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# Integrable and Conformal Boundary Conditions for 𝑍_𝑘 Parafermions on a Cylinder

## 1 Introduction

There has been much recent progress  on understanding integrable boundaries in statistical mechanics, conformal boundary conditions in rational conformal field theories and the intimate relations between them. Indeed it appears that, for certain classes of theories, all of the conformal boundary conditions can be realized as the continuum scaling limit of integrable boundary conditions for the associated integrable lattice models. For simple rational conformal field theories, such as $`\widehat{s\mathrm{}}(2)`$ minimal theories, a complete classification has been given  of the conformal boundary conditions. These are labelled by nodes $`(r,a)`$ of a tensor product graph $`AG`$ where the pair of graphs $`(A,G)`$, with $`G`$ of $`A`$-$`D`$-$`E`$ type, coincide precisely with the pairs in the $`A`$-$`D`$-$`E`$ classification of Cappelli, Itzykson and Zuber . Moreover, for the unitary minimal models the physical content of the boundary conditions has been ascertained  by studying the related integrable boundary conditions of the associated $`A`$-$`D`$-$`E`$ lattice models  with positive spectral parameter $`u>0`$.

It is highly desirable to carry out similar studies on boundary conditions for other classes of conformal field theories and their associated lattice models such as the superconformal and higher fusion models, higher rank models and so on. In this paper we study the boundary conditions of $`Z_k`$ parafermionic models . This class of rational conformal field theories admits an $`A`$-$`D`$-$`E`$ classification  similar to the classification of Cappelli, Itzykson and Zuber and is associated to the same $`A`$-$`D`$-$`E`$ lattice models but in the regime with negative spectral parameter $`u<0`$. The first two members of the $`A`$ series are the Ising model ($`A_3`$) and the hard hexagon model  ($`A_4`$) which has the same central charge as the 3-state Potts model but admits the $`W_3`$ algebra as the extended chiral algebra and has 6 rather than 8 conformal boundary conditions.

The layout of the paper is as follows. In Section 2, we review the conformal properties of $`\widehat{s\mathrm{}}(2)`$ $`Z_k`$ parafermions, their central charges, conformal weights, characters, Kac tables and modular matrices. We also discuss the modular invariant partition functions on the torus and the cylinder partition functions. In Section 3, we present the lattice realizations of these theories. We define the $`A`$-$`D`$-$`E`$ lattice models and their integrable boundary weights, present their finite size corrections and compute their bulk and boundary free energies. In Section 4 we identify, through numerical analysis, the integrable boundary conditions from the lattice model with the conformal boundary conditions of parafermions. In Section 5, we discuss our numerical techniques and present some typical numerical data on which our results are based. We conclude in Section 6 with a short discussion.

## 2 $`Z_k`$ Parafermions

In this section we review the conformal properties of $`\widehat{s\mathrm{}}(2)`$ $`Z_k`$ parafermions. In particular, we review the $`A`$-$`D`$-$`E`$ classifications  of torus partition functions and present general expressions for the cylinder partition functions following the general framework of Behrend, Pearce, Petkova and Zuber  on the assumption that the conformal boundary conditions are labelled by nodes of the tensor product graph

$$GZ_{2k}$$
(2.1)
where the Coxeter number of $`G`$ is $`g=k+2`$ and $`Z_{2k}`$ denotes the oriented cyclic graph with $`2k`$ nodes.

### 2.1 Conformal data

The $`\widehat{s\mathrm{}}(2)`$ $`Z_k`$ parafermionic conformal field theories are $`\widehat{u}(1)`$ cosets of the level $`k`$, $`\widehat{s\mathrm{}}(2)`$ WZW models

$$\frac{\widehat{s\mathrm{}}(2)_k}{\widehat{u}(1)}$$
(2.2)
with central charges

$$c=\frac{3k}{k+2}1=\frac{2(k1)}{k+2}$$
(2.3)
The conformal weights of primary fields $`\varphi _{(\mathrm{},m)}`$ are given by

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{(\mathrm{},m)}=\frac{\mathrm{}(\mathrm{}+2)}{4(k+2)}\frac{m^2}{4k},0\mathrm{}k,0|m|\mathrm{},\mathrm{}m2Z$$
(2.4)
and the associated level $`k`$ characters

$$\chi _{(\mathrm{},m)}(q)=\eta (q)c_m^{\mathrm{}}(q)$$
(2.5)
are given by the string functions

$`c_m^{\mathrm{}}(q)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{q^{\frac{c2}{24}+\mathrm{\Delta }_{(\mathrm{},m)}}}{\eta ^3(q)}}{\displaystyle \underset{r,s=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}(1)^{r+s}q^{s(s+1)/2+r(r+1)/2+rs(k+1)}`$ (2.6)
$`\times \left[q^{s(\mathrm{}m)/2+r(\mathrm{}+m)/2}q^{k+1\mathrm{}+s(2k+2\mathrm{}+m)/2+r(2k+2\mathrm{}m)/2}\right]`$
where $`\eta (q)=q^{\frac{1}{24}}_{n=1}^{\mathrm{}}(1q^n)`$ is the Dedekind eta function and $`q=e^{2\pi i\tau }`$ is the modular parameter.

The conformal weights and characters are extended to the grid

$$0\mathrm{}k,0m2k1,\mathrm{}m2Z$$
(2.7)
by identifying the underlying operators

$$\varphi _{(\mathrm{},m)}=\varphi _{(\mathrm{},m)}^{}=\varphi _{(\mathrm{},m+2k)}=\varphi _{(k\mathrm{},km)}^{}$$
(2.8)
where $``$ denotes conjugation. The conformal weights $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{(\mathrm{},m)}`$ and characters $`\chi _{(\mathrm{},m)}(q)`$ are of course not effected by conjugation. The parafermionic “Kac tables” for the critical Ising ($`G=A_3`$, $`k=2`$), critical 3-state Potts ($`G=A_4`$, $`k=3`$) and ($`G=A_5`$, $`k=4`$) models are shown in Table 1. Each operator appears twice in these grids. To remove this redundancy we could fix a fundamental domain to be the left half of the Kac table. But in order to stress the underlying structure of the fusion algebras we will sometimes make other choices, such as the even sub-lattice with $`\mathrm{}`$ and $`m`$ even.

Under modular transformations, the level $`k`$ parafermionic characters transform as

$$\chi _{(\mathrm{},m)}(e^{2\pi i\tau })=\underset{(\mathrm{}^{}.m^{})}{}S_{(\mathrm{},m)}{}_{}{}^{(\mathrm{}^{},m^{})}\chi _{(\mathrm{}^{},m^{})}^{}(e^{2\pi i/\tau })$$
(2.9)
where the modular matrix $`S`$ satisfies

$$S^{}=S^1,S^4=I,S^2=C$$
(2.10)
and $`C`$ is the matrix implementing conjugation. If $`(\mathrm{},m)`$ ranges over the full conformal grid then $`S=S_{WZW}S_{Z_{2k}}`$ is just the tensor product of the $`\widehat{s\mathrm{}}(2)_k`$ Wess-Zumino-Witten modular matrix and the $`\widehat{s\mathrm{}}(2k)_1`$ modular matrix. Restricting to a fundamental domain, the entries of the $`k(k+1)/2\times k(k+1)/2`$ modular matrix are simply renormalized by a factor of 2 and given explicitly by

$$S_{(\mathrm{},m)}{}_{}{}^{(\mathrm{}^{},m^{})}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{k(k+2)}}\mathrm{sin}\frac{\pi (\mathrm{}+1)(\mathrm{}^{}+1)}{(k+2)}\mathrm{exp}\frac{\pi imm^{}}{k}$$
(2.11)
### 2.2 $`Z_k`$ parafermions on a torus

The $`\widehat{s\mathrm{}}(2)`$ $`Z_k`$ parafermions on a torus have been classified by Gepner and Qiu  using modular invariance. They distinguish principal and non-principal cases and their results are summarised in Tables 2 and 3. Here we will be primarily concerned with the principal cases for which the identification with lattice models is clear. We conjecture that non-principal models are associated with fused models .

### 2.3 $`Z_k`$ parafermions on a cylinder

In this section we consider the $`Z_k`$ parafermion models on a cylinder. We restrict our attention to the principal cases $`(G,Z_{2k})`$ where $`G`$ is of $`A`$, $`D`$ or $`E`$ type. When $`G`$ is of $`A`$ type, the theory is diagonal and the cylinder partition functions are

$$Z_{(\mathrm{}_1,m_1)|(\mathrm{}_2,m_2)}(q)=\underset{(\mathrm{},m)}{}N_{(\mathrm{},m)(\mathrm{}_1,m_1)}{}_{}{}^{(\mathrm{}_2,m_2)}\chi _{(\mathrm{},m)}^{}(q)$$
(2.12)
where $`(\mathrm{}_1,m_1)`$ labels the boundary condition on the left, $`(\mathrm{}_2,m_2)`$ labels the boundary condition on the right and the fusion coefficients are given by the Verlinde formula

$$N_{(\mathrm{},m)(\mathrm{}_1,m_1)}{}_{}{}^{(\mathrm{}_2,m_2)}=\underset{(\mathrm{}^{},m^{})}{}\frac{S_{(\mathrm{},m)}{}_{}{}^{(\mathrm{}^{},m^{})}S_{(\mathrm{}_1,m_1)}^{}{}_{}{}^{(\mathrm{}^{},m^{})}S_{(\mathrm{}_2,m_2)}^{}_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{(\mathrm{}^{},m^{})}}{S_{(0,0)}^{(\mathrm{}^{},m^{})}}N$$
(2.13)
The parafermionic cylinder partition functions for $`(A_4,Z_6)`$ are shown in Table 4. The characters associated to conjugate primary fields, although equal, have not been used so that this table encodes the complete fusion algebra with the conjugate operators shown in the first column.

If $`G`$ is of $`D`$ or $`E`$ type, the boundary conditions are labelled by $`(a,m)(G,Z_{2k})`$ and the cylinder partition functions are given by :

$$Z_{(a_1,m_1)|(a_2,m_2)}(q)=\underset{(\mathrm{},m)}{}V_{(\mathrm{},m)(a_1,m_1)}{}_{}{}^{(a_2,m_2)}\chi _{(\mathrm{},m)}^{}(q)$$
(2.14)
where the sum is restricted to a fundamental domain of the Kac table. The intertwiners are

$$V_{(\mathrm{},m)(a_1,m_1)}{}_{}{}^{(a_2,m_2)}=\underset{(a^{},m^{})}{}\frac{S_{(\mathrm{},m)}{}_{}{}^{(a^{}1,m^{})}\mathrm{\Psi }_{(a_1,m_1)}^{}{}_{}{}^{(a^{},m^{})}\mathrm{\Psi }_{(a_2,m_2)}^{}_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{(a^{},m^{})}}{S_{(0,0)}^{(a^{}1,m^{})}}N$$
(2.15)
where the sum is over $`a^{}\text{Exp}(G)`$ the Coxeter exponents of $`G`$ and $`m^{}Z_{2k}`$. The eigenvectors of the adjacency matrix of the graph $`GZ_{2k}`$ are given by the tensor product

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{(a,m)}{}_{}{}^{(a^{},m^{})}=\psi _a{}_{}{}^{a^{}}\mathrm{exp}\frac{\pi imm^{}}{k}$$
(2.16)
where $`\psi ^a^{}`$ is the eigenvector, labelled by $`a^{}\text{Exp}(G)`$, of the adjacency matrix $`G`$.

The intertwiner can alternatively be defined as the tensor product of intertwiners for each graph

$$V_{(\mathrm{},m)(a_1,m_1)}{}_{}{}^{(a_2,m_2)}=V_{\mathrm{}+1,a_1}^^G{}_{}{}^{a_2}V_{m+1,m_1}^{^Z}^{m_2}$$
(2.17)
where the intertwiners for $`G`$ and $`Z=Z_{2k}`$ are defined by a formulas similar to (2.15). The intertwiner for the graph $`G`$ satisfies the recurrence relation

$$V_i^^G:=V_2^^GV_{i1}^^GV_{i2}^^G$$
(2.18)
where $`V_1^^G=I`$ and $`V_2^^G=G`$, the adjacency matrix of $`G`$. The intertwiner for $`Z_{2k}`$ is simply a power of the adjacency matrix $`V_m^^Z=(Z_{2k})^m`$ of the directed graph $`Z_{2k}`$.

