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# Generation of spatial antibunching with free propagating twin beams

## I Introduction

In contrast with light sources where the emitted photons tend to propagate gathered together, special kinds of light sources can produce photons tending to propagate separated in time or space. This effect, referred to as photon antibunching, has been predicted in time and spatial domain and observed in resonance fluorescence by excited atomic beams, trapped ions, trapped molecules, and in optical parametric process. Recently, Nogueira, Walborn, Pádua, and Monken have proposed and implemented a spatial version of the photon antibunching where photons tend to propagate separated with respect to the transverse propagation plane. They have used twin photons from the parametric down-conversion and in their experiment, the final state is prepared by propagation through special double-slits, leading to a light beam in which photons seems to repeal each other in space.

In this work, we propose and implement an experimental scheme for obtaining spatial antibunching with free-propagating beams. It is based on the transfer of the angular spectrum from the pump to the twin beams of the down-conversion and the manipulation of the transverse spatial coordinate of one of the beams. We obtain a high quality anti-bunched beam. The preparation of the state is very efficient with respect to the incoming signal and idler beams.

## II State preparation

In order to produce spatial antibunching, one light beam must be able to violate a classical inequality for its fourth order correlation function in the spatial variables(See Eq. 11 of Ref.):

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }^{(2,2)}(𝜹)\mathrm{\Gamma }^{(2,2)}(0),$$
(1)
where

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }^{(2,2)}(𝝆_\mathrm{𝟏},𝝆_2,\tau )=𝑰(𝝆_\mathrm{𝟏},\tau )𝑰(𝝆_\mathrm{𝟐},t+\tau ),$$
(2)
$`𝜹=𝝆_\mathrm{𝟏}𝝆_\mathrm{𝟐}`$ is the distance between the two points where the correlation function is evaluated and $`\tau =0`$.

This kind of correlation function is usually measured with coincidence photon detection schemes, as described in Fig.1, for example. The light beam is sent through a 50/50 beam splitter and coincidence measurements are performed between detections at detectors D1 and D2 for different positions of these detectors in the transverse plane. Therefore, the inequality in Eq.1 would be violated whenever the coincidence counting rate for displaced (in the transverse detection plane) detectors is bigger than that for aligned ones.

According to previous works, it is possible to manipulate the transverse profile of the coincidence counting rate between signal and idler photons from the parametric down-conversion, by manipulating the pump beam profile. Therefore, we would be able to prepare collinear twin beams that would give rise to a transverse coincidence distribution which would violate the inequality in Eq.1. This requirement is easily fulfilled preparing the pump beam with zero intensity in its center. As this intensity distribution is transferred to the coincidence distribution, we would have zero coincidences for aligned detectors and some higher coincidence counting rates for displaced detectors.

There is, however, one problem. The violation of the inequality only results in the spatial photon antibunching if the light beam is homogeneous. This means that the intensity (second order correlation function) should be constant along the detection region and the coincidence counting rate (fourth order correlation function) must depend only on $`\delta `$, the relative displacement between detectors D1 and D2. This last requirement is not fulfilled by the state preparation by manipulation of the pump beam. The coincidence counting rate depends on the pump beam profile in the sum of the spatial variables:

$$C(\rho _i,\rho _s)\left|𝒲(\frac{\rho _s}{\mu _s}+\frac{\rho _i}{\mu _i})\right|^2,$$
(3)
where $`𝒲`$ is the field transverse distribution of the pump, $`\rho _i`$ and $`\rho _s`$ are the transverse coordinates at the detection plane, and $`\mu _i`$ and $`\mu _s`$ are coefficients depending on the distances between signal and idler detection planes to the crystal.

The dependence of the coincidence counting rate on the sum of the position variables above, characterizes the non-homogeneity of this field. Therefore, the violation of the inequality in Eq.1, does not imply in spatial antibunching. In the following, we propose and implement a simple method for obtaining homogeneity and as a result, the antibunching.

The experimental set-up is shown in Fig.2. Before the pump laser reaches the non-linear crystal, it is passed through a thin wire and through an imaging lens, so that after pumping the crystal, the image of the wire is formed in a plane situated at a certain distance from it. This distance is the same as the distance between crystal and detectors. It has been demonstrated that the coincidence counting rate between signal and idler photons, has a transverse distribution that mimics the pumping beam intensity distribution. This will lead to a coincidence counting rate which is zero when the detectors are aligned and increase when they are displaced. As stated above, this field is non-homogeneous.

In order to overcome this difficulty, we have utilized the scheme displayed in Fig.2. Signal and idler beams from type II phase matching down-conversion are produced in a non-collinear configuration. The signal beam is passed though a Dove prism, so that its spatial coordinate y is changed into -y. As signal and idler have orthogonal polarizations, signal and idler beams can be fully recombined in a polarizing beam splitter. The recombined beam, is split in a non-polarizing beam splitter and the two output beams are sent to detectors. Now, the coincidence counting rate for scans in the y direction is given by:

$$C(\rho _i,\rho _s)\left|𝒲(\frac{\rho _s}{\mu _s}\frac{\rho _i}{\mu _i})\right|^2.$$
(4)
This characterizes an homogeneous field and as it still keeps the pump image information, it will give rise to spatially anti-bunched photons. The experimental demonstration is easier in one dimension, but the result can be easily extended for the two-dimensional case by insertion of a second Dove prism rotated by 90 degrees with respect to the propagation axis in anyone of the beams.

## III Experiment

The experiment have been performed with a cw horizontally polarized HeCd laser operating at 442nm pumping a 1cm long BBO crystal cut for type-II phase matching, as shown in Fig.2. The down-converted signal and idler beams, at 884nm emerge from the crystal at an angle of 11o with respect to the laser beam. Two mirrors and a polarizing beam splitter recombine the twin beams. In the signal path a Dove prism is inserted to produce the homogenous field distribution in second order. The combined beam propagates to a non-polarizing beam splitter and are sent to detectors D1 and D2 placed about 75cm from the crystal. Each detector assembly includes a slit of about 0.3mm width, an interference filter centered in 884nm with 10nm bandwidth, a 12.5mm focal length lens, and a single photon counting module. The detectors are mounted on translation stages. Single and coincidences counts are recorded scanning the detector in y direction.

## IV Results and discussion

We begin by calibrating the position where detectors receive light from the same point of the nonpolarizing beam splitter (BS). This is archived by inserting a thin(500$`\mu `$m diameter) wire in the beam, before the beam splitter, scanning both detectors, and measuring the single photon counting rates. Fig.3 shows the single counts as a function of D1 and D2 position. In the position where each intensity is a minimum, detectors D1 and D2 will be looking at the same point in the beam splitter, just like a two-photon detector. Now, we remove the wire before the beam-splitter (BS) and place a 250$`\mu `$m diameter wire and a 25cm focal length lens in the path of the laser beam before the crystal, such that after the crystal, the image of the wire is formed in a plane situated at the same distance from the crystal as the detectors. In Fig.4a it is shown the coincidence profile scanning D2 and keeping D1 at the calibration point (minimum of Fig.3). As we can see, the image of the wire in the laser beam is transferred to the coincidence counting rate, according to the transfer of the angular spectrum. We repeat this measurement with D1 displaced +0.4mm and -0.4mm from its previous position, and the results are shown in Figs.4b and 4c, respectively. The effect of displacing D1 is the shifting of the coincidence image by the same quantity, showing conditional behavior. Scanning D1 and D2 simultaneously in the same sense, the coincidence counting rate is constant and equal to the minimum of the profile in Fig.4a, while scanning simultaneously and in opposite senses, the coincidence counting rate depends on the sum of the tranverse coordinates of the signal and idler detectors. The coincidence profiles for these two situations are shown in Fig.5. In Fig.5a we can see a background at the level of the minimum in Fig.4a, illustrating the homogeneous (dependence only on the difference of the spatial coordinates) character of the field to the forth order, while in the Fig.5b the image in coincidence appears about two times smaller than that of Fig.4a.

We have also performed the same kind of measurements as before, without the Dove prism. The transferred image to the coincidence counting rate is shown in Fig.6a, while the effect of the displacement of D1 +0.4mm and -0.4mm from its central position is shown in Figs.6b and 6c, respectively. In contrast with the situation described above, the image in coincidence is shifted in opposite senses with respect to the displacement of D1. Scanning D1 and D2 simultaneously, in the same sense, the coincidence counting rate is not anymore constant, while scanning in opposite senses it is constant and equal to the minimum of Fig.6a. This results are shown in Fig.7. Here, the coincidence counting rate depends on the sum of the transverse coordinates of the signal and idler beams, so that the field is no longer homogeneous to the fourth order. See Fig.7a. In this case the results cannot be interpreted as spatial antibunching.

One important issue is the fact that no losses are imposed to signal and idler modes during the preparation process. This improvement might be useful for applications of this kind of non-classical light, because the coincidence counting rates can be higher than those of the previous schemes. Another issue is the quality of the state prepared. One way of evaluating this quality is through the ratio between the maximum number of displaced coincident photons(peak of the curves in Figs.4, for example) and the residual number of aligned coincident photons (dip of the curves in Figs.4, for example). This gives us some kind of contrast for the antibunching and our results present high contrasts. We are not going to define such a parameter here, because it is not necessary for the purposes of this work and that could be confused with the usual contrast defined for interference fringes.

## V Conclusion

We have proposed and implemented a scheme for obtaining spatial antibunching from free-propagating signal and idler beams from the down-conversion. The scheme consists in inverting the transverse spatial coordinate of one of the twin beams. In addition to the preparation of the fourth order correlation between signal and idler by manipulation of the pump beam, we have succeeded in obtaining an homogeneous beam that violates a classical inequality and therefore presents spatial antibunching. This method is very efficient with respect to the initial (just after emission) signal and idler beams and presents high quality antibunching.

###### Acknowledgements.

Financial support was provided by Brazilian agencies CNPq, PRONEX, FAPERJ, FUJB and ”Institutos do Milênio” for Quantum Information.


