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# Scaling properties of cavity-enhanced atom cooling

## I Introduction

For a large variety of atoms, laser cooling has proven to be an extremely successful and widely applicable method to generate fairly large ensembles of ultra-cold neutral atoms . Nevertheless, some intrinsic effects, like reabsorption of the spontaneously scattered light, optical pumping to unwanted states or dipole heating, limit its applicability and the final phase space density that can be achieved. It has been suggested  that these problems could be partly cured by the help of high-finesse optical resonators to enhance the cooling process and make it more selective in frequency space as well as in position space. For single atoms moving in the field of only one or a few photons in high-$`Q`$ microscopic resonators these results could largely be demonstrated experimentally. Although this nicely confirms the theoretical concepts and model approximations, the scaling towards larger particle and photon numbers as well as large interaction volumes is not entirely clear. Some initial results on the scaling properties of this cooling scheme were obtained for ensembles of well trapped particles , where a harmonic approximation for the trapping potential can be assumed. Neglecting cavity induced momentum diffusion, collective equations for the atomic motion could be derived from which the scaling properties with atom number and volume could be read off. Similarly in the very far detuned weak field case, where spontaneous emission and field induced atom-atom interaction can be neglected, estimates of the scaling properties could be derived from geometrical considerations.

The range of the validity of both of these approaches is, however, not entirely clear and does not cover a large parameter regime. In many practical cases neither the tight binding situation allowing a collective description of the properties of a whole ensemble, nor the weak field assumption treating each atom separately will be realized. In that case one cannot expect reliable answers from these models. Only a more general description bridging the gap from the single atom to the collective description and from a single photon to a coherent field with many photons should provide adequate answers on the efficiency and realizability of this cooling scheme.

In this work we use a quite general semiclassical approach which only relies on the assumptions of a weak saturation and a not too low temperature $`TT_{recoil}`$, which should be true for most practical setups. The model as defined in section II consistently includes spontaneous emission, cavity decay, atom-atom interaction via the field, and realistic mode functions. For a single atom in a standing wave field simple analytic expressions for the final temperature and the cooling time are derived in section III. In a rescaled version these are then applied to the $`N`$-atom case and tested against numerical simulations in section IV. In section V we compare the results to standard Doppler cooling and discuss the possibility of cooling without spontaneous emission in section VI. Finally, in section VII we briefly discuss the scaling properties for the case of several degenerate cavity modes.

## II Semiclassical model

We consider a dilute gas of $`N`$ identical two-level atoms of mass $`m`$, transition frequency $`\omega _a`$, and spontaneous emission rate $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ interacting with $`M`$ modes of a high-finesse optical cavity with resonance frequencies $`\omega _k`$, cavity decay rates $`\kappa _k`$, and mode functions $`f_k(x)`$, $`k=1..M`$, respectively. The mode functions are mutually orthogonal and fulfill the normalization condition $`|f_k|^2𝑑x=V`$, where $`V`$ is the mode volume. The spatially averaged single photon Rabi frequency is denoted by $`g`$. The cavity is driven by a pump laser of frequency $`\omega _p`$, the spatial overlap of the pump with the mode functions at the driven cavity mirror yields pump strengths $`\eta _k`$.

Generalizing previous work , we derive a semiclassical model of the system described by a set of coupled stochastic differential equations (SDEs) for the atomic positions $`x_n`$, momenta $`p_n`$, and mode amplitudes $`\alpha _k`$,

$`dx_n`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{p_n}{m}}dt,`$ (2)
$`dp_n`$ $`=`$ $`U_0\left[(x_n)_n^{}(x_n)+^{}(x_n)_n(x_n)\right]dt`$ (5)
$`+i\gamma \left[(x_n)_n^{}(x_n)^{}(x_n)_n(x_n)\right]dt`$
$`+dP_n,`$
$`d\alpha _k`$ $`=`$ $`\eta _k^{}dt+i\left[\mathrm{\Delta }_k\alpha _kU_0{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}(x_n)f_k^{}(x_n)\right]dt`$ (7)
$`\left[\kappa _k\alpha _k+\gamma {\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}(x_n)f_k^{}(x_n)\right]dt+dA_k,`$
where $`(x)=_kf_k(x)\alpha _k`$ is the field amplitude at position $`x`$, $`U_0=\mathrm{\Delta }_ag^2/(\mathrm{\Delta }_a^2+\mathrm{\Gamma }^2)`$ the light shift per photon ($`\mathrm{\Delta }_a=\omega _p\omega _a`$), $`\gamma =\mathrm{\Gamma }g^2/(\mathrm{\Delta }_a^2+\mathrm{\Gamma }^2)`$ the photon scattering rate, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_k=\omega _p\omega _k`$ the detuning of the $`k`$th mode from the pump laser.

The interpretation of the various terms in eqs. (II) is rather simple. The two terms in eq. (5) correspond to the dipole force and the radiation pressure force, respectively. Equation (7) describes the pumping of the cavity modes, the frequency detuning from the pump laser shifted according to the coupling to the atoms, and the mode damping due to cavity decay and photon scattering by the atoms. $`dP_n`$ and $`dA_k`$ are white noise increments which can be characterized by a diffusion matrix $`D_{ij}=dF_idF_j`$, where $`F_i=\{P_n,A_k\}`$. The diffusion matrix exhibits nontrivial cross correlations between momentum diffusion and cavity amplitude and phase fluctuations . We may decompose the noise terms by writing

$`dP_n`$ $`=`$ $`dP_n^{spont}+dP_n^{ind},`$ (9)
$`dA_k^r`$ $`=`$ $`dA_k^{r,spont}+{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}dA_{k,n}^{r,ind},`$ (10)
$`dA_k^i`$ $`=`$ $`dA_k^{i,spont}+{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}dA_{k,n}^{i,ind}.`$ (11)
The first terms correspond to momentum and mode amplitude fluctuations due to spontaneous emission of photons into vacuum modes. The second terms describe the correlated momentum and field fluctuations, which occur, when the $`n`$th atom scatters a photon among different cavity modes. The precise form of all noise terms is given in Appendix A.

The set of SDEs (II) is well suited for a numerical implementation. Note that the number of equations grows linearly with the number of atoms and modes, in sharp contrast to full quantum descriptions, which become exceedingly large for all but the simplest situations. The inclusion of the quantum noise terms, on the other hand, allows to obtain reliable results, for example, for steady-state temperatures and trapping times, which cannot be derived from a simple classical model.

Let us now specify the parameter regime we are concentrating on in this paper. We assume an optical cavity of sufficiently high finesse with large separation between the various eigenfrequencies. Then we can neglect all modes, which are not close to resonance with the pump field frequency. For a standing wave cavity the parameters can be chosen such, that only a single mode will fulfill this condition. For a ring cavity setup one should include at least the two degenerate counterpropagating running waves, while in a quasiconfocal or quasispherical setup many transverse modes can be involved in the dynamics. We will discuss these situations later in section VII. For the following, we will specialize the model to a one-dimensional standing wave setup, neglecting transverse atomic motion. Therefore, only a single mode function $`f(x)=\mathrm{cos}(kx)`$ is considered and we will drop the subindex $`k`$ in the notation for the field amplitude, detuning, and pump strength. Since the derivation of the SDE is based on an adiabatic elimination of the internal atomic degrees of freedom, we must ensure a small atomic saturation parameter, that is, $`s=|\alpha |^2g^2/(\mathrm{\Delta }_a^2+\mathrm{\Gamma }^2)1`$. To this end we assume a large atomic detuning $`\mathrm{\Delta }_a\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. In order to observe a significant effect of the atomic motion onto the cavity dynamics, we require $`\mathrm{\Delta }\kappa `$ and $`N|U_0|\kappa `$. Hence, for large atom numbers $`N`$, we assume $`|U_0|\kappa `$. Although these parameters are known to give rise to cooling independent of the sign of the atomic detuning (and hence the sign of $`U_0`$), we will in the following use negative values of $`U_0`$ since, in a full model, this additionally gives rise to three dimensional trapping.

## III Analytical results for a single atom

Before we discuss the results obtained from numerical simulations of the SDEs, we will briefly summarize the analytical results obtained earlier for a single atom in a single mode of a standing wave cavity and specialize these to the present parameters. As we will see later, this provides an excellent basis for the discussion of the multi-atom case.

The analytical results  were derived under the assumption of weak pumping $`\eta `$ such that there is at most one excitation in the system. However, it can be shown that under the conditions required for the adiabatic elimination of the atomic excited state, these results also hold for higher photon numbers as long as $`s1`$. Thus, we may apply the formulas in the semiclassical limit discussed here. For atomic velocities $`v`$ fulfilling $`kv<\kappa `$ the force on a moving atom can be expanded to lowest order in $`kv/\kappa `$ as

$$F=F_0+F_1v,$$
(12)
where $`F_0`$ is the stationary dipole force from eq. (5) for a fixed atomic position, and $`F_1`$ is the linear friction coefficient,

$$F_1(x)=2k^2\mathrm{cos}(kx)^2\mathrm{sin}(kx)^2\frac{\eta ^2U_0^2}{\kappa ^4}.$$
(13)
Neglecting localization effects, the position-averaged friction force thus reads

$$\overline{F_1}=k^2\frac{\eta ^2U_0^2}{4\kappa ^4}.$$
(14)
Similarly, the averaged momentum diffusion coefficient is found to be

$$\overline{D}=k^2\kappa \frac{\eta ^2U_0^2}{8\kappa ^4}$$
(15)
and hence the steady-state temperature is

$$k_BT=\frac{\overline{D}}{\overline{F_1}}=\frac{\kappa }{2}.$$
(16)
Thus, we can get sub-Doppler cooling for $`\kappa <\mathrm{\Gamma }`$.

Finally, from the friction coefficient we obtain an estimate for the cooling time $`\tau _c`$ defined from the exponential decrease of the kinetic energy $`E(t)`$ of the form

$$E(t)=\left[E(0)\frac{k_BT}{2}\right]\mathrm{exp}(t/\tau _c)+\frac{k_BT}{2}$$
(17)
with

$$\tau _c=\frac{m}{2|\overline{F_1}|}=\frac{\kappa ^4}{\eta ^2U_0^2}\omega _R^1.$$
(18)
Here $`\omega _R=\mathrm{}k^2/(2m)`$ is the recoil frequency. Hence we get faster cooling for larger cavity field intensity and larger optical potentials per photon. Moreover, the cooling time is proportional to the atomic mass such that the scheme works best for relatively light atoms.

## IV Cooling of many atoms

Let us now consider $`N`$ atoms. As they all couple to the same mode, one might expect that in general they will perturb each other and interact via this mode . In fact, for a few atoms and a few photons inside a high-finesse cavity such effects have recently been demonstrated experimentally . In order to investigate the cooling properties of many atoms, we numerically integrate the SDEs (II) and average over many different realizations. Choosing a flat initial distribution of atoms in space and a large initial kinetic energy we calculate the time evolution of the kinetic energy. In the following we will concentrate on the steady-state temperature and, in particular, on the cooling time scale $`\tau _c`$.

In Fig. 1 we plot the numerically obtained mean kinetic energy as a function of time for a single atom and for ten atoms. For the many atom case we rescale the parameters such that $`NU_0`$ and the optical potential depth (proportional $`U_0\eta ^2/\kappa ^2`$) are constant. We find that the curves are very well approximated by an exponential fit as in eq. (17) with cooling times $`\tau _c=142\kappa ^1`$ ($`N=1`$) and $`\tau _c=1110\kappa ^1`$ ($`N=10`$). For the given parameters, the analytical estimate given by eq. (18) yields $`\tau _c=118.6\kappa ^1`$ and $`1186\kappa ^1`$, respectively, which is surprisingly good. Therefore, the single atom cooling time appears to make sense for the many atom case. However, the operating conditions differ for varying atom numbers, according to the condition that $`NU_0`$ remains constant.

