text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The very concept of elementary particle seems to be not sufficiently well stated in undergraduate physics books. In most cases they are mentioned as the bricks with which matter can be built. But, if they are so simple objects it is important to establish the theoretical difference between them and other small objects which are not considered as elementary. One of the goals of this work is to introduce some simple ideas which shed light about a theoretical concept of elementary particle and how these ideas lead to their classical and quantum mechanical description.

We know that matter is formed by smaller and smaller units which can be divided again and again into smaller pieces. This process can be continued until we hypothetically reach what the Greeks called an atom, the indivisible unit of matter. Today we call this last division of matter an elementary particle. Elementary particles should be thus the building blocks with which all material systems can be formed.

Leptons and quarks are the basic elementary particles in the standard model picture. They all have, as intrinsic properties, mass, spin 1/2, electric charge and several other quantum numbers with some exotic names as baryon and lepton number, isotopic spin, strangeness, beauty and others. Together the intermediate spin 1 bosons, which carry the interactions between them, we have a collection of, charged and uncharged, spinning objects. It seems that there are no spinless elementary particles in nature, so that the spin description is crucial for the understanding of the structure of matter. Whether or not these todays considered elementary particles can be subsequently divided is still an open question. But if these final indivisible objects exist, it is possible to state, at least from the theoretical point of view, what are the necessary conditions for a mechanical system to be considered as elementary, to be considered as the ending process of division of matter.

To fix ideas we review in the next section, the description, from the classical and quantum mechanical point of view, of the structure of the electron.

We state in section 3 the concept of elementary particle as a mechanical system without excited states. The description of the state of an elementary particle is reduced to the analysis of the updated consecutive inertial observers which describe the particle in the same state. The remaining sections are devoted to the analysis of the kind of Lagrangian systems the above definition allows to deal with, in particular with the relativistic and non-relativistic point particle and more important, of the spinning systems. We end this work with the classical Lagrangian description of the photon and a final section devoted to general conclusions and some difficulties of the formalism.

## 2 What is an electron?

The usual attempt to describe classically the spinning electron has been to endow the Newtonian point particle with some spherical shape of small radius, some plausible charge distribution on its surface or in its whole volume, and a final rotation as a rigid body to give account of the spin angular momentum. Nevertheless this rigid body description has led to serious difficulties. One needs to justify how the charge is held together and therefore the additional description of the glue forces is necessary. With a finite radius and a uniform mass distribution the velocity of the outer part of the sphere should exceed the velocity of light to obtain the measured values of the spin.

The failure of this kind of classical models led Barut to quote about the structure of the spinning electron: ‘If a spinning particle is not quite a point particle, nor a solid three dimensional top, what can it be? What is the structure which can appear under probing with electromagnetic fields as a point charge, yet as far as spin and wave properties are concerned exhibits a size of the order of the Compton wavelength?’ .

Nevertheless, for the description of the electron what we have is the quantum mechanical Dirac’s analysis. Dirac equation has as many negative energy solutions as positive energy ones, and one of the success of this formalism is the interpretation of the negative energy solutions as representing positive energy solutions of a particle of the same intrinsic attributes mass and spin 1/2 but opposite electric charge. Every charged spin 1/2 particle has an antiparticle.

If point $`𝒓`$ is the position vector on which Dirac’s spinor $`\psi (t,𝒓)`$ is defined, then, when analyzing the velocity of point $`𝒓`$, Dirac finds that:

1. The velocity $`𝒗=i/\mathrm{}[H,𝒓]=c𝜶`$, is expressed in terms of $`𝜶`$ matrices, which have eigenvalues $`\pm 1`$, and the velocity of light $`c`$, and writes:
$`\mathrm{}`$ a measurement of a component of the velocity of a free electron is certain to lead to the result $`\pm c`$. This conclusion is easily seen to hold also when there is a field present.’
2. One of the puzzling features of this description is that the linear momentum $`𝒑`$ does not have the direction of the velocity $`𝒗`$ of point $`𝒓`$, but it is related to some average value of it: $`\mathrm{}`$ ‘the $`x_1`$ component of the velocity, $`c\alpha _1`$, consists of two parts, a constant part $`c^2p_1H^1`$, connected with the momentum by the classical relativistic formula, and an oscillatory part, whose frequency is at least $`2mc^2/h`$, $`\mathrm{}`$.
It seems that point $`𝒓`$ does not represent the center of mass position of the electron.
3. The position $`𝒓`$ oscillates very fast in a small region of order of Compton’s wavelength:
‘The oscillatory part of $`x_1`$ is small, $`\mathrm{}`$ , which is of order of magnitude $`\mathrm{}/mc`$, $`\mathrm{}`$.
This oscillatory motion of point $`𝒓`$ was defined by Schrödinger as the zitterbewegung or quivering or trembling motion of the electron.
4. In his Nobel dissertation lecture he insists on this peculiar feature of the quivering motion at the speed of light of the electron:
The new variables $`𝛂`$, which we have to introduce to get a relativistic wave equation linear in $`H`$, give rise to the spin of the electron. From the general principles of quantum mechanics one can easily deduce that these variables $`𝛂`$ give the electron a spin angular momentum of half a quantum and a magnetic moment of one Bohr magneton in the reverse direction to the angular momentum. These results are in agreement with experiment. They were, in fact, first obtained from the experimental evidence provided by spectroscopy and afterwards confirmed by the theory.’
The variables $`𝛂`$ also give rise to some rather unexpected phenomena concerning the motion of the electron. These have been fully worked out by Schrödinger. It is found that an electron which seems to us to be moving slowly, must actually have a very high frequency oscillatory motion of small amplitude superposed on the regular motion which appears to us. As a result of this oscillatory motion, the velocity of the electron at any time equals the velocity of light. This is a prediction which cannot be directly verified by experiment, since the frequency of the oscillatory motion is so high and its amplitude is so small. But one must believe in this consequence of the theory, since other consequences of the theory which are inseparably bound up with this one, such as the law of scattering of light by an electron, are confirmed by experiment.’
The electron has thus a regular motion, which can be easily interpreted as the motion of its center of mass, and the oscillatory motion of point $`𝒓`$ at the velocity of light around the center of mass. The absolute value of the velocity $`c`$ is not modified by the presence of an external field.
5. The total angular momentum of a free electron $`𝑱=𝒓\times 𝑷+𝑺=𝑳+𝑺`$, is a constant of the motion, but the orbital part $`𝑳`$ and the spin $`𝑺`$ are not separately constants of the motion. The spin $`𝑺`$ of a free electron satisfies the dynamical equation

$$\frac{d𝑺}{dt}=𝒑\times c𝜶=𝒑\times 𝒗,$$

so that the spin operator $`𝑺`$ is only a constant of the motion for the center of mass observer for which $`𝒑=0`$.
6. In his original 1928 paper , when analyzing the interaction of the electron with an external electromagnetic field, after developing the interaction Hamiltonian to first order in the external fields, he obtains two new interaction terms:

$$\frac{e\mathrm{}}{2m}𝚺𝑩+\frac{ie\mathrm{}}{2mc}𝜶𝑬=𝝁𝑩𝒅𝑬,$$
(1)
where Dirac’s electron spin operator is written as

$$𝑺=\frac{\mathrm{}}{2}𝚺=\frac{\mathrm{}}{2}\left(\begin{array}{cc}𝝈& 0\\ 0& 𝝈\end{array}\right),$$

in terms of $`\sigma `$-Pauli matrices and where $`𝑬`$ and $`𝑩`$ are the external electric and magnetic fields, respectively. He says: ‘the electron will therefore behave as though it has a magnetic moment $`(e\mathrm{}/2m)𝚺`$ and an electric moment $`(ie\mathrm{}/2mc)𝛂`$. The magnetic moment is just that assumed in the spinning electron model’. ‘The electric moment, being a pure imaginary, we should not expect to appear in the model. It is doubtful whether the electric moment has any physical meaning.’

The electron, in addition to the electric charge behaves as though it has some electric and magnetic dipole moments. The magnetic dipole term is the right one to give account of the Zeeman effect in atoms. But, what about the electric dipole? In the last Dirac sentence it is difficult to understand why Dirac, who did not reject the negative energy solutions, and therefore its consideration as the antiparticle states, and insisted that the motion of point $`𝒓`$ is at the speed of light as an ‘inseparably bound up’ consequence, disliked the existence of this electric dipole which was obtained from his formalism on an equal footing and at the same time as the magnetic dipole term. In his book and in the Noble dissertation he never mentioned again this electric dipole property. But, what happens if the point $`𝒓`$ represents the position of the center of charge of the electron. By the previous analysis it seems to be a different point than the center of mass. Then this separation implies that for the center of mass observer there is a nonvanishing electric dipole moment. It is oscillating very fast, its average value is probably zero, but it is a physical property that has to be taken into account.

In fact, in quantum electrodynamics, the complete Dirac Hamiltonian contains both terms, perhaps in an involved way because the above expression (1) is a first order expansion in the external fields considered as classical commuting fields. It might happen that this electric dipole does not represent the existence of a particular positive and negative charge distribution for the electron, but rather a separation between the center of mass and center of charge. This interpretation will be obtained later when analyzing the classical spinning models.

## 3 What is an elementary particle?

The concept of elementary particle rests on the idea that this ultimate indivisible object is a so simple mechanical system that it has no excited states. In a broad sense it is always in a single state which looks different for the different inertial observers, but the difference is only a matter of change of point of view and not a change of its intrinsic properties. It is only a kinematical change.

In the quantum case, once a single inertial observer $`O`$ describes the state of the electron, the collection of the remaining states described by all other inertial observers completely reproduce the Hilbert space of all states. These states can be obtained from the previous one by the corresponding transformation of the wave function to the new frames. There is no other possible state of the electron which cannot be described by any one of the above states or any linear combination of them. The Hilbert space is the kinematical state space of an elementary particle. This set of states contains only kinematical modifications of any one of them.

This is Wigner’s quantum definition of an elementary particle as a system whose Hilbert space of pure states is an invariant space under the group of space-time transformations. In group theoretical language, an elementary particle is thus a quantum system whose Hilbert space of states carries an irreducible representation of the kinematical group of space-time transformations.

It is clear that Wigner’s irreducibility condition is a necessary condition for a quantum system to be considered as elementary. But, what is the classical equivalent requirement?

Let us assume that a particular inertial observer is describing the classical state of a particle by giving the values of the basic and essential variables which characterize its state. Now the particle, under some external influence, changes some of its variables and therefore it goes into a different state. Then, by assumption, if the particle is elementary it is always possible to select another inertial observer who describes the particle in the same state and with the same values of its variables as the previous observer. This is the idea about what an elementary particle should be from a theoretical viewpoint. Every change in the state of an elementary particle can always be compensated by choosing a new inertial reference frame.

This idea imposes very stringent conditions on what are the classical variables we need to describe the states of an elementary particle. For instance, if the particle has some directional property like spin and the spin orientation changes, the new inertial observer should accommodate its reference frame to describe the spin components as before and therefore its frame looks rotated with respect to the previous one. By following the change of orientation of the updated inertial frames, we are describing the change of orientation of the spin of the particle, and thus the spin dynamics.

At this stage we do not know yet what are the classical variables to describe an elementary particle. But instead of describing the particle let us try to describe the collection of consecutive updated inertial observers who instantaneously describe the elementary particle by the same state. By describing every one of these particular inertial observers we are describing the instantaneous kinematical state of the elementary particle. By describing the instantaneous change of these inertial observers we are describing the dynamical behavior of the particle.