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# Clustering and ensembles inequivalence in the ϕ⁴ and ϕ⁶ mean-field Hamiltonian models

## I Introduction

The treatment of long-range interacting systems remains a challenging issue in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics padmanabhan . Serious theoretical difficulties arise because internal energy, entropy and other thermodynamic quantities are no longer additive, i.e. a part of a system has not the same thermodynamic properties of the whole. This originates unusual effects, like negative specific heat and the inequivalence of statistical ensembles even in the limit of infinite number of particles (See Ref. springer  for a recent review emphasizing different examples such as gravitation, plasmas, fluid mechanics,…). Relevant physical examples displaying such anomalies are known in Newtonian gravity but also in plasma physics (although in the latter case the screening of attractive and repulsive Coulomb interactions may mitigate them).

As usual in theoretical physics, the study of simple toy models proves to be of major importance to attack more complex and realistic systems. In particular, simple mean-field models with infinite-range interactions turned out to be extremely useful. In spite of the fact that they are constantly used in statistical mechanics to describe cooperative phenomena, it is somehow singular that violation of additivity has hardly been recognized in the past. A reason for that lies perhaps in the fact that the thermodynamic limit is performed resorting to saddle-point techniques, which puts the Hamiltonian in the explicitly decoupled form, thus hiding the difficulties inherent in the long-range interaction. Indeed, ensemble inequivalence (for example between microcanonical and canonical ensemble) has been observed, producing effects like negative specific heats, which are the counterparts of the ones known in the gravitational context padmanabhan .

The advantage of such models is that their canonical thermodynamics can be exactly derived by performing the mean-field limit (the infinite $`N`$ limit at fixed volume), which is a reasonable surrogate of the thermodynamic limit (the infinite $`N`$ limit at fixed density). Contrary to the usual belief, an exact microcanonical solution is also feasible for such non trivial Hamiltonians, using large deviations techniques Largedev , but the results will be presented elsewhere largedeviations . Here, for what concerns the microcanonical ensemble, we will mainly limit ourselves to show the result of numerical simulations, which, because of the mean-field nature of the interaction, require only $`𝒪(N)`$ codes (instead of the usual $`𝒪(N^2)`$). Moreover, further insight can be gained from solving the one-dimensional collisionless Boltzmann-Poisson equation for the single-particle distribution function, which becomes exact in the $`N\mathrm{}`$ limit (at all finite times) Spohn .

In the present paper, we investigate, both analytically and numerically, two simple mean-field models which we denote as “$`\varphi ^4`$” and “$`\varphi ^6`$”, which display respectively second ($`\varphi ^4`$) and first and second order phase transitions separated by tricritical points ($`\varphi ^6`$) in the canonical ensemble. Of the former model, we investigate in addition the dynamical formation of clustered states at low temperatures and we study their destabilization. The presence of quasi-stationary out-of-equilibrium states is moreover revealed close to the second order phase transition, in analogy with what is found for the Hamiltonian-Mean-Field (HMF) model (see hmfspringer  for a recent review). Concerning the $`\varphi ^6`$-model, we study the phase diagram in the canonical ensemble and we report numerical simulations of hysteretic effects near first-order phase transitions. We point out the existence of a narrow region of negative specific heat.

## II The mean-field $`\varphi ^4`$ model

Let us first consider the following Hamiltonian

$$H=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\left[\frac{p_i^2}{2}(1\theta )\frac{q_i^2}{2}+\frac{q_i^4}{4}\right]\frac{\theta }{2N}\underset{i,j=1}{\overset{N}{}}q_iq_j,$$
(1)
where $`p_i`$ is the conjugate momentum of the variable $`q_i`$, which defines the position of the $`i`$-th particle on a line. This is a mean field model since all particles are connected to all others, and the summation in the last term is not restricted to neighboring particles. Notice that positive (resp. negative) values of the parameter $`\theta `$ correspond to attractive (resp. repulsive) mean-field interactions. All variables are adimensional and, for the sake of comparison, we have used the same parametrization introduced in Ref. zwanzig  (which can be shown to be minimal by conveniently rescaling the variables and time). The local potential displays a double well for $`\theta <1`$ and a single well otherwise. The ground-state energy per particle is $`e_0=1/4`$ for positive $`\theta `$ (all particles in a single cluster) and $`e_0=1/4+\theta /2`$ in the repulsive case (double cluster).

### II.1 Dynamics of the Magnetization: The generation of clusters.

Introducing the time-dependent magnetization

$$M=\frac{1}{N}\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}q_i,$$
(2)
we are therefore interested in the following equations of motion

$$\ddot{q}_i=(1\theta )q_iq_i^3+\theta M.$$
(3)
We study the dynamics of particle released with a water bag waterbag  initial condition where positions and momenta are uniformly distributed at random in the intervals $`[q_0w_q/2,q_0+w_q/2]`$ and $`[w_p/2,+w_p/2]`$, respectively. We have adopted the symplectic 6th-order Yoshida’s algorithm yoshida , with a time step $`dt=0.05`$, which allows us to obtain an energy conservation with a relative accuracy $`\mathrm{\Delta }E/E`$ ranging from $`10^7`$ to $`10^{10}`$.

Fig. 1 shows the result: a coherent oscillating cluster self-consistently moving in the self-generated potential. The data are obtained for an initial condition with a small velocity dispersion, i.e. $`q_0=1.1`$, $`w_q=0.05`$, $`w_p=0.0001`$. Besides the oscillation of the center, the particles display a rotating motion around it, which creates a spiral structure (see Figs. 2), as frequently encountered in long range systems; we have found this coherent behavior for a very large collection of initial states. Notice that the spiral structure in the center is responsible for the very large peaks in the single particle density (right panels in Figs. 2). A similar phenomenon has been described successfully for the antiferromagnetic HMF model in terms of shock waves barre ; barreepjb  by considering the associated Vlasov equation valid in the $`N\mathrm{}`$ limit.

We will therefore rely on a Vlasov-like approach. Denoting by $`f(q,p,t)`$ the one particle distribution function, we have here

$$\frac{f}{t}+p\frac{f}{q}+\frac{f}{p}\left[(1\theta )qq^3+_{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}𝑑u_{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}𝑑\alpha f(\alpha ,u,t)\alpha \right]=0.$$
(4)
Introducing a density field $`\rho `$ and a velocity field $`v`$, as follows

$`\rho (q,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}}f(q,p,t)𝑑p`$ (5)
$`\rho (q,t)v(q,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}}pf(q,p,t)𝑑p`$ (6)
and neglecting velocity dispersion, we have recently shown barre  how to reduce this problem to appropriate hydrodynamical equations. A short-time analysis, performed for the HMF model, led us finally to a dissipativeless spatially forced Burgers equation. We expect that a similar treatment can be developed for the current model and that similar techniques could be applied. A well known property of the Burgers equation without viscosity, is that the solution becomes multi-stream after a finite time: the appearance of shock waves in the velocity profile corresponds indeed to singular points in the density profile (see Figs. 2). In the original discrete model, this phenomenon would correspond to particle crossing; after some time, fast particles will eventually catch slow ones downstream creating the so-called spiral dynamics exemplified in the left panels of Figs. (2).

### II.2 Stability analysis

To understand the origin of this cluster and its stability , we will first consider the simplest case of a fully clustered state where $`q_i=M`$. In this simple case, the collective motion is ruled by the equation

$`\ddot{M}`$ $`=`$ $`MM^3,`$ (7)
which can be easily solved using elliptic functions lawden . Integrating Eq. (7), between the initial time, when the cluster is released without kinetic energy at the position $`q=a>1`$, and time $`t`$, we get

$`M`$ $`=`$ $`a\text{dn}({\displaystyle \frac{at}{\sqrt{2}}},k),`$ (8)
where dn is the elliptic delta amplitude function and $`k=\sqrt{22/a^2}`$ the modulus of Jacobi elliptic functions. We remind that this solution is periodic, with the amplitude-dependent period given in terms of the complete elliptic integral of the first kind $`2K(k)`$; the magnetization $`M`$ will thus oscillate with a frequency $`\omega _M=\pi a/\sqrt{2}K`$, which will be the main timescale of the problem. One notices immediately that the modulus $`k`$ and the frequency $`\omega _M`$ are both functions of the same parameter, namely the amplitude $`a`$, related to the energy per particle $`e=E/N`$ through the relation $`a^2=1+\sqrt{1+4e}`$. This solution is interesting in its own, since explicit analytical solutions are not common for nonlinear non-integrable systems of oscillators, but one should of course study its stability in order to understand why this coherent oscillating cluster emerges spontaneously. Using the equations of motion (3) for the $`q_i`$ and introducing $`\xi _i=q_iM`$, we obtain up to first order

$`\ddot{\xi }_i+(\theta 1+3M^2)\xi _i`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (9)
Introducing the new variable $`u=at/\sqrt{2}`$, we obtain the Lamé equation in its canonical form

$$\frac{d^2\xi _i}{du^2}+\left[\alpha \nu (\nu +1)k^2\text{sn}^2(u,k)\right]\xi _i=0,$$
(10)
with $`\alpha =6+2(\theta 1)/a^2`$ and $`\nu =2`$. For integer values of $`\nu `$, many rigorous results are known whittaker ; Arscott  and in particular it is established that there are only $`\nu +1`$ instability regions in the $`(\alpha ,k)`$ plane. The stability charts could be explicitly constructed pecelli  by observing that Eq. (10) has the following five periodic solutions

$`y`$ $`=1{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{2}}\text{sn}^2(u,k)`$ $`\text{with}\alpha =2\left[1+k^2\pm (k^4k^2+1)^{1/2}\right]`$ (11)
$`y`$ $`=\text{cn}(u,k)\text{dn}(u,k)`$ $`\text{with}\alpha =1+k^2`$ (12)
$`y`$ $`=\text{sn}(u,k)\text{dn}(u,k)`$ $`\text{with}\alpha =1+4k^2`$ (13)
$`y`$ $`=\text{sn}(u,k)\text{cn}(u,k)`$ $`\text{with}\alpha =4+k^2.`$ (14)
Thus the above curves $`\alpha =\alpha (k^2)`$ define the boundary curves of the three ($`\nu +1`$) non-degenerate instability regions. Theses curves are presented in the plane $`(\theta ,e)`$ in Fig. (3).

