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# Convergent Yang-Mills Matrix Theories

## 1 Introduction

The quantum mechanics obtained by dimensional reduction of Yang-Mills field theories to one dimension was first studied in the 1980s  and describes the sector of the original field theory in which the fields are independent of the spatial coordinates. A little later it was discovered that the supersymmetric theory (SSYM) in ten dimensions with gauge group $`SU(N)`$ could be regarded in the large $`N`$ limit as a light-cone regularization of the super-membrane  but it was soon realised that this theory has a continuous spectrum starting from zero energy . This is in contrast to the case of strings where the spectrum is discrete, leading to a tower of states some of which are massless and therefore candidates for massless and low mass particles in the real world and the rest of which have masses proportional to the string scale which is somewhere up in the region of the Planck mass. Thus it appeared that the absence of a gap rendered the supermembrane theory useless as a phenomenological description of nature and the subject went quiet for many years.

In the ensuing period many remarkable discoveries were made in string theory. All the known super-string theories have been found to be related to each other by various duality transformations and to 11-dimensional supergravity by compactification (see  for recent reviews and further references), and the role of D-branes as solitons in string theories opened another window on non-perturbative string physics . The existence of such relationships between these various string theories clearly implies that they are all different perturbative limits of an over-arching theory, christened M-theory. We know M-theory must be there but we do not know how to write it down. In particular the 11-dimensional supergravity is a classical field theory for which a consistent quantization is not known; however it is contained in the supermembrane theory and this leads to the BFSS conjecture  that the regularized supermembrane theory provided by the large $`N`$ limit of SSYM quantum mechanics, now christened M(atrix) Theory, does indeed represent M-theory in the light-cone gauge. Simultaneously IKKT proposed that the dimensional reduction of $`D=10`$ $`SU(N)`$ SSYM to zero dimensions (which is of course the reduction of the quantum mechanics by its remaining dimension) described in the large $`N`$ limit the type IIB superstring . For reviews of these subjects see for example . These developments have generated renewed interest in Yang-Mills quantum mechanics . The continuous spectrum is no longer a problem but a virtue because this is a theory of everything and must describe multi-particle states. However the number of zero energy bosonic states in M(atrix) Theory must be one because there is only supposed to be one graviton super-multiplet in the theory. It is conjectured that this is indeed the case for $`SU(N)`$  and calculations in the special case of $`SU(2)`$  agree but, although there are several partial results , it remains otherwise unproven. The calculation of the Witten index requires the evaluation of, among other things, quantities that are partition functions in the IKKT model; these are often called Yang-Mills matrix integrals. Even here there are many potential difficulties, the most basic of which is whether the partition function and correlation functions exist and this is the main subject of this paper.

The Yang-Mills matrix integral partition function, which is obtained by dimensionally reducing the Euclidean SSYM action from $`D`$ down to zero dimensions, is given by

$$𝒵_{D,G}=\underset{\mu =1}{\overset{D}{}}dX_\mu \underset{\alpha =1}{\overset{𝒩}{}}d\psi _\alpha \mathrm{exp}\left(\underset{\mu ,\nu }{}\text{Tr}[X_\mu ,X_\nu ]^2+\text{Tr}\psi _\alpha [\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\alpha \beta }^\mu X_\mu ,\psi _\beta ]\right)$$
(1)
where we adopt the summation convention for repeated indices. The traceless hermitian matrix fields $`X_\mu `$ and $`\psi _\alpha `$ (respectively bosonic and fermionic) are in the Lie algebra $`𝒢`$ of the (compact semi-simple) gauge group $`G`$ and can be written

$$X_\mu =\underset{a=1}{\overset{g}{}}X_\mu ^at^a,\psi _\alpha =\underset{a=1}{\overset{g}{}}\psi _\alpha ^at^a$$
(2)
where $`\{t^a,a=1,\mathrm{},g\}`$ are the generators in the fundamental representation. The $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\alpha \beta }^\mu `$ are ordinary gamma matrices for $`D`$ Euclidean dimensions. The model possesses a gauge symmetry

$$X_\mu U^{}X_\mu U,\psi _\alpha U^{}\psi _\alpha U,UG.$$
(3)
and an $`SO(D)`$ symmetry inherited from the original $`D`$-dimensional Euclidean symmetry of the SSYM. Although the motivation discussed above leads to a study of the $`D=10`$, $`SU(N)`$ supersymmetric integral, it is useful and illuminating to study several different versions of the model. Firstly by suppressing the fermions we get the bosonic integrals which we will denote by $`𝒩=0`$ (ie there are no super-charges) . Secondly the supersymmetric integrals can be written for $`D=3`$, 4, 6, and 10, having $`𝒩=2(D2)`$ super-charges. In principle one can integrate out the fermions to obtain

$$𝒵_{D,G}=\underset{\mu =1}{\overset{D}{}}dX_\mu 𝒫_{D,G}(X_\mu )\mathrm{exp}\left(\underset{\mu ,\nu }{}\text{Tr}[X_\mu ,X_\nu ]^2\right)$$
(4)
where the Pfaffian $`𝒫_{D,G}`$ is a homogeneous polynomial of degree $`\frac{1}{2}𝒩g`$. We will also consider simple correlation functions of the form

$$<𝒞_k(X_\sigma )>=\underset{\mu =1}{\overset{D}{}}dX_\mu 𝒞_k(X_\sigma )𝒫_{D,G}(X_\mu )\mathrm{exp}\left(\underset{\mu ,\nu }{}\text{Tr}[X_\mu ,X_\nu ]^2\right)$$
(5)
where $`𝒞_k`$ is a polynomial of degree $`k`$.

Only when the gauge group is $`SU(2)`$ is it known how to evaluate all these integrals in closed analytic form . We recently established analytically the convergence criteria for the bosonic integrals in the case of $`SU(N)`$  and in this paper we will extend these results to all other compact semi-simple gauge groups and to the supersymmetric integrals. However much has already been learned about the properties of these integrals by a variety of techniques. The authors of  used the supersymmetry to deform the Yang-Mills partition function into a cohomological theory in which the integrals can be done. From the point of view of the defining formula 4 this involves among other things a change of variables and an analytic continuation that implicitly depends upon the original integral being convergent. The method appears to work for the partition function when $`D>3`$ and gives results in agreement with numerical calculations at small $`N`$ . Unfortunately it seems that this method cannot be used to calculate the many correlation functions that are of interest in the original YM model. There is no small parameter expansion in these models (the original gauge coupling $`g`$ can be scaled out) but the one-loop effective action can be calculated as can the $`\frac{1}{D}`$ expansion ; care must be exercised in the gaussian approximation because it requires a cut-off to be introduced even when the full theory is actually convergent.

It was realised in  that these integrals are amenable to numerical calculation for small gauge groups where the Pfaffian can be handled more or less by brute force; very careful and accurate determination of the integrals for $`SU(N)`$ with $`N=3`$, 4 and 5  confirmed the results obtained by deformation (there are a number of subtleties involved in this comparison arising from the normalization of the measures, in addition to the problems of actually doing the integrals). These authors also examined the bosonic integrals, which were commonly believed to be divergent because of the flat directions in the action, and found that in fact provided $`D`$ is big enough they converge too. In later papers these results were extended to other gauge groups ; as we shall see the conclusions about convergence contained therein are entirely in agreement with the analytic results that we explain in this paper.

Another use of numerical simulations is to study correlation functions at much larger $`N`$ by Monte Carlo and to try to establish the large $`N`$ behaviour of the theory. Simulations for the $`SU(N)`$ bosonic model up to $`N=768`$ have now been reported ; as can be seen from the analytic bounds  the convergence properties at large $`N`$ are very good and a great deal of information can be obtained. Intriguingly it even appears that the Wilson loop shows an area law in a regime which remains finite as $`N`$ increases. It is not quite so easy to study large $`N`$ for the supersymmetric theories because of the Pfaffian; brute force evaluation is out of the question. When $`D=4`$ the Pfaffian is positive semi-definite and can be expressed as a determinant; this means that it is possible to deal with the fermions by Monte Carlo using the standard methods of lattice gauge theory and values of $`N`$ up to 48 have been studied . For $`D=6`$, 10 the Pfaffian causes real trouble because it is complex and standard methods do not work. Two ways of coping with this have been tried; in  the one loop effective action with an ultraviolet cut-off was simulated using the absolute value of the Pfaffian while  studied configurations which are saddle-points of the phase of the Pfaffian. Although both of these calculations violate supersymmetry it is interesting that the latter leads to lower dimensional sub-manifolds dominating the integral whereas the former does not. The Yang-Mills quantum mechanics has also been studied in the quenched approximation  and a supersymmetric random surface model has been simulated directly  and compared to the IKKT model.

This paper has two purposes. The first is to show how to extend our convergence proofs for bosonic partition functions and correlators from SU(N) to all other compact gauge groups; in section 2 we show which integrals converge and in section 3 we conversely show which ones diverge. The second purpose is to repeat the exercise for the supersymmetric models which is done in section 4. Section 5 is a discussion of our results.

## 2 Convergent Bosonic Integrals

We consider first the integral 1 without fermions so that $`𝒩=0`$ and there is no Pfaffian. The dangerous regions which might cause 1 to diverge are where all the commutators almost vanish but the magnitude of $`X_\mu `$ goes to infinity. Hence we let

$$X_\mu =Rx_\mu ,\text{Tr}x_\mu x_\mu =1.$$
(6)
Then

$$𝒵_{D,G}=_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑RR^{Dg1}𝒳_{D,G}(R)$$
(7)
where

$$𝒳_{D,G}(R)=\underset{\nu =1}{\overset{D}{}}dx_\nu \delta \left(1\text{Tr}x_\mu x_\mu \right)\mathrm{exp}\left(R^4S_𝒢\right)$$
(8)
and

$`S_𝒢`$ $`=`$ $`\text{Tr}[x_\mu ,x_\nu ][x_\mu ,x_\nu ]`$ (9)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i,j,\mu ,\nu }{}}\left|[x_\mu ,x_\nu ]_{i,j}\right|^2.`$
We note that for any $`R`$ the integral $`𝒳_{D,G}(R)`$ is bounded by a constant and, if for large $`R`$

$`\left|𝒳_{D,G}(R)\right|`$ $`<`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\text{const}}{R^\alpha }},\text{with }\alpha >Dg,`$ (10)
then the partition function $`𝒵_{D,G}`$ is finite. Our tactic for proving convergence of $`𝒵_{D,G}`$ is to find a bound of the form 10 on $`𝒳_{D,G}(R)`$. A sufficient condition for the correlation function 5 to converge is obtained by modifying 10 to require $`\alpha >Dg+k`$.

