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# BI-TP 2001/06 March 2001 Lattice Results on QCD Thermodynamics

## 1 Introduction

Since many years the thermodynamics of quarks and gluons, the transition between the low temperature hadronic phase and the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) as well as non-perturbative properties of the high temperature phase, have been analyzed through numerical calculations within the framework of lattice regularized QCD. In particular, the studies performed in the pure gauge sector did provide a rather detailed picture of the high temperature plasma phase as a medium of strongly interacting partons which are strongly screened and influenced by non-perturbative effects even at fairly high temperatures.

Over recent years thermodynamic calculations on the lattice have steadily been improved. This partly is due to the much improved computer resources, however equally important has been and still is the development of improved discretization schemes, i.e. improved actions. This is of particular relevance for thermodynamic calculations which are not only sensitive to the long distance physics at the phase transition but also probe properties at short distances in calculations of e.g. the energy density or the heavy quark potential. The advantages of improved actions for thermodynamic calculations have been discussed at recent lattice conferences , this does include improvements of the standard Wilson and staggered fermion actions as well as new developments of chiral actions like the domain wall and overlap fermion formulations. We thus will not go into details of these formulations here. We rather will concentrate on a discussion of results, which may be of direct interest to experimental studies of the quark-gluon plasma. We will discuss the QCD transition temperature and equation of state and will emphasize the quark mass and flavour dependence of these quantities which gives some insight into the mechanisms controlling the transition to the Quark Gluon Plasma. Furthermore we will discuss thermal modifications of the heavy quark free energy and meson masses.

We also refrain from discussing details of the ongoing investigations of the order of the QCD phase transition , which is first order in the case of three light, degenerate quark flavours and most likely is second order in the case of 2-flavour QCD, although in this latter case questions concerning the universality class of the transition and, in particular, the role of the axial anomaly for the transition are not yet settled completely. Our current understanding of the QCD phase diagram of 3-flavour QCD at vanishing baryon number density is shown in Figure 1.

## 2 The Critical Temperature and the QCD Phase Diagram

The early calculations of the QCD transition temperature, which have been performed with standard Wilson  and staggered  fermion actions, led to significant discrepancies of the results. These differences strongly diminished in the newer calculations which are based on improved Wilson fermions (Clover action) , domain wall fermions  as well as improved staggered fermions (p4-action) . A compilation of these newer results is shown in Figure 2 for various values of the quark masses. To compare results obtained with different actions the results are presented in terms of a physical observable, i.e. the ratio of the lightest pseudo-scalar and vector meson masses ($`m_{PS}/m_V`$). In Figure 2a we show $`T_c/m_V`$ obtained for 2-flavour QCD while Figure 2b gives a comparison of results obtained with improved staggered fermions  for 2 and 3-flavour QCD. Also shown there is a result for the case of (2+1)-flavour QCD, i.e. for two light and one heavier quark flavour degree of freedom. Unfortunately the quark masses in this latter case are still too large to be compared directly with the situation realized in nature. We note however, that the results obtained so far suggest that the transition temperature in (2+1)-flavour QCD is close to that of 2-flavour QCD. The 3-flavour theory, on the other hand, leads to consistently smaller values of the critical temperature, $`T_c(n_f=2)T_c(n_f=3)20`$ MeV. Extrapolation of the transition temperatures to the chiral limit gave

$`\underset{¯}{2\mathrm{flavour}\mathrm{QCD}:}`$ $`T_c=\{\begin{array}{cc}(171\pm 4)\mathrm{MeV},\hfill & \text{clover-improved Wilson fermions }\text{[4]}\hfill \\ (173\pm 8)\mathrm{MeV},\hfill & \text{improved staggered fermions }\text{[9]}\hfill \end{array}`$
$`\underset{¯}{3\mathrm{flavour}\mathrm{QCD}:}`$ $`T_c=(154\pm 8)\mathrm{MeV},\mathrm{improved}\mathrm{staggered}\mathrm{fermions}\text{[9]}`$
Here $`m_\rho `$ has been used to set the scale for $`T_c`$. Although the agreement between results obtained with Wilson and staggered fermions is striking, one should bear in mind that all these results have been obtained on lattice with temporal extent $`N_\tau =4`$, i.e. at rather large lattice spacing, $`a0.3`$ fm. Moreover, there are uncertainties involved in the ansatz used to extrapolate to the chiral limit. We thus estimate that the systematic error on the value of $`T_c/m_\rho `$ still is of similar magnitude as the purely statistical error quoted above.

We note from Figure 2 that $`T_c/m_V`$ drops with increasing ratio $`m_{PS}/m_V`$, i.e. with increasing quark mass. Apparently this does not reflect the general picture we have for the quark mass ($`m_q`$) dependence of $`T_c`$. For instance, a simple percolation picture for the QCD transition would suggest that $`T_c(m_q)`$ or better $`T_c(m_{PS})`$ will increase with increasing $`m_q`$; with increasing $`m_q`$ also the hadron masses increase and it becomes more difficult to excite the low lying hadronic states. It thus becomes more difficult to create a sufficiently high particle/energy density in the hadronic phase that can trigger a phase (percolation) transition. Such a picture also follows from chiral model calculations .

In order to quantify the quark mass dependence of $`T_c`$ we ideally should find an observable to set the scale for $`T_c`$, which itself is not dependent on $`m_q`$. This clearly is not the case for $`m_V`$, which actually vanishes in the limit $`m_q\mathrm{}`$. On the other hand we know from studies of the hadron spectrum and string tension in quenched QCD (SU(3) gauge theory) that these observables agree with experiment and/or QCD phenomenology quite well despite the fact that dynamical light quark contributions are suppressed in this limit. It thus may be expected that (partially) quenched hadron masses or the string tension do provide an almost quark mass independent scale. In fact, this is what tacitly has been assumed when one converts the critical temperature of the SU(3) gauge theory $`T_c/\sqrt{\sigma }0.63`$ into physical units111We use here and in the following $`\sqrt{\sigma }425\mathrm{MeV}`$ which may be deduced from quenched spectrum calculations ($`m_\rho /\sqrt{\sigma }=1.81(4)`$ ). Similar values have been obtained from partially quenched calculations in 3-flavour QCD . as has been done also in Figure 1.

To quantify the quark mass dependence of the transition temperature one may express $`T_c`$ in units of $`\sqrt{\sigma }`$. This ratio is shown in Figure 3 as a function of $`m_{PS}/\sqrt{\sigma }`$. As can be seen the transition temperature starts deviating from the quenched values for $`m_{PS}<(67)\sqrt{\sigma }2.5\mathrm{GeV}`$. We also note that the dependence of $`T_c`$ on $`m_{PS}/\sqrt{\sigma }`$ is almost linear in the entire mass interval. Such a behaviour might, in fact, be expected for light quarks in the vicinity of a $`2^{nd}`$ order chiral transition where the pseudo-critical temperature depends on the mass of the Goldstone-particle like

$$T_c(m_\pi )T_c(0)m_\pi ^{2/\beta \delta }.$$
(1)
For 2-flavour QCD the critical indices are expected to belong to the universality class of 3-d, $`O(4)`$ symmetric spin models and one thus would indeed expect $`2/\beta \delta =1.1`$. However, this clearly cannot be the origin of the quasi linear behaviour which is observed for rather large hadron masses and seems to be independent of $`n_f`$. Moreover, unlike in chiral models  the dependence of $`T_c`$ on $`m_{PS}`$ turns out to be rather weak. The line shown in Figure 3 is a fit to the 3-flavour data, which gave

$$(T_c/\sqrt{\sigma })_x=(T_c/\sqrt{\sigma })_0+0.04(1)x\mathrm{with}x=m_{PS}/\sqrt{\sigma }.$$
(2)
For the quark masses currently used in lattice calculations a resonance gas model combined with a suitably chosen percolation criterion would probably be more appropriate to describe the thermodynamics close to $`T_c`$.

## 3 The Equation of State

When discussing the equation of state of QCD, e.g. the temperature dependence of the energy density ($`ϵ`$) and pressure ($`p`$), we should at least distinguish three regimes; the high temperature regime ($`T>1.5T_c`$), the critical region ($`TT_c`$) and the low temperature regime ($`T<0.9T_c`$). The calculation of $`ϵ`$ as well as $`p`$ on the lattice is most difficult below $`T_c`$ where these observables are exponentially suppressed, which is true even for realistic pseudo-scalar meson masses, $`m_{PS}T_c`$. We therefore will concentrate on a discussion of the two former temperature regimes.

At high temperature we expect that $`p/T^4`$ and $`ϵ/T^4`$ will asymptotically approach the free gas limit for a gas of gluons and $`n_f`$ quark flavours,

$$\frac{ϵ_{SB}}{T^4}=\frac{3p_{SB}}{T^4}=\left(16+\frac{21}{2}n_f\right)\frac{\pi ^2}{30}.$$
(3)
From calculations in the quenched limit, the pure SU(3) gauge theory, we know that the high-T ideal gas limit is reached only very slowly . In fact, for $`T(24)T_c`$ thermodynamic quantities deviate by about 15% from the limiting ideal gas value. This deviation is too big to be understood in terms of ordinary high temperature perturbation theory which converges badly at these low temperatures . However, it is naturally accounted for in quasi-particle models  and resummed perturbative calculations .

A similar deviation from ideal gas behaviour has now been found in simulations of QCD with 2 and 3 degenerate quark flavours as well as in a simulation with two light and one heavier quark mass . The results of this calculation which has been performed with an improved gauge and an improved staggered fermion action (p4-action) are shown in Figure 4. As the p4-action is known to lead to much smaller cut-off distortions in the high-T limit than the standard actions, it also becomes meaningful to compare these results with continuum models and perturbative calculations at high temperature . We stress, however, that a final extrapolation to the continuum limit still has to be done for QCD with light quarks. From an analysis of the cut-off dependence of the p4-action and the experience gained in the pure gauge sector one expects that the results shown in Figure 4 are still systematically below the final continuum extrapolated result.

The pressure shown in Figure 4a for QCD with different number of flavours as well as for the pure SU(3) gauge theory clearly reflects the strong change in the number of degrees of freedom in the high temperature phase. Moreover, the dependence of $`T_c`$ on the number of partonic degrees of freedom is clearly visible. In view of this it indeed is striking that $`p/p_{SB}`$ is almost flavour independent when plotted in units of $`T/T_c`$ (Figure 4b).

Unfortunately, Wilson actions with similarly good high temperature behaviour have not been constructed so far. The Clover action does not improve the ideal gas behaviour, i.e. it has the same infinite temperature limit as the Wilson action. Consequently one observes an overshooting of the ideal gas limit at high temperature which reflects the cut-off effects in the unimproved fermion sector . These cut-off effects are, however, unimportant in the vicinity of the phase transition where correlation lengths become large. It thus makes sense to compare results obtained with different actions in this regime. In Figure 5 we show recent results for the energy density obtained with improved staggered222This figure for staggered fermions is based on data from Ref . Here a contribution to $`ϵ/T^4`$ which is proportional to the bare quark mass and vanishes in the chiral limit is not taken into account. and Wilson  fermions. We note that these calculations yield consistent estimates for the energy density at $`T_c`$

$$ϵ_c(6\pm 2)T_c^4.$$
(4)
This estimate also is consistent with results obtained for the energy density from calculations with a standard staggered fermion action .

## 4 Heavy quark free energy and screening below $`T_c`$

For the discussion of medium effects on heavy quark bound states in the QGP it is of great importance to calculate thermal modifications of the heavy quark colour singlet potential. Unfortunately this is not directly accessible to lattice calculations, in particular not as a gauge invariant observable. At finite temperature one generally calculates the heavy quark free energy  from correlation functions of Polyakov loops $`L(\stackrel{}{n})`$,

$$\mathrm{e}^{V(r,T)/T}\mathrm{Tr}L(\stackrel{}{0})\mathrm{Tr}L^{}(\stackrel{}{n}),rT=|\stackrel{}{n}|N_\tau ,$$
(5)
where $`N_\tau `$ denotes the temporal extent of the lattice. At finite temperature the static $`q\overline{q}`$-pair can be in a singlet or octet state and the above correlation function thus only provides a thermal average over singlet and octet free energies,

$$\mathrm{e}^{V(r,T)/T}\frac{1}{9}\mathrm{e}^{V_1(r,T)/T}+\frac{8}{9}\mathrm{e}^{V_8(r,T)/T}.$$
(6)
Although $`V_18V_8`$ in leading order perturbation theory, we do in general have to deal with both contributions to $`V(r,T)`$ and cannot directly extract the singlet component. Nonetheless the latter will dominate at short distances as well as at low temperature.

The colour averaged heavy quark free energy defined by Eq. 5 thus yields only indirect information for the discussion of thermal effects on heavy quark bound states. Nonetheless it reflects basic properties like the strong Debye screening of the $`q\overline{q}`$-pair above $`T_c`$. This has been analyzed in detail in the pure SU(3) gauge theory . Additional screening effects do arise in QCD from the presence of light quarks. In addition to quantitative changes in the values of screening lengths the most significant changes occur in the long distance behaviour of $`V(r,T)`$. While in the pure gauge sector screening of the heavy quark free energy sets in only above $`T_c`$, i.e. $`\underset{r\mathrm{}}{lim}V(r,T)`$ remains finite only for $`TT_c`$, this is the case at all temperatures as soon as $`m_q<\mathrm{}`$. The temperature dependence of this screening effect, which arises from the spontaneous creation of $`q\overline{q}`$-pairs in the heat bath, is shown in Figure 6.