The parafermionic cylinder partition functions for $`(A_5,Z_8)`$ and $`(D_4,Z_8)`$ are shown in Tables 5-6. In the $`A_5`$ case the characters associated with conjugate fields have been kept separated in order to encode the complete fusion algebra, but have been identified in the $`D_4`$ case to make the $`Z_3`$ symmetry apparent when these $`(D_4,Z_8)`$ partition functions are written in terms of the fundamental string functions.

In the general $`D`$ and $`E`$ cases, these partition functions are best understood in terms of extended (block) characters . These extended characters $`\widehat{\chi }_{(a,m)}`$ are linear forms in the $`(A_L,Z_{2k})`$ characters involving the fundamental intertwiner

$$\widehat{\chi }_{(a,m)}(q):=\underset{(\mathrm{},n)}{}V_{(\mathrm{},n)(0,0)}{}_{}{}^{(a,m)}\chi _{(\mathrm{},n)}^{}(q)$$
(2.19)
where the sum is over a fundamental domain. Note that for the $`(D_{\frac{k}{2}+2},Z_{2k})`$ models the conformal dimensions of the two primary fields appearing in the extended characters differ by integers or half integers

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{(\mathrm{},m)}\mathrm{\Delta }_{(k\mathrm{},m)}=\frac{\mathrm{}(\mathrm{}+2)(k\mathrm{})(k\mathrm{}+2)}{4(k+2)}=\frac{\mathrm{}\frac{k}{2}}{2}$$
(2.20)
Note also that the parafermionic symmetries (2.8) imply that these models are in fact $`Z_k`$ symmetric.

The set of boundary conditions $`(a,m)`$ for $`D`$ and $`E`$ theories gives rise to an extended fusion algebra of conformal fields $`\widehat{\phi }_{(a,m)}`$, namely the graph fusion algebra

$$\widehat{\phi }_{(a,m)}\times \widehat{\phi }_{(a^{},m^{})}=\underset{(a^{\prime \prime },m^{\prime \prime })}{}\widehat{N}_{(a,m)(a^{},m^{})}{}_{}{}^{(a^{\prime \prime },m^{\prime \prime })}\widehat{\phi }_{(a^{\prime \prime },m^{\prime \prime })}^{}$$
(2.21)
with structure constants given by the Verlinde like formula

$$\widehat{N}_{(a_1,m_1)(a_2,m_2)}{}_{}{}^{(a_3,m_3)}=\underset{(a^{},m)}{}\frac{\mathrm{\Psi }_{(a_1,m_1)}{}_{}{}^{(a^{},m)}\mathrm{\Psi }_{(a_2,m_2)}^{}{}_{}{}^{(a^{},m)}\mathrm{\Psi }_{(a_3,m_3)}^{}_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{(a^{},m)}}{\mathrm{\Psi }_{(1,0)}^{(a^{},m)}}$$
(2.22)
where the sum on $`(a^{},m)\text{Exp}(G)\times Z_{2k}`$ is over the fundamental domain. In terms of the extended characters, the cylinder partition functions can be written as

$$Z_{(a,m)|(a^{},m^{})}(q)=\underset{(a^{\prime \prime },m^{\prime \prime })}{}\widehat{N}_{(a,m)^{}(a^{},m^{})}{}_{}{}^{(a^{\prime \prime },m^{\prime \prime })}\widehat{\chi }_{(a^{\prime \prime },m^{\prime \prime })}^{}(q)$$
(2.23)
Table 8 gives the example of the $`D_4`$ case. In this form the partition functions are no longer explicitly $`Z_3`$ symmetric. There is a distinguished node which corresponds to the identity operator of the fusion algebra which for $`D_4`$ is $`(A,0)`$.

## 3 Lattice Realizations of $`Z_k`$ Parafermions

### 3.1 $`A`$-$`D`$-$`E`$ lattice models and integrable boundaries

The principal $`Z_k`$ theories are realized as the continuum scaling limit of the critical $`A`$-$`D`$-$`E`$ lattice models  with negative spectral parameter. In these models the spin states are taken to be the nodes of the graph $`G`$ of $`A`$, $`D`$ or $`E`$ type. Let $`g`$ be the Coxeter number of $`G`$. Then the bulk face weights are

$$W\left(\begin{array}{cc}d& c\\ a& b\end{array}u\right)=\text{}=\frac{\mathrm{sin}(\lambda u)}{\mathrm{sin}\lambda }\delta _{ac}+\frac{\mathrm{sin}u}{\mathrm{sin}\lambda }\frac{\sqrt{\psi _a\psi _c}}{\psi _b}\delta _{bd},$$
(3.1)
where $`u`$ is the spectral parameter, $`\lambda =\pi /g`$ is the crossing parameter and the weights are understood to vanish if the adjacency condition of $`A`$, $`D`$ or $`E`$ type is not satisfied along the four edges of the face. The crossing factors $`\psi _a`$ are the entries of the Perron-Frobenius eigenvector of the adjacency matrix $`G`$. If $`0<u<\lambda `$ the continuum scaling limit of these models describes the $`s\mathrm{}(2)`$ unitary minimal models. Otherwise, if $`\lambda \pi /2<u<0`$, the continuum scaling limit describes the principal $`Z_k`$ parafermions with $`k=g2`$.

The $`A`$-$`D`$-$`E`$ models are also integrable in the presence of a boundary . The integrable boundary conditions at a conformal point are labelled  by $`(r,a)(A_{g2},G)`$. A general expression for the boundary weights of the $`(r,a)`$ boundary condition  in terms of boundary edge weights is

$$\begin{array}{c}\text{}B^{ra}(c\begin{array}{cc}d& \delta \\ b& \beta \end{array}|u,\xi )=\text{}\hfill \\ =\frac{\mathrm{sin}(\xi u)\mathrm{sin}(\xi +u+r\lambda )\psi _c^{1/2}}{\mathrm{sin}(2\xi )\psi _b^{1/2}}\delta _{bd}\delta _{\beta \delta }+\frac{\mathrm{sin}(2u)}{\mathrm{sin}(2\xi )}\underset{\gamma =1}{\overset{F_{ca}^{r+1}}{}}E^{ra}(b,c)_{\beta \gamma }E^{ra}(d,c)_{\delta \gamma }.\hfill \end{array}$$
(3.2)
Here $`\xi `$ is a free parameter that should be thought of as a boundary field and $`E^{ra}(b,c)_{\beta \gamma }`$ are edge weights specified in Behrend and Pearce . The fused adjacency matrices $`F^r`$ at level $`r`$ which appear in the summation are simply another notation for the intertwiners $`F^r=V_r^G`$ defined previously. These are given recursively in terms of the adjacency matrix $`G`$ of the $`A`$-$`D`$-$`E`$ graph by the $`s\mathrm{}(2)`$ fusion rules

$`F^1=I,F^2=G,F^r=GF^{r1}F^{r2},r=3,\mathrm{},g`$ (3.3)
The labels $`\alpha ,\beta ,\gamma `$ are bond variables or degeneracies with $`\beta =1,\mathrm{},F_{ab}^r`$, $`\delta =1,\mathrm{},F_{ad}^r`$. At $`u=\xi `$ the boundary weights are independent of $`\xi `$ and decompose simply in terms of boundary edge weights

$$B^{ra}(c\begin{array}{cc}d& \delta \\ b& \beta \end{array}|\xi ,\xi )=\underset{\gamma =1}{\overset{F_{ca}^{r+1}}{}}E^{ra}(b,c)_{\beta \gamma }E^{ra}(d,c)_{\delta \gamma }$$
(3.4)
It is precisely at $`u=\xi `$, when the triangle boundary weights reduce effectively to edge weights, that the integrable boundary conditions correspond  to conformal boundary conditions.

The $`A`$-$`D`$-$`E`$ face weights and boundary weights satisfy the Yang-Baxter and boundary Yang-Baxter equations. This ensures integrability through commuting double row transfer matrices. The entries of the $`N`$ column double-row transfer matrix with boundary conditions $`(r_1,a_1)`$ on the left and $`(r_2,a_2)`$ on the right are given by

$$\begin{array}{c}\text{}𝑫_{r_1a_1|r_2a_2}(u,\xi _1,\xi _2)_{(\beta _1,b_0,\mathrm{},b_N,\beta _2),(\delta _1,d_0,\mathrm{},d_N,\delta _2)}\hfill \\ \text{}\hfill \end{array}$$
(3.5)
### 3.2 Finite-size corrections

The properties of the $`A`$-$`D`$-$`E`$ lattice models connect to the data of the associated conformal field theories through the finite-size corrections to the eigenvalues of the double row transfer matrices. If we write the eigenvalues of $`𝑫_{r_1a_1|r_2a_2}(u,\xi _1,\xi _2)`$ as

$$D_n(u)=\mathrm{exp}(E_n(u)),n=0,1,2,\mathrm{}$$
(3.6)
then the finite-size corrections to the energies $`E_n`$ take the form

$$E_n(u)=2Nf(u)+f_{r_1,a_1|r_2,a_2}(u)+\frac{2\pi \mathrm{sin}\vartheta }{N}\left(\frac{c}{24}+\mathrm{\Delta }_n+k_n\right)+o\left(\frac{1}{N}\right),k_nN$$
(3.7)
where $`f(u)`$ is the bulk free energy, $`f_{r_1,a_1|r_2,a_2}(u)`$ is the boundary free energy, $`c`$ is the central charge, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_n`$ is a conformal weight and the anisotropy angle is given by

$$\vartheta =\{\begin{array}{cc}gu,\hfill & 0<u<\lambda \text{ (unitary minimal)}\hfill \\ \frac{2(k+2)}{k}u,\hfill & \lambda \pi /2<u<0\text{ (}Z_k\text{ parafermions)}\hfill \end{array}$$
(3.8)
where $`g=k+2`$ is the Coxeter number.

Removing the bulk and boundary contributions to the partition function on a cylinder leads to the conformal partition function $`Z_{j|k}(q)`$ with left and right boundaries $`j=(r_1,a_1)`$, $`k=(r_2,a_2)`$. This can be expressed as a linear form in characters

$$Z_{j|k}(q)=\underset{i}{}n_{ij}{}_{}{}^{k}\chi _{i}^{}(q)$$
(3.9)
where $`i`$ is summed over the primary fields and the integers $`n_{ij}{}_{}{}^{k}N`$ give the operator content. For $`M`$ double rows the modular parameter is

$$q=\mathrm{exp}(2\pi i\tau ),\tau =i\frac{M}{N}\mathrm{sin}\vartheta $$
(3.10)
where $`M/N`$ is the aspect ratio of the cylinder.

For a system to be conformally invariant it is usually demanded that it is both isotropic and translationally invariant. For the unitary minimal $`A`$-$`D`$-$`E`$ models with $`0<u<\lambda `$ the geometry is that of an isotropic square lattice when $`u=\lambda /2`$ and $`\vartheta =\pi /2`$. In this case the alternation of rows in the double row transfer matrix also disappears since $`\lambda u=u`$. So the conformal point occurs for

$$\lambda u=u=\xi _1=\xi _2=\lambda /2\text{(unitary minimal models)}$$
(3.11)
In contrast, for the $`Z_k`$ parafermionic $`A`$-$`D`$-$`E`$ models with $`\lambda \pi /2<u<0`$, the relevant geometry is not that of an isotropic square lattice. Instead, for $`Z_k`$ parafermions, the relevant choice is $`u=\lambda `$ with $`\vartheta =2\pi /k`$. Thus for the $`W_3`$ or hard hexagon model the geometry is that of the triangular lattice with $`\vartheta =2\pi /3`$. In general it follows that $`\lambda u=2\lambda `$ so the alternation of rows in the double row transfer matrix persists even though the second row is still the transpose of the first row. Moreover, to ensure that the left and right boundary conditions are conformal we need to choose $`\xi _1=2\lambda `$ and $`\xi _2=\lambda `$ so the conformal point is

$$\lambda u=\xi _1=2\lambda ,u=\xi _2=\lambda \text{(}Z_k\text{ parafermions)}$$
(3.12)
Notice that at this conformal point the double row transfer matrix is not left-right symmetric and the boundary free energies for a given boundary condition $`(r,a)`$ on the left and right are different because they have different boundary fields $`\xi _1=2\lambda `$ and $`\xi _2=\lambda `$.