From now on, we are only interested in large $`R`$, so we shall always assume $`R>1`$. Let us split the integration region in 8 into two

$`_1(𝒢):`$ $`S_𝒢<(R^{(2\eta )})^2`$
$`_2(𝒢):`$ $`S_𝒢(R^{(2\eta )})^2`$ (11)
where $`\eta `$ is small but positive. We see immediately that the contribution to $`𝒳_{D,G}(R)`$ from $`_2(𝒢)`$ is bounded by $`A_1\mathrm{exp}(R^{2\eta })`$ (we will use the capital letters $`A`$, $`B`$ and $`C`$ to denote constants throughout this paper) and thus automatically satisfies 10. Thus we can confine our efforts to the contribution from $`_1(𝒢)`$ in which we replace the exponential function by unity to get the bound

$$\left|𝒳_{D,G}(R)\right|<A_1\mathrm{exp}(R^{2\eta })+_{D,G}(R)$$
(12)
where

$$_{D,G}(R)=_{_1(𝒢)}\underset{\nu =1}{\overset{D}{}}dx_\nu \delta \left(1\text{Tr}x_\mu x_\mu \right).$$
(13)
The condition in 6 means that at least one of the matrices $`x_\mu `$ (say $`x_1`$) must satisfy

$$\text{Tr}x_1x_1D^1.$$
(14)
It is convenient to express the Lie algebra $`𝒢`$ using the Cartan-Weyl basis

$$\{H^i,E^\alpha \}$$
(15)
where $`i`$ runs from $`1`$ to the rank $`l`$ and $`\alpha `$ denotes a root. In this basis

$$[H^i,H^j]=0,[H^i,E^\alpha ]=\alpha ^iE^\alpha $$
(16)
and

$$\begin{array}{cccc}[E^\alpha ,E^\beta ]\hfill & =\hfill & N_{\alpha \beta }E^{\alpha +\beta }\hfill & \text{if }\alpha +\beta \text{ is a root}\hfill \\ & =\hfill & 2\left|\alpha \right|^2\alpha H\hfill & \text{if }\alpha =\beta \hfill \\ & =\hfill & 0\hfill & \text{otherwise}\hfill \end{array}$$
(17)
Here $`E^\alpha =(E^\alpha )^{}`$, and the normalisation is chosen such that

$$\text{Tr}H^iH^j=\delta ^{ij},\text{Tr}E^\alpha E^\beta =2\left|\alpha \right|^2\delta ^{\alpha +\beta },\text{Tr}H^iE^\alpha =0.$$
(18)
Since the integrand and measure are gauge invariant, we can always make a gauge transformation 3 to move $`x_1`$ into the Cartan subalgebra

$$x_1=x^iH^i$$
(19)
and reduce the integral over $`x_1`$ to an integral over its Cartan modes

$$\underset{a=1}{\overset{g}{}}dx_1^a\text{const}\left(\underset{i=1}{\overset{l}{}}dx^i\right)\mathrm{\Delta }_G^2(x)$$
(20)
where the Weyl measure

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_G^2(x)=\underset{\alpha >0}{}(x\alpha )^2$$
(21)
is the generalisation from $`SU(N)`$ of the Vandermonde determinant factors. We expand the remaining $`x_\nu `$

$$x_\nu =x_\nu ^iH^i+x_\nu ^\alpha E^\alpha \nu =2,\mathrm{},D$$
(22)
with $`x_\nu ^\alpha =(x_\nu ^\alpha )^{}`$.

In the region $`_1(𝒢)`$, we certainly have $`\text{Tr}[x_1,x_\nu ]^2<R^{2(2\eta )}`$ for $`\nu =2,\mathrm{},D`$, and writing this in terms of the basis 15 gives

$$4\underset{\alpha >0}{}\frac{(x\alpha )^2}{\left|\alpha \right|^2}\left|x_\nu ^\alpha \right|^2<R^{2(2\eta )},$$
(23)
where the sum is over positive roots. This is the key result because, whenever $`(x\alpha )^2`$ is bigger than a constant, it gives us a bound of order $`R^{(2\eta )}`$ on $`x_\nu ^\alpha `$ and so allows us to bound the integral 13.

There is only a finite number of ways of choosing the positive roots and it is convenient to define them in the following manner. We partition all the roots according to whether $`x\alpha `$ is i) positive, in which case we call $`\alpha `$ a positive root, ii) negative, in which case we call $`\alpha `$ a negative root, iii) zero, which we call the orthogonal subspace. Finally we partition the roots in the orthogonal subspace into positive or negative by the standard Cartan construction. Thus we see that if $`\alpha `$ is a positive root we have by construction $`x\alpha 0`$. As usual there is a set of $`l`$ simple positive roots $`\{s_i\}`$ which span the $`l`$-dimensional root space and any positive root can be be written

$$\alpha =\underset{i=1}{\overset{l}{}}n_i^\alpha s_i,$$
(24)
with the $`\{n_i^\alpha \}`$ non-negative integers.

The integration region of $`x`$ is split into a finite number of sub-regions; one for each choice of the positive roots. In each sub-region, the properties discussed in the previous paragraph hold. However, since all possible sets of simple positive roots are related by Weyl reflections, each of these sub-regions is equivalent as far as our integrals are concerned. Now define a number $`c`$

$$c=\underset{\{a^2=1\}}{\mathrm{min}}\underset{i}{\mathrm{max}}\left|as_i\right|$$
(25)
which must be positive ($`c`$ can be related to the quadratic form matrix but we do not need an explicit expression). Then the condition 14 tells us that at least one of the simple roots, $`s_1`$ say, satisfies $`xs_1cD^{\frac{1}{2}}`$. In addition, any positive root $`\alpha `$ which contains the simple root $`s_1`$ satisfies $`x\alpha cD^{\frac{1}{2}}`$ on account of 24.

We now split up the Lie algebra $`𝒢`$ as follows. Define $`𝒢^{}=Lie(G^{})`$ to be the regularly embedded subalgebra of $`𝒢`$ obtained by omitting the simple root $`s_1`$. Then $`\text{rank}(𝒢^{})=\text{rank}(𝒢)1`$ and we write $`J`$ for the combination of the generators $`H^i`$ which commutes with $`𝒢^{}`$. The remaining generators are $`\{F^\beta \}`$ where $`\beta `$ is any root which contains $`s_1`$. As a simple consequence of the root structure and construction of $`𝒢^{}`$, we note

$$\begin{array}{ccc}[J,𝒢^{}]\hfill & =\hfill & 0\hfill \\ [F^\beta ,𝒢^{}]\hfill & \hfill & \{F^\gamma \}\hfill \\ [J,F^\beta ]\hfill & \hfill & \{F^\gamma \}\hfill \\ [𝒢^{},𝒢^{}]\hfill & \hfill & 𝒢^{},\hfill \end{array}$$
(26)
and then decompose $`x_\mu `$ into

$$x_\mu =y_\mu +\rho _\mu J+\omega _\mu ^\beta F^\beta ,$$
(27)
with $`y_\mu 𝒢^{}`$; the condition 23 then gives us a bound on the $`\omega _\mu `$,

$$\left|\omega _\nu ^\beta \right|<c^1D^{\frac{1}{2}}R^{(2\eta )},\nu =2,\mathrm{},D.$$
(28)
We must further split up the integration region according to the relevant choice of $`G^{}`$, and then we can use 28 to bound the integral 13 in each of these regions. The region giving the least inverse power of $`R`$ will then give a bound on $`_{D,G}`$. Using the decomposition 27, the commutation rules 26, and the inner products 18, we find that the action takes the form

$`S_𝒢(x_\mu )`$ $`=`$ $`S_𝒢^{}(y_\mu )+2\text{Tr}[y_\mu ,y_\nu ][F^\beta ,F^\gamma ]\omega _\mu ^\beta \omega _\nu ^\gamma `$ (29)
$`+\text{Tr}(\omega _\nu ^\beta [y_\mu ,F^\beta ]\omega _\mu ^\beta [y_\nu ,F^\beta ]+(\rho _\mu \omega _\nu ^\beta \rho _\nu \omega _\mu ^\beta )[J,F^\beta ]+\omega _\mu ^\beta \omega _\nu ^\gamma [F^\beta ,F^\gamma ])^2.`$
$`=`$ $`S_𝒢^{}(y_\mu )+𝒪(R^{2(2\eta )})`$
where we have used 28 and the fact that the elements of $`y_\mu `$ and $`\rho _\mu `$ are bounded by a constant. Thus we find that (up to a trivial scaling constant)

$$x_\mu _1(𝒢)y_\mu _1(𝒢^{}).$$
(30)
The final ingredient is to note that the Weyl measure 21 for $`G`$ can be bounded by that for $`G^{}`$:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_G^2(x)<\text{const}\mathrm{\Delta }_G^{}^2(y)$$
(31)
Then, integrating out the $`\omega `$ and $`\rho `$ degrees of freedom, and using the bounds 28, 30 and 31 gives (more details of these manipulations are given in our previous paper )

$$_{D,G}(R)<B_1R^{(2\eta )(D1)(gg^{}1)}_{D,G^{}}(R)$$
(32)
where

$$_{D,G^{}}(R)=_{_1(G^{})}\underset{\nu =1}{\overset{D}{}}dy_\nu \theta \left(1\text{Tr}y_\mu y_\mu \right),$$
(33)
and we have absorbed the $`G^{}`$ Weyl measure thus restoring the integral to $`G^{}`$ gauge invariant form. Using the identity $`\theta (1\text{Tr}y_\mu y_\mu )=_0^1𝑑t\delta (t\text{Tr}y_\mu y_\mu )`$ and then rescaling $`t=[u/R]^{2\eta }`$ and $`y_\mu =\stackrel{~}{y}_\mu [u/R]^{1\eta /2}`$ gives

$$_{D,G^{}}(R)=(2\eta )R^{(1\eta /2)Dg^{}}_0^R𝑑uu^{(1\eta /2)Dg^{}1}_{D,G^{}}(u).$$
(34)
We shall proceed by induction. Our aim is to show that

$$_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑RR^{Dg1}_{D,G}(R)<const.$$
(35)
If this is true for $`G^{}`$, then 34 tells us

$$_{D,G^{}}(R)<B_2R^{(1\eta /2)Dg^{}}$$
(36)
so that by 32

$$_{D,G}(R)<B_3R^{(1\eta /2)[2(D1)(gg^{}1)+Dg^{}]}$$
(37)
and we can then decide on the truth of 35 for $`G`$. Our task then is to find the regularly embedded subalgebras $`𝒢^{}`$ of $`𝒢`$ and choose the one which leads to the least inverse power in 37. In doing this we will need the result that if the regularly embedded subalgebra $`𝒢^{}`$ is a direct sum of two (mutually commuting) subalgebras $`𝒢^{}=𝒢_1^{}𝒢_2^{}`$ then

$$_{D,G^{}}(R)<_{D,G_1^{}}(R)_{D,G_2^{}}(R)$$
(38)
since $`\theta (1\text{Tr}_𝒢^{}y_\mu y_\mu )\theta (1\text{Tr}_{𝒢_1^{}}y_\mu y_\mu )\theta (1\text{Tr}_{𝒢_2^{}}y_\mu y_\mu )`$ and $`S_𝒢^{}=S_{𝒢_1^{}}+S_{𝒢_2^{}}`$.

We now proceed to consider each group in turn:

The case of $`SU(r+1)`$ is dealt with in our previous paper . We include a review here for completeness. The Dynkin diagram for $`su(r+1)`$ is

(39)
where there are $`r`$ nodes. To find the regularly embedded subalgebras $`𝒢^{}`$ we simply remove one of the nodes, and discover

$$su(r+1)𝒢^{}=su(m)su(r+1m),\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}1}mr.$$
(40)
where we define $`su(1)=0`$. The dimension of $`su(m)`$ is $`m^21`$, so that $`g^{}=m^2+(r+1m)^22`$.

