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# Untitled Document

hep-th/0103231 NSF-ITP-01-23

Precursors, black holes, and a locality bound

Steven B. Giddingsab giddings@physics.ucsb.edu and Matthew Lipperta lippert@physics.ucsb.edu

a Department of Physics

University of California

Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9530

b Institute of Theoretical Physics

University of California

Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4030

Abstract

We revisit the problem of precursors in the AdS/CFT correspondence. Identification of the precursors is expected to improve our understanding of the tension between holography and bulk locality and of the resolution of the black hole information paradox. Previous arguments that the precursors are large, undecorated Wilson loops are found to be flawed. We argue that the role of precursors should become evident when one saturates a certain locality bound. The spacetime uncertainty principle is a direct consequence of this bound.

1. Introduction

The puzzles of quantum gravity become sharply focussed with the black hole information paradox\[1\], which arises when considering the fate of quantum mechanical information which falls into a black hole. Destruction of the information would sacrifice quantum mechanics and would apparently lead to physics that violates energy conservation, while escape of the information in Hawking radiation would appear to violate locality.

This difficult situation led to the postulated holographic principle\[2,,3\], which holds that in a real sense the information can be thought of as stored in degrees of freedom at the surface of the black hole. This principle conflicts with locality as usually formulated in quantum field theory, but only in extreme circumstances; at long distances and low energies the world should remain effectively local.

The holographic principle has found a concrete realization in Maldacena’s proposed AdS/CFT correspondence\[4\], which asserts that string theory in the whole of AdS spacetime has an equivalent description as dynamics of a large-N super Yang-Mills theory on the boundary of that spacetime.

If true, this equivalence says that all information inside AdS can be equivalently described by a state of the boundary. This would include information that from the bulk perspective has not had time to causally reach the boundary. An example would be a bomb detonated at the center of AdS; from the bulk perspective the information from the bomb should not reach the boundary until a time comparable to the AdS radius $`R`$, but equivalence with the boundary theory implies that this information should be somehow encoded in the boundary state the moment the bomb goes off. Polchinski, Susskind, and Toumbas\[5\] formulated the important question of identifying these boundary variables in which the information is encoded and coined the name precursors to describe them.

Going one step further, if observation of precursors allows one to measure information that should be causally inaccessible from the bulk perspective, precursors should allow one to measure information inside a black hole in anti-de Sitter space. Indeed, according to the holographic principle, black hole formation and evaporation is a unitary process and, by AdS/CFT, should be fully encoded at all times in the boundary CFT. For this reason it would be extremely interesting to identify the precursor fields and use them to chart the internal dynamics of a black hole.

Susskind and Toumbas\[6\] have made the concrete proposal that the precursor fields are large Wilson loops and have presented calculations purporting to show that these Wilson loops indeed allow boundary measurements that would naïvely be forbidden by bulk locality. In particular, in the case of the explosion mentioned above, measurement of a Wilson loop of size $`a`$ would allow a detection of the explosion at a time of order $`a`$ before the light cone of the explosion reaches the boundary of AdS.

It should be noted that it is debatable to what extent such an observation – even if possible – constitutes observing the explosion outside its light cone. To foresee the explosion by a time $`a`$ requires a Wilson loop of size $`a`$, and it would appear to take a time $`a`$ to actually know that the Wilson loop has been measured – the data from the detectors along the loop would have to be sent to some central location for comparison.1 We thank J. Preskill for discussions on this point. However, as we’ll discuss, one could also imagine using Wilson loops to measure events inside a black hole. In this case, any measurement would be extremely interesting, since the time it would take the information to escape classically is infinite.

In this paper we investigate these claims more closely. There is a purely field theoretical calculation analogous to that of  that also seems to indicate that observation of a bilinear of local operators allows one to likewise measure the explosion acausally. However, we know from field theory causality that this cannot be correct. We trace the conflict to an incorrect identification of the saddlepoint in an integral in an analysis analogous to . A closer inspection of the string theory expression of  shows that the saddlepoint has been incorrectly identified there as well, invalidating that analysis.2 A related discussion has appeared in \[7\]. While in field theory we know that the exact calculation predicts that an event cannot be measured outside its light cone, we do not yet know how to do an analogous calculation in string theory without computing off-shell quantities. We outline a possible calculation and comment on our expectations for the result and its connection to black holes. Our results raise serious questions about the identification of large Wilson loops as prescursors.

We therefore return to consider the motivations for holography and its attendant breakdown of locality. An underlying principle is that locality should fail when we attempt to make measurements in which black holes or strings are created. We propose a concrete criterion for such a locality bound and outline its possible implications for the problem of precursors in AdS/CFT. We also discuss the connection to the problem of holographically encoding the internal state of a black hole.

We close our introduction by mentioning another logical, though heretical possibility. It may be that the AdS/CFT correspondence is not a 1-1 map; it could be that the CFT does not include all the information encoding bulk physics, for example on scales less than the AdS radius scale, $`R`$. Indeed, attempts \[8,,9,,10\] to extract such information from correlators in the CFT have run into difficulties. If there are such missing degrees of freedom they might be related to the precursors.

The outline of this paper is as follows. Section two gives a more detailed review of the problem of identifying the precursors. Section three investigates the proposal of \[6\] that the precursors are large Wilson loops, finds a flaw in that analysis, and proposes a refined calculation that would be necessary to demonstrate the validity of that proposal. This section can be skipped by those who don’t believe that large Wilson loops are precursors. Section four makes the alternative proposal that the precursors are related to observations at sufficiently high energies for locality to break down. We give a concrete suggestion for a criterion for such a locality bound. Section five discusses the relation of both proposals to the problem of charting the internal dynamics of a black hole, and in section six we give comments and conclusions.

2. The problem of precursors

We begin by describing the problem of precursors in some more detail, in the process reviewing some of the basics of AdS/CFT. We begin with 5d anti-de Sitter space in global coordinates,

$$ds^2=\frac{R^2}{\mathrm{cos}^2\rho }(d\tau ^2+d\rho ^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\rho d\mathrm{\Omega }_3^2).$$

We denote the bulk coordinates as $`x=(\tau ,\rho ,\mathrm{\Omega })`$ and the boundary coordinates as $`b=(\tau ,\mathrm{\Omega })`$. Now, imagine there is a source of one of the fields, say the dilaton $`\varphi `$, at the center of AdS at time $`\tau =0`$. For concreteness, we idealize this source as point-like in space and time,

$$j(x)=j\delta (x).$$

In the bulk language, this creates a state $`|j_B`$. We will work in the field theory approximation and use an interaction picture with $`j\varphi `$ treated as the interaction; the state is then

$$|j,t_B=\mathrm{exp}\left\{i^t𝑑V_xj(x)\varphi (x)\right\}|0_B$$

where $`|0_B`$ is the bulk vacuum. For $`t>0`$, (2.1) and (2.1) give

$$|j_B=\mathrm{exp}\left\{ij\varphi (0)\right\}|0_B.$$

Fields in AdS map to operators on the boundary through the map

$$𝒪_\mathrm{\Delta }(b)\underset{\rho \pi /2}{lim}(\mathrm{cos}\rho )^\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _\mathrm{\Delta }(x)$$

where $`xb`$ is the limiting point on the boundary and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ represents the CFT dimension of the field. This correspondence induces a map from bulk to boundary states that we spell out further in section 4. In particular, corresponding to (2.1), the boundary state for times $`t>0`$ takes the general form

$$|j_{}=\mathrm{exp}\left\{i𝑑bf(b)𝒪(b)\right\}|0_{}$$

where $`|0_{}`$ is the boundary vacuum, $`𝒪`$ is the operator $`\frac{1}{N}\mathrm{Tr}F^2`$ corresponding to the dilaton, and $`f(b)`$ is a function determined by $`j(x)`$.

In the context of quantum field theory in the bulk, it is clear that no information about the source reaches the boundary until time $`\tau =\pi /2`$, when the light cone of the source meets the boundary. On the other hand, since according to the holographic proposal the boundary theory contains all the information of the bulk theory, (2.1) should contain the information about the source before this time. For example, instead of (2.1), we might imagine the source sending a message encoded in variations of $`j(x)`$ over a short time around $`\tau =0`$, and the boundary state should contain all the information of this source. Simply put, the question of identifying the precursors is the question of understanding what degrees of freedom and observables in the boundary theory encode this information. Answering this question is an important step towards decoding the hologram and, in particular, towards understanding how approximate bulk locality is encoded and ultimately fails.

Fig. 1: Identification of local precursor fields in AdS/CFT may allow measurements outside the light cone of a source, violating naïve bulk locality.

Since the boundary theory is $`𝒩=4`$ super Yang-Mills, we know that a basis for all observables is given by the set of all Wilson loops. Equivalently, each Wilson loop can be expanded (at least formally) in terms of an infinite series of local operators at a point\[11\]. The question, therefore, is to identify which of these Wilson loops or local operators one should measure to detect information outside the light cone of the source.

In particular, consider more closely the bulk/boundary correspondence for Wilson loops. We know that correlators of local boundary operators map to the AdS analog of the S-matrix\[12,,13\] (called the boundary S-matrix in ) and would like a corresponding statement for Wilson loops. We expect that this map between correlators and S-matrices also extends to a statement for Wilson loops, namely that a correlator of Wilson loops in the boundary theory corresponds to a boundary S-matrix for large loops of string. Note that, of course, at least at the formal level, an arbitrary Wilson loop can be decomposed into an infinite sum of local, but arbitrarily high-dimension operators at a point\[11\], which we expect to correspond to representing a large string in terms of its modes.

Although we know of no complete and usable string field theory description of AdS space, we will find it useful to explain our picture in string field theory terms. At least perturbatively, the ultimate expressions we will consider can then be rewritten as first-quantized integrals over the resulting string world sheets.

The string field $`\mathrm{\Phi }[x(\sigma )]`$ is a functional of string loops $`x(\sigma )`$, as well as ghosts and other fields which we suppress. Extending the Ansatz of \[14\], a Wilson loop operator in the boundary theory is identified, in analogy to (2.1), as the boundary limit of the string field operator, which creates a string loop:

$$W(C)\underset{x(\sigma )C}{lim}Z[x(\sigma )]\mathrm{\Phi }[x(\sigma )]$$

where $`Z[x(\sigma )]`$ is a (infinite) normalization factor analogous to that needed for point-like operators. Furthermore, note that the dilaton field operator $`\varphi `$ is a projection of this string field to the dilaton mode.

It was proposed in  that large Wilson loops act as the precursors: In order to measure the source a time $`a`$ before its light cone reaches the boundary, one should measure the expectation value of a spatial boundary Wilson loop $`W(C)`$ with size of order $`a`$,

$${}_{}{}^{}j|W(C)|j_{}^{}.$$

In the next section we will examine this proposal more closely and find a flaw in the analysis of , reopening the question of finding the precursors.

3. Large Wilson loops as precursors?

3.1. Review and reformulation

Considering the source (2.1) of the preceding section, the authors of  advocate that we consider making an observation using a large Wilson loop $`W(C)`$,

$${}_{}{}^{}j|W(C)|j_{}^{},$$

where the curve $`C`$ lies completely outside the light cone of the source. This correlator can be calculated to linear order in $`j`$ by expanding (2.1) and compared with the vacuum expectation value for the Wilson loop. Non-vanishing of the resulting difference,

$$idbf(b){}_{}{}^{}0|[W(C),𝒪(b)]|0_{}^{}$$

would be an indicator that information had been measured outside the light cone of the source.