As can bee seen the free energy seems to reach a limiting form for $`T<0.6T_c`$. For these temperatures it agrees with the confining Cornell type potential up to distances $`r\sqrt{\sigma }1.5`$, i.e. $`r0.8`$fm. With increasing temperature this point is shifted to smaller distances. For $`T0.95T_c`$ screening sets in already for $`r\sqrt{\sigma }0.8`$ or $`r0.4`$fm. This clearly will also have an impact on heavy quark bound states. However, to quantify this we need further information on the short distance properties of the heavy quark free energy which should allow to disentangle contributions from the singlet and octet components.

## 5 Thermal Masses

The analysis of the temperature dependence of hadron properties, e.g. their masses and widths, is of central importance for our understanding of deconfinement and chiral symmetry restoration at $`T_c`$. Thermal modifications of the heavy quark potential which have been discussed above influence the spectrum of heavy quark bound states. Their experimentally observed suppression  thus is expected to be closely linked to the deconfining properties of QCD above $`T_c`$ . Changes in the chiral condensate, on the other hand, influence the light hadron spectrum and may result in experimental signatures, for instance in the enhanced dilepton production observed in heavy ion experiments .

In numerical calculations on Euclidean lattices one has access to thermal Green’s functions $`\overline{G}_H(\tau ,\stackrel{}{r})`$ in fixed quantum number channels $`H`$, to which in particular at high temperature many excited states contribute. As the temporal direction of the Euclidean lattice is rather short at finite temperature one usually has restricted numerical investigations to the analysis of the long distance behaviour of spatial correlations functions, $`\overline{G}_H(\tau ,\stackrel{}{r})\mathrm{exp}(\overline{m}_H|\stackrel{}{r}|)`$, which defines hadronic screening masses $`\overline{m}_H`$. This indeed gives evidence for the restoration of chiral symmetry above $`T_c`$, e.g. one finds that scalar and pseudo-vector screening lengths become degenerate and also the difference between screening lengths in scalar and pseudo-scalar channels strongly diminishes, which gives indications for a partial restoration of the $`U_A(1)`$ symmetry .

In order to get information on the $`T`$-dependence of pole masses and their widths one has to analyze the structure of temporal correlation functions. The information on hadron masses and quasi-particle excitations is then encoded in the spectral function $`\sigma _H(\omega ,\stackrel{}{p})`$,

$$G_H(\tau ,\stackrel{}{p})=d^3r\mathrm{exp}(i\stackrel{}{p}\stackrel{}{r})\overline{G}_H(\tau ,\stackrel{}{r})=_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\omega \sigma _H(\omega ,\stackrel{}{p})\frac{\mathrm{cosh}(\omega (\tau \beta /2))}{\mathrm{sinh}(\omega \beta /2)}.$$
(7)
At finite temperature the temporal correlation function usually is determined only at a small number of lattice grid points as the temperature is related to the finite extent of the lattice in this direction, $`N_\tau =1/(aT)`$. A way out may be the use of anisotropic lattices . These calculations indeed show large changes in meson correlators in the vicinity of $`T_c`$. To what extent the results suggest that pole masses in light meson channels exist as well defined states even above $`T_c`$, however, is difficult to judge solely on the basis of standard analysis techniques also used for correlation functions at zero temperature. At high temperature refined statistical techniques like the maximum entropy method  may be of help. It has recently been shown that this does allow to extract directly the spectral functions of hadron correlators  at $`T=0`$ as well as high temperature . A first attempt to use this approach for the determination of the pseudo-scalar spectral function below and above $`T_c`$ is shown in Figure 7. This clearly reflects the drastic, qualitative change which occurs in the pseudo-scalar channel when one crosses $`T_c`$. The Goldstone pole which is present in the spectral function below $`T_c`$ disappears in the plasma phase. Of course, this has to be analyzed more quantitatively in the future.

## 6 Conclusions

We have focused in this review on the calculation of basic thermodynamic quantities which are of immediate interest to experimental searches for the Quark Gluon Plasma.

Calculations of the QCD transition temperature which are based on different discretization schemes do provide a rather consistent picture. Extrapolations to the chiral limit are in good agreement and suggest a transition temperature of about 175 MeV in 2-flavour QCD. The numerical results obtained so far suggest a rather weak quark mass and flavour dependence of $`T_c`$. This also holds true for the critical energy density, which for 2-flavour QCD is estimated to be $`ϵ_c700`$ MeV and thus is of similar magnitude as that found already in the pure gauge sector. However, the error on $`ϵ_c`$ still is about 50% and mainly is due to the current uncertainty on $`T_c`$ which is estimated to be about 10%.

An analysis of the heavy quark free energy below $`T_c`$ shows that screening effects increase significantly already below $`T_c`$. While the spontaneous creation of $`q\overline{q}`$-pairs leads to screening of the heavy quark potential at $`r0.8`$ fm at low temperature this starts already at $`r0.4`$ fm for $`T0.95T_c`$.

We do have reached some understanding of thermal effects on hadron properties. In particular, modifications of the light meson spectrum due to flavour and approximate $`U_A(1)`$ symmetry restoration have been established. Indications for medium effects on pole masses have been found in an analysis of spectral functions. However, at present these calculations are not detailed enough to be confronted with experimental data.

Of course, there are many other important issues which have to be addressed in the future. Even at vanishing baryon number density we do not yet have a satisfactory understanding of the critical behaviour of 2-flavour QCD in the chiral limit and the physically realized situation of QCD with two light, nearly massless quarks and a heavier strange quark has barely been analyzed. Moreover, the entire phase diagram at non-zero baryon number density is largely unexplored. An interesting phase structure is predicted in this case which currently is not accessible to lattice calculations.

Acknowledgements: I would like to thank N. Christ for communication on recent thermodynamic results with domain wall fermions.


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# Shape-Changing Collisions of Coupled Bright Solitons in Birefringent Optical Fibers

## 1. Introduction

The study of optical wave propagation in a nonlinear dispersive (dielectric) fiber has been receiving considerable attention in recent times as the fiber can support under suitable circumstances a stable pulse called optical soliton \[1-3\]. It arises essentially due to a compensation of the effect of dispersion of the pulse by the nonlinear response of the medium.

The analysis of such pulse propagation naturally starts from the Maxwell’s equations for electromagnetic wave propagation in a dielectric medium,

$$^2\stackrel{}{E}\frac{1}{c^2}\frac{^2\stackrel{}{E}}{t^2}=\mu _0\frac{^2\stackrel{}{P}}{t^2},$$
(1)
where the induced polarization for silica fibers is

$$\stackrel{}{P}(\stackrel{}{r},t)=ϵ_0[\chi ^{(1)}.\stackrel{}{E}+\chi ^{(3)}\mathrm{}\stackrel{}{E}\stackrel{}{E}\stackrel{}{E}+\mathrm{}].$$

In equation(1), $`\stackrel{}{E}`$ represents the electric field, c is the velocity of light, $`\mu _0`$ and $`ϵ_0`$ are the permeability and permitivity of free space respectively, $`\chi ^{(m)}`$ is the mth order susceptibility tensor.

In order to analyse equation(1) it is necessary to make several simplifying assumptions: (i) The nonlinear part of the induced polarization is treated as a small perturbation to the linear part. (ii) The optical field is assumed to maintain its polarization along the fiber. (iii) Fiber loss is assumed to be very small. (iv) The nonlinear response of the fiber is assumed to be instantaneous. (v) In a slowly varying envelope approximation for pulse propagation along the fiber, the electric field can be written as

$$\stackrel{}{E}(\stackrel{}{r},t)=\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{}{e}[F(x,y)E(z,t)e^{i(K_0z\omega _0t)}+c.c],$$

where c.c stands for complex conjugate, $`\stackrel{}{e}`$ is the unit polarization vector of the light assumed to be linearly polarized, E is the slowly varying electric field, $`F(x,y)`$ is the mode distribution function in the $`(x,y)`$ plane, while $`K_0`$ and $`\omega _0`$ denote the propagation constant and central frequency of the optical pulse respectively.

Under the above assumptions, rewriting equation(1) by using the method of separation of variables and introducing the coordinate system, $`T`$$`=`$$`t`$$``$$`\frac{z}{v_g}`$, moving with the pulse at the group-velocity $`v_g`$ = $`\frac{K}{\omega }`$, one can obtain a wave equation for the evolution of E as

$$i\frac{E}{z}\frac{K^{\prime \prime }}{2}\frac{^2E}{T^2}+\gamma _0|E|^2E=0,$$
(2)
where $`\gamma _0`$$`=`$$`\frac{n_2\omega _0}{cA_{eff}}`$. Here $`A_{eff}`$ denotes the effective core area of the single-mode fiber, $`n_2`$ represents the nonlinear index coefficient and the parameter $`K^{\prime \prime }=\left(\frac{^2K}{\omega ^2}\right)_{\omega =\omega _0}=\frac{1}{v_g^2}`$ accounts for the group velocity dispersion (GVD). After normalizing equation(4) and using the transformation, $`q=\left[\frac{\gamma _0T_0^2}{|K^{\prime \prime }|}\right]^{\frac{1}{2}}E,\xi =\frac{z|K^{\prime \prime }|}{T_0^2},\tau =\frac{T}{T_0}`$ and then redefining $`\xi `$ as z and $`\tau `$ as t we get the ubiquitous nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS) equation,

$$iq_z(\text{sgn}K^{\prime \prime })q_{tt}+2|q|^2q=0,$$
(3)
in which $`T_0`$ represents the width of the incident pulse, z and t are the normalized distance and time along the direction of propagation and q is the normalized envelope. The NLS equation admits the familiar bright envelope (one) soliton

$$q(z,t)=\frac{k_{1R}exp\left[i\left(\left(k_{1R}^2k_{1I}^2\right)z+k_{1I}t+\eta _{1I}^{(0)}\right)\right]}{\text{cosh}\left[k_{1R}\left(tk_{1I}z+\eta _{1R}^{(0)}\right)\right]},$$
(4)
in the anamolous dispersion region $`(K^{\prime \prime }<0)`$, where $`k_{1R}`$ and $`k_{1I}`$ give the amplitude and velocity of the soliton respectively and $`\eta _1^{(0)}`$ is an arbitrary complex parameter. In the normal dispersion regime $`(K^{\prime \prime }>0)`$, equation(5) possesses dark soliton solutions . Equation(5) is valid in the picosecond regime since in obtaining the above equation the optical field is assumed to be quasi-monochromatic. For ultra short pulses (width $`100fs`$) one has to include additional effects such as third order dispersion, nonlinear dispersion, self induced Raman effect, etc. Then equation(5) is for example replaced by the higher-order NLS (HNLS) equation,

$$iq_z(\text{sgn}K^{\prime \prime })q_{tt}+2|q|^2qϵq_{ttt}\lambda _1(|q|^2q)_t\lambda _2|q|_t^2q=0.$$
(5)
Considerable attention has been paid to this HNLS equation which results from the delayed response of the fiber nonlinearity .

## 2. Electromagnetic Wave Propagation in Birefringent Fibers and the Coupled NLS Equation

In general a single mode fiber can support two distinct modes of polarization which are orthogonal to each other. This phenomenon is known as birefringence. Among these two modes one corresponds to the ordinary ray (O-ray) in which the refractive index of the medium is constant along every direction of the incident ray. The other is the extraordinary ray (E-ray) whose refractive index for the medium varies with the direction of the incident ray. In an ideal fiber these two modes are degenerate, while in a real fiber due to the fiber nonlinearity this degeneracy is broken and the phenomenon is known as “modal birefringence” .

Thus due to the effect of birefringence and nonlinear response of the medium there is a possibility of interaction of two copropagating modes. As a result of this the phase of one mode not only depends on its own intensity (Self Phase Modulation (SPM)) but also on the intensity of the copropagating mode (Cross Phase Modulation (XPM)) .

The propagation equation for such modes can be obtained again from the Maxwell’s equations by considering the electric field $`\stackrel{}{E}`$ in the slowly varying envelope approximation as

$$\stackrel{}{E}(\stackrel{}{r},t)=\frac{1}{2}[(\stackrel{}{e_1}E_1(z,t)e^{iK_{01}z}+\stackrel{}{e_2}E_2(z,t)e^{iK_{02}z})F(x,y)e^{i\omega _0t}+c.c],$$
(6)
where $`E_1`$, $`E_2`$ are the amplitudes of two polarization components and $`\stackrel{}{e}_1`$, $`\stackrel{}{e}_2`$ are the unit orthonormal polarization vectors and $`F(x,y)`$ is the fiber mode distribution.