The Lie algebra $`su(2)`$ has no regularly embedded subalgebra, so $`g^{}=0`$ and

$$_{D,SU(2)}<B_3R^{(1\eta /2)4(D1)}.$$
(41)
Then $`𝒵_{D,SU(2)}`$ is finite for $`D5`$. Substituting into 34, we see

$$_{D,SU(2)}<B_4R^{(1\eta /2)3D}R^{(1\eta /2)\delta _{D,3}}(\mathrm{log}R)^{\delta _{D,4}}.$$
(42)
In dimensions $`3`$ and $`4`$, the result is at variance with 36. However, modification by a $`\mathrm{log}R`$ factor will not affect any of our conclusions, so it is only for $`D=3`$ that we must be careful to use the modified formula.

The Lie algebra $`su(3)`$ has $`su(2)`$ as its only regularly embedded subalgebra. Then substituting 42 into 32, we discover $`𝒵_{D,SU(3)}`$ converges for $`D4`$. In this case, the general formula 36 is modified only in the case $`D=3`$, and only by a factor of $`\mathrm{log}R`$ which will not affect our results.

For $`SU(r+1)`$ with $`r3`$, it is a simple exercise to discover which of these possible $`𝒢^{}`$ gives the least inverse power of $`R`$ behaviour in 37. The only point to remember is that we must include an extra $`R^{1\eta /2}`$ factor in the case of $`𝒢^{}=su(2)su(r1)`$ when $`D=3`$, to allow for the anomalous behaviour of $`_{3,SU(2)}`$. We discover that we must always take $`𝒢^{}=su(r)`$, giving $`g^{}=r^21`$. Substituting back into 37, we find that $`𝒵_{D,SU(r+1)}`$ is convergent for $`D3`$ when $`r3`$. The correlation function 5 converges when $`k<k_c`$ with

$$k_c=2rDD4r\delta _{D,3}\delta _{r,2},r2,D3.$$
(43)
The Dynkin diagram for $`so(2r+1)`$ is

(44)
where there are $`r`$ nodes, and the dimension is $`g=2r^2+r`$. By removing one node, we see that the possible $`𝒢^{}`$ are $`so(2m+1)su(rm)`$ with $`0mr1`$. We discover the most important contribution is always from $`𝒢^{}=so(2r1)`$, and that $`𝒵_{D,SO(2r+1)}`$ always converges for $`r2`$ and $`D3`$. The critical degree $`k_c`$ for correlation functions is

$$\begin{array}{ccccc}k_c\hfill & =\hfill & 2\hfill & & r=2,D=3\hfill \\ k_c\hfill & =\hfill & 4rD8r3D+4\hfill & & \text{otherwise}.\hfill \end{array}$$
(45)
The exception when $`r=2`$ and $`D=3`$ occurs because of the anomalous behaviour of $`_{3,SU(2)}`$.

The Dynkin diagram for $`sp(2r)`$ is

(46)
where there are $`r`$ nodes, and the dimension is $`g=2r^2+r`$. The possible $`𝒢^{}`$ are $`sp(2m)su(rm)`$ with $`0mr1`$, and the dominant contribution is from $`sp(2r2)`$. The partition function $`𝒵_{D,Sp(2r)}`$ converges for all $`r2`$ and $`D3`$ and the critical correlation function is given by

$$\begin{array}{ccccc}k_c\hfill & =\hfill & 2\hfill & & r=2,D=3\hfill \\ k_c\hfill & =\hfill & 4rD8r3D+4\hfill & & \text{otherwise}.\hfill \end{array}$$
(47)
The Dynkin diagram for $`so(2r)`$ is

(48)
where there are $`r`$ nodes, and the dimension is $`g=2r^2r`$. The possible $`𝒢^{}`$ are $`so(2m)su(rm)`$ for $`4mr1`$, $`su(4)su(r3)`$, $`su(r2)su(2)su(2)`$ and $`su(r)`$. The dominant contribution always comes from $`so(2r2)`$, and we discover that $`𝒵_{D,SO(2r)}`$ always converges for $`D3`$ and $`r4`$. The critical correlation function is given by

$$k_c=4rD5D8r+8.$$
(49)
The Dynkin diagram is

(50)
and the dimension is $`14`$. The only regularly embedded subalgebra is $`su(2)`$, and we discover $`𝒵_{D,G_2}`$ converges for $`D3`$ with

$$k_c=9D20\delta _{D,3}.$$
(51)
The Dynkin diagram is

(52)
and the dimension $`g=52`$. The dominant contributions come equally from $`𝒢^{}=so(7)`$ and $`𝒢^{}=sp(6)`$, each having $`g^{}=21`$. Then $`𝒵_{D,F_4}`$ converges for $`D3`$ and

$$k_c=29D60.$$
(53)
The Dynkin diagram is

(54)
and the dimension $`g=78`$. The dominant contribution comes from $`𝒢^{}=so(10)`$ having $`g^{}=45`$. Then $`𝒵_{D,E_6}`$ converges for $`D3`$ and

$$k_c=31D64.$$
(55)
The Dynkin diagram is

(56)
and the dimension $`g=133`$. The dominant contribution comes from $`𝒢^{}=e_7`$ with $`g^{}=78`$. Then $`𝒵_{D,E_7}`$ converges for $`D3`$ and

$$k_c=53D108.$$
(57)
The Dynkin diagram is

(58)
with dimension $`g=248`$. The dominant contribution comes from $`𝒢^{}=e_7`$ with $`g^{}=133`$. Then $`𝒵_{D,E_8}`$ converges for $`D3`$ and

$$k_c=113D228.$$
(59)
## 3 Divergent Bosonic Integrals

The partition functions trivially diverge when $`D=2`$ since, taking $`X_1`$ to be in the Cartan subalgebra, the integrand is independent of the Cartan subalgebra degrees of freedom of $`X_2`$. In  we showed that the $`SU(N)`$ partition function diverges whenever the convergence conditions are not met. We will now show that the correlation function $`<(\text{Tr}X_\mu X_\mu )^{k/2}>`$ always diverges when $`kk_c`$ so that $`k_c`$ is indeed critical.

We have immediately that

$$<(\text{Tr}X_\mu X_\mu )^{k/2}>=_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑RR^{Dg+k1}𝒳_{D,G}(R).$$
(60)
This time, consider the region

$`:`$ $`S<R^4`$ (61)
Then $`\mathrm{exp}(R^4S)>\mathrm{exp}(1)`$ and so

$$𝒳_{D,G}(R)>C_1_{D,G}$$
(62)
where now

$$_{D,G}=_{}\underset{\nu =1}{\overset{D}{}}dx_\nu \delta \left(1\text{Tr}x_\mu x_\mu \right)$$
(63)
and, moving $`x_1`$ into the Cartan subalgebra,

$$𝒳_{D,G}(R)>C_2_{}\underset{i=1}{\overset{l}{}}dx_1^i\mathrm{\Delta }_G^2(x_1^i)\underset{\nu =2}{\overset{D}{}}dx_\nu \delta \left(1\text{Tr}x_\mu x_\mu \right).$$
(64)
Now pick a regularly embedded sub-algebra $`𝒢^{}`$ of $`𝒢`$ (with rank $`1`$ less than $`𝒢`$). As before, write $`x=y+\rho J+\omega ^\beta F^\beta `$ with $`y𝒢^{}`$, and define a new region $`_ϵ^{}`$ by

$$\begin{array}{ccc}_ϵ^{}:\hfill & \left|\omega _\nu ^\beta \right|<ϵR^2\hfill & \nu =2,\mathrm{},D\hfill \\ & S_G^{}(y_\mu )<ϵR^4.\hfill & \end{array}$$
(65)
Then by taking $`ϵ`$ small enough, we see from 29 that

$$R_ϵ^{}$$
(66)
and therefore

$$𝒳_{D,G}(R)>C_2__ϵ^{}\underset{i=1}{\overset{l}{}}dx_1^i\mathrm{\Delta }_G^2(x_1^i)\underset{\nu =2}{\overset{D}{}}dx_\nu \delta \left(1\text{Tr}x_\mu x_\mu \right).$$
(67)
Now perform this integral over the $`\omega `$ and $`\rho `$ to discover

$$𝒳_{D,G}(R)>C_3R^{2(D1)(gg^{}1)}_{D,G^{}}(R)$$
(68)
where in this case

$`_{D,G}(R)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{}}{\displaystyle \underset{\nu =1}{\overset{D}{}}}dx_\nu \theta \left(1\text{Tr}x_\mu x_\mu \right)\left(1\text{Tr}x_\mu x_\mu \right)^{(D1)/2}`$ (69)
$`=`$ $`C_4R^{Dg}{\displaystyle _0^R}𝑑uu^{Dg1}\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{u}{R}}\right)^{(D1)/2}_{D,G}(u).`$ (70)
If $`𝒢^{}`$ does not contain $`su(2)`$ as an invariant subalgebra, then

$$_0^R𝑑uu^{Dg1}\left(1\frac{u}{R}\right)^{(D1)/2}_{D,G}(u)>C_5=\text{const}(\text{for }R>1).$$
(71)
In the case of $`SU(2)`$, we can repeat the argument leading to 68 (taking $`G^{}=1`$) to find $`_{D,SU(2)}>C_5u^{4(D1)}`$ for large $`u`$ so that

$$\begin{array}{cccc}_0^R𝑑uu^{Dg1}\left(1\frac{u}{R}\right)^{(D1)/2}_{D,G}(u)\hfill & >\hfill & C_6\hfill & D5\hfill \\ & >\hfill & C_7\mathrm{log}R\hfill & D=4\hfill \\ & >\hfill & C_8R\hfill & D=3\hfill \end{array}$$
(72)
Then

$$𝒳_{D,G}(R)>C_9R^{2(D1)(gg^{}1)}R^{Dg^{}}R^\delta ,$$
(73)
where $`\delta =1`$ if $`D=3`$ and $`G^{}=SU(2)`$ and zero otherwise, which is essentially the converse of 37. Finally the usual power counting argument leads to the result (note that this time we do not need to go through all the sub-algebras but just the one which gives the most divergent behaviour for the partition function).

## 4 Convergent Supersymmetric Integrals

We proceed as for the bosonic integrals to set

$$𝒵_{D,G}=_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑RR^{Dg1}R^{(D2)g}𝒳_{D,G}(R)$$
(74)
where now

$$𝒳_{D,G}(R)=\underset{\nu =1}{\overset{D}{}}dx_\nu 𝒫_{D,G}(x_\sigma )\delta \left(1\text{Tr}x_\mu x_\mu \right)\mathrm{exp}\left(R^4S_𝒢\right).$$
(75)
As before, it is sufficient to consider the region

$$_1(𝒢):S_𝒢<R^{2(2\eta )}$$
(76)
We shall again argue by induction, and for the induction step to work, we actually need to prove the result for the generalised Pfaffian

$$[𝒫_{D,G}^r(x,R)]_{\alpha _1,\mathrm{},\alpha _{2r}}^{a_1,\mathrm{},a_{2r}}=R^{(2\eta )2r}𝑑\psi \mathrm{exp}(\text{Tr}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\alpha \beta }^\mu \psi _\alpha [x_\mu ,\psi _\beta ])\psi _{\alpha _1}^{a_1}\mathrm{}\psi _{\alpha _{2r}}^{a_{2r}}$$
(77)
which exists for $`r=0,\mathrm{}(D2)g`$, and is modified from the usual definition by the inclusion of $`2r`$ fermionic insertions, each with an accompanying factor of $`R^{(2\eta )}`$. If we set $`r=0`$ then the original Pfaffian $`𝒫_{D,G}`$ is recovered (and is of course independent of $`R`$).

