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# Irreversible Quantum Baker Map

## Abstract

We propose a generalization of the model of classical baker map on the torus, in which the images of two parts of the phase space do overlap. This transformation is irreversible and cannot be quantized by means of a unitary Floquet operator. A corresponding quantum system is constructed as a completely positive map acting in the space of density matrices. We investigate spectral properties of this super-operator and their link with the increase of the entropy of initially pure states.

Irreversible maps, quantum baker map, quantum super-operators

In last years a re-exploration of a finite dimensional Hilbert space $``$ and the space of density operators acting on it took place. Emerging interest in properties of mixed quantum states is stimulated by research on the decoherence phenomena Zurek ; Haroche  and recent developments in modern applications of quantum mechanics including quantum information, cryptography and computing Nielsen . The concept of mixed states is crucial while analyzing non-unitary quantum evolution, necessary to describe processes of measurement and interaction with an environment Bennett ; Vincenzo .

Any quantum map $`𝚲`$ should send positive density operators into other positive operators. Moreover, since any system under consideration, described by a density operator, may be coupled to an environment, so $`𝚲\mathrm{𝟏}_𝐦`$ should be positive for any extension of $`𝚲`$ by the m-dimensional identity matrix $`\mathrm{𝟏}_𝐦`$. This property is called complete positiveness (CP) Kraus . If the classical dynamics preserves probability, then the corresponding quantum map should preserve the trace of the density operator.

Research on quantum analogs of classically chaotic dynamical system often concentrates on 2-d area preserving maps. The most popular examples include the classical baker map and the Arnold cat map. They were quantized by finding the corresponding unitary operators, which act on a finite dimensional Hilbert space $``$ (see e.g. SS00  and references therein).

In this letter we propose a generalization of the classical and quantum baker map. The classical map proposed is irreversible, and therefore its quantum counterpart cannot be represented by a unitary operator. The classical map transforms a unit square into a rectangular subset of it, while the quantum map is a completely positive, trace preserving super-operator acting in the space of density matrices of a fixed size. Our research is related to recent papers of Soklakov and Schack SS00 , and Saraceno *et.al.* who quantized a dissipative version of the baker map Vallejos  and also studied a stochastic system devised to take into account the effects of decoherence Bianucci . However, the system analyzed here is different, since it is not dissipative, it conserves the probability and is deterministic. To demonstrate that the quantum dynamics corresponds to the classical one, we compare the quantum and the classical evolution of an initial density and show quantum counterparts of the classical periodic orbits.

The standard baker map is a transformation of the unit square $`I`$, a model of a finite phase space, onto itself. It consists of stretching the square in one direction, labeled by $`q`$, and squeezing it in another direction (labeled by $`p`$) by the factor of $`2`$. After the stretching procedure the baker cuts the rectangle into two pieces and places the right piece at the top of the left one, as shown in Fig. 1 (transformation $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$). Assume that instead of doing this, the sloppy baker puts the right piece a bit too low, in such a way that a $`\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{2}`$ overlap with the left piece occurs. This effect is described by the transformation $`L_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ (formally an interval translation map acting in the $`p`$ direction Boshernitzan ), which shifts all points from the top half of the square
($`p>1/2`$) down by $`\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{2}`$. The formal definition of the *classical sloppy baker map* is

$$\mathrm{\Theta }_\mathrm{\Delta }:\left(\begin{array}{c}q\hfill \\ p\hfill \end{array}\right)\stackrel{B}{}\left(\begin{array}{c}2q[2q]\hfill \\ \frac{1}{2}(p+[2q])\hfill \end{array}\right)\stackrel{L_\mathrm{\Delta }}{}\left(\begin{array}{c}2q[2q]\hfill \\ \frac{1}{2}(p+[2q](1\mathrm{\Delta }))\hfill \end{array}\right),$$
(1)
where $`[x]`$ denotes the integer part of $`x`$ and the parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ belongs to $`[0,1]`$. The map $`\mathrm{\Theta }_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is not reversible for $`\mathrm{\Delta }>0`$, because any point for which $`p(\frac{1\mathrm{\Delta }}{2},\frac{1}{2}]`$ has two preimages, while the points with $`p>1\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{2}`$ have none.

We will use density distribution $`f`$ on the square, $`_If(\alpha )d\alpha =\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1},`$ $`f0`$, where $`\alpha `$ is a short notation for the pair $`(q,p)`$. The map $`\mathrm{\Theta }_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ generates the Frobenius-Perron operator acting in the space of classical density distributions

$$f(\alpha )=_If(\alpha ^{^{}})\delta (\alpha \mathrm{\Theta }(\alpha ^{^{}}))d\alpha ^{^{}}.$$
(2)
Since the map is not dissipative, and $`\mathrm{\Theta }_\mathrm{\Delta }(I)I`$, the operator $``$ preserves the probability, $`_If(\alpha )d\alpha =_If(\alpha )d\alpha =1`$. The density $`f^{}(\alpha )=\frac{1}{1\mathrm{\Delta }}`$ for $`\alpha [0,1]\times [0,1\mathrm{\Delta })`$ and $`0`$ elsewhere is invariant under the action of $``$ and $`f^{}=f^{}`$. Several versions of quantum baker map on the torus are known Balazs ; Saraceno ; POZ00 . We use the first form of the quantum operator proposed by Balazs and Voros Balazs

$$𝐁=F_N^{}\left(\begin{array}{cc}F_{N/2}& 0\\ 0& F_{N/2}\end{array}\right),$$
(3)
where $`F_N`$ denotes the N-points discrete Fourier transformation, $`[F_N]_{kl}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{N}}e^{2\pi ikl/N}`$. Since the sloppy map $`\mathrm{\Theta }_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ does not enjoy the symmetry of the original baker map, we will not need the symmetric quantum model introduced by Saraceno Saraceno . Unitary operator $`𝐁`$ acts on the $`N`$ dimensional Hilbert space $`_N`$, where $`N`$ is even.

The classical map $`\mathrm{\Theta }_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is irreversible, so its quantization cannot be achieved by means of unitary operators. The quantum operator $`𝚲_𝚫`$ — corresponding to the classical map $`L_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ should act on the space of mixed quantum states and may be realized by a super-operator. Any super-operator ($`𝚲`$) which defines a completely positive map, may be written in the so-called Kraus form Kraus

$$𝚲(\rho )=\underset{i=1}{\overset{K}{}}A_i\rho A_i^{},$$
(4)
where $`\rho `$ is a density matrix and $`K`$ is finite. If operators $`A_i`$ fulfill the condition

$$\underset{i=1}{\overset{K}{}}A_i^{}A_i=\mathrm{𝟏}_N,$$
(5)
the map $`𝚲(\rho )`$ is trace preserving. The classical map $`\mathrm{\Theta }_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ transforms the bottom half of the square $`I`$ into itself and shifts the top one down by $`\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{2}`$. The two halves of $`I`$ are transformed separately. Therefore we split the phase space into bottom and top and introduce two projection operators $`D_b`$ and $`D_t`$, which written in the eigenbasis of position operator have the form

$$D_b=F_N^{}\left(\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{𝟏}_{N/2}& 0\\ 0& 0\end{array}\right)F_N;D_t=F_N^{}\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& 0\\ 0& \mathrm{𝟏}_{N/2}\end{array}\right)F_N,$$
(6)
Notice that the super-operator $`𝚲_𝐌(\rho )=D_b\rho D_b^{}+D_t\rho D_t^{}`$ corresponds to the up/down measurement process and the Kraus operators $`A_1=D_b`$ and $`A_2=D_t`$ fulfill the condition (5). To construct a quantum shift transformation $`𝚲_𝚫`$ we will use the unitary operator of translation in momentum,

$$V|k=|k+1,V^N=\mathrm{𝟏}_N.$$
(7)
Here $`|k`$ denotes the discrete eigenstate of momentum which is periodic, $`|k+N=|k`$ Saraceno . For $`k=1`$ the state is localized at the bottom of $`I`$. Then the vertical shift of the the top half of $`I`$ by $`\mathrm{\Delta }/2`$ is realized by the translation operator (7) acting on the previously measured system,

$$D_t^{}=V^{N\mathrm{\Delta }/2}D_t.$$
(8)
For simplicity we assure here that exponent is integer, but the same construction works also for any real $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. Since the position of the bottom part remains unchanged, the entire quantum transformation $`𝚲_𝚫`$ reads

$$𝚲_𝚫(\rho )=D_b\rho D_b^{}+D_t^{}\rho D_t^{}.$$
(9)
This super-operator resets to 0 the off-diagonal blocks of the $`\rho `$ matrix in the $`p`$-representation. This is related to the fact that to displace one half of the torus we need to perform a measurement, which implies decoherence. Thus even for $`\mathrm{\Delta }=0`$ the operator $`𝚲_𝚫`$ differs from identity, but the effect of the measurement becomes negligible in the classical limit $`N\mathrm{}`$.

Using the above super-operator ($`𝚲_𝚫`$) we construct the entire quantum sloppy baker map

$$𝐁_𝚫(\rho )=𝚲_𝚫(B\rho B^{})=D_bB\rho B^{}D_b^{}+D_t^{}B\rho B^{}D_t^{}.$$
(10)
Note that the Kraus operators $`A_1=D_bB`$ and $`A_2=D_t^{}B`$ fulfill condition (5) with $`K=2`$.

To demonstrate that quantum system defined by (10) corresponds to the classical sloppy baker map we compare classical and quantum structures in the phase space. In order to define quantum quasi-probability distribution, we use a family of states localized at points of the square $`N\times N`$ lattice in the phase space constructed by means of translation operators Saraceno . The operator $`U`$ of translation in position is defined similarly to $`V`$,

$$U|n=|n+1,U^N=\mathrm{𝟏}_N,$$
(11)
where $`|n`$ are position eigenstates, satisfying $`|n+N=|n`$. As a reference state we choose arbitrarily the wave packet $`|\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2}`$ localized in $`(\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2})`$

$$n|1/2,1/2=(2/N)^{1/4}e^{\pi (nN/2)^2/Ni\pi n}$$
(12)
which becomes Gaussian for $`N\mathrm{}`$. We translate it to any point $`(q,p)`$, where $`Nq`$ and $`Np`$ are integers ($`N`$ is even)

$$|q,p=V^{NpN/2}U^{NqN/2}|1/2,1/2.$$
(13)
These states allow one to define a Husimi representation in the phase space of any mixed quantum state $`\rho `$

$$H_\rho (q,p)=q,p|\rho |q,p.$$
(14)
We analyzed the evolution of an exemplary state $`|\alpha _0`$ localized at $`\alpha _0`$ and the classical transformation of the corresponding density distribution. On the left hand side of Fig. 2 we present the classical density and its image after $`T=1,2,5`$ and $`T=30`$ iterations of the Frobenius-Perron operator (2). The right hand side shows the Husimi representations (14) of the initially pure quantum state $`|\alpha _0\alpha _0|`$ and its images after $`T`$ actions of the super-operator $`𝐁_𝚫`$. The quantum quasi-probability distribution $`H_\rho `$ is localized in the same region of the phase space as the classical density distribution. Since the Husimi distribution may resolve quantum phase-space structures at the length scale of the order of $`\mathrm{}^{1/2}N^{1/2}`$, the classical density becomes narrower then its quantum counterpart already after first iteration.