One can also investigate the linear stability of this cluster solution with a standard Floquet analysis, i.e. computing the eigenvalues of the $`2N\times 2N`$ matrix of the tangent map. Here, contrary to usual lattice systems with coupling between neighbors, Eq. (9) shows that we obtain $`N`$ identical second order equations; this is a direct consequence of the mean field character of Hamiltonian (1). Consequently, we obtain two different $`N`$ times degenerate Floquet eigenvalues and the periodic solution is linearly stable when the eigenvalues lie on the unit circle in the complex plane.

At this stage, one derives numerically the linear stability threshold by considering the numerical evolution of two different initial conditions (1,0) and (0,1) for the vector $`(\xi ,\dot{\xi })`$. The dynamics is solved by a standard 4th order Runge-Kutta algorithm for the time integration of Eq. (9), where the magnetization $`M`$ is either directly integrated using Eq. (7) or implemented with the help of Eq. (8). For a given value of $`\theta `$, an energy threshold exists, above which the largest Floquet multiplier is greater than unity, and therefore the solution is unstable. The solid line in Fig. 3 shows the evolution of this threshold as a function of the parameter $`\theta `$. The analytical calculations were directly compared with the numerical thresholds obtained by considering a water bag with very small but finite width, i.e. $`w_qq_0`$ and $`w_p1`$, to make a direct comparison with the above analytical results. Checking on Fig. 3, one gets, apart from a slight underestimate, a good agreement between numerics and theory. It should however be remarked that, for the finite $`N`$ systems, stability persists only for a finite time, which presumably diverges as $`N`$ increases, as it happens for the HMF model hmfspringer ; barreepjb .

### II.3 Equilibrium Statistical Mechanics

The partition function can be computed by means of a standard Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation. Indeed, for a Hamiltonian of the general form

$$H=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\left[\frac{p_i}{2}^2+V(q_i)\right]\frac{\theta }{2N}\left(\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}q_i\right)^2,$$
(15)
the partition function is

$$Z=_{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}\underset{\mathrm{}=1}{\overset{N}{}}dp_{\mathrm{}}dq_{\mathrm{}}e^{\beta H}=Z_KZ_V=\left(2\pi /\beta \right)^{N/2}Z_V,$$
(16)
where the configurational partition function is

$$Z_V=_{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}\underset{\mathrm{}=1}{\overset{N}{}}dq_{\mathrm{}}e^{\beta V\left(q_{\mathrm{}}\right)}e^{{\displaystyle \frac{\beta \theta }{2N}}\left({\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}}q_i\right)^2}.$$
(17)
We use at this point the Hubbard-Stratonovich trick, i.e. we consider the identity

$$e^{\mu x^2}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{\pi }}_{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}𝑑ye^{y^2+2\sqrt{\mu }xy}.$$
(18)
Defining

$$\psi (x,\beta )=\mathrm{ln}\left[_{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}𝑑qe^{\beta V\left(q\right)+xq}\right],$$
(19)
after some algebra one gets

$`Z_V`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{N}{2\beta \theta \pi }}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}}𝑑xe^{N\beta f_L(x,\beta )}`$ (20)
$`\beta f_L`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{x^2}{2\beta \theta }}\psi (x,\beta )`$ (21)
where $`f_L`$ is the configurational Landau free energy. In the thermodynamic limit, one can evaluate the above integral by means of the saddle point approximation. The saddle point is determined by the condition $`\overline{x}=\beta \theta \psi _x(\overline{x},\beta )`$, (where $`\psi _x`$ denotes the derivative with respect to $`x`$) and can be evaluated numerically in a self-consistent manner. Notice that $`\overline{x}=0`$ is always a solution if the potential $`V`$ is even.

Finally, we can thus express the configurational partition function as

$$Z_V=\frac{1}{\sqrt{\beta \theta \psi _{xx}(\overline{x},\beta )1}}\mathrm{exp}\left[N\left(\psi (\overline{x},\beta )\frac{\overline{x}^2}{2\beta \theta }\right)\right].$$
(22)
Up to terms of order $`𝒪\left(1/N\right)`$, the relevant equilibrium observables can be expressed accordingly as a function of $`\overline{x}`$, using the following formulæ:

$`\beta f`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}\mathrm{ln}Z={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{ln}\left(2\pi /\beta \right)\psi (\overline{x},\beta )+{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{x}^2}{2\beta \theta }}`$ (23)
$`M`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}}q_i={\displaystyle \frac{\overline{x}}{\beta \theta }}`$ (24)
$`e`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\beta f}{\beta }}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\beta }}\psi _\beta (\overline{x},\beta ){\displaystyle \frac{\overline{x}^2}{2\beta ^2\theta }}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\beta }}\psi _\beta (\overline{x},\beta ){\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{2}}M^2.`$ (25)
In the disordered phase, when $`M=0`$, the system reduces to an ensemble of independent anharmonic oscillators.

In the ferromagnetic case ($`\theta >0`$), as presented in Fig. 4, the model displays a second-order transition in the canonical ensemble, in full agreement with previous results based on the Fokker-Planck approach zwanzig . The magnetization vanishes as $`(T_cT)^{\frac{1}{2}}`$ in the subcritical regime and the specific heat has a finite jump at $`T_c`$. Conversely, in the antiferromagnetic case ($`\theta <0`$), no transition occurs, and $`\overline{x}=0`$ is the only solution of the consistency equation for any value of the temperature. The free energy and the internal energy are always given by the above formulæ, with zero magnetization.

As this behavior is clearly reminiscent of the HMF model, that we have already studied in the past antoni ; dauxois ; barre , and where the presence of long-lived out-of-equilibrium states was surprisingly discovered, it was natural to suspect that they also appear in the present model. We have therefore performed two types of numerical simulations: microcanonical ones with a symplectic algorithm (sixth order Yoshida or fourth-order McLachlan-Atela macla ) and canonical ones with a Nosé-Hoover thermostat Nose  (fourth-order Runge-Kutta algorithm). No appreciable deviations are observed between the two types of simulations for initial conditions close to equilibrium, see Fig. 4.

However, a region with clear differences is found for “water-bag” initial conditions: see an example for $`q_0=0`$ in Fig. 5. This is strongly reminiscent of similar observations made on the HMF model antoni ; Tsallis . The fact that some points lie on the branch with vanishing magnetization also in the subcritical region (see Fig. 5b) indicates that this is a metastable state in the microcanonical ensemble. On the contrary, let us notice that triangles below the theoretical curve in Fig. 4b are due to finite size effects and would disappear for larger $`N`$ values. A careful study of the numerical results for very large integration times shows a systematic tendency of these points to converge towards the equilibrium state indicated in Fig. 4 by the solid line. This attests the metastable character of these states.

Series of microcanonical runs for the repulsive case have shown that metastable states may possibly exist also in this case, and we suspect that they may be related to the existence of a stable cluster in the energy region $`1/4<e0.097`$. This metastability is thus of dynamical rather than of thermodynamical origin.

Summarizing, the $`\varphi ^4`$ model has emphasized the striking appearence of a cluster and also dynamical differences between microcanonical and canonical ensembles, presumably related to slow relaxation towards the final Boltzmann-Gibbs equilibrium state; ensemble inequivalence appears only in a transient. Indeed, it has been recently reported in spin systems beg , that true ensemble inequivalence occurs in regions of first order phase transitions. It would be therefore very interesting to exhibit a dynamical mean field model of the polynomial class with a first order phase transition. This is the purpose of the next section.

## III The mean-field $`\varphi ^6`$ model

The simplest generalization of the previous model is

$$H=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\left[\frac{p_i^2}{2}+r\frac{q_i^2}{2}\frac{q_i^4}{4}+\frac{q_i^6}{6}\right]\frac{D}{2N}\underset{i,j=1}{\overset{N}{}}q_iq_j,$$
(26)
where $`D`$ and $`r`$ are two independent parameters (also in this case it can be shown that this parametrization is minimal). The main interest of model (26) lies in the fact that it may exhibit a first-order phase transition for a proper choice of the parameters, and therefore possibly ensemble inequivalence. This can be realized by first considering the zero temperature limit, where equilibrium states are given by the minima of the function

$$V_{\text{eff}}=\frac{rD}{2}x^2\frac{x^4}{4}+\frac{x^6}{6}.$$
(27)
For $`0<rD<1/4`$, such polynomial admits three minima located at $`x=0`$ and $`x=\pm x_+`$ and two maxima at $`x=\pm x_{}`$ where

$$x_\pm ^2=\frac{1}{2}\pm \frac{1}{2}\sqrt{14(rD)}.$$
(28)
A first-order transition can thus be expected within this parameter region. Furthermore, in order to have a first-order phase transition at $`T=0`$ we must impose that the two minima attain the same value (equal to zero). This conditions holds for $`rD=3/16`$ and we can at least hope that close to this parameter values the transition persists also at nonzero temperature. We checked that this is indeed the case by computing the free energy in a self-consistent way, as explained in the previous section. The transition exists in a very narrow region below  $`rD=3/16`$.

It is useful to consider the expansion up to sixth order of the Landau free energy of the $`\varphi ^6`$-model in order to determine the critical line of second order transitions and the tricritical point. We obtain

$$\beta f_L(x,\beta )=\frac{x^2}{2\beta D}\psi (x,\beta )=const.+\frac{ax^2}{2}+\frac{bx^4}{4}+\frac{cx^6}{6}+𝒪(x^8),$$
(29)
where

$`a(\beta ,r,D)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\beta D}}q^2,`$ (30)
$`b(\beta ,r,D)={\displaystyle \frac{\left(q^43q^2^2\right)}{6}},`$ (31)
with

$$q^m=\frac{q^m\mathrm{exp}(\beta V(q))𝑑q}{\mathrm{exp}(\beta V(q))𝑑q}.$$
(32)
The numerical solution of $`a=0`$ yields the critical line of second order transitions, see Fig. 6. The tricritical point, separating first and second order phase transition, is determined by the more restrictive condition $`a=b=0`$. Table 1 presents some values of the tricritical point as a function of the parameter $`D`$.

The canonical thermodynamics in the case of a first-order transition is further illustrated in Fig. 7. Three branches of solutions (two stable and one unstable) exist from $`T=0`$ up to $`T=T^{}`$ where a saddle-node bifurcation occurs. The $`m=0`$ branch is stable at all temperatures, while the stable (upper branch in Fig. 7) and unstable (lower branch in Fig. 7) $`m0`$ solutions meet and collide at $`T=T^{}`$. Notice that this is at variance with the Blume-Emery-Griffiths model beg  (BEG), where the three branches do not extend down to zero temperature.