The structure of the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$s will be irrelevant from now on; their only relevant property, which we will use repeatedly, is that $`\left|\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\alpha \beta }^\mu \right|1`$. For a more compact notation we shall suppress the dependence on $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, and the explicit spinor and group indices, and write

$$𝒫_{D,G}^r(x,R)=R^{(2\eta )2r}𝑑\psi \mathrm{exp}(\text{Tr}\psi [x,\psi ])\psi ^1\mathrm{}\psi ^{2r}.$$
(78)
Then defining

$$_{D,G}^r(R)=_{_1(𝒢)}\underset{\nu =1}{\overset{D}{}}dx_\nu \left|𝒫_{D,G}^r(x,R)\right|\delta \left(1\text{Tr}x_\mu x_\mu \right)$$
(79)
we have

$$\left|𝒳_{D,G}^r(R)\right|<A_1\mathrm{exp}(R^{2\eta })+_{D,G}^r(R).$$
(80)
Proceeding as in the bosonic case, we choose the relevant regularly embedded subalgebra $`𝒢^{}`$, expand $`x_\mu =y_\mu +\rho _\mu J+\omega _\mu ^\beta F^\beta `$, and note

$$\left|\omega _\nu ^\beta \right|<c^1D^{\frac{1}{2}}R^{(2\eta )},\nu =2,\mathrm{},D.$$
(81)
Further, write

$$\psi =\varphi +\xi +\chi $$
(82)
with $`\varphi 𝒢^{}`$, $`\xi =\xi J`$ and $`\chi =\chi ^\beta F^\beta `$. Using the relations 26, we find

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\text{Tr}\psi [x,\psi ]\hfill & =\hfill & \text{Tr}\varphi [y,\varphi ]\hfill \\ & & +\text{Tr}\varphi [\omega ,\chi ]+\text{Tr}\chi [\omega ,\varphi ]\hfill \\ & & +\text{Tr}\chi [\omega ,\xi ]+\text{Tr}\xi [\omega ,\chi ]\hfill \\ & & +\text{Tr}\chi [x,\chi ]\hfill \end{array}$$
(83)
where $`\rho =\rho J`$ and $`\omega =\omega ^\beta F^\beta `$. Inserting this expression into the definition 77, and expanding part of the exponential, we get

$`𝒫_{D,G}^r(x,R)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑\varphi 𝑑\chi 𝑑\xi \left(\frac{\xi ^1\mathrm{}\xi ^k}{R^{k(2\eta )}}\frac{\varphi ^1\mathrm{}\varphi ^m}{R^{m(2\eta )}}\frac{\chi ^1\mathrm{}\chi ^n}{R^{n(2\eta )}}\right)}`$ (84)
$`\times \mathrm{exp}\left(\text{Tr}\varphi [y,\varphi ]+\text{Tr}\varphi [\omega ,\chi ]+\text{Tr}\chi [\omega ,\varphi ]+\text{Tr}\chi [x,\chi ]\right)`$
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2(D2)k)!}}\left(\text{Tr}\chi [\omega ,\xi ]+\text{Tr}\xi [\omega ,\chi ]\right)^{2(D2)k},`$
where $`k+m+n=2r`$. First we do the integrals over the $`𝒩=2(D2)`$ grassman variables $`\xi _\alpha `$ each of which is paired either with an $`\omega `$, or with an explicit factor $`R^{(2\eta )}`$; since $`\omega `$ is itself bounded we get

$`\left|𝒫_{D,G}^r(x,R)\right|`$ $`<`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{R^{2(D2)(2\eta )}}{(2(D2)k)!}}{\displaystyle \underset{P}{}}|{\displaystyle 𝑑\varphi 𝑑\chi \left(\frac{\varphi ^1\mathrm{}\varphi ^m}{R^{m(2\eta )}}\frac{\chi ^1\mathrm{}\chi ^{n+2(D2)k}}{R^{n(2\eta )}}\right)}`$ (85)
$`\times \mathrm{exp}(\text{Tr}\varphi [y,\varphi ]+\text{Tr}\varphi [\omega ,\chi ]+\text{Tr}\chi [\omega ,\varphi ]+\text{Tr}\chi [x,\chi ])|`$
where $`P`$ simply indicates all the possible permutations of indices that can be generated. Next we expand the $`\varphi \omega \chi `$ terms to get

$`\left|𝒫_{D,G}^r(x,R)\right|`$ $`<`$ $`R^{2(D2)(2\eta )}{\displaystyle \underset{P}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{l}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{2^l}{l!(2(D2)k)!}}`$ (86)
$`\times \left|{\displaystyle 𝑑\varphi \left(\frac{\varphi ^1\mathrm{}\varphi ^{m+l}}{R^{(m+l)(2\eta )}}\right)\mathrm{exp}\left(\text{Tr}\varphi [y,\varphi ]\right)}\right|`$
$`\times \underset{x}{\mathrm{max}}\left|{\displaystyle 𝑑\chi \left(\frac{\chi ^1\mathrm{}\chi ^{n+2(D2)k+l}}{R^{n(2\eta )}}\right)\mathrm{exp}\left(\text{Tr}\chi [x,\chi ]\right)}\right|.`$
Finally we integrate out the $`\chi `$ fermions and use the fact that $`x`$ is a bounded quantity to obtain

$$\left|𝒫_{D,G}^r(x,R)\right|<R^{(2\eta )2(D2)}\underset{r^{}}{}C_r^{}\left|𝒫_{D,G^{}}^r^{}(y,R)\right|$$
(87)
where the $`C_r^{}`$ are constants. In the spirit of the notation 78, we have suppressed sums over the many possible combinations of indices.

Inserting the bound 87 into 79 we get

$$_{D,G}^r(R)<R^{(2\eta )2(D2)}\underset{r^{}}{}C_r^{}__1\underset{\nu =1}{\overset{D}{}}dx_\nu |𝒫_{D,G^{}}^r^{}(y,R)|\delta \left(1\text{Tr}x_\mu x_\mu \right)$$
(88)
and we can now follow the bosonic procedure and integrate out the $`\omega `$ and $`\rho `$ degrees of freedom to obtain

$`_{D,G}^r(R)`$ $`<`$ $`R^{(2\eta )2(D2)}R^{(2\eta )(D1)(gg^{}1)}`$ (89)
$`\times {\displaystyle \underset{r^{}}{}}C_r^{}{\displaystyle _{_1(G^{})}}{\displaystyle \underset{\nu =1}{\overset{D}{}}}dy_\nu \left|𝒫_{D,G^{}}^r^{}(y,R)\right|\theta (1\text{Tr}y_\mu y_\mu ).`$
As before, replace $`\theta (1\text{Tr}y_\mu y_\mu )=_0^1𝑑t\delta (ty_\mu y_\mu )`$ and rescale $`t=[u/R]^{2\eta }`$ and $`y_\mu =\stackrel{~}{y}_\mu [u/R]^{1\eta /2}`$ giving

$`_{D,G}^r(R)`$ $`<`$ $`R^{(2\eta )2(D2)}R^{(2\eta )(D1)(gg^{}1)}`$ (90)
$`\times {\displaystyle \underset{r^{}}{}}C_r^{}{\displaystyle _0^R}{\displaystyle \frac{du}{u}}[u/R]^{(2\eta )[(D1)g^{}+3r^{}/2]}`$
$`\times {\displaystyle _{_1(G^{})}}{\displaystyle \underset{\nu =1}{\overset{D}{}}}d\stackrel{~}{y}_\nu \left|𝒫_{D,G^{}}^r^{}(\stackrel{~}{y},u)\right|\delta (1\text{Tr}\stackrel{~}{y}_\mu \stackrel{~}{y}_\mu ).`$
Since $`u/R<1`$, this can be reduced to

$$_{D,G}^r(R)<R^{(2\eta )[2(D2)+(D1)(g1)]}\underset{r^{}}{}C_r^{}_0^R\frac{du}{u}u^{(2\eta )(D1)g^{}}_{D,G^{}}^r^{}.$$
(91)
We argue by induction, so assume that, for $`G^{}`$

$$_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑RR^{Dg^{}1}R^{(D2)g^{}}_{D,G^{}}^r(R)$$
(92)
converges for $`D>3`$, and all choices of $`r`$. Then 91 gives

$$_{D,G}^r(R)<CR^{(2\eta )[2(D2)+(D1)(g1)]}$$
(93)
and in particular, the induction statement is true also for $`G`$. It remains to check that the induction statement is true for the smallest possible regularly embedded subalgebra, which is $`su(2)`$. Since $`su(2)`$ has no regularly embedded subalgebra, we can repeat the above arguments with $`𝒢^{}=0`$ and find

$$_{D,SU(2)}^r(R)<CR^{(2\eta )[2(D2)+2(D1)]}$$
(94)
and this completes the proof.

Taking now $`r=0`$, we have discovered that, for any compact semi-simple group $`G`$,

$$_{D,G}(R)<CR^{(2\eta )[2(D2)+(D1)(g1)]}$$
(95)
and in particular, the partition function $`𝒵_{D,G}`$ converges for $`D>3`$. It is a remarkable fact that the bound 95 does not depend on the sub-algebra. For the correlation function 5 to converge, we require

$$Dg+(D2)g+k<2[2(D2)+(D1)(g1)]$$
(96)
and so the critical value is

$$k_c=2(D3)$$
(97)
independently of the gauge group.

## 5 Discussion

For the bosonic theories, we have shown that the partition function converges when $`DD_c`$ and calculated $`D_c`$ for each of the compact simple groups. It is a simple exercise to extend the result to the compact semi-simple groups since they are built out of the simple groups. For example, $`so(4)=su(2)su(2)`$, so $`𝒵_{D,SO(4)}`$ converges when $`DD_c=5`$. In addition, we have calculated the critical degree $`k_c`$ for correlation functions, such that $`𝒞_k`$ converges when $`k<k_c`$. Conversely, we have shown that there always exists a correlation function of degree $`k_c`$ which diverges.

It happens that, for the simple groups, the result $`D_c`$ is equal to the result one would obtain by assuming every $`(x\alpha )^2`$ is bigger than a constant in equation 23 (the one loop approximation). Thus, in this case, there is a simple rule

$$D>\frac{2(gl)}{g2l}$$
(98)
for the partition function to converge. However, this rule fails for the semi-simple groups (as we quickly see by considering $`su(r+1)su(2)`$ for large $`r`$). In general, the one loop approximation gives the wrong value for $`k_c`$ (except in the case of $`su(2)`$ where it is exact).

We have shown that the supersymmetric partition function converges in $`D=4,6`$ and $`10`$ with any compact semi-simple gauge group, and that correlation functions of degree

$$k<k_c=2(D3)$$
(99)
are convergent independent of the gauge group. In the case of $`SU(r+1)`$, this result corresponds to a conjecture  based on Monte Carlo evaluation of the integrals for small $`r`$. We have not found rigorous lower bounds in the supersymmetric case so it remains unproven that $`k_c`$ is critical; however, there can be little doubt that, for example, $`<\text{Tr}X_\mu ^2>`$ is logarithmically divergent for $`D=4`$. The situation for partition functions in $`D=3`$ may be more complicated; the integrals are absolutely divergent but for some groups the Pfaffian is an odd function of $`X_\mu `$ so that the integral vanishes naively. Only if there were a supersymmetric regularization of the integrals would it be possible that some of these theories make sense.

