text:
# Tilt order parameters, polarity and inversion phenomena in smectic liquid crystals.

## I Introduction

The molecular physics of smectic liquid crystals has been receiving much attention, mainly in connection with ferroelectricity-related applications of some of these materials . Nearly three decades ago it was predicted by R.B. Meyer, and soon afterwards proven experimentally, that a tilted smectic-$`C`$ phase made of chiral molecules can exhibit spontaneous electric polarisation $`P_S`$ within each smectic layer . This chiral phase, the Sm-$`C^{}`$, further differs from the achiral (Sm-$`C`$, handedness symmetric) phase in that the azimuthal angle of the director varies linearly with the distance along the layer normal, thus defining a helical configuration of definite handedness and constant pitch. Normally, $`P_S`$ disappears on heating to the non-tilted (orthogonal) smectic-$`A`$ (Sm-$`A`$) phase. More recently, spontaneous polarisation was detected in a special class of achiral compounds with bent structure (banana-shaped molecules) forming smectic phases with form chirality .

In general, $`P_S`$ depends very sensitively on the structure of the molecules that form the Sm-$`C^{}`$ phase. There are numerous examples of dramatic changes in $`P_S`$ caused by only slight modifications of the molecular structure. Usually, the magnitude of $`P_S`$ increases on lowering the temperature from the Sm-$`A`$–Sm-$`C^{}`$ transition point $`T_{AC^{}}`$. A number of Sm-$`C^{}`$ compounds, however, deviate from this behaviour in that the magnitude of $`P_S`$ increases up to some value from which it decreases on further reducing the temperature. In several known cases the decrease of $`|P_S|`$ with temperature continues until an “inversion temperature” $`T_{inv}`$ is reached at which $`P_S`$ vanishes completely; below that temperature $`P_S`$ grows again monotonously but with the opposite sign . The temperature dependence of the tilt angle and of the helical pitch does not show any particular irregularity around the inversion temperature of $`P_S`$. Certain compounds exhibit inversion of the pitch handedness  with temperature but this does not seem to be directly correlated with the sign inversion of $`P_S`$. In one known case where both types of inversion are exhibited by the same compound, the two inversions happen at different temperatures . A sign inverting behaviour of $`P_S`$ with temperature has also been observed in side-chain Sm-$`C^{}`$ polymers . A similar sign inversion is observed, as a function of concentration, in mixtures of achiral smectic molecules with chiral dopants .

One interpretation proposed for the sign inversion of $`P_S`$ with temperature is based on the mechanism of competing conformations that produce opposite contributions to the spontaneous polarisation . Another interpretation assumes competing effects originating from the polar and the quadrupolar biasing of rotations around the long molecular axis and attributes the sign reversal to a special case of the coupling of the tilt to the rotational biasing . Although these two interpretations address different molecular features, namely conformational changes and transverse interactions, they are not necessarily mutually exclusive. In fact, the possibility of sign reversal of $`P_S`$ is directly obtained in a molecular theory of primitive smectic molecules consisting of a rigid mesogenic core and two pendant chains that can rotate about the core axis, thus producing different conformations . This theory explicitly shows that the tilt angle of the core segments is in general different from the tilt of the chains and that the sign inversion of $`P_S`$ is related to the variation of this difference. The variation is driven by packing correlations between the molecular orientations and the conformations. Such correlations affect both the conformational sampling and the sampling of transverse intermolecular interactions that produce the rotational bias of a given conformer around the long molecular axis.

Notably, each of the above interpretations implies molecular features, such as biaxiality and flexibility, that are clearly beyond the uniaxial rod idealisations underlying the simplest microscopic and phenomenological descriptions of tilted smectics. The consideration of more realistic molecular structures is necessary not only for the interpretation of special phenomena, such as the inversion of the spontaneous polarisation or of the pitch, but also for the understanding of more common and fundamental aspects of smectics, such as micro-segregation. The latter originates from the chemical differentiation of the two basic components of the smectic molecules, namely the relatively rigid mesogenic core and the aliphatic end-chains. Micro-segregation is the mechanism that drives the formation of the smectic layers and, combined with the non-linear (zigzag, bent, etc) structure of the molecules, gives rise to tilt and polar ordering . In common smectic molecules, molecular flexibility consists mainly of internal flexibility of the end chains and of the possibility of rotations of the chains as a whole relative to the core. In the absence of any site-specific interactions, flexibility alone could produce microsegregation as it is entropically favourable for the “fluid” chains to group together . Furthermore, as a result of the internal relative motions of the submolecular segments, the average disposition of the flexible, asymmetric, molecule in the tilted smectic phase cannot in general be described by a single tilt angle (equivalently, by a single “director”). Different segments of the molecule could exhibit different tilt angles with respect to the layer normal.

The existence of more than one director, and associated tilt angle, has been invoked for the interpretation of the results of several experimental studies of the Sm-$`C`$ phase. Deuterium NMR measurements  indicate that different segments of the flexible smectic molecules do not in general share a common principal axis (director) of their second rank ordering tensors. A clear difference between the tilt angles associated with the mesogenic core and the flexible end–chains of the molecules is obtained from X-ray measurements  in the Sm-$`C`$ phase. Analogous conclusions are reached by with IR spectroscopy by . It is also well known that X-ray measurements give in general different values for the tilt angle than optical measurements, indicating that the tilt determined from molecular packing within the layers need not coincide with the deviation of the principal optical axis from the layer normal. Such considerations are consistent with recent results from combined X-ray and optical studies on ferroelectric liquid crystal cells . In fact, a single tilt angle description is strictly applicable only to molecules of uniaxial symmetry.

The same implications of molecular asymmetry and flexibility are carried over to the polar order parameters; they are in general different for different segments of the molecule. This is directly demonstrated by atomistic calculations of the segmental order parameters . It is also in accord with the observed sensitivity of the spontaneous polarisation of some categories of Sm-$`C^{}`$ compounds to mere changes of the position of the electric dipole moment within the molecular frame .

This paper is concerned with the incorporation of molecular symmetry and flexibility in the phenomenological description of the Sm-$`A`$–Sm-$`C`$ phase transition. The resulting formulation is used to analyse the sign inversion of the spontaneous polarisation and of the pitch observed in some Sm-$`C^{}`$ materials since such phenomena are thought to reflect particular effects of molecular structure and conformation on smectic ordering.

The next section deals with the identification of the relevant order parameters of the Sm-$`A`$ and Sm-$`C`$ phases in relation to molecular structure and symmetry. These order parameters are then used in section III to formulate a Landau expansion of the free energy of the Sm-$`A`$–Sm-$`C`$ transition. The new Landau expansion is used to derive the temperature dependence of the order parameters and therefrom to investigate the conditions leading to sign inversion of the parameters associated with the spontaneous polarisation, in section IV, and the handedness of the pitch in the Sm-$`C^{}`$ phase, in section V. The new description is compared with the conventional Landau expansion in section VI.

## II Symmetries and order parameters.

The Sm-$`C`$ phase has a mirror symmetry plane, the “tilt plane”, perpendicular to the layers and a twofold rotation symmetry axis ($`C_2`$) in the direction normal to the tilt plane . The intersection of the twofold axis with the mirror plane defines the centre of inversion symmetry of the phase. In what follows, the layer normal is identified as the $`Z`$-axis of a phase-fixed reference frame and the twofold symmetry axis is taken to be the $`X`$-axis of the frame. Accordingly, the above symmetries imply invariance of the molecular probability distribution, and thereby of the free energy of the phase, with respect to the following two transformations,

$$XX\text{ (plane of symmetry)},$$
(1)
$$(Y,Z)(Y,Z)\text{ (twofold rotation)}.$$
(2)
As a result of the invariance with respect to these transformations the phase is also invariant with respect to change of handedness of the $`XYZ`$ frame, i.e. achiral. The symmetry of the Sm-$`A`$ phase differs in that it is invariant separately with respect to

$$YY\text{ and }ZZ.$$
(3)
### A Uniaxial molecules

If the molecules forming the smectic phase are approximated by uniaxially symmetric rigid objects, then the orientation of each molecule is specified in terms of a single unit vector $`𝐬`$ along the molecular axis of full rotational symmetry (see Fig. 1(a)). In that case, the orientational order parameters, i.e. the thermal averages of tensors of various ranks that can be formed form the components of $`𝐬`$, reflect the symmetries of the Sm-$`C`$ phase in the following way:
The zero rank (scalar) order parameters are trivial $`(𝐬^2=1)`$ in view of the assumed rigidity of the molecules.
The first rank (vector) order parameters vanish in view of Eqs. (1) and (2),

$$s_X,s_Y,s_Z=0,$$
(4)
The second rank order parameters are the components of the symmetric and traceless tensor

$$\eta _{ab}=(3<s_as_b>\delta _{ab})/2,$$
(5)
with the subscripts $`a`$, $`b`$ denoting components along the $`X`$, $`Y`$, $`Z`$ axes. The order parameters $`\eta _{XY}`$ and $`\eta _{XZ}`$ vanish as a result of the symmetry transformation in Eq. (1). The diagonal components $`\eta _{XX}`$, $`\eta _{YY}`$, $`\eta _{ZZ}`$ survive both symmetry operations in Eqs. (1), (2) and so does the off diagonal component $`\eta _{YZ}`$. The latter gives a measure of the breaking of the rotational symmetry about the layer normal ($`Z`$-axis) due to the tilted ordering of the molecules. The additional symmetry, Eq. (3), of the Sm-$`A`$ phase leads to $`\eta _{YZ}=0`$. Thus the primary order parameter for the distinction between the Sm-$`A`$ and the Sm-$`C`$ phase is $`\eta _{YZ}`$.

This order parameter is often expressed in terms of the “tilt pseudovector”

$$𝐭=(𝐙\times \stackrel{~}{𝐙})(𝐙\stackrel{~}{𝐙}),$$
(6)
where $`\stackrel{~}{𝐙}`$ is the unit vector in the direction of the principal axis of the ordering tensor $`\eta _{ab}`$. The principal axis frame $`\stackrel{~}{X}\stackrel{~}{Y}\stackrel{~}{Z}`$ is obtained by rotating the $`XYZ`$ frame about the $`X`$-axis by an angle $`\theta `$ such as to diagonalise the tensor $`\eta _{ab}`$, i.e. to obtain the frame for which $`\eta _{\stackrel{~}{Y}\stackrel{~}{Z}}=0`$ or, equivalently, for which the order parameter $`\eta _{ZZ}`$ acquires its maximum value $`\eta _{\stackrel{~}{Z}\stackrel{~}{Z}}`$. Obviously $`\stackrel{~}{X}`$ coincides with $`X`$ and the pseudovector $`𝐭`$ is along $`X`$. The angle $`\theta `$ is related to the tilt pseudovector and to the components of $`\eta _{ab}`$ as follows

$$\mathrm{sin}2\theta =2𝐗𝐭=2\eta _{YZ}/(\eta _{\stackrel{~}{Z}\stackrel{~}{Z}}\eta _{\stackrel{~}{Y}\stackrel{~}{Y}}).$$
(7)
Since the onset of the (achiral) Sm-$`C`$ phase is marked simply by the appearance of a non-vanishing value of the tilt vector, the Landau expansion  of the equilibrium free energy difference describing the Sm-$`A`$–Sm-$`C`$ phase transition is an expansion in the single order parameter $`𝐭`$. Furthermore, due to the thermodynamic equivalence of the states with $`𝐭`$ and $`𝐭`$, the expansion contains only even powers of $`𝐭`$,

$$g_{AC}=\frac{1}{2}at^2+\frac{1}{4}bt^4+\mathrm{}.$$
(8)
This is the conventional form of the Landau expansion for the Sm-$`A`$–Sm-$`C`$ transition in the absence of external fields . It clearly does not involve any kind of polarity order parameter. It should be recalled, however, that this description is valid only under the assumption that a single vector $`𝐬`$ is sufficient to describe the molecular orientation, or equivalently, that the molecules in the smectic phase behave as rigid uniaxial objects.