Let us see first how we use to describe every reference inertial frame with respect to each other. This is very deeply related to a restricted relativity principle.

## 4 The Restricted Relativity Principle

A very fundamental principle is a Restricted (sometimes called Special) relativity principle. By restricted it is meant that the fundamental laws of physics have to be invariant for a restricted set of equivalent observers, called inertial observers. It is also called restricted to distinguish from a General relativity principle in which all observers, accelerated or not, describe nature by the same form invariant laws.

The relationship between the different inertial observers is related to their relative measurement of space-time events, i.e., to how they relate the time and position coordinates of the same and every space-time event. This relationship is defined by a space-time transformation group which is called a kinematical group. Different kinematical groups containing as possible transformations space and time translations, rotations and boosts, are analyzed by Bacry and Levy-Leblond in . Among them we find the Galilei and Poincaré group and also the de Sitter groups. But more general groups, like the conformal group, could be good candidates as kinematical groups. If we restrict ourselves to the Galilei and Poincaré group we shall obtain only as intrinsic attributes of matter the value of the mass and spin, which are the two group invariant properties. Other quantum numbers have no so clear classical interpretation and are related to the so called ‘internal’ symmetry groups.

Let us consider first the Galilei group. The relationship between two arbitrary inertial observers is:

$$t^{}=t+b,𝒓^{}=R(𝜶)𝒓+𝒗t+𝒅.$$

Observer $`O`$ measures the coordinates $`t`$ and $`𝒓`$ of a particular space-time event while observer $`O^{}`$ obtains the coordinates $`t^{}`$ and $`𝒓^{}`$ for the same event. Then the remaining variables of the above formulae $`b`$, $`𝒅`$, $`𝒗`$ and $`R(𝜶)`$, which are constant once the two inertial observers are fixed, define the relative relationship between them. Any relative measurement between them of any other physical property of a system will depend on these constants. Let us see their meaning.

Suppose observer $`O`$ measures the emission of a burst of light from the origin of its Cartesian frame $`𝒓=0`$ when its clock shows $`t=0`$. This event takes place for $`O^{}`$ at time $`t^{}=b`$ and at the point $`𝒓^{}=𝒅`$. If at instant $`dt`$ observer $`O`$ measures another light burst form its origin, it takes the values $`t^{}+dt^{}=dt+b`$ and $`𝒓^{}+d𝒓^{}=𝒗dt+𝒅`$, i.e., after a time $`dt^{}=dt`$ and displaced $`d𝒓^{}=𝒗dt`$ with respect to the previous event. Therefore the origin of $`O`$ is moving with a velocity $`d𝒓^{}/dt^{}=𝒗`$ as measured by $`O^{}`$. Finally $`R(𝜶)`$ represents how the Cartesian unit vectors of $`O`$ are represented in $`O^{}`$ frame if they were at relative rest.

Then $`O^{}`$ describes observer $`O`$ by giving at its time $`b`$ the position of the origin of $`O`$ frame at $`𝒅`$, moving with velocity $`𝒗`$ and with three unit vectors linked to it and oriented according to $`R(𝜶)`$. We say that $`O^{}`$ specifies any other inertial observer by some fixed values of the time, the position of a point, velocity of that point and orientation around that point. That’s all.

## 5 Classical Elementary Particles

Let us think now that we consider ourselves identified with the observer $`O^{}`$ and we are measuring the evolution of an elementary particle in terms of some arbitrary evolution parameter $`\tau `$, which can be our own time or any other monotonic function of it. Now let us focus our attention to some particular inertial observer. It can be, for instance, an inertial observer very close to the particle or an inertial observer located in some specific part of the system. Then, at instant $`\tau `$, we fix this particular inertial observer by giving the ten variables $`(t(\tau ),𝒓(\tau ),𝒗(\tau ),𝜶(\tau ))`$, with the same meaning respectively as before, although we have partially changed the notation. The time translation parameter $`b`$ has been replaced by the time observable $`t(\tau )`$ and the position of the origin $`𝒅`$ by $`𝒓(\tau )`$. By $`𝜶(\tau )`$ we mean the three parameters which can be used to describe the orientation of any frame. They can be Euler’s angles or any other parametrization of the rotation group. In any case we give the values of a time $`t`$, the position of a point $`𝒓`$, the velocity of this point $`𝒗`$ and the orientation around this point $`𝜶`$ or the matrix of the three unit vectors $`R(𝜶)`$.

Now at instant $`\tau +d\tau `$ the particle has changed, so that the new selected inertial observer who sees the particle in the same state as the previous inertial observer, is described by the new variables $`(t(\tau +d\tau ),𝒓(\tau +d\tau ),𝒗(\tau +d\tau ),𝜶(\tau +d\tau ))`$. The group structure of the Galilei group implies that the relationship between these two inertial observers is given by an infinitesimal element of the Galilei group $`\delta g`$ of parameters $`(dt,d𝒓,d𝒗,d𝜶)`$, so that the change of the action of the system between instants $`\tau `$ and $`\tau +d\tau `$ is given to first order in terms of these variations by

$$Ld\tau =Tdt+𝑹d𝒓+𝑽d𝒗+𝑨d𝜶=(T\dot{t}+𝑹\dot{𝒓}+𝑽\dot{𝒗}+𝑨\dot{𝜶})d\tau ,$$

where the overdot means derivation with respect to the evolution parameter $`\tau `$. We do not know yet the functions $`T`$, $`𝑹`$, $`𝑽`$ and $`𝑨`$, but what is clear is that the most general Lagrangian which describes this system must be a function of the kinematical variables $`(t,𝒓,𝒗,𝜶)`$ and their first order $`\tau `$ derivatives.

The evolution of the system in the interval $`[\tau _1,\tau _2]`$ is described, once the Lagrangian is known, by giving these kinematical variables $`(t,𝒓,𝒗,𝜶)x(\tau _1)`$ at instant $`\tau _1`$ and the values of the same variables at the final instant $`\tau _2`$, $`x(\tau _2)`$. The variational principle implies that the path followed by the system between these fixed end points $`x(\tau _1)`$ and $`x(\tau _2)`$, is the one which produces a minimum for the action of the system. The kinematical or evolution space of this Lagrangian system is just the manifold spanned by these initial (or final) points. But, because any infinitesimal change is produced by an infinitesimal element of the Galilei group $`\delta g`$, the composition of all these consecutive infinitesimal group elements will produce in general a finite group element $`g`$ such that $`x(\tau _2)=gx(\tau _1)`$. The manifold spanned by these variables has the property that given any two points there exists at least a group element $`g`$ that relates them. In group theory it is said that the group acts transitively on this manifold or that the manifold is a homogeneous space of the group.

We conclude that the kinematical space of a classical elementary particle must necessarily be a homogeneous space of the kinematical group. This is the classical requirement equivalent to the irreducibility condition of the quantum case to define a classical elementary particle.

Although we started this analysis with the Galilei group we see that the parametrization of the Poincaré group leads to the same kind of ten variables $`(t,𝒓,𝒗,𝜶)`$, and with the same geometrical meaning as before, to characterize the relative description of every inertial observer. This implies that, even in the relativistic case, the most general Lagrangian of a classical elementary particle can be written as before as

$$L=T\dot{t}+𝑹\dot{𝒓}+𝑽\dot{𝒗}+𝑨\dot{𝜶}.$$
(2)
As a matter of fact we see that the Newtonian point particle is a classical elementary particle, according to this definition. The kinematical space is spanned by $`t`$ and $`𝒓`$, which is a homogeneous space of the Galilei group. Because the free motion is at a constant speed and the particle has no orientation properties, it is not necessary to modify neither the velocity $`𝒗`$ nor the orientation $`𝜶`$ of the successive inertial observers, so that the variation of the action is written as

$$Ld\tau =(T\dot{t}+𝑹\dot{𝒓})d\tau ,$$

and the most general free Lagrangian for a point particle is a function of $`t`$, $`𝒓`$ and their first order $`\tau `$derivatives. Variables $`t`$ and $`𝒓`$ are interpreted as the time and position observable of the particle, respectively, and in a time evolution description the Lagrangian will be also a function of the velocity $`d𝒓/dt`$. The above expansion suggests that the Lagrangian can be written as

$$L=T\dot{t}+𝑹\dot{𝒓}.$$
(3)
If the Lagrangian of any Lagrangian system is written in terms of the kinematical variables, i.e., in terms of the end point variables $`x_i`$ of the variational formalism, instead of the independent degrees of freedom, then the Lagrangian is a homogeneous function of first degree of the $`\tau `$derivatives of the kinematical variables $`\dot{x}_i`$. Therefore, Euler’s theorem on homogenous functions of first degree in $`\dot{x}_i`$ imply

$$L(x,\dot{x})=\frac{L}{\dot{x}_i}\dot{x}_i,$$

with the usual addition convention on repeated indexes. This homogeneity property can be seen for instance in  in which a detailed analysis of this property, even for generalized Lagrangians depending on higher order derivatives, is worked out.

Then the above expansion (3) is just this homogeneity condition and thus

$$T=\frac{L}{\dot{t}},𝑹=\frac{L}{\dot{𝒓}}.$$

In the $`\tau `$evolution description we see in the non-relativistic case

$$Ldt=L\dot{t}d\tau =\frac{m}{2}\left(\frac{d𝒓}{dt}\right)^2\dot{t}d\tau =\frac{m}{2}\frac{\dot{𝒓}^2}{\dot{t}}d\tau \widehat{L}(x,\dot{x})d\tau $$

i.e., $`\widehat{L}(x,\dot{x})=m\dot{𝒓}^2/2\dot{t}`$, a homogeneous function of first degree in terms of $`\dot{t}`$ and $`\dot{𝒓}`$.

Similarly, in the relativistic case, the space-time manifold is also a homogeneous space of the Poincaré group. We also get for the point particle Lagrangian a homogenous function of first degree in terms of the derivatives of the kinematical variables

$$\widehat{L}(x,\dot{x})=mc\sqrt{c^2\dot{t}^2\dot{𝒓}^2},$$

since it is the square root of a second order polynomial in terms of the $`\dot{x}`$.

When compared the point particle Lagrangian (3) with the most general Lagrangian (2), we see that new possible terms depending on $`\dot{𝒗}`$ and $`\dot{𝜶}`$ should appear. It is from the dependence on these new variables that the spin structure of the particle and the zitterbewegung of point $`𝒓`$ will emerge.

## 6 Spinning Elementary Particles

We propose the name of kinematical theory of elementary particles for this formalism because the kinematical space of the system is basically related, as a homogeneous space, to the kinematical group of space-time transformations. Not only the kinematical group defines the space-time symmetries of the system, but it also supplies the classical variables which characterize the description of a classical elementary particle. It is the kinematical group of space-time transformations which defines the structure of the Lagrangian of an elementary particle. We remit the reader to the published research works on this subject for the different technical points and limit ourselves to outline the main features of the formalism .

One technical thing is that the invariance of the dynamical equations under the kinematical group of transformations does not mean that the Lagrangian has to be invariant. The invariance or not of the Lagrangian is related to the group structure . In the non-relativistic case the Lagrangian transforms under the Galilei group up to a total $`\tau `$derivative, while it is invariant under the Poincaré group, provided the kinematical variables that define the mechanical system span a homogeneous space of the group. If these kinematical variables do not span a homogeneous space the Lagrangians are no longer invariant, as it happens for compound systems.