Proceeding in the same way as in the case of the single mode fiber one can obtain the following coupled system of equations for the envelopes of the two copropagating waves,

$`iE_{1z}+{\displaystyle \frac{i}{v_{g1}}}E_{1t}{\displaystyle \frac{K^{\prime \prime }}{2}}E_{1tt}+\gamma _0(|E_1|^2+B|E_2|^2)E_1=0,`$
$`iE_{2z}+{\displaystyle \frac{i}{v_{g2}}}E_{2t}{\displaystyle \frac{K^{\prime \prime }}{2}}E_{2tt}+\gamma _0(|E_2|^2+B|E_1|^2)E_2=0,`$ (7)
where z and t represent the normalized distance and time along the direction of propagation, $`v_{g1}`$ and $`v_{g2}`$ represent the group velocity of the two copropagating waves $`E_1`$ and $`E_2`$ respectively and $`B=\frac{2+2\mathrm{sin}^2\vartheta }{2+\mathrm{cos}^2\vartheta }`$ is the XPM coupling parameter ($`\vartheta `$ \- birefringence ellipticity angle which varies between 0 and $`\frac{\pi }{2}`$ ). After suitable transformations as in the case of NLS equation we can rewrite the equation(9) in its normalized form as

$`iq_{1z}+q_{1tt}+2\mu (|q_1|^2+B|q_2|^2)q_1=0,`$
$`iq_{2z}+q_{2tt}+2\mu (|q_2|^2+B|q_1|^2)q_2=0.`$ (8)
The above equation is the coupled nonlinear Schrödinger (CNLS) equation which is in general nonintegrable. However for B$`=`$1 this reduces to the celebrated Manakov equations ,

$`iq_{1z}+q_{1tt}+2\mu (|q_1|^2+|q_2|^2)q_1=0,`$
$`iq_{2z}+q_{2tt}+2\mu (|q_1|^2+|q_2|^2)q_2=0,`$ (9)
which is a completely integrable soliton system. The Lax pair for the Manakov system (11) can be identified as

$`L=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}i\lambda & q_1& q_2\\ q_1^{}& i\lambda & 0\\ q_2^{}& 0& i\lambda \end{array}\right),M=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}\{2i\lambda ^2+& \{2\lambda q_1& \{2\lambda q_2\\ i(|q_1|^2+|q_2|^2)\}& +iq_{1t}\}& +iq_{2t}\}\\ & & \\ 2\lambda q_1^{}+iq_{1t}^{}& \{2i\lambda ^2& iq_1^{}q_2\\ & i|q_1|^2\}& \\ 2\lambda q_2^{}+iq_{2t}^{}& iq_1q_2^{}& \{2i\lambda ^2\\ & & i|q_2|^2\}\end{array}\right),`$ (20)
such that

$$L_zM_t+[L,M]=0,$$
(21)
which is equivalent to the Manakov equations (11). The existence of infinite number of involutive integrals of motion confirms the integrability of the Manakov system (11).

## 3. Bilinearization and Bright Two-Soliton Solution

In recent years to study the solution properties of the integrable systems several effective tools have been developed which include inverse scattering transform method, Hirota’s bilinearization method, Bäcklund transformation method, geometrical methods and so on. In this section by applying Hirota’s technique we point out that the most general bright one-soliton and two-soliton solutions for the Manakov system (11) can be obtained .

Considering equation (11) and by making the following bilinear transformation $`q_1=\frac{g}{f}`$, $`q_2=\frac{h}{f}`$, where g(z,t), h(z,t) are complex functions while f(z,t) is a real function, the following bilinear equations can be obtained,

$$(iD_z+D_t^2)g.f=0,(iD_z+D_t^2)h.f=0,D_t^2f.f=2\mu (gg^{}+hh^{}),$$
(22)
where $`D_z`$ and $`D_t`$ are Hirota’s bilinear operators. The above set of equations can be solved by making the following power series exapansion to g, h and f:

$$g=\lambda g_1+\lambda ^3g_3+\mathrm{},h=\lambda h_1+\lambda ^3h_3+\mathrm{},f=1+\lambda ^2f_2+\lambda ^4f_4+\mathrm{},$$
(23)
where $`\lambda `$ is the formal expansion parameter. The resulting equations, after collecting the terms with the same power in $`\lambda `$, can be solved to obtain the forms of g, h and f. In order to get the one-soliton solution the power series expansions for g, h and f are terminated as follows, $`g`$$`=`$$`\lambda g_1`$, $`h`$$`=`$$`\lambda h_1`$ and $`f`$ $`=`$ $`1`$ $`+`$$`\lambda ^2f_2`$. After following the procedure as mentioned before, the bright one-soliton solution is obtained as

$`\left(\begin{array}{c}q_1\\ q_2\end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{c}\alpha \\ \beta \end{array}\right){\displaystyle \frac{e^{\eta _1}}{1+e^{\eta _1+\eta _1^{}+R}}}=\left(\begin{array}{c}A_1\\ A_2\end{array}\right){\displaystyle \frac{k_{1R}e^{i\eta _{1I}}}{\text{cosh}(\eta _{1R}+\frac{R}{2})}},`$ (30)
where $`\eta _j=k_j(t+ik_jx)+\eta _j^{(0)},j=1,A_1=\frac{\alpha }{\mathrm{\Delta }},A_2=\frac{\beta }{\mathrm{\Delta }},\mathrm{\Delta }=\sqrt{\mu (|\alpha |^2+|\beta |^2)},`$ $`e^R=\frac{\mu (|\alpha |^2+|\beta |^2)}{(k_1+k_1^{})^2}`$, $`\alpha `$, $`\beta `$, $`k_j`$ and $`\eta _j^{(0)}`$ are complex parameters. Here $`\sqrt{\mu }(A_1,A_2)`$ represents the unit polarization vector, $`k_{1R}`$ and $`k_{1I}`$ give the amplitude and velocity of the Manakov one soliton respectively.

For obtaining the bright two-soliton solution, the series is terminated as $`g=\lambda g_1+\lambda ^3g_3,h=\lambda h_1+\lambda ^3h_3`$ and $`f=1+\lambda ^2f_2+\lambda ^4f_4.`$ After proceeding in a similar fashion as in the case of the one-soliton solution, the following bright two-soliton solution with six arbitrary complex parameters $`k_1`$, $`k_2`$, $`\alpha _1`$, $`\beta _1`$, $`\alpha _2`$ and $`\beta _2`$ can be obtained,

$`q_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha _1e^{\eta _1}+\alpha _2e^{\eta _2}+e^{\eta _1+\eta _1^{}+\eta _2+\delta _1}+e^{\eta _1+\eta _2+\eta _2^{}+\delta _2}}{D}},`$
$`q_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\beta _1e^{\eta _1}+\beta _2e^{\eta _2}+e^{\eta _1+\eta _1^{}+\eta _2+\delta _1^{}}+e^{\eta _1+\eta _2+\eta _2^{}+\delta _2^{}}}{D}},`$ (31)
where

$`D`$ $`=`$ $`1+e^{\eta _1+\eta _1^{}+R_1}+e^{\eta _1+\eta _2^{}+\delta _0}+e^{\eta _1^{}+\eta _2+\delta _0^{}}+e^{\eta _2+\eta _2^{}+R_2}+e^{\eta _1+\eta _1^{}+\eta _2+\eta _2^{}+R_3},`$
$`e^{\delta _0}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa _{12}}{k_1+k_2^{}}},e^{R_1}={\displaystyle \frac{\kappa _{11}}{k_1+k_1^{}}},e^{R_2}={\displaystyle \frac{\kappa _{22}}{k_2+k_2^{}}},`$
$`e^{\delta _1}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{k_1k_2}{(k_1+k_1^{})(k_1^{}+k_2)}}(\alpha _1\kappa _{21}\alpha _2\kappa _{11}),e^{\delta _2}={\displaystyle \frac{k_2k_1}{(k_2+k_2^{})(k_1+k_2^{})}}(\alpha _2\kappa _{12}\alpha _1\kappa _{22}),`$
$`e^{\delta _1^{^{}}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{k_1k_2}{(k_1+k_1^{})(k_1^{}+k_2)}}(\beta _1\kappa _{21}\beta _2\kappa _{11}),e^{\delta _2^{^{}}}={\displaystyle \frac{k_2k_1}{(k_2+k_2^{})(k_1+k_2^{})}}(\beta _2\kappa _{12}\beta _1\kappa _{22}),`$
$`e^{R_3}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{|k_1k_2|^2}{(k_1+k_1^{})(k_2+k_2^{})|k_1+k_2^{}|^2}}(\kappa _{11}\kappa _{22}\kappa _{12}\kappa _{21})\text{and}\kappa _{ij}={\displaystyle \frac{\mu (\alpha _i\alpha _j^{}+\beta _i\beta _j^{})}{k_i+k_j^{}}}.`$
The above most general bright two-soliton solution corresponds to a shape changing (inelastic) collision of two bright solitons which will be explained in the following sections.

## 4. Inelastic Collision and Switching of Bright Solitons in the Manakov Model

The collision property of bright solitons can be revealed by analysing the asymptotic form of the two-soliton solution . Without loss of generality we assume that $`k_{iR}>0\text{and}k_{1I}>k_{2I},`$ where i=1,2, which corresponds to a head-on collision. One can easily check that asymptotically the two-soliton solution becomes two well separated solitons $`S_1`$ and $`S_2`$. Thus for the above condition, asymptotically the $`\eta _{iR}`$’s for the two-solitons become as (i)$`\eta _{1R}0`$, $`\eta _{2R}\pm \mathrm{}`$ as $`z\pm \mathrm{}`$ and (ii)$`\eta _{2R}0`$, $`\eta _{1R}\mathrm{}`$ as $`z\pm \mathrm{}.`$ This leads to the following asymptotic forms for the two-soliton solution.
(i)Limit z $`\mathrm{}`$: (a) $`S_1`$ ($`\eta _{1R}0,\eta _{2R}\mathrm{}):`$

$`\left(\begin{array}{c}q_1\\ q_2\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}\alpha _1\\ \beta _1\end{array}\right){\displaystyle \frac{e^{\eta _1}}{1+e^{\eta _1+\eta _1^{}+R_1}}}=\left(\begin{array}{c}A_1^1\\ A_2^1\end{array}\right)k_{1R}e^{i\eta _{1I}}\text{sech}\left(\eta _{1R}+{\displaystyle \frac{R_1}{2}}\right),`$ (38)
where $`(A_1^1,A_2^1)=[\mu (\alpha _1\alpha _1^{}+\beta _1\beta _1^{})]^{\frac{1}{2}}(\alpha _1,\beta _1)`$. Here superscript 1- denotes $`S_1`$ at the limit $`z\mathrm{}`$ and subscripts 1 and 2 refer to the modes $`q_1`$ and $`q_2`$.

(b) $`S_2`$ ($`\eta _{2R}0,\eta _{1R}\mathrm{})`$:

$$\left(\begin{array}{c}q_1\\ q_2\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}e^{\delta _1R_1}\\ e^{\delta _1^{}R_1}\end{array}\right)\frac{e^{\eta _2}}{1+e^{\eta _2+\eta _2^{}+R_3R_1}}=\left(\begin{array}{c}A_1^2\\ A_2^2\end{array}\right)k_{2R}e^{i\eta _{2I}}\text{sech}\left(\eta _{2R}+\frac{(R_3R_1)}{2}\right),$$
(39)
where $`(A_1^2,A_2^2)=(\frac{a_1}{a_1^{}})c[\mu (\alpha _2\alpha _2^{}+\beta _2\beta _2^{})]^{\frac{1}{2}}\left[(\alpha _1,\beta _1)\kappa _{11}^1(\alpha _2,\beta _2)\kappa _{21}^1\right]`$ in which $`a_1=(k_1+k_2^{})\left[(k_1k_2)(\alpha _1^{}\alpha _2+\beta _1^{}\beta _2)\right]^{\frac{1}{2}}`$ and $`c=\left[\frac{1}{|\kappa _{12}|^2}\frac{1}{\kappa _{11}\kappa _{22}}\right]^{\frac{1}{2}}.`$

(ii)Limit $`z\mathrm{}`$: (a) $`S_1`$ ($`\eta _{1R}`$ $``$0, $`\eta _{2R}`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{}`$):

$$\left(\begin{array}{c}q_1\\ q_2\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}e^{\delta _2R_2}\\ e^{\delta _2^{}R_2}\end{array}\right)\frac{e^{\eta _1}}{1+e^{\eta _1+\eta _1^{}+R_3R_2}}=\left(\begin{array}{c}A_1^{1+}\\ A_2^{1+}\end{array}\right)k_{1R}e^{i\eta _{1I}}\text{sech}\left(\eta _{1R}+\frac{(R_3R_2)}{2}\right),$$
(40)
where $`(A_1^{1+},A_2^{1+})=(\frac{a_2}{a_2^{}})c[\mu (\alpha _1\alpha _1^{}+\beta _1\beta _1^{})]^{\frac{1}{2}}\left[(\alpha _1,\beta _1)\kappa _{12}^1(\alpha _2,\beta _2)\kappa _{22}^1\right]`$ in which $`a_2=(k_2+k_1^{})\left[(k_1k_2)(\alpha _1\alpha _2^{}+\beta _1\beta _2^{})\right]^{\frac{1}{2}}.`$

(b) $`S_2`$ ($`\eta _{2R}0,\eta _{1R}\mathrm{})`$:

$`\left(\begin{array}{c}q_1\\ q_2\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}\alpha _2\\ \beta _2\end{array}\right){\displaystyle \frac{e^{\eta _2}}{1+e^{\eta _2+\eta _2^{}+R_2}}}=\left(\begin{array}{c}A_1^{2+}\\ A_2^{2+}\end{array}\right)k_{2R}e^{i\eta _{2I}}\text{sech}\left(\eta _{2R}+{\displaystyle \frac{R_2}{2}}\right),`$ (47)
where $`(A_1^{2+},A_2^{2+})=[\mu (\alpha _2\alpha _2^{}+\beta _2\beta _2^{})]^{\frac{1}{2}}(\alpha _2,\beta _2)`$.