The steady-state kinetic energies obtained from the exponential fits of Fig. 1 are $`466\omega _R`$ ($`N=1`$) and $`510\omega _R`$ ($`N=10`$). While these are approximately of the same size, they are significantly larger than the value of $`\kappa /4100\omega _R`$ obtained from eq. (16). However, eq. (16) was derived assuming $`U_0\kappa `$ and a flat spatial distribution in the steady state. Both of these conditions are violated for the present parameters.

It should also be emphasized that an exponential fit as in Fig. 1 only works for sufficiently hot atoms where the friction force (13) can be replaced by its mean value and can therefore be treated as constant. For very cold and well localized atoms the position dependence of the friction must be taken into account. In fact, eq. (13) predicts that the friction force vanishes completely at the bottom of the potential wells. Hence, if in the course of the cooling process the localization increases, the time scale of the cooling increases and the kinetic energy no longer decreases according to an exponential law. For such parameters, a unique cooling time $`\tau _c`$ can only be deduced from the initial stages of the cooling while the atoms are still uniformly distributed in space.

For the same scaling of the parameters with $`N`$ as discussed above, we plot the steady-state kinetic energy and the cooling time for particle numbers from one to 100 in Fig. 2. We find an approximately constant final temperature and a cooling time proportional to $`N`$. Taking the scaling of $`U_0`$ with the particle number $`N`$ into account, these results agree with the predictions of the single-atom estimates of the previous section.

In Fig. 3, a different scaling of the system parameters is applied. We choose a small value of $`U_0`$ and keep all parameters constant while changing the atom number. For the steady-state temperature we obtain approximately constant values as long as $`N|U_0|\kappa /2`$ ($`N10`$). For $`10N25`$ the frequency shift induced by the atoms is of the order of the cavity detuning $`\mathrm{\Delta }=\kappa `$, which reduces the cooling efficiency and consequently increases the steady-state temperature. For even larger atom numbers the cavity is shifted into positive detuning where the friction force changes sign and the atoms are accelerated. In this limit no stationary state is achieved and no cooling time can be defined.

For the same parameters, figure 3(b) shows the cooling time for varying atom number. We see that $`\tau _c`$ slightly decreases with increasing $`N`$. Close inspection of the numerical data shows, however, that this decrease can be entirely explained by an increase of the cavity photon number according to the increase of $`NU_0`$, which shifts the cavity closer to resonance for larger atom numbers. Keeping the photon number constant, e.g., by adjusting the pump strength $`\eta `$, would thus give rise to a cooling time essentially independent of $`N`$.

Therefore, the numerical simulations show that for $`NU_0<\kappa `$ the cooling time for an ensemble of $`N`$ atoms is of the same order of magnitude as the cooling time for a single atom. This suggests that the individual atoms in the cloud are cooled independently from each other, although they are all coupled to the same cavity mode.

For the case of $`NU_0\kappa `$ (no effect of the atoms on the cavity mode) this has also been predicted by Vuletic and Chu . The basic argument there is that the cavity enhances backscattering of photons by moving atoms according to the Doppler shift, similar to free-space Doppler cooling. We now see that the cooling of atoms is nearly independent of the atom number also in cases where the cavity photon number is significantly changed by the presence of the atoms ($`NU_0\kappa `$). We attribute this to the fact that, considering the motion of an individual atom out of the whole ensemble, only the change in the cavity field induced by that atom itself is correlated with the atomic motion, while the influence of all other atoms is uncorrelated and hence on average cancels. Note that this argument is based on the assumption of no correlation between the motion of different atoms. Thus, for deep (harmonic) optical potentials in the classical limit where all particles oscillate with the same frequency a completely different scaling with the atom number has been found . For the parameters considered here, the anharmonicity of the sinusoidal potential implies a different oscillation frequency for different atoms. Together with the independent part of the momentum diffusion this ensures fast dephasing between the individual atomic oscillations. Despite the fact that they commonly interact with the same field these mechanisms guarantee that the atoms can be considered as independent. Such decorrelation (phase space mixing) has also been shown to be important for stochastic cooling of atoms in optical traps, which has been suggested as another alternative to cool atoms without spontaneous emission.

## V Comparison with free-space Doppler cooling

Since we have seen that the single atom formulas of Sec. III provide a good approximation for the many atom case, too, we will investigate these in the following a bit further.

Let us first introduce the spatially averaged atomic saturation $`s`$ as

$$s=|\alpha |^2\frac{g^2\overline{\mathrm{cos}(kx)^2}}{\mathrm{\Delta }_a^2+\mathrm{\Gamma }^2}\frac{\eta ^2U_0^2}{4\kappa ^2g^2}.$$
(19)
For the validity of the SDEs (II) we required $`s1`$. We can then rewrite the averaged friction force (14) in the form

$$\overline{F_1}=sk^2\left(\frac{g}{\kappa }\right)^2$$
(20)
and the cooling time as

$$\tau _c=\frac{\kappa ^2}{4sg^2}\omega _R^1.$$
(21)
Hence, for a given atom and a given saturation the maximum friction force and minimum cooling time $`\tau _c`$ is limited by the ratio of the atom-cavity coupling $`g`$ and the cavity decay rate $`\kappa `$. Cooling is most efficient if this ratio is large, that is, for high-finesse cavities.

For standard Fabry-Perot resonators  with mirror curvature larger than the cavity length $`l`$, the mode waist scales as $`l^{1/4}`$ and thus the mode volume $`V`$ as $`l^{3/2}`$. Since $`g1/\sqrt{V}`$ and $`\kappa 1/l`$ we find $`(g/\kappa )^2\sqrt{l}`$. Thus, cavity enhanced cooling seems more favorable for longer cavities, which also would allow to include more atoms. However, this route is limited by the capture range of the cooling given by $`kv<\kappa `$. Thus, for a small cavity decay rate only already very cold atoms are subject to the cavity cooling force.

Let us now compare eqs. (20) and (21) with the corresponding results for free-space Doppler cooling . This provides optimum cooling for $`\mathrm{\Delta }_a=\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. The friction force is given by

$$\overline{F_1^{Dopp}}=sk^2,$$
(22)
and the cooling time is therefore

$$\tau _c^{Dopp}=\frac{1}{4s}\omega _R^1.$$
(23)
We note that the only difference with the cavity-induced cooling is the absence of the factor $`(g/\kappa )^2`$. Hence, only in high-Q cavities with $`g>\kappa `$ the cooling scheme discussed here is faster than standard Doppler cooling. The achievable steady-state temperatures of the order of $`\kappa /2`$, on the other hand, can be significantly lower than the Doppler limit of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }/2`$ even for cavities with $`g<\kappa `$ but at the expense of a smaller capture range as already discussed before.

## VI Spontaneous atomic decays

Cavity-induced cooling has been suggested as a possible means to cool particles without closed optical transitions such as certain atomic species or molecules. The motivation behind this proposal is that the cooling scheme relies on induced internal transitions of the particle rather than on spontaneous emission of photons. On the other hand, equation (20) shows that for large atomic detuning and correspondingly small saturation, which is required for a small photon scattering rate $`\gamma `$, the cooling time also becomes very long. The figure of merit in this respect is the number of photons $`N_{ph}`$ which are spontaneously scattered per particle during one cooling time $`\tau _c`$. Only for $`N_{ph}1`$ effective cooling of, for example, a molecule becomes feasible.

Using the results of the previous section, we can easily obtain an estimate for this number from the definition $`N_{ph}=2\mathrm{\Gamma }s\tau _c`$ yielding

$$N_{ph}=\frac{\gamma \kappa ^2}{2\omega _RU_0^2}=\frac{1}{2}\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }}{\omega _R}\left(\frac{\kappa }{g}\right)^2.$$
(24)
Note that this result is independent of the pump strength $`\eta `$ and the atom detuning $`\mathrm{\Delta }_a`$, and is entirely fixed by atom and cavity properties.

As in the previous section, it is interesting to compare this with the corresponding result for standard Doppler cooling given by

$$N_{ph}^{Dopp}=\frac{1}{2}\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }}{\omega _R}1.$$
(25)
Again, the only difference is the missing factor of $`(\kappa /g)^2`$. Therefore, only for $`g>\kappa `$ the number of spontaneously emitted photons per cooling time is reduced with respect to free-space Doppler cooling. Despite the fact that cavity-induced cooling works at arbitrarily large atomic detuning, the increased cooling time counteracts this reduction of the scattering rate $`\gamma `$, such that the overall efficiency falls behind Doppler cooling for cavities of not sufficiently high finesse. For high-Q cavities, on the other hand, the reabsorption problem, which limits the achievable particle density in free-space laser cooling, is strongly reduced too, as a photon which has decayed through the cavity mirror cannot be reabsorbed .

## VII Multi-mode cavities

Let us now return to the more general situation where the optical cavity supports several (nearly) degenerate modes as described by the SDEs (II).

In a first step, we use the friction coefficient obtained for a single atom in a ring cavity  to derive analytical estimates analogously to those in sections III and VI for a single-mode standing-wave cavity. We find<sup>*</sup><sup>*</sup>*Note that for consistency with the notations used here, the mode functions and the pump strengths used in Ref.  have to be multiplied by a factor of $`1/\sqrt{2}`$.

$`s`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\eta ^2U_0^2}{4\kappa ^2g^2}},`$ (26)
$`k_BT`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa }{2}},`$ (27)
$`\tau _c`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa ^4}{\eta ^2U_0^2}}\omega _R^1,`$ (28)
$`N_{ph}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }}{\omega _R}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\kappa }{g}}\right)^2`$ (29)
Hence, for the same mean atomic saturation we obtain the same steady-state temperature but only half the cooling time and only half the number of spontaneously scattered photons per atom compared to the single-mode cavity.

This suggests that using $`M`$ degenerate optical modes, for instance in a near-confocal or near-planar setup, improves the efficiency of cavity-enhanced cooling by a factor of $`M`$. In fact, numerical simulations of ten atoms and one to ten modes have confirmed this simple scaling. Therefore, a multi-mode cavity reduces the cooling time and the number of incoherently scattered photons per atoms by a factor of $`M(g/\kappa )^2`$ compared to free-space Doppler cooling. Finally, it should be emphasized that in this case and using again $`\mathrm{\Delta }\kappa `$, cooling occurs if $`MN|U_0|`$ (instead of $`N|U_0|`$ for a single mode) is of the order of or smaller than $`\kappa `$.

## VIII Conclusions

In this paper we have investigated the possibility of cooling a cloud of neutral particles by a cavity-enhanced cooling scheme. Numerical simulations of the stochastic differential equations describing the situation of many two-level atoms confined in a single-mode standing-wave optical resonator show that the friction force and therefore the cooling time is of the same order of magnitude as for a single atom for the same system parameters. However, the operating regime which is ideal for one atom cannot be used for many atoms, so that the best achievable cooling time increases approximately linearly with the atom number. The analytical results obtained earlier for that situation can thus be specialized to the parameter regime relevant for many-particle cooling and have been shown to agree well with the numerical results. Comparison with the analogous expressions for free-space Doppler cooling indicate that cavity-induced cooling is mainly favorable for high-finesse optical cavities fulfilling $`g>\kappa `$. Numerical simulations also suggest that the cooling efficiency is increased in cavities which support many degenerate optical modes.

