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# Thermal Fluctuations of Induced Fermion Number

## I Introduction

The phenomenon of induced fermion number arises due to the interaction of fermions with nontrivial topological backgrounds (e.g., solitons, vortices, monopoles, skyrmions), and has many applications ranging from polymer physics to particle physics jr ; gw ; jackiw2 ; niemi ; polymer ; roman . The original fractional fermion number result of Jackiw and Rebbi jr  provides the physical explanation of the existence of spinless charged excitations in polymers polymer ; roman ; ssh ; rice ; js . The adiabatic analysis of Goldstone and Wilczek gw  in systems without conjugation symmetry has important implications for model field theories in particle physics, such as bag models bag , electroweak theories eric , and chiral sigma models diakonov . At zero temperature, the induced fermion number is a topological quantity, and is related to the spectral asymmetry of the relevant Dirac operator, which counts the difference between the number of positive and negative energy states in the fermion spectrum jackiw2 ; niemi ; roman ; rich ; wilczek ; yamagishi ; boy ; mike ; manu ; jaffe2 . Mathematical results, such as index theorems manu ; niemi  and Levinson’s theorem yamagishi ; boy ; mike ; jaffe2 , imply that the zero temperature induced fermion number is determined by the asymptotic topological properties of the background fields. This topological character of the induced fermion number is a key feature of its application in certain model field theories bag ; eric ; diakonov .

At finite temperature, the situation is less clear-cut. In several examples, namely the $`1+1`$ dimensional chiral kink background ns ; soni ; keil  and the $`3+1`$ dimensional Dirac cp ; monopole  and ’t Hooft-Polyakov monopole goldhaber  backgrounds, the finite temperature induced fermion number has been shown to be temperature dependent, but still topological in the sense that the only dependence on the background field is through its asymptotic properties. However, it has recently been demonstrated ad  that the finite temperature induced fermion number need not be topological. Explicitly, in a $`1+1`$ dimensional chiral sigma model, the finite temperature induced fermion number depends on the detailed structure of the background, not just its asymptotic behavior. This result corrects several previous analyses midorikawa ; nnp  that had claimed that the finite temperature fermion number was in general a topological quantity (at zero chemical potential). In ad , an explicit calculation showed that the finite temperature fermion number can be nontopological, and a simple physical explanation was given for the origin of the nontopological fermion number as the plasma response of the fermions to the inhomogeneous background. A possible source of confusion here is that while the kink and sigma model cases are very similar at zero temperature, it is not widely appreciated that at finite temperature they are very different. In this paper we present more details of this analysis, and we present a general argument that the finite temperature fermion number naturally separates into a temperature-independent topological piece that corresponds to vacuum polarization effects, and a temperature-dependent piece that is generically nontopological, and which corresponds to the thermal occupation of excited states of the fermion Fock space. While this temperature-dependent piece is generically nontopological, for certain particular backgrounds (such as, for example, the kink background) the fermion spectrum has a special symmetry, which has the consequence that the temperature-dependent corrections are in fact themselves topological.

Another motivation for our work concerns the nature of the induced fermion number as a sharp quantum observable. At zero temperature it has been shown that the fractional induced fermion number is indeed a sharp observable kivelson ; bell ; jackiw ; frishman ; charge . In this paper we address this question at finite temperature by computing the rms fluctuations, $`(\mathrm{\Delta }N)^2=N^2N^2`$, in the induced fermion number $`N`$. We compute the finite temperature fluctuation in two different cases, and show that $`\mathrm{\Delta }N`$ is generally nonzero (and nontopological) at finite temperature, but that $`\mathrm{\Delta }N`$ vanishes at zero temperature. This indicates that $`N`$ is not a sharp quantum observable at nonzero temperature. The nonvanishing fluctuations are due to the mixing of Fock states inherent in the thermal expectation value. It is interesting to note that another example of non-sharp fractional fermion number (but not in the context of temperature dependence) has been discussed recently in the context of liquid helium bubbles helium .

Our analysis of finite temperature fermion number has also been motivated by the realization over recent years that certain types of anomalies in zero temperature field theory become much more subtle at finite temperature. For example, Pisarski et al have explained pisarski  why finite temperature anomalous $`\pi ^0`$ decay amplitudes are temperature dependent even though the chiral anomaly (a topological object that is known to be related to the anomalous $`\pi ^0`$ decay amplitude at $`T=0`$) is known to be temperature independent. These and related issues have also been explored in $`1+1`$ dimensions gelis . And in odd spacetime dimensions, it has recently been realized dll ; deser ; fosco ; lh  that while the topological Chern-Simons term is the only parity-violating term that can be induced in the $`T=0`$ effective action, at finite temperature there are infinitely many other parity-violating terms, all of which vanish identically at zero temperature, but all of which are crucial, for example, for understanding how it is possible to maintain large gauge invariance at finite temperature. These results have led us to reconsider the related general question of induced fermion number at finite temperature.

In Section II we define what is meant by finite temperature induced fermion number, and indicate how it can be computed. In Section III we give more details of the derivations and results of ad  for the finite temperature induced fermion number $`N`$ for a kink background and for a sigma model background in $`1+1`$ dimensional field theory. Section IV presents the computation of the finite temperature fluctuations, $`(\mathrm{\Delta }N)^2=N^2N^2`$, in the induced fermion number for the kink case and for the sigma model case. In Section V we give a simple physical interpretation of all these results in terms of the thermal occupation of the available levels in the Dirac spectrum, according to Fermi-Dirac statistics. We conclude in Section VI and give some general comments regarding the extension of our results to higher dimensional theories.

## II Finite Temperature Induced Fermion Number

Consider an abelian model in $`1+1`$ dimensions with fermions interacting via scalar and pseudoscalar couplings to two bosonic fields $`\varphi _1`$ and $`\varphi _2`$. For the purposes of this paper, $`\varphi _1`$ and $`\varphi _2`$ will be considered as static classical background fields. The Lagrangian is

$$=i\overline{\psi }/\psi \overline{\psi }\left(\varphi _1+i\gamma _5\varphi _2\right)\psi $$
(1)
We will concentrate on two important physical cases:

(i) kink case jr : $`\varphi _1`$ is constant, but $`\varphi _2=\varphi _2(x)`$ has a kink-like shape, as shown in Fig. 1:

$$\varphi _1=m,\mathrm{and}\varphi _2=\mathrm{kink},\mathrm{with}\varphi _2(\pm \mathrm{})=\pm \widehat{\varphi _2}$$
(2)
(ii) sigma model case gw : $`\varphi _1`$ and $`\varphi _2`$ are both x-dependent, but are constrained to the “chiral circle”:

$$\varphi _1^2+\varphi _2^2=m^2$$
(3)
In each case, we define a corresponding angular field

$`\theta (x)\mathrm{arctan}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\varphi _2(x)}{\varphi _1(x)}}\right)`$ (4)
In the kink case (2), the angular field $`\theta (x)=\mathrm{arctan}(\frac{\varphi _2(x)}{m})`$ also has a kink-like shape, as shown in Fig. 1. In the sigma model case (3), the angular field $`\theta (x)`$ has the interpretation of a local chiral angle, since the chiral constraint (3) allows us to write $`\varphi _1=m\mathrm{cos}\theta `$ and $`\varphi _2=m\mathrm{sin}\theta `$, so that the interaction term in the Lagrangian (1) is

$$m\overline{\psi }\left(\mathrm{cos}\theta +i\gamma _5\mathrm{sin}\theta \right)\psi =m\overline{\psi }e^{i\gamma _5\theta }\psi $$
(5)
In this sigma model case, it is the angular field $`\theta (x)`$ that has a kink-like shape, as shown in Fig. 2.

The second-quantized fermion number operator is defined bjorken  as $`N=\frac{1}{2}[\mathrm{\Psi }^{},\mathrm{\Psi }]`$. The fermion field operator $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ may be expanded in a complete set of eigenstates of the Dirac Hamiltonian $`H`$ for fermions in the presence of the background fields $`\varphi _1`$ and $`\varphi _2`$. The Dirac Hamiltonian corresponding to the Lagrangian (1) is

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`i\gamma ^0\gamma ^1+\gamma ^0\varphi _1(x)+i\gamma ^0\gamma _5\varphi _2(x)`$ (6)
$`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}\varphi _1& ii\varphi _2\\ i+\varphi _2& \varphi _1\end{array}\right)`$
where $`\frac{d}{dx}`$, and we have chosen to work with the Dirac matrices: $`\gamma ^0=\sigma _3`$, $`\gamma ^1=i\sigma _2`$, and $`\gamma ^5=\sigma _1`$. The presence of the background fields modifies the fermion spectrum from the free case. All necessary information about the fermion spectrum can be encoded in terms of the spectral function $`\sigma (E)`$ of the Dirac Hamiltonian in (6):

$`\sigma (E)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}m\mathrm{Tr}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{HEiϵ}}\right)`$ (7)
The zero temperature vacuum expectation value, $`0|N|0N_0`$, of the number operator can be expressed as jackiw2 ; niemi

$`N_0={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑E\sigma (E)\mathrm{sign}(E)`$ (8)
where the subscript $`0`$ refers to zero temperature. Thus, $`N_0`$ is expressed in terms of the spectral asymmetry of the Dirac operator, which counts the number of positive energy states minus the number of negative energy states.