The most general particle has thus ten kinematical variables $`x(t,𝒓,𝒗,𝜶)`$, which correspond to a mechanical system of six degrees of freedom. Three represent the position of a point $`𝒓`$ and the other three $`𝜶`$, its orientation in space like a rigid body. But, since the Lagrangian also depends on $`\dot{x}`$ it will depend on the derivative of $`𝒗`$, and thus the second derivative of $`𝒓`$ and on the first derivative of $`𝜶`$. Since the most general Lagrangian for an elementary particle depends on the acceleration of point $`𝒓`$, the dynamical equations of this point will be of fourth order. Analysis and description of the relativistic and non-relativistic fourth order differential equations to describe the spinning electron are obtained in .

Instead of the dependence of the Lagrangian on the derivative of the orientation $`\dot{𝜶}`$ is better to use the angular velocity $`𝝎`$, which is a linear function of $`\dot{𝜶}`$, and the part of the Lagrangian $`𝑨\dot{𝜶}`$ is replaced by $`𝑾𝝎`$, with $`𝑾=L/𝝎`$. In fact

$$𝑨\dot{𝜶}\frac{L}{\dot{\alpha }_i}\dot{\alpha }_i=\frac{L}{\omega _j}\frac{\omega _j}{\dot{\alpha }_i}\dot{\alpha }_i=\frac{L}{\omega _j}\omega _j𝑾𝝎.$$

The most general structure of the Lagrangian, in a relativistic and non-relativistic formalism, is thus

$$L=T\dot{t}+𝑹\dot{𝒓}+𝑽\dot{𝒗}+𝑾𝝎,$$
(4)
where $`T=L/\dot{t}`$, $`𝑹=L/\dot{𝒓}`$, $`𝑽=L/\dot{𝒗}`$, and $`𝑾=L/𝝎`$, as before, to be determined once the Lagrangian is given. In general, since we postulate translation and rotation invariance, the Lagrangian will be independent of $`t`$, $`𝒓`$ and $`𝜶`$.

Although we have not formulated yet any particular Lagrangian it is possible to give some general features of the different systems in terms of the general expression (4) and of these defined momenta. Noether’s theorem, under the Galilei group transformations, gives rise to the ten following constants of the motion:

Under translations, the energy and linear momentum, respectively

$$H=T𝒗\frac{d𝑽}{dt},𝑷=𝑹\frac{d𝑽}{dt},$$
(5)
under boosts the kinematical momentum

$$𝑲=m𝒓𝑷t𝑽,$$
(6)
and finally under rotations the angular momentum

$$𝑱=𝒓\times 𝑷+𝒗\times 𝑽+𝑾=𝑳+𝑺.$$
(7)
The time derivative of the constant $`𝑲`$ leads to

$$𝑷=m𝒗\frac{d𝑽}{dt},$$

and compared with (5) we get that $`𝑹=m𝒗`$, and the linear momentum of the system has not the direction of the velocity of the point $`𝒓`$, provided the Lagrangian depends on the acceleration, and therefore the term $`𝑽`$ is nonvanishing. Point $`𝒓`$ does not represent the center of mass position of the particle. In fact if we define the position of a point $`𝒒`$ by

$$𝒒=𝒓𝑽/m𝒓𝒌,$$

then the kinematical momentum can be written as $`𝑲=m𝒒𝑷t`$, and its time derivative leads to $`𝑷=md𝒒/dt`$. Point $`𝒒`$, which is a different point than $`𝒓`$ whenever $`𝑽`$ is different from zero, represents the position of the centre of mass of the particle. Vector $`𝒌=𝑽/m`$, represents the relative position of point $`𝒓`$ with respect to the center of mass $`𝒒`$.

The angular momentum (7) contains two parts: One, $`𝑳=𝒓\times 𝑷`$, which is the orbital angular momentum of the system with respect to the origin, and another $`𝑺=𝒗\times 𝑽+𝑾`$, which is translation invariant and can be interpreted as the spin of the system. The orbital angular momentum is not a constant of the motion because $`𝑷`$ is not pointing along the velocity of point $`𝒓`$. After taking the time derivative of the constant angular momentum we get that the spin of a free particle satisfies the dynamical equation

$$\frac{d𝑺}{dt}=𝑷\times 𝒗,$$
(8)
which is the same dynamical equation satisfied by the Dirac spin operator in the quantum formulation. It is the classical spin observable equivalent to Dirac’s spin operator.

We see that the structure of the spin is twofold. One $`𝑾=L/𝝎`$, coming from the dependence of the Lagrangian on the angular velocity, like in a rigid body, and we thus expect to be along the angular velocity for a spherical symmetric object, and another $`𝒗\times 𝑽`$, orthogonal to the velocity of point $`𝒓`$, which can be written in terms of the relative position vector $`𝒌`$ as

$$𝒗\times 𝑽=𝒌\times m𝒗.$$

It looks like an (anti-)orbital part of the momentum $`m𝒗`$ located at $`𝒓`$ with respect to the center of mass. The term anti-orbital comes because of the minus sign in front of it.

That point $`𝒓`$ represents the position of the charge can be seen when we consider the interaction of the system with some external source. The most general interaction Lagrangian will be of the form

$$L_I=\varphi \dot{t}+𝑨\dot{𝒓},$$

i.e., what is called the minimal coupling, independent of the variables $`\dot{𝒗}`$ and $`𝝎`$ because if the system is elementary its spin cannot be modified by the interaction. The presence of terms in $`\dot{𝒗}`$ and $`𝝎`$ in the interaction Lagrangian, will produce a modification of the functions $`𝑽`$ and $`𝑾`$ which define the spin. If we assume that the external potentials $`\varphi `$ and $`𝑨`$ are only functions of $`t`$ and $`𝒓`$, then the external force is the Lorentz force where the fields are defined at the position $`𝒓`$ and it is the velocity of point $`𝒓`$ which enters into the magnetic force term.

## 7 The Classical Relativistic Spinning Electron

In the relativistic case we have three possible maximal, disjoint, homogeneous spaces of the Poincaré group, spanned by the ten variables $`(t,𝒓,𝒗,𝜶)`$, provided $`v`$ is lesser, greater or equal to $`c`$. The very important manifold for the description of the classical photon and electron is the one with $`v=c`$, because it describes a system whose position vector $`𝒓`$, which is not the center of mass of the system, it is moving at the speed of light. The importance of this manifold is suggested by Dirac’s previous analysis of the electron. In fact, it is the quantization of this system which leads to Dirac equation .

The Lagrangian has the same expansion in terms of the derivatives as in (4). For this system there is a small difference in the Noether constants of the motion, with respect to the Galilei case. The expression for $`H`$, $`𝑷`$ and $`𝑱`$ is the same as in (5) and (7). The $`𝑲`$ momentum is now given by

$$𝑲=\frac{1}{c^2}H𝒓𝑷t\frac{1}{c^2}𝑺\times 𝒗,$$
(9)
with $`𝑺=𝒗\times 𝑽+𝑾`$, which satisfies the same dynamical equation as before (8), and is only a constant of the motion in the center of mass frame. The center of mass (or center of energy) of the electron is defined now as:

$$𝒒=𝒓\frac{1}{H}𝑺\times 𝒗,$$

because it leads to $`𝑷=(H/c^2)d𝒒/dt`$, by derivation of $`𝑲`$. Whenever the spin of the system is different from zero the center of mass is a different point than $`𝒓`$, which, by the same arguments as before, represents the position of the charge.

For the center of mass observer $`𝒒=0`$, the spin is a constant of the motion, $`H=mc^2`$ and thus

$$𝒓=\frac{1}{mc^2}𝑺\times 𝒗,$$
(10)
so that point $`𝒓`$ is moving in circles, at the speed of light, on a plane orthogonal to the constant vector $`𝑺`$. Classical mechanics does not restrict the value of the constant spin $`S`$ which can be any positive real number. Its true value will be uniquely fixed after quantization. The radius of this circle is $`R=S/mc`$ and the angular velocity of this internal motion or zitterbewegung is $`\omega =mc^2/S`$. By inspection of (10) we see that the relative orientation between the different magnitudes is the one depicted in fig.1, in which we also depict the two parts of the spin $`𝑺_\omega =𝑾`$ along the angular velocity $`𝝎`$, and the antiorbital $`𝑺_v=𝒗\times 𝑽`$, orthogonal to the zitterbewegung plane. The antiparticle corresponds to the time reversed motion, or to consider that $`H=mc^2`$.

The total spin $`𝑺`$ has the same direction as the antiorbital part so that the $`𝑺_v`$ part has to be larger than the other $`𝑺_\omega `$. When quantizing the system the antiorbital part only quantizes with integer values while the half integer comes from the quantization of the rotational part $`𝑺_\omega `$, in the opposite direction . This twofold structure of the spin leads to the classical concept of gyromagnetic ratio as will be shown below.

When we analyze the system in the center of mass frame and, therefore, three translational degrees of freedom are suppressed, the system reduces to a mechanical system of only three degrees of freedom. These are the two coordinates $`x`$ and $`y`$ of the point $`𝒓`$ on the zitterbewegung plane and the phase $`\alpha `$ of the rotation of the body frame which rotates with angular velocity $`𝝎`$. However this phase is the same as the phase of the orbital motion. Since the motion is at a constant velocity $`c`$, then the system is reduced to a single degree of freedom, for instance, the $`x`$ coordinate. But as far as the $`x`$ coordinate is concerned its motion is a one-dimensional harmonic motion of frequency $`\omega =mc^2/S`$. When we quantize this system, since it represents an elementary particle, it has no excited states and therefore its allowed energy is just the ground state energy of the one-dimensional harmonic oscillator $`\mathrm{}\omega /2=mc^2`$ in this frame. When compared with the classical obtained value of $`\omega `$, we get that after quantization the value of the classical spin parameter $`S=\mathrm{}/2`$. This model of a classical spinning particle corresponds after quantization to a fermion.

The classical expression that leads to Dirac equation when quantizing the system comes from (9). If we take the time derivative of this constant of the motion and after that, the scalar product of the resulting expression with $`𝒗`$ we get the classical equivalent of Dirac’s Hamiltonian

$$H=𝑷𝒗+\frac{1}{c^2}𝑺\left(\frac{d𝒗}{dt}\times 𝒗\right).$$

This is a linear relationship between $`H`$ and $`𝑷`$, where the velocity $`𝒗`$ should be replaced by Dirac’s velocity operator $`c𝜶`$ and the last term corresponds to $`\beta mc^2`$ in terms of Dirac’s $`\beta `$ matrix . In fact, the three vectors in the last term are orthogonal vectors. In the center of mass frame the absolute value of the acceleration is $`c^2/R`$, so that taking into account the value of $`R`$ we get that this term reduces to $`\pm mc^2`$, the positive value for the particle and the negative one for the antiparticle.

One can feel uncomfortable while talking about a massive particle whose position $`𝒓`$ is moving at the speed of light. We must remark that $`𝒓`$ does not represent the center of mass or center of energy of the system. In our starting analysis, as the description of $`𝒓`$ as the origin of some inertial reference frame, we must add that we are not talking about reference frames moving at the speed of light but rather about different inertial frames that we change from one to another at our will according to the evolution of the particle. The particular observers of our analysis could be, for instance, those observers which, at every instant $`\tau `$ have the origin of its frame at the charge position, measure the velocity of the charge along its $`OX`$ axis, the acceleration along the $`OY`$ axis, and thus the spin of the electron along the $`OZ`$ axis. All the kind of particles this formalism produces have a center of mass at rest or moving with a velocity below $`c`$.

