(m^{}m)^2].$$
(3)
Classically, the stroboscopic time evolution of the kicked rotator is described by a map on the torus $`\{x,p|\mathrm{modulo}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}\}`$. The map relates $`x_{k+1},p_{k+1}`$ at time $`k+1`$ to $`x_k,p_k`$ at time $`k`$:

$`x_{k+1}`$ $`=`$ $`x_k+p_k+{\displaystyle \frac{K}{4\pi }}\mathrm{sin}2\pi x_k,`$ (4a)
$`p_{k+1}`$ $`=`$ $`p_k+{\displaystyle \frac{K}{4\pi }}\left(\mathrm{sin}2\pi x_k+\mathrm{sin}2\pi x_{k+1}\right).`$ (4b)
The classical mechanics becomes fully chaotic for $`K7`$, with Lyapunov exponent $`\lambda \mathrm{ln}(K/2)`$. For smaller $`K`$ the phase space is mixed, containing both regions of chaotic and of regular motion. We will restrict ourselves to the fully chaotic regime in this paper.

For later use we give the monodromy matrix $`M(x_k,p_k)`$, which describes the stretching by the map of an infinitesimal displacement $`\delta x_k`$, $`\delta p_k`$:

$$\left(\begin{array}{c}\delta x_{k+1}\\ \delta p_{k+1}\end{array}\right)=M(x_k,p_k)\left(\begin{array}{c}\delta x_k\\ \delta p_k\end{array}\right).$$
(5)
From Eq. (4) one finds

$`M(x_k,p_k)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{\Lambda }(x_k)& 1\\ \mathrm{\Lambda }(x_k)\mathrm{\Lambda }(x_{k+1})1& \mathrm{\Lambda }(x_{k+1})\end{array}\right),`$ (6c)
$`\mathrm{\Lambda }(x)=1+{\displaystyle \frac{K}{2}}\mathrm{cos}2\pi x.`$ (6d)
### II.2 Open system

We now turn to a description of the open kicked rotator, following Refs. Oss02, ; Jac02, ; Fyo00, . To model a pair of $`N`$-mode ballistic leads, we impose open boundary conditions in a subspace of Hilbert space represented by the indices $`m_n^{(\alpha )}`$ in coordinate representation. The subscript $`n=1,2,\mathrm{}N`$ labels the modes and the superscript $`\alpha =1,2`$ labels the leads. A $`2N\times M`$ projection matrix $`P`$ describes the coupling to the ballistic leads. Its elements are

$$P_{nm}=\{\begin{array}{cc}1\hfill & \mathrm{if}m=n\{m_n^{(\alpha )}\},\hfill \\ 0\hfill & \mathrm{otherwise}.\hfill \end{array}$$
(7)
The matrices $`P`$ and $``$ together determine the quasi-energy dependent scattering matrix

$$S(\epsilon )=P[e^{i\epsilon }(1P^\mathrm{T}P)]^1P^\mathrm{T}.$$
(8)
Using $`PP^\mathrm{T}=1`$, Eq. (8) can be cast in the form

$$S=\frac{P𝒜P^\mathrm{T}1}{P𝒜P^\mathrm{T}+1},𝒜=\frac{1+e^{i\epsilon }}{1e^{i\epsilon }}=𝒜^{},$$
(9)
which is manifestly unitary. The symmetry of $``$ ensures that $`S`$ is also symmetric, as it should be in the presence of time-reversal symmetry.

By grouping together the $`N`$ indices belonging to the same lead, the $`2N\times 2N`$ matrix $`S`$ can be decomposed into 4 sub-blocks containing the $`N\times N`$ transmission and reflection matrices,

$$S=\left(\begin{array}{cc}r& t\\ t^{}& r^{}\end{array}\right).$$
(10)
The Fano factor $`F`$ follows fromBut90

$$F=\frac{\mathrm{Tr}tt^{}(1tt^{})}{\mathrm{Tr}tt^{}}.$$
(11)
This concludes the description of the stroboscopic model studied in this paper. For completeness, we briefly mention how to extend the model to include a tunnel barrier in the leads.

To this end we replace Eq. (8) by

$`S(\epsilon )=(1KK^\mathrm{T})^{1/2}`$
$`+K[e^{i\epsilon }(1K^\mathrm{T}K)^{1/2}]^1K^\mathrm{T}.`$ (12)
The $`N\times M`$ coupling matrix $`K`$ has elements

$$K_{nm}=\{\begin{array}{cc}\sqrt{\mathrm{\Gamma }_n}\hfill & \mathrm{if}m=n\{m_n^{(\alpha )}\},\hfill \\ 0\hfill & \mathrm{otherwise},\hfill \end{array}$$
(13)
with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_n(0,1)`$ the tunnel probability in mode $`n`$. Ballistic leads correspond to $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_n=1`$ for all $`n`$. The scattering matrix (12) can equivalently be written in the form used conventionally in quantum chaotic scattering:Guh98 ; Bee97

$$S(\epsilon )=1+2W(𝒜^1+W^\mathrm{T}W)^1W^\mathrm{T},$$
(14)
with $`W=K(1+\sqrt{1K^\mathrm{T}K})^1`$ and $`𝒜`$ defined in Eq. (9).

## III Quantum mechanical calculation

To calculate the transmission matrix from Eq. (8) we need to determine an $`N\times N`$ submatrix of the inverse of an $`M\times M`$ matrix. The ratio $`M/2N=\tau _D`$ is the mean dwell time in the system in units of the kicking time $`\tau _0`$. This should be a large number, to avoid spurious effects from the stroboscopic description. For large $`M/N`$ we have found it efficient to do the partial inversion by iteration. Each step of the iteration requires a multiplication by $``$, which can be done efficiently with the help of the fast-Fourier-transform algorithm.Ket99 ; NAG  We made sure that the iteration was fully converged (error estimate 0.1%). In comparison with a direct matrix inversion, the iterative calculation is much quicker: the time required scales $`M^2\mathrm{ln}M`$ rather than $`M^3`$.

To study the quantum-to-classical crossover we reduce the quantum parameter $`h_{\mathrm{eff}}=1/M`$ by two orders of magnitude at fixed classical parameters $`\tau _D=M/2N=5,10,30`$ and $`K=7,14,21`$. (These three values of $`K`$ correspond, respectively, to Lyapunov exponents $`\lambda =1.3,1.9,2.4`$.) The left edge of the leads is at $`m/M=0.1`$ and $`m/M=0.8`$. Ensemble averages are taken by sampling $`10`$ random values of the quasi-energy $`\epsilon (0,2\pi )`$. We are interested in the semiclassical, large-$`N`$ regime (typically $`N>10`$). The average transmission $`N^1\mathrm{Tr}tt^{}1/2`$ is then insensitive to the value of $`h_{\mathrm{eff}}`$, since quantum corrections are of order $`1/N`$ and therefore relatively small.Bee97  The Fano factor (11), however, is seen to depend strongly on $`h_{\mathrm{eff}}`$, as shown in Fig. 1. The line through the data points follows from the semiclassical theory of Ref. Sil03, , as explained in the next section.