### B Minimal deviation from uniaxial molecules

Real smectic molecules are of course flexible, their shape is not uniaxial and their orientation within the smectic phase cannot be fully specified by a single vector (see Fig. 1(b)). In fact the complete specification of the orientation and conformation of the molecule requires at least as many unit vectors as there are molecular segments capable of moving relative to one another. In what follows we demonstrate that the description of the Sm-$`A`$–Sm-$`C`$ phase transition becomes qualitatively different if one goes beyond the uniaxial idealization of the molecular structure. This will be done by minimally extending the single vector description to a description in terms of two molecular unit vectors but the formulation can be readily generalized to more complex molecular structures.

Consider a molecular structure such as the one shown in Fig. 1(b).In the most symmetrical case the structure is centrosymmetric, the plane of the fully extended conformation of the molecule is a mirror symmetry plane and the axis perpendicular to that plane at the inversion centre of the molecule is a twofold symmetry axis. Ignoring for the moment molecular flexibility and structural details, these symmetries are conveyed by the oblique cylinder of Fig. 1(c). Unlike the right cylinder of Fig. 1(a), the orientation of this object cannot be completely specified by a single unit vector $`𝐬`$. A second unit vector $`𝐬^{}`$ is required. A convenient choice of unit vectors $`𝐬`$, $`𝐬^{}`$ is shown in Fig. 1(c). A measure of the deviation from prefect rotational symmetry about a single “long” axis is then provided by the pseudovector $`𝐚=𝐬\times 𝐬^{}`$. This pseudovector is normal to the symmetry plane of the oblique cylinder; its direction can be used to differentiate between the two “faces” of the molecule, i.e. the two halves of the molecule separated by the symmetry plane.

The symmetries of Eqs. (1) and (2) imply that the first rank order parameters associated with the two unit vectors of the oblique cylinder vanish, $`𝐬=0=𝐬^{}`$. By analogy with Eq. (5) there are two second–rank order parameter tensors, one for each of the vectors $`𝐬,𝐬^{}`$, namely

$$\eta _{ab}^{(s)}=(3<s_as_b>\delta _{ab})/2,$$
(9)
and

$$\eta _{ab}^{(s^{})}=(3<s_{}^{}{}_{a}{}^{}s_{}^{}{}_{b}{}^{}>\delta _{ab})/2.$$
(10)
There is also a third, mixed, second rank order parameter tensor

$$\eta _{ab}^{(s,s^{})}=(3<s_as_{}^{}{}_{b}{}^{}+s_{}^{}{}_{a}{}^{}s_b>/2(𝐬𝐬^{})\delta _{ab})/2.$$
(11)
Only the $`YZ`$ off–diagonal components of these tensors survive the symmetry operations in Eqs. (1), (2). Now, the diagonalisation of each of the tensors $`\eta _{ab}^{(s)}`$, $`\eta _{ab}^{(s^{})}`$, $`\eta _{ab}^{(s,s^{})}`$ requires in general a different rotation about the $`X`$-axis. Accordingly, there are three different tilt angles $`\theta ^{(s)}`$, $`\theta ^{(s^{})}`$, $`\theta ^{(s,s^{})}`$ defining three different director frames (frames of principal axes). The three tilt angles, and the associated tilt vectors $`𝐭^{(s)}`$, $`𝐭^{(s^{})}`$, $`𝐭^{(s,s^{})}`$ are related to the components of the respective tensors analogously to Eqs. (6) and (7). As shown in the Appendix, the choice of the three independent tilt order parameters to represent the breaking of the rotational symmetry about the layer normal is not unique. It is also shown there that in the case of perfectly rigid molecules, one of the three parameters can be eliminated by choosing properly the molecular frame of axes.

The existence of more than one tilt order parameter is not the only difference from the uniaxially symmetric molecules. Another, perhaps more important, difference is that the pseudovector $`𝐚`$ singles out a unique transverse molecular direction and this makes it possible to define the (pseudovector) order parameter $`𝐚`$. The $`Y`$ and $`Z`$ components of $`𝐚`$ vanish as a result of the symmetry operations of Eqs. (1) and (2), but the $`X`$ component survives these operations and therefore the respective order parameter

$$<a_X>=<s_Ys_{}^{}{}_{Z}{}^{}s_{}^{}{}_{Y}{}^{}s_Z>$$
(12)
acquires a non–vanishing value in the Sm-$`C`$ phase. This order parameter describes the indigenous polar ordering  exhibited by the molecules as a result of the tilted alignment within the smectic layers. The microscopic origin of the indigenous polarity is depicted in Fig. 2 for the molecules whose shape can be approximated by the oblique cylinders of Fig. 1(c): with the director $`\stackrel{~}{𝐙}^{(s)}`$ tilted to the right of the $`Z`$-axis and with the $`X`$-axis pointing outwards from the plane of the figure, the combination of stratification and alignment constraints favours the molecular configurations for which $`𝐚`$ points in the positive direction of the $`X`$-axis ($`𝐚𝐗>0`$) over those for which a points in the negative direction ($`𝐚𝐗<0`$). Accordingly, on the average $`𝐚𝐗`$ will acquire a positive value $`<a_X>`$.

The existence of the tilt-induced polar ordering was demonstrated using explicit molecular models of the Sm-$`C`$ phase taking into account phase symmetry and orientation-conformation correlations dictated by the tilted stratified ordering . It was also pointed out that this type of polar ordering, the indigenous polarity, was overlooked in all previous molecular theories of tilted smectics. For notational convenience, the polar ordering can be represented by an indigenous polarity (pseudovector) order parameter $`𝐏_𝐈`$ directed along the $`X`$-axis of the phase and defined as follows,

$$𝐏_𝐈=<𝐚>/|𝐚|=𝐗<a_X>/|𝐚|.$$
(13)
### C Spontaneous polarisation and molecular chirality

Clearly, the indigenous polarity is not a result of molecular chirality and is present irrespectively of whether the phase exhibits an electric spontaneous polarisation $`𝐏_𝐒`$ or not. In fact the appearance of a spontaneous polarisation can be considered as a manifestation of the indigenous polarity when the smectic molecules possess a permanent dipole moment. For example, if the oblique cylindrical molecules in Fig. 2 possess a dipole moment $`𝝁`$, rigidly attached to the molecular frame (see Fig. 1(d)) and with a non-vanishing component along $`𝐚`$, then the indigenous polarity would give rise to a spontaneous polarisation vector $`𝐏_𝐒`$ along the $`X`$-axis. The spontaneous polarisation $`𝐏_𝐒`$ is in this case expressed in terms of the indigenous polarity order parameter $`𝐏_𝐈`$ according to:

$$𝐏_𝐒=𝝁=\mu _{}^{}𝐏_𝐈,$$
(14)
where $`\mu _{}^{}(𝝁𝐚)/|𝐚|`$ is the (pseudoscalar) measure of the “transverse dipole component”. It should be noted at this point that the presence of a dipole moment with a non vanishing component along $`𝐚`$ breaks the mirror symmetry of the oblique cylindrical molecule i.e. introduces a chiral asymmetry. It is clear, however, that this chiral asymmetry does not produce the polar ordering; it is only involved with the manifestation of the latter in the form of an electric spontaneous polarisation.

The example of the oblique cylinder was used here as a minimal deviation from rotationally symmetric molecular structures to provide a simple concrete illustration of the mechanisms underlying the relation of polarity to tilted ordering. However, the basic conclusions reached in this section, namely that the molecular ordering in the Sm-$`C`$ phase is intrinsically polar and not adequately described by just a single tilt order parameter (or a single “director”), can be readily carried over to more realistic examples of molecular structure and flexibility.

## III Landau expansion.

Given that there are more than one tilt order parameters and at least one indigenous polarity order parameter, it is necessary to describe how these order parameters are incorporated in the phenomenological Landau expansion of the free energy for the Sm-$`A`$–Sm-$`C`$ phase transition. This is addressed in the present section using, for simplicity, the example of molecules with the symmetries of the oblique cylinder.

Since there are three second rank tensors, as in Eqs., (9)-(11), the diagonalisation of which defines three different tilt vectors, the formulation of a Landau expansion is not as straightforward as in the case of a single tilt vector. Obviously, any linear combination of the three tensors constitutes a new tensor whose diagonalisation defines a tilt vector. It is thus possible to use in place of the original three tensors any three linearly independent combinations thereof (see the Appendix). Of course all such choices are physically equivalent and the respective expansions can be transformed into one another. The actual choice is therefore dictated by considerations of simplicity and physical clarity. As shown in the Appendix, a description in terms of just two independent tilt vectors can be obtained in the case of rigid molecules by properly choosing the molecular frame. The explicit consideration of several molecular segments and tilt vectors, without restrictions on flexibility, is treated in detail elsewhere . Here we consider systems that can be described in terms of two tilt vectors, $`𝐭`$ and $`𝐭^{}`$ both of which acquire non zero values at the same transition temperature $`T_{AC}`$. The tilt vectors $`𝐭`$ and $`𝐭^{}`$ will be referred to as the primary and secondary tilts respectively. Physically, the primary tilt could be assigned to represent, for example, the tilted ordering of the mesogenic core and the secondary tilt to represent the effective mean tilt of the pendant chains. Another possibility for the physical content of $`𝐭`$ and $`𝐭^{}`$ is to describe the average tilt of the overall molecule ($`𝐭`$) and the weighted spread in the tilts exhibited by the different molecular segments ($`𝐭^{}`$). Similarly, a single polarity parameter $`𝐏_𝐈`$ will be used, which is understood to represent the polar ordering of a unit pseudovector defined by the vector product of two appropriately chosen molecular vectors.