Ref.  infers general properties of $`f`$, and uses an (approximate) calculation of

$${}_{}{}^{}0|[W(C),𝒪(b)]|0_{}^{}$$

given by Berenstein, Corrado, Fischler, and Maldacena\[15\]. Combining these answers yields a non-vanishing answer for (3.1), purporting to demonstrate that the Wilson loop $`W(C)`$ is indeed capable of measuring the boundary effects of the source outside its light cone.

This approach proceeds via a calculation in the boundary field theory, though the boundary source function $`f`$ is inferred from the bulk source $`j`$ and the boundary correlator (3.1) is inferred in \[15\] from a bulk computation. It is equivalent, and more straightforward, to perform all calculations directly in the bulk theory, as we will now do.

Again, working to linear order in the source $`j`$, the bulk analogue to (3.1) is

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill i\underset{x(\sigma )C}{lim}Z[x(\sigma )]& dxj(x){}_{B}{}^{}0|[\mathrm{\Phi }[x(\sigma )],\varphi (x)]|0_{B}^{}\hfill \\ \hfill =& ij\underset{x(\sigma )C}{lim}Z[x(\sigma )]{}_{B}{}^{}0|[\mathrm{\Phi }[x(\sigma )],\varphi (0)]|0_{B}^{}.\hfill \end{array}$$

By hermiticity of the operators, we can then rewrite the expectation value of the commutator as

$${}_{B}{}^{}0|[\mathrm{\Phi }[x(\sigma )],\varphi (0)]|0_{B}^{}=2i\mathrm{Im}{}_{B}{}^{}0|\mathrm{\Phi }[x(\sigma )]\varphi (0)|0_{B}^{}.$$

We need to compute the string two-point function from the point-like dilaton state at $`x=0`$ to the boundary loop $`x(\sigma )C`$. Such far off-shell calculations in string theory are notoriously difficult. However, the analysis of  and  suggests that the answer is well approximated by a saddlepoint. Indeed, it would seem that the obvious extremal surface corresponding to this configuration is a minimal area surface spanning the loop, which for convenience we take to be purely spacelike, and then a thin tube – or dilaton propagator – connecting the origin to a point on this surface.

Fig. 2: The string world sheet can be approximated by a dilaton propagator attached to a minimal surface.

Indeed, specifically considering a circular spacelike Wilson loop and directly following  (c.f. eq. 4.9), with the minor modification that the point-like operator sits in the bulk, we are lead to an expression

$$\underset{x(\sigma )C}{lim}Z[x(\sigma )]{}_{B}{}^{}0|\mathrm{\Phi }[x(\sigma )]\varphi (0)|0_{B}^{}d𝒜^{}K_B(0,x^{}),$$

where the integral is over points $`x^{}`$ on the minimal surface spanning the loop and $`K_B`$ is the bulk AdS propagator.

By standard field theory causality in AdS space, the bulk propagator is purely real outside the light cone but has an imaginary piece inside the light cone. As in , large enough Wilson loops on the boundary, but outside the light cone, will produce spanning surfaces that enter the interior of the light cone. This leads to a non-vanishing imaginary part of (3.1) and hence the appearance that the Wilson loop is sensitive to information not accessible by usual causal observations. If one wants to measure the source at time $`a`$ before its light cone reaches the boundary, a rough criterion for the relevant Wilson loops is that they should have radius $`a`$; this condition allows the spanning minimal surface to dip into the interior of the light cone.

3.2. A field theory model

We now discuss a pure field theory analog of the Wilson loop analysis of the previous subsection. Suppose that instead of a Wilson loop, the boundary observer measures a bilocal operator $`𝒪(b)𝒪(b^{})`$. Let us consider a simple toy model of a field theory with a massless scalar $`\varphi `$ coupled to a scalar $`\psi `$ of mass $`M`$ through a purely cubic interaction, $`g𝑑x\varphi (x)\psi ^2(x)`$. Consider a source at $`x=0`$ as in eq. (2.1), and suppose that the boundary points $`b`$ and $`b^{}`$ are spacelike separated; for concreteness take them to be at equal global AdS times, and furthermore assume that they are both outside the light cone of the source.

With the obvious substitutions in the above steps, the result for the observation of the bilinear takes the form

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill i𝑑b^{\prime \prime }f(b^{\prime \prime })& {}_{}{}^{}0|[𝒪_\psi (b)𝒪_\psi (b^{}),𝒪_\varphi (b^{\prime \prime })]|0_{}^{}\hfill \\ & =2j\underset{xb}{lim}\underset{x^{}b^{}}{lim}(\mathrm{cos}\rho )^\mathrm{\Delta }(\mathrm{cos}\rho ^{})^\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{Im}{}_{B}{}^{}0|\psi (x)\psi (x^{})\varphi (0)|0_{B}^{},\hfill \end{array}$$

analogous to (3.1).

Following steps identical to those of \[6,,15\], we approximate the expression (3.1) as follows. At tree level in the interaction parameter $`g`$, it contains

$$\mathrm{Im}{}_{B}{}^{}0|\psi (x)\psi (x^{})\varphi (0)|0_{B}^{}=\mathrm{Im}igdV_yK_B(y,x;M)K_B(y,x^{};M)K_B(0,y;0)$$

where we have explicitly indicated the mass in the propagator. We can represent this expression, in analogy to the sum over world sheets, as a first-quantized functional integral over world lines as shown in fig. 3.

Fig. 3: The measurement of the source by a bilocal operator at the boundary can be written in terms of the imaginary part of a three-point function.

For $`M|xx^{}|1`$, we expect, completely in analogy with \[14,,15\], that this is dominated by a configuration with a minimal line connecting points $`xb`$ and $`x^{}b^{}`$ and with the $`\varphi `$ propagator connecting the origin to an arbitrary point along this line. So, we expect that

$$\mathrm{Im}{}_{B}{}^{}0|\psi (x)\psi (x^{})\varphi (0)|0_{B}^{}dl_yK_B(0,y),$$

where $`y`$ is integrated along the minimal curve connecting $`x`$ to $`x^{}`$, in precise analogy with (3.1). For large enough separation of $`b`$ and $`b^{}`$, this minimal curve enters the future light cone of the source, where the bulk propagator is complex, and thus (3.1) picks up a non-vanishing imaginary part. The bilinear thus can make measurements outside the light cone.

The preceding is, of course, utter nonsense. In intermediate steps, (3.1) was derived from an expression of the form

$${}_{B}{}^{}0|[\psi (x)\psi (x^{}),\varphi (0)]|0_{B}^{}=2i\mathrm{Im}{}_{B}{}^{}0|\psi (x)\psi (x^{})\varphi (0)|0_{B}^{}.$$

Since $`x`$ and $`x^{}`$ are spacelike to $`0`$, the commutator must vanish by standard field theory causality. We’ll derive an analogous statement in terms of flat-space Feynman diagrams in the next subsection.

3.3. Searching for a pass through the mountains

What went wrong with the approximation analogous to , and is the same problem encountered in the string case? To answer this, consider redoing the field theory analysis in 4d Minkowski space; indeed, completely analogous reasoning there leads to the conclusion that the bilinear $`\psi (x)\psi (x^{})`$ can measure information for $`x`$ and $`x^{}`$ outside the light cone of a source at the origin as long as the straight line connecting them intersects the interior of the light cone to produce a non-vanishing imaginary part.

To leading order in $`g`$, the exact expression that we should consider is

$$\mathrm{Im}id^4yD(0,y;0)D(y,x;M)D(y,x^{};M)$$

where $`D(x,y;m)`$ denotes the Feynman propagator of mass $`m`$. Although (3.1) vanishes by causality as in (3.1), we can show it directly as follows. In four spacetime dimensions, the Feynman propagators can be written as

$$D(x,y;M)=\frac{i}{8\pi ^2}_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑tt^2e^{i(xy)^2/2tiM^2t/2ϵt}.$$

Using this representation of the propagator, the Minkowski version of the amplitude (3.1) becomes

$$\begin{array}{cc}& \mathrm{Im}{}_{B}{}^{}0|\psi (x)\psi (x^{})\varphi (0)|0_{B}^{}\hfill \\ & =\mathrm{Im}\frac{g}{512\pi ^6}_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑s𝑑t𝑑u(stu)^2e^{iM^2(s+t)/2ϵ(s+t+u)}d^4ye^{\frac{i}{2}\left[(xy)^2/s+(x^{}y)^2/t+y^2/u\right]}.\hfill \end{array}$$

We can now perform the Gaussian integral over $`y`$ exactly. Because the resulting expression depends only on $`x^2`$, $`x^2`$, and $`(xx^{})^2`$, all of which are positive, the integrals over $`s`$, $`t`$, and $`u`$ can be rotated $`s,t,uis,it,iu`$ without encountering poles. We now have

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \mathrm{Im}\frac{g}{128\pi ^4}_0^{\mathrm{}}& dsdtdu(st+tu+us)^2\hfill \\ & \mathrm{exp}\left\{\frac{1}{2}\left[M^2(s+t)+\frac{tx^2+sx^2+u(xx^{})^2}{st+tu+us}\right]\right\}.\hfill \end{array}$$

The integrals are manifestly real and convergent, so (3.1) has vanishing imaginary part and (3.1) is zero to first order in $`g`$.

Fig. 4: The amplitude in (3.1) can be represented as a tree-level Feynman diagram

Now, consider instead approximating (3.1) in the manner of . For $`M|xx^{}|1`$, the obvious guess is that the integral is dominated by $`y`$ near the line $`xx^{}`$. We work in the approximation $`M|xy|1`$, $`M|x^{}y|1`$. Outside the light cone, the massive Feynman propagators (in four spacetime dimensions) are

$$D(x;M)\frac{M}{|x|}K_1(M|x|)\sqrt{\pi /2}\frac{M}{|x|^{3/2}}e^{M|x|}\left(1+𝒪\frac{1}{M|x|}\right).$$

The massless propagator is

$$D(x,0)\frac{1}{x^2}.$$

Let $`w`$ be the perpindicular vector from the origin to the line $`xx^{}`$, and decompose $`y`$ into components perpindicular or parallel to this line as $`y=w+z_{}+z_{}`$. Since we’re working near $`xx^{}`$, expand to leading order in $`z_{}`$. From (3.1), (3.1), and (3.1), we find

$$\begin{array}{cc}& 𝑑yD(0,y;0)D(y,x;M)D(y,x^{};M)\hfill \\ & e^{M|xx^{}|}d^4z\frac{1}{|xy|^{3/2}|x^{}y|^{3/2}}\mathrm{exp}\left\{\frac{M|xx^{}|z_{}^2}{2|xy_{}||y_{}x^{}|}\right\}\frac{1}{(w+z)_{}^2+z_{}^2}.\hfill \end{array}$$

Were it not for the last factor, the integral would clearly have a line of saddlepoints at $`z_{}=0`$ along the line $`xx^{}`$ governed by small parameter $`1/M|xx^{}|`$, just as reasoned above. However, the last factor in (3.1) becomes large precisely where the light cone of the source intersects this line and changes the saddlepoint structure so that there are individual saddlepoints just off the line in the vicinity of the light cone. We have not yet completed a full treatment of the resulting (correct) saddlepoint analysis, but in the field theory case we know, as discussed above, that the exact result is zero and any valid saddlepoint analysis should not contradict this. The main point of this discussion was to show that the saddlepoints are not of the form assumed in .