###### Acknowledgments.

PA thanks M. Staudacher for his hospitality and useful discussions, and acknowledges a PPARC studentship. We are grateful to B. Durhuus, T. Jonsson, and M. Staudacher for their helpful comments on the first draft of this paper.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The whole content of the present talk is based on the simple fact that chiral transition is a phase transition of the QCD vacuum with the quark condensate $`\overline{q}q`$ being the order parameter. The relevance of the present talk to this workshop on physics with electro-magnetic probes is ensured by the fact that chiral symmetry may be at least partially restored in hot and/or dense hadronic medium, hopefully including finite nuclei. In fact, a simple argument shows that the magnitude of the condensate $`\overline{q}q_{T,\rho }`$ at finite temperature $`T`$ and/or density $`\rho `$ tends to decrease.

To get convinced of this, one may first recall that the Feynman-Hellman (F-H) theorem tells us that the scalar charge of a hadron h $`\overline{q}_iq_i_h`$ can be evaluated as a derivative of the hadron mass $`m_h`$ with respect to the current quark mass $`m_i`$; $`\overline{q}_iq_i_h=m_h/m_i.`$ This is because the mass $`m_h`$ is an eigenvalue of the QCD Hamiltonian $`H_{\mathrm{QCD}}`$, which in turn contains the current quark masses in the form $`_im_i\overline{q}_iq_i`$. As an almost trivial extension, the quark condensate in hot and dense hadronic matter is given as a derivative of the free energy $`(T,\rho )`$ of the system w.r.t. the current quark mass;

$`\overline{q_i}q_i_{T,\rho }=/m_i`$ $`=`$ $`E_v/m_i+F/m_i,`$ (1)
$`=`$ $`\overline{q_i}q_i+\delta \overline{q_i}q_i_{T,\rho },`$
where we have assumed that $`(T,\rho )`$ is given as a sum of the vacuum energy $`E_v`$ and the usual free energy $`F`$ of the hadron system ( without the vacuum energy); $`=E_v+F`$.

If $`F`$ is the free energy of a hot pion gas, for example, one readily obtains

$`\delta \overline{q_i}q_i_T={\displaystyle \underset{p}{}}n_\pi (p)\pi (p)|\overline{q}_iq_i|\pi (p),`$ (2)
where $`n_\pi (p)`$ is the Bose-Eistein distribution function for the pion and $`\pi (p)|\overline{q}_iq_i|\pi (p)=E_p^\pi /m_i=m_\pi \overline{q}_iq_i_\pi /E_p^\pi `$, with $`E_p^\pi =\sqrt{m_\pi ^2+p^2}`$ is the scalar charge of the pion with momentum $`p`$. Applying F-H theorem to Gell-Mann-Oakes-Renner relation, $`f_\pi ^2m_\pi ^2=(m_u+m_d)/2\overline{u}u+\overline{d}d`$, one finds that $`\overline{q}_iq_i_\pi =6.25>0`$ ($`i=u,d`$). Thus, the magnitude of $`\overline{q_i}q_i_T`$ decreases at finite temperature; hence a partial restoration of chiral symmetry occurs at finite temperature.

In much the same way, if $`F`$ is the free energy of a degenerate cold nuclear matter, one has,

$`\overline{q}_iq_i_\rho =\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\pi N}}{m_\pi ^2f_\pi ^2}}\rho \right)\overline{q}_iq_i,`$ (3)
where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\pi N}=(m_u+m_d)/2N|\overline{u}u+\overline{d}d|N`$ $`(4050)`$ MeV is $`\pi `$-N sigma term. Thus, the quark condensate tends to decreases in the nuclear medium: At the normal nuclear density $`\rho _0=0.17`$fm-3, we have about 30 % reduction of the quark condensate. 111 Notice, however, that the higher order terms in the density expansion originating from the interaction energy between nucleons modify the leading order result.

If a phase transition is of 2nd order or weak 1st order, there exist soft modes, which are the fluctuations of the order parameter. For the chiral transition, the fluctuation of the order parameter $`(\overline{q}q)^2`$ is a scalar-isoscalar meson, which is historically called the $`\sigma `$-meson. Thus one sees that the $`\sigma `$ meson becomes the soft mode of chiral transition at $`T0`$ and/or $`\rho _B0`$. In this report, we discuss the importance of nuclear experiments with nuclear targets including ones with electro-magnetic probes for obtaining clearer confirmation of the existence of the $`\sigma `$ meson and for exploring the possible restoration of chiral symmetry in nuclear medium. But, what is the $`\sigma `$?

## 2 The significance of the $`\sigma `$ meson in QCD

The significance of the $`\sigma `$ meson in hadron and nuclear physics may be summarized as follows:

1. The $`\sigma `$ meson is the quantum fluctuation of the order parameter $`(\overline{q}q)^2`$, hence analogous to the Higgs particle in the standard model: NJL-like models and mended symmetry of Weinberg predict that the mass $`m_\sigma =400`$-800 MeV and the width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }m_\sigma `$.
2. Recent various analyses have revealed the existence of a pole in the $`\pi `$-$`\pi `$ $`S`$-matrix in the $`\sigma `$ channel. In these analyses, significance of respecting chiral symmetry, unitarity and crossing symmetry to reproduce the phase shifts both in the $`\sigma (s)`$\- and $`\rho (t)`$-channels with a low mass $`\sigma `$ pole has been recognized.
3. Such a scalar meson has been known to be responsible for the intermediate range attraction in the nuclear force.
4. There are attempts to show that such an collectiveness in the sigma channel can accounts for $`\mathrm{\Delta }I=1/2`$ enhancement in the decay K$`{}_{}{}^{0}2\pi `$ compared with K$`{}_{}{}^{+}\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$.
5. The empirical value of $`\pi `$-N sigma term $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\pi N}`$ 40-50 MeV implies an enhanced scalar charge of the nucleon $`\overline{u}u+\overline{d}d_N810`$ provided that $`(m_u+m_d)/25.5`$MeV, in comparison with the naive value $`\overline{u}u+\overline{d}d_N=3`$. The collectiveness as summarized as the existence of the $`\sigma `$ meson can account for such an enhancement of the scalar charge.
6. It should be noticed that the difficulties of the linear $`\sigma `$ model does not necessarily deny the linear realization of chiral symmetry where the $`\sigma `$ meson appears.

## 3 Production of the $`\sigma `$-meson in nuclear medium

Is the pole observed in the $`\pi `$-$`\pi `$ phase shift really the $`\sigma `$ as the quantum fluctuation of the order parameter of the chiral transition? The answer could be obtained clearly if the temperature and/or density are freely changed and variations of the excitation modes, i.e., hadrons, on top of the varied vacua are traced as is usually done in condensed matter physics. The life is, unfortunately, not so easy with the QCD vacuum. Nevertheless one may notice that nuclei provide us with the baryon density and expect that nuclei might be dense enough to give rise to a partial restoration of chiral symmetry! Some years ago, the present author proposed several nuclear experiments including one using electro-magnetic probes to try to produce the $`\sigma `$ meson in nuclei to see a clearer evidence of the existence of the $`\sigma `$ meson and to explore possible restoration of chiral symmetry in nuclear medium.

What are good observables to see the softening in the sigma channel in nuclear medium? When a hadrons is put in a nucleus, the hadron may dissociate into complicated excitation to loose its identity in the medium; for example, $`\sigma 2\pi `$, $`\sigma `$ p-h, $`\pi +`$p-h, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-h, $`\pi +\mathrm{\Delta }`$-h $`\mathrm{}`$ Then the most informative quantity is the response function or spectral function of the system. Serious calculations of the strength function were performed by Chiku and Hatsuda and Volkov et al: Their finding is an enhancement of the spectral function in the sigma channel near the 2$`m_\pi `$ threshold. The surprise was such an enhancement had been seen by an experiment by CHAOS collaboration not at $`T0`$ but at $`\rho _B0`$ in the cross sections of A($`\pi ^+,\pi ^+\pi ^\pm `$)A (A$`=2208`$); this experiment was actually motivated to explore possible in-medium $`\pi `$-$`\pi `$ correlations.

Fig.1: The spectral function in the $`\sigma `$ channel
(upper panel) and the inverse of the $`\sigma `$ propagator.
$`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ denotes the ratio of the chiral condensates at $`\rho `$
and in the vacuum.

Then a calculation of the strength function at $`\rho _B0`$ was made using a linear sigma model. It was shown that chiral restoration in the nuclear medium can lead to the required enhancement near the $`2m_\pi `$ threshold. The result is shown in Fig.1: The upper panel shows the spectral functions in the $`\sigma `$ channel in nuclear medium with various densities parameterized by $`\mathrm{\Phi }(\rho )`$ denoting the ratio of the quark condensate at the density $`\rho `$ to the vacuum value. One can see the near-$`2m_\pi `$ threshold enhancement of the spectral function as the chiral symmetry is restored. The lower panel shows the inverse of the Green’s function of the $`\sigma `$ propagator with the same $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ values; the upper curves corresponding to the smaller $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$. One can see the distance between the cusps located at the $`2m_\pi `$-threshold and the zero decreases as the chiral symmetry is getting restored, which causes the spectral enhancement near the threshold. This was later confirmed by other groups.

One should notice that the state of the art calculation in the conventional reactiontheory using nonlinear chiral Lagrangian but with no chiral restoration incorporated fail in reproducing the sufficient enhancement.

## 4  Discussion: The spectral enhancement in the nonlinear chiral models

How can the near-threshold enhancement be described by non-linear chiral Lagrangians which are used in the conventional approaches? An answer to this question has been given by Jido et al. They showed the following: (a) Although there is no explicit $`\sigma `$-degrees of freedom, there arises a decrease of the pion decay constant $`f_\pi ^{}`$ in nuclear medium. (b) This is due to a new vertex, i.e., 4$`\pi `$N-N vertex absent in the free space and in the previous calculations of the $`(\pi ,2\pi )`$ reaction; see Fig.2. The vertex is responsible for the reduction of $`f_\pi ^{}`$ and hence for the spectral enhancement.

They started with a linear sigma model as given below;

$`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\mathrm{Tr}[MM^{}\mu ^2MM^{}{\displaystyle \frac{2\lambda }{4!}}(MM^{})^2+h(M+M^{})]+\overline{\psi }(i/gM_5)\psi +\mathrm{},`$ (4)
where $`M=\sigma +i\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\pi }`$, $`M_5=\sigma +i\gamma _5\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\pi }`$, $`\psi `$ is the nucleon field, and Tr is for the flavor index. Making a polar decomposition $`M=\sigma +i\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\pi }=(\sigma +S)U`$ with $`U=\mathrm{e}^{i\stackrel{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{\pi }}`$, (4) is converted to a nonlinear chiral Lagrangian with the massive scalar field $`S`$;

$``$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[(S)^2m_\sigma ^2S^2]{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda \sigma }{6}}S^3{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda }{4!}}S^4+{\displaystyle \frac{(\sigma +S)^2}{4}}\mathrm{Tr}[UU^{}]+{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma +S}{4}}h\mathrm{Tr}[U^{}+U]`$ (5)
$`+`$ $`_{\pi N}^{(1)}gS\overline{N}N,`$
with $`_{\pi N}^{(1)}=\overline{N}(i/+iv/+ia/\gamma _5m_N^{})N`$, where $`(v_\mu ,a_\mu )=(\xi _\mu \xi ^{}\pm \xi ^{}_\mu \xi )/2`$, and $`m_N^{}=g\sigma `$.