In the above set of equations, the solitons before interaction are given by equations (18) and (19) and the solitons after interaction are given by equations (20) and (21). We observe from the above mentioned equations (18-21) that due to the interaction between two copropagating solitons $`S_1`$ and $`S_2`$, their amplitudes change from $`(A_1^1k_{1R},A_2^1k_{1R})`$ and $`(A_1^2k_{2R},A_2^2k_{2R})`$ to $`(A_1^{1+}k_{1R},A_2^{1+}k_{1R})`$ and $`(A_1^{2+}k_{2R},A_2^{2+}k_{2R})`$ respectively, in addition to a change in their phases by an amount $`\frac{R_3R_1R_2}{2}`$ and $`\frac{R_3+R_1+R_2}{2}`$ respectively. The interesting behaviour which should be noted in this collision is that though the amplitude and phase of each soliton change during collision, the total intensity of each soliton is conserved, ie., $`|A_1^{n\pm }|^2+|A_2^{n\pm }|^2=\frac{1}{\mu }`$, where n=1,2 represent the solitons $`S_1`$ and $`S_2`$ respectively. Thus in such a collision there is a change in the distribution of intensity among the two component fields keeping the total intensity conserved. This is shown in Fig(1), where a head-on collision of two solitons is pictured for the parameter values, $`k_1=1+i`$, $`k_2=2i`$, $`\beta _i=1`$, $`\alpha _1=1`$ and $`\alpha _2=\frac{(39+i80)}{89}`$. Here initially the time profiles of the two-solitons are evenly split between the two components $`q_1`$ and $`q_2`$. At the large positive z end the profile of the $`S_1`$ soliton is completely suppressed in the $`q_1`$ component while it is enhanced in the $`q_2`$ component. Noticeable changes in $`S_2`$ soliton also take place.

However we can regain the elastic collision for $`\alpha _2=1`$ . Thus for the special case $`\alpha _1:\alpha _2=\beta _1:\beta _2`$ the standard elastic collision nature of the soliton can be obtained. The above analysis shows that the (1+1) dimensional soliton system given by equation(11) exhibits a novel type of shape changing collision not seen in any other (1+1) dimensional evolution equation which led us to identify the exciting possibility of switching of solitons between modes by changing the phase . This novel type of interaction led Jakubowski et al. to suggest a method for implementing computation in a bulk nonlinear medium without interconnecting discrete components .

## 5. Periodically Twisted Birefringent Fibers and Soliton Interaction

Soliton propagation in a periodically twisted birefringent fiber has gained considerable attention recently . The effect of periodic twist on the soliton propagation can be described by the coupled wave equations of the form

$`iq_{1z}+q_{1tt}+\varrho q_1+\sigma q_2+2\mu (|q_1|^2+|q_2|^2)q_1`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$
$`iq_{2z}+q_{2tt}\varrho q_2+\sigma q_1+2\mu (|q_1|^2+|q_2|^2)q_2`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (48)
where $`\sigma `$ and $`\varrho `$ are the normalized linear coupling constants caused by the periodic twist of the birefringence axes and the phase-velocity mismatch from resonance respectively. It can be easily verified that the transformation, $`q_1=\mathrm{cos}\theta e^{i\mathrm{\Gamma }z}q_{1M}\mathrm{sin}\theta e^{i\mathrm{\Gamma }z}q_{2M},q_2=\mathrm{sin}\theta e^{i\mathrm{\Gamma }z}q_{1M}+\mathrm{cos}\theta e^{i\mathrm{\Gamma }z}q_{2M},`$ where the subscript M refers to the Manakov model and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\sqrt{\varrho ^2+\sigma ^2}`$ and $`\theta =\frac{1}{2}tan^1(\frac{\sigma }{\varrho })`$, reduces equation(22) to the coupled system given by equation(11). Hence by making use of the solutions (16) and (17) we obtain the one-soliton and two-soliton solutions of equation(22) respectively as

$`q_1`$ $`=`$ $`\left\{\mathrm{cos}\theta e^{i\mathrm{\Gamma }z}A_{1M}\mathrm{sin}\theta e^{i\mathrm{\Gamma }z}A_{2M}\right\}q_c,`$
$`q_2`$ $`=`$ $`\left\{\mathrm{sin}\theta e^{i\mathrm{\Gamma }z}A_{1M}+\mathrm{cos}\theta e^{i\mathrm{\Gamma }z}A_{2M}\right\}q_c,`$ (49)
where $`q_c=k_{1R}\mathrm{exp}(i\eta _{1I})\text{sech}(\eta _{1R}+\frac{R}{2})`$ and

$`q_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\left[\mathrm{cos}\theta e^{i\mathrm{\Gamma }z}\alpha _1\mathrm{sin}\theta e^{i\mathrm{\Gamma }z}\beta _1\right]e^{\eta _1}+\left[\mathrm{cos}\theta e^{i\mathrm{\Gamma }z}\alpha _2\mathrm{sin}\theta e^{i\mathrm{\Gamma }z}\beta _2\right]e^{\eta _2}}{D}}`$ (50)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\left[\mathrm{cos}\theta e^{i\mathrm{\Gamma }z+\delta _1}\mathrm{sin}\theta e^{i\mathrm{\Gamma }z+\delta _1^{}}\right]e^{\eta _1+\eta _1^{}+\eta _2}}{D}}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\left[\mathrm{cos}\theta e^{i\mathrm{\Gamma }z+\delta _2}\mathrm{sin}\theta e^{i\mathrm{\Gamma }z+\delta _2^{}}\right]e^{\eta _1+\eta _2+\eta _2^{}}}{D}},`$
where all the parameters in (23) and (24) as well as the quantity D are defined in the previous section and $`q_2`$ can be obtained by just replacing $`\mathrm{cos}\theta `$ by $`\mathrm{sin}\theta `$ and $`\mathrm{sin}\theta `$ by $`\mathrm{cos}\theta `$ in the above equation. The soliton interaction for this system can be studied by carrying out the asymptotic analysis as before.

Then the form of $`S_1`$ and $`S_2`$ before interaction ($`z\mathrm{}`$) is given by

$$(q_1,q_2)=([\mathrm{cos}\theta e^{i\mathrm{\Gamma }z}A_1^1\mathrm{sin}\theta e^{i\mathrm{\Gamma }z}A_2^1],[\mathrm{sin}\theta e^{i\mathrm{\Gamma }z}A_1^1+\mathrm{cos}\theta e^{i\mathrm{\Gamma }z}A_2^1])q^1$$

and

$$(q_1,q_2)=([\mathrm{cos}\theta e^{i\mathrm{\Gamma }z}A_1^2\mathrm{sin}\theta e^{i\mathrm{\Gamma }z}A_2^2],[\mathrm{sin}\theta e^{i\mathrm{\Gamma }z}A_1^2+\mathrm{cos}\theta e^{i\mathrm{\Gamma }z}A_2^2])q^2$$

respectively, where $`q^1=k_{1R}exp(i\eta _{1I})\text{sech}(\eta _{1R}+\frac{R_1}{2})`$, $`q^2=k_{2R}exp(i\eta _{2I})\text{sech}(\eta _{2R}+\frac{(R_3R_1)}{2})`$ and the polarization vectors $`A_i^j,`$ j=1,2 are the same as in equations(18,19).

Proceeding in a similar fashion the form of $`S_1`$ and $`S_2`$ after interaction (limit z$`\mathrm{}`$) can be obtained as

$$(q_1,q_2)=([\mathrm{cos}\theta e^{i\mathrm{\Gamma }z}A_1^{1+}\mathrm{sin}\theta e^{i\mathrm{\Gamma }z}A_2^{1+}],[\mathrm{sin}\theta e^{i\mathrm{\Gamma }z}A_1^{1+}+\mathrm{cos}\theta e^{i\mathrm{\Gamma }z}A_2^{1+}])q^{1+}$$

and

$$(q_1,q_2)=([\mathrm{cos}\theta e^{i\mathrm{\Gamma }z}A_1^{2+}\mathrm{sin}\theta e^{i\mathrm{\Gamma }z}A_2^{2+}],[\mathrm{sin}\theta e^{i\mathrm{\Gamma }z}A_1^{2+}+\mathrm{cos}\theta e^{i\mathrm{\Gamma }z}A_2^{2+}])q^{2+}$$

respectively, where $`q^{1+}=k_{1R}exp(i\eta _{1I})\text{sech}\left(\eta _{1R}+\frac{(R_3R_1)}{2}\right)`$, $`q^{2+}=k_{2R}exp(i\eta _{2I})\text{sech}(\eta _{2R}+\frac{R_2}{2})`$ and the polarization vectors $`A_i^{j+}`$,i,j=1,2 are defined in section-4.

In order to facilitate the understanding of the above behaviour with reference to the optical soliton switching between the orthogonally polarized modes, it is convinient to obtain the oscillating part of the intensities associated with the above asymptotic forms as $`\left|\frac{q_l(z,t)}{q^n(z,t)}\right|^2=|A_l^n|^2\mathrm{cos}^2\theta +|A_j^n|^2\mathrm{sin}^2\theta +(1)^l|A_l^n||A_j^n|\mathrm{sin}2\theta \mathrm{cos}(2\mathrm{\Gamma }z+\varphi ^n),l,j=1,2,`$ where $`(lj),`$ $`\varphi ^n=\mathrm{tan}^1\left({\displaystyle \frac{A_{1I}^n}{A_{1R}^n}}\right)\mathrm{tan}^1\left({\displaystyle \frac{A_{2I}^n}{A_{2R}^n}}\right).`$ Now let us analyse how the presence of the oscillatory term in the above expression and the changes in $`A_j^{n\pm }`$ affect the switching dynamics of the solitons $`S_1`$ and $`S_2`$.

case(i): For all the $`A_j^{n\pm }`$’s are non zero, there is a periodic intensity switching which is always present in both the solitons and in both the components before as well as after the interaction.

case(ii): If any one of the $`A_j^{n\pm }`$’s is zero, and others are nonzero then soliton interaction suppresses or enhances switching dynamics. This is illustrated in Fig(2a), for the parameter values $`k_1=1+i`$, $`k_2=2i`$, $`\alpha _1=\beta _1=\beta _2=1`$, $`\alpha _2=\frac{(39+i80)}{89}`$, $`\rho =0.25`$ and $`\sigma =0.5`$. Here we observe that for $`|A_1^{1+}|0`$ the switching in the intensity of soliton $`S_1`$ is fully suppressed in both the modes $`q_1`$ and $`q_2`$.

case(iii): If any two of the $`A_j^{n\pm }`$’s are zero then the soliton interaction suppresses and enhances switching dynamics. This can be verified from the Fig(2b), for the chosen parameters, $`k_1=1+i(0.1)`$, $`k_2=1i(0.1)`$, $`\alpha _1=0.86+i(0.5)`$, $`\alpha _2=0.5+i(0.86)`$, $`\beta _1=0.7+i(0.72)`$, $`\beta _2=0.44+i(0.9)`$ and $`\rho =\sigma =0.25`$. Thus for this case due to the interaction there is an exchange of periodic intensity between the two modes of soliton $`S_2`$ with the suppression of the switching dynamics in soliton $`S_1`$.

## 6. CNLS with Coupled Cubic-Quintic Nonlinearity

The model for ultra short optical pulse propagation in non-Kerr media (in particular materials with high nonlinear coefficients even at moderate optical intensities, for example, semiconductor dopped glasses, organic polymers, etc.) can be obtained by expanding the induced polarization vector in Maxwell’s equation(1) as

$$\stackrel{}{P}(\stackrel{}{r},t)=ϵ_0[\chi ^{(1)}.\stackrel{}{E}+\chi ^{(3)}\mathrm{}\stackrel{}{E}\stackrel{}{E}\stackrel{}{E}+\chi ^{(5)}\dot{\dot{\mathrm{}}}\stackrel{}{E}\stackrel{}{E}\stackrel{}{E}\stackrel{}{E}\stackrel{}{E}+\mathrm{}],$$
(51)
where $`\chi ^{(5)}`$ is the fifth order nonlinear susceptibility and following the procedure as in the case of NLS equation. The resulting equation, in normalized form, describing the effects of quintic nonlinearity on the ultra short optical soliton pulse propagation is ,

$$iq_z+q_{tt}+2|q|^2q+\gamma |q|^4q+i\gamma _1q_{ttt}+i\gamma _2(|q|^2q)_t+i\gamma _3(|q|^4q)_t=0.$$
(52)
The generalization of equation(26) in order to include multimode effects leads to the following coupled cubic-quintic NLS equation, after neglecting third order terms,

$`iq_{1z}+q_{1tt}+2(|q_1|^2+|q_2|^2)q_1+(\rho _1|q_1|^2+\rho _2|q_2|^2)^2q_1+2\rho _2[(\tau _1\rho _1)|q_1|^2`$
$`+(\tau _2\rho _2)|q_2|^2]\left|q_2\right|^2q_12i[(\rho _1|q_1|^2+\rho _2|q_2|^2)q_1]_t+2i(\rho _1q_1^{}q_{1t}+\rho _2q_2^{}q_{2t})q_1`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$
$`iq_{2z}+q_{2tt}+2(|q_1|^2+|q_2|^2)q_2+(\tau _1|q_1|^2+\tau _2|q_2|^2)^2q_2+2\tau _1[(\rho _1\tau _1)|q_1|^2`$
$`+(\rho _2\tau _2)|q_2|^2]\left|q_1\right|^2q_22i[(\tau _1|q_1|^2+\tau _2|q_2|^2)q_2]_t+2i(\tau _1q_1^{}q_{1t}+\tau _2q_2^{}q_{2t})q_2`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$
where $`\rho _1,\rho _2,\tau _1`$ and $`\tau _2`$ are real free parameters. The integrable nature of the above equation can be studied by obtaining the Lax pairs and conserved quantities for it. The Lax pair associated with equation(27) is