## 8 Features of the Model

If we analyze the classical model of the electron we see that the charge of the electron is at the point $`𝒓`$, but this point is moving at the speed of light in a motion known as the zitterbewegung, in a confined region of radius $`\mathrm{}/2mc`$ around the center of mass, and oscillating with a frequency $`2mc^2/h`$. We see that the region of influence of this motion is Compton’s wavelength. The charge is at a single point and this point like description is consistent with the latest LEP experiments at CERN, which suggest that the charge has to be confined in a region below $`10^{19}`$m, six orders of magnitude smaller than Compton’s wavelength.

Now in this kind of classical models, the electric charge is at a single point so that the problems related to a spatial charge distribution are avoided. The charge is moving for every observer and therefore it creates a magnetic field. The electron is a point-like current, which is never at rest. The charge motion produces with respect to the center of mass a magnetic moment $`𝝁`$ in the direction orthogonal to the zitterbewegung plane and which is related mechanically with the antiorbital part of the spin. But the spin has another part $`𝑺_\omega `$ related to the motion of the body frame in the opposite direction. When quantizing the system the total spin is half the antiorbital part and this shows a plausible origin of the value $`g=2`$ for the gyromagnetic ratio . But also, from the center of mass observer point of view, there is an oscillating electric dipole moment $`𝒅=e𝒓`$. We can say with Dirac that, in addition to the electric charge, ‘the electron will therefore behave as though it has a magnetic moment $`𝛍`$ and an electric moment $`𝐝`$. The correspondence of this last observable with the quantum Dirac electric dipole moment is shown in . I think this is the electric dipole observable Dirac disliked. It is oscillating at very high frequency and it basically plays no role in low energy electron interactions because its average value vanishes, but it is important in high energy physics or in very close electron-electron interactions.

For instance, if two electrons have their spins parallel, the corresponding electric dipoles oscillate at the same rate and are contained in parallel planes. Therefore from the point of view of the two electrons the electric dipoles always conserve the same relative orientation, and although their average value is zero it is clear that the electric interaction between them is not vanishing and in addition to the magnetic interaction this electric interaction has to be taken into account. If the two particles are very close and the electric dipoles have opposite orientation it is possible an attractive force. It has been recently shown that this effect would produce, from the classical viewpoint, the formation of metastable bound pairs of electrons with parallel spins, when separated by a distance below Compton’s wavelength and provided its relative velocity is below some estimated value .

If we locate mathematically a positive and negative charge $`\pm e`$ in the center of mass we can have an approximate structure of the classical spinning electron as a point particle of mass $`m`$ and charge $`e`$ in the center of mass of the system, with the additional electromagnetic attributes $`𝝁`$ and $`𝒅`$ as the ones depicted in figure 2. The relative orientation between the spin and magnetic moment of the classical model depends on the sign of the charge of the object considered as the particle while the antiparticle, which is described by the time reversed motion of the other and with opposite charge, will have the same relative orientation between the spin and magnetic moment, because a current in the reversed direction but of opposite charge will produce the same magnetic moment. It seems that the spin and magnetic moment of the electron are opposite to each other, which corresponds to consider that the positive charged object is the particle.

## 9 The Photon

In the manifold spanned by the variables $`(t,𝒓,𝒗,𝜶)`$, with $`v(\tau )=c`$, we have two possibilities. Since the absolute value of the velocity is always constant, then $`𝒗\dot{𝒗}=0`$. One possibility is that $`\dot{𝒗}=0`$, the particle moves in straight lines at the speed of light. We have in this case the description of a photon. The other is that $`\dot{𝒗}0`$ but always orthogonal to the velocity. This possibility leads to the electron description, as has been shown above.

For the photon, since $`\dot{𝒗}=0`$, there will be no $`\dot{𝒗}`$ term in the expansion of the Lagrangian. It is a system of six degrees of freedom. Three represent the position of a point and the other three its orientation in space and the spin will be related to the change of orientation but not to the dependence of the Lagrangian on the acceleration. The particle moves and rotates, but the Lagrangian is not a function of the acceleration, which vanishes. The homogeneity condition implies that the Lagrangian for a photon is

$$L=ϵ\frac{S}{c}\frac{\dot{𝒓}𝝎}{\dot{t}},$$

where $`ϵ=\pm 1`$ will be interpreted as the helicity and $`S`$ the absolute value of the spin, which from the classical point of view is unrestricted. The spin is now

$$𝑺=\frac{L}{𝝎}=ϵS\frac{𝒗}{c},$$

which is a vector parallel ($`ϵ=+1`$) or antiparallel ($`ϵ=1`$) to the velocity of propagation, and it is never transversal to the motion. Its value is independent of the observer, and thus a nonvanishing intrinsic property.

The linear momentum is

$$𝑷=\frac{L}{\dot{𝒓}}=ϵ\frac{S}{c}𝝎,$$

in a time evolution description ($`\dot{t}=1`$). Since the spin is constant and $`d𝑺/dt=𝑷\times 𝒗=0`$, this means that $`𝑷`$, and thus $`𝝎`$, lie along $`𝒗`$.

The energy of the photon is

$$H=\frac{L}{\dot{t}}=𝑺𝝎,$$

and if it is definite positive both $`𝑺`$ and $`𝝎`$ have the same direction.

Because the spin structure is related to the rotation variables it can quantize with all integer and half integer values . If, when quantized we take $`S=\mathrm{}`$ and thus $`H=\mathrm{}\omega =h\nu `$. The frequency of the photon is the frequency of its rotation around the direction of motion, leftwards or rightwards according to the spin orientation.

Because $`H^2𝑷^2c^2=0`$, the photon is a massless system.

If, when quantized, we take for $`S=\mathrm{}/2`$, we are describing both left and right handed neutrinos, but this classical formalism does not discriminate the left handed ones.

## 10 Conclusions

We have seen that by describing the evolution of the consecutive updated inertial observers, which measure the elementary particle in the same kinematical state, we can describe the states and dynamics of an elementary particle. Therefore we use the variables which characterize every inertial observer as the classical variables which define the kinematical state of the particle. We have found a clear interpretation between the motion of the charge at $`𝒓`$ at the speed of light and the quantum mechanical Dirac analysis of the electron. Both, the magnetic and electric dipole moments, have had a clear classical explanation.

Nevertheless, the classical model has several classical inconsistencies. The stationary motion of the charge is accelerated and therefore the system has to loose energy by radiation. As an alternative, we see that although the charge is accelerated, the center of mass of the free electron is not and thus there is no variation of the kinetic energy of the free particle. It is suggesting that, from the classical viewpoint, we must revisit the classical theory of the radiation of spinning objects and associate the energy radiated with the acceleration of the center of mass. Now the model is more complex because we have to describe the evolution of two points $`𝒓`$ and $`𝒒`$. Alternatively, we can only describe the evolution of the center of charge $`𝒓`$, but it satisfies then a fourth order differential equation, which is more difficult to analyze.

The electric field produced by this model of spinning electron it is neither static nor Coulomb like. Nevertheless its time average value during a complete turn of the charge produces an electrostatic field which is Coulomb like from a distance of three Compton’s wavelength from the origin to infinity and which does not diverge at $`𝒓=0`$, but it vanishes there. The time average of the magnetic field produces a static magnetic field which corresponds to the magnetic field produced by a magnetic moment $`𝝁`$ at the origin. This static magnetic field does not diverge at the origin . In this time average there is no electric dipole and this justifies the usual picture of the electron as a charged object with a magnetic moment and no electric dipole. All these fields have some infinities which go like $`1/r`$, and not like $`1/r^2`$, in some points of the zitterbewegung plane.

This picture predicts that the spin and magnetic moment of the particle and antiparticle have the same relative orientation. Nevertheless it is argued that for the electron they are antiparallel while they are parallel for the positron. To our knowledge, no clear experimental evidence of this relative orientation can be found in the experimental literature. Most of the very accurate measurements of the electron magnetic moment and of the $`g2`$ anomaly are done by analyzing the precession frequency of the spin in external magnetic fields. But this precession frequency is independent of whether spin and magnetic moment are parallel or antiparallel vectors. Two plausible experiments for this relative measurement have been recently proposed .

This formalism is still at a seminal level, but some of the features it is able to describe are very promising. The usual spinless physics is contained within it. But the interest is that we can handle classical dynamical equations for spinning systems. With the use of these dynamical equations we have been able to show that there exists a nonvanishing classical probability of tunneling when the electron is properly polarized , and also that polarized electrons can form bound states of spin 1, and thus a gas of bosons, provided they are very close and with no very high relative velocity . Spin 1 electron pairs seem to be the most probably state of condensed electrons in ferromagnetic superconductors.

## Acknowlegdments

This work has been supported by the Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea research grant 9/UPV00172.310-14456/2002.


format: text

text:
# The QCD vacuum as a disordered medium: A simplified model for the QCD Dirac operator

## I S$`\chi `$SB from Instantons

The discovery of instantons has had a large impact on our understanding of non-perturbative aspects of QCD polyakov  (for a modern review see SS97 ). Instantons are classical solutions of the Yang-Mills equations of motion in Euclidean space. An important property is that the Euclidean QCD Dirac operator has an exact zero eigenvalue in the field of an instanton. The spectral properties of the low lying modes of the Dirac operator are thus controlled by these non-perturbative configurations.

Unfortunately the construction of a consistent QCD vacuum based on instantons faces serious technical difficulties. Exact analytical multi-instanton configurations are hard to obtain since the Yang-Mills equations of motion for QCD are nonlinear and therefore a superposition of single instanton contributions is not itself a solution. Additionally quantum corrections may spoil the semiclassical picture implicitly assumed of a QCD vacuum composed of instantons well separated and weakly interacting. These problems have been overcome either by invoking variational principles diakonov  or by phenomenologically fixing certain parameters of the instanton ensemble. The latter case, usually referred to as the instanton liquid model (ILM) shuriak , yields accurate estimates of vacuum condensates and hadronic correlation functions SSV  just by setting the density of instantons to be $`N/V1\mathrm{fm}^4`$ and the mean size $`\overline{\rho }1/3\mathrm{fm}`$. Lattice simulations have also supported the picture of a QCD vacuum dominated by instantons lat .

An advantage of these models is that they satisfactorily explain how chiral symmetry is spontaneously broken in the QCD vacuum diakonov . The chiral condensate (the order parameter signaling S$`\chi `$SB) $`\overline{\psi }\psi `$ is related to the spectral density $`\rho (ϵ)`$ of the QCD Dirac operator around zero through the Banks-Casher relation bank ,

$`\overline{\psi }\psi =\underset{ϵ0}{lim}\underset{V\mathrm{}}{lim}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi \rho (ϵ)}{V}},`$ (1)
where $`V`$ is the space-time volume. The ILM provides a phenomenological model for these low energy modes of the QCD Dirac operator. In a basis of $`N/2`$ instantonic zero modes $`\psi _I(\stackrel{}{z}_i)`$ and $`N/2`$ anti-instantonic zero modes $`\psi _A(\stackrel{}{z}_j)`$ the matrix elements of the Dirac operator take the form (for zero quark mass)

$`𝒟_{ILM}=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& iT_{IA}\\ iT_{IA}^{}& 0\end{array}\right)`$ (4)
with the $`N/2\times N/2`$ overlap matrix given by

$`T_{IA}=\psi _I(\stackrel{}{z}_i)|/D|\psi _A(\stackrel{}{z}_j)\rho _i\rho _j/|\stackrel{}{R}_{ij}|^3`$ (5)
for large separations $`\stackrel{}{R}_{ij}=\stackrel{}{z}_i\stackrel{}{z}_j`$ between the center of instanton $`i`$ and anti-instanton $`j`$ with $`\rho _i`$ and $`\rho _j`$ their sizes. Due to the chirality of the zero modes only matrix elements connecting an instanton with an anti-instanton do not vanish. Physically the amplitude of the matrix elements $`T_{IA}`$ represents the probability for a quark to hop between an instanton and an anti-instanton. An isolated (anti-)instanton would cause an exact zero mode but this degeneracy is lifted through overlap with neighboring instantons. Thus the would-be zero modes are effectively split around zero. As more (anti-)instantons are added a continuous band spectrum is formed with a spectral density finite at zero. As mentioned previously, it is precisely this dynamically generated non-zero spectral density that causes, through the Bank-Casher relation, a finite value of the chiral condensate.