We have performed some simulations in the canonical ensemble to check this caloric curve. The results are in agreement with the theory and, as expected, display a marked metastability around the transition point (hysteretic effects). More specifically, three different initial conditions were adopted: (i) all $`q_i=0`$ (ii) all $`q_i=x_+`$ (iii) random distribution between $`q_i=0`$ and $`q_i=x_+`$. In all cases, the $`p_i`$ were initially chosen according to a random gaussian distribution. Some microcanonical data are reported in Fig. 7 for an initial condition of type (ii).

A peculiarity of this model appears in some region of the parameters, when one considers the caloric curves. Indeed one notes in Fig. 7a that the $`m=0`$ line (full) crosses the magnetized curve (dashed) to the left of $`T^{}`$, the temperature corresponding to the saddle node bifurcation shown in Fig. 7b. This leads to the impossibility of applying the usual Maxwell construction. However, this is not always the case and, for example, $`D=1`$, $`r=1.157>r_{tr}`$ leads to the usual features of a crossing to the right of $`T^{}`$. This confirms that in the interval $`r[r_{tr},1.157]`$, the mean field $`\varphi ^6`$ model has a narrow region of negative specific heat, where the transition will be first order in the canonical ensemble and second order in the microcanonical. Unfortunately, the points near $`T^{}`$ are extremely difficult to obtain because of numerical inaccuracies, and we are therefore unable to report a clear determination of negative specific heat. In conclusion, this model shows a scenario similar to the BEG model beg , in the case of a dynamical Hamiltonian. Meanwhile, similar results have been published for some extensions of the HMF model antorc .

## IV Conclusion

The Blume-Emery-Griffiths mean-field model was shown to be an excellent benchmark to discuss relations between canonical and microcanonical ensembles in long range interacting systems beg . Indeed, this model is exactly solvable in both ensembles and is, at the same time, sufficiently rich to display such interesting features as negative specific heat and temperature jumps in the microcanonical ensemble. However, it has no dynamics and only the thermodynamical behavior can be investigated. This is why we need to study models that displays all these interesting thermodynamical effects, but for which one would also dispose of an Hamiltonian dynamics. This point was already addressed in the framework of the HMF model and in particular in its two-dimensional version (see hmfspringer  for a review). Having access to dynamics, one can moreover study non equilibrium features.

The mean-field models that we have considered in this paper are exactly solvable in the canonical ensemble by a Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation. The data in the microcanonical ensemble were obtained using molecular dynamics simulations. We have shown that these models have first and second order phase transitions and tricritical points. Their phase diagram allows to test the presence of ensemble inequivalence near canonical first order phase transitions and we have also studied spontaneously generated out-of-equilibrium structures.

## Acknowledgement

We would like to warmly thank Arkady Pikovsky and David Mukamel for the helpful discussions which are at the origin of this study. This work has been partially supported by EU contract No. HPRN-CT-1999-00163 (LOCNET network), the Pôle Scientifique de Modélisation Numérique de l’ÉNS Lyon, and the Région Rhône-Alpes through the Bourse d’Acqueil nr. 00815559. This work is also part of the contract COFIN00 on Chaos and localization in classical and quantum mechanics.


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# Untitled Document

SWAT-TH/03-373

Paul Dirac and the pervasiveness of his thinking

Invited Lecture presented at the Dirac Centenary Conference, hosted by Baylor University, Texas; 30th September-2nd October 2002

David I Olive Physics Department, University of Wales Swansea, Swansea SA2 8PP, UK

I shall use a few personal reminiscences of my time as a student and colleague of Dirac in Cambridge to introduce some reflections on the nature of research in theoretical physics. I shall discuss and illustrate the approach of Dirac to his own research and the pervasiveness of the influence his example has provided.

I shall discuss how ideas produced at all stages of his career have proved to be extraordinarily visionary, still motivating and exerting an influence on research many years after his death. Examples include his celebrated equation and prediction of the existence of antiparticles, the magnetic monopole and its quantisation condition, the quantum theory of dynamical systems with constraints and the membrane theory of the electron.

I would like to start by expressing my gratitude to the organisers for inviting me to this fine conference commemorating one of the greatest figures in twentieth century physics. I have to admit that the first time I came across the name of Dirac was when, as a boy, I read a science fiction story about a spaceship powered by a “Dirac drive”. I was given the impression that the “inventor” of this was someone extraordinary but I did not then realise in what way. I have never been able to identify the author or title of this story subsequently.

Many years later, when I came to the University of Cambridge as an affiliated student to study for the mathematics tripos, chance would enroll me at St John’s College, where Dirac was a professorial fellow. By design, I attended the two lecture courses he gave in the academic year 1959-1960, quantum mechanics and advanced quantum mechanics. The next year I became a research student and yet later a research fellow and faculty member in DAMTP. So latterly, and for the four years up until his retirement in 1969, I became a colleague of Dirac, albeit a very junior one, and with little personal contact but enough to realise that the commonly accepted picture of him as pathologically shy and monosyllabic was untrue and unfair.

Like many others, I found his lectures to be a revelation, at last laying out the previously mysterious subject of quantum theory in a comprehensible way, with honesty, beauty and clarity. That year I started attending the weekly seminars in theoretical physics and one of the privileges was to see Dirac take his seat in the front row of the audience. Later, as the seminar progressed, he could often be seen gently lowering his forehead onto the desk in front of him. It was even whispered that he was out of touch with modern developments. To some extent this was true and I think that he was not interested in the analytic properties of the scattering matrix nor the group theoretic classification of particle states, topics which were then so much the centre of attention. Of course what he was doing was simply to follow his own ideas and his own sense of priorities which were illustrated by the subject matter of his advanced lecture course and by seminars he himself gave from time to time. Examples of the latter concerned “The bubble theory of the electron”, “A remarkable representation of the 3+2 de Sitter group” and “Quantum electrodynamics without dead wood”. The first two of these were not mainstream topics at the time but now we are able to see how prescient these interests were and how much he anticipated lines of research which were taken up thirty-five years later in the theory of superstrings and branes, a subject now very fashionable and acknowledged to be the most promising candidate for a truly unified theory. The third topic seemed reactionary but again has, to a large extent, been vindicated by later developments.

The research groups that made up DAMTP were housed together for the first time in 1967 or 1968 when premises between Silver Street and Mill Lane were vacated by the University Press, but Dirac was not assigned an office there as he apparently preferred to work at home. Nevertheless he made a point of attending the morning coffee break once a week in order to distribute preprints he had received and to update us on any relevant gossip. For example, I remember him breaking the tragic news of the death of the Swedish theoretical physicist Gunnar Källén in the crash of his own self-piloted plane.

The only time that I shared a meal with Dirac was at the Director’s table in the restaurant in ICTP in Trieste during a conference on “Renormalisation Theory” in August 1969. On that occasion he was rather communicative and keen to describe an interesting book that he was reading concerning the life and death of Napoleon (It may be relevant that Dirac’s family originated in the Charentes region of eastern France with only a few generations living in Switzerland before settling in England). He was particularly intrigued by the arsenic poisoning that led to Napoleon’s death in exile on the island of St Helena and the theory propounded by the book that this was part of a systematic plot on the part of someone. I have since heard of an alternative to this conspiracy theory whereby the arsenic can be traced to the Paris green dye in the fashionable wallpaper that still hangs in his bedroom there. This dye could not cope with the tropical climate and arsenic leached into the atmosphere.

These minor personal contacts that I had with Dirac indicate to me that he was willing to reveal a very human side to his character. In my experience as a young man at that time this was not so common amongst senior British academics.

I saw Dirac only once after the lunch in Trieste and I cannot resist mentioning this as the occasion was so strange. About ten years after the Trieste encounter I was eating in the restaurant of CERN, which, as you can imagine, was large and crowded, when suddenly at a distance Dirac appeared, unheralded and unannounced, (escorted by J Mehra), and just as suddenly disappeared.

Each year that he was in Cambridge, Dirac gave his lecture course on quantum mechanics based on topics selected from his book, occasionally supplemented by a more advanced course including the remaining topics and also his theory of constrained dynamical systems and their quantisation.

Since Dirac seemed to play little role in departmental affairs he could only exert an influence by example, the example of his exposition of quantum mechanics and that of his many research papers. In all this he demonstrated how it is possible to make every detail of an argument visible and clear in a well-balanced way. Pursuit of logic was a key factor. Followed ruthlessly it led Dirac to the most amazing conclusions and insights.

We all know that he put the finishing touches on the theory and formulation of quantum mechanics adding to its coherence. But more importantly this work provided the foundations for his pioneering work in taking the next steps beyond quantum mechanics to take into account the structure of space-time. He considered the effects of special relativity, what is vaguely called locality, general covariance and even some global topology. I shall not be able to describe his most celebrated achievement, the Dirac equation, what he liked to call “the relativistic wave equation for the electron”, \[Dirac 1928\] nor the subsequent prediction of antiparticles \[Dirac 1931\] (I have reviewed this aspect of Dirac’s work elsewhere \[Olive 1997\]). Nor shall I be able to say much about his procedure of “second quantisation” which relates the principles of quantum mechanics to the structure of space-time and establishes a correspondence between fields and particles \[Dirac 1927\]. But I do want to to say more about another way in which the notion of locality was developed and I shall do this later on.

There are many ideas about scientific method and the philosophy behind different approaches. The truth is that the success of a method will depend both on the subject matter and the particular scientific worker. It is also true that different methods work better at different stages in the development of the same subject.

Dirac pursued what might be called the aesthetic approach and in his later writing he emphasised the courage required for this sort of work, the courage to pursue an argument to its remorseless conclusion despite the fear that a sudden quirk could well spell disaster. This sort of work requires other qualities that he did not emphasise, for example, a searing honesty, that he so transparently did possess. Besides this, success also requires hard work and dedication, not to mention the sheer genius that no one can explain.

It has to be admitted that the idea of beauty as a criterion for scientific truth is fraught with danger as it can be too subjective and can easily fail in the wrong hands. But it is important to realise that the beauty concerned is not just a snapshot, it also has a quality of overall coherence which I think is important. In the hands of Einstein and Dirac and others the aesthetic approach led to the founding of the cornerstones of physics as known in the first half of the last century.