With all three pseudovectors $`𝐭,𝐭^{},𝐏_𝐈`$ along the $`X(C_2)`$ axis, the rotational invariants that can enter in the extended Landau expansion are the scalar quantities $`(𝐭𝐭)`$, $`(𝐭^{}𝐭^{})`$, $`(𝐏_𝐈𝐏_𝐈)`$, $`(𝐭𝐭^{})`$, $`(𝐭𝐏_𝐈)`$, $`(𝐭^{}𝐏_𝐈)`$. Accordingly, the extended version of the expansion of Eq. (8) for the free energy of a single smectic layer contains the following leading terms

$$g_{AC}=\frac{1}{2}at^2+\frac{1}{2}a^{}t_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}ctP_Ic^{}t^{}P_I+c^{\prime \prime }tt^{}+\frac{1}{2}dP_I^2+\frac{1}{4}bt^4+\mathrm{}$$
(15)
Here the pseudovectors $`𝐭,𝐭^{},𝐏_𝐈`$ are replaced, for notational simplicity, by their projections $`t,t^{},P_I`$ along the $`X`$-axis. The coefficients $`a,a^{},b,c,c^{},c^{\prime \prime },d`$ are all scalar (handedness-symmetric) quantities. The coefficient $`d`$ is associated with the decrease in entropy resulting from the polar ordering within the smectic layer and is therefore positive ($`d>0`$). The signs of the coefficients $`c,c^{},c^{\prime \prime }`$, associated with the bilinear coupling contributions among the parameters $`t,t^{},P_I`$, depend on the choice of the relative signs of the molecular vectors. The differentiation between the primary tilt $`t`$ and the secondary $`t^{}`$ in the expansion is made by the inclusion of a fourth–power contribution only for the former, with $`b>0`$ and by the strong temperature dependence of the coefficient $`a`$. The latter coefficient is assumed to change sign with temperature near the Sm-$`A`$–Sm-$`C`$ transition, whereas the coefficient $`a^{}`$ is assumed to be, as all the other coefficients, slowly varying with temperature around the transition. For flexible molecules, however, the variation of the conformational statistics (and thereby of the “effective” molecular structure) with temperature, could enhance considerably the temperature dependence of these coefficients. The sign of $`a^{}`$ is assumed to be positive, corresponding to the dominance of the entropy decrease associated with the secondary tilt over the respective lowering of the internal energy. Higher order terms have been omitted from the expansion in Eq. (15) to avoid excessive mathematical burden. Terms, however, such as $`P_I^2t^2`$ could be of particular importance for the correct description of the underlying physics and are therefore not negligible in general .

Minimisation of the free energy in Eq. (15) with respect to $`t`$, $`t^{}`$ and $`P_I`$ yields the following expressions for these order parameters in terms of the expansion coefficients

$$t^2=(ha)/b,$$
(16)
$$t^{}/t=r,$$
(17)
$$P_I/t=R,$$
(18)
where

$$h[c^2+(cc^{}c^{\prime \prime }d)^2/(a^{}dc_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2})]/d,$$
(19)
$$r(cc^{}c^{\prime \prime }d)/(a^{}dc_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}),$$
(20)
and

$$R(a^{}cc^{}c^{\prime \prime })/(a^{}dc_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}).$$
(21)
It is usually assumed that the strong dependence of $`a`$ on temperature near the phase transition is adequately described by the form

$$a/ba_1(TT^0),$$
(22)
with $`a_1`$ constant and positive and $`T^0`$ a characteristic temperature constant. For $`T`$ near $`T^0`$, $`h/b`$ can be approximated by

$$h/bh_0+h_1(TT^0),$$
(23)
with $`h_0,h_1`$ constants. Normally $`|h_1|a_1`$, reflecting the weak dependence of $`h/b`$ on temperature. It then follows from Eqs. (16), (22) and (23) that near the Sm-$`A`$–Sm-$`C`$ phase transition the temperature dependence of the primary tilt is of the form

$$t^2t_0^2(T_{AC}T),$$
(24)
where the phase transition temperature $`T_{AC}`$ is given by

$$T_{AC}=T^0+h_0/(a_1h_1),$$
(25)
and the constant scale factor in Eq. (24) is $`t_0^2=a_1h_1`$.

## IV Sign inversion of the polarity order parameter

Consider next the coefficient $`R`$ of Eq. (21). If the temperature dependence of all the coefficients entering the expression for $`R`$ is neglected then, according to Eq. (18), the ratio $`P_I/t`$ would be constant with temperature and it would follow from Eq. (24) that $`P_I\sqrt{T_{AC}T}`$. However, it is apparent from Eq. (21) that this is not necessarily the case. Although each of the coefficients is taken individually to vary slowly with temperature, their combination could exhibit a rapid variation. Specifically, the combination $`c^{}c^{\prime \prime }/a^{}`$ represents the couplings of the primary tilt and of the polarity to the secondary tilt, scaled by the coefficient of the entropic contributions of the latter. If this quantity is nearly equal to the coupling $`c`$ of the polarity to the primary tilt then the numerator on the right hand side of Eq. (21) would be very sensitive to the temperature dependence of these two, mutually cancelling, terms. The effect could be further magnified by the reduction of the magnitude of the denominator if $`c_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}`$, associated with the coupling of polarity to the secondary tilt, is not small compared to the product $`a^{}d`$ associated with the entropic contribution of these two parameters. Stated more briefly, $`R`$ is sensitive to the relative strength of the coupling of the polarity to the primary and secondary tilt. Two extreme situations can be considered, corresponding to the complete decoupling of the polarity from one of the tilt parameters. Thus if $`P_I`$ is completely decoupled from $`t^{}`$, i.e. if $`c^{}=0`$, then from Eq. (21) $`R=c/d`$. In the other extreme, polarity is exclusively coupled to the secondary tilt, i.e. $`c=0`$ and then $`R=c^{}c^{\prime \prime }/(a^{}dc_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2})`$. In either of the decoupled cases, the temperature dependence of $`R`$ does not involve mutually cancelling terms and is weaker than the in fully coupled case.

To relate these considerations to the possible temperature dependence of the $`P_I`$ we note that, quite generally, the temperature dependence of $`R`$ may be approximated near the transition temperature by

$$RR_0+R_1(TT_{AC}),$$
(26)
where $`R_0,R_1`$ are constants. Now, for the cases where, as described above, $`R_1`$ is not negligible relative to $`R_0`$, it is useful to define a characteristic polarity-inversion temperature by

$$T_{inv}^PT_{AC}R_0/R_1.$$
(27)
Near the transition temperature, $`R`$ can be expressed in terms of $`T_{inv}^P`$ as

$$RR_1(TT_{inv}^P).$$
(28)
It then follows from Eqs. (18),(24) and (28) that the temperature dependence of $`P_I`$ is given by

$$P_I=t_0R_1(TT_{inv}^P)\sqrt{T_{AC}T}.$$
(29)
Depending now on the value of $`T_{inv}^P`$ relative to $`T_{AC}`$, the polarity order parameter could exhibit either a monotonous increase with decreasing temperature (if $`T_{inv}^P>T_{AC}`$) or a sign inverting variation (if $`T_{inv}^P<T_{AC}`$). In the latter case, the magnitude $`P_I`$ starts out from zero at $`T_{AC}`$ and increases continuously, on lowering the temperature, to a local maximum at $`T=(2T_{AC}T_{inv}^P)/3`$, then decreases until it vanishes at $`T_{inv}^P`$ and then grows monotonously with inverted sign. Naturally, for the sign inversion to be actually observed the inversion temperature $`T_{inv}^P`$ should be lower than the transition temperature $`T_{AC}`$ but still within the temperature range of the Sm-$`C`$ phase. If $`T_{inv}^P`$ is too low, falling well outside the range of the phase, then only the first part of the sign inverting pattern, i.e. the continuous increase towards a local maximum, is realised within the Sm-$`C`$ temperature range and this behaviour appears qualitatively the same as the purely non–inverting behaviour ($`T_{inv}^P>T_{AC}`$). Altogether, according to the result obtained in Eq. (29) the different types of temperature dependence can be classified according to the value of a single characteristic parameter, the ratio $`T_{inv}^P/T_{AC}`$. The various possible cases according to this classification are shown in Fig. 3.

According to the relation in Eq. (14), comparison of the predicted temperature dependence of the indigenous polarity order parameter $`P_I`$ with experiment is possible in the Sm-$`C^{}`$ phase through measurements of the spontaneous polarisation $`P_S`$. To use this relation it is necessary to specify the “transverse dipole” component $`\mu _{}^{}`$, and in particular its dependence on temperature. This in turn depends on the choice of the pseudovector $`𝐚`$ with respect to which the indigenous polarity is defined according to Eq. (13). For rigid molecules, the orientation of $`𝝁`$ relative to $`𝐚`$ will be fixed and therefore $`\mu _{}^{}`$ will be strictly temperature independent. For flexible molecules, the temperature dependence of $`\mu _{}^{}`$ will differ for different choices of $`𝐚`$. In that case $`\mu _{}^{}`$ will be temperature independent only if $`𝐚`$ is taken to be fixed relative to the molecular segments to which the dipole moment $`𝝁`$ is attached. In any case, assuming that $`𝐚`$ is chosen in such a way that $`\mu _{}^{}`$ does not change appreciably with temperature over the range of the Sm-$`C^{}`$ phase, it follows from Eq. (14) and (29) that the temperature dependence of the spontaneous polarisation is of the form

$$P_S=P_S^0(TT_{inv}^P)\sqrt{T_{AC}T},$$
(30)
where $`P_S^0`$ is a temperature independent scale factor. Figure 4 shows the comparison of the theoretical temperature dependence with experimental measurements for compounds exhibiting the temperature inverting behaviour  as well as for compounds with the usual monotonous variation of the spontaneous polarisation . The agreement is in all cases quite good and shows that the classification of the different types of behaviour of the compounds according to the single parameter $`T_{inv}^P/T_{AC}`$ is quantitatively successful as well. Interestingly, the inversion temperature $`T_{inv}^P`$ is found to be below the transition temperature $`T_{AC}`$, both for the sign inverting compounds and for the monotonous one. Accordingly, the sign inversion in the latter is precluded by the termination of the Sm-$`C^{}`$ phase at a temperature above $`T_{inv}^P`$. Moreover, the apparent monotonous variation in this case is due to $`T_{inv}^P`$ being relatively far below the Sm-$`C^{}`$ temperature range (see top curve in Fig 3).

It is apparent from the structure of the sign inverting compounds in Fig. 4(a) that the dipole moment (and chiral centre) is situated right at the linkage of the mesogenic core to the chiral end–chain and its ordering is therefore affected equally strongly by the core and the tail. This is in accord with the proposed mechanism of competing couplings of the polarity to the primary and secondary tilt. Finally, it is worth noting here that the different coupling of the polarity to the primary and the secondary tilt makes it possible to differentiate the $`P_S`$ response of compounds that differ with respect to the position of the transverse dipole moment within the molecular frame but are otherwise similar in structure and therefore their tilts are similar.