In the heavy-$`S`$ limit with $`g/\lambda `$ and $`\sigma _0=f_\pi `$ fixed, the heavy scalar field $`S`$ may be integrated out to give the following effective Lagrangian:

$``$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{f_\pi ^2}{4}}{\displaystyle \frac{gf_\pi }{2m_\sigma ^2}}\overline{N}N\right)\left(\mathrm{Tr}[UU^{}]{\displaystyle \frac{h}{f_\pi }}\mathrm{Tr}[U^{}+U]\right).`$ (6)
The second term in the coefficient may be replaced by $`\frac{gf_\pi }{2m_\sigma ^2}\rho ,`$ in nuclear medium, hence gives rise to a renormalization of $`f_\pi `$, which is renormalized away by a redefinition of the pion field in the medium. Jido et al  showed that this redefinition of the pion field in turn enhances the attraction between the pions in the $`I=J=0`$ channel leading to the softening of the spectral function in the $`\sigma `$ channel.

The new vertex,

$`_{\mathrm{new}}={\displaystyle \frac{3g}{2\lambda f_\pi }}\overline{N}N\mathrm{Tr}[UU^{}],`$ (7)
depicted in Fig.2 has not been considered so far in the calculations of the $`\pi \pi `$ scattering amplitudes in nuclear matter in the non-linear chiral Lagrangian approaches.

## 5 Summary and concluding remarks

The present talk may be summarized as follows:

1. The $`\sigma `$ meson as the quantum fluctuation of the order parameter of the chiral transition may account for various phenomena in hadron physics which otherwise remain mysterious.
2. There have been accumulation of experimental evidence of the $`\sigma `$ pole in the pi-pi scattering matrix. To deduce this result, it is found essential to respect chiral symmetry, analyticity and crossing symmetry.
3. Partial restoration of chiral symmetry in hot and dense medium leads to a peculiar enhancement in the spectral function in the $`\sigma `$ channel near the $`2m_\pi `$ threshold.
4. Such an enhancement has been observed in the reaction A($`\pi ^+`$, $`(\pi ^+\pi ^{})_{I=J=0}`$)A’ by CHAOS collaboration, which may be an experimental evidence of the partial restoration of chiral symmetry in heavy nuclei.
5. The spectral softening in the $`\sigma `$ channel is obtained both in the linear and nonlinear realization of chiral symmetry provided that the possible reduction of the quark condensate or $`f_\pi `$ is taken into account.

Further works are necessary to confirm that the near $`2m_\pi `$-threshold enhancement observed in the ($`\pi ^+`$, $`\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$) reactions by CHAOS collaboration is surely due to a partial restoration of chiral symmetry in nuclear medium:

1. The strength function in the $`\sigma `$ channel in the wider $`(\omega ,q)`$ region should be measured with various nuclear and electro-magnetic probes; for instance, photo- or electro-production of the $`\sigma `$ as well as the production by (d, 3He) and (d, t) reactions are interesting. We remark that formation of $`\sigma `$ mesic nuclei by (d, 3He) and (d, t) reactions are proposed as was done to produce the deeply-bound pionic atoms.
2. To identify the $`\sigma `$ meson and the spectral function in that channel, detecting 2$`\pi ^0`$ and lepton pairs with $`q0`$ are interesting.

This talk is largely based on the works done in collaboration with T. Hatsuda, D. Jido and H. Shimizu, to whom the author is very much grateful.


text:
# Superluminal Localized Waves of Electromagnetic Field in Vacuo

## 1 Introduction

More often than not some physical truths, as they gain general acceptance, enter textbooks and become stock rules, loose their exact content for the majority of the physics community. Moreover, in this way superficially understood rules may turn to superfluous taboos inhibiting to study new phenomena. For example, conviction that ”uniformly moving charge does not radiate” caused a considerable delay in discovering and understanding the Cherenkov effect. By the way, even the refined statement ”uniformly moving charge does not radiate in vacuum” is not exact as it excludes the so-called transition radiation known an half of century only, despite it is a purely classical effect of macroscopic electrodynamics.

In this paper we give an overview of electromagnetic versions of the so-called X-type waves intensively studied since 1990.-ies -. The results obtained have encountered such taboo-fashioned attitudes sometimes. Indeed, these waves, or more exactly – wavepackets, may be extremely localized both laterally and longitudinally and, what is most startling, propagate superluminally without apparent diffraction or spread as yet. Furthermore, they are solutions - although exotic - of linear wave equations and, hence, have nothing to do with solitons or other localization phenomena known in contemporary nonlinear science. Instead, study of these solutions has in a sense reincarnated some almost forgotten ideas and findings of mathematical physics of the previous turn of the century. X-type waves belong to phenomena where a naive superluminality taboo ”group velocity cannot exceed the speed of light in vacuum” is broken. In this respect they fall into the same category as plane waves in dispersive resonant media and the evanescent waves, propagation of which (photon tunneling) has provoked much interest since publication of papers ,, .Therefore it is not surprising that tunneling of X waves in frustrated internal reflection has been treated in a recent theoretical paper  .

Indeed, studies conducted in different subfields of physics, which are dealing with superluminal movements, are interfering and merging fruitfully. A convincing proof of this trend is the given Conference and the collection of its papers in hand.

This is why in this paper we spotlight just superluminality of the X waves, which is now an experimentally verified fact ,,, but which should not be considered as their most interesting attribute in general. Their name was coined within theoretical ultrasonics by the authors of the paper  which initiated an intensive study of the X waves, particularly due to outlooks of application in medical ultrasonic imaging. Possible superluminality of electromagnetic localized waves was touched by the authors of Ref.  – who had derived the waves under name ”slingshot pulses” independently from the paper  – and became the focus of growing interest thanks to E .Recami (see  and references therein), who pointed out physically deeply meaningful resemblance between the shape of the X waves and that of the tachyon . The paper  was published in times of great activity in theoretical study of these hypothetical superluminal particles. To these years belongs paper  where a double-cone-shaped ”electromagnetic tachyon” as a result of light reflection by a conical mirror was considered. This a quarter-of-century-old paper seems to be the very pioneering work on X-waves, though this and the subsequent papers of the same author have been practically unknown and only very recently were rediscovered for the X wave community (see references in the review ). Last but not least, if one asked what was the very first sort of superluminal waves implemented in physics, the answer would be – realistic plane waves. Indeed, as it is well known, the most simple physically feasible realization of a plane wave beam is the Gaussian beam with its bounded cross-section and, correspondingly, a finite energy flux. However, much less is known that due to the Gouy phase shift the group velocity in the waist region of the Gaussian beam is slightly superluminal, what one can readily check on the analytical expressions for the beam (see also Ref. ). For all the reasons mentioned, in this paper we present – after an introduction of the physical nature of the X-type waves (Section 2) - quite in detail a new representation of the localized waves (Section 3). This representation – what we believe is a new and useful addition into the theory of X-type waves – in a sense generalizes the Huygens principle into superluminal domain and directly relies on superluminality of focal behavior of any type of free-space waves, which manifests itself in the Gouy phase shift. The startling superluminality issues are briefly discussed in the last Section.

Figures showing 3-dimensional plots have been included for a vivid comprehension of the spatio-temporal shape of the waves, however, only few of the animations showed in the oral presentation had sense to be reproduced here in the static black-and-white form. The bibliography is far from being complete, but hopefully a number of related references can be found in other papers of the issue in hand.

## 2 Physical nature of X-type waves

In order to make the physical nature of the X-type superluminal localized waves better comprehensible, we first discuss a simple representation of them as a result of interference between plane wave pulses.

Fig.1. X-type scalar wave formed by scalar plane wave pulses containing three cosinusoidal cycles. The propagation direction (along the axis $`z`$ ) is indicated by arrow. As linear gray-scale plots in a plane of the propagation axis and at a fixed instant, shown are (a) the field of the wave (real part if the plane waves are given as analytic signals) and (b) its amplitude (modulus). Note that the central bullet-like part of the wave would stand out even more sharply against the sidelobes if one plotted the the distribution of the intensity (modulus squared) of the wave.

With reference to Fig.1(a) let us consider a pair of plane wave bursts possessing identical temporal dependences and the wave vectors in the plane $`y=0`$. Their propagation directions given by unit vectors $`𝐧_/=[\mathrm{sin}\theta ,0,\mathrm{cos}\theta ]`$ and $`𝐧_\backslash =[\mathrm{sin}\theta ,0,\mathrm{cos}\theta ]`$ are tilted under angle $`\theta `$ with respect to the axis $`z.`$ In spatio-temporal regions where the pulses do not overlap their field is given simply by the burst profile as $`\mathrm{\Psi }_P(\eta ct)`$, where $`\eta `$ is the spatial coordinate along the direction $`𝐧_/`$ or $`𝐧_\backslash `$, respectively. In the overlap region , if we introduce the radius vector of a field point $`𝐫=[x,y,z]`$ the field is given by superposition

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_P(𝐫𝐧_/ct)+\mathrm{\Psi }_P(𝐫𝐧_\backslash ct)`$ $`=\mathrm{\Psi }_P(x\mathrm{sin}\theta +z\mathrm{cos}\theta ct)+`$
$`+\mathrm{\Psi }_P(x\mathrm{sin}\theta +z\mathrm{cos}\theta ct),`$ (1)
which is nothing but the well-known two-wave-interference pattern with doubled amplitudes. Altogether, the superposition of the pulse pair – as two branches $`\backslash `$and / form the letter X – makes up an X-shaped propagation-invariant interference pattern moving along the axis $`z`$ with speed $`v=c/\mathrm{cos}\theta `$ which is both the phase and the group velocity of the wave field in the direction of the propagation axis $`z`$. This speed is superluminal in a similar way as one gets a faster-than-light movement of a bright stripe on a screen when a plane wave light pulse is falling at the angle $`\theta `$ onto the screen plane. Let us stress that here we need not to deal with the vagueness of the physical meaning inherent to the group velocity in general – simply the whole spatial distribution of the field moves rigidly with $`v`$ because the time enters into the Eq.(1) only together with the coordinate $`z`$ through the propagation variable $`z_t=zvt`$.

Further let us superimpose axisymmetrically all such pairs of waves whose propagation directions form a cone around the axis $`z`$ with the top angle $`2\theta `$, in other words, let the pair of the unit vectors be $`𝐧_/=[\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{cos}\varphi ,\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{sin}\varphi ,\mathrm{cos}\theta ]`$ and $`𝐧_\backslash =[\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{cos}\left(\varphi +\pi \right),\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{sin}\left(\varphi +\pi \right),\mathrm{cos}\theta ]`$, where the angle $`\varphi `$ runs from $`0`$ to $`180`$ degrees. As a result, we get an X-type supeluminal localized wave in the following simple representation

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_X(\rho ,z_t)=_0^\pi 𝑑\varphi \left[\mathrm{\Psi }_P\left(𝐫_t𝐧_/\right)+\mathrm{\Psi }_P\left(𝐫_t𝐧_\backslash \right)\right]=_0^{2\pi }𝑑\varphi \mathrm{\Psi }_P\left(𝐫_t𝐧_/\right),$$
(2)
where $`𝐫_t=[\rho \mathrm{cos}\phi ,\rho \mathrm{sin}\phi ,z_t]`$ is the radius vector of a field point in the copropagating frame and cylindrical coordinates $`(\rho ,\phi ,z)`$ have been introduced for we restrict ourselves in this paper to axisymmetric or so-called zeroth-order X-type waves only. Hence, according to Eq.(2) the field is built up from interfering pairs of identical bursts of plane waves. Fig.1 gives an example in which the plane wave profile $`\mathrm{\Psi }_P`$ contains three cycles.