$`L=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}i\lambda & q_1& q_2\\ q_1^{}& i\theta _{1t}+i\lambda & 0\\ q_2^{}& 0& i\theta _{2t}+i\lambda \end{array}\right),M=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}2i\lambda ^2& 2\lambda q_1& 2\lambda q_2\\ +i\left(\right|q_1|^2& +iq_{1t}& +iq_{2t}\\ +\left|q_2|^2\right)& +\theta _{1t}q_1& +\theta _{2t}q_2\\ & & \\ 2\lambda q_1^{}& 2i\lambda ^2& iq_1^{}q_2\\ +iq_{1t}^{}& i\left|q_1\right|^2& \\ \theta _{1t}q_1^{}& i\theta _{1z}& \\ & & \\ 2\lambda q_2^{}& iq_1q_2^{}& 2i\lambda ^2\\ +iq_{2t}^{}& & i\left|q_2\right|^2\\ \theta _{2t}q_2^{}& & i\theta _{2z}\end{array}\right),`$ (68)
where $`\theta _1=_{\mathrm{}}^t(\rho _1|q_1|^2+\rho _2|q_2|^2)𝑑t^{}`$, $`\theta _2=_{\mathrm{}}^t(\tau _1|q_1|^2+\tau _2|q_2|^2)𝑑t^{}`$ and $`\lambda `$ is the spectral parameter. The compatability condition $`L_zM_t+[L,M]=0`$ leads to equation(27). Though the integrable system(27) possesses infinite number of conserved quantities, only the lower ones are of physical importance. They can be written as

$`c_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2i}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}}𝑑t(|q_1|^2+|q_2|^2),`$
$`c_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{4}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}}dt[i(q_1q_{1t}^{}+q_2q_{2t}^{})+\rho _1|q_1|^4+\tau _2|q_2|^4`$
$`+(\rho _2+\tau _1)|q_1|^2|q_2|^2],`$
$`c_3`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{8}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}}dt[(q_1q_{1tt}^{}+q_2q_{2tt}^{})+(|q_1|^2+|q_2|^2)^2+i(|q_1|^2N_{1t}+|q_2|^2N_{2t})`$ (69)
$`+2i(N_1q_1q_{1t}^{}+N_2q_2q_{2t}^{})(N_1^2|q_1|^2+N_2^2|q_2|^2)],`$
etc., where $`N_1=\theta _{1t}=\rho _1|q_1|^2+\rho _2|q_2|^2`$ and $`N_2=\theta _{2t}=\tau _1|q_1|^2+\tau _2|q_2^2|`$. Here $`c_1`$, $`c_2`$ and $`c_3`$ may be related to the number operator, angular momentum and the Hamiltonian (energy) of the system(27) respectively. It is intriguing to note that the fields $`q_a`$ and $`q_a^{}`$, a=1,2 do not have canonical Poisson bracket relations. However under the following nonultralocal Poisson bracket structure,

$`\{q_1(x),q_1^{}(y)\}`$ $`=`$ $`\delta (xy)+i\rho _1ϵ(xy)q_1(x)q_1^{}(y),`$
$`\{q_1(x),q_1(y)\}`$ $`=`$ $`i\rho _1ϵ(yx)q_1(x)q_1(y),`$
$`\{q_1(x),q_2(y)\}`$ $`=`$ $`i(\rho _2\theta (xy)\tau _1\theta (yx))q_1(x)q_2(y),`$
$`\{q_1(x),q_2^{}(y)\}`$ $`=`$ $`i(\rho _2\theta (xy)\tau _1\theta (yx))q_1(x)q_2^{}(y),`$ (70)
etc., where $`ϵ(x)=\theta (x)\theta (x)`$ is the sign function defined through the step function, $`\theta (x)=1`$ for $`x>0`$, $`\theta (x)=0,`$ for $`x0`$, the integrals(29) become involutive. The interrelation between equation(27) and the Manakov system allows us to construct the soliton solution of equation(27) in terms of the known Manakov soliton solution.The fields of these two models are related through a

nonlinear transformation for the dependent variables given by

$$q_{aM}=q_aexp(i\theta _a),a=1,2$$
(71)
and the subscrip M represents the Manakov model. Their Lax pairs are related through a local gauge transformation $`L^{}=g^1Lgg^1g_t`$, $`M^{}=g^1Mgg^1g_x`$ where

$`g=\left[\begin{array}{ccc}1& 0& 0\\ 0& exp(i\theta _1)& 0\\ 0& 0& exp(i\theta _2)\end{array}\right].`$ (75)
Then the one-soliton solution takes the form

$$(q_1,q_2)=(\alpha e^{i\delta _1\mathrm{tanh}(\nu (tvz+\delta ))},\beta e^{i\delta _2\mathrm{tanh}(\nu (tvz+\delta ))})sech(\nu (tvz+\delta ))e^{i(\kappa t+\omega z)}$$
(76)
and the two-soliton solution can be obtained by substituting the two-soliton solution of the Manakov model in the transformation(31).

The effect of the dependence of phase change on the real free parameters $`\rho _1`$, $`\rho _2`$, $`\tau _1`$ and $`\tau _2`$ during collision can be revealed by carrying out the asymptotic analysis of the two-soliton solution as earlier. In this connection, we have taken the derivatives of the $`|q_j^n|,`$ n,j=1,2, since the effect of the phases are reflected only in such terms rather than $`|q_j^n|^2`$.

We have shown these effects for the parameter values $`k_1=1.5+i(0.5),`$ $`k_2=2i(0.7)`$, $`\alpha _1=\beta _1=\beta _2=1`$ and $`\alpha _2=\frac{39+i80}{89}`$, by comparing the plots of the intensity profiles in the absence of the free parameters ($`\rho _1`$, $`\rho _2`$, $`\tau _1`$ and $`\tau _2`$) with those in their presence. It is obvious from equation(31) that for the choice of parameters $`\rho _1`$=$`\rho _2`$=$`\tau _1`$=$`\tau _2`$$`=0`$, the two-soliton solution of equation(27) reduces to that of the Manakov system. Hence in Figure(3a) we have plotted the intensity profiles of $`|q_{1Mt}|^2`$ and $`|q_{2Mt}|^2`$ for the above parametric values. In the figure there appears a splitting in each of the asymptotic profiles before and after interaction.

After setting $`\rho _1`$=$`\rho _2`$=$`\tau _1`$=$`\tau _2`$$`=1`$, we can show that the splitting disappears as shown in Figure(3b). Thus in addition to the inelastic soliton collision, there is a change in the asymptotic form (suppression of splitting) of the intensity profiles which arises due to the presence of the phase terms $`\theta _a`$ in the transformation(31).

## 7. General Soliton Perturbation

As mentioned in section(2) the CNLS equation is in general a nonintegrable one. We can apply the multiple scale perturbation theory to study such nonintegrable system with more general perturbations $`R_1`$ and $`R_2`$ as given below,

$`iq_{1z}+q_{1tt}+2\mu (|q_1|^2+|q_2|^2)q_1=iϵR_1(q_1,q_2,q_{1t},q_{2t}\mathrm{}),`$
$`iq_{2z}+q_{2tt}+2\mu (|q_2|^2+|q_1|^2)q_2=iϵR_2(q_1,q_2,q_{1t},q_{2t}\mathrm{}).`$ (77)
In the absence of the perturbation the above equation reduces to the Manakov system. After expanding $`q_i`$ as

$$q_i=q_i^{(0)}(k_{iR},k_{iI},A_i^{j\pm },\mathrm{\Phi }_i^{j\pm })+ϵq_i^{(1)}+ϵ^2q_i^{(2)}+\mathrm{}\text{i, j=1,2,}$$
(78)
where $`A_i^{j\pm }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_i^{j\pm }`$ are the real and imaginary parts of the polarization vectors of the two-solitons respectively, in the asymptotic limits $`z\pm \mathrm{}`$. Substitution of this in equation(34), it is trivial to verify that $`q_i^{(0)}`$ is nothing but the two-soliton solution of the Manakov system. Asymptotically this two-soliton solution of the Manakov model given by equation(17) can be written as a combination of two one-solitons as $`z\pm \mathrm{}`$

$`\left(\begin{array}{c}q_1\\ q_2\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}q_1^{1\pm }+q_1^{2\pm }\\ q_2^{1\pm }+q_2^{2\pm }\end{array}\right).`$ (83)
By using a direct perturbational approach  the evolution equations for the soliton parameters in the presence of perturbations can be obtained. Applying this method to CNLS equation(10) one can easily check that there occurs transmission and reflection scenarios during collision with a sensitive dependence of the collision outcome on the cross phase modulation coefficient and initial soliton parameters. As a special case by taking $`R_i=(\gamma q_i+\overline{\beta }|q_j|^2q_i+\frac{\delta }{2}q_{itt})`$ where i,j=1,2 we have studied the effect of perturbations such as fiber loss, dispersion gain and nonlinear gain. The importance of taking such a form for perturbation is that in the absence of $`q_1`$ and $`q_2`$ equation(34) along with the above specified form of $`R_1`$ and $`R_2`$ reduces to the Ginzburg-Landau equation governing pulse propagation in fiber amplifiers . Since we have taken the asymptotic form of the more general two-soliton solution as the zeroth order solution, the collision properties of the system(34) can be directly studied by comparing the evolution of the soliton parameters in the limits $`z\mathrm{}`$ and $`z\mathrm{}`$. We expect that this may lead to some novel results such that collision among the solitons may be used to compensate fiber loss experienced by the interacting coupled one-solitons corresponding to any one of the polarized modes.

## 8. Acknowledgement

This work is supported by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India in the form of a Research Project.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The AdS/CFT correspondence  has provided a remarkable example of holographic duality . According to this duality a theory containing gravity, for which it is at least very difficult to define local observables, is described by a local quantum field theory living on the boundary of space-time, and, *vice versa*, physical quantities of the boundary field theory can be obtained from the bulk theory. Specifically, the AdS/CFT correspondence relates theories living on a $`(d+1)`$–dimensional anti-de Sitter (AdS) space to conformal field theories (CFTs) living on the $`d`$–dimensional boundary.

Among the several proposed generalisations, the idea of implementing a holographic version of the renormalisation group has attracted considerable attention . This can be realised by considering string theory vacua in which some scalar field acquires a non-trivial dependence along one direction, and the bulk space-time is no longer AdS. Such backgrounds are supposed to represent the running of the couplings in terms of the so-called holographic coordinate, which in turn is interpreted as an energy scale of the dual boundary field theory. Several such supergravity solutions have been found explicitly  (see  for a review), and some correlation functions of the boundary theories dual to these backgrounds have been computed . Even if most of the solutions available display some kind of singularity in the IR, here we are interested in considering non-singular solutions that smoothly interpolate between two fixed point CFT’s. We will attempt to find non-perturbative relations that should be valid along these flows, and appropriately reduce to the fixed point results.

According to the general prescription of the holographic duality, one must solve the equations of motion of the bulk theory and evaluate the (suitably renormalised) on-shell action in order to obtain the generating functional of the boundary field theory. The only exceptions to this effort are anomalies (or holographic one-point functions), which can be evaluated without knowledge of the full bulk solutions. Here, an analysis of the asymptotic behaviour of the bulk fields towards the boundary is sufficient .

Another interesting approach to the study of the holographic renormalisation group, using the Hamilton–Jacobi formulation of the bulk theory, has been proposed by de Boer, Verlinde and Verlinde (dBVV)  and studied further in . The Hamilton equations of motion resemble the flow of couplings with the cut-off scale, and a holographic beta function can be defined. Moreover, the boundary counter terms necessary to renormalise the on-shell action are elegantly obtained using a derivative expansion and solving the resulting descent equations. Holographic anomalies occur whenever a descent equation breaks.

Despite the formal agreement of the results of dBVV’s method with those of the asymptotic analysis, the exact relation between dBVV’s interpretation of the holographic renormalisation group and the standard implementation of holography has remained somewhat obscure. In this paper, we shall try to elaborate this point by a systematic study of dBVV’s descent equations up to level four. Our results for the anomalies in the vicinity of a given fixed point agree with those of , but are slightly more general. An interpretation of the descent equations along the full renormalisation group flow proves more difficult. We find that a holographic $`c`$-function for $`d=2`$ can be defined from the level two descent equations, but such an interpretation becomes problematic in higher dimensions.

As a simple generic model, we consider the action for scalar fields coupled to gravity in $`d+1`$ dimensions,222Our conventions for the curvature tensor are $`R^\mu {}_{\nu \rho \lambda }{}^{}=_\rho \mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu {}_{\nu \lambda }{}^{}+\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mu {}_{\rho \sigma }{}^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{}^{\sigma }{}_{\nu \lambda }{}^{}(\rho \lambda )`$, $`R_{\mu \nu }=R^\rho _{\mu \rho \nu }`$. Here we have adorned with a tilde quantities belonging to $`(d+1)`$ space to distinguish them from those of the $`d`$-dimensional hypersurfaces.

$$S=d^{d+1}x\sqrt{\stackrel{~}{g}}\left[\stackrel{~}{R}+\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{~}{g}^{ab}_a\varphi ^IG_{IJ}(\varphi )_b\varphi ^JV(\varphi )\right]+2d^dx\sqrt{g}H.$$
(1)
The second term on the right hand side of eqn. (1) is the Gibbons–Hawking boundary term including the extrinsic curvature $`H`$ of the boundary.

