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# Slow group velocity and Cherenkov radiation.

The recent observation of ultraslow group velocities in coherently driven media  has opened the way towards new regimes of light propagation  and non–linear optics at very weak intensities . In this letter, we investigate the effect of ultraslow group velocities on the Cherenkov radiation emitted by a charged particle uniformly moving with a velocity larger than the phase velocity of light. In the case of isotropic and non-dispersive media, the surface on which the intensity peaks coincides with the well known wave cone orthogonal to the wavevector of the emitted light and the aperture of which is determined by the usual Cherenkov coherence condition. In the case of highly dispersive media, as we show here, the intensity is instead peaked on the surface of a group cone  neither orthogonal to the phase nor to the group velocity of the emitted light and much narrower than the wave cone. First, we develop a general theory for Cherenkov emission in arbitrary dispersive and non-isotropic media from which we obtain analytical expressions for the electric field intensity profile and, in particular, for the group cone aperture. Then, as an example, we investigate the optical properties of a coherently driven ultracold atomic cloud of $`{}_{}{}^{23}\text{Na}`$ atoms which appears to be amenable to the observation of such a singular behaviour. A clear distinction between wave cone and group cone is expected to clarify the role of the group velocity in the process of Cherenkov emission.

Consider a charged point-like particle moving with constant velocity $`𝐰=w\widehat{𝐳}=c\beta \widehat{𝐳}`$ through a non-absorptive and homogeneous medium characterized by an anisotropic and dispersive hermitian dielectric tensor $`\widehat{ϵ}(\omega )=ϵ_{i,j}(\omega )`$. The effects of a weak absorption will be considered afterward for the case of interest. Using Maxwell equations in Fourier space, we write the $`(𝐤,\omega )`$ component of the radiated electromagnetic field $`𝐄(𝐤,\omega )`$ in terms of the corresponding Fourier components of the current density $`𝐉(𝐤,\omega )=2\pi q\delta (\omega 𝐤𝐰)𝐰`$ as

$$𝐄(𝐤,\omega )=\frac{4\pi i\omega }{c^2}\left(k^2\widehat{𝒫}^𝐤\frac{\omega ^2}{c^2}\widehat{ϵ}(\omega )\right)^1𝐉(𝐤,\omega )$$
(1)
where $`\widehat{𝒫}_{i,j}^𝐤=\delta _{i,j}\frac{k_ik_j}{k^2}`$ is the projection operator onto the subspace orthogonal to $`𝐤`$ and $`k^2=_ik_ik_i`$ is the square modulus of $`𝐤`$.

The poles of (1) determine the propagating modes of the electromagnetic field through the well-known Fresnel equation

$$\left(k^2\widehat{𝒫}^𝐤\frac{\omega _\alpha ^2}{c^2}\widehat{ϵ}(\omega _\alpha )\right)𝐞^{(\alpha )}=0.$$
(2)
For each wavevector $`𝐤`$, the different modes are characterized by the frequency $`\omega _\alpha `$ and the polarization unit vector $`𝐞^{(\alpha )}`$ normalized as $`𝐞^{(\alpha )}|𝐞^{(\alpha )}=_i𝐞_i^{(\alpha )}𝐞_i^{(\alpha )}=1`$. We will not account here for longitudinal modes, assuming $`\omega ^20`$ and $`\text{det}[\widehat{ϵ}(\omega )]0`$ for all values of $`\omega `$. For each mode, the group velocity can be shown to be

$$𝐯_g^{(\alpha )}=_𝐤\omega _\alpha =c^2\frac{2𝐤𝐞^{(\alpha )}𝐞^{(\alpha )}|𝐤𝐞^{(\alpha )}𝐤|𝐞^{(\alpha )}}{𝐞^{(\alpha )}\left|\frac{}{\omega }\left(\omega ^2\widehat{ϵ}(\omega )\right)\right|𝐞^{(\alpha )}}.$$
(3)
We shall also restrict our attention to the simple case of a medium with rotational symmetry around the direction of the charge velocity; in this case, the revolution symmetry of the dispersion surface $`\omega _\alpha (𝐤)=\omega `$ guarantees the parallelism of the components of the group velocity and the wavevector perpendicular to the $`\widehat{𝐳}`$ axis.

The electric field at a position $`𝐱=(𝐱_{},z)=(x_{}\widehat{𝐮}_{},z)`$ can be obtained from the inverse Fourier transform of (1). At sufficiently large distances from the charge trajectory, only the poles of (1) effectively contribute to the Fourier transform. In fact, the electric field at these distances is given by the resonant excitation of propagating modes, while the non-resonant contribution from all other modes decays out in space with a faster power law . Within such an approximation we can write for the $`i^{th}`$ component,

$`E_i(𝐱_{},z,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2iq}{c^2}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\omega {\displaystyle \underset{\alpha =1,2}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{k_{}^{(\alpha )}\omega 𝐞^{(\alpha )}|\widehat{𝐰}}{\mu _\alpha }}`$ (4)
$`\times `$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2\pi k_{}^{(\alpha )}x_{}}}}e^{ik_{}^{(\alpha )}x_{}}e^{i\frac{\omega }{w}(zwt)}𝐞_i^{(\alpha )}.`$ (5)
Here, $`\widehat{𝐰}=𝐰/w`$ is the direction of the charge velocity $`𝐰`$ and $`\mu _\alpha =𝐞^{(\alpha )}\left|\frac{}{k_{}}\left(k^2\widehat{𝒫}^𝐤\right)\right|𝐞^{(\alpha )}`$ is a weight factor. In obtaining the expression (5) the angular integration in $`𝐤_{}`$ has been already performed in the large $`k_{}x_{}`$ limit so that, for each position $`𝐱_{}`$, only the field components with $`𝐤_{}`$ parallel to $`𝐱_{}`$ have a stationary phase and therefore give a nonvanishing contribution to the integral.

Depending on the velocity of the charged particle, for each direction $`\widehat{𝐮}_{}`$ and frequency $`\omega `$, at most two distinct poles at $`k_{}^{(\alpha )}`$ ($`\alpha =1,2`$) contribute to the integral, which correspond to propagating modes with wavevector $`𝐤^{(\alpha )}=(k_{}^{(\alpha )}\widehat{𝐮}_{},\omega /w)`$ and polarization $`𝐞^{(\alpha )}`$. As shown in fig.1, at a given frequency $`\omega `$ Cherenkov light is emitted into the mode $`\alpha `$ only if the $`k_z=\omega /c\beta `$ plane has a non-vanishing intersection with the dispersion surface $`\omega _\alpha (𝐤)=\omega `$ of the mode. In the case of a medium with rotational symmetry, this condition is satisfied if the particle velocity exceeds the phase velocity of mode $`\alpha `$ for $`𝐤`$ parallel to $`𝐰`$, i.e.

$$\beta ^2>\frac{\omega ^2}{c^2k^{(\alpha )2}}|_{𝐤𝐰}=\frac{1}{ϵ_{}^{(\alpha )}(\omega )}$$
(6)
and the intersection is the $`k_{}=k_{}^{(\alpha )}`$ circle. Here $`ϵ_{}^{(\alpha )}(\omega )`$ are the eigenvalues of the dielectric constant in the plane perpendicular to the $`\widehat{𝐳}`$ axis. For an isotropic medium, the condition (6) reduces to the usual Cherenkov condition $`\beta ^2ϵ(\omega )>1`$ .

The theory developed up to now has considered the case of a non-absorptive medium for which the poles $`k_{}^{(\alpha )}`$ are real; the effect of a weak absorption consists in the introduction of a small and positive imaginary part $`\text{Im}[k_{}^{(\alpha )}]`$ in the argument of the exponential in (5) without modifying the pole structure of the integral. The resulting damping factor $`e^{\text{Im}[k_{}^{(\alpha )}]x_{}}`$ accounts for absorption of the emitted radiation during propagation.

We now consider a medium with a narrow transparency window centered at $`\overline{\omega }`$; for a single polarization state $`\alpha =1`$, the absorption factor in the neighborhood of $`\overline{\omega }`$ can be approximated by $`\text{Im}[k_{}^{(1)}]\frac{\eta }{2}(\omega \overline{\omega })^2`$ with $`\eta =^2\text{Im}[k_{}^{(1)}]/\omega ^2`$. Inserting this expression into (5), we finally obtain an explicit expression for the electric field intensity profile

$$\left|𝐄(𝐱,t)\right|^2=\frac{Aq^2}{x_{}^2}\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{1}{\eta x_{}}\left(\frac{z}{w}+\frac{x_{}}{v_r}t\right)^2\right]\left|𝐞^{(1)}|\widehat{𝐰}\right|^2,$$
(7)
where $`𝐞^{(1)}`$ is the polarization vector of the mode at frequency $`\overline{\omega }`$ and $`A=4k_{}^{(1)}\overline{\omega }^2/c^4\mu _1^2\eta `$. The radial velocity $`v_r`$ is defined according to

$$v_r^1=\left[\frac{k_{}}{\omega }|_{k_z=\frac{\overline{\omega }}{w}}\right]=\frac{wv_g^{}}{wv_g^{}}$$
(8)
where $`v_g^{}`$ and $`v_g^{}`$ are respectively the perpendicular and parallel components of the group velocity $`𝐯_g^{(1)}`$ with respect to the direction $`\widehat{𝐰}=𝐰/w`$ of the charge velocity. As it can be observed in fig.2, sufficiently far from the charge, i.e. at points $`x_{}\xi =\eta v_r^2`$, the electric field intensity (7) is peaked on the group cone described by

$$\frac{x_{}}{v_r}+\frac{z}{w}=t$$
(9)
whose aperture $`\theta `$ is equal to

$$\mathrm{tan}\theta =v_r/w.$$
(10)
In general, $`\theta `$ is different from the aperture $`\varphi `$ of the wave cone orthogonal to the wavevectors of the emitted radiation, which is instead given by $`\mathrm{tan}\varphi =\overline{\omega }/wk_{}^{(1)}`$. A simple physical interpretation of the group cone can be put forward in terms of group velocity  considering that, for each direction around the charge velocity, the burst of Cherenkov light is emitted into a group of modes centered at $`𝐤^{(1)}`$ while the peak of the pulse moves in space with a velocity equal to the group velocity $`𝐯_g^{(1)}`$ experiencing an almost negligible absorption. The cone defined by this geometrical construction (fig.3) can be proven in all cases to be equivalent to the group cone defined by (9) and to coincide, for the case of an isotropic medium, with the group cone introduced by Frank . Notice that this cone turns out to be in general neither orthogonal to the group velocity nor to the wavevector. In the case of isotropic and non-dispersive media, in which $`𝐯_g=𝐯_{ph}=\frac{c}{n}\widehat{𝐤}`$, $`n`$ being the refractive index, the group and the wave cones coincide and have an aperture $`\varphi `$ defined by the usual Cherenkov condition $`\beta n\mathrm{sin}\varphi =1`$.