3.4. Wilson loops, reconsidered

The reasoning of section two could equally be applied in Minkowski space to argue that measurement of large loops of string allow us to see events at spacelike separation. Consider a circular Wilson loop near a point-like source such that the future light cone of the source passes through the interior of the loop, intersecting the disk spanning the circle. The loop, however, is large enough that it is fully outside the light cone.

Fig. 5: The light cone of the source passes through the interior of a large Wilson loop, though the loop itself is outside the light cone.

As emphasized above, to check whether the Wilson loop measures the effects of the source, we need to compute the off-shell two-point function of (3.1). Though we don’t know how to do this properly, we expect it to be represented by an integral over world sheets with the topology of the disk, with a point-like source vertex operator $`V(0)`$ at the origin, with boundary on the curve $`x(\sigma )`$, and weighted by the Polyakov action $`S_P`$:

$$^{x(\sigma )}𝒟X𝒟ge^{S_P[X,g]}V(0).$$

Computing this in $`AdS_5\times S^5`$ is even more problematic, given the lack of technology for Ramond-Ramond backgrounds.

Since the exact calculation is difficult, we will try an approximation in the spirit of \[14,,15\]. We assume the integral over all world sheets can be rewritten, as in (3.1), as an integral over minimal world sheets, but with the constraint that they are attached at an arbitrary point $`y`$ to a dilaton propagator. The resulting expression is

$$𝑑ye^{TA(y)}D(0,y)$$

where $`T`$ is the string tension, $`A`$ is the world sheet area, and $`D`$ is the dilaton propagator.

Fig. 6: The integral over all world sheets can be approximated by integrating over $`y`$ where the dilaton propagator is attached to a conical world sheet.

For simplicity, we take the source to lie on the axis of the loop. For a circular Wilson loop of radius $`a`$, the minimal world sheet is a tilted cone whose base is the Wilson loop and whose apex is at $`y`$. As before, let $`y=w+z_{}+z_{}`$, where $`w`$ is the vector from the origin to the center of the loop, $`z_{}`$ is the distance from the plane of the loop, and $`z_{}`$ is the radial distance from the center of the loop. The area of the tilted cone is given by the integral

$$A=_0^{2\pi }𝑑\theta \frac{a}{2}\sqrt{(az_{}\mathrm{cos}\theta )^2+z_{}^2}.$$

In the limit where $`Ta^21`$, the integral (3.1) appears to be dominated by world sheets with $`z_{}^2a^2`$. We can therefore expand (3.1) to leading order in $`z_{}^2`$ and integrate term by term, obtaining

$$A\pi a^2\left(1+\frac{z_{}^2}{2a\sqrt{a^2z_{}^2}}\right).$$

This reduces (3.1) to

$$e^{T\pi a^2}d^4ze^{Tz_{}^2/\left(2a\sqrt{a^2z_{}^2}\right)}\frac{1}{(w+z)_{}^2+z_{}^2}.$$

Notice the close analogy to the approximate expression for the particle, (3.1).

Clearly, as in the case of the particle, there is no longer a surface of saddlepoints along the minimal disk spanning the Wilson loop, but rather there are saddlepoints shifted off this disk near the light cone of the source. Although we have again not performed a systematic saddlepoint approximation about these, the strong analogy to the particle case suggests that once correctly computed, the resulting expression vanishes.

Of course, it would be instructive to attempt to complete a more accurate calculation of the the correlator of a large Wilson loop – or loop of string in bulk language – with an approximately point-like source. It is conceivable that study of the exact off-shell string amplitude (3.1) will produce a non-vanishing result. This faces difficulties, but may be tractable. One approach is a careful treatment by an intermediate semiclassical approximation working about the correct saddlepoints, as sketched above. Another alternative would be to work directly in AdS space. In AdS, taking a state to the boundary in effect corresponds to working on shell, and this statement may hold equally well for macroscopic string loops. In this case, if the initial dilaton can be arranged to be on shell, the issue might be settled by a completely on-shell calculation in AdS space. Of course, a full calculation would require confronting the difficult problem of Ramond-Ramond backgrounds, but this approach is worth exploration.

4. Towards a theory of precursors

According to the above analysis, calculations to date have not demonstrated that the large Wilson loops of  serve as precursors, and this reopens the problem of their correct identification. We therefore turn to an investigation of this problem.

4.1. Field theory locality

We begin by discussing the problem in the context of a field theory of a scalar field $`\varphi `$ (e.g. the dilaton) in AdS. Let us start by examining more closely the form of the boundary state $`|j_{}`$ created by the source (2.1).

First, consider the map between bulk and boundary in more detail. Begin with the bulk theory in the supergravity limit, at weak coupling. At zeroth order in the coupling, the field $`\varphi `$ has an expansion in terms of canonically normalized annihilation/creation operators and mode functions:

$$\varphi (x)=\underset{nl\stackrel{}{m}}{}a_{nl\stackrel{}{m}}\varphi _{nl\stackrel{}{m}}(\stackrel{}{x},\tau )+a_{nl\stackrel{}{m}}^{}\varphi _{nl\stackrel{}{m}}^{}(\stackrel{}{x},\tau ).$$

Single particle states are of the form

$$|nl\stackrel{}{m}_B=a_{nl\stackrel{}{m}}^{}|0_B.$$

Likewise, as emphasized in \[16\], the corresponding boundary operator should have an expansion of the form

$$𝒪(\widehat{e},\tau )=\underset{nl\stackrel{}{m}}{}\frac{\alpha _{nl\stackrel{}{m}}}{\sqrt{2\omega _{nl}}}Y_{l\stackrel{}{m}}(\widehat{e})e^{i\omega _{nl}\tau }+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.,$$

where the unit vector $`\widehat{e}`$ labels a point on the $`S^3`$ boundary.

In comparing states, the bulk and boundary vacua should correspond,

$$|0_{}|0_B.$$

To get the relation between excited states, use the operator correspondence (2.1). This becomes

$$\alpha _{nl\stackrel{}{m}}k_{nl}a_{nl\stackrel{}{m}}$$

where $`k_{nl}`$ are constants given by the asymptotics of the mode functions $`\varphi _{nl\stackrel{}{m}}`$ (see e.g. the appendix to \[10\]). So the correspondence between single particle states takes the form

$$\alpha _{nl\stackrel{}{m}}^{}|0_{}k_{nl}|nl\stackrel{}{m}_B.$$

Indeed, (4.1) relates an arbitrary multi-particle bulk state to a boundary state.

We can also read off the relation between the bulk and boundary states created by an arbitrary source. This is most easily accomplished by inverting the relationship (2.1) to determine the bulk field corresponding to a given boundary operator. This is done using the transfer matrix $`M(x,b)`$ given in \[12,,16\], and we find the relation

$$\varphi (x)𝑑bM(x,b)𝒪(b).$$

One immediately deduces that the boundary state corresponding to the source (2.1) is given by the formula (2.1), with the identification

$$f(b)=𝑑V_xj(x)M(x,b).$$

Now, the question is what kinds of boundary operators with support only outside the light cone of the source can detect the state $`|j_{}`$. Clearly neither $`𝒪`$ nor any of its derivatives do, since $`𝒪`$ corresponds to the bulk field through (2.1), and the bulk fields commute outside the light cone. Within the context of this simple field theory model, the only way to get operators that play the role of precursors is to identify other local operators on the boundary that are sensitive to the data in the state $`|j_{}`$.

An example that has the appearance of a cheat is if there is another set of local observables that can be written in terms of the $`\alpha _{nl\stackrel{}{m}}`$’s in the form

$$𝒪^{}(\widehat{e},\tau )=\underset{nl\stackrel{}{m}}{}c_{nl\stackrel{}{m}}\frac{\alpha _{nl\stackrel{}{m}}}{\sqrt{2\omega _{nl}}}Y_{l\stackrel{}{m}}(\widehat{e})e^{i\omega _{nl}\tau }+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}..$$

For generically chosen coefficients $`c_{nl\stackrel{}{m}}`$ these operators will not commute with the field operators outside the light cone. The reason this looks like a cheat is that the relationship between $`𝒪`$ and $`𝒪^{}`$ is of course highly nonlocal.

It should be recalled, however, that in the context of AdS/CFT, operators like $`𝒪`$ are composites of the fundamental Yang-Mills boundary fields. This leads us to the question of whether there are other gauge-invariant operator combinations of these fields that are able to measure the state (2.1) outside the light cone.

A toy model for such a possibility was given in \[5\]. Polchinski, Susskind, and Toumbas considered modelling the boundary theory as a theory of $`N\times N`$ matrix scalar fields $`\psi _{mn}`$. In terms of these fields, the boundary state (2.1) can be thought of as a squeezed state. Indeed, for free scalar fields, an obvious analog to $`\mathrm{Tr}F^2`$ of Yang-Mills is an operator of the form

$$𝒪=\frac{1}{N}\mathrm{Tr}\left[(\psi )^2\right].$$

The state (2.1) then takes the form of a squeezed state in terms of the annihilation and creation operators

$$b_{mn}(k),b_{mn}^{}(k)$$

of for the $`\psi _{mn}`$ fields:

$$|j_{}=\mathrm{exp}\left\{\frac{1}{2}d^3kd^3k^{}F(k,k^{})b_{mn}^{}(k)b_{nm}^{}(k^{})\right\}|0_{}$$

as in .

The authors of  investigate the problem of detecting such a state using a bilocal, bilinear in the fields $`\psi _{mn}`$ and suggest that this is possible. In our language, one should investigate expressions of the form

$$[\psi _{mn}(b)\psi _{nm}(b^{}),𝑑b^{\prime \prime }M(0,b^{\prime \prime })𝒪(b^{\prime \prime })]$$

(or analogous expressions with the source coupled to the stress tensor) for $`b,b^{}`$ outside the light cone.3 It would also be interesting, though not convincing because of gauge non-invariance, to exhibit a non-vanishing commutator between the source and a single $`\psi _{mn}`$.

The bilinear in (4.1) is the analog of a certain kind of decorated Wilson loop in the limit of zero coupling, and a non-vanishing result for (4.1) would be a potentially interesting indication that such decorated loops play a role as the precursors. This possibility is under investigation. Another interesting question is to better understand the relationship of such decorated loops to the AdS boundary S-matrix\[12,,13\]. Assuming these loops corresponding to elements of the boundary S-matrix, they shouldn’t exhibit any bulk acausality that should not be evident in that S-matrix. Certainly, for generic low-energy scattering experiments in the string theory of the bulk, we do not expect to be able to explicitly exhibit this nonlocality.

In the next subsection we turn to a discussion of physical situations where we expect that nonlocality should be manifest.