Using the parameters of the high-Q resonators used in recent cavity-QED experiments  one obtains spontaneously scattered photon numbers per cooling time as low as 5-10. Replacing the heavy rubidium or cesium atoms by lithium, for example, therefore yields photon numbers below one which would allow efficient cooling without spontaneous emission. Similarly, only the lightest molecules form possible candidates for this cooling scheme, with the further difficulty of the reduced molecular dipole moment between any given ground and excited state. In any case, according to the small size of these resonators only very few particles can be trapped and cooled simultaneously.

With larger cavities the efficiency of cavity-induced cooling falls behind that of Doppler cooling. However, these systems are well suited to demonstrate the cooling effect on large ensembles by itself. For example, assuming sodium atoms, an atomic saturation of $`s=0.1`$, a cavity decay rate $`\kappa `$ of the order of one MHz and a coupling constant $`g`$ of about 100 kHz, cooling times of the order of a ms should be achievable.

An alternative way to reach small mode volumes combined with large finesse is the use of evanescent wave fields generated by total internal reflection inside microoptical devices. Examples range from optical microspheres, thin high index surface layers or optical band gap guides on surfaces (integrated optics). Such devices look rather promising for the realization of dissipative walls or cooling schemes in microtraps.

## ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank R. Grimm for stimulating discussions. This work was supported by the Austrian Science Foundation FWF under projects P13435 and SFB “Control and Measurement of Coherent Quantum Systems”.

## A Correlated momentum and cavity fluctuations

In the following we give the full expressions for the correlated noise terms introduced in Sec. II. The fluctuations induced by spontaneous emissions read

$`dP_n^{spont}`$ $`=`$ $`k_0\sqrt{2\gamma |(x_n)|^2}dW_n,`$ (A1)
$`dA_k^{r,spont}`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{\kappa /2}dW_k^r,`$ (A2)
$`dA_k^{i,spont}`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{\kappa /2}dW_k^i,`$ (A3)
where $`k_0=\omega _p/c`$. The noise terms according to rescattering of photons within the cavity modes are given by

$`\left(\begin{array}{c}dP_n^{ind}\\ dA_{k,n}^{r,ind}\\ dA_{k,n}^{i,ind}\end{array}\right)`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{2\gamma }\mathrm{Re}\left\{v_ne^{i\varphi _n/2}\right\}dW_n^+`$ (A8)
$`+\sqrt{2\gamma }\mathrm{Im}\left\{v_ne^{i\varphi _n/2}\right\}dW_n^{},`$
where $`v_n`$ and $`\varphi _n`$ are defined by

$$v_n=\left(\begin{array}{c}_n(x_n)\\ if_k(x_n)/2\\ f_k(x_n)/2\end{array}\right),e^{i\varphi _n}=\frac{_n^{}(x_n)^2}{|_n(x_n)|^2}.$$
(A9)
Here $`dW_n`$ is a three dimensional, all other $`dW_x^y`$ are one-dimensional real Gaussian stochastic variables of mean zero and variance one.


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# Fractional Charge

## I Introduction

I cannot claim the privilege of having known Professor John Bell as intimately or for as long as some of the other participants in this conference to honour his memory. But there was a period of about 3 years from 1982 to 1985 when we interacted a fair amount and conducted (mostly at long distance) a collaboration trying to understand the then recently discovered phenomenon of fractional charge. During this period we had the opportunity of hosting him at my Institute in Bangalore. He came home for dinner and met my family. I in turn went to CERN , first to write up our work and later for a long visit, when I had the pleasure of meeting his wife Dr. Mary Bell and was the beneficiary of their kindness in many ways.

During this interaction I developed , like so many people before me, great respect for Professor Bell, not just for his great originality and prowess as a theoretical physicist, but equally for the precision of thought and language that he demanded of himself and of those who were fortunate enough to work with him. John Bell was more than an intellectual force in physics— his was a moral presence. One can ill-afford the loss of such a moral presence in today’s world, and it is a great tragedy that he was taken away from us when we continue to need him so much.

Long before I met John, I had of course heard of him and his many important contributions. In fact the very first time I had to study his work was in the early ’sixties, when I was a foot-soldier in Professor Hans Bethe’s army attacking the nuclear matter problem. All of you know that John had worked on a wide range of subjects, but not all might know that one of his early interests was nuclear matter, on which he had co-authored a long review article with E.J.Squires way back in 1961. A few years after that as I gravitated towards particle physics and quantum field theory I had to study in great detail his landmark discovery with Roman Jackiw of the axial current anomaly.

Despite such overlap of interests, I met him only much later in life when he spent a couple of weeks at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore where I was then working. A colleague introduced us and he made the usual polite enquiry – ”What are you working on these days ?” I thought that rather than inflict on him the different problems I was working on at that time, I would instead get his ”take” on the very interesting but puzzling claims of fractionally charged states that had recently emerged.

As it turned out, he had not heard about these developments. ”You mean fractionally charged like quarks ? Isn’t that by now old and well established ? ”, says John , a slight note of wariness creeping into his voice. ” No, no ”, I hasten to add, ”I don’t mean quarks . By fractionally charged I refer to states with fractional eigenvalues of the Number Operator. These have been discovered not just theoretically in soliton states of field theory models, but are claimed to be present in down to earth systems like polymer chains . What I don’t understand is how a real polymer made of some finite number of electrons could, no matter how it twists itself into a soliton configuration, carry a fractional number of electrons.” This produced a flicker of a smile from him and I knew I had caught his interest. ”Would you like to tell me about it ?”, he asked. So I ushered him into my office and closed the door . This was a lovely opportunity , having trapped the distinguished John Bell in one’s office with all avenues of escape sealed off, to summarize for him $`\mathrm{𝑎𝑏}\mathrm{𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜}`$ the curious phenomenon of fractional charge and get his opinion.

Let me begin the next section with a pedagogical expansion of what I described to John in the fading light of that winter afternoon in Bangalore.

## II Fractional Charge in Field Theory

The phenomenon of fractional charge was first discovered by Jackiw and Rebbi in their pioneering work in 1976 in the context of soliton states in quantum field theory . Three years after the Jackiw-Rebbi work, but quite independently and in an entirely different context, Su, Schrieffer and Heeger , argued that a similar phenomenon can occur for soliton states in the long chain molecule $`\mathrm{𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑠}`$-Polyacetylene. See also the work by Rice . Subsequently Jackiw and Schrieffer  wrote a paper drawing attention to the similarity between these results discovered in entirely different areas of physics.

Let us begin with the Jackiw-Rebbi work . They discussed the phenomenon in both one- dimensional and three-dimensional models. Let me for simplicity discuss just the one-dimensional example, which contains all the essential ideas. Consider in (1+1) dimensions a Fermi field $`\mathrm{\Psi }(x,t)`$ coupled to a scalar field $`\mathrm{\Phi }(x,t)`$ through a Lagrangian density

$$=_B+_F$$
(1)
where,

$$_B=\frac{1}{2g^2}[(\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }}{t})^2(\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }}{x})^2(1/2)(\mathrm{\Phi }^21)^2]$$
(2)
and

$$_F=\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}(i_\mu \gamma ^\mu m\mathrm{\Phi }(x,t))\mathrm{\Psi }$$
(3)
This example corresponds to a quartic double well potential in $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$. It is straighforward to generalise the results to other potentials $`U(\mathrm{\Phi })`$ with symmetric double wells. The phenomenon of fractional charge occurs in the soliton sector of this system. To a wider readership it may be helpful to recall what is meant by the soliton sector and how fermi fields are treated in such sectors ().

The bosonic sub-system $`_B`$, in the absence of the Fermi field, has as its field equation

$$\left(\frac{^2}{t^2}^2\right)\varphi \varphi +\varphi ^3=0$$
(4)
This has the following two lowest energy classical solutions :

$$\varphi (x,t)=\pm 1$$
(5)
As is well known the presence of these two degenerate classical solutions indicates spontaneous breaking of the $`\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{\Phi }`$ symmetry of the Lagrangian. Around each of these classical solutions a separate vacuum state and a whole tower of Fock states can be built corresponding to the two phases this system permits. We will call these the vacuum sectors.

In addition this system also has two other static (time independent) solutions. Those are the topological soliton solutions – the so called kink solution and its reflected partner, the anti-kink, given respectively by

$$\varphi _S(x)=\pm tanh(x/\sqrt{2})$$
(6)
As per the general theory of semi classical quantization of quantum fields, one can build two other separate towers of states, one around each of these soliton solutions. The topological index $`n=\varphi (\mathrm{})\varphi (\mathrm{})`$ becomes a superselection quantum number upon quantization and prevents any states from these soliton sectors from decaying into the vacuum sector. In short, we have four sectors of states for this bosonic system : two are the vacuum sectors built around $`\varphi =\pm 1`$ and the other two are the soliton and antisoliton sectors built around the kink and antikink solutions in eq (6). For more details on soliton sectors of states and their properties see ().

Now consider the full system in (1) including the Fermi field.

### A Vacuum sector

To leading order in $`\mathrm{}`$ one can replace in each sector the Bose field operator $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ occurring in the fermi field lagrangian (3) by the corresponding classical solution . Thus in the vacuum sector built around $`\varphi =1`$, the fermi lagrangian (3) reduces in leading order to

$$_F=\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}(i_\mu \gamma ^\mu m)\mathrm{\Psi }$$
(7)
This is just the free Dirac system with mass $`m`$ discussed in textbooks. In order to contrast with what later happens in the soliton sector , let us recall why the Number (Total charge) operator has only integral eigenvalues for the free Dirac system. Let us denote by $`u_k(x)`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{u}_k(x)`$ the positive and negative energy spinorial solutions of the Dirac equation

$`(i\alpha _x+\beta m)u_k(x)`$ $`=`$ $`E_ku_k(x)`$ (8)
$`(i\alpha _x+\beta m)\stackrel{~}{u}_k(x)`$ $`=`$ $`E_k\stackrel{~}{u}_k(x)`$ (9)
where $`E_k=+\sqrt{k^2+m^2}`$ and spinor indices have been suppressed. The Dirac matrices for this 1+1 dimensional system can be taken to be $`\alpha =\sigma _2`$ and $`\beta =\sigma _1`$. The Dirac field is expanded in terms of these solutions and the destruction operators $`b_k`$ and $`d_k`$ obeying the usual anticommutation rules .

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(x,t)=\underset{k}{}[b_ku_ke^{iE_kt}+d_k^{}\stackrel{~}{u}_ke^{iE_kt}]$$
(10)
The vacuum state in the $`\varphi =1`$ sector is given by the conditions

$$b_k|vac=d_k|vac=0$$
(11)
with all the bosonic oscillators being in the ground state.

Note that the third Pauli matrix $`\sigma _3`$ acts as the charge conjugation matrix. It anti commutes with the Dirac hamiltonian in (9) and generates for every positive energy solution $`u_k(x)`$ of energy $`E_k`$ the corresponding negative energy solution of energy $`E_k`$ :

$$\sigma _3u_k(x)=\stackrel{~}{u}_k(x)$$
(12)
Hence all modes of the expansion ( 10) come in pairs with positive and negative energy. There are no zero energy solutions in the free massive Dirac equation.