## V Sign inversion of the secondary tilt.

Analogous considerations apply to the possibility of sign inversion in the temperature dependence of the secondary tilt. By analogy to Eq. (26), the temperature dependence of the parameter $`r`$ of equations (17), (20) near the transition can be expressed as

$$rr_0+r_1(TT_{AC}).$$
(31)
If the constant $`r_1`$ is negligible compared to $`r_0`$ the ratio of tilts $`t^{}/t`$ in Eq. (17) is temperature independent. Otherwise, an inversion temperature $`T_{inv}^t^{}`$ for the secondary tilt can be defined in terms of the constants $`r_0`$ and $`r_1`$

$$T_{inv}^t^{}=T_{AC}r_0/r_1.$$
(32)
Combining Eqs. (17), (24) and (32), the following expression is obtained for the temperature dependence of the secondary tilt near the phase transition

$$t^{}=t_0r_1(TT_{inv}^t^{})\sqrt{T_{AC}T}.$$
(33)
Accordingly, if $`T_{inv}^t^{}`$ falls within the temperature range of the Sm-$`C`$ phase the temperature dependence of the secondary tilt will exhibit a continuous sign inversion at $`T_{inv}^t^{}`$. On comparing Eqs. (20), (31) and (32) to the analogous set of Eqs. (21), (26) and (27) it becomes evident that the inversion temperature of the secondary tilt, $`T_{inv}^t^{}`$, is in general different from the inversion temperature of the polarity $`T_{inv}^P`$. In particular, occurrence of one type of inversion does not necessarily imply the occurrence of the other.

The vanishing and sign inversion of the secondary tilt with temperature can be related the unwinding of the helix and subsequent winding in opposite sense observed in some Sm-$`C^{}`$ compounds. This interpretation is based on the assumption that the directions of the tilt vectors in adjacent layers are correlated primarily through the direct interaction of the flexible pendant chains on either side of the interface. If then the secondary tilt $`t^{}`$ is identified with the effective tilt order parameter of the end–chains, a sign inversion in $`t^{}`$ would induce an inversion in the sense of the helical winding of the primary tilt vector across the smectic layers.

## VI Reduction to a single tilt order parameter description and comparison with the conventional theory

The minimisation of the free energy in Eq. (15) with respect to $`t^{}`$ leads to the condition

$$a^{}t^{}=c^{}P_Ic^{\prime \prime }t.$$
(34)
This condition can be used to eliminate the secondary tilt order parameter from the original free energy expansion. The $`t^{}`$-minimised expression for the free energy, obtained from Eqs. (15) and (34), has the form

$$\overline{g}_{AC}=\frac{1}{2}\overline{a}t^2+\frac{1}{4}bt^4\overline{c}P_It+\frac{1}{2}\overline{d}P_I^2,$$
(35)
with

$$\begin{array}{c}\overline{a}a(c^{\prime \prime })^2/a^{}\\ \overline{c}cc^{}c^{\prime \prime }/a^{}\\ \overline{d}d(c^{})^2/a^{}\end{array}.$$
(36)
Although the reduced Landau expansion in Eq. (35) is formally an expansion in $`t`$ and $`P_I`$, part of the information associated with the eliminated secondary tilt $`t^{}`$ is implicitly contained in the “renormalized” expansion coefficients through their expressions in terms of the original coefficients as shown in Eqs. (36). In particular, as discussed in Sec. IV, the renormalized coefficients $`\overline{c}`$ and $`\overline{d}`$ could become sensitive to temperature variations around the Sm-$`A`$–Sm-$`C`$ transition in spite of the relative insensitivity of the individual coefficients of the original expansion that combine to produce them. However, when the reduced expansion is considered as the starting point of the description, such sensitivity to temperature can only be introduced add hoc.

Mathematically, the form of the reduced expansion is identical to the conventional Landau expansion, in its minimal form, used for the free energy of a single layer of the Sm-$`C^{}`$ phase , namely

$$g_{AC}^{}=\frac{1}{2}at^2+\frac{1}{4}bt^4CP_St+\frac{1}{2\epsilon _0\chi _0}P_S^2.$$
(37)
To a large extent, however, the resemblance is only formal as the underlying physics is different. Equation (37) describes chiral compounds; in the absence of chirality it reduces to Eq. (8). The coefficient $`C`$ is assumed to be a pseudoscalar associated in some way with molecular chirality. The quadratic term in $`P_S`$ is taken to represent the entropic contribution associated with the ordering of the molecular dipoles. Accordingly, in the case of achiral compounds no such contribution is allowed by the conventional theory. By contrast, the expansion of Eq. (35) takes into account the indigenous polarity and therefore admits such entropic contributions for both chiral and achiral tilted smectic phases. Since the polarity is included irrespective of molecular chirality, in the case of chiral molecules the free energy in Eq. (35) is modified only to the extent dictated by the additional interactions associated with molecular chirality and the electrostatic forces among the transverse molecular dipoles. Normally the effects of such interactions on the stability of tilted and polar ordering are estimated to be rather marginal. Thus the free energy would include a direct electrostatic contribution of the form

$$d_{el}P_S^2=d_{el}(\mu _{}^{})^2P_I^2,$$
(38)
with the coefficient $`d_{el}>0`$ and with the magnitude of this electrostatic term much smaller than that of the entropic term, i.e.

$$\lambda d_{el}(\mu _{}^{})^\mathrm{𝟐}/\overline{d}1.$$
(39)
The differences in the physics underlying the Landau expansions in Eqs. (35) and (37) have direct implications on the thermodynamics of the Sm-$`A`$–Sm-$`C`$ transition. For example, ignoring all inter-layer (helical structure etc) contributions to the free energy, Eq. (37) gives the following expression for the difference between the transition temperatures of the chiral (pure enantiomer) and achiral (racemic) phases

$$T_{AC^{}}T_{AC}=(\epsilon _0\chi _0/a_0)C^2,$$
(40)
where the temperature dependance of the parameter $`a`$, near the phase transition, is taken to be $`aa_0(TT^0)`$. The result obtained for this difference from the reduced expansion of Eq. (35) is

$$T_{AC^{}}T_{AC}=(\overline{c}^2/\overline{d})(\lambda /(1\lambda )),$$
(41)
and is essentially proportional to the rather small relative contribution $`\lambda `$ of the electrostatic interactions associated with the molecular dipole moment components that survive as a result of the chiral asymmetry of the molecules. The smallness of the predicted temperature shift is in agreement with the rather small values generally obtained from measurements on enantiomeric mixtures . For a direct quantitative comparison, however, it would be necessary to take into account the contributions associated with the helical winding of the director across the smectic layers of the chiral phase.

It has been suggested  that an additional, higher order, “piezoelectric” term $`C^{}P_St^3`$ should be included in Eq. (37) in order to account for the sign inverting temperature dependence of $`P_S`$ in the context of the conventional Landau expansion. The resulting free energy expansion leads to the following dependence of the spontaneous polarisation on the tilt

$$\frac{P_S}{t}=\epsilon _o\chi _o(CC^{}t^2).$$
(42)
Accordingly, $`P_S`$ would undergo a sign inversion at a temperature where $`t^2`$ would become equal to $`C/C^{}`$. For sign inversion to occur it is therefore required that $`C`$ and $`C^{}`$ be of the same sign (in the convention used here) and that $`C^{}C`$, since the expansion is valid for small $`t^2`$. Thus the conventional description implies that the sign inverting compounds belong to a class where, for some reason, the lower order piezoelectric coefficient $`C`$ is much weaker than the higher order one, $`C^{}`$, i.e. to a class of compounds that are in marked contrast with the normally assumed ascending relative significance of higher order expansion terms near the phase transition.

Under these conditions for $`C`$, and $`C^{}`$, the temperature dependence for the spontaneous polarisation in the case of a second order Sm-$`A`$–Sm-$`C^{}`$ phase transition is of he form

$$P_S(TT_{inv}^{})\sqrt{T_{AC}T},$$
(43)
with the inversion temperature parameter given by

$$T_{inv}^{}=T_{AC}C/C^{}a_0(b+4CC^{}\epsilon _0\chi _0).$$
(44)
It is apparent, on comparing Eq. (43) with Eq. (30), that the conventional Landau expansion with higher order piezoelectric contributions and the extended expansion in Eq. (15), using the indigenous polarity and the secondary tilt, lead to functionally identical forms for the temperature dependence of $`P_S`$. Each form is parameterised by the transition temperature $`T_{AC}`$ and an inversion temperature. However, the underlying physical picture is different and the inversion temperatures are related to physically different expansion coefficients: $`T_{inv}^P`$ of Eq. (30) is related to the coupling of the indigenous polarity to the primary and the secondary tilt and applies to both chiral and achiral molecules, whereas $`T_{inv}^{}`$ applies only to chiral molecules and is related to the piezoelectric coefficients $`C`$ and $`C^{}`$.

Finally, on further minimising the free energy in Eq. (35) with respect to $`P_I`$, the indigenous polarity order parameter can be eliminated from the expression of the minimised free energy, yielding an expansion in only the primary tilt order parameter $`t`$. This expansion has the same form with the conventional expansion in Eq. (8). However, the renormalized coefficients in the ($`t^{},P_I`$)–minimised expansion are functions of the coefficients of the initial expansion of Eq. (15) rather than “starting” coefficients as in Eq. (8).

## VII Discussion and Conclusions

We have shown that the conventional phenomenological description of the Sm-$`A`$–Sm-$`C`$ phase transition in terms of a single tilt order parameter is applicable only to molecules that have an axis of higher than two–fold rotational symmetry. Such molecular symmetry requirements, however, are not met by any of the real molecules forming Sm-$`C`$ phases. We have also shown that the symmetries and the conformational structure of the real molecules give rise to several, mutually independent, tilt order parameters and also to polar arrangement of the molecules. The latter is described by pseudovector “indigenous polarity” order parameters and is shown to be compatible with the symmetries of the achiral Sm-$`C`$ phase as well as of the chiral Sm-$`C`$.

A phenomenological Landau expansion in terms of two tilt order parameters (primary and secondary) and of an indigenous polarity order parameter $`P_I`$ is shown to describe consistently the Sm-$`A`$–Sm-$`C`$ transition and the appearance of spontaneous electric polarisation $`P_S`$ in the chiral Sm-$`C^{}`$. The relation of $`P_S`$ to $`P_I`$ is established by means of a well defined molecular quantity $`\mu _{}^{}`$ measuring the electrostatic chirality of the molecule. The derived temperature dependence of the spontaneous polarisation involves a single characteristic reduced temperature $`T_{inv}^P/T_{AC}`$ whose value differentiates between the compounds showing the usual monotonic variation of the spontaneous polarisation with temperature and those exhibiting a sign inverting variation. Temperature dependence measurements on both types of compounds are accounted for very accurately.