4.2. Saturation a string/gravity locality bound

Another place to look for clues regarding the precursors is to return to the motivations for holography. It is believed that, in contexts where strong gravitational effects are relevant, the number of fundamental degrees of freedom are drastically reduced in a fashion conflicting with naïve locality. One situation where this is thought to occur is black hole formation. Therefore, in searching for origins of the nonlocal precursors, we should consider situations where locality breaks down due to black hole formation.

A likely connected statement (through black hole/string correspondence\[17\]) is the belief that when string effects are important, naïve locality is again violated, as has been seen for example in string modifications of the uncertainty principle\[18\].

In order to understand in what situations holographic bounds begin to affect causality, recall that in field theory causality is formulated as the statement that fields commute at spacelike separations:

$$[\varphi (x),\varphi (x^{})]=0,(xx^{})^2>0.$$

However, we expect that the corresponding equation in string theory, schematically

$$[\mathrm{\Phi }[x(\sigma )],\mathrm{\Phi }[x^{}(\sigma )]]=0$$

does not hold when gravitational or string effects become strong. Consider the limit where the curves $`x(\sigma )`$ and $`x^{}(\sigma )`$ are nearly point-like; we expect commutativity to fail when we consider modes of the operators that are sufficiently high energy to create a string or black hole (or other M-theoretic object) occluding the points $`x`$ and $`x^{}`$. Of course, the operators $`\mathrm{\Phi }[x(\sigma )]`$ include all possible momenta, but to apply this criterion we can work in a wavepacket basis\[19,,20\] in which states have nearly definite momenta and positions satisfying the Heisenberg uncertainty relation $`\mathrm{\Delta }x\mathrm{\Delta }p>1`$.

These ideas lead us to the following

Criterion for a locality bound:

Consider two particles (or strings) of momenta $`p_1`$ and $`p_2`$ colliding with impact parameter (measured in the center of mass frame) $`b`$. These will be said to saturate the locality bound if the collision is sufficiently energetic to create either a string or black hole with size larger than $`b`$.

A rough condition for this is that the energy simply be large enough to form a black hole or string larger than $`b`$ – which effect is most important depends on the string coupling. So in spacetime dimension $`D`$ this condition becomes4 With appropriate modifications in case of creation of other fundamental extended objects.

$$E_{cm}>\mathrm{min}(b/l_{st}^2,b^{D3}/g_s^2l_{st}^{D2}),$$

where $`l_{st}`$ is the string length. Of course interaction, form factor, etc. effects are expected to modify this bound, particularly at large energy/impact parameter; we might expect the correct bound from string production to be somewhere between the two values in (4.1).

Note that the spacetime uncertainty relation\[21\] follows as a consequence of our estimate (4.1) and the statement that a process confined to a time interval $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ must have energy $`E>1/\mathrm{\Delta }t`$. Combining these implies

$$\mathrm{\Delta }t>\mathrm{max}(l_{st}^2/\mathrm{\Delta }x,g_s^2l_{st}^8/(\mathrm{\Delta }x)^7)$$

for $`D=10`$, as in . Note also that, as in , at least according to these estimates the crossover between string dominance and black hole dominance occurs at scales

$$bg_s^{1/3}l_{st},$$

the Planck length of eleven dimensional M-theory.

For simplicity (4.1) has been given in terms of flat space kinematics, but the same basic physical principle should determine where locality bounds are saturated in AdS, and indeed in the limit of large AdS radius $`R`$ the statements should correspond. Because of the complications of AdS kinematics, let us investigate the bound in the simple picture in which large-radius AdS is represented as a cavity of radius $`R`$, with a flat internal metric. In this situation it is straightforward to get a feeling for which configurations saturate our bound.

Indeed, consider a lightlike particle with rectangular momentum $`(E_1,E_1,\stackrel{}{0})`$ emitted from the center of the cavity at time $`T=0`$. Suppose a second particle is travelling in the opposite direction, with momentum $`(E_2,E_2,\stackrel{}{0})`$, and is located in the vicinity of the boundary at $`R`$, with separation transverse to the momenta, also at time $`T=0`$. Let us ask what energy $`E_2`$ is required to saturate the estimate (4.1). In this case the CM impact parameter is $`R`$, and the CM energy is $`2\sqrt{E_1E_2}`$, so our estimate states

$$E_2>\frac{1}{E_1}\mathrm{min}(\frac{R^2}{l_{st}^4},\frac{R^{14}}{g_s^4l_{st}^{16}})$$

(for black holes of radius $`<R`$, we take $`D=10`$). Similar statements can be readily derived for other configurations. Note that for large $`R`$ and small $`g_s`$, this suggests that the relevant bound is from string creation.

In short, while it is not clear how in detail the information is holographically encoded and exhibited, the above physical criterion serves as a guide to when locality should fail and holographic effects are expected to become important. If there is indeed an underlying unitary and holographic theory (such as M-theory), this criterion indicates where it should cease to appear local and start to appear holographic. The estimate (4.1) clearly neglects important effects, but gives a rough idea of the nature of such a locality bound.

Turning to the boundary theory, we can now use the correspondence between the AdS boundary S-matrix and the boundary correlators to infer which correlators in the boundary theory we expect to exhibit effects that violate naïve bulk locality. As discussed earlier, the Wilson loops, or equivalently, via , the set of all local operators, form a basis for the boundary observables, but the question is what combinations of these operators are most sensitive to effects that begin to saturate our locality bound.

From the above discussion, we expect these to be projections onto operators that correspond to creation of large, high-energy intermediate states, for example black holes or large strings. Two obvious possibilities exist. One is to consider the high-energy components of local operators $`𝒪(x)`$ (or equivalently the high-energy components of Wilson loops). This corresponds to resolving variations of boundary correlators on very short time/distance scales. Alternatively, one might consider correlators with a very large number of softer operators that combine to give a large energy.

It is not clear that such nonlocalities would be manifest at string tree level. The authors of \[22\] attempted to exhibit such effects in a three-point string tree-level calculation but could not conclude that what they saw wasn’t a gauge artifact. These effects may require higher loop or non-perturbative calculations, which would certainly make sense if intermediate black holes or large strings play a role.

It is also not clear that a large Wilson loop is sufficient to probe these nonlocalities. A Wilson loop is not intrinsically high energy any more than the field operator $`\varphi (x)`$ is in field theory; rather, it involves a sum over all energies. One expects to be sensitive to nonlocalities by projecting onto certain high-energy components of these operators.

Of course, concrete calculations that exhibit such nonlocal results, particularly from very high energy operators, or large collections of soft operators, may well be rather difficult if indeed the nonlocality results from higher-loop/non-perturbative effects. We leave this problem for the future.

5. Black hole information

In light of the above, we now revisit the original motivation of using the precursor fields to “see” inside a black hole.

5.1. Large Wilson loops and flossing black holes

First, consider the possibility that an improved version of the tree-level calculation of  indeed reveals acausal effects; then we should obviously consider applying it to black holes. Consider, for example, a black hole of radius $`r_hR`$ sitting at the center of AdS, and suppose that we wish to measure whether a bomb dropped into the black hole has detonated or not. According to , we could hope to do so by measuring a large Wilson loop at the boundary. By the criterion of section three, this Wilson loop would be able to measure a source inside the black hole if its spanning minimal surface crosses the horizon and intersects the future light cone of the source. Clearly, a Wilson loop that is a great circle on the $`S^3`$ boundary of AdS will, by symmetry, have a spanning surface that cuts through the center of the black hole. If we move this circle off the equator of the sphere, then eventually it will not enter the horizon; we expect this to happen when the circle reaches a latitude of order

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\theta r_h/R.$$

Although our preceding analysis demonstrates that this surface is not the correct saddlepoint for the functional integral, the correct saddlepoint is a deformation of this surface. If this saddlepoint yields a non-vanishing result for such measurements, then we’d expect that to occur for Wilson loops in the range (5.1) about great circles.

Fig. 7: Measuring an instantaneous Wilson loop corresponds to a virtual world sheet which goes through the black hole.

However, in addition to the preceding arguments, there are physical reasons to be suspicious of such claims. Consider the picture of a world sheet instantaneously slicing a black hole, as in fig. 7. This process involves a virtual string, but is dual to another (idealized) process involving a real string state. This is a process in which an observer near the boundary creates a piece of string, then stretches it to macroscopic scales, slices it through the black hole, and then shrinks it back down at the opposite side of AdS, as shown in fig. 8 .

Fig. 8: A timelike world sheet corresponds to a string flossing the black hole.

So, an obvious question is whether one expects to be able to mine information from a black hole by this process of flossing it with a string. If the answer is negative, it seems even more unlikely that the information is manifested in the far off-shell version of this process.

We are skeptical that such an effect can be seen in a tree level calculation. Indeed, as discussed in \[23\], which considers a configuration with a stationary string threading a black hole, the string is expected to inherit the causal structure of the spacetime. In this situation, the only string excitations that make it out to an observer at infinity are the Hawking radiation of oscillation modes on the string, and these do not contain information about the state inside the horizon or any perturbations of it by classical sources inside the black hole. Trying to pull the string back out of the black hole adds another layer of difficulty; this should not be possible without the string breaking off a closed loop that remains inside the black hole.5 The string trajectory that corresponds to pulling the string completely back out of the black hole without leaving a loop clearly can’t satisfy the classical string equations of motion, and we’d expect the neighboring trajectories to contribute rapidly varying and cancelling phases to the corresponding quantum mechanical amplitude. We’d expect this closed loop to contain any information from inside the black hole and the remaining external string state to be insensitive to the internal state of the black hole, at least at string tree level.

Again, at higher level in $`g_s`$ one certainly might imagine seeing interesting effects, if the basic ideas of holography are correct and realized through stringy corrections. If so, it is plausible that Wilson loops in the range (5.1) are indeed sensitive to those effects, although we will advocate an alternative viewpoint.

5.2. Black holes and holography

In parallel to the discussion of the preceding section, we could ask in greater generality where in the boundary theory we might expect to see the information contained in the interior of a black hole. To address this, we recall two facts. The first is the AdS/CFT correspondence between the AdS boundary S-matrix and the CFT correlators, outlined above. Secondly, for a large black hole in a much larger AdS space, the bulk dynamics should be closely approximated by a black hole in flat space. We expect intermediate states with large black holes to arise in specific blocks of the S-matrix. One example is a matrix element with sufficient energy in the initial state, focussed into a region of order its Schwarzchild radius; in this case, the final state is expected to include a very large number of outgoing soft quanta – the Hawking radiation – and if the information is contained therein, it should be in subtle correlations between this large number of quanta. This number should be $`𝒪(A)`$ for an intermediate black hole of area $`A`$.

Mapping these statements to the boundary theory, we might investigate black holes through correlators that have operators corresponding to energetic and narrowly focussed incoming states, with center of mass energy $`E`$, and a large number ($`𝒪(E^{8/7})`$ in ten dimensions) of operators corresponding to the soft outgoing quanta. The subtle relative phase information in these would describe the black hole information, which may be difficult to see otherwise. It could also be, in line with our earlier arguments, that certain other correlators with few, but very high energy operators, arranged so that they start to saturated locality bounds, as in the preceding section, would be sensitive to this information.

Unfortunately, with the present state of our knowledge this proposal does not give further details about how to escape the black hole information paradox; in a sense it is simply mapping our earlier attempts at a holographic explanation of its resolution into the AdS/CFT arena.