At zero temperature, in both the kink case (2) and the sigma model case (3), the induced fermion number (8) is given by the simple expression gw :

$$N_0=\frac{1}{2\pi }_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑x\theta ^{}=\frac{1}{\pi }\widehat{\theta }$$
(9)
where $`\theta (x)`$ is the angular field defined in (4), and $`\widehat{\theta }`$ is the asymptotic value of $`\theta (x)`$ at $`x=+\mathrm{}`$. The zero temperature fermion number $`N_0`$ is topological in the sense that it depends only on the asymptotic value $`\widehat{\theta }`$, and not on the detailed shape of $`\theta (x)`$. The original conjugation symmetric case of Jackiw and Rebbi jr  is obtained by taking $`m0`$ in the kink case (2), in which case $`N_0\pm \frac{1}{2}`$. In Section IV we will show that the zero temperature expectation value (8) is in fact also a sharp eigenvalue.

At nonzero temperature, the induced fermion number is a thermal expectation value

$`N_\mathrm{T}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{Tr}(Ne^{\beta H})}{\mathrm{Tr}(e^{\beta H})}}`$ (10)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑E\sigma (E)\mathrm{tanh}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\beta E}{2}}\right)`$
where $`\beta =\frac{1}{T}`$ is the inverse temperature. Note that as $`T0`$, which means $`\beta \mathrm{}`$, only the vacuum state survives in the trace, and $`N_\mathrm{T}`$ reduces to the vacuum expectation value $`N_0`$. Correspondingly, $`\mathrm{tanh}(\frac{\beta E}{2})\mathrm{sign}(E)`$, so that the integral expression in (10) reduces smoothly to the spectral asymmetry expression in (8). In fact, the finite temperature expression (10) provides a physically natural, and computationally simple, regularization of the spectral asymmetry (8). In Section IV we will show that at nonzero temperature the fermion number expectation value (10) is not a sharp eigenvalue.

To compute $`N_0`$ or $`N_\mathrm{T}`$, one needs information about the spectral function $`\sigma (E)`$. We stress, of course, that $`\sigma (E)`$ has nothing to do with the temperature; it simply describes the spectrum of the fermions in the presence of the static background fields $`\varphi _1`$ and $`\varphi _2`$. One convenient way to proceed is to use the expression (7) for the spectral function to write (10) as a contour integral in the complex energy plane:

$$N_\mathrm{T}=\frac{1}{2}_𝒞\frac{dz}{2\pi i}\mathrm{tr}\left(\frac{1}{Hz}\right)\mathrm{tanh}\left(\frac{\beta z}{2}\right)$$
(11)
Here $`\mathrm{tr}(\frac{1}{Hz})`$ is the resolvent of the Dirac Hamiltonian $`H`$, and the contour $`𝒞`$ is $`(\mathrm{}+iϵ,+\mathrm{}+iϵ)`$ and $`(+\mathrm{}iϵ,\mathrm{}iϵ)`$, as shown in Fig. 3. Since $`H`$ has a real spectrum, we can evaluate the contour integral (11) in two alternative ways. First, we can deform the contour around the simple poles of the $`\mathrm{tanh}(\frac{\beta z}{2})`$ function, which occur along the imaginary axis at the Matsubara modes: $`z_n=(2n+1)i\pi T`$, for $`n𝐙`$. This leads to an expression for $`N_\mathrm{T}`$ as an infinite sum. Alternatively, we can deform the $`z`$ contour around the poles and cuts of the spectrum of $`H`$, which lie on the real axis. This leads to an integral representation for $`N_\mathrm{T}`$, which is just the Sommerfeld-Watson transform of the infinite sum expression. We will see examples of these equivalent forms below.

## III Results for Finite Temperature Induced Fermion Number

Since $`\mathrm{tanh}(\frac{\beta E}{2})`$ is an odd function of $`E`$, it follows from (10) that to compute $`N_\mathrm{T}`$ we only need the odd part, $`\sigma _{\mathrm{odd}}(E)=\frac{1}{2}[\sigma (E)\sigma (E)]`$, of the spectral function:

$`N_\mathrm{T}={\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑E\sigma _{\mathrm{odd}}(E)\mathrm{tanh}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\beta E}{2}}\right)`$ (12)
Correspondingly, we only need to know the even part of the resolvent:

$$N_\mathrm{T}=\frac{1}{2}_𝒞\frac{dz}{2\pi i}\left[\mathrm{tr}\left(\frac{1}{Hz}\right)\right]_{\mathrm{even}}\mathrm{tanh}\left(\frac{\beta z}{2}\right)$$
(13)
This fact simplifies the calculations considerably, and has important physical consequences, as will be discussed in Section V.

### III.1 Finite T Fermion Number in the Kink Case

For the kink case (2) we can use the remarkable result (a special case of the Callias index theorem callias ) that the even part of the resolvent (and hence the odd part of the spectral function) can be computed exactly for any kink $`\varphi _2(x)`$:

$`\left[\mathrm{tr}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{Hz}}\right)\right]_{\mathrm{even}}={\displaystyle \frac{m\widehat{\varphi }_2}{(m^2z^2)\sqrt{m^2+\widehat{\varphi }_2^2z^2}}}`$ (14)
Notice that this only depends on the kink $`\varphi _2(x)`$ through its asymptotic value $`\widehat{\varphi }_2`$; it is otherwise independent of the details of the shape of the kink.

To motivate this fact, we can express the Dirac resolvent as $`\mathrm{tr}\left(\frac{1}{Hz}\right)=\mathrm{tr}\left((H+z)\frac{1}{H^2z^2}\right)`$, and note that, for the kink case, $`H^2`$ takes the simple diagonal form

$$H^2=\left(\begin{array}{cc}^2+m^2+\varphi _2^2+\varphi _2^{}& 0\\ 0& ^2+m^2+\varphi _2^2\varphi _2^{}\end{array}\right)$$
(15)
Thus,

$`\left[\mathrm{tr}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{Hz}}\right)\right]_{\mathrm{even}}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{tr}\left({\displaystyle \frac{m}{^2+\varphi _2^2+\varphi _2^{}+m^2z^2}}\right)\mathrm{tr}\left({\displaystyle \frac{m}{^2+\varphi _2^2\varphi _2^{}+m^2z^2}}\right)`$ (16)
That is, we can express the even part of the Dirac resolvent as the difference of two Schrödinger resolvents, with the corresponding Schrödinger potentials, $`V_\pm =\varphi _2^2\pm \varphi _2^{}`$, being isospectral. This isospectrality property is the key ingredient for proving (14).

Given the result (14), the induced fermion number (13) for the kink case (2) is ad

$$N_\mathrm{T}=\frac{2}{\pi }\left(\frac{m\beta }{\pi }\right)^2\mathrm{sin}\widehat{\theta }\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{1}{\left((2n+1)^2+(\frac{m\beta }{\pi })^2\right)\sqrt{(2n+1)^2\mathrm{cos}^2\widehat{\theta }+(\frac{m\beta }{\pi })^2}}$$
(17)
where we recall that $`\widehat{\theta }\mathrm{arctan}(\frac{\widehat{\varphi _2}}{m})`$, and we can restrict our attention to $`\frac{\pi }{2}\widehat{\theta }\frac{\pi }{2}`$. As an alternative to the summation expression in (17), we can write $`N_\mathrm{T}`$ as an integral representation:

$`N_\mathrm{T}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{sign}(\widehat{\theta })\mathrm{tanh}({\displaystyle \frac{m\beta }{2}}){\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}\widehat{\theta }\mathrm{cos}\widehat{\theta }}{\pi }}{\displaystyle _1^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑u{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{tanh}(\frac{m\beta }{2}\mathrm{sec}\widehat{\theta }u)}{\sqrt{u^21}(u^2\mathrm{cos}^2\widehat{\theta })}}`$ (18)
The kink case induced fermion number $`N_\mathrm{T}`$ is plotted in Fig. 4 as a function of $`\widehat{\theta }`$ for various values of the temperature, and in Fig. 5 as a function of $`\frac{m\beta }{\pi }`$, for various values of $`\widehat{\theta }`$. The integral form (18) makes the zero temperature limit clear : using the integral