The less extended the profile $`\mathrm{\Psi }_P`$, the better the separation and resolution of the branches of the X-shaped field. In the superposition the points of completely constructive interference lie on the $`z`$ axis, where the highly localized energy ”bullet” arises in the center, while the intensity falls off as $`\rho ^1`$ along the branches and much faster in all other directions (note that in contrast with Fig.1(a) in the case of interference of only two waves the on-axis and off-axis maxima must be of equal strength). The optical carrier manifests itself as one or more (depending on the number of cycles in the pulse) halo toroids which are nothing but residues of the concentric cylinders of intensity characteristic of the Bessel beam. That is why we use the term ’Bessel-X pulse’ (or wave) to draw a distinction from carrierless X waves. By making use of an integral representation of the zeroth-order Bessel function $`J_0\left(v\right)=\pi ^1_0^\pi \mathrm{cos}\left[v\mathrm{cos}\left(\varphi \phi \right)\right]𝑑\varphi `$, where $`\phi `$ is an arbitrary angle, and by reversing the mathematical procedure described in Ref. , we get the common representation of X-type waves as superposition of monochromatic cylindrical modes (Bessel beams) of different wavenumber $`k=\omega /c`$

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_X(\rho ,z,t)=_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑kS(k)J_0\left(\rho k\mathrm{sin}\theta \right)\mathrm{exp}\left[i\left(zk\mathrm{cos}\theta \omega t\right)\right],$$
(3)
where $`S(k)`$ denotes the Fourier spectrum of the profile $`\mathrm{\Psi }_P`$. Again, the Eq.(3) gives for both the phase and the group velocities (along the axis $`z`$ – in the direction of the propagation of the packet of the cylindrical waves) the superluminal value $`v=c/\mathrm{cos}\theta `$.

## 3 X-waves as wakewaves

Although the representation Eq.(2) of the X-type waves as built up from two-plane-wave-pulse interference patterns constitutes an easily comprehensible approach to the superluminality issues, it may turn out to be counter-intuitive for symmetry considerations as will be shown below. In this section we develope another representation introduced in Ref. , which is, in a sense, a generalization of the Huygens principle into superluminal domain and allows figuratively to describe formation of superluminal localized waves.

As known in electrodynamics, the D’Alambert (source-free) wave equation possesses a particular solution $`D_0`$, which is spherically symmetric and can be expressed through retarded and advanced Green functions of the equation, $`G^{(+)}`$ and $`G^{()}`$, respectively, as

$$D_0=c^2\left[G^{(+)}G^{()}\right]=\frac{1}{4\pi Rc}\left[\delta (Rct)\delta (R+ct)\right],$$
(4)
where $`R`$ is the distance from the origin and $`\delta `$ is the Dirac delta function. Thus, the function $`D_0`$ represents a spherical delta-pulse-shaped wave, first (at negative times $`t`$) converging to the origin (the right term) and then (at positive times $`t`$) diverging from it. The minus sign between the two terms, which results from the requirement that a source-free field cannot have a singular point $`R=+0`$, is of crucial importance as it assures vanishing of the function at $`t=0`$. This change of the sign when the wave goes through the collapsed stage at the focus is also responsible for the $`90`$ degrees phase factor associated with the Huygens-Fresnel-Kirchhoff principle and for the Gouy phase shift peculiar to all focused waves. From Eq.(4), using the common procedure one can calculate Liénard-Wiechert potentials for a moving point charge $`q`$ flying, e.g. with a constant velocity $`v`$ along axis $`z`$. However, as $`D_0`$ includes not only the retarded Green function but also the advanced one and therefore what is moving has to be considered as a source coupled with a sink at the same point. For such a Huygens-type source there is no restriction $`vc`$ and for superluminal velocity $`v/c>1`$ we obtain axisymmetric scalar and vector potentials (in CGS units, Lorentz gauge)$`\mathrm{\Phi }(\rho ,z,t)`$ and $`𝐀(\rho ,z,t)=\mathrm{\Phi }(\rho ,z,t)𝐯/c`$, where $`\rho `$ is the radial distance of the field point from the axis $`z`$, the velocity vector is $`𝐯=[0,0,v]`$, and

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(\rho ,z,t)=\frac{2q}{\sqrt{(zvt)^2+\rho ^2(1v^2/c^2)}}\left\{\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{\Theta }\left[(zvt)\rho \sqrt{v^2/c^21}\right]\\ \mathrm{\Theta }\left[(zvt)\rho \sqrt{v^2/c^21}\right]\end{array}\right\},$$
(5)
where $`\mathrm{\Theta }(x)`$ denotes the Heaviside step function. Here for the sake of simplicity we do not calculate the electromagnetic field vectors $`𝐄`$ and $`𝐇`$ (or $`𝐁`$), neither will we consider dipole sources and sinks required for obtaining non-axisymmetric fields. We will restrict ourselves to scalar fields obtained as superpositions of the potential given by the Eq.(5). The first of the two terms in the Eq.(5) gives an electromagnetic Mach cone of the superluminally flying charge $`q`$. In other words – it represents nothing but a shock wave emitted by a superluminal electron in vacuum, mathematical expression for which was found by Sommerfeld three decades earlier than Tamm and Frank worked out the theory of the Cherenkov effect, but which was forgotten as an unphysical result after the special theory of relativity appeared . The second term in the Eq.(5) describes a leading and reversed Mach cone collapsing into the superluminal sink coupled with the source and thus feeding the latter. Hence, the particular solution to the wave equation which is given by the Eq.(5) represents a double-cone-shaped pulse propagating rigidly and superluminally along the axis $`z`$. In other words – it represents an X-type wave as put together from (i) the cone of incoming waves collapsing into the sink, thereby generating a superluminal Huygens-type point source and from (ii) wakewave-type radiation cone of the source. Let it be recalled that the field given by the Eq.(5) had been found for $`\delta `$-like spatial distribution of the charge. That is why the field diverges on the surface of the double cone or on any of its X-shaped generatrices given by $`(zvt)=\pm \rho \sqrt{v^2/c^21}`$ and the field can be considered as an elementary one constituting a base for constructing various X-type waves through appropriate linear superpositions. Hence, any axisymmetric X-type wave could be correlated to its specific (continuous and time-dependent) distribution $`\rho =\delta (x)\delta (y)\lambda (z,t)`$ of the ”charge” (or the sink-and-source) with linear density $`\lambda (z,t)`$ on the propagation axis, while the superluminal speed of the wave corresponds to the velocity $`v`$ of propagation of that distribution along the axis, i.e. $`\lambda (z,t)=\lambda (zvt)`$.

Let us introduce a superluminal version of the Lorentz transformation coefficient $`\gamma =1/\sqrt{v^2/c^21}=\mathrm{cot}\theta `$, where $`\theta `$ is the Axicon angle considered earlier and let us first choose the ”charge” distribution $`\lambda (zvt)=\lambda (z_t)`$ as a Lorentzian. In this case the field potential is given as convolution of Eq.(5) with the normalized distribution, which can be evaluated using Fourier and Laplace transform tables:

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(\rho ,z_t)\frac{1}{\pi }\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{z_t^2+\mathrm{\Delta }^2}=q\sqrt{\frac{2}{\pi }}\mathrm{Im}\left(\frac{1}{\sqrt{(\mathrm{\Delta }iz_t)^2+\rho ^2/\gamma ^2}}\right),$$
(6)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the HWHM of the distribution and $`z_t=zvt`$ is, as in the preceding section, the axial variable in the co-propagating frame. The resulting potential shown in Fig.2 (a) moves rigidly along the axis $`z`$ (from left to right in Fig.2) with the same superluminal speed $`v>c`$. The plot (a) depicts qualitatively also the elementary potential as far as the divergences of the Eq.(5) are smoothed out in the Eq.(6).

Fig.2. Dependence on the longitudinal coordinate $`z_{t\text{ }}=zvt`$ (increasing from the left to the right) and a lateral one $`x=\pm \rho `$ of the imaginary (a) and real (b) parts of the field of the simplest X-wave. The velocity $`v=1.005c`$ and, correspondingly, the superluminality parameter $`\gamma =10`$. Distance between grid lines on the basal plane is $`4\mathrm{\Delta }`$ along the axis $`z_{t\text{ }}`$ and $`20\mathrm{\Delta }`$along the lateral axis, the unit being the half-width $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$.

We see that an unipolar and even ”charge” distribution gives an odd and bipolar potential, as expected, while the symmetry of the plot differs from what might be expected from superimposing two plane wave pulses under the tilt angle $`2\theta `$. Indeed, in the latter case the plane waves are depicted by each of the two diagonal branches ($`\backslash `$and /) of the X-shaped plot and therefore the profile of the potential on a given branch has to retain its sign and shape if one moves from one side of the central interference region to another side along the same branch. Disappearance of the latter kind of symmetry, which can be most distinctly followed in the case of bipolar single-cycle pulses – just the case of Fig.2 a – is due to mutual interference of all the plane wave pairs forming the cone as $`\varphi `$ runs from $`0`$ to $`\pi `$ .

Secondly, let us take the ”charge” distribution as a dispersion curve with the same width parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ , i.e. as the Hilbert transform of the Lorentzian. Again, using Fourier and Laplace transform tables, we readily obtain:

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(\rho ,z_t)\frac{1}{\pi }\frac{z_t}{z_t^2+\mathrm{\Delta }^2}=q\sqrt{\frac{2}{\pi }}\mathrm{Re}\left(\frac{1}{\sqrt{(\mathrm{\Delta }iz_t)^2+\rho ^2/\gamma ^2}}\right).$$
(7)
The potential of the Eq.(7) depicted in Fig.2 (b) is – with accuracy of a real constant multiplier – nothing but the well-known zeroth-order unipolar X wave, first introduced in Ref.  and studied in a number of papers afterwards. Hence, we have demonstrated here how the real and imaginary part of the simplest X-wave solution

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_{X_0}(\rho ,z_t)\frac{1}{\sqrt{(\mathrm{\Delta }iz_t)^2+\rho ^2/\gamma ^2}}$$
(8)
of the free-space wave equation can be represented as fields generated by corresponding ”sink-and-source charge” distributions moving superluminally along the propagation axis. The procedure how to find for a given axisymmetric X-type wave its ”generator charge distribution” is readily derived from a closer inspection of the Eq.(5). Namely, on the axis $`z`$, i. e. for $`\rho =0`$, the Eq.(5) constitutes the Hilbert transform kernel for the convolution. Therefore, the ”charge” distribution can be readily found as the Hilbert image of the on-axis profile of the potential and vice versa.

Hence, we have obtained a figurative representation in which the superluminal waves can be classified via the distribution and other properties of the Huygens-type sources propagating superluminally along the axis and thus generating the wave field . Such representation – which may be named as Sommerfeld representation to acknowledge his unfortunate result of 1904 – has been generalized to nonaxisymmetric and vector fields and applied by us to various known localized waves .

Fig.3. The longitudinal-lateral dependences of the real part (a) and the modulus (b) of the field of the Bessel-X wave. The parameters $`v`$ and $`\gamma `$ are the same as in Fig.2. The new parameter of the wave – the wavelength $`\lambda =2\pi /k_z`$ of the optical carrier being the unit, the distance between grid lines on the basal plane is $`1\lambda `$ along the axis $`z_{t\text{ }}`$ and $`5\lambda `$along the lateral axis, while the half-width $`\mathrm{\Delta }=\lambda /2`$. For visible light pulses $`\lambda `$ is in sub-micrometer range, which means that the period of the cycle as well as full duration of the pulse on the propagation axis are as short as a couple of femtoseconds.