6. Conclusion

The question of identifying the precursor variables in AdS/CFT is an important one, both because of its relevance to understanding the detailed relation between approximately local bulk physics and boundary physics and because of its promise to finally explain how holography resolves the black hole information paradox. In this paper we have investigated the proposal of  that large Wilson loops are the precursors and found a difficulty; specifically, the analysis of  that was used misidentified the saddlepoint dominating the functional integral over world sheets. We gave an alternative proposal, in which the precursors are related to observables that saturate a certain locality bound. The physical idea underlying this bound is that one should not be able to make observations that involve concentrating an amount of energy within a region smaller than the corresponding Schwarzschild radius or in a region small enough such that other large objects, such as strings, with size comparable to the region, will be created. This bound can be saturated either by individual high-energy operators or by collections of soft operators with large total energy. This suggests to us where to look in order to understand how AdS/CFT resolves the black hole information paradox, but unfortunately does not yet tell us how to make detailed calculations exhibiting the solution.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank D. Gross, G. Horowitz, V. Hubeny, A. Lawrence, J. Polchinski, J. Preskill, and L. Susskind for valuable conversations. Parts of this work were carried out at Caltech, and the Caltech/USC Center for Theoretical Physics, whose support and hospitality are gratefully acknowledged. This work was supported in part by the Department of Energy under Contract DE-FG-03-91ER40618, and by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. PHY99-07949.

References

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# Disappearance of Ensemble-Averaged Josephson Current in Dirty SNS Junctions of d-wave Superconductors

## I introduction

In recent years, the Josephson effect between the anisotropic superconductors has attracted much attention because the high-$`T_c`$ superconductors might have the $`d_{x^2y^2}`$ pairing symmetry . In anisotropic superconductors, the sign of the pair potential depends on the direction of a quasiparticle’s motion. As a consequence, the zero-energy states (ZES)  are formed at the normal metal / superconductor (NS) interface when the potential barrier at the interface is large enough. The ZES are sensitive to the orientation angle between the crystalline axis of the high-$`T_c`$ superconductors and the normal of the junction interface. The zero-bias conductance-peak which is due to the ZES is observed in conductance spectra of N / I / $`d`$-wave superconductor junctions and the peak-height is maximum when the orientation angle is $`\pi /4`$ . Here I is the insulator. In SIS junctions, the ZES dominate the dc Josephson effect and the low-temperature anomaly in the Josephson current has been discussed in a number of theoretical works . In experiments, it seems to be difficult to fabricate clean SIS and SNS junctions. Thus it is important to understand the effects of disorder on the Josephson current. So far it has been pointed out that the roughness at the interface suppresses the low-temperature anomaly of the Josephson current in SIS junctions .

In this paper, we study the dc Josephson effect in superconductor / normal conductor / superconductor junctions, where the superconductors have the $`d_{x^2y^2}`$-wave pairing symmetry and the normal metal is in the diffusive transport regime. We analytically derive the Josephson current in dirty SNS junctions based on a formula  in which the Josephson current is calculated from the two Andreev reflection coefficients . We show that the ensemble-averaged Josephson current vanishes when the orientation angle is $`\pi /4`$. The analytic results are confirmed by a numerical simulation by using the recursive Green function method . Throughout this paper we take units of $`k_B=\mathrm{}=1`$, where $`k_B`$ is the Boltzmann constant.

This paper is organized as follows. In Sec. 2, we derive the general expression of the Josephson current in SNS junctions. In Sec. 3, we discuss the Josephson current in dirty SNS junctions. The discussion is given in Sec. 4. We summarize this paper in Sec. 5.

## II Josephson Current Formula

Let us consider the two-dimensional SNS junction as shown in Fig. 1, where the length of the normal metal is $`L_N`$ and the width of the junction is $`W`$, respectively. The pair potential in the momentum space is schematically depicted in the superconductors. In the $`d_{x^2y^2}`$-wave superconductor, the $`a`$-axis points the direction in which the amplitude of the pair potential takes its maximum. The angle between the $`x`$ direction and the $`a`$-axis is $`\alpha _L`$ ($`\alpha _R`$) in the superconductor on the left (right) hand side. We assume that the effective mass ($`m`$) of an electron and the Fermi energy ($`\mu _F=k_F^2/2m`$) are common in the superconductors and the normal conductor, where $`k_F`$ is the Fermi wavenumber. We describe the SNS junction by using the Bogoliubov-de Gennes (BdG) equation ,

$`{\displaystyle }`$ $`d𝐫^{}\left[\begin{array}{cc}\delta (𝐫𝐫^{})h_0(𝐫^{})& \mathrm{\Delta }(𝐫,𝐫^{})\\ \mathrm{\Delta }^{}(𝐫,𝐫^{})& \delta (𝐫𝐫^{})h_0(𝐫^{})\end{array}\right]\left[\begin{array}{c}u(𝐫^{})\\ v(𝐫^{})\end{array}\right]`$ (8)
$`=E\left[\begin{array}{c}u(𝐫)\\ v(𝐫)\end{array}\right],`$
$`h_0(𝐫)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{^2}{2m}}+U(𝐫)\mu _F,`$ (9)
$`U(𝐫)`$ $`=`$ $`V_b\left[\delta (x)+\delta (xL)\right]+{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{N_i}{}}}v_I\delta (𝐫𝐫_i),`$ (10)
where the first term in Eq. (10) is the barrier potential at the NS interface and the second term is the impurity potential in the normal metal, respectively. The energy of a quasiparticle ($`E`$) is measured from the chemical potential of the junction. The pair potential can be described by the Fourier representation,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐑,𝐫𝐫^{})=\frac{1}{(2\pi )^2}𝑑𝐤\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐤)\mathrm{e}^{i𝐤(𝐫𝐫^{})},$$
(11)
where we assume that the pair potential is uniform in the superconductors and neglect the dependence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ on $`𝐑=(𝐫+𝐫^{})/2`$. The $`s`$-wave superconductor is characterized by $`\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐤)=\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\phi _j}`$. The $`d_{x^2y^2}`$-wave superconductor is characterized by

$`\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐤)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\phi _j}\mathrm{cos}(2\alpha _j2\gamma ),`$ (12)
$`\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\gamma }`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}\gamma +\mathrm{i}\mathrm{sin}\gamma =(k_x+\mathrm{i}k_y)/k_F,`$ (13)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the uniform amplitude of the pair potential, $`\phi _j`$ and $`\alpha _j`$ with ($`j=L`$ or $`R`$) are the phase of the pair potential and the orientation angle, respectively . At the Fermi surface, the wavenumber in the $`x`$ direction is $`k_x`$ and that in the $`y`$ direction is $`k_y`$, respectively. In the normal conductor, the pair potential is set to be zero.

We calculate the Josephson current by using the Furusaki-Tsukada formula ,

$`J`$ $`=`$ $`eT{\displaystyle \underset{\omega _n}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{k_y}{}}`$ (14)
$`\times `$ $`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{|\mathrm{\Delta }_L^+|a_1(k_y,\omega _n)}{\mathrm{\Omega }_L^+}}{\displaystyle \frac{|\mathrm{\Delta }_L^{}|a_2(k_y,\omega _n)}{\mathrm{\Omega }_L^{}}}\right],`$ (15)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }_j^\pm `$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{cos}2(\alpha _j\gamma ),`$ (16)
$`\mathrm{\Omega }_j^\pm `$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{\omega _n^2+(\mathrm{\Delta }_j^\pm )^2},`$ (17)
with $`j=L`$ or $`R`$. Here $`T`$ and $`\omega _n=(2n+1)\pi T`$ are the temperature and the Matsubara frequency, respectively. The wavenumber in the $`y`$ direction $`k_y`$ specifies the propagating channel and the number of propagation channels for each spin is $`N_cWk_F/\pi `$. The coefficients $`a_1(k_y,\omega _n)`$ and $`a_2(k_y,\omega _n)`$ are the analytic continuation ($`Ei\omega _n`$) of the reflection coefficients of a quasiparticle from the left superconductor to the left superconductor. The Andreev reflection coefficient from the electron (hole) channels to the hole (electron) channels is denoted by $`a_1`$ ($`a_2`$). In the presence of the time reversal symmetry, the Josephson current can be decomposed into the series of

$$J=\underset{m=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}J_m\mathrm{sin}(m\phi ),$$
(18)
where $`\phi =\phi _L\phi _R`$. In this paper, we neglect the series of $`J_m`$ for $`m2`$. This approximation is justified in the presence of the high potential barrier at the NS interface. In Fig. 2 (a), we show the four reflection processes of $`a_1`$ and $`a_2`$ which contribute to $`J_1`$. In order to estimate $`a_1`$ and $`a_2`$, we calculate the transmission and the reflection coefficients of the single NS interface for fixed $`k_y`$. The sixteen coefficients are obtained from the continuity condition of the wavefunction at the NS interface since there are four incoming and four outgoing channels for each $`k_y`$. In Appendix A, we show eight transmission and four reflection coefficients which are required in the following calculation. The Andreev reflection coefficients in Fig. 2 (a) are estimated as

$`a_1^{(1)}`$ $`(k_y,\omega _n)={\displaystyle \underset{k_y^{}}{}}t_{SN}^{hh}(k_y,\alpha _L,\phi _L)t_{k_y,k_y^{}}^h`$ (19)
$`\times `$ $`r_{NN}^{he}(k_y^{},\alpha _R,\phi _R)t_{k_y^{},k_y}^et_{NS}^{ee}(k_y,\alpha _L,\phi _L),`$ (20)
$`a_1^{(2)}`$ $`(k_y,\omega _n)={\displaystyle \underset{k_y^{}}{}}t_{SN}^{he}(k_y,\alpha _L,\phi _L)t_{k_y,k_y^{}}^e`$ (21)
$`\times `$ $`r_{NN}^{eh}(k_y^{},\alpha _R,\phi _R)t_{k_y^{},k_y}^ht_{NS}^{he}(k_y,\alpha _L,\phi _L),`$ (22)
$`a_2^{(1)}`$ $`(k_y,\omega _n)={\displaystyle \underset{k_y^{}}{}}t_{SN}^{ee}(k_y,\alpha _L,\phi _L)t_{k_y,k_y^{}}^e`$ (23)
$`\times `$ $`r_{NN}^{eh}(k_y^{},\alpha _R,\phi _R)t_{k_y^{},k_y}^ht_{NS}^{hh}(k_y,\alpha _L,\phi _L),`$ (24)
$`a_2^{(2)}`$ $`(k_y,\omega _n)={\displaystyle \underset{k_y^{}}{}}t_{SN}^{eh}(k_y,\alpha _L,\phi _L)t_{k_y,k_y^{}}^h`$ (25)
$`\times `$ $`r_{NN}^{he}(k_y^{},\alpha _R,\phi _R)t_{k_y^{},k_y}^et_{NS}^{eh}(k_y,\alpha _L,\phi _L),`$ (26)
where $`t_{k_y^{},k_y}^{e(h)}`$ is the transmission coefficient of the electronlike (holelike) quasiparticle in the normal conductor, and $`k_y^{}`$ indicates the propagating channel at the right NS interface. The transmission coefficients in the normal metal are described by