## II The chiral random banded model

Here we study the spectral properties of an ensemble of chiral random Hermitian $`N\times N`$ matrices given by

$`𝒟_{RBM}=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& C\\ C^{}& 0\end{array}\right)`$ (8)
where $`C`$ is a $`N/2\times N/2`$ complex matrix with independently distributed Gaussian variables with zero mean. The variance of the matrix elements $`C_{ij}`$ are chosen to decay as a power of $`r=|ij|`$ which measures the distance from the diagonal. Since the ILM uses periodic boundary conditions we use a periodic form of the power-law decay evers  given by

$$|C_{ij}|^2=\left\{1+\left[\frac{\mathrm{sin}(2\pi r/N)}{\pi b/N}\right]^{2\alpha }\right\}^1$$
(9)
where $`\alpha `$ and $`b`$ are real parameters. The choice of complex matrix elements corresponds to a matrix model with a unitary symmetry which is appropriate for QCD with the phenomenologically relevant $`SU(3)`$ color group. Due to the chiral symmetry, the eigenvalues of (8) come in pairs of $`\pm ϵ_i`$. This feature induces an additional level repulsion around zero which results in different spectral correlations for eigenvalues near zero (the origin) and away from zero (the bulk).

In the bulk the spectral correlations should not be affected by the block structure and should coincide with the non-chiral version of (8) which has been intensively studied in recent years prbm ; evers . The use of the supersymmetry method efetov  permits an analytical evaluation of both spectral properties and eigenfunction statistics prbm  in a certain region of parameters. In the thermodynamic limit the eigenfunctions are multifractal for $`\alpha =1`$ and localized (delocalized) for $`\alpha >1`$ ($`\alpha <1`$) respectively prbm . The spectral correlations in the $`g=E_c/\mathrm{\Delta }>>1`$ ($`E_c`$ is the Thouless energy and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the mean level spacing) limit can be expressed through the spectral determinant of a classical diffusion operator andre . The two point correlation function is defined as $`R_2(s)=\mathrm{\Delta }^2\rho (ϵ)\rho (ϵ+s\mathrm{\Delta })1`$ where $`\rho (ϵ)`$ is the density of states at energy $`ϵ`$ and the average is over an ensemble of RBM. For the unitary ensemble (our case)

$`R_2(s)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{^2}{s^2}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{D(s,g)}{s^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{cos}(2\pi s)}{2\pi ^2s^2}}D(s,g).`$ (10)
Due to the power-law decay, the spectral determinant $`D(s,g)=_{n0}(1+s^2/ϵ_n^2)^1`$ ( $`ϵ_n=g|n|^{2\alpha 1}`$) corresponds with a process of anomalous diffusion prbm . For $`1/2<\alpha <1`$ the dimensionless conductance increases with the system size as $`g=C_\alpha (b)N^{22\alpha }`$ with $`C_\alpha (b)`$ a known constant. The scaling of $`g`$ thus resembles that of a weakly disordered conductor in $`d=2/(2\alpha 1)`$ dimensions prbm .

The above results were derived for the non-chiral RBM. As mentioned above they are also expected to describe the chiral RBM (8) in the bulk region. We have chosen the scale of $`b`$ in (8) to agree with results for the non-chiral model. Strictly speaking, the factor $`C_\alpha (b)`$ was derived prbm  for $`b1`$ and it is not clear how the result should be modified for smaller $`b`$. Below we will show that in fact the analytical results agree very well even at $`b=1`$. Unlike in the bulk, analytical results for the spectral correlations close to the origin are not known. They can be obtained by modifying the supersymmetry method to account for the chiral structure. This issue will be postponed to a future publication kazu  and in this letter we will rely on numerical calculations for the study of the spectral correlations close to the origin. Lastly we remark that though the power-law decay in the instanton liquid is not in principle related to the matrix index, as in our matrix model, numerical simulations show that both models yield similar results par . We stick to (8) due to the availability of analytical results.

Given the known results for the non-chiral RBM we can now choose the parameter $`\alpha `$. Recall that our motivation to propose a random banded model is the decay of the ILM overlap matrix elements (5). It was shown in levitov1  that the spectral properties of systems with power-law hopping are similar in different dimensions provided that the decay exponent equaled the dimension. Since in the ILM the decay exponent (three) is less than the dimension (four) we expect this to map onto a 1D RBM model with $`\alpha <1`$. We choose $`\alpha =3/4`$ because the volume dependence of the dimensionless conductance (also called dimensionless Thouless energy) in this case $`g1.17\sqrt{bN}`$ prbm  coincides with what is expected for QCD according to chiral perturbation theory gasser . As mentioned above, the spectral properties of the RBM at $`\alpha =3/4`$ are similar to those of a disordered conductor in four dimensions.

## III Results

We generated sets of matrices for the RBM and the ILM and calculated their eigenvalues in order to compare the spectral correlations. The results of each simulation are averaged over $`10^4`$ configurations. For both models the simulations were done in the quenched approximation which allowed us to use values of $`N`$ ranging from 320 up to 1280. For the ILM we used the same model studied in VO  including the standard density of $`N/V=1\mathrm{fm}^4`$. Additional details can be found in SS97 .

We first check that the result (10), derived for the non-chiral RBM, agrees with the chiral result in the bulk. The analytical formula is actually divergent for $`\alpha =3/4`$ and needs a cutoff in the spectral determinant $`D(s,g)`$. If we calculate the number variance which is given by $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^2(L)=L+2_0^L(Ls)R_2(s)𝑑s`$ we find that it is strongly cutoff dependent. Instead we look at the spectral rigidity $`\mathrm{\Delta }_3(L)=\frac{2}{L^4}_0^L(L^32L^2x+x^3)\mathrm{\Sigma }^2(x)𝑑x`$ which is not sensitive to the cutoff.

In Figure 1 we show the spectral rigidity in the bulk of the chiral RBM obtained from numerical simulation at $`b=1`$ along with the analytical formula of the non-chiral model for different values of $`g`$. The values of $`g`$ were chosen by eye to match the numerical results for the corresponding $`N`$. We find good agreement with the theoretical expectation $`g1.17\sqrt{N}`$ within about $`2\%`$.

In Figure 2 we compare the spectral rigidity in the bulk of the ILM with analytical predictions of the RBM. Again the values of $`g`$ for each volume were chosen by eye to closely match the ILM. The analytical results using these values of $`g`$ agree well with the ILM up to a scale of about $`30\%`$ of the number of positive eigenvalues ($`N/2`$). The values of $`g`$ scale closely to $`g1.23\sqrt{N}`$ except for the smallest volume ($`N=320`$) where a $`5\%`$ deviation is observed. This corresponds to $`b1.1`$. The observed scaling of the dimensionless Thouless energy in the chiral RBM is in agreement with theoretical predictions gasser ; VO  and lattice results tilo  for QCD.

We do not yet have analytical results for the spectral correlations of the RBM at the origin and therefore rely solely on numerical simulations. In Figure 3 we show the number variance near the origin for the ILM and chiral RBM. The corresponding values of $`b`$ for the RBM were also chosen by eye to provide a good fit. The agreement between both models is very good up to about 50 eigenvalues but we could not fit all volumes with a single $`b`$. The reason is that the chiral RBM has the same $`g\sqrt{N}`$ scaling as in the bulk while the instanton liquid shows a weaker volume dependence. We find the scaling $`b1.4N^{0.13}`$ which gives $`g1.4N^{0.43}`$ for the ILM. It would be interesting to compare these results with lattice simulations where a $`g\sqrt{N}`$ scaling has also been reported close to the origin.

Finally we mention how the chiral RBM should be modified to describe QCD at finite temperature. As usual in field theory, temperature is introduced by compactifying one of the spatial dimensions. Thus the effect of temperature in Euclidean QCD is to reduce the effective dimensionality of the system to three. Now since the effective dimension of the space matches the power-law decay of the QCD Dirac operator ($`1/R^3`$) one expects, according to par ; levitov1 , multifractal wavefunctions typical of a metal-insulator transition. The same chiral RBM proposed in this paper may be used in this situation but with $`\alpha =1`$ (see ant1  for a model with similar spectral properties). The above arguments suggest that if the restoration of chiral symmetry at finite temperature is dominated by instantons, the physical mechanism leading to the quark-gluon plasma state of matter would be similar to a metal-insulator transition. Clearly further work is needed to explore this exciting relation.

To conclude, we have proposed a chiral random banded model with power-law decay in order to describe the spectral correlations of the QCD Dirac operator beyond the Thouless energy. We have thus combined the asymptotic power-law tail observed in instanton liquid models with the random matrix approach valid for small spacings. We have provided numerical evidence that the resulting chiral RBM does (at least for the two-point function) describe the spectral correlations of the QCD Dirac operator well beyond the Thouless energy. Finally we have mentioned that at the finite temperature chiral restoration transition the appropriately modified chiral RBM predicts a metal-insulator behavior including multifractal wavefunctions and the physics of the Anderson transition in the QCD vacuum.

We thank J.J.M Verbaarschot for illuminating discussions. A.M.G. was supported by the EU network “Mathematical aspects of quantum chaos”. J.C.O. was supported in part by NSF PHY 01-39929.


text:
# Measuring the Mach number of the Universe via the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect.

## 1 Introduction

The Mach number $``$ characterizes the coldness of the velocity field. It was originally introduced by Ostriker & Suto (1990) as a test of cosmological models. The cosmic Mach number is independent of the normalization of the mass density power spectrum and is insensitive to redshift and bias in linear theory. It effectively measures the slope of the power spectrum up to the scales corresponding to the size of the region and can be used to constrain cosmological models for structure formation (Suto & Fujita 1990). Strauss et al. (1993) made a direct comparison of observations and models. They analyzed two samples of spiral and one of elliptical galaxies and obtained $``$0.5-1, with results differing with galactic type. Nagamine et al. (2001) studied the dependence of the cosmic Mach number on overdensity, galaxy mass and age and concluded that either the Local Group was in a relatively low density region or the true mass density was $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$0.2.

Measurements of the velocity field using galaxies as distance indicators are affected by systematic errors (Strauss & Willick, 1998) making difficult the determination of the Mach number on scales beyond $`10^4`$km/s. This can be avoided by analyzing measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) as proposed in this Letter. Hot gas in moving clusters produces redshift independent cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies (Sunyaev & Zel’dovich, 1972 hereafter SZ). The thermal component (TSZ) is usually larger than the kinetic term (KSZ), but has a distinct spectral signature and can be removed using multifrequency observations, allowing the determination of the cluster peculiar velocities (Holzapfel et al. 1997; Mauskopf et al. 2000; LaRoque et al. 2002). At present, the systematic errors are still 3 to 5 times larger than the measured velocities. Recently, Benson et al. (2003), used SuZIE-II measurements of 6 clusters at $`z>`$0.2 to constrain the amplitude of their bulk motion, leading to the first such determination at intermediate redshifts.