Finally consider the charge density operator (which is really the number density operator)

$$\rho (x,t)=\frac{1}{2}[\mathrm{\Psi }^{}(x,t),\mathrm{\Psi }(x,t)]$$
(13)
This commutator form of $`\rho `$ is standard; it is designed to be regularised and odd under charge conjugation . Inserting the mode expansion (10) and using the orthonormality of the Dirac solutions the total charge becomes

$`Q`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑x\rho (x,t)}`$ (14)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}\left([b_k^{},b_k]+[d_k,d_k^{}]\right)`$ (15)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}\left((b_k^{}b_k1/2)(d_k^{}d_k1/2)\right)`$ (16)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}\left(b_k^{}b_kd_k^{}d_k\right)`$ (17)
Notice that the half-integers cancel term by term because of the existence of paired positive and energy modes. Since

$$(b_k^{}b_k)^2=b_k^{}b_k,(d_k^{}d_k)^2=d_k^{}d_k$$
(18)
these have eigenvalues of only 0 or 1. Hence the familiar result in the vacuum sector that the charge operator has only integer eigenvalues.

### B soliton sector

Let us repeat exactly the same steps in the soliton sector. Now we have to substitute for the Bose field operator in the Dirac Lagrangian the classical kink function in eq (6). The corresponding Dirac equation now becomes

$$(i\alpha _x+\beta mtanh\frac{x}{\sqrt{2}})\psi (x)=E\psi (x)$$
(19)
For the two components $`\psi _{1,2}`$ of the Dirac spinor, this yields the coupled equations

$`(_x+mtanh{\displaystyle \frac{x}{\sqrt{2}}})\psi _2`$ $`=`$ $`E\psi _1`$ (20)
$`(_x+mtanh{\displaystyle \frac{x}{\sqrt{2}}})\psi _1`$ $`=`$ $`E\psi _2`$ (21)
This equation will also have a set of positive energy solutions $`\eta _k(x)`$ with some associated energy $`E_k`$. We need not find these solutions explicitly. But since the charge conjugation matrix $`\sigma _3`$ again anticommutes with the Dirac hamiltonian, we know that for every positive energy solution $`\eta _k(x)`$ there will exist a negative energy solution $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k(x)`$ with energy $`E_k`$. But now there is also an unpaired zero-energy solution

$$\eta _0=\left(\begin{array}{c}Aexp\left(m^x𝑑ytanh(y/\sqrt{2})\right)\\ 0\end{array}\right)$$
(22)
Such a normalisable solution to (16) exists because the soliton function $`tanh\frac{x}{\sqrt{2}}`$ which forms the background potential for the Dirac spinor tends to opposing limits $`\pm 1`$ as $`x\pm \mathrm{}`$. In infinite spatial volume this solution has no partner. It is self charge conjugate : $`\sigma _3\eta _0=\eta _0`$.

The mode expansion of the Fermi field operator now becomes

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(x,t)=\underset{k0}{}[b_k\eta _k(x)e^{iE_kt}+d_k^{}\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k(x)e^{iE_kt}]+a\eta _0(x)$$
(23)
where a is the destruction operator for the zero-mode.

Unlike the vacuum sector built around $`\varphi =1`$ which had a unique ground state (”the vacuum” in that sector), in the soliton sector there are two degenerate ground states because of the existence of the fermionic zero-mode. They are $`|sol`$ and $`|\widehat{sol}`$ obeying

$$a|sol=b_k|sol=d_k|sol=0$$
(24)
and

$$|\widehat{sol}a^{}|sol;a|\widehat{sol}=|sol$$
(25)
These are the two basic quantum soliton states of this system. They are energetically degenerate, but are distinguishable by their Charge.

$`Q`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑x[\mathrm{\Psi }^{}(x,t),\mathrm{\Psi }(x,t)]}`$ (26)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}\left([b_k^{},b_k]+[d_k,d_k^{}]\right)+1/2[a^{},a]`$ (27)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}\left((b_k^{}b_k1/2)(d_k^{}d_k1/2)\right)+(a^{}a1/2)`$ (28)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}\left(b_k^{}b_kd_k^{}d_k\right)+a^{}a1/2`$ (29)
Notice that the piece (-1/2) coming from the zero- mode commutator remains uncancelled because it does not have a charge conjugate partner. Since the operators $`b_k^{}b_k,d_k^{}d_k`$ and $`a^{}a`$ all have eigenvalues of 0 or 1, it then follows that the total Charge (Number) operator $`Q`$ has half-integral eigenvalues . It should be emphasized that eq(29) is an operator equation for $`Q`$. The half-integer appearing in it will be reflected in its eigenvalues and not just its expectation values. In particular, the two degenerate soliton states have eigenvalues of $`\pm 1/2`$ respectively for the total number operator $`Q`$ :

$$Q|sol=(1/2)|solQ|\widehat{sol}=(1/2)|\widehat{sol}$$
(30)
This, in its barest form, is the prototype example of the Jackiw-Rebbi discovery that in some field theories there can be states carrying fractional eigenvalues of the Number operator. For a fuller discussion including similar results in three-dimensional models see their original paper .

## III Polyacetylene

This discovery by Jackiw and Rebbi was clearly very remarkable. But it is not easy to ”understand” the result physically in terms of our familiar intuition with quantum field theory. How can the Number Operator which is widely used to count the number of particles in QED and so many other theories, and which even in the Higgs model used by Jackiw and Rebbi has only integer eigenvalues in the vacuum sector, yield fractional values in another sector ? Yet the proof given is so simple and transparent that, stare at it as we may, we have no choice but to accept the result within the parameters of its derivation. In my own attempts to make peace with the result (before embarking on the more detailed study with John), I loosely attributed it to the vagaries of the infinite degrees of freedom of continuum field theory. \[ We know from high school that formally summing divergent series of integers can yield fractions.\] But clearly some further clarification of this phenomenon was called for.

The need for clarification became more compelling when a similar result was derived not in a model field theory, but in a down-to-earth experimentally accessible polymer system by Su Schrieffer and Heeger . Three years after the Jackiw-Rebbi work, but quite independently they showed that the same phenomenon of fermion number 1/2 can occur for soliton states in the long chain molecule $`\mathrm{𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑠}`$-Polyacetylene.

That the same phenomenon occurs in Polyacetylene (we will henceforth drop the prefix ”trans”) as in the Jackiw-Rebbi field theory is not accidental. As pointed out by Jackiw and Schrieffer  , the former system has the same structure in the continuum limit as the field theory model. Polyacetylene is the molecule $`(CH)_n`$ with large n, where the Carbon ions form a long chain with the H atoms sticking out transverse to the chain. If we consider the flow of electrons along the chain, the system can be viewed as consisting of electrons and bosons (the phonons of lattice vibration of the Carbon ions along the chain) in one space dimension just as in the field theory model .

The Hamiltonian for the electron-lattice system can be taken, for each of the two spin states of the electron and for small ion displacements as (see ) :

$$H=\underset{n}{}[(\frac{p_n^2}{2\mu }+K/2(u_{n+1}u_n)^2)+(D_{n+1}^{}D_n+h.c.)(u_{n+1}u_n1/(2a))]$$
(31)
where $`n`$ labels lattice sites, $`p_n`$ and $`u_n`$ are ion momenta and displacements respectively , $`D_n`$ is electron destruction operator and $`K`$ and $`a`$ are constants. All other constants have been absorbed into definitions for simplicity.

Our primary interest is in the fermions . As far as the lattice vibrations go, let us just state the Su $`\mathrm{𝑒𝑡}\mathrm{𝑎𝑙}`$ result  that the lattice system undergoes dimerisation doubling its spatial period (a Peierls transition) . There are two degenerate ground states. In one , the mean value of the displacement $`u_n`$ instead of being zero takes the staggered value of

$$\varphi _n4(1)^nu_n=1$$
(32)
for all $`n`$. In the other

$$\varphi _n=1$$
(33)
The two degenerate ground states further provide the possibility of domain wall (soliton) configurations connecting the two phases , i.e. $`\varphi _n\pm 1(or1)`$, as $`n\pm \mathrm{}`$ respectively. Thus the boson subsystem has four sectors of states – two of them being soliton sectors – just as in the field theory discussed in the previous section.

Furthermore, the boson coordinates $`u_n`$ again act as the background potential for the electrons . In fact the electronic part of the hamiltonian (31) becomes in the continuum approximation exactly the same as that of the Dirac field theory. John and I , as part of our work on these systems , offered a simple derivation showing that the polyacetylene hamiltonian is just a realisation of the Kogut-Susskind lattice regularisation of the Dirac system . Let me sketch that derivation. The electronic part of (31) is

$$H_{elec}=\underset{n}{}\left[D_{n+1}^{}D_n(u_{n+1}u_n1/(2a))\right]+herm.conj$$
(34)
Define staggered variables

$$B_{2r1}(1)^rD_{2r1};C_{2r}(1)^rD_{2r}$$
(35)
with $`\varphi _n4(1)^nu_n`$ for all $`n`$ as already defined above. Then,

$`H_{elec}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{r}{}}[(D_{2r+1}^{}D_{2r}(u_{2r+1}u_{2r}1/2a)+D_{2r}^{}D_{2r1}(u_{2r}u_{2r1}1/2a))+h.c.]`$ (36)
$`=`$ $`(1/4){\displaystyle \underset{r}{}}[B_{2r+1}^{}C_{2r}(\varphi _{2r+1}+\varphi _{2r}+2/a)+C_{2r}^{}B_{2r1}(\varphi _{2r}\varphi _{2r1}2/a)]+h.c.`$ (37)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{r}{}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{B_{2r+1}^{}B_{2r1}^{}}{2a}}\right)C_{2r}+(1/4)B_{2r+1}^{}C_{2r}(\varphi _{2r+1}+\varphi _{2r})+(1/4)B_{2r1}^{}C_{2r}(\varphi _{2r}+\varphi _{2r1})`$ (38)
$`+`$ $`h.c.`$ (39)
In the continuum limit, as $`a0`$ and $`_r𝑑x`$, this reduces to

$`H_{elec}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑x\left(\frac{B^{}}{x}C+C^{}\frac{B}{x}\right)}+\varphi (x)(B^{}C+C^{}B)`$ (40)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑x\left(B^{}\frac{C}{x}+C^{}\frac{B}{x}\right)}+\varphi (x)(B^{}C+C^{}B)`$ (41)
This is just the Dirac Hamiltonian with Yukawa coupling :

$$H_F=\mathrm{\Psi }^{}\left(i\sigma _2\frac{}{dx}+\sigma _1\varphi (x)\right)\mathrm{\Psi }$$
(42)
with the upper and lower components of the 2-spinor being identified respectively with the odd-and even- site electron operators :

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(x)\left(\begin{array}{c}B(x)\\ C(x)\end{array}\right)$$
(43)
The charge operator operator at each site also has the same commutator form as in the continuum theory’s charge density :

$$\rho _n=D_n^{}D_n(1/2)=(1/2)[D_n^{},D_n]$$
(44)
where the $`1/2`$ subtracted at each site can be attributed to the neutralizing background (ionic) charge $`\mathrm{𝑝𝑒𝑟}\mathrm{𝑠𝑝𝑖𝑛}\mathrm{𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑒}`$.

Given this mapping from the polyacetylene system to the field theory model used by Jackiw and Rebbi, it is not surprising that fractional charged states arise in the former system too.

But in the context of a real polymer the result becomes still more mysterious. A molecule of Polyacetylene has after all some finite number of electrons and it is hard to imagine how , even if it twists itself into some topological soliton state, it could have a fractional number of electrons. The need to understand this better becameall the more compelling because Su, Schrieffer- and Heeger referred to experimental signals supporting the result . See for instance ref (). \[ Because of the presence of the two spin degrees of freedom in actual polyacetylene, as distinct from a truly 1+1 dimensional model, the fractional charge gets doubled and becomes integral; but a signature of the effect can still be observed in the form of an unfamiliar charge-spin combination of excitations. There will be neutral excitations with spin and charged excitation which are spinless.\]

It should be emphasised that an $`\underset{¯}{expectationvalue}`$ of one-half would cause no surprise . Obviously that can easily arise for an operator with integral eigenvalues. For instance if we take any particle in the ground state of a double-well potential and look for it in one of the wells, you will find it there half the times and not find it there the other half, giving an expectation value of 1/2. While in the Su et al paper, fractional values were not claimed as eigenvalues, in the prototype field theoretic case we have explicitly seen in sec.II that the eigenvalues themselves are half-integers. This is what puzzled me and I was fortunate in having John Bell join me in worrying about it further.