$`t_{k_y^{},k_y}^e`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{i}v_F\mathrm{cos}\gamma \mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}k_F\mathrm{cos}\gamma ^{}L_N}{\displaystyle _0^W}𝑑y{\displaystyle _0^W}𝑑y^{}`$ (27)
$`\times `$ $`𝒢_{\omega _n}(L_N,y^{};0,y)\chi _{k_y^{}}^{}(y^{})\chi _{k_y}(y),`$ (28)
$`t_{k_y,k_y^{}}^h`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{i}v_F\mathrm{cos}\gamma ^{}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}k_F\mathrm{cos}\gamma ^{}L_N}{\displaystyle _0^W}𝑑y{\displaystyle _0^W}𝑑y^{}`$ (29)
$`\times `$ $`𝒢_{\omega _n}(L_N,y^{};0,y)\chi _{k_y}^{}(y)\chi _{k_y^{}}(y^{}),`$ (30)
where $`𝒢_{\omega _n}(𝐫,𝐫^{})`$ is the Green function of the normal conductor, $`v_F`$ is the Fermi velocity, and $`\chi _{k_y}(y)`$ is the wavefunction in the $`y`$ direction belonging to the channel specified by $`k_y`$, respectively . In this paper, we assume that the NS interface is sufficiently clean so that $`k_y`$ is conserved while the transmission and the reflection at the interface. In $`a_1^{(1)}`$ in Eq. (20), a quasiparticle wave is initially incident into the normal part from the left superconductor through the channel specified by $`k_y`$. After the Andreev reflection at the right NS interface, we assume that the reflected wave transmits to the left superconductor through the initial channel of $`k_y`$ because of the retro property of a quasiparticle under the time reversal symmetry . The two Andreev reflection coefficients in Eq.(15) are given by $`a_1=a_1^{(1)}+a_1^{(2)}`$ and $`a_2=a_2^{(1)}+a_2^{(2)}`$, respectively. By using the transmission and the reflection coefficients in Appendix A, the following equations can be derived,

$`{\displaystyle \underset{k_y}{}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{|\mathrm{\Delta }_L^+|}{\mathrm{\Omega }_L^+}}a_1^{(1)}{\displaystyle \frac{|\mathrm{\Delta }_L^{}|}{\mathrm{\Omega }_L^{}}}a_2^{(2)}\right]=2\mathrm{i}{\displaystyle \underset{k_y,k_y^{}}{}}P_1,`$ (31)
$`{\displaystyle \underset{k_y}{}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{|\mathrm{\Delta }_L^+|}{\mathrm{\Omega }_L^+}}a_1^{(2)}{\displaystyle \frac{|\mathrm{\Delta }_L^{}|}{\mathrm{\Omega }_L^{}}}a_2^{(1)}\right]=2\mathrm{i}{\displaystyle \underset{k_y,k_y^{}}{}}P_2,`$ (32)
with

$`P_1`$ $``$ $`r_{NN}^{eh}(k_y,\alpha _L,\phi _L)t_{k_y,k_y^{}}^hr_{NN}^{he}(k_y^{},\alpha _R,\phi _R)`$ (34)
$`\times t_{k_y^{},k_y}^e,`$
$`P_2`$ $``$ $`r_{NN}^{he}(k_y,\alpha _L,\phi _L)t_{k_y,k_y^{}}^er_{NN}^{eh}(k_y^{},\alpha _R,\phi _R)`$ (36)
$`\times t_{k_y^{},k_y}^h.`$
The Josephson current in Eq. (15) can be written as

$$J=2\mathrm{i}eT\underset{\omega _n}{}\underset{k_y,k_y^{}}{}\left(P_1P_2\right).$$
(37)
The equation in Eq. (37) corresponds to the reflection processes shown in Fig. 2 (b). After small algebra, we find the final expression of the Josephson current,

$$J=4e\mathrm{sin}\phi T\underset{\omega _n}{}\underset{k_y,k_y^{}}{}Q(k_y,\alpha _L)Q(k_y^{},\alpha _R)𝒯(k_y,k_y^{}),$$
(38)
with

$`𝒯(k_y,k_y^{})`$ $``$ $`t_{k_y,k_y^{}}^ht_{k_y^{},k_y}^e=t_{k_y,k_y^{}}^et_{k_y^{},k_y}^h,`$ (39)
$`Q(k_y,\alpha _j)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{cos}^2\gamma \mathrm{\Delta }_j^{}K_j^+}{\mathrm{\Xi }_j}},`$ (40)
$`\mathrm{\Xi }_j`$ $``$ $`Z^2(\mathrm{\Delta }_j^+\mathrm{\Delta }_j^{}+K_j^+K_j^{})+\mathrm{cos}^2\gamma \mathrm{\Delta }_j^+\mathrm{\Delta }_j^{},`$ (41)
$`K_j^\pm `$ $``$ $`\mathrm{\Omega }_j^\pm |\omega _n|,`$ (42)
where $`Z=mV_b/k_F`$ represents the strength of the barrier potential. In what follows, we consider the high potential barrier at the NS interface, (i.e., $`Z1`$). We note that $`Q(k_y,\alpha _j)`$ is proportional to the Andreev reflection coefficient at the NS interface. Equations (37) and (38) are the general expressions of the Josephson current proportional to $`\mathrm{sin}\phi `$. It is possible to apply these expressions to various junctions if the transmission coefficients in the normal part can be calculated.

## III Dirty SNS Junctions

When the normal conductor is in the diffusive transport regime, $`t_{k_y^{},k_y}^{e(h)}`$ is almost independent of the propagating channels,

$$𝒯(k_y,k_y^{})\overline{t^et^h},$$
(43)
where $`\mathrm{}`$ means the ensemble average and $`\overline{\mathrm{}}`$ is the average over the propagation channels. The transmission coefficients are approximately given by

$`\overline{t^et^h}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{v_F^2}{2N_c^2}}{\displaystyle _0^W}𝑑y{\displaystyle _0^W}𝑑y^{}X(L_N,y;0,y^{}),`$ (44)
$`X(𝐫,𝐫^{})`$ $``$ $`𝒢_{\omega _n}(𝐫,𝐫^{})𝒢_{\omega _n}(𝐫,𝐫^{}).`$ (45)
In the diffusive regime, the function $`X(𝐫,𝐫^{})`$ for small $`\omega _n`$ satisfies the diffusion equation,

$$\tau _0\left(2|\omega _n|D_0_𝐫^2\right)X(𝐫,𝐫^{})2\pi N_0\tau _0\delta (𝐫𝐫^{}),$$
(46)
where $`D_0`$, $`\tau _0`$ and $`N_0`$ are the diffusion constant, the mean free time and the density of states at the Fermi energy per unit area for each spin degree of freedom, respectively. The propagating process in the normal conductor is diagrammatically illustrated in Fig. 3, where the cross represents the impurity scattering. We solve Eq. (46) and show the results in Appendix B. The averaged transmission coefficients are

$$\overline{t^et^h}=\left(\frac{1}{N_c}\right)^2g_N\frac{ln}{\mathrm{sinh}ln},$$
(47)
where $`ln=\sqrt{2n+1}L_N/\xi _D`$, $`\xi _D=\sqrt{D_0/2\pi T}`$ is the coherence length, and $`G_N(2e^2/h)g_N`$ is the conductance in the normal metal, respectively. The ensemble averaged Josephson current in dirty SNS junctions is calculated by using Eqs. (38) and (47)

$`J(\alpha _L,\alpha _R)`$ $`=`$ $`eT{\displaystyle \underset{\omega _n}{}}N(\alpha _L)N(\alpha _R)g_N{\displaystyle \frac{ln}{\mathrm{sinh}ln}},`$ (48)
$`N(\alpha _j)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle _{\pi /2}^{\pi /2}}𝑑\gamma {\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{cos}^3\gamma \mathrm{\Delta }_j^{}K_j^+}{\mathrm{\Xi }_j}},`$ (49)
where we replace the summation $`_{k_y}`$ by the integration $`(N_c/2)_{\pi /2}^{\pi /2}𝑑\gamma \mathrm{cos}\gamma `$. When the orientation angle are zero, (i.e., $`\alpha _{L,R}=0`$), the ensemble-averaged critical current in units of $`\pi \mathrm{\Delta }_0/eR_J`$ is given by,

$$\overline{J}(0,0)=\frac{9}{25}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{\mathrm{\Delta }_0}T\underset{\omega _n}{}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{\omega _n^2+\mathrm{\Delta }^2}\frac{ln}{\mathrm{sinh}ln},$$
(50)
where the resistance of the junction is described by

$$R_J=\left[\frac{2e^2}{h}\frac{4}{9}\frac{g_N}{Z^4}\right]^1,$$
(51)
and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ is the amplitude of the pair potential at $`T=0`$. In the case of the $`s`$-wave junctions, the numerical factor 9/25 in Eq. (50) is replaced by 1 and the expression is identical to that by the Usadel equation . In the recent studies  and references therein, it is pointed out that the results in Ref.  is not correct in the low temperature regime and the non-sinusoidal current-phase relation is observed. In these studies, the electron transmission at the NS interface is perfect and the higher harmonics contribute to the Josephson current. In our results, the amplitude of the Josephson current takes its maximum at $`\phi =\pi /2`$ for all temperature regime because of the potential barrier at the NS interface.

When $`\alpha _{L,R}=\pi /4`$, we find that $`N(\pi /4)=0`$, therefore,

$$\overline{J}(\pi /4,\pi /4)=0.$$
(52)
This is because $`K_{L,R}^+`$ and $`\mathrm{\Xi }_{L,R}`$ are even function of $`\gamma `$, whereas $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{L,R}^{}=\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{sin}2\gamma `$ is odd function of $`\gamma `$ in Eq. (49). The symmetry of the pair potential is responsible for the disappearance of the ensemble-averaged Josephson current.

When the orientation angle is $`\pi /8`$, the averaged critical current results in

$$\overline{J}(\pi /8,\pi /8)=\frac{9\pi ^2}{512}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{\mathrm{\Delta }_0}T\underset{\omega _n}{}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{\omega _n^2+\mathrm{\Delta }^2/2}\frac{ln}{\mathrm{sinh}ln}.$$
(53)
The condition for the ZES (i.e., $`\mathrm{\Delta }_j^+\mathrm{\Delta }_j^{}<0`$) is satisfied in the range of $`\pi /8|\gamma |3\pi /8`$ in Eq. (49). In the same reason with the case of $`\alpha _{L,R}=\pi /4`$, the contribution from this range becomes zero. In Eq. (53), the integration in the range of $`0|\gamma |\pi /8`$ in Eq. (49) contributes to the averaged Josephson current. We conclude that the ZES do not contribute to the averaged Josephson current in dirty SNS junctions of the $`d`$-wave superconductor.