After 30 iterations of the classical map the density distribution is close to the invariant measure $`f^{}`$. Also the quantum state $`𝐁_{𝚫}^{}{}_{}{}^{30}(|\alpha _0\alpha _0|)`$ is close to the invariant density matrix

$$\rho ^{}=𝐁_𝚫(\rho ^{}),$$
(15)
the existence of which is guaranteed by the trace preserving condition (5). The state $`\rho ^{}`$ is localized on the rectangle $`[0,1]\times [0,1\mathrm{\Delta }]`$. Moreover, it is almost isotropic on the corresponding $`N(1\mathrm{\Delta })`$ dimensional subspace. To show this we verified that the von Neumann entropy of the invariant state $`\text{S}(\rho ^{})=\text{Tr}\rho ^{}\mathrm{ln}\rho ^{}`$, is close to the maximal entropy for the $`N(1\mathrm{\Delta })`$ dimensional subspace of the Hilbert space $`_N`$,

$$\text{S}(\rho ^{})\text{S}_{\mathrm{max}}^{[N(1\mathrm{\Delta })]}:=\mathrm{ln}(N(1\mathrm{\Delta })).$$
(16)
It is instructive to look at the periodic orbits of the classical transformation $`\mathrm{\Theta }_\mathrm{\Delta }`$. They are those of the original (reversible) baker map with momentum scaled by the factor $`(1\mathrm{\Delta })`$,

$$q_T^{}=\frac{n}{2^T1},p_T^{}=\frac{r(n)}{2^T1}(1\mathrm{\Delta }),$$
(17)
where $`T`$ denotes the length of the period, $`n`$ ranges from $`0`$ to $`2^T1`$, and the symbol $`r(n)`$ denotes the number obtained from $`n`$ by reversing the order of its bits. The classical periodic orbits may be compared with the structures of the quantum return probability

$$R^T(q,p)=q,p|𝐁_{𝚫}^{}{}_{}{}^{T}(|q,pq,p|)|q,p.$$
(18)
The function $`R^T(q,p)`$ measures the projection of the quantum state $`|q,pq,p|`$ iterated $`T`$ times by the super-operator $`𝐁_𝚫`$ onto itself. As shown in Fig. 3 its maxima are indeed located in the vicinity of classical periodic orbits.

Spectral decomposition of the superoperator $`𝐁_𝚫`$ determines the time evolution of the system. For any trace preserving CP map (4) the operator $`𝚲`$ has an eigenvalue $`\lambda _1=1`$ corresponding to the invariant state $`\rho ^{}`$. The spectrum is symmetric with respect to the real axis, since $`𝚲`$ sends Hermitian density matrices into density matrices TDV00 . Not every superoperator needs to be diagonalizable, i.e. the number of eigenvectors may be smaller than the number of eigenvalues. This is the case for the super–operator of translation $`𝚲_𝚫`$, the spectrum of which consists of two eigenvalues $`0`$ and $`1`$. The multiplicity of the former is equal to $`3N^2/4`$ and the corresponding subspace is defective for any $`\mathrm{\Delta }>0`$.

Fig. 4a shows all $`N^2`$ eigenvalues of the linear operator $`𝐁_𝚫`$ for $`N=64`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }=1/4`$. Observe a considerable spectral gap, i.e. the difference $`1|\lambda _2|`$, which determines the rate of the convergence of an initial state toward the invariant density matrix $`\rho ^{}`$. Moduli of the largest subleading eigenvalues influence the slope $`\alpha `$ of the initially linear entropy increase demonstrated in Fig. 4b. The data were obtained by averaging over a sample of $`10`$ initially pure states drawn randomly with respect to the unique, unitarily invariant measure on the $`2N2`$ dimensional space of pure states in $`_N`$.

In this work we introduced an irreversible baker map and proposed a method of its quantization. On one hand, the limit $`N\mathrm{}`$ of the model may be useful to analyze the quantum–classical correspondence for chaotic, completely positive quantum maps. On the other hand, the extreme quantum regime of low $`N`$ may be interesting from the point of view of quantum information. Quantum baker map becomes a standard model for theoretical TS99  and experimental WLEC02  investigation of NMR quantum computing, and our generalization makes it possible to study the consequences of irreversibility in the system. The effects of the decoherence and the dynamics of entanglement in the two–qubits version of this system ($`N=4`$) as well as a generalization of the model will be presented elsewhere. It is a pleasure to thank R. Alicki, A. Becker, M. Kuś, F. Minert, R. Rudnicki and D. Wójcik for fruitful discussions. This work was supported by Polish KBN grant no 2P03B-072-19.


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# White dwarfs and Galactic dark matter

## 1 Galactic Dark Matter as Faint Stars?

The MACHO and EROS microlensing projects have detected a microlensing signal from dark objects in the Galactic halo (Alcock et al. (2000) (The MACHO collaboration), and Lassarre et al (2000) (The EROS Collaboration). Taken together, their results show the microlensing can be explained by a Galactic dark halo 20% of which is in the form of approximately 0.5 M objects. This suggests that the responsible objects could be low mass main sequence red dwarf stars, or white dwarf stars, but in order to have escaped detection to date, they must be very faint.

Red dwarfs are too luminous, or they would have been detected directly in the Hubble Deep Field (HDF) (Flynn et al 1996, Elson et al 1996 and Mendez et al 1996). White dwarfs were considered more difficult to rule out directly, until the surprising discovery was made that white dwarfs which have had long enough to cool, cease becoming fainter and redder, but remain at approximately constant luminosity while becomeing bluer, due to the development of H2 in their atmospheres which induce very non-blackbody spectra (Hansen, 1999a, 1999b).

The possibility that very faint, blue objects had been found arose when the HDF was imaged at a second epoch and analysed by Ibata et al (2000). The number of moving objects, their colours, magnitudes and proper motions were all consistent with the detection of a significant fraction of the dark halo matter in the form of old, cool white dwarfs. However, a third epoch observation of the HDF did not confirm the proper motions of the objects (Richer, 2001), but the idea that the dark matter had been detected had already spurred many groups to search for local counterparts — with some degree of success. As a result, a number of very low luminosity white dwarfs have turned up in new proper motion studies by Ibata et al (2000), Hodgkin et al (2000), Scholz et al (2000), Goldman (2000), de Jong et al (2000) and Oppenheimer et al (2001), along with a very low luminosity white dwarf identified by Ruiz et al (1995), now viewed with new significance. A colour magnitude diagram for these objects in shown in Figure 1. The recently discovered white dwarfs are shown as triangles — they are all fainter than the end of the white dwarf cooling sequence at $`M_R15.5`$, and have velocities typical of the spheroid white dwarfs.

Oppenheimer et al (2001 — hereafter OHDHS) have conducted the largest of these recent surveys. They discovered 38 high velocity white dwarfs and derived a space density for their objects which corresponds to approximately 2% of the Galactic dark halo density at the Sun (aproximately 0.01 $`\mathrm{M}_{}`$ pc-3). This is a small but significant fraction of the dark halo density, not high enough to explain the microlensing events (which require that about 20% of the dark halo be in the form of $`0.5`$ $`\mathrm{M}_{}`$ objects, but still significantly higher than the expected contribution of white dwarfs from all the well understood Galactic stellar populations — disk, thick disk, and stellar halo (or spheroid).

A very similar survey to OHDHS, in terms of the local volume of space surveyed for high proper motion stars, is the Luyten Half Second catalog, Luyten (1979). Flynn et al (2001) have searched the LHS and two other older proper motion surveys for nearby dark halo white dwarf candidates. The LHS covers more than half the sky, has a limiting magnitude of $`V=18.4`$, with proper motions in the range 0.2 to 0.5 arcsec/year. A recent independent analysis (Monet et al 2000) shows that the LHS is substantially (90%) complete within these limits, based on a new, deeper survey over a small area within the LHS.

Gibson and Flynn (2001) have searched the LHS for objects of the type detected by OHDHS, but found at most a few, even though the survey covers a similar volume. If 2% of the local dark matter is composed of white dwarfs, then a few tens of objects had been expected in the LHS, whereas Flynn et al (2001) had earlier analysed the LHS and two other proper motion surveys in detail, and had found no convincing evidence that any of the high proper motion objects could be associated with “dark halo white dwarfs”. All the objects were broadly consistent with coming from the visible Galactic populations.

An alternative explanation for the OHDHS white dwarfs is that they are from existing Galactic populations, and do not represent a new population from the dark halo. That they are members of the thick disk has been argued by Reid et al (2001) and Hansen (2001). We also argue for this view in this paper by modelling the expected numbers of white dwarfs which would be found in proper motion surveys from the known Galactic populations. Our work supports a similar, independent study by Reylé et al (2001).

## 2 Model of low luminosity stars in the Solar neighbourhood

We have built a model of the low mass stellar content of the Solar neighbourhood, including the luminosity function, density and kinematics, in order to simulate actual proper motion surveys via a Monte-Carlo technique. The model allows us to predict the expected number of low mass stars which would be recovered in a proper motion survey directed toward any point on the sky, covering a given area, with a given apparent magnitude limit and a detection window of proper motions. For example, the LHS catalog covers a little more than half the sky centered on the Northern hemisphere, has an apparent magnitude limit of $`R=18.6`$, and recovered proper motions $`\mu `$ in the window $`0.5<\mu <2.5`$ arcseconds per year.

We model a sphere centered on the Sun with a radius of up to 288 pc, which is sufficiently distant from the Sun for all the surveys we consider. Only low luminosity ($`M_V>12.5)`$ stars are included in the model.

### 2.1 Populations in the Model

The local Galactic components represented in the model are the disk, the thick disk, the stellar halo and the dark halo.