The initiation of a new era in physics in the middle of the last century was one of the side effects of World War II. Perhaps the main effect was in applied physics but fundamental physics was affected too. Previously, Einstein and Dirac had concentrated their thoughts on the electromagnetic and gravitational fields so important on the macroscopic level. But the frightful effectiveness of the atomic bomb made it clear, even to the general public, that there were other important fields in nature, namely those associated with the structure of the nuclei of atoms. Postwar, new particle accelerators were built to investigate this, and they provided a cornucopia of many, unexpected new elementary particles together with information concerning their properties. Now the aesthetic approach waned in importance as a more pragmatic approach was required to succeed in unravelling the patterns hidden in this data.

This process took about thirty-five years and in the early 1980’s culminated in what is called the “standard model”. This mundane title disguises the fact that this model synthesises a number of extraordinary features that I shall now briefly describe. The model is formulated in terms of a choice of a number of particles (or equivalently their corresponding fields) together with the specification of a system of the non-linear coupled partial differential equations of motion that these fields satisfy (or, more succinctly, by a Lagrangian).

The first surprise is the indirect nature of the good choice of ingredient particles and it is this that partly explains the length of the period of gestation. Neither the proton nor neutron nor any of the newly discovered post-war particles participate. Instead there are two classes in the choice, one augmenting the electron and the other the photon (the quantum of the electromagnetic field). These are the two particles most familiar to prewar physics. The electron class contains the neutrino and strongly interacting counterparts of the electrons called “quarks” out of which the proton and neutron can, in a sense, be constructed. The photon is augmented by other similar particles of unit spin, namely the three weak gauge particles $`W^\pm `$ and $`Z^0`$ and the eight colour gluons which couple to themselves and the quarks forming a subtheory called QCD (responsible for strong forces). Out of these extras only the electroweak gauge particles are observed directly (originally at CERN). The quarks are observed only indirectly (originally at SLAC) and the colour gluons even less directly. Actually there are two extra copies of the electron class (called generations) involving the muon and the tau-lepton respectively, together with extra neutrinos and quarks that occur as constituents of the particles that were discovered postwar. Another ingredient is a set of scalar particles, still being sought, whose fields (the Higgs’), unlike all the others, fail to vanish in the vacuum. The effect of this is what is called a “spontaneous breaking” of the gauge symmetry and a mechanism for providing mass in a natural way.

The second surprise was that, given the good choice of fundamental fields just described, the basic equations that they satisfy are found simply to be elaborations of the familiar equations of Maxwell and Dirac that were already known to describe electrodynamics. Indeed a treatment of this system of equations appears in later editions of Dirac’s text book on quantum mechanics and was included in the subject matter of his advanced lecture course.

Maybe, after all, it is possible to understand why Dirac used to lower his forehead ever so gently onto his desk. Unfortunately the death of Dirac roughly coincided with the acceptance of the standard model within the particle physics community. Judging by his later writings he remained unhappy with postwar developments in quantum electrodynamics and apparently unaware of the standard model and the extent to which it embodied ideas more familiar to him. But we do know that he was pleased with the idea of one of the important ingredients, the quark model of hadrons. In 1966 Murray Gell-Mann, its proposer, visited Cambridge in order to spend a few months as an Overseas Fellow at Churchill College. On his arrival he went to pay his respects to Dirac and returned reporting that Dirac was delighted to hear of the role his relativistic wave equation was likely to play in view of the fact that electrons and quarks have the same spin. In retrospect it is clear that the introduction of the quark model marked the turning point back towards the Maxwell-Dirac theory in the history of the development of the standard model. Yet neither it, nor the unified electro-weak gauge theory of a few years later, were met with automatic acceptance by the sceptical particle physics community. Indeed Werner Heisenberg, for example, was quite antagonistic to the quark model, presumably because of his own rival theory, the non-linear spinor theory. I remember being taken aback when he publically reprimanded me in June 1971 for trying to justify string theory as a relativistic version of the quark model. “The quark model is not physics” were his words.

Of course there is a lot of devil in the detail covered by the word “elaboration” used above with reference to the Maxwell-Dirac system of equations and I shall say something about it. But the fact remains that physics had turned full circle. The reason was that, underlying all the complexity of the particle accelerator data, is a remarkably simple underlying principle that had been known in its embryonic form since its enunciation in 1929. Despite this, it had initially met with enormous scepticism when proposed in the wider context of the postwar data. Of course, I am talking about “the gauge principle” a notion that exploits the idea of locality that I have already promised to explain.

Before doing this I want to say how the gauge principle applied to the standard model brings into play something new compared to the earlier version. This is a branch of pure mathematics that is tailor-made to describe all the details neatly and succinctly and is known as the theory of compact Lie groups and their representations. The particular Lie groups occurring in the standard model are straightforward matrix groups called $`U(2)`$ and $`SU(3)`$ referring to the electroweak and strong forces respectively. These groups are formed out of unitary matrices with two and three rows and columns and hence are continuous and have dimensions $`2\times 2=3+1`$ and $`3\times 31=8`$ respectively, equalling the number of gauge particles already mentioned when the photon is included. The quarks and leptons making up what was called the electron class in the explanation above likewise transform according to some natural representation of low dimension.

Thus all the data gathered at such expense and effort at particle accelerators around the world can be encapsulated by the gauge principle augmented by a few group theoretical rules. That is why the standard model is such an achievement. A plethora of ad hoc theories, four-fermi theory, Yukawa theory, isovector pion theory, flavour symmetry, V-A theory and so on, are all subsumed in, or superseded by one all encompassing model based on an aesthetic principle. The power of this revolution is that the evidence is provided by data produced by sceptics, namely the “hard-nosed” experimental physicists who have no truck with “airy-fairy” ideas such as the gauge principle.

It is important to realise that the principles of quantum mechanics and relativity remain intact and indeed are elevated to a larger range of validity whilst a new principle is included. The challenge emerges of finding an underlying explanation of the new picture with its rules and in developing the underlying principles further. Maybe even gravity can be incorporated. This pursuit is roughly known as “beyond the standard model” and it sets the stage for more aesthetic considerations and a renaissance of so many of Dirac’s pioneering ideas.

In order to introduce the work in which Dirac, with possibly his greatest stroke of genius, saw how to exploit the gauge principle to disclose aspects of quantum electrodynamics that still tantalise seventy years later, I shall recall the beginning of the story of quantum mechanics. It started with the radical proposal of Planck, clarified by Einstein, that the energy, $`E`$, of electromagnetic radiation of a given discrete angular frequency, $`\omega `$, occurred in quanta:

$$E=n\mathrm{}\omega ,n=0,1,2,3,4\mathrm{}$$

where $`\mathrm{}`$ is Planck’s constant. It took almost thirty years of research to formulate principles of quantum mechanics sufficently well that this result could be derived by applying these principles to Maxwell’s equations which were known to describe the radiation. Dirac was one of those who helped achieve this with his theory of second quantisation \[Dirac 1927\].

An obvious follow-up strategy was to survey natural phenomena and try to identify similar patterns of integer quantisation. One striking example was provided by the values of the electric charges, $`q`$, of the particles known to make up atoms. They were observed to follow an analogous rule:

$$q=nq_0,n=0,\pm 1,\pm 2,\pm 3,\mathrm{}$$
$`(1)`$
This rule explains why an atom in its natural un-ionised state is electrically neutral, a fact that is important for the stability of massive objects such as planets. But it is difficult to explain this result in terms of the principles of quantum mechanics alone since it is difficult to imagine a classical system in which electric charge is a dynamical variable in the way that the energy of radiation, in Planck’s relation above, is. So what could explain this pattern, whose validity survives the discovery of all the new post World War II particles, and is, in fact, still the most striking feature of particle physics? Dirac found an answer in 1931 and it brought into play not one but two new ideas outside the framework of quantum mechanics, one of which was the gauge principle \[Dirac 1931\]. But it also brought a disappointment that continues to haunt theoretical particle physics today.

Now I come to explain what the gauge principle is, and something of the idea of locality. I have deferred this until I can no longer avoid introducing equations and formulae and I apologise in advance for this.

According to Schrödinger’s wave mechanical formulation of quantum theory, any electrically charged particle, such as an electron, possesses a wave function $`\psi (x)`$ that takes complex values. The argument $`x`$ denotes the space-time point at which the wave function is evaluated.

The wave function determines what is called the state of the electron, namely the totality of physical attributes that can be measured, but an awkward feature is that different (normalised) wave functions correspond to the same state if they differ by an overall phase factor, $`e^{i\varphi }`$, that is independent of the space-time point, $`x`$. Thus, briefly, nothing physical is changed by the substitution:

$$\psi (x)e^{i\varphi }\psi (x),\varphi \text{ constant.}$$

This feature is more disquieting when one remembers that, according to special relativity, no information signal can travel faster than the speed of light which is finite. So, if $`x`$ and $`y`$ are two distinct space-time points at the same time, there is no way that an observer at $`x`$ could know that the phase of the wave function had been altered at $`y`$. This consideration suggests that it would be more reasonable to require that the phase change in the substitution above could be allowed to vary over space-time:

$$\psi (x)e^{\frac{iq}{\mathrm{}}\chi (x)}\psi (x).$$
$`(2)`$
So the phase change $`q\chi (x)/\mathrm{}`$ now varies over space-time and so is said to be local. $`q`$ is the electric charge carried by the particle whose wave function is $`\psi (x)`$ and $`\mathrm{}`$ is Planck’s constant, both inserted for convenience later on. The gauge principle states that all physical quantities should be unaltered by the substitution (2), which is the gauge transformation of the wave function. As we shall see, an awkward feature of wave mechanics has been converted into a new principle, in fact the most powerful principle of the latter half of the 20th century as far as particle theory is concerned.