On the phenomenological level, the sign inversion of $`P_S`$ is obtained as a result of competition between the coupling of the indigenous polarity to the primary tilt order parameter and to the secondary one. On the molecular level, the implications of this competition are compatible with the picture of competing molecular conformations of opposite contributions to the spontaneous polarisation. They do not exclude, however, the picture of competing intermolecular interactions, particularly if the conformational changes affect substantially the global structure of the molecule, not just the part that contributes to the spontaneous polarisation.

A similar sign inverting behaviour is found possible for the secondary tilt order parameter and can be related to the inversion of the helical pitch. In the underlying molecular picture the secondary tilt is associated with the tail segments, which essentially control the intra-layer correlations of the primary tilt.

The new, extended, description differs from the conventional one mainly in that it recognises that (i) polar ordering is present in the tilted smectic phase and is not a result of chirality and (ii) the tilted ordering is not always adequately described in terms of a single order parameter. On eliminating, by minimisation of the free energy, the secondary tilt and the indigenous polarity order parameter, the extended Landau expansion reduces to the conventional form of the expansion for the Sm-$`A`$ to Sm-$`C`$ (or Sm-$`C^{}`$) transition but with different physical content for the expansion coefficients.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was supported in part by the Greek General Secretariat of Research and Technology and the European Social Fund under the PENED’99 project 99ED52.
P.K.K. gratefully acknowledges financial support through a research scholarship from the University of Patras under project ”Karatheodori Scientific Research Program”, grant No.1931.
D.J.P. thanks Ed Samulski for many stimulating discussions on the subject of this paper.

## A

The purpose of this appendix is to identify different sets of independent order parameters describing tilt and polarity and to determine the relations among such sets. This is done for rigid molecules possessing a plane of symmetry and a twofold rotation axis perpendicular to it. For concreteness, we use the molecular geometry in Fig. 1(c) i.e. molecules whose orientation can be described completely in terms of two non- collinear unit vectors $`𝐬`$ and $`𝐬^{}`$ lying on the plane of symmetry of the molecule and forming a fixed angle $`\epsilon `$ (see Fig. 5). As explained in section II.2, the relevant orientational order parameters up to second rank for such molecules are $`\eta _{ab}^{(s)}`$, $`\eta _{ab}^{(s^{})}`$, $`\eta _{ab}^{(s,s^{})}`$ and $`a_x`$ and they are given in Eqs. (9)-(12).

We define an orthogonal frame of molecular axes $`xyz`$ such that $`x`$ coincides with the two-fold symmetry axis and the unit vectors along the other two axes are related to $`𝐬`$ and $`𝐬^{}`$ as follows,

$`\begin{array}{c}𝐳=(𝐬+𝐬^{})/2\mathrm{cos}(\epsilon /2)\\ 𝐲=(𝐬𝐬^{})/2\mathrm{sin}(\epsilon /2)\end{array}.`$ (A4)
By analogy then with the order parameters in Eqs. (9)-(11) we can define the order parameters associated with the unit vectors of the molecular frame

$$\begin{array}{c}\eta _{ab}^{(z)}=(3<z_az_b>\delta _{ab})/2\\ \eta _{ab}^{(y)}=(3<y_ay_b>\delta _{ab})/2\\ \eta _{ab}^{(y,z)}=3<z_ay_b+y_az_b>/4\end{array}.$$
(A5)
The polar order parameter $`a_x`$ is expressed in terms of the molecular axes as

$$a_X=\mathrm{sin}\epsilon (𝐳\times 𝐲)_X=\mathrm{sin}\epsilon x_X.$$
(A6)
The second rank order parameters associated with the vectors $`𝐬`$, $`𝐬^{}`$ can be obtained from the respective order parameters of the molecular frames according to the relations

$$\begin{array}{c}\eta _{ab}^{(s)}=\mathrm{cos}^2(\epsilon /2)\eta _{ab}^{(z)}+\mathrm{sin}^2(\epsilon /2)\eta _{ab}^{(y)}+\mathrm{sin}\epsilon \eta _{ab}^{(y,z)}\\ \eta _{ab}^{(s^{})}=\mathrm{cos}^2(\epsilon /2)\eta _{ab}^{(z)}+\mathrm{sin}^2(\epsilon /2)\eta _{ab}^{(y)}\mathrm{sin}\epsilon \eta _{ab}^{(y,z)}\\ \eta _{ab}^{(s,s^{})}=\mathrm{cos}^2(\epsilon /2)\eta _{ab}^{(z)}\mathrm{sin}^2(\epsilon /2)\eta _{ab}^{(y)}\end{array}.$$
(A7)
Now, if we describe the orientation of the molecular frame $`xyz`$ relative to the macroscopic, phase fixed, frame $`XYZ`$ by the three Euler angles  $`\varphi ,\vartheta ,\psi `$, the relevant tilt and polarity order parameters associated with the molecular axis frame are given by

$$\begin{array}{c}\eta _{YZ}^{(z)}=<\mathrm{sin}2\vartheta \mathrm{cos}\varphi >/2\\ \eta _{YZ}^{(y)}=<\mathrm{sin}2\vartheta \mathrm{cos}\varphi \mathrm{cos}^2\psi \mathrm{sin}\vartheta \mathrm{sin}\varphi \mathrm{sin}2\psi >/2\\ \eta _{YZ}^{(yz)}=<\mathrm{cos}2\vartheta \mathrm{cos}\varphi \mathrm{cos}\psi \mathrm{cos}\vartheta \mathrm{sin}\varphi \mathrm{sin}\psi >/2\\ <x_X>=<\mathrm{cos}\vartheta \mathrm{sin}\varphi \mathrm{sin}\psi \mathrm{cos}\varphi \mathrm{cos}\psi >/2\end{array}.$$
(A8)
It is apparent from these equations that the four order parameters are in general independent. In the special case where the $`\psi `$ rotations are completely unbiased (higher than two-fold rotational symmetry about the molecular $`z`$-axis), only one independent tilt order parameter survives since then Eqs. (A5) yield

$$\eta _{YZ}^{(y)}=\eta _{YZ}^{(z)}/2,$$
(A9)
and

$$\eta _{YZ}^{(yz)}=0=x_X.$$
(A10)
In the general case, it is always possible to eliminate the “mixed” order parameter $`\eta _{YZ}^{(yz)}`$ by rotating the molecular frame about the $`x`$-axis by an angle $`u`$ to the molecular frame of the principal molecular axes $`\stackrel{~}{x},\stackrel{~}{y},\stackrel{~}{z}`$ (see Fig. 5). The angle $`u`$ of rotation is given by the relation

$$\mathrm{tan}2u=2\eta _{YZ}^{(yz)}\mathrm{/}(\eta _{YZ}^{(z)}\eta _{YZ}^{(y)}).$$
(A11)
This rotation makes the mixed order parameter vanish and leaves the polar order parameter invariant since the axes $`x`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{x}`$ coincide. The order parameters expressed in the two frames are related as follows,

$$\begin{array}{c}\eta _{YZ}^{(z)}=\eta _{YZ}^{(\stackrel{~}{z})}\mathrm{cos}^2u\\ \eta _{YZ}^{(y)}=\eta _{YZ}^{(\stackrel{~}{y})}\mathrm{sin}^2u\\ \eta _{YZ}^{(yz)}=(\eta _{YZ}^{(\stackrel{~}{z})}\eta _{YZ}^{(\stackrel{~}{y})})\mathrm{sin}2u/2\\ \eta _{YZ}^{(\stackrel{~}{y}\stackrel{~}{z})}=0\\ \stackrel{~}{x}_X=x_X\end{array}.$$
(A12)
Accordingly, it is possible to replace the description in terms of three tilt order parameters (associated with the tensor components $`\eta _{YZ}^{(s)},\eta _{YZ}^{(s^{})},\eta _{YZ}^{(s,s^{})}`$) by a description in terms of just two tilt parameters (associated with $`\eta _{YZ}^{(\stackrel{~}{z})},\eta _{YZ}^{(\stackrel{~}{y})}`$) and a molecular axis rotation angle $`u`$. The polar order parameter is identical in both descriptions.


format: text

text:
# Supersymmetry and Vacuum Energy in Five-Dimensional Brane Worlds

## 1 Introduction

This talk is based on results obtained in collaboration with Adam Falkowski and Stefan Pokorski, published in refs. .

Brane worlds with warped geometries offer new perspectives in understanding the hierarchy of mass scales in field theory models . The initial hope was that the mere presence of extra dimensions would be a natural tool to control mass scales in gauge theories coupled to gravity. However, the realization of these simple ideas in terms of consistent models eventually called for quite sophisticated constructions, such as the brane–bulk supersymmetry that we are going to discuss in this talk.
The basic five-dimensional setup of brane world models is that of four-dimensional hypersurfaces (branes) hosting familiar gauge and charged matter fields, which are embedded in a five-dimensional ambient space, the bulk, populated by gravitational and gauge-neutral fields. The bulk degrees of freedom couple to the fields living on branes through various types of interactions. Some of these interactions are analogues of an interaction between electromagnetic potential and charge density located on branes – this is the case of the fields that are $`Z_2`$-even on an $`S^1/Z_2`$ orbifold forming the fifth dimension; some of them are rather analogues of the derivative coupling of the potential to the electric dipole moment density located on branes, i.e. analogues of the interactions of the $`Z_2`$-odd fields on $`S^1/Z_2`$. These interactions lead to the formation of nontrivial vacuum configurations in the brane system. In particular, the solutions of Einstein equations of the form $`ds^2=a^2(x^5)ds_4^2+b^2(x^5)(dx^5)^2`$ are usually allowed, as in the original Randall–Sundrum (RS) models, where $`ds_4^2`$ is the Minkowski, anti-deSitter or deSitter metric in 4d. The two basic observations pertaining to the hierarchy problem are the following. First, on the brane located at a position $`x^5`$, all the fundamental mass scales defining the 5d Lagrangian become down-scaled by the factor $`a(x^5)`$: $`mma(x^5)`$ when written down in the frame canonical with respect to the 4d line element $`ds_4^2`$. Thus, if the warp factor falls down exponentially, as in the RS model, one is given a natural exponential mass hierarchy between branes which is directly related to their separation. In fact, the effective mass measuring the interaction of a test body with the gravitational zero-mode is modulated by the warp factor, $`m_{eff}=ma(x^5)`$. In addition, the heavy Kaluza-Klein modes of the metric tensor couple to the brane matter energy momentum tensor at $`x^5`$ with the strength $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^1(x^5)`$ where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }(x^5)=M_Pa(x^5)`$, thus implying, at least naively, an $`UV`$ cut-off of that scale on perturbative physics on the brane. Second, as pointed out long ago by Rubakov and Shaposhnikov , the gradient energy associated with the variation of the warp factor in the direction transverse to the brane can cancel the contribution of the brane physics to the effective 4d cosmological constant. However, the stumbling observation is that whenever one finds a flat 4d foliation as the solution of higher-dimensional Einstein equations, which seems to be necessary for the existence of a realistic 4d effective theory, it is accompanied by a special choice of various parameters in the higher dimensional Lagrangian (see ). The fine-tuning seems to be even worse in 5d than in 4d, since typically one must correlate parameters living on spatially separated branes. Then there appears immediately the problem of stabilizing these special relations against quantum corrections. This situation has prompted the proposal , that it is a version of brane-bulk supersymmetry that may be able to explain apparent fine-tunings and stabilize hierarchies against quantum corrections. Indeed, the brane-bulk supersymmetry turns out to correlate in the right way the brane tensions and bulk cosmological constant in the supersymmetric Randall–Sundrum model. Moreover, local supersymmetry is likely to be necessary to embed brane worlds in string theory. Hence, the quest for consistent supersymmetric versions of brane worlds goes on, see . First explicit supersymmetric models with delta-type (thin) branes were constructed in . The distinguishing feature of the pure supergravity Lagrangians proposed in  is imposing the $`Z_2`$ symmetry, such that gravitino masses are $`Z_2`$-odd. An elegant formulation of the model is given in ref.  where an additional non propagating fields are introduced to independently supersymmetrize the branes and the bulk. In the on-shell picture for these fields the models of ref.  and refs.  are the same. On the other hand, in refs.  it has been noted, that supersymmetric Randall–Sundrum-type models can be generalized to include the universal hypermultiplet and gauge fields and matter on the branes. The Lagrangian of such a construction has been given in . This has allowed us  to study issues such as supersymmetry breaking and its transmission through the bulk. Finally, in  the effective low energy theory was formulated, which describes properly the physics of the warped five dimensional models with gauge sectors on the branes.