* The disk component consists of M dwarfs and white dwarfs. The M dwarfs are drawn from a luminosity function shown in Table 1, which has been measured from faint star counts with HST (Zheng et al 2001). The white dwarfs are drawn from the luminosity function shown in Table 2, which comes from Liebert et al (1988).

The disk white dwarfs have velocity dispersion components $`\sigma =(\sigma _U,\sigma _V,\sigma _W)`$ (where $`U,V,W`$ are the usual space velocities in the directions of the Galactic center, Galactic rotation and perpendicular to the Galactic plane) of $`\sigma =(40,30,20)`$ km s-1, and a mean motion (asymetric drift) relative to the Sun of $`20`$ km s-1. For the disk M dwarfs, we adopt velocity dispersion components of $`\sigma =(35,25,15)`$ km s-1, and a asymetric drift, $`V_{\mathrm{a}ss}=15`$ km s-1. These values are slightly lower than for the white dwarfs, because the mean age of the M dwarfs is certainly lower than the white dwarfs. The young M dwarf component is measured to have $`\sigma =(30,17,12)`$ km s-1, and the old M dwarf component $`\sigma =(56,34,31)`$ km s-1, in an analysis of the Hipparcos results by Upgren et al (1997). In both the surveys analysed in this paper, the number of M dwarfs recovered from the proper motion windows is quite sensitive to the kinematics adopted; our values have been choosen to produce about the right number of M dwarfs. Note though thata our main interest is to predict the number of white dwarfs in the proper motion surveys, while the M dwarfs are only included as a consistency check on the modelling. The number of white dwarfs predicted in the surveys is less sensitive to the adopted kinematics, because the white dwarfs are generally closer than the M dwarfs.
* The thick disk component of the model consists of white dwarfs selected from the same luminosity function as the disk white dwarfs, but with space density of 5% of the disk (Reylé and Robin, 2001). This is consistent with recent estimates of the thick disk density as between 2% and 10% of the disk density (Kerber et al 2001). We adopt an uncertainty in the thick disk local normalisation of about a factor of two. The thick disk stars are given velocity dispersion components $`\sigma =(80,60,40)`$ km s-1, and an asymetric drift $`V_{\mathrm{a}ss}=40`$ km s-1(see e.g. Morrison et al 1990). We also include thick disk M dwarfs, selected from the same luminosity function as the disk M dwarfs, with a normalisation of 5% of the disk, and with the same kinematic parameters as the thick disk white dwarfs.

The significantly larger space motions of the thick disk stars means that they are several times more likely to be found in a typical proper motion survey than disk stars. Reylé et al (2001) model the thick disk in their study of white dwarf proper motions as $`\sigma =(67,51,42)`$ km s-1and $`V_{\mathrm{a}ss}=53`$ km s-1. We have found that adopting either ours or Reylé et al’s kinematics for the thick disk ends up giving quite similar results, i.e. the model predictions are not very sensitive to the adopted thick disk kinematics.
* The stellar halo, (or spheroid) part of the model consists of white dwarfs drawn from a luminosity function due to Liebert (2001, private communication). The luminosity function is based on 7 white dwarfs, identified as members of the “halo” on the basis of a high tangential velocity, $`V_{\mathrm{t}an}>160`$ km s-1obtained as part of an ongoing analysis of all the faint stars in the LHS. The luminosity function is shown in Table 3. Note that we have converted bolometric magnitudes to V-band magnitudes using Eqn 1 of Liebert et al (1988). The total number density in these objects is $`3.2\times 10^5`$ stars pc-3 which corresponds to a mass density of $`1.9\times 10^5`$ $`\mathrm{M}_{}`$ pc-3 for a white dwarf mass of 0.6 $`\mathrm{M}_{}`$ . This is approximately 15% of the local mass density of the stellar halo (as seen in subdwarfs) of $`1.5\times 10^4`$ $`\mathrm{M}_{}`$ pc-3 (Fuchs and Jahreiß, 1997).

For the stellar halo we adopt velocity dispersion components of $`\sigma =(141,106,94)`$ km s-1(Chiba and Beers, 2001) and an asymetric drift of $`180`$ km s-1(i.e. there is a small net rotation in the Galactocentric coordinate frame). The adopted values have very little impact on the conclusions of the paper, because stars with such high velocities populate the proper motion selection window quite well. For example, changing these values to $`\sigma =(131,106,85)`$ km s-1and an asymetric drift of $`229`$ km s-1(as used by Reylé et al 2001) only changes the predicted number of white dwarfs by a few percent.

We further include stellar halo M dwarfs, drawn from the disk M dwarf luminosity function, but with a local density reduced by a factor of 500 (see e.g. Morrison 1993). They are assigned the same kinematics as the white dwarf stellar halo.
* The dark halo part of the model consists of white dwarfs only. We adopt velocity dispersion components of $`\sigma =(156,156,156)`$ km s-1 and an asymetric drift of $`V_{\mathrm{a}s}=220`$ km s-1, which simulates an isothermal population with a density falloff with Galactic radius of $`\rho R^2`$, i.e. a sufficient but not necessary condition to explain the flat Galactic rotation curve. Our starting point for the mass density of these stars is 2% of the local dark halo density of 0.008 $`\mathrm{M}_{}`$ pc-3 (Gates et al 1998) with an average WD mass of 0.6 $`\mathrm{M}_{}`$ , as adopted in the OHDHS survey.

We have adopted a very simple luminosity functions for the dark halo white dwarfs. We give all the dark halo white dwarfs the same absolute magnitude, $`M_V=15.9`$, which is the faintest absolute magnitude of any of the putative dark halo white dwarfs found in the OHDHS survey. We show that this choice, combined with a 2% dark halo, leads to significantly larger numbers of dark halo white dwarfs in both surveys than actually observed. Any other choice of luminosity function which is still consistent with the WDs in the OHDHS sample (i.e. all stars are brighter than $`M_V=15.9`$) would produce an even greater disagreement between the simulations and the LHS and the number of recovered WDs in the OHDHS sample.

The dark halo white dwarfs share similar kinematic properties with the stellar halo white dwarfs (i.e. high random velocities), but differ from them in a key respect worth pointing out (although it has no effect on the modelling or conclusion in this paper). The density distribution of the stellar halo is well determined by luminous stars, and follows a power law outward from the Galactic center, $`\rho (R)R^{3.5}`$, where $`R`$ is the Galactocentric radius (see e.g. Wetterer and McGraw 1996). If the dark halo were made entirely of dim white dwarfs, they would require a density distribution which follows $`\rho (R)R^2`$, in order to generate a gravitational field which would account for the observed flat rotation curves of disk galaxies. However, we know from the microlensing results that they do not dominate the total mass of the halo. In that case, they could still have an $`R^{3.5}`$ distrubution (as discussed by Gates and Gyuk 2001). In their model, “normal” Cold Dark Matter makes up the rest of the mass distribution and does follow an $`R^2`$ distribution. For the purposes of the modelling here, the local volume surveyed is so small that the density of the white dwarfs over the volume is essentially constant.

The kinematic properties of all the model populations are shown in Table 4.

## 3 Modelling the LHS and OHDHS surveys

The model allows us to run Monte-Carlo simulations of a proper motion survey. Stars are generated within a small sphere around the Sun, with a uniform density distribution in the case of the halo and thick disk populations, and with a density distribution which is falling off in $`z`$ as sech$`{}_{}{}^{2}(z/z_h)`$ in the case of the disk (where we adopt $`z_h=125`$ pc, which is equivalent to an exponentially falling disk scale height of 250 pc far from the plane).

For each star a $`V`$-band absolute magnitude is selected from the appropriate luminosity function, and its apparent magnitude computed. A $`VI`$ colour is assigned to the stars as follows:

For the disk M dwarfs we use the empirically calibrated relation due to Reid (1991)

$$(VI)_{MD}=0.297\times M_V0.858$$

For the white dwarfs, $`VI`$ colors are calculated similarly by a relation:

$$(VI)_{WD}=0.385\times M_V4.85$$

This relation comes from fitting white dwarfs in the sample of Bergeron et al (2001). We have also derived transformation equations for white dwarfs from $`VI`$ to other colours from the same sample:

$$BV=1.05\times (VI)0.13$$

$$RI=0.473\times (VI)+0.01$$

Note that a small Gaussian random number with standard deviation $`\sigma =0.05`$ is added to the $`VI`$ colour to avoid clutter in the figures.

An absolute magnitude $`M_V`$ versus colour $`VI`$ diagram from a typical simulation of the LHS catalog is shown in Figure 2. Main sequence disk stars dominate the sequence on the right side. The left sequence consists of white dwarfs of the disk, the thick disk and the stellar halo.

### 3.1 Simulation of the OHDHS survey

The OHDHS survey covers 4165 square degrees, centered on the South Galactic Pole, to a limiting magnitude of $`R_{59F}=19.7`$ in a proper motion $`\mu `$ window of $`0.33<\mu <3.0`$ arcsecs/year. In order to simulate the OHDHS sample, we generate colour magnitude diagrams of nearby stars using the model described in the previous section. We then transform the $`M_V`$ and $`VI`$ values to the bands used in the OHDHS survey. For white dwarfs, we use the following transformations to the (photographic) $`R_{59F}`$ and the (photographic) $`B_J`$ bands (i.e. for the III-aJ emulsion) used in the OHDHS survey:

$`RR_{59F}=`$ $`0.006+0.059\times (RI)0.112\times (RI)^2`$
$`0.0238\times (RI)^3`$
$$BB_J=0.28\times (BV)\mathrm{for}0.1BV1.6$$

which come from Bessell (1985) and Blair and Gilmore (1982).

For the M dwarfs we have derived a transformation from $`RI`$ to $`B_JR_{59F}`$ based on Figure 10 of Hambly et al (2001), who describe in detail the Super COSMOS sky survey, upon which the OHDHS survey is based.

Figure 3 shows the results of a simulation in the reduced proper motion $`H_R`$ versus colour $`B_JR`$ plane (hereafter, $`H_R`$ and the $`R`$-band refers to the $`R_{59F}`$ band, used by OHDHS). Panel (a) shows the simulation, and panel (b) shows the actual OHDHS data. Circles mark disk stars, squares mark thick disk stars and triangles stellar halo stars. There is good agreement between the simulated sample and the actual data. Firstly, the disk white dwarfs form a wide sequence from $`(B_JR,H_R)=(0.0,17.0)`$ to $`(B_JR,H_R)=(1.5,22.0)`$. Most white dwarfs appear to be members of the disk. Below this sequence, most of the thick disk and stellar halo white dwarfs appear, because they have generally greater space velocities than the disk stars, and thus higher reduced proper motions.