Now the wave function has to satisfy some sort of evolution equation (such as the Schrödinger equation) involving its derivatives $`_\mu \psi =\frac{\psi }{x^\mu }`$ with respect to the coordinates $`x^\mu `$ of the space-time point. According to the gauge principle, this equation has to have the property that if $`\psi `$ is a solution, then so is $`e^{\frac{iq}{\mathrm{}}\chi }\psi `$, whatever the function $`\chi (x)`$. This requires $`_\mu \psi `$ to transform in the same way that $`\psi `$ does, as given by (2). This is impossible unless the notion of derivative is modified and replaced by what is called a “covariant derivative”:

$$D_\mu \psi =_\mu \psi \frac{iq}{\mathrm{}}A_\mu \psi $$

with the understanding that in the evolution equation $`_\mu \psi `$ always appears accompanied by $`A_\mu `$ in this combination. To understand the meaning of the newly introduced quantity $`A_\mu `$ it is necessary to see how it “gauge transforms”. Since we have found that the substitution (2) has to be accompanied by

$$D_\mu \psi e^{\frac{iq}{\mathrm{}}\chi (x)}D_\mu \psi (x)$$

a small calculation reveals that

$$A_\mu A_\mu +_\mu \chi ,$$
$`(3)`$
the “gauge transformation” of $`A_\mu `$. Notice that this equation, (3), has the property of being universal in the sense that it is independent of $`q`$, the electric charge of the particle initially considered. In other words, the argument works for an array of particles with different electric charges, even if they do not satisfy the quantisation condition (1).

Notice also that the “curl” of $`A_\mu `$ is unaltered by the gauge transformation (3):

$$F_{\mu \nu }_\mu A_\nu _\nu A_\mu F_{\mu \nu },$$
$`(4)`$
as $`\chi `$ cancels out, by virtue of the irrelevance of the order of differentiation with respect to independent space-time variables. These final equations are very reminiscent of Einstein’s relativistic expression for the electromagnetic field tensor incorporating both the electric and magnetic fields. In fact it can be identified as precisely this. Then it follows that $`A_\mu `$ is simply what is known as the gauge four-potential (composed of scalar and vector potentials). In fact the above gauge ambiguity (3) specified by $`\chi `$ was well recognised in the context of Maxwell’s equations before the time of Planck’s proposal of quanta in 1900.

The identification of $`F_{\mu \nu }`$ defined this way as the Einstein-Maxwell electromagnetic field strength tensor implies that the physical existence of this field is an inevitable consequence of the gauge principle, the idea that physics is unaffected by the local change of phase of wave functions given by (2). Furthermore the structure of the covariant derivative above determines how this field couples to any wave function and yields consequences perfectly consistent with all that was known previously.

All of this argument works equally well in curved space-time. The result endows the electromagnetic field with a new, geometrical significance that elevates it to become on a par with the gravitational field whose geometric meaning was found so famously by Einstein. The definitive version of this argument was found in 1929 by Hermann Weyl , better known as a pure mathematician. More information about the genesis of the gauge principle, including the non-abelian version can be found in the recent book by O’Raifeartaigh . This also includes a translation into English of the paper by Hermann Weyl just mentioned. Dirac was very quick to exploit the ideas in a way that was competely novel, bringing into play ideas of topology for the first time in physics.

But first I want to explain how an extension of the gauge principle yields one of the basic ingredients of the standard model. Two successive gauge transformations (2) can be combined to yield a third at each point $`x`$ of space-time

$$e^{\frac{iq}{\mathrm{}}\chi _1(x)}e^{\frac{iq}{\mathrm{}}\chi _2(x)}=e^{\frac{iq}{\mathrm{}}(\chi _1(x)+\chi _2(x))}.$$

This means that the transformations at any point form what is called a group, in this case the group of phase factors, usually denoted $`U(1)`$ (unitary matrices with one row and column). This particular group is abelian, that is the order of multiplication above does not matter, as is evident from the formula.

If one considers an array of particles, for example quarks and leptons, their wave functions can be arranged as a column vector with $`N`$ complex entries, say. A natural way to consider of extending (2) to this situation would be the following:

$$\left(\begin{array}{c}\psi _1(x)\\ \psi _2(x)\\ \psi _3(x)\\ .\\ .\\ \psi _N(x)\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{cccccc}D_{11}& D_{12}& D_{13}& .& .& D_{1N}\\ D_{21}& D_{22}& D_{23}& .& .& D_{2N}\\ D_{31}& D_{32}& D_{33}& .& .& D_{3N}\\ .& .& .& .& .& .\\ .& .& .& .& .& .\\ D_{N1}& D_{N2}& D_{N3}& .& .& D_{NN}\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}\psi _1(x)\\ \psi _2(x)\\ \psi _3(x)\\ .\\ .\\ \psi _N(x)\end{array}\right)$$

that is, to premultiply the column vector by a square matrix with $`N`$ rows and columns and complex entries each dependent on the space-time point $`x`$. To preserve the total probability density this matrix should be unitary. Such substitutions again combine successively to form similar substitutions and so form a group at each point of space-time. As the order of multiplication now matters very much, the group is said to be non-abelian. The particular group formed in this way out of unitary matrices is called $`U(N)`$. If the determinants are constrained to equal unity a subgroup called $`SU(N)`$ results. These are examples of compact Lie groups and all other possibilities can be listed. But the examples just mentioned with $`N`$ taking the values $`2`$ and $`3`$ respectively suffice for the standard model.

One of the “devils in the detail” that I mentioned earlier is the non-abelian nature of these groups. The argument above leading to the gauge theory can be repeated and the field strength is found to be no longer linear in the gauge potential, as in (4), since additional quadratic terms occur. These mean that the equations of motion are now non-linear and so when, considered classically, possess unexpected solutions of a soliton character. The process of quantisation is made more difficult and this is one of the problems with which Dirac was preoccupied later in his career. The theory of constraints covered in his advanced lecture course was designed to aid the quantisation of theories with gauge symmetry and was taken up successfully by later workers.

The purpose of my digression into the standard model, which was probably the main achievement of the second half of the last century, was to make clear the importance within it of the gauge principle. In fact, this is pervasive in all modern thinking. Dirac used only the abelian, $`U(1)`$, version, first enunciated in 1929, by Hermann Weyl. Within two years Dirac had succeeded in exploiting it in the totally unexpected way that I shall now explain.

When the motion of an electrically charged particle is treated, ignoring quantum mechanics, it obeys Newton’s equation of motion in a form including the Lorenz force describing the effect of the electric and magnetic fields. This means that this equation, as well as the Maxwell equations, involves the field strength $`F_{\mu \nu }`$ directly without any independent appearance of the gauge potentials $`A_\mu `$. This situation does not change if a natural modification is made to include particles carrying a magnetic charge. Indeed there appears to be a symmetry with respect to the exchange of the roles of the electric and magnetic charges which is respected by the equations.

But the situation changes when quantum mechanics is introduced because of the way the gauge potentials explicitly enter the covariant derivative of the wave function of the electrically charged particle, as explained above. Thus gauge potentials are needed to determine the evolution of the wave function and this makes it look as if quantum mechanics is inconsistent with the presence of particles with non-zero magnetic charge, $`g`$. The reason is that the flux of magnetic field $`\underset{¯}{B}`$ through any surface, say a two-dimensional sphere, $`S_2`$, surrounding a magnetic particle is

$$_{S_2}\underset{¯}{B}.\underset{¯}{dS}=g.$$

On the sphere, $`S_2`$, $`.\underset{¯}{B}`$ vanishes as the magnetic charge is concentrated at one point, the position of the magnetically charged particle at its centre. This vanishing of $`.\underset{¯}{B}`$ is necessary for the integrability of the equation $`\underset{¯}{B}=\underset{¯}{A}`$, a special case of (4) with $`\underset{¯}{A}`$ denoting the vector potential, part of $`A_\mu `$. But if this vector potential can be found all over the sphere then Stokes’ theorem implies that $`g`$ vanishes. Dirac realised that this argument was wrong in a very subtle way. Instead of predicting $`g=0`$, he found that

$$qg=2\pi n\mathrm{},n=0,\pm 1,\pm 2\pm 3\mathrm{},$$
$`(5)`$
for $`q`$ being any electric charge and $`g`$ any magnetic charge. So long as a particle with non-zero magnetic charge $`g`$ exists in nature, this value can be divided out of equation (5) to yield equation (1), the quantisation condition for electric charge which very much agrees with observation. The attractiveness of this result evidently excited Dirac, but as he was aware, the price is the required existence of a magnetically charged particle. The repeated failure to observe isolated magnetic charge is what still haunts the study of this subject.

In the seventy years since Dirac derived his quantisation condition (5) there has been a minor industry in refining his argument to take account of notions developed later in pure mathematics. I shall present the treatment of Wu and Yang .

It is the first part of the argument that brings topological ideas into play. Divide the sphere surrounding the magnetic charge into two hemispheres, north and south, which join on the equator. Unlike the sphere itself, each hemisphere has the property that it can be distorted continuously to its appropriate pole, north or south, without tearing. This means that it is valid to integrate the equation $`\underset{¯}{B}=\underset{¯}{A}`$ to obtain the vector potential $`\underset{¯}{A}`$ separately in each hemisphere, $`\underset{¯}{A}^{\text{ }\text{NORTH}}`$ and $`\underset{¯}{A}^{\text{ }\text{SOUTH}}`$, respectively, even though this cannot be done for the sphere as a whole unless $`g`$ vanishes, as we saw. It follows that the two vector potentials $`\underset{¯}{A}^{\text{ }\text{NORTH}}`$ and $`\underset{¯}{A}^{\text{ }\text{SOUTH}}`$ must differ on the equator despite the fact $`\underset{¯}{A}^{\text{ }\text{NORTH}}`$ and $`\underset{¯}{A}^{\text{ }\text{SOUTH}}`$ coincide there, both equalling the magnetic field which is well defined all over the sphere, since it is a physically observable quantity. This means that $`\underset{¯}{A}^{\text{ }\text{NORTH}}`$ and $`\underset{¯}{A}^{\text{ }\text{SOUTH}}`$ are related on the equator by a gauge transformation (3) which reads, in the present notation,

$$\underset{¯}{A}^{\text{ }\text{NORTH}}=\underset{¯}{A}^{\text{ }\text{SOUTH}}+\chi .$$

The magnetic charge equals the sum of the magnetic fluxes out of the two hemispheres and each of these can be evaluated using Stokes’ theorem for each hemisphere. Each contribution is an integral of the appropriate gauge potential, northern or southern, over the boundary of the hemisphere which is, in both cases, the equator. In these integrals the equator has to have a definite sense and these must be relatively opposite since the sphere has no boundary, being a closed surface. Accordingly

$$g=_{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{\text{NORTHERN}}{\text{HEMISPHERE}}}\underset{¯}{B}.\underset{¯}{dS}+_{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{\text{SOUTHERN}}{\text{HEMISPHERE}}}\underset{¯}{B}.\underset{¯}{dS}$$

$$=_{\text{EQUATOR}}(\underset{¯}{A}^{\text{ }\text{NORTH}}\underset{¯}{A}^{\text{ }\text{SOUTH}}).\underset{¯}{dx}=_{\text{EQUATOR}}\chi .\underset{¯}{dx}=\mathrm{\Delta }\chi $$

using the gauge transformation and an integration by parts. Thus the magnetic charge, $`g`$, equals the jump, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi `$, in the value of the gauge function, $`\chi `$, as the equator is encircled once.