Assuming that the potential $`V`$ has a local extremum at $`\overline{\varphi }`$ with $`V(\overline{\varphi })>0`$, there exists a solution to the classical equations of motion of (1) with $`\varphi =\overline{\varphi }`$ and AdS geometry with cosmological constant $`2\mathrm{\Lambda }=V(\overline{\varphi })=d(d1)/l^2`$. Such backgrounds give rise to boundary CFTs, and the AdS/CFT correspondence has been well-studied in the past years. In particular, the holographic Weyl anomaly, derived first by Henningson and Skenderis , is, for $`d=2`$ and $`d=4`$, respectively,

$`T`$ $`=c_2R,`$ (2)
$`T`$ $`=c_4I_4a_4E_4.`$ (3)
($`I_4`$ and $`E_4`$ are the square of the Weyl tensor and the Euler density in four dimensions, respectively.) The coefficients $`c_2=l`$, $`c_4=l^3/8`$ and $`a_4=l^3/8`$ are identified as central charges of the boundary CFTs. Taking into account the coupling with nontrivial scalar fields gives rise to additional terms, that generically mix with curvature terms. Some of these terms were computed in  in the context of AdS/CFT. We will illustrate how such terms can be obtained for bare fields in the vicinity of the UV fixed point by performing Hamilton–Jacobi analysis, and eventually translated to renormalised quantities. We will also see that a non-perturbative extrapolation of the results towards the IR fixed point proves more difficult.

One can use the following arguments  to identify UV and IR fixed points. Scalar fluctuations around the constant scalar background have a mass $`m^2=^2V/\overline{\varphi }^2`$ and act as sources of primary conformal operators of dimension $`\mathrm{\Delta }=d/2+\sqrt{d^2/4+m^2l^2}`$. Thus, at a local minimum of $`V`$, tachyons are present in the bulk theory, which act as sources of relevant operators ($`\mathrm{\Delta }<d`$) in the boundary CFT so that the field theory is unstable at this point (UV fixed point). *Vice versa*, at a local maximum of $`V`$, there are no tachyons in the bulk and only irrelevant operators in the CFT (IR fixed point). For two neighbouring extrema of $`V`$, we have $`V_{\mathrm{UV}}<V_{\mathrm{IR}}`$, $`l_{\mathrm{UV}}>l_{\mathrm{IR}}`$, and thus generically $`c_{\mathrm{UV}}>c_{\mathrm{IR}}`$ for the central charges.

Let us conclude this section with an outline of the rest of the paper. In Sec. 2 we briefly review dBVV’s method. The descent equations are analysed in the vicinity of a fixed point in Sec. 3, and the possible anomalies are derived. In Sec. 4 we give conclusions and try to extend the meaning of the descent equations to the full renormalisation group flow. The lengthy expressions of level four are listed in the appendix.

## 2 Hamilton–Jacobi Approach

In this section, we briefly recall the Hamilton–Jacobi approach to the holographic renormalisation group. We shall put special emphasis on the differences with the standard implementation of holography in order to establish a suitable connection in later sections. The reader is referred to  for details of the method.

The bulk field theory with the action (1) is treated in ADM formalism. The constraints in phase space are

$``$ $`=\pi ^{\mu \nu }\pi _{\mu \nu }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{d1}}\pi ^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\pi _IG^{IJ}\pi _J+R{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g^{\mu \nu }_\mu \varphi ^IG_{IJ}_\nu \varphi ^J+V0,`$ (4)
$`^\nu `$ $`=_\mu \pi ^{\mu \nu }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\pi _I^\nu \varphi ^I0.`$ (5)
We will choose lapse and shift functions such that the bulk metric is

$$ds^2=\stackrel{~}{g}_{ab}dx^adx^b=dr^2+g_{\mu \nu }dx^\mu dx^\nu $$
(6)
($`a,b=0,\mathrm{},d`$, $`\mu ,\nu =1,\mathrm{},d`$) and the space-like foliation parameter is $`x^0=r`$, to which we will refer as the cut-off.

For a classical trajectory the on-shell action, henceforth denoted by $`S`$, is a functional of the values $`g_{\mu \nu }(r,x)`$ and $`\varphi ^I(r,x)`$ at the cut-off (boundary values). The canonical momenta at the cut-off are given by the functional derivative of $`S`$ with respect to the boundary data,

$`\pi _I`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{g}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta S}{\delta \varphi ^I}},`$ $`\pi ^{\mu \nu }`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{g}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta S}{\delta g_{\mu \nu }}},`$ (7)
so that both the constraints (4) and (5) become the Hamilton–Jacobi equations for $`S`$. Moreover, (one half of) the Hamilton equations of motion yield the flow equations,

$`\dot{\varphi }^I`$ $`=G^{IJ}\pi _J,`$ (8)
$`\dot{g}_{\mu \nu }`$ $`=2\pi _{\mu \nu }{\displaystyle \frac{2}{d1}}g_{\mu \nu }\pi .`$ (9)
According to the “AdS/CFT master formula” , the on-shell action $`S`$ is identified (up to possible local counter terms) with the generating functional of the boundary field theory, where the (suitably rescaled) boundary data play the role of the sources coupling to the boundary field theory operators. De Boer, Verlinde and Verlinde  proposed to use a derivative expansion to systematically determine the counter terms and wrote the on-shell action $`S`$ as

$$S=[S]_0+[S]_2+[S]_4+\mathrm{}+\mathrm{\Gamma },$$
(10)
where

$`[S]_0`$ $`={\displaystyle d^dx\sqrt{g}U(\varphi )},`$ (11)
$`[S]_2`$ $`={\displaystyle d^dx\sqrt{g}\left[\mathrm{\Phi }(\varphi )R+\frac{1}{2}g^{\mu \nu }_\mu \varphi ^IM_{IJ}(\varphi )_\nu \varphi ^J\right]},\text{etc.,}`$ (12)
are the local counter terms involving $`0,2,\mathrm{}`$ derivatives. $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, which is generically non-local, is identified with the generating functional of the boundary field theory, so that

$`𝒪_I`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{g}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }}{\delta \varphi ^I}},`$ $`T^{\mu \nu }`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{2}{\sqrt{g}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }}{\delta g_{\mu \nu }}}.`$ (13)
Such relations hold both for the bare $`\varphi (x,r)`$ and renormalised $`\widehat{\varphi }(x)`$ fields . We define the bare fields as solutions of full bulk equations of motion with the asymptotic boundary conditions at $`r\mathrm{}`$,

$`g_{\mu \nu }(x,r)`$ $`=\mathrm{e}^{2r/l}\widehat{g}_{\mu \nu }(x)+\mathrm{},`$ (14)
$`\varphi (x,r)`$ $`=\mathrm{e}^{(\mathrm{\Delta }d)r/l}\widehat{\varphi }(x)+\mathrm{}.`$ (15)
The fields $`\widehat{g}_{\mu \nu }`$ and $`\widehat{\varphi }`$ are the boundary field theory sources coupling to the energy momentum operator, $`\widehat{T}^{\mu \nu }`$, and some scalar operator, $`\widehat{𝒪}`$, respectively. Because in the Hamilton–Jacobi theory one naturally works in terms of bare couplings, we need to give a procedure for finding renormalised correlators. As the two sets of fields are related by the equations of motion, one finds

$$\frac{\delta }{\delta \widehat{\varphi }(x)}=\frac{\delta \varphi (x,r)}{\delta \widehat{\varphi }(x)}\frac{\delta }{\delta \varphi (x,r)}𝒜(x,r)\frac{\delta }{\delta \varphi (x,r)}$$
(16)
where $`𝒜(x,r)`$ acts as a bulk–boundary propagator. This operator is in general a complicated non-local operator, whose explicit form is not known. Nevertheless, its expansion for a single free scalar in fixed gravitational background is known : There, it turns out that apart from the scaling factor already explicit in (15), $`𝒜(x,r)`$ is a series in the boundary d’Alembertians. For the purposes of the present analysis, these corrections coming from the Jacobian (16) will give rise to higher order derivative corrections, and it turns out that they can be consistently neglected (cf. Sec. 3).

Consistency of perturbation theory in the bulk field theory requires $`\mathrm{\Delta }<d`$, *i.e.*, we are dealing with operators at the UV fixed point.

The constraint (5) is satisfied by each of the local terms $`[S]_{2n}`$, whereas for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ it represents the Ward identity for diffeomorphisms in the boundary field theory,333This turns out to be the case for scalar fields interacting with gravity, whereas the analogous equation in the presence of interacting fermion fields obtains unusual contributions .

$$_\mu T^{\mu \nu }𝒪_I^\nu \varphi ^I=0.$$
(17)
The constraint (4) is used to determine the unknown functions $`U`$, $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$, $`M_{IJ}`$, etc. These equations do not determine a unique solution. Actually, to completely fix one it is necessary to impose still more boundary conditions by comparing with the asymptotic AdS solution, as done in Sec. 3.

In the original proposal, de Boer, Verlinde and Verlinde included all possible local terms $`[S]_{2n}`$ for $`2n<d`$ in the derivative expansion. Fukuma, Matsuma and Sakai  pointed out that adding terms $`[S]_d`$ is physically irrelevant, since it corresponds to adding total derivative terms to the anomaly, or terms proportional to the beta function that therefore vanish at the fixed point. We shall show here that these terms in $`[S]_d`$ are needed to cancel spurious terms in the anomaly in the vicinity of the fixed point.

The terms of the Hamiltonian (4) stemming from the local $`[S]_{2n}`$ can be split into expressions of level $`2n`$, where $`2n`$ is the number of space-time derivatives. Thus, one obtains for level zero

$$[]_0=\frac{U}{2(d1)}\left[\frac{d}{2}U+\frac{U}{4(d1)}\beta ^IG_{IJ}\beta ^J+\frac{2(d1)}{U}V\right],$$
(18)
where $`\beta ^I`$ denotes the holographic beta function and is defined as
$$\beta ^I=G^{IJ}\frac{2(d1)}{U}_JU.$$
(19)
Notice that this actually takes into account only the lowest order in derivatives of the full beta function that follows from varying the local part of $`S`$. This is in fact what appears in the Callan–Symanzik equation .

At level two, one finds

$$[]_2=\frac{U}{2(d1)}\left\{c_2R\lambda _{IJ}^\mu \varphi ^I_\mu \varphi ^J+_\mu \left[\left(2(d1)_I\mathrm{\Phi }+M_{IJ}\beta ^J\right)^\mu \varphi ^I\right]\right\},$$
(20)
where

$`c_2`$ $`=(d2)\mathrm{\Phi }{\displaystyle \frac{2(d1)}{U}}+\beta ^I_I\mathrm{\Phi },`$ (21)
$`\lambda _{IJ}`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{d2}{2}}M_{IJ}+{\displaystyle \frac{d1}{U}}G_{IJ}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(M_{IK}_J\beta ^K+M_{JK}_I\beta ^K+_KM_{IJ}\beta ^K\right).`$ (22)
In addition to the $`[]_{2n}`$ coming from the local terms in $`S`$, there are terms involving the non-local $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. The first such term contains the anomalies,

$$[]_\mathrm{\Gamma }=\frac{U}{2(d1)}\left(T+\beta ^I𝒪_I\right).$$
(23)
The Hamiltonian constraint (4) is incorporated by setting each term in $`[]_{2n}`$ to zero for $`2n<d`$ and trying to solve this system of descent equations for the unknowns $`U`$, $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$, $`M_{IJ}`$, etc. For $`n=0`$, this gives an equation for $`U`$ in terms of $`V`$,

$$\frac{1}{2d(d1)}\beta ^IG_{IJ}\beta ^J=1\frac{4(d1)V}{dU^2},$$
(24)
after substituting eqn. (19). We must observe here that eqn. (24) does not determine $`U`$ uniquely. In fact, we will revert to AdS/CFT results in order to make sure that the lowest orders in the Taylor expansion of $`U`$ correspond to the leading local terms of the on-shell action. As we are interested in interpolating renormalisation group trajectories, we should also assume that $`U`$ has another critical point in the IR. This boils down to a nonperturbative boundary condition on the $`U`$ we are considering, and determines it completely .

For $`n=1`$ and $`d>2`$, we have the three equations

$`2(d1)_I\mathrm{\Phi }+\beta ^JM_{IJ}`$ $`=0,`$ (25)
$`c_2`$ $`=0,`$ (26)
$`\lambda _{IJ}`$ $`=0.`$ (27)
Although these are three equations for only two unknowns, the system is not over–determined, since the equations are not functionally independent. In fact, eqn. (25) ensures that

$$(d1)_Ic_2=\lambda _{IJ}\beta ^J,$$
(28)
so that eqn. (26) implies eqn. (27).

Writing down $`[]_{2n}`$ becomes increasingly involved for $`n>2`$. We list $`[]_4`$ in the appendix for later use.

If one could solve the descent equations to any level, starting from level zero, one would obtain all counter terms $`[S]_{2n}`$. However, typically, the descent equations will break at some level $`n`$, in which case one must revert to $`[]_{2n}+[]_\mathrm{\Gamma }=0`$, which yields the holographic anomaly of the boundary field theory. Moreover, the anomaly involves also the unknown functions of $`[S]_d`$, which should reflect the ambiguity of choosing a renormalisation scheme. We will use the freedom to add these finite terms to bring the anomaly to a standard form close to the fixed point.