### 3.3 Bulk free energies

In this section we obtain the bulk free energies $`f(u)`$ or equivalently the partition functions per site $`\kappa (u)=\mathrm{exp}(f(u))`$. Two $`A`$-$`D`$-$`E`$ models sharing the same Coxeter number are related by intertwiners so their bulk free energies are the same. Their boundary free energies are also related. Thus we only need to find the free energies for the $`A_L`$ models.

For general $`L=k+1`$, the partition function per site of the $`A_L`$ model satisfies the inversion relation

$$\kappa (u)\kappa (u+\lambda )=\frac{\mathrm{sin}(u+\lambda )\mathrm{sin}(u\lambda )}{\mathrm{sin}^2\lambda }\frac{\mathrm{sin}\frac{L+1}{L1}u}{\mathrm{sin}\frac{L+1}{L1}(u+\lambda )}:=q_b(u)$$
(3.13)
and the crossing symmetry

$$\kappa (u)=\kappa (\lambda u).$$
(3.14)
The inversion relation is established by keeping just the dominant terms in the TBA and inversion identity hierarchies , using height reversal symmetry and equating just the bulk terms of order $`2N`$. The inversion relation, crossing symmetry and height reversal symmetry determine a unique solution which is analytic and non-zero in the analyticity strip $`\text{Re }(u)(\frac{\pi +\lambda }{2},\frac{\lambda }{2})`$, which contains the physical strip $`\text{Re }(u)(\frac{\pi }{2}+\lambda ,0)`$ for the regime we consider. This problem has been solved, in a different context, by Baxter . The solution for general $`L`$ can be written as an integral

$$\kappa (u)=\mathrm{exp}_{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}\mathrm{sinh}ut\frac{\mathrm{sinh}(\pi \lambda )t\mathrm{sinh}(\pi 3\lambda +u)t\mathrm{sinh}\lambda t\mathrm{sinh}(u+\lambda )t}{t\mathrm{sinh}\pi t\mathrm{sinh}(\pi 2\lambda )t}dt.$$
(3.15)
The solution can also be written explicitly for $`L`$ even ($`k`$ odd) as

$$\kappa (u)=\frac{\mathrm{sin}(u2\lambda )}{\mathrm{sin}\lambda }\underset{k=1}{\overset{L/21}{}}\frac{\mathrm{sin}(u+(2k1)\lambda )}{\mathrm{sin}(u+2k\lambda )}\frac{\mathrm{sin}\frac{L+1}{L1}(u+2k\lambda )}{\mathrm{sin}\frac{L+1}{L1}(u+(2k1)\lambda )}.$$
(3.16)
### 3.4 Boundary free energies

In this section we obtain results for the boundary free energies by extending the inversion relation method . The boundary free energy contribution comes in three different parts

$$f_{r,s|r^{},s^{}}=f_0+f_{r,s}^L+f_{r^{},s^{}}^R.$$
(3.17)
The vacuum term $`f_0`$ does not depend on the boundary condition. It is free of zeros and its logarithm is analytic on the physical analyticity strip. The remaining contributions $`f_{r,s}^{L/R}`$ for each boundary condition $`(r,s)`$ are different on the left $`L`$ and on the right $`R`$ and exhibit zeros in the physical analyticity strip. The boundary free energies are obtained by repeating the analysis of the TBA and inversion identity hierarchies  keeping the dominant terms as in the bulk calculation but this time equating the boundary terms of order 1 in the physical analyticity strip $`\text{Re }(u)(\frac{\pi +\lambda }{2},\frac{\lambda }{2})`$.

Let $`q_b`$ be the RHS of the bulk inversion relation (3.13). Then the vacuum functional equation we obtain is, with $`\kappa _0(u)=\mathrm{exp}(f_0(u))`$,

$$\kappa _0(u)\kappa _0(u+\lambda )=q_b(u)q_b(\frac{\pi }{2}u)\frac{4\mathrm{sin}^4\lambda }{\mathrm{sin}(\lambda 2u)\mathrm{sin}(\lambda 2(u+\lambda ))}.$$
(3.18)
Hence we find the solution with the required analyticity is expressed in terms of the bulk free energy as

$$\kappa _0(u)=\kappa (u)\kappa (\frac{\pi }{2}u+\lambda )\frac{2\mathrm{sin}^2\lambda }{\mathrm{sin}(\lambda 2u)}$$
(3.19)
For $`L`$ even, one has an explicit expression

$`\kappa _0(u)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}2(u+\lambda )}{\mathrm{sin}(\lambda 2u)}}`$
$`\times {\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{\frac{L}{2}1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}2(u+(2k+1)\lambda )}{\mathrm{sin}2(u+2k\lambda )}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}\frac{L+1}{L1}(u+2k\lambda )}{\mathrm{sin}\frac{L+1}{L1}(u+(2k1)\lambda )}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{cos}\frac{L+1}{L1}(u+(2k1)\lambda )}{\mathrm{cos}\frac{L+1}{L1}(u+2k\lambda )}}`$
In this case the inversion relation admits other explicit solutions. Combining the zeros and poles of the two bulk free energy terms for $`L1\mathrm{mod}4`$, we find

$`\kappa _0(u)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}2(u+(\frac{L1}{2}1)\lambda )}{\mathrm{sin}(2u\lambda )}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}\frac{L+1}{L1}(u\lambda )}{\mathrm{sin}\frac{L+1}{L1}(u+(\frac{L1}{2}1)\lambda )}}`$
$`\times {\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{\frac{L1}{4}1}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}2(u+(2k1)\lambda )}{\mathrm{sin}2(u+2k\lambda )}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}\frac{L+1}{L1}(u+2k\lambda )}{\mathrm{sin}\frac{L+1}{L1}(u+(2k1)\lambda )}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{cos}\frac{L+1}{L1}(u+(2k1)\lambda )}{\mathrm{cos}\frac{L+1}{L1}(u+2k\lambda )}}`$
In the remaining case $`L3\mathrm{mod}4`$, the vacuum boundary free energy can only be expressed in terms of integrals. Let $`q_0`$ be the RHS of the functional equation (3.18). It is Analytic and Non-Zero in the strip $`\text{Re }(u)(\frac{\pi +\lambda }{2},\frac{\lambda }{2})`$. Furthermore the derivative $`f_0^{}`$ approaches a Constant when $`\text{Im }(u)\pm \mathrm{}`$ (ANZC). Hence we can introduce the Fourier transforms of the derivatives

$`_0(k)`$ $`:=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2i\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{\frac{\pi +\lambda }{2}<\text{Re }(u)<\frac{\lambda }{2}}{}}f_0^{}(u)e^{ku}𝑑u`$ (3.22)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{du}}f_0(u)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{+\mathrm{}}{}}}_0(k)e^{ku}𝑑k`$ (3.23)
so that (3.18) becomes

$$_0(k)(1+e^{k\lambda })=\frac{1}{2i\pi }\underset{\frac{\pi +\lambda }{2}<\text{Re }(u)<\frac{\lambda }{2}}{}\frac{q_0^{}(u)}{q_0(u)}e^{ku}𝑑u$$
(3.24)
The solution by inverse Fourier transform gives

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{du}}f_0(u)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2i\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{0<\text{Re }(w)<\mathrm{min}(\lambda ,u+\frac{L}{2}\lambda )}{}}𝑑w\left({\displaystyle \frac{d}{du}}\mathrm{log}q_0(uw)\right){\displaystyle \frac{L+1}{\mathrm{sin}(L+1)w}}`$ (3.25)
Integrating with respect to $`u`$ and taking the $`w`$ integration along the vertical line $`\text{Re }(w)=ϵ>0`$ we obtain in the limit $`ϵ0`$

$`f_0(u)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{log}q_0(u)}{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{L+1}{\pi }}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\text{Im }\mathrm{log}q_0(uiw)}{\mathrm{sinh}(L+1)w}}𝑑w`$ (3.26)
The boundary free energy $`f_{(r,s)}`$ arises from a boundary condition of type $`(r,s)`$ with a boundary field $`\xi `$. It does not depend on $`s`$. An integral form analogous to (3.26) can be derived with $`q_0`$ being replaced by the RHS of the boundary inversion relation

$`\kappa _{(r,s)}(u)\kappa _{(r,s)}(u+\lambda )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}(u+\xi )\mathrm{sin}(u\xi )\mathrm{sin}(u+\xi +r\lambda )\mathrm{sin}(u\xi r\lambda )}{\mathrm{sin}^4\lambda }}`$ (3.27)
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}\frac{L+1}{L1}(u\xi (r1)\lambda )}{\mathrm{sin}\frac{L+1}{L1}(u\xi )}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}\frac{L+1}{L1}(u+\xi +\lambda )}{\mathrm{sin}\frac{L+1}{L1}(u+\xi +r\lambda )}}`$
The solution must be analytic on the analyticity strip with the same zeros as

$$\mathrm{sin}(u+\xi )\mathrm{sin}(u\xi r\lambda ).$$
(3.28)
For $`r`$ odd, this inversion relation admits the explicit solution

$`\kappa _{(r,s)}(u)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}(u+\xi )\mathrm{sin}(u\xi r\lambda )}{\mathrm{sin}^2\lambda }}`$
$`\times {\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{\frac{r1}{2}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}(u+\xi +2k\lambda )}{\mathrm{sin}(u+\xi +(2k1)\lambda )}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}(u\xi (2k1)\lambda )}{\mathrm{sin}(u\xi 2k\lambda )}}`$
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}\frac{L+1}{L1}(u+\xi +(2k1)\lambda )}{\mathrm{sin}\frac{L+1}{L1}(u+\xi +2k\lambda )}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}\frac{L+1}{L1}(u\xi 2k\lambda )}{\mathrm{sin}\frac{L+1}{L1}(u\xi (2k1)\lambda )}}`$
with zeros at $`u=\xi ,\xi +r\lambda ,\xi \pi +\lambda ,\xi \pi +(r+1)\lambda `$. Since these last two zeros are not desired, the formula is only valid when these points are outside the analyticity strip, i.e.,

$$\frac{\pi +\lambda }{2}<\text{Re }(\xi )<\frac{\pi \lambda }{2}r\lambda .$$
(3.30)
There is another solution when $`L+r`$ is even

$`\kappa _{(r,s)}(u)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}(u+\xi \lambda )\mathrm{sin}(u\xi )}{\mathrm{sin}^2\lambda }}`$
$`\times {\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{\frac{Lr}{2}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}(u+\xi +(2(k1)+r)\lambda )}{\mathrm{sin}(u+\xi +(2k1+r)\lambda )}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}(u\xi +2k\lambda )}{\mathrm{sin}(u\xi +(2k1)\lambda )}}`$
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}\frac{L+1}{L1}(u+\xi +(2k1+r)\lambda )}{\mathrm{sin}\frac{L+1}{L1}(u+\xi +(2(k1)+r)\lambda )}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}\frac{L+1}{L1}(u\xi +(2k1)\lambda )}{\mathrm{sin}\frac{L+1}{L1}(u\xi +2(k1)\lambda )}}`$
with zeros at $`u=\xi ,\xi +r\lambda ,\xi +(r1)\lambda \pi ,\xi (r2)\lambda \pi `$. Clearly, this formula is only valid when

$$\frac{\pi +3\lambda }{2}r\lambda <\text{Re }(\xi )<\frac{\pi \lambda }{2}r\lambda .$$
(3.32)
In the $`A_4`$ and $`A_5`$ cases, these formulas allow us to compute the boundary free energies. The values for $`A_5`$ are listed in Table 9.