In Fig. 2 we have plotted the numerical data on a double-logarithmic scale, to demonstrate that the suppression of shot noise observed in the simulation is indeed governed by the Ehrenfest time $`\tau _E`$. The functional dependence predicted for $`N>\sqrt{M}`$ isSil03

$$F=\frac{1}{4}e^{\tau _E/\tau _D},\tau _E=\lambda ^1\mathrm{ln}(N^2/M)+c,$$
(15)
with $`c`$ a $`K`$-dependent coefficient of order unity. As shown in Fig. 2, the data follows quite nicely the logarithmic scaling with $`N^2/M=M/(2\tau _D)^2`$ predicted by Eq. (15). This corresponds to a scaling with $`w^2/L\lambda _F`$ in a two-dimensional quantum dot (with $`\lambda _F`$ the Fermi wave length and $`w`$ and $`L`$ the width of the point contacts and of the dot, respectively.) We note that the same parametric scaling governs the quantum-to-classical crossover in the superconducting proximity effect.Jac02 ; Vav02

## IV Semiclassical calculation

To describe the data from our quantum mechanical simulation we use the semiclassical approach of Ref. Sil03, . To that end we first identify which points in the $`x,p`$ phase space of lead 1 are transmitted to lead 2 and which are reflected back to lead 1. By iteration of the classical map (4) we arrive at phase space portraits as shown in Fig. 3 (top panels). Points of different color (or gray scale) identify the initial conditions that are transmitted or reflected.

The transmitted and reflected points group together in nearly parallel, narrow bands. Each transmission or reflection band (labeled by an index $`j`$) supports noiseless scattering channels provided its area $`A_j`$ in phase space is greater than $`h_{\mathrm{eff}}=1/M`$. The total number $`N_0`$ of noiseless scattering channels is estimated by

$$N_0=M\underset{j}{}A_j\theta (A_j1/M),$$
(16)
with $`\theta (x)=0`$ if $`x<0`$ and $`\theta (x)=1`$ if $`x>0`$. In the classical limit $`M\mathrm{}`$ one has $`N_0=N`$, so all channels are noiseless and the Fano factor vanishes.Bee91

As argued in Ref. Sil03, , the contribution to the Fano factor from the $`NN_0`$ noisy channels can be estimated as $`1/4N`$ per channel. In the quantum limit $`N_0=0`$ one then has the result $`F=1/4`$ of random-matrix theory.Jal94  The prediction for the quantum-to-classical crossover of the Fano factor is

$`F`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{M}{4N}}{\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}A_j\theta (1/MA_j)`$ (17)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{M}{4N}}{\displaystyle _0^{1/M}}A\rho (A)𝑑A,`$
with band density $`\rho (A)=_j\delta (AA_j)`$. The quantum limit $`F=1/4`$ follows from the total area $`_0^1A\rho (A)𝑑A=N/M`$.

We have approximated the areas of the bands from the monodromy matrix (6), as detailed in the Appendix. The lower panels of Fig. 3 show the band density in the form of a histogram. The solid curves in Fig. 1 give the resulting Fano factor, according to Eq. (17).

## V Scattering states in the lead

To investigate further the correspondence between the quantum mechanical and semiclassical descriptions we compare the quantum mechanical eigenstates $`|U_i`$ of $`t^{}t^{}`$ with the classical transmission bands.

Phase space portraits of eigenstates are given by the Husimi function

$$_i(m_x,m_p)=|U_i|m_x,m_p|^2.$$
(18)
The state $`|m_x,m_p`$ is a Gaussian wave packet centered at $`x=m_x/M`$, $`p=m_p/M`$. In position representation it reads

$$m|m_x,m_p\underset{k=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}e^{\pi (mm_x+kN)^2/N}e^{2\pi im_pm/N}.$$
(19)
The summation over $`k`$ ensures periodicity in $`m`$.

The transmission bands typically support several modes, thus the eigenvalues $`T_i`$ are nearly degenerate at unity. We choose the group of eigenstates with $`T_i>0.9995`$ and plot the Husimi function for the projection onto the subspace spanned by these eigenstates:

$$(m_x,m_p)=\underset{T_i>0.9995}{}_i(m_x,m_p).$$
(20)
As shown in Fig. 4, this quantum mechanical function indeed corresponds to a phase-space portrait of the classical transmission bands with area $`>1/M`$.

## VI Conclusion

We have presented compelling numerical evidence for the validity of the theory of the Ehrenfest-time dependent suppression of shot noise in a ballistic chaotic system.Aga00 ; Sil03  The key prediction Aga00  of an exponential suppression of the noise power with the ratio $`\tau _E/\tau _D`$ of Ehrenfest time and dwell time is observed over two orders of magnitude in the simulation. We have also tested the semiclassical theory proposed recently,Sil03  and find that it describes the fully quantum mechanical data quite well. It would be of interest to extend the simulations to mixed chaotic/regular dynamics and to systems which exhibit localization.

###### Acknowledgements.

We have benefitted from discussions with Ph. Jacquod and P. G. Silvestrov. This work was supported by the Dutch Science Foundation NWO/FOM. J.T. acknowledges the financial support provided through the European Community’s Human Potential Programme under contract HPRN–CT–2000-00144, Nanoscale Dynamics.

*

## Appendix A Calculation of the band area distribution

We approximate the bands in Fig. 3 by straight and narrow strips in the shape of a parallelogram, disregarding any curvature. This is a good approximation in particular for the narrowest bands, which are the ones that determine the shot noise. Each band is characterized by a mean dwell time $`n`$ (in units of $`\tau _0`$). We disregard any variations in the dwell time within a given band, assuming that the entire band exits through one of the two leads after $`n`$ iterations. (We have found numerically that this is true with rare exceptions.)

The case of a reflection band is shown in Fig. 5. The initial and final parallelograms have the same height, set by the width $`w=N/M`$ of the lead. Since the map is area preserving, the base $`B`$ of the two parallelograms should be the same as well. To calculate the band area $`A=Bw`$ we assume that the monodromy matrix $`M(x_k,p_k)`$ does not vary appreciably within the band at each iteration $`k=1,2,\mathrm{}n`$. An initial vector $`\stackrel{}{e}_i`$ within the parallelogram is then mapped after $`n`$ iterations onto a final vector $`\stackrel{}{e}_f`$ given by

$$\stackrel{}{e}_f=\stackrel{}{e}_i,=M(x_n,p_n)\mathrm{}M(x_2,p_2)M(x_1,p_1),$$
(21)
with $`x_1,p_1`$ inside the initial parallelogram.

We apply Eq. (21) to the vectors that form the sides of the initial and final parallelograms. The base vector $`\stackrel{}{e}_i=B\widehat{p}`$ is mapped onto the vector $`\stackrel{}{e}_f=\pm w(\widehat{x}+\widehat{p}\mathrm{tan}\alpha )`$, with $`\alpha `$ the tilt angle of the final parallelogram. It follows that $`B|_{xp}|=w`$, hence

$$A=w^2/|_{xp}|.$$
(22)
We obtain the Fano factor $`F`$ by a Monte Carlo procedure. An initial point $`x_1,p_1`$ is chosen randomly in lead 1 and iterated until it exits through one of the two leads. The product $``$ of monodromy matrices starting from that point gives the area $`A`$ of the band to which it belongs, according to Eq. (22). The fraction of points with $`A<1/M`$ then equals $`w^1_0^{1/M}A\rho (A)𝑑A=4F`$, according to Eq. (17).

To assess the accuracy of this procedure, we repeat the calculation of the Fano factor with initial points chosen randomly in lead 2 (instead of lead 1). The difference is about 5%. The dashed lines in Fig. 1 are the average of these two results.


text:
# Discovery, identification, and study of variability in gamma-ray point sources

## 1. Statistical analysis of variability

Many of the expected high-energy sources are variable, like blazars which emit signals that often appear to vary chaotically with time.