The usefulness of this relation is enhanced when quantum mechanics is brought into play. Like the gauge potentials, the wave functions can be defined on each hemisphere separately but not all over the sphere at once. On the equator they must differ by a gauge transformation (2), and, in order to tally with the connection between the two gauge potentials above,

$$\psi ^{\text{ }\text{NORTH}}(x)=e^{\frac{iq}{\mathrm{}}\chi (x)}\psi ^{\text{ }\text{SOUTH}}(x)$$

As each wave function is single valued in its own hemisphere, both are single-valued on the equator and it follows that the same also applies to the phase factor $`e^{\frac{iq}{\mathrm{}}\chi (x)}`$. Thus $`e^{\frac{iq}{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{\Delta }\chi }`$ equals unity and this reduces to Dirac’s quantisation condition (5), when combined with the result above that $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi =g`$.

The nature of the subtle extra ingredient supplied by Dirac, beyond quantum mechanics and the gauge principle involves ideas of what is now known as topology. In particular Dirac’s ideas bring into play global topology which is the antithesis of locality, involving the structure of spaces in the large rather than in the small. The mathematical subject of topology was in a rather primitive state in 1931 but has blossomed since then. With hindsight it can now be seen that in 1931 Dirac had anticipated ideas of de Rham cohomology, Hodge theory, fibre bundle theory and characteristic classes. I believe that Dirac was on friendly terms with his near contemporary, William Hodge, in the Cambridge of the 1930’s. Much later Hodge had a student, Atiyah, who was to discover remarkable connections between the Dirac equation and topology that have become an important part of modern quantum field theory. Indeed topological ideas now permeate that subject and even more modern string theory. This episode illustrates the relationship of Dirac’s thinking to pure mathematics. Although his mathematical thought was abstract and extremely effective, he seemed to dislike formalism per se, and it seems to me that the best description of his approach to pure mathematics was that it was very DIY, that is “do-it-yourself”.

I mentioned that the classical theory of particles carrying electric or magnetic charge possessed a formal symmetry with respect to the interchange of the electric and magnetic fields accompanied by a similar interchange of the two charges. The foregoing quantum argument seems to break the symmetry because of the preferred status of the electrically charged particles which are assigned wave functions while the magnetically charged particles are not, being treated as point objects. Despite this, the final result, Dirac’s quantisation condition, (5), does respect the symmetry with respect to interchange.

This prompts an interesting question as to whether a more complete theory, containing information concerning the structure and mass of these charged particles could also respect the symmetry. The advent of the standard model, or rather an extension known as a grand unified model, provides an arena in which an affirmative answer is possible.

Just as quantum electrodynamics is embedded as a subtheory in the standard model, so is the latter embedded in a grand unified model, namely a gauge theory with a simple Lie group as gauge group, $`G_{GUT}`$, and hence fewer free parameters. Corresponding to this the relevant gauge groups are embedded in each other

$$U(1)_Q\text{}U(2)\times SU(3)\text{}G_{GUT}.$$

$`Q`$ is the generator of the electromagnetic gauge group, $`U(1)`$, and hence automatically a generator of the Lie algebra of the grand unified Lie group. This fact has an important consequence: it can explain the quantisation of electric charge (1), apparently avoiding any need for magnetic charge. Indeed this was one of the original motives for considering such theories.

But it is necessary to ask how the direction of the electric charge is chosen out of the vector space of all directions in the Lie algebra of the grand unified group. The answer is that it is chosen by a special sort of Lorentz scalar field that fails to vanish in the vacuum, unlike the other fields. This is known as a “Higgs” field, and examples are already needed for other side-effects such as the provision of mass for the three weak gauge particles and the quarks whilst preserving full gauge invariance of the equations of motion.

When combined with the non-linearities of the generalised Maxwell equations, another effect of the Higgs field is the production of unexpected classical solutions, called solitons, that behave like stable, extended particles carrying magnetic charge, as ’t Hooft  and Polyakov  independently demonstrated. Thus a theory such as this, with electric charge quantisation inbuilt, automatically produces magnetically charged particle states. Furthermore, Dirac’s quantisation condition (5) is seen to hold, arising in a way that has to to with the topology of the map provided by the Higgs field. Thus the survival of Dirac’s argument in a modern context demonstrates its pervasiveness.

In special cases at least, such as when $`G_{GUT}SO(3)`$, the forementioned interchange symmetry between electric and magnetic charge does hold good, even when account is taken of expressions for the particle masses yielded by the Higgs effect \[Montonen and Olive 1978\]. As the single particle states satisfy the Dirac quantisation condition (5) with $`n=2`$, this interchange reduces to

$$qg=\frac{4\pi \mathrm{}}{q},$$
$`(6)`$
and is now manifestly quantum in nature. More remarkably there exist an infinite number of distinct, stable, single particle states carrying both electric and magnetic charge, and called “dyons” as a consequence. The theory exhibits a symmetry when these are permuted suitably. At the same time a new dimensionless parameter $`\theta `$ enters in addition to the fine structure constant $`\alpha =\frac{q^2}{4\pi \mathrm{}}`$ and it turns out to be useful to unify the two by defining the following complex parameter:

$$\tau =\frac{\theta }{2\pi }+\frac{i}{\alpha }.$$
$`(7)`$
It can be shown \[Sen 1994\] that the allowed permutations of dyonic particle states have the effect

$$\tau \frac{a\tau +b}{c\tau +d},a,b,c,d\text{ integers, }adbc=1.$$
$`(8)`$
These fractional linear transformations form an infinite discrete group called the modular group, first studied by pure mathematicians in the 19th century. They realised that it had the important property of maintaining the positivity of the imaginary part of $`\tau `$, physically the inverse of the fine structure constant according to expression (7), and so intrinsically positive.

To understand the transformations (8), first note that when $`\theta =0`$ the transformation $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}a& b\\ c& d\end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& 1\\ 1& \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}\hspace{0.17em}0}\end{array}\right)`$ yields the original interchange (6), whilst $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}a& b\\ c& d\end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}1& 1\\ 0& 1\end{array}\right)`$ simply increases $`\theta `$ by $`2\pi `$, signifying that it is an angular variable as the notation suggests. Repetition of these two transformations yields all of the modular group.

According to the ideas of perturbation theory, it is possible to make good approximate calculations when the fine structure constant $`\alpha `$ is small but not otherwise. So the behaviour of the theory when $`\alpha `$ is large is considered inaccessible. But the transformation (6) interchanges large and small values of $`\alpha `$ and so relates the unknown to the calculable. At first sight this is difficult to believe but a fair number of checks have confirmed the plausibility of this idea and it has become a matter of faith in much current research.

Another advantageous special condition on the spontaneously broken gauge theory is that it should display supersymmetry and this is easy to arrange. One consequence is that many of the divergences that troubled Dirac automatically cancel. Furthermore superstring theory contains such theories as a limiting case and, as a result, the ideas extend rather naturally to that framework. Making all that I have said more precise, watertight and wide-ranging is now a major priority in current research.

The influential, or even, prophetic nature of Dirac’s thinking is apparent in the above story. There are also examples in his later work that turned out to be likewise prophetic and/or influential. He was the first to advocate use of expressions in quantum electrodynamics that are akin to what are now called Wilson loops \[Dirac 1955b\]. In his bubble theory of the electron \[Dirac 1962\] he anticipated the Nambu-Goto action for the string and the later membrane action relevant to M-theory. His wave-front approach to quantum field theory \[Dirac 1949\] introduced the light-cone quantisation procedure applied so often subsequently. His analysis of the equal-time commutation relations of the energy-momentum tensor \[Dirac 1955a\] blossomed into the conformal field theory treatment of the critical exponents in the theory of second order phase transitions. During the 1950’s and 1960’s one major preoccupation of Dirac was the quantisation of constrained dynamical sytems as a step towards the quantisation of systems with gauge symmetry such as Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Although the latter problem remains unsolved, his methods have proved valuable in the context of non-abelian gauge theories and hence in the standard model \[Dirac 1950\]. As I mentioned earlier he lectured on this subject in Cambridge and also wrote a book, newly republished \[Dirac 1964\]. The study of the strange representation of the anti-de-Sitter group \[Dirac 1963\] has burgeoned into the study of the metaplectic representation and something called Howe duality, quite possibly related to the electromagnetic duality explained above.

I have tried to explain briefly the pervasiveness of Dirac’s thought in modern theoretical physics by a few examples and, in particular, by reference to the development of the standard model and the era that followed. The latter example also illustrates the impact of the role played by Hermann Weyl, famous as a pure mathematician, but less recognised as a theoretical physicist.

Perspectives on the status of past scientific contributions are liable to change in the light of improvements in our own understanding following from general progress in the subject. I believe that the new perspective gained since the establishment of the standard model has enhanced Dirac’s reputation. Granted that he was one of the towering figures behind the development of quantum theory and relativistic quantum field theory, we can now see how his other ideas that were initially less appreciated are finally achieving similar degrees of appreciation and recognition for their ingenuity, correctness and relevance.

Finally I would like to thank Bruce Gordon for organising such a pleasant meeting.

References

P. A. M. Dirac, “The quantum theory of the emission and absorption of radiation”, Proc. Roy. Soc. London A 114 (1927) 243-265.