The weak dispersion of common dielectrics makes the difference between the group and the wave cones very small and has prevented upto now its experimental observation . When the group velocity is much smaller than the phase velocity the group cone is expected to be well separated from the wave cone (fig.3) and to have an extremely narrow shape $`\theta 1`$. Following the recent observations of ultraslow light in coherently driven hot  and cold  atomic gases, such media appear as promising candidates for the experimental characterization of the role of group velocity in Cherenkov radiation.

Consider a cloud of ultracold atoms  in a three-level $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$-type configuration and take, as a specific example, the case of $`{}_{}{}^{23}\text{Na}`$ atoms (fig.4) magnetically trapped in the $`M_F=1`$ sublevel of the $`F_g=1`$ ground state. Let $`\omega _g`$ be the frequency of such a state. The other hyperfine component of the $`\text{S}_{1/2}`$ ground state is a metastable state with $`F_m=2`$ approximately $`1.8\text{GHz}`$ blue-detuned with respect to the ground state. A weak coherent field polarized along the trap magnetic field drives the optical transition from the metastable state to the $`F_e=2`$ hyperfine component of the $`\text{P}_{1/2}`$ excited state. Its Rabi frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is smaller than the excited state linewidth $`\gamma _e2\pi 10\text{MHz}`$ while its frequency is taken to be exactly on resonance with the transition between the $`M_F=0`$ Zeeman components $`\omega _{dr}=\omega _e[M_F=0]\omega _m[M_F=0]`$. Assuming the charge velocity to be parallel to the trap magnetic field, the rotational symmetry of the system around the $`\widehat{𝐳}`$ axis implies  the following decomposition of the dielectric tensor $`\widehat{ϵ}(\omega )=ϵ_z(\omega )|\widehat{𝐳}\widehat{𝐳}|+ϵ_+(\omega )|\widehat{\sigma }_+\widehat{\sigma }_+|+ϵ_{}(\omega )|\widehat{\sigma }_{}\widehat{\sigma }_{}|`$. For each frequency $`\omega `$ and direction $`\widehat{𝐤}`$, the two propagating modes defined by (2) are generally non-degenerate except at high symmetry points and have elliptical polarizations; from the point of view of the spatial symmetry of the optical constants, the polarized atomic cloud is in fact not only uniaxial, but also optically active. Since the linewidth $`\gamma _m`$ of the metastable $`m`$ state is orders of magnitude smaller  than that of the excited $`e`$ state $`\gamma _e`$, electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) occurs on the $`\widehat{\sigma }_+`$ polarization in a narrow frequency window of linewidth $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\mathrm{\Omega }^2/\gamma _e\gamma _e`$ around $`\omega _+=\omega _e[M_F=0]\omega _g`$  where absorption is quenched and dispersion enhanced so as to give slow light propagation. In the same frequency window $`\omega \omega _+`$, the transitions from the ground state to the $`M_F=2,1`$ sublevels of the excited state are sufficiently off-resonance ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _{z,}=\omega _e[M_F=1,2]\omega _e[M_F=0]\gamma _e`$) so as to give a positive and relatively frequency-flat background contribution to the $`\widehat{\sigma }_{}`$ and $`\widehat{𝐳}`$ components of the dielectric tensor

$`ϵ_+`$ $`=`$ $`1+{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi f_+}{\omega _+i\gamma _e\omega \frac{\left|\mathrm{\Omega }\right|^2}{\omega _+i\gamma _m\omega }}}`$ (11)
$`ϵ_{z,}`$ $`=`$ $`1+4\pi \chi _{z,}^{\mathrm{}}=1+{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi f_{z,}}{\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _{z,}}}.`$ (12)
The oscillator strengths $`f_{\pm ,z}`$ are proportional to the atomic density times the square of the dipole moment of the optical transition and differ from each other depending on the relevant Clebsch-Gordan coefficients. The detunings $`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _{z,}`$ follow from the Zeeman splitting of the atomic levels, which implies that the background refraction can be experimentally controlled by tuning the magnetic field; with $`{}_{}{}^{23}\text{Na}`$ atoms, a splitting $`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _{}`$ of about $`2\pi 40\text{MHz}`$ occurs in a reasonable magnetic field of the order of $`80\text{G}`$. Given the different magnetic moments of metastable and excited states, the weak dressing field can not effectively dress the optical transitions other than the resonant one between the $`M_F=0`$ sublevels. Thanks to their large detuning with respect to $`\omega _+`$, all transitions involving the other hyperfine components of the excited state can be neglected.

The threshold velocity (6) for Cherenkov emission at $`\omega _+`$ is determined by the background refractive index (12). If the velocity is larger than the threshold value, light is radiated into a mode with non-vanishing $`k_{}^{(1)}`$; in presence of EIT, such a radiation will propagate with ultraslow group velocity without being absorbed. The magnitude of the group velocity (3) is mainly determined by the dispersive properties of EIT while its direction depends on the background refractive index only. Group velocities as low as $`17\text{m/sec}`$ have been reported in an ultracold sodium gas  and this means that the group cone would have an extremely narrow shape, practically a cylindrical one ($`\theta 1`$). From the parameters of , the characteristic length $`\xi =\eta v_r^2\eta v_g^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}`$ turns out of the order of $`10\mu \text{m}`$ and the background susceptibility $`4\pi \chi _{z,}^{\mathrm{}}`$ is of the order of $`10^2`$, i.e. much larger than that usually found in gas Cherenkov counters .

The theory we have developed is based on the assumption of a homogeneous medium. This approximation is reasonable provided the overall size of the atomic cloud is much larger than the wavelength of the Cherenkov light whose detection should be performed within the cloud itself so to avoid reflection effects at the edges of the cloud. For the case of EIT media, a picture of the group cone can be taken exploiting the very large cross section for resonant two-photon absorption processes : the absorption coefficient experienced by a laser field on resonance with another optical transition starting from the $`M_F=0`$ sublevel of the metastable $`m`$ state is in fact proportional to the local intensity of the Cherenkov radiation at $`\omega _+`$ which forms the narrow group cone . Since the interaction of the charge with the atoms of the cloud results not only on Cherenkov emission but also on other heating and ionization processes , it is necessary to reduce the importance of such short-range processes by making the charge travel in a region of space free from atoms. For the case of an atomic cloud, this can be achieved e.g. by using the repulsive potential of a blue-detuned laser so as to create a sort of “tunnel” through the cloud; a small cylindrical hole with a radius of the order of the wavelength does reduce the yield of the Cherenkov radiation, but does not affect the qualitative features of the Cherenkov pulse propagating in the surrounding medium . Unfortunately, the intensity of the Cherenkov radiation emitted by a single electron is rather low. For the $`{}_{}{}^{23}\text{Na}`$ parameters and statistically independent electrons, a photon is emitted in the mode under consideration each $`10^7`$ electrons. This problem may be overcome by looking at the electric field generated by a very large number of electrons at a time: since the radial velocity $`v_r`$ is much smaller than the charge velocity $`w`$, the profile of the group cone would not be smeared out even if the spatial extension of the bunch of electrons is much longer than the wavelength of the emitted light.

In summary, we have developed a general theory for Cherenkov emission in arbitrary non-isotropic and dispersive dielectrics and we have given an analytic expression for the group cone over which the intensity of the emitted light is maximum. Unlike in isotropic and non-dispersive media, the group cone is here much narrower than the wave cone defined by the usual Cherenkov coherence condition and is neither orthogonal to the phase nor the group velocity. This conceptual distinction becomes of great physical relevance in media exhibiting slow light propagation. For the realistic case of a coherently driven ultracold $`{}_{}{}^{23}\text{Na}`$ gas, the geometrical and dispersive properties of the dielectric tensor are shown to be favourable to the experimental characterization of the role of the group velocity in the process of Cherenkov emission.

I. C. and G.L. thank F. Illuminati and S. de Siena for enlightening discussions.


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# The Space Filling Dirichlet 3-Brane in 𝑁=2, 𝐷=4 Superspace

## 1 INTRODUCTION

In  Volkov and Akulov proposed the first four–dimensional field theoretical model which possessed space–time supersymmetry. The model was constructed in such a way that (as we assume to be realized in nature) supersymmetry is broken spontaneously with a “neutrino” playing the role of the associated fermionic Goldstone particle. This was the first example of a mechanism of spontaneous breaking of global supersymmetry which was generalized by Volkov and Soroka  to the super–Higgs effect in the first supergravity model with spontaneously broken local supersymmetry .

Later on it has been realized  that models of the Volkov–Akulov type describe supersymmetric effective field theories exhibiting partial supersymmetry breaking on the worldvolumes of branes. This subject has recently faced a significant revival of interest due to the extensive study of various aspects of brane physics (see e.g. ).

The aim of this work is to study peculiarities of the superembedding description  of a space filling D(irichlet)3–brane propagating in an $`N=2`$, $`D=4`$ superspace and to establish the relationship of this covariant geometrical formulation with a Goldstone superfield formulation of an $`N=1`$, $`D=4`$ supersymmetric Dirac–Born–Infeld theory  based on methods of nonlinear realizations first applied to supersymmetry by Volkov and Akulov.

We shall show that the superembedding conditions and worldvolume gauge field constraints do not put D3–brane dynamics in $`D=4`$ on the mass shell, in contrast, for example, to the case of a D3–brane  and a D9–brane  in type IIB D=10 supergravity. A geometrical consequence of these conditions is the Grassmann analyticity of both the $`N=1`$, $`D=4`$ superworldvolume and $`N=2`$, $`D=4`$ target superspace. This is an extension to the D3–brane of results on the relationship of the superembedding condition with Grassmann analyticity properties of supermanifolds observed previously in the cases of an $`N=1`$, $`D=4`$ superparticle and an $`N=1`$, $`D=4`$ superstring .

The fact that the superembedding conditions are off–shell constraints will allow us to construct a worldvolume superfield action for the space filling D3–brane which we briefly discuss in the end of this contribution.

Notation. We use the formalism of two-dimensional Weyl spinors both in $`N=1`$, $`D=4`$ superworldvolume and in $`N=2`$, $`D=4`$ target superspace. Since the D3–brane in $`D=4`$ is a space filling brane we can always gauge fix local Lorentz rotations in the worldvolume in such a way that they coincide with Lorentz transformations in the target superspace. So there is no need to distinguish between the vector and spinor indices corresponding to the tangent spaces of superworldvolume and target superspace. Small letters of the Greek and Latin alphabet stand, respectively for spinor and vector indices, e.g. $`\alpha ,\dot{\alpha }=1,2;a,b=0,1,2,3`$. Capital Latin letters denote both the spinor and vector indices. The curved target superspace indices denoted by the letters from the second half of the alphabets are underlined to indicate that the worldvolume and target space superdiffeomorphism groups are a priori independent.