Does such signal result from the superposition of many random events (randomly generated shocks in outflowing gas; randomly appearing reconnections of magnetic field lines; etc.)? Or they are governed by some global physical mechanism described by non-linear differential equations, which shows deterministic chaos (coherent variability of clouds of electrons; instability of a shock at the base of the jet forming region; etc.)? Finally, is it possible to find same kind of periodicity, at least in particular intervals of time (hot spots in the rotating accretion disk; helicoidal movements of the jet; etc.)?

For a reasonable answer to these questions, we can use - for example - one or more of the following statistical analysis:

* correlation, autocorrelation, power spectrum estimation, with FFT: future high energy missions working in scanning mode (like GLAST) probably will provide data well sampled at evenly spaced intervals, that can be processed with the Fourier Transforms;
* correlation, autocorrelation, power spectrum estimation, with the Lomb-Scargle periodogram, (Lomb 1976, Scargle 1982) for irregularly or incompletely sampled data;
* correlation and autocorrelation with the Discrete Correlation Function (DCF) described by Edelson & Krolik (1988), useful for unevenly spaced data;
* first order Structure Function (SF), because there is a simple correspondence between power laws in the frequency space Fourier analysis, and the SF analysis in the time domain (see, e.g., Hufnagel & Bregman (1992);
* detrended fluctuation analysis, that permits the detection of intrinsic self-similarity embedded in a seemingly nonstationary time series (see, e.g., Peng et al. 1995);
* the wavelet methods, that together with principal component analysis and filtering can be used to extract the “deterministic” components from the time-series (see, e.g., Liszka & Holmström 1999);
* a search for chaotic behavior: the most popular measure of an attractor’s dimension is the correlation dimension, first defined by Grassberger & Procaccia (1983).

We are using these and other less-known statistical techniques with the BVRcIc database of the Automatic Imaging Telescope at the Perugia astronomical Observatory (Tosti et al. 1996). Preliminary results have been already described in Fiorucci et al. (1999, 2000), and suggest that the observed variability is truly stochastic and is not caused by deterministic chaos. Moreover, many of these statistical descriptors lead to the provisional conclusion that variability of blazars is self-similar on time-scales from a few days up to some years, and it is characterized by power-law power spectrum $`PSD(f)f^\alpha `$, where the spectral slope $`\alpha `$ is in the range $`1.31.8`$, with an average value $`\alpha =1.51`$ (see Fig.1). To provide a frame of reference, it is convenient to consider two well known cases: white noise has $`\alpha =0`$ and Brownian motion has $`\alpha =2`$.

The point is that this kind of variability is observed in all the AGN class (see, e.g, the results of Webb & Malkan 2000), and it does not seem to be exclusive of the optical wavelengths: AGNs seem to be characterised by variability similar to pink (or red) noise in a large range of frequencies. The X-ray light curves have power spectra with slopes in the range $`1`$ to $`2`$, (see, e.g., Lawrance & Papadakis 1993). Radio light curves have power spectra with slopes around $`2`$ in time-scales from days up to some years (see, e.g., Hufnagel & Bregman 1992, Lainela & Valtaoja 1993). Moreover, we expect to see a similar behavior at higher energies too, because in the majority of theoretical models for AGNs there is a strictly correlation between $`\gamma `$-ray photons and low-frequency ones. If this scenario will be confirmed also with future observations, then the problem will be to identify the real time-scales and to understand the physical reasons behind this kind of variability. For the moment, we can try to use this observational evidence to improve our techniques in the research of this class of objects during all-sky surveys.

## 2. Application to the next high-energy missions

EGRET detected 271 point sources (Hartman et al. 1999), but only 101 of them were identified and, of them, 93 are AGNs. The next generation gamma-ray instruments probably will increase this number to many thousands, but it is often crucial to discriminate faint variable sources against the background noise.

For this kind of problem it is generally used the likelihood analysis (Mattox et al., 1996), that take into account the spatial and energetic distributions of the data. Together with the more traditional techniques developed for a correct discovery and identification of high-energy point sources, we believe that it would be useful to use also the variability tools, for a correct inclusion of the time domain yet during the first elaboration. In fact many astronomical sources (as AGNs, black hole X-ray binary systems, and also Gamma Ray Bursts) show variability characterised as red-noise in a large scale of frequencies.

For example, Fig.2 shows the application of a traditional technique (the Wiener filter, see Press et al. 1992) for the “identification” of a simulated variable source with the assumption that the power spectrum has a $`f^\alpha `$ behavior added to a white noise tail. With the original simulated signal it is quite difficult to verify the presence of a variable source respect to the background noise (assumed as white noise), because the fluctuation is within the limit of three standard deviations. The filtered signal puts in evidence the presence of a “possible” point source, characterized by red-noise variability.

## 3. Final remarks

All the above mentioned statistical methods can be very useful for a rough estimation of the physical phenomena, but unfortunately they are not conclusive because the results are always strongly affected by many external factors. For example, the Structure Function seems to show a strong dependence from the more intense flares, while the Discrete Correlation Function and the Detrended Fluctuation Analysis are influenced by the large gaps in the light curves.

Moreover, it is not clear if the red-noise behavior is a typical feature of AGNs at the gamma-rays frequencies too, and what is the statistical behavior of the background noise for the next generation high-energy detectors.

For all this reasons we are developing a Monte Carlo technique to test all the more useful statistical descriptors, and to produce a reliable quantification of the results so obtained. In the same time, we intend to develop a neural network technique that can be used to analyse the time series, to find the embedding dimension of the characteristic attractor, and to perform well the frequency extraction in unevenly sampled signals. Finally, we are developing a light simulator for the Large Area Telescope (LAT) onboard of the GLAST satellite, with the aim to test the possible use of variability tools to discover and identify $`\gamma `$-rays point sources.

## References

Edelson, R. A. & Krolik, J. H. 1988, ApJ, 333, 646

Fiorucci, M., Tosti, G. & Luciani, M. 1999, MSAIt, 70, 223

Fiorucci, M. & Tosti, G., 2000, in Blazar monitoring towards the 3th millennium, Raiteri C. & Villata M. eds., 99

Grassberger, P. & Procaccia, I. 1983, Phys. Rev. Lett. 50, 346

Hartman, R. C., Bertsch, D. L., Bloom, S. D., et al. 1999, ApJS, 123, 79

Hufnagel, B. R. & Bregman, J. N. 1992, ApJ, 386, 473

Lainela, M. & Valtaoja, E. 1993, ApJ, 416, 485

Lawrence, A. & Papadakis, I. 1993, ApJ, 414, 85

Liszka, L. & Holmström, M. 1999, A&AS, 140, 125

Lomb, N. R. 1976, Ap. Space Sci., 39, 447

Mattox, J. R., Bertsch, D. L., Chiang, J., et al. 1996, ApJ, 461, 396

Peng, C. K., Havlin, S., Stanley, H. E., et al. 1995, CHAOS, 5, 82

Press, W. H., et al. 1992, Numerical Recipes: The Art of Scientific Computing, Cambridge University Press

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# Untitled Document

EFI-03-13

hep-th/0304045

Tachyon Effective Actions In Open String Theory

David Kutasov and Vasilis Niarchos

Enrico Fermi Inst. and Dept. of Physics, University of Chicago

5640 S. Ellis Ave., Chicago, IL 60637-1433, USA

We argue that the Dirac-Born-Infeld (DBI) action coupled to a tachyon, that is known to reproduce some aspects of open string dynamics, can be obtained from open string theory in a certain limit, which generalizes the limit leading to the usual DBI action. This helps clarify which aspects of the full open string theory are captured by this action.