Some symmetries of the parafermion models are reflected in the boundary free energies. The left/right symmetry is broken in general but the usual height reversal symmetry $`r,sr,L+1s`$ remains. Another symmetry comes from the fact that at a conformal point the boundary weights factorize into edge weights. The interchange of the two independent sublattices is then implemented by the Kac table symmetry $`r,sLr,L+1s`$.

## 4 Identifying integrable and conformal boundary conditions

For the unitary minimal $`A`$-$`D`$-$`E`$ models with $`0<u<\lambda `$ there is a one-to-one correspondence  between integrable and conformal boundary conditions labelled by $`(r,a)(A_{g2},G)`$ that respect the symmetry of the generalized Kac table. In contrast, for the $`Z_k`$ parafermionic $`A`$-$`D`$-$`E`$ models with $`\lambda \pi /2<u<0`$, the situation is more subtle and the conformal labels $`(a,m)(G,Z_{2k})`$ do not coincide with the natural labels $`(r,a)`$ arising from the construction  of integrable boundary conditions at the conformal point. It is therefore necessary to make an identification of the integrable and conformal boundary conditions from numerical data.

For the $`A`$ type $`Z_k`$ models the dominant or vacuum configuration is given by the $`2k`$ periodic sawtooth configuration

$$𝒂=\{\mathrm{},1,2,\mathrm{},k,k+1,k,\mathrm{},2,1,\mathrm{}\}$$
(4.1)
It is thus clear that the vacuum $`(\mathrm{},m)=(0,0)`$ on the left and the right should be identified with the integrable boundary condition $`(r,a)=(1,1)`$ on the left and the right with the number of faces $`N=0`$ mod $`2k`$ and this is confirmed by numerical computation. Next, if we fix the boundary condition to the vacuum $`(\mathrm{},m)=(0,0)`$ on the left or right we find from (2.12) that the cylinder partition function reduces to a single character

$$Z_{(0,0)|(\mathrm{},m)}(q)=Z_{(\mathrm{},m)|(0,0)}(q)=\chi _{(\mathrm{},m)}(q)$$
(4.2)
If we fix $`N`$ mod $`2k`$, this allows us to identify, up to possible ambiguities of conjugation, the integrable boundary condition $`(r,s)`$ on the left or right with the conformal labels $`(\mathrm{},m)`$ from the numerically determined cylinder partition functions. Once these identifications are made they can be checked for consistency against all the other cylinder partition functions given in (2.12).

Proceeding in this way we find the following correspondence for the $`A_L`$ parafermions with $`N=0`$ mod $`2k`$

$$(\mathrm{},m)=\{\begin{array}{cc}(s1,r1),\hfill & r+s\text{ even}\hfill \\ (k+1s,kr),\hfill & r+s\text{ odd.}\hfill \end{array}$$
(4.3)
This is consistent with the Kac table symmetries, $`(r,s)(k+1r,k+2s)`$ and (2.8), of both the minimal models and parafermions. The correspondence for the $`A_3`$, $`A_4`$ and $`A_5`$ parafermion models is listed explicitly in Table 10. The height reversal symmetry $`sk+2s`$, flips the tables about their middle rows and corresponds at the level of the conformal algebra to a fusion with the field $`\phi _{(0,k)}`$ which is of order two. The conjugacy $`(l,m)(kl,km)`$ can be seen in these tables as a central symmetry which centre has been indicated for the even sublattice. The centre of the usual Kac table symmetry of the minimal models has been indicated too.

For a number of faces $`N0`$ mod $`2k`$, the left/right symmetry of this correspondence is broken. Keeping the same correspondence between integrable boundary conditions $`(r,s)`$ and fields $`(\mathrm{},m)`$ on the left hand side, the correspondence on the right hand side for a number of faces $`N=1`$ mod $`2k`$ is simply given by the same table where the columns are shifted cyclically to the left, the first column becoming the last column after a top/bottom flip as shown in Table 11 and so on for other mod properties. Therefore, for a number of faces $`N=k`$ mod $`2k`$, the correspondence table is completely flipped about the middle row and we get the height reversed correspondence. This result is supported by our numerical computations for $`k=2,3,4`$ summarised in Section 5.

This correspondence can be carried over to the $`D`$ and $`E`$ cases. For $`N=0`$ mod $`k`$, the result is again given by the trivial identification of $`A_k`$ with $`Z_k`$ for the even sublattice and its flip for the odd sublattice. The cylinder partition functions in this case are obtained from the $`A`$ cases by intertwiners

$$Z_{r_1a_1|r_2a_2}(q)=\underset{s=1}{\overset{L}{}}V_{sa_1}{}_{}{}^{a_2}Z_{r_11|r_2s}^{A_L}(q)$$
(4.4)
Comparing our numerical results with Table 8 allows us to obtain the correspondence given in Table 12 for the $`(D_4,Z_8)`$ case with the number of faces $`N=0`$ mod 4:

$$\begin{array}{ccc}A_4\times D_4& & D_4\times Z_8\hfill \\ (r,a)& & \{\begin{array}{cc}(a,r1)\hfill & \text{ if }r+a\text{ is odd,}\hfill \\ (a,4r)\hfill & \text{ if }r+a\text{ is even.}\hfill \end{array}\hfill \end{array}$$
(4.5)
For example, the partition function for the boundary conditions $`(r,a)=(1,O)`$ on the left and right is:

$`Z_{1O|1O}^{D_4}(q)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{s=1}{\overset{5}{}}}V_{sO}{}_{}{}^{O}Z_{11|1s}^{A_5}(q)`$
$`=`$ $`Z_{11|11}^{A_5}(q)+2Z_{11|13}^{A_5}(q)+Z_{11|15}^{A_5}(q)=\chi _{(0,0)}(q)+2\chi _{(2,0)}(q)+\chi _{(4,0)}(q).`$
This result agrees with the alternative way of computing this partition function using the correspondence (4.5) and the extended fusion algebra described in Table 8:

$`Z_{1O|1O}^{D_4}(q)`$ $`=`$ $`Z_{(O,3)|(O,3)}^{D_4}(q)`$
$`=`$ $`\widehat{\chi }_{(A,0)}(q)+\widehat{\chi }_{(B,0)}(q)+\widehat{\chi }_{(C,0)}(q)=\chi _{(0,0)}(q)+\chi _{(4,0)}(q)+\chi _{(2,0)}(q)+\chi _{(2,0)}(q).`$
More generally, the correspondence in the $`D`$ and $`E`$ cases relate (2.19) and (4.4) as two compatible ways of computing partition functions in terms of $`A_L`$ partition functions.

As in the $`A_L`$ case, the table for $`N=1`$ mod 4 is obtained by a shifting procedure on the table, namely, shift the columns of the table to the left and interchange the $`B`$ and $`C`$ entries in the last column (see Table 13).

Using the intertwiner definition (4.4) and the correspondence formula (4.3), one finds that this result holds for any $`D_{\frac{k}{2}+2}`$ and for the exceptional cases $`E_6`$, $`E_7`$ and $`E_8`$:

$$(a,m)=\{\begin{array}{cc}(a,r1)\hfill & \text{ if }r+a\text{ is odd,}\hfill \\ (a,kr)\hfill & \text{ if }r+a\text{ is even}\hfill \end{array}$$
(4.8)
where $`aG`$, $`rA_k`$ and $`mZ_{2k}`$. This formula also holds for $`G=A_{k+1}`$ provided the ranges of $`r`$ and $`s`$ are adjusted to begin at 1 rather than 0. Here the labelling of the nodes of the $`D`$ and exceptional $`E`$ graphs is as follows:

## 5 Numerical Conformal Spectra

In this section we describe our numerical analysis which confirm the results presented in Section 4. As explained in the previous section, the spectra for the $`D`$ and $`E`$ models are related to the spectra of the $`A`$ models by intertwiners (4.4) so we need only do numerics on the $`A`$ parafermion models. The Yang-Baxter equation, boundary Yang-Baxter equation, reflection symmetry, inversion relation, crossing symmetry, height reversal symmetry and commutation of double row transfer matrices for various number of faces and all boundary conditions were checked numerically. The numerics were carried out for finite size row transfer matrices and extrapolated to large sizes. The spectra were obtained by numerical diagonalization of the row transfer matrices. For the $`A_L`$ lattice models the maximum number of faces $`N`$ in a row that we found manageable due to machine limitations was $`22`$, $`18`$ and $`16`$ respectively for $`L=3,4,5`$.

We first studied the boundary conditions which from (4.2) should yield single characters, such as $`(r,1|1,1)`$ or $`(1,s|1,1)`$ with the number of faces $`N=0`$ mod $`2k`$. We computed numerically the double row transfer matrices for these boundary conditions for increasing $`N`$ and numerically diagonalized them to obtain the spectra. Allowing for the contribution of the bulk and boundary free energies, the central charge and the geometric factor, we fit the data corresponding to the largest eigenvalues of these transfer matrices, in negative integers powers of $`N`$ to extract the conformal weight $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. This value was compared with the entries in the parafermion Kac table to determine (up to conjugacy) the primary field associated with the given boundary condition.

In the $`A_5`$ case the level is $`k=4`$ and machine limitations prevent us from dealing with more than $`N=16`$ faces. Consequently, this direct method would give us only two numbers, for $`N=8`$ and $`N=16`$ faces respectively. However, some symmetries can be used to obtain more data for extrapolation to large $`N`$ by merging sequences for related boundary conditions and other mod properties as we now explain. Firstly, height reversal symmetry allows us to merge the sequence $`(r,s|1,1)`$ for $`N=0`$ mod $`2k`$ with the sequence $`(r,s|1,L)`$ for $`N=k`$ mod $`2k`$. More generally, other sequences converge to the same character, namely $`(r,s|m,1)`$ for $`N=2km`$ mod $`2k`$ and $`(r,s|m,L)`$ for $`N=km`$ mod $`2k`$. Indeed, these boundary conditions are all compatible with the sawtooth shaped ground state. We discovered that this shift and flip procedure not only applies for the vacuum but for any boundary condition (see Table 11). This method of interleaving sequences allowed us to improve dramatically the accuracy of our numerics. A typical extrapolated numerical estimate of a conformal weight agrees to 5 or 6 digit accuracy with the exact entry in the parafermion Kac table.

In addition to producing the correct conformal weight $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, the numerical spectra should, in the case of a single character, also reproduce the correct degeneracies of the associated string function $`\chi _{(\mathrm{},m)}`$. This means that if the eigenvalues $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_n^{(N)}`$ of the double row transfer matrix with $`N`$ faces are placed in decreasing order with $`n=0,1,2,\mathrm{}`$ then

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }_n^{(N)}=\mathrm{\Lambda }_0^{(N)}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{2\pi \mathrm{sin}\vartheta }{N}a_n+o\left(\frac{1}{N}\right)\right)$$
(5.1)
where $`a_n`$ is an increasing integer sequence encoding the degeneracies in the character in terms of the modular parameter $`q=\mathrm{exp}(\frac{2\pi }{N}\mathrm{sin}\vartheta )`$. The leading corrections in the $`o(\frac{1}{N})`$ term are negative integer powers of $`N`$ so a plot of the normalized $`\mathrm{log}`$ value against $`1/N`$ becomes a straight line near zero and a polynomial fit in $`1/N`$ gives a good extrapolation to $`N=\mathrm{}`$.