The M dwarfs lie in an almost vertical line at $`B_JR2.0`$ in both panels. The total number of M dwarfs in the simulation is similar to the observations, as a result of adjusting the kinematic parameters of the disk to acheive this consistency. The number of disk M dwarfs turns out to be quite sensitive to the disk kinematics, and we acheived this good fit by using the kinematic parameters for the disk shown in Table 4. The kinematic parameters adopted are however quite consistent with the observed kinematics of M dwarfs (Upgren et al (1997), and also section 2.1).

To a limiting magnitude of $`R=19.7`$, OHDHS identify a total of 97 white dwarfs, of which 82 have direct spectroscopic confirmation, and 15 are assumed with reasonable confidence to be white dwarfs based on their position in the reduced proper motion versus colour diagram.

We have computed the expected numbers of various white dwarf types using the model. The expected numbers are: for the disk $`60\pm 8`$ WDs, for the thick disk $`21\pm 5`$ Wds and for the stellar halo, $`10\pm 3`$ WDs, for a total of 91 WDs.

The adopted kinematical parameters have a small effect on the predicted numbers of white dwarfs. For example, adopting the disk, thick disk and halo kinematics used by Reylé et al (2001), (i.e. for the disk: $`\sigma =(42.1,27.2,17.2)`$ km s-1, and $`V_{\mathrm{a}s}=16.6`$ km s-1, for the thick disk $`\sigma =(67,51,42)`$ km s-1, and $`V_{\mathrm{a}s}=53`$ km s-1, and for the halo $`\sigma =(131,106,85)`$ km s-1, and $`V_{\mathrm{a}s}=229`$ km s-1, compare with Table 4), we obtain 54 disk WDs, 18 thick disk WDs and 11 halo WDs, that is the numbers are very similar.

The total number of white dwarfs in the model and the OHDHS sample are in good agreement. We now check the relative numbers of white dwarfs of each population type. The simulations indicate that a neat dividing line between disk and other types of white dwarfs can be drawn from $`(B_JR,H_R)=(0.5,17.0)`$ to $`(B_JR,H_R)=(2.0,26.0)`$. Counting white dwarfs below this line in the simulations yields $`27\pm 5`$ stars, compared to 21 white dwarfs in the OHDHS sample.

Oppenheimer et al (2001) argue that many or all of these higher reduced proper motion white dwarfs are part of a new dark halo population, comprising some 2% of the local dark matter halo density. We argue instead that these white dwarfs can just as well be interpreted as coming from a mixture of the thick disk and stellar halo. Further evidence for this assertion comes from the kinematics of the white dwarfs.

We show in Figure 4 the space velocities of the white dwarfs in the $`V`$ versus $`U`$ plane, i.e. projected onto the Galactic plane. A typical simulation is shown in panel (a) and the OHDHS sample stars in panel (b). In the simulation, disk stars are marked by diamonds thick disk stars by crosses and halo stars by circles. The similarity between the diagrams is striking. In particular, the thick disk and stellar halo white dwarfs in the simulation lie mostly outside the 2-$`\sigma `$ circles used by Oppenheimer et al (2001) to isolate the dark halo stars (squares in squares). (The 2-$`\sigma `$ circle is where stars with velocities twice that of the disk velocity dispersion lie, relative to the mean motion of the old disk at $`(V,U)=(35,0)`$ km s-1). In a typical simulation we count $`41\pm 6`$ white dwarfs outside the 2-$`\sigma `$ circle, while OHDHS find 37 such stars. The distribution of these simulated stars in the $`(V,U)`$ plane is also found to be very similar to the observations.

We show in Figure 5 the $`V`$ versus $`U`$ velocities for a sample of local dwarf stars for which \[Fe/H\] is available (Fuchs and Jahreiß, private communication 2001). The availability of abundances means that the stars can be classified by their population type directly, rather than compared statistically to the models (as is the case for the white dwarfs). There are 282 stars in total, of which 245 are in the metallicity range $`1.6<`$ \[Fe/H\] $`<0.5`$, and are here termed “thick disk” stars, while 37 have \[Fe/H\] $`<1.6`$ and are here termed “halo” stars. What is striking about this figure is how similarly the $`(V,U)`$ distribution of the stars is to the OHDHS samlpe (Figure 4(a)). Thick disk stars dominate the region around $`(V,U)=(35,0)`$ km s-1), while the halo stars fill a much broader region centered roughly at $`(V,U)=(220,0)`$ km s-1).

### 3.2 Simulation of the LHS

The LHS covers about 28,000 square degrees, mostly of the Northern sky, to a apparent magnitude limit of $`R=18.6`$ and with a proper motion window of $`0.5<\mu <2.5`$ arcsec/year. We simulate the LHS by covering the fraction of the sky ($`\delta >33^{}`$ and $`|b|>10^{}`$, i.e. 65% of the sky) which is estimated to be complete to better than 90% by Dawson (1986).

Figure 6 shows the reduced proper motion $`H_R`$ (RPM) versus colour for the simulated LHS sample, where the Luyten $`R`$ band magnitude ($`R_L`$) is related to the $`V`$ magnitude via (see Flynn et al 2001, appendix B)

$$R_L=V0.170.228\times (BV).$$

Note that we have not shown the M dwarfs in the simulation, because we were unable to obtain satisfactory transformations from $`VI`$ to Luyten’s photographic $`B_LR_L`$ colour.

Although the LHS and the OHDHS surveys probe similar volumes of space, it is much easier to compare our simulations with OHDHS. This is because the OHDHS sources have been spectroscopically classified into white dwarfs and red dwarfs (such work is underway with the LHS and should be available in the near future) and furthermore the colour transformations are better understood than in the LHS. Hence, we regard the comparison of our model with OHDHS in the previous section as superior to any comparison with the LHS. Nevertheless, the broad features of the LHS observations are well reproduced by the simulation, and we regard this as a qualitative consistency check on the model.

### 3.3 Dark Halo White Dwarfs?

We now introduce dark halo white dwarfs into the simulations. We begin by adopting a luminosity function in which all the dark halo white dwarfs are as faint as the faintest white dwarf found in the OHDHS sample, i.e. at absolute magnitude $`M_V=15.9`$. This choice minimises the number of dark halo white dwarfs generated in the simulations, while not being inconsistent with the luminosities of the white dwarfs actually found in the OHDHS survey. Still, it appears to produce too may simulated dark halo sources. Following OHDHS, we adopt a white dwarf mass of 0.6 $`M_{}`$ and local density of 2% of the dark halo, i.e. $`0.02\times 0.008=1.6\times 10^4`$ $`\mathrm{M}_{}`$ pc-3. In Figure 7 we show where these dark halo white dwarfs lie in the reduced proper motion versus colour plane. Despite being conservative and minimising the number of “dark” white dwarfs, there are plenty of these white dwarfs at a reduced proper motion of $`H_R25`$, where just a few stars are found in the observed samples.

Judging from the simulations, a good discriminator between white dwarfs of the disk, thick disk and stellar halo and those of the dark halo is to divide them at $`H_R=24`$. In the OHDHS sample, two white dwarfs are found with reduced proper motion $`H_R>24`$, while none were found in the LHS. Both samples survey very similiar local volumes. We plot in Figure 8 the number of high reduced proper motion white dwarfs ($`H_R>24`$) expected in the LHS and OHDHS surveys as a function of their fraction of the dark halo. Assuming that no dark halo white dwarf candidates were found in the LHS, and two (the two absolutely faintest stars) were found in Oppenheimer et al’s survey, we conclude that approximately 0.4% of the dark matter density could be in white dwarfs (i.e. 2 WDs were found corresponding to a dark matter fraction of $`0.1`$% in figure 8). A dark matter fraction of 2%, as suggested by OHDHS, would yield about 12 high reduced proper motion white dwarfs in the OHDHS sample and about 5 in the LHS sample, for a total of 17, compared to 2 WDs actually found. Judging from both surveys, we conclude that OHDHS’s estimated fraction of 2% of the dark halo density in white dwarfs is an overestimate, and should be approximately an order of magnitude smaller. If a significant fraction ($`>0.1`$%) of the dark halo is in white dwarfs, then they should be fainter than absolute magnitude $`M_V16`$ in order to avoid being detected in large numbers in either the LHS or OHDHS.

## 4 Conclusions

We have built a model of the kinematics and luminsities of low mass stars in the Solar neighbourhood, which we use to simulate the results of various proper motion surveys. We discuss in particular the search for very faint white dwarfs in the Luyten Half Second proper motion survey and recently by Oppenheimer et al (2001), which are the largest surveys of the type. The surveys sample similar volumes of space. We argue that the contribution of “normal” white dwarfs of the thick disk and stellar halo is sufficient to explain the high velocity white dwarfs found by OHDHS, and that they are not necessarily part of a new, massive population from the dark halo. This work confirms results from a similar study by Reylé et al (2001).

## Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the Academy of Finland through the ANTARES program for space research. Our thanks to Hugh Harris for much help with the local halo white dwarfs in the LHS and Mike Bessell for help with colour transformations. Burkhard Fuchs and Hartmut Jahreißare thanks for data on nearby subdwarf stars and many helpful comments.


text:
# Spontaneous localization for a charged particle in non-relativistic quantum mechanics

## 1 Introduction

We know, from the study of the infra-red divergence problem in relativistic QED, that a physical system cannot be separated from its classical (i.e. coherent) electromagnetic field 1  2 . On the other hand it is a well-known fact, in classical physics, that the motion of a charged particle cannot be described correctly, unless the radiation-reaction force is taken into account properly 3  . On the contrary, in our opinion, in non-relativistic quantum mechanics the effects due to the interaction of a system with the self-generated coherent field have not been analysed in a satisfactory way.

The aim of this paper consists of an analysis of the effects due to the interaction of a moving charged particle with its coherent field. Uncoherent-photon emission will not be considered here. Radiation damping for a non-relativistic quantum system has been studied e.g. in Ref. 4 . Decoherence effects due to soft-bremsstrahlung emission have been analysed by Breuer and Petruccione in the interesting papers of Ref.s 5  and 6 .

We will show that, for a moving particle, the interaction with the coherent field gives origin to a mechanism which favours, from the energetical point of view, a spontaneous localization in space. The effect is due essentially to the attractive force which acts among parallel currents. The Coulomb gauge is assumed in this paper. It is well known that, in the Coulomb gauge, the Coulomb interaction is described as an instantaneous action at a distance among different charged particles. The repulsive Coulomb self-interaction energy concerning a single charged particle, once the mass-renormalization contribution (which is independent of the wave function) has been subtracted, can be estimated of the order of the Lamb-shift energies.