4/03

1. Introduction

Recent work on the dynamics of unstable D-branes in string theory has led to an effective action for the open string tachyon $`T`$ and massless open string modes, $`A_\mu `$ (the gauge field on the D-brane) and $`Y^I`$ (the scalar fields parametrizing the location of the D-brane in the transverse directions) \[1--18\]. This action has the form1 We use the conventions $`\alpha ^{}=1`$, $`\eta _{\mu \nu }=(1,+1,\mathrm{},+1)`$.

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill 𝒮=& d^{p+1},\hfill \\ \hfill =& V(T)\sqrt{\mathrm{det}G},\hfill \end{array}$$

with $`V(T)`$ the tachyon potential (see below), and

$$G_{\mu \nu }=\eta _{\mu \nu }+_\mu T_\nu T+_\mu Y^I_\nu Y^I+F_{\mu \nu }.$$

The action (1.1) is known to reproduce several non-trivial aspects of open string dynamics, such as the following:

(1) Choosing \[19,,20\]

$$V(T)=\frac{1}{\mathrm{cosh}\frac{\alpha T}{2}},$$

with $`\alpha =1`$ for the bosonic string, and $`\alpha =\sqrt{2}`$ for the non-BPS D-brane in the superstring, one finds from (1.1) the correct stress-tensor $`T_{\mu \nu }`$ in homogenous tachyon condensation (the rolling tachyon solution which starts at the top of the potential at $`x^0\mathrm{}`$) \[7,,21,,20\].

(2) With the potential (1.1), one finds that the theory contains static solitonic solutions corresponding to lower dimensional D-branes, with the correct tension.

(3) For the case of an unstable D-brane in type II string theory, one can construct a codimension one BPS D-brane as a solitonic solution of (1.1). Small excitations of the soliton correspond to massless fields, similar to $`Y^I`$ and $`A_\mu `$ in (1.1), and by using (1.1) one finds  that the effective action for these excitations of the soliton is precisely the DBI action2 Given by (1.1), (1.1) with the tachyon $`T`$ set to zero; see  for a review..

(4) Inhomogenous solutions of the equations of motion which follow from the action (1.1) encode non-trivial information about the decay of higher dimensional branes into lower dimensional ones; in particular, they contain information about the relative velocities of the lower dimensional branes created in the process of tachyon condensation \[24,,25\].

(5) For non-BPS D-branes in type II string theory, the potential (1.1) leads to the correct value of the mass of the tachyon on the D-brane (for the bosonic string, this is not the case) .

These and other successes lead one to believe that the action (1.1) captures some class of phenomena in the full classical open string theory. This action should presumably be thought of as a generalization of the DBI action describing the gauge field $`A_\mu `$ and scalars $`Y^I`$ on the brane. The DBI action is valid in the full open string theory, in situations where $`F_{\mu \nu }`$ and $`_\mu Y^I`$ are arbitrary (i.e. not necessarily small), but slowly varying . The question we would like to address in this note is whether there exists a similar regime, in which the action (1.1) describes the interactions of the tachyon in the full open string theory. We will argue that the answer is affirmative, and identify such a regime.

2. An effective action for tachyons

At first sight it seems difficult to incorporate the tachyon in an effective action such as the DBI action, since its mass is of order the string scale. Solutions of the equations of motion, $`T(x^\mu )`$, vary rapidly in spacetime, and in general one cannot decouple the tachyon from other (non-tachyonic) modes with string scale masses.

To proceed, one can use the following fact. Consider a homogenous tachyon $`T(x^0)`$ in the open bosonic string3 We will discuss the generalization to non-BPS branes in the superstring later.. The general solution of the linearized equation of motion for the tachyon is

$$T(x^0)=T_+e^{x^0}+T_{}e^{x^0}.$$

It is known that (2.1) is an exact solution of the full open string equations of motion4 To be precise, this is known to be the case in the Euclidean theory obtained by taking $`x^0ix`$ \[26,,27,,28\], and is believed to be the case in the Minkowski theory as well.. Thus, on-shell homogenous tachyons do not in fact couple to higher mass open string modes. It is natural to expand around the exact solution (2.1) and study tachyon profiles of the form

$$T(x^\mu )=T_+(x^\mu )e^{x^0}+T_{}(x^\mu )e^{x^0},$$

where $`T_\pm (x^\mu )`$ are slowly varying on the string scale. What is the effective action describing the dynamics of such slowly varying perturbations? This action should have the property that arbitrary constant values of $`T_+`$ and $`T_{}`$ correspond to a solution of the equations of motion. It should describe the leading interactions in an expansion in derivatives of $`T_\pm (x^\mu )`$. Such an action would be non-perturbative in $`T`$, $`_\mu T`$, since it would be valid for generic $`T`$ of the form (2.1). We will argue below that the action in question coincides (after a certain field redefinition) with (1.1) - (1.1).

Actually, if both $`T_+`$ and $`T_{}`$ in (2.1) are non-vanishing, it is not obvious that an effective action of the sort we want exists. The reason is that in this case, the system is very far from the perturbative open string vacuum both at very early $`(x^0\mathrm{})`$, and very late $`(x^0\mathrm{})`$ time. Since the natural observables in string theory are S-matrix elements of perturbative string modes, and the background one gets as $`T\pm \mathrm{}`$ is not believed to contain any physical open string excitations, it is not obvious that in this case one can make sense of the S-matrix, and therefore of the action. In the case that either $`T_+`$ or $`T_{}`$ vanishes, the situation is better. Consider, say, the case5 This case was studied in .

$$T(x^0)=T_+e^{x^0}.$$

At early times, the tachyon goes to zero and the system approaches the perturbative open string vacuum. Thus, one can define and study observables analogous to an S-matrix as follows. The tachyon vertex operator in the bosonic string is

$$T_\stackrel{}{k}=e^{i\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{x}wx^0};\stackrel{}{k}^2+w^2=1.$$

For $`|\stackrel{}{k}|1`$ one finds two solutions,

$$w_\pm =\pm (1\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{}{k}^2)+O(\stackrel{}{k}^4)$$

and thus the vertex operator (2.1) takes the form

$$T_\stackrel{}{k}^{(\pm )}=e^{i\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{x}w_\pm x^0}.$$

Now, consider the correlation functions6 For now we restrict to amplitudes involving only tachyons. We will comment on including massless fields below.

$$T_{\stackrel{}{k}_1}^{(+)}\mathrm{}T_{\stackrel{}{k}_n}^{(+)}T_{\stackrel{}{p}_1}^{()}\mathrm{}T_{\stackrel{}{p}_m}^{()}_{T_+}.$$

The subscript $`T_+`$ means that we are computing these correlation functions in a background with a non-zero tachyon condensate (2.1). The correlation functions (2.1) vanish when $`\stackrel{}{k}_1=\mathrm{}=\stackrel{}{k}_n=\stackrel{}{p}_1=\mathrm{}=\stackrel{}{p}_m=0`$. From the spacetime point of view, this is due to the fact that (2.1) is an exact solution of the full classical open string equations of motion. On the worldsheet, the vanishing of these amplitudes is directly related to the fact that the boundary perturbation $`\lambda 𝑑\tau \mathrm{cos}x(\tau )`$ is truly marginal in the Euclidean case $`(x^0ix)`$.

The effective action we are after is the action that reproduces the correlation functions (2.1) to leading order in $`\stackrel{}{k}_i`$, $`\stackrel{}{p}_j`$. In the next section we will compute this effective action. We conclude this section with a few comments.