## 3 Anomalies in the Vicinity of a Fixed Point

In this section we analyse the vicinity around a given fixed point by expansion of the descent equations of level zero to four in powers of the scalar field. To a certain extent, this has been done in , but we repeat the analysis here to be self-contained.

For simplicity, we shall consider the case of a single scalar field with $`G_{II}=1`$. Furthermore, without loss of generality, let us assume that the fixed point is at $`\varphi =0`$. For the holographic beta function, we shall substitute

$$\beta =(\mathrm{\Delta }d)\varphi .$$
(29)
We are also neglecting higher derivative terms of the full beta function, as discussed below eqn. (19). Generically, our notation will be

$$A(\varphi )=A^{(0)}+A^{(1)}\varphi +\frac{1}{2}A^{(2)}\varphi ^2+\mathrm{},$$
(30)
although for most quantities some of the terms are absent.

Let us start with the expansion of $`U`$, which is essentially the input at the top of the descent equations. The constant $`U^{(0)}`$ is known from pure gravity calculations in AdS/CFT , and the quadratic term follows directly from eqns. (19) and (29), while there is no linear term,

$$U(\varphi )=\frac{2(d1)}{l}+\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }d}{2l}\varphi ^2+\mathrm{}.$$
(31)
Thus, we have made sure that $`U`$ is the leading term of the on-shell action. Now, writing the potential $`V`$ as

$$V(\varphi )=V_0\frac{1}{2}m^2\varphi ^2+\mathrm{}$$
(32)
and setting $`[]_0=0`$, yields

$$V_0=\frac{d(d1)}{l}^2\text{and}m^2l^2=\mathrm{\Delta }(\mathrm{\Delta }d),$$
(33)
reproducing the AdS cosmological constant at the fixed point and the AdS/CFT mass formula. To quadratic order in $`\varphi `$, all terms of the level zero constraint can be solved, so that no anomaly is obtained at this level. This comes somewhat as a surprise, since from AdS/CFT one should expect an anomaly proportional to $`\varphi ^2`$ for operators of dimension $`\mathrm{\Delta }=d/2`$ . However, the absence of the anomaly can be explained by the fact that here we are dealing with bare fields. We will show at the end of this section how it can be recovered when translating to renormalised quantities.

Let us proceed to the level two equations starting with the coefficient $`\lambda _{IJ}`$, given in eqn. (22). One finds

$$\lambda =M^{(0)}\left(\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{d}{2}1\right)\frac{l}{2}+𝒪(\varphi ).$$
(34)
Obviously, for operators of dimension $`\mathrm{\Delta }d/2+1`$, $`\lambda =0`$ can be solved to lowest order with the result

$$M^{(0)}=\frac{l}{2(\mathrm{\Delta }d/21)}.$$
(35)
In contrast, for operators of dimension $`\mathrm{\Delta }=d/2+1`$, $`\lambda `$ contributes a term $`l/2_\mu \varphi ^\mu \varphi `$ to the anomaly, just as expected. Moreover, in this anomalous case the value $`M^{(0)}`$ remains undetermined.

Given $`M^{(0)}`$, eqn. (25) can always be solved and gives

$$\mathrm{\Phi }^{(2)}=M^{(0)}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }d}{2(d1)}.$$
(36)
Last, eqn. (21) is expanded as

$$c_2=(d2)\mathrm{\Phi }^{(0)}+l+\varphi ^2\left[\left(\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{d}{2}1\right)\mathrm{\Phi }^{(2)}+\frac{(\mathrm{\Delta }d)l}{4(d1)}\right]+\mathrm{}.$$
(37)
For operators of dimension $`\mathrm{\Delta }d/2+1`$, the quadratic term vanishes by virtue of eqns. (36) and (35), while, for $`\mathrm{\Delta }=d/2+1`$, $`c_2`$ contributes a term $`(d2)l/[8(d1)]\varphi ^2R`$ to the anomaly. Moreover, in dimensions $`d2`$, the constant part of $`c_2`$ can be solved and gives

$$\mathrm{\Phi }^{(0)}=\frac{l}{d2},$$
(38)
while, for $`d=2`$, we obtain the standard Weyl anomaly $`lR`$.

Our treatment of the level two descent equations illustrates the occurrence of anomalies in the Hamilton–Jacobi approach to holography. In summary, we have found the following level two anomalies in the neighbourhood of a given fixed point,

$$T+\beta 𝒪=\{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{l}{2}_\mu \varphi ^\mu \varphi +\frac{(d2)l}{8(d1)}\varphi ^2R+𝒪(\varphi ^3),\hfill & \text{if }\mathrm{\Delta }=d/2+1\text{,}\hfill \\ lR+𝒪(\varphi ^3),\hfill & \text{if }d=2\text{.}\hfill \end{array}$$
(39)
Let us now come to the anomalies in the neighbourhood of the fixed point stemming from the level four descent equations. These will occur, if $`d=4`$, or if $`\mathrm{\Delta }=d/2+2`$. We have listed the level four terms of the Hamiltonian in appendix A. It must be stressed that the level four equations can only be used as they stand, if the level two equations can be solved, *i.e.*, if there is no level two anomaly. In these cases terms like $`R_{\mu \nu }T^{\mu \nu }`$ contribute to level four. This means, that the following arguments are valid only, if $`d2`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }d/2+1`$.

Starting with the term in $`[]_4`$ proportional to $`R^2`$, we have from eqn. (62)

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \psi _1& =(d4)\mathrm{\Psi }_1^{(0)}+\frac{dl}{4(d1)}\left(\mathrm{\Phi }^{(0)}\right)^2\varphi ^2\{(\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{d}{2}2)\mathrm{\Psi }_1^{(2)}\hfill \\ & \frac{dl}{4(d1)}[\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }d}{4(d1)}\left(\mathrm{\Phi }^{(0)}\right)^2+\mathrm{\Phi }^{(0)}\mathrm{\Phi }^{(2)}]+\frac{l}{2}\left(\mathrm{\Phi }^{(2)}\right)^2\}+\mathrm{},\hfill \end{array}$$
(40)
where eqn. (31) has been used. Thus, if $`d=4`$, we cannot solve for $`\mathrm{\Psi }_1^{(0)}`$, which results in a contribution to the anomaly, $`\psi _1=l/3\left(\mathrm{\Phi }^{(0)}\right)^2=l^3/12`$. If $`\mathrm{\Delta }=d/2+2`$, $`\mathrm{\Psi }_1^{(2)}`$ remains undetermined, and we have

$$\psi _1=\frac{(d4)l^3\varphi ^2}{128(d1)^2(d2)^2}(d^34d^2+16d16).$$

Similarly, from eqn. (63) we find

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \psi _2& =(d4)\mathrm{\Psi }_2^{(0)}l\left(\mathrm{\Phi }^{(0)}\right)^2\hfill \\ & \varphi ^2\left\{\left(\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{d}{2}2\right)\mathrm{\Psi }_2^{(2)}+l\left[\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }d}{4(d1)}\left(\mathrm{\Phi }^{(0)}\right)^2+\mathrm{\Phi }^{(0)}\mathrm{\Phi }^{(2)}\right]\right\}+\mathrm{}.\hfill \end{array}$$
(41)
Again, for $`d=4`$, we find the contribution $`\psi _2=l\left(\mathrm{\Phi }^{(0)}\right)^2=l^3/4`$, whereas, for $`\mathrm{\Delta }=d/2+2`$, we have

$$\psi _2=\frac{(d4)l^3\varphi ^2}{8(d2)^2}.$$

It is easy to see from eqn. (64) that there is no impediment to setting $`\psi _3=0`$ to quadratic order, which therefore does not generate anomaly terms. Similarly, to quadratic order in $`\varphi `$, one can solve $`\chi =\xi =\zeta =\kappa =0`$.

The next equation that generates an anomaly term is (69). Indeed, we have

$$\sigma =2\left(\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{d}{2}2\right)L^{(1)}\varphi +lM^{(0)}\mathrm{\Phi }^{(2)}\varphi +\mathrm{},$$
(42)
so that, for $`\mathrm{\Delta }=d/2+2`$,

$$\sigma =\frac{(d4)l^3\varphi }{16(d1)}+\mathrm{}.$$

The remaining descent equations, (70), (71), (72), (73) and (74), generate further anomaly terms, but, in contrast to the anomaly terms obtained so far, they are not uniquely determined. This non-uniqueness reflects the possibility of having various renormalisation schemes, and the results should be physically equivalent. In the following, we shall give one possible choice. Let us start by setting eqn. (74) to zero, which is achieved at lowest order in $`\varphi `$ by $`(d2)N^{(0)}=4(d1)K^{(0)}`$. Then, from eqn. (73), we have

$$ϵ=2\left(\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{d}{2}2\right)A^{(0)}\frac{l}{2}M^{(0)}+\mathrm{},$$
(43)
so that, for $`\mathrm{\Delta }=d/2+2`$, $`ϵ=l^3/8`$.

Next, eqn. (70) becomes

$$\gamma =2\left(\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{d}{2}2\right)K^{(0)}\frac{(d2)l}{4(d1)}\mathrm{\Phi }^{(0)}M^{(0)}+\mathrm{},$$
(44)
and the contribution to the anomaly for $`\mathrm{\Delta }=d/2+2`$ is $`\gamma =l^3/[8(d1)]`$.

Finally, there is no difficulty to set either $`\nu `$ or $`\alpha `$ to zero to lowest order in $`\varphi `$, and we shall choose $`\alpha =0`$. Then, eqns. (71) and (72) yield

$$\nu =\varphi \left[2\left(\mathrm{\Delta }\frac{d}{2}2\right)N^{(0)}+l\mathrm{\Phi }^{(0)}M^{(0)}\right]+\mathrm{}.$$
(45)
Hence, for $`\mathrm{\Delta }=d/2+2`$, we find $`\nu =\varphi l^3/[2(d2)]`$.

Let us now summarise the level four anomalies. For $`d=4`$, we have

$$T+\beta 𝒪=\frac{l^3}{4}\left(\frac{1}{3}R^2R_{\mu \nu }R^{\mu \nu }\right)+𝒪(\varphi ^3),$$
(46)
whereas, collecting all the terms for $`\mathrm{\Delta }=d/2+2`$, we have

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill T+\beta 𝒪& =\frac{l^3\varphi ^2(d4)}{8(d2)^2}\left(\frac{d^34d^2+16d16}{16(d1)^2}R^2R_{\mu \nu }R^{\mu \nu }\right)\hfill \\ & +\frac{l^3(d4)}{16(d1)}R\varphi ^2\varphi +\frac{l^3}{8(d1)}R_\mu \varphi ^\mu \varphi \hfill \\ & \frac{l^3}{8}^2\varphi ^2\varphi \frac{l^3}{2(d2)}\left(R^{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{2}g^{\mu \nu }R\right)\varphi _\mu _\nu \varphi +𝒪(\varphi ^3).\hfill \end{array}$$
(47)
Next, let us translate the bare anomalies (39), (46) and (47) to renormalised ones, where the asymptotic fields $`\widehat{g}_{\mu \nu }`$ and $`\widehat{\varphi }`$ are the field theory sources. This amounts to taking into account the Jacobian $`𝒜(x,r)`$ discussed around eqn. (16). As the anomaly is homogeneous in derivatives, the derivative corrections will contribute in higher orders and can therefore be neglected here. Notice that had we had level two anomalies, they would have contributed on level four through the first correction in $`𝒜`$. In a general anomaly higher order derivative terms do appear together with appropriately suppressed powers of $`\mathrm{e}^{r/l}`$, thus not contributing to the fixed point result.

What will be important, however, is the $`r`$-dependent scaling in $`𝒜`$. Writing

$`\widehat{𝒪}`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{\widehat{g}}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }}{\delta \widehat{\varphi }}},`$ $`\widehat{T}^{\mu \nu }`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{2}{\sqrt{\widehat{g}}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }}{\delta \widehat{g}_{\mu \nu }}},`$ (48)
we find, using eqns. (14) and (15),

$`T`$ $`=\mathrm{e}^{dr/l}\widehat{T}+\mathrm{},`$ (49)
$`𝒪`$ $`=\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{\Delta }r/l}\widehat{𝒪}+\mathrm{}.`$ (50)
Moreover,

$$\beta =(\mathrm{\Delta }d)\mathrm{e}^{(\mathrm{\Delta }d)r/l}\widehat{\varphi }+\mathrm{}=\mathrm{e}^{(\mathrm{\Delta }d)r/l}\widehat{\beta }+\mathrm{},$$
(51)
so that

$$T+\beta 𝒪=\mathrm{e}^{dr/l}\left(\widehat{T}+\widehat{\beta }\widehat{𝒪}\right)+\mathrm{}.$$
(52)
It is easy to see that the right hand sides of eqns. (39), (46) and (47) scale in the same manner when written in terms of the hatted fields. Therefore, our results directly translate into the anomalies of the boundary field theories with properly identified sources.