The Mach number is the ratio of the bulk flow component, which can be measured directly from the KSZ data alone (Haehnelt & Tegmark 1996, Kashlinsky & Atrio-Barandela 2000, Aghanim et al. 2001), to the cosmic sound speed. We show that the cosmic sound speed can be reliably measured by cross-correlating the CMB temperature field at cluster locations with their redshifts. CMB temperature anisotropies and cluster redshifts encode information on peculiar velocities, but have different systematic errors. Combining the two quantities allows to measure the average sound speed of clusters.

## 2 The Cosmic Mach Number and Cosmic Sound Speed.

The cosmic Mach number is defined to be $`(r,R)=\frac{V_{\mathrm{bulk}}(r)}{C_{S,flow}}`$. The bulk flow component is the mean squared velocity over a region of characteristic scale $`r`$ and $`C_{S,flow}`$ is the sound speed in the reference frame of the mean flow. They are: $`V_{\mathrm{bulk}}^2(r)=H_0^2f^2(\mathrm{\Omega }_m,\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda })\frac{1}{2\pi ^2}_0^{\mathrm{}}P(k)W^2(kr)𝑑k`$, and $`C_S^2=H_0^2f^2(\mathrm{\Omega }_m,\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda })\frac{1}{2\pi ^2}_0^{\mathrm{}}P(k)W^2(kR)𝑑k`$, with $`C_{S,\mathrm{flow}}^2=C_S^2V_{\mathrm{bulk}}^2`$. Here $`f(\mathrm{\Omega }_m,\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda })\mathrm{\Omega }_m^{0.6}+\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }(1+\mathrm{\Omega }_m/2)/70`$ (Lahav et al. 1991), $`P(k)`$ is peculiar mass power spectrum and $`W(x)`$ is the window function of the survey. $`C_S`$ depends mainly on the co-moving scales $`R`$ of the collapsed moving objects. Clusters are regions of high density and their $`C_S`$ may differ from the average. In the linear regime, Bardeen et al. (1986) showed that the rms peculiar velocity of peaks is smaller than that of field points, but the difference is less than 3% for $`R3h^1`$Mpc. Hereafter, we compute the rms peculiar velocity of clusters using linear theory with a Gaussian kernel and $`R=1.5h^1`$Mpc. Borgani et al. (2000) verified that this window and scale give a good fit to the measured peculiar velocities of 18 clusters from the ENEAR catalog of peculiar velocities of elliptical galaxies.

At present the error bars on peculiar velocities from KSZ ($`\sigma _{v_P}`$) are much larger than the estimated velocities $`v_P`$, preventing reliable measurement of the Mach number using CMB data alone. We show that measurements of the CMB temperature of clusters and of their redshift can be combined to determine $``$ in some specific configurations. The temperature field at a cluster location includes (Carlstrom et al. 2002): the intrinsic CMB signal, foreground residuals, noise and TSZ ($`\delta T_{Th}=\tau k_BT_X/m_ec^2`$) and KSZ ($`\delta T_{Kin}=\tau v_P/c`$) components. In these expressions $`\tau `$ the cluster optical depth to electron scattering, $`k_BT_X`$ the intracluster electron temperature in eV, and $`v_P`$ the radial component of the peculiar velocity. All components have different amplitude depending on the beam of each experiment and, except the kinetic and intrinsic CMB temperature anisotropies, all have different frequency dependence. The TSZ component is the dominant contribution to the CMB signal at $`l\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{_<}{^{}}`$3000 ($`\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{_<}{^{}}4^{}`$) (Atrio-Barandela & Mücket 1999, Molnar & Birkinshaw 2000). Multifrequency measurements at cluster locations remove the temperature anisotropy down to the KSZ signal plus some residual $`\delta T=T_0\tau (v_P/c)+r`$; the latter is defined having zero mean and variance $`<r^2>=\sigma _{\mathrm{\Delta }T}^2`$. The uncertainty on the measured peculiar velocity of any individual cluster would be $`\sigma _{v_P}=c(\sigma _{\mathrm{\Delta }T}/T_o\tau )`$. Presently, the measurements of the KSZ (clusters with $`\tau 35\times 10^3`$), have uncertainty $`\sigma _{v_P}1000`$km/s (Benson et al. 2003, Carlstrom et al. 2002).

The bulk flow velocity can be evaluated directly from the KSZ signal by adding the velocity of all clusters in the sample (Benson et al. 2003) with uncertainty:

$$\sigma _{V_{\mathrm{bulk}}}\frac{\sigma _{v_P}}{\sqrt{N_{cl}}}100\left(\frac{\sigma _{v_P}}{1000\mathrm{k}\mathrm{m}/\mathrm{s}}\right)\left(\frac{N_{cl}}{100}\right)^{1/2}\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{sec}$$
(1)
However, $`\sigma _{v_P}C_S`$, so the error on the sound speed is $`\sigma _{C_S^2}\sigma _{v_P}^2`$ and does not scale as $`N_{cl}^{1/2}`$.

The rms peculiar velocity along the line of sight of clusters located on a thin shell in redshift space can be reliably measured by cross-correlating the temperature field at cluster locations with their measured redshifts. For this purpose we chose bins of width $`\mathrm{\Delta }z`$ and for each cluster we define $`\delta z=z\overline{z}`$, where $`\overline{z}`$ is the average redshift of the clusters in the bin. Cluster redshifts can be determined by photometric/spectroscopic measurements of redshift of member galaxies or using SZ morphology (Diego et al. 2002). The latter would require only SZ observations but provide an accuracy of $`\sigma _z0.04(1+z)`$ for one object, while multiobject spectroscopic measurements of galaxies provide redshifts with uncertainties $`\sigma _z5\times 10^4`$ (Yee, Ellingson & Carlberg 1996). Thus redshifts of clusters in the prospective samples can be assumed to have no uncertainties. We also assume that clusters are homogeneously distributed within bins. Thus the cross-correlation gives:

$$\frac{\delta T}{T_o}\delta z=\tau \frac{C_{S,flow}^2}{c^2}\pm \tau \frac{v_P}{c}\delta z\pm r\delta z.$$
(2)
Hereafter, $`V_{\mathrm{bulk}}`$ and $`C_S`$ will be the radial components of the earlier quantities.

Peculiar velocities of clusters and their distances are not independent variables. Clusters are chosen to be in shells of width $`\mathrm{\Delta }z`$ in redshift space; this selection criteria introduces a correlation between $`d`$ and $`v_P`$: clusters that are most separated will have larger peculiar velocity if they are to be in the sample. If cluster velocities are typically $`v_PC_S`$, on average one would expect the spread of clusters on real space to be: $`H_o\mathrm{\Delta }dc\mathrm{\Delta }z+2C_S`$. Hence:

$$\frac{c\delta Tc\delta z}{T_o\tau }=C_{S,flow}^2\pm \overline{\sigma }_{v_P}\frac{c\mathrm{\Delta }z}{\sqrt{12N_{cl}}}\pm v_p\frac{(c\mathrm{\Delta }z+2C_S)}{\sqrt{12}}.$$
(3)
In this expression, $`\overline{\sigma }_{v_P}`$ is the average error on the measured velocity of members of the cluster sample and $`v_p=V_{\mathrm{bulk}}`$ if the region is smaller than the coherence length of the velocity field; otherwise $`v_p=C_S/\sqrt{N_{cl}}`$.

To test eq. (3) we analyzed a numerical simulation based on a P3M code with 2563 particles (Faltenbacher et al. 2002) of a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM model with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7,\sigma _8=0.87`$ and Hubble constant $`H_o=70`$ km s-1Mpc-1. We used a “friends-of-friends” algorithm identifying clusters with $`(1.423)\times 10^{14}h^1`$M. We randomly selected 100 shells of width $`\mathrm{\Delta }z=0.01`$ containing $``$100 clusters each and found that, on average, less than 10% of the clusters were outside the distance interval $`cH_o^1`$. In 80% of the cases $`|\tau v_Pc\delta z|\tau v_p\frac{(c\mathrm{\Delta }z+2C_S)}{\sqrt{12}}`$; for the remaining 20%, the spread was a few percent larger. In all cases, the second noise term in eq. (3) was negligible.

The error bar of $`C_S`$ depends linearly on $`\mathrm{\Delta }z`$. To reduce it we compute $`C_{S,flow}`$ in shells with a small spread in redshift. For this geometry, the dominant contribution is

$$\sigma _{C_S^2,flow}=(300km/s)^2\left(\frac{\overline{\sigma }_{v_P}}{1000km/s}\right)\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }z}{0.01}\right)\left(\frac{100}{N_{cl}}\right)^{1/2}$$
(4)
Since bulk flows in shells are small, the sound speed in the shell and the matter reference frames are very similar: $`C_{S,flow}^2C_S^2`$. Compared with a direct estimation of $`C_S^2`$ from KSZ data alone, the cross correlation with redshift represents an improvement of more than one order of magnitude.

## 3 Observational Prospects.

For small errors (Barlow, 1989): $`(\sigma _{}/)^2=(\sigma _{V_{\mathrm{bulk}}}/V_{\mathrm{bulk}})^2+(\sigma _{C_S^2}/2C_S^2)^2`$. In order to obtain an accurate determination, bulk flow velocities have to be measured in regions much smaller than the sound speed. We propose to compute the Mach number by estimating the sound speed in a shell of width $`\mathrm{\Delta }z`$ located at $`z_{shell}`$ and to measure bulk flows in spheres of radius $`R`$ centered at the same redshift. Observations of clusters to measure their SZ amplitude are already (almost) routinely carried out by several telescopes (e.g. Carlstrom et al. 2002) and exponential progress is expected with the construction of the ALMA array 444http://www.alma.nrao.edu/ and the NSF-funded South Pole microwave telescope 555http://astro.uchicago.edu/spt/. For the purpose of this project, high resolution observations of large samples of clusters with well measured redshifts are required. Blind surveys searching for clusters in large areas of the sky, like the cluster catalog expected to be obtained from the full sky CMB observations of the upcoming PLANCK 666http://astro.estec.esa.nl/SA-general/Projects/Planck/ mission or by the South Pole telescope, which will effectively observe $`10000`$ deg2, will be most relevant. Clusters that produce a change in flux of about 200 mJy relative to the mean flux of the CMB will be detected by Planck. For the WMAP $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM concordance model this limit translates into $`9000`$ clusters in $`4/5`$ of the sky (Diego et al. 2003). Cluster redshifts could be coarsely determined using SZ data (Diego et al. 2002). Optical follow-up of those clusters without optical counterpart will be necessary to measure their redshifts. The current technologies have the capacity to measure $``$2000 redshifts per night with an average uncertainty smaller than $`130`$ km/s777http://www.sdss.org/, http://msowww.anu.edu.au/2dFGRS/. If 10 galaxies per cluster are used to define the cluster redshift, this procedure would require a reasonable amount of observing time.

Most clusters detected by PLANCK will be unresolved. Those needed for computing the Mach number will have to be re-observed at high resolution with ALMA, where its high frequency coverage and its small projected noise of $`2\mu `$K rms after one hour of integration time for a beam of $`1^{}`$, could be very useful to subtract foreground and CMB contribution to its minimum. The flux limit can be related to the cluster mass (Kay et al. 2001): $`S_\nu (353\mathrm{G}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{z})=75\mathrm{m}\mathrm{J}\mathrm{y}\left(\frac{M_{200}}{10^{14}h^1M_{}}\right)^{5/3}\left(\frac{500h^1\mathrm{Mpc}}{D_A}\right)^2(1+z)`$. This detection threshold is quoted for the 353 GHz Planck channel, the one with the highest resolution and lowest noise. In this relation, $`M_{200}`$ corresponds to the mass within a region where the over-density is $`200\rho _c`$. Using the mass-luminosity relation (Reiprich & Böhringer, 2002) $`L_{X,bol}=1.15\times 10^{45}(M_{200}/10^{15}h^1M_{})^{1.8}h^2`$ ergs s-1 we can estimate the luminosity of clusters detected by Planck at any given redshift.