$`{\displaystyle _1^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑u{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{u^21}(u^2\mathrm{cos}^2\widehat{\theta })}}={\displaystyle \frac{\frac{\pi }{2}|\widehat{\theta }|}{|\mathrm{sin}\widehat{\theta }|\mathrm{cos}\widehat{\theta }}}`$ (19)
it follows that the leading correction to $`N_0`$ at low temperature is exponentially small :

$`N_\mathrm{T}{\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{\theta }}{\pi }}\mathrm{sign}(\widehat{\theta })e^{m\beta }+\mathrm{},\beta \mathrm{}`$ (20)
Thus $`N_\mathrm{T}`$ reduces smoothly to the zero temperature expression (9). This can be seen clearly in Figs. 4 and 5. But at finite temperature, the expressions (17) and (18) for the induced fermion number are much more complicated than the $`T=0`$ result (9). Nevertheless, $`N_\mathrm{T}`$ in (17) and (18) is still topological in the sense that it only depends on the kink background through the asymptotic value $`\widehat{\theta }=\mathrm{arctan}(\widehat{\varphi }_2/m)`$. Other details of the kink shape do not matter. We will see in the next subsection that this is not true in the sigma model case (3). It is also interesting to note that the angular nature of the parameter $`\widehat{\theta }`$ is clearly manifest in the finite temperature expressions (17) and (18), while it is not as obvious from looking at the zero temperature expression (9). A similar observation applies for the finite temperature induced fermion number in $`3+1`$ dimensions for fermions in the presence of a Dirac monopole cp ; monopole , and for fermions in the presence of a static ‘t Hooft-Polyakov monopole goldhaber ; ad .

### III.2 Finite T Fermion Number in the Sigma Model Case

In the sigma model case (3), the Callias index theorem result (14) for the even part of the resolvent does not apply. There is no general expression for the even part of the resolvent. This is because in the sigma model case

$$H^2=\left(\begin{array}{cc}^2+m^2& 0\\ 0& ^2+m^2\end{array}\right)+m\theta ^{}\left(\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{cos}\theta & i\mathrm{sin}\theta \\ i\mathrm{sin}\theta & \mathrm{cos}\theta \end{array}\right)$$
(21)
which is clearly not of the diagonal isospectral form in (15). Thus, another approach is needed to evaluate the resolvent. In ad , the derivative expansion was used to evaluate the even part of the resolvent as an expansion in powers of $`\theta ^{}`$ and its derivatives. The derivative expansion ian ; ad  assumes that $`\theta ^{}m`$ : the spatial derivatives of the background fields are assumed small compared to the fermion mass scale $`m`$. In other words, the background chiral field $`\theta (x)`$ is assumed to be slowly varying on the scale of the fermion Compton wavelength. To next-to-leading order in the derivative expansion for the sigma model case, one finds ad

$`\left[\mathrm{tr}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{Hz}}\right)\right]_{\mathrm{even}}={\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{2(m^2z^2)^{3/2}}}{\displaystyle 𝑑x\theta ^{}}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{8(m^2z^2)^{5/2}}}{\displaystyle 𝑑x\theta ^{\prime \prime \prime }}{\displaystyle \frac{m^2(4z^2+m^2)}{16(m^2z^2)^{7/2}}}{\displaystyle 𝑑x(\theta ^{})^3}+\mathrm{}`$ (22)
where the dots refer to terms involving five or more derivatives. The middle term vanishes since $`𝑑x\theta ^{\prime \prime \prime }=0`$ if $`\theta (x)`$ has a kink-like shape. Inserting this approximate expression into (13) we obtain:

$`N_\mathrm{T}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}\left({\displaystyle \frac{m\beta }{\pi }}\right)^2\left\{{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{[(2n+1)^2+(\frac{m\beta }{\pi })^2]^{3/2}}}{\displaystyle 𝑑x\theta ^{}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\beta ^2}{8\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{[4(2n+1)^2+(\frac{m\beta }{\pi })^2]}{[(2n+1)^2+(\frac{m\beta }{\pi })^2]^{7/2}}}{\displaystyle 𝑑x(\theta ^{})^3}+\mathrm{}\right\}`$ (23)
The first term is topological and reduces smoothly to the zero temperature result (9) as $`T0`$. The second term involves $`𝑑x(\theta ^{})^3`$, which is clearly not topological : it depends on the actual shape of the chiral field $`\theta (x)`$, not just its asymptotic value $`\widehat{\theta }`$. This is still consistent (to this order) with the topological nature of the zero temperature induced fermion number (9), because the energy trace prefactor multiplying the $`𝑑x(\theta ^{})^3`$ term in (23) vanishes at $`T=0`$.

Higher orders in the derivative expansion (22) can be developed systematically, although it becomes somewhat tedious to enumerate all the different terms at high orders. However, a remarkable simplification occurs ad  in the low temperature limit where $`Tm`$. The leading low $`T`$ terms at each order of the derivative expansion have the simple form :

$$N_\mathrm{T}^{(2l1)}\delta _{l,1}\frac{1}{2\pi }𝑑x\theta ^{}\sqrt{\frac{2mT}{\pi }}e^{m/T}\frac{1}{(2l1)!}𝑑x\left(\frac{\theta ^{}}{2T}\right)^{2l1}+\mathrm{}$$
(24)
Thus, in the low temperature limit, we can resum the entire derivative expansion, to obtain the induced fermion number in the sigma model case (3) :

$$N_\mathrm{T}=\frac{1}{2\pi }_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑x\theta ^{}\sqrt{\frac{2mT}{\pi }}e^{m/T}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑x\mathrm{sinh}\left(\frac{\theta ^{}}{2T}\right)+\mathrm{}$$
(25)
where the dots refer to power-law subleading terms for $`Tm`$.

Note that $`N_\mathrm{T}`$ in (25) naturally splits into a temperature independent topological term, and a temperature dependent nontopological term. This has a simple physical explanation ad . First, observe that the chiral sigma model background acts like a spatially inhomogeneous electric field rich ; wilczek , as can be seen by making a local chiral rotation: $`\psi \stackrel{~}{\psi }=e^{i\theta \gamma _5/2}\psi `$. In terms of these chirally rotated fields the Lagrangian (1), with interaction (5), becomes

$$=i\overline{\stackrel{~}{\psi }}/\stackrel{~}{\psi }m\overline{\stackrel{~}{\psi }}\stackrel{~}{\psi }\overline{\stackrel{~}{\psi }}\gamma ^0\frac{\theta ^{}}{2}\stackrel{~}{\psi }$$
(26)
Thus, the chiral field $`\theta (x)`$ acts as an inhomogeneous scalar potential $`A_0(x)=\frac{1}{2}\theta ^{}(x)`$, leading to an inhomogeneous electric field

$$E(x)=\frac{1}{2}\theta ^{\prime \prime }(x)$$
(27)
This electric field acts on the Dirac sea to polarize the vacuum by aligning the virtual vacuum dipoles of the Dirac sea, producing a localized build-up of charge near the kink center. This leads to the first, topological, term in (25), which is just the familiar zero temperature result rich ; wilczek . It is temperature independent as the short-lived virtual electron-positron dipoles of the Dirac sea do not come to thermal equilibrium. The second, nontopological, term in (25) arises as the response of the real charges in the thermal plasma to the spatially inhomogeneous electric field ad . The linear response lebellac  of the plasma at low temperature to such an electric field yields an induced fermion number density

$$\rho (x)=\frac{dk}{2\pi }f(x,k)$$
(28)
where $`f(x,k)=f_+(x,k)f_{}(x,k)`$ is expressed in terms of the particle and antiparticle Fermi densities. In the derivative expansion limit, the leading effect of the background is that of an inhomogeneous chemical potential $`\mu (x)=\frac{1}{2}\theta ^{}(x)`$. Thus, in this limit, the local Fermi particle and antiparticle distribution functions are

$$f_\pm (x,k)=\frac{1}{e^{\beta (\sqrt{k^2+m^2}\mu (x))}+1}$$
(29)
The resummed derivative expansion expression (25) was obtained in the low temperature ($`Tm`$) limit. In this limit, we can write

$`f_+(x,k)f_{}(x,k)`$ $``$ $`e^{\beta \sqrt{k^2+m^2}}\left(e^{\beta \mu (x)}e^{\beta \mu (x)}\right)`$ (30)
$`=`$ $`2e^{\beta \sqrt{k^2+m^2}}\mathrm{sinh}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\theta ^{}}{2T}}\right)`$
Note that $`f_+f_{}`$ vanishes smoothly as $`T0`$ in the derivative expansion regime, because $`\theta ^{}m`$. For low temperature, the leading behavior of the k integral in (28) is

$`{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{dk}{2\pi }}e^{\beta \sqrt{k^2+m^2}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{mT}{2\pi }}}e^{\beta m}+\mathrm{},T0`$ (31)
Therefore, the plasma linear response contribution (28) to the induced fermion number gives precisely the second, nontopological, term in the formula (25) which was obtained by resumming the derivative expansion at low temperature.