We have shown that in the class of models without nontrivial gauge sectors in the bulk, unbroken $`N=1`$ local supersymmetry (classical solutions with four unbroken supercharges) implies vanishing of the effective cosmological constant. We have demonstrated the link between vanishing of the 4d cosmological constant, minimization of effective potentials in 5d and 4d, and moduli stabilization. We have also described supersymmetry breaking due to a global obstruction against the extension of bulk Killing spinors to the branes, which is a phenomenon observed earlier in the Horava–Witten model in 11d and 5d.

First steps towards the 4d effective theory were made in , (where the Kähler function for the radion field was identified). In the set-up we consider in this paper supersymmetry in 5d is first broken from eight down to four supercharges by the BPS vacuum wall, and then again broken spontanously down to $`N=0`$ due to switching on expectation values of sources living on the branes. The general strategy follows the one  that led to the complete and accurate description of the low-energy supersymmetry breakdown in the Horava–Witten models, see . We were able to deduce the Kähler potential, superpotential and gauge kinetic functions describing physics of corresponding vacua in four dimensions. It turns out that the warped background modifies in an interesting way the kinetic terms for matter fields and the gauge kinetic function on the warped wall. There also appears a potential for the radion superfield, its origin being a modulus-dependent prefactor multiplying the superpotential on the warped wall in the expression for the 4d effective superpotential.

## 2 Supersymmetry in the brane-world scenarios

Let us begin with a brief review of the original RS model. The action is that of 5d gravity on $`M_4\times S_1/Z_2`$, with negative cosmological constant:

$`S=M^3{\displaystyle d^5x\sqrt{g}(\frac{1}{2}R+6k^2)}`$
$`+{\displaystyle d^5x\sqrt{g_i}(\lambda _1\delta (x^5)\lambda _2\delta (x^5\pi \rho ))}.`$ (1)
Three-branes of non-zero tension are located at $`Z_2`$ fixed points. The ansatz for vacuum solution preserving 4d Poincare invariance has the warped product form:

$$ds^2=a^2(x^5)\eta _{\mu \nu }dx^\mu dx^\nu +R_0^2(dx^5)^2.$$
(2)
The breathing mode of the fifth dimension is parametrized by $`R_0`$. The solution for the warp factor $`a(x^5)`$ is:

$$a(x^5)=\mathrm{exp}(R_0k|x^5|).$$
(3)
It has an exponential form, which can generate large hierarchy of scales between the branes. Matching delta functions in the equations of motion requires fine-tuning of the brane tensions:

$$\lambda _1=\lambda _2=6k.$$
(4)
With the choice (4) the matching conditions are satisfied for arbitrary $`R_0`$, so the fifth dimension is not stabilized in the original RS model. Thus $`R_0`$ enters the 4d effective theory as a massless scalar (radion), which couples to gravity in the manner of a Brans–Dicke scalar. This is at odds with the precision tests of general relativity, so any realistic model should contain a potential for the radion field.

Relaxing the condition (4) we are still able to find a solution in the maximally symmetric form, but only if we allow for non-zero 4d curvature ($`adS_4`$ or $`dS_4`$) . In such a case the radion is stabilized and its vacuum expectation value is determined by the brane tensions and the bulk cosmological constant.

The Randall–Sundrum model can be extended to a locally supersymmetric model . The basic set-up consists of 5d $`N=2`$ gauged supergravity , which includes the gravity multiplet $`(e_\alpha ^m,\psi _\alpha ^A,𝒜_\alpha )`$, that is the metric (vielbein), a pair of symplectic Majorana gravitinos, and a vector field called the graviphoton. The 5d SUGRA action is

$`S={\displaystyle }d^5xe_5{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\kappa ^2}}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}R{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\overline{\psi _\alpha }^A\gamma ^{\alpha \beta \gamma }D_\beta \psi _{A\gamma }`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}_{\alpha \beta }^{\alpha \beta }+\mathrm{})`$ (5)
and the supersymmetry transformations are given by

$`\delta e_\alpha ^m={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\overline{ϵ}^A\gamma ^m\psi _{A\alpha }`$
$`\delta \psi _\alpha ^A=D_\alpha ϵ^A{\displaystyle \frac{i}{4\sqrt{2}}}(\gamma _\alpha ^{\beta \gamma }4\delta _\alpha ^\beta \gamma ^\gamma )_{\beta \gamma }ϵ^A`$
$`\delta 𝒜_\alpha ={\displaystyle \frac{i}{2\sqrt{2}}}\overline{\psi _\alpha }^Aϵ_A.`$
Let us now add the brane tension at the brane located at $`x^5=0`$, $`S_1=d^5xe_4(6k)\delta (x^5)`$, and perform the supersymmetry transformation on the determinant of the induced vierbein. This produces a delta-type variation in the action: $`\delta e3\delta (x^5)e_4k(\overline{\psi ^1}_\mu \gamma ^\mu ϵ^1+(12))`$. It is straightforward to notice that this can be cancelled through the variation of the term $`\overline{\psi ^A}_\mu \gamma ^{\mu 5\rho }D_5\psi _\rho ^A`$ upon introducing new terms in the transformations of gravitini: $`\delta \psi _\alpha ^1=+\frac{k}{2}ϵ(x^5)\gamma _\alpha ϵ^1`$, $`\delta \psi _\alpha ^2=\frac{k}{2}ϵ(x^5)\gamma _\alpha ϵ^2`$. These corrections introduce further variations in the bulk Lagrangian, which require further new terms in the bulk Lagrangian: $`_{\psi ^2}=+\frac{3e_5}{4}kϵ(x^5)(\overline{\psi ^1}_\alpha \gamma ^{\alpha \beta }\psi _\beta ^1\overline{\psi ^2}_\alpha \gamma ^{\alpha \beta }\psi _\beta ^2)`$ and $`_{cc}=6e_5k^2`$, which is precisely the bulk potential needed in the RS model. The continuation through $`x^5=\pi \rho `$ gives on the second brane the tension term $`+\delta (x^5\pi \rho )e_46k`$. The resulting locally supersymmetric Lagrangian is in fact that of a gauged supergravity. The symmetry that is gauged is the $`U(1)`$ subgroup of the R-symmetry, $`\psi _\alpha ^Ae^{i\varphi }\psi _\alpha ^A`$, the gauge field being $`𝒜_\alpha ^R=\frac{1}{2\sqrt{2}}𝒜_\alpha `$. Gauging of the $`U(1)_R`$ symmetry means that we replace the derivative acting on the gravitino with the $`U(1)_R`$ covariant derivative:

$`D_\alpha \psi _\beta ^AD_\alpha \psi _\beta ^A{\displaystyle \frac{3}{\sqrt{2}}}(\sigma ^3)_B^Akϵ(x^5)𝒜_\alpha \psi _\beta ^B,`$
where $`D_\alpha `$ denotes the ordinary space-time covariant derivative. The coefficient of the coupling $`𝒜_\alpha \psi _\beta ^B`$ defines the prepotential $`𝒫=\frac{i}{4}\sigma ^3`$ and the $`Z_2`$-odd gauge coupling $`g=\frac{6kϵ(x^5)}{\sqrt{2}}`$. The warp factor turns out to be $`a(x^5)=e^{kR_0|x^5|}`$, precisely the one of the original RS model. Thus the fine-tuning present in the original RS model can be explained by the requirement of local supersymmetry .

New bosonic and fermionic fields do not affect the vacuum solution, so that the equations of motion for the warp factor are the same as in the original, non-supersymmetric RS model. The RS solution satisfies the BPS conditions and preserves one half of the supercharges, which corresponds to unbroken $`N=1`$ supersymmetry in four dimensions. In the supersymmetric version the brane tensions are fixed. In consequence, the exponential solution (3) is the only maximally symmetric solution and the radion is still not stabilized.

We now turn to studying the supersymmetric RS model coupled to matter fields. We want to investigate how general the features present in the minimal supersymmetric RS model are. We find that unbroken local supersymmetry implies flat 4d space-time in a wider class of 5d supergravities coupled to hyper- or vector multiplets, in which the scalar potential is generated by gauging a subgroup of R-symmetry.