Fig. 1 shows the relative errors on $`C_S^2`$ and $``$ vs $`z`$. The number of clusters were modeled with the X-ray Luminosity Function (XLF) as an evolving Schechter function: $`\varphi (L,z)`$=$`\varphi _o(1+z)^AL^\alpha \mathrm{exp}(L/L_{})`$, with $`L_{}`$=$`L_{,0}(1+z)^B`$, where $`A`$, $`B`$ are two evolutionary parameters, and $`L_{},\alpha `$ are the local XLF values. We took $`L_{}`$=$`9.3\times 10^{44}h^2`$ ergs s-1 and $`\varphi _o`$=$`2.44\times 10^7h^3`$Mpc-3 (Ebeling et al. 1997). In (a) and (b), solid lines corresponding to no redshift evolution $`(A,B)`$=(0,0), dashed to (-3,0) and dot-dashed to (-1,-2), obtained from the analysis of the ROSAT Deep Cluster Survey and the Extended Medium Sensitivity Survey (EMSS), respectively. At present, the evolution of the bright end of the XLF is not well determined and the degree of negative evolution deduced from the EMSS survey is most likely an overestimation, that does not extend to clusters with $`L_X<10^{44}h^2`$ ergs s-1 (Rosati et al. 2002). For the 200 mJy limit (Fig. 1a) the RDCS evolution parameters predict about 14000 clusters out to $`z`$=1, and for the 400 mJy, about 6000. Those numbers were 12000 and 4000 for the EMSS evolution parameters, respectively, the largest difference being in the number of clusters at $`z>`$0.3. The number density of the RDCS parameters was very similar to that of Kay et al. (2002). We took $`\overline{\sigma }_{v_P}`$=1000 km/s, independent of $`z`$, even though foreground and CMB residuals and source confusion may depend on the cluster redshift. Any $`z`$ dependence can be easily accounted for since both $`\sigma _{C_S^2}`$ and $`\sigma _{}`$ vary linearly with $`\overline{\sigma }_{v_P}`$, the average error on the velocity of individual clusters in the sample.

Spheres of radius $``$100$`h^1`$Mpc will contain very few clusters in blind all-sky surveys such as Planck cluster catalog, and another type of survey is required. Romer et al. (2001) argue that an XMM serendipitous cluster survey of about $``$800 deg2 will detect more than 8000 clusters ranging from poor to very rich systems. Their effective flux limit would be $`1.5\times 10^{14}`$ergs s-1cm-2, and all clusters above $`kT_X>4`$KeV (or luminosities $`L_X>10^{44}h^2`$ ergs s-1) will be detected. Adopting the $`\tau `$-$`L_X`$ relation from Cooray (1999) and Kashlinsky & Atrio-Barandela (2000), rescaled to the bolometric band, the number cluster density ($`n_c`$) verifies that $`\tau (n_cR_H^3)^{1/2}`$1 is almost independent of luminosity, so that $``$100 clusters per sphere of radius $`100h^1`$Mpc with $`\tau \genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{_>}{^{}}2\times 10^2`$ will be detected, independent of $`z`$. Also, they will have, on average, a similar error $`\sigma _{v_P}`$. In Fig. 1c and 1d we plot the error on the Mach number assuming that the sound speed was computed in shells of Planck detected clusters and the bulk velocity is computed using a top hat window on spheres of 100 (thick) and 150 $`h^1`$Mpc (thin lines) radii. Solid, dashed and dotted-dashed lines represent the same XLF evolution models as in Figs. 1a,b. Fig. 1c corresponds to Planck detecting all clusters with flux above 200 mJy and (d) to 400 mJy. We also considered $`\overline{\sigma }_{v_P}`$=1000 km s-1, although now the bulk velocity and sound speed are computed over different samples. Folding any redshift dependence of $`\overline{\sigma }_{v_P}`$ into our results is straightforward, but would require detailed knowledge of the (unknown) cluster selection function for Planck and XMM.

To see the capacity of our method to determine cosmological parameters, we assume that at redshift $`z`$0.3 we have identified all PLANCK clusters with fluxes above 200 mJy in a shell of $`\mathrm{\Delta }z`$=0.01, have their $`z`$ measured with uncertainty smaller than 150 km/s and have them re-observed with ALMA at $`1^{}`$ resolution. For the expected number of 100 clusters, this would require $``$100 observing hours. The sample is used to compute $`C_S`$ at that $`z`$. We also assume that the clusters identified by XMM in a sphere of radius $`100h^1`$Mpc centered at $`z`$ have data of similar quality. The Mach number would be the ratio of the bulk velocity in the sphere to the sound speed in the shell. Fig. 2 plots $``$ vs matter density for flat models with cosmological constant, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }+\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$=1, and for three different values for the primordial spectral index $`n`$ = 0.95, 1, 1.3 shown as dashed, solid and dot-dashed lines (all other cosmological parameters were chosen from the WMAP measurements, Bennett et al. 2003, Spergel et al. 2003). The matter power spectrum was taken as $`P(k)k^nT^2(k)`$ with the analytical approximation of Sugiyama (1995) for the CDM transfer function, $`T(k)`$, and normalized to $`\sigma _8`$=0.8. The upper set of lines corresponds to bulk flows on spheres of 100$`h^1`$Mpc and the lower set to 150 $`h^1`$Mpc radius. For $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$=0.3 the triangle shows the expected Mach number and its 1-$`\sigma `$ error bars. We assumed that the cluster XLF evolves with RDCS parameters. The error bar on $``$ translates into a confidence interval for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$. If the bulk flow is measured for 4 independent spheres of 100$`h^1`$Mpc radius, we can estimate $`0.25(0.21)\mathrm{\Omega }_m0.37(0.47)`$ and at the 68 (95) % confidence level. Our method is insensitive to a running spectral index, quintessence or tilt: variations on these cosmological parameters lead to differences in the Mach number much smaller than $`\sigma _{}`$. In this respect, our measurement of the matter density would be robust.

## 4 Conclusions.

We presented a new method to measure the cosmic sound speed of clusters of galaxies. Assuming that all clusters with SZ flux larger than 200 mJy will be identified by the Planck mission, and that the XRLF evolution in the Rosat Deep Cluster Survey is representative of the overall cluster evolution, the relative error would be $`\sigma _{C_S^2}/C_S^20.3`$. If the XMM Serendipitous Cluster Survey detects all clusters above $`kT_X=4`$KeV, by combining measurements of bulk flows in spheres of different sizes with the cosmic sound speed measured in shells at the same redshift, we can estimate the Cosmic Mach number with relative accuracy $`\sigma _{}/0.2`$. This accuracy can be achieved with high resolution microwave images in order to reduce the intrinsic CMB anisotropy with respect to the Kinematic SZ signal, and is within the reach of the currently planned South Pole and ALMA telescopes. The Cosmic Mach number we can determine by our method is directly related to the matter density, and it can determine $`0.21\mathrm{\Omega }_m0.47`$ at the 95% confidence level. This result, being independent of other mass density measurements, would provide an important self consistency check.

FAB and JPM thank the financial support of the Spanish-German Acciones Integradas program HA2002-0084. FAB also thanks the Junta de Castilla y León research project SA002/03 and Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología projects BFM2000-1322 and AYA2000-2465-E.


text:
# The ionization equilibrium of iron in H ii regions

## 1. Introduction

Iron is expected to be in two main ionization states in H ii regions: Fe++ and Fe3+ (with the Fe+ ion having a non negligible concentration only for very low excitation nebulae). Therefore, the measurement of Fe iii and Fe iv emission lines will allow us to determine the Fe abundance in these nebulae. \[Fe iii\] lines, although weak, have already been observed in several H ii regions and starburst galaxies (e.g. Izotov & Thuan 1999; Rodríguez 2002), but \[Fe iv\] lines are much weaker and difficult to observe. Therefore, the Fe abundance in H ii regions is usually obtained from \[Fe iii\] lines and an ionization correction factor (ICF), obtained from ionization models, to account for the contribution of Fe3+. For example, the relation:

$$\frac{\text{Fe}}{\text{O}}=\text{ICF}\frac{\text{Fe}^{++}}{\text{O}^+}=\frac{x(\text{O}^+)}{x(\text{Fe}^{++})}\frac{\text{Fe}^{++}}{\text{O}^+},$$
(1)
where $`x(X^{n+})`$ stands for the ionization fraction of the $`X^{n+}`$ ion, is especially well suited for determining the Fe abundance from optical observations of H ii regions. The ionization potentials of the O and Fe ions are similar (30.6 and 54.8 eV for Fe++ and Fe3+, 35.3 and 54.9 eV for O+ and O++). Furthermore, since both O+ and O++ can be measured from strong optical lines, one can get the O abundance $`\text{O}/\text{H}=\text{O}^+/\text{H}^++\text{O}^{++}/\text{H}^+`$, and hence also $`\text{Fe}/\text{H}`$ from $`\text{Fe}/\text{O}`$.

However, available measurements of some weak \[Fe iv\] lines (Rubin et al. 1997; Rodríguez 2003) imply Fe3+ abundances which are smaller than the values implied by relation (1) by factors 3–8. This discrepancy translates into an uncertainty of up to a factor of 6 in the Fe abundances derived for a wide range of objects, from the nearby Orion nebula to the low metallicity blue compact galaxy SBS 0335$``$052. Thus, resolving this problem has important implications for our understanding of both the evolution of dust in H ii regions and the chemical history of low metallicity dwarf galaxies (see the contribution by Rodríguez & Esteban in this volume).

In order to check whether the discrepancy is due to errors in the ICFs predicted by models, we are studying the ionization equilibrium of Fe using photoionization models that incorporate recently improved values for all the atomic data relevant to the problem.

## 2. Results and discussion

We use the photoionization code NEBULA (Rubin et al. 1991a,b) with the following updates: new photoionization cross sections for Fe+, Fe++, O0 and O+ (Nahar & Pradhan 1994; Nahar 1996a; Kjeldsen et al. 2002; Verner et al. 1996), new recombination coefficients for Fe++, Fe3+, O+ and O++ (Nahar 1996b, 1997, 1999), all the charge-exchange reactions involving these ions (Kingdon & Ferland 1996; and the ORNL/UGA Charge Tranfer Database for Astrophysics — http://www-cfade.phy.ornl.gov/astro/ps/data); and the NLTE model stellar atmospheres of Pauldrach et al. (2001) with solar metallicity.

The ionization cross sections are not smoothly varying; they show several resonances at different energies. Since the positions of these resonances have uncertainties of a few percent, we smoothed (or used available smooth fits) both the ionization cross sections and the model atmospheres by convolving with Gaussians of widths 3% and 1.5% (in energy), respectively.