## IV Thermal Fluctuations of Induced Fermion Number

We now turn to the fluctuation, $`(\mathrm{\Delta }N)_\mathrm{T}^2=N^2_\mathrm{T}N_\mathrm{T}^2`$, in the induced fermion number $`N_\mathrm{T}`$. We will show that the fluctuation vanishes at zero temperature, but is nonzero at finite temperature. Furthermore, the fluctuation is inherently nontopological, in both the kink and sigma model cases.

Recall that the fluctuation can be expressed in terms of the partition function as pathria

$`(\mathrm{\Delta }N)_\mathrm{T}^2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\beta ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{^2}{\mu ^2}}\mathrm{log}\mathrm{tr}\left(e^{\beta (H\mu N)}\right)]_{\mu =0}`$ (32)
Thus, the fluctuation can be expressed in a manner analogous to the fermion number expressions (10) and (11):

$`(\mathrm{\Delta }N)_\mathrm{T}^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑E\sigma (E)\mathrm{sech}^2({\displaystyle \frac{\beta E}{2}})`$ (33)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}{\displaystyle _𝒞}{\displaystyle \frac{dz}{2\pi i}}\mathrm{tr}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{Hz}}\right)\mathrm{sech}^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\beta z}{2}}\right)`$
From a purely computational viewpoint, there is an immediate difference between (33) and the fermion number expressions (10) and (11) : since $`\mathrm{sech}^2(\frac{\beta E}{2})`$ is an even function, we now need the even part of the spectral function (equivalently, the odd part of the resolvent), whereas to compute $`N_\mathrm{T}`$ one needs the odd part of the spectral function (equivalently, the even part of the resolvent).

### IV.1 Fluctuations in the Kink Case

The Callias index theorem result (14) gives the exact form of the even part of the resolvent, but tells us nothing about the odd part of the resolvent. Thus, in the kink case, we should no longer expect an exact topological result for the fluctuation $`(\mathrm{\Delta }N)_\mathrm{T}^2`$. Indeed, for a general kink background, an approximation is needed to compute the odd part of the resolvent. Instead, here we will proceed by considering a special two-parameter family of kink backgrounds for which the both the even and odd parts of the resolvent can be computed exactly. Consider

$`\varphi _2(x)=\widehat{\varphi }\mathrm{tanh}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{\varphi }}{j}}x\right)`$ (34)
where $`j=1,2,3,\mathrm{}`$ is an integer. The parameter $`\widehat{\varphi }`$ represents the asymptotic value of the kink, while $`j`$ determines the scale of the kink, as illustrated in Fig 6. While not completely general, the family of kinks in (34) is sufficiently general to distinguish between the topological and nontopological effects. For these special kinks, the isospectral potentials appearing in the square (15) of the Dirac hamiltonian are

$`\varphi _2^2\pm \varphi _2^{}=\widehat{\varphi }^2\left[1{\displaystyle \frac{(j1)}{j}}\mathrm{sech}^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{\varphi }}{j}}x\right)\right]`$ (35)
which are exactly solvable reflectionless Pöschl-Teller potentials, for which the resolvents are known in closed form, as is most easily derived from the exact phase shifts morse ; landau ; noah . In fact, for the family of kink fields $`\varphi _2(x)`$ in (34), the associated Schrödinger resolvents are :

$`\mathrm{tr}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{^2+\varphi _2^2+\varphi _2^{}+m^2z^2}}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{\varphi }}{\sqrt{m^2+\widehat{\varphi }^2z^2}}}{\displaystyle \underset{l=1}{\overset{j1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{l/j}{\left(m^2+\widehat{\varphi }^2(1\frac{l^2}{j^2})z^2\right)}}`$ (36)
$`\mathrm{tr}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{^2+\varphi _2^2\varphi _2^{}+m^2z^2}}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{\varphi }}{\sqrt{m^2+\widehat{\varphi }^2z^2}}}{\displaystyle \underset{l=1}{\overset{j}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{l/j}{\left(m^2+\widehat{\varphi }^2(1\frac{l^2}{j^2})z^2\right)}}`$ (37)
Note that the only difference between (36) and (37) is the $`l=j`$ term in the sum, which is present in (37) but not in (36). Since the even part of the Dirac resolvent (16) involves the difference of these two isospectral Schrödinger resolvents, we see that this difference is indeed independent of the scale $`j`$, and confirms the topological Callias index theorem result (14) for this case. On the other hand, the odd part of the Dirac resolvent depends on both the asymptotic value $`\widehat{\varphi }`$ and the scale $`j`$:

$`\left[\mathrm{tr}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{Hz}}\right)\right]_{\mathrm{odd}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{|\widehat{\varphi }|z}{(m^2z^2)\sqrt{m^2+\widehat{\varphi }^2z^2}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{2|\widehat{\varphi }|z}{\sqrt{m^2+\widehat{\varphi }^2z^2}}}{\displaystyle \underset{l=1}{\overset{j1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{l/j}{\left(m^2+\widehat{\varphi }^2(1\frac{l^2}{j^2})z^2\right)}}`$ (38)
The modulus $`|\widehat{\varphi }|`$ appears in the Dirac resolvent (38) because the complex Dirac energy $`z`$ is the square root of the Schrödinger energy parameter $`z^2`$ appearing in (36) and (37), and so we must be careful about the sheet structure in the complex $`z`$ plane. For example, from the Dirac Hamiltonian (6) it follows that if $`\widehat{\varphi }>0`$ then there is an unpaired bound state $`\psi =\left(\begin{array}{c}0\\ \mathrm{exp}(\varphi _2)\end{array}\right)`$ at $`E=m`$, while if $`\widehat{\varphi }<0`$ then there is an unpaired bound state $`\psi =\left(\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{exp}(\varphi _2)\\ 0\end{array}\right)`$ at $`E=+m`$. This fact is encapsulated in the Dirac resolvent (14) and (38), and similar arguments apply for the other bound states and for the continuum cuts.

Given this result (38) for the odd part of the resolvent, the contour integral expression (33) for the fluctuation yields a summation expression:

$`(\mathrm{\Delta }N)_\mathrm{T}^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2m\beta |\mathrm{sin}\widehat{\theta }|}{\pi ^3}}{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\{{\displaystyle \frac{2(2n+1)^4\mathrm{cos}^2\widehat{\theta }(\frac{m\beta }{\pi })^2\left[(\frac{m\beta }{\pi })^2(2n+1)^2\right]}{\left[(\frac{m\beta }{\pi })^2+(2n+1)^2\right]^2\left[(\frac{m\beta }{\pi })^2+(2n+1)^2\mathrm{cos}^2\widehat{\theta }\right]^{3/2}}}`$ (39)
$`+2{\displaystyle \underset{l=1}{\overset{j1}{}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{l}{j}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{2(2n+1)^4\mathrm{cos}^2\widehat{\theta }(\frac{m\beta }{\pi })^2\left[(\frac{m\beta }{\pi })^2(2n+1)^2\right](\frac{m\beta }{\pi })^4(1\frac{l^2}{j^2})\mathrm{tan}^2\widehat{\theta }}{\left[(\frac{m\beta }{\pi })^2\left(1+(1\frac{l^2}{j^2})\mathrm{tan}^2\widehat{\theta }\right)+(2n+1)^2\right]^2\left[(\frac{m\beta }{\pi })^2+(2n+1)^2\mathrm{cos}^2\widehat{\theta }\right]^{3/2}}}\}`$
Alternatively, there is an equivalent integral representation expression:

$`(\mathrm{\Delta }N)_\mathrm{T}^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\{\mathrm{sech}^2({\displaystyle \frac{m\beta }{2}}){\displaystyle \frac{2|\mathrm{sin}\widehat{\theta }|}{\pi }}{\displaystyle _1^{\mathrm{}}}du{\displaystyle \frac{u\mathrm{sech}^2\left(\frac{m\beta }{2}\mathrm{sec}\widehat{\theta }u\right)}{(u^2\mathrm{cos}^2\widehat{\theta })\sqrt{u^21}}}`$ (40)
$`+2{\displaystyle \underset{l=1}{\overset{j1}{}}}[\mathrm{sech}^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{m\beta }{2}}\sqrt{1+(1{\displaystyle \frac{l^2}{j^2}})\mathrm{tan}^2\widehat{\theta }}\right){\displaystyle \frac{2|\mathrm{sin}\widehat{\theta }|}{\pi }}\left({\displaystyle \frac{l}{j}}\right){\displaystyle _1^{\mathrm{}}}du{\displaystyle \frac{u\mathrm{sech}^2\left(\frac{m\beta }{2}\mathrm{sec}\widehat{\theta }u\right)}{\left(u^2(1\frac{l^2}{j^2}\mathrm{sin}^2\widehat{\theta })\right)\sqrt{u^21}}}]\}`$
The fluctuations are plotted in Fig. 7 for $`\widehat{\theta }=\frac{\pi }{8}`$, and various values of the scale parameter $`j`$. It is clear that the fluctuation vanishes exponentially at zero temperature ($`m\beta \mathrm{}`$). It is also clear that the fluctuation is nontopological, as it depends on the scale parameter $`j`$. At low temperature, the leading behavior is independent of the scale $`j`$

$`(\mathrm{\Delta }N)_\mathrm{T}^2e^{m\beta }+\mathrm{},`$ (41)
but the subleading exponential corrections are $`j`$ dependent, as can be seen from the integral expression (40) and from the plots in Fig. 7.