After investigating all the boundary conditions leading to a single character we turned to the other boundary conditions and compared the numerical spectra with the predictions of the parafermion fusion algebra. In these cases the cylinder partition functions are sums of characters. As a typical example, consider the $`(A_5,Z_8)`$ parafermion model with $`(1,3|1,3)`$ boundary conditions and $`N=0`$ mod $`8`$. According to Table 10, the normalized partition function should converge to the sum of characters:

$`Z_{13|13}(q)`$ $`=`$ $`Z_{(2,0)|(2,0)}(q)=\chi _{(0,0)}(q)+\chi _{(2,0)}(q)+\chi _{(4,0)}(q)`$
$`=`$ $`q^{1/24}(1+q^{1/3}+q+2q^{4/3}+2q^2+3q^{7/3}+5q^3+o(q^3))`$
so the energy levels and their degeneracies should be given by the sequence

$$\{a_n\}=\{0,\frac{1}{3},1,\frac{4}{3},\frac{4}{3},2,2,\frac{7}{3},\frac{7}{3},\frac{7}{3},3\mathrm{}\}$$
(5.3)
Table 14 and Figure 1 show a comparison of the extrapolated sequences and the exact values. The accuracy in other cases is at least as good as this case. As can be seen in Figure 1, in extrapolating the sequences, the eigenvalues cannot simply be ordered according to their values at a given $`N`$. However, a given eigenvalue can be uniquely identified and tracked for each $`N`$ by examining its pattern of zeros in the complex $`u`$-plane.

The $`D`$ and $`E`$ parafermion models can be studied numerically by the same direct numerical diagonalization techniques as the $`A`$-type models. However, in these cases, it is better to use the intertwiner relations (4.4) to relate  the spectra of the $`D`$ or $`E`$ model to the spectra of various sectors (or boundary conditions) of the associated $`A`$ model with the same Coxeter number. In this way, for example, the spectra of the $`D_4`$ model with given boundary conditions is related to sectors of the $`A_5`$ model. Although it is not necessary to directly diagonalize the double row transfer matrices of the $`D`$ and $`E`$ parafermion models we did diagonalize some cases as checks on the numerics.

## 6 Discussion

In this paper we have shown how to associate integrable lattice boundary conditions to each conformal boundary condition $`(a,m)`$ of the $`A`$-$`D`$-$`E`$ $`\widehat{s\mathrm{}}(2)`$ parafermion models. Moreover, we have shown how the conformal labels $`(a,m)`$ of the string functions are related to the labels $`(r,a)`$ that naturally arise in the construction of the integrable boundary conditions. In contrast to the unitary minimals models, we observe (3.12) that the symmetry between the left and right boundaries is broken for the parafermion models due to the presence of an intrinsic cyclic chirality. We note also that there does not exist a gauge in which the local Boltzmann weights of the parafermion lattice models are all positive. Since the local weights should represent probabilities, this means that these models are not well defined as lattice models in statistical mechanics. Nevertheless, as is also the case for the non-unitary minimal models, these models yield well-defined conformal field theories in the continuum scaling limit.

In this work we have focussed on the principal parafermion models. It would be of interest to extend our results to the non-principal models. We expect these models to correspond to fused versions  of the lattice models studied here.

## Acknowledgements

This research is supported by the Australian Research Council. We thank Roger Behrend for his careful reading and comments.


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# Propagators and Dimensional Reduction of Hot SU(2) Gauge Theory

## I Introduction

Understanding the large distance behavior of the static electric and magnetic propagators in hot SU(N) gauge theory is of interest for several reasons. First of all it is related to the screening phenomenon in a hot non-Abelian plasma. In fact, the concepts of electric and magnetic masses extracted from these propagators form to a large extent the basis for our intuitive understanding of screening in non-abelian gauge theories . Furthermore, the concept of screened electric propagators finds application in refined perturbative calculations (hard thermal loop resummation) . Non-perturbative calculations of these propagators thus can provide a bridge between perturbative and non-perturbative descriptions of the electric screening phenomenon.

Of course, a draw back of such an approach is that the gluon propagator itself is a gauge dependent quantity. One thus has to question to what extent the results extracted from these propagators have a physical meaning. The poles of the gluon propagator at finite temperature were proven to be gauge invariant in perturbation theory . However, for static quantities like the Debye mass static magnetic fields can lead to a breakdown of perturbation theory. The Debye mass cannot be defined perturbatively beyond leading order . Non-perturbatively the problem of gauge independence of the screening masses thus is an open question.

It has been shown that at high temperature the large distance behavior of a SU(N) gauge theory can be described in terms of the dimensionally reduced effective theory, i.e. the three dimensional adjoint Higgs model . The screening masses extracted from gauge invariant correlators were studied in terms of the effective three dimensional (3d) theory  and were compared with the corresponding results from four dimensional (4d) simulations . The relation between the propagator masses and the masses extracted from gauge invariant correlators was discussed in . The screening masses extracted from gauge invariant correlators correspond to masses of some bound states of the 3d effective theory and are several times larger than masses extracted from propagators.

In the present paper we extend our earlier studies on the electric and magnetic propagators . Contrary to Refs.  where propagators were studied only in Landau gauge we consider here a class of generalized Landau gauges, the Coulomb gauge, the maximally Abelian gauge and the static time averaged Landau gauge. We study the propagators in terms of the 3d effective theory as well as in the 4d theory at finite temperature. A comparison of the propagators in the full 4d and in the 3d effective theory provides further evidence for the applicability of dimensional reduction. A detailed study of finite size effects in the propagators shows that the picture of magnetic screening given in Refs.  needs to be revised to some extent. First results from our analysis of the magnetic sector have been presented in Ref. .

The paper is organized as follows. In section II we discuss questions related to gauge fixing and the definition of propagators in finite temperature SU(2) theory as well as in the dimensionally reduced effective theory, the 3d adjoint Higgs model. Section III contains our main results on electric and magnetic propagators and the analysis of their gauge and volume dependence. Finally we give our conclusion in section IV. In an Appendix details of the determination of the parameters of the effective theory are discussed.

## II Gluon propagators in finite temperature SU(2) gauge theory

In this section we define the actions we use for our simulations in three and four dimensions and introduce our basic notation for gauge fields, gluon propagators and the different gauges we have analyzed.

### A Actions in three and four dimensions

In four dimensions (4d) all our calculations are performed with the standard Wilson action for SU(2) lattice gauge theory,

$$S_W=\beta _4\underset{x,\nu >\mu }{}\left[1\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{Tr}U_\mu (x)U_\nu (x+\widehat{\mu })U_\mu ^{}(x+\widehat{\nu })U_\nu ^{}(x)\right],$$
(1)
where $`U_\mu (x)SU(2)`$ are the usual link variables and $`\beta _4=4/g_4^2`$. In three dimensions (3d) the standard dimensional reduction process leads us to consider the 3d adjoint Higgs model

$`S`$ $`=`$ $`\beta _3{\displaystyle \underset{𝐱,\nu >\mu }{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{Tr}U_\mu (𝐱)U_\nu (𝐱+\widehat{\mu })U_\mu ^{}(𝐱+\widehat{\nu })U_\nu ^{}(𝐱)\beta _3{\displaystyle \underset{𝐱,\widehat{\mu }}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{Tr}A_0(𝐱)U_\mu (𝐱)A_0(𝐱+\widehat{\mu })U_\mu ^{}(𝐱)`$ (3)
$`+\beta _3{\displaystyle \underset{𝐱}{}}\left[\left(3+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}h\right){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{Tr}A_0^2(𝐱)+x\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{Tr}A_0^2(𝐱)\right)^2\right],`$
where $`\beta _3`$ now is related to the dimensionful 3d gauge coupling and the lattice spacing $`a`$, i.e. $`\beta _3=4/g_3^2a`$. The adjoint Higgs field is parameterized by hermitian matrices $`A_0=_a\sigma ^aA_0^a`$ ($`\sigma ^a`$ are the usual Pauli matrices) . Furthermore, $`x`$ parameterizes the quartic self coupling of the Higgs field and $`h`$ denotes the bare Higgs mass squared. The relation between the 3d and the 4d couplings will be discussed in an Appendix. We also note that the indices $`\mu ,\nu `$, of course, run from 0 to 3 in four dimensions and from $`1`$ to $`3`$ in three dimensions. Although we will not always mention this difference explicitly it should be obvious from the context how various sums that appear have to be interpreted.

### B Gauge fixing

As we want to analyze properties of the gluon propagator, which is a gauge dependent quantity, we have to fix a gauge on each configuration on which we want to calculate this observable. In the past most studies of the gluon propagator have been performed in Landau gauge. Here we will consider a class of $`\lambda `$-gauges which are generalizations of gauges that have been introduced in  to smoothly interpolate between Landau and Coulomb gauge. In the continuum these gauges correspond to the gauge condition

$$\underset{\mu }{}\lambda _\mu _\mu A_\mu =0.$$
(4)
On the lattice these gauges are realized by maximizing the quantity

$$\mathrm{Tr}\underset{\mu ,x}{}\lambda _\mu U_\mu (x).$$
(5)
In 4d the Landau gauge condition thus corresponds to the case $`\lambda _\mu 1`$ for all $`\mu =0,..,3`$, while the Coulomb gauge is given by $`\lambda _0=0`$ and $`\lambda _i=1`$ for $`i=1,2,3`$. In the latter case we have to impose an additional gauge condition for the residual gauge degree of freedom. We do this by demanding

$$\underset{𝐱}{}U_0(x_0,𝐱)=u_0,$$
(6)
to be independent of $`x_0`$. In addition to the $`\lambda `$-gauges we also consider the Maximally Abelian gauge (MAG) which can be realized by maximizing the quantity

$$\underset{x,\mu }{}\mathrm{Tr}\left[\sigma _3U_\mu (x)\sigma _3U_\mu ^{}(x)\right],$$
(7)
with $`\sigma _3`$ being a Pauli matrix. Also in this case one has to fix a residual gauge degree of freedom which we do by imposing a U(1)-Landau gauge condition . In 4d SU(2) gauge theory we also consider the static time-averaged Landau gauge (STALG) introduced in . In the continuum it is defined by

$$_0A_0(x_0,𝐱)=0,\underset{x_0}{}\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}_iA_i=0.$$
(8)
On lattice this gauge is realized in two steps. First we maximize the quantity $`\mathrm{Tr}_xU_0(x)`$. In the second step we maximize the quantity

$$\mathrm{Tr}\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}\underset{x}{}U_i(x)$$
(9)
performing $`x_0`$ -independent gauge transformations.

While the notion of Landau and Maximally Abelian gauges carries over easily to the 3d case we have to explain a bit more in detail our notion of $`\lambda `$-gauges in 3d. We have considered two versions of $`\lambda `$-gauge:

* $$\lambda _3\mathrm{gauge}:_1A_1+_2A_2+\lambda _3_3A_3=0$$
(10)
* $$\lambda _1\mathrm{gauge}:\lambda _1_1A_1+_2A_2+_3A_3=0$$
(11)

The $`\lambda _1`$-gauges are more closely related to the 4d $`\lambda `$-gauges considered by us; in both cases the rotational symmetry of the gauge condition is broken in a direction orthogonal to the $`x_3`$ (or $`z`$) direction which we are going to use for separating the sources in our correlation functions. Furthermore, we introduce in 3d the so-called Coulomb gauges ($`c_1`$ gauges) which fix the gauge in a plane transverse to the $`z`$-direction,

* $$c_1\mathrm{gauge}:c_1_1A_1+_2A_2=0.$$
(12)

Of course, as in the 4d case we again need an additional gauge condition for the residual gauge degree of freedom. The case $`c_1=1.0`$ is the usual Coulomb gauge. This gauge has the advantage that a positive definite transfer matrix exists in the z-direction.

In our numerical calculations the gauge fixing was performed using a standard iterative algorithm accelerated by an overrelaxation step  as well as by using a stochastic overrelaxation algorithm .

When analyzing observables in a fixed gauge one also has to address the question to what extent Gribov copies can influence the result. This problem will not be discussed here. It previously has been studied in 4d SU(2) gauge theories at zero temperature  as well as at non-zero temperature . In both cases no influence of Gribov copies on the gluon propagators was found within the statistical accuracy achieved in these studies.