## IV Eigenvalue or Expectation value ?

Now let me summarize what John and I did in our attempt to understand better what these half integral values of the number operator mean ,  . \[ We later learnt that Kivelson and Schrieffer had also been independently investigating the eigenvalue status of fractional charge around the same time with essentially a similar resolution of the issues . See also the work of Jackiw $`\mathrm{𝑒𝑡𝑎𝑙}`$ which provided further clarification . I will describe here only the work done with John Bell.\] Our strategy was to treat the infrared and ultraviolet limits of the problem more carefully. In one paper , we looked at the continuum field theory used by Jackiw and Rebbi, but in a finite volume, which could be later taken to infinity. In a subsequent paper we considered what would happen if we put an ultraviolet cut-off as well, by going to the finite polyacetylene chain.

Let me begin with the field theory example of Jackiw and Rebbi which was discussed in section II. The result derived there that the total charge operator has half-integral eigenvalues cannot be disputed in the infinite spatial volume case ($`L\mathrm{}`$ in the one dimensional field theory model considered there). However suppose we kept the spatial volume 2L finite to start with, and later go the $`L\mathrm{}`$ limit . In particular , in the soliton sector, we go back and solve the same Dirac equation

$`(_x+m\mathrm{tanh}{\displaystyle \frac{x}{\sqrt{2}}})\psi _2`$ $`=`$ $`E\psi _1`$ (45)
$`(_x+mtanh{\displaystyle \frac{x}{\sqrt{2}}})\psi _1`$ $`=`$ $`E\psi _2`$ (46)
but in a finite volume $`(LxL)`$ with appropriate boundary conditions on the spinor $`\psi _\alpha `$ at $`x=\pm L`$. The natural boundary conditions which leave the Dirac hamiltonian hermitian are $`\psi _{1,2}(L)=\psi _{1,2}(L)`$. Once again every positive energy solution $`\eta _k`$ will have a negative energy partner $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k`$. We do not need their details. But now there are $`\underset{¯}{two}`$ zero energy solutions :

$$\eta _0(x)=\left(\begin{array}{c}Aexp\left(m_0^x𝑑ytanh(y/\sqrt{2})\right)\\ 0\end{array}\right)$$
(47)
and

$$\stackrel{~}{\eta }_0(x)=\left(\begin{array}{c}0\\ Aexp\left(mL+m_0^x𝑑ytanh(y/\sqrt{2})\right)\end{array}\right)$$
(48)
While the solution (47) is the same one as before , localised around the origin, the second solution (48) has support near the edges $`\pm L`$. In section II where we started with an infinite volume problem, this second solution could not be entertained. But for any finite L however large this second solution, finite everywhere and normalisable, is certainly present. Each of these two zero-modes is charge self-conjugate and both will appear in the expansion of the Dirac field operator, along with the non-zero energy modes :

$$\mathrm{\Psi }(x,t)=\underset{k0}{}[b_k\eta _k(x)e^{iE_kt}+d_k^{}\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k(x)e^{iE_kt}]+a\eta _0(x)+c^{}\stackrel{~}{\eta }_0(x)$$
(49)
Correspondingly there will now be four degenerate ground states in the soliton sector, namely, $`|sol`$ defined by

$$b_k|sol=d_k|sol=a|sol=c|sol=0$$
(50)
and $`\stackrel{~}{|sol}=a^{}|sol,\overline{|sol}=c^{}|sol,`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{|sol^{}}=a^{}c^{}|sol`$.

The expansion (49) when inserted into the definition of the charge operator

$$Q\frac{1}{2}_L^L𝑑x[\mathrm{\Psi }^{}(x,t),\mathrm{\Psi }(x,t)]$$
(51)
will yield

$$Q=\underset{k}{}\left((b_k^{}b_k1/2)(d_k^{}d_k1/2)\right)+(a^{}a1/2)+(c^{}c1/2)$$
(52)
We see that there are now no unpaired terms of 1/2 and the total charge operator has only integral eigenvalues. One can now let the volume 2L become larger and larger and at each stage both zero modes will be present and the total charge will have only integral eigenvalues.

That one can restore integral valued charges by this strategy of starting with a finite volume and then letting $`2L\mathrm{}`$ can also be understood in a different way. Note that if we had closed our line $`(LxL)`$ by identifying the points $`x=\pm L`$, that is equivalent to putting the system on a circle with a soliton at x=0 $`\underset{¯}{and}`$ an antisoliton at x = L. This in turn amounts to working in the $`\underset{¯}{vacuumsector}`$ , where we saw that the charge is integral.

While integral charge has been thus restored, if we were to stop here we would have lost all the important physics unearthed by Jackiw and Rebbi. Notice that while there are now two zero modes, both localised with width of order $`1/m`$, one of them, $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }_0(x)`$ given in eq.(48) is stuck at the edges of the sample. But the other zero mode $`\eta _0(x)`$ in (47), is in the middle and can move about as an excitation, carrying charge 1/2 in some sense that needs to be made more precise.

To pick just the charge carried by this middle zero-mode, we can try and define a ”partial charge operator” :

$$P_l_l^l𝑑x\rho (x)$$
(53)
where $`l,L\mathrm{}`$ in the order $`L>>l>>1/m`$. In this limit the partial charge $`P_l`$ clearly includes the central zero mode while excluding the second zero mode at the edges $`\pm L`$. However, the soliton ground state will not be an eigenstate of $`P_l`$, but only of the total charge operator Q in eq(52). The charge density operator $`\rho (x)`$ given in eq(13) and partial charge operators such as $`P_l`$ will excite particle-hole pairs when acting on the soliton state $`|sol.`$ But consider expectation values in this soliton state.

$`sol|\rho (x)|sol`$ $`=`$ $`(1/2){\displaystyle \underset{k0}{}}\left[\eta _k^{}(x)\eta _k(x)\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k(x)\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k(x)\right]`$ (54)
$`+`$ $`(1/2)\left(\stackrel{~}{\eta }_0(x)\stackrel{~}{\eta }_0(x)\eta _0(x)\eta _0(x)\right)`$ (55)
$`=`$ $`(1/2)\left(\stackrel{~}{\eta }_0(x)\stackrel{~}{\eta }_0(x)\eta _0(x)\eta _0(x)\right)`$ (56)
where in the last line, contributions from non-zero modes cancel for each k by charge conjugation. Hence

$`sol|P_l|sol`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _l^l}𝑑x(1/2)\left(\stackrel{~}{\eta }_0^2(x)\eta _0^2(x)\right)`$ (57)
$`=`$ $`(1/2){\displaystyle _l^l}𝑑x\eta _0^2(x)=(1/2)`$ (58)
Because this is not an eigenstate of $`P_l`$ there will be fluctuations. Since

$$(P_l<P_l>)|sol=\underset{k,k^{}}{}_l^l𝑑x(\eta _k(x)\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k^{}(x))|k,k^{}$$
(59)
We have

$$sol|(P_l<P_l>)^2|sol=\underset{k,k^{}}{}|_l^l𝑑x\eta _k(x)\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k^{}(x)|^2$$
(60)
The integrand is positive and hence the fluctuations are non-zero. In fact they diverge logarithmically.

Such large fluctuations in partial charges are not special to soliton states. They occur even in familiar vacuum states and are because of the sharp boundary of the defining domain. One can kill the fluctuations while still retaining a value of 1/2 by defining a more sophisticated partial charge operator, one with fuzzy edges. Let

$$\stackrel{~}{P}_{l,d}\frac{1}{d}_l^{l+d}𝑑l^{}P_l^{}$$
(61)
When $`L,l,d\mathrm{}`$ with $`L>>l,d`$ then once again,

$$sol|\stackrel{~}{P}_{l,d}|sol=(1/2)$$
(62)
To obtain the fluctuations of this operator note that $`[\rho (x)<\rho (x)>]`$ connects the state $`|sol`$ to the particle-hole states $`|k,k^{}`$ . We therefore have

$`k,k^{}|P_l<P_l>|sol`$ $`=`$ $`k,k^{}|{\displaystyle _l^l}𝑑x(\rho <\rho >)|sol`$ (63)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{i(E_k+E_k^{})}}k,k^{}|{\displaystyle _l^l}𝑑x{\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{dt}}|sol`$ (64)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{i(E_k+E_k^{})}}k,k^{}|(j(l)j(l))|sol`$ (65)
by current conservation. Note that the current $`j`$ has matrix elements $`k,k^{}|j(x)|sol=\eta _k^{}(x)i\alpha \stackrel{~}{\eta }_k^{}(x)`$. Hence,

$$k,k^{}|\stackrel{~}{P}_{l,d}<\stackrel{~}{P}_{l,d}>|sol=\frac{1}{d}_l^{l+d}𝑑l^{}\frac{1}{i(E_k+E_k^{})}\left[\eta _k^{}i\alpha \stackrel{~}{\eta }_k^{}\right]_l^{}^l^{}$$
(66)
To obtain the exact result for this one must know analytic expressions for all the non-zero energy modes $`\eta _k(x)`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\eta }_k(x)`$. We had in fact obtained these solutions for the simplified case where the soliton function is taken as a step function $`\varphi (x)=\mathrm{\Theta }(x)`$ instead of $`tanhx`$. This simplification does not affect the issues of interest to us. But even quite generally one can see that for large $`l`$ far away from the soliton center ($`l>>1/m`$) the solutions $`\eta _k(l)`$ will be trigonometric functions of $`kl`$. Since $`E_kk`$ for large k , the matrix element in (65) will behave as $`1/k`$ for large k and give rise to the logaritmically divergent fluctuations in eq. (60). But the charge operator with fuzzy edges $`\stackrel{~}{P}_{l,d}`$ defined in (61) has an additional integral over $`dl^{}`$ which will bring down an additional convergence factor of $`1/k`$ . There is also the extra factor $`1/d`$ in the definition which goes to zero. Altogether

$`sol|(\stackrel{~}{P}_{l,d}<\stackrel{~}{P}_{l,d}>)^2|sol`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k,k^{}}{}}|k,k^{}|\stackrel{~}{P}_{l,d}<\stackrel{~}{P}_{l,d}>|sol|^2`$ (67)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{d^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{k,k^{}}{}}f(k,k^{})`$ (68)
where the function $`f(k,k^{})`$) has a convergent sum over $`k,k^{}`$ . Clearly this vanishes as $`d\mathrm{}`$. In other words, one can define a suitable partial charge operator with fuzzy edges for which the soliton state has a value of -1/2 with no fluctuations ! This fractional charge then is an eigenvalue.

It is very possible that if one were to measure the charge in the neighborhood of the soliton’s center, one is using some such partial charge operator with fuzzy edges. In that case the measured value of 1/2 can be promoted to the status of an eigenvalue. Further, since these fractions are eigenvalues of complicated partial charge operators and not of the total charge (Number) operator Q, there is no conceptual problem reconciling the result with our intuition about the latter.