## 2 SUPEREMBEDDING CONDITIONS

In the case of the space filling superbranes the basic superembedding condition reads  that the superembedding of the brane superworldvolume into a target superspace is carried out in such a way that (using local Lorentz transformations on the worldvolume and in target superspace) it is always possible to choose the vector component $`e^a`$ of a worldvolume supervielbein

$$e^A(z)=(e^a,e^\alpha ,\overline{e}^{\dot{\alpha }}),z^M=(\xi ^m,\eta ^\mu ,\overline{\eta }^{\dot{\mu }})$$
(1)
to coincide with the pullback of the vector component $`E^a`$ of a target space supervielbein

$`E^A(Z)`$ $`=`$ $`(E^a,E^{I\alpha },\overline{E}^{I\dot{\alpha }}),`$
$`Z^{\underset{¯}{M}}`$ $`=`$ $`(X^{\underset{¯}{m}},\mathrm{\Theta }^{I\underset{¯}{\mu }},\overline{\mathrm{\Theta }}^{I\underset{¯}{\overset{\dot{}}{\mu }}}),I=1,2.`$ (2)
Namely,

$$e^a=E^a(Z(z)).$$
(3)
Note that by imposing (3) we have identified the group of local Lorentz rotations in the tangent space of the superworldvolume with that of the target space Lorentz group, while the worldvolume superdiffeomorphisms still remain an independent group of transformations, and can be used (as we will do in the final stage of our analysis), to impose a physical gauge

$$\xi ^m=X^m,\eta ^\mu =\mathrm{\Theta }^{1\mu },\overline{\eta }^{\dot{\mu }}=\overline{\mathrm{\Theta }}^{1\dot{\mu }}.$$
(4)
In this gauge the theory remains manifestly invariant under $`N=1`$, $`D=4`$ supersymmetry associated with the supertranslations along $`\eta ^\mu `$ and $`\overline{\eta }^{\dot{\mu }}`$, while the second target space supersymmetry associated with the $`\mathrm{\Theta }^2`$ translations is realized nonlinearly in the transformation law of $`\mathrm{\Theta }^{2\mu }(z)`$, which implies its spontaneous breaking,

$$\delta \mathrm{\Theta }^2=ϵ^2+i(ϵ^2\sigma ^a\overline{\mathrm{\Theta }}^2+\mathrm{\Theta }^2\sigma ^a\overline{ϵ}^2)_a\mathrm{\Theta }^2.$$
(5)
Thus $`\mathrm{\Theta }^{2\mu }(z)`$ is the Volkov–Akulov Goldstone fermion associated with the half of $`N=2`$, $`D=4`$ supersymmetry spontaneously broken by the D3–brane.

As a consequence of (3) the pullback of $`E^a`$ along the Grassmann directions (1) of the superworldvolume is zero. If the target superspace is flat (which is the case of our interest)

$$E^a=dX^aid\mathrm{\Theta }^{I\alpha }\sigma _{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}^a\overline{\mathrm{\Theta }}^{I\dot{\alpha }}+i\mathrm{\Theta }^{I\alpha }\sigma _{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}^ad\overline{\mathrm{\Theta }}^{I\dot{\alpha }},$$
(6)
and eq. (3) implies

$$E_\alpha ^a=𝒟_\alpha X^ai𝒟_\alpha \mathrm{\Theta }^I\sigma ^a\overline{\mathrm{\Theta }}^Ii\mathrm{\Theta }^I\sigma ^a𝒟_\alpha \overline{\mathrm{\Theta }}^I=0,$$

$$E_{\dot{\alpha }}^a=\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\alpha }}X^ai𝒟_\alpha \mathrm{\Theta }^I\sigma ^m\overline{\mathrm{\Theta }}^Ii\mathrm{\Theta }^I\sigma ^a\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\alpha }}\overline{\mathrm{\Theta }}^I=0,$$
(7)
where $`𝒟_\alpha `$ and $`\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\alpha }}`$ are worldvolume covariant derivatives.

As far as the spinor components of the worldvolume supervielbein (1) are concerned, by a simple redefinition they can always be chosen to coincide with the pullback of one of the two spinor components of the target space supervielbein (2). For instance, we can choose

$$e^\alpha =E^{1\alpha },\overline{e}^{\dot{\alpha }}=\overline{E}^{\dot{1\alpha }}.$$
(8)
(Such a choice reflects the possibility of gauge fixing kappa–symmetry by putting $`\mathrm{\Theta }^1|_{\eta =0}=0`$ in the conventional Green–Schwarz formulation of the Dirichlet brane dynamics ).

Then the generic expression for the pullbacks of the fermionic one–forms $`E^{2\alpha }`$ and $`\overline{E}^{2\dot{\alpha }}`$ in the worldvolume local frame (3) and (8) is

$$E^{2\alpha }=E^{1\beta }h_\beta ^\alpha (z)+\overline{E}^{1\dot{\alpha }}C_{\dot{\alpha }}^\alpha (z)+E^a\psi _a^\alpha (z),$$
(9)
$$\overline{E}^{2\dot{\alpha }}=\overline{E}^{1\dot{\beta }}\overline{h}_{\dot{\beta }}^{\dot{\alpha }}(z)+E^{1\alpha }\overline{C}_\alpha ^{\dot{\alpha }}(z)+E^a\overline{\psi }_a^{\dot{\alpha }}(z).$$

Note that in the flat target superspace

$$E^{I\alpha }=d\mathrm{\Theta }^{I\alpha },\overline{E}^{I\dot{\alpha }}=d\overline{\mathrm{\Theta }}^{I\dot{\alpha }},$$
(10)
and

$`h_\beta ^\alpha (z)`$ $`=`$ $`𝒟_\beta \mathrm{\Theta }^{2\alpha },\psi _a^\alpha (z)=𝒟_a\mathrm{\Theta }^{2\alpha },`$
$`C_{\dot{\alpha }}^\alpha (z)`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\alpha }}\mathrm{\Theta }^{2\alpha },`$ (11)
the analogous expressions being valid for the complex conjugate superfields $`\overline{h}`$, $`\overline{C}`$ and $`\overline{\psi }`$.

The possibility of identifying the worldvolume supervielbein with the “pulled back” components (3) and (8) of the target space supervielbein implies that in flat target superspace the induced superworldvolume geometry is also flat, and that the worldvolume spin connection is zero. This is natural, since the brane worldvolume completely fills in (or coincides with) the bosonic core of the flat target superspace. We should note that though the superworldvolume is flat the supervielbein $`e^A`$ defined by (3) and (8) differs from the standard flat superspace basis

$$e_0^A=(d\xi ^aid\eta \sigma ^a\overline{\eta }+i\eta \sigma ^ad\overline{\eta },d\eta ^\alpha ,d\overline{\eta }^{\dot{\alpha }}).$$
(12)
This, in particular, implies that the superworldvolume covariant derivatives $`𝒟_A`$ in (7) and (2) associated with the basis (3) and (8) differ from conventional flat covariant derivatives and form a more complicated superalgebra, which we shall present a bit later.

The integrability of (9) and (10) requires some differential relations between the components $`h(z),C(z)`$ and $`\psi (z)`$ of the superforms (9), however the integrability of the superembedding condition (3), which implies that the worldvolume torsion is the pullback of the target space torsion

$`de^a=dE^aT^a`$
$`=2iE^{\alpha 1}\overline{E}^{\dot{\alpha }1}\sigma _{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}^a`$ $``$ $`2iE^{\alpha 2}\overline{E}^{\dot{\alpha }2}\sigma _{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}^a,`$ (13)
does not put any further restrictions on $`h`$, $`C`$, and $`\psi `$, and these superfields are still too general to be associated with the physical modes of the D3–brane, which form a gauge vector supermultiplet.

The situation when the basic superembedding condition is not enough to determine the dynamics of the brane even off the mass shell is generic for the space–filling  and codimension one  branes. In such cases, for the superembedding to describe superbrane dynamics, an additional constraint should be imposed 111Note that these additional constraints are reproduced by the generalized action  on the same footing as the basic superembedding conditions and the dynamical equations of motion.. In our case this is a constraint on an ‘extended’ field–strength two–form

$$F_2=dAB_2$$
(14)
of a worldvolume gauge field $`dz^MA_M(z)`$ living on the D3-brane, the two–form $`B_2`$ being the pullback of an “NS–NS” gauge superfield of an $`N=2`$, $`D=4`$ supergravity which the D3 brane couples to.

### 2.1 Worldvolume gauge field constraints

We assume the worldvolume superfield constraint on $`F_2`$ to be

$$F_2=dAB_2=\frac{1}{2}E^aE^bF_{ba},$$
(15)
which implies that $`F_2`$ has nonzero components only along bosonic directions (3) of the superworldvolume.

To argue that the constraint (15) is relevant to the description of the Born–Infeld gauge field and of the D3–brane as a whole, we note that it follows from a generalized action  for super–Dp–branes constructed and analyzed in , and in a linear approximation it reduces to standard $`N=1`$, $`D=4`$ super–Maxwell constraints, as we shall demonstrate in Subsection 2.3 upon analyzing the integrability condition of (15)

$$H_3=E^aT^bF_{ba}+\frac{1}{2}E^aE^bdF_{ba},$$
(16)
where $`H_3=dB_2`$ and $`T^b`$ are the pullbacks of, respectively, the $`B_2`$ field strength and the torsion of the target superspace which we will further consider to be flat (see eqs. (6), (10) and (2)). In flat target superspace $`H_3`$ has the following form

$$H_3=2iE^a(E^{1\alpha }\overline{E}^{1\dot{\alpha }}E^{2\alpha }\overline{E}^{2\dot{\alpha }})\sigma _{a\alpha \dot{\alpha }},$$
(17)
and from (16) and (2) we get

$`2iE^a(E^{\alpha 1}\overline{E}^{\dot{\alpha }1}\sigma _{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}^b(\eta F)_{ba}`$
$`E^{\alpha 2}\overline{E}^{\dot{\alpha }2}\sigma _{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}^b(\eta +F)_{ba})=`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}E^aE^bdF_{ba}.`$ (18)
Our goal is to show that when the constraints (3) and (15) are imposed the components of the superfields $`F_2(z)`$, $`h(z)`$, $`C(z)`$ and $`\psi (z)`$ either vanish or are expressed through the worldvolume chiral spinor superfield $`\mathrm{\Theta }_\alpha ^2(z)`$ describing the gauge vector supermultiplet. To this end we analyze the integrability condition (2.1).

Substituting (9) into (2.1) and taking its $`E^{\alpha 1}E^{\beta 1}`$ and $`\overline{E}^{\dot{\alpha }1}\overline{E}^{\dot{\beta }1}`$ components one finds that

$`h_{(\alpha }^\gamma \sigma _{\gamma \dot{\gamma }}^b\overline{C}_{\beta )}^{\dot{\gamma }}(\eta F)_{ba}=0,`$
$`\overline{h}_{(\dot{\alpha }}^{\dot{\gamma }}\sigma _{\dot{\gamma }\gamma }^bC_{\dot{\beta })}^\gamma (\eta F)_{ba}=0,`$ (19)
where $`\eta _{ab}`$ is the $`D=4`$ Minkowski metric.