### C Gauge fields and gluon propagators

Definitions of the lattice gauge field $`A_\mu (x)`$ utilize the naive continuum relation between the lattice link variables $`U_\mu (x)`$ and the gauge field variables in the continuum limit, i.e. $`U_\mu (x)=\mathrm{exp}(igaA_\mu (x))`$. A straightforward definition thus is

$`A_\mu (x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2iga}}\left[U_\mu (x)U_\mu ^{}(x)\right]\text{,}`$ (13)
which in the continuum limit differs from the continuum gauge fields by $`𝒪((ag)^2)`$ corrections. Here $`a`$ is the lattice spacing and $`g`$ either the 3d or 4d bare gauge coupling. Other possible definitions for $`A_\mu (x)`$ which formally lead to smaller discretization errors were considered in . It was found there that up to an overall multiplicative constant the difference in magnetic and electric propagators due to different definitions of the gauge field is much smaller than the statistical errors. We note that the definition (13) of the gauge field assumes that the link variable $`U_\mu `$ is close to the unit matrix. This seems to be the case for all gauges considered except the Coulomb gauge. In the case of Coulomb gauge the gauge fixing procedure does not force the temporal link to be close to the unit matrix. Only the spatial links turn out to be close to the unit matrix. For instance, for links averaged over a lattice volume of size $`12^2\times 24\times 4`$ we find for $`\beta _4=2.512`$ (corresponding to $`2T_c`$) $`<\mathrm{Tr}U_0/2>=0.576(4)`$ and $`<\mathrm{Tr}U_i/2>=0.90089(6)`$. These numbers should be compared with the corresponding ones in Landau gauge: $`<\mathrm{Tr}U_0/2>=0.8879(1)`$ and $`<\mathrm{Tr}U_i/2>=0.88709(7)`$. One can expect that $`\mathrm{Tr}U_0/2`$ gets closer to 1 as one approaches the continuum limit. Indeed for the Coulomb gauge on a $`24^2\times 48\times 8`$ lattice at $`\beta =2.74`$ (also corresponding to $`2T_c`$) we find $`<\mathrm{Tr}U_0/2>=0.625(6)`$. However, from these numbers it is clear that very large values of $`N_\tau `$, i.e. large couplings $`\beta _4`$, are necessary to get a meaningful definition of the $`A_0`$ field. Therefore we will use the 4d Coulomb gauge only to analyze magnetic propagators.

The lattice gluon propagators in d-dimension are defined as

$`D_{\mu \mu }(z)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a^d\mathrm{\Omega }}}a{\displaystyle \underset{x_3,b}{}}Q_\mu ^b(x_3+z)Q_\mu ^b(x_3)\text{.}`$ (14)
Here $`Q_\mu ^b(x_3)`$ is a sum over all gauge fields in a hyperplane orthogonal to $`x_3`$,

$`Q_\mu ^b(x_3)`$ $`=`$ $`a^{d1}{\displaystyle \underset{x_{}}{}}A_\mu ^b(x_{}\text{,}x_3)\text{,}`$ (15)
with $`A_\mu ^b(x)=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{Tr}[A_\mu (x)\sigma ^b]`$; $`x_{}=(x_1,x_2)`$ in 3d and $`x_{}=(x_0,x_1,x_2)`$ in 4d, respectively. Furthermore, $`\mathrm{\Omega }=N^2N_z`$ is the lattice volume in 3d and $`\mathrm{\Omega }=N^2N_zN_t`$ in 4d ***We will also use the notation $`V=N^2N_z`$ for the spatial volume in 3d and 4d.. The electric and magnetic propagators are then defined in the usual way (see e.g. Refs. ),

$$D_E(z)=D_{00}(z),D_M(z)=\frac{1}{2}(D_{11}(z)+D_{22}(z)).$$
(16)
$`D_{33}(z)`$ is not included in the definition of $`D_M(z)`$ because it is constant in $`\lambda `$ and Coulomb gauges. We will also consider momentum space propagators which are obtained through a one dimensional Fourier transformation,

$$\stackrel{~}{D}_{\mu \mu }(k)=a\underset{z=0}{\overset{N_z1}{}}e^{ikz}D_{\mu \mu }(z),\text{with}k=\frac{2\pi n}{N_z},n=0,1,\mathrm{}.N_z/2$$
(17)
We use the standard definition for the momentum space magnetic propagator (see e.g. )

$$\stackrel{~}{D}_M(k)=\frac{1}{3}\underset{\mu =1}{\overset{3}{}}D_{\mu \mu }(k).$$
(18)
We note that we include here $`\stackrel{~}{D}_{33}`$ in the definition of the momentum space propagators in order to take into account the contribution of the constant component $`D_{33}(z)`$, which only influences the zero mode contribution $`\stackrel{~}{D}_{\mu \mu }(k=0)`$. The electric propagator in momentum space is simply defined by $`\stackrel{~}{D}_E(k)=\stackrel{~}{D}_{00}(k)`$. In order to absorb additional cut-off effects in momentum space propagators we find it usefull to analyze these in terms of the momenta $`p|2\mathrm{sin}(k/2)|`$ rather than the lattice momenta $`k`$. In the following we thus will use $`p`$ instead of $`k`$ as a definition for our lattice momenta. For the analysis of the long distance behavior of these correlation functions it is customary and, in fact, quite instructive to consider local masses, which are defined by

$$\frac{D_i(z)}{D_i(z+1)}=\frac{\mathrm{cosh}(m_i(z)(zN_z/2))}{\mathrm{cosh}(m_i(z)(z+1N_z/2))},$$
(19)
with $`i=E,M`$. If the propagators decay exponentially starting from some value of $`z`$, the corresponding local masses will reach a plateau.

All our 4d simulations have been performed at a temperature $`T=2T_c`$. The values for the 4d coupling $`\beta _4`$ corresponding to this temperature were taken from Ref.  and are given in Table I together with the corresponding lattice volumes used in our 4d simulations.

| $`\beta _4=2.512`$ | $`8^2\times 16\times 4`$ |
| --- | --- |
|  | $`12^2\times 24\times 4`$ |
|  | $`16^2\times 32\times 4`$ |
|  | $`20^2\times 40\times 4`$ |
|  | $`24^2\times 48\times 4`$ |
|  | $`28^2\times 56\times 4`$ |
|  | $`32^2\times 64\times 4`$ |
| $`\beta _4=2.740`$ | $`16^2\times 32\times 8`$ |
|  | $`24^2\times 48\times 8`$ |

TABLE I. Couplings and lattice volumes used in the 4d simulations of finite temperature SU(2) gauge theory.

We give the choice of parameters for our 3d simulations in the next subsection. The cutoff dependence is discussed for the magnetic and electric propagators separately in section III.

### D 3d versus 4d calculations

Most of the results we are going to discuss in the following section have been obtained through simulations in the dimensionally reduced version of the 4d SU(2) gauge theory at finite temperature. As we do want to compare our results obtained in 3d with corresponding results in the 4d theory obtained at a temperature $`T=2T_c`$ we should check that dimensional reduction yields reliable results at temperatures this close to the critical point. In Refs.  it was shown that the effective theory is capable to describe the long distance behavior of some gauge invariant correlators in SU(2) and SU(3) gauge theories at these temperatures. A similar conclusion has been reached for the 2d dimensionally reduced version of the 3d SU(3) gauge theory at finite temperature .

We have performed a detailed analysis of propagators calculated in Landau gauge in 4d and 3d at $`T=2T_c`$. The latter has been simulated at values of $`h`$ corresponding to the metastable region of the 3d adjoint Higgs model, i.e. for $`\beta =11`$, $`h=0.3773`$ and $`x=0.099`$ (see appendix for details). The 4d simulations have been performed at $`\beta =2.74`$ on lattices given in Table I. In order to compare the propagators obtained from simulations in 3d and 4d we have normalized them to unity at distance $`zT=0`$. The results are shown in Figure 1. As one can see from the figure the 3d and 4d results for the electric as well as for the magnetic propagators are in excellent agreement. It is interesting to note that good agreement between 3d and 4d propagators is found already at relatively short distances, although the 3d effective theory is expected to describe the 4d physics only at distance $`zT>1`$. The above result implies that dimensional reduction works quite well even at $`T=2T_c`$ and can be established by comparing gauge fixed observables. In Figure 2 we compare the electric and magnetic propagators calculated from full 4d and effective 3d theories at $`2T_c`$ for the maximally Abelian gauge. As one can see from the figure a good agreement between 4d and 3d results exists also here, although it is a priori not clear in which sense the 3d Maximally Abelian gauge corresponds to the 4d Maximally Abelian gauge. The agreement between the magnetic propagators in Figure 2 shows that the two gauges are quite similar. A possible reason for this agreement is the decoupling of the $`A_0`$ field from the dynamics of spatial (magnetic) gauge fields which will be discussed in the next section. We note, however, already here that the magnetic propagators calculated in Landau and Maximally Abelian gauges, respectively, show quite a different long distance behavior. This is evident from the comparison of Figure 1 and Figure 2 and will be analyzed in much more detail in the next section. Also the apparent volume dependence visible in these figures will be discussed later in more detail.

## III Numerical results on electric and magnetic gluon propagators

In this section we will discuss our numerical results obtained from simulations in three and four dimensions. The main purpose of this investigation was to quantify the gauge dependence of the electric and magnetic gluon propagators and analyze to what extent gauge invariant masses can be extracted from the long distance behavior of the gluon correlation functions.

In Figure 3 we show results from a calculation of the magnetic propagator in 4d finite temperature gauge theory in different $`\lambda `$-gauges including the Coulomb gauge limit. All the $`\lambda `$-gauges yield identical magnetic propagators. In fact, one should expect that all $`\lambda `$-gauges do lead to identical propagators on an infinite spatial lattice. For static configurations ($`_0A_0=0`$) the gauge condition for the $`\lambda `$-gauges, $`\lambda _0A_0+_iA_i=0`$ is up to multiplicative factors identical to the 3d Landau gauge condition. As we have shown that the 4d propagators in Landau gauge can be mapped onto the 3d propagators this has to be the case also for the 4d propagators calculated in $`\lambda `$-gauges. The same holds for STALG.

We also note, that magnetic propagators show strong volume dependence at distances $`zT>1`$. This effect may be traced back to the influence of zero mode contributions to the propagators  which are different in different gauges and give a volume dependent positive contribution to the correlation functions. Zero mode contributions are most prominent in the long distance behavior of the correlation functions calculated on finite lattices.

In Figure 4 we summarize our results for electric propagators. As in the case of magnetic propagators, electric propagators calculated in different 4d $`\lambda `$-gauges as well as in STALG agree with each other as expected. Contrary to magnetic propagators the electric propagators show no significant volume dependence. We also note that the cut-off effects seem to be small both for electric and magnetic propagators (cf. Figures 3 and 4). The issues of volume and cut-off dependence will be discussed separately for electric and magnetic propagators in the following two subsections.

### A The magnetic gluon propagator

In this section we will discuss in more detail our results on magnetic propagators. Previous lattice calculations of the magnetic propagators in hot SU(2) gauge theory in 4d  and 3d  gave evidence for its exponential decay in coordinate space and thus indicated the existence of a magnetic mass. A non-zero magnetic mass was also found in analytical approaches based on gap equation  and a non-perturbative analysis of $`2+1`$ dimensional gauge theory . Nonetheless, it has been questioned whether a magnetic mass in non-abelian gauge theories does exist . In Ref.  the Landau gauge propagators of 3d pure gauge theory were studied on fairly large lattices and were found to be infrared suppressed Similar results were found in 4d SU(N) gauge theory at zero temperature .. Such a behavior clearly is in conflict with the existence of a simple pole mass. In order to further investigate this problem simulations on larger lattices are needed to explore the long distance regime of the correlation functions. This can be achieved in the 3d reduced theory which gives a good description of the 4d theory even at temperatures a few times $`T_c`$. We thus concentrate, in the following on a discussion of results obtained from our calculations in 3d. In fact, it also has been observed already in earlier calculations that the magnetic propagators of the 3d adjoint Higgs model are very close to the corresponding propagators of 3d pure gauge theory. We thus further restrict our analysis of the magnetic propagators to the limit of 3d pure gauge theory. Where appropriate we will perform a comparison with results obtained from the 3d adjoint Higgs model and the 4d SU(2) gauge theory.