### A Polyacetylene re-visited

Let us describe briefly what a corresponding analysis  yields for polyacetylene which is a lattice chain of some finite number N of sites amongst which the electrons hop. I will emphasize just the additional insights that emerge here due to the fact that it is an even better regulated system than the field theory in finite volume that we just studied. It has only a finite number of degrees of freedom and hence no ultraviolet or infrared problems. The lattice Dirac Hamiltonian in eq(39) yields the following coupled equations for the electron wave functions $`b_n`$ and $`c_n`$ at odd and even sites respectively :

$`Eb_n`$ $`=`$ $`(1/4)c_{n+1}(\varphi _{n+1}+\varphi _n2/a)+(1/4)c_{n1}(\varphi _n+\varphi _{n1}+2/a)`$ (69)
$`Ec_n`$ $`=`$ $`(1/4)b_{n+1}(\varphi _{n+1}+\varphi _n+2/a)+(1/4)b_{n1}(\varphi _n+\varphi _{n1}2/a)`$ (70)
Clearly, given a solution for some positive energy E we can get another solution of negative energy (-E) by replacing $`b_nb_n,c_nc_n,EE`$ in the above equations. Thus positive and negative energy solutions again come in pairs. But suppose the lattice had altogether only an odd number N of sites. Then the Dirac operator can have only the same odd number of independent solutions. Therefore there must be one or more zero-energy solutions.

Notice that this argument for the existence of zero modes has nothing to do with whether the background boson field is in the topological soliton sector or the normal vacuum sector. All you need is an odd number of lattice sites ! One can explicitly verify this result. Take N = 2M + 1 with, say, M odd. A zero energy solution of the lattice Dirac equation (70) clearly exists in which the even site variable $`c_n=0`$ for all $`n`$ while the odd site variables $`b_n`$ satisfy

$$\frac{b_{n+1}}{b_{n1}}=\frac{2a(\varphi _n+\varphi _{n1})}{2+a(\varphi _n+\varphi _{n+1})}$$
(71)
This will be true for any background Bose field $`\varphi _n`$. In the uniform phase (the ”vacuum sector here) $`\varphi _n=1`$ for all $`n`$. Hence the solution is

$$b_n=b_0exp(Kan);c_n=0$$
(72)
where the constant K obeys $`tanh(Ka)=a`$. If $`\varphi _n`$ is a soliton , say having the simple form $`\varphi _n=\frac{n}{|n|}`$ then the fermion zero mode is

$$b_n=b_0exp(Ka|n|);c_n=0$$
(73)
Given the single zero mode in both sectors, one can show that the ground states in both sectors will have total charge of (-1/2) as eigenvalues. By simply adding + 1/2 to the definition of charge one can trivially make eigenvalues integral in both sectors as was the case in the finite-volume field theory. Similarly, if the number of lattice points N had been even, there would have been either no zero modes or an even number of them in both sectors, leading to integral total charge.

Thus the important lesson we learn is that as far as the total charge is concerned, there is no half integral eigenvalue in the soliton sector as compared to the uniform phase. This is true in finite chains even if there is a single isolated zero mode in the soliton sector, because a zero mode will then exist in the vacuum sector too.

Of course one can also define for lattice chains partial charges that pick up the zero mode in the soliton sector but not the one in the vacuum sector. \[ Recall in the example mentioned that the zero mode in the soliton sector given in (72) is located near the center whereas in the vacuum sector even though a zero mode (73) was present it was near one of the edges.\] As happened in the field theory case discussed earlier in this section, such partial charge operators would have a half-integral value in the soliton state. This value would get promoted to the status of an eigenvalue with no fluctuations if, in the limit of a very long chain, the operator covered a region with suitably fuzzy edges (see ref  for more details).

## V Conclusion

I have tried to outline in the last section the work that John Bell and I had done on Fractional charge, preceded in earlier sections by some background on where matters stood when we began our work. I believe our work had thrown light on which operators do have eigenvalues of 1/2 (as distinct from expectation values ) and which don’t. In the process we had also laid to rest the concern that had motivated us to study this problem — which was that the total number operator of a physical system should not have fractional eigenvalues. That would have made no sense. We showed that the total charge operator defined to have integral eigenvalues in the absence of solitons will, in a well regulated theory, continue to have integer eigenvalues even in the presence of solitons. But suitable localised partial charge operators can have fractional eigenvalues and fractional charge should be interpreted as corresponding such an operator. Indeed these may well be what charge measurements in experiments employ. As mentioned already, Kivelson and Schrieffer  had come to the same conclusion independently.

The work discussed above is nearly 20 years old. This article is primarily devoted to John Bell and his work , so this is not the place to discuss in any detail other developments on this topic around that time or since then. However, for the sake of completeness let me summarize in a few sentences some of these developments .

Soon after charge 1/2 states were discovered in field theory and polyacetylene, the possibilities of charge at other fractions were unearthed both in polymer physics and in model field theories ( see for example  and ) .

A major addition to the list of fractionally charged objects was the theoretical discovery by Laughlin in an entirely new arena. He showed that quasi-particles in fractional quantum Hall (FQH) systems carry fractional charge . Subsequently these have also been experimentally observed in ”shot-noise” experiments . To the best of my knowledge the quantum mechanical status of this quasi-particle charge in FQH has not been analyzed as carefully as in the case of polyacetylene or field theory models. The former have been identified through ingenious but indirect arguments involving plasma analogies and Aharanov-Bohm/ Berry phases rather than by an explicit analysis of the charge operators and their eigenstates. The FQH quasi-particles are more difficult states to study. They correspond to genuinely correlated many-body states as distinct from the polyacetylene and Jackiw-Rebbi soliton states considered above, which could be analysed in terms of single particle solutions of the Dirac equation. But broadly speaking, the status of the fractional charge in FQH is believed to be similar to those discussed above. It is localized near the center of the quasi-particle wavefunction and the complementary missing fraction is believed to be near the edge of the Hall sample.

Finally, very recently, it has been claimed by Maris  that some ”bubbles” formed in liquid helium which contain a trapped electron can then fission into daughter bubbles each of which carries a fragment of the original electron . However, in an analysis of this phenomenon, the pioneers of fractional charge Jackiw, Rebbi and Schrieffer have argued that these fractions in helium bubbles are just expectation values of the sort familiar in local charge measurements in any double well quantum system . This is an ongoing area of work.

## VI Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the organizers of the conference Professors R. Bertlmann and A. Zeilinger, the University of Vienna and the Erwin Schroedinger Institute for their hospitality and travel support.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The conformal anomaly plays an important role in the investigation of non-renormalization properties of supersymmetric theories in different dimensions. Investigation of the structure of the conformal or trace anomaly has a 20 years history , but its general structure was first discovered in  using a scaling property of the effective action.The cohomological properties of trace anomalies were considered in  and the connection with 1-cocycles of the Weyl group was established. This cohomological object is important because it can be considered as the full effective action in a conformal flat background. The structure of the conformal anomaly can be considered in a general way using the Wess-Zumino consistency condition  and cocyclic properties of the effective action, the nonlocal terms of which generate the anomaly after local Weyl variation. The exact values of coefficients of different terms in the anomaly could be fixed by calculation in perturbation theory using the free field representation.

The AdS/CFT correspondence  provides an important tool for the calculation of conformal anomaly coefficients and conformal correlation functions in the large N limit of $`𝒩=4`$ Super-Yang-Mills in $`d=4`$  and superconformal theories in other dimensions. In this approach the anomaly appears after classical calculation of the on-shell $`d+1`$ dimensional effective action in the form of logarithmically divergent terms . Thus the AdS/CFT approach offers the possibility to investigate the effective action in the strong coupling limit. The Weyl transformation properties and some cohomological considerations in this approach were presented in . The authors of the latter discovered the relation between the infinitesimal Weyl transformation of the boundary metric and a certain one-parameter family of $`d+1`$ dimensional diffeomorphisms. The finite form of these diffeomorphisms was obtained in . In this note we reproduce the 1-cocycle of the Weyl group in $`d=2,4`$ from investigation of the behavior of the divergent part of the AdS/CFT effective action with respect to these finite diffeomorphism transformations. We show that a cut-off regularization of the pure bulk contribution in the effective action (without boundary term) is responsible for the anomaly and the cocycle generation after applying the diffemorphism transformation, and correctly reproduces the 1-cocycle of the Weyl group (analogue of the Liouville action) in $`d=2`$ and $`4`$ dimensions. In Section 2 we review the cohomological structure of the effective action and the derivation of 1-cocycles of the Weyl group. In Section $`3`$ we derive this cocycle from the Heningson-Skenderis approach using finite diffeomorphism transformations of bulk divergent terms.

## 2 Cocycle of the Weyl Group

In this section we review the cohomological properties of the CFT effective action in the external gravitational field. This consideration is based on the results of  , .

We consider the effective action for $`d`$-dimensional conformal matter $`\phi `$ in an external gravitational field:

$$W(g)=\mathrm{ln}D_g\phi \mathrm{exp}\{S_{CFT}(\phi ;g)\}$$
(1)
where $`S_{CFT}(\phi ;g)`$ is the classical Weyl and diffeomorphism invariant action for matter fields and where the Weyl transformation is defined as:

$$g_{ij}e^{2\sigma (x)}g_{ij},\phi e^{\mathrm{\Delta }\sigma (x)}\phi .$$
(2)
Here $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the conformal weight of the matter field. Then, for an infinitesimal $`\sigma `$, we can write the equation for the anomaly

$$\delta _\sigma W(g)=T_i^i\delta \sigma (x)\sqrt{g}d^{2k}x.$$
(3)
The Wess-Zumino consistency condition in the case of Weyl transformations is simply a statement of the symmetry of the second conformal variation of the effective action:

$$\frac{\delta ^2W(g)}{\delta \sigma (x)\sqrt{g}\delta \sigma (y)}=\frac{\delta ^2W(g)}{\delta \sigma (y)\sqrt{g}\delta \sigma (x)}$$
(4)
or, in other words,

$$\frac{\delta 𝒜(x)}{\delta \sigma (y)}=\frac{\delta 𝒜(y)}{\delta \sigma (x)}$$
(5)
where we set $`T_i^i=𝒜(x)`$.

The considerations of  lead to the following general structure of the solution of the Wess-Zumino consistency condition in all (even) dimensions. For any local function of the metric $`A(g)`$ (i.e. the anomaly) the WZ consistency condition provides the following statement, concerning the structure of $`A(g)`$:

1) $`𝒜(g)`$ is a sum of the following terms with arbitrary coefficients:

a)Type A\- Euler density,

b)Type B\- Weyl-invariant polynomials over the Riemann tensor and its covariant derivatives,

c) Covariant total derivatives of polynomials over the Riemann tensor and its covariant derivatives.

We can add the following comment:

2) The latter type of the anomalies are the Weyl variations of local functionals of the metric. Taking into account the fact, that the definition of the measure in the functional integral can always be changed by multiplying the measure by an exponential of the local functionals (counterterms) of the metric, one can deduce, that the third (i.e. c)) type of solutions of the WZ condition are in that sense inessential and might be called trivial below.

So we can classify the possible anomalies in d=2 and d=4 in the following way:

1) In $`d=2`$ there is only a type A anomaly,

$$𝒜_2=\frac{c}{24\pi }R$$
(6)
where $`c`$ is the central charge of the corresponding $`CFT_2`$;

2) In d=4 there are nontrivial type A and B anomalies,

$$𝒜_4=\alpha E_4+\beta I_4$$
(7)
where $`E_4`$ is the Euler density and $`I_4`$ the square of the Weyl tensor,

$`E_4=R^{ijkl}R_{ijkl}4R^{ij}R_{ij}+R^2,`$ (8)
$`I_4=C^{ijkl}C_{ijkl}=R^{ijkl}R_{ijkl}+2R^{ij}R_{ij}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}R^2.`$ (9)
The constants $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ depend upon the specific mode content of the theory and interaction.