(a) To calculate (2.1) perturbatively in $`T_+`$, it is convenient to continue to Euclidean space, $`x^0ix`$. Then, the correlation functions (2.1) involve momentum modes, whose momentum vectors are almost aligned with a particular, arbitrarily chosen, axis in space.

(b) It might seem that the action we have introduced is not Poincare invariant, since it involves a choice of preferred direction in spacetime. This is not the case, since as $`x^0\mathrm{}`$ the background approaches a Poincare invariant one (the open string vacuum), and the action should be valid for arbitrary perturbations away from this vacuum obtained from (2.1) by a Poincare transformation. In other words, the apparent breaking of Poincare symmetry in (2.1) is spontaneous.

(c) One can think of the effective action we have introduced as a special case of a more general construction, which includes the usual DBI action as another special case. In the $`\sigma `$-model approach to string theory (see, for example, \[30,,31\]), one thinks of the configuration space of the theory as the space of (in general non-conformal) worldsheet theories, with conformal theories corresponding to solutions of the spacetime equations of motion. The coupling $`T_+`$ in (2.1) parametrizes a line of fixed points of the worldsheet renormalization group (RG), or classical solutions of the spacetime action7 Solutions with different $`T_+0`$ are related by time translation and are thus equivalent.. The effective action we have introduced describes infinitesimal deviations from this line of fixed points. Since turning on a large constant $`T_+`$ in (2.1) clearly does not take us away from this line, the size of the deviation from the line of fixed points is governed by the size of the derivatives of $`T_+(x^\mu )`$, and by $`T_{}`$. This is analogous to the situation in the DBI case, where there is a surface of fixed points of the worldsheet RG corresponding to constant $`F_{\mu \nu }`$, $`_\mu Y^I`$. The DBI action governs small fluctuations away from this surface of fixed points.

(d) It is easy to generalize the considerations of this section to the case of non-BPS branes in the superstring. The homogenous tachyon takes in this case the form

$$T(x^0)=T_+\mathrm{exp}(\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}x^0)+T_{}\mathrm{exp}(\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}x^0).$$

This is also the vertex operator in the $`1`$ picture. Eq. (2.1) corresponds again to an exactly marginal perturbation of the worldsheet theory, and thus to an exact solution of the spacetime equations of motion. One can study small fluctuations around the solution with $`T_+0`$, $`T_{}=0`$, as in (2.1), and define an effective action for these fluctuations. This effective action should reproduce the leading small $`\stackrel{}{k}`$ behavior in correlation functions of the analogs of the vertex operators (2.1). In the fermionic case one has $`(1)`$-picture vertex operators

$$T_\stackrel{}{k}^{(\pm )}=e^{i\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{x}w_\pm x^0},$$

with

$$w_\pm =\pm \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(1\stackrel{}{k}^2)+O(\stackrel{}{k}^4).$$

The corresponding $`0`$-picture vertex operators are

$$T_\stackrel{}{k}^{(\pm )}=i(\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{\psi }w_\pm \psi ^0)e^{i\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{x}w_\pm x^0}$$

and the correlation function (2.1) contains $`2n2`$ $`0`$-picture vertex operators and two $`(1)`$-picture ones.

(e) There are some well known ambiguities associated with going from on-shell S-matrix elements to off-shell actions. One is the freedom to perform field redefinitions $`Tf(T,_\mu T,_\mu _\nu T,\mathrm{})`$. Another is the freedom to use the equations of motion at lower order in $`T`$ to change higher order terms in the Lagrangian. For example, for a field $`T`$ of unit mass, a cubic vertex $`g_3T^3`$ gives the same on-shell three point function as the derivative interaction $`g_3(_\mu ^\mu T)T^2`$. We will arrive at a specific form of the action by fixing all these ambiguities in a particular way, but of course one can write the action in a different form by using them.

3. Computing the effective action

In this section we will compute the effective Lagrangian for the tachyon discussed above. We will require the Lagrangian to be symmetric under $`TT`$. In the fermionic case (the non-BPS brane), this is due to the standard $`Z_2`$ symmetry of the theory, $`\psi ^\mu \psi ^\mu `$, under which the open string tachyon is odd. In the bosonic case, one should in principle start from a Lagrangian without such a symmetry but, as we mention below, imposing one of the conditions that $``$ should satisfy leads to a Lagrangian even under $`TT`$. Thus, we impose this symmetry from the outset in the bosonic case as well.

Since the action is designed to reproduce only the leading terms in the S-matrix elements (2.1) as $`\stackrel{}{k}_i,\stackrel{}{p}_j0`$, we can furthermore take the Lagrangian $``$ to depend on $`T`$ and $`_\mu T`$ only,

$$=(T,_\mu T).$$

This is essentially the statement that Lagrangians of the form (3.1) have a sufficient number of free parameters to match the leading terms in (2.1) for all $`n,m`$. We will return to this point and will make it more precise in section 4. For now, we will take the fact that we can bring $``$ to the form (3.1) for granted, and proceed.

Note that (3.1) partially fixes the field redefinition ambiguity mentioned at the end of section 2, but it leaves a residual freedom of taking

$$TTf(T^2),$$

where $`f(x)=1+C_1x+C_2x^2+\mathrm{}`$.

To summarize, one expects the Lagrangian to take the form

$$=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}_{2n}(T,_\mu T),$$

where $`_{2n}`$ includes all the terms that go like $`T^{2n}`$,

$$_{2n}=\underset{l=0}{\overset{n}{}}a_l^{(n)}(_\mu T^\mu T)^lT^{2(nl)}.$$

It is important to emphasize that in the preceeding discussion we have assumed that the effective Lagrangian (3.1) is analytic around $`T=0`$. This is in fact not guaranteed, and we will see that this assumption fails in some cases.

Under the assumptions outlined above, the problem of determining the Lagrangian reduces to computing the constants $`a_l^{(n)}`$. A non-trivial constraint is that the equations of motion that follow from the Lagrangian (3.1), (3.1) should allow8 See \[6,,14\] for a related discussion. the solution (2.1). Since (2.1) should be a solution for arbitrary (constant) $`T_\pm `$, the equations of motion that follow from (3.1) should allow this solution for each $`n`$ separately.

Varying $`_{2n}`$, one finds the equation of motion

$$\underset{l=1}{\overset{n}{}}la_l^{(n)}^\mu \left[(_\lambda T^\lambda T)^{l1}(_\mu T)T^{2(nl)}\right]=\underset{l=0}{\overset{n}{}}(nl)a_l^{(n)}T^{2(nl)1}(_\mu T^\mu T)^l.$$

Plugging (2.1) in (3.1) leads to a recursion relation for the $`a_l^{(n)}`$,

$$a_{l+1}^{(n)}=\frac{(nl)(2l1)}{(2l+1)(l+1)}a_l^{(n)},$$

with the solution

$$a_l^{(n)}=\frac{(n1)!}{(nl)!l!(2l1)}a_1^{(n)}.$$

We see that all couplings in (3.1) are fixed in terms of any one of them by the requirement that (2.1) be a solution of the equations of motion (3.1). It should be mentioned that if one starts with a Lagrangian without the symmetry $`TT`$, the requirement that (2.1) is a solution implies that all terms odd under this symmetry must vanish.

To fix $``$, we have to compute the remaining unknown coefficients, $`a_1^{(n)}`$. Note that the requirement that (2.1) be a solution fixes the field redefinition freedom (3.1), and we expect to find a unique solution for the Lagrangian (3.1).