In order to get control over the propagators also in the continuum as well as in the infinite volume limit we have performed calculations for $`\beta _3=5,5.5,6,8`$ and $`16`$ on different lattice volumes. The simulation parameters are summarized in Table II.

| $`\beta _3=5`$ | $`\beta _3=5.5`$ | $`\beta _3=6`$ | $`\beta _3=8`$ | $`\beta _3=16`$ |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| $`10^2\times 20`$ | $`16^2\times 32`$ | $`72^3`$ | $`16^2\times 32`$ | $`32^2\times 64`$ |
| $`16^3`$ | $`24^2\times 48`$ |  | $`24^2\times 48`$ | $`40^2\times 96`$ |
| $`24^3`$ |  |  | $`28^2\times 56`$ | $`48^2\times 96`$ |
| $`30^3`$ |  |  | $`32^3`$ | $`64^3`$ |
| $`32^3`$ |  |  | $`32^2\times 64`$ | $`96^3`$ |
| $`40^3`$ |  |  | $`48^3`$ |  |
| $`48^3`$ |  |  | $`48^2\times 64`$ |  |
| $`56^3`$ |  |  | $`64^3`$ |  |
| $`60^3`$ |  |  | $`96^3`$ |  |
| $`64^3`$ |  |  |  |  |
| $`72^3`$ |  |  |  |  |
| $`96^3`$ |  |  |  |  |

TABLE II: Lattice volumes used at different values of $`\beta _3`$ in our 3d calculations of the magnetic gluon propagator.

It has been pointed out in  that zero modes can give sizeable contributions to gluon correlation functions. In terms of the lattice gauge fields the zero mode contribution is defined as the expectation value of the average gauge field,

$$\varphi _\mu ^a=\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Omega }}\underset{x}{}A_\mu ^a(x).$$
(20)
The zero mode contribution is apparent in the momentum space propagators where one finds from eq. 17 for vanishing momentum

$$\stackrel{~}{D}_{\mu \mu }(p=0)=a^d\mathrm{\Omega }\underset{a}{}(\varphi _\mu ^a)^2.$$
(21)
By taking the inverse Fourier transformation of Eq.(17) one can easily see that the zero modes give a constant contribution $`(N_za)^1\stackrel{~}{D}_{\mu \mu }(p=0)`$ to the coordinate space propagator $`D_{\mu \mu }(z)`$. In fact, such a contribution does qualitatively explain the overall volume dependence of the magnetic propagators observed in our calculation. The contribution from zero momentum mode fluctuations is expected to vanish in the infinite volume limit. We thus expect that at fixed distance $`zT`$ the propagators approach their asymptotic, infinite volume values from above as the lattice size is increased. This is indeed the case, as can be seen in Figure 5 where we show the 4d and 3d magnetic propagators calculated in Landau and Maximally Abelian gauges on different size lattices at $`T=2T_c`$. As one can see from the figure the volume dependence is quite different in these two gauges. In the case of Landau gauge we observe that the magnetic propagators in coordinate space decay faster with increasing lattice size. In the Maximally Abelian gauge, however, the propagator does not exhibit any sizeable finite size dependence.

For volumes $`VT^3>300`$ the magnetic propagator calculated in Landau gauge becomes negative for $`zT>2`$. In Figure 6 we show the large distance behavior of the coordinate space propagator calculated in 4d and 3d on lattices with similar 3d lattice volume. A similar behavior of the coordinate space propagator was found in other $`\lambda `$-gauges. The propagators calculated in MAG, however, stay positive for all lattice sizes and distances accessible in our calculation, i.e. up to $`zT5`$.

As was mentioned above the magnetic propagators in the 3d adjoint Higgs model are not very sensitive to the presence of the adjoint Higgs field. This is illustrated in Figure 7 where we compare magnetic propagators in momentum space calculated in the 3d adjoint Higgs model with corresponding results obtained in the pure gauge theory at the same value of $`\beta _3`$. This also shows that the effect of the adjoint Higgs field on the magnetic propagator decreases with increasing temperature. In fact, for temperature $`T>10T_c`$ we find no visible effect of the adjoint Higgs field on the magnetic propagators. In what follows we will therefore mainly discuss the magnetic propagators in the limit of pure gauge theory.

In Figure 8 we show the momentum space magnetic propagators in Landau gauge obtained from 3d pure gauge theory at $`\beta _3=5`$ and $`\beta _3=8`$. For momenta $`p>0.6g_3^2`$ the propagators in units of $`g_3^4`$ are volume and $`\beta _3`$-independent. For small momenta, however, they are strongly volume and also $`\beta _3`$ dependent. One can clearly see that for large volumes the propagators reach a maximum at non-zero momentum and start decreasing with decreasing momenta. This is a direct consequence of the negative propagators in coordinate space found in Landau gauge for $`zT>2`$.

The volume dependence of the magnetic propagator in momentum space is strongest at $`p=0`$. On the other hand at $`\beta _3=5`$ one can see that the value of the propagator in the vicinity of its maximum is essentially volume independent for the three largest volumes. A similar behavior of the momentum space propagator was found in other $`\lambda `$-gauges. This is demonstrated by Figure 9. Note that although the propagator is a gauge dependent quantity the position of the peak seems to be gauge independent in the class of $`\lambda `$-gauges considered here.

The existing rigorous bound on the infrared behavior of the gluon propagator in momentum space imply that it is less singular than $`p^2`$ in 4d and $`p^1`$ in 3d . It has been further argued that it is likely to vanish at zero momentum in the thermodynamic limit . These considerations were also extended to the case of magnetic propagators in gauge theories at finite temperature . We have analyzed this question by performing studies of the volume dependence of the zero momentum propagator. The data for $`\stackrel{~}{D}_M(0)`$ are shown in Figure 10 for different $`\beta _3`$ values. For $`\beta _3=5`$ and $`\beta _3=8`$ the data have been fitted to the ansatz

$$\stackrel{~}{D}_M(0)g_3^4=a(Vg_3^6)^z+b.$$
(22)
We have performed fits with $`b=0`$ and $`b>0`$. In the first case we have obtained rather large $`\chi ^2`$ values (typically the value of $`\chi ^2/d.o.f`$ was between 4 and 10) for both $`\beta _3=5`$ and $`\beta _3=8`$. The three parameter fits give a reasonably good $`\chi ^2`$ for both $`\beta _3`$ values. Using the whole range of volumes one finds $`a=51(11),b=2.06(15)`$ and $`z=0.34(3)`$ with $`\chi ^2/d.o.f.=1.8`$ for $`\beta _3=5`$ and $`a=52(9),b=2.08(33)`$ and $`z=0.31(3)`$ with with $`\chi ^2/d.o.f.=1.8`$ for $`\beta _3=8`$. Although the volume dependence of $`\stackrel{~}{D}_M(0)`$ seems to be $`\beta _3`$-independent, the value of the exponent $`z`$ as well as the value of $`\stackrel{~}{D}_M(0)`$ in the infinite volume limit strongly depends on the range of volumes used in the fit. For example fitting the data on $`\stackrel{~}{D}_M(0)`$ for $`\beta _3=5`$ using lattice volumes from $`30^3`$ to $`96^3`$ one gets : $`a=281(139),b=2.52(56)`$ and $`z=0.55(5)`$. In order to firmly determine the functional form of the volume dependence of $`\stackrel{~}{D}_M(0)`$ and the value $`\stackrel{~}{D}_M(0)`$ in the infinite volume limit simulation on even larger lattices are necessary.

In order to confirm the infrared suppression of $`\stackrel{~}{D}_M(p)`$ and the existence of a maximum in $`\stackrel{~}{D}_M(p)`$ at non-zero momentum we have analyzed in more detail the interplay between infinite volume and continuum limit.

We have seen that the propagators are infrared suppressed for large enough volumes at $`\beta _3=5`$ and $`8`$. However, the magnitude of the propagator at small momenta shows a clear $`\beta _3`$-dependence. Therefore, it is important to estimate the behavior of the magnetic propagator in the continuum limit. We have seen that at $`\beta _3=5`$ the magnetic propagator on a $`60^3`$ lattice is already close enough to the corresponding infinite volume limit. Therefore we have performed additional calculations of the magnetic propagators at $`\beta _3=6`$ and on $`72^3`$. The lattice volumes $`60^3`$, $`72^3`$ and $`96^3`$ at $`\beta _3=5,6`$ and $`8`$ correspond to the same physical volume. Moreover, for small momenta $`p<0.5g_3^2`$, values of the propagators at approximately same values of momenta are available. In this region of momenta we have performed an extrapolation to the continuum limit fitting data at different $`\beta _3`$ with the ansatz $`a+b/\beta _3`$. The result of this analysis is summarized in Figure 11.

As one can see from this figure the general structure of the propagator, in particular the existence of a maximum at non-zero momentum is preserved in the continuum limit, although the volume dependence of the momentum space propagator rapidly increases with decreasing momentum for $`p/g_3^20.5`$.

### B The electric gluon propagator

Let us now turn to a discussion of the electric gluon propagator. The volume dependence of the electric propagator turns out to be quite different from the magnetic ones. The electric propagators show exponential decay at large distances in all gauges considered.

In Figure 12 the Landau gauge electric propagators in momentum space are shown for $`T=2T_c`$ and $`T=9200T_c`$. In the latter case we performed the analysis only in the 3d effective theory at $`x=0.03`$, $`\beta =16`$ and $`h=0.2085`$. As one can see from the figure the volume dependence of the electric propagators is indeed quite different from the volume dependence of the magnetic propagators. In particular the electric propagators show no sign of infrared suppression. For fixed lattice geometry, i.e. fixed ratio $`N/N_z`$ the volume dependence of the zero mode contribution seems to approach $`V^1`$ as expected for the propagator of a massive particle. Moreover, the infinite volume limit is almost reached on the largest lattices used in our simulations. We find a similar volume dependence also in other gauges.

Since we are interested in extracting the screening mass from the electric propagator it is also important to address the question of volume dependence of the electric mass. In Figure 13 the local electric masses in Landau gauge are shown for different lattice volumes for $`\beta _3=16`$, $`h=0.2085`$ and $`x=0.03`$. As one can see from the figure, the value of the plateau (which in fact determines the screening mass) is essentially volume independent, although there is some volume dependence in the local masses at short distances. Thus the screening masses can be estimated even from the smallest lattice for these values of the parameters. We will use this fact in the discussion of the gauge dependence of the electric screening mass.

Since the electric propagators show exponential decay at large distances in all gauges considered it is natural to ask whether the electric masses extracted from them are gauge independent. There is a formal proof that poles of finite temperature propagators are gauge independent to any order of perturbation theory . However, as discussed in section I the Debye mass is not calculable in perturbation theory beyond leading order. Therefore it is not clear whether the arguments of Ref.  apply for electric screening mass. In terms of the effective 3d theory the screening of static electric fields is related to propagation of the adjoint scalar field. Since the 3d theory is confining the adjoint scalar field is not a physical state ( the physical states are some bound states) and therefore there is no physical principle which guarantees its mass to be gauge invariant. Guided by the analogous problem in 3d scalar QED it was conjectured in Ref.  that the large distance behavior of the high temperature non-Abelian electric propagator is dominated by a brunch cut singularity. Although this is different from the simple pole obtained in leading order perturbation theory this still leads to an exponential decay of the electric propagators in coordinate space with a gauge invariant screening mass. Thus it is clear that also the question of gauge (in)dependence of the electric screening mass is non-trivial in general.

We have studied the gauge dependence of the electric propagators for two sets of parameters of the 3d effective theory $`x=0.03,h=0.2085,\beta _3=16`$ and $`x=0.03,h=0.1510,\beta _3=24`$ both corresponding to the temperature $`T=9200T_c`$. In this investigation lattices with spatial volume $`16^2\times 32`$, $`24^2\times 48`$ and $`32^2\times 96`$ were used. From studies of the Landau gauge propagators we know that electric masses for $`\beta _3=16`$ can be reliably extracted already from $`16^2\times 32`$ lattice. We have investigated electric propagators in different gauges introduced in section II.B. For $`\beta _3=16`$ most simulation were performed on $`16^2\times 32`$ lattice. For calculations with $`\lambda _3`$ gauges we also used a $`32^2\times 96`$ lattice. For $`\beta _3=24`$ propagators in all gauges except the Maximally Abelian gauge were measured on $`32^2\times 96`$ lattice. Due to the large number of iterations required for fixing the Maximally Abelian gauge propagators were measured only on a $`24^2\times 48`$ lattice at $`\beta _3=24`$.