Figure 1 shows the ICFs obtained from different models with $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}=35000`$–50000 K, total nucleon density $`N=100`$–10000 cm-3, and Orion metallicity Z, Z/10, and Z/30. The results of previous ionization models are also shown for comparison. The model results are compared with the results obtained by Rodríguez (2003) for several objects with available measurements of \[Fe iv\] lines. The new model results, although still higher than the measured values, are much closer to them. The remaining discrepancies could be due to: (1) the need for further improvements in the photoionization models, (2) errors in the atomic data (in particular the collision strengths) used to derive the Fe++ and Fe3+ abundances. The effect on the calculated values of $`x(\text{O}^+)/x(\text{Fe}^{++})`$ of either decreasing the Fe++ abundance or increasing the Fe3+ abundance by a factor of 2 is also shown in Figure 1. This change would make the results for IC4846, 30 Doradus (its upper limit), and M42 compatible with the model results. The possibility of such a change is provided by the recent calculations of collision strengths for Fe++ by McLaughlin et al. (2002). However, they only calculate the collision strengths for transitions between terms. Hence, the new collision strengths cannot be used either to derive abundances or to check their reliability by comparing their predictions with the observed relative intensities of various \[Fe iii\] lines.

Even if the factor of 2 decrease in the Fe++ abundance proved to be real, it would not explain the discrepancies shown by the objects with lower metallicities, SMC N88A and SBS 0335$``$052. However, the models with lower metallicity show slightly lower values for the ICF; thus further refinements (such as the use of low metallicity model atmospheres) might improve the fit. On the other hand, since different \[Fe iv\] lines were used to derive the Fe3+ abundance for the five objects, changes in the relevant collision strengths might explain all the discrepancies.

In any case, the Fe abundances implied by \[Fe iii\] emission lines should be obtained through the relation implied by a fit through the new model results in Figure 1:

$$\frac{\text{Fe}}{\text{O}}=\left(\frac{\text{O}^+}{\text{O}^{++}}\right)^{0.09}\frac{\text{Fe}^{++}}{\text{O}^+}.$$
(2)
### Acknowledgments.

Project partially supported by the Mexican CONACYT project J37680-E. RR acknowledges support from NASA Long-Term Space Astrophysics program.

## References

Gruenwald, R.B., & Viegas, S.M. 1992, ApJS, 78, 153 (GV92)

Izotov, Y.I., & Thuan, T.X. 1999, ApJ, 511, 639

Kingdon, J.B., & Ferland, G.J. 1996, ApJS, 106, 205

Kjeldsen, H., Kristensen, B., Folkman, F., & Andersen, T. 2002, J. Phys. B, 35, 3655

McLaughlin, B.M., Scott, M.P., Sunderland, A.G., Noble, C.J., Burke, V.M, & Burke, P.G. 2002, J. Phys. B, 35, 2755

Nahar, S.N. 1996a, Phys.Rev.A, 53, 1545

Nahar, S.N. 1996b, Phys.Rev.A, 53, 2417

Nahar, S.N. 1997, Phys.Rev.A, 55, 1980

Nahar, S.N. 1999, ApJS, 120, 131

Nahar, S.N., & Pradhan, A.K. 1994, J. Phys. B, 27, 429

Pauldrach, A.W.A., Hoffman, T.L., & Lennon, M. 2001, A&A, 375, 161

Rodríguez, M. 2002, A&A, 389, 556

Rodríguez, M. 2003, ApJ, 590, 296

Rubin, R.H., Simpson, J.P., Haas, M.R., & Erickson, E.F. 1991a, ApJ, 374, 564

Rubin, R.H., Simpson, J.P., Haas, M.R., & Erickson, E.F. 1991b, PASP, 103, 834

Rubin, R.H. Dufour, R.J., Ferland, G.J., Martin, P.G., O’Dell, C.R., Baldwin, J.A., Hester, J.J., Walter, D.K., & Wen, Z. 1997, ApJ, 474, L131

Stasińska, G. 1990, A&AS, 83, 501 (S90)

Verner, D.A., Ferland, G.J., Korista, K.T., & Yakolev, D.G. 1996, ApJ, 465 487


text:
# Gibbs versus non-Gibbs distributions in money dynamics

## 1 Introduction

It is known that the higher end of the distribution of income $`f(m)`$ follows the Pareto law , $`f(m)m^{1\alpha }`$, where $`m`$ is the income (money) and the exponent $`\alpha `$ has a value in the interval $`1`$ and $`2`$ . An explanation of the Pareto law, in terms of the laws regulating the system micro-dynamics, should take into account its basic constituents, i. e. the trading agents, as well as the criteria used to carry out the economic transactions. Several studies have been made to provide an explanation (see Ref.  for a brief summary and more references). In this respect, it is of general interest to study some simple systems of closed economy, which can be either solved exactly or simulated numerically, in order to investigate the relation between the micro-dynamics and the resulting macroscopic money distribution . In this paper we consider the generalization of a simple model of money conserving economy, realized by introducing a criterion of saving in the transaction law, through the saving propensity $`\lambda `$. We study numerically its asymptotic money distribution as a function of the model parameters. We show that it is not a Gibbs distribution and, by direct comparison with numerical data, that the corresponding analytical solution has the form of a Poisson distribution.

## 2 Model

In the simple model considered , $`N`$ agents can exchange money in pairs between themselves. For the sake of simplicity we assume that all the agents are initially assigned the same money amount $`m_0`$, despite this condition is not restrictive for the following results. Agents are then let to interact. At every “time step”, a pair $`(i,j)`$ is randomly chosen and the transaction takes place. During the transaction, the agent money amounts $`m_i`$ and $`m_j`$ undergo a variation, $`m_im_i^{}`$ and $`m_jm_j^{}`$. Money is assumed to be conserved during the transaction, so that

$$m_i+m_j=m_i^{}+m_j^{}.$$
(1)
In this basic model, $`m_i^{}`$ and $`m_j^{}`$ are obtained through a random reassignment of the total money $`(m_i+m_j)`$,

$`m_i^{}`$ $`=`$ $`ϵ(m_i+m_j),`$
$`m_j^{}`$ $`=`$ $`(1ϵ)(m_i+m_j),`$ (2)
where $`ϵ`$ is a random number, extracted from a uniform distribution in the interval $`(0,1)`$. Notice that this model of dynamics, as well as its variations considered in the following, ensures that agents have no debts after the transaction, i. e. they are always left with a money amount $`m0`$. It can be shown that, merely as a consequence of the conservation law (1), the system relaxes toward an equilibrium state characterized by a Gibbs distribution ,

$$f(m)=\beta \mathrm{exp}\left(\beta m\right),$$
(3)
where $`\beta =1/m`$ represents the inverse average money and $`m=_im_i/Nm_0`$. This means that after relaxation, the majority of the agents has a very small amount of money, while the number of richest agents – e. g. those with $`m`$ larger than a given value $`m^{}`$, as well as the fraction of the total money they own, exponentially decreases with $`m^{}`$. The Gibbs distribution (3) has been shown to represent a robust equilibrium state, reached independently of the initial conditions also in generalized models, such as those involving multi-agent transactions.

However, if a saving criterion is introduced , i.e. agents save a fraction $`\lambda `$ – the saving propensity – of the money they have before the transaction is made, the shape of the equilibrium distribution changes dramatically. The conservation equation (1) still holds, but the money to be shared in a transaction between the $`i`$-th and the $`j`$-th agent is now $`(1\lambda )(m_i+m_j)`$. Then Eqs. (2) are thus modified,

$`m_i^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda m_i+ϵ(1\lambda )(m_i+m_j),`$
$`m_j^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda m_j+(1ϵ)(1\lambda )(m_i+m_j).`$ (4)
These equations can also be rewritten in the following way,

$`m_i^{}`$ $`=`$ $`m_i+\mathrm{\Delta }m,`$
$`m_j^{}`$ $`=`$ $`m_j\mathrm{\Delta }m,`$
$`\mathrm{\Delta }m`$ $`=`$ $`(1\lambda )[ϵm_j(1ϵ)m_i],`$ (5)
which clearly shows how money is conserved during the transaction.

We performed numerical simulations, for various values of $`\lambda `$, of a system with $`N=500`$ agents. In each simulation a sufficient number of transactions, as far as $`10^7`$, depending on the value of $`\lambda `$, was used in order to reach equilibrium. The final equilibrium distributions for a given $`\lambda `$, obtained by averaging over $`1000`$ different runs, are shown in Fig. 1.

## 3 Fitting

The exact solution for the case $`\lambda =0`$ is known to be given by the Gibbs distribution, Eq. (3). Here we give the corresponding exact solution for an generic value of $`\lambda `$, with $`0<\lambda <1`$. This solution was found by fitting the results of numerical simulations and it turns out to fit extremely well all data.

It is convenient to introduce the reduced variable

$$x=\frac{m}{m},$$
(6)
the agent money in units of the average money $`m`$, and the parameter

$$n(\lambda )=1+\frac{3\lambda }{1\lambda }.$$
(7)
We found that the money distributions, for arbitrary values of $`\lambda `$, are well fitted by the function

$$P(x)=a_nx^{n1}\mathrm{exp}\left(nx\right),$$
(8)
where $`x`$ and $`n`$ are defined in Eqs. (6) and (7), respectively111An excellent fitting is also obtained if the variable in the exponential is raised to a power $`c`$, $`\mathrm{exp}(nx)\mathrm{exp}(nx^c)`$, where $`c`$ is an additional parameter and the value of $`c`$ is close to one for all values of $`\lambda `$. Here we assume $`c1`$, since the corresponding fitting is good.. Using normalization conditions, the prefactor is easily shown to be given by

$$a_n=\frac{n^n}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(n)},$$
(9)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(n)`$ is the Gamma function.

The fitting curves for the distribution (continuous lines) are compared with the numerical data in Fig. 1. The fitting describes the distribution also at large values of $`x`$, as shown by the logarithmic plots in Fig. 2. The numerical values of the parameters $`a_n`$ and $`n`$ are compared with the respective fitting functions (9) and (7) in Fig. 3. The distribution function (8) still contains an exponential factor $`\mathrm{exp}(nx)`$, similar to that of the Gibbs distribution, but the average value is now rescaled by $`n`$. The power $`x^{n1}`$ qualitatively changes the Gibbs distribution into a curve with a maximum at $`x>0`$, i. e. with a mode different from zero.

It is to be noticed that by introducing the rescaled variable

$$x_n=nx\frac{m}{m/n},$$
(10)
and the corresponding probability density $`P_n(x_n)=dF(x)/dx_nP(x)/n`$, where $`F(x)`$ is the cumulative function, and using the explicit expression of $`a_n`$, Eq. (9), the distribution (8) becomes

$$P_n(x_n)=\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(n1)}x_n^{n1}\mathrm{exp}\left(x_n\right),$$
(11)
which reduces to the Poisson distribution for integer values of $`n`$.

## 4 Conclusions and discussion

We have studied a generalization of the simple closed economy model, in which a random reassignment of the agent money takes place, by introducing a saving propensity $`\lambda >0`$. We have empirically obtained the corresponding exact analytical solution from a fitting of the numerical data. The distribution naturally lends itself to be interpreted as a Poisson distribution $`P(n,x_n)`$ for the reduced variable $`x_n=m/(m/n)`$. The parameter $`n=1+3\lambda /(1\lambda )`$ is in principle continuous but it can vary between $`1`$ and $`\mathrm{}`$ when $`\lambda `$ varies between $`0`$ and $`1`$. This result raises the problem of a more rigorous derivation of the solution as well as of a deeper physical interpretation of the result.

This work was partially supported by the Academy of Finland, Research Center for Computational Science and Engineering, project no. 44897 (Finnish Centre for Excellence Program 2000-2005). The work at Brookhaven National Laboratory was carried out under Contract No. DE-AC02-98CH10886, Division of Material Science, U. S. Department of Energy.