If the matrix $`(\eta F)`$ is non–degenerate (which is the general assumption of the Born–Infeld–like models) the equations (2.1) are satisfied if and only if

$$\overline{C}_\beta ^{\dot{\gamma }}=0,C_{\dot{\beta }}^\gamma =0$$
(20)
or

$$h_\alpha ^\beta =0,\overline{h}_{\dot{\alpha }}^{\dot{\gamma }}=0.$$
(21)
As one can verify the second choice (eq. (21)) leads to a trivial solution of the superembedding conditions (which does not describe any physical dynamical system), so we shall analyze the nontrivial consequences of the first solution (20). Then the spinor supervielbein pullbacks (9) take the form

$`E^{2\alpha }=E^{1\beta }h_\beta ^\alpha +E^a\psi _a^\alpha ,`$
$`\overline{E}^{2\dot{\alpha }}=\overline{E}^{1\dot{\beta }}\overline{h}_{\dot{\beta }}^{\dot{\alpha }}+E^a\overline{\psi }_a^{\dot{\alpha }}.`$ (22)
Now consider the $`E^{1\alpha }\overline{E}^{1\dot{\alpha }}`$ component of (2.1). In view of (2.1) it reduces to

$$h_\alpha ^\beta \sigma _{\beta \dot{\beta }}^a\overline{h}_{\dot{\alpha }}^{\dot{\beta }}(h\sigma ^a\overline{h})_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}=\sigma _{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}^bk_b^a,$$
(23)
where the matrix $`k_b^a`$ takes values in the (pseudo)orthogonal group $`SO(1,3)`$ which follows from its definition

$$k_b^a=(\eta F)_{bc}(\eta +F)^{1ca}$$

$$=(\eta +F)_{bc}^1(\eta F)^{ca}=\delta _b^a2((\eta +F)^1F)_b^a,$$

$$k^1=k^T,(\delta _b^a+k_b^a)=2\eta _{bc}(\eta +F)^1{}_{}{}^{ca}.$$
(24)
Then the relation (23) implies that (up to a $`U(1)`$ rotation) $`h_\alpha ^\beta `$ belongs to a spinor representation of $`SO(1,3)`$

$$h_\alpha ^\beta SL(2,C)\times U(1)$$

and

$$|det(h)|=1det(h)=e^{2ia(z)},$$
(25)
where the real superfield $`a(z)`$ takes values on the circle $`S^1`$.

We have thus found the relationship between the spin–tensor superfield $`h_\alpha ^\beta (z)`$ (which in the flat target superspace is $`h_\alpha ^\beta (z)=𝒟_\beta \mathrm{\Theta }^{2\alpha }`$) and the field strength $`F_{ab}(z)`$ of the worldvolume gauge field. Namely, from (23) and (24) it follows that

$$F_a^b=H_a^{1b}\delta _a^b,$$
(26)
where $`H_a^b=\frac{1}{2}[\frac{1}{2}tr(h\sigma _a\overline{h}\sigma ^b)+\delta _a^b].`$

The equation (25) implies that the superfield $`h_\alpha ^\beta `$ satisfies the nonlinear constraint

$$det(h_\alpha ^\beta )det(\overline{h}_{\dot{\alpha }}^{\dot{\beta }})=1.$$
(27)
This is the exact form of the nonlinear generalization of the Maxwell superfield constraint (see eq. (48) below) which was found in  to order $`𝒪(\mathrm{\Theta }^3)`$.

Because of the group theoretical properties (23), (24) and (25) of $`h_\alpha ^\beta `$ and $`k_b^a`$ they also satisfy the following relation

$$h^1{}_{\alpha }{}^{\gamma }dh_\gamma ^\beta =\frac{1}{2}(k^1dk)^{ab}\sigma _{ab\alpha }^\beta +ida(z)\delta _\alpha ^\beta .$$
(28)
Eq. (28) implies, in particular,

$$h^1{}_{\beta }{}^{\gamma }dh_\gamma ^\beta =2ida(z).$$
(29)
To conclude the analysis of the consequences of the superembedding condition (3) and of the gauge field constraint (15) we shall now demonstrate that they do not put the theory on the mass shell.

The dynamical fermionic equation of motion of the D3–brane which is obtained by varying the Green–Schwarz–like  or the generalized action  for the D3–brane with respect to $`\mathrm{\Theta }^2`$ is

$`\sigma _{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}^b(\eta F)_{}^{1}{}_{b}{}^{a}𝒟_a\mathrm{\Theta }^{2\alpha }`$
$`\sigma _{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}^b(\eta F)_{}^{1}{}_{b}{}^{a}\psi _a^\alpha =0,`$ (30)
(plus its complex conjugate).

We should, therefore, check that eq. (2.1) does not follow from the constraints (3) and (15). To this end let us note that in view of (3), (8), (2), (20), (2.1) and (23) the algebra of the worldvolume covariant derivatives $`𝒟_A`$ is

$`\{𝒟_\alpha ,\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\alpha }}\}=T_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}^a𝒟_a=2i\sigma _{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}^b(\delta _b^a+k_b^a)𝒟_a`$
$`=4i\sigma _{b\alpha \dot{\alpha }}(\eta +F)^1{}_{}{}^{ba}𝒟_{a}^{},`$ (31)
$$\{𝒟_\alpha ,𝒟_\beta \}=0=\{\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\alpha }},\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\beta }}\},$$
(32)
$$\{𝒟_\alpha ,𝒟_b\}=T_{\alpha b}^a𝒟_a=2i(h\sigma ^a)_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}\overline{\psi }_b^{\dot{\alpha }}𝒟_a,$$
(33)
$$\{\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\alpha }},𝒟_b\}=T_{\dot{\alpha }b}^a𝒟_a=2i(\sigma ^a\overline{h})_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}\psi _b^\alpha 𝒟_a,$$

$$\{𝒟_b,𝒟_c\}=T_{bc}^a𝒟_a=4i(\psi \sigma ^a\overline{\psi })𝒟_a.$$
(34)
Then applying $`\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\beta }}`$ to $`h_\alpha ^\beta `$ of (2), and taking into account (20) and (2.1) we find that

$$\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\beta }}h_\beta ^\alpha =4i\sigma _{\beta \dot{\beta }}^b(\eta +F)_{ba}^1\psi ^{a\alpha },$$
(35)
which relates $`\psi ^{a\alpha }`$ with $`h_\beta ^\alpha `$ and $`F_{ab}`$.

Now multiplying eq. (35) by $`(h^1)_\alpha ^\beta (\overline{h}^1)_{\dot{\alpha }}^{\dot{\beta }}`$, and using the relations (23), (24) and (29) we get

$$(\sigma _b)_{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}(\eta F)^1{}_{}{}^{ba}\psi _{a}^{}{}_{}{}^{\alpha }=\frac{1}{4}i\overline{h}^1{}_{\dot{\alpha }}{}^{\dot{\beta }}\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\beta }}^{}a(z),$$
(36)
where the left hand side is the same as in eq. (2.1), but it is non–zero, since $`a(z)`$ is generically non–constant. Thus, in the case of the space–filling D3–brane the superembedding conditions and the field strength constraint does not produce dynamical equations of motion and, therefore, leave the theory off the mass shell. The equations of motion arise only if in addition we put $`da(z)=0`$ or $`a(z)=const`$. Then, on the mass shell, the spin tensor $`h`$ becomes an $`SL(2,C)`$ valued matrix (c.f.  for a D=10 super-D9-brane)

$$deth_\alpha ^\beta =1.$$
(37)
Eq. (37) can be regarded as the nonlinear superfield equation of motion of the D3-brane, which generalzes the linear super-Maxwell equation of motion (see Subsection 2.3).

### 2.2 Grassmann analyticity

As we have already mentioned, the superembedding conditions (3), (6), (7), (8)–(2) and the gauge field constraint (15) result in double analyticity, i.e. Grassmann analyticity both in the worldvolume and in target superspace, the phenomenon which was declared in  as a principle for some types of superembeddings, describing for instance certain superparticles and superstrings . Indeed, since the integrability of the constraints requires eq. (20), from (8)–(2) it follows that $`\mathrm{\Theta }^{I\alpha }`$ are chiral worldvolume superfields, i.e.

$$\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\alpha }}\mathrm{\Theta }^{I\alpha }=0,𝒟_\alpha \overline{\mathrm{\Theta }}^{I\dot{\alpha }}=0.$$
(38)
Then eqs. (7) take the form

$`𝒟_\alpha (X^ai\mathrm{\Theta }^I\sigma ^a\overline{\mathrm{\Theta }}^I)=0,`$
$`\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\alpha }}(X^a+i\mathrm{\Theta }^I\sigma ^a\overline{\mathrm{\Theta }}^I)=0,`$ (39)
or

$`X^a`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(X_R^a+X_L^a),`$
$`X_L^a`$ $``$ $`X_R^a2i\mathrm{\Theta }^I\sigma ^a\overline{\mathrm{\Theta }}^I=0,`$ (40)
where $`X_R^a=X^ai\mathrm{\Theta }^I\sigma ^a\overline{\mathrm{\Theta }}^I=\overline{(X_L^a)}`$ are complex conjugate chiral worldvolume superfields

$$\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\alpha }}X_L^a=0,𝒟_\alpha X_R^a=0.$$
(41)
The equations (2.2) are nothing but the definition of complex coordinates $`Z_L^M=(X_L^a=X^a+i\mathrm{\Theta }^I\sigma ^a\overline{\mathrm{\Theta }}^I,\mathrm{\Theta }^{I\alpha })`$ of a chiral subspace of the $`N=2`$, $`D=4`$ superspace, which in their turn are chiral superfields in the $`N=1`$, $`D=4`$ superworldvolume.

We have thus obtained that the conditions imposed on the embedding of the D3–brane imply that the superembedding is performed in such a way that the chiral subsuperspace of the superworldvolume gets mapped into the chiral subsuperspace of the target superspace.

### 2.3 Linearized limit

We shall now demonstrate that in the physical gauge (4) and in a linearized limit in worldvolume superfields the gauge field constraint (15) gives rise to standard constraints on the field strength of the Maxwell field supermultiplet.

Upon imposing the physical gauge (4) the only independent (chiral) variable which remains in the model is the Volkov–Akulov Goldstone superfield $`\mathrm{\Theta }^{2\alpha }(z)`$, to which the gauge field strength $`F_{ab}(z)`$ is related via eq. (26).

To be able to perform a correct linearization limit we should choose $`\mathrm{\Theta }^{2\alpha }(z)`$ in the form

$$\mathrm{\Theta }^{2\alpha }(z)=\eta ^\alpha +W^\alpha (z),$$
(42)
where $`W^\alpha (z)`$ is a chiral worldvolume superfield.

This choice can be understood with the following reasoning. When there is no a gauge field on the D3–brane worldvolume $`F_{ab}(z)=0`$. Then the integrability (2.1) of the gauge field constraint (15) reduces to

$$2iE^a(E^{1\alpha }\overline{E}^{1\dot{\alpha }}E^{2\alpha }\overline{E}^{2\dot{\alpha }})\sigma _{a\alpha \dot{\alpha }}=0,$$
(43)
which is satisfied if we choose $`E^{1\alpha }=E^{2\alpha }`$ along superworldvolume. Hence, in the static gauge this “vacuum” configuration of the D3–brane can be associated with the map $`\eta ^\alpha =\mathrm{\Theta }^{1\alpha }=\mathrm{\Theta }^{2\alpha }`$, and fluctuations around this solution are described by the chiral superfield $`W^\alpha (z)`$ of eq. (42).