In order to compute the couplings $`a_1^{(n)}`$ (3.1), one can proceed as follows. On general grounds, one expects that the on-shell spacetime action should be equal to the disk partition sum \[30,,32,,31\]. Both the spacetime action and the disk partition sum involve an integral over $`x^0`$, and in both of them there is a natural object that can be defined by stripping off the integral over $`x^0`$. In the case of the spacetime action, the resulting object is the on-shell Lagrangian (3.1). In the case of the worldsheet partition sum, it is the disk path integral over the non-zero modes of $`x^0`$, with the zero mode unintegrated, $`Z^{}(x^0)`$. It is natural to conjecture that these two objects are equal to each other,

$$_{\mathrm{on}\mathrm{shell}}(x^0)=Z^{}(x^0).$$

This assumption was used successfully in , and we will use it here as well. Using (3.1), one can fix all the $`a_1^{(n)}`$ as follows. Substitute the solution (2.1) into the Lagrangian (3.1), (3.1), and compare the resulting function of $`x^0`$ to that obtained by evaluating $`Z^{}(x^0)`$

$$Z^{}(x^0)=\frac{1}{1+T_+e^{x^0}}.$$

In doing that, one encounters a surprise. The on-shell Lagrangian (3.1), (3.1), (2.1) only involves terms that go like $`\mathrm{exp}(2nx^0)`$, $`n=0,1,2,3,\mathrm{}`$, while $`Z^{}`$ (3.1) also has in its expansion odd powers of $`\mathrm{exp}(x^0)`$. Thus, it seems that one of the assumptions that went into the analysis above must be incorrect. We will soon see that the problematic assumption is that of analyticity of $`(T,_\mu T)`$ near $`T=0`$, but for now let us set this problem aside and turn to the fermionic string (the non-BPS brane in type II), which as we will see is easier to understand.

First note that the analysis leading to (3.1) is slightly modified in this case, since the solution we want is not (2.1) but (2.1). It is easy to see that the correct form of (3.1) for the fermionic case is

$$a_l^{(n)}=\frac{(n1)!2^{l1}}{(nl)!l!(2l1)}a_1^{(n)}.$$

We can now attempt to fix the coefficients $`a_1^{(n)}`$ by computing the effective Lagrangian (3.1), (3.1) for the solution $`T(x^0)=T_+\mathrm{exp}(x^0/\sqrt{2})`$ (see (2.1)), and comparing it to the disk partition sum $`Z^{}(x^0)`$. The latter was computed in :

$$Z^{}=\frac{1}{1+\frac{1}{2}T_+^2e^{\sqrt{2}x^0}}.$$

We see that in this case the expansion of $`Z^{}`$ involves only even powers of $`T(x^0)`$, and we can use (3.1) to determine $`a_1^{(n)}`$. One finds the following result:

$$a_l^{(n)}=\frac{(1)^n2^{l2n}(2n1)!!}{l!(nl)!(2l1)},$$

where we have used the identity

$$\underset{s=0}{\overset{n}{}}\frac{(1)^s}{s!(ns)!(2s1)}=\frac{2^n}{(2n1)!!}.$$

As a check, (3.1) can be easily verified to satisfy (3.1). Plugging (3.1) into (3.1), (3.1) one finds9 With the help of another identity,
$$\underset{s=0}{\overset{nl}{}}2^s\frac{(2(l+s)3)!!}{s!}=\frac{2^{ln}(2n1)!!}{(nl)!(2l1)}.$$

$$=\frac{1}{1+\frac{1}{2}T^2}\sqrt{1+\frac{1}{2}T^2+_\mu T^\mu T}.$$

Finally, making the redefinition

$$\frac{T}{\sqrt{2}}=\mathrm{sinh}\frac{\stackrel{~}{T}}{\sqrt{2}},$$

which is a transformation of the form (3.1), one finds

$$=\frac{1}{\mathrm{cosh}\frac{\stackrel{~}{T}}{\sqrt{2}}}\sqrt{1+_\mu \stackrel{~}{T}^\mu \stackrel{~}{T}}.$$

This is exactly the tachyonic part of the Lagrangian (1.1) - (1.1).

Having understood the string theory origin of the (tachyon part of the) Lagrangian (1.1) for the non-BPS D-brane in type II string theory, we return to the bosonic case. Let us assume that the Lagrangian (1.1), (1.1) with the potential (1.1) is still correct in this case, i.e. that in some definition of the tachyon field, $`\stackrel{~}{T}`$, the Lagrangian is

$$=\frac{1}{\mathrm{cosh}\frac{\stackrel{~}{T}}{2}}\sqrt{1+_\mu \stackrel{~}{T}^\mu \stackrel{~}{T}}.$$

The equation of motion of (3.1) has a solution

$$\mathrm{sinh}\frac{\stackrel{~}{T}}{2}=\mathrm{exp}(\frac{1}{2}x^0)$$

whose energy density is the same as that of the original D-brane. It is easy to see that this solution corresponds in the parametrization (2.1) to (2.1). Thus, the parametrizations (3.1), (2.1) are related by a map of the form

$$T=C\mathrm{sinh}^2\frac{\stackrel{~}{T}}{2},$$

with $`C`$ some constant. In particular, the map is non-analytic near $`T=0`$. One has:

$$T=a\stackrel{~}{T}^2+b\stackrel{~}{T}^4+\mathrm{}.$$

The Lagrangian (3.1), which is analytic in $`\stackrel{~}{T}`$, corresponds in terms of $`T`$ to a non-analytic Lagrangian

$$=\mathrm{const}\frac{1}{2}(_\mu \stackrel{~}{T})^2+\frac{1}{8}\stackrel{~}{T}^2+\mathrm{}=\mathrm{const}\frac{1}{8a}\frac{(_\mu T)^2}{T}+\frac{1}{8a}T+\mathrm{}.$$

We see that, as suggested by the expansion of the disk partition sum (3.1), the on-shell Lagrangian does contain odd powers of $`T\mathrm{exp}(x^0)`$, and these are due to the non-analytic structure of the effective Lagrangian for $`T`$ near $`T=0`$. One can in fact check that plugging in the solution (3.1) into the Lagrangian (3.1) leads to a result which agrees with the disk partition sum (3.1), as one would expect from (3.1).

4. Discussion

In the previous sections we have argued that the action (1.1) - (1.1) arises from string theory in a particular limit, in which one considers slowly varying $`T_\pm (x^\mu )`$ in (2.1), (2.1) (in the bosonic and fermionic cases, respectively), expanded around a solution with $`T_+0`$, $`T_{}=0`$. In this section we will discuss in more detail the regime of validity of the action (1.1) - (1.1), comment on possible extensions of our results, and discuss some consequences of our analysis for the issues mentioned in the introduction.

What is the precise string theory question, the answer to which is the action (1.1) - (1.1)? Consider, for example, the scattering amplitude of tachyons on a non-BPS brane, (2.1) - (2.1),

$$T_{\stackrel{}{k}_1}^{(+)}\mathrm{}T_{\stackrel{}{k}_n}^{(+)}T_{\stackrel{}{p}_1}^{()}\mathrm{}T_{\stackrel{}{p}_n}^{()}$$

in the limit $`|\stackrel{}{k}_i|,|\stackrel{}{p}_j|1`$. At $`\stackrel{}{k}_i=\stackrel{}{p}_j=0`$, this amplitude vanishes, since (2.1) is an exact solution of the full classical open string equations of motion. Thus, the leading non-vanishing terms in (4.1) scale like momentum (various combinations of $`\stackrel{}{k}_i`$, $`\stackrel{}{p}_j`$) squared. What we have shown in sections 2 and 3 is that (1.1) - (1.1) is the action that reproduces these momentum squared terms in the $`2n`$-point function (4.1). This way of thinking about it also explains why one can choose the Lagrangian to depend only on $`T`$ and $`_\mu T`$, as we have in (3.1).