P. A. M. Dirac, “The quantum theory of the electron”, Proc. Roy. Soc. London A 117 (1928) 610-624.

P. A. M. Dirac, “Quantised singularities in the electromagnetic field”, Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. A133 (1931) 60-72.

P. A. M. Dirac, “Forms Of Relativistic Dynamics,” Rev. Mod. Phys. 21 (1949) 392-399.

P. A. M. Dirac, “Generalized Hamiltonian Dynamics,” Can. Journ. Math. 2 (1950) 129-148 and Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. A 246 (1958) 326.

P. A. M. Dirac, “The stress tensor in field dynamics”, Nuovo Cim. (10) 1 (1955) 16-36.

P. A. M. Dirac, “Gauge Invariant Formulation Of Quantum Electrodynamics,” Can. J. Phys. 33 (1955) 650-660.

P. A. M. Dirac, “An Extensible Model Of The Electron,” Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. A 268 (1962) 57-67.

P. A. M. Dirac, “A Remarkable Representation Of The 3+2 De Sitter Group,” J. Math. Phys. 4, (1963) 901-909.

P. A. M. Dirac, “Lectures on Quantum mechanics”, Belfer Graduate School of Science, Yeshiva Univ, 1964 and Dover 2001.

G. ’t Hooft, “Magnetic Monopoles In Unified Gauge Theories,” Nucl. Phys. B 79 (1974) 276-284.

C. Montonen and D. Olive, “Magnetic Monopoles As Gauge Particles?,” Phys. Lett. B 72 (1977) 117-120.

D. I. Olive,“The relativistic electron” in “Electron, a centenary volume”, edited by M. Springford, CUP 1997.

L. O’Raifeartaigh, “The dawning of the gauge principle”, Princeton 1997.

A. M. Polyakov, “Particle Spectrum In Quantum Field Theory,” JETP Lett. 20 (1974) 194-195 \[Pisma Zh. Eksp. Teor. Fiz. 20 (1974) 430\].

A. Sen, “Dyon-monopole bound states, self-dual harmonic forms on the multi-monopole moduli space, and $`SL(2,Z)`$ invariance in string theory”, Phys. Lett. B329 (1994), 217-221.

H. Weyl, Z. Physik 56 (1929) 56.

T. T. Wu and C. N. Yang, “Concept of non-integrable phase factors and global formulation of gauge fields”, Phys. Rev. D12 (1975) 3845-3857.


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# Untitled Document

Some Unsettled Questions in the Problem of Neutrino Oscillations. Remarks About the Majorana Neutrino Oscillations

Beshtoev Kh. M.

Joint Inst. for Nucl. Research., Joliot Curie 6, 141980 Dubna,Moscow region, Russia; Inst. of Appl. Math. and Autom. of the Kabardino-Balkarian Scientific Center of RAC, Shortanova 89a, 360017 Nalchik, Russia

Abstract

It is shown that we cannot put Majorana neutrinos in the standard Dirac theory without violation of the gauge invariance. Experiments on $`\nu _ll(l=e,\mu ,\tau )`$ transitions do not confirm this supposition. It means that on neutrino oscillation experiments, the Majorana neutrino oscillations cannot be observed.

1. Introduction

At present, it is supposed  that the neutrino oscillations can be connected to Majorana neutrino oscillations. This idea is based on suggestion that the neutrinos are the Majorana ones i.e. that the standard weak interactions theory includes only these neutrinos. Let us come to proof that it leads to contradictions in the theory and is not confirmed on experiments.

2. Majorana Neutrino Oscillations

Majorana fermion in Dirac representation has the following form :

$$\chi ^M=\frac{1}{2}\left[\mathrm{\Psi }\left(x\right)+\eta _C\mathrm{\Psi }^C\left(x\right)\right],$$
$`\left(1\right)`$
$$\mathrm{\Psi }^C\left(x\right)\eta _CC\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}^T\left(x\right),$$

where $`\eta _C`$ is a phase, $`C`$ is a charge conjunction, $`T`$ is a transposition.

From Exp. (1) we see that Majorana fermion $`\chi ^M`$ has two spin projections $`\pm \frac{1}{2}`$; and then the Majorana spinor can be rewritten in the following form:

$$\chi ^M\left(x\right)=\left(\begin{array}{c}\chi _{+\frac{1}{2}}\left(x\right)\\ \chi _{\frac{1}{2}}\left(x\right)\end{array}\right).$$
$`\left(2\right)`$
The mass Lagrangian of Majorana neutrinos in the case of two neutrinos $`\chi _e,\chi _\mu `$ ($`\frac{1}{2}`$ components of Majorana neutrinos and $`\overline{\chi }_{\mathrm{}}`$ are the same Majorana fermion with the opposite spin projection) in the common case has the following form:

$$\begin{array}{c}_M^{^{}}=\frac{1}{2}(\overline{\chi }_e,\overline{\chi }_\mu )\left(\begin{array}{cc}m_{\chi _e}& m_{\chi _e\chi _\mu }\\ m_{\chi _\mu \chi _e}& m_{\chi _\mu }\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}\chi _e\\ \chi _\mu \end{array}\right)\end{array}.$$
$`\left(3\right)`$
By diagonalizing this mass matrix by standard methods, one obtains the following expression:

$$\begin{array}{c}_M^{^{}}=\frac{1}{2}(\overline{\nu }_1,\overline{\nu }_2)\left(\begin{array}{cc}m_{\nu _1}& 0\\ 0& m_{\nu _2}\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}\nu _1\\ \nu _2\end{array}\right)\end{array},\begin{array}{cc}\nu _1=& cos\theta \chi _esin\theta \chi _\mu \\ \nu _2=& sin\theta \chi _e+cos\theta \chi _\mu \end{array}.$$
$`\left(4\right)`$
These neutrino oscillations are described by standard expressions (see .

The standard theory of weak interactions is constructed on the base of local gauge invariance of Dirac fermions. In this case, Dirac fermions have the following lepton numbers $`l_{l,}`$ which are conserved, $`l_l,l=e,\mu ,\tau ,`$ and Dirac antiparticles have lepton numbers with the opposite sign $`\overline{l}=l_l`$.

Gauge transformation of Majorana fermions can be written in the following form:

$$\chi _{}^{}{}_{+\frac{1}{2}}{}^{}\left(x\right)=exp\left(i\beta \right)\chi _{+\frac{1}{2}}\left(x\right),\chi _{}^{}{}_{\frac{1}{2}}{}^{}\left(x\right)=exp\left(+i\beta \right)\chi _{\frac{1}{2}}\left(x\right).$$
$`\left(5\right)`$
Then, lepton numbers of Majorana fermions are

$$l^M=\underset{i}{}l_i^M\left(+1/2\right)=\underset{i}{}l_i^M\left(1/2\right),$$
$`\left(6\right)`$
i. e., antiparticle of Majorana fermion is the same fermion with the opposite spin projection.

Now, we come to discussion of the problem of the place of Majorana fermion in the standard theory of weak interactions .

In order to construct the standard theory of weak interactions , Dirac fermions are used. In this theory, the fermions are present as doublets. The local current $`j^{\mu i}`$ of the weak interaction has the following form:

$$j^{\mu i}=\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_L\tau ^i\gamma ^\mu \mathrm{\Psi }_L,$$
$`\left(7\right)`$
where $`\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}_L,\mathrm{\Psi }_L`$ are lepton doublets

$$\left(\begin{array}{c}e\\ \nu _e\end{array}\right)_{iL}i=13,$$
$`\left(8\right)`$
where $`i`$ is flavor number of leptons. If we consider the process transition of neutrino to corresponding lepton, we will get the following reaction:

$$\nu _l+A\left(Z\right)l^{}+A\left(Z+1\right)$$
$`\left(9\right)`$
The absence of contradictions in this theory with the experimental data (see ) confirms that all fermions are Dirac particles.

Now, if we want to put the Majorana fermions into the standard theory, we must take into account that, in the common case, the gauge charges of the Dirac and Majorana fermions are different (especially well it is seen in the example of Dirac fermion having an electrical charge since it cannot have a Majorana charge) . In this case we cannot just include Majorana fermions in the standard theory of weak interactions by gauge invariance manner. Then, in the standard theory the Majorana fermions cannot appear.

In spite of above arguments, if we put Majorana neutrinos in the standard theory; then on experiments we must see the following reactions:

$$\chi _l+A\left(Z\right)l^{}+A\left(Z+1\right)$$

with relative probability 1/2 and

$$\chi _l+A\left(Z\right)l^++A\left(Z1\right)$$

with the same relative probability (where $`x=e,\mu ,\tau `$), since Majorana neutrinos are superpositions of Dirac neutrinos and antineutrinos. Obviously, all the available experimental data  do not confirm this predictions; therefore we cannot consider this mechanism as a realistic one for neutrino oscillations.

3. Conclusion

It was shown that we cannot put Majorana neutrinos in the standard Dirac theory without violation of the gauge invariance. Experiments on $`\nu _ll(l=e,\mu ,\tau )`$ transitions do not confirm this supposition. It means that on neutrino oscillation experiments the Majorana neutrino oscillations cannot be observed.

References

1. Bilenky S.M., Pontecorvo B.M., Phys. Rep., C41(1978)225;

Boehm F., Vogel P., Physics of Massive Neutrinos: Cambridge

Univ. Press, 1987, p.27, p.121;

Bilenky S.M., Petcov S.T., Rev. of Mod. Phys., 1977, v.59, p.631.

2. C. Gonzalez-Garcia 31-st ICHEP, Amsterdam, July 2002.

3. Rosen S.P., Lectore Notes on Mass Matrices, LASL preprint, 1983.

4. Beshtoev Kh.M., JINR Communication D2-2001-292, Dubna, 2001;

5. Beshtoev Kh.M., Internet Publ. hep-ph/0103274.

6. Beshtoev Kh.M., JINR Commun. E2-92-195, Dubna, 1992.

7. Glashow S.L.- Nucl. Phys., 1961, vol.22, p.579 ;

Weinberg S.- Phys. Rev. Lett., 1967, vol.19, p.1264 ;

Salam A.- Proc. of the 8th Nobel Symp., edited by N. Svarthholm

(Almgvist and Wiksell, Stockholm) 1968, p.367.

8. Phys. Rev D66, N1, 2002, Review of Particle Physics.