We shall now analyze, in the static gauge (4), the consequences of the superembedding (chirality) conditions (38), (2.2) and the integrability condition (2.1) in the linear order in the fields $`W^\alpha (z)`$ and $`F_{ab}(z)`$. From (4), (38), (2.2) and (42) we find that in the linear approximation

$`𝒟_\alpha =D_\alpha +i(\sigma ^a\overline{W})_\alpha _a+iD_\alpha W\sigma ^a\overline{\eta }_a,`$
$`\overline{𝒟}_{\dot{\alpha }}=\overline{D}_{\dot{\alpha }}+i(W\sigma ^a)_{\dot{\alpha }}_a+i\eta \sigma ^a\overline{D}_{\dot{\alpha }}\overline{W}_a,`$ (44)
where

$`D_\alpha ={\displaystyle \frac{}{\eta ^\alpha }}+2i(\sigma ^a\overline{\eta })_\alpha {\displaystyle \frac{}{\xi ^a}},`$
$`\overline{D}_{\dot{\alpha }}={\displaystyle \frac{}{\overline{\eta }^{\dot{\alpha }}}}+2i(\eta \sigma ^a)_{\dot{\alpha }}{\displaystyle \frac{}{\xi ^a}}`$ (45)
are flat covariant derivatives.

Note that in the linear approximation $`W^\alpha (z)`$ satisfies the flat superspace chirality condition

$$\overline{D}_{\dot{\alpha }}W^\alpha =0,D_\alpha \overline{W}^{\dot{\alpha }}=0.$$
(46)
Finally eq. (26) reduces to

$$F_{ab}=\frac{1}{4}\sigma _b^{\alpha \dot{\alpha }}(\sigma _{a\beta \dot{\alpha }}D_\alpha W^\beta +\sigma _{a\alpha \dot{\beta }}\overline{D}_{\dot{\alpha }}\overline{W}^{\dot{\beta }}),$$
(47)
which, in particular, implies that

$$D^\alpha W_\alpha +\overline{D}_{\dot{\alpha }}\overline{W}^{\dot{\alpha }}=0.$$
(48)
In equations (46) and (48) one can recognize the standard constraints on the field strength superfield of a Maxwell supermultiplet. They arise as the linear approximation of the Goldstone superfield constraints (38) and (27).

The Maxwell superfield equations of motion

$$D^\alpha W_\alpha \overline{D}_{\dot{\alpha }}\overline{W}^{\dot{\alpha }}=0.$$
(49)
arise as the linearized approximation of the D3-brane superfield equation (37).

We have thus demonstrated that the choice of the basic superembedding condition (3) and the gauge field constraint (15) is consistent with the linearized limit of the D3–brane model which is $`N=1`$, $`D=4`$ supersymmetric Maxwell theory.

## 3 The D3–brane action

We now present a worldvolume superfield action which we assume to produce upon integrating over Grassmann coordinates and solving for the auxiliary fields the standard action  for the D3–brane coupled to an $`N=2`$ supergravity.

The D3–brane couples to supergravity fields via the worldvolume pullback of the Wess–Zumino form

$$\widehat{C}=C_4+F_2C_2+\frac{1}{2}F_2F_2C_0,$$
(50)
where $`F_2`$ is defined in (14) and $`C_p`$ (p=0,2,4) are ‘Ramond-Ramond’ p–form fields.

Since, as we have shown in Subsection 2.2, the superembedding conditions imply chirality of the worldvolume superfields we assume the action to be an integral over $`N=1`$, $`D=4`$ chiral superspace $`Z_L=(\xi _L^m,\eta ^\alpha )`$ of an appropriate pullback component of $`\widehat{C}`$. Such a structure is prompted by the form of the worldvolume superfield actions for a heterotic string  and a supermembrane . Because of the dimensional reasons the Lagrangian is constructed with the use of $`\widehat{C}_{\dot{\alpha }\dot{\beta }ab}`$, and the action (accompanied by the superembedding condition (15)) has the following formally simple form

$$S=d^2\xi _Ld^2\eta _L\sigma ^{ab\dot{\alpha }\dot{\beta }}\widehat{C}_{\dot{\alpha }\dot{\beta }ab}+h.c.$$
(51)
where $`_L=sdet(e_M^A)det(\eta _{ab}F_{ab})det^1h_\beta ^\alpha `$ is the chiral measure $`𝒟_{\dot{\alpha }}_L=0`$, and $`\sigma ^{ab}`$ is the antisymmetrized product of the Pauli matrices.

Upon integration over $`\eta `$ (51) should produce both the Dirac–Born–Infeld and the Wess–Zumino term of the standard D3–brane action. In the static gauge (4) and in the linearized limit (42), (46) and (48) the action (51) reduces to the superfield Maxwell action.

## 4 CONCLUSION

Using the superembedding approach we have shown that the off–shell dynamics of the D3–brane in $`N=2`$, $`D=4`$ target superspace is described by the worldvolume superfield (superembedding) conditions (3) and (15). In the static gauge they reduce to nonlinear off–shell constraints on the spinor (Goldstone) superfield strength of the Dirac–Born–Infeld supermultiplet which generalize the Maxwell superfield linear constraints. This establishes the link of the superembedding formulation of the D3–brane with the nonlinear realization method used by Bagger and Galperin  to construct the $`N=1`$, $`D=4`$ superfield formulation of the Dirac–Born–Infeld theory as a Volkov–Akulov–type model exhibiting partial breaking of $`N=2`$ supersymmetry down to $`N=1`$.

The detailed analysis of the D3–brane superworldvolume action (51) and its relation to the Goldstone–Maxwell superfield action and equations of motion of  will be given elsewhere.

## Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to E. Ivanov and S. Krivonos for interest to this work and helpful discussions. This work was partially supported by the INTAS, the European Commission RTN Programme HPRN-CT-2000-00131 to which P.P., D.S. and M.T. are associated, and by the Ministerio de Educación y Cultura de Espa$`\stackrel{~}{n}`$a (I.B.). I.B. and D.S. also acknowledge partial support from the Grant N 2.51.1/52-F5/1795-98 of the Ukrainian Ministry of Science and Technology.


text:
# Quantum clock synchronization with one qubit

## 1 Introduction

Clock synchronization is a well studied problem with many practical and scientific applications. In the special theory of relativity there are two standard methods for synchronizing a pair of spatially separated clocks, Einstein Synchronization \[Einstein1905\] and Eddington’s Slow Clock Transport \[Eddington1924\].

Recently, two new quantum protocols have been proposed for synchronizing remote clocks. The first one uses prior quantum bit entanglement between the two parties and was proposed by *Jozsa et al* \[Jozsa\]. This protocol is based on the assumption that the entanglement can be achieved without any relative phase error. However, the validity of this assumption has been discussed and questioned in a number of papers \[reply, lorentz, genovese\]. Once and if this entanglement can be obtained, their algorithm determines the time difference $`T`$ between the clocks by essentially monitoring the oscillation of a function $`f(T)\mathrm{cos}(\omega T)`$, and thus requires $`O(2^{2n})`$ shared singlets.

The second protocol was proposed by I. Chuang \[Chuang\], and obtains $`T`$ to $`n`$ bits of accuracy by communicating only $`O(n)`$ qubits and using an $`O(2^n)`$ range of frequencies. After communicating the bits according to his protocol, they are in the state corresponding to the Fourier Transform (over $`_{2^n}`$) of the state $`|\omega T`$, for some fixed and known $`\omega `$. As a result, one can apply an inverse Fourier Transform and subsequently measure the value of $`\omega T`$ and hence $`T`$.

In this paper, we improve significantly on Chuang’s result by presenting an algorithm that is able to calculate $`T`$ to $`n`$ bits of accuracy while communicating only one qubit in one direction and using an $`O(2^n)`$ range of frequencies. Further, we prove that, under our computational model, the product of the frequency range and the number of transmitted qubits must be $`\mathrm{\Omega }(2^n)`$, and conclude that our algorithm is optimal in this model.

## 2 The computational model

In our protocol Alice sends a photon $`|\psi `$ to Bob with some tick rate $`\omega `$. The state of the received photon is $`\mathrm{e}^{i\omega tZ}|\psi `$, where $`t`$ is the time the photon spent in transit and $`Z`$ is the Pauli matrix

$$Z=\left[\begin{array}{cc}1& 0\\ 0& 1\end{array}\right].$$

Even though we only use one-way communication from Alice to Bob, for the purposes of proving computational lower bounds we assume an even stronger model, where the two parties can exchange photons back and forth. The information they get about the time difference $`T`$ between the two clocks comes from a phase change in the state of the qubit, which depends on $`T`$ and the tick rate $`\omega `$. Let’s now define this procedure and see how we can actually implement it. The input to this procedure will be a quantum register which holds the tick rate $`k`$ and a qubit $`|\psi `$. The output is a state that has a phase which depends on $`T`$ and $`k`$.

###### Definition 1

Let tqh be a black box quantum procedure defined by the equation

$$\text{tqh}(|k|\psi )=|ke^{2\pi ik\omega _0TZ}|\psi $$

where $`T`$ is the time difference between the two parties and $`\omega _0`$ is a known base tick rate.

This is a very reasonable and powerful model, since we know that all the information one can get about the time difference via such photon communications is in the form of a relative phase change. Here the first register handles the tick rate of the photon to be transmitted and the second register is the photon that Alice communicates to Bob (or Bob to Alice).

The implementation of this black box is based on the ticking qubit handshake protocol (TQH) described in I. Chuang’s paper \[Chuang\]. Suppose Alice wants to create the state $`e^{2\pi ik\omega _0TZ}|\psi `$. She first sends the qubit $`|\psi `$ to Bob with ticking rate $`(2\pi k\omega _0)`$. Along a classical channel she also tells him her time $`t_A`$ at the moment of the quantum communication. Bob receives at time $`t_B`$ (according to Bob’s clock) a quantum state $`e^{2\pi ik\omega _0t_{tr}Z}|\psi `$, where $`t_{tr}`$ is the time the qubit spent in transit. Finally, Bob applies a phase change $`e^{2\pi ik\omega _0(t_Bt_A)Z}`$ and thus the final state of the qubit is $`e^{2\pi ik\omega _0(t_Bt_At_{tr})Z}|\psi =e^{2\pi ik\omega _0TZ}|\psi `$.

## 3 An optimal Quantum Algorithm

We are going to describe a protocol for synchronizing two remote clocks by communicating one photon. In this algorithm, Alice starts by preparing a register $`R`$ of $`n`$ qubits in a certain superposition. Then she sends a photon to Bob with the superposition of tick rates specified in $`R`$. Bob measures the received photon and Alice obtains $`T`$ to $`n`$ bits of accuracy by processing a phase estimation on $`R`$.