The analysis presented in this paper is based on the fact that, when the residual interaction with the quantum field is neglected (i.e. when uncoherent photon emission is neglected), a rather simple expression can be given for the conserved total energy of the system (particle plus classical field), in terms of the classical vector potential in the Coulomb gauge and of the wave function of the particle. We will show that, for a freely moving electron with e.g. a convective velocity $`v_c10^1c`$, a minimum for the energy is attained for a radius of localization $`b`$ of the order of $`10^8`$ m, with a binding energy $`^b`$ of $`10^4÷10^5`$ eV. For a proton with the same $`v_c`$ the result would be $`b10^{11}`$ m and $`^b10^1`$ eV. It will be shown that similar results hold for neutral atoms also.

## 2 Classical field and self-interaction

Let us consider an electron interacting with the transverse electromagnetic field. For the field we assume the Coulomb gauge, as well as the Schrödinger picture. Let $`\stackrel{}{A}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{E}_{}`$ be quantum field operators and let $`\stackrel{}{A}_c`$ and $`\stackrel{}{E}_c`$ be the corresponding classical fields. The Hamiltonian for the total system, consisting of the electron and the quantum field, is given by

$$H_T=H_M+H_F+V,$$
(1)
where $`H_M`$ describes the free electron, $`H_F`$ is the free-field Hamiltonian, given by the following normal-ordered expression

$$H_F=\frac{ϵ_0}{2}𝑑\stackrel{}{r}(|\stackrel{}{E}_{}|^2+c^2|\stackrel{}{B}|^2):,$$
(2)
and the intraction $`V`$ is given by

$$V=𝑑\stackrel{}{r}(\stackrel{}{A}\stackrel{}{j}_p\frac{e^2}{2m}\widehat{n}|\stackrel{}{A}|^2+\stackrel{}{B}\stackrel{}{M}).$$
(3)
In eq.(3) $`\stackrel{}{j}_p`$ , given by

$$\stackrel{}{j}_p(\stackrel{}{r})=\frac{ie\mathrm{}}{2m}[\delta (\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}_e)\mathbf{}_e+\mathbf{}_e\delta (\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}_e)],$$
(4)
represents the canonical current (i.e. the current due to the canonical momentum), $`\widehat{n}`$ represents the electron-density operator and finally $`\stackrel{}{M}`$ represents the spin magnetization-density operator.

The following time-independent commutation relations

$$[A_i(\stackrel{}{r}),E_j(\stackrel{}{r}^{})]=i\mathrm{}ϵ_0^1𝒫_{ij}(\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}^{})$$
(5)
hold, where

$`𝒫_{ij}(\stackrel{}{r})=({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi }})^3{\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{q}e^{i\stackrel{}{q}\stackrel{}{r}}(\delta _{ij}\frac{q_iq_j}{q^2})}`$ (6)
$`={\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}\delta _{ij}\delta (\stackrel{}{r})+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4\pi r^3}}({\displaystyle \frac{x_ix_j}{r^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\delta _{ij}).`$
is the projector onto the transverse components of the field 7  .

The Schrödinger equation describing the total system can be derived from the variational functional

$$S_Q=𝑑t\mathrm{\Psi }_T|𝒟^+(i\mathrm{}_t+H_T)𝒟|\mathrm{\Psi }_T,$$
(7)
where the displacement unitary operator $`𝒟`$, given by

$`𝒟(t)`$ $`=\mathrm{exp}\{{\displaystyle \frac{iϵ_0}{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle }d\stackrel{}{r}[\stackrel{}{A}_c(t,\stackrel{}{r})\stackrel{}{E}_{}(\stackrel{}{r})`$
$`\stackrel{}{E}_c(t,\stackrel{}{r})\stackrel{}{A}(\stackrel{}{r})]\},`$
has been introduced. The effect of the displacement operator $`𝒟`$ on the field operators consists of

$`𝒟^1\stackrel{}{A}𝒟`$ $`=\stackrel{}{A}+\stackrel{}{A}_c`$ (9)
$`𝒟^1\stackrel{}{E}_{}𝒟`$ $`=\stackrel{}{E}_{}+\stackrel{}{E}_c.`$ (10)
By independent variations of $`S_Q`$ with respect to $`\stackrel{}{E}_c`$ and $`\stackrel{}{A}_c`$ (taking into account the transversality of both) we obtain the relation

$$\stackrel{}{E}_c=_t\stackrel{}{A}_c$$
(11)
and the Maxwell equation

$$ϵ_0c^2\mathbf{}\times \stackrel{}{B}_cϵ_0_t\stackrel{}{E}_c=\stackrel{}{j}_c,$$
(12)
where we have assumed $`\stackrel{}{A}=\stackrel{}{0}`$ as well as $`\stackrel{}{E}_{}=\stackrel{}{0}`$. The classical current $`\stackrel{}{j}_c`$ is given by

$`\stackrel{}{j}_c(\stackrel{}{r})=\stackrel{}{j}_p(\stackrel{}{r})`$ (13)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{m}}[n(\stackrel{}{r})\stackrel{}{A}_c(\stackrel{}{r})+\widehat{n}(\stackrel{}{r})\stackrel{}{A}(\stackrel{}{r})]+\mathbf{}\times \stackrel{}{M}(\stackrel{}{r}).`$
We notice that the last term in square brackets represents an unconventional contribution to the classical current, that might be observable in cases of matter-field entanglement.

The Schrödinger equation for the total system can be derived from the functional $`S_Q`$ of eq.(7), by variation with respect to $`\mathrm{\Psi }_T(t)|`$ . Using eq.s (11), (12) and dropping a global time-dependent phase-factor, one obtains

$$i\mathrm{}_t|\mathrm{\Psi }_T=(H_0+H_{int})|\mathrm{\Psi }_T,$$
(14)
where $`H_0`$, given by

$`H_0=H_M+H_F`$ (15)
$`{\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{r}[\stackrel{}{A}_c\stackrel{}{j}_p\frac{e^2}{2m}\widehat{n}|\stackrel{}{A}_c|^2+\stackrel{}{B}_c\stackrel{}{M}]},`$
will be assumed as unperturbed Hamiltonian. We remark that the self-interaction due to the coherent field is included in the unperturbed Hamiltonian $`H_0`$. Assuming an unperturbed state of the form

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }_T_0=|\psi |0_F,$$
(16)
where $`|0_F`$ is the vacuum state for the field, we can write the unperturbed Schrödinger equation in the form

$$i\mathrm{}_t\psi =(2m)^1|i\mathrm{}\mathbf{}+e\stackrel{}{A}_c|^2\psi +\mu _B\stackrel{}{B}_c𝝈\psi .$$
(17)
The non-linearity of of the Schrödinger equation (17) is evident if the eqs. (11) and (12) are taken into account.

The perturbative Hamiltonian $`H_{int}`$ of eq.(14) is given by

$`H_{int}={\displaystyle }d\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{A}[(\stackrel{}{j}_p\stackrel{}{j}_p){\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{m}}(\widehat{n}\widehat{n})\stackrel{}{A}_c`$ (18)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{m}}\widehat{n}\stackrel{}{A}]+{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{2m}}{\displaystyle }d\stackrel{}{r}\widehat{n}|\stackrel{}{A}_c|^2{\displaystyle }d\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{B}(\stackrel{}{M}\stackrel{}{M}).`$
The Hamiltonian $`H_{int}`$ contains the residual uncoherent interaction with the quantum field. It describes processes like uncoherent real photon emission as well as virtual photon emission and reabsorption (Lamb shift). Such processes will not be analysed in this paper. A justification for this will be given at the end of Sec.V. Furthermore, for the sake of simplicity, in what follows the spin interaction will be neglected.

Finally we observe that the Schrödinger equation (17) and the Maxwell equation (12) can be derived from the following Lagrangian density

$``$ $`=i\mathrm{}\psi ^{}_t\psi (2m)^1|(i\mathrm{}\mathbf{}+e\stackrel{}{A}_c)\psi |^2`$
$`+(ϵ_0/2)(|\stackrel{}{A}_c/t|^2c^2|\stackrel{}{B}_c|^2),`$
where the Coulomb gauge is understood and the spin term has been neglected, for the sake of simplicity.

## 3 Conserved energy.

By the Nöther theorem we can obtain, from the Lagrangian density (19), expressions for the conserved mean energy of the system

$``$ $`={\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{r}\psi ^{}(\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m}^2\frac{ie\mathrm{}}{m}\stackrel{}{A}_c\mathbf{}+\frac{e^2}{2m}A_c^2)\psi }`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_0}{2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{r}(E_c^2+c^2B_c^2)}`$
as well as for the total momentum

$$\stackrel{}{P}=i\mathrm{}𝑑\stackrel{}{r}\psi ^{}\mathbf{}\psi +ϵ_0\underset{j}{}𝑑\stackrel{}{r}E_{cj}\mathbf{}A_{cj}.$$
(21)
For a localized wave-packet the conservation of $``$ can be verified directly. In fact, by use of eq.(17), we obtain

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}={\displaystyle }d\stackrel{}{r}{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{A}_c}{t}}\{{\displaystyle \frac{ie\mathrm{}}{2m}}(\psi ^{}\mathbf{}\psi \psi \mathbf{}\psi ^{})`$ (22)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{m}}\stackrel{}{A}_c|\psi |^2ϵ_0{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{E}_c}{t}}+ϵ_0c^2\mathbf{}\times \stackrel{}{B}_c`$
$`ϵ_0c^2\mathbf{}(\stackrel{}{E}_c\times \stackrel{}{B}_c)\}`$
$`=ϵ_0c^2{\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{s}(\stackrel{}{E}_c\times \stackrel{}{B}_c)},`$
where the r.h.s. represents the ingoing flux, at infinite distance, of the Pojnting vector. In the absence of an appreciable emission of coherent radiation, one obtains $`d/dt0`$. In eq.(22) use has been made of eq.s (11) and (12), as well as of the transversality of $`\stackrel{}{A}_c`$.