### IV.2 Fluctuations in Sigma Model Case

In the sigma model case, there is no exact expression for either the odd or the even part of the Dirac resolvent. However, applying the derivative expansion as in ad , we find that in the low temperature ($`Tm`$) limit the dominant contribution comes from terms involving (even) powers of $`\theta ^{}(x)`$. These can be evaluated and resummed to all orders of the derivative expansion, to yield the leading low temperature result :

$`(\mathrm{\Delta }N)_\mathrm{T}^2\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{2mT}{\pi }}}e^{m/T}{\displaystyle 𝑑x\mathrm{sinh}^2\left(\frac{\theta ^{}}{4T}\right)}+\mathrm{}`$ (42)
This expression has a smooth low temperature limit in the derivative expansion regime where $`\theta ^{}m`$. Indeed, the fluctuation (42) vanishes as $`T0`$. Furthermore, at any finite temperature, the fluctuation (42) is clearly nontopological. In the next Section we will see that this expression for the fluctuation has a simple plasma interpretation, analogous to the linear response explanation (28) – (31) of the induced fermion number (25) in the sigma model case.

## V Physical Interpretation

In this Section we give a simple physical interpretation of the results of the previous Sections for the induced fermion number and its fluctuations, in terms of the spectrum of the fermions in the background field. Let us first summarize the results. At zero temperature, the induced fermion number $`N_0`$ is always topological, and has vanishing fluctuation: $`(\mathrm{\Delta }N)_0=0`$. At finite temperature, $`N_\mathrm{T}`$ is topological for a kink background, but nontopological for a sigma model background. For both the kink and sigma model cases, the fluctuation is non-vanishing, $`(\mathrm{\Delta }N)_\mathrm{T}0`$, at nonzero temperature, and $`(\mathrm{\Delta }N)_\mathrm{T}`$ is nontopological. The vanishing of the fluctuations at zero temperature is in agreement with previous arguments that the zero temperature induced fermion number is a sharp observable kivelson ; bell ; jackiw ; frishman ; charge . At finite temperature, the nonvanishing fluctuation indicates that the induced fermion number is no longer a sharp observable. Rather, it is a thermal expectation value that mixes contributions from different states in the fermion Hilbert space. This is somewhat analogous to the recent observation of Jackiw et al helium  that fractional electron number in liquid helium bubbles is not sharp, due to state mixing.

In the sigma model case, the resummed derivative expansion result (25) for $`N_\mathrm{T}`$ suggested a natural separation of the finite temperature induced fermion number $`N_\mathrm{T}`$ into a zero temperature topological piece $`N_0`$ and a nontopological piece that represents the plasma response to the background field (in this case, an inhomogeneous electric field). This separation is, in fact, a general feature of the induced fermion number: $`N_\mathrm{T}`$ splits into a topological piece $`N_0`$ that arises due to vacuum polarization effects (and only involves the ground state of the second quantized Hilbert space), and a nontopological piece that can be interpreted in terms of the thermal occupation numbers of nonvacuum states. The topological piece is temperature independent, while the nontopological piece is temperature dependent. To see how this separation arises, note the simple identity

$`\mathrm{tanh}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\beta E}{2}}\right)=12n(E)`$ (43)
where the Fermi occupation number distribution is

$`n(E)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{e^{\beta E}+1}}`$ (44)
Then the finite temperature induced fermion number (10) separates as

$`N_\mathrm{T}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑E\sigma (E)\mathrm{sign}(E)+{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑E\sigma (E)\mathrm{sign}(E)n(|E|)`$ (45)
The first term in (45) is just the zero temperature fermion number (8), and is topological. However, the fact that the spectral asymmetry integral in (8) is always topological does not necessarily mean that $`\sigma _{\mathrm{odd}}(E)`$ is itself topological. The second term in (45) is generically nontopological due to the weighting of the integral with the Fermi distribution factor. However, in the special case of a kink background, $`\sigma _{\mathrm{odd}}(E)`$ is itself topological \[see the Callias index theorem result (14)\]. Thus the temperature-dependent second term in (45) is also topological in the kink case, even though the integral involves the Fermi factor.

This separation can be understood in terms of the Dirac spectrum of the fermions in the given background. For example, in the kink case, the Sommerfeld-Watson integral representation (18) for the induced fermion number can be re-expressed using (19), (43) and (45) as:

$`N_\mathrm{T}=N_0\mathrm{sign}(\widehat{\theta })n(m)+{\displaystyle \frac{2m^2\mathrm{tan}\widehat{\theta }}{\pi }}{\displaystyle _{m\mathrm{sec}\widehat{\theta }}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑E{\displaystyle \frac{n(E)}{(E^2m^2)\sqrt{E^2m^2\mathrm{sec}^2\widehat{\theta }}}}`$ (46)
For any kink background (with $`\widehat{\theta }`$ positive), the spectrum of the Dirac Hamiltonian (6) always has the form shown in Fig. 8. There are continuum states for $`|E|>\sqrt{m^2+\widehat{\varphi }_2^2}=m\mathrm{sec}\widehat{\theta }`$, where we recall that $`\widehat{\theta }\mathrm{arctan}(\widehat{\varphi _2}/m)`$, and $`\widehat{\varphi _2}`$ is the asymptotic value of the kink field at $`x=+\mathrm{}`$. In addition, there is always a bound state at $`E=\mathrm{sign}(\widehat{\theta })m`$:

$`\psi _b`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{c}0\\ \mathrm{exp}[^x\varphi _2]\end{array}\right)\mathrm{with}\mathrm{energy}E=m,\mathrm{if}\widehat{\theta }>0`$
$`\psi _b`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{exp}[^x\varphi _2]\\ 0\end{array}\right)\mathrm{with}\mathrm{energy}E=+m,\mathrm{if}\widehat{\theta }<0`$ (47)
There may or may not be additional bound states with $`m<|E|<m\mathrm{sec}\widehat{\theta }`$. If these additional bound states are present they necessarily occur in $`\pm E`$ pairs, because of the quantum mechanical SUSY of the Dirac Hamiltonian (6) in the kink case. Thus, the contributions of these paired bound states to the second integral in (45) cancel in pairs, while the unpaired bound state at $`E=\mathrm{sign}(\widehat{\theta })m`$ leads to the $`\mathrm{sign}(\widehat{\theta })n(m)`$ term in (46). The remaining integral over the continuum states leads to the integral term in (46), as an integral of the Fermi factor $`n(|E|)`$ over the continuum beginning at the threshold energy $`m\mathrm{sec}\widehat{\theta }`$, with the integrand involving the odd part of the spectral function derived from the Callias index theorem result (14).

In the sigma model case, the Dirac spectrum is very different. As discussed in Section III.B, the chiral field $`\theta (x)`$ is equivalent to a spatially inhomogeneous electric field $`E(x)=\frac{1}{2}\theta ^{\prime \prime }(x)`$ for fermions of mass $`m`$. For a slowly varying background, with $`\theta ^{}m`$, the leading order effect on the spectrum is that of a local chemical potential $`\mu (x)=\frac{1}{2}\theta ^{}(x)`$. Thus, we can approximate (45) as

$`N_\mathrm{T}`$ $``$ $`N_0+{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑x{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{dk}{2\pi }}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{e^{\beta (\sqrt{k^2+m^2}+\theta ^{}/2)}+1}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{e^{\beta (\sqrt{k^2+m^2}\theta ^{}/2)}+1}}\right)`$ (48)
$``$ $`N_0\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{2mT}{\pi }}}e^{m/T}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}dx\mathrm{sinh}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\theta ^{}}{2T}}\right),\mathrm{as}T0`$
which agrees precisely with the low temperature resummed derivative expansion result (25), and which agrees with the plasma linear response result as explained in Section III.B.