Let us add neutral matter in the bulk (moduli) in the form of a universal hypermultiplet, $`(\lambda ^a,V,\sigma ,\xi ,\overline{\xi })`$. The quaternionic metric $`h_{uv}`$ of the scalar manifold can be read from the Kähler potential: $`K=\mathrm{ln}(S+\overline{S}2\xi \overline{\xi }),S=V+\xi \overline{\xi }+i\sigma .`$
New kinetic terms in the bulk Lagrangian contain

$`S={\displaystyle }d^5xe_5{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\kappa ^2}}({\displaystyle \frac{1}{4V^2}}(_\alpha V^\alpha V+_\alpha \sigma ^\alpha \sigma )`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{V}}_\alpha \xi ^\alpha \overline{\xi }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\overline{\lambda }^a\gamma ^\alpha D_\alpha \lambda _a+\mathrm{}).`$ (6)
Under $`Z_2`$, the bosonic fields $`(V,\sigma )`$ are even, and $`(\xi )`$ is odd. To arrive at supersymmetric Lagrangian in the presence of these additional fields it is necessary to gauge, in addition to $`U(1)_R`$, the isometry of the hypermultiplet scalar manifold: $`\xi e^{i\theta }\xi `$. Components of the Killing vector corresponding to this isometry are $`k^\xi =i\xi ,k^{\overline{\xi }}=i\overline{\xi },k^x=y,k^y=x`$, where $`\xi =x+iy`$. This results in the prepotential

$`𝒫=({\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}{\displaystyle \frac{x^2+y^2}{4V}})i\sigma ^3{\displaystyle \frac{x}{2V^{1/2}}}i\sigma ^1+{\displaystyle \frac{y}{2V^{1/2}}}i\sigma ^2`$ (7)
and scalar potential:

$`V=k^2\left(6+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{V}}|\xi |^2{\displaystyle \frac{3}{V^2}}|\xi |^4\right).`$ (8)
Finally, supersymmetry requires new terms localized on the branes: $`_B=\frac{e_4}{\kappa ^2}6k(1\frac{|\xi |^2}{V})(\delta (x^5)\delta (x^5\pi \rho ))`$ and modifications of supersymmetry transformation laws that were given in . To discuss both unbroken and broken $`N=1`$ supersymmetry, let us use from now on a more general ansatz for the metric allowing $`adS_4`$ geometry in four dimensions (the case of $`dS_4`$ is similar): $`g_{\alpha \beta }=diag(a^2(x^5)e^{2Lx^3},a^2(x^5)e^{2Lx^3},a^2(x^5)e^{2Lx^3},a^2(x^5),R_0^2),`$ where $`R_0`$ is the radion, and for later convenience we define $`f=\mathrm{exp}(Lx^3)`$. Let us note that $`R^{(4)}=12L^2`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{cc}^{(4)}=V_{eff}/M_P^2=6L^2`$. The conditions for unbroken supersymmetry in the bulk (BPS conditions) $`\delta \psi _\alpha ^A=\delta \lambda ^a=0`$ correlate scalars, the warp factor, Killing vector and prepotential:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{a^{}}{a}}=4kR_0\sqrt{\stackrel{}{P}^2},h_{uw}_5q^w=6kR_0_u\sqrt{\stackrel{}{P}^2}`$
$`h_{uv}_5q^u_5q^v=9R_0^2k^2h_{uv}k^uk^v.`$ (9)
After substituting these relations into the expression for the 4d action and integrating over $`x^5`$ one obtains 4d effective action of the form

$`S_4=M_{PL}^2{\displaystyle d^4x(\frac{1}{2}\overline{R}V_{eff})}`$
$`M_{PL}^2V_{eff}=M^3a^4(0)(24k\sqrt{\stackrel{}{P}^2}(0)\lambda _1)`$
$`+M^3a^4(\pi \rho )(24k\sqrt{\stackrel{}{P}^2}(\pi \rho )\lambda _2).`$ (10)
Unbroken supersymmetry corresponds to $`\sqrt{\stackrel{}{P}^2}=P_3`$, which immediately implies $`V_{eff}=R^{(4)}=0`$. This is a general result, which holds for any hypermultiplet manifold, not only for the universal one, which implies that unbroken SUSY excludes solutions with non-zero 4d space-time curvature. Only Minkowski foliations correspond to unbroken $`N=1`$ supersymmetry and the converse is also true in the class of models which are discussed in ref. . A further consequence is that stabilization of the radion field is impossible without breaking of residual four supercharges. It should be noted that in 4d supergravities one can a’priori obtain an anti-deSitter solution and preserve supersymmetry at the same time. Hence, compactifications of the supersymmetric RS scenarios yield a special subclass of 4d supergravities.

## 3 Supersymmetry breaking mediated by $`Z_2`$-odd fields and radion stabilization

In this section we investigate an alternative mechanism of supersymmetry breaking, similar to that studied in M-theoretical scenarios . It is triggered by brane sources coupled to the scalar fields in the bulk, which are odd with respect to the $`Z_2`$ parity. One way to see that supersymmetry is broken is to notice that the Killing spinor cannot be defined globally. The odd fields are the agents that transmit supersymmetry breaking between the hidden and visible branes. We present below a general description of our mechanism and then apply it to a specific model of 5d gauged supergravity with the universal hypermultiplet.

To see how to break the remaining supersymmetry (corresponding to $`N=1`$ in 4d) down to nothing ($`N=0`$ in 4d) one should inspect the parts of supersymmetry transformations of bulk fermions that contain the $`Z_2`$-odd fields $`\xi `$ and their transverse derivatives:

$`\delta \psi _5^1={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{V}}}_5\xi ϵ^2+2kϵ(x^5)({\displaystyle \frac{Re(\xi )}{2\sqrt{V}}}(\sigma ^1)^{1B}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{Im(\xi )}{2\sqrt{V}}}(\sigma ^2)^{1B})\gamma _5ϵ_B,`$
$`\delta \lambda ^1=+{\displaystyle \frac{i}{\sqrt{2V}}}\gamma ^5_5\xi ϵ^2+3kϵ(x^5)V_u^{A1}k^uϵ_A.`$ (11)
It is clear that vacuum expectation values of $`\xi `$ and $`_5\xi `$ are parameters of the supersymmetry breakdown and the field $`\xi `$ is the agent of local mediation of supersymmetry breakdown. Another way to see that $`\xi ,_5\xi 0`$ imply completely broken SUSY is to notice that this means that the components $`𝒫^1`$ and $`𝒫^2`$ of the prepotential are non-zero as well. The BPS conditions give:

$$ϵ^2=\frac{\sqrt{\stackrel{}{P}^2}\gamma _5ϵ^1P_3ϵ^1}{P_1iP_2}.$$
(12)
As an immediate consequence we find that if $`P_1`$ or $`P_2`$ $`\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}0}`$, then the Killing spinor is non-chiral, and is a mixture of the even and the odd components of the SUSY parameter $`ϵ`$. But only the even component survives the $`Z_2`$ projection at the orbifold fixed points, hence the Killing spinor cannot be defined globally and supersymmetry is broken because of the ‘misalignment’ between the bulk and the brane supersymmetries. In other words, the projection of the general bulk Killing spinor onto the brane would contain insufficient degrees of freedom to generate the minimal supersymmetry on the brane. Explicitly, bulk BPS conditions require

$$\frac{a^{}}{a}=4kR_0\sqrt{\stackrel{}{P}^2},h_{uw}_5q^w=6kR_0_u\sqrt{\stackrel{}{P}^2},$$
(13)
but matching delta functions in the equations of motion implies

$`{\displaystyle \frac{a^{}}{a}}(0)=4kR_0P_3(0),{\displaystyle \frac{a^{}}{a}}(\pi \rho )=4kR_0P_3(\pi \rho )`$
$`h_{uw}_5q^w(0)=6kR_0_uP_3(0)`$
$`h_{uw}_5q^w(\pi \rho )=6kR_0_uP_3(\pi \rho ).`$ (14)
All these conditions are automatically satisfied if $`\sqrt{\stackrel{}{P}^2}=P_3`$. Thus $`P\sigma ^3`$ is equivalent to the RS fine-tuning, unbroken supersymmetry and 4d Poincare invariance. However, if $`𝒫_1`$ or $`𝒫_2`$ are non-zero, there are four matching conditions, but only three free parameters; generically we are not able to satisfy the boundary conditions, and thus supersymmetry is broken.

To excite $`\xi ,_5\xi `$ one needs to couple them to the branes. Details are given in . Forgetting for a while about coupling to gaugino condensates on branes, the relevant part of the brane–bulk coupling is

$`{\displaystyle }d^5xe_5{\displaystyle \frac{2}{Vg_{55}}}(\delta (x^5)W_1(_5\xi +2\delta (x^5)\overline{W}_1)`$
$`+\delta (x^5\pi \rho )W_2(_5\xi +2\delta (x^5\pi \rho )\overline{W}_2)+h.c.).`$
We solve equations of motion perturbatively to order $`(\frac{W}{M^3})^2`$ with $`adS_4`$ foliation and ansatz $`\xi =\xi (x^5)=ϵ(x^5)\zeta (|x^5|),V=V(x^5),\sigma =const,𝒜_\mu =0,𝒜_5=const`$. Matching the $`\delta ^{}`$ in EOMs yields the boundary conditions: $`\zeta (0)=\frac{\overline{W}_1}{M^3},\zeta (\pi \rho )=\frac{\overline{W}_2}{M_3}`$. As a consequence:

$`C={\displaystyle \frac{\overline{W}_1}{M^3}},`$ $`Ce^{k(R_03\sqrt{2}i𝒜_5)\pi \rho }={\displaystyle \frac{\overline{W}_2}{M^3}}.`$ (16)
One can see that as long as supersymmetry is unbroken, moduli $`R_0`$ and $`𝒜_5`$ are arbitrary. When sources are switched on for odd fields, then the expectation value of the radion is determined by the boundary sources $`W_i`$, assuming that $`V`$ gets frozen. Perturbative ($`o(|W^2|)`$) solution to EOMs is

$`\xi =Cϵ(x^5)e^{k(R_03\sqrt{2}ik𝒜_5)|y|},C={\displaystyle \frac{\overline{W}_1}{M^3}},`$
$`Ce^{k(R_03\sqrt{2}ik𝒜_5)\pi \rho }={\displaystyle \frac{\overline{W}_2}{M^3}}`$
$`a=e^{kR_0|y|}+{\displaystyle \frac{|C|^2}{2V}}e^{kR_0|y|},L^2={\displaystyle \frac{16}{6}}{\displaystyle \frac{k^2|C|^2}{V}}`$
$`V=V_0|C|^2e^{2kR_0|y|},\sigma =\sigma _0,`$ (17)
except that boundary conditions for $`V`$ are fullfilled at the zeroth order only; hence it is better to say that one assumes $`V`$ to be ‘frozen’. The four-dimensional curvature is $`R^{(4)}=32\frac{k^2|C|^2}{V}`$. This means that in our family of models broken supersymmetry implies negative 4d curvature, and that curvature vanishes only if the SUSY-breaking sources are switched off.

As a cross-check of the above results we can calculate the 4d effective potential, obtained by integrating out the 5d bosonic action in the background (3). The result (to the order $`\frac{W}{M^3}^2`$) is:

$$_4=\sqrt{\overline{g}}\frac{M^3}{k}(1e^{2kR_0\pi \rho })\left(\frac{1}{2}\overline{R}+8\frac{k^2|C|^2}{V_0}\right).$$
(18)
We denoted by $`\overline{g}`$ the oscillations of the 4d metric around the vacuum solution. Solving the Einstein equations in the 4d effective theory yields $`\overline{R}=32\frac{k^2|C|^2}{V_0}`$, which is consistent with the value of $`L^2\frac{1}{12}\overline{R}`$ in (3). We also see that $`V_0`$ enters the denominator of the effective potential, which explains its runaway behaviour commented on earlier.