Indeed, as mentioned in section 3, Lagrangians of the form (3.1) have enough free parameters to incorporate the fact that (4.1) vanishes when all $`\stackrel{}{k}_i=\stackrel{}{p}_j=0`$, and to parametrize the most general possible $`O((\stackrel{}{k},\stackrel{}{p})^2)`$ terms in (4.1). The vanishing of the amplitude at zero momentum corresponds to the requirement that (2.1) is an exact solution of the equations of motion, and leads to the determination of all terms at order $`T^{2n}`$ in terms of one constant (see (3.1)). The fact that the remaining single free parameter at each order, $`a_1^{(n)}`$, is sufficient to parametrize the most general momentum squared terms in (4.1) can be seen in the following way.

The $`2n`$-point amplitude (4.1) has two different types of contributions: vertices with less than $`2n`$ external legs connected by propagators, and one-particle-irreducible vertices with $`2n`$ external legs. To determine the form of the effective action, we are only interested in the 1PI contributions. These are local, i.e. polynomial, in the momenta $`\stackrel{}{k}_i`$ and $`\stackrel{}{p}_j`$ and their form is severely constrained by symmetries, as follows. The most general local quadratic polynomial in $`\stackrel{}{k}_i`$, $`\stackrel{}{p}_j`$, compatible with rotation invariance can be written in the form

$$\underset{i,j}{}a_{ij}\stackrel{}{k}_i\stackrel{}{k}_j+\underset{i,j}{}b_{ij}\stackrel{}{p}_i\stackrel{}{p}_j+\underset{i,j}{}c_{ij}\stackrel{}{k}_i\stackrel{}{p}_j,$$

where $`a_{ij}`$, $`b_{ij}`$, $`c_{ij}`$ are free parameters that have to satisfy additional symmetry constraints. First, since the amplitude (4.1) is by definition symmetric under interchange of any of the $`T^{(+)}`$’s and separately under interchange of any of the $`T^{()}`$’s, (i.e. it is completely symmetric under interchange of the $`\{\stackrel{}{k}_i\}`$, and separately symmetric under interchange of the $`\{\stackrel{}{p}_j\}`$) it can be written as

$$a_1\underset{i}{}|\stackrel{}{k}_i|^2+a_2\underset{ij}{}\stackrel{}{k}_i\stackrel{}{k}_j+b_1\underset{i}{}|\stackrel{}{p}_i|^2+b_2\underset{ij}{}\stackrel{}{p}_i\stackrel{}{p}_j+c\underset{i,j}{}\stackrel{}{k}_i\stackrel{}{p}_j.$$

Since $`_i\stackrel{}{k}_i+_j\stackrel{}{p}_j=0`$ by momentum conservation, the last term (proportional to $`c`$) is not independent of the other terms, and we can set $`c=0`$. Furthermore, the symmetry $`(\stackrel{}{x},t)(\stackrel{}{x},t)`$ implies that the amplitude should also be invariant under interchange of the $`T^{(+)}`$’s with the $`T^{()}`$’s, i.e. it should be invariant under the interchange of $`\{\stackrel{}{k}_i\}`$ with $`\{\stackrel{}{p}_j\}`$. This implies that $`a_1=b_1`$ and $`a_2=b_2`$ and we are left with only two independent constants, $`a_1`$ and $`a_2`$. The fact that (4.1) is an amplitude in a Lorentz invariant theory, and thus we can write it in terms of Mandelstam invariants, implies that $`a_1`$ and $`a_2`$ are also related. Altogether, we conclude that to quadratic order in momenta the 1PI part of the $`2n`$-point function (4.1) is unique up to one free coefficient. The action that was constructed in sections 2 and 3 also has one free coefficient at each order, and the argument leading to (3.1) determines it.

Since the action (1.1) - (1.1) describes the leading terms in the $`2n`$-point function (4.1), one can also use it to describe scattering amplitudes in the presence of a non-zero $`T_+`$, as in (2.1), perturbatively in $`T_+`$. Note that one cannot use it when both $`T_+`$ and $`T_{}`$ in (2.1) are non-zero, since then the spectrum of scaling dimensions changes (it is no longer true that $`\mathrm{\Delta }(e^{wx_0})=w^2`$). This is the worldsheet manifestation of the fact (mentioned in section 2) that in this case the system is far from the open string vacuum both at early and at late times.

We now move on to possible extensions of our work. One natural extension is to add the gauge field on the D-brane $`A_\mu `$, and scalars $`Y^I`$, to derive the full action (1.1) - (1.1). This should be possible along the lines of comment (c) at the end of section 2. To construct the tachyon action (3.1) we utilized the existence of exact classical solutions (or, equivalently, manifolds of fixed points of the worldsheet boundary RG) labeled by $`T_+`$. We also noted that constant $`F_{\mu \nu }`$, $`_\mu Y^I`$, correspond to surfaces of solutions as well, and studying the vicinity of these surfaces leads to the DBI action.

One can combine the two observations and study surfaces of solutions labeled by constant $`F_{\mu \nu }`$, $`_\mu Y^I`$, and $`T_+`$. This is particularly simple when $`F_{\mu 0}=_0Y^I=0`$, since then the solution for the tachyon (2.1), (2.1) is not modified by the expectation values of the massless fields. More generally, one has to replace (2.1), (2.1) by a solution of the tachyon equations of motion in the open string metric, but one still expects to have a surface of solutions labeled by constant expectation values of $`F_{\mu \nu }`$, $`_\mu Y^I`$, and $`T_+`$. The full action describing slowly varying $`F_{\mu \nu }`$, $`_\mu Y^I`$, $`T_+`$ (and small and slowly varying $`T_{}`$) is very likely given by (1.1) - (1.1). This leads to a uniform treatment of the tachyon and massless fields: the action (1.1) - (1.1) describes the physics in the vicinity of the surface of exact solutions corresponding to constant $`F_{\mu \nu }`$, $`_\mu Y^I`$, $`T_+`$.

Another generalization is to couple the action (1.1) - (1.1) to massless closed strings. For (NS,NS) sector closed strings, this is expected to lead to a structure similar to the usual DBI action. The tachyon couplings to massless (R,R) sector fields are an interesting open problem.

In the introduction we mentioned that the action (1.1) - (1.1) seems to reproduce some aspects of the dynamics of the full open string theory like properties of rolling tachyon and other solutions. Our understanding of the role of this action in string theory should help clarify which aspects of the full problem should be captured by this action, and which should not. We next briefly comment on this issue in the context of the points mentioned in section 1.

The fact that the action (1.1) - (1.1) should reproduce the correct stress-tensor in homogenous tachyon condensation should be clear from the point of view of our analysis. This is the statement that the one point function of a zero momentum graviton in the full string theory is the same as the expectation value of the stress-tensor corresponding to (1.1) on the solution (2.1), (2.1). Clearly, this one point function probes an infinitesimal deviation from the solution that the action (1.1) is designed to describe, and thus the result obtained from (1.1) must agree with that obtained in the full string theory. Indeed, this is known to be the case for the solution (2.1).