From numerical analysis of the Dirac equation for a sigma model background, the Dirac spectrum has the form shown in Fig. 9. Note that, unlike the kink case spectrum depicted in Fig. 8, there is no particular symmetry of the spectrum. The only general thing we can say is that the continuum thresholds are at $`E=\pm m`$. There may or may not be one or more bound states for $`|E|<m`$. The existence of (and the precise location of) bound states is highly sensitive to the actual shape of the $`\theta (x)`$. As there is no special symmetry in the spectrum, there is nothing general that can be said about the odd part of the spectral function. Nevertheless, the first term in (45), which is $`N_0`$, yields a topological result since the integral can be written, using Levinson’s theorem, in terms of the phase shift at infinity, which is topological yamagishi ; boy ; mike ; jaffe2 . This application of Levinson’s theorem doesn’t work for the second term in (45) because of the Fermi factor. This is another way to understand why the finite temperature induced fermion number is generically nontopological. At low temperature, we see from (45) that the dominant correction to the zero temperature fermion number is determined by the bound state energy with the lowest magnitude:

$`N_\mathrm{T}N_0+\mathrm{sign}(E_{\mathrm{min}})e^{\beta |E_{\mathrm{min}}|}+\mathrm{},\mathrm{as}T0`$ (49)
Since the location of $`E_{\mathrm{min}}`$ is sensitive to the detailed shape of $`\theta (x)`$, this shows that $`N_\mathrm{T}`$ is generically nontopological. If there is no bound state, then the leading correction comes from the threshold and is $`e^{m\beta }`$, with nontopolgical subleading corrections.

The fluctuation (33) can also be expressed in terms of the Fermi distribution functions $`n(E)`$ in (44). Noting the simple identity

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\mathrm{sech}^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{\beta E}{2}}\right)=n(E)\left(1n(E)\right)`$ (50)
we see that (33) can be written as

$`(\mathrm{\Delta }N)_\mathrm{T}^2={\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑E\sigma (E)n(E)\left(1n(E)\right)`$ (51)
This formula is natural, since it is well known pathria  that for noninteracting fermions, the fluctuation in the occupation number of the state with energy $`E`$ is $`n_E^2n_E^2=n_E\left(1n_E\right)`$. In this paper we are considering the fermions to be in a fixed static background, so we are simply populating the single-particle energy levels of the corresponding Dirac Hamiltonian with noninteracting fermions, according to Fermi-Dirac statistics. This explains why the fluctuation vanishes at zero temperature, as the $`n(1n)`$ factors vanish exponentially fast. It also explains why the fluctuation is nontopological, since the integral in (51) requires detailed knowledge of the spectrum.

For the family of special kink backgrounds in (34), the integral representation result (40) for the fluctuation can be re-expressed in terms of the Fermi occupation numbers of the states in the spectrum:

$`(\mathrm{\Delta }N)_\mathrm{T}^2`$ $`=`$ $`n(m)\left(1n(m)\right)+2{\displaystyle \underset{l=1}{\overset{j1}{}}}n(E_l)\left(1n(E_l)\right){\displaystyle \frac{2m|\mathrm{tan}\widehat{\theta }|}{\pi }}{\displaystyle _{m\mathrm{sec}\widehat{\theta }}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑E{\displaystyle \frac{En(E)\left(1n(E)\right)}{(E^2m^2)\sqrt{E^2m^2\mathrm{sec}^2\widehat{\theta }}}}`$ (52)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{4m|\mathrm{tan}\widehat{\theta }|}{\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{l=1}{\overset{j1}{}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{l}{j}}\right){\displaystyle _{m\mathrm{sec}\widehat{\theta }}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑E{\displaystyle \frac{En(E)\left(1n(E)\right)}{(E^2E_l^2)\sqrt{E^2m^2\mathrm{sec}^2\widehat{\theta }}}}`$
where the paired bound state energies $`\pm E_l`$ for the special kink backgrounds (34) are at

$`E_l=m\sqrt{1+(1{\displaystyle \frac{l^2}{j^2}})\mathrm{tan}^2\widehat{\theta }},l=1,2,\mathrm{},(j1)`$ (53)
This expression (52) can be interpreted directly in terms of the general expression (51) : we can easily identify the separate contributions from the unpaired bound state at $`E=m`$, from the paired bound states at $`E=\pm E_l`$, and the contributions from the continuum cuts. Since the integral in (51) involves the even part of the spectral function, the symmetry of the spectrum indicated in Fig. 8 does not lead to any particular simplification for the fluctuation, as there are no cancellations. Hence, $`(\mathrm{\Delta }N)_\mathrm{T}^2`$ is nontopological, as it is manifestly dependent on the scale parameter $`j`$.

In the sigma model case, we can interpret the equation (51) as follows. As discussed previously, in the derivative expansion, $`\theta ^{}m`$, limit, the leading effect of the background is that of a local chemical potential $`\mu (x)=\frac{1}{2}\theta ^{}(x)`$, in which case the local Fermi distribution factors are given by (29). Thus, the fluctuation can be computed from (51) as

$`(\mathrm{\Delta }N)_\mathrm{T}^2`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑x_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{dk}{2\pi }\left[f_+(1f_+)+f_{}(1f_{})2f_0(1f_0)\right]}`$ (54)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle }dx{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{dk}{2\pi }}[n(\sqrt{k^2+m^2}\mu (x))(1n(\sqrt{k^2+m^2}\mu (x)))`$
$`+n(\sqrt{k^2+m^2}+\mu (x))(1n(\sqrt{k^2+m^2}+\mu (x)))2n(\sqrt{k^2+m^2})(1n(\sqrt{k^2+m^2}))]`$
where the last term is the subtraction of the free case with $`f_0=n(\sqrt{k^2+m^2})`$. At low temperature, (54) gives the leading contribution

$`(\mathrm{\Delta }N)_\mathrm{T}^2`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑x_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{dk}{2\pi }e^{\beta \sqrt{k^2+m^2}}\left[e^{\beta \theta ^{}/2}+e^{\beta \theta ^{}/2}2\right]}`$ (55)
$``$ $`4\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{mT}{2\pi }}}e^{m\beta }{\displaystyle 𝑑x\mathrm{sinh}^2\left(\frac{\theta ^{}}{4T}\right)}`$
where we have used the low temperature behavior of the $`k`$ integral in (31). This expression (55) agrees precisely with the resummed derivative expansion result (42) for the fluctuation.

## VI Conclusions

To conclude, we reiterate that the finite temperature induced fermion number $`N_\mathrm{T}`$ is generically nontopological, and is not a sharp observable. The induced fermion number naturally splits into a topological temperature-independent piece that represents the effect of vacuum polarization on the Dirac sea, and a nontopological temperature-dependent piece that represents the thermal population of the available states in the fermion spectrum, weighted with the appropriate Fermi-Dirac factors. As the temperature approaches zero, the nontopological terms vanish exponentially fast, and we regain smoothly the familiar topological results at zero temperature. But at nonzero temperature, the nontopological contribution is more sensitive to the details of the spectrum, and so is generically nontopological. This is illustrated explicitly by a derivative expansion calculation, which is resummed to all orders at low temperature, for the case of a sigma model background. The induced fermion number $`N_\mathrm{T}`$ only depends on the odd part of the spectral function. This means the case of a kink background is special because the Dirac spectrum for a kink background is remarkably symmetric, and the odd part of the spectral function is itself a topological quantity, in the sense that it only depends on the asymptotic value of the kink field, rather than on the full details of the shape of the kink field. Thus, the kink case is non-generic, and the finite temperature induced fermion number is actually topological, albeit a complicated function of the temperature and the asymptotic value of the kink field. On the other hand, the fluctuation, $`(\mathrm{\Delta }N)_\mathrm{T}`$, is determined by the even part of the spectral function, for which no general topological information is known. Thus, the fluctuations are always nontopological at finite temperature. We illustrated this explicitly with an exact solution for a special class of kink backgrounds, and with a derivative expansion calculation for the sigma model case. The fluctuation vanishes at zero temperature, which shows that the induced fermion number is a sharp eigenvalue at zero temperature, in agreement with the arguments of kivelson ; bell ; jackiw ; frishman ; charge . But at finite temperature, the nonvanishing of the fluctuations indicates that the induced fermion number is not a sharp eigenvalue at nonzero temperature. The source of the fluctuation is clearly the dispersion introduced by mixing states in the thermal average. An analogous example of an induced fermion number expectation value that is not sharp has been discussed recently in helium .