Finally, let us return to the $`\mathrm{\Delta }=d/2`$ anomaly mentioned earlier below eqn. (33). In this case, the leading asymptotic behaviour of the field $`\varphi `$ is not given by eqn. (15), but rather by

$$\varphi (x,r)=r\mathrm{e}^{dr/(2l)}\widehat{\varphi }(x)+\mathrm{}$$
(53)
as follows from the equations of motion in the asymptotic AdS background. Hence,

$$\dot{\varphi }=\mathrm{e}^{dr/(2l)}\widehat{\varphi }+\frac{(\mathrm{\Delta }d)}{l}\varphi +\mathrm{}.$$

This behaviour should be described by the flow equation (8), which means that the momentum $`\pi _I`$ must receive non-negligible contributions from the one-point function, $`\pi _I=_IU+𝒪_I+\mathrm{}`$, which gives

$$𝒪=\mathrm{e}^{dr/(2l)}\widehat{\varphi }+\mathrm{}.$$

Thus, after going to renormalised quantities, we find the level zero contribution

$$\widehat{T}+\widehat{\beta }\widehat{𝒪}=\frac{d}{2}\widehat{\varphi }^2+𝒪(\widehat{\varphi }^3),$$
(54)
which is the anomaly of the expected form.

## 4 Discussion

We have found that dBVV’s Hamilton–Jacobi approach to the holographic renormalisation group can be successfully applied in order to derive anomalies in the vicinity of a given fixed point. Regarding the boundary data at the cut-off as the bare sources of the boundary field theory, the anomalies are formally obtained, except in the case $`\mathrm{\Delta }=d/2`$, and the results are easily translated to the proper renormalised sources.

We should point out that our method of renormalising the sources differs from that of dBVV’s in that they considered the boundary data at some renormalisation scale $`r_R`$ as the renormalised sources . In contrast, we, in agreement with the standard method for calculating holographic correlation functions , consider the asymptotically rescaled boundary data—hatted fields in eqns. (14) and (15)—as the renormalised sources. This renders the interpretation of the descent equations rather difficult, if the cut-off boundary data are far away from the UV fixed point. In other words, even if we can write down an expansion for the bulk–boundary propagator $`𝒜`$ near a UV fixed point, the full expression would be needed for a nonperturbative analysis of the interpolating trajectory.

In this paper we have observed that the assumption that the flow of the bulk fields is essentially determined by the leading local term $`[S]_0`$—implicit in eqn. (19)—becomes invalid. We have seen at the end of the last section that a non-local term had to be taken into account for operators $`\mathrm{\Delta }=d/2`$ even close to the fixed point. Moreover, there is no guarantee that one can solve the descent equations up to an arbitrary level $`2n`$. Consider, for example, operators of dimension $`\mathrm{\Delta }=3`$ in $`d=4`$. Here, the level two equations are broken already close to the UV fixed point. This means that there is a level two anomaly, which contributes via terms like $`R_{\mu \nu }T^{\mu \nu }`$ to the level four equations.

The level two descent equations seem to be the only ones which can be analysed globally. If one takes the point of view that the cut-off boundary data are the bare sources of the boundary field theory at the cut-off, one is able to identify a class of $`c`$-functions in $`d=2`$. Consider again the level two terms of the Hamiltonian, eqn. (20), and $`d=2`$. There is no obvious difficulty to set the total derivative term to zero globally, *i.e.*, we let

$$2_I\mathrm{\Phi }=\beta ^JM_{IJ},$$
(55)
and obtain the anomaly
$$T+\beta ^I𝒪_I=c_2R\lambda _{IJ}_\mu \varphi ^I^\mu \varphi ^J+\mathrm{},$$
(56)
where the ellipses stand for terms with more derivatives or curvatures, which would arise from higher levels. As shown in Sec. 3, setting $`M_{IJ}=\mathrm{\Phi }=0`$ gives unexpected anomalies in the vicinity of a fixed point except for marginal operators ($`\mathrm{\Delta }=d=2`$). The coefficients $`c_2`$ and $`\lambda _{IJ}`$ are functions of $`\varphi `$ at the cut-off. Moreover, eqn. (55) ensures that eqn. (28) is still valid, *i.e.*,

$$_Ic_2=\lambda _{IJ}\beta ^J.$$
(57)
It is interesting to notice that the flow-derivative of $`c_2`$ is given by

$$\dot{c}_2=\frac{U}{2}\beta ^I\beta ^J\lambda _{IJ}.$$
(58)
Therefore assuming $`\lambda _{IJ}`$ positive definite, $`c_2`$ is monotonous and can actually be interpreted as a $`c`$-function of the holographic renormalisation group.

The presence of an anomaly means that the functions $`M_{IJ}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ cannot be adjusted as to make $`c_2`$ and $`\lambda _{IJ}`$ vanish identically. We may therefore try to use the freedom, already seen in Sec. 3, to choose these functions in such a way that $`c_2`$ becomes monotonous. Nevertheless we must also make sure that $`\lambda _{IJ}=0`$ at the fixed points without marginal operators. Generically, then, there will be ambiguities in the definition of the $`c`$-function, as also expected from the field theory analysis .

On the other hand, starting from the UV fixed point, for non-marginal operators ($`\mathrm{\Delta }2`$ ) one could also attempt to solve $`\lambda _{IJ}=0`$ globally. Then it would follow from eqn. (57) that $`c_2`$ is constant. This would be a “non-renormalisation” theorem for the $`c`$-function as it would be independent of both the cut-off and the couplings. However, since this would lead to an $`M_{IJ}`$ that is singular at the IR fixed point, one should conclude that the perturbative renormalisation scheme we are using cannot be extrapolated towards the IR, and therefore a global choice of a regular $`M_{IJ}`$ is not possible.

It would be interesting to compare our results, where the sources are the asymptotically $`r`$-independent parts of the coupling, to those of dBVV, where the relationship between bare and renormalised quantities is somewhat different —there for a given field configuration the field at the cut-off is the source. Here asymptotically rescaled fields are cut-off independent for any given field configuration, but the cut-off boundary is still needed to regularise the on-shell action. This radial behaviour appears to be responsible for some of the expected QFT features observed above. But, we leave the investigation of the meaning of this open for further studies.

## Acknowledgements

We would like to thank M. Bertolini, M. Bianchi, A. Karch, A. Miemiec, A. C. Petkou, and H. S. Reall for discussions and useful comments. We also thank the organisers of the RTN conference “Latest developments in M-Theory”, Paris, February 1–8, 2001, during which this work was essentially completed. The work was supported by the European Commission RTN programme HPRN-CT-2000-00131, in which J. K. is associated with Imperial College London and W. M. with INFN, Sezione di Frascati. D. M. acknowledges partial support from PPARC through SPG#613.

## Appendix A Level Four Hamiltonian

Here, we give a summary of the level four terms in the Hamiltonian. The local terms $`[S]_4`$ are

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill [S]_4& =d^dx\sqrt{g}[\mathrm{\Psi }_1R^2+\mathrm{\Psi }_2R_{\mu \nu }R^{\mu \nu }+\mathrm{\Psi }_3R_{\mu \nu \lambda \rho }R^{\mu \nu \lambda \rho }+L_IR^2\varphi ^I\hfill \\ & +K_{IJ}R_\mu \varphi ^I^\mu \varphi ^J+N_{IJ}\left(R^{\mu \nu }\frac{1}{2}g^{\mu \nu }R\right)_\mu \varphi ^I_\nu \varphi ^J+A_{IJ}^2\varphi ^I^2\varphi ^J\hfill \\ & +B_{IJK}_\mu _\nu \varphi ^I^\mu \varphi ^J^\nu \varphi ^K+C_{IJKL}_\mu \varphi ^I^\mu \varphi ^J_\nu \varphi ^K^\nu \varphi ^L].\hfill \end{array}$$
(59)
According to the general procedure, this leads to

$`[]_4`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{U}{2(d1)}}\left(2[\pi ]_4\beta ^I[\pi _I]_4\right)+[\pi _{\mu \nu }]_2[\pi ^{\mu \nu }]_2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{d1}}\left([\pi ]_2\right)^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[\pi _I]_2G^{IJ}[\pi _J]_2`$ (60)
$`\begin{array}{cc}& ={\displaystyle \frac{U}{2(d1)}}[R^2\psi _1+R_{\mu \nu }R^{\mu \nu }\psi _2+R_{\mu \nu \lambda \rho }R^{\mu \nu \lambda \rho }\psi _3+^2(R\chi )+_\mu (R^\mu \varphi ^I\xi _I)\hfill \\ & +^2(^2\varphi ^I\zeta _I)+_\mu (^2\varphi ^I^\mu \varphi ^J\kappa _{IJ})+R^2\varphi ^I\sigma _I+R_\mu \varphi ^I^\mu \varphi ^J\gamma _{IJ}\hfill \\ & +\left(R^{\mu \nu }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g^{\mu \nu }R\right)_\mu _\nu \varphi ^I\nu _I+\left(R^{\mu \nu }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g^{\mu \nu }R\right)_\mu \varphi ^I_\nu \varphi ^J\alpha _{IJ}\hfill \\ & +^2\varphi ^I^2\varphi ^Jϵ_{IJ}+_\mu _\nu \varphi ^I^\mu ^\nu \varphi ^J\tau _{IJ}+^2\varphi ^I_\mu \varphi ^J^\mu \varphi ^K\rho _{IJK}\hfill \\ & +_\mu _\nu \varphi ^I^\mu \varphi ^J^\nu \varphi ^K\theta _{IJK}+_\mu \varphi ^I^\mu \varphi ^J_\nu \varphi ^K^\nu \varphi ^L\omega _{IJKL}].\hfill \end{array}`$ (61)
The coefficients in eqn. (61) are given by

$`\psi _1`$ $`=(d4)\mathrm{\Psi }_1\beta ^I_I\mathrm{\Psi }_1{\displaystyle \frac{d}{2U}}\mathrm{\Phi }^2+{\displaystyle \frac{d1}{U}}_I\mathrm{\Phi }G^{IJ}_J\mathrm{\Phi },`$ (62)
$`\psi _2`$ $`=(d4)\mathrm{\Psi }_2\beta ^I_I\mathrm{\Psi }_2+{\displaystyle \frac{2(d1)}{U}}\mathrm{\Phi }^2,`$ (63)
$`\psi _3`$ $`=(d4)\mathrm{\Psi }_3\beta ^I_I\mathrm{\Psi }_3,`$ (64)
$`\chi `$ $`=4(d1)\mathrm{\Psi }_1+d\mathrm{\Psi }_2+4\mathrm{\Psi }_3\beta ^IL_I,`$ (65)
$`\xi _I`$ $`=(d2)L_I+2L_J_I\beta ^J+2K_{IJ}\beta ^J,`$ (66)
$`\zeta _I`$ $`=2(d1)L_I2A_{IJ}\beta ^J,`$ (67)
$`\kappa _{IJ}`$ $`=4(d1)K_{IJ}+2(d2)A_{IJ}+4A_{IK}_J\beta ^K2\beta ^K(B_{KIJ}B_{IJK}),`$ (68)
$`\sigma _I`$ $`=(d4)L_I\beta ^J_JL_IL_J_I\beta ^J{\displaystyle \frac{2(d1)}{U}}M_{IJ}G^{JK}_K\mathrm{\Phi },`$ (69)
$`\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \gamma _{IJ}& ={\displaystyle \frac{d2}{2}}N_{IJ}+(d+2)K_{IJ}\beta ^K_KK_{IJ}K_{IK}_J\beta ^KK_{JK}_I\beta ^K\hfill \\ & L_K_I_J\beta ^K+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\beta ^K(B_{IJK}+B_{JIK}B_{KIJ})+{\displaystyle \frac{d2}{2U}}\mathrm{\Phi }M_{IJ}\hfill \\ & {\displaystyle \frac{d1}{U}}_L\mathrm{\Phi }G^{LK}(_JM_{IK}+_IM_{JK}_KM_{IJ}),\hfill \end{array}`$ (70)
$`\nu _I`$ $`=2(d2)_I\mathrm{\Psi }_2+8_I\mathrm{\Psi }_3+2\beta ^JN_{IJ}{\displaystyle \frac{4(d1)}{U}}\mathrm{\Phi }_I\mathrm{\Phi },`$ (71)
$`\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \alpha _{IJ}& =2(d2)_I_J\mathrm{\Psi }_2+8_I_J\mathrm{\Psi }_32(d3)N_{IJ}+4(d1)K_{IJ}\hfill \\ & +\beta ^K(_IN_{JK}+_JN_{IK}_KN_{IJ}+B_{IJK}+B_{JIK}B_{KIJ})\hfill \\ & +{\displaystyle \frac{2(d1)}{U}}\mathrm{\Phi }(M_{IJ}2_I_J\mathrm{\Phi }),\hfill \end{array}`$ (72)
$`\begin{array}{cc}\hfill ϵ_{IJ}& =(d2)N_{IJ}4(d1)K_{IJ}(d4)A_{IJ}\beta ^K_KA_{IJ}A_{IK}_J\beta ^KA_{JK}_I\beta ^K\hfill \\ & \beta ^K(B_{IJK}+B_{JIK}B_{KIJ}){\displaystyle \frac{2(d1)}{U}}_I\mathrm{\Phi }_J\mathrm{\Phi }+{\displaystyle \frac{d1}{U}}M_{IK}G^{KL}M_{LJ},\hfill \end{array}`$ (73)
$`\tau _{IJ}`$ $`=(d2)N_{IJ}+4(d1)K_{IJ}+\beta ^K(B_{IJK}+B_{JIK}B_{KIJ})+{\displaystyle \frac{2(d1)}{U}}_I\mathrm{\Phi }_J\mathrm{\Phi }.`$ (74)
The remaining three coefficients $`\rho _{IJK}`$, $`\theta _{IJK}`$ and $`\omega _{IJKL}`$ will not be needed.