The last term in eq.(20), which represents the energy of the classical field, can be cast in the form:

$`_F={\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_0}{2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{r}(E_c^2+c^2B_c^2)}`$ (23)
$`={\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{r}\psi ^{}(\frac{ie\mathrm{}}{2m}\stackrel{}{A}_c\mathbf{}+\frac{e^2}{2m}A_c^2)\psi }+ϵ_0{\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{r}E_c^2}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_0}{4}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^2}{dt^2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{r}A_c^2}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}ϵ_0c^2{\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{s}(\stackrel{}{A}_c\times \stackrel{}{B}_c)}.`$
In the absence of a significant emission of coherent radiation, the last term can be neglected for a finite system.

By use of this result, we obtain from eq.(20)

$``$ $`={\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{r}\psi ^{}\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m}^2\psi }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{A}_c\psi ^{}\frac{ie\mathrm{}}{m}\mathbf{}\psi }`$
$`+ϵ_0{\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{r}E_c^2}+{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_0}{4}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^2}{dt^2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{r}A_c^2}.`$
Two features of eq.(24) are remarkable. The first one is the absence of $`A_c^2`$ from the interaction term. The second one is the factor of $`1/2`$ appearing in the interaction term (a proper result for a self-interaction energy).

## 4 Self-interaction energy for a gaussian wave-packet.

In order to simplify the mathematical analysis of the problem, we assume a wave function of the form (a sort of de Broglie’s double solution)

$`\psi (t,\stackrel{}{r})`$ $`=\mathrm{exp}\{i\mathrm{}^1[\stackrel{}{p}_c(t)\stackrel{}{r}`$
$`{\displaystyle _0^t}dt^{}{\displaystyle \frac{p_c^2(t^{})}{2m}}]\}\varphi (t,\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}_c(t)).`$
In eq.(25) the function $`\varphi `$ is chosen in such a way that the following relations

$$\stackrel{}{p}_c=i\mathrm{}\psi |\mathbf{}|\psi $$
(26)
and

$$\stackrel{}{r}_c=\psi |\stackrel{}{r}|\psi $$
(27)
hold. With these assumptions $`\stackrel{}{p}_c`$ and $`\stackrel{}{r}_c`$ can be interpreted as classical momentum and position of the particle, respectively. In order to simplify the calculations, we refer to a Gaussian wave function

$$\varphi (\stackrel{}{r})=(\frac{1}{4\pi b^2})^{3/4}\mathrm{exp}[\frac{r^2}{8b^2}],$$
(28)
as a model.

The time evolution for both $`\stackrel{}{p}_c`$ and $`\stackrel{}{r}_c`$ can be obtained by the Ehrenfest theorem 8  (for $`\stackrel{}{r}_c`$ see eq.(35) in the sequel, while $`\stackrel{}{p}_c`$ is approximately conserved, according to eq.(44) ).

The probability density $`\rho `$, corresponding to the wave function (25), is given by

$$\rho (t,\stackrel{}{r})\rho ^0(t,\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}_c)=|\varphi (t,\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}_c)|^2,$$
(29)
or, in Fouriér representation, by

$$\widehat{\rho }(t,\stackrel{}{q})=e^{i\stackrel{}{q}\stackrel{}{r}_c}\widehat{\rho }^0(t,\stackrel{}{q})=e^{i\stackrel{}{q}\stackrel{}{r}_c}e^{b^2q^2},$$
(30)
where the last expression refers to the Gaussian wave function of eq.(28).

The solution to eq.(12) is given by the retarded potential

$`\stackrel{}{A}_c(t,\stackrel{}{r})={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi ϵ_0c^2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{r}^{}\frac{\stackrel{}{j}_c(t\tau ,\stackrel{}{r}^{})}{|\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}^{}|}}`$ (31)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi ϵ_0c^2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{r}^{}\frac{\stackrel{}{j}_c(t,\stackrel{}{r}^{})}{|\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}^{}|}},`$
where we have assumed a density $`\rho _0`$ sufficiently localized in space, in order that the effects depending on the retardation time

$$\tau =c^1|\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}^{}|$$
(32)
be negligible. We recall that, in the classical limit, the first order contribution in $`\tau `$ (actually neglected) is responsible for the radiation reaction. For the sake of simplicity, the term containing the potential will be neglected in the expression (13) for $`\stackrel{}{j}_c`$. In this way we obtain for the classical current $`\stackrel{}{j}_c`$ the following approximate expression

$`\stackrel{}{j}_c\stackrel{}{j}_p`$ (33)
$`=em^1\stackrel{}{p}_c\rho ^0ie\mathrm{}(2m)^1(\varphi ^{}\mathbf{}\varphi \varphi \mathbf{}\varphi ^{})`$
$`em^1\stackrel{}{p}_c\rho ^0(t,\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}_c).`$
In the last equality we have assumed a classical momentum $`\stackrel{}{p}_c`$ sufficiently large, in order that the current due to the internal motion be negligible, compared with the convective one.

Let us define $`\stackrel{}{A}_c^0(\stackrel{}{r})=\stackrel{}{A}_c(\stackrel{}{r}+\stackrel{}{r}_c)`$. From eq.s (30), (31) and (33) we obtain

$$\widehat{\stackrel{}{A}}_c^0\frac{e}{mc^2ϵ_0q^2}\widehat{\rho }^0(\stackrel{}{q})[\stackrel{}{p}_cq^2\stackrel{}{q}(\stackrel{}{q}\stackrel{}{p}_c)].$$
(34)
According to the Ehrenfest theorem, the classical velocity of the electron is given by

$$\stackrel{}{v}_cd\stackrel{}{r}_c/dt=m^1(\stackrel{}{p}_c+e\stackrel{}{A}_c^0).$$
(35)
where the average is taken over the internal wave function $`\varphi `$. We obtain

$`e\stackrel{}{A}_c^0=e{\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{r}\rho ^0(\stackrel{}{r})\stackrel{}{A}_c^0(\stackrel{}{r})}`$ (36)
$`=e(2\pi )^3{\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{q}\widehat{\rho }^0(\stackrel{}{q})\widehat{\stackrel{}{A}}_c^0(\stackrel{}{q})}`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{mc^2ϵ_0}}(2\pi )^3{\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{q}q^2|\widehat{\rho }^0(\stackrel{}{q})|^2[\stackrel{}{p}_cq^2\stackrel{}{q}(\stackrel{}{q}\stackrel{}{p}_c)]}`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{e^2\stackrel{}{p}_c}{mc^2ϵ_0}}{\displaystyle \frac{8\pi }{3}}(2\pi )^3{\displaystyle 𝑑q|\widehat{\rho }^0(\stackrel{}{q})|^2}`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{_{el}}{mc^2}}\stackrel{}{p}_c,`$
where the electrostatic energy

$`_{el}`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{8\pi ϵ_0}}(2\pi )^3{\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{q}4\pi q^2|\widehat{\rho }^0(\stackrel{}{q})|^2}`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{4\pi ^2ϵ_0}}{\displaystyle 𝑑q|\widehat{\rho }^0(\stackrel{}{q})|^2}={\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{8\sqrt{2}\pi ^{3/2}ϵ_0b}}`$
has been introduced. The last expression refers to the Gaussian model. We obtain in this way

$$\stackrel{}{p}_cm(1+\frac{4}{3}\frac{_{el}}{mc^2})\stackrel{}{v}_c.$$
(38)
Eq.(38) shows that, as a consequence of the self-interaction, a mass renormalization takes place. Exactly the same result holds for an extended classical particle (notice the famous factor of $`4/3`$ in the r.h.s. of eq.(38)).

The classical transverse electric field is given by

$`\widehat{\stackrel{}{E}}_c(t,\stackrel{}{q})=_t\widehat{\stackrel{}{A}}_c(t,\stackrel{}{q})`$ (39)
$`={\displaystyle \frac{ee^{i\stackrel{}{q}\stackrel{}{r}_c}}{ϵ_0mc^2q^2}}\widehat{\rho }^0(t,\stackrel{}{q})[\stackrel{}{p}_cq^2\stackrel{}{q}(\stackrel{}{q}\stackrel{}{p}_c)][i\stackrel{}{q}\stackrel{}{v}_c_t\mathrm{ln}\widehat{\rho }^0].`$
$`i{\displaystyle \frac{ee^{i\stackrel{}{q}\stackrel{}{r}_c}}{ϵ_0mc^2q^2}}\widehat{\rho }^0(t,\stackrel{}{q})[\stackrel{}{p}_cq^2\stackrel{}{q}(\stackrel{}{q}\stackrel{}{p}_c)]\stackrel{}{q}\stackrel{}{v}_c,`$
where the contribution due to the time variation of $`\mathrm{ln}\widehat{\rho }^0`$ has been neglected, with respect to the contribution due to the convective motion.

In what follows the r.h.s. of eq.(24) will be calculated up to the second order in the electron charge $`e`$. Moreover any power of $`\beta =v_c/c`$ higher than the second will be neglected with respect to unity.

Let us proceed to calculate the r.h.s. of eq.(24). The first term is given by

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{r}\psi ^{}^2\psi }`$ (40)
$`={\displaystyle \frac{p_c^2}{2m}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{r}\varphi ^{}^2\varphi }={\displaystyle \frac{p_c^2}{2m}}+{\displaystyle \frac{3\mathrm{}^2}{16mb^2}}.`$
The next term is given by

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{j}_c\stackrel{}{A}_c}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{16\pi ^3}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{q}\widehat{\stackrel{}{j}}_c^{}(\stackrel{}{q})\widehat{\stackrel{}{A}}_c(\stackrel{}{q})}`$ (41)
$`={\displaystyle \frac{e^2v_c^2}{16\pi ^3ϵ_0c^2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{q}q^2|\widehat{\rho }_0(q)|^2[1\frac{(\stackrel{}{q}\stackrel{}{p}_c)^2}{q^2p_c^2}]}{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}\beta ^2_{el}.`$
Next let us calculate

$$ϵ_0𝑑\stackrel{}{r}E_c^2\frac{4}{15}\beta ^4_{el}.$$
(42)
This term, of the order of $`\beta ^4`$, is negligible. The last term consists of

$`{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_0}{4}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^2}{dt^2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{r}A_c^2}{\displaystyle \frac{\beta ^2}{c^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}({\displaystyle \frac{4}{3}}_{el}b{\displaystyle \frac{db}{dt}})`$ (43)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{8}{3}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\pi }}}{\displaystyle \frac{\beta ^2}{c^2}}_{el}b{\displaystyle \frac{db}{dt}})`$
and is negligible also.