Before closing the discussion of the 5d classical solutions and supersymmetry breakdown, let us comment on proposals  to solve the cosmological constant problem by virtue of supersymmetry of the bulk-brane system. To put the issue into perspective, let us note that the Einstein equation with indices $`(55)`$ does not contain second derivatives of fields, hence it acts as a sort of constraint on the solutions of the remaining equations. This becomes clearer in the Hamiltonian approach towards the flow along the fifth dimension, where this equation arises as the Hamiltonian constraint $`=0`$, and is usually used to illustrate the way the conservation of the 4d curvature $`L^2`$ is achieved through the compensation between gradient and potential terms along the classical flow. However, this classical conservation hinges upon fulfilling certain consistency conditions between brane sources, or between boundary conditions induced by them, as illustrated by the model above. When one perturbs the boundary terms on one wall, then to stay within the family of maximally symmetric foliations one of two things must happen. Either the distance between branes must change, or the source at the distant brane must be retuned. In the class of models which we constructed, if the 4d curvature is present then supersymmetry is broken, and doesn’t take care of such a retuning. Moreover, even if retuning takes place, the size of 4d curvature, i.e. of the effective cosmological constant, does change as well, moreover, the magnitude of the effective cosmological constant has quadratic dependence on the boundary terms which induce supersymmetry breakdown. Hence, any perturbation of the boundary, instead of being screened by the bulk physics, contributes quadratically to the effective cosmological constant. Of course, we are talking about perturbations which can be considered quasi-classical on the brane. Thus we do not see here any special new effect of the extra dimension in the the cancellation of the cosmological constant. The positive aspect of supersymmetry is exactly the one which we know from the 4d physics. Supersymmetry, even the broken one, limits the size of the brane terms inducing supersymmetry breakdown, and limits in this way the magnitude of the 4d cosmological constant, since the two effects are strictly related to each other.

## 4 Effective low-energy theory in four dimensions

In this section we give the form of the effective four-dimensional supergravity describing zero-mode fluctuations in the models presented in the previous sections. Since in the 5d set-up supersymmetry is broken spontaneously, it is safe to assume that in 4d this supersymmetry breakdown can be considered as a spontaneous breakdown in a 4d supergravity Lagrangian described with the help of a Kähler potential $`K`$, superpotential $`W`$ and gauge kinetic functions $`H`$. The goal is to identify these functions reliably starting from the maximally symmetric approximate solutions (3) that we have described in the previous section. Our procedure is perturbative in the supersymmetry breaking parameter $`\frac{W}{M^3}`$. Fortunately, it is sufficient to identify the functions we are looking for from the terms that can be reliably read at the order $`(\frac{W_1}{M^3})^1`$. Such terms include the gravitino mass term. In addition, we have at our disposal the complete kinetic terms for moduli, gauge and matter fields, which are of order $`(W_1)^0`$ and are sufficient to read off the Kähler potential for moduli and matter fields. The complete procedure has been given in ref. . Here we summarize the results and discuss the basic features of the warped 4d supergravities.

The Kähler function for moduli fields $`S=V_0+i\sigma _0`$ and $`T=k\pi \rho (R_0+i\sqrt{2}𝒜_5)`$, and for the charged fields $`\mathrm{\Phi }_1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_2`$ living on the Planck brane and warped brane respectively is

$`K(S,\overline{S};T,\overline{T};\mathrm{\Phi },\overline{\mathrm{\Phi }})=M_P^2\mathrm{log}(S+\overline{S})`$
$`3M_P^2\mathrm{log}(f(T+\overline{T}{\displaystyle \frac{k}{3M^3}}|\mathrm{\Phi }_2|^2){\displaystyle \frac{\beta k}{3M^3}}|\mathrm{\Phi }_1|^2)`$
where we defined $`M_P^2=\frac{M^3}{k}(1e^{2k\pi \rho R_0})`$, $`f=\beta (1e^{(T+\overline{T})})`$ with $`\beta =\frac{M^3}{kM_P^2}`$. The effective 4d superpotential is

$`W=2\sqrt{2}(W_1+e^{3T}W_2)`$ (20)
and the gauge kinetic functions are

$$H_{warped}(S,T)=S+2b_0T,H_{Planck}(S)=S.$$
(21)
One can study the 4d effective scalar potential derived from $`K,W,H`$. The standard formulation gives: $`𝒱=e_4e^G(G_iG^{i\overline{j}}G_{\overline{j}}3)`$ with $`G=K+\mathrm{log}|W|^2`$. Explicitly:

$`𝒱=e_4{\displaystyle \frac{4}{V_0M_P^2\beta ^3(1e^{2k\pi \rho R_0})^3}}(|W_1|^2`$
$`(3e^{2k\pi \rho R_0}2)+|W_2|^2(3e^{4k\pi \rho R_0}2e^{6k\pi \rho R_0})`$
$`+W_1\overline{W_2}e^{3k\pi \rho R_0i\sqrt{2}𝒜_5}`$
$`+W_2\overline{W_1}e^{3k\pi \rho R_0+i\sqrt{2}𝒜_5}).`$ (22)
Minimizing the above scalar potential wrt $`𝒜_5`$ yields

$`Arg(W_2)Arg(W_1)3\sqrt{2}k\pi \rho 𝒜_5=\pi n,`$
$`n=0,\pm 1,\pm 2,\mathrm{}.`$ (23)
Taking $`n=1`$ and minimizing wrt $`R_0`$ one obtains

$`e^{k\pi \rho R_0}={\displaystyle \frac{|W_1|}{|W_2|}},`$ (24)
consistently with the 5d picture. Let us summarize the basic features of our model. The F-terms take at the minimum the expectation values

$`|F^S|^2=8e^K(S+\overline{S})^2a^2(\pi \rho )|W_2|^2`$
$`\times (1a^2(\pi \rho ))^20`$
$`|F^T|^2=0,`$ (25)
which means that supersymmetry is broken along the dilaton direction. The potential energy at this vacuum is negative:

$`V_{vac}={\displaystyle \frac{8|W_2|^2}{V_0(M^3/kM_P^2)^3M_P^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{a^2(\pi \rho )}{1a^2(\pi \rho )}}.`$ (26)
The mass of the canonically normalized radion is

$`m_R^2={\displaystyle \frac{24}{V_0(M^3/kM_P^2)^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{a^2(\pi \rho )|W_2|^2}{(1a^2(\pi \rho ))}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{M_P^4}}`$ (27)
and the gravitino mass term is given by the expression

$`m_{3/2}={\displaystyle \frac{2}{\sqrt{V_0}(M^3/kM_P^2)^{3/2}}}{\displaystyle \frac{a(\pi \rho )}{(1a^2(\pi \rho ))^{1/2}}}{\displaystyle \frac{|W_2|}{M_P^2}}.`$
It is interesting to compare these features to those of the models, which are low-energy limits of weakly and strongly coupled heterotic string theories. As is well known, in the leading, tree-level, approximation, heterotic string gives the four-dimensional supergravity which enjoys the no-scale structure . The gauge kinetic functions in all, visible and hidden, sectors, are universal and depend only on the 4d dilaton superfield $`S`$, $`H=S,_TH=0`$. In addition, at the perturbative level there is no superpotential for moduli superfields $`S`$ and $`T`$. As a consequence, the effective potential is positive semi-definite and takes the form $`V=K_{S\overline{S}}|F^S|^20`$. Hence, the vacuum configuration corresponds to $`F^S=0`$, but $`F^T`$, which doesn’t enter the potential, is allowed to take a non-zero value, so that supersymmetry is broken along the $`T`$ direction in moduli space. The problem with this is that the scale of supersymmetry breakdown is arbitrary, and it can only be hoped that it becomes fixed at a proper value, after taking into account various perturbative and/or nonperturbative corrections to the Lagrangian. In the supergravity model which is the low energy limit of weakly coupled heterotic string with one-loop corrections, and at the same time that of a strongly coupled heterotic string where these corrections arise in classical expansion taking into account the presence of an extra dimension, see , the situation changes. When the interplay of sources of supersymmetry breakdown, such as condensates in various sectors and expectation value of the superpotential, is taken into account, it is possible to arrange for unbroken supersymmetry in the anti-deSitter background, or for vacua where both $`F^S`$ and $`F^T`$ are sizable - see  for details. In all these considerations the effects of the nonperturbative warping of an extra dimension, like the one in the RS models, were not taken into account. The model which was constructed in  finally allows to discuss the impact of the rapidly changing warp-factor on the low-energy physics. In the model with just expectation values of the superpotentials serving as a supersymmetry breaking source, it is crucial that the effective superpotential acquires the exponential dependence on the modulus $`T`$. This leads to vanishing of the $`F^T`$ upon using the equation of motion for $`T`$. As a result, this time it is $`F^S`$ which is non-zero, although its value remains undetermined (as long as the corrections to the Lagrangian are not taken into account). The vacuum energy takes the form $`V=\frac{2}{M_P^2}e^K|W|^20`$, which describes, at tree-level, an unstable background with negative energy density, in agreement with five-dimensional considerations.

## 5 Summary

The main result of  summarized in this talk is the four-dimensional effective supergravity action, which describes low-energy physics of the Randall–Sundrum model with moduli fields in the bulk and charged chiral matter living on the branes.

The low-energy action has been read off from a compactification of a locally supersymmetric model in five dimensions. The exponential warp factor has interesting consequences for the form of the effective 4d supergravity. The asymmetry between the warped and unwarped walls is visible in the Kähler function, in the gauge kinetic functions and in the superpotential. Roughly speaking the contributions to these functions which come from the warped wall are suppressed by an exponential factor containing the radion superfield. This is the way the warp factor and (and RS brane tensions) is encoded in the low-energy Lagrangian.

We have described the mechanism of supersymmetry breaking mediation which relies on a non-trivial configuration of the $`Z_2`$ odd fields in the bulk. We point out, that the odd $`Z_2`$ parity fields can be an important ingredient of 5d supersymmetric models. They play a crucial role in communication between spatially separated branes.

After freezing the dilaton, it is possible to stabilize the radion field in the backgrounds with broken supersymmetry and excited odd-parity fields.

We have shown that in the class of brane world models without charged matter and gauge fields in the bulk, unbroken $`N=1`$ supersymmetry implies vanishing cosmological constant. In the case where the sources that induce supersymmetry breakdown are represented simply by constant superpotentials on the branes, broken supersymmetry gives rise to anti-deSitter-type geometry in four dimensions. Hopefully, in more sophisticated models with various sources of supersymmetry breaking participating in the game, we shall be able to find models with broken supersymmetry and vanishing vacuum energy.

We believe that the class of models we have constructed in  provides a useful, explicit, setup to study low-energy phenomenology of the supersymmetric brane models with warped vacua.