For example, in optical domain one has to deal with the so-called Bessel-X wave -, which is a band-limited and oscillatory version of the X wave. It is obvious that for the Bessel-X wave the ”charge” distribution contains oscillations corresponding to the optical carrier of the pulse. Bandwidth (FWHM) equal to ( or narrower than) the carrier frequency roughly corresponds to 2-3 ( or more) distinguishable oscillation cycles of the field as well as of the ”charge” along the propagation axis. Fortunately, few-cycle light pulses are affordable in contemporary femtosecond laser optics. On the other hand, if the number of the oscillations in the Bessel-X wave pulse (on the axis $`z`$ ) is of the order $`n10`$, the X-branching occurs too far from the propagation axis, i.e. in the outer region where the field practically vanishes and, with further increase of $`n`$, the field becomes just a truncated Bessel beam. The analytic expression for a Bessel-X wave depends on specific choice of the oscillatory function or, equivalently, of the Fourier spectrum of the pulse on the axis $`z`$. One way to obtain a Bessel-X wave possessing approximately $`n`$ oscillations is to take a derivative of the order $`m=n^2`$ from the Eq.(8) with respect to $`z_t`$ (or $`z`$ or $`t`$), which according to Eqs.(6),(7) is equivalent to taking the same derivative from the distribution function. The $`m`$th temporal derivative of the common X wave can be expressed in closed form through the associated Legendre polynoms . Another way is to use the following expression, which for $`n3`$ approximates well the field of the Bessel-X wave with a near-Gaussian spectrum ,

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_{BX_0}(\rho ,z_t)\sqrt{Z(z_t)}\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Delta }^2}\left(z_t^2+\rho ^2/\gamma ^2\right)\right]J_0\left[Z(z_t)k_z\rho /\gamma \right]\mathrm{exp}(ik_zz_t),$$
(9)
where complex-valued function $`Z(z_t)=1+iz_t/k_z\mathrm{\Delta }^2`$ makes the argument of the Bessel function also complex .The longitudinal wavenumber $`k_z=k\mathrm{cos}\theta =(\omega /c)\mathrm{cos}\theta `$ together with the half-width $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ (at $`1/e`$-amplitude level on the axis $`z`$) are the parameters of the pulse. Again, dependence on $`z,t`$ through the single propagation variable $`z_t=zvt`$ indicates the propagation-invariance of the wave field shown in Fig.3.

## 4 Application prospects of the X-type waves

Limited aperture of practically realizable X-type waves causes an abrupt decay of the interference structure of the wave after flying rigidly over a certain distance. However, the depth of invariant propagation of the central spot of the wave can be made substantial – by the factor $`\mathrm{cot}\theta =\gamma =1/\sqrt{v^2/c^21}`$ larger than the aperture diameter. Such type of electromagnetic pulses, enabling directed, laterally and temporally concentrated and nonspreading propagation of wavepacket energy through space-time have a number of potential applications in various areas of science and technology. Let us briefly consider some results obtained along this line.

Any ultrashort laser pulse propagating in a dispersive medium – even in air – suffers from a temporal spread, which is a well-known obstacle in femtosecond optics. For the Bessel-X wave with its composite nature, however, there exists a possibility to suppress the broadening caused by the group-velocity dispersion ,. Namely, the dispersion of the angle $`\theta `$, which is to a certain extent inherent in any Bessel-X wave generator, can be played against the dispersion of the medium with the aim of their mutual compensation. The idea has been verified in an experimental setup with the lateral dimension and the width of the temporal autocorrelation function of the Bessel-X wave pulses, respectively, of the order of 20 microns and 200 fs . Thus, an application of optical X-type waves has been worked out – a method of designing femtosecond pulsed light fields that maintain their strong (sub-millimeter range) longitudinal and lateral localization in the course of superluminal propagation into a considerable depth of a given dispersive medium.

Optical Bessel-X waves allow to accomplish a sort of diffraction-free transmission of arbitrary 2-dimensional images ,. Despite its highly localized ”diffraction-free” bright central spot, the zeroth-order monochromatic Bessel beam behaves poorly in a role of point-spread function in 2-D imaging. The reason is that its intensity decays too slowly with lateral distance, i.e. as $`\rho ^1`$. On the contrary, the Bessel-X wave is offering a loop hole to overcome the problem. Despite the time-averaged intensity of the Bessel-X wave possesses the same slow radial decay $`\rho ^1`$ due to the asymptotic behavior along the X-branches, an instantaneous intensity has the strong Gaussian localization in lateral cross-section at the maximum of the pulse and therefore it might serve as a point-spread function with well-constrained support but also with an extraordinary capability to maintain the image focused without any spread over large propagation depths. By developing further this approach it is possible to build a specific communication system . Ideas of using the waves in high-energy physics for particle acceleration – one of such was proposed already two decades ago  – are not much developed as yet.

It is obvious that for a majority of possible applications the spread-free central spot is the most attractive peculiarity of the X-type waves. The better the faster the intensity decay along lateral directions and X-branches is. In this respect a new type of X waves – recently discovered Focused X wave  – seems to be rather promising.

As one can see in Fig.4. and by inspecting an analytical expression for the wave

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_{FX_0}(\rho ,z,t)=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{exp}(k_0\gamma \mathrm{\Delta })}{R(\rho ,z_t)}\mathrm{exp}\left[ik_0\gamma \left[iR(\rho ,z_t)+(v/c)zct\right]\right],$$
(10)
where $`R(\rho ,z_t)=\sqrt{\left[\mathrm{\Delta }+iz_t\right]^2+\left(\rho /\gamma \right)^2}`$ and $`k_0`$ is a parameter of carrier wavenumber type, the wave is very well localized indeed. However, like luminal localized waves called Focus Wave Modes ,, for this wave propagation-invariant is the intensity only, while the wave field itself changes during propagation in an oscillatory manner due to the last phase factor $`\mathrm{exp}\left[ik_0\gamma \left[(v/c)zct\right]\right]`$ in the Eq.(10), which has another $`z,t`$-dependence than through the propagation variable $`z_t=zvt`$. An animated version of Fig.4(a), made for the oral presentation of the paper, shows that the oscillatory modulation moves in the direction $`z`$, i.e. opposite to the pulse propagation.

Fig.4. The longitudinal-lateral dependences of the real part (a) and the modulus (b) of the field of the Focused X wave. The parameters $`v=1.01c`$ and $`\gamma =7`$. Distance between grid lines on the basal plane is $`4\mathrm{\Delta }`$ along both axes. $`\lambda =2\pi /k_0=0.4\mathrm{\Delta }`$.

To our best knowledge, the superluminal Focused X wave has not realized experimentally yet, but probably the approach worked out for luminal Focus Wave Modes recently  may help to accomplish that.

## 5 Discussion and conclusions

Let us make finally some remarks on the intriguing superluminality issues of the X-type wave pulses. Indeed, while phase velocities greater than $`c`$ are well known in various fields of physics, a superluminal group velocity more often than not is considered as a taboo, because at first glance it seems to be at variance with the special theory of relativity, particularly, with the relativistic causality. However, since the beginning of the previous century – starting from Sommerfeld’s works on plane-wave pulse propagation in dispersive media and precursors appearing in this process – it is known that group velocity need not to be a physically profound quantity and by no means should be confused with signal propagation velocity. But in case of X-type waves not only the group velocity exceeds $`c`$ but the pulse as whole propagates rigidly faster than $`c`$.

A diversity of interpretations concerning this startling but experimentally verified fact , can be encountered. On the one end of the scale are claims, based on a sophisticated mathematical consideration, that the relativistic causality is violated in case of these pulses . A recent paper  devoted to this issue proves, however, that the causality is not violated globally in the case of the X-type waves, but still the author admits a possibility of noncausal signalling locally.

On the opposite end of the scale are statements insisting that the pulse is not a real one but simply an interference pattern rebuilt at every point of its propagation axis from truly real plane wave constituents travelling at a slight tilt with respect to the axis. Such argumentation is not wrong but brings us nowhere. Of course, there is a similarity between superluminality of the X wave and a faster-than-light movement of the cutting point in the scissors effect or of a bright stripe on a screen when a plane wave light pulse is falling at the angle $`\theta `$ onto the screen plane. But in the central highest-energy part of the X wave there is nothing moving at the tilt angle. The phase planes are perpendicular to the axis and the whole field moves rigidly along the axis. The Pointing vector lays also along the axis, however, the energy flux is not superluminal. Hence, to consider the X waves as something inferior compared to ”real” pulses is not sound. Similar logic would bring one to a conclusion that femtosecond pulses emitted by a mode-locked laser are not real but ”simply an interference” between the continuous-wave laser modes. In other words, one would ignore the superposition principle of linear fields, which implies reversible relation between ”resultant” and ”constituent” fields and does not make any of possible orthogonal basis inferior than others. Moreover, even plane waves, as far as they are truly real ones, suffer from a certain superluminality. Indeed, as it is well known, the most simple physically feasible realization of a plane wave beam is the Gaussian beam with its constrained cross-section and, correspondingly, a finite energy flux. However, one can readily check on the analytical expressions for the beam (see also Ref. ) that due to the Gouy phase shift the group velocity in the waist region of the Gaussian beam is slightly superluminal.

We are convinced that the X-type waves are not – and cannot be – at variance with the special theory of relativity since they are derived as solutions to the D’Alambert wave equation and corresponding electromagnetic vector fields are solutions to the Maxwell equations. The relativistic causality has been inherently built into them as it was demonstrated also in the present paper, when we developed the Sommerfeld representation basing upon the relativistically invariant retarded and advanced Green functions. An analysis of local evolution and propagation of a ”signal mark” made, e. g. by a shutter onto the X wave is not a simple task due to diffractive changes in the field behind the ”mark”. Therefore conclusions concerning the local causality may remain obscured. However, a rather straightforward geometrical analysis in the case of infinitely wideband X wave (with the width parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }0`$ ) shows that the wave cannot carry any causal signal between two points along its propagation axis. So, we arrive at conclusion that the X-type waves constitute one example of ”allowed” but nontrivial superluminal movements. As a matter of fact – although perhaps it is not widely known – superluminal movements allowed by the relativistic causality have been studied since the middle of the previous century (see references in ). For example, the reflection of a light pulse on a metallic planar surface could be treated as 2-dimensional Cherenkov-Mach radiation of a supeluminal current induced on the surface. In the same vain, the representation of the X waves as generated by the Huygens-type sources might be developed further, vis. we could place a real wire along the propagation axis and treat the outgoing cone of the wave as a result of cylindrical reflection of (or of radiation by the superluminal current in the wire induced by) the leading collapsing cone of the wave.

In conclusion, superluminal movement of individual material particles is not allowed but excitations in an ensemble may propagate with any speed, however, if the speed exceeds $`c`$ they cannot transmit any physical signal. Last two decades have made it profoundly clear how promising and fruitful is studying of the superluminal phenomena instead of considering them as a sort of trivialities or taboos. We have in mind here not only the localized waves or photon tunneling or propagation in inverted resonant media, etc., but also – or even first of all – the implementation and application of entangled states of Einstein-Podolsky-Rozen pairs of particles in quantum telecommunication and computing.

This research was supported by the Estonian Science Foundation Grant No.3386. The author is very grateful to the organizers of this exceptionally interesting Conference in warm atmosphere of Naples.