For the general solutions (2.1), (2.1), with both $`T_+`$ and $`T_{}`$ non-zero, it is known that the stress tensor computed in the field theory (1.1) does not precisely reproduce that computed in the full string theory . For example, in the case of non-BPS branes in the superstring, when the energy density $`E`$ is smaller than the D-brane tension, the tachyon effective action (3.1) gives  the stress-energy tensor10 We have set the D-brane tension to one.

$$T_{00}=E,T_{ij}=\frac{1}{E}\frac{1}{1+\frac{u^2}{2}\mathrm{cosh}^2\left(\frac{x^0}{\sqrt{2}}\right)}\delta _{ij}=\delta _{ij}\left(\frac{1}{1+ce^{\sqrt{2}x^0}}+\frac{1}{1+ce^{\sqrt{2}x^0}}1\right),$$

where $`T_+=T_{}=\frac{u}{2}`$ in (2.1), $`c=\frac{b1}{b+1}`$, and $`b^2=1+\frac{u^2}{2}=\frac{1}{E^2}`$. The exact open string calculation gives

$$T_{00}=\frac{1}{2}(1+\mathrm{cos}u),T_{ij}=f(x^0)\delta _{ij},$$

with

$$f(x^0)=\frac{1}{1+\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{sin}^2(\frac{u}{2})e^{\sqrt{2}x^0}}+\frac{1}{1+\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{sin}^2(\frac{u}{2})e^{\sqrt{2}x^0}}1.$$

The two results (4.1) and (4.1) have the same rough form, and agree to leading order in an expansion in $`u`$, but the detailed dependence on the strength of the tachyon field is not the same. This is consistent with our discussion in section 2. Note that as pointed out in , even in this case the effective field theory (1.1) - (1.1) is still valid at late times. This is very natural from the point of view of the discussion in section 2, since at late times one can replace the interaction (2.1) by (2.1), with a renormalized value of the coupling $`T_+`$ (this renormalization is the origin of the periodic dependence on the tachyon in (4.1), from this point of view).

We mentioned in section 1 that the action (1.1) describes correctly lower dimensional D-branes, which correspond to solitons of this action. This is easy to understand from the point of view of our analysis. As explained in , one way to describe codimension one D-branes in the full string theory is to turn on a tachyon with the profile

$$T(x)=e^{wx^0}\mathrm{cos}kx.$$

(in , $`\mathrm{exp}(wx^0)`$ is replaced by a scale dependent coupling, but this is an inessential difference). In the bosonic string, one finds at late times codimension one D-branes located at the minima of (4.1), while in the fermionic case one finds codimension one BPS D-branes located at the zeroes of (4.1).

As mentioned in , taking $`k0`$ in (4.1) allows one to focus on a single codimension one D-brane, with the other branes sent to infinity in the limit. Perturbations of the form (4.1) with $`k0`$ (which correspond to $`T_+(x)\mathrm{cos}kx`$ in (2.1), (2.1)) are precisely what the action (1.1) is designed to describe. $`T_+(x)`$ is slowly varying and the perturbation never takes one far from the surface of exact solutions corresponding to constant $`T_+`$. Therefore, one expects (1.1) to give the correct tension of the codimension one brane, and (for the non-BPS brane in type II) to give the Dirac-Born-Infeld action as the action describing small excitations of the soliton11 In the bosonic case, one expects to get an action of the form (1.1) on the soliton.. In the full string theory, the approximation that gives rise to (1.1) on the original non-BPS brane is exactly the same as the approximation that gives rise to the DBI action on the BPS brane. One goes smoothly into the other under the tachyon condensation (4.1) with $`k1`$.

What happens if we turn on a perturbation (4.1) with $`k1`$? Since $`T_+(x)`$ is no longer slowly varying, the action (1.1) need not describe the full open string dynamics in this case. However, as discussed in , at late times one actually expects the worldsheet operator $`\mathrm{cos}kx`$ to approach the identity operator, and the full boundary CFT is thus expected to approach the surface of solutions $`T_+=\mathrm{constant}`$, on which the action (1.1) is reliable. Thus, in situations like this, one expects the dynamics to be well approximated by (1.1) at late times, when the tachyon is large. This agrees with the discussion in .

General inhomogenous solutions of the equation of motion of the tachyon action (1.1) in $`1+1`$ dimensions were analyzed in . It was found that generic solutions develop caustics at a finite time. It was then argued in  that the effective action (1.1) breaks down in these situations, since the tachyon develops large gradients. In  it was pointed out that the presence/absence of caustics in the solutions is directly related to the dynamics of the $`D0`$-branes that the $`D1`$-brane decomposes into via tachyon condensation. If these $`D0`$-branes are at rest relative to each other, the late time solution is smooth. If they have non-zero relative velocities, caustics appear and (1.1) breaks down. From the point of view of our analysis here, this is very reasonable. The situation with vanishing relative velocities can be Lorentz transformed12 This is true for equidistant $`D0`$-branes at late times. Non-equidistant $`D0`$-branes at rest are described by a simple generalization of (4.1). to (4.1), which as we already explained is well described by (1.1). When the relative velocities are non-zero, it is easy to see that the system is getting farther and farther away from the surface of solutions $`T_+=\mathrm{constant}`$ at late times. Thus, the action (1.1) is not expected to be reliable in this case, and the caustics presumably signal its breakdown.

Finally, we mentioned in section 1 that the action (1.1) - (1.1) reproduces the correct mass of the tachyon on the non-BPS D-brane in type II, while it does not give the correct tachyon mass in the bosonic string. From the point of view of our analysis, the fact that the mass is reproduced in the type II case is true by construction, while the disagreement in the bosonic string is understood to be due to the non-analytic relation (3.1) between the open string tachyon $`T`$ and the field that appears in (1.1), which is really $`\stackrel{~}{T}`$. Taking the map (3.1) into account, one in fact finds the correct tachyon mass (again, by construction).

The action (1.1) - (1.1) is quite different from the actions that were found in boundary string field theory (BSFT) \[35,,36,,37\]. It is sometimes said that these actions might be related by field redefinitions, which involve derivatives of $`T`$. From the point of view presented here, it is clear why these actions look so different. The actions computed in BSFT are valid far off the mass-shell of $`T`$, e.g. for $`Ta+ux^2`$ in the bosonic string. The action (1.1) - (1.1) on the other hand is valid for approximately on-shell configurations, such as (2.1), (2.1). The two actions have rather different regimes of validity, and it is not surprising that they look different.

The general point of view on effective actions presented here might be useful for thinking about other related problems as well. For example, one can ask whether it is possible to generalize the analysis to the study of closed string tachyons. In order to do that, one needs to identify an analog of the exact solution (2.1) for this case. As a naive attempt, one may try to study the worldsheet theory in the presence of a perturbation

$$\delta _{\mathrm{ws}}=\lambda \mathrm{cosh}2x^0.$$

Unfortunately, unlike its open string analog, this perturbation is not expected to be truly marginal. Analytically continuing $`x^0ix`$, one finds the Sine-Gordon interaction, which is marginally relevant. The central charge goes to zero in the IR (the worldsheet field $`x`$ becomes massive). In the string theory context, this means that turning on $`\lambda `$ leads to a large backreaction of the metric and dilaton at late times, and one needs to understand it before proceeding. It is possible that, as was suggested recently in , the perturbation

$$\delta _{\mathrm{ws}}=\lambda \mathrm{exp}(2x^0)$$

is exactly marginal, in which case one could use it as a closed string analog of (2.1), although it is not clear what suppresses the backreaction of the metric and dilaton to the stress-tensor of the tachyon. Another natural arena in which effective actions such as (1.1) might be useful is localized closed string tachyon condensation \[39--43\], where the backreaction is milder, and in particular the central charge does not change.

Acknowledgments: We are grateful to B. Craps, F. Larsen, E. Martinec and E. Rabinovici for discussions. This work was supported in part by DOE grant DE-FG02-90ER-40560.

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