Some of these results generalize immediately to higher dimensional cases. For example, the dependence of $`N_\mathrm{T}`$ on just the odd part of the spectrum means that if the background has the same SUSY isospectral features as the kink case, then the finite temperature induced fermion number will be topological. This was in fact found to be true in ad  where the $`3+1`$ dimensional induced fermion number in the presence of a static $`SU(2)`$ ’t Hooft-Polyakov monopole was shown to have exactly the same form as in the $`1+1`$ dimensional kink case, with the identification of the asymptotic value of the kink with the asymptotic value of the magnitude of the monopole’s Higgs field. This gives an interesting finite temperature remnant of the quantum mechanical SUSY present in the Dirac spectrum. Conversely, without such a special symmetry of the Dirac spectrum, the finite temperature induced fermion number will be generically nontopological. So, for example, for a chiral $`SU(2)`$ sigma model with a Skyrme background in $`3+1`$ dimensions, it is well known from numerical work that the Dirac energy spectrum of the fermions is not symmetric, and the energy of a possible bound state (and indeed the number of bound states) is highly sensitive to the details of the shape of the radial hedgehog field ripka . Since the leading low temperature contribution to the finite temperature fermion number in (45) is determined by the lowest magnitude bound state energy \[see (49)\], this shows that in this case the finite temperature induced fermion number is nontopological. Likewise, the fact that the finite temperature fluctuation $`(\mathrm{\Delta }N)_\mathrm{T}`$ depends on the even part of the spectral function indicates that this will be generally nontopological. Finally, the interpretation in terms of the fluctuations for individual energy levels in the spectrum shows that the fluctuation is nonzero at finite temperature, but vanishing at zero temperature. Thus, the induced fermion number is a sharp observable at zero temperature, but not at finite temperature. In particular, for a Skyrme background in $`3+1`$ dimensions, the finite temperature fermion number is not simply the (topological) winding number of the Skyrme field, but a much more complicated nontopological object.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank the U.S. Department of Energy for support through grant DE-FG02-92ER40716.00.


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# Vortex dynamics and upper critical fields in ultrathin Bi films

## I Introduction

Transport properties of disordered ultrathin films have been studied extensively over the last decade especially in the context of disorder driven and magnetic field driven superconductor-insulator transition (SIT) . This transition is found to occur at a particular value of disorder corresponding to a critical resistance Rc, which clusters close to $``$ h/4e2(the quantum of resistance for Cooper pairs), for both field driven and disorder driven transitions. Earlier studies on $`Bi`$, quench-condensed on underlayers of $`Ge`$, showed a “homogenous” type of SIT which was characterized by a strong suppression of the critical temperature, Tc as disorder was increased. The presence of a thin ($``$ 10 $`\mathrm{\AA }`$) underlayer of $`Ge`$, is conventionally thought to improve the wetting properties of the film, and thereby assist homogeneous growth . However, several studies have indicated that the underlayer is not inert, as conventionally assumed, and may actually play an active role in determining the transport properties of the film . Though most studies have concentrated on the transition itself, little effort has been made to understand the physics of superconductivity, such as vortex dynamics, in ultrathin films with different underlayers, which differs significantly from its manifestation in bulk material. In this work, we demonstrate some of the differences. In a previous publication, we have investiagated several underlayers for these films including solid Xenon  to investigate screening effects.

In this paper we present observations of some anomalies in the I-V’s in a magnetic field and the $`B_{c2}(T)`$ of $`Bi`$ films, which are in the vicinity of the disorder driven SIT. This work compares films without and with a Ge underlayer. From current-voltage (I-V) characteristics in the superconducting state, measured in finite magnetic field, it is possible to infer the dynamics of vortices.

## II Experimental Results

Experiments were carried out on films near the disorder driven SIT, with and without $`Ge`$ underlayers simultaneously to determine the effect of underlayers on the vortex motion in these films. Upper critical fields $`B_{c2}(T)`$ of these films were also measured, from the resistive transitions in perpendicular magnetic field, and their temperature dependance was found to differ significantly from Ginzburg-Landau theory . The experiments were done in a UHV cryostat, custom designed for in-situ experiments, described in . The cryostat is pumped by a turbomolecular pump backed by an oil-free diaphragm pump. A completely hydrocarbon free vacuum $``$ 10-8 Torr can be attained. The substrates are amorphous quartz of size 2.5cm X 2.5cm and mounted on a copper cold finger whose temperature can be varied down to 1.8K by pumping on the liquid helium bath. The material ($`Bi`$) is evaporated from a Knudsen-cell with a pyrolytic Boron Nitride crucible, of the type used in Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE). $`Bi`$ is evaporated from the cell at 650o C, into a 4-probe resistivity measurement pattern defined by a metal mask in front of the substrate. Successive liquid helium and liquid nitrogen cooled jackets surrounding the substrate reduce the heat load on the substrate, and provide cryo-pumping. This produces an ultimate pressure $``$ 10-10 Torr in the system. The flux reaching the substrate is controlled using a carefully aligned mechanical shutter in the nitrogen shield. The thickness of the film is increased by small amounts, by opening the shutter for a time interval corresponding to the desired increase in thickness. A quartz crystal thickness monitor measures the nominal thickness of the film. Electrical contacts to the film are provided through pre-deposited platinum contact pads ($``$ 50$`\mathrm{\AA }`$ thick). $`Ge`$ underlayers are deposited over a region of the substrate(a-quartz) before loading the substrate into the cryostat. Separate electrical connections to films on $`Ge`$ and on bare a-quartz allow us to study both the films simultaneously. I-V’s and electrical resistance measurements are done using a standard d.c.current source (Keithley model 220/224) and nanovoltmeter (Keithley model 182) and elctrometer (Keithley model 6514).

In this work, we have measured the critical current Ic for different films at T = 2.0K. We have evaluated the power dissipated by the current in the superconducting films to be a few hundreds of nanowatts at the highest currents used (i.e. near the critical current). The cryostat has been designed to have a cooling power of at least 1 mW at this temperature. The substrates on which the films are deposited, are mounted on a copper coldfinger with silver loaded Apiezon grease, ensuring a low thermal resistance. Under such circumstances, we believe the differences in the cooling power and ohmic heating to be large enough to ensure that the temperature fluctuations due to ohmic dissipation can be safely ignored.

When the normal state sheet resistance, R$`{}_{}{}^{N}{}_{\mathrm{}}{}^{}`$ of the film is close to h/4e2, the combined effect of quantum fluctuations and disorder prevents the formation of a vortex solid (VS) phase, and such an absence of a VS phase has recently been reported in $`Bi`$ films close to SIT . However, we find that this type of behavior can be modified when the underlayer is changed. The purpose of this paper is to present our results which establish the influence of the underlayer on the vortex phase, and others, which go beyond those reported in ref. . Specifically, these are the observation of a structural phase transition in the vortex phase, which manifests itself as a ‘peak effect’, and the significant deviations in the critical fields of these ultrathin superconducting films, when compared to Ginzburg-Landau theory. Keeping this in mind, we study I-V characteristics in magnetic field to understand the effect of magnetic field on the vortices and how it differs for films on different substrates. In the following, after suitable preliminaries, we present our results and discuss their implications.

The I-V curves are hysteretic as shown in Fig. 1. i.e. when the current is increased from the zero value, the resistance jumps to the normal state value at a critical current, Ic. Upon reducing the current from the normal state, the voltage returns to zero not at Ic, but at a lower value. This behavior is reminescent of a underdamped Josephson junction, where the intrinsic junction capacitance, and the finite leakage resistance to quasiparticles can be modeled as shunts to an ideal junction. The lower current in this case is the retrapping current. This suggests that our films can be considered as an array of Josephson junctions, which are shunted by an equivalent resistance and the equivalent intrinsic junction capacitance. Consequently the resistively and capacitively shunted junction (RCSJ) model  has be used to describe the hysteretic behavior  in an earlier publication.

Fig. 2 shows the I-V characteristics for a 26 $`\mathrm{\AA }`$ $`Bi`$ film on (a) on bare a-quartz substrates and (b) 10 $`\mathrm{\AA }`$ $`Ge`$ underlayer, both on a linear scale, at low voltages. In this figure only the positive current sweep is shown for clarity, though all the curves show hysteretic behavior. All the I-Vs are recorded at T = 2.0K. The differences are described below. In (a), at zero field, one can clearly see the dissipationless supercurrent region. Upon increasing the field, the system first becomes dissipative due to depinning of the vortices, caused by the Lorentz force acting on them due to the current Idep, although not yet normal. At this point the I-V becomes nonlinear, and the departure from linearity is clearly seen in this figure. We note here that the definition of the depinning current is consistent with the one conventionally used in the literature . For a film of identical thickness, the Ic is higher on the Be underlayer, as can be seen from Fig. 2(b). We also note that the I-V is non-linear in the vicinity of the Ic. The non-linearity attributable to depinning seems to set in at lower currents for the films on Ge. However, the Ic for films on Ge is higher. In both these films, the dissipation is finite at any applied field, as evidenced by a linear regime of the I-V, from which a resistance can be discerned. This is possibly due to the relatively high temperature of 2 K, when compared with published literature . This we attribute to thermally activated vortex motion.

Fig. 3 (a) and (b) show the I-V’s on a semi-log scale, until the normal state resistance is reached, where all the curves at different magnetic fields meet. For the films on bare substrates, only one critical current can be unambiguously identified. For the films on Ge underlayers, two different step like increases in the voltage can be clearly identifed for three different field values. It is only after the second step that the film resistance becomes the normal state resistance, and therefore this should be defined as the critical current. Hence the first step has to be associated with some sort of structural transition in the vortex solid. Recall that the depinning current is lower than this current at which the first step in the voltage appears.