We now consider the change of the measure in the functional integral for the conformal matter field $`\phi `$ in the external gravitational field under the finite Weyl transformation (2).

The measure in the functional integral changes in the following way:

$$D_{e^{2\sigma (x)}g}\phi =D_g\phi \mathrm{exp}S(\sigma ;g)$$
(10)
This type of relation is very important since it is, for example, the starting point for the calculation of the critical exponent of $`2d`$ gravity .

The action $`S(\sigma ;g)`$ in (10) has to satisfy some conditions. First, in the case of infinitesimal transformations $`\delta \sigma (x)`$ it has to reproduce the trace anomaly:

$$S(\delta \sigma (x);g_{ij})=T_i^i\delta \sigma (x)\sqrt{g}d^{2k}x$$
(11)
Second, $`S(\sigma ;g)`$ has to satisfy the following property, which follows from the application of (10) to the composition of two Weyl transformations $`\sigma _1`$ and $`\sigma _2`$:

$$S(\sigma _1+\sigma _2;g)S(\sigma _1;e^{2\sigma _2}g)S(\sigma _2;g)=0$$
(12)
which means that $`S(\sigma ;g)`$ is the 1-cocycle of the group of Weyl transformations .

On the other hand, the action $`S(\sigma ;g)`$ coincides with the finite variation of the anomalous effective action, due to the properties (1) and (10). In other words

$$S(\sigma ,g)=W(e^{2\sigma }g)W(g),$$
(13)
and non-triviality of the cocycle $`S(\sigma ;g)`$ follows from the fact that $`W(g)`$ is a non-local, $`Diff(2k)`$-invariant functional of $`g_{\alpha \beta }`$ in the case of type A and B anomalies. Thus, we can easily calculate the trivial cocycles (type c)) as a coboundary of local counterterms $`W_0(g)`$ which we shall call from now on 0-cochains:

$$S_0(\sigma ,g)=\mathrm{}W_0(g),$$
(14)
where we have defined the coboundary operator $`\mathrm{}`$ on 0-cochains as the finite Weyl variation (13). Then we can define 1-cochains as local functions $`W_1(\sigma ,g)`$ of group parameter and metric with coboundary operator:

$$\mathrm{}W_1(\sigma _1,\sigma _2,g)=W_1(\sigma _1+\sigma _2;g)W_1(\sigma _1;e^{2\sigma _2}g)W_1(\sigma _2;g)$$
(15)
It is easy to see that $`\mathrm{}^2=0`$ which is exactly the cocyclic property (12). One can generalize this construction on higher cohomologies of the Weyl group .

The nontrivial cocycles can be obtained from the solution of eq. (12) with condition (11). To obtain the solution we have to take $`\sigma _2=\sigma `$ and $`\sigma _1=\delta \sigma `$ and get the differential form of (12):

$$\delta S(\sigma ;g)=S(\delta \sigma ;e^{2\sigma }g)=A(R(e^{2\sigma }g))\delta \sigma \sqrt{g}d^{2k}x.$$
(16)
The explicit form of the solution for the two-dimensional case is the well-known Liouville action

$$S_{d=2}(\sigma ,g)=\frac{c}{24\pi }d^2x\sqrt{g}(g^{ij}_i\sigma _j\sigma R\sigma ).$$
(17)
We can restore this cocycle in the usual way using the variation of the non-local effective action:

$$S_{d=2}(\sigma ,g)=\mathrm{}\frac{c}{96\pi }\sqrt{g}R\frac{1}{\sqrt{g}\mathrm{}}\sqrt{g}R.$$
(18)
In four dimensions the explicit form of the cocycle, corresponding to $`E_4`$, was first found in ,

$`S_E(\sigma ,g)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle }d^4x\sqrt{g}(2(_i\sigma ^i\sigma )^2+4_i\sigma ^i\sigma ^2\sigma `$ (19)
$`4(R^{ij}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g^{ij}R)_i\sigma _j\sigma \sigma E_4).`$
For type B anomaly in $`d=4`$ there is a linear nontrivial cocycle corresponding to the single invariant density $`C_{ijkl}C^{ijkl}`$:

$$S_C(\sigma ,g)=C_{ijkl}C^{ijkl}\sigma (x)\sqrt{g}d^4x.$$
(20)
This expression satisfies the cocyclic property (12) and can appear in the Weyl transformation of the measure (10). All other freedom in the definition of the cocycle of the Weyl group is connected with the special choice of local counterterms in the regularized effective action. These counterterms will generate trivial cocycles corresponding to the type c) full derivative contribution in the anomaly. In d=4 we have only one local counterterm with independent Weyl variation and therefore here we can obtain only one trivial cocycle:

$$S_0(\sigma ,g)=\mathrm{}R^2\sqrt{g}d^4x.$$
(21)
As was shown in  this trivial cocycle can be used to reduce the nontrivial one connected with the Euler density up to the second order in $`\sigma `$ with the fourth-order conformal-invariant differential operator acting on a scalar field of zero conformal weight as a kinetic term and then can be expressed as a Weyl variation of some nonlocal effective action (analog of Liouville theory in d=4). The same but much more complicated structure exists also in d=6  and d=8 . Finally we want to describe the cocycle of the Weyl group for $`𝒩=4`$ Super-Yang-Mills theory. It is well known that the anomaly of this theory vanishes for a Ricci-flat background  and has the following form:

$$𝒜=\alpha \left(E_{(4)}+I_{(4)}\right)=2\alpha \left(\frac{1}{3}R^2R^{ij}R_{ij}\right),\alpha =\frac{N^21}{64\pi ^2}.$$
(22)
We can easily solve our equation (16) and obtain the cocycle for the d=4, $`𝒩=4`$ SYM anomaly or we can consider this cocycle as a sum of (19) and (20) corresponding to Euler density and Weyl invariant $`I_4`$,

$`S_{\alpha (E+I)}(\sigma ,g)`$ $`=`$ $`2\alpha {\displaystyle }d^4x\sqrt{g}[(_i\sigma ^i\sigma )^2+2_i\sigma ^i\sigma ^2\sigma `$ (23)
$`2(R^{ij}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g^{ij}R)_i\sigma _j\sigma ({\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}R^2R^{ij}R_{ij})\sigma ].`$
## 3 Holographic Effective Action and Cocycle

We now try to derive the latter cocycle from the Heningson-Skenderis AdS construction. It is well known that the effective action of all maximally supersymmetric theories in d=3,4, and 6 can be derived from the on-shell d+1 dimensional gravitational action with asymptotically AdS classical solution :

$`W`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2k_{d+1}^2}}{\displaystyle _{M_{d+1}}}d^dx𝑑\rho \sqrt{G}\left(𝐑+2\mathrm{\Lambda }\right){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2k_{d+1}^2}}{\displaystyle _{M_d}}d^d\sigma \sqrt{\gamma }2K,`$ (24)
$`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{d(d1)}{2}},K=D_\mu n^\mu .`$ (25)
The boundary term (with $`\gamma `$ the induced metric, $`K`$ the trace of the extrinsic curvature and $`n^\mu `$ a unit vector normal to the boundary) is necessary in order to obtain an action which depends only on first derivatives of the metric and to obtain a well-defined variational problem with Dirichlet boundary conditions for the usual Einstein equations. The metric $`G_{\mu \nu }`$ is degenerate on the boundary and the boundary metric is defined up to conformal transformations. To obtain the anomalous effective action following standard procedures  we have to solve the equation of motion for this action using the Fefferman-Graham  coordinate system for $`d+1`$ dimensional metrics $`G_{\mu \nu }`$:

$`ds^2`$ $`=`$ $`G^{\mu \nu }dx^\mu dx^\nu ={\displaystyle \frac{d\rho ^2}{4\rho ^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{g_{ij}(\rho ,x)}{\rho }}dx^idx^j,`$ (26)
$`\mu ,\nu `$ $`=`$ $`\rho ,1,2,\mathrm{}d;i,j=1,2,\mathrm{}d,`$
$`g(x,\rho )`$ $`=`$ $`g_{(0)}+\mathrm{}+\rho ^{d/2}g_{(d)}+h_{(d)}\rho ^{d/2}\mathrm{ln}\rho +\mathrm{}.`$ (27)
The equations of motion determine $`g_{(n)}(x)`$ in terms of $`g_{(0)}(x)`$:

$`g_{(2)ij}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{d2}}(R_{ij}^{(0)}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2(d1)}}R^{(0)}g_{(0)ij}),`$ (28)
$`g_{(4)ij}=\mathrm{}.`$
We then have to insert this expansion of $`g`$ into the on-shell gravitational action (24) and perform the integration over $`\rho `$. However, the on-shell action diverges because the boundary metric is degenerate. We therefore we have to regularize the action using a restriction on the $`\rho `$ integral with some infrared cut-off $`\rho \epsilon `$, and evaluate the boundary term at $`\rho =\epsilon `$. Then

$$S=\frac{1}{2k_{d+1}^2}d^dx_{\rho \epsilon }𝑑\rho \frac{d}{\rho ^{\frac{d}{2}+1}}\sqrt{g(x,\rho )}\frac{1}{k_{d+1}^2}_{M_d^\epsilon }d^d\sigma \sqrt{\gamma }K.$$
(29)
The resulting on-shell effective action contains divergences as poles $`\frac{1}{\epsilon ^n}`$, a logarithmic divergence and a finite part (which is the essential effective action if we apply the minimal renormalization scheme):

$$W_{reg}=\frac{1}{2k^{d+1}}d^dx\sqrt{detg_{(0)}}\left(\epsilon ^{d/2}𝐚_{(0)}+\mathrm{}\mathrm{ln}\epsilon 𝐚_{(d)}\right)+W_{finite}.$$
(30)
From this expression we can easily recognize the anomalous behavior of the unknown $`W_{finite}`$ by investigating the behavior of the divergent terms with coefficients $`𝐚_{(n)},n=0,1,\mathrm{}.,d`$ with respect to scale transformation of the metric , $`\delta g_{(0)}=2\delta \sigma g_{(0)}`$ and $`\delta \epsilon =2\delta \sigma \epsilon `$, with constant $`\delta \sigma `$. Taking into account that the entire action (30) is invariant and all negative powers of $`\epsilon `$ terms are scale invariant, one can derive from variation of the logarithmically divergent term that the holographic anomaly is:

$$𝒜=\frac{1}{k^{d+1}}𝐚_{(d)}.$$
(31)
The explicit expressions of the logarithmically divergent terms  in $`d=2`$ and $`d=4`$ are: $`𝐚_{(2)}=\frac{1}{2}R`$ and $`𝐚_{(4)}=R^{ij}R_{ij}/8+R^2/24`$. The value of the gravitational constant in $`d=5`$ can be obtained from ,

$$\frac{1}{2\kappa _5^2}=\frac{N^2}{8\pi ^2},$$
(32)
where $`N`$ is the number of coincident $`D3`$ branes. It is easy to see that inserting this expression into (32), we can recognize the anomalous coefficient of $`𝒩=4`$ SYM in the large N limit. The origin of this anomaly generation is also well-known . There are special $`d+1`$ dimensional diffeomorphisms of asymptotic AdS space-time parameterized with one scalar function $`\sigma (x)`$ acting on the boundary as a Weyl transformation of the metric $`g_{(0)}`$.These diffeomorphisms leave the form of the Fefferman-Graham metric invariant. Solving this condition we can write down the following important formulas for such diffeomorphisms  in the form of power series in $`\rho ^{}`$:

$`\rho `$ $`=`$ $`\rho ^{}e^{2\sigma (x^{})}+{\displaystyle \underset{k=2}{}}a_{(k)}(x^{})\rho ^k,x^i=x^i+{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{}}a_{(k)}^i(x^{})\rho ^k,`$ (33)
$`a_{(2)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\sigma )^2e^{4\sigma },a_{(3)}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}e^{6\sigma }\left({\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}(\sigma )^2+^i\sigma ^j\sigma g_{(2)ij}\right),`$ (34)
$`a_{(1)}^i`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}^i\sigma e^{2\sigma },a_{(2)}^i={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}e^{4\sigma }\left(_k\sigma g_{(2)}^{ik}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}^i\sigma (\sigma )^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{kl}^i^k\sigma ^l\sigma \right).`$ (35)
The nice property of these diffeomorphisms is that the transformation rules for $`g_{(n)}`$ are the usual Weyl transformations of metric $`g_{(0)}`$:

$`g_{(0)ij}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`e^{2\sigma }g_{(0)ij},`$ (36)
$`g_{(2)ij}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`g_{(2)ij}+_i_j\sigma _i\sigma _j\sigma +{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(\sigma )^2g_{(0)ij},`$ (37)
$`g_{(2)ij}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{}.`$
The important point here is that the anomalies are described only by the logarithmic divergence originating only from the bulk integral. The interesting point about the boundary extrinsic curvature term is the following: there is no contribution from this term in the anomaly, because there is no $`\rho `$ integral there, and there is no $`\epsilon `$ independent $`R^2`$ order contribution from this term . We can easily check this from the definition of the boundary term at the point $`\rho =\epsilon `$ :

$$\frac{1}{2k^{d+1}}_{M_d}d^d\sigma \sqrt{\gamma }2D_\mu n^\mu =\frac{1}{2k^{d+1}}d^dx\frac{1}{\rho ^{d/2}}\left(2d\sqrt{detg(x,\rho )}+4\rho _\rho \sqrt{detg(x,\rho )}\right)|_{\rho =ϵ},$$
(38)
using the trivial identity

$$(2d+4\rho _\rho )\rho ^{d/2}=0.$$
(39)
In addition we can note that the coefficient $`h_{(d)}`$ in the expansion of the metric is traceless and there is no room for a contribution in the anomaly from this term also. The absence of an $`\epsilon `$ independent term is important because this $`R^2`$ type term could be considered like a local counterpart to the effective action and produce after Weyl variation a trivial ($`\mathrm{}R`$) contribution in the anomaly. We can now try to apply the special diffeomorphisms (33) to the divergence part of the effective action (30), and we can expect to obtain our cocycle (23) constructed earlier from the solution of the cohomological equation (12). Before doing that we note that the definitions of boundary and boundary term are invariant with respect to $`d+1`$ dimensional diffeomorphisms. Indeed, the definition of the regularized boundary $`X^\mu (\sigma )=(x^i=\sigma ^i,\rho =\epsilon )`$ will change after diffeomorphism to $`X^\mu (\sigma )=(x^i=x^i(\sigma ,\epsilon ),\rho ^{}=\rho ^{}(\sigma ,\epsilon ))`$ where $`x^i(x,\rho ),\rho ^{}(x,\rho )`$ are diffeomorphism functions inverse to those defined in (33). But the boundary term depends on the $`d+1`$ dimensional covariant divergence of the normal vector $`D_\mu ^{}n^\mu =D_\mu n^\mu `$ and on the induced metric $`\gamma _{ij}(\sigma )`$ which is also invariant:

$$\gamma _{ij}(\sigma )=G_{\mu \nu }\frac{X^\mu }{\sigma ^i}\frac{X^\nu }{\sigma ^i}=G_{\mu \nu }^{}\frac{X^\mu }{\sigma ^i}\frac{X^\nu }{\sigma ^i}.$$
(40)
Thus we can deduce that there is no contribution to the cocycle from the boundary term, just as there is no contribution from this term in the anomaly. Then we can concentrate on the pure bulk contribution in the effective action:

$$W_{reg}^{bulk}=\frac{1}{2k_{d+1}^2}d^dx_{\rho \epsilon }𝑑\rho \frac{d}{\rho ^{\frac{d}{2}+1}}\sqrt{g(x,\rho )}.$$
(41)
After integration in $`d=2,4`$ we obtain the divergent part of the action:

$`W_{d=2}^{bulk}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2k_{d+1}^2}}{\displaystyle d^dx\sqrt{g_{(0)}(x)}\left(\frac{2}{\epsilon }\mathrm{ln}\epsilon \frac{1}{2}R\right)},`$ (42)
$`W_{d=4}^{bulk}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2k_{d+1}^2}}{\displaystyle d^dx\sqrt{g_{(0)}(x)}\left(\frac{2}{\epsilon ^2}+\frac{1}{3\epsilon }R\mathrm{ln}\epsilon \left(\frac{1}{24}R^2\frac{1}{8}R^{ij}R_{ij}\right)\right)}.`$ (43)
We can now apply diffeomorphisms (33) to the bulk effective action (41) and calculate the cocycle of the Weyl group because this transformation reproduces on the boundary the usual Weyl transformation of the boundary metric. For this one should note that the integrand of (41) is the covariant volume $`\sqrt{G}`$, so that we get the following transformation of our parameters.Instead of initial coordinates $`x,\rho `$ , metric $`g(x,\rho )=g[g_0(x,\rho )]`$ and integration limit $`\rho =\epsilon `$, we have now $`x^{},\rho ^{},g^{}(x^{},\rho ^{})=g^{}[g_0^{}(x^{},\rho ^{})=e^{2\sigma (x^{})}g_0(x^{})]`$ and an $`x^{}`$-dependent integration limit $`\rho ^{}=f(x^{},\epsilon )`$, where $`f(x^{},\epsilon )`$ is the solution with respect to $`\rho ^{}`$ of the equation

$$\epsilon =\rho (x^{},\rho ^{})=\rho ^{}e^{2\sigma (x^{})}+\underset{k=2}{}a_{(k)}(x^{})\rho ^k$$
(44)
which follows from (33) to (37). The solution of (44) is

$`\rho ^{}`$ $`=`$ $`f(x^{},\epsilon )=\epsilon e^{2\sigma (x^{})}+{\displaystyle \underset{k=2}{}}b_{(k)}(x^{})\epsilon ^k,`$ (45)
$`b_{(2)}(x^{})`$ $`=`$ $`a_{(2)}(x^{})e^{6\sigma (x^{})}={\displaystyle \frac{e^{2\sigma (x^{})}}{2}}_i\sigma (x^{})_j\sigma (x^{})g_{(0)}^{ij},`$ (46)
$`b_{(3)}(x^{})`$ $`=`$ $`2a_{(2)}^2(x^{})e^{10\sigma (x^{})}a_{(2)}(x^{})e^{8\sigma (x^{})}`$ (47)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e^{2\sigma (x^{})}}{4}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{5}{4}}(\sigma )^4_i\sigma (x^{})_j\sigma (x^{})g_{(2)}^{ij}\right),`$
$`b_{(4)}(x^{})`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{}.`$
Finally we have to calculate the cocycle by performing the following transformation of the divergent part of the bulk effective action

$`S(\sigma ,g_{(0)})`$ $`=`$ $`\underset{\epsilon 0}{lim}[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2k_{d+1}^2}}{\displaystyle }d^dx^{}{\displaystyle _{\rho ^{}f(x^{},\epsilon )}}d\rho ^{}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{\rho ^{\frac{d}{2}+1}}}\sqrt{g^{}(x^{},\rho ^{})}`$ (48)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2k_{d+1}^2}}{\displaystyle }d^dx{\displaystyle _{\rho \epsilon }}d\rho {\displaystyle \frac{d}{\rho ^{\frac{d}{2}+1}}}\sqrt{g(x,\rho )}].`$
Actually for calculation of the transformed action in $`d=2,4`$ we only have to replace in (42) to (43) $`\epsilon `$ by $`f(x^{},\epsilon )`$ and $`g_{(0)}`$ by $`g_{(0)}^{}`$. We use the following formulas

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f(x^{},\epsilon )}}`$ $`=`$ $`e^{2\sigma (x^{})}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\epsilon }}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_i\sigma (x^{})_j\sigma (x^{})g_{(0)}^{ij}+𝒪(\epsilon )\right],`$ (49)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{f(x^{},\epsilon )^2}}`$ $`=`$ $`e^{4\sigma (x^{})}[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\epsilon ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\epsilon }}_i\sigma (x^{})_j\sigma (x^{})g_{(0)}^{ij}`$ (50)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}(\sigma )^4+_i\sigma (x^{})_j\sigma (x^{})g_{(2)}^{ij})+𝒪(\epsilon )],`$
$`𝐚_{(2)}^{}(g_{(0)}^{})`$ $`=`$ $`e^{2\sigma }\left(𝐚_{(2)}(g_{(0)})+\mathrm{}\sigma \right),d=2,`$ (51)
$`𝐚_{(4)}^{}(g_{(0)}^{})`$ $`=`$ $`e^{4\sigma }[𝐚_{(4)}(g_{(0)}){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_i((R_{(0)}^{ij}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}R_{(0)}g_{(0)}^{ij})_j\sigma `$ (52)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}^j(\sigma )^2^i\sigma \mathrm{}\sigma ^i\sigma (\sigma )^2)]d=4.`$
We find that in (48) all divergences will cancel for both $`d=2,4`$ cases (which is a nice indication of the correctness of our idea) and we obtain the following finite expressions for (48) in $`d=2,4`$

$`S^{d=2}(\sigma ,g_{(0)})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2k_3^2}}{\displaystyle d^2x\sqrt{g}(g^{ij}_i\sigma _j\sigma R_{(0)}\sigma )},`$ (53)
$`S^{d=4}(\sigma ,g_{(0)})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2k_5^2}}{\displaystyle }d^4x\sqrt{g}[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}(\sigma )^4+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{}\sigma (\sigma )^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(R_{(0)}^{ij}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}R_{(0)}g_{(0)}^{ij})_i\sigma _j\sigma `$ (54)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}R_{(0)}^2R_{(0)}^{ij}R_{ij}^{(0)})\sigma ].`$
These expressions are in full agreement with (17) and (23) after using the standard relation $`\frac{1}{2k_3^2}=\frac{c}{24\pi }`$ and the $`5d`$ gravitational constant (32). Thus we have shown that finite diffeomorphisms (33) applied to bulk contributions of the AdS effective action generate cocycles of the Weyl group in dimensions $`2`$ and $`4`$ with the right form.

## 4 Conclusion

Above we considered the 1-cocycle of the Weyl group (i.e. integral trace anomaly) in the AdS/CFT approach. We have shown that special $`d+1`$ dimensional diffeomorphisms  of the finite form  applied to the divergent part of the AdS action originating from the bulk integral reproduce the 1-cocycle of the Weyl group corresponding to the correct anomaly in $`d=2,4`$. It will be interesting to extend this consideration to $`d=6`$. This will be interesting because the renormalization properties of anomaly coefficients in $`AdS_7/CFT_6`$ still lack explanation because we still do not have a good explanation of the renormalization of the Euler density coefficient from the weak to the strong-coupling regimes  for the (2,0) tensor multiplet, like the difference in the $`R`$-symmetry anomaly structure for this multiplet in weak and strong-coupling regimes . Thus any investigation in the field of anomalous behavior in the AdS/CFT picture will be interesting and important.

## 5 Acknowledgements

R. Manvelyan acknowledges financial support of DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft). This work was also partially supported by INTAS grant No:99-0590.