Our main results for $`\beta _3=24`$ are summarized in Figure 14, where local electric screening masses in Coulomb, Maximally Abelian and $`\lambda _3`$\- gauges are shown. As one can see from the figure local masses are strongly gauge dependent at short distances. For $`zT>2`$ they, however approach a plateau which is gauge independent within the statistical accuracy reached in our calculation.

We also have performed simulations on a $`16^2\times 32`$ lattice for $`\beta _3=16`$ using Coulomb gauges with $`c_1=0.1,10`$, as well as $`\lambda _1`$ -gauges with $`\lambda _1=0.1,10`$ and Maximally Abelian gauge. The corresponding results for local electric masses are shown in Figure 15. Again within statistical accuracy no gauge dependence of the plateau of the local electric masses can be observed, though the local masses have quite different $`z`$-dependence.

## IV Conclusions

We have investigated electric and magnetic gluon propagators in the high temperature phase of SU(2) pure gauge theory in different gauges. The propagators were calculated directly in full 4d theory and also in 3d effective theory. It was shown that the effective theory can describe the electric and magnetic propagators remarkably well down to temperature $`T=2T_c`$. We find that electric propagator can safely be extrapolated to the infinite volume limit. within the statistical accuracy of our present analysis and the class of gauges considered here its long distance behaviour is gauge independent and yields a gauge independent electric screening mass which is compatible with earlier determinations.

The magnetic propagator, however, has a complicated volume and gauge dependent infrared structure which is not compatible with a simple pole mass. While it still shows a simple exponential decay at large distances in the Maximally Abelian gauge it starts getting negative for $`zT>2`$ in a class of $`\lambda `$-gauges which includes the Landau gauge. This leads to the infrared suppression of the propagator in momentum space and is incompatible with a simple pole in the magnetic gluon propagator as it was deduced from earlier studies  which were limited to shorter distances and smaller lattices. Nonetheless, we find in all gauges that magnetic correlators are screened at large distances.

Acknowledgements:

This work has been supported by the TMR network Finite Temperature Phase Transition in Particle Physics (EU contract no. ERBFMRX-CT-970122) and by the DFG under grant Ka 1198/4-1. Our calculations have been partially performed at the HLRS in Stuttgart and the $`(PC)^2`$ in Paderborn. The work of A.C. also has been supported by FAPESP (Proj. no. 00/05047-5).

## Appendix

We will discuss here the procedure we followed to fix the couplings of the 3d adjoint SU(2) Higgs models. Two different approaches were proposed for fixing the parameters appearing in (3), the usual perturbative dimensional reduction  and non-perturbative matching analyzed in . Here we have used both approaches.

The lattice gauge coupling $`\beta _3`$ is related to the dimensionful 3d continuum gauge coupling $`g_3^2`$ by the standard relation

$$\beta _3=\frac{4}{g_3^2a}.$$
(23)
This relation basically determines the lattice spacing $`a`$ in terms of the dimensionful coupling $`g_3^2`$. The Higgs self-coupling and the 3d gauge couplings are related to the renormalized gauge coupling $`g(\mu )`$ of SU(2) gauge theory in $`\overline{MS}`$ scheme. The corresponding relations were calculated in Ref.  to 2-loop level.

To fix the temperature scale one needs to choose the renormalization scale $`\mu `$ which fixes the temperature dependence of the 4d gauge coupling. For this we will use information on the temperature dependence of the spatial string tension. The analysis of Ref.  showed that the spatial string tension can be well described in terms of 3d effective theory. Furthermore it was observed that the temperature dependence of the spatial string tension of finite temperature SU(2) gauge theory can well be described by a simple formula $`0.334(14)g^2(T)T`$  with $`g(T)`$ given by the 1-loop renormalization group relation. The string tension of the pure 3d SU(2) gauge theory was found to be $`0.335(2)g_3^2`$ . The string tension of the 3d adjoint SU(2) theory has been calculated in . Within statistical errors it turned out to be independent of the scalar couplings and equal to the string tension of the pure SU(2) gauge theory. Based on these observations we have fitted the data on the spatial string tension from  using $`0.335(2)g_3^2`$ with 1-loop level coupling $`g_3^2`$ and the relation $`T_c=1.06\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\overline{MS}}`$ from . The fit yields $`\mu =18.86T`$. We have also fitted the data for the spatial string tension using the 2-loop formula for $`g_3^2`$ from . However, it turned out that the simple 1-loop formula fits the 4d data on spatial string tension much better. Based on these observation the 3d gauge coupling $`g_3^2`$ and the Higgs self-coupling were chosen according to the 1-loop version of formulas (2.13) and (2.15) from

$`g_3^2=g^2\left(\mu \right)T,`$ (24)
$`x={\displaystyle \frac{g^2\left(\mu \right)}{3\pi ^2}},`$ (25)
with $`\mu =18.86T`$. In Ref.  the parameters $`g_3^2`$ and $`x`$ were chosen according 2-loop formulas from  and $`\mu =2\pi T`$. We have checked that differences between the present choice and that used in  are about $`10\%`$. In Ref.  the parameters of the effective theory were also calculated using the 2-loop formulas from , however, the 4d gauge coupling constant was determined from 1-loop formula in $`\overline{MS}`$-scheme with $`\mu 7.0555`$. In Ref.  the screening masses extracted from gauge invariant correlators were calculated in the effective 3d theory and compared with the corresponding results from 4d simulations . A rather good agreement between the screening masses calculated in 3d effective and full 4d theories was found. However, the 3d gauge coupling constants in  were considerably larger than ours which would overestimate the spatial string tension by $`30\%`$. Nevertheless this contradiction can easily be resolved by noticing that the set of parameters corresponding to $`5T_c`$ in , namely $`x=0.104`$ and $`y=0.242`$ would roughly correspond to the temperature $`2T_c`$ in our approach. Using the results from  for these values of $`x`$ and $`y`$ and the value of $`g_3^2(2T_c)=2.89T`$ we get for the two smallest screening mass the values $`m(0_+^+)=2.90(3)`$ and $`m(0_{}^{})=3.91(8)`$ (for details about classification of different gauge invariant screening masses see Ref. ). These numbers should be compared with those obtained in 4d simulation in  at $`T=2T_c`$, $`m(0_+^+)=3.06(12)`$ and $`m(0_{}^{})=4.06(12)`$. Thus it seems that with our present choice of the parameters the effective 3d theory could describe all static quantities measured so far in lattice simulations. We also note that in the case of 2+1-dimensional gauge theory at finite temperature it has been shown that the spatial string tension and gauge invariant screening masses can be simultaneously well described by the effective 2d theory . In 2+1 dimensions the situation is simplified by the fact, that the gauge coupling has no renormalization scale dependence due to superrenormalizability of the theory.

Generally we have used the non-perturbatively determined values for $`h`$ . However, in some cases the propagators were also calculated for values of $`h`$ given by perturbative dimensional reduction. The bare Higgs mass parameter $`h`$ could be related to the mass parameter $`y=m_{D0}^2/g_3^4`$ of the continuum adjoint Higgs model

$$h=\frac{16}{\beta _3^2}y\frac{3.1759114(4+5x)}{\pi \beta _3}\frac{1}{\pi ^2\beta _3^2}\left((20x10x^2)(\mathrm{ln}\frac{3}{2}\beta _3+0.09)+8.7+11.6x\right),$$
(26)
with $`m_{D0}`$ being the tree-level (from the point of view of the effective theory) Debye mass. At 1-loop level one has:

$$y=\frac{m_{D0}^2}{g_3^2}=\frac{2}{9\pi ^2x}.$$
(27)
From Eqs. (26) and (27) we have calculated values of $`h`$ corresponding to the 1-loop level dimensional reduction. In this case simulation were performed in the metastable brunch of the broken phase (see Ref.  for details).

Numerical values for the couplings of the 3d effective action used in most of our calculations are summarized in Table III together with the corresponding values of $`T/T_c`$. For other values of $`\beta _3`$ used in our calculations we have calculated the coupling $`h`$ from Eq. (26) using the $`y`$ values from Table III.

| $`x`$ | $`T/T_c`$ | $`\beta _3`$ | I | | II | | pert | |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|  |  |  | $`h`$ | $`y`$ | $`h`$ | $`y`$ | $`h`$ | $`y`$ |
| 0.099 | 2.0 | 11 | - | - | - | - | -0.3773 | 0.2274 |
| 0.090 | 2.8 | 16 | -0.2611 | 0.3556 | -0.2622 | 0.4007 | -0.2700 | 0.2755 |
| 0.070 | 9.0 | 16 | -0.2528 | 0.4408 | -0.2490 | 0.5009 | -0.2588 | 0.3470 |
| 0.050 | 72.1 | 16 | -0.2365 | 0.5914 | -0.2314 | 0.6721 | -0.2437 | 0.4756 |
| 0.030 | 9200 | 16 | -0.2085 | 0.9279 | -0.2006 | 1.0544 | -0.2181 | 0.7758 |

TABLE III . Numerical values for the coupling $`h`$ and continuum mass parameter $`y=m_{D0}^2/g_3^2`$ of the effective 3d theory in our simulations and the corresponding values of the temperature. I and II denote two sets of $`h`$-values taken from Ref. . The last two columns give the coupling $`h`$ and mass parameter $`y`$ obtained from the perturbative relations Eqs. (26) and (27).

The electric propagators show exponential decay at large distances. Therefore it is possible to extract screening masses from them. The procedure of extracting the screening masses from the propagators was described in Ref. . In Figure 16 we compare the electric screening masses extracted from the Landau gauge propagators in the 3d adjoint Higgs model calculated on $`32^2\times 64`$ and $`32^2\times 96`$ lattices with the corresponding results from 4d SU(2) gauge theory . The parameters of the effective theory were chosen according to Table III.

As one can see from the figure the agreement between the masses obtained from 4d and 3d simulation is rather good. The electric mass shows some dependence on $`h`$. For relatively low temperatures ($`T<50T_c`$) the best agreement with the 4d data for the electric mass is obtained for values of $`h`$ corresponding to 2-loop dimensional reduction and lying in the metastable region. This fact motivated our choice of the parameters of the effective theory at $`T=2T_c`$ in section III. For higher temperatures, however, practically no distinction can be made between the three choices of $`h`$.

Before closing the discussion on the choice of the parameters of the effective 3d theory let us compare our procedure of fixing the parameters of the effective theory with that proposed in . In Ref.  the gauge coupling was fixed by matching the data on Polyakov loop correlators determined in lattice simulation to the corresponding value calculated in lattice perturabtion theory. The resulting gauge couplings turned out to be considerably smaller than the corresponding ones used in our analysis, e.g. for $`T=2T_c`$ it gave $`g^2=1.43`$ while our procedure gives $`g^2(2T_c)=2.89`$. The scalar couplings were fixed according to 1-loop perturbation theory . Using this procedure the authors of Ref.  obtained a good description of the Polyakov loop correlator in terms of the 3d effective theory, however, the spatial Wilson loop whose large distance behavior determines the spatial string tension was not well described in the reduced 3d theory. The reason for this is the fact that the value of the Polyakov loop correlator is cut-off dependent and therefore it is not very useful for extracting the renormalized coupling.


text:
# Superconductivity Driven by the Interband Coulomb Interaction and Implications for the Superconducting Mechanism of MgB2

## Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank J. Akimitsu for fruitful discussions on detailed experimental results and presenting the data to the author in prior to the publication. The author also thanks H. Harima for illuminating discussions and data for the band structure. The fruitful conversation with K. Kusakabe is also acknowledged. This work is supported by a Grant-in-Aid for “Research for the Future” Program from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science under the project JSPS-RFTF97P01103.