Finally let us calculate the total momentum $`\stackrel{}{P}`$ of eq.(21), which is conserved according to the Nöther theorem. We obtain

$`\stackrel{}{P}`$ $`=\stackrel{}{p}_c+iϵ_0(2\pi )^3{\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\stackrel{}{q}\stackrel{}{q}\widehat{E}_{cj}^{}\widehat{A}_{cj}(\stackrel{}{q})}`$
$`\stackrel{}{p}_c[1+{\displaystyle \frac{4}{15}}\beta ^2{\displaystyle \frac{_{el}}{mc^2}}].`$
Using this result we obtain for the first term of eq.(40)

$`{\displaystyle \frac{p_c^2}{2m}}`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{P^2}{2m}}[1{\displaystyle \frac{8}{15}}\beta ^2{\displaystyle \frac{_{el}}{mc^2}}]`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{P^2}{2m}}{\displaystyle \frac{4}{15}}\beta ^4_{el}{\displaystyle \frac{P^2}{2m}}=const.`$
This means that the first term in the r.h.s. of eq.(40) is approximately a constant of the motion.

Finally the total energy of eq.(24) is given by the following expression

$$\frac{1}{2}mv_c^2\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m}𝑑\stackrel{}{r}\varphi ^{}^2\varphi \frac{4}{3}\beta _{el}.$$
(46)
## 5 Localization and binding energy

From eq.(46) we obtain, for the Gaussian wave function of eq.(28),

$$\frac{1}{2}mv_c^2+\frac{3\mathrm{}^2}{16mb^2}\frac{e^2\beta ^2}{6\sqrt{2\pi }ϵ_0b}.$$
(47)
A minimum for $``$ is attained for $`b`$ given by

$$b_{el}\frac{9\pi ^{3/2}ϵ_0\mathrm{}^2\beta ^2}{\sqrt{2}me^2}=\frac{9\sqrt{\pi }}{4\sqrt{2}}\beta ^2a_B2.8\beta ^2a_B,$$
(48)
where $`a_B=4\pi ϵ_0\mathrm{}^2/me^2`$ is the Bohr radius. The corresponding binding energy is given by

$$_{el}^b(4/27\pi )\beta ^4E_R,$$
(49)
where $`E_R=me^4/2(4\pi ϵ_0\mathrm{})^2`$ is the Rydberg energy. Indicatively, for $`\beta 10^1`$ we obtain $`b_{el}1.5\times 10^8`$ m and $`_{el}^b6.4\times 10^5`$ eV.

For a particle with charge $`\pm Ze`$ and mass $`M`$ eq.s (48) and (49) read

$$b(m/M)Z^2b_{el}$$
(50)
and

$$^b(M/m)Z^4_{el}^b.$$
(51)
Indicatively, for a proton with $`\beta 10^1`$ one obtains $`b8.1\times 10^{12}`$ m and $`^b1.2\times 10^1`$ eV.

We observe that, for fixed $`\beta `$, the ratio between the localization radius $`b`$ and the de Broglie wave-length $`\lambda `$ is independent of the mass, according to

$$b/\lambda (2.8a_B/\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}\pi \lambda _c)\beta ^1Z^262\beta ^1Z^2,$$
(52)
where $`\lambda _c`$ is the Compton wave-length for the electron.

All of these results have been obtained by assuming an isotropic Gaussian wave function $`\varphi `$. It can be expected that the lowest-energy configuration would not correspond to a spherically symmetric wave function $`\varphi `$, but rather to a cylindrically symmetric one.

We recall that the interaction of the system with the residual quantum-field, described by $`H_{int}`$ of eq.(18), has been neglected in this paper. This amounts to neglect the emission of real uncoherent photons by the system, as well as the emission and reabsorption of virtual photons. In both processes the field is coupled essentially to the internal motion and not to the convective one, as shown by eq.s (18) and (33). We remark that the emission of uncoherent radiation is a dissipative effect. Presumably it plays a rôle in the relaxation of the system toward a bound state, but it cannot increase the internal energy or destroy the bound state itself. On the other hand, the emission and reabsorption of virtual photons can be expected to introduce a very small correction to the unperturbed binding energy, of the order of the Lamb shift energy for a system, whose space dimension is of the order of $`b`$ given by eq.(48) or by eq.(50).

## 6 Neutral atom.

The charge density for a neutral atom is given by

$$\rho _{ch}(\stackrel{}{r})=Ze\rho _{cm}(\stackrel{}{r})Ze𝑑\stackrel{}{r}^{}\rho _{cm}(\stackrel{}{r}^{})\rho _{el}(\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}^{}),$$
(53)
where $`\rho _{cm}`$ represents the probability density for the centre-of-mass co-ordinate (coinciding approximately with the nuclear co-ordinate) and $`Z\rho _{el}`$ is the electron density referred to the nuclear position. In Fouriér representation eq.(53) reads

$$\widehat{\rho }_{ch}(\stackrel{}{q})=Ze\widehat{\rho }_{cm}(\stackrel{}{q})[1\widehat{\rho }_{el}(\stackrel{}{q})].$$
(54)
If, for the sake of simplicity, we assume a Gaussian form for both $`\widehat{\rho }_{cm}`$ and $`\widehat{\rho }_{el}`$, the electrostatic energy $`_{el}`$ is given by

$`_{el}`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{Z^2e^2}{4\pi ^2ϵ_0}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑q|\widehat{\rho }_{cm}|^2|1\widehat{\rho }_{el}|^2`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{Z^2e^2}{4\pi ^2ϵ_0}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑qe^{2b^2q^2}[1e^{\gamma ^2q^2}]^2`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{Z^2e^2}{8\sqrt{2}\pi ^{3/2}ϵ_0}}[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{b}}{\displaystyle \frac{2\sqrt{2}}{\sqrt{2b^2+\gamma ^2}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{b^2+\gamma ^2}}}].`$
For a delocalized centre-of-mass, i.e. for $`b\gamma `$, one obtains $`_{el}0`$, as for a neutral particle. On the contrary, for a strong localization of the centre-of-mass, i.e. for $`b\gamma `$, one obtains

$$\frac{Z^2e^2}{8\sqrt{2}\pi ^{3/2}ϵ_0b},$$
(56)
as for a bare nucleus. In this case eq.s (50) and (51) as well as (52) hold.

## 7 Conclusion

We have shown the existence of a mechanism which favours a spontaneous localization in space for a moving charged particle. The effect is due essentially to the attractive force acting among parallel currents. It is well known that in quantum mechanics this force, for a single particle, is not contrasted by a corresponding repulsion due to the Coulomb field (as it happens, on the contrary, for an extended classical particle). In fact, the interaction of the electromagnetic field with non-relativistic matter is described in a simple way assuming the Coulomb gauge. In such a description, the Coulomb interaction is viewed as a direct instantaneous action among different particles, as e.g. in the hydrogen atom. No electrostatic self-interaction is assumed for a single particle. It is known, from the very beginning of wave mechanics, that such a kind of interaction, if present, would shift the energy eigenvalues of the hydrogen atom to physically wrong values 9 . Furthermore one can convince himself easily that, if absurdely such a kind of self-interaction should exist, the average energy of an atom would depend on the localization of its centre-of-mass. As a consequence of this fact e.g. the Van der Waals crystals could not exist.

Some comments are due about the symmetry-breaking processes involved in the localization effect. First of all a break-down of the translational invariance is involved. Physically it can be explained by the following argument. A physical electron, in a given state of momentum $`\stackrel{}{p}`$ and helicity $`s`$, is represented by the minimal-energy state belonging to the sector corresponding to charge $`e`$, total momentum $`\stackrel{}{p}`$ and helicity $`s`$ of the Hilbert space describing the total system (consisting of bare electron plus field).From this point of view it is obvious that, as a consequence of the interaction, the momentum must be shared between the field and the bare electron. One can say in other words that the momentum density does not coincide with the charge density, since part of the momentum is due to the field, which is neutral. This implies a localization for the charge.

From the point of view of special relativity, a more intiguing consequence stems from the velocity dependence of the localization effect. In fact a non-relativistic model, like the one analysed in this paper, should be imagined as a low-energy limit of some hypothetical Lorentz invariant one. From such a point of view it is evident that, as the spontaneous localization effect brakes down the translational invariance, so the velocity dependence of the effect can be interpreted as an indication for a spontaneous breakdown of the Lorentz invariance. On the other hand it is a known result, in relativistic QED, that the Lorentz invariance is broken in any charged sector of the Hilbert space (see e.g. Ref.10 ). In this context the result obtained in this paper appairs as a confirmation, in a non-relativistic situation, of the theorem quoted above. The question arises if this result represents a mathematical strangeness only, or if it can lead really to possible physical observations conflicting with special relativity. A possible loophole to save the Lorentz invariance may be the following one. It may be possible that repeated preparations of electrons would in practice prepare different states, in which (partially) localized electrons are randomly distributed over the space region which supports the usual (non-localized) wave-function (a similar situation is assumed in Bohmian mechanics). In such a case the Lorentz invariance would not be violated by direct physical observations. However we remark that simple energetical considerations, like the ones developed in this paper, are inadequate to clarify this point completely.

Nevertheless, effects due to the localization, or more generally to the interaction with the self-generated coherent field, could be observed indirectly, through dynamical effects like e.g. spin dynamics, or more directly in condensed matter, where a preferred reference frame exists 11 .


text:
# Computing the 𝑅⁴ term at Two Super-string Loops

## Abstract

We use a previously derived integral representation for the four graviton amplitude at two loops in Super-string theory, whose leading term for vanishing momenta gives the two-loop contribution to the $`R^4`$ term in the Effective Action. We find by an explicit computation that this contribution is zero, in agreement with a general argument implying the vanishing of the $`R^4`$ term beyond one loop.

As it is well known, Super-string perturbation theory at two loops implies computing a sigma-model functional integration on a genus two Riemann surface (meaning the functional integration over the Super-string fields $`X^\mu (z)`$ and $`\psi ^\mu (z)`$, where $`z`$ is a complex coordinate on the surface).

We use the hyper-elliptic formalism, in which the genus two surface is represented as a two sheets covering of the complex plane, described by the equation:

$$y^2(z)=\underset{i=1}{\overset{6}{}}(za_i).$$

The complex numbers $`a_i,i=1\mathrm{}6,`$ are six branch points, by going around them one passes from one sheet to the other.

In a previous paper  (based on older work ) the coefficient of the $`R^4`$ term in the Effective Action at two loops was derived in the form of a certain amplitude $`A`$. Here $`R^4`$ means a particular invariant contraction of four curvature tensors, sometimes also indicated as $`t_8t_8R^4`$, see ref..