In Fig. 4 (a) and (b), we show the numerical results of the Josephson current at $`\phi =\pi /2`$ by using the recursive Green function method on the two-dimensional tight binding model , where $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0=0.01\mu _F`$, $`L_N=100a_0`$, $`W=30a_0`$ and $`a_0`$ is the lattice constant. The mean free path ($`\mathrm{}`$) is about $`6.2a_0`$. The numerical results for $`\alpha _{L,R}=0`$ and $`\pi /4`$ are shown in Fig. 4 (a) and (b), respectively. The dependence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ on $`T`$ is described by the BCS theory. The lines are the Josephson current for several samples with different random configurations and the open circles denote the ensemble average. In (a), the results for all samples increase with decreasing the temperature and the averaged Josephson current agrees with the analytic results in Eq. (50) which are plotted in Fig. 4 (c), where a parameter $`L_N/\xi _D|_{T=T_c}=7.6`$ is estimated from the numerical simulation. In Fig. 4(b), the averaged Josephson current is almost zero for $`\alpha _{L,R}=\pi /4`$ as it is predicted in Eq. (52). This fact, however, does not mean the absence of the Josephson current in experiments for a single sample. The sign of the Josephson current is either positive or negative depending on the random configuration and $`|J|`$ of a single sample increases rapidly with decreasing the temperature as shown in Fig. 4(b). These results indicate an importance of the mesoscopic fluctuations in the Josephson current . In Eq. (43), we assume that $`𝒯(k_y,k_y^{})`$ is independent of $`k_y`$ and $`k_y^{}`$. In other words, the transmission coefficients are isotropic in the momentum space. In order to explain the numerical results in Fig. 4(b), we have to consider a sample-specific anisotropy in the transmission coefficients. Here we introduce the anisotropy in a simple function,

$`𝒯(k_y,k_y^{})\overline{t^et^h}`$ (54)
$`\times `$ $`\left[1+f_1\delta _{k_y,k_1}\delta _{k_y^{},k_1}+f_2\delta _{k_y,k_2}\delta _{k_y^{},k_2}\right]`$ (55)
where $`f_1`$ and $`f_2`$ are positive numerical factors much smaller than unity. In Eq. (55), we consider the situation where the two elements $`𝒯(k_1,k_1)`$ and $`𝒯(k_2,k_2)`$ are slightly larger than the average. By using Eq. (55), the Josephson current in a single sample with $`\alpha _{L,R}=\pi /4`$ results in

$`\overline{J}(\pi /4,\pi /4)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{\mathrm{\Delta }_0}}T{\displaystyle \underset{\omega _n}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{ln}{\mathrm{sinh}ln}}`$ (56)
$`\times `$ $`\left[f_1Y(\gamma _1)f_2Y(\gamma _2)\right],`$ (57)
$`Y(\gamma )`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{cos}^6\gamma \mathrm{sin}^22\gamma }{\left[|\omega _n|+\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{2Z^2}\mathrm{cos}^2\gamma |\mathrm{sin}2\gamma |\right]^2}}.`$ (58)
The denominator of Eq. (58) approaches to zero in the limit of $`\omega _n0`$ and $`Z1`$, which reflects the ZES at the NS interface. In Fig. 4 (d), we plot the analytical results in Eq. (57) for several choices of $`f_1`$, $`f_2`$, $`\gamma _1`$ and $`\gamma _2`$, where $`f_1`$ and $`f_2`$ are of the order of $`10^2`$. Some of the results show non-monotonic temperature dependence, and others change the sign with decreasing the temperature as shown in both Figs. 4(b) and (d). The analytical results well explain the numerical results. These results indicate the enhancement of the mesoscopic fluctuations of the Josephson current in the limit of $`T0`$.

## IV Discussion

In Sec.III, we calculate $`𝒯(k_y,k_y^{})`$ by solving the diffusion equation in Eq. (46). The conclusion in Eq. (52) is independent of the detail of the approximation. In the diffusive conductors, $`𝒯(k_y,k_y^{})`$ are independent of $`k_y`$ and $`k_y^{}`$. The conclusion in Eq. (52) always holds, when $`𝒯(k_y,k_y^{})`$ is isotropic in the momentum space because the integration with respect to $`\gamma `$ at the two NS interfaces can be carried out independently in Eq. (38). For this reason, we derive an equation for the dirty SNS junctions,

$$J(\alpha _L,\pi /4)=J(\pi /4,\alpha _R)=0$$
(59)
for any $`\alpha _L`$ and $`\alpha _R`$. We also derive relations,

$`J(\alpha _L,\alpha _R)=J(\alpha _L,\alpha _R)`$ (60)
$`=`$ $`J(\alpha _L,\alpha _R)=J(\alpha _L,\alpha _R)`$ (61)
because the zero energy states do not contribute to the ensemble average of the Josephson current.

In the $`s`$-wave SNS junctions, the amplitude of the fluctuations is $`\delta J_c=(eE_c/\mathrm{})C_d`$, where $`E_c=\mathrm{}D_0/L_N^2`$ is the Thouless energy of the normal conductor and $`C_d`$ is a constant of the order of unity . The amplitude of the fluctuations in the Josephson current for $`\alpha _{L,R}=0`$ at $`T=0`$ are expected to be proportional to the Thouless energy and depend on the sample size since the characteristic features of the Josephson current are essentially the same with those in the $`s`$-wave junctions. On the other hand, the fluctuations for $`\alpha _{L,R}=\pi /4`$ in Fig. 4(b) are mainly due to the ZES at the interfaces and strongly depend on $`Z`$ and $`T`$ as shown in Eq. (58) and Fig. 4(d). Though the average of the Josephson current is zero, the fluctuations for $`\alpha _{L,R}=\pi /4`$ can be larger than those for $`\alpha _{L,R}=0`$. Further theoretical investigations are necessary to understand the amplitude of the fluctuations.

The impurities in the normal metal may suppress the pair potentials near the NS interfaces because the normal impurities break a Cooper pair in the anisotropic superconductors. The pair potential should be determined self-consistently in such situation. So far in SIS junctions, Tanaka, et. al.  calculated the Josephson current where the pair potentials determined in a self-consistent way and compared with the Josephson current obtained in a non-self-consistent manner. Their results show that there are no qualitative differences in the Josephson current between the two methods. In their study, the pair-breaker is the insulator. The pair-breaker in the present paper is the impurities in the normal metal. Though the origin of the pair-break are different in the two systems, the suppression of the pair potentials, therefore, the suppression of the Josephson current is considered to be the common consequence when we determine the pair potential self-consistently. Thus it may be possible to infer that the Josephson current in real SNS junctions would be smaller than that of the present paper. The self-consistent study has to be done to discuss the amplitude of the Josephson current quantitatively. However the main conclusion in Eq. (52) is not sensitive to the profile of the pair potential because the $`d`$-wave symmetry is responsible for the disappearance of the averaged Josephson current. The impurities may also modify the symmetry of the pair potentials. If the finite values of averaged Josephson current is observed in experiments, such results might be an evidence for the change of the pairing symmetry due to the impurities. This is because the $`d`$-wave component of the pair potentials does not contribute to the averaged current for $`\alpha =\pi /4`$.

The sign change of the pair potential on the Fermi surface, which is a characteristic feature of the anisotropic superconductors, leads to the disappearance of the Josephson current. Thus the conclusion in Eq. (52) may be applied to the SNS junctions of the superconductors with $`p`$-wave pairing symmetry such as UPt<sub>3</sub> for certain orientation angles between the junction interface normal and the node lines of the pair potentials. The investigation in this direction is now in progress.

## V Conclusion

In conclusion, we analytically derive the general expression of the Josephson current in SNS junctions of the $`d`$-wave superconductors. In dirty SNS junctions, we show that the ZES do not contributes to the ensemble-averaged Josephson current because of the symmetry of the pair potential. In particular, when the orientation angle of the $`d`$-wave superconductor is $`\alpha =\pi /4`$, the ensemble-averaged Josephson current vanishes. The critical current of a single sample, however, remains finite value, which indicate an importance of the mesoscopic fluctuations of the Josephson current.

## Acknowledgements

The author is indebted to N. Tokuda, H. Akera, Y. Tanaka and Y. Takane for useful discussion.

## A Transmission and Reflection Coefficients

We derive the transmission and reflection coefficients of the NS interface at $`x=0`$ as shown in Fig. 5. In what follows, we calculate the coefficients after analytic continuation ($`Ei\omega _n`$) for $`\omega _n>0`$ and we assume that $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mu _F`$. In the normal metal, the wavefunction of the quasiparticle with $`k_y=k_F\mathrm{sin}\gamma `$ can be described by

$`\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}_{k_y}^N(x,y)=[\overline{\alpha }\left(\begin{array}{c}1\\ 0\end{array}\right)\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}p_+x}+\overline{\beta }\left(\begin{array}{c}0\\ 1\end{array}\right)\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}p_{}x}`$ (A5)
$`+`$ $`\overline{A}\left(\begin{array}{c}1\\ 0\end{array}\right)\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}p_+x}+\overline{B}\left(\begin{array}{c}0\\ 1\end{array}\right)\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}p_{}x}]\chi _{k_y}(y),`$ (A10)
where $`\overline{\alpha }`$ and $`\overline{\beta }`$ ($`\overline{A}`$ and $`\overline{B}`$ ) are the amplitudes of the incoming (outgoing) waves in the electron and hole channels, respectively. The wavefunction in the $`y`$ direction is $`\chi _{k_y}(y)`$, $`p_\pm =k_F\mathrm{cos}\gamma \pm \mathrm{i}\omega _n/v_F\mathrm{cos}\gamma `$, and $`v_F=k_F/m`$ is the Fermi velocity, respectively.

In the same way, the wavefunction in the superconductor is given by

$`\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}_{k_y}^S`$ $`(x,y)=[\overline{\gamma }\mathrm{\Phi }_L^+\left(\begin{array}{c}u_L^+\\ v_L^+\end{array}\right)\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}k_+x}+\overline{\delta }\mathrm{\Phi }_L^{}\left(\begin{array}{c}v_L^{}\\ u_L^{}\end{array}\right)\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}k_{}^{}x}`$ (A15)
$`+`$ $`\overline{C}\mathrm{\Phi }_L^{}\left(\begin{array}{c}u_L^{}\\ v_L^{}\end{array}\right)\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}k_{}x}+\overline{D}\mathrm{\Phi }_L^+\left(\begin{array}{c}v_L^+\\ u_L^+\end{array}\right)\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}k_+^{}x}]`$ (A21)
$`\times \chi _{k_y}(y),`$
where $`\overline{\gamma }`$ and $`\overline{\delta }`$ ($`\overline{C}`$ and $`\overline{D}`$ ) are the amplitudes of incoming (outgoing) waves in the electron and hole channels, respectively. We define that

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_j^\pm `$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{cos}2(\gamma \alpha _j),`$ (A22)
$`\mathrm{\Omega }_j^\pm `$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{\omega _n^2+\mathrm{\Delta }_{j}^{\pm }{}_{}{}^{2}},`$ (A23)
$`u_j^\pm `$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{\left(1+\mathrm{\Omega }_j^\pm /\omega _n\right)/2},`$ (A24)
$`v_j^\pm `$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{\left(1\mathrm{\Omega }_j^\pm /\omega _n\right)/2},`$ (A25)
$`k_\pm `$ $`=`$ $`k_F\mathrm{cos}\gamma +i\mathrm{\Omega }_j^\pm /v_F\mathrm{cos}\gamma ,`$ (A26)
where $`j=L`$ or $`R`$. The phase and the sign of the pair potential is considered in the matrix,