In more detail,

1. Alice starts with a register of $`n`$ qubits initialized to $`|0`$, and after applying a Fourier Transform to them she obtains

$$\frac{1}{\sqrt{2^n}}\underset{k_{2^n}}{}|k.$$

She also prepares a photon with polarization state $`\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|0+|1)`$.
2. Alice now transmits the prepared photon with the tick rate described by her first register. If the photon had a definite tick rate $`k`$ and polarization state $`|\psi `$ the final state would be $`e^{2\pi ik\omega _0TZ}|\psi `$. Since the register described in step 1 is in a superposition of tick rates, the outcome will be in a superposition of states

$$\frac{1}{\sqrt{2^{n+1}}}\underset{k_{2^n}}{}|ke^{2\pi i(k\omega _0)T}|\psi $$
3. Bob measures the received photon. Assuming without loss of generality that the outcome is $`|0`$, Alice’s register $`R`$ becomes

$$\frac{1}{\sqrt{2^n}}\underset{k_{2^n}}{}e^{2\pi ik\omega _0T}|k.$$
4. Alice then applies an inverse Fourier Transform, obtaining the state $`|\omega _0T`$ in $`R`$.

It is easy to see that this algorithm is an application of the general procedure known as phase estimation. In this procedure, we assume a unitary operator $`U`$ with an eigenvector $`|u`$ and eigenvalue $`e^{2\pi i\varphi }`$. The goal is to estimate $`\varphi `$ to $`n`$ bits of accuracy. To perform the estimation we start with two registers, the first one in a uniform superposition over all states in $`_{2^n}`$ and the second one in the state $`|u`$. Then we apply the unitary operation $`U`$ to the second register $`j`$ times, where $`|j`$ is the content of the first register. By analyzing the performance of this procedure it can be seen that our algorithm obtains $`T`$ to $`n`$ bits of accuracy with constant probability $`4/\pi ^2`$. We can boost the probability of success to $`1\delta `$ by increasing the size of the first register to $`n+\mathrm{log}(2+\frac{1}{2\delta })`$. Further analysis can be found in \[chuang-quantum-book\], page 221.

## 4 A lower bound on frequency range $`\times `$ number of qubits

In this section we will prove a lower bound on the product of the range of tick rates (frequencies) we use and the number of qubits we communicate.

###### Theorem 1

Any quantum algorithm which determines $`T`$ to $`n`$ bits of accuracy, using a range $`F`$ of frequencies and communicating $`Q`$ qubits between the two parties, must have that $`FQ=\mathrm{\Omega }(2^n)`$.

In order to prove this theorem we are going to use the following lemma:

###### Lemma 1

If a quantum algorithm in the tqh model makes only queries to the black box with a single tick rate $`\omega `$, then it must make a total number of $`\mathrm{\Omega }(2^n)`$ queries in order to obtain $`T`$ to $`n`$ digits of accuracy.

Proof: By making a query to the black box, the input $`|\psi \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|0+|1)`$ will become $`\mathrm{e}^{2\pi i\omega ZT}|\psi `$; after applying a Hadamard transform we obtain the quantum state

$$\mathrm{cos}(2\pi \omega T)|0+\mathrm{sin}(2\pi \omega T)|1.$$

From this we see that the problem of determining $`T`$ is equivalent to estimating the amplitude of $`|0`$ (or $`|1`$). The problem of estimating the amplitude of a quantum state, which is equivalent to the problem of counting the number of solutions to a quantum problem, is well-studied \[Hoyer, Nayak\]. In \[Nayak\] they prove that $`\mathrm{\Omega }(\sqrt{N/\mathrm{\Delta }}+\sqrt{t(Nt)}/\mathrm{\Delta })`$ queries are required for a $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-approximate count, where $`t`$ is the number of solutions, $`N`$ is the set of possible inputs and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ defines the closeness of the approximation.

If we use this lower bound for the case of amplitude estimation, we get a lower bound of $`\mathrm{\Omega }(\sqrt{N/\mathrm{\Delta }}+N\sqrt{a(1a)}/\mathrm{\Delta })`$, since the amplitude is $`a=t/N`$. In our case, $`a`$ can take any value in $`(0,1)`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ must be less than $`1`$ and $`N=2^n`$, so we obtain the lower bound of $`\mathrm{\Omega }(2^n)`$ qubits.
$`\mathrm{}`$

Now we are ready to prove Theorem 1.
Proof of theorem: Suppose we are able to query the black box with frequencies in the range $`[\omega ,F\omega ]`$. We claim that this black box can be simulated by a black box with only one tick rate $`\omega `$ at the cost of replacing each query with at most $`F`$ queries. This can be done since one query to the $`[\omega ,F\omega ]`$ black box with tick rate $`(k\omega ),1kF`$ is equivalent to $`k`$ consecutive queries with tick rate $`\omega `$, using the output of one query as the input to the next. Notice that a superposition of queries to the $`[\omega ,F\omega ]`$ black box does not pose any challenge to the simulation, since we can also query the one-tick rate black box in a superposition of times. For such an input, the number of queries is defined to be the maximum over all states of the superpositions.

Since in all cases we query the black box at most $`F`$ times, this means that the one-tick rate version will run with at most $`FQ`$ queries. Now, in Lemma 1 we have already proved that when we use only one tick rate, we need to communicate at least $`\mathrm{\Omega }(2^n)`$ qubits, and therefore $`FQ=\mathrm{\Omega }(2^n)`$.  $`\mathrm{}`$


text:
# Spin alignment of vector meson in 𝑒⁺𝑒⁻ annihilation at 𝑍⁰ pole

We calculate the spin density matrix of the vector meson produced in $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation at $`Z^0`$ pole. We show that the data imply a significant polarization for the antiquark which is created in the fragmentation process of the polarized initial quark and combines with the fragmenting quark to form the vector meson. The direction of polarization is opposite to that of the fragmenting quark and the magnitude is of the order of 0.5. A qualitative explanation of this result based on the LUND string fragmentation model is given.

Spin effects in high energy fragmentation processes have attracted much attention \[1-11\] recently since they provide not only useful information on the spin dependence of hadronic interaction but also a promising tool to study the spin structure of nucleon. One of the important issue in this connection is the spin transfer of the fragmenting quark to the produced hadron which contains this quark. There are two related questions here, one is whether the fragmenting quark retains its polarization, the other is how one should connect the spin of the fragmenting quark to that of the hadron which contains the quark.

A series of papers \[1-3, 6-11\], both experimental and theoretical, have been published on this topic. These papers all concentrate on the hyperon polarization in lepton induced reactions since hyperon polarization can easily be obtained in experiments by measuring the angular distributions of its decay products. Although the available data are still far from accurate and enormous enough to make a definite conclusion, the comparison of the data and theoretical results seems to suggest that the polarization of the fragmenting quark is retained in the fragmentation and that the simple SU(6) wave function can be used in connecting the spin of the fragmenting quark to that of the produced hadron which contains the quark.

It is also interesting to note that information on polarization of vector meson can also be obtained from angular distributions of their decay products. Such measurements have also been carried out by OPAL, DELPHI and ALEPH collaboration at LEP for different vector mesons in $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation at $`Z^0`$ pole \[12-16\]. The results show clearly that the produced vector meson favor the helicity zero state which implies a nonzero polarizaton of the vector meson in the direction perpendicular to the moving direction. There are also measurements on the off-diagonal elements of the spin density matrix. It is then natural to ask whether the data can also be understood from the same starting points as those for hyperon polarization and what they imply for the polarization of the antiquark produced in the fragmentation process of a polarized quark.

In this note, we study these questions by calculating the spin density matrix for the produced vector mesons by adding the spin of the fragmenting quark (or antiquark) with that of the antiquark (or quark) created in the fragmentation together. With the aid of an event generator JETSET, we calculate the $`z`$ dependence of the polarization by taking all different contributions into account. Here $`z2p_V/\sqrt{s}`$, where $`p_V`$ is the momentum of the vector meson, $`\sqrt{s}`$ is the total $`e^+e^{}`$ center of mass energy. We now first outline the calculation method in the following.

Similar to that for hyperon polarization , to calculate the polarization of vector mesons in the inclusive process $`e^+e^{}Z^0q_f^0\overline{q}_f^0`$ V+X, we need to divide the produced vector mesons into the following two groups and consider them separately. (Here the subscript $`f`$ denotes the flavor of the quark.) They are (a) those which contain the initial quark $`q_f^0`$’s or the initial antiquark $`\overline{q}_f^0`$’s; (b) those which don’t contain the initial quark or antiquark. The spin density matrix $`\rho ^V(z,k_{})`$ for the vector meson V should be given by:

$$\rho ^V(z,k_{})=\underset{f}{}\frac{n(z,k_{}|a,f)}{n(z,k_{})}\rho ^V(z,k_{}|a,f)+\frac{n(z,k_{}|b)}{n(z,k_{})}\rho ^V(z,k_{}|b),$$
(1)
where $`n(z,k_{}|a,f)`$ and $`\rho ^V(z,k_{}|a,f)`$ are the average number and spin density matrix of vector mesons from (a); $`n(z,k_{}|b)`$ and $`\rho ^V(z,k_{}|b)`$ are those from (b). $`n(z,k_{})`$ = $`_fn(z,k_{}|a,f)`$ \+ $`n(z,k_{}|b)`$ is the total number of vector mesons and $`k_{}`$ is the transverse momentum of the vector meson with respect to the moving direction of initial quark or antiquark. Here, in contrast to the case for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ hyperon production, contributions from the decay of heavier hadrons are very small. We just treat them in the same way as those from (b).

Similar to the case for hyperon production, there are many different possibilities to produce the vector mesons in group (b) and the polarization in each possibility can be different from that in the other. Hence, it is very likely that these vector mesons as a whole are unpolarized. We will, just as we did in Ref.  for hyperons, take them as unpolarized. This means that we simply take $`\rho ^V(z,k_{}|b)`$ as a unit matrix. The spin density matrix $`\rho ^V(z,k_{}|a,f)`$ of the vector meson V which contains the fragmenting quark $`q_f^0`$ (or antiquark $`\overline{q}_f^0`$) and an antiquark $`\overline{q}`$ (or a quark $`q`$) which is created in the fragmentation process can be calculated from the direct product of the spin density matrix $`\rho ^{q_f^0}`$ for $`q_f^0`$ (or $`\rho ^{\overline{q}_f^0}`$ for $`\overline{q}_f^0`$) and that $`\rho ^{\overline{q}}`$ for the antiquark $`\overline{q}`$ (or $`\rho ^q`$ for q). Now, we are going to formulate the calculation of $`\rho ^V(z,k_{}|a,f)`$. For explicity, we will take the case $`V=(q_f^0\overline{q})`$ as an example.