Up to an overall constant, $`A`$ turns out to be expressed by the following integral representation (see eq.(2) of ref.):

$$A=VI$$
(1)
where $`V`$ is the factor

$$V=|z_1z_2|^4(z_1z_3)|z_1z_3|^2(\overline{z}_2\overline{z}_3)|z_2z_3|^2$$
(2)
and $`I`$ is the integral:

$$\underset{1}{\overset{6}{}}d^2a_id^2z\frac{(zz_1)\overline{z}\overline{z}_2)}{T^5_{i<j}|a_ia_j|^2|y(z)y(z_1)y(z_2)y(z_3)|^2}LSCRSC.$$
(3)
In this integral, $`LSC`$ represents the left super-current contribution and it is:

$$LSC=\frac{1}{2}\underset{i=1}{\overset{6}{}}\frac{1}{z_1a_i}\frac{1}{z_1z}\frac{1}{z_1z_3}\frac{1}{z_1z_2}.$$

The right super-current contribution $`RSC`$ is:

$$RSC=\frac{1}{2}\underset{i=1}{\overset{6}{}}\frac{1}{\overline{z}_2\overline{a}_i}\frac{1}{\overline{z}_2\overline{z}}\frac{1}{\overline{z}_2\overline{z}_1}\frac{1}{\overline{z}_2\overline{z}_3}.$$

Also, $`T`$ is the determinant of the genus two period matrix, which with our variables takes the form

$$T(a_i,\overline{a}_i)=\frac{d^2w_1d^2w_2|w_1w_2|^2}{|y(w_1)y(w_2)|^2}.$$

The points $`z_i`$ are arbitrary, except that we avoid taking $`z_1=z_2`$.

Let us explain the main points of this formula. We recall (see for instance ref.) that one starts by computing the sigma-model expectation value (meaning the functional integration over the Super-String fields $`X^\mu ,\psi ^\mu `$ and ghosts) of four graviton vertex operators and a left and a right super-current operator. The graviton polarizations and momenta combine in an expression corresponding to the previously recalled relativistic invariant $`R^4`$, which appear as a factor of an amplitude to be evaluated for our purpose in the limit of vanishing momenta. One has then to perform the integration over the Riemann surface moduli (that is, the branching points of $`y(z)`$) and also the puncture moduli (that is, the position of the vertex operators on the surface). The position on the surface of the super-current operators can be arbitrarily fixed. Different choices for the position of the super-current operators are related by a total derivative in the integration moduli, which is in general irrelevant.

However, if the left and right super-current operators are taken at the same position, the integration over the moduli appears to diverge. Actually, in this case we have seen in ref. that this divergence is compensated by a boundary term, which is in this case the non-vanishing contribution of the total derivative. Since the integration over the moduli is found to be convergent for generic left and right super-current points, this fact is consistent with the arbitrariness of the choices. Thus, we avoid taking the same position for the left and right super-current operators, as otherwise we should include an additional contribution from the boundary term.

The integral is invariant under simultaneous $`SL(2C)`$ transformations of the integration variables and of the (arbitrary) super-current positions. Therefore one can, also arbitrarily, fix three among the integration variables.

One can fix three of the six branching points and thus integrate over the remaining three (in agreement with three complex moduli describing the deformations of a genus two surface) and also over the four puncture moduli (that is the vertex positions).

Another possible choice is to fix three among the puncture positions and integrate over the remaining one and the six branching points. This is what we have done to get eq.(3), in which $`z_{1,2,3}`$ represent the fixed puncture positions, whereas $`z`$ (the remaining puncture modulus) and $`a_{1,..,6}`$ (the branching points) are integration variables. In eq.(3) we have further made the allowed arbitrary choice of fixing the left and right super-current at $`z_1`$ and $`z_2`$ respectively.

It appears to be difficult to perform the integration, even numerically, because it is a multiple integral over many variables with oscillating phases, thus possibly giving many cancellations. In the previous paper  the convergence properties of the integral were thoroughly analyzed, with the conclusion that the integral is convergent and thus gives a finite or zero result.

Notice that $`A`$ is invariant under a transformation:

$$z_i\frac{\alpha z_i+\beta }{\gamma z_i+\delta }\alpha \delta \beta \gamma =1$$

for $`i=1,2,3`$ (this can be shown by making the same transformation on the integration variables). Thus, we have the freedom of choosing $`z_{1,2,3}`$.

A standard choice is to take $`z_1\mathrm{},z_20`$ and take finite $`xz_3`$.

In this limit we have:

$$LSC\frac{1}{z_1^2}(\frac{1}{2}\underset{i=1}{\overset{6}{}}a_izx)$$

and

$$RSC\frac{1}{2}\underset{i=1}{\overset{6}{}}\frac{1}{\overline{a}_i}+\frac{1}{\overline{z}}+\frac{1}{\overline{x}}.$$

Also: $`V|z_1|^6z_1\overline{x}|x|^2`$ and $`|y(z_1)|^2|z_1|^6`$.

Thus the amplitude reduces to:

$$A=\overline{x}|x|^2𝑑\mu \frac{d^2z\overline{z}}{|y(z)y(0)y(x)|^2}(RL\frac{1}{\overline{x}}LxR+\frac{x}{\overline{x}}).$$

Here, we called:

$$d\mu \frac{\underset{1}{\overset{6}{}}d^2a_i}{T^5|a_ia_j|^2},L\frac{1}{2}\underset{i=1}{\overset{6}{}}a_iz,R\frac{1}{2}\underset{i=1}{\overset{6}{}}\frac{1}{\overline{a}_i}\frac{1}{\overline{z}}.$$

It can be checked that $`A`$ is independent of $`x`$, by rescaling the integration variables, and that the integral is convergent, by the same analysis summarized in the Sect.3 of ref. (see the tables there).

For instance, let us analyze the potentially dangerous corner where every $`a_i0`$: by putting $`a_1=u`$, and $`a_i=u\alpha _i`$ for $`i2`$, we get

$$d\mu |u|^{10}d^2u,\frac{d^2z\overline{z}}{|y(z)y(0)y(x)|^2}\frac{\overline{u}}{|u|^{10}};$$

since $`L`$ is regular and $`R1/\overline{u}`$, we finally get in the corner $`u0`$ the convergent expression $`d^2u`$.

Of course, this analysis does not take into account possible cancellations which could make the total result equal to zero. We will indeed prove that it is zero.

We begin by observing that:

$$\frac{1}{|y(0)|^2}(\frac{1}{2}\underset{i}{}\frac{1}{\overline{a}_i})=\underset{i}{}\frac{}{\overline{a}_i}\frac{1}{|y(0)|^2}.$$

Therefore, the following identity holds for an integral expression which we call $`Q`$:

$$Q𝑑\mu \frac{d^2z\overline{z}}{|y(z)y(0)y(x)|^2}(\frac{1}{2}\underset{i}{}\frac{1}{\overline{a}_i})(Lx)=𝑑\mu \frac{d^2z\overline{z}}{|y(0)|^2}\underset{i}{}\frac{}{\overline{a}_i}\frac{Lx}{|y(z)y(x)|^2}.$$

We integrated by parts, observing that $`_i\frac{}{\overline{a}_i}\frac{1}{T^5{\scriptscriptstyle |a_ia_j|^2}}=0`$.

Also,

$$\underset{i}{}\frac{}{\overline{a}_i}\frac{Lx}{|y(z)y(x)|^2}=(Lx)(\frac{}{\overline{z}}+\frac{}{\overline{x}})\frac{1}{|y(z)y(x)|^2}.$$

Thus, by integrating by parts in $`d^2z`$ we get:

$$Q=𝑑\mu d^2z\frac{(Lx)}{|y(0)y(z)|^2}(1\overline{z}\frac{}{\overline{x}})\frac{1}{|y(x)|^2}.$$

The result of the above steps is that:

$`{\displaystyle 𝑑\mu d^2z\frac{\overline{z}}{|y(0)y(z)y(x)|^2}R(Lx)}`$ $`=`$
$`={\displaystyle 𝑑\mu d^2z\frac{(Lx)}{|y(0)y(z)|^2}(1\overline{z}\frac{}{\overline{x}}\frac{\overline{z}}{\overline{z}})\frac{1}{|y(x)|^2}}`$ $`=`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{}{\overline{x}}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\mu d^2z\frac{\overline{z}}{|y(0)y(z)y(x)|^2}(Lx)}.`$
By using the previous results, we conclude that we can write our amplitude in the form:

$`A=`$ $`|x|^2(\overline{x}{\displaystyle \frac{}{\overline{x}}}+1){\displaystyle 𝑑\mu \frac{d^2z\overline{z}}{|y(z)y(0)y(x)|^2}L}`$ (4)
$``$ $`|x|^4({\displaystyle \frac{}{\overline{x}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\overline{x}}}){\displaystyle 𝑑\mu \frac{d^2z\overline{z}}{|y(z)y(0)y(x)|^2}}.`$
Now we perform a rescaling of the integration variables:

$$a_ixa_izxz$$

and observe that under this rescaling we have:

$`d\mu `$ $``$ $`|x|^{12}d\mu ,d^2z\overline{z}|x|^2\overline{x}d^2z\overline{z}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{|y(z)y(0)y(x)|^2}}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{|x|^{18}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{|y(z)y(0)y(1)|^2}},LxL.`$
Therefore:

$`(\overline{x}{\displaystyle \frac{}{\overline{x}}}+1)`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑\mu \frac{d^2z\overline{z}}{|y(z)y(0)y(x)|^2}L}=`$ (5)
$`(\overline{x}{\displaystyle \frac{}{\overline{x}}}+1)`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{|x|^2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\mu \frac{d^2z\overline{z}}{|y(z)y(0)y(1)|^2}L}=0,`$
and

$`({\displaystyle \frac{}{\overline{x}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\overline{x}}})`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑\mu \frac{d^2z\overline{z}}{|y(z)y(0)y(x)|^2}}=`$ (6)
$`({\displaystyle \frac{}{\overline{x}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\overline{x}}})`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\overline{x}x^2}}{\displaystyle 𝑑\mu \frac{d^2z\overline{z}}{|y(z)y(0)y(1)|^2}}=0.`$
In conclusion, from eqs.(4,5,6), we get that the amplitude $`A`$ is zero, and therefore there is no contribution to the invariant $`R^4`$ at two string loops.

This is in agreement with the indirect argument of Green and Gutperle, Green,Gutperle and Vanhove, and Green and Sethi  that the $`R^4`$ term does not receive contributions beyond one loop.

Acknowledgments. Partial support from the EEC contract HPRN-CT-2000-00131 is acknowledged.