Fig. 4 shows the critical current as a function of normalized temperature, at zero field for films on Ge as well as on bare quartz. A peak in the critical current in the vicinity of the transition temperature is clearly visible, for the films on Ge. An identical phenomenon has been extensively invesitaged in layered superconductors such as 2H-NbSe2  and several other materials such as amorphous Nb3Ge and Mo3Si films.  This has been given the name ”peak effect”. The pinning force density Fp exhibits a prominent peak slightly below the upper critical field, Bc2 or near the critical temperature. This effect is attributed to elastic instabilities generated by local fluctuations of the pinning forces, which induce a rapid softening of the flux line solid. This softening allows the flux lines to conform readily to a configuration that locks it to the inhomogeneities, so that the critical current Ic increases . So the observation of a peak in Ic implies that an elastic flux line solid transforms to a plastic solid in the vicinity of the peak. For the films on Ge, we identify the first transition with the ”peak effect”. On the other hand, for films on bare substrate at B = 0 G, the system shows the usual depinning transition with some finite dissipation and non-linear I-V’s, until Ic, where it becomes normal. In our films, the critical fields are higher than what we can attain using our magnet. Hence we have been unable to observe the peak effect in the I-H plane. However, the observation in the I-T plane is unambiguous proof of the peak effect .

There is another important difference between the films on $`Ge`$ and bare substrates. The Ic when plotted against the applied field B, shows a maximum for films on bare substrates as shown in Fig. 5. This effect is therefore real, as the peak is much larger than the error bars. Such an effect has been observed in Josephson junction arrays, where the cirtical current shows a dependence on the field for small magnetic fields . In such JJ array structures, a relevant variable is the number of free vortices per unit cell, and is denoted as f ($`f=Ba_{o}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}/\mathrm{\Phi }_o`$), where B is the applied field. Since we have sufficient reason to believe that our films can be understood as a random JJ array as discussed above , this reasonable explanation for this effect. From the measured Ic, and using the Ambegaokar-Baratoff relation , we can estimate the number of junctions in our film to be a million. Knowledge of the applied field, and using our published RHEED data  to estimate ao (of the order of 2000 $`\AA `$), gives us a value for f of 0.4, which is consistent with the values reported in the literature. It is intriguing that such a frustration effect is not observed for films on Ge underlayers. We do not know the reason for this at this time. We are however in the process of investigating other films and underlayers in order to aid our understanding of this phenomenon.

We now discuss the critical fields of these films. The temperature dependence of the upper critical field, Bc2 of a typical type II superconductor can be shown, by Ginzburg-Landau theory to be of the form ,

$$B_{c2}=B_{c2}(0)(1t^2)$$
(1)
where Bc2(0) is the upper critical field at T=0 and t (= T/Tc) is the reduced temperature. Close to the transition temperature (t $``$ 1), the relation above can be approximated by $`(1t)`$.

Fig.6 shows a representative Bc2 vs $`t`$ plot for a 26 $`\mathrm{\AA }`$ film where the data points are indicated by triangles, and the solid line is a fit discussed below. The data show a curvature opposite to that expected by GL theory near Tc. The data is found to fit the following equation,

$$B_{c2}=B_{c2}(0)(1t)^\alpha $$
(2)
where $`\alpha `$ = 1.175. Even at $`t1`$, we do not observe the predicted linear dependence. In Fig.6, the solid line is a fit to equation 3 with $`\alpha `$ = 1.175, the long-dashed line is the GL expression, medium-dashed line is the linear dependence, and the short-dashed line is $`\alpha `$ = 1.45. This last value of $`\alpha `$ is found to characterize the melting line in extreme type II superconductors, such as the high Tc materials . All the films studied (thickness ranging from 26 to 105 $`\mathrm{\AA }`$) show the same curvature with $`\alpha `$ $``$ 1.14 $`\pm `$ 0.05.

## III Discussion

The transport properties in films such as the ones studied here are examples of transport in heterogeneous media , i.e. as the problems of dynamics of percolation networks. The current path in such films is clearly percolative, and one cannot rule out such effects in the motion of vortices. A possible model for these films seems to be a random composite network (RCN), in which both superconducting and normal regions exist . Attempts have been made to quantitatively interpret the I-V’s in such structures . Currently we are in the process of incorporating the two dimensional nature of our system, and the effects of a magnetic field to quantitatively understand our I-V’s.

The I-V’s are sensitive to the deposition temperature. All the I-V’s discussed above were obtained from films for which the temperature of deposition was 15 K. Several dramatic differences are seen in the I-V’s of films that are deposited at 4 K or 1.5 K. These results along with a quantitative model for the I-V’s will be addressed in a separate publication.

For a disordered superconductor, the temperature dependence of the critical field gets modified due to the interplay between pinning, and thermal fluctuations. In a weakly disordered superconductor, the temperature dependence of the upper critical field shows significant deviations from this relation only at low temperatures. The interplay between pinning and fluctuations increases the critical fields. Such increases have been successfully explained by the Werthamer-Helfand-Hohenberg (WHH) theory , which is based on the Ginzburg-Landau formalism.However, the WHH model has not been successful in explaining the B$`{}_{c2}{}^{}(T)`$ of amorphous transition metal alloys  which often show an upward curvature.

Later models taking into consideration, the effect of localization and electron-electron interactions , were successful in explaining the upward curvature of the Bc2 at lower temperatures. We have determined Bc2(T) of our films, from the resistive transitions in a perpendicular magnetic field. The convention that we have followed is to define Bc2 as the field at which the sheet resistance is half its normal state value, R$`{}_{}{}^{N}{}_{\mathrm{}}{}^{}`$, which is the generally accepted convention. The current values used to record the resistive transition of the films are small ($``$ few nano amperes) and the magnetic field produced by them is extremely small (milligauss) compared to the critical fields (Tesla) of these films.

Although the theories discussed above  explain the upward curvature of Bc2 at lower temperatures very well, they predict only a linear dependence (i.e. $`(1t)`$) of Bc2 near Tc. None of them has any explanation for this peculiar behavior observed in our films. A power of $``$ 1.14, which is between the value of 1.45 for a melting line and 1.0 for GL theory suggests that a new explanation may be required to understand this data. The Pauli limiting field or the Clogston-Chandrasekhar limit for disordered superconductors is given by Hp = 1.84 Tc Tesla . The value of Hp is approximately 5.3 T even the for the thinnest films studied here. In our experiments we have not crossed that field at any time.

## IV Conclusions

In conclusion, the I-V’s of quench condensed Bi films with and without underlayers of $`Ge`$ show evidence for very interesting vortex dynamics. In particular, we have presented data that show a peak effect, which has been observed for the first time in such ultrathin films. We also show effects that can be attributed to frustration in a random JJ array. These effects are sensitive to the microstructure of the film, and the underlayers used to deposit the film. The upper critical fields are found to have a power law temperature dependence with a power of $``$ 1.14, which needs further investigation. This, together with the peak effect and frustration effects, suggests a novel behavior in such ultrathin disordered films, which has not been addressed. More experiments on highly disordered films with R$`{}_{}{}^{N}{}_{\mathrm{}}{}^{}`$ $``$ h/4e2 are needed to completely understand the vortex dynamics.

This work is supported by Department of Science and Technology, and UGC Government of India. One of the authors (KDG) thanks the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, New Delhi for the fellowship. NC thanks Dr. A. M. Goldman and Dr. S. Bhattacharya for discussions.

FIGURE CAPTIONS

(1) Fig. 1. I-V characteristics of a 26 $`\mathrm{\AA }`$ film on $`Ge`$ underlayer showing hysteresis for (1) zero field (2) 364 G and (3) 7981G. The curves were recorded at T = 2.0K.

(2) Fig. 2. I-V characteristics of 26 $`\mathrm{\AA }`$ $`Bi`$ film on (a) bare quartz and (b) on a 10 $`\AA `$ $`Ge`$ underlayer on a linear scale at low voltages. All I-Vs were recorded at T = 2.0K. Different curves indicate different field values.

(3) Fig. 3. I-V characteristics of 26 $`\mathrm{\AA }`$ $`Bi`$ film on (a) bare quartz and (b) on a 10 $`\AA `$ $`Ge`$ underlayer on a semi-log scale, taken until the films are driven normal by te current. All I-Vs were recorded at T = 2.0K. Different curves indicate different field values.

(4) Fig. 4. Temperature dependance of the critical current (Ic) for films on bare substrates and films on Ge underlayers.

(5) Fig. 5. Field dependance of the critical current (Ic) for the film of Fig. 2 (b).

(6) Fig. 6. Bc2 vs $`t`$ for a 26 $`\mathrm{\AA }`$ film. The solid line is the fit to equation 3 with $`\alpha `$ = 1.175. See text for discussion.