According to the Standard Model for electro-weak interaction, the initial quark or antiquark produced in $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation at $`Z^0`$ pole is longitudinally polarized and the average value of polarization is $`P_f=`$0.94 for $`f=d,s`$ and $`b`$; $`P_f=`$0.67 for $`f=u,c`$ . Hence the normalized spin density matrix $`\rho ^{q_f^0}`$ is given by

$$\rho ^{q_f^0}=\left(\begin{array}{cc}c_{1f}& 0\\ 0& c_{2f}\end{array}\right),$$
(2)
where $`c_{1f}=(1+P_f)/2`$, $`c_{2f}=(1P_f)/2`$. Here we use the helicity frame of $`q_f^0`$, which we denote by $`oxyz`$, where $`z`$-axis is taken as the moving direction of $`q_f^0`$ in the overall center-of-mass frame and $`x`$-axis as the direction of the transverse momentum of the antiquark $`\overline{q}`$ with respect to the $`z`$-axis. The $`\rho ^{\overline{q}}`$ is taken as the most general form in the frame $`oxyz`$, i.e.,

$$\rho ^{\overline{q}}=\frac{1}{2}\left(\begin{array}{cc}1+P_z& P_xiP_y\\ P_x+iP_y& 1P_z\end{array}\right),$$
(3)
where $`\stackrel{}{P}(P_x,P_y,P_z`$) is the polarization vector of $`\overline{q}`$. The spin density matrix $`\rho ^{q_f^0\overline{q}}`$ of the $`q_f^0\overline{q}`$ system is obtained from Eq. (2) and Eq. (3), i.e,

$$\rho ^{q_f^0\overline{q}}=\rho ^{q_f^0}\rho ^{\overline{q}}=\left(\begin{array}{cc}c_{1f}\rho ^{\overline{q}}& 0\\ 0& c_{2f}\rho ^{\overline{q}}\end{array}\right).$$
(4)
We note that the $`\rho ^{q_f^0\overline{q}}`$ obtained in this way is in the basis of $`|s^{q_f^0},s_z^{q_f^0};s^{\overline{q}},s_z^{\overline{q}}`$, where $`s^{q_f^0}`$ and $`s^{\overline{q}}`$ are the spins of $`q_f^0`$ and $`\overline{q}`$, and $`s_z^{q_f^0}`$ and $`s_z^{\overline{q}}`$ are their $`z`$ components. To obtain the spin density matrix for the meson, we need to transform it to the coupled basis $`|s,s_z`$, where $`\stackrel{}{s}=\stackrel{}{s}^q+\stackrel{}{s}^{\overline{q}}`$. The bases of these two representations are related to each other by a unitary matrix U,

$$U=\left(\begin{array}{cccc}1& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}& \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& 1\\ 0& \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}& \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}& 0\end{array}\right).$$
(5)
The spin density matrix $`\rho ^m`$ in the coupled basis is obtained from $`\rho ^m=U\rho ^{q_f^0\overline{q}}U^1`$, i.e.,

$$\rho ^m=\frac{1}{2}\left(\begin{array}{cccc}c_{1f}\left(1+P_z\right)& \frac{c_{1f}}{\sqrt{2}}\left(P_xiP_y\right)& 0& \frac{c_{1f}}{\sqrt{2}}\left(P_xiP_y\right)\\ \frac{c_{1f}}{\sqrt{2}}\left(P_x+iP_y\right)& \frac{1}{2}\left(1P_fP_z\right)& \frac{c_{2f}}{\sqrt{2}}\left(P_xiP_y\right)& \frac{1}{2}\left(P_fP_z\right)\\ 0& \frac{c_{2f}}{\sqrt{2}}\left(P_x+iP_y\right)& c_{2f}\left(1P_z\right)& \frac{c_{2f}}{\sqrt{2}}\left(P_x+iP_y\right)\\ \frac{c_{1f}}{\sqrt{2}}\left(P_x+iP_y\right)& \frac{1}{2}\left(P_fP_z\right)& \frac{c_{2f}}{\sqrt{2}}\left(P_xiP_y\right)& \frac{1}{2}\left(1P_fP_z\right)\end{array}\right).$$
(6)
Hence the spin density matrix $`\rho ^V(a,f)`$ for the vector meson V in the basis of $`|s^V,s_z^V`$ can be read out from Eq. (6) as follows:

$$\rho ^V(a,f)=\frac{2}{3+P_fP_z}\left(\begin{array}{ccc}c_{1f}\left(1+P_z\right)& \frac{c_{1f}}{\sqrt{2}}\left(P_xiP_y\right)& 0\\ \frac{c_{1f}}{\sqrt{2}}\left(P_x+iP_y\right)& \frac{1}{2}\left(1P_fP_z\right)& \frac{c_{2f}}{\sqrt{2}}\left(P_xiP_y\right)\\ 0& \frac{c_{2f}}{\sqrt{2}}\left(P_x+iP_y\right)& c_{2f}\left(1P_z\right)\end{array}\right).$$
(7)
In addition, we obtain also the ratio $`P/V`$ of pseudoscalar meson to vector meson from Eq. (6) as

$$P/V=\frac{1P_fP_z}{3+P_fP_z}.$$
(8)
We can see that $`P/V=1/3`$ at $`P_z=0`$ and $`P/V>1/3`$ at $`P_fP_z<0`$.

To compare $`\rho ^V(a,f)`$ with the data \[12-16\], we need to transform it to the helicity basis of the vector meson, i.e., the helicity beam frame which we denote by $`OXYZ`$. In this frame, $`Z`$-axis is taken as the moving direction of the vector meson and $`Y`$-axis is taken as the vector products of $`Z`$ and the $`e^{}`$ beam direction (see Fig. 1). This frame transformation can be carried out by two successive rotations: first a rotation of angle $`\beta `$ around $`y`$ axis which transforms $`oxyz`$ to $`ox^{}yZ`$, then a rotation of angle $`\gamma `$ around the $`Z`$-axis which transforms $`ox^{}yZ`$ to $`OXYZ`$, i.e.,

$$\rho ^V(z,k_{}|a,f)=D^{}(\beta ,\gamma )\rho ^V(a,f)D(\beta ,\gamma ),$$
(9)
where $`D(\beta ,\gamma )`$ is the rotation matrix

$$D(\beta ,\gamma )=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}e^{i\gamma }\mathrm{cos}^2\frac{\beta }{2}& \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\mathrm{sin}\beta & e^{i\gamma }\mathrm{sin}^2\frac{\beta }{2}\\ \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}e^{i\gamma }\mathrm{sin}\beta & \mathrm{cos}\beta & \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}e^{i\gamma }\mathrm{sin}\beta \\ e^{i\gamma }\mathrm{sin}^2\frac{\beta }{2}& \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\mathrm{sin}\beta & e^{i\gamma }\mathrm{cos}^2\frac{\beta }{2}\end{array}\right).$$
(10)
Here $`\beta `$ is the angle between the momentum of the initial quark $`q_f^0`$ and that of the vector meson and $`\gamma `$ is the angle between the $`y`$-axis and $`Y`$-axis (see Fig. 1). Clearly, $`\beta `$, $`\gamma `$, $`z`$ and $`k_{}`$ are related to each other by $`\mathrm{sin}\beta =2k_{}/(z\sqrt{s})`$ and

$$\mathrm{cos}\gamma =\frac{k_z\mathrm{cos}\varphi \mathrm{sin}\theta k_{}\mathrm{cos}\theta }{\sqrt{k_{}^2\mathrm{sin}^2\varphi +(k_z\mathrm{sin}\theta k_{}\mathrm{cos}\varphi \mathrm{cos}\theta )^2}},$$
(11)
where $`k_z=\sqrt{z^2s/4k_{}^2}`$ and $`\mathrm{sin}\gamma <0`$ for $`\varphi <\pi `$ and $`\mathrm{sin}\gamma >0`$ for $`\varphi >\pi `$; $`\theta `$ is the angle between the moving direction of the initial quark and the $`e^{}`$ beam direction in the overall center-of-mass frame and $`\varphi `$ is the azimuthal angle of $`k_{}`$ with respect to the plane of the initial quark and $`e^{}`$ beam.

After some straightforward algebra, we obtain the following expressions for the matrix elements which have been measured experimentally.

$$\rho _{00}^V(z,k_{}|a,f)=\frac{1}{3+P_fP_z}[1P_f(P_z\mathrm{cos}2\beta +P_x\mathrm{sin}2\beta )],$$
(12)
$$Re\rho _{1,1}^V(z,k_{}|a,f)=\frac{P_f\mathrm{sin}\beta }{3+P_fP_z}[\mathrm{cos}2\gamma (P_z\mathrm{sin}\beta P_x\mathrm{cos}\beta )P_y\mathrm{sin}2\gamma ],$$
(13)
$$Im\rho _{1,1}^V(z,k_{}|a,f)=\frac{P_f\mathrm{sin}\beta }{3+P_fP_z}[\mathrm{sin}2\gamma (P_z\mathrm{sin}\beta P_x\mathrm{cos}\beta )+P_y\mathrm{cos}2\gamma ],$$
(14)
$`Re[\rho _{1,0}^V(z,k_{}|a,f)\rho _{0,1}^V(z,k_{}|a,f)]`$
$$=\frac{\sqrt{2}P_f}{3+P_fP_z}[\mathrm{cos}\gamma (P_x\mathrm{cos}2\beta P_z\mathrm{sin}2\beta )+P_y\mathrm{cos}\beta \mathrm{sin}\gamma ],$$
(15)
$`Im[\rho _{1,0}^V(z,k_{}|a,f)\rho _{0,1}^V(z,k_{}|a,f)]`$
$$=\frac{\sqrt{2}P_f}{3+P_fP_z}[\mathrm{sin}\gamma (P_x\mathrm{cos}2\beta P_z\mathrm{sin}2\beta )P_y\mathrm{cos}\beta \mathrm{cos}\gamma ].$$
(16)
From these results, we see already the following qualitative conclusions:

(1) From Eqs. (8) and (12), we see that not only $`\rho _{00}^V(z,k_{}|a,f)`$ but also $`P/V`$ depends on the polarization of the fragmenting quark $`q_f^0`$ and that of the antiquark $`\overline{q}`$ created in the fragmentation process. There is a simple relation between them, i.e.,

$$\rho _{00}^V(z,k_{}|a,f)=(P/V)+\frac{2P_f\mathrm{sin}\beta }{3+P_fP_z}(P_z\mathrm{sin}\beta P_x\mathrm{cos}\beta ).$$
(17)
We see that the relation is in general dependent on the momentum of the produced vector meson. If we take as usual $`k_{}`$= 0.35 $`GeV`$, we obtain $`\mathrm{sin}\beta =2k_{}/(z\sqrt{s})0.0077/z`$ for $`\sqrt{s}=91GeV^2`$, which is much less than 1 for large $`z`$. Hence we have approximately

$$\rho _{00}^V(z,k_{}|a,f)P/V.$$
(18)
For $`P_z=P_x=0`$, we have $`\rho _{00}^V(z,k_{}|a,f)=P/V=1/3`$. This is the result that is expected  in the unpolarized case.