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_j^\pm =\left(\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}(\phi _j+\overline{\varphi }_\gamma ^\pm )/2}& 0\\ 0& \mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}(\phi _j+\overline{\varphi }_\gamma ^\pm )/2}\end{array}\right),$$
(A27)
where $`\mathrm{e}^{i\overline{\varphi }_\gamma ^\pm }=sgn(\mathrm{\Delta }^\pm )`$. The two wavefunctions satisfy the continuity condition at the left NS interface (i.e., $`x=0`$ and $`\alpha _j=\alpha _L`$),

$`\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}_{k_y}^N(0,y)`$ $`=`$ $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}_{k_y}^S(0,y),`$ (A28)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{x}}\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}_{k_y}^N(x,y)|_{x=0}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{}{x}}\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}_{k_y}^S(x,y)|_{x=0}`$ (A30)
$`+2mV_b\widehat{\mathrm{\Psi }}_{k_y}^S(0,y).`$
From Eqs. (A28) and (A30), the amplitudes of the outgoing waves are connected with those of the incoming waves.

$$\left(\begin{array}{c}\overline{A}\\ \\ \overline{B}\\ \\ \overline{C}\\ \\ \overline{D}\end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{cccc}r_{NN}^{ee}& r_{NN}^{eh}& t_{NS}^{ee}& t_{NS}^{eh}\\ & & & \\ r_{NN}^{he}& r_{NN}^{hh}& t_{NS}^{he}& t_{NS}^{hh}\\ & & & \\ t_{SN}^{ee}& t_{SN}^{eh}& r_{SS}^{ee}& r_{SS}^{eh}\\ & & & \\ t_{SN}^{he}& t_{SN}^{hh}& r_{SS}^{he}& r_{SS}^{hh}\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}\overline{\alpha }\\ \\ \overline{\beta }\\ \\ \overline{\gamma }\\ \\ \overline{\delta }\end{array}\right).$$
(A31)
We explicitly show 10 coefficients which are required for calculating the Josephson current,

$`t_{NS}^{ee}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{i}M^{}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_L^{}K_L^+}{v_L^+}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_L^+}{\omega _n}}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\frac{\overline{\varphi }_\gamma ^+}{2}}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\frac{\phi _L}{2}},`$ (A32)
$`t_{SN}^{hh}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{i}M{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_L^{}K_L^+}{v_L^+}}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\frac{\overline{\varphi }_\gamma ^+}{2}}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\frac{\phi _L}{2}},`$ (A33)
$`t_{NS}^{he}`$ $`=`$ $`N{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_L^+K_L^{}}{u_L^+}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_L^+}{\omega _n}}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\frac{\overline{\varphi }_\gamma ^+}{2}}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\frac{\phi _L}{2}},`$ (A34)
$`t_{SN}^{he}`$ $`=`$ $`N{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_L^+K_L^{}}{u_L^+}}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\frac{\overline{\varphi }_\gamma ^+}{2}}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\frac{\phi _L}{2}},`$ (A35)
$`t_{NS}^{hh}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{i}M{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_L^+K_L^{}}{v_L^{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_L^{}}{\omega _n}}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\frac{\overline{\varphi }_\gamma ^{}}{2}}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\frac{\phi _L}{2}},`$ (A36)
$`t_{SN}^{ee}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{i}M^{}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_L^+K_L^{}}{v_L^{}}}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\frac{\overline{\varphi }_\gamma ^{}}{2}}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\frac{\phi _L}{2}},`$ (A37)
$`t_{NS}^{eh}`$ $`=`$ $`N{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_L^{}K_L^+}{u_L^{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_L^{}}{\omega _n}}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\frac{\overline{\varphi }_\gamma ^{}}{2}}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\frac{\phi _L}{2}},`$ (A38)
$`t_{SN}^{eh}`$ $`=`$ $`N{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_L^{}K_L^+}{u_L^{}}}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\frac{\overline{\varphi }_\gamma ^{}}{2}}\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\frac{\phi _L}{2}},`$ (A39)
$`r_{NN}^{he}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{i}Q(k_y,\alpha _L)\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\phi _L},`$ (A40)
$`r_{NN}^{eh}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{i}Q(k_y,\alpha _L)\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\phi _L},`$ (A41)
$`M`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{cos}\gamma (\mathrm{cos}\gamma +\mathrm{i}Z)}{\mathrm{\Xi }_L}},`$ (A42)
$`N`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{Z\mathrm{cos}\gamma }{\mathrm{\Xi }_L}},`$ (A43)
$`\mathrm{\Xi }_j`$ $``$ $`Z^2(\mathrm{\Delta }_j^+\mathrm{\Delta }_j^{}+K_j^+K_j^{})+\mathrm{cos}^2\gamma \mathrm{\Delta }_j^+\mathrm{\Delta }_j^{},`$ (A44)
$`Z`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{mV_b}{k_F}},`$ (A45)
$`K_j^\pm `$ $``$ $`\mathrm{\Omega }_j^\pm |\omega _n|,`$ (A46)
$`Q`$ $`(`$ $`k_y,\alpha _j){\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{cos}^2\gamma \mathrm{\Delta }_j^{}K_j^+}{\mathrm{\Xi }_j}},`$ (A47)
$`Q`$ $`(`$ $`k_y,\alpha _j){\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{cos}^2\gamma \mathrm{\Delta }_j^+K_j^{}}{\mathrm{\Xi }_j}}.`$ (A48)
These coefficients are a function of $`k_y`$, $`\alpha _L`$ and $`\phi _L`$. On the derivation, we use the approximation $`k_\pm =p_\pm =k_F\mathrm{cos}\gamma `$, where we assume that $`\omega _n\mu _F`$.

The reflection coefficients at the right NS interface are obtained in the same way. The two Andreev coefficients are given by

$`r_{NN}^{he}(k_y,\alpha _R,\phi _R)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{i}Q(k_y,\alpha _R)\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\phi _R},`$ (A49)
$`r_{NN}^{eh}(k_y,\alpha _R,\phi _R)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{i}Q(k_y,\alpha _R)\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}\phi _R}.`$ (A50)
## B Solution of the Diffusion Equation

In this paper, we consider the low temperature regime $`T<T_c10^310^4\mu _F`$ and the diffusive transport regime $`1/\mu _F\tau _010^110^2`$. Thus a relation $`2\pi T\tau _0<1`$ is satisfied. In these regime, we solve the diffusion equation

$$\tau _0\left(2|\omega _n|D_0_𝐫^2\right)X(𝐫,𝐫^{})2\pi N_0\tau _0\delta (𝐫𝐫^{}),$$
(B1)
under the appropriate boundary condition . The right hand side of Eq. (B1) corresponds to the first term in Fig. 3 which can be calculated to be

$$\frac{N_0}{v_Fr}\mathrm{e}^{r/\mathrm{}},$$
(B2)
where $`\mathrm{}=v_F\tau _0`$ is the mean free path and $`r=|𝐫𝐫^{}|`$, respectively. In Eq. (B1), we replace this function by the $`\delta `$-function in two-dimension because the smallest length scale in the diffusion equation is $`\mathrm{}`$. The function $`X(𝐫,𝐫^{})`$ is the Green function of the Schrödinger-type equation

$$D_0^2f(𝐫)=\lambda f(𝐫).$$
(B3)
The normal conductor is separated by the high potential barrier at the two NS interfaces and there is no current flow in the $`y`$ direction. In such situation, we solve Eq. (B3) under the boundary conditions,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{f(𝐫)}{x}}|_{x=0,L_N}`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (B4)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{f(𝐫)}{y}}|_{y=0,W}`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (B5)
The function $`X(𝐫,𝐫^{})`$ is represented by

$`X(𝐫,𝐫^{})=2\pi N_0{\displaystyle \underset{m=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{m^{}=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}A_m^2B_m^{}^2`$ (B6)
$`\times `$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{m\pi x}{L_N}\right)\mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{m\pi x^{}}{L_N}\right)\mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{m^{}\pi y}{W}\right)\mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{m^{}\pi y^{}}{W}\right)}{2|\omega _n|+D_0[(m\pi /L_N)^2+(m^{}\pi /W)^2]}},`$ (B13)
$`A_m=\{\begin{array}{cc}\sqrt{\frac{1}{L_N}},& \text{for}m=0\\ \sqrt{\frac{2}{L_N}},& \text{for}m0,\end{array}`$
$`B_m=\{\begin{array}{cc}\sqrt{\frac{1}{W}},& \text{for}m=0\\ \sqrt{\frac{2}{W}},& \text{for}m0.\end{array}`$
Next we calculate the function

$`{\displaystyle _0^W}𝑑y{\displaystyle _0^W}𝑑y^{}X(𝐫,𝐫^{})|_{x=L_N,x^{}=0}`$ (B14)
$`=`$ $`2\pi N_0\tau _0{\displaystyle \frac{W}{L_N}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2|\omega _n|\tau _0}}{\displaystyle \frac{ln}{\mathrm{sinh}ln}},`$ (B15)
where $`ln=\sqrt{2n+1}L_N/\xi _D`$ and $`\xi _D=\sqrt{D_0/2\pi T}`$ is the coherence length. Finally the averaged transmission coefficients are

$$\overline{t^et^h}=\left(\frac{1}{N_c}\right)^2g_N\frac{ln}{\mathrm{sinh}ln}\frac{1}{2|\omega _n|\tau _0},$$
(B16)
where $`g_N=2\pi N_0D_0W/L_N`$ is the dimensionless conductance of the normal metal for each spin degree of freedom. In Eq. (B16), $`\overline{t^et^h}`$ seems to be singular in the limit of $`\omega _n0`$. We note that the singularity is stemming from the boundary condition in Eq. (B4). When there is no potential barrier at the NS interface, we apply the boundary condition $`f(𝐫)|_{x=0,L_N}=0`$ instead of Eq. (B4) and obtain

$`\overline{t^et^h}`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{N_c}}\right)^2g_N{\displaystyle \frac{ln}{\mathrm{sinh}ln}}`$ (B17)
$`\times `$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2|\omega _n|\tau _0}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{cosh}(2\sqrt{2|\omega _n|\tau _0})1}{2}},`$ (B18)
where the integration with respect to $`y`$ and $`y^{}`$ are carried out at $`x=L_N+\mathrm{}/\sqrt{2}`$ and $`x^{}=\mathrm{}/\sqrt{2}`$. Since the propagation of a quasiparticle in the normal conductor is not sensitive to the boundary condition at the NS interface and $`N_c^2\overline{t^et^h}`$ is close to $`g_N`$ in the limit of $`\omega _n0`$, we regularize the Eq. (B16) by introducing the cut-off,

$`\overline{t^et^h}`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{N_c}}\right)^2g_N{\displaystyle \frac{ln}{\mathrm{sinh}ln}}F(2|\omega _n|\tau _0),`$ (B19)
$`F(x)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Theta }(1x)+\mathrm{\Theta }(x1){\displaystyle \frac{1}{x}},`$ (B20)
where $`\mathrm{\Theta }(x)`$ is the step function. Since $`\overline{t^et^h}`$ decays as $`\mathrm{exp}(\sqrt{2n+1}L_N/\xi _D)`$, the contributions from small $`n`$ are dominant in the summation with respect to $`\omega _n`$ in Eq. (48). Thus in most cases, $`F(2|\omega _n|\tau _0)`$ is unity.

* e-mail: asano@eng.hokudai.ac.jp