(2) From Eqs. (13-16), we see that the non-diagonal elements $`\rho _{1,1}^V`$ and $`(\rho _{1,0}^V\rho _{0,1}^V)`$ depend not only on $`\beta `$ but also on $`\gamma `$ which is a function of $`\varphi `$ and other variables. Since for a given $`k_{}`$ and a given $`z`$, $`\varphi `$ is distributed uniformly, we should average over $`\varphi `$ for these quantities. For $`k_{}(z\sqrt{s}/2)`$, we expand $`\mathrm{cos}\gamma `$ and $`\mathrm{sin}\gamma `$ in terms of $`k_{}/k_z`$ and keep only terms up to $`k_{}/k_z`$, then average over $`\varphi `$, we obtain $`\mathrm{cos}\gamma \mathrm{tan}\beta \mathrm{cot}\theta /2`$; $`\mathrm{sin}\gamma 0`$; $`\mathrm{cos}2\gamma \mathrm{tan}^2\beta `$ and $`\mathrm{sin}2\gamma 0`$. We insert them into Eqs. (13-16) and obtain

$$Re\rho _{1,1}^V(z,k_{}|a,f)\frac{P_f\mathrm{sin}\beta }{3+P_fP_z}\mathrm{tan}^2\beta (P_z\mathrm{sin}\beta P_x\mathrm{cos}\beta ),$$
(19)
$$Im\rho _{1,1}^V(z,k_{}|a,f)\frac{P_f\mathrm{sin}\beta }{3+P_fP_z}P_y\mathrm{tan}^2\beta ,$$
(20)
$$Re[\rho _{1,0}^V(z,k_{}|a,f)\rho _{0,1}^V(z,k_{}|a,f)]\frac{\sqrt{2}P_f\mathrm{tan}\beta \mathrm{cot}\theta }{2(3+P_fP_z)}(P_x\mathrm{cos}2\beta P_z\mathrm{sin}2\beta ),$$
(21)
$$Im[\rho _{1,0}^V(z,k_{}|a,f)\rho _{0,1}^V(z,k_{}|a,f)]\frac{\sqrt{2}P_fP_y\mathrm{sin}\beta \mathrm{cot}\theta }{2(3+P_fP_z)}.$$
(22)
We see that they contain at least one $`\mathrm{sin}\beta `$ which is of the order of $`0.01`$ at large $`z`$. This shows that these non-diagonal elements obtained in this way are all very small. More precisely, both $`Re\rho _{1,1}`$ and $`Im\rho _{1,1}`$ should be smaller than $`10^6`$ and $`Re[\rho _{1,0}\rho _{0,1}]`$ and $`Im[\rho _{1,0}\rho _{0,1}]`$ should be small than $`10^2`$. Significant nonzero results of these elements may imply significant interferences  between the fragmentation of $`q_f^0`$ and that of $`\overline{q}_f^0`$, which are not taken into account here. Experimental results  from OPAL and DELPHI for $`Im\rho _{1,1}`$, $`Re[\rho _{1,0}\rho _{0,1}]`$ and $`Im[\rho _{1,0}\rho _{0,1}]`$ seem to show no deviation from the above-mentioned expectations, there is however signature of deviation for $`Re\rho _{1,1}`$, but the statistics are still too low to make any definite conclusions.

(3) From Eq. (12), we see that if $`P_z=0`$, i.e., the $`\overline{q}`$ is unpolarized in the moving direction of $`q_f^0`$, we obtain that

$$\rho _{00}^V(z,k_{}|a,f)|_{P_z=0}=(1P_fP_x\mathrm{sin}2\beta )/3.$$
(23)
As we discussed above, $`\mathrm{sin}2\beta 1`$ for large $`z`$, so that $`\rho _{00}^V(z,k_{}|a,f)|_{P_z=0}1/3`$. This shows clearly that $`P_z0`$ is a necessary condition for $`\rho _{00}^V1/3`$ at large $`z`$. Furthermore, neglecting terms proportional to $`\mathrm{sin}\beta `$ in Eq. (12), we obtain,

$$\rho _{00}^V(z,k_{}|a,f)(1P_fP_z)/(3+P_fP_z).$$
(24)
This shows that $`\rho _{00}^V(z,k_{}|a,f)>1/3`$ if $`P_f`$ and $`P_z`$ have opposite sign. Both OPAL and DELPHI data \[13-16\] explicity show that $`\rho _{00}^V>1/3`$ for all the vector mesons except for $`\omega `$. This implies that $`P_z0`$ and has the opposite sign as $`P_f`$ in these cases.

After we obtain the results for $`\rho ^V(z|a,f)`$ and $`\rho ^V(z|b)`$, we can calculate $`\rho ^V(z)`$ if we know the average numbers $`n(z|a,f)`$ and $`n(z|b)`$. These average numbers are determined by the hadronization mechnism and should be independent of the polarization of the initial quarks. Hence, we can calculate them using a hadronization model which gives a good description of the unpolarized data for mutiparticle production in high energy reactions. Presently, such calculation can only be carried out using a Monte-Carlo event generator. We use the LUND string fragmentation model  implemented by JETSET  to do this calculation.

Using the event generator JETSET, we calculated $`n(z|a,f)`$ and $`n(z|b)`$. We use Eq. (24) to calculate $`\rho _{00}^V(z,k_{}|a,f)`$ in which the only free parameter is $`P_z`$. We first calculate $`\rho _{00}`$ for $`K^0`$ as a function of $`z`$ since the corresponding data is available . We found out that, to fit the data, the value of $`P_z`$ has to be quite large. In Fig. 2 we show the results obtained by taking $`P_z=0.48`$. We see that the data can reasonably well be fitted.

Similiar calculations can certainly be made for other vector mesons such as $`\rho `$, $`\varphi `$, $`D^\pm `$, $`B^{}`$ $`etc`$. But, for these mesons, only the average values of $`\rho _{00}`$ in certain $`z`$ ranges are available. It can easily be obtained from Eq. (1), such average values are given by,

$$\rho _{00}^V=\underset{f}{}\frac{n^V(a,f)}{n^V}\rho _{00}^V(a,f)+\frac{n^V(b)}{n^V}\rho _{00}^V(b),$$
(25)
where $`\rho _{00}^V(a,f)`$ is given by Eq. (24) and $`\rho _{00}^V(b)=1/3`$; $`n^V(a,f)`$ and $`n^V(b)`$ are the number of vector mesons from (a) and (b) in the corresponding $`z`$ range respectively and $`n^V`$ the total number of vector meson in that $`z`$ range. Using JETSET, we calculate $`n^V(a,f)`$ and $`n^V(b)`$. After that we can determine the $`P_z`$ which we need to fit the data on $`\rho _{00}^V`$. We found out that, for most of the vector mesons, the resulting $`P_z`$ can be written as $`P_z=\alpha P_f`$ with $`\alpha `$ is common for most of the $`q_f^0`$’s. In Table 1, we show the obtained results by choosing $`\alpha =0.51`$ as determined above from the data for $`K^0`$. We see that the data can be fitted reasonably well except those for $`\omega `$ and $`B^{}`$. The data of $`\rho _{00}^\omega `$ can only be fitted by taking $`\alpha `$ as negative. The deviation in the case of $`B^{}`$ may be attributed to the helicity flip of $`b`$-quark caused by gluon radiation, which is negligible for light quarks.

The results except that for $`\omega `$ can be understood qualitatively in the string fragmentation model. Here, it was shown that  the probability to creat a meson of mass $`m`$ is proportional to $`e^{bm^2/x}`$, where $`x`$ is the fractional energy of meson from the fragmenting quark and $`b`$ is a positive parameter in LUND model. For a polarized quark $`q_f^0`$ with polarization $`P_f`$, if the spin of $`\overline{q}`$ is in the opposite direction as that of $`q_f^0`$, the resulting mesons can be a vector meson or a pseudoscalar meson with equal probabilities. The average mass is $`m_1=(m_V+m_P)/2`$, where $`m_V`$ and $`m_P`$ are the masses for the vector meson and pseudoscalar meson respectively. If the spin of $`\overline{q}`$ is in the same direction as that of $`q_f^0`$, only vector meson can be created and its mass is $`m_2=m_V`$. It is clear that $`m_1^2<m_2^2`$, thus the corresponding probability is large for the former case than that for the latter. This leads to a longitudinal polarization of $`\overline{q}`$ and the polarization is proportional to $`P_f`$, i.e, $`P_z=\alpha _{str}^fP_f`$,

$$\alpha _{str}^f=\frac{2}{e^{b(m_2^2m_1^2)/x}+1}1$$
(26)
We can see that the sign of $`P_z`$ is indeed opposite to that of $`P_f`$. In case of $`K^0`$ which contains an initial $`d`$ or $`\overline{s}`$ we obtain $`\alpha _{str}^f=0.3`$ for $`x=0.3`$ by taking $`b=0.58GeV^2`$ as was used in JETSET .

In summary, we calculated the spin density matrix of the vector meson produced in $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation at $`Z^0`$ pole from a direct sum of the spin of the polarized fragmenting quark and that of the antiquark created in the fragmentation process. The result for $`\rho _{00}`$ implies a significant polarization for the antiquark which is created in the fragmentation process and combines with the fragmenting quark to form the vector meson in the opposite direction as that of the fragmenting quark. The polarization can approximately be written as $`P_z=\alpha P_f`$ and $`\alpha 0.5`$ for most of the mesons.

We thank Li Shi-yuan, Xie Qu-bing and other members of the theoretical particle physics in Shandong for helpful discussions. This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and the Education Ministry of China.

Figure caption:

Fig. 1: Illustrating graph showing the relation between the helicity frame $`oxyz`$ of the initial quark $`q_f^0`$ and the helicity beam frame $`OXYZ`$ of the produced vector meson $`V`$. There are three planes involved here: the horizontal plane determined by the incoming $`e^+e^{}`$ and outgoing $`q_f^0\overline{q}_f^0`$, the $`xz`$ plane, i.e., $`Vq_f^0`$ plane determined by the moving direction of $`q_f^0`$ and that of V and $`\stackrel{}{e}_y=\stackrel{}{e}_z\times \stackrel{}{e}_k_{}/|\stackrel{}{e}_z\times \stackrel{}{e}_k_{}|`$, the $`XZ`$ plane determined by the moving direction of $`q_f^0`$ and that of the $`e^{}`$ beam and $`\stackrel{}{e}_Y=\stackrel{}{e}_Z\times \stackrel{}{e}_{p_e^{}}/|\stackrel{}{e}_Z\times \stackrel{}{e}_{p_e^{}}|`$.

Fig. 2: Spin density matrix element $`\rho _{00}`$ of $`K^0`$ produced in $`Z^0`$ decay obtained from Eq. (24) by taking $`P_z=0.48`$ as a function of the momentum fraction $`z`$. The dotted straight line corresponds to the unpolarized case (1/3); the data are from Ref. .

Table caption:

Tab. 1: Spin density matrix element $`\rho _{00}`$ for different vector mesons obtained from Eq.(25) using $`P_z=0.51P_f`$. The data are taken from Refs.\[References-References\].